Page:Philosophical Review Volume 14.djvu/526

510 that it seeks to eliminate hypothesis and to appeal to energy, the reality of immediate experience, of which mind and matter are but partial aspects. It seeks to give a science of fact and not of hypothesis. The only possible measure of quantity must be psychologic in character. The question at once arises: What must be the nature of the psychic unit? Since no constant can be found directly, the unit must obviously be a ratio. In the last analysis, succession and change are the only subjective contributions to quantitative science. These forms, when filled by experience, give periodicity in the external world. Succession, if negated, gives co-temporaneity. The following psychologic formulæ, applied by mathematical physics, should make it possible to construe all forms of experience, (1) Sequence with identity gives periodicity = time. (2) Co-temporaneity (o X sequence) with diversity = space. (3) Sequence with diversity = change. (4) Co-temporaneity with identity = intensity.

At certain stages in moral life the individual sometimes experiences a shock, following a momentary loss of sense or personality, which may be considered as a halt necessary for the continuation of life. This shock is an 'acte necessaire,' which may or may not be a crime, but which is always marked by abnormal violence. These acts emanate directly from an instinctive volition resulting from a confused mental state which is characterized by moral passivity, and in which the desires are in evident disproportion to the vital energy of the individual. They are the necessary reactions which put an end to the preceding uncertainty, and which make the continuation or transformation of life possible. In short, this act is the passage from a passive state produced by certain circumstances to a state of sudden and violent affirmation. Such a passage or shock may be called a 'sur-action.' The value of such a 'sur-action ' is very great. It is a leap forward, a wiping out of the past; the individual becomes a new personality, with the assurance of being able to act in the future more forcibly through this new realization of power. By being thus separated from the past, the individual is able to view it objectively and see it as it really is, free from the illusions existing for one whose life is continuous. This 'sur-action,' however, can take place without any external manifestations; the revolution may be entirely internal. A third form may be seen in the case of the individual who has a vivid representation of the outward act, but stops at the verge of its consummation. The beneficial results are, however, in each case the same.

Both methods of inquiry, the historical and the psychological, are