account of nature extends beyond the physical properties of
motion and the properties of congruence. It gives an account of the
meaning of the geometrical entities such as points, straight lines, and
volumes, and connects the kindred ideas of extension in time and
extension in space. The theory satisfies the true purpose of an
intellectual explanation in the sphere of natural philosophy. This
purpose is to exhibit the interconnexions of nature, and to show that
one set of ingredients in nature requires for the exhibition of its
character the presence of the other sets of ingredients.

The false idea which we have to get rid of is that of nature as a mere
aggregate of independent entities, each capable of isolation. According
to this conception these entities, whose characters are capable of
isolated definition, come together and by their accidental relations
form the system of nature. This system is thus thoroughly accidental;
and, even if it be subject to a mechanical fate, it is only accidentally
so subject.

With this theory space might be without time, and time might be without
space. The theory admittedly breaks down when we come to the relations
of matter and space. The relational theory of space is an admission that
we cannot know space without matter or matter without space. But the
seclusion of both from time is still jealously guarded. The relations
between portions of matter in space are accidental facts owing to the
absence of any coherent account of how space springs from matter or how
matter springs from space. Also what we really observe in nature, its
colours and its sounds and its touches are secondary qualities; in other
words, they are not in nature at all but are accidental products of the
relations between nature and mind.

The explanation of nature which I urge as an alternative ideal to this
accidental view of nature, is that nothing in nature could be what it is
except as an ingredient in nature as it is. The whole which is present
for discrimination is posited in sense-awareness as necessary for the
discriminated parts. An isolated event is not an event, because every
event is a factor in a larger whole and is significant of that whole.
There can be no time apart from space; and no space apart from time; and
no space and no time apart from the passage of the events of nature. The
isolation of an entity in thought, when we think of it as a bare 'it,'
has no counterpart in any corresponding iso