c3 ^ $4 W ^ ^ \^ ' CV V r* 3 j-. f !*% -aj> _ » v V .,# 9} . y o * s \ V v v * Of J w o, % <£ ^ ^ ^ w c5> >. rf ** •P V s^ w Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/outlinesofpsychoOOsull WORKS BY JAMES SULLY. OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY, with Special Refer- ence to the Theory of Education. A Text-Book for Colleges. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $3.00. TEACHER'S HAND-BOOK OF PSYCHOLOGY. On the Basis of " Outlines of Psychology." Abridged by the author for the use of Teachers, Schools, Reading- Circles, and Students generally. i2mo. 445 pages. Cloth, $1.50. ILLUSIONS : A Psychological Study. i2mo. 372 pages. Cloth, $1.50. PESSIMISM : A History and a Criticism. Second edition. 8vo. 470 pages and Index. Cloth, $4.00. THE HUMAN MIND. A Text-Book of Psychology. 8vo. 2 vols. Cloth, $5.00. New York: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, Publishers. OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE THEORY OF EDUCATION BY JAMES SULLY, M. A., LL. D. GROTE PROFESSOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND AND LOGIC AT THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON J AUTHOR OF ILLUSIONS, ETC. NEW EDITION, REVISED AND LARGELY REWRITTEN h I NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1892 ) Character as Conscious Reflection ...... 473 Relation of Higher to Lower Volition ....... 474 Volitional Effort : Consciousness of Power . . . . . . 475 Consciousness of Freedom : Free-Will 478 Psychology and Philosophy of Free-Will ...... 479 Education of the Will 482 Special Problems of Moral Education 483 References for Reading 485 CHAPTER XVI. Concrete Mental Development : Individuality. Unity of Mental Development ........ 486 (a) Interactions of Intellect and Feeling : Interests . . . 4S6 (3) Interactions of Intellect and Feeling with Conation . .487 CONTENTS. xvii PAGE Typical and Individual Development 488 Varieties of Mind 489 Scientific View of Individuality : Measurement of Psychical Capacity . 490 Causes of Individual Variation ........ 493 Extreme Variations : (a) Variations of Height : Genius ...... 494 (b) Extreme of Normal Pattern : Eccentricity of Character . . 496 The Normal and the Abnormal Mind 496 Abnormal Tendencies in Normal Life ...... 497 Dreams as Abnormal Phenomena ....... 499 Artificial Sleep : the Hypnotic State 499 Transition to Pathological Psychoses 501 Education and Individuality 503 References for Reading ........ 504 SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. Psychology and Philosophy of Mind : Mind and Body . . . 505 Index 511 PART I. INTRODUCTORY. CHAPTER I. SCOPE AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY. Definition of Psychology. The term Psychology (from \pvxq, soul, and Ao'yos, reasoned account) marks off that department of scientific knowledge which has Mind for its subject-matter. It follows that in order to have a clear apprehension of the subject we must set out with a provisional definition of the word mind. We are all accustomed to talk about minds. We attrib- ute a mind to ourselves, to other persons, and even to many of the lower animals. It is these minds, or rather their common elements, processes or phases, which form the subject-matter of psychology. More particularly it is the higher type of mind as it appears in man that has to be considered by the psychologist. We distinguish between a mind as a unity, the / that thinks, desires, and so forth, and its particular and chang- ing phenomena or states, as thoughts, desires. What the mind is in itself as a substance is a question that lies out- side psychology, and belongs to that province of knowledge known as philosophy or metaphysic. As a science psy- chology is concerned only with the particular manifesta- tions or phenomena of mind, with the psychical processes or ' psychoses ' (as they are now called) which are accessi- ble to observation. i 2 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. The question as to what mind is in itself or as a substance is a meta- physical one, and the solution of it does not seem necessary to psychology, and can best be taken up after the study of the phenomena of mind. No doubt our common ways of speaking about mental processes, e.g., ' I think,' ' my mind recalls,' suggest the idea of a mental unity which holds together and combines the several states which we call psychical phenomena. And it may be said that the language of scientific psychology, such as ' state of mind,' ' the mind's activity,' necessarily implies this idea. Yet the exami- nation of the meaning of this idea does not seem necessary to a scientific treatment of the phenomena of mind. How, it may be asked, are we to mark off these psychi- cal phenomena or states from other facts ? We cannot, it is evident, define such phenomena by resolving them into something simpler ; for they have nothing in common be- yond the fact of being mental states. Hence we can only use some equivalent phrase, as when we say that a mental phenomenon is an element or ingredient of our conscious life or conscious experience, or a state of our consciousness. Or again we may enumerate the chief phases or varieties of manifestation of mind and define it as that which thinks or knows, feels pleasure and pain, and wills.* Finally, we may set mind in antithesis to what is not mind. Mind is non-material, i. ) * thread-like ramifications running from these ^ nerve-centres to outlying or peripheral parts of the body and known as nerves. The nerves are found to consist of bundles of minute white fibres. The more important Fig. i.— Nerve- class of these fibres have as their essential ele- fibre ( ma & m - ii 1 / • i> 1 \ mi • • fied): i, merri- ment a central band (axis-cylinder). This is branous tube enclosed in two sheaths which probably serve (sheath of to insulate the fibre (see Fig. 1). Schwann) ; 2, . medullary The nerves fall into two classes, which, s heath ; 3, though they appear to have the same struct- axis-cylinder. ure, are marked off one from another by their mode of attachment at the periphery and , at the centre, and as a consequence of this subserve distinct functions. Of these the first class are connected at their peripheral termination with some sensitive structure, as the skin, the mucous membrane of the stomach, and so forth. They are put into a state of activity at their periph- eral end by a process of stimulation, and have as their function to convey nervous action to the centre. Hence they are called afferent or in - carrying and also sensory nerves. The more important of these afferent nerves for the psychologist are the nerves of special sense which connect the peripheral organs of sense, the skin, the retina, and so forth, with the nerve-centres. The fibres of these nerves tend to separate towards the peripheral termination, and each fibre has its own terminal appendage, the several ter- minal appendages making together a sort of mosaic work. 2 !8 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. These appendages, which differ greatly in the case of the different organs, constitute the proper "end-organ " of the sense. It is these, as we shall see, that are acted upon by the outer stimulus (as mechanical pressure, light) which ex- cites the organ to activity. The second class are (for the most part) attached periph- erally to the muscles — those bundles of fibres by the con- traction of which movements of the limbs, the heart, etc., are brought about — and have as their function to convey nervous excitation from the centres to these organs. Hence they are known as efferent or out-carrying and also as motor nerves. The most important of these motor nerves, again, for the psychologist are those which run to the striated or " voluntary muscles," as those of the limbs. The chain of nerve-centres or cerebro-spinal axis con- sists of masses of greyish and of white substance arranged in a very intricate manner. The essential element in the grey matter is the " ganglionic nerve-cell," a minute sac- like structure with neck-like projections or ■" processes." With these cells or corpuscles are mixed fibrous elements, and these last constitute the main constituent of the white substance of the nerve-centres. Fig. 2. — Ganglion nerve-cells, a, Bipolar cell from spinal ganglion (of a fish) ; 6, cell from cerebellum ; c, cell showing central origin of nerve-fibre. There is reason to suppose that nerve-cells are con- nected by their processes with nerve-fibres, and that in this way structural continuity is maintained between one nerve- cell and another, and one region of the nerve-centres and other regions. (See Fig. 2 c.) The fact that motor fibres are attached to the anterior portion of the grey matter of THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF MENTAL LIFE. l 9 the spinal cord, sensory fibres to the posterior portion, sug- gests that the central substance is throughout divisible symmetrically into two sides, a motor and a sensory, though this distinction is not fully established. This chain of nerve-centres falls into a number of di- visions, easily distinguishable by their shape, size, and the arrangement of the grey and white substance. The most obvious division is that of the narrow cylindrical spinal cord, and the bulbous globular mass known as the brain. In the cord the grey matter constituting the central organ forms the pith or axis, being surrounded by strands of nerve-fibre. The cord thus serves both as centres for con- necting the sensory and the motor fibres of spinal nerves one with another, and also as a prolongation of these fibres towards the higher centres of the brain. The transition from the cord to the brain is formed by an expansion known as the medulla oblongata. Then fol- low the different organs of the encephalon or brain itself. These are roughly divisible into (i) a group of inferior organs, viz., the cerebellum or little brain, and certain smaller masses called the basal ganglia, and (2) the cere- bral hemispheres forming the larger part of the brain. In these last we have the reverse arrangement of grey and white substance to that found in the cord. The grey matter forms the rind or cortex, and is arranged somewhat after the manner of foliage about a branching system of nerve-fibres. These highest nerve-centres in the cortex are connected by bundles or skeins of nerve-fibre with corresponding regions in the other hemisphere, with the lower centres, basal ganglia, and lastly with the medulla and cord. These last fibrous paths undergo a more or less complete crossing or ' decussation,' so that fibres coming from one of the right limbs pass to the left hemisphere. The same thing is true of the "cranial nerves," those which enter the skull and attach themselves directly to one of the lower centres of the brain, and which include the nerves of special sense whose end-organ is in the head, viz., the eye, ear, organ of taste, and smell. 20 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. It is to be added that the nerve-centres are richly fur- nished with blood-vessels. More particularly the brain is surrounded by a minute network of vessels by which its substance is amply supplied with arterial blood. Corpus callosum Corona radiata. Corpus striatum Optic'' thalamus. Ant. pyra- mid of medulla. FlG. 3 (after Waller). — Diagram to illlustrate the course of nerve-fibres from spinal cord to cortex, giving the general plan of the two hemispheres of the brain, with the position of the two chief basal ganglia (corpus striatum and optic thalamus), also the bundles of commissural fibres connecting the hemispheres. It is evident from this slight sketch of the Nervous Sys- tem that it is a system of closely conjoined parts by means of which action at any one point, say of a sensory nerve, may be propagated in a number of definite directions so as to affect other and distant regions of the system itself, and the end-organs connected with this system. Not only so, we see from the arrangement of the nerve-centres that they THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF MENTAL LIFE. 2 I form a series of organs of growing complexity, admitting of more and more intricate and varied connexions between one point of the organism and other points. Thus the grey matter of the cord is a meeting-point for comparatively few paths afferent and efferent, and consequently its actions are marked by a high degree of simplicity and invariability. The higher centres on the contrary contain meeting-points for a much larger system of nervous paths, and conse- quently provide a field for more intricate and varied actions. Function of Nerve-Structures : (a) Nerves. The nerve-fibres are, we are told, pure conductors. Their sole function is to transmit nervous excitation from one point of the nervous system to another. But of the exact nature of this nervous activity little is known beyond the common assumption that it is some form of molecular vibration or tremor. It is found to have some important affinities with electrical action, but it must not be confounded with this. For one thing, the transmission of a nervous tremor or thrill is relatively slow, being about ioo feet per second. The two classes of nerves marked off as afferent and •efferent are known to have a marked difference of function. Under normal circumstances afferent nerves are only ex- cited by way of their peripheral attachments (sensitive structures, end-organs), and have to conduct the state of nervous excitation or tremor from the periphery to the centres. Efferent nerves, on the other hand, are stimu- lated or ' innervated ' by way of their central connexions, and have to transmit the nervous tremor outwards to the muscles.* * It was formerly supposed that each nerve had its own peculiar and unalterable function. This view is known as the doctrine of the specific energy of the nerves. Nevertheless recent investigation has tended to show that the function of nerve-fibres is not unalterable. Thus it is probable, as we shall see by-and-by, that in the case of the nerves of special sense the same fibres may exercise a variety of functions, that is, transmit unlike modes of excitation, answering to different colours, different tones, and so forth, according to the form of the stimulus that acts upon them. 22 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. {b) Function of Nerve-Centres. The function of the central element, the nerve-cell, seems to differ from that of the fibre. It is not purely conductive. The propagation of nerve-commotion along an afferent fibre suffers a re- tardation when it reaches the central cellular substance. And this delay is followed by an increase in the energy or intensity of the excitation when it issues from the grey substance. This increase in intensity is said to be due to a liberation of energy, which is an accompaniment of the breaking down of complex and unstable chemical com- pounds into relatively simple ones. This liberation of cell- energy or cellular discharge depends on the presence of oxygen in the blood, the supply of which is effected by the system of capillaries already referred to. In addition to thus strengthening the incoming excita- tion the central elements discharge the important function of directing its after-course. Owing to the continuity of the central substance such excitation may be propagated in various directions. The tendency of nervous excitation to diffuse itself over the central area is spoken of under the name of Irradiation or Diffusion. Such diffusion, however, is limited from the first by special anatomical arrangements, and becomes more and more so as the brain develops by the formation of definite lines of customary propagation or connexion between one part of the brain and other parts. Inhibitory Action of Central Structures. This re- striction of the process of excitation within a definite cir- cuit is closely connected with another function of the cen- tral organs, viz., Inhibition. The activity of one region of the nerve-centres may, when restriction has been effected, not only rouse another and connected region to its proper functional activity, but hinder or interfere with this, much as one kind of light interferes with or extinguishes another. Thus the process of motor innervation resulting on an in- coming sensory stimulation in the cord, and known as spinal reflex, is greatly intensified when the higher centres of the brain are removed by decapitation, and this shows that these centres exercise an inhibitory influence on the lower THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF MENTAL LIFE. 23 ones. This inhibitory action of one central region on others is probably carried out by all portions of the cen- tral substance. It is presumably the physiological correla- tive of those mental processes which involve the exclusion of certain activities, as in keeping out irrelevant thoughts in concentration, restraining an impulse to act, and so forth. Mode of Working- of Nervous System. It would thus appear that the Nervous System has for its main work or function the transformation of sensory stimulation into mo- tor excitation through the me- dium of a nerve-centre. Since the process of sensory stimula- tion is attributable directly or indirectly to the action of some external agent on some part of the organism, we may say that the nervous system is a mecha- nism by which the organism is able to carry out actions of ad- justment or adaptation that bring it into correspondence with its environment. The lower parts of this system subserve those responsive acts of self-adjustment which, being re- quired frequently in precisely the same form, are carried out mechanically, and are only very slightly modifiable by changes in the stimulus, such as move- ment of a limb away from some irritant substance. These actions are known as spinal reflexes ; they involve a com- paratively simple mechanism, which may be illustrated by the accompanying diagram, Fig. 4. The higher parts subserve responsive actions which are more complex and variable in their form, and have more of the character of special adaptations, as in walking along an unfamiliar path in the dark ; such actions are known as vol- Fig. 4 (after Waller). — Repre- senting shorter nerve-circuit in spinal reflex action, (i) Periph- eral sensitive point ; (2) Af- ferent nerve-fibre ; (3) Spinal sensory cell ; (4) Commissural (connective) fibre ; (5) Spinal motor cell ; (6) Efferent nerve- fibre ; (7) Muscle. 24 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. untary. These involve a much more extended and intricate mechanism, as may be seen by the diagram, Fig. 5. This work of the higher nervous mechanism involves a certain control over the lower parts. Thus in combining a new group of movements, as in learning to swim, the higher cen- tres must be supposed to stimu- late the lower to a new mode of co-ordinate action, which in time becomes mechanical. On the other hand, any variation of cus- tomary grouping of movements, as when a recruit tries to walk backwards, implies an inhibitory action of the controlling centres on those lower centres by which Fig. 5 (after Waller).— Repre- . J . senting longer nerve-circuit in the Customary CO - OrdinatlOll IS voluntary action. (1) Peripheral mechanically carried out.* sensitive point ; (2) Afferent nerve-fibre ; (3) Spinal sensory cell ; (4) Afferent tract ; (5) Cortical sensory cell ; (6) Com- missural fibre ; (7) Cortical motor cell ; (8) Efferent tract; (9) Spinal motor cell ; (10) Efferent nerve-fibre ; (n) Mus- cle. The "Seat," or Special Organs of Consciousness. After looking into the working of the nervous system as a physi- cal mechanism, just as if there were no conscious life attached to it, we have now to consider its relation to the psychical activities which constitute con- sciousness. Here our special object will be to determine first of all at what points, and secondly in what precise manner, the current of physical action which we call nerve- commotion is brought into relation to psychical action. Our first problem concerns itself with what is called the " seat " of the mind, but is better translated into scientific language as the special organs of mind, or the "psychical * It has been assumed here that all movement is reflex in form, being initiated by a sensory process. According to some physiologists, however, there are movements called ' automatic ' which issue from an immediate excitation of motor centres probably by some form of stimulus supplied by special conditions of the blood in the cerebral capillaries. THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF MENTAL LIFE. 25 centres." The question here referred to may be put thus: What actions of the nervous system are the immediate tem- poral concomitants of psychical activity ? That there is a special connexion between the cranium and mental activity is an idea which was reached by an- tiquity Modern investigation confirms this idea and ren- ders it precise. Experiment has shown not only that the stimulation of the peripheral region of a nerve precedes by an appreciable interval of time the appearance of a con- scious sensation, but that if the connexion between end-or- gan and brain is sundered the outer half of the nerve may be stimulated without the production of any conscious phe- nomenon. Hence we conclude that the psychical result of exciting a sense-organ occurs only when the effect of this is transmitted to the central organs. Not only so, modern research has established the propo- sition that our conscious states are not immediately asso- ciated with the actions of the lower centres of the spinal cord. These actions, as has been shown by stimulating the spinal nerves of decapitated animals, are reflex in form, and compared with the actions carried out by means of the brain-centres, uniform, like the movements of a machine. Hence they are commonly assumed to be unconscious, that is, unaccompanied by conscious activity.* It appears to follow that psychical processes are spe- cially related to the actions of the higher nerve-centres in the cranium. And this position has been well established by a chain of positive evidence The Brain as Organ of Mind. That the phenom- ena of our conscious life are connected with the actions of the brain is suggested by the fact that mental excite- ment, strain, or fatigue is apt to induce sensations which we commonly localise in the head. It is still more dis- * This conclusion is not, however, accepted by all. Even a decapitated frog modifies his actions within certain limits, e. g., rubbing off a spot of acid on the left side of his body with his right leg when his left leg has been amputated : and some, as Pfluger, would, on this ground, ascribe to the animal a subordinate " spinal" mind. 2 6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. tinctly suggested by the common observation that an injury to the brain produces unconsciousness. When to such common observations science added the fact that the brain is the great central station or meeting-point of the nervous system, the inference that it has a special signifi- cance as an organ of mind became inevitable. The full proof of this connexion has, however, only been supplied by recent physiological research. These investigations furnish a mass of consilient evi- dence of the most convincing kind in support of the proposi- tion that the nerve-centres of the brain have a special sig- nificance as the organ of mind. Among these proofs may be instanced : (i) the demonstration that peripheral stimu- lation must be transmitted to the brain before sensation arises ; (2) the discovery that mental activity is accompanied by an increase of circulation in the brain; (3) the fact that mental activity is followed by an increase in those waste- products which are known to be elements of nerve-cells (their phosphorised constituents) ; (4) a mass of facts (the outcome partly of pathological observation, partly of ex- perimental destruction of different portions of the nerve- centres) going to show that injury to the brain is attended with some interruption of the psychical activities making up normal consciousness; (5) the important fact that any in- terruption of the supply of blood to the brain by means of one of the great arteries running to the organ is followed by a profound disturbance if not a suspension of conscious- ness; (6) the confirmation of this physiological evidence by the results of comparative anatomy, which show that the development of the brain and the degree of intelli- gence vary, roughly at least, in a direct ratio among dif- ferent species of animals, races of mankind, and individual men. Modern physiology has not only fully established the connexion between the brain and mental activity, but it has gone some way to make it probable that it is the highest centres in the cortex of the cerebral hemispheres which form the immediate physical basis of our mental life, so far at least as THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF MENTAL LIFE. V this involves clear consciousness. According to this view, it is only when sensory impulses are transmitted to the ter- mination of the afferent fibres in the cortex that a distinct sensation arises. And all volitional initiation of movement takes its start in the same supreme region. A further question arises as to the specific functions of different regions of the cortex. The attempt of the phre- nologists Gall and Spurzheim to connect different faculties with definite localities on the surface of the brain has been condemned both by psychologists and physiologists. More recently the subject has been approached from the physio- logical side under the heading, the Localisation of cere- bral functions. A series of experiments (supplementing the results of anatomical and pathological observation) has been carried out for the purpose of connecting definite re- gions of the cortex with particular varieties of psychical elements. Such experiments have undoubtedly established special correlations between certain regions of the cortex and par- ticular groups of psychical elements (sensations and con- scious movements) and enable us to speak of particular centres of this and that order of sensations and movements Thus physiologists are able to mark off, roughly at least, a particular centre for visual sensations, auditory sen- sations, the movements of the eye-balls, of articulation, and so forth. At the same time, there is no reason to think that particular psychical processes are related to sharply-defined cerebral tracts in the way supposed by phre- nologists. Correlation of Nervous and Psychical Processes. Having thus conjecturally mapped out the physical substra- tum of psychical processes, we may inquire into the general correlations between the two sets of operation involved. In what way or ways, it may be asked, does change in the nervous action affect the psychical action ? What are most definite aspects of the concomitance between the two sets of phenomena ? There seems to be a certain correlation in respect both 28 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. of the elementary processes and of the mode of their com- bination. As we shall see more fully by-and-by, quantitative changes in psychical phenomena, e.g., the increase or de- crease of intensity of a sensation of light or sound, are connected with certain homologous changes in the stimulus engaged. Again, there is reason to suppose that qualitative dissimilarities in the psychical elements, as illustrated in the difference between a sensation of smell and of taste, or between a bitter and a sweet taste, correspond to differences in the mode or form of the peripheral stimulation. With respect to the correlation in the mode of grouping, it may be pointed out, even in this introductory stage, that a psychical process can, like a nervous process, be regarded as a sequence of a sensory or sensational, and a motor stage ; also that the co-ordination of psychical elements or particu- lar states into the continuous tissue of our mental life or the " unity of consciousness," as it is called, appears to find its physical counterpart and support in the continuity, both of structure and of functional activity, of the brain- centres. Cerebral and Mental Development. Again, the general correlation of brain-action and mental process be- comes of importance to the psychologist in tracing the course of psychical development. There is good reason to suppose that the brain and the mind develop pari passu. The growth of the brain as compared with that of the whole body follows a curious course. As common observa- tion tells us, the brain at birth is greatly in advance of the body both in size and in weight. It almost reaches its maximum size by about the end of the seventh year. After this it undergoes a prolonged process of development, in which its elements (cells and fibres) multiply in number, more numerous connexions between cell and cell are built up, and the several distinctly-marked regions (folds or convolu- tions) become better denned. This development of the cerebral organs presumably keeps pace with and serves to determine the advance of mind. The dependence of mental development on cerebral THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF MENTAL LIFE. 2 9 changes is illustrated in a peculiar way in the phenomena of Habit. By the term Habit is meant the transformation of once fully conscious mental processes into semi-conscious or automatic actions, as in the practised actions of walking, writing, and so forth. This result depends, it is evident, on the perfect co-ordination of certain central elements. As a result of such perfect " organisation " of psychical actions nervous energy is liberated for the building up of new formations. Physical Substrate of Individuality: Tempera- ment. While the nervous system thus subserves the common typical form of the mental life, it constitutes also the basis of individual character. It is a fact familiar to all good observers of children that clearly-marked dif- ferences in mental aptitude and disposition show themselves within the first years of life. These facts, which point to an original and connate idiosyncrasy or individual character, appear to necessitate the supposition that the nervous system, through exhibiting the same typical plan in all human beings, has its pattern of structure somewhat modified in the case of different individuals. Observation has shown that ex- ceptional powers of intellect are correlated with special richness of convolution ; and it is probable that such ex- traordinary complexity of structure is predetermined by the congenital conformation of the brain. Not only so, there is little doubt that differences of mental disposition, as that between the quick, lively, and slow, tenacious mind, have their physiological counterpart in the functional dif- ferences of the nervous system. The old doctrine of Tem- perament was a crude attempt to fix the physical substratum of such individual differences. A more complete knowledge of the nervous system and its mode of action may one day enable the physiologist to substitute a truly scientific doc- trine of temperament. Modern science has familiarised us with the idea of a hereditary transmission of mental as well as of physical character. The nature of such hereditary transmission will be considered later on. Here it is enough to point out 3 o OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. that the transmission of any special aptitude, taste, or moral inclination from parent to child takes place through the medium of the nervous system. To every distinct in- herited trait or tendency of mind there corresponds pre- sumably some peculiarity in the original constitution or set of the individual's nervous system. In this way we all bring into the world, wrought into the very texture of our brain-centres, the physical basis of our future individual character, intellectual and moral. Practical Bearing of the Correlation of Mind and Brain. The correlations between psychical and physical action just traced out have an obvious practical bearing. The fact that every psychical process is corre- lated with and conditioned by a physical one, that our mental life is made up of a group of psycho-physical processes, makes it imperative that in guid- ing, controlling, and economising the mental activities we should con- stantly refer to the physiological conditions. Since the amount of mental activity at any time depends directly on the amount of disposable cerebral energy, it becomes a'matter of the first consequence, in order to secure the most efficient thought and action, that we should satisfy the conditions of vigorous cerebral action. Brain-power may be lowered by want of nutri- tion, by insufficient supply of oxygen, by any organic cause tending to en- feeble the body generally, as also by fatigue of the brain itself. Hence the importance of discovering and choosing efficient moments, that is, moments when the tide of brain-power is at its highest, for all the severer forms of mental activity. This applies not only to the economical regulation of our own brain-activities, but to the economical management of brain-power in the young. Thus the putting of the chief stress of school-work into the morning, the frequent remission of class-work in favour of bodily exercise, the due attention to the health and physical vigour of the young learner as the foundation of mental activity, these and similar rules are among the most important pedagogic applications of scientific principles. In addition to the bearing of the general dependence of mental activity on brain-vigour, the modern doctrine of localisation of brain-function sug- gests the practical desirability of varying mental occupation. Taking up a new pursuit, as in passing from some problem of thought to the contempla- tion of a work of art, often serves in lieu of complete relaxation of brain- work ; and this appears to find its explanation in the fact that different kinds of mental activity, especially when distinct sense-organs are in- volved, engage different central structures. Here, again, applications to the teaching art at once suggest themselves. We may do much to avoid brain-fatigue in our pupils by frequent change of lesson, whereby brain- activity is shifted from one region to another recuperated by rest. This is THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF MENTAL LIFE. 31 especially true of occupations which bring in new sense-organs, as in a transition from an exercise in writing to an oral lesson, or to singing. REFERENCES FOR READING. A fuller account of the Nervous System in its connexions with mind may be found in the elaborate treatise of Ladd, The Elements of Physio- logical Psychology, or his smaller work, The Outlines. With this may be usefully compared Ferrier's Functions of the Brain, and Bastian's The Brain as an Organ of Mind. PART II. GENERAL VIEW OF MIND. CHAPTER III. CONSTITUENTS OF MIND. Mental Life Divisible into Certain Functions. Our mental life or " stream of consciousness " shows itself as soon as we inspect it to be of an intricate weft-like com- position. The different strands or threads of this weft we are able by psychological analysis to consider apart. (See' above, p. 7.) Such analysis of the concrete 'states of mind ' or " psychoses " into their constituent factors leads on, as has been pointed out, to classification. Thus by dis- tinguishing in a state of mental perplexity an intellectual element, the presence of certain ideas, and a feeling of dis- tress, we may be said to bring it into a relation of likeness to other intellectual states and to other feelings, and thus to group it under each of these heads or classes. There is great need of an improved terminology to mark off the facts of our conscious experience. The expression " mental state," which is commonly used, is open to the objection that it suggests a sharply defined and relatively permanent condition, whereas psychical phenomena are essentially continuous changes or transitional movements. The phrase 'mental operation,' or still better, 'process,' is less open to this objection, and indicates the fact that the least distinguishable phase in the current of our conscious life has something of movement in it. The same idea of a movement or process is expressed by the newly introduced term " psycho- sis," which serves as the correlative of " neurosis " or nerve-process. CONSTITUENTS OF MIND. 33 Feeling", Knowing - , and Willing. The popular psy- chology embodied in every-day forms of expression has long since drawn certain broad distinctions among mental phenomena. Thus we commonly describe a number of op- erations, such as, observing what is present to the senses, remembering and judging as Intellectual operations or acts. So, again, we bring a variety of mental states, as fear, hope, disappointment, vindictiveness, remorse, under the general description of Feeling, or Affective States.* And, lastly, we bring together other operations, such as the actions we perform for a purpose or end, and the processes which accompany those actions, as deliberating and resolv- ing, and mark them off by the general description of voli- tion, willing, or active states. These three categories have been regarded by most modern psychologists as indicating the primary functions or fundamental modes of activity of mind. All that the mind does can be brought under one or more of the follow- ing heads : (a) Knowing, Cognition, or Intellection ; (b) Feeling, States of Pleasure and Pain, or Affective States ; and (c) Willing, Conation, or Active Processes.f Our men- tal life may thus be said to be composed of ever-varied combinations of these functional activities as its ultimate factors or constituent elements. In thus adopting the popular scheme of three broadly distinguished modes of mental activity, the psychologist seeks by a further application of analysis to detect the es- sential or radical element in each. Thus he aims at pene- * As there is no adjective corresponding to the substantive feeling, it is customary to use emotional state as an equivalent for feeling. It is to be noted, however, that the term emotion is properly confined to the higher and more complex feelings. f The terms commonly used to mark oft the three phases of mind are somewhat ambiguous. Thus 'feeling,' which here indicates states of pleasure and pain, is not only used as the name of a particular sense (touch), but also as the generic term for all simple psychical phenomena, e. g., sensations. There is a similar ambiguity in the terms action and active, which are now employed generically for all mental operations, now specially for the conative or volitional phase of these. 3 34 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. trating below the variety of intellectual operations which we popularly refer to distinct ' faculties,' as Observation, Reason, and at finding the common elementary process or simple functional activity that-runs through this variety. Primary Intellectual Functions. If we compare these different types of intellectual operation we may readily discover such an elementary process. To perceive, and to think, are alike reducible to certain processes car- ried out on materials supplied by the senses, and known as Sensations. Thus when I perceive an orange I group to- gether a number of sensations, those of a particular colour, taste, and so on ; and, moreover, recognise the colour, etc., now presented to me as similar to what has been presented before. So in thinking about the qualities of oranges or of fruit in general, I am making use of, and carrying out cer- tain operations upon, materials obtained, in the first place, through the senses. The primary intellectual functions consist in establish- ing or consciously realising certain relations among the data supplied by sense.* Of these relations the most important are Similarity or Agreement, Difference or Dissimilarity, and connexion in time or place constituting wholeness or unity. When I recognise a friend in the street, I am aware, more or less distinctly, of a relation of likeness between what is now seen and what was seen before ; I am also (vaguely) aware of relations of difference between this ob- ject and other objects. Not only so, by connecting what is now presented to sight with what I already know, I take up the impression into a whole, viz., the idea of my friend with all the associations or complications which this idea involves. These elementary processes may be marked off as Assimilation, Differentiation, or Discrimination, and As- sociation. It is to be noted that while Differentiation introduces * The fact that intellection has to do with apprehending relations is brought out in Herbert Spencer's theory of mind as made up of feelings, i. e., simple psychical states and " relations between feeling." {Principles of Psychology, vol. i. part ii. chap, ii.) CONSTITUENTS OF MIND. 35 separateness or distinction of parts, both Assimilation and Integration effect Conjunction and Combination. Hence we may say that intellection consists in a double process of Separation and Combination, Differentiation and Integra- tion, or Analysis and Synthesis. The processes of intellection further involve a property which is sometimes given as a primary element of intellect, viz., Retentiveness, or the power of retaining past impres- sions, and recalling them when no longer supplied by their external cause. Thus, in the illustration just considered, it is evident that I should not recognise the moving form as my friend if this peculiar appearance to the eye had not been firmly stamped into the mind so as to be revived now. It is through this retentive power of the mind that the pre- sentative element given to us in sensation afterwards reap- pears under a re-presentative form.* Retentiveness is included by Dr. Bain with Consciousness of Difference and of Likeness as a primary function of intellect. f Its position in Intel- lect is, however, a unique one. The mere retention of an impression does not constitute knowing or cognition, as the processes of discrimination, etc., constitute it. It is rather the underlying condition of intellective ac- tivity than a part of the knowing process itself. As we shall see presently, it underlies the whole process of intellectual, and indeed of mental devel- opment. Constituent Elements of Feeling: Pleasure and Pain. In the case of the feelings or affective states the elementary functions stand out pretty clearly. To be af- fected by joy, grief, fear, or hope is to be affected agreeably or disagreeably, that is to say, to experience pleasure or its opposite, pain, in a greater or less degree. All modes of feeling, from the lowest forms which connect themselves with the bodily life, as hunger, warmth, to the highest forms known as emotions, as Love, Admiration, Regret, exhibit this double element in feeling. And, according to the more * Presentative, presentation, refer to what is immediately presented to us by the channel of the senses. Re-presentation is the revival of this in the shape of a mental image. f See Compendium of Mental Science, book ii. § I. 36 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. common psychological view at least, there is no feeling which does not exhibit the colouring or ' tone ' of the agreeable or disagreeable.* Sensibility to pleasure and pain may thus be said to be the essential element in our affective states or emotional life. Fundamental Functions in Willing. As in the case of Cognition and Feeling, so in that of Conation or Volition we may resolve the variety of operations covered by the term into certain constituent functions. Volition appears to follow two main directions. These are (i) the bodily direction of motor or muscular action, as in moving a limb ; and (2) the mental direction of attention, as in listening for a sound. These two directions of volitional activity are clearly marked off from one another in common thought. We know the difference between exerting muscular force, as in lifting a body with the arm, and scrutinising the same ob- ject with an attentive glance. Nevertheless they will be found to be closely connected. All attention involves some muscular action, as in fixing the eye on an object: on the other hand, all voluntary movement takes place by direct- ing attention to the idea of a movement. It follows that all voluntary action has as its essential factor attention, which again receives its characteristic colouring from the psychical concomitant of muscular action, viz., the peculiar sensation of muscular exertion or strain. Mental Functions and Faculties. The attempt to reach elementary functions of mind and to exhibit all concrete mental operations as com- pounded of these is comparatively recent. The tendency of psychologists has been to separate as sharply as possible different modes of operation by referring them to distinct faculties. Thus will was viewed as a faculty distinct from intellect ; and within the domain of intelligence, observation as a faculty distinct from imagination, this distinct from judgment, and so forth. The extreme form of the faculty-theory was a view of mind as made up of a number of separate powers, each of which carried on its * This point is, as we shall see later, not conceded by all psychologists some holding that feeling may be neutral or indifferent as regards pleasure and pain. CONSTITUENTS OF MIND. 37 operations with supreme indifference to all the rest, and as having no more organic unity than a number of sticks fastened together in a bundle. This way of regarding mind is still met with not only in every-day unscientific ' psychology ' but in works on education. The faculty-hypothesis, which has been severely criticised by Herbart, Wundt and others, is open to the fatal objection that it overlooks the organic unity of mind. Physiological Concomitants of Mental Function. If there is a general correlation between mental and nerv- ous processes, it is to be expected that corresponding with each of the distinct varieties of mental function, feeling, in- tellection, and conation, there will be a particular division or aspect of nervous process, and this correspondence may be traced up to a certain point. It has been pointed out that the typical nervous process falls into two parts, viz., sensory stimulation and motor innervation, or motor discharge. Now, all intellectual activity is carried out upon, and so involves sensations, that is, the psychical re- sults of sensory stimulation ; either in their original form as presentative elements, e. g., impressions of colour, or as worked up into what are known as representations (images, ideas). Accordingly intellection may be said to be specially related to sensory processes, and to the co-ordination of sensory components by central connexions. In like man- ner volition stands in a special relation to the motor side of the nervous system. The nervous correlatives of Feel- ing are less obvious. In respect of its origin it stands in close relation to sensory processes, in respect of its mani- festation, to motor processes. The tripartite division of mind into Feeling, Cognition, and Conation has only recently been adopted. The ancient mode of dividing mind as fixed by Aristotle was bipartite into intellect and will, a division which still survives in popular psychology (" the intellectual and moral faculties"). The recognition of three functions is due to the German psychologists of last century. Even now psychologists are not agreed in regarding the three modes of mental activity as equally primordial. Thus in Germany Herbart and his school tend to make presentation, that is, the cognitive element, funda- mental, and to view feeling and conation as secondary and derivative. A somewhat similar attitude is taken in this country by Hamilton, in so far 33 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. as he regards consciousness as essentially cognitive, and at the same time the mental condition of all varieties of mental states. Others again, as Horwicz, would give to feeling a fundamental position on the ground that in the development of the infant as also of animal life it is the first and primordial manifestation of mind. Relation of Feeling, Knowing, and Willing. Sup- posing these three modes of mental functioning to be radi- cally distinct, a further question arises as to the way in which the three constituents come in, and behave one towards another, in the actual performances of our con- crete minds. Now, at a first glance, there appears to be a direct an- tagonism between these psychical factors, so that no one can operate fully save through the momentary repression of the others. Thus all strong feeling (emotional excite- ment) tends to preclude at the moment the processes of intellection and of volition. Thinking implies, at the mo- ment, a certain subsidence of the feelings, and also a con- siderable suppression of outward action or movement. In- deed, we may say that no one phase can appear in its highest intensity without tending to eclipse for the time the other phases. Yet while there is this measure of opposition between the three functions as rival tendencies to become conspicu- ous and predominant, we are not to suppose that they ever act in perfect isolation one from the other. The mind is an organic unity, and its activities have the closest degree of organic interdependence and interaction. To begin with one of the most familiar of these rela- tions, there is a close connexion between thought and feel- ing. A large number of our feelings (the Emotions) are called forth by, and indeed organically bound up with, in- tellectual states (ideas, recollections, anticipations). Con- versely, feeling influences the course of the thoughts in many and profound ways. We habitually think the thoughts which please us, that is, which connect themselves with and gratify our feelings. Again, feeling and thought interact with conation. We act because we are moved by feeling and guided by cognition or thought. Reciprocally, volition CONSTITUENTS OF MIND. 39 directs and controls the process of thought or intellection, and, in close connexion with this, the flow of feeling. If we take any mental state or " psychosis " in its con- crete fulness, we shall by close inspection detect each of the functions co-operating in some degree. Thus when we are said to be affected by passionate grief it is easy to rec- ognise a mass of more or less distinct ideation,* and a num- ber of impulses to action. It may be said then that all C07?iplete psychoses are compound products into which the three psychical functions enter as elementary factors. A further question raised by Lewes, Ward and others is whether the three functional activities uniformly combine in one mode of arrangement or scheme. If we start from the physiological side, the fact that the typical nervous process is reflex suggests at once that the cognitive pre- cedes the conative phase. And there is no doubt that many of our concrete mental states or psychoses lend themselves to the scheme, a presentation or representation attended by feeling leading on to conation. Yet to attempt to force all our mental processes into one mould in this way is futile. The mental functions interact, that is, act recipro- cally one upon another. Thus, while the cognitive element directs the conative process, the conative process in the shape of attention is in its turn an essential factor in every complete process of intellection. It follows from the above that we cannot classify our concrete mental states or psychoses by bringing each under one, and only one, of these heads as if it were a pure feel- ing, cognition or volition. Strictly speaking, every variety of mental experience can be brought under any one of these, three heads according as we view this or that con- stituent element. At the same time most of our mental operations are characterised by a sufficiently marked pre- ponderance of one of the phases to justify us in referring it to this rather than to the others. * ' Ideation ' is the word now frequently used for the process of form- ing ideas. It is thus equivalent to "representation," in its contrast to " presentation." 4o OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. Truths or Laws of Mind. We saw above that the psychologist analyses and classifies mental phenomena in order to go on to establish general propositions about them. These are known as truths of mind. The most important of them are commonly spoken of as laws of mind. These truths or laws set forth the relatio?is of psychical phe- nomena, whether among themselves or between them and the correlated physical processes. The most important of these relations are connexions in time, and more particularly relations of dependence or interdependence. Psychological laws, like those of physical science, seek to account for a phenomenon by formally enumerating the conditions, which, taken together, result in its production. Here again mental science is supplementing and ren- dering precise the inductions reached by popular thought. Men have for ages observed certain relations of depend- ence between circumstances and character, and one trait of character or habit and another. All the well-known say- ings about character and life embody these observations. Such trite remarks as " experience is the best teacher," "first impressions last longest," contain the rough germ of psychological truths. The psychologist seeks to take up these " empirical generalisations " into his science, exhibit- ing them as consequences of his more accurate scientific laws. As an illustration of such a psychological principle we may take the well-known Laws of Association, which set forth the fact that when particular conditions are realised ideas will be revived. These laws are universal in the sense that they will be found to apply not merely to intel- lectual phenomena or presentations, but to feelings and to actions. In thus seeking to connect psychical phenomena with their conditions the psychologist may sometimes content himself with a reference to immediately preceding conditions. Thus he may explain what is known as a percept as the product of the process called perception, in which process sensations and other factors take part. But, as already CONSTITUENTS OF MIND. 41 pointed out, a complete explanation of psychical phenom- ena will require him to go beyond this, and to view the present psychical process as in part determined by remote antecedents. Thus the Laws of Association explain the sug- gestion of ideas one by another as the result of a conjoint occurrence of the original sense-experiences. The full car' rying out of this idea of psychological explanation takes us on to the genetic or historical view of mind spoken of above. While thus seeking to formulate laws of the greatest generality, the psychologist will also aim at pointing out more special conditions. Thus he will formulate the par- ticular conditions, psychical and physical, of feeling as dis- tinct from presentation, and further specialise his principles so as to enumerate the particular group of conditions which determines the growth of some variety of feeling, as the Moral Sentiment. Value of Analysis of Mind to the Educator. A word or two may suffice to indicate the more important bearings of this chapter on the art of Education. To begin with, since the educator is engaged in exercising the mind by stimulating some process as observation, or recollection, he requires an accurate scientific understanding of this process. A teacher will often fail to secure a good piece of observation or reasoning from his pupil because he does not see all that the process includes, e.g., discrimina- tion in observing, assimilation or tracing out resemblances in reasoning. It is obvious, further, that a knowledge of the laws of mental processes, of their co-operating conditions, must be a matter of the greatest practical utility to the educator. Since his aim is to evoke some variety of mental activity and to secure a particular mental product, he needs a precise knowledge of the law of this activity and of the conditions on which the desired result depends. Thus in order to render the meaning of words as clear and definite as possible to a child's mind he will do well to note the conditions on which a clear notion or concept depends, such as a firm grasp of a variety of concrete examples. Again, though the art of education is concerned primarily with the in- tellectual side of the mind, the educator will be called on to deal with the other sides also. Thus the development of the will and moral character is looked upon as an integral part of any complete plan of education. Not only so, the claims of feeling to a special independent mode of culture are now coming to be recognised, as is seen in the greater attention paid to sesthetic education. In this way the teacher needs to study the special laws which govern each side of the mental life of his pupils. He requires 42 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. further to grasp the organic unity of mind, the interaction of thought, feel- ing, and volition. Thus in dealing with the child's intelligence he must see how feeling or interest, together with the activity of will in the shape of effort (concentration of mind), is involved. Similarly as moral educa- tor he must discern the way in which the intellectual processes, reflection, thought, contribute to right conduct. REFERENCES FOR READING. On the Analysis or Division of Mind the reader may consult Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, Introduction ; Ward, article " Psychology," Ency- clopedia Britannica, p. 39 ff. ; Hoffding, Psychology, iv. ; and J. M. Bald- win, Handbook of Psychology, chap. iii. CHAPTER IV. PRIMITIVE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS: SENSATIONS, ETC. Elements and their Combination. In the preceding chapter we have distinguished between the ultimate con- stituents of Mind. These affective, intellective, and cona- tive factors indicate different phases of the mental life and different directions of mental development. We have now to trace the development of each constituent, so far as this is possible, apart from the others, from its most rudimentary to its mature form. This exposition of the threefold movement of develop- ment will necessarily begin with an account of the elements, or those simplest psychical phenomena with which the men- tal life of the individual begins. These are to be found, as already observed, in sensations and other simple phenomena closely conjoined with these. In the present chapter we shall be concerned with these elements. In a succeeding chapter we shall inquire into the processes by which these elements are combined into higher and more complex forms. (a) Sensations. Definition of Sensation. The term Sensation, as commonly used, has a certain ambiguity. In every-day language we apply the name to those simple mental affec- tions which are connected with variations of bodily state, as sensations of cold, of hunger, of cramp. We hardly de- scribe the mental effect of light, sound, and so forth, as sensations. Psychologists have long since extended the denotation of the term so as to include all the simple psy- 44 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. chical phenomena arising immediately out of the action of the senses. A sensation, being an elementary mental phenomenon, cannot be defined by being resolved into anything more simple. Its meaning can only be indicated by a reference to the nervous processes on which it is known to depend. Ac- cordingly, a sensation may in a manner be defined as a simple psychical phenomenon resulting from the stimulation of the peripheral extremity of an afferent nerve when this is propa- gated to the brain (psychical centre or ' seat of conscious- ness '). Thus the stimulation of a point of the skin by pressure, or of the retina of the eye by light, gives rise to a sensation. The more important of our sensations, those of the five senses, are pro- duced by the action of some external agent, as pressure or light, on the end-organ. But it is not desirable to refer to this in our definition. In the case of many of our " organic " sensations, those due to changes in the vital processes, as hunger, thirst, there is no such external agent at work. It is to be noted that a pure elementary sensation according to this defini- tion is, so far as we know, a fiction, postulated only as a necessary starting- point. What seems a pure sensation to us in mature life when we begin to study it, is really complicated by residua of past sensations, and is the re- sult of rudimentary processes of assimilation and integration. By defining the term we are able to define the corre- sponding abstract term, Sensibility. This means the ca- pacity of experiencing or being affected by sensations. It is to be noted that sensibility, like sensation, refers to the psychical effect, and not to the physiological process. It is true that we are wont to attribute sensibility to the portion of the organism in which the process of stimulation is set up, as the hand, the tongue. But this is due to that unalter- able habit of projecting and localising our sensations, the origin of which will be dealt with by-and-by. Presentative and Effective Element in Sensation. If we examine our sensations we may, in most cases at least, easily distinguish two elements or aspects which clearly contrast one with another. Thus a sensation of taste, say that of a pear, has a particular character (or char- PRIMITIVE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS. 45 acters) by means of which we come to know what this sen- sation stands for, viz., the pear. This element may be called the intellectual element since it subserves cognition, or the presentative element inasmuch as it enters into the "presentations of sense" or sense-perceptions to be ex- plained hereafter. But the flavour of a pear has a second and distinct aspect, viz., a pleasantness or agreeableness, in consequence of which it is liked, prolonged, and desired. This is a properly affective element, and may be marked off as sense-feeling, that is to say, that elementary phase of feeling which is immediately involved in sensation. As we shall see presently, the relative proportion of these two elements varies greatly in the case of different classes of sensation. General or Common Sensation : Organic Sense. All parts of the organism supplied by sensory fibres from the cerebro-spinal system give rise to sensations. These fall into two main classes : Common or General Sensation, and Special Sensation. The former involve no special structure (end-organ) at the peripheral termination of the nerve-fibres, the latter do involve such a structure. The common sensations together make up what has been vari- ously called the organic or the systemic sense. Common sensation includes certain sensations which result from changes in the skin and the outer region of the body generally, including the special organs as the eye and the muscles, and also other sensations connected with the internal vital organs. The former comprise sensations of tickling, tingling, shivering, certain muscular sensations, as cramp, the painful sensations resulting from severe pressure and laceration of tissue, and so forth* The organic skin- sensations have to be carefully distinguished from the sensations of touch proper. The internal sensations are those which accompany special conditions, and particu- larly all disturbances, of the vital functions, as those * It is not certain whether the sensations of muscular fatigue should be included under organic sensations, or whether they belong to the class of special muscular sensations to be spoken of presently. 4 6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. of tight-breathing, hunger, indigestion, local inflammation and heat. These common sensations are apt to blend in a mass, so that it is exceedingly difficult by analysis to single them out for careful observation. So far as this is possible we find that they have very little of a definite presentative aspect, corresponding to the peculiarity of a sensation of blue colour, or of a bitter flavour, while they have a strong- ly marked effective tone (agreeableness or disagreeable- ness). Owing to their lack of distinct presentative character and to the fact that they are not the direct effects of the action of external objects but involve a change of condi- tion in the part affected, the common or organic sensations give us no knowledge of the external world. They can no doubt inform us to some extent of the condition of the organism itself, and hence they have been described as the "barometer of our life-process." Specialised Sensibility : Special Senses. The specialised varieties of sensation arising through the stimu- lation of the eye, the ear, and so on, are marked off one from another by great definiteness of presentative charac- ter. This peculiarity, as already pointed out, is connected with the fact that each sense has its own specially modified structure or organ, as the eye or the ear, which structure is peculiarly adapted to the action of one variety of stimulus (ether vibrations, air waves, etc.). Owing to this definite- ness of character the special sensations are much more susceptible of being discriminated, assimilated, and inte- grated than the organic sensations. Moreover, these sensa- tions are (in ordinary cases) brought about by the action of external agents or objects lying outside the organism, for which reason they are often spoken of as sense-impressions or impressions of sense. Hence they are fitted to yield us knowledge of the external world. It is the special senses which will chiefly occupy us in tracing the development of intelligence. The special senses are the well-known five, sight, hear- PRIMITIVE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS. 47 ing, touch, smell, and taste. These, it is evident, each in- volve a special mode of sensibility, and a particular kind of 'end-organ' fitted to be acted on by a certain kind of stimulus. Whether we ought to add to these a sixth sense, the muscular, will be considered hereafter. Distinguishable Aspects or Characters of Sen- sation. The importance of the special senses depends, as we have seen, on their possessing certain presentative aspects or well-defined characters, whereby they are fitted to be signs of qualities in external objects, as well as of the changes which take place in these. The sum-total of our knowledge of things is limited by the number of dis- tinguishable characters among our sensations. We will first inquire into these distinguishable characters generally, and then briefly indicate their varying importance in the case of the different senses. (a) Intensity. One obvious difference of character among our sensations is that of intensity. The difference between a bright and a dull light, a loud and a soft sound, is appreciated through what we call a difference of intensity in the respective sensations. The subjective differences correspond to objective differences in the strength of the stimuli. If, as the physicist tells us, every form of stimu- lation, whether ether or air vibrations, or mechanical press- ure, is a variety of movement, we may say that the intensity of a sensation is specially correlated with the breadth or amplitude of movement in the stimulus. All classes of sensation, including the organic, exhibit differences of intensity. Those of the special senses ex- hibit them in greater number or finer gradation than other sensations. We cannot distinguish two shades of hunger as nicely as we can distinguish -two degrees of intensity in the sensations of light and of sound. Such minute differ- ences are intellectually important as a clue to the precise nature or structure of bodies, the degree of force exerted by them, their exact distance from us, and so forth. Thus a sensation of light of given intensity indicates (according to circumstances) a particular degree of brightness in an 4 8 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. object (e.g., a flame, a mass of snow), or its degree of prox- imity to the eye. It is natural to ask whether these differences can be ex- actly estimated. Such a quantitative measurement of sen- sational intensity would, it is evident, serve to give to psy- chology something of that quantitative exactness which Kant and others have desiderated. Of late an attempt has been made to do this. This has been by noting the correla- tions between intensity of sensation and strength or in- tensity of the external stimulus. Relation of Intensity to Strength of Stimulus. The physicist has special apparatus by which the exact quantity of certain at least of the stimuli of our senses, e. g., luminous rays, can be estimated and varied. By help of such apparatus it has been found possible to apply a graduated series of stimuli to a sense-organ, and to note the precise effect of successive increments of the stimulus on the resulting sensations. These researches belong to the new department of experimental psychology known as Psycho-physics. Among the results of this line of research are: (a) Every stimulus must reach a certain intensity before any appreciable sensation results. This point is known as the threshold or liminal intensity of sensation. The situation of this point determines what has been called the Absolute Sensibility of an organ or part of an or- gan. Thus if two portions of the skin, A and B, differ in respect of their sensibility to pressure in such a way that a slighter force of impact (mechanical pressure) causes a sen- sation in the case of A than in that of B, we say that A has greater absolute sensibility than B. (b) When the threshold is passed an increase of the stimulus does not always cause an increase in the intensity of the sensation. A very slight increase (increment) may produce no appreciable effect. It is further found that the amount of increase of stimulus required to produce an ap- preciable difference in the sensation varies with the absolute intensity of the stimulus. Thus a very slight addition to a PRIMITIVE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS. 49 light-stimulus which would be sufficient to produce an in- crease of intensity in the case of a feeble sensation would produce no effect in that of a powerful one. The greater the intensity of the stimulus already at work the greater must be the increase of stimulus in order that a perceptible difference in the resulting sensation may arise. It is found that (within certain limits in the median region of the in- tensity scale) the required increment is directly proportion- ate to the intensity of the stimulus. Thus, whatever the value of s, the stimulus, in order to produce an increase in the intensity of the sensation, s must be increased by ks, where k stands for some constant fraction, as l / to * These results may be expressed as follows: I?i order that the intensity of a sensation may increase in arithmetical progres- sion, the stimulus must increase in a geometrical progression. This is known as Weber's or Fechner's Law. The law has been found to hold good within certain limits only. The magnitude of the fraction representing the incre- ment of stimulus necessary to produce an increase of sensa- tion determines what has been called the Discriminative Sen- sibility. The smaller the fraction the greater the discrimina- tive sensibility. Thus the discriminative sensibility of the finger-tip to pressure is about twice that of the sensibility of the shoulder-blade, the fractions being approximately l / 6 and %. (c) When the stimulus is increased up to a certain point any further increase produces no appreciable increase in the sensation. Thus a very powerful sound may be increased without our detecting any difference. Similarly in the case of a light-stimulus. We do not notice any difference in brightness between the central and peripheral portions of the sun's disc though the difference of light-intensity is enormous. This upper or maximum limit has been called the " height of sensibility " of a sense. (b) Quality of Sensation. In addition to differences of intensity in one and the same kind of sensation, we have * This fraction differs considerably for different sense-organs. 4 5o OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. differences of kind or quality among our sensations. The group of sensations making up a particular sense, as those of sound, are marked off from other groups by a broad difference of generic quality. This is the most obvious dif- ference, and the one first distinguished. Owing to their disparateness or heterogeneity, the sensations of different senses cannot be compared one with another as different tones or colours can. It is only in rare cases, and more particularly in that of taste and smell, that such disparate sensations are ever confused one with another. Next to these broad differences there are finer differ- ences of specific quality within each sense. Thus there are the differences of quality answering to different colours in sight, to sounds of different pitch and of different timbre or musical 'quality' in hearing, and so on. These differ- ences of quality are much sharper or more definite in the case of some sensations than in that of others. They are only very vague in the region of organic sensations, and are much less definite and easily distinguishable in the lower senses (taste and smell) than in the higher. Such differ- ences, like those of intensity, serve as a clue to the proper- ties of external objects. The difference between gold and iron is partly a difference of colour-quality. Physiological Conditions of Quality. Quality of Sensation, like intensity, presumably has its special physi- ological conditions. The generic differences, e. g., those of sensations of smell, of sound, etc., are correlated with im- portant differences in the mode of stimulation, as that be- tween the action of ether vibrations or light on the retina of the eye and mechanical pressure on the skin. These physical differences in the external stimuli correspond, as we have seen, to physiological differences in the special or- gans. Each organ is specially constructed so as to react on the application of a particular kind of stimulus. With respect to the physiological equivalents of specific differences of quality, we know certainly in the cases of sight and hearing that qualitative change in the sensation answers to a certain amount of change in the form (wave PRIMITIVE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS. 51 length) of the stimulus. And it seems reasonable to sup- pose that such differences affect the character of the result- ing molecular activity of the nervous structures. A further question already touched on is whether, and if so how far, qualitative differences involve in every case distinct nervous structures. We may suppose that the dif- ference between red and blue, sweet and bitter, is correlated either with the separateness of the nervous elements (periph- eral and central) involved, or merely with a difference of functional activity in the same elements. Modern research has gone to show that in certain cases, e. g., sensations of hearing and of sight, there is a multiplicity of nervous ele- ments engaged. On the other hand, it cannot be said that separateness of structure has been made out in the case of every ultimate difference of quality. A difference of quality, though sometimes confused in popular language with one of quantity {e. g., in regarding black and grey as dissimilar quali- ties like colours), is in general easily distinguishable from the last. Not only is quality distinct from quantity, but it is independent of this in so far as it is not necessarily affected by changes of intensity. At the same time this independence is not complete. Thus after a certain increase in intensity quality becomes less distinct. As all colours grow very bright they approach one another and tend to become whitish. Similarly the ex- tremities of great heat and great cold lose their qualitative dissimilarity and tend to be confused one with another. Extensity ; Local Distinctness. Next to intensity and quality the most important feature of sensation is massiveness, volume or extensity. Sensation varies in amount or quantity not only with the strength of the stimula- tion, but with the number of nervous elements stimulated, or area of sensitive surface engaged. The extreme difference shows itself between an 'acute' sensation, as that arising from the pressure on the skin of a pin point, and a ' mass- ive ' sensation, as that arising from an extended pressure on the skin. Differences of extensity must be carefully distinguished from those of intensity. It is one thing to increase pressure at a point of the skin, as by piling up a column of sixpenny pieces, another thing to spread a given 52 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. degree of pressure over a larger surface, as in laying the six- penny pieces side by side. Extensity is thus a new quantitative aspect or dimension of sensation. Common observation tells us that when two points of the skin sufficiently far apart are stimulated we experience not one continuous but two distinct sensations. This shows that sensations received by way of distinct and isolated nerve-fibres are (within certain limits at least) distinguish- able one from another. This fact we will call the local dis- tinctness of sensation. This separateness must be viewed as original and anterior to that spatial interpretation of points which, as we shall see, probably comes later. The physiological basis of such a primordial distinctness of sen- sation is to be looked for partly in the fact of the insulation of the several nerve-fibres, and partly also in certain differ- ences in the whole nerve-process which appear (in the case of the skin at least) to characterise stimulation of different points of a sensitive surface. Extensive magnitude and local distinctness of sensation are only found in a definite and precise form in the case of two senses, touch and sight. We do not appreciate extent or distinctness of points with any degree of clearness in the case of the organic sensations, the sensations of taste and smell, or even those of hearing. The probable reason for this seems to be that in the case of touch and sight we have special physiological arrangements which are wanting in the case of the other senses. These consist in the ex- istence of a spread-out sensitive surface supplied by a sys- tem of isolated nerve-fibres arranged in a mosaic-like order, and so capable of being separately stimulated by properly- placed stimuli. The skin and the retina of the eye are the most perfect examples of such a surface. Duration : Protensive Magnitude. One other aspect of sensation may be just mentioned, viz., duration or, as Hamilton has called it, protensive magnitude. Every sen- sation has a certain duration, being either momentary or persistent for an appreciable time. This duration consti- tutes a third dimension or direction of quantitative varia- PRIMITIVE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS. 53 tion in addition to intensity and extensity. That is to say, we may obtain more or less of a sensation in three ways by altering (a) the intensity, (b) the extensity or spread, or (c) the duration. While, however, all sensations (as indeed all psychical states) exhibit this aspect of duration, they do not exhibit it with the same degree of precision or definiteness. Thus some sensations, as for example those of taste and smell, are less sharply defined in respect of their termination, and probably also of their commencement, than the sensa- tions of the higher senses. In the case of sensations of touch, hearing, and sight, we appreciate much more precise- ly the protensive length or time-magnitude. The Series of Senses: Taste and Smell. Coming now to the senses in detail we see that they do not exhibit the same degree of definiteness or the same number of distinct presentative aspects or characters. We usually speak of taste and smell as the coarse or unrefined senses, because we cannot sharply discriminate their sensa- tions, whereas hearing and sight are called highly-refined senses for an opposite reason. By attending merely to the number and fineness of the presentative differences we may arrange the senses in the following ascending order : taste, smell, touch, hearing, sight. A detailed account of the senses, including, as it must do, a description of the peculiar physiological structures involved, would be impossible here. For this the reader can be referred to one of the easily-accessible text-books in Physiology or Physiological Psychology. We must content ourselves with a brief re'sumt of the psychical ele- ments. Sense of Taste. The sense of taste has its own specialised nerve (gustatory nerve) and end-organ (the gustatory flasks or buds contained in certain papilla), which last has its special seat on a particular posterior area of the tongue and the soft palate. The proper stimulus to the organ of taste (sapid substance) is in every case one of 54 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. the chemical substances known as crystalloids, which are either liquid or soluble in the mouth. This fact suggests that the immediate excitant of the gustatory end-organ is a chemical process. Hence taste is commonly spoken of as a chemical sense.* The sensations of taste must be carefully distinguished from other sensations which are wont to accompany them. In the first place, then, true sensations of taste are com- monly accompanied by and confused with organic sensations resulting from the stimulation of the nerve-fibres ending in the alimentary canal or oesophagus. Thus the sensations of relish and disrelish are not pure sensations of taste, but partly organic. In the second place, sensations of taste must be distin- guished from those of touch. The tongue is supplied by nerve-fibres and end-organs of touch proper, and the tip of the tongue is indeed finally discriminative of tactile stimuli. When we take food, whether solid or liquid, into the mouth, we obtain along with sensations of taste proper tactual sensations (including thermal), by which we know the size, shape, softness, grittiness, and temperature of the substance. Lastly, sensations of taste mingle with, and are not easily distinguished from, those of smell. This is due to the proximity of the organs, and to the fact that many sapid substances give off odorous particles. The impairment of the sense of smell by a cold brings home to us how much sensations of flavour owe to the sister sense. The common classification of sensations of taste proper is into four varieties, viz., sweet, bitter, salt, and sour. This classification is not, however, universally accepted, some (as Wundt) adding alkaline and metallic, while others (as Valentin) would reduce the number to two, sweet and bit- ter. This shows that tastes do not lend themselves to a simple mode of classification. This short account of the sense may suffice to show * Other stimuli, as electrical and possibly also mechanical pressure, are capable of calling forth the reaction of a gustatory sensation. PRIMITIVE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS. 55 that it has a very limited value as a knowledge-giving sense. The position of the organ at the entrance of the alimentary canal, and the fact that only a certain number of substances, and these only under definite conditions, are sapid, suggest that the original and main function of the sense is to act as a kind of sentinel, testing beforehand the suitability of substances to be taken into the system of nutriment. By our artificial habits of life the range of sen- sation has been materially extended, but this has been done mainly in the interests not of knowledge but of enjoy- ment. It is only in restricted lines of observation, as chemical investigation, that this sense becomes an impor- tant aid in the discrimination and recognition of objects. Sense of Smell. The sensations of smell, though apt, as we have seen, to be confused with those of taste, are in general sufficiently marked off from other sensations. This differentiation is connected with the peculiarity of the or- gan involved. The end-organ in which the olfactory nerve terminates, and which is situated in a certain region of the nasal passage (regie olfactoria), consists of certain fine ap- pendages that are acted upon in a way not yet fully under- stood by the odorous particles or effluvia borne thither by the current of air in the act of inspiration. Only such sub- stances are odorous as exist in a gaseous form or are va- porisable under given conditions of temperature. The process of stimulation, being connected with the entering of the current of air, is intensified by a voluntary augmen- tation of the inspiration, as in sniffing. As in the case of sensations of taste we have to mark off those of smell from others with which they are apt to be confused. Thus olfactory sensations are distinct from those organic sensations which are given by fresh or stuffy air, and which involve the nerves terminating in the respira- tory cavity. Again, olfactory sensations must be distin- guished from those mixed sensations which involve elements of tactual and common sensation, as for example those obtained by sniffing ammonia, snuff, and so forth. The qualitative variety of odours seems to be far 56 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. greater than that of tastes ; yet the detection and classifi- cation of the elementary sensations is even more difficult here than in the case of the latter. Common language contains no words such as sweet, bitter, sour, which point to certain palpable distinctions of sensation answering to widely-distributed qualities in things. Such verbal distinc- tions as are found, as 'fragrant,' point to the concomitant effect of feeling. For the rest we only name sensations of smell by connecting them with particular objects or sub- stances, as the rose, the lilac, the sea, sulphuretted hydro- gen, and so forth. The organ of smell occupies a position at the entrance of the respiratory cavity analogous to that of the organ of taste at the entrance of the alimentary cavity. And the original function of the sense may well have been that of a judge as to the quality of the air inspired as fitted or un- fitted for the respiratory organ. This function has, how- ever, in all the higher animals become a subordinate one. As we may see in the case of some of the lower animals, notably the dog, a fine olfactory sense may become an im- portant means of discriminating and identifying objects. In the case of man this knowledge-giving use of smell is greatly limited owing to the dulness of the sense; which dulness again is connected with the higher development of other senses, more particularly touch. Hence it is only a comparatively small number of objects and substances that we commonly recognise through the sense of smell. And of these again, it is more particularly those that produce a sensation of smell with a strongly-marked adjunct of agreeable or disagreeable feeling, as certain flowers, garlic, common gas, etc., which come to be customarily recognised and described by means of their characteristic odour. Sense of Touch. General Nature of Tactual Sense. The sense of touch, which has for its main element sensibility to pressure, from its higher degrees to bare contact, is in some respects the least specialised of the special senses. It has for its PRIMITIVE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS. 57 end-organ no definitely circumscribed area of the peripheral surface as the retina. All parts of the skin are sensitive to pressure and give us corresponding sensations. Hence touch has been regarded by some as the fundamental mode of sensibility out of which the more specialised kinds have been differentiated. In the case of human touch, however, we have to do with a highly-specialised form of this sensibility which is to be found definitely localised in certain regions of the skin, and particularly the more mobile organs, as the hand and pre-eminently the finger-tips. This speciality of function is connected with the presence in these parts of certain specialised structures or end-organs (the tactile corpuscles) which are compressed or made to expand as a body presses on the skin or is drawn over it, or, which amounts to the same thing, as the skin is pressed against or drawn over the body. Tactual sensations are to be carefully distinguished from common sensations which are apt to combine with them. Sensations of tickling illustrate the tendency of the two to coalesce. In the experience of being tickled there is a certain element of true tactual sensation, that of gentle contact, which is rapidly intermittent and which commonly shifts from one point of the skin to adjacent points. But the whole effect with its large element of feeling involves the action of the nerves of common sensation as well. The fineness of the tactual sensibility proper is seen in the estimation of degrees of pressure. It is found by experiment, first of all, that different parts of the skin are very unequal in respect of absolute sensibility, or capability of reaction on very weak stimuli. Goldscheider's researches go to show that true sensations of pressure are only obtained at certain minute spots ("pressure spots "), and that the degree of sensibility in different cutaneous areas varies directly with the number or closeness of these spots. The second and more important mode of tactual sensi- bility is the discriminative sensibility to different degrees of pressure. Here definite results are difficult to obtain, 58 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. owing to the fact that in ordinary cases where we estimate higher degrees of pressure, as in lifting a weight, the tact- ual sensibility is greatly assisted by the muscular sensa- tions, to be spoken of presently. By supporting the arm or other part experimented on, and then successively apply- ing different degrees of pressure, it has been found possible to some extent to measure the discriminative tactual sen- sibility of different regions of the skin. Among the results obtained is that the discrimination of pressure pure and simple is much less acute than when the muscular sensations co-operate. The inequalities at different dermal regions, as measured by the smallest difference discernible, corre- spond to some extent at least to known variations of tactual sensibility. Touch, as already pointed out, is characterised by a fine appreciation of extensive magnitude, and of local distinctness of sensation. The discriminative sensibility to separateness of point or locality, which is measured by the smallness of the distance between two points, say those of a pair of compasses, just distinguishable as two, is found by the classical experiments of Weber, aided by those of more re- cent investigators, to vary considerably at different parts. In general, it is finest in those regions, as the fingers and lips, which are known by every-day observation to have high tactual sensibility. It is much finer in the mobile parts, hands, feet, and lips, than in the comparatively fixed parts (the trunk). It is about twice as fine on the anterior as on the posterior surface of the fingers. In the former the minimum distance between the points sinks as low as - 2 of a millimetre (about -oo8 of an inch). It falls off as we go from the extremities (fingers or toes) towards the trunk. This distinguishability of points is related to the frequency or closeness of packing of the nerve-fibres, but the exact nature of this relation is not understood.* * Weber supposed that the area of the skin might be divided into sen- sation-centres, each of which, however, contains a number of nerve-fibres. Goldscheider suggests that the discrimination of two points is only possible when they touch two distinct ' pressure spots.' PRIMITIVE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS. 59 Differences of quality among sensations of touch are less numerous than those among sensations of smell. The most important, next to that of sensations of pressure and of heat and cold, are those of soft and hard, and rough and smooth ; and in the case of these we have in part, if not altogether, to do with differences of intensity and of local character. Thus the contrast between hard and soft, as known purely by touch, is simply that between great and little pressure. It is obvious moreover, that the terms are relative; the same object being called hard or soft in relation to different objects. The difference between smooth and rough, so far as dependent on pure touch apart from movement, is connected with continuity and uniformity of pressure at all points of the sensitive surface in the one case, and discontinuity and inequality in the other. Thermal Sensations. The sensations of hot and cold obtained by contact of different parts of the skin with bodies of various temperatures constitute a second main group of sensations usually included under the sense of touch. Sensations of heat and cold may arise in any part of the organism, and are in this respect closely allied to common sensations. More particularly they are experi- enced through variations in the temperature of the skin. In certain dermal areas they are finely distinguishable in their degree, and in this respect they constitute, like the finer tactual sense, a specialised mode of sensibility. Re- cent research shows that thermal sensibility is confined to certain ' spots ' which are unequally distributed over the skin, but do not coincide with the pressure spots, and that some of these are sensitive only to heat, others only to cold. The sensations of temperature received by way of con- tact of bodies with the skin present a clearly-marked con- trast of quality, viz., that of hot and cold. As is well known, the sensations of extreme heat and extreme cold tend to approach one another. Between these extremes many degrees of hot and cold are distinguishable. In this 60 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. way we get a scale of thermal sensations analogous to that of rough and smooth, and hard and soft, with a neutral or indifferent point, known as the zero-point, in the median region of the scale, which appears to be related to the nor- mal temperature of the part of the skin stimulated. The discrimination of temperature, like that of pressure, varies considerably at different parts of the skin. These variations do not run parallel with those of sensibility to pressure. Since, moreover, the normal temperature of the skin varies at different parts, e.g., at the finger-tips and the inside of the mouth, the zero-point is not the same for all dermal areas. The sensations of hot and cold are known to be highly subjective or relative. Thus they vary with the changing temperature of the part affected. Weber showed that if the hand be held in water of the temperature 54*5° Fahr. and then plunged in water 64-4°, it will feel this last to be hot, whereas if the hand had been put into the second at the outset it would have felt it to be cold. Value of Sense of Touch. Our examination into the sensations of touch shows us that this sense is capable of yielding us a variety of finely-graduated differences. In spite of the few qualitative dissimilarities, as compared with those of the higher senses, hearing and sight, it furnishes us with an exact knowledge of some of the more important qualities of bodies. This result depends first of all on its fine discrimination of degrees of pressure, and then on its clear separation of local characters. Finally, it may be ob- served that owing to the sharp definition of tactual sensa- tion with respect to commencement and termination we may compare them in rapid succession, as we are unable to do in the case of sensations of taste and smell. This knowledge-giving value of touch is further increased by the constant co-operation with tactual sensations proper of the muscular sensations to be spoken of presently. There is little wonder, then, that from the time of Aristotle down- ward touch has been regarded as a sense of the first impor- tance, and that more than one writer should have attributed PRIMITIVE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS. 6l man's intellectual superiority over the lower animals in no small measure to his possession in the hand of so delicate and serviceable a tactile organ. Hearing. Characteristics of Auditory Sensations. Hearing and sight are universally recognised as the highest senses. Here we see for the first time a perfectly differentiated complex organ. The peculiar form of the stimulus (air or ether vibrations) allows of the action of bodies on each of these organs at considerable distances. And just as they stand alone in respect of the delicacy and complexity of the. physical apparatus involved, so they are marked off from the other senses by the rich and delicately graduated variety of their sensations. The peripheral organ, the ear, consists of the end-organ proper, that is, the special structures in which the nerve- filaments terminate, and a mechanical apparatus for collect- ing and bringing to bear on these the air vibrations which form the stimulus. Sensations of sound exhibit numerous and definite dif- ferences of intensity. In the case of sounds of moderate in- tensity we can recognise a distinction of loudness or strength according as the stimulus increases by the addi- tion of about one-third of its strength (amplitude of wave). The superiority of hearing to the senses already consid- ered is most plainly evident in respect of the qualitative dif- ferences of the sensations. The ear presents to us a rich variety of sensuous quality. All ordinary sounds yield complex sensations; and the ear, unlike the senses of taste and smell, is capable of easily distinguishing (within certain limits) the several constituent parts of its complex impres- sions. This power of analysis, aided by objective research, enables us to classify the sensations of sound with some- thing like completeness. The first division of sounds is into musical sounds or tones and non-musical sounds or noises. This distinction is known to be connected with a clearly-marked difference 62 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. in the mode of stimulation. Musical sounds depend on regular or periodic vibrations, noises on irregular or non- periodic vibrations. Whether, in addition to this, different peripheral structures are involved in the distinction, is not quite certain. (a) Musical Sensations. The most important charac- teristic of a tone is what we call Pitch or height. Every musical sound or tone has its particular pitch, without which it would cease to be musical. Differences of pitch constitute the most important qualitative differences among musical sensations. There are as many distinct varieties of musical sensation or tones as there are distinguishable pitches or heights. These differences are known to depend on the rate of vibration of the medium (the atmosphere). A tone of high pitch corresponds to a rapid series of vibra- tions, one of low pitch to a slow series. Such differences in the external stimulus may be supposed to cause corre- sponding differences in the nervous excitations involved.* Although our modern scale recognises only discrete tones separated by at least a semitone, the ear can distin- guish much finer differences of pitch. The scale of pitch is analogous to that of intensity in that there is a lower and a higher extreme beyond which any further slowing or quickening of the vibrations results in the loss of all dis- tinct impression of pitch, and further in that within these extremes the least noticeable change of pitch-quality cor- responds roughly with one and the same proportionate increase or decrease of the stimulus in respect of ra- pidity. f Individuals are known to vary greatly in their discrimi- nation of pitch, and it is this which determines the musical capacity of the individual. Some persons are called ' note- * There is some ground for supposing that sensibility to tone or pitch is connected with a special system of end-organs, viz., the fibres in the basilar membrane of the cochlea of the ear. These seem to be so con- structed as to respond to series of vibrations of unequal rapidity. f The range of pitch, which varies, especially at the upper extreme, with different individuals, extends from about 16 to 40,000 vibrations per second. PRIMITIVE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS. 6 3 deaf ' because they do not distinguish tones even when sepa- rated by a semitone interval and more. In contrast to these some who have a fine musical ear can detect so slight a dif- ference of pitch in certain parts of the scale as to be able to distinguish 200 tones in an octave. In addition to this scale of pitch-quality, there are the differences known as timbre or ' clang-tint.' These are the qualitative differences in sensations of tone answering to differences in the instrument, as the peculiar ' colour ' of the tones of the piano, the violin, the human voice. These dif- ferences have been explained by Helmholtz as due to differ- ences in the mode of combination of the several elementary tones (' partial tones ') which together constitute what ap- pear to the untrained ear the simple tones, but are best de- scribed as the clangs, of musical instruments. Lastly, in considering musical sensations reference must be made to the important fact of Harmony or consonance and dissonance among tones. This is mainly a differ- ence of feeling, that is, of an agreeable and disagreeable effect. Yet there is a difference of presentative character involved. In the case of consonant and dissonant tone- groups alike the ear can much more readily distinguish the constituent tones than in the case of single clangs. Hence the effect is commonly recognised as a complex sensation. It may be added that dissonance involves, as a peculiar qualitative element, a rough grating character the absence of which gives the smoothness to a musical harmony. Non-musical Sensations: (b) Noises. In addition to this wide range of musical sensation the ear distinguishes a vast number of non-musical sounds, the characteristic ' noises ' of different substances, such as the roar of the sea, the rustling of leaves, and the crack of a whip. The pecul- iar character of a noise depends on a number of variable circumstances. One of these is the extent and number of dissimilar stimuli acting on the organ, as in the effect of the murmur of the sea or of a crowd. Again, the mode of variation of the sound from moment to moment is often characteristic, as in the noise of a saw or of a passing vehi- 6 4 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. cle. But the precise nature or composition of noises is still but imperfectly understood. Among noises must be included the important group of sounds known as articulate or language sounds. The pe- culiar character of a k or s sound is precisely analogous to that of a sound of which we commonly speak as a noise. The fact that language sounds are radically distinct from musical sounds is illustrated in the familiar observation that a person may have a good natural ear for the one without having a like discriminative sensibility for the other.* At the same time, tones and noises are not absolutely distinct. Just as ordinary clangs, say those of a violin, have an accompaniment of noise, so most noises involve elements of tone, and owe a part of their character to this circumstance (e.g., the roar of the sea, or of a crowd). This remark applies, among others, to articulate sounds. The researches of Helmholtz go to show that the several vowel sounds are characterised by peculiarities of timbre and thus approximate to true musical sounds. Value of Sense of Hearing. Enough has been said to show the high degree of refinement characterising the sense of hearing. The delicate and far-reaching discrimina- tion of quality just illustrated is, moreover, as we shall presently see, aided by an exceptionally fine discrimination of duration, which allows of a nice discrimination of sounds in rapid succession. In this way we are able through the sense of hearing to acquire a good deal of exact informa- tion, as well as a considerable amount of refined pleasure. The delight of music sums up the chief part of the latter. The former is most strikingly illustrated in the wide range of knowledge derived by way of that system of articulate sounds known as language. As a set off against these advantages, it must be borne in mind that hearing is sadly lacking in respect of extensity * This suggests that noises and musical sounds involve a separate ter- minal apparatus (end-organs) in the ear, a conclusion which is probable on other grounds. PRIMITIVE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS. 65 and distinctness of points. Even if sensations of sound have extensity proper (a disputed point) the appreciation of this is very imperfect. The very structure of the organ and the way in which the stimulus is applied appear to ex- clude a definite discrimination of extensity and number of points such as we find in the case of touch and sight. Sight. Characteristics of Visual Sense. The sense of Sight is by common consent allowed the highest place in the scale of the senses. The stimulus, ether vibrations, greatly exceeds in point of subtlety the stimuli which (under nor- mal circumstances) operate in the case of the other sense- organs. It is owing to the nature of this stimulus, more- over, that the sense of sight is capable of being acted upon by objects at enormous distances, as the heavenly bodies. Conformably to this subtlety of the stimulus, we find that the structure of the eye appears to exhibit a yet greater delicacy than the organ of hearing. This applies both to the end-organ itself, the retina with its several layers, more especially the finely-moulded structures, the rods and cones, in which the fibrils of the optic nerve probably terminate, and also to the optical apparatus, the lens, and other con- tents of the eye-ball, by means of which the luminous stimu- lus is brought to bear on these. The scale of intensity in the case of visual sensations is obviously a very extended one. It answers to all distin- guishable degrees of luminosity, from the brightest self- luminous bodies which we are capable of looking at with- out temporary blinding down to the objects which reflect a minimum of light, and are known as black. The discrim- ination at its best in the medium parts of the scale answers to a change of from about T -J-gth to -j-^th in the strength of the stimulus. The eye's capability of recognising at a glance the particular nature of an object, as well as of dis- criminating a multitude of unlike objects in a scene, rests in part on this delicate discriminative sensibility to degrees of light. 5 66 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. Colour-Sensations. The stimulus of the eye, like that of the ear, varies according to the rapidity of its vibra- tions. The analysis of solar light into its constituent rays in what is known as the prismatic spectrum separates the different kind of rays, that is to say, those of different rates of oscillation. The red rays at one end of the spectrum are the slowest, making about 456 billion of vibrations per second, whereas the violet rays at the other extremity make about 667 billions. These variations in the rapidity of the vibrations occasion (within certain limits) differences in the quality of the resulting sensations. In this way we obtain a scale of chromatic quality resembling that of pitch in the case of musical sensations. The two scales resemble one another further in being series of gradual changes, and in the limitations of the specific qualitative effect at each ex- tremity (violet and red rays). While there are these points of analogy between the scale of colour- sensations and of pitch-sensations, the two differ in important respects. To begin with, the quality of the colour-sensations does not change con- tinuously in exact correspondence with the changes of the stimulus, as in the case of tone-sensations. In some parts of the spectrum considerable changes in the rate of vibration occur without producing any appreciable effect on the sensation. Hence we cannot speak of a colour-continuum in precisely the same sense as we speak of the tone-continuum. Again, the series of colour impressions, instead of assuming the form of a straight line rather assumes the form of a bent or curved line. The extremities red and violet seem to approach one another. Indeed, if the extreme rays are com- bined we have a sensation, that of purple, intermediate between the ter- minal sensations red and violet. In addition to this series of colour-sensations we have for any given colour a scale of purity or saturation. A red or a green, for example, may be more or less whitish, or on the other hand pure as a red ox as a green; so that any colour will present a series of changes according as we vary the proportion of white light to the special kind of light. In certain cases a difference in the degree of satu- ration is commonly spoken of as a difference of colour. Thus what we call pink is simply a whitish modification of a purple. PRIMITIVE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS. 6j The several kinds of rays when combined, as in sun- light, produce the impression white. The same sensation may result from combining different pairs of the several varieties of light in certain proportions. Such pairs of rays, and the accompanying sensations of colour, are spoken of as complementary one to another. Thus blue and yellow, purplish red and green, are complementary. If we add purple to the spectrum series and represent this by a circle, we find that any two kinds of light standing opposite to one another or at the extremities of one diameter are thus complementary. Such complementary colours are com- monly said to go well or to harmonise well with one an- other. The many and intricate phenomena of colour-sensations have given rise to various physiological hypotheses re- specting the structure and mode of activity of the retina. Among these the most popular is known as the Young- Helmholtz theory. According to this the nervous elements of the retina consist of three kinds of fibre. These are acted upon more especially by the red, the green, and the blue or violet rays respectively. These three colours would thus be in a peculiar sense elementary colour-sensations, while other colours, as purple, bluish green, together with white, would be composite. This theory is, however, not universally accepted.* In addition to these numerous differences of intensity and quality, the sensations of sight are characterised by a fi?ie discrimination of points and of extensive magnitude. And it is this circumstance, together with another to be spoken of presently, which gives sight so distinct a superiority to hearing as an intellectual or knowledge-giving sense. Thus it is through the fine distinctions in number of points and extent of impression that we are able to estimate so nicely by the retina the precise form and the magnitude of a visi- * Thus Hering would propose four fundamental colour-sensations, viz., green and red, blue and yellow, to which he adds black and white, each of these pairs being supposed to correspond to two opposite functions of the same visual substance. 68 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. ble object. The fineness of this discrimination is, like that of colour-discrimination, greatest in the central region, the area of perfect vision, and falls off towards the periphery. Movement and Muscular Sense. Definition of Muscular Sense. Sensations are sup- plied us, not only by way of the familiar sense-organs when stimulated by external forces, but also by our own muscu- lar actions. Such actions are important elements in cona- tion, and as such will have to be spoken of by-and-by. Here we are concerned with them merely as contributing presentative elements, analogous to those of tone, colour, etc., which enter into our intellective processes. Muscular sensations may be defined as those character- istic modes of consciousness which are specially connected with the stimulation and the contraction of the voluntary muscles, as those of the limbs, the eyes, the vocal organ. If, for example, I flex my arm or turn my eyes to the right, or exert my vocal and respiratory organ in the act of shout- ing, I have a peculiar sensational consciousness by means of which, independently of any mediately resulting changes of tactile, visual, or auditory sensation, I know that I am " energising " and also something respecting the special character of this exertion. Muscular sensations are thus, though closely conjoined with sensations of the special senses, more particularly those of touch and of sight, sen- sations siti generis. They are marked off from other sensa- tions as active from passive states. These sensations, though in the adult consciousness ap- parently simple, are in reality highly complex. They prob- ably consist in part of the immediate psychical concomi- tants of the central initial stage of the efferent nervous pro- cess, or process of motor innervation, which have been called sensations or less properly ' feelings ' of innervation. At the same time, it is now certainly known that these sensa- tions of innervation are by no means the only factor in the muscular sense. A large part of our muscular experience, as when we move a limb, is made up of the sensational re- PRIMITIVE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS. 69 suits of afferefit nervous processes. That is to say, our muscular, like our other sensations, are, in all normal cases, partly the product of a stimulation of peripheral organs, as the tendons, the joints, the skin (which is stretched and folded by movement), and possibly the muscles themselves, when this is transmitted to the brain. At the same time, the precise part played by these factors in the muscular sense is still a matter of uncertainty.* Varieties of Muscular Sensations. The action of the voluntary muscles gives rise to a considerable variety of sensational experiences. To begin with, it is evident that since our (voluntary) muscular system, unlike a special sense-organ, extends over the whole area of the body and certain of its cavities, and is made up of very unlike organs or structures, differences of peripheral structure will pro- duce differences in the psychical concomitant. A difference of calibre, as between the muscles of the leg and of the fingers, will affect the quantity of the muscular sensation, making it more or less massive or extensive ; not only so, difference in the attachments of the muscles and adjacent tissues will modify the quality of the accompanying sensa- tion in various ways. Thus the psychical correlative of the action of the muscles of a limb will be "coloured" by the articular sensations connected with the pressure of the joint-surfaces, also with the tension of the skin, elements which are wholly or in part wanting in the case of the ocu- lar muscles. Another class of differences in our muscular experience is connected with dissimilarities in the mode of action of the muscles engaged. Here we may confine ourselves to those groups of muscles which are of chief importance as a source of knowledge, viz., those by which our limbs are moved. * Some, as Dr. Bain, hold that they are essentially central in origin, being the accompaniment of the outgoing efferent process of motor innerva- tion. The more recent view, as held by W. James and others, is that they are wholly peripheral in their origin. It seems impossible as yet to decide between these contending views. 7o OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. In considering these varieties of muscular experience we may conveniently set out with the comparatively simple experience answering to a momentary position of a limb. We may then consider the more prolonged experience of movement itself, and finally take up the complicated case which arises when movement is impeded by the presence of an obstacle. Thus we have (i) Muscular Experience with- out Movement : Sensations of Position ; (2) Experience of Movement ; and (3) Experience of Impeded Movement. (a) Experience without Movement : Sensations of Position. The experience answering to a particular posi- tion of the limb may arise either passively or actively. A person may support my outstretched arm, or I may myself hold it out. The former situation, position passively in- duced, is obviously the exceptional one, at least in later life. It is complicated by the skin-sensations of pressure, while, on the other hand, it does not involve the character- istic action of the muscles as made known in active con- sciousness or sense of exertion. We may then dismiss this case, and confine our attention to the normal experience of actively-induced position. It follows from what has been said respecting the probable constituents of the muscular sense that every separate position of a limb, say the arm, will have its own distinguishing psychical concomitants These will consist in part of central constituents, for the relative amounts of innervation in the motor organs en- gaged, that is to say, the groups of muscles together with their antagonists which keep the limb in a particular posi- tion, will vary with that position, e. g., holding the arm horizontally, vertically. The chief distinguishing feature will, however, be the peripheral factor, viz., the peculiar sen- sations arising from the relative position and pressure of the joint-surface, as also those connected with the peculiar state of tension and compression of tendons, adjacent skin, and possibly the muscular fibres themselves. (b) Experience of Movement. In the case of move- ment we have, it is evident, a prolonged experience, made up of a continuous change or succession of sensational ac- PRIMITIVE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS. 71 companiments. This feature of change is essential and characteristic. Movement is not merely that by which we bring about indirectly changes in our surroundings, e. g., the visible scene, it is itself an experience of change. It is reasonable to suppose that the delicacy of our sense of movement, which in the case of certain movements, e. g., those of the eyes, is very great, depends on the fineness of our discrimination for these successive sensational differ- ences. In considering these experiences of movement it is im- portant to distinguish them, so far as we are able, from our perception of movement as occurring in space, which, as we shall see, comes later. These primordial experiences of movement are unattended with any clear consciousness of spatial relation, such as definite position of the limb at a particular point of space, and change of the position in a given direction. Indeed, all clear space consciousness is developed as the result of these first motor experiences. In order to explain the genesis of these perceptions of space, viz., position, distance, etc., by help of this motor ex- perience, it seems necessary to assume two presentative characters in this experience : (a) that answering to direc- tion of movement, and (b) that answering to range of move- ment. It may be assumed that the action of one group of muscles will differ in its psychical concomitant from that of another. In this way the movement of the right arm and of the left would affect our consciousness differently. Movements of the same arm in different directions would, for a similar reason, have different psychical concomitants. Thus the flexing and extending of the fore-arm would dif- fer in consequence of the difference in the order of succes- sion of the several groups of sensations attending the chang- ing positions of the limb. In the second place, all movements will differ on their conscious side according to other characters which have to do with their range or extent. To begin with, then, the mo- tor experience, like passive sensation, varies according to its duration. This is an important circumstance, for, as we 72 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. shall see, it is partly by help of this feature of duration that we come to know how much movement we have carried out in any given case. Again, our motor experience varies according to the ve- locity of the movement. Thus we have one kind of muscu- lar experience in moving the arm or the eye slowly, another in moving it rapidly. This sense of velocity is, it is mani- fest, connected with the rapidity with which the successive phases of the movement on their conscious side succeed one another. Duration and velocity would in themselves constitute sufficient sense-data for reaching a perception of range or extent of movement. In addition to duration and rapidity of change there are other data for forming a perception of distance in the scale of sensational differences answering to successive stages of a movement. Thus a flexing move- ment of the arm carried to the extreme point is accompanied by characteristic cutaneous and other constituents of the muscular sensations which would serve as signs of range or amount of movement. A word in concluding this account of our sensations of movement on the difference between the active and the pas- sive experience. The latter is illustrated when we have our arm flexed by another person. Here the characteristic of the active consciousness is wanting. There is no sense of exertion, such as attends our self-initiated movements, so that the movement is not regarded as our own. At the same time it is clearly a motor experience. The sensations connected with the altering positions of the joints and the skin are similar to those which attend active movement. It is possible, too, that sensations due to the contraction of the muscular fibres are also involved. Hence the explana- tion of the surprising fact recently brought to light by ex- periment that we can estimate the extent of a movement of the arm almost as well when this is passively, as when it is actively induced. (c) Experience of Impeded Movement : Sense of Resistance. The remaining variety of muscular experi- PRIMITIVE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS. 73 ence is that which arises when our impulse to move is coun- teracted by some obstruction ; an experience which has been marked off as " dead strain " (Bain) and as conscious- ness of resistance. This experience may be given either by our own body, as in pressing the arm against the side, the chin against the chest, or by foreign objects. It is these last which are commonly thought of in connexion with ob- structed movement. As examples of this experience of resistance we may take pressing against a heavy body, supporting or lifting a weight, pulling or dragging an ob- ject. Here it is evident muscular sensations are complicated by ordinary tactile sensations, viz., sensations of pressure. The experience is, indeed, made up of a muscular and a tactile experience, the latter being dependent on and vary- ing in degree with the muscular exertion or strain. As we shall see by-and-by, it is by means of this complex experi- ence varied in different ways that we come to perceive the fundamental qualities of material things, viz., impenetra- bility in its various modes, hardness and softness, density and rarity, etc., as well as weight and inertia, i. e., immo- bility and momentum. Active Sense : Touching, Seeing, etc. The muscu- lar sense, though sharply distinguished from passive sen- sation in its character and mode of production, is always conjoined in our experience with such passive sensation. All sensory stimuli tend to excite some amount of muscular action, and it is probable that all our so-called " passive " sensations are in reality complicated by the concomitant of this muscular action. Moreover, since all our sense-or- gans are supplied with muscles by the action of which they are moved (wholly or in some of their parts), it follows that each class of special sensation will have a well-marked mo- tor concomitant. Thus the movements of the tongue enter into active tasting, those of the nostrils and respiratory or- gans into active smelling or sniffing, while certain muscles of the ear, and, to a larger extent, those of the head, co- operate in active hearing or listening. - 4 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. It is, however, in the case of the two most highly mobile sense-organs, those of touch and sight, that we see the co-operation of muscular action most plainly manifested. Touching and seeing or looking are pre-eminently active processes involving movements of the organs concerned, as stretching out the hand, running the fingers over a surface, directing the eyes to a point. This co-operation of mus- cular action with passive sensation is known as Active Sense. The service thus rendered by muscular action to the special senses is a complex one. In the first place, it is evident that the movements of a sense-organ result in an increased number or range of passive sensations. Just as the mobility of an insect's antennae enables it to have many more impressions of touch than it would have if the organs were fixed, so the mobility of the human arm, hand, and fingers greatly extends the range of our tactile impressions. By such movements we are able to bring the most sensitive part of the organ, e. g., the finger tips, the area of perfect vision on the retina, to bear on the several portions of a wide area of objects. A second advantage closely connected with this is the introduction of change of impression. The importance of this will appear when we consider the bearing of change or contrast on the distinctness of our sensations. Move- ment introduces change in more ways than one. Thus when a person moves his eye over the objects constituting his field of vision, the shifting of the several luminous stimuli to new retinal elements serves to strengthen their effect, that is, to render the sensations more vivid and impress- ive than they would be if the eye were fixed. Of still greater importance is the change which is secured by means of rapid movement between successive impressions received by way of the most sensitive part of the organ. It is by transferring the fingers rapidly from one surface to another (., attention to ideas. Thus when we try to visualise, that is, imagine a visible object, as a col- our, we can detect a sensation of muscular strain which is referrible to the peripheral apparatus engaged in actual sseing, viz., the muscles of the eye, neck, etc. In addition to these there are, as in the case of sensational attention, concomitant muscular actions, as those in certain regions of the skin of the head, compressive movements of the mouth, etc. In certain cases also we get individual associ- ated movements, as the fixing of the eye on a favourite spot in the room when we want to think intently. Fur- ther, we have in ideational as in sensational attention an inhibition of diffuse disturbing movement. Thus, during a prolonged effort of thought, the head is apt to be fixed, the 88 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. breath held, as is indicated in the French expression for a close thinker, de longne haleine* It is doubtful whether this motor factor, large as it is, is the whole of the physiological process in attention. The intensification and clearer definition of a sensation of sound or colour by attention probably involves other neural pro- cesses which go to intensify action at the particular points of the cortex engaged. Thus in attending to a colour we may suppose that the activity of the colour-centre is somehow augmented. The nature of this process of central nervous reinforcement is not as yet understood. There is, however, some reason to suppose that a principal factor in this local intensification of central activity is a heightening of the blood-supply in the particular cortical tract and correlative diminution of it in other regions. Attention as Adjustment: Expectant Attention. It follows from the above conception of attention as a re- inforcing reflex that it is essentially a process of adjust- ment. In many cases we can see that we fail to fix and intensify a sensation because this adjustment is not com- pleted. Thus momentary impressions of sight or hearing, especially if following one another irregularly, do not be- come distinct because there is not time for the responsive reflex action. Sudden and powerful impressions, e.g., loud explosive noises, are with difficulty attended to, and are apt to leave a confused after-impression. It has been ascer- tained by experiment that the process of adjustment is easier and more rapid in the case of sensations of a moder- ate intensity than in that of very intense or very faint sen- sations. The fact that there is an adjustive process in attention, the duration of which varies according as the conditions are favourable or unfavourable, is illustrated in the com- mon experience that the fixing of attention is rendered easy * It is probable that these motor concomitants of ideational attention, like those of sensational attention, serve to some extent at least to ensure distinctness in the psychical result. This point cannot, however, be dis- cussed at this stage. MENTAL ELABORATION : ATTENTION. 8 9 and rapid or the reverse by the preceding state and particular direction of the attention. In a condition of mental lethargy or inattentiveness, as also of mental preoccupation, i. e., pre-engagement of attention in other directions, a greater force of stimulus is needed to secure attention in the re- quired direction. A boy buried in a book, or busy carpen- tering, is apt to be slow at hearing a question. On the other hand, the process of adjustment may be greatly aided by a preceding congruent or favourable mode of activity. Not only is a state of mental wakefulness favourable to at- tention generally, but the direction of attention to an ob- ject A will under certain circumstances facilitate the sub- sequent direction of it to a second object B. This happens when the objects are homogeneous, as two visual impres- sions, say features in a room or landscape, and when in consequence the muscular adjustments are similar. It hap- pens, further, as we shall see later, when the first and sec- ond objects of attention are connected or associated one with another, as the sound of a name and the idea of its owner ; for in this case, owing to repetition and the forma- tion of central connexions, the transition of attention is rendered smooth. The process of adjustment has, in the cases hitherto considered, been supposed to follow the effect of a sen- sational stimulus. But with the growth of the power of ideation we are able, by anticipating a particular impression, to carry out the process before the presentation of the im- pression, in which case attention may be said to bepre-ad- justed. This is seen in all cases of expectation or expectant attention. The consequence of such pre-adjustment is, as has been proved by experiment, a considerable shortening of the process by which sensations become distinct and are recognised. Here we have to suppose not only a prepara- tory muscular adjustment but a central psycho-physical preparation corresponding to the development of the idea of that which is expected. This expectation may be of different degrees of perfec- tion. Thus we may know (exactly or approximately) the 9 o OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. / time at which the sensation will occur. In listening to a new poem or a new musical composition we anticipate the succeeding sounds in their regular recurrence. In the ex- periments referred to it has been shown that previous knowledge of the exact moment of the appearance of a sensation shortens the process of recognition. Expectation, in the full sense, involves some previous knowledge of the nature or quality of an impression, and not merely of the point of time of its occurrence. In some cases I may be able to distinctly forecast the character of the particular sensation that is coming. Thus on watching a singer about to commence a song with which I am familiar, I have an anticipatory idea of the opening tones. Experi- ment has further proved that such definite anticipation, by including a preliminary sub-excitation of the particular {e.g., auditory) nerve-centre engaged, will still further shorten the process of receiving a sensation. Lastly, it has been shown that when this anticipation of the precise quality of an impression is supplemented by the prevision of the exact moment of its appearance, the duration of the process of recognition is reduced to a minimum, so that the process of pre-adjustment of attention may be said to be perfect. The experiments here referred to belong to the new and promising department of experimental psychology known as Psychometry. The method of experimentation consists in estimating by a delicate chrono- metric apparatus the interval between the reception of a sensory stimulus, say a sound, by the subject of the experiment, and the actual execution of a responsive movement, as of the hand or a particular finger. This inteiwal is known as the " reaction-time." The experiments, among other results, show that the reaction-time may be made half as long again when a dis- turbing sound (an organ playing in the same room) is at work. On the other hand, if the process of adjustment is carried out wholly or in part beforehand, the reaction-time may be reduced to a third or less. Fixation and Movement of Attention. The process of attention has the immediate effect of fixing an impression. Attention is detention in consciousness. The more serious efforts of attention always imply a prolonged fixation of a particular psychical content or group of contents. At the MENTAL ELABORATION : ATTENTION. 91 same time it is evident that the duration of this process of attentive fixation has its limits. It has been found that, when we try to attend for a considerable time to-one and the same impression, the exertion does not remain of one uniform strength, but periodically rises and falls. This is illustrated in the common experience that in listening to the ticking of a clock, or to the continuous sound of a waterfall, there is an alternate increase and decrease in the intensity of the sound. This fact of periodic rise and fall in the strength of attention has been called the oscillation of attention. Another fact to be noted in this connexion is the tend- ency to movement or change of direction observable in attention. What may be called the natural condition of attention is a flitting or rapid passing from one object to another. This is illustrated in the incessant turning of eyes and head by a lively monkey in obedience to every new visual or aural impression, and in the infant's similar transitions from object to object. Even what we call pro- longed concentration of mind on a single topic is in reality a succession of changes in the direction of attention, viz., to new aspects, new relations of the subject. These movements are determined, to some extent, by the very mechanism of attention. Thus it is evident that since all attention involves muscular action of some kind, the fatigue that arises from an undue prolongation of this action is favourable to a change in the direction of atten- tion. As every teacher knows, a child, after attending closely to visual objects, as in drawing or other fine work involving the eye, welcomes a change in the direction of at- tention, as in listening to an oral lesson. A prolonged effort of attention will often tire us for the particular form of mental activity, e.g., looking or listening, without tiring us for other forms. Again, the very fact that at any moment we are exposed to the action of a number of rival sense-stimuli favours the movement of attention. When occupied with one particular impression, or group of impressions, the intrusion of a new 9 2 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. one acts as a diverting force. This is seen more particu- larly when the new impression is strong or rousing on ac- count of its changefulness, as in the case of all moving objects, which are known by the schoolmaster to be specially distracting. Novel impressions excite by the very fact of their being new, and standing out, so to speak, in relief against the collective horde of our acquired impressions. And when the effect of surprise is added, as in the case of all unexpected objects, the diverting force is increased. Hence, perhaps, the special tendency to wandering of the attention on the part of children, who are much more under the stimulus of the new, the extraordinary, and the wonder- ful than older people. The readiness with which these transitions of attention can be made varies with a number of circumstances. As already suggested, the existence of any connexion between one im- pression or idea and another greatly favours the movement of attention from the first to the second. As we shall see by-and-by, there is a special tendency to a hurrying on from sensations or ideas relatively uninteresting to associ- ated ideas which have a strong interest for us. This is illustrated in our scant attention to signs, such as spoken or written words, under the mastering influence of the ideas signified — a tendency which every proof-reader has to over- come.* Again, what is known as liveliness of temperament shows itself mainly, perhaps, in a special mobility of atten- tion or readiness to transfer it to any new object. The bright, impressionable, versatile mind is characterised by rapidity of mental movement. Exercise and practice, more- over, do much to develop this power, just as they serve to strengthen the ability to prolong effort on occasion in some particular direction in patient concentration. * Overlooking errors in spelling, etc., when reading a proof, arises from a double cause: (a) the want of interest in signs ; (b) the usurpation of the place of perception by expectant imagination. One fails to detect the wrong letter or wrong word, because the idea of the whole word or whole sentence " blinds " us to what is actually presented. This second source of inatten- tion will be spoken of when we take up the subject of perception. MENTAL ELABORATION : ATTENTION. 93 Analytical and Synthetical Attention : Area of Attention. All attention is a process of focusing, and as such a concentration or narrowing of the psychical area. In the simplest mode of attention, as when a sound calls forth a reaction, we have the process taking on the aspect of a selective isolation of particular psychical elements. This isolating or analytic aspect of attention becomes particularly marked when we seek to break up the complexes of sensation with a view to single out particular constituents, as in ana- lytically resolving the flavour of a dish into its constituents, and fixing attention on certain of these to the disregard of others. While, however, attention is thus primarily separating or isolating, it has a second function, that of combining a plurality of sensations or other psychical elements. Thus we may attend not merely to a particular detail of colour in a picture, but to the ensemble of colours, not merely to a constituent tone in a musical accord, but to the accord as a whole. This synthetic direction of attention is, as we shall see when we come to deal with the process of intel- lectual synthesis, of the highest consequence. Each of these modes of attention has its limiting con- ditions, which may be understood, in part, by help of the above conception of the psycho-physical process. Thus min- ute attention to details of a sensation-complex is favoured by their local separation, as in the case of a number of fine colour-details in a miniature painting. Such local separa- tion evidently allows of a particular muscular adjustment to this, that and the other detail. In the case of sensations of sound, on the other hand, where such local distinctness and correlated muscular adjustment are wanting, minute analytical attention is rendered difficult. With respect to the other mode, synthetic or combining attention, the general limiting condition is that the various ' objects ' simultaneously grasped in attention stand in a certain relation one to another as parts of one and the same whole. The most obvious bond of connexion is that sup- plied by their being constituents of the same sense-domain. 94 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. I can attend to two colours together, because they consti- tute features of one visible scene. Where disparate or heterogeneous sensations, as visual and auditory, are at- tended to together, as in watching the fingers and listening to the tones of a pianist, it is because they have come to be taken up into a new conjoint field through the working of the law of association to be spoken of presently. Here, again, it is easy to see that the particular combination of muscular adjustments required is facilitated by frequent repetitions in the past. A special question arises in connexion with the synthetic direction of attention, viz., the " area " or " span " of atten j tion, i.e., the greatest number of things which we can at- tend to at the same moment. A new light has been thrown on the problem by recent experiments. Thus it has been found that if a number of small objects, as printed letters or digits, are placed near one another so as to be all visible in direct vision, and then looked at for a fraction of a sec- ond, just long enough to generate a clear retinal impres- sion, from four to five can be instantaneously grasped to- gether. When the objects can be grouped together as feat- ures of a familiar form, three times the number can be instantaneously attended to. The conditions of the ex- periments preclude the supposition that attention passes in this case successively from one to another of the objects. Determinants of Attention : Interest. Attention, though a fundamental factor in our mental processes, is itself determined. The determining antecedents of atten- tion vary with its form and its degree of development. Only a rough account of these is possible at the present stage of our exposition. In the earliest stage of attention, which is marked off as Reflex or Non-voluntary, the determining force resides in the sensation or its ideal representative. Here the direc- tion of attention will be determined, on the one hand, by the strength and the persistence of the impression, and, on the other hand, by its suddenness, novelty, and generally MENTAL ELABORATION . ATTENTION. 95 its disturbing character in relation to the pre-existing state of mind. Each of these circumstances is important, and may suffice of itself to effect the reflex process. Thus a faint sound, as the striking of a distant clock, when re- peated, gathers stimulatory force. A familiar object, as a picture on the wall, which, when in its customary place, would remain unnoticed, immediately attracts attention when moved into new surroundings. It is evident that we have here to do with a germ of feeling. A sudden and novel impression commonly, if not in all cases, excites a certain amount of feeling, whether it be of agreeable exhilaration or of disagreeable shock ; and this element of feeling seems to intensify attention in these cases. This influence becomes more manifest where the sensations have a considerable element of the agreeable or disagreeable. A bright colour, a sweet sound, and, on the other hand, a hard, grating noise, attract the attention by reason of the feeling that they excite. How strong this force of feeling can be is plainly seen in the early appetite- prompted actions of a child. A hungry infant enjoying its meal becomes amazingly inattentive to everything else. A considerable extension of the range of attention is effected when the processes of association have been car- ried far enough for present impressions instantly to re- vive and connect themselves with previous ones, as when a child's attention is drawn to the process of preparing its food, or to some new object which immediately suggests a familiar one by its likeness. Here the presentative element is reinforced by the addition of representative elements, the residua of earlier impressions, and thus the process of attention involves more of the ideational or central factor spoken of above. The attractive force in this case too is determined by the volume and intensity of the feeling ex- cited, only that the feeling is here no longer a direct result of the present sensation, but bound up with ideas of past impressions and so revived along with them. The facts just touched on are commonly spoken of as g6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. the effect of Interest. When it is said that we attend to what interests us it is meant that we attend when our feel- ings are touched, that is, to objects or ideas which directly or indirectly excite feeling. We may thus be said to be interested when we experience a pleasurable sensation, e.g., that of a sweet sound, and our attention directs itself to its cause. In the narrower sense we are ' interested ' where a new presentation comes into relation to our previously acquired stock of ideas and their attendant feelings, that is to say, calls up and becomes complicated with an idea or cluster of ideas having some affective accompaniment. Thus a child begins to be interested in talk about itself as soon as the idea and connected feeling of self begins to grow a distinct, stable, and readily excitable factor in its consciousness. This tendency to give attention to what comes within the circle of established feelings and interests is made use of by the modern educator as the basis of teaching method.* We thus see that attention is under the sway of two opposed forces, novelty and familiarity. The new, the rare, the unexperienced exerts a powerful spell on the attention, not only of the child, but of the adult. On the other hand, in proportion as fixed interests, that is, idea- tional complexes bound together by a common feeling, form themselves, and, one may add, as novelty of impres- sion diminishes, these interests tend to draw off attention from the wholly new in the direction of the familiar. Thus, as feelings settle down to steady tastes and inclinations, the child attends more and more to what connects itself with and helps to gratify these. Even here, however, the attractive force arises from the partial novelty of the im- pression. What is wholly familiar, as the objects of our daily environment, does not attract our attention. " Fa- miliarity breeds contempt " in this sense also. As pointed * Herbart and his school describe the fixing of a new sensation through the revival of kindred ideational elements as a process of Apper- ception. The new presentation is said to be apperceived by a pre-existing cluster of ideas. MENTAL ELABORATION : ATTENTION. 97 out above, it is the presentiment of the old in a new setting that really excites the attention in such cases. Transition to Voluntary Attention. As the last stage in the development of attention we have its voluntary- direction and control. This is marked off by a clear idea of end 01 purpose. We attend voluntarily when we wish to obtain some object of desire, as a piece of coveted informa-* tion. The nature of this volitional process can only be understood when we come to consider conation. Here it must suffice to point out that it emerges gradually out of the feeling-prompted attention just considered as soon as experience and mental development render possible an an- ticipation of the results of our activity. Thus a child be- gins to attend voluntarily when he maintains a pleasurable sensation, e.g., that of a sweet tone, under the pressure of a vague impulse to go on enjoying. The transition is seen, too, in the growth of curiosity, or a desire to examine and understand a new object, which commonly takes its rise in some pleasurable impression due to the novelty, or the prettiness of the object. This transition to voluntary attention does not mean a liberation of attention from all determining influences. Interest is still the stimulus which excites the reaction, only that the interest is here less direct and of a borrowed or reflected kind. Thus, when we attend to an otherwise dry and repellent subject because we see that the knowl- edge of it bears on some object of desire, we are, by thus connecting it with the desired object, investing it with a derived interest. To this it may be added that in such cases the volitional effort at the outset is apt to be soon relieved by the inherent attractiveness of the subject that discloses itself to patient attention. The effect of this development of interest and of will- power on the attention is greatly to widen its range, and also to facilitate a more exact and more prolonged adjust- ment. The widening of the range is illustrated in the effect of a growth of scientific or artistic interest by which small, obscure, and commonly-overlooked phenomena of the outer 7 ! -'- 98 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. world become objects of close scrutiny. The increased prolongation is seen in the continued pursuit of artistic, scientific, and other lines of activity. In addition to the special stimuli or excitants just con- sidered, there are more general conditions of attention. These may be summed up under the comprehensive head, degree of vigour of the central organs. Attention being the greatest expenditure of psycho-physical energy, it is evident that its efficient carrying out presupposes a normal vigorous condition of the brain-centres. Effects of Attention. Turning now to the effects of attention we find that (a) one of its most immediate results is an increase in the intensity of a sensation. Thus by at- tending to a sensation of sound we bring its intensity up to its full or perfect degree. (b) Along with this increase in intensity, and of equal if not of greater importance, there goes increase in definition of character. It is when we attend to a sensation of colour, taste, and so forth, that this acquires distinctness of quality. Similarly the precise extensity and duration of a sensation grow distinct only when attention is added. (c) Attention secures a certain persistence in the sensa- tion or idea. Thus by looking at a colour I prolong for an appreciable period the sensation of this colour. In the case of ideas the fixing of attention tends, still more manifestly, to prolong their presence in consciousness. This power of detention will be found to be of the greatest consequence for the elaboration of psychical material. (a) Lastly, this attention and detention lead on to re- tention. It is, as we shall see presently, by fixing atten- tion for an appreciable time on a presentative element, say the note of a thrush, that we are able to connect it with, or bring it into relation to, other elements, the sight of the bird, and so secure its subsequent reproduction. We thus see that attention underlies and helps to deter- mine the whole process of mental elaboration. It secures, in the full intensity, distinctness, and due persistence of the presentative elements, the fundamental condition of those MENTAL ELABORATION : ATTENTION. 99 processes of differentiation, assimilation, etc., in which the work of elaboration properly consists. From this slight account of the place and function of attention we can see the importance of a proper develop- ment and training of it. A trained ability to fix the thoughts on a subject is the prime condition of all mental achievement, whether in the domain of intellectual activity, as in scientific research and literary production, or in that of practical affairs. Since, however, the strengthening and perfecting of the attention is essentially a process of voli- tion, the practical question how this can be best carried out will be most profitably considered when we have dealt with the volitional process itself. Training of the Attention. It must be evident that all intellectual guidance of the young implies the power of holding their attention. Instruction may be said to begin when the mother can secure the attention of the infant to an object by pointing her finger to it. Henceforth she has the child's mental life to a certain extent under her control, and can select the impressions which shall give new knowl- edge or new enjoyment. What we mark off as formal teaching, whether by the presentation of external objects for inspection by the senses, or by verbal instruction, clearly involves at every stage an appeal to the attention, and depends for its success on the securing of this mental reaction. To know how to exercise the attention, how to call forth its full activity, is thus the first condition of suc- cess in education. Mental Science assists the educator here as elsewhere by pointing out certain general conditions which have to be observed and the natural order of procedure. It is plain in the first place that the laws of attention must be com- plied with. He would be a foolish teacher who gave a child a number of disconnected things to do at the same time, or who endeavoured to keep the young learner's mind directed to one and the same subject for hours together. Yet though these conditions are obvious enough, others are more easily overlooked. Thus it is probable that a IOO OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. more exact knowledge of the effects of novelty of subject and mode of treatment on the one hand, and of strange- ness, that is, want of adaptation to previous knowledge, on the other hand, would save teachers from many errors. Some of us can recall from our school days both the weari- some effect of an oft-recurring stereotyped illustration, and the impression of repellent strangeness produced by a first, and too sudden, introduction to a perfectly new branch of study. In the second place it will be well to bear in mind that the young child's power of attention is rudimentary only, and that the psycho-physical energies must be economised by removing all obstacles and making the task as agree- able and consequently as little fatiguing as possible. It would, for example, be idle to try to enlist the close atten- tion of a child if he were bodily fatigued, or if he were under the influence of perturbing emotional excitement. Again it would be vain to expect him to listen to oral- in- struction when exposed to powerful distracting influences, as when placed close to a window looking out on a busy street. Children's attention naturally flows outwards to the sights and sounds of the external world, and is less easily diverted by the teacher's words towards the world of imagination and thought. Consequently, in teaching, everything should be done to reduce the force of outward things. The teacher would do well to remember that even so practised a thinker as Kant found it helpful to pro- longed meditation to fix his eye on a familiar and therefore unexciting object (a neighbouring church-spire). Not only so, the subject and mode of treatment chosen should be such as to attract the learner's attention to the utmost. What is fresh, interesting, or associated with some pleasur- able interest, will secure and hold the attention when dry topics altogether fail to do so. Much may be done in this direction by preparation, by awakening curiosity, and by putting the child's mind in the attitude of tiptoe ex- pectancy. As the pupil grows more may of course be required in MENTAL ELABORATION : ATTENTION. IO i the shape of an effort to direct attention. It must never be forgotten, however, that all through life forced attention to what is wholly uninteresting is not only wearing, but is certain to be ineffectual and unproductive. Hence the rule to adapt intellectual work to the growing tastes and likings of the child. Not only so, the teacher should regard it as an important part of the training of the attention to arouse interest, to deepen and fix it in certain definite directions, and gradually to enlarge its range.* Harder task-work, as in confronting such comparatively uninteresting matter as the notes of the musical scale, must be introduced gradu- ally, and only when the will-power is sufficiently developed. Great care must be taken further to graduate the length or duration of the mental application both in a particular di- rection, and generally, in accordance with the growth of the child's brain-power and capacity for mental work. An ideal school-system would exhibit all gradations in this re- spect ; alternation and complete remission of mental ac- tivity being frequent at first, and growing less and less so as the power of prolonged activity developed. REFERENCES FOR READING. On the nature of Attention the following may be consulted : Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. lect. xiv. ; Ward, article " Psycholgoy," Encyclop. Britannica, pp. 41, 42 ; and James, Psychology, i. chap. xiii. On the training of the attention, see Locke, Some Thoughts concerning Education, § 167 ; Maria Edgeworth, Essays on Practical Education, vol. i. chap. ii. Beneke, Erziehungs und Unterrichtslehre , 4th ed., vol. i § 19 ; and Th. Waitz's Allgemeine Pddagogik, vol. i., § 23. * Volkmann remarks that the older pasdagogic had as its rule, " Make your instruction interesting" ; whereas the newer has the precept, "Instruct in such a way that an interest may be awakened and remain active for life " [Lehrbuch der Psychologic, vol. ii., p. 200). CHAPTER VI. PROCESS OF ELABORATION (CONTINUED) : DIFFERENTIATION AND INTEGRATION. Factors in Mental Elaboration. The process of at- tention considered in the previous chapter prepares the way for the proper work of elaboration of the psychical ele- ments. By this is meant the carrying out of certain pro- cesses into which the sensational elements enter as materi- als or constituents. Thus we may say that the visual sen- sations of colour, etc., are elaborated when they are distin- guished one from another and combined in certain groups, as the total visual presentation of a particular flower. If now we ask what these processes are, we find that they are only another aspect of the elementary processes already spoken of as constituting what we call intellection, that is to say, Discrimination, or as it may be also called Differentiation (i.e., Differencing), Assimilation and Asso- ciation, the two last forming together Integration (or " wholeing "). Our mental life unfolds by help of the re- newal of these elementary functional activities. Thus, just as we know a thing by distinguishing it, so the contents of mind become more numerous by successive differencings of what was before confused. In like manner, assimilation at once enters into every process of knowing, as in recognis- ing a taste, and aids in the longer process of mental devel- opment by producing new permanent modes of grouping of psychical elements, as in the classification of like objects by help of a general name. The same thing holds good of association. Not only is the interpretation of this, that, and the other sensation -complex, e.g., the succession of PROCESS OF ELABORATION. IO3 creaky sounds of a person walking upstairs, an illustration of association or suggestion, the process of associative combination is a main factor in development. This is seen in the progressive elaboration of what is relatively simple into more and more complex products, for example, the growth of our whole, highly-composite idea of a particular man, or locality, into which each new year's experience in- corporates additional associated elements. A word or two by way of illustration on each of these processes will prepare us to view the whole movement of mental development. (a) Process of Differentiation. By the term differ- entiation the biologist means the gradual emergence or ap- pearance of difference (heterogeneity) between one tissue or one organ and another, as the development of an organ- ism proceeds. This process, we are told, begins with a rela- tively simple or homogeneous structure, which gradually takes on more and more of heterogeneity and speciality through segmentation or division of parts, the several parts taking on a dissimilar structure. Applying this idea to mind, we can speak of differenti- ation as the emergence in consciousness of distinctness and speciality. Thus the infant's colour-sense, though, if a nor- mal one, potentially including all nuances of colour-quality, realises as yet but few, if any, qualitative varieties. The progress of sense-development means primarily the substi- tution of a more and more varied range of sensations of a larger and larger number of dissimilar impressions. And it will be found that the whole development of the intelli- gence consists in part in the advance of such differenti- ation. It has already been pointed out that attention is in its general nature selectively isolating. When an infant first fixates an object, as a bright light, it virtually differenti- ates the impression from those of surrounding objects. In other words, by this process of adjustment a separate and distinct impression is secured. The peculiar character (quality, strength) of the impression begins to make itself 104 OUTLINES OF TSYCHOLOGY. known : definiteness of impression begins to be experi- enced. In a wide sense, then, all attention, as selective, isolative and defining, is a process of differentiation. We may trace the process of differentiation or differen- tial definition in various directions. At the beginning of life we may suppose that sensational consciousness as a whole is a confused mass in which differences are only vaguely emergent. Among the first distinctions to appear would be the broad generic ones between sensations of dif- ferent classes, as a taste, a smell. The process of differen- tiation or psychical segmentation would reach a more ad- vanced stage when distinctions within the same class of sensations began to present themselves, as different tastes, different colours, etc., Along with these distinctions of qualitative character, those of intensity and of volume or extensity, and of local character, would gradually come to be noted. Thus, for example, different degrees of pressure, different extents of colour, and touches of different local character (at this, that, and the other point) would be separately attended to. This process of differentiation progresses gradually. Just as tastes are first differentiated from other classes of sensations before one taste is differentiated from another, so within the limits of the same special sense the process advances from broad to finer and finer distinctions. Thus we know from the way in which the colour-vocabulary grows in the case both of the individual and of the race that a red is distinguished as such before a particular shade of red, as scarlet or crimson, is distinctively noted. The course taken by this progressive movement of dif- ferentiation is modified by the forces which act upon and determine the directions of the attention. Hence it is far from being perfectly regular, and probably varies con- siderably in the case of man and other animals, as well as in that of different men. Superior strength and vivacity of impression count for much here. This is illustrated in the fact that the brightest and most stimulating colours (reds and yellows) are in general the first to be singled out and PROCESS OF ELABORATION. 105 recognised by the child. Much depends, too, on the value of the particular sensation as bearing on the special interests of the species or individual. Thus the dog first selects and particularises among smells that of his food, his master, etc. ; the horse singles out among colours that answering to wholesome herbage, and so forth. Differentiation and Discrimination. We have thus far considered differentiation merely as a process of dis- tinctively marking off or defining particular varieties of sensation. Here, through special adjustments of attention, particular sensations of colour, taste, and so forth, come to be distinguished as this, that, and the other. Such differen- tiation or particularisation of sensational character does not, however, amount to a full consciousness or mental grasp of a relation of difference between one sensation and another. Still less does it include a clear apprehension of the pre- cise feature, e.g., intensity, quality, in which two sensations differ, or the extent of this difference. Such a clear appre- hension or grasp of difference, as distinguished from a singling out of, and attending to, distinct and different sensations, is best described as an act of conscious Discrimination. Dif- ferentiation, in the first sense, precedes discrimination. The latter only becomes possible as impressions are retained and processes of comparison between impressions are carried out. True, discrimination may be supposed to arise out of differentiation in this way : A child in passing from darkness to light, from cold to heat, would at first have only a vague consciousness of change or transition. But by acquiring the power of going back on the preceding sensation, and representing it along with the latter one, he would little by little gain an apprehension of a particular kind and amount of difference. Law of Change or Relativity. It is commonly held that change or difference of state constitutes a fundamen- tal factor in our conscious life. A dead level of sensation without the least introduction of freshness or variation would be indistinguishable from sleep. As Hobbes has it, I0 6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. "Semper idem sentire acnon sentire ad idem revertunt." This fact of the dependence of mental life on change has been formulated under the name of the Law of Rela- tivity. This law of change or variety finds its explanation in part in the very conditions of vigorous nervous action. Prolonged stimulation of a nervous structure is attended in certain cases at least with fatigue or falling off in functional activity, a result which shows itself subjectively as dimin- ished intensity of sensation. Change of stimulation, on the other hand, by calling into play a fresh organ, ensures greater intensity in the psychical effect. Further, we have seen that the frequent diversion of the adjustive process from one impression or region of impressions to another is necessary to a vigorous maintenance of the attention. This is strikingly illustrated in what has been called " the acquired incapacity " to attend to constant and unvarying impressions. The miller after a time fails to hear the noise of his mill.* According to one rendering of the Law of Relativity, change is not only a general condition of distinct and vivid sensation, but it is one factor in determining the particular quality of a sensation. Thus it is said that black is only seen to be black in contrast to white, that the several partial colours are for us what they are because of their relations to other colours. It seems, however, more correct to say that the quality of a sensation is de- termined by the particular psycho-physical process involved in the sensa- tion, though the juxtaposition of a dissimilar and contrasting sensation is one principal means of arousing the attention to its peculiar character. (p.) Process of Assimilation : Relation of Like- ness. The second of the constituent processes entering into intellectual elaboration is known as Assimilation. This may be taken to include all processes by which like sensa- tions or other psychical contents "attract "one another and tend to combine or coalesce, as in recognising a taste as like one previously experienced. As a mode of bringing * It is uncertain how far the apparent loss of intensity with prolongation of the stimulus is the result of fatigue in the sensory centres or of the re- laxation of the attentional process. PROCESS OF ELABORATION. j y together and combining presentative elements assimilation is clearly opposed to differentiation, which in itself tends to a marking off or isolation of psychical contents, and so it constitutes one part of what is known as integration. When we say that assimilation is the conjoining of like sensations, we mean by likeness any degree of similarity from the lowest degree of imperfect likeness which is just perceptible up to perfect likeness or psychical ' equality.'* Two sensations maybe appreciably like one another yet far from quite or completely similar, as in the case of two ad- jacent members of the colour- or tone-scale or two adja- cent sounds in the scale of intensity or loudness. The relation of likeness is here regarded as a perfectly simple and fundamental relation, co-ordinate with dissimilarity or difference. Perfect likeness, it may be added, whether of quality or of intensity, must be estimated for practical pur- poses by indistinguishableness when attention is closely directed to the sensations. The distinction of perfect and imperfect likeness just spoken of has to do with differences in the degree of the likeness. In addition to these there are differences in the extent or area of the likeness. Thus two colours may re- semble one another totally in all points, tint, saturation, etc., or only partially in some one or more of these constituent features. A good deal of what we ordinarily mean by likeness, more particularly when we ascribe likeness to those complexes which we call ' things ' is of this partial character. The simplest expression of the assimilative function is to be found in that process by which a present sensation (or sensation complex) is apprehended as something famil- iar. This is spoken of as Recognition or knowing again. It may be illustrated in effect on the infant consciousness * The term ' identity ' is sometimes used to indicate such perfect like- ness. But the word is open to the objection that two sensations experi- enced at different times are not the ' same ' in the sense in which a thing seen to-day is the same as the thing previously seen. The nature of this identity will occupy us later. 108 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. of recurring and interesting sensations, e.g., the colour of milk, the sound of the mother's voice. Such assimilation is automatic or ' unconscious ' in the sense that there is no separate and distinct recalling of a past sensation, and clear awareness of the relation of the present sensation to its predecessor, but merely a vague sense of familiarity, of likeness to something past, or of 'over again.' Here we suppose the new sensation to be modified by the traces of previous like sensations. This automatic assimilation by accumulation of traces plays an important part in early mental development. Re- curring sensations, i. e„ the occurrence of like sensations or sensation-groups, is, indeed, a necessary condition of this development. A child soon begins to bring together and class its sensations; and, indeed, by common consent, it begins to do this hastily and even recklessly, classing things which are only partially alike (provided the like feature is striking and interesting), and overlooking dif- ferences, as in confusing different varieties of animal sound or form. Such automatic assimilation of new to old impressions is the first step in the formation of the con- nected whole which constitutes knowledge.* A higher state is reached when differences are sufficient- ly marked to require a special isolating act of attention to the similar ingredient of the complex, as when a child recognizes the mother's voice when she is playfully disguising it. This fixing of the attention on a similar feature or feat- ures in the midst of diverse elements involves a germ of the higher abstracting attention which will be found to play so prominent a part in the later intellectual processes. This last process forms a transition from automatic assimilation to conscious comparative assimilation, where the relatioti of similarity begins to be specially attended to. Mere recognition with its complete coalescence of the residua of past sensations with the present does not imply such appre- * The reader should notice how knowing or cognising and recognising begin and progress together, being only different aspects of the same pro- cess. PROCESS OF ELABORATION. IO9 hension of relation. In the case of likeness, as in that of difference, this apprehension emerges gradually. Thus the child would begin to become conscious of likeness when the process of automatic assimilation was checked, e.g., when puzzled by seeing its mother in a new dress. Relation of Differentiation to Assimilation. The two processes of differentiation and assimilation, though, as we have seen, in a manner opposed one to another, are carried out together, and in close connexion. And it may be as well to point out the nature of this connexion at once. First of all, then, since assimilation implies attention to a new sensation, it may be said in every case to involve a measure of differentiation. A child cannot assimilate a taste, a touch, and so forth, till it mentally fixates, and so differentiates, this sensation. Our power of picking out and recognising particular elements in a sensation-complex, e.g., tones in a clang, obviously implies the power of differ- encing these from the other concomitant elements. Fur- ther, the exactness of the assimilative process throughout waits on the advance of differentiation. Thus the child begins, as we have seen, by roughly classing different va- rieties of red as red long before it more exactly classes a particular variety, e.g., scarlet or plum-colour, as such. This consideration helps us to understand what is meant by saying that assimilation (likeness) precedes discrimina- tion (difference) in the development of the child. Crude assimilation undoubtedly progresses in advance of discrimi- nation. Witness the daring of childish classification, as when it calls all males " dada," a rabbit " ba lamb," and so forth — a matter to be dealt with more fully by-and-by. On the other hand, assimilation as a precise process involves dis- crimination. While, however, differentiation thus circumscribes the area of exact assimilation, assimilation reacts upon differ- entiation. It is, as already pointed out, through the inter- est awakened by an element of the old or familiar in new impressions that attention comes to be directed to these, and so the differentiating process to be carried a step HO OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. further. If I did not recognise something familiar in this colour-group, this voice and so forth, that is, partially assim, Hate it, I should not scrutinise it so carefully, and so grow aware of its finer points of difference. (c) Process of Association. The third process in- volved in mental elaboration is known as Association. By this is meant that mode of psychical combination or integra- tion which binds together presentative elements occurring simultaneously or in immediate succession. Thus, for ex- ample, the several sensations that a child receives together from one and the same object, as those of warmth, soft- ness, and smoothness from the mother's breast, become conjoined, tied together, or integrated into one complex. It may be added that such integration has for its main condition, in addition to the occurrence of two sensational elements simultaneously or in close succession, a mental reaction on these, either in the shape of a simultaneous grasp of them by attention, or of a rapid movement or series of movements of attention from the one to the other. When we say that a mass of sensation-elements has been integrated we imply that when next we experience a part of the aggregate this will tend to recall, that is, revive under a representative form, the rest of the aggregate. Thus we know that the sight and taste of the infant's food have become integrated when the former manifestly calls up a representation (expectation) of the latter. It follows that psychical association always has refer- ence to a retention of impressions and a subsequent process of reproduction. We must, therefore, give a brief prelimi- nary account of these processes, though a full exposition of their laws will be postponed until we take up the phe- nomena of mental representation. Retentiveness and Reproduction. By retention as a psychological phenomenon is meant in general the fact that a sensation tends to persist, or to be followed by some analogous after-effect when the process of stimulation has ceased. In its simplest form it shows itself in the temporary PROCESS OF ELABORATION. m survival of a sensation after the stimulus ceases to act, as when we retain an after-image of a bright object, say the sun's disc, some seconds after looking away from this. Here we suppose that the process of central excitation, after having been started by the peripheral stimulation, is capable of being prolonged, just as a tight string will go on vibrating after the withdrawal of the force which originated the movement. In its higher manifestation retentiveness refers to the revival or reproduction of a sensation after a considerable interval, as when a hungry child recalls the sensations of feeding. Here, it is evident, retentiveness means some- thing different from what it meant in the case of the tem- porarily prolonged or surviving sensation. The sensation recalled is not supposed to have persisted, at least as a conscious sensation, during the interval. How then are we to conceive of the retention of it during this period ? Two answers at once present themselves, (i) It has per- sisted as a true psychical phenomenon, but having fallen below the threshold of consciousness, it has failed to make its existence known. (2) It has not existed at all as a psychical phenomenon, but the ' retention ' is referible exclusively to the persistence of certain changes, changes variously spoken of as physiological 'traces' or 'disposi- tions' in the nervous centres. The process of reproduction is something added to mere retention, since it implies the re-excitation and re- appearance of the impression, no longer indeed as a sensa- tion, but in a new representative guise. This reproduction appears in a crude or nascent form in automatic assimila- tion. When a new sensation or sensation-complex is recog- nised as something familiar it is because of the revival and coalescence with the presentation of representative residua of past sensations. Here, however, as pointed out above, the revival is in most cases nascent and incomplete. This par- tial reproduction, being due directly to the stimulus of a similar sensation, has been called Immediate Reproduc- tion. H2 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. The other and more perfect form of revival of a presen- tation, distinguished by some as Mediate Reproduction, involves the absence of a like presentation at the moment. We cannot recall a colour and see a perfectly similar col- our at the same instant, just because a presentation and its corresponding representation, being qualitatively in- distinguishable, irresistibly coalesce. Perfect revival can only take place in a free form, through the rousing action of some other and unlike stimulus. Such a stimulus is supplied by some connected or associated presentation, as when the ?ia?ne yellow calls up the image of the colour. Hence this fuller form of revival may be discribed as Asso- ciative Revival or Suggestion. Such associative revival begins as soon as sensations by repetition and cumulation of residua have acquired the requisite degree of after-persistence, and association has knit together with sufficient firmness different parts of a sensation-complex. Thus the infant's first observable re- vivals, e.g., the suggestion of eating, of bathing, by the sight of the food, of the bath, illustrate at once the persist- ence and the weaving together of sensational elements. This associative revival, like the processes of differen- tiation and assimilation, appears under an earlier implicit or sub-conscious, and a later and more explicit and clearly- conscious form. In the' connexions which enter into our every-day perceptions we have a number of disparate pre- sentative elements (tactile, visual, etc.) solidified in an in- separable mass. In looking at water, at a smooth marble- slab, touch-elements, coolness, smoothness, mingle and tend to blend with sight elements. Here the representative is submerged under the presentative. If now we turn from the lower sphere of sensation and perception to that of ideation, i. ) Co-ordination of Aural and Extra-aural Fac- tors. While the sense of hearing thus probably develops a certain space-perception of its own, this is at best vague and fragmentary. The ear's sense of direction in relation to the hearer involves, like that of the eye, a reference to PERCEPTION. 171 arm-movement and touch. We are all aware, indeed, in carrying out such imperfect localisations of sound as we are able, that we project them into a space which we have come to know by touch and sight. This is further shown in the fact that the ear by itself would develop no direct perception of distance. Whatever the data supplied by aural sensations for estimating dis- tance, it seems certain that in our ordinary judgments there is always a process of inference from past experience. Thus, we learn that sounds diminish in intensity as their source recedes, and hence we come to associate low inten- sity with distance. This is seen in the fact that by closing the ears with the fingers we seem to send sounds further away. In the case of familiar sounds, as the ticking of a clock, we can, after a certain amount of experience, very roughly estimate its distance by this means. Auditory Perception of Time. While hearing thus gives us comparatively little knowledge of space, it yields a very exact perception of time-relations. By this is meant the approximately direct apprehension of the order of suc- cession, and of the rapidity of succession, and duration of sounds. Thus we perceive the sequence of, and estimate the interval between, two clicks of a clock, and the dura- tion of a musical tone. Since the impressions whose time-relations are thus ap- prehended actually succeed one another in time, our per- ception of succession would seem to involve a certain per- sistence and so an overlapping of the sequent impressions, so that they may co-exist and be related to one another in one unifying act of perception. Our so-called perception of time, as we shall see by-and-by, always involves at least a rudimentary process of retrospection and representation of impressions which are already past. Recent experiments have shown that the grasp of a suc- cessive series of sounds in a time-perception has its limits. Thus, in order to be connected, two successive sounds must be separated by an interval which must not be less than j±q of a second or greater that 4 seconds. It is further 172 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. found that, provided the interval is a favourable one (about J of a second), a series of eight or more sounds can be grouped as one series. A further point, elucidated by experimental inquiry, is how far we can measure the precise interval between two sounds, and how this power varies as the interval is length- ened or shortened. It seems to be ascertained that the measurement is most exact when the interval is from a half to a whole second. The nice appreciation of time-relations in the case of the ear is of great practical consequence. Thus it is evi- dent that the rapid and easy apprehension of spoken lan- guage depends on an accurate perception of the order of succession of the sounds, and a ready combination of the members of a time-series in a single perception. It is, however, in the perception of the rhythmic succes- sions of verse and music that the ear's appreciation of time-relations shows itself at its best. The essential ele- ment in this experience is regular recurrence after a defi- nite interval, ox periodicity. Here an accurate measurement of time-interval becomes essential. What we mean by the appreciation of time in music includes the comparison of successive simple time-lengths, whether filled with sound, or empty intervals or pauses, as well as multiples of these. Thus in 'common time' the ear recognises the equality of duration or time-interval of the units (the crotchets), and of the quadruple groups of these making up the bars. The full appreciation of rhythm in music, and measure in verse, implies, in addition to measurement of time-length or inter- val, a recognition of numerical relations. The ear notes the periodic recurrence of a particular number of sounds in the case of each musical bar, as of the three in triple time, and this recognition underlies the appreciation of the par- ticular form of the movement. Musical Perception. Besides the perception of time- relations under the form of rhythm, music involves the dis- cernment of other and specifically musical relations. These include the distances of tones one from another in the PERCEPTION. 173 scale, or pitch-interval. To the musical ear each note in the scale has its definite position, and presents itself as standing at a certain distance from other notes, more par- ticularly the ground- or key-note. In other words, tones are projected on a represented background answering to the total scale of sounds, or, more exactly, to the series of tones constituting the particular key. In addition to these relations of pitch, the musical ear perceives relations of tonal affinity, such as that between a note and the octave above it. These tonal relationships enter into what we call melody or melodious succession of tones. Melodic relationship probably depends, like the harmonious combination of simultaneous tones, on the presence of common elements, viz., upper partial tones. Development of Perceptual Process. Our analysis of perception has suggested the way in which our percepts are gradually built up and perfected. A word or two on the general course of this perceptual development may suffice. In the first weeks of life there is little if any recognition by the eye of outer things. Impressions are made on the child's mind, but at best the reference to an external world is of the vaguest. About the fifth month, however, the child may be observed watching his moving hands. Soon after, the first attempts to grasp objects are noticed, these attaining accuracy by degrees.* The perception of the distance of more remote objects remains very imperfect be- fore locomotion is attained. Thus a child more than a year old was seen to try to grasp at the lamp in the ceiling of a railway compartment. This shows that change of visible scene as the child is carried about the room, though it no * A child known to the present writer was first seen to stretch out his hand to an object when two and a half months old. The hand misses the exact point at first, passing beside it, but practice gives precision to the movement. The same child at six months knew when an object was within reach. If a biscuit or other object was held out of his reach, he made no movement, but as soon as it was brought within his reach he instantly put out his hand to take it. 174 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. doubt impresses him, is not sufficient for acquiring a clear cognition of distance. It is some years before he begins to note the signs of distance in the case of objects a mile or more away. After many conjunctions of impressions the child be- gins to find out the nature of objects and the visible as- pects which are their most important marks. That is to say, he begins to discriminate objects one from another by means of sight alone, and to recognise them as they reap- pear to the eye. Sight now grows self-sufficient. What may be roughly marked off as the touching age gives place to the seeing age. Henceforth the growth of perception is mainly an improvement of visual capability. At first this power of discerning forms with the eye is limited to objects of great practical or aesthetic interest, as the child's bottle, the rattle. The observer notes one or two prominent and striking features of a thing but over- looks the others. Thus in looking at real animals, or at his toy or picture imitations, he will distinguish a quadru- ped from a bird, but not one quadruped from another and similar one, as the goat and the sheep. The progress of perception grows with that of analytic attention, and of visual discrimination and the correlative process of assimilation. As a result of this the child finds it easier to note selectively the characteristic aspects of things and to recognise them by these marks. In this way his observations tend gradually to improve in distinctness and in accuracy. Not only so, an increased power of syn- thetic attention enables him to seize and embrace in a single view a larger number of details. In this way fuller and more exact percepts are substituted for the early ' sketchy ' ones. Thus a particular flower, or animal, is seen more completely in all its detailed features of colour and form. Also a wider area of presentation becomes attended to, and in this way larger and more complex objects, such as a room, a whole building, come to be perceived as single wholes. The observing powers may develop in different direc- PERCEPTION. 175 tions according to special natural capabilities, or special circumstances. Thus it is well known that a particularly- good colour-sense, accompanied by a correspondingly lively interest in colours, will lead to a more careful observation of this aspect of things. A naturalist or an artist has a keen eye for details of form which escape the common eye. The child Ruskin could be happy for hours watching the rich varying play of light, colour and movement in a stream. In like manner it is well known that the blind who are thrown on tactual perception, as their main source of knowledge attain a remarkable fineness and quickness of perception. The blind deaf mute, Laura Bridgman, could estimate the age of a stranger by feeling the wrinkles about the eyes.* Sense-presentations may thus be said to acquire a different content for us according to the habitual direction of our observing powers. The Regulation of Perception : The Art of Ob- servation. All perception involves a measure of that re- active process which we call attention. But we are often able to discriminate and recognise an object or an action by a momentary glance which suffices to take in a few prominent marks. Such incomplete fugitive perception is ample for rough every-day purposes. On the other hand, we sometimes need to throw a special degree of energy into the process of perception so as to note completely and ac- curately what is present. This is particularly the case with new and unfamiliar objects. Such a careful direction of the mind to objects is known as Observation. This ob- servation may be carried out by way of any one of the senses, as when a lady tactually examines the texture of a fabric. The term commonly refers, however, to a careful visual scrutiny of objects. Observation in its highest form is a methodical process. It implies a deliberate selection of an object for special consideration, a preparatory adjustment of the attention, and an orderly going to work with a view to see what ex- actly takes place in the world about us. This methodical * For an account of Laura Bridgman, ?ee Mind, vol. iv. p. 149 fr. If 6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. procedure is specially conspicuous in scientific observation, as that of the astronomer, or the chemist. Such observa- tion commonly involves, further, a prolonged and patient attention to changes in an object, i. e., to a process. Ob- servation may thus be said to be regulated perception. Good observation consists in careful and minute atten- tion to what is before us. Thus, in order to observe nicely a particular flower or mineral, we must note all the indi- vidual characteristics, the less conspicuous as well as the more prominent. Similarly, if we wish to observe a process such as evaporation, or the movements of expression in a person's face, we must carefully seize all the stages of the operation. By such a close effort of attention we give dis- tinctness to our observations and accurately mark off what we are observing from other and similar objects with which they are liable to be confused.* It may be added that good observation includes a cer- tain self-restraint, a resolute limitation of attention to what is actually presented, and an exclusion of all irrelevant imaginative activity. Thus it includes in the carefully- trained mind the inhibition of the impulse to go beyond the observed facts in what is called inference, a common fault of bad observers, as the witness-box in our law-courts illustrates. Also it involves the restraining of the impulse to look out for a particular thing when this grows into pre- possession. The undisciplined mind is apt to see what it expects, wishes, or it may be fears to see. Even scien- tific observation has been vitiated by a strong preposses- sion or expectation of a particular appearance. In like manner the undisciplined mind tends, like the Professor in the Water Babies, to overlook that which it is disinclined to believe in. Methodical observation must, no doubt, as the history of physical science tells us, be stimulated and guided by anticipation or imaginative conjecture. We * We might call a percept distinct when we see an object apart from other and surrounding objects, and clear when we mentally grasp all its parts or details. Perfect or accurate perception would of course include both distinctness and clearness. PERCEPTION. 177 should, in many cases, not see things at all if we were not on the look-out for them. At the same time, good obser- vation never allows itself to be overshadowed or interfered with by such imaginative activity. It is less easy to draw up definite rules for the regula- tion of the perceptual process in observation than for that of the reasoning process. Good observation comes from a trained habit, and is the resultant of a combination of forces, such as a strong interest in objects, a disciplined command of the attention by the will, and zealous regard for fact or reality. If we want to observe well we must try to develop a strong interest in external things, and carry out a careful practice of methodical observation for a defi- nite purpose, e.g., pictorial representation, verbal descrip- tion, or scientific discovery. We must, further, be on our guard against the snares of ^^/-observation.* In like man- ner, the educator who aims at developing a child's observa- tion and perfecting him in the use of the senses, attains this object not so much by laying down any definite rules as by rousing interest in objects, by systematically exercising the learner in observation, and so producing a habit of accuracy. Training in Sense-Observation. Intellectual education begins with the training of the Senses, as it is called ; or, to speak more accurately, with exercising the child in the processes of sense-observation. This will include the awakening of his interest in external things, in the colours, forms, etc., of the objects about him. In close connexion with this arous- ing of interest the educator will aim at exercising the young learner in the gradual discrimination of colours, tones, and so forth, the classifying of them according to their likenesses, and the associating of them in their proper connexions as they present themselves in concrete objects. In carrying out this last the educator must remember that some of the most important constituents in our percepts are supplied by our muscular ac- tivity ; and the child should be encouraged to use his limbs, and more especially his hands, so as to reach a clear apprehension of the fundamental properties of objects. The perception of form should be improved by methodical exercises, such as the modelling and other constructive em- ployments of the Kindergarten, and by drawing. * On the errors incident to observation, and its logical control, see J. S. Mill, Logic, bk. iv. chap. i. 12 178 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. These exercises should culminate in the object-lesson, by which is here meant a careful methodical examination of an object by means of the sev- eral senses so as to obtain the most complete and precise knowledge of its several properties. Here what has been said above respecting the con- ditions of accurate observation, and the influences which, especially in the case of the young, favour careless and inaccurate observation, should be steadily kept in view, so that the learner may be put on his guard against the errors incident to perception. The special aim of the educator should be to awaken a warm, wide-reaching interest in objects, to foster a jealous regard for accuracy, and to develop a habit of close, painstaking observa- tion. In this way he will be laying the foundations of that higher faculty, the trained observation of the expert, whether this be employed in the scientific examination of physical phenomena, or in the artistic study of nature. Psychology and Philosophy of Perception, In the foregoing ac- count of the development of perception, we have been concerned only with its subjective side, that is to say, the nature of the psychical process by which percepts are formed. We have been answering the question : By what steps, by aid of what discoverable psychical facts, does a child reach what we call a knowledge of things in space and time? After this problem has been answered there remains another question, or group of questions, related to, yet to be carefully distinguished from it, dealing with the objective side of perception, that is to say, with its validity as cognition when we have it. Looking at perception on this side we ask : What is the value of perception as an (apparently) immediate knowledge of something external to, and independent of, the knowing mind ? What is meant by the externality of a thing ? Is space, for example, something really existent apart from our percipient minds, or, as Kant held, something subjective, a form of apprehension supplied by the mind itself? Again, is material reality, or that which marks off an actual thing from an illusion, something absolutely apart from our perception, or is it merely one phase of our sense-experience itself? Thus, is a stone nothing more than a sum of sensations of touch, etc., actually experienced at the time, or represented as uniformly occurring under certain circumstances, or does our knowledge of it as a material object in space imply more than the sum of all the sensa- tions by the aid of which we come to know it ? If the latter (as perhaps most persons would say), how is such knowledge guaranteed or made cer- tain ? These problems belong to the Philosophy, as distinguished from the Psychology, of Perception. They are variously known as the problem of Presentative Knowledge of External Perception, or of the External World. The Realist asserts that space and material object exist per se whether brought into relation to percipient mind or not. The Idealist, on the con- trary, maintains that what we mean by external reality, by material thing, is resolvable into certain aspects and relations of our conscious experience itself. The solution of this problem, though it may derive help from the PERCEPTION. 179 psychology c T the subject, can only be carried out by a properly philosophical examination of the essential nature and conditions of Knowledge.* REFERENCES FOR READING. For a fuller account of the way in which we learn to localise impres- sions and perceive objects the reader is referred to Prof. Bain's treatise, Senses and Intellect, under ' Sense of Touch,' § 13. etc. ; under ' Sense of Sight,' § 12, etc. ; and later, under ' Intellect,' § 33, etc. ; also to the excel- lent analysis of perception in Mr. H. Spencer's Principles of Psychology, vol. ii. pt. vi. chaps, ix. to xviii. With these may be compared M. Taine's interesting chapter on ' External Perception and the Education of the Senses,' On Intelligence, pt. ii. bk. ii. chap. ii. Among more recent works in English are to be noticed Ward's article, " Psychology " {Encyclop. Pritann.), p. 51 ff. ; and W. James's Psychology, chaps, xx. and xxi. On the educational aspect of the subject of sense-perception the reader will do well to consult Mr. Spencer's Essay on Education, chap, ii., and Miss You- mann's little work on the Culture of the Observing Powers of Children. The difficult subject of the Object-Lesson is dealt with in a suggestive way by Dr. Bain, Ediccation as a Science, chap. viii. p. 247, etc. The German reader may with advantage read Waitz, A llgetneine Padagogik, 2nd pt., 1st section, " Die Bildung der Anschauung ." * The student who cares to go into the philosophic side of perception cannot do better than consult Prof. Fraser, Selections from Berkeley. CHAPTER VIII. REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION : MEMORY. Transition from Presentation to Representation : The Temporary Image. The percept is the immediate outcome of the organisation of certain portions of our sense-experience. It is, moreover, as we have seen, though taking up into itself a representative element, coloured throughout by its more vivid sensuous ingredient. Hence we mark it off from the higher region of ideation as a pres- entation or direct sense-presentment. Presentations or percepts, though the foundation of all our thought respecting things, are in themselves fugitive psychical phenomena. A percept, depending as it does (in normal circumstances) on a peripheral stimulus, ceases when that stimulus is withdrawn. In order, then, to that permanent psychical product which we call cognition, some- thing more than perception is necessary. This additional factor is supplied by that consequent or after-effect of the percept which we popularly call an idea, but which is more accurately described as a mental image, or representative image. It was pointed out above that sensations have a tem- porary persistence. Since in the mature consciousness all sensations instantly develop into percepts, we may express this fact of temporary retention as follows : All percepts, whether visual, auditory, or other, tend to persist beyond the mo- ment of the cessation of the sensory stimulus. Thus the per- ception of a bright object, as the setting sun, is often fol- lowed for some seconds by that which is known as an 'after-image,' but which may be just as appropriately de- REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION: MEMORY. jgj scribed as an ' after-percept,' of the object. This tem- porary persistence is, as we saw, involved in the perception of a series of sounds. In addition to these after-images, which are only occa- sional and fugitive, a vivid and distinct impression, involv- ing a special effort of attention, is apt to beget a mental image properly so called, which may persist for some time after the percept. Thus after intent visual inspection, as in microscopic investigation, the image of the object hovers about, so to speak, for some time, recurring again and again, as soon as other objects of attention are removed. This temporary image is important as forming the first stage of the true memory-image. The Revival of Percepts. This temporary ' echo ' of impressions or percepts, though it enables us to prolong, in a manner, the inspection of our percepts, has only a limited value in relation to the permanent acquisition of knowl- edge. When we talk of picturing, imagining, or mentally representing an object, we imply the appearance of the image after an interval. This resurgence of the image after the complete subsidence of the percept is popularly de- scribed as a revival or reproduction of the original impres- sion, that is, percept. This language, however, is figurative and apt to mislead. It does not imply that an image is, strictly speaking, ' the same ' as the percept (in the sense in which a thing is one and the same when seen at different times) ; nor does it mean that the image is perfectly similar as a mode of consciousness or a psychosis to a percept. It is to be noted that this revival under the new form of an image holds good of all classes of percepts or " sense- impressions." Thus, in psychology, we speak of an image of a sound and of a taste, just as we speak of an image of a colour. Images derived from visual percepts are, no doubt, as we shall see, the larger and more important por- tion of our image-store, but we must keep steadily in view that other sense-experiences as well give rise to images. This revival of percepts after the lapse of time is, as pointed out above, the most striking manifestation of the 1 82 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. effect of peripheral stimulation in permanently modifying the nerve-centres by setting up " physiological disposi- tions." When Milton went on picturing objects with sin- gular vividness and distinctness after the loss of sight, and Beethoven continued to marshal tone-imagery with perfect ease after he had lost his hearing, they gave signal proof of the fact that the brain, though requiring peripheral stimulation for its initial activity, grows in time to be independent of such stimulation. Process of Revival. It has already been pointed out, that, speaking psychologically, we only know retention through the fact of revival. If, as is supposed by some, a percept has some sort of existence during the interval pre- ceding revival out of consciousness, we can have no direct knowledge of the fact ; all that experience tells is that the percept is under certain conditions subsequently re-excited, or reproduced, under the new and altered form of an image. The immediate conditions of the appearance of the image are, as pointed out, the recurrence in restricted form of that mode of central excitation which conditioned the original impression. The process of revival doubtless in- cludes a stage, or rather a series of stages, of imperfect, that is, sub-conscious ideation. Thus, in imagining a rose, I can trace a process of gradual emergence or coming into the clear light of consciousness. This succession of a dis- tinct on an indistinct stage does not, however, any more than the reverse process, the sinking or fading of the origi- nal percept, prove that the image existed before the process of revival began. Differentiae of Images and Percepts. The fact that we have no difficulty in general in distinguishing between the percept and the image, e. g., the sight of a horse and the mental representation of it, suggests that there must be certain differences between them. The most obvious point of difference is the greater intensity of the sensational or presentative element in the percept, which gives to the whole structure its peculiar vividness (or strength). Along REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION: MEMORY. ^3 with this superior intensity, and perhaps more important than this, is the greater distinctness of percepts, in general, as compared with images. These differences, though important, are not all : other- wise we should confuse weak and indistinct impressions, e. g., those of faint sounds, or of indistinctly-seen objects, with images. One other distinguishing character of images is their instability, changeableness, as contrasted with the steadiness of percepts ; a percept commands the attention by its insistence, whereas the image only grows distinct when transfixed by attention. Again, the image is wanting in those more definite muscular sensations which tell us that we are using the peripheral organ, e. g., the eye.* Other marks of difference present themselves when a closer examination is needed. Thus there is the obvious distinc- tion that images are not affected by movement, as percepts are, which appear and disappear as the eye moves towards or away from a particular point. These psychical differ- ences seem to be connected with the known differences of the neural process, viz., the restriction of the nervous cur- rent to the centres, and the absence of a full motor re- action. It may be added that such a distinction as we find drawn by normal persons when in health between the per- cept and the image obviously has a biological significance. If we were given to taking our images for percepts, so as to react upon them as such, we should plainly fail in bio- logical adjustment. This failure shows itself in those dis- tinctly abnormal states where the image reaches the stage of a hallucination, and the subject directs his actions to imaginary as distinguished from real objects in his sur- roundings. Coalescence of Image and Percept : Recognition of Objects. Just as in mature life we never have a sensa- * How far this difference assists in the discrimination is doubtful. As we saw above (p. 87), there is a certain amount of the muscular element in ideational attention. It seems, however, to be much less definite in this case. 1 84 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. tion without some of that complicative process by which percepts are formed, so all our percepts embody a merged form of the image. It is evident, indeed, that, in recognis- ing an object seen before, the assimilation of the present percept to a former one involves the coalescence with this percept of the revived image of its predecessor. And since we never see wholly new objects, but assimilate even the so-called new ones in respect of their position in space, size, colour, and so forth, to objects previously known, it follows that there are image-rudiments in all our percepts. Such a nascent rudiment of an image must, however, be distinguished from an image proper. The process of as- similating a percept, and of calling up the image of an ob- ject now absent, are markedly different, and represent two stages of the reproductive process. We are often able to identify an object, as a face, when we actually see it, with- out having any corresponding power of imaging it when it is absent. The lower animals, which have at best only a rudimentary power of imaging, often display a marvel- lous power of recognising. The memory of the dog, as illustrated in the famous story of the recognition of Ulysses after years of travel, is proverbial.* Reaction of Image on Percept. In recognition the percept and the image are fused, the presence of the latter being indicated merely in the peculiar appearance of famil- iarity which the percept assumes. In many cases, however, the coalescence is preceded by a partial or complete sever- ance of the two factors. In these instances the percept is modified by an image which distinctly appears as such. This effect is known as the reaction of the image on the percept. The most common illustration of this action is that in which there is an ideational or imaginative preparation for the percept, or a stage of " pre-perception," as when after * Darwin purposely tried the memory of his dog, an animal averse to all strangers, and found that after a separation of more than five years he instantly obeyed his call as of old. {The Descent of Man, 2nd ed., P- 74-) REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION: MEMORY. 185 expecting the arrival of a person the process of recognition is appreciably shortened {cf. above, p. 90).* It appears in a less distinct form, where, previously to the occurrence of the sensation, there has taken place a central excitation leading to a nascent or sub-conscious idea. Thus, if I visit a particular town, the idea of an acquaintance who happens to live there will be partially reinstated, so that, should he actually present himself, the recognition will be expedited. It may be added that the action of imagination on our sense-experience is beneficial only so long as a certain bal- ance between the two is maintained. Normal mental ac- tivity is that which adjusts itself to real circumstances, and so must start from, and be based upon, sense-presenta- tions. Hence the healthy influence of the image on the percept is restricted to the effect of furthering or expedit- ing the percept which would otherwise arise. If, however, the imaginative factor grows so masterful as to modify the distinctive characters of the sensation-complex, we have a tendency to illusion. This is the state of things in all con- ditions of unreasonable intensity of expectation, as when a frightened child takes a harmless object for a hobgoblin. Distinctness of Images. The chief merit or excel- lence of a representative image consists in its distinctness or clearness. By this is commonly meant that the image be definite and not vague, that the several parts or feat- ures of the object be distinctly pictured in their relations one to another. Thus we have a distinct image of a per- son's face when we call up its several features, as the out- line or contour of the whole, the shape of the mouth, and the colour of the eyes. On the other hand, the image is spoken of as indistinct, obscure, or vague when the details of the object are only imperfectly pictured. Closely connected with the distinctness of images as just defined is their distinctness in relation to other images. * It is proved that it takes about twice as long to read out a series of disconnected words as the same amount of connected discourse, the latter process being aided by continual anticipation of the coming ideas and words. 1 86 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. The expression " a distinct mental picture " seems, indeed, to have as one of its meanings perfect differentiation, or discriminative detachment from other images. Thus we are said to represent a face " distinctly " when we definitely apprehend its individual peculiarities. The terms clearness and distinctness seem to be employed almost in- terchangeably for each of the above aspects of images. If it were possible to break through a habit of speech, it might be advantageous, modifying the phraseology of Leibnitz, to use the antithesis clear — obscure with refer- ence to the first kind of distinctness (distinctness of parts or details), and the antithesis distinct — confused with reference to the second kind (distinct- ness of the whole). The close connexion between the terms distinct and clear will be illustrated again by and-by, in connexion with general ideas or concepts. It is customary to distinguish between the liveliness or vividness of an image and its distinctness. For purposes of knowledge the latter is more important than the former. Images are in general wanting in the intensity of the corresponding percepts. I do not visualise all the brightness of the sun, or all the depth of colouring of a sunset when I imagine it. There may be a fair degree of distinctness with a comparatively low degree of vividness ; and this seems to be the condition most favourable to clear thinking. Our mental imagery shows all degrees of distinctness. Many of our representations are vague, blurred, and indis- tinct, and as a consequence tend to be confused one with another. The statistical investigations of Mr. F. Galton into the nature of visual representation, or what he calls ' visualisation,' go to show that this power varies greatly among individuals (of the same race), that many persons have very little ability to call up distinct mental pictures of such familiar objects as the breakfast-table. From this distinctness of an image it is important to distinguish its accuracy. By this is meant its fidelity as a copy, or its perfect correspondence with the original, the percept Want of distinctness commonly leads to inaccu- racy, if in no other respect, in that of deficiency. But what we ordinarily mean by an inaccurate image is some- thing more than a merely defective one. It implies the importation of some foreign element into the structure of the image. Thus we have an inaccurate image of a face REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION: MEMORY. 187 when we ascribe a wrong colour to the eyes or a wrong height to the brow. It is probable that all images tend to become inaccurate, by way not only of loss, but of confu- sion, of elements, with the lapse of time. General Conditions of the Retention and Repro- duction of Percepts. The capability of representing an object or event some time after it has been perceived is not absolute, but is limited by certain conditions. These may be roughly summed up under the two following heads. In the first place the original impression must, in order to be subsequently revived, attain a certain degree of perfection in respect of vividness and clearness. We will call this condition the depth of the impression. In the second place, there is needed in ordinary cases the presence of something to remind us of the object or to suggest it to our minds. This second circumstance is known as the force of suggestion. (a) Depth of Impression : (i) Intensity, etc., of Sensation. In the first place, then, we may say that a distinct image presupposes a certain force and distinctness of the original impression. A moderately loud sound will in general be recalled better than a faint one, just because, as a sensation of greater intensity, it is stronger and more impressive, and makes a more successful appeal to the at- tention. For a similar reason, clearness and distinctness of impression are favourable to retention. A face distinctly seen with all its details is much more likely to be recalled than one indistinctly seen. For these reasons, actual im- pressions are in general much better recalled than products of imagination : for, as a rule, they surpass the latter in vividness and distinctness. We recall the appearance of a place we have seen better than one that has only been de- scribed to us. The habit of repeating words audibly when we want to remember them is based on this principle. As a last determining factor of a forcible impression may be named duration. Every fully-developed sensation requires an ap- preciable time. A momentary sound remains indistinct as to its quality, its direction, and so forth. Accordingly pro- 1 88 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. longed sensations are as such of greater impressive force than momentary ones. (2) Attention as Condition of Retention. So far we have regarded an impression as conditioned by external circumstances. But, as we have seen, the intensity, dis- tinctness, and the duration of a sensation are partly de- termined by an internal condition, viz., the amount of reac- tion in the way of attention called forth. Hence we have to add that the depth, and consequently the revivability, of an impression depend on the degree of interest excited by the object and the corresponding vigour of the act of atten- tion. Where, for example, a boy is deeply interested in a spectacle, as a cricket match, he retains a distinct image of what has been seen. Such interest and direction of atten- tion ensure a clear discrimination of the object, both in its several parts or details, and as a whole. And, as we have seen, the fineness of the discriminative process in percep- tion is one main factor in the determination of the subse- quent retention. The nature and sources of interest have been sufficiently discussed above. The essential element in interest is feel- ing, and any marked accompaniment of feeling, whether pleasurable or painful, is, as we all know, a great aid to retention. Thus the events of our early childhood which we permanently retain commonly show an accompaniment of strong feeling, more particularly, perhaps, that of childish wonder at something new and marvellous, whether delight- ful or terrible. The effect of disagreeable feeling in fixing impressions is illustrated in the retention of the image of an ugly or malevolent-looking face, of words in a foreign language which have disagreeable associations, as bougie, douanier, to the English traveller. Where such a powerful intrinsic interest is wanting, a vigorous exercise of voluntary attention may bring about a permanent retention. But, as pointed out above, such voluntary attention is only effect- ive because it involves a feeling of interest. When we try to retain for social reasons a person's name, we are feeling at the moment a social interest in that name. REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION: MEMORY. 189 It is to be observed, finally, that even when the con- ditions just specified are equally favourable to retention the result may vary, owing to temporary variations of our psycho-physical state. The acquisition of a new impression involves a nervous formation, and this again depends on nutritive processes. Hence we are much more ready to note and to retain what presents itself to our senses when our sense-organs and nerve-centres are refreshed by rest and vigorous. It is commonly agreed that children take on new acquisitions better in the earlier part of the day when their psycho-physical organism is recuperated by sleep. Differences in emotional condition, again, which appear to involve variations in the energy and rapidity of brain-action, render us much more impressionable at some moments than at others. As more than one novelist have illustrated, moments of intense feeling appear to raise the plastic or acquisitive powers of the brain to a preternatural height, so that small insignificant details of the objects happening to present themselves at the moment are per- manently reflected in the mirror of the mind. (3) Repetition as Condition of Retention. We have thus far supposed that the object or event represented has been perceived but once only. But a single impression rarely suffices for a lasting representation. As we have seen, images tend to grow faint and indistinct ; hence they need to be re-invigorated by new impressions. Most of the experiences of life, including some of great and absorbing interest at the time of their occurrence, are forgotten just because they never recur in a sufficiently like form. The bulk of our mental imagery answers to objects which we see again and again, and events which occur repeatedly. Here then we have a second circumstance which helps to determine the depth of an impression. Every new repetition of an impression, provided the interval since the last is not long enough to produce effacement, tends to render the image more distinct and more stable. Where the repetition of the actual impression is impossible, the reproduction of it will serve, to some extent, to bring about a like result. We 190 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. may fix verses and so forth in the memory by going over them mentally or inaudibly. In like manner, we keep the images of remote experiences from disappearing by periodi- cally reviving them, as when children talk with their parents about common experiences of the past. The points of simi- larity and dissimilarity between the physiological process in the case of the percept and of the image help us to un- derstand how this renewal of the image serves as an infe- rior substitute for the repetition of the original presentation. These two conditions, a certain amount of attention, and a certain frequency of repetition, may take the place of one another to some extent. Thus the more interest- ing an impression the smaller the number of repetitions necessary, as is illustrated in the words of the already- enamoured Juliet : — My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words Of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound. On the other hand, repeated impressions, even when not very interesting, as, for example, those of ubiquitous ad- vertisements, manage by their importunity to stamp them- selves on the memory. At the same time, it may be said that, in all cases alike, the two conditions co-operate, though in very unequal quantities. As we have just seen, repetition, if only in the form of recurrence of image, is needed to supplement the effect of attention. And, on the other hand, mere repeti- tion, without some amount of interested attention, is in- effectual. Even the stupid advertisement possesses the momentary attractiveness of a sudden and exciting visual sensation. Many persons cannot distinctly represent even so familiar an object as their friend's face, just because they have never carefully attended to its several features, for their own sake, as a stranger would observe them. (b) Laws of Suggestion : Association. When an impression has, under the influence of the above favourable conditions, been fixed on the mind there remains a predis- position or tendency to reproduce it under the form of an image. The degree of facility with which we recall any REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION : MEMORY. IO j object always depends in part on the strength of this pre- disposition. Nevertheless, this tendency will not in ordi- nary cases suffice in itself to effect a reinstatement after a certain time has elapsed. There is needed as a further con- dition the presence at the moment of some second presen- tation (or representation) which serves to suggest or call up the image, or remind us of the event or object. Thus the sight of a building, as our old school, reminds us of events which happened there, the sound of a friend's name, of that friend, and so on. Such a reminder may be spoken of as the ' exciting ' cause in contradistinction to the first or ' predisposing ' cause. The reason why the large majority of our life-experiences, including our deeply - impressive dreams, are so readily forgotten is that they are not brought into relation to other facts which would serve to remind us of them. Now we are reminded of a presentation by some other presentation (or image) which is somehow related to, con- nected with, or, as we commonly express it, ' associated ' with it. Thus it is plain that the events of our school-life are associated with the particular building which recalls them, and similarly the person with his name. Hence we speak of association as the second great condition of re- production. Laws of Suggestion : Contiguity. Reproduction as Effect of Suggestion. The gen- eral nature of association has already been discussed. So far, however, we have only been engaged with it in its more rudimentary form, that is to say, as the process by which presentative and representative elements are perfectly inte- grated and unified into percepts. We have now to trace the workings of association in the higher domain of idea- tion, that is to say, in the succession of distinct psychical products, viz., images or ideas. Association is the term com- monly used to cover the processes or laws involved in the succession, flow or train of our thoughts. It has been held by psychologists generally that the re- 192 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. vival of images or ideas follows in all cases certain Laws, viz., Laws of Association, or, as they have been called by some, Laws of Suggestion. Thus Hume regards them as filling in the world of mind a place similar to the universal Law of Gravitation in the physical world. It was shown by Hobbes that in cases where we pass from one idea to another in a seemingly disconnected manner there are hid- den bonds of association to be detected by careful exami- nation.* Presentations may suggest one another in a variety of ways answering to different relations between them. Thus, if we let A stand for the antecedent or reminder, B for the consequent or the representation called up, we see that A and B may correspond to two objects locally connected, as two adjacent buildings; or to two events following one another in time, as sunset and the coming on of darkness ; or, again, to two like objects, as a portrait and the original. These various kinds of relation, or bonds of connexion be- tween presentations, have long since been reduced to cer- tain comprehensive principles or laws. Association of Ideas by Contiguity : Statement of Law. Of the several distinguishable modes or varieties of association the most important is that already touched on, viz., Contiguity. By this is meant the association of two or more presentations through, or on the ground of, their proximity in time, whether under the form of simul- taneity or of succession. This is illustrated in such familiar experiences as the suggestion of the sensations of a cool plunge by the sight of a sheet of water ; or that of a per- son's form, voice, and so forth, by the sound of his name. This variety of association, which is recognised by most psychologists as the principal if not the only one, evi- dently corresponds to that process of integrative asso- ciation considered above. It may be roughly stated as * It is uncertain whether this associative revival is the universal form, or whether in certain cases there is also a spontaneous form of revival due to a direct action of the blood-supply on the central nervous ele- ments. REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION : MEMORY. 193 follows : Presentations which occur together, whether simul- taneously or in close succession, tend afterwards to revive or suggest one another. This Law of Contiguous Association may readily be seen to cover the larger part of our ideational connexions. Thus, it includes (1) all merely temporal connexions, as those between simultaneous events, e. g., sunlight and in- crease of warmth, or successive ones, as the flash of light- ning and the peal of thunder. Since causal connexion, whatever else it is, clearly involves sequence of events, it is evident that the connecting of things with their causes or their effects illustrates this bond of temporal attachment. (2) Again, the Law of Contiguity embraces all object asso- ciations, or association of quality (not directly involved in the percept), use, and so forth, with things, as the voice of a person with that person, the use of iron with that sub- stance. (3) Once more, it covers all local associations, or those connexions in which locality is a binding element ; as the association of wild-flowers with the field or hedge-row, the meal with the table, the agitating thoughts of the ex- amination with the sight of the examination-room. Lo- cality, as has been recognised in ancient and modern times, is a powerful aid to revival. (4) As a last group we may take verbal associations, or those numerous connexions into which words enter, as names with objects, one word of a sentence with the related words, and so forth. Conditions of Contiguous Integration : (a) Prox- imity in Time. To begin with, then, the Law of Conti- guity plainly asserts that proximity in time, pure and sim- ple, constitutes a sufficient ground of association. In other words, no real objective bond, as that of causal connexion between the facts presented, is needed for the generation of a contiguous cohesion. This is evident from the com- mon observation that the most disconnected elements of experience, if they only happen to present themselves at the same time, are liable to become associated one with another. In this way we associate persons with places with which they hold no relation beyond the momentary 13 194 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. one of having been there at a particular moment. This formation of accidental associations is specially conspicu- ous in the cases of children and the uneducated, whose minds have not come under the controlling influence of logical thought. The degree of the efficacy of contiguity as a forger of the associative link turns on the proximity of the presenta- tions. Thus, of all contiguous associations those between simultaneous presentations are strongest, as we see in the revival of the sound of a clock by the sight of the swing- ing pendulum. Similarly, presentations separated by an interval of time are less firmly associated than those which are strictly contiguous in time. (b) Combining Movement of Attention. Mere prox- imity in time gives us only the limiting condition of con- tiguous suggestion. Many impressions, however, occur together without afterwards reviving one another. Thus a particular sight or sound may synchronise with a multi- tude of sensations, including the large group of organic sensations, and yet only enter into effective connexion with one or two of these. A more special condition of contigu- ous association must be looked for in the process of atten- tion. Just as attention gives vividness to the percept con- sidered as an isolated psychical content, and thus favours its revivability, so it serves to bind together two or more of such contents. The effect of attention on the process of contiguous in- tegration is illustrated in the case of successive presenta- tions, as the letters of the alphabet. Here, as is well known, suggestive revival takes place much more readily in the forward direction than in the reverse, the probable reason being that in the forward recall we are renewing the original order of the successive adjustments of atten- tion. The action of attention on the order of revival is further illustrated in the selection under the lead of interest of a particular group from among a multitude of impres- sions, as when we successively fix the eye on certain inter- esting details of a landscape, the river in the foreground, REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION : MEMORY. 195 the mountains in the background, etc., and afterwards re- call these in the original order. The formation of the associative bond will be more per- fect the more immediate this transition of attention. Thus we associate the appearance and the name of a person when we bring them together as closely as possible and grasp them in one comprehensive act, or in rapidly successive acts of attention. (2) We may now pass to the other point in the action of attention, viz., the effect of the quantity of attention be- stowed. It is true of a conjunction of presentations, as of a single presentation, that the degree of retention varies with the intensity or vigour of the process of attention. The firm associations that are apt to form themselves in moments of excitement are explained by this circumstance. In watching a fire or other stirring and awful spectacle the several features of the scene are wont to cohere because of the preternatural vigour or energy of the observant pro- cess. Where, on the other hand, attention is feeble, as in much of our habitual listless survey of our street and other surroundings, the links of connexion are liable to remain half-formed and useless. It follows from this action of attention in singling out and pinning together certain specially interesting parts of the presentation-complex, that the order of mental combi- nation is not a mere reflexion of the external order. In the process of association the leadings of interest prompt us to build up out of the presentative materials given a new and particular order. And to this extent all memory, like art-construction, may be said to idealise the actual by a process of selective arrangement. (c) Repetition and Association. As a last factor serving to determine the special directions and the strength of contiguous association we have repetition. Just as the renewal of a single percept strengthens the corresponding image, so the recurrence of two or more percepts in the same temporal conjunction strengthens the cohesive bond between them. Most of our common retentions illustrate 196 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. this effect. Thus the learning of the names of objects, and of periodically recurring conjunctions and sequences of natural phenomena, as light and heat, a blow and a pain- ful sensation, and so forth, is an effect of repeated co-pres- entation. This effect of repetition may be conceived of in physi- ological language. If the excitation of two central ele- ments simultaneously or in immediate succession tends (in some way not perfectly explicable as yet) to develop a nerv- ous connexion or channel of communication between them, it would follow that the repetition of this process would serve to strengthen the nervous bond. Recent investigation enables us to measure the effect of repetition with some exactness. It has been found that the effect of learning a series of (nonsense) syllables in shortening the process of re-learning twenty-four hours later may be expressed as follows : Every three repetitions to-day effects a saving of one repetition to-morrow. The saving does not, however, con- tinue in the same ratio when the number of repetitions is greatly increased. A word may be added on the connexion between repe- tition and attention as joint factors in the formation of contiguous bonds. Repetition may, as was hinted above, be said to be a mode of increasing the amount of attention given to presentations. Yet the two conditions must be kept distinct, if only for the reason that repetition as such modifies the attention. Thus juxtapositions of impressions that arrest attention on their first occurrence, especially those involving a striking contrast, as between two very unlike members of a family, or a big-sounding name and an insignificant-looking person, lose this attractiveness by their very repetition. On the other hand, repetition is in a certain class of cases a main condition in the awakening of attention to a conjunction. This applies to all cases where we are interested in discovering a general connexion. Thus a schoolmaster is struck by the recurrence of the juxtaposi- tion of disorder and the presence of a certain boy or boys; the scientific observer, by the recurrence of the conjunction between the growth of certain plants and particular circum- stances of soil. REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION : MEMORY. I 9 7 Derivative Laws of Associational Revival. If now we combine what has just been said respecting the condi- tions of contiguous association with what was said above concerning the circumstances which favour the revival of presentations considered as separate units, we reach the following results, which may be regarded as a fairly com- plete account of the process of suggestion as far as we have yet considered it : — (i) If we let A stand for the reviving presentation or suggestion, b the representation (corresponding to the pres- entation B) suggested, we may say, that the revival of b by A depends, first of all, on the independent values of the two combining factors A and B. Thus it is favoured by the strength (intensity and persistence) of A, as we see in the greater suggestive force which presentations have in gen- eral, as compared with representations. Again, it depends on the depth of the impression B as determined by its in- terest and its total repetition in varying connexions. To this it must be added that the recent occurrence of B is an important aid to its revival in all cases. Persons, places, and so forth are the more readily suggested by contiguous links when they have recently been presented. (2) The revival of b by A will be the more certain and the more rapid the greater the strength of the cohesive bond between them, as determined by proximity, repetition, etc. (3) It follows that if A is presented at different times with other concomitants besides B, as for example D and K, it will tend to revive not only a, but d and k. In this case there will be an opposition or inhibition of suggestive tendencies. Here then we must say that A's power of re- viving b will depend on the preponderance of the interest and the frequency of the particular conjunction over those of other con- junctions, e. g., A — D and A — K. A proper name instantly calls up the image of the place or person because the sug- gestive force works all in one direction. This is the most favourable situation. Next to this we have the situation of predominant interest and frequency, as when the general name island calls up our favourite island, the Isle of Wight. 198 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. It follows from this brief statement of the complex con- ditions of associational reproduction that it is a highly va- riable result. The same antecedent presentation, say the sound of a particular name, the sight of a particular person, is by no means always followed by one and the same idea- tional consequent. The result will vary with a number of variable conditions, as the subject's particular mental state, the tendency of a particular image to recur at the moment, and so forth. Experimental Investigations into Association. Some interesting experimental inquiries into the workings of association have recently been carried out in England and in Germany. The special object of these ex- periments has been to determine what is called Association-time, that is, the time required for a presentation, as a spoken or written word, to call up a connected idea. Among the results reached are the following facts : Associations with words which reach back to early life recur most readily. The sound answering to a printed letter is revived by means of this last more rapidly than the name of a colour by the sight of the colour. The association-time is in general less in normal than in abnormal conditions of mind. Trains of Representations. As already implied, con- tiguous association binds together not only presentative couples but whole groups or aggregates. These aggregates may be combined on the ground of simultaneity, or, what is virtually equivalent to this, spatial co-existence, as when we group together a number of historical events as happen- ing in the same year or reign without reference to the or- der of succession among them, or when we link on a num- ber of various experiences with one and the same place. Here, it is evident, no one order of succession is favoured over others. Thus the sight of a locality A will call up now the order b, d, /, now /, b, d, and so on, according to the variable circumstances of the moment. In other cases, and these form an important class, the aggregates arrange themselves in a linear or serial form, so that we uniformly pass through the succession, A, b, c, d, etc. Such successions are called trains of images. A large part of our ideal acquisitions assume the form of REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION: MEMORY. I 99 such a train. Thus our representation of the regularly re- curring series of natural phenomena, as the periodic succes- sion of day and night, the seasons, and so forth, takes on this form. In like manner, a prolonged visible action, as that of a play, and a succession of sounds, as that of a tune, give rise to a representative train. As already pointed out, such series tend to be recalled in the order of the original presentations. The above statement of the Law of Contiguity, which speaks of close succession, would suggest that each mem- ber of a series is associated only with its proximate antece- dent and consequent. Thus in the alphabet series we com- monly think of p as attached merely to and to q. This, however, is not correct. Experiment shows that members of a series are associated also, though more loosely, with remote members. It follows that the revival of/ in run- ning over the alphabet is the result of the conjoint suggest- ive action of all the preceding letters. Similarly the begin- ning of the last line of a verse of poetry is recalled by the conjoint action of all the words in the preceding lines. The effects of repetition in the case of such chains are very marked. The frequency of the succession tends, by the help of an organisation of the nervous processes in- volved, to an easy and semi-mechanical form of reproduc- tion, in which attention to the several individual members of the series is at its minimum. This may be illustrated in mentally running over the familiar series of the alphabet. Composite Trains : Motor Successions. In nearly all instances of representative trains we have to do not with a single series of elements, but with a number of con- current series. For instance, our representation of a play is made up of a visual series, answering to the several scenes and movements of the actors, and an auditory series, an- swering to the flow of the dialogue. The effect of repe- tition here, supposing the two series to be both interesting, is to bind together the several elements of each successive complex experience into one whole, and each of these wholes to succeeding ones. Thus each visible situation 200 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. will become associated with the corresponding words, and this composite whole associated with what precedes and follows it. Frequent repetition tends to consolidate each successive group into one complex representation, so that the whole series approximates to a single series. Such complete reinstatement of a composite series is, however, difficult, as may be seen in the familiar experience that it is far easier to learn a series of words alone, or a melody apart, than to learn the words and tune together for sing- ing purposes. Hence, perhaps, the tendency in recalling a composite series like that of a dramatic performance to revive with special vividness, now the visual, now the au- ditory train. Among these recurring composite trains of images are those answering to our repeated or habitual actions. Every voluntary movement presupposes, as we shall see, an ante- cedent representation of that movement ; and consequently where there is a succession of movements we must view each step as preceded by the appropriate motor image. Further, since the carrying out of a movement transforms the anticipatory motor image into the corresponding sensa- tion-complex, it follows that in performing a series of fa- miliar movements, as in dressing, or playing a tune from memory, we have each representative element immedi- ately preceded and excited by an associated presentation ; the whole series assuming the form m 1 M 1 — m 2 M a — m* M 3 , etc., where M stands for motor presentation, m for motor representation, and the horizontal line indicates sugges- tion by contiguity.* Not only so, along with this motor chain there goes one or more series of purely sensory elements, also representa- tive and presentative. Thus in walking there is not only the series of motor images and corresponding muscular * This applies only to series of voluntary movements before they have grown automatic by habit. After this the representative element, m, may, as we shall see, drop out. It may be added that when we are merely imagining, and not actually executing, a familiar series of movements, the series will assume the simpler form M 1 — /« 2 — /« 3 , etc. REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION: MEMORY. 2 OI sensations, but another consisting of the tactual images and sensations connected with the bringing of the feet al- ternately to the ground, and in most cases, too, a visual series arising from the changing appearances of the moving limbs, and of the ground. So in singing or speaking the succession of vocal (motor) representations is bound up with one of auditory images. In general the motor elements are weak as compared with the sensory. Hence the train of motor representa- tions may be said to depend on the presence of the sensory elements. Thus, in writing, the succession of manual move- ments is directed or controlled by the visual impressions. How much this is the case may be known by the simple experiment of trying to write in the dark. The effect of frequent repetition of practice in such cases is to dispense with that close attention to the de- tailed elements of the composite train which was necessary at first. This is seen in the fact that the sensory elements which had first to be distinctly attended to become indis- tinct. Thus a young pianist learning her notes has at first to look at her fingers. Later on she can strike the notes with only an indistinct indirect glance at them. In this way practice tends, to a considerable extent, to render a chain of movements independent of sensory elements.* The final outcome of this repetition is a habitual or quasi- automatic action in which all the psychical elements, pres- entations and representations alike, become indistinct. Verbal Integrations. Among the most important of our associations are those of words. Language is the me- dium by which we commonly recall presentations. This arises from the circumstance that we are social beings, de- pendent on communication with others. If, further, it is remembered that language is the medium by which all the higher products of intellectual activity are retained and re- called, its importance will be still more apparent. * That the sensory elements are still present as indistinctly recognised factors is seen in the fact that a man who has lost skin-sensibility and so does not feel the touch of the ground has to look at his feet in order to walk. 202 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. (a) The Word - Complex. A little attention will show that our common verbal acquisitions are highly com- plex results of contiguous association. To begin with, each element of a word is an aggregate of disparate sense-ele- ments, viz., the sound, the movements of articulation, and in the case of the educated the corresponding visual symbol. Of these the sound and the articulation are the fundamental portion. A child in learning to utter the sound o or t must combine a particular sensation of sound with the correspond- ing articulatory process as made known by its characteristic muscular and other sensations {e.g., the sensations accompa- nying the closing of the lips, the moving the tongue against the teeth). This association as a psycho-physical process clearly involves the formation of a nervous connexion be- tween the two distinct central regions of audition and ar- ticulatory movements. The process of acquisition is that of motor association in general : certain sensations call up connected motor representations and through these bring on the actual movements. Thus a child that has learned to articulate/ does so by first representing the sound, and along with this, the muscular sensations atl ending the corresponding ar- ticulatory movement. The importance of the sensation of sound as a controlling element in this process of articula- tory reinstatement is seen in the fact that, in the case of those born deaf, articulation can only be learnt by substi- tuting some other guiding sensation as the visual im- pression received from observing the movements of the lips and other parts of the articulatory apparatus. What we call a word is a serial combination of a number of such associated couples. Observation of children learn- ing to speak, and of persons losing the faculty from disease or old age, shows that the firm retention of the members of such a series in their proper order is a matter of some diffi- culty, presupposing practice, and the integrity and proper working of certain nervous arrangements. {b) Ideo-verbal Integration. A word, however, is more than a series of auditory and motor complexes. It REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION : MEMORY. 203 involves the association of this series with a particular im- age or idea. This association again depends on a further process of central nervous formation, the connected ele- ments of the auditory and articulatory centre being con- joined with certain elements in the particular centre of idea- tion involved. The relation of the word-complex to the idea illustrates the strongest form of contiguous attachment. As we all know, the word, especially when actually spoken or heard, and not merely imaged, is apt to call up the associated idea with exceptional vividness. In early life, when names are signs of concrete or pictorial ideas, this verbal suggestion of imagery is particularly powerful. This is due in part to the childish tendency to ' reify ' the name, that is, to regard it as a part of the real thing itself, instead of something extraneous and arbitrarily attached to it. It is somewhat uncertain how far the several elements of the word- complex enter into our word-aided ideational processes. That the auditory and motor (articulatory) factor are the fundamental part of these repro- ductions seems to be pretty firmly established. The prominence of the motor element is illustrated in the tendency of children, the uneducated, and of all of us when excited, to " think aloud." Yet there seems to be considerable difference in this respect among individuals. (c) Ideo-verbal Series. The verbal complexes just spoken of, together with their associated ideas, are capable of being further integrated into series answering to the in- telligible structures of language. To learn language neces- sarily involves these serial formations. Not only so, but as will appear by-and-by, our power of following out trains of ideas or of thinking is limited by the stock of such verbal acquisitions. In all our more difficult thinking operations words play a prominent part. The formation of such verbal series has for its con- ditions those of composite trains in general. First of all, the integration of the several word-complexes is presup- posed. A child cannot arrange words in an intelligible order till he has firmly associated the parts of the word- complex one with another and the whole complex with the 204 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. idea. When this rudimentary part of the process is mas- tered, the linking on of words and ideas in series turns on a careful attention to words in their order of succession, as also to the relations of time, place, and so forth, among the ideas expressed by this order. It is here assumed that the verbal trains are compounded of words and their associated ideas. Learning, in the tech- nical sense, i.e., learning by heart, involves this double chain. At the same time, the two series are by no means equally prominent in all cases. As every teacher knows, words may be strung together and reproduced with only a very fair accompaniment of ideas. This result turns on the facilities with which the verbal complexes are serially in- tegrated, especially in the early years of life. This is best illustrated in that mode of acquisition much decried by Locke and other educationists, viz., learning by rote. At the same time it must be remembered that verbal cohesion con- stitutes a valuable support of the reproductive process even where the ideas are also retained. This is illustrated in the fact that Macaulay and other men of wide and accurate knowledge have been distinguished also by the fulness and exactness of their verbal reproduction. Memory and Expectation. Our images and trains of images are commonly accompanied by some more or less distinct reference to the corresponding presentations, and to the time-order of their occurrence. This complete rep- resentation of presentations or sense-experiences in their time-relations involves a further intellectual element, to be dealt with by-and-by, viz., a belief in the corresponding events as real occurrences. In some cases, no doubt, this accompaniment is of the vaguest kind. In a state of list- less reverie we may have a series of images without any distinct reference to the corresponding experiences. We simply picture the objects, without reflecting where or when we have seen them or shall or might see them. In other cases, however, we distinctly refer the images to some place in the time-order of our experience. This reference assumes one or two well-marked forms : (a) a reference to REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION : MEMORY. 205 the past or memory, or, to describe the process more fully, memory of events, and (b) a reference to the future or ex- pectation. Both memory and expectation involve a series of images succeeding one another in time, and both illustrate the sug- gestive force of contiguous association. Thus in remem- bering the events of a particular day we retrace the suc- cession of experiences, the images of these following in the order of the events, and being temporarily ' localised ' in this order. Similarly, in anticipating the succession of the events of a journey resembling one already performed, we pass over a succession of images having the same time- order as the events of which they are the representations, and held together by the bond of contiguity. While thus both modes of associative suggestion, they are different modes. In the case of memory the images are projected backwards in time, or are recognised 'as representing past experiences ; in the case of expectation, on the other hand, they are projected forwards, and the presentations viewed as following the present actual one. The nature of this difference will be discussed more fully presently. Again, memory and expectation, though both modes of belief, are perfectly distinct modes. Since in memory we have to do with a reality which is over, the mind is in a comparatively passive attitude with respect to it. The train of memory-images may indeed excite faint feelings of regret or longing, but these are momentary only, and we resign ourselves to the fact that the events are past. In expectation, on the other hand, the mental attitude is one of strenuous activity. There is a preparatory fixation of the attention, and, further, a readiness to act in conformity with the expected occurrence. Representation of Time. Perception and Idea of Time. We have already considered the process of time-apprehension in its simplest form, commonly spoken of as a perception. It remains to inquire into the higher form of time-consciousness, viz., the 206 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. representation or idea of relations of succession and of duration. This time-consciousness, in its most developed form, is one of the most elaborate of intellectual products, involving processes not yet dealt with. Nevertheless, inas- much as it is based on the contiguous association of suc- cessive presentations, it may be convenient to deal with it at this stage. It is difficult for us at first to conceive that a child could ever have had a succession of unlike experiences and not instantly referred these to their positions in the time-order as before and after. Yet there is every reason to think that the knowledge of time is a somewhat late acquisition. In its developed form the representation of events in their temporal order is attained much later than that of objects in their spatial or local order. Thus a child of three and a half years, who had a very precise knowledge of the rela- tive situations of the several localities visited in his walks, showed that he had no definite representations answering to such time-divisions as ' this week,' ' last week,' and still tended to think of 'yesterday ' as an undefined past. Consciousness of Succession. The representation of time begins with the recognition of two successive ex- periences as such. This, as already remarked, implies, in addition to the mere fact of succession, a subsequent men- tal process, viz., a representation of antecedent and consequent together as successive. And this again, as we saw also, pre- supposes the persistence of presentations for an appreciable period, and an overlapping of the image of a preceding sensation with the actual sensation of the moment, and, as a condition of this, an overlapping of the correlated nervous processes. The first apprehension of a time-order in our experience involves the contrast of presentation and representation, of percept and idea, already spoken of. All arrangement of psychical elements in time is an ordering of representations in relation to an actual present.* The simplest form of * Strictly speaking the actual present is an unreal abstraction. It is a sort of mathematical point which is continually changing, and has ceased REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION : MEMORY. 207 such arrangement is the relating of a represented expe- rience as immediately antecedent or consequent to the actual present one ; and the most elaborate time-construc- tion is but an expansion of this process. Representation of Past and Future. The simplest form of time-representation would seem to arise in the fol- lowing way. A child is watching some interesting object, say the play of the sunbeam on the wall of his nursery. Suddenly the sun is obscured by a cloud and the marvel of the dancing light vanishes. In place of the golden brill- iance there now stands the dull commonplace wall-paper. This cessation, however, as we saw above, does not imply a total disappearance of the presentation. It persists as image, and attracts the attention by reason of its interest- ingness. At the same time there is the actual present, the sight of the sunless wall. Here, then, both presentation and representation, the actual experience of the now, and the represented experience which is not-now, occur simul- taneously, and so supply the most favourable conditions for the development of a consciousness of their difference or contrast. Not only, however, would a ' now ' and ' not-now ' be distinguished in this experience. The representation a and the presentation B would, in the case supposed, tend to group themselves in a certain temporal order. Every time the attention was recalled to a (by reason of its persistence and interestingness), it would tend (following the direction of its movement in successively fixing the presentations A, B) to be carried on to B. That is to say, a would take up its place as an antecedent to B, and the relation of the corre- sponding presentations A, B, would thus be represented as a transition from A to B, and not conversely. And this apprehension would be aided by the fact that a declines in intensity and distinctness, while B, as the actual presenta- to be present before the process of attentive reflexion on it is developed. What we are in the habit of calling the present is the sensation-complex of the moment together with its escort of representative elements answering to immediately preceding and immediately succeeding presentations. 208 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. tion, persists in tact, and so gains in force relatively to a. In this way we may suppose the vague representation of a 'not-now' to be developed into the more definite repre- sentation of a ' no-longer.' Let us now take the case of anticipation. The repre- sentation of a future may be supposed to arise like that of a past, in connexion with an actual present. Here, it is obvious, the previous occurrence of the succession is pre- supposed. A presentation A calls up a representation b as its consequent, because the sequence A — B has occurred before, and the two presentations in consequence become associated. Now, if there is an interval between the call- ing up of the image and the realisation of the correspond- ing percept, there are the conditions for the genesis of a representation of a future. In order to retrace the process, we will imagine the situ- ation of a hungry child who sees all the preparations of his food. Under these circumstances the representation of the pleasurable experience of eating is suggested by strong contiguous links. Here again, then, there are all the con- ditions for noting the contrast of presentation and repre- sentation, the realised 'now ' and the unrealised 'not-now.' In this case, however, the relation of representation and presentation would be apprehended as different from that in the first case. During the prolonged existence of the two in mental juxtaposition, the child would discover that every time the actual presentation A rose into distinct con- sciousness it would be followed by the representation b. The presentation and representation would thus assume a different temporal order in this case from that taken up in the first. Through repeated mental transitions from A to b, moreover, b would gain in force, and not lose, as in the former case. Here, then, the vague representation of a 1 not-now ' will be differentiated into the representation of a ' not-yet.' The representation of a number of successions, or of a time-series, would take place in much the same way, in connexion with an actual pres- entation. Suppose a series of presentations A, B, C, D . . . H. Then REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION : MEMORY. 209 when the presentation H occurs, the representations a, b, c, d, etc., may, as we have seen, still persist in consciousness. Now, in considering in rapid succession such a group of images, the attention is (as was pointed out above) determined to a certain order. Thus, it moves easily and smoothly in the order abc, but only with difficulty along another order, say cba, or cab. Hence the particular temporal order assigned to the events. In this case, too, the differences in the intensity of the several images, which are due to the fact that certain members of the sensational train having oc- curred longer ago have become more effaced, would make themselves felt, and serve as additional " temporal signs," or clues to the temporal order of the events. Representation of Duration. A second aspect of time, over and above mere succession, is duration. This aspect is given from the first, along with succession. As pointed out above, all sensations are apprehended as last- ing or occupying so much time. Similarly with ideas and other psychical states. The sense of duration shows itself commonly as apprehension of interval between sensations, e.g., those of two clock-strokes.* And so our several experi- ences come to be thought of not merely as preceding or succeeding another, but as each occupying so much time, and further, as separated from one another by certain time- intervals or distances. In other words, time, like space, is made up of relations of position and of distance. It is, however, only after a certain range of experience, and a certain development of reflective power, that a child begins to be distinctly aware of time as duration. As long as his sensations and thoughts are all-absorbing, and at- tention is not called off to the fact of duration, he remains unconscious of it. In order to the development of this consciousness of time, there must be something in the ex- perience which serves to divert the attention to this par- ticular aspect of it. A child, for example, might be led to this kind of reflexion when told to wait for the satisfaction of an expressed wish. In this situation of prolonged an- ticipation, an attitude at once difficult to maintain and very fatiguing, we may suppose the first vague consciousness of * Such intervals are probably measured by help of persistent organic and other sensations. 14 2io OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. duration to arise in connexion with a feeling of tedium or ennui. That the appreciation of duration begins in this way may be seen by observation of children, who first speak about 'long time' and 'short time' with reference to strongly desired futures. It is further illustrated in the familiar fact that we all realise duration most vividly when called on to wait for something in circumstances that offer no distractions, as for a train at a railway station. With this vivid and exaggerated sense of duration there con- trasts the underestimation of it during other and more es- pecially deeply interesting and absorbing experiences. So far we have spoken of the consciousness and estima- tion of time during the period concerned. From this con- temporary estimate we must distinguish the retrospective and the prospective apprehension and measurement of du- ration. As is well known, this is not identical with the first. The waiting at the railway station, which seemed so long while it lasted, looks short enough afterwards; and a day's holiday, which is boundless to the sanguine anticipation of a boy, seems to shrink painfully as it is taken possession of. Here the other aspect, viz., time-succession, comes in as a factor in the time-estimation. We seem, no doubt, to be able to estimate time to some extent by means of a persist- ent unchanging sensation, as in judging of the duration of a tone; yet change is certainly necessary for defining a duration, just as a sensation of contact is needed for limit- ing the extent of (empty) space. Not only so, in all our more complex representations of time duration of single experiences, and succession of experiences, are both in- volved. Thus it is well known that in the retrospective and prospective estimate of time the number of represented elements forming the content of the period directly affects the result. Days or weeks, filled with many new, striking, and interesting experiences, appear, on that account, both in prospect and in retrospect, exceptionally long.* * It is to be noted that even in the estimation of the duration of persist- ent sensations, as tones, change is always present in the rhythmic rise and REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION: MEMORY. 2 II The Temporal Scheme. Our complete representa- tion of the time-order whether past or future is that of a succession of experiences or events having a certain du- ration, and lying at certain distances or intervals one from another. In this way we represent the events of a particu- lar week, the successive incidents of a tour, and so forth. This complex representation is only acquired after a con- siderable development of the power of reproduction and of reflexion. It involves, in addition to reproductions of indi- vidual experiences, a comparison of their order with that of others' experiences. A word or two must suffice to indi- cate the course of this development. With respect to the temporal order of our experiences we are all aided greatly by certain conventional arrange- ments, more particularly the divisions of time into periods, as years, seasons of the year, months, weeks, days, and sub- divisions of these. This arrangement enables us to date any experience we are able to fix in our minds by attach- ing it to a particular division. . Our common experiences are in this way ordered similarly in a common time-scheme. Thus, all members of a family come to think of an event of common interest, such as the migration into a new home, as having happened at a certain date. By help of this same common time-scheme the individual is able to retrace portions of his past which are only very imperfectly reviv- able. This constructive process is completed in the case of all of us by a common reference to an "objective" stand- ard of time, which answers to a constant (or approximately constant) time-experience of ourselves on different occa- sions and to a similar time-experience for ourselves and for others. Such a standard of reference seems to be found in movement, and, more particularly, visible movement, e.g., of the sun, of the clock. The representation of the future is, of course, still less fall of attention and of the concomitant sensations (cf. p. 90). For a fuller account of the variations in our subjective estimate of time or duration, see my volume, Illusions, chap. x. p. 239 ff.. and chap. xi. p. 302 ff. 212 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. complete than that of the past. Here we have not even that fragment of a definite series of events which we have in the case of recalling a portion of our past life. Our future is only susceptible of a dim forecast. Yet, even here, the formation of the common time-scheme just re- ferred to enables us to move forward in imagination through a succession of periods in which imperfectly rep- resented changes of age, surroundings, occupation, and so forth, with the correlative changes of feeling, form the serial content. Remembering Events. The development of the temporal scheme here briefly described renders possible the process of Remembering in the complete sense of this word, viz., a definite recalling of a particular event of the past. In this case the memory-image is definitely referred to a particular portion of the past, and localised or placed in its proper temporal settings. Thus we remember an ex- amination, a tour abroad, when we localise the occurrence, say, in a particular month of a particular year, and connect it with what preceded and what followed it. It is this definite reference, too, to the time-order of the past which underlies the sense of personal continuity, or, as it is generally called, 'personal identity.' It is only in the measure in which we can mentally run over a succession of prominent past experiences as framed in the time-scheme that we acquire a clear idea of a continuous flow of con- sciousness, or of a mental life. Much of our so-called remembering falls far short of a precise localising of events. We have a vague sense of pastness and that is all. This condition of incomplete or fragmentary reproduction is illustrated in the processes of Recognition already dealt with. To recognise an object, a name, is to have along with a given percept or image a sense of its representing something which has gone before. It is to be added that where a past presentation has oc- curred again and again and with different concomitants the recurrence of it fails to recall any particular date and group of experiences, just because the several suggestive REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION : MEMORY. 213 tendencies inhibit one another. In hearing a familiar word, in looking at a book we often use, we recognise, that is, have a vague sense of past acquaintance, but do not recall any particular previous occurrences with their distinctive tem- poral concomitants. Other Forms of Suggestion. We have now completed our account of the reproductive process so far as the Law of Contiguous Association is con- cerned. As pointed out in our general account of associa- tion, this refers mainly, if not exclusively, to the integration of presentative elements which fall together in the time- order of our experience. Suggestion of Similars. At the same time, all sug- gestion does not take the form of revival by links of con- tiguity. When, for example, a photograph calls up an image of the original person or locality, or when a word in French or Italian calls up the parent word in Latin, the succession is commonly said to follow, not the (external) order of time, but the (internal) order of likeness or simi- larity. And from the age of Aristotle downward the Laws of Association have, by the majority of writers, included a special Law of Similarity. We have now to examine into the nature of this process of suggestion, and to define its relation to the process of contiguous suggestion already dealt with. In the first place, then, we must distinguish this process of suggestion from that of automatic assimilation already considered. In order that there be the suggestion of one representation by another, they must, it is evident, be in a measure distinct. That is to say, the similarity in this case is incomplete. The portrait and the original, though simi- lar in certain features or aspects, are dissimilar in others. Hence we have in this case a succession of partly dissimilar representations, or a distinct process of revival of one rep- resentation by an antecedent one. It may be marked off from Automatic (z*. (C (/ b which form we found to be fitting in the case of contiguous cohesion. Hence the word association seems to be inap- propriate here. Nature of Assimilative Suggestion. Let us now inquire a little more closely into the mode of working of this " Attraction of Similars " as it has been called. To begin with, then, since the attractive force resides in the fact of similarity, we may expect that it will vary with the amount of the similarity, and this is what we find. Where two presentations are closely similar, as in the case of two voices very like in timbre, there the tendency to revival will be strong. A number of common features in two ob- jects is a known aid to assimilative revival. We identify a person after an interval of absence by a complex of simi- larities, as form, expressional movement, voice, and so forth. Speaking generally we may say that, according to the principle now dealt with, presentations tend to revive one another in the proportion in which likeness preponderates over difference. This will be aided, as in the case of contiguous REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION : MEMORY. 215 reproduction, by the strength of the reviver and the readi- ness of the image (through depth, recency of impression, etc.) to recur. The attraction of similars exerts a marked influence on the flow of our ideas. The sights and sounds that meet us tend now to revive contiguous adjuncts, now to suggest similar sights and sounds in our past experience. Where we fail to detect the presence of a link of contiguity con- necting two successive representations, a thread of connex- ion may often be found in some point of likeness. This action of similarity, moreover, being unlimited by time and circumstances, has a wide scope. It serves to connect not only sensations of the same class, but even disparate sen- sations. In what has been called the " analogy of feeling," as when a certain effect of colour reminds us of an analo- gous effect of tone, we have an example of this far-reaching influence of similarity. Assimilative Integration. Although assimilative re- vival is not in itself a true process of association it gives rise to such. When a presentation KAM recalls another PAQ the immediate succession of the two in consciousness secures a certain amount of contiguous cohesion between them. We all know that after mentally bringing together, for example, two faces, and recognising their likeness, we tend to connect the two habitually. This effect of con- necting similars brought together in consciousness may be marked off as assimilative integration. Such assimilative integration plays a certain part in the acquisition of our concrete knowledge, and is a still more important factor in the building up of our thought-com- plexes, viz., general notions and judgments. The latter of these effects will have to be considered later on. A word or two may here be added on the former. When we say that learning is assimilation we mean that it takes place largely by help of assimilative suggestion. Thus, in learning the German word Vogel we are apt to recall fowl, and by thus attaching the new to the old acquisition by a link of likeness we greatly expedite the 2i6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. process of retention. The new and strange fact becomes incorporated with familiar facts, and acquires something of the interest of these. Thus the hard repellent-looking for- eign work takes on a friendly mien when assimilated to some homely vocable ; the dry historical fact becomes vivid and striking when brought into analogy with some interest- ing fact of the present day, and so forth. Hence a firm in- tegration of the two ; and, as a result of this, a strong re- tention of the new fact. Relation of Suggestion by Similarity to Contigu- ous Suggestion. We have thus far marked off, as sharply as possible, suggestion by similarity from suggestion by contiguity ; and this on the ground already pointed out, that they answer to two perfectly distinct directions of the reproductive process. The latter, as we have seen, tends to a reinstatement of experience-wholes, or time-connected aggregates; in other words, to a reproduction along with each presentative element of its experimental context. The former, on the other hand, brings together elements of experience not necessarily connected in time at all, but lying, it may be, very remote in the time-order. Or, to ex- press the contrast in another way, we may say that associ- ative (contiguous) reproduction is externally conditioned, viz., by the time-proximity of the original presentations, whereas assimilative reproduction is internally conditioned by the psychological (or psycho-physical relations of the presentations. At the same time, it follows from what was said in a previous chapter on the unity of the elaborative process as a whole, that the two modes of reproduction are mutually implicated. All contiguous suggestion, as we there saw, begins with a process of automatic assimilation. When the sight of a flower recalls an odour, a particular locality, or a romantic experience, it is because this visual presentation is assimilated to one or more like previous ones. On the other hand, as already pointed out, similarity is never the only reviving circumstance. When, for example, one face recalls another similar one, the revival is assimilative only REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION : MEMORY. 217 so far as certain like or common features of the two objects are concerned. All that is revived beyond this, the unlike concomitants of expression, figure, dress, habitation, and so forth, is the work of contiguity. The symbolic representation of the assimilative element in contiguous reproduction was given above (p. 1 16). The co-operation of contiguous suggestion in what is commonly called the revival of similars may be sym- bolised thus : f __ etc. where the group of capitals stands for the reviving presentation-complex, and that of the small letters for the revived images. Here the assimilative part of the process is expressed by the letters X — x ;* while the other and contiguous part of the reproduction, or associative revival proper, is indi- cated by the smaller letters and their connecting lines. Yet, while both compounded of the same elements, viz., assimilative and associative revival proper, the two operations commonly described as sug- gestion by contiguity and by similarity are, in general, readily distinguish- able. In what is called contiguous suggestion the assimilative step in the process, being automatic and instantaneous, is slurred over and lost sight of, the associative revival of concomitant elements being the striking part of the process. These concomitants, moreover, are kept distinct from the re- viving presentation. On the other hand, in assimilative suggestion, the process of assimilation, with its concomitant, consciousness of similarity, is the conspicuous part of the whole operation. The difference between the two processes may be symbolised thus : — Contiguous A ->() Experience and Association. It is commonly admitted that the great source of all definite connective- belief is experience and association. Reality is given us in our common sense-experience as a tissue of connected parts, e.g., qualities conjoined in things, a succession of connected changes in things. These connexions in our presentative experience determine by the processes of asso- ciation the order of our representations. We may say, then, that all belief tends to take on the form of an appre- hension of an objective connexion or relation, which rela- tion is suggested by a process of reproduction. As pointed out above, the process of contiguous asso- ciation is that by which the order of our ideas is assimilated to that of our perceptual experience. Hence contiguity is the main intellectual factor in belief. To realise an idea by setting it in definite relations of space and time is only possible through the workings of contiguous association. This was illustrated above in the case both of memory and of expectation. Both memory and expectation have to do with the actual present as their starting-point. Now we have seen that belief in reality has refer- ence to an actual perceptual experience. We may thus say that both the recollection of a thing and the anticipation of a thing as a mode of assur- ance are effected through the connexion of an idea with the actual presen- tation of the moment. And the closer this connexion, the stronger is the belief. Our confidence in that which has just been experienced is of the very strongest ; and, as we shall see presently, the same applies to that 324 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. which is suggested by the present as immediately about to happen. The effect of actual objects in aiding belief in the images immediately asso- ciated with these, as illustrated in the service of a ground-work of sense- reality, e. g., a toy, to the fiction-building of children, as also in the value of religious symbols in furthering a realisation of the unseen, and of per- sonal relics as helping us to recall the reality of the past, is due to this circumstance. In the case of expectations we have the phenomenon of inferred or inferential belief. This, as implied in what has gone before, depends on the firm establishment by- means of certain given presentations or representations of a particular ideational connexion or structure. Thus, in- ferring from known instances of thunderstorms that an- other thunderstorm is coming on, my new inferential belief arises through the inevitable reinstatement of a particular expectation by a given group of recollections. It follows from this view that the strength or intensity of such an inferred expectation will depend on the vivid- ness and stability of the reinstated ideational connexion. Thus it is strengthened by all that tends to secure vivid reinstatement, as the exciting character of the original im- pression. For a like reason, the expectation of an event which stands in close temporal proximity to the actual present, being more vivid than that of a remote conse- quent, will be attended with a stronger or more lively assurance. Next to such conditions of vivid reproduction we have the great force of repetition. We have seen that the strength of association varies (ceteris paribus) with the amount of repetition, and with the degree of uniformity of the connexion. This effect of repetition and uniformity is seen in the stability of all thought-connexions which answer to recurring and i?ivariable conjunctions, e. g., signs with their significates, causes with their effects, and so forth. And it is here that we see inferential belief at its strongest. Thus we have the fullest assurance that sea-water is salt, that rough and hard substances hurt, and so forth. Verbal Suggestion. Closely connected with the ef- PROCESSES OF THOUGHT. 325 feet of experience and contiguous association on belief is that of verbal suggestion. The instant excitation of a more or less distinct belief by another's word, e.g., when a man shouts 'Fire ! ' illustrates the force of words in rein- stating vivid ideas. The peculiarly close connexion of words and ideas is, as already pointed out, the effect of great frequency and perfect uniformity of associative con- junction. To this it must be added that every connected form of words or verbal statement presents itself to us as the direct expression of another's judgment and convic- tion. Hence the tendency to accept another's statement automatically and quite apart from any process of 'weigh- ing testimony.' The combination of words in this case serves to effect in the hearer's (or reader's) mind the cor- responding combination of ideas, and so to excite a nas- cent belief in the reality. We see this effect of verbal sug- gestion in the common superstition that to talk of death or other calamity is to invite its occurrence, as also in the tame acceptance of traditional statements which the least reflexion would show to be untrue, and in the momentary tendency to believe even what we half discern to be an extravagant assertion. II. Effect of Feeling on Belief. While belief is thus in the main the product of the intellectual mechanism, it is powerfully affected by the feelings and desires. There is no such thing as a perfectly cold belief into which no feeling enters. We must be interested in a truth if we are to give it our full conviction. Our strongest beliefs are those which connect themselves closely with self and its interests. The immense influence of this affective element in belief is illustrated in the way in which it tends to coun- teract or overpower the intellectual tendencies. In the unregulated beliefs of the uneducated this setting aside of thought by feeling is habitual. Thus, in the superstitious beliefs of the savage in the reality of that which strikes the imagination and awakens fear, in the tendency of the vulgar to believe in the miraculous, in the impulse which we all experience to believe that which we wish for, and in 326 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. all that is known as prejudice and bias, we see illustrations of this disturbing influence of feeling. This action of feeling on belief is in every case me- diate ; that is to say, it works by modifying the processes of ideation themselves. It is by giving preternatural vividness and stability to certain members of the ideational train called up at the time, e. g., ideas of occurrences which we intensely long for, or specially dread, and by deter- mining the order of ideation to follow not that of ex- perience but that which answers to and tends to sustain and prolong the feeling, that its force serves to warp be- lief, causing it to deviate from the intellectual or reason- able type. It follows that when belief is thus sustained by feeling the decline of feeling will tend to undermine the belief. This result is seen in the occasional lapse of religious and other beliefs through the cooling of emotional fervour. The imagination, wanting its emotive stimulus, fails to rise to the needed point of vividness. The mind loses its hold on the reality and falls into a depressed state of doubt. Certain organic disturbances bringing about a lowering of feeling are known to diminish the firmness of mental grasp, an effect which in extreme and morbid cases may reach to a loss of the sense of reality even with respect to objects which are directly perceived by the senses. III. Belief and Activity. As was observed just now, belief stands in a peculiarly close relation to activity. In most cases at any rate it involves the incipient excitation of impulses to look out for a particular result, and to fol- low a particular line of action. Owing to this organic connexion with action, belief may be influenced by strengthening the active element. Thus, as we all know, an eagerness to do something tends to favour the belief that would justify us in doing it, e.g., our power to accomplish our purpose, the Tightness of the action, the worthiness of the object, and so forth. Hence in the case of the young, who are characterised by great strength of active impulse, belief is generally in excess of PROCESSES OF THOUGHT. 327 the teachings of experience* Doubt and hesitation, on the other hand, only arise where these impulses are in a meas- ure toned down by the lessons of experience. The contirst which thus shows itself in the case of eager youth and cau- tious age discloses itself in a less marked way in the case of the practical and the speculative mind. The former, strongly urged by his active impulses to act and therefore to decide somehow, is impatient of uncertainty and only happy when he has a definite and strong conviction ; the latter may be said to live in an atmosphere of uncertainty, and in extreme cases, as that of Coleridge, where ideation is wholly divorced from practical impulse, hardly to know what full intense conviction means. Logical Control of Belief: Knowledge. In the foregoing account of the several factors in belief we have been occupied merely with its primitive or instinctive form. We have now to see how the process of logical thought serves to transform this crude type of belief into that reasoned or systematised form, which we call knowledge. As we have seen, logical, that is, fully explicit thought, proceeds by clearly setting forth our judgments in a verbal form, and in tracing out their logical relations, consistency and inconsistency, and dependence of conclusion on pre- mise. The expression of a belief in a definite propositional form is itself an important step in the direction of reflect- ive or rational conviction ; for the belief when thus ex- pressed is in a manner objectified,/. ien or species, competent to the production and maintenance of hnozo/edge, i. e., the cognition of things as real, and as bound together by universal relations ? * Training of the Powers of Judgment and Reasoning. To train a child's power of judging is to exercise him in framing judgments by inviting him to observe and describe an object, to narrate something which has happened to him, to repeat carefully what he has heard, to sub- mit propositions for his acceptance and rejection, and so forth. Here the educator should aim at caution and accuracy of statement. The tendency of children to exaggerate needs to be carefully watched and counteracted. The child should be accustomed to think well about the words he uses, to see all that is implied in them, as well as all that is contradicted by them. At the same time it should be remembered that children delight in vivid and picturesque statement, and that a touch of exaggeration is perhaps pardonable. A main problem in the training of the judgment is to draw the line between excessive individual independence and undue deference to author- ity. The power of judgment is, as we have seen, more fully exercised when the child forms an opinion for himself than when he passively re- ceives one from his mother or teacher. Accordingly, the educator has to aim at drawing out the child's power of judging about things for himself. This can be very well done in certain regions of observation, as, for ex- ample, in judging with respect to simple matters of taste. On the other hand, it is obvious that with respect to certain subjects the child's liberty of judging must be curtailed. It would not do to allow a young child * On the nature of the philosophical problem of knowledge the reader may consult Prof. Seth's article " Philosophy " in the Encyclop. Britann. ; also Prof. Fraser's Introduction to the Selections from Berkeley. 334 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. with his limited experience to decide what is possible or probable in a case of great complexity ; and still less to permit him in all instances to pro- nounce on the Tightness or wrongness of an action. To combine the ends of authority and of individuality in respect of judging requires much wis- dom and skill in the trainer of the young. The training of the Reasoning Powers must go on hand in hand with that of Judgment. In the earliest stage (from about the beginning of the fourth year) the mother is called on to satisfy the child's curiosity or desire for explanation. This period is an important one for the subsequent de- velopment of the child. Parents are apt to think that children not infre- quently put questions in a half-mechanical way, without any real desire for an explanation, and even for the sake of teasing. It seems, however, to be a good rule to give an explanation wherever a simple one is possible, provided, of course, that the knowledge is not attainable by the child's own intellectual exertions. This is Locke's advice : ' Encourage his In- quisitiveitess all you can by satisfying his demands, and informing his Judgment, as far a sit is capable' {Some Thoughts concerning Education, § 122). It may be even well at first to descend to the child's level and to try to look at the world through his own anthropomorphic glasses. The forces of nature may be personified and so her simple processes (e. g., the exhalation of vapour and its condensation in rain) presented to the child in a form which is not only intelligible but which is certain to interest him by its picturesqueness. The training of the reasoning powers includes, however, more than the answering of the child's spontaneous questionings. The learner must be questioned in his turn as to the causes of what happens about him. The educator may in this way help to fix a habit of inquiry. The systematic training of the reasoning powers must aim at avoiding the errors incident to the processes of induction and deduction. Thus children need to be warned against hasty induction, against taking a mere accidental accompaniment for a condition or cause, against overlooking the plurality of causes and the like. In like manner the teacher should seek to direct the young reasoner in drawing conclusions from principles by pointing out to him the limits of a rule, by helping him to distinguish between the cases that do and those that do not fall under it, and by familiarising him with the dangers that lurk in ambiguous language. In this more methodical training the educator will be greatly assisted by a knowledge of the rules of Logic. REFERENCES FOR READING. On the processes of thought and the psychological treatment of knowl- edge, see Spencer's analysis of reasoning, Principles of Psychology, vol. ii. esp. chap. viii. ; also Ward, article "Psychology," Encyclop. Britann., p. 75 ff. ; Lotze, Aficrocosmus, bk. ii. chap. iv. ; and Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, v. D. PROCESSES OF THOUGHT. 335 In connection with the practical side the student should read Locke's little work Conduct of the Understanding (edited by Prof. T. Fowler). He should further master the elements of deductive and inductive logic as expounded in such a work as Prof. Jevons' Elementary Lessons. Finally, on the application of Logic to Educational Method the student may con- sult (in addition to the chapter in Jevons' Elementary Lessons) Th. Waitz's Allgcmeine Padagogik, § 22. PART IV. THE FEELINGS. CHAPTER XII. feelings: simple feelings. Having now reviewed the successive stages of the de- velopment of intellection or cognition, we may pass on to consider the development of the second of the three phases of mind, namely, the affective phase or feeling. The Feelings and their Importance. As already pointed out, we include under the head of feeling all psy- chical phenomena so far as they have the element or aspect of the agreeable or the disagreeable. This preliminary rough demarcation of the region of feeling may help us to see its peculiar significance as a main constituent of our mental life. To begin with, feeling marks off the interesting side of our experience. External objects only have a value for us when they touch our feelings. Mere cognition of an object may leave us cold, but the appreciation of its beauty, in- volving a wave of pleasure, warms and thrills us. It is evident that what we mean by happiness, and its opposite, unhappiness or misery, is made up of elements of feeling. We are happy so far as we are the subject of pleasure, un- happy so far as the subject of pain. Our estimate of things and of human life as a whole will thus depend on those in- gredients of our experience which come under the head of feeling:. THE FEELINGS. 337 Again, feeling is subjective experience par excellence. In all perception of, and all thought about, objects we are in the "objective attitude," that is, representing a world of common cognition. Our actions, too, involve changes carried out in the external world, and so have an objective aspect. But our feelings, save in their external manifesta- tion, are all our own. To be affected by joy or by sorrow, to fear or to hope, is to have an experience which we de- tach from the object-world and refer to the subject-world or self. Feeling in all its higher and developed forms stands in close connexion with self-consciousness. While feeling has thus a special intrinsic interest as a subject of study it has a further intrinsic interest because of its bearing on the other aspects of our mental life. The interactions of feeling on the one side with intellection and conation on the other will be more fully considered by-and- by. Here it will be enough to say that the cultivation of the feelings stands in close organic connexion with that of intelligence. To develop the powers of observation and of thought is to awaken interests, that is to say, to excite and raise to the position of strong incentives certain varieties of feeling. The cultivation of feeling connects itself on another side in the closest way with the development of volition. As we shall see by-and-by, the prompting forces in our voluntary action are feelings when elaborated into motives. We exert ourselves under the stimulus of a feel- ing of hunger, of love, and so forth. Hence the considera- tion of the feelings connects itself closely with that of conation, and has, indeed, by some been altogether com- prehended under this head. Definition of Feeling'. We may now seek to mark off the element of feeling more precisely by examining into its essential characteristics. All psychical states that are distinctly pleasurable, or the opposite, plainly come under the head of feelings. Thus, to take the lower region of " bodily " feeling, it is generally agreed that the pain of a burn, or the pleasure of quenching thirst, is properly described as a feeling. So in 22 338 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. the higher region of so-called " mental " feeling or emotion it is recognised that the joy of success, the pain of bereave- ment, are examples of feeling. In addition to such well-marked cases of pleasurable and painful consciousness we have to include under the head of feeling every psychical state so far as it has any agreeable or disagreeable aspect, however slight. Thus every con- sciousness of a difficulty or hitch in an operation, whether bodily or mental, is as such disagreeable, and so finds a place in the category of feeling. It is evident that this comprehensive use of the terms pleasurable and painful enables us to say that most of our common experiences are coloured by some degree of feeling or affective ' tone.' Thus a close introspective observation tells us that sensations are in the large majority of cases, if not universally, accompanied by some amount of feeling. The same is true of the processes of ideation. How far pleasurable and painful consciousness exhausts all that is properly included under the head of feeling is a point of dispute. According to some psychologists there is over and above these opposed modes a third mode, viz., neutral feeling or bare, colourless excitement. Thus it is said that the primitive experience of shock, which later de- velops into the feeling of surprise or wonder, is an example of such aheutral or indifferent feeling. It is probable, how- ever, that all that is properly affective in these and similar psychical states is characterised by a pleasurable or a pain- ful tone. Feeling and Presentation. As has been already im- plied, pleasure and pain do not occur as isolated experiences, but in close connexion with presentative elements, that is to say, sensations, and their derivatives, percepts, and ideas. Thus we commonly speak of a pleasure as one "of taste," " of colour," " of imagination," and so forth. We must now try to indicate this relation more clearly. The first thing to do here is to mark off as sharply as possible the presentative and the affective element. The presentative element is distinguishable from its concomitant THE FEELINGS. 339 of feeling by a certain determinate quality and local com- plexion. Thus a touch as soft, as experienced at a particu- lar region, or over a particular surface of the skin, is pure presentation. On the other hand, the feeling-tone as such has no quality (apart from the radical difference of the pleasant and the unpleasant) and no local attribute, though it certainly has intensity and duration. While thus capable of being distinguished by careful analysis, the presentative and the affective element are closely bound up one with another, especially in the region of sense-experience. This is clearly shown in the common way of describing feeling by epithets borrowed from sensa- tion, e.g., a "burning," a " pricking " pain. We have now to look into this connexion somewhat more closely. At first it might appear as if the presentative element and feeling are given together in strict simultaneity as dif- ferent " elements in," or " aspects of," one experience. A closer examination shows, however, that the relation of the two elements is far less simple or uniform than at first ap- pears. Thus common experience tells us we may have the sensation of a blow before we feel its painfulness, and ex- periment has confirmed the observation. Thus it has been found that from one to two seconds may elapse between the sensation and the feeling of pain when a corn is struck. It has been ascertained further that in certain diseases, and by help of certain drugs, the affective element may be extin- guished and the presentative element remain. A certain mu- tual independence is further suggested by a comparison of the experience of different senses. In certain classes of sensation, e.g., ordinary touches, the feeling element is quite subordinate if present at all, whereas we see in the region of organic sensation a marked preponderance of the affect- ive over the presentative side. The sensation of a lacera- tion or of indigestion has, as we saw above, no well-de- fined specific quality like that of colour, and is, indeed, by some regarded as a case of pure feeling. We may summarise the results as follows : — (1) There is a general concomitance between the pre- 340 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. sentative element, that is, sensation or its ideal representa- tive, and feeling — to the extent, at least, that there is no feeling which does not imply a minimum of presentative consciousness. (2) The affective and the cognitive element do not ap- pear with equal prominence in our sensational and idea- tional experience ; the higher degrees of definiteness of presentation tend to keep down feeling, and conversely the higher degrees of intensity or feeling tend to hinder the full development of the presentative element as a sharply discriminated quality. These results suggest that the physiological conditions of feeling, though including those of sensation, are in part different. But of the exact nature of these distinctive nervous concomitants little is known. It has been held by some that there are special nerves of pain, yet this is ex- ceedingly doubtful. On the other hand, it is highly proba- ble that all feeling involves a more extended central nerve- process than sensation. Conditions of Pleasure and Pain. We have now to consider the conditions or mode of production of feeling. Here, again, we shall confine our- selves in the main to the simpler feelings, those of sense, inquiring into their nervous conditions. Law of Stimulation. The first and most obvious mode of variation of the process of sensory stimulation is quantity, and more particularly intensity ; and a very little consideration will show that this exerts an influ- ence on the resulting feeling. In the case of the higher senses, for example, while a moderate strength of stimu- lus, light, or sound, is agreeable, a greater strength be- comes disagreeable. The same relation holds in the case of the reflex reactions called forth by sensory stimuli. A moderate exertion of attention to sights or sounds is agree- able, a severe strain becomes fatiguing, and so disagree- able. Similarly with respect to all muscular activity. Mod- THE FEELINGS. 341 erate exercise of a group of muscles is enjoyable, unduly violent exercise is fatiguing, that is, disagreeable. Passing to ideational activity, a like relation appears to obtain. Apart from all differences among our representa- tions, it may be laid down as a general proposition that the cerebral activity involved in imagination and thought is attended by some degree of pleasure, provided the effect of over-stimulation and of fatigue is excluded. Thus a rapid sequence of ideas to which attention is able to ac- commodate itself is exhilarating. On the other hand, a too sudden and overpowering intrusion of ideas, as also un- duly prolonged and fatiguing intellectual activity, are dis- agreeable. These facts have long since led to the formulation of a law of pleasure and pain, which may be called the law con- necting pleasure and pain with quantity of functional ac- tivity, or more briefly the law of pleasurable and painful stimulation. It may be expressed as follows :-r- The moderate stimulation of the central nervous organs is attended with pleasure, and the pleasure continues to increase with the increase of the stimulation up to the limit of excessive or fatiguing activity, at which point it gives way to a feeling of pain. The expression ' moderate ' stimulation is here used in a relative, and not in an absolute, sense. It has reference to the peculiar structure and to the temporary condition of the organ stimulated. It is probable that some nerve-struct- ures which are called on for more frequent and prolonged activity, e.g., those involved in vision, in the movements of the hands, recover more rapidly than others, and so allow of a longer pleasurable activity. Not only so, a vigorous condition of the organ, say, a group of muscles, or the muscular system as a whole, renders possible a greater intensity and a longer duration of pleasurable ac- tivity than a feeble condition. Impulse and its Gratification : Pains of Want. In the above statement of the principle of stimulation no reference has been made to any impulse or disposition to 342 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. activity. A correct view of our psycho-physical organisa- tion requires us to bring in this element. Our organs may be more or less disposed to activity. This is specially true of the motor organs. These may be in a state of special readiness or tension, so that the slightest amount of sen- sory stimulation suffices for exciting the activity. Such an organic disposition becomes an impulse where there is a conscious concomitant, viz., a desiring or striving to act.* These organic dispositions show themselves to some extent as original. This is illustrated in the instinctive impulse to walk, to examine things, to play, and so forth. They are, moreover, furthered by the habitual direction of our activity. We tend and feel impelled to do what we have been accustomed to do. The effect of such organic dispositions on feeling is a double one. In the first place, the co-operation of the dis- position or impulse is an important reinforcing factor in the pleasurable stimulation. When strongly impelled by hunger, by the impulse to muscular activity, to reading, and so forth, the pleasure accompanying the corresponding activity is proportionately increased. Hence the common way of looking at all enjoyment as the gratification of impulse. In the second place, the delay of such gratification gives rise to a new variety of painful feeling, viz., that of Want or Craving. To be hungry and not be satisfied, to want to read and have no book at hand, is in itself a misery. Such painful cravings are, to some extent, periodically recurrent, and connected with rhythmical changes of or- ganic conditions. These periodic organically conditioned cravings are known as Appetites. They consist of the well-known bodily appetites, as hunger, thirst, sexual crav- ing, together with other regularly recurring wants not com- monly spoken of as appetites, such as the craving for sleep, for muscular activity, for amusement. This regular recur- rence of craving becomes further fixed by habits of life. * The nature of impulse will be more fully considered by-and-by under the head of Conation. THE FEELINGS. 343 By combining the principle of impulse and want with that of stimulation, we may say : Pleasure, so far as it is connected with quantity of stimulation, lies between two extremes \ excess and deficiency, each of which is painful. Since our organs are useful structures needed for the carrying out of certain life-functions, anything which serves to promote their efficiency is beneficial, anything which tends to destroy this efficiency, injurious. Moderate exer- cise conduces to efficiency. Hence the pleasures of exer- cise, including the gratifications of impulse which dratv us to such beneficial action, together with the pains of craving which drive us thither, work to our advantage. Quiet Pleasures : Repose. In the above account of the relation of feeling to quantity of stimulation we have left out of consideration an important modifying circum- stance. Low degrees of stimulation seem to produce an effect of agreeable feeling disproportionate to their inten- sity. This is accounted for partly by the voluminousness and capability of prolongation of these pleasures, partly, too, by the fact that in the case of very weak stimuli, as pianissitno tones, and quiet shades of colour, there is a spe- cial activity of attention involved. Pleasures which we call by the names idleness, repose, dolce far niente, appear at first to contradict the principle that pleasure is a concomitant of a positive activity. It must be remembered, however, that the delights of repose are relative, presupposing, in their higher intensities, at least, a contrast to a remembered exertion. Hours of inac- tivity, or idleness, fill a considerable place in those rhyth- mic alternations of work and rest which are required for healthy life. What we call doing nothing is, moreover, never really a state of complete inactivity. Thus the re- laxation of the severer kinds of bodily and mental work makes room for a more vigorous discharge of the vital functions. In addition to this, idleness when pleasurable always involves something of play, that is, of gentle activity indulged in for its own sake. Pleasure and Pain and Form of Stimulus. While 344 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. intensity or strength of stimulus is thus one main factor in the determination of pleasure and pain, it is not the only condition. A difference in the form of the stimulus, an- swering to a difference of quality in the sensation, affects the tone of feeling also. Thus, in the region of taste, as we saw, a bitter taste is as such disagreeable in all degrees. Similarly all degrees of roughness in sound, and all degrees of that alternate increase and decrease of stimulus consti- tuting a beat, and supposed to form the essential ingredient in musical dissonance, are as such disagreeable. A like rule holds good in the case of a series of stimulations. In order that they be agreeable they must be arranged in a certain form. Thus a rapidly flickering light, even when not strong, may be very disagreeable. All jerky, irregular successions of stimuli as luminous and sonorous are as such disagreeable. These and other facts suggest that all modes of stimu- lation are not equally suited to the efficiency or welfare of our organs. There seems to be a normal mode of func- tional activity, and on the other side an abnormal or injuri- ous mode. In what precisely the injury consists, physi- ological science does not as yet enable us to say. It is possible that it consists in a measure of that destructive agency which we see in the case of severer pains of lacera- tion. Change as Condition of Feeling: Prolonged Stim- ulation. We now come to another important condition of pleasure and pain. As already suggested, a feeling is af- fected not only by the nature of the stimulus at work at the time, but by the preceding psycho-physical activity. Our consciousness is not a series of detached, disconnected " states," but a continuous movement, every stage of which is modified by previous stages. One of the most striking manifestations of this is the fundamental importance of change or contrast as a condition of vividness or full in- tensity of consciousness (see p. 105). And the influence of this condition is seen yet more clearly in the region of feel- ing than in that of cognition. In order to understand the THE FEELINGS. 345 effects of change on our affective states we must first con- sider the results of prolonged unchanging stimulation. The value of change as a condition of sustained pleasurable feeling depends on this circumstance. The most general effect of prolonged stimulation is what we may call a weakening or dulling of the feeling. Thus, a prolonged pleasurable stimulation, as that of the eye by a sunny landscape or stage-spectacle, of the ear by music, and so forth, results in a gradual falling off in the intensity of the pleasure. The exact cause of such a fall- ing off is not as yet ascertained, but it may be said that there is a rapid and considerable decline at the outset through the loss of the initial freshness of impression, and then a slower and less considerable decline till an approxi- mation to a dull uniform effect is reached. A similar result shows itself in general in the case of painful stimulation. A large part of our physical discomforts and mental troubles lose in intensity when prolonged. That is to say, they sink to the level of dull and obscure psychical phenomena. The reasons of this general subsidence of feeling when excitation is prolonged are to be found partly in the low- ered functional activity of the nerve-structures engaged, partly in a falling off in the attention through a decline of the stimulus of interest. In addition to this general effect there are more special effects. Thus in the case of pro- longed painful stimulation the dulling effect is apt to be counteracted by secondary results, e.g., extension of the range of suffering, as in toothache and other bodily pains. In the case of prolonged pleasurable stimulation, when this is powerful, we have the special effect of transformation. Owing to the on-coming of fatigue a stimulation which was pleasurable in the earlier stages may grow distinctly pain- ful in the later. Even when the prolongation falls short of this extreme effect, it may result in a mental weariness which arises from a consciousness of the decline. This effect is seen in all states of monotony, tedium or ennui. Here the sense of -freshness departed and of dull, uninspiring sameness fills 346 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. the mind. We grow weary of the drab complexion of things, and long for a more vivid colouring. The very fact that ennui includes a disagreeable consciousness of time (/. e., relatively vacant time) shows that our surround- ings, our doings, have ceased to engage our minds pleas- urably. Thus ennui is a complex feeling, involving the imagination of other and livelier surroundings and pursuits and the craving for change. Hence it is in its more devel- oped form a distinctively human feeling. A sporting dog may feel a germ of it, when he is shut indoors and impulse prompts to the more exciting pursuits of the field. But it becomes fully developed only in the case of human beings pretty high up in the scale of civilisation. Effects of Change. Having thus considered the re- sult of prolonged unchanging stimulation, we may proceed to inquire into the effects of change. The general effect of change is to sustain the full vivid- ness of feeling. It prevents that falling off or dulling of feeling of which we have just given an account, and se- cures a measure of the initial freshness and strength. N.ot only so, since all change is attended with some consciousness pf change, a transition as such is a cause of a new element of feeling which heightens the effect of the second stimula- tion. Thus in passing to a new pleasurable activity, as from brain-work to a game of lawn-tennis, we have in the consciousness of the transition a feeling of expansion, which as such is pleasurable. The quantity of the effect will vary, roughly at least, with the amount, as estimated by the greatness and suddenness of the change. This action of change on feeling may be seen both in alterations of intensity or strength (the mode of excitation remaining unaltered), and in variations of the mode or form of activity. The effect of change in the quantity of psycho-physical excitation is seen in the growing elation of rising activity. Many of our common pleasures, sensuous and intellectual^ are illustrations of this effect. Thus the pleasure of pass- ing from a dull into a bright light, of a crescendo passage in THE FEELINGS. 347 music, of conscious growth and advance in power, bodily or mental, illustrates the effect of heightened activity in giving us a full intense enjoyment. This effect, it is to be observed, involves a consciousness of heightened activity. What holds of the rise holds also, mutatis mutandis, of the fall of activity. A descent from the full delight of sun- shine to a comparatively dull illumination gives us, through the consciousness of contrast, a sense of loss. The smaller pleasure looks poor and contemptible after the larger. It is this circumstance which gives to exalted rank its special precariousness : — The lamentable change is from the best. The effects of change in amount of stimulation here briefly illustrated may be subsumed under the following principle : — Change in the amount of stimulation increases or dimin- ishes the accompanying feeling (beyond the point due to the bare difference between the stimuli) through the con- sciousness of contrast attending the transition ; this added effect varying in intensity with the ratio of the two stimu- lations. Coming now to changes in the form or mode of activity, we are prepared from what has gone before to see that variation of activity is one great condition of prolonged pleasure. The complexity of our organism and of the cor- related activities, by producing a large number of recurrent readinesses for and dispositions to specific modes of ac- tivity, renders change of occupation a main condition of a healthy and enjoyable life. The need of such variation is further laid down in the laws of attention, the psycho-phys- ical activity of which can only be maintained when its direc- tion changes from time to time. What are known as the pleasures of variety involve, in addition to these conditions, a further psychical factor, viz., the exhilarating sense of change and of freshness that at- tends the experience of varied activity. Hence the ancients were right in saying that it is the variation itself which delights (variatio delectat). 348 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. The charm of Novelty, about which so much has been written, illustrates the same principle. It is possible that certain first experiences owe something of their delightful character to special organic conditions which never recur later on. The first greeting of bright colour by the baby- eye may bring a wave of glad feeling which is never re- peated. At the same time, what is customarily called nov- elty, as of a first ball, a first tour abroad, a new house, and so forth, owes its charm to the transition from the accus- tomed to the unaccustomed. That is to say, a ' novel ' ex- perience gives us in an exceptionally full and impressive form that transition from the stale to the fresh which enters into all variation. As in the case of quantity, so here we may summarise the facts under the head of a principle : — All change in the mode of our functional activity serves to emphasise or intensify the feeling-concomitant of the new activity through a consciousness of such variation ; and the amount of this added effect will vary in general with that of the (qualitative) unlikeness in the two activi- ties, and with the degree of freshness of the nerve-struct- ures subsequently engaged. Negative Pleasures and Pains. One other conse- quence of the principle of change has to be illustrated, viz., the effect of contrast in passing from a state of pleas- ure to its opposite, or vice versa. Pleasure and pain are the most impressive contrast in our experience. Hence a transition from the one state to the other is always at- tended with a special intensification of feeling. Thus the passage from the pain of craving, as that of thirst, to the pleasure of satisfaction, from sickness and pain to health and enjoyment, from the misery of poverty to the delights of wealth, from the depression of a doubting to the elation of a confident love, and so forth, is a theme of remark in every-day life and in fiction. Conversely, the transition from health to sickness, dignity to shame, and the like, constitutes a well-worn subject of pathetic emphasis. The facts here referred to may be formulated in the THE FEELINGS. 349 simple principle : Pain and pleasure alike are heightened or intensified, and have their disagreeable and agreeable side emphasised, by a transition from and contrast to the opposite phase of feeling. According to Plato and others, all pleasure is some- thing negative, i. e., no really existent state, but the mere absence or non-existence of its opposite, pain, which is the positive and real state. This view makes it desirable to consider how far a mere change or contrast of state can de- termine the quality of a feeling as pleasurable or painful. That there are pleasures and pains that seem to have their generating condition in such a negative circumstance is certain. We may instance the pleasure which comes from the cessation of physical pain. The termination of acute suffering is in itself the occasion of an outburst of joyous feeling. Similarly the solution of an intellectual puzzle which has been worrying us is a cause of a very considerable pleasure. On the other side, the loss of a pleasure produces an appreciable pain through a sense of loss and the craving which attends this. In other cases, too, we can see that the effect is mainly due to the transition from an opposite affective state. Thus the pleasures of health, of liberty, and so forth, are largely due to contrast, and are, therefore, rarely realised in any considerable measure, save as a transition from an actual or at least an imagined experience of the opposite condition, sickness, restraint, etc. While, however, one may thus allow that the removal of a cause of pleasure or of pain may be a sufficient occa- sion for the on-coming of the opposed phase, it is impor- tant to add that such so-called negative feelings have in every case o?ie positive condition at least, viz., the conscious- ness of the change. An animal that forgot its pain the very moment the cause of it ceased to act could not enjoy the relief as we enjoy it. We have then, in the circumstance of transition, escape from pain, loss of pleasure, an intelligible cause of that secondary mode of feeling which we call negative. This 350 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. effect of relief is, however, limited. Many of the so-called negative feelings have positive neuro-psychical conditions as well. Thus the pleasure of health and liberty includes a positive stimulus in the shape of a new energetic outburst of long-repressed activity. And a large group of pleasures, as those of art, cannot without forcing be brought under the head of negative feelings at all. The large voluminous delight of a new book, of a picture-gallery, of a concert, cannot be described as an escape from a preceding state of painful craving. Decay of Feeling : Habit or Accommodation. We have now to consider the modifications of feeling which are introduced by continuous or frequent renewal of stimu- lation over longer periods of time. Here new influences come into view which we may describe generally as the effect of Custom, Habit, or to employ a more technical expression, Accommodation. In certain respects the effect of custom on feeling is similar to that of prolonged stimulation at a particular time: it tends to blunt its first keen edge. " Ab assuetis non fit passio." Our permanent surroundings and manner of life tend to grow indifferent, that is, to lose all or most of their affective concomitants. This applies at once to our pleasures and to our pains. Thus we get used, that is, comparatively indifferent, to surroundings, companions, lines of activity, which, when they were new, were highly enjoyable, or, on the other hand, particularly disagreeable. Where we have to do, not with unbroken continuance, but with periodic recurrence, the counteracting influence of freshness or variety comes in. All forms of pleasurable activity, if sufficiently intermitted, retain much of their pris- tine freshness. The pleasures of travel, of art, and so on, when indulged in rarely, illustrate this truth. The hedonic art of living includes among its foremost problems the de- termination of the degree of frequency at which the re- newal of a pleasure more than compensates for the loss of its intensity through familiarity. This decay or gradual abatement of feeling with perma- THE FEELINGS. 351 nence and custom may be supposed to involve some pro- cess of adjustment or accommodation in the nerve-struct- ures concerned, closely related to that perfecting of me- chanical arrangements which, as we saw above, leads to the lowering of the psychical concomitant. What these changes precisely are, however, our physiological knowl- edge does not as yet enable us to say. Counteractives of Decay : Habit and Feeling-. This general tendency of continuance, frequent repetition, or custom, to produce a decay of feeling is, however, coun- teracted and in a manner disguised by other and more spe- cial tendencies. To begin with, the process of organic ad- justment or accommodation just referred to is less simple than we have supposed. Exercise tends to strengthen an organ, and is one main condition of organic growth. One important result of this is that stimuli which were at first fatiguing and so painful may with repeated application be- come pleasurable. Thus an amount of muscle-work or brain-work, which is at first unpleasant, may with increase of functional power become enjoyable. Another effect tending to disguise the general decay of feeling is due to its increasing complication as experience advances and associations form themselves. In this way our friends, our books, and so forth, though losing some of their pristine charm, become endeared by associations. The action of association leads on to the influence of Habit in the domain of feeling. What remains with us, what we habitually see, and habitually do, while it loses its keen pleasurableness, generates through habit an attach- ment or clinging of mind which betrays itself whenever it is removed. Jeannie Deans, feeling strange and lost in her London surroundings, and longing to get back to her fa- miliar scenes, is an example of this effect. Every sudden rupture in our experience, as the loss of a familiar friend, shows the same force of custom in producing an attach- ment of mind. Here, then, we have an effect precisely the reverse of blunting. The older and more fixed the habit,, the harder is it to bear the sundering of the bond. Habit 352 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. is thus a fertile source of negative pains, or the pains of craving, a source which grows more prolific as life ad- vances. It is evident that we have in the special influences just considered elements which serve to limit the value of change or variety as a condition of a happy life. If we were always to abandon action at the stage at which it is unpleasantly laborious, we should never grow to the capa- bility of all the higher and more difficult exercises of body and mind. The growth of intellectual and aesthetic inter- ests presupposes a certain persistence in intellectual ac- tivity in spite of its temporary painfulness. This is a truth fraught with important practical significance. The edu- cator who fears to give a child anything to do that is not immediately pleasurable can never develop its higher powers. In the principle of habit or habituation we have a still more powerful opponent to the attractions of novelty and variety. The new fails to delight when it involves a too great and sudden rupture of continuity in our experience. Even a child with all its craving for novelty is apt to break down in despair in the midst of a social treat at suddenly waking up to the fact that it is in a strange room and among strange faces. The susceptibility to the charm of novelty on the one side, and to the mastering force of habit on the other, have a different ratio at different ages and among different individuals. The art of happy living includes a nice adjustment of these opposing tendencies, the securing of the maximum of the pleasure of variety without running the risk of suffering through a deprivation of what has grown customary and so necessary. Juxtaposition of Excitations : Harmony and Con- flict. Thus far we have adopted the abstract supposition that feeling presents itself as a perfectly simple phenomenon, that it is occasioned by the stimulation of one organ or set of neural structures only, as the organ of taste. This sup- position is probably never realised in our actual experi- ence. THE FEELINGS. !53 To begin with, then, owing to the continuity of structure throughout the nervous system the stimulation of a particu- lar cortical area tends to propagate or diffuse itself over other areas. This effect is particularly conspicuous in the case of all markedly pleasurable or painful stimulation. Familiar instances of this are the agreeable secondary effects of pleasant rhythmical movements of the limbs, of pleasur- able muscular activity in promoting circulation, etc., of cer- tain unpleasant smells, and other sensations in producing disagreeable organic sensations (nausea). The importance of this diffusion of pleasurable and painful stimulation will appear by-and-by, when we come to consider what is known as the physical embodiment and expression of feeling. This truth clearly points to a certain organic rapport, a kind of unconscious sympathy or " consensus " among the several structures connected. A pleasurable, that is, a bene- ficial, stimulation of one organ tends to a furtherance of bene- ficial functional activity in ether organs. Similarly in the case of painful or injurious stimulation. The structure and mode of working of the nervous system tend, then, to pro- duce the result of a more or less complete participation of the whole in the varying conditions of each part. The law of our nervous organisation is that of an ideal family or state : the weal or woe of the part tends to become the weal or woe of the whole. While it is thus generally true that a wholesome or hurtful activity of one organ tends to produce a like condition in other and connected or- gans, the law is subject to a number of apparent exceptions. Certain modes of stimulation, which in themselves and at the time yield pleasure, al Science, bk. i. chap, iv., and bk. iii. chap. i. H. Spen- cer, Principles of Psychology, i. § 124 ff. ; Ward, article " Psychology," Encyclop. Britann., p. 66 and following. The special features of the Sense-Feelings are dealt with by Bain, op. cit., bk. i. chap, ii., and Grant Allen, Physiological ^Esthetics, chaps, iv. and vii. CHAPTER XIII. (i>) complex feelings: emotions. We have now to pass to the consideration of the second great class of feelings, those commonly known as Emotions or Passions, such as joy, grief, fear, anger, love. Structure of Emotion. As pointed out above, an emotion differs from a sense-feeling in having a mental, or, to speak more precisely, a central psycho-physical, origin. The pain of a prick is supposed to be the result of the affer- ent process in the particular nerve stimulated. The child's fear of a dog obviously has its starting-point in a central psycho-physical process corresponding to what we call the percept or an idea of an object. Since, as we have seen, even a percept involves a representative element, we may say that emotions are in general marked off from sense-feelings by the presence of a representative factor. In the second place, an emotion is characterised by a wide diffusive effect. Sense-feelings, though complicated in a measure, are relatively restricted in respect of the range of nervous excitation involved. On the other hand, an emo- tion of anger or terror is marked by a wide-ranging excita- tion, involving the voluntary muscles and the viscera (heart, respiratory organs, etc.). These diffused effects in their turn contribute reflexly a number of secondary sense-feel- ings which constitute an important and characteristic part of the whole emotion. We may say, then, that an emotion is a complex psychical phenomenon made up of two factors, or, as we may call them, stages : (a) the primary stage of central excitation ; and (b) the secondary stage of somatic resonance. The COMPLEX FEELINGS: EMOTIONS. 363 first includes the sensuous effect of the initial peripheral stimulation, together with the representative elements asso- ciatively conjoined with this: whereas the secondary stage includes all the ensuing modifications in tension of muscle, organic function, etc. Thus, an emotion of fear at a sud- den noise is divisible into a primary phase, the disturbing sensation and the vague consciousness of danger, and a secondary phase, the organic concomitants, viz., loss of muscular power, disturbance of heart's action, pallor, altera- tion of secretion, etc. These two factors, the central and the somatic, will be found to combine in very different pro- portions. Rise and Fall of Emotion : Emotional Persist- ence. Our brief account of the composition of an emo- tion has led us to see that it is a process occupying an ap- preciable time. The pain resulting from a prick may be momentary, disappearing with the withdrawal of the stimu- lus. But a state of grief requires time for its full realisa- tion. An emotion undergoes a certain rise or development from the stage of just appreciable excitement up to cul- mination. This course of development is determined, to some extent, by the range of resonant effect, the reflex re- sults of which, while all occupy some duration, require un- equal times for their realisation, and so constitute a grad- ual expansion of the whole emotive current. We do not become fully angry until our muscular apparatus has gone through the proper amount of characteristic action, as frowning and clenching of teeth. Similarly, fear is only fully realised when the cycle of organic effect is allowed to proceed unchecked. To this must be added that in the case of all but the primitive instinctive emotions there is the need of a certain mental occupation with the exciting cause. Thus an emotion of fear or anger grows through the gradual representation of the danger or the injury. With this gradual rise or development, there goes a gradual fall or subsidence. A great joy, a fit of terror, only dies away and leaves us calm after an appreciable, and, in some cases, considerable time. This persistence of emotion 364 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. seems most readily explained by the large range of bodily disturbance involved. These modifications of muscular tension, circulation, secretion, etc., are apt to persist, and in this way the emotive excitement is prolonged. The in- fluence of the bodily resonance in prolonging a state of emotion is seen in the fact that we often go on feeling afraid, angry, and so forth, after the exciting cause is known to be removed. Influence of Emotion on the Thoughts. We are now in a position to understand more fully the effect of emotion on the intellectual processes. This may be viewed under two aspects : (a) the negative or inhibitory effect ; [l?) the positive or promotive effect. The inhibitory effect of emotion springs out of the fun- damental opposition of strong feeling to intellectual activ- ity. This phenomenon is very strikingly illustrated in the immediate results of all violent emotional agitation or shock. The sudden arrival of a bit of exciting intelli- gence, whether of a joyful character, as the inheritance of an unexpected fortune, or of a miserable character, as the death of a beloved friend, is apt to paralyse thought for a while. Further, all intense and prolonged painful emotion tends to retard the processes of thought by depressing or exhausting the nervous system. On the other hand, emotion as cerebral excitement is in its less agitating degrees distinctly promotive of ideation. We never have in our cooler moments such a swift rush of ideas as we have in moments of emotional excitement. This exhilarating effect is, of course, seen most plainly in the case of pleasurable emotion, agreeably to the principle already unfolded that pleasure furthers functional activity. But it is not wanting in the case of painful emotion, pro- vided it is confined to the stimulatory pitch and is not al- lowed to become prostrating. This furtherance of ideation by emotion, however, is rarely if ever impartial, and herein lies its chief drawback. It is a well-known fact that all emotion, when it is fully developed and grows persistent, tends to colour or give a COMPLEX FEELINGS : EMOTIONS. 365 particular direction to the ideas of the time. The terror- stricken man has his thoughts obstinately directed towards the terrible aspect of things. In extreme cases, his mind may become permanently occupied by a fixed idea {idee fixe) of a terrifying character. The explanation of this selective action of the feelings on the ideational material supplied by the suggestive forces of the time is to be found in those tendencies already dealt with under the head of harmony, and bodily resonance. Every emotional state is characterised by its own affective tone ; and this favours the rise of all presentations having a kindred effect, while it inhibits the rise of those which would conflict with it. Having thus briefly considered the composition and the more important effects of emotion in general, we may pro- ceed to study the chief phases of the development of our emotional life. And here we may best begin with a more detailed account of the primitive or instinctive features of our emotions, and then proceed to trace out the more im- portant results of experience and association in developing or otherwise modifying the instinctive manifestations. Development of Emotion. The Instinctive Factor : Expression. The gen- eral character of the emotive outburst or discharge has already been sufficiently described. It may be defined as a wide-ranging reflex motor excitation involving some, at least, of the ' voluntary ' muscles, as well as those by which the vital actions, e.g., circulation, digestion, are carried out, and, finally, the nerve- structures which are known to influ- ence the actions of the several secreting organs, as the sali- vary and lachrymal glands. This reflex diffusion of the nervous excitation in emotional stimulation is a primitive fact of our organisation. It shows itself distinctly in the first weeks of life. It has much in common with those reflex movements which are brought about by congenital arrangements, and which, as we shall see later on, form one of the main rudiments of voluntary action. 366 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. What we call the expression of an emotion is merely that part of this reaction which is observable to others, and which helps us to read one another's feelings. Thus it in- cludes, first of all, the actions of muscles, as those of the limbs, face, and vocal organs, which distinctly betray their effects. We read a happy emotion in the movements of the eye and mouth which constitute facial expression. Other reactions involving the organs of respiration, circulation, and even digestion may enter into the expression of an emo- tion. Thus the disturbance of the respiratory process in sobbing, the pallor in fear due to altered vaso-motor action, the excitation of the lachrymal gland in weeping, are among the best-recognised manifestations of emotion. Differences of Emotive Reaction : Pleasurable and Painful Emotion. The bodily resonance varies con- spicuously in the case of different emotions. To begin with, there are certain aspects of the reflex discharge which are determined solely by the quantity and the sud- denness of on-coming of the emotive excitation. It may be said that all emotive excitement, irrespectively of its pleas- urable or painful tone, produces a muscular reaction which varies, in respect both of the range of muscles involved and of the extent of their contraction, with the quantity of the feeling, and accordingly increases as the emotion rises. While, however, there are certain features in the reflex discharge common to all kinds of emotion, it is well known that the resonance varies in character with the quality of the feeling. Thus the all-important difference between pleasurable and painful feeling effects a certain differen- tiation in the physical concomitants. According to the prin- ciple laid down above, we shall expect pleasurable feelings to produce in general (and within the limits of injurious shock) beneficial and pleasure-yielding concomitants. And this is certainly what we find. Thus, as there pointed out, enjoyment furthers the vital processes. The dyspeptic knows the beneficial influence of cheerful society and talk at table as an aid to digestion. Painful emotion, on the other hand, when sufficiently prolonged to show its charac- COMPLEX FEELINGS: EMOTIONS. 367 teristic effect, is in general attended by a lowering of vital action. This is best seen in the case of grief of all kinds, whether from the loss of a friend or of fortune, or from other cause. Specialised Manifestations of Emotion. In addi- tion to the broad contrast between the manifestation of pleasurable and of painful emotion, there are the finer dif- ferences which mark off particular varieties of emotive state, as fear, anger, love, and the rest. Each of the well- marked species of emotion has its characteristic group of reactions. Thus fear is differentiated from other emo- tive states in general, as well as from other varieties of dis- agreeable feeling, by its peculiar organic resonance, includ- ing such familiar effects as that disturbance of the heart's action known as palpitation, tremor of muscles, pallor, cer- tain alterations in the secretions {e.g., saliva). These different somatic resonances constitute, through the reflex sensations to which they give rise, so many dis- tinctive emotive colourings ; and there is little doubt that this resonance is an integral factor in, and an important characteristic of, the whole emotive state. These characteristic resonances supply further a differ- entiated language of the emotions. It is because the visi- ble and audible part of a psycho-physical state of fear is well defined and distinctive that we are able to read one another's feelings so rapidly and so easily. In the case of all the more primitive emotions, those which the civilised man has in common with the savage and with many of the lower animals near him in the zoological scale, such as fear, anger, love (in certain of its forms), this characteristic signature is in its main features common to all members of the species. Thus the laugh of joy, and the trembling of fear, are common to all grades of civilisation and all ramifications of the human race. The character- istic manifestation, moreover, shows itself in early life as a strictly instinctive reaction which is referrible to certain congenital arrangements in the nervous centres. Now it seems evident that the possession of a definite 368 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. system of emotive signs is of real use to any species of so- cial, i. e., mutually helpful animals, and biological specula- tion enables us to conceive how such a system may have arisen. According to this there are two main influences which have served to originate the particular characteristic expressions we possess. These are : (a) the survival merely as expressional sign of what was once a movement useful for some definite end, as self-preservation, and (o) the ex- tension of such movement by similarity of affective tone, or what has been called " the analogy of feeling," to other and kindred emotive states. As an illustration of the first, we may take the clench- ing of the fist in anger, which seems plainly a survival of fighting habits. Similarly the characteristic mean shrink- ing attitude of fear may be explained as the sub-excitation of the useful action of evading attack. The second prin- ciple is illustrated in such actions as scratching the head in mental perplexity, this action having been originally serviceable in allaying an analogous sense-feeling. Simi- larly the smacking of the lips by the savage to express pleasure generally may be supposed to be due to the trans- ference of a movement originally useful in connexion with eating. Inherited Emotive Associations. So far as we have yet considered it, an emotion is instinctive in the sense that the reflex discharge follows when the appropriate stimulus, e. g., the experience-gotten suggestion of danger, is forthcoming. But modern research helps us to go fur- ther than this, and to say that, in certain cases, at least, the emotive condition is excited independently of its custom- ary presentative excitant. Thus it is well established that children display fear before strangers, before dogs and other animals, and this at an age which precludes the idea of any individual experience of evil in this connexion. Here it is evident the whole emotive phenomenon is in- stinctive. We express the fact by saying that the child has an instinctive dread of certain animals, and so forth. Such instinctive connexions between particular percepts COMPLEX FEELINGS : EMOTIONS. 369 and particular emotive discharges may be marked off by the description, Inherited Emotive Associations. A plaus- ible explanation of such connexions is that they are the transmitted result of oft-repeated ancestral experiences. Thus the baby fears the unknown animal, because human experience through many ages has tended to connect ideas of danger with wild animals.* Effect of Experience : Modification of Instinctive Reactions. In considering the effect of experience and education on emotion, we have first to recognise their ac- tion upon the reflex somatic discharge. The full naive manifestations of the child and the savage become modified by the forces of education or culture. In the first place, the early emotive discharge becomes toned down and restricted. The emotions take on a quieter form as life advances. This is more particularly true of certain unlovely or morally reprehensible feelings, as rage. This quieting effect is due to the development of conation. Passion no longer spends itself in aimless utterance, but, controlled by will, directs itself in the channels of useful action. In the second place, what we call education tends to differentiate the forms of emotive expression still further, substituting for the common primitive language a number of dialects, answering to different nationalities and differ- ent social strata. Thus a great deal of the pantomimic gesture of the races of Southern Europe is obviously learnt by imitation. One other influence of experience on the somatic reflex in emotional states must be alluded to, viz., the effect of repeated indulgence in an emotional state in fixing and strengthening the disposition to that mode of discharge. This is an illustration of the principle of habit, which, though it tends, as we have seen, to dull feeling, tends also indirectly to fix and further it by strengthening the dispo- * This involves the theory that acquired characters can be transmitted (cf. above, p. 78). 24 37o OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. sition to the appropriate motor reaction. A child who is allowed to fall again and again into the mental and bodily attitude of anger contracts a stronger organic disposition to react in this way, a fact clearly seen in the greater rapidity of the outburst, and in the diminished strength of the stimulus requisite for calling it forth. Growth of the Presentative Factor in Emotion : Ideal Feeling. The development of our emotional life, while thus influenced in a measure by modifications of in- stinctive reaction, is chiefly dependent on the extension and accumulation of presentative material. We have already seen that an emotion contains a presentative factor. Thus fear, love, and so forth, are excited by certain percepts, to- gether with the ideas which these percepts suggest. Over- looking the possible action of special inherited associations, we see that emotion proper, as distinguished from mere sense-feeling, only displays itself when experience supplies the necessary presentative stimulus. The growth and ex- pansion of emotion, its diffusion over a larger and larger range of object, its recoverability and extension in time, its differentiation into a larger and larger number of varieties or states, is due to this action of experience and association. In considering the effect of representation on emotion we must set out with the fact that when a feeling is an ac- companiment of a sensation (presentative state) it reap- pears in a weaker degree with the corresponding represent- ative element. Thus the pleasure attending a sensation of light, of satisfying thirst, and so forth, is revived or re- excited in a weakened form with the representation of the sensation. This reappearance of a sense-feeling through the reinstatement of the representative copy of the original sensation may be described as revived or as " ideal " feel- ing. It appears to receive its explanation from the circum- stance that the image has for its neural correlative a weak- ened excitation of the same central nervous elements that were engaged in the production of the sensation. Since the revived feeling is thus organically connected with the representative image, it follows that its recovera- COMPLEX FEELINGS : EMOTIONS. 371 bility depends in general on the revivability of the present- ative element. It is a familiar fact that the pleasures of the higher senses, tones and colours, are revived in greater proportionate intensity than those of the lower senses. As everybody knows, it is hard to recall the pleasures of the table, still harder to recall pleasurable or painful organic sensations. How Feeling is Revived ; Associated Feeling. In tracing out the consequences of such revived feeling, the first point to consider is whether the process of assimi- lative conservation of sensation-traces tends to the preser- vation of the affective element as well. It has already been pointed out that repetition and custom exert a dull- ing effect on the sensuous feeling. We have now to in- quire how far this dulling effect is counteracted by the results of assimilative cumulation. In all cases of recognition of a pleasure-bringing ob- ject after an interval of separation, we can trace the effect of such a cumulation. Thus, in trying a favourite musical instrument after a period of disuse, we have the pleasure of tone appreciably increased by revivals of similar expe- riences. In certain cases, moreover, the very conscious- ness of recurrence contributes a new element of feeling. This applies to the deepening of horror through the repe- tition of a crime, as in the case of certain recent murders, the deepening of gratitude through the repetition of a like favour, and so forth. Here the effect of assimilative cumu- lation grows more distinct. . The revival of feeling is always, to some extent, the work of contiguous association. That is to say, a feeling occurs in the weakened ' ideal ' form only when there arises the representative copy of a sensation of which the original feeling was the concomitant. Thus it is a revived feeling when the sight of a cool stream recalls the pleasure of the bath. This revival of feeling through associative connexion with presentative elements is a fact of far-reaching conse- quence, for our intellectual and for our emotional life alike. 372 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. The effect of this association on the former is seen in the fact that, feeling being the source of all that we call inter- est, the presence of a strongly-marked affective concomi- tant in a presentation or series of presentations tends greatly to a selective retention and reproduction of these. Not only does such an affective concomitant in the sense- experience serve to fix a vivid impression, but the weak- ened feeling which attends the uprising of the representa- tive image serves in the reproductive stage to awaken in- terest, and so to secure the proper adjnstive process of attention (cf. above, p. 225). It is, however, the effect on the growth of feeling itself that we are here specially con- cerned to trace out. The mode of action of associative integration in devel- oping new varieties of feeling may be illustrated in the gradual enrichment of our sense-feelings. Let us take a particular sound, as the cawing of a rook, which, in itself, is certainly not agreeable. This sound, in the case of those who have lived in the country in early life and enjoyed its scenes and its adventures, is well known to become a par- ticularly agreeable one. To some people, indeed, there is hardly any more delightful sonorous effect than that of this rough, unmusical call. The explanation is that this particular sound, having been heard again and again among surroundings, as park and woodland, which have a marked accompaniment of pleasure, has become contiguously inter- woven with these presentations, and so produces a faint re-excitation of the many currents of enjoyment which accompanied these. Here, then, we see that particular presentations take on more and more of the feeling con- comitant through successive processes of contiguous inte- gration with other distinctly pleasurable (or painful) pres- entations. It is to be noted that this associative integration of pres- entations with affective elements differs from that which connects presentations one with another. The feeling- mass, which has become conjoined with a given presenta- tion through the medium of associated presentations, tends COMrLEX FEELINGS : EMOTIONS. 373 to appear without the revival of the latter. In other words, the feeling is said to be associatively transferred to a new presentation. Thus the cawing of the rook excites a pleas- urable feeling directly, that is, without any distinct repre- sentative consciousness of country scenes, so that the feeling appears to belong to the sound just as much as if it were a sense-feeling proper. Similar effects are seen in the transference of horror and other feelings to places, of dignified and undignified associations to names, and so forth. It follows from this that complex mental states may form themselves, in contiguous attachment to particular percepts, in which the feeling-element is predominant and the presentative remains in sub-conscious abeyance, that is to say, is only very vaguely differentiated and recognised in its constituent parts. Such a presentative-affective com- plex, appearing as a large undiscriminated feeling-mass, is precisely what we mean by an emotion on its presentative side. Thus the wave of feeling awakened, after an inter- val of separation, by the sight of a familiar object, which is dear to us, e.g., our home, our favourite book, our be- loved friend, is, in its initial as distinguished from its resonant stage, the outcome of a number of confluent asso- ciated pleasures. It is this process of transferential en- richment, leading to a deepening or a development of our feelings, which is most effective in counteracting the decay of feeling through accommodation. It may be well to point out that this principle of asso- ciative transference is one of the highest practical impor- tance. It enables us to a large extent to create likes or dislikes for relatively indifferent objects by investing them with agreeable or disagreeable associations. Locke sug- gests that boys would take to books as eagerly as they take to play if study were only invested with the semblance of play : and More, in his Utopia, shows how in his ideal com- munity gold and silver come to be contemned by reason of degrading associations. The same complex integration which serves to develop 374 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. pleasurable and painful emotions tends to bring about those mixed emotional effects which we so frequently ex- perience. Our feeling for a locality, for a person whom we have known intimately, for a well-studied author, and so forth, is rarely an unmixed one. A tangle of agreeable and disagreeable associates results in a mixed emotion, in which now the pleasurable, now the painful factor is up- permost. Differentiation of Emotion : Refinement. As the last result of this process of presentative-affective integra- tion, we have that growing differentiation of emotive masses which is one of the characteristic features of mental de- velopment. As an example, we may take the emergence of a feeling of anger proper out of the primitive undiffer- entiated baby-misery (as seen, for example, when the child is being dressed) ; and the differentiation of this early an- ger itself into many varieties of shade, as the feeling we cherish for a successful rival, for one who has injured us when wearing the mask of friendship, and so forth. This fine ramification of emotion is due to the ever-increasing differentiation of the integrated masses just spoken of. In the case of the more intellectual emotions — particularly, the aesthetic and moral sentiments — this differentiation reaches, in the case of cultivated persons, a specially high point. To be differently affected by two musical composers or two authors, to be differentially responsive to all the possible nuances of moral colouring in a lie, is the mark of a refined emotional nature. Varieties of Emotion. Classification of Emotive States : Order of De- velopment. It is customary in psychological works to attempt a systematic arrangement of the emotions in which the similarities and differences of psychological (/. ) The -(Esthetic Sentiment. The second of the Abstract Sentiments, variously called the feeling for the beautiful, the pleasures of taste, and the fine-art sentiment, includes a group of feelings having a marked degree of pleasurableness, and constituting indeed one main source of the more refined enjoyment of human life.* Although, as we shall presently see, they have their root in certain sim- ple sensuous effects which appear in the earliest stages of human culture, and even in animal life they constitute in their fuller and more complex form emotions of a highly representative grade which are confined to civilised com- munities and to the upper levels of culture. The enjoyment of what is beautiful differs both in the mode of its origin and in its psychical features and accom- paniments from the feeling for knowledge or truth. It is a fuller, or deeper pleasure, freer from disagreeable elements, and more of a luxury. In seeking knowledge we are aim- ing at something more or less directly useful, and we find the pursuit in certain of its stages arduous and even pain- ful. In giving ourselves up to the beauty of a natural scene, or to the charms of music, we have done with all thought of utility, and are seeking enjoyment as children seek it in their play, for its own sake. Or, as some modern writers have it, aesthetic pleasure is the accompaniment of * Of course, the aesthetic sensibility is like other sensibilities, two-fold, including not only the agreeable effect of beauty but the disagreeable effect of the ' un-beautiful,' if one may coin a word, that is, the ugly. Only as art aims at the realisation of the former, we naturally give this aspect the prominence. COMrLEX FEELINGS: EMOTIONS. 389 play-like activity, that is to say, activity not used up in carrying out the necessary (self-preserving and race-pre- serving) functions of life. What is commonly understood by beauty appeals to us through one of the two higher senses, sight and hearing.* And the pleasure produced is wholly due to the particular grouping of sense-impressions supplied, together with certain suggestions which these excite immediately in the minds of all spectators alike, such as the health suggested by a rosy cheek, or the force expressed by a cataract. In other words, the pleasure arising from an impression of beauty is wholly the outcome of the attitude of contemplation: and as such is disinterested, that is, free from reference to self and its concerns. Thus a mother's delight in looking at her child, so far as it depends on the consciousness of its being hers, is ex- cluded from the category of properly aesthetic pleasure. From these conditions of aesthetic pleasure flow some of its most valuable characteristics. Of these the first is its prerogative as pleasure. The enjoyment of the beautiful is, among all our pleasures, the purest and the richest in re- spect of the variety of its elements, and this peculiarity seems to be connected with the particular channels of sense employed. The higher senses, as compared with the lower, are, as we have seen, free from disagreeable elements. Not only are, they wanting in such unpleasant antecedents and consequents as the craving and the satiety which mar the enjoyments of appetite, they are relatively weak in painful elements. With this purity of delight there goes special fulness and richness, that is, variety and complexity of pleasure. This is in part connected with the rapid recupera- tion of the higher sense-organs, and their susceptibility to prolonged stimulation without loss of functional vigour or the disagreeable sense of fatigue. The quiet contemplation of the world of sights, and in a less obvious degree that of sounds also, is an entertainment which we can take up and * The close connexion of the aesthetic sentiment with the senses is seen in the etymology of the name (from Greek ai■, 34)- They in- clude what are specifically known as our active manifesta- tions. To begin with, they comprehend what we commonly mean by our actions, that is, the movements carried out by our ' voluntary ' muscles. The movements of the organism, so far as unconscious, are of course excluded from the class of psychical phenomena. Omitting these, we may say that in a broad sense the terms conation, volition, cover all actions which have a conscious accompaniment, and which may be marked off as psychical actions. Thus instinctive movements find their place under conation In a narrower sense the terms refer more particularly to that group of more complex psychical actions which involve an antecedent purpose. Besides the (psychical) movements of the bodily organs conation includes the processes which fall under the head of attention. Here, as pointed out above, we have, just as 404 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. in the case of movement, a lower non-purposive and a higher or purposive form. The most obvious common characteristic in this variety of actions or conative processes is, as already suggested, that peculiar element which is best marked off as active con- sciousness. To move the limb consciously, to direct atten- tion on a difficult point, is to have a particular and unique sort of experience, the differentia of which we can only describe by help of the term active, or some equiva- lent expression, as sense of exertion, or of effort. As sug- gested above, the peculiar colouring of these active psy- choses is probably in all cases connected with the working of the motor side of the nervous system. This applies not only to voluntary movement, but to acts of attention, which, as we saw, include a motor concomitant (cf p. 86). Besides this factor of active consciousness all the more complex processes of volition to which we commonly ap- ply the term voluntary, as ' voluntary action,' ' voluntary attention,' connote other ingredients as well. These con- sist of psychical antecedents, that is, mental processes pre- ceding, as well as those accompanying the action. This an- tecedent factor may in general be described as a forecasting or prevision of the action itself \ and of some at least of its results under the form of an ' end. ' Conation in its Relation to Feeling- and Cogni- tion. The differcntioz of conative phenomena now reached, viz., active consciousness and psychical initiation through representation of an end, may enable us to mark off with greater distinctness the domain of volition from that of intellection and of feeling. A word or two may serve to make this plain. Taking feeling first of all, we see that conation contrasts with this by reason of its activity. Pleasure and pain are passive states. It is true, as has been shown above, that all feeling has motor concomitants which contribute psy- chical elements to the emotive state. Yet qua mere feelings they are wanting in the peculiar consciousness of exertion, as also the characteristic element of purpose. Feeling, CONATION OR VOLITION. 405 though involved as an antecedent condition in conation, only leads on to this by assuming a new form, viz., desire, e.g., desire for the gratification of appetite, of literary taste. In like manner our differentice. serve, in general, to mark off conation from the region of intellection. Our mental processes are intellective in so far as they make the pre- sentative side of our experience prominent, and involve processes of discrimination, association, etc. They are conative in the measure in which active exertion preceded by desire or idea of end becomes dominant. A special difficulty in marking off conation from intellection arises from the circumstance that every psychical action has an intellective phase. Thus the active consciousness as muscular sensation can, in the way shown above, be discriminated as that answering to a particular kind of movement, and retained and reproduced for future use. Further, as we shall see by-and-by, just as what we call intellection is always accompanied by the conative phenomenon attention, so the processes of voluntary movement involve an intellective factor, viz., the representation of a move- ment, etc. As has been pointed out, the conative process follows one of two directions commonly distinguished as voluntary movement and attention, or, as they are sometimes loosely called, ' external and internal ' action. We have already found reason to see that these are not absolutely distinct processes, and this conclusion will become clearer as we advance. At the same time, the distinction offers a con- venient way of dealing with the subject. We will accord- ingly begin by studying volition in its connexion with movement, and take up the volitional control of attention at a later stage. Roots of Voluntary Action : Instinct and Experi- ence. A glance at what we mean by a voluntary action shows us that it presupposes two factors. The first of these may be marked off as the Original or Instinctive root of volition. Such is the impulse to seek that which is agreeable and beneficial, and to avoid what is painful and harmful. This impulse to action or active disposition is primordial, and has to be presupposed in any attempt to account for the growth of the volitional process. It shows 406 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. itself, first of all, in a sub-conscious form, in what is some- times specially marked off as Impulse (German " Trieb "), that is, a rudimentary and essentially vague process of craving, or striving. In its later and clearly conscious form it becomes what we know as Desire. In the second place, a voluntary movement, e.g., of the arm for the purpose of plucking fruit, presupposes experi- ence. A child brings with it into the world no prophetic prevision of its doings and their results. Before he can con- sciously direct a movement to a particular result, there must have been some experience (or series of experiences) by which he has learnt first of all the particular result which he now aims at ; secondly, the particular conscious movement which he now wills to carry out ; and thirdly, the (causal) connexion between these two. It follows from this that a completely voluntary movement is preceded by earlier forms of movement. These earlier movements may be marked off as Primitive Movements. It was pointed out above that the development both of intelligence and of feeling proceeds from the outer life of sensation to the inner life of ideation. The course of vo- litional development is similar. In the earliest stages of this development we shall find movements called forth in immediate response to sensations, and involving as their psychical concomitants only sensational elements (muscular sensations, etc.). Little by little this crude form of move- ment will be seen to be complicated by ideational processes, representations of desirable object, and of appropriate action, till in the highest type of volition this internal idea- tional factor assumes the supreme rSle under the form of deliberation and rational choice. We may now procede to trace this movement of voli- tional development, beginning with an account of those primitive movements which precede the distinctly volitional type. Primitive Movements, (a) Movements not Psy- chically Initiated : Random, Automatic Movements. As we saw above, the general type of motor action is re- CONATION OR VOLITION. 407 flex, /. mark or stamp) is used in every-day language to mark off almost any sort of difference in men- tal qualities. In a narrower and stricter sense the term in- volves a special reference to qualities belonging to the active side of the mind. Volition, in its rationalised form, conduct, being the final and most important outcome of * Mrs. Gaskell has some remarks at once accurate and amusing on these quaint narrowings of the impulse of economy. {Cranford, chap, v.) 472 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. mind as a whole, the word character has naturally come to connote in a peculiar manner those qualities, as active energy and deliberation, which go to constitute the higher type of will. According to the more popular use of the term, every individual has his own stamp or character. This individual character is, as we shall see more fully presently, fixed partly by the peculiarities of the person's psycho-physical ' nature,' or what we call temperament and idiosyncrasy, and partly by the action of the forces of the environment develop selectively certain of these peculiarities. In addition to this every-day meaning the word char- acter has acquired an ethical significance. As employed by the moralist, it refers not to variable individual pecul- iarities, but to certain moral qualities which it is supposed to be the special business of social discipline and education to cultivate in all alike. In this ethical sense ' character ' has come to stand for 'good character.' This may be de- fined as a morally disciplined will, including a virtuous condition of the whole mind, that is, the disposition to think and feel (as well as to act) in ways conducive to the ends of morality. We thus see that every good or moral man possesses a character in a double sense. In the first place, he has a particular group of intellectual, affective and conative pe- culiarities which constitute his individual character. In the second place, he possesses certain virtuous principles and dispositions which make up the typical moral char- acter and which assimilate him to other moral men. This moral character, though it presupposes the organic base of a typical human development, may be spoken of as an ac- quired product, the result of the action of that set of external influences which constitutes the educative action of a civilised and moral community upon a normal human mind. (a) Character as Organised Habit. Confining our selves now to moral character, we see at once that this consists in the possession of certain acquired tendencies or COMPLEX ACTION : CONDUCT. 473 habitudes which we call virtues, both what moralists dis- tinguish as private ones, for example, temperance and pru- dence, and as public ones, such as veracity, justice, and benevolence. The excellence of the character can be esti- mated by the fixity and the preponderance of these vir- tuous dispositions. The less the disturbing force of the instinctive factor (passion, appetite), the more highly de- veloped the character. Thus our idea of a perfectly tem- perate man (6 o-w^pwv) is of one who does not fully come under the force of the impulse of appe ite. The height of moral character attained in any case is thus determined by the fixity and the commanding influence of the virtuous disposition, which again is measurable in terms of the facility, or absence of conscious effort, of the controlling process. (b) Character as Conscious Reflexion. While, how- ever, moral character is thus woven out of fixed habitual dispositions (Aristotle's e£eis), it would be an error to con- ceive of it as merely a cluster or group of such habitudes. According to the biological or teleological view of mind, the habitual, that is, the relatively z/«-conscious and me- chanical, comes in only so far as features and situations of the environment recur in perfectly like form, and so re- quire similar modes of reaction (cf. p. 123). Now while it is true that the external conditions of human life, physical and social, are so far recurrent that our actions may be or- ganised into a certain number of persistent norms or types of conduct, as thrift, temperance, fulfilment of promise and the like, they are not so uniform in their actual, concrete combinations as to allow of our particular actions becom- ing in the complete sense habitual. It may often require a good deal of reflexion before we can say what is the honest or the just course of action. Not only so, the selec- tion of the wise and the morally good action must always remain a reflective process in those cases in which the complexity in the conditions of our life involves the ap- pearance of a collision between what we see to be equally good and valid principles. The finding out of the right 474 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. thing to do means, in all such cases, the difficult task of adjusting the claims of this and that principle; for exam- ple, health and academic distinction, public service and promotion of family interests. It follows that the ideal of a wise and a good man, or a perfect character, is one that combines promptitude and even a certain impatience of reflection in cases allowing of, and calling for, rapid and partially automatic responses, with a reserve of wariness, with a readiness to pause and reflect as soon as new features, and especially an unfamiliar complexity, present themselves. In other words, the per- fect character is the one that exhibits just that proportion of the reflective to the impulsive in its actions as is required for the fullest, exactest, and most economical adjustment of conduct to the circumstances of the environment. Relation of Higher to Lower Volition. In the above account of the higher and more complex processes of volition it has been assumed that it is continuous with, and developed by known psycho-physical processes out of, the lower and cruder forms. We have not found any abrupt break in the process of development. At the same time, there are certain obvious differences between the earlier impulsive and the later reflective volition. Thus it lies on the surface that this last is differentiated by certain features of special dignity and moral value, viz., a distinct consciousness of self as agent, of power, and of free- dom. These later characters have been supposed by some to constitute a difference not merely of degree but of kind between impulse and volition of the complex form, i. al Science, book iv. chaps, iii.-vii. ; James, Psychology, chap. xxvi. p. 528 ff. ; Hoffding, The Outlines of Psy- chology, vii. B. Moral habit and character are specially dealt with by Carpenter, Mental Physiology, chap. vii. On Discipline and the Formation of Character, see Locke, On Educa- tion, especially §§ 32-117 ; Miss Edgeworth, Practical Education, chap. ix. ; Mdme. Necker, U Education, livre i. chaps, iv.-vi. ; and livre vi. chap. iv. ; H. Spencer, Education, chap. iii. ; Bain, Education as Science, pp. 100-119. CHAPTER XVI. CONCRETE MENTAL DEVELOPMENT : INDIVIDUALITY. Unity of Mental Development. The three move- ments of the mental life just traced, viz., that of intellectual, affective, and conative growth, though capable by an artifice of abstraction of being traced out separately, are, as already hinted, intimately conjoined. A word or two in addition to what has been said above on this organic unity of our con- scious experience may fittingly close our detailed examina- tion of psychical processes. We have found each of the three psychical factors, the cognitive or presentative, the affective, and the conative, as a primitive element, asserting itself to some extent as a separate functional tendency. The baby in the first week of life manifests the rudiment of intellectual activity, of feeling, and of motor impulse. The actual concrete form of the mental life is developed by the conjunction and ever- varied interaction of these psychical forces or tendencies. Without attempting to follow out the endless variety of product thus resulting, we may just refer to the two more important modes of combination or interaction : (a) that of intellectual activity with feeling, and (b) that of intellectual activity and feeling with conation. (a) Interactions of Intellect and Feeling : In- terests. That the development of feeling and of ideation are parts of one total process of mental growth has been already implied. The supposition of an intellectual life without any tinge of feeling, or of an emotional life unsup- ported by presentations, is an error. Our ' horde ' of ideas, e.g., that corresponding to our social experience, our pro- CONCRETE MENTAL DEVELOPMENT. 43/ fessional pursuits, our art-studies, etc., is vitalised and to a large extent penetrated and cemented by feeling. On the other hand, even the most violent passion involves an idea- tional process. It is evident that we have here to do with a growth, pari passu, of two concurrent factors, each of which is affected by, and in its turn affects, the other. This is seen in the formation of those fixed presentative-affective groups with their attractive and repellent tendencies which we call interests. A boy acquires a strong keen interest, say in cricket, by acquiring knowledge of the game, its practice, and its rules, its history, its prominent heroes, and the like. This knowledge, again, is in its turn the outcome of certain pleasurable sensibilities, as love of physical exercise and social likings. (/>) Interactions of Intellect and Feeling with Co- nation. In dealing with the development of conation it was pointed out that this is throughout conditioned by the growth of ideation and of emotion. This dependence is clearly recognised in the common order of psychological exposition. A developed will is a product of active impulse enriched by additions of the stimulative element of feeling and the illuminative element of intellection. Here, too, however, we have to do with a reciprocal ac- tion. Not only does the growth of feeling and of ideation thus minister to the normal expansion and consolidation of activity, but the production of a firm and enlightened type of volition reacts on feeling and thought. As pointed out in our account of the processes of self-control, the cul- tivation of emotion and of intellect alike includes a regu- lative volitional factor. The intellectual man is ipso facto the volitional man so far at least as the voluntary direc- tion of the attention is concerned. Similarly, though less manifestly, does the highest realisation of the emotional nature depend on a volitional factor. Thus the epicurean who thoughtfully plans out his life so as to get the great- est variety of refined pleasure with the least possible amount of disagreeable drawback must have, not only some of the 4 88 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. range and precision of intellectual view of the man of sci- ence and of the philosopher, but some of the indomitable firmness of will and completeness of self-control of the ascetic himself. It is thus evident that in spite of the fact that intellec tion, feeling, and active impulse are distinct psychical forces or tendencies, and that in their most energetic forms they assume the aspect of hostile or incompatible tenden- cies, they are organically implicated, so that there can be no normal and complete development of one without a con- current and correspondent development of the others. Typical and Individual Development. The com- plete harmonious development of mind just described, which involves a proportionate fulness of each of the constituent phases, and of each constituent in its several distinguish- able varieties, is an ideal never perfectly realised. The actual concrete minds which we know all exhibit deviations from this typical scheme in one or another direction. Thus we find now a special intensity of feeling, an emotional ex- citability or passionateness, which is in excess of the pow- ers of thought and of volition. In like manner we see men who are intellectually great but are lacking in a commen- surate power of general volitional control ; and others who to much energy in action and firmness of purpose join in- tellectual narrowness, and emotional dulness. It follows from what was said in the preceding section that such one-sided development always involves a limita- tion also in the power that seems to be predominant. Thus so-called emotional persons will commonly be found in reality to feel strongly and quickly in certain directions only, as amour-propre or a narrow and intense form of sym- pathy {e.g., maternal compassion). This truth that one- sided development is also incomplete development even on its one side is of the greatest practical importance. In study- ing and dealing with men we require to know not merely on which side (intellect, volition or feeling) they are strong and weak respectively, but also in what particular directions of intellectual activity, and so forth, they are so. CONCRETE MENTAL DEVELOPMENT. 489 The problem of determining and formulating the several modes of variation of mental development is a subject which has hardly begun to be seriously grappled with. The innumerable varieties of individual character among civil- ised men appear indeed to defy any attempt at scientific analysis and classification. In a work on general psychol- ogy like the present this problem can only be touched upon. Varieties of Mind. If we regard the human beings we know, we are struck at once by the fact of numerous diversities. Each individual has a mind which, while it is an example of the common type of mental structure, is at the same time something unique, a peculiar group of psy- chical or, if we include the correlative nervous factor, psy- cho-physical tendencies. A little inspection shows us that these variations are measurable in different ways. Thus, to begin with an ob- vious distinction, we may arrange men according to their place in the scale of mind. In any community there is a scale of mental power and of correlative brain-power, from arrested development and imbecility up to the highest manifestations in the few great minds. This mode of esti- mating minds is the one commonly employed by the anthro- pologist in determining the place of particular races in the evolutional scale. In the second place, we may distinguish and classify minds according to the relative force or prominence of the several psycho-physical tendencies which constitute mind. In this way, for example, we get the contrasts of temperament and character which appear in general between the two sexes, and among different races at the same level of culture, and among individual members of the same race and community. These differences may be roughly marked off from the first as differences of grouping or of mental pattern. These variations may be more general or more special and individual. As an example of the former, we have the preponderance of the emotional over the intellectual, and 49© OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. so forth (in the sense already defined). The more special individualising differences are illustrated by the particular bent of intellectual activity manifested, the relative strength of the several emotional susceptibilities and aims. As im- plied above, there is the special intellectual aptitude for this or that group of ideas, and a corresponding ineptitude in other directions. Thus, as already pointed out, there are men observant and retentive in respect of certain classes of sense impressions, e.g., visual presentations, and, more narrowly, of one group of these, as colors. Not only so, we see a further limitation of the special intellectual bent connected with a peculiar interest in a group of concrete objects, as is illustrated in the special intelligence which some persons manifest with reference to human faces, and generally what may be called personality, a specialised mode of intelligence found in many women. These differences in combination of psychical elements or mental pattern doubtless have their nervous correlatives. Just as evolutional height is correlated with the degree of cerebral development as a whole, so psychical pattern presumably corresponds with the particular structural con- figuration, and the relative development of the several parts of the brain. The later researches in cerebral anatomy and physiology enable us to perceive, to some extent, wherein such differences of cerebral configuration consist. At the same time, our knowledge does not as yet enable us to determine these correlations with any degree of certainty (see above, p. 27). Scientific View of Individuality : Measurement of Psychical Capacity. It follows from the above defini- tion of individual variation, as a peculiar combination or mode of grouping of elements, that a scientific treatment of the problem must set out with the elementary or funda- mental psycho-physical constituents. These are the tissue out of which the mental organs which we call faculties are formed. Every observable difference of individual minds ought to be susceptible of being exhibited as a result of particular groupings of these elements in certain ratios of CONCRETE MENTAL DEVELOPMENT. 491 strength. In order to solve this problem two conditions have to be satisfied. First of all we must know what is ele- mentary or fundamental. In the second place we must be able to measure these elementary forces with something approaching to scientific exactness. With respect to the first of these conditions, it may be confidently said that our psychological analysis, aided by the physiology of the nervous system, enables us to some extent to solve the problem. Thus we have seen that all intellectual ability is in general determined by the perfec- tion of the senses together with the closely conjoined in- tellectual function known as discrimination. Fineness, or delicacy of discriminative sensibility, is thus one funda- mental element of intellectuality. Further, we have learnt that power of attention, as illustrated in prolonged fixation, rapid transition from object to object and grasp or compre- hensiveness, assimilation or readiness in detecting similari- ties, as also retentiveness and associative power, are funda- mental constituents of intelligence. In the case of feeling, again, we have traced down all emotional susceptibility to certain organically determined sensibilities to pleasure and pain ; and similarly we have found in active impulse under its double form, attention and (psychical) movement, the fundamental element in conation. If now we turn to the second condition of the problem and ask how far these elementary psychical capacities are measurable, we are confronted with certain obvious diffi- culties. Our psychical states are not quantitatively com- parable in the way in which material magnitudes are so. We cannot, for example, say that one sensation has pre- cisely three times the intensity of another. Yet, as we have seen, the new science of psycho-physics, or, to use a more exact expression, psychometry, has made a promising beginning in carrying out certain simple quantitative de- terminations. Psychical phenomena may be said to exhibit three as- pects under which they admit of quantitative comparison or measurement. (#) Of these the first and most obvious 4 o2 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. is Intensity. The various modes of determining this, in the case of the simpler psychical phenomena, sensations, have been dealt with above. It is evident that these methods of measurement are fitted to determine individual variations. Thus individuals can be compared with some exactness in respect both of absolute and discriminative sensibility to intensity of light, sound, and so forth. It is probable that by help of a suitable psycho-physical appara- tus other psychical phenomena, as feeling and conative effort, may be similarly measured in respect of intensity. (b) Next to intensity we have Duration, or time-magni- tude. All psychical phenomena have this dimension, and, as we have seen, important experimental contributions have been made to the measurement of this quantitative aspect of mind. More particularly, the inquiries into Re- action-time (see p. 90) have led to some amount of exact knowledge of the time occupied, not only by transmission of nervous excitation from periphery to centre, and con- versely, but by the central psycho-physical process itself. Here, too, important individual differences have been noted, and this line of inquiry promises to be a fruitful instrument of a comparative measurement of psychical processes. Thus the power of adjustment to sensations (attention), of associative suggestion, and even of judgment and choice, may be measured in the case of any individual by means of the experiments already devised, that is to say, by com- paring the duration of the process in the case of different persons, and estimating the particular psychical power in- volved as inversely proportional to this. (c) Lastly, a bare reference may be made to Extensity, and what is only another aspect of this, Complexity. The discrimination of extensive magnitudes may be estimated in the same way as that of intensive. As pointed out above, individuals differ greatly in respect of the delicacy of the tactual discrimination of points, and these differ- ences of local aspect can be numerically determined. An- other direction of psychical measurement in which range or complexity comes in is what has been called "span of pre- CONCRETE MENTAL DEVELOPMENT. 493 hension," or the number of visible objects clearly distin- guishable by a momentary glance. It is highly probable that here, too, important inequalities would be discover- able among different persons. Comparative measurement of this power might be supplemented by that of the power of grasping a succession of sense-impressions, as those of sound. Some interesting experiments go to show that this capability varies pretty uniformly with age and degree of intelligence, and might with advantage be taken as at least a rough criterion in the estimation of children's mental power as a whole. Causes of Individual Variation. If mental develop- ment in its common typical form is a product of two fac- tors, congenital power, and exercise of function or what we commonly call experience, we may infer that all varia- tions depend on differences in these two factors. That is to say, every degree of general superiority or inferiority of mind, and every special modification of mental pattern, arise from certain differences in the original psycho-physi- cal constitution or in the life-experience of the individual. That the primitive psycho-physical constitution is vari- able from individual to individual is a fact of common ob- servation. Just as a glance tells us that no two human faces, even at the age of infancy, are perfectly similar, so we have reason to suppose that no two human brains, and consequently no two sums of mental capacity, are alike. The most careful observers of infants are able to point to important psycho-physical differences, e. g., in the effect of sense-impressions in calling forth the reaction of attention and motor phenomena generally, which appear in the first week of life. These congenital variations are by some ascribed to ever-varying re- sultants of the forces of heredity. Thus a child is a new and unique prod- uct because it represents a new combination of ancestral influences. Ac- cording to this view, individuation is the result of a continually changing mixture of hereditary tendencies. It cannot, however, be said that the theory of heredity has as yet succeeded in making this mode of explaining native individuality or idiosyncrasy perfectly clear Congenital variations probably involve the action of other causes which are as yet unknown. 494 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. Whatever the nature and extent of these congenital or- ganic foundations of individuality, they have to be sup- plemented by our second factor, viz., functional exercise. The biologist's conception of development is that of a pro- cess of interaction between organism and environment. As we have seen, mental growth is determined by the presence of suitable stimuli or excitants in the environment. These external conditions vary considerably from individual to individual. Thus no two children, not even members of the same family, come under precisely similar physical con- ditions, as temperature, nutrition, excitation of movement, etc. The succession of sense-stimuli, with their corre- spondent motor reactions, making up the life-experience of an infant, is a different one in every case. Still more evidently is the human environment a variable one. Even twin members of a family have an unlike social milieu in so far as the parents and others feel and behave differently towards them. This modifying action of the human envi- ronment is strikingly illustrated in the marvellous results attained by the best systems of individual education. Laura Bridgman, after her early loss of sight and hearing, would have remained an imbecile but for Dr. Howe's devotion of his time and energies to the problem of educating the little unfortunate. We may say, then, that individual development is the action of what Mr. Galton has happily called " nurture " upon " nature." The possibilities are no doubt organically determined from the first. A child never becomes that for which he has not a native aptitude. Yet, while the broad limits are thus fixed by nature or congenital organisation, the determination of what particular original tendencies shall be developed falls to the environment. This may be said to work selectively, strengthening and maturing certain among the congenital tendencies rather than others. Extreme Variations: (a) Variations of Height, Genius. With this general idea of psychical variation to guide us, we may just glance at some of the more remark- able cases of individuality. Here we shall best begin with CONCRETE MENTAL DEVELOPMENT. 495 the extremes of evolutional height. At the one extreme we have arrested development and imbecility, a phenomenon which is commonly looked upon as abnormal and patho- logical. At the other extreme we meet with what is called the great mind. A word or two may be added on this in- teresting example of variation. Men and women of great and remarkable minds, or, as they are popularly described, of genius, are known to have an exceptional cerebral organisation. In many cases, at least, this cerebral development is out of proportion to the total organic development. We may thus, from a bio- logical point of view, roughly describe a great man as one in whom the cerebral organisation reaches the highest known point of development. Statistical research goes to show that men of this pre- ternatural mental power manifest their superiority at an early stage of development. In other words, they are, as a rule, precocious. The outward expansive tension of the congenital impulse is illustrated in the well-known fact that many a distinguished artist and man of science has pushed his way to self-realisation independently -of, and in oppo- sition to, external circumstances. Thus the greatest minds show in the most marked way the selective determination of the (individual) environment by the organism. It may be added that, according to the inquiries of Mr. Galton, these mental giants go on developing through an excep- tionally long period. As hinted above, a great mind is more than a preter- naturally strong intellect. This is obvious in the case of those to whom we are wont to ascribe genius, viz., the crea- tors of art and literature. The poet and musician are deter- mined quite as much by the extraordinary acuteness and depth of their feeling as by superiority of the specifically intellectual functions. Not only so, as we know on the testimony of more than one great man, effective greatness, that is, power which realises itself in production, involves sovereign strength of will in the shape of strenuous ambi- tion and masterful concentration. 49 6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. Extraordinary mental force tends to be developed at the expense of the other organic powers. Thus the man of great intellect or genius has fre- quently been characterised by marked moral failings, weakness of will in the control of the passions, and so forth. Indeed, this fact, taken along with the liability to physical disorder, which is often noticeable, has led certain writers to go so far as to regard the organic basis of all genius as a neurosis or abnormal deviation from the healthy type of nervous organisation. (b) Extreme of Normal Pattern : Eccentricity of Character. We may now pass to the other kind of psy- chological extreme, viz., that mode of structural variation of mental character which departs most widely from the typical form. All individuality is, as we have seen, a modi- fication of the common ideal type in particular directions. There are, however, certain limits to what we regard as the normal extreme of these variations. Where the indi- vidual shows such preponderance of particular impulses and tendencies as to give rise to the appearance of defect- iveness in what we consider the common features of a human mind, we are apt to characterise it as eccentricity. Thus extreme concentration even on a worthy aim, as art or science, when it is accompanied by apparent neglect of so vital a matter as the bodily health, is wont to be viewed with suspicion. As is well known, a number of great men, for example, Newton, Beethoven, have been marked by such peculiarities, whence the amount of literature that has occupied itself with the "eccentricities of genius." In these extremes of eccentricity we have, it is evident, to do with phenomena that lie on the boundary line be- tween the normal and the abnormal. Our exposition of mental development has occupied itself with the normal type : yet, in order to give an adequate idea of mind in its concrete manifestations, we must make a brief reference to abnormal variations from this type. The Normal and the Abnormal Mind. The dis- tinction of normal and abnormal, and the closely related distinction of healthy or sane and pathological or insane, are psychological in so far as they point to actual differ- ences of psychical or, to speak more completely, psycho- CONCRETE MENTAL DEVELOPMENT. 497 physical phenomena. An abnormal mind is one, the par- ticular organic conditions and manifestations of which deviate by a considerable and easily recognisable interval from the typical plan of psycho-physical configuration. An instance may be found in an extreme doting affection for certain animals, amounting to self-denying devotion, and a correlative indifference to human objects of benevolence. At the same time, it is evident that we have to do here with more than a purely psychological or matter-of-fact distinction. The significance of the contrast is only under- stood when we regard it as teleological and practical. The normal is adjustment of organism to environment, the ab- normal is mal-adjustment. Our practical instincts lead us to mark off sharply those amounts of individual deviation from the standard type which render the subject incapable, irresponsible for his actions, a burden if not also a menace to society. A glance at some of the familiar examples of mental obliquity or unsoundness will at once show this to be so. Thus a disturbance of that fundamental reaction of mind to environment which we call perception, leading to indi- vidual " illusions of sense," is one of the indications of ab- normality most plainly recognised. Similarly where the realities of the surroundings are misapprehended through the rise of bizarre delusions of the imagination. In like manner, perversions of the feelings, such as transformations of what we call ' natural ' affection into its opposite, also of the active impulses, as in the direction of the volitional energies to what is whimsical and commonly regarded as valueless, are popularly viewed as manifestations of mental unsoundness. Abnormal Tendencies in Normal Life. As already observed, the normal typical mind is a scientific fiction never fully realised. The truth of this proposition is strik- ingly illustrated in the fact that in the case of all men there are discoverable, more or less distinctly, tendencies which point in the direction of the abnormal. Thus, if we look at the phenomena of sense-perception, we see that there is 32 493 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. in the case of no man an exact correspondence throughout between mental percepts and external realities. There are common tendencies to sense-illusion due to unalterable conditions of our sensibility, as in the effect of colour- contrast, or to the overpowering effects of habit, as in the partial deceptions of the mirror, and so forth. Since, how- ever, these errors of sense-perception are of minimal extent and importance, and are, moreover, connected with what on the whole is a normal psycho-physical condition, they are with reason disregarded.* The phenomenon of occasional abnormality manifests itself more plainly in those disturbances of sense-perception which arise from temporary organic conditions. Thus the tendency to Illusions of the Senses, that is, misinterpreta- tion of sense-impressions under mental excitement and a too powerful imaginative anticipation, as when a timid and superstitious person mistakes an object indistinctly seen in the dark for a ghost or hobgoblin, is clearly a case of mal- adjustment, and of a kind of mal-adjustment which leads to wasteful and hurtful action. Still more clearly is there the phenomenon of occasional abnormality where through a disturbance of either peripheral or central nervous struct- ure the subject 'reacts' in the form of a sensation where no external stimulus is at work. Of these subjective coun- terfeits of objectively excited sensations, again, the most distinctly abnormal, because the most significant of hurtful organic disturbance, are what are known as Hallucinations, that is, pseudo-perceptions of external objects where none exist, as when a person imagines he hears another's voice though no external sound is present. f * See my volume Illusions, chaps, iii.-v. I have there tried to show that what we may call normal, that is, common as distinguished from individual sense-illusion, is analogous to the occasional error arising from the deductive application of a general principle which is only approxi- mately true. f On the distinction of Illusion and Hallucination see my volume Illusions, p. ii and p. in and following. It has been ascertained by the statistical researches of E. Gurney that about one out of every ten healthy persons has at some time been the subject of a hallucination. CONCRETE MENTAL DEVELOPMENT. 499 Dreams as Abnormal Phenomena. Among the ab- normal or typical and individual, 488. Difference, relation of, 103, 264, 293. (See Discrimination.) Differentiation, biological and psy- chical, 103 ; distinguished from discrimination, 105 ; relation of, to assimilation, 109 ; how con- nected with associative integra- tion, 114; of emotion, 374. Direction, perception of, by touch, 142 ; by sight, 157 ; auditory, 169. Disappointment, feeling of, 353. Disbelief, relation of, to belief, 301, Discovery, relation of imagination to, 248. Discrimination, as fundamental in- tellectual function, 35 ; distin- guished from primitive differen- tiation, 105 ; relation of, to assimi- lation, 109 ; as condition of reten- tion, 114, 188; in comparison, 264, 267 ; in classification, 287 ; in judgment, 293 ; in reasoning, 306. Disinterested action. (See Benevo- lence.) Disposition, physiological, 113, 182. Dissonance, explanation of musical, 62. Distance, perception of, tactual, 141 ; visual, 157 ; auditory, 170. Distinctness. (See Clearness.) Distraction, 86 ; pain of, 353. Divergent suggestion, 221. Division of mind, threefold, 32. Doubt, 302 ; arrest of action by, 265. Dreams, as abnormal, 499. Dualism, philosophic theory of, 508. Duration, of sensation, 52 ; repre- sentation of, 209. Duty. (See Moral sentiment.) Eccentricity of character, 496. Education, relation of, to psychology, 14 ; bearing of correlation of mind and body upon, 30 ; analysis of mind in, 41 ; study of primitive elements in, 79 ; as related to the development of the mind, 125 ; control of perception in, 175 ; of memory, 233, 236 ; of imagination, 255, 256 ; control of conception in, 284 ; control of processes of abstraction in, 287 ; control of thought in, 314 ; of the feelings, 395> 399 ! °f tne w iH) 43$. 482 ; of the moral sense, 483 ; effects of, 494 ; individuality in, 503. Efferent nerve, 18. Effort, nature of, 475. INDEX. 515 Ego. (See Self.) Egoistic feelings, distinction of so- cial and, 379. Elaboration, factors in mental, 102 ; unity of process of, 114. Elements of mind in education, 79. Emotion, as higher feeling, 358 ; structure of, 3C2 ; rise and fall of, 363 ; influence of, on thought, 364 ; expression of, 365 ; spe- cialised manifestations of, 367 ; ef- fect of experience on, 369 ; differ- entiation of, 374 ; classification of, 374- End, definition of, 421 ; permanent, 444 ; non-personal, 446. Ennui, nature of, 345. Environment, social relation of indi- vidual to, 10, 124, 280. Ethical sentiment. (See Moral sen- timent.) Ethics, relation of, to psychology, 13- Evolution, doctrine of, as applied to explanation of instinct, 78 ; bear- ing of, on problem of knowledge, 333- Exercise, as determining growth of faculty, 493. (See Development.) Expectant attention, 88 ; effect of, on perception, 184. Expectation, distinguished from memory, 204 ; belief, as connected with, 323. Experience, as source of belief, 323 ; effect of, on emotion, 369 ; on growth of volition, 425. Experientialism, in philosophy, 333. Experiment in psychology, 9. Explanation, nature of, 312. Explicit reasoning, 307. Expression of emotion, 365 ; laws of, 367. Extensity of sensation, 51 ; in sense of touch, 57 ; in sense of sight, 67. Externality, meaning of, 128 note. External world, reference of sensa- tion to the, 128 ; philosophical problem of, 178. Faculty, mental, theory of, 36 ; meas- urement of, 490. Fatigue, sensations of, 45 note. Fear, type of Egoistic feeling, 3S0. Fechner's law 49. Feeling, as mental function, 33 ; ele- mentary form of, 35 ; how related to the other mental functions, 38, 337, 486 ; primitive forms of, 75 ; connexion of, with imagina- tion, 249 ; effect of, on belief, 325 ; demarcation of province of, 336 ; essential characteristics of, 337 ; relation of, to sensation, 338 ; conditions or mode of pro- duction of, 340 ; classes of, 357 ; connected with sense, 358 ; com- plex, 362 ; ideal, 370 ; revival of, 371 ; transference of, 373 ; rela- tion of, to desire, 416 ; control of, 399, 462. (See Emotion and Pleas- ure and pain.) Fixed ideas, 447 note. Forgetfulness, 228. Form, perception of, by touch, 142 ; by sight, 152, 160. Free-will, philosophical doctrine of, 479- Function, triple, of mind, 32 ; pri- mary intellectual, 34 ; affective, 35 ; energizing or conative, 36 ; relation of faculty to, 36 ; physio- logical concomitants of, 37 ; in- ter-relation of the three funda- mental forms of mental, 38. Future, idea of, how formed, 208. Calton, F., on power of visualisa- tion, 187, 237 ; on development of genius, 496. 5 16 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. Generalisation, process of, 275 ; pos- sibility of, without language, 276 ; relation of, to inductive reason- ing, 309 note. Generic image, 272. Genetic method, 8. Geometric and mechanical proper- ties of bodies, 134. Geometry, notions of, how formed, 284. Goldscheider, A., his researches on sensations of pressure, 57 ; on dis- crimination of points, 58 note. Grief, as general form of painful emotion, 377. Growth. (See Development.) Habit, as physiological principle, 2 ; relation of, to development, 120, 437 ; in rational processes, 314 ; effect of, on feeling, 350 ; in rela- tion to growth of volition, 432 ; degrees of, 435 ; as principle of conduct, 470. Habitudes, moral, 470. Hallucination, phenomena of, 499. Hamilton, Sir W., on cognitive fac- tor in mind, 38 ; on unconscious mental activity, 83 ; on redinte- gration, 219 ; on relation of lan- guage to thought, 280 ; feelings classified by, 378. Hardness, perception of, 144. Harmony, musical, 62 ; law of pleas- ure, 352 ; in objects of beauty, 391. Hartley, David, on association, 219. Hearing, sensations of, 61 ; pleas- ure and pain of, 360. (See Au- ditory perception.) Helmholtz, H. von, on musical tim- bre, 62 ; theory of, on colour-sen- sation, 67. Herbart, J. F., on priority of pres- entation, 37 ; on apperception, 96 note. Heredity, transmission of mental character by, 78 ; bearing of, on feeling, 368 ; cause of individual variations, 493. Hering, E., theory of colour-sensa- tions of, 67 note. Hindrance and furtherance of men- tal activities, 352. Hobbes, Thomas, on need of change for consciousness, 105 ; on asso- ciation of ideas, 191. Horwicz, A., on priority of feeling, 38. Hume, David, on laws of associa- tion, 191. Huxley, Prof. T. H., on importance of language, 281. Hypnotism, hypnotic state, 499. Idea, nature of general, 272. Idealism, philosophic doctrine of, 178. Identification of object, tactual, 149 ; visual, 166. (See Recognition.) Identity, relation of, 293 ; personal, 318. Ideo-motor actions, 423. Illusion of sense, 499. Image, mental, temporary, 181 ; dif- ferentiae of percept and, 182 ; coalescence of percept and, 183 ; reaction of, on percept, 184 ; dis- tinctness of, 185 ; generic, 272. Imagination, stage of mental de- velopment, 118 ; reproductive and productive, 238 ; limits to, 135 ; passive and active, 241 ; construct- ive, 242 ; receptive and creative, 245 ; relation of, to intellect, 251; development of, 252; cul- ture of, 255, 256. Imitation, in practical construction, 248 ; connexion of, with sympa- thy, 381 ; in development of vol- untary movement, 427. INDEX. 517 Immediate and mediate reproduc- tion, in. Implicit reasoning, 306. Impulse, gratification of, 341 ; act- ive, 405 ; co-operation of, 447 ; opposition of, 44S ; rivalry of, 451- Individual differences, physical ba- sis of, 29 ; nature of, 488 ; varie- ties of, 4S9 ; measurement of, 490 ; causes of, 493 ; treatment of, in education, 503. Induction, mental process of, 308. Inference. (See Reasoning.) Inheritance. (See Heredity.) Inhibition, nature of, as nervous phenomenon, 22 ; of reproductive tendencies, 221 ; volitional, 448. Innate ideas, dispute concerning, 333- Innervation, sensations of, 6g. Insanity, distinguished from sanity, 501. Instinct, instinctive tendency, range of, in man, 77 ; nature and origin of, 78 ; element of, in feeling, 365 ; element of, in willing, 405. Instinctive emotion, 377. Instinctive movements, nature of, 409. Integration, as primary intellectual function, 35 ; associative, no. (See Association.) Intellect, intellection. (See Know- ing.) Intellectual sentiment, 385. Intensity, of sensation, 47 ; of tac- tual sensation, 57; of auditory sensation, 61 ; scale of luminous, 65 ; of attention, 85 ; measure- ment of individual differences in, 491. Interest, relation of, to attention, 94 ; effect of, in voluntary attention, 97- Interests, formation of, 4S6. Internal observation. (See Intro- spection.) Introspection, as a source of psycho- logical knowledge, 4 ; value of, 5. Intuition of things, by touch, 147 ; by sight, 165. Intuitionalism, philosophic doctrine of, 332. Intuitive judgments, 303. Intuitive knowledge of space, theo- ries of, 353. Invention, mechanical, nature of, 248. James, Prof. W., on muscular sensa- tions, 69 note, Jevons, W. S., on cramming, 228. Joy, general form of pleasurable emotion, 377. Judgment, definition of, 290; relation of, to conception, 291 ; a process of mental synthesis, 292 ; differ- ence and likeness in, 293 ; mathe- matical, 295 ; causal, 296 ; gen- eral antecedents of, 298 ; synthet- ic and analytic, 299 ; relation of, to belief, 300 ; affirmative and nega- tive, 301 ; as selective decision, 301 ; suspension of, 302 ; relation of, to reasoning, 303 ; practical, 307 ; training of, 333. Juxtaposition of excitations, 352. Kant, his philosophy of perception, 178. Knowing, intellection, as fundamen- tal mental function, 33 ; constitu- ents of, 34 ; relation of, to feeling and willing, 38, 486 ; pleasures of, 385. Knowledge, distinguished from knowing, 12 ; as systematised be- lief, 327 ; as social product, 328 ; philosophical theory of, 331. Language, as medium of reproducing 5i8 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. knowledge, 204 ; as instrument of thought, 270, 275 ; psychology of, 281. Laws of mind, 40. Lewes, G. H., on triple process of mind, 39. Light, sensation of, 65. Likeness, relation of, 106 ; discovery of, in comparison, 264 ; judgments respecting, 293, (See Assimila- tion.) Local discrimination, of sensation, 51 ; in touch, 57 ; in sight, 67. Localisation of cerebral functions, 27. Localisation, of skin sensations, 140 ; of retinal sensations, 151 ; of bodily sensations, 167. Logic, haw related to psychology, 13 ; control of concept by, 285 ; control of thought by, 314. Logical sentiment, 385. Lotze, H., on play of imagination, 250. Magnitude, perception of, by touch, 141 ; by sight, 153 ; real and ap- parent, 160 ; ideas of, 283. Materialism, philosophic theory of, 508. Matter, material quality, perception of, 144 ; philosophic aspect of, 178. Measurement, of sensational inten- sity, 47 ; of individual psychical capacity, 490. Mechanism of mind. (See Nervous system.) Memory, distinguished from expec- tation, 204 ; a cluster of particu- lar memories, 230 ; general and special, 231 ; development of, 231 ; culture of, 233, 236 ; belief in, 323. (See Reproduction and Retention.) Mental faculties, theory of, 36. Mental pathology. (See Pathology of mind.) Method of psychology, subjective analysis as primary, 7 ; synthetic or genetic, 8. Mill, James, en association, 219. Mill, J. S., determinism of, 479. Mind, characteristics of, 1 ; how we come to know, 3 ; general knowl- edge of, 6 ; connexion of, with body, 9, 16, 505 ; organs of 24 ; triple function of, 31 ; elementary functions of, 34 ; analysis of, value to the educator of, 41 ; grades of conscious states of, 82 ; elabora- tion of constituents of, 102 ; va- rieties of, 489 ; normal and ab- normal, 496. Mnemonics, art of, 234. Monism, doctrine of, 508. Monotony, feeling of, 345. Moral character, 471. Moral discipline, 483. Moral effort, 476. Moral habitudes, 470. Moral sentiment, characters of, 392 ; origin of, 393 ; development of, 393- Motive, definition of, 420. Motive-idea, 443. Motor representations, 199 ; as fac- tor in conation, 421. Movement, sensations of, 70 ; co- operation of, in touch and sight, 73 ; primitive forms of, 76, 406 ; in tactual perception, 136 ; in visual perception, 151 ; percep- tion of objective, 162 ; expres- sional, 365 ; random or automatic, 406 ; reflex, 407 ; instinctive, 409 ; voluntary, 414 ; imitative, 427 ; control of, 460. Muscular effort, nature of, 475. Muscular exercise in the training of the will, 438. INDEX. 519 Muscular sense, characteristics of, 68 ; varieties of, 69 ; co-operation of, with touch and sight and other passive sensations, 73 ; concerned in attention, 86 ; involved in tac- tual perception, 136 ; in visual perception, 151 ; concomitant feel- ings of, 360. Music, sensations of, 62 ; appreci- ation of time in, 172. Names, relation of, to conception, 2 75 > psychological function of general, 276 ; progressive use of, 277 ; as substitutes for ideas, 280. (See Language.) Native capacity. (See Original Ca- pability.) Necessitarianism, 479. Negation, distinguished from affir- mation, 301. Negative pleasures and pains, 347- Nervous system, reference to, in psychology, 4 ; structure of, 17 ; functions of, 21 ; mode of work- ing of, 23 ; connexion of, with conscious activity, 24 ; correlation of action of, with psychical pro- cesses, 27 ; nervous process in sensation, 44, 50 ; in attention, 86 ; mental reproduction, 113 ; perception, 133 ; nervous con- ditions of memory, 232. Noises, explanation of, 63. Nominalism, 281. Notion. (See Concept.) Novelty, as affecting attention, 94 ; charm of, 347. Number, perception of, 143 ; visuali- sation of, 237 ; ideas of, 283. Object, distinguished from subject, 3 note ; relation of attention to its, 84 ; perception of, 146, 165 ; phil- osophic problem of, 178 ; desire and its, 415, 446. Objective movement, perception of, 162. Objective methods of psychological inquiry, 4 ; value of, 6. Obligation, feeling of. (See Moral sentiment.) Obliviscence. (See Forgetfulness.) Observation, as regulated percep- tion, 175. Obstructive association, 225. Operation, mental. (See Process.) Organic sensations, 45 ; localisation of, 167 ; feelings accompanying, 359- Organism. (See Body.) Original capability, 77 ; measure- ment of, 490. (See Instinct.) Past, representation of, 207. Pathology of mind, 501. Percept, as stage of intellectual de- velopment, 118 ; defined, 129 ; distinguished from image, 180, 182 ; revival of, 181 ; coalescence of image and, 183 ; reaction of image on, 184 ; conditions of re- tention and reproduction of, 187. Perception, distinguished from sen- sation, 128 ; process of, 130 ; defi- nition of, 132, special channels of, 133 ; characteristics of tactual, 135 ; of space, 136 ; of matter, 144 ; of weight, 146 ; of rough- ness and smoothness, 147 ; visual, 149 ; of space, 150 ; of bodily or- ganism, 167 ; auditory, 169 ; of space, 169 ; of time, 171 ; musical, 172 ; development of, 173 ; and observation, 175 ; psychology and philosophy, 178 ; after ^effects of, 180. Persistence of objects, 148, 166, 295 ; of self, 318. 520 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. Personal identity, 318. Philosophy, distinguished from psy- chology, 1 ; of perception, 178 ; of universals, 281 ; of knowledge, 331 ; of free-will, 479 ; of mind and body, 505. Phrenology, 27. Physiological psychology, scope of, 9- Pitch, sensations of, 62. Plato, his doctrine of negativity of pleasure, 348, 357. Play, exercise of imagination in, 253 ; relation of, to the aesthetic func- tion, 388. Pleasure, relation of, to desire, 416, 446. Pleasure and pain, as fundamental forms of feeling, 35, 338 ; as de- termined by quantity of stimula- tion, 340 ; as determined by form of stimulus, 343 ; effects of pro- longation on, 344 ; effect of change of activity on, 346 ; negative, 348 ; effect of habit on, 350 ; as result of harmony and conflict, 352 ; theories of, 357 ; of sensation, 358. Poetic imagination, 250. Position, sensations of, 70. Power, consciousness of, 431, 475. Practical science, relation of psy- chology to, 12 ; construction, 248 ; judgment, 307. Presentation, presentative element, distinguished from representation, 118, 180; in perception, 131; re- lation of feeling to, 338. Presentative cognition, 1 18. Pressure, sensations of, 57. Preyer, W., on child's perception of self, 316. Primary and secondary qualities of bodies, 135. Process, mental, 1, 32 ; division of, 33- Productive imagination. (See Con- structive.) Proof, 312. Proposition, judgment in form of, 291. Protensive magnitude. (See Dura- tion.) Psychological classification, problem of, 8, 32 ; theories of, 37. Psychology, definition of, 1 ; method of, 7 ; experiment in, 9 ; physio- logical, 9 ; relation of, to other sciences, 11 ; relation of, to phi- losophy, 12, 178, 281, 331, 505 ; relation of, to practical science, 13 ; relation of, to education, 14. Psychometry, experiments in, 90. (See Measurement.) Psycho-physics, scope of, 10, 48. Psychosis, or concrete mental state, 2 ; as triple process, 32. Punishments and rewards, office of, in developing moral sentiment, 394- Purpose, relation of, to idea of cause, 298 ; in will, 403. Pursuit, in process of recollection, 227 ; feeling of intellectual, 387. Qualities, primary and secondary, 135- Quality of sensation, 49 ; physiologi- cal conditions of, 50. Quantity, of sensation, 47 ; relation of, to quality, 51. Race, study of infancy of, 4 ; influ- ence of, on individual thought through language, 281. Random movements, 406 ; as start- ing-point in volitional develop- ment, 412. Rationalism, philosophic doctrine of, 332. INDEX. 521 Reaction-time, measurement of, go, 492. Realism, perceptual, defined, 178 ; conceptual, doctrine of, 282. Reality, objective, cognition of, 148, 178, 320. Reason, process of finding, 312. Reasoning, relation between judg- ment and, 303 ; mental process in, 304 ; implicit, 306 ; explicit, 307 ; inductive, 308 ; deductive, 311 ; activity of mind in, 312 ; training of, 333. Recognition, characterised, 107, 212 ; of objects, 149, 166. Recollection, process of, 223 ; per- fect and imperfect, 227. Refinement, of emotion, 374. Reflexion, as element in character, 473 ; motive of, 477. Reflex attention, 94. Reflex movement, 23, 407 ; as pre- cursor of volitional, 412. Regulative sciences, 13. Relativity, law of, 105. Relief, perception of, by the eye, 160. Repetition, as condition of reten- tion, 113, 189 ; influence of, on contiguous association, 195. Repose, pleasures of, 343. Representation, representative imag- ination, as stage of intellectual de- velopment, 118 ; element of, in perception, 131 ; transition to, 180 ; trains of, 198 ; of time, 205 ; influ- ence of, on feeling, 371 ; in de- sire, 415. (See Image and Imag- ination.) Representative emotion, 377. Repression of feeling. (See Con- trol.) Reproduction, reproductive imagina- tion, relation of, to retention, no ; immediate and mediate, III ; main conditions of associative, 112, 187 ; physiological basis of, 113 ; laws of, 191 ; active factor in, 223 ; relation of, to productive imagination, 238 ; of feelings, 371 ; of movements, 421. (See Associa- tion and Suggestion.) Resistance, sense of, 72, 144. Resolution, volitional, 457. Responsibility, sense of, 480. Retention, retentiveness, as one of the primary attributes of intellect, 35 ; as effect of attention, 101 ; nature of, no ; general conditions of, 112, 187. Revival of impressions or percepts. (See Reproduction.) Rhythm, perception of, by the ear, 172 ; as pleasurable arrangement of elements, 356. Rivalry of impulses, 451. Rote, learning by, 204. Roughness and smoothness, percep- tion of, 146. Routine, as exemplification of habit, 435- Self, bodily organism as, 168, 316 ; development of idea of, 315 ; inner or mental, 316 ; idea of, as endur- ing, 318 ; feeling of, 380. Self-consciousness, how related to consciousness, 83, 315 ; relation of, to cognition, 331 ; relation of, to feeling, 337 ; connexion of, with self-feeling, 380 ; in higher volition, 478. Self-control, process of, 459 ; par- ticular forms of, 460 ; limits of, 468. Self-feeling, nature of, 380. Sensation, defined, 43 ; presentative and affective element in, 44, 339 ; general or common, 45 ; intensity of, 47 ; quality of, 49 ; extensity 522 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. or local distinctness of, 51 ; dura- tion of, 52; of taste, 53; of smell, 55 ; of touch, 56 ; thermal, 59 ; auditory, 61 ; musical, 62 ; visual, 65 ; colour, 66 ; muscular, 68 ; rela- tion of attention to, 84 ; elaboration of, 102 ; relation of perception to, 128 ; localisation of, 129 ; com- . parative revivability of, 229. Sensationalism, philosophic doctrine of, 333- Sense-feeling, nature of, 45 ; char- acters of, 358 ; complexity and al- teration of, 360. Sense-observation, training in, 177. Sense-organ, definition of, 46. Senses, the special, 46 ; the series of, 53- Sensibility, denned, 44 ; absolute, 48 ; discriminative, 49. Sentiments, characteristics of ab- stract, 377, 384. Sight, sense of, 65 ; pleasures and pains of, 360. (See Visual per- ception.) Similarity, as law of reproduction, 213 ; relation of contiguous sug- gestion to that by, 216. (See Likeness and Assimilation.) Single vision, 154. Singular judgments, 291. Smell, sense of, 55 ; pleasures and pains of, 359. Social environment. (See Environ- ment.) Social feelings, definition of, 379 ; ingredients of, 380 ; relation of, to the moral sentiment, 393. Solidity, perception of, by touch, 142 ; by sight, 160. Sound, sensations of, 61. (See Hear- ing.) Space-perception, tactual, 136 ; vis- ual, 150 ; theories of visual, 164 ; genesis of aural, 169. Specific energy of nerves, 21 note. Speech. (See Language.) Spencer, H., on relations, 34 note ; on mental heredity, 78 ; on asso- ciation, 219 ; on conditions of pleasure, 357 ; classification of feelings by, 378. Spiritualism, philosophic theory of, 508. Spontaneous movement. (See Ran- dom movement.) Stereoscope, 161. Stimulus, physical, in relation to in- sity of sensation, 48. Stimulation, law of, 340. Subconscious, mental states, 82. Subject, distinguished from object, 3 note. Subjective method in psychology, (See Introspection.) Substance, relation of attribute to 295- Succession^ consciousness of, 206. Suggestion, laws of, 190 ; contigu- ous, 192 ; of similars, 213 ; by contrast, 217 ; simple and com- plex, 219 ; divergent, 221 ; con- vergent, 221. Surprise, feeling of, 386. Syllogism, as form of deductive rea- soning, 311. Sympathy, general nature of, 377, 381 ; imitative, 381 ; as element in moral sentiment, 395. Synthesis, as factor in thinking, 262 ; conception as, 282 ; in process of judging, 292 ; forms of, in judg- ing, 293 ; in reasoning, 311. Synthetic judgments, 299. Synthetic method in psychology, 8. Tact, 307. Tactual perception, characteristics of, 135 ; of space, 136 ; of impene- trability, 144 ; of weight, 146 ; of INDEX. 523 roughness and smoothness, 146 ; integration of, 147 ; co-ordinated with visual perception, 149. Taste, . aesthetic. (See /Esthetic sen- timent.) Taste, sensations of, 53 ; pleasures and pains of, 359. Temperament, ancient doctrine of, 30. Temperature, sensations of, 59 ; per- ception of, 148. Thermal sense. (See Temperature.) Thing or object, intuition of, through active touch, 147 ; by sight, 165 ; philosophical problem of, 178. Thinking, thought, as stage of in- tellectual development, 119 ; gen- eral nature of, 259 ; directions of, 261 ; as analysis, 261 ; as synthesis, 262 ; general, 269 ; relation of, to language, 270, 276 ; stages of, 271 ; logical and psychological view of, 272 ; logical control of, 314 ; vo- litional control of, 464. Timbre, sensation of, 62. Time, perception of, by ear, 171 ; associational, 198 ; representation of, 205. Touch, sense of, 56 ; perception by, 135 (see Tactual perception) ; pleasures and pains of, 359. Tradition, influence of, on belief, 330. Trains, of representations, 198 ; of movements, 199. Transference, of feeling, 373. Typical, contrasted with individual development, 488. Unconscious, psychical processes, 82. Understanding. (See Thinking.) Universal judgments, 291 ; how ar- rived at, 307. Universals, realistic theory of, 281. Variety, pleasure of, 347. Verbal associations, 201 ; memory, 231 ; suggestion and belief, 324 ; suggestion and voluntary move- ment, 429. Vision. (See Visual perception.) Visual perception, compared with tactual, 149 ; of space, 150 ; bin- ocular, 154 ; co-ordination of, with tactual, 155 ; of direction, 157 ; of distance, 157 ; of real magni- tude, 160 ; of relief and solidity of form, 160 ; of objective move- ment, 162 ; growth of, 163 ; theo- ries of, 164. Visualisation, differences in power of, 187. Vividness of images, 187. Volition. (See Willing.) Voluntary attention, 97. Voluntary movement, genesis of, 411 ; variations in type of, 423 ; development of, 425 ; connexion of, with idea of power, 431 ; rela- tion of habit to, 438. Want, pains of, 341 ; as element in desire, 416. Ward, Dr. J., on relation of psychical constituents, 39. Weber, E. H., on local distinctness of tactual sensations, 58 ; on sen- sations of temperature, 60 note. Weber's law, 49. Weight, sensations underlying ex- perience of, 57, 73 ; perception of, 146. Will, willing, or conation, as ele- mentary function, 33 ; connexion of, with knowing and feeling, 38, 404, 487 ; primitive rudiments of, 76 ; nature of, 403 ; roots of, 405 ; the process of, 414 ; relation of 524 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. habit to, 438 ; training of, 438, 482 ; of complex forms of, 441 ; relation of higher to lower forms of, 474 ; freedom of, 478. Wonder, feeling of, 386. Words, associations of, 201. (See Language.) Young-Helmholtz theory of colour- sensations, 67. THE END. S o^ %/' ^TTA^' %*" %*> ^ ^VA/o % ,^ *V * s