ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 
 
THE UNIVERSITY SERIES 
 
 Elements of Psychology 
 
 By GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON 
 
 LATE GROTE PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 
 
 EDITED FROM NOTES OF LECTURES DELIVERED 
 AT THE COLLEGE, 1870-1892 
 
 By C. A. FOLEY RHYS DAVIDS, M.A. 
 
 FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 
 
 
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INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 In accepting the flattering invitation of the Editor of this 
 series that I should contribute to it two manuals compiled 
 from George Croom Robertson's college lectures on Psycho- 
 logy and Philosophy, I am doing some injustice to the 
 memory of my revered teacher and friend in order that 
 thereby I may render him a larger justice. It is true 
 that in the opinion of scholars most competent to speak — of 
 Professors Bain, Sully, and James Ward — while it were good 
 that no teaching of euch a man should be lost, it would 
 have been repugnant to Professor Robertson's own feelings 
 to see his extemporary discourses in print. They know how 
 he drew a sharp distinction between the style suitable for 
 oral teaching and that appropriate to the literary registration 
 and publication of one's ideas. And the truth and aptness 
 of the spoken matter would of course be liable to every 
 degree of deflexion in passing through the reporting medium. 
 But this compilation does not pretend to clothe the author's 
 ideas in a literary style such as he himself would have 
 approved. The discrepancy in the two styles is illustrated 
 in these pages. The lecture on the growth of the Mind, 
 
vi Introductory Note, 
 
 not to mention other shorter portions, I have copied verbatim 
 from a bundle of the author's notes, entrusted to me by 
 Mr. Charles Robertson, it being, I believe, a chapter in a 
 manual of psychology he was then intending to write. Its 
 flow is smoother, its periods more polished than the more 
 abrupt movement in other lectures. Speaking however as 
 a student of mental philosophy, and not of literature, and 
 without presuming to judge for others, I should have no 
 hesitation in preferring to be led up and into the subject by 
 the more colloquial, direct, and vigorous utterance of the oral 
 style. But this may be in part the effect of treasured 
 associations. That the reporting has at least been so done 
 as to be no unfaithful reflexion of that style is testified to 
 by Mr. Charles Robertson, with whose sanction, promptly 
 and generously accorded, the lectures have been published. 
 1 1 recognise/ he writes, ' my brother's thought and manner 
 of expression reproduced with wonderful fullness and accuracy, 
 and feel I am face to face with him/ 
 
 As to the more serious objection of a discount on accuracy 
 as to fact and point inevitable in such notes as a student, 
 struggling with the difficulties of his subject, is qualified to 
 take, I may modify if I cannot obviate it by stating the 
 sources and extent of my materials. Twenty- five former 
 students of University College London, who studied under 
 Professor Robertson, have been good enough to send me at 
 my request the notes of the lectures he delivered in their 
 hearing. The response was in nearly every case so prompt 
 and effective that my materials soon amounted to a fairly con- 
 tinuous record of the general and special courses of lectures 
 
Introductory Note. vii 
 
 as delivered, annually or otherwise, during twenty-one of the 
 twenty-five years of his professoriate ; and to have published 
 the whole would have filled at least a third volume. Sub- 
 joined are the names of my contributors, to whom I here 
 again offer my heari.y thanks : — George A. Aitken, Esq. ; Rev. 
 Martin Anstey, M.A. ; Mrs. Archer Hind (Miss Laura 
 Pocock); Mrs. Sophie Bryant, D.Sc. ; Herman J. Cohen, 
 Esq. ; Professor W. Hall Griffin, B.A. ; Rev. Isidore 
 Harris, M.A.; H. Erank Heath, Esq., B.A., Ph.D.; Rev. 
 Alfred Hills, B.A.; Principal J. Viriamu Jones, M. A., F.R. S. 
 (University College S. Wales and Monmouthshire) ; J. Neville 
 Keynes, Esq., M. A., D. Sc. ; Benjamin Leverson, Esq., B.A. ; 
 Rev. S. Levy, B.A.; J. W. Manning, Esq., M.A.; Miss 
 Dorothy Marshall, B. Sc. ; Andrew Ogilvie, Esq., B.A. ; Miss 
 Mary A. Robertson, M.A. ; Ernest C. Robinson, Esq., M.A. ; 
 G. Armitage Smith, Esq., M.A. ; President J. G. Schurman, 
 M.A., D.Sc. (Cornell University); Rev. E. H. Titchmarsh, 
 M.A. ; H. J. Tozer, Esq., M.A. ; Miss Frances A. Welby; 
 Sidney White, Esq., B.A., LL.D.; Miss Eva Whitley, B.Sc. 
 To some I am more especially indebted, either because 
 (as in the case of Principal Viriamu Jones and Mr. Levy) 
 their notes had been taken down in shorthand and then 
 written out in full, or as being otherwise especially adequate. 
 Collation of these MSS. with my own notes has enabled me 
 to expand, supplement, and verify the latter so as to effect 
 a reproduction better, it may be, at times in its compositeness 
 than any one report, however faithful, could have been 
 Professor Robertson did not write out his lectures, nor did 
 he leave notes of any except those on Psychology. He 
 
viii Introductory Note. 
 
 himself regretted that he had not in earlier years written out 
 immediately afterwards what he had just delivered. While 
 lecturing he made no use of notes. He became so 
 intensely absorbed, not only in his subject, but in following 
 the process of its assimilation by every member of his 
 class, that he consulted only the look on their faces. But 
 it was just this considerate procedure of not pressing 
 on to reel off so much of his subject per hour, but 
 of letting his pace in exposition keep time with the signs of 
 following comprehension in his hearers — a wise considerate- 
 ness to which I have elsewhere borne testimony 1 — that 
 made it possible for all who would to take faithful and 
 readable notes. It tended at times to cause arrears in 
 treatment, and some condensation or omission at the close 
 of a course. But it has enabled me to compile this manual, 
 such as it is, without adding in the text a sentence of my 
 own. I could even add 'or a clause/ since all that I have 
 inserted were merely to expand elliptical utterances that, 
 when spoken as he spoke them, were clear enough. The 
 passages prescribed for reading were those prescribed by 
 himself 2 ; the footnotes are also portions of his lectures, 
 where not otherwise indicated, being either parenthetical 
 remarks, or drawn from arguments pursued more in some 
 years than in others, and which, while pertinent, did not 
 
 1 Mind, April, 1893 : — i George Croom Robertson as a teacher.' 
 
 2 Those in this volume were prescribed in the last course he 
 delivered in Psychology (189 1). I have only added, for preparatory 
 reading, references to passages in certain works referred to by 
 him, but not precisely specified. The headings of the lectures and 
 sections, introduced to help the reader, are also mine. 
 
Introductory Note. ix 
 
 easily admit of being welded with sufficient simplicity of 
 handling into the particular line I had selected to follow. 
 Woven together, and imperfectly woven, as the lectures are 
 from many strands, the warp and the woof are the work 
 of George Croom Robertson. 
 
 Injustice to his thought in its full expression and ideal 
 exposition there is and must be. The book on Hobbes, 
 in the series of Philosophical Classics for English Readers, 
 and the Philosophical Remains, edited by Professor Bain and 
 Mr. Whittaker, are with us to vindicate the style, and, 
 so far as those writings go, the trend and quality of his 
 thought. They represent the limits to which his strength, 
 handicapped by illness, and sorely taxed by professional 
 duties, could reach in surplus effort. But the best of that 
 strength was spent, and more than spent, on his paedagogic 
 work. It was from the Grote Chair to us, his keenly 
 interested though immature critics, that he outlined and to 
 some extent ' bodied out/ as he would have said, and that 
 with a frankness and fullness never given to his literary 
 utterances, those philosophical judgments, growing directly 
 out of his psychological theories, which he did not live to 
 express fully to the world. I need hardly say there was 
 nothing esoteric in this. Had he lived there can be little 
 doubt — at least to the reader of the philosophical manual — 
 but that in his own fullness of time he would have further 
 developed and set down much on which he was reserving 
 judgment till he found leisure for the strain of supreme con- 
 centration. It is doubtful whether, in view of the precarious 
 state of his health, he would have also completed the manual 
 
x Introductory Note. 
 
 of psychology which illness, and then his promise to write 
 the volume on Hobbes, compelled him to lay aside. That 
 he would have persisted in his intention of resuming it had 
 he, on resigning his professorial and editorial posts, been 
 able to foresee with some confidence the coming of several 
 years of heaLhful leisure, instead of the gloomy outlook of 
 uncertain strength and lonely bereavement that remained for 
 him, is probable. Many important treatises on Psychology, 
 when he ceased lecturing, were just appearing, or about to 
 appear ; nevertheless, with his strong convictions on certain 
 psychological theories, and with the extreme explicitness with 
 which he evolved his own philosophy out of its psychological 
 basis, it is not likely that he would have given his philo- 
 sophical principles any adequate expression without also 
 setting forth that basis as it ordered itself in his own con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 Meanwhile, between us and what might or would have 
 been wrought Death has stood ; and it was left for his pupils 
 to choose either to suffer his oral teaching to have reached 
 its term of usefulness, and the theories and doctrines worked 
 out in it to remain in oblivion, or, by comparing what they 
 had recorded, to preserve somewhat of them in some such 
 form as is here attempted, even though it were at the risk 
 of doing what he himself, not foreseeing an end so untimely, 
 would scarcely have sanctioned. At the instigation of Pro- 
 fessor Croom Robertson's distinguished countryman, the 
 Editor of this series, and of Professor Sully, his successor 
 in the Grote Chair, with the encouragement also of Mr. Stout, 
 his successor to the Editorship of Mind, I chose the latter 
 
Introductory Note. xi 
 
 alternative. I have tried to make students of a succeeding 
 generation acquainted with the methods of a great method- 
 ologist, and with the philosophic standpoints of a teacher 
 who for many years worthily represented and further 
 developed the best traditions of a great school. This way 
 it has seemed possible to render his thought and the memory 
 of his work a truer justice than by letting discretion wait 
 in silence on counsels of perfection. 
 
 At the same time the lectures, following as they do in the 
 rank and file of an educational series, are not, in their first 
 intention, a memorial production. To the student reader, 
 whose interests they are of course especially intended to serve, 
 they should afford not merely an introduction to psychology 
 and also to philosophy, but an introduction to philosophy 
 by way of psychology — more especially to philosophy under 
 the aspect of theory of knowledge (epistemology) by way 
 of the psychology of the process of coming-to-know. No 
 other two manuals so adapted, to the best of my belief, 
 exist. No one has more stoutly upheld the claims of 
 psychology to the rank and dignity of a natural science than 
 Croom Robertson. Dealing as it does, like other natural 
 sciences, with phenomena as we find them, and, like other 
 'abstract' sciences, with phenomena under a certain aspect, 
 namely, of subjective experience and its manifestations, it 
 calls, so he held, for the most rigid scientific procedure 
 that it was possible to apply. And, as expounded by him, 
 the study of mind became almost as forcible an organon for 
 instilling the principles of scientific analysis as one of the 
 experimental quantitative sciences. To resolve the complex 
 
Xll 
 
 Introductory Note. 
 
 into the simple, to show clearly the distinction and the bond 
 when classifying, to elicit what was really the ground-notion 
 of a class, to explain the less general in terms of the more 
 general, to detect among phenomena the law of their 
 happening, and to verify it by a question of crucial test, — all 
 this really simple procedure, uniformly and consistently 
 carried out, gradually and deeply impressed on the mind 
 the unity of that scientific procedure which it is the true 
 aim of any teacher to impart. Read as giving some insight 
 into that procedure as applied to the matter, and adjusted 
 to the standpoint, of psychology, this volume should prove 
 of permanent value, even though the progress of research 
 may render some of its conclusions invalid. Still more 
 should this hold good for it when read as a groundwork 
 for the philosophical principles in the companion manual 
 [Elements of General Philosophy). The student should none 
 the less remember that the lectures are, as they were bound 
 to be, elementary. They were and are meant to be no more 
 than a first guide to more thorough reading in ' the Books ' 
 (as the Professor used to call the collective literature on the 
 subjects in question), not to supersede that oral instruction 
 on which he used to insist as of almost vital importance in 
 his own field. 
 
 It may be well to add a few words on those more specially 
 prescribed treatises to which the psychological lectures 
 formed at times and to some extent a running commentary. 
 The Professor usually set two handbooks for constant 
 reading, varying one of them every few years — either it 
 might be Professor Sully's Outlines of Psychology, or Pro- 
 
Introductory Note. xiii 
 
 fessor Clark Murray's Handbook, or Professor Hoffding's 
 Outlines. In prescribing the last, as soon as Miss Lowndes's 
 translation appeared, he remarked that, in addition to more 
 solid virtues, its presentation was thoroughly interesting, and 
 that its un-British methods and standpoints afforded an 
 instructive comparison. Advanced students were repeatedly 
 recommended to master Dr. Ward's article, 'Psychology/ 
 Passages in Mr. Spencer's treatise and in Taine's De 
 V Intelligence were always decreed. But as the pupil of 
 Professor Bain, and as representing in essential points that 
 school of which he is the most direct and eminent outcome, 
 the lecturer made the manual of Mental Science at once the 
 most constant and most closely criticised subject of his 
 hearers' study. In the course of years his treatment diverged 
 more and more from that followed in the manual; but he 
 not only continued to recommend it as on the whole best 
 1 covering the ground,' but found in the criticism of it the 
 best way of throwing his own position into relief as well as 
 of sharpening the critical insight of his class. 
 
 Finally, for kind assistance in reading the proofs and for 
 valuable advice on many points of style and matter, my very 
 grateful acknowledgement is here rendered to Mr. Charles 
 Robertson and to Mr. Thomas Whittaker, Editor of the 
 Philosophical Remains of George Croom Robertson. 
 
 Caroline A. F. Rhys Davids. 
 
 February , 1896, 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 LECTURE PAGE 
 
 I. Philosophy of Mind and the Science of Psycho- 
 logy i 
 
 II. The Place of Psychology among the Sciences . 6 
 
 III. Consciousness; its Continuity. Psychological 
 
 Analysis 12 
 
 IV. The Ultimate Facts in Psychological Analysis 19 
 V. The 'Subject' of Subjective Experience. Objec- 
 tive Psychology 26 
 
 VI. Physiological Psychology 32 
 
 VII. Concomitance between Mind and Eody . . 40 
 
 VIII. Growth of Mind. The Stage of Sense . . 47 
 
 IX. General Sense. Specific Energy of Nerve . 58 
 
 X. The Special Senses 67 
 
 XI. General Considerations on the Senses . . 75 
 
 XII. Muscular Sense 83 
 
 XIII. Active Sense and Qualitative Difference in 
 
 Sensation 89 
 
 XIV. Sensation and Sense-Perception .... 94 
 XV. The Psychological Theory of Objective Percep- 
 tion 100 
 
 XVI. The Psychological Theory of Objective Percep- 
 tion {continued) 107 
 
 XVII. The Psychological Theory of Objective Percep- 
 tion {continued^ iia 
 
xvi Contents. 
 
 LECTUR* PAGE 
 
 XVIII. The Psychological Theory of Visual Perception i i 8 
 XIX. The Psychological Theory of Visual Perception 
 
 {continued) 125 
 
 XX. Mental Construction. RepresentativeImagina- 
 
 tion 132 
 
 XXI. Representative Images, Normal and Abnormal 138 
 
 XXII. The Laws of Representative Consciousness . 144 
 
 XXIII. Suggestion and Association . ., . .154 
 
 XXIV. Resolution of Association into the Laws of 
 
 Intellection 160 
 
 XXV. Thought. Percept, Image, Concept . . .165 
 XXVI. Percept and Concept; their Interdependence 
 
 and Evolution . . 171 
 
 XXVII. Thought, Logic, and Language . . .177 
 XXVIII. Feeling as Subjective Affection . . .185 
 XXIX. Feeling and Intellection. Expression. Sense- 
 Feeling 191 
 
 XXX. Emotion 198 
 
 XXXI. Classifications of the Emotions. Explanations 
 
 of Pleasure and Pain 206 
 
 XXXII. Esthetic Feeling 213 
 
 XXXIII. Conation and its Modes 219 
 
 XXXIV. Modes of Conation {continued). Instinct . .227 
 XXXV. Volition and Control 237 
 
 XXXVI. Attention and the Ego 247 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 On Theories of Latent or Unconscious Mental Modi- 
 fications 253 
 
 INDEX 263 
 
ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF_MIND AND THE SCIENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 Introductory. 
 
 Some words of introduction to our subject are necessary : 
 but I shall here be very brief. Notice first the title of this 
 Chair 1 or class. It is unique, and the result of a series of 
 accidents of which no more now. But what is its rationale ? 
 Is it adhered to in the course ? 
 
 1 Logic ' is dealt with in the second term, and ' Philosophy* 
 more directly in the third. And Ethics, whatever else it may 
 mean, and although it does not come explicitly into the title, 
 is generally allowed to be Philosophy, just as Logic also, 
 whatever else it means, claims also, and with reason, to be 
 Philosophy. We have still to prove that in dealing in this 
 course with Psychology, we are consistent with the title. How 
 far is Psychology a part of the ' Philosophy of Mind ' ? 
 
 1 I.e. of the Grote Chair, University College, London: — l Philo- 
 sophy of Mind and Logic.'— Ed. 
 
 B 
 
2 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 Psychology and Philosophy, 
 
 What does Psychology mean ? 
 
 The word Psychology, which began to be used in the 
 course of the seventeenth century, but in England not until 
 the middle of this century, means Mind plus Reasoning or 
 Science — Science of Mind — just as Biology is the Science 
 of Life. Now, as Science of Mind, Psychology is concerned 
 with Philosophy of Mind. And this brings me to my first 
 point. 
 
 The term Philosophy, while it is not exhausted by science, 
 may be considered to include science and may be used to mean 
 science. It is a word with a great history. With the Greeks 
 from 600 to 300 B.C. it meant the equivalent to what we now 
 seek to convey by the term science, viz. a body of reasoned 
 knowledge. But now that science has acquired the meaning 
 which Philosophy used to bear, Philosophy has come to be 
 used in a special sense and with a distinct meaning. Where 
 we now say Physics or Science of Nature, Newton said 
 Natural Philosophy, or Philosophy of Nature. And all 
 science which did not deal with what was called Nature was 
 distinguished as Mental and Moral Philosophy. Thus when 
 this chair was founded, Philosophy of Mind meant Science 
 of Mind, or Psychology. But Philosophy means more than 
 Psychology, and more than Science. It may in the modern 
 sense be loosely defined as the analysis of the ultimate 
 notions that underlie all the sciences. Moreover it includes 
 Logic and Ethics, nor is it even then exhausted. But we 
 may begin, it we may not end, by regarding Philosophy of 
 Mind as Science of Mind. For us at this stage let Philosophy 
 of Mind be this science of Psychology. 
 
L] Elements of Psychology. 3 
 
 Psychology as a Science among the Sciences. 
 
 What now is meant by a science of anything ? 
 
 Science is knowledge acquired by reasoning, knowledge 
 not merely * picked up ' by experience, but which, given by 
 experience, has been systematised by way of reasoning. This 
 holds good for every particular science. What therefore 
 we are now concerned with is reasoned knowledge about 
 Mind. 
 
 Note here how students of Mind must in a way face all 
 knowledge. For if Science be reasoned knowledge, and 
 reasoning be a function of the Mind, they alone can say what 
 Science is by defining what reasoning is. 
 
 How can we best set about getting a reasoned knowledge 
 of Mind? Our chief difficulty lies in the nature of Mind. 
 In any other science you can easily grasp the meaning of 
 its subject. But I cannot tell you what Mind, the subject of 
 these lectures, is. I cannot produce it and put it on the 
 table; and I cannot draw it. Let us try to get a definite 
 notion of it by classifying the sciences and striking out all 
 with which it is not concerned, so as to see where among 
 them we may place Psychology. For all progress of know- 
 ledge is by way of Assimilation; i.e. by finding something 
 already known to you with which you may connect the new 
 knowledge. 
 
 Science is general knowledge, for all reasoned knowledge 
 is general. But some knowledge is more general than other 
 knowledge, and the less general is dependent, as to its rank, 
 upon the more general. Let us take four of the sciences 
 which in their scope are representatives of all Science, and 
 fundamental, or, as they have usefully been called, Abstract 
 sciences, — and by abstract I mean sciences dealing with 
 different aspects of things, or with things viewed in certain 
 
 b 2 
 
4 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 aspects only. And let us proceed to tabulate them according 
 to Decreasing Generality and Increasing Speciality, viz. — 
 
 (i) Mathematics, dealing with things in respect of 
 Quantity, or the quantitative aspect of things. 
 
 (2) Physics, dealing with things in respect of Motion 
 
 (Quantity assumed). 
 
 (3) Chemistry, dealing with things in respect of (atomic) 
 
 composition (Quantity and Motion assumed). 
 
 (4) Biology, dealing with things in respect of Life (Quan- 
 
 tity, Motion, and Atomic Composition assumed). 
 
 Each of these is less general and more special than its 
 predecessor. And to them we may add as (5) Psychology, 
 dealing with things in respect of Mind, and thus, the other 
 four properties or aspects being assumed, presenting a yet 
 more special aspect of things. More things live than things 
 which are mentally endozved. 
 
 Note that we may go yet further in specialising, and rank 
 as (6) Sociology, dealing with things as having sociality. 
 Only things having mind will form societies. Again, we 
 might have classed before Mathematics Logic, considered as 
 the most general of the sciences, in that it deals with things 
 as thinkable, or under the aspect of relation in general. 
 
 Note too, as to the rest of the sciences, that in proportion 
 as they become more concrete, they become more descriptive 
 and less explanatory : relatively speaking, they are Science 
 in the making. And as concrete, they deal with kinds, and 
 not with aspects, of things. Botany is concrete ; plants are 
 kinds. Biology is abstract ; life is an aspect. 
 
 We have now gained my second point, and that is, that 
 from this point of view, and from this only, namely that of 
 
L] Elements of Psychology. 5 
 
 generality in scope, Mind may be regarded as a kind of 
 Life, and hence we have found a place for Psychology. 
 It is an abstract science, more special than Biology, more 
 general than Sociology. But, as I shall proceed to show, 
 this is not the place of Psychology. 
 
 For Lecture II read : — 
 Bain, ch i, commencing at § 3 ; Hoffding, I, § 1. 
 Note. Hoffding should be read in subordination to Bain t 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 THE PLACE OF PSYCHOLOGY AMONG THE SCIENCES. 
 
 Scheme of Fundamental Sciences. 
 
 Objective. Subjective. 
 
 [Logic] 
 i. Mathematics. Psychology. 
 
 2. Physics. 
 
 3. Chemistry. 
 
 4. Biology. 
 
 5. Psychology 
 
 6. Sociology. 
 
 Regulative doctrines or disci- \ Logic, 
 plines {not sciences) dependent upon r JEsthetics. 
 Psychology. ' Ethics. 
 
 Why, and in what sense, does Psychology occupy, and 
 alone occupy, this second column ? 
 
 Mind as Life. 
 
 What is it to have life ? Take a tree, and this piece of 
 chalk. The one deports itself in a way very different from the 
 other; it grows, respires, moves. What is it to have Mind} 
 Take a tree and a dog or a man. Both the latter in one 
 respect will deport themselves very differently from the former. 
 Strike each, and see. What is it to be social} To act in 
 a way very different from beings who are unsocial. Under 
 such a purely external aspect, that of deportment, behaviour, 
 outward manifestation, we can regard Mind. I do not say 
 we ought to do so. Now our left-hand column is concerned 
 
Elements of Psychology. 7 
 
 with things as they behave, or appear to us ; and of such 
 external aspects Mind, as a kind of behaviour, apparent to all 
 of us at once, may be regarded as one. 
 
 Mind as Subjective Experience. 
 
 But is this aspect of Mind all that we mean by Mind ? 
 Every one of us has a ' mental experience ' : this is not 
 external deportment. Not that Psychology is therefore out 
 of place in the left-hand column. We infer the presence of 
 mind in others by external deportment, whatever more we 
 know of ourselves. But we do not only mean, that a man 
 throws his arms about in a certain way, and the like, when 
 we say he has mind; we mean more, and something 
 requiring a new kind of phraseology. For the acts above 
 spoken of are signs of something which we are otherwise 
 conscious of; in fact the ultimate expression for mind is 
 Consciousness. And we may say, that our former concep- 
 tion of mind is external manifestation of consciousness. Mind 
 is the name for a certain kind of experience each finds he has 
 for himself '; whatever else it means, it stands for a certain 
 something I experience in and for myself. When we shut 
 our eyes upon the great and varied spectacle of external 
 nature, another spectacle, great and varied, lies open to the 
 view of an ' inner eye/ Not only do we see ourselves as 
 moving bodies in one vast outer world of earth and sun and 
 stars, but we are each of us also aware of somewhat falling 
 under our own peculiar ken. The pleasure that I have in 
 looking at a landscape is part of my experience, and not 
 yours, though you may be looking out upon the same stretch 
 of wood and river. You may be wholly indifferent, while 
 I am thrilled with delight ; or if you too are not unmoved, 
 your pleasure Is yours as mine is mine. Or again, the scene 
 
8 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 may for me call up some long-past memory ; while you, as 
 you gaze, may be picturing instead some change in the 
 prospect to be wrought in coming years. 
 
 This inner personal experience of each of us is what we 
 more especially call mental, and we distinguish the Mind to 
 which it is referred from the World or Nature whereby we 
 seem to be affected. Or rather, we suppose one world of 
 things, and over against it a multitude of minds that are 
 variously affected by it as they take it in. From this point 
 of view also, Mind is often spoken of as subject in relation to 
 the World as object, and the word subjective expresses very 
 aptly that kind of personal experience just called ' mental ' in 
 opposition to the objective world, or world of objective expe- 
 rience that we seem to have in common. Words here are 
 ever inadequate ; we grope for them ; nevertheless we may 
 with relative determinateness say that mind is a name for sub- 
 jective experience — subjective as ' lying under ' the ken of each 
 of us immediately, as what is personally, individually, specially 
 experienced, as what is, in a peculiar and intimate sense, 
 mine and not thine. And subject is the name for the possessor 
 of this special experience. 
 
 Thus far at this stage. Let the student take up the terms 
 as useful for mental experience proper. They suggest 
 a division by which we may rail off our other sciences from 
 mental science proper. In the former we have objective aspects 
 of things ; they seek to take account of all the various aspects 
 and departments of the world of objective experience in which 
 we live and move. ' Objective ' is ' what lies over against ' us 
 — 'in the way of' me, as e.g. this piece of chalk. In 
 objective science we think, not so much of ourselves or of 
 things as personally related to us, as of the objects — ' chalk/ 
 ' dog/ ' ant-hill/ Here there is no direct reference to the 
 
il] Elements of Psychology. 9 
 
 knowing self or subject, though an indirect reference there 
 always is \ ' The chalk is on the table ' is an objective state- 
 ment ; chalk or table is nothing tome; I relate them one to 
 the other. But take an expectation, a determination, grief, 
 remembrance. At once there is involved, Whose expecta- 
 tion ? Yours ? Mine ? Who is the subject of it ? And it 
 is because mind is a something which has its full and 
 fundamental meaning only as it is subjectively, and not objec- 
 tively, regarded, that we must make room for psychology in 
 another and unique column. Our science is double-faced in 
 a way different from any purely objective science. As objective 
 science psychology is only supplementary to subjective 
 psychology, and has no meaning apart from it. We attribute 
 mind to others because we see in them the same outward 
 manifestations that are apparent in ourselves. It is only 
 a very shallow examination of mind which concludes that it 
 can be studied just like any other object. Let mind be 
 studied through the nervous system and external manifesta- 
 tions by all means, but let it be borne in mind that we 
 have something ' not without ' far more important to study. 
 
 1 This is proved by the very phrase 'objective experience.' The 
 things or objects of common life and physical science — stones, trees, 
 and the like— do also in a manner concern the psychologist or mental 
 inquirer. However we may view, or speak of, objects out of relation 
 to mind, they must for this be known or mentally apprehended. 
 Mental experience, as regards our landscape, includes not only the 
 different feelings or imaginations excited in you and me, but also 
 the vision of wood and stream that we seem to have in common. My 
 sight of a tree is as much mental as any state of grief or joy, and is in 
 truth not less personal to me— not less subjective in one respect, how- 
 ever it may be called objective in another. There is, in fact, a w r ider 
 and a narrower use of the word 'subjective/ and it is in nothing 
 short of the widest sense that psychology must be said to deal with 
 our subjective experience. 
 
io Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 Psychology a Natural Science. 
 
 Here be it noted that, were it not for mathematics, we 
 might have called the Objective Sciences Natural Sciences — 
 though not all of them in the narrower sense of ' natural/ 
 In the wider sense ' natural ' covers all science. All science 
 properly is natural, else it is not science. Natural is not 
 merely external, or infra-human nature, but whatever we find 
 and can take account of, or have experience of. * Natural* 
 nowadays rather indicates method than matter. Psychology, 
 then, is just as much a natural science as physics ; and as 
 such it calls equally for rigid scientific procedure. Now we 
 cannot expose mind for analysis like a plant, yet each can 
 observe its working in his own experience more closely, more 
 certainly, than anything else. 
 
 Consciousness. 
 
 Mind is a name for all our experience as we are conscious of 
 it. Consciousness (con scire) is what I am azvare of in the 
 most intimate way, ' with ' or in relation to myself, what I 'know 
 with myself/ And within consciousness we have the fact of 
 Self-consciousness — not so much the having this or that 
 experience as that it is an experience specially of Me, of my 
 Ego. Consciousness, for me, will include my perceiving of 
 objects as well as my feeling of pleasure or pain — when, 
 namely, I am communing with myself or, as we otherwise 
 express it, ' reflecting/ or ' looking within/ Now there is 
 nothing which the sciences take account of objectively that 
 psychology does not take account of subjectively. All objects 
 as such come within the range of our consciousness, and this 
 objective consciousness together with the subjective conscious- 
 ness of our own thoughts and feelings as such make up the 
 
IL] Elements of Psychology. n 
 
 whole of our mental experience. Things as knowable, 
 together with the knower — these are the materials of the 
 psychologist. 
 
 For Lecture III read : — 
 Hdffding, I, §§ 4-6, 8; Ward, pp. 42, 45. 
 
 Cf. also G. C. Robertson on Maudsley's Physiology of Mind: Philos 
 Remains, p. 353 {Mind, ii, 235). 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 consciousness; its continuity, psychological analysis. 
 
 So far then we have seen (i) that Philosophy must in the 
 first place concern us as Science, and (2) the peculiarity of 
 Psychology and the kind of place it takes when connected 
 with the other sciences. I said that this peculiarity calls for 
 special language. Let us discuss further some of these 
 special terms. 
 
 Mind and Metaphor. 
 
 If we speak of mind as l internal/ ' inner ' experience, 
 to contrast it with external things, it is not for any really 
 definite meaning we can attach to it by those expressions. 
 The mind of each of us is not in a strict sense inside any of 
 us. Even ! subjective ' is just as metaphorical and belonging 
 to external description as any other term. In 'conscious 
 experience ' we get a word significant, expressive, and not 
 borrowed. ' Conscious ' and ' consciousness ' are slightly 
 metaphorical too, but let no more be said against them ; 
 they grew up for psychological purposes and — without closing 
 the question whether mind and consciousness are com- 
 mensurate, whether there is not mental experience which 
 is not consciousness — the Litter word is a useful general term 
 for the whole of our mental experience. It is not surprising 
 to find that our psychological language is metaphorical. 
 
Elements of Psychology. 13 
 
 Language originally was merely for work-a-day purposes of 
 life. Mankind had to live before it could think. ■ Perception/ 
 e. g., meant a thorough grasp of anything by the hand, but is 
 now used in psychology in a very special metaphorical sense. 
 
 Psychologising by Introspection. 
 
 The terms 'self-consciousness/ ' reflexion/ 'introspection/ 
 as we have seen, express, each and all of them, the peculiar 
 standpoint of one who is ' psychologising,' or subjectively 
 observant. In saying ' I perceive an object/ there is either 
 no reference, or no prominent reference, to mind or self, but 
 in saying ' I perceive an object/ I am conscious to myself, 
 in the reflective or introspective attitude, that I am knowing, 
 and that my knowing is of the special kind called perception. 
 All these words, consciousness ', reflexion, introspection, seek 
 to mark what is peculiar to mental experience as such; 
 and the reference away from things or objects becomes 
 still more marked when, instead of consciousness, we speak 
 of ^^consciousness. ' Self-consciousness ' here implies no 
 moral emphasis, but only a self-occupied state of mind. 
 1 Reflexion/ which is more metaphorical, suggests the mind 
 bending back upon itself; ' Introspection/ the mind looking 
 within. Here again is metaphor. Beware of the objective 
 force of ' intro ' clinging to it. Now Psychology is said to 
 depend upon, to be developed by, the method of Introspection. 
 
 Comte * and others, e.g. Dr. Maudsley 2 , maintain that 
 observation by way of introspection is not only useless but 
 impossible. For, they say, in observing our states of mind 
 we lose them, or at least modify them, as e. g. when we 
 
 1 Positive Philosophy (London, 1875), vol. i, pp. 381, 389; on 
 'interior observation.' 
 
 2 The Physiology of Mind (London, 1876), eh. i. 
 
14 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 try to analyse a feeling of sorrow or a burst of indignation. 
 It is not however true that an analysis of toothache takes 
 away the toothache. Nor is the modification induced by the 
 intellectual phase of attention without value in the analysis of 
 mind. However it be the case (as cannot be denied) that 
 such observation needs to be very carefully made and tested 
 before the observer can take his own conscious experience as 
 duly representative of the conscious experience of others, 
 this may make psychological inquiry difficult, but does not 
 make it unscientific. Its opponents have always forgotten 
 that so-called external or objective observation, as practised in 
 the physical sciences, itself implies the validity of subjective 
 observation. Not to say that the simplest act of looking 
 at a physical object is after all, in one sense, a subjective 
 process, there is certainly involved, in anything that can 
 be called a scientific observation of physical objects, a com- 
 parison of present with previous impressions. This has no 
 value, unless it be assumed that a purely subjective representa- 
 tion can be attended to and made to stand for the original 
 experience. But this is just what is assumed by the psychologist 
 when, being in a state, say, of feeling, he begins to practise 
 introspection and seeks to determine the character of the 
 state in itself and as related to other states. In reflecting 
 upon the feeling he has indeed ceased to feel, or to feel 
 so intensely, but he has the feeling still as much before 
 him as the physical inquirer has before him all the pas* 
 experience which he uses to interpret his present impressions. 
 Without making light of the difficulties attending introspection, 
 we may therefore rest satisfied that there is no reason why 
 it should not, when properly conducted, lead to results of 
 a purely scientific character. 
 
 For the present, then, we may take these three terms 
 
in.] Elements of Psychology. 15 
 
 as synonymous expressions for observation which is the 
 opposite of external — for observation of consciousness, or 
 subjective experience. This, when we investigate the scope 
 of it, divides itself into two parts, objective consciousness and 
 subjective consciousness. Objective consciousness is con- 
 sciousness of objects. ' That pillar supports the ceiling/ 
 Here is the objective point of view. But if I examine the 
 sensations, judgment, or belief expressed in that statement, 
 I require the attitude of introspection, of subjective con- 
 sciousness. Consciousness includes both kinds of experience. 
 
 The Fundamental Datum of Psychology. 
 
 Now I maintained that mind, in our fundamental con- 
 ception of it, is a name for our subjective experience. 
 E. g. through your presence and your actions here and now, 
 which are objective manifestations, I infer in you mind. I do 
 not dwell on these ; I credit you directly with mind ; they 
 have a meaning only in terms of subjective experience. 
 So for animals. A dog howls : we say, it is in pain, putting 
 ourselves at the subjective point of view of the dog, and 
 ascribing to it feelings more or less akin to our own. 
 Subjective experience is our primary or ultimate datum, 
 the Alpha or Omega— which we please — of Psychology, and 
 cannot be explained in terms of any other kind of ex- 
 perience. Metaphysically, we may question, What is the bearer 
 of this subjective experience, what is its Subject ? But 
 for Psychology the fact of that experience is ultimate and our 
 starting-point. 
 
 The Business of the Course. 
 
 What does this subjective experience include ? Of what, 
 in what ways, are we conscious ? What are the scientific 
 
16 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 conditions of our consciousness ? What are the Laws deter- 
 mining our conscious experience? How may we describe 
 in order to explain ? For science has to find the law 
 of a certain kind of fact or phenomenon, and this is the 
 business of our course. Let the student first see, before 
 proceeding farther, that he gains at least a general view 
 of what lies before him, such for example as Professor Bain 
 gives in his Division I, or Mr. Spencer in his chapter on ' The 
 Composition of Mind/ He should read also Hamilton's 
 Metaphysics, Lecture XI, on the ' Classification of Mind/ 
 And let those students who compare their other reading with 
 Dr. Ward's articles on Psychology, note that his more abstruse 
 classification differs from mine more in appearance than in 
 reality. 
 
 The Continuity of Subjective Experience, 
 
 The first thing that strikes us in our conscious experience 
 is the continuity of it. It is coherent. Mind, I repeat, has 
 the character — a character adequately brought out only by 
 Dr. Ward among psychologists — of continuity as its most 
 prominent, salient feature. As we sit silently with closed 
 eyes, there is for each of us a flow of consciousness in 
 a certain continuous manner. And if my eyes are open 
 my consciousness has still the character of continuity. But 
 now it is more complex ; it includes, besides that flow with 
 closed eyes, this large mass of objects before me, constituting 
 a ' continuum ' — book on paper, paper on table, table on 
 floor, and so on. And besides all this I am conscious 
 of a certain amount of feeling ; a desire to make myself 
 understood ; a belief that those to whom I am speaking, are, 
 while looking at me, in a state of anxiety to understand ; a 
 determination not to be longer than an hour — all inextricably 
 
iil] Elements of Psychology. 17 
 
 interwoven with this consciousness of objects. The con- 
 tinuity gets broken off, periodically, for instance, in sleep, in 
 dreamless sleep, dreamland being a kind of middle ground. 
 But waking and healthy consciousness is a continuity, though 
 varying indefinitely as to its fullness, just as a literal, 
 objective flow, such as a river, may vary in fullness, breadth, 
 rapidity. Or as a * web ' may vary in the complexity and 
 colour of the weaving, or a ' stage ' be more or less occupied 
 by actors struggling to obtain a hearing. To all of these 
 has conscious experience been likened. 
 
 Mental Analysis, 
 
 But if we simply attend to its continuity we shall get no 
 further than description, more or less poetical. What we want 
 is scientific treatment of mind, and science in the first place is 
 analytic. Analysis is the way of insight. Science is insight by 
 way of analysis. Afterwards, it is synthetic. Your psychology 
 is worthless if it end not, as to its final aspect, as it began, 
 viz. with a continuity. But as a child, crying out for pain, 
 breaks up its continuum, so must psychologists do deliberately, 
 breaking up (a very metaphorical term, I grant) this initial 
 aspect to attend to particular facts of mind. And this is 
 possible ; e. g. annoying sounds of students romping in the 
 corridor come into my consciousness : to the extent I am 
 annoyed, so far may my consciousness be particularised 
 in a separated strand. It may be singled out and identified ; 
 to this extent we are scientific observers, though it be not 
 the whole of consciousness. 
 
 What are the terms for these strands ? English psycho- 
 logists, for better for worse, use States of Mind. Some 
 purists object to the term on different grounds. Alternative 
 terms are ' elements/ ' facts/ ' moments/ ' phenomena/ of 
 
 c 
 
18 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 consciousness. Another word admissible for this or that 
 state of consciousness is * presentation/ This corresponds 
 exactly to Vorstellung, the word used by German psychologists 
 for what Lewes called a Feeling. Any ' moment ' within the 
 continuous flow of consciousness can be called a presentation. 
 Vorstellung, when indicating such a general moment, is often 
 incorrectly translated ' representation/ The room in which 
 I am sitting is my presentation ; so is this ink-bottle, if I fix 
 my attention on it, or so is a pain arising in my finger. 
 If, again, my consciousness be withdrawn from all that 
 is present, and I think of my house some miles away, the 
 image called up is my presentation ; but it is in this case 
 also my representation, for it is an image, and not what 
 I perceived an hour ago actually before me. 
 
 Whichever term we select, our business is to explain 
 consciousness in so far as it can be resolved by analysis; 
 and in so far as we do this we shall be proceeding 
 scientifically. 
 
 Note. — On the twofold standpoint of observation (usually called 
 Methods) in psychology, the student may profitably read Professor 
 Bain's article— l Introspection and Psycho-physical Experiment/ 
 Miid, ii (n. s.), 42. — Ed. 
 
 For Lecture IV read : — 
 Bain, ch. i, from § 3 ; HOffding, IV; Ward, pp. 39-44. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 THE ULTIMATE FACTS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS. 
 
 Nature of Mental Analysis, 
 
 We have looked at consciousness in a twofold aspect ; as 
 not an aggregate but a continuous whole or continuum, and 
 then — since attending to this collective character yields an 
 object of interest but no science — as a succession of mental 
 facts or congeries of states. And we have committed our- 
 selves more or less to the word * state/ claiming to be able 
 to distinguish different states of consciousness as relatively 
 simple or complex. In attending to a state, we have so 
 far broken up the continuum. But beware of supposing 
 that consciousness is necessarily in one state at a time; 
 rather it is in many, one being prominent. I may hear 
 a sound from without and yet continue my lecture. Or 
 some bad news may colour all the transactions of the day. 
 We may be in ten states at once, states various and multiple. 
 Herein comparison is possible, and herefrom we may form 
 general assertions applicable to particular states. Mind, it is 
 true, is not a thing that can be broken up into separate parts 
 or divisions, as Professor Bain's procedure suggests; nor com- 
 pounded, as Mr. Spencer's phrase 'composition of mind' 
 seems to imply ; but it does admit of being held apart, 
 in idea, for consideration, and this or that phase being 
 
 C 2 
 
20 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 distinguished, e.g. a toothache, languor, determination. Man- 
 kind have gradually devised forms of speech to distinguish 
 this from that in mental experience, making, for purposes of 
 life in regard to mind, a beginning of that which science 
 carries on and tries to render perfect. 
 
 The scientifically Ultimate Facts in Mental Analysis. 
 
 Is there now any general way, at starting, of getting, and 
 expressing in compendious foim, a survey of all the facts of 
 mind ? 
 
 The view of mind which commended itself to psychologists 
 from Aristotle till this century is now abandoned, the view, i. e., 
 of mind as an aggregate of powers or faculties, arranged 
 oftener than not under two groups, viz. intellectual and active 
 faculties or powers. The term ' faculty ' has been used 
 both carelessly and carefully. Hamilton, in his Metaphysics, 
 gives a conception and statement of a more careful use, into 
 which we can go later on \ For descriptive purposes terms of 
 faculty are useful. But science only describes with a view- 
 to explain, and faculty-psychology has not explanatory efficacy. 
 Aristotle himself did not work on this line, but his scheme 
 suggested it. It has been tried long enough. 
 
 Tripartite classification of Mind. Phases of Mind. 
 
 But it was Hamilton to whom mainly we owe the intro- 
 duction from Germany of a threefold classification dating 
 from about the middle of last century, the scheme of more 
 than one thinker, that notably of Tetens, one of Locke's 
 many German disciples, which was adopted and promulgated 
 by Kant. It is now widely admitted, though with varying 
 
 1 Vide Elements of 'General Philosophy, Lect. XII. 
 
IV.] Elements of Psychology. . 21 
 
 phraseology, that our whole mental experience presents three 
 distinguishable phases ; not parts or divisions — we separate 
 parts, we distinguish phases — but states or facts of conscious- 
 ness, which may be exhaustively described for purposes 
 of science — i. e. for subsequent explanation — in terms of 
 three heads; and these heads, in Anglo-Saxon phrase, are 
 Feeling, Knowing, Willing. Every fact of consciousness 
 may be brought under one or more of these heads ; and this is 
 the best way of distinguishing facts of mind for purposes of 
 after-, or further, inquiry. 
 
 Now to ' Knowing ' I prefer Intellection, and to Willing, 
 Conation : my reasons I shall set out directly. 
 
 Intellection, then Feeling and Conation — such is the order 
 generally adopted, which I shall presently follow. But while 
 there is good reason for taking it at this stage, I do not keep 
 to that order in getting our general view. In the first instance 
 our order will be Feeling ; then Conation in connexion with 
 it; lastly Intellection. When dealing with the phases in 
 detail, which is the second step in our analysis, I shall revert 
 to the former order. 
 
 Feeling. 
 
 Feeling, for me — and, I believe, for everybody — is the name 
 for all those mental experiences which consist essentially in 
 our being affected, or acted upon, or more specifically passively 
 affected. Affection is a better term than Feeling, and would 
 be quite unexceptionable were it not for its narrower popular 
 sense. As it is, I cannot get on without it. 
 
 See here how notable and deplorable is the state of 
 psychological language ! We cannot talk in terms of Feeling 
 without using the phrase ' to be affected,' yet how ambiguous 
 is this I * To be passively affected ' is perhaps more what 
 
22 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 is needed. Feeling is that phase of mind when one is 
 affected by anything. Professor Bain falls back on a term which 
 is safe if carefully used — ' Feeling is excitement/ Yet here 
 again there is a narrower sense. ' To be affected ' is, after 
 all, the more */*fective term. 
 
 We have no adjective corresponding to the substantive 
 'feeling/ True, the newspapers say, 'he spoke in feeling 
 terms/ but such usage is not psychological. In psychology 
 the adjective 'emotional' corresponds to the noun 'feeling/ 
 Hence it should be borne in mind that the adjective 'emotional' 
 has a wider significance than the noun ' emotion/ 
 
 Pleasure and Pain, 
 
 Feeling is practically summed up for us in two words, 
 mutually related : — Pleasure and Pain. In pleasure we are 
 pleasurably affected; in pain, painfully affected. Do our 
 pleasures and pains constitute the whole range of our feelings ? 
 Can we be affected neither painfully nor pleasurably ? Does 
 e.g. the feeling of my clothes, or my contact with the floor, 
 affect me in neither the one way nor the other, but ' neutrally ' ? 
 For the present, however, we need not take this question into 
 consideration. 
 
 Feeling in Popular Use and in Psychology. 
 
 In the terms Pleasure and Pain science adheres to the 
 meaning of common usage. But Feeling as now used in 
 psychology is a very late word. In popular use it means 
 (a) the sense of touch (we Scotchmen claim even to 'feel 
 a smell/ and with considerable psychological justification), (&) 
 emotion, (c) consciousness in general, e.g. this table does not 
 'feel ' when I strike it. To this meaning Mr. Spencer's usage 
 is nearly related, as was that of Lewes. For Mr. Spencer, 
 
IV.] Elements of Psychology. 23 
 
 Feeling is any distinguishable mental fact, anything you can 
 distinguish in mind for separate scientific treatment. But by 
 the majority of modern psychologists Feeling has come to 
 mean those mental experiences in which we are affected 
 in the forms of pleasure and of pain. 
 
 Conation, 
 
 Conation is intended to suggest just the opposite of Feeling, 
 the antithesis of subjective affection. They are, as it were, the 
 two poles of consciousness, viz. being affected passively — 
 overtly acting. Professor Bain and most psychologists use Will 
 (or Volition). I follow Hamilton in this term Conation (from 
 conor, I try), which presents a parallel to the German use of 
 Streben, Bestrelung, as distinct from Wollen, Wille, Will (or 
 Volition) is too special a term for something so generic as 
 a phase of mind. It is one thing ' to desire/ another ' to will.' 
 But both are covered by the more elementary term Conation, 
 or ■ tending to act.' 
 
 Connexion between Feeling and Conaiion. 
 
 While between Feeling and Conation there is antithesis, 
 there is also relation. Conation is always activity determined 
 by Feeling, feeling-guided action, the response to, reaction 
 on, a feeling. I want to open the door. My anxiety is a 
 certain subjective feeling which results in my opening the door. 
 Feeling has its inevitable result in Conation, Conation its 
 indispensable source in feeling. Conation is action for an end, 
 and that end is always, in the first or last instance, expressible 
 in terms of feeling, viz. the production, maintenance, or 
 abatement of some feeling. Feeling need not be a salient 
 point in Conation ; it may be nearly submerged ; it is always 
 there. 
 
24 Elements of Psychology. [Lecx 
 
 Intellection, 
 
 Do conation and feeling sum up what we mean by mind ? 
 In opening the door there was conation, and feeling, but was 
 there not something between the two, connecting them ? 
 There was knowledge, intelligence, that doors can be opened. 
 I know (or guess) something to be a door, therefore I go 
 to open (or try to open) it. Thus when we will in connexion 
 with feeling, there is also bound up herewith and brought 
 about that state of mind called knowing, cognition, intellect 
 or intellection. 
 
 I prefer the last term. It corresponds in form better than 
 intellect to conation. Better than all it indicates an active 
 process of mind. ' Cognition ' and * knowledge ' always have, 
 beyond their psychological import, implications of a philo- 
 sophical nature. You cannot use the word ' know ' without 
 implying the object known, ' Intellection ' (and its adjective 
 ' intellective ') brings out only the subjective function. ' In- 
 telligence ' may take too wide or too narrow a meaning, 
 viz. either consciousness or cleverness. 
 
 Discrimination and Assimilation, 
 Whenever we are intellective, we are always so that we 
 may be described as in a state which is a compound function 
 of discrimination (negative aspect) and assimilation (positive 
 aspect) : e.g. we discern a speck on the horizon, i.e. we dis- 
 criminate it from the rest of the horizon, and we recognise it 
 as a ship, i.e. we assimilate it to our past naval experience. 
 Discrimination is saying what a thing is not, Assimilation is 
 saying what it is. These are termed by Professor Bain, Con- 
 sciousness of Difference and of Agreement. And he adds 
 a third function, Retention. But be it noted that this is 
 not on a level with the other two, but rather implied in hem. 
 
iv.] Elements of Psychology. 25 
 
 Relation of Intellection to Feeling and Conation. 
 
 Intellection unites both the other phases of mind. When 
 we are intellective it is in consequence of having been 
 affected. How could I say that that was a pillar, or the speck 
 a ship, without being affected by way of my sight ? Intellec- 
 tion also implies activity. All terms of intellection imply 
 activity, e.g. perception, conception (a taking hold), especially 
 voluntary attention, which is conation. Intellection, then, 
 in a sense, comes between feeling and conation, facing 
 both ways. Can we have any one of them without the 
 others ? No, not in any real sense. We may single out one 
 for examination ; we may describe our ' states ' in terms of 
 one, the predominating aspect, but we are not now the one, 
 now the other, and we ought indeed to describe the states 
 in terms of all three. E.g. there is the bell ! We are affected 
 by its sound; we discern and identify it as a bell; but we 
 are mainly conative in consequence — I the lecturer, to finish, 
 my hearers to depart. Towards special cases of purely one 
 phase we can only approximate. To say certain states are 
 emotional, intellective, conative, only means that one aspect 
 is uppermost 
 
 For Lecture V read : — 
 Hdffding, I, § 8 e\ Spencer, Pt. II, ch. ii ; Ward, p. 39. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 THE ' SUBJECT ' OF SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE. OBJECTIVE 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 We saw in the last lecture, by help of the bell, that in 
 so far as we were intellective, we were so on a base of 
 feeling, which led, through intellection, to an impulse to 
 action. Many cases cannot be so clearly resolved into all 
 three phases, but note here only that the three are distin- 
 guishable, not separate. 
 
 Mr. Spencers classification of Mental Elements. 
 
 Now it is tempting to try to resolve all three into two, if 
 not one. Let us have a word on Mr. Spencer's ' Composition 
 of Mind.' His view is, that mind may be resolved into 
 two elements, Feelings and Relations between Feeling. 
 
 On the face of it he neglects Conation. Under which, 
 we might ask him, are we to class it ? Mercier, a Spencerian 
 — advanced students should read him * — calls Will a feeling. 
 A good case might be made out for the other alternative. 
 In so far as will is action for an end, you start from a basis 
 of feeling and you work to a result of feeling ; and this 
 
 1 Mind, ix. x ; The Nervous System and the Mind (London, 1888) ; 
 Sanity and Insanity (Contemporary Science Series), especially ch. iii. 
 (London, 1890). 
 
Elements of Psychology. 27 
 
 makes will a 'relation between feelings.' But whatever Feeling 
 may mean for Mr. Spencer, his ' relations between feelings ' 
 correspond to our Intellection. But since Feeling is his 
 widest genus for any fact of consciousness, he calls these 
 * relations between feelings ' themselves feelings. Has he 
 justification for this? and Lewes? and others? In popular 
 langu ge, as we saw, yes. 'The table does not feel' means 
 it is not conscious. We shall use Feeling in a more special 
 sense, narrower, as we have seen, than theirs, and yet wider 
 than that other popular sense of touch. 
 
 The Subject of Mental Phenomena. 
 
 Feeling, intellection, conation — any experience that can 
 be described under one of these phases is mental) and for 
 us mind is an aggregate of experiences and the collective 
 name for those three. But what is it that experiences the 
 experiences ? What is the bearer of them 1 ? Well, with 
 this, the profoundest of all questions underlying all mental 
 experience, we are not fitted to deal now. We cannot at 
 this stage consider the question of personality, of the ' ego/ 
 ' me/ ' moi/ To this indefinite subject there is a reference in 
 all mental experiences 2 . It is involved in all language. It 
 is inextricably mixed up with our experience. 'I am aware 
 of the door/ What is it that refers to the ' aware/ viz. that 
 personal ' I ' ? What is it in intellection, feeling, conation, 
 that knows, is affected, acts? Without reference to such 
 a subject, there can be no science of mind. But it is 
 
 1 Professor Hoffding says too much, Professor Bain too little, about 
 this. The former proposes to avoid metaphysical discussion, yet really 
 drags it in and mixes it up. 
 
 3 Note that it is by no means the case that all mental facts or 
 phenomena equally suggest, or are equally referable to, a subject. 
 
28 Elements of Psychology. LLect. 
 
 a problem we must work up to, and then consider under 
 Philosophy. Meanwhile, without raising the psychological, 
 still less the philosophical, import of the Ego, we can — nay, we 
 must — regard mind in the first instance as an aggregate 
 of phenomena. To apply scientific process, we must treat 
 any subject phenomenally (not in the misused journalistic 
 meaning). And just as in physics we might examine the 
 motion of a ball without being concerned about the con- 
 stitution of the ball itself, so we can talk about mind as 
 mental phenomena, appearances, manifestations, experiences, 
 without considering what it is that has to experience. This 
 admitted, we may proceed at once to a detailed consideration 
 of our three phases. 
 
 Objective Psychology. 
 
 Or, first, since we are to consider mind as an aggregate of 
 phenomena, is there any kind of phenomenon dealt with by 
 science, which is in relation to mental phenomena — which is 
 more especially in relation to them ? Living beings, and, 
 in particular, human beings, exhibit physiological phenomena. 
 Many of these, much that goes on in the body, has no 
 direct relation to our mental experiences, and conversely. 
 From this point of view psychology is a highly specialised 
 physiology. Within the human organism there is the 
 nervous system, and it is that nervous system of which the 
 functions are in more immediate relation to our conscious 
 experience. This has come to be understood only within 
 the last two or three centuries. Aristotle had a great mis- 
 conception of the nervous system as related to, or connected 
 with, mind. He strongly insisted on the connexion of mind 
 and body in a general way. But his entire ignorance of 
 physiology, especially that of the nervous system, precluded 
 
v.] Elements of Psychology. 29 
 
 him from entering into detail and from seeing the particular 
 connexion between the two. He would have told us that, 
 when he was thinking, feeling, or willing, something went on 
 in his heart ; that all sense-organs contributed streams going to 
 the heart by way of the heat of the blood, and there result- 
 ing in consciousness ; and that the brain, ' being cold/ served 
 but as a refrigerator, tempering the heat of the heart \ 
 
 Since then, very slowly in the ancient world and only 
 fully since the beginning of the seventeenth century and 
 Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, it has 
 revealed itself that among all physiological processes the 
 most important for psychology are the nervous processes, 
 and that Mind, as a name for a set of active processes, has 
 its bodily explanation in the nervous system. Mind is 
 related to the body. I will to raise my arm : I raise it 
 Through what? Through the nervous system. Through 
 it mind is related to body. Hence we need to consider it 
 to some extent. Such inquiries constitute the science of 
 Physiological Psychology, or we may also use the term 
 Psychophysics, the science, that is, of mind as related to the 
 nervous system. The term ' Mental Physiology' should be 
 carefully avoided. 
 
 Comparative Psychology. 
 
 Can we say that Physiological Psychology is co-extensive 
 with Objective Psychology ? No ; it is but a part of the latter. 
 It is not only in connexion with the functions of the nervous 
 system that mind can be objectively considered. The whole 
 frame of things, the sum of natural processes, has been 
 thought a manifestation of mind, of self-conscious personality. 
 Certainly all the varied products of human art, from flint 
 
 1 Vide De Genet at. Animalium, ii. 6; and Grote's Aristotle, p. 480. 
 
30 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 arrowheads, or rude scratches on pottery, to steam-engines 
 or the Venus of Milo, are evidences of thought and feeling 
 and desire. All forms of speech and literature, all manners 
 and customs or social usages, the varied forms of religious 
 worship, the whole recorded drama of human history, are 
 but so much more material that may be used for the study 
 of mind. All these are facts of the objective world, and the 
 study of them with a view to discover the full range of 
 mental phenomena is known as Folk-psychology (Vblfter- 
 psychologie)) or consideration of the manifestations of mind 
 as shown in the manners and usages of peoples. Still farther, 
 we may add to the account the ways and habits of the lower 
 animals as manifesting mind, a study which has of late been 
 of considerable service in the furtherance of psychology. 
 Again, Infant Psychology is now considered rightly as a very 
 important branch of mental science, and falls within this 
 same field of Objective or Comparative Psychology, there 
 being little or no direct relations between us and a child 
 on the subject of consciousness. 
 
 All these are inquiries into the facts of the objective world, 
 yet they have a subjective meaning, which the stars, for 
 instance, have not. Never must it be forgotten that there 
 can be no study of this kind without an implied, if not 
 express, reference to the properly mental experience of which 
 we are each subjectively conscious. Nobody who considers 
 can doubt this for a moment. 
 
 Physiological Psychology. 
 
 Between Subjective and Objective Psychology comes 
 Physiological Psychology. Mind in man proceeds in con- 
 nexion with certain bodily processes. We may call habits, 
 &c, products of mind, but they go along with, are con- 
 
V.] Elements of Psychology. 31 
 
 comitants of, mental processes. Think what your gestures 
 are to you, and what they are to me. All human com- 
 munication proceeds by means of this concomitance. And 
 since two or three hundred years folk have understood 
 that all bodily processes which are of real account for, are 
 directly in relation with, mental experience, are those of the 
 nervous system. Working inwards, we have got from the 
 universe to the nervous system. 
 
 This concomitance justifies further considerations. 
 
 For Lecture VI read : — 
 
 Bain, I, ch. ii; Hoffding, II, §§ 1-7; Spencer, Pt. I, ch. iii and vi. 
 
 Or the main facts respecting nervous structure and function may- 
 be studied in any text-book of physiology, such as Huxley's or 
 McKendrick's. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 Physiological department of Objective Psychology, 
 
 The term ' psycho-physics ' expresses that department of 
 physiological psychology which aims at establishing definite 
 quantitative relations between physiological and psychological 
 experiences, between stimulus and sensation. The corre- 
 sponding adjective, ' psycho-physical/ is used in a wider sense 
 to denote the observation of mind in relation to the bodily 
 organism. For without considering the organic conditions 
 of mind, I can know nothing except about my own mind, 
 I am a 'solipsist/ Solipsism is that view of the universe 
 which takes into account the subjective experiences of one's 
 own mind only. It is only a solipsist who can do without 
 the physiological department of psychology. Once we look 
 beyond the purely subjective side, physiology is imperatively 
 needed. A purely subjective psychology is indeed conceiv- 
 able ; e. g. Dr. Ward's article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica 
 proposes to proceed entirely apart from any kind of physio- 
 logical consideration. Nevertheless, at some critical points 
 the author finds himself compelled to take into account 
 physiological phenomena. And indeed there are departments 
 of psychological occurrences, or certain kinds of mental 
 phenomena, of whxh it is perfectly vain to take any account 
 
VL] Elements of Psychology. 33 
 
 without reference to their physiological implications. No 
 definite explanation can be given of sense or sensation 
 without a certain reference to bodily phenomena. If so, it 
 becomes our duty to interweave with our subjective inquiry, 
 and to refer as much as we can to, definite objective or 
 physiological considerations. If so, it does seem necessary 
 at the beginning to get some definite understanding of what 
 in particular this nervous system is, to which we sometimes 
 make reference, and at other times would like to refer, 
 inasmuch as its processes stand in such special relation to 
 mental processes. Our psychology should be as physiological 
 as we can make it K 
 
 We take account, then, of nervous processes in mental 
 science, first of all because it is a fact that they accompany 
 mental states, and that without a reference to them we leave 
 the scientific statement of the ascertainable conditions or 
 circumstances of mental action incomplete. But there is 
 a still more cogent theoretic reason for bringing forward 
 the physical side of the case, and the practical reasons are 
 of the most obvious kind. 
 
 First, as to the fact of the connexion. Evidence of the 
 most multifarious kind and overwhelming in quantity is 
 
 1 Mr. Spencer lays such stress on this, that he works into his 
 psychology through physiology. In his general system of philosophy 
 his book on the Principles of Biology comes before his Principles oj 
 Psychology y and hence he is quite right to approach it by means of 
 physiology. It is impossible to study mind without backward reference 
 to bodily phenomena ; we are else acting like ostriches. At the 
 same time the science of life and the science of mind should not be 
 mixed up. The two studies must be taken apart. Professor Bain 
 begins subjectively, and then, in his second chapter, with admirable 
 judgment deals with the nervous system before proceeding to analyse 
 sense-consciousness. Professor HOffdings principle of treatment 
 is practically the same. 
 
 D 
 
34 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 considered now to justify the assertion that every conscious 
 experience whatever has concomitant with it some brain- 
 process \ 
 
 Process of inference by which we relate Mind and Nerves. 
 
 Bodily processes which have a mental import are always 
 ultimately, or primarily, nervous processes. Mr. Spencer's 
 discussion of the nervous system is often too vague or 
 assumes too much, but his chapter entitled ' ^Estho-physi- 
 ology' — not a happy term — in which he deals with the 
 connexion between subjective experience and nervous pro- 
 cesses, is good and instructive respecting mental process 
 objectively regarded, and nervous process subjectively re- 
 garded. Following his indications I prepare my hearers for 
 the study of this chapter. 
 
 How do I get the inference that mental and nervous 
 processes are connected ? The former I apprehend directly : 
 of the latter in me I know nothing directly. Follow the steps 
 of the inference by which I arrive at my own nervous system. 
 Starting from a connexion, obvious to myself, between my 
 mental experience and the general movements of my body, 
 I next come to assert a connexion between your movements 
 and a mental experience in you somewhat like mine; also in 
 the case of lower animals than you. Next, by experimental 
 observation of organisms living and dead I associate actions 
 with nervous system. And thus I infer a nervous system 
 in myself, with which my actions, and therefore my mental 
 experiences, are associated. 
 
 Nature of the relation between Mind and Body. 
 What is the nature of this relation ? Does our generalisa- 
 
 1 For a statement of the proofs of the connexion let the student 
 read Bain, p. 5 (ch. ii). 
 
VI.] Elements of Psychology. 35 
 
 tion about it work both ways ? Science says, there is reason 
 to believe that every mental process has concomitant with it 
 a nervous process in some organised body. But as to the 
 specific character of the nervous process accompanying every 
 mental process we are much in the dark, and probably shall 
 ever be. Till we are not in the dark, till it can be demonstrated 
 in detail, no one can compel you to accept the general statement. 
 However, no law in the physical world has been, can ever 
 be, demonstrated in every particular. 
 
 Take the other way. You can not say, you can only 
 imagine, many as are the psychological propositions which 
 speculators have sought to establish on the belief, that to 
 every nervous process there is some subjective process, or 
 what can be interpreted in terms of subjective experience. 
 As to the question of the possibility of an unconscious, or 
 sub-conscious mental life, this is legitimate speculation, but 
 the universality of the relation between nerves and mind is 
 not made out as that between mind and nerves is. With 
 every psychosis is concomitant a neurosis; but we cannot 
 in the same way say, With every neurosis is concomitant 
 a psychosis. The nervous system has other work to do 
 than in connexion with mind, whereas mind always involves 
 activity of a nervous system. To resume in other words : — 
 Apart from the processes of the nervous system there is 
 nothing which we can call consciousness. When we are 
 subjectively conscious in any way some nervous changes 
 are going on. When certain nervous changes take place, 
 we have reason to believe that the subject of them is 
 conscious. These facts together establish the validity of 
 Physiological Psychology. Wherever a physiological state- 
 ment does not admit of having a corresponding psycho- 
 logical statement made along with it, it is to be regretted. 
 
 d 2 
 
36 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 And there is no mental state but should admit of a con- 
 ceivable expression in terms of physical process. 
 
 The theoretic or scientific reason for trying to get a physical 
 expression wherever possible is that physical phenomena 
 admit of more definite investigation than subjective mental 
 phenomena. Those mental states, like sensations, for which 
 we are able to assign with some accuracy the specific nervous 
 conditions, are those which are best understood, and this, we 
 may fairly suppose, is because they lie so exceptionally open 
 to investigation in their bodily aspect. Changes in the 
 nervous system can often be studied by the same exact 
 methods of measurement that are now applied to physical 
 phenomena; and in determining the nervous fact we 
 determine at least something about the corresponding mental 
 fact. 
 
 The Nervous System. 
 
 What more now is important to add? This nervous 
 system, which is of such account for our life generally, is 
 made up wholly of two kinds of constituents — fibres and 
 cells, which we may represent bylines and circles respectively — 
 and appears as a large contorted mass in the skull, produced 
 down the spinal column with many branches, like an inverted 
 tree. The first thing to notice in those constituents is their 
 extreme minuteness ; fibre and cell must be massed together 
 before they are visible to the naked eye. Nerves consist of 
 compound bundles of fibres, and these are white. When 
 cells are massed together into ganglionic clusters they have 
 a greyish appearance. Of nerve-fibres and nerve-cells there 
 are millions distinguishable in the human system. And fibres 
 and cells are in physical connexion with each other. Fibres 
 always end in cells, and cells are always prolonged into fibres. 
 
vi.] Elements of Psychology. 3) 
 
 Nerve Function, 
 
 What goes on within the nervous process ? — for it is nervous 
 function that concerns us more than structure. Some kind 
 of change. Of what kind? Motion, as in all material 
 change. ' Nerve-currents ' sounds learned and 
 knowing, but is rash. Something neverthelebs 
 does go from cell to fibre, from fibre to cell. 
 Fig 1 ^ e ma y ima o e tne ver y simplest expression 
 of nervous motion like Fig. 1, or, because of 
 the multitude of involved fibres and cells, grouped in inter- 
 related ' centres/ like Fisr. 2 : the arrow- 
 
 O W o & 
 
 heads indicating disturbance propagated to 
 a cell, and passing out again by another 
 ,°v disturbance. The disturbance going in- 
 
 ward is known as ' stimulus/ The stimulus 
 effects ' liberation of energy ' in the cell. 
 Fig. a. rp^ en ergy liberated passes out by another 
 
 fibre in molecular disturbance known as * impulse.' Stimu- 
 lation, liberation of energy, impulse, are all of them modes 
 of molecular change, and this is only to be understood as 
 change of motion. Different parts of the nervous system 
 look differently to us, yet at every point within it where 
 you can trace any action, it is found to be reducible to 
 this simple scheme. What is in all this of importance for 
 us is to bear in mind the two constituents and the two- 
 fold function throughout the nervous system : cells and fibres 
 grouped into nerve-centres and nerves, cells predominating 
 in the former, fibres in the latter : the former, acting as 
 storehouses of energy ; the latter, mainly, as conductors of 
 motor disturbance. And the conductivity of nerves is twofold. 
 Consider the spinal cord (sp. c). Each of its branching nerves 
 
38 
 
 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 [Lect. 
 
 has two roots, an anterior and a posterior root. Separate at 
 
 the root, they are connected for a space, then separate again. 
 
 The posterior nerve (p) consists of fibres, the processes of 
 
 which go inwards. The anterior nerve (a) consists of fibres, the 
 
 processes of which go outwards. And 
 
 these two sets of processes are called AA 
 
 respectively afferent and efferent. 
 
 Stimulus is conveyed by the former, 
 
 impulse by the latter. This is simple 
 
 on the face of it, but the proportion , 
 
 of one to the other is less so. A slight Fi g- 3. 
 
 stimulus may cause a very varying amount of impulse. A 
 
 prick may cause me to lift one hand, two hands, cry out, 
 
 even swoon. The nervous system is so inter-related that it 
 
 may act in parts or as a whole. 
 
 Not all nerves have double roots. All spinal nerves are 
 so provided, but some of the cerebral nerves are purely motor 
 (efferent), others purely sensory 1 . The optic nerve e.g. is 
 purely sensory (afferent). 
 
 I repeat, any working of nerve, however complex, follows 
 the scheme given above. But not necessarily according to 
 the whole of it. The bell is tanging, and in response to that 
 stimulus the class-students' ears may be stopped. But if 
 I, after being silent, begin to speak, there seems to be action 
 going out, which is not in response to action going in — 
 apparently — for before me are the expectant faces of those 
 students. Still, in a better example we might see * going 
 out* without c going in/ In other words, there are certain 
 kinds of conscious experience which are, or appear to be, 
 
 1 ' Motor' is a purely physiological term ; ' sensory* has unfortu- 
 nately also a psychological meaning. It is better to use by preference 
 the purely physiological terms ' afferent ' and ' efferent.' 
 
vl] Elements of Psychology. 39 
 
 4 centrally initiated'; but, as a matter of fact, much that 
 appears to be so, if inquired into far enough, may be shown 
 to be 'peripherally initiated/ Whether or no there be 
 spontaneous activity in the nervous system, it is certain that 
 human beings (and animals) vary greatly in the amount of 
 response made to any given stimulus. 
 
 For Lecture VII read : — 
 
 Bain, Bk. I, ch. i, § 5 ; Hoffding, II, § 7 ; III ; Hamilton, Lectures 
 on Metaphysics, Lect. XVII 1. 
 Spencer, Pt. I, ch. vi, § 41. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 CONCOMITANCE BETWEEN MIND AND BODY. 
 
 Nervous Functions (continued). 
 
 Consider more closely the nerve-centres. In them, as we 
 saw, energy is stored up and ready to be liberated when 
 a stimulus is brought in along an afferent nerve. Leaving 
 aside the question whether that energy can be set free 
 without a stimulus, mark that all centres are conductive to 
 higher centres, except the highest, viz. the cerebrum. The 
 spinal cord is itself an aggregate of centres all having 
 a relative independence, i.e. capable to some extent of 
 liberating impulse without first propagating the afferent 
 stimulus to the brain. And as lower centres may be channels 
 by which molecular motion is directed upwards, any higher 
 system in reference to the lower system has a function of 
 control. The control can be co-ordination, such as e.g. is 
 needed to produce a complex action. The cerebellum is 
 believed to have in the main a co-ordinating function. But 
 the action of the higher centres is also inhibitory. A higher 
 centre may stop the action of a lower centre, as e.g. in 
 checking the withdrawal of a member which is undergoing 
 injury, or the utterance of a cry. * Higher ' means more 
 complex in the sense of containing all that the ' lower ' con- 
 tains, so that the action performed in the lower centres is 
 
Elements of Psychology. 41 
 
 repeated in the higher. Thus the highest, or brain, is in 
 connexion with the whole nervous system, and is a represen- 
 tation of, is liable to be affected from, and is liable to act 
 upon, the whole nervous organism. And this is not true of 
 any other centre. What goes on in the brain, however, is only 
 a fact of molecular motion of a complex nature. 
 
 Certain nerve-processes are of account, not for us as 
 psychologists, but for physiologists alone. For example, if 
 a nerve of the spinal cord is excited, it may result immediately 
 in a motor discharge, in a closed circuit of nervous action 
 involving no higher centre. Such are Reflex Actions, and 
 are unaccompanied by consciousness. Even they are in 
 a way of account for us, inasmuch as reflex action is the base 
 of all more complex actions which are so accompanied ; and 
 again, action going on in the nervous system in a mechanical, 
 unconscious way is part of the work even of the brain. I say 
 again, all neurosis is of the reflex type. In all cases of 
 psychosis, therefore, the accompanying neurosis is of this 
 type. And much action, now reflex or automatic, was 
 originally conscious ; of which more later on. Whenever 
 there is neurosis on occasion of which we are conscious, it 
 goes by way of the brain; unless it go so, we are not 
 conscious. 
 
 Again, any action in the nervous system leaves a trace 
 
 behind it in that system, and the oftener any particular action 
 
 is repeated the more is the modification of structure and in 
 
 function effected by its traces perpetuated, both as to stimulus, 
 
 circuit, and impulse. This may help us to understand what, 
 
 treated subjectively, would seem to be inexplicable, namely, 
 
 memory. 
 
 Cerebral Localisation. 
 
 During the last twenty-five years efforts have been made to 
 
42 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 identify areas of the brain with conscious experience. For 
 the simpler conscious experiences called Sense this has been 
 accomplished ; at least various facts, though rather of a nega- 
 tive kind, have been made out in that direction. Complete 
 cerebral localisation, however, has not been settled even in 
 the simplest forms of consciousness, and may never be 1 . 
 Thus far only we affirm : (a) to every psychosis a neurosis, 
 (6) we have reason to believe that there is no part of the 
 nervous system where changes may not go on without being 
 accompanied by consciousness, but that (c) the cerebral 
 hemispheres are those parts which must be called into play 
 before any nervous process can be accompanied by conscious- 
 ness. Some think this statement to be quite beyond question, 
 but I do not think it quite so certain that the cerebrum must 
 necessarily be involved. 
 
 Subconscious Mental Processes. 
 
 In connexion with the consideration of such nervous actions 
 as appear to us to have no conscious accompaniment we may 
 still ask, whether they have indeed no connexion with our 
 subjective experience ? Or is there such a thing as unconscious 
 mental life? Are mind and consciousness commensurate 
 terms ? Or are we, in mind, to take account of more than 
 consciousness ? This question has of. late times been raised 
 from the physiological point of view ; but it was suggested 
 long ago, before the study of physiology had reached its 
 present pitch of development. Nearly two centuries ago 
 
 1 Phrenology was built up on the assumption of the relatively 
 independent action of different parts of the cerebral hemispheres. 
 Gall's theory was based on an imperfect knowledge of the brain. It 
 is possible that what is now called cerebral localisation may lead to 
 a scientific phrenology, but as yet the data are insufficient to prove 
 much. Cf. Mind, vol. ii, p. 92, on Ferrier's Functions of the Brain. 
 
vil] Elements of Psychology. 43 
 
 Leibniz raised the question from a purely subjective point 
 of view, and found the hypothesis of unconscious mental 
 experience to be necessary in order to explain our conscious 
 experience. 
 
 A certain nerve-process has only to be complex enough 
 for consciousness to arise. Now suppose it is a little less 
 complex : is there then nothing at all corresponding to con- 
 sciousness ? The difference between a reflex act and a 
 simple conscious act is only one of degree of complexity: 
 is there then nothing comparable with consciousness con- 
 nected with the reflex act? Let us picture by a diagram 
 a view of the relation between mental experience and brain 
 process : — 
 
 Physical 
 
 occurrence > "T "i ' 
 
 (nerve process) ' D A C B 
 
 (connexion (connexion (connexion 
 
 inferential) certain) inferential) 
 
 Psychical 
 occurrence 
 
 } 
 
 _1_ 
 
 (mental process) ' D A C B 
 
 At a certain stage in these two lines A — C, there is signified 
 a concurrence of the two processes of which there can be no 
 doubt, e. g. when I open my eyes, I have visual sensations of 
 this room. If I close them, I get none. We also know 
 there is a great deal of mental experience of which we are 
 certain, but which on the corresponding physical side is broken, 
 because we do not know what particular correspondence there 
 is (C — B). We say there is correspondence by inference, by 
 analogy only. So also we find a whole range of nervous pro- 
 cess which has no mental accompaniment, all e.g. that goes 
 on below the brain in so far as it is reflex. Now is there 
 not after all, in relation with such nerve-processes, (D — A) 
 below the brain (according to the principle of continuity) 
 
44 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 some corresponding procedure of unconscious mental experi- 
 ence ? Be not misled by the seemingly sharp contradiction 
 between conscious and unconscious experience. The fact 
 is that there are all degrees of consciousness, from the fully 
 conscious down to the sub-conscious. Hence it becomes 
 a grave question, where does the sub-conscious stop ? 
 
 Concomitance or Parallelism. 
 
 You will find in Prof. Ho riding s chapter on ' Mind and 
 Body ' reference to various views as to the relation of mind 
 and body, but at the beginning of our course such considera- 
 tions are premature. What we need now do is to express 
 the fact that mind and nervous processes are related. The 
 best term for this is Concomitance. There is reason to 
 believe that whenever we have anything of mental experience, 
 there is a fact of nerve-process concomitant with it. Why 
 there should be such concomitance we cannot now consider. 
 The word Parallelism is used synonymously with concomit- 
 ance, but it carries us too far if it suggests that when there is 
 a nerve-process there is a fact of mental experience \ The 
 parallelism does not hold both ways. And neither term 
 conveys the implication of any causal relation, least of all that 
 the nerve-process is the cause of the mental experience, 
 which is the Materialist standpoint. The psychical process 
 is not in the least accounted for or explained by the physical 
 process. Mark me here — I protest against such careless 
 phrases as ' brain thinks/ It is stark nonsense ! As a material 
 organ, it is the seat of a process expressible in terms of 
 motion. Because we are thinking, cerebral processes are 
 going on. The brain does not think : it moves. Again, we 
 
 1 Strictly, we can only speak of a parallel between two physical 
 events, not between a physical and a psychical event. 
 
vil] Elements of Psychology. 45 
 
 must specially guard against such a blunder as lies in saying 
 that sensation travels along a nerve or is located in the 
 brain. Sensation is a fact of our conscious experience, 
 a fact of Mind, arising on occasion of the brain being excited 
 in a certain way, but not to be located in the brain any more 
 than in any other part of the organism. In the nervous 
 system, which consists only of matter, any change is in- 
 telligible to us ultimately only as some kind of motion. It 
 may not be visible ; it may, that is to say, be molecular, but 
 still it is only motion. We are familiar with the fact that all 
 changes of bodies or media are ultimately reducible to modes 
 of motion, as e. g. sound, light, heat ; and again in chemistry, 
 where a chemical reaction is only a rearrangement of atoms 
 in space, i.e. motion. The nervous system is a physical 
 thing, and, just as we consider that a flash of electricity 
 passing through a telegraph-wire sets up a molecular motion 
 within the wire, so this is all that we can suppose to take 
 place in the nervous system when a sensation is produced. 
 When, for instance, I prick my hand, a disturbance has passed 
 into the brain, and then I become conscious, and then goes 
 out that kind of motor change which causes me to draw 
 back my hand. Molecular change, which is ultimately 
 motion, goes in, and only motion comes out, but sensation 
 does not go in ; it is only bound up with the motion when 
 consciousness is aroused. Nor does volition come out ; it is 
 bound up with the outgoing motor disturbance. Sensation, 
 consciousness, cannot be said to be anywhere in the same 
 sense that a disturbance can be said to be in, or travel in, 
 a nerve. There is merely a case of thoroughgoing concomit- 
 ance, concurrence or parallelism— let us say, a concomitance 
 of disparate processes. We can never make a physical 
 disturbance pass into a psychical disturbance. This implies 
 
46 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 the important fact that there is no accounting for mind in 
 terms of matter, though we may explain matter in terms of 
 mind. But this is metaphysical ground. 
 
 Note. — For further discussion on Subconscious Mental Processes see 
 Appendix. — Ed. 
 
 For Lecture VIII read Bain, Bk. I, ch. i, § 4 ; Hoffding, V, A. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 GROWTH OF MIND. THE STAGE OF SENSE. 
 Correlated Procedure. 
 
 So far for a general view of mind, together with a brief 
 survey of the nervous system as specially related to mind. 
 We have seen that the nervous system is one liable to be 
 impressed, or acted upon, physically, and also able to send out 
 impulse, to act. It has its passive side, on which it is receptive, 
 and its active side, on which it is effective. It has, thirdly, its 
 central parts, through which the two sides, affection and 
 reaction, are held in relation with one another. Now in as 
 far as the system is simply affected or excited (whether from 
 without or otherwise) we have the physical condition cor- 
 responding to what we are subjectively conscious of as 
 Feeling. In as far as the system is effective, we have the 
 physical condition corresponding to what we are subjectively 
 conscious of as Willing or Conation. And in as far as the 
 system is at once affective and effective — reaction in full and 
 activity co-ordinalive of the variety of impressions to which 
 it is subjected — we have the physical condition corresponding 
 to what we are subjectively conscious of as Knowing or 
 Intellection. This process of grouping or co-ordinating 
 among centres prior to energy sent out is one of fabulous 
 complexity. All conscious processes, however, even the very 
 
48 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 simplest feeling, coincide with a complex nerve-process. 
 And for that matter any psychosis whatever is essentially 
 complex, in itself and in its concomitant neurosis. 
 
 Stages of Mental Life, 
 
 Reverting to our original subjective point of view, which 
 for us is primary and fundamental, we ask what kind of 
 mental experience are we first specially to study ? 
 
 We have this great phantasmagoria of mental experiences, 
 which we have tried to express in a variety of ways more or 
 less figurative, and our business is to see whether we can 
 class those mental experiences that are like each other and 
 marked off from others, and if there is a thread of law running 
 through them all. The business of science is a mustering, 
 classification, comparison of facts for finding out the laws 
 involved in them. 
 
 Development and Growth of Mind, 
 
 Now in seeking a scientific procedure for our psychology 
 we find ourselves at this stage in a position to consider mind 
 in an aspect that is of the first importance as regards both 
 science and practice. The mental life proceeds in a uniform 
 relation with the life of the bodily organism, more especially 
 with the nervous system ; and as the life of the body may be 
 expressed by saying that it develops and grows, it is inevitably 
 suggested that there must be a corresponding development 
 and growth of mind. Now whenever it can be said of any- 
 thing that it develops and grows, there is no more effective 
 way of studying its nature than by tracing the successive 
 stages of its life ; while it is only thus that there can be any 
 thought of intelligent practical training. 
 
 Though they have a direct application to the mental life 
 
viii.] Elements of Psychology. 49 
 
 of which we are subjectively conscious, the notions of 
 Development and Growth may at first be more easily grasped 
 in reference to living bodies. Development in this case is to 
 be understood as the gradual unfolding of the distinguishable 
 but interconnected parts called organs out of an appearance 
 of uniformity, and Growth as a progressive modification, 
 through activity, of those organic parts as they become 
 developed. The seed, for example, develops into the plant 
 with all its varied parts, and growth accompanies the develop- 
 ment at every stage. Both processes go on in relation to 
 the circumstances in which the living thing finds itself, and are 
 liable, as these are modified, to be promoted or arrested. 
 But while an organism cannot develop except in circum- 
 stances in which it can live and grow, its development 
 depends less on circumstances than on its original nature 
 and constitution. In like circumstances (natural or artificial) 
 different germs will develop differently; and even the growth 
 of whatever is developed will always be limited by the original 
 possibilities of development, both as to kind and amount, 
 inherent in the living thing. 
 
 Turning now to the subjective point of view, we may speak, 
 in no indefinite sense, of mind as developing and growing. 
 Our conscious experience, when we reflect upon it — and we 
 have already so reflected 1 — has a distinct appearance of con- 
 tinuity while becoming ever fuller and more varied. It has 
 grown in the sense that it has steadily increased in extent 
 and content, and it has developed by the opening up, from 
 time to time, of new mental horizons. The circumstances 
 also of this development and growth admit of more or less 
 consistent and definite statement. We can distinguish a part 
 that is due to personal initiative from the experience that 
 
 1 Vide Lecture III. 
 
50 Elements of Psychology. [Lkct. 
 
 seems rather as if it came to us ; and in this again a part 
 that comes, as it were incidentally (through contact, as we 
 say, with the world of nature), from that which has been 
 communicated (by parents, teachers, and others, in the social 
 state into which we are born). Further, we can allow for an 
 original mental constitution by supposing that each man's 
 conscious experience from the first has its own peculiar range 
 and complexion. My earliest feelings, impulses, &c, will, in 
 like circumstances, be other than yours. While we are 
 fitted, as human beings, to develop a common consciousness 
 not shared by the lower animals, we differ at the same time 
 as to what we may each of us mentally become. 
 
 It is thus quite possible to speak of mental development 
 and growth from the strictly psychological point of view; 
 but the view is rendered much more definite when there is 
 coupled with it a reference to the bodily conditions of mental 
 life. In particular, we are thereby helped to conceive of the 
 individual as endowed originally with definite mental capacities; 
 for each of us comes into the world with a nervous system so 
 organised that the influence of circumstances is at once seen 
 to have its limits. Organised, however, as the nervous system 
 is at birth, it is then but imperfectly developed, responding 
 with a small number of re-actions to a few simple impressions, 
 or expending its energy in random movements ; and so we 
 can the better understand how contracted and inchoate must 
 have been our earliest mental experience, which was there 
 before we became self-conscious, and which, when we became 
 self-conscious, could no longer be recalled. As the develop- 
 ment of the system is then known to proceed, through 
 childhood and youth, in dependence upon its inherent powers 
 more than upon (though not without) the presence of soliciting 
 circumstances, we may more distinctly comprehend how new 
 
viil] Elements of Psychology. 51 
 
 phases of mental life should from time to time manifest 
 themselves, for which no explanation is to be sought in the 
 foregoing conscious experience. While, again, the growth 
 of the nervous system as a whole, and of its various parts, at 
 each stage of development, evidently proceeds in relation to 
 the physical circumstances naturally present or artificially 
 supplied, so may we more clearly see how the mind will 
 expand and acquire this disposition or that according to the 
 nature of the incidental experience or express instruction it 
 receives. 
 
 Even so, however, though rendered more distinctly in- 
 telligible, the development (as distinguished from the growth) 
 of mind does not admit of being traced in detail. For this 
 there is required a far more exact knowledge than we yet 
 have of the actual development of the nervous system as 
 well as of the relation of its different parts to the variety of 
 mental functions. We can but judge generally that, as 
 mental advance is bound up with the nervous system in the 
 living human body, it follows a course that may be variously 
 modified and specially may be arrested, but cannot be in- 
 definitely hastened or prolonged. Such a general conviction 
 is of great practical value, warranting, as it does in education, 
 the most particular regard to all the ascertained conditions 
 of bodily well-being. No mental regimen can be truly 
 effective that involves the least neglect of the conditions 
 under which there can be a healthy natural development of 
 the nervous system in the body. But even in the practical 
 view, the condition has chiefly a negative import, and precise 
 positive injunctions are not to be looked for till the actual 
 process of development can be specifically traced. 
 
 The case of growth is different. Growth of mind, at 
 every stage of development, is represented by the word 
 
 E 2 
 
52 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 Experience, or rather, what we call Experience subjectively 
 is growth physically. The more frequently any feeling is 
 experienced, or any intellectual combination is formed, the 
 more liable is that feeling to be experienced, the more fixed 
 that combination becomes. Physically, in the one case, the seat 
 has become more highly charged with nervous energy, and 
 in the other case some definite cross-connexion has been 
 carved out. And it is not impossible to express the con- 
 ditions under which mental experience becomes widened and 
 fixed, in relation with what is known of the conditions of 
 growth in the living organism. At present, however, our 
 insight into mind as growing or developed is to be used for 
 laying out the field of inquiry in such fashion that explanation 
 may afterwards become possible. 
 
 Now there is a very simple and obvious way of viewing 
 mind as manifested at stages, which seems the most effective 
 for this purpose. We know that our consciousness is some- 
 thing that grows, develops, or expands. We are aware of 
 this for ourselves ; we know that our consciousness expands 
 as ive grow and learn. And though we do not remember 
 our earliest years, we can understand what went on in us 
 by reason of what we suppose goes on in infants. Adult 
 consciousness is more manifold and complex than infant 
 consciousness. If our consciousness has grown and is 
 growing, we must suppose it has been doing so according to 
 some definite laws. We are bound to suppose that, if we 
 mean to have any science of it. It might seem as though 
 nothing were so free as mental experience. Then where are 
 the laws involved in it ? If we are to know anything definite 
 about it, we must seek for laws, and before we seek, we have 
 in a definite way to muster our experiences, classify them, 
 put together those experiences that resemble one another 
 
viil] Elements of Psychology. 53 
 
 Reasons for commencing Mental Analysis with Sense. 
 
 Now my answer as to my procedure is based on my 
 opening remarks. We are to begin with the consideration 
 of that kind of mental experience called Sense, or Sensation. 
 From several points of view, sense comes before us with 
 special claims to be first considered. Not all psychologists 
 who begin in the same way make this justification of their 
 procedure. 
 
 1. 'Look within' and you will admit, that, whatever else 
 we can say of consciousness, we are always having a series 
 of fresh and new feelings or affections ; it is the most salient 
 fact ; our conscious experience is continually being added to 
 in some way. How, for instance, would my class know my 
 thoughts during a lecture without the sounds of my voice, or 
 the sight of what is on the blackboard ? And the one term 
 herefor is our being sensible of somewhat. Our consciousness 
 may not be aggrandised by bare sense-experience, but the 
 sense-experience must be there. 
 
 2. At the dawn of memory, we see by our own experience 
 and the conscious experience of children, that our conscious- 
 ness was then predominantly a sense-consciousness. In all 
 its three distinguishable (though blended) phases of Feeling, 
 Intellect, and Will, we may note an earlier and a later stage. 
 Some feelings are clearly manifested before others, and the 
 like is true of cognitions and volitions. The feelings that 
 are called sense-feelings or, simply, sensations (taste, touch, 
 &c), are almost without exception excitable in some form 
 from the beginning of life, while those more specially de- 
 nominated Emotions or Sentiments (love, sympathy, &c.) for 
 the most part become manifest only later on. The knowledge 
 of sensible things, distinguished as sense-perception or, 
 
54 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 simply, perception, is obtained at a time when general 
 knowledge, called Conception or Thinking, remains still in 
 abeyance. And, in like manner, the power of willing is 
 first manifested in control of the bodily members, which may 
 be called sense-action. In short, Sense may be used as 
 a comprehensive designation to cover all the primary mani- 
 festations of mental life. 
 
 3. Conscious experience then first offers itself for study in 
 the mode of sense. Take any consciousness of developed 
 form, e.g. consciousness of the pillar in my class-room. See 
 what it involves ; analyse it, break it up, and you will see that, 
 whatever goes to make up that consciousness, the salient 
 facts are what we call sense — sense of colour, of hardness, of 
 sound when it is struck, and so on. Whatever else the pillar 
 may be, it is an aggregate of sense-experiences, resembling 
 each other in several respects, yet each of them for us a simple, 
 distinguishable experience — simple, as not to be further 
 analysed. Sense-experiences in their ultimate form are con- 
 stituents of consciousness. 
 
 4. Now, to show the importance of physiological con- 
 siderations, refer to those conditions in the nervous system on 
 which our sense-experience depends. The system consists 
 of members, the brain, &c, which are removed from direct 
 communication with other material objects. Communication 
 takes place by way of nerves. And if the brain is, properly 
 speaking, liable to be acted upon and to act, only by nerves, 
 then, if there is one kind of mental experience that is bound 
 up with nerves, it is this kind that should occur to us to 
 study — that experience, in other words, which involves both 
 nerves and centres. We best oppose to the central parts of 
 the nervous system its peripheral parts, or, more especially, 
 the limited external surface which constitutes, not all the 
 
viii.] Elements of Psychology. 55 
 
 peripheral parts of the nervous system, but the periphery of 
 the body. Let us then define sense from a physiological 
 point of view, though it be a mental fact. Sense is the name 
 for a certain simple kind of subjective experience, which 
 arises for us when brain is called into play in connexion with 
 the peripheral parts of the nervous system. Brain may be 
 called otherwise into play, as e.g. when I in thought estimate 
 that 12x13=156, but whenever we have got a sense- 
 experience along with excitation of brain, there is also 
 a process going on in the peripheral parts of the nervous 
 system. And this is our definition from the physiological 
 point of view. 
 
 But we saw that those peripheral parts were twofold, 
 afferent and efferent. In our analysis of sense have we to take 
 account at once of both ? Professor Bain begins with that 
 simple kind of conscious experience which, he believes, arises 
 with the efferent nerves, and only in the second place goes 
 on to deal with that kind of conscious experience which 
 arises in connexion with afferent nerves, i. e. with sensation. 
 Whether sensation should also include the former kind is 
 a moot point. That sense is connected with stimulus of the 
 brain through afferent nerve-fibres, is the extent to which 
 psychologists in this matter agree. 
 
 Sense as related to the Three Phases of Mind. 
 
 What is the relation of sensation to the three ultimate 
 phases of mind? Professor Hoffding has no hesitation in 
 bringing sensation under Cognition. Later on he gives 
 grounds for modifying this view, for when he proceeds to 
 Feeling and Will he is as ready to take account of sensation 
 as he was in Cognition ; he does not bring in sensation defi- 
 nitely, yet he makes express reference to it. Sensation then 
 
56 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 has not that exclusive reference to cognition which his expo- 
 sition to start with would seem to imply. Professor Bain, 
 on the other hand, devotes a preliminary section (Book I) to 
 Sensation before dealing with the three phases, and implies 
 that sense has a relation to all three. I agree with Professor 
 Bain and go further. He professes to deal with Sense before 
 he comes to Intellection, &c., yet in point of fact, at various 
 parts of Book I (pp. 47-50 ; 62-66), he is already, in con- 
 nexion with Sense, dealing to a certain extent with Intellection. 
 So for Feeling and Conation. We must be more explicit. 
 
 Have we under the name of Sense got a fourth phase of 
 mind ? Not another phase, but a stage of mental experience. 
 I mean, that every phase of mind can be observed by us 
 at the stage of sense. Intellection, e. g., can be either sense- 
 intellection or not. We have, at the stage of sense, to take 
 account of mental experience as it partakes of all three 
 phases. We can view it in respect of sense-feeling, sense- 
 intellection, sense-conation. This view is not really at 
 variance with those of Professors Hoffding and Bain. 
 
 Children's minds are at work at the sense-stage. This does 
 not mean that sensation by itself gives a complete account 
 of the child's mind. However early we take account of 
 consciousness, we are bound to suppose that in the mind 
 of children we can discern the three phases. If children were 
 not intellective, affected, conative at the beginning, they 
 would never become so; but while they are all this, they 
 are so pre-eminently on occasion of sense. There comes 
 a time when consciousness is not pre-eminently sense-con- 
 sciousness, when we pass more and more out of the stage of 
 sense. Care must be taken in using the word ' stage/ or it 
 rnay be perilous, because it suggests that when we pass from the 
 sense-stage we have done with it. But it lasts as long as life. 
 
viil] Elements of Psychology. 57 
 
 There are cases of disease where human beings have lost 
 exclusively all sense-experience ; at least one such case is 
 recorded, where not only taste, hearing, &c, but even touch 
 was gone. Such a person could hardly be conscious at all. 
 The same happens to us every night when we sleep ; when- 
 ever sensation is cut off, asleep we go. This justifies us in 
 saying that, no matter how aggrandised our consciousness, if we 
 do not continue having sensations, our mass of consciousness 
 is of no use. But, relatively to other modes of consciousness, 
 it is so much more prominent and engrossing at the beginning 
 of life, that we may with good reason speak of it as the initial 
 stage of mind ; and there is no more effective way of stating 
 the problem of psychology than in this form : that we have to 
 seek for an explanation of the phenomena of adult conscious- 
 ness as arising out of the sense-experience of early life. 
 
 For Lecture IX read Bain, pp. 27-35; Hoffding, VI, A, § 1, a. 
 
LECTURE IX. 
 
 GENERAL SENSE. SPECIFIC ENERGY OF NERVE. 
 
 Sense, for Psychology, is Simple and Ultimate. 
 
 We found that to get a definition of Sense, or Sensation, 
 we were compelled to connect it with, and refer it to, nervous 
 processes. It either seems not to be, or is not, resolvable 
 into anything simpler. And as this is not the case with 
 every kind of conscious experience, we have some reason 
 for beginning our analysis of subjective experience with 
 Sense. Again, consciousness is broken into in a way for 
 which the previous phase does not furnish us with any 
 adequate reason. Thus we can say in a manner our con- 
 scious life begins with sense. 
 
 My Procedure. 
 
 Some psychologists, e.g. Professors Sully and Clark Murray, 
 before proceeding to give a detailed exposition of Sense, 
 have a number of considerations on the General Doctrine 
 of Sensibility ; and both proceed to consider how our con- 
 sciousness is quantitatively related to the physiological 
 circumstances which attend it. We however shall first map 
 out what are the main kinds of sensation, and then consider 
 what are the ultimate relations between sensation and 
 stimulus as treated in what is called Psycho-physics. 
 
Elements of Psychology. 59 
 
 The Seats of Sensation, 
 When we deal with sensation there is a conviction that 
 we have a certain number of senses. We talk popularly 
 about five kinds of sensation, corresponding to the five organs 
 of sense — skin, tongue, nose, ear, and eye. We distinguish 
 sensations from the organic point of view ; we connect them 
 with manifest organic parts. By organ of sense we mean 
 something ' through ' which we have a certain kind of sense- 
 experience. But remember always that sense arises neither 
 in fibre nor in brain, but ' in ' consciousness. Let students 
 correct for themselves gross errors herein in some of the 
 books (not those I have named for reading). 
 
 Quality and Quantity of Sensation, 
 From the subjective point of view how do we distinguish 
 and connect sensations ? We are aware they have something 
 in common, yet something peculiar to each, constituting 
 different kinds of sensation. For ' kind ' use quality of 
 sensation ; sound and colour differ qualitatively. Sounds, &c, 
 differ also in quantity, i.e. in intensity, but the fundamental 
 distinction is that of quality, both as between different senses 
 and within the same sense. There is e. g. a difference between 
 sweet tastes and bitter, and again between kinds of sweet and 
 kinds of bitter. 
 
 Special Order of Sensations. 
 
 Assuming for the moment the adequacy of the popular 
 fivefold distinction of sense, we find that these five can 
 be disposed in a certain order. Let us substitute for Touch 
 the more comprehensive term, Skin-sensibility, and range 
 them thus : — 
 
 Skin-sensibility. 
 
 Taste and Smell 
 Hearing and Sight. 
 
60 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 According to what is this order? According to the principle 
 followed in our order of objective sciences, an order of 
 increasing speciality. The quality, if we read downwards, 
 becomes of a more marked, pronounced kind. There is 
 in sound and colour something more specially distinctive 
 than in most skin-sensibility, in which there is a certain 
 vagueness. Consciousness yields us a greater variety of 
 tastes and smells than of skin-sensations, and a still greater 
 of sounds and colours. 
 
 Again, if we refer to the corresponding organs we find 
 a corresponding increase of speciality. Eye and ear are 
 the most highly specialised organs of sense. The skin con- 
 stitutes a relatively unspecialised organ. Democritus had 
 a theory of development of the senses, which was that skin- 
 sensibility was the first and fundamental sense, and of it 
 all the others were specialised kinds. This brilliant suggestion 
 has received a great deal of support from modern biology, 
 but cannot be said to be established. That taste and smell 
 are modifications of skin-sensibility is possible, but eye and 
 ear are not merely such. Nevertheless we can say this 
 much, that our order exhibits increasing speciality in three 
 ways — subjectively, organically, biologically. 
 
 General, Organic, or Systemic Sensibility. 
 
 Our order then, if read upwards, indicates decreasing 
 speciality, i.e. increasing generality. What is that general 
 sensibility which gives meaning to the criteria of speciality ? 
 It must be such that those criteria are wanting. On the 
 physical side, the general characteristics are that the nerves 
 involved in it are nerves not provided with specially con- 
 structed endings. In the flesh, the skin, the internal organs 
 of the body, there is a large supply of afferent nerves, 
 
IX.] Elements of Psychology. 61 
 
 connected with the main centres, but ending simply in those 
 organs. Sensations that we have in connexion with those 
 organs are not clearly distinguishable one from another 
 with the definiteness characterising special sensibility. We 
 may do our best to classify this large mass of general 
 sensibility, as Professor Bain e. g. has done, but we must say, 
 that in psychological character it is essentially vague. It was 
 not till the end of the last century, about 1796, that, 
 through Cabanis, what is now called general sensibility came 
 to be distinctly analysed. Odier designations for it are 
 (a) Organic Sensibility (cf. Bain), all parts of the organism 
 subservient to life being, as such, organs or seats of general 
 sensibility. (b) Common Sensibility, used also in physiology. 
 (Note here that sensus communis is an old term and ambiguous : 
 common sense in philosophy has acquired another and a de- 
 finite meaning of its own, adopted by the school of ' common- 
 sense philosophers/ headed by Reid.) (c) Sensus Vilalis. 
 (d) Systemic Sensibility, or sensibility connected with the life 
 of the body as a system. Neither ' organic ' nor ' systemic ' 
 offers so good and direct an antithesis to ' special ' as ' com- 
 mon/ or ' general/ Nor does the word c special ' commit us 
 to the popular but incorrect number of five senses. 
 
 Distinction between General and Special Sense. 
 
 Now the difference between general and special sense 
 cannot be shown subjectively in a definite way ; it can onlj 
 be done by a reference to physiological accompaniments. 
 And this follows from the conclusion we came to above, that 
 sense itself as a whole has the physiological conditions ver* 
 evident, and therefore cannot te adequately explained withoui 
 a reference to these phenomena. 
 
 The peculiarity of special sense is that it has a certain 
 
62 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 definitely marked quality, and is so divided off in conscious- 
 ness that there is no danger of confusing it with any other 
 sense whether general or special. It is true that it is very 
 common to apply the language of one sense to another, 
 e. g. * loud colour/ &c., and furthermore, I will not say 
 that confusion never takes place between two senses, as 
 in taste and smell, where some sensations are difficult 
 to distinguish, as will be noted later on 1 . But whereas 
 w r e may say with relative determinateness that special sensa- 
 tions have a well-defined qualitative character, it is almost 
 impossible to explain the differences in general sensations in 
 the same way. It is true, in turn, that among them there 
 are marked peculiarities, as e. g. between a racking pain and 
 suffocation, but the difference is not like those between the 
 special senses. 
 
 Now this is as far as we can go by a subjective treatment 
 of the subject, and so we must fall back on physiological 
 characteristics, as we have already had to do in the case 
 of general sense. In the case of all the nerves of special 
 sense, the afferent nerve-fibres end more or less at the 
 periphery, not simply as fibres, but in certain minute structures 
 which vary in the case of the different senses, and which help us 
 to define the differences we experience subjectively. These 
 other structures make the irritability greater than it otherwise 
 would be. They are called by Mr. Spencer multipliers of 
 disturbance, and may be compared to a thorn which, when 
 run into the skin, increases the irritability of the nerves 
 around it. Among them are the papillae, or peripheral 
 organs of touch, the retina, and the peculiar endings in the 
 tongue, where the nerves end in a different manner at the tip 
 from those at the back. In the general senses these nerve- 
 1 Cf. Lecture X, p. 70. 
 
IX.] Elements of Psychology. 63 
 
 endings are usually absent, and we shall see that the more 
 highly organised or specialised is the structure of these 
 endings, the greater is the speciality of the special sense. 
 
 Specific Energy of Nerve. 
 
 To whatever it may be due, whether to peculiarity of 
 nerve-endings or peculiarity of cerebral endings, we find 
 that a particular nerve is normally or regularly responsive 
 to a particular kind of stimulus, but yet is found to respond 
 to other kinds of stimulus in such a uniform way that the 
 quality of the consciousness is always of the same kind. 
 This is called the doctrine of the specific energy of nerve. 
 For instance, light is produced by the vibration of the ether 
 acting upon the optic nerve through the retina, and if this 
 kind of stimulus be applied to any other but the optic nerve 
 no effect is produced. In the same way there is one nerve 
 which responds to waves of sound. But if you treat the optic 
 nerve with a stimulus of pressure or electricity, consciousness 
 of light is produced ; so, too, will the auditory nerve respond 
 in its normal way when pressed upon. Taste in particular 
 states of health is also affected analogously, and so is the 
 olfact©ry nerve, a bad odour, e. g., being smelt just before 
 a fit of epilepsy. Specific energy of nerve has been variously 
 explained, but not satisfactorily ; let it suffice us here, however, 
 that the doctrine is of real account in psychology in fixing 
 the distinction of one special sense from another. 
 
 There are, nevertheless, two partial exceptions to the rule, 
 viz., (1) we find a case where the same stimulus acting 
 on two different kinds of nerves produces different conscious 
 experience, and (2) there is a case where one and the same 
 nerve is differently affected by different stimuli. 
 
 (1) The same waves of ether acting on the retina produce 
 
64 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 colour, on the skin, temperature. This shows that light 
 and heat do not reside in the stimulus, but are differentiated 
 by our specific nerve-endings. Nothing shows more clearly 
 the efficiency of the nerve-structures in both cases. The 
 range of stimulus common to the two senses is limited. 
 If the wave-frequency is reduced we still have a sensation 
 of heat, but none of light. If the wave-frequency is increased, 
 colour is still produced while heat dies away, as in the case of 
 the violet rays. 
 
 (2) The tip of the tongue is supplied by the nervus 
 trigeminus ; at the tip we have the senses of both taste 
 and touch developed, the latter to its highest pitch. Though 
 both these senses are supplied by the same nerve, there 
 is reason to believe that the fibres have in each case different 
 endings. When these two kinds of endings are stimulated 
 together there arises a confusion, such e. g. as the effect that 
 a substance like mustard produces (cf. Bain, p. 38). 
 
 General Sensibility concluded. 
 
 Let us now dispose of general sensibility. It constitutes 
 the beginning of sensibility in this sense, that if all the special 
 senses are developed from skin-sensibility, and skin-sensibility 
 is developed from general sensibility, then the last is fun- 
 damental to all the rest. Cabanis, again, maintained (cf. 
 Hoffding) that in all probability we have it before birth, prior 
 to the exercise of the organs of relation, as those of special 
 sensibility are sometimes called in view of our entering 
 through them into external relations. The fact that we have 
 no memory of this pre-natal sensibility proves nothing. 
 There is every reason to believe that organic sensibility plays 
 its part in the development of the individual from the 
 beginning, and it is certainly fundamental. 
 
ix.] Elements of Psychology. 65 
 
 Its character in adolescent or adult consciousness is 
 chiefly that of feeling in its proper sense, of affection either 
 pleasurable or painful, and especially of the latter. Many 
 modes of organic sensations are unknown to us save as 
 sources of pain. When our vital mechanism is working 
 rightly, we know nothing of it in detail, but on occasion 
 of disorder, e. g. of the liver, we get sensations of the most 
 depressing kind. Certain other modes, however, of general 
 sensibility are pleasurable, e.g. a sense of warmth, or 
 moderate repletion. All that we sum up in the terms, physical 
 comfort or discomfort, sense of ill- or well-being, bien-etre, 
 malaise, ccenaesthesis, is to the greatest extent organic or 
 general sensibility. Even though particular modes of it 
 may not figure in consciousness as pleasurable, it does 
 not follow that they do not tell on consciousness. Once 
 more, our general sense of being is a collective sensible 
 experience, made up of all our feeling at any given moment, 
 containing some elements of special sense, but into which 
 organic sense generally enters. 
 
 We have further good grounds for stating, that into our 
 consciousness of self as of an individual, of myself, of being 
 myself, organic sensibility enters as the fundamental factor 
 and nucleus, round which is gradually developed the ego, as 
 distinguished from the non-ego. Herein organic sensations 
 attain to great psychological importance, however unfitted 
 they may be, from the fact that they are non-localisable, to 
 become sources of the knowledge of objects. 
 
 Finally, in respect of Conation organic sensibility has a 
 marked character. Every mode of experience which is 
 markedly pleasurable or painful has a great conational im- 
 portance, even though it may not take the form of overt action. 
 Some of the most fundamental active impulses of our nature 
 
 F 
 
66 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 have their root in organic sensibility ; e. g. there is no under- 
 standing appetite without reference to it. 
 
 We now leave the l stage ' of organic sense after having 
 considered from it all the three phases. Describable mainly 
 in terms of Feeling, it has small intellectual importance, but 
 contributes by collective action some knowledge of the ' inner ' 
 or subjective world, and, by particular action only, clues to 
 states of the organism as such. And it is of great conational 
 importance. 
 
 For Lecture X read Bain, Book I, ch. ii, from p. 36. 
 
LECTURE X. 
 
 THE SPECIAL SENSES. 
 
 In resorting to the special senses, we find this marked 
 contrast to general sensibility, that distinctiveness is the very 
 note, discrimination the very essence, of them. And we have 
 already seen (though it is much overlooked) that the speciality 
 of the special senses is not properly understood till it is 
 grasped that they are not equally special. 
 
 Skin Sensibility. 
 
 Notice now the double relation of skin sensibility, arising 
 from its complex character. It is the bridge between 
 general, and the other forms of special sensibility. The 
 following diagram will indicate its position : — 
 
 ( Organic Sensibility 
 ( Skin Sensibility i 
 
 Taste and Smell > Special 
 
 Hearing and Sight ' 
 
 Why do I speak of skin sensibili y at all ? In order to get 
 away from the special limitations of the word ' touch/ Why 
 does Professor Bain put touch before taste ? Because he looks 
 moref'to intellection. But our point of view is to find out what 
 sense is as sense. Why skin sensibility rather than touch ? 
 If Professor Bain be read on Touch, it will be seen that he 
 
 F 2 
 
68 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 considers not only touch proper, which he describes as 
 contact and pressure, but also temperature, the sense of 
 which is connected, in ways both general and special, with 
 the skin. Hence it is well to use the wider and more com- 
 prehensive term, skin sensibility. The question then arises, 
 whether touch and temperature are merely different qualities 
 of the same sense, or not ? No, we can, it is true, get them both 
 together, as when I put my finger on the table, getting both 
 contact and temperature, but they are independent variables. 
 The fact that there are skin sensations which, as touch or 
 temperature, become in certain circumstances pain, does not 
 prove them one and the same special sense, but connects them 
 with general sensations. We do not begin to feel pain of 
 touch or temperature, until the skin becomes injured or dis- 
 integrated. And that is the very thing which arises in organic 
 sensibility. Skin pain is indeed the commonest, the most 
 typical of all pains, the one we are most exposed to. Pricks, 
 cuts, the greater part of the pain in operations — in all such 
 we suffer skin pain, on occasion of injury to the organism. 
 Hence in our skins we are still in the region of organic 
 sensibility \ and any sensation of temperature in the skin can 
 always be regarded as a specialised mode of the general 
 sensation of heat. 
 
 Some 2 declare that pain is, in addition to touch and 
 temperature, a third form of sensibility. It is true, on the 
 one hand, that in certain cases of disease persons, while 
 
 1 Skin sensibility appears to be more vitally connected with organic 
 functioning than any other special sense, not excepting taste and 
 smell (V, p. 70). Any of the special senses may be lost without 
 involving death, except skin sensibility. Patients who have lost this 
 sense go to sleep inevitably and die shortly. 
 
 2 E. g. Mr. Spencer. 
 
x.] Elements of Psychology. 69 
 
 retaining a sense of touch, lose the capacity of feeling pain 
 through pricks. On the ofher hand, touch and temperature 
 pass by insensible degrees into pain, when the excitation has 
 reached a certain pitch, so that pain seems due to degree or 
 mode of excitation of the same nerve-fibres. Again, we have 
 not the same proof that there are different fibres for pain and 
 touch, as we have that there are different fibres for temperature 
 and touch. In these there is every reason to believe that each 
 kind of sensation is connected with different nerve-endings 
 and different fibres of the same nerve. At parts of the skin 
 we have touch and temperature, at others temperature and 
 not touch. Investigations even seem to show that on a 
 minute scale there are heat-spots and cold-spots on the skin, 
 where we feel only heat and only cold respectively \ Hence 
 skin sensibility is a complex, a nest, or matrix of sensations, nor 
 perhaps has research yet exhausted its specialisations. And 
 each mode of it is both general and special. How far special ? 
 In so far as contact, shifted the fraction of a millimetre on the 
 skin, may indicate a change in feeling from heat to cold or 
 to sense of touch only. The sensations of touch proper 
 are highly discriminable, of considerable qualitative variety, 
 indefinitely numerous. As to the physiological conditions, 
 the nerve-endings of touch vary greatly at different parts of 
 the body, the full import whereof will be evident later. 
 They are, to take extremes, very different at the tips of the 
 fingers and tongue from those in the interscapular region 
 of the skin. That such differences exist and are parallel 
 with subjective differences is characteristic of special sense. 
 Touch, therefore, and temperature, though nearly related 
 to general sensibility, are essentially special as well, and 
 constitute, as we have said, a bridge between the two. 
 
 1 Cf. Donaldson, * On the Temperature Sense,' Mind, July, 1885. 
 
70 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 Taste and Smell. 
 
 These should be studied in Bain. There is a reason for 
 considering them together. They are related by a marked 
 affinity, statements about the one mostly holding good for 
 the other. Both are special, manifesting qualitative differ- 
 ences and by way of special peripheral organs. Each is in 
 relation with a mode of organic sensibility, viz., alimentation 
 and respiration, respectively, to the organs of which taste 
 and smell are as door-keepers. Thus each is complex. 
 Relishes, e. g., and disgusts or nauseous tastes, as distinct from 
 simple tastes, include organic sensibility of the alimentary 
 canal. ' Fresh air and 'closeness/ as distinct from simple 
 odours, involve organic sensibility of the respiratory organs. 
 Again, burning and bitter tastes and pungent smells involve 
 skin stimuli and other nerves, besides those of the organs 
 of taste and smell. Between these two organs there is 
 physical continuity, namely, at the back of the mouth. 
 Corresponding to this we find in subjective experience 
 that tastes and smells are often mixed up together, run into 
 each other, e. g. savours and flavours. Again, they have 
 both been called the chemical senses, because in both cases 
 the stimulus takes the form of a chemical process. Tasted 
 things must be liquid or moist, smelt things must be gaseous \ 
 
 Both organs are in continuity with the skin ; indeed, if 
 the term, skin, be extended so as to include all the mucous 
 membrane in mouth and nostrils, then there is a sense in 
 which taste and smell may both be regarded as specialised 
 skin-sensations, as touch of a certain kind, both mentally 
 
 1 When we speak of 'savour' we seem to be talking of smell, but 
 are really speaking of taste ; when we talk of l flavour ' we seem to 
 be speaking of taste, but are really speaking of smell. Cf. the fact 
 that flavour is lost when we are suffering from catarrh. 
 
x.] Elements of Psychology. 71 
 
 and physiologically. The tongue, e. g., which is the organ 
 of taste, is also the most highly differentiated part of the 
 organ of touch. At the tip, the same nerve both touches 
 and tastes, but by different filaments, ending differently. 
 Again, the tongue is also an organ of temperature, a pungent 
 taste involving stimulation of temperature-nerves as well as 
 of gustatory nerves. The same holds good of the nostrils. 
 Taking snuff affects both olfactory and tactile nerves. 
 
 Coming to the residuum of tastes proper and smells proper, 
 we find that many are markedly pleasurable or painful. 
 For many, on the other hand, a neutral character is claimed. 
 There is also a vast range of qualitative variety. In the 
 difference between an alkaline and a saline taste you are 
 discriminatively affected, rather than pleasurably or painfully 
 affected. Now, under the circumstances, where the difference 
 between these tastes is the most marked fact, are they not 
 describable in terms of feeling ? Yes, because we are affected, 
 i. e. feeling. Whereas, I say, the salient feature of ( sweet ' and 
 1 bitter ' is their character of feeling, the salient feature of 
 other tastes is their character of qualitative difference, discri- 
 mination, intellection. 
 
 Sight and Hearing. 
 
 Still confining ourselves to bare sense, we will couple also 
 hearing and sight. Considered purely as sense, I think 
 that hearing is perhaps the most specialised of all the special 
 senses, but sight, though less highly specialised as mere 
 sense, is of far greater importance for perception. Subjec- 
 tively taken, they are so far related, that what we say of the 
 one as sense, we can say of the other, e. g. we can speak 
 of a ' loud colour/ Nevertheless hearing gives its language 
 to sight, rather than vice versa. It is because of its extreme 
 
72 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 specialisation that Taine 1 selected hearing as the sense 
 to describe in full detail, saying the other senses could be 
 understood in terms of this. This, in our present order, 
 would be a reason for taking sight first as less specialised. 
 But it is at the same time a reason for commencing with 
 hearing, inasmuch as this sense gives clues to the under- 
 standing of sight. 
 
 The organ in each case is unique, for not only is there to 
 each a special nerve having the sole function of transmitting 
 sounds or sights, but it ends in an extremely complex 
 apparatus, the proper sensitive surfaces in which are not 
 visible externally. It is in these sensitive structures that ear 
 and eye stand so far above other sense-organs. In the ear, its 
 external part or pinna, and its middle part or tympanum, 
 are merely appendages to the internal ear or labyrinth, 
 helping to make stimulation effective, the last, viz. the ' fibres 
 of Corti/ being the only sentient part. The ' semi-circular 
 canals' in the ear are not concerned with hearing, the 
 nerve which supplies them not going to the auditory centre. 
 Stimulation of them seems to be connected with sensations 
 of equilibrium and rotation, and this consciousness of co-or- 
 dination must either be added as another special sense, or be 
 included under General Sensibility. In the eye, the sensitive 
 structure or retina, where the physical stimulus of ether- 
 vibrations is changed to nerve-process, is spread like a 
 curtain over the back of the eye, and has, though only -^ 
 inch thick, at least eight different layers, only two of which 
 are nervous, the others merely promoting the stimuli. The 
 eye is in this respect the very acme of a specialised sense- 
 organ. Unlike the other senses, the stimuli necessary to 
 affect the nerves of sight and hearing can be precisely 
 1 V. De V Intelligence, Paris, 1885 ; liv. Ill, chap. i. 
 
x.] Elements of Psychology. 73 
 
 determined, and again, their high development has caused 
 the special branches of physics, optics, and acoustics to be 
 constructed. 
 
 Coming to the subjective side, note the relation between 
 hearing and taste or smell. Sounds are painful or pleasant, 
 and the latter we often call ' sweet/ the former ' harsh/ But 
 the range of discriminate sounds is vastly greater than that 
 of discriminable tastes and smells. Professor Bain proceeds 
 from quality of sounds to deal with quantify of sounds. The 
 fact that he did not do so under Taste and Smell indicates 
 the greater development in the sense of hearing. The 
 former senses can be distinguished as varying in intensity, 
 but in the case of sounds the degree of intensity can be 
 measured with the greatest precision. Moreover, quantity 
 of sound can be subdivided into Intensity and Amplitude. 
 Again, we differentiate sounds as notes, tones, or musical 
 sounds, and as noises. The former are distinguishable in 
 a third respect, viz. Pitch, and in another, that of Timbre 
 or clang-tint (Klangfarbe\ Another distinctive kind of 
 auditory experience is that of a certain concurrence of 
 sounds we call Harmony and Discord, and of sequences of 
 sounds we call Melody. However, these have their analogues 
 in well-ordered successions and combinations of tastes. 
 There are, so to say, harmonies and melodies of taste. 
 But there is nothing in gastronomy corresponding to the 
 high development attained by physical and physiological 
 acoustics. 
 
 With Light we may also deal quantitatively as well as 
 qualitatively, and equally with sound, we can give expression 
 in physics and physiology to the different effects we are 
 conscious of in sight. Next, is there in light a corresponding 
 distinction to that between sounds and noises ? Yes, there 
 
74 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 are sensations of sight as such, i. e. light and sensations of 
 colour. And in colour we can distinguish the result of 
 variety in rate of ether-vibrations, just as pitch depends 
 on rate of sound-vibrations, but there is little proportion 
 between the two, the range in pitch lying between 16 to 20 
 and 36,000 vibrations per second, that in scale of colour from 
 400 to 800 billions per second. Nevertheless, whereas in 
 sounds there is the possibility of duplication over and over 
 again, yielding a series of 'octaves,' the whole range or 
 gamut of colour is for us exhausted within one single 
 octave, from red to violet. The analogy is there, but it is 
 a likeness with a difference. You will find that the detail 
 of sound is better made out and understood than is the case 
 with colour, proving that hearing is the most specialised 
 sense. There are, moreover, harmony and melody analogues 
 in colour, but here again there is less exactness and definite- 
 ness possible. It is in hearing that we see what sense for 
 us, as sense, can come to. 
 
 For Lecture XI read : — 
 
 Hoffding, V, A, §§ 4, 5; I, 8d; Sully, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 
 40-43 ; Ward, pp. 50, 51 ; 53, 54 ; Croom Robertson, Philosophical 
 Remains, ' The Senses.' 
 
 Note. — It is not till he deals with Feeling that Professor Hoffding 
 gives a very fairly detailed account of the different senses. He 
 makes little account of sensation in connexion with Cognition, l/ut 
 takes great account of it as a mode of Feeling. 
 
 The lecturer used to refer advanced students to Ladd's Physiological 
 Psychology, Part II, for a detailed account of research into the 
 quantity and quality of sensations. — Ed. 
 
LECTURE XI. 
 
 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE SENSES. 
 Radical Differences in Sense. 
 
 Reviewing what we have found in sense, we find we can 
 say nothing about the most highly specialised sense, hearing, 
 that we cannot to some extent say of every other special sense. 
 Yet while there is a certain continuity between them, there is 
 always from one point of view a complete break. Each 
 special kind of sensation has a character apart and of its 
 own. And this marked subjective difference corresponds to 
 difference in the special organs. 
 
 Relativity of Sensation, 
 
 Thus it is possible that we might have more kinds of 
 sensation if we had more organs. For the physical pro- 
 cesses which give stimuli to such senses as we have are 
 a very small part of all the physical processes going on 
 around us. And they give those stimuli within a very limited 
 range : e. g. we only hear sounds, when the air-vibrations are 
 at a certain rate. Vibrations at other rates may be going on 
 of which we, through the limitation of our sense of hearing, 
 
76 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 know nothing. Similarly with ether-vibrations. The sense- 
 affections are therefore purely relative 1 . Again, the same 
 physical process that appears to skin-sensibility as heat, 
 appears to sight as light, ether-vibrations being the medium 
 of both heat and light. The same physical process appears 
 differently to different senses — or may not appear (directly) 
 at all. Actinic rays affect the photographer's plate, but not 
 our retina. 
 
 Quality and Quantity of Sensation. 
 
 Of the general characters of sensation, quality is the most 
 fundamental. Every sensation, whatever else it has, must 
 have a qualitative aspect distinct both from other kinds and 
 within the same kind. And the more special the sense the 
 larger number or range of qualitatively different sensations 
 does it include. 
 
 Next, sensations not differing qualitatively may, within the 
 same sense, differ quantitatively : e. g. the same note of 
 a piano may differ in intensity or degree, may be soft or loud. 
 Thus quality and quantity are apparently independent 
 variables. Speciality of sense finds expression in quantity 
 as well as quality. Consider, e.g., the quantitative range 
 of sight and sound as contrasted with that of taste and 
 smell. 
 
 This aspect of intensity of sensation has been well studied 
 by the science of psycho-physics. Sensation depends upon 
 stimulus. Now stimuli, being facts of the external world, 
 may be viewed quantitatively ; we may take a unit of stimulus, 
 or any multiple of it. Since stimuli then can be considered 
 quantitatively, and sensations also differ in intensity, are 
 
 1 Cf. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, Lect. VIII, pp. 141-145 
 
 (Ed. Mansel and Veitch). 
 
XL] Elements of Psychology. 77 
 
 there definite numerical relations between the latter taken 
 subjectively? and if so, can there be any fixed relation 
 between degrees of stimulus and subjective intensity of 
 sensation ? 
 
 * Weber s Law.' 
 
 Weber and Fechner, from thirty to forty years ago, 
 inquired into the existence of such a relation, and held that 
 they had succeeded in framing a law of the relation between 
 sensation and stimulus quantitatively expressed, termed the 
 Psycho-physical Law, all investigations leading up to it being 
 (then) known as psycho-physics. Intensity of sensation does 
 not increase at the same rate as intensity of stimulus. For 
 intensities of sensation to increase in arithmetic progression, 
 intensity of stimulus must increase in geometric progression. 
 Thus to increase to 10 1 intensity in sensation expressed 
 as 100, we may require an increase in stimulus of 100 to 
 no, but to raise intensity to 102 the stimulus must be raised 
 to 121. 
 
 A certain degree of stimulus-intensity is necessary before 
 it is effective at all : this is known as the threshold, and the 
 value of the stimulus at that point gives the threshold-value 
 of that sense to which the stimulus is applied. The difference 
 in degree of stimulus necessary to take effect is called * the 
 least observable difference.' 
 
 Is Intensity a fundamental distinction ? 
 
 This psycho-physical law is probably not an ultimate law. 
 It is still a doubtful point whether, however we seem to 
 distinguish quantity from quality in consciousness, intensity 
 may be no fundamental distinction, but explainable in terms 
 of quality. 
 
78 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 This doubt, raised by later psycho- physical research as to 
 the reality of intensity as regards sensation, brings up the 
 question how far it is wise to substitute its opposite ( exten- 
 sity' for mass or volume among the quantitative aspects of 
 sensation as Dr. Ward does 1 . To me it seems — that to 
 introduce this special aspect in order to establish later on 
 a theory of perception with respect to extension is begging 
 the question of extension later on. The notion of extension 
 belongs to the more complex subject of perception, and not 
 to sensation at all. Intensity had better establish itself first, 
 before it brings in its parallel expression Extensity. If 
 intensity were to fall qua fundamental distinction, it would 
 drag extensity with it. 
 
 Sense considered Emotionally and Intellectually. 
 
 We must now proceed to consider the senses from a point 
 of view other than their relative speciality. The experience 
 we have from a sense is psychologically to be regarded in 
 a twofold way: (1) such as it appears to consciousness with 
 respect to the pleasure or pain it produces, in other words, 
 from its emotional aspect; and (2) as it is of account to us 
 from its intellectual aspect, in other words, as it enters into 
 the fabric of our knowledge. 
 
 The Senses as affording Emotional Values. 
 
 It is quite plain that each of the senses presents us 
 with states of consciousness which we can most adequately 
 describe as feeling, that is, as the case may be, either pleasur- 
 able or painful. Looked at from this side, the senses will 
 
 1 V. Art. * Psychology/ Encyclop. Brit. 
 
XL] Elements of Psychology. 79 
 
 show a great difference. Sweet and bitter tastes, to a child 
 at any rate, are distinct pleasurable and painful experiences. 
 So for fragrant smells and mal-odours, sweet and harsh 
 sounds. Lower in the scale of specialisation, in organic 
 sensibility, we cannot say that to every mode there are both 
 of these aspects, for some are pleasurable only, some painful 
 only, while others, it is true, are known under both aspects. 
 The special senses however have both positive and negative, 
 i.e. pleasurable and painful, emotional values. And it will 
 be possible to order the senses from this point of view, 
 although this cannot be done by taking both values into 
 consideration together, inasmuch as those senses which 
 afford the greatest amount of pain do not in all cases 
 afford the greatest amount of pleasure. Skin-sensibility, e.g., 
 affords some of the acutest pains we can feel, while the 
 majority of its non-painful sensations are rather neutral than 
 pleasurable. 
 
 If then the senses are to be ordered either from the point 
 of view of pleasure or pain, the former is on the whole 
 preferable, since in this way we can most definitely and 
 usefully order them. And we shall find accordingly, that 
 sight and hearing will come last as affording the greatest 
 variety of pleasure. For it is in regard to the variety and 
 continuity of the pleasures afforded by the senses that we 
 must consider them, since de gustibus non est disputandum. 
 People will never agree as to which sense affords actually the 
 acutest pleasure, though they may agree as to which affords 
 the highest range of pleasures and which affords those that 
 last longest. If we consider mere intensity of pleasure at 
 the moment of production, there seems no doubt that some 
 kinds of organic sensibility rank highest; and so also for 
 pain ; cf. toothache pains. But we can see plainly, that 
 
8o 
 
 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 [Lfxt. 
 
 there is nothing like the pleasure produced by music and 
 by hearing generally in the case of the lower senses, and 
 whoever has entered into these pleasures has an abiding 
 possession in them. A feast, even if you have tasted it, 
 yet have it not at the present moment, is not worth much. 
 Apart however from hearing and sight, it is difficult 
 to order the other senses, though we mark that the more 
 elaborated the structure of the special sense-organ, the more 
 abiding is the pleasure got from it. 
 
 The Senses as entering into the fabric of our Knowledge. 
 
 If we proceed to order the senses with regard to their 
 intellectual value we shall get a very different order from that 
 which had regard to speciality. In either case organic 
 sensibility comes first as being at once least intellectual and 
 least special, although, as we have seen, it has some intel- 
 lectual value of a very special sort, while in intensity of 
 pleasure and especially of pain it ranks high. 
 
 Order of Increasing Speciality. 
 
 Organic Sensibility. 
 Skin-sensibility. 
 Taste and Smell. 
 Sight and Hearing. 
 
 Order of Increasing Intellectual 
 Value. 
 
 Organic Sensibility. 
 
 Temperature. 
 
 Taste. 
 
 Smell. 
 
 Hearing. 
 
 Touch and Sight. 
 
 Here we see that the mode of skin-sensibility we call 
 touch becomes under the second head of the highest 
 importance. It is only in the case of some animals, such 
 as the dog, that smell ranks higher than touch in this 
 
XL] Elements of Psychology. 81 
 
 respect. Smell is put higher than taste, intellectually, 
 because it gives us knowledge of things at a greater distance 
 than taste, and so a fortiori does hearing. And in respect 
 of knowledge got through speech, hearing ranks first of all ; 
 it is in respect of knowledge got directly in- sense-perception 
 that touch and sight excel it. But sight remains after all 
 the one pre-eminent sense, heading as it does in both 
 categories. 
 
 Now there is a law we find implied but not actually stated by 
 Professor Bain, viz. Wherever a sense is found to stand high in 
 regard to its value with respect to knowledge, there is always 
 a large range of feelings connected with it which are neither 
 pleasurable nor painful. In organic sensibility, e.g., all 
 feelings may be ranked as either pleasures or pains, but of 
 most touches and sights we must say that they are neutral ; 
 we are neither pleasurably nor painfully, but only differently, 
 affected by them ; in fact our consciousness is to be described 
 as discriminative, and we know that discrimination is the 
 mark of intellection. Our three most intellectual senses 
 afford us eminently a variety of discriminable experience. 
 An orchestral conductor, e. g., with a great variety of instru- 
 ments being played around him, can single out any one 
 that goes wrong. Again, we can distinguish many touches 
 at once, many objects of sight at once. But tastes and 
 smells tend to fuse indistinguishably ; still more so organic 
 sensibility. If the organs of sense are compared it will be 
 seen that those of touch and sight lend themselves to 
 many simultaneous impressions, that of hearing some- 
 what less so, and those of the rest much less. It does not 
 matter, e.g., to discrimination whether we taste sugar with 
 the front or back of the tongue, or smell with the right or 
 left nostril. But in the retina and the skin, we find that 
 
 G 
 
82 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 stimulation of different tracts is connected with sensations 
 variously discriminated. 
 
 For Lecture XII read: — 
 
 Bain, pp. 12-14; 17-24; Hoffding, V, A, § 6; Sully, pp. 65-70; 
 Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, ' Feelings of Muscular Exercise/ 
 §11 and footnote. 
 
 Also cf. W. S. Mackenzie, Mind, July, 1887 ; G. C. Robertson, 
 Mind, vi, p. 120 et seq. ; Mind, xv, 524; or in Philosophical Remains , 
 PP. 3i7-3 2 4 J 39 2 -39 6 - 
 
LECTURE XII. 
 
 MUSCULAR SENSE. 
 
 Consciousness and Motor Impulses, 
 
 We must now return to the consideration of a point we 
 left over till the present, viz. whether there is a conscious 
 experience in connexion with the efferent 1 side of the ner- 
 vous system ? All the sense-experiences we have hitherto 
 considered were those in which we are passively affected, i. e. 
 in which the brain has been roused by afferent nerve-fibres. 
 Now we saw that disturbances passed out again by efferent 
 nerves producing always (except in the case of the glands) 
 muscular contraction, these nerves terminating in muscular 
 fibre. Muscles are connected with bones, hence their 
 contraction causes motion in space, and accordingly efferent 
 discharges are called motor impulses, because they result in 
 visible motion. All nervous disturbance is motor, but it is 
 in itself of the kind of motion called molecular, and is to 
 a certain extent hypothetical. By motor here we mean the 
 overt results of nervous activity, and not the process itself. 
 So the question becomes, When there is an outgoing or 
 motor impulse, or innervation of muscle, is there an accom- 
 panying conscious experience ? If there is, of what nature is 
 it ? and upon what does it depend ? Since, however, by 
 * motor ' we mean overt results of nervous activity, and since 
 
 Lect VI, p. 39. 
 G 2 
 
84 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 we may get a sense of activity put forth without visible 
 movement, it is perhaps best to avoid the term and frame 
 the question thus : — Have we any form of conscious ex- 
 perience accompanying muscular action whether it results 
 in movement or in strain ? 
 
 Direct Consciousness of Activity put forth. 
 
 All psychologists agree that we have a sort of sensation 
 in connexion with muscular contraction, a sort that cannot 
 be referred to any of the special senses, and is properly to 
 be described as a mode of organic sensibility. This sensibility 
 arises from the stimulation of afferent nerve-fibres distributed 
 amongst the muscles, which fibres are affected when the 
 muscle contracts, either violently as in cramp, or more 
 gently as in ordinary muscular movements. And when the 
 muscles have contracted, the resulting sensation is dependent, 
 not only on the stimulation of afferent fibres ending in the 
 muscle, but also on that of other afferent fibres ending in 
 the joints and in the adjacent internal organs, as well as in 
 the sensitive skin lying over the muscles, which contributes 
 an element of special sense. Many important psychologists 
 think that our conscious experience in connexion with mus- 
 cular activity is exhausted by this account. 
 
 But Professors Bain, Wundt, and others do not agree to this. 
 They hold that, beyond any kind of conscious experience 
 depending on the stimulation of afferent nerve-fibres in and 
 about muscle, there is an initial fact of experience in con- 
 nexion with the contraction of muscle which depends, not 
 on any stimulus that is received, but on the sending out of the 
 impulse from the brain, and thus is related to the action of 
 efferent fibres. This is the muscular sense proper. Wundt 
 calls this experience sensations of innervation ; they are held 
 
xil] Elements of Psychology, 85 
 
 to arise in the very act or fact of motor impulse being sent 
 out from brain-centre to muscle. 
 
 The point has been much contested. There is a some- 
 thing in the sensation of putting muscles into action that 
 can never be explained by the stimulation of afferent nerve- 
 fibres. True, from the nature of our constitution, we never 
 have this factor of active conscious experience by itself 1 , but 
 have it always mixed up with other, mainly organic, sensi- 
 bility. But that there is an independent factor, a residuum 
 of conscious experience not expressible in terms of stimulation 
 of nerve-fibres, is , I think, indubitable. The accompanying 
 organic sensibility swells the effect, but apart from this 
 organic sensibility of muscular contraction and of adjacent 
 parts, we do have consciousness of outgoing energy ; we are 
 conscious, I repeat, not only at the moment of contraction, 
 but also before, at the emission from the brain, at the 
 stage of innervation itself. Professors Bain and Wundt 
 are too exclusive; they admit none of the many elements 
 contended for by the other side, as they might do without 
 surrendering their position. The evidence, I admit, is very 
 difficult, the facts allowing of interpretation either way. And 
 this is just because the sense is so complex. There is no 
 case I have seen but bears a possibility of twofold inter- 
 pretation. But the evidence tends my way. And if we are 
 to reason upon anterior probabilities, we may ask, why 
 should we not be conscious when the brain sends out, as we 
 are when the brain receives ? There is all the difference in 
 the world between our being affected and our acting. Why 
 should I be conscious only in * being affected ' ? But I reject 
 the extreme position, that consciousness had by me on 
 
 1 Professor Bain, by his order of treatment, rather leads us to 
 suppose that we can have it in isolation. 
 
86 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 occasion of acting is muscular sense only: I accept the 
 contributions from the other side. 
 
 Muscular Sense, as Sense, is Unique. 
 
 Now note, that if we call this fact muscular sense, then the 
 term ' sense ' must be extended so as to apply to conscious 
 experience that arises when the brain is called into play in 
 any connexion with the peripheral nervous system, by aid 
 both of afferent and efferent nerves. But muscular sense 
 stands apart. In our consciousness of putting out muscular 
 activity there is a something not brought about in direct con- 
 nexion with a stimulus from without, not expressible in terms 
 of passive sensation, not on a line with the modes of general 
 and special sensibility considered up to this point. 
 
 Analysis of Muscular Sensations. 
 If then there is such a thing as muscular sense, of what 
 nature is it ? upon what does it depend ? We are said 
 to distinguish two modes of muscular sense, (i) muscular 
 activity resulting in motion, (2) muscular activity resulting 
 in dead strain. These are fundamentally different modes, 
 and yet the distinction, although of the first importance, is only 
 relative. No activity is so free as to be wholly unimpeded, 
 and none is so impeded as not to be partly free. The 
 two modes pass into one another. Notice that Professor 
 Bain distinguishes (1) as 'Feelings of Movement 1 / Here 
 he is premature. When we are conscious of movement, 
 we cannot be said to be purely sensitive, we are nothing 
 short of perceptive. Muscular sense may be of account in 
 our getting percepts, but it does not, as such, yield con- 
 sciousness of movement. The very meaning of movement 
 for us. is a certain change in space. One is aware of 
 
 1 Op. cit., pp. 22, 23. 
 
xil] Elements of Psychology. 87 
 
 something going from one place to another. It is begging 
 the question to account for space from so-called feelings 
 of movement. We should speak only of perception of 
 movement. Movement, resistance, and such terms of 
 perception have no meaning for us at this stage. We are 
 here concerned wkh a simple factor of experience, never 
 had, it is true, in isolation from other conscious impressions, 
 but which, as sense of effort, of energy, of ' virtue gone out 
 of/ of activity put forth, does not really admit of any 
 legitimate division. There is relative safety in the distinction, 
 introduced by Professor Sully, between Free and Impeded 
 Energy, but even that is going too far. We ought not 
 here to be anxious to distinguish. In sending out impulse 
 to muscles there is conscious experience — this is all \ 
 
 Muscular Sense as a Coefficient. 
 
 Now here is a singular fact, not in the books, that 
 muscular sense, whatever it may involve, has only for eighty 
 or ninety years been distinguished and spoken about ! Some 
 therefore say it does not exist. Whence this blank, old and 
 new ? The muscular sense was ignored because we never 
 are muscularly sensible simply and purely. Some other sense 
 masks it. And analysis, which had not discerned the 
 chemical elements of water, did not discriminate in con- 
 sciousness. We can move no muscle that is not the cause 
 of tactile sensation, or of its cessation. All mobile organs are 
 organs also of passive sensation : we cannot put forth activity 
 
 1 Professor Bain is again misleading when he distinguishes between 
 feelings connected with Muscular Activity and Discriminating Power 
 of Muscle. The latter is only muscular sense viewed as of account 
 for perception. Here again the distinction between sense and per- 
 ception is not clearly drawn. 
 
88 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 without being liable to be passively affected. And this is 
 why Locke and others did not discern muscular sense. 
 
 Sensation proper may be called passive sense, and muscular 
 sense may be called sense of activity, though not active sense. 
 By thus recognising muscular sense, we obtain in it a co- 
 efficient for transforming passive into active sense. 
 
 All the senses previously taken account of present more or 
 less two phases, according as they occur in purity or with 
 this coefficient : e. g. we have Active Touch and Passive 
 Touch. If I am touched, I have a passive sensation. If 
 I touch some one, I have a passive sensation, but I am also 
 conscious of activity put forth. Active touch then is the 
 being affected by contact on occasion of activity put forth. 
 
 'Active sense' is not muscular sense. It has no use in 
 psychology save as meaning passive sense transformed by 
 muscular sense as a coefficient. 
 
 Let the student think for himself how this is shown in 
 the other senses ; how more or less, and why more, why 
 less, before reading the next lecture. Beginning with 
 organic sensibility, do we in each sense distinguish by distinct 
 terms between being affected simply and actively seeking 
 sensation ? 
 
 For Lecture XIII read : — 
 Hoffding, V, A, § 7 ; Bain, pp. 45-47. 
 
 Note. — Prof. Hoffding deals with Perception in considerable detail, 
 but follows a different line from mine, throwing the subject to the 
 end of his discussion of Cognition. His view is, however, in the 
 main consistent with mine. 
 
LECTURE XIII. 
 
 ACTIVE SENSE AND QUALITATIVE DIFFERENCE IN SENSATION. 
 
 Active Sense, 
 
 Let it not be forgotten that any antithesis between the 
 muscular sense and the other senses is not one of active as 
 opposed to passive sense. Consciousness in the former is 
 just as much affection as in the latter. The activity is in 
 the muscles. There is no adequate excuse for calling 
 muscular sense active sense. But in muscular sense we 
 cannot distinguish between an active and a passive phase. 
 Its unique function is, as coefficient, to transform the passivity 
 of other sensations into what may be called active sense. 
 
 How far are the various senses transformed by the presence 
 of this coefficient ? 
 
 The organs of organic sensibility are not provided with 
 muscles that we can call into play, hence our power to 
 procure such sensations is of the most limited kind, as e. g. in 
 inhaling (as distinct from smelling). Our activity is chiefly, 
 not to get, but to get rid of, such sensations. Organic 
 sensibility then remains as the type of passive sensation. 
 
 In Taste both phases appear, according to the extent to 
 which we move the gustatory organs. We can scarcely get 
 tastes without actively tasting ; but the inevitable accompani- 
 ment of touch is an added complexity. 
 
90 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 In Temperature no special form of sense of muscular 
 activity is involved. 
 
 Smell is also predominantly passive, but we can scent or 
 sniff; i.e. we may smell on occasion of special muscular 
 activity. 
 
 In Hearing we may either submit passively to hear certain 
 sounds, or we may listen or hearken, putting our head, our 
 hand, our body, in some particular attitude. Here again the 
 coefficient is at a very low power. 
 
 In Sight, on the other hand, the sense is predominantly 
 active. We are passively affected by light and colour, but 
 deliberately to see, to look at, to inspect, to contemplate, 
 involves sensations of a multitude of minute muscular adjust- 
 ments. 
 
 But it is in Touch that the two phases are most strongly 
 marked, viz. touching and being touched. The tactile organs 
 are at the same time muscular organs. 
 
 Now those sense-organs that give us active sense pre- 
 dominantly are mobiles, liable to move while being affected. 
 Cf. the number of muscles in the mechanism of the eye, 
 through which we can exert conscious activity. Cf. next the 
 very different degrees of mobility in the organs of touch. 
 Were all as the hand, touch would come before sight. But 
 contrast with the hand the immobility of the back ! Take 
 the opposite extreme, the organs of organic sensibility. Here 
 there is no mobility on occasion of our being affected. 
 Take the mean: in hearing and smell the activity is put 
 forth, not by the organ, but by auxiliary appendages and 
 other members. To the extent that any sense is under 
 muscular control, to that extent do we find active sense. 
 Only where the sense-organ is mobile, do we find active 
 sense approaching purity. 
 
xiii.] Elements of Psychology. 91 
 
 Muscular Sense as of account in Perception. 
 
 Why do I lay so much stress on all this? Because per- 
 ceptio?i, and especially objective perception, as opposed to 
 sensation, is a kind of conscious experience i?tto which there in- 
 evitably enters consciousness of activity put forth, i.e. muscular 
 sense. Muscular sensation therefore must be markedly of 
 account for objective perception. And whatever it can do 
 for us in the way of objective perception, it will do in sight 
 and touch, since it is best developed in connexion with these 
 two senses. I look at a book and call it an object', why? 
 None of the modes of passive sensation gives the real heart of 
 what is meant by objective quality. Whatever is a sensible 
 object for us is so primarily in terms of two qualities : 
 Extension and Resistance. Nothing is a sensible object to 
 us that is not spread out in space or resisting. Some things 
 are spread out without resisting; hence we have reason 
 for saying that extension is the fundamental aspect of an 
 object. Bodies only are both extended and resisting. Now 
 extension is something that we cannot take in except by way 
 of active sense-experience. Still more obviously is this true 
 of resistance. Hence the muscular sense that goes with 
 that muscular activity is psychologically the fundamental 
 factor in any sense-perception. And as secondary factors 
 there enter into sense-perception those modes of passive 
 sense that are most intimately connected with muscular sense 
 as coefficient. 
 
 Qualitative Difference in Sensations. 
 
 Consider now the senses in respect of the liability of their 
 respective organs to be affected in different ways. (I think it 
 a gain to treat of this expressly unlike the books.) Take 
 
92 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 smell : any odour engrosses the whole organ of scent. The 
 perfume of two flowers becomes fused, though complex. 
 One impression results. So with tastes, though to a less 
 extent. We may break up a complex taste, but it requires 
 effort. The impressions are more or less unified. Nor do 
 we, in organic sensibility, differentiate sensations from the 
 same organ. We do not suffer with one lung, and enjoy 
 with the other. We have no variety of distinct impressions. 
 Now come to hearing. We have a multitude of distinguishable 
 impressions. Many we may fuse, but we can have a sense 
 of manifold impressions. We can say, we hear differently in 
 connexion with different parts of the organ of hearing, and 
 only one kind of sound with each single part. Here is the 
 ground of the relatively great intellectual importance of 
 Hearing, as we shall see. 
 
 In Touch and Sight we get the most striking exempli- 
 fications of manifold distinction ; that is, in Touch proper ; 
 not in skin-sensibility generally, as sensations of Tempera- 
 ture fuse. We are able to have a number of simultaneous 
 Touches distinctly. And we find a remarkable local difference 
 in the sensitiveness of the organ of touch. You have read 
 of Weber's experiments, made in 1843, under Professor 
 Bain's section entitled ' Plurality of Points.' What is the 
 import of this Plurality of Points, or, preferably, of these 
 1 Distinguishable Touches,' or again, of this ' Local Difference 
 in Sensitiveness ' ? Simply that (a) we touch very differently 
 with different parts of the tactile organ, and can be conscious 
 of more than one touch, as a plurality, at the same time ; 
 (b) that according to the part affected and its absolute range 
 of sentience, we have qualitatively distinct, or qualitatively 
 undistinguishable impressions, e.g. we can at the finger-tip 
 distinguish two points of contact with the tip ^ inch apart, but 
 
xiil] Elements of Psychology. 93 
 
 not T X 8 inch apart. Qualitative Difference is my poinl ; not 
 Quantitative Difference, for we can distinguish pressures 
 which are equal ; and not Distance, of which, directly, Dis- 
 tinguishable Touches tell us nothing. The two points of the 
 compass on the skin may afterwards come to be interpreted 
 as being a certain distance apart, but that is not a question 
 of sense only, with which we are still for a moment concerned. 
 Finally, distinguishable touches are only exaggerations of 
 the qualitative differences we apprehend in Sight. With 
 different parts of the retina we can distinguish qualitatively 
 more or less. Light-impressions reach their maximum of 
 distinctness at the ' yellow spot ' ; at the sides of the retina 
 'Aey are less distinct; at the ' blind spot' they are nil. 
 Different parts of the retina are more effective than others 
 for different colours. The fact of qualitative difference in 
 Sight is more easily demonstrable than in Touch, because the 
 spatial idea intrudes so much less. Even in Touch, as we 
 saw, the real difference is qualitative, not spatial at all. 
 
 For Lecture XIV read Hoffding, V, B, § i. 
 
LECTURE XIV. 
 
 SENSATION AND SENSE-PERCEPTION. 
 
 Transition from Sensation to Perception through Active Sense. 
 
 Now for the collective result of our inquiries. With respect 
 to combination with Muscular Sense, Touch and Sight stand 
 apart from the other senses. With respect to varying 
 sensitivity, they also stand apart, though less so than does 
 Hearing. Herefrom we may draw an important concluson. 
 Here we have the basis for the Psychology of Perception. 
 We now step from Sense to Sense-perception. 
 
 Sensation as an abstraction front, Perception as a fact of Actual 
 
 Consciousness. 
 
 What do we mean by Perception 1 as distinct from Sensa- 
 tion ? Sense, we saw, is a kind of conscious experience had 
 under certain assigned conditions. It is a necessary term, 
 but I have never said that what we have been calling Sense 
 represents an actual fact of our conscious experience — that 
 it constitutes all our consciousness at any given moment. 
 Any sense-experience that we can make the subject of our 
 consideration, that we actually find ourselves having, is 
 something more than Sensation — is never pure Sense. Ap- 
 
 1 Perception should no longer be used ambiguously. Once almost 
 or quite synonymous with Thinking, it has in the last generation 
 come to stand for Sense-perception, apprehension on occasion oi 
 sense. 
 
Elements of Psychology. 95 
 
 proximately so only, it is true, in Systemic Sensations, our 
 sense-experience is always, if in different degrees, somehow 
 related or referred. Even those Systemic Sensations are 
 held to be connected with some part of my body, to be within 
 the organism. Sensation bare and simple we never get. 
 Much more is this referring seen in Special Sensations. 
 A sound is never thought of as purely subjective, but always 
 as ' proceeding from ' somewhere. This coloured band 
 round the wall is referred, not to ourselves at all, but, as a 
 quality r , to a certain thing. Most of all in Touch do we relate 
 roughness, weight, solidity, &c, to -an object, as its attributes 
 or properties. This definite projection of colour, sound, and 
 touch is far removed from the indefiniteness with which we 
 spatially refer our organic sensations, some indeed of which 
 we cannot localise at all. There is, again, a great difference in 
 the deflniteness with which we project Tastes and Smells from 
 the case of the other special senses. I venture to assert that 
 when I say ' lump of sugar/ you think of a white, glistening 
 object before you think of sweetness. ' A rose ' implies for us 
 a smell. But we all think of the rose as visible and tangible 
 and then as fragrant. Sensations, then, are spatially referred, 
 but not in the same way nor on the same level. 
 
 This is unquestionably our natural way of regarding sense- 
 experiences. They appear, not as mere sensations in us, 
 but as sensible qualities of things. It is only by an effort of 
 psychological analysis that we regard them as subjective. 
 The distinction is not in actual appearance, but in thought. 
 Sensation is really an abstraction, formed for purposes of 
 psychological study. Naturally we interpret most sensations 
 not as affections of the subject, but as qualities of things, and 
 it is sometimes very hard to think of them otherwise than as 
 qualities of things. 
 
96 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 Perception as Apprehension of ' Thing ' or ' Object? 
 
 What we have now to investigate, viz. the psychological 
 problem of Perception, may be expressed thus : How do 
 sensations, in themselves bare facts of subjective experience, 
 come to appear in our consciousness as sensible, or rather as 
 perceptible, qualities of things ? What is involved in saying 
 4 perceptible things ' ? 
 
 Perception as the Relating of Sensations. 
 
 The transformation of things as sensible, i.e. of subjective 
 experience or affections of the subject, into things as per- 
 ceptible, of the abstractions of bare sense into actual experience, 
 is effected, as we saw, by putting sensation somehow or other 
 into certain Relations. Every mental experience we have is 
 related to something else which it is not. This means that 
 work of Intellection has been done upon it. And that work 
 signifies not merely affection, but activity. Without subjec- 
 tive affection we could not perceive at all, but perception as 
 opposed to sense has the implication of activity. Perception 
 is really a term of objective import : it signifies the apprehen- 
 sion, or grasp, of an object; it suggests the putting forth 
 somehow of muscular activity or innervation (though the 
 muscular activity may not be overt). Hence it can no longer 
 be expressed in terms of bare Feeling. And inasmuch as the 
 activity is not immediately directed to an end, it must be 
 regarded pre-eminently under the phase of Intellection. Per- 
 ception will accordingly be found to exemplify, under 
 assignable conditions, the working of the compound function 
 of Intellection, viz. Discrimination and Assimilation. Now 
 every sensation that we have is ordered somehow in space. 
 The spatial reference may be at a minimum, in actual 
 experience, but it is ever present. This is Perception's most 
 
xiv.] Elements of Psychology. 97 
 
 characteristic feature. In so far as we spatially refer sensa- 
 tion, we are, psychologically, perceiving. To the extent 
 indeed that we differentiate one sensation from another, con- 
 scious that ' It is this, not that/ we are perceiving. Perception 
 is discrimination and assimilation on occasion of sense. But 
 it is for the consciousness that 'It is here, not there/ that the 
 term Perception is specially reserved. Perception proper is 
 grouping our sensations in some spatial order. 
 
 The Philosophical, as distinct from the Psychological, 
 aspect of Perception. 
 
 Note here in passing how this bare psychological meaning 
 is distinct from the philosophical sense of Perception. The 
 philosophical term Cognition is not bare Intellection. You 
 cognise a certain object. Hence the philosophical problem : 
 What corresponds in reality to my subjective experience ? 
 Is there a real pillar there corresponding to my perception of 
 it ? Our question now is : That pillar is known to me by 
 sense-experiences ; how have the latter come to be grouped 
 for me into a percept — to appear to me as a pillar ? And 
 generally : How do sensations appear objectively, appear in 
 some kind of spatial order, appear as spatially referred ? 
 Philosophically we ask : What is the reality of that pillar 
 that appears to me to be there ? Psychologically we ask : 
 How does that pillar appear to me to be there x ? 
 
 The Psychological Problem of Perception. 
 
 Now, then, we are intellective, and if intellective, then per- 
 ceptive, when by us sensations are referred, and especially, 
 spatially referred. How do we come thus to refer sensations, 
 some to the body, some to ' things ' apart from the body ? 
 
 1 Professor Bain is apt to mix up these questions, which leads to 
 much confusion. 
 
 H 
 
98 Elements of Psychology. [Lect.. 
 
 How do sensations become elements in the construction of 
 objects ? 
 
 The relatively Active Senses as the Substructure of 
 Objective Perception. 
 
 Remember that the amount of elaboration undergone by 
 sensations in Perception varies greatly from one to another. 
 Even of the sensations that do come to appear as definite 
 sensible qualities of objects, some do so in a primary, others 
 only in a secondary, manner. The dejiniteness of the reference 
 varies indefinitely. Any psychological theory of Perception 
 ought to account for this. 
 
 Now analyse a perception, e.g. a slight cut by a knife. 
 The pain is sensation. The brightness of the blade is 
 sensation. Why do you not put the brightness into the skin 
 and the pain into the knife ? Again, the band of colour on 
 the wall is a sensation of mine which seems a. sensible quality 
 of a thing — and there is no fear that it will not seem so. 
 Yet is it so? A colour-blind person may not be able to 
 distinguish between green and red ; all reds for him are green. 
 If he and I both look at a geranium leaf we agree. If we 
 look at the flower, I see red, he sees green. Manifestly the 
 flower cannot be both ; hence it follows that neither colour is 
 inherent in the flower (the identity of which is not disputed), 
 but is an interpretation each of us gives to it. That pillar 
 opposite, which is cream-coloured to-day, would, if green 
 to-morrow, be no less a pillar. Even if a wooden one were 
 substituted, it would be no less ' a pillar,' although it would 
 yield a different sound from that belonging to this iron 
 one if tapped, and a different smell. But if it had no longer 
 the quality of Resistance — if I could walk through it, if 
 
xiv.] Elements of Psychology. 99 
 
 I could not touch it — we should then begin to doubt if 
 a pillar were there at all. 
 
 It is by Active Touch, then, that we chiefly recognise the 
 existence of an object, and, with that, Active Sight, which is 
 so inextricably interwoven with Active Touch that scarcely 
 a single experience of the one does not also involve the other. 
 Objects are for us first of all Tangible and Visible ; second- 
 arily, odorous, rapid, audible, &c. 
 
 Can we reduce these two to one ? In the end Visibility 
 comes to be commensurate with Perceptibility. To perceive 
 is to see. The eye is ultimately our most effective organ of 
 Perception. But with Berkeley we must maintain, that 
 Perception is, at bottom, Touch. No one has lived really 
 without sense of Touch ; it is the first and the last of the 
 senses. People are born without Sight, but not without 
 Touch. It is difficult to conceive an objective world obtain- 
 able by Sight without Touch, though it may be, and is, 
 obtained without Sight. The work of Sight, however high 
 and splendid, is superstructure. It is Active Touch that gives 
 the substructure for Perception. 
 
 Therefore, you ' see/ we must begin with Touch, with a 
 theory of Tactile Perception. 
 
 For Lecture XV read : — 
 
 Bain. pp. 47-50 ; Hoffding, V, C, §§ 5-10; G. C. Robertson, Mind, 
 xiii, 'The Psychological Theory of Extension,' or in Philosoph. 
 Remains, pp 279-287 ; Ward, pp. 51-57. 
 
 Lore. 
 
 H 2 
 
LECTURE XV. 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF OBJECTIVE PERCEPTION. 
 Recapitulation, 
 
 In Touch and Sight we have the power of getting the one 
 or the other kind of sense-experience as we like. We can 
 turn one mode of sensation directly into another by activity 
 of ours of which we are conscious. We can control these 
 senses by muscular activity. Hence their importance for 
 Perception. And relatively to the whole organ of tactile 
 sensibility, i.e. the skin, the hand is as the yellow spot is to 
 the whole organ of sight, i. e. the retina. The motion of the 
 eye has the effect of making indirect vision direct, and direct 
 vision indirect : this is all. So the hand brings into direct 
 tactile apprehension what was before indirect, if touched only 
 by relatively insensitive parts of the skin. But since Touch 
 and Sight play different parts in Perception, though so 
 closely allied, we will treat them separately and in an order 
 already accounted for. 
 
 The Mutual Relation of Touch and Sight in Perception. 
 
 Take the pillar opposite me: we do not perceive it 
 without Sight, but does S : ght give any direct apprehension 
 of the hardness in it? No. Then why do I not run up 
 against it, but carefully avoid it? Certainly from nothing 
 Sight can tell me of it, but because w r e perceive the pillar 
 
Elements of Psychology. 101 
 
 through the eye as suggestive of Touch. This is a case 
 where what seems to be seen is to all intents and purposes 
 touched. Now take the case of running up against the pillar 
 by accident in the dark. In this case we perceive it directly 
 by Touch, but indirectly we perceive it by Sight, for in 
 touching the pillar a visual image of some kind arises, such 
 as will always happen in the dark, whatever the object may 
 be. When we see things in the light we imagine how they 
 will ' feel/ i.e. to touch \ and when we touch anything in the 
 dark we imagine how it will look. This theory is specially 
 brought forward by Berkeley, who wanted to prove in par- 
 ticular, that whenever we are seeing we are really in mind 
 touching. We can, however, put the converse as well. We 
 cannot separate Touch and Sight in Perception, but we can 
 investigate them separately. 
 
 Theory of Tactile Perception. 
 
 Remember now that Touch presents an active and a passive 
 phase, and that it is Active Touch that is of account for 
 Perception. When we perceive objectively, it is by some 
 form of Touch plus the coefficient of muscularity of which 
 we are conscious. 
 
 Qualities of Objects revealed by Active Touch. 
 
 In the resultant, then, what belongs to the coefficient and 
 what to the other factor ? Touch proper just gives us straight 
 away the tactile qualities of things ; all differences of contact 
 or pressure (intenser contact) are due to passive Touch. The 
 coefficient of muscularity will cost us more trouble, because 
 we can get Touch without it, but we cannot have it without 
 Touch. However, there is one way in which the difference 
 can be made clear, and it brings us to this statement, viz. : 
 
102 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 That Extension and Resistance are the fundamental con- 
 ditions of object got by consciousness of activity. 
 
 There are certain qualities of objects in the external world, 
 such as Hard, Smooth, Heavy, Light, which are only known 
 through skin sensibility. Nevertheless, Touch proper does 
 not add much to our knowledge of objects as objects. Any 
 object we can perceive by Touch is an object essentially in 
 virtue of having two fundamental qualities, extension and 
 resistance. It must have both of these; and no other 
 quality we can speak of confers objectivity as do these. 
 Now see how important is the part of that coefficient of 
 muscularity. If we proceed to ask what we mean by the 
 Extension or Resistance of an object, we can only say, 
 psychologically, that it is apprehended by us through some 
 activity of ours put forth, of which we are conscious, in the 
 case of Extension as one kind of activity, in that of Resistance 
 as another kind, but in both cases as muscular activity. As 
 far as psychology is concerned, this statement, when proved, 
 will go to the bottom of the matter, namely, how w r e come to 
 perceive Space. What Space is, is a question for metaphysics. 
 
 Modes of Muscular Activity in those Qualities, 
 
 The question then for us now is, What are the two modes 
 of muscular activity put forth respectively in the case of 
 Extension and Resistance ? Muscular activity assumes two 
 distinct modes in consciousness according as the activity is 
 free, or impeded — relatively free, or relatively impeded. Now 
 in putting forth the former I apprehend Extension ; in putting 
 forth the latter I apprehend Resistance. Plainly then the 
 muscular sense is a fundamental factor in these modes of 
 apprehension, but always only a co-operating factor or co- 
 efficient. There is always Touch as well. You cannot 
 
xv.] Elements of Psychology. 103 
 
 possibly have activity more or less impeded without varying 
 intensity of Touch. And what you have come to interpret as 
 1 so far apart/ you learnt in the first instance to know as 
 qualitatively distinguishable touches. I make not light then 
 of the muscular factor, but I deny that it gives Extension or 
 Resistance alone, as might be inferred from Professor Bain's 
 exposition \ 
 
 1 We have seen that muscular activity assumes two distinct modes 
 in consciousness, according as the activity is free or impeded (called 
 by Professor Bain consciousness of movement and dead strain). And 
 we have maintained that Professor Bain has no right to call the former 
 (consciousness of movement) a simple mode of conscious experience, 
 since it is only by the assumption of consciousness of free activity that 
 he can explain the perception of space, and by taking movement as such 
 he begs the question, since consciousness of movement assumes space 
 to move in. Feeling of movement as movement can be a primary kind 
 of consciousness only on the Nativistic assumption. With these 
 reservations Professor Bain's account of the matter pp 25-27) is very 
 good. We must, however, make another reservation with regard to 
 pp. 47-50. He there finds the difference between resistance and 
 extension inexplicable in its fullness, without taking into account the 
 different kinds of Touch involved. His account of these different kinds 
 in the two modes of activity is very good, and it is true that, although 
 the foundation of extension and resistance is given by Muscular Activity, 
 yet the full explanation is only given when we take into account the 
 different kinds of Touch involved. Yet on p. 27 Professor Bain attempts 
 to give a full explanation of space without this, and of course does 
 not succeed. Touch pure and simple will not give us ' object,' nor 
 will Muscular Sense pure and simple : the two must interwork the 
 one with the other. One factor, as we have seen, is more funda- 
 mental, but both must be there Some kind of Passive Sense, if not 
 that of Touch, would be absolutely necessary beside Muscular Sense 
 to apprehend ' object ' ; if we were differently constituted, it might 
 not be Touch but some other sense. 
 
 When Professor Bain is treating of this subject he always puts Dead 
 Strain before what we call Free Activity ; again, at p. 47, he treats first 
 of Resistance, then of Extension of objects. Elsewhere, however, 
 he makes Extension fundamental to perception of space, cf. p. 1, 
 
104 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 Consider the modes of Resistance admirably set forth by 
 him 1 : — (i) Weight, Pressure, (ii) Hardness and Softness, (iii) 
 Roughness and Smoothness. Why in this order ? In (i) the 
 muscular factor is predominant ; in (iii) the tactile factor is 
 predominant; in (ii) both are evenly balanced. But what 
 does Hardness, say of this table, mean for me ? That the 
 more I put forth energy the more rny sensation of touch is 
 intensified. Or Roughness ? That I do not get, on occasion 
 of lateral movement, the uniform sensation of touch yielded 
 in Smoothness. Or Weight ? That I get varying intensifi- 
 cation of muscular sense with a minimum of qualitative 
 variety in touch. ' Pressure/ in the first instance, is intense 
 contact, bare passive touch intensified, but it is by way of 
 Active Touch that it is of account in Perception. I, pressing 
 against the table, put forth activity — impeded activity. I 
 must lift, I must press, to estimate Pressure thoroughly. 
 
 The experiential explanation of Objective Perception by way of 
 
 Extension. 
 
 Now according to the theory of Extension, started originally 
 in Germany and developed by Mr. Herbert Spencer and 
 Piofessor Bain, touches, presenting these various modes of 
 Resistance occurring and recurring in certain definite ways 
 in connexion with activity of ours put forth, end by appearing, 
 
 where he says that whatever has the attribute of Extension belongs 
 to the external world. All things, it is true, which resist are extended, 
 while many extended things do not give any appreciable resistance and 
 some none at all (e. g. the vacuum in the receiver of an air-pump). Yet 
 Prof. Bain always explains Resistance first ; and it is a peculiarity of 
 him that, whereas he does not give his reasons, or show that he has 
 much pondered over a point, he has nevertheless a wonderful knack 
 of going right, as for instance in this case, the Tightness of which 
 I explain in my theory. 
 1 Op. cit., p. 47. 
 
xv.] Elements of Psychology. 105 
 
 not as touches, but as elements in an extended order, which is 
 apart from us and has its parts apart from one another. This 
 doctrine contains a great deal of truth, and it claims to 
 contain a psychological explanation of the Perception of 
 objects as extended and resisting, i.e. an explanation in terms 
 of sense. 
 
 Nativistic view of Extension. 
 
 Some schools deny that this is possible. Nativistic 
 thinkers — Hamilton, e.g., and others, but most prominently 
 Kant — maintained that Extension is a form of pure intuition, 
 an aspect of things which mind, in perceiving, brings with it, 
 native faculty not otherwise to be accounted for. Opposed 
 to these are Experientialists, or Empiricists, who contend that 
 a psychological explanation is possible through the data of 
 muscular sense and touch as essential coefficients. Of these 
 Professors Bain and Sully are representatives. 
 
 Criticism of the Experientialists' Position, 
 
 Now for a confession. I do not think a sufficient explana- 
 tion can be given, if it start by explaining Extension. Pro- 
 fessor Bain, e.g., explains Extension by supposing, first, that 
 certain serial sensations of Touch come to appear as co- 
 existing in time, and then that such co-existences come to be 
 interpreted as the quality of Extension or spatial apartness. 
 I.e. touches and series of touches repealable and reversible 
 come to appear as Extension. Succession in time is turned 
 into simultaneity. But simultaneity is not extension. This 
 only accounts for touches becoming ordered as simultaneous 
 though occurring as successive; and the Nativists say, and 
 say rightly, that such explanation is a failure. ' This table is 
 extended ' means * its two ends co-exist in space/ And to 
 say that merely by a series of active touches had in reversible 
 
io6 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 order we attain to this ordering in space, is too far a cry. 
 Professor Bain establishes co-existence in time, but he does 
 not establish co-existence in space. Dr. Ward too is dis- 
 satisfied and sees the difficulty, while himself giving a 
 psychological explanation which has the demerits of those of 
 Professors Bain and Sully and the merits of neither. Both 
 he and Professor James are of those who take a middle 
 course, holding that Extension cannot be explained in terms 
 of Touch and Muscular Sense, while yet they do not assume 
 Extension as an inexplicable intuition. Dr. Ward assumes 
 that sensations of Touch, in addition to their usually acknow- 
 ledged properties, have a quality of 'extensity' (partly like 
 Professor Bain's ' massiveness ') ; nevertheless his use of 
 extensity amounts virtually to an assumption of the Nativistic 
 doctrine. Professor James is in the same position as Dr. 
 Ward. He simply assumes Extension from the first, being 
 merely more careful than the older Nativists in his account 
 of the modes of Extension. But he suggests to me Don 
 Quixote tilting at windmills. 
 
 By proceeding in a different order I hold that we can get a 
 psychological explanation of Extension. 
 
 For Lecture XVI read as for Lecture XV. 
 
LECTURE XVI. 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF OBJECTIVE PERCEPTION 
 
 (continued). 
 
 Psychological Explanation of the perception of Extension 
 through the perception of Object. 
 
 You cannot work out any such theory of extension as 
 I have referred you to, except upon a prior basis. You 
 never can explain how objects come to appear to you as 
 extended until you have first explained how you come to 
 perceive objects at all. This is what both Mr. Spencer and 
 Professor Bain, in different degrees, attempt to do. The latter 
 had already given the foundation of his explanation of object 
 when discussing ' dead strain ' under Muscular Sense. There 
 he committed himself to the position that we apprehend 
 object as object mainly when our muscular activity is im- 
 peded or resisted. But this was premature. Object as 
 resisting cannot possibly be explained in terms of muscular 
 sense only, because this varying ' strain ' cannot possibly be 
 had without varying intensity of touch. It is at this stage, 
 i.e. that of Perception, and not at that of Sensation and 
 of one particular mode of Sensation, that the question of 
 object as resisting should have been entered into. Professor 
 Bain had taken up all those modes of Resistance as particular 
 qualities of an object already got, but without giving an 
 explanation of what object is in itself. He very properly 
 distinguishes those modes of Perception, Hard and Soft, 
 
108 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 Rough and Smooth, &c, but sees them all in regard to 
 an object which he supposes he has got, which he got in 
 muscular sense, yet to which he has no right, because we 
 have no strain in muscular sense without active touch. 
 What, however, is implied in the whole of Professor Bain s 
 explanation, though not expressly stated, is that you have 
 to account psychologically for object as resisting before you 
 proceed to account for object as extended. 
 
 Why do I lay so much stress on rightly understanding 
 Professor Bain here ? Because it is too usual for psychological 
 writers to proceed on another line, to proceed on the line of 
 explaining object first as extended, and only afterwards to 
 take account of it as resisting. This is notably the case 
 in Dr. Ward's article on ' Psychology/ There he devotes 
 himself almost exclusively to Extension in his theory of 
 Perception and only secondarily to Resistance. Professor 
 Bain, on the other hand, though his principle is not explicit 
 and his exposition is scattered, may be said to be representa- 
 tive of those who declare that you should first account for 
 object as resisting before you go on to account for object 
 as extended. I have a very strong opinion that this order 
 is a matter of first-rate psychological importance. 
 
 Logical priority of Extension, Historical priority of Resistance. 
 
 I still must warn you of an apparent difficulty in the case. 
 There is a Certain ground for beginning with Extension 
 of object before Resistance, because there is an object that 
 extends but does not resist, namely, Space. Now if Extension 
 is the quality of all objects, and if Resistance is only, the 
 attribute of that extended object called Body, then there 
 is apparently good ground for beginning with Extension. 
 Extension is undoubtedly the universal attribute, the fun da- 
 
xvi.] Elements of Psychology. 109 
 
 mental property, of all object — unless you say that Space is 
 not object. From the psychological point of view Space 
 is as much object as Body, and hence, I repeat, there seems 
 to be good ground for beginning with extension of Object, 
 and then for going on to resistance of Body in addition 
 to extension, as to a secondary fact. 
 
 Yet, while Extension appears the more fundamental fact 
 in Perception, I believe that in the proper theory of Tactile 
 Perception all depends on taking the reverse order. Logically, 
 from the point of view of logical analysis, Extension, as an 
 attribute of wider importance than Resistance for the ex- 
 planation of the external world, should come first. But 
 however that be in our developed consciousness, Resistance 
 is historically prior. Historically, genetically, we apprehend 
 Body as resisting before we apprehend Space as extended. 
 We come to Space by the evacuation of Body rather than to 
 Body by the filling in of Space. 
 
 Object = Obstacle, i.e. subjectively = Resistance, and Resistance ultimately 
 = Activity impeded with progressive intensification of Touch. 
 
 Why is it that this is of account for us ? Psychology 
 gives an account of the development of mind. It professes 
 to trace how we come from certain simpler elements of 
 experience to developed complex experience. To plunge 
 into the question of Extension before saying anything of 
 Body as resisting is really, in the guise of Psychology, to 
 make a philosophical account, and not to follow the simpler 
 psychological line that should be taken. Through the phase 
 of resisting we arrive at any knowledge of object. Once 
 have object as resisting, then the touches you get may appear, 
 not merely subjective, but as definite facts in an external 
 world. Net as extended have w r e first a perception of objects, 
 
no Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 but as a consciousness of being pulled up or impeded. The 
 first suggestion of a ' Not-I ' is in as far as the ' I ' finds 
 itself impeded. First of all, vague consciousness of activity, 
 then of this being impeded : — such is the first start towards 
 apprehension of an object. Now the Touch-factor is here 
 too. Touch is intensified progressively with consciousness 
 of impeded activity ; and these two are Resistance. Here 
 the child gets a something it cannot get over, which is 
 outside itself, and from which it gets a first faint suggestion 
 of Not-self. Psychologically, the real meaning of Object 
 is to us in the first instance obstacle. Object is interpretable 
 in terms of obstacle. It is in the mode of obstacle that the 
 child first has any kind of objective apprehension — begins 
 to have an apprehension of other things. 
 
 So far here is nothing that cannot be psychologically 
 accounted for. Then, having posited for the child Obstacle 
 as not-self, this fact, that it begins to move its hand over 
 things, over objects that it has already got, in a series of touches 
 in both orders — this begins to give it the ordering of objects 
 as extended. It is upon a foundation of Object as Obstacle 
 that alone we can arrive at a theory of Object as ' spread out/ 
 
 Else I cannot get on ! This I consider is the right point of 
 view. First explain objects as Resisting, then as Extended. 
 
 Note that the German word Gegenstand shows the same 
 meaning of ' object/ This import of object was clearly made 
 out by some French writers of the eighteenth century called 
 Ideologists, one of whom was Destutt de Tracy, a Scotchman 
 by descent, who most of all influenced the Scottish philo- 
 sopher Dr. Thomas Brown. Brown first in this country saw 
 the import of muscular sense as of account for Perception. 
 Professor Bain is thus, through Thomas Brown, connected 
 with Destutt de Tracy. 
 
xvi.] Elements of Psychology. in 
 
 Do not think that I have thus far completely accounted 
 for our knowledge of an Object. There is vastly more 
 in it than can be included in mere Tactile Perception — nay, 
 than in Psychology itself. It is a metaphysical question. 
 We think of an object as something having being for itself 
 as ' being there/ To account for Object as we know it 
 is one of the deepest metaphysical problems. Yet it lies 
 so near our present sphere that I shall deal with it in my 
 course of General Philosophy. For the present we get 
 Objective Perception, i. e. how objects come to appear so 
 to us, in muscular activity put forth and resisted. If Object 
 is for us first Resistance, we analyse Resistance and find 
 
 ACTIVITY SO STOPPED THAT WE GET INTENSIFICATION OF 
 TOUCH. 
 
 For Lecture XVII read: — 
 
 G. C. Robertson, Mind, i, 145 ; or Philosophical Remains, p. 133. 
 
 For difficulties raised in connexion with visual perception consult 
 James, Principles of Psychology , and Ladd, Physiological Psychology. 
 
LECTURE XVII. 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF OBJECTIVE PERCEPTION 
 
 (continued). 
 Recapitulation. 
 
 To resume: — We have begun with Objective Perception 
 on the basis of active touch, or as involving touch on 
 occasion of muscular activity. We can deal with the question 
 of External Perception only at the stage of touch, because 
 w r e have no developed muscular activity except in connexion 
 with organs of touch. Of course we have it also in con- 
 nexion with visual organs, but we keep these back just now, 
 because we can have Tactile Perception without Visual 
 Perception, as in persons born blind. Even with regard to 
 these there is contention, that those who cannot see, do not 
 arrive at a proper comprehension of the external world. 
 More of this later on. The second point on which I laid 
 stress was that we have to account in terms of Active Touch 
 for a perception of objects as extended. The perception of 
 Extension is the real crux of the whole question. It is the 
 real and serious difficulty in psychology, to account for the 
 appearance of objects as extended; so much so, that by 
 some it is put in the first place. But it is not a difficulty 
 which it is well directly to face. It should be faced 
 secondarily. We can account for the extension of objects if 
 
 
Elements of Psychology. 113 
 
 we first psychologically explain the perception of object as 
 such, without reference to its extension — the perception of 
 object as 'obstacle/ This done, we are then able to explain, 
 with Professor Bain, how touches, occurring to us in a serial 
 order, an order which admits of indefinite repetition and 
 which is also reversible, end by appearing as surfaces spread 
 out. I say, these processes are effective enough in the 
 genesis of Extension, if we have already something in the 
 way of object which we interpret as obstacle to activity of 
 ours; not a definite perception of body, for that would be 
 assuming Extension, but some vague idea of activity some- 
 how resisted. But unless we have begun with this con- 
 ception of object then all these processes, serial, repeatable, 
 reversible, go on, as we say, in the air, and yield nothing 
 effective for our purpose. The Experientialist theory of 
 Extension can be maintained only if urged along with the 
 fundamental experience of not-self got in Resistance. The 
 order in which we acquire knowledge of Body and Space 
 is, (1) we have a perception of Body as resisting, (2) we 
 arrive at Space by taking away Body as resisting. 
 
 The first < Obstacle: 
 
 This ordering or placing of touches according to quali- 
 tative difference does not take place in the child's dawning 
 perception of object with any set of touches. I have not 
 the slightest doubt that the first object that we become aware 
 of as resisting, and at the same time spread out, is our own 
 body. Of course the child from the very beginning sees 
 as well as touches, but I am putting aside vision for the 
 present, and suppose that we have a child, at first unable 
 to discern a difference between subject and object, beginning 
 to acquire objective experience by way of touch. And I say 
 
 1 
 
H4 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 — and our psychological explanation should take account of 
 this, which is too much overlooked in the books, even by Pro- 
 fessor Bain — that the first object it would come to apprehend 
 vaguely is not any other body, but its own. That one 
 object it has always with it; other objects come and go, 
 but it has always the power of touching its own body and 
 thus of finding the activity of its own hand impeded. Per- 
 ception of an object-world begins really and strictly with the 
 lips in first receiving nourishment, whether our child sees or 
 not. But there is this special feature in its tactile experience 
 of its own body, that whereas in touching another body it has 
 an intensification of touch on the hand through which it is 
 exerting pressure, in pressing the hand against its own face 
 it gets, in connexion with the activity put forth and resisted, 
 an intensification of two touches : it both touches and is 
 touched. This gives peculiar and better data for the 
 ordering of touch-sensations. If, as we have reason to 
 suppose, there is a qualitative difference of touch in every 
 part of the body, then the child cannot but have its attention 
 drawn to this, that through the fingers it has a variety of 
 touches according to the part touched, both by way of the 
 latter and also of the part that touches. Thus it is helped 
 to finding its body as extended in this double way of learning 
 to discriminate different parts, a way in which it is not 
 helped when touching anything else. Every particular part 
 of the body comes for it thus to have a definite spatial 
 relation to every other part through the medium of that 
 organ which is the effective tactile instrument, the hand. 
 Every part of the body comes to be related to the hand, 
 since the hand must be moved in a certain way, exerted to 
 a certain extent, to get each peculiar touch 1 . And thus 
 1 Whereas the whole of the skin is the ' seat ' of Touch-sensation, 
 
XVIL] Elements of Psychology. 115 
 
 every part of the body becomes spatially referred to every 
 other part. The qualitative differences of touch at different 
 parts come to be suggested in consciousness by how much 
 activity must be put forth to touch that part ; and again, the 
 activity that a child should put forth is suggested by the 
 kind of touch it has. 
 
 How we get Tactile Distance as distinct from Tactile Doubleness. 
 
 Hence we can understand, and apart from this we cannot 
 explain, what follows: — (1) If I am touched at two parts of 
 my body by two compass points, my consciousness is actually, 
 not of mere doubleness, but of two touches as so far apart. 
 How does this happen? Some say, through an original 
 endowment, it not being explicable as a development of per- 
 ception. I believe that it is the result of development, and 
 that it comes to pass exactly on the ground I have mentioned, 
 viz. that touches differing simply in quality come to be 
 connected with different activities of the hand. Surely this 
 is a more scientific theory than that other assumption. 
 
 (2) There is one case of a somewhat abnormal character 
 which seems to be at variance with the above conclusion. 
 How is it that, if the second finger be crossed over the first, 
 we have a sensation, if an object be placed between them, 
 not of points apart but of doubleness^ of two objects ? Aristotle 
 noticed this peculiarity and tried to explain it, but without 
 success. If a marble be felt carefully with those two fingers 
 crossed, and with the eyes shut, the second finger at the top, 
 the first underneath, it will be discovered that though this is 
 so, we ascribe what the first finger feels to the top position 
 in space, and what the second finger feels, which is really 
 atop, to the lower place in space. But if every touch has 
 
 the hand is the * organ* of Touch- perception. 'Seat' should be 
 used in connexion with Sensation, ' organ ' with Perception. 
 
 I 2 
 
n6 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 come to have a definite spatial character, the phenomenon 
 is explained. Touches in themselves only qualitatively 
 different, have come to be associated with different points in 
 space from the amount and kind of activity put forth 
 consciously. Thus we see that consciousness of space arises 
 neither from consciousness of activity, nor from touch, but 
 from both as coefficients. 
 
 How we come to acquire Passive Apprehension of Space. 
 
 We have maintained that to apprehend objects in space, 
 we have been active. Extension has no other meaning 
 psychologically but activity. Need there be activity ? Let me 
 place my palm on the table in the dark. Again, let me rest 
 the back of my hand on the table, and let an object be laid 
 on it. I should know both table and object as extended, 
 without moving over either repeatedly, reversing the movement, 
 although I should not know fully what their properties were. 
 But how should I know them as extended ? Because I know 
 my own skin, my own hand, to be extended. There is no 
 accounting otherwise for this passive apprehension of space. 
 Our bodies are a standard or measure by which we measure 
 other objects. What the carpenter does with his foot-rule we 
 do with our hand, or with our body known to us through 
 our hand. I know the size of my watch when put on my 
 forehead, because I know of the extension of my brow. 
 Because our own skin is the first occasion of free activity, 
 exploring and resisted, every part of the body has come to 
 have its own 'local sign,' its own suggestion of locality 
 developed upon a basis of qualitative difference of touch 
 in conjunction with activity put forth. And thus it comes 
 that we know bodies as extended, because we know our own 
 body as extended. 
 
xvil] Elements of Psychology. 117 
 
 Apprehension of Solidity. 
 
 The maximum of Touch-perception is reached in the 
 perception of object as solid, i. e. when we know it as resist- 
 ing in all three dimensions of space — whether three only, or 
 more than three, psychology does not undertake to prove. 
 The first part of a child's body which perceives solidity is its 
 lips. They are the part first used, and used most often ; 
 they are a very sensitive part and can at all times be pressed 
 together and separated. Through this mobility and tactilky, 
 neither of which qualities is of any use without the other, it 
 is on the line of the lips that the first development of 
 object takes place. But it is more especially the opposability 
 of our more effective organs of touch, the thumb to the 
 other fingers, and one hand to the other, which seek to 
 meet and cannot, that gives us perception of solidity. 
 Pressure of one palm on this book gives me resistance; 
 placing of it on the book (by which I get many touches) 
 gives me Extension; but when I try to bring my two hands 
 together around it and cannot succeed, then I learn that it 
 has Solidity — I gain a notion of an object as having Figure. 
 For a larger object the opposable arms convey the same 
 lesson. Solidity is, when analysed, intensified touch on 
 occasion of the impeded activity of opposable organs. We do 
 not need to learn it by the process of actually moving the 
 touching surface in each dimension. 
 
 For Lecture XVIII read : — 
 Bain, pp. 188-197. 
 Read also Hoffding on * Apprehension of Time,' V, C, §§ 1-4. 
 
LECTURE XVIII. 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF VISUAL PERCEPTION. 
 
 Visual Perception. 
 
 We now go on to consider Sight alone in the same way 
 as we have considered Touch, and we shall find Sight 
 indirectly, i.e. through Touch, to be so important, that it 
 almost comes to be synonymous with the term Perception, 
 for Sight is the sense of senses. It has all the attributes of 
 muscular control that we find in Touch, and it is as highly 
 specialised as Hearing is. Nevertheless its organ is less 
 open to investigation than the hand and lips, though more 
 so than that of Hearing. 
 
 We must carefully distinguish between Sight as Sensation 
 and Sight as an organ of Perception. We are now going to 
 consider it as the latter, but let me only impress this point 
 about it as the former :— To account for the sensation of 
 Sight it is enough, on the physiological side, to take into 
 consideration the sensitive surface in the eye and its nerve- 
 communication with the brain, i.e. how it is that the retina 
 is liable to be stimulated and to propagate its disturbance. 
 We need not go further into the details of the structure and 
 functioning of the eye. But these details become important 
 and require attention when we go on to deal with the eye as 
 an organ of Perception. For us now the question is, How 
 
Elements of Psychology. 119 
 
 is the retina made capable of receiving optical images ? In 
 what way is the eye an optical instrument? Let us divide 
 our inquiry into three points : — 
 
 1. The eye as an organ of Perception. 
 
 2. What the eye is fitted to give us in the way of 
 Perception. 
 
 3. (a) What the eye in Perception does of itself, and 
 (&) what it does in conjunction with the other organs of 
 Perception. 
 
 1. The Eye as an Organ of Perception. 
 
 The eye is both a sensitive and a mobile organ. It is no 
 longer sufficient to say that the eye is an organ in which the 
 nerve is affected by light through the retina, but we must 
 now note that the retina is differently affected by light at 
 different parts and in a definite fashion. There must be 
 produced in the eye on the retina a definite optical image 
 according to the laws of optics before the brain can be 
 affected so as to perceive an object. And the eye is organised 
 accordingly. Within the cornea is the iris acting as a stop 
 to cut off all useless rays. Within this is the crystalline lens 
 of highly refracting power, by which those rays not stopped 
 by the iris are brought to a definite focus on the retina, 
 forming a definite image on it. 
 
 Of this image we are not in the least conscious ; we do 
 not see it) nor should we see it were it re-formed in the 
 brain. What we see is a mental constructio?i which comes to 
 pass under those physical conditions. The retinal image is 
 only a condition of our seeing. We see by way o/it, not it. 
 More of this later on. We have not yet done with conditions. 
 
 The optical image being an indispensable condition to 
 Visual Perception, and the retina being differently affected at 
 
120 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 different parts, our aim is to get as definite an image as 
 possible. At a certain part of the retina called the yellow 
 spot {lutea macula), which is the most sensitive surface, we 
 get the maximum of definiteness. And we get this maximum 
 of definiteness in our image by bringing certain muscular 
 activities into play, some internal, viz. those of the ciliary 
 muscle, and some external, viz. those of the six pairs of 
 muscles attached to the eyeballs. 
 
 Parallel Conditions in the Organs of Tactile and Visual Perception. 
 
 Thus the yellow spot bears the same relation to the other 
 parts of the retina as the hand to the other parts of the skin. 
 The whole retina is the seat of the Sense of Sight just as 
 the whole skin is the seat of the Sense of Touch. But as the 
 hand is the effective organ 1 of Tactile Perception, so the 
 yellow spot is the effective organ of Visual Perception. And 
 the sensitiveness of both is rendered effective through the 
 mobility of both. The fact that we can bring the hand to 
 any other part of this sensitiveness establishes an equation 
 between the sensitiveness of the skin and the maximum 
 sensitiveness of the hand, bringing them, so to speak, to 
 the same denominator. So with the eye. The action of the 
 external muscles is to bring impressions on to the yellow 
 spot which would otherwise fall on the peripheral parts of 
 the retina, by directing the yellow spot to the visual ' field/ 
 By saying, ' I am looking/ I mean that the yellow spot has 
 taken a certain direction. We do not get anything like this 
 varying sensitiveness increasing to a maximum in Hearing or 
 
 1 I sa3>- ' effective organ,' since, if maximum of sensitiveness be 
 alone considered, and not knowledge of the external world, the tip 
 of the tongue rather than the hand is to be compared with the yellow 
 spot. 
 
xviii.] Elements of Psychology. 121 
 
 the other senses. In hearing there is a great range of 
 qualitative difference, but no muscular arrangement in the 
 ear to cause such an equation to be established between one 
 part of the ear and another. 
 
 In the mobility of the crystalline lens the eye has a peculiar 
 and special organ for purposes of Perception over and above 
 anything we find in the organisation of Touch. 
 
 Visual Perception, then, involves Active Sight, and Active 
 Sight, as we have seen, is an involution of light-sensation 
 with a coefficient of Muscular Sense. Let us look more 
 closely at this muscular activity. 
 
 Muscular Action interior to the Eye. Adjustment of the Single Eye. 
 
 It is only parallel rays which are naturally focussed on the 
 retina by the crystalline lens, but this lens, being elastic, has 
 the power (through the contraction of the ciliary muscle, 
 which thus renders it more convex on its outer surface) of 
 bringing to a focus rays which are not parallel but divergent, 
 i.e. which come from an object within a certain distance, viz. 
 21 feet, on to the retina. This alteration is called Adjust- 
 ment or Adaptation of the single eye for near vision. This 
 adjustment is effected by muscular activity of which we are 
 clearly conscious. 
 
 Muscular Action exterior to the Eye. Convergence, 
 
 But we have two eyes, as we have two hands. Each is 
 moved by six muscles attached to its external surface, and by 
 means of these the two eyes co-operate in certain definite 
 ways which are subservient to the process of Perception. 
 Thus the axes of the eyes are parallel (the axis being a line 
 passing through the centre of the pupil to the yellow spot), 
 and parallel movement of the eyes is preserved by the external 
 
122 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 muscles in seeing distant objects, these throwing like images 
 into each eye. This parallel movement is called the Con- 
 sensuous Movement of the eyes, and is only departed from by 
 the convergence of the axes for near and middle vision. 
 Nearer objects throw different images into each eye, and to 
 correct this, the muscles effect a convergence of each axis, 
 so that the two yellow spots are brought to bear on the same 
 part of the visual field. The axes cannot be made to diverge 1 . 
 And this process of convergence is termed Binocular Ac- 
 commodation. Binocular difference is the most important 
 factor in perception of Volume. It is the basis of stereo- 
 scopic vision. To see objects as single, it has to be 
 overcome. 
 
 Perception and the l Blind Spot.' 
 
 Note that at one part of the retina we are not sensitive at 
 all, viz. at the ' blind spot/ or entrance of the optic nerve in 
 the retina. Here there are fibres, but no periphery. Why 
 then does it not tell on vision as a black spot ? Because 
 (i) the yellow spot is not in the same place in each eye; 
 (2) finding (by Touch) that objects are continuous, we come 
 to interpret them so ; and the constant flickering of the eye 
 helps us. But enough of conditions. 
 
 2. Nature of Visual Perception, 
 
 We shall now consider for what kinds of perception these 
 are the conditions. The eye, as a bare sense-organ, gives 
 us perception of Light and Colour, gifts peculiarly its own. 
 
 1 There are a few people who can, while keeping one eye fixed, 
 cause the axis of the other to diverge ; but this is rare. In the case 
 of persons born with a squint, whether convergent or divergent, it 
 must be remembered that for them this convergence or divergence is 
 parallelism. 
 
xviii,] Elements of Psychology. 123 
 
 But do these effects come before us in such a way that they 
 can be worked up into anything we can call Perception? 
 We are, of course, now supposing the case of a man unable 
 to get Perception otherwise. The answer is, that he could 
 get a kind of objective Perception. Let us go back for 
 a moment to Active Touch. We saw that it gave us 
 knowledge of Resistance, i. e. ' Dead Strain ' accompanied by 
 intensification of Passive Touch. Now in the case of Sight, 
 although we have the sense of strain through the ciliary and 
 external muscles, yet we do not get with it progressive 
 intensification of passive touch, i.e. pressure, nor a corre- 
 sponding intensification of light at all comparable to that of 
 pressure experienced in Touch. The eye by itself then 
 could not give us Resistance. All it can do is to lead us to 
 appreciate it through other senses. If a lump of butter and 
 a piece of wood are divided, we say we can see that the 
 former is easily cut, and not the latter. But the eye in both 
 cases only suggests what we have in the first instance learnt 
 to know through Touch. 
 
 W T hereas, however, the eye gives us no knowledge of 
 Resistance, it has the means of giving us apprehension of 
 Extension, i.e. a succession of repeatable and reversible 
 sensations. In seeing we certainly get a series of sense- 
 impressions which we can repeat, reverse, or have in any 
 order we please ; we certainly have a means of appreciating 
 dimensions in space — but only two dimensions directly, viz. 
 Linear and Superficial Extension. Through the eye we 
 can only indirectly arrive at the apprehension of the third 
 dimension, Solidity. The eye can sweep over a field, but it 
 is not organised like the hand ; it cannot run out and in, go 
 round corners and grasp things ; it can only move in its own 
 plane. The perception of the third dimension is much more 
 
124 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 complex than that of the other two, and it is the solution of 
 the question as to how we come to a knowledge of solidity 
 which gave rise to the Berkeleian Theory of Vision. In short, 
 the eye is not fitted to gi'. e us the means of perceiving 
 Resistance. That can only be got through Active Touch. 
 But it is eminently fitted to give us series of successive 
 impressions converted to simultaneous impressions, as well 
 as of impressions originally simultaneous. Hence it is fitted 
 to develop an exte?ided order, when once it has borrowed an 
 ohjective basis. The child who sees can have an apprehension 
 of an extended world such as the child who merely touches 
 never can. Nevertheless the Extension arrived at by way of 
 Touch and by Sight on a basis of Touch is so different from 
 that which might be obtained by way of Sight only, that an 
 equation is not to be established between them. 
 So much then the eye can and cannot do. 
 
 For Lecture XIX read as for Lecture XVIII. 
 
 Clark Murray (A Handbook of Psychology, London, 1885) has a very 
 good chapter on Visual Perception. 
 
LECTURE XIX. 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF VISUAL PERCEPTION 
 
 (continued). 
 3. Actual Import of Sight for Perception ; (a) taken in isolation. 
 
 If the eye then can build but not found, we can only 
 estimate what it actually does for us in Visual Perception in 
 connexion with its basis. This has been admitted by most — 
 though questioned by some especially of late years — ever 
 since Berkeley laid down, in 1709, that what we call vision 
 is the work of the eye as interpretable in terms of Touch. He 
 errs only by merely implying, and not explicitly sifting out, 
 Active Sense. 'In terms of Active Touch/ or 'of Touch 
 with the coefficient of Muscular Sense to transform it? is what 
 we now should substitute. Sight is an implicit touching. 
 There is nothing that seems to us more obvious, clear, and 
 distinct than that the eye by itself is pre-eminently the organ 
 of Perception. I sit here aware of the whole room and its 
 contents without doing anything except keeping my eyes 
 open. There are some things of which I apparently have 
 nothing but visual perception, e.g. the sky, clouds, heavenly 
 bodies. And there is not the slghtest doubt that the eye in 
 the end does sum up all perceptive ability into itself, so that 
 seeing or vision really, in the end, amounts to perceiving. 
 Nay, and to more than this. When I wish to say, ' I under- 
 stand this/ I say, ' I see this is so/ The function of sight in 
 
126 Elements of Psychology. [Lect- 
 
 Perception is enormous. And yet, except the bare fact of 
 sensations of colour, or rather of light, there is nothing that 
 the eye does exclusively. 
 
 (b) Taken in conjunction with other Organs of Perception. 
 
 If it can do nothing exclusively, what is there that helps it ? 
 We have seen that this is Active Touch. Suppose I put on 
 the table a large and a small worsted ball and ask which 
 is the heavier, the reply is at once, the larger. But we do 
 not see this, we infer it. Weight is inferred in this case from 
 size, but weight is a result of Active Touch. It may be a 
 wrong inference. A little lump of lead may be hidden in 
 the smaller ball, in which case we have to bring our inference 
 to the test of Active Touch. The indirectness of Vision leads 
 to inaccuracies. 
 
 We see too that the two orders of Extension, those of 
 Touch and of Sight, do not always coincide. The one is 
 constant, the other ever varying. A story never told twice in 
 the same way cannot be true. The remark that a man may 
 be uniform in his statements and yet wrong, but that he cannot 
 vary and always be right, applies to Touch and Sight. In 
 the case of Touch the Extension of an object gives us certain 
 fixed data. We get something having constancy and uni- 
 formity. We either have it or have it not, and when we have 
 it, we have it in a constant way. But in Visual Extension 
 we get every possible kind of report of the ' same object/ 
 For example, I * feel ' my watch with an approximately con- 
 stant result, w r herever I am and whether I can see it or not. 
 But in seeing my w r atch as extended, I get the most varying 
 visions of it. The first story, that of Touch, may be true ; 
 the second story, or rather set of stories, cannot all be 
 true. An apprehension of Extension so variable and so 
 
xix.] Elements of Psychology. 127 
 
 peculiar needs to be brought into connexion with the other 
 order of Extension. The inconstant must be reduced to the 
 constant. And Seer and Toucher being one, we cannot but 
 do so, interpreting Sight by Touch. For there is no common 
 denominator to which we may reduce both. Touch gives us 
 our only psychological Absolute ; to it Sight is merely 
 relative ; by it we learn the relatively real qualities of things. 
 Sight gives us suggestions for our interpretation; Touch 
 gives us that which, in the way of Sense, is final, and beyond 
 which we cannot go. Real magnitude as distinct from 
 apparent magnitude is Tangible magniiude. Real Extension 
 is Tangible Extension. The real magnitude of the earth is 
 measured not by Sight, but by the number of steps of touching 
 feet. The sun only looks like a plate to us because we in- 
 terpret its size according to the scale of things we can actually 
 touch. The apparent size of the sun to us is its size relative 
 to the whole vault of heaven. The size of that vault for us 
 depends upon the amount of the earth's surface visible to 
 us at the time. And the size of this visible portion of 
 the earth's surface is got in relation to things we can touch 
 and walk round. Hence we see that even the ridiculous 
 conclusion we come to in the case of the sun is got through 
 the interpretation of Touch. However remote the reference 
 may be to Touch, eye-experience is always finally to be 
 expressed in terms of Active Touch. 
 
 Sight as extending Objective Perception on a Base-line of Touch. 
 
 Sight then is our really effective means of Objective Percep- 
 tion, since it enables us not only to perceive by way of 
 inference so much of what we are directly informed through 
 other senses, but also to perceive far more than other senses 
 could reveal to us. I am not here referring to things as 
 
128 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 having colour or lustre ; in revealing a certain quality in objects 
 Sight is only on a level with the other senses. My point 
 is, that by means of colour and light, Sight makes us aware 
 of objects we should otherwise be unable to perceive at 
 all, e.g. the stars, the tops of inaccessible mountains, &c. 
 And yet all this work it does on a base-line of Touch. 
 There is nothing in Sight as such that can account for our 
 perception of the distance of objects. Berkeley's theory, 
 according to some psychologists, turns on the perception of 
 the third dimension as Distance, it being generally assumed 
 that there is no difficulty in getting a perception of space in 
 two dimensions by the eye, because the retina itself is an 
 extended object. But the theory of vision applies to linear 
 and superficial dimension as well as to the third, the only 
 difference being that in the third dimension the data are more 
 complex, both eyes co-operating to give those visual 'marks' 
 or 'signs/ i.e. facts of conscious experience obtained through 
 the eyes when muscularly active, which we interpret in 
 terms of active touch. The Berkeleian theory is but a 
 scientific statement of the common proverbial expression, 
 ' Seeing is believing, but touch is the real thing/ Look at 
 the pillar before us. Certainly when we look at it we 
 believe it to be there, but we do not come fully to know of 
 it as a real existence until we touch it. It might be ' Pepper's 
 ghost/ 
 
 The Complexity of Visual Perception. 
 
 Seeing, in fact, is a very complex act. In Sight we see 
 things of a size which Sight by itself does nothing to account 
 for. Why do we see this table of the size it is ? We see it of 
 the size we have grown to regard it of by Touch. It must be 
 remembered that for such an object to throw 7 an image on the 
 
xix.] Elements of .Psychology. 129 
 
 retina, this image must be immensely reduced, and though 
 the retinal image does not in the least enter into our con- 
 sciousness, but is only a physical concomitant, yet it is hardly 
 conceivable that, in getting smaller and smaller as the 
 object recedes, it should have for its mental concomitant the 
 consciousness of a relatively constant extension. The real 
 problem of Visual Perception is, How does the eye work in 
 relation to Touch ? 
 
 Two Special Problems of Visual Perception. 
 
 Much thought has been wasted on such specific problems 
 cf vision as — (a) Why do we see objects upright when the 
 image on the retina is upside down? {b) Why with two eyes 
 do we see objects as single ? 
 
 (a) Objects seen as upright with Inverted Retinal Image. 
 
 We doril see the image. What we see is an object 
 outside of us, and that object as such is neither a retinal nor 
 a cerebral image, but a mental construction had on occasion 
 of certain optical and nervous processes, and which in calling 
 'upright* we describe in language not got through ocular 
 experience but through Active Touch. By ' the top ' of a 
 thing we mean that part we must lift the hand to reach. 
 In fact, we come to see that this apparent paradox is the 
 truth : If the image were not upside down we should not see 
 the object the right zvay up. For in looking up to the top 
 of the pillar our object is to bring the image of the top on 
 to the lutea macula, and as the eye is globular, the raising of 
 the cornea in front depresses the lutea macula at the back. 
 So that, in fact, if the rays did not cross as they do (thus 
 inverting the image), the raising of the iris would bring 
 the lutea macula opposite the rays from the bottom of the 
 
 K 
 
130 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 pillar, and we should get two contradictory impressions from 
 Touch and Sight. To look at the top of the pillar we should 
 have to perform a 'downward' muscular movement of the 
 eyeball, while to touch the top we should have to perform 
 an ' upward ' movement of the hand. For the two series of 
 data to correspond, the image must be upside down. 
 
 (b) Objects seen as Single with Binocular Vision. 
 
 This question too can only be solved in relation to Touch. 
 Why do I not perceive two books, when holding one between 
 my two hands ? Because of the continuity of Touches when 
 I turn the book over and over. But as a matter of fact we 
 do see all objects double except the one which we are actually 
 ' fixating/ and of that we unify the two images in virtue of 
 the oneness established through Touch. For what is this 
 ' doubleness ' ? Something which Touch shows us as having 
 solidarity. The question should rather be, Why should we 
 see a thing as double which is single so long as the sensa- 
 tions that we get are regular and orderly ? Professor Bain 
 says (p. 192) that we see an object mainly with one eye and 
 fill up our vision with the other. But most do not do so. 
 We do see most things double. Let the two forefingers be 
 held up one behind the other. If one be fixated the other is 
 seen double. This duality is a fact of binocular difference 
 experienced by us in the case of all objects that do not throw 
 the image exclusively on to the lutea macula. Under the 
 guidance of Touch we can to a certain extent unify this 
 difference. We cannot, it is true, touch the sun which we 
 see as single, but we have come to learn the oneness of an 
 object where Touch is possible ; all other objects are seen as 
 single indirectly. 
 
 Binocular difference, however, is the basis of our getting 
 
xix.] Elements of Psychology. 131 
 
 the idea of Solidity or Volume ' through Sight, as is shown in 
 the stereoscope. It is only when objects, because of their 
 extreme distance, send parallel rays to the eye so as to cast 
 the same image on both retinae, that we lose sight of them 
 as solid and can represent them on a flat canvas without 
 shading. We never have a full sense of Volume except in 
 the case of objects which throw a different image on each 
 retina. The difference does not explain Volume, but it 
 gives us additional visual marks to those obtained by one 
 eye only, which we can interpret by reference to Touch. 
 
 For Lecture XX read Hoffding, V, B, §§ 2 6 ; B, §§ 2, 3. 
 
 1 l Volume' is in Visual Perception a better term than ' Solidity.' 
 The latter is connected with Active Touch resisted, and cannot be 
 referred to Sight in which we do not experience resistance. 
 
 K 2 
 
LECTURE XX. 
 
 MENTAL CONSTRUCTION. REPRESENTATIVE IMAGINATION. 
 
 Recapitulation. 
 We have seen that Visual Perception is essentially a com- 
 plex experience, or mental construction involving data of 
 Active Sight, and reference of those data to Active Touch. 
 Vision is emphatically no mere passive sense ; it can never 
 be explained without reference to the active factor. But 
 with all allowance made for what Active Sight can do, it 
 must ultimately be referred to Active Touch. The eye seems 
 to do all the work, but actually it gives merely marks which 
 may be interpreted as percepts of Active Touch. Every 
 sight-percept is uliimately touch-perception. Real, as distinct 
 from visual, objects have always reference to Active Touch. 
 Touch gives the base of the perception, and Sight the occasion, 
 aggrandising moreover and extending Objective Perception, 
 and that in conformity with certain laws of Intellection, 
 whereof more presently. Hitherto we have noticed only the 
 Sense-elements in vision, which constitute really a very 
 difficult question. 
 
 Other Sense- perception. 
 
 Our perception of objects is of objects as tangible and 
 visible, and of objects as tangible when visible. The other 
 senses come, in different degrees of value for Perception, to 
 fill in that which we perceive through Touch and* Sight ; 
 
Elements of Psychology, 133 
 
 e.g. we project the conscious experience of a ringing sound 
 into a swinging bell, and that of an odour into a rose, and 
 that of a taste into a lump of sugar. Sonorous, odorous, 
 sapid objects are in the first instance tangible objects. 
 We do not put organic sensations outside of us, because 
 they are not subject to the action of Touch and Sight. 
 We have a certain apprehension of Direction through 
 Hearing, but it is most rudimentary, and it would be hardly 
 possible for a blindfolded person, keeping quite still, to say 
 with any precision where such a sound as the click of two 
 pence takes place, however possible it might be in the case 
 of a very definite sound. In Smell, too, the ' sense ' of 
 Direction is very low, although, owing to the fact that the 
 organ is situated at one side of the body only, it is perhaps 
 better than in Hearing. In Taste, as such, we have no objective 
 perception at all : it is the tangible presence of the object in 
 the mouth that informs us. We must touch before we taste. 
 
 But that these facts hold for the lower animals I do not assert. 
 Smell in particular has an objective value for quadrupeds 
 that it has not for us. To dogs smells are rather intellective 
 than emotional. Why ? They cannot afford to turn up their 
 noses at smells as we can. Our sense-world is based upon 
 the Hand ; theirs is a universe of Smells. Animals are 
 thrown back on smell or other sense, to the extent to which 
 they have not Active Touch to fall back upon. Monkeys 
 come nearer to us. 
 
 Let students think over all these points and they will get 
 very far in a Theory of the Sensible World. 
 
 Perception in its 'Formal' Aspect, as Intellectual Construction. 
 
 So far then for Sensation and Percept. A percept is an 
 intellectual construction on occasion of sense together with 
 
134 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 present consciousness of activity exerted. Complex as it is, 
 the work of intellectual construction is done so early in life, 
 that it has come to appear very simple. We are not as a rule 
 conscious of the process of abstraction which we perform on 
 our complex of present sensations, when as a resultant thereof 
 we get an auditory, a visual, or other perception. A percept 
 in fact is only gradually built up, and it is not likely that 
 a child of two hours old sees ' a pillar ' as we are apt to 
 imagine that it does. What it eventually comes to see, what 
 popular opinion sees, in the pillar is something quite out of 
 relation to, and disiinct from, the seeing individual. In 
 physical science it is something that supports the roof. But 
 for Psychology it is only a Percept, i.e. not a thing perceived, 
 but a thing perceived : — a combination of so much Active 
 Touch and Active Sight, &c, held together by certain laws of 
 Intellection. This is all it is from a subjective point of view. 
 Whether a pillar is really there or not, independently of my 
 sense-perception, is a metaphysical question. For us at 
 present the pillar, or any percept, is a subjective construction, 
 on the base of which further constructions take place, wherein 
 their chief mental value for us lies. Them we must proceed 
 to consider, if we wish to make clear what are those laws of 
 Intellection involved in the formation of percepts. 
 
 Up to this time in dealing with percept, I have only been 
 explaining its ' material ' elements as opposed to its ' formal ' 
 aspects. Taking ' matter ' and ' form ' as two aspects of 
 Object, we have been concerned with the former only. By 
 formal aspect I mean dealing with the percept as an in- 
 tellectual product, or intellectual construction out of sensations, 
 which form the ■ matter ' of the percept. Now if the business 
 of science is to explain, psychology must indicate the laws 
 according to which those constructions come to pass. 
 
xx.] Elements of Psychology. 135 
 
 Representative Imagination. 
 
 The next intellectual fact or product or construction that 
 we have to deal with, to throw light on the percept, is some- 
 thing that we call c image/ and which we must now use in its 
 strict psychological sense, not as meaning a certain change 
 which takes place in the retina, which is a physical or physio- 
 logical fact, nor a statue, but a percept reproduced in con- 
 sciousness, or had over again in re-presentative form, i.e. 
 without accompanying presentative form. And as Perception 
 is the process of the product, Percept, so Imagination, i.e. 
 Re-presentative Imagination, is the process of the product, 
 Image. Re-presentation in consciousness is the same as 
 what is popularly called Memory. Memory is re-presentative 
 imagination of a definite kind, involving an assurance that 
 the experience did really previously happen to me. How 
 memory can have come to assume this character is a difficult 
 problem, and we shall not here attempt to solve it. Memory 
 under the aspect of Reminiscence or Recollection implies 
 a distinct voluntary effort brought to bear on the associated 
 re-presentations of our experience. 
 
 Image is a better term than ' idea/ as being psychologically 
 less ambiguous. ' Idea ' and ' ideal ' play so great a part in 
 philosophy from Plato till now, that although most English 
 psychologists have by idea meant ' representative image/ it 
 may bear the wider sense of mental fact, of anything we can 
 take account of in consciousness. Thus we find even 6 ideas 
 of sense ' in Berkeley. And Locke used it for representation 
 plus sensation, or mental state generally. This being so, 
 it is well not to employ it in the specific sense of l image/ lest 
 ambiguity result. Professor Bain never uses ' image ' as I do. 
 In his Introduction he apparently uses ' idea ' for ' image/ 
 He would not use { idea ' for ' percept/ yet he would not 
 
136 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 scruple to use ' idea ' for • concept/ It is also to be 
 regretted that in his rare use of the word Imagination, he 
 always follows the popular, not the psychological, sense. 
 From * idea ' English psychologists, notably J. S. Mill, have 
 formed ' Ideation/ as Imagination corresponds to ' image/ 
 
 The terms Re-percept and Re-perception have lately 
 been coined, constituting unexceptionable substitutes for 
 Image and Representative Imagination. Intellectual con- 
 sciou>ness is much more made up of re-percepts than of 
 percepts. As our past experience is greater than our present, 
 so Representative Imagination is greater than Perception. 
 
 Perception and Re-presentation. 
 
 1 Presentative ' is what is directly, immediately before con- 
 sciousness. This pillar involves for me Presentation. I leave 
 the room. Can the pillar still come into my consciousness? 
 Yes, in re-presentative form. But is the pillar aught besides 
 Presentative to me at this moment ? Yes, my visual presen- 
 tation of it involves re-presentation of certain tactile expe- 
 riences. Perception therefore has been called Presentative- 
 representative (Spencer). 
 
 Can we have purely presentative experience ? None that 
 we can take account of. We may seem to be approaching 
 the presentative elements pure and simple in consciousness, 
 but they ever elude our grasp. The colour of an object, e. g., 
 appears differently to a child from what it does to me ; what 
 I see depends upon the interpretation put upon it by my past 
 experience ; indeed, I experience it by assimilating it to past 
 experience. The notion is for us a limit in a mathematical 
 sense, not an actual fact of Perception. Even in organic 
 sensations we refer them to our inside or to the skin. 
 
 It is easier to get at the image than at the percept, since it 
 
xx.] Elements of Psychology. 137 
 
 is only the percept had over again. Take e.g. 'the dome of the 
 college/ or ' one's own father/ and at once we have an image. 
 We have now to take account of the condiiions of imagination 
 and of the kinds of experience into which it enters. 
 
 Constructive Imagination. 
 
 Note, first, a wider and a narrower sense in the word 
 Imagination. In the former it means simply forming an 
 image, i.e. reviving a percept. In the latter it means the 
 process of forming a new image, a mental construction out of 
 elements had perhaps in experience but not yet so combined. 
 This is called Constructive or Productive Imagination, and 
 cannot be regarded by us at present, since it is more complex 
 than Re-presentative Imagination, and involves distinct 
 elements of Emotion as determining its constructions. In 
 popular parlance Imagination usually stands for Constructive 
 Imagination, but in Psychology it means Re-presentative 
 Imagination, if not particularised farther. Constructive 
 Imagination, however, is always Re-presentative. A poet 
 never constructs the elements of his creations de novo ; his 
 utmost originality, speaking absolutely, consists in presenting 
 new combinations of elements to our representative conscious- 
 ness. But we are now concerned with bringing what was in 
 our consciousness back again to our consciousness. 
 
 Let the student note well his dreams to-night, especially if 
 they contain any experiences he has not had as percepts. 
 We shall come to talk of them. 
 
 For Lecture XXI read : — 
 
 Bain, pp. 89-93; Hoffding, V, B, § 7, a ; Sully, Illusions, chaps, i, 
 ii, vi, vii, x ; Taine, De V Intelligence, on the ' Image ' — the most 
 instructive of all. 
 
 Consult Galton, Mind, v (i88o\ pp 301 et seq. ; cf. also his Inquiries 
 into Human Faculty, London, 1883. 
 
LECTURE XXI. 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE IMAGES, NORMAL AND ABNORMAL. 
 Development of the Percept by way of the Image. 
 
 This l pillar/ then, which we have as a percept may also 
 come before us otherwise than as a percept. We may by 
 leaving the room or shutting our eyes have a conscious 
 image of it. Again, suppose our thought be ' Pillars support 
 roofs/ then it is not a percept of that pillar which rises for 
 us in consciousness, but we are conscious of some general 
 pillar which is most like that pillar we oftenest see. 
 Again, suppose some one to say, ' Pillars were much used in 
 Greek architecture ' ; then we do not get a definite percept 
 or a definite image in consciousness, yet what there is, is 
 a definite fact in consciousness. Both this latter case, how- 
 ever, and that of the image of the pillar got with our eyes 
 shut, have a relation to Perception. But, further, our 
 notions are by no means limited to things we can perceive. 
 Suppose some one to say, ' Nations are aggregates of human 
 beings held together by a central power ' ; here we cannot 
 perceive a nation, and yet we can have a very definite notion 
 in consciousness of a nation. We see then that percepts by 
 no means exhaust the data of consciousness nor the products 
 of intellect, but are data for higher constructions, while they 
 
Elements of Psychology. 139 
 
 themselves are constructions from simpler data. And they 
 become fitted for higher constructions by passing through 
 the form of the Image. 
 
 Sense- perception always tends to overpower Imagination. 
 
 I referred to dreams because I wish the student to get the 
 typical image. We have then vivid representations of objects 
 seen and heard, &c, although there has been no proper sense- 
 experience in the case. Seldom do waking images have the 
 intensity and vividness of the dream-image. Their common 
 feature is absence of sense-excitation, yet many dreams — 
 those just before waking and just after falling asleep — have 
 a base of sense ; nay, even the dreams of deep slumber have 
 a base sometimes of organic sensation. Why should there 
 be this superior vividness in the dream-image? Because 
 there is at the time no rivalry between the dream-image and 
 conflicting percepts. While I am picturing the college-dome, 
 I have all my class before me. If I close my eyes, and 
 picture it, still I have conflicting percepts, from my chair, 
 from sounds I hear, as well as from the consciousness that 
 I must proceed with my lecture; whereas in sleep the life 
 of sense and its activities is practically cut off. Hence if we 
 happen to be imagining during our slumber, the images 
 that arise, not being damped down by sense-percepts, start 
 forth into perfect clearness and distinctness, thus showing 
 us — and this is the psychological interest of the dream-image — 
 what the waking image tends to be. Hobbes's metaphor is 
 striking- — 'When the sun goes down the stars shine out/ — 
 meaning percept and image respectively. The weakness of 
 the image is not so much inherent as due to the superior 
 strength of the percept. This, though not necessarily the 
 whole question, is yet an important factor. 
 
140 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 Normal and Abnormal Images, 
 The dream-image, we may well say, is a fact of normal 
 experience, yet relative to our waking consciousness so far 
 abnormal, that a comparison of the two throws light on the 
 character of the truly normal or waking image. More 
 abnormal processes are those of Hallucination and Illusion. 
 To understand these let us first consider other kinds of 
 conscious states midway, as it were, between percept and 
 image, viz. the After-image and ' Subjective Sensation/ 
 
 States midway between Percept and Image. After-image. 
 The After-image (Nachbild) is a decaying or fading 
 percept, a remnant left in consciousness by a percept, 
 a percept not yet wholly out of consciousness, though out of 
 distinct consciousness, such as the reverberation of a bell in 
 our ears when the bell has ceased to ring, or what we still 
 1 see* with closed eyes after looking at the sun. Afier-images 
 of vision appear in two forms, positive and negative. The 
 former has the general character of the percept to which it 
 is due. But after-images of coloured percepts appear to 
 us with a certain contrasted colour called ' complementary/ 
 and these are negative after-images. The image proper, or 
 ' memory-image/ is no mere fading positive after-image, but 
 a resuscitated construction arising after the total disappearance 
 of the percept. The memory-image involves a discontinuity 
 in time. 
 
 Subjective Sensations. 
 Subjective sensation is a very misleading phrase of physio- 
 logists (since all sensations are subjective), used to mean 
 actual sense-experience without external stimulus, at least of 
 a normal kind. All the senses are liable to occasional stimuli 
 in the organ itself sufficiently disturbing to reach the brain, 
 
xxl] Elements of Psychology. 141 
 
 e. g. singing in the ears during a catarrh. These phenomena 
 can scarcely be called sensation at all, but ought rather to be 
 classed as perception, since we give all of them spatial 
 reference. Strictly speaking, again, they are not in all cases 
 even intra-organically initiated, e. g. ' phospheme/ which is 
 the name for the ring of light produced by pressing the 
 eyeball. 
 
 Abnormal Images. Hallucination. 
 
 In the case of Hallucination there is no sense-stimulus; 
 it is the name for an image of such abnormal vividness as 
 to rival the percept in distinctness and be mistaken by the 
 subject of it for a percept ; in other words, the hallucination 
 appears with all the subjective characters of the percept. 
 I may, for instance, being in a very depressed state of health 
 on account of the loss of a dear relative, imagine him sitting 
 before me in an empty chair. The hallucination may vie 
 with, or outvie, the percept in vividness. Our ghost may be 
 transparent or opaque. And we may be conscious of the 
 hallucination as such or have it unconsciously, which is an 
 incipient form of insanity. The chess-player playing many 
 games simultaneously with his eyes blindfolded is calling up 
 images of the boards and pieces which for his purposes are 
 as good as percepts. But there is no percept, because there 
 is no peripheral stimulation ; and this is what we gain from 
 a study of Hallucination. We can always tell whether we 
 have a hallucination or a percept by closing or moving away 
 the peripheries apparently stimulated, for a percept is under 
 our motor control, whilst a hallucination is not. 
 
 Illusion. 
 
 An illusion, on the other hand, sometimes confused with 
 hallucination, but clearly distinguished by Taine and Professor 
 
142 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 Sully 1 , is abnormal imaging with a sense-stimulus. I might, 
 for instance, in a dim light mistake a cloak thrown over a chair 
 for that deceased relative, as was the case with Sir Walter Scott 
 and the fancied apparition of Byron at Abbotsford. Here 
 a real sense-stimulus arouses an image other than what it 
 normally does arouse. The psychological interest of Illusion 
 is the light it throws, not on the image, but on the percept. 
 We see by it how much of Imagination enters into the percept, 
 the illusion being inappropriate, instead of appropriate, 
 imaging on occasion of sense-stimulation. Perception is 
 verifiable Imagination on occasion of sense-stimulation, Illu- 
 sion is unverifiable. S.ott could verify the apparent percept 
 by speech and touch. 
 
 Zklusion, the state characterising the lunatic, is persistently 
 maintained Illusion or Hallucination. 
 
 Image in its Relation to Percept, 
 
 The Image, then, is related to the percept and yet is 
 distinguished from it. The percept is clearer and distincter 
 than the normal image, clearer as a whole, distincter in parts. 
 Also the image involves no stimulation of the peripheral 
 sense-organ, as in the case of the percept, and therefore no 
 muscular activity directed towards the sense-organs, or in 
 connexion with them. Nevertheless the image does call into 
 play exactly the same parts of the brain as are involved 
 in Perception. Later inquiry leaves no doubt of the general 
 truth hereon laid down by Professor Bain 2 . The percept 
 arises in consciousness through a direct peripheral stimulus ; 
 the image has no such stimulus. But in the one mental 
 function, the brain is called into play in the same way 
 as in the other. To talk of storing up images in either 
 
 1 Illusions, ch. ii, &c. 2 Op. cit, p. 89, § 11. 
 
xxl] Elements of Psychology. 143 
 
 brain or mind, like bottles in a cupboard, is false both for 
 Perception and for Imagination. 
 
 Varying power of Imagination. 
 
 Minds differ vastly in imaginative power as in perceptive 
 power. As, in abnormal imaging, there are all grades of 
 hallucination, from the shadowiest ghost to quite life-like 
 apparitions — so that such an one may, if apparently seated, 
 obscure the perception of the chair, the rays of light from 
 which in that case stimulate the brain less than the physio- 
 logical concomitants of the image — so the power of more 
 normal imaging seems to be very variable. Mr. Galton 
 has experimented on this point and makes out a very great 
 range of difference in the extent to which persons possess 
 what he calls the ' faculty of visualising/ or as we should 
 say, the power of representative imagination 1 . The term 
 1 visualisation ' still further extends the language of Sight 
 to cover mental procedure and I do not commend it. 
 Mr. Galton maintains that some persons cannot ' visualise ' 
 at all, himself among the number. For my part I am 
 persuaded that all do to some extent, some in respect more 
 of one sense than of another, and that their consciousness of 
 inability is because they think that to visualise they should 
 image much more than they do. 
 
 For Lecture XXII read : — 
 
 Bain, pp. 85-89; HofFding, V, B, §§ 76-8; Sully, Outlines of 
 Psychology, pp. 174-178. 
 
 1 Extreme cases, on the other hand, of vivid visualisation, especially 
 in chess-playing, are proved in Taine, op. et loc. cit. I myself have 
 a power of visualising above the average. 
 
LECTURE XXII. 
 
 THE LAWS OF REPRESENTATIVE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 Orderly procedure in the flow of Representative Consciousness. 
 
 I proceed now to the laws determining the flow of repre- 
 sentative consciousness or imagination, or how it is that 
 images appear for us, — how it is that I, my consciousness 
 being markedly presentative, have that consciousness broken 
 into by a set of experiences which are all representative. 
 From the days of Aristotle it has been observed that there 
 is a certain orderliness in our representative experience; 
 this orderly procedure has been more or less observed and 
 analysed, and the laws that govern it have been discussed 
 as showing the nature of mental synthesis generally. The 
 whole topic is usually termed Mental Association, Association 
 of Ideas or Laws of Association, the term 'association' 
 having been first definitely used only since the middle of the 
 eighteenth century. 1 do not take up these names here, but 
 shall work up to them. 
 
 The connectedness in the flow of representation now under 
 consideration is not confined to a bare succession of images, 
 as in reverie, but includes any and every protracted process of 
 thought ; not only all imagination, but all that goes on in the 
 mind intellectually over and above direct sense-presentation. 
 It is only by dealing with the nature of this flow that we can 
 get at the laws of thought. 
 
Elements of Psychology. 145 
 
 So far we have mastered the various kinds of images, 
 normal and abnormal, as different from, but as related to, 
 the percept. We saw that percepts, when we have had them, 
 in a manner abide with us, leaving a residuum or residual 
 traces; that many percepts undergo a gradual process of 
 dying away, but that, even when they have vanished, they are 
 still liable to reassert themselves in the form of images ; that 
 these, called memory-images or representative images, were 
 related to dream-images and hallucinations. We have simply 
 defined what the image is, and marked it off from what it is 
 not, and from all that is more or less directly related to it, but 
 we have not considered what determines, what are the con- 
 ditions of, the appearance of the image. We ought to find 
 a set of definite laws according to which images appear in 
 consciousness; we have to discover a psychological expression 
 for the orderly flow of representative consciousness. 
 
 Percept and Image on the side of their Conditions. 
 
 Observe that if we can discover such laws of the revival of 
 percepts in the form of image, these laws are and must be 
 purely psychological laws. If into my consciousness there 
 comes an image, the very fact that it is an image means that 
 it is not excited from without by means of sense-stimulus, 
 that it must arise in my consciousness according to laws 
 which are obviously psychological. Let me here apply 
 a definite distinction between an image and a percept. Does 
 a percept come into consciousness by mere psychological 
 law ? I just now had a percept of a noise in the passage. 
 That came into my consciousness not merely and in the first 
 instance by any psychological conditions. To a certain extent 
 it was physically determined. But it may not have come into 
 the consciousness of all present. That means, I attended to 
 
 L 
 
146 Elements of PsycJtology. [Lect. 
 
 it and some present did not. To the extent to which I turned 
 my attention on it, it was for me psychologically determined. 
 A percept then, to a certain extent, is both physically and 
 psychologically determined. I am perceiving a certain 
 number of objects at this moment, but there are many 
 more which I could perceive. I am principally conscious 
 of objects which are students. Why do I perceive them in 
 a way in which I do not perceive the benches ? Because of 
 my mental constitution as a teacher. I can teach objects as 
 students, but not objects as benches. For purposes of 
 illustration I may turn my attention to benches or my friend 
 the pillar. That which causes me to see the pillar at certain 
 times and not at other times, is not determined by physical 
 conditions, but by a psychological condition coming into 
 play. In perceiving there are, besides physical conditions over 
 which we have no control, psychological conditions. My 
 next perceptive experience is determined in general not by 
 me but for me — at least within limits. The physical and the 
 psychical meet in Perception. It depends upon me whether 
 I shall attend to a sense-impression, but it does not depend 
 upon me whether or no I shall have this impression to attend 
 to. In Perception, then, there is always something indepen- 
 dent of the laws of mind. But the flow of images is purely 
 psychological. That is why we dealt first with the image. 
 In connexion with it we can find out certain laws which have 
 reference to perception. But for the present the percept will 
 be held in the background. In perceiving there is implicit 
 ideation 1 or implicit imagining. When we have found that 
 this imagining does not go on in a haphazard way, but by 
 certain laws, we shall work back to the percept. 
 
 1 C£ Hoffding, op. cit., pp. 127-128. 
 
xxil] Elements of Psychology. 147 
 
 Probably constant tendency of the Percept to reproduce itself 
 
 as Image. 
 
 Here let me remark that apparently many images arise in 
 consciousness by no law : e. g. we may be reminded, suddenly 
 and without wishing it, of a long forgotten scene that hap- 
 pened years ago. We may be able to find out in such cases 
 positive conditions determining the emergence of the images, 
 which at first sight were not apparent. The scene may have 
 a certain kind of relation to what is going on in conscious- 
 ness. And it does not follow that no conditions are present 
 because we cannot assign them. But I am bound to admit 
 that, as far as I can watch my own consciousness, it does 
 seem as if images came up, not because there was any 
 positive reason, but because there was nothing in the way. It is 
 at all events conceivable, that previous percepts should reassert 
 themselves as images through mere negative determination 
 or initiation, i.e. simply because the way was open for them. 
 All past percepts which have become massed together accord- 
 ing to certain relations may get into such a state of equilibrium 
 or mutual arrest, that the way is clear for one particular 
 presentation to reinstate itself as image. The percept has an 
 intrinsic energy of its own. If it dies away into an after- 
 image and then into unconsciousness, it is because it is 
 pushed aside, and what had to be pushed aside before, may 
 very well reappear. We may, as I said before, liken this 
 procedure in consciousness to a stage, where actors come 
 forward, assert and reassert themselves and retire. 
 
 Persistence and Obliviscence of Percepts. 
 
 Whether a percept dies wholly out of consciousness so that 
 it cannot reappear, is a point for speculation. I think, in 
 spite of all the evidence that persons when drowning recall 
 
 L 2 
 
148 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 their whole past lives in those few moments, that percepts may 
 be so pushed aside and so die away, that they will never 
 again come up of themselves. 
 
 But since we may not generally assume that things never 
 can come into our heads again, we need not be surprised if 
 they do come again. It may be likely that a percept may be 
 so pushed aside as never to reassert itself, but we have no right 
 to say it has clearly gone beyond recovery. What happened 
 on the third day of my fifth year I do not know, and in all 
 probability it has gone completely beyond control; but if 
 something that happened on that day should come up in 
 consciousness, I should have no right to be surprised. 
 Percepts have this tendency to persist, to reinstate themselves, 
 and we cannot say it is overcome simply because a percept 
 has not been reasserted in image \ Even if it has gone 
 beyond recall, it has had its effect in consciousness, nothing 
 in mind any more than in matter being without effect. Not 
 the smallest percept but leaves some trace modifying 
 consciousness. This is of high import as well as interesting 
 in psychology. 
 
 Positive Conditions of Re-instatement. 
 What are the positive conditions for the reinstatement of 
 percepts as images ? I have already touched upon them and 
 now proceed to consider them more systematically. Though 
 the representative order follows the perceptual order and the 
 latter is determined by extra-psychological causes, nevertheless 
 the prominence of this or that perceptual experience in con- 
 sciousness requires a subjective explanation. I have alluded 
 
 1 In view of this tendency, constituting as it does a positive deter- 
 mining condition, it is perhaps saying too little to speak of mere 
 negative initiation. What I mean above, however, by ■ negative ' is 
 simply the absence of extrinsic positive conditions. 
 
xxil] Elements of Psychology. 149 
 
 to the different degrees in which we maybe affected by, e.g., 
 footsteps along the corridor without. From this difference 
 of effect in different individuals at different times we see 
 that this relative prominence depends on the movement of 
 the individual attention 1 , that the order of presentation 
 depends largely on mental activity. The mind of each at 
 any given time is selective in a particular direction, and what 
 particular associations will be formed depends not least on 
 this subjective factor. Attention is pre-eminently a complex 
 mental function, involving Intellection, Conation, and Feeling, 
 for which reason I defer at present any further consideration 
 of it. This condition is truly adduced, speaking generally, 
 but it gives rise to another difficulty. If in the main we only 
 associate experiences that we attend to, why do we attend to 
 them? Moreover, the original statement does not always 
 hold. Although it is clear to analysis that there is a function 
 of activity which we must express in terms of Attention, yet 
 certain facts seem to show that Contiguous Association can 
 be formed without any active Attention at all 2 . Activity may 
 go on in the mind without being consciously recognised. 
 There is sub-conscious, there may be #«conscious, mental 
 activity. Again, there is a wide range of difference in the 
 plasticity, ' natural adhesiveness ' (Professor Bain), or associa- 
 tive capacity in the individual mind. Some need to have an 
 
 1 Professor Bain — 'concentration of mind'; Professor Sully — 
 ' action of attention.' 
 
 2 Cf. e. g. the story of the delirious girl speaking Hebrew, &c, cited 
 by Taine, Book II, ch. ii, quoting from Abercrombies Inquiry into 
 the Intellectual Powers, Some philosophers (Hartley, Mr. Spencer) 
 hold that in such cases we do not have the sensations corresponding 
 to the physical stimuli at all, and that the organic changes are 
 transmitted to the brain but pass away without having had time to 
 excite the corresponding mental concomitants. 
 
150 Elements of Psychology. [Leci 
 
 experience repeated over and over again. Others can form 
 long trains of associates after a single experience, as e. g. those 
 who have been known capable of repeating whole pages after 
 a single hearing. Other things being equal, there is no 
 doubt that repetition of experience tends to result in con- 
 tiguous associations being formed. This, however, is true 
 only up to a certain point; beyond that point continued 
 repetition only causes us to neglect the experience. 
 
 Let us now illustrate the process of the reinstatement of 
 percepts as images by a diagram (p. 151) 1 . 
 
 Representative consciousness flows on for us in connexion 
 with presentative consciousness. (For the moment let pre- 
 sentative consciousness = percept, though it be not an equi- 
 valent term, there being representative consciousness in all 
 perception.) I symbolise presentative consciousness by an 
 arrowhead, to mean it is flowing on, in a series of percepts 
 like a troop of soldiers passing by. When I have reached 
 that part (A) of my perceptive experience, there happens to 
 be something about that particular ' soldier ' which keeps me 
 from thinking of any others, and makes me imagine him 
 there where I saw him. 
 
 The broken line (AB) thus means, that our presentative 
 consciousness is liable to be broken through at any point by 
 representative consciousness. At B either of two things may 
 happen : I may persist in representing as before (AB pro- 
 duced), or my representative experience may be diverted and 
 flow on in images (BC). At C one of three things may happen: 
 my flow of images may persist (BC produced), or be arrested 
 by a particular image C, or the perceptive series may reassert 
 itself and my attention take it up again either at A or else 
 
 1 This seems to me simpler than, yet not inconsistent with, that 
 employed by Prof. Hoffding, op. cit , p. 128. 
 
XXII.] 
 
 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 J5 1 
 
 at D, with a blank between the old and the new perceptive 
 experience. This diagram has the merit of bringing together 
 my related presentative and representative consciousness 
 and of indicating certain different lines of the latter. E.g., I 
 may read four lines of a book, and then, while still apparently 
 reading, my mind may drift into a different conscious state, 
 imagining some recent or long past experience, and lost in 
 reverie or day-dreaming, where the series of images is not 
 determined by any actual percepts. And after all I may 
 return to the point where I ceased to be perceptive. 
 
 The Two Laws of Suggestion. 
 But representation goes on always more or less with the 
 current of presentative consciousness ; thus what we find in 
 the former has application to the latter. Accordingly, in the 
 diagram, the vertical line is intended to mark a relation of 
 similarity between its extremes, or its elements. That is to 
 say, when at A, if A suggest a particular image, it does so 
 through the similarity of the image to A. And this effect of 
 similarity may go on (down the vertical line) indefinitely. If, 
 
152 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 however, B in turn suggest other images not similar to itself 
 (along the forward line), the suggestion is said to be by con- 
 tiguity. E.g., I go along a road and notice a tree, from which 
 a boy stealing apples falls down. If, some time after, I repeat 
 the walk and see the tree, I have an image of falling boy. 
 This is not effected by contiguity alone, as some think. The 
 suggestion, by the tree as it is, of the tree as it was, is by 
 similarity. The rest is by contiguity. If the incident is 
 recalled at once, the similarity is implicit : if I note the growth 
 or other circumstances of the tree first, the similarity becomes 
 explicit. 
 
 Now the flow of our representative consciousness is deter- 
 mined by the two laws of suggestion just mentioned ; and 
 the two are mentally involved' at all events to this extent, that 
 contiguity never arises without similarity, and that similarity 
 is always liable to be filled out or bodied out by contiguity. 
 
 Historical Note on Association. 
 
 Aristotle, as far as we know, first noted that when we 
 remember anything we remember other things along with it, 
 and that in memory there are certain relations among repre- 
 sentations, viz. Contiguity, Similarity, and Contrast. In the 
 seventeenth century there arose certain inquirers who investi- 
 gated this subject. Hobbes, e.g., wrote on trains of imagina- 
 tion, and Locke considered the association of ideas. Hume, 
 in the middle of the eighteenth century, drew attention 
 definitely to the association of ideas and discussed its princi- 
 ples. Since his time the name and its general significance 
 have remained unchanged. Hartley w T as more truly the 
 originator of the present Association Psychology than was 
 Hume. He definitely formulated a principle of Association, 
 which is for him the fundamental law of mental synthesis. 
 
xxii.] Elements of Psychology. 153 
 
 His one principle corresponds to what Hume and others call 
 the Law of Contiguous Association. Other writers have 
 since then added to the discussion, as I point out. 
 
 For Lecture XXIII read : — 
 
 Sully, Outlines of Psychology, p. 206 ; Bain, Appendix, 91, 92 ; 
 pp. 160 161 ; Ward, p. 60; Spencer, Part II, ch. viii, esp. § 120. 
 
 Note. — On the representation of Time consult Ward, pp. 63-66, 
 and Sully, The Human Mind, i, 318 et seq. Croom Robertson 
 apparently did not attempt to discuss 'this obscure topic,' as he 
 calls it. This may have been either ' for lack of time/ or because of 
 the elementary nature of the course. Respecting Professor Sully's 
 treatment, he wrote (just prior to his death): 'He seems to be 
 working in the right direction in assuming a unique and irreducible 
 experience of time-transience, which is transformed by a complex 
 constructive process into a distinct representation of present, past, 
 and future, such as exists for the developed consciousness. It is 
 a serious omission that no reference is made to Ward's view of 
 intensity as the primitive element in our time-perception, and of 
 movements of attention as constituting temporal signs. This theory 
 of temporal signs may fairly be regarded as the most interesting 
 contribution to the subject since Herbart, and it ought not to have 
 been ignored here* {Mind, i, N.S. 413). — Ed. 
 
LECTURE XXIII. 
 
 SUGGESTION AND ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Formulation of the Principles of Suggestion. 
 
 I have now shown how to me representative consciousness 
 proceeds on the ' base-line ' of perception. Our consciousness 
 is never exclusively perceptive, in the waking state, for any 
 length of time ; it is always liable to be broken in upon by 
 suggested images. ' Suggestion ' is the best word to describe 
 the process indicated either by the vertical or horizontal 
 dotted lines. The perceptive order is broken because a 
 certain percept produced or 'suggested' a certain image. 
 And the two laws of Suggestion determining the flow of 
 representative consciousness in relation to perceptual ex- 
 perience are termed Similarity and Contiguity, and may be thus 
 formulated: — Principle of Similarity: — Like suggests like in 
 consciousness \ and, Principle of Contiguity : — The representa- 
 tive order of experience follows the presentative order, or, things 
 that have been conjoint in presentative consciousness tend to 
 suggest each other. 
 
 Are there more than two ? Suggestion by Contrast. 
 
 Are these two the only principles of suggestion ? Aristotle, 
 in explaining memory and reminiscence, named three 
 principles — Similarity, Contiguity, and Contrast. He said, 
 that contrasting experiences were mutually suggestive, e.g. 
 
Elements of Psychology. 155 
 
 rich, poor; high, low; and this as a separate principle has 
 by many since been reasserted. Professor Bain however 
 has shown that Contrast has not the essential character 
 of a distinct suggestive principle, but is a special instance of 
 1 Compound Association/ or combined action of the other 
 two principles. Contrasts are not any kind of difference, 
 but differences under special circumstances ; or, in the 
 language of Logic, ' Contraries ' are not any two ' differents/ 
 but rather opposiles of the same class, or within the same 
 'notion/ Contrasts are likenesses with a difference, or 
 differences in the midst of likeness, and it is the likeness 
 which causes them to be associated. 
 
 Contrast as Impressive Difference, or Relativity in Consciousness. 
 
 This, however, is not the whole truth. Contrasts are of 
 things which differ most on a ba>is of agreement, but it must 
 not be thought that things suggest each other because they 
 are different, even though Difference is a condition of 
 impressive consciousness. We know that when we consciously 
 assimilate there must be some amount of diversity. Simi- 
 larity without diversity, Similarity with diversity of time only 1 , 
 is Identity. For us to have two experiences at all they must 
 be somehow different from each other. And when we pass 
 from one state of consciousness to another, the latter is 
 more impressive according as it is subjectively felt to be more 
 different. This is the Principle of Relativity in consciousness, 
 called sometimes, but less fitly, the Relativity of Knowledge : 
 Relativity of Consciousness is better. We are, then, best 
 intellectually conscious under this principle of Relativity, and 
 though this fact is not a principle of Association or Sug- 
 gestion, yet it helps Association. We do not properly know 
 
 1 Such as is frequently implied in our use of the word ' same.' 
 
156 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 anything of 'rich,' 'up/ 'right/ &c., unless we have had, 
 before or after them, their contrasts 'poor/ c down/ 'left/ 
 which are thence r orward suggested through contiguity. Our 
 most impressive experiences are those contiguous experiences 
 which involve a maximum of difference on a basis of similarity. 
 
 The Two Principles as Exhaustive, 
 
 Similarity and Contiguity therefore suffice. If we take 
 our representative consciousness in any of its forms, so far 
 as they can be reduced to law at all, they can always be 
 shown to proceed according to those two sets of conditions, 
 and no others need be assigned. By them we can explain 
 memory, in as far as memory can be psychologically ex- 
 plained. And any philosophical discussion of the import and 
 value of memory must be on this psychological basis. More 
 of this in the course on General Philosophy. 
 
 Suggestion and Association. 
 
 Which is the better term for the procedure determined by 
 these two principles, — Suggestion or Association? Some- 
 times both are used indiscriminately, sometimes one and not 
 the other, or less than the other 1 . Are those laws of 
 Suggestion in any proper sense laws of Association ? 
 
 Is either Principle more Fundamental? 
 
 Let us first consider whether either is more fundamental 
 than the other. James Mill, following Hartley, was for 
 
 1 Professor Bain never uses the term ' suggestion' unless, as it were, 
 by accident. Professor Hoffding uses ' suggestion,' yet when dealing 
 with the principles of Similarity and Contiguity as explanatory of 
 that consciousness called Ideation, he formulates them as laws of 
 Association. I used also to speak of laws of Association and net 
 of Suggestion (cf. my article on 'Association/ Ency. Brit.). 
 
xxiil] Elements of Psychology. 157 
 
 resolving Similarity into Contiguity. Mr. Spencer seeks to re- 
 solve Contiguity into Similarity. Professor Bain regards both 
 as fundamental, and has been followed by J. S. Mill, and 
 more recently by Professors Sully, Clark Murray, Wundt 1 , 
 and others. I agree in thinking that no mutual reduction is 
 possible, that they are independent principles ; but I hold 
 that they only rank as parallel principles, if considered as laws 
 of Suggestion and not of Association. 
 
 Let us first take Contiguity. It is not only a principle of 
 Suggestion, but also fully to be called a principle of Associa- 
 tion. Association is joining or bringing together. Do we 
 bring together in consciousness under the principle of 
 Contiguity facts that, apart from contiguity, would not be 
 otherwise brought together ? I think we do ; e. g. I lift my 
 hat from the chair. We have the association between the 
 thing s hat ' and the word ' hat/ and this is as pure a case of 
 Association as may be. The particular sound and that class 
 of object would not have been brought together in the 
 hearer's consciousness, had he been French and ignorant 
 of English. 
 
 Trains and Aggregates in Suggestion by Contiguity. 
 
 Notice here that, whereas the simplest cases of Association 
 proper are cases of successions or trains of presentations 
 (using this term in its widest sense), as e.g. the alphabet and 
 all series of movements, Contiguity determining the succession 
 in the order of presentation, it often happens that a number 
 of experiences, originally had in a serial order, do not 
 continue to be reinstated in that order, but appear as fused, 
 
 1 Professor Wundt, while regarding Contiguity and Similarity as 
 both fundamental principles, prefers to speak of them as external or 
 extrinsic, and internal or intrinsic, association respectively. 
 
158 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 blended, or coalesced into a simultaneous aggregate or cluster 
 of experiences, or are at least reinstated in a varying order. 
 If, e.g., I think of an orange, I have all at once the following- 
 cluster of images : — resistance, form, colour, taste, smell, &c. 
 All these qualities connoted by the name 'orange' I have 
 experienced in every possible permutation ; hence the multi- 
 tude of conflicting orders has undergone transformation into 
 a fused aggregate, or can be reinstated in varying successions. 
 This was first noticed by Hartley. 
 
 Inseparable Association. 
 
 Name and object, indeed, may have so come together in 
 consciousness that they have become inseparable. The kind 
 of Association termed Inseparable refers to these facts of 
 consciousness, namely, to contiguous associates which have 
 become so fused as to be practically inseparable, — not 
 theoretically so, else we could not distinguish the two as- 
 sociates. Such association occurs where Contiguity has 
 connected two or more associates which never have been 
 had apart, though it must be assumed that they are separable 
 and originally separate. Inseparable Association is association 
 formed under conditions of invariable experience. A great 
 deal of knowledge seems to have a real explanation from 
 this fact, which we shall consider again under Philosophy. 
 Such association is not had by way of Contiguity only, but 
 also by way of Similarity. It is therefore not a kind of 
 Association, but only Association under certain conditions. 
 
 Contiguity, the only Principle of Association, is the Principle of the 
 Complexity in the flow of Consciousness. 
 
 To revert : — intellectual consciousness has this aspect, that 
 it is progressively more and more complex, and this pro- 
 gressive complexity or complication needs explanation as 
 
xxiii. ] Elements of Psychology. 159 
 
 well as the fact of consciousness expressed by the term ' flow/ 
 Now if in the process of representative consciousness Con- 
 tiguity is to be called a principle of Suggestion, it may equally 
 be called a principle of Association as explaining, not the 
 ' flow/ but this progressive complexity, of consciousness. My 
 consciousness of the pillar is a something I had somehow to 
 put together. Why should this pillar lead on to ' roof/ and so 
 to c wall/ ' window/ ' window-cord/ &c. ? Because of Con- 
 tiguity. Now with respect to Similarity : — is it in the same 
 sense, or in any sense, a principle of Association? I am 
 bound to say, it is not. When like suggests like in con- 
 sciousness, as in the case of a man and his portrait, we do 
 not find a complex conjunction like that established by 
 Contiguity. There is, in fact, only one law of Association^ viz. 
 that of Contiguity, and you may use Association as equivalent 
 to Suggestion by Contiguity. I do not speak of an Association 
 of Similarity, and depart therefore on this point from Professor 
 Bain 1 . 
 
 But I am not thereby making light of Similarity as of 
 account for Intellection, nor have I done anything to lessen 
 its real importance in Intellection. It may not be a principle 
 of Association, but, as we shall see, it is an expression of 
 that function of Assimilation which enters most intimately 
 into Intellection. 
 
 For Lecture XXIV read Bain, pp. 82-85, 151-159. 
 1 Cf. on this point the view of Dr. Ward, op. cit 
 
LECTURE XXIV. 
 
 RESOLUTION OF ASSOCIATION INTO THE LAWS OF INTELLECTION. 
 
 Recapitu la Hon. 
 
 By saying that Similarity and Contiguity are principles of 
 Suggestion I mean that they are principles determining the 
 flow of representative consciousness, or reproduction in con- 
 sciousness *. It is not necessary, in accounting for this flow, 
 to bring in the word ' Association/ but if we do so and 
 consider what it is in consciousness, we find it is distinctly 
 applicable to a certain result detected under the principle 
 of Contiguity, or a bringing together that which was not 
 conjoint in consciousness in a certain more or less permanent 
 fashion, a fashion which may be so permanent that the 
 association is practically inseparable or indissoluble. 
 
 The Significance of Similarity in Intellection. 
 
 We need Association or the principle of Contiguity to 
 account for the progressive complexity of consciousness, but 
 not Similarity. Unquestionably Similarity is one of the chief 
 determinants in the flow of our representative consciousness. 
 But I am with those who say, there is one law of Association, 
 viz. Contiguity. While I thus seem to be subordinating 
 Similarity as a principle of Association, I am now to pass 
 
 1 Hamilton {Lectures on Metaphysics, XXXIII) distinguishes between 
 a reproductive and a representative faculty — a superfluous distinction. 
 
Elements of Psychology. 161 
 
 on to show, that if there is anything important for Intellection, 
 it is Similarity. 
 
 We have already inquired and found that intellectual 
 consciousness as such reveals a compound function of 
 Discrimination and Assimilation. When intellectually con- 
 scious we are discerning and at the same time assimilating. 
 What is this assimilating? Assimilation is that aspect or 
 coefficient of Intellection which may be set out thus : — Like 
 goes to the account of like in intellectual consciousness. 
 Here is Similarity no longer as merely a principle of Sug- 
 gestion, i. e. as like tending to recall like in consciousness. 
 We may then both speak of Similarity as furnishing a law 
 of Suggestion, and set it out as a fundamental factor in 
 
 Intellection. 
 
 The Law of Difference. 
 
 Since Similarity is not the only law of intellectual con- 
 sciousness, and since we can express Assimilation in terms 
 of a law of Similarity, we ought to be able to express the 
 other coefficient of Intellection, Discrimination, in terms of 
 law also, as a law, namely, of Difference, thus : — Conscious- 
 ness is possible only under circumstances of Difference; or, 
 For consciousness Difference of Impression is necessary. 
 
 This that I have suggested to you as the Law of Difference 
 has been called the Law of Relativity by Professor Bain 1 , 
 and for him it is the necessary complement to the Law 
 of Similarity. Professor Hoffding's 2 Law of Relativity is of 
 wider scope, including both Discrimination and Similarity, 
 nevertheless he ends by making his explanation of the Law 
 of Relativity an explanation of the Law of Difference. We 
 shall have to recur to this subject of Relativity in the Logic 
 and General Philosophy of our course. I wish now only to 
 
 1 Op. cit., pp. 83, 160. 2 Op. cit., pp. 114-117. 
 
 M 
 
162 Elements of Psychology. [Lect 
 
 add, that if you enter upon the attempt to distinguish between 
 these two laws of intellect as to whether one is more funda- 
 mental than the other, you would find that the Law of 
 Difference is more fundamental than that of Similarity. 
 The law of Difference represents the negative condition of 
 ' being conscious/ Without Discrimination you cannot be 
 intellectually conscious. Except with a difference conscious- 
 ness cannot proceed. Similarity expresses, not so much the 
 fact of your being conscious, as the way of your being con- 
 scious. That is the positive condiiion. To the extent that 
 my consciousness is discriminative in the case of the pillar, 
 the pillar is not chair, not window, not roof; but its being just 
 pillar obviously shows I am assimilating. 
 
 Retentiveness, 
 
 Have we, when speaking of these two laws, left any other? 
 Are we to allow as a third law Retentiveness ? Is it a third 
 coefficient in Intellection ? Is it not rather a fact of Mind as 
 a whole than of any one phase ? It is certainly involved in a 
 way in Intellection, and becomes most distinctly manifest in 
 relation to Intellection, yet we cannot say it enters into the very 
 being of consciousness as do Discrimination and Assimilation. 
 If it could be shown that representation is involved in dis- 
 crimination, then indeed we should have to include the third 
 function of retention in every intellectual process. But the 
 consciousness of bare difference in passing from one sensation 
 to another seems to involve nothing but Discrimination and 
 Assimilation. Professor Bain tells us that Intellect involves 
 these two and also Retentiveness. The first he expresses in 
 the form of a Law of Relativity, the second in that of the Law 
 of Similarity, but what he calls Retentiveness is expressible as 
 a Law of Contiguity, i. e. that if things happen together, you 
 
xxiv.] Elements of Psychology. 163 
 
 retain them in that connexion, so that you get a progressively 
 complex consciousness. Thus under the term Retentiveness 
 he draws attention to an aspect of consciousness which 
 I regard as Association in terms of Contiguity. But this 
 fact of progressive complexity of consciousness is, so to 
 speak, an after-fact, and does not enter into the very being 
 of consciousness. You could be intellectually conscious 
 without retaining. Intellection is explained by Discrimination 
 and Assimilation. Its progressive complexity is explained 
 by Association, the function corresponding to the principle 
 of Contiguity. 
 
 Special Forms of Association. 
 
 What has been called Constructive Association ! is not 
 a new principle, but Association under certain conditions of 
 Feeling. Feeling determines the end for which the con- 
 structive association takes place. Hence this subject is 
 more properly treated of under Conation and after Emotion. 
 
 Again, it is important that ' Obstructive Association ' 2 
 should not be misunderstood. It is not another kind of 
 association, but only an effect of the working of the laws 
 of Suggestion. Representation flows on in a certain course 
 in virtue of these laws ; it may be stopped by another train 
 of images, but if so, this stoppage is also caused by the 
 principle of Association and by nothing else. Under certain 
 circumstances the laws of Suggestion may be obstructive of 
 a particular line of associat'ons either by way of Contiguity 
 or Similarity. Take the case of my seeing a person I have 
 met before. Seeing him should call up his name in my con- 
 sciousness, but as a matter of fact another name is called up 
 which obstructs my recollection of the name I want. Either 
 
 1 Bain, op. cit, pp. 161, et seq. 2 Bain, op. cit., p. 159. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 the person I see is somewhat like the holder of the name I da 
 recall (Law of Similarity), or I saw him some time in the 
 past in company with the holder of the name I recall (Law 
 of Contiguity). 
 
 We can now see how it is in terms of Obstructive Associa- 
 tion that we can for the most part explain Forgetfulness. 
 Take the case of a child who on reaching a shop forgets 
 the object of his errand. Here it is not that the flow of 
 association comes to a dead stop, though this may sometimes 
 be the case. But it is that the laws of Suggestion have 
 carried the flow along a divergent path ; hence the forgetful- 
 ness of the path on which a memory of the errand would 
 have been maintained. 
 
 Obstructive Association, then, is a term used with reference 
 to a particular line of association which we have in view, and 
 if we forget this line, it is the laws of Suggestion that turn 
 us off. 
 
 Finally, there is one kind of mental experience that is 
 governed by association entirely, and that is the trains of 
 bare representation termed Reverie. In Expectation, on the 
 other hand, we have representative experience that may be 
 haphazard or may be voluntary. In it the time-relation of 
 memory is inverted ; it is representation with a forward 
 reference. 
 
 For Lecture XXV read : — 
 
 Hoffding, V, B, § 9; Sully, Outlines of Psychology , pp. 242-247, 
 254-257 ; Appendix F. 
 
 Note. — In correction of Heffding, p. 114, footnote, the term 
 ' relativity' was used by Professor Bain before Professors Wundt and 
 Ward used it. 
 
LECTURE XXV. 
 
 THOUGHT. PERCEPT, IMAGE, CONCEPT. 
 
 Intellectual Processes and Products. 
 
 After we have discovered the laws of representation and 
 the laws of intellection generally, it remains for us to find out 
 the remaining intellectual products arising under them in 
 consciousness. We found first of all the Percept and ex- 
 plained it only in its connexion with Sense. We then took 
 account of the Image and saw that it was related to the 
 Percept. And now we must take account of one more 
 intellectual product, and that is the Concept. When we 
 have explained each of these three as it arises, we have 
 completed the work of the psychology of Intellection. We 
 have then before us three intellectual products : — 
 
 \ Percept. 
 Represe] 
 Concept. 
 
 and three corresponding processes : — 
 
 Perception. 
 
 Imagination (Representative), 
 
 Conception. 
 
 Conception. 
 
 Note that Conception in Psychology has a wider and 
 a narrower sense. In its wider sense it may be taken as 
 equivalent to Thought or Thinking proper. Less widely 
 
 ( Representative Image. ) 
 
t66 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 understood, it means a certain mode of Thought. In the wider 
 sense Thought or Conception, from the time of Aristotle 
 downwards, has been universally considered as presenting 
 three forms: — (i) Conception (in the narrower sense, i.e. 
 general intellection in its most concentrated form), (2) Judg- 
 ment, (3) Reasoning. When I am dealing with Thought in 
 its linguistic and logical aspect, and not till then, I shall give 
 a proper account of the psychological difference between 
 these three. To-day I overlook the difference and attend to 
 what they have in common ; I do not exclude Judgment and 
 Reasoning from Conception, but consider the antithesis 
 between Perception and Conception in its wider meaning of 
 Thought, — Thought, that is to say, not in the popular sense 
 of intellectual consciousness in general, but in its stricter 
 psychological sense of Intellection on occasion of general 
 notions \ 
 
 Products of Intellection as interrelated. 
 
 We are then to consider Percept, Image, and Concept in 
 their relation to one another as results of intellectual law. 
 Taking our pillar, as constituting a percept actually present, 
 we may remember that there is a corresponding pillar in the 
 next lecture-room ; this gives us a representative image. 
 What then do we mean by the thought or concept of 
 a pillar ? Pillar in general. This is neither the pillar we see, 
 nor that which we were imaging, yet it in a way includes all 
 the pillars of which we can be conscious. Why should the 
 1 concept ' pillar mean pillars ' in general ' ? The answer is 
 suggested in the prefix con, which = together. Per in percept 
 
 1 Many philosophers and even many psychologists, e. g. Professor 
 Bain, disregard this useful restriction of the terms Thought and 
 Thinking to the ' peculiar narrow sense ' (cf. Bain, op. cit., p. 146) 
 employed by, e. g., Hamilton, Professor Sully, &c. 
 
xxv.] Elements of Psychology. 157 
 
 represents the fullness or completeness (per = thoroughly) 
 of my apprehension of the particular pillar. In conceiving 
 in my thought every possible kind of pillar, I get an ad- 
 vantage in ■ taking them together ' (con-capid), but I do not 
 get as much in them all as I get in the perception of one 
 single pillar. 
 
 Now we may see, that image and percept have under one 
 aspect something in common, just as image and concept 
 have something in common under another aspect. The 
 image is the percept reproduced apart from sense-stimulation, 
 otherwise both are alike. The percept has always the 
 character of singularity. If I image a class in the next 
 room, has my image also the character of singularity ? Yes. 
 Percept and image have always as intellectual products this 
 character of singularity, or as it is sometimes called, though 
 less fitly, particularity. Wherein then does the image re- 
 semble the concept? Both are void of sense-stimulation, 
 both are representative. What is the difference between 
 them ? The concept is more widely representative : it has 
 not the character of singularity. In a concept, we may be 
 representing not only all the pillars we have perceived but all 
 that we can imagine. 
 
 If images are already representative, how can we designate 
 the further process ? Mr. Spencer uses the word ' re-repre- 
 sentative/ The concept is re-representative and may be so 
 to any ' power/ As soon as we have passed from image to 
 concept we have an indefinite vista of intellectual development, 
 although we are dealing with no new intellectual function. 
 In conceiving or re-representing we bring together a number 
 or multiplicity of images on the ground of similarity. The 
 fact of likeness is the great determinant, by which in the 
 concept we bring a plurality to unity. 
 
168 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 Generic Images, 
 
 Some have put in between the image and the concept 
 the Generic Image, a distinction useful in so far as it shows 
 that some concepts come nearer to the image than others. 
 Whenever, in a concept, similarity predominates over dif- 
 ference in a multitude of particulars brought together, then 
 the concept retains most of the characteristics of the image. 
 In thinking of * sheep/ unless we are dwelling on the word 
 sheep, we get not one image, nor yet necessarily a succession 
 of images, but a sort of general idea of a sheep. This result 
 is not itself exactly an image, it is not the image of any one 
 sheep we ever actually perceived, but it still has something of 
 the definiteness of an image in it, a certain schematic dis- 
 tinctness. This is a generic image or schema, and it is for 
 us the thought or concept of sheep. 
 
 But if we think of ' father' — not our own, but any father 
 — we have no generic image of ' father ' in the mind : the 
 differences are too great. In c nation/ again, we cannot get 
 even an indefinite image ; yet somehow the mind, though it 
 cannot call up a generic image, gets hold of the meaning 
 of the term. Such a concept, again, as ' relation ' is still 
 further removed from the generic image. Who can definitely 
 image what we mean by 'relation'? As a fact we may 
 believe that when we think of 'nation/ 'relation/ and the 
 like, though the thought may be general, some particular 
 image comes before the mind; nevertheless that image is not 
 the general thought with which the mind was concerned. 
 It is one thing to image a number of fathers, and another 
 to conceive a father. In such cases we see that the facts of 
 likeness, which enable us to form the concept, are much less 
 than, are subordinate to, the differences that are overcome, 
 and do not predominate as in the Generic Image. Never- 
 
xxv.] Elements of Psychology. 169 
 
 theless the concept, so far as it is a definite fact of conscious- 
 ness, comes to us as a deposit of resemblances. 
 
 Thought as General. 
 
 The characteristic attitude of thought or thinking, then, 
 when the term is properly used, is its generality. Although 
 I can think of a single thing, thinking, in its import, is 
 essentially general. If I think of a pillar, I have it before me, 
 not as a particular thing, but in its likeness to other pillars. 
 The concept brings together a multitude or variety of images 
 re-representatively on the ground of likeness, constituting 
 a notion so general as to be termed a ' general notion/ 
 
 Thought as Abstract, 
 
 Thought is generalisation by way of abstraction. Ab- 
 straction is the means by which we arrive at generality. 
 But ' abstract' and 'general' are not the same. We cannot get 
 generalisation without abstraction, but we can get abstraction 
 without generalisation. We may, say, have an abstract con- 
 sideration which is not general. Abstraction may be taken 
 as equivalent to (a) taking away, (b) looking away from ; the 
 latter is the more psychological meaning. In psychology 
 I abstract, i.e. I look away from, points of difference. I do 
 not abstract the likeness : I attend to points held in common, 
 to the exclusion of points of variety or difference. The 
 abstraction necessary for generalisation means a looking 
 away from points of difference to attend to points of 
 similarity. 
 
 Percept and Concept as Antithetical. 
 
 Now compare once more the three products — percept, 
 image, concept. For convenience we may drop the second, 
 since, except with regard to sense-stimulation — it is the same 
 
170 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 as the percept. Between percept and concept we get a real 
 antithesis. If the percept is an intellectual product, it must 
 involve discrimination and assimilation. So also must the 
 concept if it too is an intellectual product. Where then is 
 the difference? Discrimination and assimilation are involved 
 in both cases, but not equally so. In the case of perception, 
 discrimination is to the front ; in conception, although 
 discrimination is present, assimilation predominates. The 
 concept arises through the process of assimilation, and the 
 percept chiefly through the function of discrimination. Thus 
 it is in accordance with the ultimate laws of intellection, 
 that we can give the relation between perception and con- 
 ception. 
 
 For Lecture XXVI read : — 
 Spencer, Pt. VIII, ch. ii ; Hoffding, p. 130; Bain, pp. 176-181. 
 
LECTURE XXVI. 
 
 PERCEPT AND CONCEPT; THEIR INTERDEPENDENCE AND 
 
 EVOLUTION. 
 
 Everything that we can call thought, or understanding, is 
 included within this notion of conception (in the wider sense). 
 Psychologically we define thought as intellection by way of 
 concepts. Understanding, in its psychological import, stands 
 on the same level as thought. 
 
 Perception and Conception mutually interdependent. 
 
 Conceiving presupposes perceiving. Perceiving involves 
 conceiving. Let us see that we fully grasp this. 
 
 Perceiving is marking off, distinguishing, discerning. * To 
 discern' is used in as general, and again, in as specific, 
 a sense as ' to perceive/ just as ' to see ' is often extended to 
 mean to understand or conceive. It is only within the last 
 century that perceiving has come to mean ' sense-perceiving/ 
 Locke and the psychologists of the eighteenth century used 
 the word ' perceive ' when they could have used ' conceive ' 
 or ' think/ That ' to discern ' is equivalent ' to perceive ' 
 shows that discrimination is the prominent aspect of per- 
 ception. The salient feature of my intellection of the pillar 
 is, that I am distinguishing ' the pillar ' from everything else, 
 whereas the salient feature of my concept is, that I am 
 bringing together, on the ground of likeness, a great variety 
 
172 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 of experience. In perceiving I am marking off on the ground 
 of difference; in conceiving I am bringing together on the 
 ground of likeness. 
 
 Not that I cease to discriminate in conceiving. In the 
 very fact of abstraction, in bringing together on a ground of 
 likeness, I am discriminative. In generalising, I am assimi- 
 lating with a background of discriminative activity. When 
 I have formed my concept ' man ' on the ground of likeness 
 I am thinking of t man ' as different from any other thought. 
 Concepts are governed, not only by the law of Similarity, 
 but also by the law of Relativity. The import of this is seen 
 in Logic. 
 
 Again, if in perceiving we are essentially discriminating, 
 we are also assimilative, — unquestionably so, in the case of 
 the developed perception of adult consciousness. When my 
 consciousness is developed to the extent that I can say, 
 ' I perceive that pillar with my eyes/ I am marking it off not 
 only, through present sense-consciousness, from the wall, the 
 benches, &c, but also from everything in my past experience, 
 except the experiences of objects I have learnt to know as 
 pillars. I interpret my present with the aid of my past 
 experience. The better I have conceived, the more exactly am 
 I able to perceive. How is it that one perceives better than 
 another, eyesight being equally good ? The one brings more 
 concepts to bear on the presentative experience of the moment. 
 E.g. we look out on the horizon and see an object, whereupon 
 a sailor says, ' That is a schooner/ Why could he distinguish 
 it as such, when to us it is only { an object ' ? Because we 
 as landsmen could not interpret the sight through our want 
 of past experience in that direction, whereas the sailor, with 
 perhaps inferior eyesight, is able for the opposite reason to do 
 so at once. Take again the popular, and the technical ot 
 
xx vl] Elements of Psychology. 173 
 
 scientific conception of pillar. The man of science brings 
 a different set of concepts from those brought to bear by any 
 one else. The question of Illusion might without impropriety 
 be treated of at this stage. In common normal life we differ 
 in perceiving, because we bring different concepts to bear on 
 our presentative experience. When our perception is of the 
 kind called illusion or misconcept, we are bringing concepts 
 of an abnormal kind to bear on our presentative experience, 
 
 Mr. Spencer's Scheme, 
 
 All developed perceiving, then, depends upon or involves 
 conceiving ; just as, in another way, conceiving pre-supposes 
 perceiving \ Hence the fourfold order, and hence the term 
 for Perception employed by Mr. Spencer in marking out the 
 divisions of Cognition or Intellection : — 
 
 [Presentative Cognitions.] 
 
 Presentative-Representative Cognitions = Perception. 
 Representative Cognitions ■= Representative Imagination. 
 Re-representative Cognitions ^Conception an its wider sense). 
 
 Mr. Spencer has no hesitation in saying that Presentative 
 Cognition corresponds to Sensation. But any sense-expe- 
 rience is more or less perceptual, is 'presentative-representa- 
 tive/ Sensation, in the strict sense of the word, as I have 
 already pointed out, does not represent any fact of actual 
 experience, but in itself is an abstraction. By ' presentative 
 cognition/ then, we must understand something correspond- 
 ing not to the whole of consciousness on any occasion 
 of intellection, but — and this is indicated in the table by 
 brackets — to an ideal starting-point or limiting conception 
 for purposes of scientific explanation. Thus qualified it 
 may well be put down in such a scheme as Mr. Spencer's. 
 
 1 Notice Professor Holding's illustration of this, op. cit., p. 130, &c. 
 
174 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 The Historical Prius of Perception and Conception. 
 
 If all our actual presentative experience is at the same time 
 representative, while there must always be something pre- 
 sentative to start with, how do we first come to represent? 
 Sense by itself is not perception ; it becomes so only by 
 representation ; where then are we going to get our repre- 
 sentation for our first perception ? Some philosophers say 
 we come into the world with a mind containing ' innate 
 ideas/ This hardly suffices for a psychological explanation, 
 and our only way out of the difficulty is this. There are two 
 stages in the development of our intellectual experience. 
 When we are able in the fullest sense to perceive, we are 
 already able to conceive. But first we had to develop from 
 a lower stage, which was not that of perception till we 
 acquired the power of perceiving. And that prior stage is 
 one that cannot be expressed in terms of perception and con- 
 ception. It was a passage in intellectual consciousness from the 
 vague to the definite. Our first consciousness is just a vague, 
 confused, chaotic mass, which we have to clear. To borrow 
 a figure from chemistry, our first experience is in a state of 
 solution, and from this solution something has to be pre- 
 cipitated. The percepts that involve concepts are e precipi- 
 tates ' from an earlier stage of conscio^ness, and imply that 
 there has been a passage from vague to definite. But we are 
 bound to assume, that precisely the same laws that apply to 
 percept and concept apply in the case of passing from vague 
 
 to definite. 
 
 The Vague and the Discrete. 
 
 For ' definite ' substitute ' discrete/ and let ' discrete ' stand, 
 in relation to ' vague/ as a possible percept, a percept, i.e., 
 not yet involving concepts, by the interpreting efficacy of 
 which the discrete becomes a percept. Discrete again is ' con- 
 
xxvi.] Elements of Psychology. 175 
 
 crete/ by which I mean made up of distinguishable elements. 
 We may now get this scheme : — 
 
 Vague 
 
 1 
 
 discrete (concrete) = percept 
 
 1 
 
 abstract = concept. 
 
 Let us assume I have no previous concept of pillar. At first 
 I could only be vaguely affected by it, then I come to be con- 
 scious of it as (a) a discrete, as something marked o!T, which 
 may come to be a percept ; (b) a concrete, as opposed to this 
 or that simpler kind of experience, in that it is a concrescence 
 of sensible elements of the discrete, sound, size, form, &c, all 
 growing together. As (a) my intellection of pillar involves 
 the laws of discrimination and assimilation : in as far as {a) is 
 (6) it involves also the law of association. 
 
 Development of the Concept out of the Discrete by way of 
 Abstraction. 
 
 How do we form the concept? Obviously on the basis 
 of the percept. To form a concrete we bring together all 
 the sensible elements or aspects of the discrete. But in 
 the concept we are dealing more with the abstract. The 
 concept is formed by attending, in the variety of experience, 
 to the like. The moment we begin to perceive, we find 
 a multiplicity of percepts. Not to neglect or be overwhelmed 
 by this multiplicity, as happens with stupid folk, but to master 
 it, is the problem of conception. The way of mastery is 
 attention to the like, neglect of the unlike. In this way the 
 multiplicity is brought together. 
 
 Theories as to the nature of the Concept. 
 Can this be done, can the concept be formed, can the 
 multiplicity be held together in consciousness without the 
 
176 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 assisting particularity or singularity of an image or a percept? 
 Some have thought this possible, and the mental product e.g. 
 of a multiplicity of triangles, to be a triangle that was neither 
 equilateral, nor isosceles, nor scalene, &c. This is the 
 position of Conceptualism, — the thinking of a general thing 
 without thinking of things in particular. Others say, it is 
 impossible for the mind to bring together its multiplicities 
 without some representative or symbolic percept or image, 
 notably that of the name, written, spoken, or otherwise 
 expressed. This is the position of Nominalism. 
 
 For Lecture XXVII read : — 
 Hoffding, V, B, §§ 10, 11 ; Taine, op. cit., I, ch. i, ii. 
 
LECTURE XXVII. 
 
 THOUGHT, LOGIC, AND LANGUAGE. 
 The two modes of Thinking, (a) in Logical Order. 
 
 We saw that Conception in one sense is equivalent to 
 Thinking or General Intellection, and in another sense is a 
 mode of Thinking, the other modes being Judgment and 
 Reasoning. Judging as distinct from Conceiving is the 
 bringing together in our thought two concepts, whereas in 
 Reasoning three concepts are grouped together. Take, e.g., 
 the concept (not image or percept) ' man/ ' Man is rational/ or 
 'a rational animal/ is a judgment. ' Man is rational because 
 speaking' is a process of reasoning. Thus the three present 
 a scale of increasing complexity, when considered on the side 
 of mental products expressed in definite form, viz. in language. 
 Now in Logic there is very good ground for taking the three 
 in this order and under this aspect, inasmuch as the logician 
 is concerned, not, as is the psychologist, with the explanation 
 of thought-procedure, but with its regulation with a view to 
 making it true and consistent, and we can only apply canons of 
 truth and consistency to thought when it is definitely expressed 
 in articulate speech. Accordingly all logicians have divided 
 their subject-matter into these three departments, — the Logic 
 of Conception, the Logic of Judgment, the Logic of 
 Reasoning. Conception used to be called Simple Apprehen- 
 sion, a concept in a judgment being 'compoundly appre- 
 
 N 
 
178 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 hended.' Whately still called it so, but Hamilton, following 
 the Germans, substituted the far better term ' Conception/ 
 Apprehension, in developed Psychology, is more applicable 
 to Perception than to Conception, which could only be 
 expressed by Comprehension. 
 
 (b) In Psychological Order. 
 
 But in Psychology we do not consider whether a thought 
 is true or untrue ; we just consider how it has arisen in con- 
 sciousness. Because the logician does well to consider con- 
 ception before judgment (i.e. names before propositions), and 
 judgment before reasoning (propositions before arguments 
 or syllogism), this does not imply that we form concepts in 
 the mind before we fo:m judgments, and judgments before 
 we form reasonings. I have got a concept or notion of ' man/ 
 That notion must be a certain kind of notion, must have 
 a certain content, different in my consciousness from the 
 content of the concept ' horse.' What is then the content of 
 this notion 'man'? Wherein lies the difference? What is 
 in my thought when I think of man ? Let us say ' a rational 
 animal/ But I cannot express or explicate or unfold this 
 content without putting it in the form of judgment : — ' man 
 is a rational animal/ But I am not only forming a judgment 
 in arriving at my concept, I am really forming two judg- 
 ments : — ' Some animals are rational — some are not/ We 
 mark off ' rational animals ' as * men/ Our concept is really 
 ; a deposit from two judgments. But in judging some animals 
 rational, we must have had some ground for saying so, and 
 have done so by the implication of reasoning ; we have 
 inferred rationality in man. When therefore we probe it 
 down psychologically, we find that each concept comes, under 
 any given aspect, from two judgments, which have involved 
 
xx vil] Elements of Psychology. 179 
 
 reasoning. Reasoning is judgment explicated ; judgment 
 is reasoning boiled down ; a concept is condensed judgment. 
 This proves that, for purposes of science, it may be 
 necessary to separate in expression things which in point of fact 
 are mutually involved. For purposes of psychological science 
 we need to distinguish Conception, Judgment, and Reasoning, 
 and for purposes of logical regulation we must not only 
 distinguish but also arrange them expressly. At the same 
 time we do not deny that in the flow of consciousness thev 
 proceed in a mutually involved fashion. 
 
 Thought and Expression. 
 I have in connexion with thought spoken much of ex* 
 pression. Thinking and speaking are related to each other 
 in a very intimate way. All mental activity tends to find 
 expression, but articulate speech, as the vehicle for exposition 
 or statement, is peculiarly the expression of the psychological 
 function of intellection, most of all, of general intellection. 
 How shall we express the concept, judgment, reasoning or 
 inference? By the name, proposition, and syllogism or 
 argument. In connexion with the function of thinking, 
 then, it is of deep interest to consider the important function 
 of speaking. 
 
 How far is Intellectual Procedure Independent of Language? 
 As far as we have seen, there is nothing in perceiving that 
 could not go on without speech. Dumb people are so, as a 
 rule, because they are born deaf, and deaf persons, left to 
 themselves, never speak ; although, as is well known, they can 
 be taught to do so by associating movements of the tongue, 
 larynx, &c, with the visible movements of the lips of the 
 teacher. There is no reason to suppose that the dumb are 
 unable to perform the intellectual construction upon sensation 
 
 N 2 
 
180 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 that we call Perception. Perception can go on without 
 speech, even though normally it may not do so. 
 
 This is equally true for imagining, and for generically 
 imagining. Even the lower animals may possibly be able to 
 get as far as this. 
 
 Thought and Systematic Speech. 
 But beyond this it is questionable how far we are in- 
 dependent of speech. Concepts that are more abstract than 
 generic images can in all probability not be formed by the 
 dumb, and are not formed by the speaking human being 
 without the help of language as a system of marks and signs. 
 Animals can perceive, also imagine, but they have not the 
 progressive mental development of thought always finding 
 expression in some definite linguistic system. This is true 
 of our thought in its highest development and also in its 
 beginning. Children do not think before they speak, but 
 often speak before they think. Thought proceeds by way of 
 expression. But for some way of exit, but for some means 
 of expressing our mental experience, we should never come 
 to have the orderly succession of thoughts that we do have. 
 The human mind, overburdened by the multitude of its 
 experiences, trying to make clear the likeness among them 
 and failing to do it in the form of an image, is so constituted 
 that it then puts forth an action of some kind. In every 
 case where we are conceiving (i.e. bringing together a 
 number of things on the ground of likeness), but cannot 
 generically imagine, we help ourselves by some kind of 
 expressive image. 
 
 Speech required to Co-ordinate Experience. 
 Expression includes gestures, drawings, &c., as well as the 
 spoken word. But the larynx, and the respiratory system 
 
xxvil] Elements of Psychology. 181 
 
 generally, is an organ, or group of organs, through which 
 expression takes place more readily and with less diffusion 
 of energy than through any other. Children discover its 
 use during the first few moments of their life. But crying is 
 not speech. Speech first comes into play when conceiving 
 begins. It is when the mind has to overmaster its experience 
 in order not to be overmastered by it, that speech comes to 
 our aid and enables us to overmaster our experience. For 
 want of speech much experience may be neglected altogether, 
 e.g. by the dumb and the lower animals. It is only by the 
 elaboration of that system of connexions between expressive 
 movements of throat, tongue, jaw, and lips, and the resulting 
 sounds, that thought is both registered and signified in a 
 relatively adequate manner. 
 
 The more Fundamental Function of Speech, 
 Of these two functions the latter is really the more 
 fundamental. We come to conceive and to master our 
 experience by way of language only when we have to 
 communicate. Speech arises as a means of expressing 
 thought, not for the individual, but between man and man. 
 Hobbes, in his definition of a name l , puts the registration 
 of thought to oneself by language prior to the signifying of 
 thought by language to others. Both Mill 2 and Taine 3 
 follow Hobbes, considering the marking function as prior 
 to the signifying function. This is wrong psychologically. 
 Definite expression dates from the intercourse of man with 
 
 1 ' A name is a word taken at pleasure to serve for a mark which 
 may raise in our mind a thought like to some thought we had before, 
 and which being pronounced to others may be to them a sign of 
 what thought the speaker had before in his mind.' Computation or 
 Logic, ch. ii. 
 
 2 Logic, Bk. I, ch. ii, § I. 3 Op. cit., vol. i, ch. i, ii. 
 
182 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 man. It is thrown out as a signification, taken up and 
 thrown back by another to the first, and then, but not before, it 
 really becomes a mark. Thus the deaf mute has difficulty in 
 finding his gestures taken up and adequately returned; they 
 are too individual, and hence are not established. A solitary 
 savage need not intellectually master his experience till he 
 requires to make it known to others. Once he is in social 
 relations, it becomes necessary for him to bring his experience 
 into a shape which others can recognise. Thought is a 
 social function. Language is a social product. Man would 
 imagine, feel, if his habit of life were unsocial, but he would 
 not take the trouble to think. Thought is social in its origin : 
 secondarily, at a later stage, it becomes individual. 
 
 Speech arises for us in connexion with thought, not with 
 feeling. Inarticulate expression of feeling is not speech. 
 We need speech to describe feeling, but not to express it. In 
 the beginning it was, as I have said, in the act of thinking 
 that man was necessarily led to speak, and a nation's 
 language tells you what that nation can think. The word- 
 symbol, in regard to thought, is just what is wanted to supply 
 definiteness in the absence of the image. Thought is so 
 much dependent upon speech, that it can come to be studied 
 by way of speech, and can be regulated (in Logic) through 
 its expression. Thought must be expressed before it can 
 be regulated in name, proposition, and syllogism. 
 
 Speech Educates and Extends Thought. 
 
 Once made, and found ready-made, speech becomes a 
 means for developing the faculty of thought. Children do 
 not go through the natural psychological development; 
 they do not get the chance. They find the vehicle of 
 their thought ready-made. Yet we can see in them and 
 
xxvil] Elements of Psychology. 183 
 
 their early attempts at speech the actual creative instinct, 
 showing still the fact of spontaneity, out of which language 
 originally grew. 
 
 Although language arises from the need of thought, yet 
 once there, we use it to express not only concepts, judgments, 
 and reasonings, but also percepts and images. We perceive 
 all the better because of our naming. For perceiving, 
 though it may attain a rudimentary stage without language, 
 requires in its developed form the aid of language. Thorough 
 perception is really intentest thought^ thought concentrated, 
 brought to a point, a condensed essence of thinking more 
 complex than the bare percept. Every fully developed 
 percept is potentially a general thought, and speech becomes 
 necessary for effective perceiving, which to all intents and 
 purposes is thinking. 
 
 Intellection is dependent upon Speech in proportion as it is General. 
 
 Within a certain range, then, there is a possibility of 
 thought apart from speech, yet unquestionably it must be 
 allowed that thought as general, as re-representative, is 
 dependent upon speech. Or, if exception be found to this 
 statement, we can at least commit ourselves definitely to this, 
 that according as thought becomes more general, it becomes 
 more dependent on its conjunction with speech. It is 
 impossible to work out the psychology of thought without 
 consideration of the psychology of speech. In a certain 
 sense all thought involves some kind of language. Thinking 
 and speaking are the same things on different sides, speech 
 being the effective expression of thought. For the saying 
 'Without speech no thought' we may substitute 'Without 
 speech no effective thought/ Verbal marks or s'gns in the 
 case of simple concepts are useful; in the higher forms of 
 
184 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 thought they are indispensable, and are more absolutely so 
 the higher we go. There is no question but that speech was 
 absolutely necessary for the communication of thought which 
 is a purely subjective function ; but, on closer investigation, 
 it is seen that the power of progressive re-representation 
 also depends on the using of some fixed and definite expres- 
 sion, with which to build up the more complex structures. 
 
 For Lecture XXVIII read : — 
 
 Bain, pp. 18, note; 215-225; Hoffding, VI, A, §§ 1, 2, D. 
 
 Also cf. Sully, Outlines 0/ Psychology, p. 315 ; or The Human Mind, 
 xiii. 2 0. 
 
LECTURE XXVIII. 
 
 FEELING AS SUBJECTIVE AFFECTION. 
 
 Subjective experience in the truest sense is Feeling. 
 
 It remains for us to consider the other two phases of mind, 
 Feeling and Conation. Conation cannot be understood or 
 defined without express reference to Feeling. There is no 
 psychology of Conation except in relation to a psychology of 
 Feeling. Some even contend that Will is but a special mode 
 of Feeling. (Cf. Spencer, Principles of Psychology : — l The 
 Composition of Mind.') We may go so far as to admit, that 
 so far as anything is willed, it is willed by reference to 
 Feeling. Hence of the two we do best to consider Feeling 
 first. 
 
 Feeling is the name in modern psychology for any conscious 
 experience that is adequately expressed as a state of the subject, 
 or a subjective state. It may be objected, that there is no 
 conscious experience that may not be described in these terms, 
 but the answer is, To that extent that conscious experience is 
 Feeling. Does the term 'subjective state' adequately describe 
 a fact of Intellection, or a fact of Conation ? My perception 
 of that pillar, my wish to open that door — can either of these 
 experiences be said to be fully expressed as a subjective 
 state of mind, or the most characteristic part of them be said 
 to be brought out? Not so. We can understand why 
 Mr. Spencer and Lewes have used Feeling as equivalent to 
 
i86 Elements of Psychology. [Icct. 
 
 conscious experience, even if we do not approve of it. We 
 use it in a more specific way, holding that whenever we g?t a 
 fact of consciousness which is adequately, most characteristi- 
 cally, expressed as state of subject or subjective state, then we 
 are dealing with something that may properly be called 
 Feeling \ 
 
 Evolution of the Term. 
 
 We have seen already (Lect. IV), that if the word Feeling 
 is by some extended far beyond our definition, on the other 
 hand it has also been limited to less than that, viz. in the 
 popular sense, to mean active touch. This usage will not 
 easily drop out, and indeed it is the only meaning found in some 
 psychological books. Locke, e. g. — who based his philosophic 
 thought so much on psychology, as to be called the Father of 
 Psychology — in his Essay concerning Human Understanding 
 (1690), uses Feeling in the sense of touch, and in that sense 
 only. Feeling in its modern psychological sense came into use 
 in the course of the eighteenth century, not only in English, but 
 also in other languages, e.g. Gefiihl in Germany, sensibiliie in 
 France, since the middle of the eighteenth century. It marks 
 a whole range of experience previously referred to in a much 
 less definite manner and in very different language. Before that 
 time mind had been viewed only as an aggregate of faculties 
 or powers, distinguished as intellectual and active. Feeling 
 was not passed over, but was subordinated to Intellection or 
 Conation. The psychologist of chief importance who helped 
 
 1 It is Feeling which comes nearest to justifying the phrase * state 
 of consciousness,' to which some prefer c presentation/ There may 
 be a doubt as to the adequacy of the former term in the case of 
 Willing and Intellection, but not as to its fittingness in the case 
 of Feeling. If in Intellection and Conation we are to some extent 
 active ; in Feeling we are passive. 
 
xxviil] Elements of Psychology. 187 
 
 to fix the word in its modern psychological sense, was Hume 
 (circa 1740). A few years earlier, however, Butler in his ser- 
 mons had approximated to modern scientific usage. By the 
 beginning of this century it had passed into literature, e.g. 
 Wordsworth opposes Feeling as a state of mind to Knowledge, 
 or the intellectual attitude. 
 
 Feeling as such involves no Apprehension of Object. 
 
 Pleasure, pain, interest, worth, value, are all words that we 
 may employ to express experiences of Feeling as distinct 
 from Intellection. • I am affected — somehow ' is one fact of 
 mind ; * I am intellectually active ' is another. If anything is to 
 be excepted to in the current threefold division of mind, about 
 Feeling, i.e. subjective affection, at any rate there is no question. 
 If, however, we are considering any kind of mental experience 
 that does not admit of being easily and directly re-expressed as 
 a bare affection of subject, then we may be sure that we are 
 dealing with something other than simple Feeling. E.g. in 
 the typical case of the pricked finger, you may have pure pain, 
 or you may have pain plus perception. In every case of 
 Intellection, we are intellective about something which is 
 object in relation to subject, but pure pain is different. I say 
 that Intellection always involves apprehension of object, i.e. 
 of object by subject. Remember that we cannot cut out 
 the subject from any mental experience. Into percep'ion 
 there enters subjective impression, for it is based upon 
 sensation. And the fact that subjective affection is involved 
 enables us to regard perception also as a state of subject. 
 Can we be subjectively affected in thinking of * statesman ' ? 
 Yes ; in as far as we are thinking now differently from how 
 we were thinking before, in as far as our thinking is a change 
 of subject consciousness, just so far may concepts (viewed 
 
188 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 as changes of subject) be regarded as subjective affections of 
 a kind. Mr. Spencer, in widening the meaning of Feeling, 
 opposes to feelings relations among feelings. But a relation 
 among feelings is only a feeling of a peculiar kind. This 
 strengthens the idea, that, to the extent that we regard mind 
 as resolvable (for purposes of Psychology) into mental states, 
 to that extent there is no mental state that we cannot call 
 a Feeling, i.e. essentially a subjective state or affection. 
 
 Feeling the most Pervasive Phase. 
 
 We may arrive at a corresponding result by another way. 
 Nothing is more noticeable and familiar to us in the way of 
 conscious experience than what we call pleasure and pain. 
 From the very dawn of consciousness we find both of them 
 manifested : they are the best terms to describe what our 
 consciousness then is. If from the very beginning the child 
 were not to some extent intellective and conative as well 
 as sensitive (understanding 'sensitive' as the adjective 
 corresponding to Feeling), he would never become either 
 intellective or conative. But we maintain that one primary 
 characteristic of human consciousness may at one time pre- 
 dominate; and consciousness at first is predominantly sensitive, 
 i.e. pleasurable and painful. 
 
 Sense and Feeling. 
 
 Sense, as we understood it, was a stage of mind at which all 
 three phases are manifest. The fact that we fall back on the 
 word ' sensitive/ as corresponding to intellective and conative, 
 the fact that the French distinguish between sensibilite 'and 
 sensation, points to a kind of connexion between feeling 
 and sense. 
 
 Whether there is any feeling besides pleasure and pain, all 
 
xxvill.] Elements of Psychology. 189 
 
 pleasures and pains must be described psychologically as 
 feeling. This statement is not at variance with our other 
 statement, that feeling is a state of subject. Nothing can 
 be more properly described as subjective states than pleasure 
 and pain. A pleasure is always 'of Me/ and so is pain. 
 There is a distinct reference to subjectivity. 
 
 Emotional Values. 
 
 Do pleasures and pains, then, make up the whole of feeling ? 
 In answering that question I want to bring forward one aspect 
 of pleasure and pain only. They are experiences to which we 
 can attach the notion of Value. There is no feeling proper 
 that we cannot regard as having a certain worth, or value, 
 for the subject, either positive or negative. By positive and 
 negative value I mean of course pleasure and pain. Are there 
 then any feelings that have neither a positive nor a negative value? 
 Professor Bain maintains, there are some that are neutral, 
 being neither pleasure nor pain, whereas Professor Sully does 
 not hesitate to say, that all pleasures have a positive value, all 
 pains a negative value, the two being divided by a zero point. 
 
 Is there a Zero Point? 
 
 I wish to combine both positions. Professor Bain instances a 
 large number of experiences that may be adequately described 
 as subjective states, and yet have no marked character either 
 pleasurable or painful, both sensations — e.g. tastes, which are 
 neither, such as alkaline tastes — and emotions, e.g. surprises, 
 which are neither. Now although we are bound to admit that a 
 great deal of properly subjective experience is neither pleasur- 
 able nor painful, yet when we regard such experiences from the 
 standard of positive and negative values, we find that in this 
 respect they are not at zero. If we ask, what is their several 
 
190 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 effect on the subject in such a state ? is the conscious life of 
 the subject raised or depressed thereby ? — then if we can find 
 the smallest degree of elevation or depression, we have a suffi- 
 cient reason for grouping them about the zero point or line. 
 And the fact that it is a mere point or line comes out if 
 we attend to the fact, that many states are complex, partly 
 pleasurable, partly painful, and that certain states sometimes 
 appear to us as pleasure and at other times as pain. 
 
 This bears against Professor Bain's view. But further, of 
 the range of sensitive experiences which he interpolates between 
 pleasure and pain, we can merely say that they are different 
 from one another, e.g. salt and alkaline. That is to say, in 
 order to describe his neutral feelings, Professor Bain has to 
 fall back on intellection. He says, the neutral states of feel- 
 ing form for us the transition between intellection and feeling : 
 intellection and feeling meet in neutral feelings which may be 
 described as different one from another. This is interesting, 
 but does not streng hen his case, viz., that these intermediate 
 stages are neutral fee lings. 
 
 I say, then, that feeling on the one hand is subjective, and 
 on the other has a value, positive or negative, for the system, 
 even if that value may not appear in consciousness as 
 pleasurable or painful. Nobody says, that all pleasures and 
 pains are equally the one or the other. Is there anything 
 more than a difference of degree? I do not think there is 
 anything more. 
 
 For Lecture XXIX read : — 
 Hoffding, VI, A, §§ 3, 4 J Spencer Pt. VI, ch. xviii ; Pt. IX, ch. iv. 
 
LECTURE XXIX. 
 
 FEELING AND INTELLECTION. EXPRESSION. SENSE-FEELING. 
 
 Antithesis between Feeling and Intellection shoivn. 
 
 We saw that, according to Professor Bain, feeling and 
 intellection come together in the neutral feelings. How are 
 they brought together ? How are they distinguished ? 
 
 (a) Psychologically. 
 
 Take a needle and bring it gently into contact with the 
 skin. Of what are we conscious ? We are intellective ; we 
 say it is something sharp ; we perceive it for what it is. But 
 suppose the needle is run in. Our consciousness assumes 
 the aspect of feeling ; we are pained. Is our state now to be 
 described as essentially subjective? Yes, /am pained, and 
 I do not care whether by a needle or anything else. Here 
 we have the distinction between intellection and feeling 
 brought to a point. In the first case I am distinctly per- 
 ceptive, not considering Myself in the case at all. In the 
 second case / am painfully affected, and care about nothing 
 else. 
 
 (6) Physiologically. 
 
 Or take the side of the physical conditions. When we are 
 perceiving the needle as a sharp point, the defmiteness and 
 directness of the nerve-process is predominant. The stimulus 
 
192 Elements of Psychology. [Lect 
 
 is sent in by a certain line and comes out as a direct overt 
 muscular activity (in slightly pressing on the needle's point). 
 First and last, this process is carried on with definiteness and 
 limitation. But in the case of the needle run in, is there this 
 intent attitude ? On the contrary, the salient feature is that 
 consciousness is so painful as not to be definite. This 
 stimulus goes in in a more magnified way. There is disin- 
 tegration of the nerve, hence a much more intense nervous 
 disturbance. The overt impulse is now exhibited in drawing 
 the hand back, or even both hands, or in starting away, or 
 even, if the subject be hyper-sensitive, in swooning. Seeing 
 then that action, in the case of feeling is of a widespread, 
 expanding character, in the case of intellection is definite, we 
 may say that the salient feature of feeling is Diffusion or 
 Irradiation. We use the word ' diffusion ' to mark the nature of 
 the bodily process involved in this feeling. The definiteness 
 and limitation characterising perception on the physiological 
 side are just those that are missing in feeling. Consciousness 
 is not wholly engrossed with the perceptual impression; 
 or if perception prove wholly engrossing, it is in part due to 
 feeling. And the adjusted activity put forth is a very small 
 part of the exertion that might be made. But when, on 
 occasion of feeling, a wave of excitation reaches the brain, 
 it is diffused over various parts of it, so that the outgoing 
 impulse is on a great variety of lines and not on a single 
 line. If we see two men shooting other two men down, we 
 get into a very intense state of activity; we may run to 
 intervene, or shout for help, using our muscles in a much 
 more extended way than in simple perception. Again, in 
 a state of feeling not only is there overt impulse over the 
 external muscles, but certain of the internal or visceral organs 
 are brought into play, viz. the heart, which though decidedly 
 
xxix.] Elements of Psychology. 193 
 
 muscular yet does not display its action overtly, and hence 
 may be called visceral ; also the digestive system generally, 
 e.g. the mouth becomes dry and digestion and secretion are 
 affected ; in the case of grief or fear the viscera and the whole 
 glandular system are brought into play. 
 
 How does this happen? It must be through the brain. 
 Every part of the body is physiologically represented in the 
 brain, i. e. represented by certain nerve-lines. Let these 
 parts of the brain be aroused and the organs too will be 
 aroused, the connexion between brain and internal organs 
 being effected by a second nervous system called .the Sympa- 
 thetic nervous system. This is to a certain extent independent 
 of the other or Cerebral nervous system, so that e.g. the 
 heart functions apart from our volition, yet the two systems 
 are connected at certain points, and thus the one can be 
 affected by way of the other. Thus popular language, 
 assigning to the heart the same relation to Feeling that the 
 brain has to Intellection, is wrong. The heart is worked by 
 a distinct self-contained nervous centre, yet is connected with 
 the brain and the cerebro-spinal system through the pneumo- 
 gastric nerve which is the means of regulating its action. 
 
 Feeling, then, is a state of subject, whatever else it is, and 
 one that involves affection of the whole organism, whereas 
 intellection, though it too is subjective, is not adequately 
 expressed as a state of subject, and affects, as such, not the 
 whole organism, but only certain nerve-lines. 
 
 Expression of Feeling. 
 
 The phrases used in the books : — ' play of feeling/ ' ex- 
 pression of emotion/ or, by Mr. Spencer *, ' language of the 
 
 1 Principles of Psychology, Part IX, ch. iv. 
 
194 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 emotions/ all mark the special connexion of feeling with 
 processes of active self-manifestation. ' Language' is perhaps 
 too metaphorical. 'Expression/ meaning something squeezed 
 out, forced out, best ' expresses ' what we wish to convey, 
 although there is no objection to ' play/ In its more general 
 sense ' expression' is something that is essentially peculiar to 
 feeling, because it is the organic change, going along with 
 feeling, which is manifested ; yet the narrower meaning of the 
 word ' express ' may also be understood in regard to feeling. 
 Even Mr. Spencer's word ' language ' may be justified from 
 a certain point of view. Is intellection a subjective process 
 that is devoid of expression ? No, some intellection does 
 not proceed without expression. Thought, as opposed to 
 bare imagining, is a kind of intellection that depends on 
 a system of expression, and the most convenient kind is 
 language. But language is the putting forth of certain 
 muscular activity. Is that muscular activity also involved 
 in feeling ? Yes, e. g. in a cry. The cry as expressive of 
 feeling is different from the expression of thought, but both 
 involve the same organs, both are ' expression,' both can be 
 called ' language.' But the action that goes on in the throat 
 in feeling is only a fraction of the work of expression, whereas 
 in intellection it is practically the whole. In intellection ex- 
 pression is definite, restricted ; one word rather than another ; 
 'pillar' not ' chair.' In feeling the cry is a part of the general 
 diffusion, of the great nervous disturbance which first finds 
 vent in a cry. 
 
 Feeling and Art. 
 
 The expression of emotion is of fundamental importance 
 for fine art. In painting the artist portrays feeling. He 
 figures the human body in a certain attitude, but if we 
 
xxix.] Elements of Psychology. 195 
 
 had not certain modes of expression for certain emotions, 
 he could not picture them. His portrayal, however, is only 
 muscular or external. He can only represent grief by 
 drooping and tears, the beating heart by the hand pressed 
 over it. But the poet is less restricted. He can make 
 reference to internal processes of expression and say, 
 1 Beating heart, be still.' 
 
 Classes of Feeling, 
 
 There is, in fact, nothing we are so familiar with as Ex- 
 pression of Feeling, so much so that we only know people 
 are feeling in so far as they express it, and hence we come 
 to identify the expression with the feeling. Different kinds 
 of feeling have different expressions; nay, more, we find 
 a generic difference between the expression of the feeling 
 of pleasure and that of the feeling of pain, the one having 
 an expansive, the other a depressing tendency. Now if, 
 in the case of anything we can call Feeling, we have reason 
 to suppose that whenever a subject is feeling there is called 
 into play a whole range of organic seats either muscular 
 or visceral, and that of these seats each may be said to have 
 some kind of sensibility of its own, we can then understand 
 how Feeling is something of a very complex character ; and 
 the question arises as to how far our feeling is made up of, 
 or rather is coloured and modified by, the separate sensibilities 
 aroused in the case. And there is no doubt that our feeling 
 has relation to the sensibility of these different seats. Again, 
 if we find different feelings in consciousness accompanied 
 by different manifestations, i. e. different seats involved, or 
 different actions in the same seat, we come to understand how 
 through the manifestation of different feelings we distinguish 
 feelings in terms of their constituent factors. Accordingly, 
 
 2 
 
196 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 in any psychological account of Feeling, and more especially 
 of Emo:ion, the organic seat and bodily manifestation in- 
 volved form a very important part to be considered. This is 
 the merit of Professor Bain's method. 
 
 Now feelings fall into two main classes, which may be 
 described as Sense-feelings and Emotions, 
 
 Sense-feelings. 
 
 There is not one of the senses that does not, or is not 
 liable to, give us experiences that are most naturally and 
 adequately expressed as subjective state with either a positive 
 or a negative value, causing elevation or depression, pleasure 
 or pain. And hence we are justified in distinguishing a class 
 of Sense-feelings. Within the region of sense, some sensa- 
 tions may be described as feeling, as pleasurable or painful, 
 more markedly than others which are of more account for 
 intellection. 
 
 Sense as Feeling. 
 
 It will be remembered that we ordered the senses from the 
 point of view of their speciality and their value for perception. 
 If we now seek to order them as having the character of feeling, 
 we are confronted with the difficulty of having to choose as our 
 standard either pleasure or pain. Organic sensibility can be 
 described in terms of feeling better than in terms of intellection, 
 but it is of much more value to us as pain. One simple 
 definite scheme seems impossible ; the order of feelings for 
 pain would not be the same as the order of feelings for pleasure. 
 But in any sense we can distinguish between the quality and 
 quantity of feeling ; and one kind of quantity that all feelings 
 have is intensity. And just as we can describe all feeling 
 quantitatively in terms of intensity, so we can distinguish 
 
xxix.] Elements of Psychology. 197 
 
 qualitatively what Germans call the 'feeling-tone' and its 
 sensation. 
 
 For Lecture XXX read : — 
 
 Hoffding, VI, B ; Darwin, Expression of the Emotions, ch. i — ill, xiv; 
 Spencer, Part IX, ch. iv 
 
 Also cf. Sully, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 353, 354 ; or The Human 
 Mind, xiv, § 26. 
 
 Clark Murray's Handbook of Psychology on the Emotions is very 
 good. 
 
LECTURE XXX. 
 
 EMOTION. 
 
 Emotions as distinguished from Sense-feelings, 
 
 Emotions are feelings. When we talk about ' the feelings/ 
 we first mean the emotions, but what are the emotions in 
 relation to the sense-feelings? Sense-feelings are feelings 
 arising on occasion of peripheral stimulation of afferent 
 nerve-fibres. Emotions are not so, or need not be so. Even 
 when emotions proceed by way of sense-stimulus, the latter 
 is the least important part of the whole, whereas in sense- 
 feeling it is the most important. E. g. fear is a very simple 
 emotion, differing from sense-feeling. In the feeling accom- 
 panying the prick of a needle there is definite nerve-stimulus. 
 There may be external stimulus when we are afraid, but it is, 
 as such, of subordinate importance. What puts me in a state 
 of fear is not the mere sight of tiger or pistol, but what the 
 sight of either suggests to me in the way of representation of 
 what may happen to me. These are cases of fear suggested 
 or stimulated from without, but the stimulation is subordinate. 
 I may at this moment be afraid of something that I have to do 
 to-morrow. Here the emotion is wholly suggested by repre- 
 sentation. To a certain extent therefore Mr. Spencer's dis- 
 tinction between sense-feelings and emotions holds good. He 
 says, that sense-feelings are peripherally initiated by nerve-fibres, 
 whereas emotions are centrally initiated. Now as representa- 
 
Elements of Psychology. 199 
 
 tion is a something that goes on in consciousness and the 
 physiological concomitant is a cerebral process, the fact that 
 cerebral process (on the physiological side) is the characteristic 
 feature of emotion, and the fact that external stimulus is the 
 characteristic feature of sense-feeling, support Mr. Spencer in 
 his distinction between emotions and sense-feelings, although 
 there may be an element of stimulus in emotion. Emotions, 
 then, even the very simplest, by comparison with sense- 
 feelings, have a character of representativeness. 
 
 This is so much the case, that in marking off emotion 
 from sense-feeling, we find in the latter a nearer approach 
 to purely presentative experience than is yielded by the in- 
 tellectual aspect of sensations. We found that sensation was 
 an abstraction, representing no actual fact of experience — 
 since every sensation that we have always involves repre- 
 sentation, and, as such, is to be described as percept — but 
 we do find at the threshold of life, such marked experience 
 of pain and pleasure on occasion of peripheral stimulation, 
 that we seem to get nearer to genuine presentative experience 
 than in any other phase of life. 
 
 Emotion in connexion with Sense-feeling, 
 
 Emotion may always be described as ' centrally-initiated ' 
 feeling, even when peripheral initiation is involved. This 
 ought not to surprise us. There is intellection which un- 
 questionably involves even developed representation or 
 thought, and yet which is, in a way, ' peripherally initiated ' 
 perception. Perception can never be accounted for by sense 
 only, or anything presentative only : it must involve some 
 representation, or even re-representation. We cannot do 
 without sense-experience in perception, but it may be a very 
 minor element, and may be almost entirely subordinated, 
 
200 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 in comparison with the amount of representation involved. 
 So also emotions can be regarded as centrally initiated, even 
 when they involve peripheral initiation. I am not trying to 
 make out a special relation between emotion and perception, 
 or that emotion is on the same level with perception as of 
 account for intellection. We get emotions at different grades 
 corresponding to all the grades of intellection. 
 
 Emotion and ' being moved.' 
 
 Emotion in itself means ' movement out of/ It may have 
 come to be used for a large class of feelings, chiefly because 
 of the peculiarity of feelings in having a very definite expres- 
 sion in the way of muscular movement. This may have 
 been the reason, was probably the chief reason, why the word 
 emotion was coined to mark feeling. In justification of this, 
 there is hardly any other adjective besides 'emotional' to 
 correspond to feeling. In its adjectival form, therefore, 
 emotion has a wider psychological meaning than as a substan- 
 tive. When Professor Bain, for example, considers sensations 
 as sense-feelings, he is considering them in their ' emotional 
 aspect/ 
 
 We can speak, of course, of being € moved ' subjectively : 
 I mean, without overt muscular movement. This is, of course, 
 metaphorical. By saying ' I am moved at the news/ a person 
 means that he is undergoing a certain kind of experience 
 that involves his whole being. Note this in connexion with 
 feeling as state of subject-as-a- whole. Feeling is first ' state 
 of subject/ next it is ' being moved/ Perhaps the dual fact 
 that we are both moved and apt to be motor originated the 
 expression ' emotion/ In intellection we are not moved ; in 
 volition we are not moved so much as moving. But the 
 word 'emotion' suggests just that fact of accompanying 
 
xxx.] Elements of Psychology. 201 
 
 expression which is so characteristic of emotion, viz. that 
 1 moving out/ or becoming manifest by outward expression. 
 It is really emotions rather than sense-feelings which have 
 most distinctive expressions. These it is important to study 
 in the researches of Darwin and Mr. Spencer. The sup- 
 position of the latter is that Emotion and its expression arose 
 together, but how we are not in a position to say. How 
 particular emotions have particular expressions, how far 
 emotion and its expression may be regarded as one fact or 
 as two different facts, how far we can say that the expression 
 of feeling is, in the full and proper sense, instinctive, we 
 can only understand by studying Instinct. 
 
 Again, is it possible to feel and not to express it ? And is 
 it possible to express and not really to feel ? There is no 
 doubt that the object of a part of education is to compass the 
 repression of expression to a certain extent. Also it is evident 
 that actors, both professional and hypocritical, to a great 
 extent express without really feeling. But both these state- 
 ments must be made within certain limits, for the two are not 
 accidental facts and separable; the expression to all intents and 
 purposes enters into the very make of feeling. We all more 
 or less suppress our feelings ; we do not always cry when we 
 are sad, and so on : but it is the overt manifestation which 
 we do restrain, and we often find those people the most grieved 
 who suppress it the most, and that too with effects which may 
 influence the bodily organs even to death. Suppression of ex- 
 pression then is only partial, and does not prove expression 
 separate from emotion. Again, in the case of an actor acting 
 fear, he may have only a partial expression — no parched 
 tongue, no increased pulse, &c. If he have none of these he 
 does not fully embody the emotion as did Mrs. Siddons, who 
 seems actually through her whole organism to have felt what 
 
202 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 she acted, as e.g. Lady Macbeth in her remorse. There is no 
 haphazard association ; into the very make of feelings enters 
 the expression of them. 
 
 Evolution of the term Emotion, 
 Emotion has really come into use very late. It began 
 to get used in the last century by Hume ; he uses ' emotions ' 
 as alternative to ' passions ' or ' affections/ but has no section 
 on 'feeling/ 'Affection' has dropped out of psychology, 
 except in the wider, generic sense of 'being affected/ 
 in which it is not limited to a class of feelings; and ex- 
 cept in the specific sense of the kind of emotion otherwise 
 called 'love/ 'Passion' was formerly used for emotion or 
 feeling in general, as emphasising the fact that then the 
 subject is passively affected, patient \ or moved. In later 
 psychology it has come to express more specifically an 
 emotion of a certain fixity of type. Popular usage restricts 
 passion to anger, as it restricts affection to love. More 
 specifically still, passion in modern psychology means ' hate ' 
 as the passive counterpart to anger. Hate is a permanent 
 emotional disposition. The frequent recurrence of anger 
 in regard to an object results in hating. Love, again, is 
 a passion, rather than an emotion; it does not express 
 a passing state, but a fixed disposition. Love as passion arises 
 from tenderness or tender emotion. In modern psychological 
 usage passion is a special development of emotion. 
 
 Emotion and Sentiment. 
 The word that first came into use as descriptive of all 
 feelings that are not sense-feelings, was 'sentiment/ The 
 fact that sentiment and sensations come from the same 
 root shows the fundamental relation of sense-feelings and 
 emotions. Sentiment should not be dropped as superseded 
 
xxx.] Elements of Psychology. 203 
 
 by emotion. But sentiment, as now used in psychology, 
 is apt to be restricted to some of the most highly developed 
 of the emotions, e. g. the moral sentiment; it has drifted from 
 the simpler grades of emotion and become attached to those 
 grades which are farthest removed from sense \ 
 
 Nature of Emotional Representation. 
 
 Whenever we are dealing with emotion proper, as opposed 
 to sense-feeling, we have something essentially complex to 
 take account of. Emotion, we said, involves ' ideation' or 
 representation. What is the characteristic of emotional repre- 
 sentation ? Our representing has then a certain character of 
 confusion or vagueness. If I get in fear at sight of a tiger 
 and not at sight of a dog, it is because, whereas I can 
 represent in a certain definite fashion what the dog can do, 
 in the case of the tiger I imagine something that may happen, 
 but has not yet happened to me, which is thus confused and 
 vague. But in an emotion I not only represent vaguely and 
 confusedly, but I am also representing past feelings — con- 
 fused representations, e.g., of all the dangers of all the simdar 
 circumstances in which I have been before. 
 
 Racial Emotional Experience. 
 
 From childhood upwards we have all now and again been 
 in states of fear, which have modified our states of fear 
 afterwards. Fear, however, not to mention other emotions, 
 is found in children before they have had actual experience 
 of danger. Here is something that we come better now to 
 understand from the point of view known as that of evolution, 
 where we no longer regard the individual as starting from 
 himself, but, on the physical side, starting with an inherited 
 
 1 Cf. its use in Professor Sully's psychological works. 
 
204 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 organisation and on the mental side with certain predis* 
 positions — predispositions which we simply assume as such, 
 as once innate ideas w r ere assumed, and which we seek to 
 determine in actual experience, not of self, but of ancestry. If 
 a child is afraid, e. g. of a tiger, and expresses its fear in the 
 way it is expressed by adults, and for that matter by the lower 
 animals, the confused vague consciousness of the child is a 
 reproduction, or representation, not of experience that it has 
 had, but of experience that its ancestry, human or otherwise, 
 has had before it. It is upon this fact of a certain uniformity 
 in the manifestations not only of presentative feelings, but also 
 of presentative-representative feelings, from the first, that 
 Mr. Spencer rested his opposition to the view confining the 
 development of emotion within the life of the individual. 
 Unless we suppose that men are made so — which cuts the 
 matter short — there is no other view to be adduced than 
 that of development of manifestation extending over the 
 experience of the race. The moment we entertain this view 
 of the peculiarity of certain emotions — and not only sense- 
 feelings — manifesting themselves at the beginning of life, we 
 get a certain ground of explanation. 
 
 We can indeed, I think, make out far more positively in 
 regard to feeling that it is inherited than we can in regard 
 to intellection. Of course, if we can make it out in regard to 
 feeling, Mr. Spencer might urge, and very properly too, that 
 the whole point is conceded, in regard namely to cognitions 
 as well. And I believe there are intellectual predispositions 
 and dispositions in different individuals. But the case is still 
 stronger for feelings. 
 
 The explanation of the origin of the uniform expressions 
 of these inherited emotional experiences is, as will be seen in 
 the passages set from Darwin and Mr. Spencer, that those 
 
xxx.] Elements of Psychology. 205 
 
 expressions were not arbitrary, but productive of a beneficial 
 effect in preserving the life of the individual, that they became 
 fixed by natural selection and were thus propagated. And it 
 has been shown that a great many of our emotional expres- 
 sions are instincts in the true sense of the word, i. e. untaught 
 aptitudes beneficial, at least originally, to life. 
 
 For Lecture XXXI read : — 
 
 Bain, pp. 226-283, 75-81 ; Appendix, 89-91 ; HofTding, VI, C, E,F; 
 Spencer, Part IX, ch. ii ; II, ch. ix. 
 
 Also cf. Bain, The Emotions, &c, pp. 35-189; The Senses, &c, 
 pp. 282-306. 
 
 The Classification of Emotions attempted by Mercier {Mind, ix, x) 
 is very good, and only fails because it attempts the impossible. 
 
 Note. — Recent discussion on the relation of emotion to the bodily 
 disturbances felt at the time (the so-called corporeal or somatic 
 resonance, organic reverberation, &c.) is summarised in Professor 
 Sully's The Human Mind vol. ii, p. 58. — Ed. 
 
LECTURE XXXI. 
 
 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE EMOTIONS. EXPLANATIONS OF PLEASURE 
 
 AND PAIN. 
 
 It is easy to give a classification of sense-feelings, but 
 much less so in the case of emotions. We can connect the 
 former with the given stimulated periphery, eye, ear, &c. 
 It is one thing to give an account of the senses, another to 
 give an account of the sense-feelings from the emotional point 
 of view. But there is no difficulty in proceeding in the case 
 of sense-feelings. To the extent that emotion involves 
 intellectual representation we find that we are no longer 
 able to proceed with the same definiteness. To classify the 
 emotions would be to give a complete classification of 
 the kinds of intellectual representation had by us. But in 
 psychology we deal only with the laws, not the kinds, of 
 representation. And if classification be difficult where re- 
 presentation is definite, how much more difficult where 
 representation is vague, as in the case of emotion. 
 
 Criticism of Mr. Spencers Classification. 
 Can we then do nothing to classify emotions? In 
 intellection we not only discover laws of representation, but we 
 also distinguish intellection at different stages of development 
 in the amount of representation involved. It was possible 
 therefore in dealing with intellection to get this kind of classifi- 
 cation of our intellectual experience. Now Mr. Spencer 
 
Elements of Psychology. 207 
 
 says, that we can extend this scheme to emotion or to feel- 
 ing generally, viz. — Presentative, Presentative-Representative, 
 Representative and Re-representative Feelings. 
 
 ^Esthetic feeling, moral feeling, the sense of property, 
 viz. of what money, a landed estate, can do for us — these 
 kinds of feeling are re-representative. 
 
 For representative feeling take mere sympathy for the 
 grief of another. This will depend on our power of repre- 
 senting what is going on in the mind of that person. 
 
 Fear of a tiger, anger, the sense or feeling of power, are 
 w r ell expressed in their general character as presentative- 
 representative. 
 
 Presentative feeling is sense-feeling. We maintained that 
 in sense-feeling as manifested at the beginning of life we 
 had something in consciousness corresponding to ' Pre- 
 sentative/ A child is affected by a prick apart from any 
 representation involved. 
 
 There are a good many objections to the scheme. It is 
 good in that it takes in the whole scope of emotion. But 
 if we were asked under what head any particular feeling had 
 to be put it would be very difficult. E. g. fear of a tiger 
 is presentative-representative, but fear of dying in a work- 
 house is different ; hence fear has no fixed place. Any 
 emotion might come under the last three heads. 
 
 Criticism of Professor Bain's Classification. 
 
 Professor Bain tries to classify the emotions on the basis 
 of progressive complexity, but his exposition amounts to 
 little more than a falling back, as in despair, on mere enu- 
 meration of the main types. The resulting defect is that 
 we do not know why it leaves off where it does; we can 
 conceive it extended almost without limit. In his Emotions 
 
208 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 and the Will, he departs from this view in a certain advan- 
 tageous way. In his M anual he may be said to have conceived 
 all emotion as altogether developed within the life of the 
 individual. But in the Emotions and the Will, he makes 
 a considerable allowance for simple emotions manifest from 
 the beginning of life, e. g. love, fear, anger, viewed as perfectly 
 simple emotions, coming from the experience of the race. 
 He is thus able to order the other emotions from the point of 
 view of the progressive life of the individual. But are these 
 three all? Is not the feeling of power also fundamental? 
 Every child, however young, that is able to put forth activity 
 takes pleasure in so doing, and tends to put it forth because 
 of the pleasure. 
 
 Professor Bain also brings forward one point of very great 
 importance in the account in the Manual, and that is the 
 separate grouping of * Emotions of Relativity/ These with 
 him have a certain standing, apart from the order of the 
 other emotions viewed as progressively complex. Professor 
 Hoffding also (in Section VI, E, of his Psychology) brings 
 under the head of Relativity several of the most developed 
 of what Mr. Spencer calls Re-representative Feelings, e.g. 
 ^Esthetic feelings of the sublime, feeling of the ludicrous, &c. 
 
 The Emolions have been classified also according as the 
 representative element involved in them has reference to 
 past, present, or future. This scheme has no adequate 
 psychological foundation and gives but an artificial division. 
 
 Professor Hoffding s Scheme. 
 
 The division given by Professor Hoffding (Section VI, C) 
 I commend to the notice of students. This is an attempt to 
 view Emotions with regard to self and other selves, viz. 
 Egoistic feeling concentrated round self, and Sympathetic 
 
xxxl] Elements of Psychology. 209 
 
 feeling concentrated on others, the word Sympathetic being 
 taken in its wide sense. The distinction between Self and 
 non-Self is one that very soon comes into consciousness, and 
 is at the base of our whole view of things. Hence, as far 
 as Emotions can be made out to be connected with Self, 
 or with Emotions of other Selves, like Self, we get a dis- 
 tinction of real psychological import. But ' egoistic ' and 
 'sympathetic' have also an ethical value as being superior 
 or inferior in respect of what is Good or Right. Ethics 
 is largely concerned with Egoism and Altruism. This 
 relation we must abandon in dealing with Emotion. Both 
 are equally respectable in Psychology, both are used for 
 purposes of distinction \ 
 
 The Futility and Needlessness of Classifying Emotions. 
 
 There is really no need for Psychology to attempt an 
 exhaustive classification of the emotions, any more than to 
 attempt to set forth a detailed list of representations. Pro- 
 fessor Bain's ten classes do not by any means exhaust the 
 emotions ; further, by dividing them according to increasing 
 complexity, he cuts himself off from the possibility of 
 developing each of the emotions. Fear, for instance, is 
 classified as the simplest of emotions, whereas it may take 
 
 1 Mr. Spencer, from another point of view, also distinguishes feel- 
 ings as Egoistic, Ego-altruistic, and Altruistic (Part IX, ch. vi-viii) — 
 a distinction which, while it has necessarily a valid psychological 
 basis, as has been pointed out above, is made chiefly from the point 
 of view of biological evolution, viz. that every organism has two 
 fundamental functions, self-preservation and reproduction. Egoistic 
 feelings are those concerned with the conservation of individuals ; 
 the altruistic feelings are to be referred to the propagation of the 
 species. Then by cross-representation there arise finally the ego- 
 altruistic feelings, ' which, while implying self-gratification, also imply 
 gratification in others.' 
 
210 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 the most complex forms. Compare the fear of a father 
 lest his children should come to want. In this respect 
 Mr. Spencer's classification is better. And yet we have 
 never really had a proper classification of actual cognitions 
 under four classes. For any detailed classification of them 
 we should have to go out to the Object-world and to the 
 objective sciences. If, for instance, we want to know about 
 space, we go to mathematics. If psychologists nevertheless 
 persist in giving a detailed account of the emotions, with- 
 out attempting to do so in the case of cognitions, they are 
 not without justification, since the emotions can find no 
 explanation in other sciences as cognitions do; they are 
 purely subjective, and if the pyschologist did not give an 
 account of them, no one else could. Cognitions take us 
 from Subject to Object; not so the emotions. For this 
 reason no classification that has ever been made is wholly 
 satisfactory to any one but the author; and, since into 
 emotions enter representations, and these are almost infinite, 
 the fact can excite no wonder. 
 
 The Resolution of Pleasure and Pain. 
 
 Pleasure and pain, although reference to them is necessary 
 in describing feeling, are not of use for classifying feeling. 
 The psychological understanding of what pleasure and pain 
 are cannot be had except in reference to the effect of 
 pleasure and pain on human activity. It is thus, therefore, 
 that we pass over to Conation. 
 
 But first consider the great discussion, from Aristotle 
 downwards, on what we mean by pleasure and pain. 
 Aristotle suggests that pleasure accompanies all those 
 activities that go on in the organism in a normal fashion, 
 and pain all those activities that do not. With this let us 
 
xxxl] Elements of Psychology. 211 
 
 compare Mr. Spencer's dictum : — Pains are the correlatives 
 of actions injurious to the organism. Pleasures are the cor- 
 relatives of actions conducive to its welfare. ' Actions ' here 
 are effects wrought on the body from without. But on this 
 question Professor Bain is the most suggestive : — ' States of 
 pleasure are connected with an increase, and states of pain 
 with an abatement, of some or all of the vital functions/ 
 constituting the law of Self-conservation. The truth which 
 Professor Bain, really in agreement with Mr. Spencer and 
 Aristotle, is anxious to bring out, is, that pleasures are 
 beneficial to, or conservative of, the system, and pains the 
 reverse — that when we are pleasurably affected it is well 
 with us, and when we are painfully affected, it is ill with the 
 system. Pain is destructive of the system, mentally and bodily. 
 A little later (p. 78) Professor Bain is compelled to allow, 
 that there is a cross law that must be noted. It is possible 
 to have pleasures that are not conservative of the system, 
 and pains that are not destructive to the system ; and these 
 pleasures and pains are connected with the use of stimulants. 
 The exception is honestly allowed and vet somewhat thrown 
 into the shadow. What we find in Mr. Spencer, and not in 
 Professor Bain, is that the former accounts for the law of 
 Self- conservation under evolution. Unless pleasures were 
 beneficial and pains injurious, life could not be continued and 
 developed. Mr. Spencer is so concerned in bringing forward 
 this part of the case, that he overlooks what Professor Bain 
 allows, viz. : — that some pleasures are not good and some 
 pains not destructive. 
 
 Conational import of Pleasure and Pain. 
 
 There is another peculiar attribute of pleasure and pain, 
 viz.: — that the former is self-supporting, the latier self- 
 
 p 2 
 
212 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 abating. This is only implied by Professor Bain, but is 
 used by him later. When I say self-supporting, I mean 
 that pleasure tends to keep up whatever activity causes it, 
 and pain, to get rid of whatever activity causes it. This 
 applies to both such pleasures and pains as obey the law of 
 Self-conservation and those connected with stimulants. Even 
 a pleasure of stimulant, which in the end is injurious to 
 the system, is still one that calls out, for the time being, the 
 activity of the system, and many a pain, that may be bene- 
 ficial to the system, for the time being depresses activity. 
 The fact that pleasure is self-supporting or self-promotive, 
 and pain the opposite, is of fundamental importance not 
 only for the psychology of Feeling, but also for that of 
 Conation. 
 
 For Lecture XXXII read Bain, pp. 289-304 ; Hsffding, VI, C, § 9 ; 
 Spencer, Part IX, ch. ix ; Sully, Outlines, &c, pp. 360-374, or The 
 Human Mind, xvi, and App. K. 
 
LECTURE XXXII. 
 
 ^ESTHETIC FEELING 
 
 ^Esthetic Feeling is psychologically the Highest Feeling, 
 
 We may now revert to those highest, most complex, ' re- 
 representative ' feelings, called sometimes sentiments. They 
 are in a pre-eminent way accompanied by intellection. We 
 are said to recognise beauty, truth, and right ; recognitions 
 which have been called ' emotive intuitions/ Of these three 
 groups there is, according to Professor Bain, none so complex 
 and variable as that of what are called the Esthetic Emotions. 
 They are Feeling- Feelings, the ' sense ' of the Beautiful being 
 excited in us by the representation of other feelings. English 
 writers especially have often set forth systems of moral 
 conduct or ethics in connexion with their exposition of the 
 moral sentiments as such. Now ethics is one thing, and 
 the psychology of Feeling, including that of moral sense, is 
 another. And if indeed there is one department of mind 
 more than another which ethics should be brought into 
 relation with, it is not Feeling but Conation. It is true that 
 our ethical actions are conducted or accompanied by certain 
 feelings. Undoubtedly also the so-called moral sentiments lie 
 at the basis of that kind of action which is called moral. But 
 this is no more a reason for treating ethics as a part of the 
 psychology of Feeling than it is for treating it as part of the 
 psychology of Intellection, since to act rightly we must also 
 
214 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 know. And when we consider that the psychological doctrine 
 of will reposes both upon the psychology of Feeling and the 
 psychology of Intellection, and that eihics has to do mainly 
 with character, i. e. the outcome of both Feeling and Intellec- 
 tion in certain classes of action — of voluntary, willed action — 
 we see that, in connecting ethics with the psychology of 
 Will, we by implication connect it with the kind of Feeling 
 and Thought that go with that kind of action. The regulative 
 doctrine connected with the psychology of Feeling is not so 
 much ethics as (Esthetics. 
 
 Again, the class of feelings specially called aesthetic may 
 involve amongst others representations of moral feelings; 
 moral sentiments may be the subject of aesthetic treatment 
 and thus made subservient to the production of aesthetic 
 emotion ; hence we are justified in ranking aesthetic feeling, 
 emotion, or sentiment as highest in the psychology of Feeling. 
 In it all Feeling culminates. 
 
 JEsthetic Feeling and Sensuous Pleasure. 
 
 With regard to the term ' aesthetic feeling/ we might equally 
 well have used the term ' feeling for (fine) art/ ' feeling (or sense) 
 of the Beautiful/ The reason however why aesthetic feeling 
 is a more useful term, at least than the latter, is that certain 
 of the fine arts are concerned wuh the production of the 
 feelings of the sublime and of the ludicrous, both of which 
 are also productive of pleasure. Now the word pleasure 
 suggests that aesthetic feelings may in a sense be called 
 feelings of the Pleasurable, and the doctrine of ^Esthetics be 
 concerned with regulating the production of pleasure. On 
 the other hand this is too wide, for there are pleasures not 
 aesthetic, e. g. eating a beefsteak. * ^Esthetic/ however, does 
 suggest sense, and we have to show, to justify the use of the 
 
xxxil] Elements of Psychology. 215 
 
 term, that the aesthetic feelings, however much more they 
 are than pleasures of sense, have relations to pleasures of 
 sense. This can be done in more ways than one, and in 
 the fact of doing it I think we get the best argument for the 
 psychological development of the higher feelings from simpler 
 ones. For if we now find that the very highest feelings have 
 relation to sense (I do not say, to any kind of sense), we get 
 all that high range of feeling brought back to sense in a very 
 striking way. 
 
 Some simple pleasures of sense are aesthetic. Some simple 
 effects of sound and of colour are in themselves called 
 beautiful. Now we have many more sorts of pleasure than 
 simple sensations, yet it is a remarkable fact that, whenever 
 we are affected by a feeling of the Beautiful, or whenever we 
 are concerned with the production through artistic construction 
 of a feeling of the Beautiful, it is begotten in us through sense- 
 presentations. The pleasure, e.g., that we have in con- 
 templating a painting is much more than we derive from 
 what we literally perceive in it. But that pleasure cannot be 
 excited in us except by way of the senses, and through 
 definite figures set cut before our sense-organs. It will not 
 suffice to write red, &c., over the blank canvas, and woman 
 at the foot. To produce feelings thus, by presentations fully 
 bodied out, is the method of painting and sculpture. Poetry, 
 on the other hand — literary fine art in general — does really 
 effect through symbols on paper what I have represented as 
 absurd in the case of painting. Nevertheless, here too what 
 is aimed at is the suggestion of definite concrete images. 
 I admit that the method is that of representative suggestion ; 
 not only are the images not literally bodied out, but even if 
 they are too minutely depicted, they generally fail in their 
 effect. But it is the senses that are appealed to notwith- 
 
216 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 standing, and it seems to be this that has got for these 
 higher feelings the special designation of ' aesthetic ' — a word 
 which originally denoted any feeling. The scope of my 
 lecture does not permit me to draw from this an argument 
 for the development of feelings from simpler feelings. I will 
 only add thus much, that as aesthetic feeling, although it has 
 this relation to sense, is re-representative feeling and always 
 involves representative elements, there is no feeling that may 
 not, if represented in a certain way, become aesthetic. Even 
 painful presentations may, when represented in particular 
 ways, become pleasurable. To effect this strict conditions 
 are necessary, nor is it indifferent by which art the pre- 
 sentation is made. Such inquiries belong to the regulative 
 doctrine of Esthetics. We have to distinguish between the 
 psychological problem : — what is the nature, the charac- 
 teristics, elements, origin, and development of the aesthetic 
 feelings ? and the philosophical consideration : — what is the 
 object, what is the test or criterion, of what is beautiful? 
 Let us, before leaving the subject, revert to and set out some- 
 what the psychological inquiry. 
 
 Characteristics of the ^Esthetic Sentiment. 
 
 Beautiful things, then, are perceptible things. Truth, on 
 the other hand, which is the outcome of intellect, is con- 
 cerned, not with particular things, but with the general aspect 
 of things. The aesthetic sentiment chiefly accompanies the 
 pleasures of Sight and Hearing. We need such sensible 
 occasions for the feeling of the Beautiful as it is possible for 
 a multitude to share ; and these are met chiefly among sights 
 and sounds. We also characterise it as refined and elevated : 
 unattended by such drawbacks as a preceding craving, as 
 in the case of appetite, or a succeeding pain, as surfeit. 
 
xxxil] Elements of Psychology. 217 
 
 If there are any pains they rather serve to heighten the 
 aesthetic pleasure. It admits, with due variation in source 
 and sensuous channel, of an indefinite amount of prolonga- 
 tion without causing fatigue, so that it contributes much 
 to the sum total of life's enjoyments. It is disinterested, 
 unaccompanied by desire for ulterior ends; it must spring 
 out of the mere act of contemplation ; it does not involve 
 any special relation like possession. It is a 'shareable' 
 pleasure, being greatly enhanced by the interchange of 
 sympathy. It is essentially complex, as being developed to 
 a high power of representation. ^Esthetic pleasure is further 
 distinguished by the nature of the activities which accompany 
 it. They are not life-preserving — this being the modern 
 form of the old distinction between the useful and the 
 beautiful. The value of the object of aesthetic feeling de- 
 pends entirely on its relation to the feeling at the time of 
 contemplation. It is true that in aesthetic considerations we 
 do include what we call the beauty of fitness. In architecture 
 especially many beautiful forms owe much of their beauty 
 to the suggestion of utility ; there the beautiful overlaps 
 the useful. Still this fact does not affect the general dis- 
 tinction. 
 
 ^Esthetic pleasures consist mainly in the simple effects 
 of Light, Colour, Muscular Sensibility, Tone, and Pitch, and 
 their derivative effects, according as they are aggregated, 
 transferred and modified by the principles of Relativity, 
 Novelty, Harmony, and Association. 
 
 The Play-impulse. 
 
 The play-impulse is the third aspect of organic life (in 
 addition to those of self-conservation and reproduction) from 
 the point 01 view of biological evolution, viz. the putting forth 
 
218 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 of spare energy in the form of play. In the adult it becomes 
 an impulse to create aesthetically, the creations, when made, 
 gratifying the feelings called aesthetic. 
 
 For Lecture XXXIII read : — 
 
 Bain, pp. 318-324 ; Hoffding, VII, A. Cf. also Spencer, Part IV, 
 ch. iv ; Sully, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 35-38 ; or The Human 
 Mind, xvii, § 5 1-5, App. A. 
 
LECTURE XXXIII. 
 
 CONATION AND ITS MODES. 
 Analysis of a State of Volitional Consciousness : Intellectual Element. 
 
 We are about to consider pleasure and pain in as far 
 as they affect our activity, pleasure supporting activity, 
 pain abating it. This brings us to review the range of ' will/ 
 and we shall start from that which is most familiar to us, 
 viz. conation as we in the adult state are aware of it. E. g. 
 *I will to open the door/ What does this mean? This 
 1 will ' has a reference to our inner, or subjective life, and 
 also, in this instance at all events, a relation to our powers of 
 bodily movement. In willing to open that door, my sub- 
 jective consciousness is modified in a certain way, but does 
 the modification stop short there in the subjective region? 
 I get up, I walk to the door, I turn the handle and the door 
 opens. Let us analyse the act of volition more particularly. 
 When I say, I will to open that door, I am representing to myself 
 the door as opened, through muscular acts of mine, for some 
 end or purpose in my consciousness. I could not will 
 to open the door if I could not represent how to do it, 
 i. e. what a door-handle and lock are. Infants cannot will to 
 open the door, not because of any want of sufficient muscular 
 activity (though their strength no doubt is small), but from 
 want of representation. Into anything that we call developed 
 
220 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 volition, or will, intellection enters in the way of definite 
 representation. 
 
 Emotional Element, 
 
 But, still confining ourselves to the subjective sphere or 
 region, we have not yet got the power of will in showing 
 the representative element in the act of opening the door. 
 I imagining that door being opened — this is intellection, 
 not conation. There is something more in the case, and 
 this is that the representation has relation to some end 
 or purpose that you propose to yourself — an end or purpose 
 which has its expression in terms of feeling. What kind of 
 feeling was there in the case of willing to open the door ? 
 Desire to go out, to keep an engagement, to dine, to promote 
 clearness in the minds of students. Directly or indirectly, 
 nearly or remotely, you will always find an element of 
 feeling involved in conation, together with intellectual repre- 
 sentation. The representation takes place in reference to 
 feeling. 
 
 Conational Residuum. 
 
 But we have not yet our full act of volition. In will is 
 involved muscular activity. Even connected with my desire 
 to teach there is the overt activity of speech. There is some- 
 thing in willing that is peculiar, and neither feeling as such, 
 nor intellection as such. In willing, feeling and intellection 
 are brought together in a certain way by activity. Conation 
 essentially involves activity, and more markedly than does 
 either of the other phases. The word itself signifies impulse 
 towards or striving towards, action (German Slreben). 
 Conation is a better word than will, or volition, as giving 
 a suggestion of activity and nothing but activity, which is just 
 what we want. 
 
xxxiil] Elements of Psychology. 221 
 
 Is there such an Irreducible Residuum? 
 
 Directly, however, we begin to consider instances the 
 serious question arises, whether these do not fall under one 
 of the other two phases of mind. Appetites, such as hunger 
 and thirst, might with good reason be called feelings. 
 Is conation then as distinguishable a phase of mind as we have 
 found the others to be ? Professor Bain clearly thinks that it 
 is, as also Professors Hoffding and Sully. Mr. Spencer, on 
 the other hand, as we have seen, considers only feelings and 
 relations between feelings, or feelings of relation (intellec- 
 tion), and nothing more. He never gives to will that 
 prominence which it receives in other systems l ; and the 
 Spencerian student is left in some doubt as to where his 
 master intended that will should find its place. This is 
 obviously unsatisfactory ; the matter ought not to have been 
 left so indefinite. 
 
 Nevertheless all this tends to show that the title of will to 
 be regarded as a third phase of mind is at least doubtful, and 
 more open to question than that of the other two phases. 
 
 1 Some philosophers indeed express the very fact or essence of 
 mind in terms of will. Schopenhauer and Professor Wundt and 
 Dr. Ward tend most of all to bring forward this, the active phase, as 
 the fundamental fact of mind ; the last, as also Professor Sully, in the 
 prominence given to Attention at a quite early stage of his analysis 
 of mind. The word Apperception introduced into modern psychology 
 from philosophy by Professor Wundt, is now come into vogue to 
 express the fundamental fact of Attention. According to Professor 
 Wundt, will is apperception of a certain kind, a term by which he 
 draws special notice to the essential activity of mind. Yet these 
 writers are equally struck with the fact that intellection also involves 
 activity. Now Attention is voluntary intellection, and to understand 
 it we must understand intellection of itself, and volition by itself. It 
 is then that we can treat of intellection. 
 
222 
 
 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 Thus Professor Bain and Professor Sully, while classing it 
 as a third phase of mind, yet distinctly make it out to be the 
 one phase which they cannot consider except in connexion 
 with a previous treatment of intellection and feeling. If 
 we revert to our previous example of willing to open the 
 door, we remember that both intellection and feeling were 
 involved. Is this a complete account of that experience? 
 Mr. Spencer would answer, Yes. But Professor Bain, Pro- 
 fessor Sully, and others imply (rather than assert) that, after 
 making all due allowance for intellection and feeling, 
 there is yet a something else involved, for the adequate 
 expression of which some such term as will must be 
 employed. 
 
 A Modified Independence for Will. 
 
 We shall hold to the view that, as long as we keep to 
 volition of a developed type, it is arguable that will is not 
 a third independent phase of mind, but that, if we view will 
 in connexion with the other modes of conation, then we are 
 bound to assume that conation is a third phase of mind, 
 distinguishable just as intellection and feeling are distinguish- 
 able. The fact that will presupposes the latter two, does 
 not of itself destroy the independence of it as a third phase. 
 And this independence becomes much more marked when 
 we go beyond the developed forms of will to treat of all the 
 forms of overt activity in the human system, as well as what 
 may be called covert activity. 
 
 Modes of Conation, 
 
 What these forms of activity are, involuntary and voluntary, 
 we must take into account. All are covered by the term 
 conation, and the very fact that they can be collected and 
 considered together gives ground for asserting, that there 
 
xxxiii.] Elements of Psychology. 223 
 
 is something in mind distinguishable from intellection or 
 feeling, and needing a name for itself. And be it remembered 
 that will, as falling within conation, is taken account of 
 in whatever is said of the wider sphere of conation. Too 
 many writers neglect the precautions and limits, which 
 should mark out the proper use of will as distinguished 
 from conation *. 
 
 Action may be voluntary or involuntary. By the former 
 we mean of course volition or will. 
 
 The modes of the latter are numerous, e. g. there is 
 (a) involuntary action that is conscious, (5) involuntary 
 action that is either not conscious at all, or (c) conscious 
 only to a limited extent. Yet, for the proper understanding 
 of will we have to take account not only of involuntary 
 action that is conscious, but also of involuntary action that is 
 more or less unconscious. And the proof that it is neces- 
 sary to study both together with will is given by the fact that 
 voluntary action passes so readily into involuntary action. 
 For instance, I will to open the door ; I get up and do so : 
 this is voluntary activity. I explain a paper to a student 
 after class, and we go out together talking, he or I opening 
 the door without attending to it : this is involuntary activity. 
 Was it unconscious ? Yes, and No. It was not done with 
 full consciousness, because the act was not voluntary; but 
 neither was it done quite unconsciously. It belongs to some 
 step in that gradation of clearness in consciousness called 
 
 1 Professor Bain, e. g., uses will in as wide a sense as that which 
 I reserve for conation, viz. to cover Appetite, Instinct, and Desire, 
 as well as developed Willing or Volition proper. Nevertheless it 
 was he who first gave us a psychological theory of will. Rcid and 
 Stewart do not deal with simpler cases of voluntary action. Hamilton 
 gave us the term Conation, but never dealt with the matter analytically. 
 
224 Elements of Psychology. [lect. 
 
 sub-consciousness. So it would seem that we should study 
 involuntary action first, and refer voluntary action to it in 
 a logically subordinate way. The case of involuntary action 
 developed from voluntary action is but one case of involuntary 
 action where there are others. Under involuntary action we 
 class : — 
 
 (i) Spontaneous activity (Bain), or automatic primary 
 action. 
 
 (ii) Reflex action. 
 Both these are unconscious as such. 
 
 (iii) Instinctive action. 
 
 (iv) Secondary automatic action. 
 Both ihese involve consciousness. 
 
 (i) Theory of Spontaneous Activity. 
 
 Professor Bain contends for unstimulated action, i. e. activity 
 independent of any stimulus external to the system. He 
 holds that nerve-centres which may be stimulated from 
 without may — owing to the state in which they are in con- 
 sequence of nutrition — discharge, of themselves, through the 
 efferent nerve-fibres, and so give rise to muscular activity. 
 The mere physical state of the nerve-centres may be the con- 
 dition of their discharge. Many physiologists and psycho- 
 logists agree with Professor Bain in this. 
 
 But much of his argument in support of spontaneous 
 activity is misplaced, because he tries to make out that, 
 along with such a state of nutrition there can be absolute 
 absence of stimulation. This never can positively be said to 
 be so. Under the necessary conditions of life we can never 
 eliminate the fact of external stimulus, so as to make out 
 absolutely unstimulated activity. However, he was not con- 
 
xxxiii. ] Elements of Psychology. 225 
 
 tending for a shadow under the name of spontaneity. The 
 truth of the matter is somewhat thus. According to the 
 various states of the centres, the same stimulus at different 
 times gives rise to very different results. That is to say, 
 the stimulus is not so much the cause, as the occasion of 
 the activity. The latter depends more upon the state of the 
 centres themselves than upon the particular stimulus. There 
 must in all probability always be stimulus, but the amount 
 of stimulus does not always determine the amount of the 
 resulting activity. Much may appear indeed to be centrally 
 initiated, and further, I repeat, even if we come to the con- 
 clusion that all action, if tested, will be found to be ultimately 
 started from without, yet there is an ' independent variable ' 
 in the nerve-centres ; i. e. the amount of impulse which 
 comes out does not depend wholly upon the amount of 
 in- going stimulus, but in part upon the state of the nervous 
 system at the time and upon the constitution of the individual 
 nervous system given. For human beings and animals too 
 vary very greatly in the amount of active response made to 
 any given stimulus. A great deal respecting human activity 
 is inexplicable save in the light of this assumption. The 
 nervous system in any case permits of the storage of energy, 
 and the outcoming amount depends on the storage. Again, 
 the traces left by actions in the nervous system facilitate the 
 carrying out of the same act more and more tlie oftener it is 
 repeated. 
 
 The whole phenomenon is better termed Primary Automatic 
 Action, or action from within, depending mainly upon 
 internal organisation, the necessary reference to stimulus from 
 without being discounted. Much of the earliest action of 
 the human system is of this spontaneous, or automatic kind. 
 And there is not a single mode of primitive activity in the 
 
 Q 
 
226 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 system that is not a proper starting-point for the development 
 of will. We build up our will on these as we do upon reflex 
 and instinctive actions. The first primitive act of taking in 
 food is the foundation for the putting forth of energy to take 
 food. The crying of a child, instinctive at first, soon begins 
 to pass into a voluntary form, and to take place with reference 
 to a represented pleasurable feeling. 
 
 For Lecture XXXIV read :— 
 Bain, pp. 325-338, 366-371 ; Hoffding, VI, B, § 1, a and b. Also 
 cf. Spencer, Part IV, ch. v. 
 
LECTURE XXXIV. 
 
 modes of conation {continued). INSTINCT. 
 
 (ii) Reflex Action, 
 
 Reflex action is essentially stimulated action, whatever 
 may be urged to the contrary with respect to Primary 
 Automatic action. The name comes from the 
 characteristic bending back upon itself of the /> 
 
 action as seen in the simplest case (cf. Lecture f v 
 VI). The human system is such that ultimately ' 
 all nerve-action may be regarded as of the reflex 
 type, the essential tendency of nerve- cell being to discharge 
 when stimulated. 
 
 Reflex action is, like spontaneous action, not only in- 
 voluntarv but also unconscious. Much action that is un- 
 conscious takes place through the brain; i.e. not only spinal, 
 but also certain cerebral processes may be regarded as reflex. 
 The fact that certain action in the brain is accompanied by 
 consciousness does not prevent other cerebral action from 
 being described as reflex. Reflex action is the antithesis to re- 
 flective action, which term might well be applied to voluntary 
 action as involving representation. Curiously enough the 
 original physical meaning of reflex and reflective is identical. 
 Reflex action as such has no subjective face ; but voluntary 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 Elements of Psychology, [Lect. 
 
 actioq, which has a subjective face, is intimately related to 
 reflex action. As psychologists, concerned mostly with 
 voluntary action, we must at the same time study reflex 
 action of the simple type, and this is always unconscious. 
 For we study will, not only subjectively, but also from the 
 side of its physiological conditions. 
 
 The term reflex has a purely physiological meaning. From 
 the point of view of physiology all nerve action is reflex 
 action, which may have a voluntary side. By far the greater 
 number of vital processes of the system are reflex processes. 
 They are determined for us, and go on normally without 
 consciousness. 
 
 In waking life we find a concurrence of reflex action with 
 action that is not reflex. But consider a sleeping child. 
 For the time consciousness is in abeyance. Tickle its 
 hand ; it closes its fist upon your finger. If it were awake 
 and not attending to anything else it would feel your touch, 
 and either close its hand voluntarily, or refuse to do so, 
 voluntarily. But while asleep, the closing of the hand on 
 your finger is purely a reflex act, and comes to pass probably 
 by way of some part of the nervous system other than the 
 brain. But even if it took place by the aid of the brain we 
 should still call it reflex. All voluntary action involves 
 stimulation of the brain, and action that goes through the 
 system short of the brain is reflex. But that is not all : there 
 is reflex action of the brain also ; and such action is most 
 probably involved in much of the very highest of our con- 
 scious action. Conscious action and reflex action in our 
 system shade into one another. 
 
 Reflex acts, in spite of their proceeding as such uncon- 
 sciously, are still adaptive. (This is a more correct term 
 than 'purposive/) Adaptive activity may be used with an 
 
xxxiv.] Elements of Psychology. 229 
 
 objective meaning, as equivalent to activity beneficial to the 
 organism, promoting vitality, conservative of the system, &c. 
 Here we may define it as actions such as we should perform 
 if we were conscious of them. Either way an end is involved. 
 We cannot help bringing forward teleological considerations. 
 Does not such a notion seem to require an explanation 
 ultimately in terms of consciousness ? How did reflex action 
 acquire this power of adaptivity ? This question will recur 
 under instinct and volition. Meanwhile we see that conation 
 cannot be treated of apart from reflex action ; the same 
 considerations are involved in each. But in reflex action the 
 end that is sought is not sought deliberately by the organism 
 that puts forth the action. For the individual, his reflex acts 
 are unconscious acts ; if they are adaptive, it is not he that 
 produced the adaptation. 
 
 Primitive combined movements, such as Professor Bain 
 (p. 69) instances, are simply a case of reflex action of rather 
 a special kind. Our organic system from the very first has 
 the power not only of putting forth adaptive reflex acts, but 
 of combining such acts. He brings them out as a basis for 
 the explanation of voluntary activity. Voluntary acts always 
 involve co-ordination or combination, and this is provided 
 for in the system before and below volition proper. A great 
 part of our active mental development consists in breaking up 
 these primitive combinations, as well as in working them 
 up into higher combinations. In fact, the nervous system, 
 being a system, tends from the first to work together. De- 
 velopment for the individual consists as much in decompos- 
 ing the originally complex as in building up from the simple. 
 A child's first activities are vague, undirected, undifferentiated. 
 It moves altogether, as we say. But it enters into the very 
 essence of volition that activity should be differentiated. 
 
230 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 (iii) Instinctive Action. 
 
 Instinctive action is a special kind of activity that can be 
 accounted for satisfactorily only under the head of conation, 
 yet has a very distinct and important character of its own. 
 As compared with any kind of reflex action it is essentially 
 very complex. Mr. Spencer, recognising this fact, speaks of 
 it as 'doubly compound reflex action,' a description which is 
 purely physiological, and moreover very vague. Instinct may 
 reach a much higher degree of complexity than this. Instinc- 
 tive action is essentially adaptive action, action serviceable to, 
 or conservative of, the system, a character which in reflex 
 action is not universal. But instinct is not only adaptive, it 
 is also action which has a conscious accompaniment, though 
 not of the developed kind that we get in voluntary action. 
 There may be feeling, in the case of instinctive action, but 
 there is no intellection proper. There is subservience to 
 an end; but the great difference between instinct and will 
 proper is, that in will we are conscious of the end as end, 
 while in instinct we may be conscious of acting but not 
 of the end. In other words, a voluntary act is one consciously 
 put forth for an end consciously conceived ; whereas, in the 
 instinctive act, there is never a fore-perception of the effect of 
 the act. Instinctive action is adapted to an end which does 
 not come within the consciousness of the individual, but which 
 may be explained by reference to the history or development 
 of the race. 
 
 Instincts are manifested in the very beginning of life ; 
 children can instinctively do from the first with regard to 
 feeding what they have afterwards to learn to do with regard 
 to other things. In the lower animals instinct bears a much 
 greater proportion to will than it does in human beings. 
 
xxxiv.] Elements of Psychology. 231 
 
 The majority of human actions are, as opposed to instinct, 
 acquired. To the extent that an animal can acquire the 
 power of performing actions that it could not do at first, 
 the animal must be credited with something of the nature 
 of will. Professor Bain 1 defines instinct as untaught ability 
 manifested at the beginning of life. But many an act that 
 is not learned may yet not manifest itself until later in life, 
 e. g. the tendency to walk, — which is ultimately instinctive 
 though accompanied by a strong voluntary element. The 
 latter might prove unavailing, if the tendency were not there, 
 untaught. An instinct may appear at any period in the 
 growth of the individual, though not when that growth has 
 ceased. The range of instinct in man is much greater 
 than is often supposed, but the development of it in him is 
 very low as compared with the lower animals. Considering 
 the relative length of life, this is no more than one would 
 expect. Moreover, relatively to the lower animals man is 
 distinctly a social animal and far more dependent upon his 
 parents and his fellows than are the young of other kinds. 
 And since the human parents are able to do much more for 
 the child than the lower animals can do for their young, the 
 instincts in man develop much more slowly. However, in 
 the case of instincts that develop later than the beginning of 
 life, there is always a possibility that they may involve some 
 element of experience over and beyond the instinct itself. 
 Late developed instinct will be essentially complex. 
 
 1 Professor Bain has a good definition of instinct, but does not give 
 an express consideration of it as a phase of mental life. He minimises 
 it, and we do not get an adequate account of it from him. He con- 
 siders the instinctive play of feeling ; and it is true that some of the 
 expression of emotion has a properly instinctive character ; but this 
 is not nearly the whole of instinct. How much of all our activity is 
 instinctive, is an important question which he passes over. 
 
232 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 Finally, then, instinct is a substitute for volition or will 
 that is absent. Instinct and will must always be interpreted 
 together as modes of conation ; but there is a sense in 
 which instinct takes the place of intellection, hence by 
 confusion of notions it has often been regarded as wholly 
 intellectual. But the intellection involved in instinct is latent, 
 whereas in will it is expressed. 
 
 (iv) Secondary Automatic Action. 
 
 Secondary Automatic action is action not manifest originally, 
 nor out of relation to the experience of the individual, but 
 a result of that experience. It is action that was voluntary, 
 but has become through habit automatic. E. g. walking, 
 which, instinctive to a certain extent, is voluntarily acquired 
 and then becomes a secondary automatic act ; also speaking, 
 writing, playing on an instrument, &c. Habitual action is 
 voluntary action thoroughly acquired. Habits are secondary 
 automatic acts, automatic to the extent to which they are 
 fixed and go on of themselves. 
 
 6 Mechanical ' A ction . 
 
 All automatic action, whether primarily or secondarily so, 
 we are apt to call ' mechanical/ nevertheless the term cannot 
 be applied equally in all cases, and never properly expresses 
 the character either of instinctive or of secondary automatic 
 acts. For though the latter may not be fully conscious acts, 
 yet they are always subconscious, never utterly unconscious. 
 
 Primary automatic action is mechanical in so far as it is 
 organically determined, in spite of the fact that the word 
 ' mechanical ' never covers the whole meaning of any organic 
 process. In a similar sense reflex action can also be called 
 mechanical, differing only in the presence of definite external 
 
xxxiv.] Elements of Psychology. 233 
 
 stimulation. But instinct, as accompanied by, and to a 
 certain extent dependent upon, consciousness, cannot be 
 called mechanical, except indeed in drawing attention to 
 its aspect of uniformity and constancy, of certainty and 
 necessity. The act is somehow provided for in the organism 
 and is so far mechanical. Similarly the true character of 
 secondary automatic action is not brought out by any term 
 such as mechanical, automatic, &c, because in the beginning 
 it had to be learned, and, though not performed with full 
 consciousness, still is not performed without consciousness. 
 
 To the extent that acts have become secondary automatic 
 acts there is reason to believe that they are no longer 
 carried out, as at first, wholly by the higher centres of the 
 brain. But though such action goes on mainly through the 
 lower centres, it calls into play the higher centres also, and 
 cannot go on without their aid. 
 
 To the extent that acts are performed with unerring 
 certainty, they tend to become unconscious. The most 
 conscious of our acts are those accompanied by doubt or 
 uncertainty. By the passage of an action from the range 
 of the conscious to that of the unconscious, consciousness is 
 left free for the development or acquirement of other actions. 
 If an act is such, that it could never have been performed 
 except with consciousness, the fact that it comes to be 
 performed subconsciously does not derogate from its original 
 character, but simply leaves consciousness free, and ourselves 
 to that extent the gainers. 
 
 Instinct and Evolution. 
 
 However unable we may be to account for this or that 
 instinct in detail, about instinct as a topic that has to be ex- 
 plained, and not merely accepted, there is no longer any doubt. 
 
234 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 The theories of evolution and heredity have worked great 
 changes in views on this subject. Evolution with regard to 
 instinct is a vera causa. One idea is that, in the case of instinct, 
 the same or corresponding kinds of changes of activities take 
 place in the history of the race that, in the case of secondary 
 automatic action, we find take place in the history of the 
 individual. Instinct is lapsed intelligence : acts that are now 
 instinctive for the race were originally acquired consciously 
 by the individual. Instincts have arisen through racial use 
 or experience. This was Lewes's theory. 
 
 Nevertheless a hypothesis is not proved to be true by 
 its accounting for the facts. Special verification must be 
 sought, and in this, as in many cases, there is needed a 
 1 crucial experiment 'to show the truth between two hypotheses. 
 We need, I say, experiential, and if possible experimental, 
 verification. Now those who explain instinct by lapsed 
 intelligence are bound to hold that secondary automatic acts 
 are inherited. But the case of secondary automatic action, 
 as used to account for instinct, is one that lends itself to 
 experiential verification. All the experience we have yet 
 had is against the view that secondary automatic acts as 
 such are inherited. There is as yet no definite proof that 
 acts acquired by experience can be propagated, however 
 hard it may be to believe that this was not the original 
 cause. As Darwin maintained, who, although not a psycho- 
 logist, was a man of extraordinary insight, instincts were not 
 acts first learned and then inherited. They arose first as 
 accidental variations; these were naturally selected and so 
 inherited. We do not inherit the results of our parents' 
 experience, but we may inherit what they were born with, 
 i. e. congenital (accidental) variations. 
 
 Moreover, the ' Lapsed Intelligence ' theory contains 
 
xxxiv.] Elements of Psychology. 235 
 
 something like an absurdity. It compels us to assume 
 more intelligence in long past ancestors, than in the indi- 
 vidual who manifests the instinct, — that to the extent that 
 acts have become more and more deeply instinctive, the 
 earlier and simpler animals were more intelligent than 
 the later ones. Thus while it is hard (e. g. in the case of 
 special aptitudes) to exclude the likelihood that Secondary 
 Automatic action suggests one explanation of the origin of 
 instinct, yet the other view is the more probable one. 
 
 Appetites. 
 
 One other topic to be united with instinct is that of 
 Appetites, a class of conscious states peculiarly connected 
 with action, although, as I have said in the previous lecture, 
 there might be good reason for classing them with feelings. 
 They involve modes of sense, but are distinct from mere 
 sensation in being recurrent or periodical wants of the system, 
 and, as recurrent, in determining a certain marked form of 
 activity. Activity with a view to what kind of feeling ? Some 
 say with a view to pleasure ; others say no, for we find appetites 
 manifested before there has been gratification of them. It 
 cannot be said that they have no relation to feeling. But 
 they are not, to begin with, determined by pleasure ; they 
 are determined by an uneasy feeling which has to be got 
 rid of. A child does not first cry to be fed, but from 
 the pain of hunger. And the activity put forth with which the 
 vanishing of the painful feeling is connected, cannot as such 
 be said to have been learned, but is of a properly instinctive 
 kind. 
 
 It should be noted that desire is to emotion as appetite 
 is to primitive wants of the system. Any sense-feeling 
 or emotion may, as motion, i. e. as determining action, in 
 
236 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 a case when uneasiness is hard to get rid of, be called desire 
 Desire is wishing as opposed to willing. 
 
 Instinct and Will. 
 
 Finally, however we aggrandise instinct, there is nothing 
 more characteristic about the beginning of life than that we 
 are not able at will to put forth adaptive activity in relation 
 to feeling. A young infant cannot move its hand to the 
 right point, or follow a light by moving its eyes. Will is 
 something that has development in the life of the individual, 
 in regard to the experience of the individual ; and there 
 are modes of willing that some individuals never develop. 
 Earlier psychologists implied that the power of putting forth 
 definite activity in relation to feeling is primitive, and needs 
 no explanation. It was Professor Bain who first gave distinct 
 prominence to the development of will (supra, p. 223), and 
 his view of this problem is m the main perfectly correct, 
 and is the best and most carefully considered psychological 
 theory of volitional power extant. 
 
 For Lecture XXXV read Bain, pp. 338-365 ; Hoffding, VII, B, ic-5. 
 
LECTURE XXXV. 
 
 VOLITION AND CONTROL. 
 
 Purposive Action, 
 
 Uniformity is the characteristic note of instinct (discount- 
 ing special cases). Now it is true that some sort of voluntary 
 power is common to all ordinary people, nevertheless there 
 is nothing more remarkable than the differences in the extent 
 to which will is developed in different persons. 
 
 Will is purposive action — action that is appropriate for 
 a certain end which the individual can represent to himself 
 along with the means to that end. The more definite the 
 action is the more the end drops out of view ; nevertheless 
 all the steps of the voluntary act depend on a foregone 
 representation of ends, these being always to be ultimately 
 expressed in terms of feeling. Hence will is a peculiar 
 complex of feeling and intellection. 
 
 ' The imitative wilV 
 
 Development of will in the individual is hardly ever 
 haphazard, except perhaps at the start. The governing fact 
 in regard to any actual human being is that he is a social 
 creature, not an individual left to himself, as are some of the 
 lower animals. Things are done for the child from the first. 
 Family relation sets it upon acting in particular ways long 
 
238 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 before it would dream of doing so of itself. All the actions 
 performed for it and in its sight indicate the lines along 
 which its actions must take place; then, when it has 
 acquired a certain command of its bodily members, the social 
 factor becomes most prominent in the disposition towards 
 imitating everything that it sees. Thus a power of appro- 
 priate activity is acquired. 
 
 This applies to all kinds of actions, but to none more than 
 to speech. Children learn to speak voluntarily mainly by 
 means of imitation. But at the back of imitation there is 
 a creative faculty with regard to language, a sort of approxi- 
 mately spontaneous activity, in all children. If it were not 
 for this the child could never go so far afterwards as it does 
 in imitating others. This factor must necessarily be assumed 
 as a basis for imitation. Children born deaf do not speak at 
 all ; the spring of energy wLhin shows itself in the move- 
 ments of hands, &c. But this energy is so dependent on 
 external stimulus that, if the stimulus is wanting, as here, the 
 energy does not naturally spend itself in that direction. 
 Thus, though hearing does not explain speech, there is no 
 speech without hearing. No other case so neatly shows the 
 combination of the two factors — that of impression received, 
 and that of natural energy. 
 
 A zvide basis for the Evolution of Volition. 
 
 Professor Bain's view of volition errs from the narrowness 
 of its point of departure. He bases everything on the 
 assumption that in the first instance acts are spontaneous or 
 random, leading then to a result beneficial (in terms of 
 feeling) to the individual. This is too narrow and limited. 
 The very fact that a reflex action is of a more definite kind 
 than a spontaneous action counts in its favour, making it more 
 
xxxv.] Elements of Psychology. 239 
 
 likely to enter as a factor into early volition. Instinct, as a 
 complex arrangement for adaptive action, is far more widely 
 provided for in the system than Professor Bain seems to 
 think. It is a great mistake to connect voluntary activity 
 with only one kind of involuntary activity. Anything that 
 the individual could do for itself, by any such line of develop- 
 ment as Professor Bain here suggests, would fall very far 
 short of the ability for voluntary action that children actually 
 do manifest from the very first. A vast deal is due to their 
 social relations to parents and others, and to their imitation 
 of others. In Chapter II Professor Bain discusses the 
 voluntary control over bodily movements, as the first di>tinct 
 manifestation of will in the human system, and as that which 
 serves as a basis for future developments of will. This is 
 a justifiable view. We all come in time to have some degree 
 of control over feeling and intellection, but in the first place 
 the child has to learn to control its voluntary muscles. In 
 Chapter III he discusses the voluntary control of feeling and 
 intellection. When he speaks of will, he always means 
 will of this kind, but particularly so in his discussion of 
 imitation. Voluntary movement is consummated by the 
 idea of effect to be produced. Every step in Professor 
 Bain's argument has reference to the control of bodily move- 
 ment. The books, either implicitly or explicitly, follow a 
 similar course. 
 
 Action for Feeling. 
 
 The ultimate end of volition is psychologically expressed 
 by feeling. Feeling, in a case of willing, always supplies the 
 motive power. The motive, if not directly, is yet remotely 
 set in terms of feeling. I do not say that all acts are per- 
 formed with a view to the resulting pleasure or pain, for this 
 
240 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 is profoundly untrue of those actions performed later on in life 
 which we call noble and virtuous. Much action voluntarily 
 performed has no direct reference to pleasure and pain. 
 But the first manifestations of will are made in connexion 
 with the experience of pleasure and pain. The first volun- 
 tary acts of a child are those which are performed with a 
 view to procuring or maintaining or increasing pleasure, or to 
 the getting rid or keeping clear or abating of pain. The 
 problem then of will or volition is to forge a link of some 
 kind between Activity and Feeling. Volition is always action 
 for, or in order to, feeling ; but there is another kind of activity 
 connected with feeling, viz. emotional expression, usually 
 muscular. This is best described as action of feeling, and 
 must be clearly distinguished from action for feeling. The 
 latter is voluntary ; the former, as such, is mainly involuntary. 
 Much of the former is in the full sense instinctive, as being 
 adaptive action. But to the extent that it is instinctive, it is 
 not voluntary, — for the individual. 
 
 The Transition from Random to Voluntary Activity, 
 
 The passages from random reflex acts to voluntary acts 
 is well drawn by Professor Bain. Where is the link 
 forged? In the law (Lecture XXXII) that pleasure is 
 self-supporting, pain self-destroying or self-abating, we get 
 the first beginning of a link between the elements of feeling 
 and activity, in a way that no other explanation yet suggested 
 has supplied us with. The random activity leads to results 
 which, if they are painful, cause the activity to be stopped, 
 if pleasurable, to be carried on. Instinct, it is true, is not 
 random but purposive, but I am speaking of the use to which 
 instinct can be put volitionally. And in relation to volition 
 
xxxv.] Elements of Psychology. 241 
 
 that may come to pass, the instinct which in itself is adaptive 
 may act at random for the new result which it may bring 
 about. It may, I repeat, be perfectly haphazard with regard 
 to the particular end which it may come afterwards to 
 subserve in the life of the individual. Crying, for instance, 
 as an expression of pain felt, is not haphazard, but, as leading 
 to warmth through contact with the nurse, it is at first 
 a random act. 
 
 Now we may act (i) upon the wish to act, or (ii) upon 
 representation of acting. In the former case (i) we act 
 upon a distinct experience of feeling actually present, or upon 
 a distinct representation of feeling. Wish is wholly built 
 upon feeling. In the latter case (ii) we act upon representa- 
 tion of action completed. Although in ultimate analysis an 
 element of feeling or of represented feeling can always be 
 shown to be involved, yet this comes to drop into the back- 
 ground. Our development of volition is aided by our power 
 of submerging the feeling. 
 
 Control. 
 
 From the basis of bodily action as modified or controlled 
 through feeling, we pass to a consideration of the voluntary 
 control of feeling. The transition is not sharp. In willing 
 to move an arm, is it merely the physical arm that we wish 
 to move ? No, in connexion with the arm's action we have 
 certain feelings. The bodily organs in their action have a 
 conscious phase or accompaniment, so that we are not 
 dealing with body as bare matter, but we are concerned with 
 bodily, as related to mental, changes. 
 
 On the other hand, it is simple to see that, in speaking of 
 the voluntary control of feeling, though feelings as such are 
 
 K 
 
242 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 bare subjective states, yet they have also a definite bodily 
 concomitant, and it is with this that we would deal. In 
 controlling feeling we must do it through the external 
 manifestation, which is not mental but bodily. 
 
 The power of controlling the feelings cannot be denied, 
 but it has its limits. How does this control come to pass ? 
 Children start with no such control over their sense-feelings 
 and such simple emotions as they then have. How is the 
 control that is attained acquired, and why cannot we wholly 
 control our feelings ? 
 
 From the subjective point of view, the way to control a 
 feeling is to substitute for it another feeling, or an indifferent 
 intellectual state. This involves control of intellection; 
 we are voluntarily modifying the flow of our representative 
 consciousness. Thus the difficulty is only pushed aside. 
 Is this all that we can do? No; feeling may also be 
 controlled through its emotional expression. This expression, 
 as we saw, is either muscular or visceral, showing itself in the 
 body in one or other of these ways. And our feelings we 
 have in connexion with those bodily processes and not apart 
 from them. Feeling is not one thing and the expression of 
 it another added thing. The feeling is had in the expression 
 of it. What is to us, subjectively, an emotion is, physically 
 regarded, this or that organic process. In the absence of the 
 accompaniment we do not have the feeling. This gives a 
 means of affecting feeling through its expression. We have, 
 it is true, no voluntary control in general over the viscera ; 
 but so far as the expression of feeling is muscular, it takes 
 place through those muscles over which we acquire bodily 
 control; and to the extent that these muscles are involved 
 and that we have control over them, we can affect the feeling 
 in affecting the expression. 
 
xxxv.] Elements of Psychology. 243 
 
 Limits of Control. 
 
 To such control there are two limits : — (1) much expression 
 of feeling is not muscular, and (2) even if it be muscular, it 
 may be so violent that control over it is lost. 
 
 Can we have a feeling when the expression is suppressed ? 
 Can we have the expression of a feeling without having the 
 feeling ? Both these questions we briefly touched upon from 
 the side of expression (Lecture XXX), not that of control, 
 and to both of these we answered, No. If we have the 
 expression to the full, we cannot but have the feeling ; and 
 again, if we have no expression at all, the feeling cannot 
 exist. 
 
 Now in ordinary talk, by ' expression ' we mean external 
 expression, because this alone is obvious to the outsider. 
 But, correctly speaking, expression includes all changes, and 
 when the word is thus used in its widest sense, the above 
 statements must be admitted as true. The mere fact of 
 suppressing the external expression only, may rather intensify 
 than kill the feeling. 
 
 Again, in acting a feeling, as on the stage, it may be 
 asked whether a person acts best when he really has the 
 feeling, or when he merely adopts the external expression 
 and remains calmly critical within (Diderot). The answer 
 would probably be given differently by different actors. 
 Some cannot have the expression correct unless they really 
 have the feeling ; others, in having the feeling most intensely, 
 fail to give the expression in the artistic way required. 
 
 Our power then of modifying the life of feeling is, while 
 capable of development, more or less limited, and is best 
 exercised indirectly, through the control we possess over our 
 representations. 
 
 R 2 
 
244 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 Let us now consider the voluntary control of intellection. 
 In regard to representations, we have not the power of 
 voluntarily bringing up what is not in consciousness. We 
 may wish as much as we like to do so, and nevertheless not 
 succeed. The notion is self-contradictory. In order to 
 bring it in by willing, we must already be somehow conscious 
 of it. But then we have not to bring it into consciousness. But 
 we can do something to help the coming into consciousness 
 of representations by keeping in consciousness what is there 
 and so, by way of association, bringing in what was not there. 
 All thinking is determined by association, but the laws do not 
 work wholly independently; we can control them more or 
 Jess. We can hold on to such representations as we have got, 
 and so help all that they suggest to revive in consciousness. 
 
 An inattentive person has a wandering mind ; his mental 
 processes are unregulated ; he gives way to the bare action 
 of association. Such an effort as I have described is only 
 possible where there is some power of concentration. Some- 
 times, however, the desired experience comes up when we 
 have begun to think of something else. This is because 
 there has been a removal of the strain put by feeling upon 
 attentive recollection. 
 
 But how is it that we are able to keep before consciousness 
 a thought that is already there ? What is the mechanism of 
 this process ? It is related to our power of keeping an organ 
 muscularly fixed, such as the eye. If the same brain is 
 involved in acts of thought as in acts of perception, then we 
 may suppose that what goes on in the brain when we are 
 attentively thinking, is related to what must go on when we 
 are attentively perceiving. The same parts of the brain are 
 affected qualitatively in the same way. For in fact in think- 
 ing we really are, or tend to be, muscularly active in a parti- 
 
xxxv.] Elements of Psychology. 245 
 
 cular way. The more our thinking becomes abstract, the 
 more is it absolutely dependent on the use of language, i. e. 
 on a series of muscular acts. When a person has lost the 
 power of representing words, he has lost the power of abstract 
 thought. 
 
 In the same way, then, or to the extent that we can control 
 sensation or percept, we can keep the representation (of the 
 percept) before the mind for a prolonged time. Representa- 
 tion or idea is to the sensation, as the voluntary act for the 
 former is to the voluntary act for the latter. The latter 
 results in definite overt action ; the former does not, but it is 
 equally real. 
 
 Later investigation mainly confirms Professor Bain's view. 
 Just as in perceiving, when voluntarily done, there is 
 sensation received and muscular action put forth, so in 
 voluntary thinking the idea, which is there, has in connexion 
 with it certain motor impulses, which are represented by 
 facts in consciousness ; and these, in connexion with the idea, 
 constitute the voluntary control of the idea. 
 
 Mental life at every stage, however re-representative, 
 conforms to the essential type of impression received and 
 overt impulse sent forth. The term sensori-motor action 
 may serve to describe this general procedure. Ideo-motor 
 (or imagino-motor) action is the same procedure on occasion 
 of representation. Now, though volition can have no expla- 
 nation except in relation to sensori-motor action, and involves 
 ideo-motor action, it implies a further elaboration. Into 
 volition proper there always enters the notion of ourselves, 
 our ego, acting for personal foreseen ends. But remember 
 that this factor of ego is nothing that is not expressible in 
 terms of one kind of representation or another. Psychology 
 knows of no other. Analysed on the side of volition, it is 
 
246 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 a congeries, never developed alike in any two persons, of 
 purposes, ideals, aspirations, all of which are psychologically 
 so many representations. 
 
 For Lecture XXXVI read Bain, Bk. IV, ch. l-iii ; Ward, pp. 41, 
 
 83 -85 ; Sully, op. cit. (either work) on ' Attention.' 
 
LECTURE XXXVI. 
 
 ATTENTION AND THE EGO. 
 
 Attention. 
 
 We have already passed from conation accompanied by 
 overt muscular, and visceral activity, to deal with conation 
 as involving covert activity. The generic term covering this 
 kind of activity is ' attention/ Attention has application to 
 thought as such ; it has also application to our external 
 activity. It is intellection voluntarily put forth. And yet it 
 may be one of two kinds, involuntary or voluntary; for 
 though in the fullest sense attention involves volition, still 
 there is an attitude of mind that is attention, yet is not 
 voluntary. No hard and fast line, however, can be drawn 
 between the two ; they must be considered together. 
 
 The mere fact that while we are already mentally occupied, 
 something else starts into consciousness, and, for a time long 
 or short, maintains itself in the foreground of consciousness 
 excluding what was there before, involves a certain overt 
 activity of mind ; but this is not voluntary activity, for that was 
 pre-engaged in some direction. Which kind of involuntary 
 activity is it, then ? Involuntary attention, since it is action 
 depending upon a conscious state, is not describable as purely 
 reflex action, yet the activity (as compared with voluntary 
 action proper) is of the relatively simple reflex type. We can 
 draw no line. To the extent that attention is involuntary, it is 
 
248 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 
 
 action of the reflex type. When noises, e.g., overpower one, 
 and one becomes fully conscious of them, the action in 
 attending is then of a kind similar to voluntary activity and 
 may pass over into it. 
 
 Attention as Activity. 
 
 Voluntary attention presupposes something in con- 
 sciousness which we attend to; this by definite attention is 
 rendered both clearer as a whole and more distinct in its 
 parts. This clearness and distinctness, in the case of per- 
 ception, takes place in connexion with direct overt muscular 
 action of which we are conscious. But this motor attitude 
 is present in all intellection, even in imagination and con- 
 ception. In higher or more abstract stages of intellection, 
 although the activity involved need not appear as overt 
 muscular action, there is reason to believe that the problem 
 of attentive thought cannot be solved except by the ana- 
 logy of attention in perception which does involve muscular 
 activity. The covert activity that is involved in attentive 
 thinking has its psychological explanation in the overt activity 
 of muscular action. The brain-process would seem to be the 
 same in both cases ; and even in thought the processes tend 
 always to result in an overt outcome of some sort or other. 
 
 Attention as Feeling, 
 
 Again, we attend to what we are interested in. Now interest 
 is interest for the subject or individual; therefore in all cases 
 of attention feeling must necessarily be involved \ And will 
 is activity that takes place with intellection and in relation to 
 feeling. When feeling is present, intellection takes place in 
 a certain definite manner with activity involved. Professor 
 
 1 Cf. Lecture XXVIII, p. 185. 
 
xxxvl] Elements of Psychology. 249 
 
 Bain goes to this length, but no farther. But we do not get 
 the full sense of attention, or the full intensity of the mind's 
 action in relation to intellection, until we get beyond the 
 consideration of this or that particular feeling as marking 
 interest in this or that subject. 
 
 Consider the dome of the college. What interest is there 
 in this ? There was a previous relation between this and my 
 ego, and therefore it becomes possible for me to single it out 
 for special consideration. It is not a mere link between 
 a representation and a feeling that is here involved. There 
 is appropriation of the thing in relation to my personality 
 or ego ; the ego or subject, thus appearing as a direct 
 factor in volition of any kind, is itself something that has 
 a development. 
 
 Attention as peculiarly self-referred activity. 
 
 The ego which thus appears as a direct factor in volition 
 is distinguished in philosophical language as the ' empirical 
 ego ' and opposed to the ' pure ego/ The only ego that we 
 can take account of in psychology for the explanation of 
 facts of intellection or will is an ego that has been gradually 
 developed, and that represents really the deposit of the 
 experience of one's life. The actions of a child are well 
 expressed in Professor Bains psychology as the forging of 
 links between feelings and activities. But later on, though 
 much of our action continues to be of this type, much of it 
 also becomes different. What we come to know attentively 
 is what we know or do in relation to ourselves, the selves 
 that have been gradually developed by a process of accretion. 
 Professor Bain and J. S. Mill speak of a man's character 
 in this connexion; advancing thus far towards recognising 
 the ego as a factor. But this factor, though so prominent 
 
250 Elements of Psychology. [here. 
 
 in developed life, is nevertheless not original. A man's 
 character is the result of his experience. Professor Bain, 
 whose treatment of volition is good as far as it goes, does 
 not go far enough. He does not fully recognise that ' perma- 
 nent account' to which all goes, all particular experiences 
 are referred. He nowhere explains conception of self as an 
 entity persisting with a value of its own and with the 
 power of conceiving ends, &c. Our be^t actions are tho?e 
 of self-respect. Again, the question of Free Will has no 
 meaning unless we recognise that action, in its developed 
 form, takes place in relation to a subject who is acting. To 
 explain actions through links between particular ideas and 
 feelings only suffices psychologically for the early manifesta- 
 tions of character, if indeed it suffice at all. The ego 
 has its gradual evolution, an evolution which is different 
 in different persons, — so also has Will proper, into which 
 there always enters the ego acting for personal ends, and 
 which when fully developed is the crowning attribute of man. 
 
 Constructive States. 
 
 The concentration of ' genius ' and all forms of psychosis 
 termed ■ constructive ' are activities of the Volitional type, 
 inasmuch as they represent Ends to be obtained under the 
 impulse of strong emotional interest. All scientific thought 
 is voluntary thought; science depends on constructive 
 thought just as art depends on constructive imagination. 
 
 Apperception. 
 
 In later psychology the word apperception is coming 
 to be used to express intellection voluntarily determined 
 at any grade. When I perceive the pillar to the exclusion 
 of everything else and keep my attention on it, perception of 
 
xxxvi.] Elements of Psychology. 251 
 
 this kind, which is essentially voluntary, is called apperception. 
 But apperception includes also reflective thinking, con- 
 structive imagination. With Professor Wundt it comes to 
 be synonymous with attention. 
 
 Belief, 
 
 The state of belief has not been well classed by Professor 
 Bain under Will on the ground of its manifesting itself by 
 readiness to act. Belief is not covered by Will, is not funda- 
 mentally conational. It is one thing to believe, another to 
 act, another to will to believe. This I shall treat of in the 
 course on General Philosophy. 
 
 Note. — The student will find instructive reading on the psychology 
 of ' Genius ' in the last chapter of Professor Sully's The Human Mind, 
 1 On Concrete Mental Development/ a chapter which (in Croom 
 Robertson's words) ' deals in an interesting way with such topics 
 as the unity of mental development, varieties of mind, scientific view 
 of individuality, dreams, the hypnotic trance, and pathological 
 psychoses.' 
 
 On the psychology of ' ideal construction* or constructive imagina- 
 tion let him note another passage from the same appreciative criticism 
 of Professor Sully's treatment of this subject (Mind, i, N. S., 413) : — 
 ' Productive imagination is the subject of the next chapter v The 
 Human Mind), i, p. 362 et seq.). The general process of ideal 
 construction, the distinction between its receptive and creative 
 phases, the characteristic peculiarities of intellective, practical, and 
 aesthetic imagination, are successively handled in a luminous and 
 instructive way. The account of the constructive process seems to 
 us defective in one point. It seems to be implied that the appropriate 
 filling in of the scheme or ' draft image ' in which all mental produc- 
 tion is rightly held to consist, merely depends on suggestion by 
 contiguity and similarity together with voluntary selection and 
 rejection of the material so supplied. It ought, I think, to have been 
 
252 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 added, that the scheme itself profoundly modifies the train of sugges- 
 tion, so as to produce congruent presentations, independently of 
 voluntary selection and rejection. If we compare Mr. Sully's 
 description with what we know concerning the creative activity of 
 a man of genius, such as Mozart, its inadequacy and its consequent 
 inaccuracy become evident/ 
 
 These and other questions concerning complex psj-choses lie 
 beyond the scope of an elementary course of psychology. The 
 student who goes on to study them in Professor Sully's important 
 treatise will do well to consider the remaining points raised in 
 Croom Robertson's review — the last he lived to write. — Ed. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 ON THEORIES OF LATENT OR UNCONSCIOUS 
 MENTAL MODIFICATIONS. 
 
 Reproduced from the course of Psychology as delivered 
 in 1873-74. 
 
 The question of mental modifications that apparently take 
 place beneath the threshold of consciousness should be con- 
 sidered in connexion with representative consciousness in 
 general. I will further explain the subject as simply as 
 I can. It often and often happens in consciousness that 
 states or links in a representative train do not come into full 
 consciousness as such, although they have their effect in 
 bringing on their consequents. The term in consciousness 
 after which they came is found to have been succeeded by 
 a term before which they came. This term may have dropped 
 out from memory. Or was it ever a part of conscious experi- 
 ence ? Had it any mental being at all ? If so, of what kind ? 
 
 Now this is not exactly like the instance of names and the 
 ' ideas corresponding thereto ' given by Berkeley in his Theory 
 of Vision. Berkeley said that the moment I utter a well- 
 known word— let us say ' hat'— the hearer's first representation 
 is not that the word is English, or monosyllabic, but is of the 
 kind of object so named. The presentation of the word is of no 
 account, or of account only as bringing on the representation. 
 
254 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 Berkeley's whole Theory of Vision, wherein he asserted thai 
 states of tactile consciousness were represented by certain 
 visual states which (like the word 'hat') dropped out of con- 
 sciousness, rested on this. Here the word falls upon the ear 
 and is even attended to, but the auditory consciousness is so 
 fugitive and so unimportant by comparison with what it brings 
 on, that it falls into the background. There is, however, no 
 doubt but that it was in consciousness. But what of those 
 representative states that are so slightly in consciousness that 
 in certain cases they can only be supplied afterwards by 
 a difficult process of search and often cannot be supplied at 
 al. ? How often does it not happen that, when one thing comes 
 ' into our heads ' after another, we cannot state the line that 
 brought them in consecutively, the links that connect them ? 
 It is not enough to say that the links are of no importance in 
 themselves, and that the association is between what was in 
 consciousness and what has come into it. There is no associa- 
 tion between extreme representative terms as such. Hamilton 
 gave as an illustration how in his own experience the repre- 
 sentation of Ben Lomond was abruptly succeeded by that of 
 the Prussian system of education. He remembered afterwards 
 that once on the mountain he had met a German professor and 
 that in course of conversation they had discussed that particular 
 subject. But for the time these intermediate links had fallen 
 away. I wish now to draw attention to some views on these 
 missing links. 
 
 James Mill made a statement on neglected elements in a train 
 of representations to this effect: — It not unfrequently happens 
 in our associated feelings and states that the antecedent is of 
 no importance farther than as it introduces the consequent 1 .' 
 J. S. Mill, following out his father's statement, set out what he 
 called a law of Obliviscence : — t When, through the frequent 
 repetition of a series of sensations, the corresponding train 
 of ideas rushes through the mind with extreme rapidity, some of 
 
 1 Analysis of the Human Mind, Ed. by J. S. Mill, ch. iii, § 10. 
 
Appendix. 255 
 
 the links are apt to disappear from consciousness as completely 
 as if they had never formed part of the series V 
 
 Now if we allow the fact to be as he states, we still should 
 put it in other language. We should say ' series of representa- 
 tions ' and ' train of representations.' Thus altered, the law is 
 really a following out of James Mill's statement, or a mere 
 modification of it to the case of a purely representative train. 
 Let A, B, C, D, E be any representative train. Then if, said 
 J. S. Mill, this train has been very often experienced, A may 
 bring on E without B, C, D coming into consciousness. What 
 then has become of B, C, D ? 
 
 Hamilton's i. lustration, be it noted, does not conform to this. 
 There was no repetition of the encounter and conversation on 
 Ben Lomond. Hence Mill's statement, although it represents 
 a case real enough and frequent enough, is too exclusive. It 
 is not necessary that the series of presentations should have 
 happened very frequently in order that, when one term of it 
 is revived, another shall be revived without the intermediate 
 terms. And so, while I give Mill's statement, I prefer to discuss 
 the question in this more general form: — In a representative 
 train we may find terms succeeding each other in conscious 
 ness with the omission of intermediate links which were in 
 the presentative train, whether that happened once or was fre- 
 quently repeated. What we shall say will apply to the more 
 particular case with which he deals. 
 
 Hamilton's theory on the missing links is set up in opposition 
 to that of Dugald Stewart, who held that these representations 
 that drop out really did pass through the mind, but with 
 extreme swiftness, so that, though we were conscious of them 
 as they passed through, they left no trace in memory. I think 
 that Mill included the clause ' with extreme rapidity' just to 
 take account of Stewart's statement of the case, but this is at 
 the cost of perfect consistency, in view of his theory of the 
 intermediate states. In Stewart's view they were fleeting con- 
 
 1 Ibid., note 34. 
 
256 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 sciousness and forgotten, but consciousness there was at the 
 time of presentation. Hamilton admitted that they were mental 
 phenomena, but denied they were ever conscious states. He 
 held that mind included not only all conscious states, but also 
 certain unconscious states. Mind and consciousness are not 
 commensurate terms. There are unconscious mental states or 
 ' latent mental modifications,' just as real as any conscious 
 mental states, and just as effective to bring on other and 
 conscious states. In the presentative train they were, or they 
 may have been, conscious states, but in the representative train 
 they need not be so to be effective as antecedents. 
 
 Mill's theory presents a third alternative, namely, that the 
 forgotten links are in no sense mental, have no mental sub- 
 sistence whatever, but that, just as when they had a mental 
 subsistence as presentations, there was a concomitant nervous 
 process, they, when the terms not dropped out are revived, 
 remain and have their effect as mere nervous processes. His 
 statement has a certain merit in bringing out what the others 
 fail to take account of, namely, that there is a physical aspect, 
 and that the question may be discussed under this, as well as 
 under the psychical aspect. At the same time I do not think 
 
 that so he gets over what the others 
 
 ^o— * °v* are considering. For if b, c, d, as we 
 
 may call the intermediate nervous 
 processes, were actuated each of them 
 in the representation, how comes it 
 -0^2 that nothing appears in consciousness 
 
 along with them ? Or how should the 
 difference be assigned in the mode of actuation in the two 
 cases : the case where there is a conscious state and that 
 where there is none ? Besides, Mill himself comes near to 
 asserting that even the intermediate nervous links may be 
 dropped out and bring on e. This may be typically figured 
 as in the accompanying diagram: I do not, however, quite 
 see how frequent repetition would make a new way for the 
 nervous impulse and cause it to strike across. 
 
 
Appendix. 257 
 
 I do not, then, think that Mill works out his view completely. 
 And I cannot help thinking that, after all, there is little more 
 than a question of words between the views. I mean, that none 
 of these three psychologists, or any one else, could consider the 
 case fully in all its bearings and put it into terms which do not 
 admit an expression in terms of the others. If A brings on E, 
 and B f C, D do not come again into consciousness, they were 
 originally present in some shape or other none the less. And 
 if we declare that they were there as intermediate links, effective 
 though not fully actuated, it will depend upon our general view 
 of psychology whether we choose Hamilton's, Stewart's, or Mill's 
 expression of the phenomenon. Mill, as we saw, drew attention 
 to the fact that, whatever else is kept up, there must be kept up 
 a physical fact of nervous process. I agree, and cannot doubt 
 that the nervous circle is complete. But Mill himself would 
 have had to allow that the intermediate steps of the nervous 
 process are not fully actuated, else there would be conscious 
 representations along with them. What then could he say 
 about these faintly actuated intermediate nervous processes ? 
 What could he say about them on their conscious side ? Did 
 anybody, did Stewart, claim that they enter fully into con- 
 sciousness ? Stewart said, No ; so quickly do they pass through 
 consciousness that we are not afterwards conscious of having 
 been conscious of them. Hamilton denied that there had been 
 conscious continuity ; there had been only a continuity of 
 psychical or mental condition. My point is that Mill's position 
 required him to adopt either Stewart's or Hamilton's account 
 along with his own. It will not do to say we need not consider 
 the intermediate nervous processes in relation to consciousness 
 at all, for according to Mill himself they have only to be more 
 fully actuated, and there would be corresponding conscious 
 states. Well then, regarding Mill's statement as merely supple- 
 menting, and not excluding, the other views, which of the latter 
 is the truer ? Shall we hold firmly to mind and consciousness 
 as commensurate, or shall we within mind include certain un- 
 conscious but mental states ? 
 
 S 
 
258 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 Up to a certain point there is no question of deciding between 
 the two. Both say we are not conscious of the intermediate 
 states when representing ; both maintain the mental continuity. 
 But Stewart holds to mental continuity with no memory, 
 Hamilton to mental continuity but no consciousness. Here 
 it is of some importance which mode of statement we adopt. 
 I cannot help thinking that Hamilton's view — which is not his 
 originally, but is borrowed from Leibniz— or rather that 
 Hamilton's mode of expression is to be preferred. I do not 
 at the same time wish to be bound to Hamilton's mode of 
 argument. Against Stewart's position his argument is not 
 forcible, namely, that it is absurd to say we can ever have 
 been conscious of anything of which we have no memory. 
 I am prepared to assert the contrary. But there is this to be 
 said in favour of Hamilton's view, namely, that while conscious- 
 ness quite obviously has degrees each of which may still be 
 described as conscious state, it has also degrees which, un- 
 deniably existent as they are, can be described in no other way 
 but as unconscious. At any moment I am conscious of some- 
 thing in particular. I am looking, e. g., at one member of the 
 class, or considering the relation between two members, or 
 the fact that there are more than two. Something is in the 
 foreground of consciousness, fully attended to. What then is 
 my condition in relation to other objects in the room that come 
 within my vision ? Am I conscious of them or not ? Have 
 I a semi-consciousness of them ? Am I conscious of them but 
 with a different degree of intensity ? But further, my emotional 
 mood for the day may have been determined by something 
 I heard or saw this morning. Am I to a certain extent conscious 
 of this when contemplating any one in the class — conscious of 
 what has happened, and emotionally conscious of it ? I think 
 that this too may be affirmed. It is at any moment of mental 
 life impossible to look upon consciousness as rounded off* 
 and complete, or to regard any state as so in consciousness 
 that every state that is less fully so is completely out of 
 consciousness. 
 
Appendix. 259 
 
 Stewart's position lands him in a corner from which he cannot 
 easily get out. He has to show what is the character of these 
 states which, the moment they have been experienced, do not 
 admit of being remembered. He will be forced to admit that 
 there is consciousness and consciousness, that which we are 
 fully conscious of and that which we are not fully conscious of. 
 And Hamilton's way of getting rid of the difficulty by saying 
 that some mental states are not conscious states does seem 
 a larger and better expression. There is no necessity why 
 we should identify what we call mind with what we call 
 consciousness. 
 
 Hamilton's argument on Leibnizian lines proceeds to posit 
 for each of us a minimum visibilc and a minimum audibile, &c. 
 Now each of these is divisible, and each division is invisible, 
 inaudible, but if taken together the sum or minimum is appre- 
 hensible. Hamilton infers that there is a mental or subjective 
 state corresponding to each element of the minimum, even if 
 such a state cannot be called conscious. The roar of the sea 
 is made up of the sounds of the separate waves, and these of 
 the sounds of separate drops — sounds which, taken alone, might 
 be inaudible, yet which, unless they had some subjective ele- 
 mentary state corresponding to each of them, would not in the 
 aggregate be apprehended by us. 
 
 Much opposition and a good deal of ridicule has been brought 
 to bear upon this argument. Mill objected to it for supposing 
 that because a certain phenomenon appears under a certain 
 conjunction of circumstances, it partly appears when only part 
 of those circumstances is present : e. g. that because oxygen 
 and hydrogen make up water, therefore when oxygen is present, 
 water is partly made. Now if there is a sense in which this 
 is admittedly absurd, there is a sense in which it is not so. 
 Hamilton did not say that what is beneath the minimum is 
 something like consciousness. He only said that, whatever it is, 
 it stands in some definite relation to consciousness. Yet he 
 might well have replied that the case of the elements of water 
 is no fair parallel. A true analogy would be such as this : — 
 
 S 2 
 
260 Elements of Psychology. 
 
 an ounce in one scale may not balance a pound in the other, 
 nevertheless it goes some way towards doing so. While, then, 
 I do not bind myself to what Hamilton and Leibniz say in the 
 form in which they put it, I do not share the counter-opinion 
 that their argument is worthless. But I lay no particular stress 
 upon it because it admits of dispute. I put the case on more 
 general grounds thus : — Consciousness has degrees. It is not 
 necessarily either fully present or absent. It may be half, or 
 less than half, present. It is as a field on which a great variety 
 of states of different intensity are struggling for the mastery. 
 Every state has to assert itself, maintain kself, yield eventually 
 to, and be forced aside by, another. The state of mind in which 
 we cannot grasp or recall something that is as it were hovering 
 about us is an instance. Or another : — I was thinking last night 
 and not making much way, when suddenly the ticking of my 
 watch on the wall came to the foreground of my consciousness 
 In two minutes it was gone again and the other thoughts had 
 reasserted themselves. There are so many facts of consciousness 
 that can only be expressed in terms of degrees of consciousness, 
 that I am constrained to adopt this view in some form. It is 
 impossible to maintain that the state just passed off has gone 
 out of my mental being, that because it is no longer in full 
 consciousness I am not conscious of it at all. And if I remain 
 partially conscious of it who shall tell me at what stage I cease 
 to become conscious of it altogether ; or, because it has sunk so 
 far beneath the threshold of consciousness that I cannot recall 
 it, that therefore it does not admit of any subjective expression ? 
 What has commonly been urged against the theory of latent 
 mental modifications is that, not being conscious of them, we 
 can never have any proof of their existence. It is said, on the 
 other hand, that the action of the spinal cord and the lower 
 cerebral centres generally, in fact reflex actions which are 
 unconscious actions, have nevertheless a subjective side. And 
 it is not more remarkable that these states should have a sub- 
 jective face, although unconscious, than the fact that many brain 
 processes, at first accompanied by consciousness, should come 
 
Appendix. 261 
 
 to be unconsciously performed. We know that at certain stages 
 consciousness stands in a definite relation to nerve. And it 
 may be inferred to stand in relation to it at other stages. That 
 there is no correspondence between them in reflex actions is 
 more than I am prepared to assert, and those who do assert it 
 are going a great deal beyond due limits. The subject does 
 not admit of special scientific distinctness, but every one should 
 work out his own experience as well as he may and round it 
 out to a general view. 
 
 I confess my thought tends very much towards this general 
 assumption, that mind, i.e. subjective experience, and con- 
 sciousness, as those writers understood consciousness, meaning 
 states of which we are fully conscious, are not at all com- 
 mensurate terms. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abercrombie, 149 note. 
 
 Abstraction, 169, 175. 
 
 Active Sense, 88 et seq., 98 ; in 
 perception, 101 et seq. 
 
 Activity, spontaneous, 39, 224; 
 involuntary, 223 et stq. ; for 
 feeling, 239, 240 ; consciousness 
 of, 84-91 ; voluntary, 237 et seq. 
 
 Adaptation, of single eye, 121 ; in 
 conation, 228 et seq. 
 
 Adjustment, of single eye, 121. 
 
 ^Esthetic feeling, 213 et seq. 
 
 ^Esthetics, 6, 214, 216. 
 
 ^Esthophysiology, 34. 
 
 Affection, being affected, 21 et 
 seq., 83-85, 185 et seq., 202. 
 
 After-image, 140. 
 
 Agreement, consciousness of, 24. 
 
 Analysis, as scientific method, 17; 
 of mind, 17-20; should begin 
 with sense, 53—55 ; of muscular 
 sense, 86, S7. 
 
 Apperception, 221 note, 250. 
 
 Appetites, 65, 66, 219, 223 note, 
 
 235. 
 Apprehension, 178. 
 Anstotle, his division of mind, 20 ; 
 
 theory of heart and nerves, 28 ; 
 
 on tactile doubleness, 115; on 
 * association, 152; on pleasure 
 
 and pain, 210. 
 Art, as emotional, 194, 213 et seq.; 
 
 as volitional and intellectual, 
 
 250. 
 
 Aspects of things, 3, 4. 
 
 Assimilation, a function of know- 
 ing, 24, 161 ; in perception, 96, 
 97 ; in representative imagina- 
 tion, 161 ; in thought, 170, 172. 
 
 Association, 144, 148 et seq. ; in- 
 separable, 158 ; one law of, 159; 
 resolution of, 160 et seq. ; com- 
 pound, 155 ; obstructive, 163. 
 
 Attention, as complex, 149; ap- 
 perception in, 221 note; volun- 
 tary and involuntary, 247 ; as 
 activity, 248 ; as feeling, 248 ; 
 as self- referred, 249. 
 
 Automatic action, secondary, 224, 
 232, 234; primary, 224, 225. 
 
 Bain, passim. 
 
 Beautiful, feeling of the, 213 et 
 
 seq. 
 Belief, in psychology, 251. 
 Berkeley, on touch, 99, 101, 124, 
 
 125, 128, 253; on idea, 135. 
 Binocular vision, 130. 
 Biology, as abstract science, 4. 
 Body, related to mind, 34 et seq. ; 
 
 b. and space, 113; one's own 
 
 = first ( object/ 113. 
 Brown, no. 
 Butler, 187. 
 
 Cabanis, 64. 
 
 Chemistry, as abstract science, 4. 
 
 Child's mind, 57. 
 
264 
 
 Index. 
 
 Coefficient of muscular sense, 87 
 et seq. 
 
 Coensesthesis, 65. 
 
 Cognition, its philosophical im- 
 port, 24, 97 ; classified, 173. 
 
 Common Sensibility, 61. 
 
 Communication, fundamental fac- 
 tor in speech, i8t. 
 
 Comparative Psychology, 29, 30. 
 
 Comprehension, 178. 
 
 Comte, on introspection, 13. 
 
 Conation, preferable term to Will, 
 21-23; as related to Feeling, 
 23, 220; and to intellection, 25, 
 219 ; in Spencerian psychology, 
 26; analysis of, 219 et seq.; 
 modes of, 222 et seq. 
 
 Concept, 165 et seq. ; c, and per- 
 cept, 169 et seq. ; nature of, 
 177. 
 
 Conception, 165 et seq. ; c. and 
 perception, 174. 
 
 Conceplualism, 176. 
 
 Concomitance, 30-36, 40-46. 
 
 Concrete sciences, 4. 
 
 Consciousness, 7; defined, 10; 
 continuity of, 16, 49 ; flow of 
 sensation indispensable to, 56, 
 
 57- 
 Consensuous movement, in vision, 
 
 122. 
 Construction, mental, 119, 129, 
 
 132 et seq.; 250. 
 Contiguity, law of, 154 et seq. ; 
 
 160 et seq. 
 Control, 24 t et seq. 
 Convergence, in vision, 122. 
 Co-ordination, in nerve function, 
 
 41, 229 ; sensations of, 72. 
 Custom, 34. 
 
 Darwin, on emotion, 201, 204; 
 
 on instinct, 234. 
 Delusion, 142. 
 Desire, 223 note, 236. 
 Destutt de Tracy, no. 
 Development of mind, 48-52. 
 Diderot, on expiession, 243. 
 
 Difference, consciousness of, 24; 
 in sensations, 82, 91-93 ; in re- 
 presentation, 155 ; law of, 161. 
 
 Diffusion, in feeling, 192. 
 
 Direction, 133. 
 
 Discrete consciousness, 175. 
 
 Discrimination, a function of in- 
 tellection, 24, 81, 161 ; in per- 
 ception, 97 ; in representative 
 imagination, 161 ; in conception, 
 170, 172. 
 
 Distance, 93, 103; as tactile, 115; 
 as visual, 128. 
 
 Doubleness, tactile, 115. 
 
 Dream-image, 139. 
 
 Education, of body and mind, 51 ; 
 e. of feeling, 201. 
 
 Ego, the bearer of mental phe- 
 nomena, 27; e. and general 
 sense, 65 ; ' empirical,' and 
 'pure,' 249; evolution of, 250; 
 in attention, 250. 
 
 Egoistic feeling, 208. 
 
 Emotion, expression of, 194; de- 
 fined, 198-200; e. and move- 
 ment, 200 ; history of term, 202 ; 
 representation of, 203 ; as racial, 
 203 ; classifications of, 206 et 
 seq. ; aesthetic, 213 et seq. 
 
 Emotional, adjective to feeling, 22. 
 
 Empiricists, 105. 
 
 Ethical actions, 213. 
 
 Ethics, a department of philosophy, 
 
 7- 
 Evolution, 204, 211, 233, 250. 
 Experience, as growth of mind, 52, 
 
 53; racial, 203. 
 Experientialism, in perception, 105 
 
 et seq. 
 Expression, of thought, 179; e. 
 
 and speech, 180; of feeling, 193, 
 
 194,. 2 43- 
 
 Extension, primary quality in ob- 
 ject, 91, 102 ; as pure intuition, 
 105 ; logically prior to resist- 
 ance, 108 et seq. 
 
 Extensity, in sensation, 78, 79. 
 
Index. 
 
 265 
 
 Feeling, a phase of mind, 21 ; as 
 pleasure and pain, 23, 187 ; as 
 neutral, 22, 82, 189; in popular 
 use and in psychology, 22 ; as 
 related to conation, 23; and to 
 intellection, 25, 191 ; in Spen- 
 cerian psychology, 26, 185; its 
 nervous concomitant, 47, 191 et 
 seq. ; as subjective affection, 
 185 ; history of the term, 186; 
 expression of, 193, 194; and 
 art, 194, 195 ; classes of, 195 ; 
 aesthetic, 2 t 3 et seq. 
 
 'Feeling-tone,' 197. 
 
 Flow of consciousness, 17, 144 et 
 seq , 158, 179. 
 
 Folk-psychology, 30. 
 
 Forgetfulness, 164 ; see also Ob- 
 liviscence. 
 
 Galton, F., on visualisation, 137, 
 
 143 ; on generic images, 168. 
 General Sense, 60 et seq. 
 Generalisation, 169, 172. 
 Generic images, 168. 
 Genius, 250, 251. 
 Grote, chair of philosophy, I. 
 Growth of mind, 48-52. 
 
 Habit, 30, 232, 233. 
 
 Hallucination, 140, 141. 
 
 Hamilton, on faculty, 20, 160 
 note; introduced tripartite di- 
 vision, 20; use of 'conation/ 
 23; and 'thought/ 166 note; 
 and ' conception/ 178; on latent 
 mental modifications, 254 et seq. 
 
 Hartley, 149, 152, 156, 158. 
 
 Harvey, 29. 
 
 Hearing, sense of, 67, 71-74 ; emo- 
 tional value of, 79 ; intellectual 
 value of, 80, 81, 92, 133; mus- 
 cular coefficient in, 90. 
 
 Higher = in science more complex, 
 40. 
 
 Hobbes, on image, 139 ; on asso- 
 ciation, 152; on speech, 181. 
 
 Hoffding, passim. 
 
 Hume, on association, 152 ; on 
 feeling, 187. 
 
 Idea, 135. 
 
 Ideation, 136, 156 note, 203. 
 
 Illusion, 140-142, 173. 
 
 Image, retinal, 119, 129; for idea, 
 135 ; i, and precept, 138 et seq., 
 167 ; normal and abnormal, 1 40— 
 
 143. 
 Imagination, representative, 135; 
 
 popular sense, 136; constructive, 
 
 137, 240. 
 Imitation, 237, 238. 
 Infant Psychology, 30. 
 Infants, consciousness in, 53, 54. 
 Innate ideas, 174, 204. 
 Innervation of muscle, 83. 
 Instinct, 201, 205, 224, 2 30 et seq.; 
 
 i. and evolution, 233. 
 Intellection, a phase of mind, 21 ; 
 
 purely psychological term, 24; 
 
 relation to feeling and conation, 
 
 25 ; nervous concomitant, 47 ; 
 
 as perception, 96 et seq. ; laws 
 
 of, 133, 134; i. and speech, 179 
 
 et seq. 
 Intensity, of sensation, 76-79 ; of 
 
 feeling, 196. 
 Introspection, 13, 15. 
 Intuitions, emotive, 213. 
 Irradiation, 192. 
 
 James, on extension, 106. 
 Judgment, 166, 177-179. 
 
 Kant, adopted tripartite division, 
 20. 
 
 Knowledge, its philosophical im- 
 port, 24. 
 
 Ladd, in. 
 
 Language, as metaphorical, 12, 
 
 13 ; /. and thought, 177 et seq. 
 Latent mental modifications, 253 
 
 et seq. 
 Laws, of intellection, 133, 134; 
 
 of representative consciousness, 
 
 144 et seq. 
 
266 
 
 Index. 
 
 Leibniz, on continuity of con- 
 sciousness, 43, 258-260. 
 
 Lewes, on feeling, 22, 27, 185 ; on 
 instinct, 234. 
 
 Local sign, 116. 
 
 Localisation, cerebral, 41, 42 ; of 
 sensations, 65, 95. 
 
 Locke, Tetens a disciple of, 21 ; 
 on idea, 135; on association, 
 152; on perceiving, 1 y 1 ; on 
 feeling, 186. 
 
 Logic, a department of philosophy, 
 I, 2 ; thought in /., 177. 
 
 Materialist standpoint. 44. 
 
 Mathematics, as abstract science, 5. 
 
 Maudsley, on introspection, 13. 
 
 Mechanical action, 232. 
 
 Memory, 135, 156 
 
 Mercier, on will, 26 ; on the emo- 
 tions, 205 note. 
 
 Metaphor, in psychology, 12. 
 
 Method, natural science as, 10. 
 
 Mill, James, 156, 254. 
 
 Mill, J. S., on ideation, 136; on 
 association, 157; on speech, 181; 
 on character, 239; on oblivi- 
 scence, 254 et seq. 
 
 Mind, philosophy of, 3 ; science 
 of, 2 ; nature of, 3 ; as life, 5 ; 
 as subjective experience, 7, 8, 
 12-15 ; states of, 17 ; phases of, 
 21 ; tripartite division of, 20; 
 composition of, 26 ; related to 
 body, 29, 34; m. and conscious- 
 ness, 42, 256 et seq. ; growth 
 of, 48-52 ; mental stages, 52. 
 
 Motor, 38 note; m. impulses, 83. 
 
 Movement, feeling of, 86, 103 
 note ; in emotion, 200. 
 
 Murray, J. Clark, on sense, 58, 
 124; on association, 157; on 
 emotion, 197 note. 
 
 Muscular sense, 83-91. 
 
 Nativist theory, 103 note, 105. 
 Natural science as method, 10. 
 
 Nature, philosophy of, 2 ; n. and 
 
 mind, 8. 
 Nerve-function, 37-46. 
 Nervous system, 28, 34 et seq., 
 
 193, 227. 
 Nominalism, 176. 
 Non-ego, 65, no, 113, 208. 
 
 Object, 97 et seq. ; = obstacle, 
 
 109 et seq. 
 Objective, defined, 8 ; observation, 
 
 14. 
 Objective perception, 98 et seq. 
 Objective Psychology, 28 et seq. 
 Obliviscence, 147-149, 254. 
 Organ, of perception, 115 note. 
 Organic sensibility, 62, 80, 81, 89. 
 Organism, as inherited, 203, 204. 
 
 Pain, as feeling, 23, 189, 191 ; of 
 sense, 79, 80 ; resolution of, 
 210 ; conational import of, 211. 
 
 Parallelism, 44. 
 
 Passion, 202. 
 
 Percept, 134-136; p. and image, 
 137 et seq. ; reinstatement of, 
 145-152 ; p. and concept, 169 et 
 seq. 
 
 Perception, metaphor in, 13; op- 
 posed to sensation, 91, 94; pro- 
 blem of, 96, 97 ; as relating, 
 referring sensations, 95 et seq. ; 
 philosophical aspect of, 97 ; tac- 
 tile, theory of, 10 1 et seq. ; visual, 
 theory of, 118 et seq.; other 
 sense-/., 132, 133 ; in its formal 
 aspect, 133 ; /. and conception, 
 174. 
 
 Philosophy, its meaning and his- 
 tory, 1 ; ph. and science, 3, 4. 
 
 Phrenology, 43 note. 
 
 Physics, as abstract science, 4. 
 
 Physiological Psychology, 32-39. 
 
 Play-impulse, 217. 
 
 Pleasure, as feeling, 23, 189; of 
 sense, 79, 80, 213; resolution of, 
 210; conational import of, 211. 
 
 Plurality of Points, 92. 
 
Index. 
 
 267 
 
 Presentation, defined, 19, 136 
 Presentative consciousness, 136, 
 
 173, 207. 
 Presentative - representative, 136, 
 
 173, 207. 
 Psychology, defined, 2 ; as a science, 
 
 3 et seq. 
 Psycho-physics, 32, 58, 76, 77. 
 Purposive action, 237. 
 
 Reality, 9,7. 
 
 Reasoning, 166, 177-179. 
 
 Recollection, 135. 
 
 Reflex action, 41, 224, 227-229. 
 
 Reflexion, 10, 13. 
 
 Regulative doctrine, 6. 
 
 Relation, organs of, 64; among 
 feelings, 26. 188. 
 
 Relativity, of sensations, 75 ; r. 
 and contrast, 155 ; of knowledge, 
 155 ; law of, 161, 172, 217. 
 
 Reminiscence, 135. 
 
 Re- percept, 136. 
 
 Representation, defined, 18; in 
 tmotion, 203. 
 
 Representative feelings, 207. 
 
 Representative imagination, 135. 
 
 Re - representative consciousness, 
 173, 174, 207, 208. 
 
 Resistance, primary quality of ob- 
 ject, 91, 98, 102 ; modes of, 104 ; 
 historically prior to extension, 
 108 et seq. 
 
 Retention, 24, 162. 
 
 Retentiveness, 24, 162. 
 
 Schopenhauer, 221 note. 
 
 Science, defined, 2, 3, 17 ; abstract, 
 3 ; as objective and subjective, 
 6; natural, 10; as construction, 
 250; s. and philosophy, 2. 
 
 Secondary automatic action, 224, 
 232, 234. 
 
 Self, 13, 208. 
 
 Self-consciousness, 10, 13, 65. 
 
 Self-conservation, law of, 210, 240. 
 
 Sensation, 45, 58-96 ; quantity 
 and quality of, 59 ; seats of, 59, 
 
 114 note, 195 ; order of, 60, 67, 
 80 ; relativity of, 75. 
 
 Sense, stage of, 54etseq. ; general, 
 60-66; special, 61-63, 67-74; 
 emotional value of, 78, 84. 
 
 Sensus vitalis, 61. 
 
 Sentiment, 202, 216. 
 
 Sight, sense of, 71-74; emotional 
 value of, 79 ; intellectual value 
 of, 80 ; coefficient of muscular 
 sense in, 90 ; in perception, 100 
 et seq. 
 
 Similarity, law of, 152, 154, 156, 
 159 et seq.; ground of concept, 
 167 et seq. 
 
 Skin-sensibility, 67-69, 80; intel- 
 lectual value of, 80-82. 
 
 Smell, 70, 7 1 ; emotional value of, 
 79 ; intellectual value of, 81, 
 133 ; coefficient of muscular 
 sense in, 90. 
 
 Sociology, as abstract science, 4. 
 
 Solidity, 117, 123, 131. 
 
 Solipsism, defined, 32. 
 
 Space, perception of, 102 et seq. ; 
 s. and body, 109, 113; passive 
 apprehension of, 116. 
 
 Specific energy of nerve, 63, 64 
 
 Spencer, passim, 
 
 Stewart, 257-259. 
 
 Subconsciousness, 42-44, 149, 
 227, 257 et seq. 
 
 Subject, mind as, 8, 9; meta- 
 physically considered, 15, 27. 
 
 Subjective, defined, 8; i s. sensa- 
 tions,' 140. 
 
 Suggestion, of touch through sight, 
 123; laws of, 151, 154; J. and 
 association, 154, 156. 
 
 Sully, passim. 
 
 Sympathetic feeling, 208. 
 
 Systemic Sensibility, 61. 
 
 Taine, on image, 137 note, 141, 
 143 note; on language, 181. 
 
 Taste, 70, 71 ; intellectual value 
 of, 81, 133 ; emotional value of, 
 79- 
 
268 
 
 Index. 
 
 Temperature, sense of, 69, 70; 
 intellectual value of, 81 ; no co- 
 efficient of muscular sense, 90. 
 
 Tetens, 20. 
 
 Thought, 165 et seq. ; modes of, 
 178; th. and speech, 180-184; 
 in perception, 183. 
 
 Time, representation of, 153 note. 
 
 Touch, proper, C7-69 ; intellectual 
 value of, 80; in perception, 99 
 et seq. ; one psychological abso- 
 lute, 126, 127. 
 
 Ultimate facts, for science, 20 ; for 
 psychology, 15. 
 
 Vague consciousness, 174, 175, 
 203. 
 
 Verification, 234. 
 Volition, 238 et seq. 
 Volume, 131 note. 
 Vorstellimg, 18. 
 
 Ward, on continuity of conscious- 
 ness, 16 ; his psychology purely 
 subjective, 32 ; on extensity, 78, 
 106, 108; on association, 159 
 note; on conation, 221 note. 
 
 Weber's law, 77 ; experiments, 92. 
 
 Whately, 178. 
 
 Will, 23, 26; see also Conation. 
 
 Willing, 21. 
 
 W 7 undt, on innervation, 84, 85 ; 
 on association, 157; on rela- 
 tivity, 164 note; on conation, 
 221 note. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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