,* ' * * r \ THE METAPHYSIC OF EXPERIENCE. DILECTISSIMIS MIHI DIVQVE DESIDERATIS HOC DEMVM QVOD HABVI QVALECVNQVE. Ex Librig C. K. OGDEN THE METAPHYSIC OF EXPERIENCE BY SHADWORTH H. HODGSON. HON. LL.D. EDIN. -, HON. FELLOW C.C.C. OXFORD ; F.R. HIST. 8. ; PAST PRESIDENT OF THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCIETY. Author of " Time and Space" " The Theory of Practice," " The Philosophy of Reflection" " Outcast Essays" d-c. IN FOUR BOOKS. VOL. I. CONTAINING BOOK I. GENERAL ANALYSIS OF EXPERIENCE. LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO., 39, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, NEW YORK AND BOMBAY. 1898. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. LONDON : PRINTED BY WYMAN AND SONS, LIMITED, FETTER LANE, B.C. D ^^-^ ^ f A T TT7 SANTA BARBARA v,\ PREFACE. VERY little needs saying by way of preface to the present work. In the year 1880, my little volume, chiefly literary in character, Outcast Essays and Verse Translations (which was published in the following year) no longer claiming my un- divided attention, I applied myself to a thorough- going review and re-examination of the philo- sophical field. I had already treated -the subject in the three works named, together with Outcast Essays, on my title-page, as well as in various articles contributed to MIND and other periodicals. But I resolved to go over the entire subject again, foundations, method, results, and see what new facts I could bring to light, what new steps towards completing my system of philosophy I could take, what parts, if any, required to be modified, or perchance retracted, in that system as it stood in my Philosophy of Reflection, in 1878. It also happened in the year 1880, that I was invited to become President of the ARISTOTELIAN SOCIETY FOR THE SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF PHILO- SOPHY, then in process of formation. The dis- cussions there carried on proved of the greatest value to me for the work I was engaged in, both by way of stimulus to my own thought, and by Vlll PREFACE. showing me how the subject presented itself to other minds, what were the questions which spontaneously occurred to them, and what mis- conceptions (as it seemed to me) of the nature, purpose, and method of philosophy were the most prevalent. The fourteen Addresses, which I de- livered in the fourteen years during which I had the honour of being President, were devoted to giving a clear view of the purpose, method, and relations of philosophy, as well as treating some of its more prominent topics. They form a sort of outline or program of the present work, which is, as it were, their fore-shadowed substance. My re-examination issued, as perhaps was to be expected, in confirming my conviction of the soundness of those principles of method which had from the first appeared to me as of indis- putable validity and cardinal importance. In this sense, the present work is but the continuation of those which I have mentioned as its predecessors. In my first philosophical work, Time and Space, A Metaphysical Essay, 1865, I virtually broke with Kantianism and its method of proceeding on the footing of apparently indisputable assumptions of matters of fact, and placed myself, instead thereof, on a strictly experiential basis, when I enquired what Time and Space (which are Kant's a, priori forms of intuition) were positively known as, in immediate experience, without assigning to them a psychologically subjective origin, in or from the side of the Subject of consciousness, as part of the Subject's contribution to systematic knowledge. " Take," I said, " any empirical phenomenon, from the simplest to the most complex, isolate it from PREFACE. IX others, treat it as an object of the first intention, and analyse it as such, without asking how it came to be what it is, or whence it derived its characte- ristics, or what other things it is like. It will be found that all its characteristics fall into two classes ; some are material, or particular feelings, others are formal, or particular forms in which these feelings appear " (p. 45). The principle thus exemplified, of proceeding by analysis of experience, is the principle upon which all my works, including the present, have been written. At the same time I cannot but avow my Ibelief, that, but for Kant's having singled out Time and Space, and given them special prominence as two, and the only two, necessary forms of intuition, that is, of perception, it would never have occurred to me to begin a philosophical enquiry by selecting for analysis experiences in which they could be treated as the only formal elements. The Kantian philosophy, and those philosophies which have, as it were, sprung from its loins, never get beyond the psychological point of view, for they are based on the distinction between Subject and Object as an ultimate as well as an indis- putable one, however different may be the ways in which the Subject may be conceived by them, and the relations in which it may be conceived to stand to its Object, including the extreme case of its having no other Object but itself. Hegel's Uni- verse, for instance, is a vast self-conscious Concept (BegrijF] eternally realising itself in thought, which is a thinking process ; being also, in virtue of the activity involved in that process, a Mind or Spirit (Gelst), which, by and as part of the same process, X PREFACE. evolves out of itself human minds, or active con- cepts, which thus have the same nature of self- conscious self-realisation on a minor scale. Hegel's philosophy (which he calls Logic] is really the Psychology of that vast self-conscious Mind, into which he imagines that he has resolved the Uni- verse. Dr. William T. Harris, who is a devoted Hegelian, in his excellent little work Hegel's Logic (Griggs, Chicago, 1890), calls the philosophical movement inaugurated by Hegel " psychological ontology, or ontology based upon psychology and identical with Greek ontology in its general view of the world, but far superior in its method " (p. 44). It was a truly unfortunate idea of Ka'nt's that, with a view to a future secure and complete system of Metaphysic, it was advisable " to pre- pare the Field beforehand by a criticism of the Organ, the pure Reason itself." (Preface to second edition of the K.d. R. V.) It involved the assump- tion that there was such an organ as Pure Reason. A criticism of that assumption would have made a far better beginning. Yet, on the other hand, we can never be too thankful that so commanding a genius as Kant should have made it his chief and guiding aim, not as many persons suppose, to prove Metaphysic to be chimerical, by means of a critical Theory of Knowledge, but on the contrary to restore Metaphysic, by reforming it, to its pristine supremacy, as the sole science of foundations, or grundlegende Wissenschaft. That this was Kant's purpose is shown to demonstration by the Prefaces to both the editions of the Kritik der ReAnen Venmnft, and by his own exposition in the Prole- PREFACE. XI gomena of 1783, as well as by his own subsequently written treatises, on the principles laid down in the K, d. R. V., in both divisions of Philosophy, the speculative and the practical. It is because this primary and guiding aim of Kant's is mine also, notwithstanding my radical divergence from his method of pursuing it, that I may venture to consider myself as continuing his work. The great crucial and fundamental question which divides philosophers at the present day, and prevents the acceptance of any group of ideas or doctrines, however small, as a common and uni- versally admitted basis, is a contest for the seat of Agency, Activity, or Energy in consciousness the question whether agency belongs to and is exerted by consciousness, or by something which is not consciousness, though an object of it. This is not the same question as that which divides Idealists and Materialists. True, those who contend for consciousness being the exerter of agency are ipso facto Idealists ; but not all are Materialists who contend for the exerter of agency being something which is not consciousness. Still, whenever ex- perience is taken as the basis and test of philosophy, Matter is the only ground upon which the conten- tion of the non-Idealistic school can be determined or brought to an issue, since Matter is the only positively known object which can be held to be at once non-consciousness and real. Hence the first great question to arise in an experiential Meta- physic is that of the independent existence of Matter, which must be established, if at all, by analysis of that which we call our knowledge of it. Xll PREFACE. This analysis, which is contained in Book I. of the present work, involves, by showing the neces- sity for, the substitution of the conception of Real Condition for the Aristotelic and Scholastic concep- tion of Cause ; a substitution which will be found to work a cardinal change in our whole manner of regarding the Universe, or whatever other name we may give to the total object-matter of philo- sophy. Hume's criticism had reduced the old conception of Cause i.e., something making some- thing else to be to a state so problematical as to require rehabilitating, from the Scholastic side, by the sheer assumption (Kant's idea of criticism] that it was what he called an a priori category of the Understanding, having a transcendental origin, and being necessarily unassailable by criticism (in the ordinary sense of the term), since there was no experience upon which criticism could be founded, which did not depend for its existence upon the truth of the conception. What then, apart from assumptions of this kind, are we to understand by reasoning on the basis of experience ? Assuredly not reasoning on the basis of the objects and events of ordinary or common-sense experience, such as Things and their properties, Persons and their functions, as if they were un- analysable and ultimate data of experience, instead of being complex percepts involving association and inference. That is Empiricism, even though the connection between things and their properties, or persons and their functions, generally, should be, to our habitual way of thinking, as indissoluble as we find it is in the particular cases of Matter and impenetrability, Persons and volitional activity ; PREFACE. Xlll which latter indissolubility is, I see, strongly in- sisted on by Professor Andrew Seth, in his last volume of Essays, " Man's Place in the Cosmos" pp. 95 to 128 passim, a work which happens to have come into my hands while writing the present Preface. A simple feeling is an ultimate datum of ex- perience, but the fact that a feeling, and a fortiori an action, is a function of a Subject, is of necessity a complex experience, resting on inferential pro- cesses, namely, those by which the idea of a Subject capable of exercising functions has been originally formed. The apparently immediate experience of a " subjective activity " or function is to be paral- leled with the apparently immediate perception of a solid physical object, say a tree or a stone, which is now generally admitted to be a com- plex experience involving inference in the formation of the percept, though not in the act of perceiving taken in abstraction from the content perceived. To justify our treating either the one experience or the other as "an irreducible feature " (p. 101 of the work cited), the assumption of some a priori and transcendental conception, such as that of cause or of action, would be logically requisite. Hence Empiricism and Transcendentalism go hand in hand. I thank Professor Seth cordially, and am glad to take this opportunity of doing so, for the courteous and generous way in which he has previously, as well as in the Address I am now quoting, spoken of my views. It is always a pleasure as well as profit to read anything he writes. I only hope that what I have now said may not appear to him an un- grateful return for his courtesy. XIV PREFACE. Once more, then, to put the question, What is reasoning on the basis of experience ? It is reason- ing from experience in which all a priori assump- tions, whatever their origin, transcendental or not, is avoided, and therefore that assumption among others, which makes the distinction between Sub- ject and Object the ultimate distinction in philo- sophy, and puts it in the place of that between Consciousness and its Object, which, as will be shown, is a distinction perceived as inseparably involved in consciousness itself. All knowing is consciousness ; but we do not know a priori, or to begin with, that all objects are consciousness also. Whether they all are so or not is among the things we want to know. Consciousness, therefore, as distinguished from its objects, is the thing to be interrogated. The fact, that consciousness is the only evidence of existence, does not imply that consciousness is the only existence of which we have evidence. Whether there is existence which is not consciousness, and if so, what the existents are which it includes, must be learnt, if at all, from consciousness, which is the only evidence of it or them. Now that there are such existents, and in some cases what they are, is proved, as I hope to show, by that experience which gives rise to the conception of real conditions possessing operative agency, these real conditions being known, in the first instance, as conditions of the occurrence of certain states of consciousness. I may now, I think, leave the book to speak for itself. I shall not seek to recommend it by show- ing the desirability, or even the necessity, of having some metaphysical philosophy or other, and still PREFACE. XV less by attempting to show the superior desirability of the conclusions which it reaches, compared to those reached or favoured by other systems. I am not writing as an advocate. The only really im- portant questions are, first, whether the analyses given and the conclusions drawn in the three first Books, which are the analytical portion of the work, are as a fact true or false ; secondly, whether the limitations of human intelligence, in its en- deavour to form a positive conception of the Universe as a whole, which are the subject of the concluding Book, are truly or falsely depicted. These are the questions which I should wish to be present to the mind of those who may honour my pages with a perusal. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. PAGE PREFACE vii BOOK I. GENERAL ANALYSIS OF EXPERIENCE. CHAPTER 1. THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. 1. Philosophy based on subjective analysis of experience . 3 2. All experience is subjective 11 3. Common-sense experience the explicandum of philosophical 15 4. Universality of philosophy as compared to science . . 20 5. Postponement of questions of Genesis and History . . 29 CHAPTER II. THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 1. Empirical Present Moments 34 2. Analysis of the content of a single sound ... 44 3. Analysis of the process of hearing it. How Memory is involved . .54 4. Analysis of the sequence of two sounds . . . .63 5. Reflective Perception . . . . . . . .72 6. Primary Percepts . .110 7. Perception not exclusive of Reality . . . .115 XV111 CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. THE TIME-STREAM. PAOB 1. Metaphysic, like Pure Mathematic, is fontal and pre- inductive 119 2. Analysis of sounds heard simultaneously. Time the duration of Process 131 3. Memory Proper . .140 Digression to Real Conditioning . - . . .157 4. Sense of Effort and perception of Future Time . . . 168 5. Attention the first instance of Activity in the Subject. . 178 6. Analysis of Conceptual Attention 192 7. The Time-stream and its parts. Esse and Existere . . 200 CHAPTER IV. FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 1. Visual and Tactual Sensations 207 2. Perception of their extension not due to Association . . 210 3. Extension of two dimensions in Sight and in Touch . -213 4. The terms Formal and Material Elements . . . 216 5. Combination of visual perceptions with perceptions in Time only 218 6. Time not a Space-dimension 221 7. The third dimension of Space. The perception of it rests on Association 223 8. Not given by Sight and visual adjustments alone . . 228 9. Nor by perceptions of sound and temperature . . . 231 10. Different meaning of Vision in psychology and in metaphysic . 233 CHAPTER V. OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. 1. Tactual and Muscular sensations 242 2. Synthetic examination of tactual perceptions 244 3. The tactual World 253 4. Combination of visual and tactual perceptions 256 5. The term Object 259 0. Objective Thoughts and Objects thought of . . . 261 CONTENTS. XIX CHAPTER VI. THE EXTERNAL WORLD. P.M.I: 1. The perception of Bodies in Space 267 2. Its pyschological history distinct from its metaphysical analysis 274 3. The Conceptions involved in attaining it. Four classes of Conditions 280 4. What the Percipient knows of these conceptions at the time 284 CHAPTER VII. THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 1. Consciousness as distinguished from Matter . . . 298 -2. First Location of Consciousness in the Body . . . 307 3. Common-sense conception of the Subject. The notion of Cause ... 322 4. The Order of Knowledge and the Order of Existence . 334 f>. Inferred Memory 348 0. A third sense of Reality 361 CHAPTER VIII. THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 1. Full perception of The Subject 364 2. The conception of Real Condition 372 3. The Order of Real Conditioning 37J> 4. Analytical discrimination of real Conditions from real Existents . . . 387 r>. Philosophical conclusions from this analysis . . . 405 (5. The Panorama of Objective Thought 433 7. The Real Conditioning of Consciousness .... 445 8. Reality in the fullest sense. The Four Senses of the term 453 END OF BOOK I. BOOK I. GENERAL ANALYSIS OF EXPERIENCE. CHAPTER I. THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. 1. The purpose of Philosophy I take to be BOOKI. this, to obtain a rational conception of the universe in which we live and act, and of our own relation Philosophy to it as intelligent and active beings. This must subjective of course be understood as a merely preliminary experience. and provisional definition, sufficient to determine the end we have in view from the ground of ordinary or common-sense experience, which is the ground we occupy before we begin to philosophise, and which therefore furnishes, as it were, our departure platform. In all ordinary or common-sense experience we distinguish our self from what we perceive, or think of as perceivable ; or more briefly stated, we distinguish the me from the not-me. Three terms are thus involved in ordinary experience as a whole, (1) the knowing self, (2) the world known, and (3) the knowledge which mediates between them. The knowledge is the mediating term, because it is our knowledge on the one hand, and knowledge of the world on the other, as the two latter appear, distinct from one another, in ordinary experience. Now it is this mediating term, knowledge, under- stood of course in its widest sense, so as to include 4 THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. B C K I L all awareness, feeling, consciousness, and experi- ence, but at the same time contra-distinguished P u ilo j ophy from the two other terms, self and world, which is based on subjective the special field of philosophy. The existence of analysis of experience, the self and the world, which is assumed in ordinary experience, and the relations which they bear or seem to bear to the knowledge, become known only in or by that knowledge, and appear therein as part of it. Our whole knowledge of the self and the world, even the knowledge that they exist, and that our knowledge itself comes from them and is a knowledge of them, belongs to the third or mediating term, knowledge ; and philosophy is itself a mode of that knowledge which it explores. It may be true that, unless a self or a world, or both a self and a world, existed, the third term, knowledge, would be impossible and non-existent. But if so, still the reasons for holding it true, the grounds for making the assertion or entertaining the idea, must be found within knowledge, even if they should be found in the form of a priori or connate ideas in the self. The exploration of the third term, knowledge, taken in that which is at once its widest and its strictest sense, widest in respect of its comprehensiveness, strictest in respect of its definition, is therefore the special field of that branch of knowledge which has the widest scope, that is, philosophy. Here must be noted one of the necessary ambi- guities of philosophical language, the ambiguity which springs from the fact, that the only language at the disposal of philosophy is language which embodies and expresses the common-sense dis- tinction of the me and the not-me, the self and the THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. world, spoken of at the outset. Philosophy has to use language assuming and expressing this dis- tinction, even in describing facts which belong to ^^on 7 the third term, knowledge, taken exclusively of Jjjj} 6 ^^ those belonging to the first and second terms, and experience. in explicit abstraction from them. We have to say we feel, we perceive, we think, we know, and so on, even in describing feelings, perceptions, thoughts, cognitions, which include no awareness of self, and yet are immediate experiences, and possibly experi- ences out of which the perceptions of self and world have been originally built up. It is obvious that such phrases as we feel, we perceive, and so on, bear a very different meaning, according as we take them to describe a self in its feelings and perceivings, or to describe feelings and per- ceivings alone, parts of the process-content of consciousness abstracting from a self. In the latter use, the word we, and other pronouns similarly employed, must be understood as simply subserving the designation of the phenomena described. But it is not in language only that the ambiguity just signalised is met with. It is also met with in individual thought, and therefore also in discussion with others. We sometimes understand conscious- ness to mean a self with its consciousness, or consciousness limited by the sensitive and active powers of the self to which it belongs, and at other times to mean knowledge generally, the third or mediating term spoken of above, from which the self and the world are excluded, or, if included at all, are included only as particular objects or objective items among others. Taken in the former sense, consciousness is no legitimate basis 6 THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. BOOK I. CH. I. Philosophy based on subjective analysis of experience. for philosophy, since it includes an assumption, that of the self, which requires justification. Taken in the latter sense, consciousness is commensurate with Being, since it contains the general notion of Being, and any Being not contained in the general notion of Being is a contradiction, being unthink- able. It is in this latter sense that consciousness is taken by philosophy, and made its basis ; and therefore, in philosophy, it is a primary truth of method, that consciousness and Being are com- mensurate in point of extent, neither being larger or smaller than the other ; or in other words, that there is no consciousness which does not reveal Being, and no Being which is not revealed in con- sciousness, namely, as at least falling under the general notion, as even unrevealed Being does. 1 When once this primary truth of method is clearly and distinctly apprehended, two conse- quences immediately disclose themselves, which are, in fact, a more explicit expression of what it contains. The first is, that, within the whole range covered by the term Being, two parts must be dis- tinguished, and the limit between them ascertained, namely, Being of which we can, and Being of which we cannot, have positive and verifiable knowledge. The second is, that, were it only for ascertaining the limit between these two parts, it is necessary to interrogate consciousness, instead of interrogating Being directly, as if it were known to us before enquiry, in some other way than in consciousness. In fact, the possibility of interrogating, or of know- ing, Being directly, or without the mediation of 1 See on this point my little paper, The Philosophical Pons, in the Pro- ceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. II., No. 1, Part 2 (Jan. 25, 1892). Williams and Norgate. THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. 7 consciousness, is a complete illusion, one which is B C D K I L perhaps the most deeply-seated source of empi- ricism. Philosophy based on Now it is the purpose of Philosophy, and has subjective * L m analysis of been from the earliest times, to arrive at knowing experience. the nature and history of Being in its widest range, a range commensurate with the most general sense which can be put upon the term, and in that respect spoken of as the Universe, or Sum of Things ; and at the same time to know it in its inmost essence, and in its utmost detail ; a purpose which (supposing the philosophy to be man's) is necessarily subject to the limitation, so far as such knowledge in either direction is attainable by human powers. And this being so, it plainly follows from the second of the two inferences stated above, that all philosophy is subjective in its method, as well as in its immediate object ; is primarily an interrogation of consciousness by consciousness, as the only medium by which Being is known to us. The method of philosophy accord- ingly is to require evidence for all facts; evidence being the subjective presence or knowledge of fact. Assumptions of facts as per se nota, but without evidence, are disallowed in philosophy. Another characteristic of philosophical method follows from the two just mentioned, of its being subjective and disallowing unwarranted assump- tions. This third characteristic is, that its interro- gation of consciousness proceeds by analysis of its content. To ask for evidence of a fact alleged to be per se notum is to ask what it is immediately known as ; that is, to ask for its analysis, or the meaning of the term or terms which name it ; facts which 8 THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. BOOK I. Cn. I. are real, but at the same time ultimate or unana- lysable, are themselves the meaning of the terms r u ilo ? )phy by which they are designated. All evidence must DMM1 on v J baaed on subjectiv* analysis of subjective j n the last resort be reduced to analysis. For all experience, proof is either immediate or inferential, and, if the latter, must be based ultimately upon facts, the evidence of which is immediate. Philosophy, therefore, bases its conclusions upon, and its method in the last resort consists of, subjec- tive analysis of the content of consciousness. But the content of consciousness is the same thing as the content of experience. The moment of actually being conscious of anything is the moment of experiencing it. The term experience is primarily of subjective import, just like the term evidence. Both mean a content of consciousness which at one time or other has been immediately perceived, and which, if and when it is recalled in memory (so we designate the process in question) for the purpose of examination, is represented and recognised as having been so received. The sifting of such remembered contents, the comparison of their parts with respect to truth and falsity, and their re-arrangement into a consistent totality, into a new thought-structure, in lieu of former thought-struc- tures which have had the same explanatory pur- pose, are the proper work of philosophy. In doing this it is by no means necessary to assume, that we have powers requisite for doing it. If we had not powers requisite for doing it, we should not be doing it at all. On the contrary, what those powers are, and what the term powers means, will be disclosed, if at all, by the results of the very work which they are engaged in doing. In thinking or remembering, THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. I no more assume that I have the power of thinking BOOK i. or remembering, than, in walking or in eating, I assume that I have the power of walking or of Philosophy based on eating. What thought and memory are will be subjective disclosed, if at all, by analysis of the experiences in experience. which they are involved, experiences among which analyses of experience may themselves be included. It is, therefore, true that philosophy is built upon experience alone, unless it be by inadvertence or error in the application of its own principles. It is only too possible to misinterpret, it is wholly impossible to transcend, experience. Experience, evidence, and consciousness are three terms signify- ing the same thing in different relations the subjective aspect of Being. But Being and Consciousness are terms, as we have already seen, commensurate with each other in respect of their range of applicability. And Philosophy, as we have also seen, has the know- ledge of Being, at once in its largest sense and in its minutest analysis, as its characteristic purpose or aim. To this I now add, that the knowledge of Being has, ever since the days of Aristotle, been called Metaphysic. The name, it is well known, was due to the merest accident, but the accident was a singularly happy one ; in fact, the only Beyond Mtra to physical being is consciousness, and whatever else (if anything) may be known by inference from interrogating it. When, in com- paratively modern times, philosophy became con- sciously subjective, analytic, and experiential, in its method, no change was wrought in its purpose or aim, which still continues to be what it has always been, the knowledge of Being in the largest 10 THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. sense of the term, and in the minutest analysis of the thing signified by it. The only change wrought r Sdon y thereby was m ^e mode by which the knowledge *n$ c Ss V ot ^ Being was pursued, namely, by way of subjective experience, analysis of experience without assumptions, instead of by way of what were called First Principles that is, the assumption of some conception or some hypothesis, supposed to be necessarily true or necessarily existent. The terms philosophy and metaphysic are there- fore co-incident in point of applicability ; properly applied they are two names for the same pursuit. But the term metaphysic is by far the more dis- tinctive of the two. The word suggests, by its contrast with physics, both the purpose and the method of the pursuit. It suggests thereby, that its problem is that of Being generally, in contrast with that of material being only. It suggests subjectivity, that is, perception and thought, as its mode of approaching phenomena, in contrast with the objective mode, by way of observation, hypothesis, and experiment, which assumes matter as something external to the percipient. And it suggests analysis of our knowledge into something else than atoms of knowledge again, in contrast with the physical hypothesis, that matter is ulti- mately composed of material atoms physically indecomposable. For the proper antithesis of Metaphysic is Empiric, which means taking un- analysed concretes as ultimate facts, and dealing with them on that basis. There can be no philo- sophy which is not metaphysical in the sense which I have now assigned to that term. The subjective analysis of experience is the true sense of the term THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. 11 Metaphysic ; and this, together with the conclusions which may be drawn from it, is Metaphysical Philosophy, and the only philosophy worthy of the name. subjective analysis of 2. The co-incidence which I have just signalised experience, between the general subjective tendency of modern 2 . philosophy and the principle of appealing solely experience is to experience, which latter principle has always 8ub i ective - specially recommended itself to Englishmen, is a fact of great significance. The first distinct ex- pression of the subjective tendency, its first decisive step towards taking possession of the whole of philosophy, is summed up in the Cogito ergo sum of Descartes. Practically contemporary with the philosophy of Descartes was the English Baconian philosophy, the first decisive effort towards founding philosophy on experience alone. The last great advance made by the subjective tendency was Kant's so-called philosophical Copernicanism, whereby he referred the explanation of the know- able Universe to the powers of the human Subject. To the transcendental hypothesis involved in this attempt the various Idealistic Systems and Theories of Knowledge, with which Germany has teemed during the century which has elapsed since the publication of Kant's Critic of Pure Reason, owe their origin. A combination of the two directions of thought, I mean the subjective tendency and the appeal to experience alone without hypothesis or assumption, is unhappily still a desideratum. Now if we are seriously to make experience the basis of philosophy, and if, in consequence, our method is to be that of subjective analysis, it is evident that we must understand the terms 12 THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. experience and subjectivity in a far stricter, and there- fore also in a far ampler, sense than has hitherto been rteice is usua ^ ^ n appealing to experience we must appeal subjective, to experience alone, without a priori assumptions of any kind ; and in analysing experience we must analyse it as it is actually experienced, and in all the modes which it includes. If experience is in itself a synthetic agency, we must trust to analysis to bring that fact and that agency to light. It cannot be assumed to be so, prior to analysis ; for the simple reason, that the idea of agency, the idea of an active power at all, is part of knowledge, and the object of that idea cannot otherwise be known to us than as an object of knowledge, that is, an object of one mode or one department of experience itself. A philosophy founded on experience alone, and solely by means of subjective analysis of it, is very different from anything in the nature of philosophy which the world has yet seen. The difference between it and Kant's so-called Copernicanism, or between it and Hegel's Thought- Agency, or Scho- penhauer's Will in Nature, is a difference which amounts to a revolution. And when I call philo- sophy of this kind Metaphysic, I am well aware that the meaning which I give to this latter term is very different from the meaning which is currently as- signed to it. Metaphysic means, with me, subjective analysis of experience ; its conclusions logically precede, and therefore criticise and govern, the conceptions and ideas which are the most funda- mental and vitally regulative ones in all other departments of knowledge. This is so because all knowledge, the positive sciences included, is some- THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. 13 thing subjective, is knowing distinguished from the I J ' compared to the term. From the subjective point of view we science. form some idea of it, and conceive it by analogy with what is positively conceivable, though not positively conceivable itself. Though unknowable by human sensibilities, it is not unknowable simply. It is in relation both to consciousness, and therein to other objects of consciousness. It is undeniable that material beings, to say nothing of immaterial, may in reality exist, which, owing either to the vastness or minuteness of their scale, or to the peculiar laws of their structure and functioning, may not only be wholly imperceptible, but also positively inconceivable by us. It is also undeni- able, that real beings may exist, which in point of kind are such as to be out of relation to sensibi- lities of kinds like ours. Nor can it be said, that if it were so we should certainly be made aware of it indirectly, by the effects which would be wrought upon the world with which we stand in direct relations, and of which we are directly aware. For aught we positively know to the contrary, the whole visible universe may go into the button-hole of some Micromegas, and the whole history of its existence may begin and end, while he is quietly taking a single after-dinner nap. In that case what should we know of Micromegas, his coat, and its button-hole ? To deny the reality of Being beyond the range of human sensibilities is no less absurd in one way, than to people what is beyond it with an imagined Micromegas is in another way. What THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. B GH K L' we re( l u i re is to ascertain the limit between what ~ is positively knowable of Being within the range of human sensibilities, and what is positively knowable ^ Being ynn ply> whether within that range or beyond it. Positive knowledge of what is within it is a special case of positive knowledge of Being simply. But this relation of the special to the general case can be seen only from a position which embraces both, that is to say, from the subjective point of view of philosophy. My meaning will perhaps be best conveyed as follows. It is rarely that men of science deny the possibility of real existence beyond the range of human sensibilities, in denying, as they rightly do, the relation of such existence to science. They will often tell you that they can conceive the exist- ence of a real world, quite different from anything within the range of human experience, and totally irrespective of any kind of human consciousness. Now in saying 'totally irrespective,' they are evidently making one great, but tacit reservation ; they are abstracting from the fact of their own consciousness in conceiving the world they speak of, at the time they are conceiving it. To make their supposed statement literally true it would be requisite, that it should include their own conscious- ness at the time, not exclude it by tacit reserva- tion. But including it would make their supposed statement impossible, since then they must be both conscious and not conscious of the world they speak of. Their statement, therefore, cannot be literally true. Either they must make their reservation explicit, which is holding to a palpable contra- diction in terms, or they must retract it, and then THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. 23 the world they speak of is not wholly irrespective BOOK i. of human consciousness. 4* The case stands thus. By them the world of Universality which they intend to speak is conceived as wholly philosophy as compared to irrespective ot human consciousness, but with the science. above reservation ; by the metaphysician it is con- ceived as in relation to his consciousness, while he is thinking of it, which is the very thing from which they abstract, by means of their reservation. But since they are not aware of the reservation which they make, but make it tacitly and leave it latent in their thought, it follows, first, that the world which they then conceive they conceive as an absolute existent, not relative to consciousness, and secondly, that they are also unaware of the contradiction which this conception of it involves. In reality this contradiction is inevitable and insuperable ; from which it follows, that there is but one way in which we can, without contra- diction, think of a world which in any true sense is irrespective of human consciousness ; and that is by first making our present thought of it (which present thought is the object of their reservation) the basis of the whole conception, and then recog- nising that this thought is but the thought of an outline, the content of which we have no means of conceiving positively. If we are justified in speak- ing of the unknowable at all, it is not because we have no conception of it whatever, but because we have a conception of it as something which is unknowable in its positive features. Accordingly, a world not positively knowable may be spoken of, either as related to our thought while we are thinking of it, or as unrelated to any positive 24 THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. knowledge of its nature ; and these two ways are ^ practically the same. The one illogical course is University ^ o S p ea k o f such a world as wholly irrespective of 8 human consciousness, but with the tacit reservation o f ^} ie p resen t moment of thinking of it ; which shows that we have no distinct knowledge of what we are doing. This involves us at once in the con- tradictory conception of an absolute existence, not relative to consciousness, which is the penalty of our bad logic. Observe too, that the consciousness from which the man of science abstracts, by his supposed tacit reservation, is the very consciousness which the metaphysician selects for examination, being consciousness in the moment of actual experience, consciousness which has, or may have, for its object, existence in its entirety, consciousness in the largest sense of the term, experience seen from the subjective point of view ; in short, whatever may be the content of a present moment of consciousness. The difference is great. The moment of actual experience is that which the man of science abstracts from, and which the metaphysician keeps steadily in view. It is, then, from this point of view alone that Being can be taken in the widest possible sense of the term, that is, as any object of any kind of Knowing. We must first look at Knowing before we can classify its objects, for these can only be distinguished by felt and known differences. It is philosophy, therefore, and not science, which includes Logic. What J. S. Mill called Inductive Logic is but a special kind of reasoning, a mode of investigation and discovery more properly to be THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. 25 called scientific method than logic. Philosophy, in BOOK^I. taking Being in the widest sense of the term, takes it in that sense in which it includes the two Universality of opposite determinations or limitations of itself, philosophy as . i.ii. 1-1 compared to introduced by thought or logical knowing, which science. are termed Being and Not-Being. Thus, for a particular kind or determination of knowing, namely, logical thinking, there is a particular kind or determination of Being, namely, being as opposed to not-being, or not-being as opposed to being, both being determinations of Being in the widest sense, namely, Being as object of knowing or consciousness generally. To be con- scious or to think of Not-Being, in a sense in which it should be commensurate with Being in the widest sense, is impossible ; it would involve a consciousness without a content ; that is to say, it would involve non-consciousness. To be conscious of absolutely nothing is to be unconscious. How metaphysical philosophy deals with these distinctions will be seen later on. Here it is sufficient to note, that the simply unknowable is for metaphysical philosophy the simply non- existent, the object of both conceptions falling under the logical category of Not-Being, which has indeed existence for knowledge in the widest sense, but existence as a logical category only. A simply unknowable existent is a contradiction in terms. There is no being out of all relation to conscious- ness. There is no other being, no other existence, but that which has a subjective aspect. For Being and Existence are words which either have a meaning or have not. If they have not, they are 26 THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. B c K i L em pty sounds. If they have, that meaning must be part of consciousness. Universality Again, that which is merely unknowable by philosophy as } mman sensibilities, or the merely positively compared to * r > science, inconceivable, is not on that account to be set down as non-existent or unknowable simply. The real existence of the object or objects thought of under those terms involves no contradiction merely on that ground, and may have strong inferential evidence in its favour. But, as I have already contended, this evidence (if any) can be seen only from the subjective point of view, by enquiring into the nature of knowledge, conscious- ness, or experience, which gives the nexus of one part of it with another, instead of directly into that of Being ; that is to say, can be seen only in philosophy, and not in positive science, which assumes to begin with some kind or kinds of Being as already positively known, and refuses to travel beyond them. I think it will now be clear, both that philosophy has a far wider range than the positive sciences, either singly or together, and also that the reason for this lies in the subjectivity of its point of view, and the method thereby dictated. The only science which may seem to rival or compete with it in this respect is the science of Psychology. A word or two must therefore be said on the relation of this science to philosophy. It is true that psychology embraces the whole range of human consciousness ; but then it neither treats it from the subjective point of view, nor avoids assump- tions in treating it. It treats the phenomena of consciousness on the same objective footing as the THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. 27 objects of the other positive sciences, with some of which it endeavours to bring them into what are called causal relations. And it makes the universality of assumption to begin with, that, placed in a real philosophy as compared to environment, there is a real Subject, or agent, science. upon which the phenomena of consciousness immediately depend ; though in too many cases it makes this assumption without specifying whether the nature of this agent is to be conceived as material or immaterial. Thus, while psychology on the one hand assumes the conceptions of agents and agency as previously known, on the other it makes the genesis and behaviour of the phenomena of consciousness, in dependence on or interaction with their Subject and its environment, its special object of enquiry. In reality it is the nature and capacities of the human Subject in relation with its environment, rather than the content of consciousness in relation to its object, Being in general, which psychology has in view. And this being so, it is obvious that psychology can tell us nothing about the nature of Being, taken simply as object of consciousness ; but is restricted by its own assumptions and method to ascertain, at the most, what the laws of those processes are, by which human Subjects of a given nature, placed in a given environment, acquire and develop an experience of their given environment, and of their own given nature. The nature of Subjects and the nature of their environ- ment are thus assumed as already known, and their relation to the nature of Being generally left unexamined. It is thus the point of view and the method adopted by itself, which limit the range of THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. ^CH K I.' psychology in comparison with philosophy ; a limita- tion which is indispensably requisite for its taking Univereality ran k ag a positive Science. p con^Sto S Yet ifc must not be imagined for a moment, that science, philosophy requires the assumption, or speaks from the point of view, of any other kind of conscious- ness than the human. It makes no assumption on the point, but simply avoids making any till it has learnt from analysis of the content of experience, what is meant by human, and what by non-human consciousness. We must exercise consciousness before we can assume anything about it. That we ourselves are men, and that the consciousness which we analyse is human consciousness, are judgments of common sense, which are not to be assumed a priori by philosophy, but also not to be denied. The facts expressed by them are part of the explicandum ; and, like all other concrete and determinate facts and objects, have to be found in and justified by the analysis of that experience by which the explicandum itself was originally acquired. It is no necessary preliminary of philosophy, but on the contrary it would be, and has often been, a stumbling-block in its way, to settle beforehand who or what we are, who have the experience which in philosophy we analyse. It is enough that we have the experience and the capacity of analysing it. The universality or even, as it may turn out, the infinity of the range embraced by experience in no way requires the assumption of an universal or infinite Subject to perceive it. Knowing in its widest range, that range which is commensurate with Being, belongs, as we shall see THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD. 29 later on, to every single human individual, just as 1 0 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. whole would not be a perception in its lowest terms ; it would be a complex perception, though ^ ne complexity would be due to a difference of ^b nd c ^ e K rec or intensity only. In other words, the simplest experience of the kind now examined does not include any experience of volition. It is true that some re-action on the part of the Subject is requisite even to this simplest experience, without which re-action the note would not come to be perceived at all. But this re-action is not itself experienced at the time ; no element in the percep- tion of note C suggests or betrays its presence. It is below the threshold of consciousness, as it is called, lying somewhere among the real conditions, upon which consciousness is conceived by psychology as proximately depending. The experience which we are analysing bears its part in contributing to the formation of all the conceptions and experi- ences which have been enumerated, but not one of them is found as an element in any simple and single experience of note C. But now I come to features of a different kind. I have enumerated sound of a certain quality as one of the three elements of analysis comprised in our experience of the note C. But this quality is not itself simple. It contains within it the three sub-elements of pitch, colour (timbre), and degree of intensity. It is, I think, a doubtful point, whether at all, or if at all to what extent, these elements are discriminated in the simple and single perception of the sound. An acute ear might hear them, a dull ear might not ; a practised ear might hear them, an unpractised not. Which is saying in other words, that in some instances THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 51 they would be perceived elements of the sound, CH K II' and not in others. I prefer to suppose that they would not be discriminated on a single hearing, a ^JJ 8 supposition which does not deny their presence in content of a angle sound. the sound, but leaves them as undiscriminated components of its total quality. It must be noted that these sub-elements (so to call them), being components of the sound as heard, stand on a very different footing from the other characters which I have asserted are not expe- rienced in it. The latter being elements not belonging to the analysandum, can only be imported into it from without, and if imported would vitiate the analysis. Those which I have now mentioned, being at any rate within the analysandum, may be perceived by one person and not by another, or by the same person at one time and not at another, and thus, belonging merely to what is called " the personal equation," do not vitiate the analysis, but merely indicate the limit of its efficacy. For suppose the three sub-elements, pitch, colour, and intensity, were actually discriminated in the note C, the analysis which falsely excluded them would be simply insufficient and defective ; it would not misrepresent the nature of the analysandum. But if we falsely supposed that the note C was at once recognised and classed as a sound, as well as being simply heard, we should be importing into the analysandum elements which, being foreign to it, would alter our conception of its real nature. It would, in fact, involve the supposition, that an a priori idea of sound, or at any rate of some sort of classification applicable to sensations, was a prior requisite to our hearing the sound at all. 52 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. Similarly with sense of effort. If this were r^~ imported as an element into the content of simple A oTtnl i9 perceptions like that of note C, it would turn those content of a contents into activities, and thus confuse the con- single sound. tent perceived with the act or process of perceiving it, which latter sometimes contains a sense of effort, and sometimes not. And if either of these things were done in any simple or typical case, like the present, our whole conception of the nature of the empirical units of experience would be vitally altered. The former error would be a defect attaching to our analysis only ; either of the latter would be an error affecting our conception of the nature of the thing analysed. The importance of noting the difference in kind of these two errors, if errors they be, is therefore great. I say if errors they be, because there is no final and admitted test of truth in subjective analysis. It is analysis itself which affords our ultimate criterion. The subjective empiricist in philosophy, who refuses to distinguish process from content, perceiving from percept, form from matter, separ- able from inseparable elements, mediate from im- mediate knowledge, and so on, cannot be either convicted or convinced by any process of argument, since there are no posita atque concessa, upon which an argument can be founded. There is merely one analysis against another. It is, therefore, only by the consistency or inconsistency of the results to which it leads, that the truth of one analysis, the falsity of another, can become, with general con- sent, admitted and established. There is one other doubtful feature to be men- tioned, belonging to the same head of doubtfulness THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 53 as pitch, colour, and intensity, which accordingly with these I have excluded from the anatysandum. It is the perception of the direction in which the sound is heard as coming. In the case supposed, the note C is struck behind the supposed hearer. Is it heard as coming from behind ? Or rather (since this way of statement might seem to involve a recognition similar to those we have already excluded) does the mere hearing of the note contain any discriminated element which may, in subsequent experience, enter into definite associa- tion with the idea of specific locality or direction in space ? I think it almost certain that it does, at any rate in a vast number of cases. It may possibly not, strictly speaking, be an element in the heard sound, but in the accompanying tactual vibration of the organ, felt rather than heard. In either case, it would be analogous to what Lotze called " local sign " in the content of sight. Gene- tically, no doubt, all our senses have been developed together, and in more or less intimate conjunction with one another, in dependence on the development of the organism. It would be natural, therefore, to suppose, that certain kinds of features in one sense should have acquired a con- stant connection with certain kinds of features in other senses, so as mutually to correspond to and suggest one another. With this history and de- velopment we are not now concerned. Preferring, however, that my analysis should err by defect rather than by excess, I provisionally exclude this element from it ; meantime considering it as an element in the sound, which, at any rate, would not of itself suffice to originate the perception of 54 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. CH K IL space, and which, until we have acquired that per- |"^" ception from other experiences, remains undis- criminated in a musical note. 3. So much may perhaps suffice respecting the content of the experience analysed. We have now Analysis to analyse this same experience as a process, or in other words, the fact that the experience takes place. Either way of taking it follows from the other, because, as we have seen, the content has duration, and is preceded and accompanied by other contents. Its experience is an event in time having duration. One and the same duration of time is an element in the content of the experi- ence analysed, in the one way of taking it, and is the foundation of the other way of taking it, namely, as a process of experiencing. It is more- over that feature in the experience analysed, whereby it stands connected or in continuity with the excluded experience preceding and accom- panying, and also, as will presently appear, following it. Without this continuity attaching to its duration, note would be completely severed from the excluded experience by the difference of its sense-quality. Were it not for this, the isola- tion which we now have to introduce, artificially, for the purpose of analysis, would be found ready to our hand in experience, supposing (per impossibile) that experience could then exist. But, as it is, the process-content analysed is experienced as a dis- tinct but unsevered portion of a larger process, which is partly simultaneous and partly ante- cedent. It is, as it were, the end-portion of a thread, in a rope consisting of many threads. But it is the end-portion, only until the sub- THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. o5 sequent moment of consciousness appears above the threshold. 9 8. This last expression, which was also used in the preceding Section, requires a word or two of comment. The duration of the content experienced ., How . Memory is is the process of experiencing it, or rather is that involved. which makes its actual presence in consciousness a process. The note C comes into consciousness, and for a time continues there. The coming of a state or process of consciousness into consciousness, i.e., its beginning to exist as a state or process of consciousness at all, was picturesquely called by Herbart, its rising above, or crossing, the threshold (SchweUe) of consciousness ; an expression which generalises the fact, that all particular and tem- porary states or processes of consciousness owe their genesis as such, at least in part, to something which at the time is not consciousness, but exists and operates in a region excluded from its then present limits. The supposition of a reality which is not con- sciousness is thus introduced by the figurative expression, a threshold of consciousness, which is an image drawn from space, involving the ideas, (1) of a boundary between consciousness and non-consciousness, and, (2) that the appear- ing of consciousness above the boundary line is in some way due to something real in the region of non-consciousness below the boundary. We have, therefore, in this expression a sug- gestion of what will afterwards meet us as the idea of the real conditions of consciousness, the connection of which with consciousness as their conditionate, so far as they lie in the 56 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. *^> K n L Subject of the consciousness, is the object-matter of Psychology. A o7Se ia -^ n ^ s res P ec t> what the expression suggests is process of true and valuable. But to speak of a state or hearing it. HOW process of consciousness appearing above the Memory is x ... involved, threshold of consciousness is misleading, if it causes us to imagine it as already a state of con- sciousness previously to appearing above it, as the sun is the sun, before as well as after its appearing above the horizon at sunrise. This, in the case of consciousness, would be self-contradictory. A state or process which is both consciousness and non-consciousness, as a supposed state of con- sciousness below the threshold of consciousness must be, is impossible. The term consciousness in its widest sense implicitly contains above the thres- hold as part of its own meaning. And the mere addition, above the threshold, does no more, of itself, than explicitly distinguish it from non- consciousness. But then such an addition would be superfluous and idle, unless it were intended to imply some reality in the region below the thres- hold. If, however, we imagine a reality below that threshold, then we are eo ipso separating off some object or objects of consciousness (known by some experience long subsequent to such states as we are now examining), and opposing them to con- sciousness, and at the same time we are taking the term consciousness in a restricted sense, far narrower than that in which we have hitherto understood it. For the reality which we imagine below the threshold can only be some object or objects of consciousness, since otherwise we could not think THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 57 of it at all. To introduce the notion of a boundary CH? K II.' of consciousness is therefore to restrict the universal ^ sense of the term consciousness, and to oppose it to some one or more of its own objects in the character of non-consciousness. Momory Now note C is part of the process of conscious- inv lv( *i ness above the threshold, from beginning to end, and is continuous with other parts of that same pro- cess, that is to say, with other states of conscious- ness, all of which (as we shall see reason to infer) come into consciousness, like itself, in dependence upon some real conditions. But with this mode of arising, or appearing above the threshold, we have at present nothing to do. Our experience of note C tells us nothing whatever of its real con- ditions, that is, whence or how it comes into consciousness. The process, of which it tells us that it is a part, is a process of consciousness, and like itself wholly above the threshold. It is we who have abstracted from the other parts of this process, for the purpose of analysis. We must not confuse the parts of consciousness, from which we purposely abstract, with parts of a process which is below the threshold of consciousness, and of which neither the part selected for analysis, nor its immediate context, in itself tells us anything. This explanation is not unnecessary, because Herbart's whole system of pyschology is based upon the fiction, that every state of consciousness (Vorstellung is his word) has a double existence, one as consciousness, the other as unconsciousness, one above, the other below, the threshold of consciousness, which from time to time it crosses and re-crosses, owing to its actions and re-actions 58 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. CH"II.' with other states of consciousness, above and g~~ below the threshold. The truth of the matter is ^ s - ^ nv Particular or given process of conscious- it ness > taken in the narrower sense spoken of above, HOW j s j n f ac t as we s h a ii see later on, connected with Memory is involved, two processes, one the process of consciousness said to be above the threshold, with which it either is continuous or may be brought into con- tinuity, and the other the process of its proximate real conditions, consisting of some neural or other action in the Subject, which is not consciousness, and of which it is a dependent concomitant. There are, as we shall see, good reasons for inferring, that there are some real conditions for every given particular state or process of consciousness ; but I shall be surprised if we meet with any facts to warrant the hypothesis, that a Vorsiellung con- tinues to operate as a real condition, when it has ceased to exist as a Vorstellung. Herbart's theory is professedly based on the a priori postulate of Simple Substances, and their Selbsterhatlungen, or acts of self-maintenance. But now to return to our analysis. The experience of note C, analysed in this way as a process of experiencing, tells us no more of the content of the experience, than its analysis as content told us. It merely takes the same facts in a different way. None of the conceptions or ex- periences excluded by the former analysis are brought in by the present one. We simply take the whole experience as a process in which the two elements, sense-quality and duration, are per- ceived as distinct but inseparable elements through- out the whole process, the character of its being a THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 59 process being due to the element of duration. I QH K II' have been accustomed to call the sense-quality the ^j" material element, and the duration or time-quality the formal element, of the whole experience. But of course the reason for giving them these names cannot be seen from the analysis of a single involved. instance. Another thing which is in reality involved in the experience as an empirical process is Retention, or Memory in its lowest terms, the word memory having thus a somewhat different signification from its ordinary one, in which it designates recall or re-appearance of something which has been for- gotten, and in which I have used it hitherto. Now retention, or memory in its lowest terms, is a character which certainly cannot be said to be discriminated, or perceived as such, in the ex- perience, though it is actually involved in the perceived element of duration. This will be con- ceded, if we adopt the mathematical way of dividing time by instants which have no duration, and then consider the present moment as beginning at such an instant. For then an empirical moment which has appreciable duration, as the note C has, and which we call an empirical present, must be con- ceived as going into the past and ceasing to exist as present, at the very same mathematical instant at which it comes into existence by appearing above the threshold of consciousness. To realise this we may perhaps use the illustration of a measuring tape, wound upon a reel which is en- closed in a case, from which it can be drawn out through a slit in the case. In drawing out the tape through the slit, the part drawn out will 60 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. c5J"ii.' represent consciousness, the slit the threshold ; ^Y an( l the reel with the tape upon it, not yet drawn out, A oTthe 8 w ^ stand for the real conditions of consciousness below the threshold. And any part of the tape which represents consciousness above the threshold involved. i s a p ar t w hich has already crossed the threshold, by having been drawn out through the slit. If we so regard empirical experience, the whole of it exists in memory only ; unless indeed it be in imagination, that is to say, as a product of memory projected by imagination into future time. With this, however, we have not now to do. Our im- mediate business is the metaphysical analysis of empirical experience, not the mathematical. It is implied in the term empirical, as applied to any portion of experience, that this portion has some time-duration ; and from this it follows, that the least possible empirical present moment is one, in which perception and memory (in the sense of simple retention) are undistinguishable from each other. The result of our analysis, then, is as follows : Our experience of note C, taken as a process, is a perceiving and a perceived (or percept) in one, a content perceived and the perceiving it, or the fact that it is perceived, that is, makes part of consciousness for a certain length of time. Calling the content the whatness of the perception or ex- perience, we may call the fact that it is perceived its tliatness or existence as at present known. Neither of these two parts of the total experience exists apart from the other ; they are distinguish- able, inseparable, and commensurate. Yet neither is the object of the other. The existence of the THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 61 content perceived is not the object of the content, for the content alone is not a perceiving. And again the quality or content of the perceiving is not its object, but is the nature of the perceiving itself, the nature by which alone it is definable. ,, How . * Memory is That the perceiving is not the object of the con- involved. tent, is almost too obvious to be remarked. The whatness and the thatness are thus best character- ised as opposite aspects of each other and of the experience, yet without taking the experience as a third thing, or anything but their inseparable union. It is the most general truth about ex- perience which we thus see exemplified in the case we have examined : The meaning of esse is percipi. Simple being or existence in its lowest terms is known as the thatness of a whatness. 1 This is at once the indispensable minimum of positive meaning which the term conveys, and also the meaning which marks out its maximum of ex- tension, or applicability, as a general term. Yet, though opposite, these two aspects are not seen, in any single and simple case taken alone, in any other character than as combined in one specific process-content of consciousness. That is to say, in that simplest experience they are not discriminated, still less recognised, or classed as aspects. We call them aspects of the experience considered as a process, just as we called its elements of analysis elements, when considered as a content. Experience in its simplest form, and in the simplest possible instance of it, is both process and content ; and it should be expressly noted, 1 For this use of thatness and whatncss see The Philosophy of Reflection (1878). Index, under Questions and Whatness. 62 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. > according to the analysis here given, duration TY is common to both aspects of it, common to it both A of a tGj is as P rocess an( i as content ; the duration element helri? 88 ^ - m ever y content being that which adds its aspect ., How . as a process to its aspect as a content. The im- Memory is involved, pression which such an instance makes is real and positive, of a real and positive kind, and in real and positive limits. It is a real contributory to the formation and accumulation of the full meaning of these words. It does not wait to be perceived, until their meaning has been learnt. Without the contributories, or contributory perceptions, of which it is one, this meaning would never be learnt at all. Again, if not classed and recognised as aspects, still less can they be recognised as objective and subjective aspects. We have seen already, that they are not objects of each other. I now add, that they are not objective and subjective aspects of each other. It is true, they are the indispensable experiential basis and foundation of this con- ception. But in a single and simple experience, such as that we have examined, the distinction between subjective and objective aspects has nothing answering to it ; each aspect is dis- tinguishable from the other, but there is nothing to mark them as respectively subjective and objective. Each has equal claims to both titles, since each is commensurate with the whole experience. It is an instance of experience in its lowest terms which we have been analysing, and the whole of it is alike what we afterwards call subjective, and also what we afterwards call ob- jective and real. THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 63 4. Having thus completed the analysis of the simple instance of experience which was selected for examination, let us in the next place analyse one which is slightly more complicated. Let us suppose the former experience continued by hearing note D immediately after C. The analysis of our experience of note D taken alone would be closely similar to that of note C, so that we need not undertake it. Note C followed by note D is the experience which we are now concerned with. Note D appears above the threshold of consciousness, but without excluding note C. That is, we no longer isolate a single note from its context for the purpose of analysis, but a sequence of two notes. The experience which we exclude from this new content is that which precedes and accompanies the sequence CD. What is new in this experience is (1) the perception of a specific difference between C and D, and (2) the perception of the sequence of D onC. But what is meant by sequence? Of course we cannot suppose that the sequence of D on C is recognised and classed as a sequence. For it is one of the contributories subserving the formation of that conception, one of the sources from which its whole meaning is originally derived. It means that, of the two empirical moments which now make up the larger empirical moment C D, the former, C, was present alone for a certain duration, and then underwent a change as soon as D appeared above the threshold of consciousness, upon which it lost much of its vividness, and took its place among more dimly 64 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. OH?!?.' retained moments of consciousness. We always, JY m rea l life, speak from the latest portion of the A ofMtiie 8 actually present moment of consciousness, and the whole content of experience, whatever it may be sounds. at tne tj me> j s judged from that point of view. D is now this latest portion. It is the continuation of the experience C into what, if we could have spoken of it from the C point of view, must have been called the unexperienced future. But C was not perceived originally as continuous with a following experience, because there was no following experience then to be perceived at all. The percipient of C (supposing there was one) at the time of perceiving it could not have anticipated an experience to follow it, unless he had, at the least, been endowed with an a priori idea of Time. It may perhaps be objected, that, in this account of what is meant by sequence, I have not really defined it, but have assumed it as known in describing it. For instance, it is assumed in the words "as soon as D appeared," and in many others. This is partly true. It is true that I have not denned it per genus et differentiam, but have merely described it as an experience. And for the following reasons. In the first place, Time has no genus higher than itself, or not involving time. It is an ultimate fact in all consciousness. In the same way, Feeling, which furnishes the whole content of time, has no higher genus, not involving feeling. Time and feeling are ultimate elements in all consciousness and all experience ; and as such are incapable of strict definition. The lowest conceivable empirical moment of experience con- tains both time and feeling, and the lowest THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 65 empirical moment in experience as it actually comes to us contains both sequence in time and - difference in feeling. Sequence and simultaneity ^yjjjj 8 are facts as little capable of strict definition as are sequence of two facts of difference and sameness. They are perceiv- sounds. able and ultimate facts of actual experience. Sub- jective analysis everywhere results in bringing facts of this kind to light. Consequently, while it is true that I have not defined sequence, but have taken it as known, it is not true that I have taken it by way of assumption, without the warrant of facts. For I have pointed out the actually experi- enced and undeniable facts which are the meaning of the term. We see, then, that time and feeling together are experience. They are elements of experience in inseparable relation with each other ; and this is at once the simplest and most general of all the facts of experience, upon which the general conception of Relation is founded. Now Sequence is a rela- tion ; that is to say, it may be referred to Relation as its highest genus, so soon as the general concep- tion of Relation has been formed. Similarly time and feeling may be referred to the general concep- tion of Elements, when once that general conception has been formed from experiences into which they have entered. And there is no fact or phenomenon which may not be brought under many general conceptions, in virtue of different features observ- able in it. It would, therefore, have answered no purpose to define sequence by referring it to its ymw, relation ; but in present circumstances would have been a case of defining obscurum per obscurim. What we want to know at the present stage is, not E 66 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. what sequence is conceptually or logically, but what it is in perception and experience. The passing on l?i ca l definitions as final explanations of the true nature of anything is a fallacy familiar to the sounds, sophists of every age, a fallacy favoured by the ambiguity of the term knowledge. It is thus that the conception of Being has been made to do duty for the experience of Being, and the purely logical distinction between Being and Not-Being, with the logical consequences which flow from that way of considering them, held to be a discovery of the real Laws of Nature. Looked at as it is actually experienced, sequence is one of the two ultimate ways in which time-contents are arranged in time ; the other being simultaneity or co-existence. I preferred, therefore, to give a perceptual descrip- tion of it. But to return to our analysis. In consequence of real conditions which lie below the threshold of consciousness (a statement based upon facts still to be examined, and therefore one which I employ only by way of making the meaning of my analysis clear), states of consciousness appear above the threshold, and from the instant of arising recede into the past, since their contents have duration, and the ever-arising new content is that portion of the whole which is nearest in time to the ever advancing present instant, which is the instant of origin of every successively arising empirical portion or content. To say that successive present instants of origin of states of consciousness advance into the future, and to say that those states on and after arising recede into the past, is to say one and the same thing. A present instant of consciousness defined merely by its place in time is always THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 67 present ; a present instant of consciousness denned as the beginning of a particular content of con- sciousness recedes along with that particular content into the past. Accordingly, as each new content arises and recedes into the past, it retains, or tends sounds. to retain, in the fading vista, the same place in the sequence, in which it originally arose. In any sequence, that which occurred first in the actual order of experiencing is perceived as farthest away in time from the latest portion of the actually present empirical moment of experience, to which it belongs ; and in later and more complex experi- ences, when the idea of future time has been formed, that which is imagined as just about to occur is mentally seen as nearest in time future to the latest portion of the present moment, and that which is imagined as going to occur later as more remote. Thus in C D, seen from the end of D, the beginning of the duration occupied by C appears more remote in time than its ending, which im- mediately precedes the beginning of D ; while, if it could be seen from the beginning of the duration occupied by C, the beginning of D would appear more remote in future time than the end of C, and the end of C than its beginning. Moreover, when- ever we picture time-sequences by the aid of imagery drawn from space, as the language which we use to describe them shows to be the universal habit, we tend to imagine the phenomena, with which time past and future is peopled by memory or by anticipation, as having a present existence in time which is not present, owing to the circum- stance that we imagine them to exist in those 68 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. directions of simultaneously existing space, which ~ we use to represent the directions of time. These phenomena then seem to be moving towards or ofTwT awa y from the really present moment, according as sounds. we re f er them to the future of anticipation, or to the past of memory. Simple as the experience now analysed is, we can already trace within it the rudiments of a dis- tinction which we explicitly draw only at a much later epoch, between the nature or whatness of any portion of experience and the order of its genesis. And this distinction in turn gives rise to another which has greater currency, namely, to that be- tween the Logical Order, or Order of Thought (cognoscendi), which is based upon the perception of nature, and the Order of Existence (existendi), including both its branches, namely, the existence of real objects in the full sense of reality, and the existence of process-contents of consciousness in dependence on them, which is based upon the perception of the order of genesis in experience. The nature of the experience C D is perceived only when it is complete, or in retrospect from the point of time when D ceases to be heard. But the experience actually occurred as an experience in an order which we call that of genesis, from C to D ; that is to say, D was still future, when C was being heard ; this order being also that which it retains in memory, C becoming a memory earlier than D, and the memory of C, strictly taken, being one and the same thing with the perception of it, as was shown in the preceding Section. And the same is true of every part of C, and of D, though these may be too minute, or too minutely THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 69 differentiated, to be separately discerned except CH K IL mathematically. The nature and the genesis of C D are thus clearly distinguishable, notwithstanding that they are inseparable from one another, and from the sounds. experience C D, which together they constitute. The genesis builds up the nature from the first instant of the experience crossing the threshold of consciousness, and the nature, so built up as a perception from instant to instant, includes in it a perception of the genesis. The nature is the knowing of the genesis, and the genesis the exist- ence of the nature. For it must be noted (I) that the order of genesis or actual occurrence of C D is known to us only from the order which its two parts have in memory, and (2) that this order is perceived only when we look back upon it in retrospect from the ceasing-point of D. From this it follows that the true beginning of our knowledge is a perception, not of genesis, but of nature, that is, such a perception as we obtain of C D in retrospect. This perception is the nature of the experience. We thus perceive, or have experi- ences, not as the experiences come, but as they go. To be aware of them as they come, in this restricted sense of coming, would not be perception in the strictest sense, but anticipation. In isolating, as we did at first, a single empirical moment for analysis, we had to do with it only in the order of perception or nature, undistinguished from that of occurrence or genesis. There was within our purview no point from which to look either back upon it or forward to it. We who were analysing it were (by supposition) the only 70 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. spectators, and of course we had to abstract from ~ whatever might be imported by our own treatment f ik But w i fc h ^ e addition of a second empirical mom ent to the analysandum, a step of very great sounds, importance is taken. We have already seen, by supposing a mathematical division of time, that memory is in reality involved in a single empirical present moment of experience. But now memory comes into experience, obviously and empirically. Not that it is even now recognised under that name. We have not yet gained the conception of it ; but the fact upon which the conception of memory is founded is now actually experienced. A remembered moment with a positive empirical content, note C, is now perceived making part of the content of an actual experience, the sequence C D. In this sequence, when we are actually hearing D, we are actually not hearing, but remembering C. The whole experience is thus distinguished into two parts, a former and a latter ; and yet there is no new, no second, act of con- sciousness or perception involved, but merely a continuation of the same act which was the percep- tion of note C. The continuation of the perceiving is acccompanied by a differentiation of the content C into two notes, C and D, former and latter, the former in memory, the latter immediately present. I speak, it must be observed, only of memory in its lowest terms, in the sense of retention of a present, not recall of a past experience. To memory in this latter sense, which is memory proper, we shall come in due course ; and then shall find, if I mistake not, that the problem which it presents is materially simplified by the foregoing THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 71 analysis. For it may not be amiss to remark here, that memory in its essential characteristic, namely, retention of a past in a present moment, has now been shown to take its place among the ultimate facts of experience, being involved in the simplest cases of perception, for which, in fact, it is but another name. Memory, in short, takes its place among the ultimate data of experience, when we begin by simply analysing the phenomena. Whereas, if we were to begin our investigations by assuming some immaterial soul or mind, or even a self- conscious Ego, as the Subject of experience, we should find it a difficult, if not an insoluble problem, to explain how such a Subject could either retain or recall a past, that is, a now non-existent experience, with immediate certainty of its having once itself been an immediate experience unless, indeed, we were to postulate a particular faculty in the assumed Subject, for this very purpose, a faculty intuitive of past experience, and of past experience only, which would, in fact, be renouncing the attempt to explain the phemomena, and disguising the renunciation by a phrase. 1 1 See, in Mr. L. T. Hobhouse's valuable work, The Theory of Knowledge, Methnen, 1896, the latter half of the Chapter headed The Content of Appre- hension, Part I., Ch. II., pp. 50 to 59, and also Ch. V. Construction, pp. 81 to 84. I at one time thought it not improbable that I should be the first to give distinct and emphatic prominence to the fact, that the very least and lowest empirical states of consciousness are cases of memory in the sense of retention, just as completely and just as necessarily as they are cases of sensation, perception, or apprehension ; which is the fact upon which the reflective character of consciousness in its entirety, and not only of what is sometimes called apperception, depends ; but in this Mr. Hobhouse has fore- stalled me. I may say, however, that the whole of this 4, and indeed the whole of Book I., with borne few exceptions not affecting the present point, was written, as it now stands, long before the publication of Mr. Hobhouse's instructive though somewhat nondescript treatise. 72 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. CH?II L ^' ^e mos t important circumstance involved in this differentiation of content has still to be 8 o. men tioned. It is this. In hearing D, it has been shown, we are retaining or still remembering C. This gives C quite another character from what it had when simply heard, and from what D still has. It now becomes an object, as well as a content, of consciousness or experience. In the moment of consciousness actually occupied by D there is contained a memory of C, that is, a per- ception of C as having preceded D, and therefore as past, in relation to D as present. As object, C is past, but the perception of it as object is actually present. This perception of C is what is called a representation, in distinction from a presentation, such as that which is our present perception of D. Note C is now perceived in its totality, both as content and as process, that is, in both its aspects, which we saw could only be regarded as opposites, not as aspects subjective and objective to each other. But this perceiving it, I mean the per- ceiving it from D, is but a continuation of the perceiving it which was part of itself, one aspect of its totality, its aspect as process. The latter part of this process, when so continued into D, has its own prior portion, together with the content of that portion, namely C, as its object, the content of C being now continued, but with less vividness, into the portion of the process occupied by D, and therein becoming a representation of C, which is no longer heard as a presentation. The same total content C is now both part content of the moment occupied with the presentation of D, and object, or content objectified, so far as it is perceived as prior THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 73 to that presented D moment. The difference in CH K IL respect of sequence in time constitutes the former j~ part of the process object, instead of merely content, of the latter part ; and at the same time constitutes the latter part subjective aspect of the former part, that is, a perceiving or a knowing of it. It does not, however, constitute the latter part a Subject, as it constitutes the former part an object. It is subjective aspect only. Subjective aspects must first be objectified and seen in that character ; that is, must first become objects of experience in their subjective character; before they can either be referred to a Subject as their real condition, or be grouped together to form a Subject themselves. This would require a different and, as we shall see, a long subsequent exercise of retrospective per- ception. But again to return to the main current of our analysis. The whole moment of consciousness occupied by note D is thus distinguished into two simul- taneously existing parts, one which for designative purposes we may call the simple experience of note D, the other which for the same purposes we may call the retrospective experience of note C. Of this retrospective part the presentation of note C, including both its aspects, content and process, is the object or objective aspect. It is that which is perceived to exist, or to have existed, in the retro- spective part into which its content is continued. We have here an instance of the perception of Existence in its lowest terms as distinguishable from what is perceived to exist. Just as the content and process, or content and awareness of it, were opposite aspects of each other in note C, 74 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. cS? K ii.' - Reflective Perception. so note ^ an( ^ tne i mme( liately subsequent per- ceiving it are its objective and subjective aspects, when it is seen in retrospect. The thatness of C. or the fact that it exists, is the additional thing perceived in this retrospective and objectifying moment, which gives its opposite aspects the additional character of objective and subjective. The retrospective or representative moment of experience has thus for its content the perception of a process-content differing from itself in point both of vividness and of place in time-sequence. Its content as a perceiving is thus identical in kind, but different in vividness and in time, from that of which, as its object, it is the perception. There is, in fact, a repetition of the process-content in the objective perception of it. And the terms object and objective aspect always mark, that the percep- tion to which they are objective is a retrospection in order of time upon something already per- ceived, the content of which is identical in point of kind with the content of the retrospective perception or repetition of it. The sameness in point of kind may be called the logical nexus between the two aspects. The process-content of one moment of conscious- ness is in this way the object or objective aspect of the next moment, in addition to the content- process which constitutes that next moment what it is. And each moment of consciousness contains, besides its own content, a retrospective perception of one or more prior moments. The continuation of consciousness in time, with a different content, is the circumstance which first brings to light the retrospective, or as I prefer to call it for a reason THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 75 presently to be mentioned, the reflective character of consciousness. All consciousness, all experience, has in itself a double aspect ; every perception, taken simply by itself, is a process-content, or the awareness of a whatness ; perception in which the reflective character is apparent is the continuation of this process, with the whatness-thatness of its beginning perceived over again as a whole. It is itself also an instance of the very character, namely, doubleness of aspect, which it perceives. Philo- sophical analysis itself, such as that I have now been attempting, is nothing more than a special mode of reflective perception, and continuous with prior instances of it ; just as reflective perception is con- tinuous with the so-called simple perception which it objectifies. All perceiving is in fact retrospec- tive, and the perceiving in what I have here called simple perception, when continued in order of existence into that which I have here called reflective, looks back upon the simple perception, of which it is the continuation, and sees it pre- sented in retrospect in order of knowledge. It is in a somewhat strict sense that I have employed the term continuation. I mean to mark thereby, that there is no sense of effort, strain, or tension, introduced into the perception of the sequence, or into the reflective perception of its prior portion, nor experienced therein, any more than there was in the simple experience of that prior portion. No new act of perception has been originated. There is a reaction, it is true, just as there was in the simple experience of note C, but it is a reaction which takes place in the conditions of consciousness below the threshold, and is 76 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. BOOK T. CH. II. 5. Reflective Perception. unmarked in the consciousness above it. One reason why we are tempted to imagine a conscious reaction, or act of attention, in both instances, lies in language ; since the only language which is at our disposal expresses the conceptions of experience subsequent to the formation of the idea of an Ego, or of a Subject. As when we say, / perceive this or that ; / am conscious of the differ- ence between this and that ; phrases all of which express some action on the part of an Ego or Subject, assumed as real, even though it be an action confined to the mere reception of an impression. But now from simple analysis of experience we see, that reflective perception is no more than a continuation of the same process of consciousness which was both perceptive and retrospective, before any marked difference of content arose within it ; the perception of C in C D a continuation of the perception of C alone. There is thus no specific function of Apperception, as the Germans call it, required to account for its reflective character. 1 Not to mention, that to speak of a function of Apperception is to speak the language of psychology, not of metaphysic. I am here speaking of consciousness alone, and put aside entirely for the present all consideration of 1 This is a point of the highest importance, and one to which I would call particular attention, since it appears that so late as 1885 (and possibly later) I had not clearly grasped tbe reflective or retrospective character of all perception, simple or primary perception included ; but still confined the term reflective perception, meaning the act in which experience was supposed to originate, to a secondary act, an act of attention, supervening upon primary perception that is, to an act not essentially differing from Kant's Apperception. The two origins of Experience (giving rise to endless con- fusion), which are thereby introduced, are by the present more accurate analysis reduced to one namely, to the moment at which the threshold of consciousness is crossed. See my Address to the Aristotelian Society. Philosophy and Experience^ pp. 38 39. Published by Williams and Norgate, 1885. THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 77 the functions of the Subject, upon which the experiences analysed may be found to depend. So far, then, as our analysis has gone at present, we have acquired a knowledge of what appear to be two cases of perception, simple and reflective. Simple perception is where a process-content of consciousness seems to be a perceiving and a percept together, wholly undivided from each other, while reflective perception is that in which per- ceiving is apparently divided from its percept in respect of time, the percept being perceived as prior in time to the perceiving it, the content perceived being continued and common to both. But both cases alike are strictly reflective or retro- spective, though this character becomes apparent only in the latter, inasmuch as every state of consciousness begins to recede into the past at and from the very moment of its arising as conscious- ness, or crossing its threshold. Only we are not aware of this fact in those cases which for that reason we call simple, and which are really nothing but those cases of reflective perception, in the content of which there is no appreciable difference of parts, either simultaneous or successive. In fact, they are those cases in which, owing to minuteness of scale, the reflective character is not recognised as such. We see, therefore, that reflective perception is the primary and universal fact, of which simple perception (so called) is a particular case, and not reflective of simple. And both cases also are properly called percep- tions, inasmuch as both are contents of conscious- ness or of experience prior to, and independent of, any act of attention for the purpose of further 78 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. cTi/' knowledge of them, or of comparing one content with another. It is acts of this latter sort, namely, Retiective acts of purposive attention, by which conceptions Perceptior. J . are formed. Perceptions are their data ; for con- ceptions always presuppose some material to w r ork upon, just as the process of conceiving presupposes that of perceiving, of which it is a modification by means of the effort of attending to the perceptual data, for the purpose of attaining some sort of further knowledge. The minutest parts, in point of time-duration, into which we may divide any empirical perception, either by purely logical thought, or by the aid of the mathematical cal- culus, are still parts of reflective perception, although they may not be perceptible separately, owing to their subtilty or to their minuteness. The circumstance that thought is required to discrimi- nate them does not make them pure concepts, or creatures of thought only ; for when so discrimi- nated, they must still be thought of as perceptual components of empirical perceptions. Furthermore, not only are perceptions the data for thought or conception, but also the lowest data of experience are perceptions. Many psychologists, and those who philosophise psycho- logically, suppose sensations or sense impressions to be the lowest data, upon which perceptions supervene by some conscious or sub-conscious act of attention. They are misled, as it seems to me, first, by approaching the question from the side of psychology, in which sensations form well- defined groups, referable to different sense organs, the functioning of which is a condition precedent to all the higher and more complex functions of THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 79 the organism, and then by failing to notice that these groups are named sensations only by selecting their most prominent characteristic to designate JReflective -!. , , Perception- them by, leaving other features of their nature quite untouched. But from the purely experiential point of view here adopted, it must be admitted that sensations, like everything else, unless per- ceived, cannot and do not enter into experience. Perception, not sensation, is here the important circumstance. We can neither experience a sensa- tion nor think of one as being experienced, which is not perceived in the one case, or thought of as perceived in the other. Now a perceived sensation, as we have seen from the analysis, is not a simple but a compound thing, having, in the simplest case, two elements of analysis at the least, a sense-quality and a time- duration. So that if we are to make the best use of the terminology at our disposal, sense and sensa- tion should be employed for the sense-element in perceptions, and perception be employed quite generally, including sense-perceptions as one class among others. It may be convenient for psycho- logy to speak of its ultimate data as sensations ; but with that we need not concern ourselves. It is enough, that in philosophy, in metaphysic, in the analysis of experience as such, the ultimate empirical data are not sensations but perceptions, that is to say, process-contents of consciousness, consisting, in the lowest instances, of some sense-quality and some time-duration, inseparable though distinguish- able from each other. Taking perceptions, then, as the lowest empirical data of all consciousness or experience, it has now 80 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. cifii 1 ' been shown, that they are always parts or portions ~ of some one continuous or continuable process of Perwtion P erc eiving, first as contents, and subsequently as objects, the process of perceiving being always retrospective or reflective upon itself. Perception as a process consists in the conversion of content into object, simply in consequence of its character as a reflective process. It is probable that, historically speaking, we become distinctly aware of this reflective character, only when the process has reached an epoch in its development, at which certain complex percepts are objectified as material objects, existing apart from the perceiving Subject. But in reality, as we have seen, the reflective or retrospective character is essential to the perceptive process throughout. Retrospection is essential to perception, which is always perception of a content as it passes away into memory ; and this content, being always empirical, that is, containing elements of at least two distinguishable kinds, is always and from the first a percept, irrespective of whether it is or is not objectified in a subsequent moment of the process. Supposing it were not so objectified, this would not rob it of its character as a percept, would not undo the fact of its perception, or compel us to think of it as not a state or process- content of consciousness ; it would simply prevent its forming a distinct part of our represented and recollected experience. Our non-objectified percept would be strange to us, just as if it was the per- ception of another person or Subject. I conclude, then, that the metaphysical analysis of experience, so far as it has gone at present, pre- cludes the idea of there being any such thing as THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 81 quasi or latent consciousness preceding, and being either the object or the material of consciousness in the full sense ; or as it may be expressed, of any states of consciousness which exist without being experienced, until they are apperceived at a subse- quent moment. Conceived in this way, latent consciousness involves a contradiction, since it must at once be consciousness, as being above the threshold, and also non-consciousness, as being unapperceived. It is true that the precise moment at which a process-content of conscious- ness originates or crosses the threshold is difficult to observe with accuracy, owing to the limitation of our sensibility in point of keenness, the over- lapping of sensations in the concrete current of experience, and various other circumstances. It is only the origin of particular states or process- contents of consciousness, singled out from a train of consciousness already set on foot, that we can in any way observe, not the origin of a train of con- sciousness in its entirety, as for instance in waking from a sound sleep. To suppose that we can observe the origin of a train of consciousness in its entirety, is to suppose that we are already con- scious, already awake, before becoming conscious, or before awaking, which is plainly a contradiction. It is also true that sensations on crossing the threshold do not usually, and perhaps cannot, cross it at the instant of their maximum intensity, but rise more or less rapidly through lower degrees of intensity, till their maximum is reached, and again decline in a similar manner. It may also be readily admitted, that the lowest empirical state or process of con- sciousness may depend for its appearance in or as F 82 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. consciousness upon successive increments of energy, or upon a summation or a compounding of different reJ!!? c tfo!? ener gi es > m tne neural organism, each of which, we may imagine, contributes its quota to the resulting energy, upon which that lowest empirical state or process of consciousness is proximately conditioned to arise. But these facts do not show, that below the threshold of consciousness, take it where we will, there is a region or a time in which that con- sciousness exists or has existed, latent or unper- ceived. The least possible empirical state or process of consciousness may indeed be conceived as mathematically divisible into portions, which, if they could occur alone, would not by themselves be states or processes of consciousness ; just as the neural processes, upon which they depend, can be conceived as compounded of contributory neural processes, which severally would not be sufficient to give rise to consciousness ; though from this it by no means follows, that compound neural pro- cesses, or their components taken severally, which are not at the time attended by consciousness, are without their effect upon the nerve organism, or that they contribute nothing to the determining of subsequent states or processes of consciousness. Consciousness (Bewusstseiti) and awareness (Beivusstheit) of a content must begin and end together, since awareness is but a name for the conscious quality which consciousness possesses, though we commonly apply the terms to denote different degrees of clearness or definiteness in that quality. The beginning, or threshold, which distinguishes them from their privative non-con- sciousness, must therefore be the same for both. THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 83 Otherwise we should be supposing two beginnings for a single phenomenon. To feel and to be aware of 8 O, feeling are inseparable, or rather are one and the same thing differently named, however gradual may be the steps by which, when once a feeling has arisen, it passes into a condition of distinct objec- tivity. Two things must therefore be carefully distinguished, one being a fact, the other a fiction ; first, states of consciousness which are so faint or so evanescent as to fail in reaching the point of distinct objectivity when they are first experienced, though they may enter as undistin- guished contributories into the content of subse- quent representations ; and secondly, states of consciousness which are falsely supposed to exist as such below the threshold of consciousness, which are pure fictions and self-contradictory. Furthermore, it has been shown above, that even in the simplest cases of perception, a single sound for instance, the moment of its appearing above the threshold of consciousness is also the moment of its beginning to recede into the past, so as to take its place in the panorama of empirical experience. One and the same process-content begins and continues for a time in consciousness, seeming, to us who think about it, to bear the present moment along with it as it advances, and so constituting what may most properly be called the empirical present ; while at the same time since it is consciousness, and consciousness in- volves memory in the sense of retention, the mathematically present instant, at which wo imagine ourselves, or any percipient, to be placed, when perceiving an empirical present, is always an THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. CH^i 1 ' instant of retrospection upon the conscious process ^r of which that empirical present consists. We thus have an apparent movement in two opposite directions at once, involved in one and the same process of consciousness, and that in all cases. Our next question therefore is, whether this apparent movement in two opposite directions of time is perceived by our supposed percipient, at the stage of his experience now under exami- nation, and, if at all, in what shape or for what reason his perception of it arises. Looking at the process from our own point of view as observers ab extra, and not as it would appear to its own Subject or percipient at the time, we may say that the process-content of consciousness reflects in existing, and exists in reflecting. As reflecting it is a part of Knowing, as existing it is a part of Being. As reflecting it is a prolongation of a series of percepts into a known past, from any given present moment ; as existing, it is itself a present moment of consciousness, ever moving forwards into an unknown future. One and the same process-content of consciousness is at once Knowledge and Existence, though this distinction could not be consciously drawn or perceived by its Subject at the time supposed, because at the time supposed he has not only no knowledge of himself as a Subject or percipient, or of an order of real genesis, history, or existence, to which as a Subject or percipient he belongs, but he has no means of distinguishing this abstract, and as we may call it, ever new present moment of consciousness, from the content which is perceived in it or from it. This knowledge, the attainment THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 85 of which we shall presently have to examine, affords an explanation of the double apparent movement which gives rise to our present question. Elective .Perception. And this it does by showing that the point known as the threshold of consciousness, in psychology, coincides with the ever new present moment of consciousness, the former being a moment in the real history of a real percipient, and the latter a moment in the genesis of that percipient's knowledge or experience. At the present stage, therefore, of our supposed percipient's experience, he has nothing whatever with which to contrast its reflective character. At present, whatever he perceives he perceives in retrospect, or as we may express it, from end to beginning, that is, as having been, or as an irrevocable and irreversible fact, the not having been of which would involve a contradiction ; which experience, I take it, being strictly speaking essential and universal in all experience, is the ultimate ground of our total incapacity of con- ceiving the past undone ; TO yap yeyfvrj/j.ii'ov OVKZT apeKTov earai. (Simonides. Fr. 69. apud Bergk. III. 1142.) Our subsequently acquired perception or idea of the present moment of consciousness itself ad- vancing into the unknown future depends upon the perception (1) of its belonging to a Subject or per- cipient, and (2) of this percipient himself belonging to an order of real existence, history, and genesis. It is only as we proceed with our analysis that we shall see how these notions arise, and how it is that they are compatible with the rudimentary ex- perience of consciousness, as a train of contents 86 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. BOOK I. CH II. 5. Reflective Perception. receding into the past of memory. These notions are not acquired at the rudimentary stage of con- sciousness which we are now examining. To a Subject, therefore, standing at that rudimentary stage, both the receding order of the process-con- tent (in which it is seen at any present moment, and seen in retrospect), and the advancing order (in which it seems to bear the present moment along with it), are as yet one and the same ; the former being what he will afterwards call the order of knowledge (cognoscendi), and the latter the order of existence or real genesis and history (existendi), and that in two branches or subdivisions. And this union of differences (implicit to him but ex- plicit to us) which are really present in one and the same process, though recognised only at a later stage, is only possible because the process is one of consciousness ; which, being both a knowing and an existent, has the psychological moment of its real genesis (or appearance above the threshold) coincident with the present moment of reflective perception, in which it is a part of knowing. As these matters are of considerable importance for what is to follow, I venture at the risk of some repetition to restate my meaning. Suppose, then, the percipient placed at the threshold of conscious- ness, that is, at any point in time represented by the slit out of which the measuring tape issues, in the illustration given in a previous Section. This point, so far as it belongs to the percipient alone, or represents a moment in his capacity of perceiving, represents a purely abstract present moment, indifferent to any and every content, which in consequence of the percipient's capacities it may THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 87 possess. Let us next, and provisionally, suppose that this point is fixed or stationary in time. The percipient placed at such a point will then plainly perceive his consciousness arising, and at the same time retreating into the past of memory, at and from the point of time called the threshold ; that is (to keep to our original instance), he will hear first the beginning, then the end, of note C, then the beginning and then the end of note D ; so that by the time he hears the end of D the beginning of C is farthest away from him in time of all that he has heard and retains. But in saying by the time he hears the end of D, we imply that the present moment or threshold of his consciousness is no longer stationary, as we assumed provisionally, at the beginning of C, but has moved forwards, as compared to the actually perceived content C D, from what was the thres- hold or present moment of consciousness, the be- ginning of C, to a new threshold, the now present moment, which is the end of D ; and this real movement forwards of the present moment thus both involves and explains the apparent movement backwards of the content as compared to it. The provisional assumption, that the present moment is stationary, has thus to be retracted ; but this makes no difference with regard to the phenomena actually perceived. At the new present moment, the end of D, a new content, say another note, is ready to cross the threshold, and both the threshold and the present moment, which coincide, have thus moved forwards pari passu with, but in an opposite direction to, the content C D, which appears to have been going backwards in time from the now 88 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. cS^ii' P res ent moment, that is to say, from the end of D ~ to the beginning of C ; just as a passenger in a rail- wa y tram seated with his back to the engine, sees the objects by the side of the line apparently moving backwards, as he and the train move forwards. It is therefore indifferent whether we suppose him perceiving from the point called the threshold, which necessarily moves forwards in time with his own continued existence as a per- cipient, or from the ever new present moment of consciousness, since in both cases his whole experi- ence lies in retrospect only. The retrogressive character of experience or consciousness, consisting as it does in certain essential and intrinsic features of consciousness itself, is first in order of knowledge, and attaches to it quite independently of any hy- pothesis whatever, even though that hypothesis be one which explains how the retrogressive character comes to be recognised for what it is ; as, for instance, the present attribution of it to a per- cipient Subject, whose existence follows an opposite or progressive direction. A few words more must be said on this point. To say that the process-content of consciousness moves backwards, and to say that the present moment of consciousness moves forward, in time, is really and in fact to say one and the same thing, since each movement involves the other. But although both ways of perceiving the same phe- nomenon are equally contained in it, yet it is only the former of the two which is explicitly known to a percipient, who has not distinguished the abstract and ever new present moment of perceiving from its content ; that is to say, until then he perceives THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 89 it only as a content fading into memory, or as per- ception and percept, present moment and content, in one. And this distinction, between the abstract Reflective Jrerception. and ever new present moment of perceiving and the process-content perceived in it, he cannot draw, until he has attained the perception of himself as a percipient, to whom the abstract moment of perceiving belongs, and belongs as a moment of time in which a new content arises. No mere thinking about the process-content would suffice so to separate, for him, the time-element from the material element in his experience, as to enable him to imagine them as moving in opposite direc- tions from each other, when all his experience has shown him both elements closely combined, and moving together in the same direction, that is to say, into the past of memory. Our supposed percipient, therefore, at that stage of his experience with which we are now con- cerned, is aware only of this retrospective percep- tion from the ever new present moment, without having any means of distinguishing the really moving present moment from the apparently moving content of perception. All that he per- ceives is C passing into memory and succeeded by D, which in turn passes into memory also, and so on until C drops out of memory altogether. What he does not perceive, therefore, is (1) the distinc- tion of the abstract present moment of perception from the contents or percepts which successively occupy it, and (2) the forward movement of that abstract present moment, even as another way of regarding the passing of contents into memory. The reason of which is, that he has not yet attained 90 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. CH OI n' tne n ti ns > (1) of himself as a percipient, (2) of his consciousness as his ; and therefore also has no Reflective notion of a threshold of consciousness, that is, a Perception. point of time at which its several contents are conditioned to arise, by operations which take place within himself as a real being, but has these notions still to acquire from further contents of consciousness, or further experience, occurring in the same shape and order of knowledge as that already known to him. To him, therefore, his experience appears simply as a series of percepts, arising and vanishing in time, without a percipient, but existing (as we should say) per se, unrelated to, and unexplained by, anything beyond the series. We, on the other hand, who have acquired these notions, can see that his consciousness is the con- sciousness of a percipient Subject, dependent upon processes in that Subject which go on below the threshold of his consciousness ; and consequently, that his consciousness, being attached to the history and development of a real being, has always a threshold and a present moment, which together move forwards, or into the future, in time as com- pared to the original apparent regress of his experience into the past in time because they move forwards in order of existence, along with all the other really existing objects which compose the really existent world. The perception of the direction called forwards, or into the future, of this real movement, involving that of the threshold, and of the present moment of consciousness, is founded on, and arises only in consequence of, differences in the contents of THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 91 consciousness which have still to be examined, but which all occur in the same original form of simply retrospective perception, which is the first to be Reflective A Perception. perceived in order of knowledge, the form, namely, of contents of consciousness successively fading in, and vanishing out of, consciousness, or what is the same thing, ceasing to be contents of the actually present moment. And perception in this form, in which, be it noted, the successive vanishings or ceasings of presented contents at least are observable and rememberable facts, is a positively perceived datum, prior to the perception of its having a direction opposite to that which we subsequently call for- wards, or into the future, and is in fact the chief condition of that opposition between the two directions being perceived. The result, as will appear in due course, is, that consciousness as an existent, or what is the same thing, as the con- sciousness of a real Subject or Percipient, is always moving forwards, with the rest of real existents, in the order of real genesis and history, and always consists, as a knowing, in reflection upon itself, that is, upon its own past contents, from every successive present moment actually reached in that forward movement, this reflective percep- tion constituting what we call the order of know- ledge. Reviewing in the light of these considerations the whole subject of Reflective Perception, we can now see how the view here taken of it, founded on analysis of actually observed facts, not only solves the difficulty raised by the psychological theory of 92 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. CH* ii' Apperception, but also puts us in a position to face ~ those logical difficulties which seem to involve ^ etlec ti V D evei T m de of conceiving consciousness in a con- tradiction, and thereby exhibit consciousness itself as an impossibility, a conclusion very welcome to the philosophical sceptic. As to the first point, the difficulty raised by the psychological theory of Apperception consists in its introducing two moments, a former and a latter, into the genesis of consciousness, the former being that at which consciousness is supposed to begin in a latent or unapperceived state, and in which it is supposed to continue until the latter moment, the moment of Apperception, supervenes, and raises it to the rank of consciousness in the full and proper sense of the term. The question which this view forces on us is, which of these two moments is to be taken as the true beginning or threshold of consciousness ; and then, whichever of the two we take, the state which intervenes between it and the other moment will be a state which either consists of consciousness and non-consciousness at once, and so involves a contradiction, or else consists solely of non-consciousness, which, as such, is not capable of being apperceived. From this difficulty we are saved by the analytically dis- covered fact, that all perception is reflective, which identifies the two moments held apart by the theory of Apperception, and considers the difference between consciousness and distinct awareness of consciousness as a difference of degree only, both degrees of it lying above the threshold. As to the second point, the logical difficulties which it was said above we should now be in a THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 93 position to face, these difficulties arise from the fact, that there are empirical minima of perception, minima sensibilia, in point both of intensity and Reflective J Perception. duration ; as it is plain there must be, since, unless states of consciousness had some finite degree of intensity however small, and some finite length of duration however brief, they would not be empiri- cally perceivable, that is, would not exist as states of consciousness at all. In this sense, therefore, empirical minima of perception, or minima sensibilia, are indisputably real. The difficulties in respect of the possibility of consciousness or experience which arise from mis- conception of this fact are of two kinds, one relating to the building up of a connected experience on the basis of minima sensibilia, taken as if they were so many separable atoms of consciousness, the other to the logical conceivability of a minimum sensibile, and therefore, mediately, to the reality of that mode of consciousness, namely perception, which is admittedly not possible without it. These difficul- ties it is which our foregoing analysis enables us, in principle at least, to meet and solve. With regard to difficulties of the first kind, the solution depends upon noting, that the reality of minima sensibilia by no means implies, either that they are ultimate data of experience, or that a connected experience, if built up at all, must be built up out of them as such data. It is to mis- conception of these points that the apparent objection to the possibility of a connected experi- ence founded on perception is due. Connected ex- perience is built up, in the way which our analysis has already shown in one very simple case, out of 94 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. BOOK I. CH. II. 5 sflec Perception. immediate empirical perceptions, in which formal and material elements, inseparable from each other, Reflective are distinguished ; not out of minima sensibilia, or minima of empirical perception ; nor are any such minima or minimal percepts distinguishable in them by perception, as inseparable parts or constituent elements. It is true that minima sensibilia are real, in the sense that empirical perception has a minimum or lower limit, in point both of intensity and duration, below which it would cease to exist as empirical perception, but this fact is not among the data of experience. It is brought to light by thought and reasoning dealing with perceptual data, and its truth may be confirmed by experiments instituted for the purpose of ascertaining mathe- matically the limits at which the minimum must be fixed. Again, and still more clearly, if minima sensibilia are taken as separable realities, or atoms of con- sciousness, they must be held to be creatures of thought in the first instance ; it is by inference only that their possibility is made known, and whenever the attempt is made to produce them artificially by experiment, they always appear as brief flashes on a background, or brief moments in a context, consisting, not of other minima sensibilia^ but of some kind or other of continuous consciousness. In short, the admitted fact that every state of consciousness has a minimum limit in intensity and duration, is very different from the supposed fact (out of which the difficulties in question spring), that all consciousness consists of states which do not exceed that limit, that is to say, states to which it is a maximum limit also. THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 95 Consequently the difficulties, whatever they may be, which lie in the way of understanding how a connected experience can be built up out of Reflective Perception. minima sensibilia as separable atoms of conscious- ness, are non-existent for those who neither rely on them as the ultimate constituents of a connected experience, nor even admit them as immediately known facts, though allowing and even maintaining the reality of minima sensibilia in the sense of minimal limits of duration and intensity, the attain- ment of which is implied in every case of empirical perception or consciousness. Coming to difficulties of the second kind, we shall find them, if I mistake not, far more formid- able, for here a contradiction seems to be disclosed in the very conception of a minimum sensibile, whereby perceptual consciousness itself seems to be rendered a logical impossibility, and conse- quently to be robbed of all its apparent trustworthi- ness. The main difficulty consists in this, that the time which every such empirical minimum sensibile occupies (to say nothing as yet of its degree of intensity), is mathematically divisible into portions far less than itself ; which compels us to conceive the minimum sensibile as divisible into portions, not one of which is empirically perceivable, yet all of which must elapse before simultaneously with the elapsing of the last of them the empirical minimum is reached, and consciousness arises. Consciousness, therefore, must on this showing be built up out of infinitesimal moments of non- consciousness, which is a contradiction of the same kind as that which we have seen arises on the theory of Apperception. All consciousness being 06 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. CH^I' a P rocess > that is, having time-duration, and a ~ certain finite duration being essential to the least empirical portion of it, the question is What are we to think of the parts into which that least em- pirical portion is mathematically divisible ; are they consciousness or non-consciousness ? If they are consciousness, then the whole which they compose is no minimum of consciousness, and since this applies to every portion which we can take as a minimum, there can be no minimum of conscious- ness, which makes consciousness impossible ex hypothesi. If they are non-consciousness, then the whole which they compose is not consciousness at all. We are thus placed in a dilemma, either alternative of which is fatal to the logical conceiva- bility of consciousness or experience. The case is similar when we advert to the minimal degree of intensity requisite to a minimum sensibile, provided we still conceive con- sciousness as a process, that is, as having to pass through lower degrees of intensity before arriving at that degree which is, by supposition, the least which is empirically perceivable. I make this proviso, because it is at least conceivable, that a sensation should start into existence originally at any given degree of intensity, without having to pass through lower degrees before reaching it ; since, intensity not being necessarily thought of as a continuum, higher degrees of it are not necessarily conceived as composed or built up out of lower degrees, but may be thought of as quantitative measurements of sensation which we arrive at in comparing one sensation with another, each sen- sation having its own peculiar degree inherent in THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 97 it. Whereas with time the case is different ; the CH K II' existence of anything for a certain time-duration, time being a continuum, of itself implies its having existed through the shorter time-durations of which the given duration is made up. But with the above proviso, the difficulty offered by degree of intensity is precisely the same as that offered by time-duration. What are we to think of the lower degrees of intensity in sensations, prior to the degree which gives the requisite empirical mini- mum ? Are they consciousness or not ? The difficulty is the same. It is the same dilemma in which we are placed by both branches of the subject, and certainly that dilemma at first sight is a formidable one. Put briefly it is this : We cannot have experience, until we have had ex- perience already. Now there is no escape from this dilemma in the doctrine of a double threshold of consciousness, the doctrine of Apperception. That is either the very dilemma from which we are trying to escape, or else it doubles the number of cases in which the dilemma arises. The difficulty must be met on the ground of a single threshold of consciousness, a single originating moment of experience. The possibility of a minimum sensibile, and the possibility of the moment of crossing the threshold of con- sciousness, are one and the same thing. That old- fashioned remedy, " a hair of the dog that bit you," is the true loophole of escape, leading to the trup solution of the difficulty. Consciousness is indis- solubly bound up with time, which is an inseparable element in it, making it a process, and all its contents process-contents. Also time is that G 98 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. element in it which gives mathematic its hold over it, so that what is mathematically true of time is true also of consciousness or experience, in its character of a process in time. Now time per se, and there- fore also any given time-duration, is mathematically divisible in inftnitum, not merely in indefinitum; not merely into some unspecified number of infinit- esimal durations, but into a number which cannot be specified (if this paradoxical expression may be permitted), that is to say, it is divisible for ever without being exhausted. In this fact lies the first step towards a solution of our difficulty. The dilemma presented to us is founded upon the fallacy of substituting a divisibility of time into some unspecified number of infinitesimal but still finite portions, for an infinite divisibility of it ; or in other words, imagining time itself to be com- posed of successively existing finite portions, in- stead of being a continuum, the mathematical divisions of which are introduced solely by our own thought, for the purpose of measuring its content, and on the basis of observed differences in that content. Time itself becomes self-contra- dictory when imagined in this fallacious way. If finite portions of time are pre-existing parts, the succession of which composes time, or out of which time is built up, we cannot, logically speaking, live through an hour without having already lived through that hour, or through a minute without having already lived through that minute, and so on, however brief may be the portion of time which we take as the minimum, or ultimate indivisible duration. And even then we do not get rid altogether of continuity, since the supposed ultimate THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 99 or indivisible duration must still be thought of as a continuum ad intra, its reduction to a mathematical instant without duration being im- possible without annihilating it. Continuity, then, being an essential element in time, it is only the conception, that time is infinitely divisible, which enables us without self-contra- diction to conceive it as continuous, and the content which occupies it as a continuous process, so far as time alone is concerned. For its infinite divisibility precludes our taking any infinitesimal or other finite portion as a statical datum, or atom (so to speak) of time, and forces on us the con- ception, that time-process or duration first gives the possibility of division into portions, instead of division into portions giving the possibility of time- process or duration. In other words, when for the purposes of thought we take some instant as the beginning of any portion of time, the first incre- ment of duration, from that instant, is an increment of a subject for division ; far from being a minimum of duration, it contains in posse an infinitude of lesser durations, not one of which is a minimum. (I interpose the remark, that it is sense-perception which originally gives the experience of time- duration, thereby offering, as it were, to thought something divisible, or in which, for purposes of better knowledge, it may take mathematical instants dividing it. But to return.) According to this, which is the only true mathematical con- ception of the divisibility of time, we are actually living through a minute from the initial instant of that minute (though the name of minute is given to it only on the supposition, that what minutes are 100 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. nas previously been ascertained), and through an I~JT hour from the initial instant of that hour, and Perception. so on ^ or whatever time-durations may be in question. We are no longer required to suppose, that we have already completed the minute, or the hour, before beginning to live through it, which is a contradiction arising only from our misconception of our own thought and method of dividing time mathematically. But now to take the second step in the solution, by applying what has been said to our present special and more complicated case, the difficulty of logically conceiving a minimum sensibile, or least empirical moment of consciousness. A minimum sensibile is a presented content having some short time-duration, say from o to a, and some low degree of intensity, say from o to b ; lesser dura- tions and degrees of it being indeed mathematically thinkable in it, but ex hypothesi not presentable to sense ; so that the mere fact of its being a minimum sensibile seems to force it back into the very same self-contradictory predicament, logically speaking, of being at once a process and yet a statical datum or atom of consciousness, from which, in the case of abstract time, infinitesimal time-durations were rescued by the true mathematical conception of infinite divisibility. That is to say, owing to its actual existence as a minimum sensibile we seem forced to suppose, that it does not actually exist as a presentation, until it has (so to speak) lived through the requisite duration o to a, and the requisite degree of intensity o to b ; and the ques- tion again arises concerning it with renewed force, What is it, while it is living through them, that is, THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 101 while it is passing through the intervals o to a, and o to b ? Is it consciousness, or non-consciousness ? The thing itself has a double nature, and the name which defines it is drawn from a double source, sense and thought. As sensibile it is a con- tent of sense, as a minimum it is a determination of thought. If the nature of the abstract intervals alone was concerned, the answer would be clear from what has already been said, since what they are is a purely mathematical question ; they are processes actually going on, in fieri, up to the in- stant of completion in a and b respectively. There is no difference in kind between the process in fieri and the process when complete. But here, the nature of the minimum sensibile being double, an object of thought while in fieri and an object of sense-presentation at completion of that process, a new element of difficulty is introduced into the question ; but at the same time it is plain, that both these natures must be taken account of in the answer, and that neither exclusively can supply it. Both must concur, and the answer must be founded on this double nature. Now it must be remembered, that it is the nature of what we have called the moment of crossing the threshold of consciousness which is in question. A minimum sensibile means any content taken at the moment of its crossing the threshold. And this moment, like its content, is also double in the same way. Sense and thought alike concur in our conception of it. That is to say, we think of it mathematically as a process in order of genesis ending in a minimum sensibile, and we actually experience it as a perception having a certain OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA 102 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. CH K II' duration and intensity, and a place in a series which recedes into the past of memory in order of Reflective knowledge from the moment of its arising. It is Perception. analysable as a process into sequent parts in order of genesis by thought only, not by sense. The fact that, as perceived, it escapes this analysis of thought, is what renders it a minimum sensibile, or least empirical moment of perception or conscious- ness. It is thus a moment which is one thing for mathematical thought, and another thing for sense- perception. And in this there is no contradiction. The difference is not a difference secundum idem. The interval lying between the two mathematically discerned instants, which we take as its beginning and its end, o to a, or o to b, is too small to be per- ceived as divisible by sense. Its parts are only ideally discernible. It is a fallacy to ask what they are for sense. It is a fallacy to ask what they are per se, independently of what they are known as. And one or the other of these fallacies we fall into when, in asking what the interval consists of, we expect any other reply, than that it is a process of genesis, the successive parts of which are distinguished by thought only. It is one and the same moment of crossing the threshold of consciousness which is thought of as a process in order of genesis, and actually experienced as a minimum sensibile, or minute empirical sensation in a receding series. In both modes of apprehension it has duration and degree of intensity, but these in the one mode are, in the other are not, distinguished into lesser parts. Thought, in distinguishing them, is in fact following up, not an actually presented THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 103 moment of experience, but its own representation of such a moment. We see, then, that just as there are two hetero- geneous sources contributing to the definition of a minimum semibile, thought and sense, so there are two kinds of misconception to which it is liable, and which it is necessary to discriminate, referring each to that source from which it arises. The first of these attaches to it simply as a process in time. It may be falsely imagined that the minimum sensibile, simply because it is a process, cannot exist until that process is completed. And on this point we have now seen, that an abstract time- duration must be held to exist as a process in fieri from its initial to its completing instant, just as, to take a familiar example, the time-duration called Monday exists as a process in fieri from 12 p.m. on Sunday night to 12 p.m. on Monday night, and does not wait till the stroke of 12 on Monday night to come into existence. The second kind of misconception, which com- plicates the case considerably, arises from the fact that, in its character of a sense presentation, the minimum sensibile is not perceived as divisible into parts ; which leads us falsely to imagine that it is instantaneous, occupying no duration, and conse- quently that its occurrence must be referred either to the initial or else to the completing instant of that process with which thought identifies it ; either of which alternatives involves us in insuper- able difficulties. What we have seen on this point is, that the phenomenon which is for thought a process consisting of a succession of parts, and for sense a single undivided state of consciousness. 104 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. is one and the same phenomenon, namely, that of the rising of a state of consciousness above the threshold, or the moment of crossing the threshold of consciousness by a perception or an experience, and that moment only, so that the apparently instan- taneous minimum sensibile must be identified with the whole of the process which thought discerns in it, and not with either of the instants exclusively, between which that process intervenes. And this result entirely harmonises with what we have already seen is the true mathematical conception of time, namely, that duration comes first, making division of duration possible, and not vice versa ; the two cases presenting this difference only, that the minimum sensibile is a content having duration presented to sense, while time mathematically con- ceived is abstract duration represented as capable of division by thought. The essential point is, that, in both cases or modes of knowing alike, duration is prior to division in order of knowledge. But though I have thought it advisable at this early stage to deal with the difficulties arising from the fact of minima sensibilia, inasmuch as they may be made the basis of sceptical objections to the conception of Reflective Perception, and indeed to the trustworthiness of perceptual consciousness generally, it must always be remembered, that the fact of minima sensibilia is not a fact which belongs to early or rudimentary experience, nor one which has a place among its immediate data. It is a fact which is discovered only by analysis of experiences in which processes of thought as well as perception are included as part and parcel of the object-matter analysed, and THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 105 these are processes which we have not as yet CH K II' touched on. ^~ Perceptual experiences of the same degree of Reflective _. * . Perception. immediateness and simplicity as those of notes O and C D, already analysed, are pre-requisites of thought in the sense of providing it with material on which to operate by way of purposive attention, comparison, conception, and judgment. They do not wait to be perceived, until they have been attended to and classed. Without the perception of time-duration as what we afterwards call a con- tinuum distinguished into parts solely by differences in its co-element of sense, the idea of a mathe- matical division of time, by instants having them- selves no duration, could not arise. There would be nothing to divide. Moreover, such a division, by a point or instant of time having no duration, cannot in fact be thought of without our also thinking of the time-durations preceding and following it. It is made into a distinct object by thought directed upon sense-perception, and not- withstanding that the division itself is thought of as having no duration, this is not the case with its subjective aspect, the thought which is the thinking of it, for this necessarily occupies some empirical duration, namely, the then present moment of its existence as a content of consciousness, of which the division itself is the object. It is therefore true, and not unimportant to remark, that, suppos- ing (per impossibile) the sceptical objections we have been dealing with to hold good, they would be just as fatal to the conceivability of Thought as to that of Perception. Thought equally with Perception takes place only in empirical present 106 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. BOOK I. CH. II. Reflective Perception. moments of consciousness ; the least act of thinking is itself a process. Thought and Perception are modes of conscious- ness which it is the business both of scientific and philosophical Thought to bring into harmony, by verifying the conclusions of the one by comparing them with the data of the other. But that, in order for Perception to be possible, it must have the peculiarities of Thought, or in other words must perceive in phenomena the ideal distinctions which Thought introduces into them ; which in the present instance would mean perceiving, not only empirical minima sensibilia as separable objects, but also the infinitesimal durations into which they may be mathematically divided ; this doctrine, which is the basis of the sceptical argument, is neither proved nor capable of proof. The attempt to incorporate it in a philosophical system would require the further assumption, that pure Thought is an energy creative of its own perceptual content, which would run counter to everything we know of the real relations between these two modes of consciousness, and between the phenomena respec- tively referred to them. It is Thought which is impossible without a perceptual content, not Per- ception which is impossible without perceiving conceptual distinctions. It will now be evident why I prefer the term reflective to that of retrospective perception. It is because the latter too readily suggests the idea, that whatever is perceived is empirically different from, and prior in time to, the moment of knowing THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 107 or perceiving it, or as it may be expressed, that the process-content said to be perceived is empirically different from the process-content called perceiving it ; while the term reflective (owing probably to its association with reflexion in mirrors) does not so obviously exclude the idea of their being empirically identical and simultaneous, as in fact, and in the strictest sense, they are, in the lowest and simplest cases of ordinary experience, such as our note C, and also in empirical minima perceptionis, although the latter are discerned, in ordinary experience, only by analysis and abstrac- tion, and are never known, even in laboratory experiments, to be experienced in complete isola- tion from a context. Both terms being figurative, the term reflection does less violence to the facts, to which it has to be applied. Strictly speaking it may be said, that both retrospective and what we call simple perception are particular cases falling under reflective, while the latter term expresses the universal law. Objectification, or the percep- tion which makes objects out of contents of consciousness, would then be a case falling under the retrospective branch of reflective perception. Reflective perception, however analysed, is one of those cardinal facts of experience, upon our insight into which the whole complexion of our philosophy depends. It has been the main clue or guiding thread, of which I have endeavoured to keep a firm hold in all the three works, previous to the present, which I have published on philosophy. It seems to me, that it is only in the present, that I have reached its true and sufficient analysis. In those former works, the nature and position of 108 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. cT K ii' reflective perception were not demonstrated from TJT the analysis of consciousness alone, as distinguished fr m i ts character of being a psychological function, but psychological functions were assumed as involved in the modes of consciousness analysed. In the latest of these works, the Philosophy of Reflection, it was indeed shown, that the perception of a double aspect, subjective and objective, in states of consciousness, was a necessary pre- requisite to the perception of Objects as distinct from the Subject, and that the perception of this double aspect was necessarily a reflective percep- tion ; so that reflective perception was shown to be a pre-requisite of all objective knowledge, whether physical or psychological. But the material for this reflective perception was assumed as given in what I there called primary conscious- ness ; so that, in virtue of this assumption, the idea of some unknown or transcendental source of consciousness could not be rigidly precluded, and reflective perception was left practically undistin- guished from the familiar psychological function of Apperception. In other words, it was still necessary to show supposing us to start from the content of consciousness alone, strictly abstracting, in the first instance, both from a supposed Subject and from supposed Objects that all perception whatever, including what I had called primary as well as what I had called direct, was reflective ab initio and throughout, and to show this from the analysis of consciousness alone, taken simply in its character of a knowing. This I consider has now been shown, without introducing any psychological conception, or THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 109 treating reflective perception itself as a psycho- CH^II' logical function. For although in analysing it as experience simply, and in clearing it of apparent contradictions in that character, I have appealed to the psychological fact of the threshold, and the existence of real conditions of consciousness below the threshold, yet it will, I think, be plain, that I have done so only on the supposition that these facts, including the existence of real and psycho- logically distinguishable functions, such, for instance, as Perception and Thought, will be fully justified in later Chapters, by showing how the knowledge of them springs out of later or more complex consciousness or experience, taken as experience simply, just in the same way as that rudimentary experience has been taken, which has been already analysed. If that later demonstration should break down, then all the support would vanish, which the conception of a threshold, and of real conditions of consciousness below it, lend to the interpretation of the foregoing experience. The method of approaching the task of such an analysis was disclosed to me, some years after the publication of the work just mentioned, by the insight, which I recorded in various Addresses to the Aristotelian Society, 8 to the effect that the common-sense form of experience, which is shared by all men prior to their commencing to philoso- phise, is the explicandum, and therefore the starting point of philosophy, and therefore also is that form 2 Hie Tiro Senses of Reality, pp. 12 to 21. Printed for private circulation. 1883. The Relation of Philosophy to Science, pp. 16 et sqq. Published by Williams and Norgute. 1884. Common-sense Philosophies. Published in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. Vol. 1. No. 2. Williams and Norgate. 1889. 110 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. OH^I' f experience to which philosophical analysis is ~ immediately to be applied. The taking this form of experience as the analysandum gives what I hold to be the true philosophical method, because it alone involves no assumptions, prior to commencing the analysis itself. And this it is which, I think, has at last decisively relieved philosophy from its former dependence upon psychological conceptions ; whether that dependence consisted in the grouping of its phenomena under psychological functions, or in the adoption of any kind or kinds of psycho- logical agency, as being beyond doubt essential to consciousness, or necessarily bound up with it. In the present work, accordingly, consciousness is shown to be a reflective process throughout, reflective in all its branches and modes, reflective in its lowest and simplest phenomena, as well as in its highest and most complex. In short, the conception of a double centre of experience, which is involved in the German psychological function of Apperception, is avoided, and that without recourse to the assumption, also German, of a creative agency in consciousness itself. primary ** Wn en we look at experience on the large Percepts. sca i 6) a t any period of its history, we come to the same conclusion, namely, that the moment of experi- encing is a moment of reflective perception, though on the large scale it is the retrospective form of it which meets us. All thought pre-supposes data to go upon. And by a datum must be meant some- thing which is already perceived before its re- perception can begin, some material already offered to think about. Here, however, it may be said, that the proof is not strict, when experience in the THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. Ill gross is concerned, because we cannot put our- selves back in memory to the first origin of our conscious experience in the days of infancy. We cannot begin our re-perception with the dawn of consciousness. If we could, we should find that we had perceptions which were not retrospective. To this I reply as follows : If we could do so, what we should come to would be perceptions which are identical in kind with those already analysed, namely, the perceptions of C and C D. And then the results of that analysis would apply to them. For it will be remembered, that we took C and C D severed artificially from their context, and therefore precisely in the position of original or historically first perceptions, so far as their own process-content is concerned, and abstracting from the fact that they are perceived as having a context distinguished from them. We are not now dis- cussing the possibility of there being a genesis of consciousness at all, nor how such a genesis is con- ceivable. We are not now constructing the history of an individual consciousness, but simply analysing parts of it, taken for the purpose of analysis out of a previously known common-sense experience ; that is, we are as it were watching for instances of a required kind to occur in order to be analysed. The experience is still future when we form the purpose of analysing it. By this proceeding we put whatever instances of experience we analyse into the position of historically first perceptions ; we abstract from what has preceded them ; of course with the expectation, that the analysis of experiences of all kinds, if carefully performed, and confirmed by repetition, and also with their 112 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. CH**!' resu l ts compared and used to control one another, will throw light on the universal modes of sequence an< ^ co-existence obtaining in the process-content of consciousness as a whole ; modes, therefore, to which it may be inferred to conform, at any and every period of its history. The objection, therefore, drawn from the defect of memory merely throws us back upon the results of our analysis. A simple or historically first perception like C is not taken up, as a recognised link or member, into a connected chain of experi- ence or consciousness, until it is, or rather except by being, objectified in a subsequent moment, as in C D. Until then, the consciousness of it is imper- fect, expectant, not completed by perception of its relations, but is in process, in fieri, only. Suppose the consciousness to stop short at C, before reach- ing CD; it is still reflective, inasmuch as it is a process-content having duration and retreating into memory, but it is not objectified, and there is no larger consciousness, or experience, of which it forms a part. It may indeed itself be called a brief and isolated experience ; but even so it is reflective. Eestore it to its context, and its reflective character becomes obvious as well as real. There is thus no such thing in actual experience, nor can there be, as a non-reflective perception. Passing to reflective perceptions in which the reflective character becomes obvious, which we call retrospective for that very reason, and of which C D is one of the simplest instances, we see that the prior moment is distinguishable as the object of the latter, which latter contains in it the subjective THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 113 aspect of the former. The moment of consciousness occupied by D contains in it a retained perception or representation of C, which representation is the subjective aspect of C as occupying its own, the prior, moment. The total perception, which is reflective throughout and in its entirety, is thus seen, in virtue of its scale, to be retrospective also, that is, to have within it the double aspect, to con- tain in fact the subjective aspect, or perception, of an object. But when seen, and how? In and by a sub- sequent moment of retrospective perception. As a fact it contains a subjective aspect or percep- tion of an object, and it is seen to do so by a sub- sequent retrospective perception, in or to which it stands in its totality as object. It is subjective to what precedes it, objective to what follows it. Prior retrospective perceptions thus take the place of objects to subsequent retrospective perceptions, just as objects in retrospective perception took the place of the contents of simply reflective perception. Retrospective perception is here the subjective aspect, or perception, of an object which is a prior perception. The two moments, former and latter, of any retrospective perception being thus distinguished, and the latter portion giving its name to the whole, it will be convenient to have some term to desig- nate the former moments, prior to their being taken up into a connected chain of experience ; or, what is the same thing, to designate simply reflective states or process-contents of consciousness, con- sidered by themselves, and apart from their being objectified in retrospective perception, that is, 71 114 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. considered simply as contents, not as objects, of perception. Note C, which we first analysed apart fr m its place in the sequence C D, would be an instance. So would simple empirical perceptions of any kind, and so also would any moment of change from one simple perception to another, as for instance the moment of transition from C to D, in the case analysed. But since we have found, that every connected chain of actual experience is retrospective, consist- ing, at every point, of a former and a latter portion, we may isolate by abstraction, and then group together, all the former portions ; and then by a further abstraction, exclude from their number those into the content of which there enters any- thing which has already been objectified by retro- spection. I propose, then, to call any state or process-content of consciousness, which is isolated by abstraction, and considered as a mere content prior to objectification, a state of Primary Con- sciousness, or a Primary Percept. All perceptions in their lowest terms, of whatever kind, whether sensations, emotions, or pleasures or pains attach- ing to either, may then be characterised as states of primary consciousness, and considered, when- ever they come forward in experience, as that part of it which is the material for, or the as yet unobjectified content of, retrospective perception. The analytical distinction thus drawn between primary and objectified percepts, or primary and retrospective consciousness, may prove serviceable, and possibly take its place side by side with those previously drawn (1) between the subjective and objective aspects of experience THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 115 and (2) between the material and formal elements, that is to say, the sense-element or sensation, and " (so far as we have gone at present) the time- ^2*2 element or duration, of perceptions. 7. Finally it must be noted that, although the Perception ultimate data of experience, without which all exc iu 8 it e O f further or more complex forms of it would be impossible, consist of states or process-contents of consciousness, this by no means implies that they consist of states or process-contents of conscious- ness as distinguished from realities. This is a dis- tinction which does not exist in sequences consisting only of immediate data, and the origin of which within experience itself has yet to be shown. From the fact, that the ultimate objects known by expe- rience are states or process-contents of conscious- ness, we cannot argue that all objects known by experience are also, or are nothing but, states or process-contents of consciousness. We have, on the contrary, to wait and see what experience itself tells us on this point. To do otherwise would be to import by assumption the familiar common- sense distinction between consciousness and reality into the data of immediate experience, an assumption which necessarily carries with it a system of Idealism. We began, it will be remembered, by abstracting from knowledge of a more special and complex kind than the experiences selected for a first analysis. Now, though there is a sense in which perception is distinguished from reality and real existence, this sense of the terms belongs to that more complex kind of knowledge from which we have purposely abstracted. We shall see as we 116 THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. BOOK i. advance, in what the distinction consists, and how the terms reality and real existence originally Perception acquire a meaning. Until they have acquired one, exclusive of th e consciousness or perception, out of which that Keality. . meaning arises, cannot be itseli perceived or expe- rienced as consciousness or perception in contra- distinction from them. Consciousness itself cannot be recognised as such, until something is perceived which is, apparently at least, non-consciousness, wherewith to contrast it. Forgetfulness of this fact involves, in philosophy, the adoption of the objective method as proper to philosophy, and therewith the assumption of an a priori idea of reality that is, of an idea as the prior condition of experience. At present I remark only, that the term perception is another instance of a phenomenon which we have already met with in the case of the term Being (Chapter I., 4). I mean the circumstance of its having two senses, a wider and a narrower, the narrower being included under and distinguished from the wider, by being distinguished from some special opposite of its own. In such cases, the term in its wider sense is always a percept, or content of reflective perception, and in its narrower sense a con- cept, obtained by comparing in thought one part of that percept with another. This phenomenon was perceived and utilised, though not analysed, by Hegel, who built his whole system on the hypothesis, that this self-contained opposition was essential to the law of thinking, or law of the movement of Thought ; conceiving Thought, as he did, to be a self-existing and self-determining agency. But it is just phenomena of this kind which stand in the greatest need of analysis. Accordingly THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. 117 I began by abstracting from complex cases of knowledge, until simpler cases should have been analysed. I began by analysing the moment of experiencing, and it was found that it always yielded perceptions, that is to say, perceptions in the widest possible sense of the term. But to understand this result as if it meant, that experi- ence consists of perceptions and not of realities, would be to assume the distinction between per- ception and reality already known, prior to ex- perience ; in which, on the contrary, it must be found, or from which it must be deduced, if it be a valid distinction at all. By making this assump- tion we should in fact be re-introducing and covertly employing the very kind of knowledge from which, in obedience to our method, we consciously and purposely abstracted. And in consequence of this fallacious inconsistency, we should be assuming experience to be the negation of that very reality, the perception of which is experience itself. In contrast to this illogical procedure, the method here adopted will lead, as I venture to think, to results very different both from the denial of reality, and from its absorption in perception or in thought. We shall doubtless find disclosed to us new senses of the term reality, contained within and dis- tinguished from the largest sense, corresponding to different modes of perception and thought, disclosed pari passu, which will be their evidence. That is to say, our knowledge of reality will be enriched, as more and more of the content of experience is brought under analytical examination. The positive result of the present Chapter is briefly this, that, in analysing the moment of THE MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE. experience, reflective perception is the only thing from which we cannot abstract, without destroying in tnou gi lt tne thing analysed. Whatever ex- ex ity. f perience may contain must at least be a percept ; and whatever a percept may contain must, if taken up into a connected chain of experience, at least be an object of perception. Perception character- ises all experience, and all perception is reflective. But of course we must be careful to avoid imagin- ing, that the meaning of the terms, by which we have now described the consciousness or experience which we have been analysing, could have been understood by a conscious being, who should possess only such a rudimentary consciousness as that now analysed. CHAPTER III. THE TIME-STREAM. 1. Philosophy stands to the sciences, taken together, in a very similar relation to that in which the science of pure mathematic, which includes Metaphysic, like Puiv geometry and calculation, stands to the rest of ^^JJJjJj 10 ' the sciences. This relation, speaking; generally, is .*?*. ' pre- inductive. that of basis to superstructure in an ordered system of knowledge. The pure sciences of figure and number are sciences of those phenomena which are necessarily involved in all concrete figured and numbered objects. And metaphysic, which ex- amines all experience subjectively, or qua experi- enced, examines our knowledge of all phenomena alike, including even those abstract figures and numbers, which the mathematician takes as neces- sary but objectively given data. I speak, it will be observed, of pure mathematic in its essentials only. At a developed stage of it, when means have been found of measuring time-lengths, pure mathematic deals with abstract Quantity or Magni- tude, both continuous and discrete, of whatever kind and wherever found ; a determination or character which covers one half of the whole phenomenal world, the other half being covered by its inseparable but contrasted opposite, abstract 120 THE TIME-STREAM. CH?IIL Quality, both terms being understood in the most jY" general sense which they can bear, when taken as M h ? ke p purl' mutually exclusive, that is, when quantity is not M foSai ic> considered as a special kind of quality, or as if pre-io a ductive ^ ua ^ was a term convertible with nature. In another respect also, closely connected with the first, the procedures of metaphysic and mathe- matic are analogous. Inasmuch as both are fontal methods of knowledge, drawing their data from experience alone, without which they could not serve as the basis of other sciences, they both alike stand in direct and immediate contact with ex- perience. For within themselves likewise they consist of basis and superstructure ; and this basis is given by direct and immediate inspection of phenomena, its superstructure consisting of ab- stractions and inferences from those immediate inspections. Thus neither of them is originally an inductive science, but on the contrary both are analytical of immediate experience. Induction cannot properly be identified with simple registration of experiences, or an appeal to experience alone. An inductive method is not the same thing as an experiential method ; it is but a particular case of it. By Induction I understand that method of enquiry which studies the order of Keal Conditioning and its laws, by means of hypo- thesis founded on experience, prediction of conse- quences, and verification by subsequent experiment or observation. 1 This method is necessarily subse- quent to the acquisition of the ideas of real physical objects, of the order of real conditioning, and of 1 W. Stanley Jevons. The Principles of Science, Vol. II., Chap. XXIII. The Use of Hypothesis, particularly pp. 131, 137, 140. THE TIME-STREAM. 121 general laws to which that order conforms. It follows that the acquisition of these and similar ideas must be prior to the method of induction, notwithstanding that they are derived solely from experience by informal reasoning, in the shape of acts of attention, discrimination, comparison, grouping, and the like. Thus the mathematician does not begin by collecting a number of instances in which a whole has proved to be greater than its part, in order to found upon them a generalisation that, in default of contrary instances, wholes are always greater than any of their parts. Simple inspection shows him, that extension involves divisibility, and thus gives rise to that conception of whole and parts, which the empiricist supposes him to have picked up ready-made from isolated instances, on which he then founds a generalisation. The nature and meaning of equality, and its essential difference from inequality, are originally discovered in the same way. So also with the metaphysician. It is the pro- cess of experiencing, the original acquisition of experience in all its parts and kinds, which he takes as his analysandum, and like the mathematician he proceeds by inspection of the process. He cannot proceed by generalisation founded on induction, because to do so would pre-suppose some pieces of knowledge, I mean the particulars to b general- ised from, already given and known, that is, ex- perienced, prior to any experience being acquired. At the most, induction could tell us on what particular instances of experience our expectation of another particular instance of experience 122 THE TIME-STREAM. CH?III. might be securely based. But this is not the ^Y" problem proposed by metaphysic, which is the na ture of the process of experiencing itself, and m its entirety, including the laws, postulates, and re -inactive. ax i ms > f reasoning and analysis, as well as those of perception. Just as the pure geometrician, in order to ascertain the nature of a straight line, imagines or draws one, that is to say, fixes on some point in space, and then either himself moves, or imagines another point moving, towards it, without any change in the direction of the movement so as to make it become, even for a moment, a movement towards any other than the point originally fixed on, and then inspects what he has been doing, which gives him the nature of the line, so the metaphysician, wishing to ascertain the nature of experiencing, repeats the process, either in imagi- nation or in the concrete, and then describes to himself what he has been doing, which gives him the nature of the process. One instance suitably selected, and freed from irrelevant matters, such as speculations about his own powers, for instance, is as good as a million ; and a million, unless freed from irrelevant matters, would be no good at all. The whole validity of the ascertaining process depends, not on the number of the instances examined, but on the accuracy with which the exclusion of irrelevant matters, and the observation of relevant matters, have been effected. Of course this supposes, in both cases, a vast amount of previous unanalysed experience, that is, experience clothed in common-sense forms. But in both cases also, and this is the point to be specially THE TIME-STREAM. 123 noted, the fundamental ideas both of mathematic CHIII' and metaphysic are drawn, not from the common- sense forms in which experience is clothed, but from immediate experiences such as those which have gone to the making of them, which continue . a ;? d t . pre- inductive. to be experienced after they are made, but which, up to the moment when conscious analysis in each case begins, have been unnoticed and disregarded. Conscious analysis of immediate experiences is the origin of both the pursuits in question, and to that analysis the ascertainment of their fundamental ideas is due. The experiences on which both are founded lie deeper and begin earlier in the conscious life of individuals than the empiricist imagines. They have accompanied and formed part of the process of experiencing which results in the per- ception of the common-sense world of persons and things, from the dawn of consciousness. The ideas which flow from them immediately cannot be de- rived from a result which flows from them remotely. Two and two do not make four because two eggs and two eggs make four eggs, but both propositions are true (1) because acts of counting can be attended to, and named by reference to their place in a remembered experience, and (2) because nothing but the act of counting makes number. You can have five for the counting, but not for the counting only two and two. It is true that the metaphysician's processes, both of examination and of experiences examined, are processes within a single individual's experi- ence, and may therefore conceivably be due, in their entirety, to the metaphysician's idiosyncrasy alone. This is equally true of the mathematician's 124 THE TIME-STREAM. CHIIL processes. With both of them alike, the processes are subjective and individual. But there is another circumstance which constitutes a difference, and one en ti re ly m favour of the mathematician ; and it re-inductive * s * n ^ s ' that in his case the object selected for examination is restricted to two kinds of features in experience, figure and number, and also that these are features which (as other experience shows) are unaffected by the various kinds of other features, the various sense-elements, with which they are combined, and from which they are selected, by abstraction, for examination. The metaphysician's object, on the contrary, though it be the common feature in all experience, being the act or process of experiencing, cannot be assumed to be un- affected by the various contents to which it is common ; but what belongs to it as process and what belongs to it as content must first be made evident, by analysis of some concrete case, in which content and process together are taken as the analysandum. And this is what I have been attempting in the foregoing chapter. Again, figure and number are offered spontane- ously, and are almost thrust of themselves, already abstracted, upon the pure geometer and the pure arithmetician, as Subject and Objects are upon the psychologist, by the common-sense form of experi- ence. He sees and feels objects differing in size and shape from one another, he sees and feels objects, closely similar in kind, which are separate from one another, and yet constantly grouped to- gether, the fingers of his own hands for instance. The notions of greater and less, of one and of many, are in this way all but offered to the senses. THE TIME-STREAM. 125 He has but to take them up, as offered, into his CHIII' mental laboratory, that is, to attend to his own acts of counting in some cases, of comparing sizes and ^JP h y sic ' shapes in others, acts which are the same in kind Mathematic, is fontal as those which have already entered, though not . a ? d . . pre- inductive consciously dmerentiated or recognised as what they are, into the formation of common-sense objects, and which are therefore in both cases analytical of concrete phenomena, and enable abstraction to be made from their sense-content, for all abstraction pre-supposes analysis ; and the science of pure mathematic is ipso facto originated and constituted. 2 The calculation of abstract numbers, and the measuring of abstract continuous quantities by means of numbers, or units of measurement, are thus the common feature in all processes of pure mathematic, whereby it becomes the foundation for all concrete positive sciences, which are the more closely allied to it, in proportion as they approach more nearly to the ideal of mathematical exacti- tude. Accordingly I use the term pure mathematic to include (1) the study of abstract discrete quanta or numbers, and their relations inter se, whether approached directly as in Arithmetic, or indirectly as in Algebra, by means of general numerical descriptions, expressed by symbols which may turn out to have no arithmetical number corresponding to them, (2) the study of abstract continuous 2 See on this whole subjpct Herr Professor Wundt's valuable paper Uberdie Mathcmatische Induction, in his Philosophische Stiutien,Vo\. I., pp. 90, et seqq., especially Sections 4 and 5. When Professor Wundt touches on the synthetic character of addition, as in 7 + 5 = 12, it should be borne in mind, that every judgment is synthetical as a psychological process, and every judgment analytical as a form of knowledge. The evidence for this statement will appear as we proceed. 126 THE TIME-STREAM. c2m quanta of space, with their boundaries and figura- tions, and (3) the study of abstract discrete quanta or num bers together with, or in application to, abstract continuous, or continuously varying, quanta . a ? d . of any kind, as in both the lower and the higher pre- inductive. * 4 Algebra, but apart from any direct application to physics, or any kind of concrete objects. But the feature or features common to all cases of experience, or experience simply as such, are not offered in the same obvious way to the meta- physician, as abstract quantity and number are to the mathematician. He has to obtain them by an analysis of concrete common-sense experience which does not stop short at the discovery of abstract quantity and number. Neither are they indicated to him by any special practical interest, or indeed by any interest short of the desire for knowledge on its own account. His task is much more difficult, because much more complex and comprehensive. He has first to detect by analysis the features common to all kinds of experience alike, then those common to experiences of special kinds only, and then to analyse and ascertain their relations one to another, when detected. Hence the chances of error are enormously increased, and also the chances that his reading of the phenomena will differ from those of others. That his own particular common-sense experi- ence, which alone he can directly analyse, is partly the result of induction proper, or in other words, that strictly inductive reasoning (in the sense adopted above) has contributed largely to build up his common-sense conception of the world, does not show that his method of dealing with that form of THE TIME-STREAM. 127 experience is inductive. Analysis as well as indue- tion is experiential. If he goes wrong, his error lies in his idiosyncrasy, and would doubtless be repeated in all the cases of experience which he examined, however numerous. It would therefore . a d .. pre- inductive. be mere affectation, giving an illusory appearance of accumulating evidence, to multiply instances in an exposition like the present. Before proceeding, however, to the examination of more complex cases of experience, I will draw one or two con- clusions from those we have already examined, with reference to their bearing on the fontal and pre-inductive character of metaphysic. The two experiences we have examined, those of note C and the sequence CD, give us a percep- tion of the concrete stream of conscious experience occupying time. The time -stream is not marked out into past and present portions previously to being perceived, but its divisions are perceived in and with the first knowledge which we have of it, as part and parcel of the stream itself. For these divisions are nothing else but perceived differences of the specific quality in the sensation contents by which it is occupied, or which fill its otherwise pure duration, and one of which grows fainter at or before the moment when another makes its appearance above the threshold. It is indifferent whether we say that we perceive a difference between two successive sense-contents, or that we perceive two different sense-contents in succession. Time-duration and time-sequence are perceived in both cases alike. This is obvious in the latter way of expressing it. If, however, we say that a differ- ence is what we perceive, then the duration and 128 THE TIME-STREAM. CHIII' sequence are either constituted by a portion of TY~ each of the two different contents, considered as only by a mathematical instant of transi- M kfotai ic> ti n or th ev are attributed to the difference itself, re-inductive m sa yi n tnat ^ * s empirically perceived. For it is impossible to perceive a difference between succes- sive contents without perceiving something of the contents themselves, which, in order to be perceived at all, must have some duration ; and if we speak of the difference as being perceived alone, then we are ipso facto giving it a content of its own, and therefore also a duration, and a place in the sequence. But within the limits of a single content, or single difference between contents, there is no other specific mark of time-sequence, than the decrease of vividness which accompanies its passing from the state of presentation to that of retention, representation-, or memory in the sense of retention ; unless it be the increase of vividness which accom- panies its attainment of a maximum of vividness in presentation. The fact of lapse of time, or process, in conscious experience, is thus not an assumed but an actually perceived fact. The infinitesimal sub-divisions of the mathematical calculus do but repeat this experience in abstract scientific imagination. The sub-divisions of the calculus are confessedly not the primordial elements of things ; so neither are they the primordial elements of consciousness. Con- sciousness is not given to us in isolated atoms. Its simplest portion is a complex state, its smallest portion is a process. But English Empiricism has raised a dust about these matters, which has long hindered us from THE TIME-STREAM. 129 seeing facts as they really are. English empiricism CHIII' erects a misunderstood dictum of formal logic into 8 ! an a priori dogma concerning the nature of con- ^fke p Pure C> sciousness. Holding, as against the Scholastic M * th f * t at , ic> Realists, that logical " particulars," ra Katf l K aara, . a " d A . 01 pre- inductive. are the data of all generalised knowledge, it insists that all knowledge, in its most rudimentary state, comes to us originally in the form of " particulars," that is, isolated atoms of consciousness, for which a nexus must be sought elsewhere, that is, inde- pendently of the atoms themselves. It does not see that, though " particulars " may be regarded as atoms, that is, each as a single individual apart from the rest, yet they are as much a product or creature of logical thought, as " generals," ra KafloAov, are ; both alike being derived, not from " particu- lars " again, but from perceptions, that is, from the concrete stream of consciousness, which is, in its lowest terms, both when first known to us and always, a nexus of perceptions. English empiricists thus corrupt philosophy with an a priori logical dogma ; an error precisely parallel, though opposite in direction, to that of supposing that logical thought produces or creates the perceptions which it generalises. Following this false clue, empiricism proceeds to compare and classify its supposed isolated atoms of consciousness ; it groups them under separate heads, as facts of sensation, facts of perception, facts of pleasure and pain, facts of memory, facts of association, facts of imagination, facts of thought, facts of will, facts of emotion, and so on ; and in- vents, by an immense expenditure of labour, what it thinks are the several psychological functions 130 THE TIME-STREAM. CHIII' f a That which is the hidden source of their -^ nexus ; little dreaming that all this labour is spent m vam on a gratuitous fiction of its own. The gulf crea ted between the particulars, simply as supposed re-inductive ^ ac ^ s > is immensely widened and deepened, when it is considered as a gulf existing between well marked kinds of facts, belonging to sharply differentiated functions of an impalpable agent. The problem of memory among others is in this way brought to swarm with contradictions, and its solution rendered impossible on empiricist lines. I do not say that the facts of consciousness cannot be conveniently grouped under such heads as those I have mentioned ; but I say that, before they can be so grouped, they must first be examined from a purely subjective point of view, that is, as they are actually experienced, and that the common features which are disclosed by that analysis must be laid at the basis of their grouping into classes, by observation of their specific differences from one another. The reason for this is, that, unless we do so, we substitute an hypothetical nexus, drawn from the hypothesis of a Subject with particular functions, for the real nexus which subjective analysis discloses. Two strands, so to speak, of this nexus have been already disclosed by the analysis, so far as it has gone at present, time r and memory in the sense of retention, or continuity in the form and continuity in the content of con- sciousness ; and more may possibly be disclosed as we proceed. To assume at this stage any other nexus than that disclosed by the analysis would be an hypothesis alike unwarranted and unwanted. The THE TIME-STREAM. 131 need for one can at this stage be felt only because CHIII' of the fictitious dogma of isolated particulars. For r^ isolating them brings them out of harmony with an universal fact of common-sense experience, namely, that they are as a fact connected parts in the re . experience of single individuals, as understood by common-sense. The isolating dogma, therefore, forces us to an hypothesis prematurely, namely, to the hypothesis that, behind the scenes, as it were, they are held together by some immaterial and indi- visible unit, or active unity, which overcomes their isolation and establishes their continuity. The concrete or empirical individual, as known to common sense, cannot be the agent required, since he is himself an object of empirical experience, and as such must likewise be conceived to be composed of isolated particulars, the nexus of which is equally wanting. Gratuitous and indeed unin- telligible hypothesis is thus the necessary conse- quence of bad analysis; and thus also it is, that English Empiricism plays into the hands of Kantian Transcendentalism, namely, by requiring some transcendental hypothesis to establish a nexus between its isolated atoms of perception. 2. I proceed, then, in the next place to imagine a somewhat more complex case of experience, by A | a fy sis combining additional circumstances with the ex- perience of the sequence CD already analysed. Let us suppose that, while the notes of the sequence CD are being struck, some one pokes the fire, and Pro <*ss. that the sound made by poking the fire is heard simultaneously with the sequence CD, having its beginning and end co-incident with those of the sequence. And let us call this new sound P. 132 THE TIME-STREAM. c2in. I* 1 this experience we have a perception with a j^~ complex content, three sounds different from each otner an d together occupying one and the same duration. I need not stay to analyse the specific the diction quality of tne sound P, whereby it is perceived as different from the notes C and D. It is the overlapping of C and D by P to which I would call attention ; I mean the perception of P over- lapping the end of C and the beginning of D, the duration occupied by the three, taken as the content of a single but complex perception, being one and the same. What we have before us here is the perception of two threads or sequences of feeling, one of them, P, undivided by any specific difference within itself into former and latter portions, the other, CD, divided into a former part C and a latter part D, which two taken in sequence occupy the same duration as P, that is, are per- ceived simultaneously with it. If we may again use the spatial image of a rope of many threads to picture consciousness, we may speak of the threads as running parallel, instead of the sequences taking place simultaneously. CD is part of the context of P, and P is part of the context of CD. Now this is a perceptual experience which in- cludes memory, in the sense of retention, but still excludes, as before, conception and conscious com- parison. What we have in it is the perception of continuous change or process, given as a fact. Not that it is here recognised or classed as what it is, which would require the intervention of con- ception and conscious comparison. But we here find in actual experience what we afterwards describe as the fact, that consciousness is composed THE TIME-STREAM. 133 of various feelings, the durations of which overlap each other. C begins and ceases, and then D begins and ceases, while P begins with the beginning of C, and ends with the end of D. That is to say, P is perceived as occupying one and the same duration of time as the whole sequence CD, Pr( ^ f esg which fact we call their simultaneity. Without the perception of the oneness of the duration occupied by both P and CD, the perception of their simultaneity would be impossible. Moreover, since the parts C and D are a sequence, C passing into memory or representation when D begins as a presentation, therefore P also with its duration is perceived as passing away ; that is, as having two parts, a former and a latter, though these would have been undiscriminated of themselves, the former of which is simultaneous with C, the latter with D. The duration of P, therefore, as a whole, is perceived as belonging partly to the present, partly to the past ; and it must be remembered that we have no other means of dividing and measuring duration, than differences in the feelings which are its content. But this phenomenon of overlapping is not an exceptional or even a merely frequent case ; it is a constant fact universally met with in experience, and in all kinds of feeling. Consequently we are compelled by the facts of perception to conceive, that the duration of every content of consciousness, simple or complex, passes away into memory along with its content, and is no fixed form or measure, filled by a fleeting content, which for a brief moment, the empirical present, is arrested and retained therein ; or in other words, is no form or 134 THE TIME-STREAM. CHIIL measure, existing separably from, or prior to, its jy content, feeling, and into which feelings must be oTsSndi brought m order to their being perceived. Duration taneo.i mu - anc * content are inseparable, arising together in consciousness, and together passing away into memory. The opposite conception, of fixed moments of time, wherein the flow of feeling is momentarily arrested, and in the succession of which time itself consists, is rendered possible only by the empiricist fallacy of assuming the actual separability of all things for which there are separate names ; these things in the present case being a time-duration and its content of feeling called a sensation. Experience gives no warrant for any such con- ception. In experience as it actually occurs, time- duration filled with feeling is perceived as filled with simultaneously existing and overlapping feel- ings, each of which occupies a certain part of that duration, and is relieved, as it were, against other feelings occupying other parts of the same total. The number and the complexity of the feelings which for any given time, or at any given moment, are simultaneous with one another, are facts com- posing the content of the whole perception, and are indifferent to its duration. They are facts which come to light by taking what I have called a transverse section of the perception, when we arrest it artificially for examination. Their over- lapping on the other hand is a fact of immediate perception. Every feeling, therefore, including its duration, must be conceived as having its beginning prior in time to its end, that is to say, as passing, or as a THE TIME-STREAM. 135 process. Duration does not mean standing still. cSiii' Moreover, within every feeling called one and the - same with itself, minute differences must be Analysis of sounds imagined, which need not be more than differences heard si , mul - taneously. in degree of intensity ; different moments succeeding ^oration one another, just as in the sequence CD, the parts Pr of e9g of which are each singly perceptible. In thought we can carry this divisibility of a feeling ad indefinitum ; but the point at which differences in the changing content are no longer sensibly per- ceptible, or at which the content is perceived as strictly one feeling, is soon reached, That is to say, we soon reach the empirical minimum per- ceptionis in respect of intensity of content, as before in respect of time-duration. And beyond this point, where changes in one and the same feeling become insensible, though we may still conceive changes in its content as possible, we must con- ceive them as possible only on condition of increased sensibility in the organ or organs sub- serving consciousness, or what is the same thing, as changes, in those organs, which are themselves below the threshold. This mode of thinking is a consequence of the facts of actual perception, which compel us to conceive every feeling as a process. Yet the feelings which make part of a complex perception must not be thought of as appropriating each for itself exclusively a portion of the duration, so as to divide the one duration of the whole per- ception into several parallel or simultaneous durations. For this would be to import the spatial imagery of parallel threads in a rope, used only as an illustration, into our conception of the thing 136 THE TIME-STREAM. CHIII. illustrated, namely, simultaneity of feelings in time. jj~^~ Simultaneity means existing either at one and the of sounds same instant, or for one and the same duration of time. Strictly simultaneous feelings are those which Time exist for one and the same duration. The self-same the i lu rat ion duration may be occupied by many different feelings, some of which may be simple and others complex. Feelings which overlap, but the beginnings and ends of which do not coincide, are only partly simultaneous. Thus C and D are each partly simultaneous with P ; the sequence CD is strictly simultaneous with it. These facts taken together constitute what is called the empirical continuity of the complex stream of consciousness, as a fact not of inference but of perception. I have indeed employed inference in proving it to be so ; for the fact has been overlaid with assumptions, and it was necessary to clear it. But in perception the doubt whether feelings, which perceptibly arise and pass away into memory, may not be made up out of imperceptible parts, which for certain brief durations called present moments do not pass away, does not arise. Their overlapping is perceived ; and the perception of overlapping is the perception of the empirical continuity of the whole. And for certaipi large portions, such as those which constitute single periods of normal waking consciousness, this con- tinuity of the time-stream is never broken, because, at whatever point we select in it, we always find that some feeling has begun before some other feeling ends. The duration common to all feelings is what we know as Time, which may therefore with strict propriety be described THE TIME-STREAM. 137 as the duration of empirical change, or the CHin. duration of process. ^~ The term empirical contains the key of the position. It is in process or in change, as actually perceived, that time-duration is perceived as an inseparable element in it. Change cannot be per- Pro f ess ceived without our perceiving at least two different contents, a former and a latter, though the exact point of transition between them may not be pre- cisely determinable. The idea of a precise point of transition pre-supposes the perception of change. But the perception of change does not pre-suppose the idea of a precise point of transition. Such a point cannot be either perceived or thought of, without our perceiving or thinking of an empirical change. When such a point is thought of only, it is what is called a mathematical point or division of time, and as such has no duration. It does not exist for even an infinitesimal moment. No number however great of such points put together, that is, imagined in immediate sequence, can com- pose even the briefest moment of time-duration. Indeed to imagine them in strictly immediate sequence is impossible ; for sequence means only sequence in time, and therefore to imagine one point or division of time sequent on another is to imagine some time-duration between them (other- wise they would not be two), which contradicts the idea of their sequence being immediate. To identify or confuse empirical change with the precise moment of change mathematically taken is therefore a gross fallacy, which is not made more acceptable by the fact, that it is the parent of a numerous progeny. It re-appears in the case of 138 THE TIME-STREAM. cSm motion, which is a kind of change in which both -- time and space are involved. And with regard to space and its geometrical divisions, points, lines, 8 i m an( ^ SUI> f aces > a precisely parallel fallacy is met with. Time The whole group are a striking instance of that the duration . of tendency of common-sense thinking:, not only to Process. J J endow abstract thought-entities with perceptual reality, but also to conceive them as the real but noumenal conditions of perceptual realities them- selves. Few terms in philosophy are used in a greater variety of significations than the term Time, and since it is at once one of the most familiar, as well as one of the most fundamental, of all our ideas, the ambiguities and differences of opinion to which it gives rise are, as may easily be imagined, almost ineradicable. Time described as above, the dura- tion of process, is time as object of reflective per- ception, the distinguishable but inseparable co- element with feeling in every perception, and common to all. It is duration, but duration of a process ; for the co- element of feeling, which together with duration constitutes an empirical percept, involves variety or change in the ways we have seen above. The duration itself, as we have also seen, is affected with the change or flux of its co-element. Time as the co-element of feeling in perception is the earliest and simplest form in which we know it, the origin of all our further knowledge about it, the source from which all the other significations given to the word are derived. First among these other significations comes time in the abstract, or as an abstract notion, treated as if it could stand alone, and in the THE TIME-STREAM. 139 simplest sense of duration. In this sense it is in- different to change and unchange, but at the same ~ time it is an ens imaginarium, a creature of abstract thought treated as an empirical thing, and is imasrined as a sort of unilinear medium in which all . Time A . the duration changes take place, and all unchanging states Pr( f es8> exist. Next comes the sense in which time, besides being treated as an empirical though abstract thing, is also treated as itself changing or varying, though with an unvarying rate of change. This is called "absolute time." It is said by Newton to "flow equably," and its equable flow is made to serve, in mathematic, as a standard of meaurement to which other variations are referred. Thirdly we have time used in the sense of an order or series of empirical occurrences considered as discrete and successive ; as for instance, the succession of day and night, the seasons of the year, the ticking of a clock, the beating of waves on a beach. This I apprehend is what Words- worth means, when he speaks of " doleful time," and of the possibility of regions " where time and space are not " ; and Aristotle, when he calls it the " measure of motion." Fourthly we have time used as if it meant, not a succession of empirical occurrences, which may or may not include intrinsic change, but the abstract relation of succession between empirical occur- rences, each of which is taken as unchanging for a moment at least, and has its beginning and end simultaneous. These occurrences are called present moments, TO. vvv, and the relation of succession between them is time in this fourth sense. 140 THE TIME-STREAM. BOOK I. CH. III. Analysis of sounds heard simul- taneously. Time the duration of Process. 3. Memory Proper. It is, I think, sufficiently plain, that all these four senses of the word time are derived either by way of adding something to, or by way of taking some- thing from, the perception of feelings in duration, which is the experience which gives us time in the first sense, as duration of process. This perception is the first thing in our knowledge, its ultimate origin, and therefore its final test, the yvupipov TJ/U>, upon which all our ideas in this matter are suspended. The conception of time in the sense of duration of process is founded on simple analysis of perceptual fact. Time and feeling are the distinguishable but inseparable elements of the process called perception, taken in its lowest terms. Time is not perceived before or apart from feeling, nor feeling before or apart from time. It is only by abstraction, by thought supervening on per- ception, that the two elements can be sundered, and that only in the objects which are so treated, not in the thinking process itself. There is no other way but abstraction to sunder them, because there are no other facts but perceptions to go upon. 3. The foregoing Section has shown how the varied contents of an empirical present moment, wherever it may be taken in the time-stream of consciousness, together form part of a single con- crete process, transverse sections of which, as a concrete whole, can only be taken arbitrarily. By the arbitrary character of a transverse section is meant, that such a section is never a datum of perception, but must be introduced by thought. Any such section will always be found to divide some contents in their midst ; that is to say, some feelings will have been already in consciousness at the instant THE TIME-STREAM. 141 which is called the beginning, and some feelings CHIII'. will continue in consciousness after the instant * which is called the end, of any empirical present moment, and therefore of the whole transverse segment which the duration of any particular feeling is employed to determine. We have also taken an empirical present moment to consist of feel- ings which are present once only, namely, from their first arising in consciousness to their first disappear- ance from it ; from their being first perceived to their being first forgotten. Presentation and repre- sentation, or memory in the sense of mere retention, have been alone included in the empirical present, so far as we have hitherto examined it. But it will be remembered that much more than this was included in the experience retained for present analysis at the beginning of 2 of the preceding Chapter. Memories in the usual sense of the word, or memories proper, were included in it, though only in their relation to an empirical present, not in their relation to the common-sense objects or events of which they are said to be memories. Now the term memory, in this its proper and usual sense, implies previous oblivion, or disappearance from consciousness ; that is, implies recurrence in consciousness of a forgotten content, or occurrence of a content with (at least) spontaneous recognition of it, as having occurred before. This phenomenon, this feature in empirical present moments of experience, we are now in a position to examine, owing to the previous steps of our analysis, particularly the last. The phenomenon of memory proper, distin- guished from mere retention by the circumstance 142 THE TIME-STREAM. CH?III'. f recurrence, or apparent recurrence, of a con- ~ tent previously experienced and then forgotten, M ro m 7 is what I now take for analysis. And I take it in its lowest terms. That is to say, I take those cases of it, in which the recognition which it involves is sponta- neous, not dependent upon any conscious act of attention, comparison, or thought. These cases it is which are the basis of all the rest, supplying as it were their material, inasmuch as they contain the first or simplest perception of facts, which alone enable us to explain or understand those more complex cases in which (after the acquisition of common-sense forms of thought and speech) we describe ourselves as being distinctly aware, that we have felt or met with such and such a content, thing, event, or person, before. The point now to be examined is, How does any part of a present experience appear as a recurrence, that is, appear to have also made part of a past experience ; or, What are the features in virtue of which it appears as a past in the empirical present ? The truth to real fact of appearances of this kind, or even the possibility of their corresponding to real fact as distinguished from consciousness, and so being valid evidence of particular real experiences, events, and objects, in the past, is not now in question. From questions of this kind we must still continue to abstract, until the meaning of reality as distinguished from consciousness, and therefore of consciousness as distinguished from reality, has been to some con- siderable extent ascertained. It is simply with the entrance of memory proper, or recognition of a past, into empirical present moments of experience, as part of their content, thereby indefinitely THE TIME-STREAM. 143 enlarging the field which those present moments CHIII'. embrace, which is the field of experience, that we ^~ have now to do. Again, then, I take an instance from the common-sense form of experience. I am sitting, let us suppose, in my room listening to the wind roaring in the branches of the trees outside my window. Suddenly I hear voices singing the first verse of God Save the Queen. Presently they die away, and (let us suppose) in two minutes both tune and words have passed away from my con- sciousness altogether, and are forgotten ; the roaring of the wind continues. Then, however, at the expiration of the two minutes, I hear what we call the same voices singing another verse of the same tune ; suppose as they repass my window on their rounds. At once a representation of the first verse, with its context the wind, arises in con- sciousness, along with the presentation of the second verse in the same context. This latter consciousness, namely, the presentation and re- tained presentation of the second verse, with that of the wind, is now the empirical present ; and this empirical present also contains a represen- tation of my having heard the first verse, some two minutes previously. Such is the experience, described in common-sense terms, of the empirical present moment, taken as commencing after the expiration of the two minutes. The question is, What features in this present experience lead me to consider one part of it, the hearing of the first verse, as belonging to an experience which was actually present but is now wholly past, as well as to the experience of the actually present moment, 144 THE TIME-STREAM. cSfii'. after having been absent from consciousness during a certain interval ? 8 Memory The example stands for cases which are so Proper. simple and so familiar, that many persons might be tempted to say, it carries its explanation in itself, which is, that we remember the first verse as having occurred previously to the second, because we actually experienced it previously. But this would be a total mis-conception. It assumes the actual previous experience of the first verse as a fact, and it also assumes a knowledge of the possibility of such a fact on the part of the remembering Subject. Whereas the whole gist of the question is, how we come by the knowledge at all, or, in general terms, what evidence a present moment of experience can afford for the past experience of any fact not contained in that present experience as an actually present part of it ; and therefore, in the present case, for the hearing of the first verse having been a presentative experience in the past. It is inad- missible to assume its real occurrence, and still more to assume that the remembering Subject is already aware of its possibility. Others again might be inclined to suppose, that the way to arrive at an answer to the question lies through first establishing the reality of a permanent Subject of consciousness, or of a permanent Thinking Power, and thence deducing the idea in question, leaving the confirmation of this hypo- thesis, and the validity of the explanation founded on it, to future experience. But this method would be equally hopeless. For the idea of a per- manent reality of any kind pre-supposes the ideas THE TIME-STREAM. 145 of a real existence which is not actually present in CHni. experience, and this idea arises only in and with ^~ the phenomena of memory proper, which are now under analysis. Apart from these phenomena, the idea of a time, or anything else, not belonging to an empirical present moment, is non-existent, unless by a further assumption we endow our permanent reality with it, as an a priori idea. It is these very phenomena of memory which origin- ally suggest it. The only question is, How ? Returning, then, to the phenomena simply as phenomena of consciousness, and putting aside the question of their real genesis, or the real agents at work in supporting or producing them, a short scrutiny will suffice to reveal the secret. The em- pirical present moment which we are examining, taken as beginning at the expiration of the two minutes, is an experience parallel to that of the D in the P C D of the foregoing Section, only some- what more complex. The place of P in that experience is here taken by the roaring of the wind, which at the moment when the sound of the second verse has quite died away is still a pre- sentation, but one the earlier parts of which are retained in representation, and therefore one which as a retained presentation goes back beyond the commencement of the second verse, beyond the commencement of the two minutes' interval, and also beyond that of the first verse, now present as a representation. The retained presentation of the wind is continuous with its actual presentation, at the moment when the second, or now present, moment of experience expires. And also as re- tained that is, as a presentation, it fills up the K 146 THE TIME-STREAM. CH?III. interval between the pure representation of the ~^ first verse and the retained presentation, or repre- sentation, of the second verse. It is in fact a continuous experience, at some times accompanied at others unaccompanied, by a context, and so serves to bind together whatever contexts accom- pany it into a single experience. What those con- texts are, in the case now supposed, is the point we have to determine. The question can plainly be answered only by analysis of the empirical present moment which contains the retention of the second verse of God save the Queen, and its context the roaring of the wind. Now this moment also contains a repre- sentation of the hearing of the first verse ; but how does this show, that the first verse has been heard previously to its appearing as part of the content of the present moment, or is a representation of what has once been, but is no longer, a presented content of consciousness? Why should not that which we call the remembered presentation be a mere appearance or illusion created by, and be- longing solely to, the now present moment of representation ? In this way, and for this reason. The first verse appears in the present moment, not only in two characters, but at two separate places of what also appears in that moment, on another ground, namely, the continuous roaring of the wind, as a single experience, and one which con- tinues to appear as a single experience when the now present moment becomes itself objectified as past. I mean, that the first verse appears in the present moment both as a representation following the hearing of the second verse, and as a repre- THE TIME-STREAM. 147 sented content preceding the hearing of the second CHIIL verse, and separated from it by an interval filled by ^7 the roaring of the wind. One and the same con- tent, the first verse, has two different time-locations in one and the same connected experience. This doubleness of time-location of one and the same content is the decisive circumstance. But other circumstances concur. In the second of these locations it is a content of representation, in the first it is object as well as content of representation. Moreover as repre- sented object it is represented as a presentation first retained and then ceasing, while, as a content belonging to the present moment, it is a pure representation. But we first recognise, or become distinctly aware of, this double location of the content, and of the different character attaching to it in each location, only as the experience proceeds ; that is to say, in the immediate sequel of what we have called the present moment, as it recedes into the past. I mean, that the content of that immediate sequel is or includes an awareness of the present moment immediately preceding it, both as a representation and as a representation of its own content as a separate and prior presenta- tion. In fact, owing to the continued presence of the common context, the wind, both the repre- sentation and the content which it represents as a presentation form parts of a single experience, notwithstanding that the presentation which is represented has dropped entirely out of conscious- ness for some time, the two minutes, before the occurrence of the representation or faint duplica- tion of it in what we have called the present 148 THE TIME-STREAM. GHIH. moment. And this distinct perception of the two ~~ moments, the represented and the representing, t> em g separate parts of a single experience is incompatible with the idea, that the latter moment is in reality creative of the former moment along with its presentative character, so reducing its real occurrence to the rank of an illusory appearance. In short it precludes the topsy-turvey idea, that empirical presentations depend for their existence on empirical representations, with its corollary, that perception depends for its existence on thought, instead of vice versa. I have called the double time -location of one and the same content the decisive circumstance. But of what is it decisive ? It is decisive of the true con- ception of memory proper ; being that feature in its analysis which, in combination with the pre- viously demonstrated reflective nature essential to all consciousness, accounts for its otherwise paradoxical character as a mode of knowledge immediately intuitive of the past, that is, on current ways of thinking, of the non-existent ; notwith- standing which paradoxical character it was found theoretically necessary to assume its validity in normal and rudimentary cases, since without that assumption no connected chain of experience, no idea of any really existing object beyond the empirical contents of consciousness from time to time present, could be thought of as true, or their objects as real. The necessity for basing all con- nected knowledge upon an assumption, and that the assumption of a paradox, namely, the para- doxical character of memory proper as a psycho- logical function, is removed by the analysis now THE TIME-STREAM. 149 given of it as a process of consciousness ; since that c2iir analysis shows at least the possibility of a content, ~ which in prcesenti is known only as a representa- tion, having been real in the past as a presentation ; the fading of presentations into unconsciousness being a fact which is known to be real from single (though not simple) empirical moments of con- sciousness, and both the fading of a presentation and its representation at a subsequent moment being exhibited, by the analysis, as moments belonging to a single chain of consciousness, which as a whole is a case, not of memory proper, but of memory in the sense of retention simply. In short the validity of memory proper is shown by includ- ing instances of it, as parts of wholes, within instances of memory simply in the sense of reten- tion ; in which sense, as we have seen, it is involved in every instance of sense-perception. It is thus plain, I think, how experiences, which we unhesitatingly assume in common-sense thought to be experiences which have really occurred in the past, (the first verse of God Save the Queen in the present instance), have come originally, and prior to common-sense thought, to be considered as belonging to a portion of wholly past time, solely on the evidence contained in. actually present empirical moments. The evidence consists in the present representation of a continuous content of consciousness, stretching indefinitely backwards in retrospect, and accompanied at intervals by various other contents of consciousness, to which it serves as common context. Nothing has been appealed to, save the experience of an actual empirical present, and yet we see how the idea of a real 150 THE TIME-STREAM. CH?III'. experience which is wholly past, or what is the j-~ same thing, of a time wholly past filled with a real content, arises, not by inference, but without any conscious activity, sense of effort, question, or purpose, inevitably and spontaneously, from facts which are wholly contained in an actually present experience. I mean, that the idea is in no way founded on the assumption that the experience now called past was real, but on the contrary is itself the first intimation we have of the possible reality of a past experience, the first arising of a knowledge of experience as past, or with the marks of belonging to the past about it. It must be observed, however, that I avowedly take an instance of the simplest possible kind, namely, one in which the overlapping feature, the common context connecting present with past, is a retained sense-perception (the roaring of the wind), and not a pure representation, or series of pure representations, or any kind of content, e.g., emotion, which may be bound up with them. I do so in order to avail myself of terms, the mean- ing of which is already ascertained by the previous steps of the analysis. But nothing essential to memory depends upon our selecting sense-percep- tion as the common context, or nexus of a present with a past experience. -The fact of remembering may itself be remembered. For instance, the present representation of a past sound, which we have just been analysing, is, as such, an actual experience, and we may have a representation of it, connected with it as a previously experienced representation by a common context of actual experiences of any kind. THE TIME-STREAM. 151 Suppose, for instance, that while I am still Sm. remembering the hearing of the first verse of God ~^~ Save the Quern, the thought of Rule Britannia occurs to me, and before I have ceased to think of Rule Britannia a knock at the door is heard, and the thought of a friend occurs, whom I was expecting to call upon me. The friend is one with whom I am accustomed to go to musical entertainments, and the thought of him brings back the representation of my hearing the two verses of God Save the Queen. I am now not only remem- bering the hearing of the first verse, but also remembering that I have remembered hearing it. And the common context connecting the actually present moment with the hearing of the first verse has now become a somewhat lengthy chain, chiefly consisting of pure representations. In this way all actual experiences, which are or have been con- nected together by overlapping or common contexts of experience, form a single chain of states revived or revivable in the consciousness of a present moment. All of them, in fact, are cases which fall under the reason of the case which has been here analysed, that is, are cases of memory proper which are covered by that analysis, provided they belong to a series or sequence of process-contents of consciousness which remains throughout actually unbroken. I shall therefore say no more about them here. It is different with cases, which are also usually and rightly classed as memories, but in which an actual interruption of the stream of consciousness has occurred between the representing memory and the experience represented by it. Before THE TIME-STREAM. cSm. representations belonging to this class of cases can be rightly apprehended by the experiencer of them as memories of past experience, some reasoning process involving purposive attention, comparison, and inference, must have been included in actually present moments of his consciousness, showing how the interval or intervals of interrupted conscious- ness have been filled, and exhibiting the represen- tations as true continuations of the experiences which they represent, notwithstanding the total interruption of consciousness which has actually occurred between them. Instances of the kind intended are where we to-day remember as ours the experience of yesterday after a sound night's sleep, or where we remember in middle life the long past experiences of childhood. Inference is involved in the first appearance of these represen- tations in the character of true memories ; but when once they have assumed that character, the process, which originally included inference, may and does become so abbreviated and facili- tated by habit, as to appear immediate and spontaneous, just as in the simplest cases of memory proper, where the sequence of con- sciousness is actually unbroken. But to go into these more complex cases, in which inference is involved, would take me beyond the province of the present Section. The question of their validity will meet us again, at a later stage of our analysis. One more point remains to be noticed, which perhaps may best be introduced in the form of an objection. Suppose, then, it should be objected, that the foregoing account is insufficient to explain the chief fact in the simplest case of memory THE TIME-STREAM. 153 proper, like the one just examined, namely, the fact that what we remember in it is the presenta- tive hearing of the first verse, that is, that we remember certain contents as presentations, whereas the proposed explanation accounts only for representations of them being brought into the present experience, though in the character of representations belonging to the past. Presenta- tions and representations are, it may be said, unmistakably different experiences, unmistakably different in the felt quality of the sensation which they contain ; barring cases of hallucination, a phenomenon which of itself implies that radical difference between them is the normal case. And therefore any proposed account of memory, which does not account for the fact, that what we are said to remember we can remember as having once been a presentation, is totally insufficient, even as a merely analytical explanation of the phenomenon. To this I reply as follows. The objection is only valid on the assumption that, in the simplest case of memory proper, taken by itself, that is, as a case occurring once, or for the first time only, such as the case which has just been before us, the felt qualitative difference between presentations and representations is already known and familiar, an assumption which is of course wholly inadmissible. The true state of the case is this. The repre- sentation, in the empirical present, of the first verse as belonging to the past, is in fact and implicitly a representation of it as a presentation, though not as a presentation explicitly dis- tinguished from a representation. In order to our remembering or representing it explicitly as having THE TIME-STREAM. CH?IIL once been a presentation, we must first have ~ distinguished presentations from the represen- wpe2 r tations of them, in point of belonging, the former to time past, the latter to time present. And we have already seen, that only the first step towards drawing this distinction explicitly is given in the experience now analysed, which is one among the many instances on which that explicitly drawn distinction is originally founded. Just in the same way, experiences like that now analysed give us only the first step towards discriminating the felt qualitative difference between presentations and representations, which is so familiar to us in later experience. This is so because they are the first or simplest experiences in which presentations and representations are brought together in a manner admitting comparison, as presentations and repre- sentations of one and the same content. Still even this statement of the case, it may possibly be urged, does not suffice to bridge the gulf, which in later experience we find existing, between presentation and representation, as kinds of experience essentially different in point of felt quality. It does not show how a representation can appear as a representation of a presentation, seeing that ex hypothesi, when it occurs, the pre- sentation which it is supposed to represent cannot be compared with it (having ceased to exist as a presentation), and the identity of the two contents perceived in everything but in the difference of the felt quality. Or, otherwise stated, it does not show how a representation alone can ever give rise to the idea of an experience so essentially different in felt quality as a presentation undoubtedly is. THE TIME-STREAM. Now if this objection could be sustained, it would be fatal to many other things besides the analysis now in question. In being fatal to the trustworthiness of memory proper in its simplest form, it must be fatal to any philosophical theory whatever, since all connected experience, which is built on memory, would be thereby shown to be incapable of a rational explanation. But in reality the difference between the two kinds of experience, presentation and representation, is not so great as the objection supposes, not so deep as to amount to a separation. The gulf between them, if we are to speak of it as a gulf, has in fact been already bridged by showing, as it was shown in Chapter II., 3, that every empirical perception, even the simplest sense-presentation, is a retained percep- tion, that is, a rudimental memory, a representation as well as a presentation. What our analysis has done, since that point was established, has con- sisted simply in showing the steps in actual experience, whereby what is implicitly contained in the simplest perception is differentiated, and perceived explicitly as an actual experience con- taining both pure representation of a past and retained presentation of a present. In this way of regarding it, the difficulty is to see, not how a pure representation can be representation of a presentation, but how, in the simplest cases at any rate, it could possibly avoid being so. If on the other hand we regard presentation and representa- tion as two different psychological functions, and consequently regard presentations and representa- tions ab initio as empirically separate, then the gulf between them (so to call it) continues 156 THE TIME-STREAM. CH?IIL unbridged, the problem of memory unsolved, and j~~ a rational explanation of experience is thereby S5r y Preluded. In complete accordance with this view is what has now been shown, in the instance of memory proper just examined. In a retained presentation where the presentation is brief, as in note C, or D, we are really representing it for a brief period after it has ceased as a presentation ; and here we hardly ever distinguish the representation from the presentation at all, but think of the whole as a presentation. In a prolonged case, like that of the wind in the present instance, where what we call one and the same presentation is continually renewed, we are really representing the earlier parts of the whole experience, while receiving new presentations of what is qualitatively the same sound; and here again we usually think of the whole as a single continuous presentation. Yet in both these cases there is, in the representative part of the process, what is really a representation of a presentation, and of one which has actually ceased to be presented. Or in other words, the presentative character of the past presentation is what is retained in (though not as) the representa- tion of it. The mere fact of the continuance of presentative perceptions in memory, though with loss of the peculiar vividness of presentation, implies that they are still perceived as having once been presentatively vivid, just as they are still perceived as having once been actually present. There is no reason why this relation between representation and presentation should cease to exist, when the presentation represented is repre- THE TIME-STREAM. 157 sented as belonging to a time which is separated, cSin. by an intervening experience, from the representa- JT^~ tion of it in the present moment. It is simple fact that we do, and there is no reason why we should not, represent the presentative character peculiar to presentations, in representing the presentations themselves as belonging to the past. The generic sameness of presentation and representation, shown in Chapter II., 3, as a fact of experience, is the bridge between them, when they appear as specifically different in later experiences. I propose at this point to make a short di- - Digression gression, for the purpose of facilitating the appre- hension of what to many of my readers will be a novel method, by dropping for a time the thread of simple analysis of experience, and adverting, though very briefly, to the question of the real conditions which support the process of memory proper, an instance of which has just been analysed. This question covers what may be called the other half necessary to complete the picture of the pro- cess as a concrete and really existent whole ; and thus the view which I am led to entertain regard- ing it will be briefly indicated. But in doing this I wish to state most distinctly, as I am bound to do, that I bring forward these real conditions only by anticipation and provisionally, relying for the justification of them solely upon the future course of the analysis of experience taken simply as such, in the same way as it has been taken hitherto. At this point they can appear only as assumptions, and as assumptions I wish to treat them. 158 THE TIME-STREAM cin. I assume, then, that the phenomena of sense- ^~ perception, presentation, retained presentation, ^n^rf representation, and memory proper, up to the point at which they have now been analysed, and taken simply as phenomena of consciousness, depend proximately for their genesis or appearance in the consciousness of an individual Subject, and for the course they take therein, upon that indi- vidual's neuro-cerebral system and its working, as part of a living organism in interaction with the forces of an external physical world. Some real agent or agency supporting them these phenomena of consciousness must undoubtedly have. And, for reasons which will appear as we proceed with the analysis of experience, I prefer the hypothesis now mentioned to that of any purely psychical agent or agency. Indeed, the very fact which I have just called undoubted, the fact that there is a real agent or agency supporting consciousness as it appears in the case of individuals, and also the fact involved with it, that its operation takes place in the oppo- site direction to that of consciousness as a knowing, a forward-going direction, not a back- ward-going one as that of consciousness seems to be in retrospection from the present moment, are facts which can only be established by the analysis of consciousness without assumptions. Except as facts of the common-sense sort, these are not facts which are per se nota. For the present purpose, then, I distinguish provisionally two parts in conscious life as a whole, two processes concomitant to each other, and together constituting the whole concrete process of experiencing as a really THE TIME-STREAM. 159 existent process ; one the process of conscious- ness or experience (which when taken alone seems to run backwards, inasmuch as it is experienced solely in retrospection from a present moment), the other the neuro-cerebral process upon which the former depends for its genesis, and for the order in which its several states or process- contents occur. This latter process is always con- ceived as advancing in a forward direction ; and the process of consciousness or experience, when conceived as concomitant with and dependent upon it, is also conceived as advancing in the same forward direction, and then appears as itself an existent, a character in which it is contradis- tinguished from itself in its other character of a knowing, or as experience simply. Consider the matter thus. If, after attaining the conception, that a series of states of conscious- ness depends upon a series of parallel changes in the neuro-cerebral system, as part and parcel of a world of material objects, we place ourselves in imagination at any present moment of experience in which we both look back upon a series of remembered states, say the experience of the pre- vious half-hour, and at the same time imagine this series connected with that of changes in our neuro- cerebral system, upon which they have depended for their occurrence, two things will be noticeable. First, the series of remembered states, taken by themselves, will appear to have been receding into the past from the present moment, which is at the end of the supposed half-hour. Secondly, this same series of states, taken in connection with the neuro-cerebral changes on which they depend, will 100 THE TIME-STREAM. c2?in appear to have been advancing up to that same present moment, from the point of time which is Memory a the beginning of the supposed half-hour. And Digression to Real Conditioning. the same two-fold appearance will continue, if we to" Real suppose farther, that the present moment, from which we look, itself advances with successive increments of experience. The same series of states of consciousness, always seen from a present moment, will always appear to be moving in two opposite directions at once, retrogression and ad- vance. What is the reason of this double and apparently, at first sight, contradictory appearance ? The reason is contained in the facts themselves. Present moments of consciousness belong, equally and at once, both to series or contents of con- sciousness and to the Subjects or Percipients of them. But the question is, how present moments of consciousness become capable of detachment (in thought) from the series of states of consciousness to which they belong, so as to be capable of being attributed to real Subjects or Percipients, as moments of their conscious life, moments more- over which in themselves are indifferent to any particular content, as well as being movable (as it were) from point to point along the series. Now this detachment (in thought) of present moments from their own contents, and from the series of those contents, is involved in the perception of the fact which met us when analysing time-sequences in a former Section (Chap. II., 4), namely, that the retrograde movement of a series of contents of consciousness, and the forward movement of the present instants of origin in which those con- tents rise above the threshold, are one and the THE TIME-STREAM. 161 same thing. It is here that the perception of the CHIII' double movement of consciousness in opposite directions arises ; and here also that the detach- Memory Proper. ment begins of present moments of perceiving Digression from their own contents, which present moments to , .. . . Conditioning. 01 perceiving are then taken as moments of abstract consciousness, indifferent to any particular content. For so soon as we have distinguished abstract present instants of origin from the con- tents, and series of contents, of consciousness which arise in them, we are at once forced to raise the further question, how such abstract instants of origin, or (what is the same thing) such moments of abstract consciousness, which per se have no content, and are therefore indifferent to the con- tent which arises in them, can be conceived as possible. An answer to this question is supplied by the conception, founded on inference, of real Subjects or Percipients, to whom the abstract present instants of origin, or moments of abstract con- sciousness, are conceived as belonging. And this conception also removes the apparent contradiction between the two opposite directions simultaneously taken by one and the same stream of consciousness, by showing that the respects are different, in which the opposite directions are imputed to it. For when, having arrived at the conception of real Existents or Agents, we attri- bute to them the capacity of being conscious, that is, of feeling, perceiving, and so on, we both adopt ipso facto this abstract view of present moments, and also identify the direction in time taken by the real changes in real Subjects, upon which those L 162 THE TIME-STREAM. CH?IH. abstract present moments are conceived as depen- dent, with the apparent direction in time taken by those abstract present moments themselves, that is, the direction opposite to that of the series of states or contents of consciousness, along which, as present instants of perceiving, they appear to move. Moreover the direction in time taken by the real changes in real Subjects or Percipients is the same as that taken by changes in the material world, of which they are a part. Hence it is, that the time-order of real conditioning always and necessarily appears to follow a direction opposite to that followed by the time-order of perception, which is the order of knowledge, and which (it is important to remember) is given by immediate experience, and in no wise depends either upon the conception or inference of real percipients, or upon the distinct awareness of abstract present instants of origin, or abstract moments of perceiving apart from their contents or percepts. It should moreover be noticed, that the two opposite directions in time now spoken of are both of them contained in past and present time. I mean, that no reference to future time is necessarily involved in or suggested by them. But if we suppose the idea of future time to have been already acquired, as it must certainly have been acquired before we can attain the conception of real conditions, and therefore of Percipients ; and if we bring the idea of future time into connection with these two opposite directions of experience in time past and present ; then further peculiarities, not without special interest, will be disclosed. THE TIME-STREAM. 163 In the first place, the future in the order of genesis or real conditioning, supposing us to look from a given present moment, will lie in the same ^"7 direction as that same order in the past, of which Digression in fact it is imagined as the continuation. Future ^ t . R : eal . t Conditioning. real events, including the future occurrence of states of consciousness as existents, will then be thought of as consequences of, or as an evolution from, real events in the past, not as arising out of, or as coming to meet us from, an unknown reservoir or laboratory of fates or fortunes, called vaguely the future, or futurity. The idea of the future being the real source or determinant of events and experiences, which in common-sense language are figuratively said to meet us, and which we are said to face, in advancing into the future, must seek its justification, if at all, else- where than in the experiences now examined. I do not say that there are no grounds, from which we might infer the present and past existence of real objects and real events, which to us in our ordinary experience are future, and at the most not-yet existent ; but only that such grounds must lie somewhere in the nature and laws of real con- ditioning, and not in the analysis of consciousness alone, apart from its real conditions of existing in individual Subjects. If in the next place we turn to the future in the order of perception or knowledge, a different and it may be unexpected result awaits us. The so- called past of memory, anything whatever which has once been experienced, has possibly an endless future before it. It is a content of consciousness which is capable of retention, recall, and trans- 164 THE TIME-STREAM. CH?in mission to conscious beings, other than those who r~ originally experienced it, and whose existence may Memory }j e a t an y e p OC h whatever in the real future, count- D . on ing from the moment of that original experience. ^ w *^ not cease to ^ e P ast ^ memory ; but, as a past of memory, it may continue to exist in times that are future in the order of real conditioning, times whose future presence is indefinitely remote. In thinking of it as having been we ipso facto think of it as in its own nature indestructible in the future ; since we think of it as necessarily capable of being perceived, supposing there should be any Being or Beings capable, on their part, of perceiv- ing and comprehending the whole content of that time, which to us is past and gone, in a consciousness which to them would be an empirical present. But to return to the main current of our thought, from these considerations which may, I fear, be only too justly regarded as a digression within a digression. Consciousness taken as an existent is dependent upon neuro-cerebral processes which go on con- comitantly with it, and pursue the same direction. When we ask, why it is that such and such a sense- perception occurs in consciousness at such and such a time, the answer is, because such and such a neuro-cerebral process has just taken place, or is taking place, at that time. When we ask, why such and such a representation follows that sense- perception, the answer is, because such and such a neuro-cerebral process follows the one which has supported it. The existence, and order of sequence and co-existence of states of consciousness, (not, however, their specific quality or whatness as ultimate elements of experience), are what this THE TIME-STREAM. 165 hypothesis professes to account for. This it is, and cSm. only this, which is left unaccounted for, in the ^ analysis of experience simply. When, for instance, it is stated simply as a fact, as it was stated a few pages above, that, on the presentation of a particular sound, the representa- tion of another closely similar sound at once arises in consciousness, the reason for this fact is to be sought, not in consciousness, but in the working of the neuro-cerebral system. And the reason is two- fold, (1) that the same part (speaking broadly) of the neuro-cerebral system is concerned in sup- porting both the presentation and the representa- tion of both the sounds in question, and (2) that, this being so, the process which supports the presenta- tion of the second (or recalling) sound sets up a process closely similar to that which had previously been set up by the process which supported the presentation of the first (or recalled) sound, and which had then supported its retained presentation. This closely similar process, now set up by the process supporting the second (or recalling) sound, is that which supports the representation of the first (or recalled) sound ; and it is clear, that it will also support, along with it, the representation of the context in which it occurred, supposing that context to depend upon the same part (still speaking broadly) of the neuro-cerebral organism. That is to say, keeping to the instance analysed, the representation of a sound actually heard as a presentation simultaneously with our hearing the first verse of God Save the Queen, say for instance the bark of a dog, will accompany or tend to accompany the representation of that first verse. 166 THE TIME-STREAM. OHIII. The neuro-cerebral process supporting these 7-- representations is plainly different numerically Memory f rom that w hich supported the presentations and retained presentations now represented. So like- Digression w * se ^ ie representations supported are numerically different from the presentations and retained pre- sentations which they represent. It is a mere blunder, caused by the looseness of common-sense thought, to suppose that one and the same experience is ever recalled or repeated. A numerical identity of two experiences, one past the other present, is a self-contradiction ; an event of any kind once gone is gone for ever. But neither is their identity in point of content com- plete. Similarity of content between two or more experiences, so great as to render them undis- tinguishable except by the place which, owing to their context, they are perceived to occupy in a single series of experiences, is the utmost that can be meant by calling them identical. But this similarity in the process of consciousness, for the genesis of which neuro-cerebral processes are sufficient to account, is itself sufficient to enrich a present with the record of a past experience, by giving a localisation in the past to a content which is actually a present representation, in the manner set forth above. We thus see, that even the simplest cases of memory proper are cases falling under the general head of Association of Ideas, for which it was, I believe, Sir William Hamilton who devised the admirable term Redintegration. This becomes evident so soon as we look at those cases on the psychological, as distinguished from the meta- THE TIME-STREAM. 167 physical side ; that is, so soon as we endeavour to connect them as experiences with the conditions of their genesis as existent phenomena. That memory is a case of association, depending partly at least upon the physiological Law of Habit, has been shown perhaps with the greatest fulness and clearness in recent times by Professor William James. 1 But whatever hypothesis we may adopt, the key to the whole subject lies in the fontal and governing distinction, between what consciousness is as a content of knowledge and what it is as an existent depending upon real conditions, which determine the genesis and order of occurrence of its states. The consideration of it under the latter head is the necessary complement to the considera- tion of it under the former. Why it is so can only be made fully evident as we advance. The great recommendation of the neuro-cerebral hypothesis, accounting under the latter head for consciousness as an existent in individuals, lies in the singleness of the agent, and in the closeness of the parallelism between the organic unity of its structure and processes, on the one hand, and the systematic coherence and inter-connection of the different states or process-contents of consciousness, which they condition, on the other. The functional continuity and interdependence of the various parts of the neuro-cerebral system are admirably adapted to render intelligible the fact, that sense-presentations are first received, then retained, then forgotten, then reproduced in representation, and that, in many cases, along 1 Principles of Psychology- 1890. See especially Vol. 1, pp. 653 to 659, with the diagram there given. 168 THE TIME-STREAM. BOOK I. CH. III. 3. Memory Proper. Digression to Real * Conditioning. 4. Sense of effort and perception of Future Time. with the context which originally accompanied them. Moreover, as a vera causa, the organic unity of the neuro-cerebral system stands in strong contrast with the alternative hypothesis of a purely psychical agent or agency, whether this is conceived as con- sisting in the unity of a bundle of functions developing in inter-connection with one another, or as a single function, e.g., Thought, or Will, developing other functions, with their appropriate phenomena, either by way of logical intus-susception or otherwise. A bond between a number of different functions, which shall be purely psychical and efficiently real at once, must be difficult to imagine, difficult to verify. To do either is to me, I avow, not only difficult but impossible. I look upon the terms which we use to speak of such real functions, or bonds of unity, as common-sense terms which have survived all their philosophical or psychological meaning, if they ever had any. Consciousness is, in my view, the only thing which is at once purely psychical and real, and in con- sciousness I discern no efficiency, no evidence of its possessing what has been called 'psychical causality/ still less of its being causa sui. Here, then, I bring this digression to an end, and return to the analysis, at the point where it was dropped a few pages above. 4. The instances of experience hitherto analysed contain no indication of conscious re- action on the part of the Subject. No sense of strain or effort, nor any feeling which might be considered as the rudiment of a perception of activity, has hitherto been found either in the THE TIME-STREAM. 169 content or in the process of perception. We have CHIII hitherto, in fact, purposely and in obedience to our method, abstracted from experiences containing feelings of this kind, and in the case of memory, in the foregoing Section, expressly excluded them Time - from the perceptions analysed. True there is every reason to believe, that a re- action on the part of the organism, in answer to stimulus, always takes place prior to perceptions such as we have examined, and forms a part at least of the real conditions upon which their arising depends. This re-action we may figure as a state of tension set up, in any neuro-cerebral organ to which a stimulus is applied, by an impulse or current proceeding from the central to the peripheral end of the organ. But a perception of such re-actions forms no part of the content of the perceptions which partly depend upon them. These perceptions may in one sense be called their representatives, not indeed in the character of being subjective pictures or aspects of them, but in that of being results immediately conditioned upon the total nerve process into which they enter, and therefore corroborative evidence for the fact of their existence. They correspond to them, but not as a knowing corresponds to a thing known. Perceptions of sound are not perceptions of physical vibrations, either in the environment or in nerve. Our knowledge of the existence both of air vibrations, and of the nerve re-actions which proximately condition the perceptions, is based upon inference drawn from subsequent, or, more strictly speaking, from different and more complex experiences than the perceptions themselves. And 170 THE TIME-STREAM. CHIII. thi s is true of sense-perceptions of all kinds taken j~^ singly, and also of any series of sense-perceptions effortYnd which occupy time only. These re-actions, there- SHfiiture f re > must be broadly distinguished, for the pur- poses of an analysis like the present, from those re-actions of which we seem, in common-sense experience, to have an immediate perception, in the shape of sense of strain, difficulty, or effort, however rudimentary or indefinite this sense may be. And in order to see what is involved in sense of effort, we must select for examination some instance, the simpler the better, which we may take as representing it in its lowest terms. But it may be asked, Why this apparently arbi- trary selection of the sense of effort as the next object of analysis ? The most obvious answer would be, that the question has just been raised by our distinguishing, as we did in the foregoing Section, cases of memory proper involving inference from cases of it which, like the one there analysed, were purely spontaneous, and where the sequence of consciousness was unbroken. Now, when we ask, what inference is known as, the first characteristic to occur to us is the sense of effort which it involves, and this characteristic seems also to be universal and indispensable. But there is another and more decisive reason, which may be briefly given by anticipation, and it is this. The sense of effort is the next great land- mark in proceeding from the simple to the complex, starting as we have done, in examining the common-sense experience originally selected, from the analysis of an instance of simple sense- perceptions occupying time only. Barring sense THE TIME-STREAM. 171 of effort and its derivatives, all process-contents of CHIII. consciousness, whether simple or complex, and ^ whatever their specific quality may be, I mean, whether they are sensations or emotions, or pleasures or pains of either kind, when taken Time - simply as perceptions having duration, are for our present purpose in exactly the same case as those already analysed, and therefore must be held to be covered and represented by that analysis. We have virtually taken the whole class of feelings occupying time only, and having of themselves neither spatial extension nor location in space, as the first great class of phenomena to be examined, in beginning our examination of consciousness with the lowest instances of distinct sense-perception, which belong to that class. But within this class as a whole we find some feelings, different in degree of complexity, pre- senting features to which at first sight our foregoing analysis does not seem applicable. These are the feelings of activity, or active feelings (so called), known as attention, desire, aversion, thought, volition, and so on, all of which are found to involve or contain, as a common element, the feeling which I have called sense of effort, which thus constitutes their specific difference as a class of feelings. The examination of feelings occupying time only is, therefore, not complete, without entering upon the analysis of this root feeling, which underlies the whole of what may be called its second and final section or subdivision. A further reason may also be given. There is another circumstance belonging to perceptions occupying time only, which calls for speedy 172 THE TIME-STREAM. BOOK I. CH. III. Sense of effort and perception of Future Time. examination. Hitherto no mention has been made, except quite incidentally, of time future ; the cases which we have analysed have been perceptions of time past and present only. We have analysed the time-stream of consciousness only as seen in retrospect, looking back from the present mo- ment ; and we have seen that this involves memory. Time, however, is ordinarily conceived, in common- sense experience, as divisible into past, present, and future. The question then is, in what consists our knowledge of future time ; what is the experience in which the perception of it first comes forward ? I have brought the two questions of sense of effort and future time together, because it will be found that, on the one hand, the perception of future time originates, and is originally combined with that of past and present, only in perceptions which contain the sense of effort as an element, and on the other, that there are no simpler instances of sense of effort than those perceptions in which the perception of future time originates. Attention to a content of sense-perception is as simple a case of sense of effort as we can select, and attention to a content which is already perceived as receding into the past is expectant attention, that is, expectation with imagination of a future content. 1 1 Here perhaps I ought expressly to acknowledge the error of certain statements made in my Philosophy of Refaction (Vol. I., pp. 253 and 270), to the effect, that all minima of consciousness, even if minima of sense-pre- sentation, include a part, or sub-feeling, which is strictly future. The more thorough analysis of reflective perception now given, which in its essentials was completed long before Professor C. A. Strong of Columbia University signalised the error in his paper Consciousness and Time (Psychological Review, March, 1896), discloses the falsity of this idea. It was, I believe, a relio of Kantianism still cleaving to me, even when I imagined it entirely discarded. Neveitheless, the circumstance of the mathematical divisibility of empirical minima perceptionis, examined above, goes far to explain the possibility of the error. As being closely connected with this subject, I may refer to a short paper of mine, contributed to a ' Symposium ' at the Aristotelian Society, on the question, In what sense, if any, do past and future time exist? and published in MIND for April, 1897, No. 22, New Series. THE TIME-STREAM. 173 Let us, then, take an instance in which the OHIII phenomenon of attention supervenes upon some ~~ such complex experience as that we have last e |o" t se a f d examined. I am sitting; in my study, let us say, perception v > ' * OK 1 uture while sounds such as those of the former experi- Time eiices are going on, when suddenly a peculiar sound quite new to me is heard, say the sound of an Indian tom-tom in the street outside ; and my attention is at once aroused by the strongly marked difference of the new sound from those preceding and accompanying it. This description of the phenomenon, it must be noted, is a description of it in terms of the common-sense form of experience, and assumes two things, first the Ego, secondly the action of sensation upon the Ego. But are these two things really present in the experience ; what is the analysis of it as actually experienced ? Let us ask, then, what is meant by attention being aroused ? What is its analysis ? And first, what is it as content ; secondly, what is it as pro- cess ? As content, it seems to me, that it is a sense of discrepancy, or break in the smooth flow of the perceptions among which the new sound is introduced. As process, I think it must be called a sense of dwelling upon the discrepancy and rendering it more familiar. The new sound creates, as it were, an obstacle or difficulty, in overcoming which a sense of effort arises, that is, a sensation similar to those which we afterwards find arising in trying to overcome physical resistance. Not, however, as if there were two feelings present in the experience, one as content, the other as process ; but one continuing feeling of a peculiar kind, which, when we objectify it as content, we call sense of 174 THE TIME-STREAM. CHIII' difficulty, break, or discrepancy, and when we ~ objectify it as process, we call sense of effort. This fforTaad P ecunar feeling which accompanies the newly heard fTuture soun( l is what we really experience in the case Time. before us, and describe as the arousing of attention ; and neither Ego nor action, either of or upon the Ego, is immediately contained in the experience. Now supposing this analysis to be correct, what relation does the sense of effort, which may be described as effort in overcoming the obstacle or resistance offered by the discrepancy of a new and unfamiliar sound, hold to the rest of the perceptive process in which it arises ? It is plainly a part of the process of reflective perception, and it is plainly retrospective, inasmuch as it looks back upon the new sound as it recedes into memory, and is, so to speak, an endeavour to keep it in consciousness, and hear more distinctly all which it contains. But it is plainly also a continuation of the same process of perception ; and with this peculiarity, that it only looks back on condition of itself, not only proceeding, but also looking forwards ; it is an attempt not to have heard, but to hear, more dis- tinctly ; it marks a new distinction in the content heard, and that distinction is a distinction in time between what has been and what has not yet been distinctly heard in the content. The sense of effort arising in perception distinguishes a present moment not only from past and remembered but also from future and expected experience ; and for the first time suggests the idea of past experi- ence being continued into future time, and about to have a content which is at the moment unknown. Perception containing sense of effort, which marks THE TIME-STKEAM. 175 this distinction in consciousness, is what we call Attention, and all attention is therefore strictly expectant. Attention is always prospective as well J?nse ^f as retrospective ; and the addition of a prospective character to the retrospective perception is the Time - reflective perception of time future, in combination with, but also in contradistinction from, time past and present. Moreover, attention is the only act or mode of consciousness in which the perception can be originally given of there being such a thing as future time ; for it is the only mode of reflective perception which is prospective and retrospective at once, and combines in itself a conscious outlook in both directions. The content which we attribute to future time, or with which we imagine it will be filled, may be drawn, as we find in later experience, either from memory in some mode or other, such as simple memory of experience, spontaneous redintegration or association of ideas, and spontaneous imagina- tion, or from a combination of other elements with it, such as wish, desire, volition, conception, and reasoning. But of these, wish, desire, volition, con- ception, and reasoning, already involve attention as well as memory, and involve it as their rudimentary and fundamental feature. And the other three cannot of themselves give rise to the perception or idea of future time. Let us take a case of spontaneous association of ideas. Suppose that I have many times heard Rule Britannia played, and that on every occasion it has been followed almost immediately by God Save the Queen. Now it may perhaps be thought, that, when I hear Rule Britannia once more played, the 176 THE TIME-STREAM. cSii]' anticipation will be suggested, that God Save the Queen will follow it, before the latter is actually sense of heard, and while it is still in the future ; in other effort and *f T P tu n wor ds, that hearing the former will suggest hearing Time. the latter as a future event. But such an opinion would be quite erroneous. It is quite true that, in these circumstances, whenever I hear Rule Britannia, it would call up by association God Save the Queen ; that is, it would be followed or accompanied by a faint repetition of God Save the Queen, which is also a remembrance of it as a presentation. But the whole of this experience, including the faint repetition or representation of God Save the Queen as a presenta- tion following Rule Britannia as a presentation, and which is supposed to contain the suggestion of future time, would without attention be perceived only in past and present time. The faint repetition does not give the anticipation, ' I shall presently hear vividly God Save the Queen,' as an anticipation of what is about to happen. It is only when the notion of future time has been already formed, that the faint repetition can contain an anticipa- tion of it. The perception of one thing following another is not the same as that of one thing being future to another which is present. For the latter notion to arise, contradistinction from present time, including all its past or represented content, is requisite. To mark the faint repetition of God Save the Queen as an anticipation of a future vivid one, attention is requisite ; which in this instance would be attention to the vivid Rule Britannia. Our attention to this is a continuation of our per- ception of it, and this continuation has, for part of THE TIME-STREAM. 177 its content, the faint repetition of God Save the Queen ; just as in the perception of C D, in a former instance, the moment of perceiving D had also for content the retention, representation, or memory of C. The faint repetition of God Save the Queen Time - would then supply the matter of the anticipation, the content which we expect ; but it cannot give it originally the character of being an anticipation, or of itself refer its content to future time. It must be remembered that we always speak, both in experience and in analysing it, of and from the moment of experience itself, which is always a present moment. And the question is, how does the perception of a future time, as distinguished from a merely sequent time, arise in a present moment of experience? It is no answer to this question to say, that we spontaneously project by imagination a past perception into the future. For whence the notion of a future, into which we project it? Nor can it be said, that we spon- taneously generalise the notion of sequence, and so give to the present a continuation in a new direction, that of futurity, generalised from con- tinuation in the direction of the past. For in the first place, generalising cannot produce a new perception ; what it does is to hold room open for new perceptions of particular kinds, if they should occur. And secondly, even if it could do so, still generalising is not a spontaneous but a volitional process, and requires attention for its performance. The perception of future time, as distinguished from past and present, is therefore given, in the first instance, by attention alone ; and the per- M 178 THE TIME-STREAM. BOOK I. CH. III. 4. Sense of effort and perception of Future Time. 5. Attention the first instance of Activity in the Subject. ception that future time, as so distinguished, is an empirical reality, or in other words, the per- ception that, with its content, whatever that con- tent may be, it will become present and past, is in the first instance given solely by the experi- ence, that all acts of attention in the past have been followed, in the past, by perceptions which, at the time of the attention, had not arisen, that is, were future. Moreover it is worth noting, that the first or rather the simplest intimation we have of future time is an expectation, not of a so-called real event happening, or of a non-existent reality coming into existence, but of a knowledge or experience being added to our present store, quite irrespective of whether the real objects (as we afterwards call them) of such an experience belong in reality to time then future or to time then past. There is, therefore, no unconditioned necessity or certainty attaching to the existence of any particu- lar content of time future. But the existence of future time with some content or other, apart from the knowledge of any particular content, is involved in the exercise of attention. We cannot exercise attention, and at the same time not look forward into future time. In brief, just as simply reflec- tive perception knits together past and present by memory, so attention, which is a mode of re- flective perception, knits together past, present, and future, by imagination, the content of which imagina- tion is a modification of the content of memory. 5. Attention is a great landmark in the analysis of experience. 1 We have just seen, that the com- 1 I gave prominence to this point in my Philosophy of Reflection, Vol. I. , pp. 290-291, with reference to authorities. THE TIME-STREAM. 179 pletion of the perception of Time is due to its forward or expectant outlook, whereby the notion of future time is incorporated with that of time present and past. But this by no means exhausts its entire function. The first thing to be noted about it is, that it is the simplest and least definite intimation in experience of that double order, which we have already spoken of by anticipation, and which will constantly meet us as we proceed, I mean the Order of Knowledge on the one hand, and the Order of its Real Conditioning, which is a part of the larger order of Existence, on the other. We have already distinguished the content from the process of Knowing or of Knowledge. The distinction now intended is between the process- content of Knowing as a whole and that particular portion of Existence generally which we shall find reason, as we proceed, to characterise as the order of its real conditioning. Now attention contains in itself two parts or features, features which belong to both the orders now distinguished, though as yet without distinct notification of the orders themselves. I mean, that, while attention is known in consciousness as a peculiar feeling, which we call sense of effort in apprehension, expectant of some new or continued perception, and in immediate consciousness is that peculiar feeling and nothing more, yet this feeling is itself described only by reference to something which at the time is not in consciousness at all, namely, the effort which it is said to feel, and which is sometimes itself described by the purpose for which it is said to be made. There is, then, some- thing implied in attention, which is not positively, BOOK I. PH. III. . Attention the first instance of Activity in the Subject. 180 THE TIME-STREAM. CHIII or as a s P ec i nc content, in consciousness at the time, as well as that which is in consciousness in "the en fi lat tn * s wav ' namely, the feeling by, or rather as, which instance of it i s immediately known. Activity J What, then, is the effort, of which we say we have a sense ? What is the effort, strain, tension, activity, or re-action, the feeling or perception of which we call attention ? Here is the second of the two features which attention involves. Now it seems to me, that these things, said to be the things felt by sense of effort, are not in the least made known to us by that sense. They are not objects of immediate sense at all. They are processes which are objects thought of, and thought of by means of conception. When by later, or rather by more complex experience, into which no doubt this feeling enters as an element, we have formed the conception of a real process in the fullest sense of reality, we then describe the sense of effort, of activity, of re-action, and so on, by referring it to objects thought of under that conception. But the sense of effort taken by itself, and as immediately experienced, does not convey any such conception. It is simply a peculiar feeling which we have no words to describe, except such as connect it with its supposed real condition, or manner of coming to be felt ; describing it, I mean, as sense of effort, activity, or re-action on the part of the Subject, which afterwards, and partly in consequence of this feeling, we have come to conceive and know by reasoning. It is therefore a mistake to suppose, that the effort, the activity, or the re-action, is either content or object of what we call the sense of it. What we call conscious activity is not a THE TIME-STREAM. 181 consciousness of activity, in the sense of an immediate perception of it. Try to perceive activity or effort immediately, and you will fail; you will find nothing there to perceive. Effort, activity, action, and re-action, are neither contents nor objects, but real conditions, of what we call the sense or consciousness of them ; and the sense by itself gives us no knowledge whatever about them. A great deal of empiricist, as opposed to experi- ential, psychology is based on the mistake in analysis now once more detected. Still less does the sense of effort convey, by itself alone, the notion of an agent, whether as Subject or as Ego, or of an energy inherent in conscious- ness itself. It is a contributory to the formation of these notions, but they are not involved in the feeling per se. Such phrases as ' I feel myself act- ing,' ' I am conscious of my own activity,' and so on, are forms of language framed subsequently to the acquisition of the idea of an agent, whether it be called Subject, Ego, Will, or Thought. What is called the immediate certainty or consciousness of my own action appears to be immediate only in the common-sense form of experience. In experience as it actually occurs, it is analysable into elements which can be shown to have been originally separate. And therefore to adopt it as an ultimate fact of experience, or one which is not farther analysable, is to fall into the fallacy of making philosophy repeat an explicandum by way of giving its eocplicatio. In fact we designate, but do not really describe, the feeling in question, by calling it sense of effort, of activity, and so on. This does not show either BOOK I. CH. III. . Attention the first instance of Activity in the Subject. 182 THE TIME-STREAM. BOOK I. CH. III. T Attention tlM first instance of Activity in the Subject. that the feeling is unreal as a specific feeling, or that the source is unreal, by reference to which we designate it. But the feeling is that by which alone attention is immediately known to us in consciousness. Attention, therefore, in these simple instances of it, contains a part, which is as yet unknown; and the part which is known has reference to the unknown part, whatever it may turn out to be. Supposing the Subject to be capable of understanding what he was doing, at the time of performing his earliest and simplest acts of attention, he would have to conceive this part of it as included in the unknown future, of some part of which all attention is expectant. And it is only on account of this unknown part in attention as a whole, that I can describe it proleptically, in the title of the present Section, as an instance, and not merely as an indication or sign, of activity in the Subject. Another point to be noticed is, that the specific feeling or sense of effort adds a new content to the process of reflective perception, of which it is a modification. We have already distinguished the process from the content of reflection. We now distinguish, within the process, a modification which is a new feature or content of it as a process. The sense of effort belongs to the process of perceiving. It does so because, though a specific feeling and variable in intensity, it may arise in the case of any kind of content, and is indifferent to the kind of content in which it arises ; in which respect it is closely analogous to the feelings of pleasure and pain, though these have not the same universal indifference to specific THE TIME-STREAM. 183 contents which is its characteristic. The sense of effort, like the process of perceiving itself, is ~ common to all kinds of content, and indifferent ^ ten * io f 1 the first to them. We objectify it, no doubt, in subsequent perceptions, just as we objectify prior perception generally ; but in so objectifying it, we perceive it as part of some particular process of perceiving, as distinguished from the content perceived in that particular process. The discrimination of sense of effort in processes of perceiving is, in fact, the first or lowest root of that experience, in which sub- sequently the process of perceiving is objectified separately from the content or object perceived; which again leads to the further objectification of the perceiving Subject from among perceived objects. In other words, the sense of effort belongs to, and is the lowest discriminating mark of, what we call conscious acts of knowing as distinguished from the objects known thereby, while, as we shall see more fully hereafter, the effort, activity, or re -action, of which it is said to be the sense, belongs to the Order of Heal Conditioning, the Order existertdi veljiendi of real agents. The sense of effort, it has just been noted, is not restricted to arise in any particular kind of content, but may be an element in the perception of all. Arising in a feeling which is pleasurable, it becomes fondness of it, or, in case of hindrance interposing, desire for its continuance or increase. Arising in a feeling which is painful it becomes aversion, or in certain cases avoidance. Add sense of effort to the feeling of discomfort or uneasiness, and you have sense of effort in the form of desire 184 THE TIME-STREAM. to escape or avoid those feelings. Everywhere it points to and implies an action which goes on below the threshold of consciousness, in real conditions which give rise to it ; but of gives no knowledge of what that action consists in, or whether it originates in the organism as an organic nisus, or in some action of the environment upon the organism. Attention is the name for this activity, as yet unknown in its own nature, existing in the condi- tions of consciousness below the threshold, so far as it is known by its conditionate the sense of effort, in the case of perception of a content, simply as a content, without any restriction to content of a specific kind. It was for this reason that, speaking of attention, I called it the simplest case of sense of effort. All other cases, some of which have just been mentioned, are particular modifications of sense of effort, over and above the distinct perception or consciousness of them as particular feelings. Thus sense of effort, simple or modified, is evidence of action on the part of the Subject, action which is not known by the sense of effort per se, but which comes to knowledge subsequently. The sense of effort is then seen to have been antici- patory of that subsequent knowledge, which throws back light upon it. And all the forms which sense of effort takes, in its various modifications, are double in the same way which we have just seen exemplified in the case of attention. They are always evidence of action on the part of the Subject. Will or volition is a name for one form of it. The term Will, indeed, is often used ta THE TIME-STREAM. 185 include and express generally the whole field covered by conscious action or re-action, so that, in this usage of the term, attention, wish, desire, aversion, and avoidance, with their derivatives, would all be classed as particular modes, not of effort or sense of effort, but of Will. But as the term Will has another and more special sense, in which it means choice between alternatives both of which are consciously present, and from long usage almost inevitably suggests this idea, it is better, I think, to restrict it to that meaning, instead of employing it in two senses, a wider and a narrower. Conscious action, taken as equivalent to conscious process-content including a sense of effort as evidence of real action or effort, will still be the term best employed to designate the wider generic idea. Thus, onwards from any point at which sense of effort appears in any process of perception, that process may be considered as not process simply, but process which is action. Not that there is a numerically single point in the history of conscious- ness, after which simple processes cease to exist, but that simple processes in certain constantly occurring cases take on the character of actions, and become actions as well as processes. Percep- tive processes in the time-stream of consciousness, which contain no sense of effort, are called sponta- neous, in the sense of not being modified by a re-action on the part of the Subject, evidenced by sense of effort. They are conditioned on processes in the Subject, or in the organism, which, not being attended by sense of effort, are not actions, but which may either have preceded actions, or have 186 THE TIME-STREAM. c^in resu lted from actions which were at one time attended by sense of effort, but are so no longer ; Attention that is, from which the sense of effort has dropped in Svit f awav > owing to frequent repetition and the ease acquired by habit. Such processes and actions go on side by side with one another, and are often found in reciprocal interdependence, as, for instance, in the case of the reasoning process, in which both are present. The time-stream of consciousness is enriched, as it were, by two kinds of currents in lieu of one ; or to recur to the image of the rope of many strands, two kinds of strands are now present, where only one was found before the appearance of sense of effort. I have already noted, that this difference is a differ- ence in the process, as distinguished from the mere content of the perception. It remains to speak briefly of the different modes which are comprehended under the general name sense of effort, or in other words of the classes into which the feelings belonging to it may be divided, although in doing so it will be necessary again to anticipate the result of experiences which have not as yet appeared in our analysis. Making use, then, of such results provisionally, it will be found, that the feelings in question fall primarily under two main heads, the first containing feelings which attach to some form or forms of Desire, the second containing feelings which are experienced in consequence of Muscular Exertion. Those of the first head, Desire, may be sub- divided into four classes, which we may call those of perceiving, retaining, reasoning, and choosing betv. een alternatives. In all these cases under the THE TIME-STREAM. 187 head of Desire, we are conscious of what we call an endeavour, that is, have a sense of effort to attain something, but are as completely unconscious of the real effort, action, or activity, the presence of which is evidenced by the sense of effort (though it is not its content or immediate object), as we are of the re-action really involved in simple or spontaneous perception, where there is no sense of effort at all. The real activity evidenced by sense of effort may in all these cases be conceived as a higher degree, or more complex mode, of the very same kind of re-action which is involved in cases of simply perceiving ; the only difference being, that now its presence is betrayed by a special element in the process-contents of consciousness, which depend upon those neuro-cerebral processes into which it enters. To the first subdivision belong cases of attending to a persistent sense-object or percept, where the feeling in question is a sense of difficulty in per- ceiving it as clearly or distinctly as we wish to do. The second includes cases where we are trying to retain in consciousness, or to enhance in vividness, some idea, thought, or feeling, which tends to pass into oblivion and escape us ; the desire being due either to some intrinsic pleasurable interest in the content which we seek to retain, or to the intrinsic disagreableness of some other content, which we seek to exclude from consciousness by retaining a different one. To the third subdivision belong cases which may be described, in general terms, as cases where we try to bring definitely and distinctly into consciousness some feeling or idea, which will supplement or harmonise with what we already 188 THE TIME-STREAM. cSiu nave De f re us > b ut f tne nature of which we have only a vague and evanescent inkling. The fourth Attention j s where we endeavour to retain or enhance any the first * in l ta tiv ? t f th u ght or feeling which tends to escape, and to in the hold it in comparison with others which tend to Subject. . exclude it from consciousness, so as to decide which of the alternatives is really the most prefer- able. The first of these four subdivisions belongs to what would usually be classed as presentative sense-perception ; the three latter to redintegration. But in all alike the special feeling-element which is evidence of real re-action is a particular mode of sense of effort, the nature of which is best described as a sense of difficulty, discrepancy, or obstacle, opposing or resisting the fulfilment of a wish. It is under the second main head, that of Muscular Exertion, that the most obvious and familiar cases of sense of effort are found, and those in which that feeling is most strongly marked. Here the sense of effort arises directly from some kind of muscular action, whether put forth in moving or guiding our own limbs, or in bodily exercises dealing with external physical objects, or in the adjustment or accommodation of our organs of sense, or in inhibiting or accelerating the action of other organs which are partially subject to control, as for instance in checking respiration. It is in these cases, as already said, that the sense of effort is most prominently and unmistakably marked, and it is also these which show most clearly, that it is not a sense of that action or effort (if it be an effort) which sets the muscles in play. For in these cases the sense of effort, so far from THE TIME-STREAM. 189 accompanying the efferent neuro-cerebral action directed upon the muscles or organs in question, is a feeling consequent upon their being so set in action, and conveyed to some sensory centre by JJJS^ ty of afferent nerve channels. The only action or effort, sublet of which it can in any way be said to be a sense, is action or effort in, or on the part of, the muscles or organs originally acted upon ; and even of what is really going on in that action of theirs it gives us no immediate knowledge, but is simply a feeling conditioned to arise in consciousness upon their being roused into activity. 2 Here again the feeling taken by itself is a per- ception of some specific kind, not of action or activity, but only of difficulty or resistance ; that is to say, what we specifically feel in it may be best described as an unwished-for interruption or hindrance in the stream of consciousness, the uninterrupted continuance of which is expected, and, if not wished for, may become a wish solely by the perception of the hindrance. Similarly the muscular action which gives rise to it, taken by itself apart from the feeling, is known to us only by observation of physical processes and events, and our knowledge of their connection with the feeling is a knowledge due to association and inference. When we call this action effort, we do so only in virtue of combining, in thought, the inferred action 2 This, I believe, is now the most generally accepted doctrine. See in support of it. and for its history, The Brain as an Organ of Mind, Appendix, Ep. 691 to 700, by Dr. H. Charlton Bastian, P.R S., in the International cientifio Series, 1880. Kegan Paul and Co. See also a paper by Professor William James, entitled The Feeling of Effort, contributed to the Anniversary Memoirs of the Boston Societv of Natural History, 1880. A brief summary of the conclusions arrived at in this paper, first and foremost among which stands the broad distinction between mental and muscular effort, will be found in MIND, Vol. V. No. XX. October, 1880. 190 THE TIME-STREAM. cSiii W ^h the immediately perceived feeling, as if they ~ formed a single whole not capable of discrimina- ^h? n firet tion, as ^ really is, into distinct components, one in lctivit f f th em being a physiological process, the other a f eenn g conditioned upon it. Or in other words, the common-sense meaning of effort includes sense of effort as an undistinguished element. Meta- physical analysis, in conjunction with physiology, discovers the distinction, and points out the necessity of keeping the two components uncon- fused with one another. And the result is this. When the sense of effort arising from muscular exertion is [kept distinct from the action or effort which directly conditions its arising, and is con- sidered simply as a feeling of a certain kind, it must be brought under the same principle as that sense of effort which belongs to the head of Desire, seeing that both alike are cases of that single general fact or phenomenon, the range of which is co-extensive with that of sense of effort generally, namely, the sense of hindered expectation, or expectation aroused by perception of hindrance. On the other hand it must be noted, that many persons might be disposed to deny, that the cases which I have classed under Desire are strictly cases of sense of effort at all. They appear to be so, it might be urged, only from the fact, that they are invariably accompanied by the only true sense of effort, namely, that which arises from muscular exertion ; inasmuch as in all instances of them we throw some part of our muscular system into a state of tension, and then transfer, in imagination, the sense of effort thence arising to the processes of attentive perception, retention, reasoning, and THE TIME-STREAM. 191 volitional choice, all of which are invariably accom- panied by muscular tension. For it is a familiarly ~ observed fact that, whenever we fix the attention, ^* en n ^ as it is called, in any of the ways mentioned, we in jf c a t f t of also perform some muscular act of fixation, as holding the breath, keeping the head unmoved, closing the eyes, clenching the teeth, and so on. But this reasoning admits, I think, of a decisive reply. Grant that the accompaniment is invari- able ; grant that the muscular sense of effort is the most prominent and unmistakable kind of it ; and grant also that the two kinds of feeling (whether both are sense of effort or not) are very difficult to discriminate with precision. Still it will not follow, that the muscular kind is the only one which deserves strictly to be called sense of effort, unless it can be shown, that it differs essentially and wholly from what I have called the other kind, when both alike are taken simply and solely in the character of feelings. But this is just what it is impossible to show, if the analysis now given is correct. For we have seen that both kinds alike, when taken simply as feelings, have one and the same fundamental characteristic in common, namely, that of being a sense of difficulty or hindrance in the path of forward-looking or expectant consciousness. In other words, there is a feeling which we can only describe in vague and general terms, as a sense of difficulty or hindrance of expectation, which is the common basis of all the specific kinds of sense of effort which have been enumerated, or the common genus of which we must regard them all alike as differentiations. In the case of muscular sense of effort, the proof THE TIME-STREAM. BOOK I. H. 111. . Attention the first instance of Activity in the Subject. 6. Analysis of Conceptual Attention. that it is a conditionate, and not an immediate perception, of real action, is the very thing which compels us to enquire what it is simply as feeling. In doing which we find, that there are no differences between the cases which it includes and those included in its companion kind, save differences which arise from the one class being conditioned on muscular and neuro-cerebral action combined, the other on cerebral or neuro-cerebral action alone. 6. It must be reserved for a future Chapter to follow up this part of the subject, when we may hope to have formed some more definite idea of what the real conditions are, upon which perceptive processes proximately depend. It must, therefore, still be borne in mind that, in speaking of attention as an act, as I shall continue to do, I am speaking of it proleptically, or by anticipation of what is afterwards to be shown concerning it. Neverthe- less, there is one differentiation of it, which marks a step so important in the structure of our know- ledge, and is at the same time so closely similar to the simple form of attention which occupied us in 4, and therefore so liable in spite of its importance to be confused with it, that it will perhaps be best to advert to it at once. I mean that mode of attention to a perceptual content which includes, not merely a forward outlook of expectancy, but also some perception of a purpose to be attained by the outlook. In the simple form of attention the purpose of the sense of effort is not perceived prior to the act of attention itself, but is, as it were, born with it ; and the knowledge of it, like the knowledge of effort itself, is an addition due to a THE TIME-STREAM. 193 subsequent moment of reflective experience. But in the mode of attention now before us, some motive or purpose of the effort is perceived in making the effort, and some kind of positive Attention- result anticipated, apart from the anticipation of our becoming more clearly or distinctly aware of the percept attended to. There is some feature in the content perceived which is of greater prefer- ability or interest than others, and which is said to attract the attention, as a motive or purpose deter- mining it. The attention is then no longer a simple reaction apparently determined by a single vivid or newly presented feature in consciousness, but is selective of the feature by which it is said to be attracted or determined. Attention so modified as to be consciously selective is therefore a more complex process than simple attention unmodified. The simplest case of this selective mode of atten- tion is when we attend to a feeling which has already aroused attention of the simple kind, with a view of harmonising it with some other feeling or feelings still present, or capable of being presented, in memory ; that is, of comparing, relating, and classifying it. We then do more than simply attend to it ; we attend to it and question it. We put to it the question, What is that ? The act is immediately felt or perceived as one of questioning with a view to harmonising ; an act of comparing and relating one feeling to others ; an act preceded by a more or less definite consciousness of purpose. Of course I do not mean, that we recognise or class the act itself, at the time, as an act falling under those terms. For that to be done, the act must have been itself attended to with a similar purpose. N 194 THE TIME-STREAM. What I mean is, that it is an act which, when it lias been itself attended to, we then describe in those terms, and can properly describe in no others, Attention. They describe what it is as a process-content of consciousness. Now the act of modified, complex, or selective attention, which we describe as the act of putting the question What ?, of harmonising, comparing, and relating, has its completion attained, its end fulfilled, its question answered, by the perception of the similarity of its object to some contents, and dissimilarity from others, which are either already present in memory, or occur at the instant of questioning in presentation, and so are offered, as it were, to its embrace by spontaneous processes of perception. Some part of the content offered by these spontaneous contributory processes is then perceived to be either like or unlike the particular content attended to and questioned. The result is a perception of likeness, or of unlikeness, or of both. If it is of likeness, it is a classification ; if of unlikeness it is at least a step towards classifica- tion. And the truth of this result depends entirely upon the content of perception, while at the same time the fact of its being reached at all depends upon the act of modified attention being performed. The act of complex or modified attention now described is another great landmark in the analysis of experience. The complexity or modification consists in the circumstance, that the attention has a purpose consciously in view, over and above the purpose of a clearer or more distinct perception of the single object attended to. And we have seen that the attainment of that purpose, or the answer THE TIME-STREAM. 195 to its question, which is given by perception, is a classification, or at any rate a step towards one. The act is a re-action on the part of the Subject, and leads to a result which is due partly to that Attention. re-action, and partly to the content furnished by perception. To mark its dependence on the Subject, the act is called Conception, and its result a Concept. The Subject's conscious re-action is con-cause with percepts in producing concepts. His conscious co-operation modifies a percept, and makes it a concept. It seems as if the phrase concipere mente were framed by analogy with concipere utero. At any rate this interpretation of the phrase is far more adequate to the truth than the simple inter- pretation, ' concipere, id est, caper e hoc cum illo.' For the hoc and the illud are not singled out for comparison before the act, leaving nothing for the act to do but to note, and as it were register, their likeness or unlikeness to each other ; but they are compared, and classed together or apart, as con- tents or objects of perception, in consequence of the act of attention singling out one of them for question. Strictly speaking, the act of conception is complete as an act before any positive result of classification is obtained. It is not dependent for its conceptual character upon an answer or a result being given by the supervening spontaneous per- ception. In the act itself, expressed merely as the question What ?, the percept which is singled out for question is already a concept ; that is to say, it is picked out from its context by conscious and purposive attention, and held in readiness to com- bine with any other percept on the ground of similarity, entirely irrespective both of similars 196 THE TIME-STREAM. CHm being found for it or not, and also of what the ~ next following percept would have been, had the Conoeituai P 1 1 * spontaneous perceptive process not been 'Attention interrupted and modified by the conceiving atten- tion. The great importance of the conceptual act in the structure of our experience, and consequently in its analysis also, consists in its being the root and source of all logical judgment, thought, and reasoning. I do not mean that it is self-originated, for we have just seen that it is derived by modifi- cation from perception. But it is the act wherein the process of perception is so modified by the agency of real conditions in the Subject, as to become a process of conscious logical thought, which deals with concepts, and ceases to be a process of perception merely, dealing with percepts as yet unmodified into concepts. We have seen in a former Chapter, that all the terms of language are general terms. We can now see why they are so, namely, because they are words signifying concepts as distinguished from percepts, and con- ception is of necessity a generalising process. We may have abstractions in perception. In a single given percept I may fix upon a single feature by simple attention, and the mere endeavour to perceive it more clearly or distinctly involves abstracting from its context. All perception is perception of differences, and perceptual attention may in all cases be said to seek differences, as conceptual to seek similars, in virtue of its seeking harmony. Simply attentive perception is the endeavour to perceive more clearly or distinctly the differences which a given percept contains. THE TIME-STREAM. 197 Every feature so perceived, taken separately, is an abstraction also, just as the percept itself is ; but it is not a concept, because not fixed on by selec- conceptual tive attention for the purpose of more being known Attention. about it than is contained in it as a single percept, that is, of its being harmonised with other experi- ences. It is not a percept expectant of coalescence with its similars, but something individual, which general terms can be used to describe only when modified by a pronoun, adverb of time or place, or other mark restricting their generality, as e.g., this particular note C, this particular instance of blue, the year 1870, the meridian of Greenwich, and so on, in order to make them applicable to the thing spoken of in its individual capacity. The meridian of Greenwich, though known as a meridian only by a process of conception and classification, yet regains its perceptual character, and is returned, as it were, to perception again, by its individualisation as the meridian of a single place. In conception on the contrary it is impossible to escape from general terms. Nor does their appear- ing on the scene depend upon the result obtained by conceptual acts ; I mean upon a comparison or a classification having been effected. Terms are not general because they describe classifications or comparisons already made. Such terms would be mere collectives, describing, say, the collection of instances in which a certain sound, or a certain colour, appears, and therefore applicable to all objects in which the sound or colour is exhibited, or which possess it as a characteristic. A percept may, in fact, be generalised before any similars are found for it in perception. It is generalised by 198 THE TIME-STREAM. merely putting to it the conceptual question What? For this holds it open, as it were, to Conceptual com kine with its similars, in case any should occur, Attention. an j thus gives it a character quite different from, and additional to, its character as a percept simply. Neither does the question What ? pre-suppose any conception of likeness, or any a priori notion whatever. It is our expression to describe the questioning attitude, that is, the active tendency to harmonise, arrange, simplify, and as it were master, the mass of contents, that is, the mass of per- ceptual differences, offered by presentative percep- tion and processes of spontaneous redintegration. This tendency is the root and origin of the pro- cesses of conception and reasoning, and the law which governs and expresses it is known as the Law of Parcimony ; which is thus the ultimate law of all conscious and purposive action, expressed in terms of consciousness, and corresponds to the law of movement in the direction of least resist- ance in physical processes. There is another mode also in which we arrive at abstract percepts, besides that of simple atten- tion. It is a mode of attention subsequent to conceptual, and founded upon it, and is, as it were, a return to perception, the purpose of which is derived from the knowledge furnished by concep- tual processes. This is attention for the purpose of perceptual analysis, and may properly be called analytical attention. It is the special instrument of philosophy, being the mode in which we appeal to experience, that is, to facts, in answering ques- tions which have been raised, but not solved, by processes of reasoning founded on conception. THE TIME-STREAM. 199 Thought indicates what kind of facts are to be CHIIL examined. They are those which give rise to conceptions and lines of reasoning, which lead to conflicting conclusions. By thought we select Attention. some crucial instances of these facts, divest them of matter irrelevant to the purpose in view, and again direct our attention to the clear and distinct perception of their contents and relations, as representative, though individual, instances of experience. It is out of the differences so dis- cerned that conceptual harmony in the end results, for new differences give rise to new similarities and new dissimilarities, and therefore also to new conceptions and new classifications. The modification effected by conceptual atten- tion in the stream of consciousness is thus very definite, and at the same time very thorough-going. The whole of experience, taken as a cognitive process, may be exhaustively divided between per- cept and concept. Beginning with percepts we proceed to question them, which turns them into concepts, and the answer is given, if at all, by per- ception again. Perception is the beginning and end of the whole process of knowledge, conception intervening with its questions, and the answers being given by perceptual analysis undertaken with a distinct purpose in view. Concepts per se are questions without their answers. At the same time, the percepts which are their answers are percepts in obtaining which conceptual processes have been involved, which give their form to the answers obtained. A feeling simply perceived is not a question ; neither is it an answer. It is a fact which gives rise to a question, when seen in 200 THE TIME-STREAM. CH?III'. T^T connection with other feelings ; and the question then finds an answer, if at all, in analytical percep- ^ related feelings. Experience cannot begin Attention. w jth a question any more than with an answer, but with facts which give rise to questioning. A ques- tion not starting from facts as data would be a question about nothing. I will add a brief conspectus of acts of atten- tion, in ascending order from simple to complex. I. Attention expectant of the continuation into the future of some given present experience. II. Attention selective of some feature of interest in a given present experience, and expectant of a future experience relevant to it. Of this there are two cases : A. Where the interest arises from some pleasure or pain ; Desire and Aversion, Hope and Fear. B. Where the interest arises solely from novelty in the content of the experience ; Desire of Knowledge, that is, of harmonis- ing the novel feature with old ones in the expected experience. Intellectual Con- ception. III. Attention with awareness of the selection under A, and purposively attending to one out of alternative desires ; Will. IV. Attention with awareness of the selection under B, and continuing the process of concep- tion, with the aid of perceptual analysis ; The Reason. Time-stream | 7 ^ f ew WO rds on the results obtained in the * S 8 ' present Chapter may be permitted in conclusion of and Existere. THE TIME-STREAM. 201 it. We have clearly discerned, within the process- CHIII' content of experience as a whole, a certain kind of ry feelings, namely, feelings of effort, which are evidence of activities on the part of the Subject itg ^ hereafter to be disclosed, though they do not of ^ themselves contain a knowledge of those activities, or tell us what an activity is. This is knowledge which depends on perceptions which we have yet to analyse. When we have obtained a definite idea of the agents and the activities, of which these feelings are evidence, the importance of distinguishing them from the rest of the process- content will be more clearly seen. For when we say that we have in certain feelings the first, and only ultimate, evidence of activity on the part of the Subject, it is clear that in them we have the origin of a distinction which is perhaps the most cardinal in the whole range of the experience of men, considered as real individual beings, I mean the distinction between what such real beings know and what they do, or how they act; or in other words between that which is the object of Speculation and that which is the object of Ethic. In this way the distinction of feelings of activity from the rest of the process-content of conscious- ness not only makes a first contribution towards the demarcation and establishment of the science of Psychology, but also lays the first foundation for two departments of philosophy proper, I mean those of Ethic and Logic. We have already seen, that Thought, the object-matter of Logic, takes its rise in the second and more complex mode of attention. And Logic and Ethic are alike in this, that both have conscious activities of the Subject as 202 THE TIME-STREAM. cSiiL tneu ' object-matter, and both aim at guiding the course, as well as analysing the nature, of the -,. T ^ e conscious activities which are their objects. Tiine-tjtream J *^ But perhaps the most important point to be z^ noticed is, that the two kinds of process which are Existcrc. now distinguished from each other, I mean that which is action and that which is process simply, do not stand in the relation of Subject and Object to one another. True, the process which is action is action on the part of the Subject ; but this does not show that the process which is process simply is its object. Both processes alike contain both objectivity and subjectivity in themselves, inas- much as both alike are processes of reflective perception. They are to be conceived as two currents, or two strands, in the whole stream or process-content of experience, running side by side and constantly intermingling with or changing into each other. Whether at any given moment the whole stream contains either one or the other singly, consists of the simple or the complex one, or of a simple and a complex current at once and side by side, is here unimportant. It and they alike follow the law of all perception ; that is, rise into consciousness and recede into memory in the successive moments of actual experience. The perceiving process as well as the objects perceived become in those moments objective to perception, and take their place in what may be called the panorama or universe of knowledge. Since every- thing which the panorama contains enters by the one gate of reflective perception, everything must at least form part of the time-stream of conscious- ness or experience. Everything surmisable must THE TIME-STREAM. 203 have a place therein. That which has neither 5 00 " 1 ,- OH. Ill* place nor duration in time does not exist at all, in 7. any sense of the term existence which has a ,. T ? Time-Stream meaning for us. and its parts. It has been shown above, how the perception of &* time future is added to and combined with that of time past and present, so as to form one continuous whole. Time occupied, so to speak, by feeling is the time-stream of experience in its ultimate and most general expression. Time and Feeling are universal features in all parts of the stream. But it is important to notice that they are not common to its parts in exactly the same sense. Here we have an instance of the difference between a per- ceptually abstract and a logically general term. It is always some specific feeling or feelings which are present in consciousness, not portions of feeling in general, that is, feeling undifferentiated into specific modes. Feeling in general is a logically general, as well as an abstract, term ; and as such has no perceptual object answering to it, that is, none at all except the specific feelings of which it is the highest generalisation. It is not the name of un- differentiated feeling as a percept, for no such percept exists. But with time, the other element in the stream of consciousness, it is different. It is always some portion of a single time-duration which is present, differentiated or distinguished from other portions solely by change of feeling, or difference of the feelings, which are its content. The time of which it is a portion is not a logically general term, like feeling in general ; it is an object, or rather an objective though abstract element, just the same in -<-4 THE TIME-STREAM. kind, that is, just as much perceptual, as its parts ; not distinguished from them as a general term is ^ rom the particulars which it covers, but as a perceptual whole from its perceptual parts. Time as an abstract element of consciousness depends on abstraction from feeling, but this does not convert it into a concept or logically general term. It is an individual though abstract percept, as well as being numerically one. The notion that time is a logically general term, or concept, standing to all particular portions of time as genus to species, is a notion which has wrought great mischief in philosophy. The truth about it is, that time as a whole, in the full significance of the term, is one of those percepts spoken of above, which are answers obtained by means of conceptual processes, and therefore require those processes for their full understanding. But, as already pointed out, the end as well as the beginning of conceptual processes is laid in per- cepts. And thus the perceptual nature of time is unaffected by the fact, that insight into its nature is attained partly by conceptual processes. The general terms used in reasoning must in every case be re-translated into their perceptual equiva- lents, before they can appear as realities in the conclusion. It is here that the difference between the terms time as a whole and feeling as a whole discloses itself. Time as a whole has a single infinite, or at any rate indefinitely bounded, percept, as its object signified ; feeling as a whole has no corresponding single percept signified by it, but has instead an indefinite number of specific feelings, which are spread out, as it were, over the whole of THE TIME-STREAM. 205 time, and which the term feeling serves to gather CHIII' up, for thought, into a conceptual unity. 7y We have in this Chapter obtained a view of the whole process-content of experience, so far as it its p" r t s _ takes the form of a stream, rising into consciousness ^J and receding into memory ; and we have seen that Existere. all experience must take this form at least, what- ever other forms it may assume in addition. To infer the reality of objects or events, past, present, or future, of which we have not ourselves had immediate experience evidenced by memory, is to bring them by thought into, that is, think of them as really existing in, one and the same time-stream, the present moment of which is occupied by the representation of them. To conceive or imagine more time-streams than one is, as we have already seen, an impossibility. Within this time-stream of consciousness we have also distinguished various modes of percep- tion, and various contents and objects of perception, one and all of which are parts of the whole stream, whether as processes or as contents of process. And this inclusion and differentiation together enable us to give a further differentiation of the general term Being or Reality in its widest sense, in which it is taken as the Thatness of a Whatness, and which is expressed by the dictum that Esse is Percipi. This sense of thatness is common to the whole and every part of the time- stream. But there is another sense of the term in which it is applicable to the parts only. When we say that a particular percept exists, percipitu?; we say more than percipitur simply. We also refer it to a particular place in a time-series, or more 206 THE TIME-STREAM. BOOK I. CH. III. The Time-Stream and its parts. Esse and Ezisterc. briefly to a particular time ; that is, we relate it to its context in the time-stream. The time-stream as a whole has no context in time ; it has thatness simply. But every one of its parts has some context within the stream as a whole. A part has thatness also, but its thatness is a particular one. This particularising sense of the term thatness is marked by the word existere as distinguished from esse. The preposition marks the relation to a context, in that particular portion of the stream to which we apply the term existent. The German word Dasein is capable of the same employment. When we come to examine our perceptions in space as well as time, we shall find that existence, or thatness in the particular sense, is applicable to them also in a precisely similar way, indicating place in relation to spatial context, that is, place in its strict and literal meaning, no longer merely figurative, as when we speak of place in order of time. And as we proceed farther, we shall find other differentiations of the term thatness, corresponding to further experiences still to be disclosed by the analysis. CHAPTER IV. FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 1.1 need make no apology for quitting at this point the examination of perceptions which may be treated, by abstraction, as occupying time only, and BOOK I. CH. IV. 1. Visual and Tactual passing at once to perceptions of another order, Sensations. namely, to the perception of feelings which, in immediate consciousness, occupy space as well as time. For this will be found the only road by which we can arrive at the origin of those con- ceptions, some rudiments of which we have already found involved in the phenomena of attention ; I mean the conceptions of action and agent, activity and the Subject. It has been said above (Chap. III., 4) that all process-contents of consciousness, of whatever kind, and of all degrees of com- plexity, which occupy time only, except so far as they include sense of effort and its derivatives, are represented and covered by the analysis of certain very simple sense perceptions, which has been already given. Before we can return to sense of effort and its derivatives, we must plainly look in another quarter ; that is, to feelings which occupy some other perceptual form than that of time only. Yet we shall not have occasion to look farther than to feelings already comprised in the 208 FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. CHIV. rou P of experiences selected for present analy>is at the outset, in Chap. II., 1. V Tw!tua? d ^ has been shown that every feeling has in it a Sensations, time-element, occupies some portion of time, and is a part of a continuous time-stream of conscious- ness. But there are some feelings which, besides this, and without ceasing to be parts of the con- tinuous time-stream, have also a space-element, occupy some portion of space, and are parts of an experience which is spatially as well as durationally extended ; as if the receding stream of conscious- ness, in those parts of its course where the space- element comes in, were for a time expanded into a lake. The feelings which immediately and inseparably have this space-element, and so are spatially extended, are of two kinds, the sensations of sight and of touch. I do not count muscular sensibility, or the sensations of heat and cold, or the sensibility to the direction from which sound comes to the ear, as being themselves immediately and insepar- ably bound up with a space-element. They may, and I am inclined to think they do, owe their extension to constant association with the sensa- tions from which it is inseparable. I can discover no trace of extension, and consequently no trace of direction, in them, when taken alone. When we know aliunde, that they are caused by objects which are in various directions of space outside us, and that our own bodies are extended substances in space, then the differences in the sensations become marks by which we judge of the distance and direction of those objects, or of the magnitude of the bodily part affected. But this does not FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 209 involve their containing direction or extension as CHIV elements of themselves. o ! In subjective analysis we must take our stand visual and frankly on introspection (as it is called) and its Sensations. results. If we speak, as we must, of the sensations as belonging to different bodily organs, we must not make this knowledge the basis of our distinc- tion between different classes of them, or the criterion to decide what features are to be included in each class. We must look only to the content of the sensations as perceived contents, beginning with the whole content of our consciousness, and distinguishing it into classes by its various differ- ences. It is in this way that we come to classify sight and touch themselves as sensibilities different in kind, and capable of separate and independent exercise. Sensations of sight and touch always contain an element of extension, which we cannot describe as of less than two dimensions, or what we afterwards call superficial extension. This extension is not perceived originally as only superficial, because we have not, at first, the perception of depth, or the third dimension, with which to contrast it. These sensations do not exclude, but at the same time they do not contain, the perception of depth. We see a coloured surface, we feel a han I surface, as we afterwards call them; but what we really and immediately see and feel is colour extended and hardness extended. Speaking only of these two senses, and putting aside all importations from after-acquired knowledge, we can no more see or feel extension without colour or hardness than we can see or feel colour or hardness without rxtrn- o 210 FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. cSiv. sion - Superficial extension is thus the minimum of T~ space immediately perceived ; we do not originally V Tac i tu a ai d P ei> ceive points or lines by themselves ; we perceive Sensations, them as differences of superficial extension, or more strictly as differences of the sensations occupy- ing it, 2. . $ 2. I have spoken of certain other modes of Perception ! ..... of their sensibility, the sense of muscular tension, ot heat extension not due to and cold, and ot directions ot sound, as possibly Association. . . . . owing the spatial extension, which they appear to involve, to their constant association with the sensations of sight and touch, from which it is inseparable. Why, it may be asked, may not the sensations of sight and touch also owe their spatial extension to association ? The answer has already been given implicitly. If sensations of sight and touch owed their spatial extension to association, it could only be to association, not with other sensations, but with spatial extension itself. But sensations of sight and touch prior to the supposed association, that is, apart from spatial extension, are mere abstractions ; similarly, spatial extension apart from them is a mere abstraction ; each of these two abstractions pre-supposes the concrete case from which it is abstracted ; that is, requires us to have had a prior knowledge of the combina- tion of sensations of sight and touch with spatial extension ; which contradicts the hypothesis of their combination being due to association origin- ally. The ultimate fact of perception, in the case of these two senses, is a complex fact ; that is, every such perception has an element of feeling and an element of spatial extension inseparably bound up together, the former occupying the latter, FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 211 just as all feelings, and these among the rest, have civ a time-element, in virtue of which they occupy time. Perception _ ... . f tneir lo this reasoning it is sometimes replied bv exten sionnot r> ... i -, i- due to Empiricists, that Metaphysicians miss the whole Association. point of their argument, which is, that the power of association, which is admitted to account satis- factorily for a great number of our conceptions, is a power great enough to have effected the fusion of spatial extension with feelings of sight and touch, and that so completely, that we are now positively unable to perceive, or even think of them, except as combined. Association, they say, will really account for the very fact of inseparability in consciousness. But metaphysicians are perfectly aware of this contention of the empiricists, and their reply is this. The supposition, that association has really effected the inseparability in question, is one which cannot be made without quitting the point of view of subjective analysis of consciousness without assump- tions, which is the sure ground of experience, and consequently without thereby instituting an enquiry, and proposing an hypothesis, concerning conditions and genesis, before ascertaining what the things are, which are supposed to be respectively condition and conditionate. For it involves the assumption that extension can exist apart from the sensations in question, and those sensations apart from it, though neither can in the least degree be either perceived or construed to thought without the other. The theory is thus built ultimately upon an hypothesis ; this hypothesis is that of a relation between entities which are made out of abstrac- 212 FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. CHIV tions ; and these abstract entities, also by the T-- hypothesis, are not even construable to thought. ^e^tion They are mere words which have not, and cannot ext due io to nofc nave > an intelligible meaning. Whatever, then, Association. mav ^ e the cause of the fusion, if there be a cause, it is plainly not association ; for association always supposes the separable existence of the perceptions associated. But it may possibly be said, that after all the reply just given rests on the metaphysician's arbitrary assumption of a principle of method, namely, that of postponing enquiry into genesis to enquiry into nature. That this is no arbitrary assumption, but is essential to a method based on experience alone, I have already made evident. Nevertheless I will try to show the futility of the empiricist's contention in another way. Suppose for the sake of argument, that utterly void extension was once an object of perception. Sup- pose also that sensations of light and colour were once perceived as wholly unextended objects. Suppose the same of sensations of hardness, or tactual sensations. And suppose that sensations of these two kinds have severally been experienced together with wholly void extension so long and so invariably, as to have become united into extended sensations of the two several kinds, so that they have now become perceivable by us only as extended sensations, and the separability of their constituents conceivable only by conscious abstraction. What follows ? Simply this, that the united or combined state of the perceptions so reached is the very state which for us now is the state in which they are invariably experienced, that is, in which they FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 213 Extension in Touch - are ultimate data of our experience. In other words, we have absolutely no data which will enable us to go, as it were, behind them, by construing their genesis to thought, and con- sequently that the empiricist's hypothesis is a piece Association. of empty transcendentalism. 3. This, then, is all that we originally know of space, namely, that it is a perceptual co-element with visual feeling and with tactual feeling ; and as such co-element, it is no more than an extension of those feelings in length and breadth. We neither perceive it as extension in depth, the third dimen- sion, nor do we perceive it as length and breadth distinguished from depth ; it is, as it were, open to receive the perception of depth, if it should arise. Neither are length and breadth perceived in it as contrasted with each other, but only as involved in the simple perception of extension. The contrast of length with breadth is due to a later discrimi- nation of the originally perceived extension, a discrimination which is probably simultaneous with that of their common contrast with depth, the so-called third dimension of space, and therefore also simultaneous with that synthetic harmonising of the data of different senses (sight and touch) by means of association, which, as we shall presently see, gives us at once the perception of depth and the perception of solid bodies. Another feature must be noticed in the percep- tion of extension, a parallel phenomenon to what was remarked in the case of time ; I mean the non-isolation of any finite portion of the visual (not tactual) field. I do not speak of the non- isolation of superficial extension in relation to 214 FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. CHIV depth ; there is no reason to suppose that visual extension is perceived as non-isolated in this Extension direction. I mean the non-isolation of any portion of two dimensions of visual extension with regard to contiguous m Sight and portions of extension in the same dimension. in Touch. t TT1 , IT Wherever we draw the line round an object of sight, there is always spatial extension in the same two dimensions beyond it ; just as in the case of any portion of time, there is always time before it and after it. Portions of visual extension are not perceived isolated ; it is attention which dis- tinguishes them, by difference of content, from other portions of extension. There is in visual perception a variegated surface, as there is in time a variegated stream ; and the variegated surface is also a portion of the variegated stream. There is continuity in visual perception, both ad intra and ad extra, just as there is in the time-stream of consciousness generally. But this fact of continuity, or difference without isolation, is not equally found in tactual sensation. Touch sensations have continuity only ad intra. What we feel in touch we feel as extended, that is, as a patch, larger or smaller, of extended hardness or tangibility, but we have no inkling of the parts adjacent. We feel an isolated bit of hardness ; there is no suggestion of surface beyond it, it is not felt as continuous- ad extra. At the same time, it does not forbid the perception of continuity ad extra; it simply says nothing about it. Just as visual and tactual extension say nothing about depth, the third dimension, so tactual extension says nothing about continuity ad extra in its own dimensions. This peculiarity of tactual sen- FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 215 sations, their being continuous ad infra but not ad extra, combined with their specific sense-quality, is their special contribution towards the construc- tion of our full notions of space and of matter. Both sight and touch, then, involve spatial extension in two dimensions, but involve it in a markedly different manner ; sight involves it as a continuum both ad intra and ad extra, touch only ad intra. If we always exercised these two senses separately, that is, at different times from each other, we should not, in perception alone, identify the spatial extension given by them separately as the same, or the portions of extension given by touch with any of the portions distinguished in that given by sight. The identity of the spatial extension perceived through these two channels is the result of a comparison between the two kinds of percepts when they are given simultaneously. We then see, that in one and the same portion of spatial extension there is room for both kinds of feeling or content ; and not only so, but that in both kinds of feeling or content, taken together, there is not room for more than one and the same portion of extension. This is the first step in our building up both the notion of a single space and the notion of matter filling space ; and it plainly depends upon the simultaneousness of sen- sations of two kinds, sight and touch ; that is, it depends upon the perception of a single contin- uous stream of time, in all perceptions which form part of a single consciousness. For if the per- ceptions of these two senses were not sometimes simultaneous, as for instance when I touch and see a hard coloured surface, nothing would compel me BOOK I. CH. IV. n . Extension of two dimensions in Sight and in Touch. FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. BOOK I. CH. IV. . Extension of two dimensions in Sight and in Touch. 4. The terms Formal and Material Elements. to identify these different contents with one and the same portion of spatial extension ; there would be room, so to speak, for more spatial extensions than one ; since I do not factually /eel the spatial extension in colour, nor see the spatial extension in hardness, but perceive each sensation separately as extended. The fact that the spatial extension is common to both is the result of association, or combination of perceptions coming from psycho- logically different sources, founded on the fact immediately perceived, that the portion of time occupied by each is one and the same. 4. Unlike as time and visual extension are in other respects, to which I shall presently recur, we have already seen that they are similar in one most remarkable feature. They are both continuous ad extra as well as ad infra, that is, are perceived a> distinguished by differences in their content into portions, which are continuous with other portions beyond them (this is their continuity ad extra), and continuous within themselves, each portion being distinguishable by differences in its content into smaller portions, either in actual sensibility or in thought, and these again into still smaller portions, no one of which is separable from the extension beyond it (which is their continuity ad infra). This feature of double continuity is common to both. It is that feature which justifies the expression Form as applied to them both. The time which, when filled with feeling, is continuous in both directions, so that the different feelings are never felt otherwise than as portions of that con- tinuous time, is properly called a form in which feeling comes to us. It is moreover the pre- FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 217 supposition of all other forms of feeling as portions of time, that is, of all other sequences or arrange- ments of feelings as successive. The same is true of visual extension ; it is the form in which all BOOK I. CH. IV. 4. The terms Formal and Material' visual feelings come to us, and the pre-supposition Elements. of all further forms which visual feelings, and other feelings in spatial extension which afterwards come to be combined with them, can assume. In contradistinction from time, and from visual extension, together with those other cases of exten- sion which combine with it, that is, from space generally, the feelings which are the content of these two forms are called the matter, or material element, in perception. The term matter of course is here used in a very different sense from physical matter, as it is called. It means feeling as the content of continuous duration or continuous extension, the discreteness of which into dis- tinguishable but inseparable portions is due to its varieties. Without the discreteness we should not be aware of the continuity ; and without the continuity the discreteness would not be form. Form is an order, an arrangement, a nexus, of discrete parts. The elements which give the con- tinuity in concrete perceptions are those of dura- tion and spatial extension. These therefore are the formal elements of perception, as distinguished from its material element, feeling, which is the source of its discreteness. So much by way of justifying the nomenclature here employed, the naming time and spatial exten- sion the formal, and feeling the material, element in perception. These names are applied to them derivatively, from their analogy with cases of 218 FEELINGS IX SPATIAL EXTENSION. CHIV common experience, with the figure, outline, shape, T~ of pictured or of solid objects. It does not follow, ^ffoS* m deed it is impossible, that their relations to each Mate** otner should be the same in every respect as the Elements, relations between form and matter in cases of common-sense experience, from their analogy with which they derive their names. But, such being granted to be the derivation of the terms, it follows that we are bound to show what special relations they express in their new application, relations which are analogous but not identical with those which the terms denoted originally. Combination *> But now observe, in the next place, how radi- ca lty different a world it is, to which we are intro- duced ^J the phenomena of visual extension, how different from the world which is perceived in time alone. I do not mean by virtue of its content of special feeling, its matter, light and colours, but by virtue of its form, spatial extension. It has the feature of continuity common with time, but how different is the mode of its continuity. Every portion of its continuity is simultaneous, co- existing with every other portion ; whereas, in the continuity of time, every portion is successive ; and although some features in the succession are co-existent with others, yet all alike are changing, or (in figurative terms) moving, rising into con- sciousness and dropping behind into the past, and connected by their overlapping fibres with the portions which are to rise into consciousness next in succession. This phenomenon of time-sequence we have already examined. We have seen that it is a phenomenon independent of visual perception and FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 219 visual extension. We have seen that its sequence is given by its content coming into, continuing in, and passing out of, an empirical present moment of consciousness ; and that its continuity in perceptions sequence is given by the fact of some of the percep feelings, which are its content, overlapping others. onl y- True, we characterise it as a time- sequence, we know that it is a time-sequence as distinguished from a time-constancy, only by distinguishing the content of a reflective moment from the process which is the perception of it, and this we do in a later moment of reflection ; but originally, that is, in the first moment of reflective perception, we perceive the content changing, before we pass the judgment which recognises the distinction of change from unchange. In the simplest moment of reflective perception we perceive simple feelings coming into and passing out of consciousness. And perceiving them overlapping, we perceive them as a continuous stream. Their relation to one another in consciousness (which does not mean as compared to consciousness) is their sequence and their continuity. A vast number of feelings is in this case ; they have no other form than time. Suppose now, that we have had experience only of feelings of this sort, feelings in the form of time ; a supposition which of course is not intended to repre- sent historical fact, but is made simply in the inte- rests of analysis. Suddenly, imagine, feelings of sight appear among them ; an expanse of light and colours. New kinds of feelings we should have experienced before ; but a new kind of form would be unexampled. The visual expanse of light and colours would be a revelation. Yet the new feelings 220 FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. CHIV must all De feelings in time also, since, if they had no duration they would not be felt at all. Each 5. * C o?Ssuli n feeling of sight, therefore, appears in consciousness perceptions and passes away, leaving a trace in representation, petitions just as do feelings of the former class. I speak, of niy. course, of a single visual feeling, artificially distin- guished as occupying a short duration, as by opening the eyes for a moment and then shutting them, not of an uninterrupted succession of such feelings, as in gazing on a fixed object or a land- scape ; though in this case too the uninterrupted perception must still be construed, psychologically, as a succession of perhaps inappreciably different moments, continuously occurring. But besides its duration, each feeling of sight has visual extension also ; that is, it spreads out in breadth and length of space, right and left, up and down, with indefinite outline and varied content, the whole of it being in the first instance simul- taneously present to consciousness, for a longer or shorter duration of time, as the case may be. In the first instance, I repeat, the whole is simulta- neously perceived. That is to say, if we take any portion of visual extension, the opposite boundaries of that portion are present not successively, but simultaneously, however indefinite their outline may be. This is shown by the fact, that we can pay particular attention first to one boundary and then to another, traversing the whole portion by succes- sive acts of attention, in any order, backwards or forwards ; the whole portion remaining before us, while we so traverse it. The acts of attention are successive, but the surface traversed is constant, the parts not attended to losing vividness, but not FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 221 vanishing ; and this experience may be repeated with any portion of visual extension. The constancy of visual extension in time is not introduced by us, that is to say, is not due to the arresting action of attention, as is the case in attending, for instance, to some striking but particular feature in the stream of consciousness, and so prolonging its duration ; but it is found as a general feature in, and insepar- able from, every visual perception, before we attend to its parts, and pass by attention from one side to another. Attention interprets the constancy in the case of visual extension, as it interprets the flow in the case of time ; but it produces neither the constancy nor the flow. 6. Another point must now be noted. If we imagine consciousness in time alone to be a stream, as we have hitherto imagined it, then the direction of the visual surface must be imagined as transverse to the direction of the time-stream. I say if we imagine, because it is only by picturing conscious- ness, that is, expressing it in terms drawn from visual extension, that we speak of it as a stream, a flow, a movement, at all. Consciousness in time alone is not motion but change ; consequently not a stream, which is a motion of solids. It is the accession of visual extension to time-change which alone permits us to think of time-change first as motion, and then as a stream. We must not mix up the characteristics drawn from space with those which belong to time alone. When we call con- sciousness in time a stream, we must not imagine that it has motion ; neither must we imagine that it has thickness when we speak of it as a rope of many fibres. These are images transferred to con- BOOK I. CH. IV. 5. Combination of visual perceptions with perceptions in Time only. Time not a Space- dimension. '2-2-2 FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. BOOK I. CH. IV. Time not a Space - dimension. sciousness in time from our more complex knowledge of objects in time and space together. Motion itself is change of place during lapse of time. There is no motion without both elements, time and space. But this pre-supposes the independent reality of change in time alone, which change we first isolate in thought for purposes of analysis, and afterwards picture as a stream for purposes of description. Accordingly, when we picture feelings in time as a stream, and contrast this with feelings occupying visual extension, we must also imagine it as flowing at right angles to the visual extension, which other- wise would not be picturable as having all its parts simultaneous. But we are not thereby attributing direction in space to the time-stream, any more than we attribute extension in space to it by calling it a stream, which is a spatial object. Imagining it as a stream, and imagining it as flowing in a certain direction, are merely parts of the way in which we picture the change of feelings in time, not essential parts of the change which is pictured. It is a case of nomenclature analogous to that of the material and formal elements noticed above. We have in fact no language but that of common sense, lan- guage which, historically speaking, is post-con- ceptual but pre-philosophical, with which to speak of and describe the metaphysical elements which are the analysis of common-sense objects, and therefore wholly unknown to common-sense think- ing. This is one of the circumstances which most powerfully tempt so many well-meaning persons to philosophise by what is sometimes called " light of nature." FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 223 Time, then, is no dimension or direction of space ; it is not, as some have suggested, its fourth dimension ; but is entirely heterogeneous, as a formal element, from the formal element of spatial extension. Neither is it, as some might hastily imagine, the third dimension of space ; as if the time-stream flowing at right angles to the visual surface, and the succession of many visual surfaces passing away one after the other, gave us the idea of depth, by the superposition of these surfaces, in time, one upon the other. In perceiving visual extension we do not also imagine it as transverse to the stream of time ; consequently we cannot imagine it as forming a thickness by layer suc- ceeding to layer. This would not give, but pre-suppose, a perception of depth ; and this perception is not given in, or prior to, visual extension. We have still to enquire how this perception is added. 7. The question, then, is, how the third dimension of space comes to coalesce with that visually perceived extension, in which not more than two dimensions, as they are afterwards called, are perceived ; how we come to the full perception of space in three dimensions, and to regard it as a single homogeneous unity. In doing this we must, I think, have recourse to association, the association of ideas (as it is called) in our minds, resting on and conditioned by the combined and simultaneous exercise of some other sense or senses together with that of sight. It is from space occupied by content in three dimensions, as a single homogeneous unity, that we start in these enquiries ; I mean, that this is BOOK I. CH. IV. not a Space- dimension. 7. The third dimension of Space. The perception of it rests on Association. FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. BOOK I. CH. IV. 7- The third dimension of Space. The perception of it rests on Association. our common-sense or pre-philosophic datum, which we find before us, but unanalysed, when we first begin to philosophise. We do not at first suspect that it is a compound due partly to association, and has, as it were, a history behind it in experience. Geometry does not lead us to suspect this. Geometry starts with space abstracted from sensible content, and indifferent to any kind of it, as its datum, but still takes it as a homogeneous unity, distinguished or distinguishable into parts by differences which are likewise abstractions, being abstract images drawn from perceived differences in the content of common-sense space. It thereby creates in thought certain determinations of space which are the basis of geometrical figure, and which taken by themselves are abstractions ; I mean the determinations called points, lines, and surfaces ; points having place but no magnitude, lines having length without breadth, and surfaces having length and breadth without depth. I speak of lines and surfaces perse, as if they were abstract entities, irrespective of the so-called dimensions of space in which they may lie ; as, for instance, a line may require two dimensions of space if it is a curve, or three if it is a spiral ; and a surface three if it is curved, yet without possessing thickness or depth in itself. The so-called three dimensions of space are a case of determination or figuration of a similar kind ; their characteristic being, that they are a mode of it which is exhaustive of space in the entirety of its extent, actual or imaginable. They are derivable directly from the three pairs of directions, which seem to meet in the observer when he looks round him upon the common-sense FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 225 world, these pairs being forwards and back- cSiv. wards right and left upwards and downwards. ~TT~ Geometrically taken, these three pairs are figured by three axes of co-ordinates, that is, three straight lines cutting each other at right angles in one and P er cei>tion the same point, and continuable in all six directions v rest . 8 P. 11 Association. in infinitum ; by reference to which three axes the position of any point, or system of points, in space, may be ascertained. Abstract space as a single homogeneous unity is plainly a pre-requisite for the imagination or conception of all these determina- tions, supposing us to start in pure geometry, as we start in metaphysic, from the data of common- sense experience. Space, therefore, as a single homogeneous unity, whether concrete as in common-sense experience, or abstract as in pure geometry, being pro-supposed by all these abstract determinations or figurations, cannot be conceived to have grown up out of them. They are not the perceptions out of which homo- geneous space in three dimensions has been formed. If space has a history of association behind it in experience, still t/wse cannot be the original parts which association has combined into that single homogeneous unity. We have not built up space out of points, lines, and surfaces in the first instance, notwithstanding that we can distin- guish points, lines, and surfaces in it, as boundaries between its parts, when once it has been built up. The mathematician as such has nothing to say to the question of the original formation of the idea of space. If it is not originally that single homo- geneous unity occupied by content, which it appears to be as a pre-philosophic datum, then p 226 FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. clfiv * ts original parts must be first subjectively dis- ~ cerned from one another in that datum ; that is, The third } le question is one, not for the mathematician, but dimension fi rst (it ma y be) f r tne psychologist, and ulti- mately for the metaphysician. The pure geometri- restson cian's work begins with the figurations which he Association. introduces, by thought, into this originally single and homogeneous extension. Kant, it will be remembered, does not admit the possibility of any such history depending on asso- ciation, behind the full idea of space in three dimensions. He takes space as being such an unity, and then accounts for it as a form of percep- tion, or Anschauung as he calls it ; a form inherent in a function of the mind, a form in which the mind works while perceiving certain sensations or sensible material, and as the mode in which it per- ceives them. So far as its own form was con- cerned, it was projected whole. But then Kant had provided, in his theory, for an agent to which he could refer it ; he supposed the existence of a non-phenomenal agent working under certain laws or forms of its own, one of which was Space, which it imposed upon sensations in receiving them. Those who reject hypotheses of this kind have necessarily to find some other account of space ; I mean always, supposing them to philosophise. For the mathematician may be content to stop short at space as a datum. But for the meta- physician, the rejection of a transcendental psychology, like Kant's, means nothing less than re-opening the question, whether space, the pre- philosophic datum, is analysable or not, and if analysable, whether it is or is not analysable into FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 227 parts which were originally separate from one another, and have been combined only by means of a historical process of association. I am of course speaking of space subjectively taken, or what is commonly called our knowledge or idea of it, which is the space of actual experience ; the question being whether this experience is ana- lysable into separable constituents, as well as into elements which are distinguishable but inseparable from each other. Now this question, so far as it is one of subjective analysis only, and apart from questions (which will meet us farther on) concerning the psychological genesis of the perceptions analysed, is readily answerable. It must clearly be answered in the affirmative, when we consider that the sensations which contain or involve a direct and immediate perception of spatial extension are of two kinds only, those classed as sensations of sight and touch ; that neither kind gives us any of the mathematical boundaries of space, I mean points, lines, and surfaces, by themselves, but only along with and as determinations of spatial extension itself ; and that neither of them gives us space as a whole in any single sensation. Sensations of sight cannot, for they lack the third dimension entirely. Those of touch cannot, for the surface actually touched at any one time is small, and the sensation tells us nothing of extension beyond that actually touched surface ; although it is perhaps con ceivable, that we might, by repeating, continuing, and combining single sensations of touch, build up the notion of a space in three dimensions, without having recourse to the sense of sight at all. In BOOK I. CH. IV. 7- The third dimension of Space. The perception of it rests on Association. 228 FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. CHIV this case, association would come in between separate sensations of the sense of touch ; in the dimension t ner > ^ would come in between separate sensa- f SSe' tions belonging to the two senses of touch and perception sight, as well as (in some cases) between sensations rests on o f each sense separately. Association. * 8. Taking visual extension first, it is clear that, | T ^ by itself, it gives us no notice of the third dimen- ^s7ght y s i n f space. It is true that, when using both adjustments eves > we see both the receding sides of a solid object, when not too large, a piece of cardboard for instance held with its edge towards us. And with a single eye we can see the receding surface of a wall, along which we look. And the shape of small solid objects seems to be perceived immediately, by means of the two different images said to be projected on the two retinas. But so far as vision alone goes, there is nothing to distinguish rays transmitted by a receding surface from rays transmitted by a curved surface, or by a flat surface facing us. The sensations transmitted by all surfaces alike are but so many different sensations in a visual expanse, the differences of which sensations there is nothing to connect with the different directions, in space, of the surfaces by which they are transmitted. They are capable of furnishing interpretations of distance from the eye, when once we know that there is such a thing as distance in that direction ; but they are not capable, alone, of giving us the notion of distance from the eye originally. But the exercise of vision is often, if not always, accompanied by sensations arising from the muscu- lar movements adjusting and focussing the eye, FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 229 whether these movements are voluntary or only CHIV' consensual, and by sensations of effort in actively r~ looking, as well as in passively receiving impres- i ^ lt sions. And these various sensations, it may be W* , J and visual thought, combined with the perception of visual extension which they accompany, are sufficient to give us a perception of the distance of objects from the eye, that is, of the third dimension. It is true, that the different distances of objects from the eye are the real condition of their requiring different adjustments of the organ, in order to their being- perceived with the greatest clearness possible. But it does not follow, that the sensations which accom- pany active looking originate a notion of those different distances, that is, of there being such a thing as distance from the eye, or even of the existence of the eye as a point of departure. The eye does not see itself in vision ; what it sees is an expanse of light and colour. The distance of points or portions of this expanse from each other, as given by the purely visual part of the whole percep- tion, may very well be also judged of by means of the sensations of adjustment and looking, and the two sources of information used to corroborate or to correct each other. It has, I believe, been proved by psychological experiment, that the point at which differences between sensations of motor adjustment of the eye cross the threshold of consciousness, that is, first become perceptible, coincides with the point at which differences between perceived magnitudes of extension cross it ; or as it may also be expressed, that the first or lowest perception of change in magnitude of an observed visual object, and the first or lowest percep- FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. clf'iv tion of change in adjustment of the eye, coincide ; r~ from which the conclusion is drawn, that sensations b f adjustment of the eye are always involved as e l emen ts in our space perceptions. 1 adjustments B u t this does not show that these sensations give alone. us the element of extension in those perceptions ; rather the contrary, seeing that this element of extension is pre-supposed in those magnitudes, differences between which are what the differences in sensations of adjustment of the eye coincide with. Extension is necessarily involved in the perception of magnitude, but not necessarily in the sensations of adjustment of the eye ; the common element in different sensations of the latter kind is not extension, but some feeling which of itself, even in cases of looking sustained by volition, where it becomes a feeling of effort or tension, is a feeling in time only, and the differences of which are differ- ences in degree of intensity. Still less does it show, that sensations of adjustment and looking, combined with the differences perceived in the visual expanse, are sufficient to give us the percep- tion of distance from the eye, or of objects from each other in the line of that distance ; I mean, originally. To do this they must of themselves involve the perception of the third dimension of space ; but this is impossible, unless they involve also the two first dimensions, which I have tried to show is not the case. Let us imagine an instance. Suppose we are witnessing, for the first time, what we afterwards call a smaller solid object passing in front of and 1 Professor Wundt's Philosophische Studitn. Band L, Heft 1, p. 23. In Wundt'a own article, Ueber Psycholoyische Methodcn. FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 231 partially hiding a larger one, a case in which the proper focussing of the objects would require different adjustments of the eye. This would not of itself give us the notion of distance in a line from the eye, but would appear as a series of changes in the visually perceived expanse, (the third dimension has not yet been perceived), accompanied by certain sensations of effort, which we should then seek to harmonise with the visually perceived changes, so as to discover the law of their connection. Clearly this would not give us a perception of distance from the eye. The sensa- tions of adjustment arise in executing movements, but they are not perceptions of movement ; it no more follows, that the eye perceives motions of solids because, in seeing, it executes such motions and has perceptions arising from them, than it follows from its being a solid, that, in seeing, it must see solids. We can neither per- ceive the sensations of adjustment as bodily motion, nor connect them with that perception, until we have first arrived at perceiving bodily motion itself. The organs whose movements give us the sensations of adjustment are not the object but the condition of those sensations. But in order for them to give us the perception of depth, through that of motion, it would be requisite that the movements of the organs should be their objects, whether or not they were their conditions also. And the same holds good, mutatis mutandis, of the sensations of effort in looking. 8 9. It will be convenient to speak next of cer- 9 - ... Is or by tain other sensations which give indications of perceptions , . , . . . , , . . , of sound distance or direction in three-dimensional space, in and teiui>erature. 232 FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. CH iv combination with other senses. I mean those ^ 9 ~ which are involved in the perception of sounds, and perceptions * external temperature. We do, as a matter of f ^d nd k lct conjecture the direction, and frequently the temperature, distance, of the origin of a perceived sound, while hearing it ; and similarly the direction, and often, though less accurately, the distance of the origin of a change in perceived temperature, when felt ex- ternally. It is, I believe, held by some psycho- logists, that the ear is furnished with a set of nerves or neural arrangements capable of these discrimi- nations, distinct from those which are sensitive to sound. And nerves sensitive to temperature are distributed over the surface of the body, whether distinct or not from the nerves of tactual sensation, which are likewise general in their distribution. But be this as it may, what I wish to remark is, that the same reasoning applies to the perceptions of distance and direction when thus originated, or rather suggested, which I have applied to the corresponding perceptions in the case of sight. Just as the sensations of adjustment of the eye in seeing are not perceptions of motion, but are sensa- tions or perceptions occupying time only, so in the case of sound, the sensations or perceptions of dis- tance and direction are, of themselves, perceptions occupying time only, and the notices which they give of distance and direction pre-suppose a know- ledge of three-dimensional space, already acquired from elsewhere ; pre-suppose that we have come to think of our own organism as a solid body, in and surrounded by three-dimensional space, in which moreover other solid bodies are also contained. FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 233 Similar but not quite the same is the case of sensibility to changes of temperature. The nerves subserving this sensibility, being distributed over the surface of the body, most probably convey the perception of extension ; but they tell us no more temperature. about it than the simplest cases of touch tell us, or than they would tell us if they were themselves nerves of touch. That is to say, any indications of distance or direction which they give suppose a knowledge of the third dimension of space generally to have been already acquired, which, as we shall see, touch alone does not procure. These sensations, like those of touch, are in themselves surface sensations and no more. It is a case analogous to that of taste, where by the organs of the mouth we touch and taste the same object ; only here without the power of touching the object all round. If then, the sensibility to external changes of temperature is considered as giving the perception of extension at all, it gives no more than the simplest case of tactual sensibility gives ; if it is considered as discriminating differences of dis- tance and direction, it can be so only as an inter- pretation of an independently acquired knowledge of space in three dimensions. 10. Another quite different view of vision is sometimes taken. Vision, it is argued, taken by itself, abstracting from sensations of adjustment, in P8 jj|j olo8y is incapable of giving even the perception of a i continuous expanse. The sensitive surface of the retina, it is said, on which the rays of light mediately impinge, forms a minute network of nerve fibres, transverse to the perpendicular ends of certain rods and cones of nerve matter, so that in the sensitive 234 FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. CH OI IV. surface itself there are left spaces which are not r\^ sensitive to light. The ether vibrations, moreover, which inipinge upon this discontinuous surface, are no ^ a continuous stream, but impinge upon it in se P ara te minute pulsations. It is therefore said to be impossible, that we should really see what we think we see, a continuous expanse of colour ; what we really see is a number of coloured patches, each momentarily existing, that is, discontinuous in time, and moreover separated from each other in space by vacuity, answering to the discontinuous surface of the retina. The continuity of these patches in an extension is a notion imported from elsewhere, and if supposed to be seen is an illusion. 1 But in the first place it may be replied, that, even on this showing, the patches, taken severally, are continuous each within itself ; so that con- tinuous extension is perceived, though not the continuous extension of the whole field of vision. The discontinuous patches of colour are still patches, that is, are not mathematical points, but extended surfaces, just as the portions of a touched surface are, to which, when so conceived, they bear a striking analogy. So that, even supposing the patches to be the only things originally seen, vision would still be a perception of extension, being a perception of extended sensations, each continuous ad intra, and sight would still rank along with touch, as one of the only two senses which give us a direct and immediate knowledge of it. 1 One form of this argument may be seen stated, with hia well-known force and clearness, by the late W. K. Clifford, in his paper, The Philosophy of the Pure Sciences, contained in his Lectures and Essays, VoL I., pp. 257 8. I do not profess to reproduce Clifford's argument as it stands. The whole Lecture, though popular, may be read with advantage. FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 235 But a more complete reply to the foregoing cSiv. argument is this. Those who use it mean one ^~ thing by seeing, and metaphysicians mean another. The discrete patches, which those who use this i argument say are the only things originally inmet a a n ^ ysic . seen, are really never seen at all, that is, never seen discrete, or as patches. What is really seen is the whole field of vision ; and it is seen as a continuum. The discrete patches which are parts of that continuum are never seen, but inferred to have been seen, discrete ; and inferred, not imme- diately from closer attention resulting in analysis of the actually seen continuum, but from our sub- sequently gained knowledge of the structure of the retina, and of the vibrations of the ether, knowledge which has been acquired later than, and partly by means of those perceptions of continuous expansions, which are the original data of the sense of sight. Now if the words seen and seeing were used in the same sense by both parties, the difference of their views would be irreconcilable, inasmuch as the one infers that something has been actually seen, namely, the patches as discrete, which the other asserts never is seen. But if the words are used by each in different senses, then it is possible, that the inference of the one and the assertion of the other may both be true, in the sense which each attributes to the words used ; and the question which then results is, which of the two has the best right to attach the meaning he does to the words. Let us, then, see what different meanings are attached to these words, and why. Seeing means, with the metaphysician, the con- sciousness of any visual phenomenon which is 230 FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. CHIV. actually present, and which includes neither a r~j~ recalled, nor an imagined, nor an inferred per- iSing 1 of ce ption. So understanding the term, he then takes in psychology n ^ s stant l upon the phenomena of consciousness, as etohysic. ^ey are actua % and immediately known. In the case of sight, a continuous expanse of varied light and colour is the lowest and simplest phenomenon ever actually present in this way. It is true that this phenomenon, like all perception, is a process, and a process involving representation and reten- tion in memory, as well as what is called presented sensation, though without repetition or recall of anything which has once faded from immediate consciousness. This was shown in a previous Chapter, when we were dealing with the continuity of consciousness in time. But what is the conse- quence? Not that a complex phenomenon like the continuous visual field is not the original and simplest object seen, but that the original and simplest object seen is a complex phenomenon. It is that phenomenon from which the whole meaning of the words sight and seeing is derived. But seeing with the psychologist means some- thing quite different. His purpose is to trace the con- ditions of consciousness, referring some to the per- cipient, or Subject, others to the world external to the percipient, both of which are assumed to begin with ; and accordingly seeing means with him the immediate result in consciousness (whatever it may be) of the simplest and lowest action of an external agent on the organ of vision, apart from any re- action of the percipient agent or organ, except what is involved in the apprehension or reception of that lowest and simplest action, which in this FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 237 case is a vibration or vibrations falling on one or CHIV more minute portions of the retina. The action, r~ argues the psychologist, is physically discrete ; the parts affected are physically discrete ; that is, we i must see discrete patches of colour in the first . f nci , in metapny place, before combining them into that continuous coloured expanse, which we falsely imagine is actually and immediately seen. Assuming, then, that the process is real, and the result real, the discrete patches of colour must be real constituents, psychologically determined, of the coloured expanse which, for the metaphysician, is the immediate content or object of vision. This the metaphysician will not hesitate to admit. He demurs only to the conclusion, that, because they are shown by psychology to be real constituents of that coloured expanse which for him is the imme- diate object of vision, therefore they are them- selves, in their discreteness, the only objects which are immediately seen, while the coloured expanse, of which they are constituents, is not seen, but either imagined or inferred. I shall return to this point presently, with the hope of showing, that the reality of the constituent patches is perfectly compatible with the meta- physician's view of the object immediately seen. First, however, what I would insist on is, that by seeing the psychologist means the inferred result of a physical process, the metaphysician a state of consciousness immediately perceived ; and I contend, that the metaphysician's usage is the stricter of the two. Some such usage, moreover, is implicitly adopted by the psychologist himself, when he attempts to show that his discrete patches of 238 FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. colour, though he knows of them only by inference, are yet the only objects immediately seen ; since he mus t plainly attach some independent meaning to n m*'choi the term immediate perception, in order logically to sic exhibit his discrete patches of colour as a case to which it is applicable. This singular confusion of thought, on the part of the psychologist, arises from his assuming, to begin with, the existence both of an external world and of a percipient Subject affected by it ; whereas the metaphysician assumes nothing but the content of consciousness as a datum to be analysed, in the expectation of finding, by its analysis, how all concrete notions are built up, including those of an external world and percipient beings, as objects of common-sense experience. It is precisely the nature and relative value of our ideas of these and other existents, unhesitatingly assumed by psychologists and empiricists generally as per se nota, which meta- physical analysis is directed to discover. Hence the importance for philosophy of distinguishing immediate sense-perceptions from perceptions which are arrived at by means of inference, or which include constituents due to recollection, inference, or imagination. Taking up the point to which I said I should presently return, it must not be supposed that the metaphysician denies the existence of the discrete patches of colour ; what he denies is, that they are ever immediately seen discrete. They are not first perceived and afterwards combined, by asso- ciation or otherwise, into a continuum. No amount of attention will enable us to see them. To say that they are what we actually see in FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. 239 vision is like saying that, when we hear a sound of CHIV a certain pitch, this sound is not what we really -- hear, but certain minuter sounds corresponding; to Different meaning (if the several vibrations of which the wave which . v^\ in psychology strikes the ear is composed. * nd . m metaphysic. Nor will it answer to maintain, that the discrete patches of colour are the sensations, by the combi- nation of which a perception of a continuous field of vision is composed. The patches of colour must be and are thought of as continuous within themselves ; that is, as being themselves percep- tions, and not merely sensations. Sensation, it has been shown above, strictly and properly means the sensation-element of perception. Imagine a sen- sation by itself, and you eo ipso imagine it as a perception, since you cannot help supplying the formal element. As sensation alone it would be a mere abstraction, and could not so exist. This is not the case with the patches of colour spoken of. They have a real and empirical existence. The question is, how this real existence is to be conceived. The answer has already been implied. They exist, not as perceived metaphysical elements, but as minute components, possibly empirical minima, of visual perception, psychologically inferred but not separately seen. Their relation to the actually perceived expanse is closely analogous to that of the minute portions of time-duration, which can be distinguished by mathematical thought as components of a single empirical minimum perceptionis, as explained above in Chap. II., 5, on Reflective Perception. In both cases we are dealing with perceptual com- ponents of perception, which are either too small, -40 FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION. CH*V. or too closely implicated with others, to be per- f~w ceived separately. The difference is, that there n!25n e g n of we were dealing with minute parts of time, without in psychology knowing of any special part or function of the c. nerve organism, to which to refer them ; here we are dealing with minute portions of spatial expansion, and have access to the peripheral extremity of the organ concerned, namely, the retina. Our knowledge of the organ and its environment rests ultimately, inter alia, upon visual perception as it is actually experienced. When we start again from this knowledge, as we do in psychology, and take the organ and its environment as our means of explaining the real genesis of visual perception, then the discrete patches of colour mark a step in the process which results in the perception, but a step which in no case lasts long enough without changing, to enable it to come separately into consciousness. The eye, we must suppose, is perpetually, rapidly, and insensibly shifting its position, to say nothing of a possible radiation of stimulus from one minute portion of the sensitive surface to another ; so that, before any the minutest portion of the retina has lost the trace of one impression, it has begun to receive another impression coming from a collateral pulsation. Hence no vacuities answering to the interstices of the sensitive surface are perceived. Even the existence of the blind spot in the retina is made known only by experiment. The perception from the first and throughout is a continuum. And it is on this perception, as the metaphysician argues, that we must take our stand, if we mean to base ourselves on the facts of consciousness as such, FEELINGS IN SPATIAL EXTENSION 241 that is, on the facts as they are actually and imme- diately experienced. Facts experienced in this ,~ manner, neither involving assumptions, nor resting: Different o meaning of on inference, are those which philosophy requires, in * as alone affording a secure basis for further . *** in metapnysic. knowledge. CHAPTER V. OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. cv L 1- Let us next examine the sense of touch, ~^" supposing it exercised in isolation, and without T Sd al aid fr m anv other sensations than those of effort, muscular movement, and temperature, which are in fact all but inextricably bound up with it. We shall find, I think, that this sense gives us know- ledge of extension and resistances in definite groups, which we afterwards call solid bodies, in giving us sensations the grouping of which is spatial, consisting in recurrences of sensations identical not merely in point of kind, but also in point of the space which they occupy ; so that, in experiencing them, we perceive a return to the same part of the extension from which we started. At the same time we shall find, if I mistake not, that this perception of spatial grouping does not give us the perception of a surface as distinguished from a solid, or by itself tell us anything of the separate existence of a solid body as the object of those spatially grouped sensations ; still less that such a body occupies a portion of space in three dimensions extending beyond the body actually felt. Touch, in fact, will be found to give us a certain inchoate, and what I may call expectant, OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. 243 knowledge of solid bodies and three-dimensional space ; that is to say, a knowledge of certain definite groups of feelings of resistance, these groups being partly formed by way of association of impressions originally separate. The tactual sensations, or impressions of touch proper, as distinguished from those of effort or muscular sense, are sensations or perceptions of the qualities of what we afterwards call surfaces, as hardness and softness, roughness and smoothness, wetness and dryness, sharpness and bluntness, sensations which we receive either from solid bodies pressed against our own, or from parts of our own bodies pressed against others, our own effort in exerting or resisting the pressure, and the minute motions or shiftings of the parts in contact, involved in the pressure, being abstracted from. The sense of effort and impressions of the muscular sense include the various sensations experienced (1) in moving a limb or other organ, (2) in causing a limb to exert pressure on, or resist pressure coming from, external objects. It is unnecessary here to enter again upon the question, whether any part, and what, of these sensations is properly a feeling of innervation (Innervatwnsgefiihl), as it has been called, that is, a feeling immediately accom- panying an efferent nerve action, irrespective of resistance to that action, or whether all sense of effort arises, like other sensations, by way of afferent nerve action, set up either by pressure from objects external to the body, or from the muscle, or other tissue, upon which an efferent nerve action has previously been directed. The decision of this question does not concern us here, 244 OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. BOOK^I. s i nc e on either supposition the contribution made " by these sensations to our knowledge of space re- Tactual mains unaffected. and i m P ress i n of touching a resisting surface with a single finger-tip is analogous to what, in the case of vision, is an inference only, I mean to one of those patches of colour spoken of above, only on a larger scale ; it is like them in being a patch of sensation, but unlike them in being itself perceived, not an inferred minimum sensibile. We feel what I will call a surface-sensation, into which spatial ex- tension enters as an element inseparable from the sensation. Not that this perception (a sensation with its formal element, it will be remembered, is a per- ception) gives us any knowledge that we are touch- ing a surface ; no conception of surface enters into the perception, nor any distinction of it from the as yet unperceived direction of depth ; the perception itself alone, incomplete though it be, is the content or object immediately present in consciousness. I use the term surface-sensation or surface-perception, merely to designate the perception intended, and to indicate that spatial extension is an inseparable element of it. The knowledge, that such percep- tions are given by surfaces of solids in contact, is a knowledge more complex and acquired later than the first or simplest experiences of the perceptions themselves ; and these first or simplest experiences it is, which we are now investigating. 2. 2. Let us, then, suppose a series of experiences of the sense of touch apart from sight, increasing tactuai in complexity, but always with abstraction from our later acquired knowledge, namely, that the sensations are conditioned on the contact of solid OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. 245 bodies, and see what features it contains solely as tactual experience. Seven cases my be distin- " guished, increasing in fulness and complexity. Synthetic examination 1. If I let my finger-tip rest upon the resisting jjjjj surface of a solid body, say an empty lidless square perceptions. box, keeping the finger still, I receive a sensation of resistance occupying extension, continuous ad intra, but of indefinite outline ; so that, if I had no further knowledge of extension, I should not be able to characterise it as indefinite ; it would be a sensa- tion of extended resistance and nothing more. The sensation would also be continuous in time ; for the presentation of the first moment becomes a memory, but this presentation is continuously renewed, no distinction of moments from one another being given in the perception, so that presentation and representation are concomitant throughout the whole duration of the experience, in the manner shown in an earlier Chapter in the case of percep- tions in time only. Here, then, we have a percep- tion of extended resistance, without definite outline, and without any perception of a surface being touched, distinct from the perception itself. 2. Suppose in the next place, that I move my finger-tip gently along the surface on which it rests. Here we have a certain differentiation of the sensation. The sensation becomes sharper on the side towards which I move the finger, and less sharp on the other side. This involves the outline of the extension occupied by it becoming more definite on the sharper side, and less definite on the other. That is to say, there are concomitant variations in the content and in the form of the perception. There is, as yet, nothing to show or 246 OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. CH? v! * ve the impression of motion ; nothing to suggest JT^~ that the extension or outline is elongated ; or that P ort i ns of extension beyond the first portion, and tactual beyond each other, are successively pressed by the finger as it moves. True, I have concomitant sensations of effort in moving the finger, and these are differentiated from those sensations of effort which I had when I kept the finger pressed upon the surface without moving it. But these sensa- tions, being as yet undistinguished from the original sensation of resistance, as sensations which, when taken by themselves, are sensations in time only, cannot give rise to any perception of motion, either on the part of the finger, or in the shape of an elongation of the felt extension itself. They are simply feelings of change in the original sensation of resistance. What we have in this second experience, therefore, is not the full perception of motion or elongation of outline, but their ultimate rudiments only, namely, the rudi- ments of direction ; inasmuch as two qualities are distinguished simultaneously in one sensation, the sharp definite side, and the faint indefinite side, of the original surface-perception. Still there is no perception of surface as an object touched, distinct from the perception. 3. Next let the finger-tip be moved over the whole outside surface of the box. What is now felt is a greater differentiation of the perception, both in its content and its form, whenever I come to an outside edge or corner. There is still no perception of change in spatial length or elongation. When my finger-tip moves along the length of the box, there is continuance of the differentiated outline OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. 247 as in (2), but it is perceived as continuance in time only. When I come to and traverse an outside j edge or corner, this perception is again differen- tiated. There is extension felt on the far side of the sharp outline, the side towards which the finger perceptions. moves ; but the extension vanishes on the opposite side ; so that two sides of the box are not felt simultaneously ; nothing but changes in the content and outline of the original perception. Nor is there any essential difference, if we suppose two sides of the box to be felt simultaneously by the finger-tip on the edge between them ; the only change would be, that the feeling which we called a sharp outline would shift its position to the middle, between two indefinite outlines given by the two sides supposed to be felt simultaneously, a differentiation within the perception itself. Neither motion of the finger-tip, ner elongation of the surface-perception, is brought into conscious- ness. There are greater complexity and greater variation in the original surface-perception, and that is all. Also, here again there is no surface perceived, distinct from the perception itself. 4. If next I carry my finger-tip round the inside of the box, the perceptions are significantly increased. At an inside edge, two sides are clearly felt simultaneously, parted by a line of non-sensa- tion ; and at an inside corner three sides are felt, parted by a point of non-sensation. In other words the rudiments of the perceptions of content, outline, and direction, have become far more complex. Still there is nothing to show, that different portions of a statical extension are perceived successively ; it may be, for aught we yet perceive, one portion 248 OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. o f extension variously filled, throbbing, as it were, ~ with varying content, now expanding and now shrinking, definite and sharp, now here, now there, tactual a ^ one momen t continuous, at another discrete, perceptions, which i s before us during the whole experience. The extension has parts beyond parts ad intra ; but there is nothing as yet to show that there are parts of extension beyond it, except the as yet uninterpreted and expectant fact, that it is felt now larger and now smaller, according as what we afterwards call a larger or smaller portion of the sensitive surface of our finger receives the impres- sion. Still less is there any perception of an external surface felt. 5. But a far greater addition to our knowledge is made by the next step in our experience, namely, when we feel the box, inside or out, with the whole hand. In this experience it is, that the per- ception of an elongated portion of extension first meets us. Let the box be turned topsy-turvy, and the hand be placed with the finger-tips resting on what is now its nearest upper edge, and then be moved forwards till the whole hand, fingers and palm, lies flat on its upper surface. The extension felt at first by the finger-tips will then be felt as growing into the extension felt by the whole hand. The small extension with which we begin is then felt as continuous with the large extension with which we end, spatially as well as in time. There are parts of space beyond the parts with which we begin ; for all the parts of the large extension, felt by the whole hand, are now felt simultaneously. They are no longer felt only as a change of an extension-con- tent in time ; they are felt also as an addition to OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. 249 the original extension itself. There is a perceived identity, or more strictly coalescence, between the successively felt parts and the simultaneously felt whole. This is an instance of the first and most rudimentary perception of motion as given by touch, perceptions. It is identical with the perception of the growing, expansion, or elongation, of the extension in a surface-perception. Still there is no knowledge of surface distinct from the surface-perception. 6. This experience may be in some sort continued by supposing the whole surface of the body to be the sentient surface employed, as when we take a bath of cold air or water. The difference is, that here we are comparatively passive to the sensa- tions, we do not institute the experiment as when we press our hand on a resisting surface. The motions which we feel are the changes in size and out- line of the surface-perceptions varying over the surface of the body, like flaws of wind over the surface of a pool. Still, however varied these motions and the concomitant sensations are, they do not inform us that our body is bounded by a surface, still less that it is a solid of three dimen- sions. No perception of a surface as distinct from a surface-perception is given by them. 7. The last experience of the series, to which we now come, tells us more of the nature of space in three dimensions than all the former ones put together. This it does by completing the notion of direction, the rudiments of which have already been given. We have supposed ourselves to touch certain complex resisting surfaces all over, ex- ploring first their outside, then their inside angles, and then to receive touch-sensations over the tactual 250 OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. whole surface of the sentient body. It remains to suppose, that we touch the surface of a solid body a ^ round simultaneously, which we do when we g ras P it with the hand so as to let the fingers perceptions. c i ose upon it, and return to meet the palm of the hand that grasps it. This experience combines sensations of elongated extension and motion into groups recurrent in space (as well as in time), by completing the rudimentary notion of direction, which we obtain by simple change in the outline of a surface-perception as in (5). Let us see how this is. The full notion of direction involves the notion of a point towards which, as well as one from which, motion takes place. But these points must be perceived simultaneously, if they are to be perceived as points in one and the same statical extension ; since to lose one of them out of percep- tion, in the moment of coming to perception of the other, would be to perceive them successively only, that is, in different moments of time, and not also in different positions of space. Both percep- tions must be combined in perceiving motion in a certain direction, namely, the statical extension of parts beyond parts, and the successive perception of those statical parts. Now since tactual sensa- tion gives no knowledge of extension beyond the surface with which the sentient organ is actually in contact, it is plain that there is but one way in which the two termini, from which and to which we move, can be simultaneously perceived; and this is, when they are felt as immediately con- tiguous to each other on their hitherto free or unoccupied sides. The immediate contiguity of OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. 251 us. these two impressions is the essential circum- stance which must be perceived, if we are to have ~ the full perception of direction from touch. These conditions are fulfilled when we grasp a tac t f ual small solid object, say the handle of a paper-knife, p-ceptio with the fingers of our hand closing round it and touching the palm. The hand then receives what I have called a sensation of motion, or elongated extension, from the object grasped, and in closing round it the finger-tips receive from the palm an impression contiguous to one end of that felt extension, and the palm and the finger-tips receive from each other an impression contiguous to the other end of the same extension. The touch of palm and fingers, both of which also touch the object, binds together what would otherwise be the free ends of a series of extended impressions, makes the series return into itself, and forms it into a group recurrent, not in time only, but also in space. This perception once attained, then differences of direction are given by the different sensations, whether tactual or muscular, which occupy the elongation intermediate, on one side, between the points of departure and arrival, which points on the other side are contiguous. This experience may be varied by supposing the object to be felt on all its sides at once, like a boy's playing marble ; or by supposing that one of the hands is the object grasped by the other hand. This latter case is highly complex. But still we derive from it no perception of a surface felt as distinct from a surface-perception. We have two groups of recurrent surface-perceptions, concomitantly varying ; but we cannot know 252 OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. *cS*v'. tnat ^ ie g rou P s form surfaces enclosing spaces ~ sensitive to each other, and objects to each other. The hand grasped (to take its sensations first) tactual receives groups of extended perceptions, recurrent perceptions. on themselves, and connected in a definite order with each other. It is a more complex case of the air or water bath in (6) ; complicated by the recurrent grouping of the perceptions. But it gives no more knowledge of surfaces, as dis- tinguished from surface-perceptions, than that former experience did. It contains no notice distinguishing the hand grasped from its sensa- tions, consequently no knowledge that the hand is a solid body. As yet it is known only as a group of sensations. Similarly the hand grasping receives groups of recurrent impressions of resistance, which it cannot overcome by effort, and which are also connected in a definite order with each other. These are the rudiments of our perception of solid bodies occupying space in three dimensions, but they are not that perception as yet. They are nothing but impressions of resistance recurring in definite order so long as our hand continues to feel the object grasped, or our hands to feel each other. But these objects are not as yet distinguished from the impressions which they either receive or give. The experience conveys no knowledge that either the hand grasping or the hand grasped is a solid body, or that there are two hands or two objects concerned at all. It contains no perception of a surface moved over, or of an organ moving over it. True, the perceptions are given by surfaces and by movements of organs, but the OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. 253 knowledge that this is so is the knowledge of others, who like ourselves may be watching the experiment, and is not yet acquired by the supposed experimenter. His perceptions are, as yet, only tac t{, al perceptions of tactual, muscular, and effort sensa- perceptions. tions, extended and recurrently grouped in spatial extension ; but the hand or other organ by which he feels these sensations is not yet known to him as a surface in contact with other surfaces. An extended sensation is not the same thing as an independent surface felt as extended ; a recur- rently grouped series of extended sensations of resistance is not the same thing as a resisting surface enclosing a portion of three-dimensional space, distinct from the rest of three-dimensional space beyond it. The knowledge of space and solid bodies which is acquired by these experiences, so far as they have been hitherto described, is an inchoate knowledge only, expec- tant of completion by further experience. 3. It would be very difficult, but at the same |^ time quite irrelevant, to attempt to determine how far a being who should be endowed solely with reasoning powers, in addition to the sense of touch with its practically inseparable sensations, I mean those of resistance and effort in movement and adjustment of organs, might go towards construct- ing an idea of the world of space and solid bodies contained and moving therein, if he had to build solely upon repeated experiences of the kind just described, and without the power of receiving instruction from any other source. It would be irrelevant, because it would introduce an hypo- thetical and psychological conception of the Subject 254 OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. ^j K v; of consciousness into the purely analytical exami- j"" nation of the process-contents of consciousness in tactual their sequences and co-existences, world. The difficulty would arise from our having no guide to the amount of intellectual or reasoning power, which such a being might fairly be supposed to possess; for the greater the power, the more complete and accurate would be the notion formed. Yet it would almost seem that, however great his powers of memory, association, and reasoning might be, short of actual divination, the absence of any sense but that of touch, with its practically inseparable sensations, would impose a limit impossible for him to transcend. The notion of resisting solids bounded by surfaces, as distin- guished from, or as the objects of, groups of extended and spatially recurrent perceptions, would probably not be accessible to him. These per- ceptions alone would be the content, so to speak, of his whole consciousness, and of these accordingly his whole world would appear to consist. His conscious life would be an intermittent series of groups of extended, or extended and recurrent, tactual and muscular sensations. The laws regu- lating the conformation of these groups, and their succession in his consciousness, would be the object of his science ; and hypotheses as to the nature of the whole existence, of which the groups were a part, would be the constructive branch of his philosophy. For, if the notion of surfaces enclosing spaces separate, or separable, from the perception of them were absent, the notion of space itself, extending in three dimensions beyond any enclosed portion of itself, would be absent OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. 255 also ; or, if reached at all, would be so in the character of an imagination, adopted by way of r~ hypothesis. Apart from this hypothesis, a group J^ once vanished from presentative consciousness World. might recur, it is true, as a memory ; but it would not be thought of as located anywhere, so as to confirm any expectation there might be of its coming into presentation again. Distance in space between groups which had always been felt separately would be, for such a being, when once they had vanished from his touch, an idea unknown. Out of reach out of existence, except as recalled in memory or expected as a future experience, would be for him a rule absolute, and his idea of himself, supposing him ( per impossibile) to have such an idea, would neither include the notion of body, nor be in any way distinguishable from that of the world he lived in. The world of such a being would be to him something extremely imperfect, fragmentary, and puzzling, supposing him endowed with the capacity for wondering, which is the foundation of intel- ligence. Of this unsolved enigma he would then seek an explanation, with energies proportioned to the degree of his intelligence. But of course the existence of such a being is a fiction and an artifice. Man at least, so far as we know, has never gone through a stage at which one sense only was exer- cised, in isolation not only from other senses but also from the feelings accompanying instinctive actions, appetites, desires and emotions, and at the same time exercised in combination with a high degree of intelligence. Probably his intelligence has developed to its present state, such as it is, 256 OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. BOOK T. f or b e it noted, that our actual state in presence of OH* V * the Universe is closely analogous to this in point tactual ^ kind, though very different in point of com- Worid. plexity, because he was endowed with several senses, the different notices of which supplemented each other. Especially is this the case with the two senses of sight and touch, the sensations of which, as we know by immediate experience, are received together ; an experience entirely indepen- dent of any knowledge of the fact that they belong to a single Subject, of which knowledge it is, on the contrary, one of the main and indispensable foundations. Separately, the notices of these two senses are fragmentary, incomplete, enigmatical ; together, they combine into a consistent whole. It is by an artifice that we have separated them ; they are expectant of re-union. 4. S 4. Let us suppose, then, in the next place, Combination * ' of that 1 grasp one hand with the other hand, while visual * and seeing them. Now for the first time the enigma of tactual v perceptions groups of extended sensations recurrent in space is explained. Simultaneously with the groups of touch and its inseparable sensations, I see portions of the visual expanse detached from the rest and moving. Simultaneously with the changes in the sensations of the tactual group, I see minutely corresponding changes in the visual group. The two groups are experienced simultaneously ; the identity of their duration mediates their com- bination ; and the extension common to both is perceived as made up of resisting and coloured surfaces in three-dimensional space, and thereby also as a whole, distinguishable from the groups of tactual and visual sensations OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. 257 taken severally, which are its component elements or parts. ~^~ The identity of duration mediates the combina- Combination tion, but it is not alone a sufficient condition of it. visu *i and For instance. I do not combine into one and the tactual perceptions. same object a sight with a sound, or a sound with an odour, merely because their duration in con- sciousness may happen to be identical. Identity of duration, therefore, though a necessary, is not alone a sufficient condition of the combination of visual with tactual extension. The completing condition lies in extension itself. One and the same extension is occupied in common by the two groups of sensation, visual and tactual. The identity of the extension, in identity of time, com- pels us to perceive the two groups of sensation as forming together a single complex object. Colour is given by the visual group, resistance by the tactual, extension by both, and this exten- sion is numerically one. True, each group gives extension differently, gives, so to speak, a different feature of it. Still they do not give different kinds of extension, but different modes, extension differently perceived. If they did not occupy one extension in common, they would give each a specifically different kind or variety of extension. But prior to experiences such as we are now analysing, we have no general notion or conception of extension, to which to refer them as different species to a common genus. Whether there is a common genus to which they so belong is, in fact, the very question which these experiences virtually decide. If the two groups of sensations combine as perceptual parts or modes of a single complex R 258 OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. ^"v* perceptual whole, that is, if they occupy one and the same extension in common, then they cannot Combination g[ YG r j se fa specifically different kinds of extension. visual For the differences must plainly then be due, not tactual to the extension-element of the total experience, perceptions. but to the sensation-element only. Let us see then how the facts stand. Colour, I repeat, is given by the visual group, resistance by the tactual, extension by both. But the extension-element peculiar to each group is just that element in it which is incomplete and enigma- tical, expectant of some further knowledge. In sight, the expanse of colour is undifferentiated into the directions of surface and depth ; it is surface at least and possibly much more. In touch, the extension has depth as well as surface, in the recurrence of the extended sensations of resistance to an identical point ; but it has not surface and depth distinguished from each other. In touch there is nothing incompatible with the distinc- tion of depth from surface ; in sight nothing incompatible with depth. There is simply, in each case, a want which the other can supply. Only let the two senses be combined by simultaneity of exercise, and the want is supplied, and a coalition of the notices of both senses takes place. When I grasp and feel one hand with the other, looking at them while doing so, the recur- rence of the felt resistances is supplemented, and to some extent explained, by the sight of changes in the continuous surfaces of the hands, as I turn them round and round. Also at the same time the visual expanse of colours is differentiated into surface and depth, by the visual sensations com- OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. 259 posing the seen hands coalescing with groups of recurrent tactual sensations, and so being perceived ^~ both as surfaces enclosing spaces, and also as Combination detached from, and moving independently of, the rest of the expanse of colour, which remains as a comparatively undifferentiated background. Conse- quently I locate the sensations of resistance in the seen hands ; I locate the visual sensations in the felt hands ; I have before me visible and tangible objects occupying the same space ; and the two extensions, perceived respectively by sight and by touch, coalesce into the single complex percep- tion of a solid body occupying part of, and sur- rounded by, space in three dimensions, surface and depth being now contradistinguished as well as combined. S 5. Before proceeding with the analysis, I will s. i . . , J > The advert to a point in the experience already term 11-11 i Object. analysed, which marks a step in advance towards the attainment of the full meaning of the term object, a term which it is one of the main purposes of philosophy to understand rightly. The sense of sight supplies in a certain way an object to the sense of touch, in supplying it with the percep- tion of surface as a whole ; I mean of an expanse extending beyond the portion of space at any time actually touched ; that is, it supplies, as a sug- gested and possible object of touch, something not contained in the tactual group of perceptions at all, but which is combined with them by the conjoint exercise of another sense. Similarly touch supplies an object to sight, in supplying the perception of resistance, which is not contained in the visual group of perceptions, but combined :260 OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. them (though not in all cases) by the conjoint exercise of touch. The sensations peculiar to each r sense become thus the object of the other sense ; object. an( j tj ie objects of each are combined into objects common to both. This is a step in advance towards a fuller meaning than we have already noted, in the term object. When we say, in expe- riences later or more complex than the one now supposed, I mean after we have distinguished our own perceptive processes from material objects perceived, when in such later experiences we say that we see an object, what we mean is, that we see something which is also possibly or actually tangible ; when we say we touch an object, we mean that we touch something which is also possibly or actually visible. Objects of either sense are thought of as both tangible and visible ; and each sense verifies the other by giving, not the sensations of the other sense, but something which, being equally sensible, is a constant concomitant of them, varying with their variations. Now it is important to note, that the term object means, when so used, something not included in the sensations of the sense which is said to per- ceive it, but thought of as combined with those sensations ; that is, combined with them in Nature, and known to be combined with them by verified association. But is that the way in which we have hitherto used the term object f Not precisely ; it is a slight but definite modification of it, In previous Chapters of the present work, until we came to examine the combination of sight with touch, object has always meant an object, not for a special sense, but for reflective perception, by OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. 261 which alone all perceptions, whether presentations ^ K y.' or representations, are objectified. It is the per- T-- ceptions, the sensations, the representations them- ^ selves, whether belonging to this sense or to that, 0b J cct - which are objects of reflection ; the fact that they are perceived by reflection is their objectivity ; and there is no reference to any other sense to verify or support them, than that to which they themselves belong. The perceived content or whatness is the object ; and its being perceived by reflection is its objectivity. But in the present case, perception of a visible and tangible object by the combined perceptions of sight and touch, we have for the first time a peculiar duplicity in the object. Partly it is imme- diately perceived, and partly it is surmised as perceivable. But even as merely surmised, it is surmised as real, and as equally real with the immediate perceptions of it. And one part being surmised, the connection of that part with the immediate perceptions is surmised also ; that is to say, the object taken as an individual whole is the object of surmise, and yet is taken as equally real with the part immediately perceived, which, being perception, is objectified by reflection simply. 6. We have here the origin of a distinction c. . . . -r Objective which plays a most important part in philosophy, I Thawjht* mean that between objective thoughts and the objects objects thought of by them ; the latter being the objects of what, in a previous work, I have called direct as opposed to reflective perception. But the term direct is certainly ill-chosen. It is misleading because, in contrast with re/lectire, it suggests a priority on the part of direct perception which is 262 OBJECTS IN SPACE OF THREE DIMENSIONS. the opposite of the truth, and which I expressly combatted in the work referred to. Face to face 6. * houghts P erce ption will perhaps be a better term to use for d , it, that is to say, when we shall have come, in the Objects i 0( l m the history of an individual's experience uJtTh steal ^ ias Deen forgotten by him long before he begins analysis, to philosophise, he can then reconstruct its stages, or even become aware of their having existed, only by inference founded on analysis of his experience as it exists from that time onwards, supplemented by psychological reasoning founded on observation of the corresponding period in the life of other individuals. The visual and tactual perceptions themselves, on the other hand, have no such history in consciousness behind them. They have a history, true ; but it is not a history in the consciousness of the percipient. Their elements of analysis, feeling and extension, are inseparable from each other originally, that is, from the very dawn of these perceptions in consciousness. Looked at as pieces of knowledge, the inseparability of their elements is an ultimate fact, not conditioned on any prior knowledge. And though it is true that they also have a history behind them, namely, a psycholo- gical, physiological, and physical history, still this history, that is, the play of the conditions which compose it, does not explain, does not show the origin of, the inseparable combination of feeling with extension, but assumes it in assuming the con- ditions alleged. It obviously does so, if it includes a material organism and a material environment among those conditions, since these are objects which cannot be themselves understood, have no intelligible existence, and therefore cannot be THE EXTERNAL WORLD. 277 used in accounting for anything whatever, unless feeling and extension are inseparable in sight and ^ touch, which is the very thing which the enquiry oh JJ - cal supposes to need accounting for. If, however, j-JJ-X an immaterial agent is held to be the explanatory me f t ^ ^j condition of the inseparability in question, then analysis. it remains to show that an immaterial agent is an intelligible reality ; intelligible, I mean, in contra- distinction from material agents with their physical agencies ; a tacit recourse to which would be equivalent to making the same assumption as before, only at another stage, the empty word immateriality having been interposed, seeing that the conception of matter is the prius of that of the immaterial, in order of knowledge. There is, then, a history in consciousness behind the notions of space and matter, leading up to those notions ; a history different from their psychological, physiological, and physical history, though accompanying it from the dawn of spatial perceptions onwards, and conditioned upon it ; and this history in consciousness, which is the condi- tionate of its psychological history, from its earliest stages to its latest, from its simplest beginnings to its largest and most complex conceptions, is, in respect of its nature as a Knowing, the object of metaphysic, or metaphysical analysis. For meta- physic is concerned with the content of our consciousness, and with the co - existences and sequences of its parts, as they combine, with mutual modifications, or by exclusion of some and admission of others, to form a consistent system of ideas, or a systematic knowledge of the universe of things. And the history of our knowledge in 278 THE EXTERNAL WORLD. CH?VJ. this sense is as much the object of metaphysical g 2^ analysis, as any portion of it is, when taken in the psychological character of a single idea, simple or complex. This distinct * s on ty savm g m other terms, that sequences of any me f tohyicai length, or any degree of complexity, are with equal analysis, legitimacy objects of metaphysical analysis, as are the simple process-contents from which they issue, and the complex process-contents in which they result. It is in this sense, therefore, that the history of consciousness is the object-matter of metaphysic. On the other hand, metaphysical analysis is not concerned with the historical sequence in which the several process - contents of consciousness, whether simple or complex, have occurred, or with the number of times for which they must severally have been repeated, during the formation of that consistent system of knowledge ; nor with the laws to which that historical sequence is subject. It is not concerned, for instance, to enquire how many times visual and tactual sensations must have been simultaneously perceived, in order to produce by association the complex perception of a material object in three-dimensional space, or still farther the idea that such objects are indissoluble existents. This could only be done by discovering the laws and order of the real conditioning of consciousness in individual Subjects, taken as already known to exist, and also taken in connection with, and partial dependence upon, their environment, which again must also be assumed as a reality already known. Any enquiry of this kind would be psychological not metaphysical, because it is not directed to our experience or knowledge of exist- THE EXTERNAL WORLD. 279 ence in its entirety, but proceeds by first assuming real conditions of consciousness to exist, and then connecting particular process-contents of consciousness with them. And for the validity of its assumption of real conditions, whether named Subject or Objects, it is dependent on meta- ana] y sis physical analysis, since this alone (from resting on experience without assumptions) can show whether the conception of real conditions has or has not a real meaning, and what that meaning is. That consciousness is in any way conditioned, is a fact which must be learnt from the analysis of conscious- ness, taken, of course, both in its sequences and in its co-existences. In other words, some analysis of the history of consciousness as a knowing must precede any generalised knowledge of the order in which its process-contents are conditioned to occur. Thus the very same facts of consciousness are or may be comprised in both enquiries, though differently dealt with by each. It is an analysis of them in sequences of combinations, as well as in single combinations, but always in respect only of their nature as a knowing, which I have now been attempting, in the case of our perception of the external world. The process which results in the composite and yet abstract perceptions of space and matter has thus a double character, psychological and meta- physical. In the first, it is a real process producing into existence a series of process-contents of con- sciousness, throwing them up, as it were, from below the threshold ; in the second, it is that same series of process-contents of consciousness, treated, not in connection with the series of events (of 280 THE EXTERNAL WORLD. CHVI' whatever kind they may be) below the threshold, ~ which produces it into existence, but in respect of s choio 'cai tne intelligible system into which its process- history contents fall, that is, of their relations inter se as distinct from its pieces of knowledge, in consequence of that very metaphysical - 1 A analysis, process of production, from which this mode of treating them purposely abstracts. In brief, metaphysic treats process-contents of consciousness as perceptions, and not as products, but of course without denying the fact or the laws of their production. In this way of treating them each perception is shown to contribute its quota to the result ; that is, in the present instance, to the resulting complex perceptions of space and matter ; and is thus at once a positive antecedent condition of those perceptions being the percep- tions which they are, and an evidence of the character and value of the psychological process which it accompanies, and upon which its existence depends. |^ 3. Let us then see, first what conceptions are Conceptions really involved, and in the next place what the involved in attaining supposed percipient, whose experience we are Fourciasses analysing, may be held to know of this process in Conditions, consciousness, by which he has arrived at the com- posite perceptions of space and matter. Some- thing he must have gathered from it, though he cannot recall the steps of the process itself, because it has not only been a process in consciousness, but has contained a series of steps of reasoning, many of which have been doubly reflective, that is, taken after and with distinct perception of the existence of the states of consciousness compared. These must certainly have left a trace in his habits THE EXTERNAL WORLD. 281 of mind, though they have themselves faded from his memory ; that is, supposing him to be a real agent, as in common-sense experience he appears to be. He must have formed some logical notions from the course of the process, besides the physical and mathematical notions which have been its result. Since reasoning, that is to say, purposive attention, comparison, and inference, has been in- volved, though without formulation, in the process, both sorts of notions must have been formed by it, side by side with each other. If it had been a process in which the percipient had been merely receptive, without consciously re-acting upon and dealing with the perceptions received, he would not necessarily have formed any notion of the pro- cess as such, or acquired from it any logical con- ceptions however rudimentary. But he has been throughout exercising attention, comparing, judg- ing, combining, rejecting some notions and adopting others. All this must have left some trace, some result, in his consciousness, in addition to the results embodied in the conceptions of space, bodies, and a material world. In other words, he must have formed at least the rudiments of some logical conceptions of Method. Let it be noted in the first place, that the whole process in consciousness, seen as we can now see it, reserving the question how far our experient sees it as we do, consists of two parts. First there is the perpetual influx or recurrence of the per- ceptions composing it, the series of experiences, depending on the real psychological process. Secondly there is the modification of this series by acts of attention and comparison, also depending CHVL r~~ _ . Conditions. 282 THE EXTERNAL WORLD. CHvii Conditions. * n some wa 7 or other on facts or occurrences in the same real process. The percipient is chiefly re- ceptive in the one case, chiefly re-active in the other. ^ ne perceptions of the former class are pure data, or ^ acts snn pty 5 those of the latter are facts or data being dealt with, or perceptions being modified by the percipient. The results of the modifications, their resulting perceptions, are con- clusions which must be tested by comparison with pure facts, similar in this respect to those of which they are modifications. There is first reception of facts, then modification, then reception of new facts, and then modification of the previous modi- fication. The process begins with pure fact and ends with modification ; in the instance before us, it begins with extended visual and extended tactual perceptions, and ends with complex perceptions of space and matter. But in this process the pure facts hold a twofold relation to the successive modifications. As preceding a modification, a fact is what I have called a positive antecedent condi- tion of the modification, or of our knowing the modification as we do know it ; as following and testing one, it is a condition of our knowing it to be true or false, and is one of its conditions cogno- scendi in the full sense, or of reasoned cognition. Facts in the former relation contribute to the original formation of knowledge ; facts in the latter relation contribute to its correction and systemati- sation, in other words, to the formation of Cogni- tions in the strict sense of the term, as distinguished from mere thoughts or conceptions. But they are the same facts, in point of kind, which stand in both relations, are both antecedent conditions and THE EXTERNAL WORLD. 283 conditions cognoscendi ; that is, have different functions according to the different place they occupy in the process, and the different relation they hold to other parts of it. Consider in the next place, that both the beginning and the end of the process (the insepa- Con( ( iong< rability of extension from visual and tactual sensations at the beginning, and the resulting perceptions of space and matter at the end), as well as all the intermediate notions, are analysable into parts or elements, which constitute their whatness, quite apart from the facts or the reason- ings which precede or follow them, that is, apart from their antecedent, which I will now call their contributory conditions, and from their conditions cognoscendi, which I will now call logical. The process itself also, from beginning to end, may be treated as a whole, and, as so treated, is analysable in the same way, that is, into elements which constitute its whatness ; only that here the con- tributory and the logical conditions, which lead us so to analyse it, lie in subsequently acquired know- ledge, beyond the limits of the whole field which is now under consideration. We have thus a third class of conditions, distinct from the former two (contributory and logical), namely, the conditions essendi of any given whole ; that is to say, parts or elements which constitute its whatness ; and these I will now call essential condi- tions. But what is true of the two former classes is true also of this, that it is a difference in the function and place of its perceptions which consti- tutes it, and not any specific difference in their con- tent. The same facts, in point of kind, may appear 284 THE EXTERNAL WORLD. BOOK I. CH. VI. 18. The Conceptions involved in attaining it. Four classes of Conditions. 4. What the Percipient knows of these conceptions at the time. as conditions of all three classes, that is, as condi- tions either contributory \ essential, or logical. The distinction between them is one of method, applicable to processes of consciousness, and dis- tinguishing parts within them which have different functions in their character of a knowing; and all three alike are broadly distinguished from the real psychological process which they accom- pany, on which they depend for their existence, and which on that account falls under a fourth head, namely, that of real conditions, or conditions existendi. 4. But again the same remark must be made as at the conclusion of the foregoing Chapter, which is this, that, though we here and now can make reflections like the preceding, on occasion of our supposed experient attaining the perceptions of space and matter, it does not follow that he could do so at the time ; and thus the second question raised above still remains unanswered, that is, how far he could go towards making them, in conse- quence of that supposed experience. The distribu- tion j ust sketched of the phenomena of conscious- ness under four classes of conditions, the last of which is broadly distinguished from the other three, is among the latest acquisitions of philosophy. If our supposed experient could have analysed the process by which his knowledge of a material world was originally acquired, during the time that it was going on, and his knowledge was being acquired, then his philosophical knowledge would have developed pari passu with his knowledge of an external world, and of his own body as one of its existent objects. Whereas we know, both from THE EXTERNAL WORLD. 285 the history of philosophy, and from its development in individuals, that philosophy is a return upon this knowledge, long after it has been acquired, in order to analyse its nature and trace the laws of its long- forgotten growth. What our supposed experient has acquired solely from the process of his first attaining the experience of an external material world consists of certain steps made towards the philosophical classification of conditions. Towards the conception of a real condition he has made .the step of perceiving his own body as the constant central object of a world of other solid material objects, which is one logical pre-requisite of perceiving in them, or attributing to them, that character of dependence between objects, which we express by the terms real condition, and conditionate. But he has not yet attained this perception. The perception of the external material world, taken alone, contains, as already shown, no perception of consciousness as distinct from matter. Consequently he cannot even locate his consciousness in his body, much less refer it to his body as its constant real condition. This accords with what we saw in the case supposed above (Chap. V. 4), namely, that the percipient locates the visual perception of his own hands, when grasping one another, in his felt hands, and his tactual perceptions of them in his seen hands ; that is to say, not in his hands as per- ceiving, but in his hands as perceived. Again, his body is perceived as the constant central object of a material world, but is not yet thought of as either being or containing a percipient of that world, or of itself. The perceptions of sight and touch, the BOOK I. CH. VI. 4- What the Percipient knows of these conceptions at the time. 286 THE EXTERNAL WORLD. combination of which is the perception of material objects, cannot be perceived as perceptions, until percipient tlie material objects (which together they com- k tj f P os e) are perceived as something from which conceptions the y may be distinguished. Visual and tactual the time, perceptions in combination give us, it is true, an external world with a constant central object, but they do not give us that constant central object as a percipient. Our experient, there- fore, has made a necessary step towards, but has by no means reached, either the con- ception of real conditions and conditionates, or the conception that material objects stand in the relation of real conditions to one another, and thereby to consciousness also. Turning to the other three heads of conditions, which are distinguished from real condition as being applicable to the phenomena of conscious- ness as such, or to consciousness in its character of a knowledge, as real conditioning is applicable to it in its character of an existent, we find that here too it is only certain steps towards this philo- sophical distinction that our experient can be sup- posed to have made. He cannot be supposed to have distinguished essential from contributory and logical conditions, or these latter from each other, because the distinction of them is not necessary to the reasoning process which he has carried on. He has argued in a way which we can afterwards bring under these distinctions, but he has not explicitly drawn them. He starts with perceptions, the essential conditions of which are inseparable ele- ments, visual extension in perceptions of sight, and tactual extension in perceptions of touch. THE EXTERNAL WORLD. 287 The empirical perceptions constituted by these CHVI' elements, though separable from each other, yet become, in further experience, and by means of association, contributory conditions of the percep- tion of solid bodies. This perception once formed conceptions and sufficiently tested by experience, the percep- the time - tions which were its contributories become, when they recur, logical conditions, or evidence, of each other and of the whole perception, so that he always anticipates there being another side to a seen surface, even when for any reason it is beyond the reach of touch. The perceptions of relation, now called essential, contributory, and logical con- ditions, have, then, been present in the reasoning of our supposed percipient, but not known in that character. To him they have appeared in other shapes. What are these shapes ? The answer to this question takes us into the very heart of the subject, and refers us to the analysis of those acts which are the origin of all reasoning, acts of attention. To our supposed per- cipient, the process which we have described above ( 3) as a modification of perceptions by attention and reasoning must have appeared, in his actual experience, to consist of successive groupings of perceptions, each of which groupings was confused and baffling, and therefore attended with a sense of difficulty, strain, or effort (called by us effort of attention), and was then followed by another grouping of the same perceptions, less confused than the former, but still attended with a similar sense of strain and effort, and was again followed by a fresh grouping, less confused, until comparative order was introduced, and a grouping was attained 288 THE EXTERNAL WORLD. which could be perceived and dwelt on with com- parative facility. Thus in the present instance, beginning with a kn tE2e f g rou P of varied perceptions of sight and touch con- onceptiona f use dly intermingled, the first acts of attention the time. wou id result in grouping together the perceptions of each kind, by observing their similarity to each other, and their dissimilarity from those of the other kind ; which grouping would be easier to retain in consciousness than the original confused perception of the group. The next acts of atten- tion would have for their result the grouping of certain perceptions of both kinds together, so as to form the perception of separate tangible and visible bodies ; again a more complex, but easier, perception than that from which it sprang. Acts of a third kind would be acts of attention to the relative positions and movements of the bodies already perceived, including the perception of the percipient's own body as a central object, con- stantly present, whatever might be the surrounding objects which were present also ; again a more complex yet easier perception, and including far more facts than those attentively observed in the first instance. Finally, acts of a fourth kind would issue in the distinct awareness of the differ- ence between the bodies themselves and the void space in which they appeared to move from one position to another; though (be it noted) with- out separation of the void space between bodies from the space occupied by bodies, or hypos- tasising space as a continuous whole exclusive of bodies which occupy portions of it, a proceed- ing which would invulve the mistake of counting THE EXTERNAL WORLD. 289 the same space twice, once as void an we should most probably conceive, that his ons experience would appear to him as made up of two time. parts, one unquestionable, the other questionable. Unquestionable would be the basis from which his experience begins, the visual and the tactual per- ceptions consisting of inseparable elements. Not that he would recognise or be aware of the elements as such, I mean as distinct and inseparable. He would be aware only of the wholes which they con- stitute, the perceptions themselves. At the same time, it is the fact of the inseparability of their elements which makes him hold the perceptions as ultimate and unquestionable facts, units of percep- tion beyond which he does not go. Questionable, on the other hand, would be to him the composite objects which are formed, also in experience, by the union of these perceptions. The process is one of reasoning, and therefore of doubt, of questioning, of marvel. All is new at first. But the perceptions with inseparable elements admit of no doubt ; they are. Whatever else is, there are they. But, sight and touch being exer- cised together, these unquestionable perceptions combine, as a matter of fact, into solid bodies ; and this complex perception, whenever it occurs in actual experience, though not unquestionable in the sense of being ultimate, neither requiring nor ad- mitting explanation, is yet an experience the more or less persistent reality of which is irresistible. Questioning it, therefore, can only mean asking how, why, or whence solid bodies come to exist as THE EXTERNAL WORLD. 293 they do, and whether they are or are not indestruc- 2 vi'. tible, and their existence necessary. JT^ Supposing our percipient to question them in this way, the only answer with which his experience, as now described, could furnish him would be this, Col jj?jjjj 5 oni1 that their existence was only necessary if (mark time - the condition, and its reference to his own process of experiencing,) the sense of doubt, questioning, and marvel, arising, not from the nature of the several perceptions as consisting of inseparable elements, but from that incomplete, expectant, and enigmatical character, which we have seen, that they possess in separation, is to be exchanged for a state of more easily intelligible comprehension, in which the mind can rest with satisfaction. But this answer would plainly not carry him beyond the fact which he knew already, namely, their de facto real existence ; though it would undoubtedly strengthen the impression, with which he began, that some other explanation of their hoiv, why, and ivhence, was still requisite, before their nature could be fully understood. To our experient, then, there are such things as solid bodies ; they really exist. They are complex and not ultimate facts, but still facts, and the knowledge of them is verifiable as true by repeat- ing the experience. As a de facto experience, the existence of solid bodies is henceforth unquestion- able. But will that experience always be repeated with the same result ? Is it an universal truth, a necessary experience ? It is itself de facto ; but it is not de facto, that it is necessary and universal ; by which terms I mean, that visual perceptions can never be experienced save in conjunction with 294 THE EXTERNAL WORLD. tactual, and tactual never save in conjunction with visual. In this sense it is questionable, and must continue to appear so to our experient, inasmuch as ^actual experiences and visual experiences are classifiable apart, by attention, as heterogeneous, time. the one kind from the other, and their actual com- bination, in certain instances, is not based upon any reason, such as similarity and dissimilarity, which are reasons for classifying them apart, as different in point of kind, but is a simple fact of experience and nothing more. The nature of the separable perceptions of sight and touch, on the other hand, is strictly necessary and universal ; that is to say, the experience of them as perceptions composed of inseparable elements includes representation and imagination, as well as presentation ; so that their dissolubility as perceptions into their component elements is not positively representable in thought. In this sense, unlike solid bodies, they are ultimate facts in know- ledge. Indissoluble themselves, they are essential components of that dissoluble perception, and to that extent furnish an explanation of its nature, whenever it occurs. The occurrence or existence of solid bodies, therefore, but not their existence as ultimate or necessary facts in knowledge, is an unquestioned fact in our percipient's experience ; and it is only as its verifications accumulate, and the steps by which the knowledge of it was gradu- ally built up fade from his memory, that he accepts the existence of solid bodies in space as a primary and ultimate fact of experience, primary in know- ledge, ultimate in reality, which is the character it bears for every one before he begins to philosophise. THE EXTERNAL WORLD. 295 Thus metaphysical analysis in some sort restores us CHVI' to what must have been our original questioning ~ attitude, with regard to space and matter, by dis- JJJjf Jjjj covering the distinction between separable percep- tions and inseparable elements of perceptions ; thus discounting the effects due to association alone time - in forming our first conceptions of ultimate facts, and pointing out the hypothetical element which some of those conceptions contain. Our supposed experient thus acquires, through his experience, some knowledge of the process of his experience. It is to him a process of doubt and questioning, satisfied by reducing concurrent perceptions to complex harmonies, and verifying these by repeated perceptions. There is laid in it a positive foundation for the distinctions to be afterwards drawn, (1) between that which is fact simply and that which is universal and neces- sary fact, (2) between that which is contingent, the yes or the no of an imagined alternative, and that which is determinate, the yes or the no of a fact. The distinction between dissoluble and indissoluble combinations, and the conception of a harmony of concurrent perceptions, as the end or purpose of all reasoning processes, without aiming at which no processes are reasoning in the full sense, have also struck root. The same might possibly be said of the distinction between the abstract and the con- crete, inasmuch as a process of abstraction is cer- tainly involved in the formation of the finally reached conceptions of space and matter ; and perhaps by as good a right as it may be said of the three classes of conditions with which we began. 296 THE EXTERNAL WORLD. Starting from these finally reached conceptions, void space and solid matter, what do we ourselves atner fr m the analysis of their acquirement by our k "hli f su pposed percipient, as given in the preceding con a c t e fhl n?ls P a g es ? H as any real light been thrown by it on time. the nature of these complex perceptions ? To this we may reply that, abstract as they are, the visual and tactual perceptions, which have been their con- tributories, are still perceivable among their essen- tial conditions. When we cease to use their names as symbols, and ask what we mean by space, and what we mean by matter, thus fixing the attention steadily on the perceptions themselves, the lines of their formation grow clear, and we are aware of the combined visual and tactual perceptions involved in the content of each conception. Space is the name for the combination of the extension derived from sight, and the extension derived from touch, ab- stracting in thought, so far as possible, from the sensation elements of both senses. Matter is the name for the sensation-elements derived from both senses, abstracting in thought, so far as possible, from the extension-elements of bot h. Matter in its utmost abstraction, supposing complete abstraction possible, would be Force, something tactually felt ; space in its utmost abstraction would be Vacuity ; which conceptions may therefore properly be called the limits, at infinity point of the abstracting pro- cess, of abstract matter and abstract space respec- tively. Observe, I say at infinity point of the ab- stracting process, that is, an imaginary point, not possible to be reached without abolishing in thought the object of the abstracting process, or in other words, a point at which abstract matter would THE EXTERNAL WORLD. 297 cease to be matter, and abstract space to be space. cSvi! It is only within the limits thus set, that is, short of the imaginary infinity point in the abstracting process, that either abstract matter or abstract space is intelligible. Pure Force and pure Vacuity con a c t e he n3 are names only. tune - But abstract, and apparently simple in their abstraction, as the conceptions of Space and Matter are, they are yet dissoluble, because the concretes from which they are formed, that is, perceptions of solid bodies, are dissoluble, being partly products of association. Simplicity in an abstraction by no means implies indissolubility. On the contrary, the true indissolubility is in concretes ; among these it is that the utterly indissolubles are found. Visual sensation and its extension ; tactual sensation and its extension ; these are instances of indissolu- bility resting neither on abstraction nor on association ; and these are concrete perceptions immediately given to consciousness. CHAPTER VII. THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 1. From the general considerations which III. V II. - formed the conclusion of the foregoing Chapter Consciousness I now return to the main course of the analysis of as distinguished experience. We have separately analysed, first, Butter, some experiences in time alone, and then some experiences in time and space simultaneously, and have seen that the latter, those of visual and tactual perceptions, result, when experienced together, in the further experience of an external material world, having the body of the percipient as its constant central object ; a world which is at first recognised only in its character of material externality, without recognition of the fact that there is any difference between perception and matter, and consequently without recognition of its central object as the seat of perception. In fact, from these latter experiences alone the percipient acquires no knowledge, that the objects thereby known to him are groups of his percep- tions as modes of consciousness, or that his consciousness of them is located in the constant central object, which he afterwards calls his body. Strange as this result may appear to our ordinary prepossessions, inasmuch as we usually think of a THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 299 percipient as acquainted originally, and in right of his existence, with the distinction between himself and external things, and suppose him never entirely Consciousness to lose hold of it in any instance of perception, disti " r ^ n shed yet a very little thought will show that it is correct. Matter. We have originally no knowledge of external material things save in the shape of grouped perceptions or states of consciousness. But until we have acquired a knowledge of these states grouped as external material things, a knowledge acquired by means of associative processes identi- fying visual with tactual perceptions in point of locality, and by attending to their combinations (though without consciously classifying them under general terms), we can have no knowledge of states of consciousness simply, or not so grouped, as con- trasted with them. Consequently they must in the first instance appear to us as complex realities or external material things, in order to their being afterwards contrasted with perceptions which are the consciousness of them, and ultimately distin- guished into the two contrasted but inseparable aspects, of objective thoughts on the one side, and objects thought of on the other ; or to express the same thing in other terms, of material things as in consciousness and material things as in exis- tence. Thus, until we have acquired the knowledge of external material things, all our knowledge consists of certain processes and contents of consciousness not yet recognised as such, that is to say, not yet brought under the conception of consciousness as a knowing. Neither have we, till then, any know- ledge of our own perceptions as ours, because the 300 THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. cvii ^ e ^ or ^ ^ ias no known independent existence ~ until the organism has been perceived as the Consciousness material centre of a material world, and the con- as ' distinguished s tant object of a connected consciousness. The from Matter. first basis of meaning of The Subject is connected consciousness plus this one central, constant, material object. It was shown from the analysis of attention, in an earlier Chapter, that perceptions in time alone give no knowledge of effort or action, or of an agent or percipient of any kind. This knowledge must therefore have some other source than perceptions in time only. And this source can only be found in experiences which give the perception of something which, relatively to the ceaseless changes of the time-stream of conscious- ness, is permanent, and yet in close connection with them ; and the first or lowest instance of such a permanent object is found in the experience of the body as the constant central object of the material world. Consequently it is true, strange as it may seem, that, until we have perceived states of consciousness grouped together, and varying together, in solid masses occupying three- dimensional space, groups which we afterwards call material objects, we have no knowledge, either of our Self or Ego as percipient or conscious agent, or of the fact that what we immediately perceive is consciousness and not matter, or even of what the terms consciousness and perception mean ; be- cause we have, till then, nothing but states of consciousness occurring and recurring (as it is called), successively or simultaneously, in a time series, that is, nothing but themselves, to compare them with, or distinguish them from. The first THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 301 great differentiation of consciousness from an o f course) no t pretended, that we can dlstl " r ^ shed reconstruct in memory the actual course of our Matter, experience in the distant past, so as to examine it analytically, as if it were a recent and well- remembered experience. We cannot possibly recall for analysis, from oblivion, the self-same experiences from which our common-sense notions have resulted, but we can distinguish and analyse the different threads out of which those notions have been woven, because we find them continuing to weave those same notions in our present actual experience, after as well as up to the date of our consciously setting to work to discriminate and analyse them. What we analyse in philosophy is the actual formation, in the present, of common-sense notions, which analysis is eo ipso a criticism and recon- struction of them. Metaphysical analysis, therefore, is something quite different, in its purpose, its method, and its results, from either psychological or anthropological investigation of the de facto chain of events, or any part of it, which constitutes the life either of an individual or of mankind collectively. It treats experience not as a chain or combination of events, the laws of which, expressing observed similarities in the sequences and co-existences which compose it, have to be discovered, but as a Knowing, the comparative validity, permanence, and universality of whose parts, relatively to each other and to the whole, it is its duty to ascertain. In this sense, it criticises and controls the results of psychology and psychological history, as well as those of the THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 305 actual development itself, embodied in common-sense notions. Its great question is, What does experience T really tell us, and how far does that coincide with, or differ from, what we imagined that it told us, distinguished from before we began to analyse it subjectively ? Matter. The analysis of the three foregoing Chapters has been directed to answer this question in the case of Matter, and has advanced in that direction so far as to give the analysis of the perception of an external world, from which we have now to proceed to its more specific perception, or recogni- tion as material. Keeping this question in view, we shall find, if I mistake not, in this and the following Chapter, that our conception, or complex perception, of a Percipient will be analysed also. Hitherto no Percipient has been met with in the analysis. We have used the common-sense know- ledge or assumption of a percipient, because we have had to speak in common-sense language, but we have framed as yet no conception of one, which can be used with precision, or the object of which can be used as a verifiable or working hypothesis in psychology. The first question about percipients, as about matter, is not whether they exist, but what they are, what we mean by the term. No assertion that they exist, and no appeal to common- sense to support the assertion, will avail to answer the prior question What f or serve as a substitute for putting it. And if we begin with an arbitrary definition, and here again appeal to common sense for its support, still the terms of that definition must have a definite and precise meaning before it can be admitted, and the analytical question What must be answered in the case of every one of them. u 306 THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. in point of time and space order, so as to "iTfh 888 com P e l their coalescence. The perception of the Body. Subject's own body as a real object in space is different from, and yet synchronises with, all the moments of his pure representations, and it is the only object to which this description applies. The child perceives his own body in presentation, when he perceives the absent dog in representation only ; and he never perceives the dog, either in presenta- tion or in representation, without perceiving his own body in presentation. The location of con- sciousness in the body means the identification of the two in respect of space, because identified in respect of time, the two being different in respect of kind ; the one, that is, consciousness, consisting (at first) of pure representations, the other being a real and material object. It is this difference in kind which hinders complete identification, and establishes the relation between them as one of coincidence or coalescence. Hence our percipient perceives himself, from the first and afterwards, as a single real Being, made up of two heterogeneous elements, body and consciousness (the latter in but one mode of it at first, afterwards in all), in apparently inseparable but always distinguishable union. Add but the conception of real condition, and we should have the full conception of that single real Being as a Percipient or Subject. I mean, that the proximate real condition of the arising of consciousness above the threshold, be it what it may, is the Subject of that consciousness ; and therefore, supposing proof to have been given, that THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 319 the body, or nerve system as a part of it, is not only the object in which consciousness is located, but is its proximate real condition, then the body, Loc of or nerve system as a part of it, becomes its Subject Consciousness in the strict sense of the term. Bod y- Speaking, then, of the stream of pure representa- tions perceived as located in the body of the per- cipient as his consciousness, though it is not the whole of what he will subsequently perceive and name as such, I proceed to note the new sense which comes thereby to be attached to the terms subjective and objective aspects, as they were dis- tinguished in simply reflective perception. In con- sequence of the moment of location, the line between Knowing and Being may be drawn quite differently from the way in which we were led to draw it by analysing the moment of reflective per- ception simply. There we saw, that consciousness was known in its entirety to be, or as being ; and in reflective perception of the external world, some modes of that total consciousness were known, not only as being, but also as being in and occupying space, in contradistinction from other modes which occupy time only. Still, up to the moment of loca- tion, the whole stream and content of consciousness is objectified as a whole by reflective perception, and is perceived as a whole identical, in point of content, with the perception of it ; of which per- petually renewed moment of perceiving it is itself the objective aspect. But this relation of the two aspects to each other begins to be changed, or rather obliterated and dropped out of view, so as to be recoverable only by analysis, in and by the moment of location. 320 THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. ^vn ^ ie wn l e objective aspect is thereby perceived as - - divided into two parts locally separate. The con- %** t sciousness which is now perceived as located in the Location of nsciousness Subject's body is thereby separated locally from the consciousness which is perceived in the form of material things external to the body. At the same time, as we have seen, it is perceived as disparate from all material things, the Subject's own body included, and as being the representational know- ledge of them. The body, therefore, must seem at this supposed juncture to possess, or be the seat of, an existent consciousness, which is or may become a knowledge of material objects of any kind, provided they are capable of being presentatively as well as repre- sentatively perceived. Or in other words, con- sciousness conceived as located in the body of the percipient now stands in the relation of subjective aspect to the material objects, of which it is the representation. And this enables the psychological distinction between consciousness, as an existent inhabiting the body of a percipient, and the mate- rial objects which it represents, to supervene upon, and for a time obliterate, in the conceptions of philosophers, that larger philosophical distinction between consciousness perceiving and conscious- ness perceived, as respectively subjective and objective aspects of each other, which we saw arose immediately from analysis of the phenomena of reflective perception, in their simplest and most general shape. The two senses of subjectivity now distinguished, the psychological and the philo- sophical, are essentially different, and form a striking contrast to each other. And confusing THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 321 between them, from whatever cause, and however difficult to avoid, has, more perhaps than any other confusion, wrought havoc with unphilosophical Loc ^* o{ philosophies. ^She" 688 For it must be noted, that the older philo- Bod y- sophical distinction of the two aspects, which is rooted in reflective perception simply, and is essen- tial to all consciousness, is not superseded, or the fact of it rendered inoperative, by the psychological distinction which, in our J process of analysing, now supervenes upon it. Reflective perception, as analysed and set forth in earlier Chapters, is the inherent form and nature of all consciousness, whatever its content, whatever its objects. This form and nature consciousness carries with it, even when conceived as the consciousness of an indi- vidual Subject ; and to this original form and nature is due the Subject's apparent power of making his consciousness its own object, and of perceiving it as an existent in connection with matter its fellow existent, of which as disparate it is the knowledge. Matter as an existent is not the only object of consciousness. Consciousness as an existent is fellow object with it. And the two existents are indispensable constituents of our first conception of a Conscious Being or Subject. which conception is the basis of psychology. Both severally and in combination these constituents are objects of reflective perception, which is the form and nature of consciousness itself, the form in which all experience actually occurs ; though this fact is discovered only by philosophical analysis penetrating, as it were, below the surface of commonly accepted notions. Without the distinc- 322 THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. Subject. The notion of Cause. cSvii ^ on which * s the basis of philosophy, the dis- tinction which is the basis of psychology could never have been drawn. 3 - 83. Our next task is to consider how the per- Common- > A 8enae . cipient, at and from that moment which we have conception * of The called the first moment of location, will conceive of the world of his experience, without the knowledge (which comes only with philosophical analysis), that its real and material objects are known to him solely in the form of modes of consciousness, and are what in philosophical analysis we have called objects thought of. And in the first place it is clear, that to suppose him devoid of this philo- sophical insight is to rob him of the perception of the necessary relativity of objects to conscious- ness. We must therefore strike this relativity out of his experience, or in other words think of him as conceiving all real existents as absolutes. His perception of real things, his own body included, is what I have called face to face per- ception, which, without the philosophical percep- tion of its relativity, involves his thinking of those things as simply " given" to him in perception, no question, as to what perception involves or means, being yet possible. This character of absoluteness in the real things perceived at and from the moment of location, though arising solely from failing to analyse expe- rience as it is acquired, is a very striking feature in all pre-philosophic thought. It is one of the most unwarranted assumptions, and also one of the most potent prejudices, of pre-philosophic man. It applies equally to persons as to things, so soon as persons other than himself are perceived as THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 323 forming part of a percipient's real world. Perhaps I should say, it applies to things equally with persons, since probably, in historico-psychological Common- development, persons other than himself are the co Jf55Jl on first real objects which dawn upon him, at the Sul J{j-~ moment of location. It is moreover probable, that his first conceptions of inorganic and unconscious real objects will be drawn from those which he has previously formed of living and conscious real objects, that is to say, of persons ; just as his con- ceptions of persons will be drawn from (though formed pari passu with) his conception of himself, as a body inhabited by a consciousness. But at whatever epoch we may choose to look in upon his development, prior to the full philosophical recognition of relativity, we shall always find this character of absoluteness attaching to some, be it few or many, of the objects which he holds to be real in the panorama of his experience. It will be advisable here to advert to one of the main aberrations of thought which are due to this false imagination of absoluteness in real objects, though to do so will involve some consideration of what is to form the main subject of the following Chapter, the conception of Real Conditioning. We saw at the close of Chapter VI., that the attitude of the percipient in presence of his external world would be one of questioning, some things appearing to him questionable and others unquestionable. We have also seen in the present Chapter, that the consciousness, which he comes to perceive as located in his body, consists originally of pure repre- sentations, as distinguished from real objects, which are composed of presentations and representations 324 THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. CH^VII together ; but with this representational conscious- ;~- ness are combined, or rather in it are included, as Common- experience accumulates, all those feelings which Tf^hl 011 a PP ear > fr m time to time, to have no counterparts Sut The'~ corresponding to them in material objects. If, n aS*e f then, our percipient had recognised, in consequence of analysis, at the moment of location, in what his consciousness, and in what his body, consisted at that moment, and that what he was perceiving was in fact a location of one in the other, he would have put at least two questions first, How comes this consciousness to be located in that? and secondly, How come the two kinds of conscious- ness to be different ? The question of real conditioning would in this manner have virtually been raised. But this is not the course actually taken by the historico-psychological development, either of individuals or of the race. The analysis which would have been requisite to initiate it was in reality an impossibility. The moment of location is that in which the recognition of consciousness as distinct from matter originates ; till then, neither matter nor consciousness are known severally as such, that is, they are not known as distinguished, one from what is not material, the other from what is not consciousness, distinctions which must have become already familiar, before the identity of the two, in point of being alike objects of conscious- ness, can be perceived. A consciousness more elementary than that which is a knowledge of matter, I mean consciousness in time only, and only objective to reflective perception, could not have been called by the name of consciousness as a THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 325 distinctive term. Neither was there any other third thing perceivable or imaginable, which might serve, either as common genus of the two in thought, or as their undifferentiated matrix in reality. Therefore no question of genesis, of the how or the why of either, could at that time arise. n tion of 9 Cause. Consequently the idea of real conditioning could not possibly have been suggested. On the contrary, prior to putting the question of real condition, in the simple shape which analysis of the phenomena (had it been possible) would have suggested, our percipient, from not recognising what he perceives as a location of one mode of consciousness in the object of another, begins by forming the conception of absolute real beings, either of the inorganic and unconscious, or of the organic and conscious type ; and his questioning, when it takes place, is then thrown into the form of a question concerning the actions or activities of those absolute beings. Now any such absolute being, considered in action or activity, is considered as a Cause. Our percipient thus puts the question of causation to phenomena, instead of the question of real conditioning ; the conceptions of cause and causation being histori- cally prior to those of real condition and condi- tioning, although they involve and pre-suppose the latter as undistinguished elements not yet dis- covered or discriminated by analysis. If percipient beings, on attaining the perception which I have called the moment of location, could have treated material things simply as real condi- tions of the consciousness which they then began to distinguish from them, and which they located in bodies as the constant central objects, each of 326 THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. t the earliest experience consists of time and s P ace perceptions, not of time perceptions sepa- rate ty fr m space, as we took them in the first steps of the foregoing analysis. The stages in its historical development may perhaps be stated somewhat as follows. Out of time and space per- ceptions, taken together, we arrive, by processes which are at once discriminating and construc- tive, at the perception of an external world. In the next place, out of this perception, we reach that of the location of representations in the body of the Subject. Thirdly, out of this latter perception, we discover the immaterial character of objective thoughts and the knowledge which they convey, and thereby take the first but decisive step towards the conception of consciousness as a series of changes occupying time only, though localised in space by the circumstance of its having its local seat in the Subject's body, which is that conception of consciousness which most readily lends itself to the apprehension of it simply as an existent, in abstraction from its character as a knowledge. And concomitantly with all these stages, there goes on the development of the percipient's experience of pleasures and pains, appetites, desires, emotions, thoughts, volitions, which are the material of what is commonly known as the life of conscious feeling and conation, as distinguished from cognition. By perceptions of all these kinds the object-matter is supplied, and in that sense the first foundation laid, for the physical sciences on the one hand, and for psychology on the other, so soon as the completing THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 345 conception of real condition enters, from the con- ^y/, sideration of which we have hitherto designedly abstracted. Or j' of The deepest and most essential root of all posi- tive science is in the experience of a spatial, ex- ^J* ternal, and material world ; the corresponding root of philosophy is in the experience which occupies time only. An external world is the primary datum of the one ; consciousness in its lowest terms, but therefore also in its utmost logical extension, is the primary datum of the other. The experience with which we have been busied in the present Chapter, dependent on the moment of loca- tion, is that form of it which supplies the object- matter of physical and psychological science ; and this experience comes to us in two shapes, one being the experience of a material world of objects thought of, and the other that of an immaterial world of objective thoughts, constituting an order of knowledge, belonging to a Subject who himself is one of the objects of the material world. But so far as our examination has gone hitherto, the distinction which most markedly differentiates the object-matter of psychology, as a positive science, from that of philosophy, has not been drawn or perceived by our supposed experient. To him, the existent character of his experience is as yet undis- criminated from its character as a knowing. To him, the objective thoughts, which constitute the order of knowledge, and are what psychologists call the subjective aspect of reality, are objective existents of a peculiar, that is, an immaterial, unsubstantial, fleeting, and therefore comparatively unreal kind, whose unexplained accident it is to be partial mirrors 346 THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. or mi P er f ec t copies of substantial realities. To him similarly, the material objects thought of, which together constitute the psychologist's objective as P ec t> and are reality itself, are real existents Existence simply, the attributes of which have not yet been perceived to belong wholly and solely, not to them- selves, but to what he now conceives as the com- paratively unreal order of objective thoughts. In short, as noted at the outset of this Chapter, the philosophical distinction between the subjective and objective aspects of experience, as distinguished from the psychological one, has not yet been attained by our supposed percipient, because he has not as yet brought the whole of consciousness under the conception of an existent reality. The nature of this distinction and the mode in which it is acquired will be more fully seen in the following chapter (VIII., 5), when we come to consider the questions which are more immediately raised by the experience which we have now been examining, and which are necessarily raised by it in the percipient who [is its Subject. These ques- tions are, What and how much he knows of the content of the real objects of his material world, and of the relations and changes of relation between them ? What, and how much, for instance, does he know of the structure and endowments of his body here, a tree (let us say) out there, and of those relations and changes of relation between them, which are attended by his perceiving the tree ? What and how much of this real content can he translate into definite objective thought or idea, with the perception that it represents it truly ? It is clear that his objective thought or idea, at THE WOULD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 347 any given time, is far from adequate to, or exhaus- tive of, the whole content. Vast portions of it are r^~ unknown. The more nearly he can approach to ode?of translating the whole content of objects thought of, and of their real relations, into true objective thoughts, and their perceptual and logical relations, the completer in point of detail will be his panorama of existence in time and space, and the less will be left blank in that total panorama which includes all real existence, whether its content is definitely known or not. These and similar questions, which concern the origin and nature of error in the repre- sentation of reality, the limits of knowledge, and the possibility of discriminating and ascertaining truth, cannot be dealt with in the present Chapter. The result, then, of our whole analysis of experi- ence, so far as it has gone at present, may be briefly stated as follows. In the first place, the universe or totality of experience, as it presents itself to a percipient who has reached what we have called 'the moment of location,' is thought of by him as made up of two opposite, and for the most part locally separate, aspects, the picture or panorama of knowledge on the one side, and on the other the panoramic world of real existents pictured by it ; among which those existents which are not definitely known, but are surmised or inferred as real, in the sense that in themselves they are presentative perceptions, correspond to possibilities, in the picture, of a knowledge which has not as yet been acquired. And, in the next place, these two halves or aspects of our percipient's universe, its subjective and objective aspects in estimation of psychology, have been shown to 348 THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. CHvn. constitute together one half or aspect of the 7~^ universe in the estimation of philosophy, namely, of *ts objective aspect, the entire content of conscious- tin? 8 ness as a l reac ty objectified in reflective perception. Existence ^h ev constitute, therefore, two great classes of existents, (1) material things, with the relations and changes of relation between them, and (2) states and processes of consciousness, standing in a twofold connection with material things, namely, their connection with the Subject and their connec- tion with the material world outside it. The two great classes of existents, thus roughly described, together make up the existent aspect of experience in the view of philosophy ; and to philosophy both alike are objects thought of, inasmuch as both alike consist of experiences which have been already objectified in reflective perception, no matter in how many points they may differ from, or even stand in direct contrast with, each other. But this is not the sense in which the terms object thought of, and the world of objects thought of, could be used by a percipient at the stage described in the present Chapter. From his point of view the term objects thought of applies only to the world of material existents, as represented by and opposed to the comparatively unreal existents, which, in philosophy, we can designate as objective thoughts. S 5. It will be remembered that, in the Section Inferred Memory. on Memory Proper (Chap. III., 3), we postponed the consideration of a class of cases, universally and properly regarded as memories, until further light should have been thrown on the real con- ditioning of consciousness. These cases were those in which one or more several intervals of total THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 349 unconsciousness intervene, between the past scene or event said to be remembered and the present moment of consciousness said to be the remem- brance of it ; as for instance, in remembering to-day the events of yesterday after a sound night's sleep, or in remembering in later life scenes and events of childhood. The present is perhaps the most convenient place for recurring to this question, inasmuch as we now possess, in what I have called the moment of location, the first and decisive step toward the analysis of these cases, and their justi- fication as true cases of memory. I say the first step, because it is only when completed by the perception of the body, as not only the seat but also as the proximate real condition or Subject of consciousness, that the explanation which it affords is adequate to the phenomena ; and for this second part, it must still be held, as it were, suspended upon the analysis to be given in the following Chapter. In the common-sense form of experience these cases are not classed apart from other cases of memory ; the intervals of total unconsciousness between the experiences remembering and remem- bered being regarded as offering no difficulty to persons possessed of a supposed 'faculty' of memory, a faculty given them for this very purpose, namely, for remembering anything that they have at any time experienced, though confessedly subject to limitations in respect both of vigour and of accuracy. To take the simplest possible case, in ordinary thinking we set down an event which happened to us yesterday as an event then real now remembered, and treat it, without question asked, THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. CHVU as a case f memory, the truth of which is imme- 7i~ diately evident. But when we ask, in philosophy, now suc h a proceeding is possible, or how its apparent result can be justified as true, seeing that, between the thing said to be remembered and the present moment said to be the remembrance of it, a total break in consciousness has in fact intervened, an interval of which we can, strictly speaking, remember but the end, namely, the moment of waking, then the continuity of the consciousness called the remembrance with the consciousness said to be remembered, a continuity which consciousness has in its character of a knowing, seems to be inconsistent with the fact, to which the present, or remembering, moment of consciousness itself may partly witness, that a total break has occurred between the supposed former and latter states of the consciousness in its character of an existent. For, supposing such a break in existent consciousness has actually occurred, the idea becomes at least possible, if not imperative, that what we call a present memory of a formerly experienced fact is really a present fiction, imagined as having been so experienced. In some quarters, an objection might possibly be raised against the necessity of seeking any explana- tion at all of such cases of memory, on the ground, first, that the intervals of unconsciousness, in which the supposed difficulty of accounting for them consists, are merely incidents of the common- sense form of experience, not essential to conscious- ness itself, and secondly, that the supposed intervals themselves are and can be perceived only when a panoramic view of experience, as THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 351 embracing, that is preceding and following them, ^yn has first been attained, a panorama of objective thought, continuous as a knowing, which is d necessary to their perception, since they are only perceived, if perceived at all, as blank intervals within it. The panorama, it is objected, is pre- supposed by the intervals, not the intervals by the panorama. But the reply to this objection is, that actual consciousness is never more than the presenta- tional or representational content of a present moment, and that, this being so, we can actually and in the strictest sense remember, in certain present moments of waking consciousness, the arising or beginning of a continuous content of consciousness, from or after a period of uncon- sciousness, or, as said above, the end of a period of unconsciousness, which we call sleep. This fact is prior and contributory to the per- ception of an interval of unconsciousness, repre- sented as an interval in the panorama of objective thought, that is, a period which has been preceded (as well as followed) by a period of consciousness. The break in existent conscious- ness is thus a positive fact of experience, quite independently of its being afterwards thought of as an interval or blank in consciousness, which has itself had a beginning, as well as an end. Some explanation of the reality of memory, in cases where the thing remembered is separated from the remembrance of it by a real interval or intervals of unconsciousness, is therefore required, if the phenomena are to be brought into harmony with themselves, and the supposed memory of scenes 352 THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. an( l events, which are cut off by a break in existent consciousness from those moments of s *> inferred existent consciousness which are said to be the Memory. remembrance of them, shown to be really memory in the strict sense of the term. The whole problem thus proposed falls of itself into two distinct parts, or rather stages, since in one of them the other is pre-supposed. The first problem is simply this, How we come to represent an experience as having been actually experienced in the past, when, even supposing it was so, it has been severed from the present moment represent- ing it, by an interval of total unconsciousness ? Or, in other words, How do we come to frame the idea of there being a memory of the past in the present, when the past is separated from the present by a break in the real continuity of consciousness between them, a break which seems to imply that two consciousnesses really exist in place of one, and consequently to sever the two experiences belonging to them, as completely as if they belonged to two separate persons ? The second problem, which arises only in case an answer has been found for the first, relates to the testing of the experiences said to be remembered, or rather of the content of the remembrances of them ; and that in two respects, (1) whether they are true in point of fact, however they come to be represented, and (2) whether they are really memories, that is, have occurred twice in the history of one and the same consciousness, once as new and once as remembered experiences, or, in more ordinary language, have been actually ex- THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. perienced by the same person who supposes himself to remember them. One can readily imagine some of the solutions that might be offered of these problems. One school of thought would probably hold, that there is in every man an immaterial entity, gifted with a special faculty of perceiving, as a real experience in the past, that and that only which has really been experienced in the past, this faculty being named Memory. Another school might maintain, that, since the past is known in the present solely by representation, and the representation of a past is the logical identification of a past with a present, the nature of logical thought both assures the con- tinuity of consciousness as a knowing, and renders superfluous all enquiry into its continuity as an existent, save only perchance in the character of a psychological curiosity, or noteworthy specimen of the " Ohnmacht der Natur" But neither of these solutions, supposing them offered, could be satis- factory to those who take their stand upon experi- ence alone. Not the first, because its hypothesis is empty of all content, save what it derives from the phenomena to be accounted for. Not the second, because it assumes, in the teeth of experience, that logical thought is the bestower of reality on the content which it deals with. But to return. In my own opinion, the first of the two problems stated above receives its only suffi- cient answer from what I have called the moment of location. It is simple matter of fact, as already remarked, that representations of all kinds, and in groups or series more or less intelligibly connected with each other, are perpetually arising in con- z 354 THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. cSvh sciousness, quite apart from the question of their rjr real genesis, or how they are determined to arise. Out f th ese > our supposed percipient will most readily set down as (what we call) real memories those which are representations, not of scenes or events only, but also of the percipient's own body as their central object. In these cases, the per- cipient's own body is the one object common to the content of the two states, present and past, the representing and the represented, and thus forms a link of unity connecting them. In this way, therefore, before he has framed the full notion of himself as a percipient or Subject, (a notion to which we are supposing him to be as yet only on the way), he will have exercised the power of remembering, in present moments of consciousness, things which are separated from those present moments by intervals of total unconsciousness ; and of remembering them truly, if, as we may presume, some of his remembrances should be found to bear the test of subsequent verification by presentations. He will represent the presence of that, which he afterwards learns to call himself, among objects, the past reality of which can also be proved by a similar subsequent presentative verification. In short he will represent as past experiences of his own those represented scenes and events, of which he also represents himself as a witness and partaker, as distinguished from those in which no such repre- sentation of himself is included. The truth of these remembrances is a different question. For plainly the foregoing explanation goes only so far as to show the possibility of the representa- tions in question being either true to fact, or real THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 355 as memories. It only shows how they come to cvi appear as representations of things which have really happened to the percipient. We have now - to turn to the second branch of the whole problem ; and first as to the first and most general division of it, namely, testing the truth to fact of the supposed memories. It is obvious, that the mere representation of the percipient having been present, in or along with scenes or events repre- sented, is no test whatever of the truth to fact of the representation as a whole. A vivid dream, for instance, will cause us, on waking, to represent over again its scenes and events, including our- selves as actors in them, without giving us thereby the least reason to suppose them real. At the same time, the very fact that such dreams are fre- quently by children, and by adults] in the infancy of civilisation, taken to represent realities, shows that a test whereby to discriminate true representa- tions from false is absolutely needed. Now such a test, applicable to all representations of material objects alike, is only to be found in the fact, yes or no, that expectations which are raised by such representations are fulfilled or not fulfilled by subsequent presentative experiences, or by strict deductions from them. No other test exists. In applying it, indeed, a principle is appealed to, which will be mentioned presently ; but as to the test itself, presentation is final. Presentative and representative perception are, for this purpose, an exhaustive division of consciousness, the one type, the other antitype, the one possessing the highest conceivable degree of certainty, the other declining from this standard, through all possible degrees of 356 THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. uncertainty, probability, and error. Testing the truth to fact of representations of every kind, and amon g them of those which have the appearance of memories, is therefore a very different thing from merely having the representations, be they of what kind they may. And it is, of course, not a procedure which can be attributed as yet to our supposed percipient, except in a very tentative and rudimentary way. The second division of the second branch of our problem concerns the ascertainment of the fact, yes or no, whether representations, of the kind which we are now considering, are or are not to be classed as memories proper, allowance being made for such errors and imperfections in their record, as would naturally be incident to them, supposing they were so. This may be regarded as a special case falling under the more general testing of the first division, and subject to its canon of verifica- tion. And here it is, that the conception of the percipient's body being the proximate real con- dition of his consciousness comes in, or in other words, the conception of its being a Subject in the strict sense. Supposing this fact to have been ascertained, which is the point reserved for the following Chapter, we should then have only to show, that the body of the percipient was a per- manent real existent during those intervals of unconsciousness which constitute the difficulty of the whole present problem, and the character of being memories proper would thereby be estab- lished, though of course for those representations only, which satisfied the test of verification under the first division, allowance being made, as above THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 357 noticed, for naturally incident errors and imperfec- tions of the record. We may conclude, then, that when once our supposed percipient comes to perceive himself as the Subject of his perceptions generally, that is, of his own consciousness, he has, in that perception, the legitimate means of accounting for, and virtu- ally filling up, those breaks or intervals of uncon- sciousness, which undoubtedly occur in the con- tinuity of his consciousness, considered as a real though immaterial existent. And thus only can he be said strictly to remember scenes or events in which he has taken part from childhood onwards, up to any given present moment of remembrance. The fact, however, that these remembrances are memories in the strict and proper sense of the term, is a fact which is established only by the aid of inference. The memories occur without con- scious mediation, but it is an inferred fact that they are really memories. It remains to be noticed, that the method of verifying representations by subsequently observed facts of presentation has a far wider applicability than merely to show, that a percipient's supposed memories of events in his past life are really memories, that is, representations of scenes and events which he once experienced in presentation. It extends to testing the truth of any representa- tion whatever, whether the representation tested is tested only in respect of its own nature, as in cases of memory simply, or is one link among others in a chain of evidence, terminating in the knowledge of some other more remote, more complex, or otherwise more obscure reality, or again is the 358 THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. representation of a reality which is only to be established in knowledge by means of a long chain f evidence. The reason of this is, that the method in question depends for its validity upon that part of the total Order of Nature, or Keal Conditioning, which at once connects representa- tions with presentations in conscious beings, and connects presentations, as modes of existent con- sciousness, with the real conditions, both in the Subject and in real objects external to it, which immediately give rise to them. The discovery of the Order of Keal Conditioning in Nature is thus the justification, at once necessary and sufficient, for our relying upon presentations as the test of truth in representations generally. Supposing then, as before, that the analysis of the following Chapter should result in establishing the fact, that a percipient's consciousness is directly conditioned on his body as its permanently existing Subject, then this method of verification at once becomes applicable to all his pure representations, in respect of their truth or falsity, whether they are really memories of his own past experience or not. It extends in fact over the whole field or panorama of his objective thought. For, so far as the reality of the experience represented is con- cerned, it is indifferent whether the fact repre- sented has been presentatively experienced by the Subject now representing it, or by another, or by no one, because in all cases alike the actual separation or hiatus between the fact represented and its representation is equally complete, equally total, the experiencing consciousness being taken in its existent character. THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 359 As applied to memory, the principle of the method in its simplicity is, that, where the con- nection between a representation and the experi- ence represented has been actually broken by an interval of unconsciousness, the connection can nevertheless be really maintained by a train of the continuously acting real conditions of the con- sciousness, which accounts at once for the actual hiatus in the existence of the consciousness, and for the congruity in the content of its several parts, the representing and the represented, one on this side of the hiatus, and the other on that. And this principle is applicable to all cases of inter- mitted consciousness alike, provided that the train of real conditions which connect the representation with the facts represented can be securely estab- lished. It is on this principle that the admissibility of the testimony of other persons, to facts not within the personal knowledge of the representing Subject, ultimately rests. Such testimony more- over may be either oral or documentary, or it may comprise both. There are thus no limits to the applicability of the principle, save those of experi- ence possible to actual human Subjects. The range covered by the principle in question is therefore enormous. But if we go farther, and consider what is really involved in the meaning of the term documentary just used, even this range may be enlarged. For then we shall be carried back to facts beyond anything which could ever have formed part of actual human experience, that is, to facts which are themselves the objects of representations only, and are thought of as real only by thinking of them as facts which would THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. ^ iave b een experienced by human beings, if (per impossibile) any human beings could have existed at ^e ^ me wnen tnev occurred. I mean facts deducible from such evidence, for instance, as what has been well called the ' record of the rocks ' in Geology, or from the laws of composition and transmission of light in Astronomy. In cases of this sort the train of real conditions, which we began by treating as interposed between two human experiences, becomes itself the sole object thought of, and certain parts of it, which are within actual human experience, become evidence for other parts of it, which existed when no human eye could have existed to witness them. By this line of thought the application of the principle in question may be extended so as to embrace the whole Course of Nature as the object thought of, thus extending over both the panoramas, subjective and objective, and extending over them inevitably, when once it has been admitted as necessarily applicable to the simplest case of memory proper in which an intermission of existent consciousness has actually occurred ; and all this without exceeding the limits of what we have called a single empirical present moment of consciousness, but on the con- trary, by bringing the whole or any part of the panorama within those limits, as the object thought of in that present moment. It will of course be understood, that I speak of it as a principle only. To show that particular cases can be brought under it is a very different task, Here the difficulty would be to establish, as a particular fact, the continuity of some train of real conditioning, which should connect the par- THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 361 ticular experience to be accepted as fact with facts already accepted as known, and through these with the representation of it, thereby justifying the latter as true. Questions of this sort concern, not the validity of the nature of the connection, but the amount and kind of evidence to be required for establishing its actual existence in each case. No one dreams of putting all representations on the same footing as to evidence for or against them, simply because their being pure representations does not disqualify them from being regarded as true, It is the sceptical doubt of pure representations as capable of being known to be true, when they refer to experiences separated from them by intervals of unconsciousness, which is really set at rest by establishing, in the first and simplest cases, the principle of verifying them by subsequent presenta- tive perceptions on the part of one and the same Subject. These simplest cases are decisive as to the validity of the principle, however wide its range of applicability may afterwards be found. And in these simplest cases, the fact (supposing it established), that one and the same Subject is the experiencer of the representations questioned and of the subsequent presentations which are said to verify them, precludes the possibility of accounting for the nature and existence of the representa- tions questioned, except on the hypothesis that they are really memories, that is to say, are representations of something which has been previously presentatively experienced by the same Subject. 6. One thing remains to be noticed before A tid closing the present Chapter, a point moreover to 362 THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. cvii which I shall again have occasion to recur, namely, ~ that the philosophical conception of the existent A third world now indicated supplies us with a third sense sense of Reality. o f the terms reality, existence, thatness, in addition to the two noted at the close of Chapter III. I mean that these terms, when applied to the objec- tive thoughts and objects thought of, which together compose the experience which we have been examining in the present Chapter, obviously mean more than when they are used to express (1) percipi, or presence in consciousness generally, or (2) the occupying a definite place in a context of perceptions in the time-stream of experience. They imply, besides this, a place and function in an external world, a world occupying time and space together, and therefore import, that the objects to which they are applied are independent of the circumstance of being perceived by a Sub- ject, except (in the case of objective thoughts) by that Subject whose thoughts or perceptions they are. Independence of the circumstance of being perceived or not perceived by any consciousness, save that of which (in one class of cases) they are a part, is the specific meaning of these terms in this third sense of them ; and the term Existent, applied to any object whatever, expresses that meaning as predicable of it. Both consciousness, or objective thoughts, and matter, or objects thought of, as our supposed percipient would distinguish them, are existents in this sense, since both are taken as belonging to a world of space, and having an exis- tence dependent indeed on other objects in that world, but independent of their being or not being themselves perceived, except (as just said) in the THE WORLD OF OBJECTS THOUGHT OF. 363 case of consciousness or objective thoughts, which depend, for their existence, on the existence of the Subjects in whom they arise. In so using the terms in question, two things must be noted, first, that we are again speaking from the philosophical point of view, and not from that of the imperfect stage of experience analysed in the present Chapter ; and secondly, that, in using the terms in this third sense, we do not deny, but consciously reserve and abstract from, the admitted fact that, in speaking of anything what- ever, reflective perception is involved and pre- supposed, to which therefore all real existence must be conceived as relative. To deny or to forget this truth would be to fall into the self-contradic- tory conception of an absolute existence. It i$, therefore, only in conscious subordination to this general fact, that the third sense of the terms in question, which has now been pointed out, is per- missible in philosophy. Nevertheless, when so taken and understood, it is part and parcel of the necessary machinery and outfit of philosophical method, affording as it does the means of harmonis- ing the conceptions of philosophy with those of positive science. CHAPTER VIII. THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. BOOK i. 8 1. We have now to take up the long post- CH VIII poned enquiry, What are the essential steps or Fuii circumstances in the process whereby our supposed perception of . . . ,, .. , . T/ > The percipient arrives at the true perception of himself as a percipient and active being, the Subject of his own consciousness ; whereby he passes from the perception, that one mode of his consciousness, pure representation, is seated in his body, to the perception that presentations and representations alike are not only seated in his body, but are directly dependent on it ; whereby, consequently, he distinguishes his consciousness generally, includ- ing both of these modes and all that they contain (perceptions, sensations, pleasures, pains, desires, emotions, imaginations, volitions, reasonings, and so on), from the world of material objects generally, as objects not themselves consisting of conscious- ness, but existing independently of it, one among which, namely, his own ever present body, is the invariable and indispensable real condition, up- holder, and servant, of that consciousness in its entirety. Such are the forms which the problem assumes, as the consequence and completion of the steps already THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 365 taken in the analysis of consciousness in its entirety, as presented in the common-sense form of experi- ence, with which we began; three statements of one and the same analytical problem, the last which remains to be solved in order to complete our general analysis of common-sense experience. The answer, which will be given by discriminating the essential steps which lead to self-perception, will therefore show in what the true perception of the Subject consists, apart from errors and super- fluities which may have been mixed up with it, and particularly from that erroneous conception of it as an absolute existent, or cause, which, as we saw in the foregoing Chapter ( 3), sprang from a partial and incomplete knowledge of the phenomena per- ceived. It should be remarked, that errors are naturally to be expected, and must almost inevitably have arisen, in forming an idea of the Subject, inasmuch as reasoning processes are employed in its formation, and a door thereby opened to conjecture and hypothesis, in the absence of any contemporaneous philosophical analysis of the phenomena reasoned from. We left our supposed percipient at the point where he had perceived the location of his own pure representations in his own body, a mode or epoch of perception analytically distinguished by us, but not one at which we can possibly suppose him to remain, even for a moment, as if it were an empirically marked halting place, on the way to a full and complete perception of himself; notwith- standing that the facts belonging to it, taken in isolation, are those which support the conception of absolute existents and causal agencies. The 366 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. CHvin rea ^ experience of our supposed percipient does not stop short at this analytically (not empirically) distinguished epoch. It is as if, in a long journey . with a four-in-hand team, the near horses were Subject. changed at one stage, the off horses at the next, and so on, the four horses never being changed at once ; a singular arrangement, no doubt ; but so has Nature ordered the process of experience. We have, then, to see what circumstance it is, which, as a matter of actual experience to our percipient, inevitably urges him forward to the completion of his self-perception. This circumstance, this motive power, is found in the fact, that Desire is bound up with Repre- sentation. Those representations which include desires, or have desires in them as an element, keep him restless and uneasy until they merge in, or are replaced by, presentations which satisfy the desires, as in the case of infants seeking the breast, or as in the instance supposed above, of a child desirous of again seeing and playing with a favourite dog. Desire is a state of consciousness which belongs wholly to representation, though, in the lowest instances, the representation may be extremely dim and indefinite. Still without some representation of what is wanted, be it only of a cessation of uneasiness, the feeling called desire would be wholly objectless, a feeling merely, not a feeling for anything desired, which is its differentia from other kinds of feeling. Again, desire is only for that which is actually, that is, presentatively, wanting and absent. True, pre- sentation may fail to satisfy desire ; but when that is the case, it is so because it satisfies the desire in THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 367 part only, or else, in satisfying it, sets up a new or a renewed desire in its place. In speaking as rj" above of desires and representations as motives, I r( J 1 j? m of am using the ordinary language of common-sense thinking, and must be understood to use it subject to an analysis which has yet to be given. There are also well known classes of cases, in which desire is directed, not to sense-presentations or to the presentation of material objects, but to something which can be experienced only in redin- tegrative processes. Such for instance are the desire for more vivid or more absorbing emotional feeling, the desire for more complete and accurate cognitive representation of intricate or obscure phenomena, and the desire for higher degrees of power in self-mastery and control of desire itself. But what these cases show is merely this, that sense-presentations are not the only objects which satisfy desire, though it is these only which come prominently into view in this part of the present work. They do not show, that desire does not arise solely in representation ; but only that what satisfies desire need not be a sense-presentation. It may be a feeling, perception, or thought, the arising of which, provided it be perceived as new, either in point of content or in point of vividness, is imme- diately conditioned upon redintegrative cerebral action, instead of being immediately conditioned upon stimulation of nerve at the periphery. This will be brought out more fully in a future Chapter. Newness of content, or of degree of vividness, in feelings or states of consciousness, is the true mark of presentation as distinguished from representa- tion. States of consciousness like those named 368 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. above as objects of desire may, therefore, be as ^J7 strictly presentative as sense-presentations ; and perception of wnen they are so, the term presentation must have subject. *ks meanm g extended to include them. In the desires which belong to distinct represen- tations we have the origin or original motive (so far as it is in consciousness at all) of all processes of thought or reasoning. Desire fixes the attention to that feature in the representation which is desired, and sets up a questioning process which consists in a series of representations concerning the possibility of the desire being fulfilled, or of the means to its fulfilment, by the presentation of the desired feature in the original representation. In this way desire is the link in consciousness between representations and presentations, I mean in respect of making evident, to the percipient or sentient being, their essential community of nature as modes of consciousness. The presentation of a desired object is felt at once as the fulfilment of the desire, and as the realisation of the representation, Moreover, if the representation and the desire are perceived as located in the body of the percipient, so also must be the presentation, which is continuous with and replaces them. The percipient's body thus comes to be perceived as the common locus or seat of both kinds of consciousness, with all that they contain. A great step forwards in intelligence is thus taken, but still no assured resting-place is found ; the posi- tion is still enigmatical, and, in one way, even more so than before. For all material objects are thereby duplicated, including even the body of the per- cipient. Material objects external to the body THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 369 must, in consequence of it, appear to exist twice over, once as presentations located in the perci- pient's body, and once in space external to it. The body itself also must appear to have a double existence, once as a material object, and once as a presentation of that object, yet located within it. The situation seems desperate. But this difficulty in the percipient's position is at present manifest, not to him, but only to us who are analysing it ; since it arises only in con- scious reflection upon the position which he is now supposed to have reached, not in conscious reflec- tion upon the phenomena with which he has been concerned in reaching it. He at present is aware of no difficulty in the thought, that his body has perceptions both of itself and of objects external to it ; for this is the very thought to which he has attained in perceiving his body as the common seat of presentations, and representations alike. We must therefore suppose him to go on with the process of reasoning which has led him to this perception without noticing this difficulty on the way And supposing him to do so, that is, sup- posing him to go on with that representational and reasoning process concerning the fulfilment of desires involved in representations, which we have described, he will inevitably come to a conclusion which develops his initial conception of his body as the seat of both modes of consciousness, into the twofold conception (1) of his body as the one indis- pensable real condition, upon which those modes of consciousness proximately depend, and ("2) of those modes of consciousness as immaterial existents totally different in kind from all material objects, A A 370 THK WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. including his own body among the rest. Let us see - how this takes place. rcf "tiln of The g enera l nne of reasoning which leads to this conception will be somewhat as follows : His purpose being to obtain presentations which are the fulfilment of representations containing desires, he will remember that, in countless in- stances of the lowest and simplest kind, desired presentations have occurred at those, and only those, moments, when material objects have come into actual contact with his body, as in the case of infants seeking the breast, handling toys, and so on ; and that, in general, an increasing nearness of material objects to his body was the prelude to such desired presentations, while their removal was invariably accompanied by cessation of the presenta- tions. He will accordingly argue (of course infor- mally), that, without contact or nearness of material objects to his body, no presentations would occur. He will therefore class his own body and material objects together, as what we should call real con- ditions of his having presentations, and will class presentations and representations (with their desires) together, as dependent on the nearness or contact of material objects to or with his body, while continuing to locate both modes of conscious- ness alike in his body, as their constant proximate real condition, the new character of bodies as real conditions being due to the newly-perceived circum- stance, that consciousness occurs in dependence on them. In other words, our percipient will now and henceforward consider his body as the Subject of his consciousness, in its entirety, and will broadly distinguish, in point of nature, his consciousness in THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 371 its entirety both from his body, which is its Subject, and from all other material objects, which are only among its remote and variable real conditions. The distinction between bodies which are material subject. bodies only, and bodies which are Subjects like himself, will probably be drawn contemporaneously with the foregoing distinctions. Our supposed percipient's perception of himself as a real psychological Subject of consciousness, or conscious being, is now in its essentials complete. Its attainment involves and is coincident with his first perception of objects as what are afterwards called Real Conditions, though they are, of course, not recognised by him as corresponding to any such name or classification in philosophy. It is in the perception of his body as the one invariable real object, in immediate connection with which all his states of waking consciousness occur, and without which they never occur ; or in other words, in the perception of his body as the proximate real con- dition of his consciousness ; that he first comes to any knowledge of such things as real conditions, as well as to the knowledge of himself as a real per- cipient and real agent. Nevertheless it must be remarked, that he has still lying before him that difficulty, still to be sur- mounted, which was noticed above as involved in the reasoning which he has gone through, I mean the apparent duplication of all material objects. It is certain that he will have to confront it at a later period of his experience than that to which the experience now analysed belongs. But before we carry him on to the epoch at which this problem will force itself on his notice, a few words must be 372 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. CHviii. said both on the conception of Real Condition, and r"j~ on the existence of the whole external world of jtfoB of Nature, in the shape and form of an Order of Keal *. Conditioning. 2. The essential characteristic of the concep- tual modification of simply perceptual experience cons j s t s j n the fact, that in it the percipient con- sc j ous iy exercises a selective action on the train of percepts as they actually occur, by which means the train, as it appears in the panorama of objective thought, appears, in the first instance, as broken up into groups, each consisting of similar percep- tions, and dissimilar from other groups. But these groups belong to the panorama of objective thought only. They are concepts, expressed by general terms, or logical universals ; and, as objects thought of, have no unity, save what is given by the selec- tive action which groups their percepts together on the ground of similarity ; the perceptions of which they consist (their logical extension) being never present in consciousness together, but belonging to any place or any time, past, present, or future, and including possible just as much as actual pecep- tions. But consciously exercised selective action does not stop here ; it does much more than merely make concepts, or logical universals, which as units or single groups have existence only in objective thought. It also observes, and retains in memory, the actual grouping together of percepts (though these may also belong to logical groups of its own making), whether similar or dissimilar; that is, observes and retains groupings which it perceives as facts, but does not make, any more than it THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 373 makes the percepts belonging to the groups which it does make. And it is out of these groupings which it does not make, but perceives as facts, conc Sf ono observes, and retains, that real objects thought of (as we have called them) are composed, including their relations and changes of relation to each other, and their occurrence in and disappearance from presentational consciousness. In short, it is by consciously selective action of this latter kind, that the panorama of objects thought of, or the real world of material things, comes into actual experience, in the manner analysed in foregoing Chapters. And there is all the difference in the world between these two kinds of grouping, the logical and the perceptual, the one founded in the convenience of thought, the other in the observa- tion of fact ; a difference to which it is the more necessary to call attention, because of the persistent efforts of the Neo-Kantian or Hegelian school to put them on the same footing, as equally and alike products of logical Thought. Now we are here more particularly concerned, not with discriminating the part played by the purely logical kind of thought in conjunction with consciously selective action of the latter of the two kinds just distinguished, but with the continued exercise of the latter kind upon the experience of a real material world, taken as an experience already acquired. Its nature as an action continues the same, but it leads up to the conception of real condition only when real objects thought of, or a real material world, have been already established in experience, as the order or the kind of facts upon which it is exercised. And it is only in 374 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. ii. dealing with such facts, that the more obscure r~ elements of its nature become apparent, inasmuch ? , as these facts for the first time enable us to dis- conception of ****? tinguish it clearly as an action intermediate Condition. * between a terminus a quo and a terminus ad quern. What, then, is more particularly meant by selective action consciously exercised upon the experience of a world of real things ; how does it arise, and what does it involve ? It arises, so far as immediate consciousness only is appealed to, that is, it seems to arise, from the interest attaching to some feeling, idea, or object, which seems to fix or fetter the atten- tion, making us desirous of knowing whether it will continue or vanish, increase or diminish, or whether another instance of it will occur or not ; and this throws us, as it were, into a questioning attitude with regard to it ; not indeed for the purpose of seeing its nature more clearly, but for that of procuring or avoiding it. We hold it fast in thought, and try to remember its context. Similar instances are supplied from memory by means of association. Remembering these, we try to remember their contexts also. We thus for the first time obtain the notions of the possibility, and of alternatives, of a given object, or feeling, occurring or not occurring. We imagine, from the stores of memory, various contexts in which it might occur ; and the whole content of memory becomes a content of imagination, and the world which it represents takes on a new character of contingency. Our questioning attitude, produced apparently by a felt interest, thus invests the perceptual THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 375 world with the new character of contingency. Will this or that happen ; where ; and when ? r^ Such would be the formulation of our questioning conc Sfon of attitude, supposing it to be formulated, which t first it will not be. But there is more to be said. The facts which serve as the answers to questions of this sort are invested thereby, and invest those to which they are answers, with an additional character ; they are perceived not as facts simply, but as facts which are answers to questions ; that is to say, they are perceived to bear a new relation to the facts which, from the interest attaching to them, were the so-called motives of the questioning. The additional character, which any fact which is a motive of a question, and any fact which is its answer, now bear in reference to one another, is that of standing to one another in the perceived relation of real condition and conditionate, a relation of dependence, which does not cease to be one of co-existence or sequence, but is not necessarily the same co-existence or the same sequence which existed between them, as members simply of the historical order of existence. The additional knowledge which we have now acquired is, that, if a desired percept is to continue or occur again, something else must continue or occur again independently of it. And we have seen that there are many alternatives or possibilities in our imagination, both with respect to what this some- thing else may be, and with respect to the context in which it may occur. It follows, therefore, that it is only when, by repeated experiences, all the alternatives but one have been eliminated, that we can say of the one which remains, that it and it 376 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. on ty * s ie rea l condition of the desired percept ; or in other words, that if it occurs, then the desired percept will occur also. Condition " re P ea t the provisional definition of real condition which was given in the foregoing Chapter, according to which it means something upon the occurrence or continuance of which, in given cir- cumstances, something else occurs or continues, and without which it would not do so. We have now seen how this conception arises from the interest which we suppose our percipient to feel in a particular percept which occurs to him ; and to that extent our provisional definition has been justified. We have next to see more precisely how it differs from a simple percept. And in the first place it seems clear, that the character of being either a condition or a conditionate, is not an immediately perceived attribute of any percept or percepts, notwithstanding that relations of co- existence and sequence may be perceived between them. The perception that one depends on another or on others is different from the perception of time and space relations between them, and pre- supposes it. However early in the history of an individual he may begin to acquire this additional perception, and it is probably very early, it still remains additional, being a complex perception in which simpler perceptions are included and pre- supposed. Historically speaking, our percipient probably acquires its rudiments at a very early stage, and then continues to complete it part passu with his completion of the perception of an external world. Still it remains a complex per- ception, compared to that of an external world THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 377 simply, and has the perceptions composing the latter as its prius in order of knowledge. Not ~ that perceptions of material objects do not involve conce ^f onof consciously selective action, in the form of attention, comparison, and reasoning, but that the purpose which governs those processes, in their case, is simply that of perceiving and knowing, more clearly than before, the de facto nature and relations of phenomena which have been already perceived ; whereas a desire for a presentation of what we actually have in representation only, or for the absence of one which we represent as possibly absent, is the motive of reasonings which in the first instance lead to the complex perception, representation, or conception of dependence. The important fact to notice is, that this con- ception of the occurrence of one thing being dependent upon the occurrence of another, whereby the characters of conditionate and condition re- spectively attach to them, originates, not in presentative perception, but in redintegrative processes guided by consciously selective action, that is, in thought. The character of being a condition or a conditionate is not originally perceived in objects, but only justified by perceived facts, after it has been suggested by other facts. That is to say, it is a conception first, namely, the conception of dependence, before being perceived in objects at all ; and when the conception has been justified by perception, still the characters which result from it are not perceived as elements in the objects to which they are attributed, but as characters with which they are invested ; and when predicated of the objects which they clothe, 378 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. they are predicated as what may be technically called terms of second intention. As for instance, when I say that a lighted match was, in given circum- stances, the real condition of an explosion, this indicates not merely the fact that the explosion took place under those circumstances on the application of the match, but also my belief that it would not have taken place, under the same circumstances, without it. The application of the term real condition may thus be justified by simple facts of perception, both as to the fact of the explosion, and also as to my belief that without the match there would have been no explosion. Still the term taken alone does not express facts of perception simply, but facts of perception and belief together ; and therefore, in predicating it of the match, I am attributing to the match a character which has some other source besides that of simple per- ception, a character of what is commonly called causality in relation to the explosion, which character is originally suggested by a conception on my part, and not by perception alone. For, that the explosion ivould not have taken place but for the match, is not a fact which it is possible to perceive presentatively. Only the de facto can be simply and immediately perceived. When terms expressing conceptions are used to describe such an idea as true, they must be used as terms of second intention, the truth of which may be justified by perception, namely, by perceptions of the presentative occurrence or non-occurrence of given representations in particular contexts, but which are not perceptions themselves. Concep- THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 379 tions which are formed and attributed to objects or sequences of objects in this way, among which r~ those conceptions which we call Laws of Nature conc e^f onof are to be reckoned, do not belong to those objects Co ^gl on . or sequences as essential constituents of their nature, any more than their names do. I mean that they are not perceivable as elements or factors in them, and therefore are not among the ultimate data of experience. 3. Summarising our results, in order to draw |^ further conclusions from them, it is clear in the Order of Real first place, that the characters of real condition Conditioning. and conditionate, and the relation of dependence or real conditioning, for what has just been said applies to all alike, are perceptions of that special and modified kind which we call conceptions ; that is to say, originate in a conscious re-action, dealing with simple perceptions, on the part of the Subject. And since they are not simple perceptions, the re-action which originates them must, in originating them, take the form, not of a statement of fact, but of a question. Some feeling of desire or aversion, or some object of desire or aversion, must give rise to a state of mind which we afterwards formulate as a question, How is this to be obtained or avoided ? We then ipso facto have our attention fixed, in expectancy, either upon the experiences which have already been associated with the feelings or the objects in question, or else upon those which are about to occur in connection with them. In any case expectant attention must be aroused, to question the phenomena which are the context of that in which we feel this practical interest. 380 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS The answer which observed facts give to this ^~ questioning invests those facts with the character Order 6 of ^ being real conditions of the feelings or objects Conditioning which interest us, and give rise to the questioning. A child playing in the garden sees gooseberry bushes on the other side of a fence. Were it not for that fence, he thinks, I could get at the gooseberries. The fence is a real condition ob- structing his desire. Desire in some form or other is thus the origin of the questions, How comes ? What makes ? How behaves ? Further experience supervening on the questions, or recalled from memory in consequence of them, then gives the answer ; and the answer, when given, is or includes the con- ception of real condition. Without the questioning there would be no such conception ; there would be nothing but a register of de facto experience. It is thus a conscious re-action on the part of the Subject, combined with facts of simple perception, which introduces the idea of real conditioning into our world of thought. And although it is neither a Kantian a priori concept of the Understanding, nor a Scholastic intellectual intuition of causal essences, nor yet on the other hand a mere record of de facto experience, it is nevertheless an idea which is thoroughly and completely justified as true by de facto experience, provided that it is frankly acknowledged to be a conception which needs justification ; that is to say, a conception framed by conscious re-action on the part of the Subject, whereby he interprets facts of perception, or in other words, transposes perception, which is one mode of consciousness, without falsifying it, into THE WOULD OF HEAL CONDITIONS. 381 thought, which is another mode of consciousness, for greater convenience in handling it. Immediate reflective perception remains always the ultimate source, not only of original suggestion, but also of verification, which is the final authority of revision and appeal. The whole de facto Course of Nature, as a se- quence of objects having perceptual form, in past, present, and future time, is thus partially under- stood, rendered intelligible, or brought within our mental grasp, by being conceived as an Order of Heal Conditioning. But there is no substitution, or supplanting of one order by the other. The second is but a mode of understanding the first, a shape or name given to the first in or by the order of knowledge, the panorama of objective thought. It is in thought what the Course of Nature is in perception ; just as objective thoughts are, in knowledge, what the objects thought of by them are in the world of real existents ; the difference between the two cases being, that we have in the latter case a correspondence of percept to percept (though after one of them has passed through the process of conception), in the former of concept to percept. Real conditions and conditionates, as such, do not exist in the Course of Nature, but only facts or objects of perception, which are conceived under those terms. What we gain by so conceiv- ing them is a generalised knowledge, applying to hypothetical and imaginary as well as to actually perceived circumstances ; a knowledge of general facts or laws of nature, from which other facts may be deduced or inferred. But the whole content of this conceptual knowledge, taken as a content, 382 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. belongs to the order of knowledge as distinguished from the order of existence, or Course of Nature 8 > Order 6 of i tseu - ^ * s a means of discovering and under- sending facts ; but those facts only, and not the conceptions which embody the understanding of them, are the existents of the order of existence, with which we are then concerned. But is not then, it may be asked, the process of conceptual thought itself a real existent, is it not real as a process ? It has been already said, that in it we really re-act upon and modify the actual order or train of percepts. Must it not therefore be allowed to be real, with the same reality which attaches to that order ? This is not and cannot be for a moment denied. Indeed this is the very thing which it is my present purpose to insist upon. The percipient exercises a real action in the process of conceiving, and really modifies his trains of percepts. But he modifies them only as percepts of his own, that is to say, as existents of one only of the two great classes composing the Course of Nature, he does not modify the material things which constitute the other great class of existents ; all he modifies with respect to these is his own way of regarding them ; until of course, outgoing nerve and muscular action follows as the consequence of the modification, or of the nerve movements supporting it, which consequence is not now under consideration. In other words, the content of his conceptions, qua conceptual, belongs to the panorama of objective thought, and its real existence is the real existence of conscious- ness, as distinguished from the real existence of matter. The objects thought of by those con- THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 383 ceptions have real existence, not in the material QH/VIII. objects and events, of which they are the under- ^ standing and interpretation, but solely in the O rde r e of thinking process, which understands and interprets conditioning the material objects and events by means of them. These objects and events are existents of one class ; the thinking process with its content is an existent of another class. Thus it is evident, that the very first instance, to which we have to apply our analytical distinc- tion between the subjective and objective aspects of experience, is the process of conception itself, by which a further knowledge of the world of objects thought of is obtained. Conception in its entirety belongs to one of the two great classes of existents composing the existent world, and, like the whole of that class, is necessarily distinguish- able by a line of demarcation running right through it as a concrete or empirical process, which dis- tinguishes, for us who analyse it, what it is as an existent fact and process, from what it is as a knowledge of other processes and facts. As an existent process it is what we call thought, judg- ment, reasoning, or the thinking process ; as a mode of knowledge it is the conceptual form, a form consisting of conceptions such as those of condition, conditionate, possibility, alternatives, contingency, necessity, actual existence, and so on, into which we throw perceived relations in the act of thinking of them. It is in fact to this very process that the establishment of the distinction between consciousness as an existent and con- sciousness as a knowing is due, of course in dependence upon facts of simple perception, which 384 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. CH^III. are summarised and definitely embodied in that ^" distinction. Order 6 of To the Course of Nature, which is the object conditioning, known and analysed by conceptual thought, belong not conditions or conditionates, not general facts or laws of real conditioning, but the sequences and co-existences in time and space, which we group under those conceptions, or discover by means of them. These it is, of which the Course of Nature is composed. The sequences and co-existences themselves, like the objects which they connect, are all singular. It is singulars only (the particulars, as they are sometimes called), which exist as existents. A law is a general fact, and exists only in our thought, as a form or mode in which we apprehend the existent singulars. The same may be said of the character, or " second intention," of condition and conditionate. To attribute laws of nature, or the character of being a condition or a conditionate, to the Course of Nature, is to make entities of abstract generalities. This is constantly done by empiricists, because they do not advert to the distinction between the two characters borne by all states and processes of consciousness, their character as knowledge and their character as existent. They then imagine, that these concep- tions, so converted into entities, correspond to some real specific essence or agency in the facts, over and above their time and space relations of sequence and co-existence. And finally, having invented this hidden essence, and imagining it, as they must, to be everywhere present behind the facts, they complain (or boast) of the unknowability of things as they are really and in themselves. Fortunately THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 385 the real nature of their fiction is less difficult to discover. A similar criticism applies, as we shall see later on, to the conception of Force. But with this we are not at present concerned. It must however be noticed that, in the fallacy now once more detected, we have one great source of philosophical scepticism. The fallacy consists, first, in making entities of conceptions, such as conditions and laws, thus taking thoughts for things, and giving them a position behind, within, or beyond perceptual facts, as something which supports and governs them, or which constitutes their real essence, and then turn- ing round upon these very conceptions as unable to give us a true knowledge of the entities they are taken for. The realities, which in fact they stand for, are the existents, and time and space relations of the existents, which compose the Course of Nature. At the same time the truth of these conceptions is wholly unaffected by the foregoing criticism. Truth and falsity attach to them, if at all, in their character as concepts, belonging to the order of knowledge and representing the order of existence. The knowledge gained by the conceptual analysis which we have been describing may be, and un- doubtedly often is, true, notwithstanding that there are no separate entities in existence represented by its conceptions. In fact, if there were, the objective truth of the conceptions would be ipso facto pre- cluded. Conceptions are true, when the facts which they throw into conceptual form are real as percepts, or in their perceptual form of co-existences and sequences of objects in time and space. B D 386 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. Now it is impossible to avoid using conceptual g~~ thought in the investigation of nature, or to dispense Order 6 of with th e conceptions of condition and conditionate, Conditioning ^7 wmcn it moves. We are restricted to think of nature, if at all, under these general notions ; though we are also bound, under penalty of inevi- table error, to distinguish in our results the part which belongs to the existents thought of, and the part which belongs to our own method of procedure. The principle of this distinction is what I have just been endeavouring to make plain. But when we think of Nature, as we must, under these general notions, we find that a new character is thereby imparted, in our thought as an instru- ment of truth, to the whole Course of Nature and every part of it. That is to say, we have to think of every existent in it as either a real condition, or a real conditionate, or both. Besides being an object thought of, in relation to objective thought, it is also a conditioning or a conditioned object, or both, in relation to other existents. And this applies to both the great classes of objects com- posing the existent world, I mean (1) material things and their changes, and (2) states and changes of states of consciousness. This raises the further question, in what relation the objects belonging to these two classes respec- tively stand to the distinction between real condi- tions and real conditionates just mentioned. Do consciousness and material things alike belong to both heads, in the sense that they are conditions and conditionates of each other; or secondly, is either of them a conditionate of the other without in turn conditioning it, or a condition of it without THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 387 being in turn conditioned by it ; or thirdly, sup- posing there is no relation of conditioning between the two classes at all, do the phenomena of each class severally condition one another, independently conditioning of those belonging to the other class? These questions, it is evident, open up the whole problem of Idealism. In fact the question of Idealism is raised, the moment it is proposed to attribute real conditioning to consciousness as distinguished from matter. This is too large a question to be formally debated in the present Chapter. Nevertheless the analysis which lies next before us will not be without results which will, I hope, contribute in no small degree to clear the ground for correctly appreciating it. 4. For what we have plainly next to do is, to 4 -. jrVllftly t ICft I get some more precise conception of the difference discrimination between a real object thought of and that same Conditions from real object taken as a real condition. That is to say, we must repeat the method of taking for analysis some simple material object as a representative instance, and then endeavour to distinguish these two characters in it, one from the other; or in other words, distinguish those features in it to which it owes its additional character of being a real condition or conditionate, from those which constitute it as a real existent simply. This will plainly be a work of analysis. But first a word about our method in proceeding to the analysis. It will, I think, be most con- venient, if at this point we imagine, that our supposed percipient and ourselves, his supposed observers, have joined hands, and are now carrying on the analysis of our common experience together. :>SS THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. CHvni We h ftve wa tched his process of arriving at the perception of himself as a conscious being, and Analytical have seen that he has reached it, or will have to discrimination reac ^ it> Dv processes of reasoning. We may fairly su PP ose hi m now to De capable of philosophic questioning and scrutiny, directed upon the course and nature of his own experience. We have moreover seen, that he has still to face a difficulty, to which his own perception of himself has given rise, I mean the apparent duplication of material objects, once as presentations, and once as objects presented ( 1) ; a difficulty which, it was remarked, arises only in philosophic questioning of experi- ence, which only philosophic analysis can resolve, and which in fact is as much a difficulty for our- selves now, as it ever could have been for a pre- philosophic intelligence. Henceforward, then, we may fairly identify our supposed percipient with ourselves ; and here accordingly I will step forward in his place, and speak of experience in the person of the experiencer. Suppose, then, I have before me a bell, which I hear ringing, while I see it being tolled. The sound, which is a state of consciousness in me, is plainly no part of the bell as a material, that is, a visible and tangible object. But as a state of consciousness it is conditioned on the tolling of the bell. The bell is one of its real conditions. There are of course others. There are the vibrations which its tolling sets up in the substance of the bell, and there are the vibrations communicated by these to the air, and there are the vibrations or other physical processes set up by their means in my organ of hearing. If we ever thought of the THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 389 sound as a constituent attribute of the bell, we have now no difficulty in eliminating it from the bell in that character, replacing it by physical processes in the visible and tangible bell, and localising it in ourselves as the conditionate of those processes. I say we have no difficulty, because on the one hand we have already seen, in 1, that all perceptions as such are, and on con- sideration must be, localised in the organism of the Subject, and on the other the sound is not per- ceived as belonging to the bell at all times, or in all its states, but only at the times when it is being tolled. The analysis of these physical processes may be carried to an extreme degree of accuracy and minuteness, as, e.g., in determining the exact number and length of vibrations requisite to pro- duce a given note. But this does not alter the relation of conditioning ; it is an analysis within and covered by that general conception. Neither does it signify for our present purpose, what the analysis of the sound heard may be, what its inten- sity, pitch, and tone. We are not regarding it as an object of perception simply, but are seeing what are its place and function in the order of existence ; what objects precede, accompany, and follow it, in that order. And what we find is, that it is pre- ceded by the bell, the tolling of the bell, and vibra- tions in the air, and also preceded first, and then accompanied, by motions or physical processes of some sort in the neural apparatus, without which it would not arise or continue as a state of con- sciousness. What follows on the sound, considered as a state of consciousness simply, is a more 390 THE WORLD OF REA.L CONDITIONS. obscure point, which we may leave aside for the present, since it would plainly take us out of the re gi n f analysis into that of conjecture. So far all is plain sailing. We have the bell and ^ s soun d> two different existents or objects thought of, one of which is a real condition of the other. Two diffsrent existents are respectively condition and conditionate. But the case becomes more com- plicated, when we examine the relations between the bell and those states of consciousness which constitute our knowledge or objective thought of it as an existent object. I mean by the bell those visual and tactual perceptions, the combination of which, by means partly of association, constitutes the perception of the bell itself as a real object thought of, according to the analysis given in Chapter V., and the position occupied in Chapter VII. Now this seems to land us in a difficulty. So long as the bell was a different object from its con- ditionate, as in the case of sound, there was no difficulty in regarding it both as a real object and as a real condition, an object to us and a condition to the sound ; the respect in which it was the one was not the same as the respect in which it was the other. But now the perceptions which it seems to condition in us are the very same as those of which it seems to consist, or, in other words, which seem to constitute its nature, and the continuance of which in combination with each other is its very existence as a real object. The moment, there- fore, that we apply the conception of real condi- tioning to the bell itself, we are met by the question, whether we are to conceive the bell as THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 391 the condition of the perceptions which are our objective thought of it, or these perceptions as the conditions of the bell. In our earlier analysis we took perceptions as belonging solely to the order of knowledge ; but when we take them also as real existents, and in some cases forming groups which have a permanent existence, as we are now doing, the question arises, whether they are not also real conditions in the order of existence ; and this question is not pre-judged by the earlier analysis. Fairly confronting the question, then, let us ask in the first place, whether visual and tactual per- ceptions can be conceived as building up or con- structing the bell as a real existent, by processes which would then eo ipso belong to the order of real conditioning. It is clear that they cannot. For over and above the content of these two groups of perceptions, which coincide in occupying the same portion of space for the same length of time, there remain the facts, first, of their occurring in conjunction, and then of that particular con- junction being retained or recalled in memory ; and there is nothing in the perceptions which accounts for this. Disparate in their own nature, they are originally combined in or by processes which we call association. But whence or why the association ? To combine and retain them in combination a real agent or agency, other than, or at least distinguishable from, the perceptions, must be assumed. And the only reality we positively know of, which could serve as agent, is the organism or body of the percipient, which he perceives as a real object thought of, and in which 392 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. OHviii ( see ") ne now perceives his entire consciousness ^ to be located. But this is a material object of the same class, and belonging to the same external wor ld, as tne bell. The same questionings and the same reasonings would apply to it as to the bell. And in its case there is no further real condition of the combination of perceptions available ; for the organism cannot be itself built up by an association, the existence of which pre-supposes it. The existence of the organism as a real object is therefore one of the real conditions of the occur- rence and association of the perceptions, which together are our perception of the bell. And whether the bell, as a real object thought of, is or is not also a real condition of those perceptions and their combination, which are our objective thought of it, the organism at any rate plainly is so. Except in the organism, our visual and tactual perceptions are not combined into our perception of material things. But the organism is not itself perceived except pari passu with material things external to it, as we saw in Chapter V. For the real existence of these there is precisely the same evidence as for that of the organism. When, therefore, we have once become aware, as we are now supposed to be, that our whole know- ledge of the material world is built up out of the perceptions of our consciousness, we still cannot attribute its real existence wholly to our percep- tions, for these do not account, either for their own combination in a specific order and grouping, or for the fact, that certain groups of visual and tactual perceptions have a coherence and compara- tive permanence of their own as objects thought THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 393 of, in contradistinction from the permanence of c ^vni our objective thoughts of those same groups of ^~ perceptions. We are therefore compelled to have recourse to Matter, as the only real existent, posi- tively known to us, which is also a real condition. In Matter we must find the only positively known source of the real conditioning in or belonging to the Course of Nature. It is in what I will call our conceptual analysis that we come to this result ; meaning by the term any analysis, the immediate object of which is wholly or in part constituted by conception, or consists wholly or in part of concepts. For when we apply our concep- tion of real condition to the two great classes which divide the existent world between them, we find that conception realised only in material things, and not in the perceptions out of which our know- ledge of them is composed ; because these percep- tions, taken simply as existents, are not coherent of themselves, nor do they in any way explain how their own coherence is brought about. But here perhaps it will be objected, that the same negative criticism is equally destructive of the alternative view. And it is undeniable, that material things do not give an ultimate explana- tion of their own coherence. But there is this difference between the two cases, namely, that material things are always as a fact coherent, simply in their character of material things. Without coherence of parts there is no matter. Visual perceptions on the other hand are often experienced without the complementary tactual perceptions, and tactual without the visual, as in handling things in the dark, or with the eyes shut. 394 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. CH 0( viii Conditions The combination of visual with the complementary tactual perceptions, therefore, requires some real condition ; which it finds in coherent material things, when these have once been inferred and thought of as real objects, distinct from conscious- ness, and existing independently of it. The coherence of matter is unexplained, it is true ; but then, like matter itself, it is an ultimate and universal fact, in the order of existence and real genesis, to which they both belong, a fact disclosed by analysing our face to face experience of matter, taken as a given reality belonging to what, in common-sense terms, we call the positively known existent world, or Course of Nature ; a fact, more- over, not liable to be questioned or disproved by any more special analysis of the emotional, volitional, and intellectual functions, with their content, which may subsequently be entered on. Just as the inseparability of the elements and parts, simultaneous and successive, of conscious- ness in time is an ultimate and inexplicable fact in consciousness, without which fact con- sciousness would not exist, so the coherence of parts in matter, which we know by means of asso- ciation, is an ultimate and inexplicable fact in matter, since it is pre-supposed by the existence of association, which is the means of giving us a knowledge of it. The coherence of parts in matter, when matter is once perceived as an existent, finds its analogue or parallel, not in the coherence of our separable perceptions of matter, but in that of the elements, formal and material, which compose process-contents of consciousness simply, which is experience in its lowest terms. THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 395 I argue, then, that, while the combination of visual and tactual perceptions is or contains a sufficient explanation of what matter is known as being, that is to say, of our knowledge of matter, it is inadequate to explain its real genesis, that is, how matter comes to be what it is known as being, that is, a reality coherent in its parts. Of this there is no known, or even positively conceivable explanation ; though this circumstance, far from showing that no explanation is required, shows on the contrary, that something there must be, ana- logous to what we call a real condition, which, could we know it, would furnish the explanation. Coherent matter is an ultimate fact in the world of real existents, the object of our knowledge. Visual and tactual perceptions in combination are good as an analysis of our knowledge or idea of matter, but are no analysis or account at all of matter as an existent reality. They account for its w/iatness, or nature, as a known object, by accounting for our objective thought of it, but not for its thatness, or genesis as a real object thought of. Returning, then, with these results in hand, to the analysis of the bell, undertaken in order to discriminate what belongs to it as real condition from what belongs to it as object simply existent, the first observation to occur to us will probably be the following. The objective thought of the bell by no means exhausts its whole content as object thought of. This appears from our analysis in Chap. V. We there found that an object thought of always contains more than is positively contained in the objective thought of it, for which more there is allowance made by our taking the objective 396 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. CHVIIL thought itself as possibly incomplete and inexhaus- j~~ tive. Moreover we found, that something tangible irimSon was always, strictly speaking, the object of visual Condkfons perceptions, and something visible of tactual ones. ^ e now see what this something more is. It is the filling up of the solid space, the contour of which is given by those perceptions in combination, which in this case is the solid figured mass of the bell. We may lay open the substance or thickness of the solid walls of the bell, in any part of them, and everywhere, so far as our means of division and perception allow us to proceed, we shall find solid particles of matter, each of which is visually and tactually perceptible, just as the contour of the bell itself is. It is this coherent mass of matter, including all its parts or molecules, and their time and space relations and changes of relation, i.e., configuration and motions, with respect to one another, which we now think of, when we think of the bell as a real condition of the visual and tactual perceptions, which are our knowledge of it as a real object. These perceptions, on the other hand, still constitute as before our idea or knowledge of the bell as a real object, but we now perceive in what sense their inexhaustiveness is to be taken, in what particular they were inadequate to the whole nature of the bell. They give us a know- ledge of the bell as a real thing, but they do not give us a knowledge of its solid interior, that is, of the bell as a real condition. And it is evident, that the same reason applies to any material object whatever, however small, even microscopi- cally small, it may be. The real agency lies within the figure of solid matter, whether the THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 397 solid matter in question be an ultimate atom, or the whole material universe. That is to say, it lies within every empirical part of every empirical material whole, wherever such parts or such wholes may be taken. This knowledge is an addition to the from real Existent?. former, but in no way a contradiction of it. Real conditions were not in contemplation when the former perceptions, constituting the objective thought, were experienced. They are no more a contradiction to it, than the additional perception of depth is a contradiction to the perceptions of length and breadth in solid objects. Similarly with the perceptions themselves. When they were originally experienced, the question of real conditioning had not been raised, nnd was not raised by those experiences alone. It is no contra- diction to them, or to the knowledge which their combination gives, that they are afterwards seen to be effects or conditionates, as well as immediate perceptions. They contain no assertion of their own causality or aseity. They are, it is true, first in the order of the genesis of our knowledge. But the priority of a piece of knowledge in the order of the genesis of our knowledge by no means implies the priority of the object thought of by that know- ledge, in the order of existence. Matter need not exist as object thought of before it exists as real condition, because we are aware of it first as object thought of. The perception of Matter generally as a real con- dition is the result of a long series of perceptions, and combination of perceptions, in which the per- ception of its independent reality is, as it were, the final touch put to the knowledge they give us of its 398 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. cviii nature. This complex perception or conception of matter, which is last in the order of the 4. Analytical genesis of our knowledge of it, then becomes first discrimination e 7 conditfons i n tnc OT ^ eT ^ a new series of objective thoughts E r x' m r nTs concerning the relation between matter and per- ception, a series retrospective upon the past experi- ence, and therefore (i.e., qua retrospective) belong- to the true Order of Knowledge, as distinguished both from the order of the genesis of knowledge, and from the order of genesis of states and processes of matter. The reality of matter as object thought of is but the double of our objective thought of it, and nothing more. But this same reality then becomes the object of a series of conceptions and combinations of conceptions, which exhibit states and processes of matter as the prius, in order of existence, of all perceptions, including those by which its own nature and existence have originally been, and are perpetually being, made known to us. There is no contradiction between a knowledge of real matter being last in the order of genesis of our knowledge, and real matter, in some of its states and processes, being the real condition of that order ; because the order of knowledge, in the strict sense of the term, being retrospective upon both these orders, is different from both ; that is to say, from the order of genesis both of knowledge and of its real conditions, which for our purposes may be considered as two currents of events, running parallel to each other, and dividing between them the whole Order of Existence, or Real Conditioning. The visual and tactual perceptions, which taken together give us our knowledge of matter, are antecedent contributory conditions of that know- THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 399 ledge, because, as existent states of consciousness, they are real conditionates of real matter. 8 4. But, notwithstanding the foregoing observations Analytical 3 ' discrimination of fact and general considerations founded on them, _ <* i Conditions we are still far from the completion of our analysis 4, ro . m real J Existents. of Matter. The final and conclusive steps of that analysis still remain to be taken. We have seen that what we call material things are material through and through. Any one of them, or any part of one, may stand as representative of all, so far as the essential nature common to them all as material objects is concerned. We have, more- over, already eliminated perceptions of sound from the object taken as example, a bell, and thereby virtually eliminated from material objects generally, qua material, all kinds of perception or modes of consciousness save two, namely, the visual and the tactual ; of combinations of which in the same portion of three-dimensional space all material objects and their parts appear actually to consist, at that period of experience, analytically dis- tinguished, which we are supposing ourselves to have at present reached. The question is, whether this appearance, namely, that all matter consists of consciousness, that is, either of visual and tactual perceptions together, or of either kind alone, can be accepted as the truth ; that is to say, will it or will it not be justified by analysis ? Now in the first place we must plainly eliminate visual perceptions, those of light and colour, as we have already eliminated sound, from the essentials of matter. They are essential to give us an idea or knowledge of a world of material objects, but they are not essential to matter taken per se, that 400 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. i g > to single portions of matter taken alone ; as was ~ sufficiently shown above in Chap. V. And this being Analytical so then they fall under the reason of the argument discrimination of real ^y wm 'ch sound was eliminated from the essential Conditions J from real constituents of the bell. That is to say. when we Lxistents. ' ask how tangible objects come to be visible, to have light and colour on their surface, the answer is, that this is due to changes which their molecular constitution imparts to the etherial vibrations which impinge on them, and which they transmit to the sensitive organ of vision in the Subject, which is the true seat of the perception. The perception of light and colour is thus located in the organism, while what is left in the material object, said to be seen, is a molecular constitution capable of action, which is the real condition of the perception. But it must be noted, that this account of the phenomena will hold good only if there is such a thing as real matter, from which consciousness is eliminated, existing in the form of tangible objects of various kinds and variously located, among which are to be reckoned etherial or other material media, and living material organisms in which con- sciousness may arise. The whole reasoning, there- fore, depends finally on the answer which analysis will give to the final question, Whether real matter must or must not be thought to exist, exclusive of consciousness ; that is, as not itself consisting of consciousness of any kind, but condi- tioning the existence of consciousness in material organisms ; which in its turn, when and as it comes to exist, is the knowledge of it. If the final answer to this question should be in the negative, THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 401 then philosophical Idealism would be virtually established. Addressing ourselves, then, to this question, what we have before us as our analysandum is the nature of Matter in its essential constituents, which are those commonly classed as its primary proper- ties or attributes, and which are also those known either as or by the immediate perceptions of touch and pressure, hardness and resistance. As or by those immediate perceptions is the alternative ; that is, Are the primary properties of matter themselves perceptions, or are they properties of matter which exist independently of perception, and which, when perceived, are its face to face objects ? In answer, I refer in the first place to the analysis of these perceptions, and that of the material objects, the perception of which grows up out of them, in Chap. V. And next I remark, that the perceptions of touch and pressure there described, though immediate objects of reflective perception, and not perceived as anything else than perception, that is, process-contents of conscious- ness, are nevertheless not perceived as process- contents of consciousness exclusively, or as contra- distinguished from anything whatever which addi- tional experience might disclose. They are not, at the time, recognised as perceptions or conscious- ness, distinguished either from an independently existing matter of which they might be attributes, or from the real conditions, if any, of their rising above the threshold and entering into the time- stream of consciousness, in their character of perceptions. They are the ultimate data of our c c 402 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. knowledge of what we subsequently call matter, but by no means a complete knowledge of it. They cannot be held to preclude the possibility of a f ur t ner knowledge of its nature, derived by way from real o f inference from themselves in conjunction with .Lxistents. data of other kinds, and other more complex phenomena of experience. Now it is by a reasoning process, that is, by inference, after putting the question of genesis or Jww comes to particular anticipated or imagined perceptions, that we arrive at the idea of matter being a real condition of the occurrence of percep- tions, as well as being a complex perception itself. We know it in the first instance only as what we afterwards call a complex of immediate percep- tions. But the existence of those immediate perceptions, in the time and space order in which they actually occur, requires accounting for. Why, for instance, should the immediate perceptions which form the complex perception, say, of a paper- knife handle, or of our hands grasping one another (instances given in Chap. V.), occur in their actually perceived order and combination? There is literally no answer to these questions in the imme- diate perceptions themselves. They force us, therefore, to the inference of some permanently acting real condition, which as an object of inference is and must be a represented object in the first instance. We have already seen what this purely repre- sented object is, represented, I mean, in comparison with the complex of immediate perceptions of touch and pressure alone ; it is the solid interior of material objects taken singly. We can verify the THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 403 truth of this representation in innumerable cases, provided we have visual presentations of those objects at the same time. By these experiences we are compelled to recognise, that immediate percep- tions of touch and pressure, taken alone, are strictly surface-perceptions only, though of course not excluding, but on the contrary implying, that, as surface-perceptions, tangible surfaces are the sur- faces of three-dimensional spaces which are not ideal or purely mathematical figures. A purely mathematical surface would be a purely abstract representation, not a content of presentative sense- perception at all, as the immediate perceptions of touch and pressure are. In the next place we are aware, again by exer- cising sight and touch together, that the immediate perceptions of touch and pressure are not only surface-perceptions, but also contact-perceptions ; that is, they occur only when two surfaces, each perceivable by surface-perceptions, are in contact with each other. That is to say, their occurrence is conditioned on the fact of the surface of the material object, said to be touched, coming into contact with the surface of the material organism, said to be touching it ; and that without the inter- mediation of material media, such as the etherial vibrations which are requisite in the case of the visual perceptions of light and colour. Visual perceptions are our ultimate evidence for this fact. For by them we see the two surfaces, the touching and the touched, coming into contact, while the actual moment of its attainment synchronises with the occurrence of the actual perceptions of touch and pressure. 404 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. GH?vm. These considerations lead us at once to another, r~ which is decisive. The same immediate percep- iiriSatfon tions of touch and pressure cannot exist at once in conditions ^ e material object, which they appear in the first m tance to compose, which is the object said to be touched, and in the Subject's organism, which is another material object, external to the former, and said to be touching it. But, as perceptions, we have already seen, that they must be localised in the organism. They cannot, therefore, be thought to exist as perceptions in the external material body touched or handled, as we might have thought concerning them, so long as we considered them only as isolated groups of perceptions, not also making part of a' material world. And exactly the same considerations apply to the material organisms, in which perceptions as such are localised, as to material objects external to them ; that is to say, they cannot be thought to be composed of the perceptions which are localised in them, but must be held to have an independent existence, prior to perceptions arising in them. We are therefore forced to the conception, that these immediate perceptions of touch and pressure are also perceptions of properties or attributes of matter, called hardness and resistance, which are not themselves perceptions but objects of percep- tion, existing in matter, independently of whether they are perceived or not ; and at the same time, that material objects, in virtue of their essential properties, and of these among the rest, are or contain the real conditions of perceptions appearing, in their character of perceptions, in the organisms of Subjects. In fact we are forced, in thinking THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 405 about and harmonising our experiential data, to sunder certain phenomena which were originally experienced unsundered, because undistinguished, into a perceiving here, an object perceived there ; the perceived object having, in the one special case of immediate tactual perceptions, the two peculiari- ties, (1) that it is in point of kind a replica of the perception of it, and (2) that it is an attribute or property of the originating real condition of that perception arising in consciousness. The distinction between consciousness and real matter which is not consciousness, but is in virtue of some of its properties a face to face object of consciousness, and in virtue of others the real con- dition, proximate or remote, of the arising of con- sciousness in material organisms, is thus decisively established as true, by the impossibility of con- ceiving one and the same process-content of con- sciousness to be located in two different places at once. As consciousness it must be located in the Subject's organism, and therefore it must be eliminated from perceived matter as contributing to constitute or compose it. The common-sense conviction of the independent reality of Matter, or in other words, that material objects are real objects perceived by, but not consisting of, con- sciousness, is thus fully justified by the facts of experience as disclosed by subjective analysis. At the same time, the conception of Matter as the only positively known real condition is completed, by eliminating consciousness from it as a con- stituent of its nature as a real object thought of. 5. Let us now see whither this analysis has. conducted us, and how in consequence of it we 406 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. CH?VIIL mus t n ow conceive the world in which it has placed J~JT us ; that is, draw some of the conclusions in philo- s P h y wni ch it necessitates. The bell must be allowed to stand as the representative of all real material objects whatever. We began with it in the present Chapter as a real object thought of, in the sense of the foregoing Chapter, that is to say, a real object made up of visual and tactual perceptions in presentation and representation combined, and in time and space together, that real object, of which the pure representation or objective thought, in our mind, is taken to be a faint duplicate or copy. What has now become of this real object, and what of its representational copy ? And to speak first of the real bell, that is, of the whole material world, of which it is the representa- tive. It now appears from the foregoing analysis, that there is just one small class of experiences, in which consciousness is a true picture or tran- script of the independently existing real world of matter, namely, the immediate perceptions belong- ing to the sense of touch, which have the hard- nesses and resistances of real matter as their apparently undistorted objects. I say apparently undistorted, because the perceived separation of what was originally perceived as a single object of reflective perception (say a surface as touched by a finger-tip) into two objects of reflective per- ception, namely, a perceiving in the Subject and a perceived in what is an object relatively to that Subject, this perceived separation in point of locality affords no indication whatever of any change in the kind of content which after separa- tion is conceived as belonging to both objects alike THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 407 (barring of course the difference, that one is c ^vin consciousness, the other not), nor any reason for 77" inferring that such a change has taken place. Neither can hardness or resistance as attributes of matter be held to be creations of the perception, imagination, or thought, of the perceiving Subject, at least so far as experience or any legitimate inference from experience goes. The experience both of the perceiving and of the object perceived, as distinguished and locally separate from each other, has been shown by our analysis to issue from and pre-suppose an experience in which the perceiving and the object perceived were undis- tinguished and locally coincident ; from which each alike, after distinction and local separation, inherits in experience the property of being a content occupying time-duration and spatial exten- sion. That original experience of them as one, or undivided, is the prius of the experience of them as two, or divided from each other. But there is nothing to show, either that the content of the two, the perceiving and the object perceived, is different in kind (except as consciousness differs from something which is non-consciousness), or that it is made what it is, either by being impressed upon the perceiving by the object perceived, or by being read back into the object perceived by and from the perceiving. The experience of it in both, when they are divided, has a common source in the single original experience, which contains both implicitly, undistinguished from each other. Yet it is also true, that we have no positive test of the identity in kind of content of the 408 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. i mme diate tactual perceptions and the perceived hardness and resistance as attributes of matter. 8 5. Philosophical True, as a matter of fact we invariably bring the Conclusions from this truth of any complex perceptions, ideas, or con- Analysis. * ' ceptions which we may entertain concerning the world of real matter, to the test of their accordance or non-accordance with experiences of this class, or with established inferences which have been drawn directly from them. All other properties of matter, and all processes which may take place within it, or within its parts, relatively to one another, appear to us now, in consequence of the experience analysed in the foregoing Section, to form one vast object of consciousness in its entirety, from which it is essentially different in point of nature, since it excludes all forms of awareness, which is the distinctive characteristic of consciousness, but which nevertheless is held to contain a true picture or be a true knowledge of it (though one which is always imperfect and incomplete), in virtue of that single class of experiences, in which the object thought of and the objective thought of it, though locally separate, are thought of as the same in point of content. Nevertheless, whether they really are so or not is a point which can never itself be brought to the test of presentative percep- tion, since we have no other knowledge of the attributes of real matter than that which ultimately depends upon the immediate perceptions which it is proposed to test. We see, then, that, while the fact of the independent existence of matter, as something which is non-consciousness, is established beyond a doubt by the foregoing analysis, inasmuch as it is shown to be or to contain the real conditions THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 409 upon which consciousness, which is the awareness of it, depends for its existence, still the exact correspondence or truth to fact of those percep- tions, which are the ultimate data for our know- f A ron } th > Analysis. ledge of its nature, can never be itself tested ; and this is so, simply because we can have no other knowledge of it than that which, in the last resort, these data supply. Matter, then, and the real processes, changes, or motions, which go on within it and within or be- tween its parts, we must think of as the complex of real conditions, upon which consciousness in all its modes depends for its existence ; and as so thought of it is again the object of objective thoughts, which as modes of consciousness are dependent upon it. The philosophical distinction between objects thought of and objective thoughts still continues to be applicable to it. Not that objective thoughts are included among the attri- butes or processes of real matter, but that what those attributes or processes are can be learnt only by asking, what they are thought of as being by objective thoughts, or in other words, what is the content of those objective thoughts by which alone we know them. Thus an ideal line appears to run right through every state and every process of real matter, taken as the complex of all positively known or know- able real conditions, a line dividing its existence, or its reality as an existent, from its nature, or what it is known or thought of as being ; both of which aspects have their only evidence in consciousness, though it is only the former, that is, its attributes and processes as they really exist, or their reality 410 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. CHv\ii as existents, independently of what we know or think them to be, which operate as real conditions dSSfS 1 f ^ ie consciousness which is the knowledge of from this both aspects, as well as of itself. Our analysis has Analysis. * in fact shown the addition of a new kind or mode of reality, the reality of real conditions which do not consist of consciousness, to those which have been previously made known to us as objects thought of and objective thoughts ; that is to say, it has supplied us with a real and positively known content for our previously abstract conception of real condition, by identifying attributes and pro- cesses of real matter, exclusive of consciousness, with that previously abstract conception. Observe, too, that groups of real conditions, i.e., of molecules in motion, which have now taken the place of material objects thought of, such as the bell, have not lost the reality which they inherit, in order of constructive thought, from those real objects thought of. Any such group is an object of consciousness just as the real bell was, though it does not itself consist of presentations and representations combined, but is the object of pure representation only. And its reality in this sense is unaffected, because, though not presented, its molecules and their motions are necessarily thought of as capable of being presentatively per- ceived, if the conditions on the part of the real percipient should be correspondingly altered, and if suitable media for inter-action between the two factors, in their changed state, should also be provided. A real existent is not less real when it is thought of, than when it is presented, as real ; it is only less evident. Its degree of obtru- THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 411 siveness is altered, not its reality. Degrees of reality, in the objective sense of the term, are an impossibility. On the contrary, so far from any degree of reality being lost, a new mode of reality f jjj ^ is assumed by real objects thought of, concur- rently with their ceasing to be presentations. As real conditions they possess what in common- sense phrase is called a capacity or power of having conditionates depending on them, and of acting on, and being acted on by, other real con- ditions, with which latter they stand in a relation of reciprocal dependence, or of condition and conditionate at once. The scientific conceptions of agent, agency, action, and their correlates, have their root in this added mode of reality. Here it is seen, in what the limits to the process of subjectifi cation consist, limits which were spoken of above. We are compelled to think of or repre- sent real conditions on the type offered by real objects thought of. The foundation of their con- ception is laid in the material objects, from the perception of which we arrived, by the process now analysed, at the added mode of reality which we attribute to them in their new form of real con- ditions. That is to say, we cannot get beyond or behind material solids, in thinking of real conditions positively. In the last resort, then, we come back to the original conception of objective thoughts being copies or duplicates of the objects thought of by them ; only that in the later of the two cases we reverse the direction in which our thought moves, attaining the reality or real existent, of which our representation is a duplicate, from the side and by means of the representation, which is now first in 412 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. c an the order of knowledge strictly taken, whereas in r-~ the former case we attained the representation by P rev i us acquaintance with the real existent, name ty> the real object presented in sight and touch together, which perceptions were the first steps in the order of genesis of our knowledge as a whole. This change of direction in the process of know- ing, that is, the direction in which our objective thought moves with reference to the realities thought of, is a most important turning point in its development. Taken in conjunction with the fact brought out in Chapter VII., 2, that pure repre- sentation is the first mode of consciousness to be perceived distinctively as consciousness, it may not improbably have suggested to Kant his transcen- dental doctrine of cognition being due to thought working on sense-material under a priori forms, a doctrine which Hegel pushed to its limit in his doctrine of the creative energy of Thought itself, working solely under the laws of Logic. But not to insist on this, it is clear that we take a new start, and enter on a new and fruitful stage of experience, when we begin with pure representa- tions of objects which we take as real, notwith- standing that they are, to ourselves with our limited range of sensitivities, capable of being objects of pure representation only, and not of pre- sentation. For we then take our stand on already acquired knowledge, and treat its objects thought of as indisputably real, though always capable of being known better, that is, more accurately and more completely, by means of continued thought, than at any given stage of our knowledge of them. THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 413 Nevertheless it is always impossible to transcend the limits, which are imposed on these processes of purely representational thought by the actual experience out of which the pure representations, which are their starting points, have arisen. We cannot transcend the conception of a material reality, in framing any positive conception what- ever of a real condition. And the fact remains standing, that our last image of material reality, a reality which is a real condition, is the same in essential kind as our first. We have to think of a material molecule, atom, or other ultimate, as possibly perceivable in the same way as a larger solid ; the essence of which way, showing it to be ultimate, is, that a real solid as originally experi enced occupies exactly the same space, and for the same time, as the combined perceptions of sight and touch originally occupy, which are the presen- tative part of its perception. It is in virtue of this, that, as noted above, we perceive the real object as distinguished into two inseparable aspects, the real object as in existence and the same real object as in consciousness, an object whose esse is per dpi. Approaching from the purely representational side, we now class real conditions among objects which must be thought of in the very same way as larger solids, that is to say, as objects thought of, the reality of which, if capable of presentation, would in presentation be identical, in quality, duration, and extension, with the perception of them. This conception of Matter as real condition, or rather as consisting of parts which are real con- ditions, brings us to the end of our tether, so far as any positive knowledge of it is possible to us. 414 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. dn/vni. Beyond it, we are left standing, as it were, in ^r presence of some unknown and unimaginable real condition of the ultimate constitution of matter as a rea/ l existent and real condition ; or in other words, in presence of some positively unknowable real condition of the fact that matter exists as we must think it does exist, namely, in some form or forms which would be actually both visible and tangible, if we had sensibilities sufficiently acute to perceive it under them. We have to think of the real conditions operative in the matter which we actually and presentatively perceive, as being them- selves material, being objects thought of by objec- tive thoughts which, though purely representational, are yet derived ultimately from presentations. The fact that they so exist and operate, namely, as real conditions, is the deepest and last-reached fact attainable by positive knowledge in this direction, a fact for which no cause or real condition can be positively imagined. It is a fact, the real reason or ground of which is wholly unknown to us, and certainly does not carry in itself its own explana- tion. The analysis of matter as an objective and opera- tive reality, when it thus reaches its utmost limits in the conception of it as composed of material real conditions, leaves us with the question of real con- dition, when put concerning matter itself, or as a whole kind or mode of real existence, entirely un- answered. We have seen how that question arose out of the perceived difference between representa- tions of desired objects and obtaining presentations of them, and how the answer to it involved the con- ception of matter as consisting of real conditions. THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 415 The conception of real condition being thus rooted in facts of experience generally, and especially in that part of them which constitutes human nature, cannot be disavowed, retracted, or ignored, when the same question, namely, the question what makes, or how comes, is put concerning matter itself as composed of material real conditions, and no further positive answer to it can be given. The question does not cease to be a question, because the answer makes default. Hence it is that, just as we necessarily conceive the unpresented interior of presented material objects as composed of objects which, in their own nature, are capable of presenta- tion, so also we necessarily represent the unknown existence, which would be or contain the answer to our question how comes, or what makes, matter it- self, as holding the position of real condition with respect to it, and so bring that unknown existence under the general conception of an operative real condition, though all we know of it is, that it is not material, nor its mode of operation physical. An Unknown Power is all that we can say of it ; but an Unknown Power is what we must say of it, since thus much is involved in our unavoidable way of thinking even of the material world. Next let us turn to the pure representations of material objects thought of, which it will be remembered are the first modes of consciousness to be recognised as separable from the objects thought of by them. Our analysis has now shown us, that all modes of consciousness are in the same case, unless the objects thought of by them should 416 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. CH\aii. be those neural or cerebral processes upon which ~ the consciousness immediately depends for its Philosophical existence. For it has now been shown how and Conclusions from this wn y ft j s that a }j modes of consciousness, in its Analysis. * whole range, including presentations as well as representations, are and must be classed as con- sciousness, in contradistinction from the molecules and processes of matter, which are not conscious- ness, but are objectified and known as real con- ditions, proximate or remote, of its coming into existence in individual Subjects. It is the real existence of the molecules and processes of matter which operates as the real condition of the exis- tence of consciousness in material Subjects; or in other words, consciousness as an existent is the conditionate of really existing matter. The point to be noticed again in this connection is, that it is only the existence of consciousness, not its whatness, quality, or content, which is con- ditioned upon matter. It is of course true, that without existing it can have no whatness, quality, or content ; these are what it is known as, and are the evidence of its existence. But it is its existence, not its whatness, which is immediately conditioned upon the agency of matter as its real condition. Real Conditioning is a term which applies only to the Ordo Existendi, the order of genesis and real history. No imaginable real con- dition can account for the nature of what we call awareness, that is, of consciousness, among other natures in the universe of things ; still less for its specific qualities or ivhatnesses. It is only their existence, occurrence, or continuance, that is con- ditioned upon matter. They are, it is true, first in THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 417 order of knowledge, but since all knowledge is reflective, their existence must be thought of as first in order of genesis. No attribute of matter, say its primary properties of hardness or resistance, can explain the specific quality of immediate tactual perceptions. It is these on the contrary which give us our knowledge of the corresponding attributes of matter. Matter, taken as known by their means, accounts for their coming into exis- tence as perceptions, but not for their being the specific perceptions which they are, when they do come. Therefore, just as in the case of matter, so also in the case of consciousness, a line of demarcation passes (figuratively speaking) right through the middle of every state or process of consciousness, distinguishing its subjective aspect as a knowing from its objective aspect as an existent, in which latter aspect it is conditioned upon the play of some portion or portions of the material world. I mean, its existence depends upon that play ; its nature, or what it tells us, the quality of its content, is its own. The same is true of conscious- ness in its totality, only here with the difference, that beyond the range of its subjective aspect, that is, of knowing in its utmost generality, there is nothing, since the conception Nothing is within it, being part of its conceptual equipment, while in its objective aspect, or as an existent, it is con- ditioned (like every part of it) upon the groups of real conditions, which constitute a finite Subject and the material environment with which he is in relation ; and these are its real conditions, or conditions existendi. It is individual and finite in D D 418 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. cviii its existent aspect ; all-embracing, by including the 7y perception or idea of infinity, in its cognitive This is the philosophical or metaphysical dis- tinction between subjective and objective aspects in the case of consciousness, as before in the case of matter ; and in both cases extracted from, and contrasted with, the psychological distinction of aspects, which, although called subjective and objective respectively, are yet not strictly speaking aspects at all, but opposite members of a relation not completely reciprocal, namely, that of condition and conditionate. And it leads us back, as we might expect, to the result of our analysis of con- sciousness in its lowest terms, in the simplest possible cases of reflective perception, in our early Chapters. For consciousness was there seen as something which was always in process of becoming objective to itself, the fact of its so becoming being its existent character, and its content in so be- coming being of itself a knowing. We cannot have the fact without its content, nor the content without its fact. What we now see in addition is, that, when we take consciousness as an existent, that is, in one only of its inseparable aspects, we necessarily take it as a conditionate also ; and when we take it as a conditionate or existent, we also take it as a knowing or content, since otherwise there would be nothing to take. And this last remark also makes it evident, that, while in the order of genesis, or in consciousness considered as a forward-moving process, the existence and the content of any and every portion of it are strictly simultaneous, yet, in the order of knowledge, the THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 419 perception of the content of any portion is always prior to the perception of its existence ; inasmuch as this order is retrospective, and in retrospection Philosophical * ' Conclusions the perception of "nothing," or no-content, is impossible, being one and the same thing with no-perception. But here we must be careful not to confuse these two inseparable aspects, even while we are dis- tinguishing them. The real conditions of con- sciousness (which when taken as an existent is eo ipso taken as a conditionate) only condition it in that character. That is to say, they condition its thatness, the fact of the appearance and com- bination of its states and processes, their order and arrangement ; they do not condition its whatness, except so far as that whatness depends upon the combination, by association or otherwise, of what has previously appeared. Ultimately, that is, apart from characteristics which depend on, or consist of, associative order and arrangement, the specific content of consciousness is independent of material real conditions. It is inexplicable, because an ultimate datum. The specific quality of such feelings as those of light, colour, sound, taste, odour, hardness, effort, pleasure, pain; and also (be it noted) of their formal co-elements, time- duration, and spatial extension ; and probably also of the more elementary emotions, such as hope, fear, wonder, love, and anger ; not to speak of the nature of consciousness itself, as simple awareness, if it is logically permissible to speak of the nature of what, from having no similar, cannot be classed ; _ all this is something which cannot be accounted for by any collocation of material atoms, or by any 420 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. hypothesis as to the nature of matter. These specific qualities, of form as well as feeling, are the ultimate and therefore inexplicable data of all human knowledge, and therefore of all that calls itself explanation. It is only the fact of their occurring (when they do occur), and the fact of their occurring in this or that connection, which material real conditions can explain. Their nature, and that of consciousness, of which they are the content, is the foundation of our whole knowledge of material existence. And this is the meaning of the philosophical doctrine, that experience is the sole ultimate foundation of all knowledge and legitimate speculation. It is impossible to give a reason for experience, because it is only from experience that any reason can be drawn. Thus the whatness or nature of consciousness (which as we have seen includes the specific what- ness of everything we can think of) is not only incapable of being thought of as conditioned, but it is incapable even of being questioned, however much we may endeavour to do so. For even in putting the question we must accept it as known, questioning being itself a mode of consciousness. This shows the futility of imagining a specific im- material agent, Mind, Soul, or Ego, to account for the specific nature of consciousness as distin- guished from matter. The device is nothing more than repeating the thing to be accounted for, and imagining it, so repeated, as an existent. 1 The same objection applies equally to the device of 1 That this criticism is not applicable, as some might suppose, to the primary properties of matter, on the ground that they are duplicates of im- mediate tactual perceptions, has been shown above, in the first part of the present Section. THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 421 ascribing agency to the nature of consciousness immediately, that is, without interposing an im- material substance. There is not only no evidence <* Conclusions that the nature of consciousness is to be causa sui, fro this Analysis. but the idea of it is forbidden by the fact, that this nature, as the ultimate datum of all knowledge, must be taken as itself inexplicable. It is equally futile to regard Begriff as the generator of Geist, and to regard Geist as the generator of Begriff. Empty, verbal, Scholastic formulas both ; one be- longing to the earlier theistic, the other to the later pantheistic period of Scholasticism. Thirdly, to compare the results of the two fore- going lines of enquiry. The discovery of real conditions, both in the percipient and in the real objects perceived, has forced us to the conclusion, that whatever is positively known as conditioning is matter, and whatever is positively known as conditioned, without in turn conditioning, is con- sciousness. For all the attributes of real objects perceived in presentation and representation to- gether belong to their whatness, and as such are modes of consciousness, while the pure represen- tations of them, which appeared as their faint duplicates, were taken and must be taken as modes of consciousness to begin with. Thence- forward we have before us a world which is neces- sarily conceived as consisting of real conditions and their conditionates ; and the only known real conditions are necessarily conceived as material molecules in inter-action, the only known real con- ditionates, which are not material, are states and processes of consciousness. This is the new shape taken by the original distinction between objective 422 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. thought and object thought of, in consequence of the percipient's discovery of real conditions. And tm s moreover is that result of analysis to which we lked forward in 1 of the present Chapter, when speaking of the validity of pure representa- tions as evidence for real facts of past experience, even when those facts are not connected with them by an unbroken sequence of existent consciousness. In consequence of it we have no alternative but to conceive the material Subject as capable of pure representations which are true representations of actual presentative experience, even though that experience has not been his own ; and therefore, that to establish the real existence of a train of real conditioning between such representations and such experiences is the necessarily valid, and the only valid, substitute for memory in the strictest sense, whenever in that strictest sense it makes default. But when we bring this new psychological conception into comparison with the philosophical distinction between subjective and objective as- pects, according to which everything without exception must be taken (1) as in consciousness, which is its subjective aspect, and (2) as in exis- tence, which is its objective aspect, philosophically speaking, then a certain difference seems at first sight to be disclosed, according as we consider the real conditioning of the attributes of real objects, or that of states and processes of consciousness simply. In both cases, indeed, the conditionate is consciousness, but in the case of the attributes of real objects it is consciousness in its philosophically subjective aspect of a knowing, i.e., a knowledge THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 423 of the real objects, while, in that of states and pro- cesses of consciousness itself, it is consciousness in its character of an existent, i.e., its philosophically objective aspect, which seems to be the thing conditioned. This apparent difference is noteworthy, one which demands and will repay elucidation. For it brings finally face to face the two contrasted distinctions, philosophical and psychological, with which we have been occupied ; I mean the dis- tinction between subjective and objective aspects as it and they are conceived in philosophy, and the very different distinction between subjective and objective aspects as it and they are conceived in psychology. In an earlier Chapter (II. 5) we found by analysis, that reflective perception was a process of objectification taking place entirely within consciousness, irrespective of any idea or experience of real conditioning. And we then saw, that the moment of objectification gave us the distinction between the content, quality, or whatness, of whatever was perceived, and the fact of its existence as a perceived fact, which we called its thatness. And this distinction, so given, we saw was common to the whole of experience, and all its parts. Now it is this existent character in the time- stream of consciousness, perceived or perceivable in every moment of objectification, which is con- ditioned upon matter, not the whatness, content, or quality (either of form or feeling), of the stream or any portion of it. The quality or whatness of con- sciousness in its ultimate data taken separately, i.e., except so far as it depends upon the order in 424 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. GHvni which those ultimate data are combined, is not so T- conditioned ; and this belongs entirely to the sub- J ec ti ye aspect of consciousness in the philosophical from this sense, that is, to consciousness in its character of Analysis. ' a knowing, being the content of a perceiving pro- cess, notwithstanding that this also is objectified in the next following moment of experience. If, then, it is in the whatness of consciousness, as distinguished from its thatness, that its character as a knowing consists, and if the whatness of some of its ultimate perceptions is identical with the what- ness of some of the essential attributes of material objects, it follows that the whatness of those attri- butes constitutes, or is essential to constitute, what philosophically speaking is the subjective aspect of material objects, or that which they are known as being. But there is this difference. In the real material object the sense-perceived attributes spoken of are what the real object is known as being, while in the moment of perception they are the knowing it. They become opposed to themselves as a knowing and a known in the moment of perception, because that moment is a moment of objectification. When referred to the real material object as attributes, they have been already objectified in reflective per- ception. Objectifying is knowing, the subjective aspect of consciousness ; the fact that we objectify and know it is its existent or objective character ; and the perceptions objectified, and consequently their complexes, that is to say, the whatnesses of real material objects, are the subjective aspect of real objects, being parts of the subjective aspect of consciousness objectified. Neither kind of whatness, THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 425 then, but only the genesis of both, is conditioned c ^vnj upon matter ; this genesis being that of the exist- r^r ence of consciousness in individual Subjects, or of consciousness as an existent, of which these ivkatnesses are the nature, quality, or content. Both whatnesses are originally whatnesses of an existent consciousness ; and as the conditioning of that existent consciousness proceeds, and its what- ness, content, or quality develops, that kind of it which we objectify and refer to real objects as their attributes, or subjective aspect, is thereby separated locally from that kind of it which is the perceiving and objectifying process itself, which is also the philosophically subjective aspect both of itself and of real objects as existents, and which is not separated locally from itself when objectified as an existent consciousness. The subjective aspect of real things is the objective aspect of states or process-contents of consciousness, when they have been objectified in reflective perception, and referred to existent realities which are not part of the Subject's consciousness as an existent. We see, then, that both states of consciousness and real objects have in them, or are the bearers of, the two aspects subjective and objective, as these are understood by philosophy. But we have already seen that the distinction between subjective and objective aspects, as understood by psychology, is very different. Consciousness and real things are taken subjectively, or as whatnesses, in philo- sophy ; of everything, even of existence, it is asked, What is it known as ? In psychology, on the contrary, existence is taken for granted, as already known, and both consciousness and real 426 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. OH?VIH. things are taken as real existents. Whereupon ^TJT consciousness, taken as an existent, seems itself to be the subjective aspect of real things (1) because i fc ex i s ts in a Subject real or supposed, and (2) because it contains a knowledge of things, if not as they really are, yet always as they really appear to that Subject. Thus, while philosophy distinguishes a subjective and an objective aspect in everything without exception, psychology takes the objective or existent aspect of consciousness to bring into correlation with the objective or existent aspect of a reality which is not consciousness. And this position and procedure on the part of psychology are, in their own place, perfectly legitimate, and spring directly, as we have seen above, from the nature of experience itself. But there is a very great difference between the possible ways in which psychology may acquit itself of the task thus marked out for it. If it proceeds in conscious subordination to the philo- sophical distinction of aspects, and, when corre- lating consciousness with reality, takes both of them solely in their character as existents, leaving it to philosophy (from which the distinction originates) to follow up the correlation between consciousness as a knowing and reality as that which is known or knowable, it then remains within its true province as a positive science. But two things follow from this, which is the only logical and philosophical procedure. First, the distinction between subjective and objective aspects is replaced, for psychology, by the distinction between real conditions and condition- ates, since no existent as such, that is, in that THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 427 character, can be the opposite aspect of another existent. And secondly, some real and positively T~ conceivable existent or existents must be selected Philosophical Conclusions as the correlate of consciousness, either as its from this Analysis. condition or its conditionate, or as both recipro- cally. A large field is thus left open for hypothesis, subject only to the proviso, that the hypothesis adopted shall be positively con- ceivable, without which its scientific character would plainly be forfeited. The represented molecules of matter in interaction, spoken of above, would sufficiently fulfil this requirement. Psychology, however, as it is most commonly understood and practised, does not proceed in conscious subordination to the philosophical dis- tinction of aspects, but ignores and traverses it. Consciousness is taken now under one aspect, now under the other, as if both were one ; and real objects in the same undiscriminating way. The consequence is, that psychology constantly finds itself grappling with philosophical questions which it has no means of solving, and which for it are logically unsurmountable, though self-created, difficulties. In the first place, neural processes can furnish no real account of the genesis of states of consciousness, sensations for instance, if the nature, quality, or whatness of those states is included in what it is proposed to account for ; because this nature, which is consciousness in its character of subjective aspect of all things, includes the knowing of matter, and therefore of neural substance and process, as part and parcel of itself. Unless, therefore, we draw and abide by the philosophical distinction of aspects here contended 428 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. CHviii f r > physiological psychology at any rate can give TJJT no account of the real genesis of sensations ; but Philosophical they must be referred to some agency, either Conclusions * > ' from this j n consciousness itself, or else of a non-phenomenal Analysis. * character; and physiological (which is the only scientific) psychology is thereby exploded. What is meant by matter in its existent aspect, which is its aspect as a real condition, will be seen in the following Book. Secondly, if anything which is not consciousness is taken as the real condition or conditions upon w^hich consciousness depends, but again without drawing the philosophical distinction of aspects, then those conditions, since the conception of them consists wholly of consciousness, are reduced to pure nothing, apart from what depends upon them, and become a contradiction if we attempt to con- ceive them as independent realities. Difficulties like these, which arise from neglecting a plain philosophical distinction, are occasionally met by some form of the "mind-stuff" hypothesis, or by the not less arrant piece of nonsense which asserts, that nerve-substance seen " from within " is seen as consciousness, while seen " from without" it is seen as nerve-substance. Usually, however, unphilo- sophic psychologists are more wary than this. Usually they dispose of their difficulties as a bank- rupt of his liabilities, by assigning them over, with or without assets, to a man of straw in the shape of a science which is supposed to deal with " ulti- mate realities," and to establish confidential rela- tions with things which exist "absolutely" or "in themselves." But the device is as hollow as the science which it appeals to is fictitious. For THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 429 myself, were I a psychologist, I should prefer c ^vifi basing my science on the results of an analytical 7^~ Metaphysic, to suspending it on the illusions of a desperate Ontology. But this, I shall doubtless be told, is a metaphysician's prejudice. Be this as it may, one thing is indisputable. Once let us draw and keep hold of the philo- sophical distinction between consciousness as an existent and consciousness as a knowing, that is, between its true objective and subjective aspects, and we see directly, that it is only when we think of consciousness as an existent, that we think of it as the conditionate of matter; and only when we think of matter as an existent, that we think of it as the real condition of consciousness. Conscious- ness as a knowing, whether of the attributes or of the existence of matter, or of its own states and their existence, is indeed an inseparable aspect of consciousness as an existent, but it is only in the latter character that it can be thought of as a con- ditionate. It is only by existing or coming to exist in particular Subjects that it becomes actual as a knowing; but as a knowing it is the sub- jective aspect of all existence whatever. Both our knowledge of the nature of consciousness, and our knowledge of the attributes of matter, are alike and in the same sense dependent for their existence, but not for their nature, quality, or whatness, upon the material real conditions, which give rise to the consciousnesses of individual living beings. The true psychological distinction, to which we return in consequence of drawing and keeping hold of the above philosophical distinction, is the 430 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. CHvm following. The sense-perceptions and representa- ^T~ tions of all attributes of material objects belong to e or der of knowledge or objective thought, and therefore to the whatness of consciousness, as dis- tinguished from its lhatness or existent character ; and their whatness as attributes of material things is identical in point of kind, though not in point of locality, with their whatness as states of conscious- ness, or parts of objective thought. So far we are in pure philosophy. When we turn to their exist- ence, we come to their real conditioning, and then we enter upon psychology and positive science. For, on putting the question of genesis, how comes, or what makes, and so tracing their his- torical existence back to its sources, we find that their first and originating source lies in their real material substrates, and consists of certain modes of the molecular constitution and activities of those substrates, that is, of those real objects, of the attributes of which they are perceptions. Secondly we find, that a second source consists in the constitution and activities of material media, affected by those of the first source, and in turn affecting what we may call their third source, namely, the molecular constitution and activities of certain parts of the nerve organism, which are their proximate real conditions as modes of con- sciousness ; all these real conditions being objects of representation and thought only. But what- ever the precise nature and properties of these real conditions may be, they must always be objects thought of by positive objective thoughts, the con- tent of which, though it does not include, is yet ultimately derived from sense-perception or imme- THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 4cl diate experience of material attributes ; so that, on the one hand, our positive conception of reaj conditions can never transcend our conception of matter, and on the other, that positive conception, however far we may go in ascertaining its real content, must in every case bring us back to the metaphysical conception of opposite aspects, or of reality as the object thought of by objective thought. Consequently we must say, speaking broadly, that the existence of the sense-perceived attributes of matter in their substrates is one thing; their existence in consciousness (which is their being perceived) is another ; and their existence in their substrates is one of the real conditions of their being perceived or existing in consciousness. Looked at as existing in their substrates, they are nothing but those molecular or other physical activities in them, whatever they may be, which chiefly contribute to determine the existence of states or processes of consciousness in living organisms, the qualities of which we ascribe to those substrates as their attributes. Seen from the point of view of real existence, the existence of attributes in their substrates (in the sense explained) is quite independent of their existence as states of consciousness in percipient Subjects, though their existence as the latter is by no means independent of their existence as the former. The relation of dependence between them as existents is not reciprocal, and only seems to be so when we confuse their ivhatness with theircharacter as existents. Similarly with consciousness. Like matter, it cannot have ivhatness or qualities (which cor- 432 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. CHvm. res P on d to attributes) without existing ; it is only ^r as and when existing that consciousness becomes an ac tual knowing, or subjective aspect of existence. In the order of existence, which is the order of genesis, the location of the existent deter- mines that of the attributes ; the location of the attributes of existent matter in the one case, the location of the ivhatness, which is the knowing or subjective aspect, of existent consciousness in the other. Hence the duplicate location of what is identical in point of kind, the knowing of con- sciousness, the attributes in matter. But the ivhat- ness (which is the knowing) of consciousness is not itself determined by its genesis ; it is only deter- mined to exist here and now. The quality or kind of any ultimate sensation or feeling, or formal co- element of either, is not conditioned upon matter, or material activities ; for in order that this should be so, it would at least be requisite, that the qualities, of which matter as real condition is the combination, should be qualities different in point of kind from any qualities of consciousness. And this we know is not always the case, but, as we have already seen, with some of them, in point of kind, they are identical. Those qualities which compose the ultimately conceivable constituents of real matter, or matter in its character of real condition, are only conceivable as modes of hard- ness and resistance, both of which are identical in point of kind with states or qualities of con- sciousness. I conclude, then, that the philosophical dis- tinctions between knowing and being, and between nature and genesis, which rest ultimately upon the THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 433 analysis of reflective perception, are the only true guide to a logical and satisfactory constitution of positive science, and more especially of psychology, which stands nearest of all to philosophy ; since all psychological questions relate primarily to the genesis and development of consciousness as an existent in conscious beings. A psychology which does not include these distinctions among its essential foundations is empiricism. 6. It is necessary in the next place, still following up the foregoing train of argument, to advert to the process by which the stream of consciousness as it actually occurs, in dependence upon the train of physical events which are its real condition, both in the brain of the Subject and in matter external to the brain, gets converted, moulded, or re-arranged, into an intelligible cognitive picture of existence in its entirety. We are thus in presence of the question which Kant answered by the hypothesis of pure forms or Categories supplied for that purpose by the faculties of pure Understanding and pure Reason from their own nature, and which Hegel converted into the question, How the activity of purely logical Thought, with no content save that involved in the most general and indeterminate concept, Being, could produce the apparently real world of Persons and Things, Actions and Events. Now we have seen that every moment of con- sciousness in its historical order of occurrence, as an existent moment, has a subjective aspect or wfiatness, in virtue of which it contributes to the construction of that total cognitive picture. But the historical order of occurrence is not recognised E E COOK I. CH. VIIT. Philosophical Conclusions from this Analysis. 6. The Panorama of Objective Thought. 434 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. CHviii. Dv tne percipient, from the beginning of his experi- rjr ence, as in contrast with the cognitive order ; nor indeed does his memory preserve it as an unbroken '^tive existent sequence of conscious states. On the con- Thought, traiy, portion after portion in succession, after occurring, drops below the threshold, and only its similars are afterwards really brought into con- sciousness by the brain mechanism, under appro- priate stimulation, in processes which are inaccu- rately styled recurrences or revivals of the self- same portions. Moreover the process of modifica- tion goes on along with the occurrence of the stream itself, from, or perhaps in strictness very nearly from, the date of the stream's originating with the dawn of conscious life ; and starts again, in cases of interruption, by periods of sleep for in- stance, from or very nearly from the moment of renewal of the current, or moment of awaking ; to say nothing of changes in the current itself, which are introduced into the renewed current of con- sciousness, by brain action during the periods of its interruption. From this it follows, that what a percipient has before him, when he first begins to observe his own experience as such, is not the historical order in which it occurs, or has occurred, pure and simple, but the stream already modified into a more or less intelligible cognitive picture or succession of pictures. For him, the process of modification does not exist, until he has distin- guished the sequences and co-existences of his sense-perceptions, as they actually occur, from the cognitive picture of the external material world, with which his examination begins, and of which he discovers that they are ingredients. THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 43f> Now the moment which divides the modified from the unmodified stream is only in point of kind a single moment ; in point of number it occurs per- petually, all along the historical course of experi- ence. This moment is that of conscious re-action, Thought. or selective attention to process-contents of con- sciousness, which are brought into consciousness either by presentations, or by spontaneous, that is, non-voluntary redintegrations. Whenever such a moment occurs, a partial modification, or reduction of the then existing stream to a comparatively more intelligible order, takes place. There is thus but one historical order of the occurrence of experience, and it is one in which spontaneous and voluntary processes go on alternately and in conjunction, the spontaneous ones offering a pabulum to the volun- tary, and being thus, as it were, the material out of which the cognitive picture, which results from the re-action, is constructed. Again, when we speak of the cognitive picture which results from the re-action, it must be remem- bered, that, as the moments of re-action are not one, but many, perpetually occurring, and are re- actions upon a perpetually varying material, so the cognitive pictures which result are many also, con- taining different portions of the whole possible universe of thought, yet all capable of being referred to such a total universe, which is itself but one, though the most comprehensive, of those cognitive pictures. When the panorama of objec- tive thought is spoken of, it is this indefinite number of cognitive pictures, contributing to build up the one most comprehensive, and at the same time most richly furnished content of consciousness 436 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. Carvm possible to thought, which is or ought to be ;~ intended by the phrase. At the same time all FaiSram these cognitive pictures arise successively in, and oh ective are P ar ^ s of, that one historical order of experience, Thought, to which the material, of which they are modifica- tions, also belongs. Later pictures are thus modi- fications of earlier ones, as well as of the wholly unmodified material ; and the whole stream, in both its parts, the modified and the unmodified alike, is the dependent concomitant of neuro-cerebral processes, which are what have been called above its proximate real conditions. The brain is a comparatively permanent group of interconnected organs, and the processes which take place in it form a complex group of physical changes, simul- taneous and successive, upon which the time- stream of consciousness, with its corresponding changes, depends. Accordingly, what we find in our experience, at and from the moment of beginning to observe our own consciousness, is always some cognitive picture, some part or parts of the modified stream of consciousness, out of which we arrive at a knowledge of the unmodified stream only by means of analysis. The several steps which have been described, in this and the four preceding Chapters, as if they were steps in a percipient's construction of the world of common-sense objects, are really steps in our analysis of that world, taken in reverse order ; for the reason that it is often impossible, in the case of complex precepts the formation of which is partly due to association, to show the actual priority, in order of genesis, of the perceptions of one kind to those of another, the THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 437 whole complex percept being only offered for o^jfj analysis after the completion of the associative r~ process. And it will be remembered, that the , The Panorama reflective or retrospective order of perception, to Ob -^ f tive which analysis belongs, was from the outset dis- Thought. tinguished provisionally from the historical order of genesis, or actual acquisition of perceptions and of knowledge. I refer to Chapter II., 5, Reflective Perception, where it was also stated, that the knowledge of the historical order of genesis or acquisition of knowledge, as distinguished from the reflective order, depended on the perception of consciousness as an existent, that is, as the con- consciousness of a really existing Percipient or Subject. It has now been shown how both these cognitions have been acquired, and how they are justified by facts of actual experience. Nevertheless this only brings out more clearly the inadequacy of analysis to the task of discovering, or reconstructing in thought, the actual course of the historical genesis of our knowledge. That is to say, analysis discovers the existence of a number of trains of events, which are beyond its own domain, and the order of which is discoverable only, if at all, by way of psychological hypothesis and verification. In the case of all complex objects into which asso- ciation enters, analysis avails only to show what their constituents are, and how they stand related to each other in combination, not the steps by which their combination was historically effected. It is only in this sense that we have been able to show what the essential moments were which together contributed to the total picture of the 438 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. oifvm ma terial world ; how, for instance, it was, that our percipient came to distinguish visual from tactual The perceptions, as the essential constituents, when Panorama A A ' -t. combined by association, of solid material objects, Objective J J Thought, and again how he came to distinguish his own con- sciouness from its objects generally, namely, by its occurring in the form of a representational copy, separable from the objects which it represented, thus yielding the experience of real objects in contrast to the thought of them. From this it was shown, still keeping within the limits of analysis, how he would arrive, by a re- flective, conceptual, and reasoning process, at the idea of real conditions in the supposed real object, and in his own body, producing between them the perception which he had previously taken to be the real object itself. And this idea necessarily leads him in the next place to the conclusion, that sense- presentations are aroused in him by the action of real conditions external to his body upon real con- ditions within his body, the origination of which he failed to note at the time they were aroused. Sense-presentations are one instance of what I have called the unmodified stream of experience. And the same is likewise the case with the non- voluntary associations, which take place between two or more portions of the stream of conscious- ness, depending upon cerebral processes. These unmodified processes of consciousness, I mean unmodified by selective or volitional re-action, can be observed to exist in the actual perception of common-sense objects, when once our attention is directed to examine it, and can therein be clearly distinguished from the modifications introduced by THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 439 voluntary acts of questioning and inference. Thus QH?VIII. even now, after the construction of our common- r^r sense world of objects in thought, unmodified processes are pre-supposed as the material of further cognitions acquired by attention and Thou & ht - reasoning, cognitions which are modifications of that material. Nothing more than this, but also nothing less, is requisite to account for the original formation of our perception of the world of common-sense objects. It clearly does not come to us originally in that form in which we find it, when we first begin to examine it philosophically ; because, whenever we so examine it, as actually experienced, it breaks up into the two processes described, the unmodified and the modified, the former of which is the pre-existing material of the latter. From the beginning to the end of a life's experi- ence, we have thus some picture in consciousness which may be called cognitive, for even the rudest and lowest process-content of unmodified con- sciousness is an empirical moment, that is, has distinguishable but inseparable elements, whereby it is related to others and becomes a positive component of our total knowledge. It is in fact an undeveloped and incomplete knowing, just as the total panorama of objective thought is a com- paratively developed and complete one. We had an instance of such lowest empirical expenences in the simple sounds with which our analysis began. The whole series also is woven of consciousness throughout, having all its members related more or less closely to one another, and in this sense is entirely homogeneous, notwithstanding that the 440 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. figurative terms picture and panorama are not equally apposite descriptions of all its parts, and ^ 6as ^ ^ a ^ ^ those perceptions which occupy time a l ne > until they have been taken up into a Thought, spatially derived cognition. Considered in this character of cognition, or series of cognitions, modifying one another, and related together as parts of a single whole of knowledge, the whole series is taken in abstraction from the number of times any member or members of it may have been repeated, or rather similars of them may have occurred ; and this also involves abstracting from the historical order in which, as a fact, it has occurred ; the place and function of those members, in respect of others related to them, or of the whole cognitive picture, being then alone regarded. What we have before us, then, as the result of these considerations, is, first, the whole order of neuro-cerebral processes conditioning the whole historical order of our consciousness, and secondly that total stream of consciousness, which is its dependent concomitant. But this total stream of consciousness, again, we are compelled to regard in two very different ways, (1) as a single but com- plex stream following the changes in the stream of neuro - cerebral processes which proximately condition it, and therefore subject to interruptions dependent on certain periodic states of the organism, and (2) as a series of cognitive and intelligible pictures of reality, together forming the total panorama of objective thought. In the first of these two ways of taking the stream of con- sciousness, we bring it into connection with its proximate real conditions, abstracting from its THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 441 relation to its objects thought of ; in the second we Q^y^Jj connect it with its objects thought of, abstracting ~r~ from its relation to its real conditions. And of , The Panorama these two ways, the first shows the genesis and ob ^ f tive formation of that total panorama of objective Thought, thought, which is the object-matter of the second, and which is, or includes within it, all that we mean by experience. The order in which the experiences of a life-time occur historically is one thing, and the order in which they combine to form an intelligible cognition of the universe, or any part of it, is another. But since the latter order belongs, and is composed only of parts which belong or have belonged, to the former, the exis- tence of the former is clearly required and pre- supposed by it. The historical order of conscious- ness is thus what I have called above a positive antecedent condition of its cognitive order. Moreover, we can now see the explanation of that phenomenon which seemed so great a paradox in our first analysis of reflective perception, in Chapter II., 5 ; I mean the two contrary direc- tions apparently taken, at the same time, by the same single stream of consciousness ; the one being the historical order of its genesis, portion after portion, in a forward direction, or as if it were moving into the future, and the other being the order of its cognition, in which it seemed moving in a backward direction, or into the past of memory. For in the first place it has been shown, in Chapter III., 3, that the first suggestion of time future, involved in anticipation of future experi- ences, arises in the phenomenon of expectant attention ; and now it has been shown, that the 442 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. GH/VIII. truth of this expectation, that is, of anticipated T^T experiences becoming actual or present, rests on Panama ^ ie same se ^ f rea l conditions as the reality both objective f present experience, and also of experiences Thought, which are past, and seen in retrospection only. I mean, that all alike rest on the existence of the world of material objects, and among these of the Percipient or Subject, as their real conditions, either proximate or remote. For instance, in the case of external sense-perceptions, both the Subject's organism, and material objects external to it, are conceived as existing previously to those movements, set up by the latter in the former, upon which, and upon changes in which, sense- perceptions and their changes are respectively dependent concomitants. The play of these real conditions we think of as necessarily first preceding, and then accom- panying, first the genesis and then the continuance of that series of process-contents of consciousness, which at once depends upon them, and, when looked back upon, is our knowledge of them. As depending upon them, that series moves in one and the same direction with them ; and their direction is from past to future, because they are thought of as the real conditions of the genesis and duration of each successive present moment of conscious- ness, as it rises above the threshold, in its character of existent, and therefore as existing previously to each successive moment in the historical order of existence. As a knowledge of them, on the other hand, the series moves in the contrary direction, because the content of the successive present moments composing it is seen only in retrospect, THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 443 that is, as the content of some actually present moment retained or reproduced therein from what we call the stores of memory. And the two directions themselves, as well as the two orders, of Real Conditioning and of Knowledge, to which they Thou & ht - are respectively assigned, are perceived and dis- tinguished only by present moments of conscious- nesss in their character of a Knowing, that is, of reflective perception or retrospection. The sum of the matter is this. In the order of knowledge, process-contents of consciousness are taken as the content, more or less complex, of single present moments, before the historical order of their occurrence, and consequently before the real condi- tions determining that historical order, are enquired into. When the fact of their coming into existence in a certain historical order, and the fact of its dependence upon the play of real conditions, have been ascertained by analysis belonging to the order of knowledge, then the whole real order of existence is thought of (in moments forming part of the order of knowledge) as consisting of the play of real conditions, some portions or kinds of which give rise to, and determine the historical order of, those process-contents of consciousness, from which the knowledge of them is derived. Accordingly, the dis- covery of the Order of Real Conditioning completes the explanation of the two orders or directions, which are originally observed by reflective percep- tion in the stream of consciousness as a whole. Thus it is, that the world of Real Conditions, and the play of their actions and re-actions with one another, are thought of in retrospective cognition as entirely independent of our perception or know- 444 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. CH?vni. ledge of it or them. They are thought of as existing independently of the consciousness, the existence of which is conditioned on the activities f cei> tain portions of them. But the conscious- Thought. n ess, the existence of which is thought of as so conditioned, cannot also be thought of as existing independently of them, nor yet as reciprocally conditioning their existence. For, as we have just seen, it is to their previous existence that its very origination as an existent is conceived to be owing. Not so with consciousness (in all its modes) taken simply as a content, abstracting from its existence. But on the contrary, here all existence whatever, so far as the word has any meaning in it, is conditioned upon consciousness. In other words, consciousness, not existence, is first in the Order of Knowledge. Retrospective cognition must therefore think of itself also as dependent for its existence, first, upon the world of real conditions, and secondly upon the genesis and existence of the consciousness which is conditioned upon it. Retrospective cognition is thus forced to admit two distinctive orders or domains of Real Conditioning ; first, that of real conditions interacting with one another, secondly that of the conditioning of consciousness by that interaction. But this admission goes no farther than to the existence of those domains or orders. In answer to the question, what those domains or orders are, what it is which is admitted to exist, retrospective cognition has but one answer to give, and that a very different one, an answer which it derives from perception of its own content, quality, or wkatness, taken simply as a process-content of consciousness. That is its ultimate source of infor- THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 445 mation, and the only ultimate source which is possible or conceivable. Appealing to that is appealing to experience. Short of appealing to that, appealing to experience is an empty phrase. Ob 4 f tive The meaning of the term existence itself is deter- Thought. mined by it, as well as that of all other terms which may be employed in denotation or connota- tion of phenomena of every kind. Three distinct Orders, of thought and of existence, may thus be exhibited as our final result : I. The Order existendi vel Jjendi of Matter, including that of our own neuro-cerebral processes, which latter is the proximate real condition of our consciousness ; the Cosmic Order of Real Conditioning. II. The Order existendi vel fiendi of our Consciousness, in dependence on those neuro-cerebral processes ; - - the Psycho- logical Order. III. The Order cognoscendi of Existence generally ; the Cognitive or Philosophical Order. Of this last Order the several sciences, both positive and practical, are in a certain sense departments, that is to say, so for and inasmuch as they are systems of methodically pursued know- ledge, and are based upon conceptions or hypo- theses, which can be justified and rendered intelligible only by being referred to this universal Order. 7. I proceed to make some few remarks in The elucidation and confirmation of the preceding deduction, which could not well have been intro- 440 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. duced in the course of it. And in the first place, going back to the two great classes of existents with which we began, states or rather process- Conditioning contents of consciousness and material objects, it is Consciousness, evident from the analysis, that the process-contents of consciousness are conditionates of certain material objects and actions, but no possibility has been disclosed of their ever being real conditions of them. Neural and cerebral processes, of the same general kind as those which condition external presentative perceptions, as they are called, plainly, when continued in the organism, condition the association of them. And if they condition associa- tions, they can hardly fail to condition process- contents of consciousness of every other kind whatever ; internal sensations as well as external, pleasure and pain, desires, emotions, imaginations, volitions, conceptions, and reasonings. This at any rate is by far the most probable opinion, in the absence of any distinct evidence to the contrary, to say nothing of the positive evidence, of the most varied kinds, which experiment and observation are every day accumulating in favour of it. Volitions, reasonings, desires, and so on, convey of themselves no information whatever as to how they are conditioned, or what the agent or agency is, by which they move. The whole real conditioning, therefore, in the world, so far as we have any positive knowledge of it, lies on the side of Matter, and consists in material objects and their changes relatively to one another. Consciousness, on the other hand, is a conditionate of some of these objects and changes, concomitant indeed with the latter, but still dependent on them. It is never an THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 447 operative or effective link in the chain, network, series or combination of changes, of real con- ditioning. Secondly it follows, that material things and Conditioning their parts or molecules act and re-act, as it is called, Consciousness. on one another, or, as it may also be expressed, are the seat of forces determining their configuration from time to time ; and this, whether they are or are not of a nature to be actually perceived by our senses, or are only cognised by inference as mate- rial. In the phraseology here adopted, they are mutually real conditions and conditionates inter se. Material things thus admit of two independent analysis, one in their character of real conditions and conditionates, which is an analysis into parts, molecules, atoms, configurations, tensions, modes of motion, and so on ; and the other in their cha- racter of objects thought of, which is an analysis into the perceptions and combinations of percep- tions, of which the objective thoughts or ideas of them are composed. It has often occurred to me, that this double capacity of analysis on the part of Matter would offer a commanding point of departure, from which to initiate a philosophical survey of the whole field of experience. Thirdly it follows from the two foregoing observa- tions, that process-contents of consciousness do not stand in any relation of real conditioning to one another. It is not pleasure or pain, for instance, which conditions desire or aversion ; nor is it desire which conditions volition or reasoning ; but the neural or cerebral actions, which condition the antecedents, condition, in their continuation, the consequents also. Nor again do sensations, desires, 448 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. imaginations, reasonings, or volitions, condition outgoing neural or muscular action ; it is again the neural or cerebral action, conditioning these pro- Conditioning cess-contents of consciousness, which, in its con- tinuation, conditions the overt action said to flow from them. We speak, indeed, as if sensation prompted desire, and desire volition, and volition overt action ; but that is because we have no names or other marks, by which to denote and describe the specific neural or cerebral actions con- cerned, save names or marks taken from the pro- cess-contents of consciousness which are their dependent concomitants. The latter are the evi- dence of the former, and when we attribute agency to the latter, it is, or ought to be, by the acknow- ledged figure of speech known as pars pro toto. The "conscious agent" which common sense does not analyse, and which we all feel that we are, is thus, in what is at once physiological and philoso- phical psychology, analysed into two component parts, the really conditioning neural and cerebral processes, and the process-contents of consciousness which accompany and depend upon them. This analysis, supposing it to be sound, by no means destroys, but on the contrary justifies, the above perception of common sense. What it destroys is the pretension of that perception to be unanalysable and ultimate. If the common -sense perception really contained, as by some it is supposed to do, an immediate intuition of an immaterial agent, the case would be different ; since it is precisely the supposed immediateness of the intui- tion (so-called) which supports its pretension to be ultimate and unanalysable. But in reality no THE WOELD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 449 immediate intuition or perception of anything as an agent is possible. The perception of an agent, and ~ the perception that he or it is an agent, may indeed ^he be combined in one perception, but their combina- Conditioning tion is inconsistent with the immediate character of Consciou8ness - the perception as a whole, since one of its com- ponents depends on the intervention of a conceptual process. And this holds good as much in the case of a supposed immaterial agent, as in that of a material one. There is, therefore, no such intuition to analyse ; it is an empiricist's mistake, due to mis- reading the common-sense perception of Self. What is really immediate therein is the distinct perception of process-contents of consciousness, with a blank for the agency on which they depend. That this blank is filled up by neural and cerebral processes, which are not perceived in their concomitant process-contents of consciousness, but inferred after- wards in moments depending upon other cerebral processes, is as much in harmony with the actual experience, as if the blank were filled up by the action of an immaterial agent. Nor can it be said that this result degrades or destroys the spiritual nature of man. The whole worth and dignity, or the reverse, of man's nature and action, as estimated by himself, consist in the con- sciousness, which is the evidence of the condition- ing agency ; and it is solely by reflection from the consciousness that the conditioning agency can be said to have worth or dignity at all. A material agency and an immaterial agency, then,[takenjw se, stand on precisely the same footing as to dignity and value. That we habitually, and all but indis- solubly, associate man's spiritual nature with the F F 450 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. CHvm idea f an immaterial agent, is easy to account for T as a fact, but difficult to justify on analytical grounds. ^Jjj When we ask what an immaterial agent is, as dis- conditioning tinguished from what it is supposed to do, the answer Consciousness. a i wavs consists of a "don't know," or a "can't con- ceive," or else (if an attempt at conceiving is made) of negative attributes, like the term immaterial itself. In considering the real conditioning of conscious- ness, then, we are restricted by the limitations of our positive knowledge from travelling beyond matter in search of it. But this must not be taken to imply, either that our present knowledge of the nature and capabilities of matter and material processes is exhaustive of the reality, or that there are none but material agencies at work, though we can form no positive conception of their nature. It is not asserted that Matter is the cause of conscious- ness, in the Scholastic sense of the term cause ; but only that matter and material processes are the only positively known real conditions of its exist- ence in individual Subjects. To think of Matter as the Cause of consciousness, in the Scholastic sense of the term cause, would be philosophical Material- ism, and utterly futile as an explanatory theory. For since a Cause is supposed to account for its effect as a whole, including its nature as well as its existence, the nature of the effect, consciousness, must be read back into its supposed cause, matter ; that is, matter must be conceived as of itself posses- sing eminent er t or in some transcendental way, that which it is supposed to originate. In short, philo- sophical, as distinguished from psychological, Mate- rialism is but a particular instance of those verbal explanations, by which nothing is explained. THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 451 Neither does the restriction just spoken of as imposed by the limitations of our positive knowledge involve the assertion, that matter and material processes are unconditioned. They not only may Conditi but must be conceived as dependent upon real con- consciousness. ditions antecedent or co-existent, or both ; that is, upon the existence of a real world, or worlds, which are not material, but the nature of which is not positively conceivable by us, the moment real con- ditions are taken in the sense here contended for, that is, as distinguished from Causes. For matter, taken in its character of real condition, as will be seen more fully in the following Book, is a composite existent, the constituents of which can be conceived as empirical percepts, existing separately from each other, though it is only in combination that they can be thought of as matter. It is therefore open to question in respect of its genesis as a composite substance ; whereby it stands in striking contrast to those composites the con- stituents of which are incapable of being conceived apart, such as are the ultimate data or lowest empirical facts of consciousness, concerning the genesis of which as composites no question (except verbally) can possibly be put. But any real con- dition, in respect of the genesis of which as a composite a question is possible, is eo ipso shown to be conditioned in order of existence. For not to be conditioned in order of existence is to exist eternally ; and to exist eternally is to exist necessarily ; and to exist necessarily is to exist beyond the possibility of question in respect of genesis. It is therefore impossible to conceive matter existing as a real condition, without con- 452 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. ^iii ceiving its existence dependent upon some other real condition which is not material, however < \ T incapable we may be of forming a positive con- itioning ce ption of the nature of that real condition, or of Consciousness, conceiving any real condition as itself unconditioned, eternal, or necessary. There is one more point which must be mentioned in connection with the real conditioning of con- sciousness, before we quit the subject. Many writers are in the habit of speaking of states and processes of consciousness, and the neural or cerebral processes on which they depend, as opposite aspects of one another, or as being one and the same process seen on different sides. Nothing can more clearly indicate, or more surely promote, confusion of ideas than this language. Its incorrectness will, I think, be obvious to those who may have followed the course of the present analysis. It confuses the relation of real con- dition and conditionate with that of objective and subjective aspects. Consciousness is the con- ditionate of neural process, not its subjective aspect. As for instance, a visual perception is the dependent concomitant of motions in the optic nerve and sensory centre. Without the motions, the perception would not arise. 1 But perhaps it will be said, has not everything its subjective aspect in consciousness, and the neural process among the rest ? This is true. But what is the subjective aspect of the motions in the optic nerve and brain centre, which condition the visual perception we speak of? It is our objective 1 This whole question was argued at length in my Philosophy of Reflection, Book III., Chap. VII. THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 453 thought, yours or mine, of those objects as their object thought of. It is not the visual perception which we are speaking of, and which is their dependent concomitant. And again, what is the Conditioning objective aspect of this same visual perception ? It Consciousness. is the patch of light or colour perceived as located in space external to the eye. To confuse these plain distinctions seems to serve no other purpose than that of enabling charlatans (if there be such folk) to play the chameleon (if there is such a creature), according as they find themselves in the company of Idealists, or in the company of Materialists. True, the terms idealist and materialist have no significance in philosophy, when its province is truly conceived and demarcated ; but they have a distinct significance, and are mutually exclusive, in its psychological department. And here it is, that confusing them is to be deprecated. 8. One result of our analysis still remains to t be noticed. 1 It has established a broad distinction m the fu est sense. The between two classes of existents, quite irrespective Four Senses of the more specific kinds of existents which may the term. fall, or be imagined to fall, under each. On the one hand we have those existents which are real conditions as well as conditionates, and on the other those existents which are conditionates only. All the agency in the universe, all the efficiency, all that used to be called causality, belongs to existents of the first of these two classes. The having or not 1 On the subject of the present Section I would refer to my fourth Presi- dential Address to the Aristotelian Society (Oct. 1883), The Ttco Senses of Reality, printed for private circulation, and to a Note bearing the same title, appended to my seventh Address to the same Society, in Nov. 1886, The Re-organisation of Philosophy, published by Messrs. Williams and Norgate in that year. The same four senses of reality which are mentioned in the text are shown, in that Note, to be obtained by subdividing the two main senses, from which its title is taken. 454 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. cn'vm having agency is one of the deepest lines of separation T^~ between existents, which it is possible to imagine. in STfuJest ^ n discovering what we have called the real condi- 8e ^f- tions of consciousness in the molecules and motions Ine Four ^Senses which compose material objects, and which are the term. o kj ec t s o f purely representational obj ective thoughts, we have in fact generalised the consciousness and the material objects with which we started, and now have before us two classes of existents, whose definitions are based upon, and start from, the conceptions of real condition and conditionate, instead of being confined, as before, to the two specific kinds of existents, from the knowledge of which we started to reach those conceptions. Our positive knowledge, so far as it goes, compels us of course to retain Matter in the first class, and Consciousness (as an existent) in the second. But inasmuch as the definitions of the two classes are quite general, and as we know that our positive knowledge does not exhaust the reality of the universe, there is no possibility of maintain- ing, that nothing but what is material can be contained in the first class of existents, and nothing in the second but what belongs to the modes of consciousness already known to us. The classes as defined are exhaustive of our thought of real existence ; but the positively known existents which belong to them are known not to be exhaustive of the classes to which they belong. In short, the two classes cover and include what used to be called the noumenal world of " things- in-themselves," or possible unseen realities, as well as what used to be called the phenomenal world of matter and consciousness. I say what used to be THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 455 so called, because the old distinction, which QHviiL implicitly identified the noumenal world, or "things- ^ in-themselves," with a wholly unknowable reality, is at variance with the ultimate philosophical truth, that esse is percipi, or (what is the same thing) Four Senses with the experiential fact, that consciousness con- the term - sists in perception of a content, and therefore that the least and lowest meaning of the term Being, without which it would be meaningless, is perceiv- ability. And the distinction which replaces it, and which is founded on that fact and the truth which expresses it, is a distinction, not between things as they appear and things as they really are, that is, between phenomena and noumena, but between things as they appear to imperfect knowledge and things as they would appear to perfect knowledge, supposing it attainable. For even Omniscience, which is ideally perfect knowledge, is a case of consciousness, and therefore must consist in per- ception of a content. The former distinction, which dominates Kant's system, imposes on us only when we adopt the distinction between Subject and Object, in which the relation between real con- dition and conditionate, or between cause and effect, is really involved, as the ultimate distinction in philosophy, and either tacitly or overtly allow to override that between subjective and objective aspects, as involved in reflective perception, which is the really ultimate philosophical distinction, inasmuch as it expresses the essential nature of consciousness or experience. The Thing-in-itself (Ding-an-sich) appears as a necessary conception in philosophy, when we regard the order of existence or of genesis as the 456 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. fundamental object of research ; because then we 7y always have to stop with the idea of a Cause in thTfuiLst known only by its effects. It vanishes altogether ^jg& from philosophy, when we regard the question Four Censes o f nature or of whatness as the beginning and the term, the end of all philosophising ; because then we always have an object thought of exactly corres- ponding to our objective thought of it, that is, an object known in the only way in which it is possible to know anything, that is, as an objective aspect, or existent, relative to our subjective consciousness. In short, all existence whatever must be conceived as phenomenal ; relativity to consciousness of some sort or other being an essential part of what the very term existence means. The distinction between the two classes of exis- tents, being thus exhaustive, enables us to add a fourth and final meaning to the three which attach, as we have already seen, to the term reality. (See Chapter III, 7, and Chapter VII., 6.) What- ever existents belong to the first of the two classes now distinguished, that is, those which are real agents, are real in a sense which has not hitherto been expressly noticed. The term reality, or existence, or thatness, (these being practically synonymous), was found to have three different meanings, according as it was applied (1) to objects simply, its sense then being, that esse is percipi, (2) to objects as having a place in the time-stream of perception, and then meaning existere as opposed to esse, and (3) to objects thought of as having an existence independent of the circumstance of their being (or not being) perceived ; abstracting, of THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 457 course, from the fact that, even in so thinking of them, we are in some sort perceiving them. ~ We now see, that the term has a fourth . %*?, t in the fullest meaning, namely, as applied to objects which are fg^ real conditions as well as conditionates. This is four Senses of reality in the fullest sense that we can conceive ; the term - reality in the sense of efficiency, as well as in that of simple existence. Each of the four senses corresponds to a definite step in our analysis of experience, and each adds some special trait to those which were contained in the one before it. The first is the most general, meaning simply the objective aspect of experience in its widest sense, the name for which is Being. The last is the most special, meaning that which not only belongs to the objective aspect, but also accounts, or contributes to account, for the genesis and history of some other particular existent or existents, thought of as belonging to the objective aspect. The first belongs to the distinction of subjective and objec- tive Aspects, the last to the Course of Nature, in which that distinction finds its only positively known development and exemplification. Whenever, therefore, reality is predicated of anything, it is necessary to ask, in which of the following four classes it is thereby intended to place that of which it is predicated : 1. Something simply in consciousness. 2. Something which has a definite place in perception, or objective thought. 3. Something which has existence indepen- dently of whether it is perceived or unperceived, thought of or not thought of, at any given time. G G 458 THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. eHvni 4. Something which has efficiency as a real condition. 8 Reality in the fuflest -The These are the four heads or classes of Reality ; Fourjensea an( j there are no others founded on the same prin- the tem. c iple and method of analysing experience ; that is to say, these are an exhaustive classification, including under it every mode of reality which we can possibly conceive. It should, however, be noticed in conclusion, that, although these classes differ from each other in point of the degree of fulness in the meaning of the term Reality, this is not a difference in the degree or intensity of the Reality common to all, as if reality were a sensible quality, capable of more or less strength. The four classes rest on four distinct meanings of the term, or kinds of reality ; but all alike refer to feeling and form taken together, that is to say, to complete or empirical objects, and not to the element of feeling, nor indeed to either element as if it could be experi- enced alone. Reality, taken as common to all the four classes, means simply the fact that experience takes place, a fact which is incapable of degree, that is to say, of being either less or more real than it is. The Sense of Reality on the other hand varies in degree, as well as in kind, (1) with the mode in which our feelings are affected by it, the various modes, for instance, in which we are aware of physical force, and (2) with the clearness and vividness of the perception which we have of the persistence of particular objects or modes of force, and of the persistence of the relations between THE WORLD OF REAL CONDITIONS. 459 them, or of the degree of regularity with which similar relations recur in similar circumstances. The sense of reality varies in intensity because it is a mode of the element of feeling, which varies ff^; with the constitution and circumstances of indi- Four Sen** vidual percipients, without any variation in the objective fact itself, that something is being perceived, which is what is meant by reality. To attribute degrees of intensity to reality can there- fore only spring from confusing it with the sense of reality in individuals, from which it is severed by a difference as deep as any in experience. END OF BOOK I University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 Box 951388 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. 3 1205 00447 9984 tie