we come to regard our active selves
as distinct from the dynamic system. We cannot, in fact, shake off the
bonds of corporeality, of gravity, of all the various restraints of our
organic activity.

Relatively, however, the cerebral activity of Thought is liberated from
the stresses of the dynamic environment; hence the apparent freedom and
independence, under certain conditions, of Thought, Imagination, and
Volition.

A great difficulty in realising this view of Experience is to be found
in the apparent Solidity and Inertia of material bodies. Sensible
experiences group themselves round these _constancies_. But a material
body, when its sensible concomitants are abstracted, is nothing more
than a permanent process of energy transmutation the interruption of
which in one form or another may originate Sensation. It follows that
the world of spatially extended bodies is a homogeneous and consistent
whole, reflecting in its laws and forms the real operations by which it
is constituted and sustained. But all this actual World is nevertheless
phenomenal only, albeit the phenomena are derived from and related to
the Real as change is to the thing which changes.

To a large extent we are misled by the impressive prominence of the
visual data. In vision we are presented with a system of inter-related
and simultaneously occurring sensations which we find by experience to
be the sure and certain indicators of the potent obstructions which our
activity encounters. For this reason we habitually make use of the
visual sign as the guide and instrument of our exertional activity, and
this habitual use leads us to regard the visual presentation as the
essential form of Reality. However sure we are that that is a false
view, it yet is very difficult to retrace our steps and re-enter the
elemental darkness which involves the blind.

The philosophic value of the interpretation of Experience by the blind
ought therefore to be very great. Observations made on the experiences
of the blind and of those to whom vision has been restored are not very
numerous, but many of these recorded by Plainer, the friend of Leibniz,
and others are of the highest value, and remarkably confirm the view for
which we have been contending.

Undoubtedly, so far as we are aware, the most valuable contribution to
this aspect of the discussion is to be found in a little volume recently
published in Paris under the title _Le Monde des Aveugles_. The author,
M. P