type from an
event. For example, the event which is the life of nature within the
Great Pyramid yesterday and to-day is divisible into two parts, namely
the Great Pyramid yesterday and the Great Pyramid to-day. But the
recognisable object which is also called the Great Pyramid is the same
object to-day as it was yesterday. I shall have to consider the theory
of objects in another lecture.

The whole subject is invested with an unmerited air of subtlety by the
fact that when the event is the situation of a well-marked object, we
have no language to distinguish the event from the object. In the case
of the Great Pyramid, the object is the perceived unit entity which as
perceived remains self-identical throughout the ages; while the whole
dance of molecules and the shifting play of the electromagnetic field
are ingredients of the event. An object is in a sense out of time. It is
only derivatively in time by reason of its having the relation to events
which I term 'situation.' This relation of situation will require
discussion in a subsequent lecture.

The point which I want to make now is that being the situation of a
well-marked object is not an inherent necessity for an event. Wherever
and whenever something is going on, there is an event. Furthermore
'wherever and whenever' in themselves presuppose an event, for space and
time in themselves are abstractions from events. It is therefore a
consequence of this doctrine that something is always going on
everywhere, even in so-called empty space. This conclusion is in accord
with modern physical science which presupposes the play of an
electromagnetic field throughout space and time. This doctrine of
science has been thrown into the materialistic form of an all-pervading
ether. But the ether is evidently a mere idle concept--in the
phraseology which Bacon applied to the doctrine of final causes, it is a
barren virgin. Nothing is deduced from it; and the ether merely
subserves the purpose of satisfying the demands of the materialistic
theory. The important concept is that of the shifting facts of the
fields of force. This is the concept of an ether of events which should
be substituted for that of a material ether.

It requires no illustration to assure you that an event is a complex
fact, and the relations between two events form an almost impenetrable
maze. The clue discovered by the common sense of mankind and
systematically utilised in science is what I have elsewhere[