Page:An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge.djvu/111

 permanence which is recognised in the electron, considered for itself alone.

25.7 The ‘unoccupied’ events possess a definite character expressive of the reign of law in the creative advance of nature, i.e. in the passage of events. This type of character of events unoccupied by the electron is also shared by the occupied events. It expresses the role of the electron as an agency in the passage of events. In fact the electron is nothing else than the expression of certain permanent recognisable features in this creative advance.

Thus the character of event e which it receives from electron A, which does not occupy it, is one of the influences which govern the change of electron B, which does occupy e, into the occupation of other events succeeding e. The complete rule of change for B can be expressed in terms of the complete character which e receives from its relations to all the electrons in the universe.

25.8 The connectedness of the characters which events receive from a given electron is expressed by the notion of transmission, namely the characters are transmitted from the occupied events according to a regular rule, which depends on the continuity of events arising from their mutual relations of extension. This transmission through events is expressible as a transmission through space with finite velocity.

25.9 Thus in an event unoccupied by it an electron is discerned only as an agent modifying the character of that event; whereas in an event occupied by it the electron is discerned as itself acted on, namely the character of that event governs the fate of the electron. Thus in a sense there is no action at a distance; for