The nature of being : an essay in ontology / by Henry H. Slesser.

  • Slesser, Henry H.
Date:
[1919]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The nature of being : an essay in ontology / by Henry H. Slesser. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    172/232 (page 168)
    taneous Will before its penetration of Substance, precedes the establishment of a metabolic constant. We have recognized the atom to be in nascent perturbation before molecular equilibrium emerges, and, similarly, we note the unorganized efforts of molecules and cells to precede their purposive organization, so that at each stage the perfect Self is achieved only after preliminary effort and incoherence. The Self of the sub-atom, which shows itself in the first place as capacity to retain and perpetuate the spin of its parts, as against the unspun etheric environment, soon proceeds, once metabolism exists, to produce wave dis- turbance in its medium ; so also, with other organs, the stage of metabolism, the establishment of Self, is a necessary precedent to the setting forth of distinctive non-causal qualities. Fach Self appears to act not only as if it were opposing the disturbing forces of other Selves, but also as if the protyle itself would render homo- geneous its parts by effecting their disintegration ; thus the protyle appears to be negative, to unify and destroy the local selves of its parts, and, at all stages of integration, effort appears to be neces- sary to resist the disintegration necessitated by the uniformity of Pure Substance. Thus we are forced to conceive Substance as in a sense hostile to spontaneous Will and to the continued local Self, but, since Substance is uni- form, it does not appear to the consciousness as Thing within Knowledge having particular Locality or Duration, but rather as universal hindrance to individual effort and progress. With the idea of the uniformity of Substance in our minds, we are able to see how it is that Substance is not and cannot be conceived sub- jectively in Time and Space.