Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/828

 808 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

progress of civilization to extend the domain of our knowledge in the direction both of the finite and of the infinite ; but always by an equilibration which each exerts upon the other. Astron- omy, with its telescopes, chemical and spectral analysis and microscopy, unveils to us more and more the excessively great and the excessively small, but we always encounter limits ; that is, the necessity of recognizing bounds of our knowledge, our feelings, and our acts, as well as our abstract notions of space, time, matter, and force. The notion of the infinite, or rather of the indefinite, holds us, therefore, to the constant necessity of the finite, or rather of the conditioned and relative. Our nervous centers themselves are the co-ordinators, the regulators of the functioning of our muscular movements and of our psychical activity. They impose upon them rule, measure, unity. A conception which seems to make us independent of these is thus a perturbation of the nervous centers in their relation to the organs which govern our contact with the environment.

The sense of resistance is the primordial element of con- sciousness. It is universal and always present. It is manifested by time, space, matter, or force. Even organisms of the lowest order, such as the zoophyte without nerves, prove this. It is the first impression of the child even before birth. Every animal shows this by the fact that, even if unprovided with special organs, the parts of the body manifest sensation. It is resist- ance which in the most simple and most general manner suggests to us the notion of relationship, that is to say, of a resemblance or difference between the subject who feels or observes and the objects felt or observed. Accordingly it has been well said that resistance is the woof of the thought which we are always weaving.

In reality every state of consciousness may therefore be reduced to a mechanical action and reaction. The simple mus- cular sensation is thus the primary, most general sensation. The special senses are developed chronologically after this first sensation for more particular adaptations and adjustments. This muscular sensation is the primary basis of consciousness. In a word, sensation is a resistance from the time that it is trans-