Appearances

Abstract

Considered in itself, a thing is, we have seen, a portion of Space-Time with a certain contour of its own and a plan of configuration of the various motions which take place and are connected together within it. As a piece of Space-Time it has substance. As the whole within which the motions take place, it is the synthesis of them, and they are its changing and connected features or acts, or the accidents of its substance. This description applies equally to physical things and to minds, the whole and its details being in the case of mind enjoyed and not contemplated. The mind is the synthesis within its space and time of all the mind’s acts or processes. The unifier which makes a thing a thing is its space-time. But considered as related to a mind and contemplated by it, a thing is seen, in the light of the general theory or hypothesis, to be a synthesis of sensa, percepta, images, memories, and thoughts or plans of configuration, whether of the whole or of parts of the whole. All these are partial objects which in their synthesis constitute the thing.