Page:Appearance and Reality (1916).djvu/119

 apart from and before its actual change to d, we have the qualification Acδ wavering and struggling against Ac. Ac suggests Acδ, which is felt as one with it, and not as given to it by anything else. But this suggestion Acδ, as soon as it arises, is checked by the negative, mere Ac, which maintains its position. A is therefore the site of a struggle of Acδ against Ac. Each is felt in A as belonging to it and therefore as one; and there is no relation yet which serves as the solution of this discrepancy. Hence comes the feeling that A is, and yet is not, Acd. But when the relation of sequence seems to solve this contradiction, then the ensuing result is not felt as mere addition to Ac. It is felt as the success of Acd, which before was kept back by the stronger Ac. And thus, without any explicit idea, an idea is actually applied; for there is a content which is used beyond and against existence. And this, I think, is the explanation of the earliest felt activity.

This brief account is naturally open to objections, but all that are not mere misunderstanding can, I believe, be fully met. The subject, however, belongs to psychology, and I must not here pursue it. The reader will have seen that I assume, for the perception of change, the necessity of connecting the end with the beginning. This is effected by redintegration from the identical A, and it is probably assisted at first by the after-sensation of the starting-place, persisting together with the result. And this I am obliged here to assume. Further, the realization of Acd must not be attached as an adjective to anything outside A, such as E. This would be fatal to the appearance of a feeling of activity. A must, for our feeling, be Acd; and, again, that must be checked by the more dominant Ac. It must be unable to establish itself, and yet must struggle,—that is, oscillate and waver. Hence a wavering Acδ, causing pleasure at each partial success, and resisted by Ac, which you may take, as you prefer,