XII ACTIVITY AND SUBSTANCE' ARGUMENT Need for a reconstruction of the conception of Substance by means of the Aristotelian conception of 'Evépjelo.. I. Its historical antecedents. The antithesis of the Process and Per- manence view of existence, Eleaticism-Heracliteanism-Platonism. Aristotle's criticism of Plato's ovala as mere potentiality-his advance in forning the conception of ενέργεια. II. Aristotle's statement of his doctrine. 'Evépyeto as Substance-not a form of xivyois but vice versa. When perfected it no longer implies 'motion' or 'change.' Hence the Divine activity is continuous and eternal and ἐνέργεια ἀκινησίας. III. Its consequences. Perfect happiness-the transition from Time to Eternity—'Evépyeta dxwnolas a scientific conception of 'Heaven.' IV. The paradoxes of the doctrine. How can there be activity, life, or consciousness without change? V. Their explanation. The difficulty not in the facts but in the arbi- trary interpretation we have put upon them. Thus (1) the equilibrium of motions is conceivable as the perfection, not as the cessation, of 'motion, (2) perfect metabolism would transcend change, and (3) so would a perfect consciousness. VI. Advantages of so conceiving Activity. Rejection of 'Becoming and Rest' as ideals. Conceivableness of 'Heaven' and 'Eternity." Avoidance of the 'Dissipation of Energy.' Spencer's see-saw as to the interprctation of equilibration.' VII. The old theory of Substance worthless. If 'Substance' is conceived as the substratum of change it becomes unknowable and explains nothing, Berkeley detected this in the case of material, Hume in that of spiritual, substance. Psychology has recently found it out in the case of the 'Soul' and physics in that of 'matter.' 'Energy' as the only physical reality, Lotze's criticism and reconstruction of substantiality. VIII. The Activity without motion as the ultimate ideal of Being. Activity the sole substance-how it produces the illusion of a substratum in which reality is never found. It is in proportion as the real actualises its possibilities in a harmonious form that it assumes the features of an ultimate ideal. The value of such an ideal. 1 The greater part of this appeared in Mind, N.S. 36, Oct. 1900, under the title of The Conception of 'Evépyeta 'Akunoias. But it has been revised and con- siderably expanded. 204
