Page:An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge.djvu/197

 it appears to be, and that on the other hand it is really something quite different.

Such paradoxes mean that vital Getiactions have been overlooked. We must distinguish between the drop of water as it appears, the event which is its situation, and the character of the event which causes the event to present that appearance. Namely, there is the appearance of the drop of water. ‘This is character No. 1 of the event, the apparent character, and is a material object. Again there is the character of the event which is the cause of character No. 1. This is character No. 2 of the event and is its causal character. According to the doctrine of science, character No. 2 is not a material object.

60.3 But why trouble about causal characters? What has pushed science into their consideration? The impelling reason is the complex bewildering relationships of the apparent characters. Apparent characters essentially involve reference to percipient events, and may be very trivial qualities of the events which they characterise. For example, all delusive perceptual objects are apparent characters of events.

In the case of a delusive perceptual object character No. 2 of its situation has no existence, except so far as the event is necessarily still a ‘passive condition’ according to the nomenclature of Chapter VII of Part II. The active conditioning events for a delusive perceptual object must be sought elsewhere than in its situation. Let us confine ourselves to the consideration of non-delusive perceptual objects, that is, to physical objects.

60.4 But the line of separation between delusive and non-delusive perceptual objects is not quite so clear