We saw that the impression of
movement results from an activity of the mind which binds the separate
pictures together. What we actually see is a composite; it is like the
movement of a fountain in which every jet is resolved into numberless
drops. We feel the play of those drops in their sparkling haste as one
continuous stream of water, and yet are conscious of the myriads of
drops, each one separate from the others. This fountainlike spray of
pictures has completely overcome the causal world.
In an entirely different form this triumph over causality appears in the
interruption of the events by pictures which belong to another series.
We find this whenever the scene suddenly changes. The processes are not
carried to their natural consequences. A movement is started, but before
the cause brings its results another scene has taken its place. What
this new scene brings may be an effect for which we saw no causes. But
not only the processes are interrupted. The intertwining of the scenes
which we have traced in detail is itself such a contrast to causality.
It is as if different objects could fill the same space at the same
time. It is as if the resistance of the material world had disappeared
and the substances could penetrate one another. In the interlacing of
our ideas we experience this superiority to all physical laws.
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