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We have no immediate realization of them as we have of conscious activity, but making the objective stimulations which arouse our conscious activities an object of investigation we develop a cognitive symbol of them in our representa- tion of them as wave-movements. The wave-movement is thus symbolic like all other cognition, and when we ask what the nature of that which is symbolized may be, no answer is forthcoming. In short, the real nature of the stimulation by which the objective existent is able to affect consciousness is not revealed. We have its symbols in con- sciousness, according to which it is represented as a wave- movement, just as we have the symbol of the tree in consciousness by which it is represented as colored, ex- tended and solid. Now the difficulty of science has arisen mainly from the fact that the symbolic character of the wave-movements has been ignored and these have been treated as first-hand realities. prev next |