nce is
relational, not resemblant. Just so, it is by the reflection of Light
that we discover the forms of the obstacle which solid bodies oppose to
the radiant undulation. The resultant colours correspond to the form of
these obstructions; but the correspondence is relational not resemblant.
The same is true of sounds, of tactual sensations, of every other
sensible obstacle to pure activity.

By the clouds of smoke we follow or used to follow the progress of the
battle, but the battle is something other than a cloud of smoke.

We are, as Plato told us in his famous allegory, like prisoners in a
cave--our attitude averted from the aperture, and it is only by the
shadows cast upon the cavern wall that we can interpret the events which
are transacting themselves outside.

In one sense, therefore, the whole sensible and spatial World is real.
At least it is actual; and it affords us the materials from which we
construct our scheme of phenomena, and by which the kinetic process of
Reality is denoted and conceived.

The question ever and anon occurs to us--How upon this view can we solve
the problem of transcendence? How even on this view of the case do we
manage to get beyond ourselves? How are we in any way helped thereto by
the fact that Reality consists in potent action rather than in
Sensation?

Again, the answer is significant. In action, that is, in exertional
action, we are really _part_ of a larger _whole_. Our exertional action
is _ab initio_ mingled in and forms really an integral part of the
dynamic system in which our life is involved. The ever operative forces
of Gravity, Cohesion, Chemical Affinity, and so forth are the phenomenal
expression of the laws of energetic transmutation in which we partake
and of which we are organically a part, however apparently separate and
disparate our bodies may seem to be. It is life and feeling, not action,
which really distinguish the individual from his environment, at least
from his material dynamic environment. Be it noted that what is required
is not an explanation of how we transcend Experience. That by no effort
can we ever do in Knowledge. All we are required to explain is how we
transcend our Thought and our Sensibility. The answer is: Our Experience
begins in action, and it begins therefore in a sphere which is beyond
the mere subjective Consciousness, and yet is _organically one_ with the
organs of Cognition and Feeling.

It is only by a visual fiction that