Page:ScienceAndHypothesis1905.djvu/91

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

muscular sensations. But that does not mean that we represent them to ourselves in geometrical space. So what characterises change of position, what distinguishes it from change of state, is that it can always be corrected by this means. It may therefore happen that we pass from the aggregate of impressions A to the aggregate B in two different ways. First, involuntarily and without experiencing muscular sensations—which happens when it is the object that is displaced; secondly, voluntarily, and with muscular sensation—which happens when the object is motionless, but when we displace ourselves in such a way that the object has relative motion with respect to us. If this be so, the translation of the aggregate A to the aggregate B is only a change of position. It follows that sight and touch could not have given us the idea of space without the help of the "muscular sense." Not only could this concept not be derived from a single sensation, or even from a series of sensations; but a motionless being could never have acquired it, because, not being able to correct by his movements the effects of the change of position of external objects, he would have had no reason to distinguish them from changes of state. Nor would he have been able to acquire it if his movements had not been voluntary, or if they were unaccompanied by any sensations whatever.

Conditions of Compensation.—How is such a compensation possible in such a way that two