The analysis of mind

university of
Connecticut

libraries

hbl, stx

BF 121.R8 1924
Analysis of mind,

3 T1S3 DDbb?

3M E

td

?o

Xibran? of pbiloaopbij,

EDITED BY J. H. MUIRHEAD, LL.D,

THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

Library of Philosophy

General Editor : Professor J. H. MUIRHEAD, LL.D.

ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY By Prof. G. F. SXOOT. Two Vols, ^th Impression.
APPEARANCE AND REALITY By F. H. Bradley. 6th Impression.
ATTENTION By Prof. W. B. PiLLSBURY. 2nd Impression.
CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOLOGY By Prof. G. VlLLA.
HISTORY OF ESTHETIC By Dr. B. BOSANQUET. ^Ih Impression.
HISTORY OF ENGLISH UTILITARIANISM By Prof. E. Albjsk.
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY By J. E. Erdmann.

VoL I. Ancient and MkdivEVau 4th Impression.
Vol.11. Modern, bth Impression.
Vol. III. Since Hegel, bih Impressitn.

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY By Prof. G. S. Brett.

Vol. I. Ancient and Patristic.

Vol. II. Medieval and Early Modern Period.

Vel. III. Modern Psychology.

MATTER AND MEMORY By Prof. Henri Bkrgson. Translated by N. M.

Paul and VV. S. Palmer. 3rd Impression.
NATURAL RIGHTS By D. G. Ritchie. 3rd Impression.
PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY By Dr. J. Bonar.
RATIONAL THEOLOGY SINCE KANT By Prof. O. Pfleidkrer.

THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND By G. W. F. Hegel. Translated by
Prof. J. B. Baillie. Two Vols.

THOUGHT AND THINGS; OR. GENETIC LOGIC By Prof. J. M. Baldwin.
Vol. I. Functional Logic.
Vol. II. Experimental Logic,
Vol. III. Real Logic (I.. Genetic Epistkmology).

TIME AND FREE WILL By Prof. HENRI Bergson. Translated by F. L.

POGSON. srd Impression.
VALUATION: THE THEORY OF VALUE By Prof. W. M. Urba.n.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE RELIGIOUS LIFE By Prof. G. M.

Stratton.
THE GREAT PROBLEMS By Prof. BERNARDINO VaRISCO. Translated by

Prof. R. C. Lodge.
KNOW THYSELF By Prof. BERNARDINO Varisco. Translated by Dr.

GUGLIELMO SALVADORI.

ELEMENTS OF l-OLK PSYCHOLOGY By W. VVuNDT. Translated by Dr.

Edward L. Schaub. 2nd Impression.
GIAMBATTISIA VICO By Benebktto Croce. Translated by R. G.

COLLINGWOOD.

ELEMENTS OF CONSTRUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY By Prof. J. S, Mackenzie.

2nd Impression.
SOCIAL PURPOSE By Principal H. J. W. Hetherington and Prof. J. H.

Muirhead.
INTRODUCTION TO MATHEM.A.TICAL PHILOSOPHY By Bertrand

KussELL, F.R.S. 3rd Impression. 12s. td. net.

GOD AND PERSONALITY (GiKFORD LECTURES) By Prof. Clement C. j.

Webb. (Part I.)
DIVINE PERSONALITY AND HUMAN LIFE (GlFFORD LECTURES) By

Prof. Clement C. J. Webb. (Pan II.)
MODERN PHILOSOPHY' By GuiDO de Ruggiero. Translated by A.

HOWARD Hannay. B.A., and R. G. Collingwood, M.A., F.S.A.
THE ANALYSIS OF MIND By Bertrand Russell, F.R.S. 3rd Impression.

DIALOGUES ON METAPHYSICS. By NlcOL.\S Malebranche. Translated
by Morris Ginsberg, M.A.

INDIAN PHILOSOPHY. By Prof. S. Radhakrishnan.

CONTEMPORARY BRITISH PHILOSOPHY. Edited by Prof. J H.
Muirhead. Two Vols.

THE ANALYSIS OF

MIND

BY

BERTRAND RUSSELL, F.R.S.

LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. i
NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

\2I

R^

o,

2H

First published in ig2i
Reprinted . . . ig22
Reprinted , , .1924

(All rights reserved)

Printed in Great Britain by
DNWIN BROTHERS, LIMIiED, LONDON AND WOKING

PREFACE

This book has grown out of an attempt to harmonize
two different tendencies, one in psychology, the other in
physics, with both of which I find myself in sympathy,
although at first sight they might seem inconsistent. On
the one hand, many psychologists, especially those of the
behaviourist school, tend to adopt what is essentially a
materialistic position, as a matter of method if not of
metaphysics. They make psychology increasingly depen-
dent on physiology and external observation, and tend
to think of matter as something much more solid
and indubitable than mind. Meanwhile the physicists,
especially Einstein and other exponents of the theory of
relativity, have been making " matter " less and less
material. Their world consists of " events," from which
" matter " is derived by a logical construction. Whoever
reads, for example. Professor Eddington's Space, Time and
Gravitation (Cambridge University Press, 1920), will see
that an old-fashioned materialism can receive no support
from modern physics. I think that what has permanent
value in the outlook of the behaviourists is the feeling
that physics is the most fundamental science at present
in existence. But this position cannot be called material-

6 PREFACE

istic, if, as seems to be the case, physics does not assume
the existence of matter.

The view that seems to me to reconcile the materiahstic
tendency of psychology with the anti-materialistic ten-
dency of physics is the view of William James and the
American new realists, according to which the " stuff "
of the world is neither mental nor material, but a " neutral
stuff/* out of which both are constructed. I have
endeavoured in this work to develop this view in some
detail as regards the phenomena with which psychology
is concerned.

My thanks are due to Professor John B. Watson and
to Dr. T. P. Nunn for reading my MSS. at an early stage
and helping me with many valuable suggestions ; also
to Mr. A. Wohlgemuth for much very useful information
as regards important literature. I have also to acknow-
ledge the help of the editor of this Library of Philosophy,
Professor Muirhead, for several suggestions by which I have
profited.

The work has been given in the form of lectures both
in London and Peking, and one lecture, that on Desire,
has been published in the Athenceum.

There are a few allusions to China in this book, all
of which were wTitten before I had been in China, and
are not intended to be taken by the reader as geographi-
cally accurate. I have used " China " merely as a
synonym for "a distant country," when I wanted iUus-
trations of unfamiliar things.

Peking,

January 1921.

CONTENTS

LECTURB

I. Recent Criticisms of " Consciousness " .

II. Instinct and Habit . . . .

III. Desire and Feeling

PACK

9

58

IV. Influence of Past History on Present Oc-
currences in Living Organisms . . 77

--^^y. Psychological and Physical Causal Laws

VI. Introspection

VII. The Definition of Perception

VIII. Sensations and Images

■ IX. Memory

J X. Words and Meaning

XI. General Ideas and Thought
XII. Belief

XIII. Truth and Falsehood

XIV. Emotions and Will
XV. Characteristics of Mental Phenomena .

Index ......

93

108

124

m
157
188
213
231

253
279

287
309

THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

LECTURE I

RECENT CRITICISMS OF ''CONSCIOUSNESS"

There are certain occurrences which we are in the habit
of calling " mental." Among these we may take as
typical believing and desiring. The exact definition of
the word " mental " will, I hope, emerge as the lectures
proceed ; for the present, I shall mean by it whatever
occurrences would commonly be called mental.

I wish in these lectures to analyse as fully as I can
what it is that really takes place when we, e.g. believe
or desire. In this first lecture I shall be concerned tO\
refute a theory which is widely held, and which I formerly /
held myself : the theory that the essence of everything
mental is a certain quite peculiar something called " con-
sciousness," conceived either as a relation to objects, or
as a pervading quality of psychical phenomena.

The reasons which I shall give against this theory will
be mainly derived from previous authors. There are
two sorts of reasons, which will divide my lecture into
two parts :

(i) Direct reasons, derived from analysis and its
difficulties ;

9

10 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

(2) Indirect reasons, derived from observation of
animals (comparative psychology) and of the
insane and hysterical (psycho-analysis).

Few things are more firmly established in popular
philosophy than the distinction between mind and matter.
Those who are not professional metaphysicians are willing
to confess that they do not know what mind actually is,
or how matter is constituted ; but they remain convinced
that there is an impassable gulf between the two, and
that both belong to what actually exists in the world.
Philosophers, on the other hand, have maintained often
that matter is a mere fiction imagined by mind, and
sometimes that mind is a mere property of a certain
kind of matter. Those who maintain that mind is the
reality and matter an evil dream are called " idealists "
.y — a word which has a different meaning in philosophy
from that which it bears iri ordinary life. Those who
argue that matter is the reality and mind a mere property
of protoplasm are called *' materialists." They have been
rare among philosophers, but common, at certain periods,
among men of science. Idealists, materialists, and ordin-
ary mortals have been in agreement on one point : that
they knew sufficiently what they meant by the words
" mind " and " matter " to be able to conduct their debate
intelligently. Yet it was just in this point, as to which
they were at one, that they seem to me to have been
all alike in error.

The stuff of which the world of our experience is com-
posed is, in my belief, neither mind nor matter, but
something more primitive than either. Both mind and
matter seem to be comp^osite, and the stuff of which they
are compounded lies in a sense between the two, in a

RECENT CRITICISMS OF "CONSCIOUSNESS" 11

sense above them both, Hke a common ancestor, j As
regards matter, 1 have set forth my reasons for this view
on former occasions, ' and I shall not now repeat them.
But the question of mind is more difficult, and it is this
question that I propose to discuss in these lectures. A
great deal of what I shall have to say is not original ;
indeed, much recent work, in various fields, has tended
to show the necessity of such theories as those which I
shall be advocating. Accordingly in this first lecture I
shall try to give a brief description of the systems of
ideas within which our investigation is to be carried on.
If there is one thing that may be said, in the popular
estimation, to characterize mind, that one thing is " con-
sciousness." We say that we are " conscious " of what
we see and hear, of what we remember, and of our own
thoughts and feelings. Most of us believe that tables
and chairs are not " conscious." We think that when
we sit in a chair, we are aware of sitting in it, but it is
not aware of being sat in. It cannot for a moment be
doubted that we are right in believing that there is some
difference between us and the chair in this respect : so
much may be taken as fact, and as a datum for our inquiry.
But as soon as we try to say what exactly the difference
is, we become involved in perplexities. Is *' conscious-
ness " ultimate and simple, something to be merely
accepted and contemplated ? Or is it something complex,
perhaps consisting in our way of behaving in the presence
of objects, or, alternatively, in the existence in us of
things called " ideas," having a certain relation to objects,
though different from them, and only symbolically re-
presentative of them ? Such questions are not easy to

I Our Knowledge of the External World (Allen & Unwin), Chapters
III and IV. Also Mysticism and Logic, Essays VII cind VIII.

12 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

answer ; but until they are answered we cannot profess
to know what we mean by saying that we are possessed
of " consciousness."

Before considering modern theories, let us look first
at consciousness from the standpoint of conventional
psychology, since this embodies views which naturally
occur when we begin to reflect upon the subject. For
this purpose, let us as a preliminary consider different
ways of being conscious.

First, there is the way of perception. We " perceive *'
tables and chairs, horses and dogs, our friends, traffic
passing in the street — in short, anything which v/e recog-
nize through the senses. I leave on one side for the
present the question whether pure sensation is to be
regarded as a form of consciousness : what I am speaking
of now is perception, where, according to conventional
psychology, we go beyond the sensation to the " thing "
which it represents. When you hear a donkey bray,
you not only hear a noise, but realize that it comes from
a donkey. When you see a table, you not only see a
coloured surface, but realize that it is hard. The addition
of these elements that go beyond crude sensation is said
to constitute perception. We shall have more to say
about this at a later stage. For the moment, I am
merely concerned to note that perception of objects is
one of the most obvious examples of what is called " con-
sciousness." We are " conscious " of anything that we
perceive.

We may take next the way of memory. If I set to
work to recall what I did this morning, that is a form
of consciousness different from perception, since it is
concerned with the past. There are various problems
as to how we can be conscious now of what no longer

RECENT CRITICISMS OF "CONSCIOUSNESS" 18

exists. These will be dealt with incidentally when we
come to the analysis of memory.

From memory it is an easy step to what are called
" ideas " — not in the Platonic sense, but in that of Locke,
Berkeley and Hume, in which they are opposed to " im-
pressions." You may be conscious of a friend either by
seeing him or by " thinking '' of him ; and by " thought '*
you can be conscious of objects which cannot be seen,
such as the human race, or physiology. " Thought "
in the narrower sense is that form of consciousness which
consists in " ideas '' as opposed to impressions or mere
memories.

We may end our preliminary catalogue with belief,
by which I mean that way of being conscious which may
be either true or false. We say that a man is ** conscious
of looking a fool," by which we mean that he believes
he looks a fool, and is not mistaken in this belief. This
is a different form of consciousness from any of the earlier
ones. It is the form which gives " knowledge " in the
strict sense, and also error. It is, at least apparently,
more complex than our previous forms of consciousness ;
though we shall find that they are not so separable from
it as they might appear to be.

Besides ways of being conscious there are other things
that would ordinarily be called "mental," such as desire
and pleasure and pain. These raise problems of their
own, which we shall reach in Lecture IIL But the hardest
problems are those that arise concerning ways of being
" conscious." These ways, taken together, are called the
** cognitive " elements in mind, and it is these that will
occupy us most during the following lectures.

There is one element which seems obviously in common <
among the different ways of being conscious, and that is,

14 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

that they are all directed to objects. We are conscious
" of " something. The consciousness, it seems, is one
thing, and that of which we are conscious is another thing.
Unless we are to acquiesce in the view that we can never
be conscious of anything outside our own minds, we
must say that the object of consciousness need not be
mental, though the consciousness must be. (I am speak-
ing within the circle of conventional doctrines, not
expressing my own beliefs.) This direction towards
an object is commonly regarded as typical of every form
of cognition, and sometimes of mental life altogether.
We may distinguish two different tendencies in traditional
psychology. There are those who take mental phenomena
naively, just as they would physical phenomena. This
school of psychologists tends not to emphasize the object.
On the other hand, there are those whose primary interest
is in the apparent fact that we have knowledge, that there
is a world surrounding us of which we are aware. These
men are interested in the mind because of its relation to
the world, because knowledge, if it is a fact, is a very
mysterious one. Their interest in psychology is naturally
centred in the relation of consciousness to its object, a
problem which, properly, belongs rather to theory of
knowledge. We may take as one of the best and most
typical representatives of this school the Austrian psycholo-
gist Brentano, whose Psychology from the Empirical
Standpoint,^ though published in 1874, is still influential,
and was the starting-point of a great deal of interesting
work. He says (p. 115) :

" Every psychical phenomenon is characterized by
what the scholastics of the Middle Ages called the inten-

I Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte, vol. i, 1874. (The
second volume was never published.)

RECENT CRITICISMSOF "CONSCIOUSNESS" 15

tional (also the mental) inexistence of an object, and what
we, although with not quite unambiguous expressions,
would call relation to a content, direction towards an
object (which is not here to be understood as a reality),
or imm.anent objectivity. Each contains something in
itself as an object, though not each in the same way.
In presentation something is presented, in judgment
something is acknowledged or rejected, in love something
is loved, in hatred hated, in desire desired, and so on.

" This intentional inexistence is exclusively peculiar
to psychical phenomena. No physical phenomenon
shows anything similar. And so we can define psychical
phenomena by saying that they are phenomena which
intentionally contain an object in themselves."

The view here expressed, that relation to an object is
an ultimate irreducible characteristic of mental phenomena,
is one which I shall be concerned to combat. Like Bren-
tano, I am interested in psychology, not so much for its
own sake, as for the light that it may throw on the
problem of knowledge. Until very lately I believed, as he
did, that mental phenomena have essential reference to
objects, except possibly in the case of pleasure and pain.
Now I no longer believe this, even in the case of know-
ledge. I shall try to make my reasons for this rejection
clear as we proceed. It must be evident at first glance
that the analysis of knowledge is rendered more difficult
by the rejection ; but the apparent simplicity of Brentano's
view of knowledge will be found, if I am not mistaken,
incapable of maintaining itself either against an analytic
scrutiny or against a host of facts in psycho-analysis
and animal psychology. I do not wish to minimize the
problems. I will merely observe, in mitigation of our
prospective labours, that thinking, however it is to be

1(5 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

analysed, is in itself a delightful occupation, and that there
is no enemy to thinking so deadly as a false simplicity.
Travelling, whether in the mental or the physical world,
is a joy, and it is good to know that, in the mental
world at least, there are vast countries still very imper-
fectly explored.

The view expressed by Brentano has been held very
generally, and developed by many writers. Among
these we may take as an example his Austrian successor
Meinong.i According to him there are three elements
involved in the thought of an object. These three he
calls the act, the content and the object. The act is the
same in any two cases of the same kind of consciousness ;
for instance, if I think of Smith or think of Brown, the
act of thinking, in itself, is exactly similar on both occa-
sions. But the content of my thought, the particular
event that is happening in my mind, is different when I
think of Smith and when I think of Brown. The content,
Meinong argues, must not be confounded with the object,
since the content must exist in my mind at the moment
when I have the thought, whereas the object need not do
so. The object may be something past or future ; it
may be physical, not mental ; it may be something
abstract, like equality for example ; it may be something
imaginary, like a golden mountain ; or it may even be
something self-contradictory, like a round square. But
in all these cases, so he contends, the content exists when
the thought exists, and is what distinguishes it, as an
occurrence, from other thoughts.

I See, e.g. his article : " Ueber Gegenstande hoherer Ordnung
und deren Verhaltniss zur inneren Wahmehmung," Zeitschrift fur
Psychologic und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, vol. xxi, pp. 182-272
(1899), especially pp. 185-8.

RECENT CRITICISMS OF "CONSCIOUSNESS" 17

To make this theory concrete, let us suppose that you
are thinking of St. Paul's. Then, according to Meinong,
we have to distinguish three elements which are necessarily
combined in constituting the one thought. First, there
is the act of thinking, which would be just the same
whatever you were thinking about. Then there is what
makes the character of the thought as contrasted with
other thoughts ; this is the content. And finally there
is St. Paul's, which is the object of your thought. There
must be a difference between the content of a thought
and what it is about, since the thought is here and now,
whereas what it is about may not be ; hence it is clear
that the thought is not identical with St. Paul's. This
seems to show that we must distinguish between content
and object. But if Meinong is right, there can be no
thought without an object : the connection of the two is
essential. The object might exist without the thought,
but not the thought without the object : the three ele-
ments of act, content and object are all required to con-
stitute the one single occurrence called '* thinking of St.
Paul's."

The above analysis of a thought, though I believe it
to be mistaken, is very useful as affording a schema
in terms of which other theories can be stated. In the
remainder of the present lecture I shall state in outline
the view which I advocate, and show how various other
views out of which mine has grown result from modifica-
tions of the threefold analysis into act, content and
object.

The first criticism I have to make is that the act seems
unnecessary and fictitious. The occurrence of the content
of a thought constitutes the occurrence of the thought.
Empirically, I cannot discover anything corresponding

2

18 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

to the supposed act ; and theoretically I cannot see that
it is indispensable. We say : ''I think so-and-so,"
and this word " I " suggests that thinking is the act of a
person. Meinong's " act " is the ghost of the subject,
or what once was the full-blooded soul. It is supposed
that thoughts cannot just come and go, but need a person
to think them. Now, of course it is true that thoughts
can be collected into bundles, so that one bundle is my
thoughts, another is your thoughts, and a third is the
thoughts of Mr. Jones. But I think the person is not
an ingredient in the single thought : he is rather con-
stituted by relations of the thoughts to each other and to
the body. This is a large question, which need not, in
its entirety, concern us at present. All that I am con-
cerned with for the moment is that the grammatical
forms " I think," " you think," and " Mr. Jones thinks,"
are misleading if regarded as indicating an analysis of
a single thought. It would be better to say " it thinks
in me," like " it rains here " ; or better still, " there is a
thought in me." This is simply on the ground that what
Meinong calls the act in thinking is not empirically dis-
coverable, or logically deducible from what we can
observe.

The next point of criticism concerns the relation of
content and object. The reference of thoughts to objects
is not, I believe, the simple direct essential thing that
Brentano and Meinong represent it as being. It seems
to me to be derivative, and to consist largely in beliefs :
beliefs that what constitutes the thought is connected
with various other elements which together make up the
object. You have, say, an image of St. Paul's, or merely
the word "St. Paul's " in j^our head. You believe,
however vaguely and dimly, that this is connected with

RECENT CRITICISMS OF " CONSCIOUSNESS " 19

what you would see if you went to St. Paul's, or what
you would feel if you touched its walls ; it is further
connected with what other people see and feel, with services
and the Dean and Chapter and Sir Christopher Wren.
These things are not mere thoughts of yours, but your
thought stands in a relation to them of which you are
more or less aware. The awareness of this relation is
a further thought, and constitutes your feeling that the
original thought had an " object." But in pure imagina-
tion you can get very similar thoughts without these
accompanying beliefs ; and in this case your thoughts
do not have objects or seem to have them. Thus in such
instances you have content without object. On the
other hand, in seeing or hearing it would be less misleading
to say that you have object without content, since what
you see or hear is actually part of the physical world,
though not matter in the sense of physics. Thus the
whole question of the relation of mental occurrences to
objects grows very complicated, and cannot be settled
by regarding reference to objects as of the essence of
thoughts. All the above remarks are merely preliminary,
and will be expanded later.

Speaking in popular and unphilosophical terms, we
may say that the content of a thought is supposed to be
something in your head when you think the thought,
while the object is usually something in the outer world.
It is held that knowledge of the outer world is constituted
by the relation to the object, w^hile the fact that know-
ledge is different from what it knows is due to the fact
that knowledge comes by way of contents. We can begin
to state the difference between realism and idealism
in terms of this opposition of contents and objects. Speak-
ing quite roughly and approximately, we may say that

20 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

idealism tends to suppress the object, while realism tends
to suppress the content. Idealism, accordingly, says
that nothing can be known except thoughts, and all
the reality that we know is mental ; while realism main-
tains that we know objects directly, in sensation certainly,
and perhaps also in memory and thought. Idealism does
not say that nothing can be known beyond the present
thought, but it maintains that the context of vague
belief, which we spoke of in connection with the thought
of St. Paul's, only takes you to other thoughts, never to
anything radically different from thoughts. The difficulty
of this view is in regard to sensation, where it seems as
if we came into direct contact with the outer world. But
the Berkeleian way of meeting this difficulty is so familiar
that I need not enlarge upon it now. I shall return to
it in a later lecture, and will only observe, for the present,
that there seem to me no valid grounds for regarding
what we see and hear as not part of the physical world.

Realists, on the other hand, as a rule, suppress the con-
tent, and maintain that a thought consists either of act
and object alone, or of object alone. I have been in the
past a realist, and I remain a realist as regards sensation,
but not as regards memory or thought. I will try to
explain what seem to me to be the reasons for and
against various kinds of realism.

Modern idealism professes to be by no means confined
to the present thought or the present thinker in regard
to its knowledge ; indeed, it contends that the world is
so organic, so dove-tailed, that from any one portion the
whole can be inferred, as the complete skeleton of an
extinct animal can be inferred from one bone. But the
logic by which this supposed organic nature of the world
is nominally demonstrated appears to realists, as it does

RECENT CRITICISMS OF "CONSCIOUSNESS" 21

to me, to be faulty. They argue that, if we cannot know
the physical world directly, we cannot really know any-
thing outside our own minds : the rest of the world maj^ be
merely our dream. This is a dreary view, and they there-
fore seek ways of escaping from it. Accordingly they
maintain that in knowledge we are in direct contact with
objects, which may be, and usually are, outside our own
minds. No doubt they are prompted to this view, in
the first place, by bias, namely, by the desire to think
that they can know of the existence of a world outside
themselves. But we have to consider, not what led them
to desire the view, but whether their arguments for it
are valid.

There are two different kinds of realism, according as
we make a thought consist of act and object, or of object
alone. Their difficulties are different, but neither seems
tenable all through. Take, for the sake of definiteness,
the remembering of a past event. The remembering
occurs now, and is therefore necessarily not identical
with the past event. So long as we retain the act, this
need cause no difficulty. The act of remembering occurs
now, and has on this view a certain essential relation to
the past event which it remembers. There is no logical
objection to this theory, but there is the objection, which
we spoke of earlier, that the act seems mythical, and is
not to be found by observation. If, on the other hand,
we try to constitute memory without the act, we are driven
to a content, since we must have something that happens
now, as opposed to the event which happened in the past.
Thus, when we reject the act, which I think we must, we
are driven to a theory of memory which is more akin to
idealism. These arguments, however, do not apply to
sensation. It is especially sensation, I thinks which is

22 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

considered by those realists who retain only the object. »
Their views, which are chiefly held in America, are in
large measure derived from William James, and before
going further it will be well to consider the revolutionary
doctrine which he advocated. I believe this doctrine
contains important new truth, and what I shall have to
say will be in a considerable measure inspired by it.

William James's view was first set forth in an essay
called " Does ' consciousness ' exist ? " » In this essay
he explains how what used to be the soul has gradually
been refined down to the " transcendental ego," which,
he says, " attenuates itself to a thoroughly ghostly condi-
tion, being only a name for the fact that the * content ' of
experience is known. It loses personal form and activity —
these passing over to the content — and becomes a bare
Bewusstheit or Bewusstsein iiberhaupt, of which in
its own right absolutely nothing can be said. I believe
(he continues) that ' consciousness,' when once it
has evaporated to this estate of pure diaphaneity, is
on the point of disappearing altogether. It is the name
of a nonentity, and has no right to a place among first
principles. Those who still cling to it are clinging to a
mere echo, the faint rumour left behind by the disap-
pearing ' soul ' upon the air of philosophy " (p. 2).

He explains that this is no sudden change in his
opinions. " For twenty years past," he says, " I have
mistrusted ' consciousness ' as an entity ; for seven or

^ This is explicitly the case with Mach's Analysis of Sensations,
a book of fundamental importance in the present connection.
(Translation of fifth German edition, Open Court Co., 1914. First
German edition, 1886.)

2 Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods,
vol. i, 1904. Reprinted in Essays in Radical Empiricism (Long-
mans, Green & Co., 1912), pp. 1-38, to which references in what
follows refer.

RECENT CRITICISMS OF "CONSCIOUSNESS" 28

eight years past I have suggested its non-existence to my
students, and tried to give them its pragmatic equivalent
in realities of experience. It seems to me that the hour
is ripe for it to be openly and universally discarded " (p. 3).

His next concern is to explain away the air of paradox,
for James was never wilfully paradoxical. " Undeniably,"
he says, " * thoughts ' do exist." " I mean only to deny
that the word stands for an entity, but to insist most
emphatically that it does stand for a function. There is,
I mean, no aboriginal stuff or quality of being, contrasted
with that of which material objects are made, out of
which our thoughts of them are made ; but there is a
function in experience which thoughts perform, and for
the performance of which this quality of being is invoked.
That function is knowing " (pp. 3-4).

James's view is that the raw material out of which
the world is built up is not of two sorts, one matter and
the other mind, but that it is arranged in different patterns
by its inter-relations, and that some arrangements may
be called mental, while others may be called physical.

" My thesis is," he says, " that if we start with the
supposition that there is only one primal stuff or material
in the world, a stuff of which everything is composed, and
if we call that stuff ' pure experience,' then knowing can
easily be explained as a particular sort of relation towards
one another into which portions of pure experience may
enter. The relation itself is a part of pure experience ;
one of its * terms ' becomes the subject or bearer of the
knowledge, the knower, the other becomes the object
known " (p. 4).

After mentioning the duality of subject and object,
which is supposed to constitute consciousness, he
proceeds in italics : '* Experience, I believe, has no such

24 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

inner duplicity ; and the separation of it into consciousness
and content comes, not by way of subtraction, but by way
of addition " (p. 9).

He illustrates his meaning by the analogy of paint
as it appears in a paint-shop and as it appears in a
picture : in the one case it is just '* saleable matter,"
while in the other it " performs a spiritual function. Just
so, I maintain (he continues), does a given undivided
portion of experience, taken in one context of associates,
play the part of a knower, of a state of mind, of
' consciousness * ; while in a different context the
same undivided bit of experience plays the part of a
thing known, of an objective ' content.' In a word,
in one group it figures as a thought, in another group
as a thing " (pp. 9-10).

He does not believe in the supposed immediate cer-
tainty of thought. " Let the case be what it may in
others," he says, " I am as confident as I am of anything
that, in myself, the stream of thinking (which I recog-
nize emphatically as a phenomenon) is only a careless
name for what, when scrutinized, reveals itself to con-
sist chiefly of the stream of my breathing. The * I
think ' which Kant said must be able to accompany
all my objects, is the * I breathe ' which actually does
accompany them " (pp. 36-37).

The same view of " consciousness " is set forth in
the succeeding essay, " A World of Pure Experience "
[lb., pp. 39-91). The use of the phrase " pure experience "
in both essays points to a lingering influence of idealism.
*' Experience," like " consciousness," must be a product,
not part of the primary stuff of the world. It must
be possible, if James is right in his main contentions,
that roughly the same stuff, differently arranged, would

RECENT CRITICISMS OF "CONSCIOUSNESS" 25

not give rise to anything that could be called " experi-
ence." This word has been dropped by the American
realists, among whom we may mention specially
Professor R. B. Perry of Harvard and Mr. Edwin B.
Holt. The interests of this school are in general phil-
osophy and the philosophy of the sciences, rather than in
psychology ; they have derived a strong impulsion from
James, but have more interest than he had in logic and
mathematics and the abstract part of philosophy. They
speak of " neutral " entities as the stuff out of which
both mind and matter are constructed. Thus Holt
says : " If the terms and propositions of logic must be
substantialized, they are all strictly of one substance,
for which perhaps the least dangerous name is neutral-
stuff. The relation of neutral-stuff to matter and mind
we shall have presently to consider at considerable
length." I

My own belief — for which the reasons will appear in
subsequent lectures — is that James is right in rejecting
consciousness as an entity, and that the American realists
are partly right, though not wholly, in considering that
both mind and matter are composed of a neutral-stuff
which, in isolation, is neither mental nor material. I
should admit this view as regards sensations : what is
heard or seen belongs equally to psychology and to
physics. But I should say that images belong onl}/ to
the mental world, while those occurrences (if any) which
do not form part of any " experience " belong only to
the physical world. There are, it seems to me, prima facie
different kinds of causal laws, one belonging to physics
and the other to psychology. The law of gravitation, for
example, is a physical law, while the law of association

* The Concept of Consciousness (Geo. Allen & Co., 1914), p. 52.

26 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

is a psychological law. Sensations are subject to both
kinds of laws, and are therefore truly ** neutral " in
Holt's sense. But entities subject only to physical
laws, or only to -psychological laws, are not neutral, and
may be called respectively purely material and purely
mental. Even those, however, which are purely mental
will not have that intrinsic reference to objects which
Brentano assigns to them and which constitutes the
essence of " consciousness " as ordinarily understood.
But it is now time to pass on to other modern tendencies,
also hostile to " consciousness."

There is a psychological school called '' Behaviourists,"
of whom the protagonist is Professor John B. Watson,^
formerly of the Johns Hopkins University. To them also,
on the whole, belongs Professor John Dewey, who, with
James and Dr. Schiller, was one of the three founders
of pragmatism. The view of the " behaviourists " is
that nothing can be known except by external observa-
tion. They deny altogether that there is a separate
source of knowledge called " introspection," by which
we can know things about ourselves which we could never
observe in others. They do not by any means deny
that all sorts of things may go on in our minds : they
only say that such things, if they occur, are not sus-
ceptible of scientific observation, and do not therefore
concern psychology as a science. Psychology as a science,
they say, is only concerned with behaviour, i.e. with
what we do ; this alone, they contend, can be accurately
observed. Whether we think meanwhile, they tell us,
cannot be known ; in their observation of the behaviour
of human beings, they have not so far found any evidence

I See especially his Behavior : an Introduction to Comparative
Psychology, New York, 1914.

RECENT CRITICISMS OF "CONSCIOUSNESS" 27

of thought. True, we talk a great deal, and imagine
that in so doing we are showing that we can think ; but
behaviourists say that the talk they have to listen to
can be explained without supposing that people think.
Where you might expect a chapter on " thought pro-
cesses *' you come instead upon a chapter on " The
Language Habit." It is humiliating to find how terribly
adequate this hypothesis turns out to be.

Behaviourism has not, however, sprung from observing
the folly of men. It is the wisdom of animals that has
suggested the view. It has always been a common topic
of popular discussion whether animals " think." On
this topic people are prepared to take sides without
having the vaguest idea what they mean by " thinking."
Those who desired to investigate such questions were
led to observe the behaviour of animals, in the hope
that their behaviour would throw some light on their
mental faculties. At first sight, it might seem that
this is so. People say that a dog "knows" its name
because it comes when it is called, and that it
*' remembers " its master, because it looks sad in his
absence, but wags its tail and barks when he returns.
That the dog behaves in this way is matter of observa-
tion, but that it "knows" or "remembers" anything is
an inference, and in fact a very doubtful one. The more
such inferences are examined, the more precarious they
are seen to be. Hence the study of animal behaviour
has been gradually led to abandon all attempt at mental
interpretation. And it can hardly be doubted that, in
many cases of complicated behaviour very well adapted
to its ends, there can be no prevision of those ends. The
first time a bird builds a nest, we can hardly suppose
it knows that there will be eggs to be laid in it, or that

28 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

it will sit on the eggs, or that they will hatch into young
birds. It does what it does at each stage because in-
stinct gives it an impulse to do just that, not because
it foresees and desires the result of its actions. ^

Careful observers of animals, being anxious to avoid
precarious inferences, have gradually discovered more
and more how to give an account of the actions of
animals without assuming what we call " consciousness."
It has seemed to the behaviourists that similar methods
can be applied to human behaviour, without assuming
anything not open to external observation. Let us
give a crude illustration, too crude for the authors in
question, but capable of affording a rough insight into
their meaning. Suppose two children in a school, both
of whom are asked " What is six times nine ? " One
says fifty-four, the other says fifty-six. The one, we
say, " knows " what six times nine is, the other does
not. But all that we can observe is a certain
language-habit. The one child has acquired the habit
of saying " six times nine is fifty-four " ; the other
has not. There is no more need of " thought " in
this than there is when a horse turns into his accus-
tomed stable ; there are merely more numerous and
complicated habits. There is obviously an observable
fact called " knowing " such-and-such a thing ; ex-
aminations are experiments for discovering such facts.
But all that is observed or discovered is a certain
set of habits in the use of words. The thoughts (if any)
in the mind of the examinee are of no interest to the

* An interesting discussion of the question whether instinctive
actions, when first performed, involve any prevision, however
vague, will be found in Lloyd Morgan's Instinct and Experience
(Methuen, 19 12), chap. ii.

RECENT CRITICISMS OF "CONSCIOUSNESS" 29

examiner ; nor has the examiner any reason to suppose
even the most successful examinee capable of even the
smallest amount of thought.

Thus what is called " knowing," in the sense in which
we can ascertain what other people " know," is a pheno-
menon exemplified in their physical behaviour, including
spoken and written words. There is no reason — so
Watson argues — to suppose that their knowledge is
anything beyond the habits shown in this behaviour : the
inference that other people have something non-physical
called " mind " or " thought " is therefore unwarranted.

So far, there is nothing particularly repugnant to our
prejudices in the conclusions of the behaviourists. We
are all willing to admit that other people are thoughtless.
But when it comes to ourselves, we feel convinced that
we can actually perceive our own thinking. " Cogito,
ergo sum " would be regarded by most people as having
a true premiss. This, however, the behaviourist denies.
He maintains that our knowledge of ourselves is no
different in kind from our knowledge of other people.
We may see more, because our own body is easier to
observe than that of other people ; but we do not see
anything radically unlike what we see of others. Intro-
spection, as a separate source of knowledge, is entirely
denied by psychologists of this school. I shall discuss
this question at length in a later lecture ; for the present
I will only observe that it is by no means simple, and
that, though I believe the behaviourists somewhat over-
state their case, yet there is an important element of
truth in their contention, since the things which we
can discover by introspection do not seem to differ in
any very fundamental way from the things which we
discover by external observation.

30 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

So far, we have been principally concerned with know-
ing. But it might well be maintained that desiring
is what is really most characteristic of mind. Human
beings are constantly engaged in achieving some end :
they feel pleasure in success and pain in failure. In a
purely material world, it may be said, there would be no
opposition of pleasant and unpleasant, good and bad,
what is desired and what is feared. A man's acts are
governed by purposes. He decides, let us suppose,
to go to a certain place, whereupon he proceeds to the
station, takes his ticket and enters the train. If the
usual route is blocked by an accident, he goes by some
other route. All that he does is determined — or so it
seems — by the end he has in view, by what lies in front
of him, rather than by what lies behind. With dead
matter, this is not the case. A stone at the top of a hill
may start rolling, but it shows no pertinacity in trying
to get to the bottom. Any ledge or obstacle will stop it,
and it will exhibit no signs of discontent if this happens.
It is not attracted by the pleasantness of the valley,
as a sheep or cow^ might be, but propelled by the steep-
ness of the hill at the place where it is. In all this we
have characteristic differences between the behaviour
of animals and the behaviour of matter as studied by
physics.

Desire, like knowledge, is, of course, in one sense an
observable phenomenon. An elephant will eat a bun,
but not a mutton chop ; a duck will go into the water,
but a hen will not. But when we think of our own
desires, most people believe that we can know them
by an immediate self-knowledge which does not depend
upon observation of our actions. Yet if this were the
case, it would be odd that people are so often mistaken

RECENT CRITICISMS OF "CONSCIOUSNESS" 81

as to what they desire. It is matter of common observa-
tion that " so-and-so does not know his own motives,"
or that " A is envious of B and maHcious about him,
but quite unconscious of being so/' Such people are
called self-deceivers, and are supposed to have had to
go through some more or less elaborate process of con-
cealing from themselves what would otherwise have
been obvious. I believe that this is an entire mistake.
I believe that the discovery of our own motives can
only be made by the same process by which we discover
other people's, namely, the process of observing our
actions and inferring the desire which could prompt
them. A desire is " conscious " when we have told our-
selves that we have it. A hungry man may say to
himself : " Oh, I do want my lunch." Then his desire
is " conscious." But it only differs from an " uncon-
scious " desire by the presence of appropriate words,
which is by no means a fundamental difference.

The belief that a motive is normally conscious makes
it easier to be mistaken as to our own motives than as
to other people's. When some desire that we should
be ashamed of is attributed to us, we notice that we
have never had it consciously, in the sense of saying to
ourselves, " I wish that would happen." We there-
fore look for some other interpretation of our actions,
and regard our friends as very unjust when they refuse
to be convinced by our repudiation of what we hold to
be a calumny. Moral considerations greatly increase
the difficulty of clear thinking in this matter. It is
commonly argued that people are not to blame for un-
conscious motives, but only for conscious ones. In order,
therefore, to be wholly virtuous it is only necessary to
repeat virtuous formulas. We say : " I desire to be kind

82 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

to my friends, honourable in business, philanthropic
towards the poor, public-spirited in politics." So long
as we refuse to allow ourselves, even in the watches of
the night, to avow any contrary desires, we may be
bullies at home, shady in the City, skinflints in paying
wages and profiteers in dealing with the public ; yet.
if only conscious motives are to count in moral valuation,
we shall remain model characters. This is an agreeable
doctrine, and it is not surprising that men are un-
willing to abandon it. But moral considerations are
the worst enemies of the scientific spirit and we must
dismiss them from our minds if we wish to arrive at
truth.

I believe — as I shall try to prove in a later lecture
— that desire, like force in mechanics, is of the nature
of a convenient fiction for describing shortly certain laws
of behaviour. A hungry animal is restless until it
finds food ; then it becomes quiescent. The thing which
will bring a restless condition to an end is said to be
what is desired. But only experience can show what
will have this sedative effect, and it is easy to make
mistakes. We feel dissatisfaction, and think that such-
and-such a thing would remove it ; but in thinking this,
we are theorizing, not observing a patent fact. Our
theorizing is often mistaken, and when it is mistaken
there is a difference between what we think we desire
and what in fact will bring satisfaction. This is such
a common phenomenon that any theory of desire which
fails to accout for it must be wrong.

What have been called " unconscious " desires have
been brought very much to the fore in recent years by
psycho-analysis. Psycho-analysis, as every one knows,
is primarily a method of understanding hysteria and

RECENT CRITICISMS OF "CONSCIOUSNESS" 33

certain forms of insanity ^ ; but it has been found that
there is much in the hves of ordinary men and women
which bears a humiliating resemblance to the delusions
of the insane. The connection of dreams, irrational
beliefs and foolish actions with unconscious wishes has
been brought to light, though with some exaggeration,
by Freud and Jung and their followers. As regards
the nature of these unconscious wishes, it seems to me
— though as a layman I speak with diffidence — that
manj^ psycho-analysts are unduly narrow ; no doubt the
wishes they emphasize exist, but others, e.g. for honour
and power, are equally operative and equally liable to
concealment. This, however, does not affect the value of
their general theories from the point of view of theoretic
psychology, and it is from this point of view that their
results are important for the analysis of mind.

What, I think, is clearly established, is that a man's
actions and beliefs may be wholly dominated by a desire
of which he is quite unconscious, and which he indig-
nantly repudiates when it is suggested to him. Such
a desire is generally, in morbid cases, of a sort which
the patient would consider wicked ; if he had to admit

I There is a wide field of " unconscious " phenomena which
does not depend upon psycho-analytic theories. Such occurrences
as automatic writing lead Dr. Morton Prince to say : " As I view
this question of the subconscious, far too much weight is given
to the point of awareness or not awareness of our conscious pro-
cesses. As a matter of fact, we find entirely identical phenomena,
that is, identical in every respect but one — that of awareness —
in which sometimes we are aware of these conscious phenomena
and sometimes not " (p. 87 of Subconscious Phenomena, by various
authors, Rebman). Dr. Morton Price conceives that there may be
" consciousness " without " awareness." But this is a difficult
view, and one which makes some definition of " consciousness "
imperative. For my part, I cannot see how to separate conscious-
ness from awareness.

3

84 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

that he had the desire, he would loathe himself. Yet it
is so strong that it must force an outlet for itself ; hence
it becomes necessary to entertain whole systems of
false beliefs in order to hide the nature of what is desired.
The resulting delusions in very many cases disappear
if the hysteric or lunatic can be made to face the facts
about himself. The consequence of this is that the treat-
ment of m^y forms of insanity has grown more psy-
chological and less physiological than it used to be.
Instead of looking for a physical defect in the brain,
those who treat delusions look for the repressed desire
which has found this contorted mode of expression.
For those who do not wish to plunge into the somewhat
repulsive and often rather wild theories of psycho-analytic
pioneers, it will be worth while to read a little book
by Dr. Bernard Hart on The Psychology of Insanity.^
On this question of the mental as opposed to the physio-
logical study of the causes of insanity. Dr. Hart says :

" The psychological conception [of insanity] is based
on the view that mental processes can be directly studied
without any reference to the accompanying changes
which are presumed to take place in the brain, and that
insanity may therefore be properly attacked from the
standpoint of psychology " (p. 9).

This illustrates a point which I am anxious to make
clear from the outset. Any attempt to classify modern
views, such as I propose to advocate, from the old stand-
point of materialism and idealism, is only misleading.
In certain respects, the views which I shall be setting
forth approximate to materialism ; in certain others,
they approximate to its opposite. On this question of

* Cambridge, 19 12 ; 2nd edition, 1914. The following references
are to the second edition.

RECENT CRITICISMS OF "CONSCIOUSNESS" 35

the study of delusions, the practical effect of the modern
theories, as Dr. Hart points out, is emancipation from
the materialist method. On the other hand, as he also
points out (pp. 38-9), imbecility and dementia still have
to be considered physiologically, as caused by defects
in the brain. There is no inconsistency in this. If,
as we maintain, mind and matter are neither of them
the actual stuff of reality, but different convenient
groupings of an underlying material, then, clearly,
the question whether, in regard to a given phenomenon,
we are to seek a physical or a mental cause, is merely
one to be decided by trial. Metaphysicians have argued
endlessly as to the interaction of mind and matter. The
followers of Descartes held that mind and matter are
so different as to make any action of the one on the
other impossible. When I will to move my arm, they
said, it is not my will that operates on my arm, but
God, who, by His omnipotence, moves my arm when-
ever I want it moved. The modern doctrine of psycho-
physical parallelism is not appreciably different from
this theory of the Cartesian school. Psycho-physical
parallelism is the theory that mental and physical events
each have causes in their own sphere, but run on side
by side owing to the fact that every state of the brain
coexists with a definite state of the mind, and vice versa.
This view of the reciprocal causal independence of mind
and matter has no basis except in metaphysical theory. i
For us, there is no necessity to make any such assumption,
which is very difficult to harmonize with obvious facts.
I receive a letter inviting me to dinner : the letter is a

* It would seem, however, that Dr. Hart accepts this theory as
a methodological precept. See his contribution to Subconscious
Phenomena (quoted above), especially pp. 121-2.

36 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

physical fact, but my apprehension of its meaning is
mental. Here we have an effect of matter on mind.
In consequence of my apprehension of the meaning of
the letter, I go to the right place at the right time ; here
we have an effect of mind on matter. I shall try to
persuade you, in the course of these lectures, that matter
is not so material and mind not so mental as is generally
supposed. When we are speaking of matter, it will
seem as if we were inclining to idealism ; when we are
speaking of mind, it will seem as if we were inclining to
materialism. Neither is the truth. Our world is to be
constructed out of what the American realists call
" neutral " entities, which have neither the hardness
and indestructibility of matter, nor the reference to
objects which is supposed to characterize mind.

There is, it is true, one objection which might be felt,
not indeed to the action of matter on mind, but to the
action of mind on matter. The laws of physics, it may
be urged, are apparently adequate to explain everything
that happens to matter, even when it is matter in a
man's brain. This, however, is only a hypothesis, not
an established theory. There is no cogent empirical
reason for supposing that the laws determining the
motions of living bodies are exactly the same as those
that apply to dead matter. Sometimes, of course, they
are clearly the same. When a man falls from a precipice
or slips on a piece of orange peel, his body behaves as if
it were devoid of life. These are the occasions that make
Bergson laugh. But when a man's bodily movements
are what we call " voluntary," they are, at any rate
prima facie, very different in their laws from the move-
ments of what is devoid of life. I do not wish to say
dogmatically that the difference is irreducible ; I think

RECENT CRITICISMS OF "CONSCIOUSNESS" 37

it highly probable that it is not. I say only that the
study of the behaviour of living bodies, in the present
state of our knowledge, is distinct from physics. The
study of gases was originally quite distinct from that
of rigid bodies, and would never have advanced to its
present state if it had not been independently pursued.
Nowadays both the gas and the rigid body are manu-
factured out of a more primitive and universal kind of
matter. In like manner, as a question of methodology,
the laws of living bodies are to be studied, in the first
place, without any undue haste to subordinate them
to the laws of physics. Boyle's law and the rest had to
be discovered before the kinetic theory of gases became
possible. But in psychology we are hardly yet at the
stage of Boyle's law. Meanwhile we need not be held up
by the bogey of the universal rigid exactness of physics.
This is, as yet, a mere hypothesis, to be tested empirically
without any preconceptions. It may be true, or it may
not. So far, that is all we can say.

Returning from this digression to our main topic,
namely, the criticism of " consciousness," we observe
that Freud and his followers, though they have demon-
strated beyond dispute the immense importance of
" unconscious " desires in determining our actions and
beliefs, have not attempted the task of telling us what
an " unconscious " desire actually is, and have thus
invested their doctrine with an air of mystery and mytho-
logy which forms a large part of its popular attractive-
ness. They speak always as though it were more normal
for a desire to be conscious, and as though a positive
cause had to be assigned for its being unconscious.
Thus " the unconscious " becomes a sort of underground
prisoner, living in a dungeon, breaking in at long intervals

38 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

upon our daylight respectability with dark groans and
maledictions and strange atavistic lusts. The ordinary
reader, almost inevitably, thinks of this underground
person as another consciousness, prevented by what
Freud calls the *' censor ** from making his voice heard
in company, except on rare and dreadful occasions when
he shouts so loud that every one hears him and there is
a scandal. Most of us like the idea that we could be
desperately wicked if only we let ourselves go. For
this reason, the Freudian " unconscious " has been a
consolation to many quiet and well-behaved persons.
I do not think the truth is quite so picturesque as
this. I believe an " unconscious " desire is merely a
causal law of our behaviour,^ namely, that we remain
restlessly active until a certain state of affairs is realized,
when we achieve temporary equilibrium If we know
beforehand what this state of affairs is, our desire is
conscious ; if not, unconscious. The unconscious desire
is not something actually existing, but merely a tendency
to a certain behaviour ; it has exactly the same status
as a force in dynamics. The unconscious desire is in no
way mysterious ; it is the natural primitive form of
desire, from which the other has developed through our
habit of observing and theorizing (often wrongly).
It is not necessary to suppose, as Freud seems to do,
that every unconscious wish was once conscious, and
was then, in his terminology, " repressed " because we
disapproved of it. On the contrary, we shall suppose
that, although Freudian " repression " undoubtedly
occurs and is important, it is not the usual reason for
unconsciousness of our wishes. The usual reason is
merely that wishes are all, to begin with, unconscious,
' Cf. Hart, The Psychology of Insanity, p. 19.

RECENT CRITICISMS OF *' CONSCIOUSNESS " 39

and only become known when they are actively noticed.
Usually, from laziness, people do not notice, but accept
the theory of human nature which they find current,
and attribute to themselves whatever wishes this theory
would lead them to expect. We used to be full of virtuous
wishes, but since Freud our wishes have become, in the
words of the Prophet Jeremiah, " deceitful above all
things and desperately wicked." Both these views,
in most of those who have held them, are the product
of theory rather than observation, for observation requires
effort, whereas repeating phrases does not.

The interpretation of unconscious wishes which I
have been advocating has been set forth briefly by
Professor John B. Watson in an article called " The
Psychology of Wish Fulfilment,'' which appeared in
The Scientific Monthly in November, 1916. Two quota-
tions will serve to show his point of view :

'* The Freudians (he says) have made more or less of
a ' metaphysical entity ' out of the censor. They suppose
that when wishes are repressed they are repressed into
the ' unconscious,' and that this mysterious censor stands
at the trapdoor lying between the conscious and the
unconscious. Many of us do not believe in a world of
the unconscious (a few of us even have grave doubts
about the usefulness of the term consciousness), hence
we try to explain censorship along ordinary biological
lines. We believe that one group of habits can ' down '
another group of habits — or instincts. In this case
our ordinary system of habits — those which we call
expressive of our ' real selves ' — inhibit or quench (keep
inactive or partially inactive) those habits and instinc-
tive tendencies which belong largely in the past " (p. 483).

Again, after speaking of the frustration of some im-

40 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

pulses which is involved in acquiring the habits of a
civilized adult, he continues :

"It is among these frustrated impulses that I would
find the biological basis of the unfulfilled wish. Such
* wishes ' need never have been ' conscious/ and need
never have been suppressed into Freud's realm of the un-
conscious. It may be inferred from this that there is
no particular reason for applying the term * wish ' to
such tendencies " (p. 485).

One of the merits of the general analysis of mind which
we shall be concerned with in the following lectures
is that it removes the atmosphere of mystery from the
phenomena brought to light by the psycho-analysts.
Mystery is delightful, but unscientific, since it depends
upon ignorance. Man has developed out of the animals,
and there is no serious gap between him and the amoeba.
Something closely analogous to knowledge and desire,
as regards its effects on behaviour, exists among animals,
even where what we call " consciousness " is hard to
believe in ; something equally analogous exists in our-
selves in cases where no trace of " consciousness " can
be found. It is therefore natural to suppose that, what-
ever may be the correct definition of " consciousness,"
" consciousness " is not the essence of life or mind. In
the following lectures, accordingly, this term will dis-
appear until we have dealt with words, when it will
re-emerge as mainly a trivial and unimportant outcome
of linguistic habits.

LECTURE II

INSTINCT AND HABIT

In attempting to understand the elements out of which
mental phenomena are compounded, it is of the greatest
importance to remember that from the protozoa to man
there is nowhere a very wide gap either in structure or in
behaviour. From this fact it is a highly probable inference
that there is also nowhere a very wide mental gap. It
is, of course, possible that there may be, at certain stages
in evolution, elements which are entirely new from the
standpoint of analysis, though in their nascent form they
have little influence on behaviour and no very marked
correlatives in structure. But the hypothesis of continuity
in mental development is clearly preferable if no psycho-
logical facts make it impossible. We shall find, if I am
not mistaken, that there are no facts which refute the
hypothesis of mental continuity, and that, on the other
hand, this hypothesis affords a useful test of suggested
theories as to the nature of mind.

The hypothesis of mental continuity throughout
organic evolution may be used in two different ways. On
the one hand, it may be held that we have more know-
ledge of our own minds than those of animals, and that
we should use this knowledge to infer the existence of
something similar to our own mental processes in animals

42 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

and even in plants. On the other hand, it may be held
that animals and plants present simpler phenomena,
more easily analysed than those of human minds ; on
this ground it may be urged that explanations which
are adequate in the case of animals ought not to be
lightly rejected in the case of man. The practical effects
of these two views are diametrically opposite : the first
leads us to level up animal intelligence with what we
believe ourselves to know about our own intelligence,
while the second leads us to attempt a levelling down oi
our own intelligence to something not too remote from
what we can observe in animals. It is therefore im-
portant to consider the relative justification of the two
ways of applying the principle of continuity.

It is clear that the question turns upon another, namely,
which can we know best, the psychology of animals or
that of human beings ? If we can know most about
animals, we shall use this knowledge as a basis for inference
about human beings ; if we can know most about human
beings, we shall adopt the opposite procedure. And the
question whether we can know most about the psy-
chology of human beings or about that of animals turns
upon yet another, namely : Is introspection or external
observation the surer method in psychology ? This is a
question which I propose to discuss at length in Lec-
ture VI ; I shall therefore content myself now with a
statement of the conclusions to be arrived at.

We know a great many things concerning ourselves
which we cannot know nearly so directly concerning
animals or even other people. We know when we have
a toothache, what we are thinking of, what dreams we
have when we are asleep, and a host of other occurrences
which we only know about others when they tell us of

INSTINCT AND HABIT 43

them, or otherwise make them inferable by their be-
haviour. Thus, so far as knowledge of detached facts
is concerned, the advantage is on the side of self-knowledge
as against external observation.

But when we come to the analysis and scientific under-
standing of the facts, the advantages on the side of self-
knowledge become far less clear. We know, for example,
that we have desires and beliefs, but we do not know
what constitutes a desire or a belief. The phenomena
are so familiar that it is difficult to realize how little we
really know about them. We see in animals, and to
a lesser extent in plants, behaviour more or less similar
to that which, in us, is prompted by desires and beliefs,
and we find that, as we descend in the scale of evolution,
behaviour becomes simpler, more easily reducible to
rule, more scientifically analysable and predictable.
And just because we are not misled by familiarity we
find it easier to be cautious in interpreting behaviour
when we are dealing with phenomena remote from those
of our own minds. Moreover, introspection, as psycho-
analysis has demonstrated, is extraordinarily fallible
even in cases where we feel a high degree of certainty.
The net result seems to be that, though self-knowledge
has a definite and important contribution to make to
psychology, it is exceedingly misleading unless it is
constantly checked and controlled by the test of external
observation, and by the theories which such observation
suggests when applied to animal behaviour. On the
whole, therefore, there is probably more to be learnt
about human psychology from animals than about animal
psychology from human beings ; but this conclusion is
one of degree, and must not be pressed beyond a point.

It is only bodily phenomena that can be directly observed

44 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

in animals, or even, strictly speaking, in other human
beings. We can observe such things as their movements,
their physiological processes, and the sounds they emit.
Such things as desires and beliefs, which seem obvious
to introspection, are not visible directly to external
observation. Accordingly, if we begin our study of
psychology by external observation, we must not begin
by assuming such things as desires and beliefs, but only
such things as external observation can reveal, which
will be characteristics of the movements and physiological
processes of animals. Some animals, for example, always
run away from light and hide themselves in dark places.
If you pick up a mossy stone which is lightly embedded
in the earth, you will see a number of small animals
scuttling away from the unwonted daylight and seeking
again the darkness of which you have deprived them.
Such animals are sensitive to light, in the sense that
their movements are affected by it ; but it would be rash
to infer that they have sensations in any way analogous
to our sensations of sight. Such inferences, which go
beyond the observable facts, are to be avoided with the
utmost care.

It is customary to divide human movements into three
classes, voluntary, reflex and mechanical. We may
illustrate the distinction by a quotation from William
James [Psychology, i, 12) :

"If I hear the conductor calling ' all aboard ' as I
enter the depot, my heart first stops, then palpitates,
and my legs respond to the air-waves falling on my
tympanum by quickening their movements. If I stumble
as I run, the sensation of falling provokes a movement
of the hands towards the direction of the fall, the effect
of which is to shield the body from too sudden a shock.

INSTINCT AND HABIT 45

If a cinder enter my eye, its lids close forcibly and a
copious flow of tears tends to wash it out.

** These three responses to a sensational stimulus
differ, however, in many respects. The closure of the
eye and the lachrymation are quite involuntary, and so is
the disturbance of the heart. Such involuntary responses
we know as ' reflex ' acts. The motion of the arms
to break the shock of falling may also be called reflex,
since it occurs too quickly to be deliberately intended.
Whether it be instinctive or whether it result from the
pedestrian education of childhood may be doubtful ;
it is, at any rate, less automatic than the previous acts,
for a man might by conscious effort learn to perform it
more skilfully, or even to suppress it altogether. Actions
of this kind, with which instinct and volition enter upon
equal terms, have been called ' semi-reflex.' The act
of running towards the train, on the other hand, has
no instinctive element about it. It is purely the result
of education, and is preceded by a consciousness of
the purpose to be attained and a distinct mandate of
the will. It is a ' voluntary act.' Thus the animal's
reflex and voluntary performances shade into each other
gradually, being connected by acts which may often
occur automatically, but may also be modified by conscious
intelligence.

*' An outside observer, unable to perceive the accompany-
ing consciousness, might be wholly at a loss to discriminate
between the automatic acts and those which volition
escorted. But if the criterion of mind's existence be
the choice of the proper means for the attainment of a
supposed end, all the acts alike seem to be inspired by
intelligence, for appropriateness characterizes them all
alike."

46 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

There is one movement, among those that James
mentions at first, which is not subsequently classified,
namely, the stumbling. This is the kind of movement
which may be called " mechanical " ; it is evidently of
a different kind from either reflex or voluntary move-
ments, and more akin to the movements of dead matter.
We may define a movement of an animal's body as
" mechanical " when it proceeds as if only dead matter
were involved. For example, if you fall over a cliff,
you move under the influence of gravitation, and your
centre of gravity describes just as correct a parabola as
if you were already dead. Mechanical movements have
not the characteristic of appropriateness, unless by acci-
dent, as when a drunken man falls into a waterbutt and
is sobered. But reflex and voluntary movements are not
always appropriate, unless in some very recondite sense.
A moth flying into a lamp is not acting sensibly ; no
more is a man who is in such a hurry to get his ticket
that he cannot remember the name of his destination.
Appropriateness is a complicated and merely approxi-
mate idea, and for the present we shall do well to
dismiss it from our thoughts.

As James states, there is no difference, from the point
of view of the outside observer, between voluntary and
reflex movements. The physiologist can discover that
both depend upon the nervous system, and he may find
that the movements which we call voluntary depend
upon higher centres in the brain than those that are
reflex. But he cannot discover anything as to the presence
or absence of *' will " or " consciousness," for these things
can only be seen from within, if at all. For the present,
we wish to place ourselves resolutely in the position
of outside observers ; we will therefore ignore the dis-

INSTINCT AND HABIT 47

tinction between voluntary and reflex movements. We
will call the two together " vital " movements. We may
then distinguish " vital " from mechanical movements
by the fact that vital movements depend for their causa-
tion upon the special properties of the nervous system,
while mechanical movements depend only upon the
properties which animal bodies share with matter in
general.

There is need for some care if the distinction between
mechanical and vital movements is to be made precise.
It is quite likely that, if we knew more about animal
bodies, we could deduce all their movements from the
laws of chemistry and physics. It is already fairly easy
to see how chemistry reduces to physics, i.e. how the
differences between different chemical elements can be
accounted for by differences of physical structure, the
constituents of the structure being electrons which are
exactly alike in all kinds of matter. We only know
in part how to reduce physiology to chemistry, but we
know enough to make it likely that the reduction is
possible. If we suppose it effected, what would become of
the difference between vital and mechanical movements ?

Some analogies will make the difference clear. A shock
to a mass of dynamite produces quite different effects
from an equal shock to a mass of steel : in the one case
there is a vast explosion, while in the other case there
is hardly any noticeable disturbance. Similarly, you
may sometimes find on a mountain-side a large rock
poised so delicately that a touch will set it crashing down
into the valley, while the rocks all round are so firm
that only a considerable force can dislodge them. What
is analogous in these two cases is the existence of a great
store of energy in unstable equilibrium ready to burst

48 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

into violent motion by the addition of a very slight dis-
turbance. Similarly, it requires only a very slight expen-
diture of energy to send a post-card with the words " All
is discovered ; fly ! " but the effect in generating kinetic
energy is said to be amazing. A human body, like a
mass of dynamite, contains a store of energy in unstable
equilibrium, ready to be directed in this direction or
that by a disturbance which is physically very small,
such as a spoken word. In all such cases the reduction
of behaviour to physical laws can only be effected by
entering into great minuteness ; so long as we confine
ourselves to the observation of comparatively large
masses, the way in which the equilibrium will be upset
cannot be determined. Physicists distinguish between
macroscopic and microscopic equations : the former
determine the visible movements of bodies of ordinary
size, the latter the minute occurrences in the smallest
parts. It is only the microscopic equations that are
supposed to be the same for all sorts of matter. The
macroscopic equations result from a process of averaging
out, and may be different in different cases. So, in
our instance, the laws of macroscopic phenomena are
different for mechanical and vital movements, though
the laws of microscopic phenomena may be the same.

We may say, speaking somewhat roughly, that a
stimulus applied to the nervous system, like a spark to
dynamite, is able to take advantage of the stored energy
in unstable equilibrium, and thus to produce movements
out of proportion to the proximate cause. Movements
produced in this way are vital movements, while mechanical
movements are those in which the stored energy of a
living body is not involved. Similarly dynamite may be
exploded, thereby displaying its characteristic properties,

INSTINCT AND HABIT 49

or may (with due precautions) be carted about like any
other mineral. The explosion is analogous to vital
movements, the carting about to mechanical movements.

Mechanical movements are of no interest to the psy-
chologist, and it has only been necessary to define them
in order to be able to exclude them. When a psychologist
studies behaviour, it is only vital movements that concern
him. We shall, therefore, proceed to ignore mechanical
movements, and study only the properties of the
remainder.

The next point is to distinguish between movements
that are instinctive and movements that are acquired
by experience. This distinction also is to some extent
one of degree. Professor Lloyd Morgan gives the following
definition of " instinctive behaviour " :

" That which is, on its first occurrence, independent
of prior experience ; which tends to the well-being of the
individual and the preservation of the race ; which is
similarly performed by all members of the same more or
less restricted group of animals ; and which may be
subject to subsequent modification under the guidance of
experience." ^

This definition is framed for the purposes of biology,
and is in some respects unsuited to the needs of psychology.
Though perhaps unavoidable, allusion to '' the same more
or less restricted group of animals " makes it impossible
to judge what is instinctive in the behaviour of an
isolated individual. Moreover, *' the well-being of the
individual and the preservation of the race " is only a
usual characteristic, not a universal one, of the sort of
movements that, from our point of view, are to be called
instinctive ; instances of harmful instincts will be given
» Instinct and Experience (Methuen, 1912J p. 5

4

50 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

shortly. The essential point of the definition, from our
point of view, is that an instinctive movement is in-
dependent of prior experience.

We may say that an " instinctive " movement is a
vital movement performed by an animal the first time
that it finds itself in a novel situation ; or, more correctly,
one which it would perform if the situation were novel. ^
The instincts of an animal are different at different
periods of its growth, and this fact may cause changes of
behaviour which are not due to learning. The maturing
and seasonal fluctuation of the sex-instinct affords a
good illustration. When the sex-instinct first matures,
the behaviour of an animal in the presence of a mate is
different from its previous behaviour in similar circum-
stances, but is not learnt, since it is just the same if the
animal has never previously been in the presence of
a mate.

On the other hand, a movement is " learnt," or embodies
a " habit," if it is due to previous experience of similar
situations, and is not what it would be if the animal had
had no such experience.

There are various complications which blur the sharpness

of this distinction in practice. To begin with, many

instincts mature gradually, and while they are immature

an animal may act in a fumbling manner which is very

difficult to distinguish from learning. James {Psychology,

ii, 407) maintains that children walk by instinct, and

that the awkwardness of their first attempts is only

due to the fact that the instinct has not yet ripened.

He hopes that " some scientific widower, left alone with

« Though this can only be decided by comparison with other
members of the species, and thus exposes us to the need of
comparison which we thought an objection to Professor Lloyd
Morgan's definition.

INSTINCT AND HABIT 51

his offspring at the critical moment, may ere long test
this suggestion on the living subject." However this
may be, he quotes evidence to show that " birds do not
learn to fly," but fly by instinct when they reach the
appropriate age (ib., p. 406). In the second place, instinct
often gives only a rough outline of the sort of thing to
do, in which case learning is necessary in order to acquire
certainty and precision in action. In the third place,
even in the clearest cases of acquired habit, such as
speaking, some instinct is required to set in motion the
process of learning. In the case of speaking, the chief
instinct involved is commonly supposed to be that of
imitation, but this may be questioned. (See Thorndike's
Animal Intelligence, p. 253 ff.)

In spite of these qualifications, the broad distinction
between instinct and habit is undeniable. To take
extreme cases, every animal at birth can take food by
instinct, before it has had opportunity to learn ; on the
other hand, no one can ride a bicycle by instinct, though,
after learning, the necessary movements become just as
automatic as if they were instinctive.

The process of learning, which consists in the acquisition
of habits, has been much studied in various animals. ^
For example : you put a hungry animal, say a cat, in
a cage which has a door that can be opened by lifting
a latch ; outside the cage you put food. The cat at
first dashes all round the cage, making frantic efforts to
force a way out. At last, by accident, the latch is lifted,
and the cat pounces on the food. Next day you repeat
the experiment, and you find that the cat gets out much
more quickly than the first time, although it still makes

I The scientific study of this subject may almost be said to begin
with Thorndike's Animal Intelligence (Macmillan, 191 1)-

52 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

some random movements. The third day it gets ou(
still more quickly, and before long it goes straight to
the latch and lifts it at once. Or you make a model
of the Hampton Court maze, and put a rat in the middle,
assaulted by the smell of food on the outside. The rat
starts running down the passages, and is constantly
stopped by blind alleys, but at last, by persistent attempts,
it gets out. You repeat this experiment day after day ;
you measure the time taken by the rat in reaching the
food ; you find that the time rapidly diminishes, and
that after a while the rat ceases to make any wrong
turnings. It is by essentially similar processes that we
learn speaking, writing, mathematics, or the government
of an empire.

Professor Watson {Behavior, pp. 262-3) has an in-
genious theory as to the way in which habit arises out
of random movements. I think there is a reason why
his theory cannot be regarded as alone sufficient, but
it seems not unlikely that it is partly correct. Suppose,
for the sake of simplicity, that there are just ten random
movements which may be made by the animal — say,
ten paths down which it may go — and that only one of
these leads to food, or whatever else represents success
in the case in question. Then the successful movement
always occurs during the animal's attempts, whereas
each of the others, on the average, occurs in only half
the attempts. Thus the tendency to repeat a previous
performance (which is easily explicable without the inter-
vention of " consciousness ") leads to a greater emphasis
on the successful movement than on any other, and
in time causes it alone to be performed. The objection
to this view, if taken as the sole explanation, is that
on improvement ought to set in till after the second trial.

INSTINCT AND HABIT 53

whereas experiment shows that already at the second
attempt the animal does better than the first time.
Something further is, therefore, required to account for
the genesis of habit from random movements ; but I see
no reason to suppose that what is further required involves
" consciousness."

Mr. Thorndike [op. cit., p. 244) formulates two " pro
visional laws of acquired behaviour or learning," as
follows :

" The Law of Effect is that : Of several responses made
to the same situation, those which are accompanied or
closely followed by satisfaction to the animal will, other
things being equal, be more firmly connected with the
situation, so that, when it recurs, they will be more likely
to recur ; those which are accompanied or closely followed
by discomfort to the animal will, other things being equal,
have their connections with that situation weakened, so
that, when it recurs, they will be less likely to occur.
The greater the satisfaction or discomfort, the greater
the strengthening or weakening of the bond.

" The Law of Exercise is that : Any response to a
situation will, other things being equal, be more strongly
connected with the situation in proportion to the number
of times it has been connected with that situation and
to the average vigour and duration of the connections."

With the explanation to be presently given of the mean-
ing of " satisfaction " and " discomfort," there seems
every reason to accept these two laws.

What is true of animals, as regards instinct and habit,
is equally true of men. But the higher we rise in the
evolutionary scale, broadly speaking, the greater becomes
the power of learning, and the fewer are the occasions
when pure instinct is exhibited unmodified in adult life -

54 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

This applies with great force to man, so much so that
some have thought instinct less important in the life
of man than in that of animals. This, however, would
be a mistake. Learning is only possible when instinct
supplies the driving-force. The animals in cages, which
gradually learn to get out, perform random movements
at first, which are purely instinctive. But for these
random movements, they would never acquire the experi-
ence which afterwards enables them to produce the
right movement. (This is partly questioned by Hobhouse '
— wrongly, I think.) Similarly, children learning to
talk make all sorts of sounds, until one day the right
sound comes by accident. It is clear that the original
making of random sounds, without which speech would
never be learnt, is instinctive. I think we may say the
same of all the habits and aptitudes that we acquire :
in all of them there has been present throughout some
instinctive activity, prompting at first rather inefficient
movements, but supplying the driving force while more
and more effective methods are being acquired. A
cat which is hungry smells fish, and goes to the larder.
This is a thoroughly efficient method when there is fish
in the larder, and it is often successfully practised by
children. But in later life it is found that merely going
to the larder does not cause fish to be there ; after a
series of random movements it is found that this result
is to be caused by going to the City in the morning and
coming back in the evening. No one would have guessed
a priori that this movement of a middle-aged man's
body would cause fish to come out of the sea into
his larder, but experience shows that it does, and the
middle-aged man therefore continues to go to the City,
« Mind in Evolution (Macmillan, 1915), pp. 236-237.

INSTINCT AND HABIT 55

just as the cat in the cage continues to hft the latch when
it has once found it. Of course, in actual fact, human
learning is rendered easier, though psychologically more
complex, through language ; but at bottom language
does not alter the essential character of learning, or
of the part played by instinct in promoting learning.
Language, however, is a subject upon which I do not
wish to speak until a later lecture.

The popular conception of instinct errs by imagining
it to be infallible and preternaturally wise, as well as
incapable of modification. This is a complete delusion.
Instinct, as a rule, is very rough and ready, able to achieve
its result under ordinary circumstances, but easily misled
by anything unusual. Chicks follow their mother by
instinct, but when they are quite young they will follow
with equal readiness any moving object remotely re-
sembling their mother, or even a human being (James,
Psychology, ii, 396). Bergson, quoting Fabre, has made
play with the supposed extraordinary accuracy of the
solitary wasp Ammophila, which lays its eggs in a cater-
pillar. On this subject I will quote from Drever's
Instinct in Man, p. 92 :

" According to Fabre's observations, which Bergson
accepts, the Ammophila stings its prey exactly and un-
erringly in each of the nervous centres. The result is
that the caterpillar is paralyzed, but not immediately
killed, the advantage of this being that the larva cannot be
injured by any movement of the caterpillar, upon which
the egg is deposited, and is provided with fresh meat
when the time comes.

" Now Dr. and Mrs. Peckham have shown that the
sting of the wasp is not unerring, as Fabre alleges, that
the number of stings is not constant, that sometimes

56 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

the caterpillar is not paralyzed, and sometimes it is killed
outright, and that the different circumstances do not
apparently make any difference to the larva, which is not
injured by slight movements of the caterpillar, nor
by consuming food decomposed rather than fresh
caterpillar."

This illustrates how love of the marvellous may mislead
even so careful an observer as Fabre and so eminent
a philosopher as Bergson.

In the same chapter of Dr. Drever's book there are
some interesting examples of the mistakes made by
instinct. I will quote one as a sample :

" The larva of the Lomechusa beetle eats the young
of the ants, in whose nest it is reared. Nevertheless,
the ants tend the Lomechusa larvae with the same care
they bestow on their own young. Not only so, but they
apparently discover that the methods of feeding, which
suit their own larvae, would prove fatal to the guests,
and accordingly they change their whole system of
nursing" [loc. cit., p. io6).

Semon [Die Mneme, pp. 207-9) gives a good illustration
of an instinct growing wiser through experience. He
relates how hunters attract stags by imitating the sounds
of other members of their species, male or female, but
find that the older a stag becomes the more difficult it
is to deceive him, and the more accurate the imitation
has to be.

The literature of instinct is vast, and illustrations
might be multiplied indefinitely. The main points as
regards instinct, which need to be emphasized as against
the popular conceptions of it, are :

(i) That instinct requires no prevision of the bio-
logical end which it serves ;

INSTINCT AND HABIT 57

(2) That instinct is only adapted to achieve this

end in the usual circumstances of the animal
in question, and has no more precision than
is necessary for success as a rule ;

(3) That processes initiated by instinct often come

to be performed better after experience ;

(4) That instinct supplies the impulses to experi-

mental movements which are required for the
process of learning ;

(5) That instincts in their nascent stages are easily

modifiable, and capable of being attached to
various sorts of objects.

All the above characteristics of instinct can be established
by purely external observation, except the fact that
instinct does not require prevision. This, though not
strictly capable of being proved by observation, is irre-
sistibly suggested by the most obvious phenomena.
Who can believe, for example, that a new-born baby is
aware of the necessity of food for preserving life ? Or
that insects, in laying eggs, are concerned for the preserva-
tion of their species ? The essence of instinct, one might
say, is that it provides a mechanism for acting without
foresight in a manner which is usually advantageous
biologically. It is partly for this reason that it is so
important to understand the fundamental position of
instinct in prompting both animal and human behaviour.

LECTURE III

DESIRE AND FEELING

Desire is a subject upon which, if I am not mistaken,
true views can only be arrived at by an almost complete
reversal of the ordinary unreflecting opinion. It is
natural to regard desire as in its essence an attitude towards
something which is imagined, not actual ; this something
is called the end or object of the desire, and is said to
be the purpose of any action resulting from the desire.
We think of the content of the desire as being just like
the content of a belief, while the attitude taken up towards
the content is different. According to this theory, when
we say : "I hope it will rain," or '* I expect it will
rain," we express, in the first case, a desire, and in the
second, a belief, with an identical content, namely, the
image of rain. It would be easy to say that, just as
belief is one kind of feeling in relation to this content,
so desire is another kind. According to this view, what
comes first in desire is something imagined, with a specific
feeling related to it, namely, that specific feeling which we
call " desiring "it. The discomfort associated with un-
satisfied desire, and the actions which aim at satisfying
desire, are, in this view, both of them effects of the desire.
I think it is fair to say that this is a view against which
common sense would not rebel ; nevertheless, I believe

DESIRE AND FEELING 59

it to be radically mistaken. It cannot be refuted logically,
but various facts can be adduced which make it gradually
less simple and plausible, until at last it turns out to
be easier to abandon it wholly and look at the matter
in a totally different way.

The first set of facts to be adduced against the common-
sense view of desire are those studied by psycho-analysis.
In all human beings, but most markedly in those suffering
from hysteria and certain forms of insanity, we find
what are called '* unconscious " desires, which are
commonly regarded as showing self-deception. Most
psycho-analysts pay little attention to the analysis of
desire, being interested in discovering by observation
what it is that people desire, rather than in discovering
what actually constitutes desire. I think the strangeness
of what they report would be greatly diminished if it
were expressed in the language of a behaviourist theory
of desire, rather than in the language of every-day beliefs.
The general description of the sort of phenomena that
bear on our present question is as follows : A person
states that his desires are so-and-so, and that it is these
desires that inspire his actions ; but the outside observer
perceives that his actions are such as to realize quite
different ends from those which he avows, and that
these different ends are such as he might be expected to
desire. Generally they are less virtuous than his professed
desires, and are therefore less agreeable to profess than
these are. It is accordingly supposed that they really
exist as desires for ends, but in a subconscious part of
the mind, which the patient refuses to admit into conscious-
ness for fear of having to think ill of himself. There
are no doubt many cases to which such a supposition is
applicable without obvious artificiality. But the deeper

60 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

the Freudians delve into the underground regions of
instinct, the further they travel from anything resembHng
conscious desire, and the less possible it becomes to
believe that only positive self-deception conceals from
us that we really wish for things which are abhorrent
to our explicit life.

In the cases in question we have a conflict between
the outside observer and the patient's consciousness.
The whole tendency of psycho-analysis is to trust the
outside observer rather than the testimony of introspection.
I believe this tendency to be entirely right, but to demand
a re-statement of what constitutes desire, exhibiting it as
a causal law of our actions, not as something actually
existing in our minds.

But let us first get a clearer statement of the essential
characteristic of the phenomena.

A person, we find, states that he desires a certain end
A, and that he is acting with a view to achieving it. We
observe, however, that his actions are such as are likely
to achieve a quite different end B, and that B is the
sort of end that often seems to be aimed at by animals
and savages, though civihzed people are supposed to
have discarded it. We sometimes find also a whole
set of false behefs, of such a kind as to persuade
the patient that his actions are really a means to A,
when in fact they are a means to B. For example,
we have an impulse to inflict pain upon those whom
we hate ; we therefore believe that they are wicked,
and that punishment will reform them. This behef
enables us to act upon the impulse to inflict pain,
while beheving that we are acting upon the desire to
lead sinners to repentance. It is for this reason that
the criminal law has been in all ages more severe than

DESIRE AND FEELING 61

it would have been if the impulse to ameliorate the
criminal had been what really inspired it. It seems
simple to explain such a state of affairs as due to
*' self-deception/' but this explanation is often mythical.
Most people, in thinking about punishment, have had
no more need to hide their vindictive impulses from
themselves than they have had to hide the exponential
theorem. Our impulses are not patent to a casual obser-
vation, but are only to be discovered by a scientific study
of our actions, in the course of which we must regard
ourselves as objectively as we should the motions of
the planets or the chemical reactions of a new element.

The study of animals reinforces this conclusion, and is
in many ways the best preparation for the analysis of
desire. In animals we are not troubled by the disturbing
influence of ethical considerations. In dealing with
human beings, we are perpetually distracted by being
told that such-and-such a view is gloomy or cynical or
pessimistic : ages of human conceit have built up such a
vast myth as to our wisdom and virtue that any intrusion
of the mere scientific desire to know the facts is instantly
resented by those who cling to comfortable illusions..
But no one cares whether animals are virtuous or not,
and no one is under the delusion that they are rational.
Moreover, we do not expect them to be so " conscious,''
and are prepared to admit that their instincts prompt
useful actions without any prevision of the ends which
they achieve. For all these reasons, there is much in
the analysis of mind which is more easily discovered by
the study of animals than by the observation of human
beings.

We all think that, by watching the behaviour of
animals, we can discover more or less what they desire.

62 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

If this is the case — and I fully agree that it is — desire
must be capable of being exhibited in actions, for it is
only the actions of animals that we can observe. They
may have minds in which all sorts of things take place,
but we can know nothing about their minds except by
means of inferences from their actions ; and the more
such inferences are examined, the more dubious they
appear. It would seem, therefore, that actions alone
must be the test of the desires of animals. FYom this it
is an easy step to the conclusion that an animal's desire is
nothing but a characteristic of a certain series of actions,
namely, those which would be commonly regarded as
inspired by the desire in question. And when it has
been shown that this view affords a satisfactory account
of animal desires, it is not difficult to see that the same
explanation is applicable to the desires of human beings.
We judge easily from the behaviour of an animal of a
famihar kind whether it is hungry or thirsty, or pleased
or displeased, or inquisitive or terrified. The verification
of our judgment, so far as verification is possible, must
be derived from the immediately succeeding actions of
the animal. Most people would say that they infer first
something about the animal's state of mind — whether
it is hungry or thirsty and so on — and thence derive
their expectations as to its subsequent conduct. But
this detour through the animal's supposed mind is wholly
unnecessary. We can say simply : The animal's be-
haviour during the last minute has had those character-
istics which distinguish what is called " hunger," and
it is likely that its actions during the next minute will
be similar in this respect, unless it finds food, or is inter-
rupted by a stronger impulse, such as fear. An animal
which is hungry is restless, it goes to the places where

DESIRE AND FEELING 68

food is often to be found, it sniffs with its nose or peers
with its eyes or otherwise increases the sensitiveness of
its sense-organs ; as soon as it is near enough to food
for its sense-organs to be affected, it goes to it with all
speed and proceeds to eat ; after which, if the quantity
of food has been sufficient, its whole demeanour changes :
it may very likely lie down and go to sleep. These things
and others like them are observable phenomena distinguish-
ing a hungry animal from one which is not hungry. The
characteristic mark by which we recognize a series of
actions which display hunger is not the animal's mental
state, which we cannot observe, but something in its
bodily behaviour ; it is this observable trait in the
bodily behaviour that I am proposing to call " hunger,"
not some possibly mythical and certainly unknowable
ingredient of the animal's mind.

Generalizing what occurs in the case of hunger, we
may say that what we call a desire in an animal is always
displayed in a cycle of actions having certain fairly well-
marked characteristics. There is first a state of activity,
consisting, with qualifications to be mentioned presently,
of movements likely to have a certain result ; these
movements, unless interrupted, continue until the result
is achieved, after which there is usually a period of
comparative quiescence. A cycle of actions of this
sort has marks by which it is broadly distinguished from
the motions of dead matter. The most notable of these
marks are — (i) the appropriateness of the actions for the
realization of a certain result ; (2) the continuance of
action until that result has been achieved. Neither of
these can be pressed beyond a point. Either may be
{a) to some extent present in dead matter, and {b) to
a considerable extent absent in animals, while vegetables

64 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

are intermediate, and display only a much fainter form
of the behaviour which leads us to attribute desire to
animals, {a) One might say rivers " desire " the sea :
water, roughly speaking, remains in restless motion until
it reaches either the sea or a place from which it cannot
issue without going uphill, and therefore we might say
that this is what it wishes while it is flowing. We do
not say so, because we can account for the behaviour of
water by the laws of physics ; and if we knew more about
animals, we might equally cease to attribute desires to
them, since we might find physical and chemical reactions
sufficient to account for their behaviour, {b) Many
of the movements of animals do not exhibit the charac-
teristics of the cycles which seem to embody desire.
There are first of all the movements which are " mechani-
cal," such as slipping and falling, where ordinary physical
forces operate upon the animal's body almost as if it
were dead matter. An animal which falls over a cliff
may make a number of desperate struggles while it is
in the air, but its centre of gravity will move exactly as
it would if the animal were dead. In this case, if the
animal is killed at the end of the fall, we have, at first
sight, just the characteristics of a cycle of actions em-
bodying desire, namely, restless movement until the
ground is reached, and then quiescence. Nevertheless,
we feel no temptation to say that the animal desired
what occurred, partly because of the obviously mechanical
nature of the whole occurrence, partly because, when
an animal survives a fall, it tends not to repeat the ex-
perience. There may be other reasons also, but of them
I do not wish to speak yet. Besides mechanical move-
ments, there are interrupted movements, as when a
bird, on its way to eat your best peas, is frightened away

I

DESIRE AND FEELING 65

by the boy whom you are employing for that purpose.
If interruptions are frequent and completion of cycles
rare, the characteristics by which cycles are observed
may become so blurred as to be almost unrecognizable.
The result of these various considerations is that the
differences between animals and dead matter, when
we confine ourselves to external unscientific observation
of integral behaviour, are a matter of degree and not
very precise. It is for this reason that it has always been
possible for fanciful people to maintain that even stocks
and stones have some vague kind of soul. The evidence
that animals have souls is so very shaky that, if it is
assumed to be conclusive, one might just as well go a
step further and extend the argument by analogy to
all matter. Nevertheless, in spite of vagueness and
doubtful cases, the existence of cycles in the behaviour
of animals is a broad characteristic by which they are
prima facie distinguished from ordinary matter ; and
I think it is this characteristic which leads us to attribute
desires to animals, since it makes their behaviour resemble
what we do when (as we say) we are acting from desire.

I shall adopt the following definitions for describing
the behaviour of animals :

A " behaviour-cycle " is a series of voluntary or reflex
movements of an animal, tending to cause a certain
result, and continuing until that result is caused, unless
they are interrupted by death, accident, or some new
behaviour-cycle. (Here " accident " may be defined as
the intervention of purely physical laws causing mechanical
movements.)

The " purpose " of a behaviour-cycle is the result
which brings it to an end, normally by a condition of
temporary quiescence — provided there is no interruption.

5

66 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

An animal is said to " desire " the purpose of a behaviour-
cycle while the behaviour-cycle is in progress.

I believe these definitions to be adequate also to human
purposes and desires, but for the present I am only occupied
with animals and with what can be learnt by external
observation. I am very anxious that no ideas should
be attached to the words ** purpose " and " desire "
beyond those involved in the above definitions.

We have not so far considered what is the nature of
the initial stimulus to a behaviour-cycle. Yet it is here
that the usual view of desire seems on the strongest
ground. The hungry animal goes on making movements
until it gets food ; it seems natural, therefore, to suppose
that the idea of food is present throughout the process,
and that the thought of the end to be achieved sets the
whole process in motion. Such a view, however, is
obviously untenable in many cases, especially where
instinct is concerned. Take, for example, reproduction
and the rearing of the young. Birds mate, build a nest,
lay eggs in it, sit on the eggs, feed the young birds, and
care for them until they are fully grown. It is totally
impossible to suppose that this series of actions, which
constitutes one behaviour-cycle, is inspired by any
prevision of the end, at any rate the first time it is per-
formed.' We must suppose that the stimulus to the
performance of each act is an impulsion from behind,
not an attraction from the future. The bird does what
it does, at each stage, because it has an impulse to that
particular action, not because it perceives that the whole
cycle of actions will contribute to the preservation of
the species. The same considerations apply to other

I For evidence as to birds' nests, cf, Semon, Dis Mneme, pp. 209,
210

DESIRE AND FEELING 67

instincts. A hungry animal feels restless, and is led
by instinctive impulses to perform the movements which
give it nourishment ; but the act of seeking food is not
sufficient evidence from which to conclude that the
animal has the thought of food in its " mind."

Coming now to human beings, and to what we know
about our own actions, it seems clear that what, with
us, sets a behaviour-cycle in motion is some sensation
of the sort which we call disagreeable. Take the case
of hunger : we have first an uncomfortable feeling inside,
producing a disinclination to sit still, a sensitiveness to
savoury smells, and an attraction towards any food that
there may be in our neighbourhood. At any moment
during this process we may become aware that we are
hungry, in the sense of saying to ourselves, " I am hungry " ;
but we may have been acting with reference to food for
some time before this moment. While we are talking
or reading, we may eat in complete unconsciousness ; but
we perform the actions of eating just as we should if we
were conscious, and they cease when our hunger is appeased.
What we call " consciousness " seems to be a mere spectator
of the process ; even when it issues orders, they are usually,
like those of a wise parent, just such as would have been
obeyed even if they had not been given. This view
may seem at first exaggerated, but the more our so-called
volitions and their causes are examined, the more it is
forced upon us. The part played by words in all this is
complicated, and a potent source of confusions ; I shall
return to it later. For the present, I am still concerned
with primitive desire, as it exists in man, but in the form
in which man shows his affinity to his animal ancestors.

Conscious desire is made up partly of what is essential
to desire, partly of beliefs as to what we want. It is

68 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

important to be clear as to the part which does not consist
of beliefs.

The primitive non-cognitive element in desire seems
to be a push, not a pull, an impulsion away from the
actual, rather than an attraction towards the ideal.
Certain sensations and other mental occurrences have
a property which we call discomfort ; these cause such
bodily movements as are likely to lead to their cessation.
When the discomfort ceases, or even when it appreciably
diminishes, we have sensations possessing a property
which we call pleasure. Pleasurable sensations either
stimulate no action at all, or at most stimulate such
action as is likely to prolong them. I shall return shortly
to the consideration of what discomfort and pleasure
are in themselves ; for the present, it is their connection
with action and desire that concerns us. Abandoning
momentarily the standpoint of behaviourism, we may
presume that hungry animals experience sensations
involving discomfort, and stimulating such movements
as seem likely to bring them to the food which
is outside the cages. When they have reached the
food and eaten it, their discomfort ceases and their
sensations become pleasurable. It seems, mistakenly, as
if the animals had had this situation in mind throughout,
when in fact they have been continually pushed by
discomfort. And when an animal is reflective, like some
men, it comes to think that it had the final situation in
mind throughout ; sometimes it comes to know what
situation will bring satisfaction, so that in fact the
discomfort does bring the thought of what will allay it.
Nevertheless the sensation involving discomfort remains
the prime mover.

This brings us to the question of the nature of dis-
comfort and pleasure. Since Kant it has been customary

DESIRE AND FEELING CO

to recognize three great divisions of mental phenomena,
which are typified by knowledge, desire and feeling,
where " feeling " is used to mean pleasure and discomfort.
Of course, " knowledge " is too definite a word : the
states of mind concerned are grouped together as " cogni-
tive," and are to embrace not only beliefs, but perceptions,
doubts, and the understanding of concepts. " Desire,"
also, is narrower than what is intended : for example,
will is to be included in this category, and in fact every-
thing that involves any kind of striving, or *' conation "
as it is technically called. I do not myself believe that
there is any value in this threefold division of the contents
of mind. I believe that sensations (including images)
supply all the " stuff " of the mind, and that everything
else can be analysed into groups of sensations related
in various ways, or characteristics of sensations or of
groups of sensations. As regards belief, I shall give
grounds for this view in later lectures. As regards desires,
I have given some grounds in this lecture. For the
present, it is pleasure and discomfort that concern us.
There are broadly three theories that might be held
in regard to them. We may regard them as separate
existing items in those who experience them, or we may
regard them as intrinsic qualities of sensations and other
mental occurrences, or we may regard them as mere
names for the causal characteristics of the occurrences
which are uncomfortable or pleasant. The first of these
theories, namely, that which regards discomfort and
pleasure as actual contents in those who experience them,
has, I think, nothing conclusive to be said in its favour. ^

I Various arguments in its favour are advanced by A. Wohlge-
muth, " On the feelings and their neural correlate, with an examina-
tion of the nature of pain," British Journal of Psychology, viii, 4

ro THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

It is suggested chiefly by an ambiguity in the word
" pain," which has misled many people, including
Berkeley, whom it supplied with one of his arguments
for subjective idealism. We may use " pain " as the
opposite of " pleasure," and " painful " as the opposite
of " pleasant," or we may use " pain "to mean a certain
sort of sensation, on a level with the sensations of heat
and cold and touch. The latter use of the word has
prevailed in psychological literature, and it is now no
longer used as the opposite of " pleasure." Dr. H. Head,
in a recent publication, has stated this distinction as
follows : I

"It is necessary at the outset to distinguish clearly
between ' discomfort ' and * pain.' Pain is a distinct
sensory quality equivalent to heat and cold, and its
intensity can be roughly graded according to the force
expended in stimulation. Discomfort, on the other
hand, is that feeling-tone which is directly opposed to
pleasure. It may accompany sensations not in themselves
essentially painful, as for instance that produced by
tickling the sole of the foot. The reaction produced
by repeated pricking contains both these elements ; for
it evokes that sensory quality known as pain, accompanied
by a disagreeable feeling-tone, which we have called
discomfort. On the other hand, excessive pressure,
except when applied directly over some nerve-trunk,
tends to excite more discomfort than pain."

The confusion between discomfort and pain has made

(191 7). But as these arguments are largely a reductio ad absurdum
of other theories, araong which that which I arm advocating is not
included, I cannot regard them as establishing their contention.

=t " Sensation and the Cerebral Cortex," Brain, vol, xli, part ii
(September, 1918), p. 90. Cf. also Wohlgemuth, loc. cit., pp. 437,

450.

DESIRE AND FEELING 71

people regard discomfort as a more substantial thing
than it is, and this in turn has reacted upon the view
taken of pleasure, since discomfort and pleasure are
evidently on a level in this respect. As soon as discomfort
is clearly distinguished from the sensation of pain, it
becomes more natural to regard discomfort and pleasure
as properties of mental occurrences than to regard them
as separate mental occurrences on their own account.
I shall therefore dismiss the view that they are separate
mental occurrences, and regard them as properties of
such experiences as would be called respectively un-
comfortable and pleasant.

It remains to be examined whether they are actual
qualities of such occurrences, or are merely differences
as to causal properties. I do not myself see any v/ay of
deciding this question ; either view seems equally capable
of accounting for the facts. If this is true, it is safer
to avoid the assumption that there are such intrinsic
qualities of mental occurrences as are in question, and
to assume only the causal differences which are un-
deniable. Without condemning the intrinsic theory,
we can define discomfort and pleasure as consisting
in causal properties, and say only what will hold on
either of the two theories. Following this course, we
shall say :

*' Discomfort " is a property of a sensation or other
mental occurrence, consisting in the fact that the occurrence
in question stimulates voluntary or reflex movements
tending to produce some more or less definite change
involving the cessation of the occurrence.

" Pleasure " is a property of a sensation or other mental
occurrence, consisting in the fact that the occurrence
in question either does not stimulate any voluntary or

72 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

reflex movement, or, if it does, stimulates only such as
tend to prolong the occurrence in question.^

*' Conscious " desire, which we have now to consider,
consists of desire in the sense hitherto discussed, together
with a true belief as to its *' purpose,'' i.e. as to the state
of affairs that will bring quiescence with cessation of
the discomfort. If our theory of desire is correct, a
belief as to its purpose may very well be erroneous, since
only experience can show what causes a discomfort to
cease. When the experience needed is common and
simple, as in the case of hunger, a mistake is not very
probable. But in other cases — e.g erotic desire in those
who have had little or no experience of its satisfaction —
mistakes are to be expected, and do in fact very often
occur. The practice of inhibiting impulses, which is to
a great extent necessary to civilized life, makes mistakes
easier, by preventing experience of the actions to which
a desire would otherwise lead, and by often causing the
inhibited impulses themselves to be unnoticed or quickly
f-orgotten. The perfectly natural mistakes which thus
arise constitute a large proportion of what is, mistakenly
in part, called self-deception, and attributed by Freud to
the " censor."

But there is a further point which needs emphasizing,
namely, that a belief that something is desired has often
a tendency to cause the very desire that is believed in.
It is this fact that makes the effect of '* consciousness "
on desire so complicated.

When we believe that we desire a certain state of affairs,

that often tends to cause a real desire for it. This is

due partly to the influence of words upon our emotions,

in rhetoric for example, and partly to the general fact

* a. Thorndike, op. cit., p. 245.

DESIRE AND FEELING 73

that discomfort normally belongs to the belief that we
desire such-and-such a thing that we do not possess.
Thus what was originally a false opinion as to the object
of a desire acquires a certain truth : the false opinion
generates a secondary subsidiary desire, which neverthe-
less becomes real. Let us take an illustration. Suppose
you have been jilted in a way which wounds your vanity.
Your natural impulsive desire will be of the sort expressed
in Donne's poem :

When by thy scorn, O Murderess, I am dead,

in which he explains how he will haunt the poor lady
as a ghost, and prevent her from enjoying a moment's
peace. But two things stand in the way of your express-
ing yourself so naturally : on the one hand, your vanity,
which will not acknowledge how hard you are hit ; on
the other hand, your conviction that you are a civilized
and humane person, who could not possibly indulge so
crude a desire as revenge. You will therefore experience
a restlessness which will at first seem quite aimless, but
will finally resolve itself in a conscious desire to change
your profession, or go round the world, or conceal your
identity and live in Putney, like Arnold Bennett's hero.
Although the prime cause of this desire is a false judg-
ment as to your previous unconscious desire, yet the new
conscious desire has its own derivative genuineness, and
may influence your actions to the extent of sending you
round the world. The initial mistake, however, will have
effects of two kinds. First, in uncontrolled moments,
under the influence of sleepiness or drink or delirium,
you will say things calculated to injure the faithless
deceiver. Secondly, you will find travel disappointing,
and the East less fascinating than you had hoped — unless.

74 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

some day, you hear that the wicked one has in turn been
jilted. If this happens, you will believe that you feel
sincere sympathy, but you will suddenly be much more
delighted than before with the beauties of tropical islands
or the wonders of Chinese art. A secondary desire,
derived from a false judgment as to a primary desire,
has its own power of influencing action, and is therefore
a real desire according to our definition. But it has not
the same power as a primary desire of bringing thorough
satisfaction when it is realized ; so long as the primary
desire remains unsatisfied, restlessness continues in spite
of the secondary desire's success. Hence arises a belief
in the vanity of human wishes : the vain wishes are
those that are secondary, but mistaken beliefs prevent
us from realizing that they are secondary.

What may, with some propriety, be called self-deception
arises through the operation of desires for beliefs. We
desire many things which it is not in our power to achieve :
that we should be universally popular and admired, that
our work should be the wonder of the age, and that the
universe should be so ordered as to bring ultimate happiness
to all, though not to our enemies until they have repented
and been purified by suffering. Such desires are too
large to be achieved through our own efforts. But it
is found that a considerable portion of the satisfaction
which these things would bring us if they were realized
is to be achieved by the much easier operation of believing
that they are or will be realized. This desire for beliefs,
as opposed to desire for the actual facts, is a particular
case of secondary desire, and, like all secondary desire,
its satisfaction does not lead to a complete cessation ot
the initial discomfort. Nevertheless, desire for beliefs,
as opposed to desire for facts, is exceedingly potent both

1

DESIRE AND FEELING 75

individually and socially. According to the form of
belief desired, it is called vanity, optimism, or religion.
Those who. have sufficient power usually imprison or
put to death any one who tries to shake their faith in
their own excellence or in that of the universe ; it is
for this reason that seditious libel and blasphemy have
always been, and still are, criminal offences.

It is very largely through desires for beliefs that the
primitive nature of desire has become so hidden, and
that the part played by consciousness has been so confusing
and so exaggerated.

We may now summarize our analysis of desire and
feeling.

A mental occurrence of any kind — sensation, image,
belief, or emotion — may be a cause of a series of actions,
continuing, unless interrupted, until some more or less
definite state of affairs is realized. Such a series of actions
we call a " behaviour-cycle." The degree of definiteness
may vary greatly : hunger requires only food in general,
whereas the sight of a" particular piece of food raises a
desire which requires the eating of that piece of food.
The property of causing such a cycle of occurrences is
called " discomfort " ; the property of the mental occur-
rences in which the cycle ends is called *' pleasure."
The actions constituting the cycle must not be purely
mechanical, i.e. they must be bodily movements in whose
causation the special properties ot nervous tissue are
involved. The cycle ends in a condition of quiescence, or
of such action as tends only to preserve the status quo.
The state of affairs in which this condition of quiescence is
achieved is called the " purpose " of the cycle, and the
initial mental occurrence involving discomfort is called
a " desire " for the state of affairs that brings quiescence.

76 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

A desire is called " conscious " when it is accompanied
by a true belief as to the state of affairs that will bring
quiescence ; otherwise it is called " unconscious." All
primitive desire is unconscious, and in human beings
beliefs as to the purposes of desires are often mistaken.
These mistaken beliefs generate secondary desires, which
cause various interesting complications in the psychology
of human desire, without fundamentally altering the
character which it shares with animal desire.

LECTURE IV

INFLUENCE OF PAST HISTORY ON PRESENT
OCCURRENCES IN LIVING ORGANISMS

In this lecture we shall be concerned with a very general
characteristic which broadly, though not absolutely, dis-
tinguishes the behaviour of living organisms from that
of dead matter. The characteristic in question is this :

The response of an organism to a given stimulus is very
often dependent upon the past history of the organism,
and not merely upon the stimulus and the hitherto dis-
coverable present state of the organism.

This characteristic is embodied in the saying " a burnt
child fears the fire.'' The burn may have left no visible
traces, yet it modifies the reaction of the child in the
presence of fire. It is customary to assume that, in such
cases, the past operates by modifying the structure of
the brain, not directly. I have no wish to suggest that
this hypothesis is false ; I wish only to point out that
it is a hypothesis. At the end of the present lecture I
shall examine the grounds in its favour. If we confine
ourselves to facts which have been actually observed,
we must say that past occurrences, in addition to the
present stimulus and the present ascertainable con-
dition of the organism, enter into the causation of the
response.

77

78 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

The characteristic is not wholly confined to living
organisms. For example, magnetized steel looks just like
steel which has not been magnetized, but its behaviour
is in some ways different. In the case of dead matter,
however, such phenomena are less frequent and im-
portant than in the case of living organisms, and it is
far less difficult to invent satisfactory hypotheses as to
the microscopic changes of structure which mediate
between the past occurrence and the present changed
response. In the case of Hving organisms, practically
everything that is distinctive both of their physical
and of their mental behaviour is bound up with this
persistent influence of the past. Further, speaking
broadly, the change in response is usually of a kind that
is biologically advantageous to the organism

Following a suggestion derived from Semon {Die Mneme,
Leipzig, 1904; 2nd edition, 1908, EngHsh translation,
Allen & Unwin, 192 1 ; Die mnemischen Empfindungen,
Leipzig, 1909), we will give the name of " mnemic
phenomena " to those responses of an organism which,
so far as hitherto observed facts are concerned, can only
be brought under causal laws by including past occurrences
in the history of the organism as part of the causes of
the present response. I do not mean merely — what would
always be the case — that past occurrences are part of a
chain of causes leading to the present event. I mean
that, in attempting to state the proximate cause of the
present event, some past event or events must be included,
unless we take refuge in hypothetical modifications of
brain structure. For example : you smell peat-smoke,
and you recall some occasion when you smelt it before.
The cause of your recollection, so far as hitherto observ-
able phenomena are concerned, consists both of the peat-
smoke (present stimulus) and of the former occasion (past

INFLUENCE OF PAST HISTORY 79

experience). The same stimulus will not produce the
same recollection in another man who did not share your
former experience, although the former experience left
no observable traces in the structure of the brain. Ac-
cording to the maxim " same cause, same effect," we
cannot therefore regard the peat-smoke alone as the
cause of your recollection, since it does not have the same
effect in other cases. The cause of your recollection
must be both the peat-smoke and the past occurrence.
Accordingly your recollection is an instance of what we
are calling " mnemic phenomena."

Before going further, it will be well to give illustrations
of different classes of mnemic phenomena.

[a] Acquired Habits. — In Lecture II we saw how animals
can learn by experience how to get out of cages or mazes.,
or perform other actions which are useful to them but
not provided for by their instincts alone. A cat which
is put into a cage of which it has had experience behaves
differently from the way in which it behaved at first.
We can easily invent hypotheses, which are quite likely
to be true, as to connections in the brain caused by past
experience, and themselves causing the different response.
But the observable fact is that the stimulus of being in
the cage produces differing results with repetition, and
that the ascertainable cause of the cat's behaviour is
not merely the cage and its own ascertainable organization,
but also its past history in regard to the cage. ^ From
our present point of view, the matter is independent of
the question whether the cat's behaviour is due to some
mental fact called " knowledge," or displays a merely
bodily habit. Our habitual knowledge is not always in
our minds, but is called up by the appropriate stimuli.
If we are asked " What is the capital of France ? " we

80 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

answer " Paris," because of past experience ; the past
experience is as essential as the present question in the
causation of our response. Thus all our habitual know-
ledge consists of acquired habits, and comes under the
head of mnemic phenomena.

(b) Images. — I shall have much to say about images
in a later lecture ; for the present I am merely concerned
with them in so far as they are *' copies " of past sensa-
tions. When you hear New York spoken of, some image
probably comes into your mind, either of the place
itself (if you have been there), or of some picture of
it (if you have not). The image is due to your past
experience, as well as to the present stimulus of the
words " New York." Similarly, the images you have
in dreams are all dependent upon your past experience,
as well as upon the present stimulus to dreaming. It is
generally believed that all images, in their simpler parts,
are copies of sensations ; if so, their mnemic character
is evident. This is important, not only on its own account,
but also because, as we shall see later, images play an
essential part in what is called " thinking."

(c) Association. — The broad fact of association, on the
mental side, is that when we experience something which
we have experienced before, it tends to call up the context
of the former experience. The smell of peat-smoke
recalling a former scene is an instance which we dis-
cussed a moment ago. This is obviously a mnemic pheno-
menon. There is also a more purely physical association,
which is indistinguishable from physical habit. This is
the kind studied by Mr. Thorndike in animals, where a
certain simulus is associated with a certain act. This
is the sort which is taught to soldiers in drilling, for
example. In such a case there need not be anything

C7

INFLUENCE OF PAST HISTORY 81

mental, but merely a habit of the body. There is no
essential distinction between association and habit, and
the observations which we made concerning habit as
a mnemic phenomenon are equally applicable to asso-
ciation.

{d) Non-sensational Elements in Perception. — When we
perceive any object of a familiar kind, much of what
appears subjectively to be immediately given is really
derived from past experience. When we see an object,
say a penny, we seem to be aware of its " real " shape :
we have the impression of something circular, not of
something elliptical. In learning to draw, it is necessary
to acquire the art of representing things according to
the sensation, not according to the perception. And the
visual appearance is filled out with feeling of what the
object would be like to touch, and so on. This filling out
and supplying of the " real " shape and so on consists
of the most usual correlates of the sensational core in
our perception. It may happen that, in the particular
case, the real correlates are unusual ; for example, if
what we are seeing is a carpet made to look like tiles.
If so, the non-sensational part of our perception will be
illusory, i.e. it will supply qualities which the object in
question does not in fact have. But as a rule objects
do have the qualities added by perception, which is to
be expected, since experience of what is usual is the
cause of the addition. If our experience had been different,
we should not fill out sensation in the same way, except
in so far as the filling out is instinctive, not acquired.
It would seem that, in man, all that makes up space-
perception, including the correlation of sight and touch
and so on, is almost entirely acquired. In that case
there is a large mnemic element in all the common per-

6

82 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

ceptions by means of which we handle common objects.
And, to take another kind of instance, imagine what our
astonishment would be if we were to hear a cat bark or a
dog mew. This emotion would be dependent upon past
experience, and would therefore be a mnemic phenomenon
according to the definition.

(e) Memory as Knowledge. — The kind of memory of
which I am now speaking is definite knowledge of some
past event in one's own experience. From time to time
we remember things that have happened to us, because
something in the present reminds us of them. Exactly
the same present fact would not call up the same memory
if our past experience had been different. Thus our
remembering is caused by —

(i) The present stimulus,
(2) The past occurrence.

It is therefore a mnemic phenomenon accord? ng to our
definition. A definition of " mnemic phenomena " which
did not include memory would, of course, be a bad one.
The point of the definition is not that it includes memory,
but that it includes it as one of a class of phenomena
which embrace all that is characteristic in the subject-
matter of psychology.

(/) Experience. — The word " experience " is often used
very vaguely. James, as we saw, uses it to cover the whole
primal stuff of the world, but this usage seems objection-
able, since, in a purely physical world, things would happen
without there being any experience. It is only mnemic
phenomena that embody experience. We may say that
an animal " experiences " an occurrence when this
occurrence modifies the animal's subsequent behaviour,
i.e. when it is the mnemic portion of the cause of

INFLUENCE OF PAST HISTORY 88

future occurrences in the animars life. The burnt child
that fears the fire has " experienced " the fire, whereas
a stick that has been thrown on and taken off again
has not " experienced " anything, since it offers no more
resistance than before to being thrown on. The essence
of " experience " is the modification of behaviour pro-
duced by what is experienced. We might, in fact,
define one chain of experience, or one biography, as a
series of occurrences linked by mnemic causation. I
think it is this characteristic, more than any other,
that distinguishes sciences dealing with living organisms
from physics.

The best writer on mnemic phenomena known to me
is Richard Semon, the fundamental part of whose theory
I shall endeavour to summarize before going further :

When an organism, either animal or plant, is subjected
to a stimulus, producing in it some state of excitement,
the removal of the stimulus allows it to return
to a condition of equilibrium. But the new state of
equilibrium is different from the old, as may be seen
by the changed capacity for reaction. The state of
equilibrium before the stimulus may be called the " primary
indifference-state " ; that after the cessation of the stimu-
lus, the " secondary indifference-state." We define the
*' engraphic effect " of a stimulus as the effect in making
a difference between the primary and secondary indiffer-
ence-states, and this difference itself we define as the
" engram " due to the stimulus. " Mnemic phenomena "
are defined as those due to engrams ; in animals, they
are specially associated with the nervous system, but
not exclusively, even in man.

When two stimili occur together, one of them, occur-
ring afterwards, may call out the reaction for the other

84 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

also. We call this an " ekphoric influence/' and stimuli
having this character are called " ekphoric stimuli."
In such a case we call the engrams of the two stimuli
" associated." All simultaneously generated engrams
are associated ; there is also association of successively
aroused engrams, though this is reducible to simultaneous
association. In fact, it is not an isolated stimulus that
leaves an engram, but the totality of the stimuU at any
moment ; consequently any portion of this totality tends,
if it recurs, to arouse the whole reaction which was aroused
before. Semon holds that engrams can be inherited,
and that an animal's innate habits may be due to the
experience of its ancestors ; on this subject he refers to
Samuel Butler.

Semon formulates two " mnemic principles." The first,
or " Law of Engraphy," is as follows : "All simultaneous
excitements in an organism form a connected simultaneous
excitement-complex, which as such works engraphically,
i.e. leaves behind a connected engram-complex, which in
so far forms a whole " [Die mnemischen Empfindungen,
p. 146). The second mnemic principle, or " Law of
Ekphory," is as follows : " The partial return of the
energetic situation which formerly worked engraphically
operates ekphorically on a simultaneous engram-com-
plex " {ib., p. 173). These two laws together represent
in part a hypothesis (the engram), and in part an
observable fact. The observable fact is that, when a
certain complex of stimuli has originally caused a certain
complex of reactions, the recurrence of part of the
stimuU tends to cause the recurrence of the whole of
the reactions.

Semon's applications of his fundamental ideas in various
directions are interesting and ingenious. Some of them

INFLUENCE OF PAST HISTORY 85

will concern us later, but for the present it is the funda-
mental character of mnemic phenomena that is in question.

Concerning the nature of an engram, Semon confesses
that at present it is impossible to say more than that it
must consist in some material alteration in the body of
the organism {Die mnemischen Empfindungen, p. 376). It
is, in fact, hypothetical, invoked for theoretical uses, and
not an outcome of direct observation. No doubt physio-
logy, especially the disturbances of memory through
lesions in the brain, affords grounds for this hypo-
thesis ; nevertheless it does remain a hypothesis, the
validity of which will be discussed at the end of this
lecture.

I am inclined to think that, in the present state of
physiology, the introduction of the engram does not
serve to simplify the account of mnemic phenomena
We can, I think, formulate the known laws of such pheno-
mena in terms, wholly, of observable facts, by recognizing
provisionally what we may call '' mnemic causation."
By this I mean that kind of causation of which I spoke
at the beginning of this lecture, that kind, namely, in
which the proximate cause consists not merely of a pre-
sent event, but of this together with a past event. I
do not wish to urge that this form of causation is ulti-
mate, but that, in the present state of our knowledge, it
affords a simplification, and enables us to state laws of
behaviour in less hypothetical terms than we should
otherwise have to employ.

The clearest instance of what I mean is recollection
of a past event. What we observe is that certain present
stimuli lead us to recollect certain occurrences, but that at
times when we are not recollecting them, there is nothing
discoverable in our minds that could be called memory

86 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

of them. Memories, as mental facts, arise from time to
time, but do not, so far as we can see, exist in any shape
while they are '* latent/' In fact, when we say that they
are ** latent," we mean merely that they will exist under
certain circumstances. If, then, there is to be some
standing difference between the person who can remember
a certain fact and the person who cannot, that standing
difference must be, not in anything mental, but in the
brain. It is quite probable that there is such a difference
in the brain, but its nature is unknown and it remains
hypothetical. Everything that has, so far, been made
matter of observation as regards this question can be
put together in the statement : When a certain complex
of sensations has occurred to a man, the recurrence of
part of the complex tends to arouse the recollection of
the whole. In like manner, we can collect all mnemic
phenomena in living organisms under a single law, which
contains what is hitherto verifiable in Semon's two laws.
This single law is :

// a complex stimulus A has caused a complex reaction B
in an organism, the occurrence of a part of A on a future
occasion tends to cause the whole reaction B.

This law would need to be supplemented by some
account of the influence of frequency, and so on ; but
it seems to contain the essential characteristic of mnemic
phenomena, without admixture of anything hypothetical.

Whenever the effect resulting from a stimulus to an
organism differs according to the past history of the
organism, without our being able actually to detect any
relevant difference in its present structure, we will speak
of " mnemic causation," provided we can discover laws
embodying the influence of the past. '■ In ordinary physical
causation, as it appears to common sense, we have approxi-

INFLUENCE OF PAST HISTORY 87

mate uniformities of sequence, such as ** lightning is
followed by thunder," " drunkenness is followed by head-
ache," and so on. None of these sequences are theoreti-
cally invariable, since something may intervene to dis-
turb them. In order to obtain invariable physical laws,
we have to proceed to differential equations, showing the
direction of change at each moment, not the integral
change after a finite interval, however short. But for
the purposes of daily life many sequences are to all in-
tents and purposes invariable. With the behaviour of
human beings, however, this is by no means the case.
If you say to an Englishman, " You have a smut on your
nose," he will proceed to remove it, but there will be no
such effect if you say the same thing to a Frenchman
who knows no English. The effect of words upon the
hearer is a mnemic phenomena, since it depends upon
the past experience which gave him understanding of
the words. If there are to be purely psychological causal
laws, taking no account of the brain and the rest of the
body, they will have to be of the form, not '* X now causes
Y now," but—

" A, B, C, . . . in the past, together with X now,
cause Y now." For it cannot be successfully maintained
that our understanding of a word, for example, is an
actual existent content of the mind at times when we
are not thinking of the word. It is merely what may be
called a " disposition," i.e. it is capable of being aroused
whenever we hear the word or happen to think of it.
A " disposition " is not something actual, but merely
the mnemic portion of a mnemic causal law.

In such a law as " A, B, C, . . . in the past, together
with X now, cause Y now," we will call A, B, C , . . . the
mnemic cause, X the occasion or stimulus, and Y the

88 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

^reaction. All cases in which experience influences be-
7 haviour are instances of mnemic causation.

Believers in psycho-physical parallelism hold that psy-
chology can theoretically be freed entirely from all de-
pendence on physiology or physics. That is to say, they
believe that every psychical event has a psychical cause
and a physical concomitant. If there is to be parallelism,
it is easy to prove by mathematical logic that the causa-
tion in physical and psychical matters must be of the
same sort, and it is impossible that mnemic causation
should exist in psychology but not in physics. But if
psychology is to be independent of physiology, and if
physiology can be reduced to physics, it would seem that
mnemic causation is essential in psychology. Otherwise
we shall be compelled to believe that all our knowledge,
all our store of images and memories, all our mental
habits, are at all times existing in some latent mental
form, and are not merely aroused by the stimuli which
lead to their display. This is a very difficult hypothesis.
It seems to me that if, as a matter of method rather
than metaphysics, we desire to obtain as much indepen-
dence for psychology as is practically feasible, we shall
do better to accept mnemic causation in psychology pro
tern, and therefore reject parallelism, since there is no
good ground for admitting mnemic causation in physics.
It is perhaps worth while to observe that mnemic causa-
tion is what led Bergson to deny that there is causation
at all in the psychical sphere. He points out, very truly,
that the same stimulus, repeated, does not have the same
consequences, and he argues that this is contrary to the
maxim, */ same cause, same effect." It is only necessary,
however, to take account of past occurrences and include
them with the cause, in order to re-establish the maxim,

INFLUENCE OF PAST HISTORY 8»

and the possibility of psychological causal laws. The
metaphysical conception of a cause lingers in our manner
of viewing causal laws : we want to be able to feel a
connection between cause and effect, and to be able to
imagine the cause as " operating." This makes us unwill-
ing to regard causal laws as merely observed uniformities
of sequence ; yet that is all that science has to offer.
To ask why such-and-such a kind of sequence occurs is
either to ask a meaningless question, or to demand some
more general kind of sequence which includes the one in
question. The widest empirical laws of sequence known
at any time can only be " explained " in the sense of being
subsumed by later discoveries under wider laws ; but
these wider laws, until they in turn are subsumed, will
remain brute facts, resting solely upon observation, not
upon some supposed inherent rationality.

There is therefore no a priori objection to a causal law
in which part of the cause has ceased to exist. To argue
against such a law on the ground that what is past cannot
operate now, is to introduce the old metaphysical notion
of cause, for which science can find no place. The only
reason that could be validly alleged against mnemic
causation would be that, in fact, all the phenomena can
be explained without it. They are explained without
it by Semon's " engram,'' or by any theory which regards
the results of experience as embodied in modifications of
the brain and nerves. But they are not explained, unless
with extreme artificiality, by any theory which regards
the latent effects of experience as psychical rather than
physical. Those who desire to make psychology as far
as possible independent of physiology would do well, it
seems to me, if they adopted mnemic causation. For
my part, however, I have no such desire, and I shall

90 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

therefore endeavour to state the grounds which occur
to me in favour of some such view as that of the
" engram."

One of the first points to be urged is that mnemic
phenomena are just as much to be found in physiology as
in psychology. They are even to be found in plants,
as Sir Francis Darwin pointed out (cf. Semon, Die Mneme,
2nd edition, p. 28 «.). Habit is a characteristic of the body
at least as much as of the mind. We should, therefore,
be compelled to allow the intrusion of mnemic causation,
if admitted at all, into non-psychological regions, which
ought, one feels, to be subject only to causation of the
ordinary physical sort. The fact is that a great deal of
what, at first sight, distinguishes psychology from physics
is found, on examination, to be common to psychology
and physiology ; this whole question of the influence of
experience is a case in point. Now it is possible, of course,
to take the view advocated by Professor J. S. Haldane,
who contends that physiology is not theoretically reducible
to physics and chemistry. ^ But the weight of opinion
among physiologists appears to be against him on this
point ; and we ought certainly to require very strong
evidence before admitting any such breach of continuity
as between living and dead matter. The argument from
the existence of mnemic phenomena in physiology must
therefore be allowed a certain weight against the hypo-
thesis that mnemic causation is ultimate.

The argument from the connection of brain-lesions
with loss of memory is not so strong as it looks, though

I See his The New Physiology and Other Addresses, Griffin, 1919;
also the symposium, " Are Physical, Biological and Psychological
Categories Irreducible ? " in Life and Finite Individuality, edited
for the Aristotelian Society, with an Introduction. By H. Wildon
Carr, Williams & Norgate, 191 8.

INFLUENCE OF PAST HISTORY 91

it has also some weight. What we know is that memory,
and mnemic phenomena generally, can be disturbed or
destroyed by changes in the brain. This certainly proves
that the brain plays an essential part in the causation of
memory, but does not prove that a certain state of the
brain is, by itself, a sufficient condition for the existence
of memory. Yet it is this last that has to be proved.
The theory of the engram, or any similar theory, has to
maintain that, given a body and brain in a suitable state,
a man will have a certain memory, without the need of
any further conditions. What is known, however, is only
that he will not have memories if his body and brain are
not in a suitable state. That is to say, the appropriate
state of body and brain is proved to be necessary for
memory, but not to be sufficient. So far, therefore, as
our definite knowledge goes, memory may require for its
causation a past occurrence as well as a certain present
state of the brain.

In order to prove conclusively that mnemic phenomena
arise whenever certain physiological conditions are ful-
filled, we ought to be able actually to see differences
between the brain of a man who speaks English and that
of a man who speaks French, between the brain of a man
who has seen New York and can recall it, and that of a
man who has never seen that city. It may be that the
time will come when this will be possible, but at present
we are very far removed from it. At present, there is, so
far as I am aware, no good evidence that every difference
between the knowledge possessed by A and that possessed
by B is paralleled by some difference in their brains. We
may believe that this is the case, but if we do, our belief
is based ^upon analogies and general scientific maxims,
not upon any foundation of detailed observation. I

92 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

am myself inclined, as a working hypothesis, to adopt
C the beHef in question, and to hold that past experience
^ only affects present behaviour through modifications
"" of physiological structure. But the evidence seems not
quite conclusive, so that I do not think we ought to for-
get the other hypothesis, or to reject entirely the possi-
bility that mnemic causation may be the ultimate explana-
tion of mnemic phenomena. I say this, not because I
think it likely that mnemic causation is ultimate, but
merely J^ecause I think it possible, and because it often
turns out important to the progress of science to remem-
ber hypotheses which have previously seemed improbable.

LECTURE V

PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL CAUSAL

LAWS

The traditional conception of cause and effect is one
which modern science shows to be fundamentally erroneous,
and requiring to be replaced by a quite different notion,
that of laws of change. In the traditional conception,
a particular event A caused a particular event B, and
by this it was imphed that, given any event B, some
earlier event A could be discovered which had a relation
to it, such that —

(i) Whenever A occurred, it was followed by B ;

(2) In this sequence, there was something " neces-
sary," not a mere de facto occurrence of A
first and then B.

The second point is illustrated by the old discussion
as to whether it can be said that day causes night, on
the ground that day is always followed by night. The
orthodox answer was that day could not be called the
cause of night, because it would not be followed by night
if the earth's rotation were to cease, or rather to grow so
slow that one complete rotation would take a year. A
cause, it was held, must be such that under no conceivable
circumstances could it fail to be followed by its effect.

94 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

As a matter of fact, such sequences as were sought by

believers in the traditional form of causation have not

so far been found in nature. Everything in nature is

apparently in a state of continuous change,^ so that

what we call one " event " turns out to be really a process.

If this event is to cause another event, the two will have

to be contiguous in time ; for if there is any interval

between them, something may happen during that interval

to prevent the expected effect. Cause and effect, therefore,

will have to be temporally contiguous processes. It is

difficult to believe, at any rate where physical laws are

concerned, that the earlier part of the process which

is the cause can make any difference to the effect, so

long as the later part of the process which is the cause

remains unchanged. Suppose, for example, that a man

dies of arsenic poisoning, w^e say that his taking arsenic

was the cause of death. But clearly the process by which

he acquired the arsenic is irrelevant : everything that

happened before he swallowed it may be ignored, since

it cannot alter the effect except in so far as it alters

his condition at the moment of taking the dose. But

we may go further : swallowing arsenic is not really

the proximate cause of death, since a man might be shot

through the head immediately after taking the dose, and

then it would not be of arsenic that he would die. The

arsenic produces certain physiological changes, which take

a finite time before they end in death. The earlier parts

of these changes can be ruled out in the same way as

we can rule out the process by which the arsenic was

I The theory of quanta suggests that the continuity is only
apparent. If so, we shall be able theoretically to reach events
which are not processes. But in what is directly obser/able there
is still apparent continuity, which justifies the above remarks for
the preseiit.

CAUSAL LAWS 95

acquired. Proceeding in this way, we can shorten the
process which we are calling the cause more and more.
Similarly we shall have to shorten the effect. It may
happen that immediately after the man's death his body
is blown to pieces by a bomb. We cannot say what will
happen after the man's death, through merely knowing
that he has died as the result of arsenic poisoning. Thus,
if we are to take the cause as one event and the effect
as another, both must be shortened indefinitely. The
result is that we merely have, as the embodiment of
our causal law, a certain direction of change at each
moment. Hence we are brought to differential equations
as embodying causal laws. A physical law does not
say '* A will be followed by B," but tells us what accelera-
tion a particle will have under given circumstances, i.e.
it tells us how the particle's motion is changing at each
moment, not where the particle will be at some future
moment.

Laws embodied in differential equations may possibly
be exact, but cannot be known to be so. All that we
can know empirically is approximate and liable to ex-
ceptions ; the exact laws that are assumed in physics are
known to be somewhere near the truth, but are not known
to be true just as they stand. The laws that we actually
know empirically have the form of the traditional causal
laws, except that they are not to be regarded as universal
or necessary. " Taking arsenic is followed by death " is
a good empirical generalization ; it may have exceptions,
but they will be rare. As against the professedly exact
laws of physics, such empirical generalizations have the
advantage that they deal with observable phenomena.
We cannot observe infinitesimals, whether in time or
space ; we do not even know whether time and space

9« THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

are infinitely divisible. Therefore rough empirical
generalizations have a definite place in science, in spite
of not being exact or universal. They are the data
for more exact laws, and the grounds for believing that
they are usually true are stronger than the grounds for
believing that the more exact laws are always true.

Science starts, therefore, from generalizations of the
form, " A is usually followed by B." This is the nearest
approach that can be made to a causal law of the traditional
sort. It may happen in any particular instance that A
is always followed by B, but we cannot know this, since
we cannot foresee all the perfectly possible circumstances
that might make the sequence fail, or know that none
of them will actually occur. If, however, we know of a
very large number of cases in which A is followed by B,
and few or none in which the sequence fails, we shall in
practice be justified in saying *' A causes B," provided
we do not attach to the notion of cause any of the meta-
physical superstitions that have gathered about the word.

There is another point, besides lack of universaUty
and necessity, which it is important to realize as regards
causes in the above sense, and that is the lack of uniqueness.
It is generally assumed that, given any event, there is
some one phenomenon which is the cause of the event
in question. This seems to be a mere mistake. Cause,
in the only sense in which it can be practically applied,
means " nearly invariable antecedent." We cannot in
practice obtain an antecedent which is quite invariable,
for this would require us to take account of the whole
universe, since something not taken account of may
prevent the expected effect. We cannot distinguish,
among nearly invariable antecedents, one as the cause,
and the others as merely its concomitants : the attempt

CAUSAL £aWS 97

to do this depends upon a notion of cause which is derived
from will, and will (as we shall see later) is not at all
the sort of thing that it is generally supposed to be, nor
is there any reason to think that in the physical world
there is anything even remotely analogous to what will
is supposed to be. If we could find one antecedent, and
only one, that was quite invariable, we could call that
one the cause without introducing any notion derived
from mistaken ideas about will. But in fact we cannot
find any antecedent that we know to be quite invariable,
and we can find many that are nearly so. For example,
men leave a factory for dinner when the hooter sounds
at twelve o'clock. You may say the hooter is the cause
of their leaving. But innumerable other hooters in
other factories, which also always sound at twelve o'clock,
have just as good a right to be called the cause. Thus
every event has many nearly invariable antecedents,
and therefore many antecedents which may be called
its cause.

The laws of traditional physics, in the form in which
they deal with movements of matter or electricity, have
an apparent simplicity which somewhat conceals the
empirical character of what they assert. A piece of mat-
ter, as it is known empirically, is not a single existing
thing, but a system of existing things. When several
people simultaneously see the same table, they all see
something different; therefore ''the" table, which they
are supposed all to see, must be either a hypothesis or a
construction. ''The" table is to be neutral as between
different observers : it does not favour the aspect seen by
one man at the expense of that seen by another. It was
natural, though to my mind mistaken, to regard the " real "
table as the common cause of all the appearances which

7

98 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

the table presents (as we say) to different observers. But
why should we suppose that there is some one common
cause of all these appearances ? As we have just seen, the
notion of " cause " is not so reliable as to allow us to
infer the existence of something that, by its very nature,
can never be observed.

Instead of looking for an impartial source, we can
secure neutrality by the equal representation of all parties.
Instead of supposing that there is some unknown cause,
the " real " table, behind the different sensations of those
who are said to be looking at the table, we may take the
whole set of these sensations (together possibly with
certain other particulars) as actually being the table.
That is to say, the table which is neutral as between
different observers (actual and possible) is the set of
all those particulars which would naturally be called
''aspects" of the table from different points of
view. (This is a first approximation, modified later.)

It may be said : If there is no single existent which is

the source of all these " aspects," how are they collected

together ? The answer is simple : Just as they would

be if there were such a single existent. The supposed

** real " table underlying its appearances is, in any case,

not itself perceived, but inferred, and the question whether

such-and-such a particular is an " aspect " of this table

is only to be settled by the connection of the particular in

question with the one or more particulars by which the

table is defined. That is to say, even if we assume a

" real " table, the particulars which are its aspects have to

be collected together by their relations to each other, not to

it, since it is merely inferred from them. We have only,

therefore, to notice how they are collected together, and

we can then keep the collection without assuming any

CAUSAL LAWS 99

" real " table as distinct from the collection. When
different people see what they call the same table, they
see things which are not exactly the same, owing to
difference of point of view, but which are sufficiently alike
to be described in the same words, so long as no great
accuracy or minuteness is sought. These closely similar
particulars are collected together by their similarity
primarily and, more correctly, by the fact that they
are related to each other approximately according to the
laws of perspective and of reflection and diffraction of
light. I suggest, as a first approximation, that these
particulars, together with such correlated others as are
unperceived, jointly are the table ; and that a similar
definition applies to all physical objects.^

In order to eliminate the reference to our perceptions,
which introduces an irrelevant psychological suggestion,
I will take a different illustration, namely, stellar photo-
graphy. A photographic plate exposed on a clear night
reproduces the appearance of the portion of the sky
concerned, with more or fewer stars according to the
power of the telescope that is being used. Each separate
star which is photographed produces its separate effect
on the plate, just as it would upon ourselves if we were
looking at the sky. If we assume, as science normally
does, the continuity of physical processes, we are forced
to conclude that, at the place where the plate is, and at
all places between it and a star which it photographs,
something is happening which is specially connected
with that star. In the days when the aether was less
in doubt, we should have said that what was happening
was a certain kind of transverse vibration in the aether.

^ See Gut Knowledge of the External World (Allen & Unwin),
chaps, iii and iv.

100 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

But it is not necessary or desirable to be so explicit :
all that we need say is that something happens which is
specially connected with the star in question. It must
be something specially connected with that star, since
that star produces its own special effect upon the plate.
Whatever it is must be the end of a process which starts
from the star and radiates outwards, partly on general
grounds of continuity, partly to account for the fact
that light is transmitted with a certain definite velocity.
We thus arrive at the conclusion that, if a certain star
is visible at a certain place, or could be photographed
by a sufficiently sensitive plate at that place, something
is happening there which is specially connected with
that star. Therefore in every place at all times a vast
multitude of things must be happening, namely, at least
one for every physical object which can be seen or photo-
graphed from that place. We can classify such happenings
on either of two principles :

(i) We can collect together all the happenings
in one place, as is done by photography so far
as light is concerned ;

(2) We can collect together all the happenings, in
different places, which are connected in the way
that common sense regards as being due to
their emanating from one object.

Thus, to return to the stars, we can collect together
either —

(i) All the appearances of different stars in a given

place, or,
(2) All the appearances of a given star in different

places.

CAUSAL LAWS 101

But when I speak of " appearances/* I do so only for
brevity : I do not mean anything that must " appear "
to somebody, but only that happening, whatever it
may be, which is connected, at the place in question,
with a given physical object — according to the old ortho-
dox theory, it would be a transverse vibration in the
aether. Like the different appearances of the table to
a number of simultaneous observers, the different particu-
lars that belong to one physical object are to be collected
together by continuity and inherent laws of correlation,
not by their supposed causal connection with an unknown
assumed existent called a piece of matter, which would
be a mere unnecessary metaphysical thing in itself.
A piece of matter, according to the definition that I
propose, is, as a first approximation, ^ the collection of all
those correlated particulars which would normally be
regarded as its appearances or effects in different places.
Some further elaborations are desirable, but we can ignore
them for the present. I shall return to them at the end
of this lecture.

According to the view that I am suggesting, a physical
object or piece of matter is the collection of all those
correlated particulars which would be regarded by common
sense as its effects or appearances in different places. On
the other hand, all the happenings in a given place represent
what common sense would regard as the appearances of
a number of different objects as viewed from that place.
All the happenings in one place may be regarded as
the view of the world from that place. I shall call the
view of the world from a given place a " perspective."
A photograph represents a perspective. On the other

I The exact definition of a piece of matter as a construction
will be given later.

102 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

hand, if photographs of the stars were taken in all points
throughout space, and in all such photographs a certain
star, say Sirius, were picked out whenever it appeared, all
the different appearances of Sirius, taken together, would
represent Sirius. For the understanding of the difference
between psychology and physics it is vital to understand
these two ways of classifying particulars, namely :

(i) According to the place where they occur ;

(2) According to the system of correlated par-
ticulars in different places to which they
belong, such system being defined as a physical
object.

Given a system of particulars which is a physical object,
I shall define that one of the svstem which is in a given
place (if any) as the " appearance of that object in that
place."

When the appearance of an object in a given place
changes, it is found that one or other of two things occurs.
The two possibilities may be illustrated by an example.
You are in a room with a man, whom you see : you may
cease to see him either by shutting your eyes or by his
going out of the room. In the first case, his appearance
to other people remains unchanged ; in the second, his
appearance changes from all places. In the first case, you
say that it is not he who has changed, but your eyes ;
in the second, you say that he has changed. Generalizing,
we distinguish —

(i) Cases in which only certain appearances of the
object change, while others, and especially
appearances from places very near to the
object, do not change ;

CAUSAL LAWS 103

(2) Cases where all, or almost all, the appear-
ances of the object undergo a connected
change.

In the first case, the change is attributed to the medium
between the object and the place ; in the second, it is
attributed to the object itself. ^

It is the frequency of the latter kind of change, and
the comparatively simple nature of the laws governing
the simultaneous alterations of appearances in such
cases, that have made it possible to treat a physical
object as one thing, and to overlook the fact that it is
a system of particulars. When a number of people at
a theatre watch an actor, the changes in their several
perspectives are so similar and so closely correlated that
all are popularly regarded as identical with each other
and with the changes of the actor himself. So long as all
the changes in the appearances of a body are thus correlated
there is no pressing prima facie need to break up the
system of appearances, or to realize that the body in
question is not really one thing but a set of correlated
particulars. It is especially and primarily such changes
that physics deals with, i.e. it deals primarily with processes
in which the unity of a physical object need not be broken
up because all its appearances change simultaneously
according to the same law — or, if not all, at any rate
all from places sufficiently near to the object, with in-
creasing accuracy as we approach the object.

The changes in appearances of an object which are
due to changes in the intervening medium will not affect,
or will affect only very slightly, the appearances from

I The application of this distinction to motion raises complica-
tions due to relativity, but we may ignore these for our present
purposes.

104 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

places close to the object. If the appearances from
sufficiently neighbouring places are either wholly un-
changed, or changed to a diminishing extent which has
zero for its limit, it is usually found that the changes
can be accounted for by changes in objects which are
between the object in question and the places from which
its appearance has changed appreciably. Thus physics
is able to reduce the laws of most changes with which it
deals to changes in physical objects, and to state most of
its fundamental laws in terms of matter. It is only in those
cases in which the unity of the system of appearances
constituting a piece of matter has to be broken up, that
the statement of what is happening cannot be made
exclusively in terms of matter. The whole of psychology,
we shall find, is included among such cases ; hence their
importance for our purposes.

We can now begin to understand one of the fundamental
differences between physics and psychology. Physics
treats as a unit the whole system of appearances of a
piece of matter, whereas psychology is interested in
certain of these appearances themselves. Confining our-
selves for the moment to the psychology of perceptions, we
observe that perceptions are certain of the appearances
of physical objects. From the point of view that we
have been hitherto adopting, we might define them as the
appearances of objects at places from which sense-organs
and the suitable parts of the nervous system form part
of the intervening medium. Just as o! photographic
plate receives a different impression of a cluster of stars
when a telescope is part of the intervening medium, so
a brain receives a different impression when an eye and
an optic nerve are part of the intervening medium.
An impression due to this sort of intervening medium

CAUSAL LAWS 105

is called a perception, and is interesting to psychology on
its own account, not merely as one of the set of correlated
particulars which is the physical object of which (as we
say) we are having a perception.

We spoke earlier of two ways of classifying particulars.
One way collects together the appearances commonly
regarded as a given object from different places ; this is,
broadly speaking, the way of physics, leading to the con-
struction of physical objects as sets of such appearances.
The other way collects together the appearances of
different objects from a given place, the result being what
we call a perspective. In the particular case where
the place concerned is a human brain, the perspective
belonging to the place consists of all the perceptions of
a certain man at a given time. Thus classification by
perspectives is relevant to psychology, and is essential
in defining what we mean by one mind.

I do not wish to suggest that the way in which I have
been defining perceptions is the only possible way, or
even the best way. It is the way that arose naturally
out of our present topic. But when we approach psy-
chology from a more introspective standpoint, we have to
distinguish sensations and perceptions, if possible, from
other mental occurrences, if any. We have also to con-
sider the psychological effects of sensations, as opposed
to their physical causes and correlates. These problems
are quite distinct from those with which we have been
concerned in the present lecture, and I shall not deal
with them until a later stage.

It is clear that psychology is concerned essentially with
actual particulars, not merely with systems of particulars.
In this it differs from physics, which, broadly speaking,
is concerned with the cases in which all the particulars

106 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

which make up one physical object can be treated as a
single causal unit, or rather the particulars which are
sufficiently near to the object of which they are appearances
can be so treated. The laws which physics seeks can,
broadly speaking, be stated by treating such systems of
particulars as causal units. The laws which psychology
seeks cannot be so stated, since the particulars themselves
are what interests the psychologist. This is one of the
fundamental differences between physics and psychology ;
and to make it clear has been the main purpose of this
lecture.

I will conclude with an attempt to give a more precise
definition of a piece of matter. The appearances of a
piece of matter from different places change partly
according to intrinsic laws (the laws of perspective, in
the case of visual shape), partly according to the nature
of the intervening medium — fog, blue spectacles, telescopes,
microscopes, sense-organs, etc. As we approach nearer
to the object, the effect of the intervening medium grows
less. • In a generalized sense, all the intrinsic laws of
change of appearance may be called " laws of perspective.'*
Given any appearance of an object, we can construct
hypothetically a certain system of appearances to which
the appearance in question would belong if the laws of
perspective alone were concerned. If we construct this
hypothetical system for each appearance of the object
in turn, the system corresponding to a given appearance
X will be independent of any distortion due to the medium
beyond x, and will only embody such distortion as is due
to the medium between x and the object. Thus, as the
appearance by which our hypothetical system is defined
is moved nearer and nearer to the object, the hypo-
thetical system of appearances defined by its means

CAUSAL LAWS 107

embodies less and less of the effect of the medium. The
different sets of appearances resulting from moving x
nearer and nearer to the object will approach to a
limiting set, and this Hmiting set will be that system
of appearances which the object would present if the
laws of perspective alone were operative and the medium
exercised no distorting effect. This limiting set of
appearances may be defined, for purposes of physics, as
the piece of matter concerned.

LECTURE VI

INTROSPECTION

One of the main purposes of these lectures is to give
grounds for the beUef that the distinction between mind
and matter is not so fundamental as is commonly supposed.
In the preceding lecture I dealt in outline with the physical
side of this problem. I attempted to show that what
we call a material object is not itself a substance, but
is a system of particulars analogous in their nature to
sensations, and in fact often including actual sensations
among their number. In this way the stuff of which
physical objects are composed is brought into relation
with the stuff of which part, at least, of our mental life
is composed.

There is, however, a converse task which is equally
necessary for our thesis, and that is, to show that the
stuff of our mental life is devoid of many qualities which
it is commonly supposed to have, and is not possessed
of any attributes which make it incapable of forming
part of the world of matter. In the present lecture
I shall begin the arguments for this view.

Corresponding to the supposed duality of matter and
mind, there are, in orthodox psychology, two ways of
knowing what exists. One of these, the way of sensation
and external perception, is supposed to furnish data for

108

INTROSPECTION 109

our knowledge of matter, the other, called " introspection,'*
is supposed to furnish data for knowledge of our mental
processes. To common sense, this distinction seems
clear and easy. When you see a friend coming along
the street, you acquire knowledge of an external, physical
fact ; when you realize that you are glad to meet him,
you acquire knowledge of a mental fact. Your dreams
and memories and thoughts, of which you are often
conscious, are mental facts, and the process by which you
become aware of them seems to be different from sensa-
tion. Kant calls it the " inner sense " ; sometimes it is
spoken of as "consciousness of self " ; but its commonest
name in modern English psychology is " introspection."
It is this supposed method of acquiring knowledge of our
mental processes that I wish to analyse and examine in
this lecture.

I will state at the outset the view which I shall aim at
establishing. I believe that the stuff of our mental life,
as opposed to its relations and structure, consists wholly
of sensations and images. Sensations are connected with
matter in the way that I tried to explain in Lecture V,
i.e. each is a member of a system which is a certain
physical object. Images, though they usually have
certain characteristics, especiall3^ lack of vividness, that
distinguish them from sensations, are not invariably so
distinguished, and cannot therefore be defined by these
characteristics. Images, as opposed to sensations, can
only be defined by their different causation : they are
caused by association with a sensation, not by a stimulus
external to the nervous system — or perhaps one should
say external to the brain, where the higher animals are
concerned. The occurrence of a sensation or image
does not in itself constitute knowledge but any sensation

110 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

or image may come to be known if the conditions are
suitable. When a sensation — like the hearing of a clap
of thunder — is normally correlated with closely similar
sensations in our neighbours, we regard it as giving know-
ledge of the external world, since we regard the whole
set of similar sensations as due to a common external
cause. But images and bodily sensations are not so
correlated. Bodily sensations can be brought into a
correlation by physiology, and thus take their place
ultimately among sources of knowledge of the physical
world. But images cannot be made to fit in with the
simultaneous sensations and images of others. Apart
from their hypothetical causes in the brain, they have
a causal connection with physical objects, through the
fact that they are copies of past sensations ; but the
physical objects with which they are thus connected
are in the past, not in the present. These images remain
private in a sense in which sensations are not. A sensation
seems to give us knowledge of a present physical object,
while an image - does not, except when it amounts to a
hallucination, and in this case the seeming is deceptive.
Thus the whole context of the two occurrences is different.
But in themselves they do not differ profoundl3% and
there is no reason to invoke two different ways of knowing
for the one and for the other. Consequently introspection
as a separate kind of knowledge disappears.

The criticism of introspection has been in the main the
work of American psychologists. I will begin by sum-
marizing an article which seems to me to afford a good
specimen of their arguments, namely, '' The Case against
Introspection," by Knight Dunlap {Psychological Review,
vol xix, No, 5, pp. 404-413, September, 1912). After a
few historical quotations, he comes to two modern

INTROSPECTION 111

defenders of introspection, Stout and James. He quotes
from Stout such statements as the following : " Psychical
states as such become objects only when we attend to them
in an introspective way. Otherwise they are not them-
selves objects, but only constituents of the process by
which objects are recognized" (Manual, 2nd edition,
p. 134. The word " recognized " in Dunlap's quotation
should be ''cognized.") "The object itself can never
be identified with the present modification of the in-
dividual's consciousness by which it is cognized " [ib.
p. 60). This is to be true even when we are thinking
about modifications of our own consciousness ; such
modifications are to be always at least partially distinct
from the conscious experience in which we think of them.
At this point I wish to interrupt the account of Knight
Dunlap's article in order to make some observations on
my own account with reference to the above quotations
from Stout. In the first place, the conception of " psy-
chical states " seems to me one which demands analysis
of a somewhat destructive character. This analysis I
shall give in later lectures as regards cognition ; I have
already given it as regards desire. In the second place,
the conception of " objects " depends upon a certain view
as to cognition which I believe to be wholly mistaken,
namely, the view which I discussed in my first lecture
in connection with Brentano. In this view a single
cognitive occurrence contains both content and object,
the content being essentially mental, while the object
is physical except in introspection and abstract thought.
I have already criticized this view, and will not dwell
upon it now, beyond saying that " the process by which
objects are cognized " appears to be a very slippery
phrase. When we " see a table," as common sense
would say, the table as a physical object is not the

112 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

"object" (in the psychological sense) of our perception.
Our perception is made up of sensations, images and be-
liefs, but the supposed " object " is something inferential,
externally related, not logically bound up with what is
occurring in us. This question of the nature of the object
also affects the view we take of self -consciousness.
Obviously, a " conscious experience " is different from
a physical object ; therefore it is natural to assume that
a thought or perception whose object is a conscious ex-
perience must be different from a thought or perception
whose object is a physical object. But if the relation
to the object is inferential and external, as I maintain,
the difference between two thoughts may bear very little
relation to the difference between their objects. And
to speak of ** the present modification of the individual's
consciousness by which an object is cognized " is to
suggest that the cognition of objects is a far more direct
process, far more intimately bound up with the objects,
than I believe it to be. All these points will be amplified
when we come to the analysis of knowledge, but it is
necessary briefly to state them now in order to suggest
the atmosphere in which our analysis of " introspection "
is to be carried on.

Another point in which Stout's remarks seem to me to
suggest what 1 regard as mistakes is his use of " conscious-
ness." There is a view which is prevalent among psycho-
logists, to the effect that one can speak of " a conscious
experience " in a curious dual sense, meaning, on the
one hand, an experience which is conscious of something,
and, on the other hand, an experience which has some
intrinsic nature characteristic of what is called " conscious-
ness." That is to say, a "conscious experience" is
characterized on the one hand by relation to its object

INTROSPECTION 113

and on the other hand by being composed of a certain
peculiar stuff, the stuff of " consciousness.'' And in
many authors there is yet a third confusion : a " conscious
experience/' in this third sense, is an experience of which
we are conscious. All these, it seems to me, need to
be clearly separated. To say that one occurrence is
" conscious " of another is, to my mind, to assert an
external and rather remote relation between them. I
might illustrate it by the relation of uncle and nephew :
a man becomes an uncle through no effort of his own,
merely through an occurrence elsewhere. Similarly,
when you are said to be *' conscious " of a table, the
question whether this is really the case cannot be decided
by examining only your state of mind : it is necessary
also to ascertain whether your sensation is having those
correlates which past experience causes you to assume,
or whether the table happens, in this case, to be a mirage.
And, as I explained in my first lecture, I do not believe
that there is any " stuff " of consciousness, so that there
is no intrinsic character by which a " conscious " experi-
ence could be distinguished from any other.

After these preliminaries, we can return to Knight
Dunlap's article. His criticism of Stout turns on the
difficulty of giving any empirical meaning to such notions
as the " mind " or the ** subject " ; he quotes from Stout
the sentence : ** The most important drawback is that
the mind, in watching its own workings, must necessarily
have its attention divided between two objects," and
he concludes : " Without question, Stout is bringing in
here illicitly the concept of a single observer, and his
introspection does not provide for the observation of
this observer ; for the process observed and the observer
are distinct " (p. 407). The objections to any theory

8

114 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

which brings in the single observer were considered in
Lecture I, and were acknowledged to be cogent. In so
far, therefore, as Stout's theory oi introspection rests
upon this assumption, we are compelled to reject it.
But it is perfectly possible to believe in introspection
without supposing that there is a single observer.

William James's theory of introspection, which Dunlap
next examines, does not assume a single observer. It
changed after the publication of his Psychology, in
consequence of his abandoning the dualism of thought
and things. Dunlap summarizes his theory as follows :

*' The essential points in James's scheme of consciousness
are subject, object, smd a knowing of the object by the subject.
The difference between James's scheme and other schemes
involving the same terms is that James considers subject
and object to be the same thing, but at different times.
In order to satisfy this requirement James supposes a
realm of existence which he at first called * states of
consciousness ' or * thoughts,' and later, ' pure experi-
ence,' the latter term including both the ' thoughts '
and the ' knowing.' This scheme, with all its magnifi-
cent artificiality, James held on to until the end, simply
dropping the term consciousness and the dualism between
the thought and an external reality " (p. 409).

He adds : ** All that James's system really amounts
to is the acknowledgment that a succession of things
are known, and that they are known by something. This
is all any one can claim, except for the fact that the things
are known together, and that the knower for the different
items is one and the same " {ib.).

In this statement, to my mind, Dunlap concedes far
more than James did in his later theory. I see no reason
to suppose that " the knower for different items is one

INTROSPECTION 115

and the same," and I am convinced that this proposition
could not possibly be ascertained except by introspection
of the sort that Dunlap rejects. The first of these points
must wait until we come to the analysis of belief : the
second must be considered now. Dunlap's view is that
there is a dualism of subject and object, but that the
subject can never become object, and therefore there
is no awareness of an awareness. He says in discussing
the view that introspection reveals the occurrence of
knowledge : *' There can be no denial of the existence
of the thing (knowing) which is alleged to be known or
observed in this sort of ' introspection.' The allegation
that the knowing is observed is that which may be denied.
Knowing there certainly is ; known, the knowing certainly
is not " (p. 410). And again : "I am never aware of
an awareness " [ih.). And on the next page : " It may
sound paradoxical to say that one cannot observe the
process (or relation) of observation, and yet may be
certain that there is such a process : but there is really
no inconsistency in the saying. How do I know that
there is awareness ? By being aware of something.
There is no meaning in the term ' awareness ' which is
not expressed in the statement ' I am aware of a colour
(or what-not).' "

But the paradox cannot be so lightly disposed of. The
statement " I am aware of a colour *' is assumed by
Knight Dunlap to be known to be true, but he does not
explain how it comes to be known. The argument
against him is not conclusive, since he may be able to
show some valid way of inferring our awareness. But
he does not suggest any such way. There is nothing
odd in the hypothesis of beings which are aware of objects,
but not of their own awareness ; it is, indeed, highly

116 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

probable that young children and the higher animals
are such beings. But such beings cannot make the state-
ment " I am aware of a colour," which we can make. We
have, therefore, some knowledge which they lack. It is
necessary to Knight Dunlap's position to maintain that
this additional knowledge is purely inferential, but he
makes no attempt to show how the inference is possible.
It may, of course, be possible, but I cannot see how. To
my mind the fact (which he admits) that we know there is
awareness, is all but decisive against his theory, and in
favour of the view that we can be aware of an awareness.

Dunlap asserts (to return to James) that the real ground
for James's original belief in introspection was his belief
in two sorts of objects, namely, thoughts and things.
He suggests that it was a mere inconsistency on James's
part to adhere to introspection after abandoning the
dualism of thoughts and things. I do not wholly agree
with this view, but it is difficult to disentangle the difference
as to introspection from the difference as to the nature
of knowing. Dunlap suggests (p. 411) that what is called
introspection really consists of awareness of " images,"
visceral sensations, and so on. This view, in essence,
seems to me sound. But then I hold that knowing itself
consists of such constituents suitably related, and that
in being aware of them we are sometimes being aware
of instances of knowing. For this reason, much as I
agree with his view as to what are the objects of which
there is awareness, I cannot wholly agree with his con-
clusion as to the impossibility of introspection.

The behaviourists have challenged introspection even
more vigorously than Knight Dunlap, and have gone so
far as to deny the existence of images. But I think
that they have confused various things which are very

INTROSPECTION 117

commonly confused, and that it is necessary to make
several distinctions before we can arrive at what is
true and what false in the criticism of introspection.

I wish to distinguish three distinct questions, any one
of which may be meant when we ask whether introspection
is a source of knowledge. The three questions are as
follows :

(i) Can we observe anything about ourselves which
we cannot observe about other people, or is everything
we can observe public, in the sense that another could
also observe it if suitably placed ?

(2) Does everything that we can observe obey the laws
of physics and form part of the physical world, or can
we observe certain things that lie outside physics ?

(3) Can we observe anything which differs in its intrinsic
nature from the constituents of the physical world, or
is everything that we can observe composed of elements
intrinsically similar to the constituents of what is called
matter ?

Any one of these three questions may be used to define
introspection. I should favour introspection in the
sense of the first question, i.e. I think that some of the
things we observe cannot, even theoretically, be observed
by any one else. The second question, tentatively and
for the present, I should answer in favour of introspection ;
I think that images, in the actual condition of science,
cannot be brought under the causal laws of physics,
though perhaps ultimately they may be. The third
question I should answer adversely to introspection :
I think that observation shows us nothing that is not
composed of sensations and images, and that images
differ from sensations in their causal laws, not intrinsically.
I shall deal with the three questions successively.

118 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

(i) Publicity or privacy of what is observed. Confining
ourselves, for the moment, to sensations, we find that
there are different degrees of publicity attaching to
different sorts of sensations. If you feel a toothache
when the other people in the room do not, you are in
no way surprised ; but if you hear a clap of thunder
when they do not, you begin to be alarmed as to your
mental condition. Sight and hearing are the most public
of the senses ; smell only a trifle less so ; touch, again,
a trifle less, since two people can only touch the same
spot successively, not simultaneously. Taste has a sort
of semi-publicity, since people seem to experience similar
taste-sensations when they eat similar foods ; but the
publicity is incomplete, since two people cannot eat
actually the same piece of food.

But when we pass on to bodily sensations — headache,
toothache, hunger, thirst, the feeling of fatigue, and
so on — we get quite away from publicity, into a region
where other people can tell us what they feel, but we
cannot directly observe their feeling. As a natural result
of this state of affairs, it has come to be thought that
the public senses give us knowledge of the outer world,
while the private senses only give us knowledge as to our
own bodies. As regards privacy, all images, of whatever
sort, belong with the sensations which only give knowledge
of our own bodies, i.e. each is only observable by one
observer. This is the reason why images of sight and
hearing are more obviously different from sensations of
sight and hearing than images of bodily sensations are
from bodily sensations ; and that is why the argument
in favour of images is more conclusive in such cases as
sight and hearing than in such cases as inner speech.

The whole distinction of privacy and publicity, however.

INTROSPECTION 119

so long as we confine ourselves to sensations, is one of
degree, not of kind. No two people, there is good em-
pirical reason to think, ever have exactly similar sensations
related to the same physical object at the same moment ;
on the other hand, even the most private sensation has
correlations which would theoretically enable another
observer to infer it.

That no sensation is ever completely public, results
from differences of point of view. Two people looking
at the same table do not get the same sensation, because
of perspective and the way the light falls. They get
only correlated sensations. Two people listening to the
same sound do not hear exactly the same thing, because
one is nearer to the source of the sound than the other,
one has better hearing than the other, and so on. Thus
publicity in sensations consists, not in having precisely
similar sensations, but in having more or less similar
sensations correlated according to ascertainable laws.
The sensations which strike us as public are those where
the correlated sensations are very similar and the correla-
tions are very easy to discover. But even the most
private sensations have correlations with things that
others can observe. The dentist does not observe your
ache, but he can see the cavity which causes it, and could
guess that you are suffering even if you did not tell him.
This fact, however, cannot be used, as Watson would
apparently wish, to extrude from science observations
which are private to one observer, since it is by means
of many such observations that correlations are established,
e.g. between toothaches and cavities. Privacy, therefore
does not by itself make a datum unamenable to scientific
treatment. On this point, the argument against intro-
spection must be rejected.

120 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

(2) Does everything observable obey the laws of physics ?
We come now to the second ground of objection to intro-
spection, namely, that its data do not obey the laws of
physics. This, though less emphasized, is, I think, an
objection which is really more strongly felt than the
objection of privacy. And we obtain a definition of intro-
spection more in harmony with usage if we define it as obser-
vation of data not subject to physical laws than if we define
it by means of privacy. No one would regard a man as
introspective because he was conscious of having a stomach-
ache. Opponents of introspection do not mean to deny
the obvious fact that we can observe bodily sensations
which others cannot observe. For example. Knight
Dunlap contends that images are really muscular con-
tractions,^ and evidently regards our awareness of muscular
contractions as not coming under the head of introspection.
I think it will be found that the essential characteristic
of introspective data, in the sense which now concerns
us, has to do with localization : either they are not localized
at all, or they are localized, like visual images, in a place
already physically occupied by something which would
be inconsistent with them if they were regarded as part
of the physical world. If you have a visual image of
your friend sitting in a chair which in fact is empty,
you cannot locate the image in your body, because it
is visual, nor (as a physical phenomenon) in the chair,
because the chair, as a physical object, is empty. Thus
it seems to follow that the physical world does not include

I Psychological Review, 1916, " Thought-Content and Feeling,"
p. 59. See also ib., 1912, " The Nature of Perceived Relations,"
where he says : " ' Introspection,' divested of its mythological
suggestion of the observing of consciousness, is really the observa-
tion of bodily sensations (sensibles) and feelings (feelables) "
(p. 427«.)-

INTROSPECTION 121

all that we are aware of, and that images, which are
introspective data, have to be regarded, for the present,
as not obeying the laws of physics ; this is, I think, one
of the chief reasons why an attempt is made to reject
them. I shall try to show in Lecture VIII that the
purely empirical reasons for accepting images are over-
whelming. But we cannot be nearly so certain that they
will not ultimately be brought under the laws of physics.
Even if this should happen, however, they would still be
distinguishable from sensations by their proximate causal
laws, as gases remain distinguishable from solids.

(3) Can we observe anything intrinsically different from
sensations ? We come now to our third question con-
cerning introspection. It is commonly thought that by
looking within we can observe all sorts of things that are
radically different from the constituents of the physical
world, e.g. thoughts, beliefs, desires, pleasures, pains and
emotions. The difference between mind and matter is
increased partly by emphasizing these supposed introspec-
tive data, partly by the supposition that matter is composed
of atoms or electrons or whatever units physics may at
the moment prefer. As against this latter supposition,
I contend that the ultimate constituents of matter are
not atoms or electrons, but sensations, and other things
similar to sensations as regards extent and duration.
As against the view that introspection reveals a mental
world radically different from sensations, I propose to
argue that thoughts, beliefs, desires, pleasures, pains
and emotions are all built up out of sensations and images
alone, and that there is reason to think that images do
not differ from sensations in their intrinsic character.
We thus effect a mutual rapprochement of mind and matter,
and reduce the ultimate data of introspection (in our

122 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

second sense) to images alone. On this third view of
the meaning of introspection, therefore, our decision is
wholly against it.

There remain two points to be considered concerning
introspection. The first is as to how far it is trustworthy ;
the second is as to whether, even granting that it reveals
no radically different stuff from that revealed by what
might be called external perception, it may not reveal
different relations, and thus acquire almost as much
importance as is traditionally assigned to it.

To begin with the trustworthiness of introspection.
It is common among certain schools to regard the know-
ledge of our own mental processes as incomparably more
certain than our knowledge of the " external " world ;
this view is to be found in the British philosophy which
descends from Hume, and is present, somewhat veiled, in
Kant and his followers. There seems no reason whatever
to accept this view. Our spontaneous, unsophisticated
beliefs, whether as to ourselves or as to the outer world,
are always extremely rash and very liable to error. The
acquisition of caution is equally necessary and equally
difficult in both directions. Not only are we often un-
aware of entertaining a belief or desire which exists in us ;
we are often actually mistaken. The fallibility of intro-
spection as regards what we desire is made evident by
psycho-analysis ; its fallibility as to what we know is
easily demonstrated. An autobiography, when con-
fronted by a careful editor with documentary evidence,
is usually found to be full of obviously inadvertent errors.
Any of us confronted by a forgotten letter written some
years ago will be astonished to find how much more
foolish our opinions were than we had remembered them
as being. And as to the analysis of our mental operations

INTROSPECTION 123

— believing, desiring, willing, or what not — introspection
unaided gives very little help : it is necessary to construct
hypotheses and test them by their consequences, just
as we do in physical science. Introspection, therefore,
though it is one among our sources of knowledge, is not,
in isolation, in any degree more trustworthy than
" external '' perception.

I come now to our second question : Does introspection
give us materials for the knowledge of relations other
than those arrived at by reflecting upon external percep-
tion ? It might be contended that the essence of what
is " mental " consists of relations, such as knowing for
example, and that our knowledge concerning these
essentially mental relations is entirely derived from
introspection. If " knowing " were an unanalysable re-
lation, this view would be incontrovertible, since clearly
no such relation forms part of the subject matter of physics.
But it would seem that *' knowing " is really various
relations, all of them complex. Therefore, until they
have been analysed, our present question must remain
unanswered. I shall return to it at the end of the present
course of lectures.

LECTURE VII

THE DEFINITION OF PERCEPTION

In Lecture V we found reason to think that the ultimate
constituents ^ of the world do not have the characteristics
of either mind or matter as ordinarily understood : they
are not solid persistent objects moving through space,
nor are they fragments of " consciousness/' But we
found two ways of grouping particulars, one into " things "
or ** pieces of matter," the other into series of '' per-
spectives," each series being what may be called a
" biography." Before we can define either sensations or
images, it is necessary to consider this twofold classifi-
cation in somewhat greater detail, and to derive from it
a definition of perception. It should be said that, in
so far as the classification assumes the whole world of
physics (including its unperceived portions), it contains
hypothetical elements. But we will not linger on the
grounds for admitting these, which belong to the philosophy
of physics rather than of psychology.

The physical classification of particulars collects together

I When I speak of " ultimate constituents," I do not mean
necessarily such as are theoretically incapable of analysis, but
only such as, at present, we can see no means of analysing. I
speak of such constituents as " particulars," or as " relative par-
ticulars " when I wish to emphasize the fact that they may be
themselves complex.

124

THE DEFINITION OF PERCEPTION 125

all those that are aspects of one " thing." Given any
one particular, it is found often (we do not say always)
that there are a number of other particulars differing
from this one in gradually increasing degrees. Those (or
some of those) that differ from it only very slightly will
be found to differ approximately according to certain
laws which may be called, in a generalized sense, the
laws of " perspective " ; they include the ordinary laws
of perspective as a special case. This approximation
grows more and more nearly exact as the difference
grows less ; in technical language, the laws of perspective
account for the differences to the first order of small
quantities, and other laws are only required to account
for second-order differences. That is to say, as the
difference dimirishes, the part of the difference which
is not according to the laws of perspective diminishes
much more rapidly, and bears to the total difference a
ratio which tends towards zero as both are made smaller
and smaller. By this means we can theoretically collect
together a number of particulars which may be defined
as the " aspects " or " appearances " of one thing at
one time. If the laws of perspective were sufficiently
known, the connection between different aspects would
be expressed in differential equations.

This gives us, so far, only those particulars which
constitute one thing at one time. This set of particulars
may be called a *' momentary thing." To define that
series of '* momentary things " that constitutes the
successive states of one thing is a problem involving
the laws of dynamics. These give the laws governing the
changes of aspects from one time to a slightly later time,
with the same sort of differential approximation to
exactness as we obtained for spatially neighbouring

126 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

aspects through the laws of perspective. Thus a momen-
tary thing is a set of particulars, while a thing (which
may be identified with the whole history of the thing)
is a series of such sets of particulars. The particulars
in one set are collected together by the laws of perspec-
tive ; the successive sets are collected together by the
laws of dynamics. This is the view of the world which
is appropriate to traditional physics.

The definition of a " momentary thing " involves
problems concerning time, since the particulars consti-
tuting a momentary thing will not be all simultaneous,
but will travel outward from the thing with the velocity
of light (in case the thing is in vacuo). There are
complications connected with relativity, but for our
present purpose they are not vital, and I shall ignore
them.

Instead of first collecting together all the particulars
constituting a momentary thing, and then forming the
series of successive sets, we might have first collected
together a series of successive aspects related by the
laws of dynamics, and then have formed the set of such
series related by the laws of perspective. To illustrate
by the case of an actor on the stage : our first plan was
to collect together all the aspects which he presents to
different spectators at one time, and then to form the
series of such sets. Our second plan is first to collect
together all the aspects which he presents successively
to a given spectator, and then to do the same thing for
the other spectators, thus forming a set of series instead
of a series of sets. The first plan tells us what he does ;
the second the impressions he produces. This second
way of classifying particulars is one which obviously
has more relevance to psychology than th^ other. It is

THE DEFINITION OF PERCEPTION 127

partly by this second method of classification that we
obtain definitions of one *' experience '' or " biography "
or " person." This method of classification is also
essential to the definition of sensations and images, as
I shall endeavour to prove later on. But we must first
amplify the definition of perspectives and biographies.

In our illustration of the actor, we spoke, for the
moment, as though each spectator's mind were wholly
occupied by the one actor. If this were the case, it
might be possible to define the biography of one spectator
as a series of successive aspects of the actor related
according to the laws of dynamics. But in fact this is
not the case. We are at all times during our waking
life receiving a variety of impressions, which are aspects
of a variety of things. We have to consider what binds
together two simultaneous sensations in one person,
or, more generally, any two occurrences which form part
of one experience. We might say, adhering to the stand-
point of physics, that two aspects of different things
belong to the same perspective when they are in the
same place. But this would not really help us, since a
" place " has not yet been defined. Can we define what
is meant by saying that two aspects are " in the same
place," without introducing anything beyond the laws
of perspective and dynamics ?

I do not feel sure whether it is possible to frame such
a definition or not ; accordingly I shall not assume that
it is possible, but shall seek other characteristics by which
a perspective or biography may be defined.

When (for example) we see one man and hear another
speaking at the same time, what we see and what we
hear have a relation which we can perceive, which makes
the two together form, in some sense, one experience.

128 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

It is when this relation exists that two occurrences become
associated. Semon's " engram " is formed by all that
we experience at one time. He speaks of two parts of
this total as having the relation of " Nebeneinander "
(M. Ii8 ; M.E. 33 ft.), which is reminiscent of Herbart's
" Zusammen." I think the relation may be called
simply " simultaneity." It might be said that at any
moment all sorts of things that are not part of my ex-
perience are happening in the world, and that therefore
the relation we are seeking to define cannot be merely
simultaneity. This, however, would be an error — the
sort of error that the theory of relativity avoids. There
is not one universal time, except by an elaborate con-
struction ; there are only local times, each of which may
be taken to be the time within one biography. Accord-
ingly, if I am (say) hearing a sound, the only occurrences
that are, in any simple sense, simultaneous with my sensa-
tion are events in my private world, i.e. in my biography.
We may therefore define the " perspective " to which
the sensation in question belongs as the set of particulars
that are simultaneous with this sensation. And similarly
we may define the " biography " to which the sensation
belongs as the set of particulars that are earlier or later
than, or simultaneous with, the given sensation. More-
over, the very same definitions can be applied to particu-
lars which are not sensations. They are actually required
for the theory of relativity, if we are to give a philosophical
explanation of what is meant by " local time " in that
theory. The relations of simultaneity and succession
are known to us in our own experience ; they may be
analysable, but that does not affect their suitability for
defining perspectives and biographies. Such time-relations
as can be constructed between events in different bio-

THE DEFINITION OF PERCEPTION 129

graphics are of a different kind : they are not experienced,
and are merely logical, being designed to afford con-
venient ways of stating the correlations between different
biographies.

It is not only by time-relations that the parts of one
biography are collected together in the case of living
beings. In this case there are the mnemic phenomena
which constitute the unity of one " experience," and
transform mere occurrences into " experiences/' I have
already dwelt upon the importance of mnemic phenomena
for psychology, and shall not enlarge upon them now,
beyond observing that they are what transforms a bio-
graphy (in our technical sense) into a life. It is they
that give the continuity of a *' person " or a " mind."
But there is no reason to suppose that mnemic phenomena
are associated with biographies except in the case of
animals and plants.

Our twofold classification of particulars gives rise to
the dualism of body and biography in regard to everything
in the universe, and not only in regard to living things.
This arises as follows. Every particular of the sort
considered by physics is a member of two groups :

(i) The group of particulars constituting the other
aspects of the same physical object ;

(2) The group of particulars that have direct time-
relations to the given particular.

Each of these is associated with a place. When I look
at a star, my sensation is :

(i) A member of the group of particulars which is
the star, and which is associated with the
place where the star is ;
9

130 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

(2) A member of the group of particulars which is
my biography, and which is associated with
the place where I am.^

The result is that every particular of the kind relevant
to physics is associated with two places ; e.g. my sensa-
tion of the star is associated with the place where I am
and with the place where the star is. This dualism has
nothing to do with any " mind " that I may be supposed
to possess ; it exists in exactly the same sense if I am
replaced by a photographic plate. We may call the two
places the active and passive places respectively.* Thus
in the case of a perception or photograph of a star, the
active place is the place where the star is, while the
passive place is the place where the percipient or photo-
graphic plate is.

We can thus, without departing from physics, collect
together all the particulars actively at a given place, or
all the particulars passively at a given place. In our
own case, the one group is our body (or our brain), while
the other is our mind, in so far as it consists of perceptions.
In the case of the photographic plate, the first group is
the plate as dealt with by physics, the second the aspect
of the heavens which it photographs. (For the sake of
schematic simplicity, I am ignoring various complica-
tions connected with time, which require some tedious
but perfectly feasible elaborations.) Thus what may be
called subjectivity in the point of view is not a distinctive
peculiarity of mind : it is present just as much in the

1 I have explained elsewhere the manner in which space is con-
structed on this theory, and in which the position of a perspective
is brought into relation with the position of a physical object {Our
Knowledge of the External World, Lecture III, pp. 90, 91),

2 I use these as mere names ; I do not want to introduce any
notion of " activity."

THE DEFINITION OF PERCEPTION 131

photographic plate. And the photographic plate has its
biography as well as its *' matter.*' But this biography
is an affair of physics, and has none of the peculiar
characteristics by which " mental " phenomena are dis-
tinguished, with the sole exception of subjectivity.

Adhering, for the moment, to the standpoint of physics,
we may define a " perception " of an object as the appear-
ance of the object from a place where there is a brain
(or, in lower animals, some suitable nervous structure),
with sense-organs and nerves forming part of the inter-
vening medium. Such appearances of objects are dis-
tinguished from appearances in other places by certain
peculiarities, namely :

(i) They give rise to mnemic phenomena ;
(2) They are themselves affected by mnemic pheno-
mena.

That is to say, they may be remembered and associated
or influence our habits, or give rise to images, etc., and
they are themselves different from what they would
have been if our past experience had been different —
for example, the effect of a spoken sentence upon the
hearer depends upon whether the hearer knows the
language or not, which is a question of past experience.
It is these two characteristics, both connected with
mnemic phenomena, that distinguish perceptions from
the appearances of objects in places where there is no
living being.

Theoretically, though often not practically, we can, in
our perception of an object, separate the part which is
due to past experience from the part which proceeds
without mnemic influences out of the character of the
object. We may define as " sensation " that part which

132 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

proceeds in this way, while the remainder, which is a
mnemic phenomenon, will have to be added to the sensation
to make up what is called the *' perception.'' According
to this definition, the sensation is a theoretical core in
the actual experience ; the actual experience is the
perception. It is obvious that there are grave difficulties
in carrying out these definitions, but we will not linger
over them. We have to pass, as soon as we can, from
the physical standpoint, which we have been hitherto
adopting, to the standpoint of psychology, in which we
make more use of introspection in the first of the three
senses discussed in the preceding lecture.

But before making the transition, there are two points
which must be made clear. First : Everything outside
my own personal biography is outside my experience ;
therefore if anything can be known by me outside my
biography, it can only be known in one of two ways :

(i) By inference from things within my biography, or
(2) By some a 'priori principle independent of experi-
ence.

I do not myself believe that anything approaching cer-
tainty is to be attained by either of these methods, and
therefore whatever lies outside my personal biography
must be regarded, theoretically, as hypothesis. The
theoretical argument for adopting the hypothesis is that
it simplifies the statement of the laws according to which
events happen in our experience. But there is no very
good ground for supposing that a simple law is more
likely to be true than a complicated law, though there
is good ground for assuming a simple law in scientific
practice, as a working hypothesis, if it explains the facts
as well as another which is less simple. Belief in the

THE DEFINITION OF PERCEPTION 133

existence of things outside my own biography exists
antecedently to evidence, and can only be destroyed,
if at all, by a long course of philosophic doubt. For
purposes of science, it is justified practically by the
simplification which it introduces into the laws of physics.
But from the standpoint of theoretical logic it must be
regarded as a prejudice, not as a well-grounded theory.
With this proviso, I propose to continue yielding to the
prejudice.

The second point concerns the relating of our point of
view to that which regards sensations as caused by
stimuli external to the nervous system (or at least to the
brain), and distinguishes images as " centrally excited,"
i.e. due to causes in the brain which cannot be traced
back to anything affecting the sense-organs. It is clear
that, if our analysis of physical objects has been valid,
this way of defining sensations needs re-interpretation.
It is also clear that we must be able to find such a new
interpretation if our theory is to be admissible.

To make the matter clear, we will take the simplest
possible illustration. Consider a certain star, and suppose
for the moment that its size is negligible. That is to
say, we will regard it as, for practical purposes, a luminous
point. Let us further suppose that it exists only for a
very brief time, say a second. Then, according to physics,
what happens is that a spherical wave of light travels
outward from the star through space, just as, when you
drop a stone into a stagnant pond, ripples travel outward
from the place where the stone hit the water. The wave
of light travels with a certain very nearly constant velocity,
roughly 300,000 kilometres per second. This velocity may
be ascertained by sending a flash of light to a mirror,
and observing how long it takes before the reflected

134 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

flash reaches you, just as the velocity of sound may be
ascertained by means of an echo.

What it is that happens when a wave of hght reaches
a given place we cannot tell, except in the sole case when
the place in question is a brain connected with an eye
which is turned in the right direction. In this one very
special case we know what happens : we have the sensation
called " seeing the star." In all other cases, though we
know (more or less hypothetically) some of the corre-
lations and abstract properties of the appearance of
the star, we do not know the appearance itself. Now
you may, for the sake of illustration, compare the different
appearances of the star to the conjugation of a Greek
verb, except that the number of its parts is really infinite,
and not only apparently so to the despairing schoolboy.
In vacuo, the parts are regular, and can be derived from
the (imaginary) root according to the laws of grammar,
i.e. of perspective. The star being situated in empty
space, it may be defined, for purposes of physics, as
consisting of all those appearances which it presents
in vacuo, together with those which, according to the
laws of perspective, it would present elsewhere if its
appearances elsewhere were regular. This is merely the
adaptation of the definition of matter which I gave in
an earlier lecture. The appearance of a star at a certain
place, if it is regular, does not require any cause or ex-
planation beyond the existence of the star. Every
regular appearance is an actual member of the system
which is the star, and its causation is entirely internal
to that system. We may express this by saying that
a regular appearance is due to the star alone, and is
actually part of the star, in the sense in which a man is
part of the human race.

THE DEFINITION OF PERCEPTION 135

But presently the light of the star reaches our atmo-
sphere. It begins to be refracted, and dimmed by mist,
and its velocity is slightly diminished. At last it reaches
a human eye, where a complicated process takes place,
ending in a sensation which gives us our grounds for
believing in all that has gone before. Now, the irregular
appearances of the star are not, strictly speaking, members
of the system which is the star, according to our definition
of matter. The irregular appearances, however, are not
merely irregular : they proceed according to laws which
can be stated in terms of the matter through which the
light has passed on its way. The sources of an irregular
appearance are therefore twofold :

(i) The object which is appearing irregularly ;
(2) The intervening medium.

It should be observed that, while the conception of
a regular appearance is perfectly precise, the conception
of an irregular appearance is one capable of any degree
of vagueness. When the distorting influence of the
medium is sufficiently great, the resulting particular can
no longer be regarded as an appearance of an object,
but must be treated on its own account. This happens
especially when the particular in question cannot be
traced back to one object, but is a blend of two or more.
This case is normal in perception : we see as one what
the microscope or telescope reveals to be many different
objects. The notion of perception is therefore not a pre-
cise one : we perceive things more or less, but always with
a very considerable amount of vagueness and confusion.
In considering irregular appearances, there are certain
very natural mistakes which must be avoided. In order
that a particular may count as an irregular appearance

136 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

of a certain object, it is not necessary that it should
bear any resemblance to the regular appearances as regard
its intrinsic qualities. All that is necessary is that it
should be derivable from the regular appearances by the
laws which express the distorting influence of the medium.
When it is so derivable, the particular in question may
be regarded as caused by the regular appearances, and
therefore by the object itself, together with the modifi-
cations resulting from the medium. In other cases, the
particular in question may, in the same sense, be regarded
as caused by several objects together with the medium ;
in this case, it may be called a confused appearance of
several objects. If it happens to be in a brain, it may
be called a confused perception of these objects. All
actual perception is confused to a greater or less extent.
We can now interpret in terms of our theory the dis-
tinction between those mental occurrences which are
said to have an external stimulus, and those which are,
said to be " centrally excited," i.e. to have no stimulus
external to the brain. When a mental occurrence can
be regarded as an appearance of an object external to
the brain, however irregular, or even as a confused appear-
ance of several such objects, then we may regard it as
having for its stimulus the object or objects in question,
or their appearances at the sense-organ concerned. When,
on the other hand, a mental occurrence has not sufficient
connection with objects external to the brain to be regarded
as an appearance of such objects, then its physical causation
(if any) will have to be sought in the brain. In the former
case it can be called a perception ; in the latter it cannot
be so called. But the distinction is one of degree, not
of kind. Until this is realized, no satisfactory theory
of perception, sensation, or imagination is possible.

LECTURE VIII

SENSATIONS AND IMAGES

The dualism of mind and matter, if we have been right
so far, cannot be allowed as metaphysically vahd. Never-
theless, we seem to find a certain duahsm, perhaps not
ultimate, within the world as we observe it. The dualism
is not primarily as to the stuff of the world, but as to
causal laws. On this subject we may again quote
WilHam James. He points out that when, as we say,
we merely " imagine " things, there are no such effects
as would ensue if the things were what we call " real."
He takes the case of imagining a fire :

" I make for myself an experience of blazing fire ; I
place it near my body ; but it does not warm me in the
least. I lay a stick upon it and the stick either burns
or remains green, as I please. I call up water, and pour
it on the fire, and absolutely no difference ensues. I
account for all such facts by calling this whole train of
experiences unreal, a mental train. Mental fire is what
won't burn real sticks ; mental water is what won't
necessarily (though of course it may) put out even a
mental fire. . . . With ' real ' objects, on the contrary,
consequences always accrue ; and thus the real experiences
get sifted from the mental ones, the things from our
thoughts of them, fanciful or true, and precipitated

137

138 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

together as the stable part of the whole experience-chaos,
under the name of the physical world." ^

In this passage James speaks, by mere inadvertence,
as though the phenomena which he is describing as
" mental " had no effects. This is, of course, not the
case : they have their effects, just as much as physical
phenomena do, but their effects follow different laws.
For example, dreams, as Freud has shown, are just as
much subject to laws as are the motions of the planets.
But the laws are different : in a dream you may be
transported from one place to another in a moment,
or one person may turn into another under your eyes.
Such difierences compel you to distinguish the world
of dreams from the physical world.

If the two sorts of causal laws could be sharply distin-
guished, we could call an occurrence " physical " when
it obeys causal laws appropriate to the physical world,
and " mental " when it obeys causal laws appropriate
to the mental world. Since the mental world and the
physical world interact, there would be a boundary
between the two : there would be events which would
have physical causes and mental effects, while there
would be others which would have mental causes and
physical effects. Those that have physical causes and
mental effects we should define as " sensations." Those
that have mental causes and physical effects might
perhaps be identified with what we call voluntary move-
ments ; but they do not concern us at present.

These definitions would have all the precision that

could be desired if the distinction between physical and

psychological causation were clear and sharp. As a

matter of fact, however, this distinction is, as yet, by

^ Essays in Radical Empiricism, pp. 32-5

SENSATIONS AND IMAGES 139

no means sharp. ^ It is possible that, with fuller knowledge,
it will be found to be no more ultimate than the distinction
between the laws of gases and the laws of rigid bodies.
It also suffers from the fact that an event may be an
effect of several causes according to several causal laws :
we cannot, in general, point to anything unique as the
cause of such-and-such an event. And finally it is by
no means certain that the peculiar causal laws which
govern mental events are not really physiological. The
law of habit, which is one of the most distinctive, may be
fully explicable in terms of the peculiarities of nervous
tissue, and these peculiarities, in turn, may be explicable
by the laws of physics. It seems, therefore, that we
are driven to a different kind of definition. It is for
this reason that it was necessary to develop the definition
of perception. With this definition, we can define a
sensation as the non-mnemic elements in a perception.
When, following our definition, we try to decide what
elements in our experience are of the nature of sensations,
we find more difficulty than might have been expected.
Prima facie, everything is sensation that comes to us
through the senses : the sights we see, the sounds we
hear, the smells we smell, and so on ; also such things
as headache or the feeling of muscular strain. But in
actual fact so much interpretation, so much of habitual
correlation, is mixed with all such experiences, that the
core of pure sensation is only to be extracted by careful
investigation. To take a simple illustration : if you go
to the theatre in your own country, you seem to hear
equally well in the stalls or the dress circle ; in either
case you think you miss nothing. But if you go in a
foreign country where you have a fair knowledge of the
language, you will seem to have grown partially deaf.

140 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

and you will find it necessary to be much nearer the stage
than you would need to be in your own country. The
reason is that, in hearing our own language spoken, we
quickly and unconsciously fill out what we really hear
with inferences to what the man must be saying, and
we never realize that we have not heard the words we
have merely inferred. In a foreign language, these in-
ferences are more difficult, and we are more dependent
upon actual sensation. If we found ourselves in a
foreign world, where tables looked like cushions and
cushions like tables, we should similarly discover how
much of what we think we see is really inference. Every
fairly familiar sensation is to us a sign of the things
that usually go with it, and many of these things will
seem to form part of the sensation. I remember in the
early days of motor-cars being with a friend when a tyre
burst with a loud report. He thought it was a pistol,
and supported his opinion by maintaining that he had
seen the flash. But of course there had been no flash.
Nowadays no one sees a flash when a tyre bursts.

In order, therefore, to arrive at what really is sensation
in an occurrence which, at first sight, seems to contain
nothing else, we have to pare away all that is due to
habit or expectation or interpretation. This is a matter
for the psychologist, and by no means an easy matter.
For our purposes, it is not important to determine what
exactly is the sensational core in any case ; it is only
important to notice that there certainly is a sensational
core, since habit, expectation and interpretation are
diversely aroused on diverse occasions, and the diversity
is clearly due to differences in what is presented to the
senses. When you open your newspaper in the morning,
the actual sensations of seeing the print form a very

SENSATIONS AND IMAGES 141

minute part of what goes on in you, but they are the
starting-point of all the rest, and it is through them that
the newspaper is a means of information or mis-information.
Thus, although it may be difficult to determine what
exactly is sensation in any given experience, it is clear
that there is sensation, unless, hke Leibniz, we deny all
action of the outer world upon us.

Sensations are obviously the source of our knowledge
of the world, including our own body. It might seem
natural to regard a sensation as itself a cognition, and
until lately I did so regard it. When, say, I see a person
I know coming towards me in the street, it seems as
though the mere seeing were knowledge. It is of course
undeniable that knowledge comes through the seeing,
but I think it is a mistake to regard the mere seeing itself
as knowledge. If we are so to regard it, we must dis-
tinguish the seeing from what is seen : we must say that,
when we see a patch of colour of a certain shape, the
patch of colour is one thing and our seeing of it is another.
This view, however, demands the admission of the subject,
or act, in the sense discussed in our first lecture. If there
is a subject, it can have a relation to the patch of colour,
namely, the sort of relation which we might call awareness.
In that case the sensation, as a mental event, will consist
of awareness of the colour, while the colour itself will
remain wholly physical, and may be called the sense-
datum, to distinguish it from the sensation. The subject,
however, appears to be a logical fiction, like mathe-
matical points and instants. It is introduced, not because
observation reveals it, but because it is linguistically
convenient and apparently demanded by grammar.
Nominal entities of this sort may or may not exist,
but there is no good ground for assuming that they do.

142 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

The functions that they appear to perform can always
be performed by classes or series or other logical con-
structions, consisting of less dubious entities. If we are
to avoid a perfectly gratuitous assumption, we must
dispense with the subject as one of the actual ingredients
of the world. But when we do this, the possibility
of distinguishing the sensation from the sense-datum
vanishes ; at least I see no way of preserving the dis-
tinction. Accordingly the sensation that we have when
we see a patch of colour simply is that patch of colour,
an actual constituent of the physical world, and part
of what physics is concerned with. A patch of colour
is certainly not knowledge, and therefore we cannot
say that pure sensation is cognitive. Through its psy-
chological effects, it is the cause of cognitions, partly
by being itself a sign of things that are correlated with
it, as e.g. sensations of sight and touch are correlated,
and partly by giving rise to images and memories after
the sensation is faded. But in itself the pure sensation
is not cognitive.

In the first lecture we considered the view of Brentano,
that " we may define psychical phenomena by saying
that they are phenomena which intentionally contain
an object." We saw reasons to reject this view in general ;
we are now concerned to show that it must be rejected
in the particular case of sensations. The kind of argument
which formerly made me accept Brentano's view in this
case was exceedingly simple. When I see a patch of
colour, it seemed to me that the colour is not psychical,
but physical, while my seeing is not physical, but psychical.
Hence I concluded that the colour is something other
than my seeing of the colour. This argument, to me
historically, was directed against idealism : the emphatic

SENSATIONS AND IMAGES 143

part of it was the assertion that the colour is physical,
not psychical. I shall not trouble you now with the
grounds for holding as against Berkeley that the patch
of colour is physical ; I have set them forth before, and
I see no reason to modify them. But it does not follow
that the patch of colour is not also psychical, unless
we assume that the physical and the psychical cannot
overlap, which I no longer consider a valid assumption.
If we admit — as I think we should — that the patch of
colour may be both physical and psychical, the reason
for distinguishing the sense-datum from the sensation
disappears, and we may say that the patch of colour
and our sensation in seeing it are identical.

This is the view of William James, Professor Dewey,
and the American realists. Perceptions, says Professor
Dewey, are not per se cases of knowledge, but simply
natural events with no more knowledge status than (say)
a shower. " Let them [the realists] try the experiment
of conceiving perceptions as pure natural events, not
cases of awareness or apprehension, and they will be
surprised to see how little they miss." ^ I think he is
right in this, except in supposing that the realists will
be surprised. Many of them already hold the view he
is advocating, and others are very sympathetic to it.
At any rate, it is the view which I shall adopt in these
lectures.

The stuff of the world, so far as we have experience
of it, consists, on the view that I am advocating, of
innumerable transient particulars such as occur in seeing,
hearing, etc., together with images more or less resembling
these, of which I shall speak shortly. If physics is true,
there are, besides the particulars that we experience,
« Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic, pp. 253, 262.

144 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

others, probably equally (or almost equally) transient,
which make up that part of the material world that does
not come into the sort of contact with a living body that
is required to turn it into a sensation. But this topic
belongs to the philosophy of physics, and need not concern
us in our present inquiry.

Sensations are what is common to the mental and
physical worlds ; they may be defined as the intersection
of mind and matter. This is by no means a new view ;
it is advocated, not only by the American authors I
have mentioned, but by Mach in his Analysis of Sensa-
tions, which was published in 1886. The essence of
sensation, according to the view I am advocating, is its
independence of past experience. It is a core in our
actual experiences, never existing in isolation except
possibly in very young infants. It is not itself knowledge,
but it supplies the data for our knowledge of the physical
world, including our own bodies.

There are some who believe that our mental life is
built up out of sensations alone. This may be true ; but
in any case I think the only ingredients required in addi-
tion to sensations are images. What images are, and how
they are to be defined, we have now to inquire.

The distinction between images and sensations might
seem at first sight by no means difficult. When we shut
our eyes and call up pictures of familiar scenes, we usually
have no difficulty, so long as we remain awake, in dis-
criminating between what we are imagining and what
is really seen. If we imagine some piece of music that
we know, we can go through it in our mind from beginning
to end without any discoverable tendency to suppose
that we are really hearing it. But although such cases
are so clear that no confusion seems possible, there are

I

SENSATIONS AND IMAGES 145

many others that are far more difficult, and the definition
of images is by no means an easy problem.

To begin with : we do not always know whether what
we are experiencing is a sensation or an image. The
things we see in dreams when our eyes are shut must
count as images, yet while we are dreaming they seem
hke sensations. Hallucinations often begin as persistent
images, and only gradually acquire that influence over
belief that makes the patient regard them as sensations.
When we are listening for a faint sound — the striking of
a distant clock, or a horse's hoofs on the road — we
think we hear it many times before we really do, because
expectation brings us the image, and we mistake it for
sensation. The distinction between images and sensations
is, therefore, by no means always obvious to inspection. ^

We may consider three different ways in which it has
been sought to distinguish images from sensations, namely :

(i) By the less degree of vividness in images ;

(2) By our absence of belief in their " physical

reality " ;

(3) By the fact that their causes and effects are

different from those of sensations.

I believe the third of these to be the only universally
applicable criterion. The other two are applicable in
very many cases, but cannot be used for purposes of
definition because they are liable to exceptions. Never-
theless, they both deserve to be carefully considered.

(i) Hume, who gives the names " impressions '* and
" ideas " to what may, for present purposes, be iden-
tified with our " sensations " and " images," speaks of

I On the distinction between images and sensations, cf. Semon,
Die mnemischen Empfindungen, pp. 19 20.

10

146 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

impressions as " those perceptions which enter with
most force and violence " while he defines ideas as " the
faint images of these [i.e. of impressions] in thinking
and reasoning ". His immediately following observa-
tions, however, show the inadequacy of his criteria of
" force " and " faintness." He says :

" I believe it will not be very necessary to employ
many words in explaining this distinction. Every one
of himself will readily perceive the difference betwixt
feeling and thinking. The common degrees of these
are easily distinguished, though it is not impossible but
in particular instances they may very nearly approach
to each other. Thus in sleep, in a fever, in madness,
or in any very violent emotions of soul, our ideas may
approach to our impressions ; as, on the other hand, it
sometimes happens, that our impressions are so faint
and low that we cannot distinguish them from our ideas.
But notwithstanding this near resemblance in a few
instances, they are in general so very different, that no
one can make a scruple to rank them under distinct
heads, and assign to each a peculiar name to mark
the difference " (Treatise of Human Nature, Part I,
Section i).

I think Hume is right in holding that they should
be ranked under distinct heads, with a peculiar name for
each. But by his own confession in the above passage,
his criterion for distinguishing them is not always adequate.
A definition is not sound if it only applies in cases where
the difference is glaring : the essential purpose of a
definition is to provide a mark which is applicable even
in marginal cases — except, of course, when we are dealing
with a conception, like, e.g. baldness, which is one of
degree and has no sharp boundaries. But so far we

SENSATIONS AND IMAGES 147

have seen no reason to think that the difference between
sensations and images is only one of degree.

Professor Stout, in his Manual of Psychology, after
discussing various ways of distinguishing sensations and
images, arrives at a view which is a modification of
Hume's. He says (I quote from the second edition) :

" Our conclusion is that at bottom the distinction
between image and percept, as respectively faint and
vivid states, is based on a difference of quality. The
percept has an aggressiveness which does not belong to
the image. It strikes the mind with varying degrees
of force or Hveliness according to the varying intensity
of the stimulus. This degree of force or liveliness is
part of what we ordinarily mean by the intensity of a
sensation. But this constituent of the intensity of
sensations is absent in mental imagery " (p. 419).

This view allows for the fact that sensations may

reach any degree of faintness — e.g. in the case of a just

visible star or a just audible sound — without becoming

images, and that therefore mere faintness cannot be the

characteristic mark of images. After explaining the

sudden shock of a flash of lightning or a steam-whistle.

Stout says that " no mere image ever does strike the mind

in this manner " (p. 417). But I believe that this criterion

fails in very much the same instances as those in which

Hume's criterion fails in its original form, Macbeth

speaks of —

that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs
Against the use of nature.

The whistle of a steam-engine could hardly have a
stronger effect than this. A very intense emotion will

148 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

often bring with it — especially where some future action
or some undecided issue is involved — powerful compelling
images which may determine the whole course of life,
sweeping aside all contrary solicitations to the will by
their capacity for exclusively possessing the mind. And
in all cases where images, originally recognized as such,
gradually pass into hallucinations, there must be just
that " force or liveliness " which is supposed to be always
absent from images. The cases of dreams and fever-
delirium are as hard to adjust to Professor Stout's modified
criterion as to Hume's. I conclude therefore that the
test of Hveliness, however applicable in ordinary instances,
cannot be used to define the differences between sensations
and images.

(2) We might attempt to distinguish images from
sensations by our absence of belief in the " physical
reality " of images. When we are aware that what
we are experiencing is an image, we do not give it the
kind of belief that we should give to a sensation : we
do not think that it has the same power of producing
knowledge of the " external world." Images are " im-
aginary " ; in some sense they are " unreal." But this
difference is hard to analyse or state correctly. What
we call the " unieality " of images requires interpretation :
it cannot mean what would be expressed by saying " there's
no such thing." Images are just as truly part of the
actual world as sensations are. All that we really mean
by calling an image " unreal " is that it does not have
the concomitants which it would have if it were a sensa-
tion. When we call up a visual image of a chair, we
do not attempt to sit in it, because we know that, like
Macbeth's dagger, it is not " sensible to feeling as to
sight " — i.e. it does not have the correlations with tactile

SENSATIONS AND IMAGES 149

sensations which it would have if it were a visual sensation
and not merely a visual image. But this means that
the so-called " unreality " of images consists merely in
their not obeying the laws of physics, and thus brings
us back to the causal distinction between images and
sensations.

This view is confirmed by the fact that we only feel
images to be " unreal " when we already know them to
be images. Images cannot be defined by the feeling of
unreality, because when we falsely believe an image to
be a sensation, as in the case of dreams, it feels just as
real as if it were a sensation. Our feeling of unreality
results from our having already realized that we are
dealing with an image, and cannot therefore be the
definition of what we mean by an image. As soon as
an image begins to deceive us as to its status, it also
deceives us as to its correlations, which are what we
mean by its " reality."

(3) This brings us to the third mode of distinguishing
images from sensations, namely, by their causes and
effects. I believe this to be the only valid ground of
distinction. James, in the passage about the mental
fire which won't burn real sticks, distinguishes images
by their effects, but I think the more reliable distinction
is by their causes. Professor Stout [loc. cit., p. 127) says :
" One characteristic mark of what we agree in calling
sensation is its mode of production. It is caused by
what we call a stimulus. A stimulus is always some
condition external to the nervous system itself and
operating upon it." I think that this is the correct view,
and that the distinction between images and sensations
can only be made by taking account of their causation.
Sensations come through sense-organs, while images do

150 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

not. We cannot have visual sensations in the dark,
or with our eyes shut, but we can very well have visual
images under these circumstances. Accordingly images
have been defined as " centrally excited sensations/'
i.e. sensations which have their physiological cause in
the brain only, not also in the sense-organs and the
nerves that run from the sense-organs to the brain. I
think the phrase " centrally excited sensations " assumes
more than is necessary, since it takes it for granted that
an image must have a proximate physiological cause.
This is probably true, but it is an hypothesis, and for our
purposes an ujinecessary one. It would seem to fit
better with what we can immediately observe if we were
to say that an image is occasioned, through association,
by a sensation or another image, in other words that
it has a mnemic cause — which does not prevent it from
also having a physical cause. And I think it will be
found that the causation of an image always proceeds
according to mnemic laws, i.e. that it is governed by
habit and past experience. If you listen to a man playing
the pianola without looking at him, you will have images
of his hands on the keys as if he were playing the piano ;
if you suddenly look at him while you are absorbed in
the music, you will experience a shock of surprise when
you notice that his hands are not touching the notes.
Your image of his hands is due to the many times that
you have heard similar sounds and at the same time seen
the player's hands on the piano. When habit and past
experience play this part, we are in the region of mnemic
as opposed to ordinary physical causation. And I think
that, if we could regard as ultimately valid the difference
between physical and mnemic causation, we could dis-
tinguish images from sensations as having mnemic causes.

SENSATIONS AND IMAGES 151

though they may also have physical causes. Sensations,
on the other hand, will only have physical causes.

However this may be, the practically effective dis-
tinction between sensations and images is that in the
causation of sensations, but not of images, the stimulation
of nerves carrying an effect into the brain, usually from
the surface of the body, plays an essential part. And
this accounts for the fact that images and sensations
cannot always be distinguished by their intrinsic nature.

Images also differ from sensations as regards their
effects. Sensations, as a rule, have both physical and
mental effects. As you watch the train you meant to
catch leaving the station, there are both the successive
positions of the train (physical effects) and the successive
waves of fury and disappointment (mental effects).
Images, on the contrary, though they may produce
bodily movements, do so according to mnemic laws,
not according to the laws of physics. All their effects,
of whatever nature, follow mnemic laws. But this differ-
ence is less suitable for definition than the difference
as to causes.

Professor Watson, as a logical carrying-out of his
behaviourist theory, denies altogether that there are
any observable phenomena such as images are supposed
to be. He replaces them all by faint sensations, and
especially by pronunciation of words sotto voce. When
we ** think " of a table (say), as opposed to seeing it,
what happens, according to him, is usually that we are
making small movements of the throat and tongue such
as would lead to our uttering the word " table " if they
were more pronounced. I shall consider his view again
in connection with words ; for the present I am only
concerned to combat his denial of images. This denial

152 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

is set forth both in his book on Behavior and in an
article called " Image and Affection in Behavior " in
the Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific
Methods, vol. x (Jul5^ 1913). It seems to me that in
this matter he has been betrayed into denying plain
facts in the interests of a theory, namely, the supposed
impossibility of introspection. I dealt with the theory
in Lecture VI ; for the present I wish to reinforce the
view that the facts are undeniable.

Images are of various sorts, according to the nature
of the sensations which they copy. Images of bodily
movements, such as we have when we imagine moving
an arm or, on a smaller scale, pronouncing a word, might
possibly be explained away on Professor Watson's lines,
as really consisting in small incipient movements such
as, if magnified and prolonged, would be the movements
we are said to be imagining. Whether this is the case
or not might even be decided experimentally. If there
were a delicate instrument for recording small movements
in the mouth and throat, we might place such an instru-
ment in a person's mouth and then tell him to recite a
poem to himself, as far as possible only in imagination.
I should not be at all surprised if it were found that actual
small movements take place while he is " mentalty "
saying over the verses. The point is important, because
what is called " thought " consists mainly (though I
think not wholly) of inner speech. If Professor Watson
is right as regards inner speech, this whole region is trans-
ferred from imagination to sensation. But since the
question is capable of experimental decision, it would
be gratuitous rashness to offer an opinion while that
decision is lacking.

But visual and auditory images are much more diffi-

SENSATIONS AND IMAGES 153

cult to deal with in this way, because they lack the con-
nection with physical events in the outer world which
belongs to visual and auditory sensations. Suppose, for
example, that I am sitting in my room, in which there
is an empty arm-chair. I shut my eyes, and call up a
visual image of a friend sitting in the arm-chair. If I
thrust my image into the world of physics, it contradicts
all the usual physical laws. My friend reached the chair
without coming in at the door in the usual way ; sub-
sequent inquiry will show that he was somewhere else
at the moment. If regarded as a sensation, my image
has all the marks of the supernatural. My image,
therefore, is regarded as an event in me, not as having
that position in the orderly happenings of the public
world that belongs to sensations. By saying that it
is an event in me, we leave it possible that it may be
physiologically caused : its privacy may be only due
to its connection with my body. But in any case it is
not a public event, like an actual person walking in at
the door and sitting down in my chair. And it cannot,
like inner speech, be regarded as a small sensation, since
it occupies just as large an area in my visual field as
the actual sensation would do.

Professor Watson says : *' I should throw out imagery
altogether and attempt to show that ail natural
thought goes on in terms of sensori-motor processes in
the larynx." This view seems to me flatly to con-
tradict experience. If you try to persuade any un-
educated person that she cannot call up a visual picture
of a friend sitting in a chair, but can only use words
describing what such an occurrence would be like, she
will conclude that you are mad. (This statement is
based upon experiment.) Galton, as every one knows,

154 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

investigated visual imagery, and found that education
tends to kill it : the Fellows of the Royal Society turned
out to have much less of it than their wives. I see no
reason to doubt his conclusion that the habit of abstract
pursuits makes learned men much inferior to the average
in power of visualizing, and much more exclusively
occupied with words in their '* thinking." And Pro-
fessor Watson is a very learned man.

I shall henceforth assume that the existence of images
is admitted, and that they are to be distinguished from
sensations by their causes, as well as, in a lesser degree,
by their effects. In their intrinsic nature, though they
often differ from sensations by being more dim or vague
or faint, yet they do not always or universally differ
from sensations in any way that can be used for defining
them. Their privacy need form no bar to the scientific
study of them, any more than the privacy of bodily
sensations does. Bodily sensations are admitted by even
the most severe critics of introspection, although, like
images, they can only be observed by one observer. It
must be admitted, however, that the laws of the appear-
ance and disappearance of images are little known and
difficult to discover, because we are not assisted, as in
the case of sensations, by our knowledge of the physical
world.

There remains one very important point concerning
images, which will occupy us much hereafter, and that
is, their resemblance to previous sensations. They are
said to be *' copies " of sensations, always as regards
the simple qualities that enter into them, though not
always as regards the manner in which these are put
together. It is generally believed that we cannot imagine
a shade of colour that we have never seen, or a sound

SENSATIONS AND IMAGES 155

that we have never heard. On this subject Hume is
the classic. He says, in the definitions already quoted :

" Those perceptions, which enter with most force and
violence, we may name impressions ; and under this name I
comprehend all our sensations, passions and emotions, as
they make their first appearance in the soul. By ideas I
mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning/'

He next explains the difference between simple and
complex ideas, and explains that a complex idea may
occur without any similar complex impression. But
as regards simple ideas, he states that " every simple
idea has a simple impression, which resembles it, and
every simple impression a correspondent idea." He goes
on to enunciate the general principle " that all our simple
ideas in their first appearance are derived from simple
impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which
they exactly represent " {Treatise of Human Nature,
Part I, Section i).

It is this fact, that images resemble antecedent sensa-
tions, which enables us to call them images " of ** this
or that. For the understanding of memory, and of
knowledge generally, the recognizable resemblance of
images and sensations is of fundamental importance.

There are difficulties in establishing Hume's principles,
and doubts as to whether it is exactly true. Indeed, he
himself signalized an exception immediately after stating
his maxim. Nevertheless, it is impossible to doubt that
in the main simple images are copies of similar simple
sensations which have occurred earlier, and that the
same is true of complex images in all cases of memory
as opposed to mere imagination. Our power of acting
with reference to what is sensibly absent is largely due
to this characteristic of images, although, as education

156 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

advances, images tend to be more and more replaced
by words. We shall have much to say in the next two
lectures on the subject of images as copies of sensations.
What has been said now is merely by way of reminder
that this is their most notable characteristic.

I am by no means confident that the distinction
between images and sensations is ultimately vaHd, and I
should be glad to be convinced that images can be
reduced to sensations of a pecuHar kind. I think it is
clear, however, that, at any rate in the case of auditory
and visual images, they do differ from ordinary auditory
and visual sensations, and therefore form a recognizable
class of occurrences, even if it should prove that they can
be regarded as a sub-class of sensations. This is all that
is necessary to validate the use of images to be made
in the sequel.

LECTURE IX

MEMORY

Memory, which we are to consider to-day, introduces
us to knowledge in one of its forms. The analysis of
knowledge will occupy us until the end of the thirteenth
lecture, and is the most difficult part of our whole enter-
prise.

I do not myself believe that the analysis of knowledge
can be effected entirely by means of purely external
observation, such as behaviourists employ. I shall discuss
this question in later lectures. In the present lecture
I shall attempt the analysis of memory-knowledge, both
as an introduction to the problem of knowledge in general,
and because memory, in some form, is presupposed in
almost all other knowledge. Sensation, we decided, is
not a form of knowledge. It might, however, have been
expected that we should begin our discussion of knowledge
with perception, i.e. with that integral experience of
things in the environment, out of which sensation is
extracted by psychological analysis. What is called
perception differs from sensation by the fact that the
sensational ingredients bring up habitual associates —
images and expectations of their usual correlates — all of
which are subjectively indistinguishable from the sensa-
tion. The fact of past experience is essential in producing

157

158 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

this filling-out of sensation, but not the recollection of
past experience. The non-sensational elements in per-
ception can be wholly explained as the result of habit,
produced by frequent correlations. Perception, according
to our definition in Lecture VII, is no more a form of
knowledge than sensation is, except in so far as it involves
expectations. The purely psychological problems which it
raises are not very difficult, though they have sometimes
been rendered artificially obscure by unwillingness to
admit the fallibility of the non-sensational elements of
perception. On the other hand, memory raises many
difficult and very important problems, which it is necessary
to consider at the first possible moment.

One reason for treating memory at this early stage is
that it seems to be involved in the fact that images are
recognized as " copies " of past sensible experience. In
the preceding lecture I alluded to Hume's principle
" that all our simple ideas in their first appearance are
derived from simple impressions, which are correspondent
to them, and which they exactly represent." Whether
or not this principle is liable to exceptions, everyone
would agree that is has a broad measure of truth, though
the word " exactly " might seem an overstatement, and
it might seem more correct to say that ideas approximately
represent impressions. Such modifications of Hume's
principle, however, do not affect the problem which I
wish to present for your consideration, namely : Why
do we believe that images are, sometimes or always,
approximately or exactly, copies of sensations ? What
sort of evidence is there ? And what sort of evidence is
logically possible ? The difficulty of this question arises
through the fact that the sensation which an image is
supposed to copy is in the past when the image exists,

MEMORY 159

and can therefore only be known by memory, while, on
the other hand, memory of past sensations seems only
possible by means of present images. How, then, are we
to find any way of comparing the present image and the
past sensation ? The problem is just as acute if we say
that images differ from their prototypes as if we say
that they resemble them ; it is the very possibility oiy
comparison that is hard to understand. ' We think we
can know that they are alike or different, but we cannot
bring them together in one experience and compare them.
To deal with this problem, we must have a theory of
memory. In this way the whole status of images asy
" copies " is bound up with the analysis of memory.

In investigating memory-beliefs, there are certain
points which must be borne in mind. In the first place,
everything constituting a memory-belief is happening
now, not in that past time to which the belief is said to
refer. It is not logically necessary to the existence of a
memory-belief that the event remembered should have
occurred, or even that the past should have existed at all.
There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that
the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly
as it then was, with a population that *' remembered " a
wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary
connection between events at different times ; therefore
nothing that is happening now or will happen in the
future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began

I How, for example, can we obtain such knowledge as the
following : " If we look at, say, a red nose and perceive it, and
after a little while ekphore its memory-image, we note immediately
how unlike, in its likeness, this memory-image is to the original
perception " (A. Wohlgemuth, " On the Feelings and their Neural
Correlate with an Examination of the Nature of Pain," Journal
of Psychology, vol, viii, part iv, June, 1917)-

160 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

five minutes ago. Hence the occurrences which are called
knowledge of the past are logically independent of the
past ; they are wholly analysable into present contents,
which might, theoretically, be just what they are even if
no past had existed.

I am not suggesting that the non-existence of the past
should be entertained as a serious hypothesis. Like all
sceptical hypotheses, it is logically tenable, but unin-
teresting. All that I am doing is to use its logical
tenability as a help in the analysis of what occurs when
we remember.

In the second place, images without beliefs are in-
sufficient to constitute memory ; and habits are still
more insufficient. The behaviourist, who attempts to
make psychology a record of behaviour, has to trust his
memory in making the record. ** Habit " is a concept
involving the occurrence of similar events at different
times ; if the behaviourist feels confident that there is
such a phenomenon as habit, that can only be because
he trusts his memory, when it assures him that there have
been other times. And the same applies to images. If
we are to know — as it is supposed we do — that images
are ** copies," accurate or inaccurate, of past events,
something more than the mere occurrence of images must
go to constitute this knowledge. For their mere occur-
rence, by itself, would not suggest any connection with
anything that had happened before.

Can we constitute memory out of images together with
suitable beliefs ? We may take it that memory-images,
when they occur in trie memory, are {a) known to be
copies, (6) sometimes known to be imperfect copies
(cf. footnote on previous page). How is it possible to
V know that a memory-image is an imperfect copy, without

MEMORY 161 ,

having a more accurate copy by which to replace it? ^
This would seem to suggest that we have a way of knowing
the past which is independent of images, by means of
which we can criticize image-memories. But I do not
think such an inference is warranted.

What results, formally, from our knowledge of the
past through images of which we recognize the inaccuracy,
is that such images must have two characteristics by
which we can arrange them in two series, of which one
corresponds to the more or less remote period in the past
to which they refer, and the other to our greater or less
confidence in their accuracy. We will take the second
of these points first.

Our confidence or lack of confidence in the accuracy
of a memory-image must, in fundamental cases, be based
upon a characteristic of the image itself, since we cannot
evoke the past bodily and compare it with the present
image. It might be suggested that vagueness is the
required characteristic, but I do not think this is the
case. We sometimes have images that are by no means
peculiarly vague, which yet we do not trust — for example,
under the influence of fatigue we may see a friend's face
vividly and clearly, but horribly distorted. In such a
case we distrust our image in spite of its being unusually
clear. I think the characteristic by which we distin-
guish the images we trust is the feeling of familiarity that
accompanies them. Some images, like some sensations,
feel very familiar, while others feel strange. Familiarity
is a feeling capable of degrees. In an image of a well-
known face, for example, some parts may feel more
familiar than others ; when this happens, we have more
belief in the accuracy of the familiar parts than in that
of the unfamiliar parts. I think it is by this means that

11

162 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

we become critical of images, not by some imageless
memory with which we compare them. I shall return to
the consideration of familiarity shortly.

I come now to the other characteristic which memory-
images must have in order to account for our knowledge
of the past. They must have some characteristic which
makes us regard them as referring to more or less remote
portions of the past. That is to say, if we suppose that
A is the event remembered, B the remembering, and t
the interval of time between A and B, there must be
some characteristic of B which is capable of degrees, and
which, in accurately dated memories, varies as t varies. It
may increase as t increases, or diminish as t increases. The
question which of these occurs is not of any importance for
the theoretic serviceability of the characteristic in question.

In actual fact, there are doubtless various factors that
concur in giving us the feeling of greater or less remote-
ness in some remembered event. There may be a specific
feeling which could be called the feeling of " pastness,"
especially where immediate memory is concerned. But
apart from this, there are other marks. One of these is
context. A recent memory has, usually, more context than
a more distant one. When a remembered event has a
remembered context, this may occur in two ways, either
{a) by successive images in the same order as their proto-
types, or (b) by remembering a whole process simul-
taneously, in the same way in which a present process
may be apprehended, through akoluthic sensations which,
by fading, acquire the mark of just-pastness in an increasing
degree as they fade, and are thus placed in a series while
all sensibly present. It will be context in this second
sense, more specially, that will give us a sense of the
nearness or remoteness of a remembered event.

MEMORY 163

There is, of course, a difference between knowing the
temporal relation of a remembered event to the present,
and knowing the time-order of two remembered events.
Very often our knowledge of the temporal relation of a
remembered event to the present is inferred from its
temporal relations to other remembered events. It would
seem that only rather recent events can be placed at all
accurately by means of feelings giving their temporal
relation to the present, but it is clear that such feelings
must play an essential part in the process of dating remem-
bered events.

We may say, then, that images are regarded by us as
more or less accurate copies of past occurrences because
they come to us with two sorts of feelings : (i) Those
that may be called feelings of familiarity ; (2) those that
may be collected together as feelings giving a sense of
pastness. The first lead us to trust our memories, the
second to assign places to them in the time-order.

We have now to analyse the memory-belief, as opposed
to the characteristics of images which lead us to base
memory-beliefs upon them.

If we had retained the " subject " or " act " in know-
ledge, the whole problem of memory would have been
comparatively simple. We could then have said that
remembering is a direct relation between the present
act or subject and the past occurrence remembered : the
act of remembering is present, though its object is past.
But the rejection of the subject renders some more com-
plicated theory necessary. Remembering has -to be a
present occurrence in some way resembling, or related to,
what is remembered. And it is difficult to find any
ground, except a pragmatic one, for supposing that memory
is not sheer delusion, if, as seems to be the case, there is

164 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

not, apart from memory, any way of ascertaining that
there really was a past occurrence having the required
relation to our present remembering. What, if we fol-
lowed Meinong's terminology, we should call the " object **
in memory, i.e. the past event which we are said to be
remembering, is unpleasantly remote from the " content,'*
i.e. the present mental occurrence in remembering. There
is an awkward gulf between the two, which raises difficulties
for the theory of knowledge. But we must not falsify
observation to avoid theoretical difficulties. For the
present, therefore, let us forget these problems, and try
to discover what actually occurs in memory.

Some points may be taken as fixed, and such as any
theory of memory must arrive at. In this case, as in
most others, what may be taken as certain in advance
is rather vague. The study of any topic is like the con-
tinued observation of an object which is approaching us
along a road : what is certain to begin with is the quite
vague knowledge that there is some object on the road.
If you attempt to be less vague, and to assert that the
object is an elephant, or a man, or a mad dog, you run
a risk of error ; but the purpose of continued observation
is to enable you to arrive at such more precise knowledge.
In like manner, in the study of memory, the certainties
with which you begin are very vague, and the more precise
propositions at which you try to arrive are less certain
than the hazy data from which you set out. Never-
theless, in spite of the risk of error, precision is the goal
at which we must aim.

The first of our vague but indubitable data is that
there is knowledge of the past. We do not yet know
with any precision what we mean by " knowledge," and
we must admit that in any given instance our memory

MEMORY 165

may be at fault. Nevertheless, whatever a sceptic might
urge in theory, we cannot practically doubt that we got
up this morning, that we did various things yesterday,
that a great war has been taking place, and so on. How
far our knowledge of the past is due to memory, and
how far to other sources, is of course a matter to be
investigated, but there can be no doubt that memory
forms an indispensable part of our knowledge of the past.

The second datum is that we certainly have more capacity
for knowing the past than for knowing the future. We
know some things about the future, for example what
eclipses there will be ; but this knowledge is a matter
of elaborate calculation and inference, whereas some of
our knowledge of the past comes to us without effort,
in the same sort of immediate way in which we acquire
knowledge of occurrences in our present environment.
We might provisionally, though perhaps not quite cor-
rectly, define " memory " as that way of knowing about
the past which has no analogue in our knowledge of the
future ; such a definition would at least serve to mark the
problem with which we are concerned, though some
expectations may deserve to rank with memory as regards
immediacy.

A third point, perhaps not quite so certain as our
previous two, is that the truth of memory cannot be wholly
practical, as pragmatists wish all truth to be. It seems
clear that some of the things I remember are trivial and
without any visible importance for the future, but that
my memory is true (or false) in virtue of a past event,
not in virtue of any future consequences of my belief.
The definition of truth as the correspondence between
beliefs and facts seems peculiarly evident in the case of
memory, as against not only the pragmatist definition

166 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

but also the idealist definition by means of coherence.
These considerations, however, are taking us away from
psychology, to which we must now return.

It is important not to confuse the two forms of memory
which Bergson distinguishes in the second chapter of his
Matter and Memory, namely the sort that consists of
habit, and the sort that consists of independent recol-
lection. He gives the instance of learning a lesson by
heart : when I know it by heart I am said to " remember "
it, but this merely means that I have acquired certain
habits ; on the other hand, my recollection of (say) the
second time I read the lesson while I was learning it is
the recollection of a unique event, which occurred only
once. The recollection of a unique event cannot, so
Bergson contends, be wholly constituted by habit, and is
in fact something radically different from the memory
which is habit. The recollection alone is true memory.
This distinction is vital to the understanding of memory.
But it is not so easy to carry out in practice as it is to
draw in theory. Habit is a very intrusive feature of our
mental life, and is often present where at first sight it
seems not to be. There is, for example, a habit of remem-
bering a unique event. When we have once described
the event, the words we have used easily become habitual.
We may even have used words to describe it to ourselves
while it was happening ; in that case, the habit of these
words may fulfil the function of Bergson's true memory,
while in reality it is nothing but habit-memory. A
gramophone, by the help of suitable records, might relate
to us the incidents of its past ; and people are not so
different from gramophones as they like to believe.

In spite, however, of a difficulty in distinguishing the
two forms of memory in practice, there can be no doubt

MEMORY 167

that both forms exist. I can set to work now to remember
things I never remembered before, such as what I had
to eat for breakfast this morning, and it can hardly be
wholly habit that enables me to do this. It is this sort
of occurrence that constitutes the essence of memory.
Until we have analysed what happens in such a case as
this, we have not succeeded in understanding memory.

The sort of memory with which we are here concerned
is the sort which is a form of knowledge. Whether know-
ledge itself is reducible to habit is a question to which
I shall return in a later lecture ; for the present I am
only anxious to point out that, whatever the true analysis
of knowledge may be, knowledge of past occurrences is
not proved by behaviour which is due to past experience.
The fact that a man can recite a poem does not show
that he remembers any previous occasion on which he
has recited or read it. Similarly, the performances of
animals in getting out of cages or mazes to which they
are accustomed do not prove that they remember having
been in the same situation before. Arguments in favour
of (for example) memory in plants are only arguments
in favour of habit-memory, not of knowledge-memory.
Samuel Butler's arguments in favour of the view that an
animal remembers something of the lives of its ancestors ^
are, when examined, only arguments in favour of habit-
memory. Semon's two books, mentioned in an earlier
lecture, do not touch knowledge-memory at all closely.
They give laws according to which images of past occur-
rences come into our minds, but do not discuss our belief
that these images refer to past occurrences, which is
what constitutes knowledge-memory. It is this that is
of interest to theory of knowledge. I shall speak of it
I See his Life and Habit and Unconscious Memory

168 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

as " true " memory, to distinguish it from mere habit
acquired through past experience.

Before considering true memory, it will be well to
consider two things which are on the way towards memory,
namely the feeling of familiarity and recognition.

We often feel that something in our sensible environ-
ment is familiar, without having any definite recollection
of previous occasions on which we have seen it. We
have this feeling normally in places where we have often
been before — at home, or in well-known streets. Most
people and animals find it essential to their happiness to
spend a good deal of their time in familiar surroundings,
which are especially comforting when any danger threatens.
The feeling of familiarity has all sorts of degrees, down
to the stage where we dimly feel that we have seen a
person before. It is by no means always reliable ;
almost everybody has at some time experienced the
well-known illusion that all that is happening now hap-
pened before at some time. There are occasions when
familiarity does not attach itself to any definite object,
when there is merely a vague feeling that something is
familiar. This is illustrated by Turgenev's Smoke, where
the hero is long puzzled by a haunting sense that some-
thing in his present is recalling something in his past,
and at last traces it to the smell of heliotrope. Whenever
the sense of familiarity occurs without a definite object,
it leads us to search the environment until we are satisfied
that we have found the appropriate object, which leads
us to the judgment : " This is familiar." I think we
may regard familiarity as a definite feeling, capable of
existing without an object, but normally standing in a
specific relation to some feature of the environment, the
relation being that which we express in words by saying

MEMORY 169

that the feature in question is familiar. The judgment
that what is familiar has been experienced before is a
product of reflection, and is no part of the feeling of
familiarity, such as a horse may be supposed to have
when he returns to his stable. Thus no knowledge as to
the past is to be derived from the feeling of familiarity
alone.

A further stage is recognition. This may be taken in
two senses, the first when a thing not merely feels familiar,
but we know it is such-and-such. We recognize our
friend Jones, we know cats and dogs when we see them,
and so on. Here we have a definite influence of past
experience, but not necessarily any actual knowledge of
the past. When we see a cat, we know it is a cat because
of previous cats we have seen, but we do not, as a rule,
recollect at the moment any particular occasion when
we have seen a cat. Recognition in this sense does not
necessarily involve more than a habit of association : the
kind of object we are seeing at the moment is associated
with the word " cat," or with an auditory image of
purring, or whatever other characteristic we may happen
to recognize in the cat of the moment. We are, of course,
in fact able to judge, when we recognize an object, that
we have seen it before, but this judgment is something
over and above recognition in this first sense, and may
very probably be impossible to animals that nevertheless
have the experience of recognition in this first sense of
the word.

There is, however, another sense of the word, in which
we mean by recognition, not knowing the name of a thing
or some other property of it, but knowing that we have
seen it before. In this sense recognition does involve
knowledge about the past. This knowledge is memory

170 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

in one sense, though in another it is not. It does not
involve a definite memory of a definite past event, but
only the knowledge that something happening now is
similar to something that happened before. It differs
from the sense of familiarity by being cognitive ; it is a
belief or judgment, which the sense of familiarity is not.
I do not wish to undertake the analysis of belief at present,
since it will be the subject of the twelfth lecture ; for the
present I merely wish to emphasize the fact that recog-
nition, in our second sense, consists in a belief, which we
may express approximately in the words : " This has
existed before."

There are, however, several points in which such an
account of recognition is inadequate. To begin with, it
might seem at first sight more correct to define recognition
as " I have seen this before " than as " this has existed
before." We recognize a thing (it may be urged) as having
been in our experience before, whatever that may mean ;
we do not recognize it as merely having been in the world
before. I am not sure that there is anything substantial
in this point. The definition of " my experience " is
difficult ; broadly speaking, it is everything that is con-
nected with what I am experiencing now by certain links,
of which the various forms of memory are among the
most important. Thus, if I recognize a thing, the occasion
of its previous existence in virtue of which I recognize
it forms part of " my experience " by definition : recog-
nition will be one of the marks by which my experience is
singled out from the rest of the world. Of course, the
words " this has existed before " are a very inadequate
translation of what actually happens when we form a
judgment of recognition, but that is unavoidable : words
are framed to express a level of thought which is by no

MEMORY 171

means primitive, and are quite incapable of expressing
such an elementary occurrence as recognition. I shall
return to what is virtually the same question in connection
with true memory, which raises exactly similar problems.
A second point is that, when we recognize something,
it was not in fact the very same thing, but only something
similar, that we experienced on a former occasion. Sup-
pose the object in question is a friend's face. A person's
face is always changing, and is not exactly the same on
any two occasions. Common sense treats it as one face
with varying expressions ; but the varying expressions

actually exist, each at its proper time, while the one face .

J'

is merely a logical construction. We regard two objects
as the same, for common-sense purposes, when the reaction
they call for is practically the same. Two visual appear-
ances, to both of which it is appropriate to say : " Hullo,
Jones 1 " are treated as appearances of one identical
object, namely Jones. The name " Jones " is applicable
to both, and it is only reflection that shows us that many
diverse particulars are collected together to form the
meaning of the name " Jones." What we see on any
one occasion is not the whole series of particulars that
make up Jones, but only one of them (or a few in quick
succession). On another occasion we see another member
of the series, but it is sufficiently similar to count as the
same from the standpoint of common sense. Accordingly,
when we judge " I have seen this before," we judge falsely
if " this " is taken as applying to the actual constituent
of the world that we are seeing at the moment. The
word " this " must be interpreted vaguely so as to include
anything sufficiently like what we are seeing at the
moment. Here, again, we shall find a similar point as
regards true memory ; and in connection with true memory

172 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

we will consider the point again. It is sometimes sug-
gested, by those who favour behaviourist views, that
recognition consists in behaving in the same way when
a stimulus is repeated as we behaved on the first occasion
when it occurred. This seems to be the exact opposite
of the truth. The essence of recognition is in the difference
between a repeated stimulus and a new one. On the first
occasion there is no recognition ; on the second occasion
there is. In fact, recognition is another instance of the
peculiarity of causal laws in psychology, namely, that the
causal unit is not a single event, but two or more events
Habit is the great instance of this, but recognition is
another. A stimulus occurring once has a certain effect ;
occurring twice, it has the further effect of recognition.
Thus the phenomenon of recognition has as its cause the
two occasions when the stimulus has occurred ; either
alone is insufficient. This complexity of causes in
psychology might be connected with Bergson's arguments
against repetition in the mental world. It does not prove
that there are no causal laws in psychology, as Bergson
suggests ; but it does prove that the causal laws of
psychology are prima facie very different from those of
physics. On the possibility of explaining away the
difference as due to the peculiarities of nervous tissue I
have spoken before, but this possibility must not be
forgotten if we are tempted to draw unwarranted meta-
physical deductions.

True memory, which we must now endeavour to under-
stand, consists of knowledge of past events, but not of
all such knowledge. Some knowledge of past events,
for example what we learn through reading history, is on
a par with the knowledge we can acquire concerning the
future : it is obtained by inference, not (so to speak)

MEMORY 173

spontaneously. There is a similar distinction in our know-
ledge of the present : some of it is obtained through the
senses, some in more indirect ways. I know that there
are at this moment a number of people in the streets of
New York, but I do not know this in the immediate way
in which I know of the people whom I see by looking
out of my window. It is not easy to state precisely
wherein the difference between these two sorts of know-
ledge consists, but it is easy to feel the difference. For
the moment, I shall not stop to analyse it, but shall con-
tent myself with saying that, in this respect, memory
resembles the knowledge derived from the senses. It is
immediate, not inferred, not abstract ; it differs from
perception mainly by being referred to the past.

In regard to memory, as throughout the analysis of
knowledge, there are two very distinct problems, namely :
(i) as to the nature of the present occurrence in knowing;
(2) as to the relation of this occurrence to what is known.
When we remember, the knowing is now, while what is
known is in the past. Our two questions are, in the case
of memory

(i) What is the present occurrence when we re-
member ?

(2) What is the relation of this present occurrence
to the past event which is remembered ?

Of these two questions, only the first concerns the
psychologist ; the second belongs to theory of knowledge.
At the same time, if we accept the vague datum with
which we began, to the effect that, in some sense, there
is knowledge of the past, we shall have to find, if we can,
such an account of the present occurrence in remembering
as will make it not impossible for remembering to give

174 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

us knowledge of the past. For the present, however, we
shall do well to forget the problems concerning theory
of knowledge, and concentrate upon the purely psycho-
logical problem of memory.

Between memory-image and sensation there is an
intermediate experience concerning the immediate past.
For example, a sound that we have just heard is present
to us in a way which differs both from the sensation while
we are hearing the sound and from the memory-image of
something heard days or weeks ago. James states that
it is this way of apprehending the immediate past that
is " the original of our experience of pastness, from whence
we get the meaning of the term " (Psychology, i, p. 604).
Everyone knows the experience of noticing (say) that the
clock has been striking, when we did not notice it while
it was striking. And when we hear a remark spoken,
we are conscious of the earlier words while the later ones
are being uttered, and this retention feels different from
recollection of something definitely past. A sensation
fades gradually, passing by continuous gradations to the
status of an image. This retention of the immediate
past in a condition intermediate between sensation and
image may be called " immediate memory." Everything
belonging to it is included with sensation in what is called
the " specious present." The specious present includes
elements at all stages on the journey from sensation to
image. It is this fact that enables us to apprehend such
things as movements, or the order of the words in a spoken
sentence. Succession can occur within the specious
present, of which we can distinguish some parts as earlier
and others as later. It is to be supposed that the earliest
parts are those that have faded most from their original
force, while the latest parts are those that retain their

MEMORY 175

full sensational character. At the beginning of a stimulus
we have a sensation ; then a gradual transition ; and at
the end an image. Sensations while they are fading are
called " akoluthic '* sensations. ' When the process of
fading is completed (which happens very quickly), we
arrive at the image, which is capable of being revived
on subsequent occasions with very little change. True
memory, as opposed to " immediate memory," applies
only to events sufficiently distant to have come to an
end of the period of fading. Such events, if they are repre-
sented by anything present, can only be represented by
images, not by those intermediate stages, between sensa-
tions and images, which occur during the period of fading.

Immediate memory is important both because it provides
experience of succession, and because it bridges the gulf
between sensations and the images which are their copies.
But it is now time to resume the consideration of true
memory.

Suppose you ask me what I ate for breakfast this
morning. Suppose, further, that I have not thought
about my breakfast in the meantime, and that I did
not, while I was eating it, put into words what it con-
sisted of. In this case my recollection will be true
memory, not habit-memory. The process of remembering
will consist of calling up images of my breakfast, which
will come to me with a feeling of belief such as distin-
guishes memory-images from mere imagination-images.
Or sometimes words may come without the intermediary
of images ; but in this case equally the feeling of belief
is essential.

Let us omit from our consideration, for the present,
the memories in which words replace images. These are
^ See Semon, Die mnemischen Empfindungen , chap. vi.

176 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

always, I think, really habit-memories, the memories that
use images being the typical true memories.

Memory-images and imagination-images do not differ
in their intrinsic qualities, so far as we can discover. They
differ by the fact that the images that constitute memories,
unlike those that constitute imagination, are accom-
panied by a feeling of belief which may be expressed in
the words " this happened." The mere occurrence of
images, without this feeling of belief, constitutes imagina-
tion ; it is the element of behef that is the distinctive thing
in memory. I

There are, if I am not mistaken, at least three different
kinds of belief-feeling, which we may call respectively
memory, expectation and bare assent. In what I call
bare assent, there is no time-element in the feeling of
behef, though there may be in the content of what is
believed. If I believe that Caesar landed in Britain in
B.C. 55, the time-determination lies, not in the feeling of
belief, but in what is beheved. I do not remember the
occurrence, but have the same feeling towards it as towards
the announcement of an eclipse next year. But when I
have seen a flash of lightning and am waiting for the
thunder, I have a belief-feeling analogous to memory,
except that it refers to the future : I have an image of
thunder, combined with a feeling which may be expressed
in the words : " this will happen." So, in memory, the
pastness lies, not in the content of what is believed, but in
the nature of the belief-feeling. I might have just the
same images and expect their realization ; I might enter-
tain them without any belief, as in reading a novel ; or
I might entertain them together with a time-determina-

I For belief of a specific kind, cf. Dorothy Wrinch "On the
Nature of Memory," Mind, January, 1920.

MEMORY 177

tion, and give bare assent, as in reading history. I shall
return to this subject in a later lecture, when we come
to the analysis of belief. For the present, I wish to
make it clear that a certain special kind of belief is the
distinctive characteristic of memory.

The problem as to whether memory can be explained
as habit or association requires to be considered afresh
in connection with the causes of our remembering some-
thing. Let us take again the case of my being asked
what I had for breakfast this morning. In this case the
question leads to my setting to work to recollect. It is a
little strange that the question should instruct me as to
what it is that I am to recall. This has to do with under-
standing words, which will be the topic of the next lecture ;
but something must be said about it now. Our under-
standing of the words " breakfast this morning ** is a habit,
in spite of the fact that on each fresh day they point to
a different occasion. " This morning " does not, whenever
it is used, mean the same thing, as " John " or "St.
Paul's " does ; it means a different period of time on each
different day. It follows that the habit which constitutes
our understanding of the words " this morning " is not
the habit of associating the words with a fixed object,
but the habit of associating them with something having
a fixed time-relation to our present. This morning has,
to-day, the same time-relation to my present that yester-
day morning had yesterday. In order to understand the
phrase " this morning " it is necessary that we should
have a way of feeling time-intervals, and that this feeling
should give what is constant in the meaning of the words
*' this morning." This appreciation of time-intervals is,
however, obviously a product of memory, not a presup-
position of it. It will be better, therefore, if we wish to

12

178 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

analyse the causation of memory by something not pre-
supposing memory, to take some other instance than that
of a question about " this morning.**

Let us take the case of coming into a familiar room
where something has been changed — say a new picture
hung on the wall. We may at first have only a sense
that something is unfamiliar, but presently we shall
remember, and say " that picture was not on the wall
before." In order to make the case definite, we will
suppose that we were only in the room on one former
occasion. In this case it seems fairly clear what happens.
The other objects in the room are associated, through
the former occasion, with a blank space of wall where now
there is a picture. They call up an image of a blank
wall, which clashes with perception of the picture. The
image is associated with the belief-feeling which we found
to be distinctive of memory, since it can neither be
abolished nor harmonized with perception. If the room
had remained unchanged, we might have had only the
feeling of familiarity without the definite remembering ;
it is the change that drives us from the present to memory
of the past.

We may generalize this instance so as to cover the
causes of many memories. Some present feature of the
environment is associated, through past experiences, with
something now absent ; this absent something comes before
us as an image, and is contrasted with present sensation.
In cases of this sort, habit (or association) explains why
the present feature of the environment brings up the
memory-image, but it does not explain the memory-
belief. Perhaps a more complete analysis could explain
the memory-belief also on lines of association and habit,
but the causes of beliefs are obscure, and we cannot in-

MEMORY 179

vestigate them yet. For the present we must content
ourselves with the fact that the memory-image can be
explained by habit. As regards the memory-belief, we
must, at least provisionally, accept Bergson's view that
it cannot be brought under the head of habit, at any
rate when it first occurs, i.e. when we remember some-
thing we never remembered before.

We must now consider somewhat more closely the con-
tent of a memory-belief. The memory-belief confers
upon the memory-image something which we may call
" meaning " ; it makes us feel that the image points to
an object which existed in the past. In order to deal
with this topic we must consider the verbal expression
of the memory-belief. We might be tempted to put the
memory-belief into the words : " Something like this
image occurred." But such words would be very far
from an accurate translation of the simplest kind of
memory-belief. *' Something like this image " is a very
complicated conception. In the simplest kind of memory
we are not aware of the difference between an image and
the sensation which it copies, which may be called its
*' prototype." When the image is before us, we judge
rather " this occurred." The image is not distinguished
from the object which existed in the past : the word '* this "
covers both, and enables us to have a memory-belief which
does not introduce the complicated notion " something
like this."

It might be objected that, if we judge " this occurred "
when in fact " this " is a present image, we judge falsely,
and the memory-belief, so interpreted, becomes deceptive.
This, however, would be a mistake, produced by attempt-
ing to give to words a precision which they do not possess
when used by unsophisticated people. It is true that the

180 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

image is not absolutely identical with its prototype, and
if the word " this " meant the image to the exclusion of
everything else, the judgment " this occurred " would be
false. But identity is a precise conception, and no word,
in ordinary speech, stands for anything precise. Ordinary
speech does not distinguish between identity and close
similarity. A word always applies, not only to one
particular, but to a group of associated particulars, which
are not recognized as multiple in common thought or
speech. Thus primitive memory, when it judges that
" this occurred," is vague, but not false.

Vague identity, which is really close similarity, has
been a source of many of the confusions by which
philosophy has lived. Of a vague subject, such as a
" this," which is both an image and its prototype, con-
tradictory predicates are true simultaneously : this existed
and does not exist, since it is a thing remembered, but
also this exists and did not exist, since it is a present
image. Hence Bergson's interpenetration of the present
by the past, Hegelian continuity and identity-in-diversity,
and a host of other notions which are thought to be pro-
found because they are obscure and confused. The con-
tradictions resulting from confounding image and proto-
type in memory force us to precision. But when we
become precise, our remembering becomes different from
that of ordinary life, and if we forget this we shall go
wrong in the analysis of ordinary memory.

Vagueness and accuracy are important notions, which
it is very necessary to understand. Both are a matter of
degree. All thinking is vague to some extent, and com-
plete accuracy is a theoretical ideal not practically attain-
able. To understand w^hat is meant by accuracy, it will
be well to consider first instruments of measurement,

MEMORY 181

such as a balance or a thermometer. These are said to
be accurate when they give different results for very
slightly different stimuli. ^ A clinical thermometer is
accurate when it enables us to detect very slight differences
in the temperature of the blood. We may say generally
that an instrument is accurate in proportion as it reacts
differently to very slightly different stimuli. When a
small difference of stimulus produces a great difference of
reaction, the instrument is accurate ; in the contrary case
it is not.

Exactly the same thing applies in defining accuracy of
thought or perception. A musician wdll respond differ-
ently to very minute differences in playing which would
be quite imperceptible to the ordinary mortal. A negro
can see the difference between one negro and another :
one is his friend, another his enemy. But to us
such different responses are impossible : we can merely
apply the word " negro " indiscriminately. Accuracy
of response in regard to any particular kind of stimulus
is improved by practice. Understanding a language is a
case in point. Few Frenchmen can hear any difference
between the sounds " hall " and " hole," which produce
quite different impressions upon us. The two statements
" the hall is full of water " and " the hole is full of water "
call for different responses, and a hearing which cannot
distinguish between them is inaccurate or vague in this
respect.

Precision and vagueness in thought, as in perception,
depend upon the degree of difference between responses to
more or less similar stimuli. In the case of thought, the
response does not follow immediately upon the sensational

I This is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. The subject
of accuracy and vagueness will be considered again in Lecture XIII.

182 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

stimulus, but that makes no difference as regards our
present question. Thus to revert to memory : A memory
is " vague " when it is appropriate to many different
occurrences : for instance, " I met a man " is vague, since
any man would verify it. A memory is " precise " when
the occurrences that would verify it are narrowly circum-
scribed : for instance, ** I met Jones " is precise as com-
pared to "I met a man." A memory is " accurate "
when it is both precise and true, i.e. in the above instance,
if it was Jones I met. It is precise even if it is false,
provided some very definite occurrence would have been
required to make it true.

It follows from what has been said that a vague thought
has more likelihood of being true than a precise one.
To try and hit an object with a vague thought is like
trying to hit the bull's eye with a lump of putty : when
the putty reaches the target, it flattens out all over it,
and probably covers the bull's eye along with the rest.
To try and hit an object with a precise thought is like
trying to hit the bull's eye with a bullet. The advantage
of the precise thought is that it distinguishes between
the bull's eye and the rest of the target. For example,
if the whole target is represented by the fungus family
and the bull's eye by mushrooms, a vague thought which
can only hit the target as a whole is not much use from
a culinary point of view. And when I merely remember
that I met a man, my memory may be very inadequate to
my practical requirements, since it may make a great
difference whether I met Brown or Jones. The memory
** I met Jones " is relatively precise. It is accurate if I
met Jones, inaccurate if I met Brown, but precise in
either case as against the mere recollection that I met
a man.

MEMORY 188

The distinction between accuracy and precision is,
however, not fundamental. We may omit precision from
out thoughts and confine ourselves to the distinction
between accuracy and vagueness. We may then set up
the following definitions :

An instrument is " reliable " with respect to a given
set of stimuli when to stimuli which are not relevantly
different it gives always responses which are not relevantly
different.

An instrument is a '* measure *' of a set of stimuli which
are serially ordered when its responses, in all cases where
they are relevantly different, are arranged in a series in
the same order.

The " degree of accuracy " of an instrument which is
a reliable measurer is the ratio of the difference of response
to the difference of stimulus in cases where the difference
of stimulus is small. ^ That is to say, if a small difference
of stimulus produces a great difference of response, the
instrument is very accurate ; in the contrary case, very
inaccurate.

A mental response is called *' vague " in proportion to
its lack of accuracy, or rather precision.

These definitions will be found useful, not only in the
case of memory, but in almost all questions concerned
with knowledge.

It should be observed that vague beliefs, so far from
being necessarily false, have a better chance of truth
than precise ones, though their truth is less valuable
than that of precise beliefs, since they do not distinguish
between occurrences which may differ in important ways.

The whole of the above discussion of vagueness and

' Strictly speaking, the limit of this, i.e. the derivative of the
response with respect to the stimulus.

184 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

accuracy was occasioned by the attempt to interpret the
word " this " when we judge in verbal memory that " this
occurred." The word " this," in such a judgment, is a
vague word, equally applicable to the present memory-
image and to the past occurrence which is its prototype.
A vague word is not to be identified with a general word,
though in practice the distinction may often be blurred.
A word is general when it is understood to be applicable
to a number of different objects in virtue of some common
property. A word is vague when it is in fact applicable
to a number of different objects because, in virtue of
some common property, they have not appeared, to the
person using the word, to be distinct. I emphatically do
not mean that he has judged them to be identical, but
merely that he has made the same response to them all
and has not judged them to be different. We may com-
pare a vague word to a jelly and a general word to a heap
of shot. Vague words precede judgments of identity and
difference ; both general and particular words are sub-
sequent to such judgments. The word " this " in the
primitive memory-belief is a vague word, not a general
word ; it covers both the image and its prototype because
the two are not distinguished.'

But we have not yet finished our analysis of the

I On the vague and the general cf . Ribot : Evolution of General
Ideas, Open Court Co., 1899, p. 32 : " The sole permissible formula
is this : Intelligence progresses from the indefinite to the definite.
If ' indefinite ' is taken as synonymous with general, it may be
said that the particular does not appear at the outset, but neither
does the general in any exact sense : the vague would be more
appropriate. In other words, no sooner has the intellect progressed
beyond the moment of perception and of its immediate repro-
duction in memory, than the generic image makes its appearance,
i.e. a state intermediate between the particular and the general,
participating in the nature of the one and of the other — a confused
simplification."

MEMORY 185

memory-belief. The tense in the belief that " this
ocoirred " is provided by the nature of the belief -feeling
invo'.ved in memory ; the word " this," as we have seen,
has c vagueness which we have tried to describe. But
we mast still ask what we mean by " occurred." The
image is, in one sense, occurring now ; and therefore we
must fmd some other sense in which the past event
occurred but the image does not occur.

There are two distinct questions to be asked : (i) What
causes us to say that a thing occurs ? (2) What are we
feeling when we say this ? As to the first question, in
the crude use of the word, which is what concerns us,
memory-images would not be said to occur ; they would
not be noticed in themselves, but merely used as signs of
the past event. Images are " merely imaginary " ; they
have not, in crude thought, the sort of reality that belongs
to outside bodies. Roughly speaking, " real " things
would be those that can cause sensations, those that have
correlations of the sort that constitute physical objects.
A thing is said to be " real " or to " occur " when it fits
into a context of such correlations. The prototype of
our memory-image did fit into a physical context, while
our memory-image does not. This causes us to feel
that the prototype was " real," while the image is
" imaginary."

But the answer to our second question, namely as to
what we are feeling when we say a thing " occurs " or is
" real," must be somewhat different. We do not, unless
we are unusually reflective, think about the presence or
absence of correlations : we merely have different feelings
which, intellectualized, may be represented as expectations
of the presence or absence of correlations. A thing which
*' feels real " inspires us with hopes or fears, expectations

186 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

or curiosities, which are wholly absent when a thing
*' feels imaginary." The feeling of reality is a feeing
akin to respect : it belongs primarily to whatever can do
things to us without our voluntary co-operation. This
feeling of reality, related to the memory-image, and
referred to the past by the specific kind of belief-feeling
that is characteristic of memory, seems to be what con-
stitutes the act of remembering in its pure form.

We may now summarize our analysis of pure memory.

Memory demands {a) an image, (h) a belief in past
existence. The belief may be expressed in the words
" this existed."

The belief, like every other, may be analysed into
(i) the believing, (2) what is believed. The believing is
a specific feeling or sensation or complex of sensations,
different from expectation or bare assent in a way that
makes the belief refer to the past ; the reference to the
past lies in the belief -feeling, not in the content believed.
There is a relation between the belief-feeling and the
content, making the belief-feeling refer to the content,
and expressed by saying that the content is what is
believed.

The content believed may or may not be expressed in
words. Let us take first the case when it is not. In
that case, if we are merely remembering that something
of which we now have an image occurred, the content
consists of {a) the image, [h) the feeling, analogous to
respect, which we translate by saying that something is
" real " as opposed to '' imaginary," (c) a relation between
the image and the feeling of reality, of the sort expressed
when we say that the feeling refers to the image. This
content does not contain in itself any time-determination :
the time-determination lies in the nature of the belief-

MEMORY 187

feeling, which is that called " remembering " or (better)
" recollecting." It is only subsequent reflection upon this
reference to the past that makes us realize the distinction
between the image and the event recollected. When we
have made this distinction, we can say that the image
" means " the past event.

The content expressed in words is best represented by
the words " the existence of this," since these words do
not involve tense, which belongs to the belief-feeling, not
to the content. Here " this " is a vague term, covering
the memory-image and anything very like it, including
its prototype. " Existence " expresses the feeling of a
'* reality " aroused primarily by whatever can have
effects upon us without our voluntary co-operation. The
word " of " in the phrase " the existence of this " repre-
sents the relation which subsists between the feeling of
reality and the " this."

This analysis of memory is probably extremely faulty,
but I do not know how to improve it.

Note. — When I speak of a feeling of belief, I use the
word '* feeUng " in a popular sense, to cover a sensation
or an image or a complex of sensations or images or both ;
I use this word because I do not wish to commit myself
to any special analysis of the belief -feeling.

LECTURE X

WORDS AND MEANING

The problem with which we shall be concerned in this
lecture is the problem of determining what is the relation
called " meaning." The word " Napoleon/' we say,
'* means " a certain person. In saying this, we are assert-
ing a relation between the word " Napoleon " and the
person so designated. It is this relation that we must
now investigate.

Let us first consider what sort of object a word is when
considered simply as a physical thing, apart from its
meaning. To begin with, there are many instances of
a word, namely all the different occasions when it is
employed. Thus a word is not something unique and
particular, but a set of occurrences. If we confine our-
selves to spoken words, a word has two aspects, accord-
ing as we regard it from the point of view of the speaker
or from that of the hearer. From the point of view of
the speaker, a single instance of the use of a word consists
of a certain set of movements in the throat and mouth,
combined with breath. From the point of view of the
hearer, a single instance of the use of a word consists of
a certain series of sounds, each being approximately
represented by a single letter in writing, though in prac-
tice a letter may represent several sounds, or several

188

WORDS AND MEANING 189

letters may represent one sound. The connection
between the spoken word and the word as it reaches
the hearer is causal. Let us confine ourselves to the
spoken word, which is the more important for the analysis
of what is called " thought." Then we may say that a
single instance of the spoken word consists of a series of
movements, and the word consists of a whole set of such
series, each member of the set being very similar to each
other member. That is to say, any two instances of the
word " Napoleon " are very similar, and each instance
consists of a series of movements in the mouth.

A single word, accordingly, is by no means simple :
it is a class of similar series of movements (confining
ourselves still to the spoken word). The degree of simi-
larity required cannot be precisely defined : a man may
pronounce the word " Napoleon " so badly that it can
hardly be determined whether he has really pronounced
it or not. The instances of a word shade off into other
movements by imperceptible degrees. And exactly analo-
gous observations apply to words heard or written or
read. But in what has been said so far we have not even
broached the question of the definition of a word, since
*' meaning " is clearly what distinguishes a word from other
sets of similar movements, and " meaning " remains to
be defined.

It is natural to think of the meaning of a word as some-
thing conventional. This, however, is only true with
great limitations. A new word can be added to an exist-
ing language by a mere convention, as is done, for instance*
with new scientific terms. But the basis of a language
is not conventional, either from the point of view of the
individual or from that of the community. A child
learning to speak is learning habits and associations

190 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

which are just as much determined by the environment
as the habit of expecting dogs to bark and cocks to crow.
The community that speaks a language has learnt it,
and modified it by processes almost all of which are not
deliberate, but the results of causes operating according
to more or less ascertainable laws. If we trace any
Indo-European language back far enough, we arrive
hypothetically (at any rate according to some authorities]
at the stage when language consisted only of the roots
out of which subsequent words have grown. How these
roots acquired their meanings is not known, but a con-
ventional origin is clearly just as mythical as the social
contract by which Hobbes and Rousseau supposed civil
government to have been established. We can hardly
suppose a parliament of hitherto speechless elders meeting
together and agreeing to call a cow a cow and a wolf a
wolf. The association of words with their meanings
must have grown up by some natural process, though at
present the nature of the process is unknown.

Spoken and written words are, of course, not the only
way of conveying meaning. A large part of one of
Wundt's two vast volumes on language in his Volker-
psychologie is concerned with gesture-language. Ants
appear to be able to communicate a certain amount of
information by means of their antennae. Probably
writing itself, which we now regard as merely a way of
representing speech, was originally an independent lan-
guage, as it has remained to this day in China. Writing
seems to have consisted originally of pictures, which
gradually became conventionalized, coming in time to
represent syllables, and finally letters on the telephone
principle of " T for Tommy." But it would seem that
writing nowhere began as an attempt to represent speech :

WORDS AND MEANING 191

it began as a direct pictorial representation of what was
to be expressed. The essence of language lies, not in
the use of this or that special means of communication,
but in the employment of fixed associations (however
these may have originated) in order that something now
sensible — a spoken word, a picture, a gesture, or what
not — may call up the " idea " of something else. When-
ever this is done, what is now sensible may be called
a " sign '* or *' symbol," and that of which it is intended
to call up the " idea " may be called its " meaning."
This is a rough outline of what constitutes " meaning."
But we must fill in the outline in various ways. And,
since we are concerned with what is called " thought,"
we must pay more attention than we otherwise should
do to the private as opposed to the social use of language.
Language profoundly affects our thoughts, and it is this
aspect of language that is of most importance to us in
our present inquiry. We are almost more concerned
with the internal speech that is never uttered than we are
with the things said out loud to other people.

When we ask what constitutes meaning, we are not
asking what is the meaning of this or that particular
word. The word *' Napoleon " means a certain indi-
vidual ; but we are asking, not who is the individual
meant, but what is the relation of the word to the indi-
vidual which makes the one mean the other. But just
as it is useful to realize the nature of a word as part of
the physical world, so it is useful to realize the sort of
thing that a word may mean. When we are clear both
as to what a word is in its physical aspect, and as to what
sort of thing it can mean, we are in a better position to
discover the relation of the two which is meaning.

The things that words mean differ more than words

192 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

do. There are different sorts of words, distinguished by
the grammarians ; and there are logical distinctions,
which are connected to some extent, though not so closely
as was formerly supposed, with the grammatical distinc-
tions of parts of speech. It is easy, however, to be misled
by grammar, particularly if all the languages we know
belong to one family. In some languages, according to
some authorities, the distinction of parts of speech does
not exist ; in many languages it is widely different from
that to which we are accustomed in the Indo-European
languages. These facts have to be borne in mind if we are
to avoid giving metaphysical importance to mere accidents
of our own speech.

In considering what words mean, it is natural to start
with proper names, and we will again take *' Napoleon '*
as our instance. We commonly imagine, when we use a
proper name, that we mean one definite entity, the
particular individual who was called " Napoleon." But
what we know as a person is not simple There may be
a single simple ego which was Napoleon, and remained
strictly identical from his birth to his death. There is
no way of proving that this cannot be the case, but there
is also not the slightest reason to suppose that it is the
case. Napoleon as he was empirically known consisted
of a series of gradually changing appearances : first a
squalling baby, then a boy, then a slim and beautiful
youth, then a fat and slothful person very magnificently
dressed. This series of appearances, and various occur-
rences having certain kinds of causal connections with
them, constitute Napoleon as empirically known, and
therefore are Napoleon in so far as he forms part of the
experienced world. Napoleon is a complicated series of
occurrences, bound together by causal laws, not, like

WORDS AND MEANING 193

instances of a word, by similarities. For although a
person changes gradually, and presents similar appear-
ances on two nearly contemporaneous occasions, it is not
these similarities that constitute the person, as appears
from the Comedy of Errors for example.

Thus in the case of a proper name, while the word is
a set of similar series of movements, what it means is a
series of occurrences bound together by causal laws of
that special kind that makes the occurrences taken
together constitute what we call one person, or one animal
or thing, in case the name applies to an animal or thing
instead of to a person. Neither the word nor what it
names is one of the ultimate indivisible constituents of
the world. In language there is no direct way of desig-
nating one of the ultimate brief existents that go to make
up the collections we call things or persons. If we want
to speak of such existents — which hardly happens except
in philosophy — we have to do it by means of some
elaborate phrase, such as " the visual sensation which
occupied the centre of my field of vision at noon on
January i, 1919." Such ultimate simples I call " par-
ticulars.'* Particulars migh^ have proper names, and no
doubt would have if language had been invented by
scientifically trained observers for purposes of philosophy
and logic. But as language was invented for practical
ends, particulars have remained one and all without a
name.

We are not, in practice, much concerned witk the
actual particulars that come into our experience in sensa-
tion ; we are concerned rather with whole systems to
which the particulars belong and of which they are signs.
What we see makes us say " Hullo, there's Jones," and
the fact that what we see is a sign of Jones (which is the

13

194 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

case because it is one of the particulars that make up
Jones) is more interesting to us than the actual particular
itself. Hence we give the name " Jones " to the whole
set of particulars, but do not trouble to give separate
names to the separate particulars that make up the
set.

Passing on from proper names, we come next to general
names, such as " man," " cat," " triangle." A word such
as " man " means a whole class of such collections of
particulars as have proper names. The several members
of the class are assembled together in virtue of some
similarity or common property. AH men resemble each
other in certain important respects ; hence we want a
word which shall be equally applicable to all of them.
We only give proper names to the individuals of a species
when they differ inter se in practically important respects.
In other cases we do not do this. A poker, for instance,
is just a poker ; we do not call one " John " and another
" Peter."

There is a large class of words, such as ** eating," " walk-
ing," "speaking," which mean a set of similar occurrences.
Two instances of walking have the same name because
they resemble each other, whereas two instances of Jones
have the same name because they are causally connected.
In practice, however, it is difficult to make any precise
distinction between a word such as " walking " and a
general name such as " man." One instance of walking
cannot be concentrated into an instant : it is a process
in time, in which there is a causal connection between
the earlier and later parts, as between the earlier and later
parts of Jones. Thus an instance of walking differs from
an instance of man solely by the fact that it has a shorter
life. There is a notion that an instance of walking, as

WORDS AND MEANING 195

compared with Jones, is unsubstantial, but this seems to
be a mistake. We think that Jones walks, and that there
could not be any walking unless there were somebody
like Jones to perform the walking. But it is equally
true that there could be no Jones unless there were some-
thing like walking for him to do. The notion that actions
are performed by an agent is liable to the same kind of
criticism as the notion that thinking needs a subject or
ego, which we rejected in Lecture I. To say that it is
Jones who is walking is merely to say that the walking
in question is part of the whole series of occurrences which
is Jones. There is no logical impossibility in walking
occurring as an isolated phenomenon, not forming part of
any such series as we call a " person.*'

We may therefore class with " eating," " walking,"
" speaking " words such as " rain," " sunrise," " light-
ning," which do not denote what would commonly be
calkd actions. These words illustrate, incidentally, how
little we can trust to the grammatical distinction of parts
of speech, since the substantive '/ rain " and the verb
" to rain " denote precisely the same class of meteoro-
logical occurrences. The distinction between the class of
objects denoted by such a word and the class of objects
denoted by a general name such as " man," " vegetable,"
or " planet," is that the sort of object which is an instance
of (say) " lightning " is much simpler than (say) an indi-
vidual man. (I am speaking of lightning as a sensible
phenomenon, not as it is described in physics.) The
distinction is one of degree, not of kind. But there is,
from the point of view of ordinary thought, a great differ-
ence between a process which, like a flash of lightning,
can be wholly comprised within one specious present
and a process which, like the life of a man, has to be pieced

196 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

together by observation and memory and the appre-
hension of causal connections. We may say broadly,
therefore, that a word of the kind we have been discussing
denotes a set of similar occurrences, each (as a rule) much
more brief and less complex than a person or thing. Words
themselves, as we have seen, are sets of similar occurrences
of this kind. Thus there is more logical affinity between
a word and what it means in the case of words of our present
sort than in any other case.

There is no very great difference between such words
as we have just been considering and words denoting
qualities, such as " white " or " round." The chief
difference is that words of this latter sort do not denote
processes, however brief, but static features of the world.
Snow falls, and is white ; the falling is a process, the
whiteness is not. Whether there is a universal, called
" whiteness," or whether white things are to be defined
as those having a certain kind of similarity to a standard
thing, say freshly fallen snow, is a question which need
not concern us, and which I believe to be strictly insoluble.
For our purposes, we may take the word " white " as
denoting a certain set of similar particulars or collections
of particulars, the similarity being in respect of a static
quality, not of a process.

From the logical point of view, a very important class
of words are those that express relations, such as " in,"
" above," " before," " greater," and so on. The meaning
of one of these words differs very fundamentally from the
meaning of one of any of our previous classes, being
more abstract and logically simpler than any of them.
If our business were logic, we should have to spend much
time on these words. But as it is psychology that con-
cerns us, we will merely note their special character and

WORDS AND MEANING 197

pass on, since the logical classification of words is not
our main business.

We will consider next the question what is implied
by saying that a person " understands " a word, in the
sense in which one understands a word in one's own
language, but not in a language of which one is ignorant.
We may say that a person understands a word when
(a) suitable circumstances make him use it, {b) the hearing
of it causes suitable behaviour in him. We may call
these two active and passive understanding respectively.
Dogs often have passive understanding of some words,
but not active understanding, since they cannot use
words.

It is not necessary, in order that a man should " under-
stand " a word, that he should " know what it means,"
in the sense of being able to say " this word means so-
and-so." Understanding words does not consist in know-
ing their dictionary definitions, or in being able to specify
the objects to which they are appropriate. Such under-
standing as this may belong to lexicographers and
students, but not to ordinary mortals in ordinary life.
Understanding language is more like understanding
cricket ^ : it is a matter of habits, acquired in oneself
and rightly presumed in others. To say that a word has a
meaning is not to say that those who use the word correctly
have ever thought out what the meaning is : the use of
the word comes first, and the meaning is to be distilled
out of it by observation and analysis. Moreover, the
meaning of a word is not absolutely definite : there is

I This point of view, extended to the analysis of " thought "
is urged with great force by J. B. Watson, both in his Behavior,
and in Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist (Lippincott,
1919), chap. ix.

198 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

always a greater or less degree of vagueness. The mean-
ing is an area, like a target : it may have a bull's eye,
but the outlying parts of the target are still more or less
within the meaning, in a gradually diminishing degree
as we travel further from the bull's eye. As language
grows more precise, there is less and less of the target
outside the bull's eye, and the bull's eye itself grows
smaller and smaller ; but the bull's eye never shrinks to
a point, and there is always a doubtful region, however
small, surrounding it.^

A word is used " correctly " when the average hearer
will be affected by it in the way intended. This is a
psychological, not a literary, definition of " correctness."
The literary definition would substitute, for the average
hearer, a person of high education living a long time ago ;
the purpose of this definition is to make it difficult to speak
or write correctly.

The relation of a word to its meaning is of the nature
of a causal law governing our use of the word and our
actions when we hear it used. There is no more reason
why a person who uses a word correctly should be ab^e
to tell what it means than there is why a planet which is
moving correctly should know Kepler's laws.

To illustrate what is meant by " understanding "
words and sentences, let us take instances of various
situations.

I On the understanding of words, a very admirable little book
is Ribot's Evolution of General Ideas, Open Court Co., 1899. Ribot
says (p. 131) : " We learn to understand a concept as we learn
to walk, dance, fence or play a musical instrument : it is a habit,
i.e. an organized memory. General terms cover an organized,
latent knowledge which is the hidden capital without which we
should be in a state of bankruptcy, manipulating false money or
paper of no value. General ideas are habits in the intellectual
order."

WORDS AND MEANING 199

Suppose you are walking in London with an absent-
minded friend, and while crossing a street you say, " Look
out, there's a motor coming." He will glance round and
jump aside without the need of any " mental " inter-
mediary. There need be no " ideas," but only a stiffening
of the muscles, followed quickly by action. He " under-
stands " the words, because he does the right thing. Such
" understanding " may be taken to belong to the nerves
and brain, being habits which they have acquired while
the language was being learnt. Thus understanding in
this sense may be reduced to mere physiological causal
laws.

If you say the same thing to a Frenchman with a slight
knowledge of English he will go through some inner
speech which may be represented by " Que dit-il ? Ah,
oui, une automobile ! " After this, the rest follows as
with the Englishman. Watson would contend that the
inner speech must be incipiently pronounced ; we should
argue that it might be merely imaged. But this point
is not important in the present connection.

If you say the same thing to a child who does not yet
know the word *' motor," but does know the other words
you are using, you produce a feeling of anxiety and doubt :
you will have to point and say, " There, that's a motor."
After that the child will roughly understand the word
" motor," though he may include trains and steam-rollers
If this is the first time the child has heard the word
*' motor," he may for a long time continue to recall
this scene when he hears the word.

So far we have found four ways of understanding
words :

(i) On suitable occasions you use the word properly.
(2) When you hear it you act appropriately

200 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

(3) You associate the word with another word

(say in a different language) which has the
appropriate effect on behaviour.

(4) When the word is being first learnt, you may

associate it with an object, which is what
it " means/' or a representative of various
objects that it " means.'*

In the fourth case, the word acquires, through asso-
ciation, some of the same causal efhcacy as the object.
The word " motor " can make you leap aside, just as the
motor can, but it cannot break your bones. The effects
which a word can share with its object are those which
proceed according to laws other than the general laws of
physics, i.e. those which, according to our terminology,
involve vital movements as opposed to merely mechanical
movements. The effects of a word that we understand
are always mnemic phenomena in the sense explained in
Lecture IV, in so far as they are identical with, or similar
to, the effects which the object itself might have.

So far, all the uses of words that we have considered
can be accounted for on the lines of behaviourism.

But so far we have only considered what may be called
the " demonstrative " use of language, to point out some
feature in the present environment. This is only one of
the ways in which language may be used. There are also
its narrative and imaginative uses, as in history and
novels. Let us take as an instance the telling of some ^
remembered event.

We spoke a moment ago of a child who hears the word
" motor " for the first time when crossing a street along
which a motor-car is approaching. On a later occasion,
we will suppose, the child remembers the incident and

WORDS AND MEANING 201

relates it to someone else. In this case, both the active
and passive understanding of words is different from what
it is when words are used demonstratively. The child is
not seeing a motor, but only remembering one ; the
hearer does not look round in expectation of seeing a
motor coming, but " understands " that a motor came at
some earlier time. The whole of this occurrence is much
more difficult to account for on behaviourist lines. It is
clear that, in so far as the child is genuinely remembering,
he has a picture of the past occurrence, and his words
are chosen so as to describe the picture ; and in so far
as the hearer is genuinely apprehending what is said, the
hearer is acquiring a picture more or less like that of the
child. It is true that this process may be telescoped
through the operation of the word-habit. The child may
not genuinely remember the incident, but only have the
habit of the appropriate words, as in the case of a poem
which we know by heart, though we cannot remember
learning it. And the hearer also may only pay attention to
the words, and not call up any corresponding picture.
But it is, nevertheless, the possibility of a memory-image
in the child and an imagination-image in the hearer that
makes the essence of the narrative " meaning " of the
words. In so far as this is absent, the words are mere
counters, capable of meaning, but not at the moment
possessing it.

Yet this might perhaps be regarded as something of
an over-statement. The words alone, without the use of
images, may cause appropriate emotions and appropriate
behaviour. The words have been used in an environment
which produced certain emotions ; by a telescoped pro-
cess, the words alone are now capable of producing
similar emotions. On these lines it might be sought to

202 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

show that images are unnecessary. I do not believe,
however, that we could account on these lines for the
entirely different response produced by a narrative and
by a description of present facts. Images, as contrasted
with sensations, are the response expected during a narra-
tive ; it is understood that present action is not called
for. Thus it seems that we must maintain our distinction :
words used demonstratively describe and are intended to
lead to sensations, while the same words used in narrative
describe and are only intended to lead to images.

We have thus, in addition to our four previous ways
in which words can mean, two new ways, namely the
way of memory and the way of imagination. That is
to say :

(5) Words may be used to describe or recall a memory-

image : to describe it when it already exists,
or to recall it when the words exist as a habit
and are known to be descriptive of some past
experience.

(6) Words may be used to describe or create an

imagination-image : to describe it, for ex-
ample, in the case of a poet or novelist, or
to create it in the ordinary case for giving
information — though, in the latter case, it is
intended that the imagination-image, when
created, shall be accompanied by belief that
something of the sort occurred.

These two ways of using words, including their occur-
rence in inner speech, may be spoken of together as the
use of words in " thinking." If we are right, the use of
words in thinking depends, at least in its origin, upon
images, and cannot be fully dealt with on behaviourist

WORDS AND MEANING 203

lines. And this is really the most essential function of
words, namely that, originally through their connection
with images, they bring us into touch with what is remote
in time or space. When they operate without the medium
of images, this seems to be a telescoped process. Thus
the problem of the meaning of words is brought into con-
nection with the problem of the meaning of images.

To understand the function that words perform in
what is called " thinking," we must understand both the
causes and the effects of their occurrence. The causes
of the occurrence of words require somewhat different
treatment according as the object designated by the
word is sensibly present or absent. When the object is
present, it may itself be taken as the cause of the word,
through association. But when it is absent there is more
diihculty in obtaining a behaviourist theory of the occur-
rence of the word. The language-habit consists not
merely in the use of words demonstratively, but also in
their use to express narrative or desire. Professor Watson,
in his account of the acquisition of the language-habit,
pays very little attention to the use of words in narrative
and desire. He says (Behavior, pp. 329-330) :

" The stimulus (object) to which the child often responds,
a box, e.g. by movements such as opening and closing
and putting objects into it, may serve to illustrate our
argument. The nurse, observing that the child reacts
with his hands, feet, etc., to the box, begins to say ' box '
when the child is handed the box, ' open box ' when the
childs opens it, ' close box ' when he closes it, and * put
doll in box ' when that act is executed. This is repeated
over and over again. In the process of time it comes
about that without any other stimulus than that of the
box which originally called out the bodily habits, he

204 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

begins to say * box ' when he sees it, * open box ' when
he opens it, etc. The visible box now becomes a stimulus
capable of releasing either the bodily habits or the word-
habit, i.e. development has brought about two things :
(i) a series of functional connections among arcs which
run from visual receptor to muscles of throat, and (2) a
series of already earlier connected arcs which run from
the same receptor to the bodily muscles, . . . The object
meets the child's vision. He runs to it and tries to reach
it and says * box.' . . . Finally the word is uttered
without the movement of going towards the box being
executed. . . . Habits are formed of going to the box
when the arms are full of toys. The child has been taught
to deposit them there. When his arms are laden with toys
and no box is there, the word-habit arises and he calls
' box ' ; it is handed to him, and he opens it and deposits
the toys therein. This roughly marks what we would call
the genesis of a true language -habit " (pp. 329-330). ^

We need not linger over what is said in the above
passage as to the use of the word " box " in the presence
of the box. But as to its use in the absence of the box,
there is only one brief sentence, namely : " When his
arms are laden with toys and no box is there, the word-
habit arises and he calls * box.' " This is inadequate as
it stands, since the habit has been to use the word when
the box is present, and we have to explain its extension
to cases in which the box is absent.

Having admitted images, we may say that the word
" box," in the absence of the box, is caused by an image
of the box. This may or may not be true — in fact, it is
true in some cases but not in others. Even, however, if

I Just the same account of language is given in Professor Wat-
son's more recent book (reference above).

WORDS AND MEANING 205

it were true in all cases, it would only slightly shift our
problem : we should now have to ask what causes an
image of the box to arise. We might be inclined to say
that desire for the box is the cause. But when this view
is investigated, it is found that it compels us to suppose
that the box can be desired without the child's having
either an image of the box or the word " box." This will
require a theory of desire which may be, and I think is,
in the main true, but which removes desire from among
things that actually occur, and makes it merely a con-
venient fiction, like force in mechanics. ^ With such a
view, desire is no longer a true cause, but merely a short
way of describing certain processes.

In order to explain the occurrence of either the word
or the image in the absence of the box, we have to assume
that there is something, either in the environment or in
our own sensations, which has frequently occurred at
about the same time as the word " box.'' One of the
laws which distinguish psychology (or nerve-physiology ?)
from physics is the law that, when two things have fre-
quently existed in close temporal contiguity, either comes
in time to cause the other. ^ This is the basis both of
habit and of association. Thus, in our case, the arms full
of toys have frequently been followed quickly by the
box, and the box in turn by the word " box." The box
itself is subject to physical laws, and does not tend to be
caused by the arms full of toys, however often it may in
the past have followed them — always provided that, in
the case in question, its physical position is such that

I See Lecture III, above.

a For a more exact statement of this law, with the Hmitations
suggested by experiment, see A. Wohlgemuth, " On Memory and
the Direction of Associations," British Journal of Psychology,
vol. V, part iv (March, 1913).

206 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

voluntary movements cannot lead to it. But the word
" box " and the image of the box are subject to the law
of habit ; hence it is possible for either to be caused by
the arms full of toys. And we may lay it down generally
that, whenever we use a word, either aloud or in inner
speech, there is some sensation or image (either of which
may be itself a word) which has frequently occurred at
about the same time as the word, and now, through habit,
causes the word. It follows that the law of habit is
adequate to account for the use of words in the absence
of their objects ; moreover, it would be adequate even
without introducing images. Although, therefore, images
seem undeniable, we cannot derive an additional argu-
ment in their favour from the use of words, which could,
theoretically, be explained without introducing images.

When we understand a word, there is a reciprocal
association between it and the images of what it " means."
Images may cause us to use words which mean them, and
these words, heard or read, may in turn cause the appro-
priate images. Thus speech is a means of producing in
our hearers the images which are in us. Also, by a teles-
coped process, words come in time to produce directly
the effects which would have been produced by the images
with which they were associated. The general law of
telescoped processes is that, if A causes B and B causes C,
it will happen in time that A will cause C directly, without
the intermediary of B. This is a characteristic of psycho-
logical and neural causation. In virtue of this law, the
effects of images upon our actions come to be produced
by words, even when the words do not call up appropriate
images. The more familiar we are with words, the more
our " thinking " goes on in words instead of images. We
may, for example, be able to describe a person's appear-

WORDS AND MEANING 207

ance correctly without having at any time had any image
of him, provided, when we saw him, we thought of words
which fitted him ; the words alone may remain with us
as a habit, and enable us to speak as if we could recall a
visual image of the man. In this and other ways the
understanding of a word often comes to be quite free
from imagery ; but in first learning the use of language
it would seem that imagery always plays a very important
part.

Images as well as words may be said to have " mean-
ing " ; indeed, the meaning of images seems more primi-
tive than the meaning of words. What we call (say) an
image of St. Paul's may be said to " mean " St. Paul's.
But it is not at all easy to say exactly what constitutes
the meaning of an image. A memory-image of a particular
occurrence, when accompanied by a memory-belief, may
be said to mean the occurrence of which it is an image.
But most actual images do not have this degree of definite-
ness. If we call up an image of a dog, we are very likely
to have a vague image, which is not representative of
some one special dog, but of dogs in general. When we
call up an image of a friend's face, we are not likely to
reproduce the expression he had on some one particular
occasion, but rather a compromise expression derived from
many occasions. And there is hardly any limit to the
vagueness of which images are capable. In such cases,
the meaning of the image, if defined by relation to the
prototype, is vague : there is not one definite prototype,
but a number, none of which is copied exactly."

There is, however, another way of approaching the
meaning of images, namely through their causal efficacy.

» Cf. Semon, Mnemischg Empfindimgen ^ chap, xvi, especially
pp. 301-308.

208 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

What is called an image " of " some definite object, say
St. Paul's, has some of the effects which the object would
have. This applies especially to the effects that depend
upon association. The emotional effects, also, are often
similar : images may stimulate desire almost as strongly
as do the objects they represent. And conversely desire
may cause images ' : a hungry man will have images of
food, and so on. In all these ways the causal laws con-
cerning images are connected with the causal laws con-
cerning the objects which the images " mean." An image
may thus come to fulfil the function of a general idea.
The vague image of a dog, which we spoke of a moment
ago, will have effects which are only connected with dogs
in general, not the more special effects which would be
produced by some dogs but not by others. Berkeley and
Hume, in their attack on general ideas, do not allow for
the vagueness of images : they assume that every image
has the definiteness that a physical object would have.
This is not the case, and a vague image may well have a
meaning which is general.

In order to define the " meaning " of an image, we have
to take account both of its resemblance to one or more
prototypes, and of its causal efficacy. If there were such
a thing as a pure imagination-image, without any proto-
type whatever, it would be destitute of meaning. But
according to Hume's principle, the simple elements in an
image, at least, are derived from prototypes — except
possibly in very rare exceptional cases. Often, in such
instances as our image of a friend's face or of a nondescript
dog, an image is not derived from one prototype, but from

I This phrase is in need of interpretation, as appears from the
analysis of desire. But the reader can easily supply the inter-
pretation for himself.

WORDS AND MEANING 209

many ; when this happens, the image is vague, and blurs
the features in which the various prototypes differ. To
arrive at the meaning of the image in such a case, we
observe that there are certain respects, notably associa-
tions, in which the effects of images resemble those of
their prototypes. If we find, in a given case, that our
vague image, say, of a nondescript dog, has those associa-
tive effects which all dogs would have, but not those
belonging to any special dog or kind of dog, we may say
that our image means " dog " in general. If it has all
the associations appropriate to spaniels but no others,
we shall say it means " spaniel " ; while if it has all the
associations appropriate to one particular dog, it will mean
that dog, however vague it may be as a picture. The
meaning of an image, according to this analysis, is con-
stituted by a combination of likeness and associations.
It is not a sharp or definite conception, and in many
cases it will be impossible to decide with any certainty
what an image means. I think this lies in the nature of
things, and not in defective analysis.

We may give somewhat more precision to the above
account of the meaning of images, and extend it to meaning
in general. We find sometimes that, in mnemic causation,
an image or word, as stimulus, has the same effect (or
very nearly the same effect) as would belong to some
object, say, a certain dog. In that case we say that the
image or word means that object. In other cases the
mnemic effects are not all those of one object, but only
those shared by objects of a certain kind, e.g. by all dogs.
In this case the meaning of the image or word is general :
it means the whole kind. Generality and particularity
are a matter of degree. If two particulars differ suffi-
ciently little, their mnemic effects will be the same ; there-

14

210 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

fore no image or word can mean the one as opposed to
the other ; this sets a bound to the particularity of mean-
ing. On the other hand, the mnemic effects of a number
of sufficiently dissimilar objects will have nothing dis-
coverable in common ; hence a word which aims at com-
plete generality, such as " entity " for example, will have
to be devoid of mnemic effects, and therefore of meaning.
In practice, this is not the case : such words have verbal
associations, the learning of which constitutes the study
of metaphysics.

The meaning of a word, unlike that of an image, is
wholly constituted by mnemic causal laws, and not in
any degree by likeness (except in exceptional cases).
The word " dog " bears no resemblance to a dog, but its
effects, like those of an image of a dog, resemble the
effects of an actual dog in certain respects. It is much
easier to say definitely what a word means than what
an image means, since words, however they originated,
have been framed in later times for the purpose of having
meaning, and men have been engaged for ages in giving
increased precision to the meanings of words. But
although it is easier to say what a word means than what
an image means, the relation which constitutes meaning
is much the same in both cases. A word, like an image,
has the same associations as its meaning has. In addition
to other associations, it is associated with images of its
meaning, so that the word tends to call up the image
and the image tends to call up the word. But this asso-
ciation is not essential to the intelligent use of words.
If a word has the right associations with other objects,
we shall be able to use it correctly, and understand its
use by others, even if it evokes no image. The theoretical
understanding of words involves only the power of asso-

WORDS AND MEANING 211

elating them correctly with other words ; the practical
understanding involves associations with other bodily
movements.

The use of words is, of course, primarily social, for
the purpose of suggesting to others ideas which we enter-
tain or at least wish them to entertain. But the aspect
of words that specially concerns us is their power of
promoting our own thought. Almost all higher intellectual
activity is a matter of words, to the nearly total exclusion
of everything else. The advantages of words for purposes
of thought are so great that I should never end if I were
to enumerate them. But a few of them deserve to be
mentioned.

In the first place, there is no difficulty in producing
a word, whereas an image cannot always be brought into
existence at will, and when it comes it often contains
much irrelevant detail. In the second place, much of our
thinking is concerned with abstract matters which do not
readily lend themselves to imagery, and are apt to be
falsely conceived if we insist upon finding images that
may be supposed to represent them. The word is always
concrete and sensible, however abstract its meaning may
be, and thus by the help of words we are able to dwell on
abstractions in a way which would otherwise be impossible.
In the third place, two instances of the same word are
so similar that neither has associations not capable of
being shared by the other. Two instances of the word
" dog " are much more alike than (say) a pug and a great
dane ; hence the word " dog " makes it much easier to
think about dogs in general. When a number of objects
have a common property which is important but not
obvious, the invention of a name for the common property
helps us to remember it and to think of the whole set of

212 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

objects that possess it. But it is unnecessary to prolong
the catalogue of the uses of language in thought.

At the same time, it is possible to conduct rudimentary
thought by means of images, and it is important, some-
times, to check purely verbal thought by reference to
what it means. In philosophy especially the tyranny of
traditional words is dangerous, and we have to be on our
guard against assuming that grammar is the key to meta-
physics, or that the structure of a sentence corresponds
at all accurately with the structure of the fact that it
asserts. Sayce maintained that all European philosophy
since Aristotle has been dominated by the fact that the
philosophers spoke Indo-European languages, and there-
fore supposed the world, like the sentences they were
used to, necessarily divisible into subjects and predicates.
When we come to the consideration of truth and falsehood,
we shall see how necessary it is to avoid assuming too
close a parallelism between facts and the sentences which
assert them. Against such errors, the only safeguard is
to be able, once in a way, to discard words for a moment
and contemplate facts more directly through images.
Most serious advances in philosophic thought result from
some such comparatively direct contemplation of facts.
But the outcome has to be expressed in words if it is to
be communicable. Those who have a relatively direct
vision of facts are often incapable of translating their
vision into words, while those who possess the words
have usually lost the vision. It is partly for this reason
that the highest philosophical capacity is so rare : it
requires a combination of vision with abstract words
which is hard to achieve, and too quickly lost in the few
who have for a moment achieved it.

LECTURE XI

GENERAL IDEAS AND THOUGHT

It is said to be one of the merits of the human mind that
it is capable of framing abstract ideas, and of conducting
non-sensational thought. In this it is supposed to differ
from the mind of animals. From Plato onward the " idea "
has played a great part in the systems of idealising philo-
sophers. The " idea " has been, in their hands, always
something noble and abstract, the apprehension and use
of which by man confers upon him a quite special dignity.

The thing we have to consider to-day is this : seeing
that there certainly are words of which the meaning is
abstract, and seeing that we can use these words intelli-
gently, what must be assumed or inferred, or what can be
discovered by observation, in the way of mental content
to account for the intelligent use of abstract words ?

Taken as a problem in logic, the answer is, of course,
that absolutely nothing in the way of abstract mental
content is inferable from the mere fact that we can use
intelligently words of which the meaning is abstract. It
is clear that a sufficiently ingenious person could manu-
facture a machine moved by olfactory stimuli which,
whenever a dog appeared in its neighbourhood, would
say, " There is a dog," and when a cat appeared would
throw stones at it. The act of saying " There is a dog,"

213

214 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

and the act of throwing stones, would in such a case be
equally mechanical. Correct speech does not of itself
afford any better evidence of mental content than the
performance of any other set of biologically useful move-
ments, such as those of flight or combat. All that is infer-
able from language is that two instances of a universal,
even when they differ very greatly, may cause the utter-
ance of two instances of the same word which only differ
very slightly. As we saw in the preceding lecture, the
word " dog " is useful, partly, because two instances of
this word are much more similar than (say) a pug and a
great dane. The use of words is thus a method of sub-
stituting for two particulars which differ widely, in spite
of being instances of the same universal, two other par-
ticulars which differ very little, and which are also instances
of a universal, namely the name of the previous universal.
Thus, so far as logic is concerned, we are entirely free to
adopt any theory as to general ideas which empirical
observation may recommend.

Berkeley and Hume made a vigorous onslaught on
" abstract ideas." They meant by an idea approxi-
mately what we should call an image. Locke having
maintained that he could form an idea of triangle in
general, without deciding what sort of triangle it v/as to
be, Berkeley contended that this was impossible. He
says :

*' Whether others have this wonderful faculty of
abstracting their ideas, they best can tell : for myself, I
dare be confident I have it not. I find, indeed, I have
indeed a faculty of imagining, or representing to myself,
the ideas of those particular things I have perceived, and
of variously compounding and dividing them. I can
imagine a man with two heads, or the upper parts of a

GENERAL IDEAS AND THOUGHT 215

man joined to the body of a horse. I can consider the
hand, the eye, the nose, each by itself abstracted or
separated from the rest of the body. But, then, whatever
hand or eye I imagine, it must have some particular
shape and colour. Likewise the idea of a man that I frame
to myself must be either of a white, or a black, or a tawny,
a straight, or a crooked, a tall, or a low, or a middle-sized
man. I cannot by any effort of thought conceive the
abstract idea above described. And it is equally impossible
for me to form the abstract idea of motion distinct from
the body moving, and which is neither swift nor slow,
curvilinear nor rectilinear ; and the like may be said of all
other abstract general ideas whatsoever. To be plain, I own
myself able to abstract in one sense, as when I consider
some particular parts of qualities separated from others,
with which, though they are united in some object, yet
it is possible they may really exist without them. But
I deny that I can abstract from one another, or con-
ceive separately, those qualities which it is impossible
should exist so separated ; or that I can frame a general
notion, by abstracting from particulars in the manner
aforesaid — which last are the two proper acceptations of
abstraction. And there is ground to think most men will
acknowledge themselves to be in my case. The generality
of men which are simple and illiterate never pretend to
abstract notions. It is said they are difficult and not
to be attained without pains and study ; we may there-
fore reasonably conclude that, if such there be, they are
confined only to the learned.

" I proceed to examine what can be alleged in defence
of the doctrine of abstraction, and try if I can discover
what it is that inclines the men of speculation to embrace
an opinion so remote from common sense as that seems

216 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

to be. There has been a late excellent and deservedly
esteemed philosopher who, no doubt, has given it very
much countenance, by seeming to think the having abstract
general ideas is what puts the widest difference in point
of understanding betwixt man and beast. ' The having
of general ideas,' saith he, ' is that which puts a perfect
distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency
which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain unto.
For, it is evident we observe no footsteps in them of making
use of general signs for universal ideas ; from which we
have reason to imagine that they have not the faculty
of abstracting, or making general ideas, since they have
no use of words or any other general signs.' And a little
after : ' Therefore, I think, we may suppose that it is
in this that the species of brutes are discriminated from
men, and it is that proper difference wherein they are
wholly separated, and which at last widens to so wide a
distance. For, if they have any ideas at all, and are not
bare machines (as some would have them), we cannot
deny them to have some reason. It seems as evident to
me that they do, some of them, in certain instances reason
as that they have sense ; but it is only in particular
ideas, just as they receive them from their senses. They
are the best of them tied up within those narrow bounds,
and have not (as I think) the faculty to enlarge them by
any kind of abstraction.' (Essay on Human Understanding,
Bk. II, chap, xi, paragraphs lo and ii.) I readily agree
with this learned author, that the faculties of brutes can
by no means attain to abstraction. But, then, if this be
made the distinguishing property of that sort of animals,
I fear a great many of those that pass for men must be
reckoned into their number. The reason that is here
assigned why we have no grounds to think brutes have

GENERAL IDEAS AND THOUGHT 217

abstract general ideas is, that we observe in them no use
of words or any other general signs ; which is built on
this supposition — that the making use of words implies
the having general ideas. From which it follows that men
who use language are able to abstract or generalize their
ideas. That this is the sense and arguing of the author
will further appear by his answering the question he in
another place puts : ' Since all things that exist are only
particulars, how come we by general terms ? ' His answer
is : * Words become general by being made the signs of
general ideas.' (Essay on Human Understanding, Bk. HI,
chap, iii, paragraph 6.) But it seems that a word becomes
general by being made the sign, not of an abstract general
idea, but of several particular ideas, any one of which it
indifferently suggests to the mind. For example, when it
is said ' the change of motion is proportional to the im-
pressed force,' or that ' whatever has extension is divisible,*
these propositions are to be understood of motion and
extension in general ; and nevertheless it will not follow
that they suggest to my thoughts an idea of motion
without a body moved, or any determinate direction and
velocity, or that I must conceive an abstract general idea
of extension, which is neither line, surface, nor soUd,
neither great nor small, black, white, nor red, nor of any
other determinate colour. It is only implied that what-
ever particular motion I consider, whether it be swift or
slow, perpendicular, horizontal, or oblique, or in whatever
object, the axiom concerning it holds equally true. As
does the other of every particular extension, it matters
not whether line, surface, or solid, whether of this or
that magnitude or figure.

" By observing how ideas become general, we may the
better judge how words are made so. And here it is to be

218 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

noted that I do not deny absolutely there are general
ideas, but only that there are any abstract general ideas ;
for, in the passages we have quoted wherein there is men-
tion of general ideas, it is always supposed that they are
formed by abstraction, after the manner set forth in sec-
tions 8 and 9. Now, if we will annex a meaning to our
words, and speak only of what we can conceive, I believe
we shall acknowledge that an idea which, considered in
itself, is particular, becomes general by being made to
represent or stand for all other particular ideas of the same
sort. To make this plain by an example, suppose a
geometrician is demonstrating the method of cutting a
line in two equal parts. He draws, for instance, a black
line of an inch in length : this, which in itself is a particular
line, is nevertheless with regard to its signification general,
since, as it is there used, it represents all particular lines
whatsoever ; so that what is demonstrated of it is demon-
strated of all lines, or, in other words, of a line in general.
And, as that particular line becomes general by being
made a sign, so the name * line,' which taken absolutely
is particular, by being a sign is made general. And as
the former owes its generality not to its being the sign of
an abstract or general line, but of all particular right lines
that may possibly exist, so the latter must be thought to
derive its generality from the same cause, namely, the
various particular lines which it indifferently denotes." ^
Berkeley's view in the above passage, which is essen-
tially the same as Hume's, does not wholly agree with
modern psychology, although it comes nearer to agree-
ment than does the view of those who believe that there
are in the mind single contents which can be calJ'sd abstract

I Introduction to A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human
Knowledge, paragraphs 10, 11, and 12.

GENERAL IDEAS AND THOUGHT 219

ideas. The way in which Berkeley's view is inadequate
is chiefly in the fact that images are as a rule not of one
definite prototype, but of a number of related similar
prototypes. On this subject Semon has written well. In
Die Mneme, pp. 217 ff., discussing the effect of repeated
similar stimuli in producing and modifying our images,
he says : " We choose a case of mnemic excitement
whose existence we can perceive for ourselves by intro-
spection, and seek to ekphore the bodily picture of our
nearest relation in his absence, and have thus a pure
mnemic excitement before us. At first it may seem to
us that a determinate quite concrete picture becomes
manifest in us, but just when we are concerned with a
person with whom we are in constant contact, we shall find
that the ekphored picture has something so to speak
generalized. It is something like those American photo-
graphs which seek to display what is general about a type
by combining a great number of photographs of different
heads over each other on one plate. In our opinion, the
generalizations happen by the homophonic working of
different pictures of the same face which we have come
across in the most different conditions and situations,
once pale, once reddened, once cheerful, once earnest,
once in this light, and once in that. As soon as we do
not let the whole series of repetitions resound in us uni-
formly, but give our attention to one particular moment
out of the many . . . this particular mnemic stimulus at
once overbalances its simultaneously roused predecessors
and successors, and we perceive the face in question
with concrete definiteness in that particular situation."
A little later he says : " The result is — at least in man,
but probably also in the higher animals — the develop-
ment of a sort of physiological abstraction. Mnemic

220 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

homophony gives us, without the addition of other pro-
cesses of thought, a picture of our friend X which is in
a certain sense abstract, not the concrete in any one
situation, but X cut loose from any particular point of
time. If the circle of ekphored engrams is drawn even
more widely, abstract pictures of a higher order appear :
for instance, a white man or a negro. In my opinion,
the first form of abstract concepts in general is based
upon such abstract pictures. The physiological abstrac-
tion which takes place in the above described manner is
a predecessor of purely logical abstraction. It is by no
means a monopoly of the human race, but shows itself
in various ways also among the more highly organized
animals." The same subject is treated in more detail
in Chapter xvi of Die mnemischen Empfindungen, but
what is said there adds nothing vital to what is contained
in the above quotations.

It is necessary, however, to distinguish between the
vague and the general. So long as we are content with
Semon's composite image, we may get no farther than
the vague. The question whether this image takes us
to the general or not depends, I think, upon the question
whether, in addition to the generalized image, we have
also particular images of some of the instances out of
which it is compounded. Suppose, for example, that on
a number of occasions you had seen one negro, and that
you did not know whether this one was the same or
different on the different occasions. Suppose that in the
end you had an abstract memory-image of the different
appearances piesented by the negro on different occasions,
but no memory-image of any one of the single appear-
ances. In that case your image would be vague. If,
on the other hand, you have, in addition to the general-

GENERAL IDEAS AND THOUGHT 221

[zed image, particular images of the several appearances,
sufficiently clear to be recognized as different, and as
instances of the generalized picture, you will then not
feel the generalized picture to be adequate to any one
particular appearance, and you will be able to make it
function as a general idea rather than a vague idea. If
this view is correct, no new general content needs to be
added to the generalized image. What needs to be
added is particular images compared and contrasted
with the generalized image. So far as I can judge by
introspection, this does occur in practice. Take for
example Semon's instance of a friend's face. Unless we
make some special effort of recollection, the face is likely
to come before us with an average expression, very blurred
and vague, but we can at will recall how our friend looked
on some special occasion when he was pleased or angry
or unhappy, and this enables us to realize the generalized
character of the vague image.

There is, however, another way of distinguishing
between the vague, the particular and the general, and
this is not by their content, but by the reaction which
they produce. A word, for example, may be said to be
vague when it is applicable to a number of different
individuals, but to each as individuals ; the name Smith,
for example, is vague : it is always meant to apply to one
man, but there are many men to each of whom it applies. '
The word " man,'' on the other hand, is general. We say,
" This is Smith," but we do not say " This is man," but
" This is a man." Thus we may say that a word embodies
a vague idea when its effects are appropriate to an indi-

» " Smith " would only be a quite satisfactory representation
of vague words if we failed to discriminate between different people
called Smith.

222 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

vidual, but are the same for various similar individuals,
while a word embodies a general idea when its effects are
different from those appropriate to individuals. In what
this difference consists it is, however, not easy to say.
I am inclined to think that it consists merely in the know-
ledge that no one individual is represented, so that what
distinguishes a general idea from a vague idea is merely
the presence of a certain accompanying belief. If this
view is correct, a general idea differs from a vague one
in a way analogous to that in which a memory-image
differs from an imagination-image. There also we found
that the difference consists merely of the fact that a
memory-image is accompanied by a belief, in this case as
to the past.

It should also be said that our images even of quite
particular occurrences have always a greater or a less
degree of vagueness. That is to say, the occurrence
might have varied within certain limits without causing
our image to vary recognizably. To arrive at the general
it is necessary that we should be able to contrast it with
a number of relatively precise images or words for par-
ticular occurrences ; so long as all our images and words
are vague, we cannot arrive at the contrast by which
the general is defined. This is the justification for the
view which I quoted on p. 184 from Ribot {op. cit., p. 32),
viz. that intelligence progresses from the indefinite to the
definite, and that the vague appears earlier than either
the particular or the general.

I think the view which I have been advocating, to the
effect that a general idea is distinguished from a vague
one by the presence of a judgment, is also that intended
by Ribot when he says [op. cit., p. 92) : " The generic
image is never, the concept is always, a judgment. We

GENERAL IDEAS AND THOUGHT 223

know that for logicians (formerly at any rate) the con-
cept is the simple and primitive element ; next comes the
judgment, uniting two or several concepts ; then ratio-
cination, combining two or several judgments. For the
psychologists, on the contrary, affirmation is the funda-
mental act ; the concept is the result of judgment (explicit
or implicit), of similarities with exclusion of differences."

A great deal of work professing to be experimental has
been done in recent years on the psychology of thought.
A good summary of such work up to the year 1909 is
contained in Titchener's Lectures on the Experimental
Psychology of the Thought Processes (1909). Three articles
in the Archiv fur die gesammte Psychologic by Watt,i
Messer ^ and Biihler 3 contain a great deal of the material
amassed by the methods which Titchener calls experi-
mental.

For my part I am unable to attach as much import-
ance to this work as many psychologists do. The method
employed appears to me hardly to fulfil the conditions of
scientific experiment. Broadly speaking, what is done is,
that a set of questions are asked of various people, their
answers are recorded, and likewise their own accounts,
based upon introspection, of the processes of thought
which led them to give those answers. Much too much
reliance seems to me to be placed upon the correctness
of their introspection. On introspection as a method I
have spoken earlier (Lecture VI). I am not prepared,
like Professor Watson, to reject it wholly, but I do con-
sider that it is exceedingly fallible and quite peculiarly

I Henry J. Watt, Experimentelle Beitrdge zu einer Theorie des
Denkens, vol. iv (1905), pp. 289-436.

» August Messer, Experimentell-psychologische Untersuchungen
uber das Denken, vol. iii (1906), pp. 1-224.

3 Karl Biihler, JJhef Gedanken, vol. ix (1907), pp. 297-365.

224 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

liable to falsification in accordance with preconceived
theory. It is like depending upon the report of a short-
sighted person as to whom he sees coming along the
road at a moment when he is firmly convinced that Jones
is sure to come. If everybody were short-sighted and
obsessed with beliefs as to what was going to be visible,
we might have to make the best of such testimony, but
we should need to correct its errors by taking care to
collect the simultaneous evidence of people with the most
divergent expectations. There is no evidence that this
was done in the experiments in question, nor indeed that
the influence of theory in falsifying the introspection was
at all adequately recognized. I feel convinced that if
Professor Watson had been one of the subjects of the
questionnaires, he would have given answers totally
different from those recorded in the articles in question.
Titchener quotes an opinion of Wundt on these investiga-
tions, which appears to me thoroughly justified. " These
experiments," he says, " are not experiments at all in
the sense of a scientific methodology ; they are counter-
feit experiments, that seem methodical simply because
they are ordinarily performed in a psychological labora-
tory, and involve the co-operation of two persons, who
purport to be experimenter and observer. In reality,
they are as unmethodical as possible ; they possess none
of the special features by which we distinguish the intro-
spections of experimental psychology from the casual
introspections of everyday life." ^ Titchener, of course,
dissents from this opinion, but I cannot see that his
reasons for dissent are adequate. My doubts are only
increased by the fact that Biihler at any rate used trained
psychologists as his subjects. A trained psychologist is,
» Titchener, op. cit., p. 79.

GENERAL IDEAS AND THOUGHT 225

of course, supposed to have acquired the habit of observa-
tion, but he is at least equally likely to have acquired
a habit of seeing what his theories require. We may
take Biihler's Uher Gedanken to illustrate the kind of
results arrived at by such methods. Biihler says (p. 303) :
" We ask ourselves the general question : ' What do
we experience when we think ? ' Then we do not at all
attempt a preliminary determination of the concept
' thought,' but choose for analysis only such processes as
everyone would describe as processes of thought." The
most important thing in thinking, he says, is " awareness
that ..." (Bewusstheit dass), which he calls a thought
It is, he says, thoughts in this sense that are essential
to thinking. Thinking, he maintains, does not need
language or sensuous presentations. '* I assert rather
that in principle every object can be thought (meant)
distinctly, without any help from sensuous presentation
(Anschauungshilfen). Every individual shade of blue
colour on the picture that hangs in my room I can think
with complete distinctness unsensuously (unanschaulich) ,
provided it is possible that the object should be given to
me in another manner than by the help of sensations.
How that is possible we shall see later." What he calls
a thought (Gedanke) cannot be reduced, according to
him, to other psychic occurrences. He maintains that
thoughts consist for the most part of known rules (p. 342).
It is clearly essential to the interest of this theory that
the thought or rule alluded to by Biihler should not need
to be expressed in words, for if it is expressed in words it
is immediately capable of being dealt with on the lines
with which the behaviourists have familiarized us. It is
clear also that the supposed absence of words rests solely
upon the introspective testimony of the persons experi-

15

226 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

mented upon. I cannot think that there is sufficient
certainty of their rehability in this negative observation
to make us accept a difficult and revolutionary view of
thought, merely because they have failed to observe the
presence of words or their equivalent in their thinking.
I think it far more likely, especially in view of the fact
that the persons concerned were highly educated, that we
are concerned with telescoped processes, in which habit
has caused a great many intermediate terms to be elided
or to be passed over so quickly as to escape observation.
I am inclined to think that similar remarks apply to
the general idea of " imageless thinking," concerning
which there has been much controversy. The advocates
of imageless thinking are not contending merely that there
can be thinking which is purely verbal ; they are con-
tending that there can be thinking which proceeds neither
in words nor in images. My own feeling is that they
have rashly assumed the presence of thinking in cases
where habit has rendered thinking unnecessary. When
Thorndike experimented with animals in cages, he found
that the associations established were between a sensory
stimulus and a bodily movement (not the idea of it),
without the need of supposing any non-physiological
intermediary {op. cit., p. loo ff.). The same thing, it
seems to me, applies to ourselves. A certain sensory
situation produces in us a certain bodily movement.
Sometimes this movement consists in uttering words.
Prejudice leads us to suppose that between the sensory
stimulus and the utterance of the words a process
of thought must have intervened, but there seems
no good reason for such a supposition. Any habitual
action, such as eating or dressing, may be performed on
the appropriate occasion, without any need of thought,

GENERAL IDEAS AND THOUGHT 227

and the same seems to be true of a painfully large pro-
portion of our talk. What applies to uttered speech
appHes of course equally to the internal speech which is
not uttered. I remain, therefore, entirely unconvinced
that there is any such phenomenon as thinking which
consists neither of images nor of words, or that " ideas "
have to be added to sensations and images as part of the
material out of which mental phenomena are built.

The question of the nature of our consciousness of the
universal is much affected by our view as to the general
nature of the relation of consciousness to its object. If we
adopt the view of Brentano, according to which all mental
content has essential reference to an object, it is then
natural to suppose that there is some peculiar kind of
mental content of which the object is a universal, as
oppose to a particular. According to this view, a par-
ticular cat can be _^^rceived or imagined, while the universal
** cat '' is conceived. But this whole manner of viewing
our dealings with universals has to be abandoned when
the relation of a mental occurrence to its " object " is
regarded as merely indirect and causal, which is the view
that we have adopted. The mental content is, of course,
always particular, and the question as to what it " means "
(in case it means anything) is one which cannot be settled
by merely examining the intrinsic character of the mental
content, but only by knowing its causal connections in
the case of the person concerned. To say that a certain
thought " means " a universal as opposed to either a vague
or a particular, is to say something exceedingly complex.
A horse will behave in a certain manner whenever he smells
a bear, even if the smell is derived from a bearskin. That
is to say, any environment containing an instance of the
universal *' smell of a bear " produces closely similar

228 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

behaviour in the horse, but we do not say that the horse
is conscious of this universal. There is equally little reason
to regard a man as conscious of the same universal,
because under the same circumstances he can react by
saying, " I smell a bear." This reaction, like that of the
horse, is merely closely similar on different occasions
where the environment affords instances of the same uni-
versal. Words of which the logical meaning is universal
can therefore be employed correctly, without anything
that could be called consciousness of universals. Such
consciousness in the only sense in which it can be said to
exist is a matter of reflective judgment consisting in the
observation of similarities and differences. A universal
never appears before the mind as a single object in the sort
of way in which something perceived appears. I think
3. logical argument could be produced to show that uni-
versals are part of the structure of the world, but they
are an inferred part, not a part of our data. What exists
in us consists of various factors, some open to external
observation, others only visible to introspection. The
factors open to external observation are primarily habits,
having the peculiarity that very similar reactions are
produced by stimuli which are in many respects very
different from each other. Of this the reaction of the
horse to the smell of the bear is an instance, and so is the
reaction of the man who says " bear " under the same
circumstances. The verbal reaction is, of course, the most
important from the point of view of what may be called
knowledge of universals. A man who can always use the
word *' dog " when he sees a dog may be said, in a certain
sense, to know the meaning of the word " dog," and in
that sense to have knowledge of the universal " dog."
But there is, of course, a further stage reached by the

GENERAL IDEAS AND THOUGHT 229

logician in which he not merely reacts with the word
** dog," but sets to work to discover what it is in the
environment that causes in him this almost identical
reaction on different occasions. This further stage con-
sists in knowledge of similarities and differences : simi-
larities which are necessary to the applicability of the
word " dog," and differences which are compatible with
it. Our knowledge of these similarities and differences is
never exhaustive, and therefore our knowledge of the
meaning of a universal is never complete.

In addition to external observable habits (including the
habit of words), there is also the generic image produced
by the superposition, or, in Semon's phrase, homophony,
of a number of similar perceptions. This image is vague
so long as the multiplicity of its prototypes is not recog-
nized, but becomes universal when it exists alongside of
the more specific images of its instances, and is knowingly
contrasted with them. In this case we find again, as we
found when we were discussing words in general in the
preceding lecture, that images are not logically necessary
in order to account for observable behaviour, i.e. in this
case intelligent speech. Intelligent speech could exist as a
motor habit, without any accompaniment of images, and
this conclusion applies to words of which the meaning is
universal, just as much as to words of which the mean-
ing is relatively particular. If this conclusion is valid,
it follows that behaviourist psychology, which eschews
introspective data, is capable of being an independent
science, and of accounting for all that part of the behaviour
of other people which is commonly regarded as evidence
that they think. It must be admitted that this conclusion
considerably weakens the reliance which can be placed
upon introspective data. They must be accepted simply

230 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

on account of the fact that we seem to perceive them,
not on account of their supposed necessity for explaining
the data of external observation.

This, at any rate, is the conclusion to which we are
forced, so long as, with the behaviourists, we accept
common-sense views of the physical world. But if, as
I have urged, the physical world itself, as known, is in-
fected through and through with subjectivity, if, as the
theory of relativity suggests, the physical universe contains
the diversity of points of view which we have been accus-
tomed to regard as distinctively psychological, then we
are brought back by this different road to the necessity
for trusting observations which are in an important sense
private. And it is the privacy of introspective data which
causes much of the behaviourists' objection to them.

This is an example of the difficulty of constructing an
adequate philosophy of any one science without taking
account of other sciences. The behaviourist philosophy
of psychology, though in many respects admirable from
the point of view of method, appears to me to fail in the
last analysis because it is based upon an inadequate
philosophy of physics. In spite, therefore, of the fact
that the evidence for images, whether generic or par-
ticular, is merely introspective, I cannot admit that
images should be rejected, or that we should minimize
their function in our knowledge of what is remote in time
or space.

LECTURE XII

BELIEF

Belief, which is our subject to-day, is the central
problem in the analysis of mind. Believing seems the
most " mental " thing we do, the thing most remote
from what is done by mere matter. The whole intel-
lectual life consists of beliefs, and of the passage from
one belief to another by what is called *' reasoning.'*
Beliefs give knowledge and error ; they are the vehicles
of truth and falsehood. Psychology, theory of know-
ledge and metaphysics revolve about belief, and on the
view we take of belief our philosophical outlook largely
depends.

Before embarking upon the detailed analysis of belief,
we shall do well to note certain requisites which any
theory must fulfil.

(i) Just as words are characterized by meaning, so
beliefs are characterized by truth or falsehood. And
just as meaning consists in relation to the object meant,
so truth and falsehood consist in relation to something
that lies outside the belief. You may believe that such-
and-such a horse will win the Derby. The time comes,
and your horse wins or does not win ; according to the
outcome, your belief was true or false. You may believe
that six times nine is fifty-six ; in this case also there

231

232 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

is a fact which makes your behef false. You may beheve
that America was discovered in 1492, or that it was
discovered in 1066. In the one case your behef is true,
in the other false ; in either case its truth or falsehood
depends upon the actions of Columbus, not upon any-
thing present or under your control. What makes a
behef true or false I call a " fact." The particular fact
that makes a given belief true or false I call its " ob-
jective," ' and the relation of the belief to its objective
I call the " reference " or the " objective reference " of
the behef. Thus, if I believe that Columbus crossed the
Atlantic in 1492, the " objective " of my belief is Colum-
bus's actual voyage, and the " reference " of my belief
is the relation between my belief and the voyage — that
relation, namely, in virtue of which the voyage makes
my belief true (or, in another case, false). " Reference "
of beliefs differs from " meaning " of words in various
ways, but especially in the fact that it is of two kinds,
** true " reference and " false " reference. The truth or
falsehood of a belief does not depend upon anything
intrinsic to the belief, but upon the nature of its relation
to its objective. The intrinsic nature of belief can be
treated without reference to what makes it true or false.
In the remainder of the present lecture I shall ignore
truth and falsehood, which will be the subject of Lecture
XIII. It is the intrinsic nature of belief that will concern
us to-day.

(2) We must distinguish between believing and what
is believed. I may believe that Columbus crossed the
Atlantic, that all Cretans are liars, that two and two
are four, or that nine times six is fifty-six ; in all these

I This terminology is suggested by Meinong, but is not exactly
the same as his.

BELIEF 233

cases the believing is just the same, and only the contents
believed are differenc. I may remember my breakfast
this morning, my lecture last week, or my first sight of
New York. In all these cases the feeling of memory-
belief is just the same, and only what is remembered
differs. Exactly similar remarks apply to expectations.
Bare assent, memory and expectation are forms of belief ;
all three are different from what is believed, and each
has a constant character which is independent of what
is believed.

In Lecture I we criticized the analysis of a presentation
into act, content and object. But our analysis of belief
contains three very similar elements, namely the believing,
what is believed and the objective. The objections to
the act (in the case of presentations) are not valid against
the believing in the case of beliefs, because the believing
is an actual experienced feeling, not something postulated,
like the act. But it is necessary' first to complete our
preliminary requisites, and then to examine the content
of a belief. After that, we shall be in a position to return
to the question as to what constitutes believing.

(3) What is believed, and the believing, must both
consist of present occurrences in the believer, no matter
what may be the objective of the belief. Suppose I believe,
for example, *' that Caesar crossed the Rubicon.'' The
objective of my belief is an event which happened long
ago, which I never saw and do not remember. This event
itself is not in my mind when I believe that it happened.
It is not correct to say that I am believing the actual
event ; what I am believing is something now in my
mind, ^something related to the event (in a way which
we shall investigate in Lecture XIII), but obviously not
to be confounded with the event, since the event is not

234 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

occurring now but the believing is. What a man is
believing at a given moment is wholly determinate if
we know the contents of his mind at that moment ; but
Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon was an historical physical
event, which is distinct from the present contents of every
present mind. What is believed, however true it may
be, is not the actual fact that makes the belief true, but
a present event related to the fact. This present event,
which is what is believed, I shall call the " content *'
of the belief. We have already had occasion to notice
the distinction between content and objective in the
case of memory-beliefs, where the content is " this oc-
curred ** and the objective is the past event.

(4) Between content and objective there is sometimes
a very wide gulf, for example in the case of " Caesar
crossed the Rubicon." This gulf may, when it is first
perceived, give us a feeling that we cannot really " know '*
anything about the outer world. All we can " know,'*
it may be said, is what is now in our thoughts. If Caesar
and the Rubicon cannot be bodily in our thoughts, it
might seem as though we must remain cut off from
knowledge of them. I shall not now deal at length with
this feeling, since it is necessary first to define " know-
ing," which cannot be done yet. But I will say, as a
preliminary answer, that the feeling assumes an ideal
of knowing which I believe to be quite mistaken : it
assumes, if it is thought out, something like the mystic
unity of knower and known. These two are often said
to be combined into a unity by the fact of cognition ;
hence when this unity is plainly absent, it may seem as
if there were no genuine cognition. For my part, I think
such theories and feelings wholly mistaken : I believe
knowing to be a very external and complicated relation,

BELIEF 235

incapable of exact definition, dependent upon causal
laws, and involving no more unity than there is between
a signpost and the town to which it points. I shall return
to this question on a later occasion ; for the moment these
provisional remarks must sufiice.

(5) The objective reference of a belief is connected
with the fact that all or some of the constituents of its
content have meaning. If I say " Caesar conquered
Gaul/' a person who knows the meaning of the three
words composing my statement knows as much as can
be known about the nature of the objective which would
make my statement true. It is clear that the objective
reference of a belief is, in general, in some way derivative
from the meanings of the words or images that occur
in its content. There are, however, certain complications
which must be borne in mind. In the first place, it
might be contended that a memory-image acquires mean-
ing only through the memory-belief, which would seem,
at least in the case of memory, to make belief more
primitive than the meaning of images. In the second
place, it is a very singular thing that meaning, which
is single, should generate objective reference, which is
dual, namely true and false. This is one of the facts
which any theory of belief must explain if it is to be
satisfactory.

It is now time to leave these preliminary requisites,
and attempt the analysis of the contents of beliefs.

iThe first thing to notice about what is believed, i.e.
about the content of a belief, is that it is always complex.
We believe that a certain thing has a certain property,
or a certain relation to something else, or that it oc-
curred or will occur (in the sense discussed at the end of
Lecture IX) ; or we may believe that all the members of

236 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

a certain class have a certain property, or that a certain
property sometimes occurs among the members of a class ;
or we may believe that if one thing happens, another will
happen (for example, "if it rains I shall bring my um-
brella "), or we may believe that something does not
happen, or did not or will not happen (for example, " it
won't rain ") ; or that one of two things must happen
(for example, " either you withdraw your accusation, or
I shall bring a libel action "). The catalogue of the sorts
of things we may believe is infinite, but all of them are
complex.

Language sometimes conceals the complexity of a
belief. We say that a person believes in God, and it
might seem as if God formed the whole content of the
belief. But what is really believed is that God exists,
which is very far from being simple. Similarly, when a
person has a memory-image with a memory-belief, the
belief is " this occurred," in the sense explained in
Lecture IX ; and " this occurred " is not simple. In
like manner all cases where the content of a belief seems
simple at first sight will be found, on examination, to
confirm the view that the content is always complex.

The content of a belief involves not merely a plurality
of constituents, but definite relations between them ; it
is not determinate when its constituents alone are given.
For example, " Plato preceded Aristotle " and " Aristotle
preceded Plato " are both contents which may be believed,
but, although they consist of exactly the same constituents,
they are different, and even incompatible.

The content of a belief may consist of words only, or
of images only, or of a mixture of the two, or of either
or both together with one or more sensations. It must
contain at least one constituent which is a word or an

BELIEF 237

image, and it may or may not contain one or more sensa-
tions as constituents. Some examples will make these
various possibilities clear.

We may take first recognition, in either of the forms
" this is of such-and-such a kind " or " this has occurred
before." In either case, present sensation is a constituent.
For example, you hear a noise, and you say to yourself
** tram." Here the noise and the word " tram " are
both constituents of your belief ; there is also a relation
between them, expressed by " is " in the proposition
** that is a tram." As soon as your act of recognition
is completed by the occurrence of the word " tram,"
your actions are affected : you hurry if you want the tram,
or cease to hurry if you want a bus. In this case the
content of your belief is a sensation (the noise) and a
word (" tram ") related in a way which may be called
predication.

The same noise may bring into your mind the visual
image of a tram, instead of the word " tram." In this
case your belief consists of a sensation and an image
suitable related. Beliefs of this class are what are called
" judgments of perception." As we saw in Lecture VIII,
the images associated with a sensation often come with
such spontaneity and force that the unsophisticated do
not distinguish them from the sensation ; it is only the
psychologist or the skilled observer who is aware of the
large mnemic element that is added to sensation to make
perception. It may be objected that what is added
consists merely of images without belief. This is no
doubt sometimes the case, but is certainly sometimes
not the case. That belief always occurs in perception
as opposed to sensation it is not necessary for us to
maintain ; it is enough for our purposes to note that it

238 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

sometimes occurs, and that when it does, the content
of our belief consists of a sensation and an image suitably
related.

In a pure memory-belief only images occur. But a
mixture of words and images is very common in memory.
You have an image of the past occurrence, and you say
to yourself: " Yes, that's how it was." Here the image
and the words together make up the content of the
belief. And when the remembering of an incident has
become a habit, it may be purely verbal, and the memory-
belief may consist of words alone.

The more complicated forms of belief tend to consist
only of words. Often images of various kinds accompany
them, but they are apt to be irrelevant, and to form no
part of what is actually believed. For example, in think-
ing of the Solar System, you are likely to have vague
images of pictures you have seen of the earth surrounded
by clouds, Saturn and his rings, the sun during an eclipse,
and so on ; but none of these form part of your belief
that the planets revolve round the sun in elliptical orbits.
The only images that form an actual part of such beliefs
are, as a rule, images of words. And images of words,
for the reasons considered in Lecture VIII, cannot be
distinguished with any certainty from sensations, when,
as is often, if not usually, the case, they are kinaesthetic
images of pronouncing the words.

It is impossible for a belief to consist of sensations
alone, except when, as in the case of words, the sensations
have associations which make them signs possessed of
meaning. The reason is that objective reference is of
the essence of belief, and objective reference is derived
from meaning. When I speak of a belief consisting
partly of sensations and partly of words, I do not mean

BELIEF 289

to deny that the words, when they are not mere images,
are sensational, but that they occur as signs, not (so to
speak) in their own right. To revert to the noise of the
tram, when you hear it and say " tram," the noise and
the word are both sensations (if you actually pronounce
the word), but the noise is part of the fact which makes
your belief true, whereas the word is not part of this
fact. It is the meaning of the word " tram," not the
actual word, that forms part of the fact which is the
objective of your belief. Thus the word occurs in the
belief as a symbol, in virtue of its meaning, whereas
the noise enters into both the belief and its objective.
It is this that distinguishes the occurrence of words as
symbols from the occurrence of sensations in their own
right : the objective contains the sensations that occur
in their own right, but contains only the meanings of
the words that occur as s3^mbols.

For the sake of simplicity, we may ignore the cases
in which sensations in their own right form part of the
content of a belief, and confine ourselves to images and
words. We may also omit the cases in which both images
and words occur in the content of a belief. Thus we
become confined to two cases : [a) when the content
consists wholl}^ of images, {h) when it consists wholly
of words. The case of mixed images and words has no
special importance, and its omission will do no harm.

Let us take in illustration a case of memory. Suppose
you are thinking of some familiar room. You may call
up an image of it, and in your image the window may
be to the left of the door. Without any intrusion of
words, you may believe in the correctness of your image.
You then have a belief, consisting wholly of images,
which becomes, when put into words, ** the window is

240 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

to the left of the door." You may yourself use these
words and proceed to believe them. You thus pass
from an image-content to the corresponding word-content.
The content is different in the two cases, but its objective
reference is the same. This shows the relation of image-
beliefs to word-beliefs in a very simple case. In more
elaborate cases the relation becomes much less simple.

It may be said that even in this very simple case the
objective reference of the word-content is not quite the
same as that of the image-content, that images have a
wealth of concrete features which are lost when words
are substituted, that the window in the image is not a
mere window in the abstract, but a window of a certain
shape and size, not merely to the left of the door, but
a certain distance to the left, and so on. In reply, it
may be admitted at once that there is, as a rule, a certain
amount of truth in the objection. But two points may
be urged to minimize its force. First, images do not,
as a rule, have that wealth of concrete detail that would
make it impossible to express them fully in words. They
are vague and fragmentary : a finite number of words,
though perhaps a large number, would exhaust at least
their significant features. For — and this is our second
point — images enter into the content of a belief through
the fact that they are capable of meaning, and their
meaning does not, as a rule, have as much complexity
as they have : some of their characteristics are usually
devoid of meaning. Thus it may well be possible to ex-
tract in words all that has meaning in an image-content ;
in that case the word-content and the image-content will
have exactly the same objective reference.

The content of a belief, when expressed in words, is
the same thing (or very nearly the same thing) as what in

BELIEF 241

logic is called a " proposition." A proposition is a series
of words (or sometimes a single word) expressing the
kind of thing that can be asserted or denied. " That all
men are mortal," " that Columbus discovered America,"
** that Charles I died in his bed," " that all philosophers
are wise," are propositions. Not any series of words is
a proposition, but only such series of words as have
" meaning," or, in our phraseology, " objective reference."
Given the meanings of separate words, and the rules of
syntax, the meaning of a proposition is determinate.
This is the reason why we can understand a sentence
we never heard before. You probably never heard
before the proposition ** that the inhabitants of the
Andaman Islands habitually eat stewed hippopotamus
for dinner," but there is no difficulty in understanding
the proposition. The question of the relation between
the meaning of a sentence and the meanings of the
separate words is difficult, and I shall not pursue it now ;
I brought it up solely as being illustrative of the nature
of propositions.

We may extend the term " proposition " so as to cover
the image-contents of beliefs consisting of images. Thus,
in the case of remembering a room in which the window
is to the left of the door, when we believe the image-
content the proposition will consist of the image of the
window on the left together with the image of the door
on the right. We will distinguish propositions of this
kind as " image-propositions " and propositions in words
as " word-propositions." We may identify propositions in
general with the contents of actual and possible beliefs,
and we may say that it is propositions that are true or
false. In logic we are concerned with propositions rather
than beliefs, since logic is not interested in what people

16

242 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

do in fact believe, but only in the conditions which
determine the truth or falsehood of possible beliefs.
Whenever possible, except when actual beliefs are in
question, it is generally a simplification to deal with
propositions.

It would seem that image-propositions are more primi-
tive than word-propositions, and may well ante-date
language. There is no reason why memory-images,
accompanied by that very simple belief-feeling which
we decided to be the essence of memory, should not have
occurred before language arose ; indeed, it would be rash
to assert positively that memory of this sort does not
occur among the higher animals. Our more elementary
beliefs, notably those that are added to sensation to
make perception, often remain at the level of images.
For example, most of the visual objects in our neighbour-
hood rouse tactile images : we have a different feeling
in looking at a sofa from what we have in looking at a
block of marble, and the difference consists chiefly in
different stimulation of our tactile imagination. It may
be said that the tactile images are merely present, without
any accompanying belief ; but I think this view, though
sometimes correct, derives its plausibility as a general
proposition from our thinking of explicit conscious belief
only. Most of our beliefs, like most of our wishes, are
" unconscious," in the sense that we have never told
ourselves that we have them. Such beliefs display them-
selves when the expectations that they arouse fail in any
way. For example, if someone puts tea (without milk)
into a glass, and you drink it under the impression that
it is going to be beer ; or if you walk on what appears
to be a tiled floor, and it turns out to be a soft carpet
made to look like tiles. The shock of surprise on an

BELIEF 243

occasion of this kind makes us aware of the expectations
that habitually enter into our perceptions ; and such
expectations must be classed as beliefs, in spite of the
fact that we do not normally take note of them or put
them into words. I remember once watching a cock
pigeon running over and over again to the edge of a
looking-glass to try to wreak vengeance on the particu-
larly obnoxious bird whom he expected to find there,
judging by what he saw in the glass. He must have
experienced each time the sort of surprise on finding
nothing, which is calculated to lead in time to the adop-
tion of Berkeley's theory that objects of sense are only
in the mind. His expectation, though not expressed in
words, deserved, I think, to be called a belief.

I come now to the question what constitutes believing,
as opposed to the content believed.

To begin with, there are various different attitudes
that may be taken towards the same content. Let us
suppose, for the sake of argument, that you have a visual
image of your breakfast-table. You may expect it while
you are dressing in the morning ; remember it as you
go to your work ; feel doubt as to its correctness when
questioned as to your powers of visualizing ; merely
entertain the image, without connecting it with anything
external, when you are going to sleep ; desire it if you
are hungry, or feel aversion for it if you are ill. Suppose,
for the sake of definiteness, that the content is "an egg
for breakfast." Then you have the following attitudes :
" I expect there will be an egg for breakfast " ; "I
remember there was an egg for breakfast"; "Was there
an egg for breakfast ? " "An egg for breakfast : well,
what of it ? " "I hope there will be an egg for break-
fast " ; "I am afraid there will be an egg for breakfast

244 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

and it is sure to be bad." I do not suggest that this
is a Ust of all possible attitudes on the subject ; I say
only that they are different attitudes, all concerned with
the one content " an egg for breakfast.'*

These attitudes are not all equally ultimate. Those
that involve desire and aversion have occupied us in
Lecture IH. For the present, we are only concerned
with such as are cognitive. In speaking of memory;
we distinguished three kinds of belief directed towards
the same content, namely memory, expectation and
bare assent without any time-determination in the belief-
feeling. But before developing this view, we must
examine two other theories which might be held con-
cerning belief, and which, in some ways, would be more
in harmony with a behaviourist outlook than the theory
I wish to advocate.

(i) The first theory to be examined is the view that
the differentia of belief consists in its causal efficacy
I do not wish to make any author responsible for this
theory : I wish merely to develop it hypothetically so
that we may judge of its tenability.

We defined the meaning of an image or word by causal
efficacy, namely by associations : an image or word
acquires meaning, we said, through having the same
associations as what it means.

We propose hypothetically to define " belief " by a
different kind of causal efficacy, namely efficacy in
causing voluntary movements. (Voluntary movements
are defined as those vital movements which are dis-
tinguished from reflex movements as involving the higher
nervous centres. I do not like to distinguish them by
means of such notions as " consciousness " or " will,"
because I do not think these notions, in any definable

BELIEF 245

sense, are always applicable. Moreover, the purpose of
the theory we are examining is to be, as far as possible,
physiological and behaviourist, and this purpose is not
achieved if we introduce such a conception as " con-
sciousness " or " will." Nevertheless, it is necessary
for our purpose to find some way of distinguishing between
voluntary and reflex movements, since the results would
be too paradoxical, if we were to say that reflex move-
ments also involve beliefs.) According to this definition,
a content is said to be " believed " when it causes us to
move. The images aroused are the same if you say to
me, " Suppose there were an escaped tiger coming along
the street," and if you say to me, " There is an escaped
tiger coming along the street." But my actions will be
very different in the two cases : in the first, I shall
remain calm ; in the second, it is possible that I may not.
It is suggested, by the theory we are considering, that
this difterence of effects constitutes what is meant by
saying that in the second case I believe the proposition
suggested, while in the first case I do not. According
to this view, images or words are ** believed " when they
cause bodily movements.

I do not think this theory is adequate, but I think
it is suggestive of truth, and not so easily refutable as
it might appear to be at first sight.

It might be objected to the theory that many things
which we certainly believe do not call for any bodily
movements. I believe that Great Britain is an island,
that whales are mammals, that Charles I was executed,
and so on ; and at first sight it seems obvious that such
beliefs, as a rule, do not call for any action on my part.
But when we investigate the matter more closely, it
becomes more doubtful. To begin with, we must dis-

246 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

tinguish belief as a mere disposition from actual active
belief. We speak as if we always believed that Charles I
was executed, but that only means that we are always
ready to believe it when the subject comes up. The
phenomenon we are concerned to analyse is the active
belief, not the permanent disposition. Now, what are
the occasions when we actively believe that Charles I
was executed ? Primarily : examinations, when we per-
form the bodily movement of writing it down ; con-
versation, when we assert it to display our historical
erudition ; and political discourses, when we are engaged
in showing what Soviet government leads to. In all
these cases bodily movements (writing or speaking)
result from our belief.

But there remains the belief which merely occurs in
*' thinking." One may set to work to recall some piece
of history one has been reading, and what one recalls
is believed, although it probably does not cause any
bodily movement whatever. It is true that what we
believe always may influence action. Suppose I am
invited to become King of Georgia : I find the prospect
attractive, and go to Cook's to buy a third-class ticket
to my new realm. At the last moment I remember
Charles I and all the other monarchs who have come
to a bad end ; I change my mind, and walk out without
completing the transaction. But such incidents are rare,
and cannot constitute the whole of my belief that
Charles I was executed. The conclusion seems to be
that, although a belief always may influence action if
it becomes relevant to a practical issue, it often exists
actively (not as a mere disposition) without producing
any voluntary movement whatever. If this is true, we
cannot define belief by the effect on voluntary movements.

BELIEF 247

There is another, more theoretical, ground for rejecting
the view we are examining. It is clear that a proposition
can be either believed or merely considered, and that
the content is the same in both cases. We can expect
an egg for breakfast, or merely entertain the supposition
that there may be an egg for breakfast. A moment
ago I considered the possibility of being invited to become
King of Georgia, but I do not believe that this will happen.
Now, it seems clear that, since believing and considering
have different effects if one produces bodily movements
while the other does not, there must be some intrinsic
difference between believing and considering ^ ; for if
they were precisely similar, their effects also would be
precisely similar. We have seen that the difference
between believing a given proposition and merely con-
sidering it does not lie in the content ; therefore there
must be, in one case or in both, something additional
to the content which distinguishes the occurrence of a
belief from the occurrence of a mere consideration of
the same content. So far as the theoretical argument
goes, this additional element may exist only in belief,
or only in consideration, or there may be one sort of
additional element in the case of belief, and another in
the case of consideration. This brings us to the second
view which we have to examine.

(2) The theory which we have now to consider regards
belief as belonging to every idea which is entertained,
except in so far as some positive counteracting force
interferes. In this view belief is not a positive pheno-
menon, though doubt and disbelief are so. What we
call belief, according to this hypothesis, involves only

I Cf. Brentano, Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte, p. 268
(criticizing Bairij The Emotions and the Will).

248 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

the appropriate content, which will have the effects
characteristic of belief unless something else operating
simultaneously inhibits them. James [Psychology, vol. ii,
p. 288) quotes with approval, though inaccurately, a
passage from Spinoza embodying this view :

" Let us conceive a boy imagining to himxself a horse,
and taking note of nothing else. As this imagination
involves the existence of the horse, and the hoy has no
perception which annuls its existence [James's italics], he
will necessarily contemplate the horse as present, nor
will he be able to doubt of its existence, however little
certain of it he may be. I deny that a man in so far
as he imagines [percipit] affirms nothing. For what is
it to imagine a winged horse but to affirm that the horse
[that horse, namely] has wings ? For if the mind had
nothing before it but the winged horse, it would contem-
plate the same as present, would have no cause to doubt
of its existence, nor any power of dissenting from its
existence, unless the imagination of the winged horse
were joined to an idea which contradicted [tollit] its
existence " [Ethics, vol. ii, p. 49, Scholium).

To this doctrine James entirely assents, adding in
italics :

"Any object which remains uncontradicted is ipso facto
believed and posited as absolute reality."

If this view is correct, it follows (though James does
not draw the inference) that there is no need of any
specific feeling called " belief," and that the mere exist-
ence of images yields all that is required. The state of
mind in which we merely consider a proposition, without
believing or disbelieving it, will then appear as a sophisti-
cated product, the result of some rival force adding to
the image-proposition a positive feeling which may be

BELIEF 249

called suspense or non-belief — a feeling which may be
compared to that of a man about to run a race waiting
for the signal. Such a man, though not moving, is in
a very different condition from that of a man quietly
at rest. And so the man who is considering a proposition
without believing it will be in a state of tension, restrain-
ing the natural tendency to act upon the proposition
which he would display if nothing interfered. In this
view belief primarily consists merely in the existence
of the appropriate images without any counteracting
forces.

There is a great deal to be said in favour of this view,
and I have some hesitation in regarding it as inadequate.
It fits admirably with the phenomena of dreams and
hallucinatory images, and it is recommended by the
way in which it accords with mental development. Doubt,
suspense of judgment and disbelief all seem later and
more complex than a wholly unreflecting assent. Belief
as a positive phenomenon, if it exists, may be regarded,
in this view, as a product of doubt, a decision after debate,
an acceptance, not merely of this, but of this-rather-than-
that. It is not difficult to suppose that a dog has images
(possible olfactory) of his absent master, or of the rabbit
that he dreams of hunting. But it is very difficult to
suppose that he can entertain mere imagination-images
to which no assent is given.

I think it must be conceded that a mere image, without
the addition of any positive feeling that could be called
" belief," is apt to have a certain dynamic power, and
in this sense an uncombated image has the force of a
belief. But although this may be true, it accounts only
for some of the simplest phenomena in the region of
belief. It will not, for example, explain memory. Nor

250 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

can it explain beliefs which do not issue in any proximate
action, such as those of mathematics. I conclude, there-
fore, that there must be belief-feelings of the same order
as those of doubt or disbelief, although phenomena closely
analogous to those of belief can be produced by mere
uncontradicted images.

(3) I come now to the view of belief which I wish to
advocate. It seems to me that there are at least three
kinds of belief, namely memory, expectation and bare
assent. Each of these I regard as constituted by a
certain feeling or complex of sensations, attached to the
content believed. We may illustrate by an example.
Suppose I am believing, by means of images, not words,
that it will rain. We have here two interrelated ele-
ments, namely the content and the expectation. The
content consists of images of (say) the visual appearance
of rain, the feeling of wetness, the patter of drops, inter-
related, roughly, as the sensations would be if it were
raining. Thus the content is a complex fact composed
of images. Exactly the same content may enter into
the memory " it was raining " or the assent " rain occurs."
The difference of these cases from each other and from
expectation does not lie in the content. The difference
lies in the nature of the belief-feehng. I, personally,
do not profess to be able to analyse the sensations con-
stituting respectively memory, expectation and assent ;
but I am not prepared to say that they cannot be analysed.
There may be other belief-feelings, for example in dis-
junction and implication ; also a disbelief-feeling.

It is not enough that the content and the belief-feeling
should co-exist : it is necessary that there should be a
specific relation between them, of the sort expressed by
saying that the content is what is believed. If this

BELIEF 251

were not obvious, it could be made plain by an argument.
If the mere co-existence of the content and the belief-
feeling sufficed, whenever we were having (say) a memory-
feeling we should be remembering any proposition which
came into our minds at the same time. But this is not
the case, since we may simultaneously remember one
proposition and merely consider another.

We may sum up our analysis, in the case of bare assent
to a proposition not expressed in words, as follows :
{a) We have a proposition, consisting of interrelated
images, and possibly partly of sensations ; (b) we have
the feeling of assent, which is presumably a complex
sensation demanding analysis ; (c) we have a relation,
actually subsisting, between the assent and the proposi-
tion, such as is expressed by saying that the proposition
in question is what is assented to. For other forms of
belief-feeling or of content, we have only to make the
necessary substitutions in this analysis.

If we are right in our analysis of belief, the use of
words in expressing beliefs is apt to be misleading. There
is no way of distinguishing, in words, between a memory
and an assent to a proposition about the past : "I ate
my breakfast " and " Caesar conquered Gaul " have the
same verbal form, though (assuming that I remember
my breakfast) they express occurrences which are psycho-
logically very different. In the one case, what happens
is that I remember the content " eating my breakfast " ;
in the other case, I assent to the content " Caesar's con-
quest of Gaul occurred." In the latter case, but not
in the former, the pastness is part of the content believed.
Exactly similar remarks apply to the difference between
expectation, such as we have when waiting for the
thunder after a flash of lightning, and assent to a propo-

252 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

sition about the future, such as we have in all the usual
cases of inferential knowledge as to what will occur.
I think this difficulty in the verbal expression of the
temporal aspects of beliefs is one among the causes which
have hampered philosophy in the consideration of time.
The view of belief which I have been advocating con-
tains little that is novel except the distinction of kinds
of belief-feeling such as mem^ory and expectation. Thus
James says : " Everyone knows the difference between
imagining a thing and believing in its existence, between
supposing a proposition and acquiescing in its truth. . . .
In its inner nature, belief, or the sense of reality, is a sort
of feeling more allied to the emotions than to anything else "
(Psychology, vol. ii, p. 283. James's italics). He proceeds
to point out that drunkenness, and, still more, nitrous-
oxide intoxication, will heighten the sense of belief : in
the latter case, he says, a man's very soul may sweat
with conviction, and he be all the time utterly unable
to say what he is convinced of. It would seem that,
in such cases, the feeling of belief exists unattached,
without its usual relation to a content believed, just
as the feeling of familiarity may sometimes occur without
being related to any definite familiar object. The feeling
of belief, when it occurs in this separated heightened
form, generally leads us to look for a content to which
to attach it. Much of what passes for revelation or
mystic insight probably comes in this way : the belief-
feeling, in abnormal strength, attaches itself, more or
less accidentally, to some content which we happen to
think of at the appropriate moment. But this is only
a speculation, upon which I do not wish to lay too much
stress.

LECTURE XIII

TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD

The definition of truth and falsehood, which is our topic
to-day, lies strictly outside our general subject, namely
the analysis of mind. From the psychological stand-
point, there may be different kinds of belief, and different
degrees of certainty, but there cannot be any purely
psychological means of distinguishing between true and
false beliefs. A belief is rendered true or false by relation
to a fact, which may lie outside the experience of the
person entertaining the belief. Truth and falsehood,
except in the case of beliefs about our own minds, depend
upon the relations of mental occurrences to outside things,
and thus take us beyond the analysis of mental occur-
rences as they are in themselves. Nevertheless, we can
hardly avoid the consideration of truth and falsehood.
We wish to believe that our beliefs, sometimes at least,
yield knowledge, and a belief does not yield knowledge
unless it is true. The question whether our minds are
instruments of knowledge, and, if so, in what sense, is
so vital that any suggested analysis of mind must be
examined in relation to this question. To ignore this
question would be like describing a chronometer without
regard to its accuracy as a time-keeper, or a thermometer
without mentioning the fact that it measures temperature.

253

254 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

Many difficult questions arise in connection with
knowledge. It is difficult to define knowledge, difficult
to decide whether we have any knowledge, and difficult,
even if it is conceded that we sometimes have knowledge,
to discover whether we can ever know that we have
knowledge in this or that particular case. I shall divide
the discussion into four parts :

I. We may regard knowledge, from a behaviourist
standpoint, as exhibited in a certain kind of response
to the environment. This response must have some
characteristics which it shares with those of scientific
instruments, but must also have others that are peculiar
to knowledge. We shall find that this point of view is
important, but not exhaustive of the nature of knowledge.

II. We may hold that the beliefs that constitute know-
ledge are distinguished from such as are erroneous or
uncertain by properties which are intrinsic either to
single beliefs or to systems of beliefs, being in either case
discoverable without reference to outside fact. Views
of this kind have been widely held among philosophers,
but we shall find no reason to accept them.

III. We believe that some beliefs are true, and some
false. This raises the problem of verifiahiliiy : are there
any circumstances which can justifiably give us an un-
usual degree of certainty that such and such a belief is
true ? It is obvious that there are circumstances which
in fact cause a certainty of this sort, and we wish to
learn what we can from examining these circumstances.

IV. Finally, there is the formal problem of defining
truth and falsehood, and deriving the objective reference
of a proposition from the meanings of its component
words.

We will consider these four problems in succession.

TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD 255

. I. We may regard a human being as an instrument,
which makes various responses to various stimuli. If
we observe these responses from outside, we shall regard
them as showing knowledge when they display two
characteristics, accuracy and appropriateness. These two
are quite distinct, and even sometimes incompatible.
If I am being pursued by a tiger, accuracy is furthered
by turning round to look at him, but appropriateness
by running away without making any search for further
knowledge of the beast. I shall return to the question
of appropriateness later ; for the present it is accuracy
that I wish to consider.

When we are viewing a man from the outside, it is not
his beliefs, but his bodily movements, that we can observe.
His knowledge must be inferred from his bodily move-
ments, and especially from what he says and writes.
For the present we may ignore beliefs, and regard a
man's knowledge as actually consisting in what he says
and does. That is to say, we will construct, as far as
possible, a purely behaviouristic account of truth and
falsehood.

If you ask a boy " What is twice two ? " and the boy
says "four," you take that as prima facie evidence that
the boy knows what twice two is. But if you go on to
ask what is twice three, twice four, twice five, and so on,
and the boy always answers " four," you come to the
conclusion that he knows nothing about it. Exactly
similar remarks apply to scientific instruments. I know
a certain weather-cock which has the pessimistic habit
of always pointing to the north-east. If you were to
see it first on a cold March day, you would think it an
excellent weather-cock ; but with the first warm day
of spring your confidence would be shaken. The boy

256 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

and the weather-cock have the same defect : they do not
vary their response when the stimulus is varied. A good
instrument, or a person with much knowledge, will give
different responses to stimuli which differ in relevant
ways. This is the first point in defining accuracy of
response.

We will now assume another boy, who also, when
you first question him, asserts that twice two is four.
But with this boy, instead of asking him different ques-
tions, you make a practice of asking him the same question
every day at breakfast. You find that he says five,
or six, or seven, or any other number at random, and
you conclude that he also does not know what twice
two is, though by good luck he answered right the first
time. This boy is like a weather-cock which, instead
of being stuck fast, is always going round and round,
changing without any change of wind. This boy and
weather-cock have the opposite defect to that of the
previous pair : they give different responses to stimuli
which do not differ in any relevant way.

In connection with vagueness in memory, we already
had occasion to consider the definition of accuracy.
Omitting some of the niceties of our previous discussion,
we may say that an instrument is accurate when it avoids
the defects of the two boys and weather-cocks, that is
to say, when —

{a) It gives different responses to stimuli which

differ in relevant ways ;
(h) It gives the same response to stimuli which do

not differ in relevant ways.

What are relevant ways depends upon the nature and
purpose of the instrument. In the case of a weather-

TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD 257

cock, the direction of the wind is relevant, but not its
strength ; in the case of the boy, the meaning of the
words of your question is relevant, but not the loudness
of your voice, or whether you are his father or his school-
master. If, however, you were a boy of his own age,
that would be relevant, and the appropriate response
would be different.

It is clear that knowledge is displayed by accuracy
of response to certain kinds of stimuli, e.g. examinations.
Can we say, conversely, that it consists wholly of such
accuracy of response ? I do not think we can ; but
we can go a certain distance in this direction. For this
purpose we must define more carefully the kind of
accuracy and the kind of response that may be expected
where there is knowledge.

From our present point of view, it is difficult to exclude
perception from knowledge ; at any rate, knowledge is
displayed by actions based upon perception. A bird
flying among trees avoids bumping into their branches ;
its avoidance is a response to visual sensations. This
response has the characteristic of accuracy, in the main,
and leads us to say that the bird " knows," by sight,
what objects are in its neighbourhood. For a behaviourist,
this must certainly count as knowledge, however it may
be viewed by analytic psychology. In this case, what
is known, roughly, is the stimulus ; but in more advanced
knowledge the stimulus and what is known become
different. For example, you look in your calendar and
find that Easter will be early next year. Here the
stimulus is the calendar, whereas the response concerns
the future. Even this can be paralleled among instru-
ments : the behaviour of the barometer has a present
stimulus, but foretells the future, so that the barometer

17

258 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

might be said, in a sense, to know the future. However
that may be, the point I am emphasizing as regards
knowledge is that what is known may be quite different
from the stimulus, and no part of the cause of the know-
ledge-response. It is only in sense-knowledge that the
stimulus and what is known are, with qualifications,
identifiable. In knowledge of the future, it is obvious
that they are totally distinct, since otherwise the response
would precede the stimulus. In abstract knowledge
also they are distinct, since abstract facts have no date.
In knowledge of the past there are complications, which
we must briefly examine.

Every form of memory will be, from our present point
of view, in one sense a delayed response. But this phrase
does not quite clearly express what is meant. If you
light a fuse and connect it with a heap of dynamite,
the explosion of the dynamite may be spoken of, in a
sense, as a delayed response to your lighting of the fuse.
But that only means that it is a somewhat late portion
of a continuous process of which the earlier parts have
less emotional interest. This is not the case with habit.
A display of habit has two sorts of causes : (a) the past
occurrences which generated the habit, {b) the present
occurrence which brings it into play. When you drop
a weight on your toe, and say what you do say, the habit
has been caused by imitation of your undesirable asso-
ciates, whereas it is brought into play by the dropping
of the weight. The great bulk of our knowledge is a
habit in this sense : whenever I am asked when I was
born, I reply correctly by mere habit. It would hardly
be correct to say that getting born was the stimulus,
and that my reply is a delayed response. But in cases
of memory this way of speaking would have an element

TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD 259

of truth. In an habitual memory, the event remembered
was clearly an essential part of the stimulus to the for-
mation of the habit. The present stimulus which brings
the habit into play produces a different response from
that which it would produce if the habit did not exist.
Therefore the habit enters into the causation of the
response, and so do, at one remove, the causes of the
habit. It follows that an event remembered is an essential
part of the causes of our remembering.

In spite, however, of the fact that what is known is
sometimes an indispensable part of the cause of the know-
ledge, this circumstance is, I think, irrelevant to the
general question with which we are concerned, namely :
What sort of response to what sort of stimulus can be
regarded as displaying knowledge ? There is one char-
acteristic which the response must have, namely, it must
consist of voluntary movements. The need of this
characteristic is connected with the characteristic of
appropriateness, which I do not wish to consider as yet.
For the present I wish only to obtain a clearer idea of
the sort of accuracy that a knowledge-response must
have. It is clear from many instances that accuracy,
in other cases, may be purely mechanical. The most
complete form of accuracy consists in giving correct
answers to questions, an achievement in which calcu-
lating machines far surpass human beings. In asking a
question of a calculating machine, you must use its
language : you must not address it in English, any more
than you would address an Englishman in Chinese.'- But
if you address it in the language it understands, it will
tell you what is 34521 times 19987, without a moment's
hesitation or a hint of inaccuracy. We do not say the
machine knows the answer, because it has no purpose

260 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

of its own in giving the answer : it does not wish to
impress you with its cleverness, or feel proud of being
such a good machine. But as far as mere accuracy goes,
the machine leaves nothing to be desired.

Accuracy of response is a perfectly clear notion in the
case of answers to questions, but in other cases it is much
more obscure. We may say generally that an object
whether animate or inanimate, is " sensitive " to a certain
feature of the environment if it behaves differently accord-
ing to the presence or absence of that feature. Thus
iron is sensitive to anything magnetic. But sensitive-
ness does not constitute knowledge, and knowledge of a
fact which is not sensible is not sensitiveness to that
fact, as we have seen in distinguishing the fact known
from the stimulus. As soon as we pass beyond the simple
case of question and answer, the definition of knowledge
by means of behaviour demands the consideration of
purpose. A carrier pigeon flies home, and so we say it
" knows " the way. But if it merely flew to some place
at random, we should not say that it " knew " the way
to that place, any more than a stone rolling down hill
knows the way to the valJey.

On the features which distinguish knowledge from
accuracy of response in general, not much can be said
from a behaviourist point of view without referring to
purpose. But the necessity of something besides accuracy
of response may be brought out by the following con-
sideration : Suppose two persons, of whom one believed
whatever the other disbelieved, and disbelieved whatever
the other believed. So far as accuracy and sensitiveness
of response alone are concerned, there would be nothing
to choose between these two persons. A thermometer
which went down for warm weather and up for cold

TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD ^61

might be just as accurate as the usual kind ; and a person
who always believes falsely is just as sensitive an instru-
ment as a person who always believes truly. The observ-
able and practical difference between them would be
that the one who always believed falsely would quickly
come to a bad end. This illustrates once more that
accuracy of response to stimulus does not alone show
knowledge, but must be reinforced by appropriateness,
i.e. suitability for realizing one's purpose. This applies
even in the apparently simple case of answering ques-
tions : if the purpose of the answers is to deceive, their
falsehood, not their truth, will be evidence of knowledge.
The proportion of the combination of appropriateness
with accuracy in the definition of knowledge is difficult ;
it seems that both enter in, but that appropriateness is
only required as regards the general type of response,
not as regards each individual instance.

II. I have so far assumed as unquestionable the view
that the truth or falsehood of a belief consists in a relation
to a certain fact, namely the objective of the belief.
This view has, however, been often questioned. Philo-
sophers have sought some intrinsic criterion by which
true and false beliefs could be distinguished. ' I am

I The view that such a criterion exists is generally held by those
whose views are in any degree derived from Hegel. It may be
illustrated by the following passage from Lossky, The Intuitive
Basis of Knowledge (Macmillan, 1919), p. 268 : " Strictly speaking,
a false judgment is not a judgment at all. The predicate does
not follow from the subject S alone, but from the subject plus
a certain addition C, which in no sense belongs to the content of the
judgment. What takes place may be a process of association of
ideas, of imagining, or the like, but is not a process of judging.
An experienced psychologist will be able by careful observation
to detect that in this process there is wanting just the specific
element of the objective dependence of the predicate upon the
subject which is characteristic of a judgment. It must be admitted.

262 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

afraid their chief reason for this search has been the
wish to feel more certainty than seems otherwise possible
as to what is true and what is false. If we could dis-cover
the truth of a belief by examining its intrinsic charac-
teristics, or those of some collection of beliefs of which
it forms part, the pursuit of truth, it is thought, would
be a less arduous business than it otherwise appears to
be. But the attempts which have been made in this
direction are not encouraging. I will take two criteria
which have been suggested, namely, (i) self-evidence,
(2) mutual coherence. If we can show that these are
inadequate, we may feel fairly certain that no intrinsic
criterion hitherto suggested will suffice to distinguish
true from false beliefs.

(i) Self-evidence. — Some of our beliefs seem to be
peculiarly indubitable. One might instance the belief
that two and two are four, that two things cannot be
in the same place at the same time, nor one thing in
two places, or that a particular buttercup that we are
seeing is yellow. The suggestion we are to examine is
that such beliefs have some recognizable quality which
secures their truth, and the truth of whatever is deduced
from them according to self-evident principles of inference.
This theory is set forth, for example, by Meinong in his
book, Ueber die Erfahrungsgrundlagen unseres Wissens,

If this theory is to be logically tenable, self-evidence
must not consist merely in the fact that we believe a
proposition. We believe that our beliefs are sometimes
erroneous, and we wish to be able to select a certain
class of beliefs which are never erroneous. If we are

however, that an exceptional power of observation is needed in
order to distinguish, by means of introspection, mere combinations
of ideas from judgments."

TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD 263

to do this, it must be by some mark which belongs only
to certain beliefs, not to all ; and among those to which
it belongs there must be none that are mutually incon-
sistent. If, for example, two propositions p and q were
self-evident, and it were also self-evident that p and q
could not both be true, that would condemn self-evidence
as a guarantee of truth. Again, self-evidence must not
be the same thing as the absence of doubt or the presence
of complete certainty. If we are completely certain of
a proposition, we do not seek a ground to support our
belief. If self-evidence is alleged as a ground of belief,
that implies that doubt has crept in, and that our self-
evident proposition has not wholly resisted the assaults
of scepticism. To say that any given person believes
some things so firmly that he cannot be made to doubt
them is no doubt true. Such beliefs he will be willing
to use as premisses in reasoning, and to him personally
they will seem to have as much evidence as any belief
can need. But among the propositions which one man
finds indubitable there will be some that another man
finds it quite possible to doubt. It used to seem self-
evident that there could not be men at the Antipodes,
because they would fall off, or at best grow giddy from
standing on their heads. But New Zealanders find the
falsehood of this proposition self-evident. Therefore, if
self-evidence is a guarantee of truth, our ancestors must
have been mistaken in thinking their beliefs about the
Antipodes self-evident. Meinong meets this difficulty
by saying that some beliefs are falsely thought to be
self-evident, but in the case of others it is self-evident
that they are self-evident, and these are wholly reliable.
Even this, however, does not remove the practical risk
of error, since we may mistakenly believe it self-evident

264 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

that a certain belief is self-evident. To remove all risk
of error, we shall need an endless series of more and more
complicated self-evident beliefs, which cannot possibly
be realized in practice. It would seem, therefore, that
self-evidence is useless as a practical criterion for insuring
truth.

The same result follows from examining instances.
If we take the four instances mentioned at the beginning
of this discussion, we shall find that three of them are
logical, while the fourth is a judgment of perception.
The proposition that two and two are four follows by
purely logical deduction from definitions : that means
that its truth results, not from the properties of objects,
but from the meanings of symbols. Now symbols, in
mathematics, mean what we choose ; thus the feeling
of self-evidence, in this case, seems explicable by the
fact that the whole matter is within our control. I do
not wish to assert that this is the whole truth about
mathematical propositions, for the question is com-
plicated, and I do not know what the whole truth is.
But I do wish to suggest that the feeling of self-evidence
in mathematical propositions has to do with the fact
that they are concerned with the meanings of symbols,
not with properties of the world such as external observa-
tion might reveal.

Similar considerations apply to the impossibility of
a thing being in two places at once, or of two things
being in one place at the same time. These impossibilities
result logically, if I am not mistaken, from the definitions
of one thing and one place. That is to say, they are not
laws of physics, but only part of the intellectual apparatus
which we have manufactured for manipulating physics.
Their self-evidence, if this is so, lies merely in the fact

TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD 265

that they represent our decision as to the use of words,
not a property of physical objects.

Judgments of perception, such as " this buttercup is
yellow," are in a quite different position from judgments
of logic, and their self-evidence must have a different
explanation. In order to arrive at the nucleus of such
a judgment, we will eliminate, as far as possible, the use
of words which take us beyond the present fact, such
as " buttercup " and " yellow." The simplest kind of
judgment underlying the perception that a buttercup is
yellow would seem to be the perception of similarity in
two colours seen simultaneously. Suppose we are
seeing two buttercups, and we perceive that their
colours are similar. This similarity is a physical fact,
not a matter of symbols or words ; and it certainly
seems to be indubitable in a way that many judgments
are not.

The first thing to observe, in regard to such judgments,
is that as they stand they are vague. The word " similar "
is a vague word, since there are degrees of similarity,
and no one can say where similarity ends and dis-
similarity begins. It is unlikely that our two buttercups
have exactly the same colour, and if we judged that they
had we should have passed altogether outside the region
of self-evidence. To make our proposition more precise,
let us suppose that we are also seeing a red rose at the
same time. Then we may judge that the colours of the
buttercups are more similar to each other than to the
colour of the rose. This judgment seems more com-
pHcated, but has certainly gained in precision. Even
now, however, it falls short of complete precision, since
similarity is not prima facie measurable, and it would
require much discussion to decide what we mean by

266 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

greater or less similarity. To this process of the pursuit
of precision there is strictly no limit.

The next thing to observe (although I do not personally
doubt that most of our judgments of perception are true)
is that it is very difficult to define any class of such judg-
ments which can be known, by its intrinsic quaUty, to
be always exempt from error. Most of our judgments
of perception involve correlations, as when we judge
that a certain noise is that of a passing cart. Such
judgments are all obviously liable to error, since there
is no correlation of which we have a right to be certain
that it is invariable. Other judgments of perception are
derived from recognition, as when we say " this is a
buttercup," or even merely " this is yellow." All such
judgments entail some risk of error, though sometimes
perhaps a very small one ; some flowers that look like
buttercups are marigolds, and colours that some would
call yellow others might call orange. Our subjective
certainty is usually a result of habit, and may lead us
astray in circumstances which are unusual in ways of
which we are unaware.

For such reasons, no form of self-evidence seems to
afford an absolute criterion of truth. Nevertheless, it
is perhaps true that judgments having a high degree of
subjective certainty are more apt to be true than other
judgments. But if this be the case, it is a result to be
demonstrated, not a premiss from which to start in
defining truth and falsehood. As an initial guarantee,
therefore, neither self-evidence nor subjective certainty
can be accepted as adequate.

(2) Coherence. — Coherence as the definition of truth is
advocated by ideaUsts, particularly by those who in the
main follow Hegel. It is set forth ably in Mr. Joachim's

TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD 267

book. The N attire of Truth (Oxford, 1906). According to
this view, any set of propositions other than the whole
of truth can be condemned on purely logical grounds,
as internally inconsistent ; a single proposition, if it is
what we should ordinarily call false, contradicts itself
irremediably, while if it is what we should ordinarily
call true, it has implications which compel us to admit
other propositions, which in turn lead to others, and
so on, until we find ourselves committed to the whole
of truth. One might illustrate by a very simple example :
if I say " so-and-so is a married man," that is not a self-
subsistent proposition. We cannot logically conceive of
a universe in which this proposition constituted the whole
of truth. There must be also someone who is a married
woman, and who is married to the particular man in
question. The view we are considering regards every-
thing that can be said about any one object as relative
in the same sort of way as " so-and-so is a married man."
But everything, according to this view, is relative, not
to one or two other things, but to all other things, so
that from one bit of truth the whole can be inferred.

The fundamental objection to this view is logical,
and consists in a criticism of its doctrine as to relations.
I shall omit this line of argument, which I have developed
else where. ' For the moment I will content myself
with saying that the powers of logic seem to me very
much less than this theory supposes. If it were taken
seriously, its advocates ought to profess that any one
truth is logically inferable from any other, and that,
for example, the fact that Caesar conquered Gaul, if

» In the article on " The Monistic Theory of Truth " in Philo-
sophical Essays (Longmans, 1910), reprinted from the Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society, 1906-7.

268 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

adequately considered, would enable us to discover what
the weather will be to-morrow. No such claim is put
forward in practice, and the necessity of empirical ob-
servation is not denied ; but according to the theory
it ought to be.

Another objection is that no endeavour is made to
show that we cannot form a consistent whole composed
partly or wholly of false propositions, as in a novel.
Leibniz's conception of many possible worlds seems to
accord much better with modern logic and with the
practical empiricism which is now universal. The attempt
to deduce the world by pure thought is attractive, and
in former times was largely supposed capable of success.
But nowadays most men admit that beliefs must be
tested by observation, and not merely by the fact that
they harmonize with other beliefs. A consistent fairy-
tale is a different thing from truth, however elaborate
it may be. But to pursue this topic would lead us into
difficult technicalities ; I shall therefore assume, without
further argument, that coherence is not sufficient as a
definition of truth.

III. Many difficult problems arise as regards the
verifiability of beliefs. We beUeve various things, and
while we believe them we think we know them. But
it sometimes turns out that we were mistaken, or at
any rate we come to think we were. We must be mistaken
either in our previous opinion or in our subsequent re-
cantation ; therefore our beliefs are not all correct, and
there are cases of belief which are not cases of knowledge.
The question of verifiability is in essence this : can we
discover any set of beliefs which are never mistaken,
or any test which, when applicable, will always enable
us to discriminate between true and false beliefs ? Put

268 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

adequately considered, would enable us to discover w]
the weather will be to-morrow. No such claim is ]
forward in practice, and the necessity of empirical
servation ia not denied ; but according to the the«
it ought to be.

Another objection is that no endeavour is made
show that we cannot form a consistent whole compo
partly or wholly of false propositions, as in a no^
Leibniz's conception of many possible worlds seems
accord much better with modern logic and with
practical empiricism which is now universal. The atter
to deduce the world by pure thought is attractive, c
in former times was largely supposed capable of succi
But nowadays most men admit that beliefs must
tested by observation, and not merely by the fact t
they harmonize with other beliefs. A consistent fai
tale is a different thing from truth, however elabor
it may be. But to pursue this topic would lead us i
difficult technicalities ; I shall therefore assume, with'
further argument, that coherence is not sufficient ai
definition of truth.

III. Many difficult problems arise as regards
verifiability of beliefs. We beheve various things, c
while we believe them we think we know them. 1
it sometimes turns out that we were mistaken, or
any rate we come to think we were. We must be mistal
either in our previous opinion or in our subsequent
cantation ; therefore our beliefs are not all correct, c
there are cases of belief which are not cases of knowled
The question of verifiability is in essence this : can
discover any set of beliefs which are never mistak
or any test which, when applicable, will always ena
us to discriminate between true and false beliefs ? I

TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD 269

thus broadly and abstractly, the answer must be negative.
There is no way hitherto discovered of wholly eliminating
the risk of error, and no infallible criterion. If we believe
we have found a criterion, this belief itself may be mis-
taken ; we should be begging the question if we tried
to test the criterion by applying the criterion to itself.

But although the notion of an absolute criterion is
chimerical, there may be relative criteria, which increase
the probability of truth. Common sense and science hold
that there are. Let us see what they have to say.

One of the plainest cases of verification, perhaps ulti-
mately the only case, consists in the happening of some-
thing expected. You go to the station believing that
there will be a train at a certain time ; you find the
train, you get into it, and it starts at the expected time
This constitutes verification, and is a perfectly definite
experience. It is, in a sense, the converse of memory :
instead of having first sensations and then images accom-
panied by belief, we have first images accompanied by
behef and then sensations. Apart from differences as
to the time-order and the accompanying feelings, the
relation between image and sensation is closely similar
in the two cases of memory and expectation ; it is a
relation of similarity, with difference as to causal efficacy —
broadly, the image has the psychological but not the
physical effects that the sensation would have. When
an image accompanied by an expectation-belief is thus
succeeded by a sensation which is the " meaning " of
the image, we say that the expectation-belief has been
verified. The experience of verification in this sense is
exceedingly familiar ; it happens every time that accus-
tomed activities have results that are not surprising, in
eating and walking and talking and all our daily pursuits.

270 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

But although the experience in question is common,
it is not wholly easy to give a theoretical account of it.
How do we know that the sensation resembles the previous
image ? Does the image persist in presence of the sensa-
tion, so that we can compare the two ? And even if
some image does persist, how do we know that it is the
previous image unchanged ? It does not seem as if this
line of inquiry offered much hope of a successful issue.
It is better, I think, to take a more external and causal
view of the relation of expectation to expected occurrence.
If the occurrence, when it comes, gives us the feeling
of expectedness, and if the expectation, beforehand,
enabled us to act in a way which proves appropriate to
the occurrence, that must be held to constitute the
maximum of verification. We have first an expectation,
then a sensation with the feeling of expectedness related
to memory of the expectation. This whole experience,
when it occurs, may be defined as verification, and as
constituting the truth ot the expectation. Appropriate
action, during the period of expectation, may be regarded
as additional verification, but is not essential. The whole
process may be illustrated by looking up a famihar
quotation, finding it in the expected words, and in the
expected part of the book. In this case we can strengthen
the verification by writing down beforehand the words
which we expect to find.

I think all verification is ultimately of the above sort.
We verify a scientific hypothesis indirectly, by deducing
consequences as to the future, which subsequent experi-
ence confirms. If somebody were to doubt whether
Caesar had crossed the Rubicon, verification could only
be obtained from the future. We could proceed to display
manuscripts to our historical sceptic, in which it was

TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD 271

said that Caesar had behaved in this way. We could
advance arguments, verifiable by future experience, to
prove the antiquity of the manuscript from its texture,
colour, etc. We could find inscriptions agreeing with
the historian on other points, and tending to show his
general accuracy. The causal laws which our arguments
would assume could be verified by the future occurrence
of events inferred by means of them. The existence
and persistence of causal laws, it is true, must be regarded
as a fortunate accident, and how long it will continue
we cannot tell. Meanwhile verification remains often
practically possible. And since it is sometimes possible,
we can gradually discover what kinds of beliefs tend to
be verified by experience, and what kinds tend to be
falsified ; to the former kinds we give an increased degree
of assent, to the latter kinds a diminished degree. The
process is not absolute or infallible, but it has been found
capable of sifting beliefs and building up science. It
affords no theoretical refutation of the sceptic, whose
position must remain logically unassailable ; but if com-
plete scepticism is rejected, it gives the practical method
by which the system of our beliefs grows gradually to-
wards the unattainable ideal of impeccable knowledge.

IV. I come now to the purely formal definition of
the truth or falsehood of a belief. For this definition
it is necessary first of all to consider the derivation of
the objective reference of a proposition from the meanings
of its component words or images.

Just as a word has meaning, so a proposition has an
objective reference. The objective reference of a pro-
position is a function (in the mathematical sense) of the
meanings of its component words. But the objective
reference differs from the meaning of a word through

^72 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

the duality of truth and falsehood. You may believe
the proposition " to-day is Tuesday " both when, in fact,
to-day is Tuesday, and when to-day is not Tuesday.
If to-day is not Tuesday, this fact is the objective of
your belief that to-day is Tuesday. But obviously the
relation of your belief to the fact is different in this case
from what it is in the case when to-day is Tuesday. We
may say, metaphorically, that when to-day is Tuesday,
your belief that it is Tuesday points towards the fact,
whereas when to-day is not Tuesday your belief points
away from the fact. Thus the objective reference of a
belief is not determined by the fact alone, but by the
direction of the belief towards or away from the fact.^
If, on a Tuesday, one man believes that it is Tuesday
while another believes that it is not Tuesday, their beliefs
have the same objective, namely the fact that it is Tuesday,
but the true belief points towards the fact while the
false one points away from it. Thus, in order to define
the reference of a proposition we have to take account
not only of the objective, but also of the direction of
pointing, towards the objective in the case of a true
proposition and away from it in the case of a false one.
This mode of stating the nature of the objective refer-
ence of a proposition is necessitated by the circumstance
that there are true and false propositions, but not true
and false facts. If to-day is Tuesday, there is not a false
objective " to-day is not Tuesday," which could be the
objective of the false belief " to-day is not Tuesday."
This is the reason why two beliefs which are each other's
contradictories have the same objective. There is, how-
ever, a practical inconvenience, namely that we cannot

I I owe this way of looking at the matter to my friend Ludwig
Wittgenstein.

TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD 278

determine the objective reference of a proposition, ac-
cording to this definition, unless we know whether the
proposition is true or false. To avoid this inconvenience,
it is better to adopt a slightly different phraseology,
and say : The '* meaning " of the proposition ** to-day
is Tuesday " consists in pointing to the fact '* to-day
is Tuesday " if that is a fact, or away from the fact " to-
day is not Tuesday " if that is a fact. The " meaning "
of the proposition " to-day is not Tuesday " will be exactly
the opposite. By this hypothetical form we are able to
speak of the meaning of a proposition without knowing
whether it is true or false. According to this definition,
we know the meaning of a proposition when we know
what would make it true and what would make it false,
even if we do not know whether it is in fact true or false.

The meaning of a proposition is derivative from the
meanings of its constituent words. Propositions occur
in pairs, distinguished (in simple cases) by the absence
or presence of the word ** not." Two such propositions
have the same objective, but opposite meanings : when
one is true, the other is false, and when one is false, the
other is true.

The purely formal definition of truth and falsehood
offers little difiiculty. What is required is a formal
expression of the fact that a proposition is true when
it points towards its objective, and false when it points
away from it. In very simple cases we can give a very
simple account of this : we can say that true propositions
actually resemble their objectives in a way in which
false propositions do not. But for this purpose it is
necessary to revert to image-propositions instead of
word-propositions. Let us take again the illustration of
a memory-image of a familiar room, and let us suppose

18

274 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

that in the image the window is to the left of the door.
If in fact the window is to the left of the door, there is
a correspondence between the image and the objective ;
there is the same relation between the window and the
door as between the images of them. The image-memory
consists of the image of the window to the left of the
image of the door. When this is true, the very same
relation relates the terms of the objective (namely the
window and the door) as relates the images which mean
them. In this case the correspondence which constitutes
truth is very simple.

In the case we have just been considering the ob-
jective consists of two parts with a certain relation (that
of left-to-right), and the proposition consists of images
of these parts with the very same relation. The same
proposition, if it were false, would have a less simple
formal relation to its objective. If the image-proposition
consists of an image of the window to the left of an image
of the door, w^hile in fact the window is not to the left
of the door, the proposition does not result from the
objective by the mere substitution of images for their
prototypes. Thus in this unusually simple case we can
say that a true proposition " corresponds " to its objective
in a formal sense in which a false proposition does not.
Perhaps it may be possible to modify this notion of formal
correspondence in such a way as to be more widely ap-
plicable, but if so, the modifications required will be
by no means slight. The reasons for this must now be
considered.

To begin with, the simple type of correspondence we
have been exhibiting can hardly occur when words are
substituted for images, because, in word-propositions,
relations are usually expressed by words, which are

TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD 275

not themselves relations. Take such a proposition as
*' Socrates precedes Plato/' Here the word " precedes "
is just as solid as the words " Socrates " and " Plato " ;
it means a relation, but is not a relation. Thus the
objective which makes our proposition true consists of
two terms with a relation between them, whereas our
proposition consists of three terms with a relation of
order between them. Of course, it would be perfectly
possible, theoretically, to indicate a few chosen relations,
not by words, but by relations between the other words.
" Socrates-Plato *' might be used to mean " Socrates
precedes Plato " ; *' Pla-Socrates-to " might be used to
mean " Plato was born before Socrates and died after
him *' ; and so on. But the possibilities of such a method
would be very limited. For aught I know, there may
be languages that use it, but they are not among the
languages with which I am acquainted. And in any
case, in view of the multiplicity of relations that we
wish to express, no language could advance far without
words for relations. But as soon as we have words for
relations, word-propositions have necessarily more terms
than the facts to which they refer, and cannot therefore
correspond so simply with their objectives as some image-
propositions can.

The consideration of negative propositions and negative
facts introduces further complications. An image-pro-
position is necessarily positive : we can image the window
to the left of the door, or to the right of the door, but
we can form no image of the bare negative " the window
not to the left of the door.'' We can disbelieve the image-
proposition expressed by " the window to the left of
the door," and our disbelief will be true if the window
is not to the left of the door. But we can form no image

276 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

of the fact that the window is not to the left of the door.
Attempts have often been made to deny such negative
facts, but, for reasons which I have given elsewhere,^
I beHeve these attempts to be mistaken, and I shall
assume that there are negative facts.

Word-propositions, like image-propositions, are always
positive facts. The fact that Socrates precedes Plato is
symbolized in English by the fact that the word " pre-
cedes " occurs between the words " Socrates " and
" Plato." But we cannot symbolize the fact that Plato
does not precede Socrates b}^ not putting the word
" precedes " between ** Plato " and " Socrates." A nega-
tive fact is not sensible, and language, being intended
for communication, has to be sensible. Therefore we
symbolize the fact that Plato does not precede Socrates
by putting the words " does not precede " between
" Plato " and " Socrates." We thus obtain a series
of words which is just as positive a fact as the series
" Socrates precedes Plato." The propositions asserting
negative facts are themselves positive facts ; they are
merely different positive facts from those asserting
positive facts.

We have thus, as regards the opposition of positive
and negative, three different sorts of duality, according
as we are dealing with facts, image-propositions, or word-
propositions. We have, namely :

(i) Positive and negative facts ;

(2) Image-propositions, which may be believed or
disbelieved, but do not allow any duality of
content corresponding to positive and negative
facts ;

« Monist, January, 1919, p. 42 ff.

TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD 277

(3) Word-propositions, which are always positive
facts, but are of two kinds : one verified by
a positive objective, the other by a negative
objective.

Owing to these compHcations, the simplest type of
correspondence is impossible when either negative facts
or negative propositions are involved.

Even when we confine ourselves to relations between
two terms which are both imaged, it may be impossible
to form an image-proposition in which the relation of
the terms is represented by the same relation of the
images. Suppose we say " Cassar was 2,000 years before
Foch," we express a certain temporal relation between
Caesar and Foch ; but we cannot allow 2,000 years to
elapse between our image of Caesar and our image of
Foch. This is perhaps not a fair example, since " 2,000
years before " is not a direct relation. But take a case
where the relation is direct, say, " the sun is brighter
than the moon." We can form visual images of sunshine
and moonshine, and it may happen that our image of
the sunshine is the brighter of the two, but this is by
no means either necessary or sufiicient. The act of
comparison, implied in our judgment, is something more
than the mere co-existence of two images, one of which
is in fact brighter than the other. It would take us too
far from our main topic if we were to go into the question
what actually occurs when we make this judgment.
Enough has been said to show that the correspondence
between the belief and its objective is more complicated
in this case than in that of the window to the left of the
door, and this was all that had to be proved.

In spite of these complications, the general nature of

278 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

the formal correspondence which makes truth is clear
from our instances. In the case of the simpler kind of
propositions, namely those that I call " atomic " pro-
positions, where there is only one word expressing a
relation, the objective which would verify our proposition,
assuming that the word " not " is absent, is obtained
by replacing each word by what it means, the word
meaning a relation being replaced by this relation
among the meanings of the other words. For example,
if the proposition is " Socrates precedes Plato," the
objective which verifies it results from replacing the word
'* Socrates " by Socrates, the word " Plato " by Plato, and
the word " precedes " by the relation of preceding between
Socrates and Plato. If the result of this process is a
fact, the proposition is true ; if not, it is false. When
our proposition is " Socrates does not precede Plato,"
the conditions of truth and falsehood are exactly reversed.
More complicated propositions can be dealt with on the
same lines. In fact, the purely formal question, which
has occupied us in this last section, offers no very for-
midable difficulties.

I do not believe that the above formal theory is untrue,
but I do believe that it is inadequate. It does not, for
example, throw any light upon our preference for true
beliefs rather than false ones. This preference is only
explicable by taking account of the causal efhcacy of
beliefs, and of the greater appropriateness of the responses
resulting from true beliefs. But appropriateness depends
upon purpose, and purpose thus becomes a vital part of
theory of knowledge.

LECTURE XIV

EMOTIONS AND WILL

On the two subjects of the present lecture I have nothing
original to say, and I am treating them only in order to
complete the discussion of my main thesis, namely that
all psychic phenomena are built up out of sensations
and images alone.

Emotions are traditionally regarded by psychologists
as a separate class of mental occurrences : I am, of course,
not concerned to deny the obvious fact that they have
characteristics which make a special investigation of
them necessary. What I am concerned with is the
analysis of emotions. It is clear that an emotion is
essentially complex, and we have to inquire whether it
ever contains any non-physiological material not reducible
to sensations and images and their relations.

Although what specially concerns us is the analysis
of emotions, we shall find that the more important topic
is the physiological causation of emotions. This is a
subject upon which much valuable and exceedingly in-
teresting work has been done, whereas the bare analysis
of emotions has proved somewhat barren. In view of
the fact that we have defined perceptions, sensations,
and images by their physiological causation, it is evident

that our problem of the analysis of the emotions is

27a

280 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

bound up with the problem of their physiological
causation.

Modern views on the causation of emotions begin
with what is called the James-Lange theory. James
states this view in the following terms {Psychology, vol. ii,

P- 449) •

" Our natural way of thinking about these coarser

emotions, grief, fear, rage, love, is that the mental per-
ception of some fact excites the mental affection called
the emotion, and that this latter state of mind gives
rise to the bodily expression. My theory, on the contrary,
is that the bodily changes follow directly the perception of
the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes
as they occur IS the emotion (James's itahcs). Common
sense says : we lose our fortune, are sorry and weep ;
we meet a bear, are frightened and run ; we are insulted
by a rival, are angry and strike. The hypothesis here to
be defended says that this order of sequence is incorrect,
that the one mental state is not immediately induced
by the other, that the bodily manifestations must first
be interposed between, and that the more rational state-
ment is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because
we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we
cry, strike, or tremble, because we are sorry, angry, or
fearful, as the case may be. Without the bodily states
following on the perception, the latter would be purely
cognitive in form, pale, colourless, destitute of emotional
warmth."

Round this hypothesis a very voluminous literature
has grown up. The history of its victory over earlier
criticism, and its difficulties with the modern experimental
work of Sherrington and Cannon, is well told by James
R. Angell in an article called " A Reconsideration of

EMOTIONS AND WILL 281

James's Theory of Emotion in the Light of Recent Criti-
cisms." * In this article Angell defends James's theory
and to me — though I speak with diffidence on a question
as to which I have Httle competence — it appears that
his defence is on the whole successful.

Sherrington, by experiments on dogs, showed that
many of the usual marks of emotion were present in
their behaviour even when, by severing the spinal cord
in the lower cervical region, the viscera were cut off from
all communication with the brain except that existing
through certain cranial nerves. He mentions the various
signs which " contributed to indicate the existence of
an emotion as lively as the animal had ever shown us
before the spinal operation had been made."^ He infers
that the physiological condition of the viscera cannot
be the cause of the emotion displayed under such cir-
cumstances, and concludes : " We are forced back toward
the likelihood that the visceral expression of emotion is
secondary to the cerebral action occurring with the psychical
state. . . . We may with James accept visceral and
organic sensations and the memories and associations
of them as contributory to primitive emotion, but we
must regard them as re-enforcing rather than as initiating
the psychosis." 2

Angell suggests that the display of emotion in such
cases may be due to past experience, generating habits
which would require only the stimulation of cerebral
reflex arcs. Rage and some forms of fear, however, may,
he thinks, gain expression without the brain. Rage and
fear have been especially studied by Cannon, whose work
is of the greatest importance. His results are given in

» Psychological Review, 1916.
» Quoted by Angell, loc. cit.

282 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

his book, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage
(D. Appleton and Co., 1916).

The most interesting part of Cannon's book consists
in the investigation of the effects produced by secretion.
of adrenin. Adrenin is a substance secreted into the
blood by the adrenal glands. These are among the
ductless glands, the functions of which, both in physiology
and in connection with the emotions, have only come to
be known during recent years. Cannon found that pain,
fear and rage occurred in circumstances which affected
the supply of adrenin, and that an artificial injection
of adrenin could, for example, produce all the symptoms
of fear. He studied the effects of adrenin on various
parts of the body ; he found that it causes the pupils to
dilate, hairs to stand erect, bloodvessels to be constricted,
and so on. These effects were still produced if the parts
in question were removed from the body and kept alive
artificially."

Cannon's chief argument against James is, if I under-
stand him rightly, that similar affections of the viscera
may accompany dissimilar emotions, especially fear and
rage. Various different emotions make us cry, and
therefore it cannot be true to say, as James does, that
we " feel sorry because we cry," since sometimes we cry
when we feel glad. This argument, however, is by no
means conclusive against James, because it cannot be
shown that there are no visceral differences for different
emotions, and indeed it is unlikely that this is the case.

I Cannon's work is not unconnected with that of Mosso, who
maintains, as the result of much experimental work, that " the
seat of the emotions lies in the sympathetic nervous system."
An account of the work of both these men will be found in God-
dard's Psychology of the Normal and Sub-normal (Kegan Paul,
1919), chap, vii and Appendix.

EMOTIONS AND WILL 283

As Angell says {loc. cit.) : " Fear and joy may both cause
cardiac palpitation, but in one case we find high tonus
of the skeletal muscles, in the other case relaxation and
the general sense of weakness."

AngelFs conclusion, after discussing the experiments of
Sherrington and Cannon, is : "I would therefore submit
that, so far as concerns the critical suggestions by these
two psychologists, James's essential contentions are not
materially affected." If it were necessary for me to take
sides on this question, I should agree with this conclusion ;
but I think my thesis as to the analysis of emotion can
be maintained without coming to a probably premature
conclusion upon the doubtful parts of the physiological
problem.

According to our definitions, if James is right, an emotion
may be regarded as involving a confused perception of
the viscera concerned in its causation, while if Cannon
and Sherrington are right, an emotion involves a confused
perception of its external stimulus. This follows from
what was said in Lecture VII. We there defined a per-
ception as an appearance, however irregular, of one or
more objects external to the brain. And in order to be
an appearance of one or more objects, it is only necessary
that the occurrence in question should be connected with
them by a continuous chain, and should vary when they
are varied sufficiently. Thus the question whether a
mental occurrence can be called a perception turns upon
the question whether anything can be inferred from it
as to its causes outside the brain : if such inference is
possible, the occurrence in question will come within our
definition of a perception. And in that case, according
to the definition in Lecture VIII, its non-mnemic elements
will be sensations. Accordingly, whether emotions are

284 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

caused by changes in the viscera or by sensible objects,
they contain elements which are sensations according to
our definition.

An emotion in its entirety is, of course, something much
more complex than a perception. An emotion is essentially
a process, and it will be only what one may call a cross-
section of the emotion that will be a perception, of a
bodily condition according to James, or (in certain cases)
of an external object according to his opponents. An
emotion in its entirety contains dynamic elements, such
as motor impulses, desires, pleasures and pains. Desires
and pleasures and pains, according to the theory adopted
in Lecture III, are characteristics of processes, not separate
ingredients. An emotion — rage, for example — will be a
certain kind of process, consisting of perceptions and
(in general) bodily movements. The desires and pleasures
and pains involved are properties of this process, not
separate items in the stuff of which the emotion is composed.
The dynamic elements in an emotion, if we are right in
our analysis, contain, from our point of view, no ingre-
dients beyond those contained in the processes considered
in Lecture III. The ingredients of an emotion are only
sensations and images and bodily movements succeeding
each other according to a certain pattern. With this
conclusion we may leave the emotions and pass to the
consideration of the will.

The first thing to be defined when we are deahng with
Will is a voluntary movement. We have already defined
vital movements, and we have maintained that, from a
behaviourist standpoint, it is impossible to distinguish
which among such movements are reflex and which
voluntary. Nevertheless, there certainly is a distinction.
When we decide in the morning that it is time to get up,

EMOTIONS AND WILL 285

our consequent movement is voluntary. The beating of
the heart, on the other hand, is involuntary : we can
neither cause it nor prevent it by any decision of our
own, except indirectly, as e.g. by drugs. Breathing is
intermediate between the two : we normally breathe
without the help of the will, but we can alter or stop our
breathing if we choose.

James {Psychology, chap, xxvi) maintains that the
only distinctive characteristic of a voluntary act is that
it involves an idea of the movement to be performed,
made up of memory-images of the kinaesthetic sensations
which we had when the same movement occurred on some
former occasion. He points out that, on this view, no
movement can be made voluntarily unless it has previously
occurred involuntarily. ^

I see no reason to doubt the correctness of this view.
We shall say, then, that movements which are accom-
panied by kinaesthetic sensations tend to be caused by
the images of those sensations, and when so caused are
called voluntary.

Volition, in the emphatic sense, involves something
more than voluntary movement. The sort of case I
am thinking of is decision after deliberation. Voluntary
movements are a part of this, but not the whole. There
is, in addition to them, a judgment : " This is what I
shall do '* ; there is also a sensation of tension during
doubt, followed by a different sensation at the moment
of deciding. I see no reason whatever to suppose that
there is any specifically new ingredient ; sensations and
images, with their relations and causal laws, yield all
that seems to be wanted for the analysis of the will, to-
gether with the fact that kinaesthetic images tend to cause
I Psychology, vol. ii, pp. 492-3.

286 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

the movements with which they are connected. Conflict
of desires is of course essential in the causation of the
emphatic kind of will : there will be for a time kinaesthetic
images of incompatible movements, followed by the ex-
clusive image of the movement which is said to be willed.
Thus will seems to add no new irreducible ingredient to
the analysis of the mind.

LECTURE XV

CHARACTERISTICS OF MENTAL PHENOMENA

At the end of our journey it is time to return to the
question from which we set out, namely : What is it
that characterizes mind as opposed to matter ? Or,
to state the same question in other terms : How is
psychology to be distinguished from physics ? The
answer provisionally suggested at the outset of our in-
quiry was that psychology and physics are distinguished
by the nature of their causal laws, not by their subject
matter. At the same time we held that there is a certain
subject matter, namely images, to which only psycho-
logical causal laws are applicable ; this subject matter,
therefore, we assigned exclusively to psychology. But we
found no way of defining images except through their
causation ; in their intrinsic character they appeared
to have no universal mark by which they could be
distinguished from sensations.

In this last lecture I propose to pass in review various
suggested methods of distinguishing mind from matter.
I shall then briefly sketch the nature of that fundamental
science which I believe to be the true metaphysic, in
which mind and matter alike are seen to be constructed
out of a neutral stuff, whose causal laws have no such
duality as that of psychology, but form the basis upon
which both physics and psychology are built.

288 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

In search for the definition of " mental phenomena,"
let us begin with " consciousness/' which is often
thought to be the essence of mind. In the first lecture
I gave various arguments against the view that con-
sciousness is fundamental, but I did not attempt to
say what consciousness is. We must find a definition
of it, if we are to feel secure in deciding that it is not
fundamental. It is for the sake of the proof that it
is not fundamental that we must now endeavour to
decide what it is.

" Consciousness," by those who regard it as fundamental,
is taken to be a character diffused throughout our mental
life, distinct from sensations and images, memories,
beliefs and desires, but present in all of them.^ Dr.
Henry Head, in an article which I quoted in Lecture
III, distinguishing sensations from purely physiological
occurrences, says : " Sensation, in the strict sense of
the term, demands the existence of consciousness "
(p. 184). This statement, at first sight, is one to which
we feel inclined to assent, but I believe we are mistaken
if we do so. Sensation is the sort of thing of which we
may be conscious, but not a thing of which we must be
conscious. We have been led, in the course of our
inquiry, to admit unconscious beliefs and unconscious
desires. There is, so far as I can see, no class of mental
or other occurrences of which we are always conscious
whenever they happen.

The first thing to notice is that consciousness must
be of something. In view of this, I should define " con-
sciousness " in terms of that relation of an image or
a word to an object which we defined, in Lecture XI,
as " meaning." When a sensation is followed by an

» Cf. Lecture VI.

MENTAL PHENOMENA 289

image which is a ** copy " of it, I think it may be said
that the existence of the image constitutes consciousness
of the sensation, provided it is accompanied by that sort
of beHef which, when we reflect upon it, makes us feel
that the image is a " sign " of something other than
itself. This is the sort of belief which, in the case of
memory, we expressed in the words " this occurred " ;
or which, in the case of a judgment of perception, makes
us believe in qualities correlated with present sensations,
as e.g., tactile and visual qualities are correlated. The
addition of some element of belief seems required, since
mere imagination does not involve consciousness of
anything, and there can be no consciousness which
is not of something. If images alone constituted
consciousness of their prototypes, such imagination-
images as in fact have prototypes would involve con-
sciousness of them ; since this is not the case, an element
of belief must be added to the images in defining
consciousness. The belief must be of that sort that
constitutes objective reference, past or present. An
image, together with a belief of this sort concerning it,
constitutes, according to our definition, consciousness
of the prototype of the image.

But when we pass from consciousness of sensations
to consciousness of objects of perception, certain further
points arise which demand an addition to our definition.
A judgment of perception, we may say, consists of a
core of sensation, together with associated images,
with belief in the present existence of an object to which
sensation and images are referred in a way which is
difficult to analyse. Perhaps we might say that the
belief is not fundamentally in any present existence,
but is of the nature of an expectation : for example,

19

290 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

when we see an object, we expect certain sensations to
result if we proceed to touch it. Perception, then, will
consist of a present sensation together with expectations
of future sensations. (This, of course, is a reflective
analysis, not an account of thie way perception appears
to unchecked introspection.) But all such expectations
are liable to be erroneous, since they are based upon
correlations which are usual but not invariable. Any
such correlation may mislead us in a particular case,
for example, if we try to touch a reflection in a looking-
glass under the impression that it is ''real." Since
memory is fallible, a similar difficulty arises as regards
consciousness of past objects. It would seem odd to
say that we can be *' conscious " of a thing which does
not or did not exist. The only way to avoid this awkward-
ness is to add to our definition the proviso that the beliefs
involved in consciousness must be true.

In the second place, the question arises as to whether
we can be conscious of images. If we apply our definition
to this case, it seems to demand images of images. In
order, for example, to be conscious of an image of a
cat, we shall require, according to the letter of the defini-
tion, an image which is a copy of our image of the cat,
and has this image for its prototype. Now, it hardly
seems probable, as a matter of observation, that there
are images of images, as opposed to images of sensations.
We may meet this difficulty in two ways, either by boldly
denying consciousness of images, or by finding a sense
in which, by means of a different accompanying belief,
an image, instead of meaning its prototype, can mean
another image of the same prototype.

The first alternative, which denies consciousness of
images, has already been discussed when we were

MENTAL PHENOMENA 291

dealing with Introspection in Lecture VI. We then
decided that there must be, in some sense, consciousness
of images. We are therefore left with the second suggested
way of dealing with knowledge of images. According
to this second hypothesis, there may be two images of
the same prototype, such that one of them means the
other, instead of meaning the prototype. It will be
remembered that we defined meaning by association :
a word or image means an object, we said, when it has
the same associations as the object. But this definition
must not be interpreted too absolutely : a word or image
will not have all the same associations as the object which
it means. The word " cat '' may be associated with
the word " mat," but it would not happen except by
accident that a cat would be associated with a mat.
And in like manner an image may have certain associa-
tions which its prototype will not have, e.g. an associa-
tion with the word " image." When these associations
are active, an image means an image, instead of mean-
ing its prototype. If I have had images of a given proto-
type many times, I can mean one of these, as opposed
to the rest, by recollecting the time and place or any
other distinctive association of that one occasion. This
happens, for example, when a place recalls to us some
thought we previously had in that place, so that we
remember a thought as opposed to the occurrence to
which it referred. Thus we may say that we think of
an image A when we have a similar image B associated
with recollections of circumstances connected with A,
but not with its protot5^e or with other images of the
same prototype. In this way we become aware of images
without the need of any new store of mental contents,
merely by the help of new associations. This theory.

292 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

so far as I can see, solves the problems of introspective
knowledge, without requiring heroic measures such as
those proposed by Knight Dunlap, whose views we
discussed in Lecture VI.

According to what we have been saying, sensation
itself is not an instance of consciousness, though the
immediate memory by which it is apt to be succeeded
is so. A sensation which is remembered becomes an
object of consciousness as soon as it begins to be remem-
bered, which will normally be almost immediately after
its occurrence (if at all) ; but while it exists it is not an
object of consciousness. If, however, it is part of a per-
ception, say of some familiar person, we may say that
the person perceived is an object of consciousness. For
in this case the sensation is a sign of the perceived object
in much the same way in which a memory-image is a
sign of a remembered object. The essential practical
function of " consciousness " and " thought " is that
they enable us to act v/ith reference to what is distant
in time or space, even though it is not at present
stimulating our senses. This reference to absent objects
is possible through association and habit. Actual sen-
sations, in themselves, are not cases of consciousness,
because they do not bring in this reference to what is
absent. But their connection with consciousness is
very close, both through immediate memory, and through
the correlations which turn sensations into perceptions.

Enough has, I hope, been said to show that conscious-
ness is far too complex and accidental to be taken as the
fundamental characteristic of mind. We have seen that
belief and images both enter into it. Belief itself, as
we saw in an earlier lecture, is complex. Therefore, if
any definition of mind is suggested by our analysis of

MENTAL PHENOMENA 298

consciousness, images are what would naturally suggest
themselves. But since we found that images can only
be defined causally, we cannot deal with this suggestion,
except in connection with the difference between physical
and psychological causal laws.

I come next to those characteristics of mental pheno-
mena which arise out of mnemic causation. The possi-
bility of action with reference to what is not sensibly
present is one of the things that might be held to
characterize mind. Let us take first a very elementary
example. Suppose you are in a familiar room at night,
and suddenly the light goes out. You will be able to
find your way to the door without much difficulty by
means of the picture of the room which you have in
your mind. In this case visual images serve, somewhat
imperfectly it is true, the purpose which visual sensations
would otherwise serve. The stimulus to the production
of visual images is the desire to get out of the room,
which, according to what we found in Lecture III, consists
essentially of present sensations and motor impulses
caused by them. Again, words heard or read enable
you to act with reference to the matters about which
they give information ; here, again, a present sensible
stimulus, in virtue of habits formed in the past, enables
you to act in a manner appropriate to an object which
is not sensibly present. The whole essence of the practical
efficiency of " thought " consists in sensitiveness to
signs : the sensible presence of A, which is a sign of
the present or future existence of B, enables us to act
in a manner appropriate to B. Of this, words are the
supreme example, since their effects as signs are prodigious,
while their intrinsic interest as sensible occurrences on
their own account is usually very slight.

294 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

The operation of signs may or may not be accompanied
by consciousness. If a sensible stimulus A calls up
an image of B, and we then act with reference to B, we
have what may be called consciousness of B. But habit
may enable us to act in a manner appropriate to B as
soon as A appears, without ever having an image of B.
In that case, although A operates as a sign, it operates
without the help of consciousness. Broadly speaking,
a very familiar sign tends to operate directly in this manner,
and the intervention of consciousness marks an imperfectly
established habit.

The power of acquiring experience, which characterizes
men and animals, is an example of the general law that,
in mnemic causation, the causal unit is not one event at
one time, but two or more events at two or more times.^
A burnt child fears the fire, that is to say, the neighbourhood
of fire has a different effect upon a child which has had
the sensations of burning than upon one which has not.
More correctly, the observed effect, when a child which
has been burnt is put near a fire, has for its cause, not
merely the neighbourhood of the fire, but this together
with the previous burning. The general formula, when
an animal has acquired experience through some event
A, is that, when B occurs at some future time, the animal
to which A has happened acts differently from an animal
which A has not happened. Thus A and B together,
not either separately, must be regarded as the cause of
the animal's behaviour, unless we take account of the
effect which A has had in altering the animal's nervous
tissue, which is a matter not patent to external observa-
tion except under very special circumstances. With
this possibility, we are brought back to causal laws,

« Cf. Lecture IV.

MENTAL PHENOMENA 295

and to the suggestion that many things which seem
essentially mental are really neural. Perhaps it is the
nerves that acquire experience rather than the mind.
If so, the possibility of acquiring experience cannot
be used to define mind."

Very similar considerations apply to memory, if taken
as the essence of mind. A recollection is aroused by
something which is happening now, but is different
from the effect which the present occurrence would have
produced if the recollected event had not occurred.
This may be accounted for by the physical effect of the
past event on the brain, making it a different instrument
from that which would have resulted from a different
experience. The causal peculiarities of memory may,
therefore, have a physiological explanation. With every
special class of mental phenomena this possibility meets
us afresh. If psychology is to be a separate science
at all, we must seek a wider ground for its separateness
than any that we have been considering hitherto.

We have found that " consciousness " is too narrow
to characterize mental phenomena, and that mnemic
causation is too wide. I come now to a characteristic
which, though difficult to define, comes much nearer
to what we require, namely subjectivity.

Subjectivity, as a characteristic of mental phenomena,
was considered in Lecture VII, in connection with the
definition of perception. We there decided that those
particulars which constitute the physical world can be
collected into sets in two ways, one of which makes a
bundle of all those particulars that are appearances
of a given thing from different places, while the other
makes a bundle of all those particulars which are appear-

I Cf. Lecture IV.

296 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

ances of different things from a given place. A bundle
of this latter sort, at a given time, is called a " perspective";
taken throughout a period of time, it is called a " bio-
graphy." Subjectivity is the characteristic of perspectives
and biographies, the characteristic of giving the view of
the world from a certain place. We saw in Lecture VII
that this characteristic involves none of the other
characteristics that are commonly associated with mental
phenomena, such as consciousness, experience and memory.
We found in fact that it is exhibited by a photographic
plate, and, strictly speaking, by any particular taken in
conjunction with those which have the same " passive "
place in the sense defined in Lecture VII. The par-
ticulars forming one perspective are connected together
primarily by simultaneity ; those forming one biography,
primarily by the existence of direct time-relations between
them. To these are to be added relations derivable from
the laws of perspective. In all this we are clearly not
in the region of psychology, as commonly understood ;
yet we are also hardly in the region of physics. And
the definition of perspectives and biographies, though
it does not yet yield anything that would be commonly
called " mental," is presupposed in mental phenomena,
for example in mnemic causation : the causal unit in
mnemic causation, which gives rise to Semon's engram,
is the whole of one perspective — not of any perspective,
but of a perspective in a place where there is nervous
tissue, or at any rate living tissue of some sort. Percep-
tion also, as we saw, can only be defined in terms of
perspectives. Thus the conception of subjectivity, i.e.
of the " passive " place of a particular, though not alone
sufficient to define mind, is clearly an essential element
in the definition.

MENTAL PHENOMENA 297

I liave maintained throughout these lectures that
the data of psychology do not differ in their intrinsic
character from the data of physics. I have maintained
that sensations are data for psychology and physics equally,
while images, which may be in some sense exclusively psy-
chological data, can only be distinguished from sensations
by their correlations, not by what they are in themselves.
It is now necessary, however, to examine the notion of
a *' datum," and to obtain, if possible, a definition of
this notion.

The notion of " data '* is familiar throughout science,
and is usually treated by men of science as though it
were perfectly clear. Psychologists, on the other hand,
find great difficulty in the conception. " Data " are
naturally defined in terms of theory of knowledge : they
are those propositions of which the truth is known without
demonstration, so that they may be used as premisses
in proving other propositions. Further, when a proposi-
tion which is a datum asserts the existence of something,
we say that the something is a datum, as well as the
proposition asserting its existence. Thus those objects
of whose existence we become certain through perception
are said to be data.

There is some difficulty in connecting this epistemo-
logical definition of " data " with our psychological
analysis of knowledge ; but until such a connection has been
effected, we have no right to use the conception " data."

It is clear, in the first place, that there can be no datum
apart from a belief. A sensation which merely comes
and goes is not a datum ; it only becomes a datum when
it is remembered. Similarly, in perception, we do not
have a datum unless we have a judgment of perception.
In the sense in which objects (as opposed to propositions)

298 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

are data, it would seem natural to say that those objects
of which we are conscious are data. But consciousness,
as we have seen, is a complex notion, involving beliefs,
as well as mnemic phenomena such as are required for
perception and memory. It follows that no datum is
theoretically indubitable, since no belief is infallible ;
it follows also that every datum has a greater or less
degree of vagueness, since there is always some vagueness
in memory and the meaning of images.

Data are not those things of which our consciousness
is earliest in time. At every period of life, after we have
become capable of thought, some of our beliefs are obtained
by inference, while others are not. A belief may pass from
either of these classes into the other, and may therefore
become, or cease to be, a belief giving a datum. When, in
what follows, I speak of data, I do not mean the things
of which we feel sure before scientific study begins, but
the things which, when a science is well advanced, appear
as affording grounds for other parts of the science, with-
out themselves being believed on any ground except
observation. I assume, that is to say, a trained observer,
with an analytic attention, knowing the sort of thing to
look for, and the sort of thing that will be important.
What he observes is, at the stage of science which he
has reached, a datum for his science. It is just as
sophisticated and elaborate as the theories which he
bases upon it, since only trained habits and much practice
enable a man to make the kind of observation that will
be scientifically illuminating. Nevertheless, when once it
has been observed, belief in it is not based on inference
and reasoning, but merely upon its having been seen.
In this way its logical status differs from that of the theories
which are proved by its means.

MENTAL PHENOMENA 299

In any science other than psychology the datum is
primarily a perception, in which only the sensational
core is ultimately and theoretically a datum, though
some such accretions as turn the sensation into a percep-
tion are practically unavoidable. But if we postulate
an ideal observer, he will be able to isolate the sensation,
and treat this alone as datum. There is, therefore,
an important sense in which we may say that, if we analyse
as much as we ought, our data, outside psychology, consist
of sensations, which include within themselves certain
spatial and temporal relations.

Applying this remark to physiology, we see that the
nerves and brain as physical objects are not truly data ;
they are to be replaced, in the ideal structure of science,
by the sensations through which the physiologist is said
to perceive them. The passage from these sensations
to nerves and brain as physical objects belongs really to
the initial stage in the theory of physics, and ought to
be placed in the reasoned part, not in the part supposed
to be observed. To say we see the nerves is like saying
we hear the nightingale ; both are convenient but in-
accurate expressions. We hear a sound which we beheve
to be causally connected with the nightingale, and we
see a sight which we believe to be causally connected
with a nerve. But in each case it is only the sensation
that ought, in strictness, to be called a datum. Now,
sensations are certainly among the data of psychology.
Therefore all the data of the physical sciences are also
psychological data. It remains to inquire whether all
the data of psychology are also data of physical science,
and especially of physiology.

If we have been right in our analysis of mind, the
ultimate data of psychology are only sensations and

300 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

images and their relations. Beliefs, desires, volitions,
and so on, appeared to us to be complex phenomena
consisting of sensations and images variously interrelated.
Thus (apart from certain relations) the occurrences which
seem most distinctively mental, and furthest removed
from physics, are, like physical objects, constructed or
inferred, not part of the original stock of data in the
perfected science. From both ends, therefore, the differ-
ence between physical and psychological data is dimi-
nished. Is there ultimately no difference, or do images
remain as irreducibly and exclusively psjxhological ? In
view of the causal definition of the difference between
images and sensations, this brings us to a new question,
namely : Are the causal laws of psychology different from
those of any other science, or are they really physiological ?

Certain ambiguities must be removed before this ques-
tion can be adequately discussed.

First, there is the distinction between rough approxi-
mate laws and such as appear to be precise and general.
I shall return to the former presently ; it is the latter
that I wish to discuss now.

Matter, as defined at the end of Lecture V, is a logical
fiction, invented because it gives a convenient way of
stating causal laws. Except in cases of perfect regularity
in appearances (of which we can have no experience),
the actual appearances of a piece of matter are not members
of that ideal system of regular appearances which is
defined as being the matter in question. But the matter
is, after all, inferred from its appearances, which are
used to verify physical laws. Thus, in so far as physics
is an empirical and verifiable science, it must assume or
prove that the inference from appearances to matter is,
in general, legitimate, and it must be able to tell us, more

MENTAL PHENOMENA 301

or less, what appearances to expect. It is through this
question of verifiabiHty and empirical applicability to
experience that we are led to a theory of matter such as
I advocate. From the consideration of this question it
results that physics, in so far as it is an empirical science,
not a logical phantasy, is concerned with particulars of
just the same sort as those which psychology considers
under the name of sensations. The causal laws of
physics, so interpreted, differ from those of psychology
only by the fact that they connect a particular with
other appearances in the same piece of matter, rather
than with other appearances in the same perspective.
That is to say, they group together particulars having the
same *' active " place, while psychology groups together
those having the same '' passive " place. Some particulars,
such as images, have no " active " place, and therefore
belong exclusively to psychology.

We can now understand the distinction between
physics and psychology. The nerves and brain are
matter : our visual sensations when we look at them may
be, and I think are, members of the system constituting
irregular appearances of this matter, but are not the
whole of the system. Psychology is concerned, inter
alia, with our sensations when we see a piece of matter,
as opposed to the matter which we see. Assuming, as
we must, that our sensations have physical causes, their
causal laws are nevertheless radically different from the
laws of physics, since the consideration of a single sensa-
tion requires the breaking up of the group of which it is
a member. When a sensation is used to verify physics, it
is used merely as a sign of a certain material phenomenon,
i.e. of a group of particulars of which it is a member.
But when it is studied by psychology, it is taken away

302 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

from that group and put into quite a different context,
where it causes images or voluntary movements. It
is primarily this different grouping that is characteristic
of psychology as opposed to all the physical sciences, in-
cluding physiology ; a secondary difference is that im-ages,
which belong to psychology, are not easily to be included
among the aspects which constitute a physical thing or
piece of matter.

There remairtB, however, an important question,
namely : Are mental events causally dependent upon
physical events in a sense in which the converse dependence
does not hold ? Before we can discuss the answer to
this question, we must first be clear as to what our
question means.

When, given A, it is possible to infer B, but given
B, it is not possible to infer A, we say that B is dependent
upon A in a sense in which A is not dependent upon
B. Stated in logical terms, this amounts to saying
that, when we know a many-one relation of A to B, B
is dependent upon A in respect of this relation. If the
relation is a causal law, we say that B is causally dependent
upon A. The illustration that chiefly concerns us is the
system of appearances of a physical object. We can,
broadly speaking, infer distant appearances from near
ones, but not vice versa. All men look alike when they
are a mile away, hence when we see a man a mile off
we cannot tell what he will look like when he is only a
yard away. But when we see him a yard away, we
can tell what he will look like a mile away. Thus the
nearer view gives us more valuable information, and
the distant view is causally dependent upon it in a sense
in which it is not causally dependent upon the distant
view.

MENTAL PHENOMENA 303

It is this greater causal potency of the near appearance
that leads physics to state its causal laws in terms of
that system of regular appearances to which the nearest
appearances increasingly approximate, and that makes
it value information derived from the microscope or
telescope. It is clear that our sensations, considered
as irregular appearances of physical objects, share the
causal dependence belonging to comparatively distant
appearances ; therefore in our sensational life we are
in causal dependence upon physical laws.

This, however, is not the most important or interesting
part of our question. It is the causation of images that
is the vital problem. We have seen that they are
subject to mnenic causation, and that mnenic causation
may be reducible to ordinary physical causation in nervous
tissue. This is the question upon which our attitude
must turn towards what may be called materialism.
One sense of materialism is the view that all mental
phenomena are causally dependent upon physical phe-
nomena in the above-defined sense of causal dependence.
Whether this is the case or not, I do not profess to know.
The question seems to me the same as the question
whether mnemic causation is ultimate, which we considered
without deciding in Lecture IV, But I think the bulk
of the evidence points to the materialistic answer as
the more probable.

In considering the causal laws of psychology, the
distinction between rough generalizations and exact laws
is important. There are many rough generalizations
in psychology, not only of the sort by which we govern
our ordinary behaviour to each other, but also of a more
nearly scientific kind. Habit and association belong
among such laws. I will give an illustration of the kind

304 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

of law that can be obtained. Suppose a person has
frequently experienced A and B in close temporal con-
tiguity, an association will be established, so that A,
or an image of A, tends to cause an image of B. The
question arises : will the association work in either direc-
tion, or only from the one which has occurred earlier to
the one which has occurred later ? In an article by Mr.
Wohlgemuth, called " The Direction of Associations "
(British Journal of Psychology, vol. v, part iv, March,
1913), it is claimed to be proved by experiment that,
in so far as motor memory (i.e. memory of movements)
is concerned, association works only from earlier to
later, while in visual and auditory memory this is not
the case, but the later of two neighbouring experiences
may recall the earlier as well as the earlier the later.
It is suggested that motor memory is physiological,
while visual and auditory memory are more truly
psychological. But that is not the point which con-
cerns us in the illustration. The point which concerns
us is that a law of association, established by purely
psychological observation, is a purely psychological law,
and may serve as a sample of what is possible in the way
of discovering such laws. It is, however, still no more
than a rough generalization, a statistical average. It
cannot tell us what will result from a given cause on a
given occasion. It is a law of tendency, not a precise
and invariable law such as those of physics aim at being.
If we wish to pass from the law of habit, stated as
a tendency or average, to something more precise and
invariable, we seem driven to the nervous system. We
can more or less guess how an occurrence produces a
change in the brain, and how its repetition gradually
produces something analogous to the channel of a river,

MENTAL PHENOMENA 305

along which currents flow more easily than in neighbour-
ing paths. We can perceive that in this way, if we had
more knowledge, the tendency to habit through repetition
might be replaced by a precise account of the effect of
each occurrence in bringing about a modification of the
sort from which habit would ultimately result. It is
such considerations that make students of psycho-
physiology materialistic in their methods, whatever they
may be in their metaphysics. There are, of course, ex-
ceptions, such as Professor J. S. Haldane,^ who maintains
that it is theoretically impossible to obtain physiological
explanations of psychical phenomena, or physical explana-
tions of physiological phenomena. But I think the bulk
of expert opinion, in practice, is on the other side.

The question whether it is possible to obtain precise
causal laws in which the causes are psychological, not
material, is one of detailed investigation. I have done
what I could to make clear the nature of the question,
but I do not believe that it is possible as yet to answer
it with any confidence. It seems to be by no means an
insoluble question, and we may hope that science will
be able to produce sufficient grounds for regarding one
answer as much more probable than the other. But for
the moment I do not see how we can come to a decision.

I think, however, on grounds of the theory of matter
explained in Lectures V and VII, that an ultimate scientific
account of what goes on in the world, if it were ascertain-
able, would resemble psychology rather than physics
in what we found to be the decisive difference between
them. I think, that is to say, that such an account
would not be content to speak, even formally, as though

I See his book, The New Physiology and Other Addresses (Charles
Griffin & Co., 1919).

20

306 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

matter, which is a logical fiction, were the ultimate
reality. I think that, if our scientific knowledge were
adequate to the task, which it neither is nor is likely to
become, it would exhibit the laws of correlation of the
particulars constituting a momentary condition of a
material unit, and would state the causal laws ^ of the
world in terms of these particulars, not in terms of matter.
Causal laws so stated would, I believe, be ap p icable
to psychology and physics equally ; the science ia
which they were stated would succeed in achieving
what metaphysics has vainly attempted, namely a
unified account of what really happens, wholly true
even if not the whole of truth, and free from all con-
venient fictions or unwarrantable assumptions of meta-
physical entities. A causal law applicable to particulars
would count as a law of physics if it could be stated
in terms of those fictitious systems of regular appear-
ances which are matter ; if this were not the case,
it would count as a law of psychology if one of the
particulars were a sensation or an image, i.e. were
subject to mnemic causation. I believe that the realiza-
tion of the complexity of a material unit, and its analysis
into constituents analogous to sensations, is of the utmost
importance to philosophy, and vital for any understand-
ing of the relations between mind and matter, between
our perceptions and the world which they perceive. It
is in this direction, I am convinced, that we must look
for the solution of many ancient perplexities.

It is probable that the whole science of mental
occurrences, especially where its initial definitions are

I In a perfected science, causal laws will take the form of differen-
tial equations — or of finite-difference equations, if the theory of
quanta should prove correct.

MENTAL PHENOMENA 307

concerned, could be simplified by the development of
the fundamental unifying science in which the causal
laws of particulars are sought, rather than the causal
laws of those systems of particulars that constitute the
material units of physics. This fundamental science
would cause physics to become derivative, in the sort
of way in which theories of the constitution of the atom
make chemistry derivative from physics ; it would also
cause psychology to appear less singular and isolated
among sciences. If we are right in this, it is a wrong
philosophy of matter which has caused many of the
difficulties in the philosophy of mind — difficulties which
a right philosophy of matter would cause to disappear.

The conclusions at which we have arrived may be
summed up as follows :

I. Physics and psychology are not distinguished by
their material. Mind and matter alike are logical \
constructions ; the particulars out of which they are ]
constructed, or from which they are inferred, have various
relations, some of which are studied by physics, others by
psychology. Broadly speaking, physics group particulars

by their active places, psychology by their passive places.

II. The two most essential characteristics of the
causal laws which would naturally be called psychological
are subjectivity and mnemic causation ; these are not
unconnected, since the causal unit in mnemic causation
is the group of particulars having a given passive place
at a given time, and it is by this manner of grouping
that subjectivity is defined.

III. Habit, memory and thought are all develop-
ments of mnemic causation. It is probable, though not
certain, that mnemic causation is derivative from
ordinary physical causation in nervous (and other) tissue.

^^

808 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

IV. Consciousness is a complex and far from universal
characteristic of mental phenomena.

V. Mind is a matter of degree, chiefly exemplified
in number and complexity of habits.

VI. All our data, both in physics and psychology,
are subject to psychological causal laws ; but physical
causal laws, at least in traditional physics, can only be
stated in terms of matter, which is both inferred and
constructed, never a datum. In this respect psychology
is nearer to what actually exists.

INDEX

Accuracy, 2, 180, 255
Akoluthic sensations, 162, 175
Appropriateness, 255, 259
Assent, 250

Bain, 247

Behaviourism, 157, 160, 172, 201,

254. 257
Belief, chap. xii.
Bennett, 73

Bergson, 36, 55, 166, 172, 179, 180
Berkeley, 214, 208
Biihler, 223
Butler, 167

Cannon, 280
Causal ef&cacy, 244
Coherence, 262, 266
Consciousness, chap, i., 244, 288,295

Darwin, 90

Definition of a piece of matter, 107

Desire and Feeling, chap. iii.

Dewey, 26

Dispositions, 246

Donne, 73

Drever, 55

Dunlap, no, 120

Emotions and Will, chap. xiv.
Expectation, 176, 250

Fabre, 55

Feeling and Desire, chap. iv.

Feelings —

of familiarity, 161, 163, 168

of pastness, 162

of reality, 186
Freud, 33, 39

Galton, 153

General Ideas and Thought, chap,
xi.

Goddard, 282

Habit and Instinct, chap. ii.

Haldane, 90

Hart, 34

Head, 70, 288

Hegel, 180, 266

Herbart, 28

Hobbes, 190

Hobhouse, 54

Holt, 25

Hume, 155, 158, 208, 214

Image-propositions, 248
Images, 290

Imagination images, 202, 249
Instinct and Habit, chap. ii.
Instinctive behaviour, 49
Instrument as a " measure," 183
Introspection, chap. vi.

James, 22, 44, 82, ni, 174, 248,

252, 280, 285
Joachim, 266
Jung, 33,

Kant, 109
Knowledge —

of the future, 164

of the past, 164

Lange, 280
Language, 190
Lloyd Morgan, 28, 49
Locke, 214
Lossky, 261

309

310

THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

Mach, 22

Meaning, 179

Meinong, 16, 164, 262

Memory, 12, chap, ix., 249

Memory-images, 174, 178, 185, 207

Mental Phenomena, chap. xv.

Messer, 223

Mnemic causation, 209

Morton Price, 33

Mosso, 282

Particulars, 193
Perception, 12, chap, vii., 265
Perry, 25
Plato, 213

Psychological and Physical Causal
Laws, chap. v.

Quantum theory, 94

Recognition, 168, 172
Reflex movements, 244
Reliability of an instrument, 183
Ribot, 184, 198, 222
Rousseau, 190

Schiller, 26

Self -evidence, 262

Semon, 66, 78. 83, 90, 165, 175,

207, 219
Sensation, 157, 174
Sensations and Images, chap, viii.
Sensitiveness, 260
Sherrington, 280
Specious present, 174
Speech, 190
Spinoza, 248
Stout, III

Thorndike, 51, 72, 80, 226

Titchener, 223

Truth and Falsehood, chap. xiii.

Vagueness, 180
Verifiability, 254, 268
Voluntary movements, 244, 284

Watson, 26, 52, 197, 199, 203, 223

Watt, 223

Will, chap, xiv., 244

Wittgenstein, 272

Wohlgemuth, 69, 70, 159, 205,

304
Words and Meaning, chap. x.
Wrinch, 176
Wundt, 196, 224

Printed in Greal Britain by
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, LONDON AND WOKING

Contemporary British

Philosophy Personal statements

By J. B. BAILLIE, C. D. BROAD, BERNARD
BOSANQUET, H. WILDON CARR, Viscount
HALDANE, L.T. HOBHOUSE,Dean INGE J. LAIRD,
J. S. MACKENZIE, J. ELLIS McTAGGART,
C. LLOYD MORGAN, J. H. MUIRHEAD,
CARVETH READ, BERTRAND RUSSELL,
F. C. S. SCHILLER, WILLIAM TEMPLE

Edited by Prof. J. H. MUIRHEAD

Demy %vo. First Series i6s.

" Here are notable summaries of doctrine and, of course, the writers
reveal themselves whether they will or not." — The Times

Dialogues on Metaphysics

By NICOLAS MALEBRANCHE

Translated by MORRIS GINSBERG, M.A.

With a Preface by Professor G. DAWES HICKS

Demy %vo, i6s.

"If Descartes is the father of modern philosophy, Malebranche, his
great successor, is a precursor of modern scientific psychology," — Nature.

Indian Philosophy

By S. RADHAKRISHNAN

George V Professor of Philosophy in the University of Calcutta

Demy Svo, Tzvo vols., iis. each.

" In this very interesting, lucid, and admirably written book . . .
the author has given us an interpretation of the philosophy of India,
written by an Indian scholar of wide culture." — Daily Neios.

The World of Souls

By WINCENTY LUTOSLAWSKI

With a Preface by WILLIAM JAMES
Demy Bvo. los. 6^.

" It is the outpouring of the inmost faith of one of the most cultivated
cosmopolitan thinkers of our age." — Biimiii^ham Post.

A II prices are net.

LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. i.

Irv GeoRG€-'^H ut»€ rL»ai (

i^

^^^^^s^^^^m

oi^s^^S^S^S^^w^iwU

f>Tk ^'^9T^«t3GSB(fwBSE3k S^''^

^^

d

S

tW^^^^^!^^

3

i

^ ti fi^^^^/ilSP^^r

t

^k3 i^^^Hi^^^S^S

^i

B

^^■S

-^^

H
^

q

^••^RU^KITl-X-FLOUJeX

^

GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.

London: 40 Museum Street, W.C.i

Cape Town: 73 St. George's Street

Sydney, N.S.W.: 218-222 Clarence Street

Wellington, 2n.Z, : 110-112 Lambton Quay

z

University of
Connecticut

Libraries

QRCP^

-MM]

' ; < ' K

K'\' ■

^^

i