Page:The kernel and the husk (Abbott, 1886).djvu/385

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DEFINITIONS
369

DEFINITIONS


i. Reality

1. Absolute reality cannot be comprehended by men, and can only be apprehended as God or in God by a combination of Desire and Imagination, to which we give the name of Faith.
2. Among objects of sensation those are (relatively) real which present similar sensations in similar circumstances.


ii. Force

"Imagined" is inserted, throughout these Definitions, as a reminder that the existence of all these objects of definition, however real, is suggested to us by the Imagination.

Force is that which is imagined to immediately produce, or tend to produce, motion.

Why "immediately"? Because a particle of "matter"—attracting, as it does, every other particle of "matter"—may be said to "tend to produce motion." Yet "matter" is not said to be force, but to "exert" force. "Matter" is imagined to attract "matter" through the medium of force, or "mediately." But force is imagined to act "immediately." Hence the insertion of the word.