§ 6. Thinghood an Ideal Construction. — We have seen that for perceptual consciousness whatever has unity and distinctness of interest is a separate thing. Since interest is primarily practical, whatever acts as a whole, and is capable of being acted on as a whole, is one thing. We have seen that conceptual analysis resolves the unity of the thing into its constituent parts, qualities and relations, and that conceptual synthesis reconstructs it by ideal combination of these constituent parts, qualities and relations.

Very important developments of the process of ideal construction arise out of the connexion of the category of Thinghood with that of causality. These assume two forms. The first line of thought endeavours to give a causal explanation of the nature and unity of the individual thing from the connexion and interaction of its parts. The other presupposes the unity and intrinsic nature of the thing as ultimate and, instead of explaining them, uses them as a basis of causal explanation.

The first of these lines of thought takes its point of departure in mechanical contrivance and execution. Inasmuch as a man has himself actually put a piece of mechanism together, so that it may fulfil a certain function, he is able to explain why it fulfils this function, by showing how the parts are combined, and act on each other so as to work together in producing a certain result. The same kind of explanation may afterwards be applied to things which he cannot himself construct. He may ideally analyse and combine in a mechanical way what he cannot actually take to pieces and put together again. He may even assume constituent elements which are beyond the reach of actual perception, and by ascribing to these fixed modes of behaviour in relation to each other, he may explain the phenomena which he can observe as the products of their interaction. Modern theories of atoms and molecules and of the motions of the particles of ether are examples of the highest development attained in this direction. Atomic theories explain the nature and mode of behaviour of perceptible things, by assuming as elementary constituents of the physical world "countless atoms, invisible from their minuteness, persistent in their duration, and unchangeable in their properties. These atoms, now coalescing in most manifold fashion, now withdrawing unaltered from these fluctuating combinations, produce by the variety of their positions and motions the different kinds of natural products and their changeful development."*

* Lotze, Microcosmus, third edition, vol. i., pp. 3132.

The essential presupposition of such theories is that the elements which they assume as ultimate shall always behave in identically the same way in the same circumstances. Their whole nature is supposed to be constituted by their mode of behaviour in relation to each other, and this is invariable. Explanation is more complete and satisfactory the less variety there is in the constitution of the ultimate atoms. It would be most perfect from a mechanical point of view if all natural processes could be explained by the combination and interaction of atoms in themselves homogeneous, so that the resulting variety of material products would be purely due to variety in the way in which identical elements are put together. This mechanical point of view has been applied, to a large extent with success, even to living organisms. The construction of selfacting machinery has had an important influence in suggesting this line of thought. "Our eyes," says Lotze, "cannot rest repeatedly and continuously on this remarkable borderland of selfacting instruments, which derive their material from Nature, but the form of their operation from human volition, without our whole mode of conceiving Nature being affected by these observations. . . . We know in fact that not from within, by a spontaneous effort at development, but under extraneous compulsion have the combined bodies acquired this Admirable play of mutually adjusted states. Far simpler properties and effects belonged in themselves to the particular substances which we combined, varying according to universal laws with the alteration of definite conditions. These invisible forces our mechanical skill has compelled (by the cunning combinations into which it has beguiled that which holds them) to work, under such conditions that their conformity to universal laws must, without any purpose of their own, realise the ends that are our purposes." * Such human contrivances could not but suggest the question whether even animated organisms were not composed partly or wholly in a similar manner, having their origin in "the world's course, which combines the elements sometimes in one way, sometimes in another, and in each of these groups inexorably initiates the system of movements and operations that, according to general laws, corresponds to the actual mode of their connexion."* As a matter of fact, physiological explanation, so far as it goes, is based on this principle.

The mechanical point of view, which has received so vast a development in modern science, sprang from extremely meagre and rudimentary beginnings in primitive thought. The power of mechanical construction and analysis implied in the making of the simple instruments of savages seems almost infinitesimal, if we compare it with our elaborate machinery. It is utterly insufficient to suggest even the remotest possibility of a mechanical explanation of the complex processes and products of nature, and especially of living organisms and their behaviour. Yet the mind of the savage cannot remain at rest simply ignoring the play of the natural forces which surround him and continually influence his life and activity for good and evil, but above all for evil. In particular, disease and death are phenomena which he cannot neglect. The pressure of practical interests compels him to act and to contrive means of acting. Thus some kind of ideal construction is for him a necessity in order that he may not sit down helpless in face of a vast variety of phenomena which he cannot even think of explaining on mechanical principles. To him it is simply a familiar fact which requires no explanation, that individual things exist, having distinctive properties and modes of behaviour. It is a familiar fact that such things are composed of parts which act and are acted on together, so that change in one part is accompanied by changes in other parts. All this he does not think of explaining, but presupposes it without question as a basis of explanation. Hence he follows a line of thought which we may call the antimechanical. Instead of explaining the unity of the whole by the combination and interaction of the parts, he explains the combination and interaction of the parts by the unity of the whole. He knows that the sole of his foot is part of the same individual unity as the crown of his head; he knows that if a nail runs into the sole of his foot, his mouth utters a cry of pain. But the connexion of the two facts by a series of intermediate links of a mechanical kind lies entirely outside the circle of his ideas. He knows nothing of afferent and efferent nerves, or of molecular processes in brain and muscle. When the nail runs into his foot, his organs of speech emit a cry simply because he is one individual being of which both foot and organs of speech are part. The important point is that as this mode of explanation takes no account of mechanical conditions, it is not subject to mechanical limitations. The sympathetic communion between the parts of a whole is not supposed to be conditioned by those relations in space and time on which mechanical interaction depends. It is thus possible to represent the sympathetic communion as existing even when the supposed parts of the same individual whole are widely separated in space, so that the conditions of mechanical interaction are absent. The ideas and the practices of primitive magic and witchcraft depend in a great degree on this enlargement of the conception of individual unity. Disease or death may be produced by operating on the cuttings of a person's hair, or the parings of his nails, or the remains of his food, when the person himself is far away. Hence it is a common custom with savages to bury their nailparings, haircuttings, and so on, so that what happens to these may not by sympathetic communion cause misfortune to them. In like manner, the nature of a whole is often regarded as in some manner present and operative in the part, even when it has been dissevered from the whole, and acquires connexion with some other individual. In this way the nature of one thing may be in some measure transferred to another. By wearing a tiger's teeth, a man may make himself brave and fierce; by appropriating the belongings of a deceased person, he may share in that person's skill and goodfortune. Instances of this kind are innumerable, and we shall have to refer to them again in the next chapter.*

* It should be remarked that the savage view contains a great truth. Its error and crudity lie in substituting explanation of the parts by the whole instead of explanation of the whole by the parts. But it is equally onesided to suppose that merely mechanical explanation can yield the whole truth. If this were so, there would be no place for philosophy as distinguished from science.