That series, therefore,
since it leaves out vitally real steps of action,
cannot represent the real activities. It is something
purely subjective; the _facts_ of activity
are elsewhere. They are something far more
interstitial, so to speak, than what my feelings
record.
The _real_ facts of activity that have in point
of fact been systematically pleaded for by
philosophers have, so far as my information
goes, been of three principal types.
The first type takes a consciousness of wider
time-span than ours to be the vehicle of the
more real activity. Its will is the agent, and its
purpose is the action done.
The second type assumes that 'ideas' struggling
with one another are the agents, and
that the prevalence of one set of them is the
action.
176
The third type believes that never-cells are
the agents, and that resultant motor discharges
are the acts achieved.
Now if we must de-realize our immediately
felt activity-situations for the benefit of either
of these types of substitute, we ought to know
what the substitution practically involves.
_What_practical_difference_ought_it_to_make_if_,
instead of saying naively that 'I' am active
now in delivering this address, I say that _a_
_wider_thinker_is_active_, or that _certain_ideas_are_
_active_, or that _certain_nerve-cells_are_active_, in
producing the result?
This would be the pragmatic meaning of the
three hypotheses.
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