,,the ,,principles ,,of ,,psychology ,,by ,,william ,,james ,,professor ,,of ,,psychology ,,in ,,harvard ,,university ,,in ,,two ,,volumes ,,vol4 ,i ,,new ,,york ,,henry ,,holt ,,and ,,company #aiah ,,to ,,my ,,dear ,,friend ,,fran,,ois ,,pillon4 ,,as ,a ,,token ,,of ,,affection1 ,,and ,,an ,,acknowledgment ,,of ,,what ,i ,,owe ,,to ,,the ,,critique ,,philosophique4 ,,preface4 ,the treatise which follows has in the main grown up in connection with the author's class-room instruction in ,psychology1 although it is true that some of the chapters are more 'metaphysical1' and others fuller of detail1 than is suitable for students who are going over the subject for the first time4 ,the consequence of this is that1 in spite of the exclusion of the important subjects of pleasure and pain1 and moral and sthetic feelings and judgments1 the work has grown to a length which no one can regret more than the writer himself4 ,the man must indeed be sanguine who1 in this crowded age1 can hope to have many readers for fourteen hundred continuous pages from his pen4 ,but wer ,vieles bringt wird ,manchem etwas bringen2 and1 by judiciously skipping according to their several needs1 ,i am sure that many sorts of readers1 even those who are just beginning the study of the subject1 will find my book of use4 ,since the beginners are most in need of guidance1 ,i suggest for their behoof that they omit altogether on a first reading chapters #f1 #g1 #h1 #aj 7from page #ccj to page #cga71 #ab1 #ac1 #ae1 #ag1 #bj1 #ba1 and #bh4 ,the better to awaken the neophyte's interest1 it is possible that the wise order would be to pass directly from chapter #d to chapters #bc1 #bd1 #be1 and #bf1 and thence to return to the first volume again4 ,chapter #bj1 on ,space-perception1 is a terrible thing1 which1 unless written with all that detail1 could not be fairly treated at all4 ,an abridgment of it1 called ',the ,spatial ,quale1' which appeared in the ,journal of ,speculative ,philosophy1 vol4 xiii1 p4 #fd1 may be found by some persons a useful substitute for the entire chapter4 ,i have kept close to the point of view of natural science throughout the book4 ,every natural science assumes certain data uncritically1 and declines to challenge the elements between which its own 'laws' obtain1 and from which its own deductions are carried on4 ,psychology1 the science of finite individual minds1 assumes as its data 7#a7 thoughts and feelings1 and 7#b7 a physical world in time and space with which they coexist and which 7#c7 they know4 ,of course these data themselves are discussable2 but the discussion of them 7as of other elements7 is called metaphysics and falls outside the province of this book4 ,this book1 assuming that thoughts and feelings exist and are vehicles of knowledge1 thereupon contends that psychology when she has ascertained the empirical correlation of the various sorts of thought or feeling with definite conditions of the brain1 can go no farther--can go no farther1 that is1 as a natural science4 ,if she goes farther she becomes metaphysical4 ,all attempts to explain our phenomenally given thoughts as products of deeper-lying entities 7whether the latter be named ',soul1' ',transcendental ,ego1' ',ideas1' or ',elementary ,units of ,consciousness'7 are metaphysical4 ,this book consequently rejects both the associationist and the spiritualist theories2 and in this strictly positivistic point of view consists the only feature of it for which ,i feel tempted to claim originality4 ,of course this point of view is anything but ultimate4 ,men must keep thinking2 and the data assumed by psychology1 just like those assumed by physics and the other natural sciences1 must some time be overhauled4 ,the effort to overhaul them clearly and thoroughly is metaphysics2 but metaphysics can only perform her task well when distinctly conscious of its great extent4 ,metaphysics fragmentary1 irresponsible1 and half-awake1 and unconscious that she is metaphysical1 spoils two good things when she injects herself into a natural science4 ,and it seems to me that the theories both of a spiritual agent and of associated 'ideas' are1 as they figure in the psychology-books1 just such metaphysics as this4 ,even if their results be true1 it would be as well to keep them1 as thus presented1 out of psychology as it is to keep the results of idealism out of physics4 ,i have therefore treated our passing thoughts as integers1 and regarded the mere laws of their coexistence with brain-states as the ultimate laws for our science4 ,the reader will in vain seek for any closed system in the book4 ,it is mainly a mass of descriptive details1 running out into queries which only a metaphysics alive to the weight of her task can hope successfully to deal with4 ,that will perhaps be centuries hence2 and meanwhile the best mark of health that a science can show is this unfinished-seeming front4 ,the completion of the book has been so slow that several chapters have been published successively in ,mind1 the ,journal of ,speculative ,philosophy1 the ,popular ,science ,monthly1 and ,scribner's ,magazine4 ,acknowledgment is made in the proper places4 ,the bibliography1 ,i regret to say1 is quite unsystematic4 ,i have habitually given my authority for special experimental facts2 but beyond that ,i have aimed mainly to cite books that would probably be actually used by the ordinary ,american college-student in his collateral reading4 ,the bibliography in ,w4 ,volkmann von ,volkmar's ,lehrbuch der ,psychologie 7#ahge7 is so complete1 up to its date1 that there is no need of an inferior duplicate4 ,and for more recent references1 ,sully's ,outlines1 ,dewey's ,psychology1 and ,baldwin's ,handbook of ,psychology may be advantageously used4 ,finally1 where one owes to so many1 it seems absurd to single out particular creditors2 yet ,i cannot resist the temptation at the end of my first literary venture to record my gratitude for the inspiration ,i have got from the writings of ,j4 ,s4 ,mill1 ,lotze1 ,renouvier1 ,hodgson1 and ,wundt1 and from the intellectual companionship 7to name only five names7 of ,chauncey ,wright and ,charles ,peirce in old times1 and more recently of ,stanley ,hall1 ,james ,putnam1 and ,josiah ,royce4 ,,harvard ,,university1 ,august #ahij4 ,,contents4 ,,chapter ,i4 ,,the ,,scope ,,of ,,psychology1 ,mental ,manifestations depend on ,cerebral ,conditions1 #a4 ,pursuit of ends and choice are the marks of ,mind's presence4 ,,chapter ,,ii4 ,,the ,,functions ,,of ,,the ,,brain ,reflex1 semi-reflex1 and voluntary acts4 ,the ,frog's nerve-centres4 ,general notion of the hemispheres4 ,their ,education--the ,meynert scheme4 ,the phrenological contrasted with the physiological conception4 ,the localization of function in the hemispheres4 ,the motor zone4 ,motor ,aphasia4 ,the sight-centre4 ,mental blindness4 ,the hearing-centre4 ,sensory ,aphasia4 ,centres for smell and taste4 ,the touch-centre4 ,man's ,consciousness limited to the hemispheres4 ,the restitution of function4 ,final correction of the ,meynert scheme4 ,conclusions4 ,,chapter ,,iii4 ,,on ,,some ,,general ,,conditions ,,of ,,brain-,,activity ,the summation of ,stimuli4 ,reaction-time4 ,cerebral blood-supply1 #ig4 ,cerebral ,thermometry4 ,phosphorus and ,thought4 ,,chapter ,,iv4 ,,habit ,due to plasticity of neural matter4 ,produces ease of action4 ,diminishes attention1 #aae4 ,concatenated performances4 ,ethical implications and pedagogic maxims4 ,,chapter ,v4 ,,the ,,automaton-,,theory ,the theory described4 ,reasons for it4 ,reasons against it4 ,,chapter ,,vi4 ,,the ,,mind-,,stuff ,,theory ,evolutionary ,psychology demands a ,mind-dust4 ,some alleged proofs that it exists4 ,refutation of these proofs4 ,self-compounding of mental facts is inadmissible4 ,can states of mind be unconscious8 ,refutation of alleged proofs of unconscious thought4 ,difficulty of stating the connection between mind and brain4 ',the ,soul' is logically the least objectionable hypothesis4 ,conclusion4 ,,chapter ,,vii4 ,,the ,,methods ,,and ,,snares ,,of ,,psychology ,psychology is a natural ,science4 ,introspection1 #ahe4 ,experiment4 ,sources of error4 ,the ',psychologist's fallacy'4 ,,chapter ,,viii4 ,,the ,,relations ,,of ,,minds ,,to ,,other ,,things ,time relations3 lapses of ,consciousness--,locke v4 ,descartes4 ,the 'unconsciousness' of hysterics not genuine4 ,minds may split into dissociated parts4 ,space-relations3 the ,seat of the ,soul4 ,cognitive relations4 ,the ,psychologist's point of view4 ,two kinds of knowledge1 acquaintance and knowledge about4 ,,chapter ,,ix4 ,,the ,,stream ,,of ,,thought1 #bbd ,consciousness tends to the personal form4 ,it is in constant change4 ,it is sensibly continuous4 ',substantive' and 'transitive' parts of ,consciousness4 ,feelings of relation4 ,feelings of tendency4 ,the 'fringe' of the object4 ,the feeling of rational sequence4 ,thought possible in any kind of mental material4 ,thought and language4 ,consciousness is cognitive4 ,the word ,object4 ,every cognition is due to one integral pulse of thought4 ,diagrams of ,thought's stream4 ,thought is always selective4 ,,chapter ,x4 ,,the ,,consciousness ,,of ,,self ,the ,empirical ,self or ,me4 ,its constituents4 ,the material self4 ,the ,social ,self4 ,the ,spiritual ,self4 ,difficulty of apprehending ,thought as a purely spiritual activity4 ,emotions of ,self4 ,rivalry and conflict of one's different selves4 ,their hierarchy4 ,what ,self we love in ',self-love'4 ,the ,pure ,ego4 ,the verifiable ground of the sense of personal identity4 ,the passing ,thought is the only ,thinker which ,psychology requires4 ,theories of ,self-consciousness3 #a7 ,the theory of the ,soul4 #b7 ,the ,associationist theory4 #c7 ,the ,transcendentalist theory4 ,the mutations of the ,self4 ,insane delusions4 ,alternating selves4 ,mediumships or possessions4 ,summary4 ,,chapter ,,xi4 ,,attention ,its neglect by ,english psychologists4 ,description of it4 ,to how many things can we attend at once8 ,wundt's experiments on displacement of date of impressions simultaneously attended to4 ,personal equation4 ,the varieties of attention4 ,passive attention4 ,voluntary attention4 ,attention's effects on sensation2--on discrimination2--on recollection2--on reaction-time4 ,the neural process in attention3 #a7 ,accommodation of sense-organ4 #b7 ,preperception4 ,is voluntary attention a resultant or a force8 ,the effort to attend can be conceived as a resultant4 ,conclusion4 ,acquired ,inattention4 ,,chapter ,,xii4 ,,conception ,the sense of sameness4 ,conception defined4 ,conceptions are unchangeable4 ,abstract ideas1 #dfh4 ,universals4 ,the conception 'of the same' is not the 'same state' of mind4 ,,chapter ,,xiii4 ,,discrimination ,,and ,,comparison ,locke on discrimination4 ,martineau ditto4 ,simultaneous sensations originally fuse into one object4 ,the principle of mediate comparison4 ,not all differences are differences of composition4 ,the conditions of discrimination4 ,the sensation of difference4 ,the transcendentalist theory of the perception of differences uncalled for4 ,the process of analysis4 ,the process of abstraction4 ,the improvement of discrimination by practice4 ,its two causes4 ,practical interests limit our discrimination4 ,reaction-time after discrimination4 ,the perception of likeness1 #ebh4 ,the magnitude of differences4 ,the measurement of discriminative sensibility3 ,weber's law4 ,fechner's interpretation of this as the psycho-physic law4 ,criticism thereof4 ,,chapter ,,xiv4 ,,association ,the problem of the connection of our thoughts4 ,it depends on mechanical conditions4 ,association is of objects thought of1 not of 'ideas'4 ,the rapidity of association4 ,the 'law of contiguity'4 ,the elementary law of association4 ,impartial redintegration4 ,ordinary or mixed association4 ,the law of interest4 ,association by similarity4 ,elementary expression of the difference between the three kinds of association4 ,association in voluntary thought4 ,similarity no elementary law4 ,history of the doctrine of association4 ,,chapter ,,xv4 ,,the ,,perception ,,of ,,time1 #fje ,the sensible present4 ,its duration is the primitive time-perception4 ,accuracy of our estimate of short durations4 ,we have no sense for empty time4 ,variations of our time-estimate4 ,the feeling of past time is a present feeling4 ,its cerebral process4 ,,chapter ,,xvi4 ,,memory ,primary memory4 ,analysis of the phenomenon of memory4 ,retention and reproduction are both caused by paths of association in the brain4 ,the conditions of goodness in memory4 ,native retentiveness is unchangeable4 ,all improvement of memory consists in better thinking4 ,other conditions of good memory4 ,recognition1 or the sense of familiarity4 ,exact measurements of memory4 ,forgetting4 ,pathological cases4 ,professor ,ladd criticised4 ,,index4 ,,psychology4 ,,chapter ,i4 ,,the ,,scope ,,of ,,psychology4 ,psychology is the ,science of ,mental ,life1 both of its phenomena and of their conditions4 ,the phenomena are such things as we call feelings1 desires1 cognitions1 reasonings1 decisions1 and the like2 and1 superficially considered1 their variety and complexity is such as to leave a chaotic impression on the observer4 ,the most natural and consequently the earliest way of unifying the material was1 first1 to classify it as well as might be1 and1 secondly1 to affiliate the diverse mental modes thus found1 upon a simple entity1 the personal ,soul1 of which they are taken to be so many facultative manifestations4 ,now1 for instance1 the ,soul manifests its faculty of ,memory1 now of ,reasoning1 now of ,volition1 or again its ,imagination or its ,appetite4 ,this is the orthodox 'spiritualistic' theory of scholasticism and of common-sense4 ,another and a less obvious way of unifying the chaos is to seek common elements in the divers mental facts rather than a common agent behind them1 and to explain them constructively by the various forms of arrangement of these elements1 as one explains houses by stones and bricks4 ,the 'associationist' schools of ,herbart in ,germany1 and of ,hume the ,mills and ,bain in ,britain have thus constructed a psychology without a soul by taking discrete 'ideas1' faint or vivid1 and showing how1 by their cohesions1 repulsions1 and forms of succession1 such things as reminiscences1 perceptions1 emotions1 volitions1 passions1 theories1 and all the other furnishings of an individual's mind may be engendered4 ,the very ,self or ego of the individual comes in this way to be viewed no longer as the pre-existing source of the representations1 but rather as their last and most complicated fruit4 ,now1 if we strive rigorously to simplify the phenomena in either of these ways1 we soon become aware of inadequacies in our method4 ,any particular cognition1 for example1 or recollection1 is accounted for on the soul-theory by being referred to the spiritual faculties of ,cognition or of ,memory4 ,these faculties themselves are thought of as absolute properties of the soul2 that is1 to take the case of memory1 no reason is given why we should remember a fact as it happened1 except that so to remember it constitutes the essence of our ,recollective ,power4 ,we may1 as spiritualists1 try to explain our memory's failures and blunders by secondary causes4 ,but its successes can invoke no factors save the existence of certain objective things to be remembered on the one hand1 and of our faculty of memory on the other4 ,when1 for instance1 ,i recall my graduation-day1 and drag all its incidents and emotions up from death's dateless night1 no mechanical cause can explain this process1 nor can any analysis reduce it to lower terms or make its nature seem other than an ultimate datum1 which1 whether we rebel or not at its mysteriousness1 must simply be taken for granted if we are to psychologize at all4 ,however the associationist may represent the present ideas as thronging and arranging themselves1 still1 the spiritualist insists1 he has in the end to admit that something1 be it brain1 be it 'ideas1' be it 'association1' knows past time as past1 and fills it out with this or that event4 ,and when the spiritualist calls memory an 'irreducible faculty1' he says no more than this admission of the associationist already grants4 ,and yet the admission is far from being a satisfactory simplification of the concrete facts4 ,for why should this absolute god-given ,faculty retain so much better the events of yesterday than those of last year1 and1 best of all1 those of an hour ago8 ,why1 again1 in old age should its grasp of childhood's events seem firmest8 ,why should illness and exhaustion enfeeble it8 ,why should repeating an experience strengthen our recollection of it8 ,why should drugs1 fevers1 asphyxia1 and excitement resuscitate things long since forgotten8 ,if we content ourselves with merely affirming that the faculty of memory is so peculiarly constituted by nature as to exhibit just these oddities1 we seem little the better for having invoked it1 for our explanation becomes as complicated as that of the crude facts with which we started4 ,moreover there is something grotesque and irrational in the supposition that the soul is equipped with elementary powers of such an ingeniously intricate sort4 ,why should our memory cling more easily to the near than the remote8 ,why should it lose its grasp of proper sooner than of abstract names8 ,such peculiarities seem quite fantastic2 and might1 for aught we can see a priori1 be the precise opposites of what they are4 ,evidently1 then1 the faculty does not exist absolutely1 but works under conditions2 and the quest of the conditions becomes the psychologist's most interesting task4 ,however firmly he may hold to the soul and her remembering faculty1 he must acknowledge that she never exerts the latter without a cue1 and that something must always precede and remind us of whatever we are to recollect4 ,an idea1 says the associationist1 an idea associated with the remembered thing2 and this explains also why things repeatedly met with are more easily recollected1 for their associates on the various occasions furnish so many distinct avenues of recall4 ,but this does not explain the effects of fever1 exhaustion1 hypnotism1 old age1 and the like4 ,and in general1 the pure associationist's account of our mental life is almost as bewildering as that of the pure spiritualist4 ,this multitude of ideas1 existing absolutely1 yet clinging together1 and weaving an endless carpet of themselves1 like dominoes in ceaseless change1 or the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope1--whence do they get their fantastic laws of clinging1 and why do they cling in just the shapes they do8 ,for this the associationist must introduce the order of experience in the outer world4 ,the dance of the ideas is a copy1 somewhat mutilated and altered1 of the order of phenomena4 ,but the slightest reflection shows that phenomena have absolutely no power to influence our ideas until they have first impressed our senses and our brain4 ,the bare existence of a past fact is no ground for our remembering it4 ,unless we have seen it1 or somehow undergone it1 we shall never know of its having been4 ,the expediences of the body are thus one of the conditions of the faculty of memory being what it is4 ,and a very small amount of reflection on facts shows that one part of the body1 namely1 the brain1 is the part whose experiences are directly concerned4 ,if the nervous communication be cut off between the brain and other parts1 the experiences of those other parts are non-existent for the mind4 ,the eye is blind1 the ear deaf1 the hand insensible and motionless4 ,and conversely1 if the brain be injured1 consciousness is abolished or altered1 even although every other organ in the body be ready to play its normal part4 ,a blow on the head1 a sudden subtraction of blood1 the pressure of an apoplectic hemorrhage1 may have the first effect2 whilst a very few ounces of alcohol or grains of opium or hasheesh1 or a whiff of chloroform or nitrous oxide gas1 are sure to have the second4 ,the delirium of fever1 the altered self of insanity1 are all due to foreign matters circulating through the brain1 or to pathological changes in that organ's substance4 ,the fact that the brain is the one immediate bodily condition of the mental operations is indeed so universally admitted nowadays that ,i need spend no more time in illustrating it1 but will simply postulate it and pass on4 ,the whole remainder of the book will be more or less of a proof that the postulate was correct4 ,bodily experiences1 therefore1 and more particularly brain-experiences1 must take a place amongst those conditions of the mental life of which ,psychology need take account4 ,the spiritualist and the associationist must both be 'cerebralists'1 to the extent at least of admitting that certain peculiarities in the way of working of their own favorite principles are explicable only by the fact that the brain laws are a codeterminant of the result4 ,our first conclusion1 then1 is that a certain amount of brain-physiology must be presupposed or included in ,psychology4#a 99 99 99 99 99 ,in still another way the psychologist is forced to be something of a nerve-physiologist4 ,mental phenomena are not only conditioned a parte ante by bodily processes2 but they lead to them a parte post4 ,that they lead to acts is of course the most familiar of truths1 but ,i do not merely mean acts in the sense of voluntary and deliberate muscular performances4 ,mental states occasion also changes in the calibre of blood-vessels1 or alteration in the heart-beats1 or processes more subtle still1 in glands and viscera4 ,if these are taken into account1 as well as acts which follow at some remote period because the mental state was once there1 it will be safe to lay down the general law that no mental modification ever occurs which is not accompanied or followed by a bodily change4 ,the ideas and feelings1 e4g41 which these present printed characters excite in the reader's mind not only occasion movements of his eyes and nascent movements of articulation in him1 but will some day make him speak1 or take sides in a discussion1 or give advice1 or choose a book to read1 differently from what would have been the case had they never impressed his retina4 ,our psychology must therefore take account not only of the conditions antecedent to mental states1 but of their resultant consequences as well4 99 99 99 99 99 ,but actions originally prompted by conscious intelligence may grow so automatic by dint of habit as to be apparently unconsciously performed4 ,standing1 walking1 buttoning and unbuttoning1 piano-playing1 talking1 even saying one's prayers1 may be done when the mind is absorbed in other things4 ,the performances of animal instinct seem semi-automatic1 and the reflex acts of self-preservation certainly are so4 ,yet they resemble intelligent acts in bringing about the same ends at which the animals' consciousness1 on other occasions1 deliberately aims4 ,shall the study of such machine-like yet purposive acts as these be included in ,psychology8 ,the boundary-line of the mental is certainly vague4 ,it is better not to be pedantic1 but to let the science be as vague as its subject1 and include such phenomena as these if by so doing we can throw any light on the main business in hand4 ,it will ere long be seen1 ,i trust1 that we can2 and that we gain much more by a broad than by a narrow conception of our subject4 ,at a certain stage in the development of every science a degree of vagueness is what best consists with fertility4 ,on the whole1 few recent formulas have done more real service of a rough sort in psychology than the ,spencerian one that the essence of mental life and of bodily life are one1 namely1 'the adjustment of inner to outer relations4' ,such a formula is vagueness incarnate2 but because it takes into account the fact that minds inhabit environments which act on them and on which they in turn react2 because1 in short1 it takes mind in the midst of all its concrete relations1 it is immensely more fertile than the old-fashioned 'rational psychology1' which treated the soul as a detached existent1 sufficient unto itself1 and assumed to consider only its nature and properties4 ,i shall therefore feel free to make any sallies into zoology or into pure nerve-physiology which may seem instructive for our purposes1 but otherwise shall leave those sciences to the physiologists4 99 99 99 99 99 ,can we state more distinctly still the manner in which the mental life seems to intervene between impressions made from without upon the body1 and reactions of the body upon the outer world again8 ,let us look at a few facts4 ,if some iron filings be sprinkled on a table and a magnet brought near them1 they will fly through the air for a certain distance and stick to its surface4 ,a savage seeing the phenomenon explains it as the result of an attraction or love between the magnet and the filings4 ,but let a card cover the poles of the magnet1 and the filings will press forever against its surface without its ever occurring to them to pass around its sides and thus come into more direct contact with the object of their love4 ,blow bubbles through a tube into the bottom of a pail of water1 they will rise to the surface and mingle with the air4 ,their action may again be poetically interpreted as due to a longing to recombine with the mother-atmosphere above the surface4 ,but if you invert a jar full of water over the pail1 they will rise and remain lodged beneath its bottom1 shut in from the outer air1 although a slight deflection from their course at the outset1 or a re-descent towards the rim of the jar when they found their upward course impeded1 would easily have set them free4 ,if now we pass from such actions as these to those of living things1 we notice a striking difference4 ,romeo wants ,juliet as the filings want the magnet2 and if no obstacles intervene he moves towards her by as straight a line as they4 ,but ,romeo and ,juliet1 if a wall be built between them1 do not remain idiotically pressing their faces against its opposite sides like the magnet and the filings with the card4 ,romeo soon finds a circuitous way1 by scaling the wall or otherwise1 of touching ,juliet's lips directly4 ,with the filings the path is fixed2 whether it reaches the end depends on accidents4 ,with the lover it is the end which is fixed1 the path may be modified indefinitely4 ,suppose a living frog in the position in which we placed our bubbles of air1 namely1 at the bottom of a jar of water4 ,the want of breath will soon make him also long to rejoin the mother-atmosphere1 and he will take the shortest path to his end by swimming straight upwards4 ,but if a jar full of water be inverted over him1 he will not1 like the bubbles1 perpetually press his nose against its unyielding roof1 but will restlessly explore the neighborhood until by re-descending again he has discovered a path round its brim to the goal of his desires4 ,again the fixed end1 the varying means6 ,such contrasts between living and inanimate performances end by leading men to deny that in the physical world final purposes exist at all4 ,loves and desires are to-day no longer imputed to particles of iron or of air4 ,no one supposes now that the end of any activity which they may display is an ideal purpose presiding over the activity from its outset and soliciting or drawing it into being by a sort of vis a fronte4 ,the end1 on the contrary1 is deemed a mere passive result1 pushed into being a tergo1 having had1 so to speak1 no voice in its own production4 ,alter the pre-existing conditions1 and with inorganic materials you bring forth each time a different apparent end4 ,but with intelligent agents1 altering the conditions changes the activity displayed1 but not the end reached2 for here the idea of the yet unrealized end co-operates with the conditions to determine what the activities shall be4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the pursuance of future ends and the choice of means for their attainment are thus the mark and criterion of the presence of mentality in a phenomenon4 ,we all use this test to discriminate between an intelligent and a mechanical performance4 ,we impute no mentality to sticks and stones1 because they never seem to move for the sake of anything1 but always when pushed1 and then indifferently and with no sign of choice4 ,so we unhesitatingly call them senseless4 ,just so we form our decision upon the deepest of all philosophic problems3 ,is the ,kosmos an expression of intelligence rational in its inward nature1 or a brute external fact pure and simple8 ,if we find ourselves1 in contemplating it1 unable to banish the impression that it is a realm of final purposes1 that it exists for the sake of something1 we place intelligence at the heart of it and have a religion4 ,if1 on the contrary1 in surveying its irremediable flux1 we can think of the present only as so much mere mechanical sprouting from the past1 occurring with no reference to the future1 we are atheists and materialists4 ,in the lengthy discussions which psychologists have carried on about the amount of intelligence displayed by lower mammals1 or the amount of consciousness involved in the functions of the nerve-centres of reptiles1 the same test has always been applied3 ,is the character of the actions such that we must believe them to be performed for the sake of their result8 ,the result in question1 as we shall hereafter abundantly see1 is as a rule a useful one1--the animal is1 on the whole1 safer under the circumstances for bringing it forth4 ,so far the action has a teleological character2 but such mere outward teleology as this might still be the blind result of vis a tergo4 ,the growth and movements of plants1 the processes of development1 digestion1 secretion1 etc41 in animals1 supply innumerable instances of performances useful to the individual which may nevertheless be1 and by most of us are supposed to be1 produced by automatic mechanism4 ,the physiologist does not confidently assert conscious intelligence in the frog's spinal cord until he has shown that the useful result which the nervous machinery brings forth under a given irritation remains the same when the machinery is altered4 ,if1 to take the stock instance1 the right knee of a headless frog be irritated with acid1 the right foot will wipe it off4 ,when1 however1 this foot is amputated1 the animal will often raise the left foot to the spot and wipe the offending material away4 ,pflger and ,lewes reason from such facts in the following way3 ,if the first reaction were the result of mere machinery1 they say2 if that irritated portion of the skin discharged the right leg as a trigger discharges its own barrel of a shot-gun2 then amputating the right foot would indeed frustrate the wiping1 but would not make the left leg move4 ,it would simply result in the right stump moving through the empty air 7which is in fact the phenomenon sometimes observed74 ,the right trigger makes no effort to discharge the left barrel if the right one be unloaded2 nor does an electrical machine ever get restless because it can only emit sparks1 and not hem pillow-cases like a sewing-machine4 ,if1 on the contrary1 the right leg originally moved for the purpose of wiping the acid1 then nothing is more natural than that1 when the easiest means of effecting that purpose prove fruitless1 other means should be tried4 ,every failure must keep the animal in a state of disappointment which will lead to all sorts of new trials and devices2 and tranquillity will not ensue till one of these1 by a happy stroke1 achieves the wished-for end4 ,in a similar way ,goltz ascribes intelligence to the frog's optic lobes and cerebellum4 ,we alluded above to the manner in which a sound frog imprisoned in water will discover an outlet to the atmosphere4 ,goltz found that frogs deprived of their cerebral hemispheres would often exhibit a like ingenuity4 ,such a frog1 after rising from the bottom and finding his farther upward progress checked by the glass bell which has been inverted over him1 will not persist in butting his nose against the obstacle until dead of suffocation1 but will often re-descend and emerge from under its rim as if1 not a definite mechanical propulsion upwards1 but rather a conscious desire to reach the air by hook or crook were the main-spring of his activity4 ,goltz concluded from this that the hemispheres are not the sole seal of intellect in frogs4 ,he made the same inference from observing that a brainless frog will turn over from his back to his belly when one of his legs is sewed up1 although the movements required are then very different from those excited under normal circumstances by the same annoying position4 ,they seem determined1 consequently1 not merely by the antecedent irritant1 but by the final end1--though the irritant of course is what makes the end desired4 ,another brilliant ,german author1 ,liebmann1#b argues against the brain's mechanism accounting for mental action1 by very similar considerations4 ,a machine as such1 he says1 will bring forth right results when it is in good order1 and wrong results if out of repair4 ,but both kinds of result flow with equally fatal necessity from their conditions4 ,we cannot suppose the clock-work whose structure fatally determines it to a certain rate of speed1 noticing that this speed is too slow or too fast and vainly trying to correct it4 ,its conscience1 if it have any1 should be as good as that of the best chronometer1 for both alike obey equally well the same eternal mechanical laws--laws from behind4 ,but if the brain be out of order and the man says ,twice four are two1 instead of ,twice four are eight1 or else ,i must go to the coal to buy the wharf1 instead of ,i must go to the wharf to buy the coal1 instantly there arises a consciousness of error4 ,the wrong performance1 though it obey the same mechanical law as the right1 is nevertheless condemned1--condemned as contradicting the inner law--the law from in front1 the purpose or ideal for which the brain should act1 whether it do so or not4 ,we need not discuss here whether these writers in drawing their conclusion have done justice to all the premises ,i involved in the cases they treat of4 ,we quote their arguments only to show how they appeal to the principle that no actions but such as are done for an end1 and show a choice of means1 can be called indubitable expressions of ,mind4 ,i shall then adopt this as the criterion by which to circumscribe the subject-matter of this work so far as action enters into it4 ,many nervous performances will therefore be unmentioned1 as being purely physiological4 ,nor will the anatomy of the nervous system and organs of sense be described anew4 ,the reader will find in ,h4 ,n4 ,martin's ',human ,body1' in ,g4 ,t4 ,ladd's ',physiological ,psychology1' and in all the other standard ,anatomies and ,physiologies1 a mass of information which we must regard as preliminary and take for granted in the present work4#c ,of the functions of the cerebral hemispheres1 however1 since they directly subserve consciousness1 it will be well to give some little account4 ,,footnotes3 #a ,cf4 ,geo4 ,t4 ,ladd3 ,elements of ,physiological ,psychology 7#ahhg71 pt4 iii1 chap4 iii1 #i1 #ab4 #b ,zur ,analysis der ,wirklichkeit1 p4 #dhi4 #c ,nothing is easier than to familiarize one's self with the mammalian brain4 ,get a sheep's head1 a small saw1 chisel1 scalpel and forceps 7all three can best be had from a surgical-instrument maker71 and unravel its parts either by the aid of a human dissecting book1 such as ,holden's ',manual of ,anatomy1' or by the specific directions ad hoc given in such books as ,foster and ,langley's ',practical ,physiology' 7,macmillan7 or ,morrell's ',comparative ,anatomy and ,dissection of ,mammalia' 7,longmans74 ,,chapter ,,ii4 ,,the ,,functions ,,of ,,the ,,brain4 ,if ,i begin chopping the foot of a tree1 its branches are unmoved by my act1 and its leaves murmur as peacefully as ever in the wind4 ,if1 on the contrary1 ,i do violence to the foot of a fellow-man1 the rest of his body instantly responds to the aggression by movements of alarm or defence4 ,the reason of this difference is that the man has a nervous system whilst the tree has none2 and the function of the nervous system is to bring each part into harmonious co-operation with every other4 ,the afferent nerves1 when excited by some physical irritant1 be this as gross in its mode of operation as a chopping axe or as subtle as the waves of light1 conveys the excitement to the nervous centres4 ,the commotion set up in the centres does not stop there1 but discharges itself1 if at all strong1 through the efferent nerves into muscles and glands1 exciting movements of the limbs and viscera1 or acts of secretion1 which vary with the animal1 and with the irritant applied4 ,these acts of response have usually the common character of being of service4 ,they ward off the noxious stimulus and support the beneficial one2 whilst if1 in itself indifferent1 the stimulus be a sign of some distant circumstance of practical importance1 the animal's acts are addressed to this circumstance so as to avoid its perils or secure its benefits1 as the case may be4 ,to take a common example1 if ,i hear the conductor calling ',all aboard6' as ,i enter the depot1 my heart first stops1 then palpitates1 and my legs respond to the air-waves falling on my tympanum by quickening their movements4 ,if ,i stumble as ,i run1 the sensation of falling provokes a movement of the hands towards the direction of the fall1 the effect of which is to shield the body from too sudden a shock4 ,if a cinder enter my eye1 its lids close forcibly and a copious flow of tears tends to wash it out4 ,these three responses to a sensational stimulus differ1 however1 in many respects4 ,the closure of the eye and the lachrymation are quite involuntary1 and so is the disturbance of the heart4 ,such involuntary responses we know as 'reflex' acts4 ,the motion of the arms to break the shock of falling may also be called reflex1 since it occurs too quickly to be deliberately intended4 ,whether it be instinctive or whether it result from the pedestrian education of childhood may be doubtful2 it is1 at any rate1 less automatic than the previous acts1 for a man might by conscious effort learn to perform it more skilfully1 or even to suppress it altogether4 ,actions of this kind1 into which instinct and volition enter upon equal terms1 have been called 'semi-reflex4' ,the act of running towards the train1 on the other hand1 has no instinctive element about it4 ,it is purely the result of education1 and is preceded by a consciousness of the purpose to be attained and a distinct mandate of the will4 ,it is a 'voluntary act4' ,thus the animal's reflex and voluntary performances shade into each other gradually1 being connected by acts which may often occur automatically1 but may also be modified by conscious intelligence4 ,an outside observer1 unable to perceive the accompanying consciousness1 might be wholly at a loss to discriminate between the automatic acts and those which volition escorted4 ,but if the criterion of mind's existence be the choice of the proper means for the attainment of a supposed end1 all the acts seem to be inspired by intelligence1 for appropriateness characterizes them all alike4 ,this fact1 now1 has led to two quite opposite theories about the relation to consciousness of the nervous functions4 ,some authors1 finding that the higher voluntary ones seem to require the guidance of feeling1 conclude that over the lowest reflexes some such feeling also presides1 though it may be a feeling of which we remain unconscious4 ,others1 finding that reflex and semi-automatic acts may1 notwithstanding their appropriateness1 take place with an unconsciousness apparently complete1 fly to the opposite extreme and maintain that the appropriateness even of voluntary actions owes nothing to the fact that consciousness attends them4 ,they are1 according to these writers1 results of physiological mechanism pure and simple4 ,in a near chapter we shall return to this controversy again4 ,let us now look a little more closely at the brain and at the ways in which its states may be supposed to condition those of the mind4 ,,the ,,frog',s ,,nerve-,,centres4 ,both the minute anatomy and the detailed physiology of the brain are achievements of the present generation1 or rather we may say 7beginning with ,meynert7 of the past twenty years4 ,many points are still obscure and subject to controversy2 but a general way of conceiving the organ has been reached on all hands which in its main feature seems not unlikely to stand1 and which even gives a most plausible scheme of the way in which cerebral and mental operations go hand in hand4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #a4--;,c ,h1 cerebral ,hemispheres2 ,o ,th1 ,optic ,thalami2 ,o ,l1 ,optic ,lobes2 ,cb1 ,cerebellum2 ,m ,o1 ,medulla ,oblongata2 ,s ,c1 ,spinal cord4 ,the best way to enter the subject will be to take a lower creature1 like a frog1 and study by the vivisectional method the functions of his different nerve-centres4 ,the frog's nerve-centres are figured in the accompanying diagram1 which needs no further explanation4 ,i will first proceed to state what happens when various amounts of the anterior parts are removed1 in different frogs1 in the way in which an ordinary student removes them2 that is1 with no extreme precautions as to the purity of the operation4 ,we shall in this way reach a very simple conception of the functions of the various centres1 involving the strongest possible contrast between the cerebral hemispheres and the lower lobes4 ,this sharp conception will have didactic advantages1 for it is often very instructive to start with too simple a formula and correct it later on4 ,our first formula1 as we shall later see1 will have to be softened down somewhat by the results of more careful experimentation both on frogs and birds1 and by those of the most recent observations on dogs1 monkeys1 and man4 ,but it will put us1 from the outset1 in clear possession of some fundamental notions and distinctions which we could otherwise not gain so well1 and none of which the later more completed view will overturn4 ,if1 then1 we reduce the frog's nervous system to the spinal cord alone1 by making a section behind the base of the skull1 between the spinal cord and the medulla oblongata1 thereby cutting off the brain from all connection with the rest of the body1 the frog will still continue to live1 but with a very peculiarly modified activity4 ,it ceases to breathe or swallow2 it lies flat on its belly1 and does not1 like a normal frog1 sit up on its fore paws1 though its hind legs are kept1 as usual1 folded against its body and immediately resume this position if drawn out4 ,if thrown on its back1 it lies there quietly1 without turning over like a normal frog4 ,locomotion and voice seem entirely abolished4 ,if we suspend it by the nose1 and irritate different portions of its skin by acid1 it performs a set of remarkable 'defensive' movements calculated to wipe away the irritant4 ,thus1 if the breast be touched1 both fore paws will rub it vigorously2 if we touch the outer side of the elbow1 the hind foot of the same side will rise directly to the spot and wipe it4 ,the back of the foot will rub the knee if that be attacked1 whilst if the foot be cut away1 the stump will make ineffectual movements1 and then1 in many frogs1 a pause will come1 as if for deliberation1 succeeded by a rapid passage of the opposite unmutilated foot to the acidulated spot4 ,the most striking character of all these movements1 after their teleological appropriateness1 is their precision4 ,they vary1 in sensitive frogs and with a proper amount of irritation1 so little as almost to resemble in their machine-like regularity the performances of a jumping-jack1 whose legs must twitch whenever you pull the string4 ,the spinal cord of the frog thus contains arrangements of cells and fibres fitted to convert skin irritations into movements of defence4 ,we may call it the centre for defensive movements in this animal4 ,we may indeed go farther than this1 and by cutting the spinal cord in various places find that its separate segments are independent mechanisms1 for appropriate activities of the head and of the arms and legs respectively4 ,the segment governing the arms is especially active1 in male frogs1 in the breeding season2 and these members alone with the breast and back appertaining to them1 everything else being cut away1 will then actively grasp a finger placed between them and remain hanging to it for a considerable time4 ,the spinal cord in other animals has analogous powers4 ,even in man it makes movements of defence4 ,paraplegics draw up their legs when tickled2 and ,robin1 on tickling the breast of a criminal an hour after decapitation1 saw the arm and hand move towards the spot4 ,of the lower functions of the mammalian cord1 studied so ably by ,goltz and others1 this is not the place to speak4 ,if1 in a second animal1 the cut be made just behind the optic lobes so that the cerebellum and medulla oblongata remain attached to the cord1 then swallowing1 breathing1 crawling1 and a rather enfeebled jumping and swimming are added to the movements previously observed4#d ,there are other reflexes too4 ,the animal1 thrown on his back1 immediately turns over to his belly4 ,placed in a shallow bowl1 which is floated on water and made to rotate1 he responds to the rotation by first turning his head and then waltzing around with his entire body1 in the opposite direction to the whirling of the bowl4 ,if his support be tilted so that his head points downwards1 he points it up2 he points it down if it be pointed upwards1 to the right if it be pointed to the left1 etc4 ,but his reactions do not go farther than these movements of the head4 ,he will not1 like frogs whose thalami are preserved1 climb up a board if the latter be tilted1 but will slide off it to the ground4 ,if the cut be made on another frog between the thalami and the optic lobes1 the locomotion both on land and water becomes quite normal1 and1 in addition to the reflexes already shown by the lower centres1 he croaks regularly whenever he is pinched under the arms4 ,he compensates rotations1 etc41 by movements of the head1 and turns over from his back2 but still drops off his tilted board4 ,as his optic nerves are destroyed by the usual operation1 it is impossible to say whether he will avoid obstacles placed in his path4 ,when1 finally1 a frog's cerebral hemispheres alone are cut off by a section between them and the thalami which preserves the latter1 an unpractised observer would not at first suspect anything abnormal about the animal4 ,not only is he capable1 on proper instigation1 of all the acts already described1 but he guides himself by sight1 so that if an obstacle be set up between him and the light1 and he be forced to move forward1 he either jumps over it or swerves to one side4 ,he manifests sexual passion at the proper season1 and1 unlike an altogether brainless frog1 which embraces anything placed between his arms1 postpones this reflex act until a female of his own species is provided4 ,thus far1 as aforesaid1 a person unfamiliar with frogs might not suspect a mutilation2 but even such a person would soon remark the almost entire absence of spontaneous motion--that is1 motion unprovoked by any present incitation of sense4 ,the continued movements of swimming1 performed by the creature in the water1 seem to be the fatal result of the contact of that fluid with its skin4 ,they cease when a stick1 for example1 touches his hands4 ,this is a sensible irritant towards which the feet are automatically drawn by reflex action1 and on which the animal remains sitting4 ,he manifests no hunger1 and will suffer a fly to crawl over his nose unsnapped at4 ,fear1 too1 seems to have deserted him4 ,in a word1 he is an extremely complex machine whose actions1 so far as they go1 tend to self-preservation2 but still a machine1 in this sense--that it seems to contain no incalculable element4 ,by applying the right sensory stimulus to him we are almost as certain of getting a fixed response as an organist is of hearing a certain tone when he pulls out a certain stop4 ,but now if to the lower centres we add the cerebral hemispheres1 or if1 in other words1 we make an intact animal the subject of our observations1 all this is changed4 ,in addition to the previous responses to present incitements of sense1 our frog now goes through long and complex acts of locomotion spontaneously1 or as if moved by what in ourselves we should call an idea4 ,his reactions to outward stimuli vary their form1 too4 ,instead of making simple defensive movements with his hind legs like a headless frog if touched1 or of giving one or two leaps and then sitting still like a hemisphereless one1 he makes persistent and varied efforts at escape1 as if1 not the mere contact of the physiologist's hand1 but the notion of danger suggested by it were now his spur4 ,led by the feeling of hunger1 too1 he goes in search of insects1 fish1 or smaller frogs1 and varies his procedure with each species of victim4 ,the physiologist cannot by manipulating him elicit croaking1 crawling up a board1 swimming or stopping1 at will4 ,his conduct has become incalculable4 ,we can no longer foretell it exactly4 ,effort to escape is his dominant reaction1 but he may do anything else1 even swell up and become perfectly passive in our hands4 99 99 99 99 99 ,such are the phenomena commonly observed1 and such the impressions which one naturally receives4 ,certain general conclusions follow irresistibly4 ,first of all the following3 ,the acts of all the centres involve the use of the same muscles4 ,when a headless frog's hind leg wipes the acid1 he calls into play all the leg-muscles which a frog with his full medulla oblongata and cerebellum uses when he turns from his back to his belly4 ,their contractions are1 however1 combined differently in the two cases1 so that the results vary widely4 ,we must consequently conclude that specific arrangements of cells and fibres exist in the cord for wiping1 in the medulla for turning over1 etc4 ,similarly they exist in the thalami for jumping over seen obstacles and for balancing the moved body2 in the optic lobes for creeping backwards1 or what not4 ,but in the hemispheres1 since the presence of these organs brings no new elementary form of movement with it1 but only determines differently the occasions on which the movements shall occur1 making the usual stimuli less fatal and machine-like2 we need suppose no such machinery directly co-ordinative of muscular contractions to exist4 ,we may rather assume1 when the mandate for a wiping-movement is sent forth by the hemispheres1 that a current goes straight to the wiping-arrangement in the spinal cord1 exciting this arrangement as a whole4 ,similarly1 if an intact frog wishes to jump over a stone which he sees1 all he need do is to excite from the hemispheres the jumping-centre in the thalami or wherever it may be1 and the latter will provide for the details of the execution4 ,it is like a general ordering a colonel to make a certain movement1 but not telling him how it shall be done4#e ,the same muscle1 then1 is repeatedly represented at different heights2 and at each it enters into a different combination with other muscles to co-operate in some special form of concerted movement4 ,at each height the movement is discharged by some particular form of sensorial stimulus4 ,thus in the cord1 the skin alone occasions movements2 in the upper part of the optic lobes1 the eyes are added2 in the thalami1 the semi-circular canals would seem to play a part2 whilst the stimuli which discharge the hemispheres would seem not so much to be elementary sorts of sensation1 as groups of sensations forming determinate objects or things4 ,prey is not pursued nor are enemies shunned by ordinary hemisphereless frogs4 ,those reactions upon complex circumstances which we call instinctive rather than reflex1 are already in this animal dependent on the brain's highest lobes1 and still more is this the case with animals higher in the zoological scale4 ,the results are just the same if1 instead of a frog1 we take a pigeon1 and cut out his hemispheres as they are ordinarily cut out for a lecture-room demonstration4 ,there is not a movement natural to him which this brainless bird cannot perform if expressly excited thereto2 only the inner promptings seem deficient1 and when left to himself he spends most of his time crouched on the ground with his head sunk between his shoulders as if asleep4 ,,general ,,notion ,,of ,,hemispheres4 ,all these facts lead us1 when we think about them1 to some such explanatory conception as this3 ,the lower centres act from present sensational stimuli alone2 the hemispheres act from perceptions and considerations1 the sensations which they may receive serving only as suggesters of these4 ,but what are perceptions but sensations grouped together8 and what are considerations but expectations1 in the fancy1 of sensations which will be felt one way or another according as action takes this course or that8 ,if ,i step aside on seeing a rattlesnake1 from considering how dangerous an animal he is1 the mental materials which constitute my prudential reflection are images more or less vivid of the movement of his head1 of a sudden pain in my leg1 of a state of terror1 a swelling of the limb1 a chill1 delirium1 unconsciousness1 etc41 etc41 and the ruin of my hopes4 ,but all these images are constructed out of my past experiences4 ,they are reproductions of what ,i have felt or witnessed4 ,they are1 in short1 remote sensations2 and the difference between the hemisphereless animal and the whole one may be concisely expressed by saying that the one obeys absent1 the other only present1 objects4 ,the hemispheres would then seem to be the seat of memory4 ,vestiges of past experience must in some way be stored up in them1 and must1 when aroused by present stimuli1 first appear as representations of distant goods and evils2 and then must discharge into the appropriate motor channels for warding off the evil and securing the benefits of the good4 ,if we liken the nervous currents to electric currents1 we can compare the nervous system1 ,c1 below the hemispheres to a direct circuit from sense-organ to muscle along the line ,s 444 ,c 444 ,m of ,fig4 #b4 ,the hemisphere1 ,h1 adds the long circuit or loop-line through which the current may pass when for any reason the direct line is not used4 ,thus1 a tired wayfarer on a hot day throws himself on the damp earth beneath a maple-tree4 ,the sensations of delicious rest and coolness pouring themselves through the direct line would naturally discharge into the muscles of complete extension3 he would abandon himself to the dangerous repose4 ,but the loop-line being open1 part of the current is drafted along it1 and awakens rheumatic or catarrhal reminiscences1 which prevail over the instigations of sense1 and make the man arise and pursue his way to where he may enjoy his rest more safely4 ,presently we shall examine the manner in which the hemispheric loop-line may be supposed to serve as a reservoir for such reminiscences as these4 ,meanwhile ,i will ask the reader to notice some corollaries of its being such a reservoir4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #b4 ,first1 no animal without it can deliberate1 pause1 postpone1 nicely weigh one motive against another1 or compare4 ,prudence1 in a word1 is for such a creature an impossible virtue4 ,accordingly we see that nature removes those functions in the exercise of which prudence is a virtue from the lower centres and hands them over to the cerebrum4 ,wherever a creature has to deal with complex features of the environment1 prudence is a virtue4 ,the higher animals have so to deal2 and the more complex the features1 the higher we call the animals4 ,the fewer of his acts1 then1 can such an animal perform without the help of the organs in question4 ,in the frog many acts devolve wholly on the lower centres2 in the bird fewer2 in the rodent fewer still2 in the dog very few indeed2 and in apes and men hardly any at all4 ,the advantages of this are obvious4 ,take the prehension of food as an example and suppose it to be a reflex performance of the lower centres4 ,the animal will be condemned fatally and irresistibly to snap at it whenever presented1 no matter what the circumstances may be2 he can no more disobey this prompting than water can refuse to boil when a fire is kindled under the pot4 ,his life will again and again pay the forfeit of his gluttony4 ,exposure to retaliation1 to other enemies1 to traps1 to poisons1 to the dangers of repletion1 must be regular parts of his existence4 ,his lack of all thought by which to weigh the danger against the attractiveness of the bait1 and of all volition to remain hungry a little while longer1 is the direct measure of his lowness in the mental scale4 ,and those fishes which1 like our cunners and sculpins1 are no sooner thrown back from the hook into the water1 than they automatically seize the hook again1 would soon expiate the degradation of their intelligence by the extinction of their type1 did not their exaggerated fecundity atone for their imprudence4 ,appetite and the acts it prompts have consequently become in all higher vertebrates functions of the cerebrum4 ,they disappear when the physiologist's knife has left the subordinate centres alone in place4 ,the brainless pigeon will starve though left on a corn-heap4 ,take again the sexual function4 ,in birds this devolves exclusively upon the hemispheres4 ,when these are shorn away the pigeon pays no attention to the billings and cooings of its mate4 ,and ,goltz found that a bitch in heat would excite no emotion in male dogs who had suffered large loss of cerebral tissue4 ,those who have read ,darwin's ',descent of ,man' know what immense importance in the amelioration of the breed in birds this author ascribes to the mere fact of sexual selection4 ,the sexual act is not performed until every condition of circumstance and sentiment is fulfilled1 until time1 place1 and partner all are fit4 ,but in frogs and toads this passion devolves on the lower centres4 ,they show consequently a machine-like obedience to the present incitement of sense1 and an almost total exclusion of the power of choice4 ,copulation occurs per fas aut nefas1 occasionally between males1 often with dead females1 in puddles exposed on the highway1 and the male may be cut in two without letting go his hold4 ,every spring an immense sacrifice of batrachian life takes place from these causes alone4 ,no one need be told how dependent all human social elevation is upon the prevalence of chastity4 ,hardly any factor measures more than this the difference between civilisation and barbarism4 ,physiologically interpreted1 chastity means nothing more than the fact that present solicitations of sense are overpowered by suggestions of sthetic and moral fitness which the circumstances awaken in the cerebrum2 and that upon the inhibitory or permissive influence of these alone action directly depends4 ,within the psychic life due to the cerebrum itself the same general distinction obtains1 between considerations of the more immediate and considerations of the more remote4 ,in all ages the man whose determinations are swayed by reference to the most distant ends has been held to possess the highest intelligence4 ,the tramp who lives from hour to hour2 the bohemian whose engagements are from day to day2 the bachelor who builds but for a single life2 the father who acts for another generation2 the patriot who thinks of a whole community and many generations2 and finally1 the philosopher and saint whose cares are for humanity and for eternity1--these range themselves in an unbroken hierarchy1 wherein each successive grade results from an increased manifestation of the special form of action by which the cerebral centres are distinguished from all below them4 ,in the 'loop-line' along which the memories and ideas of the distant are supposed to lie1 the action1 so far as it is a physical process1 must be interpreted after the type of the action in the lower centres4 ,if regarded here as a reflex process1 it must be reflex there as well4 ,the current in both places runs out into the muscles only after it has first run in2 but whilst the path by which it runs out is determined in the lower centres by reflections few and fixed amongst the cell-arrangements1 in the hemispheres the reflections are many and instable4 ,this1 it will be seen1 is only a difference of degree and not of kind1 and does not change the reflex type4 ,the conception of all action as conforming to this type is the fundamental conception of modern nerve-physiology4 ,so much for our general preliminary conception of the nerve-centres6 ,let us define it more distinctly before we see how well physiological observation will bear it out in detail4 ,,the ,,education ,,of ,,the ,,hemispheres4 ,nerve-currents run in through sense-organs1 and whilst provoking reflex acts in the lower centres1 they arouse ideas in the hemispheres1 which either permit the reflexes in question1 check them1 or substitute others for them4 ,all ideas being in the last resort reminiscences1 the question to answer is3 ,how can processes become organized in the hemispheres which correspond to reminiscences in the mind8#f ,nothing is easier than to conceive a possible way in which this might be done1 provided four assumptions be granted4 ,these assumptions 7which after all are inevitable in any event7 are3 #a7 ,the same cerebral process which1 when aroused from without by a sense-organ1 gives the perception of an object1 will give an idea of the same object when aroused by other cerebral processes from within4 #b7 ,if processes #a1 #b1 #c1 #d have once been aroused together or in immediate succession1 any subsequent arousal of any one of them 7whether from without or within7 will tend to arouse the others in the original order4 ,this is the so-called law of association4 #c7 ,every sensorial excitement propagated to a lower centre tends to spread upwards and arouse an idea4 #d7 ,every idea tends ultimately either to produce a movement or to check one which otherwise would be produced4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #c4 ,suppose now 7these assumptions being granted7 that we have a baby before us who sees a candle-flame for the first time1 and1 by virtue of a reflex tendency common in babies of a certain age1 extends his hand to grasp it1 so that his fingers get burned4 ,so far we have two reflex currents in play3 first1 from the eye to the extension movement1 along the line #a--a--a--a of ,fig4 #c2 and second1 from the finger to the movement of drawing back the hand1 along the line #b--b--b--b4 ,if this were the baby's whole nervous system1 and if the reflexes were once for all organic1 we should have no alteration in his behavior1 no matter how often the experience recurred4 ,the retinal image of the flame would always make the arm shoot forward1 the burning of the finger would always send it back4 ,but we know that 'the burnt child dreads the fire1' and that one experience usually protects the fingers forever4 ,the point is to see how the hemispheres may bring this result to pass4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #d4--,the dotted lines stand for afferent paths1 the broken lines for paths between the centres2 the entire lines for efferent paths4 ,we must complicate our diagram 7see ,fig4 #d74 ,let the current #a--a1 from the eye1 discharge upward as well as downward when it reaches the lower centre for vision1 and arouse the perceptional process s#a in the hemispheres2 let the feeling of the arm's extension also send up a current which leaves a trace of itself1 m#a2 let the burnt finger leave an analogous trace1 s#b2 and let the movement of retraction leave m#b4 ,these four processes will now1 by virtue of assumption #b71 be associated together by the path s#a--m#a--s#b--m#b1 running from the first to the last1 so that if anything touches off s#a1 ideas of the extension1 of the burnt finger1 and of the retraction will pass in rapid succession through the mind4 ,the effect on the child's conduct when the candle-flame is next presented is easy to imagine4 ,of course the sight of it arouses the grasping reflex2 but it arouses simultaneously the idea thereof1 together with that of the consequent pain1 and of the final retraction of the hand2 and if these cerebral processes prevail in strength over the immediate sensation in the centres below1 the last idea will be the cue by which the final action is discharged4 ,the grasping will be arrested in mid-career1 the hand drawn back1 and the child's fingers saved4 ,in all this we assume that the hemispheres do not natively couple any particular sense-impression with any special motor discharge4 ,they only register1 and preserve traces of1 such couplings as are already organized in the reflex centres below4 ,but this brings it inevitably about that1 when a chain of experiences has been already registered and the first link is impressed once again from without1 the last link will often be awakened in idea long before it can exist in fact4 ,and if this last link were previously coupled with a motion1 that motion may now come from the mere ideal suggestion without waiting for the actual impression to arise4 ,thus an animal with hemispheres acts in anticipation of future things2 or1 to use our previous formula1 he acts from considerations of distant good and ill4 ,if we give the name of partners to the original couplings of impressions with motions in a reflex way1 then we may say that the function of the hemispheres is simply to bring about exchanges among the partners4 ,movement mn1 which natively is sensation sn's partner1 becomes through the hemispheres the partner of sensation s#a1 s#b1 or s#c4 ,it is like the great commutating switch-board at a central telephone station4 ,no new elementary process is involved2 no impression nor any motion peculiar to the hemispheres2 but any number of combinations impossible to the lower machinery taken alone1 and an endless consequent increase in the possibilities of behavior on the creature's part4 ,all this1 as a mere scheme1#g is so clear and so concordant with the general look of the facts as almost to impose itself on our belief2 but it is anything but clear in detail4 ,the brain-physiology of late years has with great effort sought to work out the paths by which these couplings of sensations with movements take place1 both in the hemispheres and in the centres below4 ,so we must next test our scheme by the facts discovered m this direction4 ,we shall conclude1 ,i think1 after taking them all into account1 that the scheme probably makes the lower centres too machine-like and the hemispheres not quite machine-like enough1 and must consequently be softened down a little4 ,so much ,i may say in advance4 ,meanwhile1 before plunging into the details which await us1 it will somewhat clear our ideas if we contrast the modern way of looking at the matter with the phrenological conception which but lately preceded it4 ,,the ,,phrenological ,,conception4 ,in a certain sense ,gall was the first to seek to explain in detail how the brain could subserve our mental operations4 ,his way of proceeding was only too simple4 ,he took the faculty-psychology as his ultimatum on the mental side1 and he made no farther psychological analysis4 ,wherever he found an individual with some strongly-marked trait of character he examined his head2 and if he found the latter prominent in a certain region1 he said without more ado that that region was the 'organ' of the trait or faculty in question4 ,the traits were of very diverse constitution1 some being simple sensibilities like 'weight' or 'color2' some being instinctive tendencies like 'alimentiveness' or 'amativeness2' and others1 again1 being complex resultants like 'conscientiousness1' 'individuality4' ,phrenology fell promptly into disrepute among scientific men because observation seemed to show that large faculties and large 'bumps' might fail to coexist2 because the scheme of ,gall was so vast as hardly to admit of accurate determination at all--who of us can say even of his own brothers whether their perceptions of weight and of time are well developed or not8--because the followers of ,gall and ,spurzheim were unable to reform these errors in any appreciable degree2 and1 finally1 because the whole analysis of faculties was vague and erroneous from a psychologic point of view4 ,popular professors of the lore have nevertheless continued to command the admiration of popular audiences2 and there seems no doubt that ,phrenology1 however little it satisfy our scientific curiosity about the functions of different portions of the brain1 may still be1 in the hands of intelligent practitioners1 a useful help in the art of reading character4 ,a hooked nose and a firm jaw are usually signs of practical energy2 soft1 delicate hands are signs of refined sensibility4 ,even so may a prominent eye be a sign of power over language1 and a bull-neck a sign of sensuality4 ,but the brain behind the eye and neck need no more be the organ of the signified faculty than the jaw is the organ of the will or the hand the organ of refinement4 ,these correlations between mind and body are1 however1 so frequent that the 'characters' given by phrenologists are often remarkable for knowingness and insight4 ,phrenology hardly does more than restate the problem4 ,to answer the question1 ,why do ,i like children8 by saying1 ,because you have a large organ of philoprogenitiveness1 but renames the phenomenon to be explained4 ,what is my philoprogenitiveness8 ,of what mental elements does it consist8 ,and how can a part of the brain be its organ8 ,a science of the mind must reduce such complex manifestations as 'philoprogenitiveness' to their elements4 ,a science of the brain must point out the functions of its elements4 ,a science of the relations of mind and brain must show how the elementary ingredients of the former correspond to the elementary functions of the latter4 ,but phrenology1 except by occasional coincidence1 takes no account of elements at all4 ,its 'faculties1' as a rule1 are fully equipped persons in a particular mental attitude4 ,take1 for example1 the 'faculty' of language4 ,it involves in reality a host of distinct powers4 ,we must first have images of concrete things and ideas of abstract qualities and relations2 we must next have the memory of words and then the capacity so to associate each idea or image with a particular word that1 when the word is heard1 the idea shall forthwith enter our mind4 ,we must conversely1 as soon as the idea arises in our mind1 associate with it a mental image of the word1 and by means of this image we must innervate our articulatory apparatus so as to reproduce the word as physical sound4 ,to read or to write a language other elements still must be introduced4 ,but it is plain that the faculty of spoken language alone is so complicated as to call into play almost all the elementary powers which the mind possesses1 memory1 imagination1 association1 judgment1 and volition4 ,a portion of the brain competent to be the adequate seat of such a faculty would needs be an entire brain in miniature1--just as the faculty itself is really a specification of the entire man1 a sort of homunculus4 ,yet just such homunculi are for the most part the phrenological organs4 ,as ,lange says3 ,we have a parliament of little men together1 each one of whom1 as happens also in a real parliament1 possesses but a single idea which he ceaselessly strives to make prevail--benevolence1 firmness1 hope1 and the rest4 ,instead of one soul1 phrenology gives us forty1 each alone as enigmatic as the full aggregate psychic life can be4 ,instead of dividing the latter into effective elements1 she divides it into personal beings of peculiar character4444 ',herr ,pastor1 sure there be a horse inside1' called out the peasants to ,x after their spiritual shepherd had spent hours in explaining to them the construction of the locomotive4 ,with a horse inside truly everything becomes clear1 even though it be a queer enough sort of horse--the horse itself calls for no explanation6 ,phrenology takes a start to get beyond the point of view of the ghost-like soul entity1 but she ends by populating the whole skull with ghosts of the same order4#h ,modern ,science conceives of the matter in a very different way4 ,brain and mind alike consist of simple elements1 sensory and motor4 ,all nervous centres1 says ,dr4 ,hughlings ,jackson1#i from the lowest to the very highest 7the substrata of consciousness71 are made up of nothing else than nervous arrangements1 representing impressions and movements4444 ,i do not see of what other materials the brain can be made4 ,meynert represents the matter similarly when he calls the cortex of the hemispheres the surface of projection for every muscle and every sensitive point of the body4 ,the muscles and the sensitive points are represented each by a cortical point1 and the brain is nothing but the sum of all these cortical points1 to which1 on the mental side1 as many ideas correspond4 ,ideas of sensation1 ideas of motion are1 on the other hand1 the elementary factors out of which the mind is built up by the associationists in psychology4 ,there is a complete parallelism between the two analyses1 the same diagram of little dots1 circles1 or triangles joined by lines symbolizes equally well the cerebral and mental processes3 the dots stand for cells or ideas1 the lines for fibres or associations4 ,we shall have later to criticise this analysis so far as it relates to the mind2 but there is no doubt that it is a most convenient1 and has been a most useful1 hypothesis1 formulating the facts in an extremely natural way4 ,if1 then1 we grant that motor and sensory ideas variously associated are the materials of the mind1 all we need do to get a complete diagram of the mind's and the brain's relations should be to ascertain which sensory idea corresponds to which sensational surface of projection1 and which motor idea to which muscular surface of projection4 ,the associations would then correspond to the fibrous connections between the various surfaces4 ,this distinct cerebral localization of the various elementary sorts of idea has been treated as a 'postulate' by many physiologists 7e4g4 ,munk72 and the most stirring controversy in nerve-physiology which the present generation has seen has been the localization-question4 ,,the ,,localization ,,of ,,functions ,,in ,,the ,,hemispheres4 ,up to #ahgj1 the opinion which prevailed was that which the experiments of ,flourens on pigeons' brains had made plausible1 namely1 that the different functions of the hemispheres were not locally separated1 but carried on each by the aid of the whole organ4 ,hitzig in #ahgj showed1 however1 that in a dog's brain highly specialized movements could be produced by electric irritation of determinate regions of the cortex2 and ,ferrier and ,munk1 half a dozen years later1 seemed to prove1 either by irritations or excisions or both1 that there were equally determinate regions connected with the senses of sight1 touch1 hearing1 and smell4 ,munk's special sensorial localizations1 however1 disagreed with ,ferrier's2 and ,goltz1 from his extirpation-experiments1 came to a conclusion adverse to strict localization of any kind4 ,the controversy is not yet over4 ,i will not pretend to say anything more of it historically1 but give a brief account of the condition in which matters at present stand4 ,the one thing which is perfectly well established is this1 that the 'central' convolutions1 on either side of the fissure of ,rolando1 and 7at least in the monkey7 the calloso-marginal convolution 7which is continuous with them on the mesial surface where one hemisphere is applied against the other71 form the region by which all the motor incitations which leave the cortex pass out1 on their way to those executive centres in the region of the pons1 medulla1 and spinal cord from which the muscular contractions are discharged in the last resort4 ,the existence of this so-called 'motor zone' is established by the lines of evidence successively given below3 7#a7 ,cortical ,irritations4 ,electrical currents of small intensity applied to the surface of the said convolutions in dogs1 monkeys1 and other animals1 produce well-defined movements in face1 fore-limb1 hind-limb1 tail1 or trunk1 according as one point or another of the surface is irritated4 ,these movements affect almost invariably the side opposite to the brain irritations3 ,if the left hemisphere be excited1 the movement is of the right leg1 side of face1 etc4 ,all the objections at first raised against the validity of these experiments have been overcome4 ,the movements are certainly not due to irritations of the base of the brain by the downward spread of the current1 for3 a7 mechanical irritations will produce them1 though less easily than electrical2 b7 shifting the electrodes to a point close by on the surface changes the movement in ways quite inexplicable by changed physical conduction of the current2 c7 if the cortical 'centre' for a certain movement be cut under with a sharp knife but left in situ1 although the electric conductivity is physically unaltered by the operation1 the physiological conductivity is gone and currents of the same strength no longer produce the movements which they did2 d7 the time-interval between the application of the electric stimulus to the cortex and the resultant movement is what it would be if the cortex acted physiologically and not merely physically in transmitting the irritation4 ,it is namely a well-known fact that when a nerve-current has to pass through the spinal cord to excite a muscle by reflex action1 the time is longer than if it passes directly down the motor nerve3 the cells of the cord take a certain time to discharge4 ,similarly1 when a stimulus is applied directly to the cortex the muscle contracts two or three hundredths of a second later than it does when the place on the cortex is cut away and the electrodes are applied to the white fibres below4#aj 7#b7 ,cortical ,ablations4 ,when the cortical spot which is found to produce a movement of the fore-leg1 in a dog1 is excised 7see spot #e in ,fig4 #e71 the leg in question becomes peculiarly affected4 ,at first it seems paralyzed4 ,soon1 however1 it is used with the other legs1 but badly4 ,the animal does not bear his weight on it1 allows it to rest on its dorsal surface1 stands with it crossing the other leg1 does not remove it if it hangs over the edge of a table1 can no longer 'give the paw' at word of command if able to do so before the operation1 does not use it for scratching the ground1 or holding a bone as formerly1 lets it slip out when running on a smooth surface or when shaking himself1 etc41 etc4 ,sensibility of all kinds seems diminished as well as motility1 but of this ,i shall speak later on4 ,moreover the dog tends in voluntary movements to swerve towards the side of the brain-lesion instead of going straight forward4 ,all these symptoms gradually decrease1 so that even with a very severe brain-lesion the dog may be outwardly indistinguishable from a well dog after eight or ten weeks4 ,still1 a slight chloroformization will reproduce the disturbances1 even then4 ,there is a certain appearance of ataxic in-coordination in the movements--the dog lifts his fore-feet high and brings them down with more strength than usual1 and yet the trouble is not ordinary lack of co-ordination4 ,neither is there paralysis4 ,the strength of whatever movements are made is as great as ever--dogs with extensive destruction of the motor zone can jump as high and bite as hard as ever they did1 but they seem less easily moved to do anything with the affected parts4 ,dr4 ,loeb1 who has studied the motor disturbances of dogs more carefully than any one1 conceives of them en masse as effects of an increased inertia in all the processes of innervation towards the side opposed to the lesion4 ,all such movements require an unwonted effort for their execution2 and when only the normally usual effort is made they fall behind in effectiveness4#aa ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #e4--,left ,hemisphere of ,dog's ,brain1 after ,ferrier4 ,a1 the fissure of ,sylvius4 ,b1 the crucial sulcus4 ,o1 the olfactory bulb4 ,i1 ,,ii1 ,,iii1 ,,iv1 indicate the first1 second1 third1 and fourth external convolutions respectively4 7#a71 7#d71 and 7#e7 are on the sigmoid gyrus4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #f4--,left ,hemisphere of ,monkey's ,brain4 ,outer ,surface4 ,even when the entire motor zone of a dog is removed1 there is no permanent paralysis of any part1 but only this curious sort of relative inertia when the two sides of the body are compared2 and this itself becomes hardly noticeable after a number of weeks have elapsed4 ,prof4 ,goltz has described a dog whose entire left hemisphere was destroyed1 and who retained only a slight motor inertia on the right half of the body4 ,in particular he could use his right paw for holding a bone whilst gnawing it1 or for reaching after a piece of meat4 ,had he been taught to give his paw ,before the operations1 it would have been curious to see whether that faculty also came back4 ,his tactile sensibility was permanently diminished on the right side4#ab ,in monkeys a genuine paralysis follows upon ablations of the cortex in the motor region4 ,this paralysis affects parts of the body which vary with the brain-parts removed4 ,the monkey's opposite arm or leg hangs flaccid1 or at most takes a small part in associated movements4 ,when the entire region is removed there is a genuine and permanent hemiplegia in which the arm is more affected than the leg2 and this is followed months later by contracture of the muscles1 as in man after inveterate hemiplegia4#ac ,according to ,schaefer and ,horsley1 the trunk-muscles also become paralyzed after destruction of the marginal convolution on both sides 7see ,fig4 #g74 ,these differences between dogs and monkeys show the danger of drawing general conclusions from experiments done on any one sort of animal4 ,i subjoin the figures given by the last-named authors of the motor regions in the monkey's brain4#ad ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #g4--,left ,hemisphere of ,monkey's ,brain4 ,mesial ,surface4 ,in man we are necessarily reduced to the observation post-mortem of cortical ablations produced by accident or disease 7tumor1 hemorrhage1 softening1 etc474 ,what results during life from such conditions is either localized spasm1 or palsy of certain muscles of the opposite side4 ,the cortical regions which invariably produce these results are homologous with those which we have just been studying in the dog1 cat1 ape1 etc4 ,figs4 #h and #i show the result of #afi cases carefully studied by ,exner4 ,the parts shaded are regions where lesions produced no motor disturbance4 ,those left white were1 on the contrary1 never injured without motor disturbances of some sort4 ,where the injury to the cortical substance is profound in man1 the paralysis is permanent and is succeeded by muscular rigidity in the paralyzed parts1 just as it may be in the monkey4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #h4--,right ,hemisphere of ,human ,brain4 ,lateral ,surface4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #i4--,right ,hemisphere of ,human ,brain4 ,mesial ,surface4 7#c7 ,descending degenerations show the intimate connection of the rolandic regions of the cortex with the motor tracts of the cord4 ,when1 either in man or in the lower animals1 these regions are destroyed1 a peculiar degenerative change known as secondary sclerosis is found to extend downwards through the white fibrous substance of the brain in a perfectly definite manner1 affecting certain distinct strands which pass through the inner capsule1 crura1 and pons1 into the anterior pyramids of the medulla oblongata1 and from thence 7partly crossing to the other side7 downwards into the anterior 7direct7 and lateral 7crossed7 columns of the spinal cord4 7#d7 ,anatomical proof of the continuity of the rolandic regions with these motor columns of the cord is also clearly given4 ,flechsig's ',pyramidenbahn' forms an uninterrupted strand 7distinctly traceable in human embryos1 before its fibres have acquired their white 'medullary sheath'7 passing upwards from the pyramids of the medulla1 and traversing the internal capsule and corona radiata to the convolutions in question 7,fig4 #aj74 ,none of the inferior gray matter of the brain seems to have any connection with this important fibrous strand4 ,it passes directly from the cortex to the motor arrangements in the cord1 depending for its proper nutrition 7as the facts of degeneration show7 on the influence of the cortical cells1 just as motor nerves depend for their nutrition on that of the cells of the spinal cord4 ,electrical stimulation of this motor strand in any accessible part of its course has been shown in dogs to produce movements analogous to those which excitement of the cortical surface calls forth4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #aj4--,schematic ,transverse ,section of ,brain showing ,motor ,strand4--,after ,edinger4 ,one of the most instructive proofs of motor localization in the cortex is that furnished by the disease now called aphemia1 or motor ,aphasia4 ,motor aphasia is neither loss of voice nor paralysis of the tongue or lips4 ,the patient's voice is as strong as ever1 and all the innervations of his hypoglossal and facial nerves1 except those necessary for speaking1 may go on perfectly well4 ,he can laugh and cry1 and even sing2 but he either is unable to utter any words at all2 or a few meaningless stock phrases form his only speech2 or else he speaks incoherently and confusedly1 mispronouncing1 misplacing1 and misusing his words in various degrees4 ,sometimes his speech is a mere broth of unintelligible syllables4 ,in cases of pure motor aphasia the patient recognizes his mistakes and suffers acutely from them4 ,now whenever a patient dies in such a condition as this1 and an examination of his brain is permitted1 it is found that the lowest frontal gyrus 7see ,fig4 #aa7 is the seat of injury4 ,broca first noticed this fact in #ahfa1 and since then the gyrus has gone by the name of ,broca's convolution4 ,the injury in right-handed people is found on the left hemisphere1 and in left-handed people on the right hemisphere4 ,most people1 in fact1 are left-brained1 that is1 all their delicate and specialized movements are handed over to the charge of the left hemisphere4 ,the ordinary right-handedness for such movements is only a consequence of that fact1 a consequence which shows outwardly on account of that extensive decussation of the fibres whereby most of those from the left hemisphere pass to the right half of the body only4 ,but the left-brainedness might exist in equal measure and not show outwardly4 ,this would happen wherever organs on both sides of the body could be governed by the left hemisphere2 and just such a case seems offered by the vocal organs1 in that highly delicate and special motor service which we call speech4 ,either hemisphere can innervate them bilaterally1 just as either seems able to innervate bilaterally the muscles of the trunk1 ribs1 and diaphragm4 ,of the special movements of speech1 however1 it would appear 7from the facts of aphasia7 that the left hemisphere in most persons habitually takes exclusive charge4 ,with that hemisphere thrown out of gear1 speech is undone2 even though the opposite hemisphere still be there for the performance of less specialized acts1 such as the various movements required in eating4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #aa4--,schematic ,profile of ,left ,hemisphere1 with the parts shaded whose destruction causes motor 7',broca'7 and sensory 7',wernicke'7 ,aphasia4 ,it will be noticed that ,broca's region is homologous with the parts ascertained to produce movements of the lips1 tongue1 and larynx when excited by electric currents in apes 7cf4 ,fig4 #f74 ,the evidence is therefore as complete as it well can be that the motor incitations to these organs leave the brain by the lower frontal region4 ,victims of motor aphasia generally have other disorders4 ,one which interests us in this connection has been called agraphia3 they have lost the power to write4 ,they can read writing and understand it2 but either cannot use the pen at all or make egregious mistakes with it4 ,the seat of the lesion here is less well determined1 owing to an insufficient number of good cases to conclude from4#ae ,there is no doubt1 however1 that it is 7in right-handed people7 on the left side1 and little doubt that it consists of elements of the hand-and-arm region specialized for that service1 ,the symptom may exist when there is little or no disability in the hand for other uses4 ,if it does not get well1 the patient usually educates his right hemisphere1 i4e4 learns to write with his left hand4 ,in other cases of which we shall say more a few pages later on1 the patient can write both spontaneously and at dictation1 but cannot read even what he has himself written6 ,all these phenomena are now quite clearly explained by separate brain-centres for the various feelings and movements and tracts for associating these together4 ,but their minute discussion belongs to medicine rather than to general psychology1 and ,i can only use them here to illustrate the principles of motor localization4#af ,under the heads of sight and hearing ,i shall have a little more to say4 ,the different lines of proof which ,i have taken up establish conclusively the proposition that all the motor impulses which leave the cortex pass out1 in healthy animals1 from the convolutions about the fissure of ,rolando4 ,when1 however1 it comes to defining precisely what is involved in a motor impulse leaving the cortex1 things grow more obscure4 ,does the impulse start independently from the convolutions in question1 or does it start elsewhere and merely flow through8 ,and to what particular phase of psychic activity does the activity of these centres correspond8 ,opinions and authorities here divide2 but it will be better1 before entering into these deeper aspects of the problem1 to cast a glance at the facts which have been made out concerning the relations of the cortex to sight1 hearing1 and smell4 ,sight4 ,ferrier was the first in the field here4 ,he found1 when the angular convolution 7that lying between the 'intra parietal' and 'external occipital' fissures1 and bending round the top of the fissure of ,sylvius1 in ,fig4 #f7 was excited in the monkey1 that movements of the eyes and head as if for vision occurred2 and that when it was extirpated1 what he supposed to be total and permanent blindness of the opposite eye followed4 ,munk almost immediately declared total and permanent blindness to follow from destruction of the occipital lobe in monkeys as well as dogs1 and said that the angular gyrus had nothing to do with sight1 but was only the centre for tactile sensibility of the eyeball4 ,hunk's absolute tone about his observations and his theoretic arrogance have led to his ruin as an authority4 ,but he did two things of permanent value4 ,he was the first to distinguish in these vivisections between sensorial and psychic blindness1 and to describe the phenomenon of restitution of the visual function after its first impairment by an operation2 and the first to notice the hemiopic character of the visual disturbances which result when only one hemisphere is injured4 ,sensorial blindness is absolute insensibility to light2 psychic blindness is inability to recognize the meaning of the optical impressions1 as when we see a page of ,chinese print but it suggests nothing to us4 ,a hemiopic disturbance of vision is one in which neither retina is affected in its totality1 but in which1 for example1 the left portion of each retina is blind1 so that the animal sees nothing situated in space towards its right4 ,later observations have corroborated this hemiopic character of all the disturbances of sight from injury to a single hemisphere in the higher animals2 and the question whether an animal's apparent blindness is sensorial or only psychic has1 since ,munk's first publications1 been the most urgent one to answer1 in all observations relative to the function of sight4 ,goltz almost simultaneously with ,ferrier and ,munk reported experiments which led him to deny that the visual function was essentially bound up with any one localized portion of the hemispheres4 ,other divergent results soon came in from many quarters1 so that1 without going into the history of the matter any more1 ,i may report the existing state of the case as follows3#ag ,in fishes1 frogs1 and lizards vision persists when the hemispheres are entirely removed4 ,this is admitted for frogs and fishes even by ,munk1 who denies it for birds4 ,all of ,munk's birds seemed totally blind 7blind sensorially7 after removal of the hemispheres by his operation4 ,the following of a candle by the head and winking at a threatened blow1 which are ordinarily held to prove the retention of crude optical sensations by the lower centres in supposed hemisphereless pigeons1 are by ,munk ascribed to vestiges of the visual sphere of the cortex left behind by the imperfection of the operation4 ,but ,schrader1 who operated after ,munk and with every apparent guarantee of completeness1 found that all his pigeons saw after two or three weeks had elapsed1 and the inhibitions resulting from the wound had passed away4 ,they invariably avoided even the slightest obstacles1 flew very regularly towards certain perches1 etc41 differing toto clo in these respects with certain simply blinded pigeons who were kept with them for comparison4 ,they did not pick up food strewn on the ground1 however4 ,schrader found that they would do this if even a small part of the frontal region of the hemispheres was left1 and ascribes their non-self-feeding when deprived of their occipital cerebrum not to a visual1 but to a motor1 defect1 a sort of alimentary aphasia4#ah ,in presence of such discord as that between ,munk and his opponents one must carefully note how differently significant is loss1 from preservation1 of a function after an operation on the brain4 ,the loss of the function does not necessarily show that it is dependent on the part cut out2 but its preservation does show that it is not dependent3 and this is true though the loss should be observed ninety-nine times and the preservation only once in a hundred similar excisions4 ,that birds and mammals can be blinded by cortical ablation is undoubted2 the only question is1 must they be so8 ,only then can the cortex be certainly called the 'seat of sight4' ,the blindness may always be due to one of those remote effects of the wound on distant parts1 inhibitions1 extensions of inflammation1--interferences1 in a word1--upon which ,brown-,squard and ,goltz have rightly insisted1 and the importance of which becomes more manifest every day4 ,such effects are transient2 whereas the symptoms of deprivation 7,ausfallserscheinungen1 as ,goltz calls them7 which come from the actual loss of the cut-out region must from the nature of the case be permanent4 ,blindness in the pigeons1 so far as it passes away1 cannot possibly be charged to their seat of vision being lost1 but only to some influence which temporarily depresses the activity of that seat4 ,the same is true mutatis mutandis of all the other effects of operations1 and as we pass to mammals we shall see still more the importance of the remark4 ,in rabbits loss of the entire cortex seems compatible with the preservation of enough sight to guide the poor animals' movements1 and enable them to avoid obstacles4 ,christiani's observations and discussions seem conclusively to have established this1 although ,munk found that all his animals were made totally blind4#ai ,in dogs also ,munk found absolute stone-blindness after ablation of the occipital lobes4 ,he went farther and mapped out determinate portions of the cortex thereupon1 which he considered correlated with definite segments of the two retin1 so that destruction of given portions of the cortex produces blindness of the retinal centre1 top1 bottom1 or right or left side1 of the same or opposite eye4 ,there seems little doubt that this definite correlation is mythological4 ,other observers1 ,hitzig1 ,goltz1 ,luciani1 ,loeb1 ,exner1 etc41 find1 whatever part of the cortex may be ablated on one side1 that there usually results a hemiopic disturbance of both eyes1 slight and transient when the anterior lobes are the parts attacked1 grave when an occipital lobe is the seat of injury1 and lasting in proportion to the latter's extent4 ,according to ,loeb1 the defect is a dimness of vision 7'hemiamblyopia'7 in which 7however severe7 the centres remain the best seeing portions of the retina1 just as they are in normal dogs4 ,the lateral or temporal part of each retina seems to be in exclusive connection with the cortex of its own side4 ,the centre and nasal part of each seems1 on the contrary1 to be connected with the cortex of the opposite hemispheres4 ,loeb1 who takes broader views than any one1 conceives the hemiamblyopia as he conceives the motor disturbances1 namely1 as the expression of an increased inertia in the whole optical machinery1 of which the result is to make the animal respond with greater effort to impressions coming from the half of space opposed to the side of the lesion4 ,if a dog has right hemiamblyopia1 say1 and two pieces of meat are hung before him at once1 he invariably turns first to the one on his left4 ,but if the lesion be a slight one1 shaking slightly the piece of meat on his right 7this makes of it a stronger stimulus7 makes him seize upon it first4 ,if only one piece of meat be offered1 he takes it1 on whichever side it be4 ,illustration3 ,,figs4 #ab and #ac4 ,the ,dog's visual centre according to ,munk1 the entire striated region1 ,a1 ,a1 being the exclusive seat of vision1 and the dark central circle1 ,a#a1 being correlated with the retinal centre of the opposite eye4 ,when both occipital lobes are extensively destroyed total blindness may result4 ,munk maps out his ',sehsphre' definitely1 and says that blindness must result when the entire shaded part1 marked ,a1 ,a1 in ,figs4 #ab and #ac1 is involved in the lesion4 ,discrepant reports of other observations he explains as due to incomplete ablation4 ,luciani1 ,goltz1 and ,lannegrace1 however1 contend that they have made complete bilateral extirpations of ,munk's ,sehsphre more than once1 and found a sort of crude indiscriminating sight of objects to return in a few weeks4#bj ,the question whether a dog is blind or not is harder to solve than would at first appear2 for simply blinded dogs1 in places to which they are accustomed1 show little of their loss and avoid all obstacles2 whilst dogs whose occipital lobes are gone may run against things frequently and yet see notwithstanding4 ,the best proof that they may see is that which ,goltz's dogs furnished3 they carefully avoided1 as it seemed1 strips of sunshine or paper on the floor1 as if they were solid obstacles4 ,this no really blind dog would do4 ,luciani tested his dogs when hungry 7a condition which sharpens their attention7 by strewing pieces of meat and pieces of cork before them4 ,if they went straight at them1 they saw2 and if they chose the meat and left the cork1 they saw discriminatingly4 ,the quarrel is very acrimonious2 indeed the subject of localization of functions in the brain seems to have a peculiar effect on the temper of those who cultivate it experimentally4 ,the amount of preserved vision which ,goltz and ,luciani report seems hardly to be worth considering1 on the one hand2 and on the other1 ,munk admits in his penultimate paper that out of #he dogs he only 'succeeded' #d times in his operation of producing complete blindness by complete extirpation of his ',sehsphre4'#ba ,the safe conclusion for us is that ,luciani's diagram1 ,fig4 #ad1 represents something like the truth4 ,the occipital lobes are far more important for vision than any other part of the cortex1 so that their complete destruction makes the animal almost blind4 ,as for the crude sensibility to light which may then remain1 nothing exact is known either about its nature or its seat4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #ad4--;,distribution of the ,visual ,function in the ,cortex1 according to ,luciani4 ,in the monkey1 doctors also disagree4 ,the truth seems1 however1 to be that the occipital lobes in this animal also are the part connected most intimately with the visual function4 ,the function would seem to go on when very small portions of them are left1 for ,ferrier found no 'appreciable impairment' of it after almost complete destruction of them on both sides4 ,on the other hand1 he found complete and permanent blindness to ensue when they and the angular gyri in addition were destroyed on both sides4 ,munk1 as well as ,brown and ,schaefer1 found no disturbance of sight from destroying the angular gyri alone1 although ,ferrier found blindness to ensue4 ,this blindness was probably due to inhibitions exerted in distans1 or to cutting of the white optical fibres passing under the angular gyri on their way to the occipital lobes4 ,brown and ,schaefer got complete and permanent blindness in one monkey from total destruction of both occipital lobes4 ,luciani and ,seppili1 performing this operation on two monkeys1 found that the animals were only mentally1 not sensorially1 blind4 ,after some weeks they saw their food1 but could not distinguish by sight between figs and pieces of cork4 ,luciani and ,seppili seem1 however1 not to have extirpated the entire lobes4 ,when one lobe only is injured the affection of sight is hemiopic in monkeys3 in this all observers agree4 ,on the whole1 then1 ,munk's original location of vision in the occipital lobes is confirmed by the later evidence4#bb ,in man we have more exact results1 since we are not driven to interpret the vision from the outward conduct4 ,on the other hand1 however1 we cannot vivisect1 but must wait for pathological lesions to turn up4 ,the pathologists who have discussed these 7the literature is tedious ad libitum7 conclude that the occipital lobes are the indispensable part for vision in man4 ,hemiopic disturbance in both eyes comes from lesion of either one of them1 and total blindness1 sensorial as well as psychic1 from destruction of both4 ,hemiopia may also result from lesion in other parts1 especially the neighboring angular and supra-marginal gyri1 and it may accompany extensive injury in the motor region of the cortex4 ,in these cases it seems probable that it is due to an actio in distans1 probably to the interruption of fibres proceeding from the occipital lobe4 ,there seem to be a few cases on record where there was injury to the occipital lobes without visual defect4 ,ferrier has collected as many as possible to prove his localization in the angular gyrus4#bc ,a strict application of logical principles would make one of these cases outweigh one hundred contrary ones4 ,and yet1 remembering how imperfect observations may be1 and how individual brains may vary1 it would certainly be rash for their sake to throw away the enormous amount of positive evidence for the occipital lobes4 ,individual variability is always a possible explanation of an anomalous case4 ,there is no more prominent anatomical fact than that of the 'decussation of the pyramids1' nor any more usual pathological fact than its consequence1 that left-handed hemorrhages into the motor region produce right-handed paralyses4 ,and yet the decussation is variable in amount1 and seems sometimes to be absent altogether4#bd ,if1 in such a case as this last1 the left brain were to become the seat of apoplexy1 the left and not the right half of the body would be the one to suffer paralysis4 ,the schema below ,fig4 #ae1 copied from ,dr4 ,seguin1 expresses1 on the whole1 the probable truth about the regions concerned in vision4 ,not the entire occipital lobes1 but the so-called cunei1 and the first convolutions1 are the cortical parts most intimately concerned4 ,nothnagel agrees with ,seguin in this limitation of the essential tracts4#be ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #ae4--,scheme of the mechanism of vision1 after ,seguin4 ,the cuneus convolution 7,cu7 of the right occipital lobe is supposed to be injured1 and all the parts which lead to it are darkly shaded to show that they fail to exert their function4 ,f4 ,o4 are the intra-hemispheric optical fibres4 ,p4 ,o4 ,c4 is the region of the lower optic centres 7corpora geniculata and quadrigemina74 ,t4 ,o4 ,d4 is the right optic tract2 ,c1 the chiasma2 ,f4 ,l4 ,d4 are the fibres going to the lateral or temporal half ,t of the right retina2 and ,f4 ,c4 ,s4 are those going to the central or nasal half of the left retina4 ,o4 ,d4 is the right1 and ,o4 ,s4 the left eyeball4 ,the rightward half of each is therefore blind3 in other words1 the right nasal field1 ,r4 ,n4 ,f41 and the left temporal field ,l4 ,t4 ,f41 have become invisible to the subject with the lesion at ,cu4 99 99 99 99 99 ,a most interesting effect of cortical disorder is mental blindness4 ,this consists not so much in insensibility to optical impressions1 as in inability to understand them4 ,psychologically it is interpretable as loss of associations between optical sensations and what they signify2 and any interruption of the paths between the optic centres and the centres for other ideas ought to bring it about4 ,thus1 printed letters of the alphabet1 or words1 signify certain sounds and certain articulatory movements4 ,if the connection between the articulating or auditory centres1 on the one hand1 and the visual centres on the other1 be ruptured we ought a priori to expect that the sight of words would fail to awaken the idea of their sound1 or the movement for pronouncing them4 ,we ought1 in short1 to have alexia1 or inability to read3 and this is just what we do have in many cases of extensive injury about the fronto-temporal regions1 as a complication of aphasic disease4 ,nothnagel suggests that whilst the cuneus is the seat of optical sensations1 the other parts of the occipital lobe may be the field of optical memories and ideas1 from the loss of which mental blindness should ensue4 ,in fact1 all the medical authors speak of mental blindness as if it must consist in the loss of visual images from the memory4 ,it seems to me1 however1 that this is a psychological misapprehension4 ,a man whose power of visual imagination has decayed 7no unusual phenomenon in its lighter grades7 is not mentally blind in the least1 for he recognizes perfectly all that he sees4 ,on the other hand1 he may be mentally blind1 with his optical imagination well preserved2 as in the interesting case published by ,wilbrand in #ahhg4bf ,in the still more interesting case of mental blindness recently published by ,lissauer1#bg though the patient made the most ludicrous mistakes1 calling for instance a clothes-brush a pair of spectacles1 an umbrella a plant with flowers1 an apple a portrait of a lady1 etc4 etc41 he seemed1 according to the reporter1 to have his mental images fairly well preserved4 ,it is in fact the momentary loss of our non-optical images which makes us mentally blind1 just as it is that of our non-auditory images which makes us mentally deaf4 ,i am mentally deaf if1 hearing a bell1 ,i can't recall how it looks2 and mentally blind if1 seeing it1 ,i can't recall its sound or its name4 ,as a matter of fact1 ,i should have to be not merely mentally blind1 but stone-blind1 if all my visual images were lost4 ,for although ,i am blind to the right half of the field of view if my left occipital region is injured1 and to the left half if my right region is injured1 such hemianopsia does not deprive me of visual images1 experience seeming to show that the unaffected hemisphere is always sufficient for production of these4 ,to abolish them entirely ,i should have to be deprived of both occipital lobes1 and that would deprive me not only of my inward images of sight1 but of my sight altogether4#bh ,recent pathological annals seem to offer a few such cases4#bi ,meanwhile there are a number of cases of mental blindness1 especially for written language1 coupled with hemianopsia1 usually of the rightward field of view4 ,these are all explicable by the breaking down1 through disease1 of the connecting tracts between the occipital lobes and other parts of the brain1 especially those which go to the centres for speech in the frontal and temporal regions of the left hemisphere4 ,they are to be classed among disturbances of conduction or of association2 and nowhere can ,i find any fact which should force us to believe that optical images need#cj be lost in mental blindness1 or that the cerebral centres for such images are locally distinct from those for direct sensations from the eyes4#ca ,where an object fails to be recognized by sight1 it often happens that the patient will recognize and name it as soon as he touches it with his hand4 ,this shows in an interesting way how numerous the associative paths are which all end by running out of the brain through the channel of speech4 ,the hand-path is open1 though the eye-path be closed4 ,when mental blindness is most complete1 neither sight1 touch1 nor sound avails to steer the patient1 and a sort of dementia which has been called asymbolia or apraxia is the result4 ,the commonest articles are not understood4 ,the patient will put his breeches on one shoulder and his hat upon the other1 will bite into the soap and lay his shoes on the table1 or take his food into his hand and throw it down again1 not knowing what to do with it1 etc4 ,such disorder can only come from extensive brain-injury4#cb ,the method of degeneration corroborates the other evidence localizing the tracts of vision4 ,in young animals one gets secondary degeneration of the occipital regions from destroying an eyeball1 and1 vice vers1 degeneration of the optic nerves from destroying the occipital regions4 ,the corpora geniculata1 thalami1 and subcortical fibres leading to the occipital lobes are also found atrophied in these cases4 ,the phenomena are not uniform1 but are indisputable2#cc so that1 taking all lines of evidence together1 the special connection of vision with the occipital lobes is perfectly made out4 ,it should be added1 that the occipital lobes have frequently been found shrunken in cases of inveterate blindness in man4 ,hearing4 ,hearing is hardly as definitely localized as sight4 ,in the dog1 ,luciani's diagram will show the regions which directly or indirectly affect it for the worse when injured4 ,as with sight1 one-sided lesions produce symptoms on both sides4 ,the mixture of black dots and gray dots in the diagram is meant to represent this mixture of 'crossed' and 'uncrossed' connections1 though of course no topographical exactitude is aimed at4 ,of all the region1 the temporal lobe is the most important part2 yet permanent absolute deafness did not result in a dog of ,luciani's1 even from bilateral destruction of both temporal lobes in their entirety4#cd ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #af4--,luciani's ,hearing ,region4 ,in the monkey1 ,ferrier and ,yeo once found permanent deafness to follow destruction of the upper temporal convolution 7the one just below the fissure of ,sylvius in ,fig4 #f7 on both sides4 ,brown and ,schaefer found1 on the contrary1 that in several monkeys this operation failed to noticeably affect the hearing4 ,in one animal1 indeed1 both entire temporal lobes were destroyed4 ,after a week or two of depression of the mental faculties this beast recovered and became one of the brightest monkeys possible1 domineering over all his mates1 and admitted by all who saw him to have all his senses1 including hearing1 'perfectly acute4'#ce ,terrible recriminations have1 as usual1 ensued between the investigators1 ,ferrier denying that ,brown and ,schaefer's ablations were complete1#cf ,schaefer that ,ferrier's monkey was really deaf4#cg ,in this unsatisfactory condition the subject must be left1 although there seems no reason to doubt that ,brown and ,schaefer's observation is the more important of the two4 ,in man the temporal lobe is unquestionably the seat of the hearing function1 and the superior convolution adjacent to the sylvian fissure is its most important part4 ,the phenomena of aphasia show this4 ,we studied motor aphasia a few pages back2 we must now consider sensory aphasia4 ,our knowledge of this disease has had three stages3 we may talk of the period of ,broca1 the period of ,wernicke1 and the period of ,charcot4 ,what ,broca's discovery was we have seen4 ,wernicke was the first to discriminate those cases in which the patient can not even understand speech from those in which he can understand1 only not talk2 and to ascribe the former condition to lesion of the temporal lobe4#ch ,the condition in question is word-deafness1 and the disease is auditory aphasia4 ,the latest statistical survey of the subject is that by ,dr4 ,allen ,starr4#ci ,in the seven cases of pure word-deafness which he has collected1 cases in which the patient could read1 talk1 and write1 but not understand what was said to him1 the lesion was limited to the first and second temporal convolutions in their posterior two thirds4 ,the lesion 7in right-handed1 i4e4 left-brained1 persons7 is always on the left side1 like the lesion in motor aphasia4 ,crude hearing would not be abolished1 even were the left centre for it utterly destroyed2 the right centre would still provide for that4 ,but the linguistic use of hearing appears bound up with the integrity of the left centre more or less exclusively4 ,here it must be that words heard enter into association with the things which they represent1 on the one hand1 and with the movements necessary for pronouncing them1 on the other4 ,in a large majority of ,dr4 ,starr's fifty cases1 the power either to name objects or to talk coherently was impaired4 ,this shows that in most of us 7as ,wernicke said7 speech must go on from auditory cues2 that is1 it must be that our ideas do not innervate our motor centres directly1 but only after first arousing the mental sound of the words4 ,this is the immediate stimulus to articulation2 and where the possibility of this is abolished by the destruction of its usual channel in the left temporal lobe1 the articulation must suffer4 ,in the few cases in which the channel is abolished with no bad effect on speech we must suppose an idiosyncrasy4 ,the patient must innervate his speech-organs either from the corresponding portion of the other hemisphere or directly from the centres of ideation1 those1 namely1 of vision1 touch1 etc41 without leaning on the auditory region4 ,it is the minuter analysis of the facts in the light of such individual differences as these which constitutes ,charcot's contribution towards clearing up the subject4 ,every nameable thing1 act1 or relation has numerous properties1 qualities1 or aspects4 ,in our minds the properties of each thing1 together with its name1 form an associated group4 ,if different parts of the brain are severally concerned with the several properties1 and a farther part with the hearing1 and still another with the uttering1 of the name1 there must inevitably be brought about 7through the law of association which we shall later study7 such a dynamic connection amongst all these brain-parts that the activity of any one of them will be likely to awaken the activity of all the rest4 ,when we are talking as we think1 the ultimate process is that of utterance4 ,if the brain-part for that be injured1 speech is impossible or disorderly1 even though all the other brain-parts be intact3 and this is just the condition of things which1 on page #cg1 we found to be brought about by limited lesion of the left inferior frontal convolution4 ,but back of that last act various orders of succession are possible in the associations of a talking man's ideas4 ,the more usual order seems to be from the tactile1 visual1 or other properties of the things thought-about to the sound of their names1 and then to the latter's utterance4 ,but if in a certain individual the thought of the look of an object or of the look of its printed name be the process which habitually precedes articulation1 then the loss of the hearing centre will pro tanto not affect that individual's speech4 ,he will be mentally deaf1 i4e4 his understanding of speech will suffer1 but he will not be aphasic4 ,in this way it is possible to explain the seven cases of pure word-deafness which figure in ,dr4 ,starr's table4 ,if this order of association be ingrained and habitual in that individual1 injury to his visual centres will make him not only word-blind1 but aphasic as well4 ,his speech will become confused in consequence of an occipital lesion4 ,naunyn1 consequently1 plotting out on a diagram of the hemisphere the #ga irreproachably reported cases of aphasia which he was able to collect1 finds that the lesions concentrate themselves in three places3 first1 on ,broca's centre2 second1 on ,wernicke's2 third1 on the supra-marginal and angular gyri under which those fibres pass which connect the visual centres with the rest of the brain#dj 7see ,fig4 #ag74 ,with this result ,dr4 ,starr's analysis of purely sensory cases agrees4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #ag4 ,in a later chapter we shall again return to these differences in the effectiveness of the sensory spheres in different individuals4 ,meanwhile few things show more beautifully than the history of our knowledge of aphasia how the sagacity and patience of many banded workers are in time certain to analyze the darkest confusion into an orderly display4#da ,there is no 'centre of ,speech' in the brain any more than there is a faculty of ,speech in the mind4 ,the entire brain1 more or less1 is at work in a man who uses language4 ,the subjoined diagram1 from ,boss1 shows the four parts most critically concerned1 and1 in the light of our text1 needs no farther explanation 7see ,fig4 #ah74 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #ah4 ,smell4 ,everything conspires to point to the median descending part of the temporal lobes as being the organs of smell4 ,even ,ferrier and ,munk agree on the hippocampal gyrus1 though ,ferrier restricts olfaction1 as ,munk does not1 to the lobule or uncinate process of the convolution1 reserving the rest of it for touch4 ,anatomy and pathology also point to the hippocampal gyrus2 but as the matter is less interesting from the point of view of human psychology than were sight and hearing1 ,i will say no more1 but simply add ,luciani and ,seppili's diagram of the dog's smell-centre4#db ,of ,taste we know little that is definite4 ,what little there is points to the lower temporal regions again4 ,consult ,ferrier as below4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #ai4--,luciani's ,olfactory ,region in the ,dog4 ,touch4 ,interesting problems arise with regard to the seat of tactile and muscular sensibility4 ,hitzig1 whose experiments on dogs' brains fifteen years ago opened the entire subject which we are discussing1 ascribed the disorders of motility observed after ablations of the motor region to a loss of what he called muscular consciousness4 ,the animals do not notice eccentric positions of their limbs1 will stand with their legs crossed1 with the affected paw resting on its back or hanging over a table's edge1 etc42 and do not resist our bending and stretching of it as they resist with the unaffected paw4 ,goltz1 ,munk1 ,schiff1 ,herzen1 and others promptly ascertained an equal defect of cutaneous sensibility to pain1 touch1 and cold4 ,the paw is not withdrawn when pinched1 remains standing in cold water1 etc4 ,ferrier meanwhile denied that there was any true ansthesia produced by ablations in the motor zone1 and explains the appearance of it as an effect of the sluggish motor responses of the affected side4#dc ,munk#dd and ,schiff#de1 on the contrary1 conceive of the 'motor zone' as essentially sensory1 and in different ways explain the motor disorders as secondary results of the ansthesia which is always there1 ,munk calls the motor zone the ,fhlsphre of the animal's limbs1 etc41 and makes it cordinate with the ,sehsphre1 the ,hrsphre1 etc41 the entire cortex being1 according to him1 nothing but a projection-surface for sensations1 with no exclusively or essentially motor part4 ,such a view would be important if true1 through its bearings on the psychology of volition4 ,what is the truth8 ,as regards the fact of cutaneous ansthesia from motor-zone ablations1 all other observers are against ,ferrier1 so that he is probably wrong in denying it4 ,on the other hand1 ,munk and ,schiff are wrong in making the motor symptoms depend on the ansthesia1 for in certain rare cases they have been observed to exist not only without insensibility1 but with actual hypersthesia of the parts4#df ,the motor and sensory symptoms seem1 therefore1 to be independent variables4 ,in monkeys the latest experiments are those of ,horsley and ,schaefer1#dg whose results ,ferrier accepts4 ,they find that excision of the hippocampal convolution produces transient insensibility of the opposite side of the body1 and that permanent insensibility is produced by destruction of its continuation upwards above the corpus callosum1 the so-called gyrus fornicatus 7the part just below the 'calloso-marginal fissure' in ,fig4 #g74 ,the insensibility is at its maximum when the entire tract comprising both convolutions is destroyed4 ,ferrier says that the sensibility of monkeys is 'entirely unaffected' by ablations of the motor zone1#dh and ,horsley and ,schaefer consider it by no means necessarily abolished4#di ,luciani found it diminished in his three experiments on apes4#ej ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #bj4--,luciani's ,tactile ,region in the ,dog4 ,in man we have the fact that one-sided paralysis from disease of the opposite motor zone may or may not be accompanied with ansthesia of the parts4 ,luciani1 who believes that the motor zone is also sensory1 tries to minimize the value of this evidence by pointing to the insufficiency with which patients are examined4 ,he himself believes that in dogs the tactile sphere extends backwards and forwards of the directly excitable region1 into the frontal and parietal lobes 7see ,fig4 #bj74 ,nothnagel considers that pathological evidence points in the same direction2#ea and ,dr4 ,mills1 carefully reviewing the evidence1 adds the gyri fornicatus and hippocampi to the cutaneo-muscular region in man4#eb ,if one compare ,luciani's diagrams together 7,figs4 #ad1 #af1 #ai1 #bj7 one will see that the entire parietal region of the dog's skull is common to the four senses of sight1 hearing1 smell1 and touch1 including muscular feeling4 ,the corresponding region in the human brain 7upper parietal and supra-marginal gyri--see ,fig4 #ag7 seems to be a somewhat similar place of conflux4 ,optical aphasias and motor and tactile disturbances all result from its injury1 especially when that is on the left side4#ec ,the lower we go in the animal scale the less differentiated the functions of the several brain-parts seem to be4#ed ,it may be that the region in question still represents in ourselves something like this primitive condition1 and that the surrounding parts1 in adapting themselves more and more to specialized and narrow functions1 have left it as a sort of carrefour through which they send currents and converse4 ,that it should be connected with musculo-cutaneous feeling is1 however1 no reason why the motor zone proper should not be so connected too4 ,and the cases of paralysis from the motor zone with no accompanying ansthesia may be explicable without denying all sensory function to that region4 ,for1 as my colleague ,dr4 ,james ,putnam informs me1 sensibility is always harder to kill than motility1 even where we know for a certainty that the lesion affects tracts that are both sensory and motor4 ,persons whose hand is paralyzed in its movements from compression of arm-nerves during sleep1 still feel with their fingers2 and they may still feel in their feet when their legs are paralyzed by bruising of the spinal cord4 ,in a similar way1 the motor cortex might be sensitive as well as motor1 and yet by this greater subtlety 7or whatever the peculiarity may be7 in the sensory currents1 the sensibility might survive an amount of injury there by which the motility was destroyed4 ,nothnagel considers that there are grounds for supposing the muscular sense to be exclusively connected with the parietal lobe and not with the motor zone4 ,disease of this lobe gives pure ataxy without palsy1 and of the motor zone pure palsy without loss of muscular sense4#ee ,he fails1 however1 to convince more competent critics than the present writer1#ef so ,i conclude with them that as yet we have no decisive grounds for locating muscular and cutaneous feeling apart4 ,much still remains to be learned about the relations between musculo-cutaneous sensibility and the cortex1 but one thing is certain3 that neither the occipital1 the forward frontal1 nor the temporal lobes seem to have anything essential to do with it in man4 ,it is knit up with the performances of the motor zone and of the convolutions backwards and midwards of them4 ,the reader must remember this conclusion when we come to the chapter on the ,will4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i must add a word about the connection of aphasia with the tactile sense4 ,on p4 #dj ,i spoke of those cases in which the patient can write but not read his own writing4 ,he cannot read by his eyes2 but he can read by the feeling in his fingers1 if he retrace the letters in the air4 ,it is convenient for such a patient to have a pen in hand whilst reading in this way1 in order to make the usual feeling of writing more complete4#eg ,in such a case we must suppose that the path between the optical and the graphic centres remains open1 whilst that between the optical and the auditory and articulatory centres is closed4 ,only thus can we understand how the look of the writing should fail to suggest the sound of the words to the patient's mind1 whilst it still suggests the proper movements of graphic imitation4 ,these movements in their turn must of course be felt1 and the feeling of them must be associated with the centres for hearing and pronouncing the words4 ,the injury in cases like this where very special combinations fail1 whilst others go on as usual1 must always be supposed to be of the nature of increased resistance to the passage of certain currents of association4 ,if any of the elements of mental function were destroyed the incapacity would necessarily be much more formidable4 ,a patient who can both read and write with his fingers most likely uses an identical 'graphic' centre1 at once sensory and motor1 for both operations4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i have now given1 as far as the nature of this book will allow1 a complete account of the present state of the localization-question4 ,in its main outlines it stands firm1 though much has still to be discovered4 ,the anterior frontal lobes1 for example1 so far as is yet known1 have no definite functions4 ,goltz finds that dogs bereft of them both are incessantly in motion1 and excitable by every small stimulus4 ,they are irascible and amative in an extraordinary degree1 and their sides grow bare with perpetual reflex scratching2 but they show no local troubles of either motion or sensibility4 ,in monkeys not even this lack of inhibitory ability is shown1 and neither stimulation nor excision of the prefrontal lobes produces any symptoms whatever4 ,one monkey of ,horsley and ,schaefer's was as tame1 and did certain tricks as well1 after as before the operation4#eh ,it is probable that we have about reached the limits of what can be learned about brain-functions from vivisecting inferior animals1 and that we must hereafter look more exclusively to human pathology for light4 ,the existence of separate speech and writing centres in the left hemisphere in man2 the fact that palsy from cortical injury is so much more complete and enduring in man and the monkey than in dogs2 and the farther fact that it seems more difficult to get complete sensorial blindness from cortical ablations in the lower animals than in man1 all show that functions get more specially localized as evolution goes on4 ,in birds localization seems hardly to exist1 and in rodents it is much less conspicuous than in carnivora4 ,even for man1 however1 ,munk's way of mapping out the cortex into absolute areas within which only one movement or sensation is represented is surely false4 ,the truth seems to be rather that1 although there is a correspondence of certain regions of the brain to certain regions of the body1 yet the several parts within each bodily region are represented throughout the whole of the corresponding brain-region like pepper and salt sprinkled from the same caster4 ,this1 however1 does not prevent each 'part' from having its focus at one spot within the brain-region4 ,the various brain-regions merge into each other in the same mixed way4 ,as ,mr4 ,horsley says3 ,there are border centres1 and the area of representation of the face merges into that for the representation of the upper limb4 ,if there was a focal lesion at that point1 you would have the movements of these two parts starting together4#ei ,the accompanying figure from ,paneth shows just how the matter stands in the dog4#fj ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #ba4--;,dog's motor centres1 right hemisphere1 according to ,paneth4--,the points of the motor region are correlated as follows with muscles3 the loops with the orbicularis palpebrarum2 the plain crosses with the flexor1 the crosses inscribed in circles with the extensor1 digitorum communis of the fore-paw2 the plain circles with the abductor pollicis longus2 the double crosses with the extensor communis of the hind-limb4 ,i am speaking now of localizations breadthwise over the brain-surface4 ,it is conceivable that there might be also localizations depthwise through the cortex4 ,the more superficial cells are smaller1 the deepest layer of them is large2 and it has been suggested that the superficial cells are sensorial1 the deeper ones motor2#fa or that the superficial ones in the motor region are correlated with the extremities of the organs to be moved 7fingers1 etc471 the deeper ones with the more central segments 7wrist1 elbow1 etc474#fb ,it need hardly be said that all such theories are as yet but guesses4 ,we thus see that the postulate of ,meynert and ,jackson which we started with on p4 #cj is on the whole most satisfactorily corroborated by subsequent objective research4 ,the highest centres do probably contain nothing but arrangements for representing impressions and movements1 and other arrangements for coupling the activity ,of these arrangements together4#fc ,currents pouring in from the sense-organs first excite some arrangements1 which in turn excite others1 until at last a motor discharge downwards of some sort occurs4 ,when this is once clearly grasped there remains little ground for keeping up that old controversy about the motor zone1 as to whether it is in reality motor or sensitive4 ,the whole cortex1 inasmuch as currents run through it1 is both4 ,all the currents probably have feelings going with them1 and sooner or later bring movements about4 ,in one aspect1 then1 every centre is afferent1 in another efferent1 even the motor cells of the spinal cord having these two aspects inseparably conjoined4 ,marique1#fd and ,exner and ,paneth#fe have shown that by cutting round a 'motor' centre and so separating it from the influence of the rest of the cortex1 the same disorders are produced as by cutting it out1 so that really it is only the mouth of the funnel1 as it were1 through which the stream of innervation1 starting from elsewhere1 pours2#ff consciousness accompanying the stream1 and being mainly of things seen if the stream is strongest occipitally1 of things heard if it is strongest temporally1 of things felt1 etc41 if the stream occupies most intensely the 'motor zone4' ,it seems to me that some broad and vague formulation like this is as much as we can safely venture on in the present state of science2 and in subsequent chapters ,i expect to give confirmatory reasons for my view4 ,,man',s ,,consciousness ,,limited ,,to ,,the ,,hemispheres4 ,but is the consciousness which accompanies the activity of the cortex the only consciousness that man has8 or are his lower centres conscious as well8 ,this is a difficult question to decide1 how difficult one only learns when one discovers that the cortex-consciousness itself of certain objects can be seemingly annihilated in any good hypnotic subject by a bare wave of his operator's hand1 and yet be proved by circumstantial evidence to exist all the while in a split-off condition1 quite as 'ejective'#fg to the rest of the subject's mind as that mind is to the mind of the bystanders4#fh ,the lower centres themselves may conceivably all the while have a split-off consciousness of their own1 similarly ejective to the cortex-consciousness2 but whether they have it or not can never be known from merely introspective evidence4 ,meanwhile the fact that occipital destruction in man may cause a blindness which is apparently absolute 7no feeling remaining either of light or dark over one half of the field of view71 would lead us to suppose that if our lower optical centres1 the corpora quadrigemina1 and thalami1 do have any consciousness1 it is at all events a consciousness which does not mix with that which accompanies the cortical activities1 and which has nothing to do with our personal ,self4 ,in lower animals this may not be so much the case4 ,the traces of sight found 7supra1 p4 #df7 in dogs and monkeys whose occipital lobes were entirely destroyed1 may possibly have been due to the fact that the lower centres of these animals saw1 and that what they saw was not ejective but objective to the remaining cortex1 i4e4 it formed part of one and the same inner world with the things which that cortex perceived4 ,it may be1 however1 that the phenomena were due to the fact that in these animals the cortical 'centres' for vision reach outside of the occipital zone1 and that destruction of the latter fails to remove them as completely as in man4 ,this1 as we know1 is the opinion of the experimenters themselves4 ,for practical purposes1 nevertheless1 and limiting the meaning of the word consciousness to the personal self of the individual1 we can pretty confidently answer the question prefixed to this paragraph by saying that the cortex is the sole organ of consciousness in man4#fi ,if there be any consciousness pertaining to the lower centres1 it is a consciousness of which the self knows nothing4 ,,the ,,restitution ,,of ,,function4 ,another problem1 not so metaphysical1 remains4 ,the most general and striking fact connected with cortical injury is that of the restoration of function4 ,functions lost at first are after a few days or weeks restored4 ,how are we to understand this restitution8 ,two theories are in the field3 #a7 ,restitution is due to the vicarious action either of the rest of the cortex or of centres lower down1 acquiring functions which until then they had not performed2 #b7 ,it is due to the remaining centres 7whether cortical or 'lower'7 resuming functions which they had always had1 but of which the wound had temporarily inhibited the exercise4 ,this is the view of which ,goltz and ,brown-,squard are the most distinguished defenders4 ,inhibition is a vera causa1 of that there can be no doubt4 ,the pneumogastric nerve inhibits the heart1 the splanchnic inhibits the intestinal movements1 and the superior laryngeal those of inspiration4 ,the nerve-irritations which may inhibit the contraction of arterioles are innumerable1 and reflex actions are often repressed by the simultaneous excitement of other sensory nerves4 ,for all such facts the reader must consult the treatises on physiology4 ,what concerns us here is the inhibition exerted by different parts of the nerve-centres1 when irritated1 on the activity of distant parts4 ,the flaccidity of a frog from 'shock1' for a minute or so after his medulla oblongata is cut1 is an inhibition from the seat of injury which quickly passes away4 ,what is known as 'surgical shock '7unconsciousness1 pallor1 dilatation of splanchnic blood-vessels1 and general syncope and collapse7 in the human subject is an inhibition which lasts a longer time4 ,goltz1 ,freusberg1 and others1 cutting the spinal cord in dogs1 proved that there were functions inhibited still longer by the wound1 but which re-established themselves ultimately if the animal was kept alive4 ,the lumbar region of the cord was thus found to contain independent vaso-motor centres1 centres for erection1 for control of the sphincters1 etc41 which could be excited to activity by tactile stimuli and as readily reinhibited by others simultaneously applied4#gj ,we may therefore plausibly suppose that the rapid reappearance of motility1 vision1 etc41 after their first disappearance in consequence of a cortical mutilation1 is due to the passing off of inhibitions exerted by the irritated surface of the wound4 ,the only question is whether all restorations of function must be explained in this one simple way1 or whether some part of them may not be owing to the formation of entirely new paths in the remaining centres1 by which they become 'educated' to duties which they did not originally possess4 ,in favor of an indefinite extension of the inhibition theory facts may be cited such as the following3 ,in dogs whose disturbances due to cortical lesion have disappeared1 they may in consequence of some inner or outer accident reappear in all their intensity for #bd hours or so and then disappear again4#ga ,in a dog made half blind by an operation1 and then shut up in the dark1 vision comes back just as quickly as in other similar dogs whose sight is exercised systematically every day4#gb ,a dog which has learned to beg before the operation recommences this practice quite spontaneously a week after a double-sided ablation of the motor zone4#gc ,occasionally1 in a pigeon 7or even1 it is said1 in a dog7 we see the disturbances less marked immediately after the operation than they are half an hour later4#gd ,this would be impossible were they due to the subtraction of the organs which normally carried them on4 ,moreover the entire drift of recent physiological and pathological speculation is towards enthroning inhibition as an ever-present and indispensable condition of orderly activity4 ,we shall see how great is its importance1 in the chapter on the ,will4 ,mr4 ,charles ,mercier considers that no muscular contraction1 once begun1 would ever stop without it1 short of exhaustion of the system2#ge and ,brown-,squard has for years been accumulating examples to show how far its influence extends4#gf ,under these circumstances it seems as if error might more probably lie in curtailing its sphere too much than in stretching it too far as an explanation of the phenomena following cortical lesion4#gg ,on the other hand1 if we admit no re-education of centres1 we not only fly in the face of an a priori probability1 but we find ourselves compelled by facts to suppose an almost incredible number of functions natively lodged in the centres below the thalami or even in those below the corpora quadrigemina4 ,i will consider the a priori objection after first taking a look at the facts which ,i have in mind4 ,they confront us the moment we ask ourselves just which are the parts which perform the functions abolished by an operation after sufficient time has elapsed for restoration to occur8 ,the first observers thought that they must be the corresponding parts of the opposite or intact hemisphere4 ,but as long ago as #ahge ,carville and ,duret tested this by cutting out the fore-leg-centre on one side1 in a dog1 and then1 after waiting till restitution had occurred1 cutting it out on the opposite side as well4 ,goltz and others have done the same thing4#gh ,if the opposite side were really the seat of the restored function1 the original palsy should have appeared again and been permanent4 ,but it did not appear at all2 there appeared only a palsy of the hitherto unaffected side4 ,the next supposition is that the parts surrounding the cut-out region learn vicariously to perform its duties4 ,but here1 again1 experiment seems to upset the hypothesis1 so far as the motor zone goes at least2 for we may wait till motility has returned in the affected limb1 and then both irritate the cortex surrounding the wound without exciting the limb to movement1 and ablate it1 without bringing back the vanished palsy4#gi ,it would accordingly seem that the cerebral centres below the cortex must be the seat of the regained activities4 ,but ,goltz destroyed a dog's entire left hemisphere1 together with the corpus striatum and the thalamus on that side1 and kept him alive until a surprisingly small amount of motor and tactile disturbance remained4#hj ,these centres cannot here have accounted for the restitution4 ,he has even1 as it would appear1#ha ablated both the hemispheres of a dog1 and kept him alive #ea days1 able to walk and stand4 ,the corpora striata and thalami in this dog were also practically gone4 ,in view of such results we seem driven1 with ,m4 ,franois-,franck1#hb to fall back on the ganglia lower still1 or even on the spinal cord as the 'vicarious' organ of which we are in quest4 ,if the abeyance of function between the operation and the restoration was due exclusively to inhibition1 then we must suppose these lowest centres to be in reality extremely accomplished organs4 ,they must always have done what we now find them doing after function is restored1 even when the hemispheres were intact4 ,of course this is conceivably the case2 yet it does not seem very plausible4 ,and the a priori considerations which a moment since ,i said ,i should urge1 make it less plausible still4 ,for1 in the first place1 the brain is essentially a place of currents1 which run in organized paths4 ,loss of function can only mean one of two things1 either that a current can no longer run in1 or that if it runs in1 it can no longer run out1 by its old path4 ,either of these inabilities may come from a local ablation2 and 'restitution' can then only mean that1 in spite of a temporary block1 an inrunning current has at last become enabled to flow out by its old path again--e4g41 the sound of 'give your paw' discharges after some weeks into the same canine muscles into which it used to discharge before the operation4 ,as far as the cortex itself goes1 since one of the purposes for which it actually exists is the production of new paths1#hc the only question before us is3 ,is the formation of these particular 'vicarious' paths too much to expect of its plastic powers8 ,it would certainly be too much to expect that a hemisphere should receive currents from optic fibres whose arriving-place within it is destroyed1 or that it should discharge into fibres of the pyramidal strand if their place of exit is broken down4 ,such lesions as these must be irreparable within that hemisphere4 ,yet even then1 through the other hemisphere1 the corpus callosum1 and the bilateral connections in the spinal cord1 one can imagine some road by which the old muscles might eventually be innervated by the same incoming currents which innervated them before the block4 ,and for all minor interruptions1 not involving the arriving-place of the 'cortico-petal' or the place of exit of the 'cortico-fugal' fibres1 roundabout paths of some sort through the affected hemisphere itself must exist1 for every point of it is1 remotely at least1 in potential communication with every other point4 ,the normal paths are only paths of least resistance4 ,if they get blocked or cut1 paths formerly more resistant become the least resistant paths under the changed conditions4 ,it must never be forgotten that a current that runs in has got to run out somewhere2 and if it only once succeeds by accident in striking into its old place of exit again1 the thrill of satisfaction which the consciousness connected with the whole residual brain then receives will reinforce and fix the paths of that moment and make them more likely to be struck into again4 ,the resultant feeling that the old habitual act is at last successfully back again1 becomes itself a new stimulus which stamps all the existing currents in4 ,it is matter of experience that such feelings of successful achievement do tend to fix in our memory whatever processes have led to them2 and we shall have a good deal more to say upon the subject when we come to the ,chapter on the ,will4 ,my conclusion then is this3 that some of the restitution of function 7especially where the cortical lesion is not too great7 is probably due to genuinely vicarious function on the part of the centres that remain2 whilst some of it is due to the passing off of inhibitions4 ,in other words1 both the vicarious theory and the inhibition theory are true in their measure4 ,but as for determining that measure1 or saying which centres are vicarious1 and to what extent they can learn new tricks1 that is impossible at present4 ,,final ,,correction ,,of ,,the ,,meynert ,,scheme4 ,and now1 after learning all these facts1 what are we to think of the child and the candle-flame1 and of that scheme which provisionally imposed itself on our acceptance after surveying the actions of the frog8 7,cf4 pp4 #be-f1 supra47 ,it will be remembered that we then considered the lower centres en masse as machines for responding to present sense-impressions exclusively1 and the hemispheres as equally exclusive organs of action from inward considerations or ideas2 and that1 following ,meynert1 we supposed the hemispheres to have no native tendencies to determinate activity1 but to be merely superadded organs for breaking up the various reflexes performed by the lower centres1 and combining their motor and sensory elements in novel ways4 ,it will also be remembered that ,i prophesied that we should be obliged to soften down the sharpness of this distinction after we had completed our survey of the farther facts4 ,the time has now come for that correction to be made4 ,wider and completer observations show us both that the lower centres are more spontaneous1 and that the hemispheres are more automatic1 than the ,meynert scheme allows4 ,schrader's observations in ,goltz's ,laboratory on hemisphereless frogs#hd and pigeons#he give an idea quite different from the picture of these creatures which is classically current4 ,steiner's#hf observations on frogs already went a good way in the same direction1 showing1 for example1 that locomotion is a well-developed function of the medulla oblongata4 ,but ,schrader1 by great care in the operation1 and by keeping the frogs a long time alive1 found that at least in some of them the spinal cord would produce movements of locomotion when the frog was smartly roused by a poke1 and that swimming and croaking could sometimes be performed when nothing above the medulla oblongata remained4#hg ,schrader's hemisphereless frogs moved spontaneously1 ate flies1 buried themselves in the ground1 and in short did many things which before his observations were supposed to be impossible unless the hemispheres remained4 ,steiner#hh and ,vulpian have remarked an even greater vivacity in fishes deprived of their hemispheres4 ,vulpian says of his brainless carps#hi that three days after the operation one of them darted at food and at a knot tied on the end of a string1 holding the latter so tight between his jaws that his head was drawn out of water4 ,later1 they see morsels of white of egg2 the moment these sink through the water in front of them1 they follow and seize them1 sometimes after they are on the bottom1 sometimes before they have reached it4 ,in capturing and swallowing this food they execute just the same movements as the intact carps which are in the same aquarium4 ,the only difference is that they seem to see them at less distance1 seek them with less impetuosity and less perseverance in all the points of the bottom of the aquarium1 but they struggle 7so to speak7 sometimes with the sound carps to grasp the morsels4 ,it is certain that they do not confound these bits of white of egg with other white bodies1 small pebbles for example1 which are at the bottom of the water4 ,the same carp which1 three days after operation1 seized the knot on a piece of string1 no longer snaps at it now1 but if one brings it near her1 she draws away from it by swimming backwards before it comes into contact with her mouth4#ij ,already on pp4 #i-aj1 as the reader may remember1 we instanced those adaptations of conduct to new conditions1 on the part of the frog's spinal cord and thalami1 which led ,pflger and ,lewes on the one hand and ,goltz on the other to locate in these organs an intelligence akin to that of which the hemispheres are the seat4 ,when it comes to birds deprived of their hemispheres1 the evidence that some of their acts have conscious purpose behind them is quite as persuasive4 ,in pigeons ,schrader found that the state of somnolence lasted only three or four days1 after which time the birds began indefatigably to walk about the room4 ,they climbed out of boxes in which they were put1 jumped over or flew up upon obstacles1 and their sight was so perfect that neither in walking nor flying did they ever strike any object in the room4 ,they had also definite ends or purposes1 flying straight for more convenient perching places when made uncomfortable by movements imparted to those on which they stood2 and of several possible perches they always chose the most convenient4 ,if we give the dove the choice of a horizontal bar 7,reck7 or an equally distant table to fly to1 she always gives decided preference to the table4 ,indeed she chooses the table even if it is several meters farther off than the bar or the chair4 ,placed on the back of a chair1 she flies first to the seat and then to the floor1 and in general will forsake a high position1 although it give her sufficiently firm support1 and in order to reach the ground will make use of the environing objects as intermediate goals of flight1 showing a perfectly correct judgment of their distance4 ,although able to fly directly to the ground1 she prefers to make the journey in successive stages4444 ,once on the ground1 she hardly ever rises spontaneously into the air4#ia ,young rabbits deprived of their hemispheres will stand1 run1 start at noises1 avoid obstacles in their path1 and give responsive cries of suffering when hurt4 ,rats will do the same1 and throw themselves moreover into an attitude of defence4 ,dogs never survive such an operation if performed at once4 ,but ,goltz's latest dog1 mentioned on p4 #gj1 which is said to have been kept alive for fifty-one days after both hemispheres had been removed by a series of ablations and the corpora striata and thalami had softened away1 shows how much the mid-brain centres and the cord can do even in the canine species4 ,taken together1 the number of reactions shown to exist in the lower centres by these observations make out a pretty good case for the ,meynert scheme1 as applied to these lower animals4 ,that scheme demands hemispheres which shall be mere supplements or organs of repetition1 and in the light of these observations they obviously are so to a great extent4 ,but the ,meynert scheme also demands that the reactions of the lower centres shall all be native1 and we are not absolutely sure that some of those which we have been considering may not have been acquired after the injury2 and it furthermore demands that they should be machine-like1 whereas the expression of some of them makes us doubt whether they may not be guided by an intelligence of low degree4 ,even in the lower animals1 then1 there is reason to soften down that opposition between the hemispheres and the lower centres which the scheme demands4 ,the hemispheres may1 it is true1 only supplement the lower centres1 but the latter resemble the former in nature and have some small amount at least of 'spontaneity' and choice4 ,but when we come to monkeys and man the scheme well-nigh breaks down altogether2 for we find that the hemispheres do not simply repeat voluntarily actions which the lower centres perform as machines4 ,there are many functions which the lower centres cannot by themselves perform at all4 ,when the motor cortex is injured in a man or a monkey genuine paralysis ensues1 which in man is incurable1 and almost or quite equally so in the ape4 ,dr4 ,seguin knew a man with hemi-blindness1 from cortical injury1 which had persisted unaltered for twenty-three years4 ',traumatic inhibition' cannot possibly account for this4 ,the blindness must have been an ',ausfallserscheinung1' due to the loss of vision's essential organ4 ,it would seem1 then1 that in these higher creatures the lower centres must be less adequate than they are farther down in the zoological scale2 and that even for certain elementary combinations of movement and impression the co-operation of the hemispheres is necessary from the start4 ,even in birds and dogs the power of eating properly is lost when the frontal lobes are cut off4#ib ,the plain truth is that neither in man nor beast are the hemispheres the virgin organs which our scheme called them4 ,so far from being unorganized at birth1 they must have native tendencies to reaction of a determinate sort4#ic ,these are the tendencies which we know as emotions and instincts1 and which we must study with some detail in later chapters of this book4 ,both instincts and emotions are reactions upon special sorts of objects of perception2 they depend on the hemispheres2 and they are in the first instance reflex1 that is1 they take place the first time the exciting object is met1 are accompanied by no forethought or deliberation1 and are irresistible4 ,but they are modifiable to a certain extent by experience1 and on later occasions of meeting the exciting object1 the instincts especially have less of the blind impulsive character which they had at first4 ,all this will be explained at some length in ,chapter ,,xxiv4 ,meanwhile we can say that the multiplicity of emotional and instinctive reactions in man1 together with his extensive associative power1 permit of extensive recouplings of the original sensory and motor partners4 ,the consequences of one instinctive reaction often prove to be the inciters of an opposite reaction1 and being suggested on later occasions by the original object1 may then suppress the first reaction altogether1 just as in the case of the child and the flame4 ,for this education the hemispheres do not need to be tabul ras at first1 as the ,meynert scheme would have them2 and so far from their being educated by the lower centres exclusively1 they educate themselves4#id ,we have already noticed the absence of reactions from fear and hunger in the ordinary brainless frog4 ,schrader gives a striking account of the instinctless condition of his brainless pigeons1 active as they were in the way of locomotion and voice4 ,the hemisphereless animal moves in a world of bodies which 444 are all of equal value for him4444 ,he is1 to use ,goltz's apt expression1 impersonal4444 ,every object is for him only a space-occupying mass1 he turns out of his path for an ordinary pigeon no otherwise than for a stone4 ,he may try to climb over both4 ,all authors agree that they never found any difference1 whether it was an inanimate body1 a cat1 a dog1 or a bird of prey which came in their pigeon's way4 ,the creature knows neither friends nor enemies1 in the thickest company it lives like a hermit4 ,the languishing cooing of the male awakens no more impression than the rattling of the peas1 or the call-whistle which in the days before the injury used to make the birds hasten to be fed4 ,quite as little as the earlier observers have ,i seen hemisphereless she-birds answer the courting of the male4 ,a hemisphereless male will coo all day long and show distinct signs of sexual excitement1 but his activity is without any object1 it is entirely indifferent to him whether the she-bird be there or not4 ,if one is placed near him1 he leaves her unnoticed4444 ,as the male pays no attention to the female1 so she pays none to her young4 ,the brood may follow the mother ceaselessly calling for food1 but they might as well ask it from a stone4444 ,the hemisphereless sphereless pigeon is in the highest degree tame1 and fears man as little as cat or bird of prey4#ie ,putting together now all the facts and reflections which we have been through1 it seems to me that we can no longer hold strictly to the ,meynert scheme4 ,if anywhere1 it will apply to the lowest animals2 but in them especially the lower centres seem to have a degree of spontaneity and choice4 ,on the whole1 ,i think that we are driven to substitute for it some such general conception as the following1 which allows for zoological differences as we know them1 and is vague and elastic enough to receive any number of future discoveries of detail4 ,,conclusion4 ,all the centres1 in all animals1 whilst they are in one aspect mechanisms1 probably are1 or at least once were1 organs of consciousness in another1 although the consciousness is doubtless much more developed in the hemispheres than it is anywhere else4 ,the consciousness must everywhere prefer some of the sensations which it gets to others2 and if it can remember these in their absence1 however dimly1 they must be its ends of desire4 ,if1 moreover1 it can identify in memory any motor discharges which may have led to such ends1 and associate the latter with them1 then these motor discharges themselves may in turn become desired as means4 ,this is the development of will2 and its realization must of course be proportional to the possible complication of the consciousness4 ,even the spinal cord may possibly have some little power of will in this sense1 and of effort towards modified behavior in consequence of new experiences of sensibility4#if ,all nervous centres have then in the first instance one essential function1 that of 'intelligent' action4 ,they feel1 prefer one thing to another1 and have 'ends4' ,like all other organs1 however1 they evolve from ancestor to descendant1 and their evolution takes two directions1 the lower centres passing downwards into more unhesitating automatism1 and the higher ones upwards into larger intellectuality4#ig ,thus it may happen that those functions which can safely grow uniform and fatal become least accompanied by mind1 and that their organ1 the spinal cord1 becomes a more and more soulless machine2 whilst on the contrary those functions which it benefits the animal to have adapted to delicate environing variations pass more and more to the hemispheres1 whose anatomical structure and attendant consciousness grow more and more elaborate as zoological evolution proceeds4 ,in this way it might come about that in man and the monkeys the basal ganglia should do fewer things by themselves than they can do in dogs1 fewer in dogs than in rabbits1 fewer in rabbits than in hawks1#ih fewer in hawks than in pigeons1 fewer in pigeons than in frogs1 fewer in frogs than in fishes1 and that the hemispheres should correspondingly do more4 ,this passage of functions forward to the ever-enlarging hemispheres would be itself one of the evolutive changes1 to be explained like the development of the hemispheres themselves1 either by fortunate variation or by inherited effects of use4 ,the reflexes1 on this view1 upon which the education of our human hemispheres depends1 would not be due to the basal ganglia alone4 ,they would be tendencies in the hemispheres themselves1 modifiable by education1 unlike the reflexes of the medulla oblongata1 pons1 optic lobes and spinal cord4 ,such cerebral reflexes1 if they exist1 form a basis quite as good as that which the ,meynert scheme offers1 for the acquisition of memories and associations which may later result in all sorts of 'changes of partners' in the psychic world4 ,the diagram of the baby and the candle 7see page #be7 can be re-edited1 if need be1 as an entirely cortical transaction4 ,the original tendency to touch will be a cortical instinct2 the burn will leave an image in another part of the cortex1 which1 being recalled by association1 will inhibit the touching tendency the next time the candle is perceived1 and excite the tendency to withdraw--so that the retinal picture will1 upon that next time1 be coupled with the original motor partner of the pain4 ,we thus get whatever psychological truth the ,meynert scheme possesses without entangling ourselves on a dubious anatomy and physiology4 ,some such shadowy view of the evolution of the centres1 of the relation of consciousness to them1 and of the hemispheres to the other lobes1 is1 it seems to me1 that in which it is safest to indulge4 ,if it has no other advantage1 it at any rate makes us realize how enormous are the gaps in our knowledge1 the moment we try to cover the facts by any one formula of a general kind4 ,,footnotes3 #d ,it should be said that this particular cut commonly proves fatal4 ,the text refers to the rare cases which survive4 #e ,i confine myself to the frog for simplicity's sake4 ,in higher animals1 especially the ape and man1 it would seem as if not only determinate combinations of muscles1 but limited groups or even single muscles could be innervated from the hemispheres4 #f ,i hope that the reader will take no umbrage at my so mixing the physical and mental1 and talking of reflex acts and hemispheres and reminiscences in the same breath1 as if they were homogeneous quantities and factors of one causal chain4 ,i have done so deliberately2 for although ,i admit that from the radically physical point of view it is easy to conceive of the chain of events amongst the cells and fibres as complete in itself1 and that whilst so conceiving it one need make no mention of 'ideas1' ,i yet suspect that point of view of being an unreal abstraction4 ,reflexes in centres may take place even where accompanying feelings or ideas guide them4 ,in another chapter ,i shall try to show reasons for not abandoning this common-sense position2 meanwhile language lends itself so much more easily to the mixed way of describing1 that ,i will continue to employ the latter4 ,the more radical-minded reader can always read 'ideational process' for 'idea4' #g ,i shall call it hereafter for shortness 'the ,meynert scheme2' for the child-and-flame example1 as well as the whole general notion that the hemispheres are a supernumerary surface for the projection and association of sensations and movements natively coupled in the centres below1 is due to ,th4 ,meynert1 the ,austrian anatomist4 ,for a popular account of his views1 see his pamphlet ',zur ,mechanik des ,gehirnbaues1' ,vienna1 #ahgd4 ,his most recent development of them is embodied in his ',psychiatry1' a clinical treatise on diseases of the forebrain1 translated by ,b4 ,sachs1 ,new ,york1 #ahhe4 #h ,geschichte des ,materialismus1 #b;d ed41 ii1 p4 #cde4 #i ,west ,riding ,asylum ,reports1 #ahgf1 p4 #bfg4 #aj ,for a thorough discussion of the various objections1 see ,ferrier's ',functions of the ,brain1' #b;d ed41 pp4 #bbg-bcd1 and ,franois-,franck's ',leons sur les ,fonctions ,motrices du ,cerveau' 7#ahhg71 ,leon #ca4 ,the most minutely accurate experiments on irritation of cortical points are those of ,paneth1 in ,pflger's ,archiv1 vol #cg1 p4 #ebh4--,recently the skull has been fearlessly opened by surgeons1 and operations upon the human brain performed1 sometimes with the happiest results4 ,in some of these operations the cortex has been electrically excited for the purpose of more exactly localizing the spot1 and the movements first observed in dogs and monkeys have then been verified in men4 #aa ,j4 ,loeb3 ,beitrge zur ,physiologie des ,grosshirns2 ,pflger's ,archiv1 xxxix1 #bic4 ,i simplify the author's statement4 #ab ,goltz3 ,pflger's ,archiv1 xlii1 #dai4 #ac ',hemiplegia' means one-sided palsy4 #ad ,philosophical ,transactions1 vol4 #agi1 pp4 #f1 #aj 7#ahhh74 ,in a later paper 7ibid4 p4 #bje7 ,messrs4 ,beevor and ,horsley go into the localization still more minutely1 showing spots from which single muscles or single digits can be made to contract4 #ae ,nothnagel und ,naunyn2 ,die ,localization in den ,gehirnkrankheiten 7,wiesbaden1 #ahhg71 p4 #cd4 #af ,an accessible account of the history of our knowledge of motor aphasia is in ,w4 ,a4 ,hammond's ',treatise on the ,diseases of the ,nervous ,system1' chapter vii4 #ag ,the history up to #ahhe may be found in ,a4 ,christiani3 ,zur ,physiologie des ,gehirnes 7,berlin1 #ahhe74 #ah ,pflger's ,archiv1 vol4 #dd1 p4 #agf4 ,munk 7,berlin ,academy ,sitzsungberichte1 #ahhi1 xxxi7 returns to the charge1 denying the extirpations of ,schrader to be complete3 ,microscopic portions of the ,sehsphre must remain4 #ai ,a4 ,christiani2 ,zur ,physiol4 d4 ,gehirnes 7,berlin1 #ahhe71 chaps4 ii1 iii1 iv1 ,h4 ,munk3 ,berlin ,akad4 ,stzgsb4 #ahhd1 xxiv4 #bj ,luciani und ,seppili3 ,die ,functions-,localization auf der ,grosshirnrinde 7,deutsch von ,fraenkel71 ,leipzig1 #ahhf1 ,dogs ,m1 ,n1 and ,s4 ,goltz in ,pflger's ,archiv1 vol4 #cd1 pp4 #dij-f2 vol4 #db1 p4 #ded4 ,cf4 also ,munk3 ,berlin ,akad4 ,stzgsb4 #ahhf1 vii1 viii1 pp4 #aac-aba1 and ,loeb3 ,pflger's ,archiv1 vol4 #ci1 p4 #ccg4 #ba ,berlin ,akad4 ,sitzungsberichte1 #ahhf1 vii1 viii1 p4 #abd4 #bb ,h4 ,munk3 ,functionen der ,grosshirnrinde 7,berlin1 #ahha71 pp4 #cf-dj4 ,ferrier3 ,functions1 etc41 #b;d ed41 chap1 ix1 pt4 i4 ,brown and ,schaefer1 ,philos4 ,transactions1 vol4 #agi1 p4 #cba4 ,luciani u4 ,seppili1 op4 cit4 pp4 #aca-ach4 ,lannegrace found traces of sight with both occipital lobes destroyed1 and in one monkey even when angular gyri and occipital lobes were destroyed altogether4 ,his paper is in the ,archives de ,mdecine ,exprimentale for ,january and ,march1 #ahhi4 ,i only know it from the abstract in the ,neurologisches ,centralblatt1 #ahhi1 pp4 #ajh-dbj4 ,the reporter doubts the evidence of vision in the monkey4 ,it appears to have consisted in avoiding obstacles and in emotional disturbance in the presence of men4 #bc ,localization of ,cerebral ,disease 7#ahgh71 pp4 #aag-h4 #bd ,for cases see ,flechsig3 ,die ,leitungsbahnen in ,gehirn u4 ,rckenmark 7,leipzig1 #ahgf71 pp4 #aab1 #bgb2 ,exner's ,untersuchungen1 etc41 p4 #hc2 ,ferrier's ,localization1 etc41 p4 #aa2 ,franois-,franck's ,cerveau ,moteur1 p4 #fc1 note4 #be ,e4 ,c4 ,seguin3 ,hemianopsia of ,cerebral ,origin1 in ,journal of ,nervous and ,mental ,disease1 vol4 xiii1 p4 #cj4 ,nothnagel und ,naunyn3 ,ueber die ,localization der ,gehirnkrankheiten 7,wiesbaden1 #ahhg71 p4 #af4 #bf ,die ,seelenblindheit1 etc41 p4 #ea ff4 ,the mental blindness was in this woman's case moderate in degree4 #bg ,archiv f4 ,psychiatrie1 vol4 #ba1 p4 #bbb4 #bh ,nothnagel 7loc4 cit4 p4 #bb7 says3 ,dies trifft aber nicht zu4 ,he gives1 however1 no case in support of his opinion that double-sided cortical lesion may make one stone-blind and yet not destroy one's visual images2 so that ,i do not know whether it is an observation of fact or an a priori assumption4 #bi ,in a case published by ,c4 ,s4 ,freund3 ,archiv f4 ,psychiatrie1 vol4 xx1 the occipital lobes were injured1 but their cortex was not destroyed1 on both sides4 ,there was still vision4 ,cf4 pp4 #bia-e4 #cj ,i say 'need1' for ,i do not of course deny the possible coexistence of the two symptoms4 ,many a brain-lesion might block optical associations and at the same time impair optical imagination1 without entirely stopping vision4 ,such a case seems to have been the remarkable one from ,charcot which ,i shall give rather fully in the chapter on ,imagination4 #ca ,freund 7in the article cited above ',ueber optische ,aphasie und ,seelenblindheit'7 and ,bruns 7',ein ,fall von ,alexie1' etc41 in the ,neurologisches ,centralblatt for #ahhh1 pp4 #eha1 #eji7 explain their cases by broken-down conduction4 ,wilbrand1 whose painstaking monograph on mental blindness was referred to a moment ago1 gives none but a priori reasons for his belief that the optical ',erinnerungsfeld' must be locally distinct from the ,wahrnehmungsfeld 7cf4 pp4 #hd1 #ic74 ,the a priori reasons are really the other way4 ,mauthner 7',gehirn u4 ,auge' 7#ahha71 p4 #dhg ff47 tries to show that the 'mental blindness' of ,munk's dogs and apes after occipital mutilation was not such1 but real dimness of sight4 ,the best case of mental blindness yet reported is that by ,lissauer1 as above4 ,the reader will also do well to read ,bernard3 ,de l',aphasie 7#ahhe7 chap4 v2 ,ballet3 ,le ,langage ,intrieur 7#ahhf71 chap4 viii2 and ,jas4 ,boss's little book on ,aphasia 7#ahhg71 p4 #gd4 #cb ,for a case see ,wernicke's ,lehrb4 d4 ,gehirnkrankheiten1 vol4 ii1 p4 #eed 7#ahha74 #cc ,the latest account of them is the paper 'ber die optischen ,centren u4 ,bahnen' by von ,monakow in the ,archiv fr ,psychiatrie1 vol4 xx1 p4 #gad4 #cd ,die ,functions-,localization1 etc41 ,dog ,x2 see also p4 #afa4 #ce ,philos4 ,trans41 vol4 #agi1 p4 #cab4 #cf ,brain1 vol4 xi1 p4 #aj4 #cg ,ibid4 p4 #adg4 #ch ,der aphasische ,symptomencomplex 7#ahgd74 ,see in ,fig4 #aa the convolution marked ,,wernicke4 #ci ',the ,pathology of ,sensory ,aphasia1' ',brain1' ,july1 #ahhi4 #dj ,nothnagel und ,naunyn2 op4 cit4 plates4 #da ,ballet's and ,bernard's works cited on p4 #ea are the most accessible documents of ,charcot's school4 ,bastian's book on the ,brain as an ,organ of ,mind 7last three chapters7 is also good4 #db ,for details1 see ,ferrier's ',functions1' chap4 ix1 pt4 iii1 and ,chas4 ,k4 ,mills3 ,transactions of ,congress of ,american ,physicians and ,surgeons1 #ahhh1 vol4 i1 p4 #bgh4 #dc ,functions of the ,brain1 chap4 x1 #ad4 #dd ,ueber die ,functionen d4 ,grosshirnrinde 7#ahha71 p4 #ej4 #de ,lezioni di ,fisiologia sperimentale sul sistema nervoso encefalico 7l4 #gc71 p4 #ebg ff4 ,also ',brain1' vol4 ix1 p4 #bih4 #df ,bechterew 7,pflger's ,archiv1 vol4 #ce1 p4 #acg7 found no ansthesia in a cat with motor symptoms from ablation of sigmoid gyrus4 ,luciani got hypersthesia coexistent with cortical motor defect in a dog1 by simultaneously hemisecting the spinal cord 7,luciani u4 ,seppili1 op4 cit4 p4 #bcd74 ,goltz frequently found hypersthesia of the whole body to accompany motor defect after ablation of both frontal lobes1 and he once found it after ablating the motor zone 7,pflger's ,archiv1 vol4 #cd1 p4 #dga74 #dg ,philos4 ,transactions1 vol4 #agi1 p4 #bj ff4 #dh ,functions1 p4 #cge4 #di ,pp4 #ae-ag4 #ej ,luciani u4 ,seppili1 op4 cit4 pp4 #bge-bhh4 #ea ,op4 cit4 p4 #ah4 #eb ,trans4 of ,congress1 etc41 p4 #bgb4 #ec ,see ,exner's ,unters4 b4 ,localization1 plate xxv4 #ed ,cf4 ,ferrier's ,functions1 etc41 chap4 iv1 and chap4 x1 #f to #i4 #ee ,op4 cit4 p4 #ag4 #ef ,e4g4 ,starr1 loc4 cit4 p4 #bgb2 ,leyden1 ,beitrge zur ,lehre v4 d4 ,localization im ,gehirn 7#ahhh71 p4 #gb4 #eg ,bernard1 op4 cit4 p4 #hd4 #eh ,philos4 ,trans41 vol4 #agi1 p4 #c4 #ei ,trans4 of ,congress of ,am4 ,phys4 and ,surg4 #ahhh1 vol4 i1 p4 #cdc4 ,beevor and ,horsley's paper on electric stimulation of the monkey's brain is the most beautiful work yet done for precision4 ,see ,phil4 ,trans41 vol4 #agi1 p4 #bje1 especially the plates4 #fj ,pflger's ,archiv1 vol4 #cg1 p4 #ebc 7#ahhe74 #fa ,by ,luys in his generally preposterous book ',the ,brain'2 also by ,horsley4 #fb ,c4 ,mercier3 ,the ,nervous ,system and the ,mind1 p4 #abd4 #fc ,the frontal lobes as yet remain a puzzle4 ,wundt tries to explain them as an organ of 'apperception' 7,grundzge d4 ,physiologischen ,psychologie1 #c;d ed41 vol4 i1 p4 #bcc ff471 but ,i confess myself unable to apprehend clearly the ,wundtian philosophy so far as this word enters into it1 so must be contented with this bare reference4--,until quite recently it was common to talk of an 'ideational centre' as of something distinct from the aggregate of other centres4 ,fortunately this custom is already on the wane4 #fd ,rech4 ,exp4 sur le ,fonctionnement des ,centres ,psycho-moteurs 7,brussels1 #ahhe74 #fe ,pflger's ,archiv1 vol4 #dd1 p4 #edd4 #ff ,i ought to add1 however1 that ,franois-,franck 7,fonctions ,motrices1 p4 #cgj7 got1 in two dogs and a cat1 a different result from this sort of 'circumvallation4' #fg ,for this word1 see ,t4 ,k4 ,clifford's ,lectures and ,essays 7#ahgi71 vol4 ii1 p4 #gb4 #fh ,see below1 ,chapter ,,viii4 #fi ,cf4 ,ferrier's ,functions1 pp4 #abj1 #adg1 #dad4 ,see also ,vulpian3 ,leons sur la ,physiol4 du ,syst4 ,nerveux1 p4 #edh2 ,luciani u4 ,seppili1 op4 cit4 pp4 #djd-e2 ,h4 ,maudsley3 ,physiology of ,mind 7#ahgf71 pp4 #ach ff41 #aig ff41 and #bda ff4 ,in ,g4 ,h4 ,lewes's ,physical ,basis of ,mind1 ,problem ,,iv3 ',the ,reflex ,theory1' a very full history of the question is given4 #gj ,goltz3 ,pflger's ,archiv1 vol4 #h1 p4 #dfj2 ,freusberg3 ibid4 vol4 #aj1 p4 #agd4 #ga ,goltz3 ,verrichtungen des ,grosshirns1 p4 #gh4 #gb ,loeb3 ,pflger's ,archiv1 vol4 #hi1 p4 #bgf4 #gc ,ibid4 p4 #bhi4 #gd ,schrader3 ibid4 vol4 #dd1 p4 #bah4 #ge ,the ,nervous ,system and the ,mind 7#ahhh71 chaps4 iii1 vi2 also in ,brain1 vol4 xi1 p4 #cfa4 #gf ,brown-,squard has given a resume of his opinions in the ,archives de ,physiologie for ,oct4 #ahhi1 #eme4 ,srie1 vol4 i1 p #gea4 #gg ,goltz first applied the inhibition theory to the brain in his ',verrichtungen des ,grosshirns1' p4 #ci ff4 ,on the general philosophy of ,inhibition the reader may consult ,brunton's ',pharmakology and ,therapeutics1' p4 #aed ff41 and also ',nature1' vol4 #bg1 p4 #dai ff4 #gh ,e4g4 ,herzen1 ,herman u4 ,schwalbe's ,jahres-bericht for #ahhf1 ,physiol4 ,abth4 p4 #ch4 7,experiments on new-born puppies47 #gi ,franois-,franck3 op4 cit4 p4 #chb4 ,results are somewhat contradictory4 #hj ,pflger's ,archiv1 vol4 #db1 p4 #dai4 #ha ,neurologisches ,centralblatt1 #ahhi1 p4 #cgb4 #hb ,op4 cit4 p4 #chg4 ,see pp4 #cgh to #chh for a discussion of the whole question4 ,compare also ,wundt's ,physiol4 ,psych41 #c;d ed41 i1 #bbe ff41 and ,luciani u4 ,seppili1 pp4 #bdc1 #bic4 #hc ,the ,chapters on ,habit1 ,association1 ,memory1 and ,perception will change our present preliminary conjecture that that is one of its essential uses1 into an unshakable conviction4 #hd ,pflger's ,archiv1 vol4 #da1 p4 #ge 7#ahhg74 #he ,ibid4 vol4 #dd1 p4 #age 7#ahhi74 #hf ,untersuchungen ber die ,physiologie des ,froschhirns4 #ahhe4 #hg ,loc4 cit4 pp4 #hj1 #hb-c4 ,schrader also found a biting-reflex developed when the medulla oblongata is cut through just behind the cerebellum4 #hh ,berlin ,akad4 ,sitzungsberichte for #ahhf4 #hi ,comptes ,rendus1 vol4 #ajb1 p4 #ij4 #ij ,comptes ,rendus de l',acad4 d4 ,sciences1 vol4 #ajb1 p4 #aecj4 #ia ,loc4 cit4 p4 #baj4 #ib ,goltz3 ,pflger's ,archiv1 vol4 #db1 p4 #ddg2 ,schrader3 ibid4 vol4 #dd1 p4 #bai ff4 ,it is possible that this symptom may be an effect of traumatic inhibition1 however4 #ic ,a few years ago one of the strongest arguments for the theory that the hemispheres are purely supernumerary was ,soltmann's often-quoted observation that in new-born puppies the motor zone of the cortex is not excitable by electricity and only becomes so in the course of a fortnight1 presumably after the experiences of the lower centres have educated it to motor duties4 ,paneth's later observations1 however1 seem to show that ,soltmann may have been misled through overnarcotizing his victims 7,pflger's ,archiv1 vol4 #cg1 p4 #bjb74 ,in the ,neurologisches ,centralblatt for #ahhi1 p4 #eac1 ,bechterew returns to the subject on ,soltmann's side without1 however1 noticing ,paneth's work4 #id ,mnsterberg 7,die ,willenshandlung1 #ahhh1 p4 #acd7 challenges ,meynert's scheme in toto1 saying that whilst we have in our personal experience plenty of examples of acts which were at first voluntary becoming secondarily automatic and reflex1 we have no conscious record of a single originally reflex act growing voluntary4--,as far as conscious record is concerned1 we could not possibly have it even if the ,meynert scheme were wholly true1 for the education of the hemispheres which that scheme postulates must in the nature of things antedate recollection4 ,but it seems to me that ,mnsterberg's rejection of the scheme may possibly be correct as regards reflexes from the lower centres4 ,everywhere in this department of psychogenesis we are made to feel how ignorant we really are4 #ie ,pflger's ,archiv1 vol4 #dd1 p4 #bcj-a4 #if ,naturally1 as ,schiff long ago pointed out 7,lehrb4 d4 ,muskel-u4 ,nervenphysiologie1 #ahei1 p4 #bac ff471 the ',rckenmarksseele1' if it now exist1 can have no higher sense-consciousness1 for its incoming currents are solely from the skin4 ,but it may1 in its dim way1 both feel1 prefer1 and desire4 ,see1 for the view favorable to the text3 ,g4 ,h4 ,lewes1 ,the ,physiology of ,common ,life 7#ahfj71 chap4 ix4 ,goltz 7,nervencentren des ,frosches #ahfi1 pp4 #ajb-acj7 thinks that the frog's cord has no adaptative power4 ,this may be the case in such experiments as his1 because the beheaded frog's short span of life does not give it time to learn the new tricks asked for4 ,but ,rosenthal 7,biologisches ,centralblatt1 vol4 iv1 p4 #bdg7 and ,mendelssohn 7,berlin ,akad4 ,sitzungsberichte1 #ahhe1 p4 #ajg7 in their investigations on the simple reflexes of the frog's cord1 show that there is some adaptation to new conditions1 inasmuch as when usual paths of conduction are interrupted by a cut1 new paths are taken4 ,according to ,rosenthal1 these grow more pervious 7i4e4 require a smaller stimulus7 in proportion as they are more often traversed4 #ig ,whether this evolution takes place through the inheritance of habits acquired1 or through the preservation of lucky variations1 is an alternative which we need not discuss here4 ,we shall consider it in the last chapter in the book4 ,for our present purpose the modus operandi of the evolution makes no difference1 provided it be admitted to occur4 #ih ,see ,schrader's ,observations1 loc4 cit4 ,,chapter ,,iii4 ,,on ,,some ,,general ,,conditions ,,of ,,brain-,,activity4 ,the elementary properties of nerve-tissue on which the brain-functions depend are far from being satisfactorily made out4 ,the scheme that suggests itself in the first instance to the mind1 because it is so obvious1 is certainly false3 ,i mean the notion that each cell stands for an idea or part of an idea1 and that the ideas are associated or 'bound into bundles' 7to use a phrase of ,locke's7 by the fibres4 ,if we make a symbolic diagram on a blackboard1 of the laws of association between ideas1 we are inevitably led to draw circles1 or closed figures of some kind1 and to connect them by lines4 ,when we hear that the nerve-centres contain cells which send off fibres1 we say that ,nature has realized our diagram for us1 and that the mechanical substratum of thought is plain4 ,in some way1 it is true1 our diagram must be realized in the brain2 but surely in no such visible and palpable way as we at first suppose4#ii ,an enormous number of the cellular bodies in the hemispheres are fibreless4 ,where fibres are sent off they soon divide into untraceable ramifications2 and nowhere do we see a simple coarse anatomical connection1 like a line on the blackboard1 between two cells4 ,too much anatomy has been found to order for theoretic purposes1 even by the anatomists2 and the popular-science notions of cells and fibres are almost wholly wide of the truth4 ,let us therefore relegate the subject of the intimate workings of the brain to the physiology of the future1 save in respect to a few points of which a word must now be said4 ,and first of ,,the ,,summation ,,of ,,stimuli in the same nerve-tract4 ,this is a property extremely important for the understanding of a great many phenomena of the neural1 and consequently of the mental1 life2 and it behooves us to gain a clear conception of what it means before we proceed any farther4 ,the law is this1 that a stimulus which would be inadequate by itself to excite a nerve-centre to effective discharge may1 by acting with one or more other stimuli 7equally ineffectual by themselves alone7 bring the discharge about4 ,the natural way to consider this is as a summation of tensions which at last overcome a resistance4 ,the first of them produce a 'latent excitement' or a 'heightened irritability'--the phrase is immaterial so far as practical consequences go2 the last is the straw which breaks the camel's back4 ,where the neural process is one that has consciousness for its accompaniment1 the final explosion would in all cases seem to involve a vivid state of feeling of a more or less substantive kind4 ,but there is no ground for supposing that the tensions whilst yet submaximal or outwardly ineffective1 may not also have a share in determining the total consciousness present in the individual at the time4 ,in later chapters we shall see abundant reason to suppose that they do have such a share1 and that without their contribution the fringe of relations which is at every moment a vital ingredient of the mind's object1 would not come to consciousness at all4 ,the subject belongs too much to physiology for the evidence to be cited in detail in these pages4 ,i will throw into a note a few references for such readers as may be interested in following it out1#ajj and simply say that the direct electrical irritation of the cortical centres sufficiently proves the point4 ,for it was found by the earliest experimenters here that whereas it takes an exceedingly strong current to produce any movement when a single induction-shock is used1 a rapid succession of induction-shocks 7'faradization'7 will produce movements when the current is comparatively weak4 ,a single quotation from an excellent investigation will exhibit this law under further aspects3 ,if we continue to stimulate the cortex at short intervals with the strength of current which produces the minimal muscular contraction of the dog's digital extensor muscle1 the amount of contraction gradually increases till it reaches the maximum4 ,each earlier stimulation leaves thus an effect behind it1 which increases the efficacy of the following one4 ,in this summation of the stimuli4444 the following points may be noted3 #a7 ,single stimuli entirely inefficacious when alone may become efficacious by sufficiently rapid reiteration4 ,if the current used is very much less than that which provokes the first beginning of contraction1 a very large number of successive shocks may be needed before the movement appears--#bj1 #ej1 once #ajf shocks were needed4 #b7 ,the summation takes place easily in proportion to the shortness of the interval between the stimuli4 ,a current too weak to give effective summation when its shocks are #c seconds apart will be capable of so doing when the interval is shortened to #a second4 #c7 ,not only electrical irritation leaves a modification which goes to swell the following stimulus1 but every sort of irritant which can produce a contraction does so4 ,if in any way a reflex contraction of the muscle experimented on has been produced1 or if it is contracted spontaneously by the animal 7as not unfrequently happens 'by sympathy1' during a deep inspiration71 it is found that an electrical stimulus1 until then inoperative1 operates energetically if immediately applied4#aja ,furthermore3 ,in a certain stage of the morphia-narcosis an ineffectively weak shock will become powerfully effective1 if1 immediately before its application to the motor centre1 the skin of certain parts of the body is exposed to gentle tactile stimulation4444 ,if1 having ascertained the subminimal strength of current and convinced one's self repeatedly of its inefficacy1 we draw our hand a single time lightly over the skin of the paw whose cortical centre is the object of stimulation1 we find the current at once strongly effective4 ,the increase of irritability lasts some seconds before it disappears4 ,sometimes the effect of a single light stroking of the paw is only sufficient to make the previously ineffectual current produce a very weak contraction4 ,repeating the tactile stimulation will then1 as a rule1 increase the contraction's extent4#ajb ,we constantly use the summation of stimuli in our practical appeals4 ,if a car-horse balks1 the final way of starting him is by applying a number of customary incitements at once4 ,if the driver uses reins and voice1 if one bystander pulls at his head1 another lashes his hind quarters1 and the conductor rings the bell1 and the dismounted passengers shove the car1 all at the same moment1 his obstinacy generally yields1 and he goes on his way rejoicing4 ,if we are striving to remember a lost name or fact1 we think of as many 'cues' as possible1 so that by their joint action they may recall what no one of them can recall alone4 ,the sight of a dead prey will often not stimulate a beast to pursuit1 but if the sight of movement be added to that of form1 pursuit occurs4 ,brcke noted that his brainless hen1 which made no attempt to peck at the grain under her very eyes1 began pecking if the grain were thrown on the ground with force1 so as to produce a rattling sound4#ajc ,dr4 ,allen ,thomson hatched out some chickens on a carpet1 where he kept them for several days4 ,they showed no inclination to scrape1444 but when ,dr4 ,thomson sprinkled a little gravel on the carpet1444 the chickens immediately began their scraping movements4#ajd ,a strange person1 and darkness1 are both of them stimuli to fear and mistrust in dogs 7and for the matter of that1 in men74 ,neither circumstance alone may awaken outward manifestations1 but together1 i4e4 when the strange man is met in the dark1 the dog will be excited to violent defiance4#aje ,street-hawkers well know the efficacy of summation1 for they arrange themselves in a line upon the sidewalk1 and the passer often buys from the last one of them1 through the effect of the reiterated solicitation1 what he refused to buy from the first in the row4 ,aphasia shows many examples of summation4 ,a patient who cannot name an object simply shown him1 will name it if he touches as well as sees it1 etc4 ,instances of summation might be multiplied indefinitely1 but it is hardly worth while to forestall subsequent chapters4 ,those on ,instinct1 the ,stream of ,thought1 ,attention1 ,discrimination1 ,association1 ,memory1 sthetics1 and ,will1 will contain numerous exemplifications of the reach of the principle in the purely psychological field4 ,,reaction-,,time4 ,one of the lines of experimental investigation most diligently followed of late years is that of the ascertainment of the time occupied by nervous events4 ,helmholtz led off by discovering the rapidity of the current in the sciatic nerve of the frog4 ,but the methods he used were soon applied to the sensory nerves and the centres1 and the results caused much popular scientific admiration when described as measurements of the 'velocity of thought4' ,the phrase 'quick as thought' had from time immemorial signified all that was wonderful and elusive of determination in the line of speed2 and the way in which ,science laid her doomful hand upon this mystery reminded people of the day when ,franklin first 'eripuit clo fulmen1' foreshadowing the reign of a newer and colder race of gods4 ,we shall take up the various operations measured1 each in the chapter to which it more naturally pertains4 ,i may say1 however1 immediately1 that the phrase 'velocity of thought' is misleading1 for it is by no means clear in any of the cases what particular act of thought occurs during the time which is measured4 ',velocity of nerve-action' is liable to the same criticism1 for in most cases we do not know what particular nerve-processes occur4 ,what the times in question really represent is the total duration of certain reactions upon stimuli4 ,certain of the conditions of the reaction are prepared beforehand2 they consist in the assumption of those motor and sensory tensions which we name the expectant state4 ,just what happens during the actual time occupied by the reaction 7in other words1 just what is added to the pre-existent tensions to produce the actual discharge7 is not made out at present1 either from the neural or from the mental point of view4 ,the method is essentially the same in all these investigations4 ,a signal of some sort is communicated to the subject1 and at the same instant records itself on a time-registering apparatus4 ,the subject then makes a muscular movement of some sort1 which is the 'reaction1' and which also records itself automatically4 ,the time found to have elapsed between the two records is the total time of that observation4 ,the time-registering instruments are of various types4 ,one type is that of the revolving drum covered with smoked paper1 on which one electric pen traces a line which the signal breaks and the 'reaction' draws again2 whilst another electric pen 7connected with a pendulum or a rod of metal vibrating at a known rate7 traces alongside of the former line a 'time-line' of which each undulation or link stands for a certain fraction of a second1 and against which the break in the reaction-line can be measured4 ,compare ,fig4 #ba1 where the line is broken by the signal at the first arrow1 and continued again by the reaction at the second4 ,ludwig's ,kymograph1 ,marey's ,chronograph are good examples of this type of instrument4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #ba4 ,another type of instrument is represented by the stopwatch1 of which the most perfect form is ,hipp's ,chronoscope4 ,the hand on the dial measures intervals as short as #a_/ajjj of a second4 ,the signal 7by an appropriate electric connection7 starts it2 the reaction stops it2 and by reading off its initial and terminal positions we have immediately and with no farther trouble the time we seek4 ,a still simpler instrument1 though one not very satisfactory in its working1 is the 'psychodometer' of ,exner ,obersteiner1 of which ,i picture a modification devised by my colleague ,professor ,h4 ,p4 ,bowditch1 which works very well4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #bb4--;,bowditch's ,reaction-timer4 ,f1 tuning-fork carrying a little plate which holds the paper on which the electric pen ,m makes the tracing1 and sliding in grooves on the base-board4 ,p1 a plug which spreads the prongs of the fork apart when it is pushed forward to its extreme limit1 and releases them when it is drawn back to a certain point4 ,the fork then vibrates1 and1 its backward movement continuing1 an undulating line is drawn on the smoked paper by the pen4 ,at ,t is a tongue fixed to the carriage of the fork1 and at ,k an electric key which the tongue opens and with which the electric pen is connected4 ,at the instant of opening1 the pen changes its place and the undulating line is drawn at a different level on the paper4 ,the opening can be made to serve as a signal to the reacter in a variety of ways1 and his reaction can be made to close the pen again1 when the line returns to its first level4 ,the reaction time the number of undulations traced at the second level4 ,the manner in which the signal and reaction are connected with the chronographic apparatus varies indefinitely in different experiments4 ,every new problem requires some new electric or mechanical disposition of apparatus4#ajf ,the least complicated time-measurement is that known as simple reaction-time1 in which there is but one possible signal and one possible movement1 and both are known in advance4 ,the movement is generally the closing of an electric key with the hand4 ,the foot1 the jaw1 the lips1 even the eyelid1 have been in turn made organs of reaction1 and the apparatus has been modified accordingly4#ajg ,the time usually elapsing between stimulus and movement lies between one and three tenths of a second1 varying according to circumstances which will be mentioned anon4 ,the subject of experiment1 whenever the reactions are short and regular1 is in a state of extreme tension1 and feels1 when the signal comes1 as if it started the reaction1 by a sort of fatality1 and as if no psychic process of perception or volition had a chance to intervene4 ,the whole succession is so rapid that perception seems to be retrospective1 and the time-order of events to be read off in memory rather than known at the moment4 ,this at least is my own personal experience in the matter1 and with it ,i find others to agree4 ,the question is1 ,what happens inside of us1 either in brain or mind8 and to answer that we must analyze just what processes the reaction involves4 ,it is evident that some time is lost in each of the following stages3 #a4 ,the stimulus excites the peripheral sense-organ adequately for a current to pass into the sensory nerve2 #b4 ,the sensory nerve is traversed2 #c4 ,the transformation 7or reflection7 of the sensory into a motor current occurs in the centres2 #d4 ,the spinal cord and motor nerve are traversed2 #e4 ,the motor current excites the muscle to the contracting point4 ,time is also lost1 of course1 outside the muscle1 in the joints1 skin1 etc41 and between the parts of the apparatus2 and when the stimulus which serves as signal is applied to the skin of the trunk or limbs1 time is lost in the sensorial conduction through the spinal cord4 ,the stage marked #c is the only one that interests us here4 ,the other stages answer to purely physiological processes1 but stage #c is psycho-physical2 that is1 it is a higher-central process1 and has probably some sort of consciousness accompanying it4 ,what sort8 ,wundt has little difficulty in deciding that it is consciousness of a quite elaborate kind4 ,he distinguishes between two stages in the conscious reception of an impression1 calling one perception1 and the other apperception1 and likening the one to the mere entrance of an object into the periphery of the field of vision1 and the other to its coming to occupy the focus or point of view4 ,inattentive awareness of an object1 and attention to it1 are1 it seems to me1 equivalents for perception and apperception1 as ,wundt uses the words4 ,to these two forms of awareness of the impression ,wundt adds the conscious volition to react1 gives to the trio the name of 'psycho-physical' processes1 and assumes that they actually follow upon each other in the succession in which they have been named4#ajh ,so at least ,i understand him4 ,the simplest way to determine the time taken up by this psycho-physical stage ,no4 #c would be to determine separately the duration of the several purely physical processes1 #a1 #b1 #d1 and #e1 and to subtract them from the total reaction-time4 ,such attempts have been made4#aji ,but the data for calculation are too inaccurate for use1 and1 as ,wundt himself admits1#aaj the precise duration of stage #c must at present be left enveloped with that of the other processes1 in the total reaction-time4 ,my own belief is that no such succession of conscious feelings as ,wundt describes takes place during stage #c4 ,it is a process of central excitement and discharge1 with which doubtless some feeling coexists1 but what feeling we cannot tell1 because it is so fugitive and so immediately eclipsed by the more substantive and enduring memory of the impression as it came in1 and of the executed movement of response4 ,feeling of the impression1 attention to it1 thought of the reaction1 volition to react1 would1 undoubtedly1 all be links of the process under other conditions1#aaa and would lead to the same reaction--after an indefinitely longer time4 ,but these other conditions are not those of the experiments we are discussing2 and it is mythological psychology 7of which we shall see many later examples7 to conclude that because two mental processes lead to the same result they must be similar in their inward subjective constitution4 ,the feeling of stage #c is certainly no articulate perception4 ,it can be nothing but the mere sense of a reflex discharge4 ,the reaction whose time is measured is1 in short1 a reflex action pure and simple1 and not a psychic act4 ,a foregoing psychic condition is1 it is true1 a prerequisite for this reflex action4 ,the preparation of the attention and volition2 the expectation of the signal and the readiness of the hand to move1 the instant it shall come2 the nervous tension in which the subject waits1 are all conditions of the formation in him for the time being of a new path or arc of reflex discharge4 ,the tract from the sense-organ which receives the stimulus1 into the motor centre which discharges the reaction1 is already tingling with premonitory innervation1 is raised to such a pitch of heightened irritability by the expectant attention1 that the signal is instantaneously sufficient to cause the overflow4#aab ,no other tract of the nervous system is1 at the moment1 in this hair-trigger condition4 ,the consequence is that one sometimes responds to a wrong signal1 especially if it be an impression of the same kind with the signal we expect4#aac ,but if by chance we are tired1 or the signal is unexpectedly weak1 and we do not react instantly1 but only after an express perception that the signal has come1 and an express volition1 the time becomes quite disproportionately long 7a second or more1 according to ,exner#aad71 and we feel that the process is in nature altogether different4 ,in fact1 the reaction-time experiments are a case to which we can immediately apply what we have just learned about the summation of stimuli4 ',expectant attention' is but the subjective name for what objectively is a partial stimulation of a certain pathway1 the pathway from the 'centre' for the signal to that for the discharge4 ,in ,chapter ,,xi we shall see that all attention involves excitement from within of the tract concerned in feeling the objects to which attention is given4 ,the tract here is the excito-motor arc about to be traversed4 ,the signal is but the spark from without which touches off a train already laid4 ,the performance1 under these conditions1 exactly resembles any reflex action4 ,the only difference is that whilst1 in the ordinarily so-called reflex acts1 the reflex arc is a permanent result of organic growth1 it is here a transient result of previous cerebral conditions4#aae ,i am happy to say that since the preceding paragraphs 7and the notes thereto appertaining7 were written1 ,wundt has himself become converted to the view which ,i defend4 ,he now admits that in the shortest reactions there is neither apperception nor will1 but that they are merely brain-reflexes due to practice4#aaf ,the means of his conversion are certain experiments performed in his laboratory by ,herr ,l4 ,lange1#aag who was led to distinguish between two ways of setting the attention in reacting on a signal1 and who found that they gave very different time-results4 ,in the 'extreme sensorial' way1 as ,lange calls it1 of reacting1 one keeps one's mind as intent as possible upon the expected signal1 and 'purposely avoids'#aah thinking of the movement to be executed2 in the 'extreme muscular' way one 'does not think at all'#aai of the signal1 but stands as ready as possible for the movement4 ,the muscular reactions are much shorter than the sensorial ones1 the average difference being in the neighborhood of a tenth of a second4 ,wundt accordingly calls them 'shortened reactions' and1 with ,lange1 admits them to be mere reflexes2 whilst the sensorial reactions he calls 'complete1' and holds to his original conception as far as they are concerned4 ,the facts1 however1 do not seem to me to warrant even this amount of fidelity to the original ,wundtian position4 ,when we begin to react in the 'extreme sensorial' way1 ,lange says that we get times so very long that they must be rejected from the count as non-typical4 ,only after the reacter has succeeded by repeated and conscientious practice in bringing about an extremely precise co-ordination of his voluntary impulse with his sense-impression do we get times which can be regarded as typical sensorial reaction-times4#abj ,now it seems to me that these excessive and 'untypical' times are probably the real 'complete times1' the only ones in which distinct processes of actual perception and volition occur 7see above1 pp4 #hh-i74 ,the typical sensorial time which is attained by practice is probably another sort of reflex1 less perfect than the reflexes prepared by straining one's attention towards the movement4#aba ,the times are much more variable in the sensorial way than in the muscular4 ,the several muscular reactions differ little from each other4 ,only in them does the phenomenon occur of reacting on a false signal1 or of reacting before the signal4 ,times intermediate between these two types occur according as the attention fails to turn itself exclusively to one of the extremes4 ,it is obvious that ,herr ,lange's distinction between the two types of reaction is a highly important one1 and that the 'extreme muscular method1' giving both the shortest times and the most constant ones1 ought to be aimed at in all comparative investigations4 ,herr ,lange's own muscular time averaged #j''4abc2 his sensorial time1 #j''4bcj4 ,these reaction-time experiments are then in no sense measurements of the swiftness of thought4 ,only when we complicate them is there a chance for anything like an intellectual operation to occur4 ,they may be complicated in various ways4 ,the reaction may be withheld until the signal has consciously awakened a distinct idea 7,wundt's discrimination-time1 association-time7 and then performed4 ,or there may be a variety of possible signals1 each with a different reaction assigned to it1 and the reacter may be uncertain which one he is about to receive4 ,the reaction would then hardly seem to occur without a preliminary recognition and choice4 ,we shall see1 however1 in the appropriate chapters1 that the discrimination and choice involved in such a reaction are widely different from the intellectual operations of which we are ordinarily conscious under those names4 ,meanwhile the simple reaction-time remains as the starting point of all these superinduced complications4 ,it is the fundamental physiological constant in all time-measurements4 ,as such1 its own variations have an interest1 and must be briefly passed in review4#abb ,the reaction-time varies with the individual and his age4 ,an individual may have it particularly long in respect of signals of one sense 7,buccola1 p4 #adg71 but not of others4 ,old and uncultivated people have it long 7nearly a second1 in an old pauper observed by ,exner1 ,pflger's ,archiv1 vii1 #fab-d74 ,children have it long 7half a second1 ,herzen in ,buccola1 p4 #aeb74 ,practice shortens it to a quantity which is for each individual a minimum beyond which no farther reduction can be made4 ,the aforesaid old pauper's time was1 after much practice1 reduced to #j4ahff sec4 7loc4 cit4 p4 #fbf74 ,fatigue lengthens it4 ,concentration of attention shortens it4 ,details will be given in the chapter on ,attention4 ,the nature of the signal makes it vary4#abc ,wundt writes3 ,i found that the reaction-time for impressions on the skin with electric stimulus is less than for true touch-sensations1 as the following averages show3 ,average4 ,average ,variation ,sound #j4afg sec4 #j4jbba sec4 ,light #j4bbb sec4 #j4jbai sec4 ,electric skin-sensation #j4bja sec4 #j4jaae sec4 ,touch-sensations #j4bac sec4 #j4jacd sec4 ,i here bring together the averages which have been obtained by some other observers3 ,hirsch4 ,hankel4 ,exner4 ,sound #j4adi #j4aeje #j4acfj ,light #j4bjj #j4bbdf #j4aejf ,skin-sensation #j4ahb #j4aedf #j4accgabd ,thermic reactions have been lately measured by ,a4 ,goldscheider and by ,vintschgau 7#ahhg71 who find them slower than reactions from touch4 ,that from heat especially is very slow1 more so than from cold1 the differences 7according to ,goldscheider7 depending on the nerve-terminations in the skin4 ,gustatory reactions were measured by ,vintschgau4 ,they differed according to the substances used1 running up to half a second as a maximum when identification took place4 ,the mere perception of the presence of the substance on the tongue varied from #j''4aei to #j''4bai 7,pflger's ,archiv1 xiv1 #ebi74 ,olfactory reactions have been studied by ,vintschgau1 ,buccola1 and ,beaunis4 ,they are slow1 averaging about half a second 7cf4 ,beaunis1 ,recherches exp4 sur l',activit ,crbrale1 #ahhd1 p4 #di ff474 ,it will be observed that sound is more promptly reacted on than either sight or touch4 ,taste and smell are slower than either4 ,one individual1 who reacted to touch upon the tip of the tongue in #j''4abe1 took #j''4iic to react upon the taste of quinine applied to the same spot4 ,in another1 upon the base of the tongue1 the reaction to touch being #j''4ada1 that to sugar was #j''4eeb 7,vintschgau1 quoted by ,buccola1 p4 #ajc74 ,buccola found the reaction to odors to vary from #j''4ccd to #j''4fha1 according to the perfume used and the individual4 ,the intensity of the signal makes a difference4 ,the intenser the stimulus the shorter the time4 ,herzen 7,grundlinien einer allgem4 ,psychophysiologie1 p4 #aja7 compared the reaction from a corn on the toe with that from the skin of the hand of the same subject4 ,the two places were stimulated simultaneously1 and the subject tried to react simultaneously with both hand and foot1 but the foot always went quickest4 ,when the sound skin of the foot was touched instead of the corn1 it was the hand which always reacted first4 ,wundt tries to show that when the signal is made barely perceptible1 the time is probably the same in all the senses1 namely1 about #j4ccb'' 7,physiol4 ,psych41 #b;d ed41 ii1 #bbd74 ,where the signal is of touch1 the place to which it is applied makes a difference in the resultant reaction-time4 ,g4 ,s4 ,hall and ,v4 ,kries found 7,archiv f4 ,anat4 u4 ,physiol41 #ahgi7 that when the finger-tip was the place the reaction was shorter than when the middle of the upper arm was used1 in spite of the greater length of nerve-trunk to be traversed in the latter case4 ,this discovery invalidates the measurements of the rapidity of transmission of the current in human nerves1 for they are all based on the method of comparing reaction-times from places near the root and near the extremity of a limb4 ,the same observers found that signals seen by the periphery of the retina gave longer times than the same signals seen by direct vision4 ,the season makes a difference1 the time being some hundredths of a second shorter on cold winter days 7,vintschgau apud ,exner1 ,hermann's ,hdbh41 p4 #bgj74 ,intoxicants alter the time4 ,coffee and tea appear to shorten it4 ,small doses of wine and alcohol first shorten and then lengthen it2 but the shortening stage tends to disappear if a large dose be given immediately4 ,this1 at least1 is the report of two ,german observers4 ,dr4 ,j4 ,w4 ,warren1 whose observations are more thorough than any previous ones1 could find no very decided effects from ordinary doses 7,journal of ,physiology1 viii1 #caa74 ,morphia lengthens the time4 ,amyl-nitrite lengthens it1 but after the inhalation it may fall to less than the normal4 ,ether and chloroform lengthen it 7for authorities1 etc41 see ,buccola1 p4 #ahi74 ,certain diseased states naturally lengthen the time4 ,the hypnotic trance has no constant effect1 sometimes shortening and sometimes lengthening it 7,hall1 ,mind1 viii1 #agj2 ,james1 ,proc4 ,am4 ,soc4 for ,psych4 ,research1 #bdf74 ,the time taken to inhibit a movement 7e4g4 to cease contraction of jaw-muscles7 seems to be about the same as to produce one 7,gad1 ,archiv f4 7,anat4 u47 ,physiol41 #ahhg1 #dfh2 ,orchansky1 ibid4#ahhi1 #ahhe74 ,an immense amount of work has been done on reaction-time1 of which ,i have cited but a small part4 ,it is a sort of work which appeals particularly to patient and exact minds1 and they have not failed to profit by the opportunity4 ,,cerebral ,,blood-,,supply4 ,the next point to occupy our attention is the changes of circulation which accompany cerebral activity4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #bc4--,sphymographic pulse-tracing4 ,a1 during intellectual repose2 ,b1 during intellectual activity4 7,mosso47 ,all parts of the cortex1 when electrically excited1 produce alterations both of respiration and circulation4 ,the blood-pressure rises1 as a rule1 all over the body1 no matter where the cortical irritation is applied1 though the motor zone is the most sensitive region for the purpose4 ,elsewhere the current must be strong enough for an epileptic attack to be produced4#abe ,slowing and quickening of the heart are also observed1 and are independent of the vaso-constrictive phenomenon4 ,mosso1 using his ingenious 'plethysmograph' as an indicator1 discovered that the blood-supply to the arms diminished during intellectual activity1 and found furthermore that the arterial tension 7as shown by the sphygmograph7 was increased in these members 7see ,fig4 #bc74 ,so slight an emotion as that produced by the entrance of ,professor ,ludwig into the laboratory was instantly followed by a shrinkage of the arms4#abf ,the brain itself is an excessively vascular organ1 a sponge full of blood1 in fact2 and another of ,mosso's inventions showed that when less blood went to the arms1 more went to the head4 ,the subject to be observed lay on a delicately balanced table which could tip downward either at the head or at the foot if the weight of either end were increased4 ,the moment emotional or intellectual activity began in the subject1 down went the balance at the head-end1 in consequence of the redistribution of blood in his system4 ,but the best proof of the immediate afflux of blood to the brain during mental activity is due to ,mosso's observations on three persons whose brain had been laid bare by lesion of the skull4 ,by means of apparatus described in his book1#abg this physiologist was enabled to let the brain-pulse record itself directly by a tracing4 ,the intra-cranial blood-pressure rose immediately whenever the subject was spoken to1 or when he began to think actively1 as in solving a problem in mental arithmetic4 ,mosso gives in his work a large number of reproductions of tracings which show the instantaneity of the change of blood-supply1 whenever the mental activity was quickened by any cause whatever1 intellectual or emotional4 ,he relates of his female subject that one day whilst tracing her brain-pulse he observed a sudden rise with no apparent outer or inner cause4 ,she however confessed to him afterwards that at that moment she had caught sight of a skull on top of a piece of furniture in the room1 and that this had given her a slight emotion4 ,the fluctuations of the blood supply to the brain were independent of respiratory changes1#abh and followed the quickening of mental activity almost immediately4 ,we must suppose a very delicate adjustment whereby the circulation follows the needs of the cerebral activity4 ,blood very likely may rush to each region of the cortex according as it is most active1 but of this we know nothing4 ,i need hardly say that the activity of the nervous matter is the primary phenomenon1 and the afflux of blood its secondary consequence4 ,many popular writers talk as if it were the other way about1 and as if mental activity were due to the afflux of blood4 ,but1 as ,professor ,h4 ,n4 ,martin has well said1 that belief has no physiological foundation whatever2 it is even directly opposed to all that we know of cell life4#abi ,a chronic pathological congestion may1 it is true1 have secondary consequences1 but the primary congestions which we have been considering follow the activity of the brain-cells by an adaptive reflex vaso-motor mechanism doubtless as elaborate as that which harmonizes blood-supply with cell-action in any muscle or gland4 ,of the changes in the cerebral circulation during sleep ,i will speak in the chapter which treats of that subject4 ,,cerebral ,,thermometry4 ,brain-activity seems accompanied by a local disengagement of heat4 ,the earliest careful work in this direction was by ,dr4 ,j4 ,s4 ,lombard in #ahfg4 ,dr4 ,lombard's latest results include the records of over #fj1jjj observations4#acj ,he noted the changes in delicate thermometers and electric piles placed against the scalp in human beings1 and found that any intellectual effort1 such as computing1 composing1 reciting poetry silently or aloud1 and especially that emotional excitement such as an anger fit1 caused a general rise of temperature1 which rarely exceeded a degree ,fahrenheit4 ,the rise was in most cases more marked in the middle region of the head than elsewhere4 ,strange to say1 it was greater in reciting poetry silently than in reciting it aloud4 ,dr4 ,lombard's explanation is that in internal recitation an additional portion of energy1 which in recitation aloud was converted into nervous and muscular force1 now appears as heat4#aca ,i should suggest rather1 if we must have a theory1 that the surplus of heat in recitation to one's self is due to inhibitory processes which are absent when we recite aloud4 ,in the chapter on the ,will we shall see that the simple central process is to speak when we think2 to think silently involves a check in addition4 ,in #ahgj the indefatigable ,schiff took up the subject1 experimenting on live dogs and chickens1 plunging thermo-electric needles into the substance of their brain1 to eliminate possible errors from vascular changes in the skin when the thermometers were placed upon the scalp4 ,after habituation was established1 he tested the animals with various sensations1 tactile1 optic1 olfactory1 and auditory4 ,he found very regularly an immediate deflection of the galvanometer1 indicating an abrupt alteration of the intra-cerebral temperature4 ,when1 for instance1 he presented an empty roll of paper to the nose of his dog as it lay motionless1 there was a small deflection1 but when a piece of meat was in the paper the deflection was much greater4 ,schiff concluded from these and other experiments that sensorial activity heats the brain-tissue1 but he did not try to localize the increment of heat beyond finding that it was in both hemispheres1 whatever might be the sensation applied4#acb ,dr4 ,r4 ,w4 ,amidon in #ahhj made a farther step forward1 in localizing the heat produced by voluntary muscular contractions4 ,applying a number of delicate surface-thermometers simultaneously against the scalp1 he found that when different muscles of the body were made to contract vigorously for ten minutes or more1 different regions of the scalp rose in temperature1 that the regions were well focalized1 and that the rise of temperature was often considerably over a ,fahrenheit degree4 ,as a result of his investigations he gives a diagram in which numbered regions represent the centres of highest temperature for the various special movements which were investigated4 ,to a large extent they correspond to the centres for the same movements assigned by ,ferrier and others on other grounds2 only they cover more of the skull4#acc ,phosphorus and ,thought4 ,chemical action must of course accompany brain-activity4 ,but little definite is known of its exact nature4 ,cholesterin and creatin are both excrementitious products1 and are both found in the brain4 ,the subject belongs to chemistry rather than to psychology1 and ,i only mention it here for the sake of saying a word about a wide-spread popular error about brain-activity and phosphorus4 ',ohne ,phosphor1 kein ,gedanke1' was a noted war-cry of the 'materialists' during the excitement on that subject which filled ,germany in the '#fjs4 ,the brain1 like every other organ of the body1 contains phosphorus1 and a score of other chemicals besides4 ,why the phosphorus should be picked out as its essence1 no one knows4 ,it would be equally true to say ',ohne ,wasser kein ,gedanke1' or ',ohne ,kochsalz kein ,gedanke'2 for thought would stop as quickly if the brain should dry up or lose its ,na,cl as if it lost its phosphorus4 ,in ,america the phosphorus-delusion has twined itself round a saying quoted 7rightly or wrongly7 from ,professor ,l4 ,agassiz1 to the effect that fishermen are more intelligent than farmers because they eat so much fish1 which contains so much phosphorus4 ,all the facts may be doubted4 ,the only straight way to ascertain the importance of phosphorus to thought would be to find whether more is excreted by the brain during mental activity than during rest4 ,unfortunately we cannot do this directly1 but can only gauge the amount of ,,po#e in the urine1 which represents other organs as well as the brain1 and this procedure1 as ,dr4 ,edes says1 is like measuring the rise of water at the mouth of the ,mississippi to tell where there has been a thunder-storm in ,minnesota4#acd ,it has been adopted1 however1 by a variety of observers1 some of whom found the phosphates in the urine diminished1 whilst others found them increased1 by intellectual work4 ,on the whole1 it is impossible to trace any constant relation4 ,in maniacal excitement less phosphorus than usual seems to be excreted4 ,more is excreted during sleep4 ,there are differences between the alkaline and earthy phosphates into which ,i will not enter1 as my only aim is to show that the popular way of looking at the matter has no exact foundation4#ace ,the fact that phosphorus-preparations may do good in nervous exhaustion proves nothing as to the part played by phosphorus in mental activity4 ,like iron1 arsenic1 and other remedies it is a stimulant or tonic1 of whose intimate workings in the system we know absolutely nothing1 and which moreover does good in an extremely small number of the cases in which it is prescribed4 ,the phosphorus-philosophers have often compared thought to a secretion4 ,the brain secretes thought1 as the kidneys secrete urine1 or as the liver secretes bile1 are phrases which one sometimes hears4 ,the lame analogy need hardly be pointed out4 ,the materials which the brain pours into the blood 7cholesterin1 creatin1 xanthin1 or whatever they may be7 are the analogues of the urine and the bile1 being in fact real material excreta4 ,as far as these matters go1 the brain is a ductless gland4 ,but we know of nothing connected with liver-and kidney-activity which can be in the remotest degree compared with the stream of thought that accompanies the brain's material secretions4 ,there remains another feature of general brain-physiology1 and indeed for psychological purposes the most important feature of all4 ,i refer to the aptitude of the brain for acquiring habits4 ,but ,i will treat of that in a chapter by itself4 ,,footnotes3 #ii ,i shall myself in later places indulge in much of this schematization4 ,the reader will understand once for all that it is symbolic2 and that the use of it is hardly more than to show what a deep congruity there is between mental processes and mechanical processes of some kind1 not necessarily of the exact kind portrayed4 #ajj ,valentin3 ,archiv f4 d4 gesammt4 ,physiol41 #ahgc1 p4 #deh4 ,stirling3 ,leipzig ,acad4 ,berichte1 #ahge1 p4 #cgb 7,journal of ,physiol41 #ahge74 ,j4 ,ward3 ,archiv f4 7,anat4 u47 ,physiol41 #ahhj1 p4 #gb4 ,h4 ,sewall3 ,johns ,hopkins ,studies1 #ahhj1 p4 #cj4 ,kronecker u4 ,nicolaides3 ,archiv f4 7,anat4 u47 ,physiol41 #ahhj1 p4 #dcg4 ,exner3 ,archiv f4 die ges4 ,physiol41 ,bd4 #bh1 p4 #dhg 7#ahhb74 ,eckhard3 in ,hermann's ,hdbch4 d4 ,physiol41 ,bd4 ,i1 ,thl4 ii1 p4 #ca4 ,franois-,franck3 ,leons sur les ,fonctions motrices du ,cerveau1 p4 #ea ff41 #cci4--;,for the process of summation in nerves and muscles1 cf4 ,hermann3 ibid4 ,thl4 i1 p4 #aji1 and vol4 i1 p4 #dj4 ,also ,wundt3 ,physiol4 ,psych41 i1 #bdc ff42 ,richet3 ,travaux du ,laboratoire de ,marey1 #ahgg1 p4 #ig2 ,l',homme et l',intelligence1 pp4 #bd ff41 #dfh2 ,revue ,philosophique1 t4 xxi1 p4 #efd4 ,kronecker u4 ,hall3 ,archiv f4 7,anat4 u47 ,physiol41 #ahgi2 ,schnlein3 ibid4#ahhb1 p4 #ceg4 ,sertoli 7,hofmann and ,schwalbe's ,jahres-bericht71 #ahhb1 p4 #be4 ,de ,watteville3 ,neurologisches ,centralblatt1 #ahhc1 ,no4 #g4 ,grnhagen3 ,arch4 f4 d4 ges4 ,physiol41 ,bd4 #cd1 p4 #cja 7#ahhd74 #aja ,bubnoff und ,heidenhain3 ,ueber ,erregungs- und ,hemmungsvorgnge innerhalb der motorischen ,hirncentren4 ,archiv f4 d4 ges4 ,physiol41 ,bd4 #bf1 p4 #aef 7#ahha74 #ajb ,archiv f4 d4 ges4 ,physiol41 ,bd4 #bf1 p4 #agf 7#ahha74 ,exner thinks 7ibid4 ,bd4 #bh1 p4 #dig 7#ahhb77 that the summation here occurs in the spinal cord4 ,it makes no difference where this particular summation occurs1 so far as the general philosophy of summation goes4 #ajc ,g ,h4 ,lewes3 ,physical ,basis of ,mind1 p4 #dgi1 where many similar examples are given1 #dhg-i4 #ajd ,romanes3 ,mental ,evolution in ,animals1 p4 #afh4 #aje ,see a similar instance in ,mach3 ,beitrge zur ,analyse der ,empfindungen1 p4 #cf1 a sparrow being the animal4 ,my young children are afraid of their own pug-dog1 if he enters their room after they are in bed and the lights are out4 ,compare this statement also3 ,the first question to a peasant seldom proves more than a flapper to rouse the torpid adjustments of his ears4 ,the invariable answer of a ,scottish peasant is1 ',what's your wull8'--that of the ,english1 a vacant stare4 ,a second and even a third question may be required to elicit an answer4 7,r4 ,fowler2 ,some ,observations on the ,mental ,state of the ,blind1 and ,deaf1 and ,dumb 7,salisbury1 #ahdc71 p4 #ad47 #ajf ,the reader will find a great deal about chronographic apparatus in ,j4 ,marey3 ,la ,mthode ,graphique1 pt4 ii1 chap4 ii4 ,one can make pretty fair measurements with no other instrument than a watch1 by making a large number of reactions1 each serving as a signal for the following one1 and dividing the total time they take by their number4 ,dr4 ,o4 ,w4 ,holmes first suggested this method1 which has been ingeniously elaborated and applied by ,professor ,jastrow4 ,see ',science' for ,september #aj1 #ahhf4 #ajg ,see1 for a few modifications1 ,cattell1 ,mind1 xi1 #bbj ff4 #ajh ,physiol4 ,psych41 ii1 #bba-b4 ,cf4 also the first edition1 #gbh-i4 ,i must confess to finding all ,wundt's utterances about 'apperception' both vacillating and obscure4 ,i see no use whatever for the word1 as he employs it1 in ,psychology4 ,attention1 perception1 conception1 volition1 are its ample equivalents4 ,why we should need a single word to denote all these things by turns1 ,wundt fails to make clear4 ,consult1 however1 his pupil ,staude's article1 ',ueber den ,begriff der ,apperception1' etc41 in ,wundt's periodical ,philosophische ,studien1 i1 #adi1 which may be supposed official4 ,for a minute criticism of ,wundt's 'apperception1' see ,marty3 ,vierteljahrschrift f4 wiss4 ,philos41 x1 #cdf4 #aji ,by ,exner1 for example1 ,pflger's ,archiv1 vii1 #fbh ff4 #aaj ,p4 #bbb4 ,cf4 also ,richet1 ,rev4 ,philos41 vi1 #cie-f4 #aaa ,for instance1 if1 on the previous day1 one had resolved to act on a signal when it should come1 and it now came whilst we were engaged in other things1 and reminded us of the resolve4 #aab ,i need hardly mention that success in these experiments depends in a high degree on our concentration of attention4 ,if inattentive1 one gets very discrepant figures4444 ,this concentration of the attention is in the highest degree exhausting4 ,after some experiments in which ,i was concerned to get results as uniform as possible1 ,i was covered with perspiration and excessively fatigued although ,i had sat quietly in my chair all the while4 7,exner1 loc4 cit4 vii1 #fah47 #aac ,wundt1 ,physiol4 ,psych41 ii1 #bbf #aad ,pflger's ,archiv1 vii1 #faf4 #aae ,in short1 what ,m4 ,delbuf calls an 'organe adventice4' ,the reaction-time1 moreover1 is quite compatible with the reaction itself being of a reflex order4 ,some reflexes 7sneezing1 e4g47 are very slow4 ,the only time-measurement of a reflex act in the human subject with which ,i am acquainted is ,exner's measurement of winking 7in ,pflger's ,archiv f4 d4 gesammt4 ,physiol41 ,bd4 viii1 p4 #ebf1 #ahgd74 ,he found that when the stimulus was a flash of light it took the wink #j4bafh sec4 to occur4 ,a strong electric shock to the cornea shortened the time to #j4jegh sec4 ,the ordinary 'reaction-time' is midway between these values4 ,exner 'reduces' his times by eliminating the physiological process of conduction4 ,his 'reduced minimum winking-time' is then #j4jdga 7ibid4 #eca71 whilst his reduced reaction-time is #j4jhbh 7ibid4 vii1 #fcg74 ,these figures have really no scientific value beyond that of showing1 according to ,exner's own belief 7vii1 #eca71 that reaction-time and reflex-time measure processes of essentially the same order4 ,his description1 moreover1 of the process is an excellent description of a reflex act4 ,every one1 says he1 who makes reaction-time experiments for the first time is surprised to find how little he is master of his own movements1 so soon as it becomes a question of executing them with a maximum of speed4 ,not only does their energy lie1 as it were1 outside the field of choice1 but even the time in which the movement occurs depends only partly upon ourselves4 ,we jerk our arm1 and we can afterwards tell with astonishing precision whether we have jerked it quicker or slower than another time1 although we have no power to jerk it exactly at the wished-for moment4--,wundt himself admits that when we await a strong signal with tense preparation there is no consciousness of any duality of 'apperception' and motor response2 the two are continuous 7,physiol4 ,psych41 ii1 #bbf74--,mr4 ,cattell's view is identical with the one ,i defend4 ,i think1 he says1 that if the processes of perception and willing are present at all they are very rudimentary4444 ,the subject1 by a voluntary effort before the signal comes1 puts the lines of communication between the centre for the stimulus and the centre for the co-ordination of motions 444 in a state of unstable equilibrium4 ,when1 therefore1 a nervous impulse reaches the former centre1 it causes brain-changes in two directions2 an impulse moves along to the cortex and calls forth there a perception corresponding to the stimulus1 while at the same time an impulse follows a line of small resistance to the centre for the co-ordination of motions1 and the proper nervous impulse1 already prepared and waiting for the signal1 is sent from the centre to the muscle of the hand4 ,when the reaction has often been made the entire cerebral process becomes automatic1 the impulse of itself takes the well-travelled way to the motor centre1 and releases the motor impulse4 7,mind1 xi1 #bcb-c47--;,finally1 ,prof4 ,lipps has1 in his elaborate way 7,grundtatsachen1 #agi-ahh71 made mince-meat of the view that stage #c involves either conscious perception or conscious will4 #aaf ,physiol4 ,psych41 #c;d edition 7#ahhg71 vol4 ii1 p4 #bff4 #aag ,philosophische ,studien1 vol4 iv1 p4 #dgi 7#ahhh74 #aah ,loc4 cit4 p4 #dhh4 #aai ,loc4 cit4 p4 #dhg4 #abj ,loc4 cit4 p4 #dhi4 #aba ,lange has an interesting hypothesis as to the brain-process concerned in the latter1 for which ,i can only refer to his essay4 #abb ,the reader who wishes to know more about the matter will find a most faithful compilation of all that has been done1 together with much original matter1 in ,g4 ,buccola's ',legge del ,tempo1' etc4 ,see also chapter xvi of ,wundt's ,physiol4 ,psychology2 ,exner in ,hermann's ,hdbch41 ,bd4 #b1 ,thl4 ii1 pp4 #beb-bhj2 also ,ribot's ,contemp4 ,germ4 ,psych4 chap4 viii4 #abc ,the nature of the movement also seems to make it vary4 ,mr4 ,b4 ,i4 ,gilman and ,i reacted to the same signal by simply raising our hand1 and again by carrying our hand towards our back4 ,the moment registered was always that at which the hand broke an electric contact in starting to move4 ,but it started one or two hundredths of a second later when the more extensive movement was the one to be made4 ,orchansky1 on the other hand1 experimenting on contractions of the masseter muscle1 found 7,archiv f4 7,anat4 u47 ,physiol41 #ahhi1 p4 #ahg7 that the greater the amplitude of contraction intended1 the shorter grew the time of reaction4 ,he explains this by the fact that a more ample contraction makes a greater appeal to the attention1 and that this shortens the times4 #abd ,physiol4 ,psych41 ii1 #bbc4 #abe ,franois-,franck1 ,fonctions ,motrices1 ,leon xxii4 #abf ,la ,paura 7#ahhd71 p4 #aag4 #abg ,ueber den ,kreislauf des ,blutes im menschlichen ,gehirn 7#ahha71 chap4 ii4 ,the ,introduction gives the history of our previous knowledge of the subject4 #abh ,in this conclusion ,m4 ,gley 7,archives de ,physiologie1 #ahha1 p4 #gdb7 agrees with ,professor ,mosso4 ,gley found his pulse rise #a-c beats1 his carotid dilate1 and his radial artery contract during hard mental work4 #abi ,address before ,med4 and ,chirurg4 ,society of ,maryland1 #ahgi4 #acj ,see his book2 ,experimental ,researches on the ,regional ,temperature of the ,head 7,london1 #ahgi74 #aca ,loc4 cit4 p4 #aie4 #acb ,the most convenient account of ,schiff's experiments is by ,prof4 ,hierzen1 in the ,revue ,philosophique1 vol4 iii1 p4 #cf4 #acc ,a ,new ,study of ,cerebral ,cortical ,localization 7,n4 ,y41 ,putnam1 #ahhj71 pp4 #dh-ec4 #acd ,archives of ,medicine1 vol4 x1 ,no4 #a 7#ahhc74 #ace ,without multiplying references1 ,i will simply cite ,mendel 7,archiv f4 ,psychiatrie1 vol4 iii1 #ahga71 ,mairet 7,archives de ,neurologie1 vol4 ix1 #ahhe71 and ,beaunis 7,rech4 ,exprimentales sur l',activit ,crbrale1 #ahhg74 ,richet gives a partial bibliography in the ,revue ,scientifique1 vol4 #ch1 p4 #ghh 7#ahhf74 ,,chapter ,,iv4#acf ,,habit4 ,when we look at living creatures from an outward point of view1 one of the first things that strike us is that they are bundles of habits4 ,in wild animals1 the usual round of daily behavior seems a necessity implanted at birth2 in animals domesticated1 and especially in man1 it seems1 to a great extent1 to be the result of education4 ,the habits to which there is an innate tendency are called instincts2 some of those due to education would by most persons be called acts of reason4 ,it thus appears that habit covers a very large part of life1 and that one engaged in studying the objective manifestations of mind is bound at the very outset to define clearly just what its limits are4 ,the moment one tries to define what habit is1 one is led to the fundamental properties of matter4 ,the laws of ,nature are nothing but the immutable habits which the different elementary sorts of matter follow in their actions and reactions upon each other4 ,in the organic world1 however1 the habits are more variable than this4 ,even instincts vary from one individual to another of a kind2 and are modified in the same individual1 as we shall later see1 to suit the exigencies of the case4 ,the habits of an elementary particle of matter cannot change 7on the principles of the atomistic philosophy71 because the particle is itself an unchangeable thing2 but those of a compound mass of matter can change1 because they are in the last instance due to the structure of the compound1 and either outward forces or inward tensions can1 from one hour to another1 turn that structure into something different from what it was4 ,that is1 they can do so if the body be plastic enough to maintain its integrity1 and be not disrupted when its structure yields4 ,the change of structure here spoken of need not involve the outward shape2 it may be invisible and molecular1 as when a bar of iron becomes magnetic or crystalline through the action of certain outward causes1 or ,india-rubber becomes friable1 or plaster 'sets4' ,all these changes are rather slow2 the material in question opposes a certain resistance to the modifying cause1 which it takes time to overcome1 but the gradual yielding whereof often saves the material from being disintegrated altogether4 ,when the structure has yielded1 the same inertia becomes a condition of its comparative permanence in the new form1 and of the new habits the body then manifests4 ,plasticity1 then1 in the wide sense of the word1 means the possession of a structure weak enough to yield to an influence1 but strong enough not to yield all at once4 ,each relatively stable phase of equilibrium in such a structure is marked by what we may call a new set of habits4 ,organic matter1 especially nervous tissue1 seems endowed with a very extraordinary degree of plasticity of this sort2 so that we may without hesitation lay down as our first proposition the following1 that the phenomena of habit in living beings are due to the plasticity#acg of the organic materials of which their bodies are composed4 ,but the philosophy of habit is thus1 in the first instance1 a chapter in physics rather than in physiology or psychology4 ,that it is at bottom a physical principle is admitted by all good recent writers on the subject4 ,they call attention to analogues of acquired habits exhibited by dead matter4 ,thus1 ,m4 ,lon ,dumont1 whose essay on habit is perhaps the most philosophical account yet published1 writes3 ,every one knows how a garment1 after having been worn a certain time1 clings to the shape of the body better than when it was new2 there has been a change in the tissue1 and this change is a new habit of cohesion4 ,a lock works better after being used some time2 at the outset more force was required to overcome certain roughnesses in the mechanism4 ,the overcoming of their resistance is a phenomenon of habituation4 ,it costs less trouble to fold a paper when it has been folded already4 ,this saving of trouble is due to the essential nature of habit1 which brings it about that1 to reproduce the effect1 a less amount of the outward cause is required4 ,the sounds of a violin improve by use in the hands of an able artist1 because the fibres of the wood at last contract habits of vibration conformed to harmonic relations4 ,this is what gives such inestimable value to instruments that have belonged to great masters4 ,water1 in flowing1 hollows out for itself a channel1 which grows broader and deeper2 and1 after having ceased to flow1 it resumes1 when it flows again1 the path traced by itself before4 ,just so1 the impressions of outer objects fashion for themselves in the nervous system more and more appropriate paths1 and these vital phenomena recur under similar excitements from without1 when they have been interrupted a certain time4#ach ,not in the nervous system alone4 ,a scar anywhere is a locus minoris resistenti1 more liable to be abraded1 inflamed1 to suffer pain and cold1 than are the neighboring parts4 ,a sprained ankle1 a dislocated arm1 are in danger of being sprained or dislocated again2 joints that have once been attacked by rheumatism or gout1 mucous membranes that have been the seat of catarrh1 are with each fresh recurrence more prone to a relapse1 until often the morbid state chronically substitutes itself for the sound one4 ,and if we ascend to the nervous system1 we find how many so-called functional diseases seem to keep themselves going simply because they happen to have once begun2 and how the forcible cutting short by medicine of a few attacks is often sufficient to enable the physiological forces to get possession of the field again1 and to bring the organs back to functions of health4 ,epilepsies1 neuralgias1 convulsive affections of various sorts1 insomnias1 are so many cases in point4 ,and1 to take what are more obviously habits1 the success with which a 'weaning' treatment can often be applied to the victims of unhealthy indulgence of passion1 or of mere complaining or irascible disposition1 shows us how much the morbid manifestations themselves were due to the mere inertia of the nervous organs1 when once launched on a false career4 99 99 99 99 99 ,can we now form a notion of what the inward physical changes may be like1 in organs whose habits have thus struck into new paths8 ,in other words1 can we say just what mechanical facts the expression 'change of habit' covers when it is applied to a nervous system8 ,certainly we cannot in anything like a minute or definite way4 ,but our usual scientific custom of interpreting hidden molecular events after the analogy of visible massive ones enables us to frame easily an abstract and general scheme of processes which the physical changes in question may be like4 ,and when once the possibility of some kind of mechanical interpretation is established1 ,mechanical ,science1 in her present mood1 will not hesitate to set her brand of ownership upon the matter1 feeling sure that it is only a question of time when the exact mechanical explanation of the case shall be found out4 ,if habits are due to the plasticity of materials to outward agents1 we can immediately see to what outward influences1 if to any1 the brain-matter is plastic4 ,not to mechanical pressures1 not to thermal changes1 not to any of the forces to which all the other organs of our body are exposed2 for nature has carefully shut up our brain and spinal cord in bony boxes1 where no influences of this sort can get at them4 ,she has floated them in fluid so that only the severest shocks can give them a concussion1 and blanketed and wrapped them about in an altogether exceptional way4 ,the only impressions that can be made upon them are through the blood1 on the one hand1 and through the sensory nerve-roots1 on the other2 and it is to the infinitely attenuated currents that pour in through these latter channels that the hemispherical cortex shows itself to be so peculiarly susceptible4 ,the currents1 once in1 must find a way out4 ,in getting out they leave their traces in the paths which they take4 ,the only thing they can do1 in short1 is to deepen old paths or to make new ones2 and the whole plasticity of the brain sums itself up in two words when we call it an organ in which currents pouring in from the sense-organs make with extreme facility paths which do not easily disappear4 ,for1 of course1 a simple habit1 like every other nervous event--the habit of snuffling1 for example1 or of putting one's hands into one's pockets1 or of biting one's nails--is1 mechanically1 nothing but a reflex discharge2 and its anatomical substratum must be a path in the system4 ,the most complex habits1 as we shall presently see more fully1 are1 from the same point of view1 nothing but concatenated discharges in the nerve-centres1 due to the presence there of systems of reflex paths1 so organized as to wake each other up successively--the impression produced by one muscular contraction serving as a stimulus to provoke the next1 until a final impression inhibits the process and closes the chain4 ,the only difficult mechanical problem is to explain the formation de novo of a simple reflex or path in a pre-existing nervous system4 ,here1 as in so many other cases1 it is only the premier pas qui cote4 ,for the entire nervous system is nothing but a system of paths between a sensory terminus a quo and a muscular1 glandular1 or other terminus ad quem4 ,a path once traversed by a nerve-current might be expected to follow the law of most of the paths we know1 and to be scooped out and made more permeable than before2#aci and this ought to be repeated with each new passage of the current4 ,whatever obstructions may have kept it at first from being a path should then1 little by little1 and more and more1 be swept out of the way1 until at last it might become a natural drainage-channel4 ,this is what happens where either solids or liquids pass over a path2 there seems no reason why it should not happen where the thing that passes is a mere wave of rearrangement in matter that does not displace itself1 but merely changes chemically or turns itself round in place1 or vibrates across the line4 ,the most plausible views of the nerve-current make it out to be the passage of some such wave of rearrangement as this4 ,if only a part of the matter of the path were to 'rearrange' itself1 the neighboring parts remaining inert1 it is easy to see how their inertness might oppose a friction which it would take many waves of rearrangement to break down and overcome4 ,if we call the path itself the 'organ1' and the wave of rearrangement the 'function1' then it is obviously a case for repeating the celebrated ,french formula of ',la fonction fait l'organe4' ,so nothing is easier than to imagine how1 when a current once has traversed a path1 it should traverse it more readily still a second time4 ,but what made it ever traverse it the first time8#adj ,in answering this question we can only fall back on our general conception of a nervous system as a mass of matter whose parts1 constantly kept in states of different tension1 are as constantly tending to equalize their states4 ,the equalization between any two points occurs through whatever path may at the moment be most pervious4 ,but1 as a given point of the system may belong1 actually or potentially1 to many different paths1 and1 as the play of nutrition is subject to accidental changes1 blocks may from time to time occur1 and make currents shoot through unwonted lines4 ,such an unwonted line would be a new-created path1 which if traversed repeatedly1 would become the beginning of a new reflex arc4 ,all this is vague to the last degree1 and amounts to little more than saying that a new path may be formed by the sort of chances that in nervous material are likely to occur4 ,but1 vague as it is1 it is really the last word of our wisdom in the matter4#ada ,it must be noticed that the growth of structural modification in living matter may be more rapid than in any lifeless mass1 because the incessant nutritive renovation of which the living matter is the seat tends often to corroborate and fix the impressed modification1 rather than to counteract it by renewing the original constitution of the tissue that has been impressed4 ,thus1 we notice after exercising our muscles or our brain in a new way1 that we can do so no longer at that time2 but after a day or two of rest1 when we resume the discipline1 our increase in skill not seldom surprises us4 ,i have often noticed this in learning a tune2 and it has led a ,german author to say that we learn to swim during the winter and to skate during the summer4 ,dr4 ,carpenter writes3#adb ,it is a matter of universal experience that every kind of training for special aptitudes is both far more effective1 and leaves a more permanent impress1 when exerted on the growing organism than when brought to bear on the adult4 ,the effect of such training is shown in the tendency of the organ to 'grow to' the mode in which it is habitually exercised2 as is evidenced by the increased size and power of particular sets of muscles1 and the extraordinary flexibility of joints1 which are acquired by such as have been early exercised in gymnastic performances4444 ,there is no part of the organism of man in which the reconstructive activity is so great1 during the whole period of life1 as it is in the ganglionic substance of the brain4 ,this is indicated by the enormous supply of blood which it receives4444 ,it is1 moreover1 a fact of great significance that the nerve-substance is specially distinguished by its reparative power4 ,for while injuries of other tissues 7such as the muscular7 which are distinguished by the speciality of their structure and endowments1 are repaired by substance of a lower or less specialized type1 those of nerve-substance are repaired by a complete reproduction of the normal tissue2 as is evidenced in the sensibility of the newly forming skin which is closing over an open wound1 or in the recovery of the sensibility of a piece of 'transplanted' skin1 which has for a time been rendered insensible by the complete interruption of the continuity of its nerves4 ,the most remarkable example of this reproduction1 however1 is afforded by the results of ,m4 ,brown-,squard's#adc experiments upon the gradual restoration of the functional activity of the spinal cord after its complete division2 which takes place in a way that indicates rather a reproduction of the whole1 or the lower part of the cord and of the nerves proceeding from it1 than a mere reunion of divided surfaces4 ,this reproduction is but a special manifestation of the reconstructive change which is always taking place in the nervous system2 it being not less obvious to the eye of reason that the 'waste' occasioned by its functional activity must be constantly repaired by the production of new tissue1 than it is to the eye of sense that such reparation supplies an actual loss of substance by disease or injury4 ,now1 in this constant and active reconstruction of the nervous system1 we recognize a most marked conformity to the general plan manifested in the nutrition of the organism as a whole4 ,for1 in the first place1 it is obvious that there is a tendency to the production of a determinate type of structure2 which type is often not merely that of the species1 but some special modification of it which characterized one or both of the progenitors4 ,but this type is peculiarly liable to modification during the early period of life2 in which the functional activity of the nervous system 7and particularly of the brain7 is extraordinarily great1 and the reconstructive process proportionally active4 ,and this modifiability expresses itself in the formation of the mechanism by which those secondarily automatic modes of movement come to be established1 which1 in man1 take the place of those that are congenital in most of the animals beneath him2 and those modes of sense-perception come to be acquired1 which are elsewhere clearly instinctive4 ,for there can be no reasonable doubt that1 in both cases1 a nervous mechanism is developed in the course of this self-education1 corresponding with that which the lower animals inherit from their parents4 ,the plan of that rebuilding process1 which is necessary to maintain the integrity of the organism generally1 and which goes on with peculiar activity in this portion of it1 is thus being incessantly modified2 and in this manner all that portion of it which ministers to the external life of sense and motion that is shared by man with the animal kingdom at large1 becomes at adult age the expression of the habits which the individual has acquired during the period of growth and development4 ,of these habits1 some are common to the race generally1 while others are peculiar to the individual2 those of the former kind 7such as walking erect7 being universally acquired1 save where physical inability prevents2 while for the latter a special training is needed1 which is usually the more effective the earlier it is begun--as is remarkably seen in the case of such feats of dexterity as require a conjoint education of the perceptive and of the motor powers4 ,and when thus developed during the period of growth1 so as to have become a part of the constitution of the adult1 the acquired mechanism is thenceforth maintained in the ordinary course of the nutritive operations1 so as to be ready for use when called upon1 even after long inaction4 ,what is so clearly true of the nervous apparatus of animal life can scarcely be otherwise than true of that which ministers to the automatic activity of the mind4 ,for1 as already shown1 the study of psychology has evolved no more certain result than that there are uniformities of mental action which are so entirely conformable to those of bodily action as to indicate their intimate relation to a 'mechanism of thought and feeling1' acting under the like conditions with that of sense and motion4 ,the psychical principles of association1 indeed1 and the physiological principles of nutrition1 simply express--the former in terms of mind1 the latter in terms of brain--the universally admitted fact that any sequence of mental action which has been frequently repeated tends to perpetuate itself2 so that we find ourselves automatically prompted to think1 feel1 or do what we have been before accustomed to think1 feel1 or do1 under like circumstances1 without any consciously formed purpose1 or anticipation of results4 ,for there is no reason to regard the cerebrum as an exception to the general principle that1 while each part of the organism tends to form itself in accordance with the mode in which it is habitually exercised1 this tendency will be especially strong in the nervous apparatus1 in virtue of that incessant regeneration which is the very condition of its functional activity4 ,it scarcely1 indeed1 admits of doubt that every state of ideational consciousness which is either very strong or is habitually repeated leaves an organic impression on the cerebrum2 in virtue of which that same state may be reproduced at any future time1 in respondence to a suggestion fitted to excite it4444 ,the 'strength of early association' is a fact so universally recognized that the expression of it has become proverbial2 and this precisely accords with the physiological principle that1 during the period of growth and development1 the formative activity of the brain will be most amenable to directing influences4 ,it is in this way that what is early 'learned by heart' becomes branded in 7as it were7 upon the cerebrum2 so that its 'traces' are never lost1 even though the conscious memory of it may have completely faded out4 ,for1 when the organic modification has been once fixed in the growing brain1 it becomes a part of the normal fabric1 and is regularly maintained by nutritive substitution2 so that it may endure to the end of life1 like the scar of a wound4 ,dr4 ,carpenter's phrase that our nervous system grows to the modes in which it has been exercised expresses the philosophy of habit in a nutshell4 ,we may now trace some of the practical applications of the principle to human life4 ,the first result of it is that habit simplifies the movements required to achieve a given result1 makes them more accurate and diminishes fatigue4 ,the beginner at the piano not only moves his finger up and down in order to depress the key1 he moves the whole hand1 the forearm and even the entire body1 especially moving its least rigid part1 the head1 as if he would press down the key with that organ too4 ,often a contraction of the abdominal muscles occurs as well4 ,principally1 however1 the impulse is determined to the motion of the hand and of the single finger4 ,this is1 in the first place1 because the movement of the finger is the movement thought of and1 in the second place1 because its movement and that of the key are the movements we try to perceive1 along with the results of the latter on the ear4 ,the more often the process is repeated1 the more easily the movement follows1 on account of the increase in permeability of the nerves engaged4 ,but the more easily the movement occurs1 the slighter is the stimulus required to set it up2 and the slighter the stimulus is1 the more its effect is confined to the fingers alone4 ,thus1 an impulse which originally spread its effects over the whole body1 or at least over many of its movable parts1 is gradually determined to a single definite organ1 in which it effects the contraction of a few limited muscles4 ,in this change the thoughts and perceptions which start the impulse acquire more and more intimate causal relations with a particular group of motor nerves4 ,to recur to a simile1 at least partially apt1 imagine the nervous system to represent a drainage-system1 inclining1 on the whole1 toward certain muscles1 but with the escape thither somewhat clogged4 ,then streams of water will1 on the whole1 tend most to fill the drains that go towards these muscles and to wash out the escape4 ,in case of a sudden 'flushing1' however1 the whole system of channels will fill itself1 and the water overflow everywhere before it escapes4 ,but a moderate quantity of water invading the system will flow through the proper escape alone4 ,just so with the piano-player4 ,as soon as his impulse1 which has gradually learned to confine itself to single muscles1 grows extreme1 it overflows into larger muscular regions4 ,he usually plays with his fingers1 his body being at rest4 ,but no sooner does he get excited than his whole body becomes 'animated1' and he moves his head and trunk1 in particular1 as if these also were organs with which he meant to belabor the keys4#add ,man is born with a tendency to do more things than he has ready-made arrangements for in his nerve-centres4 ,most of the performances of other animals are automatic4 ,but in him the number of them is so enormous1 that most of them must be the fruit of painful study4 ,if practice did not make perfect1 nor habit economize the expense of nervous and muscular energy1 he would therefore be in a sorry plight4 ,as ,dr4 ,maudsley says3#ade ,if an act became no easier after being done several times1 if the careful direction of consciousness were necessary to its accomplishment on each occasion1 it is evident that the whole activity of a lifetime might be confined to one or two deeds--that no progress could take place in development4 ,a man might be occupied all day in dressing and undressing himself2 the attitude of his body would absorb all his attention and energy2 the washing of his hands or the fastening of a button would be as difficult to him on each occasion as to the child on its first trial2 and he would1 furthermore1 be completely exhausted by his exertions4 ,think of the pains necessary to teach a child to stand1 of the many efforts which it must make1 and of the ease with which it at last stands1 unconscious of any effort4 ,for while secondarily automatic acts are accomplished with comparatively little weariness--in this regard approaching the organic movements1 or the original reflex movements--the conscious effort of the will soon produces exhaustion4 ,a spinal cord without 444 memory would simply be an idiotic spinal cord4444 ,it is impossible for an individual to realize how much he owes to its automatic agency until disease has impaired its functions4 ,the next result is that habit diminishes the conscious attention with which our acts are performed4 ,one may state this abstractly thus3 ,if an act require for its execution a chain1 ,a1 ,b1 ,c1 ,d1 ,e1 ,f1 ,g1 etc41 of successive nervous events1 then in the first performances of the action the conscious will must choose each of these events from a number of wrong alternatives that tend to present themselves2 but habit soon brings it about that each event calls up its own appropriate successor without any alternative offering itself1 and without any reference to the conscious will1 until at last the whole chain1 ,a1 ,b1 ,c1 ,d1 ,e1 ,f1 ,g1 rattles itself off as soon as ,a occurs1 just as if ,a and the rest of the chain were fused into a continuous stream4 ,when we are learning to walk1 to ride1 to swim1 skate1 fence1 write1 play1 or sing1 we interrupt ourselves at every step by unnecessary movements and false notes4 ,when we are proficients1 on the contrary1 the results not only follow with the very minimum of muscular action requisite to bring them forth1 they also follow from a single instantaneous 'cue4' ,the marksman sees the bird1 and1 before he knows it1 he has aimed and shot4 ,a gleam in his adversary's eye1 a momentary pressure from his rapier1 and the fencer finds that he has instantly made the right parry and return4 ,a glance at the musical hieroglyphics1 and the pianist's fingers have rippled through a cataract of notes4 ,and not only is it the right thing at the right time that we thus involuntarily do1 but the wrong thing also1 if it be an habitual thing4 ,who is there that has never wound up his watch on taking off his waistcoat in the daytime1 or taken his latch-key out on arriving at the door-step of a friend8 ,very absent-minded persons in going to their bedroom to dress for dinner have been known to take off one garment after another and finally to get into bed1 merely because that was the habitual issue of the first few movements when performed at a later hour4 ,the writer well remembers how1 on revisiting ,paris after ten years' absence1 and1 finding himself in the street in which for one winter he had attended school1 he lost himself in a brown study1 from which he was awakened by finding himself upon the stairs which led to the apartment in a house many streets away in which he had lived during that earlier time1 and to which his steps from the school had then habitually led4 ,we all of us have a definite routine manner of performing certain daily offices connected with the toilet1 with the opening and shutting of familiar cupboards1 and the like4 ,our lower centres know the order of these movements1 and show their knowledge by their 'surprise' if the objects are altered so as to oblige the movement to be made in a different way4 ,but our higher thought-centres know hardly anything about the matter4 ,few men can tell off-hand which sock1 shoe1 or trousers-leg they put on first4 ,they must first mentally rehearse the act2 and even that is often insufficient--the act must be performed4 ,so of the questions1 ,which valve of my double door opens first8 ,which way does my door swing8 etc4 ,i cannot tell the answer2 yet my hand never makes a mistake4 ,no one can describe the order in which he brushes his hair or teeth2 yet it is likely that the order is a pretty fixed one in all of us4 ,these results may be expressed as follows3 ,in action grown habitual1 what instigates each new muscular contraction to take place in its appointed order is not a thought or a perception1 but the sensation occasioned by the muscular contraction just finished4 ,a strictly voluntary act has to be guided by idea1 perception1 and volition1 throughout its whole course4 ,in an habitual action1 mere sensation is a sufficient guide1 and the upper regions of brain and mind are set comparatively free4 ,a diagram will make the matter clear3 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #bd4 ,let ,a1 ,b1 ,c1 ,d1 ,e1 ,f1 ,g represent an habitual chain of muscular contractions1 and let a1 b1 c1 d1 e1 f stand for the respective sensations which these contractions excite in us when they are successively performed4 ,such sensations will usually be of the muscles1 skin1 or joints of the parts moved1 but they may also be effects of the movement upon the eye or the ear4 ,through them1 and through them alone1 we are made aware whether the contraction has or has not occurred4 ,when the series1 ,a1 ,b1 ,c1 ,d1 ,e1 ,f1 ,g1 is being learned1 each of these sensations becomes the object of a separate perception by the mind4 ,by it we test each movement1 to see if it be right before advancing to the next4 ,we hesitate1 compare1 choose1 revoke1 reject1 etc41 by intellectual means2 and the order by which the next movement is discharged is an express order from the ideational centres after this deliberation has been gone through4 ,in habitual action1 on the contrary1 the only impulse which the centres of idea or perception need send down is the initial impulse1 the command to start4 ,this is represented in the diagram by ,v2 it may be a thought of the first movement or of the last result1 or a mere perception of some of the habitual conditions of the chain1 the presence1 e4g41 of the keyboard near the hand4 ,in the present case1 no sooner has the conscious thought or volition instigated movement ,a1 than ,a1 through the sensation a of its own occurrence1 awakens ,b reflexly2 ,b then excites ,c through b1 and so on till the chain is ended1 when the intellect generally takes cognizance of the final result4 ,the process1 in fact1 resembles the passage of a wave of 'peristaltic' motion down the bowels4 ,the intellectual perception at the end is indicated in the diagram by the effect of ,g being represented1 at ,g'1 in the ideational centres above the merely sensational line4 ,the sensational impressions1 a1 b1 c1 d1 e1 f1 are all supposed to have their seat below the ideational lines4 ,that our ideational centres1 if involved at all by a1 b1 c1 d1 e1 f1 are involved in a minimal degree1 is shown by the fact that the attention may be wholly absorbed elsewhere4 ,we may say our prayers1 or repeat the alphabet1 with our attention far away4 ,a musical performer will play a piece which has become familiar by repetition while carrying on an animated conversation1 or while continuously engrossed by some train of deeply interesting thought2 the accustomed sequence of movements being directly prompted by the sight of the notes1 or by the remembered succession of the sounds 7if the piece is played from memory71 aided in both cases by the guiding sensations derived from the muscles themselves4 ,but1 further1 a higher degree of the same 'training' 7acting on an organism specially fitted to profit by it7 enables an accomplished pianist to play a difficult piece of music at sight2 the movements of the hands and fingers following so immediately upon the sight of the notes that it seems impossible to believe that any but the very shortest and most direct track can be the channel of the nervous communication through which they are called forth4 ,the following curious example of the same class of acquired aptitudes1 which differ from instincts only in being prompted to action by the will1 is furnished by ,robert ,houdin3 ',with a view of cultivating the rapidity of visual and tactile perception1 and the precision of respondent movements1 which are necessary for success in every kind of prestidigitation1 ,houdin early practised the art of juggling with balls in the air2 and having1 after a month's practice1 become thorough master of the art of keeping up four balls at once1 he placed a book before him1 and1 while the balls were in the air1 accustomed himself to read without hesitation4 ',this1' he says1 'will probably seem to my readers very extraordinary2 but ,i shall surprise them still more when ,i say that ,i have just amused myself with repeating this curious experiment4 ,though thirty years have elapsed since the time ,i was writing1 and though ,i have scarcely once touched the balls during that period1 ,i can still manage to read with ease while keeping three balls up4'7,autobiography1 p4 #bf47adf ,we have called a1 b1 c1 d1 e1 f1 the antecedents of the successive muscular attractions1 by the name of sensations4 ,some authors seem to deny that they are even this4 ,if not even this1 they can only be centripetal nerve-currents1 not sufficient to arouse feeling1 but sufficient to arouse motor response4#adg ,it may be at once admitted that they are not distinct volitions4 ,the will1 if any will be present1 limits itself to a permission that they exert their motor effects4 ,dr4 ,carpenter writes3 ,there may still be metaphysicians who maintain that actions which were originally prompted by the will with a distinct intention1 and which are still entirely under its control1 can never cease to be volitional2 and that either an infinitesimally small amount of will is required to sustain them when they have been once set going1 or that the will is in a sort of pendulum-like oscillation between the two actions--the maintenance of the train of thought1 and the maintenance of the train of movement4 ,but if only an infinitesimally small amount of will is necessary to sustain them1 is not this tantamount to saying that they go on by a force of their own8 ,and does not the experience of the perfect continuity of our train of thought during the performance of movements that have become habitual1 entirely negative the hypothesis of oscillation8 ,besides1 if such an oscillation existed1 there must be intervals in which each action goes on of itself2 so that its essentially automatic character is virtually admitted4 ,the physiological explanation1 that the mechanism of locomotion1 as of other habitual movements1 grows to the mode in which it is early exercised1 and that it then works automatically under the general control and direction of the will1 can scarcely be put down by any assumption of an hypothetical necessity1 which rests only on the basis of ignorance of one side of our composite nature4#adh ,but if not distinct acts of will1 these immediate antecedents of each movement of the chain are at any rate accompanied by consciousness of some kind4 ,they are sensations to which we are usually inattentive1 but which immediately call our attention if they go wrong4 ,schneider's account of these sensations deserves to be quoted4 ,in the act of walking1 he says1 even when our attention is entirely off1 we are continuously aware of certain muscular feelings2 and we have1 moreover1 a feeling of certain impulses to keep our equilibrium and to set down one leg after another4 ,it is doubtful whether we could preserve equilibrium if no sensation of our body's attitude were there1 and doubtful whether we should advance our leg if we had no sensation of its movement as executed1 and not even a minimal feeling of impulse to set it down4 ,knitting appears altogether mechanical1 and the knitter keeps up her knitting even while she reads or is engaged in lively talk4 ,but if we ask her how this be possible1 she will hardly reply that the knitting goes on of itself4 ,she will rather say that she has a feeling of it1 that she feels in her hands that she knits and how she must knit1 and that therefore the movements of knitting are called forth and regulated by the sensations associated therewithal1 even when the attention is called away4 ,so of every one who practises1 apparently automatically1 a long-familiar handicraft4 ,the smith turning his tongs as he smites the iron1 the carpenter wielding his plane1 the lace-maker with her bobbin1 the weaver at his loom1 all will answer the same question in the same way by saying that they have a feeling of the proper management of the implement in their hands4 ,in these cases1 the feelings which are conditions of the appropriate acts are very faint4 ,but none the less are they necessary4 ,imagine your hands not feeling2 your movements could then only be provoked by ideas1 and if your ideas were then diverted away1 the movements ought to come to a standstill1 which is a consequence that seldom occurs4#adi ,again3 ,an idea makes you take1 for example1 a violin into your left hand4 ,but it is not necessary that your idea remain fixed on the contraction of the muscles of the left hand and fingers in order that the violin may continue to be held fast and not let fall4 ,the sensations themselves which the holding of the instrument awakens in the hand1 since they are associated with the motor impulse of grasping1 are sufficient to cause this impulse1 which then lasts as long as the feeling itself lasts1 or until the impulse is inhibited by the idea of some antagonistic motion4 ,and the same may be said of the manner in which the right hand holds the bow3 ,it sometimes happens1 in beginning these simultaneous combinations1 that one movement or impulse will cease if the consciousness turn particularly toward another1 because at the outset the guiding sensations must all be strongly felt4 ,the bow will perhaps slip from the fingers1 because some of the muscles have relaxed4 ,but the slipping is a cause of new sensations starting up in the hand1 so that the attention is in a moment brought back to the grasping of the bow4 ,the following experiment shows this well3 ,when one begins to play on the violin1 to keep him from raising his right elbow in playing a book is placed under his right armpit1 which he is ordered to hold fast by keeping the upper arm tight against his body4 ,the muscular feelings1 and feelings of contact connected with the book1 provoke an impulse to press it tight4 ,but often it happens that the beginner1 whose attention gets absorbed in the production of the notes1 lets drop the book4 ,later1 however1 this never happens2 the faintest sensations of contact suffice to awaken the impulse to keep it in its place1 and the attention may be wholly absorbed by the notes and the fingering with the left hand4 ,the simultaneous combination of movements is thus in the first instance conditioned by the facility with which in us1 alongside of intellectual processes1 processes of inattentive feeling may still go on4#aej ,this brings us by a very natural transition to the ethical implications of the law of habit4 ,they are numerous and momentous4 ,dr4 ,carpenter1 from whose ',mental ,physiology' we have quoted1 has so prominently enforced the principle that our organs grow to the way in which they have been exercised1 and dwelt upon its consequences1 that his book almost deserves to be called a work of edification1 on this account alone4 ,we need make no apology1 then1 for tracing a few of these consequences ourselves3 ,habit a second nature6 ,habit is ten times nature1 the ,duke of ,wellington is said to have exclaimed2 and the degree to which this is true no one can probably appreciate as well as one who is a veteran soldier himself4 ,the daily drill and the years of discipline end by fashioning a man completely over again1 as to most of the possibilities of his conduct4 ,there is a story1 which is credible enough1 though it may not be true1 of a practical joker1 who1 seeing a discharged veteran carrying home his dinner1 suddenly called out1 ',attention6' whereupon the man instantly brought his hands down1 and lost his mutton and potatoes in the gutter4 ,the drill had been thorough1 and its effects had become embodied in the man's nervous structure4#aea ,riderless cavalry-horses1 at many a battle1 have been seen to come together and go through their customary evolutions at the sound of the bugle-call4 ,most trained domestic animals1 dogs and oxen1 and omnibus- and car-horses1 seem to be machines almost pure and simple1 undoubtingly1 unhesitatingly doing from minute to minute the duties they have been taught1 and giving no sign that the possibility of an alternative ever suggests itself to their mind4 ,men grown old in prison have asked to be readmitted after being once set free4 ,in a railroad accident to a travelling menagerie in the ,united ,states some time in #ahha1 a tiger1 whose cage had broken open1 is said to have emerged1 but presently crept back again1 as if too much bewildered by his new responsibilities1 so that he was without difficulty secured4 ,habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society1 its most precious conservative agent4 ,it alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance1 and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor4 ,it alone prevents the hardest and most repulsive walks of life from being deserted by those brought up to tread therein4 ,it keeps the fisherman and the deck-hand at sea through the winter2 it holds the miner in his darkness1 and nails the countryman to his log-cabin and his lonely farm through all the months of snow2 it protects us from invasion by the natives of the desert and the frozen zone4 ,it dooms us all to fight out the battle of life upon the lines of our nurture or our early choice1 and to make the best of a pursuit that disagrees1 because there is no other for which we are fitted1 and it is too late to begin again4 ,it keeps different social strata from mixing4 ,already at the age of twenty-five you see the professional mannerism settling down on the young commercial traveller1 on the young doctor1 on the young minister1 on the young counsellor-at-law4 ,you see the little lines of cleavage running through the character1 the tricks of thought1 the prejudices1 the ways of the 'shop1' in a word1 from which the man can by-and-by no more escape than his coat-sleeve can suddenly fall into a new set of folds4 ,on the whole1 it is best he should not escape4 ,it is well for the world that in most of us1 by the age of thirty1 the character has set like plaster1 and will never soften again4 ,if the period between twenty and thirty is the critical one in the formation of intellectual and professional habits1 the period below twenty is more important still for the fixing of personal habits1 properly so called1 such as vocalization and pronunciation1 gesture1 motion1 and address4 ,hardly ever is a language learned after twenty spoken without a foreign accent2 hardly ever can a youth transferred to the society of his betters unlearn the nasality and other vices of speech bred in him by the associations of his growing years4 ,hardly ever1 indeed1 no matter how much money there be in his pocket1 can he even learn to dress like a gentleman-born4 ,the merchants offer their wares as eagerly to him as to the veriest 'swell1' but he simply cannot buy the right things4 ,an invisible law1 as strong as gravitation1 keeps him within his orbit1 arrayed this year as he was the last2 and how his better-bred acquaintances contrive to get the things they wear will be for him a mystery till his dying day4 ,the great thing1 then1 in all education1 is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy4 ,it is to fund and capitalize our acquisitions1 and live at ease upon the interest of the fund4 ,for this we must make automatic and habitual1 as early as possible1 as many useful actions as we can1 and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us1 as we should guard against the plague4 ,the more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism1 the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work4 ,there is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision1 and for whom the lighting of every cigar1 the drinking of every cup1 the time of rising and going to bed every day1 and the beginning of every bit of work1 are subjects of express volitional deliberation4 ,full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding1 or regretting1 of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all4 ,if there be such daily duties not yet ingrained in any one of my readers1 let him begin this very hour to set the matter right4 ,in ,professor ,bain's chapter on ',the ,moral ,habits' there are some admirable practical remarks laid down4 ,two great maxims emerge from his treatment4 ,the first is that in the acquisition of a new habit1 or the leaving off of an old one1 we must take care to launch ourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as possible4 ,accumulate all the possible circumstances which shall re-enforce the right motives2 put yourself assiduously in conditions that encourage the new way2 make engagements incompatible with the old2 take a public pledge1 if the case allows2 in short1 envelop your resolution with every aid you know4 ,this will give your new beginning such a momentum that the temptation to break down will not occur as soon as it otherwise might2 and every day during which a breakdown is postponed adds to the chances of its not occurring at all4 ,the second maxim is3 ,never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life4 ,each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up2 a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again4 ,continuity of training is the great means of making the nervous system act infallibly right4 ,as ,professor ,bain says3 ,the peculiarity of the moral habits1 contradistinguishing them from the intellectual acquisitions1 is the presence of two hostile powers1 one to be gradually raised into the ascendant over the other4 ,it is necessary1 above all things1 in such a situation1 never to lose a battle4 ,every gain on the wrong side undoes the effect of many conquests on the right4 ,the essential precaution1 therefore1 is so to regulate the two opposing powers that the one may have a series of uninterrupted successes1 until repetition has fortified it to such a degree as to enable it to cope with the opposition1 under any circumstances4 ,this is the theoretically best career of mental progress4 ,the need of securing success at the outset is imperative4 ,failure at first is apt to dampen the energy of all future attempts1 whereas past experience of success nerves one to future vigor4 ,goethe says to a man who consulted him about an enterprise but mistrusted his own powers3 ,ach6 you need only blow on your hands6 ,and the remark illustrates the effect on ,goethe's spirits of his own habitually successful career4 ,prof4 ,baumann1 from whom ,i borrow the anecdote1#aeb says that the collapse of barbarian nations when ,europeans come among them is due to their despair of ever succeeding as the new-comers do in the larger tasks of life4 ,old ways are broken and new ones not formed4 ,the question of 'tapering-off1' in abandoning such habits as drink and opium-indulgence1 comes in here1 and is a question about which experts differ within certain limits1 and in regard to what may be best for an individual case4 ,in the main1 however1 all expert opinion would agree that abrupt acquisition of the new habit is the best way1 if there be a real possibility of carrying it out4 ,we must be careful not to give the will so stiff a task as to insure its defeat at the very outset2 but1 provided one can stand it1 a sharp period of suffering1 and then a free time1 is the best thing to aim at1 whether in giving up a habit like that of opium1 or in simply changing one's hours of rising or of work4 ,it is surprising how soon a desire will die of inanition if it be never fed4 ,one must first learn1 unmoved1 looking neither to the right nor left1 to walk firmly on the straight and narrow path1 before one can begin 'to make one's self over again4' ,he who every day makes a fresh resolve is like one who1 arriving at the edge of the ditch he is to leap1 forever stops and returns for a fresh run4 ,without unbroken advance there is no such thing as accumulation of the ethical forces possible1 and to make this possible1 and to exercise us and habituate us in it1 is the sovereign blessing of regular work4#aec ,a third maxim may be added to the preceding pair3 ,seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make1 and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain4 ,it is not in the moment of their forming1 but in the moment of their producing motor effects1 that resolves and aspirations communicate the new 'set' to the brain4 ,as the author last quoted remarks3 ,the actual presence of the practical opportunity alone furnishes the fulcrum upon which the lever can rest1 by means of which the moral will may multiply its strength1 and raise itself aloft4 ,he who has no solid ground to press against will never get beyond the stage of empty gesture-making4 ,no matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess1 and no matter how good one's sentiments may be1 if one have not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act1 one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better4 ,with mere good intentions1 hell is proverbially paved4 ,and this is an obvious consequence of the principles we have laid down4 ,a 'character1' as ,j4 ,s4 ,mill says1 'is a completely fashioned will'2 and a will1 in the sense in which he means it1 is an aggregate of tendencies to act in a firm and prompt and definite way upon all the principal emergencies of life4 ,a tendency to act only becomes effectively ingrained in us in proportion to the uninterrupted frequency with which the actions actually occur1 and the brain 'grows' to their use4 ,every time a resolve or a fine glow of feeling evaporates without bearing practical fruit is worse than a chance lost2 it works so as positively to hinder future resolutions and emotions from taking the normal path of discharge4 ,there is no more contemptible type of human character than that of the nerveless sentimentalist and dreamer1 who spends his life in a weltering sea of sensibility and emotion1 but who never does a manly concrete deed4 ,rousseau1 inflaming all the mothers of ,france1 by his eloquence1 to follow ,nature and nurse their babies themselves1 while he sends his own children to the foundling hospital1 is the classical example of what ,i mean4 ,but every one of us in his measure1 whenever1 after glowing for an abstractly formulated ,good1 he practically ignores some actual case1 among the squalid 'other particulars' of which that same ,good lurks disguised1 treads straight on ,rousseau's path4 ,all ,goods are disguised by the vulgarity of their concomitants1 in this work-a-day world2 but woe to him who can only recognize them when he thinks them in their pure and abstract form6 ,the habit of excessive novel-reading and theatre-going will produce true monsters in this line4 ,the weeping of a ,russian lady over the fictitious personages in the play1 while her coachman is freezing to death on his seat outside1 is the sort of thing that everywhere happens on a less glaring scale4 ,even the habit of excessive indulgence in music1 for those who are neither performers themselves nor musically gifted enough to take it in a purely intellectual way1 has probably a relaxing effect upon the character4 ,one becomes filled with emotions which habitually pass without prompting to any deed1 and so the inertly sentimental condition is kept up4 ,the remedy would be1 never to suffer one's self to have an emotion at a concert1 without expressing it afterward in some active way4#aed ,let the expression be the least thing in the world--speaking genially to one's aunt1 or giving up one's seat in a horse-car1 if nothing more heroic offers--but let it not fail to take place4 ,these latter cases make us aware that it is not simply particular lines of discharge1 but also general forms of discharge1 that seem to be grooved out by habit in the brain4 ,just as1 if we let our emotions evaporate1 they get into a way of evaporating2 so there is reason to suppose that if we often flinch from making an effort1 before we know it the effort-making capacity will be gone2 and that1 if we suffer the wandering of our attention1 presently it will wander all the time4 ,attention and effort are1 as we shall see later1 but two names for the same psychic fact4 ,to what brain-processes they correspond we do not know4 ,the strongest reason for believing that they do depend on brain-processes at all1 and are not pure acts of the spirit1 is just this fact1 that they seem in some degree subject to the law of habit1 which is a material law4 ,as a final practical maxim1 relative to these habits of the will1 we may1 then1 offer something like this3 ,keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day4 ,that is1 be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points1 do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it1 so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh1 it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test4 ,asceticism of this sort is like the insurance which a man pays on his house and goods4 ,the tax does him no good at the time1 and possibly may never bring him a return4 ,but if the fire does come1 his having paid it will be his salvation from ruin4 ,so with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention1 energetic volition1 and self-denial in unnecessary things4 ,he will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him1 and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast4 ,the physiological study of mental conditions is thus the most powerful ally of hortatory ethics4 ,the hell to be endured hereafter1 of which theology tells1 is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way4 ,could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits1 they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state4 ,we are spinning our own fates1 good or evil1 and never to be undone4 ,every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar4 ,the drunken ,rip ,van ,winkle1 in ,jefferson's play1 excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying1 ',i won't count this time6' ,well6 he may not count it1 and a kind ,heaven may not count it2 but it is being counted none the less4 ,down among his nerve-cells and fibres the molecules are counting it1 registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes4 ,nothing we ever do is1 in strict scientific literalness1 wiped out4 ,of course1 this has its good side as well as its bad one4 ,as we become permanent drunkards by so many separate drinks1 so we become saints in the moral1 and authorities and experts in the practical and scientific spheres1 by so many separate acts and hours of work4 ,let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education1 whatever the line of it may be4 ,if he keep faithfully busy each hour of the working-day1 he may safely leave the final result to itself4 ,he can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning1 to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation1 in whatever pursuit he may have singled out4 ,silently1 between all the details of his business1 the power of judging in all that class of matter will have built itself up within him as a possession that will never pass away4 ,young people should know this truth in advance4 ,the ignorance of it has probably engendered more discouragement and faint-heartedness in youths embarking on arduous careers than all other causes put together4 ,,footnotes3 #acf ,this chapter has already appeared in the ,popular ,science ,monthly for ,february #ahhg4 #acg ,in the sense above explained1 which applies to inner structure as well as to outer form4 #ach ,revue ,philosophique1 i1 #cbd4 #aci ,some paths1 to be sure1 are banked up by bodies moving through them under too great pressure1 and made impervious4 ,these special cases we disregard4 #adj ,we cannot say the will1 for1 though many1 perhaps most1 human habits were once voluntary actions1 no action1 as we shall see in a later chapter1 can be primarily such4 ,while an habitual action may once have been voluntary1 the voluntary action must before that1 at least once1 have been impulsive or reflex4 ,it is this very first occurrence of all that we consider in the text4 #ada ,those who desire a more definite formulation may consult ,j4 ,fiske's ',cosmic ,philosophy1' vol4 ii1 pp4 #adb-adf and ,spencer's ',principles of ,biology1' sections #cjb and #cjc1 and the part entitled ',physical ,synthesis' of his ',principles of ,psychology4' ,mr4 ,spencer there tries1 not only to show how new actions may arise in nervous systems and form new reflex arcs therein1 but even how nervous tissue may actually be born by the passage of new waves of isometric transformation through an originally indifferent mass4 ,i cannot help thinking that ,mr4 ,spencer's data1 under a great show of precision1 conceal vagueness and improbability1 and even self-contradiction4 #adb ',mental ,physiology' 7#ahgd7 pp4 #cci-cde4 #adc ,see1 later1 ,masius in ,van ,benedens' and ,van ,bambeke's ',archives de ,biologie1' vol4 i 7,lige1 #ahhj74--,w4 ,j4 #add ,g4 ,h4 ,schneider3 ',der menschliche ,wille' 7#ahhb71 pp4 #dag-dai 7freely translated74 ,for the drain-simile1 see also ,spencer's ',psychology1' part v1 chap4 viii4 #ade ,physiology of ,mind1 p4 #aee4 #adf ,carpenter's ',mental ,physiology' 7#ahgd71 pp4 #bag1 #bah4 #adg ,von ,hartmann devotes a chapter of his ',philosophy of the ,unconscious' 7,english translation1 vol4 i1 p4 #gb7 to proving that they must be both ideas and unconscious4 #adh ',mental ,physiology1' p4 #bj4 #adi ',der menschliche ,wille1' pp4 #ddg1 #ddh4 #aej ',der menschliche ,wille1' p4 #dci4 ,the last sentence is rather freely translated--the sense is unaltered4 #aea ,huxley's ',elementary ,lessons in ,physiology1' lesson xii4 #aeb ,see the admirable passage about success at the outset1 in his ,handbuch der ,moral 7#ahgh71 pp4 #ch-dc4 #aec ,j4 ,bahnsen3 ',beitrge zu ,charakterologie' 7#ahfg71 vol i1 p4 #bji4 #aed ,see for remarks on this subject a readable article by ,miss ,v4 ,scudder on ',musical ,devotees and ,morals1' in the ,andover ,review for ,january4 #ahhg4 ,,chapter ,v4 ,,the ,,automaton-,,theory4 ,in describing the functions of the hemispheres a short way back1 we used language derived from both the bodily and the mental life1 saying now that the animal made indeterminate and unforeseeable reactions1 and anon that he was swayed by considerations of future good and evil2 treating his hemispheres sometimes as the seat of memory and ideas in the psychic sense1 and sometimes talking of them as simply a complicated addition to his reflex machinery4 ,this sort of vacillation in the point of view is a fatal incident of all ordinary talk about these questions2 but ,i must now settle my scores with those readers to whom ,i already dropped a word in passing 7see ,footnote #f7 and who have probably been dissatisfied with my conduct ever since4 ,suppose we restrict our view to facts of one and the same plane1 and let that be the bodily plane3 cannot all the outward phenomena of intelligence still be exhaustively described8 ,those mental images1 those 'considerations1' whereof we spoke1--presumably they do not arise without neural processes arising simultaneously with them1 and presumably each consideration corresponds to a process sui generis1 and unlike all the rest4 ,in other words1 however numerous and delicately differentiated the train of ideas may be1 the train of brain-events that runs alongside of it must in both respects be exactly its match1 and we must postulate a neural machinery that offers a living counterpart for every shading1 however fine1 of the history of its owner's mind4 ,whatever degree of complication the latter may reach1 the complication of the machinery must be quite as extreme1 otherwise we should have to admit that there may be mental events to which no brain-events correspond4 ,but such an admission as this the physiologist is reluctant to make4 ,it would violate all his beliefs4 ',no psychosis without neurosis1' is one form which the principle of continuity takes in his mind4 ,but this principle forces the physiologist to make still another step4 ,if neural action is as complicated as mind2 and if in the sympathetic system and lower spinal cord we see what1 so far as we know1 is unconscious neural action executing deeds that to all outward intent may be called intelligent2 what is there to hinder us from supposing that even where we know consciousness to be there1 the still more complicated neural action which we believe to be its inseparable companion is alone and of itself the real agent of whatever intelligent deeds may appear8 ,as actions of a certain degree of complexity are brought about by mere mechanism1 why may not actions of a still greater degree of complexity be the result of a more refined mechanism8 ,the conception of reflex action is surely one of the best conquests of physiological theory2 why not be radical with it8 ,why not say that just as the spinal cord is a machine with few reflexes1 so the hemispheres are a machine with many1 and that that is all the difference8 ,the principle of continuity would press us to accept this view4 ,but what on this view could be the function of the consciousness itself8 ,mechanical function it would have none4 ,the sense-organs would awaken the brain-cells2 these would awaken each other in rational and orderly sequence1 until the time for action came2 and then the last brain-vibration would discharge downward into the motor tracts4 ,but this would be a quite autonomous chain of occurrences1 and whatever mind went with it would be there only as an 'epiphenomenon1' an inert spectator1 a sort of 'foam1 aura1 or melody' as ,mr4 ,hodgson says1 whose opposition or whose furtherance would be alike powerless over the occurrences themselves4 ,when talking1 some time ago1 we ought not1 accordingly1 as physiologists1 to have said anything about 'considerations' as guiding the animal4 ,we ought to have said 'paths left in the hemispherical cortex by former currents1' and nothing more4 ,now so simple and attractive is this conception from the consistently physiological point of view1 that it is quite wonderful to see how late it was stumbled on in philosophy1 and how few people1 even when it has been explained to them1 fully and easily realize its import4 ,much of the polemic writing against it is by men who have as yet failed to take it into their imaginations4 ,since this has been the case1 it seems worth while to devote a few more words to making it plausible1 before criticising it ourselves4 ,to ,descartes belongs the credit of having first been bold enough to conceive of a completely self-sufficing nervous mechanism which should be able to perform complicated and apparently intelligent acts4 ,by a singularly arbitrary restriction1 however1 ,descartes stopped short at man1 and while contending that in beasts the nervous machinery was all1 he held that the higher acts of man were the result of the agency of his rational soul4 ,the opinion that beasts have no consciousness at all was of course too paradoxical to maintain itself long as anything more than a curious item in the history of philosophy4 ,and with its abandonment the very notion that the nervous system per se might work the work of intelligence1 which was an integral1 though detachable part of the whole theory1 seemed also to slip out of men's conception1 until1 in this century1 the elaboration of the doctrine of reflex action made it possible and natural that it should again arise4 ,but it was not till #ahgj1 ,i believe1 that ,mr4 ,hodgson made the decisive step1 by saying that feelings1 no matter how intensely they may be present1 can have no causal efficacy whatever1 and comparing them to the colors laid on the surface of a mosaic1 of which the events in the nervous system are represented by the stones4#aee ,obviously the stones are held in place by each other and not by the several colors which they support4 ,about the same time ,mr4 ,spalding1 and a little later ,messrs4 ,huxley and ,clifford1 gave great publicity to an identical doctrine1 though in their case it was backed by less refined metaphysical considerations4#aef ,a few sentences from ,huxley and ,clifford may be subjoined to make the matter entirely clear4 ,professor ,huxley says3 ,the consciousness of brutes would appear to be related to the mechanism of their body simply as a collateral product of its working1 and to be as completely without any power of modifying that working as the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence on its machinery4 ,their volition1 if they have any1 is an emotion indicative of physical changes1 not a cause of such changes4444 ,the soul stands related to the body as the bell of a clock to the works1 and consciousness answers to the sound which the bell gives out when it is struck4444 ,thus far ,i have strictly confined myself to the automatism of brutes4444 ,it is quite true that1 to the best of my judgment1 the argumentation which applies to brutes holds equally good of men2 and1 therefore1 that all states of consciousness in us1 as in them1 are immediately caused by molecular changes of the brain-substance4 ,it seems to me that in men1 as in brutes1 there is no proof that any state of consciousness is the cause of change in the motion of the matter of the organism4 ,if these positions are well based1 it follows that our mental conditions are simply the symbols in consciousness of the changes which take place automatically in the organism2 and that1 to take an extreme illustration1 the feeling we call volition is not the cause of a voluntary act1 but the symbol of that state of the brain which is the immediate cause of that act4 ,we are conscious automata4 ,professor ,clifford writes3 ,all the evidence that we have goes to show that the physical world gets along entirely by itself1 according to practically universal rules4444 ,the train of physical facts between the stimulus sent into the eye1 or to any one of our senses1 and the exertion which follows it1 and the train of physical facts which goes on in the brain1 even when there is no stimulus and no exertion1--these are perfectly complete physical trams1 and every step is fully accounted for by mechanical conditions4444 ,the two things are on utterly different platforms--the physical facts go along by themselves1 and the mental facts go along by themselves4 ,there is a parallelism between them1 but there is no interference of one with the other4 ,again1 if anybody says that the will influences matter1 the statement is not untrue1 but it is nonsense4 ,such an assertion belongs to the crude materialism of the savage4 ,the only thing which influences matter is the position of surrounding matter or the motion of surrounding matter4444 ,the assertion that another man's volition1 a feeling in his consciousness that ,i cannot perceive1 is part of the train of physical facts which ,i may perceive1--this is neither true nor untrue1 but nonsense2 it is a combination of words whose corresponding ideas will not go together4444 ,sometimes one series is known better1 and sometimes the other2 so that in telling a story we speak sometimes of mental and sometimes of material facts4 ,a feeling of chill made a man run2 strictly speaking1 the nervous disturbance which coexisted with that feeling of chill made him run1 if we want to talk about material facts2 or the feeling of chill produced the form of sub-consciousness which coexists with the motion of legs1 if we want to talk about mental facts4444 ,when1 therefore1 we ask3 ',what is the physical link between the ingoing message from chilled skin and the outgoing message which moves the leg8 'and the answer is1 ',a man's will1' we have as much right to be amused as if we had asked our friend with the picture what pigment was used in painting the cannon in the foreground1 and received the answer1 ',wrought iron4' ,it will be found excellent practice in the mental operations required by this doctrine to imagine a train1 the fore part of which is an engine and three carriages linked with iron couplings1 and the hind part three other carriages linked with iron couplings2 the bond between the two parts being made up out of the sentiments of amity subsisting between the stoker and the guard4 ,to comprehend completely the consequences of the dogma so confidently enunciated1 one should unflinchingly apply it to the most complicated examples4 ,the movements of our tongues and pens1 the flashings of our eyes in conversation1 are of course events of a material order1 and as such their causal antecedents must be exclusively material4 ,if we knew thoroughly the nervous system of ,shakespeare1 and as thoroughly all his environing conditions1 we should be able to show why at a certain period of his life his hand came to trace on certain sheets of paper those crabbed little black marks which we for shortness' sake call the manuscript of ,hamlet4 ,we should understand the rationale of every erasure and alteration therein1 and we should understand all this without in the slightest degree acknowledging the existence of the thoughts in ,shakespeare's mind4 ,the words and sentences would be taken1 not as signs of anything beyond themselves1 but as little outward facts1 pure and simple4 ,in like manner we might exhaustively write the biography of those two hundred pounds1 more or less1 of warmish albuminoid matter called ,martin ,luther1 without ever implying that it felt4 ,but1 on the other hand1 nothing in all this could prevent us from giving an equally complete account of either ,luther's or ,shakespeare's spiritual history1 an account in which every gleam of thought and emotion should find its place4 ,the mind-history would run alongside of the body-history of each man1 and each point in the one would correspond to1 but not react upon1 a point in the other4 ,so the melody floats from the harp-string1 but neither checks nor quickens its vibrations2 so the shadow runs alongside the pedestrian1 but in no way influences his steps4 ,another inference1 apparently more paradoxical still1 needs to be made1 though1 as far as ,i am aware1 ,dr4 ,hodgson is the only writer who has explicitly drawn it4 ,that inference is that feelings1 not causing nerve-actions1 cannot even cause each other4 ,to ordinary common sense1 felt pain is1 as such1 not only the cause of outward tears and cries1 but also the cause of such inward events as sorrow1 compunction1 desire1 or inventive thought4 ,so the consciousness of good news is the direct producer of the feeling of joy1 the awareness of premises that of the belief in conclusions4 ,but according to the automaton-theory1 each of the feelings mentioned is only the correlate of some nerve-movement whose cause lay wholly in a previous nerve-movement4 ,the first nerve-movement called up the second2 whatever feeling was attached to the second consequently found itself following upon the feeling that was attached to the first4 ,if1 for example1 good news was the consciousness correlated with the first movement1 then joy turned out to be the correlate in consciousness of the second4 ,but all the while the items of the nerve series were the only ones in causal continuity2 the items of the conscious series1 however inwardly rational their sequence1 were simply juxtaposed4 ,,reasons ,,for ,,the ,,theory4 ,the 'conscious automaton-theory1' as this conception is generally called1 is thus a radical and simple conception of the manner in which certain facts may possibly occur4 ,but between conception and belief1 proof ought to lie4 ,and when we ask1 ',what proves that all this is more than a mere conception of the possible8' it is not easy to get a sufficient reply4 ,if we start from the frog's spinal cord and reason by continuity1 saying1 as that acts so intelligently1 though unconscious1 so the higher centres1 though conscious1 may have the intelligence they show quite as mechanically based2 we are immediately met by the exact counter-argument from continuity1 an argument actually urged by such writers as ,pflger and ,lewes1 which starts from the acts of the hemispheres1 and says3 ,as these owe their intelligence to the consciousness which we know to be there1 so the intelligence of the spinal cord's acts must really be due to the invisible presence of a consciousness lower in degree4 ,all arguments from continuity work in two ways3 you can either level up or level down by their means4 ,and it is clear that such arguments as these can eat each other up to all eternity4 ,there remains a sort of philosophic faith1 bred like most faiths from an sthetic demand4 ,mental and physical events are1 on all hands1 admitted to present the strongest contrast in the entire field of being4 ,the chasm which yawns between them is less easily bridged over by the mind than any interval we know4 ,why1 then1 not call it an absolute chasm1 and say not only that the two worlds are different1 but that they are independent8 ,this gives us the comfort of all simple and absolute formulas1 and it makes each chain homogeneous to our consideration4 ,when talking of nervous tremors and bodily actions1 we may feel secure against intrusion from an irrelevant mental world4 ,when1 on the other hand1 we speak of feelings1 we may with equal consistency use terms always of one denomination1 and never be annoyed by what ,aristotle calls 'slipping into another kind4' ,the desire on the part of men educated in laboratories not to have their physical reasonings mixed up with such incommensurable factors as feelings is certainly very strong4 ,i have heard a most intelligent biologist say3 ,it is high time for scientific men to protest against the recognition of any such thing as consciousness in a scientific investigation4 ,in a word1 feeling constitutes the 'unscientific' half of existence1 and any one who enjoys calling himself a 'scientist' will be too happy to purchase an untrammelled homogeneity of terms in the studies of his predilection1 at the slight cost of admitting a dualism which1 in the same breath that it allows to mind an independent status of being1 banishes it to a limbo of causal inertness1 from whence no intrusion or interruption on its part need ever be feared4 ,over and above this great postulate that matters must be kept simple1 there is1 it must be confessed1 still another highly abstract reason for denying causal efficacity to our feelings4 ,we can form no positive image of the modus operandi of a volition or other thought affecting the cerebral molecules4 ,let us try to imagine an idea1 say of food1 producing a movement1 say of carrying food to the mouth4444 ,what is the method of its action8 ,does it assist the decomposition of the molecules of the gray matter1 or does it retard the process1 or does it alter the direction in which the shocks are distributed8 ,let us imagine the molecules of the gray matter combined in such a way that they will fall into simpler combinations on the impact of an incident force4 ,now suppose the incident force1 in the shape of a shock from some other centre1 to impinge upon these molecules4 ,by hypothesis it will decompose them1 and they will fall into the simpler combination4 ,how is the idea of food to prevent this decomposition8 ,manifestly it can do so only by increasing2 the force which binds the molecules together4 ,good6 ,try to imagine the idea of a beefsteak binding two molecules together4 ,it is impossible4 ,equally impossible is it to imagine a similar idea loosening the attractive force between two molecules4#aeg ,this passage from an exceedingly clever writer expresses admirably the difficulty to which ,i allude4 ,combined with a strong sense of the 'chasm' between the two worlds1 and with a lively faith in reflex machinery1 the sense of this difficulty can hardly fail to make one turn consciousness out of the door as a superfluity so far as one's explanations go4 ,one may bow her out politely1 allow her to remain as an 'epiphenomenon' 7invaluable word671 but one insists that matter shall hold all the power4 ,having thoroughly recognized the fathomless abyss that separates mind from matter1 and having so blended the very notion into his very nature that there is no chance of his ever forgetting it or failing to saturate with it all his meditations1 the student of psychology has next to appreciate the association between these two orders of phenomena4444 ,they are associated in a manner so intimate that some of the greatest thinkers consider them different aspects of the same process4444 ,when the rearrangement of molecules takes place in the higher regions of the brain1 a change of consciousness simultaneously occurs4444 ,the change of consciousness never takes place without the change in the brain2 the change in the brain never 444 without the change in consciousness4 ,but why the two occur together1 or what the link is which connects them1 we do not know1 and most authorities believe that we never shall and never can know4 ,having firmly and tenaciously grasped these two notions1 of the absolute separateness of mind and matter1 and of the invariable concomitance of a mental change with a bodily change1 the student will enter on the study of psychology with half his difficulties surmounted4#aeh ,half his difficulties ignored1 ,i should prefer to say4 ,for this 'concomitance' in the midst of 'absolute separateness' is an utterly irrational notion4 ,it is to my mind quite inconceivable that consciousness should have nothing to do with a business which it so faithfully attends4 ,and the question1 ',what has it to do8' is one which psychology has no right to 'surmount1' for it is her plain duty to consider it4 ,the fact is that the whole question of interaction and influence between things is a metaphysical question1 and cannot be discussed at all by those who are unwilling to go into matters thoroughly4 ,it is truly enough hard to imagine the 'idea of a beefsteak binding two molecules together2' but since ,hume's time it has been equally hard to imagine anything binding them together4 ,the whole notion of 'binding' is a mystery1 the first step towards the solution of which is to clear scholastic rubbish out of the way4 ,popular science talks of 'forces1' 'attractions' or 'affinities' as binding the molecules2 but clear science1 though she may use such words to abbreviate discourse1 has no use for the conceptions1 and is satisfied when she can express in simple 'laws' the bare space-relations of the molecules as functions of each other and of time4 ,to the more curiously inquiring mind1 however1 this simplified expression of the bare facts is not enough2 there must be a 'reason' for them1 and something must 'determine' the laws4 ,and when one seriously sits down to consider what sort of a thing one means when one asks for a 'reason1' one is led so far afield1 so far away from popular science and its scholasticism1 as to see that even such a fact as the existence or non-existence in the universe of 'the idea of a beefsteak' may not be wholly indifferent to other facts in the same universe1 and in particular may have something to do with determining the distance at which two molecules in that universe shall lie apart4 ,if this is so1 then common-sense1 though the intimate nature of causality and of the connection of things in the universe lies beyond her pitifully bounded horizon1 has the root and gist of the truth in her hands when she obstinately holds to it that feelings and ideas are causes4 ,however inadequate our ideas of causal efficacy may be1 we are less wide of the mark when we say that our ideas and feelings have it1 than the ,automatists are when they say they haven't it4 ,as in the night all cats are gray1 so in the darkness of metaphysical criticism all causes are obscure4 ,but one has no right to pull the pall over the psychic half of the subject only1 as the automatists do1 and to say that that causation is unintelligible1 whilst in the same breath one dogmatizes about material causation as if ,hume1 ,kant1 and ,lotze had never been born4 ,one cannot thus blow hot and cold4 ,one must be impartially naif or impartially critical4 ,if the latter1 the reconstruction must be thorough-going or 'metaphysical1' and will probably preserve the common-sense view that ideas are forces1 in some translated form4 ,but ,psychology is a mere natural science1 accepting certain terms uncritically as her data1 and stopping short of metaphysical reconstruction4 ,like physics1 she must be naive2 and if she finds that in her very peculiar field of study ideas seem to be causes1 she had better continue to talk of them as such4 ,she gains absolutely nothing by a breach with common-sense in this matter1 and she loses1 to say the least1 all naturalness of speech4 ,if feelings are causes1 of course their effects must be furtherances and checkings of internal cerebral motions1 of which in themselves we are entirely without knowledge4 ,it is probable that for years to come we shall have to infer what happens in the brain either from our feelings or from motor effects which we observe4 ,the organ will be for us a sort of vat in which feelings and motions somehow go on stewing together1 and in which innumerable things happen of which we catch but the statistical result4 ,why1 under these circumstances1 we should be asked to forswear the language of our childhood ,i cannot well imagine1 especially as it is perfectly compatible with the language of physiology4 ,the feelings can produce nothing absolutely new1 they can only reinforce and inhibit reflex currents which already exist1 and the original organization of these by physiological forces must always be the ground-work of the psychological scheme4 ,my conclusion is that to urge the automaton-theory upon us1 as it is now urged1 on purely a priori and quasi-metaphysical grounds1 is an unwarrantable impertinence in the present state of psychology4 ,,reasons ,,against ,,the ,,theory4 ,but there are much more positive reasons than this why we ought to continue to talk in psychology as if consciousness had causal efficacy4 ,the particulars of the distribution of consciousness1 so far as we know them1 point to its being efficacious4 ,let us trace some of them4 ,it is very generally admitted1 though the point would be hard to prove1 that consciousness grows the more complex and intense the higher we rise in the animal kingdom4 ,that of a man must exceed that of an oyster4 ,from this point of view it seems an organ1 superadded to the other organs which maintain the animal in the struggle for existence2 and the presumption of course is that it helps him in some way in the struggle1 just as they do4 ,but it cannot help him without being in some way efficacious and influencing the course of his bodily history4 ,if now it could be shown in what way consciousness might help him1 and if1 moreover1 the defects of his other organs 7where consciousness is most developed7 are such as to make them need just the kind of help that consciousness would bring provided it were efficacious2 why1 then the plausible inference would be that it came just because of its efficacy--in other words1 its efficacy would be inductively proved4 ,now the study of the phenomena of consciousness which we shall make throughout the rest of this book will show us that consciousness is at all times primarily a selecting agency4#aei ,whether we take it in the lowest sphere of sense1 or in the highest of intellection1 we find it always doing one thing1 choosing one out of several of the materials so presented to its notice1 emphasizing and accentuating that and suppressing as far as possible all the rest4 ,the item emphasized is always in close connection with some interest felt by consciousness to be paramount at the time4 ,but what are now the defects of the nervous system in those animals whose consciousness seems most highly developed8 ,chief among them must be instability4 ,the cerebral hemispheres are the characteristically 'high' nerve-centres1 and we saw how indeterminate and unforeseeable their performances were in comparison with those of the basal ganglia and the cord4 ,but this very vagueness constitutes their advantage4 ,they allow their possessor to adapt his conduct to the minutest alterations in the environing circumstances1 any one of which may be for him a sign1 suggesting distant motives more powerful than any present solicitations of sense4 ,it seems as if certain mechanical conclusions should be drawn from this state of things4 ,an organ1 swayed by slight impressions is an organ whose natural state is one of unstable equilibrium4 ,we may imagine the various lines of discharge in the cerebrum to be almost on a par in point of permeability--what discharge a given small impression will produce may be called accidental1 in the sense in which we say it is a matter of accident whether a rain-drop falling on a mountain ridge descend the eastern or the western slope4 ,it is in this sense that we may call it a matter of accident whether a child be a boy or a girl4 ,the ovum is so unstable a body that certain causes too minute for our apprehension may at a certain moment tip it one way or the other4 ,the natural law of an organ constituted after this fashion can be nothing but a law of caprice4 ,i do not see how one could reasonably expect from it any certain pursuance of useful lines of reaction1 such as the few and fatally determined performances of the lower centres constitute within their narrow sphere4 ,the dilemma in regard to the nervous system seems1 in short1 to be of the following kind4 ,we may construct one which will react infallibly and certainly1 but it will then be capable of reacting to very few changes in the environment--it will fail to be adapted to all the rest4 ,we may1 on the other hand1 construct a nervous system potentially adapted to respond to an infinite variety of minute features in the situation2 but its fallibility will then be as great as its elaboration4 ,we can never be sure that its equilibrium will be upset in the appropriate direction4 ,in short1 a high brain may do many things1 and may do each of them at a very slight hint4 ,but its hair-trigger organization makes of it a happy-go-lucky1 hit-or-miss affair4 ,it is as likely to do the crazy as the sane thing at any given moment4 ,a low brain does few things1 and in doing them perfectly forfeits all other use4 ,the performances of a high brain are like dice thrown forever on a table4 ,unless they be loaded1 what chance is there that the highest number will turn up oftener than the lowest8 ,all this is said of the brain as a physical machine pure and simple4 ,can consciousness increase its efficiency by loading its dice8 ,such is the problem4 ,loading its dice would mean bringing a more or less constant pressure to bear in favor of those of its performances which make for the most permanent interests cf the brain's owner2 it would mean a constant inhibition of the tendencies to stray aside4 ,well1 just such pressure and such inhibition are what consciousness seems to be exerting all the while4 ,and the interests in whose favor it seems to exert them are its interests and its alone1 interests which it creates1 and which1 but for it1 would have no status in the realm of being whatever4 ,we talk1 it is true1 when we are darwinizing1 as if the mere body that owns the brain had interests2 we speak about the utilities of its various organs and how they help or hinder the body's survival2 and we treat the survival as if it were an absolute end1 existing as such in the physical world1 a sort of actual should-be1 presiding over the animal and judging his reactions1 quite apart from the presence of any commenting intelligence outside4 ,we forget that in the absence of some such superadded commenting intelligence 7whether it be that of the animal itself1 or only ours or ,mr4 ,darwin's71 the reactions cannot be properly talked of as 'useful' or 'hurtful' at all4 ,considered merely physically1 all that can be said of them is that if they occur in a certain way survival will as a matter of fact prove to be their incidental consequence4 ,the organs themselves1 and all the rest of the physical world1 will1 however1 all the time be quite indifferent to this consequence1 and would quite as cheerfully1 the circumstances changed1 compass the animal's destruction4 ,in a word1 survival can enter into a purely physiological discussion only as an hypothesis made by an onlooker1 about the future4 ,but the moment you bring a consciousness into the midst1 survival ceases to be a mere hypothesis4 ,no longer is it1 if survival is to occur1 then so and so must brain and other organs work4 ,it has now become an imperative decree3 ,survival shall occur1 and therefore organs must so work6 ,real ends appear for the first time now upon the world's stage4 ,the conception of consciousness as a purely cognitive form of being1 which is the pet way of regarding it in many idealistic schools1 modern as well as ancient1 is thoroughly anti-psychological1 as the remainder of this book will show4 ,every actually existing consciousness seems to itself at any rate to be a fighter for ends1 of which many1 but for its presence1 would not be ends at all4 ,its powers of cognition are mainly subservient to these ends1 discerning which facts further them and which do not4 ,now let consciousness only be what it seems to itself1 and it will help an instable brain to compass its proper ends4 ,the movements of the brain per se yield the means of attaining these ends mechanically1 but only out of a lot of other ends1 if so they may be called1 which are not the proper ones of the animal1 but often quite opposed4 ,the brain is an instrument of possibilities1 but of no certainties4 ,but the consciousness1 with its own ends present to it1 and knowing also well which possibilities lead thereto and which away1 will1 if endowed with causal efficacy1 reinforce the favorable possibilities and repress the unfavorable or indifferent ones4 ,the nerve-currents1 coursing through the cells and fibres1 must in this case be supposed strengthened by the fact of their awaking one consciousness and dampened by awaking another4 ,how such reaction of the consciousness upon the currents may occur must remain at present unsolved3 it is enough for my purpose to have shown that it may not uselessly exist1 and that the matter is less simple than the brain-automatists hold4 ,all the facts of the natural history of consciousness lend color to this view4 ,consciousness1 for example1 is only intense when nerve-processes are hesitant4 ,in rapid1 automatic1 habitual action it sinks to a minimum4 ,nothing could be more fitting than this1 if consciousness have the teleological function we suppose2 nothing more meaningless1 if not4 ,habitual actions are certain1 and being in no danger of going astray from their end1 need no extraneous help4 ,in hesitant action1 there seem many alternative possibilities of final nervous discharge4 ,the feeling awakened by the nascent excitement of each alternative nerve-tract seems by its attractive or repulsive quality to determine whether the excitement shall abort or shall become complete4 ,where indecision is great1 as before a dangerous leap1 consciousness is agonizingly intense4 ,feeling1 from this point of view1 may be likened to a cross-section of the chain of nervous discharge1 ascertaining the links already laid down1 and groping among the fresh ends presented to it for the one which seems best to fit the case4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the phenomena of 'vicarious function' which we studied in ,chapter ,,ii seem to form another bit of circumstantial evidence4 ,a machine in working order acts fatally in one way4 ,our consciousness calls this the right way4 ,take out a valve1 throw a wheel out of gear or bend a pivot1 and it becomes a different machine1 acting just as fatally in another way which we call the wrong way4 ,but the machine itself knows nothing of wrong or right3 matter has no ideals to pursue4 ,a locomotive will carry its train through an open drawbridge as cheerfully as to any other destination4 ,a brain with part of it scooped out is virtually a new machine1 and during the first days after the operation functions in a thoroughly abnormal manner4 ,as a matter of fact1 however1 its performances become from day to day more normal1 until at last a practised eye may be needed to suspect anything wrong4 ,some of the restoration is undoubtedly due to 'inhibitions' passing away4 ,but if the consciousness which goes with the rest of the brain1 be there not only in order to take cognizance of each functional error1 but also to exert an efficient pressure to check it if it be a sin of commission1 and to lend a strengthening hand if it be a weakness or sin of omission1--nothing seems more natural than that the remaining parts1 assisted in this way1 should by virtue of the principle of habit grow back to the old teleological modes of exercise for which they were at first incapacitated4 ,nothing1 on the contrary1 seems at first sight more unnatural than that they should vicariously take up the duties of a part now lost without those duties as such exerting any persuasive or coercive force4 ,at the end of ,chapter ,,xxvi ,i shall return to this again4 99 99 99 99 99 ,there is yet another set of facts which seem explicable on the supposition that consciousness has causal efficacy4 ,it is a well-known fact that pleasures are generally associated with beneficial1 pains with detrimental1 experiences4 ,all the fundamental vital processes illustrate this law4 ,starvation1 suffocation1 privation of food1 drink and sleep1 work when exhausted1 burns1 wounds1 inflammation1 the effects of poison1 are as disagreeable as filling the hungry stomach1 enjoying rest and sleep after fatigue1 exercise after rest1 and a sound skin and unbroken bones at all times1 are pleasant4 ,mr4 ,spencer and others have suggested that these coincidences are due1 not to any pre-established harmony1 but to the mere action of natural selection which would certainly kill off in the long-run any breed of creatures to whom the fundamentally noxious experience seemed enjoyable4 ,an animal that should take pleasure in a feeling of suffocation would1 if that pleasure were efficacious enough to make him immerse his head in water1 enjoy a longevity of four or five minutes4 ,but if pleasures and pains have no efficacy1 one does not see 7without some such a priori rational harmony as would be scouted by the 'scientific' champions of the automaton-theory7 why the most noxious acts1 such as burning1 might not give thrills of delight1 and the most necessary ones1 such as breathing1 cause agony4 ,the exceptions to the law are1 it is true1 numerous1 but relate to experiences that are either not vital or not universal4 ,drunkenness1 for instance1 which though noxious1 is to many persons delightful1 is a very exceptional experience4 ,but1 as the excellent physiologist ,pick remarks1 if all rivers and springs ran alcohol instead of water1 either all men would now be born to hate it or our nerves would have been selected so as to drink it with impunity4 ,the only considerable attempt1 in fact1 that has been made to explain the distribution of our feelings is that of ,mr4 ,grant ,allen in his suggestive little work ,physiological sthetics2 and his reasoning is based exclusively on that causal efficacy of pleasures and pains which the 'double-aspect' partisans so strenuously deny4 99 99 99 99 99 ,thus1 then1 from every point of view the circumstantial evidence against that theory is strong4 ,a priori analysis of both brain-action and conscious action shows us that if the latter were efficacious it would1 by its selective emphasis1 make amends for the indeterminateness of the former2 whilst the study a posteriori of the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself4 ,the conclusion that it is useful is1 after all this1 quite justifiable4 ,but1 if it is useful1 it must be so through its causal efficaciousness1 and the automaton-theory must succumb to the theory of common-sense4 ,i1 at any rate 7pending metaphysical reconstructions not yet successfully achieved71 shall have no hesitation in using the language of common-sense throughout this book4 ,,footnotes3 #aee ,the ,theory of ,practice1 vol4 i1 p4 #daf ff4 #aef ,the present writer recalls how in #ahfi1 when still a medical student1 he began to write an essay showing how almost every one who speculated about brain-processes illicitly interpolated into his account of them links derived from the entirely heterogeneous universe of ,feeling4 ,spencer1 ,hodgson 7in his ,time and ,space71 ,maudsley1 ,lockhart ,clarke1 ,bain1 ,dr4 ,s4 ,carpenter1 and other authors were cited as having been guilty of the confusion4 ,the writing was soon stopped because he perceived that the view which he was upholding against these authors was a pure conception1 with no proofs to be adduced of its reality4 ,later it seemed to him that whatever proofs existed really told in favor of their view4 #aeg ,chas4 ,mercier3 ,the ,nervous ,system and the ,mind 7#ahhh71 p4 #i4 #aeh ,op4 cit4 p4 #aa4 #aei ,see in particular the end of ,chapter ,,ix4 ,,chapter ,,vi4 ,,the ,,mind-,,stuff ,,theory4 ,the reader who found himself swamped with too much metaphysics in the last chapter will have a still worse time of it in this one1 which is exclusively metaphysical4 ,metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly4 ,the fundamental conceptions of psychology are practically very clear to us1 but theoretically they are very confused1 and one easily makes the obscurest assumptions in this science without realizing1 until challenged1 what internal difficulties they involve4 ,when these assumptions have once established themselves 7as they have a way of doing in our very descriptions of the phenomenal facts7 it is almost impossible to get rid of them afterwards or to make any one see that they are not essential features of the subject4 ,the only way to prevent this disaster is to scrutinize them beforehand and make them give an articulate account of themselves before letting them pass4 ,one of the obscurest of the assumptions of which ,i speak is the assumption that our mental states are composite in structure1 made up of smaller states conjoined4 ,this hypothesis has outward advantages which make it almost irresistibly attractive to the intellect1 and yet it is inwardly quite unintelligible4 ,of its unintelligibility1 however1 half the writers on psychology seem unaware4 ,as our own aim is to understand if possible1 ,i make no apology for singling out this particular notion for very explicit treatment before taking up the descriptive part of our work4 ,the theory of 'mind-stuff' is the theory that our mental states are compounds1 expressed in its most radical form4 ,,evolutionary ,,psychology ,,demands ,a ,,mind-,,dust4 ,in a general theory of evolution the inorganic comes first1 then the lowest forms of animal and vegetable life1 then forms of life that possess mentality1 and finally those like ourselves that possess it in a high degree4 ,as long as we keep to the consideration of purely outward facts1 even the most complicated facts of biology1 our task as evolutionists is comparatively easy4 ,we are dealing all the time with matter and its aggregations and separations2 and although our treatment must perforce be hypothetical1 this does not prevent it from being continuous4 ,the point which as evolutionists we are bound to hold fast to is that all the new forms of being that make their appearance are really nothing more than results of the redistribution of the original and unchanging materials4 ,the self-same atoms which1 chaotically dispersed1 made the nebula1 now1 jammed and temporarily caught in peculiar positions1 form our brains2 and the 'evolution' of the brains1 if understood1 would be simply the account of how the atoms came to be so caught and jammed4 ,in this story no new natures1 no factors not present at the beginning1 are introduced at any later stage4 ,but with the dawn of consciousness an entirely new nature seems to slip in1 something whereof the potency was not given in the mere outward atoms of the original chaos4 ,the enemies of evolution have been quick to pounce upon this undeniable discontinuity in the data of the world and many of them1 from the failure of evolutionary explanations at this point1 have inferred their general incapacity all along the line4 ,every one admits the entire incommensurability of feeling as such with material motion as such4 ,a motion became a feeling6--no phrase that our lips can frame is so devoid of apprehensible meaning4 ,accordingly1 even the vaguest of evolutionary enthusiasts1 when deliberately comparing material with mental facts1 have been as forward as any one else to emphasize the 'chasm' between the inner and the outer worlds4 ,can the oscillations of a molecule1 says ,mr4 ,spencer1 be represented side by side with a nervous shock he means a mental shock1 and the two be recognized as one8 ,no effort enables us to assimilate them4 ,that a unit of feeling has nothing in common with a unit of motion becomes more than ever manifest when we bring the two into juxtaposition4#afj ,and again3 ,suppose it to have become quite clear that a shock in consciousness and a molecular motion are the subjective and objective faces of the same thing2 we continue utterly incapable of uniting the two1 so as to conceive that reality of which they are the opposite faces4#afa ,in other words1 incapable of perceiving in them any common character4 ,so ,tyndall1 in that lucky paragraph which has been quoted so often that every one knows it by heart3 ,the passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable4 ,granted that a definite thought and a definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously2 we do not possess the intellectual organ1 nor apparently any rudiment of the organ1 which would enable us to pass1 by a process of reasoning1 from one to the other4#afb ,or in this other passage3 ,we can trace the development of a nervous system and correlate with it the parallel phenomena of sensation and thought4 ,we see with undoubting certainty that they go hand in hand4 ,but we try to soar in a vacuum the moment we seek to comprehend the connection between them4444 ,there is no fusion possible between the two classes of facts--no motor energy in the intellect of man to carry it without logical rupture from the one to the other4#afc ,none the less easily1 however1 when the evolutionary afflatus is upon them1 do the very same writers leap over the breach whose flagrancy they are the foremost to announce1 and talk as if mind grew out of body in a continuous way4 ,mr4 ,spencer1 looking back on his review of mental evolution1 tells us how in tracing up the increase we found ourselves passing without break from the phenomena of bodily life to the phenomena of mental life4#afd ,and ,mr4 ,tyndall1 in the same ,belfast ,address from which we just quoted1 delivers his other famous passage3 ,abandoning all disguise1 the confession that ,i feel bound to make before you is that ,i prolong the vision backward across the boundary of the experimental evidence1 and discern in that matter which we1 in our ignorance and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its ,creator1 have hitherto covered with opprobrium the promise and potency of every form and quality of life4#afe --mental life included1 as a matter of course4 ,so strong a postulate is continuity6 ,now this book will tend to show that mental postulates are on the whole to be respected4 ,the demand for continuity has1 over large tracts of science1 proved itself to possess true prophetic power4 ,we ought therefore ourselves sincerely to try every possible mode of conceiving the dawn of consciousness so that it may not appear equivalent to the irruption into the universe of a new nature1 non-existent until then4 ,merely to call the consciousness 'nascent' will not serve our turn4#aff ,it is true that the word signifies not yet quite born1 and so seems to form a sort of bridge between existence and nonentity4 ,but that is a verbal quibble4 ,the fact is that discontinuity comes in if a new nature comes in at all4 ,the quantity of the latter is quite immaterial4 ,the girl in ',midshipman ,easy' could not excuse the illegitimacy of her child by saying1 'it was a little small one4' ,and ,consciousness1 however little1 is an illegitimate birth in any philosophy that starts without it1 and yet professes to explain all facts by continuous evolution4 ,if evolution is to work smoothly1 consciousness in some shape must have been present at the very origin of things4 ,accordingly we find that the more clear-sighted evolutionary philosophers are beginning to posit it there4 ,each atom of the nebula1 they suppose1 must have had an aboriginal atom of consciousness linked with it2 and1 just as the material atoms have formed bodies and brains by massing themselves together1 so the mental atoms1 by an analogous process of aggregation1 have fused into those larger consciousnesses which we know in ourselves and suppose to exist in our fellow-animals4 ,some such doctrine of atomistic hylozoism as this is an indispensable part of a thorough-going philosophy of evolution4 ,according to it there must be an infinite number of degrees of consciousness1 following the degrees of complication and aggregation of the primordial mind-dust4 ,to prove the separate existence of these degrees of consciousness by indirect evidence1 since direct intuition of them is not to be had1 becomes therefore the first duty of psychological evolutionism4 ,,some ,,alleged ,,proofs ,,that ,,mind-,,dust ,,exists4 ,some of this duty we find already performed by a number of philosophers who1 though not interested at all in evolution1 have nevertheless on independent grounds convinced themselves of the existence of a vast amount of sub-conscious mental life4 ,the criticism of this general opinion and its grounds will have to be postponed for a while4 ,at present let us merely deal with the arguments assumed to prove aggregation of bits of mind-stuff into distinctly sensible feelings4 ,they are clear and admit of a clear reply4 ,the ,german physiologist ,a4 ,fick1 in #ahfb1 was1 so far as ,i know1 the first to use them4 ,he made experiments on the discrimination of the feelings of warmth and of touch1 when only a very small portion of the skin was excited through a hole in a card1 the surrounding parts being protected by the card4 ,he found that under these circumstances mistakes were frequently made by the patient1#afg and concluded that this must be because the number of sensations from the elementary nerve-tips affected was too small to sum itself distinctly into either of the qualities of feeling in question4 ,he tried to show how a different manner of the summation might give rise in one case to the heat and in another to the touch4 ,a feeling of temperature1 he says1 arises when the intensities of the units of feeling are evenly gradated1 so that between two elements a and b no other unit can spatially intervene whose intensity is not also between that of a and b4 ,a feeling of contact perhaps arises when this condition is not fulfilled4 ,both kinds of feeling1 however1 are composed of the same units4 ,but it is obviously far clearer to interpret such a gradation of intensities as a brain-fact than as a mind-fact4 ,if in the brain a tract were first excited in one of the ways suggested by ,prof4 ,fick1 and then again in the other1 it might very well happen1 for aught we can say to the contrary1 that the psychic accompaniment in the one case would be heat1 and in the other pain4 ,the pain and the heat would1 however1 not be composed of psychic units1 but would each be the direct result of one total brain-process4 ,so long as this latter interpretation remains open1 ,fick cannot be held to have proved psychic summation4 ,later1 both ,spencer and ,taine1 independently of each other1 took up the same line of thought4 ,mr4 ,spencer's reasoning is worth quoting in extenso4 ,he writes3 ,although the individual sensations and emotions1 real or ideal1 of which consciousness is built up1 appear to be severally simple1 homogeneous1 unanalyzable1 or of inscrutable natures1 yet they are not so4 ,there is at least one kind of feeling which1 as ordinarily experienced1 seems elementary1 that is demonstrably not elementary4 ,and after resolving it into its proximate components1 we can scarcely help suspecting that other apparently-elementary feelings are also compound1 and may have proximate components like those which we can in this one instance identify4 ,musical sound is the name we give to this seemingly simple feeling which is clearly resolvable into simpler feelings4 ,well-known experiments prove that when equal blows or taps are made one after another at a rate not exceeding some sixteen per second1 the effect of each is perceived as a separate noise2 but when the rapidity with which the blows follow one another exceeds this1 the noises are no longer identified in separate states of consciousness1 and there arises in place of them a continuous state of consciousness1 called a tone4 ,in further increasing the rapidity of the blows1 the tone undergoes the change of quality distinguished as rise in pitch2 and it continues to rise in pitch as the blows continue to increase in rapidity1 until it reaches an acuteness beyond which it is no longer appreciable as a tone4 ,so that out of units of feeling of the same kind1 many feelings distinguishable from one another in quality result1 according as the units are more or less integrated4 ,this is not all4 ,the inquiries of ,professor ,helmholtz have shown that when1 along with one series of these rapidly-recurring noises1 there is generated another series in which the noises are more rapid though not so loud1 the effect is a change in that quality known as its timbre4 ,as various musical instruments show us1 tones which are alike in pitch and strength are distinguishable by their harshness or sweetness1 their ringing or their liquid characters2 and all their specific peculiarities are proved to arise from the combination of one1 two1 three1 or more1 supplementary series of recurrent noises with the chief series of recurrent noises4 ,so that while the unlikenesses of feeling known as differences of pitch in tones are due to differences of integration among the recurrent noises of one series1 the unlikenesses of feeling known as differences of timbre1 are due to the simultaneous integration with this series of other series having other degrees of integration4 ,and thus an enormous number of qualitatively-contrasted kinds of consciousness that seem severally elementary prove to be composed of one simple kind of consciousness1 combined and recombined with itself in multitudinous ways4 ,can we stop short here8 ,if the different sensations known as sounds are built out of a common unit1 is it not to be rationally inferred that so likewise are the different sensations known as tastes1 and the different sensations known as odors1 and the different sensations known as colors8 ,nay1 shall we not regard it as probable that there is a unit common to all these strongly-contrasted classes of sensations8 ,if the unlikenesses among the sensations of each class may be due to unlikenesses among the modes of aggregation of a unit of consciousness common to them all2 so too may the much greater unlikenesses between the sensations of each class and those of other classes4 ,there may be a single primordial element of consciousness1 and the countless kinds of consciousness may be produced by the compounding of this element with itself and the recompounding of its compounds with one another in higher and higher degrees3 so producing increased multiplicity1 variety1 and complexity4 ,have we any clue to this primordial element8 ,i think we have4 ,that simple mental impression which proves to be the unit of composition of the sensation of musical tone1 is allied to certain other simple mental impressions differently originated4 ,the subjective effect produced by a crack or noise that has no appreciable duration is little else than a nervous shock4 ,though we distinguish such a nervous shock as belonging to what we call sounds1 yet it does not differ very much from nervous shocks of other kinds4 ,an electric discharge sent through the body causes a feeling akin to that which a sudden loud report causes4 ,a strong unexpected impression made through the eyes1 as by a flash of lightning1 similarly gives rise to a start or shock2 and though the feeling so named seems1 like the electric shock1 to have the body at large for its seat1 and may therefore be regarded as the correlative rather of the efferent than of the afferent disturbance1 yet on remembering the mental change that results from the instantaneous transit of an object across the field of vision1 ,i think it may be perceived that the feeling accompanying the efferent disturbance is itself reduced very nearly to the same form4 ,the state of consciousness so generated is1 in fact1 comparable in quality to the initial state of consciousness caused by a blow 7distinguishing it from the pain or other feeling that commences the instant after72 which state of consciousness caused by a blow may be taken as the primitive and typical form of the nervous shock4 ,the fact that sudden brief disturbances thus set up by different stimuli through different sets of nerves cause feelings scarcely distinguishable in quality will not appear strange when we recollect that distinguishableness of feeling implies appreciable duration2 and that when the duration is greatly abridged1 nothing more is known than that some mental change has occurred and ceased4 ,to have a sensation of redness1 to know a tone as acute or grave1 to be conscious of a taste as sweet1 implies in each case a considerable continuity of state4 ,if the state does not last long enough to admit of its being contemplated1 it cannot be classed as of this or that kind2 and becomes a momentary modification very similar to momentary modifications otherwise caused4 ,it is possible1 then--may we not even say probable8--that something of the same order as that which we call a nervous shock is the ultimate unit of consciousness2 and that all the unlikenesses among our feelings result from unlike modes of integration of this ultimate unit4 ,i say of the same order1 because there are discernible differences among nervous shocks that are differently caused2 and the primitive nervous shock probably differs somewhat from each of them4 ,and ,i say of the same order1 for the further reason that while we may ascribe to them a general likeness in nature1 we must suppose a great unlikeness in degree4 ,the nervous shocks recognized as such are violent--must be violent before they can be perceived amid the procession of multitudinous vivid feelings suddenly interrupted by them4 ,but the rapidly-recurring nervous shocks of which the different forms of feeling consist1 we must assume to be of comparatively moderate1 or even of very slight intensity4 ,were our various sensations and emotions composed of rapidly-recurring shocks as strong as those ordinarily called shocks1 they would be unbearable2 indeed life would cease at once4 ,we must think of them rather as successive faint pulses of subjective change1 each having the same quality as the strong pulse of subjective change distinguished as a nervous shock4#afh ,,insufficiency ,,of ,,these ,,proofs4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #be4 ,convincing as this argument of ,mr4 ,spencer's may appear on a first reading1 it is singular how weak it really is4#afi ,we do1 it is true1 when we study the connection between a musical note and its outward cause1 find the note simple and continuous while the cause is multiple and discrete4 ,somewhere1 then1 there is a transformation1 reduction1 or fusion4 ,the question is1 ,where8--in the nerve-world or in the mind-world8 ,really we have no experimental proof by which to decide2 and if decide we must1 analogy and a priori probability can alone guide us4 ,mr4 ,spencer assumes that the fusion must come to pass in the mental world1 and that the physical processes get through air and ear1 auditory nerve and medulla1 lower brain and hemispheres1 without their number being reduced4 ,figure #be will make the point clear4 ,let the line a--b represent the threshold of consciousness3 then everything drawn below that line will symbolize a physical process1 everything above it will mean a fact of mind4 ,let the crosses stand for the physical blows1 the circles for the events in successively higher orders of nerve-cells1 and the horizontal marks for the facts of feeling4 ,spencer's argument implies that each order of cells transmits just as many impulses as it receives to the cells above it2 so that if the blows come at the rate of #bj1jjj in a second the cortical cells discharge at the same rate1 and one unit of feeling corresponds to each one of the #bj1jjj discharges4 ,then1 and only then1 does 'integration' occur1 by the #bj1jjj units of feeling 'compounding with themselves' into the 'continuous state of consciousness' represented by the short line at the top of the figure4 ,now such an interpretation as this flies in the face of physical analogy1 no less than of logical intelligibility4 ,consider physical analogy first1 ,a pendulum may be deflected by a single blow1 and swing back4 ,will it swing back the more often the more we multiply the blows8 ,no2 for if they rain upon the pendulum too fast1 it will not swing at all but remain deflected in a sensibly stationary state4 ,in other words1 increasing the cause numerically need not equally increase numerically the effect4 ,blow through a tube3 you get a certain musical note2 and increasing the blowing increases for a certain time the loudness of the note4 ,will this be true indefinitely8 ,no2 for when a certain force is reached1 the note1 instead of growing louder1 suddenly disappears and is replaced by its higher octave4 ,turn on the gas slightly and light it3 you get a tiny flame4 ,turn on more gas1 and the breadth of the flame increases4 ,will this relation increase indefinitely8 ,no1 again2 for at a certain moment up shoots the flame into a ragged streamer and begins to hiss4 ,send slowly through the nerve of a frog's gastrocnemius muscle a succession of galvanic shocks3 you get a succession of twitches4 ,increasing the number of shocks does not increase the twitching2 on the contrary1 it stops it1 and we have the muscle in the apparently stationary state of contraction called tetanus4 ,this last fact is the true analogue of what must happen between the nerve-cell and the sensory fibre4 ,it is certain that cells are more inert than fibres1 and that rapid vibrations in the latter can only arouse relatively simple processes or states in the former4 ,the higher cells may have even a slower rate of explosion than the lower1 and so the twenty thousand supposed blows of the outer air may be 'integrated' in the cortex into a very small number of cell-discharges in a second4 ,this other diagram will serve to contrast this supposition with ,spencer's4 ,in ,fig4 #bf all 'integration' occurs below the threshold of consciousness4 ,the frequency of cell-events becomes more and more reduced as we approach the cells to which feeling is most directly attached1 until at last we come to a condition of things symbolized by the larger ellipse1 which may be taken to stand for some rather massive and slow process of tension and discharge in the cortical centres1 to which1 as a whole1 the feeling of musical tone symbolized by the line at the top of the diagram simply and totally corresponds4 ,it is as if a long file of men were to start one after the other to reach a distant point4 ,the road at first is good and they keep their original distance apart4 ,presently it is intersected by bogs each worse than the last1 so that the front men get so retarded that the hinder ones catch up with them before the journey is done1 and all arrive together at the goal4#agj ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #bf4 ,on this supposition there are no unperceived units of mind-stuff preceding and composing the full consciousness4 ,the latter is itself an immediate psychic fact and bears an immediate relation to the neural state which is its unconditional accompaniment4 ,did each neural shock give rise to its own psychic shock1 and the psychic shocks then combine1 it would be impossible to understand why severing one part of the central nervous system from another should break up the integrity of the consciousness4 ,the cut has nothing to do with the psychic world4 ,the atoms of mind-stuff ought to float off from the nerve-matter on either side of it1 and come together over it and fuse1 just as well as if it had not been made4 ,we know1 however1 that they do not2 that severance of the paths of conduction between a man's left auditory centre or optical centre and the rest of his cortex will sever all communication between the words which he hears or sees written and the rest of his ideas4 ,moreover1 if feelings can mix into a tertium quid1 why do we not take a feeling of greenness and a feeling of redness1 and make a feeling of yellowness out of them8 ,why has optics neglected the open road to truth1 and wasted centuries in disputing about theories of color-composition which two minutes of introspection would have settled forever#aga ,we cannot mix feelings as such1 though we may mix the objects we feel1 and from their mixture get new feelings4 ,we cannot even 7as we shall later see7 have two feelings in our mind at once4 ,at most we can compare together objects previously presented to us in distinct feelings2 but then we find each object stubbornly maintaining its separate identity before consciousness1 whatever the verdict of the comparison may be4#agb ,,self-,,compounding ,,of ,,mental ,,facts ,,is ,,inadmissible4 ,but there is a still more fatal objection to the theory of mental units 'compounding with themselves' or 'integrating4' ,it is logically unintelligible2 it leaves out the essential feature of all the 'combinations' we actually know4 ,all the 'combinations' which we actually know are ,,effects1 wrought by the units said to be 'combined1' ,,upon ,,some ,,entity ,,other ,,than ,,themselves4 ,without this feature of a medium or vehicle1 the notion of combination has no sense4 ,a multitude of contractile units1 by joint action1 and by being all connected1 for instance1 with a single tendon1 will pull at the same1 and will bring about a dynamical effect which is undoubtedly the resultant of their combined individual energies4444 ,on the whole1 tendons are to muscular fibres1 and bones are to tendons1 combining recipients of mechanical energies4 ,a medium of composition is indispensable to the summation of energies4 ,to realize the complete dependence of mechanical resultants on a combining substratum1 one may fancy for a moment all the individually contracting muscular elements severed from their attachments4 ,they might then still be capable of contracting with the same energy as before1 yet no co-operative result would be accomplished4 ,the medium of dynamical combination would be wanting4 ,the multiple energies1 singly exerted on no common recipient1 would lose themselves on entirely isolated and disconnected efforts4#agc ,in other words1 no possible number of entities 7call them as you like1 whether forces1 material particles1 or mental elements7 can sum themselves together4 ,each remains1 in the sum1 what it always was2 and the sum itself exists only for a bystander who happens to overlook the units and to apprehend the sum as such2 or else it exists in the shape of some other effect on an entity external to the sum itself4 ,let it not be objected that ,h#b and ,o combine of themselves into 'water1' and thenceforward exhibit new properties4 ,they do not4 ,the 'water' is just the old atoms in the new position1 ,h-,o-,h2 the 'new properties' are just their combined effects1 when in this position1 upon external media1 such as our sense-organs and the various reagents on which water may exert its properties and be known4 ,aggregations are organized wholes only when they behave as such in the presence of other things4 ,a statue is an aggregation of particles of marble1 but as such it has no unity4 ,for the spectator it is one2 in itself it is an aggregate2 just as1 to the consciousness of an ant crawling over it1 it may again appear a mere aggregate4 ,no summing up of parts can make an unity of a mass of discrete constituents1 unless this unity exist for some other subject1 not for the mass itself4#agd ,just so1 in the parallelogram of forces1 the 'forces' themselves do not combine into the diagonal resultant2 a body is needed on which they may impinge1 to exhibit their resultant effect4 ,no more do musical sounds combine per se into concords or discords4 ,concord and discord are names for their combined effects on that external medium1 the ear4 ,where the elemental units are supposed to be feelings1 the case is in no wise altered4 ,take a hundred of them1 shuffle them and pack them as close together as you can 7whatever that may mean72 still each remains the same feeling it always was1 shut in its own skin1 windowless1 ignorant of what the other feelings are and mean4 ,there would be a hundred-and-first feeling there1 if1 when a group or series of such feelings were set up1 a consciousness belonging to the group as such should emerge4 ,and this #ajast feeling would be a totally new fact2 the #ajj original feelings might1 by a curious physical law1 be a signal for its creation1 when they came together2 but they would have no substantial identity with it1 nor it with them1 and one could never deduce the one from the others1 or 7in any intelligible sense7 say that they evolved it4 ,take a sentence of a dozen words1 and take twelve men and tell to each one word4 ,then stand the men in a row or jam them in a bunch1 and let each think of his word as intently as he will2 nowhere will there be a consciousness of the whole sentence4#age ,we talk of the 'spirit of the age1' and the 'sentiment of the people1' and in various ways we hypostatize 'public opinion4' ,but we know this to be symbolic speech1 and never dream that the spirit1 opinion1 sentiment1 etc41 constitute a consciousness other than1 and additional to1 that of the several individuals whom the words 'age1' 'people1' or 'public' denote4 ,the private minds do not agglomerate into a higher compound mind4 ,this has always been the invincible contention of the spiritualists against the associationists in ,psychology1--a contention which we shall take up at greater length in ,chapter ,x4 ,the associationists say the mind is constituted by a multiplicity of distinct 'ideas' associated into a unity4 ,there is1 they say1 an idea of a1 and also an idea of b4 ,therefore1 they say1 there is an idea of a b1 or of a and b together4 ,which is like saying that the mathematical square of a plus that of b is equal to the square of a b1 a palpable untruth4 ,idea of a idea of b is not identical with idea of 7a b74 ,it is one1 they are two2 in it1 what knows a also knows b2 in them1 what knows a is expressly posited as not knowing b2 etc4 ,in short1 the two separate ideas can never by any logic be made to figure as one and the same thing as the 'associated' idea4 ,this is what the spiritualists keep saying2 and since we do1 as a matter of fact1 have the 'compounded' idea1 and do know a and b together1 they adopt a farther hypothesis to explain that fact4 ,the separate ideas exist1 they say1 but affect a third entity1 the soul4 ,this has the 'compounded' idea1 if you please so to call it2 and the compounded idea is an altogether new psychic fact to which the separate ideas stand in the relation1 not of constituents1 but of occasions of production4 ,this argument of the spiritualists against the associationists has never been answered by the latter4 ,it holds good against any talk about self-compounding amongst feelings1 against any 'blending1' or 'complication1' or 'mental chemistry1' or 'psychic synthesis1' which supposes a resultant consciousness to float off from the constituents per se1 in the absence of a supernumerary principle of consciousness which they may affect4 ,the mind-stuff theory1 in short1 is unintelligible4 ,atoms of feeling cannot compose higher feelings1 any more than atoms of matter can compose physical things6 ,the 'things1' for a clear-headed atomistic evolutionist1 are not4 ,nothing is but the everlasting atoms4 ,when grouped in a certain way1 we name them this 'thing' or that2 but the thing we name has no existence out of our mind4 ,so of the states of mind which are supposed to be compound because they know many different things together4 ,since indubitably such states do exist1 they must exist as single new facts1 effects1 possibly1 as the spiritualists say1 on the ,soul 7we will not decide that point here71 but at any rate independent and integral1 and not compounded of psychic atoms4#agf ,,can ,,states ,,of ,,mind ,,be ,,unconscious8 ,the passion for unity and smoothness is in some minds so insatiate that1 in spite of the logical clearness of these reasonings and conclusions1 many will fail to be influenced by them4 ,they establish a sort of disjointedness in things which in certain quarters will appear intolerable4 ,they sweep away all chance of 'passing without break' either from the material to the mental1 or from the lower to the higher mental2 and they thrust us back into a pluralism of consciousnesses--each arising discontinuously in the midst of two disconnected worlds1 material and mental--which is even worse than the old notion of the separate creation of each particular soul4 ,but the malcontents will hardly try to refute our reasonings by direct attack4 ,it is more probable that1 turning their back upon them altogether1 they will devote themselves to sapping and mining the region roundabout until it is a bog of logical liquefaction1 into the midst of which all definite conclusions of any sort may be trusted ere long to sink and disappear4 ,our reasonings have assumed that the 'integration' of a thousand psychic units must be either just the units over again1 simply rebaptized1 or else something real1 but then other than and additional to those units2 that if a certain existing fact is that of a thousand feelings1 it cannot at the same time be that of ,,one feeling2 for the essence of feeling is to be felt1 and as a psychic existent feels1 so it must be4 ,if the one feeling feels like no one of the thousand1 in what sense can it be said to be the thousand8 ,these assumptions are what the monists will seek to undermine4 ,the ,hegelizers amongst them will take high ground at once1 and say that the glory and beauty of the psychic life is that in it all contradictions find their reconciliation2 and that it is just because the facts we are considering are facts of the self that they are both one and many at the same time4 ,with this intellectual temper ,i confess that ,i cannot contend4 ,as in striking at some unresisting gossamer with a club1 one but overreaches one's self1 and the thing one aims at gets no harm4 ,so ,i leave this school to its devices4 ,the other monists are of less deliquescent frame1 and try to break down distinctness among mental states by making a distinction4 ,this sounds paradoxical1 but it is only ingenious4 ,the distinction is that between the unconscious and the conscious being of the mental state4 ,it is the sovereign means for believing what one likes in psychology1 and of turning what might become a science into a tumbling-ground for whimsies4 ,it has numerous champions1 and elaborate reasons to give for itself4 ,we must therefore accord it due consideration4 ,in discussing the question3 ,,do ,,unconscious ,,mental ,,states ,,exist8 it will be best to give the list of so-called proofs as briefly as possible1 and to follow each by its objection1 as in scholastic books4#agg ,first ,proof4 ,the minimum visibile1 the minimum audibile1 are objects composed of parts4 ,how can the whole affect the sense unless each part does8 ,and yet each part does so without being separately sensible4 ,leibnitz calls the total consciousness an 'aperception1' the supposed insensible consciousness by the name of 'petites perceptions4' ,to judge of the latter1 he says1 ,i am accustomed to use the example of the roaring of the sea with which one is assailed when near the shore4 ,to hear this noise as one does1 one must hear the parts which compose its totality1 that is1 the noise of each wave1444 although this noise would not be noticed if its wave were alone4 ,one must be affected a little by the movement of one wave1 one must have some perception of each several noise1 however small it be4 ,otherwise one would not hear that of #ajj1jjj waves1 for of #ajj1jjj zeros one can never make a quantity4#agh ,reply4 ,this is an excellent example of the so-called 'fallacy of division1' or predicating what is true only of a collection1 of each member of the collection distributively4 ,it no more follows that if a thousand things together cause sensation1 one thing alone must cause it1 than it follows that if one pound weight moves a balance1 then one ounce weight must move it too1 in less degree4 ,one ounce weight does not move it at all2 its movement begins with the pound4 ,at most we can say that each ounce affects it in some way which helps the advent of that movement4 ,and so each infra-sensible stimulus to a nerve no doubt affects the nerve and helps the birth of sensation when the other stimuli come4 ,but this affection is a nerve-affection1 and there is not the slightest ground for supposing it to be a 'perception' unconscious of itself4 ,a certain quantity of the cause may be a necessary condition to the production of any of the effect1#agi when the latter is a mental state4 ,second ,proof4 ,in all acquired dexterities and habits1 secondarily automatic performances as they are called1 we do what originally required a chain of deliberately conscious perceptions and volitions4 ,as the actions still keep their intelligent character1 intelligence must still preside over their execution4 ,but since our consciousness seems all the while elsewhere engaged1 such intelligence must consist of unconscious perceptions1 inferences1 and volitions4 ,reply4 ,there is more than one alternative explanation in accordance with larger bodies of fact4 ,one is that the perceptions and volitions in habitual actions may be performed consciously1 only so quickly and inattentively that no memory of them remains4 ,another is that the consciousness of these actions exists1 but is split-off from the rest of the consciousness of the hemispheres4 ,we shall find in ,chapter ,x numerous proofs of the reality of this split-off condition of portions of consciousness4 ,since in man the hemispheres indubitably co-operate in these secondarily automatic acts1 it will not do to say either that they occur without consciousness or that their consciousness is that of the lower centres1 which we know nothing about4 ,but either lack of memory or split-off cortical consciousness will certainly account for all of the facts4#ahj ,third ,proof4 ,thinking of ,a1 we presently find ourselves thinking of ,c4 ,now ,b is the natural logical link between ,a and ,c1 but we have no consciousness of having thought of ,b4 ,it must have been in our mind 'unconsciously1' and in that state affected the sequence of our ideas4 ,reply4 ,here again we have a choice between more plausible explanations4 ,either ,b was consciously there1 but the next instant forgotten1 or its brain-tract alone was adequate to do the whole work of coupling ,a with ,c1 without the idea ,b being aroused at all1 whether consciously or 'unconsciously4' ,fourth ,proof4 ,problems unsolved when we go to bed are found solved in the morning when we wake4 ,somnambulists do rational things4 ,we awaken punctually at an hour predetermined overnight1 etc4 ,unconscious thinking1 volition1 time-registration1 etc41 must have presided over these acts4 ,reply4 ,consciousness forgotten1 as in the hypnotic trance4 ,fifth ,proof4 ,some patients will often1 in an attack of epileptiform unconsciousness1 go through complicated processes1 such as eating a dinner in a restaurant and paying for it1 or making a violent homicidal attack4 ,in trance1 artificial or pathological1 long and complex performances1 involving the use of the reasoning powers1 are executed1 of which the patient is wholly unaware on coming to4 ,reply4 ,rapid and complete oblivescence is certainly the explanation here4 ,the analogue again is hypnotism4 ,tell the subject of an hypnotic trance1 during his trance1 that he will remember1 and he may remember everything perfectly when he awakes1 though without your telling him no memory would have remained4 ,the extremely rapid oblivescence of common dreams is a familiar fact4 ,sixth ,proof4 ,in a musical concord the vibrations of the several notes are in relatively simple ratios4 ,the mind must unconsciously count the vibrations1 and be pleased by the simplicity which it finds4 ,reply4 ,the brain-process produced by the simple ratios may be as directly agreeable as the conscious process of comparing them would be4 ,no counting1 either conscious or 'unconscious1' is required4 ,seventh ,proof4 ,every hour we make theoretic judgments and emotional reactions1 and exhibit practical tendencies1 for which we can give no explicit logical justification1 but which are good inferences from certain premises4 ,we know more than we can say4 ,our conclusions run ahead of our power to analyze their grounds4 ,a child1 ignorant of the axiom that two things equal to the same are equal to each other1 applies it nevertheless in his concrete judgments unerringly4 ,a boor will use the dictum de omni et nullo who is unable to understand it in abstract terms4 ,we seldom consciously think how our house is painted1 what the shade of it is1 what the pattern of our furniture is1 or whether the door opens to the right or left1 or out or in4 ,but how quickly should we notice a change in any of these things6 ,think of the door you have most often opened1 and tell1 if you can1 whether it opens to the right or left1 out or in4 ,yet when you open the door you never put the hand on the wrong side to find the latch1 nor try to push it when it opens with a pull4444 ,what is the precise characteristic in your friend's step that enables you to recognize it when he is coming8 ,did you ever consciously think the idea1 'if ,i run into a solid piece of matter ,i shall get hurt1 or be hindered in my progress'8 and do you avoid running into obstacles because you ever distinctly conceived1 or consciously acquired and thought1 that idea8#aha ,most of our knowledge is at all times potential4 ,we act in accordance with the whole drift of what we have learned1 but few items rise into consciousness at the time4 ,many of them1 however1 we may recall at will4 ,all this co-operation of unrealized principles and facts1 of potential knowledge1 with our actual thought is quite inexplicable unless we suppose the perpetual existence of an immense mass of ideas in an unconscious state1 all of them exerting a steady pressure and influence upon our conscious thinking1 and many of them in such continuity with it as ever and anon to become conscious themselves4 ,reply4 ,no such mass of ideas is supposable4 ,but there are all kinds of short-cuts in the brain2 and processes not aroused strongly enough to give any 'idea' distinct enough to be a premise1 may1 nevertheless1 help to determine just that resultant process of whose psychic accompaniment the said idea would be a premise1 if the idea existed at all4 ,a certain overtone may be a feature of my friend's voice1 and may conspire with the other tones thereof to arouse in my brain the process which suggests to my consciousness his name4 ,and yet ,i may be ignorant of the overtone per se1 and unable1 even when he speaks1 to tell whether it be there or no4 ,it leads me to the idea of the name2 but it produces in me no such cerebral process as that to which the idea of the overtone would correspond4 ,and similarly of our learning4 ,each subject we learn leaves behind it a modification of the brain1 which makes it impossible for the latter to react upon things just as it did before2 and the result of the difference may be a tendency to act1 though with no idea1 much as we should if we were consciously thinking about the subject4 ,the becoming conscious of the latter at will is equally readily explained as a result of the brain-modification4 ,this1 as ,wundt phrases it1 is a 'predisposition' to bring forth the conscious idea of the original subject1 a predisposition which other stimuli and brain-processes may convert into an actual result4 ,but such a predisposition is no 'unconscious idea2' it is only a particular collocation of the molecules in certain tracts of the brain4 ,eighth ,proof4 ,instincts1 as pursuits of ends by appropriate means1 are manifestations of intelligence2 but as the ends are not foreseen1 the intelligence must be unconscious4 ,reply4 ,chapter ,,xxiv will show that all the phenomena of instinct are explicable as actions of the nervous system1 mechanically discharged by stimuli to the senses4 ,ninth ,proof4 ,in sense-perception we have results in abundance1 which can only be explained as conclusions drawn by a process of unconscious inference from data given to sense4 ,a small human image on the retina is referred1 not to a pygmy1 but to a distant man of normal size4 ,a certain gray patch is inferred to be a white object seen in a dim light4 ,often the inference leads us astray3 e4g41 pale gray against pale green looks red1 because we take a wrong premise to argue from4 ,we think a green film is spread over everything2 and knowing that under such a film a red thing would look gray1 we wrongly infer from the gray appearance that a red thing must be there4 ,our study of space-perception in ,chapter ,,xviii will give abundant additional examples both of the truthful and illusory percepts which have been explained to result from unconscious logic operations4 ,reply4 ,that chapter will also in many cases refute this explanation4 ,color-and light-contrast are certainly purely sensational affairs1 in which inference plays no part4 ,this has been satisfactorily proved by ,hering1#ahb and shall be treated of again in ,chapter ,,xvii4 ,our rapid judgments of size1 shape1 distance1 and the like1 are best explained as processes of simple cerebral association4 ,certain sense-impressions directly stimulate brain-tracts1 of whose activity ready-made conscious percepts are the immediate psychic counterparts4 ,they do this by a mechanism either connate or acquired by habit4 ,it is to be remarked that ,wundt and ,helmholtz1 who in their earlier writings did more than any one to give vogue to the notion that unconscious inference is a vital factor in sense-perception1 have seen fit on later occasions to modify their views and to admit that results like those of reasoning may accrue without any actual reasoning process unconsciously taking place4#ahc ,maybe the excessive and riotous applications made by ,hartmann of their principle have led them to this change4 ,it would be natural to feel towards him as the sailor in the story felt towards the horse who got his foot into the stirrup1--,if you're going to get on1 ,i must get off4 ,hartmann fairly boxes the compass of the universe with the principle of unconscious thought4 ,for him there is no namable thing that does not exemplify it4 ,but his logic is so lax and his failure to consider the most obvious alternatives so complete that it would1 on the whole1 be a waste of time to look at his arguments in detail4 ,the same is true of ,schopenhauer1 in whom the mythology reaches its climax4 ,the visual perception1 for example1 of an object in space results1 according to him1 from the intellect performing the following operations1 all unconscious4 ,first1 it apprehends the inverted retinal image and turns it right side up1 constructing flat space as a preliminary operation2 then it computes from the angle of convergence of the eyeballs that the two retinal images must be the projection of but a single object2 thirdly1 it constructs the third dimension and sees this object solid2 fourthly1 it assigns its distance2 and fifthly1 in each and all of these operations it gets the objective character of what it 'constructs' by unconsciously inferring it as the only possible cause of some sensation which it unconsciously feels4#ahd ,comment on this seems hardly called for4 ,it is1 as ,i said1 pure mythology4 ,none of these facts1 then1 appealed to so confidently in proof of the existence of ideas in an unconscious state1 prove anything of the sort4 ,they prove either that conscious ideas were present which the next instant were forgotten2 or they prove that certain results1 similar to results of reasoning1 may be wrought out by rapid brain-processes to which no ideation seems attached4 ,but there is one more argument to be alleged1 less obviously insufficient than those which we have reviewed1 and demanding a new sort of reply4 99 99 99 99 99 ,tenth ,proof4 ,there is a great class of experiences in our mental life which may be described as discoveries that a subjective condition which we have been having is really something different from what we had supposed4 ,we suddenly find ourselves bored by a thing which we thought we were enjoying well enough2 or in love with a person whom we imagined we only liked4 ,or else we deliberately analyze our motives1 and find that at bottom they contain jealousies and cupidities which we little suspected to be there4 ,our feelings towards people are perfect wells of motivation1 unconscious of itself1 which introspection brings to light4 ,and our sensations likewise3 we constantly discover new elements in sensations which we have been in the habit of receiving all our days1 elements1 too1 which have been there from the first1 since otherwise we should have been unable to distinguish the sensations containing them from others nearly allied4 ,the elements must exist1 for we use them to discriminate by2 but they must exist in an unconscious state1 since we so completely fail to single them out4#ahe ,the books of the analytic school of psychology abound in examples of the kind4 ,who knows the countless associations that mingle with his each and every thought8 ,who can pick apart all the nameless feelings that stream in at every moment from his various internal organs1 muscles1 heart1 glands1 lungs1 etc41 and compose in their totality his sense of bodily life8 ,who is aware of the part played by feelings of innervation and suggestions of possible muscular exertion in all his judgments of distance1 shape1 and size8 ,consider1 too1 the difference between a sensation which we simply have and one which we attend to4 ,attention gives results that seem like fresh creations2 and yet the feelings and elements of feeling which it reveals must have been already there--in an unconscious state4 ,we all know practically the difference between the so-called sonant and the so-called surd consonants1 between ,d1 ,b1 ,z1 ,g1 ,v1 and ,t1 ,p1 ,s1 ,k1 ,f1 respectively4 ,but comparatively few persons know the difference theoretically1 until their attention has been called to what it is1 when they perceive it readily enough4 ,the sonants are nothing but the surds plus a certain element1 which is alike in all1 superadded4 ,that element is the laryngeal sound with which they are uttered1 surds having no such accompaniment4 ,when we hear the sonant letter1 both its component elements must really be in our mind2 but we remain unconscious of what they really are1 and mistake the letter for a simple quality of sound until an effort of attention teaches us its two components4 ,there exist a host of sensations which most men pass through life and never attend to1 and consequently have only in an unconscious way4 ,the feelings of opening and closing the glottis1 of making tense the tympanic membrane1 of accommodating for near vision1 of intercepting the passage from the nostrils to the throat1 are instances of what ,i mean4 ,every one gets these feelings many times an hour2 but few readers1 probably1 are conscious of exactly what sensations are meant by the names ,i have just used4 ,all these facts1 and an enormous number more1 seem to prove conclusively that1 in addition to the fully conscious way in which an idea may exist in the mind1 there is also an unconscious way2 that it is unquestionably the same identical idea which exists in these two ways2 and that therefore any arguments against the mind-stuff theory1 based on the notion that esse in our mental life is sentiri1 and that an idea must consciously be felt as what it is1 fall to the ground4 ,objection4 ,these reasonings are one tissue of confusion4 ,two states of mind which refer to the same external reality1 or two states of mind the later one of which refers to the earlier1 are described as the same state of mind1 or 'idea1' published as it were in two editions2 and then whatever qualities of the second edition are found openly lacking in the first are explained as having really been there1 only in an 'unconscious' way4 ,it would be difficult to believe that intelligent men could be guilty of so patent a fallacy1 were not the history of psychology there to give the proof4 ,the psychological stock-in-trade of some authors is the belief that two thoughts about one thing are virtually the same thought1 and that this same thought may in subsequent reflections become more and more conscious of what it really was all along from the first4 ,but once make the distinction between simply having an idea at the moment of its presence and subsequently knowing all sorts of things about it2 make moreover that between a state of mind itself1 taken as a subjective fact1 on the one hand1 and the objective thing it knows1 on the other1 and one has no difficulty in escaping from the labyrinth4 ,take the latter distinction first3 ,immediately all the arguments based on sensations and the new features in them which attention brings to light fall to the ground4 ,the sensations of the ,b and the ,v when we attend to these sounds and analyze out the laryngeal contribution which makes them differ from ,p and ,f respectively1 are different sensations from those of the ,b and the ,v taken in a simple way4 ,they stand1 it is true1 for the same letters1 and thus mean the same outer realities2 but they are different mental affections1 and certainly depend on widely different processes of cerebral activity4 ,it is unbelievable that two mental states so different as the passive reception of a sound as a whole1 and the analysis of that whole into distinct ingredients by voluntary attention1 should be due to processes at all similar4 ,and the subjective difference does not consist in that the first-named state is the second in an 'unconscious' form4 ,it is an absolute psychic difference1 even greater than that between the states to which two different surds will give rise4 ,the same is true of the other sensations chosen as examples4 ,the man who learns for the first time how the closure of his glottis feels1 experiences in this discovery an absolutely new psychic modification1 the like of which he never had before4 ,he had another feeling before1 a feeling incessantly renewed1 and of which the same glottis was the organic starting point2 but that was not the later feeling in an 'unconscious' state2 it was a feeling sui generis altogether1 although it took cognizance of the same bodily part1 the glottis4 ,we shall see1 hereafter1 that the same reality can be cognized by an endless number of psychic states1 which may differ toto clo among themselves1 without ceasing on that account to refer to the reality in question4 ,each of them is a conscious fact3 none of them has any mode of being whatever except a certain way of being felt at the moment of being present4 ,it is simply unintelligible and fantastical to say1 because they point to the same outer reality1 that they must therefore be so many editions of the same 'idea1' now in a conscious and now in an 'unconscious' phase4 ,there is only one 'phase' in which an idea can be1 and that is a fully conscious condition4 ,if it is not in that condition1 then it is not at all4 ,something else is1 in its place4 ,the something else may be a merely physical brain-process1 or it may be another conscious idea4 ,either of these things may perform much the same function as the first idea1 refer to the same object1 and roughly stand in the same relations to the upshot of our thought4 ,but that is no reason why we should throw away the logical principle of identity in psychology1 and say that1 however it may fare in the outer world1 the mind at any rate is a place in which a thing can be all kinds of other things without ceasing to be itself as well4 ,now take the other cases alleged1 and the other distinction1 that namely between having a mental state and knowing all about it4 ,the truth is here even simpler to unravel4 ,when ,i decide that ,i have1 without knowing it1 been for several weeks in love1 ,i am simply giving a name to a state which previously ,i have not named1 but which was fully conscious2 which had no residual mode of being except the manner in which it was conscious2 and which1 though it was a feeling towards the same person for whom ,i now have a much more inflamed feeling1 and though it continuously led into the latter1 and is similar enough to be called by the same name1 is yet in no sense identical with the latter1 and least of all in an 'unconscious' way4 ,again1 the feelings from our viscera and other dimly-felt organs1 the feelings of innervation 7if such there be71 and those of muscular exertion which1 in our spatial judgments1 are supposed unconsciously to determine what we shall perceive1 are just exactly what we feel them1 perfectly determinate conscious states1 not vague editions of other conscious states4 ,they may be faint and weak2 they may be very vague cognizers of the same realities which other conscious states cognize and name exactly2 they may be unconscious of much in the reality which the other states are conscious of4 ,but that does not make them in themselves a whit dim or vague or unconscious4 ,they are eternally as they feel when they exist1 and can1 neither actually nor potentially1 be identified with anything else than their own faint selves4 ,a faint feeling may be looked back upon and classified and understood in its relations to what went before or after it in the stream of thought4 ,but it1 on the one hand1 and the later state of mind which knows all these things about it1 on the other1 are surely not two conditions1 one conscious and the other 'unconscious1' of the same identical psychic fact4 ,it is the destiny of thought that1 on the whole1 our early ideas are superseded by later ones1 giving fuller accounts of the same realities4 ,but none the less do the earlier and the later ideas preserve their own several substantive identities as so many several successive states of mind4 ,to believe the contrary would make any definite science of psychology impossible4 ,the only identity to be found among our successive ideas is their similarity of cognitive or representative function as dealing with the same objects4 ,identity of being1 there is none2 and ,i believe that throughout the rest of this volume the reader will reap the advantages of the simpler way of formulating the facts which is here begun4#ahf 99 99 99 99 99 ,so we seem not only to have ascertained the unintelligibility of the notion that a mental fact can be two things at once1 and that what seems like one feeling1 of blueness for example1 or of hatred1 may really and 'unconsciously' be ten thousand elementary feelings which do not resemble blueness or hatred at all1 but we find that we can express all the observed facts in other ways4 ,the mind-stuff theory1 however1 though scotched1 is1 we may be sure1 not killed4 ,if we ascribe consciousness to unicellular animalcules1 then single cells can have it1 and analogy should make us ascribe it to the several cells of the brain1 each individually taken4 ,and what a convenience would it not be for the psychologist if1 by the adding together of various doses of this separate-cell-consciousness1 he could treat thought as a kind of stuff or material1 to be measured out in great or small amount1 increased and subtracted from1 and baled about at will6 ,he feels an imperious craving to be allowed to construct synthetically the successive mental states which he describes4 ,the mind-stuff theory so easily admits of the construction being made1 that it seems certain that 'man's unconquerable mind' will devote much future pertinacity and ingenuity to setting it on its legs again and getting it into some sort of plausible working-order4 ,i will therefore conclude the chapter with some consideration of the remaining difficulties which beset the matter as it at present stands4 ,,difficulty ,,of ,,stating ,,the ,,connection ,,between ,,mind ,,and ,,brain4 ,it will be remembered that in our criticism of the theory of the integration of successive conscious units into a feeling of musical pitch1 we decided that whatever integration there was was that of the air-pulses into a simpler and simpler sort of physical effect1 as the propagations of material change got higher and higher in the nervous system4 ,at last1 we said 7p4 #bc71 there results some simple and massive process in the auditory centres of the hemispherical cortex1 to which1 as a whole1 the feeling of musical pitch directly corresponds4 ,already1 in discussing the localization of functions in the brain1 ,i had said 7pp4 #aeh-i7 that consciousness accompanies the stream of innervation through that organ and varies in quality with the character of the currents1 being mainly of things seen if the occipital lobes are much involved1 of things heard if the action is focalized in the temporal lobes1 etc41 etc42 and ,i had added that a vague formula like this was as much as one could safely venture on in the actual state of physiology4 ,the facts of mental deafness and blindness1 of auditory and optical aphasia1 show us that the whole brain must act together if certain thoughts are to occur4 ,the consciousness1 which is itself an integral thing not made of parts1 'corresponds' to the entire activity of the brain1 whatever that may be1 at the moment4 ,this is a way of expressing the relation of mind and brain from which ,i shall not depart during the remainder of the book1 because it expresses the bare phenomenal fact with no hypothesis1 and is exposed to no such logical objections as we have found to cling to the theory of ideas in combination4 ,nevertheless1 this formula which is so unobjectionable if taken vaguely1 positivistically1 or scientifically1 as a mere empirical law of concomitance between our thoughts and our brain1 tumbles to pieces entirely if we assume to represent anything more intimate or ultimate by it4 ,the ultimate of ultimate problems1 of course1 in the study of the relations of thought and brain1 is to understand why and how such disparate things are connected at all4 ,but before that problem is solved 7if it ever is solved7 there is a less ultimate problem which must first be settled4 ,before the connection of thought and brain can be explained1 it must at least be stated in an elementary form2 and there are great difficulties about so stating it4 ,to state it in elementary form one must reduce it to its lowest terms and know which mental fact and which cerebral fact are1 so to speak1 in immediate juxtaposition4 ,we must find the minimal mental fact whose being reposes directly on a brain-fact2 and we must similarly find the minimal brain-event which will have a mental counterpart at all4 ,between the mental and the physical minima thus found there will be an immediate relation1 the expression of which1 if we had it1 would be the elementary psycho-physic law4 ,our own formula escapes the unintelligibility of psychic atoms by taking the entire thought 7even of a complex object7 as the minimum with which it deals on the mental side4 ,but in taking the entire brain-process as its minimal fact on the material side it confronts other difficulties almost as bad4 ,in the first place1 it ignores analogies on which certain critics will insist1 those1 namely1 between the composition of the total brain-process and that of the object of the thought4 ,the total brain-process is composed of parts1 of simultaneous processes in the seeing1 the hearing1 the feeling1 and other centres4 ,the object thought of is also composed of parts1 some of which are seen1 others heard1 others perceived by touch and muscular manipulation4 ,how then1 these critics will say1 should the thought not itself be composed of parts1 each the counterpart of a part of the object and of a part of the brain-process8 ,so natural is this way of looking at the matter that it has given rise to what is on the whole the most flourishing of all psychological systems--that of the ,lockian school of associated ideas--of which school the mind-stuff theory is nothing but the last and subtlest offshoot4 ,the second difficulty is deeper still4 ,the 'entire brain-process' is not a physical fact at all4 ,it is the appearance to an onlooking mind of a multitude of physical facts4 ',entire brain' is nothing but our name for the way in which a million of molecules arranged in certain positions may affect our sense4 ,on the principles of the corpuscular or mechanical philosophy1 the only realities are the separate molecules1 or at most the cells4 ,their aggregation into a 'brain' is a fiction of popular speech4 ,such a fiction cannot serve as the objectively real counterpart to any psychic state whatever4 ,only a genuinely physical fact can so serve4 ,but the molecular fact is the only genuine physical fact--whereupon we seem1 if we are to have an elementary psycho-physic law at all1 thrust right back upon something like the mind-stuff theory1 for the molecular fact1 being an element of the 'brain1' would seem naturally to correspond1 not to the total thoughts1 but to elements in the thought4 ,what shall we do8 ,many would find relief at this point in celebrating the mystery of the ,unknowable and the 'awe' which we should feel at having such a principle to take final charge of our perplexities4 ,others would rejoice that the finite and separatist view of things with which we started had at last developed its contradictions1 and was about to lead us dialectically upwards to some 'higher synthesis' in which inconsistencies cease from troubling and logic is at rest4 ,it may be a constitutional infirmity1 but ,i can take no comfort in such devices for making a luxury of intellectual defeat4 ,they are but spiritual chloroform4 ,better live on the ragged edge1 better gnaw the file forever6 ,,the ,,material-,,monad ,,theory4 ,the most rational thing to do is to suspect that there may be a third possibility1 an alternative supposition which we have not considered4 ,now there is an alternative supposition--a supposition moreover which has been frequently made in the history of philosophy1 and which is freer from logical objections than either of the views we have ourselves discussed4 ,it may be called the theory of polyzoism or multiple monadism2 and it conceives the matter thus3 ,every brain-cell has its own individual consciousness1 which no other cell knows anything about1 all individual consciousnesses being 'ejective' to each other4 ,there is1 however1 among the cells one central or pontifical one to which our consciousness is attached4 ,but the events of all the other cells physically influence this arch-cell2 and through producing their joint effects on it1 these other cells may be said to 'combine4' ,the arch-cell is1 in fact1 one of those 'external media' without which we saw that no fusion or integration of a number of things can occur4 ,the physical modifications of the arch-cell thus form a sequence of results in the production whereof every other cell has a share1 so that1 as one might say1 every other cell is represented therein4 ,and similarly1 the conscious correlates to these physical modifications form a sequence of thoughts or feelings1 each one of which is1 as to its substantive being1 an integral and uncompounded psychic thing1 but each one of which may 7in the exercise of its cognitive function7 be aware of ,,things many and complicated in proportion to the number of other cells that have helped to modify the central cell4 ,by a conception of this sort1 one incurs neither of the internal contradictions which we found to beset the other two theories4 ,one has no unintelligible self-combining of psychic units to account for on the one hand2 and on the other hand1 one need not treat as the physical counterpart of the stream of consciousness under observation1 a 'total brain-activity' which is non-existent as a genuinely physical fact4 ,but1 to offset these advantages1 one has physiological difficulties and improbabilities4 ,there is no cell or group of cells in the brain of such anatomical or functional pre-eminence as to appear to be the keystone or centre of gravity of the whole system4 ,and even if there were such a cell1 the theory of multiple monadism would1 in strictness of thought1 have no right to stop at it and treat it as a unit4 ,the cell is no more a unit1 materially considered1 than the total brain is a unit4 ,it is a compound of molecules1 just as the brain is a compound of cells and fibres4 ,and the molecules1 according to the prevalent physical theories1 are in turn compounds of atoms4 ,the theory in question1 therefore1 if radically carried out1 must set up for its elementary and irreducible psycho-physic couple1 not the cell and its consciousness1 but the primordial and eternal atom and its consciousness4 ,we are back at ,leibnitzian monadism1 and therewith leave physiology behind us and dive into regions inaccessible to experience and verification2 and our doctrine1 although not self-contradictory1 becomes so remote and unreal as to be almost as bad as if it were4 ,speculative minds alone will take an interest in it2 and metaphysics1 not psychology1 will be responsible for its career4 ,that the career may be a successful one must be admitted as a possibility--a theory which ,leibnitz1 ,herbart1 and ,lotze have taken under their protection must have some sort of a destiny4 ,,the ,,soul-,,theory4 ,but is this my last word8 ,by no means4 ,many readers have certainly been saying to themselves for the last few pages3 ,why on earth doesn't the poor man say the ,soul and have done with it8 ,other readers1 of anti-spiritualistic training and prepossessions1 advanced thinkers1 or popular evolutionists1 will perhaps be a little surprised to find this much-despised word now sprung upon them at the end of so physiological a train of thought4 ,but the plain fact is that all the arguments for a 'pontifical cell' or an 'arch-monad' are also arguments for that well-known spiritual agent in which scholastic psychology and common-sense have always believed4 ,and my only reason for beating the bushes so1 and not bringing it in earlier as a possible solution of our difficulties1 has been that by this procedure ,i might perhaps force some of these materialistic minds to feel the more strongly the logical respectability of the spiritualistic position4 ,the fact is that one cannot afford to despise any of these great traditional objects of belief4 ,whether we realize it or not1 there is always a great drift of reasons1 positive and negative1 towing us in their direction4 ,if there be such entities as ,souls in the universe1 they may possibly be affected by the manifold occurrences that go on in the nervous centres4 ,to the state of the entire brain at a given moment they may respond by inward modifications of their own4 ,these changes of state may be pulses of consciousness1 cognitive of objects few or many1 simple or complex4 ,the soul would be thus a medium upon which 7to use our earlier phraseology7 the manifold brain-processes combine their effects4 ,not needing to consider it as the 'inner aspect' of any arch-molecule or brain-cell1 we escape that physiological improbability2 and as its pulses of consciousness are unitary and integral affairs from the outset1 we escape the absurdity of supposing feelings which exist separately and then 'fuse together' by themselves4 ,the separateness is in the brain-world1 on this theory1 and the unity in the soul-world2 and the only trouble that remains to haunt us is the metaphysical one of understanding how one sort of world or existent thing can affect or influence another at all4 ,this trouble1 however1 since it also exists inside of both worlds1 and involves neither physical improbability nor logical contradiction1 is relatively small4 ,i confess1 therefore1 that to posit a soul influenced in some mysterious way by the brain-states and responding to them by conscious affections of its own1 seems to me the line of least logical resistance1 so far as we yet have attained4 ,if it does not strictly explain anything1 it is at any rate less positively objectionable than either mind-stuff or a material-monad creed4 ,the bare ,,phenomenon1 however1 the ,,immediately ,,known thing which on the mental side is in apposition with the entire brain-process is the state of consciousness and not the soul itself4 ,many of the stanchest believers in the soul admit that we know it only as an inference from experiencing its states4 ,in ,chapter ,x1 accordingly1 we must return to its consideration again1 and ask ourselves whether1 after all1 the ascertainment of a blank unmediated correspondence1 term for term1 of the succession of states of consciousness with the succession of total brain-processes1 be not the simplest psycho-physic formula1 and the last word of a psychology which contents itself with verifiable laws1 and seeks only to be clear1 and to avoid unsafe hypotheses4 ,such a mere admission of the empirical parallelism will there appear the wisest course4 ,by keeping to it1 our psychology will remain positivistic and non-metaphysical2 and although this is certainly only a provisional halting-place1 and things must some day be more thoroughly thought out1 we shall abide there in this book1 and just as we have rejected mind-dust1 we shall take no account of the soul4 ,the spiritualistic reader may nevertheless believe in the soul if he will2 whilst the positivistic one who wishes to give a tinge of mystery to the expression of his positivism can continue to say that nature in her unfathomable designs has mixed us of clay and flame1 of brain and mind1 that the two things hang indubitably together and determine each other's being1 but how or why1 no mortal may ever know4 ,,footnotes3 #afj ,psychol4 #fb4 #afa ,ibid4 #bgb4 #afb ,fragments of ,science1 #eth ed41 p4 #dbj4 #afc ,belfast ,address1 ',nature1' ,august #bj1 #ahgd1 p4 #cah4 ,i cannot help remarking that the disparity between motions and feelings on which these authors lay so much stress1 is somewhat less absolute than at first sight it seems4 ,there are categories common to the two worlds4 ,not only temporal succession 7as ,helmholtz admits1 ,physiol4 ,optik1 p4 #dde71 but such attributes as intensity1 volume1 simplicity or complication1 smooth or impeded change1 rest or agitation1 are habitually predicated of both physical facts and mental facts4 ,where such analogies obtain1 the things do have something in common4 #afd ,psychology1 #aca #afe ',nature1' as above1 #cag-h4 #aff ',nascent' is ,mr4 ,spencer's great word4 ,in showing how at a certain point consciousness must appear upon the evolving scene this author fairly outdoes himself in vagueness4 ,in its higher forms1 ,instinct is probably accompanied by a rudimentary consciousness4 ,there cannot be co-ordination of many stimuli without some ganglion through which they are all brought into relation4 ,in the process of bringing them into relation1 this ganglion must be subject to the influence of each--must undergo many changes4 ,and the quick succession of changes in a ganglion1 implying as it does perpetual experiences of differences and likenesses1 constitutes the raw material of consciousness4 ,the implication is that as fast as ,instinct is developed1 some kind of consciousness becomes nascent4 7,psychology1 #aie47 ,the words 'raw material' and 'implication' which ,i have italicized are the words which do the evolving4 ,they are supposed to have all the rigor which the 'synthetic philosophy' requires4 ,in the following passage1 when 'impressions' pass through a common 'centre of communication' in succession 7much as people might pass into a theatre through a turnstile7 consciousness1 non-existent until then1 is supposed to result3 ,separate impressions are received by the senses--by different parts of the body4 ,if they go no further than the places at which they are received1 they are useless4 ,or if only some of them are brought into relation with one another1 they are useless4 ,that an effectual adjustment may be made1 they must be all brought into relation with one another4 ,but this implies some centre of communication common to them all1 through which they severally pass2 and as they cannot pass through it simultaneously1 they must pass through it in succession4 ,so that as the external phenomena responded to become greater in number and more complicated in kind1 the variety and rapidity of the changes to which this common centre of communication is subject must increase--there must result an unbroken series of these changes-there must arise a consciousness4 ,hence the progress of the correspondence between the organism and its environment necessitates a gradual reduction of the sensorial changes to a succession2 and by so doing evolves a distinct consciousness--a consciousness that becomes higher as the succession becomes more rapid and the correspondence more complete4 7,ibid4 #agi47 ,it is true that in the ,fortnightly ,review 7vol4 xiv1 p4 #gaf7 ,mr4 ,spencer denies that he means by this passage to tell us anything about the origin of consciousness at all4 ,it resembles1 however1 too many other places in his ,psychology 7e4g4 #dc1 #aaj1 #bdd7 not to be taken as a serious attempt to explain how consciousness must at a certain point be 'evolved4' ,that1 when a critic calls his attention to the inanity of his words1 ,mr4 ,spencer should say he never meant anything particular by them1 is simply an example of the scandalous vagueness with which this sort of 'chromo-philosophy' is carried on4 #afg ,his own words are3 ,mistakes are made in the sense that he admits having been touched1 when in reality it was radiant heat that affected his skin4 ,in our own before-mentioned experiments there was never any deception on the entire palmar side of the hand or on the face4 ,on the back of the hand in one case in a series of #fj stimulations #d mistakes occurred1 in another case #b mistakes in #de stimulations4 ,on the extensor side of the upper arm #c deceptions out of #dh stimulations were noticed1 and in the case of another individual1 #a out of #ca4 ,in one case over the spine #c deceptions in a series of #aa excitations were observed2 in another1 #d out of #ai4 ,on the lumbar spine #f deceptions came among #bi stimulations1 and again #d out of #g4 ,there is certainly not yet enough material on which to rest a calculation of probabilities1 but any one can easily convince himself that on the back there is no question of even a moderately accurate discrimination between warmth and a light pressure so far as but small portions of skin come into play4 ,it has been as yet impossible to make corresponding experiments with regard to sensibility to cold4 7,lehrb4 d4 ,anat4 u4 ,physiol4 d4 ,sinnesorgane 7#ahfb71 p4 #bi47 #afh ,principles of ,psychology1 #fj4 #afi ,oddly enough1 ,mr4 ,spencer seems quite unaware of the general function of the theory of elementary units of mind-stuff in the evolutionary philosophy4 ,we have seen it to be absolutely indispensable1 if that philosophy is to work1 to postulate consciousness in the nebula1---the simplest way being1 of course1 to suppose every atom animated4 ,mr4 ,spencer1 however1 will have it 7e4g4 ,first ,principles1 #ga7 that consciousness is only the occasional result of the 'transformation' of a certain amount of 'physical force' to which it is 'equivalent4' ,presumably a brain must already be there before any such 'transformation' can take place2 and so the argument quoted in the text stands as a mere local detail1 without general bearings4 #agj ,the compounding of colors may be dealt with in an identical way4 ,helmholtz has shown that if green light and red light fall simultaneously on the retina1 we see the color yellow4 ,the mind-stuff theory would interpret this as a ease where the feeling green and the feeling red 'combine' into the tertium quid of feeling1 yellow4 ,what really occurs is no doubt that a third kind of nerve-process is set up when the combined lights impinge on the retina1--not simply the process of red plus the process of green1 but something quite different from both or either4 ,of course1 then1 there are no feelings1 either of red or of green1 present to the mind at all2 but the feeling of yellow which is there1 answers as directly to the nerve-process which momentarily then exists1 as the feelings of green and red would answer to their respective nerve-processes did the latter happen to be taking place4 #aga ,cf4 ,mill's ,logic1 book vi1 chap4 iv1 #c4 #agb ,i find in my students an almost invincible tendency to think that we can immediately perceive that feelings do combine4 ,what6 they say1 is not the taste of lemonade composed of that of lemon plus that of sugar8 ,this is taking the combining of objects for that of feelings4 ,the physical lemonade contains both the lemon and the sugar1 but its taste does not contain their tastes1 for if there are any two things which are certainly not present in the taste of lemonade1 those are the lemon-sour on the one hand and the sugar-sweet on the other4 ,these tastes are absent utterly4 ,the entirely new taste which is present resembles1 it is true1 both those tastes2 but in ,chapter ,,xiii we shall see that resemblance can not always be held to involve partial identity4 #agc ,e4 ,montgomery1 in ',mind1' v1 #ah-ai4 ,see also pp4 #bd-e4 #agd ,j4 ,royce1 ',mind1' vi1 p4 #cgf4 ,lotze has set forth the truth of this law more clearly and copiously than any other writer4 ,unfortunately he is too lengthy to quote4 ,see his ,microcosmus1 bk4 ii1 ch4 i1 #e2 ,metaphysik1 #bdb1 #bfj2 ,outlines of ,metaphysics1 part ii1 chap4 i1 #c1 #d1 #e4 ,compare also ,reid's ,intellectual ,powers1 essay v1 chap4 iii1 ad fin42 ,bowne's ,metaphysics1 pp4 #cfa-gf2 ,st4 ,j4 ,mivart3 ,nature and ,thought1 pp4 #ih-aja2 ,e4 ,gurney3 ',monism1' in ',mind1' vi1 #aec2 and the article by ,prof4 ,royce1 just quoted1 on ',mind-stuff and ,reality4' ,in defence of the mind-stuff view1 see ,w4 ,k4 ,clifford3 ',mind1' iii1 #eg 7reprinted in his ',lectures and ,essays1' ii1 #ga72 ,g4 ,t4 ,fechner1 ,psychophysik1 ,bd4 ii1 cap4 xlv2 ,h4 ,taine3 on ,intelligence1 bk4 iii2 ,e4 ,haeckel3 ',zellseelen u4 ,seelenzellen' in ,gesammelte pop4 ,vortrge1 ,bd4 i1 p4 #adc2 ,w4 ,s4 ,duncan3 ,conscious ,matter1 passim2 ,h4 ,zllner3 ,natur d4 ,cometen1 pp4 #cbj ff42 ,alfred ,barratt3 ',physical ,ethic' and ',physical ,metempiric1' passim2 ,j4 ,soury3 ',hylozoismus1' in ',kosmos1' ,v4 ,jahrg41 ,heft x1 p4 #bda2 ,a4 ,main3 ',mind1' i1 #bib1 #dca1 #eff2 ii1 #abi1 #djb2 ,id4 ,revue ,philos41 ii1 #hf1 #hh1 #dai2 iii1 #ea1 #ejb2 iv1 #djb2 ,f4 ,w4 ,frankland3 ',mind1' vi1 #aaf2 ,whittaker3 ',mind1' vi1 #dih 7historical72 ,morton ,prince3 ,the ,nature of ,mind and ,human ,automatism 7#ahhe72 ,a4 ,riehl3 ,der philosophische ,kriticismus1 ,bd4 ii1 ,theil #b1 #bter ,abschnitt1 #btes ,cap4 7#ahhg74 ,the clearest of all these ,statements is1 as far as it goes1 that of ,prince4 #age ,someone might say that although it is true that neither a blind man nor a deaf man by himself can compare sounds with colors1 yet since one hears and the other sees they might do so both together4444 ,but whether they are apart or close together makes no difference2 not even if they permanently keep house together2 no1 not if they were ,siamese twins1 or more than ,siamese twins1 and were inseparably grown together1 would it make the assumption any more possible4 ,only when sound and color are represented in the same reality is it thinkable that they should be compared4 7,brentano3 ,psychologie1 p4 #bji47 #agf ,the reader must observe that we are reasoning altogether about the ,logic of the mind-stuff theory1 about whether it can exist in the constitution of higher mental states by viewing them as identical with lower ones summed together4 ,we say the two sorts of fact are not identical3 a higher state is not a lot of lower states2 it is itself4 ,when1 however1 a lot of lower states have come together1 or when certain brain-conditions occur together which1 if they occurred separately1 would produce a lot of lower states1 we have not for a moment pretended that a higher state may not emerge4 ,in fact it does emerge under those conditions2 and our ,chapter ,,ix will be mainly devoted to the proof of this fact4 ,but such emergence is that of a new psychic entity1 and is toto clo different from such an 'integration' of the lower states as the mind-stuff theory affirms4 ,it may seem strange to suppose that anyone should mistake criticism of a certain theory about a fact for doubt of the fact itself4 ,and yet the confusion is made in high quarters enough to justify our remarks4 ,mr4 ,j4 ,ward1 in his article ,psychology in the ,encyclopdia ,britannica1 speaking of the hypothesis that a series of feelings can be aware of itself as a series1 says 7p4 #ci73 ,paradox is too mild a word for it1 even contradiction will hardly suffice4 ,whereupon1 ,professor ,bain takes him thus to task3 ,as to 'a series of states being aware of itself1' ,i confess ,i see no insurmountable difficulty4 ,it may be a fact1 or not a fact2 it may be a very clumsy expression for what it is applied to2 but it is neither paradox nor contradiction4 ,a series merely contradicts an individual1 or it may be two or more individuals as coexisting2 but that is too general to exclude the possibility of self-knowledge4 ,it certainly does not bring the property of self-knowledge into the foreground1 which1 however1 is not the same as denying it4 ,an algebraic series might know itself1 without any contradiction3 the only thing against it is the want of evidence of the fact4 7',mind1' xi1 #dei74 ,prof4 ,bain thinks1 then1 that all the bother is about the difficulty of seeing how a series of feelings can have the knowledge of itself added to it666 ,as if anybody ever was troubled about that4 ,that1 notoriously enough1 is a fact3 our consciousness is a series of feelings to which every now and then is added a retrospective consciousness that they have come and gone4 ,what ,mr4 ,ward and ,i are troubled about is merely the silliness of the mind-stuffists and associationists continuing to say that the 'series of states' is the 'awareness of itself2' that if the states be posited severally1 their collective consciousness is eo ipso given2 and that we need no farther explanation1 or 'evidence of the fact4' #agg ,the writers about 'unconscious cerebration' seem sometimes to mean that and sometimes unconscious thought4 ,the arguments which follow are culled from various quarters4 ,the reader will find them most systematically urged by ,e4 von ,hartmann3 ,philosophy of the ,unconscious1 vol4 i2 and by ,e4 ,colsenet3 ,la ,vie ,inconsciente de l',esprit 7#ahhj74 ,consult also ,t4 ,laycock3 ,mind and ,brain1 vol4 i1 chap4 v 7#ahfj72 ,w4 ,b4 ,carpenter3 ,mental ,physiology1 chap4 xiii2 ,f4 ,p4 ,cobbe3 ,darwinism in ,morals and other ,essays1 essay xi1 ,unconscious ,cerebration 7#ahgb72 ,f4 ,bowen3 ,modern ,philosophy1 pp4 #dbh-dhj2 ,r4 ,h4 ,hutton3 ,contemporary ,review1 vol4 xxiv1 p4 #bja2 ,j4 ,s4 ,mill3 ,exam4 of ,hamilton1 chap4 xv2 ,g4 ,h4 ,lewes3 ,problems of ,life and ,mind1 #c;d series1 ,prob4 ii1 chap4 x1 and also ,prob4 iii1 chap4 ii2 ,d4 ,g4 ,thompson3 ,a ,system of ,psychology1 chap4 xxxiii2 ,j4 ,m4 ,baldwin1 ,handbook of ,psychology1 chap4 iv4 #agh ,nouveaux ,essais1 ,avant-propos4 #agi ,j4 ,s4 ,mill1 ,exam4 of ,hamilton1 chap4 xv4 #ahj ,cf4 ,dugald ,stewart1 ,elements1 chap4 ii4 #aha ,j4 ,e4 ,maude3 ',the ,unconscious in ,education1' in ',education1' vol4 i1 p4 #dja 7#ahhb74 #ahb ,zur ,lehre vor ,lichtsinne 7#ahgh74 #ahc ,cf4 ,wundt3 ,ueber den ,einfluss der ,philosophie1 etc4--,antrittsrede 7#ahgf71 pp4 #aj-aa2--;,helmholtz3 ,die ,thatsachen in der ,wahrnehmung 7#ahgi71 p4 #bg4 #ahd ,cf4 ,satz vom ,grunde1 pp4 #ei-fe4 ,compare also ,f4 ,zllner's ,natur der ,kometen1 pp4 #cdb ff4 and #dbe4 #ahe ,cf4 the statements from ,helmholtz to be found later in ,chapter ,,xiii4 #ahf ,the text was written before ,professor ,lipps's ,grundtatsachen des ,seelenlebens 7#ahhc7 came into my hands4 ,in ,chapter ,,iii of that book the notion of unconscious thought is subjected to the clearest and most searching criticism which it has yet received4 ,some passages are so similar to what ,i have myself written that ,i must quote them in a note4 ,after proving that dimness and clearness1 incompleteness and completeness do not pertain to a state of mind as such--since every state of mind must be exactly what it is1 and nothing else--but only pertain to the way in which states of mind stand for objects1 which they more or less dimly1 more or less clearly1 represent2 ,lipps takes the case of those sensations which attention is said to make more clear4 ,i perceive an object1 he says1 now in clear daylight1 and again at night4 ,call the content of the day-perception a1 and that of the evening-perception a#a4 ,there will probably be a considerable difference between a and a#a4 ,the colors of a will be varied and intense1 and will be sharply bounded by each other2 those of a#a will be less luminous1 and less strongly contrasted1 and will approach a common gray or brown1 and merge more into each other4 ,both percepts1 however1 as such1 are completely determinate and distinct from all others4 ,the colors of a#a appear before my eye neither more nor less decidedly dark and blurred than the colors of a appear bright and sharply bounded4 ,but now ,i know1 or believe ,i know1 that one and the same real ,object ,a corresponds to both a and a#a4 ,i am convinced1 moreover1 that a represents ,a better than does a#a4 ,instead1 however1 of giving to my conviction this1 its only correct1 expression1 and keeping the content of my consciousness and the real object1 the representation and what it means1 distinct from each other1 ,i substitute the real object for the content of the consciousness1 and talk of the experience as if it consisted in one and the same object 7namely1 the surreptitiously introduced real one71 constituting twice over the content of my consciousness1 once in a clear and distinct1 the other time in an obscure and vague fashion4 ,i talk now of a distincter and of a less distinct consciousness of ,a1 whereas ,i am only justified in talking of two consciousnesses1 a and a#a1 equally distinct in se1 but to which the supposed external object ,a corresponds with different degrees of distinctness4 7,p4 #ch-i47 ,,chapter ,,vii4 ,,the ,,methods ,,and ,,snares ,,of ,,psychology ,we have now finished the physiological preliminaries of our subject and must in the remaining chapters study the mental states themselves whose cerebral conditions and concomitants we have been considering hitherto4 ,beyond the brain1 however1 there is an outer world to which the brain-states themselves 'correspond4' ,and it will be well1 ere we advance farther1 to say a word about the relation of the mind to this larger sphere of physical fact4 ,,psychology ,,is ,a ,,natural ,,science4 ,that is1 the mind which the psychologist studies is the mind of distinct individuals inhabiting definite portions of a real space and of a real time4 ,with any other sort of mind1 absolute ,intelligence1 ,mind unattached to a particular body1 or ,mind not subject to the course of time1 the psychologist as such has nothing to do4 ',mind1' in his mouth1 is only a class name for minds4 ,fortunate will it be if his more modest inquiry result in any generalizations which the philosopher devoted to absolute ,intelligence as such can use4 ,to the psychologist1 then1 the minds he studies are objects1 in a world of other objects4 ,even when he introspectively analyzes his own mind1 and tells what he finds there1 he talks about it in an objective way4 ,he says1 for instance1 that under certain circumstances the color gray appears to him green1 and calls the appearance an illusion4 ,this implies that he compares two objects1 a real color seen under certain conditions1 and a mental perception which he believes to represent it1 and that he declares the relation between them to be of a certain kind4 ,in making this critical judgment1 the psychologist stands as much outside of the perception which he criticises as he does of the color4 ,both are his objects4 ,and if this is true of him when he reflects on his own conscious states1 how much truer is it when he treats of those of others6 ,in ,german philosophy since ,kant the word ,erkenntnisstheorie1 criticism of the faculty of knowledge1 plays a great part4 ,now the psychologist necessarily becomes such an ,erkenntnisstheoretiker4 ,but the knowledge he theorizes about is not the bare function of knowledge which ,kant criticises--he does not inquire into the possibility of knowledge berhaupt4 ,he assumes it to be possible1 he does not doubt its presence in himself at the moment he speaks4 ,the knowledge he criticises is the knowledge of particular men about the particular things that surround them4 ,this he may1 upon occasion1 in the light of his own unquestioned knowledge1 pronounce true or false1 and trace the reasons by which it has become one or the other4 ,it is highly important that this natural-science point of view should be understood at the outset4 ,otherwise more may be demanded of the psychologist than he ought to be expected to perform4 ,a diagram will exhibit more emphatically what the assumptions of ,psychology must be3 ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- #a #b #c #d ,the ,the ,thought ,the ,thought's ,the ,psychologist's ,psychologist ,studied ,object ,reality ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,these four squares contain the irreducible data of psychology4 ,no4 #a1 the psychologist1 believes ,nos4 #b1 #c1 and #d1 which together form his total object1 to be realities1 and reports them and their mutual relations as truly as he can without troubling himself with the puzzle of how he can report them at all4 ,about such ultimate puzzles he in the main need trouble himself no more than the geometer1 the chemist1 or the botanist do1 who make precisely the same assumptions as he4#ahg ,of certain fallacies to which the psychologist is exposed by reason of his peculiar point of view--that of being a reporter of subjective as well as of objective facts1 we must presently speak4 ,but not until we have considered the methods he uses for ascertaining what the facts in question are4 ,,the ,,methods ,,of ,,investigation4 ,introspective ,observation is what we have to rely on first and foremost and always4 ,the word introspection need hardly be defined--it means1 of course1 the looking into our own minds and reporting what we there discover4 ,every one agrees that we there discover states of consciousness4 ,so far as ,i know1 the existence of such states has never been doubted by any critic1 however sceptical in other respects he may have been4 ,that we have cogitations of some sort is the inconcussum in a world most of whose other facts have at some time tottered in the breath of philosophic doubt4 ,all people unhesitatingly believe that they feel themselves thinking1 and that they distinguish the mental state as an inward activity or passion1 from all the objects with which it may cognitively deal4 ,i regard this belief as the most fundamental of all the postulates of ,psychology1 and shall discard all curious inquiries about its certainty as too metaphysical for the scope of this book4 99 99 99 99 99 ,a ,question of ,nomenclature4 ,we ought to have some general term by which to designate all states of consciousness merely as such1 and apart from their particular quality or cognitive function4 ,unfortunately most of the terms in use have grave objections4 ',mental state1' 'state of consciousness1' 'conscious modification1' are cumbrous and have no kindred verbs4 ,the same is true of 'subjective condition4' ',feeling' has the verb 'to feel1' both active and neuter1 and such derivatives as 'feelingly1' 'felt1' 'feltness1' etc41 which make it extremely convenient4 ,but on the other hand it has specific meanings as well as its generic one1 sometimes standing for pleasure and pain1 and being sometimes a synonym of 'sensation' as opposed to thought2 whereas we wish a term to cover sensation and thought indifferently4 ,moreover1 'feeling' has acquired in the hearts of platonizing thinkers a very opprobrious set of implications2 and since one of the great obstacles to mutual understanding in philosophy is the use of words eulogistically and disparagingly1 impartial terms ought always1 if possible1 to be preferred4 ,the word psychosis has been proposed by ,mr4 ,huxley4 ,it has the advantage of being correlative to neurosis 7the name applied by the same author to the corresponding nerve-process71 and is moreover technical and devoid of partial implications4 ,but it has no verb or other grammatical form allied to it4 ,the expressions 'affection of the soul1' 'modification of the ego1' are clumsy1 like 'state of consciousness1' and they implicitly assert theories which it is not well to embody in terminology before they have been openly discussed and approved4 ',idea' is a good vague neutral word1 and was by ,locke employed in the broadest generic way2 but notwithstanding his authority it has not domesticated itself in the language so as to cover bodily sensations1 and it moreover has no verb4 ',thought' would be by far the best word to use if it could be made to cover sensations4 ,it has no opprobrious connotation such as 'feeling' has1 and it immediately suggests the omnipresence of cognition 7or reference to an object other than the mental state itself71 which we shall soon see to be of the mental life's essence4 ,but can the expression 'thought of a toothache' ever suggest to the reader the actual present pain itself8 ,it is hardly possible2 and we thus seem about to be forced back on some pair of terms like ,hume's 'impression and idea1' or ,hamilton's 'presentation and representation1' or the ordinary 'feeling and thought1' if we wish to cover the whole ground4 ,in this quandary we can make no definitive choice1 but must1 according to the convenience of the context1 use sometimes one1 sometimes another of the synonyms that have been mentioned4 ,my own partiality is for either ,,feeling or ,,thought4 ,i shall probably often use both words in a wider sense than usual1 and alternately startle two classes of readers by their unusual sound2 but if the connection makes it clear that mental states at large1 irrespective of their kind1 are meant1 this will do no harm1 and may even do some good4#ahh 99 99 99 99 99 ,the inaccuracy of introspective observation has been made a subject of debate4 ,it is important to gain some fixed ideas on this point before we proceed4 ,the commonest spiritualistic opinion is that the ,soul or ,subject of the mental life is a metaphysical entity1 inaccessible to direct knowledge1 and that the various mental states and operations of which we reflectively become aware are objects of an inner sense which does not lay hold of the real agent in itself1 any more than sight or hearing gives us direct knowledge of matter in itself4 ,from1 this point of view introspection is1 of course1 incompetent to lay hold of anything more than the ,soul's phenomena4 ,but even then the question remains1 ,how well can it know the phenomena themselves8 ,some authors take high ground here and claim for it a sort of infallibility4 ,thus ,ueberweg3 ,when a mental image1 as such1 is the object of my apprehension1 there is no meaning in seeking to distinguish its existence in my consciousness 7in me7 from its existence out of my consciousness 7in itself72 for the object apprehended is1 in this case1 one which does not even exist1 as the objects of external perception do1 in itself outside of my consciousness4 ,it exists only within me4#ahi ,and ,brentano3 ,the phenomena inwardly apprehended are true in themselves4 ,as they appear--of this the evidence with which they are apprehended is a warrant--so they are in reality4 ,who1 then1 can deny that in this a great superiority of ,psychology over the physical sciences comes to light8 ,and again3 ,no one can doubt whether the psychic condition he apprehends in himself be1 and be so1 as he apprehends it4 ,whoever should doubt this would have reached that finished doubt which destroys itself in destroying every fixed point from which to make an attack upon knowledge4#aij ,others have gone to the opposite extreme1 and maintained that we can have no introspective cognition of our own minds at all4 ,a deliverance of ,auguste ,comte to this effect has been so often quoted as to be almost classical2 and some reference to it seems therefore indispensable here4 ,philosophers1 says ,comte1#aia have in these latter days imagined themselves able to distinguish1 by a very singular subtlety1 two sorts of observation of equal importance1 one external1 the other internal1 the latter being solely destined for the study of intellectual phenomena4444 ,i limit myself to pointing out the principal consideration which proves clearly that this pretended direct contemplation of the mind by itself is a pure illusion4444 ,it is in fact evident that1 by an invincible necessity1 the human mind can observe directly all phenomena except its own proper states4 ,for by whom shall the observation of these be made8 ,it is conceivable that a man might observe himself with respect to the passions that animate him1 for the anatomical organs of passion are distinct from those whose function is observation4 ,though we have all made such observations on ourselves1 they can never have much scientific value1 and the best mode of knowing the passions will always be that of observing them from without2 for every strong state of passion 444 is necessarily incompatible with the state of observation4 ,but1 as for observing in the same way intellectual phenomena at the time of their actual presence1 that is a manifest impossibility4 ,the thinker cannot divide himself into two1 of whom one reasons whilst the other observes him reason4 ,the organ observed and the organ observing being1 in this case1 identical1 how could observation take place8 ,this pretended psychological method is then radically null and void4 ,on the one hand1 they advise you to isolate yourself1 as far as possible1 from every external sensation1 especially every intellectual work1--for if you were to busy yourself even with the simplest calculation1 what would become of internal observation8--on the other hand1 after having with the utmost care attained this state of intellectual slumber1 you must begin to contemplate the operations going on in your mind1 when nothing there takes place6 ,our descendants will doubtless see such pretensions some day ridiculed upon the stage4 ,the results of so strange a procedure harmonize entirely with its principle4 ,for all the two thousand years during which metaphysicians have thus cultivated psychology1 they are not agreed about one intelligible and established proposition4 ',internal observation' gives almost as many divergent results as there are individuals who think they practise it4 ,comte hardly could have known anything of the ,english1 and nothing of the ,german1 empirical psychology4 ,the 'results' which he had in mind when writing were probably scholastic ones1 such as principles of internal activity1 the faculties1 the ego1 the liberum arbitrium indifferenti1 etc4 ,john ,mill1 in replying to him1#aib says3 ,it might have occurred to ,m4 ,comte that a fact may be studied through the medium of memory1 not at the very moment of our perceiving it1 but the moment after3 and this is really the mode in which our best knowledge of our intellectual acts is generally acquired4 ,we reflect on what we have been doing when the act is past1 but when its impression in the memory is still fresh4 ,unless in one of these ways1 we could not have acquired the knowledge which nobody denies us to have1 of what passes in our minds4 ,m4 ,comte would scarcely have affirmed that we are not aware of our own intellectual operations4 ,we know of our observings and our reasonings1 either at the very time1 or by memory the moment after2 in either case1 by direct knowledge1 and not 7like things done by us in a state of somnambulism7 merely by their results4 ,this simple fact destroys the whole of ,m4 ,comte's argument4 ,whatever we are directly aware of1 we can directly observe4 ,where now does the truth lie8 ,our quotation from ,mill is obviously the one which expresses the most of practical truth about the matter4 ,even the writers who insist upon the absolute veracity of our immediate inner apprehension of a conscious state have to contrast with this the fallibility of our memory or observation of it1 a moment later4 ,no one has emphasized more sharply than ,brentano himself the difference between the immediate feltness of a feeling1 and its perception by a subsequent reflective act4 ,but which mode of consciousness of it is that which the psychologist must depend on8 ,if to have feelings or thoughts in their immediacy were enough1 babies in the cradle would be psychologists1 and infallible ones4 ,but the psychologist must not only have his mental states in their absolute veritableness1 he must report them and write about them1 name them1 classify and compare them and trace their relations to other things4 ,whilst alive they are their own property2 it is only post-mortem that they become his prey4#aic ,and as in the naming1 classing1 and knowing of things in general we are notoriously fallible1 why not also here8 ,comte is quite right in laying stress on the fact that a feeling1 to be named1 judged1 or perceived1 must be already past4 ,no subjective state1 whilst present1 is its own object2 its object is always something else4 ,there are1 it is true1 cases in which we appear to be naming our present feeling1 and so to be experiencing and observing the same inner fact at a single stroke1 as when we say ',i feel tired1' ',i am angry1' etc4 ,but these are illusory1 and a little attention unmasks the illusion4 ,the present conscious state1 when ,i say ',i feel tired1' is not the direct state of tire2 when ,i say ',i feel angry1' it is not the direct state of anger4 ,it is the state of saying-,i-feel-tired1 of saying-,i-feel-angry1--entirely different matters1 so different that the fatigue and anger apparently included in them are considerable modifications of the fatigue and anger directly felt the previous instant4 ,the act of naming them has momentarily detracted from their force4#aid ,the only sound grounds on which the infallible veracity of the introspective judgment might be maintained are empirical4 ,if we had reason to think it has never yet deceived us1 we might continue to trust it4 ,this is the ground actually maintained by ,herr ,mohr4 ,the illusions of our senses1 says this author1 have undermined our belief in the reality of the outer world2 but in the sphere of inner observation our confidence is intact1 for we have never found ourselves to be in error about the reality of an act of thought or feeling4 ,we have never been misled into thinking we were not in doubt or in anger when these conditions were really states of our consciousness4#aie ,but sound as the reasoning here would be1 were the premises correct1 ,i fear the latter cannot pass4 ,however it may be with such strong feelings as doubt or anger1 about weaker feelings1 and about the relations to each other of all feelings1 we find ourselves in continual error and uncertainty so soon as we are called on to name and class1 and not merely to feel4 ,who can be sure of the exact order of his feelings when they are excessively rapid8 ,who can be sure1 in his sensible perception of a chair1 how much comes from the eye and how much is supplied out of the previous knowledge of the mind8 ,who can compare with precision the quantities of disparate feelings even where the feelings are very much alike8 ,for instance1 where an object is felt now against the back and now against the cheek1 which feeling is most extensive8 ,who can be sure that two given feelings are or are not exactly the same8 ,who can tell which is briefer or longer than the other when both occupy but an instant of time8 ,who knows1 of many actions1 for what motive they were done1 or if for any motive at all8 ,who can enumerate all the distinct ingredients of such a complicated feeling as anger8 and who can tell off-hand whether or no a perception of distance be a compound or a simple state of mind8 ,the whole mind-stuff controversy would stop if we could decide conclusively by introspection that what seem to us elementary feelings are really elementary and not compound4 ,mr4 ,sully1 in his work on ,illusions1 has a chapter on those of ,introspection from which we might now quote4 ,but1 since the rest of this volume will be little more than a collection of illustrations of the difficulty of discovering by direct introspection exactly what our feelings and their relations are1 we need not anticipate our own future details1 ,i but just state our general conclusion that introspection is difficult and fallible2 and that the difficulty is simply that of all observation of whatever kind4 ,something is before us2 we do our best to tell what it is1 but in spite of our good will we may go astray1 and give a description more applicable to some other sort of thing4 ,the only safeguard is in the final consensus of our farther knowledge about the thing in question1 later views correcting earlier ones1 until at last the harmony of a consistent system is reached4 ,such a system1 gradually worked out1 is the best guarantee the psychologist can give for the soundness of any particular psychologic observation which he may report4 ,such a system we ourselves must strive1 as far as may be1 to attain4 ,the ,english writers on psychology1 and the school of ,herbart in ,germany1 have in the main contented themselves with such results as the immediate introspection of single individuals gave1 and shown what a body of doctrine they may make4 ,the works of ,locke1 ,hume1 ,reid1 ,hartley1 ,stewart1 ,brown1 the ,mills1 will always be classics in this line2 and in ,professor ,bain's ,treatises we have probably the last word of what this method taken mainly by itself can do--the last monument of the youth of our science1 still untechnical and generally intelligible1 like the ,chemistry of ,lavoisier1 or ,anatomy before the microscope was used4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the ,experimental ,method4 ,but psychology is passing into a less simple phase4 ,within a few years what one may call a microscopic psychology has arisen in ,germany1 carried on by experimental methods1 asking of course every moment for introspective data1 but eliminating their uncertainty by operating on a large scale and taking statistical means4 ,this method taxes patience to the utmost1 and could hardly have arisen in a country whose natives could be bored4 ,such ,germans as ,weber1 ,fechner1 ,vierordt1 and ,wundt obviously cannot2 and their success has brought into the field an array of younger experimental psychologists1 bent on studying the elements of the mental life1 dissecting them out from the gross results in which they are embedded1 and as far as possible reducing them to quantitative scales4 ,the simple and open method of attack having done what it can1 the method of patience1 starving out1 and harassing to death is tried2 the ,mind must submit to a regular siege1 in which minute advantages gained night and day by the forces that hem her in must sum themselves up at last into her overthrow4 ,there is little of the grand style about these new prism1 pendulum1 and chronograph-philosophers4 ,they mean business1 not chivalry4 ,what generous divination1 and that superiority in virtue which was thought by ,cicero to give a man the best insight into nature1 have failed to do1 their spying and scraping1 their deadly tenacity and almost diabolic cunning1 will doubtless some day bring about4 ,no general description of the methods of experimental psychology would be instructive to one unfamiliar with the instances of their application1 so we will waste no words upon the attempt4 ,the principal fields of experimentation so far have been3 #a7 the connection of conscious states with their physical conditions1 including the whole of brain-physiology1 and the recent minutely cultivated physiology of the sense-organs1 together with what is technically known as 'psycho-physics1' or the laws of correlation between sensations and the outward stimuli by which they are aroused2 #b7 the analysis of space-perception into its sensational elements2 #c7 the measurement of the duration of the simplest mental processes2 #d7 that of the accuracy of reproduction in the memory of sensible experiences and of intervals of space and time2 #e7 that of the manner in which simple mental states influence each other1 call each other up1 or inhibit each other's reproduction2 #f7 that of the number of facts which consciousness can simultaneously discern2 finally1 #g7 that of the elementary laws of oblivescence and retention4 ,it must be said that in some of these fields the results have as yet borne little theoretic fruit commensurate with the great labor expended in their acquisition4 ,but facts are facts1 and if we only get enough of them they are sure to combine4 ,new ground will from year to year be broken1 and theoretic results will grow4 ,meanwhile the experimental method has quite changed the face of the science so far as the latter is a record of mere work done4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the comparative method1 finally1 supplements the introspective and experimental methods4 ,this method presupposes a normal psychology of introspection to be established in its main features4 ,but where the origin of these features1 or their dependence upon one another1 is in question1 it is of the utmost importance to trace the phenomenon considered through all its possible variations of type and combination4 ,so it has come to pass that instincts of animals are ransacked to throw light on our own2 and that the reasoning faculties of bees and ants1 the minds of savages1 infants1 madmen1 idiots1 the deaf and blind1 criminals1 and eccentrics1 are all invoked in support of this or that special theory about some part of our own mental life4 ,the history of sciences1 moral and political institutions1 and languages1 as types of mental product1 are pressed into the same service4 ,messrs4 ,darwin and ,galton have set the example of circulars of questions sent out by the hundred to those supposed able to reply4 ,the custom has spread1 and it will be well for us in the next generation if such circulars be not ranked among the common pests of life4 ,meanwhile information grows1 and results emerge4 ,there are great sources of error in the comparative method4 ,the interpretation of the 'psychoses' of animals1 savages1 and infants is necessarily wild work1 in which the personal equation of the investigator has things very much its own way4 ,a savage will be reported to have no moral or religious feeling if his actions shock the observer unduly4 ,a child will be assumed without self-consciousness because he talks of himself in the third person1 etc41 etc4 ,no rules can be laid down in advance4 ,comparative observations1 to be definite1 must usually be made to test some pre-existing hypothesis2 and the only thing then is to use as much sagacity as you possess1 and to be as candid as you can4 ,,the ,,sources ,,of ,,error ,,in ,,psychology4 ,the first of them arises from the ,misleading ,influence of ,speech4 ,language was originally made by men who were not psychologists1 and most men to-day employ almost exclusively the vocabulary of outward things4 ,the cardinal passions of our life1 anger1 love1 fear1 hate1 hope1 and the most comprehensive divisions of our intellectual activity1 to remember1 expect1 think1 know1 dream1 with the broadest genera of sthetic feeling1 joy1 sorrow1 pleasure1 pain1 are the only facts of a subjective order which this vocabulary deigns to note by special words4 ,the elementary qualities of sensation1 bright1 loud1 red1 blue1 hot1 cold1 are1 it is true1 susceptible of being used in both an objective and a subjective sense4 ,they stand for outer qualities and for the feelings which these arouse4 ,but the objective sense is the original sense2 and still to-day we have to describe a large number of sensations by the name of the object from which they have most frequently been got4 ,an orange color1 an odor of violets1 a cheesy taste1 a thunderous sound1 a fiery smart1 etc41 will recall what ,i mean4 ,this absence of a special vocabulary for subjective facts hinders the study of all but the very coarsest of them4 ,empiricist writers are very fond of emphasizing one great set of delusions which language inflicts on the mind4 ,whenever we have made a word1 they say1 to denote a certain group of phenomena1 we are prone to suppose a substantive entity existing beyond the phenomena1 of which the word shall be the name4 ,but the lack of a word quite as often leads to the directly opposite error4 ,we are then prone to suppose that no entity can be there2 and so we come to overlook phenomena whose existence would be patent to us all1 had we only grown up to hear it familiarly recognized in speech4#aif ,it is hard to focus our attention on the nameless1 and so there results a certain vacuousness in the descriptive parts of most psychologies4 ,but a worse defect than vacuousness comes from the dependence of psychology on common speech4 ,naming our thought by its own objects1 we almost all of us assume that as the objects are1 so the thought must be4 ,the thought of several distinct things can only consist of several distinct bits of thought1 or 'ideas2' that of an abstract or universal object can only be an abstract or universal idea4 ,as each object may come and go1 be forgotten and then thought of again1 it is held that the thought of it has a precisely similar independence1 self-identity1 and mobility4 ,the thought of the object's recurrent identity is regarded as the identity of its recurrent thought2 and the perceptions of multiplicity1 of coexistence1 of succession1 are severally conceived to be brought about only through a multiplicity1 a coexistence1 a succession1 of perceptions4 ,the continuous flow of the mental stream is sacrificed1 and in its place an atomism1 a brickbat plan of construction1 is preached1 for the existence of which no good introspective grounds can be brought forward1 and out of which presently grow all sorts of paradoxes and contradictions1 the heritage of woe of students of the mind4 ,these words are meant to impeach the entire ,english psychology derived from ,locke and ,hume1 and the entire ,german psychology derived from ,herbart1 so far as they both treat 'ideas' as separate subjective entities that come and go4 ,examples will soon make the matter clearer4 ,meanwhile our psychologic insight is vitiated by still other snares4 ',the ,psychologist's ,fallacy4' ,the great snare of the psychologist is the confusion of his own standpoint with that of the mental fact about which he is making his report4 ,i shall hereafter call this the 'psychologist's fallacy' par excellence4 ,for some of the mischief1 here too1 language is to blame4 ,the psychologist1 as we remarked above 7p4 #ahc71 stands outside of the mental state he speaks of4 ,both itself and its object are objects for him4 ,now when it is a cognitive state 7percept1 thought1 concept1 etc471 he ordinarily has no other way of naming it than as the thought1 percept1 etc41 of that object4 ,he himself1 meanwhile1 knowing the self-same object in his way1 gets easily led to suppose that the thought1 which is of it1 knows it in the same way in which he knows it1 although this is often very far from being the case4#aig ,the most fictitious puzzles have been introduced into our science by this means4 ,the so-called question of presentative or representative perception1 of whether an object is present to the thought that thinks it by a counterfeit image of itself1 or directly and without any intervening image at all2 the question of nominalism and conceptualism1 of the shape in which things are present when only a general notion of them is before the mind2 are comparatively easy questions when once the psychologist's fallacy is eliminated from their treatment1--as we shall ere long see 7in ,chapter ,,xii74 ,another variety of the psychologist's fallacy is the assumption that the mental state studied must be conscious of itself as the psychologist is conscious of it4 ,the mental state is aware of itself only from within2 it grasps what we call its own content1 and nothing more4 ,the psychologist1 on the contrary1 is aware of it from without1 and knows its relations with all sorts of other things4 ,what the thought sees is only its own object2 what the psychologist sees is the thought's object1 plus the thought itself1 plus possibly all the rest of the world4 ,we must be very careful therefore1 in discussing a state of mind from the psychologist's point of view1 to avoid foisting into its own ken matters that are only there for ours4 ,we must avoid substituting what we know the consciousness is1 for what it is a consciousness of1 and counting its outward1 and so to speak physical1 relations with other facts of the world1 in among the objects of which we set it down as aware4 ,crude as such a confusion of standpoints seems to be when abstractly stated1 it is nevertheless a snare into which no psychologist has kept himself at all times from falling1 and which forms almost the entire stock-in-trade of certain schools4 ,we cannot be too watchful against its subtly corrupting influence4 ,summary4 ,to sum up the chapter1 ,psychology assumes that thoughts successively occur1 and that they know objects in a world which the psychologist also knows4 ,these thoughts are the subjective data of which he treats1 and their relations to their objects1 to the brain1 and to the rest of the world constitute the subject-matter of psychologic science4 ,its methods are introspection1 experimentation1 and comparison4 ,but introspection is no sure guide to truths about our mental states2 and in particular the poverty of the psychological vocabulary leads us to drop out certain states from our consideration1 and to treat others as if they knew themselves and their objects as the psychologist knows both1 which is a disastrous fallacy in the science4 ,,footnotes3 #ahg ,on the relation between ,psychology and ,general ,philosophy1 see ,g4 ,c4 ,robertson1 ',mind1' vol4 viii1 p4 #a1 and ,j4 ,ward1 ibid4 p4 #aec2 ,j4 ,dewey ibid4 vol4 ix1 p4 #a4 #ahh ,compare some remarks in ,mill's ,logic1 bk4 i1 chap4 iii1 #b1 #c4 #ahi ,logic1 #dj4 #aij ,psychologie1 bk4 ii1 chap4 iii1 #a1 #b4 #aia ,cours de ,philosophie ,positive1 i1 #cd-h4 #aib ,auguste ,comte and ,positivism1 #c;d edition 7#ahhb71 p4 #fd4 #aic ,wundt says3 ,the first rule for utilizing inward observation consists in taking1 as far as possible1 experiences that are accidental1 unexpected1 and not intentionally brought about4444 ,first it is best as far as possible to rely on ,memory and not on immediate ,apprehension4444 ,second1 internal observation is better fitted to grasp clearly conscious states1 especially voluntary mental acts3 such inner processes as are obscurely conscious and involuntary will almost entirely elude it1 because the effort to observe interferes with them1 and because they seldom abide in memory4 7,logik1 ii1 #dcb47 #aid ,in cases like this1 where the state outlasts the act of naming it1 exists before it1 and recurs when it is past1 we probably run little practical risk of error when we talk as if the state knew itself4 ,the state of feeling and the state of naming the feeling are continuous1 and the infallibility of such prompt introspective judgments is probably great4 ,but even here the certainty of our knowledge ought not to be argued on the a priori ground that percipi and esse are in psychology the same4 ,the states are really two2 the naming state and the named state are apart2 'percipi is esse' is not the principle that applies4 #aie ,j4 ,mohr3 ,grundlage der ,empirischen ,psychologie 7,leipzig1 #ahhb71 p4 #dg4 #aif ,in ,english we have not even the generic distinction between the-thing-thought-of and the-thought-thinking-it1 which in ,german is expressed by the opposition between ,gedachtes and ,gedanke1 in ,latin by that between cogitatum and cogitatio4 #aig ,compare ,b4 ,p4 ,bowne's ,metaphysics 7#ahhb71 p4 #djh4 ,,chapter ,,viii4 ,,the ,,relations ,,of ,,minds ,,to ,,other ,,things4 ,since1 for psychology1 a mind is an object in a world of other objects1 its relation to those other objects must next be surveyed4 ,first of all1 to its ,,time-,,relations4 ,minds1 as we know them1 are temporary existences4 ,whether my mind had a being prior to the birth of my body1 whether it shall have one after the latter's decease1 are questions to be decided by my general philosophy or theology rather than by what we call 'scientific facts'--,i leave out the facts of so-called spiritualism1 as being still in dispute4 ,psychology1 as a natural science1 confines itself to the present life1 in which every mind appears yoked to a body through which its manifestations appear4 ,in the present world1 then1 minds precede1 succeed1 and coexist with each other in the common receptacle of time1 and of their collective relations to the latter nothing more can be said4 ,the life of the individual consciousness in time seems1 however1 to be an interrupted one1 so that the question3 ,are we ever wholly unconscious8 becomes one which must be discussed4 ,sleep1 fainting1 coma1 epilepsy1 and other 'unconscious' conditions are apt to break in upon and occupy large durations of what we nevertheless consider the mental history of a single man4 ,and1 the fact of interruption being admitted1 is it not possible that it may exist where we do not suspect it1 and even perhaps in an incessant and fine-grained form8 ,this might happen1 and yet the subject himself never know it4 ,we often take ether and have operations performed without a suspicion that our consciousness has suffered a breach4 ,the two ends join each other smoothly over the gap2 and only the sight of our wound assures us that we must have been living through a time which for our immediate consciousness was non-existent4 ,even in sleep this sometimes happens3 ,we think we have had no nap1 and it takes the clock to assure us that we are wrong4#aih ,we thus may live through a real outward time1 a time known by the psychologist who studies us1 and yet not feel the time1 or infer it from any inward sign4 ,the question is1 how often does this happen8 ,is consciousness really discontinuous1 incessantly interrupted and recommencing 7from the psychologist's point of view78 and does it only seem continuous to itself by an illusion analogous to that of the zoetrope8 ,or is it at most times as continuous outwardly as it inwardly seems8 ,it must be confessed that we can give no rigorous answer to this question4 ,cartesians1 who hold that the essence of the soul is to think1 can of course solve it a priori1 and explain the appearance of thoughtless intervals either by lapses in our ordinary memory1 or by the sinking of consciousness to a minimal state1 in which perhaps all that it feels is a bare existence which leaves no particulars behind to be recalled4 ,if1 however1 one have no doctrine about the soul or its essence1 one is free to take the appearances for what they seem to be1 and to admit that the mind1 as well as the body1 may go to sleep4 ,locke was the first prominent champion of this latter view1 and the pages in which he attacks the ,cartesian belief are as spirited as any in his ,essay4 ,every drowsy nod shakes their doctrine who teach that their soul is always thinking4 ,he will not believe that men so easily forget4 ,m4 ,jouffroy and ,sir ,w4 ,hamilton1 attacking the question in the same empirical way1 are led to an opposite conclusion4 ,their reasons1 briefly stated1 are these3 ,in somnambulism1 natural or induced1 there is often a great display of intellectual activity1 followed by complete oblivion of all that has passed4#aii ,on being suddenly awakened from a sleep1 however profound1 we always catch ourselves in the middle of a dream4 ,common dreams are often remembered for a few minutes after waking1 and then irretrievably lost4 ,frequently1 when awake and absent-minded1 we are visited by thoughts and images which the next instant we cannot recall4 ,our insensibility to habitual noises1 etc41 whilst awake1 proves that we can neglect to attend to that which we nevertheless feel4 ,similarly in sleep1 we grow inured1 and sleep soundly in presence of sensations of sound1 cold1 contact1 etc41 which at first prevented our complete repose4 ,we have learned to neglect them whilst asleep as we should whilst awake4 ,the mere sense-impressions are the same when the sleep is deep as when it is light2 the difference must lie in a judgment on the part of the apparently slumbering mind that they are not worth noticing4 ,this discrimination is equally shown by nurses of the sick and mothers of infants1 who will sleep through much noise of an irrelevant sort1 but waken at the slightest stirring of the patient or the babe4 ,this last fact shows the sense-organ to be pervious for sounds4 ,many people have a remarkable faculty of registering when asleep the flight of time4 ,they will habitually wake up at the same minute day after day1 or will wake punctually at an unusual hour determined upon overnight4 ,how can this knowledge of the hour 7more accurate often than anything the waking consciousness shows7 be possible without mental activity during the interval8 ,such are what we may call the classical reasons for admitting that the mind is active even when the person afterwards ignores the fact4#bjj ,of late years1 or rather1 one may say1 of late months1 they have been reinforced by a lot of curious observations made on hysterical and hypnotic subjects1 which prove the existence of a highly developed consciousness in places where it has hitherto not been suspected at all4 ,these observations throw such a novel light upon human nature that ,i must give them in some detail4 ,that at least four different and in a certain sense rival observers should agree in the same conclusion justifies us in accepting the conclusion as true4 ',unconsciousness' in ,hysterics4 ,one of the most constant symptoms in persons suffering from hysteric disease in its extreme forms consists in alterations of the natural sensibility of various parts and organs of the body4 ,usually the alteration is in the direction of defect1 or ansthesia4 ,one or both eyes are blind1 or color-blind1 or there is hemianopsia 7blindness to one half the field of view71 or the field is contracted4 ,hearing1 taste1 smell may similarly disappear1 in part or in totality4 ,still more striking are the cutaneous ansthesias4 ,the old witch-finders looking for the 'devil's seals' learned well the existence of those insensible patches on the skin of their victims1 to which the minute physical examinations of recent medicine have but recently attracted attention again4 ,they may be scattered anywhere1 but are very apt to affect one side of the body4 ,not infrequently they affect an entire lateral half1 from head to foot2 and the insensible skin of1 say1 the left side will then be found separated from the naturally sensitive skin of the right by a perfectly sharp line of demarcation down the middle of the front and back4 ,sometimes1 most remarkable of all1 the entire skin1 hands1 feet1 face1 everything1 and the mucous membranes1 muscles and joints so far as they can be explored1 become completely insensible without the other vital functions becoming gravely disturbed4 ,these hysterical ansthesias can be made to disappear more or less completely by various odd processes4 ,it has been recently found that magnets1 plates of metal1 or the electrodes of a battery1 placed against the skin1 have this peculiar power4 ,and when one side is relieved in this way1 the ansthesia is often found to have transferred itself to the opposite side1 which until then was well4 ,whether these strange effects of magnets and metals be due to their direct physiological action1 or to a prior effect on the patient's mind 7'expectant attention' or 'suggestion'7 is still a mooted question4 ,a still better awakener of sensibility is the hypnotic trance1 into which many of these patients can be very easily placed1 and in which their lost sensibility not infrequently becomes entirely restored4 ,such returns of sensibility succeed the times of insensibility and alternate with them4 ,but ,messrs4 ,pierre ,janet#bja and ,a4 ,binet#bjb have shown that during the times of ansthesia1 and coexisting with it1 sensibility to the ansthetic parts is also there1 in the form of a secondary consciousness entirely cut off from the primary or normal one1 but susceptible of being tapped and made to testify to its existence in various odd ways4 ,chief amongst these is what ,m4 ,janet calls 'the method of distraction4' ,these hysterics are apt to possess a very narrow field of attention1 and to be unable to think of more than one thing at a time4 ,when talking with any person they forget everything else4 ,when ,lucie talked directly with any one1 says ,m4 ,janet1 she ceased to be able to hear any other person4 ,you may stand behind her1 call her by name1 shout abuse into her ears1 without making her turn round2 or place yourself before her1 show her objects1 touch her1 etc41 without attracting her notice4 ,when finally she becomes aware of you1 she thinks you have just come into the room again1 and greets you accordingly4 ,this singular forgetfulness makes her liable to tell all her secrets aloud1 unrestrained by the presence of unsuitable auditors4 ,now ,m4 ,janet found in several subjects like this that if he came up behind them whilst they were plunged in conversation with a third party1 and addressed them in a whisper1 telling them to raise their hand or perform other simple acts1 they would obey the order given1 although their talking intelligence was quite unconscious of receiving it4 ,leading them from one thing to another1 he made them reply by signs to his whispered questions1 and finally made them answer in writing1 if a pencil were placed in their hand4 ,the primary consciousness meanwhile went on with the conversation1 entirely unaware of these performances on the hand's part4 ,the consciousness which presided over these latter appeared in its turn to be quite as little disturbed by the upper consciousness's concerns4 ,this proof by 'automatic' writing1 of a secondary consciousness's existence1 is the most cogent and striking one2 but a crowd of other facts prove the same thing4 ,if ,i run through them rapidly1 the reader will probably be convinced4 ,the apparently ansthetic hand of these subjects1 for one thing1 will often adapt itself discriminatingly to whatever object may be put into it4 ,with a pencil it will make writing movements2 into a pair of scissors it will put its fingers and will open and shut them1 etc41 etc4 ,the primary consciousness1 so to call it1 is meanwhile unable to say whether or no anything is in the hand1 if the latter be hidden from sight4 ,i put a pair of eyeglasses into ,lonie's ansthetic hand1 this hand opens it and raises it towards the nose1 but half way thither it enters the field of vision of ,lonie1 who sees it and stops stupefied3 ',why1' says she1 ',i have an eye-glass in my left hand6' ,m4 ,binet found a very curious sort of connection between the apparently ansthetic skin and the mind in some ,salptrire-subjects4 ,things placed in the hand were not felt1 but thought of 7apparently in visual terms7 and in no wise referred by the subject to their starting point in the hand's sensation4 ,a key1 a knife1 placed in the hand occasioned ideas of a key or a knife1 but the hand felt nothing4 ,similarly the subject thought of the number #c1 #f1 etc41 if the hand or finger was bent three or six times by the operator1 or if he stroked it three1 six1 etc41 times4 ,in certain individuals there was found a still odder phenomenon1 which reminds one of that curious idiosyncrasy of 'colored hearing' of which a few cases have been lately described with great care by foreign writers4 ,these individuals1 namely1 saw the impression received by the hand1 but could not feel it2 and the thing seen appeared by no means associated with the hand1 but more like an independent vision1 which usually interested and surprised the patient4 ,her hand being hidden by a screen1 she was ordered to look at another screen and to tell of any visual image which might project itself thereon4 ,numbers would then come1 corresponding to the number of times the insensible member was raised1 touched1 etc4 ,colored lines and figures would come1 corresponding to similar ones traced on the palm2 the hand itself or its fingers would come when manipulated and finally objects placed in it would come2 but on the hand itself nothing would ever be felt4 ,of course simulation would not be hard here2 but ,m4 ,binet disbelieves this 7usually very shallow7 explanation to be a probable one in cases in question4#bjc ,the usual way in which doctors measure the delicacy of our touch is by the compass-points4 ,two points are normally felt as one whenever they are too close together for discrimination2 but what is 'too close' on one part of the skin may seem very far apart on another4 ,in the middle of the back or on the thigh1 less than #c inches may be too close2 on the finger-tip a tenth of an inch is far enough apart4 ,now1 as tested in this way1 with the appeal made to the primary consciousness1 which talks through the mouth and seems to hold the field alone1 a certain person's skin may be entirely ansthetic and not feel the compass-points at all2 and yet this same skin will prove to have a perfectly normal sensibility if the appeal be made to that other secondary or sub-consciousness1 which expresses itself automatically by writing or by movements of the hand4 ,m4 ,binet1 ,m4 ,pierre ,janet1 and ,m4 ,jules ,janet have all found this4 ,the subject1 whenever touched1 would signify 'one point' or 'two points1' as accurately as if she were a normal person4 ,she would signify it only by these movements2 and of the movements themselves her primary self would be as unconscious as of the facts they signified1 for what the submerged consciousness makes the hand do automatically is unknown to the consciousness which uses the mouth4 ,messrs4 ,bernheim and ,pitres have also proved1 by observations too complicated to be given in this spot1 that the hysterical blindness is no real blindness at all4 ,the eye of an hysteric which is totally blind when the other or seeing eye is shut1 will do its share of vision perfectly well when both eyes are open together4 ,but even where both eyes are semi-blind from hysterical disease1 the method of automatic writing proves that their perceptions exist1 only cut off from communication with the upper consciousness4 ,m4 ,binet has found the hand of his patients unconsciously writing down words which their eyes were vainly endeavoring to 'see1' i4e41 to bring to the upper consciousness4 ,their submerged consciousness was of course seeing them1 or the hand could not have written as it did4 ,colors are similarly perceived by the sub-conscious self1 which the hysterically color-blind eyes cannot bring to the normal consciousness4 ,pricks1 burns1 and pinches on the ansthetic skin1 all unnoticed by the upper self1 are recollected to have been suffered1 and complained of1 as soon as the under self gets a chance to express itself by the passage of the subject into hypnotic trance4 ,it must be admitted1 therefore1 that in certain persons1 at least1 the total possible consciousness may be split into parts which coexist but mutually ignore each other1 and share the objects of knowledge between them4 ,more remarkable still1 they are complementary4 ,give an object to one of the consciousnesses1 and by that fact you remove it from the other or others4 ,barring a certain common fund of information1 like the command of language1 etc41 what the upper self knows the under self is ignorant of1 and vice vers4 ,m4 ,janet has proved this beautifully in his subject ,lucie4 ,the following experiment will serve as the type of the rest3 ,in her trance he covered her lap with cards1 each bearing a number4 ,he then told her that on waking she should not see any card whose number was a multiple of three4 ,this is the ordinary so-called 'post-hypnotic suggestion1' now well known1 and for which ,lucie was a well-adapted subject4 ,accordingly1 when she was awakened and asked about the papers on her lap1 she counted and said she saw those only whose number was not a multiple of #c4 ,to the #ab1 #ah1 #i1 etc41 she was blind4 ,but the hand1 when the sub-conscious self was interrogated by the usual method of engrossing the upper self in another conversation1 wrote that the only cards in ,lucie's lap were those numbered #ab1 #ah1 #i1 etc41 and on being asked to pick up all the cards which were there1 picked up these and let the others lie4 ,similarly when the sight of certain things was suggested to the sub-conscious ,lucie1 the normal ,lucie suddenly became partially or totally blind4 ,what is the matter8 ,i can't see6 the normal personage suddenly cried out in the midst of her conversation1 when ,m4 ,janet whispered to the secondary personage to make use of her eyes4 ,the ansthesias1 paralyses1 contractions and other irregularities from which hysterics suffer seem then to be due to the fact that their secondary personage has enriched itself by robbing the primary one of a function which the latter ought to have retained4 ,the curative indication is evident3 get at the secondary personage1 by hypnotization or in whatever other way1 and make her give up the eye1 the skin1 the arm1 or whatever the affected part may be4 ,the normal self thereupon regains possession1 sees1 feels1 or is able to move again4 ,in this way ,m4 ,jules ,janet easily cured the well-known subject of the ,salptrire1 ,wit44441 of all sorts of afflictions which1 until he discovered the secret of her deeper trance1 it had been difficult to subdue4 ,cessez cette mauvaise plaisanterie1 he said to the secondary self--and the latter obeyed4 ,the way in which the various personages share the stock of possible sensations between them seems to be amusingly illustrated in this young woman4 ,when awake1 her skin is insensible everywhere except on a zone about the arm where she habitually wears a gold bracelet4 ,this zone has feeling2 but in the deepest trance1 when all the rest of her body feels1 this particular zone becomes absolutely ansthetic4 ,sometimes the mutual ignorance of the selves leads to incidents which are strange enough4 ,the acts and movements performed by the sub-conscious self are withdrawn from the conscious one1 and the subject will do all sorts of incongruous things of which he remains quite unaware4 ,i order ,lucie by the method of distraction to make a pied de nez1 and her hands go forthwith to the end of her nose4 ,asked what she is doing1 she replies that she is doing nothing1 and continues for a long time talking1 with no apparent suspicion that her fingers are moving in front of her nose4 ,i make her walk about the room2 she continues to speak and believes herself sitting down4 ,m4 ,janet observed similar acts in a man in alcoholic delirium4 ,whilst the doctor was questioning him1 ,m4 ,j4 made him by whispered suggestion walk1 sit1 kneel1 and even lie down on his face on the floor1 he all the while believing himself to be standing beside his bed4 ,such bizarreries sound incredible1 until one has seen their like4 ,long ago1 without understanding it1 ,i myself saw a small example of the way in which a person's knowledge may be shared by the two selves4 ,a young woman who had been writing automatically was sitting with a pencil in her hand1 trying to recall at my request the name of a gentleman whom she had once seen4 ,she could only recollect the first syllable4 ,her hand meanwhile1 without her knowledge1 wrote down the last two syllables4 ,in a perfectly healthy young man who can write with the planchette1 ,i lately found the hand to be entirely ansthetic during the writing act2 ,i could prick it severely without the ,subject knowing the fact4 ,the writing on the planchette1 however1 accused me in strong terms of hurting the hand4 ,pricks on the other 7non-writing7 hand1 meanwhile1 which awakened strong protest from the young man's vocal organs1 were denied to exist by the self which made the planchette go4#bjd ,we get exactly similar results in the so-called post-hypnotic suggestion4 ,it is a familiar fact that certain subjects1 when told during a trance to perform an act or to experience an hallucination after waking1 will when the time comes1 obey the command4 ,how is the command registered8 ,how is its performance so accurately timed8 ,these problems were long a mystery1 for the primary personality remembers nothing of the trance or the suggestion1 and will often trump up an improvised pretext for yielding to the unaccountable impulse which possesses the man so suddenly and which he cannot resist4 ,edmund ,gurney was the first to discover1 by means of automatic writing1 that the secondary self is awake1 keeping its attention constantly fixed on the command and watching for the signal of its execution4 ,certain trance-subjects who were also automatic writers1 when roused from trance and put to the planchette1--not knowing then what they wrote1 and having their upper attention fully engrossed by reading aloud1 talking1 or solving problems in mental arithmetic1--would inscribe the orders which they had received1 together with notes relative to the time elapsed and the time yet to run before the execution4#bje ,it is therefore to no 'automatism' in the mechanical sense that such acts are due3 a self presides over them1 a split-off1 limited and buried1 but yet a fully conscious1 self4 ,more than this1 the buried self often comes to the surface and drives out the other self whilst the acts are performing4 ,in other words1 the subject lapses into trance again when the moment arrives for execution1 and has no subsequent recollection of the act which he has done4 ,gurney and ,beaunis established this fact1 which has since been verified on a large scale2 and ,gurney also showed that the patient became suggestible again during the brief time of the performance4 ,m4 ,janet's observations1 in their turn1 well illustrate the phenomenon4 ,i tell ,lucie to keep her arms raised after she shall have awakened4 ,hardly is she in the normal state1 when up go her arms above her head1 but she pays no attention to them4 ,she goes1 comes1 converses1 holding her arms high in the air4 ,if asked what her arms are doing1 she is surprised at such a question1 and says very sincerely3 ',my hands are doing nothing2 they are just like yours4'444 ,i command her to weep1 and when awake she really sobs1 but continues in the midst of her tears to talk of very gay matters4 ,the sobbing over1 there remained no trace of this grief1 which seemed to have been quite sub-conscious4 ,the primary self often has to invent an hallucination by which to mask and hide from its own view the deeds which the other self is enacting4 ,lonie #cbjf writes real letters whilst ,lonie #a believes that she is knitting2 or ,lucie #b really comes to the doctor's office1 whilst ,lucie #a believes herself to be at home4 ,this is a sort of delirium4 ,the alphabet1 or the series of numbers1 when handed over to the attention of the secondary personage may for the time be lost to the normal self4 ,whilst the hand writes the alphabet1 obediently to command1 the 'subject1' to her great stupefaction1 finds herself unable to recall it1 etc4 ,few things are more curious than these relations of mutual exclusion1 of which all gradations exist between the several partial consciousnesses4 99 99 99 99 99 ,how far this splitting up of the mind into separate consciousnesses may exist in each one of us is a problem4 ,m4 ,janet holds that it is only possible where there is abnormal weakness1 and consequently a defect of unifying or co-ordinating power4 ,an hysterical woman abandons part of her consciousness because she is too weak nervously to hold it together4 ,the abandoned part meanwhile may solidify into a secondary or sub-conscious self4 ,in a perfectly sound subject1 on the other hand1 what is dropped out of mind at one moment keeps coming back at the next4 ,the whole fund of experiences and knowledges remains integrated1 and no split-off portions of it can get organized stably enough to form subordinate selves4 ,the stability1 monotony1 and stupidity of these latter is often very striking4 ,the post-hypnotic sub-consciousness seems to think of nothing but the order which it last received2 the cataleptic sub-consciousness1 of nothing but the last position imprinted on the limb4 ,m4 ,janet could cause definitely circumscribed reddening and tumefaction of the skin on two of his subjects1 by suggesting to them in hypnotism the hallucination of a mustard-poultice of any special shape4 ,j'ai tout le temps pens votre sinapisme1 says the subject1 when put back into trance after the suggestion has taken effect4 ,a man ,n41 whom ,m4 ,janet operated on at long intervals1 was betweenwhiles tampered with by another operator1 and when put to sleep again by ,m4 ,janet1 said he was 'too far away to receive orders1 being in ,algiers4' ,the other operator1 having suggested that hallucination1 had forgotten to remove it before waking the subject from his trance1 and the poor passive trance-personality had stuck for weeks in the stagnant dream4 ,lonie's sub-conscious performances having been illustrated to a caller1 by a 'pied de nez' executed with her left hand in the course of conversation1 when1 a year later1 she meets him again1 up goes the same hand to her nose again1 without ,lonie's normal self suspecting the fact4 99 99 99 99 99 ,all these facts1 taken together1 form unquestionably the beginning of an inquiry which is destined to throw a new light into the very abysses of our nature4 ,it is for that reason that ,i have cited them at such length in this early chapter of the book4 ,they prove one thing conclusively1 namely1 that we must never take a person's testimony1 however sincere1 that he has felt nothing1 as proof positive that no feeling has been there4 ,it may have been there as part of the consciousness of a 'secondary personage1' of whose experiences the primary one whom we are consulting can naturally give no account4 ,in hypnotic subjects 7as we shall see in a later chapter7 just as it is the easiest thing in the world to paralyze a movement or member by simple suggestion1 so it is easy to produce what is called a systematized ansthesia by word of command4 ,a systematized ansthesia means an insensibility1 not to any one element of things1 but to some one concrete thing or class of things4 ,the subject is made blind or deaf to a certain person in the room and to no one else1 and thereupon denies that that person is present1 or has spoken1 etc4 ,m4 ,p4 ,janet's ,lucie1 blind to some of the numbered cards in her lap 7p4 #bjg above71 is a case in point4 ,now when the object is simple1 like a red wafer or a black cross1 the subject1 although he denies that he sees it when he looks straight at it1 nevertheless gets a 'negative after-image' of it when he looks away again1 showing that the optical impression of it has been received4 ,moreover reflection shows that such a subject must distinguish the object from others like it in order to be blind to it4 ,make him blind to one person in the room1 set all the persons in a row1 and tell him to count them4 ,he will count all but that one4 ,but how can he tell which one not to count without recognizing who he is8 ,in like manner1 make a stroke on paper or blackboard1 and tell him it is not there1 and he will see nothing but the clean paper or board4 ,next 7he not looking7 surround the original stroke with other strokes exactly like it1 and ask him what he sees4 ,he will point out one by one all the new strokes1 and omit the original one every time1 no matter how numerous the new strokes may be1 or in what order they are arranged4 ,similarly1 if the original single stroke to which he is blind be doubled by a prism of some sixteen degrees placed before one of his eyes 7both being kept open71 he will say that he now sees one stroke1 and point in the direction in which the image seen through the prism lies1 ignoring still the original stroke4 ,obviously1 then1 he is not blind to the kind of stroke in the least4 ,he is blind only to one individual stroke of that kind in a particular position on the board or paper--that is to a particular complex object2 and1 paradoxical as it may seem to say so1 he must distinguish it with great accuracy from others like it1 in order to remain blind to it when the others are brought near4 ,he discriminates it1 as a preliminary to not seeing it at all4 ,again1 when by a prism before one eye a previously invisible line has been made visible to that eye1 and the other eye is thereupon closed or screened1 its closure makes no difference2 the line still remains visible4 ,but if then the prism be removed1 the line will disappear even to the eye which a moment ago saw it1 and both eyes will revert to their original blind state4 ,we have1 then1 to deal in these cases neither with a blindness of the eye itself1 nor with a mere failure to notice1 but with something much more complex2 namely1 an active counting out and positive exclusion of certain objects4 ,it is as when one 'cuts' an acquaintance1 'ignores' a claim1 or 'refuses to be influenced' by a consideration4 ,but the perceptive activity which works to this result is disconnected from the consciousness which is personal1 so to speak1 to the subject1 and makes of the object concerning which the suggestion is made1 its own private possession and prey4#bjg ,the mother who is asleep to every sound but the stirrings of her babe1 evidently has the babe-portion of her auditory sensibility systematically awake4 ,relatively to that1 the rest of her mind is in a state of systematized ansthesia4 ,that department1 split off and disconnected from the sleeping part1 can none the less wake the latter up in case of need4 ,so that on the whole the quarrel between ,descartes and ,locke as to whether the mind ever sleeps is less near to solution than ever4 ,on a priori speculative grounds ,locke's view that thought and feeling may at times wholly disappear seems the more plausible4 ,as glands cease to secrete and muscles to contract1 so the brain should sometimes cease to carry currents1 and with this minimum of its activity might well coexist a minimum of consciousness4 ,on the other hand1 we see how deceptive are appearances1 and are forced to admit that a part of consciousness may sever its connections with other parts and yet continue to be4 ,on the whole it is best to abstain from a conclusion4 ,the science of the near future will doubtless answer this question more wisely than we can now4 ,let us turn now to consider the ,,relations ,,of ,,consciousness ,,to ,,space4 ,this is the problem known in the history of philosophy as the question of the seat of the soul4 ,it has given rise to much literature1 but we must ourselves treat it very briefly4 ,everything depends on what we conceive the soul to be1 an extended or an inextended entity4 ,if the former1 it may occupy a seat4 ,if the latter1 it may not2 though it has been thought that even then it might still have a position4 ,much hair-splitting has arisen about the possibility of an inextended thing nevertheless being present throughout a certain amount of extension4 ,we must distinguish the kinds of presence4 ,in some manner our consciousness is 'present' to everything with which it is in relation4 ,i am cognitively present to ,orion whenever ,i perceive that constellation1 but ,i am not dynamically present there1 ,i work no effects4 ,to my brain1 however1 ,i am dynamically present1 inasmuch as my thoughts and feelings seem to react upon the processes thereof4 ,if1 then1 by the seat of the mind is meant nothing more than the locality with which it stands in immediate dynamic relations1 we are certain to be right in saying that its seat is somewhere in the cortex of the brain4 ,descartes1 as is well known1 thought that the inextended soul was immediately present to the pineal gland4 ,others1 as ,lotze in his earlier days1 and ,w4 ,volkmann1 think its position must be at some point of the structureless matrix of the anatomical brain-elements1 at which point they suppose that all nerve-currents may cross and combine4 ,the scholastic doctrine is that the soul is totally present1 both in the whole and in each and every part of the body4 ,this mode of presence is said to be due to the soul's inextended nature and to its simplicity4 ,two extended entities could only correspond in space with one another1 part to part1--but not so does the soul1 which has no parts1 correspond with the body4 ,sir ,wm4 ,hamilton and ,professor ,bowen defend something like this view4 ,i4 ,h4 ,fichte1 ,ulrici1 and1 among ,american philosophers1 ,mr4 ,j4 ,e4 ,walter1#bjh maintain the soul to be a space-filling principle4 ,fichte calls it the inner body1 ,ulrici likens it to a fluid of non-molecular composition4 ,these theories remind us of the 'theosophic' doctrines of the present day1 and carry us back to times when the soul as vehicle of consciousness was not discriminated1 as it now is1 from the vital principle presiding over the formation of the body4 ,plato gave head1 breast1 and abdomen to the immortal reason1 the courage1 and the appetites1 as their seats respectively4 ,aristotle argues that the heart is the sole seat4 ,elsewhere we find the blood1 the brain1 the lungs1 the liver the kidneys even1 in turn assigned as seat of the whole or part of the soul4#bji ,the truth is that if the thinking principle is extended we neither know its form nor its seat2 whilst if unextended1 it is absurd to speak of its having any space-relations at all4 ,space-relations we shall see hereafter to be sensible things4 ,the only objects that can have mutual relations of position are objects that are perceived coexisting in the same felt space4 ,a thing not perceived at all1 such as the inextended soul must be1 cannot coexist with any perceived objects in this way4 ,no lines can be felt stretching from it to the other objects4 ,it can form no terminus to any space-interval4 ,it can therefore in no intelligible sense enjoy position4 ,its relations cannot be spatial1 but must be exclusively cognitive or dynamic1 as we have seen4 ,so far as they are dynamic1 to talk of the soul being 'present' is only a figure of speech4 ,hamilton's doctrine that the soul is present to the whole body is at any rate false3 for cognitively its presence extends far beyond the body1 and dynamically it does not extend beyond the brain4#baj ,,the ,,relations ,,of ,,minds ,,to ,,other ,,objects are either relations to other minds1 or to material things4 ,the material things are either the mind's own brain1 on the one hand1 or anything else1 on the other4 ,the relations of a mind to its own brain are of a unique and utterly mysterious sort2 we discussed them in the last two chapters1 and can add nothing to that account4 ,the mind's relations to other objects than the brain are cognitive and emotional relations exclusively1 so far as we know4 ,it knows them1 and it inwardly welcomes or rejects them1 but it has no other dealings with them4 ,when it seems to act upon them1 it only does so through the intermediary of its own body1 so that not it but the body is what acts on them1 and the brain must first act upon the body4 ,the same is true when other things seem to act on it--they only act on the body1 and through that on its brain4#baa ,all that it can do directly is to know other things1 misknow or ignore them1 and to find that they interest it1 in this fashion or in that4 ,now the relation of knowing is the most mysterious thing in the world4 ,if we ask how one thing can know another we are led into the heart of ,erkenntnisstheorie and metaphysics4 ,the psychologist1 for his part1 does not consider the matter so curiously as this4 ,finding a world before him which he cannot but believe that he knows1 and setting himself to study his own past thoughts1 or someone else's thoughts1 of what he believes to be that same world2 he cannot but conclude that those other thoughts know it after their fashion even as he knows it after his4 ,knowledge becomes for him an ultimate relation that must be admitted1 whether it be explained or not1 just like difference or resemblance1 which no one seeks to explain4 ,were our topic ,absolute ,mind instead of being the concrete minds of individuals dwelling in the natural world1 we could not tell whether that ,mind had the function of knowing or not1 as knowing is commonly understood4 ,we might learn the complexion of its thoughts2 but1 as we should have no realities outside of it to compare them with1--for if we had1 the ,mind would not be ,absolute1--we could not criticise them1 and find them either right or wrong2 and we should have to call them simply the thoughts1 and not the knowledge1 of the ,absolute ,mind4 ,finite minds1 however1 can be judged in a different way1 because the psychologist himself can go bail for the independent reality of the objects of which they think4 ,he knows these to exist outside as well as inside the minds in question2 he thus knows whether the minds think and know1 or only think2 and though his knowledge is of course that of a fallible mortal1 there is nothing in the conditions that should make it more likely to be wrong in this case than in any other4 ,now by what tests does the psychologist decide whether the state of mind he is studying is a bit of knowledge1 or only a subjective fact not referring to anything outside itself8 ,he uses the tests we all practically use4 ,if the state of mind resembles his own idea of a certain reality2 or if without resembling his idea of it1 it seems to imply that reality and refer to it by operating upon it through the bodily organs2 or even if it resembles and operates on some other reality that implies1 and leads up to1 and terminates in1 the first one1--in either or all of these cases the psychologist admits that the state of mind takes cognizance1 directly or remotely1 distinctly or vaguely1 truly or falsely1 of the reality's nature and position in the world4 ,if1 on the other hand1 the mental state under examination neither resembles nor operates on any of the realities known to the psychologist1 he calls it a subjective state pure and simple1 possessed of no cognitive worth4 ,if1 again1 it resemble a reality or a set of realities as he knows them1 but altogether fail to operate on them or modify their course by producing bodily motions which the psychologist sees1 then the psychologist1 like all of us1 may be in doubt4 ,let the mental state1 for example1 occur during the sleep of its subject4 ,let the latter dream of the death of a certain man1 and let the man simultaneously die4 ,is the dream a mere coincidence1 or a veritable cognition of the death8 ,such puzzling cases are what the ,societies for ',psychical ,research' are collecting and trying to interpret in the most reasonable way4 ,if the dream were the only one of the kind the subject ever had in his life1 if the context of the death in the dream differed in many particulars from the real death's context1 and if the dream led to no action about the death1 unquestionably we should all call it a strange coincidence1 and naught besides4 ,but if the death in the dream had a long context1 agreeing point for point with every feature that attended the real death2 if the subject were constantly having such dreams1 all equally perfect1 and if on awaking he had a habit of acting immediately as if they were true and so getting 'the start' of his more tardily informed neighbors1--we should probably all have to admit that he had some mysterious kind of clairvoyant power1 that his dreams in an inscrutable way knew just those realities which they figured1 and that the word 'coincidence' failed to touch the root of the matter4 ,and whatever doubts any one preserved would completely vanish if it should appear that from the midst of his dream he had the power of interfering with the course of the reality1 and making the events in it turn this way or that1 according as he dreamed they should4 ,then at least it would be certain that he and the psychologist were dealing with the same4 ,it is by such tests as these that we are convinced that the waking minds of our fellows and our own minds know the same external world4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the psychologist's attitude towards cognition will be so important in the sequel that we must not leave it until it is made perfectly clear4 ,it is a thoroughgoing dualism4 ,it supposes two elements1 mind knowing and thing known1 and treats them as irreducible4 ,neither gets out of itself or into the other1 neither in any way is the other1 neither makes the other4 ,they just stand face to face in a common world1 and one simply knows1 or is known unto1 its counterpart4 ,this singular relation is not to be expressed in any lower terms1 or translated into any more intelligible name4 ,some sort of signal must be given by the thing to the mind's brain1 or the knowing will not occur--we find as a matter of fact that the mere existence of a thing outside the brain is not a sufficient cause for our knowing it3 it must strike the brain in some way1 as well as be there1 to be known4 ,but the brain being struck1 the knowledge is constituted by a new construction that occurs altogether in the mind4 ,the thing remains the same whether known or not4#bab ,and when once there1 the knowledge may remain there1 whatever becomes of the thing4 ,by the ancients1 and by unreflecting people perhaps to-day1 knowledge is explained as the passage of something from without into the mind--the latter1 so far1 at least1 as its sensible affections go1 being passive and receptive4 ,but even in mere sense-impression the duplication of the object by an inner construction must take place4 ,consider1 with ,professor ,bowne1 what happens when two people converse together and know each other's mind4 ,no thoughts leave the mind of one and cross into the mind of the other4 ,when we speak of an exchange of thought1 even the crudest mind knows that this is a mere figure of speech4444 ,to perceive another's thought1 we must construct his thought within ourselves2444 this thought is our own and is strictly original with us4 ,at the same time we owe it to the other2 and if it had not originated with him1 it would probably not have originated with us4 ,but what has the other done8444 ,this3 by an entirely mysterious world-order1 the speaker is enabled to produce a series of signs which are totally unlike the thought1 but which1 by virtue of the same mysterious order1 act as a series of incitements upon the hearer1 so that he constructs within himself the corresponding mental state4 ,the act of the speaker consists in availing himself of the proper incitements4 ,the act of the hearer is immediately only the reaction of the soul against the incitement4444 ,all communion between finite minds is of this sort4444 ,probably no reflecting person would deny this conclusion1 but when we say that what is thus true of perception of another's thought is equally true of the perception of the outer world in general1 many minds will be disposed to question1 and not a few will deny it outright4 ,yet there is no alternative but to affirm that to perceive the universe we must construct it in thought1 and that our knowledge of the universe is but the unfolding of the mind's inner nature4444 ,by describing the mind as a waxen tablet1 and things as impressing themselves upon it1 we seem to get great insight until we think to ask where this extended tablet is1 and how things stamp themselves on it1 and how the perceptive act would be explained even if they did4444 ,the immediate antecedents of sensation and perception are a series of nervous changes in the brain4 ,whatever we know of the outer world is revealed only in and through these nervous changes4 ,but these are totally unlike the objects assumed to exist as their causes4 ,if we might conceive the mind as in the light1 and in direct contact with its objects1 the imagination at least would be comforted2 but when we conceive the mind as coming in contact with the outer world only in the dark chamber of the skull1 and then not in contact with the objects perceived1 but only with a series of nerve-changes of which1 moreover1 it knows nothing1 it is plain that the object is a long way off4 ,all talk of pictures1 impressions1 etc41 ceases because of the lack of all the conditions to give such figures any meaning4 ,it is not even clear that we shall ever find our way out of the darkness into the world of light and reality again4 ,we begin with complete trust in physics and the senses1 and are forthwith led away from the object into a nervous labyrinth1 where the object is entirely displaced by a set of nervous changes which are totally unlike anything but themselves4 ,finally1 we land in the dark chamber of the skull4 ,the object has gone completely1 and knowledge has not yet appeared4 ,nervous signs are the raw material of all knowledge of the outer world according to the most decided realism4 ,but in order to pass beyond these signs into a knowledge of the outer world1 we must posit an interpreter who shall read back these signs into their objective meaning4 ,but that interpreter1 again1 must implicitly contain the meaning of the universe within itself2 and these signs are really but excitations which cause the soul to unfold what is within itself4 ,inasmuch as by common consent the soul communicates with the outer world only through these signs1 and never comes nearer to the object than such signs can bring it1 it follows that the principles of interpretation must be in the mind itself1 and that the resulting construction is primarily only an expression of the mind's own nature4 ,all reaction is of this sort2 it expresses the nature of the reacting agent1 and knowledge comes under the same head1 this fact makes it necessary for us either to admit a pre-established harmony between the laws and nature of thought and the laws and nature of things1 or else to allow that the objects of perception1 the universe as it appears1 are purely phenomenal1 being but the way in which the mind reacts against the ground of its sensations4#bac ,the dualism of ,object and ,subject and their pre-established harmony are what the psychologist as such must assume1 whatever ulterior monistic philosophy he may1 as an individual who has the right also to be a metaphysician1 have in reserve4 ,i hope that this general point is now made clear1 so that we may leave it1 and descend to some distinctions of detail4 99 99 99 99 99 ,there are two kinds of knowledge broadly and practically distinguishable3 we may call them respectively knowledge of acquaintance and knowledge-about4 ,most languages express the distinction2 thus1 1 2 noscere1 scire2 kennen1 wissen2 connatre1 savoir4#bad ,i am acquainted with many people and things1 which ,i know very little about1 except their presence in the places where ,i have met them4 ,i know the color blue when ,i see it1 and the flavor of a pear when ,i taste it2 ,i know an inch when ,i move my finger through it2 a second of time1 when ,i feel it pass2 an effort of attention when ,i make it2 a difference between two things when ,i notice it2 but about the inner nature of these facts or what makes them what they are1 ,i can say nothing at all4 ,i cannot impart acquaintance with them to any one who has not already made it himself4 ,i cannot describe them1 make a blind man guess what blue is like1 define to a child a syllogism1 or tell a philosopher in just what respect distance is just what it is1 and differs from other forms of relation4 ,at most1 ,i can say to my friends1 ,go to certain places and act in certain ways1 and these objects will probably come4 ,all the elementary natures of the world1 its highest genera1 the simple qualities of matter and mind1 together with the kinds of relation that subsist between them1 must either not be known at all1 or known in this dumb way of acquaintance without knowledge-about4 ,in minds able to speak at all there is1 it is true1 some knowledge about everything4 ,things can at least be classed1 and the times of their appearance told4 ,but in general1 the less we analyze a thing1 and the fewer of its relations we perceive1 the less we know about it and the more our familiarity with it is of the acquaintance-type4 ,the two kinds of knowledge are1 therefore1 as the human mind practically exerts them1 relative terms4 ,that is1 the same thought of a thing may be called knowledge-about it in comparison with a simpler thought1 or acquaintance with it in comparison with a thought of it that is more articulate and explicit still4 ,the grammatical sentence expresses this4 ,its 'subject' stands for an object of acquaintance which1 by the addition of the predicate1 is to get something known about it4 ,we may already know a good deal1 when we hear the subject named--its name may have rich connotations4 ,but1 know we much or little then1 we know more still when the sentence is done4 ,we can relapse at will into a mere condition of acquaintance with an object by scattering our attention and staring at it in a vacuous trance-like way4 ,we can ascend to knowledge about it by rallying our wits and proceeding to notice and analyze and think4 ,what we are only acquainted with is only present to our minds2 we have it1 or the idea of it4 ,but when we know about it1 we do more than merely have it2 we seem1 as we think over its relations1 to subject it to a sort of treatment and to operate upon it with our thought4 ,the words feeling and thought give voice to the antithesis4 ,through feelings we become acquainted with things1 but only by our thoughts do we know about them4 ,feelings are the germ and starting point of cognition1 thoughts the developed tree4 ,the minimum of grammatical subject1 of objective presence1 of reality known about1 the mere beginning of knowledge1 must be named by the word that says the least4 ,such a word is the interjection1 as lo6 there6 ecco6 voil6 or the article or demonstrative pronoun introducing the sentence1 as the1 it1 that4 ,in ,chapter ,,xii we shall see a little deeper into what this distinction1 between the mere mental having or feeling of an object and the thinking of it1 portends4 ,the mental states usually distinguished as feelings are the emotions1 and the sensations we get from skin1 muscle1 viscus1 eye1 ear1 nose1 and palate4 ,the 'thoughts1' as recognized in popular parlance1 are the conceptions and judgments4 ,when we treat of these mental states in particular we shall have to say a word about the cognitive function and value of each4 ,it may perhaps be well to notice now that our senses only give us acquaintance with facts of body1 and that of the mental states of other persons we only have conceptual knowledge4 ,of our own past states of mind we take cognizance in a peculiar way4 ,they are 'objects of memory1' and appear to us endowed with a sort of warmth and intimacy that makes the perception of them seem more like a process of sensation than like a thought4 ,,footnotes3 #aih ,messrs4 ,payton ,spence 7,journal of ,spec4 ,phil41 x1 #cch1 xiv1 #bhf7 and ,m4 ,m4 ,garver 7,amer4 ,jour4 of ,science1 #c;d series1 xx1 #ahi7 argue1 the one from speculative1 the other from experimental grounds1 that1 the physical condition of consciousness being neural vibration1 the consciousness must itself be incessantly interrupted by unconsciousness--about fifty times a second1 according to ,garver4 #aii ,that the appearance of mental activity here is real can be proved by suggesting to the 'hypnotized' somnambulist that he shall remember when he awakes4 ,he will then often do so4 #bjj ,for more details1 cf4 ,malebranche1 ,rech4 de la ,verit1 bk4 iii1 chap4 i2 ,j4 ,locke1 ,essay conc4 ,h4 ,u41 book iii1 ch4 i2 ,c4 ,wolf1 ,psychol4 rationalis1 #ei2 ,sir ,w4 ,hamilton1 ,lectures on ,metaph41 lecture xvii2 ,j4 ,bascom1 ,science of ,mind1 #ab2 ,th4 ,jouffroy1 ,mlanges ,philos41 'du ,sommeil'2 ,h4 ,holland1 ,chapters on ,mental ,physiol41 p4 #hj2 ,b4 ,brodie1 ,psychol4 ,researches1 p4 #adg2 ,e4 ,m4 ,chesley1 ,journ4 of ,spec4 ,phil41 vol4 xi1 p4 #gb2 ,th4 ,ribot1 ,maladies de la ,personnalit1 pp4 #h-aj2 ,h4 ,lotze1 ,metaphysics1 #ecc4 #bja ,l',automatisme ,psychologique1 ,paris1 #ahhi1 passim4 #bjb ,see his articles in the ,chicago ,open ,court1 for ,july1 ,august and ,november1 #ahhi4 ,also in the ,revue ,philosophique for #ahhi and '#ij4 #bjc ,this whole phenomenon shows how an idea which remains itself below the threshold of a certain conscious self may occasion associative effects therein4 ,the skin-sensations unfelt by the patient's primary consciousness awaken nevertheless their usual visual associates therein4 #bjd ,see ,proceedings of ,american ,soc4 for ,psych4 ,research1 vol4 i1 p4 #edh4 #bje ,proceedings of the 7,london7 ,soc4 for ,psych4 ,research1 ,may1 #ahhg1 p4 #bfh ff4 #bjf ,m4 ,janet designates by numbers the different personalities which the subject may display4 #bjg ,how to conceive of this state of mind is not easy4 ,it would be much simpler to understand the process1 if adding new strokes made the first one visible4 ,there would then be two different objects apperceived as totals1--paper with one stroke1 paper with many strokes2 and1 blind to the former1 he would see all that was in the latter1 because he would have apperceived it as a different total in the first instance4 ,a process of this sort occurs sometimes 7not always7 when the new strokes1 instead of being mere repetitions of the original one1 are lines which combine with it into a total object1 say a human face4 ,the subject of the trance then may regain his sight of the line to which he had previously been blind1 by seeing it as part of the face4 #bjh ,perception of ,space and ,matter1 #ahgi1 part ii1 chap4 #c4 #bji ,for a very good condensed history of the various opinions1 see ,w4 ,volkmann von ,volkmar1 ,lehrbuch d4 ,psychologie1 #af1 ,anm4 ,complete references to ,sir ,w4 ,hamilton are given in ,j4 ,e4 ,walter1 ,perception of ,space and ,matter1 pp4 #fe-f4 #baj ,most contemporary writers ignore the question of the soul's seat4 ,lotze is the only one who seems to have been much concerned about it1 and his views have varied4 ,cf4 ,medicinische ,psychol41 #aj4 ,microcosmus1 bk4 iii1 ch4 #b4 ,metaphysic1 bk4 iii1 ch4 #e4 ,outlines of ,psychol41 part ii1 ch4 #c4 ,see also ,g4 ,t4 ,fechner1 ,psychophysik1 chap4 xxxvii4 #baa ,i purposely ignore 'clairvoyance' and action upon distant things by 'mediums1' as not yet matters of common consent4 #bab ,i disregard consequences which may later come to the thing from the fact that it is known4 ,the knowing per se in no wise affects the thing4 #bac ,b4 ,p4 ,bowne3 ,metaphysics1 pp4 #djg-aj4 ,cf4 also ,lotze3 ,logik1 #cjh1 #cbf-g4 #bad ,cf4 ,john ,grote3 ,exploratio ,philosophica1 p4 #fj2 ,h4 ,helmholtz1 ,popular ,scientific ,lectures1 ,london1 p4 #cjh-i4 ,,chapter ,,ix4#bae ,,the ,,stream ,,of ,,thought4 ,we now begin our study of the mind from within4 ,most books start with sensations1 as the simplest mental facts1 and proceed synthetically1 constructing each higher stage from those below it4 ,but this is abandoning the empirical method of investigation4 ,no one ever had a simple sensation by itself4 ,consciousness1 from our natal day1 is of a teeming multiplicity of objects and relations1 and what we call simple sensations are results of discriminative attention1 pushed often to a very high degree4 ,it is astonishing what havoc is wrought in psychology by admitting at the outset apparently innocent suppositions1 that nevertheless contain a flaw4 ,the bad consequences develop themselves later on1 and are irremediable1 being woven through the whole texture of the work4 ,the notion that sensations1 being the simplest things1 are the first things to take up in psychology is one of these suppositions4 ,the only thing which psychology has a right to postulate at the outset is the fact of thinking itself1 and that must first be taken up and analyzed4 ,if sensations then prove to be amongst the elements of the thinking1 we shall be no worse off as respects them than if we had taken them for granted at the start4 ,the first fact for us1 then1 as psychologists1 is that thinking of some sort goes on4 ,i use the word thinking1 in accordance with what was said on p4 #ahf1 for every form of consciousness indiscriminately4 ,if we could say in ,english 'it thinks1' as we say 'it rains 'or 'it blows1' we should be stating the fact most simply and with the minimum of assumption4 ,as we cannot1 we must simply say that thought goes on4 ,,five ,,characters ,,in ,,thought4 ,how does it go on8 ,we notice immediately five important characters in the process1 of which it shall be the duty of the present chapter to treat in a general way3 #a7 ,every thought tends to be part of a personal consciousness4 #b7 ,within each personal consciousness thought is always changing4 #c7 ,within each personal consciousness thought is sensibly continuous4 #d7 ,it always appears to deal with objects independent of itself4 #e7 ,it is interested in some parts of these objects to the exclusion of others1 and welcomes or rejects--chooses from among them1 in a word--all the while4 ,in considering these five points successively1 we shall have to plunge in medias res as regards our vocabulary1 and use psychological terms which can only be adequately defined in later chapters of the book4 ,but every one knows what the terms mean in a rough way2 and it is only in a rough way that we are now to take them4 ,this chapter is like a painter's first charcoal sketch upon his canvas1 in which no niceties appear4 #a7 ,thought tends to ,personal ,form4 ,when ,i say every thought is part of a personal consciousness1 'personal consciousness' is one of the terms in question4 ,its meaning we know so long as no one asks us to define it1 but to give an accurate account of it is the most difficult of philosophic tasks4 ,this task we must confront in the next chapter2 here a preliminary word will suffice4 ,in this room--this lecture-room1 say--there are a multitude of thoughts1 yours and mine1 some of which cohere mutually1 and some not4 ,they are as little each-for-itself and reciprocally independent as they are all-belonging-together4 ,they are neither3 no one of them is separate1 but each belongs with certain others and with none beside4 ,my thought belongs with my other thoughts1 and your thought with your other thoughts4 ,whether anywhere in the room there be a mere thought1 which is nobody's thought1 we have no means of ascertaining1 for we have no experience of its like4 ,the only states of consciousness that we naturally deal with are found in personal consciousnesses1 minds1 selves1 concrete particular ,i's and you's4 ,each of these minds keeps its own thoughts to itself4 ,there is no giving or bartering between them4 ,no thought even comes into direct sight of a thought in another personal consciousness than its own4 ,absolute insulation1 irreducible pluralism1 is the law4 ,it seems as if the elementary psychic fact were not thought or this thought or that thought1 but my thought1 every thought being owned4 ,neither contemporaneity1 nor proximity in space1 nor similarity of quality and content are able to fuse thoughts together which are sundered by this barrier of belonging to different personal minds4 ,the breaches between such thoughts are the most absolute breaches in nature4 ,everyone will recognize this to be true1 so long as the existence of something corresponding to the term 'personal mind' is all that is insisted on1 without any particular view of its nature being implied4 ,on these terms the personal self rather than the thought might be treated as the immediate datum in psychology4 ,the universal conscious fact is not 'feelings and thoughts exist1' but ',i think' and ',i feel4'#baf ,no psychology1 at any rate1 can question the existence of personal selves4 ,the worst a psychology can do is so to interpret the nature of these selves as to rob them of their worth4 ,a ,french writer1 speaking of our ideas1 says somewhere in a fit of anti-spiritualistic excitement that1 misled by certain peculiarities which they display1 we 'end by personifying' the procession which they make1--such personification being regarded by him as a great philosophic blunder on our part4 ,it could only be a blunder if the notion of personality meant something essentially different from anything to be found in the mental procession4 ,but if that procession be itself the very 'original' of the notion of personality1 to personify it cannot possibly be wrong4 ,it is already personified4 ,there are no marks of personality to be gathered aliunde1 and then found lacking in the train of thought4 ,it has them all already2 so that to whatever farther analysis we may subject that form of personal selfhood under which thoughts appear1 it is1 and must remain1 true that the thoughts which psychology studies do continually tend to appear as parts of personal selves4 ,i say 'tend to appear' rather than 'appear1' on account of those facts of sub-conscious personality1 automatic writing1 etc41 of which we studied a few in the last chapter4 ,the buried feelings and thoughts proved now to exist in hysterical ansthetics1 in recipients of post-hypnotic suggestion1 etc41 themselves are parts of secondary personal selves4 ,these selves are for the most part very stupid and contracted1 and are cut off at ordinary times from communication with the regular and normal self of the individual2 but still they form conscious unities1 have continuous memories1 speak1 write1 invent distinct names for themselves1 or adopt names that are suggested2 and1 in short1 are entirely worthy of that title of secondary personalities which is now commonly given them4 ,according to ,m4 ,janet these secondary personalities are always abnormal1 and result from the splitting of what ought to be a single complete self into two parts1 of which one lurks in the background whilst the other appears on the surface as the only self the man or woman has4 ,for our present purpose it is unimportant whether this account of the origin of secondary selves is applicable to all possible cases of them or not1 for it certainly is true of a large number of them4 ,now although the size of a secondary self thus formed will depend on the number of thoughts that are thus split-off from the main consciousness1 the form of it tends to personality1 and the later thoughts pertaining to it remember the earlier ones and adopt them as their own4 ,m4 ,janet caught the actual moment of inspissation 7so to speak7 of one of these secondary personalities in his ansthetic somnambulist ,lucie4 ,he found that when this young woman's attention was absorbed in conversation with a third party1 her ansthetic hand would write simple answers to questions whispered to her by himself4 ,do you hear8 he asked4 ,no1 was the unconsciously written reply4 ,but to answer you must hear4 ,yes1 quite so4 ,then how do you manage8 ,i don't know4 ,there must be some one who hears me4 ,yes4 ,who8 ,someone other than ,lucie4 ,ah6 another person4 ,shall we give her a name8 ,no4 ,yes1 it will be more convenient4 ,well1 ,adrienne1 then4 ,once baptized1 the subconscious personage1 ,m4 ,janet continues1 grows more definitely outlined and displays better her psychological characters4 ,in particular she shows us that she is conscious of the feelings excluded from the consciousness of the primary or normal personage4 ,she it is who tells us that ,i am pinching the arm or touching the little finger in which ,lucie for so long has had no tactile sensations4#bag ,in other cases the adoption of the name by the secondary self is more spontaneous4 ,i have seen a number of incipient automatic writers and mediums as yet imperfectly 'developed1' who immediately and of their own accord write and speak in the name of departed spirits4 ,these may be public characters1 as ,mozart1 ,faraday1 or real persons formerly known to the subject1 or altogether imaginary beings4 ,without prejudicing the question of real 'spirit-control' in the more developed sorts of trance-utterance1 ,i incline to think that these 7often deplorably unintelligent7 rudimentary utterances are the work of an inferior fraction of the subject's own natural mind1 set free from control by the rest1 and working after a set pattern fixed by the prejudices of the social environment4 ,in a spiritualistic community we get optimistic messages1 whilst in an ignorant ,catholic village the secondary personage calls itself by the name of a demon1 and proffers blasphemies and obscenities1 instead of telling us how happy it is in the summer-land4#bah ,beneath these tracts of thought1 which1 however rudimentary1 are still organized selves with a memory1 habits1 and sense of their own identity1 ,m4 ,janet thinks that the facts of catalepsy in hysteric patients drive us to suppose that there are thoughts quite unorganized and impersonal4 ,a patient in cataleptic trance 7which can be produced artificially in certain hypnotized subjects7 is without memory on waking1 and seems insensible and unconscious as long as the cataleptic condition lasts4 ,if1 however1 one raises the arm of such a subject it stays in that position1 and the whole body can thus be moulded like wax under the hands of the operator1 retaining for a considerable time whatever attitude he communicates to it4 ,in hysterics whose arm1 for example1 is ansthetic1 the same thing may happen4 ,the ansthetic arm may remain passively in positions which it is made to assume2 or if the hand be taken and made to hold a pencil and trace a certain letter1 it will continue tracing that letter indefinitely on the paper4 ,these acts1 until recently1 were supposed to be accompanied by no consciousness at all3 they were physiological reflexes4 ,m4 ,janet considers with much more plausibility that feeling escorts them4 ,the feeling is probably merely that of the position or movement of the limb1 and it produces no more than its natural effects when it discharges into the motor centres which keep the position maintained1 or the movement incessantly renewed4#bai ,such thoughts as these1 says ,m4 ,janet1 are known by no one1 for disaggregated sensations reduced to a state of mental dust are not synthetized in any personality4#bbj ,he admits1 however1 that these very same unutterably stupid thoughts tend to develop memory1--the cataleptic ere long moves her arm at a bare hint2 so that they form no important exception to the law that all thought tends to assume the form of personal consciousness4 #b7 ,thought is in ,constant ,change4 ,i do not mean necessarily that no one state of mind has any duration--even if true1 that would be hard to establish4 ,the change which ,i have more particularly in view is that which takes place in sensible intervals of time2 and the result on which ,i wish to lay stress is this1 that no state once gone can recur and be identical with what it was before4 ,let us begin with ,mr4 ,shadworth ,hodgson's description3 ,i go straight to the facts1 without saying ,i go to perception1 or sensation1 or thought1 or any special mode at all4 ,what ,i find when ,i look at my consciousness at all is that what ,i cannot divest myself of1 or not have in consciousness1 if ,i have any consciousness at all1 is a sequence of different feelings4 ,i may shut my eyes and keep perfectly still1 and try not to contribute anything of my own will2 but whether ,i think or do not think1 whether ,i perceive external things or not1 ,i always have a succession of different feelings4 ,anything else that ,i may have also1 of a more special character1 comes in as parts of this succession1 ,not to have the succession of different feelings is not to be conscious at all4444 ,the chain of consciousness is a sequence of differents4#bba ,such a description as this can awaken no possible protest from any one4 ,we all recognize as different great classes of our conscious states4 ,now we are seeing1 now hearing2 now reasoning1 now willing2 now recollecting1 now expecting2 now loving1 now hating2 and in a hundred other ways we know our minds to be alternately engaged4 ,but all these are complex states4 ,the aim of science is always to reduce complexity to simplicity2 and in psychological science we have the celebrated 'theory of ideas' which1 admitting the great difference among each other of what may be called concrete conditions of mind1 seeks to show how this is all the resultant effect of variations in the combination of certain simple elements of consciousness that always remain the same4 ,these mental atoms or molecules are what ,locke called 'simple ideas4' ,some of ,locke's successors made out that the only simple ideas were the sensations strictly so called4 ,which ideas the simple ones may be does not1 however1 now concern us4 ,it is enough that certain philosophers have thought they could see under the dissolving-view-appearance of the mind elementary facts of any sort that remained unchanged amid the flow4 ,and the view of these philosophers has been called little into question1 for our common experience seems at first sight to corroborate it entirely4 ,are not the sensations we get from the same object1 for example1 always the same8 ,does not the same piano-key1 struck with the same force1 make us hear in the same way8 ,does not the same grass give us the same feeling of green1 the same sky the same feeling of blue1 and do we not get the same olfactory sensation no matter how many times we put our nose to the same flask of cologne8 ,it seems a piece of metaphysical sophistry to suggest that we do not2 and yet a close attention to the matter shows that there is no proof that the same bodily sensation is ever got by us twice4 ,what is got twice is the same ,,object4 ,we hear the same note over and over again2 we see the same quality of green1 or smell the same objective perfume1 or experience the same species of pain4 ,the realities1 concrete and abstract1 physical and ideal1 whose permanent existence we believe in1 seem to be constantly coming up again before our thought1 and lead us1 in our carelessness1 to suppose that our 'ideas' of them are the same ideas4 ,when we come1 some time later1 to the chapter on ,perception1 we shall see how inveterate is our habit of not attending to sensations as subjective facts1 but of simply using them as stepping-stones to pass over to the recognition of the realities whose presence they reveal4 ,the grass out of the window now looks to me of the same green in the sun as in the shade1 and yet a painter would have to paint one part of it dark brown1 another part bright yellow1 to give its real1 sensational effect4 ,we take no heed1 as a rule1 of the different way in which the same things look and sound and smell at different distances and under different circumstances4 ,the sameness of the things is what we are concerned to ascertain2 and any sensations that assure us of that will probably be considered in a rough way to be the same with each other4 ,this is what makes off-hand testimony about the subjective identity of different sensations well-nigh worthless as a proof of the fact4 ,the entire history of ,sensation is a commentary on our inability to tell whether two sensations received apart are exactly alike4 ,what appeals to our attention far more than the absolute quality or quantity of a given sensation is its ratio to whatever other sensations we may have at the same time4 ,when everything is dark a somewhat less dark sensation makes us see an object white4 ,helmholtz calculates that the white marble painted in a picture representing an architectural view by moonlight is1 when seen by daylight1 from ten to twenty thousand times brighter than the real moonlit marble would be4#bbb ,such a difference as this could never have been sensibly learned2 it had to be inferred from a series of indirect considerations4 ,there are facts which make us believe that our sensibility is altering all the time1 so that the same object cannot easily give us the same sensation over again4 ,the eye's sensibility to light is at its maximum when the eye is first exposed1 and blunts itself with surprising rapidity4 ,a long night's sleep will make it see things twice as brightly on wakening1 as simple rest by closure will make it see them later in the day4#bbc ,we feel things differently according as we are sleepy or awake1 hungry or full1 fresh or tired2 differently at night and in the morning1 differently in summer and in winter1 and above all things differently in childhood1 manhood1 and old age4 ,yet we never doubt that our feelings reveal the same world1 with the same sensible qualities and the same sensible things occupying it4 ,the difference of the sensibility is shown best by the difference of our emotion about the things from one age to another1 or when we are in different organic moods4 ,what was bright and exciting becomes weary1 flat1 and unprofitable4 ,the bird's song is tedious1 the breeze is mournful1 the sky is sad4 ,to these indirect presumptions that our sensations1 following the mutations of our capacity for feeling1 are always undergoing an essential change1 must be added another presumption1 based on what must happen in the brain4 ,every sensation corresponds to some cerebral action4 ,for an identical sensation to recur it would have to occur the second time in an unmodified brain4 ,but as this1 strictly speaking1 is a physiological impossibility1 so is an unmodified feeling an impossibility2 for to every brain-modification1 however small1 must correspond a change of equal amount in the feeling which the brain subserves4 ,all this would be true if even sensations came to us pure and single and not combined into 'things4' ,even then we should have to confess that1 however we might in ordinary conversation speak of getting the same sensation again1 we never in strict theoretic accuracy could do so2 and that whatever was true of the river of life1 of the river of elementary feeling1 it would certainly be true to say1 like ,heraclitus1 that we never descend twice into the same stream4 ,but if the assumption of 'simple ideas of sensation' recurring in immutable shape is so easily shown to be baseless1 how much more baseless is the assumption of immutability in the larger masses of our thought6 ,for there it is obvious and palpable that our state of mind is never precisely the same4 ,every thought we have of a given fact is1 strictly speaking1 unique1 and only bears a resemblance of kind with our other thoughts of the same fact4 ,when the identical fact recurs1 we must think of it in a fresh manner1 see it under a somewhat different angle1 apprehend it in different relations from those in which it last appeared4 ,and the thought by which we cognize it is the thought of it-in-those-relations1 a thought suffused with the consciousness of all that dim context4 ,often we are ourselves struck at the strange differences in our successive views of the same thing4 ,we wonder how we ever could have opined as we did last month about a certain matter4 ,we have outgrown the possibility of that state of mind1 we know not how4 ,from one year to another we see things in new lights4 ,what was unreal has grown real1 and what was exciting is insipid4 ,the friends we used to care the world for are shrunken to shadows2 the women1 once so divine1 the stars1 the woods1 and the waters1 how now so dull and common6 the young girls that brought an aura of infinity1 at present hardly distinguishable existences2 pictures so empty2 and as for the books1 what was there to find so mysteriously significant in ,goethe1 or in ,john ,mill so full of weight8 ,instead of all this1 more zestful than ever is the work1 the work2 and fuller and deeper the import of common duties and of common goods4 ,but what here strikes us so forcibly on the flagrant scale exists on every scale1 down to the imperceptible transition from one hour's outlook to that of the next4 ,experience is remoulding us every moment1 and our mental reaction on every given thing is really a resultant of our experience of the whole world up to that date4 ,the analogies of brain-physiology must again be appealed to to corroborate our view4 ,our earlier chapters have taught us to believe that1 whilst we think1 our brain changes1 and that1 like the aurora borealis1 its whole internal equilibrium shifts with every pulse of change4 ,the precise nature of the shifting at a given moment is a product of many factors4 ,the accidental state of local nutrition or blood-supply may be among them4 ,but just as one of them certainly is the influence of outward objects on the sense-organs during the moment1 so is another certainly the very special susceptibility in which the organ has been left at that moment by all it has gone through in the past4 ,every brain-state is partly determined by the nature of this entire past succession4 ,alter the latter in any part1 and the brain-state must be somewhat different4 ,each present brain-state is a record in which the eye of ,omniscience might read all the foregone history of its owner4 ,it is out of the question1 then1 that any total brain-state should identically recur4 ,something like it may recur2 but to suppose it to recur would be equivalent to the absurd admission that all the states that had intervened between its two appearances had been pure nonentities1 and that the organ after their passage was exactly as it was before4 ,and 7to consider shorter periods7 just as1 in the senses1 an impression feels very differently according to what has preceded it2 as one color succeeding another is modified by the contrast1 silence sounds delicious after noise1 and a note1 when the scale is sung up1 sounds unlike itself when the scale is sung down2 as the presence of certain lines in a figure changes the apparent form of the other lines1 and as in music the whole sthetic effect comes from the manner in which one set of sounds alters our feeling of another2 so1 in thought1 we must admit that those portions of the brain that have just been maximally excited retain a kind of soreness which is a condition of our present consciousness1 a codeterminant of how and what we now shall feel4#bbd ,ever some tracts are waning in tension1 some waxing1 whilst others actively discharge4 ,the states of tension have as positive an influence as any in determining the total condition1 and in deciding what the psychosis shall be4 ,all we know of submaximal nerve-irritations1 and of the summation of apparently ineffective stimuli1 tends to show that no changes in the brain are physiologically ineffective1 and that presumably none are bare of psychological result4 ,but as the brain-tension shifts from one relative state of equilibrium to another1 like the gyrations of a kaleidoscope1 now rapid and now slow1 is it likely that its faithful psychic concomitant is heavier-footed than itself1 and that it cannot match each one of the organ's irradiations by a shifting inward iridescence of its own8 ,but if it can do this1 its inward iridescences must be infinite1 for the brain-redistributions are in infinite variety4 ,if so coarse a thing as a telephone-plate can be made to thrill for years and never reduplicate its inward condition1 how much more must this be the case with the infinitely delicate brain8 ,i am sure that this concrete and total manner of regarding the mind's changes is the only true manner1 difficult as it may be to carry it out in detail4 ,if anything seems obscure about it1 it will grow clearer as we advance4 ,meanwhile1 if it be true1 it is certainly also true that no two 'ideas' are ever exactly the same1 which is the proposition we started to prove4 ,the proposition is more important theoretically than it at first sight seems4 ,for it makes it already impossible for us to follow obediently in the footprints of either the ,lockian or the ,herbartian school1 schools which have had almost unlimited influence in ,germany and among ourselves4 ,no doubt it is often convenient to formulate the mental facts in an atomistic sort of way1 and to treat the higher states of consciousness as if they were all built out of unchanging simple ideas4 ,it is convenient often to treat curves as if they were composed of small straight lines1 and electricity and nerve-force as if they were fluids4 ,but in the one case as in the other we must never forget that we are talking symbolically1 and that there is nothing in nature to answer to our words4 ,a permanently existing 'idea' or ',vorstellung' which makes its appearance before the footlights of consciousness at periodical intervals1 is as mythological an entity as the ,jack of ,spades4 ,what makes it convenient to use the mythological formulas is the whole organization of speech1 which1 as was remarked a while ago1 was not made by psychologists1 but by men who were as a rule only interested in the facts their mental states revealed4 ,they only spoke of their states as ideas of this or of that thing4 ,what wonder1 then1 that the thought is most easily conceived under the law of the thing whose name it bears6 ,if the thing is composed of parts1 then we suppose that the thought of the thing must be composed of the thoughts of the parts4 ,if one part of the thing have appeared in the same thing or in other things on former occasions1 why then we must be having even now the very same 'idea' of that part which was there on those occasions4 ,if the thing is simple1 its thought is simple4 ,if it is multitudinous1 it must require a multitude of thoughts to think it4 ,if a succession1 only a succession of thoughts can know it4 ,if permanent1 its thought is permanent4 ,and so on ad libitum4 ,what after all is so natural as to assume that one object1 called by one name1 should be known by one affection of the mind8 ,but1 if language must thus influence us1 the agglutinative languages1 and even ,greek and ,latin with their declensions1 would be the better guides4 ,names did not appear in them inalterable1 but changed their shape to suit the context in which they lay4 ,it must have been easier then than now to conceive of the same object as being thought of at different times in non-identical conscious states4 ,this1 too1 will grow clearer as we proceed4 ,meanwhile a necessary consequence of the belief in permanent self-identical psychic facts that absent themselves and recur periodically is the ,humian doctrine that our thought is composed of separate independent parts and is not a sensibly continuous stream4 ,that this doctrine entirely misrepresents the natural appearances is what ,i next shall try to show4 #c7 ,within each personal consciousness1 thought is sensibly continuous4 ,i can only define 'continuous' as that which is without breach1 crack1 or division4 ,i have already said that the breach from one mind to another is perhaps the greatest breach in nature4 ,the only breaches that can well be conceived to occur within the limits of a single mind would either be interruptions1 time-gaps during which the consciousness went out altogether to come into existence again at a later moment2 or they would be breaks in the quality1 or content1 of the thought1 so abrupt that the segment that followed had no connection whatever with the one that went before4 ,the proposition that within each personal consciousness thought feels continuous1 means two things3 #a4 ,that even where there is a time-gap the consciousness after it feels as if it belonged together with the consciousness before it1 as another part of the same self2 #b4 ,that the changes from one moment to another in the quality of the consciousness are never absolutely abrupt4 ,the case of the time-gaps1 as the simplest1 shall be taken first4 ,and first of all a word about time-gaps of which the consciousness may not be itself aware4 ,on page #bjj we saw that such time-gaps existed1 and that they might be more numerous than is usually supposed4 ,if the consciousness is not aware of them1 it cannot feel them as interruptions4 ,in the unconsciousness produced by nitrous oxide and other ansthetics1 in that of epilepsy and fainting1 the broken edges of the sentient life may meet and merge over the gap1 much as the feelings of space of the opposite margins of the 'blind spot' meet and merge over that objective interruption to the sensitiveness of the eye4 ,such consciousness as this1 whatever it be for the onlooking psychologist1 is for itself unbroken4 ,it feels unbroken2 a waking day of it is sensibly a unit as long as that day lasts1 in the sense in which the hours themselves are units1 as having all their parts next each other1 with no intrusive alien substance between4 ,to expect the consciousness to feel the interruptions of its objective continuity as gaps1 would be like expecting the eye to feel a gap of silence because it does not hear1 or the ear to feel a gap of darkness because it does not see4 ,so much for the gaps that are unfelt4 ,with the felt gaps the case is different4 ,on waking from sleep1 we usually know that we have been unconscious1 and we often have an accurate judgment of how long4 ,the judgment here is certainly an inference from sensible signs1 and its ease is due to long practice in the particular field4#bbe ,the result of it1 however1 is that the consciousness is1 for itself1 not what it was in the former case1 but interrupted and discontinuous1 in the mere sense of the words4 ,but in the other sense of continuity1 the sense of the parts being inwardly connected and belonging together because they are parts of a common whole1 the consciousness remains sensibly continuous and one4 ,what now is the common whole8 ,the natural name for it is myself1 ,i1 or me4 ,when ,paul and ,peter wake up in the same bed1 and recognize that they have been asleep1 each one of them mentally reaches back and makes connection with but one of the two streams of thought which were broken by the sleeping hours4 ,as the current of an electrode buried in the ground unerringly finds its way to its own similarly buried mate1 across no matter how much intervening earth2 so ,peter's present instantly finds out ,peter's past1 and never by mistake knits itself on to that of ,paul4 ,paul's thought in turn is as little liable to go astray4 ,the past thought of ,peter is appropriated by the present ,peter alone4 ,he may have a knowledge1 and a correct one too1 of what ,paul's last drowsy states of mind were as he sank into sleep1 but it is an entirely different sort of knowledge from that which he has of his own last states4 ,he remembers his own states1 whilst he only conceives ,paul's4 ,remembrance is like direct feeling2 its object is suffused with a warmth and intimacy to which no object of mere conception ever attains4 ,this quality of warmth and intimacy and immediacy is what ,peter's present thought also possesses for itself4 ,so sure as this present is me1 is mine1 it says1 so sure is anything else that comes with the same warmth and intimacy and immediacy1 me and mine4 ,what the qualities called warmth and intimacy may in themselves be will have to be matter for future consideration4 ,but whatever past feelings appear with those qualities must be admitted to receive the greeting of the present mental state1 to be owned by it1 and accepted as belonging together with it in a common self4 ,this community of self is what the time-gap cannot break in twain1 and is why a present thought1 although not ignorant of the time-gap1 can still regard itself as continuous with certain chosen portions of the past4 ,consciousness1 then1 does not appear to itself chopped up in bits4 ,such words as 'chain' or 'train' do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance4 ,it is nothing jointed2 it flows4 ,a 'river' or a 'stream' are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described4 ,in talking of it hereafter1 let us call it the stream of thought1 of consciousness1 or of subjective life4 99 99 99 99 99 ,but now there appears1 even within the limits of the same self1 and between thoughts all of which alike have this same sense of belonging together1 a kind of jointing and separateness among the parts1 of which this statement seems to take no account4 ,i refer to the breaks that are produced by sudden contrasts in the quality of the successive segments of the stream of thought ,if the words 'chain' and 'train' had no natural fitness in them1 how came such words to be used at all8 ,does not a loud explosion rend the consciousness upon which it abruptly breaks1 in twain8 ,does not every sudden shock1 appearance of a new object1 or change in a sensation1 create a real interruption1 sensibly felt as such1 which cuts the conscious stream across at the moment at which it appears8 ,do not such interruptions smite us every hour of our lives1 and have we the right1 in their presence1 still to call our consciousness a continuous stream8 ,this objection is based partly on a confusion and partly on a superficial introspective view4 ,the confusion is between the thoughts themselves1 taken as subjective facts1 and the things of which they are aware4 ,it is natural to make this confusion1 but easy to avoid it when once put on one's guard4 ,the things are discrete and discontinuous2 they do pass before us in a train or chain1 making often explosive appearances and rending each other in twain4 ,but their comings and goings and contrasts no more break the flow of the thought that thinks them than they break the time and the space in which they lie4 ,a silence may be broken by a thunder-clap1 and we may be so stunned and confused for a moment by the shock as to give no instant account to ourselves of what has happened4 ,but that very confusion is a mental state1 and a state that passes us straight over from the silence to the sound4 ,the transition between the thought of one object and the thought of another is no more a break in the thought than a joint in a bamboo is a break in the wood4 ,it is a part of the consciousness as much as the joint is a part of the bamboo4 ,the superficial introspective view is the overlooking1 even when the things are contrasted with each other most violently1 of the large amount of affinity that may still remain between the thoughts by whose means they are cognized4 ,into the awareness of the thunder itself the awareness of the previous silence creeps and continues2 for what we hear when the thunder crashes is not thunder pure1 but thunder-breaking-upon-silence-and-contra sting-with-it4#bbf ,our feeling of the same objective thunder1 coming in this way1 is quite different from what it would be were the thunder a continuation of previous thunder4 ,the thunder itself we believe to abolish and exclude the silence2 but the feeling of the thunder is also a feeling of the silence as just gone2 and it would be difficult to find in the actual concrete consciousness of man a feeling so limited to the present as not to have an inkling of anything that went before4 ,here1 again1 language works against our perception of the truth4 ,we name our thoughts simply1 each after its thing1 as if each knew its own thing and nothing else4 ,what each really knows is clearly the thing it is named for1 with dimly perhaps a thousand other things4 ,it ought to be named after all of them1 but it never is4 ,some of them are always things known a moment ago more clearly2 others are things to be known more clearly a moment hence4#bbg ,our own bodily position1 attitude1 condition1 is one of the things of which some awareness1 however inattentive1 invariably accompanies the knowledge of whatever else we know4 ,we think2 and as we think we feel our bodily selves as the seat of the thinking4 ,if the thinking be our thinking1 it must be suffused through all its parts with that peculiar warmth and intimacy that make it come as ours4 ,whether the warmth and intimacy be anything more than the feeling of the same old body always there1 is a matter for the next chapter to decide4 ,whatever the content of the ego may be1 it is habitually felt with everything else by us humans1 and must form a liaison between all the things of which we become successively aware4#bbh ,on this gradualness in the changes of our mental content the principles of nerve-action can throw some more light4 ,when studying1 in ,chapter ,,iii1 the summation of nervous activities1 we saw that no state of the brain can be supposed instantly to die away4 ,if a new state comes1 the inertia of the old state will still be there and modify the result accordingly4 ,of course we cannot tell1 in our ignorance1 what in each instance the modifications ought to be4 ,the commonest modifications in sense-perception are known as the phenomena of contrast4 ,in sthetics they are the feelings of delight or displeasure which certain particular orders in a series of impressions give4 ,in thought1 strictly and narrowly so called1 they are unquestionably that consciousness of the whence and the whither that always accompanies its flows4 ,if recently the brain-tract a was vividly excited1 and then b1 and now vividly c1 the total present consciousness is not produced simply by c's excitement1 but also by the dying vibrations of a and b as well4 ,if we want to represent the brain-process we must write it thus3 abc--three different processes coexisting1 and correlated with them a thought which is no one of the three thoughts which they would have produced had each of them occurred alone4 ,but whatever this fourth thought may exactly be1 it seems impossible that it should not be something like each of the three other thoughts whose tracts are concerned in its production1 though in a fast-waning phase4 ,it all goes back to what we said in another connection only a few pages ago 7p4 #bcc74 ,as the total neurosis changes1 so does the total psychosis change4 ,but as the changes of neurosis are never absolutely discontinuous1 so must the successive psychoses shade gradually into each other1 although their rate of change may be much faster at one moment than at the next4 99 99 99 99 99 ,this difference in the rate of change lies at the basis of a difference of subjective states of which we ought immediately to speak4 ,when the rate is slow we are aware of the object of our thought in a comparatively restful and stable way4 ,when rapid1 we are aware of a passage1 a relation1 a transition from it1 or between it and something else4 ,as we take1 in fact1 a general view of the wonderful stream of our consciousness1 what strikes us first is this different pace of its parts4 ,like a bird's life1 it seems to be made of an alternation of flights and perchings4 ,the rhythm of language expresses this1 where every thought is expressed in a sentence1 and every sentence closed by a period4 ,the resting-places are usually occupied by sensorial imaginations of some sort1 whose peculiarity is that they can be held before the mind for an indefinite time1 and contemplated without changing2 the places of flight are filled with thoughts of relations1 static or dynamic1 that for the most part obtain between the matters contemplated in the periods of comparative rest4 ,let us call the resting-places the 'substantive parts1' and the places of flight the 'transitive parts1' of the stream of thought4 ,it then appears that the main end of our thinking is at all times the attainment of some other substantive part than the one from which we have just been dislodged4 ,and we may say that the main use of the transitive parts is to lead us from one substantive conclusion to another4 ,now it is very difficult1 introspectively1 to see the transitive parts for what they really are4 ,if they are but flights to a conclusion1 stopping them to look at them before the conclusion is reached is really annihilating them4 ,whilst if we wait till the conclusion be reached1 it so exceeds them in vigor and stability that it quite eclipses and swallows them up in its glare4 ,let anyone try to cut a thought across in the middle and get a look at its section1 and he will see how difficult the introspective observation of the transitive tracts is4 ,the rush of the thought is so headlong that it almost always brings us up at the conclusion before we can arrest it4 ,or if our purpose is nimble enough and we do arrest it1 it ceases forthwith to be itself4 ,as a snow-flake crystal caught in the warm hand is no longer a crystal but a drop1 so1 instead of catching the feeling of relation moving to its term1 we find we have caught some substantive thing1 usually the last word we were pronouncing1 statically taken1 and with its function1 tendency1 and particular meaning in the sentence quite evaporated4 ,the attempt at introspective analysis in these cases is in fact like seizing a spinning top to catch its motion1 or trying to turn up the gas quickly enough to see how the darkness looks4 ,and the challenge to produce these psychoses1 which is sure to be thrown by doubting psychologists at anyone who contends for their existence1 is as unfair as ,zeno's treatment of the advocates of motion1 when1 asking them to point out in what place an arrow is when it moves1 he argues the falsity of their thesis from their inability to make to so preposterous a question an immediate reply4 ,the results of this introspective difficulty are baleful4 ,if to hold fast and observe the transitive parts of thought's stream be so hard1 then the great blunder to which all schools are liable must be the failure to register them1 and the undue emphasizing of the more substantive parts of the stream4 ,were we not ourselves a moment since in danger of ignoring any feeling transitive between the silence and the thunder1 and of treating their boundary as a sort of break in the mind8 ,now such ignoring as this has historically worked in two ways4 ,one set of thinkers have been led by it to ,sensationalism4 ,unable to lay their hands on any coarse feelings corresponding to the innumerable relations and forms of connection between the facts of the world1 finding no named subjective modifications mirroring such relations1 they have for the most part denied that feelings of relation exist1 and many of them1 like ,hume1 have gone so far as to deny the reality of most relations out of the mind as well as in it4 ,substantive psychoses1 sensations and their copies and derivatives1 juxtaposed like dominoes in a game1 but really separate1 everything else verbal illusion1--such is the upshot of this view4#bbi ,the ,intellectualists1 on the other hand1 unable to give up the reality of relations extra mentem1 but equally unable to point to any distinct substantive feelings in which they were known1 have made the same admission that the feelings do not exist4 ,but they have drawn an opposite conclusion4 ,the relations must be known1 they say1 in something that is no feeling1 no mental modification continuous and consubstantial with the subjective tissue out of which sensations and other substantive states are made4 ,they are known1 these relations1 by something that lies on an entirely different plane1 by an actus purus of ,thought1 ,intellect1 or ,reason1 all written with capitals and considered to mean something unutterably superior to any fact of sensibility whatever4 ,but from our point of view both ,intellectualists and ,sensationalists are wrong4 ,if there be such things as feelings at all1 then so surely as relations between objects exist in rerum natur1 so surely1 and more surely1 do feelings exist to which these relations are known4 ,there is not a conjunction or a preposition1 and hardly an adverbial phrase1 syntactic form1 or inflection of voice1 in human speech1 that does not express some shading or other of relation which we at some moment actually feel to exist between the larger objects of our thought4 ,if we speak objectively1 it is the real relations that appear revealed2 if we speak subjectively1 it is the stream of consciousness that matches each of them by an inward coloring of its own4 ,in either case the relations are numberless1 and no existing language is capable of doing justice to all their shades4 ,we ought to say a feeling of and1 a feeling of if1 a feeling of but1 and a feeling of by1 quite as readily as we say a feeling of blue or a feeling of cold4 ,yet we do not3 so inveterate has our habit become of recognizing the existence of the substantive parts alone1 that language almost refuses to lend itself to any other use4 ,the ,empiricists have always dwelt on its influence in making us suppose that where we have a separate name1 a separate thing must needs be there to correspond with it2 and they have rightly denied the existence of the mob of abstract entities1 principles1 and forces1 in whose favor no other evidence than this could be brought up4 ,but they have said nothing of that obverse error1 of which we said a word in ,chapter ,,vii1 7see p4 #aie71 of supposing that where there is no name no entity can exist4 ,all dumb or anonymous psychic states have1 owing to this error1 been coolly suppressed2 or1 if recognized at all1 have been named after the substantive perception they led to1 as thoughts 'about' this object or 'about' that1 the stolid word about engulfing all their delicate idiosyncrasies in its monotonous sound4 ,thus the greater and greater accentuation and isolation of the substantive parts have continually gone on4 ,once more take a look at the brain4 ,we believe the brain to be an organ whose internal equilibrium is always in a state of change1--the change affecting every part4 ,the pulses of change are doubtless more violent in one place than in another1 their rhythm more rapid at this time than at that4 ,as in a kaleidoscope revolving at a uniform rate1 although the figures are always rearranging themselves1 there are instants during which the transformation seems minute and interstitial and almost absent1 followed by others when it shoots with magical rapidity1 relatively stable forms thus alternating with forms we should not distinguish if seen again2 so in the brain the perpetual rearrangement must result in some forms of tension lingering relatively long1 whilst others simply come and pass4 ,but if consciousness corresponds to the fact of rearrangement itself1 why1 if the rearrangement stop not1 should the consciousness ever cease8 ,and if a lingering rearrangement brings with it one kind of consciousness1 why should not a swift rearrangement bring another kind of consciousness as peculiar as the rearrangement itself8 ,the lingering consciousnesses1 if of simple objects1 we call 'sensations' or 'images1' according as they are vivid or faint2 if of complex objects1 we call them 'percepts' when vivid1 'concepts' or 'thoughts' when faint4 ,for the swift consciousnesses we have only those names of 'transitive states1' or 'feelings of relation1' which we have used4#bcj ,as the brain-changes are continuous1 so do all these consciousnesses melt into each other like dissolving views4 ,properly they are but one protracted consciousness1 one unbroken stream4 ,feelings of ,tendency4 ,so much for the transitive states4 ,but there are other unnamed states or qualities of states that are just as important and just as cognitive as they1 and just as much unrecognized by the traditional sensationalist and intellectualist philosophies of mind4 ,the first fails to find them at all1 the second finds their cognitive function1 but denies that anything in the way of feeling has a share in bringing it about4 ,examples will make clear what these inarticulate psychoses1 due to waxing and waning excitements of the brain1 are like4#bca ,suppose three successive persons say to us3 ',wait6' ',hark6' ',look6' ,our consciousness is thrown into three quite different attitudes of expectancy1 although no definite object is before it in any one of the three cases4 ,leaving out different actual bodily attitudes1 and leaving out the reverberating images of the three words1 which are of course diverse1 probably no one will deny the existence of a residual conscious affection1 a sense of the direction from which an impression is about to come1 although no positive impression is yet there4 ,meanwhile we have no names for the psychoses in question but the names hark1 look1 and wait4 ,suppose we try to recall a forgotten name4 ,the state of our consciousness is peculiar4 ,there is a gap therein2 but no mere gap4 ,it is a gap that is intensely active4 ,a sort of wraith of the name is in it1 beckoning us in a given direction1 making us at moments tingle with the sense of our closeness1 and then letting us sink back without the longed-for term4 ,if wrong names are proposed to us1 this singularly definite gap acts immediately so as to negate them4 ,they do not fit into its mould4 ,and the gap of one word does not feel like the gap of another1 all empty of content as both might seem necessarily to be when described as gaps4 ,when ,i vainly try to recall the name of ,spalding1 my consciousness is far removed from what it is when ,i vainly try to recall the name of ,bowles4 ,here some ingenious persons will say3 ,how can the two consciousnesses be different when the terms which might make them different are not there8 ,all that is there1 so long as the effort to recall is vain1 is the bare effort itself4 ,how should that differ in the two cases8 ,you are making it seem to differ by prematurely filling it out with the different names1 although these1 by the hypothesis1 have not yet come4 ,stick to the two efforts as they are1 without naming them after facts not yet existent1 and you'll be quite unable to designate any point in which they differ4 ,designate1 truly enough4 ,we can only designate the difference by borrowing the names of objects not yet in the mind4 ,which is to say that our psychological vocabulary is wholly inadequate to name the differences that exist1 even such strong differences as these4 ,but namelessness is compatible with existence4 ,there are innumerable consciousnesses of emptiness1 no one of which taken in itself has a name1 but all different from each other4 ,the ordinary way is to assume that they are all emptinesses of consciousness1 and so the same state4 ,but the feeling of an absence is toto clo other than the absence of a feeling4 ,it is an intense feeling4 ,the rhythm of a lost word may be there without a sound to clothe it2 or the evanescent sense of something which is the initial vowel or consonant may mock us fitfully1 without growing more distinct4 ,every one must know the tantalizing effect of the blank rhythm of some forgotten verse1 restlessly dancing in one's mind1 striving to be filled out with words4 ,again1 what is the strange difference between an experience tasted for the first time and the same experience recognized as familiar1 as having been enjoyed before1 though we cannot name it or say where or when8 ,a tune1 an odor1 a flavor sometimes carry this inarticulate feeling of their familiarity so deep into our consciousness that we are fairly shaken by its mysterious emotional power4 ,but strong and characteristic as this psychosis is--it probably is due to the submaximal excitement of wide-spreading associational brain-tracts--the only name we have for all its shadings is 'sense of familiarity4' ,when we read such phrases as 'naught but1' 'either one or the other1' 'a is b1 but1' 'although it is1 nevertheless1' 'it is an excluded middle1 there is no tertium quid1' and a host of other verbal skeletons of logical relation1 is it true that there is nothing more in our minds than the words themselves as they pass8 ,what then is the meaning of the words which we think we understand as we read8 ,what makes that meaning different in one phrase from what it is in the other8 ',who8' ',when8' ',where8' ,is the difference of felt meaning in these interrogatives nothing more than their difference of sound8 ,and is it not 7just like the difference of sound itself7 known and understood in an affection of consciousness correlative to it1 though so impalpable to direct examination8 ,is not the same true of such negatives as 'no1' 'never1' 'not yet'8 ,the truth is that large tracts of human speech are nothing but signs of direction in thought1 of which direction we nevertheless have an acutely discriminative sense1 though no definite sensorial image plays any part in it whatsoever4 ,sensorial images are stable psychic facts2 we can hold them still and look at them as long as we like4 ,these bare images of logical movement1 on the contrary1 are psychic transitions1 always on the wing1 so to speak1 and not to be glimpsed except in flight4 ,their function is to lead from one set of images to another4 ,as they pass1 we feel both the waxing and the waning images in a way altogether peculiar and a way quite different from the way of their full presence4 ,if we try to hold fast the feeling of direction1 the full presence comes and the feeling of direction is lost4 ,the blank verbal scheme of the logical movement gives us the fleeting sense of the movement as we read it1 quite as well as does a rational sentence awakening definite imaginations by its words4 ,what is that first instantaneous glimpse of some one's meaning which we have1 when in vulgar phrase we say we 'twig' it8 ,surely an altogether specific affection of our mind4 ,and has the reader never asked himself what kind of a mental fact is his intention of saying a thing before he has said it8 ,it is an entirely definite intention1 distinct from all other intentions1 an absolutely distinct state of consciousness1 therefore2 and yet how much of it consists of definite sensorial images1 either of words or of things8 ,hardly anything6 ,linger1 and the words and things come into the mind2 the anticipatory intention1 the divination is there no more4 ,but as the words that replace it arrive1 it welcomes them successively and calls them right if they agree with it1 it rejects them and calls them wrong if they do not4 ,it has therefore a nature of its own of the most positive sort1 and yet what can we say about it without using words that belong to the later mental facts that replace it8 ,the intention to-say-so-and-so is the only name it can receive4 ,one may admit that a good third of our psychic life consists in these rapid premonitory perspective views of schemes of thought not yet articulate4 ,how comes it about that a man reading something aloud for the first time is able immediately to emphasize all his words aright1 unless from the very first he have a sense of at least the form of the sentence yet to come1 which sense is fused with his consciousness of the present word1 and modifies its emphasis in his mind so as to make him give it the proper accent as he utters it8 ,emphasis of this kind is almost altogether a matter of grammatical construction4 ,if we read 'no more' we expect presently to come upon a 'than'2 if we read 'however' at the outset of a sentence it is a 'yet1' a 'still1' or a 'nevertheless1' that we expect4 ,a noun in a certain position demands a verb in a certain mood and number1 in another position it expects a relative pronoun4 ,adjectives call for nouns1 verbs for adverbs1 etc41 etc4 ,and this foreboding of the coming grammatical scheme combined with each successive uttered word is so practically accurate that a reader incapable of understanding four ideas of the book he is reading aloud1 can nevertheless read it with the most delicately modulated expression of intelligence4 ,some will interpret these facts by calling them all cases in which certain images1 by laws of association1 awaken others so very rapidly that we think afterwards we felt the very tendencies of the nascent images to arise1 before they were actually there4 ,for this school the only possible materials of consciousness are images of a perfectly definite nature4 ,tendencies exist1 but they are facts for the outside psychologist rather than for the subject of the observation4 ,the tendency is thus a psychical zero2 only its results are felt4 ,now what ,i contend for1 and accumulate examples to show1 is that 'tendencies' are not only descriptions from without1 but that they are among the objects of the stream1 which is thus aware of them from within1 and must be described as in very large measure constituted of feelings of tendency1 often so vague that we are unable to name them at all4 ,it is1 in short1 the re-instatement of the vague to its proper place in our mental life which ,i am so anxious to press on the attention4 ,mr4 ,galton and ,prof4 ,huxley have1 as we shall see in ,chapter ,,xviii1 made one step in advance in exploding the ridiculous theory of ,hume and ,berkeley that we can have no images but of perfectly definite things4 ,another is made in the overthrow of the equally ridiculous notion that1 whilst simple objective qualities are revealed to our knowledge in subjective feelings1 relations are not4 ,but these reforms are not half sweeping and radical enough4 ,what must be admitted is that the definite images of traditional psychology form but the very smallest part of our minds as they actually live4 ,the traditional psychology talks like one who should say a river consists of nothing but pailsful1 spoonsful1 quartpotsful1 barrelsful1 and other moulded forms of water4 ,even were the pails and the pots all actually standing in the stream1 still between them the free water would continue to flow4 ,it is just this free water of consciousness that psychologists resolutely overlook4 ,every definite image in the mind is steeped and dyed in the free water that flows round it4 ,with it goes the sense of its relations1 near and remote1 the dying echo of whence it came to us1 the dawning sense of whither it is to lead4 ,the significance1 the value1 of the image is all in this halo or penumbra that surrounds and escorts it1--or rather that is fused into one with it and has become bone of its bone and flesh of its flesh2 leaving it1 it is true1 an image of the same thing it was before1 but making it an image of that thing newly taken and freshly understood4 ,what is that shadowy scheme of the 'form' of an opera1 play1 or book1 which remains in our mind and on which we pass judgment when the actual thing is done8 ,what is our notion of a scientific or philosophical system8 ,great thinkers have vast premonitory glimpses of schemes of relation between terms1 which hardly even as verbal images enter the mind1 so rapid is the whole process4#bcb ,we all of us have this permanent consciousness of whither our thought is going4 ,it is a feeling like any other1 a feeling of what thoughts are next to arise1 before they have arisen4 ,this field of view of consciousness varies very much in extent1 depending largely on the degree of mental freshness or fatigue4 ,when very fresh1 our minds carry an immense horizon with them4 ,the present image shoots its perspective far before it1 irradiating in advance the regions in which lie the thoughts as yet unborn4 ,under ordinary conditions the halo of felt relations is much more circumscribed4 ,and in states of extreme brain-fag the horizon is narrowed almost to the passing word1--the associative machinery1 however1 providing for the next word turning up in orderly sequence1 until at last the tired thinker is led to some kind of a conclusion4 ,at certain moments he may find himself doubting whether his thoughts have not come to a full stop2 but the vague sense of a plus ultra makes him ever struggle on towards a more definite expression of what it may be2 whilst the slowness of his utterance shows how difficult1 under such conditions1 the labor of thinking must be4 ,the awareness that our definite thought has come to a stop is an entirely different thing from the awareness that our thought is definitively completed4 ,the expression of the latter state of mind is the falling inflection which betokens that the sentence is ended1 and silence4 ,the expression of the former state is 'hemming and hawing1' or else such phrases as 'et cetera1' or 'and so forth4' ,but notice that every part of the sentence to be left incomplete feels differently as it passes1 by reason of the premonition we have that we shall be unable to end it4 ,the 'and so forth' casts its shadow back1 and is as integral a part of the object of the thought as the distinctest of images would be4 ,again1 when we use a common noun1 such as man1 in a universal sense1 as signifying all possible men1 we are fully aware of this intention on our part1 and distinguish it carefully from our intention when we mean a certain group of men1 or a solitary individual before us4 ,in the chapter on ,conception we shall see how important this difference of intention is4 ,it casts its influence over the whole of the sentence1 both before and after the spot in which the word man is used4 ,nothing is easier than to symbolize all these facts in terms of brain-action4 ,just as the echo of the whence1 the sense of the starting point of our thought1 is probably due to the dying excitement of processes but a moment since vividly aroused2 so the sense of the whither1 the foretaste of the terminus1 must be due to the waxing excitement of tracts or processes which1 a moment hence1 will be the cerebral correlatives of some thing which a moment hence will be vividly present to the thought4 ,represented by a curve1 the neurosis underlying consciousness must at any moment be like this3 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #bg4 ,each point of the horizontal line stands for some brain-tract or process4 ,the height of the curve above the line stands for the intensity of the process4 ,all the processes are present1 in the intensities shown by the curve4 ,but those before the latter's apex were more intense a moment ago2 those after it will be more intense a moment hence4 ,if ,i recite a1 b1 c1 d1 e1 f1 g1 at the moment of uttering d1 neither a1 b1 c1 nor e1 f1 g1 are out of my consciousness altogether1 but both1 after their respective fashions1 'mix their dim lights' with the stronger one of the d1 because their neuroses are both awake in some degree4 ,there is a common class of mistakes which shows how brain-processes begin to be excited before the thoughts attached to them are due--due1 that is1 in substantive and vivid form4 ,i mean those mistakes of speech or writing by which1 in ,dr4 ,carpenter's words1 we mispronounce or misspell a word1 by introducing into it a letter or syllable of some other1 whose turn is shortly to come2 or1 it may be1 the whole of the anticipated word is substituted for the one which ought to have been expressed4#bcc ,in these cases one of two things must have happened3 either some local accident of nutrition blocks the process that is due1 so that other processes discharge that ought as yet to be but nascently aroused2 or some opposite local accident furthers the latter processes and makes them explode before their time4 ,in the chapter on ,association of ,ideas1 numerous instances will come before us of the actual effect on consciousness of neuroses not yet maximally aroused4 ,it is just like the 'overtones' in music4 ,different instruments give the 'same note1' but each in a different voice1 because each gives more than that note1 namely1 various upper harmonics of it which differ from one instrument to another4 ,they are not separately heard by the ear2 they blend with the fundamental note1 and suffuse it1 and alter it2 and even so do the waxing and waning brain-processes at every moment blend with and suffuse and alter the psychic effect of the processes which are at their culminating point4 99 99 99 99 99 ,let us use the words psychic overtone1 suffusion1 or fringe1 to designate the influence of a faint brain-process upon our thought1 as it makes it aware of relations and objects but dimly perceived4#bcd ,if we then consider the cognitive function of different states of mind1 we may feel assured that the difference between those that are mere 'acquaintance1' and those that are 'knowledges-about' 7see p4 #bba7 is reducible almost entirely to the absence or presence of psychic fringes or overtones4 ,knowledge about a thing is knowledge of its relations4 ,acquaintance with it is limitation to the bare impression which it makes4 ,of most of its relations we are only aware in the penumbral nascent way of a 'fringe' of unarticulated affinities about it4 ,and1 before passing to the next topic in order1 ,i must say a little of this sense of affinity1 as itself one of the most interesting features of the subjective stream4 ,in all our voluntary thinking there is some topic or subject about which all the members of the thought revolve4 ,half the time this topic is a problem1 a gap we cannot yet fill with a definite picture1 word1 or phrase1 but which1 in the manner described some time back1 influences us in an intensely active and determinate psychic way4 ,whatever may be the images and phrases that pass before us1 we feel their relation to this aching gap4 ,to fill it up is our thoughts' destiny4 ,some bring us nearer to that consummation4 ,some the gap negates as quite irrelevant4 ,each swims in a felt fringe of relations of which the aforesaid gap is the term4 ,or instead of a definite gap we may merely carry a mood of interest about with us4 ,then1 however vague the mood1 it will still act in the same way1 throwing a mantle of felt affinity over such representations1 entering the mind1 as suit it1 and tingeing with the feeling of tediousness or discord all those with which it has no concern4 ,relation1 then1 to our topic or interest is constantly felt in the fringe1 and particularly the relation of harmony and discord1 of furtherance or hindrance of the topic4 ,when the sense of furtherance is there1 we are 'all right2' with the sense of hindrance we are dissatisfied and perplexed1 and cast about us for other thoughts4 ,now any thought the quality of whose fringe lets us feel ourselves 'all right1' is an acceptable member of our thinking1 whatever kind of thought it may otherwise be4 ,provided we only feel it to have a place in the scheme of relations in which the interesting topic also lies1 that is quite sufficient to make of it a relevant and appropriate portion of our train of ideas4 ,for the important thing about a train of thought is its conclusion4 ,that is the meaning1 or1 as we say1 the topic of the thought4 ,that is what abides when all its other members have faded from memory4 ,usually this conclusion is a word or phrase or particular image1 or practical attitude or resolve1 whether rising to answer a problem or fill a pre-existing gap that worried us1 or whether accidentally stumbled on in revery4 ,in either case it stands out from the other segments of the stream by reason of the peculiar interest attaching to it4 ,this interest arrests it1 makes a sort of crisis of it when it comes1 induces attention upon it and makes us treat it in a substantive way4 ,the parts of the stream that precede these substantive conclusions are but the means of the latter's attainment4 ,and1 provided the same conclusion be reached1 the means may be as mutable as we like1 for the 'meaning' of the stream of thought will be the same4 ,what difference does it make what the means are8 ,qu'importe le flacon1 pourvu qu'on ait l'ivresse8 ,the relative unimportance of the means appears from the fact that when the conclusion is there1 we have always forgotten most of the steps preceding its attainment4 ,when we have uttered a proposition1 we are rarely able a moment afterwards to recall our exact words1 though we can express it in different words easily enough4 ,the practical upshot of a book we read remains with us1 though we may not recall one of its sentences4 ,the only paradox would seem to lie in supposing that the fringe of felt affinity and discord can be the same in two heterogeneous sets of images4 ,take a train of words passing through the mind and leading to a certain conclusion on the one hand1 and on the other hand an almost wordless set of tactile1 visual and other fancies leading to the same conclusion4 ,can the halo1 fringe1 or scheme in which we feel the words to lie be the same as that in which we feel the images to lie8 ,does not the discrepancy of terms involve a discrepancy of felt relations among them8 ,if the terms be taken qu mere sensations1 it assuredly does4 ,for instance1 the words may rhyme with each other1--the visual images can have no such affinity as that4 ,but qu thoughts1 qu sensations understood1 the words have contracted by long association fringes of mutual repugnance or affinity with each other and with the conclusion1 which run exactly parallel with like fringes in the visual1 tactile and other ideas4 ,the most important element of these fringes is1 ,i repeat1 the mere feeling of harmony or discord1 of a right or wrong direction in the thought4 ,dr4 ,campbell has1 so far as ,i know1 made the best analysis of this fact1 and his words1 often quoted1 deserve to be quoted again4 ,the chapter is entitled ,what is the cause that nonsense so often escapes being detected1 both by the writer and by the reader8 ,the author1 in answering this question1 makes 7inter alia7 the following remarks3#bce ,that connection he says or relation which comes gradually to subsist among the different words of a language1 in the minds of those who speak it1444 is merely consequent on this1 that those words are employed as signs of connected or related things4 ,it is an axiom in geometry that things equal to the same thing are equal to one another4 ,it may1 in like manner1 be admitted as an axiom in psychology that ideas associated by the same idea will associate one another4 ,hence it will happen that if1 from experiencing the connection of two things1 there results1 as infallibly there will result1 an association between the ideas or notions annexed to them1 as each idea will moreover be associated by its sign1 there will likewise be an association between the ideas of the signs4 ,hence the sounds considered as signs will be conceived to have a connection analogous to that which subsisteth among the things signified2 ,i say1 the sounds considered as signs2 for this way of considering them constantly attends us in speaking1 writing1 hearing1 and reading4 ,when we purposely abstract from it1 and regard them merely as sounds1 we are instantly sensible that they are quite unconnected1 and have no other relation than what ariseth from similitude of tone or accent4 ,but to consider them in this manner commonly results from previous design1 and requires a kind of effort which is not exerted in the ordinary use of speech4 ,in ordinary use they are regarded solely as signs1 or1 rather1 they are confounded with the things they signify2 the consequence of which is that1 in the manner just now explained1 we come insensibly to conceive a connection among them of a very different sort from that of which sounds are naturally susceptible4 ,now this conception1 habit1 or tendency of the mind1 call it which you please1 is considerably strengthened by the frequent use of language and by the structure of it4 ,language is the sole channel through which we communicate our knowledge and discoveries to others1 and through which the knowledge and discoveries of others are communicated to us4 ,by reiterated recourse to this medium1 it necessarily happens that when things are related to each other1 the words signifying those things are more commonly brought together in discourse4 ,hence the words and names by themselves1 by customary vicinity1 contract in the fancy a relation additional to that which they derive purely from being the symbols of related things4 ,farther1 this tendency is strengthened by the structure of language4 ,all languages whatever1 even the most barbarous1 as far as hath yet appeared1 are of a regular and analogical make4 ,the consequence is that similar relations in things will be expressed similarly2 that is1 by similar inflections1 derivations1 compositions1 arrangement of words1 or juxtaposition of particles1 according to the genius or grammatical form of the particular tongue4 ,now as1 by the habitual use of a language 7even though it were quite irregular71 the signs would insensibly become connected in the imagination wherever the things signified are connected in nature1 so1 by the regular structure of a language1 this connection among the signs is conceived as analogous to that which subsisteth among their archetypes4 ,if we know ,english and ,french and begin a sentence in ,french1 all the later words that come are ,french2 we hardly ever drop into ,english4 ,and this affinity of the ,french words for each other is not something merely operating mechanically as a brain-law1 it is something we feel at the time4 ,our understanding of a ,french sentence heard never falls to so low an ebb that we are not aware that the words linguistically belong together4 ,our attention can hardly so wander that if an ,english word be suddenly introduced we shall not start at the change4 ,such a vague sense as this of the words belonging together is the very minimum of fringe that can accompany them1 if 'thought' at all4 ,usually the vague perception that all the words we hear belong to the same language and to the same special vocabulary in that language1 and that the grammatical sequence is familiar1 is practically equivalent to an admission that what we hear is sense4 ,but if an unusual foreign word be introduced1 if the grammar trip1 or if a term from an incongruous vocabulary suddenly appear1 such as 'rat-trap' or 'plumber's bill' in a philosophical discourse1 the sentence detonates1 as it were1 we receive a shock from the incongruity1 and the drowsy assent is gone4 ,the feeling of rationality in these cases seems rather a negative than a positive thing1 being the mere absence of shock1 or sense of discord1 between the terms of thought4 ,so delicate and incessant is this recognition by the mind of the mere fitness of words to be mentioned together that the slightest misreading1 such as 'casualty' for 'causality1' or 'perpetual' for 'perceptual1' will be corrected by a listener whose attention is so relaxed that he gets no idea of the meaning of the sentence at all4 ,conversely1 if words do belong to the same vocabulary1 and if the grammatical structure is correct1 sentences with absolutely no meaning may be uttered in good faith and pass unchallenged4 ,discourses at prayer-meetings1 reshuffling the same collection of cant phrases1 and the whole genus of penny-a-line-isms and newspaper-reporter's flourishes give illustrations of this4 ,the birds filled the tree-tops with their morning song1 making the air moist1 cool1 and pleasant1 is a sentence ,i remember reading once in a report of some athletic exercises in ,jerome ,park4 ,it was probably written unconsciously by the hurried reporter1 and read uncritically by many readers4 ,an entire volume of #ghd pages lately published in ,boston#bcf is composed of stuff like this passage picked out at random3 ,the flow of the efferent fluids of all these vessels from their outlets at the terminal loop of each culminate link on the surface of the nuclear organism is continuous as their respective atmospheric fruitage up to the altitudinal limit of their expansibility1 whence1 when atmosphered by like but coalescing essences from higher altitudes1--those sensibly expressed as the essential qualities of external forms1--they descend1 and become assimilated by the afferents of the nuclear organism4#bcg ,there are every year works published whose contents show them to be by real lunatics4 ,to the reader1 the book quoted from seems pure nonsense from beginning to end4 ,it is impossible to divine1 in such a case1 just what sort of feeling of rational relation between the words may have appeared to the author's mind4 ,the border line between objective sense and nonsense is hard to draw2 that between subjective sense and nonsense1 impossible4 ,subjectively1 any collocation of words may make sense--even the wildest words in a dream--if one only does not doubt their belonging together4 ,take the obscurer passages in ,hegel3 it is a fair question whether the rationality included in them be anything more than the fact that the words all belong to a common vocabulary1 and are strung together on a scheme of predication and relation1--immediacy1 self-relation1 and what not1--which has habitually recurred4 ,yet there seems no reason to doubt that the subjective feeling of the rationality of these sentences was strong in the writer as he penned them1 or even that some readers by straining may have reproduced it in themselves4 99 99 99 99 99 ,to sum up1 certain kinds of verbal associate1 certain grammatical expectations fulfilled1 stand for a good part of our impression that a sentence has a meaning and is dominated by the ,unity of one ,thought4 ,nonsense in grammatical form sounds half rational2 sense with grammatical sequence upset sounds nonsensical2 e4g41 ,elba the ,napoleon ,english faith had banished broken to be ,saint because ,helena at4 ,finally1 there is about each word the psychic 'overtone' of feeling that it brings us nearer to a forefelt conclusion4 ,suffuse all the words of a sentence1 as they pass1 with these three fringes or haloes of relation1 let the conclusion seem worth arriving at1 and all will admit the sentence to be an expression of thoroughly continuous1 unified1 and rational thought4#bch ,each word1 in such a sentence1 is felt1 not only as a word1 but as having a meaning4 ,the 'meaning' of a word taken thus dynamically in a sentence may be quite different from its meaning when taken statically or without context4 ,the dynamic meaning is usually reduced to the bare fringe we have described1 of felt suitability or unfitness to the context and conclusion4 ,the static meaning1 when the word is concrete1 as 'table1' ',boston1' consists of sensory images awakened2 when it is abstract1 as 'criminal legislation1' 'fallacy1' the meaning consists of other words aroused1 forming the so-called 'definition4' ,hegel's celebrated dictum that pure being is identical with pure nothing results from his taking the words statically1 or without the fringe they wear in a context4 ,taken in isolation1 they agree in the single point of awakening no sensorial images4 ,but taken dynamically1 or as significant1--as thought1--their fringes of relation1 their affinities and repugnances1 their function and meaning1 are felt and understood to be absolutely opposed4 ,such considerations as these remove all appearance of paradox from those cases of extremely deficient visual imagery of whose existence ,mr4 ,galton has made us aware 7see below74 ,an exceptionally intelligent friend informs me that he can frame no image whatever of the appearance of his breakfast-table4 ,when asked how he then remembers it at all1 he says he simple 'knows' that it seated four people1 and was covered with a white cloth on which were a butter-dish1 a coffee-pot1 radishes1 and so forth4 ,the mind-stuff of which this 'knowing' is made seems to be verbal images exclusively4 ,but if the words 'coffee1' 'bacon1' 'muffins1' and 'eggs' lead a man to speak to his cook1 to pay his bills1 and to take measures for the morrow's meal exactly as visual and gustatory memories would1 why are they not1 for all practical intents and purposes1 as good a kind of material in which to think8 ,in fact1 we may suspect them to be for most purposes better than terms with a richer imaginative coloring4 ,the scheme of relationship and the conclusion being the essential things in thinking1 that kind of mind-stuff which is handiest will be the best for the purpose4 ,now words1 uttered or unexpressed1 are the handiest mental elements we have4 ,not only are they very rapidly revivable1 but they are revivable as actual sensations more easily than any other items of our experience4 ,did they not possess some such advantage as this1 it would hardly be the case that the older men are and the more effective as thinkers1 the more1 as a rule1 they have lost their visualizing power and depend on words4 ,this was ascertained by ,mr4 ,galton to be the case with members of the ,royal ,society4 ,the present writer observes it in his own person most distinctly4 ,on the other hand1 a deaf and dumb man can weave his tactile and visual images into a system of thought quite as effective and rational as that of a word-user4 ,the question whether thought is possible without language has been a favorite topic of discussion among philosophers4 ,some interesting reminiscences of his childhood by ,mr4 ,ballard1 a deaf-mute instructor in the ,national ,college at ,washington1 show it to be perfectly possible4 ,a few paragraphs may be quoted here4 ,in consequence of the loss of my hearing in infancy1 ,i was debarred from enjoying the advantages which children in the full possession of their senses derive from the exercises of the common primary school1 from the every-day talk of their school-fellows and playmates1 and from the conversation of their parents and other grown-up persons4 ,i could convey my thoughts and feelings to my parents and brothers by natural signs or pantomime1 and ,i could understand what they said to me by the same medium2 our intercourse being1 however1 confined to the daily routine of home affairs and hardly going beyond the circle of my own observation4444 ,my father adopted a course which he thought would1 in some measure1 compensate me for the loss of my hearing4 ,it was that of taking me with him when business required him to ride abroad2 and he took me more frequently than he did my brothers2 giving1 as the reason for his apparent partiality1 that they could acquire information through the ear1 while ,i depended solely upon my eye for acquaintance with affairs of the outside world4444 ,i have a vivid recollection of the delight ,i felt in watching the different scenes we passed through1 observing the various phases of nature1 both animate and inanimate2 though we did not1 owing to my infirmity1 engage in conversation4 ,it was during those delightful rides1 some two or three years before my initiation into the rudiments of written language1 that ,i began to ask myself the question3 ,how came the world into being8 ,when this question occurred to my mind1 ,i set myself to thinking it over a long time4 ,my curiosity was awakened as to what was the origin of human life in its first appearance upon the earth1 and of vegetable life as well1 and also the cause of the existence of the earth1 sun1 moon1 and stars4 ,i remember at one time when my eye fell upon a very large old stump which we happened to pass in one of our rides1 ,i asked myself1 ',is it possible that the first man that ever came into the world rose out of that stump8 ,but that stump is only a remnant of a once noble magnificent tree1 and how came that tree8 ,why1 it came only by beginning to grow out of the ground just like those little trees now coming up4' ,and ,i dismissed from my mind1 as an absurd idea1 the connection between the origin of man and a decaying old stump4444 ,i have no recollection of what it was that first suggested to me the question as to the origin of things4 ,i had before this time gained ideas of the descent from parent to child1 of the propagation of animals1 and of the production of plants from seeds4 ,the question that occurred to my mind was3 whence came the first man1 the first animal1 and the first plant1 at the remotest distance of time1 before which there was no man1 no animal1 no plant2 since ,i knew they all had a beginning and an end4 ,it is impossible to state the exact order in which these different questions arose1 i4e41 about men1 animals1 plants1 the earth1 sun1 moon1 etc4 ,the lower animals did not receive so much thought as was bestowed upon man and the earth2 perhaps because ,i put man and beast in the same class1 since ,i believed that man would be annihilated and there was no resurrection beyond the grave1--though ,i am told by my mother that1 in answer to my question1 in the case of a deceased uncle who looked to me like a person in sleep1 she had tried to make me understand that he would awake in the far future4 ,it was my belief that man and beast derived their being from the same source1 and were to be laid down in the dust in a state of annihilation4 ,considering the brute animal as of secondary importance1 and allied to man on a lower level1 man and the earth were the two things on which my mind dwelled most4 ,i think ,i was five years old1 when ,i began to understand the descent from parent to child and the propagation of animals4 ,i was nearly eleven years old1 when ,i entered the ,institution where ,i was educated2 and ,i remember distinctly that it was at least two years before this time that ,i began to ask myself the question as to the origin of the universe4 ,my age was then about eight1 not over nine years4 ,of the form of the earth1 ,i had no idea in my childhood1 except that1 from a look at a map of the hemispheres1 ,i inferred there were two immense disks of matter lying near each other4 ,i also believed the sun and moon to be round1 flat plates of illuminating matter2 and for those luminaries ,i entertained a sort of reverence on account of their power of lighting and heating the earth4 ,i thought from their coming up and going down1 travelling across the sky in so regular a manner that there must be a certain something having power to govern their course4 ,i believed the sun went into a hole at the west and came out of another at the east1 travelling through a great tube in the earth1 describing the same curve as it seemed to describe in the sky4 ,the stars seemed to me to be tiny lights studded in the sky4 ,the source from which the universe came was the question about which my mind revolved in a vain struggle to grasp it1 or rather to fight the way up to attain to a satisfactory answer4 ,when ,i had occupied myself with this subject a considerable time1 ,i perceived that it was a matter much greater than my mind could comprehend2 and ,i remember well that ,i became so appalled at its mystery and so bewildered at my inability to grapple with it that ,i laid the subject aside and out of my mind1 glad to escape being1 as it were1 drawn into a vortex of inextricable confusion4 ,though ,i felt relieved at this escape1 yet ,i could not resist the desire to know the truth2 and ,i returned to the subject2 but as before1 ,i left it1 after thinking it over for some time4 ,in this state of perplexity1 ,i hoped all the time to get at the truth1 still believing that the more ,i gave thought to the subject1 the more my mind would penetrate the mystery4 ,thus ,i was tossed like a shuttlecock1 returning to the subject and recoiling from it1 till ,i came to school4 ,i remember that my mother once told me about a being up above1 pointing her finger towards the sky and with a solemn look on her countenance4 ,i do not recall the circumstance which led to this communication4 ,when she mentioned the mysterious being up in the sky1 ,i was eager to take hold of the subject1 and plied her with questions concerning the form and appearance of this unknown being1 asking if it was the sun1 moon1 or one of the stars4 ,i knew she meant that there was a living one somewhere up in the sky2 but when ,i realized that she could not answer my questions1 ,i gave it up in despair1 feeling sorrowful that ,i could not obtain a definite idea of the mysterious living one up in the sky4 ,one day1 while we were haying in a field1 there was a series of heavy thunder-claps4 ,i asked one of my brothers where they came from4 ,he pointed to the sky and made a zigzag motion with his finger1 signifying lightning4 ,i imagined there was a great man somewhere in the blue vault1 who made a loud noise with his voice out of it2 and each time ,i heard#bci a thunder-clap ,i was frightened1 and looked up at the sky1 fearing he was speaking a threatening word4#bdj ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #bh4 ,here we may pause4 ,the reader sees by this time that it makes little or no difference in what sort of mind-stuff1 in what quality of imagery1 his thinking goes on4 ,the only images intrinsically important are the halting-places1 the substantive conclusions1 provisional or final1 of the thought4 ,throughout all the rest of the stream1 the feelings of relation are everything1 and the terms related almost naught4 ,these feelings of relation1 these psychic overtones1 halos1 suffusions1 or fringes about the terms1 may be the same in very different systems of imagery4 ,a diagram may help to accentuate this indifference of the mental means where the end is the same4 ,let ,a be some experience from which a number of thinkers start4 ,let ,z be the practical conclusion rationally inferrible from it4 ,one gets to the conclusion by one line1 another by another2 one follows a course of ,english1 another of ,german1 verbal imagery4 ,with one1 visual images predominate2 with another1 tactile4 ,some trains are tinged with emotions1 others not2 some are very abridged1 synthetic and rapid1 others1 hesitating and broken into many steps4 ,but when the penultimate terms of all the trains1 however differing inter se1 finally shoot into the same conclusion1 we say and rightly say1 that all the thinkers have had substantially the same thought4 ,it would probably astound each of them beyond measure to be let into his neighbor's mind and to find how different the scenery there was from that in his own4 ,thought is in fact a kind of ,algebra1 as ,berkeley long ago said1 in which1 though a particular quantity be marked by each letter1 yet to proceed right1 it is not requisite that in every step each letter suggest to your thoughts that particular quantity it was appointed to stand for4 ,mr4 ,lewes has developed this algebra-analogy so well that ,i must quote his words3 ,the leading characteristic of algebra is that of operation on relations4 ,this also is the leading characteristic of ,thought4 ,algebra cannot exist without values1 nor ,thought without ,feelings4 ,the operations are so many blank forms till the values are assigned4 ,words are vacant sounds1 ideas are blank forms1 unless they symbolize images and sensations which are their values4 ,nevertheless it is rigorously true1 and of the greatest importance1 that analysts carry on very extensive operations with blank forms1 never pausing to supply the symbols with values until the calculation is completed2 and ordinary men1 no less than philosophers1 carry on long trains of thought without pausing to translate their ideas 7words7 into images4444 ,suppose some one from a distance shouts 'a lion6' ,at once the man starts in alarm4444 ,to the man the word is not only an 444 expression of all that he has seen and heard of lions1 capable of recalling various experiences1 but is also capable of taking its place in a connected series of thoughts without recalling any of those experiences1 without reviving an image1 however faint1 of the lion--simply as a sign of a certain relation included in the complex so named4 ,like an algebraic symbol it may be operated on without conveying other significance than an abstract relation3 it is a sign of ,danger1 related to fear with all its motor sequences4 ,its logical position suffices4444 ,ideas are substitutions which require a secondary process when what is symbolized by them is translated into the images and experiences it replaces2 and this secondary process is frequently not performed at all1 generally only performed to a very small extent4 ,let anyone closely examine what has passed in his mind when he has constructed a chain of reasoning1 and he will be surprised at the fewness and faintness of the images which have accompanied the ideas4 ,suppose you inform me that 'the blood rushed violently from the man's heart1 quickening his pulse at the sight of his enemy4' ,of the many latent images in this phrase1 how many were salient in your mind and in mine8 ,probably two--the man and his enemy--and these images were faint4 ,images of blood1 heart1 violent rushing1 pulse1 quickening1 and sight1 were either not revived at all1 or were passing shadows4 ,had any such images arisen1 they would have hampered thought1 retarding the logical process of judgment by irrelevant connections4 ,the symbols had substituted relations for these values4444 ,there are no images of two things and three things1 when ,i say 'two and three equal five2' there are simply familiar symbols having precise relations4444 ,the verbal symbol 'horse1' which stands for all our experiences of horses1 serves all the purposes of ,thought1 without recalling one of the images clustered in the perception of horses1 just as the sight of a horse's form serves all the purposes of recognition without recalling the sound of its neighing or its tramp1 its qualities as an animal of draught1 and so forth4#bda ,it need only be added that as the ,algebrist1 though the sequence of his terms is fixed by their relations rather than by their several values1 must give a real value to the final one he reaches2 so the thinker in words must let his concluding word or phrase be translated into its full sensible-image-value1 under penalty of the thought being left unrealized and pale4 ,this is all ,i have to say about the sensible continuity and unity of our thought as contrasted with the apparent discreteness of the words1 images1 and other means by which it seems to be carried on4 ,between all their substantive elements there is 'transitive' consciousness1 and the words and images are 'fringed1' and not as discrete as to a careless view they seem4 ,let us advance now to the next head in our description of ,thought's stream4 #d4 ,human thought appears to deal with objects independent of itself2 that is1 it is cognitive1 or possesses the function of knowing4 ,for ,absolute ,idealism1 the infinite ,thought and its objects are one4 ,the ,objects are1 through being thought2 the eternal ,mind is1 through thinking them4 ,were a human thought alone in the world there would be no reason for any other assumption regarding it4 ,whatever it might have before it would be its vision1 would be there1 in its 'there1' or then1 in its 'then'2 and the question would never arise whether an extra-mental duplicate of it existed or not4 ,the reason why we all believe that the objects of our thoughts have a duplicate existence outside1 is that there are many human thoughts1 each with the same objects1 as we cannot help supposing4 ,the judgment that my thought has the same object as his thought is what makes the psychologist call my thought cognitive of an outer reality4 ,the judgment that my own past thought and my own present thought are of the same object is what makes me take the object out of either and project it by a sort of triangulation into an independent position1 from which it may appear to both4 ,sameness in a multiplicity of objective appearances is thus the basis of our belief in realities outside of thought4#bdb ,in ,chapter ,,xii we shall have to take up the judgment of sameness again4 ,to show that the question of reality being extra-mental or not is not likely to arise in the absence of repeated experiences of the same1 take the example of an altogether unprecedented experience1 such as a new taste in the throat4 ,is it a subjective quality of feeling1 or an objective quality felt8 ,you do not even ask the question at this point4 ,it is simply that taste4 ,but if a doctor hears you describe it1 and says3 ,ha6 ,now you know what heartburn is1 then it becomes a quality already existent extra mentem tuam1 which you in turn have come upon and learned4 ,the first spaces1 times1 things1 qualities1 experienced by the child probably appear1 like the first heartburn1 in this absolute way1 as simple beings1 neither in nor out of thought4 ,but later1 by having other thoughts than this present one1 and making repeated judgments of sameness among their objects1 he corroborates in himself the notion of realities1 past and distant as well as present1 which realities no one single thought either possesses or engenders1 but which all may contemplate and know4 ,this1 as was stated in the last chapter1 is the psychological point of view1 the relatively uncritical non-idealistic point of view of all natural science1 beyond which this book cannot go4 ,a mind which has become conscious of its own cognitive function1 plays what we have called 'the psychologist' upon itself4 ,it not only knows the things that appear before it2 it knows that it knows them4 ,this stage of reflective condition is1 more or less explicitly1 our habitual adult state of mind4 ,it cannot1 however1 be regarded as primitive4 ,the consciousness of objects must come first4 ,we seem to lapse into this primordial condition when consciousness is reduced to a minimum by the inhalation of ansthetics or during a faint4 ,many persons testify that at a certain stage of the ansthetic process objects are still cognized whilst the thought of self is lost4 ,professor ,herzen says3#bdc ,during the syncope there is absolute psychic annihilation1 the absence of all consciousness2 then at the beginning of coming to1 one has at a certain moment a vague1 limitless1 infinite feeling--a sense of existence in general without the least trace of distinction between the me and the not-me4 ,dr4 ,shoemaker of ,philadelphia describes during the deepest conscious stage of ether-intoxication a vision of two endless parallel lines in swift longitudinal motion 444 on a uniform misty background 444 together with a constant sound or whirr1 not loud but distinct 444 which seemed to be connected with the parallel lines4444 ,these phenomena occupied the whole field4 ,there were present no dreams or visions in any way connected with human affairs1 no ideas or impressions akin to anything in past experience1 no emotions1 of course no idea of personality4 ,there was no conception as to what being it was that was regarding the two lines1 or that there existed any such thing as such a being2 the lines and waves were all4#bdd ,similarly a friend of ,mr4 ,herbert ,spencer1 quoted by him in ',mind' 7vol iii1 p4 #eef71 speaks of an undisturbed empty quiet everywhere except that a stupid presence lay like a heavy intrusion somewhere--a blotch on the calm4 ,this sense of objectivity and lapse of subjectivity1 even when the object is almost indefinable1 is1 it seems to me1 a somewhat familiar phase in chloroformization1 though in my own case it is too deep a phase for any articulate after-memory to remain4 ,i only know that as it vanishes ,i seem to wake to a sense of my own existence as something additional to what had previously been there4#bde ,many philosophers1 however1 hold that the reflective consciousness of the self is essential to the cognitive function of thought4 ,they hold that a thought1 in order to know a thing at all1 must expressly distinguish between the thing and its own self4#bdf ,this is a perfectly wanton assumption1 and not the faintest shadow of reason exists for supposing it true4 ,as well might ,i contend that ,i cannot dream without dreaming that ,i dream1 swear without swearing that ,i swear1 deny without denying that ,i deny1 as maintain that ,i cannot know without knowing that ,i know4 ,i may have either acquaintance-with1 or knowledge-about1 an object ,o without think about myself at all4 ,it suffices for this that ,i think ,o1 and that it exist4 ,if1 in addition to thinking ,o1 ,i also think that ,i exist and that ,i know ,o1 well and good2 ,i then know one more thing1 a fact about ,o1 of which ,i previously was unmindful4 ,that1 however1 does not prevent me from having already known ,o a good deal4 ,o per se1 or ,o plus ,p1 are as good objects of knowledge as ,o plus me is4 ,the philosophers in question simply substitute one particular object for all others1 and call it the object par excellence4 ,it is a case of the 'psychologist's fallacy' 7see p4 #aig74 ,they know the object to be one thing and the thought another2 and they forthwith foist their own knowledge into that of the thought of which they pretend to give a true account4 ,to conclude1 then1 thought may1 but need not1 in knowing1 discriminate between its object and itself4 ,we have been using the word ,object4 ,something must now be said about the proper use of the term ,object in ,psychology4 ,in popular parlance the word object is commonly taken without reference to the act of knowledge1 and treated as synonymous with individual subject of existence4 ,thus if anyone ask what is the mind's object when you say ',columbus discovered ,america in #adib1' most people will reply ',columbus1' or ',america1' or1 at most1 'the discovery of ,america4' ,they will name a substantive kernel or nucleus of the consciousness1 and say the thought is 'about' that1--as indeed it is1--and they will call that your thought's 'object4' ,really that is usually only the grammatical object1 or more likely the grammatical subject1 of your sentence4 ,it is at most your 'fractional object2' or you may call it the 'topic' of your thought1 or the 'subject of your discourse4' ,but the ,object of your thought is really its entire content or deliverance1 neither more nor less4 ,it is a vicious use of speech to take out a substantive kernel from its content and call that its object2 and it is an equally vicious use of speech to add a substantive kernel not articulately included in its content1 and to call that its object4 ,yet either one of these two sins we commit1 whenever we content ourselves with saying that a given thought is simply 'about' a certain topic1 or that that topic is its 'object4' ,the object of my thought in the previous sentence1 for example1 is strictly speaking neither ,columbus1 nor ,america1 nor its discovery4 ,it is nothing short of the entire sentence1 ',columbus-discovered-,america-in-#adib4 ' ,and if we wish to speak of it substantively1 we must make a substantive of it by writing it out thus with hyphens between all its words4 ,nothing but this can possibly name its delicate idiosyncrasy4 ,and if we wish to feel that idiosyncrasy we must reproduce the thought as it was uttered1 with every word fringed and the whole sentence bathed in that original halo of obscure relations1 which1 like an horizon1 then spread about its meaning4 ,our psychological duty is to cling as closely as possible to the actual constitution of the thought we are studying4 ,we may err as much by excess as by defect4 ,if the kernel or 'topic1' ,columbus1 is in one way less than the thought's object1 so in another way it may be more4 ,that is1 when named by the psychologist1 it may mean much more than actually is present to the thought of which he is reporter4 ,thus1 for example1 suppose you should go on to think3 ',he was a daring genius6' ,an ordinary psychologist would not hesitate to say that the object of your thought was still ',columbus4' ,true1 your thought is about ,columbus4 ,it 'terminates' in ,columbus1 leads from and to the direct idea of ,columbus4 ,but for the moment it is not fully and immediately ,columbus1 it is only 'he1' or rather 'he-was-a-daring-genius2' which1 though it may be an unimportant difference for conversational purposes1 is1 for introspective psychology1 as great a difference as there can be4 ,the object of every thought1 then1 is neither more nor less than all that the thought thinks1 exactly as the thought thinks it1 however complicated the matter1 and however symbolic the manner of the thinking may be4 ,it is needless to say that memory can seldom accurately reproduce such an object1 when once it has passed from before the mind4 ,it either makes too little or too much of it4 ,its best plan is to repeat the verbal sentence1 if there was one1 in which the object was expressed4 ,but for inarticulate thoughts there is not even this resource1 and introspection must confess that the task exceeds her powers4 ,the mass of our thinking vanishes for ever1 beyond hope of recovery1 and psychology only gathers up a few of the crumbs that fall from the feast4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the next point to make clear is that1 however complex the object may be1 the thought of it is one undivided state of consciousness4 ,as ,thomas ,brown says3#bdg ,i have already spoken too often to require again to caution you against the mistake into which1 ,i confess1 that the terms which the poverty of our language obliges us to use might of themselves very naturally lead you2 the mistake of supposing that the most complex states of mind are not truly1 in their very essence1 as much one and indivisible as those which we term simple--the complexity and seeming coexistence which they involve being relative to our feeling#bdh only1 not to their own absolute nature4 ,i trust ,i need not repeat to you that1 in itself1 every notion1 however seemingly complex1 is1 and must be1 truly simple--being one state or affection1 of one simple substance1 mind4 ,our conception of a whole army1 for example1 is as truly this one mind existing in this one state1 as our conception of any of the individuals that compose an army4 ,our notion of the abstract numbers1 eight1 four1 two1 is as truly one feeling of the mind as our notion of simple unity4 ,the ordinary associationist-psychology supposes1 in contrast with this1 that whenever an object of thought contains many elements1 the thought itself must be made up of just as many ideas1 one idea for each element1 and all fused together in appearance1 but really separate4#bdi ,the enemies of this psychology find 7as we have already seen7 little trouble in showing that such a bundle of separate ideas would never form one thought at all1 and they contend that an ,ego must be added to the bundle to give it unity1 and bring the various ideas into relation with each other4#bej ,we will not discuss the ego just yet1 but it is obvious that if things are to be thought in relation1 they must be thought together1 and in one something1 be that something ego1 psychosis1 state of consciousness1 or whatever you please4 ,if not thought with each other1 things are not thought in relation at all4 ,now most believers in the ego make the same mistake as the associationists and sensationists whom they oppose4 ,both agree that the elements of the subjective stream are discrete and separate and constitute what ,kant calls a 'manifold4' ,but while the associationists think that a 'manifold' can form a single knowledge1 the egoists deny this1 and say that the knowledge comes only when the manifold is subjected to the synthetizing activity of an ego4 ,both make an identical initial hypothesis2 but the egoist1 finding it won't express the facts1 adds another hypothesis to correct it4 ,now ,i do not wish just yet to 'commit myself' about the existence or non-existence of the ego1 but ,i do contend that we need not invoke it for this particular reason--namely1 because the manifold of ideas has to be reduced to unity4 ,there is no manifold of coexisting ideas2 the notion of such a thing is a chimera4 ,whatever things are thought in relation are thought from the outset in a unity1 in a single pulse of subjectivity1 a single psychosis1 feeling1 or state of mind4 ,the reason why this fact is so strangely garbled in the books seems to be what on an earlier page 7see p4 #aif ff47 ,i called the psychologist's fallacy4 ,we have the inveterate habit1 whenever we try introspectively to describe one of our thoughts1 of dropping the thought as it is in itself and talking of something else4 ,we describe the things that appear to the thought1 and we describe other thoughts about those things--as if these and the original thought were the same4 ,if1 for example1 the thought be 'the pack of cards is on the table1' we say1 ,well1 isn't it a thought of the pack of cards8 ,isn't it of the cards as included in the pack8 ,isn't it of the table8 ,and of the legs of the table as well8 ,the table has legs--how can you think the table without virtually thinking its legs8 ,hasn't our thought then1 all these parts--one part for the pack and another for the table8 ,and within the pack-part a part for each card1 as within the table-part a part for each leg8 ,and isn't each of these parts an idea8 ,and can our thought1 then1 be anything but an assemblage or pack of ideas1 each answering to some element of what it knows8 ,now not one of these assumptions is true4 ,the thought taken as an example is1 in the first place1 not of 'a pack of cards4' ,it is of 'the-pack-of-cards-is-on-the-table1' an entirely different subjective phenomenon1 whose ,object implies the pack1 and every one of the cards in it1 but whose conscious constitution bears very little resemblance to that of the thought of the pack per se4 ,what a thought is1 and what it may be developed into1 or explained to stand for1 and be equivalent to1 are two things1 not one4#bea ,an analysis of what passes through the mind as we utter the phrase the pack of cards is on the table will1 ,i hope1 make this clear1 and may at the same time condense into a concrete example a good deal of what has gone before4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #bi4--,the ,stream of ,consciousness4 ,it takes time to utter the phrase4 ,let the horizontal line in ,fig4 #bi represent time4 ,every part of it will then stand for a fraction1 every point for an instant1 of the time4 ,of course the thought has time-parts4 ,the part #b-c of it1 though continuous with #a-b1 is yet a different part from #a-b4 ,now ,i say of these time-parts that we cannot take any one of them so short that it will not after some fashion or other be a thought of the whole object 'the pack of cards is on the table4' ,they melt into each other like dissolving views1 and no two of them feel the object just alike1 but each feels the total object in a unitary undivided way4 ,this is what ,i mean by denying that in the thought any parts can be found corresponding to the object's parts4 ,time-parts are not such parts4 ,now let the vertical dimensions of the figure stand for the objects or contents of the thoughts4 ,a line vertical to any point of the horizontal1 as #a-a'1 will then symbolize the object in the mind at the instant #a2 a space above the horizontal1 as #a-a'-b'-b1 will symbolize all that passes through the mind during the time #a-b whose line it covers4 ,the entire diagram from #j to #j' represents a finite length of thought's stream4 ,can we now define the psychic constitution of each vertical section of this segment8 ,we can1 though in a very rough way4 ,immediately after #j1 even before we have opened our mouths to speak1 the entire thought is present to our mind in the form of an intention to utter that sentence4 ,this intention1 though it has no simple name1 and though it is a transitive state immediately displaced by the first word1 is yet a perfectly determinate phase of thought1 unlike anything else 7see p4 #bec74 ,again1 immediately before #j'1 after the last word of the sentence is spoken1 all will admit that we again think its entire content as we inwardly realize its completed deliverance4 ,all vertical sections made through any other parts of the diagram will be respectively filled with other ways of feeling the sentence's meaning4 ,through #b1 for example1 the cards will be the part of the object most emphatically present to the mind2 through #d1 the table4 ,the stream is made higher in the drawing at its end than at its beginning1 because the final way of feeling the content is fuller and richer than the initial way4 ,as ,joubert says1 we only know just what we meant to say1 after we have said it4 ,and as ,m4 ,v4 ,egger remarks1 before speaking1 one barely knows what one intends to say1 but afterwards one is filled with admiration and surprise at having said and thought it so well4 ,this latter author seems to me to have kept at much closer quarters with the facts than any other analyst of consciousness4#beb ,but even he does not quite hit the mark1 for1 as ,i understand him1 he thinks that each word as it occupies the mind displaces the rest of the thought's content4 ,he distinguishes the 'idea' 7what ,i have called the total object or meaning7 from the consciousness of the words1 calling the former a very feeble state1 and contrasting it with the liveliness of the words1 even when these are only silently rehearsed4 ,the feeling1 he says1 of the words makes ten or twenty times more noise in our consciousness than the sense of the phrase1 which for consciousness is a very slight matter4#bec ,and having distinguished these two things1 he goes on to separate them in time1 saying that the idea may either precede or follow the words1 but that it is a 'pure illusion' to suppose them simultaneous4#bed ,now ,i believe that in all cases where the words are understood1 the total idea may be and usually is present not only before and after the phrase has been spoken1 but also whilst each separate word is uttered4#bee ,it is the overtone1 halo1 or fringe of the word1 as spoken in that sentence4 ,it is never absent2 no word in an understood sentence comes to consciousness as a mere noise4 ,we feel its meaning as it passes2 and although our object differs from one moment to another as to its verbal kernel or nucleus1 yet it is similar throughout the entire segment of the stream4 ,the same object is known everywhere1 now from the point of view1 if we may so call it1 of this word1 now from the point of view of that4 ,and in our feeling of each word there chimes an echo or foretaste of every other4 ,the consciousness of the ',idea' and that of the words are thus consubstantial4 ,they are made of the same 'mind-stuff1' and form an unbroken stream4 ,annihilate a mind at any instant1 cut its thought through whilst yet uncompleted1 and examine the object present to the cross-section thus suddenly made2 you will find1 not the bald word in process of utterance1 but that word suffused with the whole idea4 ,the word may be so loud1 as ,m4 ,egger would say1 that we cannot tell just how its suffusion1 as such1 feels1 or how it differs from the suffusion of the next word4 ,but it does differ2 and we maybe sure that1 could we see into the brain1 we should find the same processes active through the entire sentence in different degrees1 each one in turn becoming maximally excited and then yielding the momentary verbal 'kernel1' to the thought's content1 at other times being only sub-excited1 and then combining with the other sub-excited processes to give the overtone or fringe4#bef ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #cj4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #ca4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #cb4 ,we may illustrate this by a farther development of the diagram on p4 #bgi4 ,let the objective content of any vertical section through the stream be represented no longer by a line1 but by a plane figure1 highest opposite whatever part of the object is most prominent in consciousness at the moment when the section is made4 ,this part1 in verbal thought1 will usually be some word4 ,a series of sections #a-a'1 taken at the moments #a1 #b1 #c1 would then look like this3 horizontal breadth stands for the entire object in each of the figures2 the height of the curve above each part of that object marks the relative prominence of that part in the thought4 ,at the moment symbolized by the first figure pack is the prominent part2 in the third figure it is table1 etc4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #cc4 ,we can easily add all these plane sections together to make a solid1 one of whose solid dimensions will represent time1 whilst a cut across this at right angles will give the thought's content at the moment when the cut is made4 ,let it be the thought1 ',i am the same ,i that ,i was yesterday4' ,if at the fourth moment of time we annihilate the thinker and examine how the last pulsation of his consciousness was made1 we find that it was an awareness of the whole content with same most prominent1 and the other parts of the thing known relatively less distinct4 ,with each prolongation of the scheme in the time-direction1 the summit of the curve of section would come further towards the end of the sentence4 ,if we make a solid wooden frame with the sentence written on its front1 and the time-scale on one of its sides1 if we spread flatly a sheet of ,india rubber over its top1 on which rectangular co-ordinates are painted1 and slide a smooth ball under the rubber in the direction from #j to 'yesterday1' the bulging of the membrane along this diagonal at successive moments will symbolize the changing of the thought's content in a way plain enough1 after what has been said1 to call for no more explanation4 ,or to express it in cerebral terms1 it will show the relative intensities1 at successive moments1 of the several nerve-processes to which the various parts of the thought-object correspond4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the last peculiarity of consciousness to which attention is to be drawn in this first rough description of its stream is that #e7 ,it is always interested more in one part of its object than in another1 and welcomes and rejects1 or chooses1 all the while it thinks4 ,the phenomena of selective attention and of deliberative will are of course patent examples of this choosing activity4 ,but few of us are aware how incessantly it is at work in operations not ordinarily called by these names4 ,accentuation and ,emphasis are present in every perception we have4 ,we find it quite impossible to disperse our attention impartially over a number of impressions4 ,a monotonous succession of sonorous strokes is broken up into rhythms1 now of one sort1 now of another1 by the different accent which we place on different strokes4 ,the simplest of these rhythms is the double one1 tick-tck1 tick-tck1 tick-tck4 ,dots dispersed on a surface are perceived in rows and groups4 ,lines separate into diverse figures4 ,the ubiquity of the distinctions1 this and that1 here and there1 now and then1 in our minds is the result of our laying the same selective emphasis on parts of place and time4 ,but we do far more than emphasize things1 and unite some1 and keep others apart4 ,we actually ignore most of the things before us4 ,let me briefly show how this goes on4 ,to begin at the bottom1 what are our very senses themselves but organs of selection8 ,out of the infinite chaos of movements1 of which physics teaches us that the outer world consists1 each sense-organ picks out those which fall within certain limits of velocity4 ,to these it responds1 but ignores the rest as completely as if they did not exist4 ,it thus accentuates particular movements in a manner for which objectively there seems no valid ground2 for1 as ,lange says1 there is no reason whatever to think that the gap in ,nature between the highest sound-waves and the lowest heat-waves is an abrupt break like that of our sensations2 or that the difference between violet and ultra-violet rays has anything like the objective importance subjectively represented by that between light and darkness4 ,out of what is in itself an undistinguishable1 swarming continuum1 devoid of distinction or emphasis1 our senses make for us1 by attending to this motion and ignoring that1 a world full of contrasts1 of sharp accents1 of abrupt changes1 of picturesque light and shade4 ,if the sensations we receive from a given organ have their causes thus picked out for us by the conformation of the organ's termination1 ,attention1 on the other hand1 out of all the sensations yielded1 picks out certain ones as worthy of its notice and suppresses all the rest4 ,helmholtz's work on ,optics is little more than a study of those visual sensations of which common men never become aware--blind spots1 musc volitantes1 after-images1 irradiation1 chromatic fringes1 marginal changes of color1 double images1 astigmatism1 movements of accommodation and convergence1 retinal rivalry1 and more besides4 ,we do not even know without special training on which of our eyes an image falls4 ,so habitually ignorant are most men of this that one may be blind for years of a single eye and never know the fact4 ,helmholtz says that we notice only those sensations which are signs to us of things4 ,but what are things8 ,nothing1 as we shall abundantly see1 but special groups of sensible qualities1 which happen practically or sthetically to interest us1 to which we therefore give substantive names1 and which we exalt to this exclusive status of independence and dignity4 ,but in itself1 apart from my interest1 a particular dust-wreath on a windy day is just as much of an individual thing1 and just as much or as little deserves an individual name1 as my own body does4 ,and then1 among the sensations we get from each separate thing1 what happens8 ,the mind selects again4 ,it chooses certain of the sensations to represent the thing most truly1 and considers the rest as its appearances1 modified by the conditions of the moment4 ,thus my table-top is named square1 after but one of an infinite number of retinal sensations which it yields1 the rest of them being sensations of two acute and two obtuse angles2 but ,i call the latter perspective views1 and the four right angles the true form of the table1 and erect the attribute squareness2 into the table's essence1 for sthetic reasons of my own4 ,in like manner1 the real form of the circle is deemed to be the sensation it gives when the line of vision is perpendicular to its centre--all its other sensations are signs of this sensation4 ,the real sound of the cannon is the sensation it makes when the ear is close by4 ,the real color of the brick is the sensation it gives when the eye looks squarely at it from a near point1 out of the sunshine and yet not in the gloom2 under other circumstances it gives us other color-sensations which are but signs of this--we then see it looks pinker or blacker than it really is4 ,the reader knows no object which he does not represent to himself by preference as in some typical attitude1 of some normal size1 at some characteristic distance1 of some standard tint1 etc41 etc4 ,but all these essential characteristics1 which together form for us the genuine objectivity of the thing and are contrasted with what we call the subjective sensations it may yield us at a given moment1 are mere sensations like the latter4 ,the mind chooses to suit itself1 and decides what particular sensation shall be held more real and valid than all the rest4 ,thus perception involves a twofold choice4 ,out of all present sensations1 we notice mainly such as are significant of absent ones2 and out of all the absent associates which these suggest1 we again pick out a very few to stand for the objective reality par excellence4 ,we could have no more exquisite example of selective industry4 ,that industry goes on to deal with the things thus given in perception4 ,a man's empirical thought depends on the things he has experienced1 but what these shall be is to a large extent determined by his habits of attention4 ,a thing may be present to him a thousand times1 but if he persistently fails to notice it1 it cannot be said to enter into his experience4 ,we are all seeing flies1 moths1 and beetles by the thousand1 but to whom1 save an entomologist1 do they say anything distinct8 ,on the other hand1 a thing met only once in a lifetime may leave an indelible experience in the memory4 ,let four men make a tour in ,europe4 ,one will bring home only picturesque impressions--costumes and colors1 parks and views and works of architecture1 pictures and statues4 ,to another all this will be non-existent2 and distances and prices1 populations and drainage-arrangements1 door- and window-fastenings1 and other useful statistics will take their place4 ,a third will give a rich account of the theatres1 restaurants1 and public balls1 and naught beside2 whilst the fourth will perhaps have been so wrapped in his own subjective broodings as to tell little more than a few names of places through which he passed4 ,each has selected1 out of the same mass of presented objects1 those which suited his private interest and has made his experience thereby4 ,if1 now1 leaving the empirical combination of objects1 we ask how the mind proceeds rationally to connect them1 we find selection again to be omnipotent4 ,in a future chapter we shall see that all ,reasoning depends on the ability of the mind to break up the totality of the phenomenon reasoned about1 into parts1 and to pick out from among these the particular one which1 in our given emergency1 may lead to the proper conclusion4 ,another predicament will need another conclusion1 and require another element to be picked out4 ,the man of genius is he who will always stick in his bill at the right point1 and bring it out with the right element--'reason' if the emergency be theoretical1 'means' if it be practical--transfixed upon it4 ,i here confine myself to this brief statement1 but it may suffice to show that ,reasoning is but another form of the selective activity of the mind4 ,if now we pass to its sthetic department1 our law is still more obvious4 ,the artist notoriously selects his items1 rejecting all tones1 colors1 shapes1 which do not harmonize with each other and with the main purpose of his work4 ,that unity1 harmony1 'convergence of characters1' as ,m4 ,taine calls it1 which gives to works of art their superiority over works of nature1 is wholly due to elimination4 ,any natural subject will do1 if the artist has wit enough to pounce upon some one feature of it as characteristic1 and suppress all merely accidental items which do not harmonize with this4 ,ascending still higher1 we reach the plane of ,ethics1 where choice reigns notoriously supreme4 ,an act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible4 ,to sustain the arguments for the good course and keep them ever before us1 to stifle our longing for more flowery ways1 to keep the foot unflinchingly on the arduous path1 these are characteristic ethical energies4 ,but more than these2 for these but deal with the means of compassing interests already felt by the man to be supreme4 ,the ethical energy par excellence has to go farther and choose which interest out of several1 equally coercive1 shall become supreme4 ,the issue here is of the utmost pregnancy1 for it decides a man's entire career4 ,when he debates1 ,shall ,i commit this crime8 choose that profession8 accept that office1 or marry this fortune8--his choice really lies between one of several equally possible future ,characters4 ,what he shall become is fixed by the conduct of this moment4 ,schopenhauer1 who enforces his determinism by the argument that with a given fixed character only one reaction is possible under given circumstances1 forgets that1 in these critical ethical moments1 what consciously seems to be in question is the complexion of the character itself4 ,the problem with the man is less what act he shall now choose to do1 than what being he shall now resolve to become4 ,looking back1 then1 over this review1 we see that the mind is at every stage a theatre of simultaneous possibilities4 ,consciousness consists in the comparison of these with each other1 the selection of some1 and the suppression of the rest by the reinforcing and inhibiting agency of attention4 ,the highest and most elaborated mental products are filtered from the data chosen by the faculty next beneath1 out of the mass offered by the faculty below that1 which mass in turn was sifted from a still larger amount of yet simpler material1 and so on4 ,the mind1 in short1 works on the data it receives very much as a sculptor works on his block of stone4 ,in a sense the statue stood there from eternity4 ,but there were a thousand different ones beside it1 and the sculptor alone is to thank for having extricated this one from the rest4 ,just so the world of each of us1 howsoever different our several views of it may be1 all lay embedded in the primordial chaos of sensations1 which gave the mere matter to the thought of all of us indifferently4 ,we may1 if we like1 by our reasonings unwind things back to that black and jointless continuity of space and moving clouds of swarming atoms which science calls the only real world4 ,but all the while the world we feel and live in will be that which our ancestors and we1 by slowly cumulative strokes of choice1 have extricated out of this1 like sculptors1 by simply rejecting certain portions of the given stuff4 ,other sculptors1 other statues from the same stone6 ,other minds1 other worlds from the same monotonous and inexpressive chaos6 ,my world is but one in a million alike embedded1 alike real to those who may abstract them4 ,how different must be the worlds in the consciousness of ant1 cuttle-fish1 or crab6 99 99 99 99 99 ,but in my mind and your mind the rejected portions and the selected portions of the original world-stuff are to a great extent the same4 ,the human race as a whole largely agrees as to what it shall notice and name1 and what not4 ,and among the noticed parts we select in much the same way for accentuation and preference or subordination and dislike4 ,there is1 however1 one entirely extraordinary case in which no two men ever are known to choose alike4 ,one great splitting of the whole universe into two halves is made by each of us2 and for each of us almost all of the interest attaches to one of the halves2 but we all draw the line of division between them in a different place4 ,when ,i say that we all call the two halves by the same2 names1 and that those names are 'me' and 'not-me' respectively1 it will at once be seen what ,i mean4 ,the altogether unique kind of interest which each human mind feels in those parts of creation which it can call me or mine may be a moral riddle1 but it is a fundamental psychological fact4 ,no mind can take the same interest in his neighbor's me as in his own4 ,the neighbor's me falls together with all the rest of things in one foreign mass1 against which his own me stands out in startling relief4 ,even the trodden worm1 as ,lotze somewhere says1 contrasts his own suffering self with the whole remaining universe1 though he have no clear conception either of himself or of what the universe may be4 ,he is for me a mere part of the world2 for him it is ,i who am the mere part4 ,each of us dichotomizes the ,kosmos in a different place4 ,descending now to finer work than this first general sketch1 let us in the next chapter try to trace the psychology of this fact of self-consciousness to which we have thus once more been led4 ,,footnotes3 #bae ,a good deal of this chapter is reprinted from an article ',on some ,omissions of ,introspective ,psychology' which appeared in ',mind' for ,january #ahhd4 #baf ,b4 ,p4 ,bowne3 ,metaphysics1 p4 #cfb4 #bag ,l',automatisme ,psychologique1 p4 #cah4 #bah ,cf4 ,a4 ,constans3 ,relation sur une pidmie d'hystro-dmonopathie en #ahfa4 #bme ed4 ,paris1 #ahfc4--;,chiap e ,franzolin3 ,l',epidemia d'istero-demonopatie in ,verzegnis4 ,reggio1 #ahgi4--,see also ,j4 ,kerner's little work3 ,nachricht von dem ,vorkommen des ,besessenseins4 #ahcf4 #bai ,for the ,physiology of this compare the chapter on the ,will4 #bbj ,loc4 cit4 p4 #caf4 #bba ,the ,philosophy of ,reflection1 i1 #bdh1 #bij4 #bbb ,populre ,wissenschaftliche ,vortrge1 ,drittes ,heft 7#ahgf74 p4 #gb4 #bbc ,fick1 in ,l4 ,hermann's ,handb4 d4 ,physiol41 ,bd4 iii1 ,th4 i1 p4 #bbe4 #bbd ,it need of course not follow1 because a total brain-state does not recur1 that no point of the brain can ever be twice in the same condition4 ,that would be as improbable a consequence as that in the sea a wave-crest should never come twice at the same point of space4 ,what can hardly come twice is an identical combination of wave-forms all with their crests and hollows reoccupying identical places4 ,for such a total combination as this is the analogue of the brain-state to which our actual consciousness at any moment is due4 #bbe ,the accurate registration of the 'how long' is still a little mysterious4 #bbf ,cf4 ,brentano2 ,psychologie1 vol4 i1 pp4 #bai-bj4 ,altogether this chapter of ,brentano's on the ,unity of ,consciousness is as good as anything with which ,i am acquainted4 #bbg ,honor to whom honor is due6 ,the most explicit acknowledgment ,i have anywhere found of all this is in a buried and forgotten paper by the ,rev4 ,jas4 ,wills1 on ',accidental ,association1' in the ,transactions of the ,royal ,irish ,academy1 vol xxi1 part i 7#ahdf74 ,mr4 ,wills writes3 ,at every instant of conscious thought there is a certain sum of perceptions1 or reflections1 or both together1 present1 and together constituting one whole state of apprehension4 ,of this some definite portion may be far more distinct than all the rest2 and the rest be in consequence proportionally vague1 even to the limit of obliteration4 ,but still1 within this limit1 the most dim shade of perception enters into1 and in some infinitesimal degree modifies1 the whole existing state4 ,this state will thus be in some way modified by any sensation or emotion1 or act of distinct attention1 that may give prominence to any part of it2 so that the actual result is capable of the utmost variation1 according to the person or the occasion4444 ,to any portion of the entire scope here described there may be a special direction of the attention1 and this special direction is recognized as strictly what is recognized as the idea present to the mind4 ,this idea is evidently not commensurate with the entire state of apprehension1 and much perplexity has arisen from not observing this fact4 ,however deeply we may suppose the attention to be engaged by any thought1 any considerable alteration of the surrounding phenomena would still be perceived2 the most abstruse demonstration in this room would not prevent a listener1 however absorbed1 from noticing the sudden extinction of the lights4 ,our mental states have always an essential unity1 such that each state of apprehension1 however variously compounded1 is a single whole1 of which every component is1 therefore1 strictly apprehended 7so far as it is apprehended7 as a part4 ,such is the elementary basis from which all our intellectual operations commence4 #bbh ,compare the charming passage in ,taine on ,intelligence 7,n4 ,y4 ed471 i1 #hc-d4 #bbi ,e4g43 ,the stream of thought is not a continuous current1 but a series of distinct ideas1 more or less rapid in their succession2 the rapidity being measurable by the number that pass through the mind in a given time4 7,bain3 ,e4 and ,w41 p4 #bi47 #bcj ,few writers have admitted that we cognize relations through feeling4 ,the intellectualists have explicitly denied the possibility of such a thing--e4g41 ,prof4 ,t4 ,h4 ,green 7',mind1' vol4 vii1 p4 #bh73 ,no feeling1 as such or as felt1 is of8 a relation4444 ,even a relation between feelings is not itself a feeling or felt4 ,on the other hand1 the sensationists have either smuggled in the cognition without giving any account of it1 or have denied the relations to be cognized1 or even to exist1 at all4 ,a few honorable exceptions1 however1 deserve to be named among the sensationists4 ,destutt de ,tracy1 ,laromiguire1 ,cardaillac1 ,brown1 and finally ,spencer1 have explicitly contended for feelings of relation1 consubstantial with our feelings or thoughts of the terms 'between' which they obtain4 ,thus ,destutt de ,tracy says 7lments d',idologie1 ,t4 ,ier1 chap4 iv73 ,the faculty of judgment is itself a sort of sensibility1 for it is the faculty of feeling the relations among our ideas2 and to feel relations is to feel4 ,laromiguire writes 7,leons de ,philosophie1 ,i,ime ,partie1 #cme ,leon73 ,there is no one whose intelligence does not embrace simultaneously many ideas1 more or less distinct1 more or less confused4 ,now1 when we have many ideas at once1 a peculiar feeling arises in us3 we feel1 among these ideas1 resemblances1 differences1 relations4 ,let us call this mode of feeling1 common to us all1 the feeling of relation1 or relation-feeling 7sentiment-rapport74 ,one sees immediately that these relation-feelings1 resulting from the propinquity of ideas1 must be infinitely more numerous than the sensation-feelings 7sentiments-sensations7 or the feelings we have of the action of our faculties4 ,the slightest knowledge of the mathematical theory of combinations will prove this4444 ,ideas of relation originate in feelings of relation4 ,they are the effect of our comparing them and reasoning about them4 ,similarly1 de ,cardaillac 7tudes lmentaires de ,philosophie1 ,section i1 chap4 vii73 ,by a natural consequence1 we are led to suppose that at the same time that we have several sensations or several ideas in the mind1 we feel the relations which exist between these sensations1 and the relations which exist between these ideas4444 ,if the feeling of relations exists in us1444 it is necessarily the most varied and the most fertile of all human feelings3 #a1 the most varied1 because1 relations being more numerous than beings1 the feelings of relation must be in the same proportion more numerous than the sensations whose presence gives rise to their formation2 #b1 the most fertile1 for the relative ideas of which the feeling-of-relation is the source 444 are more important than absolute ideas1 if such exist4444 ,if we interrogate common speech1 we find the feeling of relation expressed there in a thousand different ways4 ,if it is easy to seize a relation1 we say that it is sensible1 to distinguish it from one which1 because its terms are too remote1 cannot be as quickly perceived4 ,a sensible difference1 or resemblance4444 ,what is taste in the arts1 in intellectual productions8 ,what but the feeling of those relations among the parts which constitutes their merit8444 ,did we not feel relations we should never attain to true knowledge1444 for almost all our knowledge is of relations4444 ,we never have an isolated sensation2444 we are therefore never without the feeling of relation4444 ,an object strikes our senses2 we see in it only a sensation4444 ,the relative is so near the absolute1 the relation-feeling so near the sensation-feeling1 the two are so intimately fused in the composition of the object1 that the relation appears to us as part of the sensation itself4 ,it is doubtless to this sort of fusion between sensations and feelings of relation that the silence of metaphysicians as to the latter is due2 and it is for the same reason that they have obstinately persisted in asking from sensation alone those ideas of relation which it was powerless to give4 ,dr4 ,thomas ,brown writes 7,lectures1 xlv1 init473 ,there is an extensive order of our feelings which involve this notion of relation1 and which consist indeed in the mere perception of a relation of some sort4444 ,whether the relation be of two or of many external objects1 or of two or many affections of the mind1 the feeling of this relation 444 is what ,i term a relative suggestion2 that phrase being the simplest which it is possible to employ1 for expressing1 without any theory1 the mere fact of the rise of certain feelings of relation1 after certain other feelings which precede them2 and therefore1 as involving no particular theory1 and simply expressive of an undoubted fact4444 ,that the feelings of relation are states of the mind essentially different from our simple perceptions1 or conceptions of the objects1444 that they are not what ,condillac terms transformed sensations1 ,i proved in a former lecture1 when ,i combated the excessive simplification of that ingenious but not very accurate philosopher4 ,there is an original tendency or susceptibility of the mind1 by which1 on perceiving together different objects1 we are instantly1 without the intervention of any other mental process1 sensible of their relation in certain respects1 as truly as there is an original tendency or susceptibility by which1 when external objects are present and have produced a certain affection of our sensorial organ1 we are instantly affected with the primary elementary feelings of perception2 and1 ,i may add1 that as our sensations or perceptions are of various species1 so are there various species of relations2--the number of relations1 indeed1 even of external things1 being almost infinite1 while the number of perceptions is1 necessarily1 limited by that of the objects which have the power of producing some affection of our organs of sensation4444 ,without that susceptibility of the mind by which it has the feeling of relation1 our consciousness would be as truly limited to a single point1 as our body would become1 were it possible to fetter it to a single atom4 ,mr4 ,spencer is even more explicit4 ,his philosophy is crude in that he seems to suppose that it is only in transitive states that outward relations are known2 whereas in truth space-relations1 relations of contrast1 etc41 are felt along with their terms1 in substantive states as well as in transitive states1 as we shall abundantly see4 ,nevertheless ,mr4 ,spencer's passage is so clear that it also deserves to be quoted in full 7,principles of ,psychology1 #fe73 ,the proximate components of ,mind are of two broadly-contrasted kinds--,feelings and the relations between feelings4 ,among the members of each group there exist multitudinous unlikenesses1 many of which are extremely strong2 but such unlikenesses are small compared with those which distinguish members of the one group from members of the other4 ,let us1 in the first place1 consider what are the characters which all ,feelings have in common1 and what are the characters which all ,relations between feelings have in common4 ,each feeling1 as we here define it1 is any portion of consciousness which occupies a place sufficiently large to give it a perceivable individuality2 which has its individuality marked off from adjacent portions of consciousness by qualitative contrasts2 and which1 when introspectively contemplated1 appears to be homogeneous4 ,these are the essentials4 ,obviously if1 under introspection1 a state of consciousness is decomposable into unlike parts that exist either simultaneously or successively1 it is not one feeling but two or more4 ,obviously if it is indistinguishable from an adjacent portion of consciousness1 it forms one with that portion--is not an individual feeling1 but part of one4 ,and obviously if it does not occupy in consciousness an appreciable area1 or an appreciable duration1 it cannot be known as a feeling4 ,a ,relation between feelings is1 on the contrary1 characterized by occupying no appreciable part of consciousness4 ,take away the terms it unites1 and it disappears along with them2 having no independent place1 no individuality of its own4 ,it is true that1 under an ultimate analysis1 what we call a relation proves to be itself a kind of feeling--the momentary feeling accompanying the transition from one conspicuous feeling to an adjacent conspicuous feeling4 ,and it is true that1 notwithstanding its extreme brevity1 its qualitative character is appreciable2 for relations are 7as we shall hereafter see7 distinguishable from one another only by the unlikenesses of the feelings which accompany the momentary transitions4 ,each relational feeling may1 in fact1 be regarded as one of those nervous shocks which we suspect to be the units of composition of feelings2 and1 though instantaneous1 it is known as of greater or less strength1 and as taking place with greater or less facility4 ,but the contrast between these relational feelings and what we ordinarily call feelings is so strong that we must class them apart4 ,their extreme brevity1 their small variety1 and their dependence on the terms they unite1 differentiate them in an unmistakable way4 ,perhaps it will be well to recognize more fully the truth that this distinction cannot be absolute4 ,besides admitting that1 as an element of consciousness1 a relation is a momentary feeling1 we must also admit that just as a relation can have no existence apart from the feelings which form its terms1 so a feeling can exist only by relations to other feelings which limit it in space or time or both4 ,strictly speaking1 neither a feeling nor a relation is an independent element of consciousness3 there is throughout a dependence such that the appreciable areas of consciousness occupied by feelings can no more possess individualities apart from the relations which link them1 than these relations can possess individualities apart from the feelings they link4 ,the essential distinction between the two1 then1 appears to be that whereas a relational feeling is a portion of consciousness inseparable into parts1 a feeling1 ordinarily so called1 is a portion of consciousness that admits imaginary division into like parts which are related to one another in sequence or coexistence4 ,a feeling proper is either made up of like parts that occupy time1 or it is made up of like parts that occupy space1 or both4 ,in any case1 a feeling proper is an aggregate of related like parts1 while a relational feeling is undecomposable4 ,and this is exactly the contrast between the two which must result if1 as we have inferred1 feelings are composed of units of feelings1 or shocks4 #bca ,m4 ,paulhan 7,revue ,philosophique1 xx1 #dee-f71 after speaking of the faint mental images of objects and emotions1 says3 ,we find other vaguer states still1 upon which attention seldom rests1 except in persons who by nature or profession are addicted to internal observation4 ,it is even difficult to name them precisely1 for they are little known and not classed2 but we may cite as an example of them that peculiar impression which we feel when1 strongly preoccupied by a certain subject1 we nevertheless are engaged with1 and have our attention almost completely absorbed by1 matters quite disconnected therewithal4 ,we do not then exactly think of the object of our preoccupation2 we do not represent it in a clear manner2 and yet our mind is not as it would be without this preoccupation4 ,its object1 absent from consciousness1 is nevertheless represented there by a peculiar unmistakable impression1 which often persists long and is a strong feeling1 although so obscure for our intelligence4 ,a mental sign of the kind is the unfavorable disposition left in our mind towards an individual by painful incidents erewhile experienced and now perhaps forgotten4 ,the sign remains1 but is not understood2 its definite meaning is lost4 7,p4 #deh47 #bcb ,mozart describes thus his manner of composing3 ,first bits and crumbs of the piece come and gradually join together in his mind2 then the soul getting warmed to the work1 the thing grows more and more1 and ,i spread it out broader and clearer1 and at last it gets almost finished in my head1 even when it is a long piece1 so that ,i can see the whole of it at a single glance in my mind1 as if it were a beautiful painting or a handsome human being2 in which way ,i do not hear it in my imagination at all as a succession--the way it must come later--but all at once1 as it were4 ,if is a rare feast6 ,all the inventing and making goes on in me as in a beautiful strong dream4 ,but the best of all is the hearing of it all at once4 #bcc ,mental ,physiology1 #bcf4 ,dr4 ,carpenter's explanation differs materially from that given in the text4 #bcd ,cf4 also ,s4 ,stricker3 ,vorlesungen ber allg4 u4 exp4 ,pathologie 7#ahgi71 pp4 #dfb-c1 #eja1 #edg2 ,romanes3 ,origin of ,human ,faculty1 p4 #hb4 ,it is so hard to make one's self clear that ,i may advert to a misunderstanding of my views by the late ,prof4 ,thos4 ,maguire of ,dublin 7,lectures on ,philosophy1 #ahhe74 ,this author considers that by the 'fringe' ,i mean some sort of psychic material by which sensations in themselves separate are made to cohere together1 and wittily says that ,i ought to see that uniting sensations by their 'fringes' is more vague than to construct the universe out of oysters by platting their beards 7p4 #baa74 ,but the fringe1 as ,i use the word1 means nothing like this2 it is part of the object cognized1--substantive qualities and things appearing to the mind in a fringe of relations4 ,some parts--the transitive parts--of our stream of thought cognize the relations rather than the things2 but both the transitive and the substantive parts form one continuous stream1 with no discrete 'sensations' in it such as ,prof4 ,maguire supposes1 and supposes me to suppose1 to be there4 #bce ,george ,campbell3 ,philosophy of ,rhetoric1 book ii1 chap4 vii4 #bcf ,substantialism or ,philosophy of ,knowledge1 by ',jean ,story' 7#ahgi74 #bcg ,m4 ,g4 ,tarde1 quoting 7in ,delbuf1 ,le ,sommeil et les ,rves 7#ahhe71 p4 #bbf7 some nonsense-verses from a dream1 says they show how prosodic forms may subsist in a mind from which logical rules are effaced4444 ,i was able1 in dreaming1 to preserve the faculty of finding two words which rhymed1 to appreciate the rhyme1 to fill up the verse as it first presented itself with other words which1 added1 gave the right number of syllables1 and yet ,i was ignorant of the sense of the words4444 ,thus we have the extraordinary fact that the words called each other up1 without calling up their sense4444 ,even when awake1 it is more difficult to ascend to the meaning of a word than to pass from one word to another2 or to put it otherwise1 it is harder to be a thinker than to be a rhetorician1 and on the whole nothing is commoner than trains of words not understood4 #bch ,we think it odd that young children should listen with such rapt attention to the reading of stories expressed in words half of which they do not understand1 and of none of which they ask the meaning4 ,but their thinking is in form just what ours is when it is rapid4 ,both of us make flying leaps over large portions of the sentences uttered and we give attention only to substantive starting points1 turning points1 and conclusions here and there4 ,all the rest1 'substantive' and separately intelligible as it may potentially be1 actually serves only as so much transitive material4 ,it is internodal consciousness1 giving us the sense of continuity1 but having no significance apart from its mere gap-filling function4 ,the children probably feel no gap when through a lot of unintelligible words they are swiftly carried to a familiar and intelligible terminus4 #bci ,not literally heard1 of course4 ,deaf mutes are quick to perceive shocks and jars that can be felt1 even when so slight as to be unnoticed by those who can hear4 #bdj ,quoted by ,samuel ,porter3 ',is ,thought possible without ,language8' in ,princeton ,review1 #egth year1 pp4 #ajh-ab 7,jan4 #ahha874 ,cf4 also ,w4 ,w4 ,ireland3 ,the ,blot upon the ,brain 7#ahhf71 ,paper x1 part ii2 ,g4 ,j4 ,romanes3 ,mental ,evolution in ,man1 pp4 #ha-hc1 and references therein made4 ,prof4 ,max ,mller gives a very complete history of this controversy in pp4 #cj-fd of his ',science of ,thought' 7#ahhg74 ,his own view is that ,thought and ,speech are inseparable2 but under speech he includes any conceivable sort of symbolism or even mental imagery1 and he makes no allowance for the wordless summary glimpses which we have of systems of relation and direction4 #bda ,problems of ,life and ,mind1 #c;d ,series1 ,problem iv1 chapter #e4 ,compare also ,victor ,egger3 ,la ,parole ,intrieure 7,paris1 #ahha71 chap4 vi4 #bdb ,if but one person sees an apparition we consider it his private hallucination4 ,if more than one1 we begin to think it may be a real external presence4 #bdc ,revue ,philosophique1 vol4 xxi1 p4 #fga4 #bdd ,quoted from the ,therapeutic ,gazette1 by the ,n4 ,y4 ,semi-weekly ,evening ,post for ,nov4 #b1 #ahhf4 #bde ,in half-stunned states self-consciousness may lapse4 ,a friend writes me3 ,we were driving back from ---- in a wagonette4 ,the door flew open and ,x41 alias ',baldy1' fell out on the road4 ,we pulled up at once1 and then he said1 ',did anybody fall out8' or ',who fell out8'--,i don't exactly remember the words4 ,when told that ,baldy fell out1 he said1 ',did ,baldy fall out8 ,poor ,baldy6' #bdf ,kant originated this view4 ,i subjoin a few ,english statements of it4 ,j4 ,ferrier1 ,institutes of ,metaphysic1 ,proposition i3 ,along with whatever any intelligence knows it must1 as the ground or condition of its knowledge1 have some knowledge of itself4 ,sir ,wm4 ,hamilton1 ,discussions1 p4 #dg3 ,we know1 and we know that we know1--these propositions1 logically distinct1 are really identical2 each implies the other4444 ,so true is the scholastic brocard3 non sentimus nisi sentiamus nos sentire4 ,h4 ,l4 ,mansel1 ,metaphysics1 p4 #eh3 ,whatever variety of materials may exist within reach of my mind1 ,i can become conscious of them only by recognizing them as mine4444 ,relation to the conscious self is thus the permanent and universal feature which every state of consciousness as such must exhibit4 ,t4 ,h4 ,green1 ,introduction to ,hume1 p4 #ab3 ,a consciousness by the man 444 of himself1 in negative relation to the thing that is his object1 and this consciousness must be taken to go along with the perceptive act itself4 ,not less than this indeed can be involved in any act that is to be the beginning of knowledge at all4 ,it is the minimum of possible thought or intelligence4 #bdg ,lectures on the ,philosophy of the ,human ,mind1 ,lecture #de4 #bdh ,instead of saying to our feeling only1 he should have said1 to the object only4 #bdi ,there can be no difficulty in admitting that association does form the ideas of an indefinite number of individuals into one complex idea2 because it is an acknowledged fact4 ,have we not the idea of an army8 ,and is not that precisely the ideas of an indefinite number of men formed into one idea8 7,jas4 ,mill's ,analysis of the ,human ,mind 7,j4 ,s4 ,mill's ,edition71 vol4 i1 p4 #bfd47 #bej ,for their arguments1 see above4 #bea ,i know there are readers whom nothing can convince that the thought of a complex object has not as many parts as are discriminated in the object itself4 ,well1 then1 let the word parts pass4 ,only observe that these parts are not the separate 'ideas' of traditional psychology4 ,no one of them can live out of that particular thought1 any more than my head can live off of my particular shoulders4 ,in a sense a soap-bubble has parts2 it is a sum of juxtaposed spherical triangles4 ,but these triangles are not separate realities2 neither are the 'parts' of the thought separate realities4 ,touch the bubble and the triangles are no more4 ,dismiss the thought and out go its parts4 ,you can no more make a new thought out of 'ideas' that have once served than you can make a new bubble out of old triangles ,each bubble1 each thought1 is a fresh organic unity1 sui generis4 #beb ,in his work1 ,la ,parole ,intrieure 7,paris1 #ahha71 especially chapters vi and vii4 #bec ,page #cja4 #bed ,page #bah4 ,to prove this point1 ,m4 ,egger appeals to the fact that we often hear some one speak whilst our mind is preoccupied1 but do not understand him until some moments afterwards1 when we suddenly 'realize' what he meant4 ,also to our digging out the meaning of a sentence in an unfamiliar tongue1 where the words are present to us long before the idea is taken in4 ,in these special cases the word does indeed precede the idea4 ,the idea1 on the contrary1 precedes the word whenever we try to express ourselves with effort1 as in a foreign tongue1 or in an unusual field of intellectual invention4 ,both sets of cases1 however1 are exceptional1 and ,m4 ,egger would probably himself admit1 on reflection1 that in the former class there is some sort of a verbal suffusion1 however evanescent1 of the idea1 when it is grasped--we hear the echo of the words as we catch their meaning4 ,and he would probably admit that in the second class of cases the idea persists after the words that came with so much effort are found4 ,in normal cases the simultaneity1 as he admits1 is obviously there4 #bee ,a good way to get the words and the sense separately is to inwardly articulate word for word the discourse of another4 ,one then finds that the meaning will often come to the mind in pulses1 after clauses or sentences are finished4 #bef ,the nearest approach 7with which ,i am acquainted7 to the doctrine set forth here is in ,o4 ,liebmaun's ,zur ,analysis der ,wirklichkeit1 pp4 #dbg-dch4 ,,chapter ,x4 ,,the ,,consciousness ,,of ,,self4 ,let us begin with the ,self in its widest acceptation1 and follow it up to its most delicate and subtle form1 advancing from the study of the empirical1 as the ,germans call it1 to that of the pure1 ,ego4 ,,the ,,empirical ,,self ,,or ,,me4 ,the ,empirical ,self of each of us is all that he is tempted to call by the name of me4 ,but it is clear that between what a man calls me and what he simply calls mine the line is difficult to draw4 ,we feel and act about certain things that are ours very much as we feel and act about ourselves4 ,our fame1 our children1 the work of our hands1 may be as dear to us as our bodies are1 and arouse the same feelings and the same acts of reprisal if attacked4 ,and our bodies themselves1 are they simply ours1 or are they us8 ,certainly men have been ready to disown their very bodies and to regard them as mere vestures1 or even as prisons of clay from which they should some day be glad to escape4 ,we see then that we are dealing with a fluctuating material4 ,the same object being sometimes treated as a part of me1 at other times as simply mine1 and then again as if ,i had nothing to do with it at all4 ,in its widest possible sense1 however1 a man's ,self is the sum total of all that he ,,can call his1 not only his body and his psychic powers1 but his clothes and his house1 his wife and children1 his ancestors and friends1 his reputation and works1 his lands and horses1 and yacht and bank-account4 ,all these things give him the same emotions4 ,if they wax and prosper1 he feels triumphant2 if they dwindle and die away1 he feels cast down1--not necessarily in the same degree for each thing1 but in much the same way for all4 ,understanding the ,self in this widest sense1 we may begin by dividing the history of it into three parts1 relating respectively to-- #a4 ,its constituents2 #b4 ,the feelings and emotions they arouse1--,self-feelings2 #c4 ,the actions to which they prompt1--,self-seeking and ,self-preservation4 99 99 99 99 99 #a4 ,the constituents of the ,self may be divided into two classes1 those which make up respectively-- 7a7 ,the material ,self2 7b7 ,the social ,self2 7c7 ,the spiritual ,self2 and 7d7 ,the pure ,ego4 7a7 ,the body is the innermost part of the material ,self in each of us2 and certain parts of the body seem more intimately ours than the rest4 ,the clothes come next4 ,the old saying that the human person is composed of three parts--soul1 body and clothes--is more than a joke4 ,we so appropriate our clothes and identify ourselves with them that there are few of us who1 if asked to choose between having a beautiful body clad in raiment perpetually shabby and unclean1 and having an ugly and blemished form always spotlessly attired1 would not hesitate a moment before making a decisive reply4#beg ,next1 our immediate family is a part of ourselves4 ,our father and mother1 our wife and babes1 are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh4 ,when they die1 a part of our very selves is gone4 ,if they do anything wrong1 it is our shame4 ,if they are insulted1 our anger flashes forth as readily as if we stood in their place4 ,our home comes next4 ,its scenes are part of our life2 its aspects awaken the tenderest feelings of affection2 and we do not easily forgive the stranger who1 in visiting it1 finds fault with its arrangements or treats it with contempt4 ,all these different things are the objects of instinctive preferences coupled with the most important practical interests of life4 ,we all have a blind impulse to watch over our body1 to deck it with clothing of an ornamental sort1 to cherish parents1 wife and babes1 and to find for ourselves a home of our own which we may live in and 'improve4' ,an equally instinctive impulse drives us to collect property2 and the collections thus made become1 with different degrees of intimacy1 parts of our empirical selves4 ,the parts of our wealth most intimately ours are those which are saturated with our labor4 ,there are few men who would not feel personally annihilated if a life-long construction of their hands or brains--say an entomological collection or an extensive work in manuscript--were suddenly swept away4 ,the miser feels similarly towards his gold1 and although it is true that a part of our depression at the loss of possessions is due to our feeling that we must now go without certain goods that we expected the possessions to bring in their train1 yet in every case there remains1 over and above this1 a sense of the shrinkage of our personality1 a partial conversion of ourselves to nothingness1 which is a psychological phenomenon by itself4 ,we are all at once assimilated to the tramps and poor devils whom we so despise1 and at the same time removed farther than ever away from the happy sons of earth who lord it over land and sea and men in the full-blown lustihood that wealth and power can give1 and before whom1 stiffen ourselves as we will by appealing to anti-snobbish first principles1 we cannot escape an emotion1 open or sneaking1 of respect and dread4 99 99 99 99 99 7b7 ,a man's ,social ,self is the recognition which he gets from his mates4 ,we are not only gregarious animals1 liking to be in sight of our fellows1 but we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed1 and noticed favorably1 by our kind4 ,no more fiendish punishment could be devised1 were such a thing physically possible1 than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof4 ,if no one turned round when we entered1 answered when we spoke1 or minded what we did1 but if every person we met 'cut us dead1' and acted as if we were non-existing things1 a kind of rage and impotent despair would ere long well up in us1 from which the cruellest bodily tortures would be a relief2 for these would make us feel that1 however bad might be our plight1 we had not sunk to such a depth as to be unworthy of attention at all4 ,properly speaking1 a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him and carry an image of him in their mind4 ,to wound any one of these his images is to wound him4#beh ,but as the individuals who carry the images fall naturally into classes1 we may practically say that he has as many different social selves as there are distinct groups of persons about whose opinion he cares4 ,he generally shows a different side of himself to each of these different groups4 ,many a youth who is demure enough before his parents and teachers1 swears and swaggers like a pirate among his 'tough' young friends4 ,we do not show ourselves to our children as to our club-companions1 to our customers as to the laborers we employ1 to our own masters and employers as to our intimate friends4 ,from this there results what practically is a division of the man into several selves2 and this may be a discordant splitting1 as where one is afraid to let one set of his acquaintances know him as he is elsewhere2 or it may be a perfectly harmonious division of labor1 as where one tender to his children is stern to the soldiers or prisoners under his command4 ,the most peculiar social self which one is apt to have is in the mind of the person one is in love with4 ,the good or bad fortunes of this self cause the most intense elation and dejection--unreasonable enough as measured by every other standard than that of the organic feeling of the individual4 ,to his own consciousness he is not1 so long as this particular social self fails to get recognition1 and when it is recognized his contentment passes all bounds4 ,a man's fame1 good or bad1 and his honor or dishonor1 are names for one of his social selves4 ,the particular social self of a man called his honor is usually the result of one of those splittings of which we have spoken4 ,it is his image in the eyes of his own 'set1' which exalts or condemns him as he conforms or not to certain requirements that may not be made of one in another walk of life4 ,thus a layman may abandon a city infected with cholera2 but a priest or a doctor would think such an act incompatible with his honor4 ,a soldier's honor requires him to fight or to die under circumstances where another man can apologize or run away with no stain upon his social self4 ,a judge1 a statesman1 are in like manner debarred by the honor of their cloth from entering into pecuniary relations perfectly honorable to persons in private life4 ,nothing is commoner than to hear people discriminate between their different selves of this sort3 ,as a man ,i pity you1 but as an official ,i must show you no mercy2 as a politician ,i regard him as an ally1 but as a moralist ,i loathe him2 etc41 etc4 ,what may be called 'club-opinion' is one of the very strongest forces in life4#bei ,the thief must not steal from other thieves2 the gambler must pay his gambling-debts1 though he pay no other debts in the world4 ,the code of honor of fashionable society has throughout history been full of permissions as well as of vetoes1 the only reason for following either of which is that so we best serve one of our social selves4 ,you must not lie in general1 but you may lie as much as you please if asked about your relations with a lady2 you must accept a challenge from an equal1 but if challenged by an inferior you may laugh him to scorn3 these are examples of what is meant4 99 99 99 99 99 7c7 ,by the ,spiritual ,self1 so far as it belongs to the ,empirical ,me1 ,i mean a man's inner or subjective being1 his psychic faculties or dispositions1 taken concretely2 not the bare principle of personal ,unity1 or 'pure' ,ego1 which remains still to be discussed4 ,these psychic dispositions are the most enduring and intimate part of the self1 that which we most verily seem to be4 ,we take a purer self-satisfaction when we think of our ability to argue and discriminate1 of our moral sensibility and conscience1 of our indomitable will1 than when we survey any of our other possessions4 ,only when these are altered is a man said to be alienatus a se4 ,now this spiritual self may be considered in various ways4 ,we may divide it into faculties1 as just instanced1 isolating them one from another1 and identifying ourselves with either in turn4 ,this is an abstract way of dealing with consciousness1 in which1 as it actually presents itself1 a plurality of such faculties are always to be simultaneously found2 or we may insist on a concrete view1 and then the spiritual self in us will be either the entire stream of our personal consciousness1 or the present 'segment' or 'section' of that stream1 according as we take a broader or a narrower view--both the stream and the section being concrete existences in time1 and each being a unity after its own peculiar kind4 ,but whether we take it abstractly or concretely1 our considering the spiritual self at all is a reflective process1 is the result of our abandoning the outward-looking point of view1 and of our having become able to think of subjectivity as such1 to think ourselves as thinkers4 ,this attention to thought as such1 and the identification of ourselves with it rather than with any of the objects which it reveals1 is a momentous and in some respects a rather mysterious operation1 of which we need here only say that as a matter of fact it exists2 and that in everyone1 at an early age1 the distinction between thought as such1 and what it is 'of' or 'about1' has become familiar to the mind4 ,the deeper grounds for this discrimination may possibly be hard to find2 but superficial grounds are plenty and near at hand4 ,almost anyone will tell us that thought is a different sort of existence from things1 because many sorts of thought are of no things--e4g41 pleasures1 pains1 and emotions2 others are of non-existent things--errors and fictions2 others again of existent things1 but in a form that is symbolic and does not resemble them--abstract ideas and concepts2 whilst in the thoughts that do resemble the things they are 'of' 7percepts1 sensations71 we can feel1 alongside of the thing known1 the thought of it going on as an altogether separate act and operation in the mind4 ,now this subjective life of ours1 distinguished as such so clearly from the objects known by its means1 may1 as aforesaid1 be taken by us in a concrete or in an abstract way4 ,of the concrete way ,i will say nothing just now1 except that the actual 'section' of the stream will ere long1 in our discussion of the nature of the principle of unity in consciousness1 play a very important part4 ,the abstract way claims our attention first4 ,if the stream as a whole is identified with the ,self far more than any outward thing1 a certain portion of the stream abstracted from the rest is so identified in an altogether peculiar degree1 and is felt by all men as a sort of innermost centre within the circle1 of sanctuary within the citadel1 constituted by the subjective life as a whole4 ,compared with this element of the stream1 the other parts1 even of the subjective life1 seem transient external possessions1 of which each in turn can be disowned1 whilst that which disowns them remains4 ,now1 what is this self of all the other selves8 ,probably all men would describe it in much the same way up to a certain point4 ,they would call it the active element in all consciousness2 saying that whatever qualities a man's feelings may possess1 or whatever content his thought may include1 there is a spiritual something in him which seems to go out to meet these qualities and contents1 whilst they seem to come in to be received by it4 ,it is what welcomes or rejects4 ,it presides over the perception of sensations1 and by giving or withholding its assent it influences the movements they tend to arouse4 ,it is the home of interest1--not the pleasant or the painful1 not even pleasure or pain1 as such1 but that within us to which pleasure and pain1 the pleasant and the painful1 speak4 ,it is the source of effort and attention1 and the place from which appear to emanate the fiats of the will4 ,a physiologist who should reflect upon it in his own person could hardly help1 ,i should think1 connecting it more or less vaguely with the process by which ideas or incoming sensations are 'reflected' or pass over into outward acts4 ,not necessarily that it should be this process or the mere feeling of this process1 but that it should be in some close way related to this process2 for it plays a part analogous to it in the psychic life1 being a sort of junction at which sensory ideas terminate and from which motor ideas proceed1 and forming a kind of link between the two4 ,being more incessantly there than any other single element of the mental life1 the other elements end by seeming to accrete round it and to belong to it4 ,it become opposed to them as the permanent is opposed to the changing and inconstant4 ,one may1 ,i think1 without fear of being upset by any future ,galtonian circulars1 believe that all men must single out from the rest of what they call themselves some central principle of which each would recognize the foregoing to be a fair general description1--accurate enough1 at any rate1 to denote what is meant1 and keep it unconfused with other things4 ,the moment1 however1 they came to closer quarters with it1 trying to define more accurately its precise nature1 we should find opinions beginning to diverge4 ,some would say that it is a simple active substance1 the soul1 of which they are thus conscious2 others1 that it is nothing but a fiction1 the imaginary being denoted by the pronoun ,i2 and between these extremes of opinion all sorts of intermediaries would be found4 ,later we must ourselves discuss them all1 and sufficient to that day will be the evil thereof4 ,now1 let us try to settle for ourselves as definitely as we can1 just how this central nucleus of the ,self may feel1 no matter whether it be a spiritual substance or only a delusive word4 ,for this central part of the ,self is felt4 ,it may be all that ,transcendentalists say it is1 and all that ,empiricists say it is into the bargain1 but it is at any rate no mere ens rationis1 cognized only in an intellectual way1 and no mere summation of memories or mere sound of a word in our ears4 ,it is something with which we also have direct sensible acquaintance1 and which is as fully present at any moment of consciousness in which it is present1 as in a whole lifetime of such moments4 ,when1 just now1 it was called an abstraction1 that did not mean that1 like some general notion1 it could not be presented in a particular experience4 ,it only meant that in the stream of consciousness it never was found all alone4 ,but when it is found1 it is felt2 just as the body is felt1 the feeling of which is also an abstraction1 because never is the body felt all alone1 but always together with other things4 ,now can we tell more precisely in what the feeling of this central active self consists1--not necessarily as yet what the active self is1 as a being or principle1 but what we feel when we become aware of its existence8 ,i think ,i can in my own case2 and as what ,i say will be likely to meet with opposition if generalized 7as indeed it may be in part inapplicable to other individuals71 ,i had better continue in the first person1 leaving my description1 to be accepted by those to whose introspection it may commend itself as true1 and confessing my inability to meet the demands of others1 if others there be4 ,first of all1 ,i am aware of a constant play of furtherances and hindrances in my thinking1 of checks and releases1 tendencies which run with desire1 and tendencies which run the other way4 ,among the matters ,i think of1 some range themselves on the side of the thought's interests1 whilst others play an unfriendly part thereto4 ,the mutual inconsistencies and agreements1 reinforcements and obstructions1 which obtain amongst these objective matters reverberate backwards and produce what seem to be incessant reactions of my spontaneity upon them1 welcoming or opposing1 appropriating or disowning1 striving with or against1 saying yes or no4 ,this palpitating inward life is1 in me1 that central nucleus which ,i just tried to describe in terms that all men might use4 ,but when ,i forsake such general descriptions and grapple with particulars1 coming to the closest possible quarters with the facts1 it is difficult for me to detect in the activity any purely spiritual element at all4 ,whenever my introspective glance succeeds in turning round quickly enough to catch one of these manifestations of spontaneity in the act1 all it can ever feel distinctly is some bodily process1 for the most part taking place within the head4 ,omitting for a moment what is obscure in these introspective results1 let me try to state those particulars which to my own consciousness seem indubitable and distinct4 ,in the first place1 the acts of attending1 assenting1 negating1 making an effort1 are felt as movements of something in the head4 ,in many cases it is possible to describe these movements quite exactly4 ,in attending to either an idea or a sensation belonging to a particular sense-sphere1 the movement is the adjustment of the sense-organ1 felt as it occurs4 ,i cannot think in visual terms1 for example1 without feeling a fluctuating play of pressures1 convergences1 divergences1 and accommodations in my eyeballs4 ,the direction in which the object is conceived to lie determines the character of these movements1 the feeling of which becomes1 for my consciousness1 identified with the manner in which ,i make myself ready to receive the visible thing4 ,my brain appears to me as if all shot across with lines of direction1 of which ,i have become conscious as my attention has shifted from one sense-organ to another1 in passing to successive outer things1 or in following trains of varying sense-ideas4 ,when ,i try to remember or reflect1 the movements in question1 instead of being directed towards the periphery1 seem to come from the periphery inwards and feel like a sort of withdrawal from the outer world4 ,as far as ,i can detect1 these feelings are due to an actual rolling outwards and upwards of the eyeballs1 such as ,i believe occurs in me in sleep1 and is the exact opposite of their action in fixating a physical thing4 ,in reasoning1 ,i find that ,i am apt to have a kind of vaguely localized diagram in my mind1 with the various fractional objects of the thought disposed at particular points thereof2 and the oscillations of my attention from one of them to another are most distinctly felt as alternations of direction in movements occurring inside the head4#bfj ,in consenting and negating1 and in making a mental effort1 the movements seem more complex1 and ,i find them harder to describe4 ,the opening and closing of the glottis play a great part in these operations1 and1 less distinctly1 the movements of the soft palate1 etc41 shutting off the posterior nares from the mouth4 ,my glottis is like a sensitive valve1 intercepting my breath instantaneously at every mental hesitation or felt aversion to the objects of my thought1 and as quickly opening1 to let the air pass through my throat and nose1 the moment the repugnance is overcome4 ,the feeling of the movement of this air is1 in me1 one strong ingredient of the feeling of assent4 ,the movements of the muscles of the brow and eyelids also respond very sensitively to every fluctuation in the agreeableness or disagreeableness of what comes before my mind4 ,in effort of any sort1 contractions of the jaw-muscles and of those of respiration are added to those of the brow and glottis1 and thus the feeling passes out of the head properly so called4 ,it passes out of the head whenever the welcoming or rejecting of the object is strongly felt4 ,then a set of feelings pour in from many bodily parts1 all 'expressive' of my emotion1 and the head-feelings proper are swallowed up in this larger mass4 ,in a sense1 then1 it may be truly said that1 in one person at least1 the ',self of selves1' when carefully examined1 is found to consist mainly of the collection of these peculiar motions in the head or between the head and throat4 ,i do not for a moment say that this is all it consists of1 for ,i fully realize how desperately hard is introspection in this field4 ,but ,i feel quite sure that these cephalic motions are the portions of my innermost activity of which ,i am most distinctly aware4 ,if the dim portions which ,i cannot yet define should prove to be like unto these distinct portions in me1 and ,i like other men1 it would follow that our entire feeling of spiritual activity1 or what commonly passes by that name1 is really a feeling of bodily activities whose exact nature is by most men overlooked4 99 99 99 99 99 ,now1 without pledging ourselves in any way to adopt this hypothesis1 let us dally with it for a while to see to what consequences it might lead if it were true4 ,in the first place1 the nuclear part of the ,self1 intermediary between ideas and overt acts1 would be a collection of activities physiologically in no essential way different from the overt acts themselves4 ,if we divide all possible physiological acts into adjustments and executions1 the nuclear self would be the adjustments collectively considered2 and the less intimate1 more shifting self1 so far as it was active1 would be the executions4 ,but both adjustments and executions would obey the reflex type4 ,both would be the result of sensorial and ideational processes discharging either into each other within the brain1 or into muscles and other parts outside4 ,the peculiarity of the adjustments would be that they are minimal reflexes1 few in number1 incessantly repeated1 constant amid great fluctuations in the rest of the mind's content1 and entirely unimportant and uninteresting except through their uses in furthering or inhibiting the presence of various things1 and actions before consciousness4 ,these characters would naturally keep us from introspectively paying much attention to them in detail1 whilst they would at the same time make us aware of them as a coherent group of processes1 strongly contrasted with all the other things consciousness contained1--even with the other constituents of the ',self1' material1 social1 or spiritual1 as the case might be4 ,they are reactions1 and they are primary reactions4 ,everything arouses them2 for objects which have no other effects will for a moment contract the brow and make the glottis close4 ,it is as if all that visited the mind had to stand an entrance-examination1 and just show its face so as to be either approved or sent back4 ,these primary reactions are like the opening or the closing of the door4 ,in the midst of psychic change they are the permanent core of turnings-towards and turnings-from1 of yieldings and arrests1 which naturally seem central and interior in comparison with the foreign matters1 a propos to which they occur1 and hold a sort of arbitrating1 decisive position1 quite unlike that held by any of the other constituents of the ,me4 ,it would not be surprising1 then1 if we were to feel them as the birthplace of conclusions and the starting point of acts1 or if they came to appear as what we called a while back the 'sanctuary within the citadel' of our personal life4#bfa ,if they really were the innermost sanctuary1 the ultimate one of all the selves whose being we can ever directly experience1 it would follow that all that is experienced is1 strictly considered1 objective2 that this ,objective falls asunder into two contrasted parts1 one realized as ',self1' the other as 'not-,self2 'and that over and above these parts there is nothing save the fact that they are known1 the fact of the stream of thought being there as the indispensable subjective condition of their being experienced at all4 ,but this condition of the experience is not one of the things experienced at the moment2 this knowing is not immediately known4 ,it is only known in subsequent reflection4 ,instead1 then1 of the stream of thought being one of con-sciousness1 thinking its own existence along with whatever else it thinks1 7as ,ferrier says7 it might be better called a stream of ,sciousness pure and simple1 thinking objects of some of which it makes what it calls a ',me1' and only aware of its 'pure' ,self in an abstract1 hypothetic or conceptual way4 ,each 'section' of the stream would then be a bit of sciousness or knowledge of this sort1 including and contemplating its 'me' and its 'not-me' as objects which work out their drama together1 but not yet including or contemplating its own subjective being4 ,the sciousness in question would be the ,thinker1 and the existence of this thinker would be given to us rather as a logical postulate than as that direct inner perception of spiritual activity which we naturally believe ourselves to have4 ',matter1' as something behind physical phenomena1 is a postulate of this sort4 ,between the postulated ,matter and the postulated ,thinker1 the sheet of phenomena would then swing1 some of them 7the 'realities'7 pertaining more to the matter1 others 7the fictions1 opinions1 and errors7 pertaining more to the ,thinker4 ,but who the ,thinker would be1 or how many distinct ,thinkers we ought to suppose in the universe1 would all be subjects for an ulterior metaphysical inquiry4 ,speculations like this traverse common-sense2 and not only do they traverse common sense 7which in philosophy is no insuperable objection7 but they contradict the fundamental assumption of every philosophic school4 ,spiritualists1 transcendentalists1 and empiricists alike admit in us a continual direct perception of the thinking activity in the concrete4 ,however they may otherwise disagree1 they vie with each other in the cordiality of their recognition of our thoughts as the one sort of existent which skepticism cannot touch4#bfb ,i will therefore treat the last few pages as a parenthetical digression1 and from now to the end of the volume revert to the path of common-sense again4 ,i mean by this that ,i will continue to assume 7as ,i have assumed all along1 especially in the last chapter7 a direct awareness of the process of our thinking as such1 simply insisting on the fact that it is an even more inward and subtle phenomenon than most of us suppose4 ,at the conclusion of the volume1 however1 ,i may permit myself to revert again to the doubts here provisionally mooted1 and will indulge in some metaphysical reflections suggested by them4 99 99 99 99 99 ,at present1 then1 the only conclusion ,i come to is the following3 ,that 7in some persons at least7 the part of the innermost ,self which is most vividly felt turns out to consist for the most part of a collection of cephalic movements of 'adjustments' which1 for want of attention and reflection1 usually fail to be perceived and classed as what they are2 that over and above these there is an obscurer feeling of something more2 but whether it be of fainter physiological processes1 or of nothing objective at all1 but rather of subjectivity as such1 of thought become 'its own object1' must at present remain an open question1--like the question whether it be an indivisible active soul-substance1 or the question whether it be a personification of the pronoun ,i1 or any other of the guesses as to what its nature may be4 ,farther than this we cannot as yet go clearly in our analysis of the ,self's constituents4 ,so let us proceed to the emotions of ,self which they arouse4 #b4 ,,self-,,feeling4 ,these are primarily self-complacency and self-dissatisfaction4 ,of what is called 'self-love1' ,i will treat a little farther on4 ,language has synonyms enough for both primary feelings4 ,thus pride1 conceit1 vanity1 self-esteem1 arrogance1 vainglory1 on the one hand2 and on the other modesty1 humility1 confusion1 diffidence1 shame1 mortification1 contrition1 the sense of obloquy and personal despair4 ,these two opposite classes of affection seem to be direct and elementary endowments of our nature4 ,associationists would have it that they are1 on the other hand1 secondary phenomena arising from a rapid computation of the sensible pleasures or pains to which our prosperous or debased personal predicament is likely to lead1 the sum of the represented pleasures forming the self-satisfaction1 and the sum of the represented pains forming the opposite feeling of shame4 ,no doubt1 when we are self-satisfied1 we do fondly rehearse all possible rewards for our desert1 and when in a fit of self-despair we forebode evil4 ,but the mere expectation of reward is not the self-satisfaction1 and the mere apprehension of the evil is not the self-despair1 for there is a certain average tone of self-feeling which each one of us carries about with him1 and which is independent of the objective reasons we may have for satisfaction or discontent4 ,that is1 a very meanly-conditioned man may abound in unfaltering conceit1 and one whose success in life is secure and who is esteemed by all may remain diffident of his powers to the end4 ,one may say1 however1 that the normal provocative of self-feeling is one's actual success or failure1 and the good or bad actual position one holds in the world4 ,he put in his thumb and pulled out a plum1 and said what a good boy am ,i4 ,a man with a broadly extended empirical ,ego1 with powers that have uniformly brought him success1 with place and wealth and friends and fame1 is not likely to be visited by the morbid diffidences and doubts about himself which he had when he was a boy4 ,is not this great ,babylon1 which ,i have planted8#bfc ,whereas he who has made one blunder after another1 and still lies in middle life among the failures at the foot of the hill1 is liable to grow all sicklied o'er with self-distrust1 and to shrink from trials with which his powers can really cope4 ,the emotions themselves of self-satisfaction and abasement are of a unique sort1 each as worthy to be classed as a primitive emotional species as are1 for example1 rage or pain4 ,each has its own peculiar physiognomical expression4 ,in self-satisfaction the extensor muscles are innervated1 the eye is strong and glorious1 the gait rolling and elastic1 the nostril dilated1 and a peculiar smile plays upon the lips4 ,this whole complex of symptoms is seen in an exquisite way in lunatic asylums1 which always contain some patients who are literally mad with conceit1 and whose fatuous expression and absurdly strutting or swaggering gait is in tragic contrast with their lack of any valuable personal quality4 ,it is in these same castles of despair that we find the strongest examples of the opposite physiognomy1 in good people who think they have committed 'the unpardonable sin' and are lost forever1 who crouch and cringe and slink from notice1 and are unable to speak aloud or look us in the eye4 ,like fear and like anger1 in similar morbid conditions1 these opposite feelings of ,self may be aroused with no adequate exciting cause4 ,and in fact we ourselves know how the barometer of our self-esteem and confidence rises and falls from one day to another through causes that seem to be visceral and organic rather than rational1 and which certainly answer to no corresponding variations in the esteem in which we are held by our friends4 ,of the origin of these emotions in the race1 we can speak better when we have treated of-- #c4 ,,self-,,seeking ,,and ,,self-,,preservation4 ,these words cover a large number of our fundamental instinctive impulses4 ,we have those of bodily self-seeking1 those of social self-seeking1 and those of spiritual self-seeking4 ,all the ordinary useful reflex actions and movements of alimentation and defence are acts of bodily self-preservation4 ,fear and anger prompt to acts that are useful in the same way4 ,whilst if by self-seeking we mean the providing for the future as distinguished from maintaining the present1 we must class both anger and fear with the hunting1 the acquisitive1 the home-constructing and the tool-constructing instincts1 as impulses to self-seeking of the bodily kind4 ,really1 however1 these latter instincts1 with amativeness1 parental fondness1 curiosity and emulation1 seek not only the development of the bodily ,self1 but that of the material ,self in the widest possible sense of the word4 ,our social self-seeking1 in turn1 is carried on directly through our amativeness and friendliness1 our desire to please and attract notice and admiration1 our emulation and jealousy1 our love of glory1 influence1 and power1 and indirectly through whichever of the material self-seeking impulses prove serviceable as means to social ends4 ,that the direct social self-seeking impulses are probably pure instincts is easily seen4 ,the noteworthy thing about the desire to be 'recognized' by others is that its strength has so little to do with the worth of the recognition computed in sensational or rational terms4 ,we are crazy to get a visiting-list which shall be large1 to be able to say when any one is mentioned1 ,oh6 ,i know him well1 and to be bowed to in the street by half the people we meet4 ,of course distinguished friends and admiring recognition are the most desirable--,thackeray somewhere asks his readers to confess whether it would not give each of them an exquisite pleasure to be met walking down ,pall ,mall with a duke on either arm4 ,but in default of dukes and envious salutations almost anything will do for some of us2 and there is a whole race of beings to-day whose passion is to keep their names in the newspapers1 no matter under what heading1 'arrivals and departures1' 'personal paragraphs1' 'interviews1'--gossip1 even scandal1 will suit them if nothing better is to be had4 ,guiteau1 ,garfield's assassin1 is an example of the extremity to which this sort of craving for the notoriety of print may go in a pathological case4 ,the newspapers bounded his mental horizon2 and in the poor wretch's prayer on the scaffold1 one of the most heartfelt expressions was3 ,the newspaper press of this land has a big bill to settle with thee1 ,o ,lord6 ,not only the people but the places and things ,i know enlarge my ,self in a sort of metaphoric social way4 a me connat1 as the ,french workman says of the implement he can use well4 ,so that it comes about that persons for whose opinion we care nothing are nevertheless persons whose notice we woo2 and that many a man truly great1 many a woman truly fastidious in most respects1 will take a deal of trouble to dazzle some insignificant cad whose whole personality they heartily despise4 ,under the head of spiritual self-seeking ought to be included every impulse towards psychic progress1 whether intellectual1 moral1 or spiritual in the narrow sense of the term4 ,it must be admitted1 however1 that much that commonly passes for spiritual self-seeking in this narrow sense is only material and social self-seeking beyond the grave4 ,in the ,mohammedan desire for paradise and the ,christian aspiration not to be damned in hell1 the materiality of the goods sought is undisguised4 ,in the more positive and refined view of heaven many of its goods1 the fellowship of the saints and of our dead ones1 and the presence of ,god1 are but social goods of the most exalted kind4 ,it is only the search of the redeemed inward nature1 the spotlessness from sin1 whether here or hereafter1 that can count as spiritual self-seeking pure and undefined4 ,but this broad external review of the facts of the life of the ,self will be incomplete without some account of the ,,rivalry ,,and ,,conflict ,,of ,,the ,,different ,,selves4 ,with most objects of desire1 physical nature restricts our choice to but one of many represented goods1 and even so it is here4 ,i am often confronted by the necessity of standing by one of my empirical selves and relinquishing the rest4 ,not that ,i would not1 if ,i could1 be both handsome and fat and well dressed1 and a great athlete1 and make a million a year1 be a wit1 a bon-vivant1 and a lady-killer1 as well as a philosopher2 a philanthropist1 statesman1 warrior1 and ,african explorer1 as well as a 'tone-poet' and saint4 ,but the thing is simply impossible4 ,the millionaire's work would run counter to the saint's2 the bon-vivant and the philanthropist would trip each other up2 the philosopher and the lady-killer could not well keep house in the same tenement of clay4 ,such different characters may conceivably at the outset of life be alike possible to a man4 ,but to make any one of them actual1 the rest must more or less be suppressed4 ,so the seeker of his truest1 strongest1 deepest self must review the list carefully1 and pick out the one on which to stake his salvation4 ,all other selves thereupon become unreal1 but the fortunes of this self are real4 ,its failures are real failures1 its triumphs real triumphs1 carrying shame and gladness with them4 ,this is as strong an example as there is of that selective industry of the mind on which ,i insisted some pages back 7p4 #bhd ff474 ,our thought1 incessantly deciding1 among many things of a kind1 which ones for it shall be realities1 here chooses one of many possible selves or characters1 and forthwith reckons it no shame to fail in any of those not adopted expressly as its own4 ,i1 who for the time have staked my all on being a psychologist1 am mortified if others know much more psychology than ,i4 ,but ,i am contented to wallow in the grossest ignorance of ,greek4 ,my deficiencies there give me no sense of personal humiliation at all4 ,had ,i 'pretensions' to be a linguist1 it would have been just the reverse4 ,so we have the paradox of a man shamed to death because he is only the second pugilist or the second oarsman in the world4 ,that he is able to beat the whole population of the globe minus one is nothing2 he has 'pitted' himself to beat that one2 and as long as he doesn't do that nothing else counts4 ,he is to his own regard as if he were not1 indeed he is not4 ,yonder puny fellow1 however1 whom every one can beat1 suffers no chagrin about it1 for he has long ago abandoned the attempt to 'carry that line1' as the merchants say1 of self at all4 ,with no attempt there can be no failure2 with no failure no humiliation4 ,so our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do4 ,it is determined by the ratio of our actualities to our supposed potentialities2 a fraction of which our pretensions are the denominator and the numerator our success3 thus1 ,self-esteem ,success_/ ,pretensions4 ,such a fraction may be increased as well by diminishing the denominator as by increasing the numerator4#bfd ,to give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them gratified2 and where disappointment is incessant1 and the struggle unending1 this is what men will always do4 ,the history of evangelical theology1 with its conviction of sin1 its self-despair1 and its abandonment of salvation by works1 is the deepest of possible examples1 but we meet others in every walk of life4 ,there is the strangest lightness about the heart when one's nothingness in a particular line is once accepted in good faith4 ,all is not bitterness in the lot of the lover sent away by the final inexorable ',no4' ,many ,bostonians1 crede experto 7and inhabitants of other cities1 too1 ,i fear71 would be happier women and men to-day1 if they could once for all abandon the notion of keeping up a ,musical ,self1 and without shame let people hear them call a symphony a nuisance4 ,how pleasant is the day when we give up striving to be young1--or slender6 ,thank ,god6 we say1 those illusions are gone4 ,everything added to the ,self is a burden as well as a pride4 ,a certain man who lost every penny during our civil war went and actually rolled in the dust1 saying he had not felt so free and happy since he was born4 ,once more1 then1 our self-feeling is in our power4 ,as ,carlyle says3 ,make thy claim of wages a zero1 then hast thou the world under thy feet4 ,well did the wisest of our time write1 it is only with renunciation that life1 properly speaking1 can be said to begin4 ,neither threats nor pleadings can move a man unless they touch some one of his potential or actual selves4 ,only thus can we1 as a rule1 get a 'purchase' on another's will4 ,the first care of diplomatists and monarchs and all who wish to rule or influence is1 accordingly1 to find out their victim's strongest principle of self-regard1 so as to make that the fulcrum of all appeals4 ,but if a man has given up those things which are subject to foreign fate1 and ceased to regard them as parts of himself at all1 we are well-nigh powerless over him4 ,the ,stoic receipt for contentment was to dispossess yourself in advance of all that was out of your own power1--then fortune's shocks might rain down unfelt4 ,epictetus exhorts us1 by thus narrowing and at the same time solidifying our ,self to make it invulnerable3 ,i must die2 well1 but must ,i die groaning too8 ,i will speak what appears to be right1 and if the despot says1 then ,i will put you to death1 ,i will reply1 ',when did ,i ever tell you that ,i was immortal8 ,you will do your part and ,i mine2 it is yours to kill and mine to die intrepid2 yours to banish1 mine to depart untroubled4' ,how do we act in a voyage8 ,we choose the pilot1 the sailors1 the hour4 ,afterwards comes a storm4 ,what have ,i to care for8 ,my part is performed4 ,this matter belongs to the pilot4 ,but the ship is sinking2 what then have ,i to do8 ,that which alone ,i can do--submit to being drowned without fear1 without clamor or accusing of ,god1 but as one who knows that what is born must likewise die4#bfe ,this ,stoic fashion1 though efficacious and heroic enough in its place and time1 is1 it must be confessed1 only possible as an habitual mood of the soul to narrow and unsympathetic characters4 ,it proceeds altogether by exclusion4 ,if ,i am a ,stoic1 the goods ,i cannot appropriate cease to be my goods1 and the temptation lies very near to deny that they are goods at all4 ,we find this mode of protecting the ,self by exclusion and denial very common among people who are in other respects not ,stoics4 ,all narrow people intrench their ,me1 they retract it1--from the region of what they cannot securely possess4 ,people who don't resemble them1 or who treat them with indifference1 people over whom they gain no influence1 are people on whose existence1 however meritorious it may intrinsically be1 they look with chill negation1 if not with positive hate4 ,who will not be mine ,i will exclude from existence altogether2 that is1 as far as ,i can make it so1 such people shall be as if they were not4#bff ,thus may a certain absoluteness and definiteness in the outline of my ,me console me for the smallness of its content4 ,sympathetic people1 on the contrary1 proceed by the entirely opposite way of expansion and inclusion4 ,the outline of their self often gets uncertain enough1 but for this the spread of its content more than atones4 ,nil humani a me alienum4 ,let them despise this little person of mine1 and treat me like a dog1 ,i shall not negate them so long as ,i have a soul in my body4 ,they are realities as much as ,i am4 ,what positive good is in them shall be mine too1 etc41 etc4 ,the magnanimity of these expansive natures is often touching indeed4 ,such persons can feel a sort of delicate rapture in thinking that1 however sick1 ill-favored1 mean-conditioned1 and generally forsaken they may be1 they yet are integral parts of the whole of this brave world1 have a fellow's share in the strength of the dray-horses1 the happiness of the young people1 the wisdom of the wise ones1 and are not altogether without part or lot in the good fortunes of the ,vanderbilts and the ,hohenzollerns themselves4 ,thus either by negating or by embracing1 the ,ego may seek to establish itself in reality4 ,he who1 with ,marcus ,aurelius1 can truly say1 ,o ,universe1 ,i wish all that thou wishest1 has a self from which every trace of negativeness and obstructiveness has been removed--no wind can blow except to fill its sails4 99 99 99 99 99 ,a tolerably unanimous opinion ranges the different selves of which a man may be 'seized and possessed1' and the consequent different orders of his self-regard1 in an hierarchical scale1 with the bodily ,self at the bottom1 the spiritual ,self at top1 and the extracorporeal material selves and the various social selves between4 ,our merely natural self-seeking would lead us to aggrandize all these selves2 we give up deliberately only those among them which we find we cannot keep4 ,our unselfishness is thus apt to be a 'virtue of necessity'2 and it is not without all show of reason that cynics quote the fable of the fox and the grapes in describing our progress therein4 ,but this is the moral education of the race2 and if we agree in the result that on the whole the selves we can keep are the intrinsically best1 we need not complain of being led to the knowledge of their superior worth in such a tortuous way4 ,of course this is not the only way in which we learn to subordinate our lower selves to our higher4 ,a direct ethical judgment unquestionably also plays its part1 and last1 not least1 we apply to our own persons judgments originally called forth by the acts of others4 ,it is one of the strangest laws of our nature that many things which we are well satisfied with in ourselves disgust us when seen in others4 ,with another man's bodily 'hoggishness' hardly anyone has any sympathy2--almost as little with his cupidity1 his social vanity and eagerness1 his jealousy1 his despotism1 and his pride4 ,left absolutely to myself ,i should probably allow all these spontaneous tendencies to luxuriate in me unchecked1 and it would be long before ,i formed a distinct notion of the order of their subordination4 ,but having constantly to pass judgment on my associates1 ,i come ere long to see1 as ,herr ,horwicz says1 my own lusts in the mirror of the lusts of others1 and to think about them in a very different way from that in which ,i simply feel4 ,of course1 the moral generalities which from childhood have been instilled into me accelerate enormously the advent of this reflective judgment on myself4 ,so it comes to pass that1 as aforesaid1 men have arranged the various selves which they may seek in an hierarchical scale according to their worth4 ,a certain amount of bodily selfishness is required as a basis for all the other selves4 ,but too much sensuality is despised1 or at best condoned on account of the other qualities of the individual4 ,the wider material selves are regarded as higher than the immediate body4 ,he is esteemed a poor creature who is unable to forego a little meat and drink and warmth and sleep for the sake of getting on in the world4 ,the social self as a whole1 again1 ranks higher than the material self as a whole4 ,we must care more for our honor1 our friends1 our human ties1 than for a sound skin or wealth4 ,and the spiritual self is so supremely precious that1 rather than lose it1 a man ought to be willing to give up friends and good fame1 and property1 and life itself4 ,in each kind of self1 material1 social1 and spiritual1 men distinguish between the immediate and actual1 and the remote and potential1 between the narrower and the wider view1 to the detriment of the former and advantage of the latter4 ,one must forego a present bodily enjoyment for the sake of one's general health2 one must abandon the dollar in the hand for the sake of the hundred dollars to come2 one must make an enemy of his present interlocutor if thereby one makes friends of a more valued circle2 one must go without learning and grace1 and wit1 the better to compass one's soul's salvation4 ,of all these wider1 more potential selves1 the potential social self is the most interesting1 by reason of certain apparent paradoxes to which it leads in conduct1 and by reason of its connection with our moral and religious life4 ,when for motives of honor and conscience ,i brave the condemnation of my own family1 club1 and 'set'2 when1 as a protestant1 ,i turn catholic2 as a catholic1 freethinker2 as a 'regular practitioner1' homopath1 or what not1 ,i am always inwardly strengthened in my course and steeled against the loss of my actual social self by the thought of other and better possible social judges than those whose verdict goes against me now4 ,the ideal social self which ,i thus seek in appealing to their decision may be very remote3 it may be represented as barely possible4 ,i may not hope for its realization during my lifetime2 ,i may even expect the future generations1 which would approve me if they knew me1 to know nothing about me when ,i am dead and gone4 ,yet still the emotion that beckons me on is indubitably the pursuit of an ideal social self1 of a self that is at least worthy of approving recognition by the highest possible judging companion1 if such companion there be4#bfg ,this self is the true1 the intimate1 the ultimate1 the permanent ,me which ,i seek4 ,this judge is ,god1 the ,absolute ,mind1 the ',great ,companion4' ,we hear1 in these days of scientific enlightenment1 a great deal of discussion about the efficacy of prayer2 and many reasons are given us why we should not pray1 whilst others are given us why we should4 ,but in all this very little is said of the reason why we do pray1 which is simply that we cannot help praying4 ,it seems probable that1 in spite of all that 'science' may do to the contrary1 men will continue to pray to the end of time1 unless their mental nature changes in a manner which nothing we know should lead us to expect4 ,the impulse to pray is a necessary consequence of the fact that whilst the innermost of the empirical selves of a man is a ,self of the social sort1 it yet can find its only adequate ,socius in an ideal world4 ,all progress in the social ,self is the substitution of higher tribunals for lower2 this ideal tribunal is the highest2 and most men1 either continually or occasionally1 carry a reference to it in their breast4 ,the humblest outcast on this earth can feel himself to be real and valid by means of this higher recognition4 ,and1 on the other hand1 for most of us1 a world with no such inner refuge when the outer social self failed and dropped from us would be the abyss of horror4 ,i say 'for most of us1' because it is probable that individuals differ a good deal in the degree in which they are haunted by this sense of an ideal spectator4 ,it is a much more essential part of the consciousness of some men than of others4 ,those who have the most of it are possibly the most religious men4 ,but ,i am sure that even those who say they are altogether without it deceive themselves1 and really have it in some degree4 ,only a non-gregarious animal could be completely without it4 ,probably no one can make sacrifices for 'right1' without to some degree personifying the principle of right for which the sacrifice is made1 and expecting thanks from it4 ,complete social unselfishness1 in other words1 can hardly exist2 complete social suicide hardly occur to a man's mind4 ,even such texts as ,job's1 ,though ,he slay me yet will ,i trust ,him1 or ,marcus ,aurelius's1 ,if gods hate me and my children1 there is a reason for it1 can least of all be cited to prove the contrary4 ,for beyond all doubt ,job revelled in the thought of ,jehovah's recognition of the worship after the slaying should have been done2 and the ,roman emperor felt sure the ,absolute ,reason would not be all indifferent to his acquiescence in the gods' dislike4 ,the old test of piety1 ,are you willing to be damned for the glory of ,god8 was probably never answered in the affirmative except by those who felt sure in their heart of hearts that ,god would 'credit' them with their willingness1 and set more store by them thus than if in ,his unfathomable scheme ,he had not damned them at all4 ,all this about the impossibility of suicide is said on the supposition of positive motives4 ,when possessed by the emotion of fear1 however1 we are in a negative state of mind2 that is1 our desire is limited to the mere banishing of something1 without regard to what shall take its place4 ,in this state of mind there can unquestionably be genuine thoughts1 and genuine acts1 of suicide1 spiritual and social1 as well as bodily4 ,anything1 anything1 at such times1 so as to escape and not to be6 ,but such conditions of suicidal frenzy are pathological in their nature and run dead against everything that is regular in the life of the ,self in man4 ,,what ,,self ,,is ,,loved ,,in ',,self-,,love'8 ,we must now try to interpret the facts of self-love and self-seeking a little more delicately from within4 ,a man in whom self-seeking of any sort is largely developed is said to be selfish4#bfh ,he is on the other hand called unselfish if he shows consideration for the interests of other selves than his own4 ,now what is the intimate nature of the selfish emotion in him8 and what is the primary object of its regard8 ,we have described him pursuing and fostering as his self first one set of things and then another2 we have seen the same set of facts gain or lose interest in his eyes1 leave him indifferent1 or fill him either with triumph or despair according as he made pretensions to appropriate them1 treated them as if they were potentially or actually parts of himself1 or not4 ,we know how little it matters to us whether some man1 a man taken at large and in the abstract1 prove a failure or succeed in life1--he may be hanged for aught we care1--but we know the utter momentousness and terribleness of the alternative when the man is the one whose name we ourselves bear4 ,i must not be a failure1 is the very loudest of the voices that clamor in each of our breasts3 let fail who may1 ,i at least must succeed4 ,now the first conclusion which these facts suggest is that each of us is animated by a direct feeling of regard for his own pure principle of individual existence1 whatever that may be1 taken merely as such4 ,it appears as if all our concrete manifestations of selfishness might be the conclusions of as many syllogisms1 each with this principle as the subject of its major premiss1 thus3 ,whatever is me is precious2 this is me2 therefore this is precious2 whatever is mine must not fail2 this is mine2 therefore this must not fail1 etc4 ,it appears1 ,i say1 as if this principle inoculated all it touched with its own intimate quality of worth2 as if1 previous to the touching1 everything might be matter of indifference1 and nothing interesting in its own right2 as if my regard for my own body even were an interest not simply in this body1 but in this body only so far as it is mine4 ,but what is this abstract numerical principle of identity1 this ',number ,one' within me1 for which1 according to proverbial philosophy1 ,i am supposed to keep so constant a 'lookout'8 ,is it the inner nucleus of my spiritual self1 that collection of obscurely felt 'adjustments1' plus perhaps that still more obscurely perceived subjectivity as such1 of which we recently spoke8 ,or is it perhaps the concrete stream of my thought in its entirety1 or some one section of the same8 ,or may it be the indivisible ,soul-,substance1 in which1 according to the orthodox tradition1 my faculties inhere8 ,or1 finally1 can it be the mere pronoun ,i8 ,surely it is none of these things1 that self for which ,i feel such hot regard4 ,though all of them together were put within me1 ,i should still be cold1 and fail to exhibit anything worthy of the name of selfishness or of devotion to ',number ,one4' ,to have a self that ,i can care for1 nature must first present me with some object interesting enough to make me instinctively wish to appropriate it for its own sake1 and out of it to manufacture one of those material1 social1 or spiritual selves1 which we have already passed in review4 ,we shall find that all the facts of rivalry and substitution that have so struck us1 all the shiftings and expansions and contractions of the sphere of what shall be considered me and mine1 are but results of the fact that certain things appeal to primitive and instinctive impulses of our nature1 and that we follow their destinies with an excitement that owes nothing to a reflective source4 ,these objects our consciousness treats as the primordial constituents of its ,me4 ,whatever other objects1 whether by association with the fate of these1 or in any other way1 come to be followed with the same sort of interest1 form our remoter and more secondary self4 ,the words ,,me1 then1 and ,,self1 so far as they arouse feeling and connote emotional worth1 are ,,objective designations1 meaning ,,all ,,the ,,things which have the power to produce in a stream of consciousness excitement of a certain peculiar sort4 ,let us try to justify this proposition in detail4 ,the most palpable selfishness of a man is his bodily selfishness2 and his most palpable self is the body to which that selfishness relates4 ,now ,i say that he identifies himself with this body because he loves it1 and that he does not love it because he finds it to be identified with himself4 ,reverting to natural history-psychology will help us to see the truth of this4 ,in the chapter on ,instincts we shall learn that every creature has a certain selective interest in certain portions of the world1 and that this interest is as often connate as acquired4 ,our interest in things means the attention and emotion which the thought of them will excite1 and the actions which their presence will evoke4 ,thus every species is particularly interested in its own prey or food1 its own enemies1 its own sexual mates1 and its own young4 ,these things fascinate by their intrinsic power to do so2 they are cared for for their own sakes4 ,well1 it stands not in the least otherwise with our bodies4 ,they too are percepts in our objective field--they are simply the most interesting percepts there4 ,what happens to them excites in us emotions and tendencies to action more energetic and habitual than any which are excited by other portions of the 'field4' ,what my comrades call my bodily selfishness or self-love1 is nothing but the sum of all the outer acts which this interest in my body spontaneously draws from me4 ,my 'selfishness' is here but a descriptive name for grouping together the outward symptoms which ,i show4 ,when ,i am led by self-love to keep my seat whilst ladies stand1 or to grab something first and cut out my neighbor1 what ,i really love is the comfortable seat1 is the thing itself which ,i grab4 ,i love them primarily1 as the mother loves her babe1 or a generous man an heroic deed4 ,wherever1 as here1 self-seeking is the outcome of simple instinctive propensity1 it is but a name for certain reflex acts4 ,something rivets my attention fatally1 and fatally provokes the 'selfish' response4 ,could an automaton be so skilfully constructed as to ape these acts1 it would be called selfish as properly as ,i4 ,it is true that ,i am no automaton1 but a thinker4 ,but my thoughts1 like my acts1 are here concerned only with the outward things4 ,they need neither know nor care for any pure principle within4 ,in fact the more utterly 'selfish' ,i am in this primitive way1 the more blindly absorbed my thought will be in the objects and impulses of my lusts1 and the more devoid of any inward looking glance4 ,a baby1 whose consciousness of the pure ,ego1 of himself as a thinker1 is not usually supposed developed1 is1 in this way1 as some ,german has said1 'der vollendeteste ,egoist4' ,his corporeal person1 and what ministers to its needs1 are the only self he can possibly be said to love4 ,his so-called self-love is but a name for his insensibility to all but this one set of things4 ,it may be that he needs a pure principle of subjectivity1 a soul or pure ,ego 7he certainly needs a stream of thought7 to make him sensible at all to anything1 to make him discriminate and love berhaupt1--how that may be1 we shall see ere long2 but this pure ,ego1 which would then be the condition of his loving1 need no more be the object of his love than it need be the object of his thought4 ,if his interests lay altogether in other bodies than his own1 if all his instincts were altruistic and all his acts suicidal1 still he would need a principle of consciousness just as he does now4 ,such a principle cannot then be the principle of his bodily selfishness any more than it is the principle of any other tendency he may show4 ,so much for the bodily self-love4 ,but my social self-love1 my interest in the images other men have framed of me1 is also an interest in a set of objects external to my thought4 ,these thoughts in other men's minds are out of my mind and 'ejective' to me4 ,they come and go1 and grow and dwindle1 and ,i am puffed up with pride1 or blush with shame1 at the result1 just as at my success or failure in the pursuit of a material thing4 ,so that here again1 just as in the former case1 the pure principle seems out of the game as an object of regard1 and present only as the general form or condition under which the regard and the thinking go on in me at all4 ,but1 it will immediately be objected1 this is giving a mutilated account of the facts4 ,those images of me in the minds of other men are1 it is true1 things outside of me1 whose changes ,i perceive just as ,i perceive any other outward change4 ,but the pride and shame which ,i feel are not concerned merely with those changes4 ,i feel as if something else had changed too1 when ,i perceive my image in your mind to have changed for the worse1 something in me to which that image belongs1 and which a moment ago ,i felt inside of me1 big and strong and lusty1 but now weak1 contracted1 and collapsed4 ,is not this latter change the change ,i feel the shame about8 ,is not the condition of this thing inside of me the proper object of my egoistic concern1 of my self-regard8 ,and is it not1 after all1 my pure ,ego1 my bare numerical principle of distinction from other men1 and no empirical part of me at all8 ,no1 it is no such pure principle1 it is simply my total empirical selfhood again1 my historic ,me1 a collection of objective facts1 to which the depreciated image in your mind 'belongs4' ,in what capacity is it that ,i claim and demand a respectful greeting from you instead of this expression of disdain8 ,it is not as being a bare ,i that ,i claim it2 it is as being an ,i who has always been treated with respect1 who belongs to a certain family and 'set1' who has certain powers1 possessions1 and public functions1 sensibilities1 duties1 and purposes1 and merits and deserts4 ,all this is what your disdain negates and contradicts2 this is 'the thing inside of me' whose changed treatment ,i feel the shame about2 this is what was lusty1 and now1 in consequence of your conduct1 is collapsed2 and this certainly is an empirical objective thing4 ,indeed1 the thing that is felt modified and changed for the worse during my feeling of shame is often more concrete even than this1--it is simply my bodily person1 in which your conduct immediately and without any reflection at all on my part works those muscular1 glandular1 and vascular changes which together make up the 'expression' of shame4 ,in this instinctive1 reflex sort of shame1 the body is just as much the entire vehicle of the self-feeling as1 in the coarser cases which we first took up1 it was the vehicle of the self-seeking4 ,as1 in simple 'hoggishness1' a succulent morsel gives rise1 by the reflex mechanism1 to behavior which the bystanders find 'greedy1' and consider to flow from a certain sort of 'self-regard2' so here your disdain gives rise1 by a mechanism quite as reflex and immediate1 to another sort of behavior1 which the bystanders call 'shame-faced' and which they consider due to another kind of self-regard4 ,but in both cases there may be no particular self regarded at all by the mind3 and the name self-regard may be only a descriptive title imposed from without the reflex acts themselves1 and the feelings that immediately result from their discharge4 ,after the bodily and social selves come the spiritual4 ,but which of my spiritual selves do ,i really care for8 ,my ,soul-substance8 my 'transcendental ,ego1 or ,thinker'8 my pronoun ,i8 my subjectivity as such8 my nucleus of cephalic adjustments8 or my more phenomenal and perishable powers1 my loves and hates1 willingnesses and sensibilities1 and the like8 ,surely the latter4 ,but they1 relatively to the central principle1 whatever it may be1 are external and objective4 ,they come and go1 and it remains--so shakes the magnet1 and so stands the pole4 ,it may indeed have to be there for them to be loved1 but being there is not identical with being loved itself4 ,to sum up1 then1 we see no reason to suppose that 'self-love' is primarily1 or secondarily1 or ever1 love for one's mere principle of conscious identity4 ,it is always love for something which1 as compared with that principle1 is superficial1 transient1 liable to be taken up or dropped at will4 ,and zoological psychology again comes to the aid of our understanding and shows us that this must needs be so4 ,in fact1 in answering the question what things it is that a man loves in his self-love1 we have implicitly answered the farther question1 of why he loves them4 ,unless his consciousness were something more than cognitive1 unless it experienced a partiality for certain of the objects1 which1 in succession1 occupy its ken1 it could not long maintain itself in existence2 for1 by an inscrutable necessity1 each human mind's appearance on this earth is conditioned upon the integrity of the body with which it belongs1 upon the treatment which that body gets from others1 and upon the spiritual dispositions which use it as their tool1 and lead it either towards longevity or to destruction4 ,its own body1 then1 first of all1 its friends next1 and finally its spiritual dispositions1 ,,must be the supremely interesting ,,objects for each human mind4 ,each mind1 to begin with1 must have a certain minimum of selfishness in the shape of instincts of bodily self-seeking in order to exist4 ,this minimum must be there as a basis for all farther conscious acts1 whether of self-negation or of a selfishness more subtle still4 ,all minds must have come1 by the way of the survival of the fittest1 if by no directer path1 to take an intense interest in the bodies to which they are yoked1 altogether apart from any interest in the pure ,ego which they also possess4 ,and similarly with the images of their person in the minds of others4 ,i should not be extant now had ,i not become sensitive to looks of approval or disapproval on the faces among which my life is cast4 ,looks of contempt cast on other persons need affect me in no such peculiar way4 ,were my mental life dependent exclusively on some other person's welfare1 either directly or in an indirect way1 then natural selection would unquestionably have brought it about that ,i should be as sensitive to the social vicissitudes of that other person as ,i now am to my own4 ,instead of being egoistic ,i should be spontaneously altruistic1 then4 ,but in this case1 only partially realized in actual human conditions1 though the self ,i empirically love would have changed1 my pure ,ego or ,thinker would have to remain just what it is now4 ,my spiritual powers1 again1 must interest me more than those of other people1 and for the same reason4 ,i should not be here at all unless ,i had cultivated them and kept them from decay4 ,and the same law which made me once care for them makes me care for them still4 ,my own body and what ministers to its needs are thus the primitive object1 instinctively determined1 of my egoistic interests4 ,other objects may become interesting derivatively through association with any of these things1 either as means or as habitual concomitants2 and so in a thousand ways the primitive sphere of the egoistic emotions may enlarge and change its boundaries4 ,this sort of interest is really the meaning of the word 'my4' ,whatever has it is eo ipso a part of me4 ,my child1 my friend dies1 and where he goes ,i feel that part of myself now is and evermore shall be3 ,for this losing is true dying2 ,this is lordly man's down-lying2 ,this his slow but sure reclining1 ,star by star his world resigning4 ,the fact remains1 however1 that certain special sorts of thing tend primordially to possess this interest1 and form the natural me4 ,but all these things are objects1 properly so called1 to the subject which does the thinking4#bfi ,and this latter fact upsets at once the dictum of the old-fashioned sensationalist psychology1 that altruistic passions and interests are contradictory to the nature of things1 and that if they appear anywhere to exist1 it must be as secondary products1 resolvable at bottom into cases of selfishness1 taught by experience a hypocritical disguise4 ,if the zoological and evolutionary point of view is the true one1 there is no reason why any object whatever might not arouse passion and interest as primitively and instinctively as any other1 whether connected or not with the interests of the me4 ,the phenomenon of passion is in origin and essence the same1 whatever be the target upon which it is discharged2 and what the target actually happens to be is solely a question of fact4 ,i might conceivably be as much fascinated1 and as primitively so1 by the care of my neighbor's body as by the care of my own4 ,the only check to such exuberant altruistic interests is natural selection1 which would weed out such as were very harmful to the individual or to his tribe4 ,many such interests1 however1 remain unweeded out--the interest in the opposite sex1 for example1 which seems in mankind stronger than is called for by its utilitarian need2 and alongside of them remain interests1 like that in alcoholic intoxication1 or in musical sounds1 which1 for aught we can see1 are without any utility whatever4 ,the sympathetic instincts and the egoistic ones are thus co-ordinate4 ,they arise1 so far as we can tell1 on the same psychologic level4 ,the only difference between them is1 that the instincts called egoistic form much the larger mass4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the only author whom ,i know to have discussed the question whether the 'pure ,ego1' per se1 can be an object of regard1 is ,herr ,horwicz1 in his extremely able and acute ,psychologische ,analysen4 ,he too says that all self-regard is regard for certain objective things4 ,he disposes so well of one kind of objection that ,i must conclude by quoting a part of his own words3 ,first1 the objection3 ,the fact is indubitable that one's own children always pass for the prettiest and brightest1 the wine from one's own cellar for the best--at least for its price1--one's own house and horses for the finest4 ,with what tender admiration do we con over our own little deed of benevolence6 our own frailties and misdemeanors1 how ready we are to acquit ourselves for them1 when we notice them at all1 on the ground of 'extenuating circumstances'6 ,how much more really comic are our own jokes than those of others1 which1 unlike ours1 will not bear being repeated ten or twelve times over6 ,how eloquent1 striking1 powerful1 our own speeches are6 ,how appropriate our own address6 ,in short1 how much more intelligent1 soulful1 better1 is everything about us than in anyone else4 ,the sad chapter of artists' and authors' conceit and vanity belongs here4 ,the prevalence of this obvious preference which we feel for everything of our own is indeed striking4 ,does it not look as if our dear ,ego must first lend its color and flavor to anything in order to make it please us8444 ,is it not the simplest explanation for all these phenomena1 so consistent among themselves1 to suppose that the ,ego1 the self1 which forms the origin and centre of our thinking life1 is at the same time the original and central object of our life of feeling1 and the ground both of whatever special ideas and of whatever special feelings ensue8 ,herr ,horwicz goes on to refer to what we have already noticed1 that various things which disgust us in others do not disgust us at all in ourselves4 ,to most of us even the bodily warmth of another1 for example the chair warm from another's sitting1 is felt unpleasantly1 whereas there is nothing disagreeable in the warmth of the chair in which we have been sitting ourselves4 ,after some further remarks1 he replies to these facts and reasonings as follows2 ,we may with confidence affirm that our own possessions in most cases please us better not because they are ours1 but simply because we know them better1 'realize' them more intimately1 feel them more deeply4 ,we learn to appreciate what is ours in all its details and shadings1 whilst the goods of others appear to us in coarse outlines and rude averages4 ,here are some examples3 ,a piece of music which one plays one's self is heard and understood better than when it is played by another4 ,we get more exactly all the details1 penetrate more deeply into the musical thought4 ,we may meanwhile perceive perfectly well that the other person is the better performer1 and yet nevertheless--at times--get more enjoyment from our own playing because it brings the melody and harmony so much nearer home to us4 ,this case may almost be taken as typical for the other cases of self-love4 ,on close examination1 we shall almost always find that a great part of our feeling about what is ours is due to the fact that we live closer to our own things1 and so feel them more thoroughly and deeply4 ,as a friend of mine was about to marry1 he often bored me by the repeated and minute way in which he would discuss the details of his new household arrangements4 ,i wondered that so intellectual a man should be so deeply interested in things of so external a nature4 ,but as ,i entered1 a few years later1 the same condition myself1 these matters acquired for me an entirely different interest1 and it became my turn to turn them over and talk of them unceasingly4444 ,the reason was simply this1 that in the first instance ,i understood nothing of these things and their importance for domestic comfort1 whilst in the latter ease they came home to me with irresistible urgency1 and vividly took possession of my fancy4 ,so it is with many a one who mocks at decorations and titles1 until he gains one himself4 ,and this is also surely the reason why one's own portrait or reflection in the mirror is so peculiarly interesting a thing to contemplate 444 not on account of any absolute 'c'est moi1' but just as with the music played by ourselves4 ,what greets our eyes is what we know best1 most deeply understand2 because we ourselves have felt it and lived through it4 ,we know what has ploughed these furrows1 deepened these shadows1 blanched this hair2 and other faces may be handsomer1 but none can speak to us or interest us like this4#bgj ,moreover1 this author goes on to show that our own things are fuller for us than those of others because of the memories they awaken and the practical hopes and expectations they arouse4 ,this alone would emphasize them1 apart from any value derived from their belonging to ourselves4 ,we may conclude with him1 then1 that an original central self-feeling can never explain the passionate warmth of our self-regarding emotions1 which must1 on the contrary1 be addressed directly to special things less abstract and empty of content4 ,to these things the name of 'self' may be given1 or to our conduct towards them the name of 'selfishness1' but neither in the self nor the selfishness does the pure ,thinker play the 'title-role4' 99 99 99 99 99 ,only one more point connected with our self-regard need be mentioned4 ,we have spoken of it so far as active instinct or emotion4 ,it remains to speak of it as cold intellectual self-estimation4 ,we may weigh our own ,me in the balance of praise and blame as easily as we weigh other people1--though with difficulty quite as fairly4 ,the just man is the one who can weigh himself impartially4 ,impartial weighing presupposes a rare faculty of abstraction from the vividness with which1 as ,herr ,horwicz has pointed out1 things known as intimately as our own possessions and performances appeal to our imagination2 and an equally rare power of vividly representing the affairs of others4 ,but1 granting these rare powers1 there is no reason why a man should not pass judgment on himself quite as objectively and well as on anyone else4 ,no matter how he feels about himself1 unduly elated or unduly depressed1 he may still truly know his own worth by measuring it by the outward standard he applies to other men1 and counteract the injustice of the feeling he cannot wholly escape4 ,this self-measuring process has nothing to do with the instinctive self-regard we have hitherto been dealing with4 ,being merely one application of intellectual comparison1 it need no longer detain us here4 ,please note again1 however1 how the pure ,ego appears merely as the vehicle in which the estimation is carried on1 the objects estimated being all of them facts of an empirical sort1#bga one's body1 one's credit1 one' fame1 one's intellectual ability1 one's goodness1 or whatever the case may be4 ,the empirical life of ,self is divided1 as below1 into ,,material4 ,,social4 ,,spiritual4 ,,self- ,bodily ,appetites ,desire to please1 be ,intellectual1 ,moral ,,seeking4 and ,instincts noticed1 admired1 etc4 and ,religious ,love of ,adornment1 ,sociability1 ,emulation1 ,aspiration1 ,foppery1 ,envy1 ,love1 ,conscientiousness4 ,acquisitiveness1 ,pursuit of ,honor1 ,constructiveness1 ,ambition1 etc4 ,love of ,home1 etc4 ,,self- ,personal ,vanity1 ,social and ,family ,sense of ,moral or ,,estimation4 ,modesty1 etc4 ,pride1 ,vainglory1 ,mental ,superiority1 ,pride of ,wealth1 ,snobbery1 ,humility1 ,purity1 etc4 ,fear of ,poverty ,shame1 etc4 ,sense of ,inferiority or of ,guilt ,,the ,,pure ,,ego4 ,having summed up in the above table the principal results of the chapter thus far1 ,i have said all that need be said of the constituents of the phenomenal self1 and of the nature of self-regard4 ,our decks are consequently cleared for the struggle with that pure principle of personal identity which has met us all along our preliminary exposition1 but which we have always shied from and treated as a difficulty to be postponed4 ,ever since ,hume's time1 it has been justly regarded as the most puzzling puzzle with which psychology has to deal2 and whatever view one may espouse1 one has to hold his position against heavy odds4 ,if1 with the ,spiritualists1 one contend for a substantial soul1 or transcendental principle of unity1 one can give no positive account of what that may be4 ,and if1 with the ,humians1 one deny such a principle and say that the stream of passing thoughts is all1 one runs against the entire common-sense of mankind1 of which the belief in a distinct principle of selfhood seems an integral part4 ,whatever solution be adopted in the pages to come1 we may as well make up our minds in advance that it will fail to satisfy the majority of those to whom it is addressed4 ,the best way of approaching the matter will be to take up first-- ,the ,sense of ,personal ,identity4 ,in the last chapter it was stated in as radical a way as possible that the thoughts which we actually know to exist do not fly about loose1 but seem each to belong to some one thinker and not to another4 ,each thought1 out of a multitude of other thoughts of which it may think1 is able to distinguish those which belong to its own ,ego from those which do not4 ,the former have a warmth and intimacy about them of which the latter are completely devoid1 being merely conceived1 in a cold and foreign fashion1 and not appearing as blood-relatives1 bringing their greetings to us from out of the past4 ,now this consciousness of personal sameness may be treated either as a subjective phenomenon or as an objective deliverance1 as a feeling1 or as a truth4 ,we may explain how one bit of thought can come to judge other bits to belong to the same ,ego with itself2 or we may criticise its judgment and decide how far it may tally with the nature of things4 ,as a mere subjective phenomenon the judgment presents no difficulty or mystery peculiar to itself4 ,it belongs to the great class of judgments of sameness2 and there is nothing more remarkable in making a judgment of sameness in the first person than in the second or the third4 ,the intellectual operations seem essentially alike1 whether ,i say ',i am the same1' or whether ,i say 'the pen is the same1 as yesterday4' ,it is as easy to think this as to think the opposite and say 'neither ,i nor the pen is the same4' ,this sort of bringing of things together into the object of a single judgment is of course essential to all thinking4 ,the things are conjoined in the thought1 whatever may be the relation in which they appear to the thought4 ,the thinking them is thinking them together1 even if only with the result of judging that they do not belong together4 ,this sort of subjective synthesis1 essential to knowledge as such 7whenever it has a complex object71 must not be confounded with objective synthesis or union instead of difference or disconnection1 known among the things4#bgb ,the subjective synthesis thesis is involved in thought's mere existence4 ,even a really disconnected world could only be known to be such by having its parts temporarily united in the ,object of some pulse of consciousness4#bgc ,the sense of personal identity is not1 then1 this mere synthetic form essential to all thought4 ,it is the sense of a sameness perceived by thought and predicated of things thought-about4 ,these things are a present self and a self of yesterday4 ,the thought not only thinks them both1 but thinks that they are identical4 ,the psychologist1 looking on and playing the critic1 might prove the thought wrong1 and show there was no real identity1--there might have been no yesterday1 or1 at any rate1 no self of yesterday2 or1 if there were1 the sameness predicated might not obtain1 or might be predicated on insufficient grounds4 ,in either case the personal identity would not exist as a fact2 but it would exist as a feeling all the same2 the consciousness of it by the thought would be there1 and the psychologist would still have to analyze that1 and show where its illusoriness lay4 ,let us now be the psychologist and see whether it be right or wrong when it says1 ,i am the same self that ,i was yesterday4 99 99 99 99 99 ,we may immediately call it right and intelligible so far as it posits a past time with past thoughts or selves contained therein--these were data which we assumed at the outset of the book4 ,right also and intelligible so far as it thinks of a present self--that present self we have just studied in its various forms4 ,the only question for us is as to what the consciousness may mean when it calls the present self the same with one of the past selves which it has in mind4 ,we spoke a moment since of warmth and intimacy4 ,this leads us to the answer sought4 ,for1 whatever the thought we are criticising may think about its present self1 that self comes to its acquaintance1 or is actually felt1 with warmth and intimacy4 ,of course this is the case with the bodily part of it2 we feel the whole cubic mass of our body all the while1 it gives us an unceasing sense of personal existence4 ,equally do we feel the inner 'nucleus of the spiritual self1' either in the shape of yon faint physiological adjustments1 or 7adopting the universal psychological belief71 in that of the pure activity of our thought taking place as such4 ,our remoter spiritual1 material1 and social selves1 so far as they are realized1 come also with a glow and a warmth2 for the thought of them infallibly brings some degree of organic emotion in the shape of quickened heart-beats1 oppressed breathing1 or some other alteration1 even though it be a slight one1 in the general bodily tone4 ,the character of 'warmth1' then1 in the present self1 reduces itself to either of two things1--something in the feeling which we have of the thought itself1 as thinking1 or else the feeling of the body's actual existence at the moment1--or finally to both4 ,we cannot realize our present self without simultaneously feeling one or other of these two things4 ,any other fact which brings these two things with it into consciousness will be thought with a warmth and an intimacy like those which cling to the present self4 ,any distant self which fulfils this condition will be thought with such warmth and intimacy4 ,but which distant selves do fulfil the condition1 when represented8 ,obviously those1 and only those1 which fulfilled it when they were alive4 ,them we shall imagine with the animal warmth upon them1 to them may possibly cling the aroma1 the echo of the thinking taken in the act4 ,and by a natural consequence1 we shall assimilate them to each other and to the warm and intimate self we now feel within us as we think1 and separate them as a collection from whatever selves have not this mark1 much as out of a herd of cattle let loose for the winter on some wide western prairie the owner picks out and sorts together when the time for the round-up comes in the spring1 all the beasts on which he finds his own particular brand4 ,the various members of the collection thus set apart are felt to belong with each other whenever they are thought at all4 ,the animal warmth1 etc41 is their herd-mark1 the brand from which they can never more escape4 ,it runs through them all like a thread through a chaplet and makes them into a whole1 which we treat as a unit1 no matter how much in other ways the parts may differ inter se4 ,add to this character the farther one that the distant selves appear to our thought as having for hours of time been continuous with each other1 and the most recent ones of them continuous with the ,self of the present moment1 melting into it by slow degrees2 and we get a still stronger bond of union4 ,as we think we see an identical bodily thing when1 in spite of changes of structure1 it exists continuously before our eyes1 or when1 however interrupted its presence1 its quality returns unchanged2 so here we think we experience an identical ,self when it appears to us in an analogous way4 ,continuity makes us unite what dissimilarity might otherwise separate2 similarity makes us unite what discontinuity might hold apart4 ,and thus it is1 finally1 that ,peter1 awakening in the same bed with ,paul1 and recalling what both had in mind before they went to sleep1 reidentifies and appropriates the 'warm' ideas as his1 and is never tempted to confuse them with those cold and pale-appearing ones which he ascribes to ,paul4 ,as well might he confound ,paul's body1 which he only sees1 with his own body1 which he sees but also feels4 ,each of us when he awakens says1 ,here's the same old self again1 just as he says1 ,here's the same old bed1 the same old room1 the came old world4 ,the sense of our own personal identity1 then1 is exactly like any one of our other perceptions of sameness among phenomena4 ,it is a conclusion grounded either on the resemblance in a fundamental respect2 or on the continuity before the mind1 of the phenomena compared4 ,and it must not be taken to mean more than these grounds warrant1 or treated as a sort of metaphysical or absolute ,unity in which all differences are overwhelmed4 ,the past and present selves compared are the same just so far as they are the same1 and no farther4 ,a uniform feeling of 'warmth1' of bodily existence 7or an equally uniform feeling of pure psychic energy87 pervades them all2 and this is what gives them a generic unity1 and makes them the same in kind4 ,but this generic unity coexists with generic differences just as real as the unity4 ,and if from the one point of view they are one self1 from others they are as truly not one but many selves4 ,and similarly of the attribute of continuity2 it gives its own kind of unity to the self--that of mere connectedness1 or unbrokenness1 a perfectly definite phenomenal thing--but it gives not a jot or tittle more4 ,and this unbrokenness in the stream of selves1 like the unbrokenness in an exhibition of 'dissolving views1' in no wise implies any farther unity or contradicts any amount of plurality in other respects4 ,and accordingly we find that1 where the resemblance and the continuity are no longer felt1 the sense of personal identity goes too4 ,we hear from our parents various anecdotes about our infant years1 but we do not appropriate them as we do our own memories4 ,those breaches of decorum awaken no blush1 those bright sayings no self-complacency4 ,that child is a foreign creature with which our present self is no more identified in feeling than it is with some stranger's living child to-day4 ,why8 ,partly because great time-gaps break up all these early years--we cannot ascend to them by continuous memories2 and partly because no representation of how the child felt comes up with the stories4 ,we know what he said and did2 but no sentiment of his little body1 of his emotions1 of his psychic strivings as they felt to him1 comes up to contribute an element of warmth and intimacy to the narrative we hear1 and the main bond of union with our present self thus disappears4 ,it is the same with certain of our dimly-recollected experiences4 ,we hardly know whether to appropriate them or to disown them as fancies1 or things read or heard and not lived through4 ,their animal heat has evaporated2 the feelings that accompanied them are so lacking in the recall1 or so different from those we now enjoy1 that no judgment of identity can be decisively cast4 ,resemblance among the parts of a continuum of feelings 7especially bodily feelings7 experienced along with things widely different in all other regards1 thus constitutes the real and verifiable 'personal identity' which we feel4 ,there is no other identity than this in the 'stream' of subjective consciousness which we described in the last chapter4 ,its parts differ1 but under all their differences they are knit in these two ways2 and if either way of knitting disappears1 the sense of unity departs4 ,if a man wakes up some fine day unable to recall any of his past experiences1 so that he has to learn his biography afresh1 or if he only recalls the facts of it in a cold abstract way as things that he is sure once happened2 or if1 without this loss of memory1 his bodily and spiritual habits all change during the night1 each organ giving a different tone1 and the act of thought becoming aware of itself in a different way2 he feels1 and he says1 that he is a changed person4 ,he disowns his former me1 gives himself a new name1 identifies his present life with nothing from out of the older time4 ,such cases are not rare in mental pathology2 but1 as we still have some reasoning to do1 we had better give no concrete account of them until the end of the chapter4 ,this description of personal identity will be recognized by the instructed reader as the ordinary doctrine professed by the empirical school4 ,associationists in ,england and ,france1 ,herbartians in ,germany1 all describe the ,self as an aggregate of which each part1 as to its being1 is a separate fact4 ,so far so good1 then2 thus much is true whatever farther things may be true2 and it is to the imperishable glory of ,hume and ,herbart and their successors to have taken so much of the meaning of personal identity out of the clouds and made of the ,self an empirical and verifiable thing4 99 99 99 99 99 ,but in leaving the matter here1 and saying that this sum of passing things is all1 these writers have neglected certain more subtle aspects of the ,unity of ,consciousness1 to which we next must turn4 ,our recent simile of the herd of cattle will help us4 ,it will be remembered that the beasts were brought together into one herd because their owner found on each of them his brand4 ,the 'owner' symbolizes here that 'section' of consciousness1 or pulse of thought1 which we have all along represented as the vehicle of the judgment of identity2 and the 'brand' symbolizes the characters of warmth and continuity1 by reason of which the judgment is made4 ,there is found a self-brand1 just as there is found a herd-brand4 ,each brand1 so far1 is the mark1 or cause of our knowing1 that certain things belong-together4 ,but if the brand is the ratio cognoscendi of the belonging1 the belonging1 in the case of the herd1 is in turn the ratio existendi of the brand4 ,no beast would be so branded unless he belonged to the owner of the herd4 ,they are not his because they are branded2 they are branded because they are his4 ,so that it seems as if our description of the belonging-together of the various selves1 as a belonging-together which is merely represented1 in a later pulse of thought1 had knocked the bottom out of the matter1 and omitted the most characteristic one of all the features found in the herd--a feature which common-sense finds in the phenomenon of personal identity as well1 and for our omission of which she will hold us to a strict account4 ,for common-sense insists that the unity of all the selves is not a mere appearance of similarity or continuity1 ascertained after the fact4 ,she is sure that it involves a real belonging to a real ,owner1 to a pure spiritual entity of some kind4 ,relation to this entity is what makes the self's constituents stick together as they do for thought4 ,the individual beasts do not stick together1 for all that they wear the same brand4 ,each wanders with whatever accidental mates it finds4 ,the herd's unity is only potential1 its centre ideal1 like the 'centre of gravity' in physics1 until the herdsman or owner comes4 ,he furnishes a real centre of accretion to which the beasts are driven and by which they are held4 ,the beasts stick together by sticking severally to him4 ,just so1 common-sense insists1 there must be a real proprietor in the case of the selves1 or else their actual accretion into a 'personal consciousness' would never have taken place4 ,to the usual empiricist explanation of personal consciousness this is a formidable reproof1 because all the individual thoughts and feelings which have succeeded each other 'up to date' are represented by ordinary ,associationism as in some inscrutable way 'integrating' or gumming themselves together on their own account1 and thus fusing into a stream4 ,all the incomprehensibilities which in ,chapter ,,vi we saw to attach to the idea of things fusing without a medium apply to the empiricist description of personal identity4 ,but in our own account the medium is fully assigned1 the herdsman is there1 in the shape of something not among the things collected1 but superior to them all1 namely1 the real1 present onlooking1 remembering1 'judging thought' or identifying 'section' of the stream4 ,this is what collects1--'owns' some of the past facts which it surveys1 and disowns the rest1--and so makes a unity that is actualized and anchored and does not merely float in the blue air of possibility4 ,and the reality of such pulses of thought1 with their function of knowing1 it will be remembered that we did not seek to deduce or explain1 but simply assumed them as the ultimate kind of fact that the psychologist must admit to exist4 ,but this assumption1 though it yields much1 still does not yield all that common-sense demands4 ,the unity into which the ,thought--as ,i shall for a time proceed to call1 with a capital ,t1 the present mental state--binds the individual past facts with each other and with itself1 does not exist until the ,thought is there4 ,it is as if wild cattle were lassoed by a newly-created settler and then owned for the first time4 ,but the essence of the matter to common-sense is that the past thoughts never were wild cattle1 they were always owned4 ,the ,thought does not capture them1 but as soon as it comes into existence it finds them already its own4 ,how is this possible unless the ,thought have a substantial identity with a former owner1--not a mere continuity or a resemblance1 as in our account1 but a real unity8 ,common-sense in fact would drive us to admit what we may for the moment call an ,arch-,ego1 dominating the entire stream of thought and all the selves that may be represented in it1 as the ever self-same and changeless principle implied in their union4 ,the ',soul' of ,metaphysics and the ',transcendental ,ego' of the ,kantian ,philosophy1 are1 as we shall soon see1 but attempts to satisfy this urgent demand of common-sense4 ,but1 for a time at least1 we can still express without any such hypotheses that appearance of never-lapsing ownership for which common-sense contends4 ,for how would it be if the ,thought1 the present judging ,thought1 instead of being in any way substantially or transcendentally identical with the former owner of the past self1 merely inherited his 'title1' and thus stood as his legal representative now8 ,it would then1 if its birth coincided exactly with the death of another owner1 find the past self already its own as soon as it found it at all1 and the past self would thus never be wild1 but always owned1 by a title that never lapsed4 ,we can imagine a long succession of herdsmen coming rapidly into possession of the same cattle by transmission of an original title by bequest4 ,may not the 'title' of a collective self be passed from one ,thought to another in some analogous way8 ,it is a patent fact of consciousness that a transmission like this actually occurs4 ,each pulse of cognitive consciousness1 each ,thought1 dies away and is replaced by another4 ,the other1 among the things it knows1 knows its own predecessor1 and finding it 'warm1' in the way we have described1 greets it1 saying3 ,thou art mine1 and part of the same self with me4 ,each later ,thought1 knowing and including thus the ,thoughts which went before1 is the final receptacle--and appropriating them is the final owner--of all that they contain and own4 ,each ,thought is thus born an owner1 and dies owned1 transmitting whatever it realized as its ,self to its own later proprietor4 ,as ,kant says1 it is as if elastic balls were to have not only motion but knowledge of it1 and a first ball were to transmit both its motion and its consciousness to a second1 which took both up into its consciousness and passed them to a third1 until the last ball held all that the other balls had held1 and realized it as its own4 ,it is this trick which the nascent thought has of immediately taking up the expiring thought and 'adopting' it1 which is the foundation of the appropriation of most of the remoter constituents of the self4 ,who owns the last self owns the self before the last1 for what possesses the possessor possesses the possessed4 99 99 99 99 99 ,it is impossible to discover any verifiable features in personal identity1 which this sketch does not contain1 impossible to imagine how any transcendent non-phenomenal sort of an ,arch-,ego1 were he there1 could shape matters to any other result1 or be known in time by any other fruit1 than just this production of a stream of consciousness each 'section' of which should know1 and knowing1 hug to itself and adopt1 all those that went before1--thus standing as the representative of the entire past stream2 and which should similarly adopt the objects already adopted by any portion of this spiritual stream4 ,such standing-as-representative1 and such adopting1 are perfectly clear phenomenal relations4 ,the ,thought which1 whilst it knows another ,thought and the ,object of that ,other1 appropriates the ,other and the ,object which the ,other appropriated1 is still a perfectly distinct phenomenon from that ,other2 it may hardly resemble it2 it may be far removed from it in space and time4 ,the only point that is obscure is the act of appropriation itself4 ,already in enumerating the constituents of the self and their rivalry1 ,i had to use the word appropriate4 ,and the quick-witted reader probably noticed at the time1 in hearing how one constituent was let drop and disowned and another one held fast to and espoused1 that the phrase was meaningless unless the constituents were objects in the hands of something else4 ,a thing cannot appropriate itself2 it is itself2 and still less can it disown itself4 ,there must be an agent of the appropriating and disowning2 but that agent we have already named4 ,it is the ,thought to whom the various 'constituents' are known4 ,that ,thought is a vehicle of choice as well as of cognition2 and among the choices it makes are these appropriations1 or repudiations1 of its 'own4' ,but the ,thought never is an object in its own hands1 it never appropriates or disowns itself4 ,it appropriates to itself1 it is the actual focus of accretion1 the hook from which the chain of past selves dangles1 planted firmly in the ,present1 which alone passes for real1 and thus keeping the chain from being a purely ideal thing4 ,anon the hook itself will drop into the past with all it carries1 and then be treated as an object and appropriated by a new ,thought in the new present which will serve as living hook in turn4 ,the present moment of consciousness is thus1 as ,mr4 ,hodgson says1 the darkest in the whole series4 ,it may feel its own immediate existence--we have all along admitted the possibility of this1 hard as it is by direct introspection to ascertain the fact--but nothing can be known about it till it be dead and gone4 ,its appropriations are therefore less to itself than to the most intimately felt part of its present ,object1 the body1 and the central adjustments1 which accompany the act of thinking1 in the head4 ,these are the real nucleus of our personal identity1 and it is their actual existence1 realized as a solid present fact1 which makes us say 'as sure as ,i exist1 those past facts were part of myself4' ,they are the kernel to which the represented parts of the ,self are assimilated1 accreted1 and knit on2 and even were ,thought entirely unconscious of itself in the act of thinking1 these 'warm' parts of its present object would be a firm basis on which the consciousness of personal identity would rest4#bgd ,such consciousness1 then1 as a psychologic fact1 can be fully described without supposing any other agent than a succession of perishing thoughts1 endowed with the functions of appropriation and rejection1 and of which some can know and appropriate or reject objects already known1 appropriated1 or rejected by the rest4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #cd4 ,to illustrate by diagram1 let ,a1 ,b1 and ,c stand for three successive thoughts1 each with its object inside of it4 ,if ,b's object be ,a1 and ,c's object be ,b2 then ,a1 ,b1 and ,c would stand for three pulses in a consciousness of personal identity4 ,each pulse would be something different from the others2 but ,b would know and adopt ,a1 and ,c would know and adopt ,a and ,b4 ,three successive states of the same brain1 on which each experience in passing leaves its mark1 might very well engender thoughts differing from each other in just such a way as this4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the passing ,thought then seems to be the ,thinker2 and though there may be another non-phenomenal ,thinker behind that1 so far we do not seem to need him to express the facts4 ,but we cannot definitively make up our mind about him until we have heard the reasons that have historically been used to prove his reality4 ,,the ,,pure ,,self ,,or ,,inner ,,principle ,,of ,,personal ,,unity4 ,to a brief survey of the theories of the ,ego let us then next proceed4 ,they are three in number1 as follows3 #a7 ,the ,spiritualist theory2 #b7 ,the ,associationist theory2 #c7 ,the ,transcendentalist theory4 ,the ,theory of the ,soul4 ,in ,chapter ,,vi we were led ourselves to the spiritualist theory of the ',soul1' as a means of escape from the unintelligibilities of mind-stuff 'integrating' with itself1 and from the physiological improbability of a material monad1 with thought attached to it1 in the brain4 ,but at the end of the chapter we said we should examine the ',soul' critically in a later place1 to see whether it had any other advantages as a theory over the simple phenomenal notion of a stream of thought accompanying a stream of cerebral activity1 by a law yet unexplained4 ,the theory of the ,soul is the theory of popular philosophy and of scholasticism1 which is only popular philosophy made systematic4 ,it declares that the principle of individuality within us must be substantial1 for psychic phenomena are activities1 and there can be no activity without a concrete agent4 ,this substantial agent cannot be the brain but must be something immaterial2 for its activity1 thought1 is both immaterial1 and takes cognizance of immaterial things1 and of material things in general and intelligible1 as well as in particular and sensible ways1--all which powers are incompatible with the nature of matter1 of which the brain is composed4 ,thought moreover is simple1 whilst the activities of the brain are compounded of the elementary activities of each of its parts4 ,furthermore1 thought is spontaneous or free1 whilst all material activity is determined ab extra2 and the will can turn itself against all corporeal goods and appetites1 which would be impossible were it a corporeal function4 ,for these objective reasons the principle of psychic life must be both immaterial and simple as well as substantial1 must be what is called a ,soul4 ,the same consequence follows from subjective reasons4 ,our consciousness of personal identity assures us of our essential simplicity3 the owner of the various constituents of the self1 as we have seen them1 the hypothetical ,arch-,ego whom we provisionally conceived as possible1 is a real entity of whose existence self-consciousness makes us directly aware4 ,no material agent could thus turn round and grasp itself--material activities always grasp something else than the agent4 ,and if a brain could grasp itself and be self-conscious1 it would be conscious of itself as a brain and not as something of an altogether different kind4 ,the ,soul then exists as a simple spiritual substance in which the various psychic faculties1 operations1 and affections inhere4 ,if we ask what a ,substance is1 the only answer is that it is a self-existent being1 or one which needs no other subject in which to inhere4 ,at bottom its only positive determination is ,being1 and this is something whose meaning we all realize even though we find it hard to explain4 ,the ,soul is moreover an individual being1 and if we ask what that is1 we are told to look in upon our ,self1 and we shall learn by direct intuition better than through any abstract reply4 ,our direct perception of our own inward being is in fact by many deemed to be the original prototype out of which our notion of simple active substance in general is fashioned4 ,the consequences of the simplicity and substantiality of the ,soul are its incorruptibility and natural immortality--nothing but ,god's direct fiat can annihilate it--and its responsibility at all times for whatever it may have ever done4 ,this substantialist view of the soul was essentially the view of ,plato and of ,aristotle4 ,it received its completely formal elaboration in the middle ages4 ,it was believed in by ,hobbes1 ,descartes1 ,locke1 ,leibnitz1 ,wolf1 ,berkeley1 and is now defended by the entire modern dualistic or spiritualistic or common-sense school4 ,kant held to it while denying its fruitfulness as a premise for deducing consequences verifiable here below4 ,kant's successors1 the absolute idealists1 profess to have discarded it1--how that may be we shall inquire ere long4 ,let us make up our minds what to think of it ourselves4 ,it is at all events needless for expressing the actual subjective phenomena of consciousness as they appear4 ,we have formulated them all without its aid1 by the supposition of a stream of thoughts1 each substantially different from the rest1 but cognitive of the rest and 'appropriative' of each other's content4 ,at least1 if ,i have not already succeeded in making this plausible to the reader1 ,i am hopeless of convincing him by anything ,i could add now4 ,the unity1 the identity1 the individuality1 and the immateriality that appear in the psychic life are thus accounted for as phenomenal and temporal facts exclusively1 and with no need of reference to any more simple or substantial agent than the present ,thought or 'section' of the stream4 ,we have seen it to be single and unique in the sense of having no separable parts 7above1 p4 #bci ff47--perhaps that is the only kind of simplicity meant to be predicated of the soul4 ,the present ,thought also has being1--at least all believers in the ,soul believe so--and if there be no other ,being in which it 'inheres1' it ought itself to be a 'substance4' ,if this kind of simplicity and substantiality were all that is predicated of the ,soul1 then it might appear that we had been talking of the soul all along1 without knowing it1 when we treated the present ,thought as an agent1 an owner1 and the like4 ,but the ,thought is a perishing and not an immortal or incorruptible thing4 ,its successors may continuously succeed to it1 resemble it1 and appropriate it1 but they are not it1 whereas the ,soul-,substance is supposed to be a fixed unchanging thing4 ,by the ,soul is always meant something behind the present ,thought1 another kind of substance1 existing on a non-phenomenal plane4 ,when we brought in the ,soul at the end of ,chapter ,,vi1 as an entity which the various brain-processes were supposed to affect simultaneously1 and which responded to their combined influence by single pulses of its thought1 it was to escape integrated mind-stuff on the one hand1 and an improbable cerebral monad on the other4 ,but when 7as now1 after all we have been through since that earlier passage7 we take the two formulations1 first of a brain to whose processes pulses of thought simply correspond1 and second1 of one to whose processes pulses of thought in a ,soul correspond1 and compare them together1 we see that at bottom the second formulation is only a more roundabout way than the first1 of expressing the same bald fact4 ,that bald fact is that when the brain acts1 a thought occurs4 ,the spiritualistic formulation says that the brain-processes knock the thought1 so to speak1 out of a ,soul which stands there to receive their influence4 ,the simpler formulation says that the thought simply comes4 ,but what positive meaning has the ,soul1 when scrutinized1 but the ground of possibility of the thought8 ,and what is the 'knocking' but the determining of the possibility to actuality8 ,and what is this after all but giving a sort of concreted form to one's belief that the coming of the thought1 when the brain-processes occur1 has some sort of ground in the nature of things8 ,if the world ,soul be understood merely to express that claim1 it is a good word to use4 ,but if it be held to do more1 to gratify the claim1--for instance1 to connect rationally the thought which comes1 with the processes which occur1 and to mediate intelligibly between their two disparate natures1--then it is an illusory term4 ,it is1 in fact1 with the word ,soul as with the word ,substance in general4 ,to say that phenomena inhere in a ,substance is at bottom only to record one's protest against the notion that the bare existence of the phenomena is the total truth4 ,a phenomenon would not itself be1 we insist1 unless there were something more than the phenomenon4 ,to the more we give the provisional name of ,substance4 ,so1 in the present instance1 we ought certainly to admit that there is more than the bare fact of coexistence of a passing thought with a passing brain-state4 ,but we do not answer the question ',what is that more8' when we say that it is a ',soul' which the brain-state affects4 ,this kind of more explains nothing2 and when we are once trying metaphysical explanations we are foolish not to go as far as we can4 ,for my own part ,i confess that the moment ,i become metaphysical and try to define the more1 ,i find the notion of some sort of an anima mundi thinking in all of us to be a more promising hypothesis1 in spite of all its difficulties1 than that of a lot of absolutely individual souls4 ,meanwhile1 as psychologists1 we need not be metaphysical at all4 ,the phenomena are enough1 the passing ,thought itself is the only verifiable thinker1 and its empirical connection with the brain-process is the ultimate known law4 ,to the other arguments which would prove the need of a soul1 we may also turn a deaf ear4 ,the argument from free-will can convince only those who believe in free-will2 and even they will have to admit that spontaneity is just as possible1 to say the least1 in a temporary spiritual agent like our ',thought' as in a permanent one like the supposed ,soul4 ,the same is true of the argument from the kinds of things cognized4 ,even if the brain could not cognize universal1 immaterials1 or its ',self1' still the ',thought' which we have relied upon in our account is not the brain1 closely as it seems connected with it2 and after all1 if the brain could cognize at all1 one does not well see why it might not cognize one sort of thing as well as another4 ,the great difficulty is in seeing how a thing can cognize anything4 ,this difficulty is not in the least removed by giving to the thing that cognizes the name of ,soul4 ,the ,spiritualists do not deduce any of the properties of the mental life from otherwise known properties of the soul4 ,they simply find various characters ready-made in the mental life1 and these they clap into the ,soul1 saying1 ,lo6 behold the source from whence they flow6 ,the merely verbal character of this 'explanation' is obvious4 ,the ,soul invoked1 far from making the phenomena more intelligible1 can only be made intelligible itself by borrowing their form1--it must be represented1 if at all1 as a transcendent stream of consciousness duplicating the one we know4 ,altogether1 the ,soul is an outbirth of that sort of philosophizing whose great maxim1 according to ,dr4 ,hodgson1 is3 ,whatever you are totally ignorant of1 assert to be the explanation of everything else4 99 99 99 99 99 ,locke and ,kant1 whilst still believing in the soul1 began the work of undermining the notion that we know anything about it4 ,most modern writers of the mitigated spiritualistic1 or dualistic philosophy--the ,scotch school1 as it is often called among us--are forward to proclaim this ignorance1 and to attend exclusively to the verifiable phenomena of self-consciousness1 as we have laid them down4 ,dr4 ,wayland1 for example1 begins his ,elements of ,intellectual ,philosophy with the phrase ,of the essence of ,mind we know nothing1 and goes on3 ,all that we are able to affirm of it is that it is something which perceives1 reflects1 remembers1 imagines1 and wills2 but what that something is which exerts these energies we know not4 ,it is only as we are conscious of the action of these energies that we are conscious of the existence of mind4 ,it is only by the exertion of its own powers that the mind becomes cognizant of their existence4 ,the cognizance of its powers1 however1 gives us no knowledge of that essence of which they are predicated4 ,in these respects our knowledge of mind is precisely analogous to our knowledge of matter4 ,this analogy of our two ignorances is a favorite remark in the ,scotch school4 ,it is but a step to lump them together into a single ignorance1 that of the ',unknowable' to which any one fond of superfluities in philosophy may accord the hospitality of his belief1 if it so please him1 but which any one else may as freely ignore and reject4 ,the ,soul-theory is1 then1 a complete superfluity1 so far as accounting for the actually verified facts of conscious experience goes4 ,so far1 no one can be compelled to subscribe to it for definite scientific reasons4 ,the case would rest here1 and the reader be left free to make his choice1 were it not for other demands of a more practical kind4 ,the first of these is ,immortality1 for which the simplicity and substantiality of the ,soul seem to offer a solid guarantee4 ,a 'stream' of thought1 for aught that we see to be contained in its essence1 may come to a full stop at any moment2 but a simple substance is incorruptible1 and will1 by its own inertia1 persist in ,being so long as the ,creator does not by a direct miracle snuff it out4 ,unquestionably this is the stronghold of the spiritualistic belief1--as indeed the popular touchstone for all philosophies is the question1 ,what is their bearing on a future life8 ,the ,soul1 however1 when closely scrutinized1 guarantees no immortality of a sort we care for4 ,the enjoyment of the atom-like simplicity of their substance in scula sculorum would not to most people seem a consummation devoutly to be wished4 ,the substance must give rise to a stream of consciousness continuous with the present stream1 in order to arouse our hope1 but of this the mere persistence of the substance per se offers no guarantee4 ,moreover1 in the general advance of our moral ideas1 there has come to be something ridiculous in the way our forefathers had of grounding their hopes of immortality on the simplicity of their substance4 ,the demand for immortality is nowadays essentially teleological4 ,we believe ourselves immortal because we believe ourselves fit for immortality4 ,a 'substance' ought surely to perish1 we think1 if not worthy to survive2 and an insubstantial 'stream' to prolong itself1 provided it be worthy1 if the nature of ,things is organized in the rational way in which we trust it is4 ,substance or no substance1 soul or 'stream1' what ,lotze says of immortality is about all that human wisdom can say3 ,we have no other principle for deciding it than this general idealistic belief3 that every created thing will continue whose continuance belongs to the meaning of the world1 and so long as it does so belong2 whilst every one will pass away whose reality is justified only in a transitory phase of the world's course4 ,that this principle admits of no further application in human hands need hardly be said4 ,we surely know not the merits which may give to one being a claim on eternity1 nor the defects which would cut others off4#bge ,a second alleged necessity for a soul-substance is our forensic responsibility before ,god4 ,locke caused an uproar when he said that the unity of consciousness made a man the same person1 whether supported by the same substance or no1 and that ,god would not1 in the great day1 make a person answer for what he remembered nothing of4 ,it was supposed scandalous that our forgetfulness might thus deprive ,god of the chance of certain retributions1 which otherwise would have enhanced his 'glory4' ,this is certainly a good speculative ground for retaining the ,soul--at least for those who demand a plenitude of retribution4 ,the mere stream of consciousness1 with its lapses of memory1 cannot possibly be as 'responsible' as a soul which is at the judgment day all that it ever was4 ,to modern readers1 however1 who are less insatiate for retribution than their grandfathers1 this argument will hardly be as convincing as it seems once to have been4 99 99 99 99 99 ,one great use of the ,soul has always been to account for1 and at the same time to guarantee1 the closed individuality of each personal consciousness4 ,the thoughts of one soul must unite into one self1 it was supposed1 and must be eternally insulated from those of every other soul4 ,but we have already begun to see that1 although unity is the rule of each man's consciousness1 yet in some individuals1 at least1 thoughts may split away from the others and form separate selves4 ,as for insulation1 it would be rash1 in view of the phenomena of thought-transference1 mesmeric influence and spirit-control1 which are being alleged nowadays on better authority than ever before1 to be too sure about that point either4 ,the definitively closed nature of our personal consciousness is probably an average statistical resultant of many conditions1 but not an elementary force or fact2 so that1 if one wishes to preserve the ,soul1 the less he draws his arguments from that quarter the better4 ,so long as our self1 on the whole1 makes itself good and practically maintains itself as a closed individual1 why1 as ,lotze says1 is not that enough8 ,and why is the being-an-individual in some inaccessible metaphysical way so much prouder an achievement8#bgf ,my final conclusion1 then1 about the substantial ,soul is that it explains nothing and guarantees nothing4 ,its successive thoughts are the only intelligible and verifiable things about it1 and definitely to ascertain the correlations of these with brain-processes is as much as psychology can empirically do4 ,from the metaphysical point of view1 it is true that one may claim that the correlations have a rational ground2 and if the word ,soul could be taken to mean merely some such vague problematic ground1 it would be unobjectionable4 ,but the trouble is that it professes to give the ground in positive terms of a very dubiously credible sort4 ,i therefore feel entirely free to discard the word ,soul from the rest of this book4 ,if ,i ever use it1 it will be in the vaguest and most popular way4 ,the reader who finds any comfort in the idea of the ,soul1 is1 however1 perfectly free to continue to believe in it2 for our reasonings have not established the non-existence of the ,soul2 they have only proved its superfluity for scientific purposes4 ,the next theory of the pure ,self to which we pass is ,the ,associationist ,theory4 ,locke paved the way for it by the hypothesis he suggested of the same substance having two successive consciousnesses1 or of the same consciousness being supported by more than one substance4 ,he made his readers feel that the important unity of the ,self was its verifiable and felt unity1 and that a metaphysical or absolute unity would be insignificant1 so long as a consciousness of diversity might be there4 ,hume showed how great the consciousness of diversity actually was4 ,in the famous chapter on ,personal ,identity1 in his ,treatise on ,human ,nature1 he writes as follows3 ,there are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our ,,self2 that we feel its existence and its continuance in existence1 and are certain1 beyond the evidence of a demonstration1 both of its perfect identity and simplicity4444 ,unluckily all these positive assertions are contrary to that very experience which is pleaded for them1 nor have we any idea of ,self1 after the manner it is here explained4444 ,it must be some one impression that gives rise to every real idea4444 ,if any impression gives rise to the idea of ,self1 that impression must continue invariably the same through the whole course of our lives1 since self is supposed to exist after that manner4 ,but there is no impression constant and invariable4 ,pain and pleasure1 grief and joy1 passions and sensations succeed each other1 and never all exist at the same time4444 ,for my part1 when ,i enter most intimately into what ,i call myself1 ,i always stumble on some particular perception or other of heat or cold1 light or shade1 love or hatred1 pain or pleasure4 ,i never can catch myself at any time without a perception1 and never can observe anything but the perception4 ,when my perceptions are removed for any time1 as by sound sleep1 so long am ,i insensible of myself and may truly be said not to exist4 ,and were all my perceptions removed by death1 and could ,i neither think1 nor feel1 nor see1 nor love1 nor hate after the dissolution of my body1 ,i should be entirely annihilated1 nor do ,i conceive what is farther requisite to make me a perfect non-entity4 ,if anyone1 upon serious and unprejudiced reflection1 thinks he has a different notion of himself ,i must confess ,i can reason no longer with him4 ,all ,i can allow him is1 that he may be in the right as well as ,i1 and that we are essentially different in this particular4 ,he may1 perhaps1 perceive something simple and continued which he calls himself2 though ,i am certain there is no such principle in me4 ,but setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind1 ,i may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions1 which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity1 and are in a perpetual flux and movement4 ,our eyes cannot turn in their sockets without varying our perceptions4 ,our thought is still more variable than our sight2 and all our other senses and faculties contribute to this change2 nor is there any single power of the soul which remains unalterably the same1 perhaps for one moment ,the mind is a kind of theatre1 where several perceptions successively make their appearance2 pass1 repass1 glide away and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations4 ,there is properly no simplicity in it at one time1 nor identity in different2 whatever natural propension we may have to imagine that simplicity and identity4 ,the comparison of the theatre must not mislead us4 ,they are the successive perceptions only1 that constitute the mind2 nor have we the most distant notion of the place where these scenes are represented1 nor of the material of which it is composed4 ,but ,hume1 after doing this good piece of introspective work1 proceeds to pour out the child with the bath1 and to fly to as great an extreme as the substantialist philosophers4 ,as they say the ,self is nothing but ,unity1 unity abstract and absolute1 so ,hume says it is nothing but ,diversity1 diversity abstract and absolute2 whereas in truth it is that mixture of unity and diversity which we ourselves have already found so easy to pick apart4 ,we found among the objects of the stream certain feelings that hardly changed1 that stood out warm and vivid in the past just as the present feeling does now2 and we found the present feeling to be the centre of accretion to which1 de proche en proche1 these other feelings are1 by the judging ,thought1 felt to cling4 ,hume says nothing of the judging ,thought2 and he denies this thread of resemblance1 this core of sameness running through the ingredients of the ,self1 to exist even as a phenomenal thing4 ,to him there is no tertium quid between pure unity and pure separateness4 ,a succession of ideas connected by a close relation affords to an accurate view as perfect a notion of diversity as if there was no manner of relation at all4 ,all our distinct perceptions are distinct existences1 and the mind never perceives any real connection among distinct existences4 ,did our perceptions either inhere in something simple or individual1 or did the mind perceive some real connection among them1 there would be no difficulty in the case4 ,for my part1 ,i must plead the privilege of a sceptic and confess that this difficulty is too hard for my understanding1 ,i pretend not1 however1 to pronounce it insuperable4 ,others1 perhaps1444 may discover some hypothesis that will reconcile these contradictions4#bgg ,hume is at bottom as much of a metaphysician as ,thomas ,aquinas4 ,no wonder he can discover no 'hypothesis4' ,the unity of the parts of the stream is just as 'real' a connection as their diversity is a real separation2 both connection and separation are ways in which the past thoughts appear to the present ,thought2--unlike each other in respect of date and certain qualities--this is the separation2 alike in other qualities1 and continuous in time--this is the connection4 ,in demanding a more 'real' connection than this obvious and verifiable likeness and continuity1 ,hume seeks 'the world behind the looking glass1' and gives a striking example of that ,absolutism which is the great disease of philosophic ,thought4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the chain of distinct existences into which ,hume thus chopped up our 'stream' was adopted by all of his successors as a complete inventory of the facts4 ,the associationist ,philosophy was founded4 ,somehow1 out of 'ideas1' each separate1 each ignorant of its mates1 but sticking together and calling each other up according to certain laws1 all the higher forms of consciousness were to be explained1 and among them the consciousness of our personal identity4 ,the task was a hard one1 in which what we called the psychologist's fallacy 7p4 #aif ff47 bore the brunt of the work4 ,two ideas1 one of ',a1' succeeded by another of ',b1' were transmuted into a third idea of ',b after ,a4' ,an idea from last year returning now was taken to be an idea of last year2 two similar ideas stood for an idea of similarity1 and the like2 palpable confusions1 in which certain facts about the ideas1 possible only to an outside knower of them1 were put into the place of the ideas' own proper and limited deliverance and content4 ,out of such recurrences and resemblances in a series of discrete ideas and feelings a knowledge was somehow supposed to be engendered in each feeling that it was recurrent and resembling1 and that it helped to form a series to whose unity the name ,i came to be joined4 ,in the same way1 substantially1 ,herbart1#bgh in ,germany1 tried to show how a conflict of ideas would fuse into a manner of representing itself for which ,i was the consecrated name4#bgi ,the defect of all these attempts is that the conclusion pretended to follow from certain premises is by no means rationally involved in the premises4 ,a feeling of any kind1 if it simply returns1 ought to be nothing else than what it was at first4 ,if memory of previous existence and all sorts of other cognitive functions are attributed to it when it returns1 it is no longer the same1 but a widely different feeling1 and ought to be so described4 ,we have so described it with the greatest explicitness4 ,we have said that feelings never do return4 ,we have not pretended to explain this2 we have recorded it as an empirically ascertained law1 analogous to certain laws of brain-physiology2 and1 seeking to define the way in which new feelings do differ from the old1 we have found them to be cognizant and appropriative of the old1 whereas the old were always cognizant and appropriative of something else4 ,once more1 this account pretended to be nothing more than a complete description of the facts4 ,it explained them no more than the associationist account explains them4 ,but the latter both assumes to explain them and in the same breath falsifies them1 and for each reason stands condemned4 ,it is but just to say that the associationist writers as a rule seem to have a lurking bad conscience about the ,self2 and that although they are explicit enough about what it is1 namely1 a train of feelings or thoughts1 they are very shy about openly tackling the problem of how it comes to be aware of itself4 ,neither ,bain nor ,spencer1 for example1 directly touch this problem4 ,as a rule1 associationist writers keep talking about 'the mind' and about what 'we' do2 and so1 smuggling in surreptitiously what they ought avowedly to have postulated in the form of a present 'judging ,thought1' they either trade upon their reader's lack of discernment or are undiscerning themselves4 ,mr4 ,d4 ,g4 ,thompson is the only associationist writer ,i know who perfectly escapes this confusion1 and postulates openly what he needs4 ,all states of consciousness1 he says1 imply and postulate a subject ,ego1 whose substance is unknown and unknowable1 to which why not say by which8 states of consciousness are referred as attributes1 but which in the process of reference becomes objectified and becomes itself an attribute of a subject ,ego which lies still beyond1 and which ever eludes cognition though ever postulated for cognition4#bhj ,this is exactly our judging and remembering present ',thought1' described in less simple terms4 ,after ,mr4 ,thompson1 ,m4 ,taine and the two ,mills deserve credit for seeking to be as clear as they can4 ,taine tells us in the first volume of his ',intelligence' what the ,ego is1--a continuous web of conscious events no more really distinct from each other#bha than rhomboids1 triangles1 and squares marked with chalk on a plank are really distinct1 for the plank itself is one4 ,in the second volume he says all these parts have a common character embedded in them1 that of being internal this is our character of 'warmness1' otherwise named4 ,this character is abstracted and isolated by a mental fiction1 and is what we are conscious of as our self--'this stable within is what each of us calls ,i or me4' ,obviously ,m4 ,taine forgets to tell us what this 'each of us' is1 which suddenly starts up and performs the abstraction and 'calls' its product ,i or me4 ,the character does not abstract itself4 ,taine means by 'each of us' merely the present 'judging ,thought' with its memory and tendency to appropriate1 but he does not name it distinctly enough1 and lapses into the fiction that the entire series of thoughts1 the entire 'plank1' is the reflecting psychologist4 ,james ,mill1 after defining ,memory as a train of associated ideas beginning with that of my past self and ending with that of my present self1 defines my ,self as a train of ideas of which ,memory declares the first to be continuously connected with the last4 ,the successive associated ideas 'run1 as it were1 into a single point of consciousness4#bhb ,john ,mill1 annotating this account1 says3 ,the phenomenon of ,self and that of ,memory are merely two sides of the same fact1 or two different modes of viewing the same fact4 ,we may1 as psychologists1 set out from either of them1 and refer the other to it4444 ,but it is hardly allowable to do both4 ,at least it must be said that by doing so we explain neither4 ,we only show that the two things are essentially the same2 that my memory of having ascended ,skiddaw on a given day1 and my consciousness of being the same person who ascended ,skiddaw on that day1 are two modes of stating the same fact3 a fact which psychology has as yet failed to resolve into anything more elementary4 ,in analyzing the complex phenomena of consciousness1 we must come to something ultimate2 and we seem to have reached two elements which have a good prima facie claim to that title4 ,there is1 first1444 the difference between a fact and the ,thought of that fact3 a distinction which we are able to cognize in the past1 and which then constitutes ,memory1 and in the future1 when it constitutes ,expectation2 but in neither case can we give any account of it except that it exists4444 ,secondly1 in addition to this1 and setting out from the belief 444 that the idea ,i now have was derived from a previous sensation 444 there is the further conviction that this sensation 444 was my own2 that it happened to my self4 ,in other words1 ,i am aware of a long and uninterrupted succession of past feelings1 going back as far as memory reaches1 and terminating with the sensations ,i have at the present moment1 all of which are connected by an inexplicable tie1 that distinguishes them not only from any succession or combination in mere thought1 but also from the parallel successions of feelings which ,i believe1 on satisfactory evidence1 to have happened to each of the other beings1 shaped like myself1 whom ,i perceive around me4 ,this succession of feelings1 which ,i call my memory of the past1 is that by which ,i distinguish my ,self4 ,myself is the person who had that series of feelings1 and ,i know nothing of myself1 by direct knowledge1 except that ,i had them4 ,but there is a bond of some sort among all the parts of the series1 which makes me say that they were feelings of a person who was the same person throughout according to us this is their 'warmth' and resemblance to the 'central spiritual self' now actually felt and a different person from those who had any of the parallel successions of feelings2 and this bond1 to me1 constitutes my ,ego4 ,here ,i think the question must rest1 until some psychologist succeeds better than anyone else has done1 in showing a mode in which the analysis can be carried further4#bhc ,the reader must judge of our own success in carrying the analysis farther4 ,the various distinctions we have made are all parts of an endeavor so to do4 ,john ,mill himself1 in a later-written passage1 so far from advancing in the line of analysis1 seems to fall back upon something perilously near to the ,soul4 ,he says3 ,the fact of recognizing a sensation1444 remembering that it has been felt before1 is the simplest and most elementary fact of memory3 and the inexplicable tie 444 which connects the present consciousness with the past one of which it reminds me1 is as near as ,i think we can get to a positive conception of ,self4 ,that there is something real in this tie1 real as the sensations themselves1 and not a mere product of the laws of thought without any fact corresponding to it1 ,i hold to be indubitable4444 ,this original element1444 to which we cannot give any name but its own peculiar one1 without implying some false or ungrounded theory1 is the ,ego1 or ,self4 ,as such ,i ascribe a reality to the ,ego--to my own mind--different from that real existence as a ,permanent ,possibility1 which is the only reality ,i acknowledge in ,matter4444 ,we are forced to apprehend every part of the series as linked with the other parts by something in common which is not the feelings themselves1 any more than the succession of the feelings is the feelings themselves2 and as that which is the same in the first as in the second1 in the second as in the third1 in the third as in the fourth1 and so on1 must be the same in the first and in the fiftieth1 this common element is a permanent element4 ,but beyond this we can affirm nothing of it except the states of consciousness themselves4 ,the feelings or consciousnesses which belong or have belonged to it1 and its possibilities of having more1 are the only facts there are to be asserted of ,self--the only positive attributes1 except permanence1 which we can ascribe to it4#bhd ,mr4 ,mill's habitual method of philosophizing was to affirm boldly some general doctrine derived from his father1 and then make so many concessions of detail to its enemies as practically to abandon it altogether4#bhe ,in this place the concessions amount1 so far as they are intelligible1 to the admission of something very like the ,soul4 ,this 'inexplicable tie' which connects the feelings1 this 'something in common' by which they are linked and which is not the passing feelings themselves1 but something 'permanent1' of which we can 'affirm nothing' save its attributes and its permanence1 what is it but metaphysical ,substance come again to life8 ,much as one must respect the fairness of ,mill's temper1 quite as much must one regret his failure of acumen at this point4 ,at bottom he makes the same blunder as ,hume3 the sensations per se1 he thinks1 have no 'tie4' ,the tie of resemblance and continuity which the remembering ,thought finds among them is not a 'real tie' but 'a mere product of the laws of thought2' and the fact that the present ,thought 'appropriates' them is also no real tie4 ,but whereas ,hume was contented to say that there might after all be no 'real tie1' ,mill1 unwilling to admit this possibility1 is driven1 like any scholastic1 to place it in a non-phenomenal world4 ,john ,mill's concessions may be regarded as the definitive bankruptcy of the associationist description of the consciousness of self1 starting1 as it does1 with the best intentions1 and dimly conscious of the path1 but 'perplexed in the extreme' at last with the inadequacy of those 'simple feelings1' non-cognitive1 non-transcendent of themselves1 which were the only baggage it was willing to take along4 ,one must beg memory1 knowledge on the part of the feelings of something outside themselves4 ,that granted1 every other true thing follows naturally1 and it is hard to go astray4 ,the knowledge the present feeling has of the past ones is a real tie between them1 so is their resemblance2 so is their continuity2 so is the one's 'appropriation' of the other3 all are real ties1 realized in the judging ,thought of every moment1 the only place where disconnections could be realized1 did they exist4 ,hume and ,mill both imply that a disconnection can be realized there1 whilst a tie cannot4 ,but the ties and the disconnections are exactly on a par1 in this matter of self-consciousness4 ,the way in which the present ,thought appropriates the past is a real way1 so long as no other owner appropriates it in a more real way1 and so long as the ,thought has no grounds for repudiating it stronger than those which lead to its appropriation4 ,but no other owner ever does in point of fact present himself for my past2 and the grounds which ,i perceive for appropriating it--viz41 continuity and resemblance with the present--outweigh those ,i perceive for disowning it--viz41 distance in time4 ,my present ,thought stands thus in the plenitude of ownership of the train of my past selves1 is owner not only de facto1 but de jure1 the most real owner there can be1 and all without the supposition of any 'inexplicable tie1' but in a perfectly verifiable and phenomenal way4 ,turn we now to what we may call ,,the ,,transcendentalist ,,theory4 which owes its origin to ,kant4 ,kant's own statements are too lengthy and obscure for verbatim quotation here1 so ,i must give their substance only4 ,kant starts1 as ,i understand him1 from a view of the ,object essentially like our own description of it on p4 #bge ff41 that is1 it is a system of things1 qualities or facts in relation4 ,object is that in the knowledge 7,begriff7 of which the ,manifold of a given ,perception is connected4#bhf ,but whereas we simply begged the vehicle of this connected knowledge in the shape of what we call the present ,thought1 or section of the ,stream of ,consciousness 7which we declared to be the ultimate fact for psychology71 ,kant denies this to be an ultimate fact and insists on analyzing it into a large number of distinct1 though equally essential1 elements4 ,the ',manifoldness' of the ,object is due to ,sensibility1 which per se is chaotic1 and the unity is due to the synthetic handling which this ,manifold receives from the higher faculties of ,intuition1 ,apprehension1 ,imagination1 ,understanding1 and ,apperception4 ,it is the one essential spontaneity of the ,understanding which1 under these different names1 brings unity into the manifold of sense4 ,the ,understanding is1 in fact1 nothing more than the faculty of binding together a priori1 and of bringing the ,manifold of given ideas under the unity of ,apperception1 which consequently is the supreme principle in all human knowledge 7 #af74 ,the material connected must be given by lower faculties to the ,understanding1 for the latter is not an intuitive faculty1 but by nature 'empty4' ,and the bringing of this material 'under the unity of ,apperception' is explained by ,kant to mean the thinking it always so that1 whatever its other determinations be1 it may be known as thought by me4#bhg ,though this consciousness1 that ,i think it1 need not be at every moment explicitly realized1 it is always capable of being realized4 ,for if an object incapable of being combined with the idea of a thinker were there1 how could it be known1 how related to other objects1 how form part of 'experience' at all8 ,the awareness that ,i think is therefore implied in all experience4 ,no connected consciousness of anything without that of ,self as its presupposition and 'transcendental' condition6 ,all things1 then1 so far as they are intelligible at all1 are so through combination with pure consciousness of ,self1 and apart from this1 at least potential1 combination nothing is knowable to us at all4 ,but this self1 whose consciousness ,kant thus established deductively as a conditio sine qu non of experience1 is in the same breath denied by him to have any positive attributes4 ,although ,kant's name for it--the 'original transcendental synthetic ,unity of ,apperception'--is so long1 our consciousness about it is1 according to him1 short enough4 ,self-consciousness of this 'transcendental' sort tells us1 'not how we appear1 not how we inwardly are1 but only that we are' 7 #be74 ,at the basis of our knowledge of our selves there lies only the simple and utterly empty idea3 ,i2 of which we cannot even say we have a notion1 but only a consciousness which accompanies all notions4 ,in this ,i1 or he or it 7the thing7 which thinks1 nothing more is represented than the bare transcendental ,subject of the knowledge x1 which is only recognized by the thoughts which are its predicates1 and of which1 taken by itself1 we cannot form the least conception 7ibid4 ',paralogisms'74 ,the pure ,ego of all apperception is thus for ,kant not the soul1 but only that ',subject' which is the necessary correlate of the ,object in all knowledge4 ,there is a soul1 ,kant thinks1 but this mere ego-form of our consciousness tells us nothing about it1 neither whether it be substantial1 nor whether it be immaterial1 nor whether it be simple1 nor whether it be permanent4 ,these declarations on ,kant's part of the utter barrenness of the consciousness of the pure ,self1 and of the consequent impossibility of any deductive or 'rational' psychology1 are what1 more than anything else1 earned for him the title of the 'all-destroyer4' ,the only self we know anything positive about1 he thinks1 is the empirical me1 not the pure ,i2 the self which is an object among other objects and the 'constituents' of which we ourselves have seen1 and recognized to be phenomenal things appearing in the form of space as well as time4 ,this1 for our purposes1 is a sufficient account of the 'transcendental' ,ego4 ,those purposes go no farther than to ascertain whether anything in ,kant's conception ought to make us give up our own1 of a remembering and appropriating ,thought incessantly renewed4 ,in many respects ,kant's meaning is obscure1 but it will not be necessary for us to squeeze the texts in order to make sure what it actually and historically was4 ,if we can define clearly two or three things which it may possibly have been1 that will help us just as much to clear our own ideas4 ,on the whole1 a defensible interpretation of ,kant's view would take somewhat the following shape4 ,like ourselves he believes in a ,reality outside the mind of which he writes1 but the critic who vouches for that reality does so on grounds of faith1 for it is not a verifiable phenomenal thing4 ,neither is it manifold4 ,the ',manifold' which the intellectual functions combine is a mental manifold altogether1 which thus stands between the ,ego of ,apperception and the outer ,reality1 but still stands inside the mind4 ,in the function of knowing there is a multiplicity to be connected1 and ,kant brings this multiplicity inside the mind4 ,the ,reality becomes a mere empty locus1 or unknowable1 the so-called ,noumenon2 the manifold phenomenon is in the mind4 ,we1 on the contrary1 put the ,multiplicity with the ,reality outside1 and leave the mind simple4 ,both of us deal with the same elements--thought and object--the only question is in which of them the multiplicity shall be lodged4 ,wherever it is lodged it must be 'synthetized' when it comes to be thought4 ,and that particular way of lodging it will be the better1 which1 in addition to describing the facts naturally1 makes the 'mystery of synthesis' least hard to understand4 ,well1 ,kant's way of describing the facts is mythological4 ,the notion of our thought being this sort of an elaborate internal machine-shop stands condemned by all we said in favor of its simplicity on pages #bgf ff4 ,our ,thought is not composed of parts1 however so composed its objects may be4 ,there is no originally chaotic manifold in it to be reduced to order4 ,there is something almost shocking in the notion of so chaste a function carrying this ,kantian hurly-burly in her womb4 ,if we are to have a dualism of ,thought and ,reality at all1 the multiplicity should be lodged in the latter and not in the former member of the couple of related terms4 ,the parts and their relations surely belong less to the knower than to what is known4 ,but even were all the mythology true1 the process of synthesis would in no whit be explained by calling the inside of the mind its seat4 ,no mystery would be made lighter by such means4 ,it is just as much a puzzle how the ',ego' can employ the productive ,imagination to make the ,understanding use the categories to combine the data which ,recognition1 ,association1 and ,apprehension receive from sensible ,intuition1 as how the ,thought can combine the objective facts4 ,phrase it as one may1 the difficulty is always the same3 the ,many known by the ,one4 ,or does one seriously think he understands better how the knower 'connects' its objects1 when one calls the former a transcendental ,ego and the latter a ',manifold of ,intuition' than when one calls them ,thought and ,things respectively8 ,knowing must have a vehicle4 ,call the vehicle ,ego1 or call it ,thought1 ,psychosis1 ,soul1 ,intelligence1 ,consciousness1 ,mind1 ,reason1 ,feeling1--what you like--it must know4 ,the best grammatical subject for the verb know would1 if possible1 be one from whose other properties the knowing could be deduced4 ,and if there be no such subject1 the best one would be that with the fewest ambiguities and the least pretentious name4 ,by ,kant's confession1 the transcendental ,ego has no properties1 and from it nothing can be deduced4 ,its name is pretentious1 and1 as we shall presently see1 has its meaning ambiguously mixed up with that of the substantial soul4 ,so on every possible account we are excused from using it instead of our own term of the present passing ',thought1' as the principle by which the ,many is simultaneously known4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the ambiguity referred to in the meaning of the transcendental ,ego is as to whether ,kant signified by it an ,agent1 and by the ,experience it helps to constitute1 an operation2 or whether the experience is an event produced in an unassigned way1 and the ,ego a mere indwelling element therein contained4 ,if an operation be meant1 then ,ego and ,manifold must both be existent prior to that collision which results in the experience of one by the other4 ,if a mere analysis is meant1 there is no such prior existence1 and the elements only are in so far as they are in union4 ,now ,kant's tone and language are everywhere the very words of one who is talking of operations and the agents by which they are performed4#bhh ,and yet there is reason to think that at bottom he may have had nothing of the sort in mind4#bhi ,in this uncertainty we need again do no more than decide what to think of his transcendental ,ego if it be an agent4 ,well1 if it be so1 ,transcendentalism is only ,substantialism grown shame-faced1 and the ,ego only a 'cheap and nasty' edition of the soul4 ,all our reasons for preferring the ',thought' to the ',soul' apply with redoubled force when the ,soul is shrunk to this estate4 ,the ,soul truly explained nothing2 the 'syntheses1' which she performed1 were simply taken ready-made and clapped on to her as expressions of her nature taken after the fact2 but at least she had some semblance of nobility and outlook4 ,she was called active2 might select2 was responsible1 and permanent in her way4 ,the ,ego is simply nothing3 as ineffectual and windy an abortion as ,philosophy can show4 ,it would indeed be one of ,reason's tragedies if the good ,kant1 with all his honesty and strenuous pains1 should have deemed this conception an important outbirth of his thought4 ,but we have seen that ,kant deemed it of next to no importance at all4 ,it was reserved for his ,fichtean and ,hegelian successors to call it the first ,principle of ,philosophy1 to spell its name in capitals and pronounce it with adoration1 to act1 in short1 as if they were going up in a balloon1 whenever the notion of it crossed their mind4 ,here again1 however1 ,i am uncertain of the facts of history1 and know that ,i may not read my authors aright4 ,the whole lesson of ,kantian and post-,kantian speculation is1 it seems to me1 the lesson of simplicity4 ,with ,kant1 complication both of thought and statement was an inborn infirmity1 enhanced by the musty academicism of his ,knigsberg existence4 ,with ,hegel it was a raging fever4 ,terribly1 therefore1 do the sour grapes which these fathers of philosophy have eaten set our teeth on edge4 ,we have in ,england and ,america1 however1 a contemporary continuation of ,hegelism from which1 fortunately1 somewhat simpler deliverances come2 and1 unable to find any definite psychology in what ,hegel1 ,rosenkranz1 or ,erdmann tells us of the ,ego1 ,i turn to ,caird and ,green4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the great difference1 practically1 between these authors and ,kant is their complete abstraction from the onlooking ,psychologist and from the ,reality he thinks he knows2 or rather it is the absorption of both of these outlying terms into the proper topic of ,psychology1 viz41 the mental experience of the mind under observation4 ,the ,reality coalesces with the connected ,manifold1 the ,psychologist with the ,ego1 knowing becomes 'connecting1' and there results no longer a finite or criticisable1 but an 'absolute' ,experience1 of which the ,object and the ,subject are always the same4 ,our finite ',thought' is virtually and potentially this eternal 7or rather this 'timeless'71 absolute ,ego1 and only provisionally and speciously the limited thing which it seems prima facie to be4 ,the later 'sections' of our ',stream1' which come and appropriate the earlier ones1 are those earlier ones1 just as in substantialism the ,soul is throughout all time the same4#bij ,this 'solipsistic' character of an ,experience conceived as absolute really annihilates psychology as a distinct body of science4 ,psychology is a natural science1 an account of particular finite streams of thought1 coexisting and succeeding in time4 ,it is of course conceivable 7though far from clearly so7 that in the last metaphysical resort all these streams of thought may be thought by one universal ,all-thinker4 ,but in this metaphysical notion there is no profit for psychology2 for grant that one ,thinker does think in all of us1 still what ,he thinks in me and what in you can never be deduced from the bare idea of ,him4 ,the idea of ,him seems even to exert a positively paralyzing effect on the mind4 ,the existence of finite thoughts is suppressed altogether4 ,thought's characteristics1 as ,professor ,green says1 are not to be sought in the incidents of individual lives which last but for a day4444 ,no knowledge1 nor any mental act involved in knowledge1 can properly be called a 'phenomenon of consciousness4'444 ,for a phenomenon is a sensible event1 related in the way of antecedence or consequence to other sensible events1 but the consciousness which constitutes a knowledge 444 is not an event so related nor made up of such events4 ,again1 if we examine the constituents of any perceived object1444 we shall find alike that it is only for consciousness that they can exist1 and that the consciousness for which they thus exist cannot be merely a series of phenomena or a succession of states4444 ,it then becomes clear that there is a function of consciousness1 as exercised in the most rudimentary experience namely1 the function of synthesis which is incompatible with the definition of consciousness as any sort of succession of any sort of phenomena4#bia ,were we to follow these remarks1 we should have to abandon our notion of the ',thought' 7perennially renewed in time1 but always cognitive thereof71 and to espouse instead of it an entity copied from thought in all essential respects1 but differing from it in being 'out of time4' ,what psychology can gain by this barter would be hard to divine4 ,moreover this resemblance of the timeless ,ego to the ,soul is completed by other resemblances still4 ,the monism of the post-,kantian idealists seems always lapsing into a regular old-fashioned spiritualistic dualism4 ,they incessantly talk as if1 like the ,soul1 their ,all-thinker were an ,agent1 operating on detached materials of sense4 ,this may come from the accidental fact that the ,english writings of the school have been more polemic than constructive1 and that a reader may often take for a positive profession a statement ad hominem meant as part of a reduction to the absurd1 or mistake the analysis of a bit of knowledge into elements for a dramatic myth about its creation4 ,but ,i think the matter has profounder roots4 ,professor ,green constantly talks of the 'activity' of ,self as a 'condition' of knowledge taking place4 ,facts are said to become incorporated with other facts only through the 'action of a combining self-consciousness upon data of sensation4' ,every object we perceive 444 requires1 in order to its presentation1 the action of a principle of consciousness1 not itself subject to conditions of time1 upon successive appearances1 such action as may hold the appearances together1 without fusion1 in an apprehended fact4#bib ,it is needless to repeat that the connection of things in our knowledge is in no whit explained by making it the deed of an agent whose essence is self-identity and who is out of time4 ,the agency of phenomenal thought coming and going in time is just as easy to understand4 ,and when it is furthermore said that the agent that combines is the same 'self-distinguishing subject' which 'in another mode of its activity' presents the manifold object to itself1 the unintelligibilities become quite paroxysmal1 and we are forced to confess that the entire school of thought in question1 in spite of occasional glimpses of something more refined1 still dwells habitually in that mythological stage of thought where phenomena are explained as results of dramas enacted by entities which but reduplicate the characters of the phenomena themselves4 ,the self must not only know its object1--that is too bald and dead a relation to be written down and left in its static state4 ,the knowing must be painted as a 'famous victory' in which the object's distinctness is in some way 'overcome4' ,the self exists as one self only as it opposes itself1 as object1 to itself as subject1 and immediately denies and transcends that opposition4 ,only because it is such a concrete unity1 which has in itself a resolved contradiction1 can the intelligence cope with all the manifoldness and division of the mighty universe1 and hope to master its secrets4 ,as the lightning sleeps in the dew-drop1 so in the simple and transparent unity of self-consciousness there is held in equilibrium that vital antagonism of opposites which 444 seems to rend the world asunder4 ,the intelligence is able to understand the world1 or1 in other words1 to break down the barrier between itself and things and find itself in them1 just because its own existence is implicitly the solution of all the division and conflict of things4#bic ,this dynamic 7,i had almost written dynamitic7 way of representing knowledge has the merit of not being tame4 ,to turn from it to our own psychological formulation is like turning from the fireworks1 trap-doors1 and transformations of the pantomime into the insipidity of the midnight1 where ghastly through the drizzling rain1 ,on the bald street breaks the blank day6#bid ,and yet turn we must1 with the confession that our ',thought'--a cognitive phenomenal event in time--is1 if it exist at all1 itself the only ,thinker which the facts require4 ,the only service that transcendental egoism has done to psychology has been by its protests against ,hume's 'bundle'-theory of mind4 ,but this service has been ill-performed2 for the ,egoists themselves1 let them say what they will1 believe in the bundle1 and in their own system merely tie it up1 with their special transcendental string1 invented for that use alone4 ,besides1 they talk as if1 with this miraculous tying or 'relating1' the ,ego's duties were done4 ,of its far more important duty of choosing some of the things it ties and appropriating them1 to the exclusion of the rest1 they tell us never a word4 ,to sum up1 then1 my own opinion of the transcendentalist school1 it is 7whatever ulterior metaphysical truth it may divine7 a school in which psychology at least has naught to learn1 and whose deliverances about the ,ego in particular in no wise oblige us to revise our own formulation of the ,stream of ,thought4#bie 99 99 99 99 99 ,with this1 all possible rival formulations have been discussed4 ,the literature of the ,self is large1 but all its authors may be classed as radical or mitigated representatives of the three schools we have named1 substantialism1 associationism1 or transcendentalism4 ,our own opinion must be classed apart1 although it incorporates essential elements from all three schools4 ,there need never have been a quarrel between associationism and its rivals if the former had admitted the indecomposable unity of every pulse of thought1 and the latter been willing to allow that 'perishing' pulses of thought might recollect and know4 ,we may sum up by saying that personality implies the incessant presence of two elements1 an objective person1 known by a passing subjective ,thought and recognized as continuing in time4 ,hereafter let us use the words ,,me and ,i for the empirical person and the judging ,thought4 99 99 99 99 99 ,certain vicissitudes in the me demand our notice4 ,in the first place1 although its changes are gradual1 they become in time great4 ,the central part of the me is the feeling of the body and of the adjustments in the head2 and in the feeling of the body should be included that of the general emotional tones and tendencies1 for at bottom these are but the habits in which organic activities and sensibilities run4 ,well1 from infancy to old age1 this assemblage of feelings1 most constant of all1 is yet a prey to slow mutation4 ,our powers1 bodily and mental1 change at least as fast4#bif ,our possessions notoriously are perishable facts4 ,the identity which the ,i discovers1 as it surveys this long procession1 can only be a relative identity1 that of a slow shifting in which there is always some common ingredient retained4#big ,the commonest element of all1 the most uniform1 is the possession of the same memories4 ,however different the man may be from the youth1 both look back on the same childhood1 and call it their own4 ,thus the identity found by the ,i in its me is only a loosely construed thing1 an identity 'on the whole1' just like that which any outside observer might find in the same assemblage of facts4 ,we often say of a man 'he is so changed one would not know him'2 and so does a man1 less often1 speak of himself4 ,these changes in the me1 recognized by the ,i1 or by outside observers1 may be grave or slight4 ,they deserve some notice here4 ,,the ,,mutations ,,of ,,the ,,self may be divided into two main classes3 #a4 ,alterations of memory2 and #b4 ,alterations in the present bodily and spiritual selves4 99 99 99 99 99 #a4 ,alterations of memory are either losses or false recollections4 ,in either case the me is changed4 ,should a man be punished for what he did in his childhood and no longer remembers8 ,should he be punished for crimes enacted in post-epileptic unconsciousness1 somnambulism1 or in any involuntarily induced state of which no recollection is retained8 ,law1 in accord with common-sense1 says3 ,no2 he is not the same person forensically now which he was then4 ,these losses of memory are a normal incident of extreme old age1 and the person's me shrinks in the ratio of the facts that have disappeared4 ,in dreams we forget our waking experiences2 they are as if they were not4 ,and the converse is also true4 ,as a rule1 no memory is retained during the waking state of what has happened during mesmeric trance1 although when again entranced the person may remember it distinctly1 and may then forget facts belonging to the waking state4 ,we thus have1 within the bounds of healthy mental life1 an approach to an alternation of me's4 ,false memories are by no means rare occurrences in most of us1 and1 whenever they occur1 they distort the consciousness of the me4 ,most people1 probably1 are in doubt about certain matters ascribed to their past4 ,they may have seen them1 may have said them1 done them1 or they may only have dreamed or imagined they did so4 ,the content of a dream will oftentimes insert itself into the stream of real life in a most perplexing way4 ,the most frequent source of false memory is the accounts we give to others of our experiences4 ,such accounts we almost always make both more simple and more interesting than the truth4 ,we quote what we should have said or done1 rather than what we really said or did2 and in the first telling we may be fully aware of the distinction4 ,but ere long the fiction expels the reality from memory and reigns in its stead alone4 ,this is one great source of the fallibility of testimony meant to be quite honest4 ,especially where the marvellous is concerned1 the story takes a tilt that way1 and the memory follows the story4 ,dr4 ,carpenter quotes from ,miss ,cobbe the following1 as an instance of a very common sort3 ,it happened once to the ,writer to hear a most scrupulously conscientious friend narrate an incident of table-turning1 to which she appended an assurance that the table rapped when nobody was within a yard of it4 ,the writer being confounded by this latter fact1 the lady1 though fully satisfied of the accuracy of her statement1 promised to look at the note she had made ten years previously of the transaction4 ,the note was examined1 and was found to contain the distinct statement that the table rapped when the hands of six persons rested on it6 ,the lady's memory as to all other points proved to be strictly correct2 and in this point she had erred in entire good faith4#bih ,it is next to impossible to get a story of this sort accurate in all its details1 although it is the inessential details that suffer most change4#bii ,dickens and ,balzac were said to have constantly mingled their fictions with their real experiences4 ,every one must have known some specimen of our mortal dust so intoxicated with the thought of his own person and the sound of his own voice as never to be able even to think the truth when his autobiography was in question4 ,amiable1 harmless1 radiant ,j4 ,v46 mayst thou ne'er wake to the difference between thy real and thy fondly-imagined self6#cjj #b4 ,when we pass beyond alterations of memory to abnormal alterations in the present self we have still graver disturbances4 ,these alterations are of three main types1 from the descriptive point of view4 ,but certain cases unite features of two or more types2 and our knowledge of the elements and causes of these changes of personality is so slight that the division into types must not be regarded as having any profound significance4 ,the types are3 7#a7 ,insane delusions2 7#b7 ,alternating selves2 7#c7 ,mediumships or possessions4 99 99 99 99 99 #a7 ,in insanity we often have delusions projected into the past1 which are melancholic or sanguine according to the character of the disease4 ,but the worst alterations of the self come from present perversions of sensibility and impulse which leave the past undisturbed1 but induce the patient to think that the present me is an altogether new personage4 ,something of this sort happens normally in the rapid expansion of the whole character1 intellectual as well as volitional1 which takes place after the time of puberty4 ,the pathological cases are curious enough to merit longer notice4 ,the basis of our personality1 as ,m4 ,ribot says1 is that feeling of our vitality which1 because it is so perpetually present1 remains in the background of our consciousness4 ,it is the basis because1 always present1 always acting1 without peace or rest1 it knows neither sleep nor fainting1 and lasts as long as life itself1 of which it is one form4 ,it serves as a support to that self-conscious me which memory constitutes1 it is the medium of association among its other parts4444 ,suppose now that it were possible at once to change our body and put another into its place3 skeleton1 vessels1 viscera1 muscles1 skin1 everything made new1 except the nervous system with its stored-up memory of the past4 ,there can be no doubt that in such a case the afflux of unaccustomed vital sensations would produce the gravest disorders4 ,between the old sense of existence engraved on the nervous system1 and the new one acting with all the intensity of its reality and novelty1 there would be irreconcilable contradiction4#cja ,with the beginnings of cerebral disease there often happens something quite comparable to this3 ,masses of new sensation1 hitherto foreign to the individual1 impulses and ideas of the same inexperienced kind1 for example terrors1 representations of enacted crime1 of enemies pursuing one1 etc4 ,at the outset1 these stand in contrast with the old familiar me1 as a strange1 often astonishing and abhorrent thou4#cjb ,often their invasion into the former circle of feelings is felt as if the old self were being taken possession of by a dark overpowering might1 and the fact of such 'possession' is described in fantastic images4 ,always this doubleness1 this struggle of the old self against the new discordant forms of experience1 is accompanied with painful mental conflict1 with passion1 with violent emotional excitement4 ,this is in great part the reason for the common experience1 that the first stage in the immense majority of cases of mental disease is an emotional alteration particularly of a melancholic sort4 ,if now the brain-affection1 which is the immediate cause of the new abnormal train of ideas1 be not relieved1 the latter becomes confirmed4 ,it may gradually contract associations with the trains of ideas which characterized the old self1 or portions of the latter may be extinguished and lost in the progress of the cerebral malady1 so that little by little the opposition of the two conscious me's abates1 and the emotional storms are calmed4 ,but by that time the old me itself has been falsified and turned into another by those associations1 by that reception into itself of the abnormal elements of feeling and of will4 ,the patient may again be quiet1 and his thought sometimes logically correct1 but in it the morbid erroneous ideas are always present1 with the adhesions they have contracted1 as uncontrollable premises1 and the man is no longer the same1 but a really new person1 his old self transformed4#cjc ,but the patient himself rarely continues to describe the change in just these terms unless new bodily sensations in him or the loss of old ones play a predominant part4 ,mere perversions of sight and hearing1 or even of impulse1 soon cease to be felt as contradictions of the unity of the me4 ,what the particular perversions of the bodily sensibility may be1 which give rise to these contradictions1 is for the most part impossible for a sound-minded person to conceive4 ,one patient has another self that repeats all his thoughts for him4 ,others1 among whom are some of the first characters in history1 have familiar dmons who speak with them1 and are replied to4 ,in another someone 'makes' his thoughts for him4 ,another has two bodies1 lying in different beds4 ,some patients feel as if they had lost parts of their bodies1 teeth1 brain1 stomach1 etc4 ,in some it is made of wood1 glass1 butter1 etc4 ,in some it does not exist any longer1 or is dead1 or is a foreign object quite separate from the speaker's self4 ,occasionally1 parts of the body lose their connection for consciousness with the rest1 and are treated as belonging to another person and moved by a hostile will4 ,thus the right hand may fight with the left as with an enemy4#cjd ,or the cries of the patient himself are assigned to another person with whom the patient expresses sympathy4 ,the literature of insanity is filled with narratives of such illusions as these4 ,m4 ,taine quotes from a patient of ,dr4 ,krishaber an account of sufferings1 from which it will be seen how completely aloof from what is normal a man's experience may suddenly become3 ,after the first or second day it was for some weeks impossible to observe or analyze myself4 ,the suffering--angina pectoris--was too overwhelming4 ,it was not till the first days of ,january that ,i could give an account to myself of what ,i experienced4444 ,here is the first thing of which ,i retain a clear remembrance4 ,i was alone1 and already a prey to permanent visual trouble1 when ,i was suddenly seized with a visual trouble infinitely more pronounced4 ,objects grew small and receded to infinite distances--men and things together4 ,i was myself immeasurably far away1 ,i looked about me with terror and astonishment2 the world was escaping from me4444 ,i remarked at the same time that my voice was extremely far away from me1 that it sounded no longer as if mine4 ,i struck the ground with my foot1 and perceived its resistance2 but this resistance seemed illusory--not that the soil was soft1 but that the weight of my body was reduced to almost nothing4444 ,i had the feeling of being without weight4444 ,in addition to being so distant1 objects appeared to me flat4 ,when ,i spoke with anyone1 ,i saw him like an image cut out of paper with no relief4444 ,this sensation lasted intermittently for two years4444 ,constantly it seemed as if my legs did not belong to me4 ,it was almost as bad with my arms4 ,as for my head1 it seemed no longer to exist4444 ,i appeared to myself to act automatically1 by an impulsion foreign to myself4444 ,there was inside of me a new being1 and another part of myself1 the old being1 which took no interest in the new-comer4 ,i distinctly remember saying to myself that the sufferings of this new being were to me indifferent4 ,i was never really dupe of these illusions1 but my mind grew often tired of incessantly correcting the new impressions1 and ,i let myself go and lived the unhappy life of this new entity4 ,i had an ardent desire to see my old world again1 to get back to my old self4 ,this desire kept me from killing myself4444 ,i was another1 and ,i hated1 ,i despised this other2 he was perfectly odious to me2 it was certainly another who had taken my form and assumed my functions4#cje ,in cases similar to this1 it is as certain that the ,i is unaltered as that the me is changed4 ,that is to say1 the present ,thought of the patient is cognitive of both the old me and the new1 so long as its memory holds good4 ,only1 within that objective sphere which formerly lent itself so simply to the judgment of recognition and of egoistic appropriation1 strange perplexities have arisen4 ,the present and the past both seen therein will not unite4 ,where is my old me8 ,what is this new one8 ,are they the same8 ,or have ,i two8 ,such questions1 answered by whatever theory the patient is able to conjure up as plausible1 form the beginning of his insane life4#cjf ,a case with which ,i am acquainted through ,dr4 ,c4 ,j4 ,fisher of ,tewksbury has possibly its origin in this way4 ,the woman1 ,bridget ,f41 has been many years insane1 and always speaks of her supposed self as 'the rat1' asking me to 'bury the little rat1' etc4 ,her real self she speaks of in the third person as 'the good woman1' saying1 ',the good ,woman knew ,dr4 ,f4 and used to work for him1' etc4 ,sometimes she sadly asks3 ',do you think the good woman will ever come back8' ,she works at needlework1 knitting1 laundry1 etc41 and shows her work1 saying1 ',isn't that good for only a rat8' ,she has1 during periods of depression1 hid herself under buildings1 and crawled into holes and under boxes4 ',she was only a rat1 and wants to die1' she would say when we found her4 #b4 ,the phenomenon of alternating personality in its simplest phases seems based on lapses of memory4 ,any man becomes1 as we say1 inconsistent with himself if he forgets his engagements1 pledges1 knowledges1 and habits2 and it is merely a question of degree at what point we shall say that his personality is changed4 ,in the pathological cases known as those of double or alternate personality the lapse of memory is abrupt1 and is usually preceded by a period of unconsciousness or syncope lasting a variable length of time4 ,in the hypnotic trance we can easily produce an alteration of the personality1 either by telling the subject to forget all that has happened to him since such or such a date1 in which case he becomes 7it may be7 a child again1 or by telling him he is another altogether imaginary personage1 in which case all facts about himself seem for the time being to lapse from out his mind1 and he throws himself into the new character with a vivacity proportionate to the amount of histrionic imagination which he possesses4#cjg ,but in the pathological cases the transformation is spontaneous4 ,the most famous case1 perhaps1 on record is that of ,flida ,x41 reported by ,dr4 ,azam of ,bordeaux4#cjh ,at the age of fourteen this woman began to pass into a 'secondary' state characterized by a change in her general disposition and character1 as if certain 'inhibitions1' previously existing1 were suddenly removed4 ,during the secondary state she remembered the first state1 but on emerging from it into the first state she remembered nothing of the second4 ,at the age of forty-four the duration of the secondary state 7which was on the whole superior in quality to the original state7 had gained upon the latter so much as to occupy most of her time4 ,during it she remembers the events belonging to the original state1 but her complete oblivion of the secondary state when the original state recurs is often very distressing to her1 as1 for example1 when the transition takes place in a carriage on her way to a funeral1 and she hasn't the least idea which one of her friends may be dead4 ,she actually became pregnant during one of her early secondary states1 and during her first state had no knowledge of how it had come to pass4 ,her distress at these blanks of memory is sometimes intense and once drove her to attempt suicide4 ,to take another example1 ,dr4 ,rieger gives an account#cji of an epileptic man who for seventeen years had passed his life alternately free1 in prisons1 or in asylums1 his character being orderly enough in the normal state1 but alternating with periods1 during which he would leave his home for several weeks1 leading the life of a thief and vagabond1 being sent to jail1 having epileptic fits and excitement1 being accused of malingering1 etc41 etc41 and with never a memory of the abnormal conditions which were to blame for all his wretchedness4 ,i have never got from anyone1 says ,dr4 ,rieger1 so singular an impression as from this man1 of whom it could not be said that he had any properly conscious past at all4444 ,it is really impossible to think one's self into such a state of mind4 ,his last larceny had been performed in ,nrnberg1 he knew nothing of it1 and saw himself before the court and then in the hospital1 but without in the least understanding the reason why4 ,that he had epileptic attacks1 he knew4 ,but it was impossible to convince him that for hours together he raved and acted in an abnormal way4 ,another remarkable case is that of ,mary ,reynolds1 lately republished again by ,dr4 ,weir ,mitchell4#caj ,this dull and melancholy young woman1 inhabiting the ,pennsylvania wilderness in #ahaa1 was found one morning1 long after her habitual time for rising1 in a profound sleep from which it was impossible to arouse her4 ,after eighteen or twenty hours of sleeping she awakened1 but in a state of unnatural consciousness4 ,memory had fled4 ,to all intents and purposes she was as a being for the first time ushered into the world4 ',all of the past that remained to her was the faculty of pronouncing a few words1 and this seems to have been as purely instinctive as the wailings of an infant2 for at first the words which she uttered were connected with no ideas in her mind4' ,until she was taught their significance they were unmeaning sounds4 ',her eyes were virtually for the first time opened upon the world4 ,old things had passed away2 all things had become new4' ,her parents1 brothers1 sisters1 friends1 were not recognized or acknowledged as such by her4 ,she had never seen them before1--never known them1--was not aware that such persons had been4 ,now for the first time she was introduced to their company and acquaintance4 ,to the scenes by which she was surrounded she was a perfect stranger4 ,the house1 the fields1 the forest1 the hills1 the vales1 the streams1--all were novelties4 ,the beauties of the landscape were all unexplored4 ,she had not the slightest consciousness that she had ever existed previous to the moment in which she awoke from that mysterious slumber4 ',in a word1 she was an infant1 just born1 yet born in a state of maturity1 with a capacity for relishing the rich1 sublime1 luxuriant wonders of created nature4' ,the first lesson in her education was to teach her by what ties she was bound to those by whom she was surrounded1 and the duties devolving upon her accordingly4 ,this she was very slow to learn1 and1 'indeed1 never did learn1 or1 at least1 never would acknowledge the ties of consanguinity1 or scarcely those of friendship4 ,she considered those she had once known as for the most part strangers and enemies1 among whom she was1 by some remarkable and unaccountable means1 transplanted1 though from what region or state of existence was a problem unsolved4' ,the next lesson was to re-teach her the arts of reading and writing4 ,she was apt enough1 and made such rapid progress in both that in a few weeks she had readily re-learned to read and write4 ,in copying her name which her brother had written for her as a first lesson1 she took her pen in a very awkward manner and began to copy from right to left in the ,hebrew mode1 as though she had been transplanted from an ,eastern soil4444 ,the next thing that is noteworthy is the change which took place in her disposition4 ,instead of being melancholy she was now cheerful to extremity4 ,instead of being reserved she was buoyant and social4 ,formerly taciturn and retiring1 she was now merry and jocose4 ,her disposition was totally and absolutely changed4 ,while she was1 in this second state1 extravagantly fond of company1 she was much more enamoured of nature's works1 as exhibited in the forests1 hills1 vales1 and water-courses4 ,she used to start in the morning1 either on foot or horseback1 and ramble until nightfall over the whole country2 nor was she at all particular whether she were on a path or in the trackless forest4 ,her predilection for this manner of life may have been occasioned by the restraint necessarily imposed upon her by her friends1 which caused her to consider them her enemies and not companions1 and she was glad to keep out of their way4 ,she knew no fear1 and as bears and panthers were numerous in the woods1 and rattlesnakes and copperheads abounded everywhere1 her friends told her of the danger to which she exposed herself1 but it produced no other effect than to draw forth a contemptuous laugh1 as she said1 ',i know you only want to frighten me and keep me at home1 but you miss it1 for ,i often see your bears and ,i am perfectly convinced that they are nothing more than black hogs4' ,one evening1 after her return from her daily excursion1 she told the following incident3 ',as ,i was riding to-day along a narrow path a great black hog came out of the woods and stopped before me4 ,i never saw such an impudent black hog before4 ,it stood up on its hind feet and grinned and gnashed its teeth at me4 ,i could not make the horse go on4 ,i told him he was a fool to be frightened at a hog1 and tried to whip him past1 but he would not go and wanted to turn back4 ,i told the hog to get out of the way1 but he did not mind me4 ,well1 said ,i1 if you won't for words1 ,i'll try blows2 so ,i got off and took a stick1 and walked up toward it4 ,when ,i got pretty close by1 it got down on all fours and walked away slowly and sullenly1 stopping every few steps and looking back and grinning and growling4 ,then ,i got on my horse and rode on4'444 ,thus it continued for five weeks1 when one morning1 after a protracted sleep1 she awoke and was herself again4 ,she recognized the parental1 the brotherly1 and sisterly ties as though nothing had happened1 and immediately went about the performance of duties incumbent upon her1 and which she had planned five weeks previously4 ,great was her surprise at the change which one night 7as she supposed7 had produced4 ,nature bore a different aspect4 ,not a trace was left in her mind of the giddy scenes through which she had passed4 ,her ramblings through the forest1 her tricks and humor1 all were faded from her memory1 and not a shadow left behind4 ,her parents saw their child2 her brothers and sisters saw their sister4 ,she now had all the knowledge that she had possessed in her first state previous to the change1 still fresh and in as vigorous exercise as though no change had been4 ,but any new acquisitions she had made1 and any new ideas she had obtained1 were lost to her now--yet not lost1 but laid up out of sight in safe-keeping for future use4 ,of course her natural disposition returned2 her melancholy was deepened by the information of what had occurred4 ,all went on in the old-fashioned way1 and it was fondly hoped that the mysterious occurrences of those five weeks would never be repeated1 but these anticipations were not to be realized4 ,after the lapse of a few weeks she fell into a profound sleep1 and awoke in her second state1 taking up her new life again precisely where she had left it when she before passed from that state4 ,she was not now a daughter or a sister4 ,all the knowledge she possessed was that acquired during the few weeks of her former period of second consciousness4 ,she knew nothing of the intervening time4 ,two periods widely separated were brought into contact4 ,she thought it was but one night4 ,in this state she came to understand perfectly the facts of her case1 not from memory1 but from information4 ,yet her buoyancy of spirits was so great that no depression was produced4 ,on the contrary1 it added to her cheerfulness1 and was made the foundation1 as was everything else1 of mirth4 ,these alternations from one state to another continued at intervals of varying length for fifteen or sixteen years1 but finally ceased when she attained the age of thirty-five or thirty-six1 leaving her permanently in her second state4 ,in this she remained without change for the last quarter of a century of her life4 ,the emotional opposition of the two states seems1 however1 to have become gradually effaced in ,mary ,reynolds3 ,the change from a gay1 hysterical1 mischievous woman1 fond of jests and subject to absurd beliefs or delusive convictions1 to one retaining the joyousness and love of society1 but sobered down to levels of practical usefulness1 was gradual4 ,the most of the twenty-five years which followed she was as different from her melancholy1 morbid self as from the hilarious condition of the early years of her second state4 ,some of her family spoke of it as her third state4 ,she is described as becoming rational1 industrious1 and very cheerful1 yet reasonably serious2 possessed of a well-balanced temperament1 and not having the slightest indication of an injured or disturbed mind4 ,for some years she taught school1 and in that capacity was both useful and acceptable1 being a general favorite with old and young4 ,during these last twenty-five years she lived in the same house with the ,rev4 ,dr4 ,john ,v4 ,reynolds1 her nephew1 part of that time keeping house for him1 showing a sound judgment and a thorough acquaintance with the duties of her position4 ,dr4 ,reynolds1 who is still living in ,meadville1 says ,dr4 ,mitchell1 and who has most kindly placed the facts at my disposal1 states in his letter to me of ,january #d1 #ahhh1 that at a later period of her life she said she did sometimes seem to have a dim1 dreamy idea of a shadowy past1 which she could not fully grasp1 and could not be certain whether it originated in a partially restored memory or in the statements of the events by others during her abnormal state4 ,miss ,reynolds died in ,january1 #ahed1 at the age of sixty-one4 ,on the morning of the day of her death she rose in her usual health1 ate her breakfast1 and superintended household duties4 ,while thus employed she suddenly raised her hands to her head and exclaimed3 ',oh6 ,i wonder what is the matter with my head6' and immediately fell to the floor4 ,when carried to a sofa she gasped once or twice and died4 ,in such cases as the preceding1 in which the secondary character is superior to the first1 there seems reason to think that the first one is the morbid one4 ,the word inhibition describes its dulness and melancholy4 ,flida ,x4's original character was dull and melancholy in comparison with that which she later acquired1 and the change may be regarded as the removal of inhibitions which had maintained themselves from earlier years4 ,such inhibitions we all know temporarily1 when we can not recollect or in some other way command our mental resources4 ,the systematized amnesias 7losses of memory7 of hypnotic subjects ordered to forget all nouns1 or all verbs1 or a particular letter of the alphabet1 or all that is relative to a certain person1 are inhibitions of the sort on a more extensive scale4 ,they sometimes occur spontaneously as symptoms of disease4#caa ,now ,m4 ,pierre ,janet has shown that such inhibitions when they bear on a certain class of sensations 7making the subject ansthetic thereto7 and also on the memory of such sensations1 are the basis of changes of personality4 ,the ansthetic and 'amnesic' hysteric is one person2 but when you restore her inhibited sensibilities and memories by plunging her into the hypnotic trance--in other words1 when you rescue them from their 'dissociated' and split-off condition1 and make them rejoin the other sensibilities and memories--she is a different person4 ,as said above 7p4 #bjc71 the hypnotic trance is one method of restoring sensibility in hysterics4 ,but one day when the hysteric ansthetic named ,lucie was already in the hypnotic trance1 ,m4 ,janet for a certain reason continued to make passes over her for a full half-hour as if she were not already asleep4 ,the result was to throw her into a sort of syncope from which1 after half an hour1 she revived in a second somnambulic condition entirely unlike that which had characterized her thitherto--different sensibilities1 a different memory1 a different person1 in short4 ,in the waking state the poor young woman was ansthetic all over1 nearly deaf1 and with a badly contracted field of vision4 ,bad as it was1 however1 sight was her best sense1 and she used it as a guide in all her movements4 ,with her eyes bandaged she became entirely helpless1 and like other persons of a similar sort whose cases have been recorded1 she almost immediately fell asleep in consequence of the withdrawal of her last sensorial stimulus4 ,m4 ,janet calls this waking or primary 7one can hardly in such a connection say 'normal'7 state by the name of ,lucie #a4 ,in ,lucie #b1 her first sort of hypnotic trance1 the ansthesias were diminished but not removed4 ,in the deeper trance1 ',lucie #c1' brought about as just described1 no trace of them remained4 ,her sensibility became perfect1 and instead of being an extreme example of the 'visual' type1 she was transformed into what in ,prof4 ,charcot's terminology is known as a motor4 ,that is to say1 that whereas when awake she had thought in visual terms exclusively1 and could imagine things only by remembering how they looked1 now in this deeper trance her thoughts and memories seemed to ,m4 ,janet to be largely composed of images of movement and of touch4 ,having discovered this deeper trance and change of personality in ,lucie1 ,m4 ,janet naturally became eager to find it in his other subjects4 ,he found it in ,rose1 in ,marie1 and in ,lonie2 and his brother1 ,dr4 ,jules ,janet1 who was interne at the ,salptrire ,hospital1 found it in the celebrated subject ,wit4444 whose trances had been studied for years by the various doctors of that institution without any of them having happened to awaken this very peculiar individuality4#cab ,with the return of all the sensibilities in the deeper trance1 these subjects turned1 as it were1 into normal persons4 ,their memories in particular grew more extensive1 and hereupon ,m4 ,janet spins a theoretic generalization4 ,when a certain kind of sensation1 he says1 is abolished in an hysteric patient1 there is also abolished along with it all recollection of past sensations of that kind4 ,if1 for example1 hearing be the ansthetic sense1 the patient becomes unable even to imagine sounds and voices1 and has to speak 7when speech is still possible7 by means of motor or articulatory cues4 ,if the motor sense be abolished1 the patient must will the movements of his limbs by first defining them to his mind in visual terms1 and must innervate his voice by premonitory ideas of the way in which the words are going to sound4 ,the practical consequences of this law would be great1 for all experiences belonging to a sphere of sensibility which afterwards became ansthetic1 as1 for example1 touch1 would have been stored away and remembered in tactile terms1 and would be incontinently forgotten as soon as the cutaneous and muscular sensibility should come to be cut out in the course of disease4 ,memory of them would be restored again1 on the other hand1 so soon as the sense of touch came back4 ,now1 in the hysteric subjects on whom ,m4 ,janet experimented1 touch did come back in the state of trance4 ,the result was that all sorts of memories1 absent in the ordinary condition1 came back too1 and they could then go back and explain the origin of many otherwise inexplicable things in their life4 ,one stage in the great convulsive crisis of hystero-epilepsy1 for example1 is what ,french writers call the phase des attitudes passionelles1 in which the patient1 without speaking or giving any account of herself1 will go through the outward movements of fear1 anger1 or some other emotional state of mind4 ,usually this phase is1 with each patient1 a thing so stereotyped as to seem automatic1 and doubts have even been expressed as to whether any consciousness exists whilst it lasts4 ,when1 however1 the patient ,lucie's tactile sensibility came back in the deeper trance1 she explained the origin of her hysteric crisis in a great fright which she had had when a child1 on a day when certain men1 hid behind the curtains1 had jumped out upon her2 she told how she went through this scene again in all her crises2 she told of her sleep-walking fits through the house when a child1 and how for several months she had been shut in a dark room because of a disorder of the eyes4 ,all these were things of which she recollected nothing when awake1 because they were records of experiences mainly of motion and of touch4 ,but ,m4 ,janet's subject ,lonie is interesting1 and shows best how with the sensibilities and motor impulses the memories and character will change4 ,this woman1 whose life sounds more like an improbable romance than a genuine history1 has had attacks of natural somnambulism since the age of three years4 ,she has been hypnotized constantly by all sorts of persons from the age of sixteen upwards1 and she is now forty-five4 ,whilst her normal life developed in one way in the midst of her poor country surroundings1 her second life was passed in drawing-rooms and doctors' offices1 and naturally took an entirely different direction4 ,to-day1 when in her normal state1 this poor peasant woman is a serious and rather sad person1 calm and slow1 very mild with every one1 and extremely timid3 to look at her one would never suspect the personage which she contains4 ,but hardly is she put to sleep hypnotically when a metamorphosis occurs4 ,her face is no longer the same4 ,she keeps her eyes closed1 it is true1 but the acuteness of her other senses supplies their place4 ,she is gay1 noisy1 restless1 sometimes insupportably so4 ,she remains good-natured1 but has acquired a singular tendency to irony and sharp jesting4 ,nothing is more curious than to hear her after a sitting when she has received a visit from strangers who wished to see her asleep4 ,she gives a word-portrait of them1 apes their manners1 pretends to know their little ridiculous aspects and passions1 and for each invents a romance4 ,to this character must be added the possession of an enormous number of recollections1 whose existence she does not even suspect when awake1 for her amnesia is then complete4444 ,she refuses the name of ,lonie and takes that of ,lontine 7,lonie #b7 to which her first magnetizers had accustomed her4 ',that good woman is not myself1' she says1 'she is too stupid6' ,to herself1 ,lontine or ,lonie #b1 she attributes all the sensations and all the actions1 in a word all the conscious experiences which she has undergone in somnambulism1 and knits them together to make the history of her already long life4 ,to ,lonie #a as ,m4 ,janet calls the waking woman on the other hand1 she exclusively ascribes the events lived through in waking hours4 ,i was at first struck by an important exception to the rule1 and was disposed to think that there might be something arbitrary in this partition of her recollections4 ,in the normal state ,lonie has a husband and children2 but ,lonie #b1 the somnambulist1 whilst acknowledging the children as her own1 attributes the husband to 'the other4' ,this choice1 was perhaps explicable1 but it followed no rule4 ,it was not till later that ,i learned that her magnetizers in early days1 as audacious as certain hypnotizers of recent date1 had somnambulized her for her first accouchements1 and that she had lapsed into that state spontaneously in the later ones4 ,lonie #b was thus quite right in ascribing to herself the children--it was she who had had them1 and the rule that her first trance-state forms a different personality was not broken4 ,but it is the same with her second or deepest state of trance4 ,when after the renewed passes1 syncope1 etc41 she reaches the condition which ,i have called ,lonie #c1 she is another person still4 ,serious and grave1 instead of being a restless child1 she speaks slowly and moves but little4 ,again she separates herself from the waking ,lonie #a4 ',a good but rather stupid woman1' she says1 'and not me4' ,and she also separates herself from ,lonie #b3 ',how can you see anything of me in that crazy creature8' she says4 ',fortunately ,i am nothing for her4' ,lonie #a knows only of herself2 ,lonie #b1 of herself and of ,lonie #a2 ,lonie #c knows of herself and of both the others4 ,lonie #a has a visual consciousness2 ,lonie #b has one both visual and auditory2 in ,lonie #c it is at once visual1 auditory1 and tactile4 ,prof4 ,janet thought at first that he was ,lonie #c's discoverer4 ,but she told him that she had been frequently in that condition before4 ,a former magnetizer had hit upon her just as ,m4 ,janet had1 in seeking by means of passes to deepen the sleep of ,lonie #b4 ,this resurrection of a somnambulic personage who had been extinct for twenty years is curious enough2 and in speaking to ,lonie #c1 ,i naturally now adopt the name of ,lonore which was given her by her first master4 ,the most carefully studied case of multiple personality is that of the hysteric youth ,louis ,v4 about whom ,,mm4 ,bourru and ,burot have written a book4#cac ,the symptoms are too intricate to be reproduced here with detail4 ,suffice it that ,louis ,v4 had led an irregular life1 in the army1 in hospitals1 and in houses of correction1 and had had numerous hysteric ansthesias1 paralyses1 and contractures attacking him differently at different times and when he lived at different places4 ,at eighteen1 at an agricultural ,house of ,correction he was bitten by a viper1 which brought on a convulsive crisis and left both of his legs paralyzed for three years4 ,during this condition he was gentle1 moral1 and industrious4 ,but suddenly at last1 after a long convulsive seizure1 his paralysis disappeared1 and with it his memory for all the time during which it had endured4 ,his character also changed3 he became quarrelsome1 gluttonous1 impolite1 stealing his comrades' wine1 and money from an attendant1 and finally escaped from the establishment and fought furiously when he was overtaken and caught4 ,later1 when he first fell under the observation of the authors1 his right side was half paralyzed and insensible1 and his character intolerable2 the application of metals transferred the paralysis to the left side1 abolished his recollections of the other condition1 and carried him psychically back to the hospital of ,bictre where he had been treated for a similar physical condition4 ,his character1 opinions1 education1 all underwent a concomitant transformation4 ,he was no longer the personage of the moment before4 ,it appeared ere long that any present nervous disorder in him could be temporarily removed by metals1 magnets1 electric or other baths1 etc42 and that any past disorder could be brought back by hypnotic suggestion4 ,he also went through a rapid spontaneous repetition of his series of past disorders after each of the convulsive attacks which occurred in him at intervals4 ,it was observed that each physical state in which he found himself1 excluded certain memories and brought with it a definite modification of character4 ,the law of these changes1 say the authors1 is quite clear4 ,there exist precise1 constant1 and necessary relations between the bodily and the mental state1 such that it is impossible to modify the one without modifying the other in a parallel fashion4#cad ,the case of this proteiform individual would seem1 then1 nicely to corroborate ,m4 ,p4 ,janet's law that ansthesias and gaps in memory go together4 ,coupling ,janet's law with ,locke's that changes of memory bring changes of personality1 we should have an apparent explanation of some cases at least of alternate personality4 ,but mere ansthesia does not sufficiently explain the changes of disposition1 which are probably due to modifications in the perviousness of motor and associative paths1 co-ordinate with those of the sensorial paths rather than consecutive upon them4 ,and indeed a glance at other cases than ,m4 ,janet's own1 suffices to show us that sensibility and memory are not coupled in any invariable way4#cae ,m4 ,janet's law1 true of his own cases1 does not seem to hold good in all4 ,of course it is mere guesswork to speculate on what may be the cause of the amnesias which lie at the bottom of changes in the ,self4 ,changes of blood-supply have naturally been invoked4 ,alternate action of the two hemispheres was long ago proposed by ,dr4 ,wigan in his book on the ,duality of the ,mind4 ,i shall revert to this explanation after considering the third class of alterations of the ,self1 those1 namely1 which ,i have called 'possessions4' ,i have myself become quite recently acquainted with the subject of a case of alternate personality of the 'ambulatory' sort1 who has given me permission to name him in these pages4#caf ,the ,rev4 ,ansel ,bourne1 of ,greene1 ,r4 ,i41 was brought up to the trade of a carpenter2 but1 in consequence of a sudden temporary loss1 of sight and hearing under very peculiar circumstances1 he became converted from ,atheism to ,christianity just before his thirtieth year1 and has since that time for the most part lived the life of an itinerant preacher4 ,he has been subject to headaches and temporary fits of depression of spirits during most of his life1 and has had a few fits of unconsciousness lasting an hour or less4 ,he also has a region of somewhat diminished cutaneous sensibility on the left thigh4 ,otherwise his health is good1 and his muscular strength and endurance excellent4 ,he is of a firm and self-reliant disposition1 a man whose yea is yea and his nay1 nay2 and his character for uprightness is such in the community that no person who knows him will for a moment admit the possibility of his case not being perfectly genuine4 ,on ,january #ag1 #ahhg1 he drew #eea dollars from a bank in ,providence with which to pay for a certain lot of land in ,greene1 paid certain bills1 and got into a ,pawtucket horse-car4 ,this is the last incident which he remembers4 ,he did not return home that day1 and nothing was heard of him for two months4 ,he was published in the papers as missing1 and foul play being suspected1 the police sought in vain his whereabouts4 ,on the morning of ,march #adth1 however1 at ,norristown1 ,pennsylvania1 a man calling himself ,a4 ,j4 ,brown1 who had rented a small shop six weeks previously1 stocked it with stationery1 confectionery1 fruit and small articles1 and carried on his quiet trade without seeming to any one unnatural or eccentric1 woke up in a fright and called in the people of the house to tell him where he was4 ,he said that his name was ,ansel ,bourne1 that he was entirely ignorant of ,norristown1 that he knew nothing of shop-keeping1 and that the last thing he remembered--it seemed only yesterday--was drawing the money from the bank1 etc41 in ,providence4 ,he would not believe that two months had elapsed4 ,the people of the house thought him insane2 and so1 at first1 did ,dr4 ,louis ,h4 ,read1 whom they called in to see him4 ,but on telegraphing to ,providence1 confirmatory messages came1 and presently his nephew1 ,mr4 ,andrew ,harris1 arrived upon the scene1 made everything straight1 and took him home4 ,he was very weak1 having lost apparently over twenty pounds of flesh during his escapade1 and had such a horror of the idea of the candy-store that he refused to set foot in it again4 ,the first two weeks of the period remained unaccounted for1 as he had no memory1 after he had once resumed his normal personality1 of any part of the time1 and no one who knew him seems to have seen him after he left home4 ,the remarkable part of the change is1 of course1 the peculiar occupation which the so-called ,brown indulged in4 ,mr4 ,bourne has never in his life had the slightest contact with trade4 ',brown' was described by the neighbors as taciturn1 orderly in his habits1 and in no way queer4 ,he went to ,philadelphia several times2 replenished his stock2 cooked for himself in the back shop1 where he also slept2 went regularly to church2 and once at a prayer-meeting made what was considered by the hearers a good address1 in the course of which he related an incident which he had witnessed in his natural state of ,bourne4 ,this was all that was known of the case up to ,june #ahij1 when ,i induced ,mr4 ,bourne to submit to hypnotism1 so as to see whether1 in the hypnotic trance1 his ',brown' memory would not come back4 ,it did so with surprising readiness2 so much so indeed that it proved quite impossible to make him whilst in the hypnosis remember any of the facts of his normal life4 ,he had heard of ,ansel ,bourne1 but didn't know as he had ever met the man4 ,when confronted with ,mrs4 ,bourne he said that he had never seen the woman before1 etc4 ,on the other hand1 he told of his peregrinations during the lost fortnight1#cag and gave all sorts of details about the ,norristown episode4 ,the whole thing was prosaic enough2 and the ,brown-personality seems to be nothing but a rather shrunken1 dejected1 and amnesic extract of ,mr4 ,bourne himself4 ,he gives no motive for the wandering except that there was 'trouble back there' and he 'wanted rest4' ,during the trance he looks old1 the corners of his mouth are drawn down1 his voice is slow and weak1 and he sits screening his eyes and trying vainly to remember what lay before and after the two months of the ,brown experience4 ,i'm all hedged in1 he says3 ,i can't get out at either end4 ,i don't know what set me down in that ,pawtucket horse-car1 and ,i don't know how ,i ever left that store1 or what became of it4 ,his eyes are practically normal1 and all his sensibilities 7save for tardier response7 about the same in hypnosis as in waking4 ,i had hoped by suggestion1 etc41 to run the two personalities into one1 and make the memories continuous1 but no artifice would avail to accomplish this1 and ,mr4 ,bourne's skull to-day still covers two distinct personal selves4 ,the case 7whether it contain an epileptic element or not7 should apparently be classed as one of spontaneous hypnotic trance1 persisting for two months4 ,the peculiarity of it is that nothing else like it ever occurred in the man's life1 and that no eccentricity of character came out4 ,in most similar cases1 the attacks recur1 and the sensibilities and conduct markedly change4#cah 99 99 99 99 99 #c4 ,in 'mediumships' or 'possessions' the invasion and the passing away of the secondary state are both relatively abrupt1 and the duration of the state is usually short--i4e41 from a few minutes to a few hours4 ,whenever the secondary state is well developed no memory for aught that happened during it remains after the primary consciousness comes back4 ,the subject during the secondary consciousness speaks1 writes1 or acts as if animated by a foreign person1 and often names this foreign person and gives his history4 ,in old times the foreign 'control' was usually a demon1 and is so now in communities which favor that belief4 ,with us he gives himself out at the worst for an ,indian or other grotesquely speaking but harmless personage4 ,usually he purports to be the spirit of a dead person known or unknown to those present1 and the subject is then what we call a 'medium4' ,mediumistic possession in all its grades seems to form a perfectly natural special type of alternate personality1 and the susceptibility to it in some form is by no means an uncommon gift1 in persons who have no other obvious nervous anomaly4 ,the phenomena are very intricate1 and are only just beginning to be studied in a proper scientific way4 ,the lowest phase of mediumship is automatic writing1 and the lowest grade of that is where the ,subject knows what words are coming1 but feels impelled to write them as if from without4 ,then comes writing unconsciously1 even whilst engaged in reading or talk4 ,inspirational speaking1 playing on musical instruments1 etc41 also belong to the relatively lower phases of possession1 in which the normal self is not excluded from conscious participation in the performance1 though their initiative seems to come from elsewhere4 ,in the highest phase the trance is complete1 the voice1 language1 and everything are changed1 and there is no after-memory whatever until the next trance comes4 ,one curious thing about trance-utterances is their generic similarity in different individuals4 ,the 'control' here in ,america is either a grotesque1 slangy1 and flippant personage 7',indian' controls1 calling the ladies 'squaws1' the men 'braves1' the house a 'wigwam1' etc41 etc41 are excessively common72 or1 if he ventures on higher intellectual flights1 he abounds in a curiously vague optimistic philosophy-and-water1 in which phrases about spirit1 harmony1 beauty1 law1 progression1 development1 etc41 keep recurring4 ,it seems exactly as if one author composed more than half of the trance-messages1 no matter by whom they are uttered4 ,whether all sub-conscious selves are peculiarly susceptible to a certain stratum of the ,zeitgeist1 and get their inspiration from it1 ,i know not2 but this is obviously the case with the secondary selves which become 'developed' in spiritualist circles4 ,there the beginnings of the medium trance are indistinguishable from effects of hypnotic suggestion4 ,the subject assumes the rle of a medium simply because opinion expects it of him under the conditions which are present2 and carries it out with a feebleness or a vivacity proportionate to his histrionic gifts4 ,but the odd thing is that persons unexposed to spiritualist traditions will so often act in the same way when they become entranced1 speak in the name of the departed1 go through the motions of their several death-agonies1 send messages about their happy home in the summer-land1 and describe the ailments of those present4 ,i have no theory to publish of these cases1 several of which ,i have personally seen4 ,as an example of the automatic writing performances ,i will quote from an account of his own case kindly furnished me by ,mr4 ,sidney ,dean of ,warren1 ,r ,i41 member of ,congress from ,connecticut from #ahee to #ahei1 who has been all his life a robust and active journalist1 author1 and man of affairs4 ,he has for many years been a writing subject1 and has a large collection of manuscript automatically produced4 ,some of it1 he writes us1 is in hieroglyph1 or strange compounded arbitrary characters1 each series possessing a seeming unity in general design or character1 followed by what purports to be a translation or rendering into mother ,english4 ,i never attempted the seemingly impossible feat of copying the characters4 ,they were cut with the precision of a graver's tool1 and generally with a single rapid stroke of the pencil4 ,many languages1 some obsolete and passed from history1 are professedly given4 ,to see them would satisfy you that no one could copy them except by tracing4 ,these1 however1 are but a small part of the phenomena4 ,the 'automatic' has given place to the impressional1 and when the work is in progress ,i am in the normal condition1 and seemingly two minds1 intelligences1 persons1 are practically engaged4 ,the writing is in my own hand but the dictation not of my own mind and will1 but that of another1 upon subjects of which ,i can have no knowledge and hardly a theory2 and ,i1 myself1 consciously criticise the thought1 fact1 mode of expressing it1 etc41 while the hand is recording the subject-matter and even the words impressed to be written4 ,if ,i refuse to write the sentence1 or even the word1 the impression instantly ceases1 and my willingness must be mentally expressed before the work is resumed1 and it is resumed at the point of cessation1 even if it should be in the middle of a sentence4 ,sentences are commenced without knowledge of mine as to their subject or ending4 ,in fact1 ,i have never known in advance the subject of disquisition4 ,there is in progress now1 at uncertain times1 not subject to my will1 a series of twenty-four chapters upon the scientific features of life1 moral1 spiritual1 eternal4 ,seven have already been written in the manner indicated4 ,these were preceded by twenty-four chapters relating generally to the life beyond material death1 its characteristics1 etc4 ,each chapter is signed by the name of some person who has lived on earth1--some with whom ,i have been personally acquainted1 others known in history4444 ,i know nothing of the alleged authorship of any chapter until it is completed and the name impressed and appended4444 ,i am interested not only in the reputed authorship1--of which ,i have nothing corroborative1--but in the philosophy taught1 of which ,i was in ignorance until these chapters appeared4 ,from my standpoint of life--which has been that of biblical orthodoxy--the philosophy is new1 seems to be reasonable1 and is logically put4 ,i confess to an inability to successfully controvert it to my own satisfaction4 ,it is an intelligent ego who writes1 or else the influence assumes individuality1 which practically makes of the influence a personality4 ,it is not myself2 of that ,i am conscious at every step of the process4 ,i have also traversed the whole field of the claims of 'unconscious cerebration1' so called1 so far as ,i am competent to critically examine it1 and it fails1 as a theory1 in numberless points1 when applied to this strange work through me4 ,it would be far more reasonable and satisfactory for me to accept the silly hypothesis of re-incarnation1--the old doctrine of metempsychosis1--as taught by some spiritualists to-day1 and to believe that ,i lived a former life here1 and that once in a while it dominates my intellectual powers1 and writes chapters upon the philosophy of life1 or opens a post-office for spirits to drop their effusions1 and have them put into ,english script4 ,no2 the easiest and most natural solution to me is to admit the claim made1 i4e41 that it is a decarnated intelligence who writes4 ,but who8 that is the question4 ,the names of scholars and thinkers who once lived are affixed to the most ungrammatical and weakest of bosh4444 ,it seems reasonable to me--upon the hypothesis that it is a person using another's mind or brain--that there must be more or less of that other's style or tone incorporated in the message1 and that to the unseen personality1 i4e41 the power which impresses1 the thought1 the fact1 or the philosophy1 and not the style or tone1 belongs4 ,for instance1 while the influence is impressing my brain with the greatest force and rapidity1 so that my pencil fairly flies over the paper to record the thoughts1 ,i am conscious that1 in many cases1 the vehicle of the thought1 i4e41 the language1 is very natural and familiar to me1 as if1 somehow1 my personality as a writer was getting mixed up with the message4 ,and1 again1 the style1 language1 everything1 is entirely foreign to my own style4 ,i am myself persuaded by abundant acquaintance with the trances of one medium that the 'control' may be altogether different from any possible waking self of the person4 ,in the case ,i have in mind1 it professes to be a certain departed ,french doctor2 and is1 ,i am convinced1 acquainted with facts about the circumstances1 and the living and dead relatives and acquaintances1 of numberless sitters whom the medium never met before1 and of whom she has never heard the names4 ,i record my bare opinion here unsupported by the evidence1 not1 of course1 in order to convert anyone to my view1 but because ,i am persuaded that a serious study of these trance-phenomena is one of the greatest needs of psychology1 and think that my personal confession may possibly draw a reader or two into a field which the soi-disant 'scientist' usually refuses to explore4 ,many persons have found evidence conclusive to their minds that in some cases the control is really the departed spirit whom it pretends to be4 ,the phenomena shade off so gradually into cases where this is obviously absurd1 that the presumption 7quite apart from a priori 'scientific' prejudice7 is great against its being true4 ,the case of ,lurancy ,vennum is perhaps as extreme a case of 'possession' of the modern sort as one can find4#cai ,lurancy was a young girl of fourteen1 living with her parents at ,watseka1 ,ill41 who 7after various distressing hysterical disorders and spontaneous trances1 during which she was possessed by departed spirits of a more or less grotesque sort7 finally declared herself to be animated by the spirit of ,mary ,roff 7a neighbor's daughter1 who had died in an insane asylum twelve years before7 and insisted on being sent 'home' to ,mr4 ,roff's house4 ,after a week of 'homesickness' and importunity on her part1 her parents agreed1 and the ,roffs1 who pitied her1 and who were spiritualists into the bargain1 took her in4 ,once there1 she seems to have convinced the family that their dead ,mary had exchanged habitations with ,lurancy4 ,lurancy was said to be temporarily in heaven1 and ,mary's spirit now controlled her organism1 and lived again in her former earthly home4 ,the girl1 now in her new home1 seemed perfectly happy and content1 knowing every person and everything that ,mary knew when in her original body1 twelve to twenty-five years ago1 recognizing and calling by name those who were friends and neighbors of the family from #aheb to #ahfe1 when ,mary died1 calling attention to scores1 yes1 hundreds of incidents that transpired during her natural life4 ,during all the period of her sojourn at ,mr4 ,roff's she had no knowledge of1 and did not recognize1 any of ,mr4 ,vennum's family1 their friends or neighbors1 yet ,mr4 and ,mrs4 ,vennum and their children visited her and ,mr4 ,roff's people1 she being introduced to them as to any strangers4 ,after frequent visits1 and hearing them often and favorably spoken of1 she learned to love them as acquaintances1 and visited them with ,mrs4 ,roff three times4 ,from day to day she appeared natural1 easy1 affable1 and industrious1 attending diligently and faithfully to her household duties1 assisting in the general work of the family as a faithful1 prudent daughter might be supposed to do1 singing1 reading1 or conversing as opportunity offered1 upon all matters of private or general interest to the family4 ,the so-called ,mary whilst at the ,roffs' would sometimes 'go back to heaven1' and leave the body in a 'quiet trance1' i4e41 without the original personality of ,lurancy returning4 ,after eight or nine weeks1 however1 the memory and manner of ,lurancy would sometimes partially1 but not entirely1 return for a few minutes4 ,once ,lurancy seems to have taken full possession for a short time4 ,at last1 after some fourteen weeks1 conformably to the prophecy which ',mary' had made when she first assumed 'control1' she departed definitively and the ,lurancy-consciousness came back for good4 ,mr4 ,roff writes3 ,she wanted me to take her home1 which ,i did4 ,she called me ,mr4 ,roff1 and talked with me as a young girl would1 not being acquainted4 ,i asked her how things appeared to her--if they seemed natural4 ,she said it seemed like a dream to her4 ,she met her parents and brothers in a very affectionate manner1 hugging and kissing each one in tears of gladness4 ,she clasped her arms around her father's neck a long time1 fairly smothering him with kisses4 ,i saw her father just now 7eleven o'clock74 ,he says she has been perfectly natural1 and seems entirely well4 ,lurancy's mother writes1 a couple of months later1 that she was perfectly and entirely well and natural4 ,for two or three weeks after her return home1 she seemed a little strange to what she had been before she was taken sick last summer1 but only1 perhaps1 the natural change that had taken place with the girl1 and except it seemed to her as though she had been dreaming or sleeping1 etc4 ,lurancy has been smarter1 more intelligent1 more industrious1 more womanly1 and more polite than before4 ,we give the credit of her complete cure and restoration to her family1 to ,dr4 ,e4 ,w4 ,stevens1 and ,mr4 and ,mrs4 ,roff1 by their obtaining her removal to ,mr4 ,roff's1 where her cure was perfected4 ,we firmly believe that1 had she remained at home1 she would have died1 or we would have been obliged to send her to the insane asylum2 and if so1 that she would have died there2 and further1 that ,i could not have lived but a short time with the care and trouble devolving on me4 ,several of the relatives of ,lurancy1 including ourselves1 now believe she was cured by spirit power1 and that ,mary ,roff controlled the girl4 ,eight years later1 ,lurancy was reported to be married and a mother1 and in good health4 ,she had apparently outgrown the mediumistic phase of her existence4#cbj 99 99 99 99 99 ,on the condition of the sensibility during these invasions1 few observations have been made4 ,i have found the hands of two automatic writers ansthetic during the act4 ,in two others ,i have found this not to be the case4 ,automatic writing is usually preceded by shooting pains along the arm-nerves and irregular contractions of the arm-muscles4 ,i have found one medium's tongue and lips apparently insensible to pin-pricks during her 7speaking7 trance4 99 99 99 99 99 ,if we speculate on the brain-condition during all these different perversions of personality1 we see that it must be supposed capable of successively changing all its modes of action1 and abandoning the use for the time being of whole sets of well-organized association-paths4 ,in no other way can we explain the loss of memory in passing from one alternating condition to another4 ,and not only this1 but we must admit that organized systems of paths can be thrown out of gear with others1 so that the processes in one system give rise to one consciousness1 and those of another system to another simultaneously existing consciousness4 ,thus only can we understand the facts of automatic writing1 etc41 whilst the patient is out of trance1 and the false ansthesias and amnesias of the hysteric type4 ,but just what sort of dissociation the phrase 'thrown out of gear' may stand for1 we cannot even conjecture2 only ,i think we ought not to talk of the doubling of the self as if it consisted in the failure to combine on the part of certain systems of ideas which usually do so4 ,it is better to talk of objects usually combined1 and which are now divided between the two 'selves1' in the hysteric and automatic cases in question4 ,each of the selves is due to a system of cerebral paths acting by itself4 ,if the brain acted normally1 and the dissociated systems came together again1 we should get a new affection of consciousness in the form of a third ',self' different from the other two1 but knowing their objects together1 as the result4--,after all ,i have said in the last chapter1 this hardly needs further remark4 ,some peculiarities in the lower automatic performances suggest that the systems thrown out of gear with each other are contained one in the right and the other in the left hemisphere4 ,the subjects1 e4g41 often write backwards1 or they transpose letters1 or they write mirror-script4 ,all these are symptoms of agraphic disease4 ,the left hand1 if left to its natural impulse1 will in most people write mirror-script more easily than natural script4 ,mr4 ,f4 ,w4 ,h4 ,myers has laid stress on these analogies4#cba ,he has also called attention to the usual inferior moral tone of ordinary planchette writing4 ,on ,hughlings ,jackson's principles1 the left hemisphere1 being the more evolved organ1 at ordinary times inhibits the activity of the right one2 but ,mr4 ,myers suggests that during the automatic performances the usual inhibition may be removed and the right hemisphere set free to act all by itself4 ,this is very likely to some extent to be the case4 ,but the crude explanation of 'two' selves by 'two' hemispheres is of course far from ,mr4 ,myers's thought4 ,the selves may be more than two1 and the brain-systems severally used for each must be conceived as interpenetrating each other in very minute ways4 ,,summary4 ,to sum up now this long chapter4 ,the consciousness of ,self involves a stream of thought1 each part of which as ',i' can #a7 remember those which went before1 and know the things they knew2 and #b7 emphasize and care paramountly for certain ones among them as 'me1' and appropriate to these the rest4 ,the nucleus of the 'me' is always the bodily existence felt to be present at the time4 ,whatever remembered-past-feelings resemble this present feeling are deemed to belong to the same me with it4 ,whatever other things are perceived to be associated with this feeling are deemed to form part of that me's experience2 and of them certain ones 7which fluctuate more or less7 are reckoned to be themselves constituents of the me in a larger sense1--such are the clothes1 the material possessions1 the friends1 the honors and esteem which the person receives or may receive4 ,this me is an empirical aggregate of things objectively known4 ,the ,i which knows them cannot itself be an aggregate1 neither for psychological purposes need it be considered to be an unchanging metaphysical entity like the ,soul1 or a principle like the pure ,ego1 viewed as 'out of time4' ,it is a ,thought1 at each moment different from that of the last moment1 but appropriative of the latter1 together with all that the latter called its own4 ,all the experiential facts find their place in this description1 unencumbered with any hypothesis save that of the existence of passing thoughts or states of mind4 ,the same brain may subserve many conscious selves1 either alternate or coexisting2 but by what modifications in its action1 or whether ultra-cerebral conditions may intervene1 are questions which cannot now be answered4 ,if anyone urge that ,i assign no reason why the successive passing thoughts should inherit each other's possessions1 or why they and the brain-states should be functions 7in the mathematical sense7 of each other1 ,i reply that the reason1 if there be any1 must lie where all real reasons lie1 in the total sense or meaning of the world4 ,if there be such a meaning1 or any approach to it 7as we are bound to trust there is71 it alone can make clear to us why such finite human streams of thought are called into existence in such functional dependence upon brains4 ,this is as much as to say that the special natural science of psychology must stop with the mere functional formula4 ,if the passing thought be the directly verifiable existent which no school has hitherto doubted it to be1 then that thought is itself the thinker1 and psychology need not look beyond4 ,the only pathway that ,i can discover for bringing in a more transcendental thinker would be to deny that we have any direct knowledge of the thought as such4 ,the latter's existence would then be reduced to a postulate1 an assertion that there must be a knower correlative to all this known2 and the problem who that knower is would have become a metaphysical problem4 ,with the question once stated in these terms1 the spiritualist and transcendentalist solutions must be considered as prima facie on a par with our own psychological one1 and discussed impartially4 ,but that carries us beyond the psychological or naturalistic point of view4 ,,footnotes3 #beg ,see1 for a charming passage on the ,philosophy of ,dress1 ,h4 ,lotze's ,microcosmus1 ,eng4 tr4 vol4 i1 p4 #eib ff4 #beh ,who filches from me my good name1 etc4 #bei ,he who imagines commendation and disgrace not to be strong motives on men 444 seems little skilled in the nature and history of mankind2 the greatest part whereof he shall find to govern themselves chiefly1 if not solely1 by this law of fashion2 and so they do that which keeps them in reputation with their company1 little regard the laws of ,god or the magistrate4 ,the penalties that attend the breach of ,god's laws some1 nay1 most1 men seldom seriously reflect on2 and amongst those that do1 many1 whilst they break the laws1 entertain thoughts of future reconciliation1 and making their peace for such breaches3 and as to the punishments due from the laws of the commonwealth1 they frequently flatter themselves with the hope of impunity4 ,but no man escapes the punishment of their censure and dislike who offends against the fashion and opinion of the company he keeps1 and would recommend himself to4 ,nor is there one in ten thousand who is stiff and insensible enough to bear up under the constant dislike and condemnation of his own club4 ,he must be of a strange and unusual constitution who can content himself to live in constant disgrace and disrepute with his own particular society4 ,solitude many men have sought and been reconciled to2 but nobody that has the least thought or sense of a man about him can live in society under the constant dislike and ill opinion of his familiars and those he converses with4 ,this is a burden too heavy for human sufferance3 and he must be made up of irreconcilable contradictions who can take pleasure in company and yet be insensible of contempt and disgrace from his companions4 7,locke's ,essay1 book ii1 ch4 xxviii1 #ab47 #bfj ,for some farther remarks on these feelings of movement see the next chapter4 #bfa ,wundt's account of ,self-consciousness deserves to be compared with this4 ,what ,i have called 'adjustments' he calls processes of ',apperception4' ,in this development 7of consciousness7 one particular group of percepts claims a prominent significance1 namely1 those of which the spring lies in ourselves4 ,the images of feelings we get from our own body1 and the representations of our own movements distinguish themselves from all others by forming a permanent group4 ,as there are always some muscles in a state either of tension or of activity it follows that we never lack a sense1 either dim or clear1 of the positions or movements of our body4444 ,this permanent sense1 moreover1 has this peculiarity1 that we are aware of our power at any moment voluntarily to arouse any one of its ingredients4 ,we excite the sensations of movement immediately by such impulses of the will as shall arouse the movements themselves2 and we excite the visual and tactile feelings of our body by the voluntary movement of our organs of sense4 ,so we come to conceive this permanent mass of feeling as immediately or remotely subject to our will1 and call it the consciousness of ourself4 ,this self-consciousness is1 at the outset1 thoroughly sensational1444 only gradually the second-named of its characters1 its subjection to our will1 attains predominance4 ,in proportion as the apperception of all our mental objects appears to us as an inward exercise of will1 does our self-consciousness begin both to widen itself and to narrow itself at the same time4 ,it widens itself in that every mental act whatever comes to stand in relation to our will2 and it narrows itself in that it concentrates itself more and more upon the inner activity of apperception1 over against which our own body and all the representations connected with it appear as external objects1 different from our proper self4 ,this consciousness1 contracted down to the process of apperception1 we call our ,ego2 and the apperception of mental objects in general1 may thus1 after ,leibnitz1 be designated as the raising of them into our self-consciousness4 ,thus the natural development of self-consciousness implicitly involves the most abstract forms in which this faculty has been described in philosophy2 only philosophy is fond of placing the abstract ego at the outset1 and so reversing the process of development4 ,nor should we overlook the fact that the completely abstract ego as pure activity1 although suggested by the natural development of our consciousness1 is never actually found therein4 ,the most speculative of philosophers is incapable of disjoining his ego from those bodily feelings and images which form the incessant background of his awareness of himself4 ,the notion of his ego as such is1 like every notion1 derived from sensibility1 for the process of apperception itself comes to our knowledge chiefly through those feelings of tension what ,i have above called inward adjustments which accompany it4 7,physiologische ,psychologie1 #bte ,aufl4 ,bd4 ii1 pp4 #bag-ai47 #bfb ,the only exception ,i know of is ,m4 ,j4 ,souriau1 in his important article in the ,revue ,philosophique1 vol4 xxi1 p4 #ddi4 ,m4 ,souriau's conclusion is 'que la conscience n'existe pas' 7p4 #dgb74 #bfc ,see the excellent remarks by ,prof4 ,bain on the ',emotion of ,power' in his ',emotions and the ,will4' #bfd ,cf4 ,carlyle3 ,sartor ,resartus1 ',the ,everlasting ,yea4' ,i tell thee1 blockhead1 it all comes of thy vanity2 of what thou fanciest those same deserts of thine to be4 ,fancy that thou deservest to be hanged 7as is most likely71 thou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot3 fancy that thou deservest to be hanged in a hair halter1 it will be a luxury to die in hemp4444 ,what act of legislature was there that thou shouldst be happy8 ,a little while ago thou hadst no right to be at all4 etc41 etc4 #bfe ,t4 ,w4 ,higginson's translation 7#ahff71 p4 #aje4 #bff ,the usual mode of lessening the shock of disappointment or disesteem is to contract1 if possible1 a low estimate of the persons that inflict it4 ,this is our remedy for the unjust censures of party spirit1 as well as of personal malignity4 7,bain3 ,emotion and ,will1 p4 #bji47 #bfg ,it must be observed that the qualities of the ,self thus ideally constituted are all qualities approved by my actual fellows in the first instance2 and that my reason for now appealing from their verdict to that of the ideal judge lies in some outward peculiarity of the immediate case4 ,what once was admired in me as courage has now become in the eyes of men 'impertinence'2 what was fortitude is obstinacy2 what was fidelity is now fanaticism4 ,the ideal judge alone1 ,i now believe1 can read my qualities1 my willingnesses1 my powers1 for what they truly are4 ,my fellows1 misled by interest and prejudice1 have gone astray4 #bfh ,the kind of selfishness varies with the self that is sought4 ,if it be the mere bodily self2 if a man grabs the best food1 the warm corner1 the vacant seat2 if he makes room for no one1 spits about1 and belches in our faces1--we call it hoggishness4 ,if it be the social self1 in the form of popularity or influence1 for which he is greedy1 he may in material ways subordinate himself to others as the best means to his end2 and in this case he is very apt to pass for a disinterested man4 ,if it be the 'other-worldly' self which he seeks1 and if he seeks it ascetically1--even though he would rather see all mankind damned eternally than lose his individual soul1--'saintliness' will probably be the name by which his selfishness will be called4 #bfi ,lotze1 ,med4 ,psych4 #dih-eja2 ,microcosmos1 bk4 ii1 chap4 v1 #c1 #d4 #bgj ,psychologische ,analysen auf ,physiologischer ,grundlage4 ,theil ii1 #bte ,hlfte1 #aa4 ,the whole section ought to be read4 #bga ,professor ,bain1 in his chapter on ',emotions of ,self1' does scant justice to the primitive nature of a large part of our self-feeling1 and seems to reduce it to reflective self-estimation of this sober intellectual sort1 which certainly most of it is not4 ,he says that when the attention is turned inward upon self as a ,personality1 we are putting forth towards ourselves the kind of exercise that properly accompanies our contemplation of other persons4 ,we are accustomed to scrutinize the actions and conduct of those about us1 to set a higher value upon one man than upon another1 by comparing the two2 to pity one in distress2 to feel complacency towards a particular individual2 to congratulate a man on some good fortune that it pleases us to see him gain2 to admire greatness or excellence as displayed by any of our fellows4 ,all these exercises are intrinsically social1 like ,love and ,resentment2 an isolated individual could never attain to them1 nor exercise them4 ,by what means1 then1 through what fiction 6 can we turn round and play them off upon self8 ,or how comes it that we obtain any satisfaction by putting self in the place of the other party8 ,perhaps the simplest form of the reflected act is that expressed by ,self-worth and ,self-estimation1 based and begun upon observation of the ways and conduct of our fellow-beings4 ,we soon make comparisons among the individuals about us2 we see that one is stronger and does more work than another1 and1 in consequence perhaps1 receives more pay4 ,we see one putting forth perhaps more kindness than another1 and in consequence receiving more love4 ,we see some individuals surpassing the rest in astonishing feats1 and drawing after them the gaze and admiration of a crowd4 ,we acquire a series of fixed associations towards persons so situated2 favorable in the case of the superior1 and unfavorable to the inferior4 ,to the strong and laborious man we attach an estimate of greater reward1 and feel that to be in his place would be a happier lot than falls to others4 ,desiring1 as we do1 from the primary motives of our being1 to possess good things1 and observing these to come by a man's superior exertions1 we feel a respect for such exertion and a wish that it might be ours4 ,we know that we also put forth exertions for our share of good things2 and on witnessing others1 we are apt to be reminded of ourselves and to make comparisons with ourselves1 which comparisons derive their interest from the substantial consequences4 ,having thus once learned to look at other persons as performing labors1 greater or less1 and as realizing fruits to accord2 being1 moreover1 in all respects like our fellows1--we find it an exercise neither difficult nor unmeaning to contemplate self as doing work and receiving the reward4444 ,as we decide between one man and another1--which is worthier1444 so we decide between self and all other men2 being1 however1 in this decision under the bias of our own desires4 ,a couple of pages farther on we read3 ,by the terms ,self-complacency4 ,self-gratulation1 is indicated a positive enjoyment in dwelling upon our own merits and belongings4 ,as in other modes1 so here1 the starting point is the contemplation of excellence or pleasing qualities in another person1 accompanied more or less with fondness or love4 ,self-pity is also regarded by ,professor ,bain1 in this place1 as an emotion diverted to ourselves from a more immediate object1 in a manner that we may term fictitious and unreal4 ,still1 as we can view self in the light of another person1 we can feel towards it the emotion of pity called forth by others in our situation4 ,this account of ,professor ,bain's is1 it will be observed1 a good specimen of the old-fashioned mode of explaining the several emotions as rapid calculations of results1 and the transfer of feeling from one object to another1 associated by contiguity or similarity with the first4 ,zoological evolutionism1 which came up since ,professor ,bain first wrote1 has made us see1 on the contrary1 that many emotions must be primitively aroused by special objects4 ,none are more worthy of being ranked primitive than the self-gratulation and humiliation attendant on our own successes and failures in the main functions of life4 ,we need no borrowed reflection for these feelings4 ,professor ,bain's account applies to but that small fraction of our self-feeling which reflective criticism can add to1 or subtract from1 the total mass4--,lotze has some pages on the modifications of our self-regard by universal judgments1 in ,microcosmus1 book v1 chap4 v1 #e4 #bgb ,also nur dadurch1 dass ich ein ,mannigfaltiges gegehener ,vorstellungen in einem ,bewusstsein verbinden kann1 ist es mglich dass ich die ,identitt des ,bewusstseins in diesen ,vorstellungen selbst vorstelle1 d4 h4 die analytische ,einheit der ,apperception ist nur unter der ,voraussetzung irgend einer synthetischen mglich4 ,in this passage 7,kritik der reinen ,vernunft1 #bte ,aufl4 #af7 ,kant calls by the names of analytic and synthetic apperception what we here mean by objective and subjective synthesis respectively4 ,it were much to be desired that some one might invent a good pair of terms in which to record the distinction--those used in the text are certainly very bad1 but ,kant's seem to me still worse4 ',categorical unity' and 'transcendental synthesis' would also be good ,kantian1 but hardly good human1 speech4 #bgc ,so that we might say1 by a sort of bad pun1 only a connected world can be known as disconnected4 ,i say bad pun1 because the point of view shifts between the connectedness and the disconnectedness4 ,the disconnectedness is of the realities known2 the connectedness is of the knowledge of them2 and reality and knowledge of it are1 from the psychological point of view held fast to in these pages1 two different facts4 #bgd ,some subtle reader will object that the ,thought cannot call any part of its ,object ',i' and knit other parts on to it1 without first knitting that part on to ,itself2 and that it cannot knit it on to ,itself without knowing ,itself2--so that our supposition 7above1 p4 #cjd7 that the ,thought may conceivably have no immediate knowledge of ,itself is thus overthrown4 ,to which the reply is that we must take care not to be duped by words4 ,the words ,i and me signify nothing mysterious and unexampled--they are at bottom only names of emphasis2 and ,thought is always emphasizing something4 ,within a tract of space which it cognizes1 it contrasts a here with a there2 within a tract of time a now with a then2 of a pair of things it calls one this1 the other that4 ,i and thou1 ,i and it1 are distinctions exactly on a par with these1--distinctions possible in an exclusively objective field of knowledge1 the ',i' meaning for the ,thought nothing but the bodily life which it momentarily feels4 ,the sense of my bodily existence1 however obscurely recognized as such1 may then be the absolute original of my conscious selfhood1 the fundamental perception that ,i am4 ,all appropriations may be made to it1 by a ,thought not at the moment immediately cognized by itself4 ,whether these are not only logical possibilities but actual facts is something not yet dogmatically decided in the text4 #bge ,metaphysik1 #bde fin4 ,this writer1 who in his early work1 the ,medizinische ,psychologie1 was 7to my reading7 a strong defender of the ,soul-,substance theory1 has written in #bdc-e of his ,metaphysik the most beautiful criticism of this theory which exists4 #bgf ,on the empirical and transcendental conceptions of the self's unity1 see ,lotze1 ,metaphysic1 #bdd4 #bgg ,appendix to book i of ,hume's ,treatise on ,human ,nature4 #bgh ,herbart believed in the ,soul1 too2 but for him the ',self' of which we are 'conscious' is the empirical ,self--not the soul4 #bgi ,compare again the remarks on pp4 #aeh-afb above4 #bhj ,system of ,psychology 7#ahhd74 vol4 i1 p4 #aad4 #bha ',distinct only to observation1' he adds4 ,to whose observation8 the outside psychologist's1 the ,ego's1 their own1 or the plank's8 ,darauf kommt es an6 #bhb ,analysis1 etc41 ,j4 ,s4 ,mill's ,edition1 vol4 i1 p4 #cca4 ,the 'as it were' is delightfully characteristic of the school4 #bhc ,j4 ,mill's ,analysis1 vol4 ii1 p4 #age4 #bhd ,examination of ,hamilton4 #dth ed4 p4 #bfc4 #bhe ,his chapter on the ,psychological ,theory of ,mind is a beautiful case in point1 and his concessions there have become so celebrated that they must be quoted for the reader's benefit4 ,he ends the chapter with these words 7loc4 cit4 p4 #bdg73 ,the theory1 therefore1 which resolves ,mind into a series of feelings1 with a background of possibilities of feeling1 can effectually withstand the most invidious of the arguments directed against it4 ,but groundless as are the extrinsic objections1 the theory has intrinsic difficulties which we have not set forth1 and which it seems to me beyond the power of metaphysical analysis to remove4444 ,the thread of consciousness which composes the mind's phenomenal life consist not only of present sensations1 but likewise1 in part1 of memories and expectations4 ,now what are these8 ,in themselves1 they are present feelings1 states of present consciousness1 and in that respect not distinguished from sensations4 ,they all1 moreover1 resemble some given sensations or feelings1 of which we have previously had experience4 ,but they are attended with the peculiarity that each of them involves a belief in more than its own present existence4 ,a sensation involves only this2 but a remembrance of sensation1 even if not referred to any particular date1 involves the suggestion and belief that a sensation1 of which it is a copy or representation1 actually existed in the past2 and an expectation involves the belief1 more or less positive1 that a sensation or other feeling to which it directly refers will exist in the future4 ,nor can the phenomena involved in these two states of consciousness be adequately expressed1 without saying that the belief they include is1 that ,i myself formerly had1 or that ,i myself1 and no other1 shall hereafter have1 the sensations remembered or expected4 ,the fact believed is1 that the sensations did actually form1 or will hereafter form1 part of the self-same series of states1 or thread of consciousness1 of which the remembrance or expectation of those sensations is the part now present4 ,if1 therefore1 we speak of the mind as a series of feelings we are obliged to complete the statement by calling it a series of feelings which is aware of itself as past and future2 and we are reduced to the alternative of believing that the mind1 or ,ego1 is something different from any series of feelings1 or possibilities of them1 or of accepting the paradox that something which ex hypothesi is but a series of feelings1 can be aware of itself as a series4 ,the truth is1 that we are here face to face with that final inexplicability1 at which1 as ,sir ,w4 ,hamilton observes1 we inevitably arrive when we reach ultimate facts2 and in general1 one mode of stating it only appears more incomprehensible than another1 because the whole of human language is accommodated to the one1 and is so incongruous with the other that it cannot be expressed in any terms which do not deny its truth4 ,the real stumbling-block is perhaps not in any theory of the fact1 but in the fact itself4 ,the true incomprehensibility perhaps is1 that something which has ceased1 or is not yet in existence1 can still be1 in a manner1 present2 that a series of feelings1 the infinitely greater part of which is past or future1 can be gathered up1 as it were1 into a simple present conception1 accompanied by a belief of reality4 ,i think by far the wisest thing we can do is to accept the inexplicable fact1 without any theory of how it takes place2 and when we are obliged to speak of it in terms which assume a theory1 to use them with a reservation as to their meaning4 ,in a later place in the same book 7p4 #efa7 ,mill1 speaking of what may rightly be demanded of a theorist1 says3 ,he is not entitled to frame a theory from one class of phenomena1 extend it to another class which it does not fit1 and excuse himself by saying that if we cannot make it fit1 it is because ultimate facts are inexplicable4 ,the class of phenomena which the associationist school takes to frame its theory of the ,ego are feelings unaware of each other4 ,the class of phenomena the ,ego presents are feelings of which the later ones are intensely aware of those that went before4 ,the two classes do not 'fit1' and no exercise of ingenuity can ever make them fit4 ,no shuffling of unaware feelings can make them aware4 ,to get the awareness we must openly beg it by postulating a new feeling which has it4 ,this new feeling is no ',theory' of the phenomena1 but a simple statement of them2 and as such ,i postulate in the text the present passing ,thought as a psychic integer1 with its knowledge of so much that has gone before4 #bhf ,kritik d4 reinen ,vernunft1 #bte ,aufl4 #ag4 #bhg ,it must be noticed1 in justice to what was said above on page #bgd ff41 that neither ,kant nor his successors anywhere discriminate between the presence of the apperceiving ,ego to the combined object1 and the awareness by that ,ego of its own presence and of its distinctness from what it apperceives4 ,that the ,object must be known to something which thinks1 and that it must be known to something which thinks that it thinks1 are treated by them as identical necessities1--by what logic1 does not appear4 ,kant tries to soften the jump in the reasoning by saying the thought of itself on the part of the ,ego need only be potential--the ',i think' must be capable of accompanying all other knowledge--but a thought which is only potential is actually no thought at all1 which practically gives up the case4 #bhh ,as regards the soul1 now1 or the ',i1' the 'thinker1' the whole drift of ,kant's advance upon ,hume and sensational psychology is towards the demonstration that the subject of knowledge is an ,agent4 7,g4 ,s4 ,morris1 ,kant's ,critique1 etc4 7,chicago1 #ahhb71 p4 #bbd47 #bhi ,in ,kant's ,prolegomena1 says ,h4 ,cohen1--,i do not myself find the passage1--it is expressly said that the problem is not to show how experience arises 7ensteht71 but of what it consists 7besteht74 7,kant's ,theorie d4 ,erfahrung 7#ahga71 p4 #ach47 #bij ,the contrast between the ,monism thus reached and our own psychological point of view can be exhibited schematically thus1 the terms in squares standing for what1 for us1 are the ultimate irreducible data of psychological science1 and the vincula above it symbolizing the reductions which post-,kantian idealism performs3 ,absolute ,self-consciousness ,reason or ,experience4 _/ ,transcendental ,ego ,world _/ _/ ,psychologist ,thought ,thought's ,object ,psychologist's ,reality _/ _/ ,psychologist's ,object4 ,these reductions account for the ubiquitousness of the 'psychologist's fallacy 7bk4 ii1 ch4 i1 p4 #cb7 in the modern monistic writings4 ,for us it is an unpardonable logical sin1 when talking of a thought's knowledge 7either of an object or of itself71 to change the terms without warning1 and1 substituting the psychologist's knowledge therefor1 still make as if we were continuing to talk of the same thing4 ,for monistic idealism1 this is the very enfranchisement of philosophy1 and of course cannot be too much indulged in4 #bia ,t4 ,h4 ,green1 ,prolegomena to ,ethics1 #eg1 #fa1 #fd4 #bib ,loc4 cit4 #fd4 #bic ,e4 ,caird3 ,hegel 7#ahhc71 p4 #adi4 #bid ,one is almost tempted to believe that the pantomime-state of mind and that of the ,hegelian dialectics are1 emotionally considered1 one and the same thing4 ,in the pantomime all common things are represented to happen in impossible ways1 people jump down each other's throats1 houses turn inside out1 old women become young men1 everything 'passes into its opposite' with inconceivable celerity and skill2 and this1 so far from producing perplexity1 brings rapture to the beholder's mind4 ,and so in the ,hegelian logic1 relations elsewhere recognized under the insipid name of distinctions 7such as that between knower and object1 many and one7 must first be translated into impossibilities and contradictions1 then 'transcended' and identified by miracle1 ere the proper temper is induced for thoroughly enjoying the spectacle they show4 #bie ,the reader will please understand that ,i am quite willing to leave the hypothesis of the transcendental ,ego as a substitute for the passing ,thought open to discussion on general speculative grounds4 ,only in this book ,i prefer to stick by the common sense assumption that we have successive conscious states1 because all psychologists make it1 and because one does not see how there can be a ,psychology written which does not postulate such thoughts as its ultimate data4 ,the data of all natural sciences become in turn subjects of a critical treatment more refined than that which the sciences themselves accord2 and so it may fare in the end with our passing ,thought4 ,we have ourselves seen 7pp4 #bii-cje7 that the sensible certainty of its existence is less strong than is usually assumed4 ,my quarrel with the transcendental ,egoists is mainly about their grounds for their belief4 ,did they consistently propose it as a substitute for the passing ,thought1 did they consistently deny the latter's existence1 ,i should respect their position more4 ,but so far as ,i can understand them1 they habitually believe in the passing ,thought also4 ,they seem even to believe in the ,lockian stream of separate ideas1 for the chief glory of the ,ego in their pages is always its power to 'overcome' this separateness and unite the naturally disunited1 'synthetizing1' 'connecting1' or 'relating' the ideas together being used as synonyms1 by transcendentalist writers1 for knowing various objects at once4 ,not the being conscious at all1 but the being conscious of many things together is held to be the difficult thing1 in our psychic life1 which only the wonder-working ,ego can perform4 ,but on what slippery ground does one get the moment one changes the definite notion of knowing an object into the altogether vague one of uniting or synthetizing the ideas of its various parts6--,in the chapter on ,sensation we shall come upon all this again4 #bif ,when we compare the listless inactivity of the infant1 slumbering from the moment at which he takes his milky food to the moment at which he wakes to require it again1 with the restless energies of that mighty being which he is to become in his maturer years1 pouring truth after truth1 in rapid and dazzling profusion1 upon the world1 or grasping in his single hand the destiny of empires1 how few are the circumstances of resemblance which we can trace1 of all that intelligence which is afterwards to be displayed2 how little more is seen than what serves to give feeble motion to the mere machinery of life6444 ,every age1 if we may speak of many ages in the few years of human life1 seems to be marked with a distinct character4 ,each has its peculiar objects which excite lively affections2 and in each1 exertion is excited by affections1 which in other periods terminate without inducing active desire4 ,the boy finds a world in less space than that which bounds his visible horizon2 he wanders over his range of field and exhausts his strength in the pursuit of objects which1 in the years that follow1 are seen only to be neglected2 while to him the objects that are afterwards to absorb his whole soul are as indifferent as the objects of his present passions are destined then to appear4444 ,how many opportunities must every one have had of witnessing the progress of intellectual decay1 and the coldness that steals upon the once benevolent heart6 ,we quit our country1 perhaps at an early period of life1 and after an absence of many years we return with all the remembrances of past pleasure which grow more tender as they approach their objects4 ,we eagerly seek him to whose paternal voice we have been accustomed to listen with the same reverence as if its predictions had possessed oracular certainty1--who first led us into knowledge1 and whose image has been constantly joined in our mind with all that veneration which does not forbid love4 ,we find him sunk1 perhaps1 in the imbecility of idiotism1 unable to recognize us1--ignorant alike of the past and of the future1 and living only in the sensibility of animal gratification4 ,we seek the favorite companion of our childhood1 whose tenderness of heart1 etc4444 ,we find him hardened into a man1 meeting us scarcely with the cold hypocrisy of dissembled friendship--in his general relations to the world careless of the misery he is not to feel4444 ,when we observe all this1444 do we use only a metaphor of little meaning when we say of him that he is become a different person1 and that his mind and character are changed8 ,in what does the identity consist8444 ,the supposed test of identity1 when applied to the mind in these cases1 completely fails4 ,it neither affects1 nor is affected1 in the same manner in the same circumstances4 ,it therefore1 if the test be a just one1 is not the same identical mind4 7,t4 ,brown3 ,lectures on the ,philosophy of the ,human ,mind1 'on ,mental ,identity4'7 #big ,sir ,john ,cutler had a pair of black worsted stockings1 which his maid darned so often with silk that they became at last a pair of silk stockings4 ,now1 supposing these stockings of ,sir ,john's endued with some degree of consciousness at every particular darning1 they would have been sensible that they were the same individual pair of stockings both before and after the darning2 and this sensation would have continued in them through all the succession of darnings2 and yet after the last of all1 there was not perhaps one thread left of the first pair of stockings3 but they were grown to be silk stockings1 as was said before4 7,pope's ,martinus ,scriblerus1 quoted by ,brown1 ibid47 #bih ,hours of ,work and ,play1 p4 #ajj4 #bii ,for a careful study of the errors in narratives1 see ,e4 ,gurney3 ,phantasms of the ,living1 vol4 i1 pp4 #abf-aeh4 ,in the ,proceedings of the ,society for ,psychical ,research for ,may #ahhg ,mr4 ,richard ,hodgson shows by an extraordinary array of instances how utterly inaccurate everyone's description from memory of a rapid series of events is certain to be4 #cjj ,see ,josiah ,royce 7,mind1 vol4 #ac1 p4 #bdd1 and ,proceedings of ,am4 ,soc4 of ,psych4 ,research1 vol4 i1 p4 #cff71 for evidence that a certain sort of hallucination of memory which he calls 'pseudo-presentiment' is no uncommon phenomenon4 #cja ,maladies de la ,mmoire1 p4 #he4 ,the little that would be left of personal consciousness if all our senses stopped their work is ingenuously shown in the remark of the extraordinary ansthetic youth whose case ,professor ,strmpell reports 7in the ,deutsches ,archiv f4 klin4 ,med41 xxii1 #hdg1 #ahgh74 ,this boy1 whom we shall later find instructive in many connections1 was totally ansthetic without and 7so far as could be tested7 within1 save for the sight of one eye and the hearing of one ear4 ,when his eye was closed1 he said3 ,wenn ich nicht sehen kann1 da ,,bin ich gar nicht--,i no longer am4 #cjb ,one can compare the state of the patient to nothing so well as to that of a caterpillar1 which1 keeping all its caterpillar's ideas and remembrances1 should suddenly become a butterfly with a butterfly's senses and sensations4 ,between the old and the new state1 between the first self1 that of the caterpillar1 and the second self1 that of the butterfly1 there is a deep scission1 a complete rupture4 ,the new feelings find no anterior series to which they can knit themselves on2 the patient can neither interpret nor use them2 he does not recognize them2 they are unknown4 ,hence two conclusions1 the first which consists in his saying1 ,i no longer am2 the second1 somewhat later1 which consists in his saying1 ,i am another person4 7,h4 ,taine3 de l',intelligence1 #cme dition 7#ahgh71 p4 #dfb74 #cjc ,w4 ,griesinger3 ,mental ,diseases1 #bi4 #cjd ,see the interesting case of 'old ,stump' in the ,proceedings of the ,am4 ,soc4 for ,psych4 ,research1 p4 #eeb4 #cje ,de l',intelligence1 #cme dition 7#ahgh71 vol4 ii1 note1 p4 #dfa4 ,krishaber's book 7,la ,nvropathie ,crbro-cardiaque1 #ahgc7 is full of similar observations4 #cjf ,sudden alterations in outward fortune often produce such a change in the empirical me as almost to amount to a pathological disturbance of self-consciousness4 ,when a poor man draws the big prize in a lottery1 or unexpectedly inherits an estate2 when a man high in fame is publicly disgraced1 a millionaire becomes a pauper1 or a loving husband and father sees his family perish at one fell swoop1 there is temporarily such a rupture between all past habits1 whether of an active or a passive kind1 and the exigencies and possibilities of the new situation1 that the individual may find no medium of continuity or association to carry him over from the one phase to the other of his life4 ,under these conditions mental derangement is no unfrequent result4 #cjg ,the number of subjects who can do this with any fertility and exuberance is relatively quite small4 #cjh ,first in the ,revue ,scientifique for ,may #bf1 #ahgf1 then in his book1 ,hypnotisme1 ,double ,conscience1 et ,altrations de la ,personnalit 7,paris1 #ahhg74 #cji ,der ,hypnotismus 7#ahhd71 pp4 #aji-ae4 #caj ,transactions of the ,college of ,physicians of ,philadelphia1 ,april #d1 #ahhh4 ,also1 less complete1 in ,harper's ,magazine1 ,may #ahfj4 #caa ,cf4 ,ribot's ,diseases of ,memory for cases4 ,see also a large number of them in ,forbes ,winslow's ,obscure ,diseases of the ,brain and ,mind1 chapters xiii-xvii4 #cab ,see the interesting account by ,m4 ,j4 ,janet in the ,revue ,scientifique1 ,may #ai1 #ahhh4 #cac ,variations de la ,personnalit 7,paris1 #ahhh74 #cad ,op4 cit4 p4 #hd4 ,in this work and in ,dr4 ,azam's 7cited on a previous page71 as well as in ,prof4 ,th4 ,ribot's ,maladies de la ,personnalit 7#ahhe71 the reader will find information and references relative to the other known cases of the kind4 #cae ,his own brother's subject ,wit44441 although in her ansthetic waking state she recollected nothing of either of her trances1 yet remembered her deeper trance 7in which her sensibilities became perfect--see above1 p4 #bjg7 when she was in her lighter trance4 ,nevertheless in the latter she was as ansthetic as when awake4 7,loc4 cit4 p4 #fai47--;,it does not appear that there was any important difference in the sensibility of ,flida ,x4 between her two states--as far as one can judge from ,m4 ,azam's account she was to some degree ansthetic in both 7op4 cit4 pp4 #ga1 #if74--;,in the case of double personality reported by ,m4 ,dufay 7,revue ,scientifique1 vol4 xviii1 p4 #fi71 the memory seems to have been best in the more ansthetic condition4--,hypnotic subjects made blind do not necessarily lose their visual ideas4 ,it appears1 then1 both that amnesias may occur without ansthesias1 and ansthesias without amnesias1 though they may also occur in combination4 ,hypnotic subjects made blind by suggestion will tell you that they clearly imagine the things which they can no longer see4 #caf ,a full account of the case1 by ,mr4 ,r4 ,hodgson1 will be found in the ,proceedings of the ,society for ,psychical ,research for #ahia4 #cag ,he had spent an afternoon in ,boston1 a night in ,new ,york1 an afternoon in ,newark1 and ten days or more in ,philadelphia1 first in a certain hotel and next in a certain boarding-house1 making no acquaintances1 'resting1' reading1 and 'looking round4' ,i have unfortunately been unable to get independent corroboration of these details1 as the hotel registers are destroyed1 and the boarding-house named by him has been pulled down4 ,he forgets the name of the two ladies who kept it4 #cah ,the details of the case1 it will be seen1 are all compatible with simulation4 ,i can only say of that1 that no one who has examined ,mr4 ,bourne 7including ,dr4 ,read1 ,dr4 ,weir ,mitchell1 ,dr4 ,guy ,hinsdale1 and ,mr4 ,r4 ,hodgson7 practically doubts his ingrained honesty1 nor1 so far as ,i can discover1 do any of his personal acquaintances indulge in a sceptical view4 #cai ,the ,watseka ,wonder1 by ,e4 ,w4 ,stevens4 ,chicago1 ,religio-,philosophical ,publishing ,house1 #ahhg4 #cbj ,my friend ,mr4 ,r4 ,hodgson informs me that he visited ,watseka in ,april #ahij1 and cross-examined the principal witnesses of this case4 ,his confidence in the original narrative was strengthened by what he learned2 and various unpublished facts were ascertained1 which increased the plausibility of the spiritualistic interpretation of the phenomenon4 #cba ,see his highly important series of articles on ,automatic ,writing1 etc41 in the ,proceedings of the ,soc4 for ,psych4 ,research1 especially ,article ii 7,may #ahhe74 ,compare also ,dr4 ,maudsley's instructive article in ,mind1 vol4 xiv1 p4 #afa1 and ,luys's essay1 ',sur le ,ddoublement1' etc41 in l',encphale for #ahhi4 ,,chapter ,,xi4 ,,attention4 ,strange to say1 so patent a fact as the perpetual presence of selective attention has received hardly any notice from psychologists of the ,english empiricist school4 ,the ,germans have explicitly treated of it1 either as a faculty or as a resultant1 but in the pages of such writers as ,locke1 ,hume1 ,hartley1 the ,mills1 and ,spencer the word hardly occurs1 or if it does so1 it is parenthetically and as if by inadvertence4#cbb ,the motive of this ignoring of the phenomenon of attention is obvious enough4 ,these writers are bent on showing how the higher faculties of the mind are pure products of 'experience2' and experience is supposed to be of something simply given4 ,attention1 implying a degree of reactive spontaneity1 would seem to break through the circle of pure receptivity which constitutes 'experience1' and hence must not be spoken of under penalty of interfering with the smoothness of the tale4 ,but the moment one thinks of the matter1 one sees how false a notion of experience that is which would make it tantamount to the mere presence to the senses of an outward order4 ,millions of items of the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience4 ,why8 ,because they have no interest for me4 ,my experience is what ,i agree to attend to4 ,only those items which ,i notice shape my mind--without selective interest1 experience is an utter chaos4 ,interest alone gives accent and emphasis1 light and shade1 background and foreground--intelligible perspective1 in a word4 ,it varies in every creature1 but without it the consciousness of every creature would be a gray chaotic indiscriminateness1 impossible for us even to conceive4 ,such an empiricist writer as ,mr4 ,spencer1 for example1 regards the creature as absolutely passive clay1 upon which 'experience' rains down4 ,the clay will be impressed most deeply where the drops fall thickest1 and so the final shape of the mind is moulded4 ,give time enough1 and all sentient things ought1 at this rate1 to end by assuming an identical mental constitution--for 'experience1' the sole shaper1 is a constant fact1 and the order of its items must end by being exactly reflected by the passive mirror which we call the sentient organism4 ,if such an account were true1 a race of dogs bred for generations1 say in the ,vatican1 with characters of visual shape1 sculptured in marble1 presented to their eyes1 in every variety of form and combination1 ought to discriminate before long the finest shades of these peculiar characters4 ,in a word1 they ought to become1 if time were given1 accomplished connoisseurs of sculpture4 ,anyone may judge of the probability of this consummation4 ,surely an eternity of experience of the statues would leave the dog as inartistic as he was at first1 for the lack of an original interest to knit his discriminations on to4 ,meanwhile the odors at the bases of the pedestals would have organized themselves in the consciousness of this breed of dogs into a system of 'correspondences' to which the most hereditary caste of custodi would never approximate1 merely because to them1 as human beings1 the dog's interest in those smells would for ever be an inscrutable mystery4 ,these writers have1 then1 utterly ignored the glaring fact that subjective interest may1 by laying its weighty index-finger on particular items of experience1 so accent them as to give to the least frequent associations far more power to shape our thought than the most frequent ones possess4 ,the interest itself1 though its genesis is doubtless perfectly natural1 makes experience more than it is made by it4 99 99 99 99 99 ,every one knows what attention is4 ,it is the taking possession by the mind1 in clear and vivid form1 of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought4 ,focalization1 concentration1 of consciousness are of its essence4 ,it implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others1 and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused1 dazed1 scatter-brained state which in ,french is called distraction1 and ,zerstreutheit in ,german4 ,we all know this latter state1 even in its extreme degree4 ,most people probably fall several times a day into a fit of something like this3 ,the eyes are fixed on vacancy1 the sounds of the world melt into confused unity1 the attention is dispersed so that the whole body is felt1 as it were1 at once1 and the foreground of consciousness is filled1 if by anything1 by a sort of solemn sense of surrender to the empty passing of time4 ,in the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing3 getting up1 dressing ourselves1 answering the person who has spoken to us1 trying to make the next step in our reasoning4 ,but somehow we cannot start2 the pense de derrire la tte fails to pierce the shell of lethargy that wraps our state about4 ,every moment we expect the spell to break1 for we know no reason why it should continue4 ,but it does continue1 pulse after pulse1 and we float with it1 until--also without reason that we can discover--an energy is given1 something--we know not what--enables us to gather ourselves together1 we wink our eyes1 we shake our heads1 the background-ideas become effective1 and the wheels of life go round again4 ,this curious state of inhibition can for a few moments be produced at will by fixing the eyes on vacancy4 ,some persons can voluntarily empty their minds and 'think of nothing4' ,with many1 as ,professor ,exner remarks of himself1 this is the most efficacious means of falling asleep4 ,it is difficult not to suppose something like this scattered condition of mind to be the usual state of brutes when not actively engaged in some pursuit4 ,fatigue1 monotonous mechanical occupations that end by being automatically carried on1 tend to produce it in men4 ,it is not sleep2 and yet when aroused from such a state1 a person will often hardly be able to say what he has been thinking about ,subjects of the hypnotic trance seem to lapse into it when left to themselves2 asked what they are thinking of1 they reply1 'of nothing particular'6#cbc ,the abolition of this condition is what we call the awakening of the attention4 ,one principal object comes then into the focus of consciousness1 others are temporarily suppressed4 ,the awakening may come about either by reason of a stimulus from without1 or in consequence of some unknown inner alteration2 and the change it brings with it amounts to a concentration upon one single object with exclusion of aught besides1 or to a condition anywhere between this and the completely dispersed state4 ,,to ,,how ,,many ,,things ,,can ,,we ,,attend ,,at ,,once8 ,the question of the 'span' of consciousness has often been asked and answered--sometimes a priori1 sometimes by experiment4 ,this seems the proper place for us to touch upon it2 and our answer1 according to the principles laid down in ,chapter ,,ix1 will not be difficult4 ,the number of things we may attend to is altogether indefinite1 depending on the power of the individual intellect1 on the form of the apprehension1 and on what the things are4 ,when apprehended conceptually as a connected system1 their number may be very large4 ,but however numerous the things1 they can only be known in a single pulse of consciousness for which they form one complex 'object' 7p4 #bgf ff471 so that properly speaking there is before the mind at no time a plurality of ideas1 properly so called4 ,the 'unity of the soul' has been supposed by many philosophers1 who also believed in the distinct atomic nature of 'ideas1' to preclude the presence to it of more than one objective fact1 manifested in one idea1 at a time4 ,even ,dugald ,stuart opines that every minimum visibile of a pictured figure constitutes just as distinct an object of attention to the mind as if it were separated by an interval of empty space from the rest4444 ,it is impossible for the mind to attend to more than one of these points at once2 and as the perception of the figure implies a knowledge of the relative situation of the different points with respect to each other1 we must conclude that the perception of figure by the eye is the result of a number of different acts of attention4 ,these acts of attention1 however1 are performed with such rapidity1 that the effect1 with respect to us1 is the same as if the perception were instantaneous4#cbd ,such glaringly artificial views can only come from fantastic metaphysics or from the ambiguity of the word 'idea1' which1 standing sometimes for mental state and sometimes for thing known1 leads men to ascribe to the thing1 not only the unity which belongs to the mental state1 but even the simplicity which is thought to reside in the ,soul4 ,when the things are apprehended by the senses1 the number of them that can be attended to at once is small1 ,pluribus intentus1 minor est ad singula sensus4 ,by ,charles ,bonnet the ,mind is allowed to have a distinct notion of six objects at once2 by ,abraham ,tucker the number is limited to four2 while ,destutt ,tracy again amplifies it to six4 ,the opinion of the first and last of these philosophers continues ,sir ,wm4 ,hamilton seems to me correct4 ,you can easily make the experiments for yourselves1 but you must beware of grouping the objects into classes4 ,if you throw a handful of marbles on the floor1 you will find it difficult to view at once more than six1 or seven at most1 without confusion2 but if you group them into twos1 or threes1 or fives1 you can comprehend as many groups as you can units2 because the mind considers these groups only as units--it views them as wholes1 and throws their parts out of consideration4#cbe ,professor ,jevons1 repeating this observation1 by counting instantaneously beans thrown into a box1 found that the number #f was guessed correctly #abj times out of #adg1 #e correctly #ajb times out of #ajg1 and #d and #c always right4#cbf ,it is obvious that such observations decide nothing at all about our attention1 properly so called4 ,they rather measure in part the distinctness of our vision--especially of the primary-memory-image#cbg--;in part the amount of association in the individual between seen arrangements and the names of numbers4#cbh ,each number-name is a way of grasping the beans as one total object4 ,in such a total object1 all the parts converge harmoniously to the one resultant concept2 no single bean has special discrepant associations of its own2 and so1 with practice1 they may grow quite numerous ere we fail to estimate them aright4 ,but where the 'object' before us breaks into parts disconnected with each other1 and forming each as it were a separate object or system1 not conceivable in union with the rest1 it becomes harder to apprehend all these parts at once1 and the mind tends to let go of one whilst it attends to another4 ,still1 within limits this can be done4 ,m4 ,paulhan has experimented carefully on the matter by declaiming one poem aloud whilst he repeated a different one mentally1 or by writing one sentence whilst speaking another1 or by performing calculations on paper whilst reciting poetry4#cbi ,he found that the most favorable condition for the doubling of the mind was its simultaneous application to two easy and heterogeneous operations4 ,two operations of the same sort1 two multiplications1 two recitations1 or the reciting one poem and writing another1 render the process more uncertain and difficult4 ,the attention often1 but not always1 oscillates during these performances2 and sometimes a word from one part of the task slips into another4 ,i myself find when ,i try to simultaneously recite one thing and write another that the beginning of each word or segment of a phrase is what requires the attention4 ,once started1 my pen runs on for a word or two as if by its own momentum4 ,m4 ,paulhan compared the time occupied by the same two operations done simultaneously or in succession1 and found that there was often a considerable gain of time from doing them simultaneously4 ,for instance3 ,i write the first four verses of ,athalie1 whilst reciting eleven of ,musset4 ,the whole performance occupies #dj seconds4 ,but reciting alone takes #bb and writing alone #ca1 or #ec altogether1 so that there is a difference in favor of the simultaneous operations4 ,or again3 ,i multiply #dba #cab #bab by #b2 the operation takes #f seconds2 the recitation of #d verses also takes #f seconds4 ,but the two operations done at once only take #f seconds1 so that there is no loss of time from combining them4 ,of course these time-measurements lack precision4 ,with three systems of object 7writing with each hand whilst reciting7 the operation became much more difficult4 ,if1 then1 by the original question1 how many ideas or things can we attend to at once1 be meant how many entirely disconnected systems or processes of conception can go on simultaneously1 the answer is1 not easily more than one1 unless the processes are very habitual2 but then two1 or even three1 without very much oscillation of the attention4 ,where1 however1 the processes are less automatic1 as in the story of ,julius ,csar dictating four letters whilst he writes a fifth1#ccj there must be a rapid oscillation of the mind from one to the next1 and no consequent gain of time4 ,within any one of the systems the parts may be numberless1 but we attend to them collectively when we conceive the whole which they form4 99 99 99 99 99 ,when the things to be attended to are small sensations1 and when the effort is to be exact in noting them1 it is found that attention to one interferes a good deal with the perception of the other4 ,a good deal of fine work has been done in this field1 of which ,i must give some account4 ,it has long been noticed1 when expectant attention is concentrated upon one of two sensations1 that the other one is apt to be displaced from consciousness for a moment and to appear subsequent2 although in reality the two may have been contemporaneous events4 ,thus1 to use the stock example of the books1 the surgeon would sometimes see the blood flow from the arm of the patient whom he was bleeding1 before he saw the instrument penetrate the skin4 ,similarly the smith may see the sparks fly before he sees the hammer smite the iron1 etc4 ,there is thus a certain difficulty in perceiving the exact date of two impressions when they do not interest our attention equally1 and when they are of a disparate sort4 ,professor ,exner1 whose experiments on the minimal perceptible succession in time of two sensations we shall have to quote in another chapter1 makes some noteworthy remarks about the way in which the attention must be set to catch the interval and the right order of the sensations1 when the time is exceeding small4 ,the point was to tell whether two signals were simultaneous or successive2 and1 if successive1 which one of them came first4 ,the first way of attending which he found himself to fall into1 was when the signals did not differ greatly--when1 e4g41 they were similar sounds heard each by a different ear4 ,here he lay in wait for the first signal1 whichever it might be1 and identified it the next moment in memory4 ,the second1 which could then always be known by default1 was often not clearly distinguished in itself4 ,when the time was too short1 the first could not be isolated from the second at all4 ,the second way was to accommodate the attention for a certain sort of signal1 and the next moment to become aware in memory of whether it came before or after its mate4 ,this way brings great uncertainty with it4 ,the impression not prepared for comes to us in the memory more weak than the other1 obscure as it were1 badly fixed in time4 ,we tend to take the subjectively stronger stimulus1 that which we were intent upon1 for the first1 just as we are apt to take an objectively stronger stimulus to be the first4 ,still1 it may happen otherwise4 ,in the experiments from touch to sight it often seemed to me as if the impression for which the attention was not prepared were there already when the other came4 ,exner found himself employing this method oftenest when the impressions differed strongly4#cca ,in such observations 7which must not be confounded with those where the two signals were identical and their successiveness known as mere doubleness1 without distinction of which came first71 it is obvious that each signal must combine stably in our perception with a different instant of time4 ,it is the simplest possible case of two discrepant concepts simultaneously occupying the mind4 ,now the case of the signals being simultaneous seems of a different sort4 ,we must turn to ,wundt for observations fit to cast a nearer light thereon4 ,the reader will remember the reaction-time experiments of which we treated in ,chapter ,,iii4 ,it happened occasionally in ,wundt's experiments that the reaction-time was reduced to zero or even assumed a negative value1 which1 being translated into common speech1 means that the observer was sometimes so intent upon the signal that his reaction actually coincided in time with it1 or even preceded it1 instead of coming a fraction of a second after it1 as in the nature of things it should4 ,more will be said of these results anon4 ,meanwhile ,wundt1 in explaining them1 says this3 ,in general we have a very exact feeling of the simultaneity of two stimuli1 if they do not differ much in strength4 ,and in a series of experiments in which a warning precedes1 at a fixed interval1 the stimulus1 we involuntarily try to react1 not only as promptly as possible1 but also in such wise that our movement may coincide with the stimulus itself4 ,we seek to make our own feelings of touch and innervation muscular contraction objectively contemporaneous with the signal which we hear2 and experience shows that in many cases we approximately succeed4 ,in these cases we have a distinct consciousness of hearing the signal1 reacting upon it1 and feeling our reaction take place1--all at one and the same moment4#ccb ,in another place1 ,wundt adds3 ,the difficulty of these observations and the comparative infrequency with which the reaction-time can be made thus to disappear shows how hard it is1 when our attention is intense1 to keep it fixed even on two different ideas at once4 ,note besides that when this happens1 one always tries to bring the ideas into a certain connection1 to grasp them as components of a certain complex representation4 ,thus in the experiments in question1 it has often seemed to me that ,i produced by my own recording movement the sound which the ball made in dropping on the board4#ccc ,the 'difficulty1' in the cases of which ,wundt speaks1 is that of forcing two non-simultaneous events into apparent combination with the same instant of time4 ,there is no difficulty1 as he admits1 in so dividing our attention between two really simultaneous impressions as to feel them to be such4 ,the cases he describes are really cases of anachronistic perception1 of subjective time-displacement1 to use his own term4 ,still more curious cases of it have been most carefully studied by him4 ,they carry us a step farther in our research1 so ,i will quote them1 using as far as possible his exact words3 ,the conditions become more complicated when we receive a series of impressions separated by distinct intervals1 into the midst of which a heterogeneous impression is suddenly brought4 ,then comes the question1 with which member of the series do we perceive the additional impression to coincide8 with that member with whose presence it really coexists1 or is there some aberration8444 ,if the additional stimulus belongs to a different sense very considerable aberrations may occur4 ,the best way to experiment is with a number of visual impressions 7which one can easily get from a moving object7 for the series1 and with a sound as the disparate impression4 ,let1 e4g41 an index-hand move over a circular scale with uniform and sufficiently slow velocity1 so that the impressions it gives will not fuse1 but permit its position at any instant to be distinctly seen4 ,let the clockwork which turns it have an arrangement which rings a bell once in every revolution1 but at a point which can be varied1 so that the observer need never know in advance just when the bell-stroke takes place4 ,in such observations three cases are possible4 ,the bell-stroke can be perceived either exactly at the moment to which the index points when it sounds--in this case there will be no time-displacement2 or we can combine it with a later position of the index--444 positive time-displacement1 as we shall call it2 or finally we can combine it with a position of the index earlier than that at which the sound occurred--and this we will call a negative displacement4 ,the most natural displacement would apparently be the positive1 since for apperception a certain time is always required4444 ,but experience shows that the opposite is the case3 it happens most frequently that the sound appears earlier than its real date--far less often coincident with it1 or later4 ,it should be observed that in all these experiments it takes some time to get a distinctly perceived combination of the sound with a particular position of the index1 and that a single revolution of the latter is never enough for the purpose4 ,the motion must go on long enough for the sounds themselves to form a regular series--the outcome being a simultaneous perception of two distinct series of events1 of which either may by changes in its rapidity modify the result4 ,the first thing one remarks is that the sound belongs in a certain region of the scale2 only gradually is it perceived to combine with a particular position of the index4 ,but even a result gained by observation of many revolutions may be deficient in certainty1 for accidental combinations of attention have a great influence upon it4 ,if we deliberately try to combine the bell-stroke with an arbitrarily chosen position of the index1 we succeed without difficulty1 provided this position be not too remote from the true one4 ,if1 again1 we cover the whole scale1 except a single division over which we may see the index pass1 we have a strong tendency to combine the bell-stroke with this actually seen position2 and in so doing may easily overlook more than #a_/d of a second of time4 ,results1 therefore1 to be of any value1 must be drawn from long-continued and very numerous observations1 in which such irregular oscillations of the attention neutralize each other according to the law of great numbers1 and allow the true laws to appear4 ,although my own experiments extend over many years 7with interruptions71 they are not even yet numerous enough to exhaust the subject--still1 they bring out the principal laws which the attention follows under such conditions4#ccd ,wundt accordingly distinguishes the direction from the amount of the apparent displacement in time of the bell-stroke4 ,the direction depends on the rapidity of the movement of the index and 7consequently7 on that of the succession of the bell-strokes4 ,the moment at which the bell struck was estimated by him with the least tendency to error1 when the revolutions took place once in a second4 ,faster than this1 positive errors began to prevail2 slower1 negative ones almost always were present4 ,on the other hand1 if the rapidity went quickening1 errors became negative2 if slowing1 positive4 ,the amount of error is1 in general1 the greater the slower the speed and its alterations4 ,finally1 individual differences prevail1 as well as differences in the same individual at different times4#cce ,wundt's pupil von ,tschisch has carried out these experiments on a still more elaborate scale1#ccf using1 not only the single bell-stroke1 but #b1 #c1 #d1 or #e simultaneous impressions1 so that the attention had to note the place of the index at the moment when a whole group of things was happening4 ,the single bell-stroke was always heard too early by von ,tschisch--the displacement was invariably 'negative4' ,as the other simultaneous impressions were added1 the displacement first became zero and finally positive1 i4e4 the impressions were connected with a position of the index that was too late4 ,this retardation was greater when the simultaneous impressions were disparate 7electric tactile stimuli on different places1 simple touch-stimuli1 different sounds7 than when they were all of the same sort4 ,the increment of retardation became relatively less with each additional impression1 so that it is probable that six impressions would have given almost the same result as five1 which was the maximum number used by ,herr von ,t4 ,wundt explains all these results by his previous observation that a reaction sometimes antedates the signal 7see above1 p4 #daa74 ,the mind1 he supposes1 is so intent upon the bell-strokes that its 'apperception' keeps ripening periodically after each stroke in anticipation of the next4 ,its most natural rate of ripening may be faster or slower than the rate at which the strokes come4 ,if faster1 then it hears the stroke too early2 if slower1 it hears it too late4 ,the position of the index on the scale1 meanwhile1 is noted at the moment1 early or late1 at which the bell-stroke is subjectively heard4 ,substituting several impressions for the single bell-stroke makes the ripening of the perception slower1 and the index is seen too late4 ,so1 at least1 do ,i understand the explanations which ,herren ,wundt and v4 ,tschisch give4#ccg ,this is all ,i have to say about the difficulty of having two discrepant concepts together1 and about the number of things to which we can simultaneously attend4 ,,the ,,varieties ,,of ,,attention4 ,the things to which we attend are said to interest us4 ,our interest in them is supposed to be the cause of our attending4 ,what makes an object interesting we shall see presently2 and later inquire in what sense interest may cause attention4 ,meanwhile ,attention may be divided into kinds in various ways4 ,it is either to a7 ,objects of sense 7sensorial attention72 or to b7 ,ideal or represented objects 7intellectual attention74 ,it is either c7 ,immediate2 or d7 ,derived3 immediate1 when the topic or stimulus is interesting in itself1 without relation to anything else2 derived1 when it owes its interest to association with some other immediately interesting thing4 ,what ,i call derived attention has been named 'apperceptive' attention4 ,furthermore1 ,attention may be either e7 ,passive1 reflex1 non-voluntary1 effortless2 or f7 ,active and voluntary4 ,voluntary attention is always derived2 we never make an effort to attend to an object except for the sake of some remote interest which the effort will serve4 ,but both sensorial and intellectual attention may be either passive or voluntary4 ,in passive immediate sensorial attention the stimulus is a sense-impression1 either very intense1 voluminous1 or sudden1--in which case it makes no difference what its nature may be1 whether sight1 sound1 smell1 blow1 or inner pain1--or else it is an instinctive stimulus1 a perception which1 by reason of its nature rather than its mere force1 appeals to some one of our normal congenital impulses and has a directly exciting quality4 ,in the chapter on ,instinct we shall see how these stimuli differ from one animal to another1 and what most of them are in man3 strange things1 moving things1 wild animals1 bright things1 pretty things1 metallic things1 words1 blows1 blood1 etc41 etc41 etc4 ,sensitiveness to immediately exciting sensorial stimuli characterizes the attention of childhood and youth4 ,in mature age we have generally selected those stimuli which are connected with one or more so-called permanent interests1 and our attention has grown irresponsive to the rest4#cch ,but childhood is characterized by great active energy1 and has few organized interests by which to meet new impressions and decide whether they are worthy of notice or not1 and the consequence is that extreme mobility of the attention with which we are all familiar in children1 and which makes their first lessons such rough affairs4 ,any strong sensation whatever produces accommodation of the organs which perceive it1 and absolute oblivion1 for the time being1 of the task in hand4 ,this reflex and passive character of the attention which1 as a ,french writer says1 makes the child seem to belong less to himself than to every object which happens to catch his notice1 is the first thing which the teacher must overcome4 ,it never is overcome in some people1 whose work1 to the end of life1 gets done in the interstices of their mind-wandering4 ,the passive sensorial attention is derived when the impression1 without being either strong or of an instinctively exciting nature1 is connected by previous experience and education with things that are so4 ,these things may be called the motives of the attention4 ,the impression draws an interest from them1 or perhaps it even fuses into a single complex object with them2 the result is that it is brought into the focus of the mind4 ,a faint tap per se is not an interesting sound2 it may well escape being discriminated from the general rumor of the world4 ,but when it is a signal1 as that of a lover on the window-pane1 it will hardly go unperceived4 ,herbart writes3 ,how a bit of bad grammar wounds the ear of the purist6 ,how a false note hurts the musician6 or an offence against good manners the man of the world6 ,how rapid is progress in a science when its first principles have been so well impressed upon us that we reproduce them mentally with perfect distinctness and ease6 ,how slow and uncertain1 on the other hand1 is our learning of the principles themselves1 when familiarity with the still more elementary percepts connected with the subject has not given us an adequate predisposition6--,apperceptive attention may be plainly observed in very small children when1 hearing the speech of their elders1 as yet unintelligible to them1 they suddenly catch a single known word here and there1 and repeat it to themselves2 yes6 even in the dog who looks round at us when we speak of him and pronounce his name4 ,not far removed is the talent which mind-wandering school-boys display during the hours of instruction1 of noticing every moment in which the teacher tells a story4 ,i remember classes in which1 instruction being uninteresting1 and discipline relaxed1 a buzzing murmur was always to be heard1 which invariably stopped for as long a time as an anecdote lasted4 ,how could the boys1 since they seemed to hear nothing1 notice when the anecdote began8 ,doubtless most of them always heard something of the teacher's talk2 but most of it had no connection with their previous knowledge and occupations1 and therefore the separate words no sooner entered their consciousness than they fell out of it again2 but1 on the other hand1 no sooner did the words awaken old thoughts1 forming strongly-connected series with which the new impression easily combined1 than out of new and old together a total interest resulted which drove the vagrant ideas below the threshold of consciousness1 and brought for a while settled attention into their place4#cci ,passive intellectual attention is immediate when we follow in thought a train of images exciting or interesting per se2 derived1 when the images are interesting only as means to a remote end1 or merely because they are associated with something which makes them dear4 ,owing to the way in which immense numbers of real things become integrated into single objects of thought for us1 there is no clear line to be drawn between immediate and derived attention of an intellectual sort4 ,when absorbed in intellectual attention we may become so inattentive to outer things as to be 'absent-minded1' 'abstracted1' or 'distraits4' ,all revery or concentrated meditation is apt to throw us into this state4 ,archimedes1 it is well known1 was so absorbed in geometrical meditation that he was first aware of the storming of ,syracuse by his own death-wound1 and his exclamation on the entrance of the ,roman soldiers was3 ,noli turbare circulos meos6 ,in like manner ,joseph ,scaliger1 the most learned of men1 when a ,protestant student in ,paris1 was so engrossed in the study of ,homer that he became aware of the massacre of ,st4 ,bartholomew1 and of his own escape1 only on the day subsequent to the catastrophe4 ,the philosopher ,carneades was habitually liable to fits of meditation so profound that1 to prevent him sinking from inanition1 his maid found it necessary to feed him like a child4 ,and it is reported of ,newton that1 while engaged in his mathematical researches1 he sometimes forgot to dine4 ,cardan1 one of the most illustrious of philosophers and mathematicians1 was once1 upon a journey1 so lost in thought that he forgot both his way and the object of his journey4 ,to the questions of his driver whether he should proceed1 he made no answer2 and when he came to himself at nightfall1 he was surprised to find the carriage at a standstill1 and directly under a gallows4 ,the mathematician ,vieta was sometimes so buried in meditation that for hours he bore more resemblance to a dead person than to a living1 and was then wholly unconscious of everything going on around him4 ,on the day of his marriage the great ,budus forgot everything in his philological speculations1 and he was only awakened to the affairs of the external world by a tardy embassy from the marriage-party1 who found him absorbed in the composition of his ,commentarii4#cdj ,the absorption may be so deep as not only to banish ordinary sensations1 but even the severest pain4 ,pascal1 ,wesley1 ,robert ,hall1 are said to have had this capacity4 ,dr4 ,carpenter says of himself that he has frequently begun a lecture whilst suffering neuralgic pain so severe as to make him apprehend that he would find it impossible to proceed2 yet no sooner has he by a determined effort fairly launched himself into the stream of thought1 than he has found himself continuously borne along without the least distraction1 until the end has come1 and the attention has been released2 when the pain has recurred with a force that has overmastered all resistance1 making him wonder how he could have ever ceased to feel it4#cda ,dr4 ,carpenter speaks of launching himself by a determined effort4 ,this effort characterizes what we called active or voluntary attention4 ,it is a feeling which every one knows1 but which most people would call quite indescribable4 ,we get it in the sensorial sphere whenever we seek to catch an impression of extreme faintness1 be it of sight1 hearing1 taste1 smell1 or touch2 we get it whenever we seek to discriminate a sensation merged in a mass of others that are similar2 we get it whenever we resist the attractions of more potent stimuli and keep our mind occupied with some object that is naturally unimpressive4 ,we get it in the intellectual sphere under exactly similar conditions3 as when we strive to sharpen and make distinct an idea which we but vaguely seem to have2 or painfully discriminate a shade of meaning from its similars2 or resolutely hold fast to a thought so discordant with our impulses that1 if left unaided1 it would quickly yield place to images of an exciting and impassioned kind4 ,all forms of attentive effort would be exercised at once by one whom we might suppose at a dinner-party resolutely to listen to a neighbor giving him insipid and unwelcome advice in a low voice1 whilst all around the guests were loudly laughing and talking about exciting and interesting things4 ,there is no such thing as voluntary attention sustained for more than a few seconds at a time4 ,what is called sustained voluntary attention is a repetition of successive efforts which bring back the topic to the mind4#cdb ,the topic once brought back1 if a congenial one1 develops2 and if its development is interesting it engages the attention passively for a time4 ,dr4 ,carpenter1 a moment back1 described the stream of thought1 once entered1 as 'bearing him along4' ,this passive interest may be short or long4 ,as soon as it flags1 the attention is diverted by some irrelevant thing1 and then a voluntary effort may bring it back to the topic again2 and so on1 under favorable conditions1 for hours together4 ,during all this time1 however1 note that it is not an identical object in the psychological sense 7p4 #bge71 but a succession of mutually related objects forming an identical topic only1 upon which the attention is fixed4 ,no one can possibly attend continuously to an object that does not change4 ,now there are always some objects that for the time being will not develop4 ,they simply go out2 and to keep the mind upon anything related to them requires such incessantly renewed effort that the most resolute ,will ere long gives out and lets its thoughts follow the more stimulating solicitations after it has withstood them for what length of time it can4 ,there are topics known to every man from which he shies like a frightened horse1 and which to get a glimpse of is to shun4 ,such are his ebbing assets to the spendthrift in full career4 ,but why single out the spendthrift when to every man actuated by passion the thought of interests which negate the passion can hardly for more than a fleeting instant stay before the mind8 ,it is like 'memento mori' in the heyday of the pride of life4 ,nature rises at such suggestions1 and excludes them from the view3--,how long1 ,o healthy reader1 can you now continue thinking of your tomb8--,in milder instances the difficulty is as great1 especially when the brain is fagged4 ,one snatches at any and every passing pretext1 no matter how trivial or external1 to escape from the odiousness of the matter in hand4 ,i know a person1 for example1 who will poke the fire1 set chairs straight1 pick dust-specks from the floor1 arrange his table1 snatch up the newspaper1 take down any book which catches his eye1 trim his nails1 waste the morning anyhow1 in short1 and all without premeditation1--simply because the only thing he ought to attend to ,is the preparation of a noonday lesson in formal logic which he detests4 ,anything but that6 ,once more1 the object must change4 ,when it is one of sight1 it will actually become invisible2 when of hearing1 inaudible1--if we attend to it too unmovingly4 ,helmholtz1 who has put his sensorial attention to the severest tests1 by using his eyes on objects which in common life are expressly overlooked1 makes some interesting remarks on this point in his chapter on retinal rivalry4#cdc ,the phenomenon called by that name is this1 that if we look with each eye upon a different picture 7as in the annexed stereoscopic slide71 sometimes one picture1 sometimes the other1 or parts of both1 will come to consciousness1 but hardly ever both combined4 ,helmholtz now says3 ,i find that ,i am able to attend voluntarily1 now to one and now to the other system of lines2 and that then this system remains visible alone for a certain time1 whilst the other completely vanishes4 ,this happens1 for example1 whenever ,i try to count the lines first of one and then of the other system4444 ,but it is extremely hard to chain the attention down to one of the systems for long1 unless we associate with our looking some distinct purpose which keeps the activity of the attention perpetually renewed4 ,such a one is counting the lines1 comparing their intervals1 or the like4 ,an equilibrium of the attention1 persistent for any length of time1 is under no circumstances attainable4 ,the natural tendency of attention when left to itself is to wander to ever new things2 and so soon as the interest of its object is over1 so soon as nothing new is to be noticed there1 it passes1 in spite of our will1 to something else4 ,if we wish to keep it upon one and the same object1 we must seek constantly to find out something new about the latter1 especially if other powerful impressions are attracting us away4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #cf4 ,and again criticising an author who had treated of attention as an activity absolutely subject to the conscious will1 ,helmholtz writes3 ,this is only restrictedly true4 ,we move our eyes by our will2 but one without training cannot so easily execute the intention of making them converge4 ,at any moment1 however1 he can execute that of looking at a near object1 in which act convergence is involved4 ,now just as little can we carry out our purpose to keep our attention steadily fixed upon a certain object1 when our interest in the object is exhausted1 and the purpose is inwardly formulated in this abstract way4 ,but we can set ourselves new questions about the object1 so that a new interest in it arises1 and then the attention will remain riveted4 ,the relation of attention to will is1 then1 less one of immediate than of mediate control4 ,these words of ,helmholtz are of fundamental importance4 ,and if true of sensorial attention1 how much more true are they of the intellectual variety6 ,the conditio sine qu non of sustained attention to a given topic of thought is that we should roll it over and over incessantly and consider different aspects and relations of it in turn4 ,only in pathological states will a fixed and ever monotonously recurring idea possess the mind4 99 99 99 99 99 ,and now we can see why it is that what is called sustained attention is the easier1 the richer in acquisitions and the fresher and more original the mind4 ,in such minds1 subjects bud and sprout and grow4 ,at every moment1 they please by a new consequence and rivet the attention afresh4 ,but an intellect unfurnished with materials1 stagnant1 unoriginal1 will hardly be likely to consider any subject long4 ,a glance exhausts its possibilities of interest4 ,geniuses are commonly believed to excel other men in their power of sustained attention4#cdd ,in most of them1 it is to be feared1 the so-called 'power' is of the passive sort4 ,their ideas coruscate1 every subject branches infinitely before their fertile minds1 and so for hours they may be rapt4 ,but it is their genius making them attentive1 not their attention making geniuses of them4 ,and1 when we come down to the root of the matter1 we see that they differ from ordinary men less in the character of their attention than in the nature of the objects upon which it is successively bestowed4 ,in the genius1 these form a concatenated series1 suggesting each other mutually by some rational law4 ,therefore we call the attention 'sustained' and the topic of meditation for hours 'the same4' ,in the common man the series is for the most part incoherent1 the objects have no rational bond1 and we call the attention wandering and unfixed4 ,it is probable that genius tends actually to prevent a man from acquiring habits of voluntary attention1 and that moderate intellectual endowments are the soil in which we may best expect1 here as elsewhere1 the virtues of the will1 strictly so called1 to thrive4 ,but1 whether the attention come by grace of genius or by dint of will1 the longer one does attend to a topic the more mastery of it one has4 ,and the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention1 over and over again1 is the very root of judgment1 character1 and will4 ,no one is compos sui if he have it not4 ,an education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence4 ,but it is easier to define this ideal than to give practical directions for bringing it about4 ,the only general pedagogic maxim bearing on attention is that the more interest the child has in advance in the subject1 the better he will attend4 ,induct him therefore in such a way as to knit each new thing on to some acquisition already there2 and if possible awaken curiosity1 so that the new thing shall seem to come as an answer1 or part of an answer1 to a question pre-existing in his mind4 99 99 99 99 99 ,at present having described the varieties1 let us turn to ,,the ,,effects ,,of ,,attention4 ,its remote effects are too incalculable to be recorded4 ,the practical and theoretical life of whole species1 as well as of individual beings1 results from the selection which the habitual direction of their attention involves4 ,in ,chapters ,,xiv and ,,xv some of these consequences will come to light4 ,suffice it meanwhile that each of us literally chooses1 by his ways of attending to things1 what sort of a universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit4 ,the immediate effects of attention are to make us3 a7 perceive-- b7 conceive-- c7 distinguish-- d7 remember-- better than otherwise we could--both more successive things and each thing more clearly4 ,it also 7e7 shortens 'reaction-time4' 99 99 99 99 99 a and b4 ,most people would say that a sensation attended to becomes stronger than it otherwise would be4 ,this point is1 however1 not quite plain1 and has occasioned some discussion4#cde ,from the strength or intensity of a sensation must be distinguished its clearness2 and to increase this is1 for some psychologists1 the utmost that attention can do4 ,when the facts are surveyed1 however1 it must be admitted that to some extent the relative intensity of two sensations may be changed when one of them is attended to and the other not4 ,every artist knows how he can make a scene before his eyes appear warmer or colder in color1 according to the way he sets his attention4 ,if for warm1 he soon begins to see the red color start out of everything2 if for cold1 the blue4 ,similarly in listening for certain notes in a chord1 or overtones in a musical sound1 the one we attend to sounds probably a little more loud as well as more emphatic than it did before4 ,when we mentally break a series of monotonous strokes into a rhythm1 by accentuating every second or third one1 etc41 the stroke on which the stress of attention is laid seems to become stronger as well as more emphatic4 ,the increased visibility of optical after-images and of double images1 which close attention brings about1 can hardly be interpreted otherwise than as a real strengthening of the retinal sensations themselves4 ,and this view is rendered particularly probable by the fact that an imagined visual object may1 if attention be concentrated upon it long enough1 acquire before the mind's eye almost the brilliancy of reality1 and 7in the case of certain exceptionally gifted observers7 leave a negative after-image of itself when it passes away 7see ,chapter ,,xviii74 ,confident expectation of a certain intensity or quality of impression will often make us sensibly see or hear it in an object which really falls far short of it4 ,in face of such facts it is rash to say that attention cannot make a sense-impression more intense4 ,but1 on the other hand1 the intensification which may be brought about seems never to lead the judgment astray4 ,as we rightly perceive and name the same color under various lights1 the same sound at various distances2 so we seem to make an analogous sort of allowance for the varying amounts of attention with which objects are viewed2 and whatever changes of feeling the attention may bring we charge1 as it were1 to the attention's account1 and still perceive and conceive the object as the same4 ,a gray paper appears to us no lighter1 the pendulum-beat of a clock no louder1 no matter how much we increase the strain of our attention upon them4 ,no one1 by doing this1 can make the gray paper look white1 or the stroke of the pendulum sound like the blow of a strong hammer1--everyone1 on the contrary1 feels the increase as that of his own conscious activity turned upon the thing4#cdf ,were it otherwise1 we should not be able to note intensities by attending to them4 ,weak impressions would1 as ,stumpf says1#cdg become stronger by the very fact of being observed4 ,i should not be able to observe faint sounds at all1 but only such as appeared to me of maximal strength1 or at least of a strength that increased with the amount of my observation4 ,in reality1 however1 ,i can1 with steadily increasing attention1 follow a diminuendo perfectly well4 ,the subject is one which would well repay exact experiment1 if methods could be devised4 ,meanwhile there is no question whatever that attention augments the clearness of all that we perceive or conceive by its aid4 ,but what is meant by clearness here8 99 99 99 99 99 c4 ,clearness1 so far as attention produces it1 means distinction from other things and internal analysis or subdivision4 ,these are essentially products of intellectual discrimination1 involving comparison1 memory1 and perception of various relations4 ,the attention per se does not distinguish and analyze and relate4 ,the most we can say is that it is a condition of our doing so4 ,and as these processes are to be described later1 the clearness they produce had better not be farther discussed here4 ,the important point to notice here is that it is not attention's immediate fruit4#cdh 99 99 99 99 99 d4 ,whatever future conclusion we may reach as to this1 we cannot deny that an object once attended to will remain in the memory1 whilst one inattentively allowed to pass will leave no traces behind4 ,already in ,chapter ,,vi 7see pp4 #afc ff47 we discussed whether certain states of mind were 'unconscious1' or whether they were not rather states to which no attention had been paid1 and of whose passage recollection could afterwards find no vestiges4 ,dugald ,stewart says3#cdi ,the connection between attention and memory has been remarked by many authors4 ,he quotes ,quintilian1 ,locke1 and ,helvetius2 and goes on at great length to explain the phenomena of 'secondary automatism' 7see above1 p4 #aad ff47 by the presence of a mental action grown so inattentive as to preserve no memory of itself4 ,in our chapter on ,memory1 later on1 the point will come up again4 99 99 99 99 99 e7 ,under this head1 the shortening of reaction-time1 there is a good deal to be said of ,attention's effects4 ,since ,wundt has probably worked over the subject more thoroughly than any other investigator and made it peculiarly his own1 what follows had better1 as far as possible1 be in his words4 ,the reader will remember the method and results of experimentation on 'reaction-time1' as given in ,chapter ,,iii4 ,the facts ,i proceed to quote may also be taken as a supplement to that chapter4 ,wundt writes3 ,when we wait with strained attention for a stimulus1 it will often happen that instead of registering the stimulus1 we react upon some entirely different impression1--and this not through confounding the one with the other4 ,on the contrary1 we are perfectly well aware at the moment of making the movement that we respond to the wrong stimulus4 ,sometimes even1 though not so often1 the latter may be another kind of sensation altogether1--one may1 for example1 in experimenting with sound1 register a flash of light1 produced either by accident or design4 ,we cannot well explain these results otherwise than by assuming that the strain of the attention towards the impression we expect coexists with a preparatory innervation of the motor centre for the reaction1 which innervation the slightest shock then suffices to turn into an actual discharge4 ,this shock may be given by any chance impression1 even by one to which we never intended to respond4 ,when the preparatory innervation has once reached this pitch of intensity1 the time that intervenes between the stimulus and the contraction of the muscles which react1 may become vanishingly small4#cej ,the perception of an impression is facilitated when the impression is preceded by a warning which announces beforehand that it is about to occur4 ,this case is realized whenever several stimuli follow each other at equal intervals1--when1 e4g4 we note pendulum movements by the eye1 or pendulum-strokes by the ear4 ,each single stroke forms here the signal for the next1 which is thus met by a fully prepared attention4 ,the same thing happens when the stimulus to be perceived is preceded1 at a certain interval1 by a single warning3 the time is always notably shortened4444 ,i have made comparative observations on reaction-time with and without a warning signal4 ,the impression to be reacted on was the sound made by the dropping of a ball on the board of the 'drop apparatus4'444 ,in a first series no warning preceded the stroke of the ball2 in the second1 the noise made by the apparatus in liberating the ball served as a signal4444 ,here are the averages of two series of such experiments3 ,height of ,fall4 ,average4 ,mean ,error4 ,no4 of ,expts4 #be cm4 ,no warning #j4bec #j4jea #ac ,warning #j4jgf #j4jfj #ag #e cm4 ,no warning #j4bff #j4jcf #ad ,warning #j4age #j4jce #ag 444 ,in a long series of experiments1 7the interval between warning and stimulus remaining the same7 the reaction-time grows less and less1 and it is possible occasionally to reduce it to a vanishing quantity 7a few thousandths of a second71 to zero1 or even to a negative value4#cea444 ,the only ground that we can assign for this phenomenon is the preparation 7vorbereitende ,spannung7 of the attention4 ,it is easy to understand that the reaction-time should be shortened by this means2 but that it should sometimes sink to zero and even assume negative values1 may appear surprising4 ,nevertheless this latter case is also explained by what happens in the simple reaction-time experiments just referred to1 in which1 when the strain of the attention has reached its climax1 the movement we stand ready to execute escapes from the control of on will1 and we register a wrong signal4 ,in these other experiments1 in which a warning foretells the moment of the stimulus1 it is also plain that attention accommodates itself so exactly to the latter's reception that no sooner is it objectively given than it is fully apperceived1 and with the apperception the motor discharge coincides4#ceb ,usually1 when the impression is fully anticipated1 attention prepares the motor centres so completely for both stimulus and reaction that the only time lost is that of the physiological conduction downwards4 ,but even this interval may disappear1 i4e4 the stimulus and reaction may become objectively contemporaneous2 or more remarkable still1 the reaction may be discharged before the stimulus has actually occurred4#cec ,wundt1 as we saw some pages back 7p4 #daa71 explains this by the effort of the mind so to react that we may feel our own movement and the signal which prompts it1 both at the same instant4 ,as the execution of the movement must precede our feeling of it1 so it must also precede the stimulus1 if that and our movement are to be felt at once4 ,the peculiar theoretic interest of these experiments lies in their showing expectant attention and sensation to be continuous or identical processes1 since they may have identical motor effects4 ,although other exceptional observations show them likewise to be continuous subjectively1 ,wundt's experiments do not3 he seems never1 at the moment of reacting prematurely1 to have been misled into the belief that the real stimulus was there4 ,as concentrated attention accelerates perception1 so1 conversely1 perception of a stimulus is retarded by anything which either baffles or distracts the attention with which we await it4 ,if1 e4g41 we make reactions on a sound in such a way that weak and strong stimuli irregularly alternate so that the observer can never expect a determinate strength with any certainty1 the reaction-time for all the various signals is increased1--and so is the average error4 ,i append two examples4444 ,in ,series ,i a strong and a weak sound alternated regularly1 so that the intensity was each time known in advance4 ,in ,,ii they came irregularly4 ,i4 ,regular ,alternation4 ,average ,time4 ,average ,error4 ,no4 of ,expts4 ,strong sound #j4aaf #j4jaj #ah ,weak sound #j4abg #j4jab #i ,,ii4 ,irregular ,alternation4 ,strong sound #j4ahi #j4jch #i ,weak sound #j4bih #j4jgf #ae ,still greater is the increase of the time when1 unexpectedly into a series of strong impressions1 a weak one is interpolated1 or vice vers4 ,in this way ,i have seen the time of reaction upon a sound so weak as to be barely perceived rise to #j4d or #j4e1 and for a strong sound to #j #be4 ,it is also matter of general experience that a stimulus expected in a general way1 but for whose intensity attention cannot be adapted in advance1 demands a longer reaction-time4 ,in such cases 444 the reason for the difference can only lie in the fact that wherever a preparation of the attention is impossible1 the time of both perception and volition is prolonged4 ,perhaps also the conspicuously large reaction-times which are got with stimuli so faint as to be just perceptible may be explained by the attention tending always to adapt itself for something more than this minimal amount of stimulus1 so that a state ensues similar to that in the case of unexpected stimuli4444 ,still more than by previously unknown stimuli is the reaction-time prolonged by wholly unexpected impressions4 ,this is sometimes accidentally brought about1 when the observer's attention1 instead of being concentrated on the coming signal1 is dispersed4 ,it can be realized purposely by suddenly thrusting into a long series of equidistant stimuli a much shorter interval which the observer does not expect4 ,the mental effect here is like that of being startled2--often the startling is outwardly visible4 ,the time of reaction may then easily be lengthened to one quarter of a second with strong signals1 or with weak ones to a half-second4 ,slighter1 but still very noticeable1 is the retardation when the experiment is so arranged that the observer1 ignorant whether the stimulus is to be an impression of light1 sound1 or touch1 cannot keep his attention turned to any particular sense-organ in advance4 ,one notices then at the same time a peculiar unrest1 as the feeling of strain which accompanies the attention keeps vacillating between the several senses4 ,complications of another sort arise when what is registered is an impression anticipated both in point of quality and strength1 but accompanied by other stimuli which make the concentration of the attention difficult4 ,the reaction-time is here always more or less prolonged4 ,the simplest case of the sort is where a momentary impression is registered in the midst of another1 and continuous1 sensorial-stimulation of considerable strength4 ,the continuous stimulus may belong to the same sense as the stimulus to be reacted on1 or to another4 ,when it is of the same sense1 the retardation it causes may be partly due to the distraction of the attention by it1 but partly also to the fact that the stimulus to be reacted on stands out less strongly than if alone1 and practically becomes a less intense sensation4 ,but other factors in reality are present2 for we find the reaction-time more prolonged by the concomitant stimulation when the stimulus is weak than when it is strong ,i made experiments in which the principal impression1 or signal for reaction1 was a bell-stroke whose strength could be graduated by a spring against the hammer with a movable counterpoise4 ,each set of observations comprised two series2 in one of which the bell-stroke was registered in the ordinary way1 whilst in the other a toothed wheel belonging to the chronometric apparatus made during the entire experiment a steady noise against a metal spring4 ,in one half of the latter series 7,a7 the bell-stroke was only moderately strong1 so that the accompanying noise diminished it considerably1 without1 however1 making it indistinguishable4 ,in the other half 7,b7 the bell-sound was so loud as to be heard with perfect distinctness above the noise4 ,mean4 ,maximum4 ,minimum4 ,no4 of ,experiments4 ,a ,without noise #j4ahi #j4bad #j4aef #ba 7,bell-stroke ,with noise #j4cac #j4dii #j4ahc #af moderate7 ,b ,without noise #j4aeh #j4bjf #j4acc #bj 7,bell-stroke ,with noise #j4bjc #j4bie #j4adj #ai loud7 ,since1 in these experiments1 the sound ,b even with noise made a considerably stronger impression than the sound ,a without1 we must see in the figures a direct influence of the disturbing noise on the process of reaction4 ,this influence is freed from mixture with other factors when the momentary stimulus and the concomitant disturbance appeal to different senses4 ,i chose1 to test this1 sight and hearing4 ,the momentary signal was an induction-spark leaping from one platinum point to another against a dark background4 ,the steady stimulation was the noise above described4 ,spark4 ,mean4 ,maximum4 ,minimum4 ,no4 of ,expts4 ,without noise #j4bbb #j4bhd #j4aeh #bj ,with noise #j4cjj #j4cij #j4bej #ah ,when one reflects that in the experiments with one and the same sense the relative intensity of the signal is always depressed which by itself is a retarding condition the amount of retardation in these last observations makes it probable that the disturbing influence upon attention is greater when the stimuli are disparate than when they belong to the same sense4 ,one does not1 in fact1 find it particularly hard to register immediately1 when the bell rings in the midst of the noise2 but when the spark is the signal one has a feeling of being coerced1 as one turns away from the noise towards it4 ,this fact is immediately connected with other properties of our attention4 ,the effort of the latter is accompanied by various corporeal sensations1 according to the sense which is engaged4 ,the innervation which exists during the effort of attention is therefore probably a different one for each sense-organ4#ced ,wundt then1 after some theoretical remarks which we need not quote now1 gives a table of retardations1 as follows3 ,retardation4 #a4 ,unexpected strength of impression3 a7 ,unexpectedly strong sound #j4jgc b7 ,unexpectedly weak sound #j4aga #b4 ,interference by like stimulus 7sound by sound7 #j4jdecee #c4 ,interference by unlike stimulus 7light by sound7 #j4jgh ,it seems probable1 from these results obtained with elementary processes of mind1 that all processes1 even the higher ones of reminiscence1 reasoning1 etc41 whenever attention is concentrated upon them instead of being diffused and languid1 are thereby more rapidly performed4#cef 99 99 99 99 99 ,still more interesting reaction-time observations have been made by ,mnsterberg4 ,the reader will recollect the fact noted in ,chapter ,,iii 7p4 #ic7 that reaction-time is shorter when one concentrates his attention on the expected movement than when one concentrates it on the expected signal4 ,herr ,mnsterberg found that this is equally the case when the reaction is no simple reflex1 but can take place only after an intellectual operation4 ,in a series of experiments the five fingers were used to react with1 and the reacter had to use a different finger according as the signal was of one sort or another4 ,thus when a word in the nominative case was called out he used the thumb1 for the dative he used another finger2 similarly adjectives1 substantives1 pronouns1 numerals1 etc41 or1 again1 towns1 rivers1 beasts1 plants1 elements2 or poets1 musicians1 philosophers1 etc41 were co-ordinated each with its finger1 so that when a word belonging to either of these classes was mentioned1 a particular finger and no other had to perform the reaction4 ,in a second series of experiments the reaction consisted in the utterance of a word in answer to a question1 such as name an edible fish1 etc42 or name the first drama of ,schiller1 etc42 or which is greater1 ,hume or ,kant8 etc42 or 7first naming apples and cherries1 and several other fruits7 which do you prefer1 apples or cherries8 etc42 or which is ,goethe's finest drama8 etc42 or which letter comes the later in the alphabet1 the letter ,l or the first letter of the most beautiful tree8 etc42 or which is less1 #ae or #bj minus #h8ceg etc4 etc4 etc4 ,even in this series of reactions the time was much quicker token the reacter turned his attention in advance towards the answer than when he turned it towards the question4 ,the shorter reaction-time was seldom more than one fifth of a second2 the longer1 from four to eight times as long4 ,to understand such results1 one must bear in mind that in these experiments the reacter always knew in advance in a general way the kind of question which he was to receive1 and consequently the sphere within which his possible answer lay4#ceh ,in turning his attention1 therefore1 from the outset towards the answer1 those brain-processes in him which were connected with this entire 'sphere' were kept sub-excited1 and the question could then discharge with a minimum amount of lost time that particular answer out of the 'sphere' which belonged especially to it4 ,when1 on the contrary1 the attention was kept looking towards the question exclusively and averted from the possible reply1 all this preliminary sub-excitement of motor tracts failed to occur1 and the entire process of answering had to be gone through with after the question was heard4 ,no wonder that the time was prolonged4 ,it is a beautiful example of the summation of stimulations1 and of the way in which expectant attention1 even when not very strongly focalized1 will prepare the motor centres1 and shorten the work which a stimulus has to perform on them1 in order to produce a given effect when it comes4 ,,the ,,intimate ,,nature ,,of ,,the ,,attentive ,,process4 ,we have now a sufficient number of facts to warrant our considering this more recondite question4 ,and two physiological processes1 of which we have got a glimpse1 immediately suggest themselves as possibly forming in combination a complete reply4 ,i mean #a4 ,the accommodation or adjustment of the sensory organs2 and #b4 ,the anticipatory preparation from within of the ideational centres concerned with the object to which the attention is paid4 #a4 ,the sense-organs and the bodily muscles which favor their exercise are adjusted most energetically in sensorial attention1 whether immediate and reflex1 or derived4 ,but there are good grounds for believing that even intellectual attention1 attention to the idea of a sensible object1 is also accompanied with some degree of excitement of the sense-organs to which the object appeals4 ,the preparation of the ideational centres exists1 on the other hand1 wherever our interest in the object--be it sensible or ideal--is derived from1 or in any way connected with1 other interests1 or the presence of other objects1 in the mind4 ,it exists as well when the attention thus derived is classed as passive as when it is classed as voluntary4 ,so that on the whole we may confidently conclude--since in mature life we never attend to anything without our interest in it being in some degree derived from its connection with other objects--that the two processes of sensorial adjustment and ideational preparation probably coexist in all our concrete attentive acts4 ,the two points must now be proved in more detail4 ,first1 as respects the sensorial adjustment4 ,that it is present when we attend to sensible things is obvious4 ,when we look or listen we accommodate our eyes and ears involuntarily1 and we turn our head and body as well2 when we taste or smell we adjust the tongue1 lips1 and respiration to the object2 in feeling a surface we move the palpatory organ in a suitable way2 in all these acts1 besides making involuntary muscular contractions of a positive sort1 we inhibit others which might interfere with the result--we close the eyes in tasting1 suspend the respiration in listening1 etc4 ,the result is a more or less massive organic feeling that attention is going on4 ,this organic feeling comes1 in the way described on page #cjb1 to be contrasted with that of the objects which it accompanies1 and regarded as peculiarly ours1 whilst the objects form the not-me4 ,we treat it as a sense of our own activity1 although it comes in to us from our organs after they are accommodated1 just as the feeling of any object does4 ,any object1 if immediately exciting1 causes a reflex accommodation of the sense-organ1 and this has two results--first1 the object's increase in clearness2 and second1 the feeling of activity in question4 ,both are sensations of an 'afferent' sort4 ,but in intellectual attention1 as we have already seen1 7p4 #cjj71 similar feelings of activity occur4 ,fechner was the first1 ,i believe1 to analyze these feelings1 and discriminate them from the stronger ones just named4 ,he writes3 ,when we transfer the attention from objects of one sense to those of another1 we have an indescribable feeling 7though at the same time one perfectly determinate1 and reproducible at pleasure71 of altered direction or differently localized tension 7,spannung74 ,we feel a strain forward in the eyes1 one directed sidewise in the ears1 increasing with the degree of our attention1 and changing according as we look at an object carefully1 or listen to something attentively2 and we speak accordingly of straining the attention4 ,the difference is most plainly felt when the attention oscillates rapidly between eye and ear2 and the feeling localizes itself with most decided difference in regard to the various sense-organs1 according as we wish to discriminate a thing delicately by touch1 taste1 or smell4 ,but now ,i have1 when ,i try to vividly recall a picture of memory or fancy1 a feeling perfectly analogous to that which ,i experience when ,i seek to apprehend a thing keenly by eye or ear2 and this analogous feeling is very differently localized4 ,while in sharpest possible attention to real objects 7as well as to after-images7 the strain is plainly forwards1 and when the attention changes from one sense to another only alters its direction between the several external sense-organs1 leaving the rest of the head free from strain1 the case is different in memory or fancy1 for here the feeling withdraws entirely from the external sense-organs1 and seems rather to take refuge in that part of the head which the brain fills2 if ,i wish1 for example1 to recall a place or person it will arise before me with vividness1 not according as ,i strain my attention forwards1 but rather in proportion as ,i1 so to speak1 retract it backwards4#cei ,in myself the 'backward retraction' which is felt during attention to ideas of memory1 etc41 seems to be principally constituted by the feeling of an actual rolling outwards and upwards of the eyeballs1 such as occurs in sleep1 and is the exact opposite of their behavior when we look at a physical thing4 ,i have already spoken of this feeling on page #cjj4cfj ,the reader who doubts the presence of these organic feelings is requested to read the whole of that passage again4 99 99 99 99 99 ,it has been said1 however1 that we may attend to an object on the periphery of the visual field and yet not accommodate the eye for it4 ,teachers thus notice the acts of children in the school-room at whom they appear not to be looking4 ,women in general train their peripheral visual attention more than men4 ,this would be an objection to the invariable and universal presence of movements of adjustment as ingredients of the attentive process4 ,usually1 as is well known1 no object lying in the marginal portions of the field of vision can catch our attention without at the same time 'catching our eye'--that is1 fatally provoking such movements of rotation and accommodation as will focus its image on the fovea1 or point of greatest sensibility4 ,practice1 however1 enables us1 with effort1 to attend to a marginal object whilst keeping the eyes immovable4 ,the object under these circumstances never becomes perfectly distinct--the place of its image on the retina makes distinctness impossible--but 7as anyone can satisfy himself by trying7 we become more vividly conscious of it than we were before the effort was made4 ,helmholtz states the fact so strikingly that ,i will quote his observation in full4 ,he was trying to combine in a single solid percept pairs of stereoscopic pictures illuminated instantaneously by the electric spark4 ,the pictures were in a dark box which the spark from time to time lighted up2 and1 to keep the eyes from wandering betweenwhiles1 a pin-hole was pricked through the middle of each picture1 through which the light of the room came1 so that each eye had presented to it during the dark intervals a single bright point4 ,with parallel optical axes the points combined into a single image2 and the slightest movement of the eyeballs was betrayed by this image at once becoming double4 ,helmholtz now found that simple linear figures could1 when the eyes were thus kept immovable1 be perceived as solids at a single flash of the spark4 ,but when the figures were complicated photographs1 many successive flashes were required to grasp their totality4 ,now it is interesting1 he says1 to find that1 although we keep steadily fixating the pin-holes and never allow their combined image to break into two1 we can1 nevertheless1 before the spark comes1 keep our attention voluntarily turned to any particular portion we please of the dark field1 so as then1 when the spark comes1 to receive an impression only from such parts of the picture as lie in this region4 ,in this respect1 then1 our attention is quite independent of the position and accommodation of the eyes1 and of any known alteration in these organs2 and free to direct itself by a conscious and voluntary effort upon any selected portion of a dark and undifferenced field of view4 ,this is one of the most important observations for a future theory of attention4#cfa ,hering1 however1 adds the following detail3 ,whilst attending to the marginal object we must always1 he says1 attend at the same time to the object directly fixated4 ,if even for a single instant we let the latter slip out of our mind1 our eye moves towards the former1 as may be easily recognized by the after-images produced1 or by the muscular sounds heard4 ,the case is then less properly to be called one of translocation1 than one of unusually wide dispersion1 of the attention1 in which dispersion the largest share still falls upon the thing directly looked at1#cfb and consequently directly accommodated for4 ,accommodation exists here1 then1 as it does elsewhere1 and without it we should lose a part of our sense of attentive activity4 ,in fact1 the strain of that activity 7which is remarkably great in the experiment7 is due in part to unusually strong contractions of the muscles needed to keep the eyeballs still1 which produce unwonted feelings of pressure in those organs4 99 99 99 99 99 #b4 ,but if the peripheral part of the picture in this experiment be not physically accommodated for1 what is meant by its sharing our attention8 ,what happens when we 'distribute' or 'disperse' the latter upon a thing for which we remain unwilling to 'adjust'8 ,this leads us to that second feature in the process1 the 'ideational preparation' of which we spoke4 ,the effort to attend to the marginal region of the picture consists in nothing more nor less than the effort to form as clear an idea as is possible of what is there portrayed4 ,the idea is to come to the help of the sensation and make it more distinct4 ,it comes with effort1 and such a mode of coming is the remaining part of what we know as our attention's 'strain' under the circumstances4 ,let us show how universally present in our acts of attention this reinforcing imagination1 this inward reproduction1 this anticipatory thinking of the thing we attend to1 is4 ,it must as a matter of course be present when the attention is of the intellectual variety1 for the thing attended to then is nothing but an idea1 an inward reproduction or conception4 ,if then we prove ideal construction of the object to be present in sensorial attention1 it will be present everywhere4 ,when1 however1 sensorial attention is at its height1 it is impossible to tell how much of the percept comes from without and how much from within2 but if we find that the preparation we make for it always partly consists of the creation of an imaginary duplicate of the object in the mind1 which shall stand ready to receive the outward impression as if in a matrix1 that will be quite enough to establish the point in dispute4 ,in ,wundt's and ,exner's experiments quoted above1 the lying in wait for the impressions1 and the preparation to react1 consist of nothing but the anticipatory imagination of what the impressions or the reactions are to be4 ,where the stimulus is unknown and the reaction undetermined1 time is lost1 because no stable image can under such circumstances be formed in advance4 ,but where both nature and time of signal and reaction are foretold1 so completely does the expectant attention consist in premonitory imagination that1 as we have seen 7,footnote #bgc2 pp4 #cgc1 #cgg71 it may mimic the intensity of reality1 or at any rate produce reality's motor effects4 ,it is impossible to read ,wundt's and ,exner's pages of description and not to interpret the ',apperception' and ',spannung' and other terms as equivalents of imagination4 ,with ,wundt1 in particular1 the word ,apperception 7which he sets great store by7 is quite interchangeable with both imagination and attention4 ,all three are names for the excitement from within of ideational brain-centres1 for which ,mr4 ,lewes's name of preperception seems the best possible designation4 ,where the impression to be caught is very weak1 the way not to miss it is to sharpen our attention for it by preliminary contact with it in a stronger form4 ,if we wish to begin to observe overtones1 it is advisable1 just before the sound which is to be analyzed1 to sound very softly the note of which we are in search4444 ,the piano and harmonium are well fitted for this use1 as both give overtones that are strong4 ,strike upon the piano first the g' of a certain musical example previously given in the text2 then1 when its vibrations have objectively ceased1 strike powerfully the note c1 in whose sound g' is the third overtone1 and keep your attention steadily bent upon the pitch of the just heard g'2 you will now hear this tone sounding in the midst of the c4444 ,if you place the resonator which corresponds to a certain overtone1 for example g' of the sound c1 against your ear1 and then make the note c sound1 you will hear g' much strengthened by the resonator4444 ,this strengthening by the resonator can be used to make the naked ear attentive to the sound which it is to catch4 ,for when the resonator is gradually removed1 the g' grows weaker2 but the attention1 once directed to it1 holds it now more easily fast1 and the observer hears the tone g' now in the natural unaltered sound of the note with his unaided ear4#cfc ,wundt1 commenting on experiences of this sort1 says that on carefully observing1 one will always find that one tries first to recall the image in memory of the tone to be heard1 and that then one hears it in the total sound4 ,the same thing is to be noticed in weak or fugitive visual impressions4 ,illuminate a drawing by electric sparks separated by considerable intervals1 and after the first1 and often after the second and third spark1 hardly anything will be recognized4 ,but the confused image is held fast in memory2 each successive illumination completes it2 and so at last we attain to a clearer perception4 ,the primary motive to this inward activity proceeds usually from the outer impression itself4 ,we hear a sound in which1 from certain associations1 we suspect a certain overtone2 the next thing is to recall the overtone in memory2 and finally we catch it in the sound we hear4 ,or perhaps we see some mineral substance we have met before2 the impression awakens the memory-image1 which again more or less completely melts with the impression itself4 ,in this way every idea takes a certain time to penetrate to the focus of consciousness4 ,and during this time we always find in ourselves the peculiar feeling of attention4444 ,the phenomena show that an adaptation of attention to the impression takes place4 ,the surprise which unexpected impressions give us is due essentially to the fact that our attention1 at the moment when the impression occurs1 is not accommodated for it4 ,the accommodation itself is of the double sort1 relating as it does to the intensity as well as to the quality of the stimulus4 ,different qualities of impression require disparate adaptations4 ,and we remark that our feeling of the strain of our inward attentiveness increases with every increase in the strength of the impressions on whose perception we are intent4#cfd ,the natural way of conceiving all this is under the symbolic form of a brain-cell played upon from two directions4 ,whilst the object excites it from without1 other brain-cells1 or perhaps spiritual forces1 arouse it from within4 ,the latter influence is the 'adaptation of the attention4' ,the plenary energy of the brain-cell demands the co-operation of both factors3 not when merely present1 but when both present and attended to1 is the object fully perceived4 ,a few additional experiences will now be perfectly clear4 ,helmholtz1 for instance1 adds this observation to the passage we quoted a while ago concerning the stereoscopic pictures lit by the electric spark4 ,these experiments1 he says1 are interesting as regards the part which attention plays in the matter of double images4444 ,for in pictures so simple that it is relatively difficult for me to see them double1 ,i can succeed in seeing them double1 even when the illumination is only instantaneous1 the moment ,i strive to imagine in a lively way how they ought then to look4 ,the influence of attention is here pure2 for all eye movements are shut out4#cfe ,in another place#cff the same writer says3 ,when ,i have before my eyes a pair of stereoscopic drawings which are hard to combine1 it is difficult to bring the lines and points that correspond1 to cover each other1 and with every little motion of the eyes they glide apart4 ,but if ,i chance to gain a lively mental image 7,anschauungsbild7 of the represented solid form 7a thing that often occurs by lucky chance71 ,i then move my two eyes with perfect certainty over the figure without the picture separating again4 ,again1 writing of retinal rivalry1 ,helmholtz says3 ,it is not a trial of strength between two sensations1 but depends on our fixing or failing to fix the attention4 ,indeed1 there is scarcely any phenomenon so well fitted for the study of the causes which are capable of determining the attention4 ,it is not enough to form the conscious intention of seeing first with one eye and then with the other2 we must form as clear a notion as possible of what we expect to see4 ,then it will actually appear4#cfg ,in figures #cg and #ch1 where the result is ambiguous1 we can make the change from one apparent form to the other by imagining strongly in advance the form we wish to see4 ,similarly in those puzzles where certain lines in a picture form by their combination an object that has no connection with what the picture ostensibly represents2 or indeed in every case where an object is inconspicuous and hard to discern from the background2 we may not be able to see it for a long time2 but1 having once seen it1 we can attend to it again whenever we like1 on account of the mental duplicate of it which our imagination now bears4 ,in the meaningless ,french words 'pas de lieu ,rhne que nous1' who can recognize immediately the ,english 'paddle your own canoe'8#cfh ,but who that has once noticed the identity can fail to have it arrest his attention again8 ,when watching for the distant clock to strike1 our mind is so filled with its image that at every moment we think we hear the longed-for or dreaded sound4 ,so of an awaited footstep4 ,every stir in the wood is for the hunter his game2 for the fugitive his pursuers4 ,every bonnet in the street is momentarily taken by the lover to enshroud the head of his idol4 ,the image in the mind is the attention2 the preperception1 as ,mr4 ,lewes calls it1 is half of the perception of the looked-for thing4#cfi ,illustration3 ,,figs4 #cg #ch4 ,it is for this reason that men have no eyes but for those aspects of things which they have already been taught to discern4 ,any one of us can notice a phenomenon after it has once been pointed out1 which not one in ten thousand could ever have discovered for himself4 ,even in poetry and the arts1 some one has to come and tell us what aspects we may single out1 and what effects we may admire1 before our sthetic nature can 'dilate' to its full extent and never 'with the wrong emotion4' ,in kindergarten instruction one of the exercises is to make the children see how many features they can point out in such an object as a flower or a stuffed bird4 ,they readily name the features they know already1 such as leaves1 tail1 bill1 feet4 ,but they may look for hours without distinguishing nostrils1 claws1 scales1 etc41 until their attention is called to these details2 thereafter1 however1 they see them every time4 ,in short1 the only things which we commonly see are those which we preperceive4 and the only things which we preperceive are those which have been labelled for us1 and the labels stamped into our mind4 ,if we lost our stock of labels we should be intellectually lost in the midst of the world4 99 99 99 99 99 ,organic adjustment1 then1 and ideational preparation or preperception are concerned in all attentive acts4 ,an interesting theory is defended by no less authorities than ,professors ,bain#cgj and ,ribot1#cga and still more ably advocated by ,mr4 ,n4 ,lange1#cgb who will have it that the ideational preparation itself is a consequence of muscular adjustment1 so that the latter may be called the essence of the attentive process throughout4 ,this at least is what the theory of these authors practically amounts to1 though the former two do not state it in just these terms4 ,the proof consists in the exhibition of cases of intellectual attention which organic adjustment accompanies1 or of objects in thinking which we have to execute a movement4 ,thus ,lange says that when he tries to imagine a certain colored circle1 he finds himself first making with his eyes the movement to which the circle corresponds1 and then imagining the color1 etc41 as a consequence of the movement4 ,let my reader1 he adds1 close his eyes and think of an extended object1 for instance a pencil4 ,he will easily notice that he first makes a slight movement of the eyes corresponding to the straight line1 and that he often gets a weak feeling of innervation of the hand as if touching the pencil's surface4 ,so1 in thinking of a certain sound1 we turn towards its direction or repeat muscularly its rhythm1 or articulate an imitation of it4#cgc ,but it is one thing to point out the presence of muscular contractions as constant concomitants of our thoughts1 and another thing to say1 with ,herr ,lange1 that thought is made possible by muscular contraction alone4 ,it may well be that where the object of thought consists of two parts1 one perceived by movement and another not1 the part perceived by movement is habitually called up first and fixed in the mind by the movement's execution1 whilst the other part comes secondarily as the movement's mere associate4 ,but even were this the rule with all men 7which ,i doubt#cgd71 it would only be a practical habit1 not an ultimate necessity4 ,in the chapter on the ,will we shall learn that movements themselves are results of images coming before the mind1 images sometimes of feelings in the moving part1 sometimes of the movement's effects on eye and ear1 and sometimes 7if the movement be originally reflex or instinctive71 of its natural stimulus or exciting cause4 ,it is1 in truth1 contrary to all wider and deeper analogies to deny that any quality of feeling whatever can directly rise up in the form of an idea1 and to assert that only ideas of movement can call other ideas to the mind4 ,so much for adjustment and preperception4 ,the only third process ,i can think of as always present is the inhibition of irrelevant movements and ideas4 ,this seems1 however1 to be a feature incidental to voluntary attention rather than the essential feature of attention at large1#cge and need not concern us particularly now4 ,noting merely the intimate connection which our account so far establishes between attention1 on the one hand1 and imagination1 discrimination1 and memory1 on the other1 let us draw a couple of practical inferences1 and then pass to the more speculative problem that remains4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the practical inferences are pedagogic4 ,first1 to strengthen attention in children who care nothing for the subject they are studying and let their wits go wool-gathering4 ,the interest here must be 'derived' from something that the teacher associates with the task1 a reward or a punishment if nothing less external comes to mind4 ,prof4 ,ribot says3 ,a child refuses to read2 he is incapable of keeping his mind fixed on the letters1 which have no attraction for him2 but he looks with avidity upon the pictures contained in a book4 ',what do they mean8' he asks4 ,the father replies3 ',when you can read1 the book will tell you4' ,after several colloquies like this1 the child resigns himself and falls to work1 first slackly1 then the habit grows1 and finally he shows an ardor which has to be restrained4 ,this is a case of the genesis of voluntary attention4 ,an artificial and indirect desire has to be grafted on a natural and direct one4 ,reading has no immediate attractiveness1 but it has a borrowed one1 and that is enough4 ,the child is caught in the wheelwork1 the first step is made4 ,i take another example1 from ,m4 ,b4 ,perez3#cgf ,a child of six years1 habitually prone to mind-wandering1 sat down one day to the piano of his own accord to repeat an air by which his mother had been charmed4 ,his exercises lasted an hour4 ,the same child at the age of seven1 seeing his brother busy with tasks in vacation1 went and sat at his father's desk4 ',what are you doing there8' his nurse said1 surprised at so finding him4 ',i am1' said the child1 'learning a page of ,german2 it isn't very amusing1 but it is for an agreeable surprise to mamma4' ,here1 again1 a birth of voluntary attention1 grafted this time on a sympathetic instead of a selfish sentiment like that of the first example4 ,the piano1 the ,german1 awaken no spontaneous attention2 but they arouse and maintain it by borrowing a force from elsewhere4#cgg ,second1 take that mind-wandering which at a later age may trouble us whilst reading or listening to a discourse4 ,if attention be the reproduction of the sensation from within1 the habit of reading not merely with the eye1 and of listening not merely with the ear1 but of articulating to one's self the words seen or heard1 ought to deepen one's attention to the latter4 ,experience shows that this is the case4 ,i can keep my wandering mind a great deal more closely upon a conversation or a lecture if ,i actively re-echo to myself the words than if ,i simply hear them2 and ,i find a number of my students who report benefit from voluntarily adopting a similar course4#cgh ,second1 a teacher who wishes to engage the attention of his class must knit his novelties on to things of which they already have preperceptions4 ,the old and familiar is readily attended to by the mind and helps to hold in turn the new1 forming1 in ,herbartian phraseology1 an ',apperceptionsmasse' for it4 ,of course it is in every case a very delicate problem to know what ',apperceptionsmasse' to use4 ,psychology can only lay down the general rule4 ,,is ,,voluntary ,,attention ,a ,,resultant ,,or ,a ,,force8 ,when1 a few pages back1 ,i symbolized the 'ideational preparation' element in attention by a brain-cell played upon from within1 ,i added 'by other brain-cells1 or by some spiritual force1' without deciding which4 ,the question 'which8' is one of those central psychologic mysteries which part the schools4 ,when we reflect that the turnings of our attention form the nucleus of our inner self2 when we see 7as in the chapter on the ,will we shall see7 that volition is nothing but attention2 when we believe that our autonomy in the midst of nature depends on our not being pure effect1 but a cause1-- ,principium quoddam quod fati fdera rumpat1 ,ex infinito ne causant causa sequatur-- we must admit that the question whether attention involve such a principle of spiritual activity or not is metaphysical as well as psychological1 and is well worthy of all the pains we can bestow on its solution4 ,it is in fact the pivotal question of metaphysics1 the very hinge on which our picture of the world shall swing from materialism1 fatalism1 monism1 towards spiritualism1 freedom1 pluralism1--or else the other way4 ,it goes back to the automaton-theory4 ,if feeling is an inert accompaniment1 then of course the brain-cell can be played upon only by other brain-cells1 and the attention which we give at any time to any subject1 whether in the form of sensory adaptation or of 'preperception1' is the fatally predetermined effect of exclusively material laws4 ,if1 on the other hand1 the feeling which coexists with the brain-cells' activity reacts dynamically upon that activity1 furthering or checking it1 then the attention is in part1 at least1 a cause4 ,it does not necessarily follow1 of course1 that this reactive feeling should be 'free' in the sense of having its amount and direction undetermined in advance1 for it might very well be predetermined in all these particulars4 ,if it were so1 our attention would not be materially determined1 nor yet would it be 'free' in the sense of being spontaneous or unpredictable in advance4 ,the question is of course a purely speculative one1 for we have no means of objectively ascertaining whether our feelings react on our nerve-processes or not2 and those who answer the question in either way do so in consequence of general analogies and presumptions drawn from other fields4 ,as mere conceptions1 the effect-theory and the cause-theory of attention are equally clear2 and whoever affirms either conception to be true must do so on metaphysical or universal rather than on scientific or particular grounds4 99 99 99 99 99 ,as regards immediate sensorial attention hardly any one is tempted to regard it as anything but an effect4#cgi ,we are 'evolved' so as to respond to special stimuli by special accommodative acts which produce clear perceptions on the one hand in us1 and on the other hand such feelings of inner activity as were above described4 ,the accommodation and the resultant feeling are the attention4 ,we don't bestow it1 the object draws it from us4 ,the object has the initiative1 not the mind4 ,derived attention1 where there is no voluntary effort1 seems also most plausibly to be a mere effect4 ,the object again takes the initiative and draws our attention to itself1 not by reason of its own intrinsic interest1 but because it is connected with some other interesting thing4 ,its brain-process is connected with another that is either excited1 or tending to be excited1 and the liability to share the excitement and become aroused is the liability to 'preperception' in which the attention consists4 ,if ,i have received an insult1 ,i may not be actively thinking of it all the time1 yet the thought of it is in such a state of heightened irritability1 that the place where ,i received it or the man who inflicted it cannot be mentioned in my hearing without my attention bounding1 as it were1 in that direction1 as the imagination of the whole transaction revives4 ,where such a stirring-up occurs1 organic adjustment must exist as well1 and the ideas must innervate to some degree the muscles4 ,thus the whole process of involuntary derived attention is accounted for if we grant that there is something interesting enough to arouse and fix the thought of whatever may be connected with it4 ,this fixing is the attention2 and it carries with it a vague sense of activity going on1 and of acquiescence1 furtherance1 and adoption1 which makes us feel the activity to be our own4 ,this reinforcement of ideas and impressions by the pre-existing contents of the mind was what ,herbart had in mind when he gave the name of apperceptive attention to the variety we describe4 ,we easily see now why the lover's tap should be heard--it finds a nerve-centre half ready in advance to explode4 ,we see how we can attend to a companion's voice in the midst of noises which pass unnoticed though objectively much louder than the words we hear4 ,each word is doubly awakened2 once from without by the lips of the talker1 but already before that from within by the premonitory processes irradiating from the previous words1 and by the dim arousal of all processes that are connected with the 'topic' of the talk4 ,the irrelevant noises1 on the other hand1 are awakened only once4 ,they form an unconnected train4 ,the boys at school1 inattentive to the teacher except when he begins an anecdote1 and then all pricking up their ears1 are as easily explained4 ,the words of the anecdote shoot into association with exciting objects which react and fix them2 the other words do not4 ,similarly with the grammar heard by the purist and ,herbart's other examples quoted on page #dah4 ,even where the attention is voluntary1 it is possible to conceive of it as an effect1 and not a cause1 a product and not an agent4 ,the things we attend to come to us by their own laws4 ,attention creates no idea2 an idea must already be there before we can attend to it4 ,attention only fixes and retains what the ordinary laws of association bring 'before the footlights' of consciousness4 ,but the moment we admit this we see that the attention per se1 the feeling of attending need no more fix and retain the ideas than it need bring them4 ,the associates which bring them also fix them by the interest which they lend4 ,in short1 voluntary and involuntary attention may be essentially the same4 ,it is true that where the ideas are intrinsically very unwelcome and the effort to attend to them is great1 it seems to us as if the frequent renewal of the effort were the very cause by which they are held fast1 and we naturally think of the effort as an original force4 ,in fact it is only to the effort to attend1 not to the mere attending1 that we are seriously tempted to ascribe spontaneous power4 ,we think we can make more of it if we will2 and the amount which we make does not seem a fixed function of the ideas themselves1 as it would necessarily have to be if our effort were an effect and not a spiritual force4 ,but even here it is possible to conceive the facts mechanically and to regard the effort as a mere effect4 ,effort is felt only where there is a conflict of interests in the mind4 ,the idea ,a may be intrinsically exciting to us4 ,the idea ,z may derive its interest from association with some remoter good4 ,a may be our sweetheart1 ,z may be some condition of our soul's salvation4 ,under these circumstances1 if we succeed in attending to ,z at all it is always with expenditure of effort4 ,the 'ideational preparation1' the 'preperception' of ,a keeps going on of its own accord1 whilst that of ,z needs incessant pulses of voluntary reinforcement--that is1 we have the feeling of voluntary reinforcement 7or effort7 at each successive moment in which the thought of ,z flares brightly up in our mind4 ,dynamically1 however1 that may mean only this3 that the associative processes which make ,z triumph are really the stronger1 and in ,a's absence would make us give a 'passive' and unimpeded attention to ,z2 but1 so long as ,a is present1 some of of their force is used to inhibit the processes concerned with ,a4 ,such inhibition is a partial neutralization of the brain-energy which would otherwise be available for fluent thought4 ,but what is lost for thought is converted into feeling1 in this case into the peculiar feeling of effort1 difficulty1 or strain4 ,the stream of our thought is like a river4 ,on the whole easy simple flowing predominates in it1 the drift of things is with the pull of gravity1 and effortless attention is the rule4 ,but at intervals an obstruction1 a set-back1 a log-jam occurs1 stops the current1 creates an eddy1 and makes things temporarily move the other way4 ,if a real river could feel1 it would feel these eddies and set-backs as places of effort4 ,i am here flowing1 it would say1 in the direction of greatest resistance1 instead of flowing1 as usual1 in the direction of least4 ,my effort is what enables me to perform this feat4 ,really1 the effort would only be a passive index that the feat was being performed4 ,the agent would all the while be the total downward drift of the rest of the water1 forcing some of it upwards in this spot2 and although1 on the average1 the direction of least resistance is downwards1 that would be no reason for its not being upwards now and then4 ,just so with our voluntary acts of attention4 ,they are momentary arrests1 coupled with a peculiar feeling1 of portions of the stream4 ,but the arresting force1 instead of being this peculiar feeling itself1 may be nothing but the processes by which the collision is produced4 ,the feeling of effort may be 'an accompaniment1' as ,mr4 ,bradley says1 'more or less superfluous1' and no more contribute to the result than the pain in a man's finger1 when a hammer falls on it1 contributes to the hammer's weight4 ,thus the notion that our effort in attending is an original faculty1 a force additional to the others of which brain and mind are the seat1 may be an abject superstition4 ,attention may have to go1 like many a faculty once deemed essential1 like many a verbal phantom1 like many an idol of the tribe4 ,it may be an excrescence on ,psychology4 ,no need of it to drag ideas before consciousness or fix them1 when we see how perfectly they drag and fix each other there4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i have stated the effect-theory as persuasively as ,i can4#chj ,it is a clear1 strong1 well-equipped conception1 and like all such1 is fitted to carry conviction1 where there is no contrary proof4 ,the feeling of effort certainly may be an inert accompaniment and not the active element which it seems4 ,no measurements are as yet performed 7it is safe to say none ever will be performed7 which can show that it contributes energy to the result4 ,we may then regard attention as a superfluity1 or a ',luxus1' and dogmatize against its causal function with no feeling in our hearts but one of pride that we are applying ,occam's razor to an entity that has multiplied itself 'beyond necessity4' ,but ,occam's razor1 though a very good rule of method1 is certainly no law of nature4 ,the laws of stimulation and of association may well be indispensable actors in all attention's performances1 and may even be a good enough 'stock-company' to carry on many performances without aid2 and yet they may at times simply form the background for a 'star-performer1' who is no more their 'inert accompaniment' or their 'incidental product' than ,hamlet is ,horatio's and ,ophelia's4 ,such a star-performer would be the voluntary effort to attend1 if it were an original psychic force4 ,nature may1 ,i say1 indulge in these complications2 and the conception that she has done so in this case is1 ,i think1 just as clear 7if not as 'parsimonious' logically7 as the conception that she has not4 ,to justify this assertion1 let us ask just what the effort to attend would effect if it were an original force4 ,it would deepen and prolong the stay in consciousness of innumerable ideas which else would fade more quickly away4 ,the delay thus gained might not be more than a second in duration--but that second might be critical2 for in the constant rising and falling of considerations in the mind1 where two associated systems of them are nearly in equilibrium it is often a matter of but a second more or less of attention at the outset1 whether one system shall gain force to occupy the field and develop itself1 and exclude the other1 or be excluded itself by the other4 ,when developed1 it may make us act2 and that act may seal our doom4 ,when we come to the chapter on the ,will1 we shall see that the whole drama of the voluntary life hinges on the amount of attention1 slightly more or slightly less1 which rival motor ideas may receive4 ,but the whole feeling of reality1 the whole sting and excitement of our voluntary life1 depends on our sense that in it things are really being decided from one moment to another1 and that it is not the dull rattling off of a chain that was forged innumerable ages ago4 ,this appearance1 which makes life and history tingle with such a tragic zest1 may not be an illusion4 ,as we grant to the advocate of the mechanical theory that it may be one1 so he must grant to us that it may not4 ,and the result is two conceptions of possibility face to face with no facts definitely enough known to stand as arbiter between them4 ,under these circumstances1 one can leave the question open whilst waiting for light1 or one can do what most speculative minds do1 that is1 look to one's general philosophy to incline the beam4 ,the believers in mechanism do so without hesitation1 and they ought not to refuse a similar privilege to the believers in a spiritual force4 ,i count myself among the latter1 but as my reasons are ethical they are hardly suited for introduction into a psychological work4#cha ,the last word of psychology here is ignorance1 for the 'forces' engaged are certainly too delicate and numerous to be followed in detail4 ,meanwhile1 in view of the strange arrogance with which the wildest materialistic speculations persist in calling themselves 'science1' it is well to recall just what the reasoning is1 by which the effect-theory of attention is confirmed4 ,it is an argument from analogy1 drawn from rivers1 reflex actions and other material phenomena where no consciousness appears to exist at all1 and extended to cases where consciousness seems the phenomenon's essential feature4 ,the consciousness doesn't count1 these reasoners say2 it doesn't exist for science1 it is nil2 you mustn't think about it at all4 ,the intensely reckless character of all this needs no comment4 ,it is making the mechanical theory true per fas aut nefas4 ,for the sake of that theory we make inductions from phenomena to others that are startlingly unlike them2 and we assume that a complication which ,nature has introduced 7the presence of feeling and of effort1 namely7 is not worthy of scientific recognition at all4 ,such conduct may conceivably be wise1 though ,i doubt it2 but scientific1 as contrasted with metaphysical1 it cannot seriously be called4#chb ,,inattention4 ,having spoken fully of attention1 let me add a word about inattention4 ,we do not notice the ticking of the clock1 the noise of the city streets1 or the roaring of the brook near the house2 and even the din of a foundry or factory will not mingle with the thoughts of its workers1 if they have been there long enough4 ,when we first put on spectacles1 especially if they be of certain curvatures1 the bright reflections they give of the windows1 etc41 mixing with the field of view1 are very disturbing4 ,in a few days we ignore them altogether4 ,various entoptic images1 musc volitantes1 etc41 although constantly present1 are hardly ever known4 ,the pressure of our clothes and shoes1 the beating of our hearts and arteries1 our breathing1 certain steadfast bodily pains1 habitual odors1 tastes in the mouth1 etc41 are examples from other senses1 of the same lapse into unconsciousness of any too unchanging content--a lapse which ,hobbes has expressed in the well-known phrase1 ,semper idem sentire ac non sentire ad idem revertunt4 ,the cause of the unconsciousness is certainly not the mere blunting of the sense-organs4 ,were the sensation important1 we should notice it well enough2 and we can at any moment notice it by expressly throwing our attention upon it1#chc provided it have not become so inveterate that inattention to it is ingrained in our very constitution1 as in the case of the musc volitantes the double retinal images1 etc4 ,but even in these cases artificial conditions of observation and patience soon give us command of the impression which we seek4 ,the inattentiveness must then be a habit grounded on higher conditions than mere sensorial fatigue4 ,helmholtz has formulated a general law of inattention which we shall have to study in the next chapter but one4 ,helmholtz's law is that we leave all impressions unnoticed which are valueless to us as signs by which to discriminate things4 ,at most such impressions fuse with their consorts into an aggregate effect4 ,the upper partial tones which make human voices differ make them differ as wholes only--we cannot dissociate the tones themselves4 ,the odors which form integral parts of the characteristic taste of certain substances1 meat1 fish1 cheese1 butter1 wine1 do not come as odors to our attention4 ,the various muscular and tactile feelings that make up the perception of the attributes 'wet1' 'elastic1' 'doughy1' etc41 are not singled out separately for what they are4 ,and all this is due to an inveterate habit we have contracted1 of passing from them immediately to their import and letting their substantive nature alone4 ,they have formed connections in the mind which it is now difficult to break2 they are constituents of processes which it is hard to arrest1 and which differ altogether from what the processes of catching the attention would be4 ,in the cases ,helmholtz has in mind1 not only we but our ancestors have formed these habits4 ,in the cases we started from1 however1 of the mill-wheel1 the spectacles1 the factory din1 the tight shoes1 etc41 the habits of inattention are more recent1 and the manner of their genesis seems susceptible1 hypothetically at least1 of being traced4 ,how can impressions that are not needed by the intellect be thus shunted off from all relation to the rest of consciousness8 ,professor ,g4 ,e4 ,mller has made a plausible reply to this question1 and most of what follows is borrowed from him4#chd ,he begins with the fact that ,when we first come out of a mill or factory1 in which we have remained long enough to get wonted to the noise1 we feel as if something were lacking4 ,our total feeling of existence is different from what it was when we were in the mill4444 ,a friend writes to me3 ',i have in my room a little clock which does not run quite twenty-four hours without winding4 ,in consequence of this1 it often stops4 ,so soon as this happens1 ,i notice it1 whereas ,i naturally fail to notice it when going4 ,when this first began to happen1 there was this modification3 ,i suddenly felt an undefined uneasiness or sort of void1 without being able to say what was the matter2 and only after some consideration did ,i find the cause in the stopping of the clock4' ,that the stopping of an unfelt stimulus may itself be felt is a well-known fact3 the sleeper in church who wakes when the sermon ends2 the miller who does the same when his wheel stands still1 are stock examples4 ,now 7since every impression falling on the nervous system must propagate itself somewhither71 ,mller suggests that impressions which come to us when the thought-centres are preoccupied with other matters may thereby be blocked or inhibited from invading these centres1 and may then overflow into lower paths of discharge4 ,and he farther suggests that if this process recur often enough1 the side-track thus created will grow so permeable as to be used1 no matter what may be going on in the centres above4 ,in the acquired inattention mentioned1 the constant stimulus always caused disturbance at first2 and consciousness of it was extruded successfully only when the brain was strongly excited about other things4 ,gradually the extrusion became easier1 and at last automatic4 ,the side-tracks which thus learn to draft off the stimulations that interfere with thought cannot be assigned with any precision4 ,they probably terminate in organic processes1 or insignificant muscular contractions which1 when stopped by the cessation of their instigating cause1 immediately give us the feeling that something is gone from our existence 7as ,mller says71 or 7as his friend puts it7 the feeling of a void4#che ,mller's suggestion awakens another4 ,it is a well-known fact that persons striving to keep their attention on a difficult subject will resort to movements of various unmeaning kinds1 such as pacing the room1 drumming with the fingers1 playing with keys or watch-chain1 scratching head1 pulling mustache1 vibrating foot1 or what not1 according to the individual4 ,there is an anecdote of ,sir ,w4 ,scott1 when a boy1 rising to the head of his class by cutting off from the jacket of the usual head-boy a button which the latter was in the habit of twirling in his fingers during the lesson4 ,the button gone1 its owner's power of reciting also departed4--,now much of this activity is unquestionably due to the overflow of emotional excitement during anxious and concentrated thought4 ,it drains away nerve-currents which if pent up within the thought-centres would very likely make the confusion there worse confounded4 ,but may it not also be a means of drafting off all the irrelevant sensations of the moment1 and so keeping the attention more exclusively concentrated upon its inner task8 ,each individual usually has his own peculiar habitual movement of this sort4 ,a downward nerve-path is thus kept constantly open during concentrated thought2 and as it seems to be a law of frequent 7if not of universal7 application1 that incidental stimuli tend to discharge through paths that are already discharging rather than through others1 the whole arrangement might protect the thought-centres from interference from without4 ,were this the true rationale of these peculiar movements1 we should have to suppose that the sensations produced by each phase of the movement itself are also drafted off immediately by the next phase and help to keep the circular process agoing4 ,i offer the suggestion for what it is worth2 the connection of the movements themselves with the continued effort of attention is certainly a genuine and curious fact4 ,,footnotes3 #cbb ,bain mentions attention in the ,senses and the ,intellect1 p4 #eeh1 and even gives a theory of it on pp4 #cgj-cgd of the ,emotions of the ,will4 ,i shall recur to this theory later on4 #cbc ,the first and most important1 but also the most difficult1 task at the outset of an education is to overcome gradually the inattentive dispersion of mind which shows itself wherever the organic life preponderates over the intellectual4 ,the training of animals 444 must be in the first instance based on the awakening of attention 7cf4 ,adrian ,leonard1 ,essai sur l',education des ,animaux1 ,lille1 #ahdb71 that is to say1 we must seek to make them gradually perceive separately things which1 if left to themselves1 would not be attended to1 because they would fuse with a great sum of other sensorial stimuli to a confused total impression of which each separate item only darkens and interferes with the rest4 ,similarly at first with the human child4 ,the enormous difficulties of deaf-mute- and especially of idiot-instruction is principally due to the slow and painful manner in which we succeed in bringing out from the general confusion of perception single items with sufficient sharpness4 7,waitz1 ,lehrb4 d4 ,psychol41 p4 #fcb47 #cbd ,elements1 part i1 chap4 ii1 fin4 #cbe ,lectures on ,metaphysics1 lecture xiv4 #cbf ,nature1 vol4 iii1 p4 #bha 7#ahga74 #cbg ,if a lot of dots or strokes on a piece of paper be exhibited for a moment to a person in normal condition1 with the request that he say how many are there1 he will find that they break into groups in his mind's eye1 and that whilst he is analyzing and counting one group in his memory the others dissolve4 ,in short1 the impression made by the dots changes rapidly into something else4 ,in the trance-subject1 on the contrary1 it seems to stick2 ,i find that persons in the hypnotic state easily count the dots in the mind's eye so long as they do not much exceed twenty in number4 #cbh ,mr4 ,cattell made ,jevons's experiment in a much more precise way 7,philosophische ,studien1 iii1 #aba ff474 ,cards were ruled with short lines1 varying in number from four to fifteen1 and exposed to the eye for a hundredth of a second4 ,when the number was but four or five1 no mistakes as a rule were made4 ,for higher numbers the tendency was to under- rather than to over-estimate4 ,similar experiments were tried with letters and figures1 and gave the same result4 ,when the letters formed familiar words1 three times as many of them could be named as when their combination was meaningless4 ,if the words formed a sentence1 twice as many of them could be caught as when they had no connection4 ,the sentence was then apprehended as a whole4 ,if not apprehended thus1 almost nothing is apprehended of the several words2 but if the sentence as a whole is apprehended1 then the words appear very distinct4--,wundt and his pupil ,dietze had tried similar experiments on rapidly repeated strokes of sound4 ,wundt made them follow each other in groups1 and found that groups of twelve strokes at most could be recognized and identified when they succeeded each other at the most favorable rate1 namely1 from three to five tenths of a second 7,phys4 ,psych41 ii1 #bae74 ,dietze found that by mentally subdividing the groups into sub-groups as one listened1 as many as forty strokes could be identified as a whole4 ,they were then grasped as eight sub-groups of five1 or as five of eight strokes each4 7,philosophische ,studien1 ii1 #cfb47--,later in ,wundt's ,laboratory1 ,bechterew made observations on two simultaneously elapsing series of metronome strokes1 of which one contained one stroke more than the other4 ,the most favorable rate of succession was #j4c sec41 and he then discriminated a group of #ah from one of #ah #a1 apparently4 7,neurologisches ,centralblatt1 #ahhi1 #bgb47 #cbi ,revue ,scientifique1 vol4 #ci1 p4 #fhd 7,may #bh1 #ahhg74 #ccj ,cf4 ,chr4 ,wolff3 ,psychologia ,empirica1 #bde4 ,wolff's account of the phenomena of attention is in general excellent4 #cca ,pflger's ,archiv1 xi1 #dbi-ca4 #ccb ,physiol4 ,psych41 #b;d ed4 ii1 pp4 #bch-dj4 #ccc ,ib4 p4 #bfb4 #ccd ,physiol4 ,psych41 #b;d ed4 ii1 #bfd-f4 #cce ,this was the original 'personal equation' observation of ,bessel4 ,an ,observer looked through his equatorial telescope to note the moment at which a star crossed the meridian1 the latter being marked in the telescopic field of view by a visible thread1 beside which other equidistant threads appear4 ,before the star reached the thread he looked at the clock1 and then1 with eye at telescope1 counted the seconds by the beat of the pendulum4 ,since the star seldom passed the meridian at the exact moment of a beat1 the observer1 in order to estimate fractions1 had to note its position at the stroke before and at the stroke after the passage1 and to divide the time as the meridian-line seemed to divide the space4 ,if1 e4g41 one had counted #bj seconds1 and at the #bast the star seemed removed by ac from the meridian-thread c1 whilst at the #bb;d it was at the distance bc2 then1 if ac3 bc33 #a3 #b1 the star would have passed at #ba #a_/h seconds4 ,the conditions resemble those in our experiment3 the star is the index-hand1 the threads are the scale2 and a time-displacement is to be expected1 which with high rapidities may be positive1 and negative with low4 ,the astronomic observations do not permit us to measure its absolute amount2 but that it exists is made certain by the fact than after all other possible errors are eliminated1 there still remains between different observers a personal difference which is often much larger than that between mere reaction-times1 amounting 444 sometimes to more than a second4 7,op4 cit4 p4 #bgj47 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #ce4 #ccf ,philosophische ,studien1 ii1 #fja4 #ccg ,physiol4 ,psych41 #b;d ed4 ii1 #bgc-d2 #c;d ed4 ii1 #cci2 ,philosophische ,studien1 ii1 #fba ff4--,i know that ,i am stupid1 but ,i confess ,i find these theoretical statements1 especially ,wundt's1 a little hazy4 ,herr v4 ,tschisch considers it impossible that the perception of the index's position should come in too late1 and says it demands no particular attention 7p4 #fbb74 ,it seems1 however1 that this can hardly be the case4 ,both observers speak of the difficulty of seeing the index at the right moment4 ,the case is quite different from that of distributing the attention impartially over simultaneous momentary sensations4 ,the bell or other signal gives a momentary sensation1 the index a continuous one1 of motion4 ,to note any one position of the latter is to interrupt this sensation of motion and to substitute an entirely different percept--one1 namely1 of position--for it1 during a time however brief4 ,this involves a sudden change in the manner of attending to the revolutions of the index2 which change ought to take place neither sooner nor later than the momentary impression1 and fix the index as it is then and there visible4 ,now this is not a case of simply getting two sensations at once and so feeling them--which would be an harmonious act2 but of stopping one and changing it into another1 whilst we simultaneously get a third4 ,two of these acts are discrepant1 and the whole three rather interfere with each other4 ,it becomes hard to 'fix' the index at the very instant that we catch the momentary impression2 so we fall into a way of fixing it either at the last possible moment before1 or at the first possible moment after1 the impression comes4 ,this at least seems to me the more probable state of affairs4 ,if we fix the index before the impression really comes1 that means that we perceive it too late4 ,but why do we fix it before when the impressions come slow and simple1 and after when they come rapid and complex8 ,and why under certain conditions is there no displacement at all8 ,the answer which suggests itself is that when there is just enough leisure between the impressions for the attention to adapt itself comfortably both to them and to the index 7one second in ,w4's experiments71 it carries on the two processes at once2 when the leisure is excessive1 the attention1 following its own laws of ripening1 and being ready to note the index before the other impression comes1 notes it then1 since that is the moment of easiest action1 whilst the impression1 which comes a moment later1 interferes with noting it again2 and finally1 that when the leisure is insufficient1 the momentary impressions1 being the more fixed data1 are attended to first1 and the index is fixed a little later on4 ,the noting of the index at too early a moment would be the noting of a real fact1 with its analogue in many other rhythmical experiences4 ,in reaction-time experiments1 for example1 when1 in a regularly recurring series1 the stimulus is once in a while omitted1 the observer sometimes reacts as if it came4 ,here1 as ,wundt somewhere observes1 we catch ourselves acting merely because our inward preparation is complete4 ,the 'fixing' of the index is a sort of action2 so that my interpretation tallies with facts recognized elsewhere2 but ,wundt's explanation 7if ,i understand it7 of the experiments requires us to believe that an observer like v4 ,tschisch shall steadily and without exception get an hallucination of a bell-stroke before the latter occurs1 and not hear the real bell-stroke afterwards4 ,i doubt whether this is possible1 and ,i can think of no analogue to it in the rest of our experience4 ,the whole subject deserves to be gone over again4 ,to ,wundt is due the highest credit for his patience in working out the facts4 ,his explanation of them in his earlier work 7,vorlesungen b4 ,menschen und ,thierseele1 i1 #cg-db1 #cfe-cga7 consisted merely in the appeal to the unity of consciousness1 and may be considered quite crude4 #cch ,note that the permanent interests are themselves grounded in certain objects and relations in which our interest is immediate and instinctive4 #cci ,herbart3 ,psychologie als ,wissenschaft1 #abh4 #cdj ,sir ,w4 ,hamilton4 ,metaphysics1 lecture xiv4 #cda ,mental ,physiol41 #abd4 ,the oft-cited case of soldiers not perceiving that they are wounded is of an analogous sort4 #cdb ,prof4 ,j4 ,m4 ,cattell made experiments to which we shall refer further on1 on the degree to which reaction-times might be shortened by distracting or voluntarily concentrating the attention4 ,he says of the latter series that the averages show that the attention can be kept strained1 that is1 the centres kept in a state of unstable equilibrium1 for one second 7,mind1 xi1 #bdj74 #cdc ,physiologische ,optik1 #cb4 #cdd ',genius1' says ,helvetius1 'is nothing but a continued attention 7une attention suivie74' ',genius1' says ,buffon1 'is only a protracted patience 7une longue patience74' ',in the exact sciences1 at least1' says ,cuvier1 'it is the patience of a sound intellect1 when invincible1 which truly constitutes genius4' ,and ,chesterfield has also observed that 'the power of applying an attention1 steady and undissipated1 to a single object1 is the sure mark of a superior genius4' 7,hamilton3 ,lect4 on ,metaph41 lecture xiv47 #cde ,see1 e4g41 ,ulrici3 ,leib u4 ,seele1 ii1 #bh2 ,lotze3 ,metaphysik1 #bgc2 ,fechner1 ,revision d4 ,psychophysik1 xix2 ,g4 ,e4 ,mller3 ,zur ,theorie d4 sinnl4 ,aufmerksamkeit1 #a2 ,stumpf3 ,tonpsychologie1 i1 #ga4 #cdf ,fechner1 op4 cit4 p4 #bga4 #cdg ,tonpsychologie1 i1 p4 #ga4 #cdh ,compare1 on clearness as the essential fruit of attention1 ,lotze's ,metaphysic1 #bgc4 #cdi ,elements1 part i1 chap4 ii4 #cej ,physiol4 ,psych41 #b;d ed4 ii1 #bbf4 #cea ,by a negative value of the reaction-time ,wundt means the case of the reactive movement occurring before the stimulus4 #ceb ,op4 cit4 ii1 #bci4 #cec ,the reader must not suppose this phenomenon to be of frequent occurrence4 ,experienced observers1 like ,exner and ,cattell1 deny having met with it in their personal experience4 #ced ,op4 cit4 pp4 #bda-e4 #cee ,it should be added that ,mr4 ,j4 ,m4 ,cattell 7,mind1 xi1 #cc7 found1 on repeating ,wundt's experiments with a disturbing noise upon two practised observers1 that the simple reaction-time either for light or sound was hardly perceptibly increased4 ,making strong voluntary concentration of attention shortened it by about #j4jac seconds on an average 7p4 #bdj74 ,performing mental additions whilst waiting for the stimulus lengthened it more than anything1 apparently4 ,for other1 less careful1 observations1 compare ,obersteiner1 in ,brain1 i1 #dci4 ,cattell's negative results show how far some persons can abstract their attention from stimuli by which others would be disturbed4--,a4 ,bartels 7,versuche ber die ,ablenkung d4 ,aufmerksamkeit1 ,dorpat1 #ahhi7 found that a stimulus to one eye sometimes prevented1 sometimes improved1 the perception of a quickly ensuing very faint stimulus to the other4 #cef ,cf4 ,wundt1 ,physiol4 ,psych41 #ast ed4 p4 #gid4 #ceg ,beitrge zur ,experimentellen ,psychologie1 ,heft i1 pp4 #gc-ajf 7#ahhi74 #ceh ,to say the very least1 he always brought his articulatory innervation close to the discharging point4 ,herr ,m4 describes a tightening of the head-muscles as characteristic of the attitude of attention to the reply4 #cei ,psychophysik1 ,bd4 ii1 pp4 #dge-f4 #cfj ,i must say that ,i am wholly unconscious of the peculiar feelings in the scalp which ,fechner goes on to describe4 ,the feeling of strained attention in the different sense-organs seems to be only a muscular one produced in using these various organs by setting in motion1 by a sort of reflex action1 the muscles which belong to them4 ,one can ask1 then1 with what particular muscular contraction the sense of strained attention in the effort to recall something is associated8 ,on this question my own feeling gives me a decided answer2 it comes to me distinctly1 not as a sensation of tension in the inside of the head1 but as a feeling of strain and contraction in the scalp with a pressure from without inwards over the whole cranium1 undoubtedly caused by a contraction of the muscles of the scalp4 ,this harmonizes very well with the ,german popular expression den ,kopf zusammennehmen1 etc41 etc4 ,in a former illness1 in which ,i could not endure the slightest effort of continuous thought1 and had no theoretical bias on this question1 the muscles of the scalp1 especially those of the occiput1 assumed a fairly morbid degree of sensibility whenever ,i tried to think4 7,ibid4 pp4 #dij-dia47 ,in an early writing by ,professor ,mach1 after speaking of the way in which by attention we decompose complex musical sounds into their elements1 this investigator continues3 ,it is more than a figure of speech when one says that we 'search' among the sounds4 ,this hearkening search is very observably a bodily activity1 just like attentive looking in the case of the eye4 ,if1 obeying the drift of physiology1 we understand by attention nothing mystical1 but a bodily disposition1 it is most natural to seek it in the variable tension of the muscles of the ear4 ,just so1 what common men call attentive looking reduces itself mainly to accommodating and setting of the optic axes4444 ,according to this1 it seems to me a very plausible view that quite generally ,attention has its seat in the mechanism of the body4 ,if nervous work is being done through certain channels1 that by itself is a mechanical ground for other channels being closed4 7,wien4 ,sitzungsberichte1 ,math4 ,naturw41 xlviii1 #b1 #big4 #ahfc47 #cfa ,physiol4 ,optik1 p4 #gda4 #cfb ,hermann's ,handbuch1 iii1 i1 #edh4 #cfc ,helmholtz3 ,tonempfindungen1 #c;d ed4 #he-i 7,engl4 tr41 #b;d ed4 #ej1 #ea2 see also pp4 #fj-a74 #cfd ,physiol4 ,psych41 ii1 #bji4 #cfe ,physiol4 ,optik1 #gda4 #cff ,p4 #gbh4 #cfg ,popular ,scientific ,lectures1 ,eng4 ,trans41 p4 #bie4 #cfh ,similarly in the verses which some one tried to puzzle me with the other day3 ,gui n'a beau dit1 qui sabot dit1 nid a beau dit elle8 #cfi ,i cannot refrain from referring in a note to an additional set of facts instanced by ,lotze in his ,medizinische ,psychologie1 #dca1 although ,i am not satisfied with the explanation1 fatigue of the sense-organ1 which he gives4 ,in quietly lying and contemplating a wall-paper pattern1 sometimes it is the ground1 sometimes the design1 which is clearer and consequently comes nearer4444 ,arabesques of monochromic many-convoluted lines now strike us as composed of one1 now of another connected linear system1 and all without any intention on our part4 ,this is beautifully seen in ,moorish patterns2 but a simple diagram like ,fig4 #ci also shows it well4 ,we see it sometimes as two large triangles superposed1 sometimes as a hexagon with angles spanning its sides1 sometimes as six small triangles stuck together at their corners4444 ,often it happens in revery that when we stare at a picture1 suddenly some one of its features will be lit up with especial clearness1 although neither its optical character nor its meaning discloses any motive for such an arousal of the attention4444 ,to one in process of becoming drowsy the surroundings alternately fade into darkness and abruptly brighten up4 ,the talk of the bystanders seems now to come from indefinite distances2 but at the next moment it startles us by its threatening loudness at our very ear1 etc4 ,these variations1 which everyone will have noticed1 are1 it seems to me1 easily explicable by the very unstable equilibrium of our ideational centres1 of which constant change is the law4 ,we conceive one set of lines as object1 the other as background1 and forthwith the first set becomes the set we see4 ,there need be no logical motive for the conceptual change1 the irradiations of brain-tracts by each other1 according to accidents of nutrition1 'like sparks in burnt-up paper1' suffice4 ,the changes during drowsiness are still more obviously due to this cause4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #ci4 #cgj ,the ,emotions and the ,will1 #c;d ed4 p4 #cgj4 #cga ,psychologie de l',attention 7#ahhi71 p4 #cb ff4 #cgb ,philosophische ,studien1 iv1 #dac ff4 #cgc ,see ,lange1 loc4 cit4 p4 #dag1 for another proof of his view1 drawn from the phenomenon of retinal rivalry4 #cgd ,many of my students have at my request experimented with imagined letters of the alphabet and syllables1 and they tell me that they can see them inwardly as total colored pictures without following their outlines with the eye4 ,i am myself a bad visualizer1 and make movements all the while4--,m4 ,l4 ,marillier1 in an article of eminent introspective power which appeared after my text was written 7,remarques sur le ,mcanisme de l',attention1 in ,revue ,philosophique1 vol4 xxvii1 p4 #eff71 has contended against ,ribot and others for the non-dependence of sensory upon motor images in their relations to attention4 ,i am glad to cite him as an ally4 #cge ,drs4 ,ferrier 7,functions of the ,brain1 #ajb-c7 and ,obersteiner 7,brain1 i1 #dci ff47 treat it as the essential feature4 ,the author whose treatment of the subject is by far the most thorough and satisfactory is ,prof4 ,g4 ,e4 ,mller1 whose little work ,zur ,thorie der sinnlichen ,aufmerksamkeit1 ,inauguraldissertation1 ,leipzig1 ,edelmann 7#ahgd871 is for learning and acuteness a model of what a monograph should be4 ,i should like to have quoted from it1 but the ,germanism of its composition makes quotation quite impossible4 ,see also ,g4 ,h4 ,lewes3 ,problems of ,life and ,mind1 #c;d ,series1 ,prob4 #b1 chap4 #aj2 ,g4 ,h4 ,schneider3 ,der menschliche ,wille1 #bid ff41 #cji ff42 ,c4 ,stumpf3 ,tonpsychologie1 i1 #fg-ge2 ,w4 ,b4 ,carpenter3 ,mental ,physiology1 chap4 #c2 ,cappie in ',brain1' ,july #ahhf 7hypermia-theory72 ,j4 ,sully in ',brain1' ,oct4 #ahij4 #cgf ,l',enfant de trois sept ,ans1 p4 #ajh4 #cgg ,psychologie de l',attention1 p4 #ec4 #cgh ,repetition of this sort does not confer intelligence of what is said1 it only keeps the mind from wandering into other channels4 ,the intelligence sometimes comes in beats1 as it were1 at the end of sentences1 or in the midst of words which were mere words until then4 ,see above1 p4 #bha4 #cgi ,the reader will please observe that ,i am saying all that can possibly be said in favor of the effect-theory1 since1 inclining as ,i do myself to the cause-theory1 ,i do not want to undervalue the enemy4 ,as a matter of fact1 one might begin to take one's stand against the effect theory at the outset1 with the phenomenon of immediate sensorial attention4 ,one might say that attention causes the movements of adjustment of the eyes1 for example1 and is not merely their effect4 ,hering writes most emphatically to this effect3 ,the movements from one point of fixation to another are occasioned and regulated by the changes of place of the attention4 ,when an object1 seen at first indirectly1 draws our attention to itself1 the corresponding movement of the eye follows without further ado1 as a consequence of the attention's migration and of our effort to make the object distinct4 ,the wandering of the attention entails that of the fixation point4 ,before its movement begins1 its goal is already in consciousness and grasped by the attention1 and the location of this spot in the total space seen is what determines the direction and amount of the movement of the eye4 7,hermann's ,handbuch1 p4 #ecd47 ,i do not here insist on this1 because it is hard to tell whether the attention or the movement comes first 7,hering's reasons1 pp4 #ece-f1 also #edd-f1 seem to me ambiguous71 and because1 even if the attention to the object does come first1 it may be a mere effect of stimulus and association4 ,mach's theory that the will to look is the space-feeling itself may be compared with ,hering's in this place4 ,see ,mach's ,beitrge zur ,analyse der ,empfindungen 7#ahhf71 pp4 #ee ff4 #chj ,f4 ,h4 ,bradley1 ,is there a ,special ,activity of ,attention8 in ',mind1' xi1 #cje1 and ,lipps1 ,grundtatsachen1 chaps4 iv and xxx1 have stated it similarly4 #cha ,more will be said of the matter when we come to the chapter on the ,will4 #chb ,see1 for a defence of the notion of inward activity1 ,mr4 ,james ,ward's searching articles in ',mind1' xii1 #de and #efd4 #chc ,it must be admitted that some little time will often elapse before this effort succeeds4 ,as a child1 ,i slept in a nursery with a very loud-ticking clock1 and remember my astonishment more than once1 on listening for its tick1 to find myself unable to catch it for what seemed a long space of time2 then suddenly it would break into my consciousness with an almost startling loudness4--,m4 ,delbuf somewhere narrates how1 sleeping in the country near a mill-dam1 he woke in the night and thought the water had ceased to flow1 but on looking out of the open window saw it flowing in the moonlight1 and then heard it too4 #chd ,zur ,theorie d4 sinnl4 ,aufmerksamkeit1 p4 #abh foll4 #che ,i have begun to inquire experimentally whether any of the measurable functions of the workmen change after the din of machinery stops at a workshop4 ,so far ,i have found no constant results as regards either pulse1 breathing1 or strength of squeeze by the hand4 ,i hope to prosecute the inquiry farther 7,may1 #ahij74 ,,chapter ,,xii4 ,,conception4 ,,the ,,sense ,,of ,,sameness4 ,in ,chapter ,,viii1 p4 #bba1 the distinction was drawn between two kinds of knowledge of things1 bare acquaintance with them and knowledge about them4 ,the possibility of two such knowledges depends on a fundamental psychical peculiarity which may be entitled the principle of constancy in the mind's meanings and which may be thus expressed3 ,the same matters can be thought of in successive portions of the mental stream1 and some of these portions can know that they mean the same matters which the other portions meant4 ,one might put it otherwise by saying that the mind can always intend1 and know when it intends1 to think of the ,same4 ,this sense of sameness is the very keel and backbone of our thinking4 ,we saw in ,chapter ,x how the consciousness of personal identity reposed on it1 the present thought finding in its memories a warmth and intimacy which it recognizes as the same warmth and intimacy it now feels4 ,this sense of identity of the knowing subject is held by some philosophers to be the only vehicle by which the world hangs together4 ,it seems hardly necessary to say that a sense of identity of the known object would perform exactly the same unifying function1 even if the sense of subjective identity were lost4 ,and without the intention to think of the same outer things over and over again1 and the sense that we were doing so1 our sense of our own personal sameness would carry us but a little way towards making a universe of our experience4 ,note1 however1 that we are in the first instance speaking of the sense of sameness from the point of view of the mind's structure alone1 and not from the point of view of the universe4 ,we are psychologizing1 not philosophizing1 ,that is1 we do not care whether there be any real sameness in things or not1 or whether the mind be true or false in its assumptions of it4 ,our principle only lays it down that the mind makes continual use of the notion of sameness1 and if deprived of it1 would have a different structure from what it has4 ,in a word1 the principle that the mind can mean the ,same is true of its meanings1 but not necessarily of aught besides4#chf ,the mind must conceive as possible that the ,same should be before it1 for our experience to be the sort of thing it is4 ,without the psychological sense of identity1 sameness might rain down upon us from the outer world for ever and we be none the wiser4 ,with the psychological sense1 on the other hand1 the outer world might be an unbroken flux1 and yet we should perceive a repeated experience4 ,even now1 the world may be a place in which the same thing never did and never will come twice4 ,the thing we mean to point at may change from top to bottom and we be ignorant of the fact4 ,but in our meaning itself we are not deceived2 our intention is to think of the same4 ,the name which ,i have given to the principle1 in calling it the law of constancy in our meanings1 accentuates its subjective character1 and justifies us in laying it down as the most important of all the features of our mental structure4 ,not all psychic life need be assumed to have the sense of sameness developed in this way4 ,in the consciousness of worms and polyps1 though the same realities may frequently impress it1 the feeling of sameness may seldom emerge4 ,we1 however1 running back and forth1 like spiders on the web they weave1 feel ourselves to be working over identical materials and thinking them in different ways4 ,and the man who identifies the materials most is held to have the most philosophic human mind4 ,,conception ,,defined4 ,the function by which we thus identify a numerically distinct and permanent subject of discourse is called ,,conception2 and the thoughts which are its vehicles are called concepts4 ,but the word 'concept' is often used as if it stood for the object of discourse itself2 and this looseness feeds such evasiveness in discussion that ,i shall avoid the use of the expression concept altogether1 and speak of 'conceiving state of mind1' or something similar1 instead4 ,the word 'conception' is unambiguous4 ,it properly denotes neither the mental state nor what the mental state signifies1 but the relation between the two1 namely1 the function of the mental state in signifying just that particular thing4 ,it is plain that one and the same mental state can be the vehicle of many conceptions1 can mean a particular thing1 and a great deal more besides4 ,if it has such a multiple conceptual function1 it may be called an act of compound conception4 ,we may conceive realities supposed to be extra-mental1 as steam-engine2 fictions1 as mermaid2 or mere entia rationis1 like difference or nonentity4 ,but whatever we do conceive1 our conception is of that and nothing else--nothing else1 that is1 instead of that1 though it may be of much else in addition to that4 ,each act of conception results from our attention singling out some one part of the mass of matter for thought which the world presents1 and holding fast to it1 without confusion4#chg ,confusion occurs when we do not know whether a certain object proposed to us is the same with one of our meanings or not2 so that the conceptual function requires1 to be complete1 that the thought should not only say ',i mean this1' but also say ',i don't mean that4'#chh ,each conception thus eternally remains what it is1 and never can become another4 ,the mind may change its states1 and its meanings1 at different times2 may drop one conception and take up another1 but the dropped conception can in no intelligible sense be said to change into its successor4 ,the paper1 a moment ago white1 ,i may now see to have been scorched black4 ,but my conception 'white' does not change into my conception 'black4' ,on the contrary1 it stays alongside of the objective blackness1 as a different meaning in my mind1 and by so doing lets me judge the blackness as the paper's change4 ,unless it stayed1 ,i should simply say 'blackness' and know no more4 ,thus1 amid the flux of opinions and of physical things1 the world of conceptions1 or things intended to be thought about1 stands stiff and immutable1 like ,plato's ,realm of ,ideas4#chi ,some conceptions are of things1 some of events1 some of qualities4 ,any fact1 be it thing1 event1 or quality1 may be conceived sufficiently for purposes of identification1 if only it be singled out and marked so as to separate it from other things4 ,simply calling it 'this' or 'that' will suffice4 ,to speak in technical language1 a subject may be conceived by its denotation1 with no connotation1 or a very minimum of connotation1 attached4 ,the essential point is that it should be re-identified by us as that which the talk is about2 and no full representation of it is necessary for this1 even when it is a fully representable thing4 ,in this sense1 creatures extremely low in the intellectual scale may have conception4 ,all that is required is that they should recognize the same experience again4 ,a polyp would be a conceptual thinker if a feeling of ',hollo6 thingumbob again6' ever flitted through its mind4 ,most of the objects of our thought1 however1 are to some degree represented as well as merely pointed out4 ,either they are things and events perceived or imagined1 or they are qualities apprehended in a positive way4 ,even where we have no intuitive acquaintance with the nature of a thing1 if we know any of the relations of it at all1 anything about it1 that is enough to individualize and distinguish it from all the other things which we might mean4 ,many of our topics of discourse are thus problematical1 or defined by their relations only4 ,we think of a thing about which certain facts must obtain1 but we do not yet know how the thing will look when it is realized4 ,thus we conceive of a perpetual-motion machine4 ,it is a qusitum of a perfectly definite kind1--we can always tell whether the actual machines offered us do or do not agree with what we mean by it4 ,the natural possibility or impossibility of the thing does not touch the question of its conceivability in this problematic way4 ',round square1' 'black-white-thing1' are absolutely definite conceptions2 it is a mere accident1 as far as conception goes1 that they happen to stand for things which nature never lets us sensibly perceive4#cij ,,conceptions ,,are ,,unchangeable4 ,the fact that the same real topic of discourse is at one time conceived as a mere 'that' or 'that which1 etc41' and is at another time conceived with additional specifications1 has been treated by many authors as a proof that conceptions themselves are fertile and self-developing4 ,a conception1 according to the ,hegelizers in philosophy1 'develops its own significance1' 'makes explicit what it implicitly contained1' passes1 on occasion1 'over into its opposite1' and in short loses altogether the blankly self-identical character we supposed it to maintain4 ,the figure we viewed as a polygon appears to us now as a sum of juxtaposed triangles2 the number hitherto conceived as thirteen is at last noticed to be six plus seven1 or prime2 the man thought honest is believed a rogue4 ,such changes of our opinion are viewed by these thinkers as evolutions of our conception1 from within4 ,the facts are unquestionable2 our knowledge does grow and change by rational and inward processes1 as well as by empirical discoveries4 ,where the discoveries are empirical1 no one pretends that the propulsive agency1 the force that makes the knowledge develop1 is mere conception4 ,all admit it to be our continued exposure to the thing1 with its power to impress our senses4 ,thus strychnin1 which tastes bitter1 we find will also kill1 etc4 ,now ,i say that where the new knowledge merely comes from thinking1 the facts are essentially the same1 and that to talk of self-development on the part of our conceptions is a very bad way of stating the case4 ,not new sensations1 as in the empirical instance1 but new conceptions1 are the indispensable conditions of advance4 ,for if the alleged cases of self-development be examined it will be found1 ,i believe1 that the new truth affirms in every case a relation between the original subject of conception and some new subject conceived later on4 ,these new subjects of conception arise in various ways4 ,every one of our conceptions is of something which our attention originally tore out of the continuum of felt experience1 and provisionally isolated so as to make of it an individual topic of discourse4 ,every one of them has a way1 if the mind is left alone with it1 of suggesting other parts of the continuum from which it was torn1 for conception to work upon in a similar way4 ,this 'suggestion' is often no more than what we shall later know as the association of ideas4 ,often1 however1 it is a sort of invitation to the mind to play1 add lines1 break number-groups1 etc4 ,whatever it is1 it brings new conceptions into consciousness1 which latter thereupon may or may not expressly attend to the relation in which the new stands to the old4 ,thus ,i have a conception of equidistant lines4 ,suddenly1 ,i know not whence1 there pops into my head the conception of their meeting4 ,suddenly again ,i think of the meeting and the equidistance both together1 and perceive them incompatible4 ,those lines will never meet1 ,i say4 ,suddenly again the word 'parallel' pops into my head4 ',they are parallels1' ,i continue2 and so on4 ,original conceptions to start with2 adventitious conceptions pushed forward by multifarious psychologic causes2 comparisons and combinations of the two2 resultant conceptions to end with2 which latter may be of either rational or empirical relations4 ,as regards these relations1 they are conceptions of the second degree1 as one might say1 and their birthplace is the mind itself4 ,in ,chapter ,,xxviii ,i shall at considerable length defend the mind's claim to originality and fertility in bringing them forth4 ,but no single one of the mind's conceptions is fertile of itself as the opinion which ,i criticise pretends4 ,when the several notes of a chord are sounded together1 we get a new feeling from their combination4 ,this feeling is due to the mind reacting upon that group of sounds in that determinate way1 and no one would think of saying of any single note of the chord that it 'developed' of itself into the other notes or into the feeling of harmony4 ,so of ,conceptions4 ,no one of them develops into any other4 ,but if two of them are thought at once1 their relation may come to consciousness1 and form matter for a third conception4 ,take 'thirteen' for example1 which is said to develop into 'prime4' ,what really happens is that we compare the utterly changeless conception of thirteen with various other conceptions1 those of the different multiples of two1 three1 four1 five1 and six1 and ascertain that it differs from them all4 ,such difference is a freshly ascertained relation4 ,it is only for mere brevity's sake that we call it a property of the original thirteen1 the property of being prime4 ,we shall see in the next chapter that 7if we count out sthetic and moral relations between things7 the only important relations of which the mere inspection of conceptions makes us aware are relations of comparison1 that is1 of difference and no-difference1 between them4 ,the judgment #f #g #ac expresses the relation of equality between two ideal objects1 #ac on the one hand and #f #g on the other1 successively conceived and compared4 ,the judgments #f #g #ab1 or #f #g #ad1 express in like manner relations of inequality between ideal objects4 ,but if it be unfair to say that the conception of #f #g generates that of #ab or of #ad1 surely it is as unfair to say that it generates that of #ac4 ,the conceptions of #ab1 #ac1 and #ad are each and all generated by individual acts of the mind1 playing with its materials4 ,when1 comparing two ideal objects1 we find them equal1 the conception of one of them may be that of a whole and of the other that of all its parts4 ,this particular case is1 it seems to me1 the only case which makes the notion of one conception evolving into another sound plausible4 ,but even in this case the conception1 as such1 of the whole does not evolve into the conception1 as such1 of the parts4 ,let the conception of some object as a whole be given first4 ,to begin with1 it points to and identifies for future thought a certain that4 ,the 'whole' in question might be one of those mechanical puzzles of which the difficulty is to unlock the parts4 ,in this case1 nobody would pretend that the richer and more elaborate conception which we gain of the puzzle after solving it came directly out of our first crude conception of it1 for it is notoriously the outcome of experimenting with our hands4 ,it is true that1 as they both mean that same puzzle1 our earlier thought and our later thought have one conceptual function1 are vehicles of one conception4 ,but in addition to being the vehicle of this bald unchanging conception1 'that same puzzle1' the later thought is the vehicle of all those other conceptions which it took the manual experimentation to acquire4 ,now1 it is just the same where the whole is mathematical instead of being mechanical4 ,let it be a polygonal space1 which we cut into triangles1 and of which we then affirm that it is those triangles4 ,here the experimentation 7although usually done by a pencil in the hands7 may be done by the unaided imagination4 ,we hold the space1 first conceived as polygonal simply1 in our mind's eye until our attention wandering to and fro within it has carved it into the triangles4 ,the triangles are a new conception1 the result of this new operation4 ,having once conceived them1 however1 and compared them with the old polygon which we originally conceived and which we have never ceased conceiving1 we judge them to fit exactly into its area4 ,the earlier and later conceptions1 we say1 are of one and the same space4 ,but this relation between triangles and polygon which the mind cannot help finding if it compares them at all1 is very badly expressed by saying that the old conception has developed into the new4 ,new conceptions come from new sensations1 new movements1 new emotions1 new associations1 new acts of attention1 and new comparisons of old conceptions1 and not in other ways4 ,endogenous prolification is not a mode of growth to which conceptions can lay claim4 ,i hope1 therefore1 that ,i shall not be accused of huddling mysteries out of sight1 when ,i insist that the psychology of conception is not the place in which to treat of those of continuity and change4 ,conceptions form the one class of entities that cannot under any circumstances change4 ,they can cease to be1 altogether2 or they can stay1 as what they severally are2 but there is for them no middle way4 ,they form an essentially discontinuous system1 and translate the process of our perceptual experience1 which is naturally a flux1 into a set of stagnant and petrified terms4 ,the very conception of flux itself is an absolutely changeless meaning in the mind3 it signifies just that one thing1 flux1 immovably4--,and1 with this1 the doctrine of the flux of the concept may be dismissed1 and need not occupy our attention again4#cia ',,abstract' ,,ideas4 ,we have now to pass to a less excusable mistake4 ,there are philosophers who deny that associated things can be broken asunder at all1 even provisionally1 by the conceiving mind4 ,the opinion known as ,nominalism says that we really never frame any conception of the partial elements of an experience1 but are compelled1 whenever we think it1 to think it in its totality1 just as it came4 ,i will be silent of medival ,nominalism1 and begin with ,berkeley1 who is supposed to have rediscovered the doctrine for himself4 ,his asseverations against 'abstract ideas' are among the oftenest quoted passages in philosophic literature4 ,it is agreed1 he says1 on all hands that the qualities or modes of things do never really exist each of them apart by itself1 and separated from all others1 but are mixed1 as it were1 and blended together1 several in the same object4 ,but1 we are told1 the mind being able to consider each quality singly1 or abstracted from those other qualities with which it is united1 does by that means frame to itself abstract ideas4444 ,after this manner1 it is said1 we come by the abstract idea of man1 or1 if you please1 humanity1 or human nature2 wherein it is true there is included color1 because there is no man but has some color1 but then it can be neither white1 nor black1 nor any particular color1 because there is no one particular color wherein all men partake4 ,so likewise there is included stature1 but then it is neither tall stature nor low stature1 nor yet middle stature1 but something abstracted from all these4 ,and so of the rest4444 ,whether others have this wonderful faculty of abstracting their ideas1 they best can tell3 for myself1 ,i find indeed ,i have a faculty of imagining or representing to myself the ideas of those particular things ,i have perceived and of variously compounding and dividing them4444 ,i can consider the hand1 the eye1 the nose1 each by itself abstracted or separated from the rest of the body4 ,but then1 whatever hand or eye ,i imagine1 it must have some particular shape and color4 ,likewise the idea of man that ,i frame to myself must be either of a white1 or a black1 or a tawny1 a straight1 or a crooked1 a tall1 or a low1 or a middle-sized man4 ,i cannot by any effort of thought conceive the abstract idea above described4 ,and it is equally impossible for me to form the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving1 and which is neither swift nor slow1 curvilinear nor rectilinear2 and the like may be said of all other abstract general ideas whatsoever4444 ,and there is ground to think most men will acknowledge themselves to be in my case4 ,the generality of men which are simple and illiterate never pretend to abstract notions4 ,it is said they are difficult1 and not to be attained without pains and study4 ,now ,i would fain know at what time it is men are employed in surmounting that difficulty1 and furnishing themselves with those necessary helps for discourse4 ,it cannot be when they are grown up1 for then it seems they are not conscious of any such painstaking2 it remains therefore to be the business of their childhood4 ,and surely the great and multiplied labor of framing abstract notions will be found a hard task for that tender age4 ,is it not a hard thing to imagine that a couple of children cannot prate together of their sugar-plums and rattles and the rest of their little trinkets1 till they have first tacked together numberless inconsistencies1 and so framed in their minds abstract general ideas1 and annexed them to every common name they make use of8#cib ,the note1 so bravely struck by ,berkeley1 could not1 however1 be well sustained in face of the fact patent to every human being that we can mean color without meaning any particular color1 and stature without meaning any particular height4 ,james ,mill1 to be sure1 chimes in heroically in the chapter on ,classification of his ',analysis'2 but in his son ,john the nominalistic voice has grown so weak that1 although 'abstract ideas' are repudiated as a matter of traditional form1 the opinions uttered are really nothing but a conceptualism ashamed to call itself by its own legitimate name4#cic ,conceptualism says the mind can conceive any quality or relation it pleases1 and mean nothing but it1 in isolation from everything else in the world4 ,this is1 of course1 the doctrine which we have professed4 ,john ,mill says3 ,the formation of a ,concept does not consist in separating the attributes which are said to compose it from all other attributes of the same object1 and enabling us to conceive those attributes1 disjoined from any others4 ,we neither conceive them1 nor think them1 nor cognize them in any way1 as a thing apart1 but solely as forming1 in combination with numerous other attributes1 the idea of an individual object4 ,but1 though meaning them only as part of a larger agglomeration1 we have the power of fixing our attention on them1 to the neglect of the other attributes with which we think them combined4 ,while the concentration of attention lasts1 if it is sufficiently intense1 we may be temporarily unconscious of any of the other attributes1 and may really1 for a brief interval1 have nothing-present to our mind but the attributes constituent of the concept4444 ,general concepts1 therefore1 we have1 properly speaking1 none2 we have only complex ideas of objects in the concrete3 but we are able to attend exclusively to certain parts of the concrete idea3 and by that exclusive attention we enable those parts to determine exclusively the course of our thoughts as subsequently called up by association2 and are in a condition to carry on a train of meditation or reasoning relating to those parts only1 exactly as if we were able to conceive them separately from the rest4#cid ,this is a lovely example of ,mill's way of holding piously to his general statements1 but conceding in detail all that their adversaries ask4 ,if there be a better description extant1 of a mind in possession of an 'abstract idea1' than is contained in the words ,i have italicized1 ,i am unacquainted with it4 ,the ,berkeleyan nominalism thus breaks down4 99 99 99 99 99 ,it is easy to lay bare the false assumption which underlies the whole discussion of the question as hitherto carried on4 ,that assumption is that ideas1 in order to know1 must be cast in the exact likeness of whatever things they know1 and that the only things that can be known are those which ideas can resemble4 ,the error has not been confined to nominalists4 ,omnis cognitio fit per assimilationem cognoscentis et cogniti has been the maxim1 more or less explicitly assumed1 of writers of every school4 ,practically it amounts to saying that an idea must be a duplicate edition of what it knows#cie--;in other words1 that it can only know itself--or1 more shortly still1 that knowledge in any strict sense of the word1 as a self-transcendent function1 is impossible4 ,now our own blunt statements about the ultimateness of the cognitive relation1 and the difference between the 'object' of the thought and its mere 'topic' or 'subject of discourse' 7cf4 pp4 #bge ff471 are all at variance with any such theory2 and we shall find more and more occasion1 as we advance in this book1 to deny its general truth4 ,all that a state of mind need do1 in order to take cognizance of a reality1 intend it1 or be 'about' it1 is to lead to a remoter state of mind which either acts upon the reality or resembles it4 ,the only class of thoughts which can with any show of plausibility be said to resemble their objects are sensations4 ,the stuff of which all our other thoughts are composed is symbolic1 and a thought attests its pertinency to a topic by simply terminating1 sooner or later1 in a sensation which resembles the latter4 ,but ,mill and the rest believe that a thought must be what it means1 and mean what it is1 and that if it be a picture of an entire individual1 it cannot mean any part of him to the exclusion of the rest4 ,i say nothing here of the preposterously false descriptive psychology involved in the statement that the only things we can mentally picture are individuals completely determinate in all regards4 ,chapter ,,xviii will have something to say on that point1 and we can ignore it here4 ,for even if it were true that our images were always of concrete individuals1 it would not in the least follow that our meanings were of the same4 ,the sense of our meaning is an entirely peculiar element of the thought4 ,it is one of those evanescent and 'transitive' facts of mind which introspection cannot turn round upon1 and isolate and hold up for examination1 as an entomologist passes round an insect on a pin4 ,in the 7somewhat clumsy7 terminology ,i have used1 it pertains to the 'fringe' of the subjective state1 and is a 'feeling of tendency1' whose neural counterpart is undoubtedly a lot of dawning and dying processes too faint and complex to be traced4 ,the geometer1 with his one definite figure before him1 knows perfectly that his thoughts apply to countless other figures as well1 and that although he sees lines of a certain special bigness1 direction1 color1 etc41 he means not one of these details4 ,when ,i use the word man in two different sentences1 ,i may have both times exactly the same sound upon my lips and the same picture in my mental eye1 but ,i may mean1 and at the very moment of uttering the word and imagining the picture1 know that ,i mean1 two entirely different things4 ,thus when ,i say3 ,what a wonderful man ,jones is6 ,i am perfectly aware that ,i mean by man to exclude ,napoleon ,bonaparte or ,smith4 ,but when ,i say3 ,what a wonderful thing ,man is6 ,i am equally well aware that ,i mean to include not only ,jones1 but ,napoleon and ,smith as well4 ,this added consciousness is an absolutely positive sort of feeling1 transforming what would otherwise be mere noise or vision into something understood2 and determining the sequel of my thinking1 the later words and images1 in a perfectly definite way4 ,we saw in ,chapter ,,ix that the image per se1 the nucleus1 is functionally the least important part of the thought4 ,our doctrine1 therefore1 of the 'fringe' leads to a perfectly satisfactory decision of the nominalistic and conceptualistic controversy1 so far as it touches psychology4 ,we must decide in favor of the conceptualists1 and affirm that the power to think things1 qualities1 relations1 or whatever other elements there may be1 isolated and abstracted from the total experience in which they appear1 is the most indisputable function of our thought4 ,,universals4 ,after abstractions1 universals6 ,the 'fringe1' which lets us believe in the one1 lets us believe in the other too4 ,an individual conception is of something restricted1 in its application1 to a single case4 ,a universal or general conception is of an entire class1 or of something belonging to an entire class1 of things4 ,the conception of an abstract quality is1 taken by itself1 neither universal nor particular4#cif ,if ,i abstract white from the rest of the wintry landscape this morning1 it is a perfectly definite conception1 a self-identical quality which ,i may mean again2 but1 as ,i have not yet individualized it by expressly meaning to restrict it to this particular snow1 nor thought at all of the possibility of other things to which it may be applicable1 it is so far nothing but a 'that1' a 'floating adjective1' as ,mr4 ,bradley calls it1 or a topic broken out from the rest of the world4 ,properly it is1 in this state1 a singular--,i have 'singled it out2' and when1 later1 ,i universalize or individualize its application1 and my thought turns to mean either this white or all possible whites1 ,i am in reality meaning two new things and forming two new conceptions4#cig ,such an alteration of my meaning has nothing to do with any change in the image ,i may have in my mental eye1 but solely with the vague consciousness that surrounds the image1 of the sphere to which it is intended to apply4 ,we can give no more definite account of this vague consciousness than has been given on pp4 #bdi-bff4 ,but that is no reason for denying its presence4#cih ,but the nominalists and traditional conceptualists find matter for an inveterate quarrel in these simple facts4 ,full of their notion that an idea1 feeling1 or state of consciousness can at bottom only be aware of its own quality2 and agreeing1 as they both do1 that such an idea or state of consciousness is a perfectly determinate1 singular1 and transitory thing2 they find it impossible to conceive how it should become the vehicle of a knowledge of anything permanent or universal4 ,to know a universal1 it must be universal2 for like can only be known by like1 etc4 ,unable to reconcile these incompatibles1 the knower and the known1 each side immolates one of them to save the other4 ,the nominalists 'settle the hash' of the thing known by denying it to be ever a genuine universal2 the conceptualists despatch the knower by denying it to be a state of mind1 in the sense of being a perishing segment of thoughts' stream1 consubstantial with other facts of sensibility4 ,they invent1 instead of it1 as the vehicle of the knowledge of universals1 an actus purus intellectus1 or an ,ego1 whose function is treated as quasi-miraculous and nothing if not awe-inspiring1 and which it is a sort of blasphemy to approach with the intent to explain and make common1 or reduce to lower terms4 ,invoked in the first instance as a vehicle for the knowledge of universals1 the higher principle presently is made the indispensable vehicle of all thinking whatever1 for1 it is contended1 a universal element is present in every thought4 ,the nominalists meanwhile1 who dislike actus purus and awe-inspiring principles and despise the reverential mood1 content themselves with saying that we are mistaken in supposing we ever get sight of the face of an universal2 and that what deludes us is nothing but the swarm of 'individual ideas' which may at any time be awakened by the hearing of a name4 ,if we open the pages of either school1 we find it impossible to tell1 in all the whirl about universal and particular1 when the author is talking about universals in the mind1 and when about objective universals1 so strangely are the two mixed together4 ,james ,ferrier1 for example1 is the most brilliant of anti-nominalist writers4 ,but who is nimble-witted enough to count1 in the following sentences from him1 the number of times he steps from the known to the knower1 and attributes to both whatever properties he finds in either one8 ,to think is to pass from the singular or particular to the idea concept or universal4444 ,ideas are necessary because no thinking can take place without them4 ,they are universal1 inasmuch as they are completely divested of the particularity which characterizes all the phenomena of mere sensation4 ,to grasp the nature of this universality is not easy4 ,perhaps the best means by which this end may be compassed is by contrasting it with the particular4 ,it is not difficult to understand that a sensation1 a phenomenon of sense1 is never more than the particular which it is4 ,as such1 that is1 in its strict particularity1 it is absolutely unthinkable4 ,in the very act of being thought1 something more than it emerges1 and this something more cannot be again the particular4444 ,ten particulars per se cannot be thought of any more than one particular can be thought of2444 there always emerges in thought an additional something1 which is the possibility of other particulars to an indefinite extent4444 ,the indefinite additional something which they are instances of is a universal4444 ,the idea or universal cannot possibly be pictured in the imagination1 for this would at once reduce it to the particular4444 ,this inability to form any sort of picture or representation of an idea does not proceed from any imperfection or limitation of our faculties1 but is a quality inherent in the very nature of intelligence4 ,a contradiction is involved in the supposition that an idea or a universal can become the object either of sense or of the imagination4 ,an idea is thus diametrically opposed to an image4#cii ,the nominalists1 on their side1 admit a quasi-universal1 something which we think as if it were universal1 though it is not2 and in all that they say about this something1 which they explain to be 'an indefinite number of particular ideas1' the same vacillation between the subjective and the objective points of view appears4 ,the reader never can tell whether an 'idea' spoken of is supposed to be a knower or a known4 ,the authors themselves do not distinguish4 ,they want to get something in the mind which shall resemble what is out of the mind1 however vaguely1 and they think that when that fact is accomplished1 no farther questions will be asked4 ,james ,mill writes3#djj ,the word1 man1 we shall say1 is first applied to an individual2 it is first associated with the idea of that individual1 and acquires the power of calling up the idea of him2 it is next applied to another individual and acquires the power of calling up the idea of him2 so of another and another1 till it has become associated with an indefinite number1 and has acquired the power of calling up an indefinite number of those ideas indifferently4 ,what happens8 ,it does call up an indefinite number of the ideas of individuals as often as it occurs2 and calling them in close connection1 it forms a species of complex idea of them4444 ,it is also a fact1 that when an idea becomes to a certain extent complex1 from the multiplicity of the ideas it comprehends1 it is of necessity indistinct2444 and this indistinctness has1 doubtless1 been a main cause of the mystery which has appeared to belong to it4444 ,it thus appears that the word man is not a word having a very simple idea1 as was the opinion of the realists2 nor a word having no idea at all1 as was that of the earlier nominalists2 but a word calling up an indefinite number of ideas1 by the irresistible laws of association1 and forming them into one very complex and indistinct1 but not therefore unintelligible1 idea4 ,berkeley had already said3#dja ,a word becomes general by being made the sign1 not of an abstract general idea1 but of many several particular ideas1 any one of which it indifferently suggests to the mind4 ,an idea which1 considered in itself1 is particular1 becomes general by being made to represent or stand for all other particular ideas of the same sort4 ',stand for1' not know2 'becomes general1' not becomes aware of something general2 'particular ideas1' not particular things--everywhere the same timidity about begging the fact of knowing1 and the pitifully impotent attempt to foist it in the shape of a mode of being of 'ideas4' ,if the fact to be conceived be the indefinitely numerous actual and possible members of a class1 then it is assumed that if we can only get enough ideas to huddle together for a moment in the mind1 the being of each several one of them there will be an equivalent for the knowing1 or meaning1 of one member of the class in question2 and their number will be so large as to confuse our tally and leave it doubtful whether all the possible members of the class have thus been satisfactorily told off or not4 ,of course this is nonsense4 ,an idea neither is what it knows1 nor knows what it is2 nor will swarms of copies of the same 'idea1' recurring in stereotyped form1 or 'by the irresistible laws of association formed into one idea1' ever be the same thing as a thought of 'all the possible members' of a class4 ,we must mean that by an altogether special bit of consciousness ad hoc4 ,but it is easy to translate ,berkeley's1 ,hume's1 and ,mill's notion of a swarm of ideas into cerebral terms1 and so to make them stand for something real2 and1 in this sense1 ,i think the doctrine of these authors less hollow than the opposite one which makes the vehicle of universal conceptions to be an actus purus of the soul4 ,if each 'idea' stand for some special nascent nerve-process1 then the aggregate of these nascent processes might have for its conscious correlate a psychic 'fringe1' which should be just that universal meaning1 or intention that the name or mental picture employed should mean all the possible individuals of the class4 ,every peculiar complication of brain-processes must have some peculiar correlate in the soul4 ,to one set of processes will correspond the thought of an indefinite taking of the extent of a word like man2 to another set that of a particular taking2 and to a third set that of a universal taking1 of the extent of the same word4 ,the thought corresponding to either set of processes1 is always itself a unique and singular event1 whose dependence on its peculiar nerve-process ,i of course am far from professing to explain4#djb ,truly in comparison with the fact that every conception1 whatever it be of1 is one of the mind's immutable possessions1 the question whether a single thing1 or a whole class of things1 or only an unassigned quality1 be meant by it1 is an insignificant matter of detail4 ,our meanings are of singulars1 particulars1 indefinites1 and universals1 mixed together in every way4 ,a singular individual is as much conceived when he is isolated and identified away from the rest of the world in my mind1 as is the most rarefied and universally applicable quality he may possess--being1 for example1 when treated in the same way4#djc ,from every point of view1 the overwhelming and portentous character ascribed to universal conceptions is surprising4 ,why1 from ,plato and ,aristotle downwards1 philosophers should have vied with each other in scorn of the knowledge of the particular1 and in adoration of that of the general1 is hard to understand1 seeing that the more adorable knowledge ought to be that of the more adorable things1 and that the things of worth are all concretes and singulars4 ,the only value of universal characters is that they help us1 by reasoning1 to know new truths about individual things4 ,the restriction of one's meaning1 moreover1 to an individual thing1 probably requires even more complicated brain-processes than its extension to all the instances of a kind2 and the mere mystery1 as such1 of the knowledge1 is equally great1 whether generals or singulars be the things known4 ,in sum1 therefore1 the traditional universal-worship can only be called a bit of perverse sentimentalism1 a philosophic 'idol of the cave4' 99 99 99 99 99 ,it may seem hardly necessary to add 7what follows as a matter of course from pp4 #bbi-bcg1 and what has been implied in our assertions all along7 that nothing can be conceived twice over without being conceived in entirely different states of mind4 ,thus1 my arm-chair is one of the things of which ,i have a conception2 ,i knew it yesterday and recognized it when ,i looked at it4 ,but if ,i think of it to-day as the same arm-chair which ,i looked at yesterday1 it is obvious that the very conception of it as the same is an additional complication to the thought1 whose inward constitution must alter in consequence4 ,in short1 it is logically impossible that the same thing should be known as the same by two successive copies of the same thought4 ,as a matter of fact1 the thoughts by which we know that we mean the same thing are apt to be very different indeed from each other4 ,we think the thing now in one context1 now in another2 now in a definite image1 now in a symbol4 ,sometimes our sense of its identity pertains to the mere fringe1 sometimes it involves the nucleus1 of our thought4 ,we never can break the thought asunder and tell just which one of its bits is the part that lets us know which subject is referred to2 but nevertheless we always do know which of all possible subjects we have in mind4 ,introspective psychology must here throw up the sponge2 the fluctuations of subjective life are too exquisite to be arrested by its coarse means4 ,it must confine itself to bearing witness to the fact that all sorts of different subjective states do form the vehicle by which the same is known2 and it must contradict the opposite view4 ,the ordinary ,psychology of 'ideas' constantly talks as if the vehicle of the same thing-known must be the same recurrent state of mind1 and as if the having over again of the same 'idea' were not only a necessary but a sufficient condition for meaning the same thing twice4 ,but this recurrence of the same idea would utterly defeat the existence of a repeated knowledge of anything4 ,it would be a simple reversion into a pre-existent state1 with nothing gained in the interval1 and with complete unconsciousness of the state having existed before4 ,such is not the way in which we think4 ,as a rule we are fully aware that we have thought before of the thing we think of now4 ,the continuity and permanency of the topic is of the essence of our intellection4 ,we recognize the old problem1 and the old solutions2 and we go on to alter and improve and substitute one predicate for another without ever letting the subject change4 ,this is what is meant when it is said that thinking consists in making judgments4 ,a succession of judgments may all be about the same thing4 ,the general practical postulate which encourages us to keep thinking at all is that by going on to do so we shall judge better of the same things than if we do not4#djd ,in the successive judgments1 all sorts of new operations are performed on the things1 and all sorts of new results brought out1 without the sense of the main topic ever getting lost4 ,at the outset1 we merely have the topic2 then we operate on it2 and finally we have it again in a richer and truer way4 ,a compound conception has been substituted for the simple one1 but with full consciousness that both are of the ,same4 ,the distinction between having and operating is as natural in the mental as in the material world4 ,as our hands may hold a bit of wood and a knife1 and yet do naught with either2 so our mind may simply be aware of a thing's existence1 and yet neither attend to it nor discriminate it1 neither locate nor count nor compare nor like nor dislike nor deduce it1 nor recognize it articulately as having been met with before4 ,at the same time we know that1 instead of staring at it in this entranced and senseless way1 we may rally our activity in a moment1 and locate1 class1 compare1 count1 and judge it4 ,there is nothing involved in all this which we did not postulate at the very outset of our introspective work3 realities1 namely1 extra mentem1 thoughts1 and possible relations of cognition between the two4 ,the result of the thoughts' operating on the data given to sense is to transform the order in which experience comes into an entirely different order1 that of the conceived world4 ,there is no spot of light1 for example1 which ,i pick out and proceed to define as a pebble1 which is not thereby torn from its mere time- and space-neighbors1 and thought in conjunction with things physically parted from it by the width of nature4 ,compare the form in which facts appear in a text-book of physics1 as logically subordinated laws1 with that in which we naturally make their acquaintance4 ,the conceptual scheme is a sort of sieve in which we try to gather up the world's contents4 ,most facts and relations fall through its meshes1 being either too subtle or insignificant to be fixed in any conception4 ,but whenever a physical reality is caught and identified as the same with something already conceived1 it remains on the sieve1 and all the predicates and relations of the conception with which it is identified become its predicates and relations too2 it is subjected to the sieve's network1 in other words4 ,thus comes to pass what ,mr4 ,hodgson calls the translation of the perceptual into the conceptual order of the world4#dje ,in ,chapter ,,xxii we shall see how this translation always takes place for the sake of some subjective interest1 and how the conception with which we handle a bit of sensible experience is really nothing but a teleological instrument4 ,this whole function of conceiving1 of fixing1 and holding fast to meanings1 has no significance apart from the fact that the conceiver is a creature with partial purposes and private ends4 ,there remains1 therefore1 much more to be said about conception1 but for the present this will suffice4 ,,footnotes3 #chf ,there are two other 'principles of identity' in philosophy4 ,the ontological one asserts that every real thing is what it is1 that a is a1 and b1 b4 ,the logical one says that what is once true of the subject of a judgment is always true of that subject4 ,the ontological law is a tautological truism2 the logical principle is already more1 for it implies subjects unalterable by time4 ,the psychological law also implies facts which might not be realized3 there might be no succession of thoughts2 or if there were1 the later ones might not think of the earlier2 or if they did1 they might not recall the content thereof2 or1 recalling the content1 they might not take it as 'the same' with anything else4 #chg ,in later chapters we shall see that determinate relations exist between the various data thus fixed upon by the mind4 ,these are called a priori or axiomatic relations4 ,simple inspection of the data enables us to perceive them2 and one inspection is as effective as a million for engendering in us the conviction that between those data that relation must always hold4 ,to change the relation we should have to make the data different4 ',the guarantee for the uniformity and adequacy' of the data can only be the mind's own power to fix upon any objective content1 and to mean that content as often as it likes4 ,this right of the mind to 'construct' permanent ideal objects for itself out of the data of experience seems1 singularly enough1 to be a stumbling-block to many4 ,professor ,robertson in his clear and instructive article ',axioms' in the ,encyclopdia ,britannica 7#ith edition7 suggests that it may only be where movements enter into the constitution of the ideal object 7as they do in geometrical figures7 that we can make the ultimate relations to be what for us they must be in all circumstances4 ,he makes1 it is true1 a concession in favor of conceptions of number abstracted from subjective occurrences succeeding each other in time because these also are acts of construction1 dependent on the power we have of voluntarily determining the flow of subjective consciousness4 ,the content of passive sensation1 on the other hand1 may indefinitely vary beyond any control of ours4 ,what if it do vary1 so long as we can continue to think of and mean the qualities it varied from8 ,we can 'make' ideal objects for ourselves out of irrecoverable bits of passive experience quite as perfectly as out of easily repeatable active experiences4 ,and when we have got our objects together and compared them1 we do not make1 but find1 their relations4 #chh ,cf4 ,hodgson1 ,time and ,space1 #df4 ,lotze1 ,logic1 #aa4 #chi ,for though a man in a fever should from sugar have a bitter taste which at another time would produce a sweet one1 yet the idea of bitter in that man's mind would be as distinct as if he had tasted only gall4 7,locke's ,essay bk4 ii1 chap4 xi1 #c4 ,read the whole section67 #cij ,black round things1 square white things1 per contra1 ,nature gives us freely enough4 ,but the combinations which she refuses to realize may exist as distinctly1 in the shape of postulates1 as those which she gives may exist in the shape of positive images1 in our mind4 ,as a matter of fact1 she may realize a warm cold thing whenever two points of the skin1 so near together as not to be locally distinguished1 are touched1 the one with a warm1 the other with a cold1 piece of metal4 ,the warmth and the cold are then often felt as if in the same objective place4 ,under similar conditions two objects1 one sharp and the other blunt1 may feel like one sharp blunt thing4 ,the same space may appear of two colors if1 by optical artifice1 one of the colors is made to appear as if seen through the other4--,whether any two attributes whatever shall be compatible or not1 in the sense of appearing or not to occupy the same place and moment1 depends simply on de facto peculiarities of natural bodies and of our sense-organs4 ,logically1 anyone combination of qualities is to the full as conceivable as any other1 and has as distinct a meaning for thought4 ,what necessitates this remark is the confusion deliberately kept up by certain authors 7e4g4 ,spencer1 ,psychology1 #dbj-g7 between the inconceivable and the not-distinctly-imaginable4 ,how do we know which things we cannot imagine unless by first conceiving them1 meaning them and not other things8 #cia ,arguments seldom make converts in matters philosophical2 and some readers1 ,i know1 who find that they conceive a certain matter differently from what they did1 will still prefer saying they have two different editions of the same conception1 one evolved from the other1 to saying they have two different conceptions of the same thing4 ,it depends1 after all1 on how we define conception4 ,we ourselves defined it as the function by which a state of mind means to think the same whereof it thought on a former occasion4 ,two states of mind will accordingly be two editions of the same conception just so far as either does mean to think what the other thought2 but no farther4 ,if either mean to think what the other did not think1 it is a different conception from the other4 ,and if either mean to think all that the other thought1 and more1 it is a different conception1 so far as the more goes4 ,in this last case one state of mind has two conceptual functions4 ,each thought decides1 by its own authority1 which1 out of all the conceptive functions open to it1 it shall now renew2 with which other thought it shall identify itself as a conceiver1 and just how far4 ,the same ,a which ,i once meant1 it says1 ,i shall now mean again1 and mean it with ,c as its predicate 7or what not7 instead of ,b1 as before4 ,in all this1 therefore1 there is absolutely no changing1 but only uncoupling and recoupling of conceptions4 ,compound conceptions come1 as functions of new states of mind4 ,some of these functions are the same with previous ones1 some not4 ,any changed opinion1 then1 partly contains new editions 7absolutely identical with the old1 however7 of former conceptions1 partly absolutely new conceptions4 ,the division is a perfectly easy one to make in each particular case4 #cib ,principles of ,human ,knowledge1 ,introduction1 #aj1 #ad4 #cic ',conceptualisme honteux1' ,rabier1 ,psychologie1 #caj4 #cid ,exam4 of ,hamilton1 p4 #cic4 ,cf4 also ,logic1 bk4 ii1 chap4 v1 #a1 and bk iv1 chap ii1 #a4 #cie ,e4g43 ,the knowledge of things must mean that the mind finds itself in them1 or that1 in some way1 the difference between them and the mind is dissolved4 7,e4 ,caird1 ,philosophy of ,kant1 first edition1 p4 #eec47 #cif ,the traditional conceptualist doctrine is that an abstract must eo ipso be a universal4 ,even modern and independent authors like ,prof4 ,dewey 7,psychology1 #bjg7 obey the tradition3 ,the mind seizes upon some one aspect1444 abstracts or prescinds it4 ,this very seizure of some one element generalizes the one abstracted4444 ,attention1 in drawing it forth1 makes it a distinct content of consciousness1 and thus universalizes it2 it is considered no longer in its particular connection with the object1 but on its own account2 that is1 as an idea1 or what it signifies to the mind2 and significance is always universal4 #cig ,c4 ,f4 ,reid's ,intellectual ,powers1 ,essay v1 chap4 iii4--,whiteness is one thing1 the whiteness of this sheet of paper another thing4 #cih ,mr4 ,f4 ,h4 ,bradley says the conception or the 'meaning' consists of a part of the content1 cut off1 fixed by the mind1 and considered apart from the existence of the sign4 ,it would not be correct to add1 and referred away to another real subject2 for where we think without judging1 and where we deny1 that description would not be applicable4 ,this seems to be the same doctrine as ours2 the application to one or to all subjects of the abstract fact conceived 7i4e4 its individuality or its universality71 constituting a new conception4 ,i am1 however1 not quite sure that ,mr4 ,bradley steadily maintains this ground4 ,cf4 the first chapter of his ,principles of ,logic4 ,the doctrine ,i defend is stoutly upheld in ,rosmini's ,philosophical ,system1 ,introduction by ,thomas ,davidson1 p4 #dc 7,london1 #ahhb74 #cii ,lectures on ,greek ,philosophy1 pp4 #cc-ci4 #djj ,analysis1 chap4 viii4 #dja ,principles of ,human ,knowledge1 ,introduction1 #aa1 #ab4 #djb ,it may add to the effect of the text to quote a passage from the essay in ',mind1' referred to on p4 #bbd4 ,why may we not side with the conceptualists in saying that the universal sense of a word does correspond to a mental fact of some kind1 but at the same time1 agreeing with the nominalists that all mental facts are modifications of subjective sensibility1 why may we not call that fact a 'feeling'8 ,man meant for mankind is in short a different feeling from man as a mere noise1 or from man meant for that man1 to wit1 ,john ,smith alone4 ,not that the difference consists simply in the fact that1 when taken universally1 the word has one of ,mr4 ,galton's 'blended' images of man associated with it4 ,many persons have seemed to think that these blended or1 as ,prof4 ,huxley calls them1 'generic' images are equivalent to concepts4 ,but1 in itself1 a blurred thing is just as particular as a sharp thing2 and the generic character of either sharp image or blurred image depends on its being felt with its representative function4 ,this function is the mysterious plus1 the understood meaning4 ,but it is nothing applied to the image from above1 no pure act of reason inhabiting a supersensible and semi-supernatural plane4 ,it can be diagrammatized as continuous with all the other segments of the subjective stream4 ,it is just that staining1 fringe1 or halo of obscurely felt relation to masses of other imagery about to come1 but not yet distinctly in focus1 which we have so abundantly set forth in ,chapter ,,ix4 ,if the image come unfringed1 it reveals but a simple quality1 thing1 or event2 if it come fringed1 it may reveal something expressly taken universally or in a scheme of relations4 ,the difference between thought and feeling thus reduces itself1 in the last subjective analysis1 to the presence or absence of 'fringe4' ,and this in turn reduces itself1 with much probability1 in the last physiological analysis1 to the absence or presence of sub-excitements in other convolutions of the brain than those whose discharges underlie the more definite nucleus1 the substantive ingredient1 of the thought1--in this instance1 the word or image it may happen to arouse4 ,the contrast is not1 then1 as the ,platonists would have it1 between certain subjective facts called images and sensations1 and others called acts of relating intelligence2 the former being blind perishing things1 knowing not even their own existence as such1 whilst the latter combine the poles in the mysterious synthesis of their cognitive sweep4 ,the contrast is really between two aspects1 in which all mental facts without exception may be taken2 their structural aspect1 as being subjective1 and their functional aspect1 as being cognitions4 ,in the former aspect1 the highest as well as the lowest is a feeling1 a peculiarly tinged segment of the stream4 ,this tingeing is its sensitive body1 the wie ihm zu ,muthe ist1 the way it feels whilst passing4 ,in the latter aspect1 the lowest mental fact as well as the highest may grasp some bit of truth as its content1 even though that truth were as relationless a matter as a bare unlocalized and undated quality of pain4 ,from the cognitive point of view1 all mental facts are intellections4 ,from the subjective point of view all are feelings4 ,once admit that the passing and evanescent are as real parts of the stream as the distinct and comparatively abiding2 once allow that fringes and halos1 inarticulate perceptions1 whereof the objects are as yet unnamed1 mere nascencies of cognition1 premonitions1 awarenesses of direction1 are thoughts sui generis1 as much as articulate imaginings and propositions are2 once restore1 ,i say1 the vague to its psychological rights1 and the matter presents no further difficulty4 ,and then we see that the current opposition of ,feeling to ,knowledge is quite a false issue4 ,if every feeling is at the same time a bit of knowledge1 we ought no longer to talk of mental states differing by having more or less of the cognitive quality2 they only differ in knowing more or less1 in having much fact or little fact for their object4 ,the feeling of a broad scheme of relations is a feeling that knows much2 the feeling of a simple quality is a feeling that knows little4 ,but the knowing itself1 whether of much or of little1 has the same essence1 and is as good knowing in the one case as in the other4 ,concept and image1 thus discriminated through their objects1 are consubstantial in their inward nature1 as modes of feeling4 ,the one1 as particular1 will no longer be held to be a relatively base sort of entity1 to be taken as a matter of course1 whilst the other1 as universal1 is celebrated as a sort of standing miracle1 to be adored but not explained4 ,both concept and image1 qu subjective1 are singular and particular4 ,both are moments of the stream1 which come and in an instant are no more4 ,the word universality has no meaning as applied to their psychic body or structure1 which is always finite4 ,it only has a meaning when applied to their use1 import1 or reference to the kind of object they may reveal4 ,the representation1 as such1 of the universal object is as particular as that of an object about which we know so little that the interjection ',ha6' is all it can evoke from us in the way of speech4 ,both should be weighed in the same scales1 and have the same measure meted out to them whether of worship or of contempt4 7,mind1 ix1 pp4 #ah-ai47 #djc ,hodgson1 ,time and ,space1 p4 #djd4 #djd ,compare the admirable passage in ,hodgson's ,time and ,space1 p4 #caj4 #dje ,philosophy of ,reflection1 i1 #bgc-cjh4 ,,chapter ,,xiii4 ,,discrimination ,,and ,,comparison4 ,it is matter of popular observation that some men have sharper senses than others1 and that some have acuter minds and are able to 'split hairs' and see two shades of meaning where the majority see but one4 ,locke long ago set apart the faculty of discrimination as one in which men differ individually4 ,what he wrote is good enough to quote as an introduction to this chapter3 ,another faculty we may take notice of in our minds is that of discerning and distinguishing between the several ideas it has4 ,it is not enough to have a confused perception of something in general3 unless the mind had a distinct perception of different objects and their qualities1 it would be capable of very little knowledge2 though the bodies that affect us were as busy about us as they are now1 and the mind were continually employed in thinking4 ,on this faculty of distinguishing one thing from another depends the evidence and certainty of several even very general propositions1 which have passed for innate truths2 because men1 overlooking the true cause why those propositions find universal assent1 impute it wholly to native uniform impressions2 whereas it in truth depends upon this clear discerning faculty of the mind1 whereby it perceives two ideas to be the same or different4 ,but of this more hereafter8 ,how much the imperfection of accurately discriminating ideas one from another lies either in the dulness or faults of the organs of sense1 or want of acuteness1 exercise1 or attention in the understanding1 or hastiness and precipitancy natural to some tempers1 ,i will not here examine3 it suffices to take notice that this is one of the operations that the mind may reflect on and observe in itself4 ,it is of that consequence to its other knowledge1 that so far as this faculty is in itself dull1 or not rightly made use of for the distinguishing one thing from another1 so far our notions are confused1 and our reason and judgment disturbed or misled4 ,if in having our ideas in the memory ready at hand consists quickness of parts2 in this of having them unconfused1 and being able nicely to distinguish one thing from another where there is but the least difference1 consists in a great measure the exactness of judgment and clearness of reason which is to be observed in one man above another4 ,and hence1 perhaps1 may be given some reason of that common observation1--that men who have a great deal of wit and prompt memories have not always the clearest judgment or deepest reason4 ,for1 wit lying most in the assemblage of ideas1 and putting those together with quickness and variety wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity1 thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy2 judgment1 on the contrary1 lies quite on the other side1 in separating carefully one from another ideas wherein can be found the least difference1 thereby to avoid being misled by similitude and by affinity to take one thing for another4 ,this is a way of proceeding quite contrary to metaphor and allusion1 wherein for the most part lies that entertainment and pleasantry of wit which strikes so lively on the fancy1 and therefore1 so acceptable to all people because its beauty appears at first sight1 and there is required no labor of thought to examine what truth or reason there is in it4#djf ,but ,locke's descendants have been slow to enter into the path whose fruitfulness was thus pointed out by their master1 and have so neglected the study of discrimination that one might almost say that the classic ,english psychologists have1 as a school1 hardly recognized it to exist4 ',association' has proved itself in their hands the one all-absorbing power of the mind4 ,dr4 ,martineau1 in his review of ,bain1 makes some very weighty remarks on this onesidedness of the ,lockian school4 ,our mental history1 says he1 is1 in its view1 a perpetual formation of new compounds3 and the words 'association1' 'cohesion1' 'fusion1' 'indissoluble connection1' all express the change from plurality of data to some unity of result4 ,an explanation of the process therefore requires two things3 a true enumeration of the primary constituents1 and a correct statement of their laws of combination3 just as1 in chemistry1 we are furnished with a list of the simple elements1 and the with then principles of their synthesis4 ,now the latter of these two conditions we find satisfied by the association-psychologists3 but not the former4 ,they are not agreed upon their catalogue of elements1 or the marks by which they may know the simple from the compound4 ,the psychologic unit is not fixed2 that which is called one impression by ,hartley is treated as half-a-dozen or more by ,mill3 and the tendency of the modern teachers on this point is to recede more and more from the better-chosen track of their master4 ,hartley1 for example1 regarded the whole present effect upon us of any single object--say1 an orange--as a single sensation2 and the whole vestige it left behind1 as a single 'idea of sensation4' ,his modern disciples1 on the other hand1 consider this same effect as an aggregate from a plurality of sensations1 and the ideal trace it leaves as highly compound4 ',the idea of an object1' instead of being an elementary starting-point with them1 is one of the elaborate results of repetition and experience2 and is continually adduced as remarkably illustrating the fusing power of habitual association4 ,thus ,james ,mill observes3 ',it is to this great law of association that we trace the formation of our ideas of what we call external objects2 that is1 the ideas of a certain number of sensations1 received together so frequently that they coalesce as it were1 and are spoken of under the idea of unity4 ,hence1 what we call the idea of a tree1 the idea of a stone1 the idea of a horse1 the idea of a man4 ,in using the names1 tree1 horse1 man1 the names of what ,i call objects1 ,i am referring1 and can be referring1 only to my own sensations2 in fact1 therefore1 only naming a certain number of sensations regarded as in a particular state of combination1 that is1 concomitance4 ,particular sensations of sight1 of touch1 of the muscles1 are the sensations to the ideas of which1 color1 extension1 roughness1 hardness1 smoothness1 taste1 smell1 so coalescing as to appear one idea1 ,i give the name of the idea of a tree4'#djg ,to precisely the same effect ,mr4 ,bain remarks3 ',external objects usually affect us through a plurality of senses4 ,the pebble on the sea-shore is pictured on the eye as form and color4 ,we take it up in the hand and repeat the impression of form1 with the additional feeling of touch4 ,knock two together1 and there is a characteristic sound4 ,to preserve the impression of an object of this kind1 there must be an association of all these different effects4 ,such association1 when matured and firm1 is our idea1 our intellectual grasp of the pebble4 ,passing to the organic world1 and plucking a rose1 we have the same effects of form to the eye and hand1 color and touch1 with new effects of odor and taste4 ,a certain time is requisite for the coherence of all these qualities in one aggregate1 so as to give us for all purposes the enduring image of the rose4 ,when fully acquired1 any one of the characteristic impressions will revive the others2 the odor1 the sight1 the feeling of the thorny stalk--each of these by itself will hoist the entire impression into the view4'#djh ,now1 this order of derivation1 making our objective knowledge begin with plurality of impression and arrive at unity1 we take to be a complete inversion of our psychological history4 ,hartley1 we think1 was perfectly right in taking no notice of the number of inlets through which an object delivers its effect upon us1 and1 in spite of this circumstance1 treating the effect as one4444 ,even now1 after life has read us so many analytic lessons1 in proportion as we can fix the attitude of our scene and ourselves1 the sense of plurality in our impressions retreats1 and we lapse into an undivided consciousness2 losing1 for instance1 the separate notice of any uniform hum in the ear1 or light in the eye1 or weight of clothes on the body1 though not one of them is inoperative on the complexion of our feeling4 ,this law1 once granted1 must be carried far beyond ,hartley's point4 ,not only must each object present itself to us integrally before it shells off into its qualities1 but the whole scene around us must disengage for us object after object from its still background by emergence and change2 and even our self-detachment from the world over against us must wait for the start of collision between the force we issue and that which we receive4 ,to confine ourselves to the simplest case3 when a red ivory ball1 seen for the first time1 has been withdrawn1 it will leave a mental representation of itself1 in which all that it simultaneously gave us will indistinguishably coexist4 ,let a white ball succeed to it2 now1 and not before1 will an attribute detach itself1 and the color1 by force of contrast1 be shaken out into the foreground4 ,let the white ball be replaced by an egg3 and this new difference will bring the form into notice from its previous slumber4 ,and thus1 that which began by being simply an object1 cut out from the surrounding scene1 becomes for us first a red object1 and then a red round object2 and so on4 ,instead1 therefore1 of the qualities1 as separately given1 subscribing together and adding themselves up to present us with the object as their aggregate1 the object is beforehand with them1 and from its integrity delivers them out to our knowledge1 one by one4 ,in this disintegration1 the primary nucleus never loses its substantive character or name2 whilst the difference which it throws off appears as a mere attribute1 expressed by an adjective4 ,hence it is that we are compelled to think of the object as having1 not as being1 its qualities2 and can never heartily admit the belief of any loose lot of attributes really fusing themselves into a thing4 ,the unity of the original whole is not felt to go to pieces and be resolved into the properties which it successively gives off2 it retains a residuary existence1 which constitutes it a substance1 as against the emerging quality1 which is only its phenomenal predicate4 ,were it not for this perpetual process of differentiation of self from the world1 of object from its scene1 of attribute from object1 no step of ,abstraction could be taken2 no qualities could fall under our notice2 and had we ten thousand senses1 they would all converge and meet in but one consciousness4 ,but if this be so1 it is an utter falsification of the order of nature to speak of sensations grouping themselves into aggregates1 and so composing for us the objects of which we think2 and the whole language of the theory1 in regard to the field of synchronous existences1 is a direct inversion of the truth4 ,experience proceeds and intellect is trained1 not by ,association1 but by ,dissociation1 not by reduction of pluralities of impression to one1 but by the opening out of one into many2 and a true psychological history must expound itself in analytic rather than synthetic terms4 ,precisely those ideas--of ,substance1 of ,mind1 of ,cause1 of ,space--which this system treats as infinitely complex1 the last result of myriads of confluent elements1 are in truth the residuary simplicities of consciousness1 whose stability the eddies and currents of phenomenal experience have left undisturbed4#dji ,the truth is that ,experience is trained by both association and dissociation1 and that psychology must be writ both in synthetic and in analytic terms4 ,our original sensible totals are1 on the one hand1 subdivided by discriminative attention1 and1 on the other1 united with other totals1--either through the agency of our own movements1 carrying our senses from one part of space to another1 or because new objects come successively and replace those by which we were at first impressed4 ,the 'simple impression' of ,hume1 the 'simple idea' of ,locke are both abstractions1 never realized in experience4 ,experience1 from the very first1 presents us with concreted objects1 vaguely continuous with the rest of the world which envelops them in space and time1 and potentially divisible into inward elements and parts4 ,these objects we break asunder and reunite4 ,we must treat them in both ways for our knowledge of them to grow2 and it is hard to say1 on the whole1 which way preponderates4 ,but since the elements with which the traditional associationism performs its constructions--'simple sensations1' namely--are all products of discrimination carried to a high pitch1 it seems as if we ought to discuss the subject of analytic attention and discrimination first4 ,the noticing of any part whatever of our object is an act of discrimination4 ,already on p4 #djd ,i have described the manner in which we often spontaneously lapse into the undiscriminating state1 even with regard to objects which we have already learned to distinguish4 ,such ansthetics as chloroform1 nitrous oxide1 etc41 sometimes bring about transient lapses even more total1 in which numerical discrimination especially seems gone2 for one sees light and hears sound1 but whether one or many lights and sounds is quite impossible to tell4 ,where the parts of an object have already been discerned1 and each made the object of a special discriminative act1 we can with difficulty feel the object again in its pristine unity2 and so prominent may our consciousness of its composition be1 that we may hardly believe that it ever could have appeared undivided4 ,but this is an erroneous view1 the undeniable fact being that any number of impressions1 from any number of sensory sources1 falling simultaneously on a mind ,,which ,,has ,,not ,,yet ,,experienced ,,them ,,separately1 will fuse into a single undivided object for that mind4 ,the law is that all things fuse that can fuse1 and nothing separates except what must4 ,what makes impressions separate we have to study in this chapter4 ,although they separate easier if they come in through distinct nerves1 yet distinct nerves are not an unconditional ground of their discrimination1 as we shall presently see4 ,the baby1 assailed by eyes1 ears1 nose1 skin1 and entrails at once1 feels it all as one great blooming1 buzzing confusion2 and to the very end of life1 our location of all things in one space is due to the fact that the original extents or bignesses of all the sensations which came to our notice at once1 coalesced together into one and the same space4 ,there is no other reason than this why the hand ,i touch and see coincides spatially with the hand ,i immediately feel4#daj ,it is true that we may sometimes be tempted to exclaim1 when once a lot of hitherto unnoticed details of the object lie before us1 ,how could we ever have been ignorant of these things and yet have felt the object1 or drawn the conclusion1 as if it were a continuum1 a plenum8 ,there would have been gaps--but we felt no gaps2 wherefore we must have seen and heard these details1 leaned upon these steps2 they must have been operative upon our minds1 just as they are now1 only unconsciously1 or at least inattentively4 ,our first unanalyzed sensation was really composed of these elementary sensations1 our first rapid conclusion was really based on these intermediate inferences1 all the while1 only we failed to note the fact4 ,but this is nothing but the fatal 'psychologist's fallacy' 7p4 #aif7 of treating an inferior state of mind as if it must somehow know implicitly all that is explicitly known about the same topic by superior states of mind4 ,the thing thought of is unquestionably the same1 but it is thought twice over in two absolutely different psychoses1--once as an unbroken unit1 and again as a sum of discriminated parts4 ,it is not one thought in two editions1 but two entirely distinct thoughts of one thing4 ,and each thought is within itself a continuum1 a plenum1 needing no contributions from the other to fill up its gaps4 ,as ,i sit here1 ,i think objects1 and ,i make inferences1 which the future is sure to analyze and articulate and riddle with discriminations1 showing me many things wherever ,i now notice one4 ,nevertheless1 my thought feels quite sufficient unto itself for the time being2 and ranges from pole to pole1 as free1 and as unconscious of having overlooked anything1 as if it possessed the greatest discriminative enlightenment4 ,we all cease analyzing the world at some point1 and notice no more differences4 ,the last units with which we stop are our objective elements of being4 ,those of a dog are different from those of a ,humboldt2 those of a practical man from those of a metaphysician4 ,but the dog's and the practical man's thoughts feel continuous1 though to the ,humboldt or the metaphysician they would appear full of gaps and defects4 ,and they are continuous1 as thoughts4 ,it is only as mirrors of things that the superior minds find them full of omissions4 ,and when the omitted things are discovered and the unnoticed differences laid bare1 it is not that the old thoughts split up1 but that new thoughts supersede them1 which make new judgments about the same objective world4 ,,the ,,principle ,,of ,,mediate ,,comparison4 ,when we discriminate an element1 we may contrast it with the case of its own absence1 of its simply not being there1 without reference to what is there2 or we may also take the latter into account4 ,let the first sort of discrimination be called existential1 the latter differential discrimination4 ,a peculiarity of differential discriminations is that they result in a perception of differences which are felt as greater or less one than the other4 ,entire groups of differences may be ranged in series3 the musical scale1 the color scale1 are examples4 ,every department of our experience may have its data written down in an evenly gradated order1 from a lowest to a highest member4 ,and any one datum may be a term in several such orders4 ,a given note may have a high place in the pitch-series1 a low place in the loudness-series1 and a medium place in the series of agreeablenesses4 ,a given tint must1 in order to be fully determined1 have its place assigned in the series of qualities1 in the series of purities 7freedom from white71 and in the series of intensities or brightnesses4 ,it may be low in one of these respects1 but high in another4 ,in passing from term to term in any such series we are conscious not only of each step of difference being equal to 7or greater or less than7 the last1 but we are conscious of proceeding in a uniform direction1 different from other possible directions4 ,this consciousness of serial increase of differences is one of the fundamental facts of our intellectual life4 ,more1 more1 ,,more1 of the same kind of difference1 we say1 as we advance from term to term1 and realize that the farther on we get the larger grows the breach between the term we are at and the one from which we started4 ,between any two terms of such a series the difference is greater than that between any intermediate terms1 or than that between an intermediate term and either of the extremes4 ,the louder than the loud is louder than the less loud2 the farther than the far is farther than the less far2 the earlier than the early is earlier than the late2 the higher than the high is higher than the low2 the bigger than the big is bigger than the small2 or1 to put it briefly and universally1 the more than the more is more than the less2 such is the great synthetic principle of mediate comparison which is involved in the possession by the human mind of the sense of serial increase4 ,in ,chapter ,,xxviii we shall see the altogether overwhelming importance of this principle in the conduct of all our higher rational operations4 ,,are ,,all ,,differences ,,differences ,,of ,,composition8 ,each of the differences in one of these uniform series feels like a definite sensible quantity1 and each term seems like the last term with this quantity added4 ,in many concrete objects which differ from one another we can plainly see that the difference does consist singly in the fact that one object is the same as the other plus something else1 or that they both have an identical part1 to which each adds a distinct remainder4 ,thus two pictures may be struck from the same block1 but one of them may differ in having color added2 or two carpets may show an identical pattern which in each is woven in distinct hues4 ,similarly1 two classes of sensation may have the same emotional tone but negate each other in remaining respects--a dark color and a deep sound1 for example2 or two faces may have the same shape of nose but everything else unlike4 ,the similarity of the same note sounded by instruments of different timbre is explained by the coexistence of a fundamental tone common to both1 with over-tones in one which the other lacks4 ,dipping my hand into water and anon into a colder water1 ,i may then observe certain additional feelings1 broader and deeper irradiations of the cold1 so to speak1 which were not in the earlier experience1 though for aught ,i can tell1 the feelings may be otherwise the same4 ',hefting' first one weight1 and then another1 new feelings may start out in my elbow-joint1 wrist1 and elsewhere1 and make me call the second weight the heavier of the twain4 ,in all these cases each of the differing things may be represented by two parts1 one that is common to it and the others1 and another that is peculiar to itself4 ,if they form a series1 ,a1 ,b1 ,c1 ,d1 etc41 and the common part be called ,x1 whilst the lowest difference be called d1 then the composition of the series would be as follows3 ,a ,x d2 ,b 7,x d7 d1 or ,x #b;d2 ,c ,x #c;d2 ,d ,x #d;d2 44444444 ,if ,x itself were ultimately composed of d's we should have the entire series explained as due to the varying combination and re-combination with itself of an unvarying element2 and all the apparent differences of quality would be translated into differences of quantity alone4 ,this is the sort of reduction which the atomic theory in physics and the mind-stuff theory in psychology regard as their ideal4 ,so that1 following the analogy of our instances1 one might easily be tempted to generalize and to say that all difference is but addition and subtraction1 and that what we called 'differential' discrimination is only 'existential' discrimination in disguise2 that is to say1 that where ,a and ,b differ1 we merely discern something in the one which the other is without4 ,absolute identity in things up to a certain point1 then absolute non-identity1 would on this theory take the place of those ultimate qualitative unlikenesses between them1 in which we naturally believe2 and the mental function of discrimination1 ceasing to be regarded as an ultimate one1 would resolve itself into mere logical affirmation and negation1 or perception that a feature found in one thing1 in another does not exist4 99 99 99 99 99 ,theoretically1 however1 this theory is full of difficulty4 ,if all the differences which we feel were in one direction1 so that all objects could be arranged in one series 7however long71 it might still work4 ,but when we consider the notorious fact that objects differ from each other in divergent directions1 it grows well nigh impossible to make it do so4 ,for then1 supposing that an object differed from things in one direction by the increment d1 it would have to differ from things in another direction by a different sort of increment1 call it d'2 so that1 after getting rid of qualitative unlikeness between objects1 we should have it back on our hands again between their increments4 ,we may of course re-apply our method1 and say that the difference between d and d' is not a qualitative unlikeness1 but a fact of composition1 one of them being the same as the other plus an increment of still higher order1 for example1 added4 ,but when we recollect that everything in the world can be compared with everything else1 and that the number of directions of difference is indefinitely great1 then we see that the complication of self-compoundings of the ultimate differential increment by which1 on this theory1 all the innumerable unlikenesses of the world are explained1 in order to avoid writing any of them down as ultimate differences of kind1 would beggar all conception4 ,it is the mind-dust theory2 with all its difficulties in a particularly uncompromising form2 and all for the sake of the fantastic pleasure of being able arbitrarily to say that there is between the things in the world and between the 'ideas' in the mind nothing but absolute sameness and absolute not-sameness of elements1 the not-sameness admitting no degrees4 ,to me it seems much wiser to turn away from such transcendental extravagances of speculation1 and to abide by the natural appearances4 ,these would leave unlikeness as an indecomposable relation amongst things1 and a relation moreover of which there were all degrees4 ,absolute not-sameness would be the maximal degree1 absolute sameness the minimal degree of this unlikeness1 the discernment of which would be one of our ultimate cognitive powers4#daa ,certainly the natural appearances are dead against the notion that no qualitative differences exist4 ,with the same clearness with which1 in certain objects1 we do feel a difference to be a mere matter of plus and minus1 in other objects we feel that this is not the case4 ,contrast our feeling of the difference between the length of two lines with our feeling of the difference between blue and yellow1 or with that between right and left4 ,is right equal to left with something added8 ,is blue yellow plus something8 ,if so1 plus what8#dab ,so long as we stick to verifiable psychology1 we are forced to admit that differences of simple ,,kind form an irreducible sort of relation between some of the elements of our experience1 and forced to deny that differential discrimination can everywhere be reduced to the mere ascertainment that elements present in one fact1 in another fail to exist4 ,the perception that an element exists in one thing and does not exist in another and the perception of qualitative difference are1 in short1 entirely disconnected mental functions4#dac ,but at the same time that we insist on this1 we must also admit that differences of quality1 however abundant1 are not the only distinctions with which our mind has to deal4 ,differences which seem of mere composition1 of number1 of plus and minus1 also abound4#dad ,but it will be best for the present to disregard all these quantitative cases and1 taking the others 7which1 by the least favorable calculation1 will still be numerous enough71 to consider next the manner in which we come to cognize simple differences of kind4 ,we cannot explain the cognition2 we can only ascertain the conditions by virtue of which it occurs4 ,,the ,,conditions ,,of ,,discrimination4 ,what1 then1 are the conditions under which we discriminate things differing in a simple way8 ,first1 the things must ,,be different1 either in time1 or place1 or quality4 ,if the difference in any of these regards is sufficiently great1 then we cannot overlook it1 except by not noticing the things at all4 ,no one can help singling out a black stripe on a white ground1 or feeling the contrast between a bass note and a high one sounded immediately after it4 ,discrimination is here involuntary4 ,but where the objective difference is less1 discrimination need not so inevitably occur1 and may even require considerable effort of attention to be performed at all4 ,another condition which then favors it is that the sensations excited by the differing objects should not come to us simultaneously but fall in immediate ,,succession upon the same organ4 ,it is easier to compare successive than simultaneous sounds1 easier to compare two weights or two temperatures by testing one after the other with the same hand1 than by using both hands and comparing both at once4 ,similarly it is easier to discriminate shades of light or color by moving the eye from one to the other1 so that they successively stimulate the same retinal tract4 ,in testing the local discrimination of the skin1 by applying compass-points1 it is found that they are felt to touch different spots much more readily when set down one after the other than when both are applied at once4 ,in the latter case they may be two or three inches apart on the back1 thighs1 etc41 and still feel as if they were set down in one spot4 ,finally1 in the case of smell and taste it is well-nigh impossible to compare simultaneous impressions at all4 ,the reason why successive impression so much favors the result seems to be that there is a real sensation of difference1 aroused by the shock of transition from one perception to another which is unlike the first4 ,this sensation of difference has its own peculiar quality1 as difference1 which remains sensible1 no matter of what sort the terms may be1 between which it obtains4 ,it is1 in short1 one of those transitive feelings1 or feelings of relation1 of which ,i treated in a former place 7pp4 #bde ff472 and1 when once aroused1 its object lingers in the memory along with the substantive terms which precede and follow1 and enables our judgments of comparison to be made4 ,we shall soon see reason to believe that no two terms can possibly be simultaneously perceived to differ1 unless1 in a preliminary operation1 we have successively attended to each1 and1 in so doing1 had the transitional sensation of difference between them aroused4 ,a field of consciousness1 however complex1 is never analyzed unless some of its ingredients have changed4 ,we now discern1 'tis true1 a multitude of coexisting things about us at every moment3 but this is because we have had a long education1 and each thing we now see distinct has been already differentiated from its neighbors by repeated appearances in successive order4 ,to the infant1 sounds1 sights1 touches1 and pains1 form probably one unanalyzed bloom of confusion4#dae ,where the difference between the successive sensations is but slight1 the transition between them must be made as immediate as possible1 and both must be compared in memory1 in order to get the best results4 ,one cannot judge accurately of the difference between two similar wines1 whilst the second is still in one's mouth4 ,so of sounds1 warmths1 etc4--we must get the dying phases of both sensations of the pair we are comparing4 ,where1 however1 the difference is strong1 this condition is immaterial1 and we can then compare a sensation actually felt with another carried in memory only4 ,the longer the interval of time between the sensations1 the more uncertain is their discrimination4 ,the difference1 thus immediately felt between two terms1 is independent of our ability to identify either of the terms by itself4 ,i can feel two distinct spots to be touched on my skin1 yet not know which is above and which below4 ,i can observe two neighboring musical tones to differ1 and still not know which of the two is the higher in pitch4 ,similarly ,i may discriminate two neighboring tints1 whilst remaining uncertain which is the bluer or the yellower1 or how either differs from its mate4#daf 99 99 99 99 99 ,with such direct perceptions of difference as this1 we must not confound those entirely unlike cases in which we infer that two things must differ because we know enough about each of them taken by itself to warrant our classing them under distinct heads4 ,it often happens1 when the interval is long between two experiences1 that our judgments are guided1 not so much by a positive image or copy of the earlier one1 as by our recollection of certain facts about it4 ,thus ,i know that the sunshine to-day is less bright than on a certain day last week1 because ,i then said it was quite dazzling1 a remark ,i should not now care to make4 ,or ,i know myself to feel better now than ,i was last summer1 because ,i can now psychologize1 and then ,i could not4 ,we are constantly busy comparing feelings with whose quality our imagination has no sort of acquaintance at the time--pleasures1 or pains1 for example4 ,it is notoriously hard to conjure up in imagination a lively image of either of these classes of feeling4 ,the associationists may prate of an idea of pleasure being a pleasant idea1 of an idea of pain being a painful one1 but the unsophisticated sense of mankind is against them1 agreeing with ,homer that the memory of griefs when past may be a joy1 and with ,dante that there is no greater sorrow than1 in misery1 to recollect one's happier time4 ,feelings remembered in this imperfect way must be compared with present or recent feelings by the aid of what we know about them4 ,we identify the remote experience in such a case by conceiving it4 ,the most perfect way of conceiving it is by defining it in terms of some standard scale4 ,if ,i know the thermometer to stand at zero to-day and to have stood at #cb last ,sunday1 ,i know to-day to be colder1 and ,i know just how much colder1 than it was last ,sunday4 ,if ,i know that a certain note was c1 and that this note is d1 ,i know that this note must be the higher of the two4 ,the inference that two things differ because their concomitants1 effects1 names1 kinds1 or--to put it generally--their signs1 differ1 is of course susceptible of unlimited complication4 ,the sciences furnish examples1 in the way in which men are led1 by noticing differences in effects1 to assume new hypothetical causes1 differing from any known heretofore4 ,but no matter how many may be the steps by which such inferential discriminations are made1 they all end in a direct intuition of difference somewhere4 ,the last ground for inferring that ,a and ,b differ must be that1 whilst ,a is an m1 ,b is an n1 and that m and n are seen to differ4 ,let us then neglect the complex cases1 the ,a's and the ,b's1 and go back to the study of the unanalyzable perception of difference between their signs1 the m's and the n's1 when these are seemingly simple terms4 ,i said that in their immediate succession the shock of their difference was felt4 ,it is felt repeatedly when we go back and forth from m to n2 and we make a point of getting it thus repeatedly 7by alternating our attention at least7 whenever the shock is so slight as to be with difficulty perceived4 ,but in addition to being felt at the brief instant of transition1 the difference also feels as if incorporated and taken up into the second term1 which feels 'different-from-the-first' even while it lasts4 ,it is obvious that the 'second term' of the mind in this case is not bald n1 but a very complex object2 and that the sequence is not simply first 'm1' then 'difference1' then 'n'2 but first 'm1' then 'difference1' then 'n-different-from-m4' ,the several thoughts1 however1 to which these three several objects are revealed1 are three ordinary 'segments' of the mental 'stream4' ,as our brains and minds are actually made1 it is impossible to get certain m's and n's in immediate sequence and to keep them pure4 ,if kept pure1 it would mean that they remained uncompared4 ,with us1 inevitably1 by a mechanism which we as yet fail to understand1 the shock of difference is felt between them1 and the second object is not n pure1 but n-as-different-from-m4#dag ,it is no more a paradox that under these conditions this cognition of m and n in mutual relation should occur1 than that under other conditions the cognition of m's or n's simple quality should occur4 ,but as it has been treated as a paradox1 and as a spiritual agent1 not itself a portion of the stream1 has been invoked to account for it1 a word of further remark seems desirable4 ,my account1 it will be noted1 is merely a description of the facts as they occur3 feelings 7or thoughts7 each knowing something1 but the later one knowing1 if preceded by a certain earlier one1 a more complicated object than it would have known had the earlier one not been there4 ,i offer no explanation of such a sequence of cognitions4 ,the explanation 7,i devoutly expect7 will be found some day to depend on cerebral conditions4 ,until it is forthcoming1 we can only treat the sequence as a special case of the general law that every experience undergone by the brain leaves in it a modification which is one factor in determining what manner of experiences the following ones shall be 7cf4 pp4 #bcb-bcf74 ,to anyone who denies the possibility of such a law ,i have nothing to say1 until he brings his proofs4 ,the sensationalists and the spiritualists meanwhile 7filled both of them with their notion that the mind must in some fashion contain what it knows7 begin by giving a crooked account of the facts4 ,both admit that for m and n to be known in any way whatever1 little rounded and finished off duplicates of each must be contained in the mind as separate entities4 ,these pure ideas1 so called1 of m and n respectively1 succeed each other there4 ,and since they are distinct1 say the sensationalists1 they are eo ipso distinguished4 ,to have ideas different and ideas distinguished1 are synonymous expressions2 different and distinguished meaning exactly the same thing1 says ,james ,mill4#dah ,distinguished6 say the spiritualists1 distinguished by what1 forsooth8 ,truly the respective ideas of m and of n in the mind are distinct4 ,but for that very reason neither can distinguish itself from the other1 for to do that it would have to be aware of the other1 and thus for the time being become the other1 and that would be to get mixed up with the other and to lose its own distinctness4 ,distinctness of ideas and idea of distinctness1 are not one thing1 but two4 ,this last is a relation4 ,only a relating principle1 opposed in nature to all facts of feeling1 an ,ego1 ,soul1 or ,subject1 is competent1 by being present to both of the ideas alike1 to hold them together and at the same time to keep them distinct4 ,but if the plain facts be admitted that the pure idea of 'n' is never in the mind at all1 when 'm' has once gone before2 and that the feeling 'n-different-from-m' is itself an absolutely unique pulse of thought1 the bottom of this precious quarrel drops out and neither party is left with anything to fight about4 ,surely such a consummation ought to be welcomed1 especially when brought about1 us here1 by a formulation of the facts which offers itself so naturally and unsophistically4#dai ,we may1 then1 conclude our examination of the manner in which simple involuntary discrimination comes about1 by saying1 #a7 that its vehicle is a thought possessed of a knowledge of both terms compared and of their difference2 #b7 that the necessary and sufficient condition 7as the human mind goes7 for arousing this thought is that a thought or feeling of one of the terms discriminated should1 as immediately as possible1 precede that in which the other term is known2 and #c7 and that the thought which knows the second term will then also know the difference 7or in more difficult cases will be continuously succeeded by one which does know the difference7 and both of the terms between which it holds4 ,this last thought need1 however1 not be these terms with their difference1 nor contain them4 ,a man's thought can know and mean all sorts of things without those things getting bodily into it--the distant1 for example1 the future1 and the past4#dbj ,the vanishing term in the case which occupies us vanishes2 but because it is the specific term it is and nothing else1 it leaves a specific influence behind it when it vanishes1 the effect of which is to determine the succeeding pulse of thought in a perfectly characteristic way4 ,whatever consciousness comes next must know the vanished term and call it different from the one now there4 ,here we are at the end of our tether about involuntary discrimination of successively felt simple things2 and must drop the subject1 hopeless of seeing any deeper into it for the present1 and turn to discriminations of a less simple sort4 ,,the ,,process ,,of ,,analysis4 ,and first1 of the discrimination of simultaneously felt impressions6 ,our first way of looking at a reality is often to suppose it simple1 but later we may learn to perceive it as compound4 ,this new way of knowing the same reality may conveniently be called by the name of ,analysis4 ,it is manifestly one of the most incessantly performed of all our mental processes1 so let us examine the conditions under which it occurs4 ,i think we may safely lay down at the outset this fundamental principle1 that any total impression made on the mind must be unanalyzable1 whose elements are never experienced apart4 ,the components of an absolutely changeless group of not-elsewhere-occurring attributes could never be discriminated4 ,if all cold things were wet and all wet things cold1 if all hard things pricked our skin1 and no other things did so2 is it likely that we should discriminate between coldness and wetness1 and hardness and pungency respectively8 ,if all liquids were transparent and no non-liquid were transparent1 it would be long before we had separate names for liquidity and transparency4 ,if heat were a function of position above the earth's surface1 so that the higher a thing was the hotter it became1 one word would serve for hot and high4 ,we have1 in fact1 a number of sensations whose concomitants are almost invariably the same1 and we find it1 accordingly1 almost impossible to analyze them out from the totals in which they are found4 ,the contraction of the diaphragm and the expansion of the lungs1 the shortening of certain muscles and the rotation of certain joints1 are examples4 ,the converging of the eyeballs and the accommodation for near objects are1 for each distance of the object 7in the common use of the eyes7 inseparably linked1 and neither can 7without a sort of artificial training which shall presently be mentioned7 be felt by itself4 ,we learn that the causes of such groups of feelings are multiple1 and therefore we frame theories about the composition of the feelings themselves1 by 'fusion1' 'integration1' 'synthesis1' or what not4 ,but by direct introspection no analysis of them is ever made4 ,a conspicuous case will come to view when we treat of the emotions4 ,every emotion has its 'expression1' of quick breathing1 palpitating heart1 flushed face1 or the like4 ,the expression gives rise to bodily feelings2 and the emotion is thus necessarily and invariably accompanied by these bodily feelings4 ,the consequence is that it is impossible to apprehend it as a spiritual state by itself1 or to analyze it away from the lower feelings in question4 ,it is in fact impossible to prove that it exists as a distinct psychic fact4 ,the present writer strongly doubts that it does so exist4 ,but those who are most firmly persuaded of its existence must wait1 to prove their point1 until they can quote some as yet unfound pathological case of an individual who shall have emotions in a body in which either complete paralysis will have prevented their expression1 or complete ansthesia will have made the latter unfelt4 ,in general1 then1 if an object affects us simultaneously in a number of ways1 abcd1 we get a peculiar integral impression1 which thereafter characterizes to our mind the individuality of that object1 and becomes the sign of its presence2 and which is only resolved into a1 b1 c1 d1 respectively by the aid of farther experiences4 ,these we now may turn to consider4 ,if any single quality or constituent1 a1 of such an object1 have previously been known by us isolatedly1 or have in any other manner already become an object of separate acquaintance on our part1 so that we have an image of it1 distinct or vague1 in our mind1 disconnected with bcd1 then that constituent a may be analyzed out from the total impression4 ,analysis of a thing means separate attention to each of its parts4 ,in ,chapter ,,xi we saw that one condition of attending to a thing was the formation from within of a separate image of that thing1 which should1 as it were1 go out to meet the impression received4 ,attention being the condition of analysis1 and separate imagination being the condition of attention1 it follows also that separate imagination is the condition of analysis4 ,only such elements as we are acquainted with1 and can imagine1 separately1 can be discriminated within a total sense-impression4 ,the image seems to welcome its own mate from out of the compound1 and to heighten the feeling thereof2 whereas it dampens and opposes the feeling of the other constituents2 and thus the compound becomes broken for our consciousness into parts4 ,all the facts cited in ,chapter ,,xi1 to prove that attention involves inward reproduction1 go to prove this point as well4 ,in looking for any object in a room1 for a book in a library1 for example1 we detect it the more readily if1 in addition to merely knowing its name1 etc41 we carry in our mind a distinct image of its appearance4 ,the assaftida in ',worcestershire sauce' is not obvious to anyone who has not tasted assaftida per se4 ,in a 'cold' color an artist would never be able to analyze out the pervasive presence of blue1 unless he had previously made acquaintance with the color blue by itself4 ,all the colors we actually experience are mixtures4 ,even the purest primaries always come to us with some white4 ,absolutely pure red or green or violet is never experienced1 and so can never be discerned in the so-called primaries with which we have to deal3 the latter consequently pass for pure4--,the reader will remember how an overtone can only be attended to in the midst of its consorts in the voice of a musical instrument1 by sounding it previously alone4 ,the imagination1 being then full of it1 hears the like of it in the compound tone4 ,helmholtz1 whose account of this observation we formerly quoted1 goes on to explain the difficulty of the case in a way which beautifully corroborates the point ,i now seek to prove4 ,he says3 ,the ultimate simple elements of the sensation of tone1 simple tones themselves1 are rarely heard alone4 ,even those instruments by which they can be produced 7as tuning-forks before resonance-chambers71 when strongly excited1 give rise to weak harmonic upper partials1 partly within and partly without the ear4444 ,hence the opportunities are very scanty for impressing on our memory an exact and sure image of these simple elementary tones4 ,but if the constituents are only indefinitely and vaguely known1 the analysis of their sum into them must be correspondingly uncertain4 ,if we do not know with certainty how much of the musical tone under consideration is to be attributed to its prime1 we cannot but be uncertain as to what belongs to the partials4 ,consequently we must begin by making the individual elements which have to be distinguished individually audible1 so as to obtain an entirely fresh recollection of the corresponding sensation1 and the whole business requires undisturbed and concentrated attention4 ,we are even without the ease that can be obtained by frequent repetitions of the experiment1 such as we possess in the analysis of musical chords into their individual notes4 ,in that case we hear the individual notes sufficiently often by themselves1 whereas we rarely hear simple tones1 and may almost be said never to hear the building up of a compound from its simple tones4#dba ,,the ,,process ,,of ,,abstraction4 ,very few elements of reality are experienced by us in absolute isolation4 ,the most that usually happens to a constituent a1 of a compound phenomenon abcd1 is that its strength relatively to bcd varies from a maximum to a minimum2 or that it appears linked with other qualities1 in other compounds1 as aefg1 or ahik4 ,either of these vicissitudes in the mode of our experiencing a may1 under favorable circumstances1 lead us to feel the difference between it and its concomitants1 and to single it out--not absolutely1 it is true1 but approximately--and so to analyze the compound of which it is a part4 ,the act of singling out is then called abstraction1 and the element disengaged is an abstract4 ,consider the case of fluctuations of relative strength or intensity first4 ,let there be three grades of the compound1 as ,abcd1 abcd1 and abc,d4 ,in passing between these compounds1 the mind will feel shocks of difference4 ,the differences1 moreover1 will serially increase1 and their direction will be felt as of a distinct sort4 ,the increase from abcd to ,abcd is on the a side2 that to abc,d is on the d side4 ,and these two differences of direction are differently felt4 ,i do not say that this discernment of the a-direction from the d-direction will give us an actual intuition either of a or of d in the abstract4 ,but it leads us to conceive or postulate each of these qualities1 and to define it as the extreme of a certain direction4 ',dry' wines and 'sweet' wines1 for example1 differ1 and form a series4 ,it happens that we have an experience of sweetness pure and simple in the taste of sugar1 and this we can analyze out of the wine-taste4 ,but no one knows what 'dryness' tastes like1 all by itself4 ,it must1 however1 be something extreme in the dry direction2 and we should probably not fail to recognize it as the original of our abstract conception1 in case we ever did come across it4 ,in some such way we get to form notions of the flavor of meats1 apart from their feeling to the tongue1 or of that of fruits apart from their acidity1 etc41 and we abstract the touch of bodies as distinct from their temperature4 ,we may even apprehend the quality of a muscle's contraction as distinguished from its extent1 or one muscle's contraction from another's1 as when1 by practising with prismatic glasses1 and varying our eyes' convergence whilst our accommodation remains the same1 we learn the direction in which our feeling of the convergence differs from that of the accommodation4 ,but the fluctuation in a quality's intensity is a less efficient aid to our abstracting of it than the diversity of the other qualities in whose company it may appear4 ,what is associated now with one thing and now with another tends to become dissociated from either1 and to grow into an object of abstract contemplation by the mind4 ,one might call this the law of dissociation by varying concomitants4 ,the practical result of it will be to allow the mind which has thus dissociated and abstracted a character to analyze it out of a total1 whenever it meets with it again4 ,the law has been frequently recognized by psychologists1 though ,i know of none who has given it the emphatic prominence in our mental history which it deserves4 ,mr4 ,spencer says3 ,if the property ,a occurs here along with the properties ,b1 ,c1 ,d1 there along with ,c1 ,f1 ,h1 and again with ,e1 ,g1 ,b1444 it must happen that by multiplication of experiences the impressions produced by these properties on the organism will be disconnected and rendered so far independent in the organism as the properties are in the environment1 whence must eventually result a power to recognize attributes in themselves1 apart from particular bodies4#dbb ,and still more to the point ,dr4 ,martineau1 in the passage ,i have already quoted1 writes3 ,when a red ivory ball1 seen for the first time1 has been withdrawn1 it will leave a mental representation of itself1 in which all that it simultaneously gave us will indistinguishably coexist4 ,let a white ball succeed to it2 now1 and not before1 will an attribute detach itself1 and the color1 by force of contrast1 be shaken out into the foreground4 ,let the white ball be replaced by an egg1 and this new difference will bring the form into notice from its previous slumber1 and thus that which began by being simply an object cut out from the surrounding scene becomes for us first a red object1 then a red round object1 and so on4 ,why the repetition of the character in combination with different wholes will cause it thus to break up its adhesion with any one of them1 and roll out1 as it were1 alone upon the table of consciousness1 is a little of a mystery4 ,one might suppose the nerve-processes of the various concomitants to neutralize or inhibit each other more or less and to leave the process of the common term alone distinctly active4 ,mr4 ,spencer appears to think that the mere fact that the common term is repeated more often than any one of its associates will1 of itself1 give it such a degree of intensity that its abstraction must needs ensue4 ,this has a plausible sound1 but breaks down when examined closely4 ,for it is not always the often-repeated character which is first noticed when its concomitants have varied a certain number of times2 it is even more likely to be the most novel of all the concomitants1 which will arrest the attention4 ,if a boy has seen nothing all his life but sloops and schooners1 he will probably never distinctly have singled out in his notion of 'sail' the character of being hung lengthwise4 ,when for the first time he sees a square-rigged ship1 the opportunity of extracting the lengthwise mode of hanging as a special accident1 and of dissociating it from the general notion of sail1 is offered4 ,but there are twenty chances to one that that will not be the form of the boy's consciousness4 ,what he notices will be the new and exceptional character of being hung crosswise4 ,he will go home and speak of that1 and perhaps never consciously formulate what the more familiar peculiarity consists in4 ,this mode of abstraction is realized on a very wide scale1 because the elements of the world in which we find ourselves appear1 as a matter of fact1 here1 there1 and everywhere1 and are changing their concomitants all the while4 ,but on the other hand the abstraction is1 so to speak1 never complete1 the analysis of a compound never perfect1 because no element is ever given to us absolutely alone1 and we can never therefore approach a compound with the image in our mind of any one of its components in a perfectly pure form4 ,colors1 sounds1 smells1 are just as much entangled with other matter as are more formal elements of experience1 such as extension1 intensity1 effort1 pleasure1 difference1 likeness1 harmony1 badness1 strength1 and even consciousness itself4 ,all are embedded in one world4 ,but by the fluctuations and permutations of which we have spoken1 we come to form a pretty good notion of the direction in which each element differs from the rest1 and so we frame the notion of it as a terminus1 and continue to mean it as an individual thing4 ,in the case of many elements1 the simple sensibles1 like heat1 cold1 the colors1 smells1 etc41 the extremes of the directions are almost touched1 and in these instances we have a comparatively exact perception of what it is we mean to abstract4 ,but even this is only an approximation2 and in literal mathematical strictness all our abstracts must be confessed to be but imperfectly imaginable things4 ,at bottom the process is one of conception1 and is everywhere1 even in the sphere of simple sensible qualities1 the same as that by which we are usually understood to attain to the notions of abstract goodness1 perfect felicity1 absolute power1 and the like3 the direct perception of a difference between compounds1 and the imaginary prolongation of the direction of the difference to an ideal terminus1 the notion of which we fix and keep as one of our permanent subjects of discourse4 ,this is all that ,i can say usefully about abstraction1 or about analysis1 to which it leads4 ,,the ,,improvement ,,of ,,discrimination ,,by ,,practice4 ,in all the cases considered hitherto ,i have supposed the differences involved to be so large as to be flagrant1 and the discrimination1 where successive1 was treated as involuntary4 ,but1 so far from being always involuntary1 discriminations are often difficult in the extreme1 and by most men never performed4 ,professor de ,morgan1 thinking1 it is true1 rather of conceptual than of perceptive discrimination1 wrote1 wittily enough3 ,the great bulk of the illogical part of the educated community--whether majority or minority ,i know not2 perhaps six of one and half a dozen of the other--have not power to make a distinction1 and of course cannot be made to take a distinction1 and of course never attempt to shake a distinction4 ,with them all such things are evasions1 subterfuges1 come-offs1 loop-holes1 etc4 ,they would hang a man for horse-stealing under a statute against sheep-stealing2 and would laugh at you if you quibbled about the distinction between a horse and a sheep4#dbc ,any personal or practical interest1 however1 in the results to be obtained by distinguishing1 makes one's wits amazingly sharp to detect differences4 ,the culprit himself is not likely to overlook the difference between a horse and a sheep4 ,and long training and practice in distinguishing has the same effect as personal interest4 ,both of these agencies give to small amounts of objective difference the same effectiveness upon the mind that1 under other circumstances1 only large ones would have4 ,let us seek to penetrate the modus operandi of their influence--beginning with that of practice and habit4 ,that 'practice makes perfect' is notorious in the field of motor accomplishments4 ,but motor accomplishments depend in part on sensory discrimination4 ,billiard-playing1 rifle-shooting1 tight-rope-dancing1 demand the most delicate appreciation of minute disparities of sensation1 as well as the power to make accurately graduated muscular response thereto4 ,in the purely sensorial field we have the well-known virtuosity displayed by the professional buyers and testers of various kinds of goods4 ,one man will distinguish by taste between the upper and the lower half of a bottle of old ,madeira4 ,another will recognize1 by feeling the flour in a barrel1 whether the wheat was grown in ,iowa or ,tennessee4 ,the blind deaf-mute1 ,laura ,bridgman1 had so improved her touch as to recognize1 after a year's interval1 the hand of a person who once had shaken hers2 and her sister in misfortune1 ,julia ,brace1 is said to have been employed in the ,hartford ,asylum to sort the linen of its multitudinous inmates1 after it came from the wash1 by her wonderfully educated sense of smell4 ,the fact is so familiar that few1 if any1 psychologists have even recognized it as needing explanation4 ,they have seemed to think that practice must1 in the nature of things1 improve the delicacy of discernment1 and have let the matter rest4 ,at most they have said3 ,attention accounts for it2 we attend more to habitual things1 and what we attend to we perceive more minutely4 ,this answer is true1 but too general2 it seems to me that we can be a little more precise4 99 99 99 99 99 ,there are at least two distinct causes which we can see at work whenever experience improves discrimination3 ,first1 the terms whose difference comes to be felt contract disparate associates and these help to drag them apart4 ,second1 the difference reminds us of larger differences of the same sort1 and these help us to notice it4 ,let us study the first cause first1 and begin by supposing two compounds1 of ten elements apiece4 ,suppose no one element of either compound to differ from the corresponding element of the other compound enough to be distinguished from it if the two are compared alone1 and let the amount of this imperceptible difference be called equal to #a4 ,the compounds will differ from each other1 however1 in ten different ways2 and1 although each difference by itself might pass unperceived1 the total difference1 equal to #aj1 may very well be sufficient to strike the sense4 ,in a word1 increasing the number of 'points' involved in a difference may excite our discrimination as effectually as increasing the amount of difference at any one point4 ,two men whose mouth1 nose1 eyes1 cheeks1 chin1 and hair1 all differ slightly1 will be as little confounded by us1 as two appearances of the same man one with1 and the other without1 a false nose4 ,the only contrast in the cases is that we can easily name the point of difference in the one1 whilst in the other we cannot4 ,two things1 then1 ,b and ,c1 indistinguishable when compared together alone1 may each contract adhesions with different associates1 and the compounds thus formed may1 as wholes1 be judged very distinct4 ,the effect of practice in increasing discrimination must then1 in part be due to the reinforcing effect1 upon an original slight difference between the terms1 of additional differences between the diverse associates which they severally affect4 ,let ,b and ,c be the terms3 ,if ,a contract adhesions with ,b1 and ,c with ,d1 ,,ab may appear very distinct from ,,cd1 though ,b and ,c per se might have been almost identical4 ,to illustrate1 how does one learn to distinguish claret from burgundy8 ,probably they have been drunk on different occasions4 ,when we first drank claret we heard it called by that name1 we were eating such and such a dinner1 etc4 ,next time we drink it1 a dim reminder of all those things chimes through us as we get the taste of the wine4 ,when we try burgundy our first impression is that it is a kind of claret2 but something falls short of full identification1 and presently we hear it called burgundy4 ,during the next few experiences1 the discrimination may still be uncertain--which1 we ask ourselves1 of the two wines is this present specimen8 ,but at last the claret-flavor recalls pretty distinctly its own name1 'claret1' that wine ,i drank at ,so-and-so's table1 etc42 and the burgundy-flavor recalls the name burgundy and some one else's table4 ,and only when this different ,,setting has come to each is our discrimination between the two flavors solid and stable4 ,after a while the tables and other parts of the setting1 besides the name1 grow so multifarious as not to come up distinctly into consciousness2 but pari passu with this1 the adhesion of each wine with its own name becomes more and more inveterate1 and at last each flavor suggests instantly and certainly its own name and nothing else4 ,the names differ far more than the flavors1 and help to stretch these latter farther apart4 ,some such process as this must go on in all our experience4 ,beef and mutton1 strawberries and raspberries1 odor of rose and odor of violet1 contract different adhesions which reinforce the differences already felt in the terms4 ,the reader may say that this has nothing to do with making us feel the difference between the two terms4 ,it is merely fixing1 identifying1 and so to speak substantializing1 the terms4 ,but what we feel as their difference1 we should feel1 even though we were unable to name or otherwise identify the terms4 ,to which ,i reply that ,i believe that the difference is always concreted and made to seem more substantial by recognizing the terms4 ,i went out for instance the other day and found that the snow just fallen had a very odd look1 different from the common appearance of snow4 ,i presently called it a 'micaceous' look2 and it seemed to me as if1 the moment ,i did so1 the difference grew more distinct and fixed than it was before4 ,the other connotations of the word 'micaceous' dragged the snow farther away from ordinary snow and seemed even to aggravate the peculiar look in question4 ,i think some such effect as this on our way of feeling a difference will be very generally admitted to follow from naming the terms between which it obtains2 although ,i admit myself that it is difficult to show coercively that naming or otherwise identifying any given pair of hardly distinguishable terms is essential to their being felt as different at first4#dbd ,i offer the explanation only as a partial one3 it certainly is not complete4 ,take the way in which practice refines our local discrimination on the skin1 for example4 ,two compass-points touching the palm of the hand must be kept1 say1 half an inch asunder in order not to be mistaken for one point4 ,but at the end of an hour or so of practice with them we can distinguish them as two1 even when less than a quarter of an inch apart4 ,if the same two regions of the skin were constantly touched1 in this experience1 the explanation we have been considering would perfectly apply4 ,suppose a line a b c d e f of points upon the skin4 ,suppose the local difference of feeling between a and f to be so strong as to be instantly recognized when the points are simultaneously touched1 but suppose that between c and d to be at first too small for this purpose4 ,if we began by putting the compasses on a and f and gradually contracted their opening1 the strong doubleness recognized at first would still be suggested1 as the compass-points approached the positions c and d2 for the point e would be so near f1 and so like it1 as not to be aroused without f also coming to mind4 ,similarly d would recall e and1 more remotely1 f4 ,in such wise c--d would no longer be bare c--d1 but something more like abc--def1--palpably differing impressions4 ,but in actual experience the education can take place in a much less methodical way1 and we learn at last to discriminate c and d without any constant adhesion being contracted between one of these spots and ab1 and the other and ef4 ,volkmann's experiments show this4 ,he and ,fechner1 prompted by ,czermak's observation that the skin of the blind was twice as discriminative as that of seeing folks1 sought by experiment to show the effects of practice upon themselves4 ,they discovered that even within the limits of a single sitting the distances at which points were felt double might fall at the end to considerably less than half of their magnitude at the beginning2 and that some1 though not all1 of this improved sensibility was retained next day4 ,but they also found that exercising one part of the skin in this way improved the discrimination not only of the corresponding part of the opposite side of the body1 but of the neighboring parts as well4 ,thus1 at the beginning of an experimental sitting1 the compass-points had to be a ,paris line asunder1 in order to be distinguished by the little-finger-tip4 ,but after exercising the other fingers1 it was found that the little-finger-tip could discriminate points only half a line apart4#dbe ,the same relation existed betwixt divers points of the arm and hand4#dbf ,here it is clear that the cause which ,i first suggested fails to apply1 and that we must invoke another4 ,what are the exact experimental phenomena8 ,the spots1 as such1 are not distinctly located1 and the difference1 as such1 between their feelings1 is not distinctly felt1 until the interval is greater than the minimum required for the mere perception of their doubleness4 ,what we first feel is a bluntness1 then a suspicion of doubleness1 which presently becomes a distinct doubleness1 and at last two different-feeling and differently placed spots with a definite tract of space between them4 ,some of the places we try give us this latest stage of the perception immediately2 some only give us the earliest2 and between them are intermediary places4 ,but as soon as the image of the doubleness as it is felt in the more discriminative places gets lodged in our memory1 it helps us to find its like in places where otherwise we might have missed it1 much as the recent hearing of an 'overtone' helps us to detect the latter in a compound sound 7supra1 pp4 #dci-dj74 ,a dim doubleness grows clearer by being assimilated to the image of a distincter doubleness felt a moment before4 ,it is interpreted by means of the latter4 ,and so is any difference1 like any other sort of impression1 more easily perceived when we carry in our mind to meet it a distinct image of what sort of a thing we are to look for1 of what its nature is likely to be4#dbg ,these two processes1 the reinforcement of the terms by disparate associates1 and the filling of the memory with past differences1 of similar direction with the present one1 but of more conspicuous amount1 are the only explanations ,i can offer of the effects of education in this line4 ,what is accomplished by both processes is essentially the same thing3 they make small differences affect us as if they were large ones--that large differences should affect us as they do remains an inexplicable fact4 ,in principle these two processes ought to be sufficient to account for all possible cases4 ,whether in fact they are sufficient1 whether there be no residual factor which we have failed to detect and analyze out1 ,i will not presume to decide4 ,,practical ,,interests ,,limit ,,discrimination4 ,it will be remembered that on page #eji personal interest was named as a sharpener of discrimination alongside of practice4 ,but personal interest probably acts through attention and not in any immediate or specific way4 ,a distinction in which we have a practical stake is one which we concentrate our minds upon and which we are on the look-out for4 ,we draw it frequently1 and we get all the benefits of so doing1 benefits which have just been explained4 ,where1 on the other hand1 a distinction has no practical interest1 where we gain nothing by analyzing a feature from out of the compound total of which it forms a part1 we contract a habit of leaving it unnoticed1 and at last grow callous to its presence4 ,helmholtz was the first psychologist who dwelt on these facts as emphatically as they deserve1 and ,i can do no better than quote his very words4 ,we are accustomed1 he says1 in a large number of cases where sensations of different kinds1 or in different parts of the body1 exist simultaneously1 to recognize that they are distinct as soon as they are perceived1 and to direct our attention at will to any one of them separately4 ,thus at any moment we can be separately conscious of what we see1 of what we hear1 of what we feel2 and distinguish what we feel in a finger or in the great toe1 whether pressure1 gentle touch1 or warmth4 ,so also in the field of vision4 ,indeed1 as ,i shall endeavor to show in what follows1 we readily distinguish our sensations from one another when we have a precise knowledge that they are composite1 as1 for example1 when we have become certain1 by frequently repeated and invariable experience1 that our present sensation arises from the simultaneous action of many independent stimuli1 each of which usually excites an equally well-known individual sensation4 ,this1 it will be observed1 is only another statement of our law1 that the only individual components which we can pick out of compounds are those of which we have independent knowledge in a separate form4 ,this induces us to think that nothing can be easier1 when a number of different sensations are simultaneously excited1 than to distinguish them individually from each other1 and that this is an innate faculty of our minds4 ,thus we find1 among other things1 that it is quite a matter of course to hear separately the different musical tones which come to our senses collectively2 and we expect that in every case when two of them occur together1 we shall be able to do the like4 ,the matter becomes very different when we set to work to investigate the more unusual cases of perception1 and seek more completely to understand the conditions under which the above-mentioned distinction can or cannot be made1 as is the case in the physiology of the senses4 ,we then become aware that two different kinds or grades must be distinguished in our becoming conscious of a sensation4 ,the lower grade of this consciousness is that in which the influence of the sensation in question makes itself felt only in the conceptions we form of external things and processes1 and assists in determining them4 ,this can take place without our needing1 or indeed being able1 to ascertain to what particular part of our sensations we owe this or that circumstance in our perceptions4 ,in this case we will say that the impression of the sensation in question is perceived synthetically4 ,the second higher grade is when we immediately distinguish the sensation in question as an existing part of the sum of the sensations excited in us4 ,we will say1 then1 that the sensation is perceived analytically4 ,the two cases must be carefully distinguished from each other4#dbh ,by the sensation being perceived synthetically1 ,helmholtz means that it is not discriminated at all1 but only felt in a mass with other simultaneous sensations4 ,that it is felt there he thinks is proved by the fact that our judgment of the total will change if anything occurs to alter the outer cause of the sensation4#dbi ,the following pages from an earlier edition show what the concrete cases of synthetic perception and what those of analytic perception are wont to be3 ,in the use of our senses1 practice and experience play a much larger part than we ordinarily suppose4 ,our sensations are in the first instance important only in so far as they enable us to judge rightly of the world about us2 and our practice in discriminating between them usually goes only just far enough to meet this end4 ,we are1 however1 too much disposed to think that we must be immediately conscious of every ingredient of our sensations4 ,this natural prejudice is due to the fact that we are indeed conscious1 immediately and without effort1 of everything in our sensations which has a bearing upon those practical purposes1 for the sake of which we wish to know the outer world4 ,daily and hourly1 during our whole life1 we keep our senses in training for this end exclusively1 and for its sake our experiences are accumulated4 ,but even within the sphere of these sensations1 which do correspond to outer things1 training and practice make themselves felt4 ,it is well known how much finer and quicker the painter is in discriminating colors and illuminations than one whose eye is not trained in these matters2 how the musician and the musical-instrument maker perceive with ease and certainty differences of pitch and tone which for the ear of the layman do not exist2 and how even in the inferior realms of cookery and wine-judging it takes a long habit of comparing to make a master4 ,but more strikingly still is seen the effect of practice when we pass to sensations which depend only on inner conditions of our organs1 and which1 not corresponding at all to outer things or to their effects upon us1 are therefore of no value in giving us information about the outer world4 ,the physiology of the sense-organs has1 in recent times1 made us acquainted with a number of such phenomena1 discovered partly in consequence of theoretic speculations and questionings1 partly by individuals1 like ,goethe and ,purkinje1 specially endowed by nature with talent for this sort of observation4 ,these so-called subjective phenomena are extraordinarily hard to find2 and when they are once found1 special aids for the attention are almost always required to observe them4 ,it is usually hard to notice the phenomenon again even when one knows already the description of the first observer4 ,the reason is that we are not only unpractised in singling out these subjective sensations1 but that we are1 on the contrary1 most thoroughly trained in abstracting our attention from them1 because they would only hinder us in observing the outer world4 ,only when their intensity is so strong as actually to hinder us in observing the outer world do we begin to notice them2 or they may sometimes1 in dreaming and delirium1 form the starting point of hallucinations4 ,let me give a few well-known cases1 taken from physiological optics1 as examples4 ,every eye probably contains musc volitantes1 so called2 these are fibres1 granules1 etc41 floating in the vitreous humor1 throwing their shadows on the retina1 and appearing in the field of vision as little dark moving spots4 ,they are most easily detected by looking attentively at a broad1 bright1 blank surface like the sky4 ,most persons who have not had their attention expressly called to the existence of these figures are apt to notice them for the first time when some ailment befalls their eyes and attracts their attention to the subjective state of these organs4 ,the usual complaint then is that the musc volitantes came in with the malady2 and this often makes the patients very anxious about these harmless things1 and attentive to all their peculiarities4 ,it is then hard work to make them believe that these figures have existed throughout all their previous life1 and that all healthy eyes contain them4 ,i knew an old gentleman who once had occasion to cover one of his eyes which had accidentally become diseased1 and who was then in no small degree shocked at finding that his other eye was totally blind2 with a sort of blindness1 moreover1 which must have lasted years1 and yet he never was aware of it4 ,who1 besides1 would believe without performing the appropriate experiments1 that when one of his eyes is closed there is a great gap1 the so-called 'blind spot1' not far from the middle of the field of the open eye1 in which he sees nothing at all1 but which he fills out with his imagination8 ,mariotte1 who was led by theoretic speculations to discover this phenomenon1 awakened no small surprise when he showed it at the court of ,charles ,,ii4 of ,england4 ,the experiment was at that time repeated with many variations1 and became a fashionable amusement4 ,the gap is1 in fact1 so large that seven full moons alongside of each other would not cover its diameter1 and that a man's face #f or #g feet off disappears within it4 ,in our ordinary use of vision this great hole in the field fails utterly to be noticed2 because our eyes are constantly wandering1 and the moment an object interests us we turn them full upon it4 ,so it follows that the object which at any actual moment excites our attention never happens to fall upon this gap1 and thus it is that we never grow conscious of the blind spot in the field4 ,in order to notice it1 we must first purposely rivet our gaze upon one object and then move about a second object in the neighborhood of the blind spot1 striving meanwhile to attend to this latter without moving the direction of our gaze from the first object4 ,this runs counter to all our habits1 and is therefore a difficult thing to accomplish4 ,with some people it is even an impossibility4 ,but only when it is accomplished do we see the second object vanish and convince ourselves of the existence of this gap4 ,finally1 let me refer to the double images of ordinary binocular vision4 ,whenever we look at a point with both eyes1 all objects on this side of it or beyond it appear double4 ,it takes but a moderate effort of observation to ascertain this fact2 and from this we may conclude that we have been seeing the far greater part of the external world double all our lives1 although numbers of persons are unaware of it1 and are in the highest degree astonished when it is brought to their attention4 ,as a matter of fact1 we never have seen in this double fashion any particular object upon which our attention was directed at the time2 for upon such objects we always converge both eyes4 ,in the habitual use of our eyes1 our attention is always withdrawn from such objects as give us double images at the time2 this is the reason why we so seldom learn that these images exist4 ,in order to find them we must set our attention a new and unusual task2 we must make it explore the lateral parts of the field of vision1 not1 as usual1 to find what objects are there1 but to analyze our sensations4 ,then only do we notice this phenomenon4#dcj ,the same difficulty which is found in the observation of subjective sensations to which no external object corresponds is found also in the analysis of compound sensations which correspond to a single object4 ,of this sort are many of our sensations of sound4 ,when the sound of a violin1 no matter how often we hear it1 excites over and over again in our ear the same sum of partial tones1 the result is that our feeling of this sum of tones ends by becoming for our mind a mere sign for the voice of the violin4 ,another combination of partial tones becomes the sensible sign of the voice of a clarionet1 etc4 ,and the oftener any such combination is heard1 the more accustomed we grow to perceiving it as an integral total1 and the harder it becomes to analyze it by immediate observation4 ,i believe that this is one of the principal reasons why the analysis of the notes of the human voice in singing is relatively so difficult4 ,such fusions of many sensations into what1 to conscious perception1 seems a simple whole1 abound in all our senses4 ,physiological optics affords other interesting examples4 ,the perception of the bodily form of a near object comes about through the combination of two diverse pictures which the eyes severally receive from it1 and whose diversity is due to the different position of each eye1 altering the perspective view of what is before it4 ,before the invention of the stereoscope this explanation could only be assumed hypothetically2 but it can now be proved at any moment by the use of the instrument4 ,into the stereoscope we insert two flat drawings1 representing the two perspective views of the two eyes1 in such a manner that each eye sees its own view in the proper place2 and we obtain1 in consequence1 the perception of a single extended solid1 as complete and vivid as if we had the real object before us4 ,now we can1 it is true1 by shutting one eye after the other and attending to the point1 recognize the difference in the pictures--at least when it is not too small4 ,but1 for the stereoscopic perception of solidity1 pictures suffice whose difference is so extraordinarily slight as hardly to be recognized by the most careful comparison2 and it is certain that1 in our ordinary careless observing of bodily objects1 we never dream that the perception is due to two perspective views fused into one1 because it is an entirely different kind of perception from that of either flat perspective view by itself4 ,it is certain1 therefore1 that two different sensations of our two eyes fuse into a third perception entirely different from either4 ,just as partial tones fuse into the perception of a certain instrument's voice2 and just as we learn to separate the partial tones of a vibrating string by pinching a nodal point and letting them sound in isolation2 so we learn to separate the images on the two eyes by opening and closing them alternately4 ,there are other much more complex instances of the way in which many sensations may combine to serve as the basis of a quite simple perception4 ,when1 for example we perceive an object in a certain direction1 we must somehow be impressed by the fact that certain of our optic nerve-fibres1 and no others1 are impressed by its light4 ,furthermore1 we must rightly judge the position of our eyes in our head1 and of our head upon our body1 by means of feelings in our eye-muscles and our neck-muscles respectively4 ,if any of these processes is disturbed we get a false perception of the object's position4 ,the nerve-fibres can be changed by a prism before the eye2 or the eyeball's position changed by pressing the organ towards one side2 and such experiments show that1 for the simple seeing of the position of an object1 sensations of these two sorts must concur4 ,but it would be quite impossible to gather this directly from the sensible impression which the object makes4 ,even when we have made experiments and convinced ourselves in every possible manner that such must be the fact1 it still remains hidden from our immediate introspective observation4 ,these examples of 'synthetic perception1' perception in which each contributory sensation is felt in the whole1 and is a co-determinant of what the whole shall be1 but does not attract the attention to its separate self may suffice to show the vital part which the direction of attention and practice in observing play in sense-perception4 ,to apply this now to the ear4 ,the ordinary task which our ear has to solve when many sounds assail it at once is to discern the voices of the several sounding bodies or instruments engaged2 beyond this it has no objective interest in analyzing4 ,we wish to know1 when many men are speaking together1 what each one says1 when many instruments and voices combine1 which melody is executed by each4 ,any deeper analysis1 such as that of each separate note into its partial tones 7although it might be performed by the same means and faculty of hearing as the first analysis7 would tell us nothing new about the sources of sound actually present1 but might lead us astray as to their number4 ,for this reason we confine our attention in analyzing a mass of sound to the several instruments' voices1 and expressly abstain1 as it were1 from discriminating the elementary components of the latter4 ,in this last sort of discrimination we are as unpractised as we are1 on the contrary1 well trained in the former kind4#dca ,after all we have said1 no comment seems called for upon these interesting and important facts and reflections of ,helmholtz4 ,,reaction-,,time ,,after ,,discrimination4 ,the time required for discrimination has been made a subject of experimental measurement4 ,wundt calls it ,unterscheidungszeit4 ,his subjects 7whose simple reaction-time--see p4 #he ff4--had previously been determined7 were required to make a movement1 always the same1 the instant they discerned which of two or more signals they received4 ,the exact time of the signal and that of the movement were automatically registered by a galvanic chronoscope4 ,the particular signal to be received was unknown in advance1 and the excess of time occupied by those reactions in which its character had first to be discerned1 over the simple reaction-time1 measured1 according to ,wundt1 the time required for the act of discrimination4 ,it was found longer when four different signals were irregularly used than when only two were used4 ,in the former case it averaged1 for three observers respectively 7the signals being the sudden appearance of a black or of a white object71 #j4jej sec42 #j4jdg sec4 #j4jgi sec4 ,in the latter case1 a red and a green signal being added to the former ones1 it became1 for the same observers1 #j4aeg2 #j4jgc2 #j4acb4dcb ,later1 in ,wundt's ,laboratory1 ,herr ,tischer made many careful experiments after the same method1 where the facts to be discriminated were the different degrees of loudness in the sound which served as a signal4 ,i subjoin ,herr ,tischer's table of results1 explaining that each vertical column after the first gives the average results obtained from a distinct individual1 and that the figure in the first column stands for the number of possible loudnesses that might be expected in the particular series of reactions made4 ,the times are expressed in thousandths of a second4 #b #f #h4e #aj4ge #aj4g #cc #ec #c #aj #ad4d #ai4i #bb4g #eh4e #eg4h #d #af4g #bj4h #bi #bi4a #ge #hd #e #be4f #ca 444 #dj4a #ie4e #achdcc ,the interesting points here are the great individual variations1 and the rapid way in which the time for discrimination increases with the number of possible terms to discriminate4 ,the individual variations are largely due to want of practice in the particular task set1 but partly also to discrepancies in the psychic process4 ,one gentleman said1 for example1 that in the experiments with three sounds1 he kept the image of the middle one ready in his mind1 and compared what he heard as either louder1 lower1 or the same4 ,his discrimination among three possibilities became thus very similar to a discrimination between two4#dcd ,mr4 ,j4 ,m4 ,cattell found he could get no results by this method1#dce and reverted to one used by observers previous to ,wundt and which ,wundt had rejected4 ,this is the einfache ,wahlmethode1 as ,wundt calls it4 ,the reacter awaits the signal and reacts if it is of one sort1 but omits to act if it is of another sort4 ,the reaction thus occurs after discrimination2 the motor impulse cannot be sent to the hand until the subject knows what the signal is4 ,the nervous impulse1 as ,mr4 ,cattell says1 must probably travel to the cortex and excite changes there1 causing in consciousness the perception of the signal4 ,these changes occupy the time of discrimination 7or perception-time1 as it is called by ,mr4 ,c47 ,but then a nervous impulse must descend from the cortex to the lower motor centre which stands primed and ready to discharge2 and this1 as ,mr4 ,c4 says1 gives a will-time as well4 ,the total reaction-time thus includes both 'will-time' and 'discrimination-time4' ,but as the centrifugal and centripetal processes occupying these two times respectively are probably about the same1 and the time used in the cortex is about equally divided between the perception of the signal and the preparation of the motor discharge1 if we divide it equally between perception 7discrimination7 and volition1 the error cannot be great4#dcf ,we can moreover change the nature of the perception without altering the will-time1 and thus investigate with considerable thoroughness the length of the perception-time4 ,guided by these principles1 ,prof4 ,cattell found the time required for distinguishing a white signal from no signal to be1 in two observers3 #j4jcj sec4 and #j4jej sec2 that for distinguishing one color from another was similarly3 #j4ajj and #j4aaj2 that for distinguishing a certain color from ten other colors3 #j4aje and #j4aag2 that for distinguishing the letter ,a in ordinary print from the letter ,z3 #j4adb and #j4acg2 that for distinguishing a given letter from all the rest of the alphabet 7not reacting until that letter appeared7 #j4aai and #j4aaf2 that for distinguishing a word from any of twenty-five other words1 from #j4aah sec4 to #j4aeh sec4 ,the difference depending on the length of the words and the familiarity of the language to which they belonged4 ,prof4 ,cattell calls attention to the fact that the time for distinguishing a word is often but little more than that for distinguishing a letter3 ,we do not1 therefore1 distinguish separately the letters of which a word is composed1 but the word as a whole4 ,the application of this in teaching children to read is evident4 ,he also finds a great difference in the time with which various letters are distinguished1 ,e being particularly bad4#dcg ,i have1 in describing these experiments1 followed the example of previous writers and spoken as if the process by which the nature of the signal determines the reaction were identical with the ordinary conscious process of discriminative perception and volition4 ,i am convinced1 however1 that this is not the case2 and that although the results are the same1 the form of consciousness is quite different4 ,the reader will remember my contention 7supra1 p4 #ij ff47 that the simple reaction-time 7usually supposed to include a conscious process of perceiving7 really measures nothing but a reflex act4 ,anyone who will perform reactions with discrimination will easily convince himself that the process here also is far more like a reflex1 than like a deliberate1 operation4 ,i have made1 with myself and students1 a large number of measurements where the signal expected was in one series a touch somewhere on the skin of the back and head1 and in another series a spark somewhere in the field of view4 ,the hand had to move as quickly as possible towards the place of the touch or the spark4 ,it did so infallibly1 and sensibly instantly2 whilst both place and movement seemed to be perceived only a moment later1 in memory4 ,these experiments were undertaken for the express purpose of ascertaining whether the movement at the sight of the spark was discharged immediately by the visual perception1 or whether a 'motor-idea' had to intervene between the perception of the spark and the reaction4#dch ,the first thing that was manifest to introspection was that no perception or idea of any sort preceded the reaction4 ,it jumped of itself1 whenever the signal came2 and perception was retrospective4 ,we must suppose1 then1 that the state of eager expectancy of a certain definite range of possible discharges1 innervates a whole set of paths in advance1 so that when a particular sensation comes it is drafted into its appropriate motor outlet too quickly for the perceptive process to be aroused4 ,in the experiments ,i describe1 the conditions were most favorable for rapidity1 for the connection between the signals and their movements might almost be called innate4 ,it is instinctive to move the hand towards a thing seen or a skin-spot touched4 ,but where the movement is conventionally attached to the signal1 there would be more chance for delay1 and the amount of practice would then determine the speed4 ,this is well shown in ,tischer's results1 quoted on p4 #ebd1 where the most practised observer1 ,tischer himself1 reacted in one eighth of the time needed by one of the others4#dci ,but what all investigators have aimed to determine in these experiments is the minimum time4 ,i trust ,i have said enough to convince the student that this minimum time by no means measures what we consciously know as discrimination4 ,it only measures something which1 under the experimental conditions1 leads to a similar result4 ,but it is the bane of psychology to suppose that where results are similar1 processes must be the same4 ,psychologists are too apt to reason as geometers would1 if the latter were to say that the diameter of a circle is the same thing as its semi-circumference1 because1 forsooth1 they terminate in the same two points4#ddj ,,the ,,perception ,,of ,,likeness4 ,the perception of likeness is practically very much bound up with that of difference4 ,that is to say1 the only differences we note as differences1 and estimate quantitatively1 and arrange along a scale1 are those comparatively limited differences which we find between members of a common genus4 ,the force of gravity and the color of this ink are things it never occurred to me to compare until now that ,i am casting about for examples of the incomparable4 ,similarly the elastic quality of this india-rubber band1 the comfort of last night's sleep1 the good that can be done with a legacy1 these are things too discrepant to have ever been compared ere now4 ,their relation to each other is less that of difference than of mere logical negativity4 ,to be found different1 things must as a rule have some commensurability1 some aspect in common1 which suggests the possibility of their being treated in the same way4 ,this is of course not a theoretic necessity--for any distinction may be called a 'difference1' if one likes--but a practical and linguistic remark4 ,the same things1 then1 which arouse the perception of difference usually arouse that of resemblance also4 ,and the analysis of them1 so as to define wherein the difference and wherein the resemblance respectively consists1 is called comparison4 ,if we start to deal with the things as simply the same or alike1 we are liable to be surprised by the difference4 ,if we start to treat them as merely different1 we are apt to discover how much they are alike4 ,difference1 commonly so called1 is thus between species of a genus4 ,and the faculty by which we perceive the resemblance upon which the genus is based1 is just as ultimate and inexplicable a mental endowment as that by which we perceive the differences upon which the species depend4 ,there is a shock of likeness when we pass from one thing to another which in the first instance we merely discriminate numerically1 but1 at the moment of bringing our attention to bear1 perceive to be similar to the first2 just as there is a shock of difference when we pass between two dissimilars4#dda ,the objective extent of the likeness1 just like that of the difference1 determines the magnitude of the shock4 ,the likeness may be so evanescent1 or the basis of it so habitual and little liable to be attended to1 that it will escape observation altogether4 ,where1 however1 we find it1 there we make a genus of the things compared2 and their discrepancies and incommensurabilities in other respects can then figure as the differential of so many species4 ,as 'thinkables' or 'existents' even the smoke of a cigarette and the worth of a dollar-bill are comparable--still more so as 'perishables1' or as 'enjoyables4' ,much1 then1 of what ,i have said of difference in the course of this chapter will apply1 with a simple change of language1 to resemblance as well4 ,we go through the world1 carrying on the two functions abreast1 discovering differences in the like1 and likenesses in the different4 ,to abstract the ground of either difference or likeness 7where it is not ultimate7 demands an analysis of the given objects into their parts4 ,so that all that was said of the dependence of analysis upon a preliminary separate acquaintance with the character to be abstracted1 and upon its having varied concomitants1 finds a place in the psychology of resemblance as well as in that of difference4 ,but when all is said and done about the conditions which favor our perception of resemblance and our abstraction of its ground1 the crude fact remains1 that some people are far more sensitive to resemblances1 and far more ready to point out wherein they consist1 than others are4 ,they are the wits1 the poets1 the inventors1 the scientific men1 the practical geniuses4 ,a native talent for perceiving analogies is reckoned by ,prof4 ,bain1 and by others before and after him1 as the leading fact in genius of every order4 ,but as this chapter is already long1 and as the question of genius had better wait till ,chapter ,,xxii1 where its practical consequences can be discussed at the same time1 ,i will say nothing more at present either about it or about the faculty of noting resemblances4 ,if the reader feels that this faculty is having small justice done it at my hands1 and that it ought to be wondered at and made much more of than has been done in these last few pages1 he will perhaps find some compensation when that later chapter is reached4 ,i think ,i emphasize it enough when ,i call it one of the ultimate foundation-pillars of the intellectual life1 the others being ,discrimination1 ,retentiveness1 and ,association4 ,,the ,,magnitude ,,of ,,differences4 ,on page #dhi ,i spoke of differences being greater or less1 and of certain groups of them being susceptible of a linear arrangement exhibiting serial increase4 ,a series whose terms grow more and more different from the starting point is one whose terms grow less and less like it4 ,they grow more and more like it if you read them the other way4 ,so that likeness and unlikeness to the starting point are functions inverse to each other1 of the position of any term in such a series4 ,professor ,stumpf introduces the word distance to denote the position of a term in any such series4 ,the less like is the term1 the more distant it is from the starting point4 ,the ideally regular series of this sort would be one in which the distances--the steps of resemblance or difference--between all pairs of adjacent terms were equal4 ,this would be an evenly gradated series4 ,and it is an interesting fact in psychology that we are able1 in many departments of our sensibility1 to arrange the terms without difficulty in this evenly gradated way4 ,differences1 in other words1 between diverse pairs of terms1 a and b1 for example1 on the one hand1 and c and d on the other1#ddb can be judged equal or diverse in amount4 ,the distances from one term to another in the series are equal4 ,linear magnitudes and musical notes are perhaps the impressions which we easiest arrange in this way4 ,next come shades of light or color1 which we have little difficulty in arranging by steps of difference of sensibly equal value4 ,messrs4 ,plateau and ,delbuf have found it fairly easy to determine what shade of gray will be judged by every one to hit the exact middle between a darker and a lighter shade4#ddc ,how now do we so readily recognize the equality of two differences between different pairs of terms8 or1 more briefly1 how do we recognize the magnitude of a difference at all8 ,prof4 ,stumpf discusses this question in an interesting way2#ddd and comes to the conclusion that our feeling for the size of a difference1 and our perception that the terms of two diverse pairs are equally or unequally distant from each other1 can be explained by no simpler mental process1 but1 like the shock of difference itself1 must be regarded as for the present an unanalyzable endowment of the mind4 ,this acute author rejects in particular the notion which would make our judgment of the distance between two sensations depend upon our mentally traversing the intermediary steps4 ,we may of course do so1 and may often find it useful to do so1 as in musical intervals1 or figured lines1 ,but we need not do so2 and nothing more is really required for a comparative judgment of the amount of a 'distance' than three or four impressions belonging to a common kind4 ,the vanishing of all perceptible difference between two numerically distinct things makes them qualitatively the same or equal4 ,equality1 or qualitative 7as distinguished from numerical7 identity1 is thus nothing but the extreme degree of likeness4#dde ,we saw above 7p4 #dib7 that some persons consider that the difference between two objects is constituted of two things1 viz41 their absolute identity in certain respects1 plus their absolute non-identity in others4 ,we saw that this theory would not apply to all cases 7p4 #dic74 ,so here any theory which would base likeness on identity1 and not rather identity on likeness1 must fail4 ,it is supposed perhaps1 by most people1 that two resembling things owe their resemblance to their absolute identity in respect of some attribute or attributes1 combined with the absolute non-identity of the rest of their being4 ,this1 which may be true of compound things1 breaks down when we come to simple impressions4 ,when we compare a deep1 a middle1 and a high note1 e4g4 ,c1 f sharp1 a'''1 we remark immediately that the first is less like the third than the second is4 ,the same would be true of c d e in the same region of the scale4 ,our very calling one of the notes a 'middle' note is the expression of a judgment of this sort4 ,but where here is the identical and where the non-identical part8 ,we cannot think of the overtones2 for the first-named three notes have none in common1 at least not on musical instruments4 ,moreover1 we might take simple tones1 and still our judgment would be unhesitatingly the same1 provided the tones were not chosen too close together4444 ,neither can it be said that the identity consists in their all being sounds1 and not a sound1 a smell1 and a color1 respectively4 ,for this identical attribute comes to each of them in equal measure1 whereas the first1 being less like the third than the second is1 ought1 on the terms of the theory we are criticising1 to have less of the identical quality4444 ,it thus appears impracticable to define all possible cases of likeness as partial identity plus partial disparity2 and it is vain to seek in all cases for identical elements4#ddf ,and as all compound resemblances are based on simple ones like these1 it follows that likeness berhaupt must not be conceived as a special complication of identity1 but rather that identity must be conceived as a special degree of likeness1 according to the proposition expressed at the outset of the paragraph that precedes4 ,likeness and difference are ultimate relations perceived4 ,as a matter of fact1 no two sensations1 no two objects of all those we know1 are in scientific rigor identical4 ,we call those of them identical whose difference is unperceived4 ,over and above this we have a conception of absolute sameness1 it is true1 but this1 like so many of our conceptions 7cf4 p4 #ejh71 is an ideal construction got by following a certain direction of serial increase to its maximum supposable extreme4 ,it plays an important part1 among other permanent meanings possessed by us1 in our ideal intellectual constructions4 ,but it plays no part whatever in explaining psychologically how we perceive likenesses between simple things4 ,,the ,,measure ,,of ,,discriminative ,,sensibility4 ,in #ahfj1 ,professor ,g4 ,t4 ,fechner of ,leipzig1 a man of great learning and subtlety of mind1 published two volumes entitled ',psychophysik1' devoted to establishing and explaining a law called by him the psychophysic law1 which he considered to express the deepest and most elementary relation between the mental and the physical worlds4 ,it is a formula for the connection between the amount of our sensations and the amount of their outward causes4 ,its simplest expression is1 that when we pass from one sensation to a stronger one of the same kind1 the sensations increase proportionally to the logarithms of their exciting causes4 ,fechner's book was the starting point of a new department of literature1 which it would be perhaps impossible to match for the qualities of thoroughness and subtlety1 but of which1 in the humble opinion of the present writer1 the proper psychological outcome is just nothing4 ,the psychophysic law controversy has prompted a good many series of observations on sense-discrimination1 and has made discussion of them very rigorous4 ,it has also cleared up our ideas about the best methods for getting average results1 when particular observations vary2 and beyond this it has done nothing2 but as it is a chapter in the history of our science1 some account of it is here due to the reader4 ,fechner's train of thought has been popularly expounded a great many times4 ,as ,i have nothing new to add1 it is but just that ,i should quote an existing account4 ,i choose the one given by ,wundt in his ,vorlesungen ber ,menschen und ,thierseele1 #ahfc1 omitting a good deal3 ,how much stronger or weaker one sensation is than another1 we are never able to say4 ,whether the sun be a hundred or a thousand times brighter than the moon1 a cannon a hundred or a thousand times louder than a pistol1 is beyond our power to estimate4 ,the natural measure of sensation which we possess enables us to judge of the equality1 of the 'more' and of the 'less1' but not of 'how many times more or less4' ,this natural measure is1 therefore1 as good as no measure at all1 whenever it becomes a question of accurately ascertaining intensities in the sensational sphere4 ,even though it may teach us in a general way that with the strength of the outward physical stimulus the strength of the concomitant sensation waxes or wanes1 still it leaves us without the slightest knowledge of whether the sensation varies in exactly the same proportion as the stimulus itself1 or at a slower or a more rapid rate4 ,in a word1 we know by our natural sensibility nothing of the law that connects the sensation and its outward cause together4 ,to find this law we must first find an exact measure for the sensation itself2 we must be able to say3 ,a stimulus of strength one begets a sensation of strength one2 a stimulus of strength two begets a sensation of strength two1 or three1 or four1 etc4 ,but to do this we must first know what a sensation two1 three1 or four times greater than another signifies4444 ,space magnitudes we soon learn to determine exactly because we only measure one space against another4 ,the measure of mental magnitudes is far more difficult4444 ,but the problem of measuring the magnitude of sensations is the first step in the bold enterprise of making mental magnitudes altogether subject to exact measurement4444 ,were our whole knowledge limited to the fact that the sensation rises when the stimulus rises1 and falls when the latter falls1 much would not be gained4 ,but even immediate unaided observation teaches us certain facts which1 at least in a general way1 suggest the law according to which the sensations vary with their outward cause4 ,every one knows that in the stilly night we hear things unnoticed in the noise of day4 ,the gentle ticking of the clock1 the air circulating through the chimney1 the cracking of the chairs in the room1 and a thousand other slight noises1 impress themselves upon our ear4 ,it is equally well known that in the confused hubbub of the streets1 or the clamor of a railway1 we may lose not only what our neighbor says to us1 but even not hear the sound of our own voice4 ,the stars which are brightest at night are invisible by day2 and although we see the moon then1 she is far paler than at night4 ,everyone who has had to deal with weights knows that if to a pound in the hand a second pound be added1 the difference is immediately felt2 whilst if it be added to a hundredweight1 we are not aware of the difference at all4444 ,the sound of the clock1 the light of the stars1 the pressure of the pound1 these are all stimuli to our senses1 and stimuli whose outward amount remains the same4 ,what then do these experiences teach8 ,evidently nothing but this1 that one and the same stimulus1 according to the circumstances under which it operates1 will be felt either more or less intensely1 or not felt at all4 ,of what sort now is the alteration in the circumstances1 upon which this alteration in the feeling may depend8 ,on considering the matter closely we see that it is everywhere of one and the same kind4 ,the tick of the clock is a feeble stimulus for our auditory nerve1 which we hear plainly when it is alone1 but not when it is added to the strong stimulus of the carriage-wheels and other noises of the day4 ,the light of the stars is a stimulus to the eye4 ,but if the stimulation which this light exerts be added to the strong stimulus of daylight1 we feel nothing of it1 although we feel it distinctly when it unites itself with the feebler stimulation of the twilight4 ,the pound-weight is a stimulus to our skin1 which we feel when it joins itself to a preceding stimulus of equal strength1 but which vanishes when it is combined with a stimulus a thousand times greater in amount4 ,we may therefore lay it down as a general rule that a stimulus1 in order to be felt1 may be so much the smaller if the already pre-existing stimulation of the organ is small1 but must be so much the larger1 the greater the pre-existing stimulation is4 ,from this in a general way we can perceive the connection between the stimulus and the feeling it excites4 ,at least thus much appears1 that the law of dependence is not as simple a one as might have been expected beforehand4 ,the simplest relation would obviously be that the sensation should increase in identically the same ratio as the stimulus1 thus that if a stimulus of strength one occasioned a sensation one1 a stimulus of two should occasion sensation two1 stimulus three1 sensation three1 etc4 ,but if this simplest of all relations prevailed1 a stimulus added to a pre-existing strong stimulus ought to provoke as great an increase of feeling as if it were added to a pre-existing weak stimulus2 the light of the stars e4g41 ought to make as great an addition to the daylight as it does to the darkness of the nocturnal sky4 ,this we know not to be the case3 the stars are invisible by day1 the addition they make to our sensation then is unnoticeable1 whereas the same addition to our feeling of the twilight is very considerable indeed4 ,so it is clear that the strength of the sensations does not increase in proportion to the amount of the stimuli1 but more slowly4 ,and now comes the question1 in what proportion does the increase of the sensation grow less as the increase of the stimulus grows greater4 ,to answer this question1 every-day experiences do not suffice4 ,we need exact measurements both of the amounts of the various stimuli1 and of the intensity of the sensations themselves4 ,how to execute these measurements1 however1 is something which daily experience suggests4 ,to measure the strength of sensations is1 as we saw1 impossible2 we can only measure the difference of sensations4 ,experience showed us what very unequal differences of sensation might come from equal differences of outward stimulus4 ,but all these experiences expressed themselves in one kind of fact1 that the same difference of stimulus could in one case be felt1 and in another case not felt at all--a pound felt if added to another pound1 but not if added to a hundred-weight4444 ,we can quickest reach a result with our observations if we start with an arbitrary strength of stimulus1 notice what sensation it gives us1 and then see how much we can increase the stimulus without making the sensation seem to change4 ,if we carry out such observations with stimuli of varying absolute amounts1 we shall be forced to choose in an equally varying way the amounts of addition to the stimulus which are capable of giving us a just barely perceptible feeling of more4 ,a light1 to be just perceptible in the twilight need not be near as bright as the starlight2 it must be far brighter to be just perceived during the day4 ,if now we institute such observations for all possible strengths of the various stimuli1 and note for each strength the amount of addition of the latter required to produce a barely perceptible alteration of sensation1 we shall have a series of figures in which is immediately expressed the law according to which the sensation alters when the stimulation is increased4444 ,observations according to this method are particularly easy to make in the spheres of light-1 sound-1 and pressure-sensation4444 ,beginning with the latter case1 ,we find a surprisingly simple result4 ,the barely sensible addition to the original weight must stand exactly in the same proportion to it1 be the same fraction of it1 no matter what the absolute value may be of the weights on which the experiment is made4444 ,as the average of a number of experiments1 this fraction is found to be about #a_/c2 that is1 no matter what pressure there may already be made upon the skin1 an increase or a diminution of the pressure will be felt1 as soon as the added or subtracted weight amounts to one third of the weight originally there4 ,wundt then describes how differences may be observed in the muscular feelings1 in the feelings of heat1 in those of light1 and in those of sound2 and he concludes his seventh lecture 7from which our extracts have been made7 thus3 ,so we have found that all the senses whose stimuli we are enabled to measure accurately1 obey a uniform law4 ,however various may be their several delicacies of discrimination1 this holds true of all1 that the increase of the stimulus necessary to produce an increase of the sensation bears a constant ratio to the total stimulus4 ,the figures which express this ratio in the several senses may be shown thus in tabular form3 ,sensation of light1 #a_/ajj ,muscular sensation1 #a_/ag ,feeling of pressure1 #a_/c ,feeling of warmth1 #a_/c ,feeling of sound1 #a_/c ,these figures are far from giving as accurate a measure as might be desired4 ,but at least they are fit to convey a general notion of the relative discriminative susceptibility of the different senses4444 ,the important law which gives in so simple a form the relation of the sensation to the stimulus that calls it forth was first discovered by the physiologist ,ernst ,heinrich ,weber to obtain in special cases4 ,gustav ,theodor ,fechner first proved it to be a law for all departments of sensation4 ,psychology owes to him the first comprehensive investigation of sensations from a physical point of view1 the first basis of an exact ,theory of ,sensibility4 ,so much for a general account of what ,fechner calls ,weber's law4 ,the 'exactness' of the theory of sensibility to which it leads consists in the supposed fact that it gives the means of representing sensations by numbers4 ,the unit of any kind of sensation will be that increment which1 when the stimulus is increased1 we can just barely perceive to be added4 ,the total number of units which any given sensation contains will consist of the total number of such increments which may be perceived in passing from no sensation of the kind to a sensation of the present amount4 ,we cannot get at this number directly1 but we can1 now that we know ,weber's law1 get at it by means of the physical stimulus of which it is a function4 ,for if we know how much of the stimulus it will take to give a barely perceptible sensation1 and then what percentage of addition to the stimulus will constantly give a barely perceptible increment to the sensation1 it is at bottom only a question of compound interest to compute1 out of the total amount of stimulus which we may be employing at any moment1 the number of such increments1 or1 in other words1 of sensational units to which it may give rise4 ,this number bears the same relation to the total stimulus which the time elapsed bears to the capital plus the compound interest accrued4 ,to take an example3 ,if stimulus ,a just falls short of producing a sensation1 and if r be the percentage of itself which must be added to it to get a sensation which is barely perceptible--call this sensation #a--then we should have the series of sensation-numbers corresponding to their several stimuli as follows3 ,sensation #j stimulus ,a2 ,sensation #a stimulus ,a 7#a r72 ,sensation #b stimulus ,a 7#a r7#b2 ,sensation #c stimulus ,a 7#a r7#c2 44444 ,sensation n stimulus ,a 7#a r7n4 ,the sensations here form an arithmetical series1 and the stimuli a geometrical series1 and the two series correspond term for term4 ,now1 of two series corresponding in this way1 the terms of the arithmetical one are called the logarithms of the terms corresponding in rank to them in the geometrical series4 ,a conventional arithmetical series beginning with zero has been formed in the ordinary logarithmic tables1 so that we may truly say 7assuming our facts to be correct so far7 that the sensations vary in the same proportion as the logarithms of their respective stimuli4 ,and we can thereupon proceed to compute the number of units in any given sensation 7considering the unit of sensation to be equal to the just perceptible increment above zero1 and the unit of stimulus to be equal to the increment of stimulus r1 which brings this about7 by multiplying the logarithm of the stimulus by a constant factor which must vary with the particular kind of sensation in question4 ,if we call the stimulus ,r1 and the constant factor ,c1 we get the formula ,s ,c log ,r1 which is what ,fechner calls the psychophysischer ,maasformel4 ,this1 in brief1 is ,fechner's reasoning1 as ,i understand it4 ,the ,maasformel admits of mathematical development in various directions1 and has given rise to arduous discussions into which ,i am glad to be exempted from entering here1 since their interest is mathematical and metaphysical and not primarily psychological at all4#ddg ,i must say a word about them metaphysically a few pages later on4 ,meanwhile it should be understood that no human being1 in any investigation into which sensations entered1 has ever used the numbers computed in this or any other way in order to test a theory or to reach a new result4 ,the whole notion of measuring sensations numerically1 remains in short a mere mathematical speculation about possibilities1 which has never been applied to practice4 ,incidentally to the discussion of it1 however1 a great many particular facts have been discovered about discrimination which merit a place in this chapter4 ,in the first place it is found1 when the difference of two sensations approaches the limit of discernibility1 that at one moment we discern it and at the next we do not4 ,there are accidental fluctuations in our inner sensibility which make it impossible to tell just what the least discernible increment of the sensation is without taking the average of a large number of appreciations4 ,these accidental errors are as likely to increase as to diminish our sensibility1 and are eliminated in such an average1 for those above and those below the line then neutralize each other in the sum1 and the normal sensibility1 if there be one 7that is1 the sensibility due to constant causes as distinguished from these accidental ones71 stands revealed4 ,the best way of getting at the average sensibility has been very minutely worked over4 ,fechner discussed three methods1 as follows3 7#a7 ,the ,method of just-discernible ,differences4 ,take a standard sensation ,s1 and add to it until you distinctly feel the addition d2 then subtract from ,s d until you distinctly feel the effect of the subtraction2#ddh call the difference here d'4 ,the least discernible difference sought is d d'_/#b2 and the ratio of this quantity to the original ,s 7or rather to ,s d - d'7 is what ,fechner calls the difference-threshold4 ,this difference-threshold should be a constant fraction 7no matter what is the size of ,s7 if ,weber's law holds universally true4 ,the difficulty in applying this method is that we are so often in doubt whether anything has been added to ,s or not4 ,furthermore1 if we simply take the smallest d about which we are never in doubt or in error1 we certainly get our least discernible difference larger than it ought theoretically to be4#ddi ,of course the sensibility is small when the least discernible difference is large1 and vice vers2 in other words1 it and the difference-threshold are inversely related to each other4 7#b7 ,the ,method of ,true and ,false ,cases4 ,a sensation which is barely greater than another will1 on account of accidental errors in a long series of experiments1 sometimes be judged equal1 and sometimes smaller2 i4e41 we shall make a certain number of false and a certain number of true judgments about the difference between the two sensations which we are comparing4 ,but the larger this difference is1 the more the number of the true judgments will increase at the expense of the false ones2 or1 otherwise expressed1 the nearer to unity will be the fraction whose denominator represents the whole number of judgments1 and whose numerator represents those which are true4 ,if m is a ratio of this nature1 obtained by comparison of two stimuli1 ,a and ,b1 we may seek another couple of stimuli1 a and b1 which when compared will give the same ratio of true to false cases4#dej ,if this were done1 and the ratio of a to b then proved to be equal to that of ,a to ,b1 that would prove that pairs of small stimuli and pairs of large stimuli may affect our discriminative sensibility similarly so long as the ratio of the components to each other within each pair is the same4 ,in other words1 it would in so far forth prove the ,weberian law4 ,fechner made use of this method to ascertain his own power of discriminating differences of weight1 recording no less than #bd1egf separate judgments1 and computing as a result that his discrimination for the same relative increase of weight was less good in the neighborhood of #ejj than of #cjj grams1 but that after #ejj grams it improved up to #cjjj1 which was the highest weight he experimented with4 7#c7 ,the ,method of ,average ,errors consists in taking a standard stimulus and then trying to make another one of the same sort exactly equal to it4 ,there will in general be an error whose amount is large when the discriminative sensibility called in play is small1 and vice vers4 ,the sum of the errors1 no matter whether they be positive or negative1 divided by their number1 gives the average error4 ,this1 when certain corrections are made1 is assumed by ,fechner to be the 'reciprocal' of the discriminative sensibility in question4 ,it should bear a constant proportion to the stimulus1 no matter what the absolute size of the latter may be1 if ,weber's law hold true4 99 99 99 99 99 ,these methods deal with just perceptible differences4 ,delbuf and ,wundt have experimented with larger differences by means of what ,wundt calls the ,mthode der mittleren ,abstufungen1 and what we may call 7#d7 ,the ,method of ,equal-appearing ,intervals4 ,this consists in so arranging three stimuli in a series that the intervals between the first and the second shall appear equal to that between the second and the third4 ,at first sight there seems to be no direct logical connection between this method and the preceding ones4 ,by them we compare equally perceptible increments of stimulus in different regions of the latter's scale2 but by the fourth method we compare increments which strike us as equally big4 ,but what we can but just notice as an increment need not appear always of the same bigness after it is noticed4 ,on the contrary1 it will appear much bigger when we are dealing with stimuli that are already large4 7#e7 ,the method of doubling the stimulus has been employed by ,wundt's collaborator1 ,merkel1 who tried to make one stimulus seem just double the other1 and then measured the objective relation of the two4 ,the remarks just made apply also to this case4 99 99 99 99 99 ,so much for the methods4 ,the results differ in the hands of different observers4 ,i will add a few of them1 and will take first the discriminative sensibility to light4 ,by the first method1 ,volkmann1 ,aubert1 ,masson1 ,helmholtz1 and ,krpelin find figures varying from #a_/c or #a_/d to #a_/aie of the original stimulus4 ,the smaller fractional increments are discriminated when the light is already fairly strong1 the larger ones when it is weak or intense4 ,that is1 the discriminative sensibility is low when weak or overstrong lights are compared1 and at its best with a certain medium illumination4 ,it is thus a function of the light's intensity2 but throughout a certain range of the latter it keeps constant1 and in so far forth ,weber's law is verified for light4 ,absolute figures cannot be given1 but ,merkel1 by method #a1 found that ,weber's law held good for stimuli 7measured by his arbitrary unit7 between #if and #djif1 beyond which intensity no experiments were made4#dea ,knig and ,brodhun have given measurements by method #a which cover the most extensive series1 and moreover apply to six different colors of light4 ,these experiments 7performed in ,helmholtz's laboratory1 apparently17 ran from an intensity called #a to one which was #ajj1jjj times as great4 ,from intensity #bjjj to #bj1jjj ,weber's law held good2 below and above this range discriminative sensibility declined4 ,the increment discriminated here was the same for all colors of light1 and lay 7according to the tables7 between #a and #b per cent of the stimulus4#deb ,delbuf had verified ,weber's law for a certain range of luminous intensities by method #d2 that is1 he had found that the objective intensity of a light which appeared midway between two others was really the geometrical mean of the latter's intensities4 ,but ,a4 ,lehmann and afterwards ,neiglick1 in ,wundt's laboratory1 found that effects of contrast played so large a part in experiments performed in this way that ,delbuf's results could not be held conclusive4 ,merkel1 repeating the experiments still later1 found that the objective intensity of the light which we judge to stand midway between two others neither stands midway nor is a geometric mean4 ,the discrepancy from both figures is enormous1 but is least large from the midway figure or arithmetical mean of the two extreme intensities4#dec ,finally1 the stars have from time immemorial been arranged in 'magnitudes' supposed to differ by equal-seeming intervals4 ,lately their intensities have been gauged photometrically1 and the comparison of the subjective with the objective series has been made4 ,prof4 ,j4 ,jastrow is the latest worker in this field4 ,he finds1 taking ,pickering's ,harvard photometric tables as a basis1 that the ratio of the average intensity of each 'magnitude' to that below it decreases as we pass from lower to higher magnitudes1 showing a uniform departure from ,weber's law1 if the method of equal-appearing intervals be held to have any direct relevance to the latter4#ded ,sounds are less delicately discriminated in intensity than lights4 ,a certain difficulty has come from disputes as to the measurement of the objective intensity of the stimulus4 ,earlier inquiries made the perceptible increase of the stimulus to be about #a_/c of the latter4 ,merkel's latest results of the method of just perceptible differences make it about #c_/aj for that part of the scale of intensities during which ,weber's law holds good1 which is from #bj to #ejjj of ,m4's arbitrary unit4#dee ,below this the fractional increment must be larger4 ,above it no measurements were made4 ,for pressure and muscular sense we have rather divergent results4 ,weber found by the method of just-perceptible differences that persons could distinguish an increase of weight of #a_/dj when the two weights were successively lifted by the same hand4 ,it took a much larger fraction to be discerned when the weights were laid on a hand which rested on the table4 ,he seems to have verified his results for only two pairs of differing weights1#def and on this founded his 'law4' ,experiments in ,hering's laboratory on lifting #aa weights1 running from #bej to #bgej grams showed that the least perceptible increment varied from #a_/ba for #bej grams to #a_/aad for #bejj4 ,for #bgej it rose to #a_/ih again4 ,merkel's recent and very careful experiments1 in which the finger pressed down the beam of a balance counterweighted by from #be to #hjbj grams1 showed that between #bjj and #bjjj grams a constant fractional increase of about #a_/ac was felt when there was no movement of the finger1 and of about #a_/ai when there was movement4 ,above and below these limits the discriminative power grew less4 ,it was greater when the pressure was upon one square millimeter of surface than when it was upon seven4#deg ,warmth and taste have been made the subject of similar investigations with the result of verifying something like ,weber's law4 ,the determination of the unit of stimulus is1 however1 so hard here that ,i will give no figures4 ,the results may be found in ,wundt's ,physiologische ,psychologie1 #c;d ,ed4 i1 #cgj-b4 ,the discrimination of lengths by the eye has been found also to obey to a certain extent ,weber's law4 ,the figures will all be found in ,g4 ,e4 ,mller1 op4 cit4 part ii1 chap4 x1 to which the reader is referred4 ,professor ,jastrow has published some experiments1 made by what may be called a modification of the method of equal-appearing differences1 on our estimation of the length of sticks1 by which it would seem that the estimated intervals and the real ones are directly and not logarithmically proportionate to each other4 ,this resembles ,merkel's results by that method for weights1 lights1 and sounds1 and differs from ,jastrow's own finding about star-magnitudes4#deh 99 99 99 99 99 ,if we look back over these facts as a whole1 we see that it is not any fixed amount added to an impression that makes us notice an increase in the latter1 but that the amount depends on how large the impression already is4 ,the amount is expressible as a certain fraction of the entire impression to which it is added2 and it is found that the fraction is a well-nigh constant figure throughout an entire region of the scale of intensities of the impression in question4 ,above and below this region the fraction increases in value4 ,this is ,weber's law1 which in so far forth expresses an empirical generalization of practical importance1 without involving any theory whatever or seeking any absolute measure of the sensations themselves4 ,it is in the ,theoretic ,interpretation of ,weber's ,law that ,fechner's originality exclusively consists1 in his assumptions1 namely1 #a7 that the just-perceptible increment is the sensation-unit1 and is in all parts of the scale the same 7mathematically expressed1 s const472 #b7 that all our sensations consist of sums of these units2 and finally1 #c7 that the reason why it takes a constant fractional increase of the stimulus to awaken this unit lies in an ultimate law of the connection of mind with matter1 whereby the quantities of our feelings are related logarithmically to the quantities of their objects4 ,fechner seems to find something inscrutably sublime in the existence of an ultimate 'psychophysic' law of this form4 ,these assumptions are all peculiarly fragile4 ,to begin with1 the mental fact which in the experiments corresponds to the increase of the stimulus is not an enlarged sensation1 but a judgment that the sensation is enlarged4 ,what ,fechner calls the 'sensation' is what appears to the mind as the objective phenomenon of light1 warmth1 weight1 sound1 impressed part of body1 etc4 ,fechner tacitly if not openly assumes that such a judgment of increase consists in the simple fact that an increased number of sensation-units are present to the mind2 and that the judgment is thus itself a quantitatively bigger mental thing when it judges large differences1 or differences between large terms1 than when it judges small ones4 ,but these ideas are really absurd4 ,the hardest sort of judgment1 the judgment which strains the attention most 7if that be any criterion of the judgment's 'size'71 is that about the smallest things and differences4 ,but really it has no meaning to talk about one judgment being bigger than another4 ,and even if we leave out judgments and talk of sensations only1 we have already found ourselves 7in ,chapter ,,vi7 quite unable to read any clear meaning into the notion that they are masses of units combined4 ,to introspection1 our feeling of pink is surely not a portion of our feeling of scarlet2 nor does the light of an electric arc seem to contain that of a tallow-candle in itself4 ,compound things contain parts2 and one such thing may have twice or three times as many parts as another4 ,but when we take a simple sensible quality like light or sound1 and say that there is now twice or thrice as much of it present as there was a moment ago1 although we seem to mean the same thing as if we were talking of compound objects1 we really mean something different4 ,we mean that if we were to arrange the various possible degrees of the quality in a scale of serial increase1 the distance1 interval1 or difference between the stronger and the weaker specimen before us would seem about as great as that between the weaker one and the beginning of the scale4 ,it is these ,,relations1 these ,,distances1 which we are measuring and not the composition of the qualities themselves1 as ,fechner thinks4 ,whilst if we turn to objects which are divisible1 surely a big object may be known in a little thought4 ,introspection shows moreover that in most sensations a new kind of feeling invariably accompanies our judgment of an increased impression2 and this is a fact which ,fechner's formula disregards4#dei ,but apart from these a priori difficulties1 and even supposing that sensations did consist of added units1 ,fechner's assumption that all equally perceptible additions are equally great additions is entirely arbitrary4 ,why might not a small addition to a small sensation be as perceptible as a large addition to a large one8 ,in this case ,weber's law would apply not to the additions themselves1 but only to their perceptibility4 ,our noticing of a difference of units in two sensations would depend on the latter being in a fixed ratio4 ,but the difference itself would depend directly on that between their respective stimuli4 ,so many units added to the stimulus1 so many added to the sensation1 and if the stimulus grew in a certain ratio1 in exactly the same ratio would the sensation also grow1 though its perceptibility grew according to the logarithmic law4#dfj ,if ,a stand for the smallest difference which we perceive1 then we should have1 instead of the formula s const41 which is ,fechner's1 the formula s_/s const41 a formula which interprets all the facts of ,weber's law1 in an entirely different theoretic way from that adopted by ,fechner4#dfa ,the entire superstructure which ,fechner rears upon the facts is thus not only seen to be arbitrary and subjective1 but in the highest degree improbable as well4 ,the departures from ,weber's law in regions where it does not obtain1 he explains by the compounding with it of other unknown laws which mask its effects4 ,as if any law could not be found in any set of phenomena1 provided one have the wit to invent enough other coexisting laws to overlap and neutralize it6 ,the whole outcome of the discussion1 so far as ,fechner's theories are concerned1 is indeed nil4 ,weber's law alone remains true1 as an empirical generalization of fair extent3 ,what we add to a large stimulus we notice less than what we add to a small one1 unless it happen relatively to the stimulus to be as great4 ,weber's law is probably purely physiological4 ,one can express this state of things otherwise by saying that the whole of the stimulus does not seem to be effective in giving us the perception of 'more1' and the simplest interpretation of such a state of things would be physical4 ,the loss of effect would take place in the nervous system4 ,if our feelings resulted from a condition of the nerve-molecules which it grew ever more difficult for the stimulus to increase1 our feelings would naturally grow at a slower rate than the stimulus itself4 ,an ever larger part of the latter's work would go to overcoming the resistances1 and an ever smaller part to the realization of the feeling-bringing state4 ,weber's law would thus be a sort of law of friction in the neural machine4#dfb ,just how these inner resistances and frictions are to be conceived is a speculative question4 ,delbuf has formulated them as fatigue2 ,bernstein and ,ward1 as irradiations4 ,the latest1 and probably the most 'real1' hypothesis is that of ,ebbinghaus1 who supposes that the intensity of sensation depends on the number of neural molecules which are disintegrated in the unit of time4 ,there are only a certain number at any time which are capable of disintegrating2 and whilst most of these are in an average condition of instability1 some are almost stable and some already near to decomposition4 ,the smallest stimuli affect these latter molecules only2 and as they are but few1 the sensational effect from adding a given quantity of stimulus at first is relatively small4 ,medium stimuli affect the majority of the molecules1 but affect fewer and fewer in proportion as they have already diminished their number4 ,the latest additions to the stimuli find all the medium molecules already disintegrated1 and only affect the small relatively indecomposable remainder1 thus giving rise to increments of feeling which are correspondingly small4 7,pflger's ,archiv1 #de1 #aac47 ,it is surely in some such way as this that ,weber's law is to be interpreted1 if it ever is4 ,the ,fechnerian ,maasformel and the conception of it as an ultimate 'psychophysic law' will remain an 'idol of the den1' if ever there was one4 ,fechner himself indeed was a ,german ,gelehrter of the ideal type1 at once simple and shrewd1 a mystic and an experimentalist1 homely and daring1 and as loyal to facts as to his theories4 ,but it would be terrible if even such a dear old man as this could saddle our ,science forever with his patient whimsies1 and1 in a world so full of more nutritious objects of attention1 compel all future students to plough through the difficulties1 not only of his own works1 but of the still drier ones written in his refutation4 ,those who desire this dreadful literature can find it2 it has a 'disciplinary value2' but ,i will not even enumerate it in a foot-note4 ,the only amusing part of it is that ,fechner's critics should always feel bound1 after smiting his theories hip and thigh and leaving not a stick of them standing1 to wind up by saying that nevertheless to him belongs the imperishable glory1 of first formulating them and thereby turning psychology into an exact science1 ',and everybody praised the duke ,who this great fight did win4' ',but what good came of it at last8' ,quoth little ,peterkin4 ',why1 that ,i cannot tell1' said he1 ',but 'twas a famous victory6' ,,footnotes3 #djf ,human ,understanding1 ii1 xi1 #a1 #b4 #djg ,analysis1 vol4 i1 p4 #ga4 #djh ,the ,senses and the ,intellect1 page #daa4 #dji ,essays ,philosophical and ,theological3 ,first ,series1 pp4 #bfh-bgc4 #daj ,montgomery in ',mind1' x1 #ebg4 ,cf4 also ,lipps3 ,grundtatsachen des ,seelenlebens1 p4 #egi ff42 and see below1 ,chapter ,,xix4 #daa ,stumpf 7,tonpsychologie1 i1 #aaf ff47 tries to prove that the theory that all differences are differences of composition leads necessarily to an infinite regression when we try to determine the unit4 ,it seems to me that in his particular reasoning he forgets the ultimate units of the mind-stuff theory4 ,i cannot find the completed infinite to be one of the obstacles to belief in this theory1 although ,i fully accept ,stumpf's general reasoning1 and am only too happy to find myself on the same side with such an exceptionally clear thinker4 ,the strictures by ,wahle in the ,vierteljsch4 f4 wiss4 ,phil4 seem to me to have no force1 since the writer does not discriminate between resemblance of things obviously compound and that of things sensibly simple4 #dab ,the belief that the causes of effects felt by us to differ qualitatively are facts which differ only in quantity 7e4g4 that blue is caused by so many ether-waves1 and yellow by a smaller number7 must not be confounded with the feeling that the effects differ quantitatively themselves4 #dac ,herr ,g4 ,h4 ,schneider1 in his youthful pamphlet 7,die ,unterscheidung1 #ahgg7 has tried to show that there are no positively existent elements of sensibility1 no substantive qualities between which differences obtain1 but that the terms we call such1 the sensations1 are but sums of differences1 loci or starting points whence many directions of difference proceed4 ',unterschiedsempfindungs-,complexe' are what he calls them4 ,this absurd carrying out of that 'principle of relativity' which we shall have to mention in ,chapter ,,xvii may serve as a counterpoise to the mind-stuff theory1 which says that there are nothing but substantive sensations1 and denies the existence of relations of difference between them at all4 #dad ,cf4 ,stumpf1 ,tonpsychologie1 i1 #aba1 and ,james ,ward1 ,mind1 i1 #dfd4 #dae ,the ordinary treatment of this is to call it the result of the fusion of a lot of sensations1 in themselves separate4 ,this is pure mythology1 as the sequel will abundantly show4 #daf ,we often begin to be dimly aware of a difference in a sensation or group of sensations1 before we can assign any definite character to that which differs4 ,thus we detect a strange or foreign ingredient or flavor in a familiar dish1 or of tone in a familiar tune1 and yet are wholly unable for a while to say what the intruder is like4 ,hence perhaps discrimination may be regarded as the earliest and most primordial mode of intellectual activity4 7,sully3 ,outlines of ,psychology1 p4 #adb4 ,cf4 also ,g4 ,h4 ,schneider3 ,die ,unterscheidung1 pp4 #i-aj47 #dag ,in cases where the difference is slight1 we may need1 as previously remarked1 to get the dying phase of n as well as of m before n-different-from-m is distinctly felt4 ,in that case the inevitably successive feelings 7as far as we can sever what is so continuous7 would be four1 m1 difference1 n1 n-different-from-m4 ,this slight additional complication alters not a whit the essential features of the case4 #dah ,analysis4 ,j4 ,s4 ,mill's ed41 ii1 #ag4 ,cf4 also pp4 #ab1 #ad4 #dai ,there is only one obstacle1 and that is our inveterate tendency to believe that where two things or qualities are compared1 it must be that exact duplicates of both have got into the mind and have matched themselves against each other there4 ,to which the first reply is the empirical one of ,look into the mind and see4 ,when ,i recognize a weight which ,i now lift as inferior to the one ,i just lifted2 when1 with my tooth now aching1 ,i perceive the pain to be less intense than it was a minute ago2 the two things in the mind which are compared would1 by the authors ,i criticise1 be admitted to be an actual sensation and an image in the memory4 ,an image in the memory1 by general consent of these same authors1 is admitted to be a weaker thing than a sensation4 ,nevertheless it is in these instances judged stronger2 that is1 an object supposed to be known only in so far forth as this image represents it1 is judged stronger4 ,ought not this to shake one's belief in the notion of separate representative 'ideas' weighing themselves1 or being weighed by the ,ego1 against each other in the mind8 ,and let it not be said that what makes us judge the felt pain to be weaker than the imagined one of a moment since is our recollection of the downward nature of the shock of difference which we felt as we passed to the present moment from the one before it4 ,that shock does undoubtedly have a different character according as it comes between terms of which the second diminishes or increases2 and it may be admitted that in cases ,where the past term is doubtfully remembered1 the memory of the shock as plus or minus1 might sometimes enable us to establish a relation which otherwise we should not perceive4 ,but one could hardly expect the memory of this shock to overpower our actual comparison of terms1 both of which are present 7as are the image and the sensation in the case supposed71 and make us judge the weaker one to be the stronger4--,and hereupon comes the second reply3 ,suppose the mind does compare two realities by comparing two ideas of its own which represent them--what is gained8 ,the same mystery is still there4 ,the ideas must still be known2 and1 as the attention in comparing oscillates from one to the other1 past must be known with present just as before4 ,if you must end by simply saying that your ',ego1' whilst being neither the idea of m nor the idea of n1 yet knows and compares both1 why not allow your pulse of thought1 which is neither the thing m nor the thing n1 to know and compare both directly8 ',tis but a question of how to name the facts least artificially4 ,the egoist explains them1 by naming them as an ,ego 'combining' or 'synthetizing' two ideas1 no more than we do by naming them a pulse of thought knowing two facts4 #dbj ,i fear that few will be converted by my words1 so obstinately do thinkers of all schools refuse to admit the unmediated function of knowing a thing1 and so incorrigibly do they substitute being the thing for it4 ,e4g41 in the latest utterance of the spiritualistic philosophy 7,bowne's ,introduction to ,psychological ,theory1 #ahhg1 published only three days before this writing7 one of the first sentences which catch my eye is this3 ,what remembers8 ,the spiritualist says1 the soul remembers2 it abides across the years and the flow of the body1 and gathering up its past1 carries it with it 7p4 #bh74 ,why1 for heaven's sake1 ,o ,bowne1 cannot you say 'knows it'8 ,if there is anything our soul does not do to its past1 it is to carry it with it4 #dba ,sensations of ,tone1 #b;d ,english ,ed41 p4 #fe4 #dbb ,psychology1 i1 #cde4 #dbc ,a ,budget of ,paradoxes1 p4 #chj4 #dbd ,the explanation ,i offer presupposes that a difference too faint to have any direct effect in the way of making the mind notice it per se will nevertheless be strong enough to keep its 'terms' from calling up identical associates4 ,it seems probable from many observations that this is the case4 ,all the facts of 'unconscious' inference are proofs of it4 ,we say a painting 'looks' like the work of a certain artist1 though we cannot name the characteristic differenti4 ,we see by a man's face that he is sincere1 though we can give no definite reason for our faith4 ,the facts of sense-perception quoted from ,helmholtz a few pages below will be additional examples4 ,here is another good one1 though it will perhaps be easier understood after reading the chapter on ,space-perception than now4 ,take two stereoscopic slides and represent on each half-slide a pair of spots1 a and b1 but make their distances such that the a's are equidistant on both slides1 whilst the b's are nearer together on slide #a than on slide #b4 ,make moreover the distance ab ab''' and the distance ab' ab''4 ,then look successively at the two slides stereoscopically1 so that the a's in both are directly fixated 7that is fall on the two fove1 or centres of distinctest vision74 ,the a's will then appear single1 and so probably will the b's4 ,but the now single-seeming b on slide #a will look nearer1 whilst that on slide #b will look farther than the a4 ,but1 if the diagrams are rightly drawn1 b and b''' must affect 'identical' spots1 spots equally far to the right of the fovea1 b in the left eye and b''' in the right eye4 ,the same is true of b' and b''4 ,identical spots are spots whose sensations cannot possibly be discriminated as such4 ,since in these two observations1 however1 they give rise to such opposite perceptions of distance1 and prompt such opposite tendencies to movement 7since in slide #a we converge in looking from a to b1 whilst in slide #b we diverge71 it follows that two processes which occasion feelings quite indistinguishable to direct consciousness may nevertheless be each allied with disparate associates both of a sensorial and of a motor kind4 ,cf4 ,donders1 ,archiv f4 ,ophthalmologie1 ,bd4 #ac 7#ahfg74 ,the basis of his essay is that we cannot feel on which eye any particular element of a compound picture falls1 but its effects on our total perception differ in the two eyes4 a b a b' ,slide #a4 4 4 4 4 a b'' a b''' ,slide #b4 4 4 4 4 #dbe ,a4 ,w4 ,volkmann3 ,ueber den ,einfluss der ,uebung1 etc41 ,leipzig ,berichte1 ,math4-phys4 ,classe4 x1 #aheh1 p4 #fg4 #dbf ,ibid4 ,tabelle #a1 p4 #dc4 #dbg ,professor ,lipps accounts for the tactile discrimination of the blind in a way which 7divested of its 'mythological' assumptions7 seems to me essentially to agree with this4 ,stronger ideas are supposed to raise weaker ones over the threshold of consciousness by fusing with them1 the tendency to fuse being proportional to the similarity of the ideas ,cf4 ,grundtatsachen1 etc41 pp4 #bcb-c2 also pp4 #aah1 #dib1 #ebf-g4 #dbh ,sensations of ,tone1 #b;d4 ,english ,edition1 p4 #fb4 #dbi ,compare as to this1 however1 what ,i said above1 ,chapter ,v1 pp4 #agb-agf4 #dcj ,when a person squints1 double images are formed in the centre of the field4 ,as a matter of fact1 most squinters are found blind of one eye1 or almost so2 and it has long been supposed amongst ophthalmologists that the blindness is a secondary affection superinduced by the voluntary suppression of one of the sets of double images1 in other words by the positive and persistent refusal to use one of the eyes4 ,this explanation of the blindness has1 however1 been called in question of late years4 ,see1 for a brief account of the matter1 ,o4 ,f4 ,wadsworth in ,boston ,med4 and ,surg4 ,journ41 cxvi1 #di 7,jan4 #bj1 '#hg71 and the replies by ,derby and others a little later4--,w4 ,j4 #dca ,tonempfindungen1 ,dritte ,auflage1 pp4 #ajb-ajg4--,the reader who has assimilated the contents of our ,chapter ,v1 above1 will doubtless have remarked that the illustrious physiologist has fallen1 in these paragraphs1 into that sort of interpretation of the facts which we there tried to prove erroneous4 ,helmholtz1 however1 is no more careless than most psychologists in confounding together the object perceived1 the organic conditions of the perception1 and the sensations which would be excited by the several parts of the object1 or by the several organic conditions1 provided they came into action separately or were separately attended to1 and in assuming that what is true of any one of these sorts of fact must be true of the other sorts also4 ,if each organic condition or part of the object is there1 its sensation1 he thinks1 must be there also1 only in a 'synthetic'--which is indistinguishable from what the authors whom we formerly reviewed called an 'unconscious'--state4 ,i will not repeat arguments sufficiently detailed in the earlier chapter 7see especially pp4 #agj-agf71 but simply say that what he calls the 'fusion of many sensations into one' is really the production of one sensation by the co-operation of many organic conditions2 and that what perception fails to discriminate 7when it is 'synthetic'7 is not sensations already existent but not singled out1 but new objective facts1 judged truer than the facts already synthetically perceived--two views of the solid body1 many harmonic tones1 instead of one view and one tone1 states of the eyeball-muscles thitherto unknown1 and the like4 ,these new facts1 when first discovered1 are known in states of consciousness never till that moment exactly realized before1 states of consciousness which at the same time judge them to be determinations of the same matter of fact which was previously realized4 ,all that ,helmholtz says of the conditions which hinder and further analysis applies just as naturally to the analysis1 through the advent of new feelings1 of objects into their elements1 as to the analysis of aggregate feelings into elementary feelings supposed to have been hidden in them all the while4 ,the reader can himself apply this criticism to the following passages from ,lotze and ,stumpf respectively1 which ,i quote because they are the ablest expressions of the view opposed to my own4 ,both authors1 it seems to me1 commit the psychologist's fallacy1 and allow their later knowledge of the things felt to be foisted into their account of the primitive way of feeling them4 ,lotze says3 ,it is indubitable that the simultaneous assault of a variety of different stimuli on different senses1 or even on the same sense1 puts us into a state of confused general feeling in which we are certainly not conscious of clearly distinguishing the different impressions4 ,still it does not follow that in such a case we have a positive perception of an actual unity of the contents of our ideas1 arising from their mixture2 our state of mind seems rather to consist in 7#a7 the consciousness of our inability to separate what really has remained diverse1 and 7#b7 in the general feeling of the disturbance produced in the economy of our body by the simultaneous assault of the stimuli4444 ,not that the sensations melt into one another1 but simply that the act of distinguishing them is absent2 and this again certainly not so far that the fact of the difference remains entirely unperceived1 but only so far as to prevent us from determining the amount of the difference1 and from apprehending other relations between the different impressions4 ,anyone who is annoyed at one and the same time by glowing heat1 dazzling light1 deafening noise1 and an offensive smell1 will certainly not fuse these disparate sensations into a single one with a single content which could be sensuously perceived2 they remain for him in separation1 and he merely finds it impossible to be conscious of one of them apart from the others4 ,but1 further1 he will have a feeling of discomfort--what ,i mentioned above as the second constituent of his whole state4 ,for every stimulus which produces in consciousness a definite content of sensation is also a definite degree of disturbance1 and therefore makes a call upon the forces of the nerves2 and the sum of these little changes1 which in their character as disturbances are not so diverse as the contents of consciousness they give rise to1 produce the general feeling which1 added to the inability to distinguish1 deludes us into the belief in an actual absence of diversity in our sensations4 ,it is only in some such way as this1 again1 that ,i can imagine that state which is sometimes described as the beginning of our whole education1 a state which in itself is supposed to be simple1 and to be afterwards divided into different sensations by an activity of separation4 ,no activity of separation in the world could establish differences where no real diversity existed2 for it would have nothing to guide it to the places where it was to establish them1 or to indicate the width it was to give them4 7,metaphysic1 #bfj1 ,english translation47 ,stumpf writes as follows3 ,of coexistent sensations there are always a large number undiscriminated in consciousness1 or 7if one prefer to call what is undiscriminated unconscious7 in the soul4 ,they are1 however1 not fused into a simple quality4 ,when1 on entering a room1 we receive sensations of odor and warmth together1 without expressly attending to either1 the two qualities of sensation are not1 as it were1 an entirely new simple quality1 which first at the moment in which attention analytically steps in changes into smell and warmth4444 ,in such cases we find ourselves in presence of an indefinable1 unnamable total of feeling4 ,and when1 after successfully analyzing this total1 we call it back to memory1 as it was in its unanalyzed state1 and compare it with the elements we have found1 the latter 7as it seems to me7 may be recognized as real parts contained in the former1 and the former seen to be their sum4 ,so1 for example1 when we clearly perceive that the content of our sensation of oil of peppermint is partly a sensation of taste and partly one of temperature4 7,tonpsychologie1 i1 #ajg47 ,i should prefer to say that we perceive that objective fact1 known to us as the peppermint taste1 to contain those other objective facts known as aromatic or sapid quality1 and coldness1 respectively4 ,no ground to suppose that the vehicle of this last very complex perception has any identity with the earlier psychosis--least of all is contained in it4 #dcb ,physiol4 ,psych41 ii1 #bdh4 #dcc ,wundt's ,philos4 ,studien1 i1 #ebg4 #dcd ,ibid4 p4 #ecj4 #dce ,mind1 xi1 #cgg ff4 ,he says3 ,i apparently either distinguished the impression and made the motion simultaneously1 or if ,i tried to avoid this by waiting until ,i had formed a distinct impression before ,i began to make the motion1 ,i added to the simple reaction1 not only a perception1 but a volition4--,which remark may well confirm our doubts as to the strict psychologic worth of any of these measurements4 #dcf ,mind1 xi1 #cgi4 #dcg ,for other determinations of discrimination-time by this method cf4 v4 ,kries and ,auerbach1 ,archiv f4 ,physiologie1 ,bd4 i1 p4 #big ff4 7these authors get much smaller figures72 ,friedrich1 ,psychologische ,studien1 i1 #ci4 ,chapter ix of ,buccola's book1 ,le ,legge del tempo1 etc41 gives a full account of the subject4 #dch ,if so1 the reactions upon the spark would have to be slower than those upon the touch4 ,the investigation was abandoned because it was found impossible to narrow down the difference between the conditions of the sight-series and those of the touch-series1 to nothing more than the possible presence in the latter of the intervening motor-idea4 ,other disparities could not be excluded4 #dci ,tischer gives figures from quite unpractised individuals1 which ,i have not quoted4 ,the discrimination-time of one of them is #bb times longer than ,tischer's own6 7,psychol4 ,studien1 i1 #ebg47 #ddj ,compare ,lipps's excellent passage to the same critical effect in his ,grundtatsachen des ,seelenlebens1 pp4 #cij-cic4--;,i leave my text just as it was written before the publication of ,lange's and ,mnsterberg's results cited on pp4 #ib and #dcb4 ,their 'shortened' or 'muscular' times1 got when the expectant attention was addressed to the possible reactions rather than to the stimulus1 constitute the minimal reaction-time of which ,i speak1 and all that ,i say in the text falls beautifully into line with their results4 #dda ,cf4 ,sully3 ,mind1 x1 #did-e2 ,bradley3 ibid4 xi1 #hc2 ,bosanquet3 ibid4 xi1 #dje4 #ddb ,the judgment becomes easier if the two couples of terms have one member in common1 if a--b and b--c1 for example1 are compared4 ,this1 as ,stumpf says 7,tonpsychologie1 i1 #aca71 is probably because the introduction of the fourth term brings involuntary cross-comparisons with it1 a and b with d1 b with c1 etc41 which confuses us by withdrawing our attention from the relations we ought alone to be estimating4 #ddc ,j4 ,delbuf3 lments de ,psychophysique 7,paris1 #ahhc71 p4 #fd4 ,plateau in ,stumpf1 ,tonpsych41 i1 #abe4 ,i have noticed a curious enlargement of certain 'distances' of difference under the influence of chloroform4 ,the jingling of the bells on the horses of a horse-car passing the door1 for example1 and the rumbling of the vehicle itself1 which to our ordinary hearing merge together very readily into a quasi-continuous body of sound1 have seemed so far apart as to require a sort of mental facing in opposite directions to get from one to the other1 as if they belonged in different worlds4 ,i am inclined to suspect1 from certain data1 that the ultimate philosophy of difference and likeness will have to be built upon experiences of intoxication1 especially by nitrous oxide gas1 which lets us into intuitions the subtlety whereof is denied to the waking state4 ,cf4 ,b4 ,p4 ,blood3 ,the ,ansthetic ,revelation1 and the ,gist of ,philosophy 7,amsterdam1 ,n4 ,y41 #ahgd74 ,cf4 also ,mind1 vii1 #bjj4 #ddd ,op4 cit4 p4 #abf ff4 #dde ,stumpf1 pp4 #aaa-aba4 #ddf ,stumpf1 pp4 #aaf-g4 ,i have omitted1 so as not to make my text too intricate1 an extremely acute and conclusive paragraph1 which ,i reproduce here3 ,we may generalize3 ,wherever a number of sensible impressions are apprehended as a series1 there in the last instance must perceptions of simple likeness be found4 ,proof3 ,assume that all the terms of a series1 e4g4 the qualities of tone1 c d e f g1 have something in common1--no matter what it is1 call it ,x2 then ,i say that the differing parts of each of these terms must not only be differently constituted in each1 but must themselves form a series1 whose existence is the ground for our apprehending the original terms in serial form4 ,we thus get instead of the original series a b c d ef 444 the equivalent series ,x1 ,x1 ,x1444 etc4 ,what is gained8 ,the question immediately arises3 ,how is known as a series8 ,according to the theory1 these elements must themselves be made up of a part common to all1 and of parts differing in each1 which latter parts form a new series1 and so on ad infinitum1 which is absurd4 #ddg ,the most important ameliorations of ,fechner's formula are ,delbuf's in his ,recherches sur la ,mesure des ,sensations 7#ahgc71 p4 #ce1 and ,elsas's in his pamphlet ber die ,psychophysik 7#ahhf7 p4 #af4 #ddh ,reversing the order is for the sake of letting the opposite accidental errors due to 'contrast' neutralize each other4 #ddi ,theoretically it would seem that it ought to be equal to the sum of all the additions which we judge to be increases divided by the total number of judgments made4 #dej ,j4 ,delbuf1 lments de ,psychophysique 7#ahhc71 p4 #i4 #dea ,philos4 ,studien1 iv1 #ehh4 #deb ,berlin ,acad4 ,sitzungsberichte1 #ahhh1 p4 #iag4 ,other observers 7,dobrowolsky1 ,lamausky7 found great differences in different colors4 #dec ,see ,merkel's tables1 loc4 cit4 p4 #efh4 #ded ,american ,journal of ,psychology1 i1 #abe4 ,the rate of decrease is small but steady1 and ,i cannot well understand what ,professor ,j4 means by saying that his figures verify ,weber's law4 #dee ,philosophische ,studien1 v1 #ead-e4 #def ,cf4 ,g4 ,e4 ,mller3 ,zur ,grundlegung der ,psychophysik1 #fh-gj4 #deg ,philosophische ,studien1 v1 #bhg ff4 #deh ,american ,j4 of ,psychology1 iii1 #dd-g4 #dei ,cf4 ,stumpf1 ,tonpsychologie1 pp4 #cig-i4 ,one sensation cannot be a multiple of another4 ,if it could1 we ought to be able to subtract the one from the other1 and to feel the remainder by itself4 ,every sensation presents itself as an indivisible unit4 ,professor von ,kries1 in the ,viertejahrschrift fr wiss4 ,philosophie1 vi1 #beg ff41 shows very clearly the absurdity of supposing that our stronger sensations contain our weaker ones as parts4 ,they differ as qualitative units4 ,compare also ,j4 ,tannery in ,delbuf's lments de ,psychophysique 7#ahhc71 p4 #acd ff42 ,j4 ,ward in ,mind1 i1 #dfd3 ,lotze1 ,metaphysik1 #beh4 #dfj ,f ,brentano1 ,psychologie1 i1 #i1 #hh ff4--,merkel thinks that his results with the method of equal-appearing intervals show that we compare considerable intervals with each other by a different law from that by which we notice barely perceptible intervals4 ,the stimuli form an arithmetical series 7a pretty wild one according to his figures7 in the former case1 a geometrical one in the latter--at least so ,i understand this valiant experimenter but somewhat obscure if acute writer4 #dfa ,this is the formula which ,merkel thinks he has verified 7if ,i understand him aright7 by his experiments by method #d4 #dfb ,elsas3 ,ueber die ,psychophysik 7#ahef71 p4 #da4 ,when the pans of a balance are already loaded1 but in equilibrium1 it takes a proportionally larger weight added to one of them to incline the beam4 ,,chapter ,,xiv4#dfc ,,association4 ,after discrimination1 association6 ,already in the last chapter ,i have had to invoke1 in order to explain the improvement of certain discriminations by practice1 the 'association' of the objects to be distinguished1 with other more widely differing ones4 ,it is obvious that the advance of our knowledge must consist of both operations2 for objects at first appearing as wholes are analyzed into parts1 and objects appearing separately are brought together and appear as new compound wholes to the mind4 ,analysis and synthesis are thus the incessantly alternating mental activities1 a stroke of the one preparing the way for a stroke of the other1 much as1 in walking1 a man's two legs are alternately brought into use1 both being indispensable for any orderly advance4 ,the manner in which trains of imagery and consideration follow each other through our thinking1 the restless flight of one idea before the next1 the transitions our minds make between things wide as the poles asunder1 transitions which at first sight startle us by their abruptness1 but which1 when scrutinized closely1 often reveal intermediating links of perfect naturalness and propriety--all this magical1 imponderable streaming has from time immemorial excited the admiration of all whose attention happened to be caught by its omnipresent mystery4 ,and it has furthermore challenged the race of philosophers to banish something of the mystery by formulating the process in simpler terms4 ,the problem which the philosophers have set themselves is that of ascertaining principles of connection between the thoughts which thus appear to sprout one out of the other1 whereby their peculiar succession or coexistence may be explained4 ,but immediately an ambiguity arises3 which sort of connection is meant8 connection thought-of1 or connection between thoughts8 ,these are two entirely different things1 and only in the case of one of them is there any hope of finding 'principles4' ,the jungle of connections thought of can never be formulated simply4 ,every conceivable connection may be thought of--of coexistence1 succession1 resemblance1 contrast1 contradiction1 cause and effect1 means and end1 genus and species1 part and whole1 substance and property1 early and late1 large and small1 landlord and tenant1 master and servant1--,heaven knows what1 for the list is literally inexhaustible4 ,the only simplification which could possibly be aimed at would be the reduction of the relations to a smaller number of types1 like those which such authors as ,kant and ,renouvier call the 'categories' of the understanding4#dfd ,according as we followed one category or another we should sweep1 with our thought1 through the world in this way or in that4 ,and all the categories would be logical1 would be relations of reason4 ,they would fuse the items into a continuum4 ,were this the sort of connection sought between one moment of our thinking and another1 our chapter might end here4 ,for the only summary description of these infinite possibilities of transition1 is that they are all acts of reason1 and that the mind proceeds from one object to another by some rational path of connection4 ,the trueness of this formula is only equalled by its sterility1 for psychological purposes4 ,practically it amounts to simply referring the inquirer to the relations between facts or things1 and to telling him that his thinking follows them4 ,but as a matter of fact1 his thinking only sometimes follows them1 and these so-called 'transitions of reason' are far from being all alike reasonable4 ,if pure thought runs all our trains1 why should she run some so fast and some so slow1 some through dull flats and some through gorgeous scenery1 some to mountain-heights and jewelled mines1 others through dismal swamps and darkness8--and run some off the track altogether1 and into the wilderness of lunacy8 ,why do we spend years straining after a certain scientific or practical problem1 but all in vain--thought refusing to evoke the solution we desire8 ,and why1 some day1 walking in the street with our attention miles away from that quest1 does the answer saunter into our minds as carelessly as if it had never been called for--suggested1 possibly1 by the flowers on the bonnet of the lady in front of us1 or possibly by nothing that we can discover8 ,if reason can give us relief then1 why did she not do so earlier8 ,the truth must be admitted that thought works under conditions imposed ab extra4 ,the great law of habit itself--that twenty experiences make us recall a thing better than one1 that long indulgence in error makes right thinking almost impossible--seems to have no essential foundation in reason4 ,the business of thought is with truth--the number of experiences ought to have nothing to do with her hold of it2 and she ought by right to be able to hug it all the closer1 after years wasted out of its presence4 ,the contrary arrangements seem quite fantastic and arbitrary1 but nevertheless are part of the very bone and marrow of our minds4 ,reason is only one out of a thousand possibilities in the thinking of each of us4 ,who can count all the silly fancies1 the grotesque suppositions1 the utterly irrelevant reflections he makes in the course of a day8 ,who can swear that his prejudices and irrational beliefs constitute a less bulky part of his mental furniture than his clarified opinions8 ,it is true that a presiding arbiter seems to sit aloft in the mind1 and emphasize the better suggestions into permanence1 while it ends by dropping out and leaving unrecorded the confusion4 ,but this is all the difference4 ,the mode of genesis of the worthy and the worthless seems the same4 ,the laws of our actual thinking1 of the cogitatum1 must account alike for the bad and the good materials on which the arbiter has to decide1 for wisdom and for folly4 ,the laws of the arbiter1 of the cogitandum1 of what we ought to think1 are to the former as the laws of ethics are to those of history4 ,who but an ,hegelian historian ever pretended that reason in action was per se a sufficient explanation of the political changes in ,europe8 99 99 99 99 99 ,there are1 then1 mechanical conditions on which thought depends1 and which1 to say the least1 determine the order in which is presented the content or material for her comparisons1 selections1 and decisions4 ,it is a suggestive fact that ,locke1 and many more recent ,continental psychologists1 have found themselves obliged to invoke a mechanical process to account for the aberrations of thought1 the obstructive preprocessions1 the frustrations of reason4 ,this they found in the law of habit1 or what we now call ,association by ,contiguity4 ,but it never occurred to these writers that a process which could go the length of actually producing some ideas and sequences in the mind might safely be trusted to produce others too2 and that those habitual associations which further thought may also come from the same mechanical source as those which hinder it4 ,hartley accordingly suggested habit as a sufficient explanation of all connections of our thoughts1 and in so doing planted himself squarely upon the properly psychological aspect of the problem of connection1 and sought to treat both rational and irrational connections from a single point of view4 ,the problem which he essayed1 however lamely1 to answer1 was that of the connection between our psychic states considered purely as such1 regardless of the objective connections of which they might take cognizance4 ,how does a man come1 after thinking of ,a1 to think of ,b the next moment8 or how does he come to think ,a and ,b always together8 ,these were the phenomena which ,hartley undertook to explain by cerebral physiology4 ,i believe that he was1 in many essential respects1 on the right track1 and ,i propose simply to revise his conclusions by the aid of distinctions which he did not make4 ,but the whole historic doctrine of psychological association is tainted with one huge error--that of the construction of our thoughts out of the confounding of themselves together of immutable and incessantly recurring 'simple ideas4' ,it is the cohesion of these which the 'principles of association' are considered to account for4 ,in ,chapters ,,vi and ,,ix we saw abundant reasons for treating the doctrine of simple ideas or psychic atoms as mythological2 and1 in all that follows1 our problem will be to keep whatever truths the associationist doctrine has caught sight of without weighing it down with the untenable incumbrance that the association is between 'ideas4' 99 99 99 99 99 ,association1 so far as the word stands for an effect1 is between ,,things ,,thought ,,of--it is ,,things1 not ideas1 which are associated in the mind4 ,we ought to talk of the association of objects1 not of the association of ideas4 ,and so far as association stands for a cause1 it is between processes in the brain--it is these which1 by being associated in certain ways1 determine what successive objects shall be thought4 ,let us proceed towards our final generalizations by surveying first a few familiar facts4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the laws of motor habit in the lower centres of the nervous system are disputed by no one4 ,a series of movements repeated in a certain order tend to unroll themselves with peculiar ease in that order for ever afterward4 ,number one awakens number two1 and that awakens number three1 and so on1 till the last is produced4 ,a habit of this kind once become inveterate may go on automatically4 ,and so it is with the objects with which our thinking is concerned4 ,with some persons each note of a melody1 heard but once1 will accurately revive in its proper sequence4 ,small boys at school learn the inflections of many a ,greek noun1 adjective1 or verb1 from the reiterated recitations of the upper classes falling on their ear as they sit at their desks4 ,all this happens with no voluntary effort on their part and with no thought of the spelling of the words4 ,the doggerel rhymes which children use in their games1 such as the formula ,ana mana mona mike ,barcelona bona strike1 used for 'counting out1' form another familiar example of things heard in sequence cohering in the same order in the memory4 ,in touch we have a smaller number of instances1 though probably every one who bathes himself in a certain fixed manner is familiar with the fact that each part of his body over which the water is squeezed from the sponge awakens a premonitory tingling consciousness in that portion of skin which is habitually the next to be deluged4 ,tastes and smells form no very habitual series in our experience4 ,but even if they did1 it is doubtful whether habit would fix the order of their reproduction quite so well as it does that of other sensations4 ,in vision1 however1 we have a sense in which the order of reproduced things is very nearly as much influenced by habit as is the order of remembered sounds4 ,rooms1 landscapes1 buildings1 pictures1 or persons with whose look we are very familiar1 surge up before the mind's eye with all the details of their appearance complete1 so soon as we think of any one of their component parts4 ,some persons1 in reciting printed matter by heart1 will seem to see each successive word1 before they utter it1 appear in its order on an imaginary page4 ,a certain chess-player1 one of those heroes who train themselves to play several games at once blindfold1 is reported to say that in bed at night after a match the games are played all over again before his mental eye1 each board being pictured as passing in turn through each of its successive stages4 ,in this case1 of course1 the intense previous voluntary strain of the power of visual representation is what facilitated the fixed order of revival4 ,association occurs as amply between impressions of different senses as between homogeneous sensations4 ,seen things and heard things cohere with each other1 and with odors and tastes1 in representation1 in the same order in which they cohered as impressions of the outer world4 ,feelings of contact reproduce similarly the sights1 sounds1 and tastes with which experience has associated them4 ,in fact1 the 'objects' of our perception1 as trees1 men1 houses1 microscopes1 of which the real world seems composed1 are nothing but clusters of qualities which through simultaneous stimulation have so coalesced that the moment one is excited actually it serves as a sign or cue for the idea of the others to arise4 ,let a person enter his room in the dark and grope among the objects there4 ,the touch of the matches will instantaneously recall their appearance4 ,if his hand comes in contact with an orange on the table1 the golden yellow of the fruit1 its savor and perfume will forthwith shoot through his mind4 ,in passing the hand over the sideboard or in jogging the coal-scuttle with the foot1 the large glossy dark shape of the one and the irregular blackness of the other awaken like a flash and constitute what we call the recognition of the objects4 ,the voice of the violin faintly echoes through the mind as the hand is laid upon it in the dark1 and the feeling of the garments or draperies which may hang about the room is not understood till the look correlative to the feeling has in each case been resuscitated4 ,smells notoriously have the power of recalling the other experiences in whose company they were wont to be felt1 perhaps long years ago2 and the voluminous emotional character assumed by the images which suddenly pour into the mind at such a time forms one of the staple topics of popular psychologic wonder-- ,lost and gone and lost and gone6 ,a breath1 a whisper--some divine farewell-- ,desolate sweetness--far and far away4 ,we cannot hear the din of a railroad tram or the yell of its whistle1 without thinking of its long1 jointed appearance and its headlong speed1 nor catch a familiar voice in a crowd without recalling1 with the name of the speaker1 also his face4 ,but the most notorious and important case of the mental combination of auditory with optical impressions originally experienced together is furnished by language4 ,the child is offered a new and delicious fruit and is at the same time told that it is called a 'fig4' ,or looking out of the window he exclaims1 ,what a funny horse6 and is told that it is a 'piebald' horse4 ,when learning his letters1 the sound of each is repeated to him whilst its shape is before his eye4 ,thenceforward1 long as he may live1 he will never see a fig1 a piebald horse1 or a letter of the alphabet without the name which he first heard in conjunction with each clinging to it in his mind2 and inversely he will never hear the name without the faint arousal of the image of the object4#dfe ,,the ,,rapidity ,,of ,,association4 ,reading exemplifies this kind of cohesion even more beautifully4 ,it is an uninterrupted and protracted recall of sounds by sights which have always been coupled with them in the past4 ,i find that ,i can name six hundred letters in two minutes on a printed page4 ,five distinct acts of association between sight and sound 7not to speak of all the other processes concerned7 must then have occurred in each second in my mind4 ,in reading entire words the speed is much more rapid4 ,valentin relates in his ,physiology that the reading of a single page of the proof1 containing #bfbi letters1 took him #a minute and #cb seconds4 ,in this experiment each letter was understood in #a_/bh of a second1 but owing to the integration of letters into entire words1 forming each a single aggregate impression directly associated with a single acoustic image1 we need not suppose as many as #bh separate associations in a sound4 ,the figures1 however1 suffice to show with what extreme rapidity an actual sensation recalls its customary associates4 ,both in fact seem to our ordinary attention to come into the mind at once4 ,the time-measuring psychologists of recent days have tried their hand at this problem by more elaborate methods4 ,galton1 using a very simple apparatus1 found that the sight of an unforeseen word would awaken an associated 'idea' in about #e_/f of a second4#dff ,wundt next made determinations in which the 'cue' was given by single-syllabled words called out by an assistant4 ,the person experimented on had to press a key as soon as the sound of the word awakened an associated idea4 ,both word and reaction were chronographically registered1 and the total time-interval between the two amounted1 in four observers1 to #a4jji1 #j4hif1 #a4jcg1 and #a4aed seconds respectively4 ,from this the simple physiological reaction-time and the time of merely identifying the word's sound 7the 'apperception-time1' as ,wundt calls it7 must be subtracted1 to get the exact time required for the associated idea to arise4 ,these times were separately determined and subtracted4 ,the difference1 called by ,wundt the association-time1 amounted1 in the same four persons1 to #gjf1 #gbc1 #geb1 and #hgd thousandths of a second respectively4#dfg ,the length of the last figure is due to the fact that the person reacting 7,president ,g4 ,s4 ,hall7 was an ,american1 whose associations with ,german words would naturally be slower than those of natives4 ,the shortest association-time noted was when the word ',sturm' suggested to ,prof4 ,wundt the word ',wind' in #j4cda second4#dfh--;,finally1 ,mr4 ,cattell made some interesting observations upon the association-time between the look of letters and their names4 ,i pasted letters1 he says1 on a revolving drum1 and determined at what rate they could be read aloud as they passed by a slit in a screen4 ,he found it to vary according as one1 or more than one letter1 was visible at a time through the slit1 and gives half a second as about the time which it takes to see and name a single letter seen alone4 ,when two or more letters are always in view1 not only do the processes of seeing and naming overlap1 but while the subject is seeing one letter he begins to see the ones next following1 and so can read them more quickly4 ,of the nine persons experimented on1 four could read the letters faster when five were in view at once1 but were not helped by a sixth letter2 three were not helped by a fifth1 and two not by a fourth letter4 ,this shows that while one idea is in the centre1 two1 three1 or four additional ideas may be in the background of consciousness4 ,the second letter in view shortens the time about #a_/dj1 the third #a_/fj1 the fourth #a_/ajj1 the fifth #a_/bjj sec4 ,i find it takes about twice as long to read 7aloud1 as fast as possible7 words which have no connection as words which make sentences and letters which have no connection as letters which make words4 ,when the words make sentences and the letters words1 not only do the processes of seeing and naming overlap1 but by one mental effort the subject can recognize a whole group of words or letters1 and by one will-act choose the motions to be made in naming1 so that the rate at which the words and letters are read is really only limited by the maximum rapidity at which the speech-organs can be moved4 ,as the result of a large number of experiments1 the writer found that he had read words not making sentences at the rate of #a_/d sec1 words making sentences 7a passage from ,swift7 at the rate of #a_/h sec41 per word4444 ,the rate at which a person reads a foreign language is proportional to his familiarity with the language4 ,for example1 when reading as fast as possible the writer's rate was1 ,english #ach1 ,french #afg1 ,german #bej1 ,italian #cbg1 ,latin #dcd1 and ,greek #dhd2 the figures giving the thousandths of a second taken to read each word4 ,experiments made on others strikingly confirm these results4 ,the subject does not know that he is reading the foreign language more slowly than his own2 this explains why foreigners seem to talk so fast4 ,this simple method of determining a person's familiarity with a language might be used in school examinations4 ,the time required to see and name colors and pictures of objects was determined in the same way4 ,the time was found to be about the same 7over #a_/b sec47 for colors as for pictures1 and about twice as long as for words and letters4 ,other experiments ,i have made show that we can recognize a single color or picture in a slightly shorter time than a word or letter1 but take longer to name it4 ,this is because1 in the case of words and letters1 the association between the idea and name has taken place so often that the process has become automatic1 whereas in the case of colors and pictures we must by a voluntary effort choose the name4#dfi ,in later experiments ,mr4 ,cattell studied the time for various associations to be performed1 the termini 7i4e41 cue and answer7 being words4 ,a word in one language was to call up its equivalent in another1 the name of an author the tongue in which he wrote1 that of a city the country in which it lay1 that of a writer one of his works1 etc4 ,the mean variation from the average is very great in all these experiments2 and the interesting feature which they show is the existence of certain constant differences between associations of different sorts4 ,thus3 ,from country to city1 ,mr4 ,c4's time was #j4cdj sec4 ,from season to month1 ,mr4 ,c4's time was #j4cii ,from language to author1 ,mr4 ,c4's time was #j4ebc ,from author to work1 ,mr4 ,c4's time was #j4eif ,the average time of two observers1 experimenting on eight different types of association1 was #j4dbj and #j4dcf sec4 respectively4#dgj ,the very wide range of variation is undoubtedly a consequence of the fact that the words used as cues1 and the different types of association studied1 differ much in their degree of familiarity4 ,for example1 ,b is a teacher of mathematics2 ,c has busied himself more with literature4 ,c knows quite as well as ,b that #g #e #ab1 yet he needs #a_/aj a second longer to call it to mind2 ,b knows quite as well as ,c that ,dante was a poet1 but needs #a_/bj of a second longer to think of it4 ,such experiments lay bare the mental life in a way that is startling and not always gratifying4#dga ,,the ,,law ,,of ,,contiguity4 ,time-determinations apart1 the facts we have run over can all be summed up in the simple statement that objects once experienced together tend to become associated in the imagination1 so that when any one of them is thought of1 the others are likely to be thought of also1 in the same order of sequence or coexistence as before4 ,this statement we may name the law of mental association by contiguity4#dgb ,i preserve this name in order to depart as little as possible from tradition1 although ,mr4 ,ward's designation of the process as that of association by continuity#dgc or ,wundt's as that of external association 7to distinguish it from the internal association which we shall presently learn to know under the name of association by similarity7#dgd are perhaps better terms4 ,whatever we name the law1 since it expresses merely a phenomenon of mental habit1 the most natural way of accounting for it is to conceive it as a result of the laws of habit in the nervous system2 in other words1 it is to ascribe it to a physiological cause4 ,if it be truly a law of those nerve-centres which co-ordinate sensory and motor processes together that paths once used for coupling any pair of them are thereby made more permeable1 there appears no reason why the same law should not hold good of ideational centres and their coupling-paths as well4#dge ,parts of these centres which have once been in action together will thus grow so linked that excitement at one point will irradiate through the system4 ,the chances of complete irradiation will be strong in proportion as the previous excitements have been frequent1 and as the present points excited afresh are numerous4 ,if all points were originally excited together1 the irradiation may be sensibly simultaneous throughout the system1 when any single point or group of points is touched off4 ,but where the original impressions were successive--the conjugation of a ,greek verb1 for example--awakening nerve-tracts in a definite order1 they will now1 when one of them awakens1 discharge into each other in that definite order and in no other way4 ,the reader will recollect all that has been said of increased tension in nerve-tracts and of the summation of stimuli 7p4 #hb ff474 ,we must therefore suppose that in these ideational tracts as well as elsewhere1 activity may be awakened1 in any particular locality1 by the summation therein of a number of tensions1 each incapable alone of provoking an actual discharge4 ,suppose for example the locality ,m to be in functional continuity with four other localities1 ,k1 ,l1 ,n1 and ,o4 ,suppose moreover that on four previous occasions it has been separately combined with each of these localities in a common activity4 ,m may then be indirectly awakened by any cause which tends to awaken either ,k1 ,l1 ,n1 or ,o4 ,but if the cause which awakens ,k1 for instance1 be so slight as only to increase its tension without arousing it to full discharge1 ,k will only succeed in slightly increasing the tension of ,m4 ,but if at the same time the tensions of ,l1 ,n1 and ,o are similarly increased1 the combined effects of all four upon ,m may be so great as to awaken an actual discharge in this latter locality4 ,in like manner if the paths between ,m and the four other localities have been so slightly excavated by previous experience as to require a very intense excitement in either of the localities before ,m can be awakened1 a less strong excitement than this in any one will fail to reach ,m4 ,but if all four at once are mildly excited1 their compound effect on ,m may be adequate to its full arousal4 ,the psychological law of association of objects thought of through their previous contiguity in thought or experience would thus be an effect1 within the mind1 of the physical fact that nerve-currents propagate themselves easiest through those tracts of conduction which have been already most in use4 ,descartes and ,locke hit upon this explanation1 which modern science has not yet succeeded in improving4 ,custom1 says ,locke1 settles habits of thinking in the understanding1 as well as of determining in the will1 and of motions in the body2 all which seem to be but trains of motion in the animal spirits by this ,locke meant identically what we understand by neural processes which1 once set agoing1 continue in the same steps they have been used to1 which by often treading are worn into a smooth path1 and the motion in it becomes easy and1 as it were1 natural4#dgf ,hartley was more thorough in his grasp of the principle4 ,the sensorial nerve-currents1 produced when objects are fully present1 were for him 'vibrations1' and those which produce ideas of objects in their absence were 'miniature vibrations4' ,and he sums up the cause of mental association in a single formula by saying3 ,any vibrations1 ,a1 ,b1 ,c1 etc41 by being associated together a sufficient ,number of ,times1 get such a ,power over a1 b1 c1 etc41 the corresponding ,miniature ,vibrations1 that any of the ,vibrations ,a1 when impressed alone1 shall be able to excite b1 c1 etc41 the ,miniatures of the rest4#dgg ,it is evident that if there be any law of neural habit similar to this1 the contiguities1 coexistences1 and successions1 met with in outer experience1 must inevitably be copied more or less perfectly in our thought4 ,if ,a ,b ,c ,d ,e be a sequence of outer impressions 7they may be events or they may be successively experienced properties of an object7 which once gave rise to the successive 'ideas' a b c d e1 then no sooner will ,a impress us again and awaken the a1 than b c d e will arise as ideas even before ,b ,c ,d ,e have come in as impressions4 ,in other words1 the order of impressions will the next time be anticipated2 and the mental order will so far forth copy the order of the outer world4 ,any object when met again will make us expect its former concomitants1 through the overflowing of its brain-tract into the paths which lead to theirs4 ,and all these suggestions will be effects of a material law4 ,where the associations are1 as here1 of successively appearing things1 the distinction ,i made at the outset of the chapter1 between a connection thought of and a connection of thoughts1 is unimportant4 ,for the connection thought of is concomitance or succession2 and the connection between the thoughts is just the same4 ,the 'objects' and the 'ideas' fit into parallel schemes1 and may be described in identical language1 as contiguous things tending to be thought again together1 or contiguous ideas tending to recur together4 ,now were these cases fair samples of all association1 the distinction ,i drew might well be termed a ,spitzfindigkeit or piece of pedantic hair-splitting1 and be dropped4 ,but as a matter of fact we cannot treat the subject so simply4 ,the same outer object may suggest either of many realities formerly associated with it--for in the vicissitudes of our outer experience we are constantly liable to meet the same thing in the midst of differing companions--and a philosophy of association that should merely say that it will suggest one of these1 or even of that one of them which it has oftenest accompanied1 would go but a very short way into the rationale of the subject4 ,this1 however1 is about as far as most associationists have gone with their 'principle of contiguity4' ,granted an object1 ,a1 they never tell us beforehand which of its associates it will suggest2 their wisdom is limited to showing1 after it has suggested a second object1 that that object was once an associate4 ,they have had to supplement their principle of ,contiguity by other principles1 such as those of ,similarity and ,contrast1 before they could begin to do justice to the richness of the facts4 ,,the ,,elementary ,,law ,,of ,,association4 ,i shall try to show1 in the pages which immediately follow1 that there is no other elementary causal law of association than the law of neural habit4 ,all the materials of our thought are due to the way in which one elementary process of the cerebral hemispheres tends to excite whatever other elementary process it may have excited at some former time4 ,the number of elementary processes at work1 however1 and the nature of those which at any time are fully effective in rousing the others1 determine the character of the total brain-action1 and1 as a consequence of this1 they determine the object thought of at the time4 ,according as this resultant object is one thing or another1 we call it a product of association by contiguity or of association by similarity1 or contrast1 or whatever other sorts we may have recognized as ultimate4 ,its production1 however1 is1 in each one of these cases1 to be explained by a merely quantitative variation in the elementary brain-processes momentarily at work under the law of habit1 so that psychic contiguity1 similarity1 etc41 are derivatives of a single profounder kind of fact4 ,my thesis1 stated thus briefly1 will soon become more clear2 and at the same time certain disturbing factors1 which co-operate with the law of neural habit1 will come to view4 ,let us then assume as the basis of all our subsequent reasoning this law3 ,when two elementary brain-processes have been active together or in immediate succession1 one of them1 on reoccurring1 tends to propagate its excitement into the other4 ,but1 as a matter of fact1 every elementary process has found itself at different times excited in conjunction with many other processes1 and this by unavoidable outward causes4 ,which of these others it shall awaken now becomes a problem4 ,shall b or c be aroused next by the present a8 ,we must make a further postulate1 based1 however1 on the fact of tension in nerve-tissue1 and on the fact of summation of excitements1 each incomplete or latent in itself1 into an open resultant4#dgh ,the process b1 rather than c1 will awake1 if in addition to the vibrating tract a some other tract d is in a state of sub-excitement1 and formerly was excited with b alone and not with a4 ,in short1 we may say3 ,the amount of activity at any given point in the brain-cortex is the sum of the tendencies of all other points to discharge into it1 such tendencies being proportionate 7#a7 to the number of times the excitement of each other point may have accompanied that of the point in question2 7#b7 to the intensity of such excitements2 and 7#c7 to the absence of any rival point functionally disconnected with the first point1 into which the discharges might be diverted4 ,expressing the fundamental law in this most complicated way leads to the greatest ultimate simplification4 ,let us1 for the present1 only treat of spontaneous trains of thought and ideation1 such as occur in revery or musing4 ,the case of voluntary thinking toward a certain end shall come up later4 ,take1 to fix our ideas1 the two verses from ',locksley ,hall'3 ,i1 the heir of all the ages in the foremost files of time1 and-- ,for ,i doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs4 ,why is it that when we recite from memory one of these lines1 and get as far as the ages1 that portion of the other line which follows1 and1 so to speak1 sprouts out of the ages1 does not also sprout out of our memory1 and confuse the sense of our words8 ,simply because the word that follows the ages has its brain-process awakened not simply by the brain-process of the ages alone1 but by it plus the brain-processes of all the words preceding the ages4 ,the word ages at its moment of strongest activity would1 per se1 indifferently discharge into either 'in' or 'one4' ,so would the previous words 7whose tension is momentarily much less strong than that of ages7 each of them indifferently discharge into either of a large number of other words with which they have been at different times combined4 ,but when the processes of ',i1 the heir of all the ages1' simultaneously vibrate in the brain1 the last one of them in a maximal1 the others in a fading phase of excitement2 then the strongest line of discharge will be that which they all alike tend to take4 ',in' and not 'one' or any other word will be the next to awaken1 for its brain-process has previously vibrated in unison not only with that of ages1 but with that of all those other words whose activity is dying away4 ,it is a good case of the effectiveness over thought of what we called on p4 #beh a 'fringe4' ,but if some one of these preceding words--'heir1' for example--had an intensely strong association with some brain-tracts entirely disjoined in experience from the poem of ',locksley ,hall'--if the reciter1 for instance1 were tremulously awaiting the opening of a will which might make him a millionaire--it is probable that the path of discharge through the words of the poem would be suddenly interrupted at the word 'heir4' ,his emotional interest in that word would be such that its own special associations would prevail over the combined ones of the other words4 ,he would1 as we say1 be abruptly reminded of his personal situation1 and the poem would lapse altogether from his thoughts4 ,the writer of these pages has every year to learn the names of a large number of students who sit in alphabetical order in a lecture-room4 ,he finally learns to call them by name1 as they sit in their accustomed places4 ,on meeting one in the street1 however1 early in the year1 the face hardly ever recalls the name1 but it may recall the place of its owner in the lecture-room1 his neighbors' faces1 and consequently his general alphabetical position2 and then1 usually as the common associate of all these combined data1 the student's name surges up in his mind4 ,a father wishes to show to some guests the progress of his rather dull child in ,kindergarten instruction4 ,holding the knife upright on the table1 he says1 ,what do you call that1 my boy8 ,i calls it a knife1 ,i does1 is the sturdy reply1 from which the child cannot be induced to swerve by any alteration in the form of question1 until the father recollecting that in the ,kindergarten a pencil was used1 and not a knife1 draws a long one from his pocket1 holds it in the same way1 and then gets the wished-for answer1 ,i calls it vertical4 ,all the concomitants of the ,kindergarten experience had to recombine their effect before the word 'vertical' could be reawakened4 ,professor ,bain1 in his chapters on ',compound ,association1' has treated in a minute and exhaustive way of this type of mental sequence1 and what he has done so well need not be here repeated4#dgi ,impartial ,redintegration4 ,the ideal working of the law of compound association1 were it unmodified by any extraneous influence1 would be such as to keep the mind in a perpetual treadmill of concrete reminiscences from which no detail could be omitted4 ,suppose1 for example1 we begin by thinking of a certain dinner-party4 ,the only thing which all the components of the dinner-party could combine to recall would be the first concrete occurrence which ensued upon it4 ,all the details of this occurrence could in turn only combine to awaken the next following occurrence1 and so on4 ,if a1 b1 c1 d1 e1 for instance1 be the elementary nerve-tracts excited by the last act of the dinner-party1 call this act ,a1 and l1 m1 n1 o1 p1 be those of walking home through the frosty night1 which we may call ,b1 then the thought of ,a must awaken that of ,b1 because a1 b1 c1 d1 e1 will each and all discharge into l through the paths by which their original discharge took place4 ,similarly they will discharge into m1 n1 o1 and p2 and these latter tracts will also each reinforce the other's action because1 in the experience ,b1 they have already vibrated in unison4 ,the lines in ,fig4 #dj symbolize the summation of discharges into each of the components of ,b1 and the consequent strength of the combination of influences by which ,b in its totality is awakened4 ,hamilton first used the word 'redintegration' to designate all association4 ,such processes as we have just described might in an emphatic sense be termed redintegrations1 for they would necessarily lead1 if unobstructed1 to the reinstatement in thought of the entire content of large trains of past experience4 ,from this complete redintegration there could be no escape save through the irruption of some new and strong present impression of the senses1 or through the excessive tendency of some one of the elementary brain-tracts to discharge independently into an aberrant quarter of the brain4 ,such was the tendency of the word 'heir' in the verse from ',locksley ,hall1' which was our first example4 ,how such tendencies are constituted we shall have soon to inquire with some care4 ,unless they are present1 the panorama of the past1 once opened1 must unroll itself with fatal literality to the end1 unless some outward sound1 sight1 or touch divert the current of thought4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #dj4 ,let us call this process impartial redintegration4 ,whether it ever occurs in an absolutely complete form is doubtful4 ,we all immediately recognize1 however1 that in some minds there is a much greater tendency than in others for the flow of thought to take this form4 ,those insufferably garrulous old women1 those dry and fanciless beings who spare you no detail1 however petty1 of the facts they are recounting1 and upon the thread of whose narrative all the irrelevant items cluster as pertinaciously as the essential ones1 the slaves of literal fact1 the stumblers over the smallest abrupt step in thought1 are figures known to all of us4 ,comic literature has made her profit out of them4 ,juliet's nurse is a classical example4 ,george ,eliot's village characters and some of ,dickens's minor personages supply excellent instances4 ,perhaps as successful a rendering as any of this mental type is the character of ,miss ,bates in ,miss ,austen's ',emma4' ,hear how she redintegrates3 ',but where could you hear it8' cried ,miss ,bates4 ',where could you possibly hear it1 ,mr4 ,knightley8 ,for it is not five minutes since ,i received ,mrs4 ,cole's note--no1 it cannot be more than five--or at least ten--for ,i had got my bonnet and spencer on1 just ready to come out--,i was only gone down to speak to ,patty again about the pork--,jane was standing in the passage--were not you1 ,jane8--for my mother was so afraid that we had not any salting-pan large enough4 ,so ,i said ,i would go down and see1 and ,jane said3 ,shall ,i go down instead8 for ,i think you have a little cold1 and ,patty has been washing the kitchen4 ,oh1 my dear1 said ,i--well1 and just then came the note4 ,a ,miss ,hawkins--that's all ,i know--a ,miss ,hawkins1 of ,bath4 ,but1 ,mr4 ,knightley1 how could you possibly have heard it8 for the very moment ,mr4 ,cole told ,mrs4 ,cole of it1 she sat down and wrote to me4 ,a ,miss ,hawkins--' ,but in every one of us there are moments when this complete reproduction of all the items of a past experience occurs4 ,what are those moments8 ,they are moments of emotional recall of the past as something which once was1 but is gone for ever--moments1 the interest of which consists in the feeling that our self was once other than it now is4 ,when this is the case1 any detail1 however minute1 which will make the past picture more complete1 will also have its effect in swelling that total contrast between now and then which forms the central interest of our contemplation4 ,,ordinary ,,or ,,mixed ,,association4 ,this case helps us to understand why it is that the ordinary spontaneous flow of our ideas does not follow the law of impartial redintegration4 ,in no revival of a past experience are all the items of our thought equally operative in determining what the next thought shall be4 ,always some ingredient is prepotent over the rest4 ,its special suggestions or associations in this case will often be different from those which it has in common with the whole group of items2 and its tendency to awaken these outlying associates will deflect the path of our revery4 ,just as in the original sensible experience our attention focalized itself upon a few of the impressions of the scene before us1 so here in the reproduction of those impressions an equal partiality is shown1 and some items are emphasized above the rest4 ,what these items shall be is1 in most cases of spontaneous revery1 hard to determine beforehand4 ,in subjective terms we say that the prepotent items are those which appeal most to our ,,interest4 ,expressed in brain-terms1 the law of interest will be3 some one brain-process is always prepotent above its concomitants in arousing action elsewhere4 ,two processes1 says ,mr4 ,hodgson1#dhj are constantly going on in redintegration4 ,the one a process of corrosion1 melting1 decay2 the other a process of renewing1 arising1 becoming4444 ,no object of representation remains long before consciousness in the same state1 but fades1 decays1 and becomes indistinct4 ,those parts of the object1 however1 which possess an interest resist this tendency to gradual decay of the whole object4444 ,this inequality in the object--some parts1 the uninteresting1 submitting to decay2 others1 the interesting parts1 resisting it--when it has continued for a certain time1 ends in becoming a new object4 ,only where the interest is diffused equally over all the parts 7as in the emotional memory just referred to1 where1 as all past1 they all interest us alike7 is this law departed from4 ,it will be least obeyed by those minds which have the smallest variety and intensity of interests--those who1 by the general flatness and poverty of their sthetic nature1 are kept for ever rotating among the literal sequences of their local and personal history4 ,most of us1 however1 are better organized than this1 and our musings pursue an erratic course1 swerving continually into some new direction traced by the shifting play of interest as it ever falls on some partial item in each complex representation that is evoked4 ,thus it so often comes about that we find ourselves thinking at two nearly adjacent moments of things separated by the whole diameter of space and time4 ,not till we carefully recall each step of our cogitation do we see how naturally we came by ,hodgson's law to pass from one to the other4 ,thus1 for instance1 after looking at my clock just now 7#ahgi71 ,i found myself thinking of a recent resolution in the ,senate about our legal-tender notes4 ,the clock called up the image of the man who had repaired its gong4 ,he suggested the jeweller's shop where ,i had last seen him2 that shop1 some shirt-studs which ,i had bought there2 they1 the value of gold and its recent decline2 the latter1 the equal value of greenbacks1 and this1 naturally1 the question of how long they were to last1 and of the ,bayard proposition4 ,each of these images offered various points of interest4 ,those which formed the turning-points of my thought are easily assigned4 ,the gong was momentarily the most interesting part of the clock1 because1 from having begun with a beautiful tone1 it had become discordant and aroused disappointment4 ,but for this the clock might have suggested the friend who gave it to me1 or any one of a thousand circumstances connected with clocks4 ,the jeweller's shop suggested the studs1 because they alone of all its contents were tinged with the egoistic interest of possession4 ,this interest in the studs1 their value1 made me single out the material as its chief source1 etc41 to the end4 ,every reader who will arrest himself at any moment and say1 ,how came ,i to be thinking of just this8 will be sure to trace a train of representations linked together by lines of contiguity and points of interest inextricably combined4 ,this is the ordinary process of the association of ideas as it spontaneously goes on in average minds4 ,we may call it ,,ordinary1 or ,,mixed1 ,,association4 ,another example of it is given by ,hobbes in a passage which has been quoted so often as to be classical3 ,in a discourse of our present civil war1 what could seem more impertinent than to ask 7as one did7 what was the value of a ,roman penny8 ,yet the coherence to me was manifest enough4 ,for the thought of the war introduced the thought of the delivering up the ,king to his enemies2 the thought of that brought in the thought of the delivering up of ,christ2 and that again the thought of the thirty pence1 which was the price of that treason3 and thence easily followed that malicious question2 and all this in a moment of time2 for thought is quick4#dha ,can we determine1 now1 when a certain portion of the going thought has1 by dint of its interest1 become so prepotent as to make its own exclusive associates the dominant features of the coming thought--can we1 ,i say1 determine which of its own associates shall be evoked8 ,for they are many4 ,as ,hodgson says3 ,the interesting parts of the decaying object are free to combine again with any objects or parts of objects with which at any time they have been combined before4 ,all the former combinations of these parts may come back into consciousness2 one must2 but which will8 ,mr4 ,hodgson replies3 ,there can be but one answer3 that which has been most habitually combined with them before4 ,this new object begins at once to form itself in consciousness1 and to group its parts round the part still remaining from the former object2 part after part comes out and arranges itself in its old position2 but scarcely has the process begun1 when the original law of interest begins to operate on this new formation1 seizes on the interesting parts and impresses them on the attention to the exclusion of the rest1 and the whole process is repeated again with endless variety4 ,i venture to propose this as a complete and true account of the whole process of redintegration4 ,in restricting the discharge from the interesting item into that channel which is simply most habitual in the sense of most frequent1 ,hodgson's account is assuredly imperfect4 ,an image by no means always revives its most frequent associate1 although frequency is certainly one of the most potent determinants of revival4 ,if ,i abruptly utter the word swallow1 the reader1 if by habit an ornithologist1 will think of a bird2 if a physiologist or a medical specialist in throat diseases1 he will think of deglutition4 ,if ,i say date1 he will1 if a fruit-merchant or an ,arabian traveller1 think of the produce of the palm2 if an habitual student of history1 figures with ,a4,d4 or ,b4,c4 before them will rise in his mind4 ,if ,i say bed1 bath1 morning1 his own daily toilet will be invincibly suggested by the combined names of three of its habitual associates4 ,but frequent lines of transition are often set at naught4 ,the sight of ,c4 ,goring's ',system der kritischen ,philosophie' has most frequently awakened in me thoughts of the opinions therein propounded4 ,the idea of suicide has never been connected with the volumes4 ,but a moment since1 as my eye fell upon them1 suicide was the thought that flashed into my mind4 ,why8 ,because but yesterday ,i received a letter from ,leipzig informing me that this philosopher's recent death by drowning was an act of self-destruction4 ,thoughts tend1 then1 to awaken their most recent as well as their most habitual associates4 ,this is a matter of notorious experience1 too notorious1 in fact1 to need illustration4 ,if we have seen our friend this morning1 the mention of his name now recalls the circumstances of that interview1 rather than any more remote details concerning him4 ,if ,shakespeare's plays are mentioned1 and we were last night reading ',richard ,,ii41' vestiges of that play rather than of ',hamlet' or ',othello' float through our mind4 ,excitement of peculiar tracts1 or peculiar modes of general excitement in the brain1 leave a sort of tenderness or exalted sensibility behind them which takes days to die away4 ,as long as it lasts1 those tracts or those modes are liable to have their activities awakened by causes which at other times might leave them in repose4 ,hence1 recency in experience is a prime factor in determining revival in thought4#dhb ,vividness in an original experience may also have the same effect as habit or recency in bringing about likelihood of revival4 ,if we have once witnessed an execution1 any subsequent conversation or reading about capital punishment will almost certainly suggest images of that particular scene4 ,thus it is that events lived through only once1 and in youth1 may come in after-years1 by reason of their exciting quality or emotional intensity1 to serve as types or instances used by our mind to illustrate any and every occurring topic whose interest is most remotely pertinent to theirs4 ,if a man in his boyhood once talked with ,napoleon1 any mention of great men or historical events1 battles or thrones1 or the whirligig of fortune1 or islands in the ocean1 will be apt to draw to his lips the incidents of that one memorable interview4 ,if the word tooth now suddenly appears on the page before the reader's eye1 there are fifty chances out of a hundred that1 if he gives it time to awaken any image1 it will be an image of some operation of dentistry in which he has been the sufferer4 ,daily he has touched his teeth and masticated with them2 this very morning he brushed them1 chewed his breakfast and picked them2 but the rarer and remoter associations arise more promptly because they were so much more intense4#dhc ,a fourth factor in tracing the course of reproduction is congruity in emotional tone between the reproduced idea and our mood4 ,the same objects do not recall the same associates when we are cheerful as when we are melancholy4 ,nothing1 in fact1 is more striking than our utter inability to keep up trains of joyous imagery when we are depressed in spirits4 ,storm1 darkness1 war1 images of disease1 poverty1 and perishing afflict unremittingly the imaginations of melancholiacs4 ,and those of sanguine temperament1 when their spirits are high1 find it impossible to give any permanence to evil forebodings or to gloomy thoughts4 ,in an instant the train of association dances off to flowers and sunshine1 and images of spring and hope4 ,the records of ,arctic or ,african travel perused in one mood awaken no thoughts but those of horror at the malignity of ,nature2 read at another time they suggest only enthusiastic reflections on the indomitable power and pluck of man4 ,few novels so overflow with joyous animal spirits as ',the ,three ,guardsmen' of ,dumas4 ,yet it may awaken in the mind of a reader depressed with sea-sickness 7as the writer can personally testify7 a most dismal and woeful consciousness of the cruelty and carnage of which heroes like ,athos1 ,porthos1 and ,aramis make themselves guilty4 ,habit1 recency1 vividness1 and emotional congruity are1 then1 all reasons why one representation rather than another should be awakened by the interesting portion of a departing thought4 ,we may say with truth that in the majority of cases the coming representation will have been either habitual1 recent1 or vivid1 and will be congruous4 ,if all these qualities unite in any one absent associate1 we may predict almost infallibly that that associate of the going thought will form an important ingredient in the coming thought4 ,in spite of the fact1 however1 that the succession of representations is thus redeemed from perfect indeterminism and limited to a few classes whose characteristic quality is fixed by the nature of our past experience1 it must still be confessed that an immense number of terms in the linked chain of our representations fall outside of all assignable rule4 ,to take the instance of the clock given on page #ehf4 ,why did the jeweller's shop suggest the shirt-studs rather than a chain which ,i had bought there more recently1 which had cost more1 and whose sentimental associations were much more interesting8 ,both chain and studs had excited brain-tracts simultaneously with the shop4 ,the only reason why the nerve-stream from the shop-tract switched off into the stud-tract rather than into the chain-tract must be that the stud-tract happened at that moment to lie more open1 either because of some accidental alteration in its nutrition or because the incipient sub-conscious tensions of the brain as a whole had so distributed their equilibrium1 that it was more unstable here than in the chain-tract4 ,any reader's introspection will easily furnish similar instances4 ,it thus remains true that to a certain extent1 even in those forms of ordinary mixed association which lie nearest to impartial redintegration1 which associate of the interesting item shall emerge must be called largely a matter of accident--accident1 that is1 for our intelligence4 ,no doubt it is determined by cerebral causes1 but they are too subtile and shifting for our analysis4 ,,association ,,by ,,similarity4 ,in partial or mixed association we have all along supposed the interesting portion of the disappearing thought to be of considerable extent1 and to be sufficiently complex to constitute by itself a concrete object4 ,sir ,william ,hamilton relates1 for instance1 that after thinking of ,ben ,lomond he found himself thinking of the ,prussian system of education1 and discovered that the links of association were a ,german gentleman whom he had met on ,ben ,lomond1 ,germany1 etc4 ,the interesting part of ,ben ,lomond1 as he had experienced it1 the part operative in determining the train of his ideas was the complex image of a particular man4 ,but now let us suppose that that selective agency of interested attention1 which may thus convert impartial redintegration into partial association--let us suppose that it refines itself still further and accentuates a portion of the passing thought1 so small as to be no longer the image of a concrete thing1 but only of an abstract quality or property4 ,let us moreover suppose that the part thus accentuated persists in consciousness 7or1 in cerebral terms1 has its brain-process continue7 after the other portions of the thought have faded4 ,this small surviving portion will then surround itself with its own associates after the fashion we have already seen1 and the relation between the new thought's object and the object of the faded thought will be a relation of similarity4 ,the pair of thoughts will form an instance of what is called ',association by ,similarity4'#dhd ,the similars which are here associated1 or of which the first is followed by the second in the mind1 are seen to be compounds4 ,experience proves that this is always the case4 ,there is no tendency on the part of ,,simple 'ideas1' attributes1 or qualities to remind us of their like4 ,the thought of one shade of blue does not remind us of that of another shade of blue1 etc41 unless indeed we have in mind some general purpose like naming the tint1 when we should naturally think of other blues of the scale1 through 'mixed association' of purpose1 names1 and tints1 together4 ,but there is no elementary tendency of pure qualities to awaken their similars in the mind4 ,we saw in the chapter on ,discrimination that two compound things are similar when some one quality or group of qualities is shared alike by both1 although as regards their other qualities they may have nothing in common4 ,the moon is similar to a gas-jet1 it is also similar to a foot-ball2 but a gas-jet and a foot-ball are not similar to each other4 ,when we affirm the similarity of two compound things1 we should always say in what respect it obtains4 ,moon and gas-jet are similar in respect of luminosity1 and nothing else2 moon and foot-ball in respect of rotundity1 and nothing else4 ,foot-ball and gas-jet are in no respect similar--that is1 they possess no common point1 no identical attribute4 ,similarity1 in compounds1 is partial identity4 ,when the same attribute appears in two phenomena1 though it be their only common property1 the two phenomena are similar in so far forth4 ,to return now to our associated representations4 ,if the thought of the moon is succeeded by the thought of a foot-ball1 and that by the thought of one of ,mr4 ,x's railroads1 it is because the attribute rotundity in the moon broke away from all the rest and surrounded itself with an entirely new set of companions--elasticity1 leathery integument1 swift mobility in obedience to human caprice1 etc42 and because the last-named attribute in the foot-ball in turn broke away from its companions1 and1 itself persisting1 surrounded itself with such new attributes as make up the notions of a 'railroad king1' of a rising and falling stock-market1 and the like4 ,the gradual passage from impartial redintegration to similar association through what we have called ordinary mixed association may be symbolized by diagrams4 ,fig4 #da is impartial redintegration1 ,fig4 #db is mixed1 and ,fig4 #dc similar association4 ,a in each is the passing1 ,b the coming thought4 ,in 'impartial1' all parts of ,a are equally operative in calling up ,b4 ,in 'mixed1' most parts of ,a are inert4 ,the part ,m alone breaks out and awakens ,b4 ,in 'similar1' the focalized part ,m is much smaller than in the previous case1 and after awakening its new set of associates1 instead of fading out itself1 it continues persistently active along with them1 forming an identical part in the two ideas1 and making these1 pro tanto1 resemble each other4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #da4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #db4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #dc4 ,why a single portion of the passing thought should break out from its concert with the rest and act1 as we say1 on its own hook1 why the other parts should become inert1 are mysteries which we can ascertain but not explain4 ,possibly a minuter insight into the laws of neural action will some day clear the matter up2 possibly neural laws will not suffice1 and we shall need to invoke a dynamic reaction of the form of consciousness upon its content4 ,but into this we cannot enter now4 99 99 99 99 99 ,to sum up1 then1 we see that the difference between the three kinds of association reduces itself to a simple difference in the amount of that portion of the nerve-tract supporting the going thought which is operative in calling up the thought which comes4 ,but the modus operandi of this active part is the same1 be it large or be it small4 ,the items constituting the coming object waken in every instance because their nerve-tracts once were excited continuously with those of the going object or its operative part4 ,this ultimate physiological law of habit among the neural elements is what runs the train4 ,the direction of its course and the form of its transitions1 whether redintegrative1 associative1 or similar1 are due to unknown regulative or determinative conditions which accomplish their effect by opening this switch and closing that1 setting the engine sometimes at half-speed1 and coupling or uncoupling cars4 ,this last figure of speech1 into which ,i have glided unwittingly1 affords itself an excellent instance of association by similarity4 ,i was thinking of the deflections of the course of ideas4 ,now1 from ,hobbes's time downward1 ,english writers have been fond of speaking of the train of our representations4 ,this word happened to stand out in the midst of my complex thought with peculiarly sharp accentuation1 and to surround itself with numerous details of railroad imagery4 ,only such details became clear1 however1 as had their nerve-tracts besieged by a double set of influences--those from train on the one hand1 and those from the movement of thought on the other4 ,it may possibly be that the prepotency of the suggestions of the word train at this moment were due to the recent excitation of the railroad brain-tract by the instance chosen a few pages back of ii railroad king playing foot-ball with the stock-market4 ,it is apparent from such an example how inextricably complex are all the contributory factors whose resultant is the line of our reverie4 ,it would be folly in most cases to attempt to trace them out4 ,from an instance like the above1 where the pivot of the ,similar ,association was formed by a definite concrete word1 train1 to those where it is so subtile as utterly to elude our analysis1 the passage is unbroken4 ,we can form a series of examples4 ,when ,mr4 ,bagehot says that the mind of the savage1 so far from being in a state of nature1 is tattooed all over with monstrous superstitions1 the case is very like the one we have just been considering4 ,when ,sir ,james ,stephen compares our belief in the uniformity of nature1 the congruity of the future with the past1 to a man rowing one way and looking another1 and steering his boat by keeping her stern in a line with an object behind him1 the operative link becomes harder to dissect out4 ,it is subtler still in ,dr4 ,holmes's phrase1 that stories in passing from mouth to mouth make a great deal of lee-way in proportion to their headway2 or in ,mr4 ,lowell's description of ,german sentences1 that they have a way of yawing and going stern-foremost and not minding the helm for several minutes after it has been put down4 ,and finally1 it is a real puzzle when the color pale-blue is said to have feminine and blood-red masculine affinities4 ,and if ,i hear a friend describe a certain family as having blotting-paper voices1 the image1 though immediately felt to be apposite1 baffles the utmost powers of analysis4 ,the higher poets all use abrupt epithets1 which are alike intimate and remote1 and1 as ,emerson says1 sweetly torment us with invitations to their inaccessible homes4 ,in these latter instances we must suppose that there is an identical portion in the similar objects1 and that its brain-tract is energetically operative1 without1 however1 being sufficiently isolable in its activity as to stand out per se1 and form the condition of a distinctly discriminated 'abstract idea4' ,we cannot even by careful search see the bridge over which we passed from the heart of one representation to that of the next4 ,in some brains1 however1 this mode of transition is extremely common4 ,it would be one of the most important of physiological discoveries could we assign the mechanical or chemical difference which makes the thoughts of one brain cling close to impartial redintegration1 while those of another shoot about in all the lawless revelry of similarity4 ,why1 in these latter brains1 action should tend to focalize itself in small spots1 while in the others it fills patiently its broad bed1 it seems impossible to guess4 ,whatever the difference may be1 it is what separates the man of genius from the prosaic creature of habit and routine thinking4 ,in ,chapter ,,xxii we shall need to recur again to this point4 ,,association ,,in ,,voluntary ,,thought4 ,hitherto we have assumed the process of suggestion of one object by another to be spontaneous4 ,the train of imagery wanders at its own sweet will1 now trudging in sober grooves of habit1 now with a hop1 skip1 and jump darting across the whole field of time and space4 ,this is revery1 or musing2 but great segments of the flux of our ideas consist of something very different from this4 ,they are guided by a distinct purpose or conscious interest4 ,as the ,germans say1 we nachdenken1 or think towards a certain end4 ,it is now necessary to examine what modification is made in the trains of our imagery by the having of an end in view4 ,the course of our ideas is then called voluntary4 ,physiologically considered1 we must suppose that a purpose means the persistent activity of certain rather definite brain-processes throughout the whole course of thought4 ,our most usual cogitations are not pure reveries1 absolute driftings1 but revolve about some central interest or topic to which most of the images are relevant1 and towards which we return promptly after occasional digressions4 ,this interest is subserved by the persistently active brain-tracts we have supposed4 ,in the mixed associations which we have hitherto studied1 the parts of each object which form the pivots on which our thoughts successively turn have their interest largely determined by their connection with some general interest which for the time has seized upon the mind4 ,if we call ,z the brain-tract of general interest1 then1 if the object abc turns up1 and b has more associations with ,z than have either a or c1 b will become the object's interesting1 pivotal portion1 and will call up its own associates exclusively4 ,for the energy of b's brain-tract will be augmented by ,z's activity1--an activity which1 from lack of previous connection between ,z and a or c1 does not influence a or c4 ,if1 for instance1 ,i think of ,paris whilst ,i am hungry1 ,i shall not improbably find that its restaurants have become the pivot of my thought1 etc41 etc4 ,but in the theoretic as well as in the practical life there are interests of a more acute sort1 taking the form of definite images of some achievement1 be it action or acquisition1 which we desire to effect4 ,the train of ideas arising under the influence of such an interest constitutes usually the thought of the means by which the end shall be attained4 ,if the end by its simple presence does not instantaneously suggest the means1 the search for the latter becomes an intellectual problem4 ,the solution of problems is the most characteristic and peculiar sort of voluntary thinking4 ,where the end thought of is some outward deed or gain1 the solution is largely composed of the actual motor processes1 walking1 speaking1 writing1 etc41 which lead up to it4 ,where the end is in the first instance only ideal1 as in laying out a place of operations1 the steps are purely imaginary4 ,in both of these cases the discovery of the means may form a new sort of end1 of an entirely peculiar nature1 an end1 namely1 which we intensely desire before we have attained it1 but of the nature of which1 even whilst most strongly craving it1 we have no distinct imagination whatever4 ,such an end is a problem4 ,the same state of things occurs whenever we seek to recall something forgotten1 or to state the reason for a judgment which we have made intuitively4 ,the desire strains and presses in a direction which it feels to be right but towards a point which it is unable to see4 ,in short1 the absence of an item is a determinant of our representations quite as positive as its presence can ever be4 ,the gap becomes no mere void1 but what is called an aching void4 ,if we try to explain in terms of brain-action how a thought which only potentially exists can yet be effective1 we seem driven to believe that the brain-tract thereof must actually be excited1 but only in a minimal and sub-conscious way4 ,try1 for instance1 to symbolize what goes on in a man who is racking his brains to remember a thought which occurred to him last week4 ,the associates of the thought are there1 many of them at least1 but they refuse to awaken the thought itself4 ,we cannot suppose that they do not irradiate at all into its brain-tract1 because his mind quivers on the very edge of its recovery4 ,its actual rhythm sounds in his ears2 the words seem on the imminent point of following1 but fail4 ,what it is that blocks the discharge and keeps the brain-excitement here from passing beyond the nascent into the vivid state cannot be guessed4 ,but we see in the philosophy of desire and pleasure1 that such nascent excitements1 spontaneously tending to a crescendo1 but inhibited or checked by other causes1 may become potent mental stimuli and determinants of desire4 ,all questioning1 wonder1 emotion of curiosity1 must be referred to cerebral causes of some such form as this4 ,the great difference between the effort to recall things forgotten and the search after the means to a given end1 is that the latter have not1 whilst the former have1 already formed a part of our experience4 ,if we first study the mode of recalling a thing forgotten1 we can take up with better understanding the voluntary quest of the unknown4 ,the forgotten thing is felt by us as a gap in the midst of certain other things4 ,if it is a thought1 we possess a dim idea of where we were and what we were about when it occurred to us4 ,we recollect the general subject to which it relates4 ,but all these details refuse to shoot together into a solid whole1 for the lack of the vivid traits of this missing thought1 the relation whereof to each detail forms now the main interest of the latter4 ,we keep running over the details in our mind1 dissatisfied1 craving something more4 ,from each detail there radiate lines of association forming so many tentative guesses4 ,many of these are immediately seen to be irrelevant1 are therefore void of interest1 and lapse immediately from consciousness4 ,others are associated with the other details present1 and with the missing thought as well4 ,when these surge up1 we have a peculiar feeling that we are 'warm1' as the children say when they play hide and seek2 and such associates as these we clutch at and keep before the attention4 ,thus we recollect successively that when we had the thought in question we were at the dinner-table2 then that our friend ,j4 ,d4 was there2 then that the subject talked about was so and so2 finally1 that the thought came propos of a certain anecdote1 and then that it had something to do with a ,french quotation4 ,now all these added associations arise independently of the will1 by the spontaneous process we know so well4 ,all that the will does is to emphasize and linger over those which seem pertinent1 and ignore the rest4 ,through this hovering of the attention in the neighborhood of the desired object1 the accumulation of associates becomes so great that the combined tensions of their neural processes break through the bar1 and the nervous wave pours into the tract which has so long been awaiting its advent4 ,and as the expectant1 sub-conscious itching there1 bursts into the fulness of vivid feeling1 the mind finds an inexpressible relief4 ,the whole process can be rudely symbolized in a diagram4 ,call the forgotten thing ,z1 the first facts with which we felt it was related1 a1 b1 and c1 and the details finally operative in calling it up1 l1 m1 and n4 ,each circle will then stand for the brain-process underlying the thought of the object denoted by the letter contained within it4 ,the activity in ,z will at first be a mere tension2 but as the activities in a1 b1 and c little by little irradiate into l1 m1 and n1 and as all these processes are somehow connected with ,z1 their combined irradiations upon ,z1 represented by the centripetal arrows1 succeed in helping the tension there to overcome the resistance1 and in rousing ,z also to full activity4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #dd4 ,the tension present from the first in ,z1 even though it keep below the threshold of discharge1 is probably to some degree co-operative with a1 b1 c in determining that l1 m1 n shall awake4 ,without ,z's tension there might be a slower accumulation of objects connected with it4 ,but1 as aforesaid1 the objects come before us through the brain's own laws1 and the ,ego of the thinker can only remain on hand1 as it were1 to recognize their relative values and brood over some of them1 whilst others are let drop4 ,as when we have lost a material object we cannot recover it by a direct effort1 but only through moving about such neighborhoods wherein it is likely to lie1 and trusting that it will then strike our eye2 so here1 by not letting our attention leave the neighborhood of what we seek1 we trust that it will end by speaking to us of its own accord4#dhe 99 99 99 99 99 ,turn now to the case of finding the unknown means to a distinctly conceived end4 ,the end here stands in the place of a1 b1 c1 in the diagram4 ,it is the starting-point of the irradiations of suggestion2 and here1 as in that case1 what the voluntary attention does is only to dismiss some of the suggestions as irrelevant1 and hold fast to others which are felt to be more pertinent--let these be symbolized by l1 m1 n4 ,these latter at last accumulate sufficiently to discharge all together into ,z1 the excitement of which process is1 in the mental sphere1 equivalent to the solution of our problem4 ,the only difference between this case and the last1 is that in this one there need be no original sub-excitement in ,z1 co-operating from the very first4 ,when we seek a forgotten name1 we must suppose the name's centre to be in a state of active tension from the very outset1 because of that peculiar feeling of recognition which we get at the moment of recall4 ,the plenitude of the thought seems here but a maximum degree of something which our mind divined in advance4 ,it instantaneously fills a socket completely moulded to its shape2 and it seems most natural to ascribe the identity of quality in our feeling of the gaping socket and our feeling of what comes to fill it1 to the sameness of a nerve-tract excited in different degrees4 ,in the solving of a problem1 on the contrary1 the recognition that we have found the means is much less immediate4 ,here1 what we are aware of in advance seems to be its relations with the items we already know4 ,it must bear a causal relation1 or it must be an effect1 or it must contain an attribute common to two items1 or it must be a uniform concomitant1 or what not4 ,we know1 in short1 a lot about it1 whilst as yet we have no knowledge of acquaintance with it 7see p4 #bba71 or in ,mr4 ,hodgson's language1 we know what we want to find beforehand1 in a certain sense1 in its second intention1 and do not know it1 in another sense1 in its first intention4#dhf ,our intuition that one of the ideas which turn up is1 at last1 our qusitum1 is due to our recognition that its relations are identical with those we had in mind1 and this may be a rather slow act of judgment4 ,in fact1 every one knows that an object may be for some time present to his mind before its relations to other matters are perceived4 ,to quote ,hodgson again3 ,the mode of operation is common to voluntary memory and reason4444 ,but reasoning adds to memory the function of comparing or judging the images which arise4444 ,memory aims at filling the gap with an image which has at some particular time filled it before1 reasoning with one which bears certain time-and space-relations to the images before and after-- or1 to use perhaps clearer language1 one which stands in determinate logical relations to those data round about the gap which filled our mind at the start4 ,this feeling of the blank form of relationship before we get the material quality of the thing related will surprise no one who has read ,chapter ,,ix4 ,from the guessing of newspaper enigmas to the plotting of the policy of an empire there is no other process than this4 ,we trust to the laws of cerebral nature to present us spontaneously with the appropriate idea3 ,our only command over it is by the effort we make to keep the painful unfilled gap in consciousness4#dhg444 ,two circumstances are important to notice3 the first is1 that volition has no power of calling up images1 but only of rejecting and selecting from those offered by spontaneous redintegration4#dhh ,but the rapidity with which this selection is made1 owing to the familiarity of the ways in which spontaneous redintegration runs1 gives the process of reasoning the appearance of evoking images that are foreseen to be conformable to the purpose4 ,there is no seeing them before they are offered2 there is no summoning them before they are seen4 ,the other circumstance is1 that every kind of reasoning is nothing1 in its simplest form1 but attention4#dhi ,it is foreign to our purpose here to enter into any detailed analysis of the different classes of mental pursuit4 ,in a scientific research we get perhaps as rich an example as can be found4 ,the inquirer starts with a fact of which he seeks the reason1 or with an hypothesis of which he seeks the proof4 ,in either case he keeps turning the matter incessantly in his mind until1 by the arousal of associate upon associate1 some habitual1 some similar1 one arises which he recognizes to suit his need4 ,this1 however1 may take years4 ,no rules can be given by which the investigator may proceed straight to his result2 but both here and in the case of reminiscence the accumulation of helps in the way of associations may advance more rapidly by the use of certain routine methods4 ,in striving to recall a thought1 for example1 we may of set purpose run through the successive classes of circumstance with which it may possibly have been connected1 trusting that when the right member of the class has turned up it will help the thought's revival4 ,thus we may run through all the places in which we may have had it4 ,we may run through the persons whom we remember to have conversed with1 or we may call up successively all the books we have lately been reading4 ,if we are trying to remember a person we may run through a list of streets or of professions4 ,some item out of the lists thus methodically gone over will very likely be associated with the fact we are in need of1 and may suggest it or help to do so4 ,and yet the item might never have arisen without such systematic procedure4 ,in scientific research this accumulation of associates has been methodized by ,mill under the title of ',the ,four ,methods of ,experimental ,inquiry4' ,by the 'method of agreement1' by that of 'difference1' by those of 'residues' and 'concomitant variations'7which cannot here be more nearly defined71 we make certain lists of cases2 and by ruminating these lists in our minds the cause we seek will be more likely to emerge4 ,but the final stroke of discovery is only prepared1 not effected1 by them4 ,the brain-tracts must1 of their own accord1 shoot the right way at last1 or we shall still grope in darkness4 ,that in some brains the tracts do shoot the right way much oftener than in others1 and that we cannot tell why1--these are ultimate facts to which we must never close our eyes4 ,even in forming our lists of instances according to ,mill's methods1 we are at the mercy of the spontaneous workings of ,similarity in our brain4 ,how are a number of facts1 resembling the one whose cause we seek1 to be brought together in a list unless the one will rapidly suggest the other through association by similarity8 ,,similarity ,,no ,,elementary ,,law4 ,such is the analysis ,i propose1 first of the three main types of spontaneous association1 and then of voluntary association4 ,it will be observed that the object called up may bear any logical relation whatever to the one which suggested it4 ,the law requires only that one condition should be fulfilled4 ,the fading object must be due to a brain-process some of whose elements awaken through habit some of the elements of the brain-process of the object which comes to view4 ,this awakening is the operative machinery1 the causal agency1 throughout1 quite as much so in the kind of association ,i have called by the name of ,similarity1 as in any other sort4 ,the similarity between the objects1 or between the thoughts 7if similarity there be between these latter71 has no causal agency in carrying us from one to the other4 ,it is but a result--the effect of the usual causal agent when this happens to work in a certain particular and assignable way4 ,but ordinary writers talk as if the similarity of the objects were itself an agent1 co-ordinate with habit1 and independent of it1 and like it able to push objects before the mind4 ,this is quite unintelligible4 ,the similarity of two things does not exist till both things are there--it is meaningless to talk of it as an agent of production of anything1 whether in the physical or the psychical realms4#dij ,it is a relation which the mind perceives after the fact1 just as it may perceive the relations of superiority1 of distance1 of causality1 of container and content1 of substance and accident1 or of contrast1 between an object and some second object which the associative machinery calls up4#dia ,there are1 nevertheless1 able writers who not only insist on preserving association by similarity as a distinct elementary law1 but who make it the most elementary law1 and seek to derive contiguous association from it4 ,their reasoning is as follows3 ,when the present impression ,a awakens the idea b of its past contiguous associate ,b1 how can this occur except through first reviving an image a of its own past occurrence4 ,this is the term directly connected with b2 so that the process instead of being simply ,a--b is ,a--a--b4 ,now ,a and a are similars2 therefore no association by contiguity can occur except through a previous association by similarity4 ,the most important supposition here made is that every impression on entering the mind must needs awaken an image of its past self1 in the light of which it is 'apperceived' or understood1 and through the intermediation of which it enters into relation with the mind's other objects4 ,this assumption is almost universally made2 and yet it is hard to find any good reason for it4 ,it first came before us when we were reviewing the facts of aphasia and mental blindness 7see p4 #ej ff474 ,but we then saw no need of optical and auditory images to interpret optical and auditory sensations by4 ,on the contrary1 we agreed that auditory sensations were understood by us only so far as they awakened non-auditory images1 and optical sensations only so far as they awakened non-optical images4 ,in the chapters on ,memory1 on ,reasoning1 and on ,perception the same assumption will meet us again1 and again will have to be rejected as groundless4 ,the sensational process ,a and the ideational process a probably occupy essentially the same tracts4 ,when the outer stimulus comes and those tracts vibrate with the sensation ,a1 they discharge as directly into the paths which lead to ,b as when there is no outer stimulus and they only vibrate with the idea a4 ,to say that the process ,a can only reach these paths by the help of the weaker process a is like saying that we need a candle to see the sun by4 ,a replaces a1 does all that a does and more2 and there is no intelligible meaning1 to my mind1 in saying that the weaker process coexists with the stronger4 ,i therefore consider that these writers are altogether wrong4 ,the only plausible proof they give of the coexistence of a with ,a is when ,a gives us a sense of familiarity but fails to awaken any distinct thought of past contiguous associates4 ,in a later chapter ,i shall consider this case4 ,here ,i content myself with saying that it does not seem conclusive as to the point at issue2 and that ,i still believe association of coexistent or sequent impressions to be the one elementary law4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,contrast has also been held to be an independent agent in association4 ,but the reproduction of an object contrasting with one already in the mind is easily explained on our principles4 ,recent writers1 in fact1 all reduce it either to similarity or contiguity4 ,contrast always presupposes generic similarity2 it is only the extremes of a class which are contrasted1 black and white1 not black and sour1 or white and prickly4 ,a machinery which reproduces a similar at all1 may reproduce the opposite similar1 as well as any intermediate term4 ,moreover1 the greater number of contrasts are habitually coupled in speech1 young and old1 life and death1 rich and poor1 etc41 and are1 as ,dr4 ,bain says1 in everybody's memory4#dib 99 99 99 99 99 ,i trust that the student will now feel that the way to a deeper understanding of the order of our ideas lies in the direction of cerebral physiology4 ,the elementary process of revival can be nothing but the law of habit4 ,truly the day is distant when physiologists shall actually trace from cell-group to cell-group the irradiations which we have hypothetically invoked4 ,probably it will never arrive4 ,the schematism we have used is1 moreover1 taken immediately from the analysis of objects into their elementary parts1 and only extended by analogy to the brain4 ,and yet it is only as incorporated in the brain that such a schematism can represent anything causal4 ,this is1 to my mind1 the conclusive reason for saying that the order of presentation of the mind's materials is due to cerebral physiology alone4 ,the law of accidental prepotency of certain processes over others falls also within the sphere of cerebral probabilities4 ,granting such instability as the brain-tissue requires1 certain points must always discharge more quickly and strongly than others2 and this prepotency would shift its place from moment to moment by accidental causes1 giving us a perfect mechanical diagram of the capricious play of similar association in the most gifted mind4 ,the study of dreams confirms this view4 ,the usual abundance of paths of irradiation seems1 in the dormant brain1 reduced4 ,a few only are pervious1 and the most fantastic sequences occur because the currents run--'like sparks in burnt-up paper'--wherever the nutrition of the moment creates an opening1 but nowhere else4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the effects of interested attention and volition remain4 ,these activities seem to hold fast to certain elements1 and by emphasizing them and dwelling on them1 to make their associates the only ones which are evoked4 ,this is the point at which an anti-mechanical psychology must1 if anywhere1 make it stand in dealing with association4 ,everything else is pretty certainly due to cerebral laws4 ,my own opinion on the question of active attention and spiritual spontaneity is expressed elsewhere4 ,but even though there be a mental spontaneity1 it can certainly not create ideas or summon them ex abrupto4 ,its power is limited to selecting amongst those which the associative machinery has already introduced or tends to introduce4 ,if it can emphasize1 reinforce1 or protract for a second either one of these1 it can do all that the most eager advocate of free will need demand2 for it then decides the direction of the next associations by making them hinge upon the emphasized term2 and determining in this wise the course of the man's thinking1 it also determines his acts4 ,,the ,,history ,,of ,,opinion ,,concerning ,,association may be briefly glanced at ere we end the chapter4#dic ,aristotle seems to have caught both the facts and the principle of explanation2 but he did not expand his views1 and it was not till the time of ,hobbes that the matter was again touched on in a definite way4 ,hobbes first formulated the problem of the succession of our thoughts4 ,he writes in ,leviathan1 chapter iii1 as follows3 ,by consequence1 or train of thoughts1 ,i understand that succession of one thought to another which is called1 to distinguish it from discourse in words1 mental discourse4 ,when a man thinketh on anything whatsoever1 his next thought after is not altogether so casual as it seems to be4 ,not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently4 ,but as we have no imagination1 whereof we have not formerly had sense1 in whole or in parts2 so we have no transition from one imagination to another1 whereof we never had the like before in our senses4 ,the reason whereof is this4 ,all fancies are motions within us1 relics of those made in the sense3 and those motions that immediately succeeded one another in the sense continue also together after sense3 insomuch as the former coming again to take place1 and be predominant1 the latter followeth1 by coherence of the matter moved1 in such manner1 as water upon a plane table is drawn which way any one part of it is guided by the finger4 ,but because in sense1 to one and the same thing perceived1 sometimes one thing1 sometimes another succeedeth1 it comes to pass in time that1 in the imagining of anything1 there is no certainty what we shall imagine next2 only this is certain1 it shall be something that succeeded the same before1 at one time or another4 ,this train of thoughts1 or mental discourse1 is of two sorts4 ,the first is unguided1 without design1 and inconstant2 wherein there is no passionate thought1 to govern and direct those that follow1 to itself1 as the end and scope of some desire1 or other passion4444 ,the second is more constant2 as being regulated by some desire and design4 ,for the impression made by such things as we desire1 or fear1 is strong and permanent1 or1 if it cease for a time1 of quick return3 so strong is it1 sometimes1 as to hinder and break our sleep4 ,from desire ariseth the thought of some means we have seen produce the like of that which we aim at2 and from the thought of that1 the thought of means to that mean2 and so continually1 till we come to some beginning within our own power4 ,and because the end1 by the greatness of the impression1 comes often to mind1 in case our thoughts begin to wander1 they are quickly again reduced into the way3 which observed by one of the seven wise men1 made him give men this precept1 which is now worn out1 ,respite finem2 that is to say1 in all your actions1 look often upon what you would have1 as the thing that directs all your thoughts in the way to attain it4 ,the train of regulated thoughts is of two kinds2 one1 when of an effect imagined we seek the causes1 or means that produce it3 and this is common to man and beast4 ,the other is1 when imagining anything whatsoever1 we seek all the possible effects that can by it be produced2 that is to say1 we imagine what we can do with it1 when we have it4 ,of which ,i have not at any time seen any sign1 but in man only2 for this is a curiosity hardly incident to the nature of any living creature that has no other passion but sensual1 such as are hunger1 thirst1 lust1 and anger4 ,in sum1 the discourse of the mind1 when it is governed by design1 is nothing but seeking or the faculty of invention1 which the ,latins called sagacitas1 and sollertia2 a hunting out of the causes1 of some effect1 present or past2 or of the effects1 of some present or past cause4 ,the most important passage after this of ,hobbes is ,hume's3 ,as all simple ideas may be separated by the imagination1 and may be united again in what form it pleases1 nothing would be more unaccountable than the operations of that faculty1 were it not guided by some universal principles1 which render it1 in some measure1 uniform with itself in all times and places4 ,were ideas entirely loose and unconnected1 chance alone would join them2 and 'tis impossible the same simple ideas should fall regularly into complex ones 7as they commonly do7 without some bond of union among them1 some associating quality1 by which one idea naturally introduces another4 ,this uniting principle among ideas is not to be considered as an inseparable connection2 for that has been already excluded from the imagination4 ,nor yet are we to conclude that without it the mind cannot join two ideas2 for nothing is more free than that faculty3 but we are only to regard it as a gentle force1 which commonly prevails1 and is the cause why1 among other things1 languages so nearly correspond to each other2 nature in a manner pointing to every one those simple ideas which are most proper to be united in a complex one4 ,the qualities from which this association arises1 and by which the mind is after this manner conveyed from one idea to another1 are three1 viz41 ,,resemblance1 ,,contiguity in time or place1 and ,,cause and ,,effect4 ,i believe it will not be very necessary to prove that these qualities produce an association among ideas1 and upon the appearance of one idea naturally introduce another4 ',tis plain that in the course of our thinking1 and in the constant revolution of our ideas1 our imagination runs easily from one idea to any other that resembles it1 and that this quality alone is to the fancy a sufficient bond and association4 ',tis likewise evident1 that as the senses1 in changing their objects1 are necessitated to change them regularly1 and take them as they lie contiguous to each other1 the imagination must by long custom acquire the same method of thinking1 and run along the parts of space and time in conceiving its objects4 ,as to the connection that is made by the relation of cause and effect1 we shall have occasion afterwards to examine it to the bottom1 and therefore shall not at present insist upon it4 ',tis sufficient to observe that there is no relation which produces a stronger connection in the fancy1 and makes one idea more readily recall another1 than the relation of cause and effect betwixt their objects4444 ,these are therefore the principles of union or cohesion among our simple ideas1 and in the imagination supply the place of that inseparable connection by which they are united in our memory4 ,here is a kind of ,,attraction1 which in the mental world will be found to have as extraordinary effects as in the natural1 and to show itself in as many and as various forms4 ,its effects are everywhere conspicuous2 but as to its causes1 they are mostly unknown1 and must be resolved into original qualities of human nature1 which ,i pretend not to explain4#did ,hume did not1 however1 any more than ,hobbes1 follow out the effects of which he speaks1 and the task of popularizing the notion of association and making an effective school based on association of ideas alone was reserved for ,hartley#die and ,james ,mill4#dif ,these authors traced minutely the presence of association in all the cardinal notions and operations of the mind4 ,the several 'faculties' of the ,mind were dispossessed2 the one principle of association between ideas did all their work4 ,as ,priestley says3 ,nothing is requisite to make any man whatever he is1 but a sentient principle with this single law4444 ,not only all our intellectual pleasures and pains but all the phenomena of memory1 imagination1 volition1 reasoning and every other mental affection and operation1 are but different modes or cases of the association of ideas4#dig ,an eminent ,french psychologist1 ,m4 ,ribot1 repeats ,hume's comparison of the law of association with that of gravitation1 and goes on to say3 ,it is remarkable that this discovery was made so late4 ,nothing is simpler1 apparently1 than to notice that this law of association is the truly fundamental1 irreducible phenomenon of our mental life2 that it is at the bottom of all our acts2 that it permits of no exception2 that neither dream1 revery1 mystic ecstasy1 nor the most abstract reasoning can exist without it2 that its suppression would be equivalent to that of thought itself4 ,nevertheless no ancient author understood it1 for one cannot seriously maintain that a few scattered lines in ,aristotle and the ,stoics constitute a theory and clear view of the subject4 ,it is to ,hobbes1 ,hume1 and ,hartley that we must attribute the origin of these studies on the connection of our ideas4 ,the discovery of the ultimate law of our psychologic acts has this1 then1 in common with many other discoveries3 it came late and seems so simple that it may justly astonish us4 ,perhaps it is not superfluous to ask in what this manner of explanation is superior to the current theory of ,faculties4#dih ,the most extended usage consists1 as we know1 in dividing intellectual phenomena into classes1 in separating those which differ1 in grouping together those of the same nature and in giving to these a common name and in attributing them to the same cause2 it is thus that we have come to distinguish those diverse aspects of intelligence which are called judgment1 reasoning1 abstraction1 perception1 etc4 ,this method is precisely the one followed in ,physics1 where the words caloric1 electricity1 gravity1 designate the unknown causes of certain groups of phenomena4 ,if one thus never forgets that the diverse faculties are only the unknown causes of known phenomena1 that they are simply a convenient means of classifying the facts and speaking of them1 if one does not fall into the common fault of making out of them substantial entities1 creations which now agree1 now disagree1 so forming in the intelligence a little republic2 then1 we can see nothing reprehensible in this distribution into faculties1 conformable as it is to the rules of a sound method and of a good natural classification4 ,in what then is ,mr4 ,bain's procedure superior to the method of the faculties8 ,it is that the latter is simply a classification while his is an explanation4 ,between the psychology which traces intellectual facts back to certain faculties1 and that which reduces them to the single law of association1 there is1 according to our way of thinking1 the same difference that we find in ,physics between those who attribute its phenomena to five or six causes1 and those who derive gravity caloric1 light1 etc41 from motion4 ,the system of the faculties explains nothing because each one of them is only a flatus vocis which is of value merely through the phenomena which it contains1 and signifies nothing more than these phenomena4 ,the new theory1 on the contrary1 shows that the different processes of intelligence are only diverse cases of a single law2 that imagination1 deduction1 induction1 perception1 etc41 are but so many determinate ways in which ideas may combine with each other2 and that the differences of faculties are only differences of association4 ,it explains all intellectual facts1 certainly not after the manner of ,metaphysics which demands the ultimate and absolute reason of things2 but after the manner of ,physics which seeks only their secondary and immediate cause4#dii ,the inexperienced reader may be glad of a brief indication of the manner in which all the different mental operations may be conceived to consist of images of sensation associated together4 ,memory is the association of a present image with others known to belong to the past4 ,expectation the same1 with future substituted for past4 ,fancy1 the association of images without temporal order4 ,belief in anything not present to sense is the very lively1 strong1 and steadfast association of the image of that thing with some present sensation1 so that as long as the sensation persists the image cannot be excluded from the mind4 ,judgment is 'transferring the idea of truth by association from one proposition to another that resembles it4'#ejj ,reasoning is the perception that whatever has any mark has that which it is a mark of2 in the concrete case the mark or middle term being always associated with each of the other terms and so serving as a link by which they are themselves indirectly associated together4 ,this same kind of transfer of a sensible experience associated with another to a third also associated with that other1 serves to explain emotional facts4 ,when we are pleased or hurt we express it1 and the expression associates itself with the feeling4 ,hearing the same expression from another revives the associated feeling1 and we sympathize1 i4e4 grieve or are glad with him4 ,the other social affections1 ,benevolence1 ,conscientiousness1 ,ambition1 etc41 arise in like manner by the transfer of the bodily pleasure experienced as a reward for social service1 and hence associated with it1 to the act of service itself1 the link of reward being dropped out4 ,just so ,avarice when the miser transfers the bodily pleasures associated with the spending of money to the money itself1 dropping the link of spending4 ,fear is a transfer of the bodily hurt associated by experience with the thing feared1 to the thought of the thing1 with the precise features of the hurt left out4 ,thus we fear a dog without distinctly imagining his bite4 ,love is the association of the agreeableness of certain sensible experiences with the idea of the object capable of affording them4 ,the experiences themselves may cease to be distinctly imagined after the notion of their pleasure has been transferred to the object1 constituting our love therefor4 ,volition is the association of ideas of muscular motion with the ideas of those pleasures which the motion produces4 ,the motion at first occurs automatically and results in a pleasure unforeseen4 ,the latter becomes so associated with the motion that whenever we think of it the idea of the motion arises2 and the idea of the motion when vivid causes the motion to occur4 ,this is an act of will4 ,nothing is easier than for a philosopher of this school to explain from experience such a notion as that of infinitude4 ,he sees in it an ordinary manifestation of one of the laws of the association of ideas1--the law that the idea of a thing irresistibly suggests the idea of any other thing which has been often experienced in close conjunction with it1 and not otherwise4 ,as we have never had experience of any point of space without other points beyond it1 nor of any point of time without others following it1 the law of indissoluble association makes it impossible for us to think of any point of space or time1 however distant1 without having the idea irresistibly realized1 in imagination1 of other points still more remote4 ,and thus the supposed original and inherent property of these two ideas is completely explained and accounted for by the law of association2 and we are enabled to see that if ,space or ,time were really susceptible of termination1 we should be just as unable as we now are to conceive the idea4#eja ,these examples of the ,associationist ,psychology are with the exception of the last1 very crudely expressed1 but they suffice for our temporary need4 ,hartley and ,james ,mill#ejb improved upon ,hume so far as to employ but a single principle of association1 that of contiguity or habit4 ,hartley ignores resemblance1 ,james ,mill expressly repudiates it in a passage which is assuredly one of the curiosities of literature3 ,i believe it will be found that we are accustomed to see like things together4 ,when we see a tree1 we generally see more trees than one2 a sheep1 more sheep than one2 a man1 more men than one4 ,from this observation1 ,i think1 we may refer resemblance to the law of frequency i4e41 contiguity1 of which it seems to form only a particular case4 ,mr4 ,herbert ,spencer has still more recently tried to construct a ,psychology which ignores ,association by ,similarity1#ejc and in a chapter1 which also is a curiosity1 he tries to explain the association of two ideas by a conscious reference of the first to the point of time when its sensation was experienced1 which point of time is no sooner thought of than its content1 namely1 the second idea1 arises4 ,messrs4 ,bain and ,mill1 however1 and the immense majority of contemporary psychologists retain both ,resemblance and ,contiguity as irreducible principles of ,association4 ,professor ,bain's exposition of association is by common consent looked upon as the best expression of the ,english school4 ,perception of agreement and difference1 retentiveness1 and the two sorts of association1 contiguity and similarity1 are by him regarded as constituting all that is meant by intellect proper4 ,his pages are painstaking and instructive from a descriptive point of view2 though1 after my own attempt to deal with the subject causally1 ,i can hardly award to them any profound explanatory value4 ,association by ,similarity1 too much neglected by the ,british school before ,bain1 receives from him the most generous exemplification4 ,as an instructive passage1 the following1 out of many equally good1 may be chosen to quote3 ,we may have similarity in form with diversity of use1 and similarity of use with diversity of form4 ,a rope suggests other ropes and cords1 if we look to the appearance2 but looking to the use1 it may suggest an iron cable1 a wooden prop1 an iron girding1 a leather band1 or bevelled gear4 ,in spite of diversity of appearance1 the suggestion turns on what answers a common end4 ,if we are very much attracted by sensible appearances1 there will be the more difficulty in recalling things that agree only in the use2 if1 on the other hand1 we are profoundly sensitive to the one point of practical efficiency as a tool1 the peculiarities not essential to this will be little noticed1 and we shall be ever ready to revive past objects corresponding in use to some one present1 although diverse in all other circumstances4 ,we become oblivious to the difference between a horse1 a steam-engine1 and a waterfall1 when our minds are engrossed with the one circumstance of moving power4 ,the diversity in these had no doubt for a long time the effect of keeping back their first identification2 and to obtuse intellects1 this identification might have been for ever impossible4 ,a strong concentration of mind upon the single peculiarity of mechanical force1 and a degree of indifference to the general aspect of the things themselves1 must conspire with the intellectual energy of resuscitation by similars1 in order to summon together in the view three structures so different4 ,we can see1 by an instance like this1 how new adaptations of existing machinery might arise in the mind of a mechanical inventor4 ,when it first occurred to a reflecting mind that moving water had a property identical with human or brute force1 namely1 the property of setting other masses in motion1 overcoming inertia and resistance1--when the sight of the stream suggested through this point of likeness the power of the animal1--a new addition was made to the class of prime movers1 and when circumstances permitted1 this power could become a substitute for the others4 ,it may seem to the modern understanding1 familiar with water-wheels and drifting rafts1 that the similarity here was an extremely obvious one4 ,but if we put ourselves back into an early state of mind1 when running water affected the mind by its brilliancy1 its roar1 and irregular devastation1 we may easily suppose that to identify this with animal muscular energy was by no means an obvious effect4 ,doubtless when a mind arose1 insensible by natural constitution to the superficial aspects of things1 and having withal a great stretch of identifying intellect1 such a comparison would then be possible4 ,we may pursue the same example one stage further1 and come to the discovery of steam power1 or the identification of expanding vapor with the previously known sources of mechanical force4 ,to the common eye1 for ages1 vapor presented itself as clouds in the sky2 or as a hissing noise at the spout of a kettle1 with the formation of a foggy curling cloud at a few inches' distance4 ,the forcing up of the lid of a kettle may also have been occasionally observed4 ,but how long was it ere any one was struck with the parallelism of this appearance with a blast of wind1 a rush of water1 or an exertion of animal muscle8 ,the discordance was too great to be broken through by such a faint and limited amount of likeness4 ,in one mind1 however1 the identification did take place1 and was followed out into its consequences4 ,the likeness had occurred to other minds previously1 but not with the same results4 ,such minds must have been in some way or other distinguished above the millions of mankind2 and we are now endeavoring to give the explanation of their superiority4 ,the intellectual character of ,watt contained all the elements preparatory to a great stroke of similarity in such a case2--a high susceptibility1 both by nature and by education1 to the mechanical properties of bodies2 ample previous knowledge or familiarity2 and indifference to the superficial and sensational effects of things4 ,it is not only possible1 however1 but exceedingly probable1 that many men possessed all these accomplishments2 they are of a kind not transcending common abilities4 ,they would in some degree attach to a mechanical education almost as a matter of course4 ,that the discovery was not sooner made supposes that something farther1 and not of common occurrence1 was necessary2 and this additional endowment appears to be the identifying power of ,similarity in general2 the tendency to detect likeness in the midst of disparity and disguise4 ,this supposition accounts for the fact1 and is consistent with the known intellectual character of the inventor of the steam-engine4#ejd ,dr4 ,hodgson's account of association is by all odds the best yet propounded in ,english4#eje ,all these writers hold more or less explicitly to the notion of atomistic 'ideas' which recur4 ,in ,germany1 the same mythological supposition has been more radically grasped1 and carried out to a still more logical1 if more repulsive1 extreme1 by ,herbart#ejf and his followers1 who until recently may be said to have reigned almost supreme in their native country4#ejg ,for ,herbart each idea is a permanently existing entity1 the entrance whereof into consciousness is but an accidental determination of its being4 ,so far as it succeeds in occupying the theatre of consciousness1 it crowds out another idea previously there4 ,this act of inhibition gives it1 however1 a sort of hold on the other representation which on all later occasions facilitates its following the other into the mind4 ,the ingenuity with which most special cases of association are formulated in this mechanical language of struggle and inhibition1 is great1 and surpasses in analytic thoroughness anything that has been done by the ,british school4 ,this1 however1 is a doubtful merit1 in a case where the elements dealt with are artificial2 and ,i must confess that to my mind there is something almost hideous in the glib ,herbartian jargon about ,vorstellungsmassen and their ,hemmungen and ,hemmungssummen1 and sinken and erheben and schweben1 and ,verschmelzungen and ,complexionen4 ,herr ,lipps1 the most recent systematic ,german ,psychologist1 has1 ,i regret to say1 carried out the theory of ideas in a way which the great originality1 learning1 and acuteness he shows make only the more regrettable4#ejh ,such elaborately artificial constructions are1 it seems to me1 only a burden and a hindrance1 not a help1 to our science4#eji ,in ,french1 ,m4 ,rabier in his chapter on ,association1#eaj handles the subject more vigorously and acutely than any one4 ,his treatment of it1 though short1 seems to me for general soundness to rank second only to ,hodgson's4 ,in the last chapter we already invoked association to account for the effects of use in improving discrimination4 ,in later chapters we shall see abundant proof of the immense part which it plays in other processes1 and shall then readily admit that few principles of analysis1 in any science1 have proved more fertile than this one1 however vaguely formulated it often may have been4 ,our own attempt to formulate it more definitely1 and to escape the usual confusion between causal agencies and relations merely known1 must not blind us to the immense services of those by whom the confusion was unfelt4 ,from this practical point of view it would be a true ignoratio elenchi to flatter one's self that one has dealt a heavy blow at the psychology of association1 when one has exploded the theory of atomistic ideas1 or shown that contiguity and similarity between ideas can only be there after association is done4#eaa ,the whole body of the associationist psychology remains standing after you have translated 'ideas' into 'objects1' on the one hand1 and 'brain-processes' on the other2 and the analysis of faculties and operations is as conclusive in these terms as in those traditionally used4 ,,footnotes3 #dfc ,the theory propounded in this chapter1 and a good many pages of the text1 were originally published in the ,popular ,science ,monthly for ,march1 #ahhj4 #dfd ,compare ,renouvier's criticism of associationism in his ,essais de ,critique gnrale1 ,logique1 ii1 p4 #dic foll4 #dfe ,unless the name belong to a rapidly uttered sentence1 when no substantive image may have time to arise4 #dff ,in his observations he says that time was lost in mentally taking in the word which was the cue1 owing to the quiet unobtrusive way in which ,i found it necessary to bring it into view1 so as not to distract the thoughts4 ,moreover1 a substantive standing by itself is usually the equivalent of too abstract an idea for us to conceive properly without delay4 ,thus it is very difficult to get a quick conception of the word 'carriage1' because there are so many different kinds--two-wheeled1 four-wheeled1 open and closed1 and in so many different possible positions1 that the mind possibly hesitates amidst an obscure sense of many alternations that cannot blend together4 ,but limit the idea to say a landau1 and the mental association declares itself more quickly4 7,inquiries1 etc41 p4 #aij47 #dfg ,physiol4 ,psych41 ii1 #bhj fol4 #dfh ,for interesting remarks on the sorts of things associated1 in these experiments1 with the prompting word1 see ,galton1 op4 cit4 pp4 #ahe-bjc1 and ,trautscholdt in ,wundt's ,psychologische ,studien1 i1 #bac4 #dfi ,mind1 xi1 #fd-e4 #dgj ,this value is much smaller than that got by ,wundt as above4 ,no reason for the difference is suggested by ,mr4 ,cattell4 ,wundt calls attention to the fact that the figures found by him give an average1 #j4gbj''1 exactly equal to the time interval which in his experiments 7vide infra1 chapter on ,time7 was reproduced without error either way1 and to that required1 according to the ,webers1 for the legs to swing in rapid locomotion4 ,it is not improbable1 he adds1 that this psychic constant1 of the mean association-time and of the most correct appreciation of a time-interval1 may have been developed under the influence of the most usual bodily movements1 which also have determined the manner in which we tend to subdivide rhythmically longer periods of time4 7,physiol4 ,psych41 ii1 #bhf74 ,the rapprochement is of that tentative sort which it is no harm for psychologists to make1 provided they recollect how very fictitious and incomparable mutually all these averages derived from different observers1 working under different conditions1 are4 ,mr4 ,cattell's figure throws ,wundt's ingenious parallel entirely out of line4--,the only measurements of association-time which so far seem likely to have much theoretic importance are a few made on insane patients by ,von ,tschisch 7,mendel's ,neurologisches ,centralblatt1 #ae ,mai1 #ahhe1 #c ,jhrg41 p4 #bag74 ,the simple reaction time was found about normal in three patients1 one with progressive paralysis1 one with inveterate mania of persecution1 one recovering from ordinary mania4 ,in the convalescent maniac and the paralytic1 however1 the association-time was hardly half as much as ,wundt's normal figure 7#j4bh'' and #j4bc'' instead of #j4g'--smaller also than ,cattell's71 whilst in the sufferer from delusions of persecution and hallucinations it was twice as great as normal 7#a4ci'' instead of #j4g''74 ,this latter patient's time was sixfold that of the paralytic4 ,herr von ,tschisch remarks on the connection of the short times with diminished power for clear and consistent processes of thought1 and on that of the long times with the persistent fixation of the attention upon monotonous objects 7delusions74 ,miss ,marie ,walitzky 7,revue ,philosophique1 xxviii1 #ehc7 has carried ,von ,tschisch's observations still farther1 making #ah1jjj measurements in all4 ,she found association-time increased in paralytic dementia and diminished inmania4 ,choice time1 on the contrary1 is increased in mania4 #dga ,mind1 xii1 #fg-gd4 #dgb ,compare ,bain's law of ,association by ,contiguity3 ,actions1 ,sensations1 and ,states of ,feeling1 occurring together or in close succession1 tend to grow together1 or cohere1 in such a way that1 when any one of them is afterwards presented to the mind1 the others are apt to be brought up in idea 7,senses and ,intellect1 p4 #cbg74 ,compare also ,hartley's formulation3 ,any sensations ,a1 ,b1 ,c1 etc41 by being associated with one another a sufficient ,number of ,times1 get such a power over the corresponding ,ideas a1 b1 c1 etc41 that anyone of the sensations ,a1 when impressed alone1 shall be able to excite in the ,mind b1 c1 etc41 the ideas of the rest4 7,observations on ,man1 part i1 chap4 i1 #b1 ,prop4 x47 ,the statement in the text differs from these in holding fast to the objective point of view4 ,it is things1 and objective properties in things1 which are associated in our thought4 #dgc ,encyclopdia ,britannica1 #ith ,ed41 article ,psychology1 p4 #fj4 col4 #b4 #dgd ,physiol4 ,psych41 #b;d ed4 ii1 #cjj4 #dge ,the difficulty here as with habit berhaupt is in seeing how new paths come first to be formed 7cf4 above1 p4 #aji74 ,experience shows that a new path is formed between centres for sensible impressions whenever these vibrate together or in rapid succession4 ,a child sees a certain bottle and hears it called 'milk1' and thenceforward thinks the name when he again sees the bottle4 ,but why the successive or simultaneous excitement of two centres independently stimulated from without1 one by sight and the other by hearing1 should result in a path between them1 one does not immediately see4 ,we can only make hypotheses4 ,any hypothesis of the specific mode of their formation which tallies well with the observed facts of association will be in so far forth credible1 in spite of possible obscurity4 ,herr ,mnsterberg thinks 7,beitrge zur exp4 ,psychologie1 ,heft i1 p4 #acb7 that between centres excited successively from without no path ought to be formed1 and that consequently all contiguous association is between simultaneous experiences4 ,mr4 ,ward 7loc4 cit47 thinks1 on the contrary1 that it can only be between successive experiences3 ,the association of objects simultaneously presented can be resolved into an association of objects successively attended to4444 ,it seems hardly possible to mention a case in which attention to the associated objects could not have been successive4 ,in fact1 an aggregate of objects on which attention could be focussed at once would be already associated4 ,between these extreme possibilities1 ,i have refrained from deciding in the text1 and have described contiguous association as holding between both successively and coexistently presented objects4 ,the physiological question as to how we may conceive the paths to originate had better be postponed till it comes to us again in the chapter on the ,will1 where we can treat it in a broader way4 ,it is enough here to have called attention to it as a serious problem4 #dgf ,essay1 bk4 ii1 chap4 xxxiii1 #f4 ,compare ,hume1 who1 like ,locke1 only uses the principle to account for unreasonable and obstructive mental associations3 ',twould have been easy to have made an imaginary dissection of the brain1 and have shown why1 upon our conception of any idea1 the animal spirits run into all the contiguous traces1 and rouse up the other ideas that are related to it4 ,but though ,i have neglected any advantage which ,i might have drawn from this topic in explaining the relations of ideas1 ,i am afraid ,i must here have recourse to it1 in order to account for the mistakes that arise from these relations4 ,i shall therefore observe1 that as the mind is endowed with a power of exciting any idea it pleases2 whenever it dispatches the spirits into that region of the brain in which the idea is placed1 these spirits always excite the idea1 when they run precisely into the proper traces1 and rummage that cell which belongs to the idea4 ,but as their motion is seldom direct1 and naturally turns a little to the one side or the other3 for this reason the animal spirits1 falling into the contiguous traces1 present other related ideas in lieu of that which the mind desired at first to survey4 ,this change we are not always sensible of2 but continuing still the same train of thought1 make use of the related idea which is presented to us1 and employ it in our reasoning1 as if it were the same with what we demanded4 ,this is the cause of many mistakes and sophisms in philosophy2 as will naturally be imagined1 and as it would be easy to show1 if there was occasion4 #dgg ,op4 cit4 prop4 xi4 #dgh ,see ,chapter ,,iii1 pp4 #hb-e4 #dgi ,i strongly advise the student to read his ,senses and ,intellect1 pp4 #edd-eef4 #dhj ,time and ,space1 p4 #bff4 ,compare ,coleridge3 ,the true practical general law of association is this3 that whatever makes certain parts of a total impression more vivid or distinct than the rest will determine the mind to recall these1 in preference to others equally linked together by the common condition of contemporaeity or of contiguity4 ,but the will itself1 by confining and intensifying the attention1 may arbitrarily give vividness or distinctness to any object whatsoever4 7,biographia ,litteraria1 ,chap4 v47 #dha ,leviathan1 pt4 i1 chap4 iii1 init4 #dhb ,i refer to a recency of a few hours4 ,mr4 ,galton found that experiences from boyhood and youth were more likely to be suggested by words seen at random than experiences of later years4 ,see his highly interesting account of experiments in his ,inquiries into ,human ,faculty1 pp4 #aia-bjc4 #dhc ,for other instances see ,wahle1 in ,vierteljsch4 f4 ,wiss4 ,phil41 ix1 #add-dag 7#ahhe74 #dhd ,i retain the title of association by similarity in order not to depart from common usage4 ,the reader will observe1 however1 that my nomenclature is not based on the same principle throughout4 ,impartial redintegration connotes neural processes2 similarity is an objective relation perceived by the mind2 ordinary or mixed association is a merely denotative word4 ,total recall1 partial recall1 and focalized recall1 of associates1 would be better terms4 ,but as the denotation of the latter word is almost identical with that of association by similarity1 ,i think it better to sacrifice propriety to popularity1 and to keep the latter well-worn phrase4 #dhe ,no one has described this process better than ,hobbes3 ,sometimes a man seeks what he hath lost2 and from that place and time wherein he misses it1 his mind runs back from place to place and time to time to and where and when he had it2 that is to say1 to find some certain and limited time and place1 in which to begin a method of seeking4 ,again1 from thence his thoughts run over the same places and times to find what action or other occasion might make him lose it4 ,this we call ,remembrance1 or calling to mind4 ,sometimes a man knows a place determinate1 within the compass whereof he is to seek2 and then his thoughts run over all the parts thereof1 in the same manner as one would sweep a room to find a jewel1 or as a spaniel ranges the field till he find a scent1 or as a man should run over the alphabet to start a rhyme4 7,leviathan1 #afe1 p4 #aj47 #dhf ,theory of ,practice1 vol4 i1 p4 #cid4 #dhg ,ibid4 p4 #cid4 #dhh ,all association is called redintegration by ,hodgson4 #dhi ,ibid4 p4 #djj4 ,compare ,bain1 ,emotions and ,will1 p4 #cgg4 ,the outgoings of the mind are necessarily random2 the end alone is the thing that is clear to the view1 and with that there is a perception of the fitness of every passing suggestion4 ,the volitional energy keeps up the attention on the active search2 and the moment that anything in point rises before the mind1 it springs upon that like a wild beast upon its prey4 #dij ,compare what is said of the principle of ,similarity by ,f4 ,h4 ,bradley1 ,principles of ,logic1 pp4 #bid ff42 ,e4 ,rabier1 ,psychologie1 #ahg ff42 ,paulhan1 ,critique ,philosophique1 #bme ,srie1 i1 #deh2 ,rabier1 ibid4 #dfj2 ,pillon1 ibid4 ii1 #ee2 ,b4 ,p4 ,bowne1 ,introduction to ,psych4 ,theory1 #ib2 ,ward1 ,encyclop4 ,britt4 art4 ,psychology1 p4 #fj2 ,wahle1 ,vierteljahrsch4 f4 wiss4 ,philos41 ix1 #dbf-dca4 #dia ,dr4 ,mc,cosh is accordingly only logical when he sinks similarity in what he calls the ,law of ,correlation1 according to which1 when we have discovered a relation between things1 the idea of one tends to bring up the others1 7,psychology1 the ,cognitive ,powers1 p4 #acj74 ,the relations mentioned by this author are ,identity1 ,whole and ,parts1 ,resemblance1 ,space1 ,time1 ,quantity1 ,active ,property1 and ,cause and ,effect4 ,if perceived relations among objects are to be treated as grounds for their appearance before the mind1 similarity has of course no right to an exclusive1 or even to a predominant1 place4 #dib ,cf4 ,bain1 ,senses and ,intellect1 #ejd ff42 ,j4 ,s4 ,mill1 ,note #ci to ,j4 ,mill's ,analysis2 ,lipps1 ,grundtatsachen1 #ig4 #dic ,see1 for farther details1 ,hamilton's ,reid1 ,appendices ,d9999 and ,d9999992 and ,l4 ,ferri1 ,la ,psychologie de l',association 7,paris1 #ahhc74 ,also ,robertson1 art4 ,association in ,encyclop4 ,britannica4 #did ,treatise of ,human nature1 part i14 iv4 #die ,observations on ,man 7,london1 #agdi74 #dif ,analysis of the ,phenomena of the ,human ,mind 7#ahbi74 #dig ,hartley's ,theory1 #b;d ed4 7#agij7 p4 xxvii4 #dih ,current1 that is1 in ,france4--,w4 ,j4 #dii ,la ,psychologie ,angloise1 p4 #bdb4 #ejj ,priestley1 op4 cit4 p4 xxx4 #eja ,review of ,bains's ,psychology1 by ,j4,s4 ,mill1 in ,edinb4 ,review1 ,oct4 #a1 #ahei1 p4 #bic4 #ejb ,analysis of the ,phenomena of the ,human ,mind1 ,j4,s4 ,mill's edition1 vol4 i1 p4 #aaa4 #ejc ,on the ,associability of ,relations between ,feelings1 in ,principles of ,psychology1 vol4 i1 p4 #bei4 ,it is impossible to regard the cohering of each feeling with previously-experienced feelings of the same class1 order1 genus1 species1 and1 so far as may be1 the same variety1 which ,spencer calls 7p4 #beg7 'the sole process of association of feelings1' as any equivalent for what is commonly known as ,association by similarity4 #ejd ,the ,senses and the ,intellect1 pp4 #dia-c4 #eje ,see his ,time and ,space1 chapter v1 and his ,theory of ,practice1 #ec to #eg4 #ejf ,psychologie als ,wissenschaft 7#ahbd71 #b4 #ejg ,prof4 ,ribot1 in chapter i of his ',contemporary ,german ,psychology1' has given a good account of ,herbart and his school1 and of ,beneke1 his rival and partial analogue4 ,see also two articles on the ,herbartian ,psychology1 by ,g4 ,f4 ,stout1 in ,mind for #ahhh4 ,j4 ,d4 ,morrell's ,outlines of ,mental ,philosophy 7#b;d ed41 ,london1 #ahfb7 largely follows ,herbart and ,beneke4 ,i know of no other ,english book which does so4 #ejh ,see his ,grundtatsachen des ,bewusstseins 7#ahhc71 chap4 vi et passim1 especially pp4 #ajf ff41 #cfd4 #eji ,the most burdensome and utterly gratuitous of them are perhaps ,steinthal's1 in his ,einleitung in die ,psychologie1 #bte ,aufl4 7#ahha74 ,cf4 also ,g4 ,glogau3 ,steinthal's ,psychologische ,formeln 7#ahhf74 #eaj ,leons de ,philosophie1 i4 ,psychologie1 chap4 xvi 7#ahhd74 #eaa ,mr4 ,f4 ,h4 ,bradley seems to me to have been guilty of something very like this ignoratio elenchi in the1 of course1 subtle and witty but decidedly long-winded critique of the association of ideas1 contained in book ii1 part ii1 chap4 i1 of his ,principles of ,logic4 ,,chapter ,,xv4#eab ,,the ,,perception ,,of ,,time4 ,in the next two chapters ,i shall deal with what is sometimes called internal perception1 or the perception of time1 and of events as occupying a date therein1 especially when the date is a past one1 in which case the perception in question goes by the name of memory4 ,to remember a thing as past1 it is necessary that the notion of 'past' should be one of our 'ideas4' ,we shall see in the chapter on ,memory that many things come to be thought by us as past1 not because of any intrinsic quality of their own1 but rather because they are associated with other things which for us signify pastness4 ,but how do these things get their pastness8 ,what is the original of our experience of pastness1 from whence we get the meaning of the term8 ,it is this question which the reader is invited to consider in the present chapter4 ,we shall see that we have a constant feeling sui generis of pastness1 to which every one of our experiences in turn falls a prey4 ,to think a thing as past is to think it amongst the objects or in the direction of the objects which at the present moment appear affected by this quality4 ,this is the original of our notion of past time1 upon which memory and history build their systems4 ,and in this chapter we shall consider this immediate sense of time alone4 ,if the constitution of consciousness were that of a string of bead-like sensations and images1 all separate1 we never could have any knowledge except that of the present instant4 ,the moment each of our sensations ceased it would be gone for ever2 and we should be as if we had never been4444 ,we should be wholly incapable of acquiring experience4444 ,even if our ideas were associated in trains1 but only as they are in imagination1 we should still be without the capacity of acquiring knowledge4 ,one idea1 upon this supposition1 would follow another4 ,but that would be all4 ,each of our successive states of consciousness1 the moment it ceased1 would be gone forever4 ,each of those momentary states would be our whole being4#eac ,we might1 nevertheless1 under these circumstances1 act in a rational way1 provided the mechanism which produced our trains of images produced them in a rational order4 ,we should make appropriate speeches1 though unaware of any word except the one just on our lips2 we should decide upon the right policy without ever a glimpse of the total grounds of our choice4 ,our consciousness would be like a glow-worm spark1 illuminating the point it immediately covered1 but leaving all beyond in total darkness4 ,whether a very highly developed practical life be possible under such conditions as these is more than doubtful2 it is1 however1 conceivable4 ,i make the fanciful hypothesis merely to set off our real nature by the contrast4 ,our feelings are not thus contracted1 and our consciousness never shrinks to the dimensions of a glow-worm spark4 ,the knowledge of some other part of the stream1 past or future1 near or remote1 is always mixed in with our knowledge of the present thing4 ,a simple sensation1 as we shall hereafter see1 is an abstraction1 and all our concrete states of mind are representations of objects with some amount of complexity4 ,part of the complexity is the echo of the objects just past1 and1 in a less degree1 perhaps1 the foretaste of those just to arrive4 ,objects fade out of consciousness slowly4 ,if the present thought is of ,,abcdefg1 the next one will be of ,,bcdefgh1 and the one after that of ,,cdefghi--the lingerings of the past dropping successively away1 and the incomings of the future making up the loss4 ,these lingerings of old objects1 these incomings of new1 are the germs of memory and expectation1 the retrospective and the prospective sense of time4 ,they give that continuity to consciousness without which it could not be called a stream4#ead ,,the ,,sensible ,,present ,,has ,,duration4 ,let any one try1 ,i will not say to arrest1 but to notice or attend to1 the present moment of time4 ,one of the most baffling experiences occurs4 ,where is it1 this present8 ,it has melted in our grasp1 fled ere we could touch it1 gone in the instant of becoming4 ,as a poet1 quoted by ,mr4 ,hodgson1 says1 ,le moment o je parle est dj loin de moi1 and it is only as entering into the living and moving organization of a much wider tract of time that the strict present is apprehended at all4 ,it is1 in fact1 an altogether ideal abstraction1 not only never realized in sense1 but probably never even conceived of by those unaccustomed to philosophic meditation4 ,reflection leads us to the conclusion that it must exist1 but that it does exist can never be a fact of our immediate experience4 ,the only fact of our immediate experience is what ,mr4 ,e4 ,r4 ,clay has well called 'the specious present4' ,his words deserve to be quoted in full3#eae ,the relation of experience to time has not been profoundly studied4 ,its objects are given as being of the present1 but the part of time referred to by the datum is a very different thing from the conterminous of the past and future which philosophy denotes by the name ,present4 ,the present to which the datum refers is really a part of the past--a recent past--delusively given as being a time that intervenes between the past and the future4 ,let it be named the specious present1 and let the past1 that is given as being the past1 be known as the obvious past4 ,all the notes of a bar of a song seem to the listener to be contained in the present4 ,all the changes of place of a meteor seem to the beholder to be contained in the present4 ,at the instant of the termination of such series1 no part of the time measured by them seems to be a past4 ,time1 then1 considered relatively to human apprehension1 consists of four parts1 viz41 the obvious past1 the specious present1 the real present1 and the future4 ,omitting the specious present1 it consists of three 444 nonentities--the past1 which does not exist1 the future1 which does not exist1 and their conterminous1 the present2 the faculty from which it proceeds lies to us in the fiction of the specious present4 ,in short1 the practically cognized present is no knife-edge1 but a saddle-back1 with a certain breadth of its own on which we sit perched1 and from which we look in two directions into time4 ,the unit of composition of our perception of time is a duration1 with a bow and a stern1 as it were--a rearward- and a forward-looking end4#eaf ,it is only as parts of this duration-block that the relation of succession of one end to the other is perceived4 ,we do not first feel one end and then feel the other after it1 and from the perception of the succession infer an interval of time between1 but we seem to feel the interval of time as a whole1 with its two ends embedded in it4 ,the experience is from the outset a synthetic datum1 not a simple one2 and to sensible perception its elements are inseparable1 although attention looking back may easily decompose the experience1 and distinguish its beginning from its end4 ,when we come to study the perception of ,space1 we shall find it quite analogous to time in this regard4 ,date in time corresponds to position in space2 and although we now mentally construct large spaces by mentally imagining remoter and remoter positions1 just as we now construct great durations by mentally prolonging a series of successive dates1 yet the original experience of both space and time is always of something already given as a unit1 inside of which attention afterward discriminates parts in relation to each other4 ,without the parts already given as in a time and in a space1 subsequent discrimination of them could hardly do more than perceive them as different from each other2 it would have no motive for calling the difference temporal order in this instance and spatial position in that4 ,and just as in certain experiences we may be conscious of an extensive space full of objects1 without locating each of them distinctly therein2 so1 when many impressions follow in excessively rapid succession in time1 although we may be distinctly aware that they occupy some duration1 and are not simultaneous1 we may be quite at a loss to tell which comes first and which last2 or we may even invert their real order in our judgment4 ,in complicated reaction-time experiments1 where signals and motions1 and clicks of the apparatus come in exceedingly rapid order1 one is at first much perplexed in deciding what the order is1 yet of the fact of its occupancy of time we are never in doubt4 ,,accuracy ,,of ,,our ,,estimate ,,of ,,short ,,durations4 ,we must now proceed to an account of the facts of time-perception in detail as preliminary to our speculative conclusion4 ,many of the facts are matters of patient experimentation1 others of common experience4 ,first of all1 we note a marked difference between the elementary sensations of duration and those of space4 ,the former have a much narrower range2 the time-sense may be called a myopic organ1 in comparison with the eye1 for example4 ,the eye sees rods1 acres1 even miles1 at a single glance1 and these totals it can afterward subdivide into an almost infinite number of distinctly identified parts4 ,the units of duration1 on the other hand1 which the time-sense is able to take in at a single stroke1 are groups of a few seconds1 and within these units very few subdivisions--perhaps forty at most1 as we shall presently see--can be clearly discerned4 ,the durations we have practically most to deal with--minutes1 hours1 and days--have to be symbolically conceived1 and constructed by mental addition1 after the fashion of those extents of hundreds of miles and upward1 which in the field of space are beyond the range of most men's practical interests altogether4 ,to 'realize' a quarter of a mile we need only look out of the window and feel its length by an act which1 though it may in part result from organized associations1 yet seems immediately performed4 ,to realize an hour1 we must count 'now6--now6--now6--now6--' indefinitely4 ,each 'now' is the feeling of a separate bit of time1 and the exact sum of the bits never makes a very clear impression on our mind4 ,how many bits can we clearly apprehend at once8 ,very few if they are long bits1 more if they are extremely short1 most if they come to us in compound groups1 each including smaller bits of its own4 ,hearing is the sense by which the subdivision of durations is most sharply made4 ,almost all the experimental work on the time-sense has been done by means of strokes of sound4 ,how long a series of sounds1 then1 can we group in the mind so as not to confound it with a longer or a shorter series8 ,our spontaneous tendency is to break up any monotonously given series of sounds into some sort of a rhythm4 ,we involuntarily accentuate every second1 or third1 or fourth beat1 or we break the series in still more intricate ways4 ,whenever we thus grasp the impressions in rhythmic form1 we can identify a longer string of them without confusion4 ,each variety of verse1 for example1 has its 'law'2 and the recurrent stresses and sinkings make us feel with peculiar readiness the lack of a syllable or the presence of one too much4 ,divers verses may again be bound together in the form of a stanza1 and we may then say of another stanza1 ,its second verse differs by so much from that of the first stanza1 when but for the felt stanza-form the two differing verses would have come to us too separately to be compared at all4 ,but these superposed systems of rhythm soon reach their limit4 ,in music1 as ,wundt#eag says1 while the measure may easily contain #ab changes of intensity of sound 7as in #ab_/h time71 the rhythmical group may embrace #f measures1 and the period consist of #d1 exceptionally of #e #h8 groups4 ,wundt and his pupil ,dietze have both tried to determine experimentally the maximal extent of our immediate distinct consciousness for successive impressions4 ,wundt found#eah that twelve impressions could be distinguished clearly as a united cluster1 provided they were caught in a certain rhythm by the mind1 and succeeded each other at intervals not smaller than #j4c and not larger than #j4e of a second4 ,this makes the total time distinctly apprehended to be equal to from #c4f to #f seconds4 ,dietze#eai gives larger figures4 ,the most favorable intervals for clearly catching the strokes were when they came at from #j4c second to #j4ah second apart4 ,forty strokes might then be remembered as a whole1 and identified without error when repeated1 provided the mind grasped them in five sub-groups of eight1 or in eight sub-groups of five strokes each4 ,when no grouping of the strokes beyond making couples of them by the attention was allowed--and practically it was found impossible not to group them in at least this simplest of all ways--#af was the largest number that could be clearly apprehended as a whole4#ebj ,this would make #dj times #j4h second1 or #ab seconds1 to be the maximum filled duration of which we can be both distinctly and immediately aware4 ,the maximum unfilled1 or vacant duration1 seems to lie within the same objective range4 ,estel and ,mehner1 also working in ,wundt's laboratory1 found it to vary from #e or #f to #ab seconds1 and perhaps more4 ,the differences seemed due to practice rather than to idiosyncrasy4#eba ,these figures may be roughly taken to stand for the most important part of what1 with ,mr4 ,clay1 we called1 a few pages back1 the specious present4 ,the specious present has1 in addition1 a vaguely vanishing backward and forward fringe2 but its nucleus is probably the dozen seconds or less that have just elapsed4 ,if these are the maximum1 what1 then1 is the minimum amount of duration which we can distinctly feel8 ,the smallest figure experimentally ascertained was by ,exner1 who distinctly heard the doubleness of two successive clicks of a ,savart's wheel1 and of two successive snaps of an electric spark1 when their interval was made as small as about #a_/ejj of a second4#ebb ,with the eye1 perception is less delicate4 ,two sparks1 made to fall beside each other in rapid succession on the centre of the retina1 ceased to be recognized as successive by ,exner when their interval fell below #j4jdd''4ebc ,where1 as here1 the succeeding impressions are only two in number1 we can easiest perceive the interval between them4 ,president ,hall1 who experimented with a modified ,savart's wheel1 which gave clicks in varying number and at varying intervals1 says3#ebd ,in order that their discontinuity may be clearly perceived1 four or even three clicks or beats must be farther apart than two need to be4 ,when two are easily distinguished1 three or four separated by the same interval 444 are often confidently pronounced to be two or three respectively4 ,it would be well if observations were so directed as to ascertain1 at least up to ten or twenty1 the increase of interval required by each additional click in a series for the sense of discontinuity to remain constant throughout4#ebe ,where the first impression falls on one sense1 and the second on another1 the perception of the intervening time tends to be less certain and delicate1 and it makes a difference which impression comes first4 ,thus1 ,exner found#ebf the smallest perceptible interval to be1 in seconds3 ,from sight to touch #j4jga ,from touch to sight #j4jec ,from sight to hearing #j4af ,from hearing to sight #j4jf ,from one ear to another #j4jfd ,to be conscious of a time interval at all is one thing2 to tell whether it be shorter or longer than another interval is a different thing4 ,a number of experimental data are on hand which give us a measure of the delicacy of this latter perception4 ,the problem is that of the smallest difference between two times which we can perceive4 ,the difference is at its minimum when the times themselves are very short4 ,exner1#ebg reacting as rapidly as possible with his foot1 upon a signal seen by the eye 7spark71 noted all the reactions which seemed to him either slow or fast in the making4 ,he thought thus that deviations of about #a_/ajj of a second either way from the average were correctly noticed by him at the time4 ,the average was here #j4ahdj''4 ,hall and ,jastrow listened to the intervals between the clicks of their apparatus4 ,between two such equal intervals of #d4bg'' each1 a middle interval was included1 which might be made either shorter or longer than the extremes4 ,after the series had been heard two or even three times1 no impression of the relative length of the middle interval would often exist1 and only after hearing the fourth and last repetition of the series would the judgment incline to the plus or minus side4 ,inserting the variable between two invariable and like intervals greatly facilitated judgment1 which between two unlike terms is far less accurate4#ebh ,three observers in these experiments made no error when the middle interval varied #a_/fj from the extremes4 ,when it varied #a_/abj1 errors occurred1 but were few4 ,this would make the minimum absolute difference perceived as large as #j4cee''4 ,this minimum absolute difference1 of course1 increases as the times compared grow long4 ,attempts have been made to ascertain what ratio it bears to the times themselves4 ,according to ,fechner's ',psychophysic ,law' it ought always to bear the same ratio4 ,various observers1 however1 have found this not to be the case4#ebi ,on the contrary1 very interesting oscillations in the accuracy of judgment and in the direction of the error--oscillations dependent upon the absolute amount of the times compared--have been noticed by all who have experimented with the question4 ,of these a brief account may be given4 ,in the first place1 in every list of intervals experimented with there will be found what ,vierordt calls an ',,indifference-,,point2' that is to say1 an interval which we judge with maximum accuracy1 a time which we tend to estimate as neither longer or shorter than it really is1 and away from which1 in both directions1 errors increase their size4#ecj ,this time varies from one observer to another1 but its average is remarkably constant1 as the following table shows4#eca ,the times1 noted by the ear1 and the average indifference-points 7given in seconds7 were1 for-- ,wundt#ecb #j4gb ,kollert#ecc #j4ge ,estel 7probably7 #j4ge ,mehner #j4ga ,stevens#ecd #j4ga ,mach#ece #j4ce ,buccola 7about7#ecf #j4dj ,the odd thing about these figures is the recurrence they show in so many men of about three fourths of a second1 as the interval of time most easy to catch and reproduce1 ,odder still1 both ,estel and ,mehner found that multiples of this time were more accurately reproduced than the time-intervals of intermediary length2#ecg and ,glass found a certain periodicity1 with the constant increment of #a4be sec41 in his observations4 ,there would seem thus to exist something like a periodic or rhythmic sharpening of our time-sense1 of which the period differs somewhat from one observer to the next4 ,our sense of time1 like other senses1 seems subject to the law of contrast4 ,it appeared pretty plainly in ,estel's observations that an interval sounded shorter if a long one had immediately preceded it1 and longer when the opposite was the case4 ,like other senses1 too1 our sense of time is sharpened by practice4 ,mehner ascribes almost all the discrepancies between other observers and himself to this cause alone4#ech ,tracts of time filled 7with clicks of sound7 seem longer than vacant ones of the same duration1 when the latter does not exceed a second or two4#eci ,this1 which reminds one of what happens with spaces seen by the eye1 becomes reversed when longer times are taken4 ,it is1 perhaps1 in accordance with this law that a loud sound1 limiting a short interval of time1 makes it appear longer1 a slight sound shorter4 ,in comparing intervals marked out by sounds1 we must take care to keep the sounds uniform4#edj 99 99 99 99 99 ,there is a certain emotional feeling accompanying the intervals of time1 as is well known in music4 ,the sense of haste goes with one measure of rapidity1 that of delay with another2 and these two feelings harmonize with different mental moods4 ,vierordt listened to series of strokes performed by a metronome at rates varying from #dj to #bjj a minute1 and found that they very naturally fell into seven categories1 from 'very slow' to 'very fast4'#eda ,each category of feeling included the intervals following each other within a certain range of speed1 and no others4 ,this is a qualitative1 not a quantitative judgment--an sthetic judgment1 in fact4 ,the middle category1 of speed that was neutral1 or1 as he calls it1 'adequate1' contained intervals that were grouped about #j4fb second1 and ,vierordt says that this made what one might almost call an agreeable time4#edb ,the feeling of time and accent in music1 of rhythm1 is quite independent of that of melody4 ,tunes with marked rhythm can be readily recognized when simply drummed on the table with the finger-tips4 ,,we ,,have ,,no ,,sense ,,for ,,empty ,,time4 ,although subdividing the time by beats of sensation aids our accurate knowledge of the amount of it that elapses1 such subdivision does not seem at the first glance essential to our perception of its flow4 ,let one sit with closed eyes and1 abstracting entirely from the outer world1 attend exclusively to the passage of time1 like one who wakes1 as the poet says1 to hear time flowing in the middle of the night1 and all things moving to a day of doom4 ,there seems under such circumstances as these no variety in the material content of our thought1 and what we notice appears1 if anything1 to be the pure series of durations budding1 as it were1 and growing beneath our indrawn gaze4 ,is this really so or not8 ,the question is important1 for1 if the experience be what it roughly seems1 we have a sort of special sense for pure time--a sense to which empty duration is an adequate stimulus2 while if it be an illusion1 it must be that our perception of time's flight1 in the experiences quoted1 is due to the filling of the time1 and to our memory of a content which it had a moment previous1 and which we feel to agree or disagree with its content now4 ,it takes but a small exertion of introspection to show that the latter alternative is the true one1 and that we can no more intuit a duration than we can intuit an extension1 devoid of all sensible content4 ,just as with closed eyes we perceive a dark visual field in which a curdling play of obscurest luminosity is always going on2 so1 be we never so abstracted from distinct outward impressions1 we are always inwardly immersed in what ,wundt has somewhere called the twilight of our general consciousness4 ,our heart-beats1 our breathing1 the pulses of our attention1 fragments of words or sentences that pass through our imagination1 are what people this dim habitat4 ,now1 all these processes are rhythmical1 and are apprehended by us1 as they occur1 in their totality2 the breathing and pulses of attention1 as coherent successions1 each with its rise and fall2 the heart-beats similarly1 only relatively far more brief2 the words not separately1 but in connected groups4 ,in short1 empty our minds as we may1 some form of changing process remains for us to feel1 and cannot be expelled4 ,and along with the sense of the process and its rhythm goes the sense of the length of time it lasts4 ,awareness of change is thus the condition on which our perception of time's flow depends2 but there exists no reason to suppose that empty time's own changes are sufficient for the awareness of change to be aroused4 ,the change must be of some concrete sort--an outward or inward sensible series1 or a process of attention or volition4#edc ,and here again we have an analogy with space4 ,the earliest form of distinct space-perception is undoubtedly that of a movement over some one of our sensitive surfaces1 and this movement is originally given as a simple whole of feeling1 and is only decomposed into its elements--successive positions successively occupied by the moving body--when our education in discrimination is much advanced4 ,but a movement is a change1 a process2 so we see that in the time-world and the space-world alike the first known things are not elements1 but combinations1 not separate units1 but wholes already formed4 ,the condition of being of the wholes may be the elements2 but the condition of our knowing the elements is our having already felt the wholes as wholes4 ,in the experience of watching empty time flow--'empty' to be taken hereafter in the relative sense just set forth--we tell it off in pulses4 ,we say 'now6 now6 now6' or we count 'more6 more6 more6' as we feel it bud4 ,this composition out of units of duration is called the law of time's discrete flow4 ,the discreteness is1 however1 merely due to the fact that our successive acts of recognition or apperception of what it is are discrete4 ,the sensation is as continuous as any sensation can be4 ,all continuous sensations are named in beats4 ,we notice that a certain finite 'more' of them is passing or already past4 ,to adopt ,hodgson's image1 the sensation is the measuring-tape1 the perception the dividing-engine which stamps its length4 ,as we listen to a steady sound1 we take it in in discrete pulses of recognition1 calling it successively 'the same6 the same6 the same6' ,the case stands no otherwise with time4 ,after a small number of beats our impression of the amount we have told off becomes quite vague4 ,our only way of knowing it accurately is by counting1 or noticing the clock1 or through some other symbolic conception4#edd ,when the times exceed hours or days1 the conception is absolutely symbolic4 ,we think of the amount we mean either solely as a name1 or by running over a few salient dates therein1 with no pretence of imagining the full durations that lie between them4 ,no one has anything like a perception of the greater length of the time between now and the first century than of that between now and the tenth4 ,to an historian1 it is true1 the longer interval will suggest a host of additional dates and events1 and so appear a more multitudinous thing4 ,and for the same reason most people will think they directly perceive the length of the past fortnight to exceed that of the past week4 ,but there is properly no comparative time intuition in these cases at all4 ,it is but dates and events4 representing time2 their abundance symbolizing its length4 ,i am sure that this is so1 even where the times compared are no more than an hour or so in length4 ,it is the same with ,spaces of many miles1 which we always compare with each other by the numbers which measure them4#ede ,from this we pass naturally to speak of certain familial variations in our estimation of lengths of time4 ,in general1 a time filled with varied and interesting experiences seems short in passing1 but long as we look back4 ,on the other hand1 a tract of time empty of experiences seems long in passing1 but in retrospect short4 ,a week of travel and sight-seeing may subtend an angle more like three weeks in the memory2 and a month of sickness hardly yields more memories than a day4 ,the length in retrospect depends obviously on the multitudinousness of the memories which the time affords4 ,many objects1 events1 changes1 many subdivisions1 immediately widen the view as we look back4 ,emptiness1 monotony1 familiarity1 make it shrivel up4 ,in ,von ,holtei's ',vagabonds' one ,anton is described as revisiting his native village4 ,seven years1 he exclaims1 seven years since ,i ran away6 ,more like seventy it seems1 so much has happened4 ,i cannot think of it all without becoming dizzy--at any rate not now4 ,and yet again1 when ,i look at the village1 at the church-tower1 it seems as if ,i could hardly have been seven days away4 ,prof4 ,lazarus#edf 7from whom ,i borrow this quotation71 thus explains both of these contrasted illusions by our principle of the awakened memories being multitudinous or few3 ,the circle of experiences1 widely extended1 rich in variety1 which he had in view on the day of his leaving the village rises now in his mind as its image lies before him4 ,and with it--in rapid succession and violent motion1 not in chronologic order1 or from chronologic motives1 but suggesting each other by all sorts of connections--arise massive images of all his rich vagabondage and roving life4 ,they roll and wave confusedly together1 first perhaps one from the first year1 then from the sixth1 soon from the second1 again from the fifth1 the first1 etc41 until it seems as if seventy years must have been there1 and he reels with the fulness of his vision4444 ,then the inner eye turns away from all this past4 ,the outer one turns to the village1 especially to the church-tower4 ,the sight of it calls back the old sight of it1 so that the consciousness is filled with that alone1 or almost alone4 ,the one vision compares itself with the other1 and looks so near1 so unchanged1 that it seems as if only a week of time could have come between4 ,the same space of time seems shorter as we grow older--that is1 the days1 the months1 and the years do so2 whether the hours do so is doubtful1 and the minutes and seconds to all appearance remain about the same4 ,whoever counts many lustra in his memory need only question himself to find that the last of these1 the past five years1 have sped much more quickly than the preceding periods of equal amount4 ,let any one remember his last eight or ten school years3 it is the space of a century4 ,compare with them the last eight or ten years of life3 it is the space of an hour4 ,so writes ,prof4 ,paul ,janet1#edg and gives a solution which can hardly be said to diminish the mystery4 ,there is a law1 he says1 by which the apparent length of an interval at a given epoch of a man's life is proportional to the total length of the life itself4 ,a child of #aj feels a year as #a_/aj of his whole life--a man of #ej as #a_/ej1 the whole life meanwhile apparently preserving a constant length4 ,this formula roughly expresses the phenomena1 it is true1 but cannot possibly be an elementary psychic law2 and it is certain that1 in great part at least1 the foreshortening of the years as we grow older is due to the monotony of memory's content1 and the consequent simplification of the backward-glancing view4 ,in youth we may have an absolutely new experience1 subjective or objective1 every hour of the day4 ,apprehension is vivid1 retentiveness strong1 and our recollections of that time1 like those of a time spent in rapid and interesting travel1 are of something intricate1 multitudinous1 and long-drawn-out4 ,but as each passing year converts some of this experience into automatic routine which we hardly note at all1 the days and the weeks smooth themselves out in recollection to contentless units1 and the years grow hollow and collapse4 ,so much for the apparent shortening of tracts of time in retrospect4 ,they shorten in passing whenever we are so fully occupied with their content as not to note the actual time itself4 ,a day full of excitement1 with no pause1 is said to pass 'ere we know it4' ,on the contrary1 a day full of waiting1 of unsatisfied desire for change1 will seem a small eternity4 ,tdium1 ennui1 ,langweile1 boredom1 are words for which1 probably1 every language known to man has its equivalent4 ,it comes about whenever1 from the relative emptiness of content of a tract of time1 we grow attentive to the passage of the time itself4 ,expecting1 and being ready for1 a new impression to succeed2 when it fails to come1 we get an empty time instead of it2 and such experiences1 ceaselessly renewed1 make us most formidably aware of the extent of the mere time itself4#edh ,close your eyes and simply wait to hear somebody tell you that a minute has elapsed4 ,the full length of your leisure with it seems incredible4 ,you engulf yourself into its bowels as into those of that interminable first week of an ocean voyage1 and find yourself wondering that history can have overcome many such periods in its course4 ,all because you attend so closely to the mere feeling of the time per se1 and because your attention to that is susceptible of such fine-grained successive subdivision4 ,the odiousness of the whole experience comes from its insipidity2 for stimulation is the indispensable requisite for pleasure in an experience1 and the feeling of bare time is the least stimulating experience we can have4#edi ,the sensation of tedium is a protest1 says ,volkmann1 against the entire present4 ,exactly parallel variations occur in our consciousness of space4 ,a road we walk back over1 hoping to find at each step an object we have dropped1 seems to us longer than when we walked over it the other way4 ,a space we measure by pacing appears longer than one we traverse with no thought of its length4 ,and in general an amount of space attended to in itself leaves with us more impression of spaciousness than one of which we only note the content4#eej ,i do not say that everything in these fluctuations of estimate can be accounted for by the time's content being crowded and interesting1 or simple and tame4 ,both in the shortening of time by old age and in its lengthening by ennui some deeper cause may be at work4 ,this cause can only be ascertained1 if it exist1 by finding out why we perceive time at all4 ,to this inquiry let us1 though without much hope1 proceed4 ,,the ,,feeling ,,of ,,past ,,time ,,is ,a ,,present ,,feeling4 ,if asked why we perceive the light of the sun1 or the sound of an explosion1 we reply1 ,because certain outer forces1 ether-waves or air-waves1 smite upon the brain1 awakening therein changes1 to which the conscious perceptions1 light and sound1 respond4 ,but we hasten to add that neither light nor sound copy or mirror the ether- or air-waves2 they represent them only symbolically4 ,the only case1 says ,helmholtz1 in which such copying occurs1 and in which our perceptions can truly correspond with outer reality1 is that of the tune-succession of phenomena4 ,simultaneity1 succession1 and the regular return of simultaneity or succession1 can obtain as well in sensations as in outer events4 ,events1 like our perceptions of them1 take place in time1 so that the time-relations of the latter can furnish a true copy of those of the former4 ,the sensation of the thunder follows the sensation of the lightning just as the sonorous convulsing of the air by the electric discharge reaches the observer's place later than that of the luminiferous ether4#eea ,one experiences an almost instinctive impulse1 in pursuing such reflections as these1 to follow them to a sort of crude speculative conclusion1 and to think that he has at last got the mystery of cognition where1 to use a vulgar phrase1 'the wool is short4' ,what more natural1 we say1 than that the sequences and durations of things should become known8 ,the succession of the outer forces stamps itself as a like succession upon the brain4 ,the brain's successive changes are copied exactly by correspondingly successive pulses of the mental stream4 ,the mental stream1 feeling itself1 must feel the time-relations of its own states4 ,but as these are copies of the outward time-relations1 so must it know them too4 ,that is to say1 these latter time-relations arouse their own cognition2 or1 in other words1 the mere existence of time in those changes out of the mind which affect the mind is a sufficient cause why time is perceived by the mind4 ,this philosophy is unfortunately too crude4 ,even though we were to conceive the outer successions as forces stamping their image on the brain1 and the brain's successions as forces stamping their image on the mind1#eeb still1 between the mind's own changes being successive1 and knowing their own succession1 lies as broad a chasm as between the object and subject of any case of cognition in the world4 ,a succession of feelings1 in and of itself1 is not a feeling of succession4 ,and since1 to our successive feelings1 a feeling of their own succession is added1 that must be treated as an additional fact requiring its own special elucidation1 which this talk about outer time-relations stamping copies of themselves within1 leaves all untouched4 ,i have shown1 at the outset of the article1 that what is past1 to be known as past1 must be known with what is present1 and during the 'present' spot of time4 ,as the clear understanding of this point has some importance1 let me1 at the risk of repetition1 recur to it again4 ,volkmann has expressed the matter admirably1 as follows3 ,one might be tempted to answer the question of the origin of the time-idea by simply pointing to the train of ideas1 whose various members1 starting from the first1 successively attain to full clearness4 ,but against this it must be objected that the successive ideas are not yet the idea of succession1 because succession in thought is not the thought of succession4 ,if idea ,a follows idea ,b1 consciousness simply exchanges one for another4 ,that ,b comes after ,a is for our consciousness a non-existent fact2 for this after is given neither in ,b nor in ,a2 and no third idea has been supposed4 ,the thinking of the sequence of ,b upon ,a is another kind of thinking from that which brought forth ,a and then brought forth ,b2 and this first kind of thinking is absent so long as merely the thinking of ,a and the thinking of ,b are there4 ,in short1 when we look at the matter sharply1 we come to this antithesis1 that if ,a and ,b are to be represented as occurring in succession they must be simultaneously represented2 if we are to think of them as one after the other1 we must think them both at once4#eec ,if we represent the actual time-stream of our thinking by an horizontal line1 the thought of the stream or of any segment of its length1 past1 present1 or to come1 might be figured in a perpendicular raised upon the horizontal at a certain point4 ,the length of this perpendicular stands for a certain object or content1 which in this case is the time thought of1 and all of which is thought of together at the actual moment of the stream upon which the perpendicular is raised4 ,mr4 ,james ,ward puts the matter very well in his masterly article ',psychology' in the ninth edition of the ,encyclopdia ,britannica1 page #fd4 ,he says3 ,we may1 if we represent succession as a line1 represent simultaneity as a second line at right angles to the first2 empty time--or time-length without time-breadth1 we may say--is a mere abstraction4 ,now1 it is with the former line that we have to do in treating of time as it is1 and with the latter in treating of our intuition of time1 where1 just as in a perspective representation of distance1 we are confined to lines in a plane at right angles to the actual line of depth4 ,in a succession of events1 say of sense-impressions1 ,a ,b ,c ,d ,e4441 the presence of ,b means the absence of ,a and ,c1 but the presentation of this succession involves the simultaneous presence in some mode or other of two or more of the presentations ,a ,b ,c ,d4 ,in reality1 past1 present1 and future are differences in time1 but in presentation all that corresponds to these differences is in consciousness simultaneously4 ,there is thus a sort of perspective projection of past objects upon present consciousness1 similar to that of wide landscapes upon a camera-screen4 ,and since we saw a while ago that our maximum distinct intuition of duration hardly covers more than a dozen seconds 7while our maximum vague intuition is probably not more than that of a minute or so71 we must suppose that this amount of duration is pictured fairly steadily in each passing instant of consciousness by virtue of some fairly constant feature in the brain-process to which the consciousness is tied4 ,this feature of the brain-process1 whatever it be1 must be the cause of our perceiving the fact of time at all4#eed ,the duration thus steadily perceived is hardly more than the 'specious present1' as it was called a few pages back4 ,its content is in a constant flux1 events dawning into its forward end as fast as they fade out of its rearward one1 and each of them changing its time-coefficient from 'not yet1' or 'not quite yet1' to 'just gone' or 'gone1' as it passes by4 ,meanwhile1 the specious present1 the intuited duration1 stands permanent1 like the rainbow on the waterfall1 with its own quality unchanged by the events that stream through it4 ,each of these1 as it slips out1 retains the power of being reproduced2 and when reproduced1 is reproduced with the duration and neighbors which it originally had4 ,please observe1 however1 that the reproduction of an event1 after it has once completely dropped out of the rearward end of the specious present1 is an entirely different psychic fact from its direct perception in the specious present as a thing immediately past4 ,a creature might be entirely devoid of reproductive memory1 and yet have the time-sense2 but the latter would be limited1 in his case1 to the few seconds immediately passing by4 ,time older than that he would never recall4 ,i assume reproduction in the text1 because ,i am speaking of human beings who notoriously possess it4 ,thus memory gets strewn with dated things--dated in the sense of being before or after each other4#eee ,the date of a thing is a mere relation of before or after the present thing or some past or future thing4 ,some things we date simply by mentally tossing them into the past or future direction4 ,so in space we think of ,england as simply to the eastward1 of ,charleston as lying south4 ,but1 again1 we may date an event exactly1 by fitting it between two terms of a past or future series explicitly conceived1 just as we may accurately think of ,england or ,charleston being just so many miles away4#eef ,the things and events thus vaguely or exactly dated become thenceforward those signs and symbols of longer time-spaces1 of which we previously spoke4 ,according as we think of a multitude of them1 or of few1 so we imagine the time they represent to be long or short4 ,but the original paragon and prototype of all conceived times is the specious present1 the short duration of which we are immediately and incessantly sensible4 ,,to ,,what ,,cerebral ,,process ,,is ,,the ,,sense ,,of ,,time ,,due8 ,now1 to what element in the brain-process may this sensibility be due8 ,it cannot1 as we have seen1 be due to the mere duration itself of the process2 it must be due to an element present at every moment of the process1 and this element must bear the same inscrutable sort of relation to its correlative feeling which all other elements of neural activity bear to their psychic products1 be the latter what they may4 ,several suggestions have been made as to what the element is in the case of time4 ,treating of them in a note1#eeg ,i will try to express briefly the only conclusion which seems to emerge from a study of them and of the facts--unripe though that conclusion be4 ,the phenomena of 'summation of stimuli' in the nervous system prove that each stimulus leaves some latent activity behind it which only gradually passes away4 7,see above1 pp4 #hb-he47 ,psychological proof of the same fact is afforded by those 'after-images' which we perceive when a sensorial stimulus is gone4 ,we may read off peculiarities in an after-image1 left by an object on the eye1 which we failed to note in the original4 ,we may 'hark back' and take in the meaning of a sound several seconds after it has ceased4 ,delay for a minute1 however1 and the echo itself of the clock or the question is mute2 present sensations have banished it beyond recall4 ,with the feeling of the present thing there must at all times mingle the fading echo of all those other things which the previous few seconds have supplied4 ,or1 to state it in neural terms1 there is at every moment a cumulation of brain-processes overlapping each other1 of which the fainter ones are the dying phases of processes which but shortly previous were active in a maximal degree4 ,the ,,amount ,,of ,,the ,,overlapping determines the feeling of the ,,duration ,,occupied4 ,,what ,,events shall appear to occupy the duration depends on just ,,what ,,processes the overlapping processes are4 ,we know so little of the intimate nature of the brain's activity that even where a sensation monotonously endures1 we cannot say that the earlier moments of it do not leave fading processes behind which coexist with those of the present moment4 ,duration and events together form our intuition of the specious present with its content4#eeh ,why such an intuition should result from such a combination of brain-processes ,i do not pretend to say4 ,all ,i aim at is to state the most elemental form of the psycho-physical conjunction4 ,i have assumed that the brain-processes are sensational ones4 ,processes of active attention 7see ,mr4 ,ward's account in ,footnote #eef7 will leave similar fading brain-processes behind4 ,if the mental processes are conceptual1 a complication is introduced of which ,i will in a moment speak4 ,meanwhile1 still speaking of sensational processes1 a remark of ,wundt's will throw additional light on the account ,i give4 ,as is known1 ,wundt and others have proved that every act of perception of a sensorial stimulus takes an appreciable time4 ,when two different stimuli--e4g4 a sight and a sound--are given at once or nearly at once1 we have difficulty in attending to both1 and may wrongly judge their interval1 or even invert their order4 ,now1 as the result of his experiments on such stimuli4 ,wundt lays down this law3#eei that of the three possible determinations we may make of their order-- namely1 simultaneity1 continuous transition1 and discontinuous transition--only the first and last are realized1 never the second4 ,invariably1 when we fail to perceive the impressions as simultaneous1 we notice a shorter or longer empty time between them1 which seems to correspond to the sinking of one of the ideas and to the rise of the other4444 ,for our attention may share itself equally between the two impressions1 which will then compose one total percept and be simultaneously felt2 or it may be so adapted to one event as to cause it to be perceived immediately1 and then the second event can be perceived only after a certain time of latency1 during which the attention reaches its effective maximum for it and diminishes for the first event4 ,in this case the events are perceived as two1 and in successive order--that is1 as separated by a time-interval in which attention is not sufficiently accommodated to either to bring a distinct perception about4444 ,while we are hurrying from one to the other1 everything between them vanishes in the twilight of general consciousness4#efj ,one might call this the law of discontinuous succession in time1 of percepts to which we cannot easily attend at once4 ,each percept then requires a separate brain-process2 and when one brain-process is at its maximum1 the other would appear perforce to be in either a waning or a waxing phase4 ,if our theory of the time-feeling be true1 empty time must then subjectively appear to separate the two percepts1 no matter how close together they may objectively be2 for1 according to that theory1 the feeling of a time-duration is the immediate effect of such an overlapping of brain-processes of different phase--wherever and from whatever cause it may occur4 ,to pass1 now1 to conceptual processes3 ,suppose ,i think of the ,creation1 then of the ,christian era1 then of the battle of ,waterloo1 all within a few seconds4 ,these matters have their dates far outside the specious present4 ,the processes by which ,i think them1 however1 all overlap4 ,what events1 then1 does the specious present seem to contain8 ,simply my successive acts of thinking these long-past things1 not the long-past things themselves4 ,as the instantly-present thought may be of a long-past thing1 so the just-past thought may be of another long-past thing4 ,when a long-past event is reproduced in memory and conceived with its date1 the reproduction and conceiving traverse the specious present4 ,the immediate content of the latter is thus all my direct experiences1 whether subjective or objective4 ,some of these meanwhile may be representative of other experiences indefinitely remote4 ,the number of these direct experiences which the specious present and immediately-intuited past may embrace measures the extent of our 'primary1' as ,exner calls it1 or1 as ,richet calls it1 of our 'elementary' memory4#efa ,the sensation resultant from the overlapping is that of the duration which the experiences seem to fill4 ,as is the number of any larger set of events to that of these experiences1 so we suppose is the length of that duration to this duration4 ,but of the longer duration we have no direct 'realizing sense4' ,the variations in our appreciation of the same amount of real time may possibly be explained by alterations in the rate of fading in the images1 producing changes in the complication of superposed processes1 to which changes changed states of consciousness may correspond4 ,but however long we may conceive a space of time to be1 the objective amount of it which is directly perceived at any one moment by us can never exceed the scope of our 'primary memory' at the moment in question4#efb ,we have every reason to think that creatures may possibly differ enormously in the amounts of duration which they intuitively feel1 and in the fineness of the events that may fill it4 ,von ,br has indulged#efc in some interesting computations of the effect of such differences in changing the aspect of ,nature4 ,suppose we were able1 within the length of a second1 to note #aj1jjj events distinctly1 instead of barely #aj1 as now2 if our life were then destined to hold the same number of impressions1 it might be #ajjj times as short4 ,we should live less than a month1 and personally know nothing of the change of seasons4 ,if born in winter1 we should believe in summer as we now believe in the heats of the ,carboniferous era4 ,the motions of organic beings would be so slow to our senses as to be inferred1 not seen4 ,the sun would stand still in the sky1 the moon be almost free from change1 and so on4 ,but now reverse the hypothesis and suppose a being to get only one #ajjjth part of the sensations that we get in a given time1 and consequently to live #ajjj times as long4 ,winters and summers will be to him like quarters of an hour4 ,mushrooms and the swifter-growing plants will shoot into being so rapidly as to appear instantaneous creations2 annual shrubs will rise and fall from the earth like restlessly boiling-water springs2 the motions of animals will be as invisible as are to us the movements of bullets and cannon-balls2 the sun will scour through the sky like a meteor1 leaving a fiery trail behind him1 etc4 ,that such imaginary cases 7barring the superhuman longevity7 may be realized somewhere in the animal kingdom1 it would be rash to deny4 ,a gnat's wings1 says ,mr ,spencer1#efd make ten or fifteen thousand strokes a second4 ,each stroke implies a separate nervous action4 ,each such nervous action or change in a nervous centre is probably as appreciable by the gnat as is a quick movement of his arm by a man4 ,and if this1 or anything like this1 is the fact1 then the time occupied by a given external change1 measured by many movements in the one case1 must seem much longer than in the other case1 when measured by one movement4 ,in hashish-intoxication there is a curious increase in the apparent time-perspective4 ,we utter a sentence1 and ere the end is reached the beginning seems already to date from indefinitely long ago4 ,we enter a short street1 and it is as if we should never get to the end of it4 ,this alteration might conceivably result from an approach to the condition of ,von ,br's and ,spencer's short-lived beings4 ,if our discrimination of successions became finer-grained1 so that we noted ten stages in a process where previously we only noted one2 and if at the same time the processes faded ten times as fast as before2 we might have a specious present of the same subjective length as now1 giving us the same time-feeling and containing as many distinguishable successive events1 but out from the earlier end of it would have dropped nine tenths of the real events it now contains4 ,they would have fallen into the general reservoir of merely dated memories1 reproducible at will4 ,the beginning of our sentences would have to be expressly recalled2 each word would appear to pass through consciousness at a tenth of its usual speed4 ,the condition would1 in short1 be exactly analogous to the enlargement of space by a microscope2 fewer real things at once in the immediate field of view1 but each of them taking up more than its normal room1 and making the excluded ones seem unnaturally far away4 ,under other conditions1 processes seem to fade rapidly without the compensating increase in the subdivisibility of successions4 ,here the apparent length of the specious present contracts4 ,consciousness dwindles to a point1 and loses all intuitive sense of the whence and whither of its path4 ,express acts of memory replace rapid bird's-eye views4 ,in my own case1 something like this occurs in extreme fatigue4 ,long illnesses produce it4 ,occasionally1 it appears to accompany aphasia4#efe ,it would be vain to seek to imagine the exact brain-change in any of these cases ,but we must admit the possibility that to some extent the variations of time-estimate between youth and age1 and excitement and ennui1 are due to such causes1 more immediate than to the one we assigned some time ago4 ,but whether our feeling of the time which immediately-past#eff events have filled be of something long or of something short1 it is not what it is because those events are past1 but because they have left behind them processes which are present4 ,to those processes1 however caused1 the mind would still respond by feeling a specious present1 with one part of it just vanishing or vanished into the past4 ,as the ,creator is supposed to have made ,adam with a navel--sign of a birth which never occurred--so ,he might instantaneously make a man with a brain in which were processes just like the 'fading' ones of an ordinary brain4 ,the first real stimulus after creation would set up a process additional to these4 ,the processes would overlap2 and the new-created man would unquestionably have the feeling1 at the very primal instant of his life1 of having been in existence already some little space of time4 ,let me sum up1 now1 by saying that we are constantly conscious of a certain duration--the specious present--varying in length from a few seconds to probably not more than a minute1 and that this duration 7with its content perceived as having one part earlier and the other part later7 is the original intuition of time4 ,longer times are conceived by adding1 shorter ones by dividing1 portions of this vaguely bounded unit1 and are habitually thought by us symbolically4 ,kant's notion of an intuition of objective time as an infinite necessary continuum has nothing to support it4 ,the cause of the intuition which we really have cannot be the duration of our brain-processes or our mental changes4 ,that duration is rather the object of the intuition which1 being realized at every moment of such duration1 must be due to a permanently present cause4 ,this cause--probably the simultaneous presence of brain-processes of different phase--fluctuates2 and hence a certain range of variation in the amount of the intuition1 and in its subdivisibility1 accrues4 ,,footnotes3 #eab ,this chapter is reprinted almost verbatim from the ,journal of ,speculative ,philosophy1 vol4 xx1 p4 #cgd4 #eac ,james ,mill1 ,analysis1 vol4 x1 p4 #cai 7,j4 ,s4 ,mill's edition74 #ead ,what ,i find1 when ,i look at consciousness at all1 is1 that what ,i cannot divest myself of1 or not have in consciousness1 if ,i have consciousness at all1 is a sequence of different feelings4444 ,the simultaneous perception of both sub-feelings1 whether as parts of a coexistence or of a sequence1 is the total feeling--the minimum of consciousness--and this minimum has duration4444 ,time-duration1 however1 is inseparable from the minimum1 notwithstanding that1 in an isolated moment1 we could not tell which part of it came first1 which last4444 ,we do not require to know that the sub-feelings come in sequence1 first one1 then the other2 nor to know what coming in sequence means4 ,but we have1 in any artificially isolated minimum of consciousness1 the rudiments of the perception of former and latter in time1 in the sub-feeling that grows fainter1 and the sub-feeling that grows stronger1 and the change between them4444 ,in the next place1 ,i remark that the rudiments of memory are involved in the minimum of consciousness4 ,the first beginnings of it appear in that minimum1 just as the first beginnings of perception do4 ,as each member of the change or difference which goes to compose that minimum is the rudiment of a single perception1 so the priority of one member to the other1 although both are given to consciousness in one empirical present moment1 is the rudiment of memory4 ,the fact that the minimum of consciousness is difference or change in feelings1 is the ultimate explanation of memory as well as of single perceptions4 ,a former and a latter are included in the minimum of consciousness2 and this is what is meant by saying that all consciousness is in the form of time1 or that time is the form of feeling1 the form of sensibility4 ,crudely and popularly we divide the course of time into past1 present1 and future2 but1 strictly speaking1 there is no present2 it is composed of past and future divided by an indivisible point or instant4 ,that instant1 or time-point1 is the strict present4 ,what we call1 loosely1 the present1 is an empirical portion of the course of time1 containing at least a minimum of consciousness1 in which the instant of change is the present time-point4444 ,if we take this as the present time-point1 it is clear that the minimum of feeling contains two portions--a sub-feeling that goes and a sub-feeling that comes4 ,one is remembered1 the other imagined4 ,the limits of both are indefinite at beginning and end of the minimum1 and ready to melt into other minima1 proceeding from other stimuli4 ,time and consciousness do not come to us ready marked out into minima2 we have to do that by reflection1 asking ourselves1 ,what is the least empirical moment of consciousness8 ,that least empirical moment is what we usually call the present moment2 and even this is too minute for ordinary use2 the present moment is often extended practically to a few seconds1 or even minutes1 beyond which we specify what length of time we mean1 as the present hour1 or day1 or year1 or century4 ,but this popular way of thinking imposes itself on great numbers even of philosophically-minded people1 and they talk about the present as if it was a datum--as if time came to us marked into present periods like a measuring-tape4 7,s4 ,h4 ,hodgson3 ,philosophy of ,reflection1 vol4 i1 pp4 #bdh-bed47 ,the representation of time agrees with that of space in that a certain amount of it must be presented together--included between its initial and terminal limit4 ,a continuous ideation1 flowing from one point to another1 would indeed occupy time1 but not represent it1 for it would exchange one element of succession for another instead of grasping the whole succession at once4 ,both points--the beginning and the end--are equally essential to the conception of time1 and must be present with equal clearness together4 7,herbart3 ,psychol4 als ,w41 #aae47 ,assume that 444 similar pendulum-strokes follow each other at regular intervals in a consciousness otherwise void4 ,when the first one is over1 an image of it remains in the fancy until the second succeeds4 ,this1 then1 reproduces the first by virtue of the law of association by similarity1 but at the same time meets with the aforesaid persisting image4444 ,thus does the simple repetition of the sound provide all the elements of time-perception4 ,the first sound as it is recalled by association gives the beginning1 the second the end1 and the persistent image in the fancy represents the length of the interval4 ,at the moment of the second impression1 the entire time-perception exists at once1 for then all its elements are presented together1 the second sound and the image in the fancy immediately1 and the first impression by reproduction4 ,but1 in the same act1 we are aware of a state in which only the first sound existed1 and of another in which only its image existed in the fancy4 ,such a consciousness as this is that of time4444 ,in it no succession of ideas takes place4 7,wundt3 ,physiol4 ,psych41 #ast ed4 pp4 #fha-b47 ,note here the assumption that the persistence and the reproduction of an impression are two processes which may go on simultaneously4 ,also that ,wundt's description is merely an attempt to analyze the 'deliverance' of a time-perception1 and no explanation of the manner in which it comes about4 #eae ,the ,alternative1 p4 #afg4 #eaf ,locke1 in his dim way1 derived the sense of duration from reflection on the succession of our ideas 7,essay1 book ii1 chap4 xiv1 #c2 chap4 xv1 #ab74 ,reid justly remarks that if ten successive elements are to make duration1 then one must make duration1 otherwise duration must be made up of parts that have no duration1 which is impossible4444 ,i conclude1 therefore1 that there must be duration in every single interval or element of which the whole duration is made up4 ,nothing1 indeed1 is more certain than that every elementary part of extension must have extension4 ,now1 it must be observed that in these elements of duration1 or single intervals of successive ideas1 there is no succession of ideas1 yet we must conceive them to have duration2 whence we may conclude with certainty that there is a conception of duration where there is no succession of ideas in the mind4 7,intellectual ,powers1 essay iii1 chap4 v47 ,qu'on ne cherche point1 says ,royer-,collard in the ,fragments added to ,jouffroy's ,translation of ,reid1 la dure dans la succession2 on ne l'y trouvera jamais2 la dure a prcd la succession2 la notion de la dure a prcd la notion de la succession4 ,elle en est donc tout--fait indpendante1 dira-t-on8 ,oui1 elle en est tout--fait indpendante4 #eag ,physiol4 ,psych41 ii1 #ed1 #ee4 #eah ,ibid4 ii1 #bac4 #eai ,philosophische ,studien1 ii1 #cfb4 #ebj ,counting was of course not permitted4 ,it would have given a symbolic concept and no intuitive or immediate perception of the totality of the series4 ,with counting we may of course compare together series of any length--series whose beginnings have faded from our mind1 and of whose totality we retain no sensible impression at all4 ,to count a series of clicks is an altogether different thing from merely perceiving them as discontinuous4 ,in the latter case we need only be conscious of the bits of empty duration between them2 in the former we must perform rapid acts of association between them and as many names of numbers4 #eba ,estel in ,wundt's ,philosophische ,studien1 ii1 #ej4 ,mehner1 ibid4 ii1 #ega4 ,in ,dietze's experiments even numbers of strokes were better caught than odd ones1 by the ear4 ,the rapidity of their sequence had a great influence on the result4 ,at more than #d seconds apart it was impossible to perceive series of them as units in all 7cf4 ,wundt1 ,physiol4 ,psych41 ii1 #bad74 ,they were simply counted as so many individual strokes4 ,below #j4ba to #j4aa second1 according to the observer1 judgment again became confused4 ,it was found that the rate of succession most favorable for grasping long series was when the strokes were sounded at intervals of from #j4c'' to #j4ah' apart4 ,series of #d1 #f1 #h1 #af were more easily identified than series of #aj1 #ab1 #ad1 #ah4 ,the latter could hardly be clearly grasped at all4 ,among odd numbers #c1 #e1 #g were the series easiest caught2 next1 #i1 #ae2 hardest of all1 #aa and #ac2 and #ag was impossible to apprehend4 #ebb ,the exact interval of the sparks was #j4jjbje''4 ,the doubleness of their snap was usually replaced by a single-seeming sound when it fell to #j4jjaih''1 the sound becoming louder when the sparks seemed simultaneous4 ,the difference between these two intervals is only #g_/ajjjjj of a second2 and1 as ,exner remarks1 our ear and brain must be wonderfully efficient organs to get distinct feelings from so slight an objective difference as this4 ,see ,pflger's ,archiv1 ,bd4 xi4 #ebc ,ibid4 p4 #djg4 ,when the sparks fell so close together that their irradiation-circles overlapped1 they appeared like one spark moving from the position of the first to that of the second2 and they might then follow each other as close as #j4jae'' without the direction of the movement ceasing to be clear4 ,when one spark fell on the centre1 the other on the margin1 of the retina1 the time-interval for successive apprehension had to be raised to #j4jgf''4 #ebd ,hall and ,jastrow3 ,studies of ,rhythm4 ,mind1 xi1 #eh4 #ebe ,nevertheless1 multitudinous impressions may be felt as discontinuous1 though separated by excessively minute intervals of time4 ,grnhagen says 7,pflger's ,archiv1 vi1 #age7 that #aj1jjj electric shocks a second are felt as interrupted1 by the tongue 7674 ,von ,wittich 7ibid4 ii1 #cbi71 that between #ajjj and #bjjj strokes a second are felt as discrete by the finger4 ,w4 ,preyer1 on the other hand 7,die ,grenzen des ,empfindungsvermgens1 etc41 #ahfh1 p4 #ae71 makes contacts appear continuous to the finger when #cf4h of them follow in a second4 ,similarly1 ,mach 7,wiener ,sitzgsb41 li1 #b1 #adb7 gives about #bf4 ,lalanne 7,comptes ,rendus1 i_/xxxii1 p4 #acad7 found summation of finger contacts after #bb repetitions in a second4 ,such discrepant figures are of doubtful worth4 ,on the retina #bj to #cj impressions a second at the very utmost can be felt as discrete when they fail on the same spot4 ,the ear1 which begins to fuse stimuli together into a musical tone when they follow at the rate of a little over #cj a second1 can still feel #acb of them a second as discontinuous when they take the shape of 'beats' 7,helmholtz1 ,tonempfindungen1 #c;d ed4 p4 #bgj74 #ebf ,pflger's ,archiv1 xi1 #dbh4 ,also in ,herrmann's ,hdbh4 d4 ,physiol41 #b ,bd4 i1 ,thl4 pp4 #bfj-b4 #ebg ,pflger's ,archiv1 vii1 #fci4 ,tigerstedt 7,bihang till ,kongl4 ,svenska ,vetenskaps ,akad1 ,handl41 ,bd4 #h1 ,hfte #b1 ,stockholm1 #ahhd7 revises ,exner's figures1 and shows that his conclusions are exaggerated4 ,according to ,tigerstedt1 two observers almost always rightly appreciated #j4je or #j4jf'' of reaction-time difference4 ,half the time they did it rightly when the difference sank to #j4jc''1 though from #j4jc'' and #j4jf'' differences were often not noticed at all4 ,buccola found 7,la ,legge del ,tempo nei ,fenomeni dei ,pensiero1 ,milano1 #ahhc1 p4 #cga7 that1 after much practice in making rapid reactions upon a signal1 he estimated directly1 in figures1 his own reaction-time1 in #aj experiments1 with an error of from #j4jaf'' to #j4jah''2 in #f1 with one of #j4jje'' to #j4jfi''2 in one1 with one of #j4jjb''2 and in #c1 with one of #j4jjc''4 #ebh ,mind1 xi1 #fa 7#ahhf74 #ebi ,mach1 ,wiener ,sitzungsb41 li1 #b4 #acc 7#ahfe72 ,estel1 loc4 cit4 p4 #fe2 ,mehner1 loc4 cit4 p4 #ehf2 ,buccola1 op4 cit4 p4 #cgh4 ,fechner labors to prove that his law is only overlaid by other interfering laws in the figures recorded by these experimenters2 but his case seems to me to be one of desperate infatuation with a hobby4 7,see ,wundt's ,philosphische ,studien iii1 #a47 #ecj ,curious discrepancies exist between the ,german and the ,american observers with respect to the direction of the error below and above the point of indifference--differences perhaps due the fatigue involved in the ,american method4 ,the ,germans lengthened intervals below it and shortened those above4 ,with seven ,americans experimented on by ,stevens this was exactly reversed4 ,the ,german method was to passively listen to the intervals1 then judge2 the ,american was to reproduce them actively by movements of the hand4 ,in ,mehner's experiments there was found a second indifference point at about #e seconds1 beyond which times were judged again too long4 ,glass1 whose work on the subject is the latest 7,philos4 ,studien1 iv1 #dbc7 found 7when corrections were allowed for7 that all times except #j4h sec4 were estimated too short4 ,he found a series of points of greatest relative accuracy1 viz4 at #a4e1 #b4e1 #c4ge1 #e1 #f4be1 etc41 seconds respectively1 and thought that his observations roughly corroborated ,weber's law4 ,as 'maximum' and 'minimum' are printed interchangeably in ,glass's article it is hard to follow4 #eca ,with ,vierordt and his pupils the indifference point lay as high as from #a4e sec to #d4i sec1 according to the observer 7cf4 ,der ,zeitsinn1 #ahfh1 p4 #aab74 ,in most of these experiments the time heard was actively reproduced1 after a short pause1 by movements of the hand1 which were recorded4 ,wundt gives good reasons 7,physiol4 ,psych41 ii1 #bhi1 #bij7 for rejecting ,vierordt's figures as erroneous4 ,vierordt's book1 it should be said1 is full of important matter1 nevertheless4 #ecb ,physiol4 ,psych41 ii1 #bhf1 #bij4 #ecc ,philosophische ,studien1 i1 #hf4 #ecd ,mind1 xi1 #djj4 #ece ,loc cit4 p4 #add4 #ecf ,op4 cit4 p4 #cgf4 ,mach's and ,buccola's figures1 it will be observed1 are about one half of the rest--sub-multiples1 therefore4 ,it ought to be observed1 however1 that ,buccola's figure has little value1 his observations not being well fitted to show this particular point4 #ecg ,estel's figures led him to think that all the multiples enjoyed this privilege2 with ,mehner1 on the other hand1 only the odd multiples showed diminution of the average error2 thus1 #j4ga1 #b4ae1 #c4ee1 #e1 #f4d1 #g4h1 #i4c1 and #aj4fe second were respectively registered with the least error4 ,cf4 ,phil4 ,studien1 ii1 pp4 #eg1 #efb-e4 #ech ,cf4 especially pp4 #eeh-efa4 #eci ,wundt3 ,physiol4 ,psych41 ii1 #bhg4 ,hall and ,jastrow3 ,mind1 xi1 #fb4 #edj ,mehner3 loc4 cit4 p4 #eec4 #eda ,the number of distinguishable differences of speed between these limits is1 as he takes care to remark1 very much larger that #g4 7,der ,zeitsinn1 p4 #acg74 #edb ,p4 #ai1 #ah1 p4 #aab4 #edc ,i leave the text just as it was printed in the ,journal of ,speculative ,philosophy 7for ',oct4 #ahhf'7 in #ahhg4 ,since then ,mnsterberg in his masterly ,beitrge zur experimentellen ,psychologie 7,heft #b1 #ahhi7 seems to have made it clear what the sensible changes are by which we measure the lapse of time4 ,when the time which separates two sensible impressions is less than one third of a second1 he thinks it is almost entirely the amount to which the memory-image of the first impression has faded when the second one overtakes it1 which makes us feel how wide they are apart 7p4 #bi74 ,when the time is longer than this1 we rely1 he thinks1 exclusively upon the feelings of muscular tension and relaxation1 which we are constantly receiving although we give to them so little of our direct attention4 ,these feelings are primarily in the muscles by which we adopt our sense-organs in attending to the signals used1 some of the muscles being in the eye and ear themselves1 some of them in the head1 neck1 etc4 ,we here judge two time-intervals to be equal when between the beginning and end of each we feel exactly similar relaxations and subsequent expectant tensions of these muscles to have occurred4 ,in reproducing intervals ourselves we try to make our feelings of this sort just what they were when we passively heard the interval4 ,these feelings by themselves1 however1 can only be used when the intervals are very short1 for the tension anticipatory of the terminal stimulus naturally reaches its maximum very soon4 ,with longer intervals we take the feeling of our inspirations and expirations into account4 ,with our expirations all the other muscular tensions in our body undergo a rhythmical decrease2 with our inspirations the reverse takes place4 ,when1 therefore1 we note a time-interval of several seconds with intent to reproduce it1 what we seek is to make the earlier and later interval agree in the number and amount of these respiratory changes combined with sense-organ adjustments with which they are filled4 ,mnsterberg has studied carefully in his own ease the variations of the respiratory factor4 ,they are many2 but he sums up his experience by saying that whether he measured by inspirations that were divided by momentary pauses into six parts1 or by inspirations that were continuous2 whether with sensory tension during inspiration and relaxation during expiration1 or by tension during both inspiration and expiration1 separated by a sudden interpolated relaxation2 whether with special notice taken of the cephalic tensions1 or of those in the trunk and shoulders1 in all cases alike and without exception he involuntarily endeavored1 whenever he compared two times or tried to make one the same as the other1 to get exactly the same respiratory conditions and conditions of tension1 all the subjective conditions1 in short1 exactly the same during the second interval as they were during the first4 ,mnsterberg corroborated his subjective observations by experiments4 ,the observer of the time had to reproduce as exactly as possible an interval between two sharp sounds given him by an assistant4 ,the only condition imposed upon him was that he should not modify his breathing for the purposes of measurement4 ,it was then found that when the assistant broke in at random with his signals1 the judgment of the observer was vastly less accurate than when the assistant carefully watched the observer's breathing and made both the beginning of the time given him and that of the time which he was to give coincide with identical phases thereof4--,finally1 ,mnsterberg with great plausibility tries to explain the discrepancies between the results of ,vierordt1 ,estel1 ,mehner1 ,glass1 etc41 as due to the fact that they did not all use the same measure4 ,some breathe a little faster1 some a little slower4 ,some break their inspirations into two parts1 some do not1 etc4 ,the coincidence of the objective times measured with definite natural phases of breathing would very easily give periodical maxima of facility in measuring accurately4 #edd ,any one wishing yet further examples of this mental substitution will find one on observing how habitually he thinks of the spaces on the clock-face instead of the periods they stand for2 how1 on discovering it to be half an hour later than be supposed1 he does not represent the half hour in its duration1 but scarcely passes beyond the sign of it marked by the finger4 7,h4 ,spencer3 ,psychology1 #ccf47 #ede ,the only objections to this which ,i can think of are3 7#a7 ,the accuracy with which some men judge of the hour of day or night without looking at the clock2 7#b7 the faculty some have of waking at a preappointed hour2 7#c7 the accuracy of time-perception reported to exist in certain trance-subjects4 ,it might seem that in these persons some sort of a sub-conscious record was kept of the lapse of time per se4 ,but this cannot be admitted until it is proved that there are no physiological processes1 the feeling of whose course may serve as a sign of how much time has sped1 and so lead us to infer the hour4 ,that there are such processes it is hardly possible to doubt4 ,an ingenious friend of mine was long puzzled to know why each day of the week had such a characteristic physiognomy to him4 ,that of ,sunday was soon noticed to be due to the cessation of the city's rumbling1 and the sound of people's feet shuffling on the sidewalk2 of ,monday1 to come from the clothes drying in the yard and casting a white reflection on the ceiling2 of ,tuesday1 to a cause which ,i forget2 and ,i think my friend did not get beyond ,wednesday4 ,probably each hour in the day has for most of us some outer or inner sign associated with it as closely as these signs with the days of the week4 ,it must be admitted1 after all1 however1 that the great improvement of the time-perception during sleep and trance is a mystery not as yet cleared up4 ,all my life ,i have been struck by the accuracy with which ,i will wake at the same exact minute night after night and morning after morning1 if only the habit fortuitously begins4 ,the organic registration in me is independent of sleep4 ,after lying in bed a long time awake ,i suddenly rise without knowing the time1 and for days and weeks together will do so at an identical minute by the clock1 as if some inward physiological process caused the act by punctually running down4---,idiots are said sometimes to possess the time-measuring faculty in a marked degree4 ,i have an interesting manuscript account of an idiot girl which says3 ,she was punctual almost to a minute in her demand for food and other regular attentions4 ,her dinner was generally furnished her at #ab4cj p4 m41 and at that hour she would begin to scream if it were not forthcoming4 ,if on ,fast-day or ,thanksgiving it were delayed1 in accordance with the ,new ,england custom1 she screamed from her usual dinner-hour until the food was carried to her4 ,on the next day1 however1 she again made known her wants promptly at #ab4cj4 ,any slight attention shown her on one day was demanded on the next at the corresponding hour4 ,if an orange were given her at #d p4 m4 on ,wednesday1 at the same hour on ,thursday she made known her expectation1 and if the fruit were not given her she continued to call for it at intervals for two or three hours4 ,at four on ,friday the process would be repeated but would last less long2 and so on for two or three days4 ,if one of her sisters visited her accidentally at a certain hour1 the sharp piercing scream was sure to summon her at the same hour the next day1 etc41 etc4--,for these obscure matters consult ,c4 ,du ,prel3 ,the ,philosophy of ,mysticism1 chap4 iii1 #a4 #edf ,ideale ,fragen 7#ahgh74 p4 #bai 7,essay1 ',zeit und ,weile'74 #edg ,revue ,philosophique1 vol4 iii1 p4 #dif4 #edh ,empty time is most strongly perceived when it comes as a pause in music or in speech4 ,suppose a preacher in the pulpit1 a professor at his desk1 to stick still in the midst of his discourse2 or let a composer 7as is sometimes purposely done7 make all his instruments stop at once2 we await every instant the resumption of the performance1 and1 in this awaiting1 perceive1 more than in any other possible way1 the empty time4 ,to change the example1 let1 in a piece of polyphonic music--a figure1 for instance1 in which a tangle of melodies are under way--suddenly a single voice be heard1 which sustains a long note1 while all else is hushed4444 ,this one note will appear very protracted--why8 ,because we expect to hear accompanying it the notes of the other instruments1 but they fail to come4 7,herbart3 ,psychol4 als ,w41 #aae47--;,compare also ,mnsterberg1 ,beitrge1 ,heft #b1 p4 #da4 #edi ,a night of pain will seem terribly long3 we keep looking forward to a moment which never comes--the moment when it shall cease4 ,but the odiousness of this experience is not named ennui or ,langweile1 like the odiousness of time that seems long from its emptiness4 ,the more positive odiousness of the pain1 rather1 is what tinges our memory of the night4 ,what we feel1 as ,prof4 ,lazarus says 7op4 cit4 p4 #bjb71 is the long time of the suffering1 not the suffering of the long time per se4 #eej ,on these variations of time-estimate1 cf4 ,romanes1 ,consciousness of ,time1 in ,mind1 vol4 iii1 p4 #big2 ,j4 ,sully1 ,illusions1 pp4 #bde-bfa1 #cjb-cje2 ,w4 ,wundt4 ,physiol4 ,psych41 ii1 #bhg1 #bhh2 besides the essays quoted from ,lazarus and ,janet4 ,in ,german1 the successors of ,herbart have treated of this subject3 compare ,volkmann's ,lehrbuch d4 ,psych41 #hi1 and for references to other authors his note #c to this section4 ,lindner 7,lbh4 d4 empir4 ,psych471 as a parallel effect1 instances ,alexander the ,great's life 7thirty-three years71 which seems to us as if it must be long1 because it was so eventful4 ,similarly the ,english ,commonwealth1 etc4 #eea ,physiol4 ,optik1 p4 #dde4 #eeb ,succession1 time per se1 is no force4 ,our talk about its devouring tooth1 etc41 is all elliptical4 ,its contents are what devour4 ,the law of inertia is incompatible with time's being assumed as an efficient cause of anything4 #eec ,lehrbuch d4 ,psych41 #hg4 ,compare also ,h4 ,lotze1 ,metaphysik1 #aed4 #eed ,the cause of the perceiving1 not the object perceived6 #eee ',no more' and 'not yet' are the proper time-feelings1 and we are aware of time in no other way than through these feelings1 says ,volkmann 7,psychol41 #hg74 ,this1 which is not strictly true of our feeling of time per se1 as an elementary bit of duration1 is true of our feeling of date in its events4 #eef ,we construct the miles just as we construct the years4 ,travelling in the cars makes a succession of different fields of view pass before our eyes4 ,when those that have passed from present sight revive in memory1 they maintain their mutual order because their contents overlap4 ,we think them as having been before or behind each other2 and1 from the multitude of the views we can recall behind the one now presented1 we compute the total space we have passed through4 ,it is often said that the perception of time develops later than that of space1 because children have so vague an idea of all dates before yesterday and after to-morrow4 ,but no vaguer than they have of extensions that exceed as greatly their unit of space-intuition4 ,recently ,i heard my child of four tell a visitor that he had been 'as much as one week' in the country4 ,as he had been there three months1 the visitor expressed surprise2 whereupon the child corrected himself by saying he had been there 'twelve years4' ,but the child made exactly the same kind of mistake when he asked if ,boston was not one hundred miles from ,cambridge1 the distance being three miles4 #eeg ,most of these explanations simply give the signs which1 adhering to impressions1 lead us to date them within a duration1 or1 in other words1 to assign to them their order4 ,why it should be a time-order1 however1 is not explained4 ,herbart's would-be explanation is a simple description of time-perception4 ,he says it comes when1 with the last member of a series present to our consciousness1 we also think of the first2 and then the whole series revives in our thought at once1 but with strength diminishing in the backward direction 7,psychol4 als ,wiss41 #aae2 ,lehrb4 zur ,psychol41 #aga1 #agb1 #age74 ,similarly ,drobisch1 who adds that the series must appear as one already elapsed 7durchlaufene71 a word which shows even more clearly the question-begging nature of this sort of account 7,empirische ,psychol41 #ei74 ,th4 ,waitz is guilty of similar question-begging when he explains our time-consciousness to be engendered by a set of unsuccessful attempts to make our percepts agree with our expectations 7,lehrb4 d4 ,psychol41 #eb74 ,volkmann's mythological account of past representations striving to drive present ones out of the seat of consciousness1 being driven back by them1 etc41 suffers from the same fallacy 7,psychol41 #hg74 ,but all such accounts agree in implying one fact---viz41 that the brain-processes of various events must be active simultaneously1 and in varying strength1 for a time-perception to be possible4 ,later authors have made this idea more precise4 ,thus1 ,lipps3 ,sensations arise1 occupy consciousness1 fade into images1 and vanish4 ,according as two of them1 a and b1 go through this process simultaneously1 or as one precedes or follows the other1 the phases of their fading will agree or differ2 and the difference will be proportional to the time-difference between their several moments of beginning4 ,thus there are differences of quality in the images1 which the mind may translate into corresponding differences of their temporal order4 ,there is no other possible middle term between the objective time-relations and those in the mind than these differences of phase4 7,grundtatsachen des ,seelenlebens1 p4 #ehh47 ,lipps accordingly calls them 'temporal signs1' and hastens explicitly to add that the soul's translation of their order of strength into a time-order is entirely inexplicable 7p4 #eia74 ,m4 ,guyau's account 7,revue ,philosophique1 xix1 #cec7 hardly differs from that of his predecessors1 except in picturesqueness of style4 ,every change leaves a series of traines lumineuses in the mind like the passage of shooting stars4 ,each image is in a more fading phase1 according as its original was more remote4 ,this group of images gives duration1 the mere time-form1 the 'bed' of time4 ,the distinction of past1 present1 and future within the bed comes from our active nature4 ,the future 7as with ,waitz7 is what ,i want1 but have not yet got1 and must wait for4 ,all this is doubtless true1 but is no explanation4 ,mr4 ,ward gives1 in his ,encyclopdia ,britannica article 7,psychology1 p4 #fe1 col4 #a71 a still more refined attempt to specify the 'temporal sign4' ,the problem being1 among a number of other things thought as successive1 but simultaneously thought1 to determine which is first and which last1 he says3 ,after each distinct representation1 a b c d1 there may intervene the representation of that movement of attention of which we are aware in passing from one object to another4 ,in our present reminiscence we have1 it must be allowed1 little direct proof of this intervention2 though there is1 ,i think1 indirect evidence of it in the tendency of the flow of ideas to follow the order in which the presentations were at first attended to4 ,with the movement itself when the direction of attention changes1 we are familiar enough1 though the residua of such movements are not ordinarily conspicuous4 ,these residua1 then1 are our temporal signs4444 ,but temporal signs alone will not furnish all the pictorial exactness of the time-perspective4 ,these give us only a fixed series2 but the law of obliviscence1 by insuring a progressive variation in intensity as we pass from one member of the series to the other1 yields the effect which we call time-distance4 ,by themselves such variations in intensity would leave us liable to confound more vivid representations in the distance with fainter ones nearer the present1 but from this mistake the temporal signs save us2 where the memory-continuum is imperfect such mistakes continually occur4 ,on the other hand1 where these variations are slight and imperceptible1 though the memory-continuum preserves the order of events intact1 we have still no such distinct appreciation of comparative distance in time as we have nearer to the present1 where these perceptive effects are considerable4444 ,locke speaks of our ideas succeeding each other 'at certain distances not much unlike the images in the inside of a lantern turned round by the heat of a candle1' and 'guesses' that 'this appearance of theirs in train varies not very much in a waking man4' ,now what is this 'distance' that separates a from b1 b from c1 and so on2 and what means have we of knowing that it is tolerably constant in waking life8 ,it is1 probably1 that1 the residuum of which ,i have called a temporal sign2 or1 in other words1 it is the movement of attention from a to b4 ,nevertheless1 ,mr4 ,ward does not call our feeling of this movement of attention the original of our feeling of time1 or its brain-process the brain-process which directly causes us to perceive time4 ,he says1 a moment later1 that though the fixation of attention does of course really occupy time1 it is probably not in the first instance perceived as time--i4e4 as continuous 'protensity1' to use a term of ,hamilton's--but as intensity4 ,thus1 if this supposition be true1 there is an element in our concrete time perceptions which has no place in our abstract conception of ,time4 ,in ,time physically conceived there is no trace of intensity2 in time psychically experienced1 duration is primarily an intensive magnitude1 and so far literally a perception4 ,its 'original' is1 then1 if ,i understand ,mr ,ward1 something like a feeling which accompanies1 as pleasure and pain may accompany1 the movements of attention4 ,its brain-process must1 it would seem1 be assimilated in general type to the brain-processes of pleasure and pain4 ,such would seem more or less consciously to be ,mr4 ,ward's own view1 for he says3 ,everybody knows what it is to be distracted by a rapid succession of varied impressions1 and equally what it is to be wearied by the slow and monotonous recurrence of the same impressions4 ,now these 'feelings' of distraction and tedium owe their characteristic qualities to movements of attention4 ,in the first1 attention is kept incessantly on the move2 before it is accommodated to a1 it is disturbed by the suddenness1 intensity1 and novelty of b2 in the second1 it is kept all but stationary by the repeated presentation of the same impression4 ,such excess and defect of surprises make one realize a fact which in ordinary life is so obscure as to escape notice4 ,but recent experiments have set this fact in a more striking light1 and made clear what ,locke had dimly before his mind in talking of a certain distance between the presentations of a waking man4 ,in estimating very short periods of time of a second or less1 indicated1 say1 by the beats of a metronome1 it is found that there is a certain period for which the mean of a number of estimates is correct1 while shorter periods are on the whole over-1 and longer periods under-estimated4 ,i take this to be evidence of the time occupied in accommodating or fixing attention4 ,alluding to the fact that a series of experiences1 a b c d e1 may seem short in retrospect1 which seemed everlasting in passing1 he says3 ,what tells in retrospect is the series a b c d e1 etc42 what tells in the present is the intervening t#a t#b t#c1 etc41 or rather the original accommodation of which these temporal signs are the residuum4 ,and he concludes thus3 ,we seem to have proof that our perception of duration rests ultimately upon quasi-motor objects of varying intensity1 the duration of which we do not directly experience as duration at all4 ,wundt also thinks that the interval of about three-fourths of a second1 which is estimated with the minimum of error1 points to a connection between the time-feeling and the succession of distinctly 'apperceived' objects before the mind4 ,the 'association-time' is also equal to about three fourths of a second4 ,this association-time he regards as a sort of internal standard of duration to which we involuntarily assimilate all intervals which we try to reproduce1 bringing shorter ones up to it and longer ones down4 ,in the ,stevens result we should have to say contrast instead of assimilate1 for the longer intervals there seem longer1 and the shorter ones shorter still4 ,singularly enough1 he adds 7,physiol4 ,psych41 ii1 #bhf71 this time is about that in which in rapid walking1 according to the ,webers1 our legs perform their swing4 ,it seems thus not unlikely that both psychical constants1 that of the average speed of reproduction and that of the surest estimation of time1 have formed themselves under the influence of those most habitual movements of the body which we also use when we try to subdivide rhythmically longer tracts of time4 ,finally1 ,prof4 ,mach makes a suggestion more specific still4 ,after saying very rightly that we have a real sensation of time--how otherwise should we identify two entirely different airs as being played in the same 'time'8 how distinguish in memory the first stroke of the clock from the second1 unless to each there clove its special time-sensation1 which revived with it8--he says it is probable that this feeling is connected with that organic consumption which is necessarily linked with the production of consciousness1 and that the time which we feel is probably due to the mechanical8 work of the process of8 attention4 ,when attention is strained1 time seems long2 during easy occupation1 short1 etc4444 ,the fatigue of the organ of consciousness1 as long as we wake1 continually increases1 and the work of attention augments as continually4 ,those impressions which are conjoined with a greater amount of work of attention appear to us as the later4 ,the apparent relative displacement of certain simultaneous events and certain anachronisms of dreams are held by ,mach to be easily explicable as effects of a splitting of the attention between two objects1 one of which consumes most of it 7,beitrge zur ,analyse der ,empfindungen1 p4 #ajc foll474 ,mach's theory seems worthy of being better worked out4 ,it is hard to say now whether he1 ,ward1 and ,wundt mean at bottom the same thing or not4 ,the theory advanced in my own text1 it will be remarked1 does not pretend to be an explanation1 but only an elementary statement of the 'law' which makes us aware of time4 ,the ,herbartian mythology purports to explain4 #eeh ,it would be rash to say definitely just how many seconds long this specious present must needs be1 for processes fade 'asymptotically1' and the distinctly intuited present merges into a penumbra of mere dim recency before it turns into the past which is simply reproduced and conceived4 ,many a thing which we do not distinctly date by intercalating it in a place between two other things will1 nevertheless1 come to us with this feeling of belonging to a near past4 ,this sense of recency is a feeling sui generis1 and may affect things that happened hours ago4 ,it would seem to show that their brain-processes are still in a state modified by the foregoing excitement1 still in a 'fading' phase1 in spite of the long interval4 #eei ,physiol4 ,psych1 ii1 #bfc4 #efj ,i leave my text as it was printed before ,mnsterberg's essay appeared 7see ,footnote #edb1 above74 ,he denies that we measure any but minimal durations by the amount of fading in the ideational processes1 and talks almost exclusively of our feelings of muscular tension in his account1 whereas ,i have made no mention of such things in mine4 ,i cannot1 however1 see that there is any conflict between what he and ,i suggest4 ,i am mainly concerned with the consciousness of duration regarded as a specific sort of object1 he is concerned with this object's measurement exclusively4 ,feelings of tension might be the means of the measurement1 whilst overlapping processes of any and every kind gave the object to be measured4 ,the accommodative and respiratory movements from which the feelings of tension come form regularly recurring sensations divided by their 'phases' into intervals as definite as those by which a yardstick is divided by the marks upon its length4 ,let a#a1 a#b1 a#c1 a#d1 be homologous phases in four successive movements of this kind4 ,if four outer stimuli #a1 #b1 #c1 #d1 coincide each with one of these successive phases1 then their 'distances apart' are felt as equal1 otherwise not4 ,but there is no reason whatever to suppose that the mere overlapping of the brain-process of #b by the fading process of #a1 or that of #c by that of #b1 etc41 does not give the characteristic quality of content which we call 'distance apart' in this experience1 and which by aid of the muscular feelings gets judged to be equal4 ,doubtless the muscular feelings can give us the object 'time' as well as its measure1 because their earlier phases leave fading sensations which constantly overlap the vivid sensation of the present phase4 ,but it would be contrary to analogy to suppose that they should be the only experiences which give this object4 ,i do not understand ,herr ,mnsterberg to claim this for them4 ,he takes our sense of time for granted1 and only discusses its measurement4 #efa ,exner in ,hermann's ,hdbch4 d4 ,physiol41 ,bd4 ii1 ,thl4 ii1 p4 #bha4 ,richet in ,revue ,philosophique1 xxi1 #efh 7juin1 #ahhf74 ,see the next chapter1 pp4 #fdb-fdf4 #efb ,i have spoken of fading brain-processes alone1 but only for simplicity's sake4 ,dawning processes probably play as important a part in giving the feeling of duration to the specious present4 #efc ,reden 7,st4 ,petersburg1 #ahfd71 vol4 i1 pp4 #bee-bfh4 #efd ,psychology1 #ia4 #efe ,the patient cannot retain the image of an object more than a moment4 ,his memory is as short for sounds1 letters1 figures1 and printed words4 ,if we cover a written or printed word with a sheet of paper in which a little window has been cut1 so that only the first letter is visible through the window1 he pronounces this letter4 ,if1 then1 the sheet is moved so as to cover the first letter and make the second one visible1 he pronounces the second1 but forgets the first1 and cannot pronounce the first and second together4 ,and so forth to the end4 ,if he closes his eyes and draws his finger exploringly over a well-known object like a knife or key1 he cannot combine the separate impressions and recognize the object4 ,but if it is put into his hand so that he can simultaneously touch it with several fingers1 he names it without difficulty4 ,this patient has thus lost the capacity for grouping successive 444 impressions 444 into a whole and perceiving them as a whole4 7,grashey1 in ,archiv fr ,psychiatrie1 ,bd4 xvi1 pp4 #fgb-fgc47 ,it is hard to believe that in such a patient the time intuited was not clipped off like the impressions it held1 though perhaps not so much of it4 ,i have myself often noted a curious exaggeration of time-perspective at the moment of a falling asleep4 ,a person will be moving or doing something in the room1 and a certain stage of his act 7whatever it may be7 will be my last waking perception4 ,then a subsequent stage will wake me to a new perception4 ,the two stages of the act will not be more than a few seconds apart2 and yet it always seems to me as if1 between the earlier and the later one1 a long interval has passed away4 ,i conjecturally account for the phenomenon thus1 calling the two stages of the act a and b respectively3 ,were ,i awake1 a would leave a fading process in my sensorium which would overlap the process of b when the latter came1 and both would then appear in the same specious present1 a belonging to its earlier end4 ,but the sudden advent of the brain-change called sleep extinguishes a's fading process abruptly4 ,when b then comes and wakes me1 a comes back1 it is true1 but not as belonging to the specious present4 ,it has to be specially revoked in memory4 ,this mode of revocation usually characterizes long-past things--whence the illusion4 #eff ,again ,i omit the future1 merely for simplicity's sake4 ,,chapter ,,xvi4 ,,memory4 ,in the last chapter what concerned us was the direct intuition of time4 ,we found it limited to intervals of considerably less than a minute4 ,beyond its borders extends the immense region of conceived time1 past and future1 into one direction or another of which we mentally project all the events which we think of as real1 and form a systematic order of them by giving to each a date4 ,the relation of conceived to intuited time is just like that of the fictitious space pictured on the flat back-scene of a theatre to the actual space of the stage4 ,the objects painted on the former 7trees1 columns1 houses in a receding street1 etc47 carry back the series of similar objects solidly placed upon the latter1 and we think we see things in a continuous perspective1 when we really see thus only a few of them and imagine that we see the rest4 ,the chapter which lies before us deals with the way in which we paint the remote past1 as it were1 upon a canvas in our memory1 and yet often imagine that we have direct vision of its depths4 ,the stream of thought flows on2 but most of its segments fall into the bottomless abyss of oblivion4 ,of some1 no memory survives the instant of their passage4 ,of others1 it is confined to a few moments1 hours1 or days4 ,others1 again1 leave vestiges which are indestructible1 and by means of which they may be recalled as long as life endures4 ,can we explain these differences8 ,,primary ,,memory4 ,the first point to be noticed is that for a state of mind to survive in memory it must have endured1 for a certain length of time4 ,in other words1 it must be what ,i call a substantive state4 ,prepositional and conjunctival states of mind are not remembered as independent facts--we cannot recall just how we felt when we said 'how' or 'notwithstanding4' ,our consciousness of these transitive states is shut up to their own moment--hence one difficulty in introspective psychologizing4 ,any state of mind which is shut up to its own moment and fails to become an object for succeeding states of mind1 is as if it belonged to another stream of thought4 ,or rather1 it belongs only physically1 not intellectually1 to its own stream1 forming a bridge from one segment of it to another1 but not being appropriated inwardly by former segments or appearing as part of the empirical self1 in the manner explained in ,chapter ,x4 ,all the intellectual value for us of a state of mind depends on our after-memory of it4 ,only then is it combined in a system and knowingly made to contribute to a result4 ,only then does it count for us4 ,so that the ,,effective consciousness we have of our states is the after-consciousness2 and the more of this there is1 the more influence does the original state have1 and the more permanent a factor is it of our world4 ,an indelibly-imprinted pain may color a life2 but1 as ,professor ,richet says3 ,to suffer for only a hundredth of a second is not to suffer at all2 and for my part ,i would readily agree to undergo a pain1 however acute and intense it might be1 provided it should last only a hundredth of a second1 and leave after it neither reverberation nor recall4#efg ,not that a momentary state of consciousness need be practically resultless4 ,far from it3 such a state1 though absolutely unremembered1 might at its own moment determine the transition of our thinking in a vital way1 and decide our action irrevocably4#efh ,but the idea of it could not afterwards determine transition and action1 its content could not be conceived as one of the mind's permanent meanings3 that is all ,i mean by saying that its intellectual value lies in after-memory4 ,as a rule sensations outlast for some little time the objective stimulus which occasioned them4 ,this phenomenon is the ground of those 'after-images' which are familiar in the physiology of the sense-organs4 ,if we open our eyes instantaneously upon a scene1 and then shroud them in complete darkness1 it will be as if we saw the scene in ghostly light through the dark screen4 ,we can read off details in it which were unnoticed whilst the eyes were open4#efi ,in every sphere of sense1 an intermittent stimulus1 often enough repeated1 produces a continuous sensation4 ,this is because the after-image of the impression just gone by blends with the new impression coming in4 ,the effects of stimuli may thus be superposed upon each other many stages deep1 the total result in consciousness being an increase in the feeling's intensity1 and in all probability1 as we saw in the last chapter1 an elementary sense of the lapse of time 7see p4 #fce74 ,exner writes3 ,impressions to which we are inattentive leave so brief an image in the memory that it is usually overlooked4 ,when deeply absorbed1 we do not hear the clock strike4 ,but our attention may awake after the striking has ceased1 and we may then count off the strokes4 ,such examples are often found in daily life4 ,we can also prove the existence of this primary memory-image1 as it may be called1 in another person1 even when his attention is completely absorbed elsewhere4 ,ask someone1 e4g41 to count the lines of a printed page as fast as he can1 and whilst this is going on walk a few steps about the room4 ,then1 when the person has done counting1 ask him where you stood4 ,he will always reply quite definitely that you have walked4 ,analogous experiments may be made with vision4 ,this primary memory-image is1 whether attention have been turned to the impression or not1 an extremely lively one1 but is subjectively quite distinct from every sort of after-image or hallucination4444 ,it vanishes1 if not caught by attention1 in the course of a few seconds4 ,even when the original impression is attended to1 the liveliness of its image in memory fades fast4#egj ,the physical condition in the nerve-tissue of this primary memory is called by ,richet 'elementary memory4'#ega ,i much prefer to reserve the word memory for the conscious phenomenon4 ,what happens in the nerve-tissue is but an example of that plasticity or of semi-inertness1 yielding to change1 but not yielding instantly or wholly1 and never quite recovering the original form1 which1 in ,chapter ,v1 we saw to be the groundwork of habit4 ,elementary habit would be the better name for what ,professor ,richet means4 ,well1 the first manifestation of elementary habit is the slow dying away of an impressed movement on the neural matter1 and its first effect in consciousness is this so-called elementary memory4 ,but what elementary memory makes us aware of is the just past4 ,the objects we feel in this directly intuited past differ from properly recollected objects4 ,an object which is recollected1 in the proper sense of that term1 is one which has been absent from consciousness altogether1 and now revives anew4 ,it is brought back1 recalled1 fished up1 so to speak1 from a reservoir in which1 with countless other objects1 it lay buried and lost from view4 ,but an object of primary memory is not thus brought back2 it never was lost2 its date was never cut off in consciousness from that of the immediately present moment4 ,in fact it comes to us as belonging to the rearward portion of the present space of time1 and not to the genuine past4 ,in the last chapter we saw that the portion of time which we directly intuit has a breadth of several seconds1 a rearward and a forward end1 and may be called the specious present4 ,all stimuli whose first nerve-vibrations have not yet ceased seem to be conditions of our getting this feeling of the specious present4 ,they give rise to objects which appear to the mind as events just past4#egb ,when we have been exposed to an unusual stimulus for many minutes or hours1 a nervous process is set up which results in the haunting of consciousness by the impression for a long time afterwards4 ,the tactile and muscular feelings of a day of skating or riding1 after long disuse of the exercise1 will come back to us all through the night4 ,images of the field of view of the microscope will annoy the observer for hours after an unusually long sitting at the instrument4 ,a thread tied around the finger1 an unusual constriction in the clothing1 will feel as if still there1 long after they have been removed4 ,these revivals 7called phenomena of ,sinnesgedchtniss by the ,germans7 have something periodical in their nature4#egc ,they show that profound rearrangements and slow settlings into a new equilibrium are going on in the neural substance1 and they form the transition to that more peculiar and proper phenomenon of memory1 of which the rest of this chapter must treat4 ,the first condition which makes a thing susceptible of recall after it has been forgotten is that the original impression of it should have been prolonged enough to give rise to a recurrent image of it1 as distinguished from one of those primary after-images which very fleeting impressions may leave behind1 and which contain in themselves no guarantee that they will ever come back after having once faded away4#egd ,a certain length of stimulation seems demanded by the inertia of the nerve-substance4 ,exposed to a shorter influence1 its modification fails to 'set1' and it retains no effective tendency to fall again into the same form of vibration at which the original feeling was due4 ,this1 as ,i said at the outset1 may be the reason why only 'substantive' and not 'transitive' states of mind are as a rule recollected1 at least as independent things4 ,the transitive states pass by too quickly4 ,,analysis ,,of ,,the ,,phenomenon ,,of ,,memory4 ,memory proper1 or secondary memory as it might be styled1 is the knowledge of a former state of mind after it has already once dropped from consciousness2 or rather it is the knowledge of an event1 or fact1 of which meantime we have not been thinking1 with the additional consciousness that we have thought or experienced it before4 ,the first element which such a knowledge involves would seem to be the revival in the mind of an image or copy of the original event4#ege ,and it is an assumption made by many writers#egf that the revival of an image is all that is needed to constitute the memory of the original occurrence4 ,but such a revival is obviously not a memory1 whatever else it may be2 it is simply a duplicate1 a second event1 having absolutely no connection with the first event except that it happens to resemble it4 ,the clock strikes to-day2 it struck yesterday2 and may strike a million times ere it wears out4 ,the rain pours through the gutter this week2 it did so last week2 and will do so in scula sculorum4 ,but does the present clock-stroke become aware of the past ones1 or the present stream recollect the past stream1 because they repeat and resemble them8 ,assuredly not4 ,and let it not be said that this is because clock-strokes and gutters are physical and not psychical objects2 for psychical objects 7sensations for example7 simply recurring in successive editions will remember each other on that account no more than clock-strokes do4 ,no memory is involved in the mere fact of recurrence4 ,the successive editions of a feeling are so many independent events1 each snug in its own skin4 ,yesterday's feeling is dead and buried2 and the presence of to-day's is no reason why it should resuscitate4 ,a farther condition is required before the present image can be held to stand for a past original4 ,that condition is that the fact imaged be expressly referred to the past1 thought as in the past4 ,but how can we think a thing as in the past1 except by thinking of the past together with the thing1 and of the relation of the two8 ,and how can we think of the past8 ,in the chapter on ,time-perception we have seen that our intuitive or immediate consciousness of pastness hardly carries us more than a few seconds backward of the present instant of time4 ,remoter dates are conceived1 not perceived2 known symbolically by names1 such as 'last week1' '#ahej2' or thought of by events which happened in them1 as the year in which we attended such a school1 or met with such a loss4--,so that if we wish to think of a particular past epoch1 we must think of a name or other symbol1 or else of certain concrete events1 associated therewithal4 ,both must be thought of1 to think the past epoch adequately4 ,and to 'refer' any special fact to the past epoch is to think that fact with the names and events which characterize its date1 to think it1 in short1 with a lot of contiguous associates4 ,but even this would not be memory4 ,memory requires more than mere dating of a fact in the past4 ,it must be dated in my past4 ,in other words1 ,i must think that ,i directly experienced its occurrence4 ,it must have that 'warmth and intimacy' which were so often spoken of in the chapter on the ,self1 as characterizing all experiences 'appropriated' by the thinker as his own4 ,a general feeling of the past direction in time1 then1 a particular date conceived as lying along that direction1 and ,i defined by its name or phenomenal contents1 an event imagined as located therein1 and owned as part of my experience1--such are the elements of every act of memory4 ,it follows that what we began by calling the 'image1' or 'copy1' of the fact in the mind1 is really not there at all in that simple shape1 as a separate 'idea4' ,or at least1 if it be there as a separate idea1 no memory will go with it4 ,what memory goes with is1 on the contrary1 a very complex representation1 that of the fact to be recalled plus its associates1 the whole forming one 'object' 7as explained on page #bge1 ,chapter ,,ix71 known in one integral pulse of consciousness 7as set forth on pp4 #bgf ff47 and demanding probably a vastly more intricate brain-process than that on which any simple sensorial image depends4 ,most psychologists have given a perfectly clear analysis of the phenomenon we describe4 ,christian ,wolff1 for example1 writes3 ,suppose you have seen ,mevius in the temple1 but now afresh in ,titus' house4 ,i say you recognize ,mevius1 that is1 are conscious of having seen him before because1 although now you perceive him with your senses along with ,titus' house1 your imagination produces an image of him along with one of the temple1 and of the acts of your own mind reflecting on ,mevius in the temple4 ,hence the idea of ,mevius which is reproduced in sense is contained in another series of perceptions than that which formerly contained it1 and this difference is the reason why we are conscious of having had it before4444 ,for whilst now you see ,mevius in the house of ,titus1 your imagination places him in the temple1 and renders you conscious of the state of mind which you found in yourself when you beheld him there4 ,by this you know that you have seen him before1 that is1 you recognize him4 ,but you recognize him because his idea is now contained in another series of perceptions from that in which you first saw him4#egg ,similarly ,james ,mill writes3 ,in my remembrance of ,george ,,iii41 addressing the two houses of parliament1 there is1 first of all1 the mere idea1 or simple apprehension1 the conception1 as it is sometimes called1 of the objects4 ,there is combined with this1 to make it memory1 my idea of my having seen and heard those objects4 ,and this combination is so close that it is not in my power to separate them4 ,i cannot have the idea of ,george ,,iii43 his person and attitude1 the paper he held in his hand1 the sound of his voice while reading from it2 without having the other idea along with it1 that of my having been a witness of the scene4444 ,if this explanation of the case in which we remember sensations is understood1 the explanation of the case in which we remember ideas cannot occasion much of difficulty4 ,i have a lively recollection of ,polyphemus's cave1 and the actions of ,ulysses and the ,cyclops1 as described by ,homer4 ,in this recollection there is1 first of all1 the ideas1 or simple conceptions of the objects and acts2 and along with these ideas1 and so closely combined as not to be separable1 the idea of my having formerly had those same ideas4 ,and this idea of my having formerly had those ideas is a very complicated idea2 including the idea of myself of the present moment remembering1 and that of myself of the past moment conceiving2 and the whole series of the states of consciousness1 which intervened between myself remembering1 and myself conceiving4#egh ,memory is then the feeling of belief in a peculiar complex object2 but all the elements of this object may be known to other states of belief2 nor is there in the particular combination of them as they appear in memory anything so peculiar as to lead us to oppose the latter to other sorts of thought as something altogether sui generis1 needing a special faculty to account for it4 ,when later we come to our chapter on ,belief we shall see that any represented object which is connected either mediately or immediately with our present sensations or emotional activities tends to be believed in as a reality4 ,the sense of a peculiar active relation in it to ourselves is what gives to an object the characteristic quality of reality1 and a merely imagined past event differs from a recollected one only in the absence of this peculiar-feeling relation4 ,the electric current1 so to speak1 between it and our present self does not close4 ,but in their other determinations the re-recollected past and the imaginary past may be much the same4 ,in other words1 there is nothing unique in the object of memory1 and no special faculty is needed to account for its formation4 ,it is a synthesis of parts thought of as related together1 perception1 imagination1 comparison and reasoning being analogous syntheses of parts into complex objects4 ,the objects of any of these faculties may awaken belief or fail to awaken it2 the object of memory is only an object imagined in the past 7usually very completely imagined there7 to which the emotion of belief adheres4 ,,memory',s ,,causes4 ,such being the phenomenon of memory1 or the analysis of its object1 can we see how it comes to pass8 can we lay bare its causes8 ,its complete exercise presupposes two things3 #a7 ,the retention of the remembered fact2 #b7 ,its reminiscence1 recollection1 reproduction1 or recall4 ,now the cause both of retention and of recollection is the law of habit in the nervous system1 working as it does in the 'association of ideas4' ,associationists have long explained recollection by association4 ,james ,mill gives an account of it which ,i am unable to improve upon1 unless it might be by translating his word 'idea' into 'thing thought of1' or 'object1' as explained so often before4 ,there is1 he says1 a state of mind familiar to all men1 in which we are said to remember4 ,in this state it is certain we have not in the mind the idea which we are trying to have in it4#egi ,how is it1 then1 that we proceed in the course of our endeavor1 to procure its introduction into the mind8 ,if we have not the idea itself1 we have certain ideas connected with it4 ,we run over those ideas1 one after another1 in hopes that some one of them will suggest the idea we are in quest of2 and if any one of them does1 it is always one so connected with it as to call it up in the way of association4 ,i meet an old acquaintance1 whose name ,i do not remember1 and wish to recollect4 ,i run over a number of names1 in hopes that some of them may be associated with the idea of the individual4 ,i think of all the circumstances in which ,i have seen him engaged2 the time when ,i knew him1 the persons along with whom ,i knew him1 the things he did1 or the things he suffered2 and1 if ,i chance upon any idea with which the name is associated1 then immediately ,i have the recollection2 if not1 my pursuit of it is vain4#ehj ,there is another set of cases1 very familiar1 but affording very important evidence on the subject4 ,it frequently happens that there are matters which we desire not to forget4 ,what is the contrivance to which we have recourse for preserving the memory--that is1 for making sure that it will be called into existence1 when it is our wish that it should8 ,all men invariably employ the same expedient4 ,they endeavor to form an association between the idea of the thing to be remembered1 and some sensation1 or some idea1 which they know beforehand will occur at or near the time when they wish the remembrance to be in their minds4 ,if this association is formed1 and the association or idea with which it has been formed occurs2 the sensation1 or idea1 calls up the remembrance2 and the object of him who formed the association is attained4 ,to use a vulgar instance3 a man receives a commission from his friend1 and1 that he may not forget it1 ties a knot in his handkerchief4 ,how is this fact to be explained8 ,first of all1 the idea of the commission is associated with the making of the knot4 ,next1 the handkerchief is a thing which it is known beforehand will be frequently seen1 and of course at no great distance of time from the occasion on which the memory is desired4 ,the handkerchief being seen1 the knot is seen1 and this sensation recalls the idea of the commission1 between which and itself the association had been purposely formed4#eha ,in short1 we make search in our memory for a forgotten idea1 just as we rummage our house for a lost object4 ,in both cases we visit what seems to us the probable neighborhood of that which we miss4 ,we turn over the things under which1 or within which1 or alongside of which1 it may possibly be2 and if it lies near them1 it soon comes to view4 ,but these matters1 in the case of a mental object sought1 are nothing but its associates4 ,the machinery of recall is thus the same as the machinery of association1 and the machinery of association1 as we know1 is nothing but the elementary law of habit in the nerve-centres4 ,and this same law of habit is the machinery of retention also4 ,retention means liability to recall1 and it means nothing more than such liability4 ,the only proof of there being retention is that recall actually takes place4 ,the retention of an experience is1 in short1 but another name for the possibility of thinking it again1 or the tendency to think it again1 with its past surroundings4 ,whatever accidental cue may turn this tendency into an actuality1 the permanent ground of the tendency itself lies in the organized neural paths by which the cue calls up the experience on the proper occasion1 together with its past associates1 the sense that the self was there1 the belief that it really happened1 etc41 etc41 just as previously described4 ,when the recollection is of the 'ready' sort1 the resuscitation takes place the instant the occasion arises2 when it is slow1 resuscitation comes after delay4 ,but be the recall prompt or slow1 the condition which makes it possible at all 7or in other words1 the 'retention' of the experience7 is neither more nor less than the brain-paths which associate the experience with the occasion and cue of the recall4 ,when slumbering1 these paths are the condition of retention2 when active1 they are the condition of recall4 99 99 99 99 99 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #de4 ,a simple scheme will now make the whole cause of memory plain4 ,let n be a past event2 o its 'setting' 7concomitants1 date1 self present1 warmth and intimacy1 etc41 etc41 as already set forth72 and m some present thought or fact which may appropriately become the occasion of its recall4 ,let the nerve-centres1 active in the thought of m1 n1 and o1 be represented by ,m1 ,n1 and ,o1 respectively2 then the existence of the paths ,m--,n and ,n--,o will be the fact indicated by the phrase 'retention of the event n in the memory1' and the excitement of the brain along these paths will be the condition of the event n's actual recall4 ,the retention of n1 it will be observed1 is no mysterious storing up of an 'idea' in an unconscious state4 ,it is not a fact of the mental order at all4 ,it is a purely physical phenomenon1 a morphological feature1 the presence of these 'paths1' namely1 in the finest recesses of the brain's tissue4 ,the recall or recollection1 on the other hand1 is a psycho-physical phenomenon1 with both a bodily and a mental side4 ,the bodily side is the functional excitement of the tracts and paths in question2 the mental side is the conscious vision of the past occurrence1 and the belief that we experienced it before4 ,these habit-worn paths of association are a clear rendering of what authors mean by 'predispositions1' 'vestiges1' 'traces1' etc41 left in the brain by past experience4 ,most writers leave the nature of these vestiges vague2 few think of explicitly assimilating them to channels of association4 ,dr4 ,maudsley1 for example1 writes3 ,when an idea which we have once had is excited again1 there is a reproduction of the same nervous current1 with the conscious addition that it is a reproduction--it is the same idea plus the consciousness that it is the same4 ,the question then suggests itself1 ,what is the physical condition of this consciousness8 ,what is the modification of the anatomical substrata of fibres and cells1 or of their physiological activity1 which is the occasion of this plus element in the reproduced idea8 ,it may be supposed that the first activity did leave behind it1 when it subsided1 some after-effect1 some modification of the nerve-element1 whereby the nerve-circuit was disposed to fall again readily into the same action2 such disposition appearing in consciousness as recognition or memory4 ,memory is1 in fact1 the conscious phase of this physiological disposition when it becomes active or discharges its functions on the recurrence of the particular mental experience4 ,to assist our conception of what may happen1 let us suppose the individual nerve-elements to be endowed with their own consciousness1 and let us assume them to be1 as ,i have supposed1 modified in a certain way by the first experience2 it is hard to conceive that when they fall into the same action on another occasion they should not recognize or remember it2 for the second action is a reproduction of the first1 with the addition of what it contains from the after-effects of the first4 ,as we have assumed the process to be conscious1 this reproduction with its addition would be a memory or remembrance4#ehb ,in this passage ,dr4 ,maudsley seems to mean by the 'nerve-element1' or 'anatomical substratum of fibres and cells1' something that corresponds to the ,n of our diagram4 ,and the 'modification' he speaks of seems intended to be understood as an internal modification of this same particular group of elements4 ,now the slightest reflection will convince anyone that there is no conceivable ground for supposing that with the mere re-excitation of ,n there should arise the 'conscious addition' that it is a re-excitation4 ,the two excitations are simply two excitations1 their consciousnesses are two consciousnesses1 they have nothing to do with each other4 ,and a vague 'modification1' supposed to be left behind by the first excitation1 helps us not a whit4 ,for1 according to all analogy1 such a modification can only result in making the next excitation more smooth and rapid4 ,this might make it less conscious1 perhaps1 but could not endow it with any reference to the past4 ,the gutter is worn deeper by each successive shower1 but not for that reason brought into contact with previous showers4 ,psychology 7which ,dr4 ,maudsley in his next sentence says affords us not the least help in this matter7 puts us on the track of an at least possible brain-explanation4 ,as it is the setting o of the idea1 when it recurs1 which makes us conscious of it as past1 so it can be no intrinsic modification of the 'nerve-element' ,n which is the organic condition of memory1 but something extrinsic to it altogether1 namely1 its connections with those other nerve-elements which we called ,o--that letter standing in the scheme for the cerebral substratum of a great plexus of things other than the principal event remembered1 dates1 names1 concrete surroundings1 realized intervals1 and what not4 ,the 'modification' is the formation in the plastic nerve-substance of the system of associative paths between ,n and ,o4 ,the only hypothesis1 in short1 to which the facts of inward experience give countenance is that the brain-tracts excited by the event proper1 and those excited in its recall1 are in part different from each other4 ,if we could revive the past event without any associates we should exclude the possibility of memory1 and simply dream that we were undergoing the experience as if for the first time4#ehc ,wherever1 in fact1 the recalled event does appear without a definite setting1 it is hard to distinguish it from a mere creation of fancy4 ,but in proportion as its image lingers and recalls associates which gradually become more definite1 it grows more and more distinctly into a remembered thing4 ,for example1 ,i enter a friend's room and see on the wall a painting4 ,at first ,i have the strange1 wondering consciousness1 'surely ,i have seen that before1' but when or how does not become clear4 ,there only clings to the picture a sort of penumbra of familiarity1--when suddenly ,i exclaim3 ,i have it1 it is a copy of part of one of the ,fra ,angelicos in the ,florentine ,academy--,i recollect it there6 ,but the motive to the recall does not lie in the fact that the brain-tract now excited by the painting was once before excited in a similar way2 it lies simply and solely in the fact that with that brain-tract other tracts also are excited3 those which sustain my friend's room with all its peculiarities1 on the one hand2 those which sustain the mental image of the ,florence ,academy1 on the other hand1 with the circumstances of my visit there2 and finally those which make me 7more dimly7 think of the years ,i have lived through between these two times4 ,the result of this total brain-disturbance is a thought with a peculiar object1 namely1 that ,i who now stand here with this picture before me1 stood so many years ago in the ,florentine ,academy looking at its original4 ,m4 ,taine has described the gradual way in which a mental image develops into an object of memory1 in his usual vivid fashion4 ,he says3 ,i meet casually in the street a person whose appearance ,i am acquainted with1 and say to myself at once that ,i have seen him before4 ,instantly the figure recedes into the past1 and wavers about there vaguely1 without at once fixing itself in any spot4 ,it persists in me for some time1 and surrounds itself with new details4 ',when ,i saw him he was bare-headed1 with a working-jacket on1 painting in a studio2 he is so-and-so1 of such-and-such a street4 ,but when was it8 ,it was not yesterday1 nor this week1 nor recently4 ,i have it3 he told me that he was waiting for the first leaves to come out to go into the country4 ,it was before the spring4 ,but at what exact date8 ,i saw1 the same day1 people carrying branches in the streets and omnibuses3 it was ,palm ,sunday6' ,observe the travels of the internal figure1 its various shiftings to front and rear along the line of the past2 each of these mental sentences has been a swing of the balance4 ,when confronted with the present sensation and with the latent swarm of indistinct images which repeat our recent life1 the figure first recoiled suddenly to an indeterminate distance4 ,then1 completed by precise details1 and confronted with all the shortened images by which we sum up the proceedings of a day or a week1 it again receded beyond the present day1 beyond yesterday1 the day before1 the week1 still farther1 beyond the ill-defined mass constituted by our recent recollections4 ,then something said by the painter was recalled1 and it at once receded again beyond an almost precise limit1 which is marked by the image of the green leaves and denoted by the word spring4 ,a moment afterwards1 thanks to a new detail1 the recollection of the branches1 it has shifted again1 but forward this time1 not backward2 and1 by a reference to the calendar1 is situated at a precise point1 a week further back than ,easter1 and five weeks nearer than the carnival1 by the double effect of the contrary impulsions1 pushing it1 one forward and the other backward1 and which are1 at a particular moment1 annulled by one another4#ehd ,,the ,,conditions ,,of ,,goodness ,,in ,,memory4 ,the remembered fact being n1 then1 the path ,n--,o is what arouses for n its setting when it is recalled1 and makes it other than a mere imagination4 ,the path ,m--,n1 on the other hand1 gives the cue or occasion of its being recalled at all4 ,memory being this altogether conditioned on brain-paths1 its excellence in a given individual will depend partly on the number and partly on the persistence of these paths4 ,the persistence or permanence of the paths is a physiological property of the brain-tissue of the individual1 whilst their number is altogether due to the facts of his mental experience4 ,let the quality of permanence in the paths be called the native tenacity1 or physiological retentiveness4 ,this tenacity differs enormously from infancy to old age1 and from one person to another4 ,some minds are like wax under a seal--no impression1 however disconnected with others1 is wiped out4 ,others1 like a jelly1 vibrate to every touch1 but under usual conditions retain no permanent mark4 ,these latter minds1 before they can recollect a fact1 must weave it into their permanent stores of knowledge4 ,they have no desultory memory4 ,those persons1 on the contrary1 who retain names1 dates and addresses1 anecdotes1 gossip1 poetry1 quotations1 and all sorts of miscellaneous facts1 without an effort1 have desultory memory in a high degree1 and certainly owe it to the unusual tenacity of their brain-substance for any path once formed therein4 ,no one probably was ever effective on a voluminous scale without a high degree of this physiological retentiveness4 ,in the practical as in the theoretic life1 the man whose acquisitions stick is the man who is always achieving and advancing1 whilst his neighbors1 spending most of their time in relearning what they once knew but have forgotten1 simply hold their own4 ,a ,charlemagne1 a ,luther1 a ,leibnitz1 a ,walter ,scott1 any example1 in short1 of your quarto or folio editions of mankind1 must needs have amazing retentiveness of the purely physiological sort4 ,men without this retentiveness may excel in the quality of their work at this point or at that1 but will never do such mighty sums of it1 or be influential contemporaneously on such a scale4#ehe ,but there comes a time of life for all of us when we can do no more than hold our own in the way of acquisitions1 when the old paths fade as fast as the new ones form in our brain1 and when we forget in a week quite as much as we can learn in the same space of time4 ,this equilibrium may last many1 many years4 ,in extreme old age it is upset in the reverse direction1 and forgetting prevails over acquisition or rather there is no acquisition4 ,brain-paths are so transient that in the course of a few minutes of conversation the same question is asked and its answer forgotten half a dozen times4 ,then the superior tenacity of the paths formed in childhood becomes manifest3 the dotard will retrace the facts of his earlier years after he has lost all those of later date4 ,so much for the permanence of the paths4 ,now for their number4 ,it is obvious that the more there are of such paths as ,m--,n in the brain1 and the more of such possible cues or occasions for the recall of n in the mind1 the prompter and surer1 on the whole1 the memory of n will be1 the more frequently one will be reminded of it1 the more avenues of approach to it one will possess4 ,in mental terms1 the more other facts a fact is associated with in the mind1 the better possession of it our memory retains4 ,each of its associates becomes a hook to which it hangs1 a means to fish it up by when sunk beneath the surface4 ,together1 they form a network of attachments by which it is woven into the entire tissue of our thought4 ,the 'secret of a good memory' is thus the secret of forming diverse and multiple associations with every fact we care to retain4 ,but this forming of associations with a fact1 what is it but thinking about the fact as much as possible8 ,briefly1 then1 of two men with the same outward experiences and the same amount of mere native tenacity1 the one who ,,thinks over his experiences most1 and weaves them into systematic relations with each other1 will be the one with the best memory4 ,we see examples of this on every hand4 ,most men have a good memory for facts connected with their own pursuits4 ,the college athlete who remains a dunce at his books will astonish you by his knowledge of men's 'records' in various feats and games1 and will be a walking dictionary of sporting statistics4 ,the reason is that he is constantly going over these things in his mind1 and comparing and making series of them4 ,they form for him not so many odd facts1 but a concept-system--so they stick4 ,so the merchant remembers prices1 the politician other politicians' speeches and votes1 with a copiousness which amazes outsiders1 but which the amount of thinking they bestow on these subjects easily explains4 ,the great memory for facts which a ,darwin and a ,spencer reveal in their books is not incompatible with the possession on their part of a brain with only a middling degree of physiological retentiveness4 ,let a man early in life set himself the task of verifying such a theory as that of evolution1 and facts will soon cluster and cling to him like grapes to their stem4 ,their relations to the theory will hold them fast2 and the more of these the mind is able to discern1 the greater the erudition will become4 ,meanwhile the theorist may have little1 if any1 desultory memory4 ,unutilizable facts may be unnoted by him and forgotten as soon as heard4 ,an ignorance almost as encyclopdic as his erudition may coexist with the latter1 and hide1 as it were1 in the interstices of its web4 ,those who have had much to do with scholars and savants will readily think of examples of the class of mind ,i mean4 ,in a system1 every fact is connected with every other by some thought-relation4 ,the consequence is that every fact is retained by the combined suggestive power of all the other facts in the system1 and forgetfulness is well-nigh impossible4 ,the reason why cramming is such a bad mode of study is now made clear4 ,i mean by cramming that way of preparing for examinations by committing 'points' to memory during a few hours or days of intense application immediately preceding the final ordeal1 little or no work having been performed during the previous course of the term4 ,things learned thus in a few hours1 on one occasion1 for one purpose1 cannot possibly have formed many associations with other things in the mind4 ,their brain-processes are led into by few paths1 and are relatively little liable to be awakened again4 ,speedy oblivion is the almost inevitable fate of all that is committed to memory in this simple way4 ,whereas1 on the contrary1 the same materials taken in gradually1 day after day1 recurring in different contexts1 considered in various relations1 associated with other external incidents1 and repeatedly reflected on1 grow into such a system1 form such connections with the rest of the mind's fabric1 lie open to so many paths of approach1 that they remain permanent possessions4 ,this is the intellectual reason why habits of continuous application should be enforced in educational establishments4 ,of course there is no moral turpitude in cramming4 ,if it led to the desired end of secure learning it would be infinitely the best method of study4 ,but it does not2 and students themselves should understand the reason why4 ,,one',s ,,native ,,retentiveness ,,is ,,unchangeable4 ,it will now appear clear that all improvement of the memory lies in the line of ,,elaborating ,,the ,,associates of each of the several things to be remembered4 ,no amount of culture would seem capable of modifying a man's ,,general retentiveness4 ,this is a physiological quality1 given once for all with his organization1 and which he can never hope to change4 ,it differs no doubt in disease and health2 and it is a fact of observation that it is better in fresh and vigorous hours than when we are fagged or ill4 ,we may say1 then1 that a man's native tenacity will fluctuate somewhat with his hygiene1 and that whatever is good for his tone of health will also be good for his memory4 ,we may even say that whatever amount of intellectual exercise is bracing to the general tone and nutrition of the brain will also be profitable to the general retentiveness4 ,but more than this we cannot say2 and this1 it is obvious1 is far less than most people believe4 ,it is1 in fact1 commonly thought that certain exercises1 systematically repeated1 will strengthen1 not only a man's remembrance of the particular facts used in the exercises1 but his faculty for remembering facts at large4 ,and a plausible case is always made out by saying that practice in learning words by heart makes it easier to learn new words in the same way4#ehf ,if this be true1 then what ,i have just said is false1 and the whole doctrine of memory as due to 'paths' must be revised4 ,but ,i am disposed to think the alleged fact untrue4 ,i have carefully questioned several mature actors on the point1 and all have denied that the practice of learning parts has made any such difference as is alleged4 ,what it has done for them is to improve their power of studying a part systematically4 ,their mind is now full of precedents in the way of intonation1 emphasis1 gesticulation2 the new words awaken distinct suggestions and decisions2 are caught up1 in fact1 into a pre-existing net-work1 like the merchant's prices1 or the athlete's store of 'records1' and are recollected easier1 although the mere native tenacity is not a whit improved1 and is usually1 in fact1 impaired by age4 ,it is a case of better remembering by better thinking4 ,similarly when schoolboys improve by practice in ease of learning by heart1 the improvement will1 ,i am sure1 be always found to reside in the mode of study of the particular piece 7due to the greater interest1 the greater suggestiveness1 the generic similarity with other pieces1 the more sustained attention1 etc41 etc471 and not at all to any enhancement of the brute retentive power4 ,the error ,i speak of pervades an otherwise useful and judicious book1 ',how to ,strengthen the ,memory1' by ,dr4 ,holbrook of ,new ,york4#ehg ,the author fails to distinguish between the general physiological retentiveness and the retention of particular things1 and talks as if both must be benefited by the same means4 ,i am now treating1 he says1 a case of loss of memory in a person advanced in years1 who did not know that his memory had failed most remarkably till ,i told him of it4 ,he is making vigorous efforts to bring it back again1 and with partial success4 ,the method pursued is to spend two hours daily1 one in the morning and one in the evening1 in exercising this faculty4 ,the patient is instructed to give the closest attention to all that he learns1 so that it shall be impressed on his mind clearly4 ,he is asked to recall every evening all the facts and experiences of the day1 and again the next morning4 ,every name heard is written down and impressed on his mind clearly1 and an effort made to recall it at intervals4 ,ten names from among public men are ordered to be committed to memory every week4 ,a verse of poetry is to be learned1 also a verse from the ,bible1 daily4 ,he is asked to remember the number of the page in any book where any interesting fact is recorded4 ,these and other methods are slowly resuscitating a failing memory4#ehh ,i find it very hard to believe that the memory of the poor old gentleman is a bit the better for all this torture except in respect of the particular facts thus wrought into it1 the occurrences attended to and repeated on those days1 the names of those politicians1 those ,bible verses1 etc41 etc4 ,in another place ,dr4 ,holbrook quotes the account given by the late ,thurlow ,weed1 journalist and politician1 of his method of strengthening his memory4 ,my memory was a sieve4 ,i could remember nothing4 ,dates1 names1 appointments1 faces--everything escaped me4 ,i said to my wife1 ',catherine1 ,i shall never make a successful politician1 for ,i cannot remember1 and that is a prime necessity of politicians4' ,my wife told me ,i must train my memory4 ,so when ,i came home that night1 ,i sat down alone and spent fifteen minutes trying silently to recall with accuracy the principal events of the day4 ,i could remember but little at first2 now ,i remember that ,i could not then recall what ,i had for breakfast4 ,after a few days' practice ,i found ,i could recall more4 ,events came back to me more minutely1 more accurately1 and more vividly than at first4 ,after a fortnight or so of this1 ,catherine said1 ',why don't you relate to me the events of the day1 instead of recalling them to yourself8 ,it would be interesting1 and my interest in it would be a stimulus to you4' ,having great respect for my wife's opinion1 ,i began a habit of oral confession1 as it were1 which was continued for almost fifty years4 ,every night1 the last thing before retiring1 ,i told her everything ,i could remember that had happened to me or about me during the day4 ,i generally recalled the dishes ,i had had for breakfast1 dinner1 and tea2 the people ,i had seen and what they had said2 the editorials ,i had written for my paper1 giving her a brief abstract of them4 ,i mentioned all the letters ,i had sent and received1 and the very language used1 as nearly as possible2 when ,i had walked or ridden--,i told her everything that had come within my observation4 ,i found ,i could say my lessons better and better every year1 and instead of the practice growing irksome1 it became a pleasure to go over again the events of the day4 ,i am indebted to this discipline for a memory of somewhat unusual tenacity1 and ,i recommend the practice to all who wish to store up facts1 or expect to have much to do with influencing men4#ehi ,i do not doubt that ,mr4 ,weed's practical command of his past experiences was much greater after fifty years of this heroic drill than it would have been without it4 ,expecting to give his account in the evening1 he attended better to each incident of the day1 named and conceived it differently1 set his mind upon it1 and in the evening went over it again4 ,he did more thinking about it1 and it stayed with him in consequence4 ,but ,i venture to affirm pretty confidently 7although ,i know how foolish it often is to deny a fact on the strength of a theory7 that the same matter1 casually attended to and not thought about1 would have stuck in his memory no better at the end than at the beginning of his years of heroic self-discipline4 ,he had acquired a better method of noting and recording his experiences1 but his physiological retentiveness was probably not a bit improved4#eij ,all improvement of memory consists1 then1 in the improvement of one's habitual methods of recording facts4 ,in the traditional terminology methods are divided into the mechanical1 the ingenious1 and the judicious4 ,the mechanical methods consist in the intensification1 prolongation1 and repetition of the impression to be remembered4 ,the modern method of teaching children to read by blackboard work1 in which each word is impressed by the four-fold channel of eye1 ear1 voice1 and hand1 is an example of an improved mechanical method of memorizing4 ,judicious methods of remembering things are nothing but logical ways of conceiving them and working them into rational systems1 classifying them1 analyzing them into parts1 etc41 etc4 ,all the sciences are such methods4 ,of ingenious methods1 many have been invented1 under the name of technical memories4 ,by means of these systems it is often possible to retain entirely disconnected facts1 lists of names1 numbers1 and so forth1 so multitudinous as to be entirely unrememberable in a natural way4 ,the method consists usually in a framework learned mechanically1 of which the mind is supposed to remain in secure and permanent possession4 ,then1 whatever is to be remembered is deliberately associated by some fanciful analogy or connection with some part of this framework1 and this connection thenceforward helps its recall4 ,the best known and most used of these devices is the figure-alphabet4 ,to remember numbers1 e4g41 a figure-alphabet is first formed1 in which each numerical digit is represented by one or more letters4 ,the number is then translated into such letters as will best make a word1 if possible a word suggestive of the object to which the number belongs4 ,the word will then be remembered when the numbers alone might be forgotten4 ,the most common figure-alphabet is this3 #a1 #b1 #c1 #d1 #e1 #f1 #g1 #h1 #i1 #j4 t1 n1 m1 r1 l1 sh1 g1 f1 b1 s1 d1 j1 k1 v1 p1 c1 ch1 c1 z1 g1 qu4 ,to briefly show its use1 suppose it is desired to fix #aadb feet in a second as the velocity of sound3 t1 t1 r1 n1 are the letters and order required4 ,fill up with vowels forming a phrase1 like 'tight run' and connect it by some such flight of the imagination as that if a man tried to keep up with the velocity of sound1 he would have a tight run4 ,when you recall this a few days later great care must be taken not to get confused with the velocity of light1 nor to think he had a hard run which would be #cjjj feet too fast4#eia ,dr4 ,pick and others use a system which consists in linking together any two ideas to be remembered by means of an intermediate idea which will be suggested by the first and suggest the second1 and so on through the list4 ,thus1 ,let us suppose that we are to retain the following series of ideas3 garden1 hair1 watchman1 philosophy1 copper1 etc4444 ,we can combine the ideas in this manner3 garden1 plant1 hair of plant--hair2 hair1 bonnet1 watchman2--watchman1 wake1 study1 philosophy2 philosophy1 chemistry1 copper2 etc4 etc4 7,pick47#eib 99 99 99 99 99 ,it is matter of popular knowledge that an impression is remembered the better in proportion as it is #a7 ,more recent2 #b7 ,more attended to2 and #c7 ,more often repeated4 ,the effect of recency is all but absolutely constant4 ,of two events of equal significance the remoter one will be the one more likely to be forgotten4 ,the memories of childhood which persist in old age can hardly be compared with the events of the day or hour which are forgotten1 for these latter are trivial once-repeated things1 whilst the childish reminiscences have been wrought into us during the retrospective hours of our entire intervening life4 ,other things equal1 at all times of life recency promotes memory4 ,the only exception ,i can think of is the unaccountable memory of certain moments of our childhood1 apparently not fitted by their intrinsic interest to survive1 but which are perhaps the only incidents we can remember out of the year in which they occurred4 ,everybody probably has isolated glimpses of certain hours of his nursery life1 the position in which he stood or sat1 the light of the room1 what his father or mother said1 etc4 ,these moments so oddly selected for immunity from the tooth of time probably owe their good fortune to historical peculiarities which it is now impossible to trace4 ,very likely we were reminded of them again soon after they occurred2 that became a reason why we should again recollect them1 etc41 so that at last they became ingrained4 ,the attention which we lend to an experience is proportional to its vivid or interesting character2 and it is a notorious fact that what interests us most vividly at the time is1 other things equal1 what we remember best4 ,an impression may be so exciting emotionally as almost to leave a scar upon the cerebral tissues2 and thus originates a pathological delusion4 ,a woman attacked by robbers takes all the men whom she sees1 even her own son1 for brigands bent on killing her4 ,another woman sees her child run over by a horse2 no amount of reasoning1 not even the sight of the living child1 will persuade her that he is not killed4 ,a woman called 'thief' in a dispute remains convinced that every one accuses her of stealing 7,esquirol74 ,another1 attacked with mania at the sight of the fires in her street during the ,commune1 still after six months sees in her delirium flames on every side about her 7,luys71 etc41 etc4#eic ,on the general effectiveness of both attention and repetition ,i cannot do better than copy what ,m4 ,taine has written3 ,if we compare different sensations1 images1 or ideas1 we find that their aptitudes for revival are not equal4 ,a large number of them are obliterated1 and never reappear through life2 for instance1 ,i drove through ,paris a day or two ago1 and though ,i saw plainly some sixty or eighty new faces1 ,i cannot now recall any one of them2 some extraordinary circumstance1 a fit of delirium1 or the excitement of haschish would be necessary to give them a chance of revival4 ,on the other hand1 there are sensations with a force of revival which nothing destroys or decreases4 ,though1 as a rule1 time weakens and impairs our strongest sensations1 these reappear entire and intense1 without having lost a particle of their detail1 or any degree of their force4 ,m4 ,brierre de ,boismont1 having suffered when a child from a disease of the scalp1 asserts that 'after fifty-five years have elapsed he can still feel his hair pulled out under the treatment of the skull-cap4'--,for my own part1 after thirty years1 ,i remember feature for feature the appearance of the theatre to which ,i was taken for the first time4 ,from the third row of boxes1 the body of the theatre appeared to me an immense well1 red and flaming1 swarming with heads2 below1 on the right1 on a narrow floor1 two men and a woman entered1 went out1 and re-entered1 made gestures1 and seemed to me like lively dwarfs3 to my great surprise1 one of these dwarfs fell on his knees1 kissed the lady's hand1 then hid behind a screen2 the other1 who was coming in1 seemed angry1 and raised his arm4 ,i was then seven1 ,i could understand nothing of what was going on2 but the well of crimson velvet was so crowded1 gilded1 and bright1 that after a quarter of an hour ,i was1 as it were1 intoxicated1 and fell asleep4 ,every one of us may find similar recollections in his memory1 and may distinguish in them a common character4 ,the primitive impression has been accompanied by an extraordinary degree of attention1 either as being horrible or delightful1 or as being new1 surprising1 and out of proportion to the ordinary run of our life2 this it is we express by saying that we have been strongly impressed2 that we were absorbed1 that we could not think of anything else2 that our other sensations were effaced2 that we were pursued all the next day by the resulting image2 that it beset us1 that we could not drive it away2 that all distractions were feeble beside it4 ,it is by force of this disproportion that impressions of childhood are so persistent2 the mind being quite fresh1 ordinary objects and events are surprising4 ,at present1 after seeing so many large halls and full theatres1 it is impossible for me1 when ,i enter one1 to feel swallowed up1 engulfed1 and1 as it were1 lost in a huge dazzling well4 ,the medical man of sixty1 who has experienced much suffering1 both personally and in imagination1 would be less upset now by a surgical operation than when he was a child4 ,whatever may be the kind of attention1 voluntary or involuntary1 it always acts alike2 the image of an object or event is capable of revival1 and of complete revival1 in proportion to the degree of attention with which we have considered the object or event4 ,we put this rule in practice at every moment in ordinary life4 ,if we are applying ourselves to a book or are in lively conversation1 while an air is being sung in the adjoining room1 we do not retain it2 we know vaguely that there is singing going on1 and that is all4 ,we then stop our reading or conversation1 we lay aside all internal preoccupations and external sensations which our mind or the outer world can throw in our way2 we close our eyes1 we cause a silence within and about us1 and1 if the air is repeated1 we listen4 ,we say then that we have listened with all our ears1 that we have applied our whole minds4 ,if the air is a fine one1 and has touched us deeply1 we add that we have been transported1 uplifted1 ravished1 that we have forgotten the world and ourselves2 that for some minutes our soul was dead to all but sounds4444 ,this exclusive momentary ascendency of one of our states of mind explains the greater durability of its aptitude for revival and for more complete revival4 ,as the sensation revives in the image1 the image reappears with a force proportioned to that of the sensation4 ,what we meet with in the first state is also to be met with in the second1 since the second is but a revival of the first4 ,so1 in the struggle for life1 in which all our images are constantly engaged1 the one furnished at the outset with most force retains in each conflict1 by the very law of repetition which gives it being1 the capacity of treading down its adversaries2 this is why it revives1 incessantly at first1 then frequently1 until at last the laws of progressive decay1 and the continual accession of new impressions take away its preponderance1 and its competitors1 finding a clear field1 are able to develop in their turn4 ,a second cause of prolonged revivals is repetition itself4 ,every one knows that to learn a thing we must not only consider it attentively1 but consider it repeatedly4 ,we say as to this in ordinary language1 that an impression many times renewed is imprinted more deeply and exactly on the memory4 ,this is how we contrive to retain a language1 airs of music1 passages of verse or prose1 the technical terms and propositions of a science1 and still more so the ordinary facts by which our conduct is regulated4 ,when1 from the form and color of a currant-jelly1 we think of its taste1 or1 when tasting it with our eyes shut1 we imagine its red tint and the brilliancy of a quivering slice1 the images in our mind are brightened by repetition4 ,whenever we eat1 or drink1 or walk1 or avail ourselves of any of our senses1 or commence or continue any action whatever1 the same thing happens4 ,every man and every animal thus possesses at every moment of life a certain stock of clear and easily reviving images1 which had their source in the past in a confluence of numerous experiences1 and are now fed by a flow of renewed experiences4 ,when ,i want to go from the ,tuileries to the ,panthon1 or from my study to the dining-room1 ,i foresee at every turn the colored forms which will present themselves to my sight2 it is otherwise in the case of a house where ,i have spent two hours1 or of a town where ,i have stayed three days2 after ten years have elapsed the images will be vague1 full of blanks1 sometimes they will not exist1 and ,i shall have to seek my way or shall lose myself4--,this new property of images is also derived from the first4 ,as every sensation tends to revive in its image1 the sensation twice repeated will leave after it a double tendency1 that is1 provided the attention be as great the second time as the first2 usually this is not the case1 for1 the novelty diminishing1 the interest diminishes2 but if other circumstances renew the interest1 or if the will renovates the attention1 the incessantly increasing tendency will incessantly increase the chances of the resurrection and integrity of the image4#eid ,if a phenomenon is met with1 however1 too often1 and with too great a variety of contexts1 although its image is retained and reproduced with correspondingly great facility1 it fails to come up with any one particular setting1 and the projection of it backwards to a particular past date consequently does not come about4 ,we recognize but do not remember it--its associates form too confused a cloud4 ,no one is said to remember1 says ,mr4 ,spencer1 that the object at which he looks has an opposite side2 or that a certain modification of the visual impression implies a certain distance2 or that the thing he sees moving about is a live animal4 ,to ask a man whether he remembers that the sun shines1 that fire burns1 that iron is hard1 would be a misuse of language4 ,even the almost fortuitous connections among our experiences cease to be classed as memories when they have become thoroughly familiar4 ,though1 on hearing the voice cf some unseen person slightly known to us1 we say we recollect to whom the voice belongs1 we do not use the same expression respecting the voices of those with whom we live4 ,the meanings of words which in childhood have to be consciously recalled seem in adult life to be immediately present4#eie ,these are cases where too many paths1 leading to too diverse associates1 block each other's way1 and all that the mind gets along with its object is a fringe of felt familiarity or sense that there are associates4 ,a similar result comes about when a definite setting is only nascently aroused4 ,we then feel that we have seen the object already1 but when or where we cannot say1 though we may seem to ourselves to be on the brink of saying it4 ,that nascent cerebral excitations can effect consciousness with a sort of sense of the imminence of that which stronger excitations would make us definitely feel1 is obvious from what happens when we seek to remember a name4 ,it tingles1 it trembles on the verge1 but does not come4 ,just such a tingling and trembling of unrecovered associates is the penumbra of recognition that may surround any experience and make it seem familiar1 though we know not why4#eif ,there is a curious experience which everyone seems to have had--the feeling that the present moment in its completeness has been experienced before--we were saying just this thing1 in just this place1 to just these people1 etc4 ,this 'sense of pre-existence' has been treated as a great mystery and occasioned much speculation4 ,dr4 ,wigan considered it due to a dissociation of the action of the two hemispheres1 one of them becoming conscious a little later than the other1 but both of the same fact4#eig ,i must confess that the quality of mystery seems to me a little strained4 ,i have over and over again in my own case succeeded in resolving the phenomenon into a case of memory1 so indistinct that whilst some past circumstances are presented again1 the others are not4 ,the dissimilar portions of the past do not arise completely enough at first for the date to be identified1 ,all we get is the present scene with a general suggestion of pastness about it4 ,that faithful observer1 ,prof4 ,lazarus1 interprets the phenomenon in the same way2#eih and it is noteworthy that just as soon as the past context grows complete and distinct the emotion of weirdness fades from the experience4 ,,exact ,,measurements ,,of ,,memory have recently been made in ,germany4 ,professor ,ebbinghaus1 in a really heroic series of daily observations of more than two years' duration1 examined the powers of retention and reproduction4 ,he learned lists of meaningless syllables by heart1 and tested his recollection of them from day to day4 ,he could not remember more than #g after a single reading4 ,it took1 however1 #af readings to remember #ab1 #dd readings to remember #bd1 and #ee readings to remember #bf syllables1 the moment of 'remembering' being here reckoned as the first moment when the list could be recited without a fault4#eii ,when a #af-syllable list was read over a certain number of times on one day1 and then studied on the day following until remembered1 it was found that the number of seconds saved in the study on the second day was proportional to the number of readings on the first--proportional1 that is1 within certain rather narrow limits1 for which see the text4#fjj ,no amount of repetition spent on nonsense-verses over a certain length enabled ,dr4 ,ebbinghaus to retain them without error for #bd hours4 ,in forgetting such things as these lists of syllables1 the loss goos on very much more rapidly at first than later on4 ,he measured the loss by the number of seconds required to relearn the list after it had been once learned4 ,roughly speaking1 if it took a thousand seconds to learn the list1 and five hundred to relearn it1 the loss between the two learnings would have been one half4 ,measured in this way1 full half of the forgetting seems to occur within the first half-hour1 whilst only four fifths is forgotten at the end of a month4 ,the nature of this result might have been anticipated1 but hardly its numerical proportions4 ,dr4 ,ebbinghaus says3 ,the initial rapidity1 as well as the final slowness1 as these were ascertained under certain experimental conditions and for a particular individual1444 may well surprise us4 ,an hour after the work of learning had ceased1 forgetting was so far advanced that more than half of the original work had to be applied again before the series of syllables could once more be reproduced4 ,eight hours later two thirds of the original labor had to be applied4 ,gradually1 however1 the process of oblivion grew slower1 so that even for considerable stretches of time the losses were but barely ascertainable4 ,after #bd hours a third1 after #f days a fourth1 and after a whole month a good fifth of the original labor remain in the shape of its after-effects1 and made the relearning by so much the more speedy4#fja ,but the most interesting result of all those reached by this author relates to the question whether ideas are recalled only by those that previously came immediately before them1 or whether an idea can possibly recall another idea with which it was never in immediate contact1 without passing through the intermediate mental links4 ,the question is of theoretic importance with regard to the way in which the process of 'association of ideas' must be conceived2 and ,dr4 ,ebbinghaus's attempt is as successful as it is original1 in bringing two views1 which seem at first sight inaccessible to proof1 to a direct practical test1 and giving the victory to one of them4 ,his experiments conclusively show that an idea is not only 'associated' directly with the one that follows it1 and with the rest through that1 but that it is directly associated with all that are near it1 though in unequal degrees4 ,he first measured the time needed to impress on the memory certain lists of syllables1 and then the time needed to impress lists of the same syllables with gaps between them4 ,thus1 representing the syllables by numbers1 if the first list were #a1 #b1 #c1 #d1444 #ac1 #ad1 #ae1 #af1 the second would be #a1 #c1 #e1444 #ae1 #b1 #d1 #f1444 #af1 and so forth1 with many variations4 ,now1 if #a and #c in the first list were learned in that order merely by #a calling up #b1 and by #b calling up #c1 leaving out the #b ought to leave #a and #c with no tie in the mind2 and the second list ought to take as much time in the learning as if the first list had never been heard of4 ,if1 on the other hand1 #a has a direct influence on #c as well as on #b1 that influence should be exerted even when #b is dropped out2 and a person familiar with the first list ought to learn the second one more rapidly than otherwise he could4 ,this latter case is what actually occurs2 and ,dr4 ,ebbinghaus has found that syllables originally separated by as many as seven intermediaries still reveal1 by the increased rapidity with which they are learned in order1 the strength of the tie that the original learning established between them1 over the heads1 so to speak1 of all the rest4 ,these last results ought to make us careful1 when we speak of nervous 'paths1' to use the word in no restricted sense4 ,they add one more fact to the set of facts which prove that association is subtler than consciousness1 and that a nerve-process may1 without producing consciousness1 be effective in the same way in which consciousness would have seemed to be effective if it had been there4#fjb ,evidently the path from #a to #c 7omitting #b from consciousness7 is facilitated1 broadened perhaps1 by the old path from #a to #c through #b--only the component which shoots round through this latter way is too feeble to let #b be thought as a distinct object4 99 99 99 99 99 ,mr4 ,wolfe1 in his experiments on recognition1 used vibrating metal tongues4 ,these tongues gave tones differing by #b vibrations only in the two lower octaves1 and by #d vibrations in the three higher octaves4 ,in the first series of experiments a tone was selected1 and1 after sounding it for one second1 a second tone was sounded1 which was either the same as the first1 or different from it by #d1 #h1 or #ab vibrations in different series4 ,the person experimented upon was to answer whether the second tone was the same as the first1 thus showing that he recognized it1 or whether it was different1 and1 if so1 whether it was higher or lower4 ,of course1 the interval of time between the two tones was an important factor4 ,the proportionate number of correct judgments1 and the smallness of the difference of the vibration-rates of the two tones1 would measure the accuracy of the tone-memory4 ,it appeared that one could tell more readily when the two tones were alike than when they were different1 although in both cases the accuracy of the memory was remarkably good4444 ,the main point is the effect of the time-interval between the tone and its reproduction4 ,this was varied from #a second to #cj seconds1 or even to #fj seconds or #abj seconds in some experiments4 ,the general result is1 that the longer the interval1 the smaller are the chances that the tone will be recognized2 and this process of forgetting takes place at first very rapidly1 and then more slowly4444 ,this law is subject to considerable variations1 one of which seems to be constant and is peculiar2 namely1 there seems to be a rhythm in the memory itself1 which1 after falling1 recovers slightly1 and then fades out again4#fjc ,this periodical renewal of acoustic memory would seem to be an important element in the production of the agreeableness of certain rates of recurrence in sound4 ,,forgetting4 ,in the practical use of our intellect1 forgetting is as important a function as recollecting4 ,locke says1 in a memorable page of his dear old book3 ,the memory of some men1 it is true1 is very tenacious1 even to a miracle2 but yet there seems to be a constant decay of all our ideas1 even of those which are struck deepest1 and in minds the most retentive3 so that if they be not sometimes renewed by repeated exercise of the senses1 or reflection on those kinds of objects which at first occasioned them1 the print wears out1 and at last there remains nothing to be seen4 ,thus the ideas1 as well as children1 of our youth1 often die before us2 and our minds represent to us those tombs to which we are fast approaching2 where1 though the brass and marble remain1 yet the inscriptions are effaced by time1 and the imagery moulders away4 ,the pictures drawn in our minds are laid in fading colors2 and1 if not sometimes refreshed1 vanish and disappear4 ,how much the constitution of our bodies1 and the make of our animal spirits1 are concerned in this2 and whether the temper of the brain makes this difference1 that in some it retains the characters drawn on it like marble1 in others like freestone1 and in others little better than sand1 ,i shall not here inquire1 though it may seem probable that the constitution of the body does sometimes influence the memory2 since we oftentimes find a disease quite strip the mind of all its ideas1 and the flames of a fever in a few days calcine all those images to dust and confusion1 which seemed to be as lasting as if graven in marble4#fjd ,this peculiar mixture of forgetting with our remembering is but one instance of our mind's selective activity4 ,selection is the very keel on which our mental ship is built4 ,and in this case of memory its utility is obvious4 ,if we remembered everything1 we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing4 ,it would take as long for us to recall a space of time as it took the original time to elapse1 and we should never get ahead with our thinking4 ,all recollected times undergo1 accordingly1 what ,m4 ,ribot calls foreshortening2 and this foreshortening is due to the omission of an enormous number of the facts which filled them4 ,as fast as the present enters into the past1 our states of consciousness disappear and are obliterated4 ,passed in review at a few days' distance1 nothing or little of them remains3 most of them have made shipwreck in that great nonentity from which they never more will emerge1 and they have carried with them the quantity of duration which was inherent in their being4 ,this deficit of surviving conscious states is thus a deficit in the amount of represented time4 ,the process of abridgment1 of foreshortening1 of which we have spoken1 presupposes this deficit4 ,if1 in order to reach a distant reminiscence1 we had to go through the entire series of terms which separate it from our present selves1 memory would become impossible on account of the length of the operation4 ,we thus reach the paradoxical result that one condition of remembering is that we should forget4 ,without totally forgetting a prodigious number of states of consciousness1 and momentarily forgetting a large number1 we could not remember at all4 ,oblivion1 except in certain cases1 is thus no malady of memory1 but a condition of its health and its life4#fje ,there are many irregularities in the process of forgetting which are as yet unaccounted for4 ,a thing forgotten on one day will be remembered on the next4 ,something we have made the most strenuous efforts to recall1 but all in vain1 will1 soon after we have given up the attempt1 saunter into the mind1 as ,emerson somewhere says1 as innocently as if it had never been sent for4 ,experiences of bygone date will revive after years of absolute oblivion1 often as the result of some cerebral disease or accident which seems to develop latent paths of association1 as the photographer's fluid develops the picture sleeping in the collodion film4 ,the oftenest quoted of these cases is ,coleridge's3 ,in a ,roman ,catholic town in ,germany1 a young woman1 who could neither read nor write1 was seized with a fever1 and was said by the priests to be possessed of a devil1 because she was heard talking ,latin1 ,greek1 and ,hebrew4 ,whole sheets of her ravings were written out1 and found to consist of sentences intelligible in themselves1 but having slight connection with each other4 ,of her ,hebrew sayings1 only a few could be traced to the ,bible1 and most seemed to be in the ,rabbinical dialect4 ,all trick was out of the question2 the woman was a simple creature2 there was no doubt as to the fever4 ,it was long before any explanation1 save that of demoniacal possession1 could be obtained4 ,at last the mystery was unveiled by a physician1 who determined to trace back the girl's history1 and who1 after much trouble1 discovered that at the age of nine she had been charitably taken by an old ,protestant pastor1 a great ,hebrew scholar1 in whose house she lived till his death4 ,on further inquiry it appeared to have been the old man's custom for years to walk up and down a passage of his house into which the kitchen opened1 and to read to himself with a loud voice out of his books4 ,the books were ransacked1 and among them were found several of the ,greek and ,latin ,fathers1 together with a collection of ,rabbinical writings4 ,in these works so many of the passages taken down at the young woman's bedside were identified that there could be no reasonable doubt as to their source4#fjf ,hypnotic subjects as a rule forget all that has happened in their trance4 ,but in a succeeding trance they will often remember the events of a past one4 ,this is like what happens in those cases of 'double personality' in which no recollection of one of the lives is to be found in the other4 ,we have already seen in an earlier chapter that the sensibility often differs from one of the alternate personalities to another1 and we have heard ,m4 ,pierre ,janet's theory that ansthesias carry amnesias with them 7see above1 pp4 #che ff474 ,in certain cases this is evidently so2 the throwing of certain functional brain-tracts out of gear with others1 so as to dissociate their consciousness from that of the remaining brain1 throws them out for both sensorial and ideational service4 ,m4 ,janet proved in various ways that what his patients forgot when ansthetic they remembered when the sensibility returned4 ,for instance1 he restored their tactile sense temporarily by means of electric currents1 passes1 etc41 and then made them handle various objects1 such as keys and pencils1 or make particular movements1 like the sign of the cross4 ,the moment the ansthesia returned they found it impossible to recollect the objects or the acts4 ',they had had nothing in their hands1 they had done nothing1' etc4 ,the next day1 however1 sensibility being again restored by similar processes1 they remembered perfectly the circumstance1 and told what they had handled or had done4 ,all these pathological facts are showing us that the sphere of possible recollection may be wider than we think1 and that in certain matters apparent oblivion is no proof against possible recall under other conditions4 ,they give no countenance1 however1 to the extravagant opinion that nothing we experience can be absolutely forgotten4 ,in real life1 in spite of occasional surprises1 most of what happens actually is forgotten4 ,the only reasons for supposing that if the conditions were forthcoming everything would revive are of a transcendental sort4 ,sir ,wm4 ,hamilton quotes and adopts them from the ,german writer ,schmid4 ,knowledge being a 'spontaneous self-energy' on the part of the mind1 this energy being once determined1 it is natural that it should persist1 until again annihilated by other causes4 ,this annihilation would be the case1 were the mind merely passive4444 ,but the mental activity1 the act of knowledge1 of which ,i now speak1 is more than this2 it is an energy of the self-active power of a subject one and indivisible3 consequently a part of the ego must be detached or annihilated1 if a cognition once existent be again extinguished4 ,hence it is that the problem most difficult of solution is not1 how a mental activity endures1 but how it ever vanishes4#fjg ,those whom such an argument persuades may be left happy with their belief4 ,other positive argument there is none1 none certainly of a physiological sort4#fjh 99 99 99 99 99 ,when memory begins to decay1 proper names are what go first1 and at all times proper names are harder to recollect than those of general properties and classes of things4 ,this seems due to the fact that common qualities and names have contracted an infinitely greater number of associations in our mind than the names of most of the persons whom we know4 ,their memory is better organized4 ,proper names as well organized as those of our family and friends are recollected as well as those of any other objects4#fji ',organization' means numerous associations2 and the more numerous the associations1 the greater the number of paths of recall4 ,for the same reason adjectives1 conjunctions1 prepositions1 and the cardinal verbs1 those words1 in short1 which form the grammatical framework of all our speech1 are the very last to decay4 ,kussmaul#faj makes the following acute remark on this subject3 ,the concreter a conception is1 the sooner is its name forgotten4 ,this is because our ideas of persons and things are less strongly bound up with their names than with such abstractions as their business1 their circumstances1 their qualities4 ,we easily can imagine persons and things without their names1 the sensorial image of them being more important than that other symbolic image1 their name4 ,abstract conceptions1 on the other hand1 are only acquired by means of the words which alone serve to confer stability upon them4 ,this is why verbs1 adjectives1 pronouns1 and still more adverbs1 prepositions1 and conjunctions are more intimately connected with our thinking than are substantives4 ,the disease called ,aphasia1 of which a little was said in ,chapter ,,ii1 has let in a flood of light on the phenomenon of ,memory1 by showing the number of ways in which the use of a given object1 like a word1 may be lost by the mind4 ,we may lose our acoustic idea or our articulatory idea of it2 neither without the other will give us proper command of the word4 ,and if we have both1 but have lost the paths of association between the brain-centres which support the two1 we are in as bad a plight4 ',ataxic' and 'amnesic' aphasia1 'word-deafness1' and 'associative aphasia' are all practical losses of word-memory4 ,we have thus1 as ,m4 ,ribot says1 not memory so much as memories4#faa ,the visual1 the tactile1 the muscular1 the auditory memory may all vary independently of each other in the same individual2 and different individuals may have them developed in different degrees4 ,as a rule1 a man's memory is good in the departments in which his interest is strong2 but those departments are apt to be those in which his discriminative sensibility is high4 ,a man with a bad ear is not likely to have practically a good musical memory1 or a purblind person to remember visual appearances well4 ,in a later chapter we shall see illustrations of the differences in men's imagining power4#fab ,it is obvious that the machinery of memory must be largely determined thereby4 ,mr4 ,galton1 in his work on ,english ,men of ,science1#fac has given a very interesting collation of cases showing individual variations in the type of memory1 where it is strong4 ,some have it verbal4 ,others have it good for facts and figures1 others for form4 ,most say that what is to be remembered must first be rationally conceived and assimilated4#fad 99 99 99 99 99 ,there is an interesting fact connected with remembering1 which1 so far as ,i know1 ,mr4 ,r4 ,verdon was the first writer expressly to call attention to4 ,we can set our memory as it were to retain things for a certain time1 and then let them depart4 ,individuals often remember clearly and well up to the time when they have to use their knowledge1 and then1 when it is no longer required1 there follows a rapid and extensive decay of the traces4 ,many schoolboys forget their lessons after they have said them1 many barristers forget details got up for a particular case4 ,thus a boy learns thirty lines of ,homer1 says them perfectly1 and then forgets them so that he could not say five consecutive lines the next morning1 and a barrister may be one week learned in the mysteries of making cog-wheels1 but in the next he may be well acquainted with the anatomy of the ribs instead4#fae ,the rationale of this fact is obscure2 and the existence of it ought to make us feel how truly subtle are the nervous processes which memory involves4 ,mr4 ,verdon adds that ,when the use of a record is withdrawn1 and attention withdrawn from it1 and we think no more about it1 we know that we experience a feeling of relief1 and we may thus conclude that energy is in some way liberated4 ,if the 444 attention is not withdrawn1 so that we keep the record in mind1 we know that this feeling of relief does not take place4444 ,also we are well aware1 not only that after this feeling of relief takes place1 the record does not seem so well conserved as before1 but that we have real difficulty in attempting to remember it4 ,this shows that we are not as entirely unconscious of a topic as we think1 during the time in which we seem to be merely retaining it subject to recall4 ,practically1 says ,mr4 ,verdon1 we sometimes keep a matter in hand not exactly by attending to it1 but by keeping our attention referred to something connected with it from time to time4 ,translating this into the language of physiology1 we mean that by referring attention to a part within1 or closely connected with1 the system of traces paths required to be remembered1 we keep it well fed1 so that the traces are preserved with the utmost delicacy4 ,this is perhaps as near as we can get to an explanation4 ,setting the mind to remember a thing involves a continual minimal irradiation of excitement into paths which lead thereto1 involves the continued presence of the thing in the 'fringe' of our consciousness4 ,letting the thing go involves withdrawal of the irradiation1 unconsciousness of the thing1 and1 after a time1 obliteration of the paths4 ,illustration3 ,,fig4 #df4 ,a curious peculiarity of our memory is that things are impressed better by active than by passive repetition4 ,i mean that in learning by heart 7for example71 when we almost know the piece1 it pays better to wait and recollect by an effort from within1 than to look at the book again4 ,if we recover the words in the former way1 we shall probably know them the next time2 if in the latter way1 we shall very likely need the book once more4 ,the learning by heart means the formation of paths from a former set to a later set of cerebral word-processes3 call #a and #b in the diagram the processes in question2 then when we remember by inward effort1 the path is formed by discharge from #a to #b1 just as it will afterwards be used4 ,but when we excite #b by the eye1 although the path #a--b doubtless is then shot through also1 the phenomenon which we are discussing shows that the direct discharge from #a into #b1 unaided by the eyes1 ploughs the deeper and more permanent groove4 ,there is1 moreover1 a greater amount of tension accumulated in the brain before the discharge from #a to #b1 when the latter takes place unaided by the eye4 ,this is proved by the general feeling of strain in the effort to remember #b2 and this also ought to make the discharge more violent and the path more deep4 ,a similar reason doubtless accounts for the familiar fact that we remember our own theories1 our own discoveries1 combinations1 inventions1 in short whatever 'ideas' originate in our own brain1 a thousand times better than exactly similar things which are communicated to us from without4 ,a word1 in closing1 about the metaphysics involved in remembering4 ,according to the assumptions of this book1 thoughts accompany the brain's workings1 and those thoughts are cognitive of realities4 ,the whole relation is one which we can only write down empirically1 confessing that no glimmer of explanation of it is yet in sight4 ,that brains should give rise to a knowing consciousness at all1 this is the one mystery which returns1 no matter of what sort the consciousness and of what sort the knowledge may be4 ,sensations1 aware of mere qualities1 involve the mystery as much as thoughts1 aware of complex systems1 involve it4 ,to the platonizing tradition in philosophy1 however1 this is not so4 ,sensational consciousness is something quasi-material1 hardly cognitive1 which one need not much wonder at4 ,relating consciousness is quite the reverse1 and the mystery of it is unspeakable4 ,professor ,ladd1 for example1 in his usually excellent book1#faf after well showing the matter-of-fact dependence of retention and reproduction on brain-paths1 says3 ,in the study of perception psycho-physics can do much towards a scientific explanation4 ,it can tell what qualities of stimuli produce certain qualities of sensations1 it can suggest a principle relating the quantity of the stimuli to the intensity of the sensation2 it can investigate the laws under which1 by combined action of various excitations1 the sensations are combined 8 into presentations of sense2 it can show how the time-relations of the sensations and percepts in consciousness correspond to the objective relations in time of the stimulations4 ,but for that spiritual activity which actually puts together in consciousness the sensations1 it cannot even suggest the beginning of a physical explanation4 ,moreover1 no cerebral process can be conceived of1 which--in case it were known to exist--could possibly be regarded as a fitting basis for this unifying actus of mind4 ,thus also1 and even more emphatically1 must we insist upon the complete inability of physiology to suggest an explanation for conscious memory1 in so far as it is memory--that is1 in so far as it most imperatively calls for explanation4444 ,the very essence of the act of memory consists in the ability to say3 ,this after-image is the image of a percept ,i had a moment since2 or this image of memory is the image of the percept ,i had at a certain time--,i do not remember precisely how long since4 ,it would1 then1 be quite contrary to the facts to hold that1 when an image of memory appears in consciousness1 it is recognized as belonging to a particular original percept on account of its perceived resemblance to this percept4 ,the original percept does not exist and will never be reproduced4 ,even more palpably false and absurd would it be to hold that any similarity of the impressions or processes in end organs or central organs explains the act of conscious memory4 ,consciousness knows nothing of such similarity2 knows nothing even of the existence of nervous impressions and processes4 ,moreover1 we could never know two impressions or processes that are separated in time to be similar1 without involving the same inexplicable act of memory4 ,it is a fact of consciousness on which all possibility of connected experience and of recorded and cumulative human knowledge is dependent that certain phases or products of consciousness appear with a claim to stand for 7to represent7#fag past experiences to which they are regarded as in some respect similar4 ,it is this peculiar claim in consciousness which constitutes the essence of an act of memory2 it is this which makes the memory wholly inexplicable as a mere persistence or recurrence of similar impressions4 ,it is this which makes conscious memory a spiritual phenomenon1 the explanation of which1 as arising out of nervous processes and conditions1 is not simply undiscovered in fact1 but utterly incapable of approach by the imagination4 ,when1 then1 we speak of a physical basis of memory1 recognition must be made of the complete inability of science to suggest any physical process which can be conceived of as correlated with that peculiar and mysterious actus of the mind1 connecting its present and its past1 which constitutes the essence of memory4 ,this passage seems to me characteristic of the reigning half-way modes of thought4 ,it puts the difficulties in the wrong places4 ,at one moment it seems to admit with the cruder sensationalists that the material of our thoughts is independent sensations reproduced1 and that the 'putting together' of these sensations would be knowledge1 if it could only be brought about1 the only mystery being as to the what 'actus' can bring it about4 ,at another moment it seems to contend that even this sort of 'combining' would not be knowledge1 because certain of the elements connected must 'claim to represent or stand for' past originals1 which is incompatible with their being mere images revived4 ,the result is various confused and scattered mysteries and unsatisfied intellectual desires4 ,but why not 'pool' our mysteries into one great mystery1 the mystery that brain-processes occasion knowledge at all8 ,it is surely no different mystery to feel myself by means of one brain-process writing at this table now1 and by means of a different brain-process a year hence to remember myself writing4 ,all that psychology can do is to seek to determine what the several brain-processes are2 and this1 in a wretchedly imperfect way1 is what such writings as the present chapter have begun to do4 ,but of 'images reproduced1' and 'claiming to represent1' and 'put together by a unifying actus1' ,i have been silent1 because such expressions either signify nothing1 or they are only roundabout ways of simply saying that the past is known when certain brain-conditions are fulfilled1 and it seems to me that the straightest and shortest way of saying that is the best4 ,for a history of opinion about ,memory1 and other bibliographic references1 ,i must refer to the admirable little monograph on the subject by ,mr4 ,w4 ,h4 ,burnham in the ,american ,journal of ,psychology1 vols4 i and ii4 ,useful books are3 ,d4 ,kay's ,memory1 ,what ,it ,is1 and ,how to ,improve ,it 7#ahhh72 and ,f4 ,fauth's ,das ,gedchtniss1 ,studie zu einer ,pdagogik1 etc41 #ahhh4 ,,end ,,of ,,vol4 ,i4 ,,footnotes3 #efg ,l',homme et l',intelligence1 p4 #cb4 #efh ,professor ,richet has therefore no right to say1 as he does in another place 7,revue ,philosophique1 xxi1 #egj73 ,without memory no conscious sensation1 without memory no consciousness4 ,all he is entitled to say is3 ,without memory no consciousness known outside of itself4 ,of the sort of consciousness that is an object for later states1 and becomes as it were permanent1 he gives a good example3 ,who of us1 alas6 has not experienced a bitter and profound grief1 the immense laceration cause by the death of some cherished fellow-being8 ,well1 in these great griefs the present endures neither for a minute1 for an hour1 nor for a day1 but for weeks and months4 ,the memory of the cruel moment will not efface itself from consciousness4 ,it disappears not1 but remains living1 present1 coexisting with the multitude of other sensations which are juxtaposed in consciousness alongside of this one persistent emotion which is felt always in the present tense4 ,a long time is needed ere we can attain to forgetting it1 ere we can make it enter into the past4 ,hret lateri letalis arundo4 7,ibid4 #ehc47 #efi ,this is the primary positive after-image4 ,according to ,helmholtz1 one third of a second is the most favorable length of exposure to the light for producing it4 ,longer exposure1 complicated by subsequent admission of light to the eye1 results in the ordinary negative and complementary after-images1 with their changes1 which may 7if the original impression was brilliant and the fixation long7 last for many minutes4 ,fechner gives the name of memory-after-images 7,psychophysik1 ii1 #dib7 to the instantaneous positive effects1 and distinguishes them from ordinary after images by the following characters3 #a7 ,their originals must have been attended to1 only such parts of a compound original as have been attended to appearing4 ,this is not the case in common visual after-images4 #b7 ,the strain of attention towards them is inward1 as in ordinary remembering1 not outward1 as in observing a common after-image4 #c7 ,a short fixation of the original is better for the memory-after-image1 a long one for the ordinary after-image4 #d7 ,the colors of the memory-after-image are never complementary of those of the original4 #egj ,hermann's ,hdbch4 ii1 #b4 #bhb4 #ega ,rev4 ,philos41 #efb4 #egb ,richet says3 ,the present has a certain duration1 a variable duration1 sometimes a rather long one1 which comprehends all the time occupied by the after-reverberation retentissement1 after-image of a sensation4 ,for example1 if the reverberation of an electric shock within our nerves lasts ten minutes1 for that electric shock there is a present of ten minutes4 ,on the other hand1 a feebler sensation will have a shorter present4 ,but in every case1 for a conscious sensation ,i should say for a remembered sensation to occur1 there must be a present of a certain duration1 of a few seconds at least4 ,we have seen in the last chapter that it is hard to trace the backward limits of this immediately intuited duration1 or specious present4 ,the figures which ,m4 ,richet supposes appear to be considerably too large4 #egc ,cf4 ,fechner1 ,psychophysik1 ii1 #dii4 #egd ,the primary after-image itself cannot be utilized if the stimulus is too brief4 ,mr4 ,cattell found 7,psychologische ,studien1 iii1 p4 #ic ff47 that the color of a light must fall upon the eye for a period varying from #j4jjbge to #j4jjf of a second1 in order to be recognized for what it is4 ,letters of the alphabet and familiar words require from #j4jjjge to #j4jjage sec4--truly an interval extremely short4 ,some letters1 ,e for example1 are harder than others4 ,in #ahga ,helmholtz and ,baxt had ascertained that when an impression was immediately followed by another1 the latter quenched the former and prevented it from being known to later consciousness4 ,the first stimulus was letters of the alphabet1 the second a bright white disk4 ,with an interval of #j4jjdh sec4 between the two excitations ,i copy here the abstract in ,ladd's ,physiological ,psychology1 p4 #dhj1 the disk appeared as scarcely a trace of a weak shimmer2 with an interval of #j4jjif sec41 letters appeared in the shimmer--one or two which could be partially recognized when the interval increased to #j4jadd sec4 ,when the interval was made #j4jaib sec4 the objects were a little more clearly discerned2 at #j4jjccf sec4 four letters could be well recognized2 at #j4jdcb sec41 five letters2 and at #j4jebh sec4 all the letters could be read4 7,pflger's ,archiv1 iv1 #cbe ff47 #ege ,when the past is recalled symbolically1 or conceptually only1 it is true that no such copy need be there4 ,in no sort of conceptual knowledge is it requisite that definitely resembling images be there 7cf4 pp4 #dga ff474 ,but as all conceptual knowledge stands for intuitive knowledge1 and terminates therein1 ,i abstract from this complication1 and confine myself to those memories in which the past is directly imaged in the mind1 or1 as we say1 intuitively known4 #egf ,e4g4 ,spencer1 ,psychology1 i1 p4 #ddh4 ,how do the believers in the sufficiency of the 'image' formulate the cases where we remember that something did not happen---that we did not wind our watch1 did not lock the door1 etc48 ,it is very hard to account for these memories of omission4 ,the image of winding the watch is just as present to my mind now when ,i remember that ,i did not wind it as if ,i remembered that ,i did4 ,it must be a difference in the mode of feeling the image which leads me to such different conclusions in the two cases4 ,when ,i remember that ,i did wind it1 ,i feel it grown together with its associates of past date and place4 ,when ,i remember that ,i did not1 it keeps aloof2 the associates fuse with each other1 but not with it4 ,this sense of fusion1 of the belonging together of things1 is a most subtle relation2 the sense of non-fusion is an equally subtle one4 ,both relations demand most complex mental processes to know them1 processes quite different from that mere presence or absence of an image which does such service in the cruder books4 #egg ,psychologia ,empirica1 #agd4 #egh ,analysis1 i1 #ccj-a4 ,mill believed that the various things remembered1 the self included1 enter consciousness in the form of separate ideas1 but so rapidly that they are 'all clustered into one4' ,ideas called up in close conjunction 444 assume1 even when there is the greatest complexity1 the appearance1 not of many ideas1 but of one 7vol4 i1 p4 #abc74 ,this mythology does not impair the accuracy of his description of memory's object4 #egi ,compare1 however1 p4 #bea1 ,chapter ,,ix4 #ehj ,professor ,bain adds1 in a note to this passage of ,mill's3 ,this process seems best expressed by laying down a law of ,compound or ,composite ,association1 under which a plurality of feeble links of connection may be a substitute for one powerful and self-sufficing link4 #eha ,analysis1 chap4 x4 #ehb ,h4 ,maudsley1 ,the ,physiology of ,mind 7,london1 #ahgf71 p4 #eac4 #ehc ,the only fact which might plausibly be alleged against this view is the familiar one that we may feel the lapse of time in an experience so monotonous that its earlier portions can have no 'associates' different from its later ones4 ,sit with closed eyes1 for example1 and steadily pronounce some vowel-sound1 thus1 a---a---a---a---a--- 444 thinking only of the sound4 ,nothing changes during the time occupied by the experiment1 and yet at the end of it you know that its beginning was far away4 ,i think1 however1 that a close attention to what happens during this experiment shows that it does not violate in the least the conditions of recall laid down in the text2 and that if the moment to which we mentally hark back lie many seconds behind the present instant1 it always has different associates by which we define its date4 ,thus it was when ,i had just breathed out1 or in2 or it was the 'first moment' of the performance1 the one 'preceded by silence2' or it was 'one very close to that2' or it was 'one when we were looking forward instead of back1 as now2' or it is simply represented by a number and conceived symbolically with no definite image of its date4 ,it seems to me that ,i have no really intuitive discrimination of the different past moments after the experience has gone on some little time1 but that back of the 'specious present' they all fuse into a single conception of the kind of thing that has been going on1 with a more or less clear sense of the total time it has lasted1 this latter being based on an automatic counting of the successive pulses of thought by which the process is from moment to moment recognized as being always the same4 ,within the few seconds which constitute the specious present there is an intuitive perception of the successive moments4 ,but these moments1 of which we have a primary memory-image1 are not properly recalled from the past1 our knowledge of them is in no way analogous to a memory properly so called4 ,cf4 supra1 p4 #fdf4 #ehd ,on ,intelligence1 i1 #beh-i4 #ehe ,not that mere native tenacity will make a man great4 ,it must be coupled with great passions and great intellect besides4 ,imbeciles sometimes have extraordinary desultory memory4 ,drobisch describes 7,empirische ,psychol41 p4 #ie7 the case of a young man whom he examined4 ,he had with difficulty been taught to read and speak4 ,but if two or three minutes were allowed him to peruse an octavo page1 he then could spell the single words out from his memory as well as if the book lay open before him4444 ,that there was no deception ,i could test by means of a new ,latin law-dissertation which had just come into my hands1 which he never could have seen1 and of which both subject and language were unknown to him4 ,he read off mentally many lines1 skipping about too1 of the page which had been given him to see1 no worse than if the experiment had been made with a child's story4 ,drobisch describes this case as if it were one of unusual persistence in the visual image 'primary memory1' vide supra1 p4 #fdc4 ,but he adds that the youth 'remembered his pages a long time4' ,in the ,journal of ,speculative ,philosophy for ,jan4 #ahga 7vi1 #f7 is an account by ,mr4 ,w4 ,d4 ,henkle 7together with the stock classic examples of preternatural memory7 of an almost blind ,pennsylvania farmer who could remember the day of the week on which any date had fallen for forty-two years past1 and also the kind of weather it was1 and what he was doing on each of more than fifteen thousand days4 ,pity that such a magnificent faculty as this could not have found more worthy application6 ,what these cases show is that the mere organic retentiveness of a man need bear no definite relation to his other mental powers4 ,men of the highest general powers will often forget nothing1 however insignificant4 ,one of the most generally accomplished men ,i know has a memory of this sort4 ,he never keeps written note of anything1 yet is never at a loss for a fact which he has once heard4 ,he remembers the old addresses of all his ,new ,york friends1 living in numbered streets1 addresses which they themselves have long since moved away from and forgotten4 ,he says that he should probably recognize an individual fly1 if he had seen him thirty years previous--he is1 by the way1 an entomologist4 ,as an instance of his desultory memory1 he was introduced to a certain colonel at a club4 ,the conversation fell upon the signs of age in man4 ,the colonel challenged him to estimate his age4 ,he looked at him1 and gave the exact day of his birth1 to the wonder of all4 ,but the secret of this accuracy was that1 having picked up some days previously an army-register1 he had idly turned over its list of names1 with dates of birth1 graduation1 promotions1 etc41 attached1 and when the colonel's name was mentioned to him at the club1 these figures1 on which he had not bestowed a moment's thought1 involuntarily surged up in his mind4 ,such a memory is of course a priceless boon4 #ehf ,cf4 ,ebbinghaus3 ,ueber das ,gedchtniss 7#ahhe71 pp4 #fg1 #de4 ,one may hear a person say3 ,i have a very poor memory1 because ,i was never systematically made to learn poetry at school4 #ehg ,how to ,strengthen the ,memory2 or1 ,the ,natural and ,scientific ,methods of ,never ,forgetting4 ,by ,m4 ,h4 ,holbrook1 ,m4,d4 ,new ,york 7no date74 #ehh ,page #ci4 #ehi ,op4 cit4 p4 #ajj4 #eij ,in order to test the opinion so confidently expressed in the text1 ,i have tried to see whether a certain amount of daily training in learning poetry by heart will shorten the time it takes to learn an entirely different kind of poetry4 ,during eight successive days ,i learned #aeh lines of ,victor ,hugo's ',satyr4' ,the total number of minutes required for this was #aca #e_/f--;it should be said that ,i had learned nothing by heart for many years4 ,i then1 working for twenty-odd minutes daily1 learned the entire first book of ,paradise ,lost1 occupying #ch days in the process4 ,after this training ,i went back to ,victor ,hugo's poem1 and found that #aeh additional lines 7divided exactly as on the former occasion7 took me #aea #a_/b minutes4 ,in other words1 ,i committed my ,victor ,hugo to memory before the training at the rate of a line in #ej seconds1 after the training at the rate of a line in #eg seconds1 just the opposite result from that which the popular view would lead one to expect4 ,but as ,i was perceptibly fagged with other work at the time of the second batch of ,victor ,hugo1 ,i thought that might explain the retardation2 so ,i persuaded several other persons to repeat the test4 ,dr4 ,w4 ,h4 ,burnham learned #af lines of ,in ,memoriam for #h days2 time1 #ad-ag minutes--daily average #ad #c_/d4 ,he then trained himself on ,schiller's translation of the second book of the neid into ,german1 #af lines daily for #bf consecutive days4 ,on returning to the same quantity of ,in ,memoriam again1 he found his maximum time #bj minutes1 minimum #aj1 average #ad #bg_/dh4 ,as he feared the outer conditions might not have been as favorable this time as the first1 he waited a few days and got conditions as near as possible identical4 ,the result was1 minimum time #h minutes2 maximum #ai #a_/b2 average #ad #c_/dh4 ,mr4 ,e4 ,s4 ,drown tested himself on ,virgil for #af days1 then again for #af days1 after training himself on ,scott4 ,average time before training1 #ac minutes #bf seconds2 after training1 #ab minutes #af seconds4 ,sixteen days is too long for the test1 it gives time for training on the test-verse4 ,mr4 ,c4 ,h4 ,baldwin took #aj lines for #ae days as his test1 trained himself on #dej lines 'of an entirely different verse1' and then took #ae days more of the former verse #aj lines a day4 ,average result3 #c minutes #da seconds before1 #c minutes #b seconds after1 training4 ,same criticism as before4 ,mr4 ,e4 ,a4 ,pease tested himself on ,idyls of the ,king1 and trained himself on ,paradise ,lost4 ,average result of #f days each time3 #ad minutes #cd seconds before1 #ad minutes #ee seconds after1 training4 ,mr4 ,burnham having suggested that to eliminate facilitating effect entirely from the training verses one ought to test one's self la ,ebbinghaus on series of nonsense-syllables1 having no analogy whatever with any system of expressive verses1 ,i induced two of my students to perform that experiment also4 ,the record is unfortunately lost2 but the result was a very considerable shortening of the average time of the second series of nonsense-syllables1 learned after training4 ,this seems to me1 however1 more to show the effects of rapid habituation to the nonsense-verses themselves than those of the poetry used between them4 ,but ,i mean to prosecute the experiments farther1 and will report in another place4 ,one of my students having quoted a clergyman of his acquaintance who had marvellously improved by practice his power of learning his sermons by heart1 ,i wrote to the gentleman for corroboration4 ,i append his reply1 which shows that the increased facility is due rather to a change in his methods of learning than to his native retentiveness having grown by exercise3 ,as for memory1 mine has improved year by year1 except when in ill-health1 like a gymnast's muscle4 ,before twenty it took three or four days to commit an hour-long sermon2 after twenty1 two days1 one day1 half a day1 and now one slow analytic1 very attentive or adhesive reading does it4 ,but memory seems to me the most physical of intellectual powers4 ,bodily ease and freshness have much to do with it4 ,then there is a great difference of facility in method4 ,i used to commit sentence by sentence4 ,now ,i take the idea of the whole1 then its leading divisions1 then its subdivisions1 then its sentences4 #eia ,e4 ,pick3 ,memory and its ,doctors 7#ahhh71 p4 #g4 #eib ,this system is carried out in great detail in a book called ',memory ,training1' by ,wm4 ,l4 ,evans 7#ahhi74 #eic ,paulhan1 ,l',activit mental1 et les lments de l',esprit 7#ahhi74 p4 #gj4 #eid ,on ,intelligence1 i1 #gg-hb4 #eie ,psychology1 #bja4 #eif ,professor ,hffding considers that the absence of contiguous associates distinctly thought-of is a proof that associative processes are not concerned in these cases of instantaneous recognition where we get a strong sense of familiarity with the object1 but no recall of previous time or place4 ,his theory of what happens is that the object before us1 ,a1 comes with a sense of familiarity whenever it awakens a slumbering image1 a1 of its own past self1 whilst without this image it seems unfamiliar4 ,the quality of familiarity is due to the coalescence of the two similar processes ,a a in the brain 7,psychologie1 p4 #ahh2 ,vierteljsch4 f4 wiss4 ,phil41 xiii1 #dcb #ahhi74 ,this explanation is a very tempting one where the phenomenon of recognition is reduced to its simplest terms4 ,experiments have been performed in ,wundt's laboratory by ,messrs4 ,wolfe1 see below1 p4 #fgi1 and ,lehmann 7,philosophische ,studien1 v1 #if71 in which a person had to tell out of several closely resembling sensible impressions 7sounds1 tints of color7 presented1 which of them was the same with one presented a moment before4 ,and it does seem here as if the fading process in the just-excited tract must combine with the process of the new impression to give to the latter a peculiar subjective tinge which should separate it from the impressions which the other objects give4 ,but recognition of this immediate sort is beyond our power after a very short time has intervened4 ,a couple of minutes' interval is generally fatal to it2 so that it is impossible to conceive that our frequent instantaneous recognition of a face1 e4g41 as having been met before1 takes place by any such simple process4 ,where we associate a head of classification with the object1 the time-interval has much less effect4 ,dr4 ,lehmann could identify shades of gray much more successfully and permanently after mentally attaching names or numbers to them4 ,here it is the recall of the contiguous associate1 the number or name1 which brings about the recognition4 ,where an experience is complex1 each element of the total object has had the other elements for its past contiguous associates4 ,each element thus tends to revive the other elements from within1 at the same time that the outward object is making them revive from without4 ,we have thus1 whenever we meet a familiar object1 that sense of expectation gratified which is so large a factor in our sthetic emotions2 and even were there no 'fringe of tendency' toward the arousal of extrinsic associates 7which there certainly always is71 still this intrinsic play of mutual association among the parts would give a character of ease to familiar percepts which would make of them a distinct subjective class4 ,a process fills its old bed in a different way from that in which it makes a new bed4 ,one can appeal to introspection for proof4 ,when1 for example1 ,i go into a slaughter-house into which ,i once went years ago1 and the horrid din of the screaming hogs strikes me with the overpowering sense of identification1 when the blood-stained face of the 'sticker1' whom ,i had long ceased to think of1 is immediately recognized as the face that struck me so before2 when the dingy and reddened woodwork1 the purple-flowing floor1 the smell1 the emotion of disgust1 and all the details1 in a word1 forthwith re-establish themeelves as familiar occupants of my mind2 the extraneous associates of the past time are anything but prominent4 ,again1 in trying to think of an engraving1 say the portrait of ,rajah ,brooke prefixed to his biography1 ,i can do so only partially2 but when ,i take down the book and1 looking at the actual face1 am smitten with the intimate sense of its sameness with the one ,i was striving to resuscitate1--where in the experience is the element of extrinsic association8 ,in both these cases it surely feels as if the moment when the sense of recall is most vivid were also the moment when all extraneous associates were most suppressed4 ,the butcher's face recalls the former walls of the shambles2 their thought recalls the groaning beasts1 and they the face again1 just as ,i now experience them1 with no different past ingredient4 ,in like manner the peculiar deepening of my consciousness of the ,rajah's physiognomy at the moment when ,i open the book and say ,ah6 that's the very face6 is so intense as to banish from my mind all collateral circumstances1 whether of the present or of former experiences4 ,but here it is the nose preparing tracts for the eye1 the eye preparing them for the mouth1 the mouth preparing them for the nose again1 all these processes involving paths of contiguous association1 as defended in the text4 ,i cannot agree1 therefore1 with ,prof4 ,hffding1 in spite of my respect for him as a psychologist1 that the phenomenon of instantaneous recognition is only explicable through the recall and comparison of the thing with its own past image4 ,nor can ,i see in the facts in question any additional ground for reinstating the general notion which we have already rejected 7supra1 p4 #eib7 that a 'sensation' is ever received into the mind by an 'image' of its own past self4 ,it is received by contiguous associates2 or if they form too faint a fringe1 its neural currents run into a bed which is still 'warm' from just-previous currents1 and which consequently feel different from currents whose bed is cold4 ,i agree1 however1 with ,hffding that ,dr4 ,lehmann's experiments 7many of them7 do not seem to prove the point which he seeks to establish4 ,lehmann1 indeed1 seems himself to believe that we recognize a sensation ,a by comparing it with its own past image 7loc4 cit4 p4 #aad71 in which opinion ,i altogether fail to concur4 #eig ,duality of the ,mind1 p4 #hd4 ,the same thesis is defended by the late ,mr4 ,r4 ,h4 ,proctor1 who gives some cases rather hard to reconcile with my own proposed explanation1 in ',knowledge' for ,nov4 #h1 #ahhd4 ,see also ,ribot1 ,maladies de la ,mmoire1 p4 #adi ff4 #eih ,zeitschr4 f4 ,vlkerpsychologie u4 s4 w41 ,bd4 v1 p4 #adf4 #eii ,ueber das ,gedchtniss1 experimentelle ,untersuchungen 7#ahhe71 p4 #fd4 #fjj ,ibid4 #bc4 #fja ,op4 cit4 p4 #ajc4 #fjb ,all the inferences for which we can give no articulate reasons exemplify this law4 ,in the chapter on ,perception we shall have innumerable examples of it4 ,a good pathological illustration of it is given in the curious observations of ,m4 ,binet on certain hysterical subjects1 with ansthetic hands1 who saw what was done with their hands as an independent vision but did not feel it4 ,the hand being hidden by a screen1 the patient was ordered to look at another screen and to tell of any visual image which might project itself thereon4 ,numbers would then come1 corresponding to the number of times the insensible member was raised1 touched1 etc4 ,colored lines and figures would come1 corresponding to similar ones traced on the palm2 the hand itself1 or its fingers1 would come when manipulated2 and1 finally1 objects placed in it would come2 but on the hand itself nothing could ever be felt4 ,the whole phenomenon shows how an idea which remains itself below the threshold of a certain conscious self may occasion associative effects therein4 ,the skin-sensations1 unfelt by the patient's primary consciousness1 awaken1 nevertheless1 their usual visual associates therein4 #fjc ,i copy from the abstract of ,wolfe's paper in ',science' for ,nov4 #ai1 #ahhf4 ,the original is in ,psychologische ,studien1 iii1 #ecd ff4 #fjd ,essay conc4 ,human ,understanding1 ii1 x1 #e4 #fje ,th4 ,ribot1 ,les ,maladies de la ,mmoire1 p4 #df4 #fjf ,biographia ,literaria1 ed4 #ahdg1 i1 #aag 7quoted in ,carpenter's ,mental ,physiology1 chapter x1 which see for a number of other cases1 all unfortunately deficient1 like this one1 in the evidence of exact verification which 'psychical research 'demands74 ,compare also ,th4 ,ribot1 ,diseases of ,memory1 chap4 iv4 ,the knowledge of foreign words1 etc41 reported in trance mediums1 etc41 may perhaps often be explained by exaltation of memory4 ,an hystero-epileptic girl1 whose case ,i quoted in ,proc4 of ,am4 ,soc4 for ,psychical ,research1 automatically writes an ',ingoldsby ,legend' in several cantos1 which her parents say she 'had never read4' ,of course she must have read or heard it1 but perhaps never learned it4 ,of some macaronic ,latin-,english verses about a sea-serpent which her hand also wrote unconsciously1 ,i have vainly sought the original 7see ,proc41 etc41 p4 #eec74 #fjg ,lectures on ,metaph41 ii1 #bab4 #fjh ,cf4 on this point ,j4 ,delbuf1 ,le ,sommeil et les ,rves 7#ahhe71 p4 #aai ff42 ,r4 ,verdon1 ,forgetfulness1 in ,mind1 ii1 #dcg4 #fji ,cf4 ,a4 ,maury1 ,le ,sommeil et les ,rves1 p4 #ddb4 #faj ,strungen der ,sprache1 quoted by ,ribot1 ,les ,maladies de la ,m41 p4 #acc4 #faa ,op4 cit4 chap4 iii4 #fab ,those who have a good memory for figures are in general those who know best how to handle them1 that is1 those who are most familiar with their relations to each other and to things4 7,a4 ,maury1 ,le ,sommeil et les ,rves1 p4 #ddc47 #fac ,pp4 #ajg-aba4 #fad ,for other examples see ,hamilton's ,lectures1 ii1 #bai1 and ,a4 ,huber3 ,das ,gedchtniss1 p4 #cf ff4 #fae ,mind1 ii1 #ddi4 #faf ,physiological ,psychology1 pt4 ii1 chap4 x1 #bc4 #fag ,why not say 'know'8---,w4 ,j4