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OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY.

TJNIVEESITY

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, ABERDEEN

OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO

THE THEOEY OF EDUCATION.

JAMES SULLY, M.A.,

EXAMINER FOR THE MORAL SCIENCES TRIPOS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

EXAMINER IN PHILOSOPHY IN THE VICTORIA UNIVERSITY ; LATE EXAMINER

IN MENTAL AND MORAL SCIENCE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF

LONDON ; AUTHOR OF " SENSATION AND

INTUITION," ETC.

SECOND EDITION.

LOKDON :

LONGMANS, GKEEN & CO.
1885.

UNIVERSITY

PREFACE.

IN this volume an attempt is made to present the
leading facts and truths of psychology, or the science
of mind. I abide by the old conception that psycho-
logy is distinctly marked off from the physical or
natural sciences as the-, chief of the moral sciences,
having to do with the phenomena of the inner world,
and employing its own method or instrument, namely,
introspection. I conceive, further, that as a science
of mind it stands in a peculiar relation to philoso-
phical or metaphysical problems, such as the nature
and limits of knowledge, and the nature of moral
responsibility.

At the same time I hold that psychology, while a
science of mind, is a science of mind. By this I mean,
first of all, that it deals with events or processes which
agree with the phenomena of the external world in
exhibiting orderliness or uniformity of succession, and so
are susceptible of being brought under definite laws ;
and, secondly, that it has in its own instruments and
methods of research, when properly understood, an
adequate means of ascertaining these laws

VI PREFACE.

This conception of psychology is opposed, on the
one hand, to the doctrine that the inner region of
mind is (in part at least) not a realm of natural
events having a fixed order. On the other hand, it
stands in no less distinct antagonism to the view of
Comte and his followers that introspection is incapable
of being employed as a scientific instrument, and that
therefore the facts of mind can only be studied as a
special group of biological phenomena.

While thus following the traditional lead in claim-
ing for psychology a place apart from the physical
sciences, as the fundamental moral science, I follow
the modern tendency to supplement the properly
psychological study of mind by the physiological study
of its nervous conditions and concomitants. Such
investigation, though it cannot be a substitute for
the direct observation of mental phenomena, seems to
me to be a valuable addition to the science of mind,
more particularly in its simpler departments (theory of
sensation, &c.).

I hold with Lewes that since in psychology we are
specially concerned with that type of mental develop-
ment which presents itself in members of civilised
communities, we must give prominence to the educa-
tive influence of that elaborate social system, involving
the structure of language, traditional forms of thought,
&c., with which each individual comes from the first
into intimate contact.

Though conceiving the aim of psychology to be
to study the processes taking place in the individual

PEEFACE. vii

life, I deem it necessary to refer to that wider genetic
conception of mind which regards the growth of the
individual mind as a result of the past experience of the
race, not only working indirectly through the external
products, language, traditional knowledge, customs,
&c., which constitute the social environment, but more
directly through inherited aptitudes and dispositions.

I have endeavoured to make the manner of exposi-
tion as popular in character as is compatible with a
properly scientific treatment of the most intricate of
all groups of phenomena. To this end I have dwelt
at some length on what may be called the embryology
of mind, namely, the earlier and simpler forms of the
several types of mental process in child-life. And I
have further added to the general theory of mind
brief references to the more familiar individual va-
rieties.

In order to lighten the labour for the general reader,
and at the same time to aid those who aim at a more
advanced study of the subject, I have relegated a
considerable amount of matter to special sections
easily distinguishable by their type. These touch on
more difficult questions of psychological analysis, on
physiological points, and on the properly philosophical
problems which are related to the special psycho-
logical subjects discussed in the text. I have further
tried to meet the wants of the more special class of
students by giving copious references to other works.

With the view of aiding the beginner, 1 have sup-
plied a number of definitions of the less familiar and

viii PKEFACE.

technical terms employed. And since psychology, in
taking up the language of common life, needs to clear
this of ambiguity and render it precise, I have sought
to assign a definite meaning to many familiar words
as employed in this work. The only scientific know-
ledge presupposed in this volume is an elementary
acquaintance with the structure and functions of the
nervous system, a knowledge which can now be easily
obtained from such a work as Professor Huxley's Ele-
mentary Lessons in Physiology.

Finally, I have sought to give a practical turn to the
exposition by bringing out the bearings of the subject
on the conduct and cultivation of the mind. With this
object I have ventured to encroach here and there on
the territory of logic, sesthetics and ethics, that is to
say, the practical sciences which aim at the regulation
of the mental processes. Further, I have added
special sections in a separate type dealing with the
bearing of the science on Education.

I would fain think that these practical applications
will not be without interest to all classes of readers ;
for everybody is at least called on to educate his own
mind, and most people have something to do with
educating the minds of others as well. With respect
more especially to professional teachers, I trust that
these portions of my volume may serve to establish
the proposition that mental science is capable of sup-
plying those truths which are needed for an intelli-
gent and reflective carrying out of educational work.
I may perhaps assume that modern psedagogics has

PEEFACE. IX

adopted the idea that education is concerned not
simply with instruction or communicating knowledge
but with the training of faculty. And it seems a
necessary corollary from this enlarged view of educa-
tion that it should directly connect itself with the
science which examines into the faculties, determines
the manner and the conditions of their working, and
lastly traces the order of their development.

If a teacher approaches the study of mental science
with the supposition that it is going to open up to
him a short and easy road to his professional goal, he
will be disappointed. Such an expectation would
show that his mind had not clearly seized the relation
between science and art, theoretic and practical
science. No theory of the processes involved in
doing things, whether curing bodies, educating minds,
or anything else, can be built up wholly out of the
truths of science. The first condition of such a
theory is a mass of traditional knowledge gained by
experience or trial and observation. This " empirical "
knowledge is all that the practitioner (physician,
teacher, &c.) has in the early stages of his art. And
with respect to the practical details of the art it must
always continue to be the main source of guidance.
The best method of bandaging a limb, and the best
way to teach Latin are largely matters to be deter
mined by experience.

The function of scientific truths in relation to art
or practice is briefly to give us a deeper insight into
the nature of our work and the conditions under

X PREFACE.

which it is necessarily carried on. Thus mental
science enlarges the teacher's notion of education by
showing him what a complex thing a human mind is,
in how many ways it may grow, how many influences
must combine for its full exercise, and how variously
determined is its growth by individual nature. It
further furnishes him with wide principles or maxims,
which, though of less immediate practical value than
the narrower rules gained by experience, are a neces-
sary supplement to these. By connecting the em-
pirical rule with one of these scientific principles
he is in a position to understand it, to know why
it succeeds in certain cases and why it fails ia
others.

But science does more than this. It helps us to
correct and improve our empirical rules. Just as
there is a rational way of putting on a bandage which
the scientific man who understands the process of
healing will (other things being equal) more readily
perceive than another, so there is a scientific way
of teaching the alphabet or arithmetic, which a
trained psychologist is in a better way to detect than
another. A teacher who has thoroughly assimilated
the leading truths of mental science may be aided by
these to some extent even in the smallest details of
school management.

While contending that a study of the development
of the human mind in all its phases is of some value
to the teacher, I do not mean that all parts of psycho-
logy are of equal value. Thus I am prepared to hear

PREFACE. XI

that teachers will find the chapters on Sensation and
Perception of less practical interest than those say on
Attention or Memory. It need hardly be observed,
perhaps, that in using a work designed for students
generally the teacher is expected either to exercise a
certain degree of individual judgment, or to read under
the guidance of a teacher of the subject.

The ample references to the works of other authors
made in the course of the volume exonerate me from
the duty of formally acknowledging my indebtedness
to my predecessors. My one agreeable obligation
is to tender my hearty thanks to Mr. Carveth Eead
for his friendly services (rendered under great press
of work) in reading through the proofs of my volume.
To him I owe many improvements, both in the matter
and in the manner of the exposition.

HAMPSTEAD, February, 1884.

PEEFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

THE speedy demand for a Second Edition has made
it impossible for me to make any extensive altera-
tions. The main improvements which I have been
able to carry out consist of numerous additions to
the references to the more recent authorities on the
subject.

HAMPSTEAD, November, 1884.

CONTENTS,

CHAPTEK I.

SCOPE AND METHOD OB" PSYCHOLOGY.

Definition of Mind, ••».».!

Mind and Body, . , , , f , 3

Method of Psychology :

(1) Subjective Method : Introspection, ... 4

(2) Objective Method, ^- . ' , ,5
Combination of Methods, . . . , ,6

Psychology as General Knowledge, , . , . 8

Mind and Nervous Conditions, . . . • . 9

Correlations of Mental and Nervous Activity, , . 10

Brain Efficiency and Mind Efficiency, . . . .12

Eelation of Psychology to other Sciences, . . . .14

Psychology and Practical Science, . . . , .15

Psychology and Science of Education, . . . .16

CHAPTER II.

MENTAL OPERATIONS AND THEIR CONDITIONS.

Mental Phenomena and Operations, . . . .18

Analysis of Mental Operations, . . . . .19

Classification of Mental Operations, . . . .19

Feeling, Knowing, and Willing, . . . . .20

Relation between three phases of Mind, . . . .21

Faculties of Mind, . . . . . , .24

Fundamental Functions of Mind, . . . , .26

Laws of Mind, ....... 27

Conditions of Mental Operations, . . . . .28

How minds vary, ....... 32

Measurement of Faculty, ...... 33

Modes of Measurement, ...... 35

Bearings of Chapter on Education, . . . .38

Xiv CONTENTS.

CHAPTER III.

MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

PAGE

Meaning of Mental Development, ..... 40
Growth of Separate Faculties, ..... 42
Growth of Sum of Faculties, ..... 43

Growth and Exercise of Faculty, ,.,... 46
Principles of Mental Development, . . . .48

Development of Feeling and Willing, . . . .51

Connection between three phases of Development, . .52

Psychical and Physical Development,. . . . .53

Exercise and Development of Brain, .... 54
Development as adjustment to surroundings, , . .66

Factors Co-operating in Development :

(J) Internal Factor, . . .. . « 59

Inherited Dispositions, . . . .60

(2) External Factor, ... . . .63

Social Environment, • .* » • 63

Co-operation of Factors, ...,., 65
Varieties of Development, ...... 67

Training of the Faculties, ...» * 70

CHAPTER IV.

ATTENTION.

Nature of Attention, ...,.*. 73

Unconscious Psychical Activity, . . , ,74

Nervous Concomitants of Attention, • . .77

General Laws of Attention:

(1) Relation of Extent to Intensity, . . .78

(2) Conditions of Intensity, . . . .79
Non- Voluntary and Voluntary Attention, , . .80

(A) Non-Voluntary or Reflex Attention:

Laws of Reflex Attention, ..... 80
Quantity of Stimulus, ..... 81
Quality of Stimulus : Interest, ... .82

Change of Stimulus, ..... 84

Adjustment of Attention : Expectant Attention, . , 87

(B) Voluntary Attention:

Function of Will in Attention, . . . . 91

Laws of Voluntary Attention, . . . .93
Growth of Attention :

Early Stage, . . , . . 95

CONTENTS. XV

PAGE

Attention to the Unimpressive, . •. . .97

Resisting Force of Stimuli, ..... 97

Keeping the Attention fixed : Concentration, . . 98

Grasp of Attention : Transition of Attention, , . 100

Habits of Attention, , 102

Varieties of Power of Attention, . . . . .102

Training of the Attention, ...... 103

CHAPTER V.

SENSATION.

Nature of Sensation, . .... 107

Sensibility, General and Special, . . . . .109

The Special Senses, . ^ . . . ,111

Characters of Sensation :

Intensity or Degree, , , . . .113

Quality, ....... 115

Other Characters : Duration, • . . . 117

Local Character, . . . . . .118

The Five Senses :

Taste and Smell, . ... . • .121

Touch, ....... 122

Hearing, . . . . . . .125

Sight, ....... 129

Muscular Sense :

Nature of Muscular Sense, .....

Sensations of Movement, .....

Sensations of Resistance, .....

Muscular Sense and Touch and Sight, , , .

Reaction of Mind on Sense-Impressions :

Discrimination of Sensations,' .... 140

Assimilation of Sensations, . ', . . .141

Growth of Sense, ....... 142

Differences of Sense-Capacity, . . . ,144

CHAPTER VI.

PERCEPTION.

Sensation and Perception, . ^ 147

Analysis of Perceptual Process, . . , . . 150

Definition of Perception, . . . . . ,152

Special Channels of Perception, . .. , .154

XVI CONTENTS.

PAGE

(A) Tactual Perception.

Perception of Space- Attributes of Bodies :

Perception of Position through Movement, . .157

Perception, through Simultaneous Impressions, . 161

Perception of Solidity, Unity, &c., . . . 164

Perception of Temperature, Hardness, &c., . . 167

Intuition of Things, . . . . . I70x

(B) Visual Perception.

Relation of Visual to Tactual Perception, . . . 171

Perception of Space- Attributes :

(1) Monocular Perception of Space :

Perception of Position by Movement, . 173

Perception by Simultaneous Impressions, . 174

Perception of Visual Magnitude and Form, . 177

(2) Binocular Perception of Space :

Nature of Binocular Perception, . .

Perception of Depth, ....
Perception of Direction, . . .

Perception of Distance, . . .

Perception of Eeal Magnitude, . .

Perception of Objects as Solid,
Perception of Number,
Perception of Objective Movement, .
Resume of Theory of Visual Perception,
Intuition of Things, .....

Identification of Objects, .....
Perception of our own Body, .....
Bodily Organism and Self, .....
(c) Auditory Perception:

Perception of Space-Relations, .... 205
Perception of Time-Relations, .... 206
Perception and Observation, ..... 207

Development of Perceptual Power, .... 209

Psychology and Philosophy of Perception, . . .212

Training of the Senses, . . . . . .213

CHAPTER VII.

REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION (MEMORY).

After-effects of Perception : Temporary Images, . . . 219

Revival of Impressions, ...... 221

Retention and Reproduction, ..... 223

Images and Percepts, ...... 224

CONTENTS. XV11

PAGE

Distinctness of Images, ...... 227

Conditions of Reproduction :

(A) Depth, of Impression :

(1) Attention to Impression, . , , 229

(2) Repetition of Impression, . . . 231

(B) Association of Impression . Modes of Association, . 233

I. Association by Contiguity:

Nature of Contiguous Association, .... 235

Law of Contiguity, ...... 236

Degrees of Associative Force, .... 237

Conditions oi Association :

(a) Connective Attention, .... 238

(b) Repetition of Conjunction, . . . 240
Different Forms of Contiguous Association, . 241

Trains of Representations : Composite Trains, . . 242

Symbolic Series, ...... 245

Series of Motor Representations, .... 246

Verbal Associations, ..... 248

Memory and Expectation, . , . , 252
Representation of Time :

Nature of Representation, , , , 255

Representation of Succession, . . , 256

(a) Representation of Past, . . , 257

(b) Representation of Future, , . 258
Representation of Duration, .... 261
Complex Representation of Time, . , , 262
Localising Events in the Past, . , , 265

II. Association by Similarity :

Law of Similarity, ...... 266

Relation of Similarity to Contiguity, . . , 267

Influence of Principle, ..... 268

III. Association by Contrast :

Nature of Principle, . , 270
Complex Association :

(a) Convergent Associations, .... 272

(b) Divergent Associations, . 275
Active Memory : Recollection :

Nature of Recollection, . . , 275

Trying to Remember, ..... 277

Command of Store of Images, .... 278
Forgetfulness :

Degrees of Recollection, . . . • • 279

xviii CONTENTS.

PAGE

Partial Oblivescence, . . 280

Total Oblivescence, ....„„ 281

Divisions of Memory, ...... 282

Remembering Things and Remembering Words, . . 283

Growth of Memory :

Beginnings of Memory, ..... 285

How Memory Improves, . . '• . . . 286

Plastic Power of Brain, . . 288

Varieties of Memory, General and Special, . . . 290

Training of the Memory, ...... 294

Art of Mnemonics, .... . 296

CHAPTER VIII.

CONSTRUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

Reproductive and Constructive Imagination, , . 301

Forms of Imaginative Activity, . . . ^ * 302

Analysis of Constructive Process, . ^ 305

Limits to Imagination, . . . • «. » 308

Varieties of Construction :

(A) Cognitive Imagination :

(1) Imagination and Acquisition of Knowledge, . 310

(2) Imagination and Discovery, . , . 313

(B) Practical Contrivance :

(1) Imitative Construction, .... 314

(2) Invention, . . ^ . .315
(c) ^Esthetic Imagination :

Influence of Feeling on Imagination, . .

Intellectual Value of Imagination, , . , •

Growth of Imagination :

Beginnings of Imagination, . . . . 320

Childrens' Fancy : Play, . . . . .321

Imagination brought under Control, . , . 322

Varieties of Imaginative Power, . . « 324

Training of the Imagination, . . . . , 325

CHAPTER IX.

CONCEPTION.

General Knowledge or Thought :
Nature of Thinking,
Comparison,
Analysis and Synthesis,

CONTENTS. xix

PAGE

Three Stages of Thinking, ..... 338

Nature of Concepts, ....*% 339

Formation of Concepts : Abstraction, &c., . . . 341

Conception and Naming, . * . . 343

Nominalism and Conceptualism, .... 347

Psychology of Language, , 348

Origin and Growth of Language, .... 350

Degrees of Abstraction, ....«« 352

Notions which involve Synthesis, ..... 354
.Ideas of Magnitude and Number, . « . .355

Ideas of Geometry, . * . - . 357

Conception and Discrimination, ..... 359

Mental Process in Classification and Division, . . 359

Imperfection and Perfection of Notions :

Indistinctness and Distinctness, .... 363

Inaccuracy and Accuracy, * . . . 368

Eevision of Notions, . . . 371

Definition of Notions, . , • . . 373

Ideas of Self and of others, . . . . 375

Growth of Power of Abstraction :

Early Notions of Child, . . . , .379

Formation of more Abstract Ideas, . . . 381

Use of Adjectives, .,,... 383

Measurement of Progress in Abstraction, . . . 384

Varieties of Conceptual Power, ..... 385

Training of Power of Abstraction, ..... 386

CHAPTER X.

JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

Judgment :

Nature of Judging, ...... 391

Judgment and Conception, ..... 394

Synthetic and Analytic Judgments, . . ^ 396

Belief:

Relation of Belief to Judgment, .... 397

Nature of Belief, ...... 398

Belief and Doubt, ..... A 400

Sources of Belief :

(1) Experience and Association, . , ,. 402

(2) Verbal Suggestion, .... 403

(3) Effect of Feeling, , . , .404
Belief and Activity, . 404

XX CONTENTS.

PAGE

Perfection of Judgments :

Clearness, , .... 406

Accuracy, . , . . . . 408

Promptness, Stability, &c., ..... 409

Intuitive and Reasoned Judgments, .... 4~H\

Common Sense, ...... 412/

Reasoning :

Nature of Reasoning, ..... 414

Inference and Proof, . . . . .415

Modes of Inference :

(A) Implicit Reasoning, , . . ,416

(B) Explicit Reasoning, . . . .419

Inductive and Deductive Reasoning, . 419

(1) Inductive Reasoning :

Nature of Inductive Inference, . . . 420

Spontaneous and Regulated Induction, . . 421

Reasoning about Causes : Idea of Cause, . . 423

(2) Deductive Reasoning :

Nature of Deductive Inference, . . . 426

Finding Applications and Reasons, . . . 428

Imperfect Deductive Reasoning : Fallacy, . . 429

Complex Reasoning : Probability, .... 431

Reasoning as Activity of Mind, .... 433

Growth of Powers of Judgment and Reasoning:

Early Judgment, ...»». 435

Early Reasonings, ...... 438

Varieties of Reasoning Power, . • 440

Training of Powers of Judgment and Reasoning, . . . 443

CHAPTER XL

FEELING : SIMPLE FEELINGS.

Phenomena of Feeling, ...... 449

Relation of Feeling to Knowing, ..... 451

The Expression of Feeling, ..... 453

Theories of Expression, ..... 455

Differences of Feeling : Emotional Temperament, . . 456

Laws of Pleasure and Pain :

(1) Law of Stimulation or Exercise, . . . 457

(2) Principle of Change or Contrast, . . .461

(a) Effect of Prolongation of Pleasurable Stimulus, 462

(b) Effects of Change on Pleasure, . . . 464

CONTENTS. xxi

PAGE

Accommodation to Stimulus, &c., . . 468

(3) Mutual Furtherance and Hindrance of Activities, . 471

Law of Harmony and Conflict, . . . 473

Varieties of Pleasure and Pain, ..... 475

(1) Sense-Feelings and their Varieties, . . . 475

(2) Emotions and their Classes, . . ' . 478
Development of Emotion, ...... 480

(a) Instinctive and Hereditary Elei;, ; I, . . . 481

(b) Effects of Exercise, Experience, &c., . . . 483

(1) Strengthening of Activity, . . . 483

(2) Emotional Traces and Kevival, , . 483

(3) Association of Feeling, .... 485

(4) Growth of Composite Emotion, . . 487

(5) Formation of Habits of Feeling, . . 489

(6) Formation of Emotional Dispositions, . . 491

(7) Growth of Emotion in Eefinement, . . 492
Order of Development of Emotions : Three Orders of Emotions, . 494
Characteristics of Children's Feelings, .... 497
Earlier Emotions, . . . . . . 498

Egoistic Feelings : Rivalry, .... 498

Early Social Feelings, ..... 499

Love of Approbation, ..... 500

Pride, Self-Esteem, &c., . . . . .501

Cultivation of Emotion, ...... 503

Repression and Stimulation of Emotion, . . . 504

Management of Egoistic Feelings, .... 506

CHAPTER XII.

THE COMPLEX FEELINGS : SENTIMENTS.

Sympathy :

Contagion of Feeling, ..... 508

Sympathy proper, ...... 509

Basis of Sympathetic Dispositions, .... 511

Reciprocity of Sympathy, ..... 514

Growth of Sympathy, ..... 516

Educational Aspects of Sympathy, . . . 518

Intellectual Sentiment :

Analysis of Pleasures of Knowledge, . . . 521

Wonder and Curiosity, ..... 521

Pleasures of Assimilation, ..... 524

Pleasures of Intellectual Pursuit, . • . . . 524

XXU CONTENTS.

PAGE

Pleasure in Possession of Knowledge, v . . 525

Logical Feelings, . v . 526
Growth of Intellectual Feelings :

Early Stage of Feeling : Children's Curiosity, . 527

Disinterested Love of Knowledge, . . . 529

Cultivation of Intellectual Feelings, . . . 530
' JEsthetic Sentiment :

Mode of Production of ^Esthetic Feeling, . , .531

Characteristics of ^Esthetic Feeling, . . . 532

Elements of ^Esthetic Feeling, .... 534

Feeling of the Sublime, ,.-.%. 538

Feeling of the Ludicrous, ..... 539

.^Esthetic Judgment : Faculty of Taste, . . . 540
Standard of Taste, . . <. . .541

Healthy and Refined Taste, .... 543

Art-production, ...«.• 54.4

Varieties of Fine Art, ..... 545

Art-production and Art-appreciation, . , . 546

Growth of ^Esthetic Faculty, .... 547

Education of Taste, . . . . .550

Moral Sentiment:

Mode of Excitation of Moral Feeling, . , . 553

Peculiarities of Moral Feeling, «> , 554

Different Forms of Moral Feeling, . . . . 556

Moral Feeling and Judgment, . . . . 558

Moral Standard, ...... 558

Origin of Moral Sentiment, %•..-. 559
Growth of Moral Sentiment :

Influence of Authority, .... 561

Effects of Free Companionship, . . . 562
Co-operation of Sympathy, . . . .564

Development of Self-judging Conscience, . . 564

Influence of Social Surrounditigs, . . . 566

Beligious Sentiment, ..... 567

Training of Moral Faculty, „ . . 568

CHAPTER XIII.

THE WILL : VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT.

Phenomena included under Will, ...... 572

Relation of Willing to Knowing and Feeling, . . •. 673
Nature of Willing :

(1) Desire, . . . . .... 574

PAGE

Analysis of Desire :

(a) Representative Element, . v 575

(6) Element of Feeling, . . .576

Relation of Desire to Feeling, . 577

Question of the Exact Object of Desire, . 580

Desire and Aversion, .... 582

Conditions of Strength of Desire, .. . . 583

Active Temperament, v 586

(2) Other Elements of Voluntary Action, . . . 587

Willing and Attending, ^ 590

Development of Willing, , . . -. . ,591

Origin of Voluntary Movement :

Early Movements Classed, ...... 593

Germ of Voluntary Movement, .... 597

Effect of Experience, . . . . 604

Growth of Voluntary Movement :

Extension of Range of Movement, .... 606

Principle of Imitation, ..... 608

Influence of Word of Command, .... 612

Internal Command of Movement, .... 614

Principle of Habit, . . . . . .616

Fixity and Plasticity of Movement, . . . 621

Training of Will and of Active Organs, . 622

CHAPTER XIV.

COMPLEX ACTION : CONDUCT.

Simple and Complex Action, ...... 626

Growth of Intellect and of Will, . . . . .627

Growth of Feeling and of Will, ..... 628

Aiming at Permanent Ends, ..... 630

Plurality of Impulses :

(A) Co-operation of Impulses, . . . . 633

(B) Opposition of Impulses : Arrest of Action, . . 634

(1) Arrest of Action by Doubt, . . . 636

(2) Effect of Deterrents, . . . .637

(3) Rivalry of Impulses, .... 639
Strife of Desires, . . . . .640

Regulated Conflict : Deliberation, ..... 642

Choice or Decision,. ...... 644

Calmness and Strength of Will, , , 645

CONTENTS.

PAGE
Resolution : Perseverance, ...... 646

Firmness of Will, ....... 649

Self-Control:

(A) Control of Action, . . . . .649
Stages of Control, . . . . .651

(B) Control of Feelings, . . . . .653
(c) Control of the Thoughts, . . . .655

Connection between Different Forms of Control, . 657
Limits of Control, . . . . .660

Habit and Conduct, .... . 661

Character, ........ 664

Nature of Higher Volition, ..... 667

Effort of WiU, 668

Free-WiU, . 671

Training of the Will, . . . . . . 673

Discipline and its Effects, ..... 673

Discipline of the Home and the School, . . . 678

APPENDICES.

(A) Method and Divisions of Psychology, .... 681

(B) Threefold Division of Mind, ..... 687

(D) Visual Intuition of Space, ..... 692

INDEX, . . . . . . . . 697

UNIVERSITY

CHAPTER I.

INTEODUCTOEY.

SCOPE AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY

PSYCHOLOGY or Mental Science is our general know-
ledge of Mind reduced to an accurate and systematic
form. In order to understand this definition we
must look for a moment into the meaning of the
word Mind.

What is meant by Mind. We familiarly talk about
minds. All men have minds, and many of the lower
animals are commonly supposed to have them.
Human minds are, however, those which are of chief
interest here.

We distinguish between a mind as a unity, or a
substance, and the several phenomena or states of
this mind. What mind is in itself as a substance is
a question that lies outside psychology, and belongs
to philosophy. As a science psychology is concerned
only with the phenomena of mind, with mental states,
psychical facts, or whatever else we choose to call
them.

2 SCOPE AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY.

The question as to the substance of mind is a philosophical or meta-
physical one, and the solution of it does not seem necessary to psychology.
It can be left over till the phenomena of mind are studied. It may,
however, be said that some idea of mind as a unity, which holds together
and combines the several states which we call psychical phenomena, is a
necessary assumption or presupposition in psychology. Popular psycho-
logy clearly implies this idea. We speak of the mind as thinking,
feeling, and so forth. And it may be said that the language of scientific
psychology, such as ' state of mind,' ' mental activity,' and so on, neces-
sarily implies this idea. Psychology may then take up and adopt this
idea of a phenomenal or ' empirical,' as distinguished by Kant from a
noumenal or ' intelligible ' mind, self, or Ego. That is to say, we may
assume the existence of minds in some sense or another, leaving it to
philosophy to explain what exactly is implied in this assumption. On
the need of some such assumption see Lotze, Metaphysic, Bk. III., Chap.
I. ; Volkmann, Lehrbuch der PsycJ'ologie, § 10. Compare Wundt, Phy-
siologische Psychologie, 24es Cap., § 1.

How, now, shall we mark off these psychical facts
from other phenomena ? We cannot define such
phenomena by resolving them into something sim-
pler. They have nothing in common beyond the fact
of being mental states. Hence we can only use some

o *

equivalent phrase, as when we say that a mental pheno-
menon is a part of our conscious life, or a state of our
consciousness.1 Or again we may enumerate the chiev
varieties of these mental phenomena and say that
mind is the sum of our processes of knowing, our
feelings of pleasure and pain, and our voluntary
doings. Popularly, mind is apt to be identified with
knowing or intelligence. A man of mind is a man
of intellect. But though intelligence is perhaps the
most important part of mind it is not the whole. In

1 This is a rough popular way of speaking. The question whether there
are any mental phenomena which are unconscious, that is, which do not enter
into our conscious life or experience, is a subtle and much-disputed point in
psychology.

PHENOMENA OF MIND. 3

mental science we must reckon the pain of a bruise
as a fact of mind. Or finally we may set mind in
antithesis to what is not mind. Mind is non-material,
has no existence in space as material bodies have.
We cannot touch a thought or a feeling, and one
. feeling does not lie outside of another in space. These
phenomena occur in time only. Mind is thus the
inner smaller world (mikrokosm) as distinguished
from the external and larger world (makrokosm).

Mind and Body. While it is important thus to set
mind in strong opposition to material things, we must
keep in view the close connection between the two.
What we call a human being is made up of a bodily
organism and a mind. Our personality or 'self is a
mind connected with or embodied in a material frame-
work. More particularly all mental processes or
operations are connected with actions of the nervous
system. The most abstract thought is accompanied
by some mode of activity in the brain-centres. Hence
while we must be careful not to confuse the mental
and the material, the psychical and the physical, as
though they were of the same kind (homogeneous),
we cannot exclude the latter from view in dealing
with mind. We must always think of mind as at-
tended by, and in some inexplicable way, related to,
the living organism, and more particularly the ner-
vous system and its actions.

The relation of Mind to Body has given rise to much discussion in
philosophy. The two are plainly connected in time. All science goes
to show that psychical activity is uniformly accompanied by physical
(nervous) activity. Again, there seems to be an interaction between the
two. In certain cases nervous changes (e.g., the propagation of an ex-
citation from the eye to the brain) precede and appear to determine

4 SCOPE AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY.

mental phenomena (sensations of light). On the other hand mental
states, e.g., volitions, sometimes precede and appear partly to determine
physical processes (muscular actions). But the questions what mind and
body are in themselves as substances, how they come to be united, and
whether there is any real causal interaction between them, are not dis-
cussed by psychology.

As a science psychology is bound to accept the fact of the concomi-
tance and the co-variation of the psychical and the physical. Hence it.
must not set up a mind endowed with its activities out of all relation to
nervous processes. On the other hand it must not identify the two in a
materialistic way, vainly trying to explain psychical processes by aid of
physical. That is to say the essentially heterogeneous character of the
two groups of phenomena must not be lost sight of. There is a great
deal of loose psychological thinking abroad just now under the guise of
' physiological ' psychology. It is supposed that to name the nervous
accompaniments or conditions of a mental phenomenon is to explain it.
But this is not so. To say that a sensation of light or sound is preceded
by certain nervous actions is not to account for it in the full sense. That
the mind should be affected in this particular way by this kind of ner-
vous stimulus points to a distinctly mental characteristic which admits
of no further explanation. Similarly the perception of a difference
between two impressions, for instance those of two colours, is not ex-
plained by saying that different nervous elements or processes are
involved. The perception of difference at all is something distinctly
mental, not to be explained therefore by any reference to nervous
changes. No sound psychology is possible which does not keep in view
this fundamental disparity of the physical and the psychical, and the
consequent limits of the physiological explanation of mental fact?.1

How we Observe and Study Mind : Subjective
Method : Introspection. There are two distinct ways
of knowing mind. The first is the direct, internal, or
subjective way.2 By this method we direct attention
to what is going on in our own mind at the time of

1 On the relation of Mind and Body considered from the point of view of
psychology see Appendix C. Compare Waitz, LeJirlucU der Psyclwlogie,
§§ 5, 6, 8 ; Volkmann, Lehrluch der Psychologic, % 15.

2 ' Subject ' means the mind as knowing something, or as affected (plea-
surably or painfully) by a thing. ' Object ' is that which is known, or which
affects the mind in a certain way. The house I see, the flower I admire, are
objects to me, the subject who sees and admires

SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE METHODS. 5

its occurrence, or afterwards.1 We have the power
of turning the attention inwards on the phenomena
of mind. Thus I can attend to a particular feeling,
say admiration for a beautiful object, in order to see
what its nature is, of what elementary parts it con-
sists, how it is affected by the circumstances of the
moment, and so on. This method of internal or sub-
jective observation is known as introspection (' looking
within ').

Objective Method. In the second place we may
study mental phenomena not only in our own indi-
vidual mind but as they present themselves externally
in other minds. This is the indirect, external, or ob-
jective way of studying mental phenomena. Thus we
note the manifestations of others' feelings in looks,
gestures, &c. We arrive at a knowledge of their
thoughts by their speech, and observe their inclina-
tions and motives by noting their actions.

This objective observation embraces not only the
mental phenomena of the individuals who are per-
sonally known to us, old and young, but those of
others of whom we hear or read in biography, &c.
Also it includes the study of minds in masses or
aggregates, as they present themselves in national
sentiments and actions, and in the events of history.
It includes too a comparative study of mind by ob-
serving its agreements and differences among different
races, and even among different grades of animal life.

1 Strictly speaking, we never observe a mental phenomenon at the exact
instant of its occurrence. All introspection is retrospection. But we distin-
guish broadly between studying an immediately antecedent mental state, and.
one which occurred some time before. (See my work on Illusions, Chap
VIII. , p. 190 11.)

6 SCOPE AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY.

The study of the simpler phases of mind in the
child, in backward and uncivilised races, and in the
lower animals, is especially valuable for understanding
the growth of the mature or fully-developed human
mind.

Finally, the external or objective method includes
the study of mental phenomena in connection with
bodily and more particularly nervous processes. All
external observation of mental phenomena takes place
by noting some of their bodily accompaniments (move-
ments of expression, vocal actions, and so on). In
addition to this, psychology considers the actions of
the nervous system in so far as they affect and deter-
mine mental activity. The nature of these enquiries
will be indicated presently.

Both Methods must be combined. Scientific know-
ledge is characterised by certainty, exactness, and
generality. We must observe carefully so as to make
sure of our facts, and to note precisely what is pre-
sent. And we must go on from a knowledge of the
particular to a knowledge of the general. From this
rough definition of what is meant by scientific know-
ledge we may easily see that neither the internal nor
the external method is complete without the other.
To begin with : since we only directly observe what is
passing in our own individual mind, some amount
of introspection is the first condition of all certain and
accurate knowledge of mental states. To try to dis-
cover mental phenomena and their laws solely by
watching the external signs and effects of others'
thoughts, feelings and volitions, would plainly be
absurd. For these external manifestations are in

SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE METHODS. 7

themselves as empty of meaning as words in an un-
known tongue, and only receive their meaning by a
reference to what we ourselves have thought and felt.
On the other hand an exclusive attention to the con-
tents of our individual mind would never give us a
general knowledge of mind. In order to eliminate
the effects of individuality we must at every step
compare our own modes of thinking and feeling with
those of other minds. The wider the area included
in our comparison, the sounder are our generalisations
likely to be.

Each of these ways of studying mind has its charac-
teristic difficulties. To attend closely to the events
of our mental life presupposes a certain power of
'abstraction'. It requires at first a considerable
effort to withdraw the attention from the more strik-
ing events of the external world, the sights and sounds
that surround us, and to keep it fixed on the com-
paratively obscure events of the inner world. Even
in the case of the trained psychologist, the work is
always attended with a peculiar difficulty. On the
other hand there is a serious danger in reading the
minds of others, due to an excess of the propensity to
project our own modes of thinking and feeling into
them. This danger increases with the remoteness
of the mind we are observing from our own. To
apprehend, for example, the sentiments and convic-
tions of an ancient Roman, of a Hindoo, or of an
uncivilised African, is a very delicate operation. It
implies close attention to the differences as well as
the similarities of external manifestation, also an effort
of imagination by which though starting from some

8 SCOPE AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY.

remembered experiences of our own, we feel our way
into a new set of circumstances, new experiences, and
a new set of mental habits. If children could ever
pass their opinion on the observations made on their
feelings by adults, they would probably declare a
large part of these observations to have been very
wide of the mark.1

General Knowledge of Mind. As has been observed,
science consists of general knowledge, or knowledge
expressed in a general form. Hence mental science
seeks to generalise our knowledge of mind. In the
first place it aims at grouping all the phenomena ob-
served under certain heads. That is to say, it classi-
fies tlie endless variety of mental states according to
their resemblances. In so doing it overlooks the
individual differences of minds and fixes attention on
their common features.

In the second place, every science aims not only at
ordering its phenomena, but at making certain asser-
tions about them. There are general truths or laws
which hold good of numerous varieties of phenomena.
When the phenomena are occurrences in time, these
laws have to do with the relation of events to other
events preceding or succeeding them. That is to say,
they formulate the relations of causal dependence of
phenomena on other phenomena. Mental Science
seeks to arrive at such truths or laws of mind. Its

1 On the errors incident to Introspection and the interpretation of other
minds, see my work on Illusions, Chaps. VIII. and IX. One of the advan-
tages of the study of mental phenomena in close connection with nervous
processes is that it supplies us with exact as well as \\ ith general knowledge.
For a fuller account of psychological method see Appendix A.

LAWS OF MIND. 9

ultimate object is to determine the conditions1 on
which mental phenomena depend.

Now a little attention to the subject will show that
mental phenomena are related in the way of depend-
ence not only to other phenomena immediately pre-
ceding, but to remotely antecedent phenomena. For
example, the quick response of a child to a command
depends on the formation of a habit, which process
may have been going on for years. Hence the con-
sideration of relations of dependence leads on to the
view of mind as a process of growth or development.
The most important laws of mind are laws of mental
development.

Mind and Nervous Conditions. These laws of
mind include truths with respect to the depend-
ence of mental facts on nervous conditions. As
already pointed out, in saying that mental phenomena
have nervous actions as their conditions, we make no
assumption respecting the ultimate nature of mind
and body or of their conjunction. All that is meant
is that the phenomena of mental life are somehow
connected with the activity of the nervous system;
that variations in the latter are attended with varia-
tions in the former ; and that by modifying by purely
physical agencies the state of the nervous system, we
can indirectly influence the mental accompaniments.2

1 A condition is any circumstance necessary to the production of a pheno-
menon. All the conditions of a phenomenon taken together constitute its
cause.

2 It is not even implied that the nervous actions precede the mental in
time. This is no doubt true in certain cases. The stimulation of a sense-
organ and the propagation of the nervous actions to the brain centres precede
a sensation. But do the changes in the brain precede the mental phenomena
which accompany them ? This question need not perhaps much concern us,

10 SCOPE AND METHOD OT PSYCHOLOGY.

The study of this connection of mind and body is a
valuable preparation for a systematic study of psy-
chical phenomena. As it is the borderland between
physiology and psychology, it is best taken up at
the outset. A word or two here must suffice to
indicate the range and value of this 'physiological
psychology '.

Seat of Mental Life. We all know that mental life is somehow
connected with nervous action, and more particularly that of the brain
centres. Science asks what is more especially the ' seat ' of mental life,
what parts of the nervous system are immediately concerned in mental
activity. It is agreed that the hrain is the ' organ of mind,' but it cannot
be said to be certain as yet what the extent of this organ is. Does the
activity of all parts of the brain directly minister to conscious life, or
only that of certain of its structures ? or does the ' organ of mind '
include other centres as well as the brain centres ? l

Localisation of Brain Function. Again, it is important to assign
the special parts of the nervous system concerned in particular kinds of
mental phenomena. To some extent this is easy. It is clear that sen-
sations of a certain kind, as those of sound, involve a particular peripheral
sense-organ, the ear, with a connecting nerve, the auditory. Similarly
in the case of voluntary movements, we may trace the particular muscles
and connecting nerves. But when we try to find out what special struc-
tures in the brain are connected with particular modes of mental activity,
science can only help us a little way. The old mapping-out of the brain
by phrenologists into distinct organs corresponding to different mental
faculties and dispositions has been discredited. Experimental physiology
aided by comparative anatomy is determining to some extent the special
functions of different parts of the brain, but the certain results obtained
as yet are rather meagre.

It is worth noting that there are two opposed views of the correlation

as it is a disputed point whether the cause or conditions do necessarily
precede an effect in time. (See J. S. Mill, Logic, Book IV., Ch. V., § 6; G.
H. Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, First Series, Vol. II., Prob. V., Ch.
II., p. 391.)

1 On the connection between Mind and Brain see Prof. Bain, Senses and
Intelkct, Ch. II. ; also Mind and Body, Chaps. II. and III. ; Dr. Bastian,
The Brain as an Organ of Mind, Part IV. ; Dr. Maudsley, The Physiology
of Mind, Ch. II. ; G. H. Lewes, Physical Basis of Mind (Problems of Life and
Mind, 2nd Series), especially Prob. II., Ch. IV. ; Prob. IV., Ch. II. ; Lotze,
Mikrokosmus, Buch III., Cap. II. and III. : cf. Metaphysic, Bk. III., Ch. V.

MIND AND NERVOUS CONDITIONS. 11

between brain activity and mind activity. Some are disposed to carry
out the localising tendency so far as to assert that each of the ultimate
microscopic elements of the gray substance of the brain (ganglionic cell)
answers to a distinct psychical element (sensation, &c.). Others on the
contrary look on the brain as always acting as a whole, or at least
throughout large tracts, in a variety of ways. 1

Quantitative Relations of Physical and Psychical Phenomena.
When the question of the physical seat of conscious life has been deter-
mined, other important questions arise. These concern the quantitative
relations of nervous action and mental phenomena. They have been
investigated of late in the case of the simple and comparatively acces-
sible phenomena of sensation by experimental methods in a special
branch of physiological psychology known as ' psycho-physics '. Among
these problems is that of the limit, threshold, or liminal intensity. A
certain degree of stimulation is necessary to a sense-impression : this is
known as the liminal intensity. It may be found, further, that a certain
extent of nervous agitation or excitation in the brain is necessary to a men-
tal phenomenon. Again, mental phenomena appear to imply a certain
duration of the central nervous process concerned ; and this duration is
in some cases susceptible of exact measurement. It is probable that
there are many changes in the brain which are too rapid to produce any
psychical change. Such changes have been described under the name
' unconscious cerebration'. Finally, this line of inquiry deals with varia-
tions in the quantity of nervous action and of mental phenomena, and the
relation of the one to the other. These investigations carried out in the
region of sensation have, as we shall see by and by, led to the most
important result of psycho-physical research, what is known as Fechner's
Law.

Psychical Effects of varying condition of Nerve Organ. Ano-
ther group of inquiries closely connected with psycho-physical inves-
tigations has to do with the psychical concomitants of changes in the
condition of an organ, whether induced by general depression or exalta-

1 The attempt to localise the several brain functions has been carried on
by the aid of comparative anatomy — observing the differences of brain-structure
coexisting with differences of mental faculty in races and species of animals ;
by pathological observation— noting the effects of lesions in different parts of
the brain ; and by experimental research specially aimed at elucidating the
point — electric stimulation of definite regions of the brain, &c. On the ques-
tion of localising the functions of the brain, see Dr. Ferrier, The Functions of
the Brain; cf. Prof. Groom Robertson, Mind, Vol. VII., 1882, p. 299. On
the theory of separate cell-activity, see Prof. Bain, Mind and Body, Chap.
III., also Chap. V., p. 106 seq. ; and G. H. Lewes, Physical Basis of Mind,
Prob. II., Ch. VII. The German reader will do well in addition to consult
Prof. Wundt, Physiologische Psijchologic, 2nd Ed., I., ler Abschnitt, 5<* Cap.,

12 SCOPE AXD METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY.

tion of the nervous energy, or by some local disturbance r change in
blood-supply, temporary fatigue, &c.). The way in which the effect of a
light-stimulus varies according to the condition of the visual organ
forms an important matter of study. 1

The determination of the way in which the condi-
tion of an organ thus modifies the mental phenomenon
connected with it is perhaps that department of phy-
siological inquiry which has the greatest practical
utility. It is all-important to the teacher to know
how the varying state of the brain affects mental
efficiency. Now owing to the present imperfect state
of our knowledge respecting the particular portions of
the brain concerned in particular modes of mental
activity, we are not able to determine the relation
between the two with scientific precision. At the
same time we have certain generalisations respecting
the variations of mental activity that accompany
variations in the condition of the brain as a whole,
which it may be useful to indicate here.

Brain Efficiency and Mind Efficiency. It is abund-
antly proved alike by everyday observation and by
scientific experiment that the amount of mental ac-
tivity possible at any time is limited by the quantity
of disposable energy in the brain. The more vigorous
the brain at any time, the greater the amount of
mental expenditure possible. This applies not merely
to intellectual work, but also to feeling and action.
A healthy and vigorous brain is the condition of
numerous and vivid feelings, and of energetic actions.

1 Some aspects of this relation are dealt with, along with the whole ques-
tion of the correlation of physical and psychical changes, by H. Spencer,
Principles of Psychology, Vol. I., Ft. I., Chap. VI. ( ' ^Estho-physiology ).

MIND AND NERVOUS CONDITIONS. 13

On what Efficiency of Brain Centres depends. The
state of the brain, its degree of readiness for work,
fluctuates with the degree of disposable energy of
the nervous system as a whole. This is affected by
regular or periodic causes, the changes incident to the
natural alternating rhythm of waking and sleeping.
It is also affected by irregular circumstances, such as
changes of bodily health, and the exhaustion due to
great mental agitation.

In the second place, the condition of the brain, like
that of all other organs, is affected by the extent
to which the particular structures have recently been
exercised. After long and severe brain- work of any
kind, the organ becomes fatigued and incapable ol
further work. On the other hand, a prolonged rest,
as during a summer holiday, leaves the organ with
the maximum degree of disposable energy.

So far as we are sure of the existence of special
centres we may apply the same considerations to
these. The condition of any given centre, say that
of vision, will vary according to the amount of work
recently done. One part of the brain may in this way
be much more vigorous than another. At the same
time it is to be remembered that the several parts ol
the brain stand in the closest organic connection one
with another, and that great exhaustion of any one
part will affect the degree of efficiency of the other
parts. It follows, too, that since (as we shall see
more fully by and by) all kinds of mental work in-
volve attention, the centres especially concerned in
this activity will become fatigued in every case as the
direct consequence of mental strain or effort.

14 SCOPE AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY.

Need of Brain Rest. It follows from these truths
that in order to maintain brain efficiency we must
supply the necessary conditions of repose and alter-
nation of activity. After a certain amount of work
the brain should be allowed to repose as a whole.
An approximate condition of repose is reached by
play, which by calling forth the muscles into easy and
familiar modes of activity relieves the higher centres
of attention and thought.

Within these limits of extreme and general fatigue
of the brain, efficiency can only be secured by varying
the kind of work so as not to tax any one region of
the brain overmuch. A change from manual to vocal
exercise in the Kinder-garten may be taken as an
illustration of this rule.

Relation of Psychology to other Sciences. Psycho-
logy is a positive science dealing with a certain class
of phenomena, and to this extent is on a level,
or co-ordinate, with the special physical sciences, as
chemistry, botany, and so on. Not only so, owing to
the connection between nervous and mental processes, "
psychology enters, as we have seen, into a peculiar
relation with physiology. On the other hand, psy-
chology is above, and complementary to. the special
sciences. For in considering mind, it views knowing
as a mental phenomenon, as an operation or process
in our mental life. Thus all knowing, whether of
chemistry, botany, or physiology, inasmuch as it is
the activity of some mind or knowing subject, is a
part of the subject-matter of psychology. In other
words, mental science considers what goes on in the
mind when we know. At the same time, it does

PLACE OF PSYCHOLOGY AMONG SCIENCES. 15

not enquire into the truth or falsity of this know-
ing. It simply views the process of knowing on
its subjective side, and leaves the consideration of
knowledge on its objective side, as true or valid, to
Philosophy or Theory of Knowledge which includes
Logic.

Psychology and Practical Science. Psychology is
a theoretic, as distinguished from a practical science.
A theoretic science concerns itself about things as
they are, how they happen or come to pass. A
practical science concerns itself with things as they
ought to be, or as we wish them to be. Practical
science, though thus contrasted with theoretic, is
really very closely connected with it. In order to
gain our end, we must have a certain knowledge of
the nature of the agencies we employ. Thus a sculptor
must know something about the properties of clay
and marble, a physician something about the functions
of the body, and so on.

Viewed in this way, psychology forms the basis of a
number of practical sciences. All the practical sciences,
indeed, which aim at guiding or influencing our
thoughts, feelings, or actions, have their footing in
psychology. Thus the principles of oratory, of legis-
lation, and so on, are based on a knowledge of the
properties and laws of the human mind. These rela-
tions may be roughly set forth as follows : —

(A.) Psychology as a whole supplies the basis of
Education, or the Practical Science which
aims at cultivating the mind on the side of
Knowing, Feeling, and Willing alike.

16 SCOPE AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY.

(B.) In its special branches, psychology supplies a
basis to the following practical sciences : —

Psychology of Knowing — Logic, or the regulation of
reasoning processes ; together with the allied
arts, rhetoric, or the art of persuasion, and
that of forming opinion.1

Psychology of Feeling — ^Esthetics, or the regulation
of feeling according to certain rules or prin-
ciples, to wit, the admirable, or beautiful.

Psychology of Willing — Ethics, or the determination
of the ends of action and the regulation of
conduct by principles of right and wrong ; to-
gether with the allied arts of politics and
legislation.

We see at once from this rough scheme the peculiarly close con-
nection between Psychology and Education. This is the only
practical science which is engaged in guiding or controlling the
whole of mind. [ The educator of the young may be said to unite
in himself the functions of logician, art critic, moralist and legis-
lator. jHe has to direct thought, to cultivate feeling, and to control
action.

We may still further see the closeness of this connection by
glancing at the dependence of Education on other sciences. As a
practical science which aims at an end, Education must lean on
Ethics, which seeks to determine the true ends of all action, the
ultimate nature of what we call good and desirable. But this
implies a limited connection only. When once the end is settled,
Education asks no more aid from Ethics. Again, as a practical
science greatly concerned with the training of the thinking or
reasoning powers, Education derives considerable aid from Logic.
This study by supplying rules for clear thinking and sound rea-

1 That is so far as the process is a strictly intellectual one. So far, how-
ever, as it involves appeals to feeling it falls under the next head.

PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION. 17

soning, and by pointing out (to some extent) the best methods of
expounding knowledge, is a matter of great practical value to the
teacher. The relation of Education to Psychology is, however, a
closer and a more pervading relation. Being a theoretic as distin-
guished from a practical science, it does not, it is true, give rules
for regulating mind. But it gives us an account of mind as a
whole, the way in which it operates, the laws of succession and
dependence which govern mental phenomena, and lastly a theory
of mental growth or development. And since Education in all its
branches is engaged in producing some mental result (e.g., accurate
knowledge, good feeling), it needs continually to revert to psy-
chology.1

APPENDIX.

For a fuller account of the scope and method of psychology, see Sir "W.
Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. I., Lects. VIII., IX. ; H. Spencer,
Principles of Psychology, Vol. I., Pt. I., Chap. VII. ; G. H. Lewes, Study of
Psychology (Problems of Life and Mind, 3rd Series, Prob. I.), especially Chap-
ters IV., V., VI., and VIII. The German reader will do well to consult
"Waitz, Lehrbuch der Psychologic (Einleitung) ; Volkmaun, Lehrbuch der Psy-
chologic (Einleitung) ; and especially Brentano, Psychologic, I69 Buch. Some
valuable remarks on this subject are to be found in an article by G. Groom
Robertson, Psychology and Philosophy, in Mind, Jan., 1883 ; and in an article
by James Ward, Psychological Principles, in Mind, April, 1883. On the
relation of Education to Psychology, see J. S. Mill, Logic, Book VI., Chap.
V., Ethology ; Prof. Bain, Education as a Science, Chap. I. ; Th. Waitz, Allge-
meine Pddagogik (Eiiileitung, § I.). Some good suggestions on the method of
a science of education may be found id J. S. Mill's Logic, Book VI., Chap.
IV.

1 1 have not touched on physical education here. This plainly rests on
physiology, just as mental education

UNH RSITY

CHAPTER II..

MENTAL OPERATIONS AND THEIR CONDITIONS.

Mental Phenomena and Operations. Mental Science
consists, as we have seen, of an orderly arrangement
of the truths, or laws which relate to mental phenomena.
The aim of the Science is to establish as many general
statements or propositions about mind as possible.
In order to this we have first to ascertain what our
phenomena are, and to arrange them in general groups
or classes, based on fundamental points of likeness.

Mental phenomena are known by different names.
They are commonly called states of mind, or states oi
consciousness. Again, since they are phenomena in
time, having a certain duration and a succession ol
parts, they are just as often spoken of as mental pro-
cesses or operations. It is to be added, however, that
we sometimes distinguish between a mental process
or operation and its result or product. Thus, as we
shall see, we distinguish between a process of percep-
tion, and its result, a percept. ?

1 The importance of the distinction between process and result will appear
when we come to speak of the conditions of mental phenomena. The term
operation, as employed in the older psychology, is the correlative of the
term faculty, or power, to be spoken of presently. (See Sir W. Hamilton,
Lectures on Metaphysics, I., Lect. X., p. 179.) The difficulty oi describing
all mental phenomena by one word has given rise to the invention of new
names, as 'mentation' and ' psychos1 -V

OPEEATIONS OF MIND. 19

Analysis of Mental Operations. At any one moment
our mind presents a complex mass of mental pheno-
mena or an intricate chain of mental operations. For
example, when a person is sitting out of doors on a
summer day, his mind is receiving numerous impres-
sions of sight, sound, touch, &c., which affect him
agreeably or otherwise ; at the same time, perhaps, it
is carrying on a train of imagery, recalling a sequence
of past events, or fancying some bright future. At
any one moment the mind is a sort of tangle of psy-
chical states or threads of psychical processes. It is
the business of the psychologist to unravel this tangle
and to take apart the threads. This is called analysis
(splitting up, taking apart).1 By so doing he resolves
a complex mental state into its simple elements, a
complex operation into its constituent parts. Thus
in the case supposed the introspective observer might
distinguish between the pleasurable sensations of light,
sound, &c., and the train of images passing through
his mind.2

Classification ot Mental Operations. In thus break-
ing up or analysing a complex mental state, the ob-
server is at the same time classing its parts with those

1 On the nature of psychological analysis, see Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures
on Metaphysics, Vol. II., Lect. XXL, pp. 21, 22. Stumpf, Tonpsychologic, § 6.

2 This analysis implies a twofold mental separation— viz., that of coexistent
or contemporaneous elements, and of successive elements. In order that there
should be any such ideal separation there must be some difference between the
parts. But we are not always able to analyse a complex mental state into its
parts. Psychical elements sometimes coalesce in an indistinguishable mass.
This is seen in the case of apparently simple sensations. (See my work on
Illusions, pp. 52, 53; cf. Sensation and Intuition, Chap. III., p. 57, &c.)
The temporal division of psychical processes into successive parts is limited
by the fact that a certain minimum duration is necessary for a distinct
mental state.

20 MENTAL OPERATIONS.

of other complex states. Thus in distinguishing cer-
tain sensations from images he is referring to a class,
sensations, and a class, images. In other words, he
is making the beginning of a classification of mental
operations.

Common popular thought has long since drawn
certain distinctions among mental phenomena. Thus
in our everyday language we describe particular sorts
of mental operations as perceptions, judgments, and
so on. All science is nothing but common knowledge
made more precise and systematic. Hence mental
science naturally sets out with the rough classifications
adopted by popular psychology.

If we examine these everyday distinctions we find
that there are three fairly clear divisions which do
not seem to have anything in common beyond being
classes of mental phenomena. Thus we ordinarily
describe such facts as perceiving, remembering, and
reasoning as intellectual operations. So again we
bring sorrow, joy, love, anger, and so on, under the
general description of feeling or emotion. And finally,
we gather up operations like purposing, deliberating,
doing things, under the head of will. We broadly
mark off these three sides of mind, and talk of men
as exhibiting now one and now another aspect.

Feeling, Knowing, and Willing. Mental Science
adopts this threefold division. (1) Under Feeling we
include all pleasurable and painful conditions of mind.
These may be very simple feelings, such as the so-
called bodily distress of hunger, or the pleasure of the
palate. Or they may be of a more complex nature,
such as love, or remorse. (2) Knowing, again, in-

THEEE PHASES OF MIND. 21

eludes all operations which are directly involved in
knowing, as, for xample, observing what is present
to the senses, recalling the past, and reasoning.
(3) Finally, Willing or Acting covers all active
mental operations, all our doings, such as walking,
speaking, attending to things, together with efforts
to do things, active impulses and resolutions. The
perfect type of action is doing something for an
end or purpose. This is what we ordinarily mean
by doing a thing with will, or voluntary action.
The term Willing may be conveniently extended so
as to cover all the phenomena of the third head.
When, however, we so employ it we must be careful
to understand that we are including not only volun-
tary actions and volitions, in the full sense of these
words, but also other and simpler modes of action,
such as random or purposeless movements.

Opposition between Knowing, Feeling, and Willing.
These three kinds of mental state are, as we have
seen, in general clearly marked off one; from another.
A child in a state of strong emotional excitement
contrasts with a child calmly thinking about some-
thing, or another child exerting his active powers in
doing something. If we take any one of these aspects
of mind in a well-marked form, we see that it is
opposed to the other aspects. Thus strong feeling is
opposed to and precludes at the time calm thinking
(recollecting, reasoning), as well as regulated action
(will). Similarly tht intellectual state of remembering
or reasoning is opposed tc feeling and to doing. The
mind cannot exhibit each kind of phenomenon in a
marked degree at the same time.

22 MENTAL OPERATIONS.

This opposition may be seen in another way. If
we compare not different states of the same mind, but
different minds as a whole, we often find now one kind
of mental state or operation, now another in the as-
cendant. Minds marked by much feeling (sensitive,
emotional natures) commonly manifest less of the
intellectual and volitional aspects or properties. Simi-
larly, minds of a high degree of intellectual capability
(inquiring or inquisitive minds), or of much active
endowment (active minds) are as a rule relatively
weak in the other kinds of endowment.

Connection between Knowing, Feeling, and Willing.
Yet while knowing, feeling, and willing are thus
broadly marked off from, and even opposed to, one
another, they are in a way closely connected. A
mind is not a material object which can be separated
into distinct parts, but an organic unity made up of
parts standing in the closest relation of interdepend-
ence. Or to put it another way, feeling, knowing,
and willing are properties of mind, and cannot exist
in perfect isolation from, one another any more than
the colour, form, and so on, of a plant. If we closely
examine any case of feeling we find some intellectual
and volitional accompaniments. Thus when we ex-
perience a bodily pain (feeling), we instantly localise
the pain or recognise its seat (knowledge), and endea-
vour to alleviate it (volition). Most of our feelings,
as we shall see, are wrapped up with or embodied in
intellectual states (perceiving, remembering, &c.).
Again, intellectual operations, observing, thinking,
&c., are commonly accompanied by some shade of
agreeable or disagreeable feeling, and they always

THREE PHASES OF MIND. 23

involve voluntary activity in the shape of attention
or concentration of mind. Finally, willing depends
on feeling for its motives or impelling forces, and on
knowledge for its illumination or guidance.1

Owing to this close connection between knowing,
feeling, and willing, we find that a mind characterised
by the predominance of any one of the three phases
is commonly distinguished further by certain features
belonging to the other two phases which are specially
related to the first. Thus a person of a highly intel-
lectual cast of mind will usually exhibit certain feelings,
as the sentiment of consistency and truth, in marked
intensity, and at the same time show a measure of
strength of will under the form of determined con-
centration. Again men and women endowed with
copious and vivid feelings are as a rule distinguished
by a special mode of intellectual capability, namely
a rapid imaginative insight into things. And lastly
those who are characterised by great strength of will
are commonly endowed -,ia well with powerful emo-
tional impulses (duly controlled) and by intelligence
of a useful and practical kind.

The relation of Feeling, Knowing, and Willing one
to another is roughly indicated in the common dis-

1 It has been said that every mental state is compounded of three elements
or factors, namely, a feeling, an intellectual process, and a motor impulse.
See G. H. Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, First Series, p. 146, and Third
Series (Vol. II.), p. 240. Others, as Mr. James Ward, put it this way : The
simplest mental phenomenon includes the presentation of some object to the
subject (intellectual element), an attendant feeling (pleasure or pain), an I a mode
of action, viz., volitional attention. The close connection between knowing,
feeling, and willing, &c. , is seen in the lengthy discussion of the question as
to what phase of mind is the most fundamental. The Herbartian psycholo-
gists are wont to look on the intellectual phase as the fundamental one, and
to derive feeling from intellectual activity. (See Appendix B.)

24 MENTAL OPERATIONS.

tinction between the passive and active sides of
mind. On the one hand, feeling is (comparatively)
passive, and so is set in contrast with willing,
which is active. Knowing, on the other hand, is
called passive-active, because while it depends for
its material on passive receptivity, it involves the
active control of its operations by means of voluntary
attention.1

It follows that our threefold division of mind is a
division according to the most prominent feature or
aspect. Though we cannot find a pure state of feeling,
we find many states of mind which exhibit the aspect
of feeling, the pleasurable or painful colouring, in a
more marked degree than the other two aspects.
Similarly in the case of states of knowing and
willing. By this means we are able roughly to
classify all mental states by attending to their
more prominent or strongly marked aspect. It
rarely happens that two aspects are so nearly equal
in their prominence as to occasion any difficulty
in referring a mental state to one of these three
classes.

Species of Knowing, Feeling, and Willing : Mental
Faculties. Popular psychology recognises certain
divisions or species of knowing, feeling, and willing
under the head of faculties, capabilities, powers, and
so on. More particularly we speak of Intellectual
Faculties, such as Perception and Imagination ; Emo-

1 Intellect is also called active by Kant and others, in the sense that it
involves a principle of synthetic combination. This is supposed to be a
spontaneous creative energy of the mind. But this question goes beyond
empirical psychology and touches the nature of the Intelligent subject, which
is a question of philosophy.

NATURE OF FACULTIES.

tional Capacities, as Love, Anger ; and Active Powers,
such as Movement, Choice, Self-control.1

These distinctions are valid so far as they go. The
psychologist allows that perceiving and remembering
differ in certain important respects. The first opera-
tion contains elements (e.g., actual sense-impressions)
which the second does not contain. Thus there is a
real psychological distinction involved, and the psycho-
logist will find it here as elsewhere convenient to
make this popularly recognised distinction the start-
ing-point in a scientific treatment of the phenomena
of mind.

Analysis of Faculties. In adopting these popular
distinctions, however, the psychologist does not imply
that the several processes of perceiving, remembering,
and so on, are distinct one from the other funda-
mentally, that is to say with respect to their elemen-
tary parts. While we set out with these well-marked
divisions of faculty, we seek to discover by a deeper
psychological analysis certain more fundamental or
primary distinctions, and to regard such differences
as those between perceiving, remembering, and so on,
as secondary. That is to say, we endeavour to break
up the several processes of perceiving, &e., into simpler
or more fundamental operations, of which we regard
them as so many various modifications or modes of
combination

The discussion of the ultimate nature of the so-called faculties and
powers of the mind belongs to rational psychology, or that branch of

1 For a discussion of the proper use of the terms faculty,' 'capacity,' and
'power,' see Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol I., Lect. X.,
p. 174, seq.

26 MENTAL OPERATIONS.

philosophy which treats of mind as substance. IThe hypothesis of
faculties can, however, be criticised from the point of view of empirical
psychology in so far as it succeeds or does not succeed in giving a clear
account of the phenomena. Looked at in this way, it must be regarded
as productive of much error in psychology. It has led to the false
supposition that mental activity, instead of being one and the same
throughout its manifold phases is a juxtaposition, of totally distinct
activities answering to a bundle of detached powers, somehow standing
side by side, and exerting no influence on one another. Sometimes
this absolute separation of the parts of mind has gone so far as to
personify the several faculties as though they were distinct entities.
This has been especially the case with the faculty or power of willing.1

Fundamental Intellectual Operations : Functions.

Employing this instrument of ' analysis/ the psycho-
logist seeks to reduce the several sorts or varieties of
intellectual operations, such as perception and judg-
ment, to more fundamental processes. The essential
operation in all varieties of knowing is the detecting
of relations between things. The most comprehensive
relations are difference or unlikeness and agreement
or likeness. All knowing means discriminating one
impression, object, or idea from another (or others),
and assimilating it to yet another (or others). I
perceive an object as a rose only when I see how it
differs from, other objects and more especially other
varieties of flower, and at the same time recognise its
likeness to other roses previously seen. And so of
other forms of knowing. Hence Discrimination and
Assimilation have been called properties or functions
of intellect.

Another property of intellect, according to Prof. Bain, is Retentive-
ness. All knowledge clearly implies the capability of retaining, recalling,
or reproducing past impressions. But retentiveness occupies a different

1 The ' faculty -hypothesis ' has been severely dealt with by Herbart and
his followers. See Wundt, Physiologische Psychologic, 2nd Ed., Pt. I., p. 17.

FACULTIES AND FUNCTIONS. 27

place in knowing from that of discrimination, &c. It is rather the
condition of knowing, of coming to know and continuing to know than
a part of the active knowing process itself. Besides, as we shall see
later, it is the principle which underlies the growth or development of
intellect, and not only of this, but of mind as a whole. The same
remark applies to the capability or function of grouping or combining
simple psychical states (sensations, &c.) into compound states. This
capability is, as we shall see by and by, closely related to that of reten-
tiveness, and is along with this involved in the whole process of mental
development.1

Grades of Intellectual Operation. By thus assum-
ing certain fundamental intellectual functions wt- are
able to regard the distinctions of perceiving, ima-
gining, and so on, as so many grades or stages of
knowing. They become forms or modes of the funda-
mental processes of various degrees of complexity
In this way we obtain a scale of intellectual processes.
Thus, at the lower end we have, in what is commonly
called sensation, the discrimination of a sense-impres-
sion from others : in perception, a marking off of a
group of impressions under the form of an object or
thing ; in thinking, the separation of a whole class of
objects. This serial arrangement of intellectual opera-
tions prepares the way for a theory of mental growth
or development.

Truths or Laws of Mind. As was observed just
now, the psychologist analyses and classifies mental
phenomena in order to go on to establish general
propositions about them. Those are known as truths
of mind. The most important of them are commonly

1 For an account of the fundamental intellectual processes, see Prof. Bain,
Senses and Intellect — Intellect, pp. 321-327 : compare H. Spencer's theory of
'relations between feeling,' Principles of Psychology, Vol. I., Pt. II., Chap.
II., and Vol. II., Pt. VI., concluding chapters, especially XXVI. and
XXVII. ; also G. H. Lewes's distinction of function and faculty, Study of
Psychology (Problems of Life and Mind, 3rd Series, Prob. I.), p. 27.

28 MENTAL OPERATIONS.

spoken of as laws of mind. These truths or laws set
forth the relations between certain psychical pheno-
mena and other phenomena, psychical or physical.
These relations are for the most part relations of
succession and dependence. The truth or law formu-
lates the causal connection between a phenomenon
and its antecedents or accompaniments. That is to
say, it seeks to account for a phenomenon by enume-
rating the conditions which are necessary to its pro-
duction.

Here again mental science is supplementing and
rendering precise the inductions reached by popular
thought. Men have for ages observed certain rela-
tions of dependence between circumstances and char-
acter, and one trait of character or habit and another.
All the well-known sayings about character and life
embody these observations. Such trite remarks as
''experience is the best teacher," "first impressions
last longest," contain the rough germ of psychological
truths. The psychologist seeks to take up these wise
sayings into his science, embodying them in larger
and more accurate propositions, that is to say in laws.

Special and General Conditions and Laws. If we
consider the conditions of any class of intellectual
operations, we find that some are special and peculiar
to the class whilst others are of a more general char-
acter. Thus a perception will be found to have as its
special conditions a present sense-impression and a
recalled group of past impressions ; while it will be
seen to depend too on attention which is a much
wider and more general condition. The psychologist
seeks to generalise to the utmost the conditions of

CONDITIONS OF OPERATIONS. 29

mental phenomena. Among the very general con-
ditions is change of impression or contrast of mental
state, which seems necessary to any kind of continued
mental activity. To set forth such more general
conditions is to formulate the highest laws or first
principles of psychology.

Sum of Conditions. In order to explain any class
of mental operation, it is needful to specify all the
conditions whether special or general which co-operate
in bringing it about. This will compel us, in certain
cases at least, to take note not only of proximate or
immediately preceding (or accompanying) circum-
stances but also of remote antecedents. Thus, to
account for the remembrance of a thing we must
specify not only the presence at the time of some-
thing which reminds us of that thing but also the
fact that the reminder and that of which it reminds
us have been conjoined or * associated ' in our past
experience.

It is to be observed that in so far as any mental
operation is complex, consisting of distinguishable
parts and successive steps, we are wont to view the
final outcome as the product which depends on the
several elementary operations or steps taken together
as its conditions. Thus we distinguish between the
process of perceiving and the product or percept, the
process of abstraction or conception and the result or
concept. Hence we may speak of explaining or ac-
counting for such a final product by enumerating all
the parts or constituent elements of the operation.
To analyse an operation of mind is thus in a manner
to assign its conditions and account for it. Thus we

30 MENTAL OPERATIONS.

explain a percept, that is, the result of the process of
perception, by unfolding the mechanism of the pro-
cess, distinguishing its stages, the reception of a sense-
impression, the recalling of a group of conjoined im-
pressions, and so on.1

Attention as a Condition of Operations. Among
these constituent parts of an operation none is more
important than attention. This, as has been re-
marked, is a general condition of mental operations.
Knowing, feeling, and willing, in so far as they are
vivid and distinct phases of mental life, involve atten-
tion. The dependance of the several kinds of intel-
lectual operation on the activity of the attention is
a truth which will be illustrated in the course of our
exposition. Here it is only necessary to single it out
for special mention. In so far as intellectual pro-
cesses are active, involving concentration, they come
under the laws of attention (interest, &c.).

Favourable and Unfavourable State or Mind.
Among the conditions which help to determine a
mental result we must not overlook the whole mental
circumstances or composite state of the mind at the
time. The effect of calmness of mind and of emo-
tional agitation respectively on intellectual opera-
tions is a matter of every day observation. Our

1 It is often a nice question whether any particular operation A is to be
regarded as distinct from another B, though necessary to it, or as entering
into this last as one of its elements. For example, is attention a part of
what we mean by discrimination, or is it merely something which must be
present in order that discrimination may take place ? But this is 01 little
practical moment. If we adopt G. H. Lewes's view that an effect is nothing
but the sum of its conditions, the difficulty disappears altogether (see his
treatment of the idea of Cause, Problems oj Life and Hind, First Series, Vol.
II., Prob. V., Chap. II., p. 388 seq.).

CONDITIONS OF OPERATIONS. 31

minds are prepared for a special mode of activity in
very different degrees. After a disturbing shock at-
tention requires time to recover its balance, and so
intellectual operations are interfered with.1

Nervous Conditions. In specifying all the condi-
tions of a class of mental operations we must refer
not only to psychical but to physical circumstances.
More particularly we need to specify a vigorous state
of the organs concerned. This applies not only to
intellectual operations, as learning or acquiring know-
ledge, but also to feelings and actions. A vigorous
state of the brain is a condition of lively feeling, as
of energetic intellectual activity. And as we shall
see, voluntary action is modified by the varying state
of the motor organs.

It seems impossible even to assign a definitely restricted region of the
nervous system to each of the three fundamental phases of mind, feeling,
knowing, and willing. The nervous system is made up of nerves and
nerve-centres. The first consist of sensory, or incarrying, and motor, or
outcarrying, nerves. The centres, again, consist of sensory centres which
receive excitation from without by way of the iucarrying nerves, and
motor centres which excite or 'innervate' the outcarrying nerves. These
sensory and motor centres are intricately connected one with another in
sensory -motor aggregates, and these aggregates again form a closely con-
nected series ot sensory-motor centres of increasing degrees of complexity.
Following this double division we should have as a corresponding psy-
chological division sense-impressions and ideas derived from them, and
movements or actions. But knowing consists in the detection of rela-
tions among impressions, &c., and this implies the activity of certain
motor centres. Again, feeling though closely bound up with sense-
impressions, and so involving the action of sensory nerves, involves in

1 For practical purposes it is often sufficient to name a few of the most
important conditions of mental operations. Thus, for example, in a case like
that of constructive imagination or of conception (forming notions), it may
suffice to say that the main conditions are (a) materials to work with (images),
(b) interest or motive, and (c) favourable circumstances, freedom from mental
preoccupation and distraction.

32 MENTAL OPERATIONS.

its expression the action of motor centres as well. And though willing
answers roughly to the action of the motor side of the nervous system,
it involves, in connection with the elements of feeling and knowing
present, the action of the sensory side too. Hence only a very rough
physiological mapping out of the mental functions is practicable.1

Individual Differences of Mental Capability. Mental
operations are not precisely similar in all minds. They
vary in certain respects, and these variations are re-
ferred to differences of mental power or capacity.
Now as we have seen, psychology as science has to do
with the general facts and truths of mind. It takes
no account of individual peculiarities. Nevertheless,
the practical importance of estimating individual dif-
ferences has led psychologists to pay considerable
attention to this concrete branch of their subject.2

The particular problem to be discussed here is the
possibility of estimating with an approach to scientific
precision the several differences of mental capability
that we find among individuals.

How Minds Vary. One mind may differ from ano-
ther in respect of one whole phase or side of mind.
Thus we speak of one man or one child as more
intellectual or more enquiring than another. Similarly
one mind has more emotional susceptibility, or more
active impulse or will than another.

Again, we may make our comparison more narrow,
and enquire how one mind differs from another with
respect to a special mode of intellectual (or other)

1 On the physiological correlatives of feeling, cognition, and action, see
G. H. Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, Third Series, Vol. II., Prob. III.,
Chap. II. ; and A. Horwicz, Psychologische Analyscn, Theil I., Sect. 24.

2 The relation of this branch (concrete psychology) to abstract psychology
is well brought out by S. Bailey, Letters on the Philosophy of the Human
Mind, 2nd Series, Letter XV1IL, &c

VARIETIES OF MIND. 33

operation. Thus we ask whether one mind lias more
discrimination or a finer sense of difference than ano-
ther, or whether it is endowed with a keener sense of
likeness. Or we may take some special faculty, and
enquire how two minds differ in respect of observing,
imaginative, or reasoning power. Or, finally, we may
select some particular mode of operation of a faculty,
and compare two minds with respect to their percep-
tion of objects in space, or of events in time : their
memory for things (visible objects), for names, and
so on.

Measurement of Mental Faculty. In order to make
our comparison of one mind with another exact, we
ought to be able to measure one against the other.
This is only possible, in most regions of mind at least,
in a very rough way. Mental phenomena are not
material objects the size of which can be accurately
estimated by juxtaposition. Yet, if rough, these
measurements may serve as useful data for practice.

Quantitative Aspects of Mind. Mental operations
have three quantitative aspects, each of which is sus-
ceptible of measurement more or less exact. These
are degree, duration, and number.

(A) Degree. — By the degree of a mental state or
phenomenon is meant its intensity. Our sensations
and feelings clearly vary in intensity. We can say
that one impression is more vivid than another, one
feeling more acute than another, and so on. Our
actions, too, differ in degree according to the amount
of energy we consciously expend.1 And our intel-

1 Another aspect of the degree or intensity of action is the amount of
effort involved.

34 MENTAL OPERATIONS.

lectual operations similarly display differences of
degree. Thus we speak of the degree of distinctness
and vividness of an impression or of an idea. Also
we may speak of the degree of activity (attention)
involved in an intellectual operation.

(B) Duration. — The duration of operations is a
matter which lends itself peculiarly well to exact
measurement. For time is susceptible of objective
estimation, that is to say, of measurement by means
of an external standard, such as a cluck.1 Our mea-
surements of the intensity or degree of mental
states are rough. Thus, we can only say that
one operation is 'easier' than another, or at best that
it is ' much easier '. With respect to duration, how-
ever, it is possible to measure exactly by means of
external arrangements. The most important recent
measurements of mental phenomena have been under
the aspect of duration. The simpler mental processes,
sensation and perception, and even more complex
processes, as sequences of ideas, have been subjected
to this mode of measurement.

(c) Number. — In order to estimate number it is
enough that we can distinguish one operation from
another, or one stage of an operation trom another.
We measure mental processes, such as trains of
thought, under this aspect when we compare the
number of distinct steps involved in them. The
estimate of the complexity of a mental state, for
example a 'flight of fancy' or a mingled emotion,

1 An olrjective estimate contrasts with a subjective estimate which rests on
the impression or feeling of the individual mind, and which is highly vari-
able and uncertain.

MEASUREMENT OF FACULTY, 35

takes place by reckoning the number of elements or
details of which it is made up.1

Modes of Measuring Faculty. There are two well-
marked methods of measuring faculty : (1) by making
the external excitant or stimulus* equal in two (or
more) cases, and comparing the mental reactions, or
(2) by inquiring what difference in the stimuli is
required to bring about equal mental reactions in
two cases. Although these methods can only be
applied with any degree of exactness in the simpler
region of mind, sensation, they may be employed
roughly in other regions as well.

First Method. — In this case we must be careful to
make the stimulus equal as far as possible in two
cases, and compare the psychical results. Thus we
might test the discriminative sensibility of two persons
by presenting exactly the same amount of ' objec-
tive' difference, e.g., between two shades of colour or
two degrees of brightness of one colour. Here we must
be careful to make the circumstances equally favour-
able to discrimination in all respects. Thus the
object presented must be similarly placed in relation
to the observers. Also, the external circumstances
and the internal state of mind must be equally favour-
able to concentration of the attention.

Having thus made the stimuli equal, we compare

1 When the parts are not distinguishable, and therefore discrete quantity
not capable of being estimated, we may try roughly to estimate continuous
quantity under the form of extensity, including the volume or ' mass ' of an
emotion.

2 By stimulus is meant strictly an external agent (as mechanical pressure)
applied to a sense-organ (e.g., the hand) which it is capable of exciting to
activity. The word may be extended so as to include all excitants of mental
activity.

36 MENTAL OPERATIONS.

the reactions as to quantity. Thus the sense of dif-
ference in one case may be more distinct and vivid
than in another. A much better criterion is duration.
If one person detects a difference sooner than another
under precisely similar circumstances, he has the
greater discrimination in that region of impression.
In complex operations number may enter into the
estimation. Thus if the power tested be that of
imagination or the faculty of picturing visible ob-
jects, it may be found that one person is able to form
fuller and more complete pictures than another under
similar circumstances.1

Second Method. — The second method has certain
advantages over the first. In general we can compare
quantitatively two stimuli much better than their
psychical results. We can make one physical agent
twice or three times as large as another, but we can
never say that one mental impression is three times
as strong or vivid as another. Moreover it is possible,
in some cases at least, to fix on a definite quantity of
psychical effect and make this our unit of comparison.
This is done by taking the smallest quantity of an
effect that is perceptible or recognisable. Thus the
best way to measure the power of discrimination in
the region of sense-impressions is to find by experi-
ment the amount of objective difference, that is, the
amount of difference between two agents or stimuli
(e.g., weights laid on the hand, &c.), that will just
produce a sense of difference ; in other words, be barely

1 Another point to be noted is the amount of effort involved in the two
cases. This, however, might he due to one of two causes — (a) inequality in
the power of directing the attention, (b) inequality in the discriminative (or
representative) power.

MEASUREMENT OF FACULTY. 37

recognised as a difference. The smaller this mini-
mum difference, the greater will be the corresponding
discriminative power. This method, as we shall see,
has recently been carried out in the region of sensa-
tion with remarkable results. We may perhaps extend
it in a less exact form to the measurement of other
and more complex mental operations. Thus we might
roughly test two persons' memories by comparing the
force of suggestion, or the number of suggesting cir-
cumstances, necessary to a bare revival of an impres-
sion in any measure in the two cases. The difficulty
here would of course be to make sure that all other
circumstances were the same, that the two persons
had had equal experience of the impressions to be
recalled, &c.

The problem of estimating with quantitative accuracy individual
differences of mental capacity is still in its infancy. The attempt to
gauge individual differences by a reference to permanent bodily pecu-
liarities in the doctrine of temperaments has been generally discredited.
The same must be said of the phrenological attempt to assign differences
of individual mind to variations in certain faculties localised in definite
portions of the brain. It rested on a sharp separation of faculties which
was psychologically unsound, and which involved as well bad physiology.
A beginning according to a strictly scientific method has been made in
the region of sensibility in connection with psycho-physical inquiry. But
so far as I know, the honour of planning a systematic measurement of
mental capacity belongs to Mr. F. Galton. 1

1 The subject of Temperament has been treated by L. George, Lehrbuch
der Psychologic, ler Theil, §§6, 7 ; Volkmann, Lehrbuch der Psychologic,
les Hauptstiick D, § 31. The Phrenological Hypothesis has been criticised
among others by Prof. Bain, On the Study of Character, Chaps. II. -VI. ; also
by Volkmann, Op. cit. D, § 30. Good observations on individual differences
of intellectual power are to be found in Prof. Bain's book, especially Chaps.
X., X1IL, XIV., and XV. ; also in L. George's work, ler Theil, §§ 7, 9. For
an account of Mr. Galton's plan, see an article on The Anthropometric Laboratory
in the Fortnightly Review, March, 1882 j cf. his volume Inquiries into Human
Faculty, section Bodily Qualities, p. 19, and following sections.

MENTAL OPERATIONS.

Bearings of foregoing on Education. A word or two may
suffice to indicate the more important bearings of this chapter on
the art of Education. To begin with, since Education is engaged
with exercising the faculties of the mind — memory, judgment, and
so on, it is well for the Educator to know what these are, that
is to say, what mental processes are covered by the words. A
careful analysis of the operations of mind carried to a certain point
is necessary to a perfect grasp and comprehension of educational
processes. For example, a teacher cannot intelligently exercise a
child's powers of observation (perception) till he grasps the fact
that observation implies discrimination, the marking off of the
several peculiarities of colour, shape, and so on, of an object from
those of other objects.

It is obvious, further, that a knowledge of the laws of mental
operations, in other words, of their conditions, is a matter of the
greatest practical utility to the Educator. Since his aim is to call
forth a faculty into exercise, that is to say, to bring about a par-
ticular mental result, he needs to know the laws according to which
the particular faculty operates, or the conditions on which the par-
ticular result depends. Thus in order to render the meaning of
words clear and definite to a child's mind he will do well to note
the conditions on which clear notions or concepts in general depend,
such as familiarity with a wide variety of concrete examples.

Again, though the art of Education is concerned more imme-
diately with the intellectual than with the other operations of
mind, it cannot afford to be ignorant of these. The teacher is
expected to help in moulding the taste and in forming the moral
character of his pupils, and here some knowledge of the feelings
and the will and the laws which govern them is of importance.
And even if we look upon the function of the teacher as having
to do exclusively with the exercising of the intellectual powers,
we shall still see that some knowledge of the processes of feeling
and willing is necessary ; for feeling and willing under the form
of interest and voluntary application of mind are in a measure
involved in intellectual work.

Finally, in order to give due flexibility to his system of training,
and to adapt it to the numerous differences of capacity and tastes
among children, the teacher should be able to compare individual

TRAINING OF THE MIND. 39

minds as exactly as possible. Hence a knowledge of the means
which are at our disposal here will be of practical use.

APPENDIX.

On the threefold Division of Mind and the nature of the 'Faculties,'' see
Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, I., Lect. XL ; Prof. Bain, Senses
and Intellect (3rd Ed. ), Introduction ; James "Ward, second article on Psy-
chological Principles, in Mind, October, 1883. The German reader will find
some good remarks in Drobisch, Empirische Psychologic, Yorbegriffe, § 2 ;
Lotze, Mikrokosmus, 2es Buch, 2es Kap. The common threefold division is
dealt with historically and critically by Drobisch, Op. cit, 5er Abschnitt, II. ;
by Brentano, Psychologic, 5es Cap. ; and by Wundt, Physiologische Psycho
lie, 2nd Ed., pp. 11-18.

CHAPTER IIL

MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

Mental Development Defined. In the last chapter
we were concerned with ascertaining the nature and
conditions of the several kinds of mental operation,
without any reference to the time of life at which
they occur. But mental operations differ greatly in
different periods of life, owing to what we call the
growth or development of capacity. We have now
to consider this far-reaching process of mental growth.
We shall seek to distinguish between the successive
stages of mental life and point out how these are
related one to the other. By so doing we may hope
to account not merely for the single operations of a
faculty, but for the mature faculty itself viewed as
the result of a process of growth. This part of our
subject constitutes the theory of Mental Development

Growth and Development. When speaking of the physical or-
ganism we distinguish between growth and development. The former
is mere increase of size or bulk ; the latter consists of structural changes
(increase of complexity). While growth and development usually run
on together, there is no proper parallelism between them. Thus in
abnormal growth development is hindered. And an organ as the brain
may develop long after it has ceased to grow. It is possible to apply this
analogy to mind. We may say that mind grows when it increases its
stock of materials. It develops in so far as its materials are elaborated

DEVELOPMENT OF MIND. 41

into higher and more complex forms. Mere growth of mind would thus
be illustrated by an increase in the bulk of mental retentions, that is, in
the contents of memory : development, by the ordering of these contents
in their relations of difference and likeness, and so on. But the analogy
cannot be pressed very far.

Characteristics of Development. In order to see
how the later stages of growth differ from the earlier,
let us compare the intellectual operations of a man
with those of a child, (a) "We observe first of all
that in the former case the operations are more nume-
rous and various. In the course of a day a man goes
through many more processes of observing, judging,
and so on, than a child, (b) Secondly, we observe
that in general the operations exhibit a greater degree
of perfection. Thus the observations of the man are
more discriminating and accurate, and effected more
easily and rapidly, (c) Thirdly, it is nouceable that
the operations of the adult are as a whole more com-
plex, consisting of longer and more intricate processes
than those of the child. Thus he performs elaborate
processes of abstract thinking which have no place
among childish operations.

Development of Single Faculty and of Sum of Facul-
ties. This aggregate of changes which constitutes the
growth of mind appears to resolve itself into two
parts. On the one hand we see that the several
faculties which operate in the case of the child have
expanded and increased in vigour. On the other
hand we notice that new faculties, the germs of which
are hardly discoverable in the child, have acquired
strength. We see, that is to say, that while the
faculties have each grown singly, there has been a

42 MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

certain order of unfolding among them, so that some
have reached mature vigour before others.

Much the same thing is observable in the develop-
ment of the other sides of mind, feeling and will.
Here too we notice a great increase in the number and
complexity of the phenomena. The emotions, resolu-
tions and actions of a man are both more varied and
more composite in their nature than those of a child.
And further, we see that the several emotional capaci-
ties and active powers have been strengthened, while
there has been a successive unfolding of higher anoV
higher capacities and powers.

Growth of Separate Faculties. We may now con-
fine ourselves to the intellectual side of mind, and
view the development of it under each of the two
aspects just distinguished, the development of the
several faculties singly, and that of the sum of facul-
ties.

The growth or improvement of a faculty includes
three things, or may be regarded under three as-
pects. (1) Old operations become increasingly easy
and rapid, requiring less stimulus, less effort ot
attention, and so on. Thus the recognition of one
and the same kind of object, the recalling of the same
'.mpression, tends to become easier with the repetition
of the operation. This is improvement of a faculty
in a definite direction. (2) New operations of a
similar grade of complexity will also grow easier.
Thus the improvement of the observing powers (per-
ception) includes a growing facility in noting and
recognising unfamiliar objects : that of memory in-
cludes a greater readiness in retaining and recalling

GKOWTH OF FACULTY. 43

new impressions. This is improvement of a faculty
generally. (3) This general improvement is com-
pleted by the attainment of the capability of executing
more complex, intricate, and difficult operations. The
growth of observation means the progressive capa-
bility of noting less conspicuous objects, of detecting
finer differences between objects, and of grasping more
complex and intricate wholes — that is to say, objects
and groups of objects made up of more parts or de-
tails. Similarly, the growth of memory means the
progress of the capability as shown in retaining and
recalling less striking impressions and larger and more
complex groups of impressions.

Development of Sum of Faculties. In the second
place, we may view the development of the mind as
a whole through successive stages corresponding to
the several faculties. This is known as the order of
development of the faculties. There is a well-marked
order in the growth of intellect, (l) The process of
attaining knowledge sets out with Sensation, or the
reception of external impressions by the mind. Sense
supplies the materials which the intellect assimilates
and elaborates according to its own laws. Before we
can know anything about the material objects which
surround us they must impress our mind through the
senses (sight, touch, hearing, &c.). (2) Sensation is
followed by Perception, in which a number of im-
pressions are grouped together under the form of a
percept, or an immediate apprehension of some thing
or object, as when we see and recognise an orange or
a bell. (3) After Perception comes Eepresentative
Imagination, in which the mind pictures, or has an

44 MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

image of, what has been perceived. It may repre-
sent this either in the original form (Beproduetive
Imagination), as when we 'recall the face of a friend ;
or in a new form (Constructive Imagination), as when
we -imagine some historical personage. (4) Finally,
we have General or Abstract Knowing, otherwise
marked off as Thinking. This includes Conception,
or the formation of Concepts or general Notions out
of percepts and images, such as ' metal/ ' organism/
'life/. and so on; Judgment, or the combination of
Concepts, as when we assert that no men are omnis-
cient ; and Keasoning, or the combination of Judg-
ments, as when we conclude that a particular writer,
say a newspaper correspondent, is not omniscient,
because no men are so.

A glance at this order will show that the later
operations are marked by increasing complexity.
Thus Perception is more complex than Sensation
since it arises by an aggregation of sensations. Again,
Conception is more complex than Imagination since
concepts are formed out of a number of mental images.
Similarly Judgment is more complex than Conception,
and Eeasoning than Judgment.

We must distinguish between psychological and logical simplicity.
A percept is psychologically less complex than a concept because it is
the element out of which the latter is composed. On the other hand,
our knowledge of generalities, of classes and their abstract properties (as
man, the human form, human intelligence), is logically more simple
than our knowledge of concrete individual things, with all their nume-
rous peculiarities (as James Smith, John Brown). General knowledge
simplifies by 'abstracting,' i.e., leaving individual differences out of
account.

With this growth in complexity is intimately asso-

OKDEE OF FACULTIES. 45

ciated another feature of this series of changes, viz.,
increase in inwardness, or aloofness from external
sense. Cognition begins with outer sense-impressions
and ends in the inner processes of abstract thought.
This aspect of development is described by saying
that the movement of growth is from the presentative,
or what is directly presented to the mind through
sense, to the representative, what is indirectly set
before the mind under the form of mental images or
notions.

It is evident, further, that this transition from
the presentative to the representative implies a
growth in the generality of knowledge. All presenta-
tive knowledge is of the individual. In representation,
however, we are able to take many individuals toge-
ther and think of them as a class. The progress of
knowledge is thus from the individual to the general,
or from the concrete to the abstract.

Since the faculties each grow singly, and at the
same time unfold themselves in a certain order, we
see that the growth or development of a mind con-
sists in a series of parallel movements, certain of
which begin later than the others. Just as the growth
of a plant consists of unfoldings of leaf, petal, and so
on, some parts of the organism being in advance of
others, but the progress of the earlier continuing after
that of the later has begun, so the growth of a mind
is at once a succession and a contemporaneous group
of changes.1

1 On the order of intellectual development, viewed as taking place in the
history of the race, see Mr. Spencer's Principles of Psychology, Vol. II. , Pt.
VIII., Ch. II. and III.

46 MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

Unity of Intellectual Development. It lias already
been pointed out that modern psychology seeks to
reduce the several operations of Perception, Imagina-
tion, &c., to certain fundamental processes, of which
discrimination and assimilation are the most important
(see p. 26). If this is so it may be possible to regard
the successive unfoldings of the faculties as one con-
tinuous process. The higher and more complex
operations of thought would thus appear as only
different modes of the same fundamental functions
of intellect as underlie the lower and simpler opera-
tions of sense-perception. In other words, our dis-
tinction between the development of a single faculty
and the development of the sum of faculties would
be seen to be a superficial one only.

Now a little reflection will show that we can view
the development of intellect as a whole in this wayv
Thus the simplest germ of knowing in sensation involves
the discrimination of an impression ; and the highest
form of knowing, abstract thinking, is a higher mani-
festation of the same power. Again, the perception
of a single object is a process of assimilating present
to past impressions ; and abstract thinking is assimi-
lating or classing many objects under certain common
aspects. We may thus say that the several stages of
knowing, perception, conception, and so on, illustrate
the same fundamental activities of intellect employed
about more and more complex materials (sensations,
percepts, ideas, &c.).

Growth and Exercise of Faculty. We have just
seen how each faculty progresses or improves, and
how the successive unfolding of the several faculties

EXERCISE OF FACULTY. 47

may be viewed as only a continuous growth of the
same fundamental capabilities or functions. We have
now to inquire into the meaning of this complex pro-
cess of growth, in other words, into the principles or
laws which underlie and determine it.

The most obvious of these principles or laws is that
all intellectual growth results from the exercise of
faculty or function. In other words, the faculties or
functions are strengthened by exercise. Let us take the
case of a single faculty first. The power of observation
(perception), of detecting differences among colours,
forms, and so on, improves by the repeated exercise
of this power. Each successive operation tends to
improve the faculty. Immediately it tends to improve
it in a particular direction only. Thus if the power
of observation is exercised with respect to colours, it
will be strengthened more especially in this direction,
but not to the same extent in other directions, e.g.,
with respect to forms.

Let us now look at the development of intellect as a
whole. Since perception, conception, and so on, are only
different modes of the same intellectual functions, the
exercise of these in the lower form prepares the way for
the higher manifestations. This truth is recognised
in the common saying that in training the senses we
are laying the foundations of the higher intellectual
culture. But this is not all. No amount of exercise
of the observing powers will secure a full development
of the powers of abstract thought. In order that the
successive phases of intelligence may unfold themselves
in due order, the separate exercise of the fundamental
functions in each of these phases is necessary.

48 MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

What Exercise of Intellect involves: Sense-Materials.
The exercise of the intellectual powers as a whole may
be roughly described as the employment of the funda-
mental functions upon the materials supplied by the
Senses (Sensations, Sense-impressions). As we have
seen, sensation is the elementary phase of the intel-
lectual life. The senses supply the pabulum or
nutriment which the intellect assimilates or elaborates
according to its proper laws. The highest manifesta-
tions of intellect, abstract thought and reasoning,
illustrate this dependence of intellectual activity on
the elements, materials, or 'data' of sense. The
growth of intellect by repeated exercise thus implies
a continual supply of sense-materials, a multiplication
of sense-impressions, to be worked up into intellectual
products.

Retentiveness. In the second place, it is plain that
this growth of intellect by exercise implies retentive-
ness. By this term is meant generally, that every
operation of mind leaves a trace behind it which con-
stitutes a disposition to perform the same operation
or same kind of operation again. This truth obviously
underlies the generalisation, * Exercise strengthens

o * O

faculty'. The increased power of discriminating
colours, sounds, and so on, due to repeated exercises
of the discriminative function, can only be accounted
for by saying that each successive activity modifies
the mind, strengthening its tendency to act on that
particular side or in that particular mode.

Growth, and Habit. This persistence of traces, and formation of a
disposition to think, feel, &c., in the same way as before underlies what
we call habit. By this term is meant a fixed tendency to think, feel, or act

ANALYSIS OF PROCESS. 49

in a particular way tinder special circumstances. The formation of habits
is a very important ingredient of what we mean by intellectual develop-
ment ; but it is not all that is so meant. Habit refers rather to the fixing
of mental operations in particular directions. Taken in this narrow
sense, habit is in a manner opposed to growth. By following out a train
of ideas again and again in a certain way, we lose the capability of vary-
ing this order, of re-adapting the combination to new circumstances.
Habit is thus the element of persistence, of custom, the conservative
tendency ; whereas growth implies flexibility, modifiability, susceptibility
to new impressions, the progressive tendency. We shall again and again
have to distinguish between the effect of habit as understood in this
narrow sense, and development in the full sense, as a wide or many-
sided progress.

In order that the intellectual powers as a whole
may be exercised and grow, a higher form of reten-
tiveness is needed. The traces left by intellectual
activities must accumulate and appear under the form
of revivals or reproductions. The impressions of
sense when discriminated are in this way recalled
as images. This retention and revival of the products
of the early sense-discrimination is clearly necessary
to the higher operations of thought. Images, though
the product of elementary processes of discrimination
and assimilation, supply in their turn the material
for the more elaborate processes of thought. We thus
see that the growing complexity of the intellectual
life depends on the accumulation of innumerable
traces of past and simpler products of intellectual
activity.

Grouping of Parts : Laws of Association. One other
law or principle involved in this process of intellectual
development has to be touched on. The growth of
intellect by repeated exercise of its functions leads to
an increasing complexity of the products. This means
that the several elements are combined or grouped

50 MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

in certain ways. This grouping goes on according to
the Laws of Association. These laws will be fully
discussed by and by. Here it is enough to say that
the main law runs somewhat as follows : Two or more
mental phenomena which have occurred together tend
to recur together. The building up of perceptions out
of sensations, of trains of images, of judgments (com-
binations of conceptions or ideas) and so on, all illus-
trate this process of combining.

To assimilate two distinct impressions or ideas is clearly a mode of
intellectual combination. Moreover according to the common doctrine
of association similarity constitutes a distinct tie or binding element.
The exact relation between association of impressions (or ideas) con-
tiguous in time, and the so-called association of like impressions (or
ideas) will be discussed by and by. Here the special object has been to
bring out the forces, tendencies, or laws which underlie and determine
intellectual growth, the fundamental functions (discrimination and
assimilation) being assumed.1

Whether this combining of elements which the law of (contiguous)
association formulates should itself be regarded as a third intellectual
function, may be left an open question. It is plainly connected very
closely with retentiveness under the form of re-presentation. We com-
bine two psychical elements A and B, only so far as we represent them.
And the order of representation illustrates the law of combination (law
of association). Hence on the whole it seems more convenient to take
it up along with the general property of retentiveness as an essential
ingredient or factor in the process of development. Regarded in this
light, grouping is the condition of the more elaborate processes of in-
tellect.

The reader who wishes to go further into the rationale of psychical
development may compare the above rough account of the process with
Mr. Spencer's theory. He regards the essential factors in the process to
be (1) differentiation or separation of unlike parts ; and (2) integration,
by which he means classing like parts together. Integration appears
to include the results of grouping as just described. It is the classing

1 It is a point of some difficulty whether all processes of combination of
psychical elements are properly included under the term ' association '. Wundt
proposes for the combination of sensations in space-intuitions the term syn-
+hesis.

ANALYSIS OF PKOCESS. 51

not of detached impressions or ideas, but of impressions and ideas in
their relations of contiguity to other impressions and ideas.1

Summary of Process of Development. Let us now

try to gather up as succinctly as possible the results
of our analysis of the process of intellectual develop-
ment. To begin with the Senses, these supply the ma-
terials, and call into play the functions of discrimination
and assimilation. This early stage of intellectual
activity involves only a rudimentary form of reten-
tiveness, namely in the traces of past sensations
blending with present and like ones. The repeated
conjunction of certain impressions -leads to the group-
ing of these in complex aggregates of a particular
kind (Perception). This involves a distinct germ of
representation. Later, through the cumulation of
many traces of impressions and perceptions, the for-
mation of images becomes possible (Imagination,
including Memory). Finally, through the multipli-
cation of images and their connections, and the
strengthening of the functions of discrimination and
assimilation (aided by the growth of the power of
voluntary attention), the process of forming concepts
of classes, and combinations of such concepts, becomes
possible (Thought).

Development of Feeling and Willing. While for the
sake of simplicity we have confined our attention to
the development of intellect, it is necessary to add
that the same features and the same underlying prin-
ciples are discoverable in the growth of feeling and
will. The earlier feelings (bodily pleasures and pains)

aSee First Principles, Chap. XV., § 127 ; Principles of Psychology, Vol. I.
Pt. III., Chap. X.

52 MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

are simple and closely connected with the senses : the
higher feelings (emotions) are complex and representa-
tive in character. Again the first actions (bodily
movements) are simple and external, being immediate
responses to sense-impressions, whereas the later are
complex, internal and representative (choosing, re-
solving, &c.). It will be found further that there
is a continuity of process throughout the develop-
ment of each. And the same laws or conditions,
growth by exercise, retentiveness and association,
are illustrated here as in the case of intellectual
development.

Interdependence of Intellectual, Emotional, and
Active Development. We have so far viewed the
growth of intellect, of feeling, and of volition as pro-
cesses going on apart, independently of one another.
And this is in a measure a correct assumption. It
must however be remembered that mind is an organic
unity, and that the processes of knowing, feeling and
willing in a measure involve one another (see before,
p. 22). It follows from this that the developments
of these phases of mind will be closely connected.
Thus, intellectual development presupposes a cer-
tain measure of emotional and volitional develop-
ment. There would be no attainments in knowledge
if the connected interests (curiosity, love of knowledge)
and active impulses (concentration, application) had
not been developed. Similarly there can be no de-
velopment of the life of feeling without a considerable
accumulation of knowledges about nature and man,
nor can there be any development of action without
a development of feeling and the accumulation of a

THREE PHASES OF DEVELOPMENT. 53

store of practical knowledge. The mind may develop
much more on one side than on the others, but de-
velopment on one side without any development on
the others is an impossibility.

This connectedness of one side of development with
the others may be illustrated in the close dependence
of intellectual growth on the exercise and improvement
of the power of Attention. As has been remarked,
attention though related to the active or volitional
side of mind, is a general ingredient or condition of
intellectual operations ; and this being so its growth
is implied in the growth of intellect. It is the im-
provement of this capability which makes successively
possible accurate observation, steady reproduction,
and all that we mean by thinking.

This dependence of one phase of mental develop-
ment on the other phases is not however equally close
in all cases. Thus the growth of knowing involves
comparatively little of the emotional and volitional
element. The growth of feeling in its higher forms
involves considerable intellectual development, but
no corresponding degree of volitional development.
Finally the growth of will is largely dependent on
that of knowing and feeling. Hence in the order
of exposition we set out with the development of
knowing, passing then to that of feeling, and finally
to that of willing.

Psychical and Physical Development. Just as in
studying mental operations at a particular time we
have to include in our view nervous concomitants, so
in studying mental development we must ask what
changes in the nervous organism, and more partieu-

54 MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

larly in the brain-centres, accompany these psychical
changes.

Growth and Development of Brain. The brain like
all other parts of the organism grows in bulk or size,
and develops or manifests certain changes in its forma-
tion or structure. The two processes, growth and
development, do not progress with the same degree of
rapidity. The size nearly attains its maximum about
the end of the 7th year, whereas the degree of struc-
tural development reached at this time is not much
above that of the embryonic condition.1

By increase of structural development is here meant
greater unlikeness of the several parts, or a higher
degree of ' differentiation ' ; also a higher degree of
intricacy of arrangement which seems to be best defin-
able as the formation of special connections between
part and part.

Order of Development ot Brain-organs. There is
a further order of development noticeable. The higher
structures known as the cerebral hemispheres seem to
develop later than the lower structures (basal ganglia,
&c.). These higher structures appear to have greater
complexity, that is to say, to involve more intricate
arrangements among themselves and with other struc-
tures, than the lower brain centres.

Brain Development and Exercise. The brain being
an organ closely connected with the rest of the bodily
organism would tend to grow to a certain extent with
the growth of the organism as a whole and indepen-
dently of any activity of its own. But such growth
would be rudimentary only. Like all other organs it

1 See Bastian, The Brain as an Organ oj dlind, p. 375.

GROWTH OF BKAlrt. 55

grows and develops by exercise. This physiological
law is clearly the counterpart of the psychological law
that exercise strengthens faculty.

This increase of brain power through exercise im-
plies two things. (1) All brain-activity reacts on
the particular structure engaged, modifying it in some
unknown way and bringing about a subsequent 'phy-
siological disposition ' to act in a similar manner. The
most striking manifestation of this effect is seen when
a man who has lost his sight is able to picture visible
objects. The brain is now able to act independently
of external stimulation, having acquired a disposition
so to act through previous exercises under external
stimulation.

(2) In the second place we have to assume that
different parts of the brain which are exercised toge-
ther acquire in some way a disposition to conjoint
action. This fact has been expressed by Mr. Herbert
Spencer by saying that 'lines of least resistance'
are gradually formed for nervous action by the
repeated fiow of nerve energy in certain definite
directions.

This rough sketch of brain development may suffice to indicate a
certain parallelism between the processes of psychical and physical de-
velopment. There is a growing complexity of cerebral structure and
action answering to the growing complexity of the mental life, and
there is good reason to suppose that the structures which attain their
development late are connected with the higher and later activities of
mind (thinking, deliberating, &c.). How far this parallelism extends
is, however, a doubtful point. Whether for example it is possible as
yet to find a physiological counterpart or equivalent for what we call
association, seems uncertain. However this be we must be careful not
to press this parallelism into a final explanation of psychical products.
Thus from a mere consideration of the gradual differentiation of the

56 MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

cerebral nerve-substance we could not deduce the laws of development
of intellectual activity, the discrimination of impressions, &c.

Mr. Spencer seeks to identify the psychical and physical processes to
the utmost by resolving them both into the results of continual differ-
entiations and integrations. But since psychical integration appears to
mean assimilating or classing it is a little difficult to recognise any real
identity or equivalence between the physiological and the mental pro-
cess here called by the same name.

Mental Development as Adjustment to Surroundings.
So far we have been regarding the growth of an indi-
vidual mind as a process apart, having no relation to
anything beyond it, save the accompanying nervous
changes. But this double process of psychical and
nervous development may be viewed as related to
certain external agencies. Let us first look at the
relation of these external agencies to the mental pro-
cess.

We have seen that the materials of the intellectual
life are supplied by the senses. Sense-impressions
clearly depend on the action of certain external agents,
bodies emitting sound, reflecting light, and so on.
Further the order of the physical agencies in time and
space will determine the order of our perceptions, and
resulting images and thoughts. Thus the fact that in
our sense-experience a peal of thunder follows a flash
of lightning, serves to determine the connection be-
tween our images of these events, and between our
scientific conceptions of them. Similarly with respect
to the space order. The relative position of two coun-
tries, of two stars, and so on determines the particular
way of mentally picturing and thinking about them.
To this extent, then, the order of our mental processes
follows, and is conditioned or determined by, the order
of external facts or events.

ADJUSTMENT TO SUEROUNDINGS. 57

It follows further that all growth of knowledge
means an increasing adaptation or harmonising of the
internal to the external order. With growth of repre-
sentative power the mind takes in remote relations of
events or things in time and space, the succession of
the seasons, the coexistence of remote parts of the
earth's surface and so on. And the transition from
particular representation or imagination to general
representation or thought involves the adjustment of
the intellectual processes to large groups or classes of
external facts.

What is true of the growth of knowing is true of
that of feeling and of willing. Feeling gradually
adjusts itself to external surroundings. Things or
persons beneficial to the individual come (as a rule)
to be objects of pleasurable feeling or liking : those
injurious to him come to be objects of dislike. The
higher and more representative feelings such as
patriotism, the sense of justice, and so on, involve
adjustments to more numerous and extended external
relations. Lastly, knowing aud feeling lead on to
acting. And in action we have the final outcome of
the process of adjustment. In acting we seek what
is beneficial and avoid what is injurious. In this way
we react on our surroundings and so promote the
harmonious adjustment of inner to outer relations.
All growth of will illustrates an increasing adaptation
to the facts and circumstances of life. Prudent con-
duct differs from hasty impulsive conduct in the fact
that it involves a representation of remote as well as
near results, of permanent as distinguished from tem-
porary circumstances of life.

58 MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

Interaction of Environment and Nervous Organism.
Let us now look at the other part of this process of
adaptation, the adjustment of the nerve-structures to
external circumstances. It is plain that external
things act upon the mind through the medium of the
nervous organism. The physical agencies, the vibra-
tions known as light, sound, and so on, act upon the
appropriate nerve structures calling forth reactions
which are accompanied by psychical states. Through
innumerable interactions between the nervous system
and the environment the former becomes gradually
modified in conformity with the latter. Thus
nervous connections are built up in the brain-
centres corresponding to external relations. The
nervous structures are thus in a manner moulded in
agreement to the external order, to the form or struc-
ture of the environment.

While the development of the nervous structures and of the psychical
activities related to these may thus be viewed as conditioned by the ex-
ternal order, we must be careful not to fall into the error of supposing
that we have to do here with a simple case of mechanical effects analogous
to the effect of the action of one body on another in the environment.
The development of the nervous structures, though conditioned by ex-
ternal arrangements, follows the proper laws of organic and nervous
development. That is to say it is much more than a mere effect of the
external actions. Much more is this true of the psychical process.
Although in a way attached to the process of nervous development and
so amenable to the action of external forces, it cannot be understood as
an indirect complex effect of such action. Mental development is some-
thing altogether different in kind from physical development and can
only be understood by means of its own laws. Thus retentiveness, the
great underlying principle of this process, is something which has only
a remote analogue in the region of organic processes. The revival of a
past impression may be somehow correlated with the fact of a physio-
logical modification in the nerve structures concerned, but though
conditioned by this physical fact or circumstance it is something

CO-OPERANT FACTORS. 59

altogether different from it, something that could never have been
discovered or even divined by considering it.1

Internal and External Factor in Development.

Taking this view of mental development as a pro-
cess related to and conditioned by the action of
the environment, we may say that the growth of an
individual mind is brought about by the co-operation
of two sets of agencies or factors. Of these the first
is the Internal Factor. By this is meant the mind
itself with its several capabilities considered as original
or primordial, not susceptible of being resolved into
anything simpler. With this must be taken the ner-
vous organism with which mental activity is somehow
connected. The second is the External Factor. By
this is meant the surroundings or the environment
which acts upon the mind in connection with the
nervous structures.

Internal Factor. This consists first of all of the
simple and fundamental capabilities of the mind. It
includes the several ultimately distinguishable modes
of sensibility to light, sound, and so on. Further it
embraces the fundamental intellectual functions, dis-
crimination, and assimilation. In like manner it will
include the primary or fundamental capacities of feel-
ing, and powers of willing. To these must be added
the property of retentiveness itself, which as we have
seen underlies what we mean by mental growth.
These several capabilities must be assumed as present

1 For a full exposition of the process of development as a growing adapta-
tion to surroundings the reader is referred to Mr. H. Spencer's Principles of
Psychology, Vol. I., Part III., General Synthesis. The processes of nervous
adaptation are more especially dealt with in Part V., Physical Synthesis.

60 MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

from the first. They are original properties of the
mind which cannot be further analysed or accounted
for.

Inherited Dispositions. In addition to these com-
mon fundamental capabilities of mind, the internal
factor probably contains a more special element. This
is known by the name of inherited tendencies or dis-
positions to think, feel, and act, in particular ways.
An alleged example of such a tendency is the disposi-
tion to think of events as related one to another by
way of causation, or as causes and effects.

We must clearly understand what is meant by an
inherited mental tendency. In the first place it im-
plies that the tendency has not been acquired in the
course of the individual life or experience. Thus
when we talk of an inherited disposition to think in
conformity with the law of cause and effect, we mean
that a child's mind is to some extent determined to
think in this way independently of the teaching of
his experience. This part of the meaning would be
expressed by saying that the tendency was ' instinc-
tive,' 'innate,' or better perhaps, 'connate'.1 In addi-
tion to this the term 'inherited' implies a, positive fact,
namely that the mental tendency has been handed
down to the individual from his progenitors or ances-
tors in connection with certain features of the nervous
structures. Now the common mental capabilities, the
power of discriminating and so on, may be said to be
thus handed down or transmitted from parent to

1 The term innate as commonly employed seems to imply that the tendency
should show itself at the beginning of life : but this as we shall see presently
is not necessary. Hence the wonl connate is preferable.

INTERNAL FACTOR.

child. When, however, we talk of inherited mental
tendencies something more is implied. We mean
that the transmitted tendency is a result of ancestral
experience, that it represents an acquisition made in
the course of the history of the race. Thus the
instinctive tendency to connect events according to
the relation of cause and effect is regarded as the
transmitted product of the uniform or approximately
uniform experience of many generations. That is to
say men have found from the time that they began
to observe nature that events occur in a certain con-
nection, that every event is preceded by some other
event or events.

It is important to add that these inherited tenden-
cies need not manifest themselves at the beginning of
life. Some amount of individual experience may be
necessary to the manifestation of the inherited bent
of mind. More than this, it is supposed that there is
a general agreement between the order of development
of the individual and that of the race, and that the date
of the appearance of an inherited tendency will answer
roughly to the period of the history of the race in
which the acquisition was made. Thus the earlier
acquisitions of the race will be represented by ten-
dencies which manifest themselves at the beginning
of the individual life : the later acquisitions by ten-
dencies which appear at later stages of the individual
life.

It is a much disputed question how far such in-
herited dispositions extend. In the region of intellect
we have as probable examples, the tendency to connect
touch and sight experiences in the visual perceution

62 MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

of objects, the tendency to group events under the
relation of cause and effect, and so on. In the region
of feeling inheritance seems to play a still more ex-
tensive part. The pleasurable feeling called forth in
the infant mind by the sight of the mother's face, the
painful feeling evoked by the looks and tones of anger
and rebuke, the fear manifested by young children at
the sight of strangers, and certain animals, are illus-
trations of such inherited emotional tendencies. Such
feelings seem to answer to numerous pleasurable or
painful experiences of the race. Finally in the region
of action we find apparent tendencies in the individual
to fall in with the customary or habitual ways of action
of his ancestors. Thus the infant tends instinctively
and apart from the teaching of experience to move
his eyes symmetrically, to stretch out his hand to
seize an object, and to carry objects to his mouth
and so on.

Into the full meaning of the principle of heredity as applied by the
Evolutionist to the development of the individual physically and psy-
chically, it is not necessary to enter now. Two points may be just
touched on.

(a) Owing to the principle of hereditary transmission the psy-
chical development of the individual follows and is in a measure con-
ditioned by that of the race. That is to say the nerve-centres and
the corresponding psychical activities tend to unfold in the order in
which they have been developed in the history of the race. There is
thus a parallelism between the shorter and the longer process of de-
velopment. In each case the order of intellectual development has
been from knowledge of concrete facts or particulars to that of general
or abstract truths.

(b) It follows from the Evolutionist's doctrine that in a progressive
race the native capabilities of each new generation show a slight advance
on those of preceding ones. The improvement of faculty attained by
each generation tends to transmit itself in the shape of an original or
connate increment of capability. Thus the capabilities of a child now

EXTERNAL FACTOR. 63

born. 01 European parents would be higher than those of a child of a
low and backward race.1

External Factor. In the second place the develop-
ment of an individual mind implies the presence and
co-operation of the External Factor, or the Environ-
ment. By this we mean in the first place the physical
environment or natural surroundings. The growth of
intellect feeling and will is as we have seen conditioned
by the action of the several physical agencies, by the
form and arrangement of things making up our natural
habitat. The contents and the order of arrangement
of the environment thus help to determine the form
of our mental life.

The Social Environment. In addition to what we
commonly call the Natural or Physical Environment
there is the Social Environment. By this we mean
the society of which the individual is a member, with
which he holds certain relations, and by which he is
profoundly influenced. The Social Medium, like the
Physical, affects the individual mind through sense-
impressions (sights and sounds) ; yet its action differs
from that of the natural surroundings in being a
moral influence. It works through the forces which
bind man to man, such as imitation, sympathy, and
the sentiment of obedience or authority.

The presence of a social medium is necessary to a
full normal development of mind. If it were possible

1 This idea of a gradually increasing native capability is essentially a
modern one, being a prominent feature «f the theory of Evolution. Locke
and the older psychologists argued as if all minds, whatever the stage of
civilisation reached, were equally endowed at birth. For a fuller exposition
of the laws of heredity the reader is referred to Mr. Spencer's Principles of
Bioloyy, Part II., Chap. VIII., and M. Ribot's volume On Heredity.

64 MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

to maintain a child in bodily health and at the same
time deprive him of all companionship, his mental
development would be but rudimentary. The child
comes under the stimulation, the guidance, and the
control of others, and these influences are essential
to a normal mental development. Thus his intellectual
growth is determined by continual contact and inter-
action with the social intelligence, the body of know-
ledge amassed by the race, and expressed in everyday
speech, in books, &c. Similarly the feelings of the
child quicken and grow under the touch of social
sentiment. And finally his will is called forth, stimu-
lated and guided by the habitual modes of action of
those about him.

These social influences embrace a wider area as life
progresses. Beginning with the action of the family
they go on expanding by including the influences of
the school, of companions, and finally of the whole
community as working through manners, public
opinion, and so forth.

Undesigned and Designed Influence of Society. A
part of this social influence acts undesignedly, that is
without any intention to accomplish a result. The
effects of contact of mind with mind, of example, of
the prevailing tone of a family or a society, all this
resembles the action of natural or physical agencies.
On the other hand a considerable remainder of this
influence is clearly designed. To this part belong
all the mechanism of instruction, the arts of suasion,
moral and legal control, &c.

Both kinds of social influence co-operate in each of
the three great phases of mental development. Thus

EXTERNAL FACTOR.

the intellect ol a child grows partly under the influence
of contact with the social intelligence reflecting itself
in the structure of language ; and partly by the aid
of systematic instruction. Similarly feeling develops
partly through the mere contact with other minds, or
the agencies of sympathy, and partly by direct appeals
from others. Finally the will develops partly by the
attraction of example and the impulses of imitation,
and partly by the forces of suasion, advice, reproof,
and the whole system of social discipline.

Scheme of Development. The reader may perhaps
be able the better to comprehend the above rough
theory of mental development by help of the following
diagram.

66 MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

Since all these factors must co-operate in some mea-
sure in bringing about what we call the normal
development of an individual mind, we cannot sepa-
rate this complex effect into parts, referring one part
to one factor, another part to another factor. Still
by observing the variations in the effect which attend
variations in any particular factor we may form a
rough idea respecting the comparative value of each
of the cooperant conditions. This question of com-
parative value arises more especially with respect
to the Social Factor. Psychologists as ;i rule
have paid but little attention to the influence of
the social surroundings on the growth of the indi-
vidual mind. Yet it is now commonly acknowledged
that this is an essential condition of a full normal
development. As to the extent of its influence,
however, there is still room for wide differences of
opinion.1

This question has a peculiar interest in connection with the problem
of race-development. In a progressive community the social environ-
ment improves in quality with each succeeding generation. All the
forces of intellectual, emotional and volitional stimulation are increased.
Through the accumulation of more exact knowledge handed down in
books and by oral instruction, through the influences of gentler manners,
a more refined type of life, and a higher moral standard of conduct, and
lastly through the improvement in the products of human industry, the
useful and the fine arts, laws, and so on, each new generation comes
under a far more powerful social influence. And it must always be a
difficult question to decide how far the intellectual and moral progress
of a race can be accounted for by this traditional heightening of the
social environment, and how far it involves as well a hereditary heighten-
ing of native capability.

1 The importance of the Social Environment has been emphasised by the
late G. H. Lewes. See Problems of Life and Mind, First Series, Vol. I., p.
152 seq. ; and The, Study of Psychology, Chap. IV.

SCHEME OF DEVELOPMENT. 67

Varieties of Development. While all minds pass
through the same typical normal course of develop-
ment, there are endless differences in the details of
the mental history of individuals. In no two cases
is the process of mental growth precisely similar.
These diversities of mental history answer to the dif-
ferences between mind and mind spoken of in the
previous chapter. Such differences of development
may be referred to one of two causes or factors :

(a) variations or inequalities of original capacity, or

(b) differences in the external circumstances physical
and social. All differences in the final result, that is
the mature or developed aptitude, must be assignable
to one (or both) of these factors.

It is important to observe that differences of
original capacity include all inequalities in capability
of development, or susceptibility to improvement.
Individuals vary greatly in respect of the effect of
any given amount of stimulation or exercise of faculty.
Practice improves capacity much more uniformly and
rapidly in some cases than in others. As every
teacher knows the processes of education applied to
two children at approximately the same level of at-
tainment result in widely unlike amounts of progress.
Such inequalities in capability of mental growth
(connected in part with different degrees of reten-
tiveness) constitute some of the most striking among
the original or inherent differences of aptitude among
individuals.

Differences of Original Capacity. These must be
estimated in the same way as differences of mature
capacity. The difficulty here is to determine what is

68 MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

strictly original and not in any measure the result of
previous training or other kind of external influence.
Yet though we cannot altogether eliminate the effect
of early influences we can reduce it to a minimum by
taking the child soon enough, or by selecting for our
experiment a sufficiently new mode of mental opera-
tion.

Individual Nature. Such a method of comparative
measurement applied to young children would un-
doubtedly confirm the everyday observation of parents
and teachers alike that children are at birth endowed
with very unequal degrees of capacity of different
kinds. Each individual has his particular proportion
of aptitudes and tendencies, which constitutes his
nature or his natural, as distinguished from his later
and partly acquired character. This natural character
is doubtless very closely connected with the peculiar
make of his bodily and more particularly his nervous
organism. The condition of the sense-organs, ot the
brain, of the muscular system, and even of the lower
vital organs, all serves to determine what we call the
native idiosyncrasy or temperament of the individual.

Special Heredity. It is common to say that these
characteristics of the individual mind are determined
to some extent by heredity. Thus the members ol
one race or nationality, as the French, have certain
inherited mental as well as physical traits in common.
Still more plainly the members of one family are
observed to have a certain mental as well as a bodily
character in common. The play of heredity is seen
in a still more restricted form in the occasional trans-
mission of a definite kind of talent through generations

VARIETIES OF DEVELOPMENT. 69

of a given family, as for example of musical talent in
the Bach family.1

Yet with the influence of heredity there goes ano-
ther principle which we may call the tendency to
individual variation. Variations up to the point of
marked contrast occur in the same family. Such
contrasts may sometimes be only another illustration
of the action of heredity, being what is known as a
reversion to some earlier type of mental character.
But this cannot be safely maintained in the majority
of instances. In the present stage of our knowledge
of the subject heredity only helps us to account for a
comparatively few among the host of peculiarities
which go to make up the natural basis of an individual
character.

Varieties of External Influence. The older psycho-
logy of Locke and his followers overlooked the effects
of individual 'nature'. Modern writers are perhaps
more liable to overlook the effects of ' nurture'. While
accepting all that can be proved by observation re-
specting the strength and persistence of original
peculiarities of nature or temperament, we must
insist on the supplementary truth that differences in
the surroundings, physical and still more social, have
a good deal to do with the differences of ability and
disposition that we find among individuals.

The important thing to bear in mind here is that
no two individuals ever come under the same influ-
ences. Even twins have an unlike social environment

1 For fuller illustrations of such transmission of definite ability see Mr.
F. Galton's work, Hereditary Genius: c.f., Prof. Th. Ribot's volume, On
Heredity.

70 MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

from the first. Their own mother is hardly likely to
feel towards them, or to treat them in quite the
same way ; and others show this divergence of feel-
ing and behaviour very much more. As life pro-
gresses the sum of external influences serving to
differentiate individual character increases. The
school, the place of business, the circle of friends, and
so on, all help to give a peculiar stamp to the indi-
vidual mind.

That even such slight differences in surroundings
must produce an effect follows from psychological
laws. The mind grows on what it assimilates. The
lines of its growth will be to some extent pre-deter-
mined by innate capabilities and tendencies ; but these
only broadly limit the process, they do not fix its pre-
cise character. The particular ideas and connections
of ideas formed, the intellectual habits fixed, the
peculiar colouring of the feelings, and the special
lines of the conduct will all be determined by the
character of the surroundings.1

Training of the Faculties. The subject of training is closely
connected with the action of the social environment. All educa-
tion or training is indeed the designed influence of society on the
individual concentrated and reduced to a systematic form. The

1 The importance of original differences of intellectual aptitude and emo-
tional disposition has just been insisted on with great force of argument by
Mr. F. Galton in his curious volume, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its
development. See Nurture and Nature, p. 177, &c. An illustration of the
strength and pertinacity of original tendencies is very clearly brought out in
the History of Twins, p. 216 seq. Mr. Galton takes cases of twins who were
much alike and also of twins who were distinctly unlike, and he seeks to
show that in both cases the final result is largely determined by nature and
not by nurture. Careful as the observation and the reasoning undoubtedly
are here, it is possible that Mr. Galton hardly does justice to all the far-
reaching influences of unlike early impressions.

TRAINING OF FACULTIES. 71

training of a faculty means the regular calling of it into activity
by supplying the conditions of its exercise. This includes first of
all the presentment of suitable materials. The powers of observa-
tion, of memory, and so on, can only be called into activity by
supplying materials, such as objects to be inspected, words to be
committed to memory. To this must be added the application
of a social stimulus in the shape of a motive to intellectual effort
(concentration of mind), such as a promise of favour, or a threat of
punishment.

Such training must clearly be based on a knowledge of the
laws of mental development. Thus it has to conform to the great
law of all growth that it is appropriate exercise which strengthens
faculty. That is to say it will aim directly at calling forth a
faculty into its proper mode of action by supplying materials and
motives adapted to the stage of development reached at the time.
And here it may be well to say that there should be an adequate
but not excessive stimulation of the faculty. By adequate stimula-
tion is meant an excitation of sufficient strength and variety to
secure completeness of growth. By excessive stimulation is meant
an amount of excitation which forces the activity to such a point
as is unfavourable to growth.

In the second place the whole scheme of training should con-
form to the natural order of development of the faculties. Those
faculties which develop first must be exercised first. It is vain,
for example, to try to cultivate the power of abstraction before
the powers of observation (perception) and imagination have
reached a certain degree of strength. This self-evident proposi-
tion is one of the best accepted principles in the modern theory of
Education, though there is reason to apprehend that it is still fre-
quently violated in practice.

Writers on pedagogics have sought to divide early life into
periods distinguished by the predominance of certain faculties.
Thus Beneke recognises four periods: (1) To about the end of the
3rd year, the period of sense and instinct in which the child is
mainly engrossed with external things : (2) To about the end of the
7th year, in which internal mental activity comes up to and balances
external activity (sense-perception) : (3) To the end of the 14th year,
in which inner activity becomes free of sense and gains a distinct

72 MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

ascendency over this : and (4) To the end of school life, in which
the higher mental powers (thought) appear in fuller development.
It is ohvious however that all such demarcations must be rough
and inexact. The process of development is at once too continuous
and too complex to allow of such sharp divisions, though it may
be of great practical value to adopt them as rough contrivances.

Once more, a method of training based on scientific principles
will aim not only at taking up * faculty at the right moment,
but also at cultivating it up to the proper point, and not beyond
this. By this point is meant the level which answers to its rank
or value in the whole scale of faculties. Thus for example in
training the memory or the imagination we should inquire into its
precise importance in relation to the attainment of knowledge and
intellectual culture as a whole, and give to its exercise and develop-
ment a proportionate amount of attention.

Finally training in order to be adequate must be to some extent
elastic adapting itself to the numerous differences among young
minds. Up to a certain point <>• common result, namely a typical
completeness of development, will bt aimed at. It would not be
well for example that any child however unimaginative should
have his imagination wholly untrained. At the same time this
typical plan of cultivation must be modified in detail. The
greater the natural aptitude, the more economical the production
of a given psychical result. Hence it would be wasteful to give as
much time and thought to the training of a bad as of a good
germ of faculty. Nor do the practical ends of life impose such a
disagreeable task on the teacher. Variety of individual develop-
ment answers to the highly elaborated division of life-work which
characterises civilisation.

APPENDIX.

Tor a fuller account of the nature and causes of mental development the
reader is referred to Mr. Spencer's Principles of Psychology, especially Vol. I.,
Parts III. and IV. A brief statement of the characteristics of development as
bearing on the work of the teacher will be found in Mr. Spencer's Essay,
Education, Chap. II. The subject has also been discussed from an educa-
tional point of view by Beneke, Erzichungslehre, I., p. 101, &c., and by G.
F. Pfisterer, Pocdagogische Psychologic, § 2.

CHAPTER IV.

ATTENTION.

As we have seen, attention, though closely related to
the active side of the mind and illustrating the laws
of volition, is a general condition of our mental
operations. We must therefore understand some-
thing about this mode of activity and its laws at the
outset.

Definition of Attention. Attention may be roughly
defined as the active self-direction of the mind to
any object which presents itself to it at the moment.1
It is somewhat the same as the mind's 'conscious-
ness ' of what is present to it. The field of Con-
sciousness however is wider than that of Attention.
Consciousness admits of many degrees of distinctness.
I may be very vaguely or indistinctly conscious of
some bodily sensation, of some haunting recollection,
and so on. To attend is to intensify consciousness
by concentrating or narrowing it on some definite
and restricted area. It is to force the mind or con-
sciousness in a particular direction so as to make the
objects as distinct as possible.

1 The idea of activity and effort is directly suggested by the etymology of
the word, ad tenders, to stretch (sc. the mind) towards.

74 ATTENTION.

Unconscious Psychical Activity. The question of the exact
nature and range of those regions of psychical life to which we do
not attend has given rise to much discussion. This domain has been
variously called the unconscious, sub-conscious, or obscure region of
mental phenomena. Is there a sphere of unconscious psychical activity
out of all relation to our state of consciousness at the time? For
example, do the impressions which we experienced years ago and which
we are capable of reviving under particular circumstances exist now in
this unconscious region? If we attempt to account for psychical
phenomena solely by means of psychical processes, we seem almost
compelled to resort to these 'unconscious operations'.1 At the same
time, there are obvious difficulties in this view. Thus it is said that to
talk of a mental phenomenon existing out of relation to our conscious
life is a contradiction.

This difficulty is reduced if not removed by saying that there are
degrees of consciousness ; that in addition to the region of our distinct
conscious life there is a vast region of the sub-conscious or faintly
conscious. This domain consists of all those psychical elements which
enter into and colour the conscious state of the time, but which are not
discriminated or distinguished. Thus there is at any one time a whole
mass of organic sensation, the outcome or concomitant of the activity of
the several organs of digestion, &c., which affects our state of mind
(depressing «r exalting), but which is not disentangled and resolved
into its elements.

Two main questions arise as to the limits of this sub-conscious
region. (1) How far does it extend in relation to the organism and its
processes ? Do all organic processes modify it in some way ? (2) To
what extent is it modified by past psychical activities ? Do things long
forgotten yet capable of being revived somehow affect the whole state of
mind in the interval ? Without troubling ourselves about this difficult
question we may say that at any time there is a whole aggregate or
complex of mental phenomena, sensations, impressions, thoughts, &c.,
most of which are obscure, transitory, and not distinguished. With this
wide obscure region of the sub-conscious, there stands contrasted the
narrow luminous region of the clearly conscious. An impression
or thought must be presumed to be already present in the first or sub-
conscious region before the mind by an effort of attention can draw it
into the second region. To adopt the metaphor of Wundt, the whole
mental region (conscious and sub-conscious) answers to the total field of
view present to the eye in varying degrees of distinctness at any moment
when the organ is fixed in a certain direction ; the latter region, that

1 If on the other hand we seek to explain psychical processes by help of
nervous processes we may regard the hypothesis of unconscious mental activity
as unnecessary.

ATTENTION AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 75

of attention or clear consciousness, corresponds to that narrow area of
'perfect vision' on which the glance is fixed. [On the hypothesis of
unconscious mental activity and of the relations of the region of
attention to that of consciousness as a whole, see Sir W. Hamilton
Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. I., Lect. XVIII. (cf. J. S. Mill's Examina-
tion of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, Chap. XV.) ; G. H. Lewes,
Physical Basis of Mind, Prob. III., Ch. IV. ; Wundt, Physiol. Psycho-
logic, Vol. II., 4er Ahschuitt, 15es Cap., 1, 2 ; Brentano, Psychologic,
2es Buch, 2es Cap.]

As an active tension of mind attention is opposed
to that relaxed state of mind in which there is no
effort to fix itself on any particular object. Such
a state may be called one of diffuse consciousness.1

Objects of Attention. The phenomena of intellect
emotion and will may alike become directly er in-
directly objects of attention. The most conspicuous
class of objects is that of external impressions, the
sights, sounds, &c., which make up objects of sense.2
When the teacher talks about ' attending ' he com-
monly means actively listening, or actively looking.
In addition to external impressions and objects,
internal images, ideas and thoughts, may be attended
to. Feelings of pleasure and pain if not directly
attended to, are so indirectly, through the fixing of
the attention on the exciting cause of the feeling,
whether an external object or an internal image.
Finally we attend to our actions when we fix our
minds closely on what we are about and more par-
ticularly on the result which we are immediately
aiming at.

1 If the expression is preferred it may be called scattered attention, but I
think it best to reserve the term attention for the more palpable exertions of
mental activity in definite directions.

2 The reader will see presently that external impressions and objects differ
from one another. Here they are alike spoken of as ' objects of attention '.

76 ATTENTION.

Effects of Attention. An act of attention serves
to give greater force, vividness, and distinctness to
its object. Thus an impression of sound becomes
more forcible or impressive, and further has its char-
acter made more definite, when we direct our at-
tention to it. A feeling of pleasure or pain is
manifestly intensified when we attend to it, or its
cause or conditions. A serious bodily injury may
hardly trouble our mind, if through some exceptional
excitement we are incapable of attending to it. Thus
a soldier wounded in battle has sometimes hardly felt
any pain at the moment. On the other hand a very
moderate sensation of discomfort, as an irritation of
the skin, grows into something intensely disagree-
able if the attention is fastened on the particular
bodily locality affected. Finally our actions are
vigorous and precise in proportion to the amount of
attention we give to them.1

Attention and Intellectual Operations. We may
say then that attention enters as a constituent into
all classes of mental operation, and this cooperation
of attention is specially conspicuous in the case of
intellectual operations. The objects which present
themselves to our senses are only clearly discrimi-
nated one from the other, and classed as objects ol
such and such a class, when we attend to them. So
again present impressions only exercise their full
force in calling up what is associated with them when
we keep them before the mind by an act of attention.

1 For fuller illustrations of these effects, see Dr. Carpenter's Mental Physio-
logy, Chap. III. The German reader may compare Fechner, Elemente der
Psychophysik, II., p. 452 seq. ; Lotze, Medecinische Psychologic, § 432 ;
Stumpf, Tonpsychologie, § 4, p. 71, &c.

EELATION TO INTELLECT. 77

Once more, all thinking is clearly an active state of
mind involving a voluntary fixing of the attention.
We thus see that attention though a form of action
or will., stands in the closest relation to the intel-
lectual processes. It may be described as the func-
tion of will in relation to knowing, the cooperation
of the active side of mind in aiding, directing, and
controlling the mechanism of intellect. This being
so it is desirable to single it out for consideration
before entering on the exposition of intellect.

Nervous Concomitants of Attention. The fact that attention is
an act of the mind would suggest that its nervous concomitants are
certain processes in those motor centres which we know to be more
especially concerned in movement or action. This conjecture is borne
out by the fact that the act of attention is commonly accompanied by
muscular contractions. Among these are the muscular actions which
subserve the intellectual operation, such as the fixing of the eye on an
object or the turning of the ear in the direction of a sound. In addition
to these there are other actions which constitute the characteristic
expression of attention. Attention is commonly accompanied by a
fixing of the eyes, head, and whole body ; and this fixity is main-
tained by an act of will. In very close attention, as in trying to
recall something, there are other bodily accompaniments such as the
compression of the lips, frowning, and so on. Finally, in all close
attention there is a feeling of tension or strain which appears to indicate
muscular effort. As Fechner says, in looking steadfastly this feeling is
referred to the eye, in listening closely, to the ear, in trying to ' think '
or recollect, to the head or brain. 1

All this seems to imply that when we attend to an impression there
goes forth a nerve-impulse from some of the higher motor centres in the
brain. In order to adjust this physiological hypothesis to the facts of
the intensification of sense-impressions (and representations of these) by
attention, we have to suppose that this current of nervous discharge has
two branches, one flowing outward to the muscles, the other inward to
the sensory centres which are specially concerned in the impression of
the moment. Thus it is presumable that when we attend to a visible
object a stream of energy flows downwards from the motor centres,
partly in the direction of the muscles, and more particularly the ocular

1 Elcmente dcr Psyeho-pliysilc. , II., pp. 475, 476.

78 ATTENTION.

muscles which move the eye . and partly in that of the sensory centre
which is concerned in the reception of visual impressions.1

Extent of Attention Attention has already been
defined as a focussing of the mind for a given point,
a concentrating of its activity from a diffused inatten-
tive condition. All attention is thus in a measure
concentration. But two acts of attention may have
unequal extent of object. Thus in looking at a
picture I may attend now to some small detail, now
to the whole composition of the picture. So in
listening to music I may single out n, particular note,
or direct my attention to the ensemble of notes
making up a chord.

It has been argued that strictly speaking we never
attend to more than one thing at the same instant
and that when we seem to do so our attention really
flits rapidly from one object to another. This seems
clearly to be so in the case of disconnected objects,
as when we try to listen to a conversation and write
a letter at the same time. When however we attend
to a number of connected impressions, parts of an
object, or a collection of objects, such as a number of
figures in a group, we seem capable of grasping the
whole by an approximately simultaneous act of
attention.2

Relation of Extent to Force or Intensity. There
is a very important relation between the extent or
area of object that we try to attend to at one moment
and the effective force of the act. This relation may

^ee Wundt, Physiol. Psychol, II., 15es Cap., 2, pp. 209, 210.
8 On the question how many objects the attention can embrace at one
time see Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, XIII., XIV.

LAWS OF ATTENTION. 79

"be expressed as follows : When an equal effort is
made, the effective force of an act of attention
varies inversely as the extent of object attended to.
" Pluribus intentus, minor est ad singula sensus."
In other words, the more we comprehend or embrace
in the act of attention the less penetrating will it be.
Tlie closest and most fruitful attention therefore im-
plies the maximum of concentration.

On what the degree of Attention depends. The
amount of attention exerted at any time depends on
two chief circumstances (a) the quantity of active
energy disposable at the time ; (6) the strength of
the stimulus or force which excites the attention or
rouses it to action. If there is great active energy a
feeble stimulus will suffice to bring about attention.
The healthy vigorous child in the early part of the
day has a superabundance of energy which shows
itself in attention to small and comparatively unin«
teresting matters. On the other hand a tired or
weakly child requires a proportionately powerful
stimulus. l

External and Internal Stimuli. The stimulus to an
act of attention may be either something external
connected with the object attended to, or something
internal. An external stimulus consists of some inte-
resting or striking feature in the object itself or in its
accompaniments, by reason of which the attention is
said to be attracted and arrested, such as the bril-
liance of a light, or the strangeness of a sound. An
internal stimulus is a motive in the mind which

1 On the conditions of attention see Lotze, Med. Psychologic, §§ 428, 429 ;
Sturupf, Tonpsychologie, § 4, p. 68, &c.

80 ATTENTION.

prompts it to put forth its attention in a particular
direction, such as the desire of a child to please his
teacher, or to gain a higher place in his class.

Non-voluntary and Voluntary Attention. When
the mind is acted upon by the mere force of the
object presented, the act of attention is said to be
non-voluntary.1 It may also be called reflex (or auto-
matic) because it bears a striking analogy to reflex
movement, that is to say, movement following sensory
stimulation without the intervention of a conscious
purpose. On the other hand when we attend to a
thing under the impulse of a desire, such as curiosity
or a wish to know about a thing, we are said to do so
by an act of will, or voluntarily. These two modes
of attention are very properly distinguished. As we
shall see presently, we frequently mean by voluntary
attention a direct opposition to the non-voluntary
kind. The distinction is useful further as marking
off roughly the earlier and later stage in the develop-
ment of attention. In early life non-voluntary atten-
tion is predominant, in later life voluntary attention.
Yet a moment's consideration will tell us that they
are not absolutely distinct. They are both acts of the
mind and have certain common conditions, some of
which have just been enumerated. And they will be
found to blend and to shade off one into the other in
our actual mental life.2

Laws of Reflex Attention. As we have seen, the

1 The term non-voluntary is preferred to involuntary as indicating the
mere absence of volition, and not opposition to will or ' unwillingness '.

8 The relation between the two forms of attention is clearly denned by
Wundt (Physiol. Psychologic, Vol. II., Csp. XV., p. 211).

REFLEX ATTENTION. 81

force of attention at any time depends in part on the
vigour of body and mind and in part on the strength
of the stimulus. Now (within the limits of fatigue
already indicated) healthy children are characterised by
a considerable degree of activity, bodily and mental.
As we shall see later on they do things ' spontaneously '
or under the force of very slight stimuli. And the same
remark applies to the activity of attention. Young
children spontaneously observe things, and evidently
find pleasure in venting their energies in this way.
This being so, the nature of the particular stimulus
present produces an effect chiefly in determining the
direction of the attention at any time. We have to
enquire into the precise characters of the stimulus
which make it potent or attractive. A knowledge
of these will supply us with what may be called laws
of reflex attention. Since moreover voluntary atten-
tion is always conditioned or limited by the condi-
tions of reflex attention, these laws may be said to
be laws of attention as a whole.

Quantity of Stimulus. In the first place, then, it
is evident that the attractive force of a stimulus will
vary as its quantity, and more particularly its degree,
that is to say the intensity of the impression or the
vividness of the mental image.1 Thus a bright colour
is a more potent stimulus than a dull one, a vivid mental
image than a faint one. One reason why it is easier in
general to attend to external impressions than to in-
ternal mental images is that the former are more vivid.

1 As we shall see presently, this holds good within certain limits only.
If a stimulus is very powerful the attention may be unable to adjust itself to
it, and so be overpowered.

82 ATTENTION.

Quantity of stimulus must be taken to include not
merely the degree, but also the duration of the stimu-
lus, and the extent or size of the object. A feeble
stimulus, such as the faint sound of a tapping at the
door, may attract attention when prolonged for a
certain time. One reason why it is difficult to attend
to mental images is that they are often so fugitive.
Similarly a large object in a scene, such as the moving
shadow of a cloud, is more likely to attract the atten-
tion than a very small and inconspicuous one.1

Quality of Stimulus. The attractive force of a
stimulus is determined not simply by its quantity but
also by its quality, by its agreeable, disagreeable, or
indifferent character. Agreeable objects, that is to
say, those which immediately yield pleasure to the
mind, such as beautiful colours or graceful forms, are
as such fitted to arrest the attention. Powerful
stimuli, such as a bright light or a loud sound (if not
fatiguing) are as a rule pleasant. But the pleasure
resulting from a stimulus may not be connected with
its mere strength. A soft note, if very sweet, may
act as a powerful attraction. The pleasure again may
be reflected on to the object by association. Children's
attention is powerfully riveted by the signs of coming
pleasure, by objects which excite hope and pleasurable
anticipation. It is not, however, merely agreeable
or pleasant objects which arrest the attention. The
opposite kind of effect, though less common, perhaps,
deserves to be mentioned. Any object which excites
terror, horror, and so on, acts as a powerful stimulus to

1 A fuller discussiou of the quantitative aspects of sense-impressions, will
"be found later on.

EEFLEX ATTENTION. 83

the attention with children as well as with adults. In
contradistinction to these, indifferent objects, that is to
say, those which affect the mind neither pleasurably
nor painfully, commonly fail to arrest the attention.

The fact that a distinctly painful sight, such as that of a wounded
man, can fascinate the attention, suggests that all impressions and
thoughts having any accompaniment of feeling or 'emotional tone,'
whether pleasurable or painful, are on that account more potent stimuli
to the attention. It appears, indeed, as if such an accompaniment of
feeling gave greater persistence and awakening force to the stimulus.
"We all know the teasing effect of some disagreeable recollection, as that
we ought to be keeping some engagement at the moment. From the
principle of reflex attention we must distinguish the law of voluntary
attention, that the mind seeks to retain before it what is pleasurable,
and to banish what is painfuL

Attention and Interest. The word 'interest* may
be used in a wide sense as including the effect of
impressions generally in rousing the attention. In
this sense the familiar saying, 'we attend to what
interests us/ is a perfectly tautological expression.
More usually the term refers to the rousing effect of
an object through the medium of feeling. We are
interested in a thing when we are affected by it either
pleasurably or painfully. In the first case we call
our interest a pleasurable one, in the second, a painful
one. In a peculiar manner those things are interesting
to us, or awaken our interest, which answer to, or are
connected with, our particular sensibilities, tastes, and
related habits of thought. Thus a conceited person
is specially interested in any talk, flattering or other-
wise, about himself; a person with artistic taste is
specially interested in objects of beauty, and so on.
The objects which interest a person thus serve as an
index or clue to his customary and dominant feelings

84 ATTENTION.

and tastes. While, however, anything which touches
us on the side of feeling, whether pleasantly or un-
pleasantly, is said to be interesting, the term interest
usually refers more particularly to the attractive force
of pleasurable impressions.

This special reference of the word 'interest' to what is pleasurable
points to the superior importance of voluntary attention, and to the
fact that reflex attention easily passes into the higher form. A thing
which fully interests us excites the will to a deliberate concentration of
the attention with a view either to prolong or gain some pleasure or
satisfaction, or to get rid of or avert some pain. And since the positive
end of voluntary action is pleasure or happiness, the term interest
naturally comes to point to those objects and related activities which
are immediate sources of enjoyment, or which are connected with, or
have a bearing on, these. Our 'interests,' such as our home, business,
country, favourite art, are the great and permanent sources of our
happiness.

Absolute and Relative I impress! veness. The quan-
tity and quality of an object, as just denned, may be
said to make up its absolute impressiveness. From
this may be distinguished its relative impressiveness,
that is to say the force which it owes to its relation
to other objects which have preceded it, and to the
pre-existing condition of the attention.

Change of Stimulus. Any stimulus will exert a
greater effect on the attention in proportion as the
degree of change introduced into the mental state of
the moment increases. All change, contrast, or tran-
sition of mind from one state to another acts as a
kind of rousing shock. The sudden introduction of a
sound into the stillness of a country retreat acts as a
potent stimulus to the attention. Similarly a succes-
sion of very dissimilar sounds, as that of a thin shrill
voice on those of a deep rich one, is certain to arouse

REFLEX ATTENTION. 85

the attention. Moving objects, especially if the move-
ment has a certain degree of rapidity, are powerful
stimuli because they involve a continual change of
stimulation. The more sudden the change, the greater
the awakening effect.

The other side of this truth is seen in the fact that
one and the same stimulus if prolonged loses its force,
and soon ceases to exert any effect on the attention.
The new picture or piece of furniture, which on its
introduction excited the liveliest attention, soon takes
its place among the familiar and unnoticed objects of
our environment.

Change of Impression and Mental Life. It has been
said by Hobbes and others that continual change of

* D

impression is necessary to mental life. We are only
conscious of an impression (e.g., a sound) when we
pass to it from an unlike impression. An unvarying
sound does not affect us at all.1 This is to some
extent a consequence of the laws of our nervous or-
ganism. The nervous structures grow fatigued after
prolonged activity, and this shows itself in diminished
vigour of mental operation. It seems to be still more
directly connected with the laws of attention. A
certain frequency of transition from one object to
another is a condition of mental wakefulness. The
attention of a healthy and vigorous child is continually
changing its direction. The introduction of a fresh
object into the room, the giving forth of a fresh sound
at once carries off its attention.

1 Hobbes said to feel always the same thing and not to feel at all comes
to the same thing. Professor Bain calls this principle of change the Law of
Relativity. See his Senses and Intellect, Introduction, Chap. I., 6.

86 ATTENTION.

Effect of Novelty. The amount of change involved
in a stimulus may be estimated in relation not merely
to the preceding stimulus, but to a number of past
impressions. This determines the degree of novelty
or unfamiliarity of the stimulus. What is oft recur-
ring and familiar, as for example the stroke of a
clock, produces little effect on the attention. A sound
much less powerful than that of a good-sized clock,
provided it were of a wholly unfamiliar sort, would
certainly arrest the attention.

Familiarity and Interest. While it is thus certain
that novel sights and sounds, as such, strike the
attention momentarily, it does not follow that mere
novelty will succeed in holding the mind. As Volk-
mann observes, the absolutely new does not chain
the attention. In order to effect this result an
object must possess, over and above the superficial
quality of novelty, the deeper attribute of interesting-
ness: Now, as we have seen, a thing interests us
when it touches our feelings, and this it can only do
by linking itself on somehow to our recurring and
habitual trains of imagery and thought. A good part
of our interest in things (more particularly our intel-
lectual interest) is connected with the fact of their
intelligibility. To one who knows nothing of me-
chanics the complicated movements of a machine are
apt to be a tedious spectacle. We see with interest
and enjoyment what we are prepared to see by
previous experience and knowledge. Hence the very
circumstance of familiarity will sometimes constitute
a source of interest. If, for example, we happen to
overhear a person speak in an unknown language arid

EEFLEX ATTENTION. °'

suddenly catch a familiar English word, our attention
is instantly excited.1

Adjustment of Attention. What has been said above respecting
the effect of change or contrast on attention must be qualified by a refer-
ence to another set of conditions. If impressions or thoughts succeed
one another at a very rapid rate the attention is unable to fix itself on
each member of the series.2 Again when any sudden and powerful
impression occurs we experience a momentary confusion. The atten-
tion is overpowered, and a short period is necessary for its recuperation.
These and other facts go to show that there is a process of accommodation
or adjustment of attention to its objects, which process occupies a
certain time. Only when this process of adjustment is completed does
an impression or idea become distinct in consciousness.

On what Facility of Adjustment depends. The time required
for this adjustment is not the same in all cases. It depends partly on
the character and more particularly the force or intensity of the object
itself. Very powerful impressions in general require a greater effort of
adjustment than moderate ones. Very feeble ones require a greater
effort, too, but for another reason, namely in order to raise them above
the limit of distinct consciousness. Hence impressions of moderate or
average intensity are in general more easily or rapidly seized by the
mind than those of very great or very little force.

1 The relation of familiarity to interest is well brought out by Volkmann
(Lehrbuch der Psychologic, Vol. II., pp. 199-200). He seems, however, to go
too far when he defines interest as the relation of an impression or idea
(" Vorstellung") te the ruling cluster or aggregate of ideas of the individual
("des Ich"). A natural phenomenon or a new saying will ofteu interest
us (intellectually) by its apparent contradiction of a known truth, exciting
in our minds an intense curiosity ; and again, what is grotesque seems to
interest us (aesthetically) by its incongruity with our customary modes of
thought.

12 When, however, the same fugitive impressions or thoughts recur at
rapid intervals the attention is stimulated. We often catch ourselves hear-
ing the second or third stroke of a clock, though we failed to hear the first.
Similarly a thought (e.g., the recollection that we ought to be going some-
where) may pass fugitively through the mind again and again without exciting
attention, but at last arrest notice by its insistance. This may be explained
in a variety of ways. It is possible (1) that the repetition of a sound, such as
the tapping at the door, greatly increases the chance of a coincidence between
a disengaged state of the attention and the presence of the stimulus ; or (2)
that by an accumulation of the traces of the successive sounds the stimulus
gains in force ; or (3) that it allows of a series of partial adjustments of the
attention which (by accumulation) terminate in a complete adjustment.

88 ATTENTION.

In the second place the time of adjustment is affected by the pre-
ceding state and direction of activity of the attention. In a state of
lethargy or inattentiveness, a greater force of stimulus is needed to
arouse the attention. This is illustrated in all somnolent states of
mind. Again preoccupation of mind is unfavourable to attention.
When the attention is directed into a particular quarter A, a greater
Bffort is needed to direct it into a new quarter B.

On the other hand the process of adjustment of attention to an
impression or thought may be greatly aided by the preceding mode of
activity of the attention. A state of mental wakefulness is favour-
able to attention generally. After attending to a number of sights
or sounds the mind is more or less on the alert for new impressions.
Ttfot only so the special direction of attention at any moment may
favour the adjustment of it at the next moment. In other words the
direction of attention to an object A will under certain circum-
stances facilitate the direction of it to a second object B. In order
that this should happen there must be a certain relation between A
and B.

Continuity or Smoothness of transition. These circumstances
may be roughly divided into two relations : (a) similarity between A
and B ; and (b) connectedness between them. By connectedness is here
meant that A and B have previously followed one another. When
either of these circumstances is present in a marked degree we have the
peculiar effect of a smooth transition of mind, or a continuous flow of
impressions or thoughts. Let us look at the action of each of these
circumstances apart.

Effect of Similarity. To begin with after throwing the attention
into any region of impression or experience, there is a tendency to go
on attending in the same direction. When occupied with sight, as in
scanning the features of a landscape, our attention is more easily excited
by a new visual impression (e.g., the flight of a bird) than by one of
another order, as a sound or smell. Similarly after carrying on a train
of internal thought for some time the attention tends to persist in this
Une. A new idea will then engage the attention more readily than a
new external impression.1

When the similarity becomes more marked the effect on adjustment
is still more apparent. If two successive impressions or two thoughts
A and B are partially like, the preceding adjustment to A facilitates
the adjustment to B. In this way smoothness of transition is given
to the movement from A to B. Instances of this effect may be found

1 This has been shown in an interesting way by experiment. Wundt
found that the attention to a sound-signal was .disturbed less by a homo-
geneous impression, as a noise, than by a heterogeneous one, as a visual im-
pression. Physiologische Psychologie, Vol. II., Cap. 16, § 2, p. 244.

KEFLEX ATTENTION.

in the rapidity with which we can turn the attention from any one
word, musical note, or face, to another.1

Again when there is no similarity in the quality of the impres-
sions, their resemblance in the time of recurrence greatly aids the
process of adjustment, and gives smoothness of transition. Hence the
peculiar effect of all regular sequences of sounds, visible movements,
the measure and rhythm of verse, melody, and dance. Such periodic
recurrences exactly answer to the conditions of ready and easy adjust-
ment. The mind in this case falls into the way of adjusting itself at
regularly recurring intervals.2

Connection between Impressions. Let us now glance at the second
great circumstance favourable to smoothness of transition. The move-
ment of the attention from one impression to another is greatly aided
by previous successions of the two. Thus we can transfer attention
easily and rapidly from one note of a familiar tune, or one movement of
a familiar dance, to the succeeding member of the series. The fact that
B has frequently followed A before, prepares the mind for the reception
of B when A again presents itself. Attention adjusts itself easily in
this case because it moves along the accustomed path A — B.3

Expectant Attention. When the adjustment of attention com-
pletes itself before the presentation of the irrfpression, it may be said
to be pre-adjusted. This is illustrated in what we call anticipation or
expectation. Whenever the mind is able to look onward and anticipate
a coming impression the attention accommodates itself beforehand. The
consequence is, as has been proved by experiment, a shortening of the
process of reception and recognition. This expectation may be of
different degrees of perfection. Thus we may know only the time of
the impression, but not its natiire. In listening to a new poem or a
new musical composition we anticipate the succeeding sounds in their
regular recurrence. This anticipation of a new impression (or series of
impressions) after a regular interval is a condition of the pleasurable
effect of an orderly rhythmic sequence of sounds or sights. The mind
not only adjusts itself to each new impression but has a continual satis-
faction of nascent expectation.

1 The peculiar effect of gradation in colours, &c., illustrates this effect of
smoothness at its maximum.

3 Not all regular successions are equally 'favourable to adjustment. The
attention adjusts itself to a moderate sequence more easily than to a very
rapid one, or to a very slow one.

3 The reader will notice that the three conditions of attention now
specified, change or contrast, similarity, and connectedness, answer to the
presumably fundamental modes of intellectual activity, discrimination,
assimilation, and grouping or synthesis. This fact brings out the radical
unity of intellect and attention.

90 ATTENTION.

Expectation, in the ordinary sense, involves an anticipation of the
nature or quality, and not merely of the point of time of the impression.
This again may be of various degrees of distinctness or completeness.
I may have a vague anticipation of the words a person will utter on a
particular occasion, e.g., in response to a toast. S.-.'h indefinite antici-
pation facilitates the reception of an impression. In other cases the
mind may be able to distinctly forecast what is coming. Thus I may
distinctly anticipate an event, as the sound of a gun after seeing the
smoke. When this anticipation of the precise quality of an impression
is supplemented by the prevision of the point of time of its appearance,
the preparation or preadjustment of attention may be said to be
perfect. 1

It is to be added that this preadjustment of attention, like the com-
pleted act of attention itself, may have its stimulus or excitant in some
feature of the object, or in some motive in the mind. In lookin«
forward to an exciting event, such as the upward rush of a rocket, or
the outburst of sound from an orchestra, our minds are kept strung in
the attitude of expectancy by the exciting character of the mental
image. On the other hand, when a child at the beginning of a class
^sson puts himself in an attitude of expectancy in order to avoid
censure, or from some other similar motive, he may be said to r»erform
a voluntary act of preadjustment.

1 The effects of such preadjustment of attention on the rapidity of the
process of perception have been measured by a number of physiologists. The
method consists in estimating by a delicate chronometric apparatus the
interval between the occurrence of the stimulation of a sense organ and that
of a volitional reaction. The person experimented on receives a signal, e.g.,
hears a sound, at a particular moment which can be estimated with great
exactness, and then records by a movement of the hand the precise moment
of the impression. The whole period between the happening of the sensory
stimulation and the execution of the movement is known as the ' reaction
time '. This time is divided into stages : (1) that occupied by the transference
of the nervous excitation from the periphery to the centres ; (2) that involved in
the modification of consciousness ; (3) that necessary to apperception or distinct
apprehension by a direction of the attention ; (4) that taken up by the volitional
process ; and finally (5) that required for the propagation of the motor excitation
from the centres to the muscles. By varying the external conditions, as by
letting the subject know, or leaving him in ignorance of, the quality of the
impression, or the exact time of its occurrence, or both, this period is modified.
Every circumstance aiding the preadjustment of the attention shortens it, while
every circumstance hindering this lengthens it. Hence the fluctuations are
regarded as due to variations in the period of apperception. [For a fuller
account of these experiments as given and interpreted by Wundt, see his
Physiologische Psychologic, IT., Cap. 16. I gave a brief account of them in
Mind, Vol. I. (1876), pp. 36-42.1

EEFLEX ATTENTION.

Mechanism of Reflex Attention. Under ordinary
circumstances the attention is solicited in a number
of directions simultaneously. Provided there is the
necessary activity of mind, the attention will be
drawn in a direction determined by the foregoing
considerations. Speaking roughly one may describe
what takes place as a sort of struggle for existence
among stimuli, in which the greatest, the most in-
teresting, or the most novel survives. At the same
time each survival is but momentary, it being of the
very nature of reflex attention to be easily drawn off
by new stimuli.

Intervention of Will : Voluntary Attention. By the
intervention of the will, the comparatively simple
mechanism here described is greatly modified. Voli-
tion supplements the forces of reflex attention by
other forces, so complicating the whole process. It
supplies internal motives which may counteract the
effect of external stimuli. Through an exertion of
will the mind is abte to choose the quarter to which
to direct its glance, and is no longer at the mercy of
the most powerful external forces. If reflex attention
is likened to the process of natural selection, voluntary
attention may be likened to the process of artificial
selection, by which man's will is able to single out
particular varieties of animal or plant for his own
special purposes.

Function of the Will in Attention. It is important
to understand the precise scope of the will's action
in attention. What is called voluntary attention is
not a wholly new phase of the process. After the
action of the will has supervened the forces of non-

92 ATTENTION.

voluntary attention continue to be active as ten-
dencies. And the range of the will's action is limited
by these. Thus the student most practised in
abstraction could not resist the allurement of a
beautiful melody sung within his hearing.

Again, though we can undoubtedly (within certain
limits) direct our attention in this or that quarter at
will, we have not the power to keep our attention
closely fixed on any object which we (or somebody
else for us) may happen to select.1 Something
further is necessary to that lively interaction of
mind and object which we call a state of attention;
and this is interest. By an act of will I may resolve
to turn my attention to something, say a passage in
a book. But if after this preliminary process of
adjustment of the mental eye, the object opens up no
interesting phase, all the willing in the world will
not produce a calm settled state of concentration.
The will introduces mind and object : it cannot force
an attachment between them. No compulsion of a
teacher ever succeeded in making a young mind
cordially embrace and appropriate by an act of con-
centration an unsuitable, and therefore uninteresting
subject. We thus see that voluntary attention is
not removed from the sway of interest. What the
will does is to determine the kind of interest which
shall prevail at the moment. This is effected by the
initial determination to bend the mind in this or that
direction. After this first stage of determination the

1 "Experience itself soon teaches us that it is not possible to concentrate
our attention with any degree of strength we choose, on any object we choose."
("\Vaitz, Lehrbuch der Psychologic, p, 639).

VOLUNTAEY ATTENTION'. 93

action of the will is (commonly) confined to keeping
the attention fixed on an object which is found to
yield a pleasurable interest.1

The interest which thus finally secures a prolonged
attention may first disclose itself after the execution
of the voluntary act. Thus a pupil upon fixing his
attention on what seems at first an uninviting subject
of study may find his thoughts gradually attracted
and chained. In many cases the interest has its
starting point in the very motive which underlies
the voluntary act. When any object bears on some
strongly desired end, it becomes, on that account,
invested with an associated or reflected interest. By
regarding it as a means to some object of desire we
draw it for the time within the circle of interesting
things. Thus a child who has reason to anticipate
his parent's or teacher's commendation or disapproval
takes a lively interest in the otherwise but little
interesting movements of his features. But in order
to the full realisation of this result, the relation of
means to end must be a natural one, and not one
artificially imposed. A school-boy hardly takes a
(pleasurable) interest in a piece of task work just
because the completion of it is seen to be a condition
of enjoying some eagerly desired game.

Laws of Voluntary Attention. It has been remarked
above that the degree of attention exerted in any case
depends partly on the force of the stimulus, and

1 Volkmann distinguishes between a state of attention (Aufmerksamkeit)
and the voluntary act of attending (Aufmerken). In the so-called voluntary
attention the state is preceded (and accompanied) by the act. (See Lehrbuch
der Psychologie, Vol. II., p. 198).

94 ATTENTION.

partly on the vigour of mind and body at the time.
In the case of voluntary attention the initial stimulus
is some internal motive. We may say then that the
stronger the motive brought to bear (the degree of
active vigour being supposed to be unaltered), the
more energetic (within certain limits) the act of atten-
tion. The child will be prepared to concentrate more
activity of mind upon an object, such as the lesson
he is getting up, when he has a powerful inducement
to do so.

Effort of Attention. It must, however, be remem-
bered that in voluntary attention the effective force
of an act of attention, as measured by the added
clearness and distinctness which it gives to the
object, is not exactly proportionate to the quantity of
active energy expended. Voluntary attention com-
monly involves, especially in its early stages, and
before habit assists, an effort. Eeflex attention is a
natural and easy attitude, voluntary attention is by
comparison an artificial and constrained one. The
difficulty may be due to the nature of the object,
e.g., its faintness, or to the presence of obstructive
solicitations in other directions. The overcoming

of any such obstacle necessitates an effort which
will be greater when there is fatigue or a falling off
in vigour. The effective force of the act of atten-
tion is what remains over when the difficulty is
overcome. Now an effort is something disagree-
able, and consequently will only be faced when
there is a proportionate strength of motive present.
We see then that when the exertion of attention
is difficult or laborious, a stronger force of motive

VOLUNTARY ATTENTION.

must be brought to bear in order to secure the
desired result.1

Growth of Attention : Early Stage. As has been
observed the early form of attention is the reflex or
non-voluntary. By frequent exercises of its activity
in response to external stimuli the faculty of attention
attains a certain degree of strength independently
of any aid from the will. After a certain number
of exercises, less powerful stimuli suffice, in the
absence of more powerful ones, to call forth attention.
Thus by directing his attention again and again to
bright objects, as the candle, the infant is preparing
to direct it (still non-voluntarily) to the mother's face,
his hands, &c., when these objects happen to come
into the field of view. With the progress of life, too,
many things at first indifferent acquire an interest.
Thus the accompaniments of what is intrinsically
interesting would acquire (according to the principle
of association) a borrowed or derived interest. In
this way the infant tends to watch the preparation
of his food and his bath ; the boy comes to take an
interest in the construction of his kite, and so on.
Not only so, the range of interesting objects would
be greatly extended by the development of new
feelings, such as self-esteem, affection, and the sense
of the grotesque.

Development of Power of Controlling the Attention.
While this exercise of the power of attention in the

1 Of course this process of overcoming difficulty has its limits. Mental
exertions cannot, any more than bodily, exceed the available quantity of
energy of the individual at the time. As this point is approached, a larger
and larger increase of motive force seems to be necessary.

gfi ATTENTION.

reflex form is thus going on, the child's will is
developing. The transition from the earlier to the
later process of attention may perhaps be found in
the continued gazing at an agreeable object, such
as a brightly coloured toy or picture, held before the
eye. When the child finding that a thing gives it plea-
sure, begins to persist in the act of attention through
a vague anticipation of further pleasure, he may be
said to be exercising the germ of his voluntary
power. A more distinctly marked development of
will-power is manifested in the attitude of expecta-
tion. From a very early period of life the will
begins to manifest itself in a deliberate exploring or
looking out for objects.1 By such successive exercises
the activity of attention is little by little brought
under perfect control. Although the full under-
standing of this process presupposes a knowledge of
the growth of will as a whole, we may be able to
anticipate to some extent, and indicate the main lines
of this progress.

The growth of voluntary attention means a con-
tinual reduction of the difficulty of attending to
objects. The law that exercise strengthens faculty
applies to attention. What is first done with labour
and sense of difficulty is, with repetition and practice,
done more and more easily. At the same time more
and more difficult tasks become possible. The growth
of attention may be best treated by distinguishing

1 Professor Preyer says that the child begins to explore the field of vision
in search of objects before the end of the third month. (Die SceU des Kindes,
p. 33). He puts the first appearance of volition, properly so called, a month
or two later. This suggests that the simple action here spoken of is a transi-
tion from the reflex to the voluntary form of attention.

VOLUNTARY ATTENTION. 97

between the several forms in which this progressive
mastery of difficulty manifests itself.

Attention to the Unimpressive. Voluntary atten-
tion is obviously a going beyond the range of
powerful and directly interesting stimuli, and an
embracing of a wider circle of comparatively unim-
pressive and only indirectly interesting objects. The
progress of attention can be measured under this
aspect. The child learns gradually to fix with his eye
the less striking, prominent, and attractive objects and
events of the world in which he lives. Each succes-
sive direction of the attention makes subsequent
directions easier, and the growth of mind as a whole
implies the constant addition of new motives to
attention. In this way each of us gradually acquires
the power of turning his attention at will in this or
that direction as occasion arises. It must be remem-
bered, however, that in every case this widening of
the area of attention goes on pari passu with the
expansion of our interests.

Of the motives or interests which aid in this expan-
sion of the field of attention the widest in the range of
its influence is the intellectual impulse of curiosity, or
the desire to inspect and understand things. Under
the influence of this motive the student of science learns
to direct his attention to the most inconspicuous and
fugitive of phenomena. When this curiosity is wide
and impartial, embracing all kinds of subject-matter,
we have the versatile mind, ever ready to turn its
attention in a new and unexplored quarter.

Resistance to Stimuli. A voluntary control of the
attention involves, in the second place, the ability to

98 ATTENTION.

resist the solicitations of powerful stimuli. Volun-
tarily to turn the mind to a thing is to exclude what
is irrelevant and distracting. This power of resistance
has of course in every case its limits. Nobody can
withstand the disturbing force of a sudden explosion.
But the capability of resisting such distractions varies
considerably, and is greatly improved by practice.
The child finds it hard at first not to look out of the
window when hearing a lesson. By and by he will
be able to fix his mind on his lesson even when some
amount of disturbing noise is present. The highest
attainment of this power is seen in the student whose
mind is not appreciably affected by external impres-
sions, being directed inwardly in reflection on its
own ideas. Here again a fairly accurate measure
of attentive power may be obtained by noting the
strength of stimulus, e.g., disturbing sounds, which is
overcome.

Keeping the Attention Fixed. Another aspect under
which the growth of attention may be estimated is
the ability to detain objects before the mind. As
we have seen, reflex attention is for the most part
a process of flitting from object to object. We found
indeed that even here there is a force at work which
tends to counteract the impulse to skip from one thing
to another. But this would not of itself carry us very
far. It is only as the attention comes under the
control of the will that it shows any considerable
measure of persistence. To attend to a thing volun-
tarily means commonly to keep the mind dwelling on
it. Here again we have to recognise the existence of
certain limits in every case. Nobody can fix his mind

YOLUNTAKY ATTENTION. 99

on one and the same object for an indefinite time.1
When once the fresh interest of a thing is exhausted
a further fixing of the attention costs more and more
- effort. When this stage is reached the mind soon
wearies of the prolonged exertion, and attention flags
in spite of the utmost effort. But the limit of fatigue
is pushed further off as the will develops and the act
of attention becomes more easy.

Concentration. The power of sustained attention
grows with the ability to resist distractions and
solicitations. The two capabilities are thus very
closely connected with one another, and are both
included in the term Concentration. To concentrate
the mind is to fix it persistently on an object or= group
of objects, resolutely excluding from the mental
view all irrelevant objects. The great field for the
early exercises of such concentration is action. When
the child wants to do something, as open a box, or
build a pile of bricks, the strong desire for the end
secures a prolonged effort of attention. The scholar
patiently poring over a mutilated passage in an ancient
MS., to the neglect of his appetite, or the naturalist
patiently observing the movements of insects or of
plants, indifferent to cold and wet, illustrates a high
power of prolonged concentration. A person's power

1 Strictly speaking, what is often called attending to one thing, is the
following of a series of connected impressions or ideas, and involves a con-
tinual renewal and deepening of interest. This remark applies to such
occupations as listening to, or reading a scientific exposition, witnessing a
dramatic spectacle, and so on. And even a prolonged attention to a small
material object, as a coin, or a flower, involves a continual transition of mind
from one aspect to another, one set of suggestions to another. Hence it
would be more correctly described as making the object the centre of attention,
the point from which it sets out and to which it continually reverts.

100 ATTENTION".

of attention may be conveniently measured by the
degree of persistence attained.

Concentration and Genius. It has often been said
that great intellectual power turns on the ability to
concentrate the attention. Newton based his intel-
lectual superiority on this circumstance. Helvetius
observed that genius is nothing but a continued atten-
tion.1 A proposition about which there is so general
an agreement among those who ought to know may
be safely accepted as expressing a truth. Attention is
a condition of all intellectual achievement, and a good
power of prolonged concentration is undoubtedly in-
dispensable to first-rate achievement in any direction.
The discoverers of new knowledge have always been
distinguished by an unusual degree of pertinacity in
brooding over a subject, and in following out trains
of thought in this and that direction till the required
explanation of fact, reconciliation of apparent contra-
dictions, and so on, was found. But though these
sayings undoubtedly embody an important truth,
they only contain a part of the whole truth. No
amount of attention simply will constitute intel-
lectual brilliance. This depends on the possession of
the intellectual functions (discrimination, &c.) in an
exceptionally perfect form. On the other hand good
intellectual powers when aided by a comparatively
small power of prolonged attention, may render their
possessor quick and intelligent.

Grasp of Attention. It has already been remarked

1 For similar utterances by other authorities, see Sir W. Hamilton's Lee-
lures on Metaphysics, Vol. I., p. 256, &c. Among more recent eminent men,
Faraday may be instanced as testifying to the same effect. Carlyle's deliver-
auces on this head are too well known to need quotation.

VOLUNTARY ATTENTION. 101

that our power of simultaneous attention is exceed-
ingly limited. If we try to embrace a number of
objects in a glance of attention they are not clearly
seized and apprehended. We may however pass the
attention so rapidly over a number of details as to
approximate to a simultaneous grasp of the whole.
In this way the eye can take in the proportions of a
building, and the ear take in the rhythmical successions
of notes. The growth of voluntary attention includes
an increase of power in this direction. A teacher
learns to keep his eye on all members of his class, a
chef d'orchestre his ears on all the different groups of
instruments. The acquirement of certain arts, ab
playing the organ, implies a high degree of this power.
In proportion as this power of taking in rapidly a
number of facts or details grows, will the perceptions
advance in complexity, and also the comparison of
object with object, idea with idea, be facilitated.

Transition of Attention. Somewhat akin to the
power of carrying the attention quickly over a number
of connected details, is the capability of transferring
it from one thing to another and disconnected thing.
The growth of voluntary attention includes an in-
creasing facility in turning the mind from one subject
of study to another, or from one matter of business
to another. Its highest form is seen in the rapid
movements of the versatile mind. Another illustra-
tion of great facility in transference is seen in those
swift alternations of attention which underlie what is
roughly described as doing two things at once, as
playing a piece of music or painting a picture and at
the same time carrying on a conversation.

102 ATTENTION.

The special capability seems at first sight to imply two things,
facility in dismissing an object from the mind, and in readjusting the
attention in a new direction. But perhaps these are only two sides
of one and the same capability. It may be said that we only com-
pletely expel a thing from the thoughts when we redirect them else-
whither. Rapid expulsion would thus appear to carry with it rapid
readjustment.

Habits of Attention. Voluntary attention, like
voluntary action as a whole, is perfected in the form
of habits. By a habit we mean a fixed disposition to
do a thing, and a facility in doing it, the result of
numerous repetitions of the action. The growth of
the power of attention may be viewed as a progres-
sive formation of habits. At first voluntary concen-
tration of mind requires a spur and an effort. As
soon as the pressure of strong motive is withdrawn,
the young mind returns to its natural state of listless-
ness or wandering attention. A habit of attention
first appears as a recurring readiness to attend under
definite circumstances, for example when the child
goes into his class-room, or is addressed by somebody.
Later on there manifests itself a more permanent
attitude of attentiveness. The transition from child-
hood to youth is often characterised by the acquisition
of a wider habit of mental watchfulness, showing
itself in thoughtfulness about what is seen and heard.
The highest result of the working of the principle o
habit in this region is illustrated in the customary,
and but rarely relaxed, alertness of mind of the
diligent observer of nature.

Varieties of Attentive Power. It has been implied
that the power of attention does not always develop
equally on all sides. Through differences of native

VOLUNTAKY ATTENTION. 103

temperament, as well as through differences of exercise,
we find well-marked contrasts of attentive power.
And these help to a considerable extent to determine
the cast or character of mind. Everybody knows the
difference, for example, between the plodding child
able to concentrate his mind on an object for a long
period, but slow to transfer and adjust his attention
to new matter, and the quick but rather superficial
child who finds it easy to fix his attention on new
objects, though hard to keep it fixed for a prolonged
period. There are some who are capable of great
intensity of concentration under favourable circum-
stances, but whose minds are easily overpowered by
disturbing or distracting influences. A versatile
mind, again, is marked by a power of throwing a
great deal of force of attention into a matter in a
short space of time, and of rapidly accommodating or
adjusting its attention to new objects ; but it is com-
monly wanting in the capability of prolonged appli-
cation.1 Finally, the ruling habits of attention will
vary according to the character of the predominant
interests. Thus, for example, a strong love of nature
(whether scientific or artistic) will give a habitual
outward bent to the attention ; whereas a paramount
interest in our own feelings, or in the objects of ima-
gination and thought, will give a customary inward
inclination to the attention.

Training of the Attention. All intellectual guidance of the
young implies the power of holding their attention. Instruction

1 On the nature of this quality, see Miss Edgeworth's Essays on Practical
Education, I., pp. 140, &c. ; also my paper on Versatility, in Mind, Vol.
VII. (1882), p. 369.

104 ATTENTION.

may be said to begin when the mother can secure the attention of
the infant to an object by pointing her finger to it. Henceforth
she has the child's mental life to a certain extent under her control,
and can select the impressions which shall give new knowledge or
new enjoyment. What we mark off as formal teaching, whether
by the presentation of external objects for inspection through the
senses, or by verbal instruction, clearly involves at every stage an
appeal to the attention, and depends for its success on securing
this. To know how to exercise the attention, how to call forth its
full activity is thus the first condition of success in education.

Mental Science here, as in respect of the other faculties, can only
point out the general conditions to be observed and the natural
order of procedure. It is plain in the first place that the laws of
attention must be complied with. He would be a foolish teacher
who gave a child a number of disconnected things to do at a time,
or who insisted on keeping his mind bent on the same sub-
ject for an indefinite period. Yet though these conditions are
obvious enough, others are more easily overlooked. Thus it is
probable that a more exact knowledge of the effects on the atten-
tion of novelty of subject and mode of treatment, on the one hand,
and of total unfamiliarity on the other hand, would save teachers
from many errors. Some of us can recall from our school days the
wearisome effect of an oft-recurring stereotyped illustration, as
well as the impression of repellent strangeness produced by a first,
and too sudden, introduction to a perfectly new branch of study.

In the second place it will be well to bear in mind that the
young child's power of voluntary attention is rudimentary only,
and that force must be economised by removing all obstacles and
making the task as attractive and agreeable as possible. It would
be idle to try to enlist his close attention if he were bodily
fatigued, or if he were under the influence of emotional excitement
and agitated in mind and body. Again it would be vain to expect
him to listen to oral instruction close to a window looking out
on a busy street. Children's (uncontrolled) attention flows out-
wards to the sights and sounds of the actual external world, and is
less easily diverted by the teacher's words towards the world of
imagination and thought. Consequently, in teaching, everything
should be done to reduce the force of outward things. The teacher

TRAINING OF ATTENTION. 105

would do well to remember that even so practised a thinker as
Kant found it helpful to prolonged meditation to fix his eye on a
familiar and therefore unexciting object (a neighbouring church-
spire). Not only so, the subject and mode of treatment chosen
should be such as to attract the learner's attention to the utmost.
"What is Afresh, interesting, or associated with some pleasurable
interest, will secure and hold the attention when dry topics alto-
gether fail to do so. Much may be done in this direction by pre-
paration, by awakening curiosity, and by putting the child's mind
in the attitude of tiptoe expectancy.

As the pupil grows more may of course be required in the shape
of an effort to direct attention. It must never be forgotten, how-
ever, that all through life forced attention to what is wholly unin-
teresting is not only wearing, but is certain to be ineffectual and
unproductive. Hence the rule to adapt the work to the growing
intellectual and other likings of the child. Not only so, the
teacher should regard it as an important part of the training of the
attention to arouse interest, to deepen and fix it in certain definite
directions, and gradually to enlarge its range.1 Harder task-work,
such as learning the comparatively uninteresting letters of the
alphabet, or the notes of the musical scale, must be introduced
gradually, and only when the will-power is sufficiently developed.
Great care must be taken further to graduate the length or duration
of the mental application both in a particular direction, and gene-
rally, in accordance with the progress of the child's powers of
voluntary attention. An ideal school-system would exhibit all
gradations in this respect; alternation and complete remission of
mental activity being frequent at first, and growing less and less
so as the powers of prolonged concentration develop.

APPENDIX.

For a fuller account of the nature of attention, see Sir W. Hamilton's
Lectures on Mctapftysics, Vol. I., Lect. XIV. ; also, Dr. Carpenter's Mental
Physiology, Book I., Ch. III. The characteristics of children's attention,

1 Volkmann remarks that the older psedagogic had as its rule, "Make
your instruction interesting" ; whereas the newer has the precept, "Instruct
in such a way that an interest may awake and remain active for life " (Lehr-
luch der Psychologie, Vol. II., p. 200).

106 ATTENTION.

and the laws of the growth of attention, are well described by Waitz, lehr-
buch der Psychologic, § 55, and by Volkmann, Lehrbuch der Psychologic, Vol.
II., § 114. The relations of attention to consciousness are dealt with by
Fechner, Elemente der Psychophysik, Vol. II., Sect. XLI. and XLII. ; and by
Wundt, OrundziJge der physiologischen Psychologie, 2nd Ed., Vol. II., 4th
Sect, Ch. XV. and XVI.

On the training of the attention, see Locke, Some Thoughts concerning
Education, § 167 ; Maria Edgeworth, Essays on Practical Education, Vol. I.,
Chap. II. Beneke, Erziehungs und Untcrrichtslehre, 4th Ed., VoL I., § 19 ;
and Th. Waitz's Allgcmeine Pccdagogik. Vol. I., § 23.

CHAPTER V.

SENSATION.

ALL knowledge takes its rise in the senses. No intel-
lectual work such as imagining or reasoning can be
done till the senses have supplied the necessary
materials. These materials when reduced to their
elements are sensations or sense-impressions, such as
those of light and colour which we receive by means
of the eye, of sound which we have by way of the
ear, and so on. An examination of our most abstract
notions, such as force, matter, leads us back to these
impressions. Our ideas can never go much beyond
our sensations. The want of a sense, as in the case
of one born blind, means depriving the mind of a
whole order of ideas. The addition of a new sense,
if such a thing were possible, would enrich our minds
by a new kind of knowledge respecting the world.

Definition of Sensation. A sensation being an
elementary mental phenomenon cannot be defined
in terms of anything more simple. Its meaning
can only be indicated by a reference to the ner-
vous processes on which it is known to depend.
Accordingly, a sensation is commonly defined as a
simple mental state resulting from the stimulation or
excitation of the outer or peripheral extremity of an

108 SENSATION.

' incarrying ' or sensory nerve. Thus the stimulation
of a point of the skin by pressure or rubbing, or of
the retina of the eye by light, gives rise to a sensa-
tion.1

It is important to add, however, that the sensation
is not the immediate consequent of this action in the
peripheral region of the nerve. A sensation does not
occur the very instant when the skin is pricked or
when sound-waves impinge on the ear. The excita-
tion has to be propagated to the ' seat of conscious-
ness/ the sensory centre (sensorium), before the mental
effect, a sensation, occurs. It is found by experiment
that when the connection between the extremity and
the centre is severed, there is no sensation. It has
been proved too that the propagation of the stimula-
tion to the centre occupies an appreciable duration.2

There are several difficulties in the way of defining sensation. The
first of these turns on the fact that the phenomena ordinarily called
sensations do not always involve the action of some external agent or
stimulus. ' Subjective' sensations of light, for example, have their phy-

1 ' Sensation ' in common parlance refers to the pleasant or unpleasant side
of a sense-impression. And ps3rchologists have sometimes employed the
word in this way, as when Sir W. Hamilton contrasts sensation as feeling
with perception as knowing (Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. II., XXIV.).
Here the term will be used to mark off the mental impression which can be
discriminated as to its quality, and which for this reason can supply the
material of knowledge. The pleasurable or painful aspect or accompaniment
of a sense-impression is best marked off by the term 'sense-feeling'. This
will be dealt with later on. (For an historical account of the different
meanings of the term Sensation, the reader is referred to Hamilton's Edition
of Reid's "Works, Note D).

2 The reference of the sensation, according to what physiologists have called
the 'law of eccentricity,' to the peripheral extremity, as the skin, will be
explained when we come to deal with perception. On the physiological basis
of sensation see Dr. Carpenter, Menial Physiology, Chap. IV. ; Dr. Maudsley,
The Physiology of Mind, Chap. IV. ; Wundt, Physiologische Psychologic, Vol.
II., Section II., Cap. VII.

DEFINITION OF SENSATION. 109

sical starting-point in certain disturbances (changes of circulation, &c.)
in the retina. Some subjective sensations may have a central process as
their starting-point. It may however be said that under ordinary or
'normal' circumstances the sensations of sight, touch, and so on, are
the effects of such agents. Other difficulties are due to the imperfect
analogy between the sensations of the external sense-organs, those of
sight, touch, &c., and the organic sensations, as those connected
with the action of the organs of digestion. Here the equivalent
of external agent is often wanting, e.g., in sensations of hunger and
thirst. Finally, the case of muscular sensations presents a peculiar
difficulty to be touched on presently.

It may be observed, further, that a perfectly simple mental state,'
such as is required by the above definition, is an ideal conception. la
our later mental life, at least, we never have a sensation which is per-
fectly pure, the bare result of the peripheral stimulation of the moment.
As we shall see in the next chapter, the sensations of adult life are
uniformly accompanied by some element of perception, and cannot
easily be distinguished from this. And even if by introspective analysis
we could succeed in eliminating this foreign element, there would
remain the fact that our sensations are inextricably overlaid with the
traces of past like sensations. Finally, supposing that we could obtain
a residuum of pure sensation, we could not be certain that this was a
perfectly simple psychical state ; for, as we shall see presently, our
ordinary sensations which to introspection appear simple or elementary,
are probably built up out of sensuous atoms.

Sensibility. The mind's capacity of being acted
upon or affected by the medium of the stimulation of
a sensory nerve is called sensibility. Sensibility is
simply another name for the mind's capability of
having sensations. Strictly speaking this property be-
longs to the mind and not to the body. Yet we are
accustomed by an allowable looseness of expression to
ascribe sensibility to the organism in so far as it is
the medium by which sensations are produced. Thus
we talk of the sensibility or sensitiveness of the skin,
and of the retina of the eye.

General and Special Sensibility. All parts of the
organism supplied with sensory nerves, and the ac-

110 SENSATION.

tions of which are consequently fitted to give rise to
sensations, are said to possess sensibilitysof some kind.
But this property appears under one of two very
unlike forms. The first of these is common to all
sensitive parts of the organism, and involves no special
nervous structure at the extremity. The second is
peculiar to certain parts of the bodily surface, and
implies special structures or ' organs '. To the former
is given the name Common or General Sensibility;
to the latter, Special Sensibility.

General Sensibility : Organic Sense. The sensations
falling under this head are marked by absence of defi-
nite characters. They are vague and ill-defined.
Their distinguishing peculiarity is that they have a
marked pleasurable or painful aspect or complexion.
Such are the feelings of comfort and discomfort con-
nected with the processes of digestion and indigestion,
and with injuries to the tissues. These sensations
are not directly connected with the action of external
objects, but arise in consequence of a certain condition
of the part of the organism concerned. Thus they
give us no knowledge of the external world. They
can at best inform us of the condition of the organism,
and they only do this adequately when we are able to
' localise ' them or refer them to their precise seat in
the organism. And this, as we shall see later, is
only possible in the case of sensations produced by
actions going on in the external parts of the or-
ganism.

Special Sensibility : Special Senses. The special
sensations arising through the stimulation of the
eye, the ear, and so on, are marked off one from

MODES OF SENSATION. Ill

another by great definiteness of character. This
peculiarity is connected with the fact that each
sense has its own specially modified structure or
' sense organ ' such as the eye or the ear, fitted to be
acted upon by a particular kind of stimulus (light-
vibrations, air- waves, &c.). Owing to this definiteness
of character the special sensations are much more sus-
ceptible of being discriminated and recognised than
the organic sensations. Moreover these sensations
are (in ordinary cases) brought about by the action of
external agents or objects lying outside the organism,
and are on that account called impressions.1 For these
reasons they are fitted to yield us knowledge of the
environment. It is the special senses which will
chiefly interest us in tracing the development of in-
telligence or knowledge.

Definition of Sense. A sense consists of the sum-total of simple
mental states of a particular order, as sights, sounds, and so on. This
aggregate of experience is connected with a specially differentiated
structure known as the sense-organ, as the eye, the ear, and its connected
nerves. Hence it is convenient to define a sense by a reference to this
physical groundwork. Thus we may say that a sense is the aggregate
of simple mental states arising by way of the stimulation of some sense-
organ. In doing so, however, we must be careful not to fall into
' a circle in denning ' by going on to define a sense-organ in its turn by
a reference to the group of sensations of which it is the groundwork.
This may be avoided by giving a purely physical definition of sense-
organ. For example we might define it thus : A sense-organ is a
structure forming the peripheral termination (end-organ) of a sensory
nerve (or group of nerves) and specially differentiated so as to react on
a special kind of stimulus. More correctly perhaps the sense-organ
should include not only the peripheral organ but the connecting nerve
by which the effect of the stimulation is transmitted to the centres, and

1 The sense-impression which we are here concerned with is a mental phe-
nomenon, and must not be confused with the physical ' impression, ' as, for
example, the image of an object on the retina.

112 SENSATION.

even the portion of the centres immediately concerned in the production
of a sensation.

This definition supposes that any particular organ, e.g., the eye, can
only be acted on by one kind of stimulus (Hgnt)- Modern experiments
show this to be untrue. Thus mechanical pressure, or an electric current,
applied to the retina gives rise to a sensation of light. Whether
this fact is due to some special difference of structure in the nerves
themselves as distinguished from the peripheral organs is a matter of
dispute.1

The Five Senses. The Special Senses consist first
of all of the well known five, namely, Sight, Hearing,
Touch, Smell, and Taste. They each involve a special
mode of sensibility, and a particular kind of 'end-
organ' or terminal structure, fitted to be acted on
by a certain kind of stimulus. The only apparent
exception to this is Touch. This, as sensibility to
mechanical pressure, is very closely related to
Common Sensibility. Indeed, Touch has been called
the fundamental Sense out of which the other and
special senses are developed.2 But what we dis-
tinguish as Touch proper or Tactile Sensibility is
possessed in a specially fine form by certain portions
of the skin, as the lips and the finger-tips, and here
certain modifications of nervous structure are found to
exist. Hence we may speak of a special sense, and a
special organ, of touch.

Characters of Sensations. The importance of the
special senses depends as we have seen on their
possessing certain well-defined characters, whereby

1 This is the question of ' the specific energy ' of the nerves. On this see
Lewes Physical Basis of Mind, Prob. II., Chap. Ill Wundt, Physiologische
Psychologic, 7es Cap., p. 313, et seq. A brief account of Wundt's reasoning will
be found in Mind, No. I. (1876), p. 32, &c.

8 See Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. II., Lect. XXVII. ;
and H. Spencer's Principles of Psychology, Vol. I., Part III., Chap. IV.

CHARACTERS OF SENSATION. 113

they are fitted to be signs or indications of qualities
in external objects, as well as of the changes which
take place in these. The sum-total of our knowledge
of things is limited by the number of distinguishable
characters among our sensations. We will first enquire
into these distinguishable characters generally, and
then briefly indicate their varying importance in the
case of the different senses.

Intensity or Degree. The most obvious difference
of character among our sensations is that of degree
or intensity. The difference between a bright and
a faint light, a loud and a soft sound, involves a
difference of intensity in the sense-impressions. All
classes of sensation exhibit differences of degree.
Those of the special senses exhibit them in greater
number than other sensations. These differences of
degree are intellectually important as a clue to the
nature or structure of bodies, the force exerted by
them, their distance from us, and so on. Thus a
vivid sensation of light indicates (according to circum-
stances) the brightness of an object (e.g., a flame, a
mass of snow), or its nearness to the eye.

Relation of Degree of Sensation to Force of Stimulus. The

degree of a sensation varies with the force of a stimulus. Thus the
sensation of a bright light or loud sound answers to a great intensity or
'height' of the waves (ether or air waves) constituting the stimulus.
On the other hand the impression of a faint light or of a soft sound
answers to a feeble intensity or a low altitude of the undulations con-
cerned.

Since the physicist is able to measure with considerable accuracy the
intensity or force of different stimuli, it has been found possible to apply
a graduated series of stimuli to a sense-organ and to note the relation of
successive increments of stimulus to the resulting sensation. These re-
searches belong to the department of psycho-physics. Among the most
important results are the following.

114 SENSATION.

Every stimulus must reach a certain, intensity before any appreciable
sensation results. This point is known as the threshold or liminal
intensity.

The situation of this point determines what has been called the
Absolute Sensibility of an organ or part of an organ. Thus if two por-
tions of the skin, A and B, differ in respect of their sensibility to pressure
in such a way that a slighter force of impact (mechanical pressure) causes
a sensation in the case of A than in that of B, we say that A has greater
absolute sensibility than B.

When the threshold is passed an increase of the stimulus does not
always cause an increase in the intensity of the sensation. A very slight
increase (increment) may produce no appreciable effect. It is further
found that the increment required to produce an appreciable difference
in the sensation depends on the absolute intensity of the stimulus.
Thus a very slight addition to a light-stimulus which would be sufficient
to produce an increase of intensity in case of a feeble sensation would pro-
duce no effect in the case of a powerful one. Thus, let us suppose s and
5s to represent two stimuli of unequal intensity, and * a small increment.
Then though the sensations produced by s, and s + i would be felt to
differ, the sensations produced by 5s. and 5s + i might remain indistin-
guishable. The greater the intensity of the stimulus at work the greater
must be the increase of stimulus in order that a perceptible difference in
the resulting sensation may arise. It is found that the required incre-
ment is in every case directly proportionate to the intensity of the
stimulus. Thus whatever the value of s, in order to produce an increase
in the intensity of the sensation, s must be increased by ks, where h
stands for some constant fraction, as T?S.

These results may be expressed as follows : In order that the inten-
sity of a sensation may increase in arithmetical progression, the stimulus
must increase in a geometrical progression. This is known as Weber's
or Fechner's Law.1

The magnitude of the fraction representing the increment of stimu-
lus necessary to produce an increase of sensation determines what has
been called the Discriminative Sensibility. The smaller the fraction,
the greater the discriminative sensibility. Thus the discriminative
sensibility of the finger-tip to pressure is about twice that of the
sensibility of the shoulder-blade, the fractions being approximately
i and i.

When the stimulus is increased up to a certain point, any further
increase produces no appreciable increase in the sensation. Thus a very
powerful sound may be increased without our detecting any difference.
Similarly in the case of a light-stimulus. We do not notice any diffe-
rence in brightness between the central and peripheral portion of the

1 This fraction differs considerably for different sense-organs.

CHAKACTEES OF SENSATION. 115

sun's disc though the difference of light-intensity is enormous. "Wundt
calls this upper or maximum limit the Height of Sensibility of a Sense.
The higher this point in the scale the greater, according to him, the
Eeceptivity (Reiz-empfanglichkeit) of the organ.1

Finally, by taking together the Threshold and Height we have
what Wundt calls the Range of Sensibility (Reiz-umfang). The lower
the former or minimum limit, and the higher the latter or maximum,
the greater the range of sensibility. That is to say, the relative range
is measured by a fraction of which the numerator is the Height, and
the denominator the Threshold. It is important to add that these
aspects of sensibility to stimulus do not vary together. Fechner ascer-
tained that parts of the skin equal in respect of absolute sensibility to
pressure differed considerably in discriminative sensibility. Nor does
a high maximum limit or height necessarily indicate a proportionately
large number of perceptible differences of degree. Discriminative
sensibility is thus an independent aspect of sensibility, and by far the
most important for intellectual purposes (knowledge of things).2

Quality of Sensation. Next to differences of in-
tensity or degree we have differences of quality among
our sensations. By a difference of quality is meant
one of kind and not simply of degree. The
group of sensations making up a particular sense, as
those of sound, are marked off by a broad difference
of generic quality. In addition to these broad differ-
ences there are finer differences of specific quality
within each sense. Thus there are the differences of
quality answering to different colours in sight, to
sounds of different pitch and of different timbre or

1 See Physiologische Psychologic, Cap. 8, § 1.

2 The relation between the degree of stimulus and that of sensation is less
simple than is assumed in the text. Observation does not fully support the
generalisation known as Weber's law. This is found to hold good only with
respect to stimuli of medium strength : as we approach the threshold or the
height, considerable deviations from it occur. For a fuller exposition of the
law and the facts on which it is based see my Sensation and Intuition, Chap.
III., p. 48, &c. ; and Mr. Ward's article in Mind, Vol. I., 1876, p. 452.
The reader who wishes to be abreast of the present state of the question should
further consult Wundt, Physiol. Psychologic, 8e3 Cap. ; Fechner, Revision der
Huuptpunkte der Psychophysik ; and Stumpf, Tonpsychologic, Tlieil

116 SENSATION.

musical e quality ' in hearing, and so on. These
differences of quality are much sharper or more
definite in the case of some sensations than in that
of others. Such differences, like those of degree, serve
as a clue to the properties of external objects. The
difference between gold and iron is partly a difference
of colour. Musical instruments, including human
voices, are distinguished partly by their peculiarities
of timbre.

It is important to observe that we are apt to
ascribe a difference of quality to objects on the basis
of a difference of degree in our sensations. Thus we
are often disposed to think of two shades of one and
the same colour as two colours. Yet in this case
there is no difference of quality in the sensation, only
one of degree answering to degrees of brightness.
Similarly the difference between heavy and light
bodies appears to turn on a difference of degree in the
sensations.

Ultimate Differences of Quality : Simple and Complex Sensa-
tions. It is a matter of uncertainty what number of ultimate differ-
ences of quality among our sensations it is necessary to assiime. Modern
research goes to show that two sensations which appear to our mindo
quite different in quality may have certain elements in common. In
other words sensations which are unanalysable by conscious reflection
into simpler parts or elements may have to be regarded as complex. Thus
according to Helmholtz musical sensations of timbre are composite
phenomena, being compounded of elementary sensations answering to
"partial tones" (fundamental and upper tones). Similary our seemingly
simple sensations of colour are probably compounded of more simple
parts. Not only so, some psychologists as Mr. H. Spencer and M. Taiue,
would seek to carry the 'objective analysis' of sensation still further,
resolving all differences of quality among our sensations into differences
in the mode of combination of the same ultimate psychical elements, or
"units of consciousness," namely sensuous atoms or 'nervous shocks'.
These researches and speculations go to show that subjective analysis is

CHARACTERS OF SENSATION. 117

not always adequate to the breaking up of a complex mental state into
its parts. The parts may fuse or coalesce into an inseparable mass.1
For ordinary psychological purposes, however, we start with sensations
which appear to be perfectly simple in quality, such as those of the
perfectly distinct colours blue, red, &c., as our units.

Physiological Basis of Differences of Quality. Generic differences
of quality are, as we have seen, connected with the mode of stimulation
(by air-waves, aether waves, and so on). Specific differences are further
known in many cases, at least, to be connected with differences in the
form of stimulation. Thus the several sensations of colour are produced
by the action of aether waves of different lengths, or, what amounts to
the same thing, vibrations of different rapidities. The same holds good
of the sensations of sound. The sensation of a high note answers to a
rapid series of air vibrations, that of a low note, to a slow series.

It is a disputed question whether to every class of simple sensations
there answers a special nerve-structure, or whether simple sensations
of different quality may be brought about by unlike modes of reaction
of the same nervous elements. According to the former view every
ultimately simple or elementary sensation corresponds to the function
or activity of one kind of simple nerve-structure, or nerve- element. In
the case of hearing it is fairly certain that a large number of distinct
nerve-elements are concerned in our several sensations of pitch. The
same is probably true of the sensations of colour. Yet it cannot be
said that physiological research has completely established the corres-
pondence here hinted at.3

Other Characters of Sensation : Duration. We have
now discussed the two leading characters of Sensation,
its degree or intensity and its quality. In addition
to these, our sensations exhibit other characters,
though these are not so distinctly present in all
classes of sensation as are degree and quality.

1 On the question of the ultimate elements of Sensation see Sensation
and Intuition, Chap. III., p. 57, &c. ; H. Spencer's Principles of Psychology,
Vol. I., Part II., Chap. I. ("The Substance of Mind,") § 60 ; and M. Taine's
work On Intelligence, Part I., Book III., Chap. II., § V.

2 The problem as to the ultimate number of nerve-elements required as
the groundwork of our sensations is closely connected with that of specific
energies. (See Hermann, Human Physiology, p. 344). The difficulties in the
way of supposing distinct nerve-elements for all distinguishable sensations are
well shown by Wundt, Physiologische Psychologic, Cap. 7, § 4, p. 315, &c.

118 SENSATION.

The first of these is Duration. All Sensations, as
indeed all mental states, have duration : they endure
for a shorter or longer period. Such differences of
duration range from the shortest possible, that of a
momentary sensation, up to the longest possible, that
compatible with a protracted direction of the atten-
tion. Yet all classes of sensation do not present this
aspect with equal clearness. Some sensations, as
tastes and smells, are much less sharply defined in
respect of their commencement and termination than
others : their duration is less distinct or definite than
that of other sensations, as those of sound. The
importance of this difference will appear later on.

The duration of a sensation is related in general to that of the process
of nervous stimulation involved. A momentary sensation, as that of a
flash of light or of a staccato note, answers to a momentary stimulation.
But the correspondence is not exact. The effect of a stimulus may
persist for an appreciable duration after it has been withdrawn. This
lingering effect of stimulation has been named after-sensation. The
sensations of taste and smell exhibit this effect in a marked degree. The
want of definiteness in the cessation of a sensation of taste or smell is
probably due to this circumstance. In the higher region of light-sensa-
tions we have these effects as occasional phenomena in what are known
as positive after-images.

Local Character. One other character needs to be
touched on, which may be named Local Character.
By this is meant a difference between two sensations,
perfectly similar in degree and quality, which are
received by way of two different points of the surface
of the organ. Thus when the skin is gently pressed
by two points, as those of a pair of compasses, at
different parts we receive two similar yet distinct
sensations.

In order to understand what this difference of local

CHARACTERS OF SENSATION. 119

character means, we must mark it off from that local
interpretation of sensation which occurs instantane-
ously in our mature life. When two points of the
skin are touched we instantly refer the sensations to
these particular localities, or ' localise ' them in these
points. This however is an act of perception and has
(to a considerable extent at least) to be acquired by
each individual. In order to understand how this is
acquired we must assume that there is some original
difference in the sensations themselves connected with
the fact that they depend on the activity of distinct
nerve-fibres. This original difference is one of quality
and not of quantity. It is a difference of colouring
the exact nature of which we are now quite unable to
recall or imagine. This unknown original difference
is all that is meant here by the expression local
character.

This separateness of the sensations corresponding
to separate nerve-fibres may be seen in different
ways. In the case referred to above we have two
distinct sensations answering to two discrete points
of the surface. This mode of discriminative sensibility
has been called plurality of points. Two tangible or
visible points are always felt or seen to be two discrete
points when they lie at a certain distance from one
another. If, however, they are nearer than this they
are no longer distinguished as two.

If instead of two discrete points a continuous
system of such points on a surface is applied to the
skin the local character shows itself under the form
of the ' massiveness ' or extensive magnitude of the
sensation. If I apply a piece of tin-foil one inch

120 SENSATION.

square to the hand, and then apply to an adjacent
part a second piece two inches square, the second
sensation is felt to be different from the first. And
the difference is not the same as would arise if I
simply doubled the pressure over the same surface
by placing a second piece of the same size above
the first.

These differences of local character, are not found
in all classes of sensation alike. They presuppose
certain physiological conditions which are only to
be found in the case of two senses, Touch, and Sight.
Hence in part the explanation of the fact that these
senses are the only ones which give us a direct know-
ledge of space, in its several aspects, number and
position of points, and magnitude and figure of
objects.

The physiological conditions here referred to nlay be said to reside in
the existence of a sensitive surface supplied by a system of similar yet
distinct and isolated nerve-fibres, which may be acted on apart from one
another by locally circumscribed stimuli. These conditions obtain only
in the case of two senses, namely, Touch and Sight. The skin and the
retina are surfaces of this kind. The skin can be acted on directly by a
point applied te any one portion of its surface. And owing to the
structure of the eye rays of light coming from a particular luminous
point may impinge on a definite point of the retina. In the case of
Hearing, however, such a local effect is rendered impossible, partly by
the nature of the stimulus and its mode of propagation through the ear,
and partly by the absence of a system of similar fibres spread out over a
surface.

Variability of Sensation. In order that a sensation may suppV
knowledge about an external thing, it must not vary. That is to say
the same stimulus must always bring about the same kind and degree
of sensation. These conditions do not, however, hold good perfectly.
Our sense-organs are liable to changes of condition which modify the
psychical effect of a stimulus. Thus the organ of taste may be tem-
porarily affected by the persistence of a preceding sensation, which com-
bines with and so disguises the effect of a succeeding stimulus. Again

CHARACTERS OF SENSATION. 121

a nerve-structure may be temporarily fatigued by the action of a pre-
ceding stimulus, and so rendered less sensitive to a second stimulus of
the same kind. After tasting a strong saline solution a substance mode-
rately salt is not felt to be salt at all. Sensations of temperature show
these momentary fluctuations in a marked degree. Finally a sense-organ
may be more permanently modified. Thus for example the senses of smell
and taste are liable to be disturbed by a cold and other causes. Though
these disturbances are not confined to the lower senses, they are much
more distinct and prominent in this region. The sensations of taste,
smell, and temperature are pre-eminently the variable sensations.1

Coming now to the senses in detail we see that
they do not exhibit the same degree of definiteness
or the same number of distinct characters. We
usually speak of Taste and Smell as the coarse or
unrefined senses, whereas Hearing and Sight are
highly refined. By attending simply to the degree
of refinement we may arrange the senses in the
following ascending order, Taste, Smell, Touch,
Hearing, Sight.

No detailed exposition of the senses can be given
here, but only a brief enumeration of their characters.

Taste and Smell. These present a decidedly low
measure of refinement. Indeed the sensations of
these senses may be said to approach the organic
sensations in want of definiteuess, and in the pre-
dominance of the element of feeling (pleasure and
pain). These peculiarities are connected with the
fact that these senses have as their function the
determination of what is wholesome or unwholesome
to the organism as a whole. The very position of
the organs at the entrance of the digestive and
respiratory cavities suggests that they are sentinels

1 For a fuller account of these modifications of sensibility see my work on
Illusions, Chap. IV., pp. 64-69.

122 SENSATION.

to warn us as to what is good or ill. The sensations
of taste and smell are easily confused one with
another,1 cannot be definitely distinguished either in
degree or quality. We cannot distinguish a number
of simultaneous tastes or odours as we can distinguish
a number of touches locally separate from one another.
Again, owing to the persistence of sensations, we
cannot discriminate two odours or two tastes in rapid
succession. And lastly, both modes of sensibility are
liable to great fluctuations, temporary and permanent.
Hence they are of little importance as knowledge-
giving senses. It is only under special circumstances,
as those of the chemist, the wine-taster and so on,
that these * servants of the body ' supply a quantity
of exact knowledge about the properties of objects.

Touch. By the sense of touch is meant the sensa-
tions we receive from the contact of bodies with the
tactual organ. These are either sensations of mere
contact or pressure, or those of temperature. Although
sensibility to pressure is probably the simplest and
least specialised form of sensibility, the sense of touch
supplies us with much more knowledge than those
of taste and smell. In its highest and more special
form, connected with definite portions of the bodily
surface, more particularly the hands, and especially
the finger-tips (with which the lips may be reckoned),
the tactual sensibility becomes a most important
means of ascertaining the properties of bodies. The
sensations of touch have a much higher degree of
definiteness than those of taste and smell. Since

1 This want of distinctness is seen too in the confusion of smells with
tastes.

TASTE AND SMELL. 123

they have little persistence we may distinguish two
or more impressions finely in rapid succession. This
rapid sequence of distinct impressions is greatly pro-
moted by the mobility of the main tactual organ (the
hand). Again, the local separation of touch-sensa-
tions allows of a nice discrimination of simultaneous
impressions.

The discrimination of degree of pressure has been
measured by means of experiments. A certain weight
is laid on the hand or other part, and the experi-
menter then tries how much must be taken away or
added in order that a difference may be felt.1 A
much smaller difference is felt when the same part
of the tactual organ is stimulated than when two
parts are taken. Thus when the same hand is
selected the difference detected is (in some cases) i,
of that recognised when the two hands are succes-
sively tried. Further it was found that the dis-
criminative sensibility of one and the same part varies
considerably at different regions of the bodily surface.
For instance, on the anterior surface of the fingers
the difference detected was a half of that recognised
on their posterior surface.2

The smallest difference detected in the case of two hands is £ ; in the
case of the same hand, from A- to sV Again, the smallest difference
recognised in the case of the posterior surface of the finger is I ; in that
of the anterior surface, £.

1 If the hand is the part selected it must be supported by some object, as
a table. Only in this way can we test the tactual sensibility to pressure apart
from the muscular sensibility to be spoken of presently.

2 As before remarked the variations in discriminative sensibility at different
parts of the organ do not run parallel to variations in absolute sensibility. See
Wundt, Physiol. Psychologic, I., Cap. 8, § 2, p. 342.

124 SENSATION.

Besides differences of degree in the case of sensations
of touch we have important differences of quality, as
between those of smoothness and roughness.1 To
these differences must be added the important quali-
tative difference between hot and cold.

Finally we have the local differences which con-
stitute so important a feature of our touch sensations.
The capability of distinguishing two points at different
parts of the bodily surface has been tested by Weber
by means of the extremities of a pair of compasses.
The smallest distance between these needed to pro-
duce two distinct sensations determines the degree
of local sensibility of this part. It is much finer in
the mobile parts of the body (hands, feet, lips, &c.)
than in the comparatively fixed parts (the trunk).2
It is finest at the tip of the tongue (which along
with the lips shares in the specialised tactual sensi-
bility of the hand). A difference of a millimetre
is here detected.3 At the tip of the finger a distance
of two millimetres is just perceptible. The local
sensibility is finer on the anterior than on the pos-
terior surface of the hand, and decreases rapidly as
we recede from the finger-tips towards the wrist and
elbow.

1 It is a question how far such differences as smoothness and roughness,
sharpness and bluntness, hardness and softness, and so on, involve original
differences of quality (other than 'local' differences) in the sensations, and
how far they turn on differences of degree, coupled with local differences.
On this point see Wundt, Op. cit., Cap. 9, § 1, p. 368.

2 This suggests that local discrimination has been developed through suc-
cessive generations by the help of movement. The importance of movement
in developing the perception of locality by touch will be shown in the next
chapter.

8 A millimetre is one thousandth part of a metre, and is equal to '0393 of
an inch.

TOUCH. 125*

If at any particular point of the skin we estimate exactly tlie distance
between the two compass-points at which they cease to be distinguished
as two, and take this measurement in a variety of directions, we obtain
what is known as a ' circle of sensation ' (Empfindungskreis). We may
suppose the bodily surface to be made up of myriads of such small
circles. These vary greatly in size (from about 1 to 65 millimetres in
diameter). Also they vary to some extent in form. Thus, since the
discrimination of points is commonly finer across a limb than in a
longitudinal direction, the circles must here be supposed to be oval.
We must not imagine the circles to lie wholly outside one another in a
mosaic arrangement. They overlap one another in an intricate way.
This seems to exclude the supposition that a distinct local character is
given under all circumstances to the sensations answering to each nerve-
element running to the part. The local discrimination varies with the
supply of nerve-fibres, but there is no exact correspondence between
them.1

Hearing. The Sense of Hearing ranks high as an
intellectual or knowledge-giving sense. This is owing
to the high degree of defmiteness of its sensations.
In respect both of intensity and of quality fine dif-
ferences are recognisable.

With respect to intensity, experiments have been conducted by a
number of investigators with the object of ascertaining the threshold,
the height, and the least noticeable differences of intensity. With
respect to the last it has been found that the smallest difference of the
objective stimulus perceptible is (roughly) represented by the ratio
3:4.3

1 For a fuller account of the results of Weber's experiments see Bernstein,
The Five Senses of Man, Chap. II. ; Wundt, Physiol. Psychologic, II., Cap.
11, § 2, p. 7, &c.

2 This was ascertained by different methods. Volkmann employed at
first a hammer which swung, pendulum-like, striking a plate. Later on he
(followed by Norr) used a steel ball which he allowed to fall a certain
distance and strike a steel-plate. According to Vierhordt, the force of the
stimulus must be taken as proportionate to the square root of th<3 height
through which the body falls. Adopting this view we find that the real pro-
portion is <v/4 : ^/S. See Fechner, Elemente der Psychophysik, Vol. I., p.
175, &c. ; Wundt, op tit., I., Cap. 8, § 2, pp. 340, 1; Stumpf, Tonpsychologie,
§ 15, p. 354, &c.

12fi SENSATION.

The high intellectual character of hearing shows
itself most plainly in the qualitative differences. We
have here the broad contrast between musical and
non-musical sounds or noises. The former depend
on regularly recurring or periodic vibrations of the
air, the latter on irregularly recurring or non-periodic
vibrations. In the case of musical sounds we have
the remarkable phenomenon of a scale of sensation.
If we pass upwards from a low note to a higher one
through all distinguishable gradations we experience
a continuous variation of sensation in one respect,
namely, pitch or height. This scale or series of
similar or analogous changes (increase or decrease of
pitch) is described as a ' continuum ' of one dimension.
All these differences of pitch are known to answer to
changes in the rate of vibration of the medium (the
atmosphere). The higher the note the more rapid the
vibrations.1

It has been supposed by Helmholtz and others that these differences
)f pitch sensation involve the reactions of distinct nerve-elements.
These are the so-called organs (' fibres,' ' columns ') of Corti in the
cochlea or shell-compartment of the inner ear. These fibres are arranged
somewhat in the manner of a key-board, and it is supposed that different
rates of atmospheric vibration affect different fibres. But later research
shows this hypothesis to be doubtful.2

This scale of sound-quality or pitch presents striking points of simi-
larity with the scale of intensity. If we begin with the lowest note we
find that there is a threshold or a rate of vibration below which the ear
is insensible to pitch. Here the atmospheric vibrations are felt as dis-

1 Thus the series of vibrations concerned in the note C below the treble
cleff stands to that involved in the C an octave above it in the ratio 1:2;
and to that involved in the G a fifth above it in the ratio 2 : 3.

2 For a fuller account of the structure ol the ear and the probable functions
of its several parts, see Bernstein, Five Senses of Man, Sect. III., Chap. 1 and
following ; Wundt, Physiologische Psychologic, I., Cap. 7, § 4, p. 296, &c.

HEARING.

127

tract pulsations, and not as a continuous sensation of tone. At the
other extremity we find a height or a point of maximum pitch, above
which the ear experiences no sensation of tone proper, but only a grating
kind of noise. Finally, within these extremes, the least noticeable dif-
ference of sensation corresponds to one and the same proportion of the
stimuli. (On the nature of the pitch-scale, see Stumpf, Tonpsych., § 10.)

In the discrimination of pitch the ear shows a deli-
cacy far superior to that of the other senses. The
smallest difference recognised in our musical scale (a
semi-tone) is by no means the smallest perceptible.
In the median region of the scale an unpractised ear
can easily distinguish tones which differ by only a few
vibrations per second ; and a practised ear can even
detect a difference of a fraction of a vibration. *

In addition to this scale of pitch-quality, there are
the differences known as timbre or ' musical quality '.
These are the qualitative differences in sensations of
tone answering to differences in the instrument, as
the piano, the violin, the human voice. These dif-
ferences have been explained as due to the various
composition of the several kinds of tone. Musical
tones or clangs are rarely if ever simple sensations,
but compounded of a number of elements. These
correspond to a fundamental or ground tone, and to
subordinate upper tones. The number and strength
of these last determine the timbre of the note.2

In addition to this wide range of musical sensation

1 Thus one person's discrimination of pitch is represented by the ratio
440 : 439 '636 ; another person's by the ratio 1000 '5 : 1000.

2 For a fuller account of the composite nature of tone or clang and the
influence of upper tones on our sensations of timbre, together with those of
discord and harmony, see Helmholtz's great work, The Sensations of Tone,
translated by A. J. Ellis. A summary of Helmholtz's doctrine may be found
in my volume, Sensation and Intuition, Chap. VII. ; also in Bernstein's work,
The Five Senses of Man, Sect. III., Chap. VII., VIII.

128 SENSATION.

the ear distinguishes a vast number of non-musical
sounds, the characteristic ' noises ' of different sub-
stances, such as the roar of the sea, the rustling of
leaves, and the crack of a whip. We distinguish noises
as jarring, grating, explosive, and so on. These dif-
ferences are in part connected with the strength and
rapidity of the single pulsations composing the noise.
But most noises involve elements of tone as well, and
owe a part of their character to this circumstance (e.g.,
the roar of the sea or of a crowd). This remark
applies to articulate sounds, the most important class
of non-musical sounds. The researches of Helmholtz
go to show that different vocal sounds are characterised
by peculiarities of timbre.

Enough has been said to illustrate the high degree
of refinement characterising the sense of hearing.
The delicate and far-reaching discrimination of quality,
aided by the fine discrimination of duration, enables
the ear to acquire a good deal of exact information,
as well as to gain a considerable amount of refined
pleasure. The delight of music sums up the chief
part of the latter. The former is illustrated in the
wide range of knowledge derived by way of that
system of articulate sounds known as language.

As a set off against these advantages, we see that
hearing has very little local discrimination. We
cannot distinguish two or more simultaneous sounds
with any nicety according to the position of their ex-
ternal source. Hence hearing only gives us (directly),
as we shall see by and by, very little knowledge of
the position of bodies in space, and of their figure
and magnitude.

HEARING. 129

It is commonly said that we distinguish between a 'massive' or
vo'ummous sound, as the roar of a wide expanse of water, or the sound
of a great chorus of voices, and an ' acute ' or non- voluminous sound,
as that of a falling streamlet, or of a single voice. It is a question how
far (apart from movement of the head) the ear distinguishes elements of
such a compound mass of impressions by theii local characters. In
other words it is doubtful how far the ear distinguishes degree of exten-
sive magnitude. The fact that we have two ears, and that sounds
according to their position affect the two ears unequally, constitutes a
quasi-local difference. The real power of the ea? in discrimination is in
analysing a compound mass of sounds of different pitches into its parta.
In most voluminous sounds different pitches and timbres are easily di*
tinguishable. (Cf. Stumpf, op cit., p. 210.)

Sight. The sense of Sight is by common consent
allowed the first place in the scale of refinement.
The delicate and intricate structure of the organ, and
the nature of the stimulus (ether- vibrations), give to
its impressions a special degree of definiteness.

The scale of intensity in the case of visual sensa-
tions is obviously a very extended one. It answers
to all distinguishable degrees of luminosity from the
brightest self-luminous bodies which we are capable
of looking at, down to the objects which reflect a
minimum of light and are known as black. The eye's
capability of recognising at a glance the nature of an
object and of a multitude of unlike objects in a scene,
rests in part on this delicate discriminative sensibility
to degrees of light.1

Here again careful experiments have been conducted in order to
ascertain the limits of intensity. It is found that (in a certain region of

1 The intensity of a light-sensation does not depend simply on the degree
of objective luminosity, but also on the condition of the organ. The sensi-
bility of the eye varies periodically during the 24 hours. According to Aubert
and C. F. Miiller an object only appears half as bright in the evening as in
the morning. The eye also accommodates itself to the varying degree of
illumination, as direct sun-light, lamp-light, &c.

130 SENSATION.

the scale)1 the eye distinguishes two stimuli having the ratio of inten*
sity (about) 120 : 121. These experiments were carried out by Bouger,
Volkmann, Aubert, Masson and others, partly by means of two lights
throwing a double shadow of a rod on a white screen, and partly by
means of rotating discs having circles of unequal brightness. The
results differed in different series of experiments. Some investigators
make the fraction much less (e.g., Aubert TSS). This fineness of quanti-
tative discrimination belongs only to the central area of the retina (or
area of perfect vision). On the side parts of the retina it is much less.
The discrimination of degree is much less fine when instead of white,
coloured light is employed.2

In sight, again, we have numerous and fine differ-
ences of quality. Of these the most important are
colour-differences. The impressions of colour, like
those of pitch, fall into a series of gradual changes.
Passing from one extremity of the spectrum (or
rainbow) scale to another the eye experiences a series
of perfectly gradual transitions. These changes fall
into the series, violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, and
red, together with certain finer distinctions, as indigo
blue, greenish blue. These differences of quality
accompany (as in the case of pitch-sensations) changes
in the rapidity of the vibrations constituting the
stimulus. Thus the violet rays make about 667 billions,
the red rays about 456 billion vibrations per second.

This series of colour sensations differs, however, from that of tone or
pitch sensations. To begin with, the quality of the sensation does not
change continuously in close correspondence with the changes of the
stimulus, as in the case of tone sensations. In some parts of the series
considerable changes in the rate of vibration have no appreciable effect
on the sensation. Hence we cannot speak of a colour-scale in the same
sense as we speak of the tone-scale.8

1 See above, p. 115, note 2.

3 For a fuller account of these investigations see Wundt, PJiysiol. Psycho*
logic, I., Cap. 8, § 2, p. 335, &c.

8 It follows that there is no constant ratio in the region of colour discri-
mination. Dobrowolsky has estimated the least perceptible difference at
different points of the colour-scale. At the red end it is as much as frou
*lz to Tey J whereas in the region of the yellow it falls to 7^3-.

SIGHT. 131

Again, the series of colour impressions, instead of falling into a straight
line, each successive difference being further removed from the starting-
point than its predecessors, rather assumes the form of a bent or curved
line. The extremities red and violet seem to approach one another.
This affinity between the extremities of the spectrum is seen in the fact
that if the rays are combined we have an intermediate sensation, that 01
purple, which forms a connecting link between the two.1

In addition to this series of colour-sensations we
have for any given colour a scale of purity or satura-
tion. A red or a green, for example, may be more or
less whitish, or on the other hand pure or saturated.
Thus any colour will present a series of changes ac-
cording as we vary the proportion of white light to
the special kind of light. In certain cases a difference
in the degree of saturation is commonly spoken of
as a difference of colour. Thus what we call pink is
simply a whitish modification of a purple. * fb Ste>d~

The several kinds of rays when all combined, as in
sunlight, produces the impression white. The same
sensation may result from combining different pairs
of the several varieties of light in certain proportions.
Such pairs of rays, and the accompanying impressions
of colour, are spoken of as complementary one to
another. Thus blue and yellow, purplish red and
green, are complementary. If we add purple to the
spectrum series and represent this by a circle, we
find that any two kinds of light standing opposite

1 The points of difference between the tone and colour scales are brought
out by Helraholtz, Physiologische Optik, p. 236, et seq.

2 Differences in the degree of saturation must be carefully distinguished
from differences in the brightness or degree of brilliance of a colour. This
last depends on the quantity, and not the quality of the light. The brighter
degrees are known as Jones, the darker as shades of a_coiojir. A difference of
quantity in the light sometimes makes a difference in the quality of the
sensation. Thus a browii is simply a dark shade of yellow or red.

132 SENSATION.

to one another or at the extremities of one diameter
are thus complementary. Such complementary colours
are commonly said to go well or to harmonise well
with one another.

The many and intricate phenomena of colour-impressions, including
the effects of mixing colours (either by combining rays, or by com-
pounding impressions on the retina), the phenomena of negative or
complementary spectra or after-images, and of chromatic contrast, and
lastly the facts of colour-blindness, have given rise to various physio-
logical hypotheses respecting the structure and mode of activity of the
retina. Among these the most popular is known as the Young-Helm-
holtz theory. According to this the nervous elements of the retina
consist of three kinds of fibre. These are acted upon more especially by
the red, the green, and the blue or violet rays respectively. These three
colours would thus be in a peculiar sense elementary colour-impressions,
while other colours, as purple, bluish green, together with white, would
be composite. According to a second theory, that of E. Hering, there
are two kinds of nerve-element. These structures, again, are capable of
two antagonistic modes of activity. To each of these a distinct colour-
impression corresponds. Thus we have four simple or leading colour-
impressions. One kind of element is concerned in the sensations blue,
yellow, and the other in the sensations red, green. In addition to these
two varieties of nerve-element Hering postulates a third, the two opposed
processes in which underlie sensations of white, black. This hypothesis
aims at obviating some of the difficulties of the Young-Helmholtz theory.
It is recommended by the fact that it erects into elementary or funda-
mental colour-impressions four varieties which we are all accustomed to
regard as leading and distinct colours. In its turn, however, it gives
rise to special difficulties.1

In addition to these numerous differences of in-
tensity and quality the sensations of sight are
characterised by very fine local differences. And it
is this circumstance, together with another to be
spoken of presently, which gives sight so distinct a
superiority to hearing as an intellectual 01 knowledge-

T For a brief account of the facts here referred to, see Bernstein, Five
Senses of Man, Sect. II., Chap. V. For a comparison of the rival hypo-
theses, see Le Conte, Sight, Ft. I., Chap. IV., p. 61 &c. ; and Wundt,
Physiol. Psychologic, I., Cap. 9, § 4, p. 460, &c.

SIGHT. 133

giving sense. The retina is an extended surface, on
any point of which, (owing to the peculiar structure
of the eye) an isolated optical effect may be produced.
The sensations received by way of different parts
of the retina have, from the first, distinct 'local'
peculiarities. The fineness of this local discrimina-
tion is greatest in the central region, the area of
perfect vision. In order to measure the local dis-
crimination in this region experiments have been
carried out by means of two lines placed at a certain
distance from the eye and brought gradually nearer
one another. These shew that in the case of a
practised eye two points are distinguished when the
visual angle is from 60 to 90 seconds, that is to
say when the retinal images are from '004 to "006
millimetres apart. In the side portions of the retina
this fine local discrimination rapidly falls off.

This may be seen in the following table, in which the results of
looking at two squares one metre from the eye are recorded : —

Distance of retinal Minimum

image from distance of two

centre of retina. images.

2° 40' ...... 3' 27"

5° 17' 11*

7° , 34' 22"

This decline in discriminative ability does not progress with perfect
regularity, and is not equally rapid in all directions. An attempt has
been made to connect these limits of local discrimination with the mag-
nitude of the terminal appendages of the optic fibres. These are known
as the rods and cones. Since the cones are densely packed in the area
of perfect vision while they become less numerous and give way to rods
towards the periphery, it seems probable that the former are the struc-
tures specially concerned in local discrimination. Measurement of these
cones goes to show that their diameter corresponds (roughly) to the limits
of local discrimination.1

1 For a fuller account of the experiments respecting the local discrimination
of the retina, see Wundt, Physiol. Psychologic, II., Cap. 13, § 1, p. 65, &c.

134 SENSATION.

Muscular Sense. Over and above the five special
senses there is a sense of great importance in relation
to knowledge known as the Muscular Sense. This
consists of the sum of simple mental states or ' sensa-
tions' which immediately accompany the action of
the muscles. These have well-marked characters of
their own. The sensations which accompany an
exercise of the vocal organ, a movement of the arm
or leg, an effort to push a heavy body, have certain
common traits, and these mark them off from all
other special classes of sensation.

At the same time, the muscular sense occupies a
peculiar place and cannot be classed with the five
senses. For one thing the muscular sensations are
due not to the action of external objects like sense-
impressions, but to our own actions. They are thus
essentially active states, and so stand in antithesis to
the sensations of the five senses which are passive.
This circumstance gives them their characteristic qua-
lity which we indicate by describing them as feelings
of exertion, effort, or energy. Moreover it will be
seen presently that the muscular sense is not detached
from the special senses as these are detached from one
another, but enters into combination with these, and
more especially with the senses of touch and sight.

There is a good deal of uncertainty about the exact nature and phy-
siological concomitants of muscular sensations. Some writers, as Professor
Bain, hold that they arise in connection with the process of ' innerva-
tion ' or the outgoing nervous impulses from the motor centres to the
muscles, and are best described as sensations of expended or expending
energy. Others maintain that they arise in connection with an incoming
nervous process in the sensory nerves. This may be either the nerves
running to the skin and other tissues adjacent to the muscles, and which
are therefore pressed or strained by muscular contraction ; or the sensory

MUSCULAR SENSE. 135

nerves which are now known to enter the substance of the muscles
itself.1

The evidence on which a conclusion must be arrived at includes the
results of psychological analysis, of anatomical research, and of patho-
logical observation (effects of loss of passive sensibility and of paralysis).
The probable conclusion from the whole body of evidence is that a pro-
cess both of motor innervation and of sensory stimulation is involved.
The degree of the innervation determines the intensity of the sensation
of effort ('sensation of innervation' or of expended energy). On the
other hand there are sensations connected with the process of muscular
contraction itself involving incoming nerve-processes. These consist
probably of muscle-sensations proper connected with the activity of the
sensory fibres which run to the muscles, and of other sensations arising
through the stimulation of the sensory fibres which terminate in the
skin and other adjacent structures.3

Variety of Muscular Sensations. The sensations
which accompany muscular action may be con-
veniently divided into two main varieties. Of these
the most important are (a) sensations of movement
or of unimpeded energy, and (b) sensations of strain
or resistance, that is of obstructed or impeded energy.
The first are illustrated in the mental accompaniments
of movements of the eyes or of the arms in empty
space ; the second are exemplified in the mental state
which accompanies the act of pushing against a heavy
object, or holding a heavy weight in the hand. This
is the great difference of quality among our muscular
sensations.

In the sensations of movement the passive elements (sensations of

1 It is plain that if this last view be correct muscular sensations corres-
pond much more closely to our above definition of sensation than they would
do on the first supposition.

2 For a fuller discussion of the subject, see G. H. Lewes, Problems of Life
and Mind, Third Series, III. , Chap. VII. ; Dr. Terrier, The Functions of the
Brain, Chap. IX. ; Dr. W. James, The Feeling of Effort ; Wundt, Physiol.
Psychologic, I., Cap. 9, § 1. A history of the doctrine is given by Dr. Bastian,
The Brain as an Organ of Mind, Appendix.

136 SENSATION.

contraction, skin-sensations of tension, &c.) are a prominent feature.
In those of strain, on the other hand, the sensations of innervation are
the chief ingredient. To these must be added the skin sensation of
pressure which always accompanies the experience of resistance. It
may be added that the two kinds of muscular experience here distin-
guished commonly combine. Thus in lifting a weight, or pushing a
heavy body, there is the experience of resistance and of movement.1
Even when we move our limbs there is the resistance of their weight to
be counteracted ; and this circumstance (especially when we are tired)
gives to the experience something analogous to what is commonly
understood as the feeling of strain or resistance.

Sensations of Movement. The sensations which
accompany unimpeded muscular action or movement
are a highly valuable source of information respecting
the build of the world about us. As we shall see
by and by it is by means of sensations accompanying
the movements of a limb, as the arm, or of the whole
body, that we come fully to apprehend the position of
objects in space.

The sensations of movement afford us this know-
ledge by reason of certain characters which distinguish
them, (a) In the first place, the sensations vary
in character according to the direction of the move-
ment. The movement effected by one muscle or
group of muscles is felt to be unlike that carried out
by another. Thus the sensations attending the move-
ments of bending and straightening the right arm, of
moving the arm to the right and to the left, are
qualitatively unlike. It is this difference in the
sensations which lies at the basis of our discrimi-
nation of the direction of a movement, and, through
this, of our perception of the direction or position of
any point in space.

1 "Weights are discriminated more easily when the hand is moved up and
down.

11TTSCULAB SENSE. 137

These difTerences may ce connected either with the fact that distinct
motor nerves are innervated, or with the fact that the sensations of
pressure accompanying two movements are qualitatively unlike. Pos-
sibly both elements combine in differencing the sensations of movement.

(b) In the second place the sensations of movement
are finely distinguishable in respect of duration. In
this circumstance they resemble the passive sensations
of hearing. Owing to this characteristic we are able,
in a way to be explained by and by, to reach distinct
perceptions of the velocity and the range or extent
of movement performed, and, through these percep-
tions, of the distance or interval between any two
points of space.

The discriminative delicacy characterising motor sensibility or sense
of movement has been estimated in the case of the ocular muscles which
bring about movements of convergence. Here it is found to be very
great. Thus a movement of the eyes (or the optic axes) through an angle
of 68 seconds, answering to a contraction of the inner muscle of the
eye-ball amounting to about '004 millimetres, was detected. And a
difference in the range of movement, corresponding (on the average) to
the fraction ^r, was perceptible.

Sensations of Resistance. The sensations which
arise when muscular energy is impeded, as when we
push with the shoulder or hands against heavy bodies,
pull them, lift them, and so on, have a distinct
character of their own. They are commonly called
sensations of resistance. They exhibit, like those of
movement, nice distinctions of degree. We experi-
ence a difference of sensation in lifting a pound and
20 ounces, and in throwing a heavy weight a yard
and two yards.

Through these muscular sensations (in conjunction
with passive sensations of pressure) we reach percep-

138 SENSATION.

tions of the hardness, density, or inelasticity of bodies.
The density of clay, the elasticity of a ball, the hard-
ness of iron, are known by exerting some degree of
muscular energy, and not by passive sensations of
touch merely. The boy's knowledge of the flexibility
of a stick, of the immobility or inertia of a box, of
the impenetrability of oak or iron, is clearly based on
sensations of impeded muscular energy.

The measurement of the discriminative delicacy of this aspect of
the muscular sense (sense of resistance) has been carried out by Fechner
with respect to the estimation of weight. His experiments consisted in
a series of liftings of weights of different magnitudes by one hand and
also by both hands. According to these experiments when a small
weight was taken (300 grammes) a difference of £s was recognised (in
a certain proportion of trials). When a heavier weight was taken, the
discriminative sensibility showed itself to be finer. As in the case of
the passive appreciation of weight by touch, the discrimination by one
and the same hand was more delicate than that by the two hands. In
these experiments touch-discrimination is of course not eliminated.
But a comparison of the results with those which we just now saw to
be gained in the case of touch-discrimination alone (apart from muscle-
discrimination), shows that we have here to do mainly with muscular
sensibility. And this conclusion is borne out by the observations of
Leyden and Bernhardt, according to which the sensibility of the skin
can be partially or even wholly destroyed without affecting materially
the discriminative appreciation of weights.1

Relation of Muscular Sense to Touch and Sight.
It is plain from this brief account of the Muscular
Sense that it holds a special relation to the two senses
of Touch and Sight. Each of the organs concerned,
the hand and the eye, is a highly mobile organ, sup-
plied with a complex and delicate muscular apparatus.
Through the possession of this mobility the organs
are able to multiply their impressions. Just as
the mobility of the insect's antennae enables it to

1 See Wundt, Physiol. Psychologic, I., Cap. 8, p. 344.

MUSCULAR SENSE. 139

have many more impressions of touch than it would
have if the organs were fixed, so the mobile arm,
hand, and fingers of the child greatly extend the
range of his passive impressions. By such move-
ments he is able to bring the most sensitive part of
the organ (the tips of the fingers) into contact with
a wide extent of objects. Similarly the mobility of
the eye, by which it is capable of bringing the most
sensitive part of the retina, that known as the yellow
spot, opposite to a number of objects in succession,
greatly increases the sweep of vision.

Another advantage closely connected with this is the
capability of a rapid succession of impressions, and that
by way of the most sensitive part of the organ. This
capability greatly facilitates fine discrimination in the
case of these organs. It is by transferring the fingers
rapidly from one surface to another (e.g., from, a rough
to a smooth, from a cold to a warm), that the corres-
ponding qualities are easily distinguished. Similarly
it is by passing the eye quickly from one colour to
another that the discrimination of colour becomes
perfected.

But this perfecting of passive impressions is only
one part of the gain resulting from the high degree
of mobility of the hand and the eye. Another and
no less important part is the added muscular experi-
ence which accompanies these movements. This
experience, as we shall see in the next chapter,
supplies these two senses with the means of ascer-
taining the position of objects or parts of objects in
space. The local discrimination of the skin and

140 SENSATION.

retina acquires its importance because of its intimate
association with muscular discrimination.

Finally the sensations of resistance clearly have the
closest connection with Touch proper. In touching
objects we usually exert some degree of muscular
force (in pushing, holding, or lifting), so that the
muscular sense habitually co-operates with passive
Touch.

Owing to the way in which the muscular sense
combines with the passive sensibility of touch and
sight we may call these two senses Active Senses.
By Active Touch and Active Sight will be meant
tactual and visual (retinal) sensibility supplemented
by the sensibility connected with the muscles by
which the sense-organs are moved or urged i;o move. 1

Sense-Impressions and Attention. For the pro-
duction of clear or distinct sensations, whether in
respect of degree, quality or local colour, it is not
enough that the sense-organ be stimulated. The
brain centres must react. Or to speak in psycho-
logical language, the mind must react in the form of
attention. Only by this means will a sensation rise into
the region of clear consciousness.2

Discrimination of Sensation. No impression is
definite or clear unless it is picked out and dis-
tinguished from others. When we are inattentive
our minds may be receiving a mass of visual, tactual and
other sensations which remain blurred and confused.

1 1 am indebted for the convenient expression ' Active Sense ' to Prof. G.
Groom Robertson.

2 On the probable physiological accompaniments of this reaction of atten-
tion, see above p. 77.

SENSE-DISCRIMINATION.

The direction of attention to any one of them sepa-
rates it from the adjacent crowd and gives distinct-
ness to it. This fact may also be expressed by saying
that it is ' differenced ' or discriminated. To have a
clear sensation is to have a consciousness of its dif-
ference from other sensations accompanying it or
immediately preceding it. As we have seen the
higher senses admit of much finer differences than
the lower. In the case of hearing, two impressions
when they immediately follow one another are finely
distinguished. And impressions of touch and sight
are similarly distinguished in succession by means of
the mobility of the organs. Finally in the case of
touch and sight two simultaneous impressions may
be sharply bounded off one from the other by means
of the discriminative local sensibility.

Classing of Sense-impressions. A clear sensation
involves not only a singling out of the impression
from present surroundings but a connecting of it by
way of assimilation with past impressions. In order, for
example, to have a definite sensation of a bitter taste,
or of a blue colour, the mind must instantly identify
it with, or assimilate it to, past sensations of the same
sort. This shows that clear sensations involve a germ of
retentiveness. They take on a familiar or recognisable
character owing to the persistence of traces of past
similar sensations. This combination of traces of
past sensations with a present one, which always
happens in the case of the adult, is seen with special
clearness in the case of faint impressions. A moment's
reflection will tell us that a faint smell, or a feeble
sound would not have the definiteness which it has,

142 SENSATION.

were it not reinforced by these traces of past im-
pressions.

It is to be noticed however that this classing in its
turn involves a further differencing of the present
sensation, namely a mental separation of it from past
unlike sensations. To identify for example the taste
of a particular wine I must 'mark it off' from the
tastes of other wines. If owing to the faiutness of
the impression or any other circumstance I could only
identify it as the taste of some wine, the classing
would be a rough one, and this because the discri-
mination was defective. We may say then that the
degree of definiteness of a sensation depends mainly
on the nicety with which it is differenced from present
and past unlike sensations.

Though discrimination and assimilation are two fundamentally dis-
tinct intellectual functions, and vary greatly in their relative strength
or perfection in different minds, they are, as has just been illustrated,
ordinarly carried on together and in close connection. This is certainly
true of the early stage of our intellectual life now considered. The
assimilation of a sense-impression always implies some amount of dis-
crimination. But does the discrimination of an impression always
involve assimilation ? Not quite in the same way. We often begin to
be dimly aware of a difference in a sensation or group of sensations
before we can assign any definite character to that which differs. Thus
we detect a strange or foreign ingredient of flavour in a familiar dish,
or of tone in a familiar tune, and yet are wholly unable for a while to
say what the intruder is like. Hence perhaps discrimination may be
regarded as the earliest and primordial mode of intellectual activity.1

Growth of Sense. From the above it follows that
there is an improvement of Sense as life advances.

* There might be a convenience in distinguishing two excellences of im-
pressions according as they are well discriminated and well identified. Thus
we might say that a distinct impression is one which is perfectly distinguished
from others (present or past), a clear or definite one, one which is not
simply discriminated but perfectly identified.

GKOWTH OF SENSE. 143

Although the child has the same sense-organs and the

o <->

same fundamental modes of sensibility as the man, his
sensations are more crude, vague, and ill-defined.
The repeated exercise of the senses in connection
with attention leads to the gradual differentiation of
sense-impressions, and the rendering of them definite
in their character. This growth of sense involves two
things : (a) an increasing power of sense-discrimina-
tion, and (b) a growth in the power of identifying
impressions through the cumulation of ' traces ' In
other words our senses become more delicate or acute
in distinguishing impressions, and more quick or keen
in identifying them.

Discrimination is measured by the smallness of (objective) difference
which is just recognisable. Assimilation is best tested by the feebleness
of the impression which can be identified. If, as often happens, the
impression is mixed up with others, as when a flavour is combined with
other flavours, the strength of the assimilative function is measured by
its relative force, that is to say, the ratio of its intensity to that of the
other impressions which accompany and tend to disguise it. The
smaller this is, the greater the assimilative capability.

Improvement of Sense-discrimination. As has been
said, the discriminative is the more important side
of sense. The infant's sensations at first run toge-
ther, and are not distinguished. The first distinc-
tions (next to that of the pleasurable and painful)
are those of degree or quantity. Thus the
impressions of light and darkness, of a bright and
a dark surface, are distinguished before those of
colours. As the senses are" exercised, and traces of
impressions stored up in the mind, discrimination
improves. With respect both to degree and to qua-
lity this improvement is gradual, beginning with the

144 SENSATION.

detection of broad and striking contrasts, and pro-
ceeding to that of finer differences. Thus the contrast
of loud and soft, of heavy and light is arrived at long-
before nice differences of loudness or weight. Simi-
larly the contrast of the reds with the blues is arrived
at before the finer differences between the several
sorts of red.1 In this way the senses become more
acute with exercise. It is found that practice in the
experiments referred to above, for example those
which aim at measuring the limits of local discrimina-
tion, considerably increases the capability of discri-
mination.2

Differences of Sense-capacity. Striking differences
of sense-capacity present themselves among different
individuals. These are of several kinds. Thus A
may be superior to B in respect of absolute sensibility
or the quickness of response to stimulus. The ten-
dency to respond to a very weak stimulus, coupled
with good retentive or identifying power, would con-
stitute a sense quick or keen m the full meaning of the
word. This may be illustrated by the case of an eye
that detected a very faintly shining star. Again A
and B may differ in the range of their sensibility
as measured by the strength of stimulus to which

1 The exact order in which the colours are distinguished is not certain,
and probably varies somewhat in the case of different children. M. Perez
speaks of a little girl, 50 days old, specially noticing blue, white, and red
though seemingly indifferent to others (Les trois premieres annees de I'enfant,
p. 90). Prof. Preyer experimented with his little boy at the age of two, and
found that he learnt to identify colours on hearing their names in the fol-
lowing order : yellow, red, lilac, green, and blue (Die Seele des Kindes, p. 6,
fcc.).

2 The varying effects of successive amounts of practice in the discrimi-
native and assimilative power are carefully given by Stumpf, Tcmpsycfwiogie,
§ 4, p. 79 seq.

DIFFERENCES OF SENSIBILITY, 145

the organ can respond. What is commonly called a
'sensitive' person is one whose sense-organs cannot
go on responding as the stimulus increases in
strength, but become fatigued.

From these differences we must carefully separate
inequalities in discriminative power. This is the truly
intellectual side of sense-capacity. It is found to
characterise the more educated and intellectual classes.
It stands in no constant relation to the preceding
differences. A may be more quickly responsive to a
stimulus than B, and may have a wider range of
sensibility, and yet not be more discriminative.1

These differences of discriminative capacity may be
general or special. A may surpass B all round in
discrimination. In such a case we are wont to think
of the difference as one of intellectual power. On the
other hand A may surpass B in some special mode of
discriminative sensibility as in colour or tone dis-
crimination. We find numerous and striking differ-
ences in both these respects, from colour-blindness or
note-deafness up to the finest discriminative sensi-
bility of the painter and musician. This kind of
difference is commonly regarded as involving an
inequality in the special sense concerned, but not in
intellectual power.

These inequalities are partly native and connected
with differences in the organs engaged. General dis-
criminative power probably implies from the first a
fine organisation of the brain as a whole, whereas good
special sensibility is connected rather with original

JSee Mr. Galton's new work, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its
Development, Section 'Sensitivity,' and following.

146 SENSATION.

structural excellence of the particular sense-organ con-
cerned. On the other hand not a small part of the
superiority of certain individuals (and races) over others
in respect of discriminative sensibility is the result of
exercise. This is strikingly illustrated in the excep-
tional delicacy attained by those who have occasion
to employ a sense much more than other people. In
this way we account for the fine tactual sensibility of
the blind, the delicate gustatory sensibility of wine
or tea tasters, and so on. It must be remembered
however that exercise does not improve capacity to
the same extent in all cases. Capability of growth is
one of the distinguishing features of individuals.
Thus it has been found that the improving effects of
practice in distinguishing two points with the skin are
not the same in all cases (Wundt, Physiol. Psycho-
logie, II., Cap. 11, § 2, p. 13).

APPENDIX.

A fairly complete account of the physiology of the Senses is contained in
Prof. Bernstein's Five Senses of Man. A detailed classification of the Sensa-
tions is to be found in Prof. Bain's Compendium of Mental Science, or the
larger work Senses and Intellect ( "Movement Sense and Instinct"). With this
may be compared the resume of the facts of Sensation in M. Taine's work, On
Intelligence, Pt. I., Book III. The results of the more exact research into the
quantitative aspects of Sensation may be studied in Prof. Ribot's Volume, La
Psychologie Allemande, or more fully in Prof. Wundt's work, Die Grundziige
der physiologischen Psychologie, 2nd Ed., Vol. I., Chap. VIII. and IX.. and
Part II., Chap. XI., § 2.

CHAPTER VI.

PERCEPTION.

Sensation and Perception. Sensations, even when
discriminated and classed, are not knowledge, but only
its raw-material. They become elements of know-
ledge when the mind refers them to some region of
space, that is to say, localises or externalises them.
In its complete form this external reference implies
the attribution of an impression as a quality to a par-
ticular object situated somewhere in space ; which
object is regarded as external to, or distinct from the
mind which perceives it. Thus we refer a sensation
of sound of a certain kind to a particular direction in
space, say to the right of us, and to a particular ob-
ject, say to a bell, and in doing so we attribute the
quality (or state) of sounding to this object.

This process of localising sensations and referring
them to definite objects is known as Perception.
Whenever we perceive a thing we are thus attributing
some sensation received to an object. To perceive an
orange, for example, is to refer a number of sensations
of light and shade and colour to an object called an
orange. The result of this process, that is to say, the
completed psychical product, is called a Percept.

148 PERCEPTION.

It will at once be seen from this that perception is
much more of an act of mind than sensation. In
sensation the mind is comparatively passive and
recipient ; in perception it not only attends to the
sensation (or sensations), discriminating and identifying
it, but passes from the impression to the object which
it indicates or makes known.

The meaning of the word perception, like that of the closely related
term sensation, has varied with different writers. In common life we
use the expression for almost any kind of knowledge, as when one says
" I perceive a similarity between two ideas," or " a connection between
premises and conclusion ". And earlier thinkers employed the term in
much the same way.1 Eecent psychologists, however, restrict the word
to that act of the mind by which we discern an external object by way
of the Senses. This cognition of outer things is sometimes called
External or Sense Perception, to distinguish it from the mind's cogni-
tion of its own states which is named Internal Perception.

The best way of denning the relation of Sensation to Perception is a
question of some difficulty. Some writers would include the whole
intellectual manipulation of a sensation under the head of perception.
Thus the discrimination of a sense-impression would be a part of the
act of perception.2 There is some convenience, however, in confining
the term perception to the second part of the process, namely, the
referring of a sensation to the object-world, or the giving it an objective
significance.8

This perceptual process, properly so-called, has been variously de-
scribed as projecting the sensation outwards into the external region ;
interpreting it as a mark or sign of an objective existence, &c. A
common way of describing it is by saying that in perception we are

1 See Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, II., XXIV. (p. 93).

2 Sir W. Hamilton distinguishes between Sensation and Perception in this
way. The former is for him (as we have seen) a phenomenon of feeling, while
the latter is a process of cognition or intellection. Conceiving the distinction
in this way he seeks to establish the proposition that perception and sensa-
tion (like knowledge and feeling in general) are always in the inverse ratio of
each other. (See Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. II., XXIV. ; cf. edition of
Reid's Works, p. 863.)

3 For a careful examination of Hamilton's doctrine, and of the relation of
sensation to perception, see H. Spencer's Principles of Psychology, Vol. II.,
Ft. VI., Ch. XVIII., §§ 353, 354.

NATUEE OF PEKCEPTION. 149

assigning an effect (a sensation) to its cause (an outer object). But
this is hardly a correct account of the process in all cases. When for
example I have an impression of colour and refer it to an object, say
an orange, I do not think of the quality of colour with which I endow
the object as the cause of the sensation. The real cause of the sensation
is of course the agent known as light which is reflected from the body ;
but in perceiving an object we do not think of this, and may, indeed, be
wholly ignorant of its existence.

Intra-organic and Extra-organic reference of Sen-
sations. All classes of sensations are in some way
referred to external things or externalised. The
lowest class, the organic sensations, are referred to
a part of the organism itself, as when we localise a
sensation of burning or tickling in a certain part of
the skin. This may be called intra-organic reference
of a sensation. It is known as the localisation of
sensation. In the case of the special senses there is
a further extra-organic reference, as when we say we
taste sugar, smell a rose, hear a sound to the right of
us, and so on. Here the mind does not attend to the
sensation as such and localise it, or apprehend its
seat, but passes from the subjective phenomenon, the
sensation, to the object which it serves to qualify.
What is commonly called Perception is this reference
of impressions of light, sound, touch, &c., under the
form of qualities, as brightness, harshness, hardness,
to things external to, that is lying outside the or-
ganism.

Perception the Invariable Accompaniment of Sen-
sation. In adult life there never occurs a sensation
which, provided it is discriminated from others, is not
at once referred to an object in space. The reference
may be more or less definite and complete. Thus a
sound may be referred to a particular object, as a

150 PEECEPT10N.

belfry, or only to some unknown object vaguely
localised in space. But in a perfect or imperfect form
such a reference always takes place. And it takes
place so automatically (that is to say without any in-
tention or wish on our part), and so instantaneously,
that it is difficult for the student at first to distinguish
the act of perception from the mere sensation.

This applies to discriminated sensations. The difference between
simply having a sensation and perceiving is best illustrated in the case
of vague undiscriminated sensations. We often have sensations of
contact, &c., to which we do not attend, and which in consequence are
accompanied by little, if any, of the perceptual or localising element.
In waking up we may not infrequently distinguish a first stage of vague
sensation followed by another of clear discrimination and localisation.

Perception the result of Acquisition. There is every
reason to suppose that this simple act of referring
impressions to things or objects in space is the result
of a long process of acquisition or learning from ex-
perience. An infant in the first weeks of life betrays
no signs of recognising the bodily seat of his sensa-
tions of heat and cold, pressure, and so on. Nor does
he show by an appropriate turning of the head that
he perceives the direction of a sound, the impression
of which he evidently receives. Perception is pro-
bably aided from the first by definite inherited ten-
dencies ; but it is only fully developed by the aid of
individual experience.

Perceptual Process Analysed. When on hearing a
particular sound we say * A bell is sounding in such
or such a direction,' we discriminate and identify the
sensation. This is obviously the first stage of the
process. If we had never had an impression before

NATURE OF PERCEPTION. 151

similar to this In some respect we could not now refer
it to a particular portion of space or to a definite kind
of object.

The second stage, that of perception proper,
involves the recalling of other sense-impressions
besides that of the bell-sound. As will be shown
more fully by and by, when we say (on the ground
of an auditory sensation alone) ' we hear a bell,' it is
because in our past experience this particular sensa-
tion of hearing has become conjoined, co-ordinated,
or associated with other unlike sensations, more
particularly touch and sight sensations, passive and
active. If we had never handled or seen a bell
before, the present sensation would not be referred to
such an object. The percept is thus the result of a
process of grouping. It is a complex psychical
phenomenon, of which the parts or elements are
sensations.

It is to be noticed that this grouping of sense-
elements involves a germ of representation. The
tactual and visual sensations answering to the feel
and look of the bell are not actually present when
we hear it and recognise it by the sound. They are
revived, recalled or reproduced. In referring the
impression of sound to the bell we are mentally
representing, picturing or imagining the look and feel
of the bell. A part at least of our meaning in saying
that we hear a bell in such a direction or at such a
distance is that we know we might move in a par-
ticular way, say to the right, and come in view of, and
into contact with, the bell, that is to say, renew these
visual and tactual experiences. Hence perception

152 PERCEPTION.

has been described as " a presentative representative
process " * It contains not only a presentative
element, the actual sensation of the moment, but
also a mass of representative elements, picturings of
sights and touches.

Some writers do not seem to regard the presence of a representative
element as essential to perception. Thus Prof. Wundt regards a com-
plete presentation (Vorstellung) as differing from a mere sensation
simply by its complexity. Hence a series of sound-sensations appre-
hended in their time-order constitutes a Vorstellung.2 It may however
be said that even here the perception of the sounds as external, that is
to say, travelling from a certain direction of space, implies a reference
to touch-experience.

Since in perception the mind thus passes from an actual sense-
impression to the representation of other sense-experiences (movements
and attendant sensations), it bears a certain analogy to a process of
inference. Thus by a little forcing of language we may be said in
hearing the bell to infer the possibility of certain touch and sight
experiences. Accordingly some writers have not hesitated to describe
the process as one of " unconscious inference." 8

Yet while thus connecting perception with higher intellectual pro-
cesses, we must not lose sight of the difference between the two. The
perception of an object as presented to us at the moment takes the form
(in our consciousness) of an immediate cognition or ' intuition,' as dis-
tinguished from a mediate cognition or inference. In other words, the
percept involves the immediate assurance of the presence of the whole
object. Hence psychologists commonly speak of percepts in their
totality as presentations. And by soVoing, they mark them off from
those mental states which are purely and manifestly representative,
namely, images and ideas.

Definition of Perception. By aid of the foregoing
brief analysis we may define perception as follows .
Perception is a complex mental act or process, involv-
ing presentative and representative elements. More
particularly, perception is that process by which the

1 By Mr. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II., Part VIII., Chap. II.,
p. 513.

2 Physiol. Psychologic, II., Cap. 11, § 1 ; Cap. 12, § 1.

8 See my work, Illusions, p. 22 ; cf. Stumpf, Tonpsychologic, p. 90.

NATURE OF PEECEPTION". 153

mind, after discriminating and identifying a sense-
impression (simple or complex), supplements it by an
accompaniment or escort of revived sensations, the
whole aggregate of actual and revived sensations
being solidified or * integrated ' into the form of a
percept, that is, an apparently immediate apprehension
or cognition of an object now present in a particular
locality or region of space. This definition may be
accepted provisionally. We shall be better able to
judge of its appropriateness after we have analysed
the perceptual process more fully.

It will be seen from the above that perception is essentially a process
of grouping. It is the simplest form of the combination of psychical
elements in a complex whole. Since the combination of elements (e.g.,
sound, touch, and sight of the bell) depends on the past connection of
the experiences in time (either as simultaneous, or as successive), it ia
customary to speak of the process as an illustration of the Law of Con-
tiguous Association, which will be fully expounded in the next chapter.
It is, however, important to note that the process of association here
assumes a peculiar form. Instead of distinct psychical states succeeding
one another, as in the case of what is known as the association of ideas,
we have an apparently simultaneous occurrence of a mass of psychical
phenomena inseparably fused together.

Physiological Conditions of Perception. Just as perception is
more complex than sensation, so the nervous concomitants are (presum-
ably) more complex in the first instance than in the second. Thus
since perception is a reaction of the mind on a sense-impression it would
seem to involve in a special manner the centres of Attention. Again,
inasmuch as it includes the grouping of (disparate) sensations, those of
sight, touch, &c., it may be said to have as its further physiological
condition the co-ordination of different nerve-centres, optic centre,
tactual centre, and so on. This grouping embraces not only sensory
but motor centres. As we shall see later on, perception contains an
active (motor) element. The process of grouping appears to be effected
by certain higher and more complex centres.1

1 See Dr. Maudsley, Physiology of Mind, Chap. IV. The difficult task of
assigning the nervous concomitants of perception has recently been attempted
by Prof. G. Sorgi (Teoria Fisiologica della Percezione), who lays emphasis on
tao co-operation of an outgoing nervous process.

154 PERCEPTION,

Special Channels of Perception. It has been ob-
served that every sensation is interpreted by an act
of perception, or, in other words, is worked up as an
element into that compound mental state which we
call a percept. Thus we refer sensations of smell to
objects as when one says * I smell violets/ just as we
refer sensations of light and colour to objects as when
one says ' I see a candle '. Nevertheless when we talk
of perceiving we generally refer to knowledge gained
at the time through one of the higher senses, and
more particularly sight. To perceive a thing means
in everyday parlance to see it. Where sight is
wanting touch assumes the function of the leading
perceptual sense. Sight and touch are thus in a
special manner channels of perception.

Touch and Sight as Sources of Knowledge. The
reason why the senses of Touch and Sight are thus
distinguished has been hinted at in the previous
chapter. We there saw that they were marked off
from the other senses by having local discrimination
and an accompaniment of muscular sensation. Owing
to these circumstances these two senses supply us
with a wider and more varied knowledge of objects
than the other senses. In smelling a flower I can
only apprehend one aspect or quality of a thing, its
odour : in looking at it I instantly take in a number
of aspects, as its colour, shape, and size.

The additional knowledge gained by means of local
discrimination and movement is moreover of a most
important kind. To begin with, what we mean by
perception in its simplest form is externalising or
referring a sensation to a point in space. Now it is

TOUCH AND SIGHT. 155

only touch and sight which give us any direct know-
ledge of space, of the situation of objects with reference
to one another and to ourselves. In hearing, as we
shall see by and by, we find out the direction and
distance of an object (so far as we find them out at
all) in a circuitous way.

Again touch and sight directly make known to us
the space-qualities of bodies, figure and size, and this
they do by help of local discrimination supplemented
by movement. With these ' geometrical ' or space
properties of bodies must be coupled the ' mechanical '
or force properties, resistance under its several forms
of hardness, weight, &c., as made known by active
touch.

These qualities are of much greater importance than
those made known by the other senses, such as the
taste or flavour of a substance and the sound or sono-
rousness of a body. We know more about an object
when we have ascertained its shape or size than when
we have heard its sound.

The superior importance of such qualities as size, figure, and weight
turns on a number of considerations. To begin with, all objects have
some sort of figure, size, and so on. What we mean by a thing or a
material body is something made up of figure, size, hardness and weight,
&c. On the other hand there are many things which have little or no
smell or taste. Again, the former qualities are comparatively speaking
constant or unchanging in the case of the same object. A stone is
always the same as to its size, hardness and weight. On the other hand
a body is only sonorous when put into a particular condition of vibra-
tion, and a fragrant body varies considerably in the degree of its frag-
rance according to circumstances. Finally, different persons agree very
much more respecting the size or weight of an object than respecting
its taste or smell : the former impressions vary less with the state
of the individual organ than the latter. Hence the former aspects
of objects have been erected into a higher class under the name

156 PERCEPTION.

of 'Primary Qualities,' while the latter have been marked off as
' Secondary Qualities '. 1

Tactual Perception. Although, as has been observed,
we commonly mean by perception visual perception,
touch (by which we mean active touch) must be
regarded as an important channel of perception,
especially in early life. As we have seen, we obtain
by means of this sense the largest amount of im-
portant knowledge respecting objects. The bulk,
figure, hardness, weight of a thing are directly known
to touch. Hardness and weight are known only to
this sense, and these qualities are obviously an im-
portant part of what we call material objects, or
bodies. Hence touch seems to bring us into the
closest relation to external things. It is for all of
us the sense to which we make appeal when we
want to be certain of a thing being present. We
call a thing, of whose reality we are sure, something
'tangible'- In order to understand what we can
know of things through touch alone we must of
course suppose sight away as in the case of the
blind.

Tactual Perception of Space. As already observed ,
touch gives us direct knowledge of space, of the posi-
tion of points both in our own organism and in exter-
nal bodies. By this sense we apprehend immediately
where objects lie relatively to one another and to our-

1 The distinction here touched on has played a prominent part in philoso-
phical discussions respecting the real nature of external objects. (See Sir
W. Hamilton's Edition of Reid's works, note D). For a full account of the
psychological distinction see Mr. Spencer's Principles of Psychology, II., Ft.
VI., Chap. XL, and following.

TACTUAL PERCEPTION. 157

selves, and what is their size and figure. We have
now to examine how these perceptions are built up.
Let us try to retrace the steps by which a blind child
would explore the world about him, or rather that part
of it which is directly accessible to him.

Perception of the Situation of Objects through
Movement It has already been observed that passive
touch is inadequate to give us knowledge of space.
The local discrimination connected with the distinct-
ness of the tactual nerve-elements would convey no
local knowledge, no information about the position
of points in space. In order to this, the active
experiences of movement are necessary. It is the
moving hand of the child which finds out the situa-
tion of things in space.

In order to understand the help given by move-
ment we will imagine that the child has only one
finger-tip and not an extended hand, and so is able
to have only one tactual sensation at a time. This
sensitive point he can carry about just as the insect
can carry its antennae from one object to another.

Every movement from point to point of space
which the child thus performs is accompanied by a
definite and distinct series of 'sensations of move-
ment* which series as a whole underlies his con-
sciousness or perception of that movement. The
character of this series of sensations will vary
according to the direction of the movement. Thus
in carrying his finger from his breast to a point a
little in front of him, say the edge of a table, he
has a distinctly marked series of sensations. These
several sensations answer to the successive positions

158 PERCEPTION.

of the moving organ. A movement having a range
of two feet has a different series from that of another
movement of the same direction having only half
this range. The final sensation answering to the
position of the limb when brought to a stand-still,
supplemented by the representation of the preceding
members of the series, may be said to supply the
materials for a rudimentary perception of a move-
ment of a given direction and range.

The series of sensations here referred to is a complex one made up
of a succession of 'sensations of innervation' and of another of sen-
sations of contraction. These last again probably include, as we have
seen, sensations arising directly from changing conditions (degrees of
contraction) of the muscles, and from accompanying changes in the
tension of the skin, &c. The sensations of innervation constitute a
uniform state of mind, though there are appreciable differences of degree
at different stages of the movement. The sensations of contraction vary
in a more marked way from point to point. The sensation by which
we know the position of the moving organ at any moment is partly one
of innervation (in so far as the limb is held in that position) and partly
one of contraction.

This series of sensations becomes solidified, and the
resulting perception more complete, by repetitions of
the movement. Each time the child executes this
particular movement he experiences the same sequence
of sensations. This series becomes distinct by varia-
tion of experience, that is to say by executing other
movements havine a different direction, a different
extent, or both.

All this time, however, there can only be a very vague
perception of space as made up of coexisting points
or positions. The perception becomes more clear in
different ways. For one thing, changes in velocity
are important. By varying the pace of the movement

TACTUAL PERCEPTION. 159

the child finds that the duration of the several dis-
tinguishable sensations, and of the series as a whole,
becomes shorter or longer. The interval between the
initial and final sensations, answering to the initial
and final positions of the limb, increases or decreases
according to the amount of energy thrown into the
muscles. In this way the series would come to be
recognised as a fixed order in time, the duration of
which can be varied indefinitely.

A new and much more important element is added
to the perception of coexistence or coadjacent points
by the experience' of reversing the movement. In
carrying his finger from a point B in front of him to
his starting point A, his own body, the child has a
different experience. New muscles are called into
play, and those previously engaged are relaxed. At
the same time the sensations answering to the succes-
sive positions of the hand are the same as before, only
the order is reversed.1

By innumerable repetitions of this complementary
pair of movements, together with other comple-
mentary pairs corresponding to other points of space,
the child would gradually learn to map out the
several regions immediately environing him, to localise
objects relatively to the position of his own body at
any moment, as well as to the positions of other
external objects.

By aid of the movements of the two arms, and
still more by help of leg-movements or locomotion

1 These would include, in addition to the sensations experienced in pas-
sive movement, as when a person bends our arm, we not resisting, other sensa-
tions corresponding to the relative degrees of tension of the opposing muscles.

160 PERCEPTION.

the range of this tactual exploration would be greatly
enlarged. Our imaginary blind child walking about
the room and feeling out towards this and that object
would gradually piece together, so to speak, a number
of regions of space answering to different positions
of his own body.

The ascertaining of a fixed spatial order among objects supposes that
certain objects are at rest or occupy the same position. So long as the
child does not move, the position of his own body would be the point of
reference. In moving about however, this position varies, and then the
situation of any object must be estimated relatively to that of some
other object supposed to be fixed. The changes in the position of
objects, such as the chairs, &c., would be ascertained in the same way.

Perception of Form and Size through Movement.
In very much the same way as he finds out the relative
situations of different objects, such as the several
pieces of furniture in a room, the child might discover
the shape and size of an object. Thus he could pass
his finger over a person's face in different directions.
In so doing he would have not only two tactual sensa-
tions at the beginning and end of his excursion, as he
had before, but an unbroken series of tactual sensations
accompanying the series of motor sensations. By
varying the velocity of the movement, by reversing
it, and by executing a number of movements in dif-
ferent directions, he would arrive at a rudimentary
perception of a fixed order of tangible points or an
extended surface. The range of this touch-accom-
panied movement in different directions would give
him a knowledge of the figure and size of this surface.
This perception would be rendered still more distinct
by passing the finger along the outline or contour of
the surface.

TACTUAL PERCEPTION. 161

In this way some knowledge of space-relations might
be obtained by movement alone. What this would
amount to, it is impossible for us to conceive. Every-
body's tactual acquaintance with space is gained by
way of an extended surface, the hand. Let us now
enquire how this second important property of the
tactual organ aids in the acquisition of this know-
ledge.

Tactual Perception proper. At first the blind child
when touching a surface with his outspread hand
would have no distinct knowledge of the locality of
the several impressions. Though these are somehow
distinct from one another from the beginning, yet
this distinctness is not at first interpreted as a local or
spatial difference. Thus the child does not know that
one finger is situated in a particular region relatively
to the thumb. This knowledge is acquired by means
of movement.

Interpretation of Local Character of Sensations by
Movement. In order to understand this let us now
conceive our blind child to move not his finger-tip
merely but his open hand. Suppose he moves his
hand over a fixed point, say the tip of a stick or
pencil. He now has a series of motor sensations and
a perception of movement, and at the same time a
series of touch-sensations received by way of distinct
nerve-fibres, and therefore having unlike local charac-
ters. Thus he has the series of touch-sensations
answering to thumb, first, second, third, and fourth
fingers. Let us represent the local characters of these
by the symbols 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Every time he moves
his hand this way he has the same order 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,

152 PERCEPTION.

the succession being more or less rapid according to
the amount of energy thrown into the movement and
its resulting velocity. A reverse movement gives the
same series of local characters, only in a reverse order,
5 4, 3, 2, 1. By repeating these movements again
and ao-ain the child gradually finds out that a touch-
sensation of a particular local quality, say 5, has a
definite fixed position in the series, that a certain
kind and amount of movement1 is always necessary
before 5 follows 1. When this stage is reached the
sensations having the character 5 are localised rela-
tively to those having the character 1, &c.

By varying this movement, that is to say, by carry-
ing the hand over the point in other directions, the
sensations having the local quality 5 would be localised
relatively to those of other points of the hand. Thus
sensations received by way of the tip of the 4th finger
and having the local character 5a, would be defined
relatively to those received by way of a point at one
of the joints and having the local character 5?>; and
so on of the rest. In this manner the sensations
received by way of all the several parts of the hand
would be gradually localised relatively to one another,
in other words, they would be ordered in space.

Simultaneous Perceptions of Points. Intuition of
Surface. When this stage is reached the tactual per-
ception of space is perfected by means of a simultaneous
group of touch-sensations. The child laying his out-
spread hand over a surface, as the face of a stranger,

1 The amount of movement is of course determined by the product of its
duration into its velocity. The velocity being the same, the duration is all
that need be considered.

TACTUAL PERCEPTION. 163

would receive at one and the same moment a number
of touch-impressions having distinct local references.
Thus the impression corresponding to the lips would
instantly be localised with reference to that corre-
sponding to the tip of the nose, each of the eye-brows,
and so on. By such a simultaneous group of touch-
sensations the knowledge of space as made up of
coexistent parts would be rendered far more distinct.1
Indeed, it may be safely asserted that our little ex-
plorer would, by aid of this experience of a multitude
of sensations of contact with their several motor sug-
gestions at one and the same moment, reach a new
kind of space-perception. For the first time the
space-order would now be clearly differenced from a
mere time-order, or a renewable and variable succes-
sion. In other words, the tactual perception of space
is a product of two factors, movement and muscular
sensation, and a plurality of sensations of contact,
distinguished from the beginning by different local
characters, and so capable of taking on distinct as-
sociations of movement.

By using the two outspread hands a much^ more extensive range of
simultaneous space-apprehension would be possible. Again, by passing
the outspread hand or hands over a large surface, as a wall, a succession
of such simultaneous perceptions would be obtained. By varying these
successions the several regions thus apprehended by distinct simultaneous
perceptions would be joined together, and so a more extended repre-
sentation acquired.

1 It is not implied here that there is a perfectly simultaneous attention to
these several impressions at any one moment. It is enough that the impres-
sions are simultaneously presented, and that the attention can rapidly pass
from one to the other, while those not directly attended to are still obscurely
detected. This is well brought out in the similar case of retinal perception
by Mr. H. Spencer, Princiyks of Psychology, Vol. II., Pt. VI., Chap. XIV.,
p. 184, &c.

164 PERCEPTION.

The ordering of touch-sensations of the hand in space is effected not
only by means of this member's own movements but also by means of
movements of the other hand over its surface. The child finds out the
relative position of finger and thumb, finger-tip and finger-joint, &c.,
of each hand by passing the fingers of the other hand over these parts.
That is to say he explores the surface of his own body just like the sur-
face of an external or foreign object. This factor in localisation will be
dealt with more fully presently.1

It is important to add that the tactual perception
of space includes the apprehension of the third dimen-
sion, depth or distance from the observer, as well as
the two surface dimensions. In moving the hands
away from and towards the body the child discovers
the direction and distance of objects relatively to this
starting-point. Similarly by passing his hand along
a receding object, say the horizontal surface of a table,
he would acquire a perception of its several parts as
nearer and further, advancing and receding.

F Perception of Solidity. Finally he could obtain a
jrception of a solid body, that is an object having
bulk and not merely surface, by simultaneous tactual
perception. Thus if the object is very small, as a
ruler, he can grasp it with one hand ; if larger, as a

xThe fundamental idea here expounded that the localisation of touch-
impressions and the tactual perception of space is acquired by help of the
experience of movement may be said to underlie all recent attempts to trace
the genesis of the space-perception. This applies not only to the theories of
Prof. Bain (Senses and Intellect 'Sense of Touch,' p. 181, &c.) and Mr. H.
Spencer (Principles of Psychology, II., Pt. VI., Chap. XIII.), but also to
German theories, such as Lotze's doctrine of Local Signs in its later and more
developed form, and Wundt's theory of a synthesis ni'skin and muscular sensa-
tions. (See Lotze, Metaphysic, Bk. III., Chap. IV. ; Wundt, Phys. Psychol., II.,
Cap. II., § 5.) It is to be added that the German psychologists rightly
emphasize the part played in the development of the perception of space, by
the extended surface of the skin, with its capability of yielding us at the same
moment a number of locally distinct sensations (see especially Wundt, loc.
tit., p. 34).

TACTUAL PERCEPTION. 165

ball, lie can clasp it between his two hands ; if still
larger, as a cushion, he can fold it within his arms.1
In so doing he experiences a multitude of touch-sen-
sations which are instantly localised with reference
one to another. Along with these he has a number
of sensations of contraction which immediately make
known to him the bent position of his hands and
arms. And thus he reaches at once a clear perception
of the object as a solid or cubical body, having a
certain figure and size (bulk) as a whole.

Perception of Single Things and of a Number. At
first there would be no clear discrimination between
a single object and a number of objects. Continuous
quantity or magnitude, and discrete quantity or
number, would impress the child's rnind in much the
same way. The one perception would be gradually
differentiated from the other by the recognition of
certain marks. One and the same surface would allow
of a continuous movement accompanied by touch, and
of continuous simultaneous series of tactual sensa-
tion (when the hand was spread over it). A plurality
of objects, as a row of bricks, would be distinguished
by an interruption of the tactual sensation in the case
of movement, and by the discontinuity of the series
of sensations of contact in the case of. the hand at
rest.2 Experience would aid in the discrimination by
supplying a knowledge of the relative positions of

1 If the object were a very large one, as a table, this simultaneous appre-
hension of its several parts as those of a solid body, would of course be im-
possible. Its solidity in that case could only be perceived by the aid of
locomotion, and a succession of touch-perceptions.

2 The full experience corresponding to a perception of a single object would
include the ability to move away from a point back again to the same point
without losing the sensation of contact, and without reversing the movement.

166 PERCEPTION.

points of the bodily surface, and of the alterations
of these by movements of the organs. In this way
the child would learn to interpret the double sensa-
tion of contact of the two hands brought close to one
another as answering to one solid object. On the
other hand, he would in general ascribe simultaneous
impressions of contact by way of the palm and the
back of the hand to two objects.1 This tendency
again would be checked in certain cases by a fuller
knowledge of the figure of bodies. Thus the child

o o

would discover that a concave surface, as the inner
surface of a basin, could simultaneously coine into
contact with the outer surfaces of the thumb and
fourth finger.

Perception of Moving Objects. Along with these
perceptions of space, and of one and many objects in
space, the child would gain the perception of things
as moving, or as changing their position. This would
take place by following the moving object with the
hand.2 The perception of ' objective/ as distinguished
from 'subjective movement' (that is to say, of the
movement of the object, and not simply of the hand),
would be based on the persistence of one touch-sensa-
tion (as distinguished from a series of unlike ones, as
in the case of moving the hand over a surface 3) ; and

1 This tendency is illustrated in the familiar experiment of crossing the
third and the fourth finger and placing a marble between them. Under these
circumstances we seem t» be touching two objects. (For an explanation of
this error, see my work on Illusions, p. 72).

2 It might also be ascertained (later on) by a succession of sensations of
contact, as when a second person stroked the child's hand or face.

8 The experience of following a moving object would be marked off from
that of passing over a smooth surface by the absence of the sensations con-
nected with the rubbing or friction.

TACTUAL PERCEPTION. 167

also on the recognition that the direction and velocity
of the movement were determined for him but not by
him. The full recognition of the movement as such,
would only arise after the tactual space-perception
had been developed. It would then be recognised as
a movement in space, from one point to another.

Perception of Temperature. By means of Touch
we obtain a knowledge not only of the situation of
an object in space, its form and its magnitude, but
also of other qualities. Of these temperature is the
simplest quality. By touching a stone, a piece of
cloth, a human hand, and so on, a child distinguishes
degrees of temperature and refers corresponding de-
grees of heat (or ' cold ') to the objects. The know-
ledge of 'objective' temperature, however, gained in
this way, is very uncertain. As observed in the pre-
ceding chapter, our sensations of temperature vary
considerably according to the 'subjective' tempera-
ture, that is, the degree of heat of the part of the
body which touches, or (more correctly) the relation
of this to the temperature of the surface touched.
We have continually to verify our subjective impres-
sions of temperature by comparing them with those
of others, and by resorting to physical tests.

Perception of Hardness and Softness. Of more
importance than the knowledge of this secondary and
highly variable quality is that of hardness and soft-
ness, elasticity and inelasticity, weight, and roughness
and smoothness, in their varying degrees. The re-
cognition of these qualities, unlike that of tempera-
ture, involves a variety of sensations. They are
perceptions reached by way of Active Touch. Thus

168 PERCEPTION.

it is plain that a child learns the several degrees
of hardness of objects by exerting muscular energy in
pressing, squeezing, and pushing against them. In
so doing, however, he receives touch-sensations proper
as well. The recognition of a certain degree of hard-
ness or inelasticity is based on the relation between
these experiences. If the substance is a soft one, as
clay, the exertion of force is followed by little in-
crease of sensation of pressure : it yields to the force,
and there is a certain amount of movement. On the
other hand, if the substance is a harder one, as wood,
increase of exertion is followed by increase in the
intensity of the sensation of pressure, and little if any
movement.

Perception of Weight. In like manner the percep-
tion of weight involves experiences of Active Touch.1
We usually estimate the weight of a substance by
lifting it in the hand. The heavier the body, the
greater will be the degree of nervous energy expended
in sustaining it, and the greater the attendant tactual
sensation of pressure. The co-operation of this last
with muscular sensation is seen conspicuously in
lifting a body by means of a string, when the differ-
ence of pressure makes itself felt by distinctly painful
sensations of various intensities.

Perception of Roughness and Smoothness of Sur-
face. Lastly we have the perception of roughness and
smoothness of surface in their various degrees. The
roughness of a surface, as that of a piece of undressed

1 This is usually the case, though when the objects are not very heavy
their weight may be appreciated by sensations of pressure alone, as when the
hand is laid on the table and light weights placed on the hand.

TACTUAL PERCEPTION. 169

stone, may be recognised to some extent by merely
laying the outspread hand on the surface. In this
case the perception of roughness arises by means of
the different intensities of the sensations of pressure
received by way of different points of the hand, and
definitely localised in these points. This experience
at once suggests inequalities of surface, projecting and
receding points. But the perception is much more
distinct when the hand moves over the surface. In
this case all the little unevennesses are made known
as impediments to movement. Such a rough surface
offers resistance to movement, whereas the hand glides
easily over a smooth surface as that of marble.

With these perceptions of hardness of substance and weight of bodies
are closely connected those of resisting force, whether of a body at rest
or in motion. Thus in trying to move a heavy body as a table, a boy
estimates its inertia or resisting force by the degree of muscular exer-
tion made, 'together with its effects, whether there be no movement
accompanied ^y certain intense sensations of pressure, or a movement
of a certain rapidity, accompanied by less intense sensations of pressure.
Similarly in the case of estimating momentum, as when a boy tries to
stop another boy running, or a football.

It is to be observed that /ChlTessential nature of
perception as a presentatiMeTr^resentative process is
illustrated even in these apparently direct perceptions.
Thus after appreciating weight by active touch, the
passive tactual experience will be enough to call up
the corresponding muscular experience. Similarly
after gaming a complete perception of roughness or
smoothness by the aid of movement, mere contact
of the hand with the surface will suggest this fuller
active experience. Thus throughout, in respect of
qualities like hardness, weight, &c., as well as of

170 PERCEPTION.

geometrical qualities (figure and magnitude), tactual
perception involves an element of representation.

Tactual Intuition of Things. By means of these
several tactual perceptions a blind child is able to
obtain distinct intuitions of things. Thus in handling
a piece of iron he has one group of sensations (of tem-
perature, weight, roughness, &c.), while in taking up
a piece of wood he has another group. The several
sensations of each group must first be distinguished
one from another, and the corresponding percep-
tions of definite qualities (smoothness, weight, &c.)
arise in the mind ; after this the group as a whole is
distinguished from other groups. By ascertaining
the shape, magnitude, weight, temperature, &c., of
each individual object, and each kind of object, as an
orange, a key, our imaginary blind child would ac-
quire a wide grasp of its distinctive characters or
qualities.

The perception of the object as a thing persisting
in space implies repeated tactual perceptions. Every
time our supposed blind child handles a particular
object, as his toy-horse, his cat, and so on, he has the
same aggregate of sensations or perceives the same
assemblage of qualities. And it is this recurrence of
a perfectly similar group of tactual experiences which
would supply him with a basis for the recognition of
the thing as persisting, as remaining one and the
same (whether or not in the same locality). A lesser
amount of resemblance in the group of tactual ex-
periences supplies the ground of recognising a thing
as one of a kind, as an orange or a book.

Finally, in thus identifying the group of tactile

TACTUAL PERCEPTION. 171

properties the child would apprehend the presence oi
a whole object with its other qualities not directly
presented to sense at the moment. Thus in touching
an orange he would by means of the complex of
touch-experiences identify the object as an orange,
that is to say an object with a particular taste ; in
touching a bell he would similarly identify the object
throughout, in respect of its sound as well as its
tactile qualities. Observation of the blind shows
that these tactual intuitions of things are capable of
being highly developed in respect of discriminative
fineness and of rapidity.1

Tactual and Visual Perception. The above brief
account of tactual perception may suffice to indicate
its peculiar character. It is the most direct mode of
apprehending things. The presentative element is
large in proportion to the representative. On the other
hand it is limited in its range at any one moment.
Our imaginary blind child would only be able to seize
with his mind directly at any one time a small portion
of the external world, namely those objects which
were within his reach and capable of being simul-
taneously touched.

Visual perception stands in marked contrast to this
direct but limited mode of apprehension. In normal

1 It is not meant by this that a child has a distinct idea of a quality
before he apprehends a thing. The idea of a quality implies that of a thing
as the ' substance ' in which the quality inheres, and cannot therefore be
attained before the thing is apprehended. The idea of weight, roundness of
form, and so on, is, as we shall see later, an abstract idea and only gained
after objects have been compared under certain common aspects. What is
meant in the above is that the child intuits a thing as such only by means of
a certain recurring group of sense-experiences. These, when afterwards reflected
on, are consciously taken up into the idea of so many qualities.

172 PERCEPTION.

circumstances seeing is, as has been remarked, the
dominant mode of perception. It greatly transcends
touching in the range of its grasp of external things.
Thus in vision we apprehend objects not only near
us, but at vast distances from us, such as the
heavenly bodies. Again, by sight we are capable of
apprehending in a single moment a wide group of
objects in different directions and at different dis-
tances from us, that is to say a whole region of the
external world.

The predominance of visual perception is illustrated by a number of
facts. In smelling, tasting, or touching an object which we do not see,
the corresponding visual presentation (visual form with colour more or
less distinct) is instantly recalled. Similarly a word always suggests
to our mind first of all, and most irresistibly, the visual appearance of
a thing. And this holds good with respect to objects which are of most
interest to us in relation to other senses. Thus the word ' bell' calls up
the bell-form before the bell-sound, the word ' orange,' the particular
form and colour of the fruit before its taste.

The full significance of sight is brought out by the
modern theory of vision, named after its founder Bishop
Berkeley, the Berkeleian. According to this view, this
sense derives much of its apparently direct knowledge
of external things from touch. That is to say, the
visual perception of space is representative in that it
gathers up and symbolises the more direct tactual
perception. This characteristic of vision, though often
regarded as a defect, may be viewed as its peculiar
excellence. It is only because it can thus embody and
signify the results of active touch that sight is fitted
to take the lead as the channel of perception.

Visual Perception of Space. Here, as in the case
of touch, the local discriminative sensibility (of the

VISUAL PERCEPTION. 173

retina) would not suffice to give us a knowledge of
5pace. This must be supplemented by experiences of
movement. In order to understand the visual per-
ception of space we must first enquire into the nature
of these motor experiences. And for the sake of
simplifying the problem we will suppose that a child
las but one eye, and that this eye has but one sensi-
tive point, the yellow spot or area of perfect vision.

Perception by Ocular Movement. The eye is
moved or rolled about its centre by a system of six
muscles.1 These movements tend to bring the yellow
spot opposite to different points of the field. This
is commonly described as turning or directing the
optic axis from one point to another.2 In performing
any particular movement the child has a series of
sensations analogous to those experienced in carrying
the finger-tips from point to point of space. Thus
in moving the axis from a point A in the field of
vision to a point B to the right of it he would
experience a series of sensations of movement of a
definite character. Here too the final sensation,
answering to the position of the eye at the close of
the movement, supplemented by the representation
of the preceding members of the series, would supply
materials for a rudimentary perception of movement
of a particular direction and range.3

1 1 have given some of the results of recent inquiries into the laws of
ocular movement in an article on The Question of Visual Perception in
Germany, in Mind, Vol. III. (1878), p. 5, &c.

2 The optic axis is the principal axis running from the yellow spot through
the centre of the eye (more correctly a point very near the centre).

3 According to Wundt, the motor sensations which accompany ocular
movement, like those which attend manual movement, include skin-sensa-
tions of pressure, namely, those resulting from the varying pressures on the
sensitive parts of the orbit which attend the movement.

174 PERCEPTION.

By repeating the series, by varying its rapidity, by
reversing it, and finally by carrying out a variety of
such pairs of movements in different directions, the
perceptions of movement in a definite region of space
would gradually gain in distinctness as in the case of
manual movement.

In this way the child might explore the field of
vision or map out the several positions of points on a
surface, or in space of two dimensions. In a similar
manner he could pass the optic axis over the surface
of a body in different directions, and so obtain, by
means of numerous series of motor sensations with
the concomitant trains of retinal sensations, a percep-
tion of its extension and the form and magnitude of
the surface. Thus he might pass his eye from the
centre of a circular body, as a wheel, to various points
of the circumference. These movements might be
supplemented by a movement along the contour (the
circumference). By numerous movements of this kind
he would arrive at some knowledge of the particular
form and distinguish this from other forms.

Simultaneous Retinal Perception. Let us now
suppose the child's eye to be supplied with its ex-
tended retinal surface, and its innumerable nerve-
elements. By means of this structure he would, with
the eye at rest, receive simultaneously a large number
of distinct visual impressions, which would from the
first have their several local characters or colourings.
These differences, however, would only be interpreted
by the aid of movement of the eye's axis over the
field of vision. Owing to the presence of the retina
the child in performing these excursions would not

VISUAL PERCEPTION. 175

instantly lose sight of a point as soon as the eye
passed on to another. He would continue to see it
in what is called indirect vision after 'fixating' it
or looking at it directly. For example in moving
from the centre to a point on the circumference of the
wheel, the retinal image of the former point would
slide over a succession of retinal points. That is to
say the child would continue to receive the impression
of this point (with decreasing degrees of distinctness),
varied, however, by a succession of distinct accom-
paniments in the shape of local characters. In like
manner the point of the circumference towards which
he was moving would be seen ' indirectly ' (with in-
creasing degrees of distinctness) before the eye was
fixed on it in ' direct ' vision.

This conjoined experience of ocular movement and
of varying (retinal) impression would lead to the
ordering of visual sensations in space much in the
same way as in the case of manual movement. Let
us imagine any point P lying on the retina to the
right of the centre C and having a local colouring TT.
Whenever P was stimulated the child would find by
trial that a movement of a certain kind (direction and
range) was necessary before this impression could be
received with perfect distinctness by way of C. In
other words the point of the field seen indirectly by
way of P can only be seen directly by way of C l>y
means of a movement of a certain kind (to the left,
and of a certain range).

After innumerable experiences of this kind the
child learns automatically to localise any impression
having the local character TT, with reference to C, On

176 PEBGEKKOH.

receiving one such impression there is a tendency to
move the eye in the required direction. Thus on
seeing a light enter the room to the left of the field
he tends to move his eyes (or his head) a certain dis-
tance to the left. This shows that impressions having
the particular local colouring connected with this nerve-
element are now accompanied by a representation of
the movement necessary to a fuller realisation of them
in direct vision. In other words all sensations having
the mark TT are now localised in the field in relation
to the centre of the field.

Through numberless variations of these movements
in different directions, visual impressions of all shades
of local colouring would be similarly localised with
reference to the central point of the field,] and also
with reference to one another. The child is now able
with his eye at rest to apprehend or take in simul-
taneously an extended field of objects, the various
points of which are instantly localised, one above or
below another, to the right or to the left of it, and at
a certain distance from it.

When this stage has been reached the child will be
able further to recognise the form of any object ' at a
glance' by fixing the eye on it. Thus the wheel
would be at once seen to be a round object by the
eye at rest. And this instantaneous perception of
roundness would be due to the circumstance that the
retinal impressions answering to the several points of
the circular outline of the object are now automatically
localised, or referred to the proper points in the field.
Similarly the magnitude of an object could be in-
stantly apprehended. The size or ' extensive magni-

VISUAL PERCEPTION. 177

tucle J of the retinal image would now serve to suggest
instantly the amount of movement required for car-
rying the eye along the contour or outline.1

Perception of Visual Magnitude and Form. The
fineness of the local discrimination of the retina and
of the muscular sensibility which is so closely associ-
ated with this allows of a much more minute and
exact perception of magnitude and figure than is
attained, under normal circumstances at least, in the
case of touch. The eye can delicately appreciate linear
magnitude, and distinguish with great fineness a dif-
ference in the length of two lines. And by help of
this appreciation of linear magnitude that of super-
ficial magnitude is rendered exact.2

It is ascertained that the finest appreciation of linear magnitude by
the eye is only possible by aid of movement. It has been shown, too,
that the comparison of the magnitudes of two lines is most exact when
the lines are parallel. Helmhoitz accounts for this phenomenon by the
fact that in this case the compared objects are successively imaged on
the same series of retinal elements. 3

The visual appreciation of (superficial) form is no
less delicate than that of magnitude. A form is

1 It must not be supposed that this localisation of retinal sensations goes
on with equal rapidity at all parts of the organ. As we have seen, local dis-
crimination loses in fineness as we go from the centre to the periphery of the
retina ; and it has been proved (by Kries, Auerbach, and Charpentier) that the
reaction-time in indirect, is longer than in direct, vision, and increases with
the distance from the centre, of the region acted upon. (Quoted by Buccola,
La Lcgge del Tempo nei Fenomeni del Pensiero, Ch. VIII., pp. 227, 228).

2 This applies not only to the visual measurement of a rectilinear figure,
but also to the appreciation of the dimensions (in different directions) of a
curvilinear figure, as a circle or ellipse.

3 This answers to the fact already touched on, that the discrimination of
degree of pressure by the skin is finer when the same region is taken than
when different regions are taken (see above, p. 123). The fineness of the
visual estimation of magnitude, and the errors incident to this mode of percep-
tion, are fully illustrated by Wundt, Physiol. Psychologic, Vol. II., Cap. 13 3.

178 PERCEPTION.

constituted by the relative positions of its several
parts, and more particularly by the character or ar-
rangement of its boundary lines making up its outline
or contour. Here the first element entering into the
perception is the discrimination of the direction of
lines, which shares in the delicacy of that of linear
magnitude. The appreciation of contour in the case
of a rectilinear figure, as that of an oblong or triangle,
proceeds by noting the exact direction oi each of the
lines, as well as the amount of change of direction at
the corners (magnitude of the angles). Or if the
figure be a curvilinear one, the appreciation of con-
tour is based on the perception of continual change of
direction, and of the rapidity of these changes (degree
of curvature).

The other principal element involved in the appre-
ciation of form is relative magnitude or proportion
among dimensions. In ordinary vision we do not
note with any close attention the absolute magnitude
of an object.1 But we note very carefully the relative
magnitudes, e.g , those of the two sides of & rectangular
figure, of the longer and shorter dimensions of an
oval form. This is seen in the fact that a very slight
deviation from the true proportions in the drawing of
a human figure or face at once strikes an observant
eye.

The comparative inattention to the absolute magnitude of visible
objects is explained by the superior importance of the form-element in
ordinary cases of recognition ; also by the circumstance that the absolute
size of the visible object continually varies with its distance from the

1 This is illustrated in the absence of any feeling of incongruity in looking
at a colossal statue, or at a n'ue immature drawing.

VISUAL PERCEPTION. 179

eye, while the relative size of its parts remains constant, and so is the
main clue to the nature of the object. It may be added that this per-
ception of relative magnitude or proportion does not, in common cases,
include the detection of numerical relations. We do not see the length,
of one side of a rectangle standing in the ratio of 3 : 2, or of 2 : 1 to that
of the other. 1 Even the number of sides entering into a figure is not
recognised in the ordinary perception of that figure, but presupposes (as
we shall see presently) a certain effort of abstraction.

Binocular Perception of Space. Under normal
circumstances we see with two eyes. These must be
regarded as a single organ. Numerous facts show
that the perception of space has been developed by
aid of the two eyes in co-operation.

The co-operation of the two eyes in vision differs
from that of the two hands in touching. These last
double the area perceived at any one moment. When,
however, we look at an object with the two eyes a
large part of the field of view is common to both.
The eyes are both fixed on the same central point
(point of fixation, German Blickpurikt), and all the
central portion of the field is seen by both eyes.
The sweep of the field is only increased to some ex-
tent at the two sides, to the right by means of the
right eye, and to the left by means of the left eye.
The portions of the field common to both eyes as well
as those peculiar to each are not seen as double but
as single. That is to say we see one single field or
one continuous scene.

This general statement is subject to some limitations. Objects in
certain portions of the field having a particular situation relatively to
the common point of fixation are seen double. Thus when we are

1 The recognition of equality of magnitude, as in the square or the isosceles
triangle, is, however, an ingredient in the ordinary perception of form.

180 PERCEPTION.

looking at a distant object a second object, as a pencil, held just in
front of tlie nose is seen as double. This doubleness of images is,
however, to a large extent overlooked by us.

A good deal of speculation has been expended on the question :
Why do we see objects as single when we receive double impressions
from them ? This is known as the problem of single vision. It has
been supposed by some that there are certain ' corresponding points ' on
the two retinas, the impressions received by which uniformly coalesce
in a single impression.1 And it has been argued that this perfect coal-
escence of two visual impressions is only possible by means of a fusion
of the nerve processes. Hence an attempt was made to show by means
of anatomical facts that this conjunction of nervous processes did take
place. More recent research has gone to modify this theory. Though
impressions of the corresponding points do usually combine they are
not the only ones which do so. Nor do even these coalesce in all cases.
Exceptional circumstances may frustrate the coalescence. Many facts,
such as those of the stereoscopic combination of pictures, and the per-
ception of relief and solidity, and the non-fusion of totally dissimilar
impressions (as when the two eyes look at two different colours) support
the conclusion that the mind can distinguish the impressions received
by way of the so-called corresponding points. The customary coalescence
of the impressions of the two eyes, and the limits of this, are only to be
explained by looking at visual perception as developed along, and in
close co-ordination, with tactual perception.3

Visual Perception of Depth. So far we have traced
the development of the child's perception of space in
two dimensions, that is of the position of points on a
surface, one above another, to the right of it, and so
on. By a reference to ocular movement supple-
menting the original discrimination of the retina, we
have been able to understand this mapping out of the
field of vision. In looking out into space, however,
we see the situation of points not only in relation to

1 These corresponding points include the two centres of the retinas and all
pairs of points situated symmetrically with respect to these, i.e., in the same
direction to the right of them, above them, and so on, and at the same distance
from them.

2 For a fuller account of the phenomena of single and double vision here
touched on, see my article already quoted, Mind, Vol. III. (1878).

VISUAL PERCEPTION. 181

one another "but in relation to our own position. One
point lies away to the left of us, while another lies to
our right. One part of the scene is further off from
us than another. That is to say we see things in a
space of three dimensions, having depth or distance as
well as superficial magnitude.

The above supposition of a development of a purely ocular perception
of a flat picture-world is of course a fiction. No one can say what sort
of view of things we should have by means of these visual experiences
alone, for nobody has undergone them. Things would probably appear
as only flat projections on a sort of big screen, which would not have any
distance assigned it. Perhaps we should regard these flat things as
touching us (after the analogy of touch-experience), as those born blind
and afterwards recovering sight are said to have at first regarded visible
objects. It is to be added that this picture-world would be a different
one for every variation in the distance of the objects. An object re-
ceding from us would appear to become a smaller one, but we should
not know what this meant. And we should know nothing of ' real as
distinguished from apparent magnitude.1

When tracing the growth of the tactual perception
of space we saw that a child could obtain a direct
apprehension of the situation of an object with refer-
ence to himself by arm-movement (stretching out to
reach the object), supplemented or not by leg-move-
ment (walking towards it). But the movements of
the eyes are incapable of giving us this direct appre-
hension of depth. We cannot carry the eyes out into
space, but only roll them about in their sockets. We
do indeed move them differently when we merely pass
from one point to another on a surface and when we

1 It must be remembered that in such a condition of things as that here
supposed movements of the eyes from points nearer or further off would
probably somehow be distinguished from movements over points equidistant
from the organ. But we cannot conceive what the nature of this diiference
would be.

182 PERCEPTION.

pass from a further to a nearer point. In the latter
case the two eyes are made to converge.1 But this
difference would not of itself make known the fact
that one object was nearer than another. There is
every reason to suppose that in recognising the situa-
tion of objects with respect to himself the child is
deriving aid from his experiences of active touch. In
other words the visual perception of depth is deve-
loped in conjunction with, and by the aid of tactual
perception.

Perception of Direction. By means of ocular move-
ment supplementing retinal discrimination a child per-
ceives the relative direction of points lying in the
field But he does not recognise the absolute direction
of an object, that is to say its situation with reference
to his own position, as to the right of him, or above
the level of his head ; this mode of perception has
reference to arm-movement away from the body. It
is by reaching out the hand that the child discovers
the absolute direction of an object in the field.2

This absolute direction is suggested to the child by
means of certain visual signs. The chief of these is the
position of the eyes at the moment, as made known by
the sensations of contraction which are connected with
the condition of the ocular muscles.3 In 'fixating'

1 The exact difference between these binocular movements over the common
field and the movements of the single eye is well brought out by Wundt, Phy-
siologische Psychologic, II., Cap. 13, § 5.

2 If the object is further off leg-movement is involved as well. But arm-
movement is the more important element. Even in the case of distant
objects direction is commonly apprehended by the movement of the arm in
pointing, a movement which causes the hand to cover the object.

8 As we have seen, the condition of the adjacent parts probably contributes
elements to the sensation of contraction.

VISUAL PERCEPTION. J-83

or looking at a point to the right of us the state of
contraction of the muscles concerned and the accom-
panying sensations are different from those which arise
when a point to the left is looked at. For every
change in the direction of vision there is an accom-
panying change in the muscular sensations. Along
with these sensations of the ocular muscles must be
taken those of the muscles of the neck concerned in
moving the head to the right and to the left, upwards
and downwards.1

The conjoining, associating, or co-ordinating of these
ocular sensations or signs with the arm-movements
signified is the work of experience. At first the child
is unable to grasp an object which he sees : his hand
passes by it. Gradually by innumerable repetitions of
arm-movement in connection with the visual sensa-
tions, the latter become firmly united with the former.
When the child now looks at an object, there is
instantly suggested the kind of arm-movement neces-
sary for reaching the object.

The reason why in later life we are not distinctly conscious of these
muscular sensations is that they have become inseparably fused with
the representative elements which accompany them. They have no
interest and importance in themselves but only as signs ; and according
• to the law of attention that we pass from what is relatively unimportant
or uninteresting to what is important or interesting, we have acquired
an invariable habit of passing from them instantly to the representations
Which they call up.2

1 The absolute direction of a point seen indirectly or in the side portion
of the field is known by means of our knowledge of the direction of the
centre of the field, that is the point fixated, together with our apprehension
(by means of the local signs of the retinal sensations) of the relative positions
of these two points.

2 The connection of the evanescence of these ocular sensations with the
laws of attention has been emphasised by Helmholtz : See Sensation and In-
tuition, Chap. III., p. 63.

184 PERCEPTION.

According to the older theory we have an intuitive knowledge of
direction. We tend, it was said, instinctively to project retinal sensa-
tions in the direction of the rays of light entering the eye-ball. In this
way the alleged difficulty of seeing objects erect and not inverted, as
they are represented in the retinal image or picture, was supposed to
be overcome. But the difficulty and the solution, are alike imaginary.
They imply the erroneous supposition that in seeing things the mind
has a direct knowledge of the structure of the eye, the arrangement of
the parts of the retina and the mechanism of the organ as an optical
instrument. The d'Lliculty alleged to inhere in the fact of seeing objects
erect disappears as soon as we recognise the truth that direction has a
reference to arm-movement.

Perception of Distance. It is this aspect of visual
perception which has attracted most notice among
English psychologists. Berkeley's aim in his Theory
of Vision was to show that in seeing the distance of
an object we are interpreting visual signs, as destitute
of meaning in themselves as word-sounds, and like
these acquiring all their meaning by association, or
by the teaching of experience. This experience, in the
case of visual signs, is what we have called Active
Touch (movement and contact).

Since the eye cannot perform an excursive move-
ment out into space, it never gives us any direct
knowledge of distance. What is meant by the
distance of an object, its remoteness from our own
body, is ascertained by means of arm-movement, or
in the case of greater distances, by this supplemented
by leg-movement. When we look at an object, say
a shop across the street, and ' intuit ' its distance, we
represent the amount of muscular activity needed to
bring us up to or in contact with the object. The
perception of distance has always a reference to
movement towards the object, and more particularly
the extent or range of this movement.

VISUAL PEKCEPTION. 185

How then, it may be asked, are we able to recog-
nise distance at all by means of sight ? The answer
is the same as in the case of recognising direction :
By means of certain ocular sensations which by their
distinguishable characters serve as a system of signs.
In the case of monocular vision these signs are the
sensations attending the accommodation of the eye,
that is to say the varying of the degree of convexity
of the eye-ball (or lense) for different distances.1 In
looking at a very near object the muscles concerned
in this process are greatly contracted. The degree
of contraction determines the character of the accom-
panying sensation of contraction. Hence this last
serves as a sign of the distance.

This monocular perception of distance is, however,
greatly inferior to the binocular.2 By the use of the two
eyes we have an additional system of distance-signs.
Since in moving the two eyes the axes are always
directed to the same point of the field, it follows that
a movement to a nearer or to a further point involves
a change in the relative position of the eyes. In the
former case the two axes turn towards one another or
become more convergent : in the latter they become
less convergent. These changes in the degree of
convergence are accompanied by different muscular
sensations ; and it is these sensations which serve as
the signs of different distances.

1 This process of accommodation carried out by the ciliary muscles is
necessary to distinct vision, that is to say the formation of a distinct image
on the retina. By altering the convexity of the crystalline lense it secures
that the rays of light shall in every case be focussed on the retina.

2 The limits of the monocular discrimination of distance by means of sensa-
tions of accommodation are given by Wundt, Physiol. Psychologic, II., Cap.
13, § 1, p. 71.

186 PERCEPTION.

The discrimination of distances by means of the different sensations
of convergence has been measured. It is found that the least change of
distance perceptible is a pretty constant fraction of the whole distance,
and that consequently the discrimination of distance obeys approxi-
mately Fechner's law. Further this discrimination is finest in the case
of distances in the appreciation of which we are most practised.1

The sensations of convergence, though giving us a
much wider range of distance-discrimination than
those of accommodation, cease to avail when objects
are very remote. In these cases the perception of
distance is determined by other elements, and takes
on more of the character of a conscious judgment.
These signs include the alterations of the apparent
magnitude of objects with varying distances, also
what are known as the effects ot aerial perspec-
tive, namely variations of the absolute degree of
brightness, of the relations of light and shade
and the degree of distinctness of the parts, and
finally of colour, due to the action of the inter-
vening medium.

The most important of these factors in this percep-
tion of greater distances is the ' apparent magnitude '
of an object. This is determined by the size of the
retinal image or picture, or the magnitude of the
'visual angle' subtended by this. As objects recede
their retinal pictures decrease in area, whereas when
they approach they increase. Whenever the object
is a familiar one, as a tree, a house, a sheep, these
variations of apparent magnitude are auxiliary signs
of the distance of the object. Thus in looking across
a Swiss valley we judge of the distance of the opposite

1 For an account of these measurements see Wundt, Physiol. PsycJwloc;ie,
II., Cap. 13, § 3, p. 93.

VISUAL PERCEPTION. 187

mountain-side by the apparent magnitude of the
chalets, the goats, and so on.

Perception of real Magnitude. The real magnitude
of an object is directly known by means of active
touch, arm-movement, or if the object is a large one,
as a wall, by the aid of locomotion as well. All that
the eye gives us directly is a variable apparent mag-
nitude determined by the area of the retinal image.
Since this varies inversely as the distance (increasing
when this decreases, and vice versa), the recognition
of the corresponding real magnitude] takes place in
close connection with that of distance. If the object
is a familiar one we instantly recognise its real magni-
tude, whether or no we have a distinct perception of
its distance. In this case the apparent magnitude
may become one factor in our estimation of distance
as shown above. On the other hand in the case of
unfamiliar or unknown objects we only recognise
(real) magnitude by aid of a perception of its distance.
Thus we only recognise the height of a cliff in a land-
scape by first judging, roughly at least, of its distance.

While the perception of real magnitude thus implies, ultimately, a
reference to active touch, it probably contains also a proximate reference
to a visual standard. In looking at an object, as a house, at a consider-
able distance, we seem first of all to recall the visual magnitude which
it presents when near. We appear to transfer it imaginatively to a
nearer point, namely at that distance from us which is most favourable
to the seeing of it at once distinctly (in its parts) and comprehensively
(as a whole).

The perception of magnitude is further affected by a knowledge of
the position of the object relatively to the spectator. Thus in estimating
the height of a church-spire, we allow for the difference of level between
the object and the eye, and the consequent (apparent) diminution of the
vertical dimension. So again in estimating the length of an object fore-
shortened, as an arm stretched out towards us, we allow for the inequa-
lity of the distance of the several parts from the eye.

188 PERCEPTION.

Perception of Relative Distances. In the above
account of the perception of distance we have been
concerned only with the absolute distance of an object,
not with its distance relatively to that of another
object. We may recognise a difference of distance
between two objects by moving the eyes from one to
the other and discriminating the sensations of con-
vergence in the two cases, or the degrees of distinct-
ness of the objects.

This, however, is not necessary. In 'fixating' or
looking at any object we at the same moment see
less distinctly other objects further off, and nearer.
This indirect perception of distance involves retinal
discrimination. In looking at any point P a nearer
point P' images itself on the outer regions of the two
retinas, whereas a more remote point P" images itself on
the inner regions. Since every change in the position
of the stimulus on the retina is attended by a change
in the resulting sensations, this difference in the rela-
tive position of the two retinal images makes a dif-
ference in the whole mental impression. And it is
this difference which serves as the ocular sign of
nearer and further.

This mode of discriminating distances by the differences of local
character of the two retinal impressions has been measured by Helm-
holtz. He found that so small a local disparity of the retinal images as
•0044 millimetres affected the judgment. Wundt seeks to show that
these limits point to the influence of muscular sensations. (See the
article in Mitid already referred to, Vol. III., 1878, pp. 16, 17.)

In looking at objects further off other circumstances
help to determine our judgment of relative distances.
These include the facts of linear perspective. For

VISUAL PERCEPTION.

189

example we come to recognise that one object, say a
mountain, is nearer than another, when the contour
of the second is broken and partially covered by the
first.

Perception of Solid Objects, or Objects in Relief.
The visual perception of a solid body or a body having
relief is simply a special case of recognising distance.
A solid or cubical body is one the parts of which lie
at unequal distances from us, some advancing, others
receding. There is no original intuitive knowledge of
solidity by means of the eye. This knowledge is
gained by means of active touch in the way indicated
above (by passing the hand or hands over an object's
surface, grasping or embracing it).

The recognition of this solidity in the case of near
objects takes place by discriminating the impressions
received by way of the two eyes. A flat picture
projects one and the same image on corresponding
parts of the two retinas. On the other hand a solid
body, if not too far off, projects two partly dissimilar
pictures. Thus in looking at a box a little in front
of the face the left eye sees further round the left, the
right eye further round the right of it.1 This dissimi-
larity of the pictures makes a difference in the mental
impression.

This dissimilarity of the two retinal pictures and corresponding
mental impressions is not the only sign of solidity. Even in the case
of those portions of the object which are seen by both eyes, there is a
peculiar arrangement of the images on the two retinas due to the
unequal distances of the parts of the object. Thus in looking at any
point on the nearer edge of a cube the corresponding point on the

1 This can be ascertained by alternately closing each of the eyes and com-
paring the impressions received by means of the open eyes.

190 PERCEPTION,

further edge images itself on two non-corresponding points of the retinas
lying inside the centres. Hence this point is projected further away,
and the object viewed as receding.

Our knowledge of these signs of relief and solidity has been greatly
furthered by Sir Ch. Wheatstone's discovery of the Stereoscope. This
instrument imitates the effect of solid objects by presenting to the two
eyes two distinct projections of an object, as a building, taken from two
slightly different points of view.

The perception of solidity or relief may also be gained by means of
the sensations of convergence which attend movements of the eyes from
point to point of the object. But the fact that the stereoscopic recog-
nition of solidity arises instantaneously when the two pictures are illu-
mined by an electric flash shows that such movements are not necessary .1

When an object is further off, relief or solidity is
recognised by other signs. These include the dis-
tribution of light and shade on the surface, or what
is known by artists as 'modelling*. Thus the pro-
minence of a distant mountain is perceived by the
gradations of light and shade. Of still greater im-
portance than this is what is known as the cast-
shadow. Objects in a landscape stand out much
better in morning and evening light when strong and
distinct cast-shadows are thrown, than in noonday
light. The painter has, it is obvious, to produce all
impressions of relief by means of such auxiliary
signs.2

Here, again, it is well to note that in perceiving the figure of a solid
body there is commonly a proximate reference to other visual percep-
tions. A complete visual intuition of solidity is obtained by turning an
object about, and successively looking at different sides w aspects.3
Hence when we have any aspect of an object presented to us we tend to

1 For a fuller account of the elements entering into the perception of
solidity, see my article in Mind, Vol. III. (1878), p. 21 etseq.

2 For a fuller account of the elements entering into our judgment of relief,
and of the errors to which this is liable, see my work on Illusions, p. 77, &c.

8 If the body is a larger one, the same end is served by walking round it
and viewing it from different standpoints.

VISUAL PERCEPTION. 191

supplement this by a mental representation of the other aspects.
This tendency shows itself most powerfully when the less favourable,
less instructive, OJT less interesting aspect ot an object happens to present
itself to the eye. Thus when a book is placed directly opposite the
eye with the surface of the cover at right angles to the line of vision
we tend to supplement this imperfect view by filling in imaginatively
the appearance of the edge as seen, say from a point to the right and
above the book. Similarly on seeing a face in profile we tend to repre-
sent the full face.

Visual Intuition of Number. Closely connected
with the development of the perception of things in
space having figure and magnitude is the growth of
the visual intuition of a multitude or multiplicity of
things. A plurality of objects is recognised in the
case of the eye, as in that of the hand, by the local
separateness or discreteness of the impressions. This
holds good whether we pass the eye over them or
embrace them by a single glance. In vision we are
able to take in in one view a considerable number of
objects, seeing them together as a collection or assem-
blage of things.

At the same time, this extended grasp of a number
of things by the eye appears to involve a reference to
active touch. This has been illustrated by the phe-
nomena of binocular combination and single vision.
The impressions of the two eyes are combined in
circumstances which are found by experience to cor-
respond to the tactual perception of a single object.1
So, again, when one object partly covers another
further off, so that their contours become continuous

1Tliis is illustrated by the apparent exceptions, as the phenomena of
double images. When I have two images of an object (e.g., of one mnch
nearer than the object fixated) I instantly recognise this doubleness as bo-
longing to the visual impression and not to the object.

192 PERCEPTION.

we discern plurality by recognising the difference of
distance.

We commonly see an object along with others, standing out from a
dimly discriminated mass of objects. But we do not in general view
objects together as a collection except when they are near one another
so as to be easily seen together, and when they are like one another or
objects of the same class, as in looking at a heap of pebbles, or a row of
trees.

Our visual perception of a plurality of things must be distinguished
from our recognition of them as a particular number, say three, or six.
A child perceives all differences of number at first as mere differences of
magnitude, of greater and less. That is to say, discrete quantity is not
yet differenced from continuous. The knowledge of number as such is
gained by means of a series of perceptions and an exercise of the powers
of comparison and abstraction. It presupposes a process of counting by
breakup up a group of objects into its constituent parts or units (ana-
lysis), and of re-forming it out of these (synthesis). Along with such
experiences, it involves the variation of a group of things in respect of
its figure or mode of arrangement, so as to distinguish number from form,
and the comparison of groups of things similar only in their number.
After such experiences a child learns to look on a group of things as a
number, and on a single object (in its relation to an actual or possible
collection) as a unit. And in the case of very small numbers, as 3 and
4, he can by a momentary glance intuit the number.1 And even in the
case of larger numbers, as 12, the rapidity with which the eye can run
over them and seize their numerical aspect is a fact of great consequence.
It gives to sight a special function in the acquisition of the knowledge
of number. As we shall see by and by, our ideas of number are closely
connected with visual pictures of concrete numbers, or numbered groups
of things, such as dots, &c.

Perception of Objective Movement. As we have
seen, ocular movement is the original experience

1 Sir W. Hamilton, following other authorities, says that we can in one
and the same instant distinctly attend to six objects ; and this would seem
to give the limit of the clear recognition of number at one moment (Lectures
on Metaphysics, Vol. I., Lect. XIV., p. 254). Wundt conducted a series of
experiments in order to ascertain how the reaction-time varied with the in-
crease of the number of visible objects looked at. He took printed ciphers
aud found that with a momentary illumination the eye could distinctly take
in a series of six numbers (Physiol. Psychologic, Vol. II., Cap. 16, 4).

VISUAL PERCEPTION. 103

which suggests to the eye the coexistence of points in
space. From this consciousness or perception of
'subjective' movement, that is to say the movement
of our own organism (eye or head), must be distin-
guished the perception of 'objective' movement, or
the movement of objects.

The perception of movement arises in one of two
ways. First of all we may follow a moving object
with the eye and perceive its movement in direct
vision. In this case the objective movement is
recognised by means of the muscular and other
sensations accompanying the movement, coupled
with a persistent impression received by way of
the area of perfect vision. In the second place
we may perceive the movement of an object across
the field in indirect vision, the eye being at rest. In
this case we recognise the movement of the object
by means of a succession of locally differenced retinal
sensations coupled with the absence of muscular
sensations.

In its developed form the perception of movement
implies the intuition of space. It includes the recog-
nition of a transition from one point of space to
another, or of a continual change of position. It thus
stands in a particularly close relation to the perception
of direction. Hence we may infer that like this it
has been developed in close connection with Active
Touch. And this inference is borne out by obser-
vation. Thus when with one eye closed we press
the outer region of the other eye-ball there is an
apparent movement of objects. But we instantly

194 PERCEPTION.

distinguish this from a movement of the objects
themselves. *

Our perception of the movements of things by the eye constitutes the
principal mode of recognising change in the external world. The most
important events of this world are reducible to (perceptible) move-
ments, either those of a whole object, or group of objects, or those of
parts of objects. This remark applies to the numerous changes of posi-
tion of objects (inanimate and animate) due to the action of other bodies,
and to the internally caused actions of living things ; also to the changes
in the size and figure of bodies due to compression, expansion, &c.

Resume*. It follows from this short account of the
nature of visual perception that, though an instan-
taneous automatic operation in mature life, it is the
result of a slow process of acquisition involving in-
numerable experiences in early life. It is probable
that in connection with the inherited nervous organism
every child has an innate disposition to co-ordinate
retinal sensations with those of ocular movement, and
visual sensations as a whole with experiences of active
touch.2 But individual experience is necessary for
<he development of these instinctive tendencies.

A moment's thought will show that the experiences
of early life must tend to bring about the closest pos-
sible associations between sight and touch, and to
favour that automatic interpretation of " visual lan-
guage " which we find in later life. The child passes a
great part of his waking life in. handling objects, in

1 The whole group of phenomena known as apparent movements (ScTtein-
Tiewegungen) are important as illustrating the close connection between visual
perception and experience of Active Touch. For a fuller account of these see
my volume, Illusions, pp. 50, 57, 73.

2 This conclusion is reached deductively from the general laws of evoln-
tion. It may also be verified, to some extent, by the observation of the rapid
progress of space-perception in early life.

VISUAL PERCEPTION. 195

walking to and Irom them, and at the same time
looking at them and noting the changes of visual
impression which accompany these movements. Thus
in countless instances he notices the increase of the
' apparent magnitude ; of a body when he moves
towards it-: the dissimilarity of the two visual impres-
sions received from a solid body while he is handling
it, and so on. In this way an inseparable coalescence
of signs and significates takes place at a period of life
too far back for any of us to recall it.

When this stage of automatic visual perception is
reached reference to touch in all cases is no longer
necessary. Sight has completely absorbed the touch-
elements, and is now independent. In the large
majority of cases we recognise distance, real magni-
tude, and solidity, without any appeal to movement
and touch. Seeing has now become the habitual
mode of perception. It is only in doubtful cases
that we still go back to touch to test our visual
perceptions.

While, however, vision is thus in a manner based
on tactual perception, it far surpasses this last in
respect of discriminative fineness as well as in com-
prehensive range. Seeing is more than a translation
of touch-knowledge into a new language, and more
than a short-hand abbreviation of it. It adds much
to this knowledge by reason of its more perfect sepa-
ration and combination of its sense-elements.1

*A rough analogy is suggested by the phrase 'visual symbols'. Just as
the use of symbols in mathematics and logic (owing to their very nature)
helps us to reach ideal results which only remotely represent actual facts, so
the addition of the visual symbols to tactual perception allows of a kind of
idealising of our experience of active touch.

ICG PERCEPTION".

In the ahove sketch of the modern theory of the visual perception c!
space no reference has "been made to the rival theory, that the eye has
from the first and independently of Touch an intuitive knowledge of
space in three dimensions.1 The hypothesis that the young child brings
with him into the world an inherited tendency to group in the way
described the several elements (visual and tactual) entering into visual
perception of space, would supply a means of reconciling the opposed
theories of an original and a derived space-intuition by the eye.

Intuition of Things. In looking at an object, as in
touching it, wot apprehend simultaneously (or approxi-
mately so) a group of qualities. These include its de-
gree of brightness as a whole, the distribution of light
and shade of its parts, its colour (or distribution of
colours), the form and magnitude, of its surface, and
its solid shape. These seemingly immediate intui-
tions involve as we have found tactual as well aa
visual elements.2 This may be called the funda-
mental part of our intuition of a particular object.
In looking at a new object, as a gem in a cabinet,
we instantly intuit or take in this group of qualities,
and they constitute a considerable amount of know-
ledge concerning the nature of the object as a whole.
In proportion to the distinctness with which these
qualities are discriminated both severally (e.g., the
colour blue from violet, the oval form from the cir-
cular) and collectively (e.g., the aggregate of properties
of one mineral or plant from that of another) will be

1 One of the most recent statements of the Intuitive theory is contained in
Mr. Abbot's Sight and Touch. The most important forms of this theory ns
put forward in Germany are dealt with in an article of mine in Mind, Vol.
III., 1878, p. 167, &c. See also Appendix D.

a It may be remarked that the distribution of light and shade on the
surface of an object as an orange, suggests not only the curvature of the sur-
face, but its roughness or pittedness.

VISUAL PERCEPTION. 197

the clearness and accuracy of our perception of the
thing as a whole.

The recognition of any individual object, as a
particular toy or cat, or of one of a class of things, as
an orange, presupposes a repetition of this assemblage
of qualities. In this case the group is not only
discriminated but identified. Thus on seeing an
orange a child at once ' classes ' the aggregate of
qualities (yellow colour, roundness of form, &c.), with
like groups previously seen.

Not only so, in thus classing a particular group of
qualities (visual and tactual), a child takes up along
with these other conjoined qualities. Thus in recog-
nising an object as an orange he invests it more or
less distinctly with a particular weight, temperature,
taste, and smell. In this way visual perception (em-
bodying important tactual elements) suffices for the
full apprehension of an object clothed with its com-
plete outfit of qualities.

Unequal Representation of Qualities in Perception. It is not

meant that the whole aggregate of qualities will be called up with equal
distinctness. In looking at an orange, for example, we appear to repre-
sent its taste better than its smell and its touch (degree of roughness,
hardness) better than either. The reason of this inequality will appear
more fully in the next chapter. Here it is enough to say that the
sensations of the more refined or more discriminative senses are (in
general) more 'revivable' (i.e., capable of being more distinctly repro-
duced) than those of the less refined senses ; also that the facility of
revival varies with the frequency of the past experience. We represent
the roughness of the orange's surface better than its taste partly because
tactual sensations as a whole are more revivable than gustatory, -and
partly because the experiences of touching the rough surface of oranges
and other objects (in connection with seeing them) vastly outnumber
the experiences of tasting the fruit.

Combining Qualities in a Single Object. The intuition of a tiling
implies the apprehension of a cluster of qualities existing side by side,

198 PERCEPTION.

or coexisting in one and the same object. This fact of coexistence is
known by repeated transitions from one kind of sense-experience to
another. Thus we may proceed from looking at an object to touching,
hearing or smelling it, and vice versa. This variation of successive ex-
periences is supplemented by an approximately simultaneous experience
of touching and seeing it at the same time. Thus the perception of a
thing as the sum of coexisting qualities arises much in the same way as
the perception of a surface as made up of coexisting points.

A child's reference of a multiplicity of sense-experiences to one and
the same object involves more than this relation of simultaneity or inter-
changeableness between them. It becomes distinct by the aid of a
number of acquisitions. To begin with, it presupposes a recognition of
the identity of the tactual and visual space-scheme. The same object
to his sight and touch is that which occupies the same position (or cor-
responding positions) in his two maps (visual and tactual). Thus in
looking at an object which he is holding in his hands he has a double
perception of its position, by touch and by sight ; and these tend in time
(as we have seen) to be regarded as equivalent. In addition to this,
there are the correspondences in the tactual and the visual apprehension
of form, as in moving the fingers and the eyes about the contour of an
oblong object such as a book. Once more, his reference of other sense-
experiences, as those of hearing and smell, to the same object as is seen
and touched depends on a knowledge of the situation of the organs con-
cerned, and also of the changes which accompany the experience as the
object is brought near, or removed from, the organ. Thus he knows
that it is the watch he holds in his hand which emits the ticking sound,
because when he moves it to his ear (which movement is known partly
by active touch and partly by vision) the impression of sound becomes
more powerful and more distinct. Finally this conjoint reference of
different sense-experiences to one object is aided by his gradual acquisi-
tion of a knowledge of other equivalences. Of these the most important
is that between movement and sound. At a very early age he learns to
connect a sound, as that of a bell, with the corresponding movement
that of the clapper, which he sees at the moment.

Reference of Quality to Substance. In adult life we refer any
quality of an object, as the colour or taste of an orange, to a substance in
which it is said to inhere. And this idea of substance makes up an
important part of our meaning of 'thing'. Now it is clear that we can
never know directly anything more of an object than the sum of its
qualities as presented to our senses. We have then to ask how the idea
of a substance as distinct from qualities comes to be suggested to the
growing mind. It would appear that this takes place by help of a dif-
ference among these qualities already touched on, namely between the
primary and secondary qualities. The characteristics of the former
already briefly enumerated would lead the child gradually to regard

VISUAL PERCEPTION. 199

these as the base or essential portion of the thing, and to view the
secondary qualities as supported by this foundation.1

Identifying Objects. The recognition of a thing as
identical with something previously perceived is a
complex psychical process. It involves not only the
identification of the group of impressions but also the
germ of a higher intellectual process, namely the
comparison of successive impressions and the detection
of similarity amid diversity or change. Thus a child
learns to identify a particular object, as his hat, or his
dog, at different distances and under different lights
(in bright sunlight, evening dusk, &c.). Of these
changes of aspect one of the most important is that
due to the position of the object in relation to the
spectator. The difference of impression in looking at
a hat ' end on,' or foreshortened, and from the side,
or in having a front or side view of a face, is con-
siderable. Children require a certain amount of
experience and practice before they recognise identity
amid such varying aspects. Finally there are the
changes which take place in the objects themselves,
such as alterations of form due to accident, or to
movements of certain parts, and of magnitude due to
growth. It is not surprising, then, that the clear re-
cognition of the identity of individual objects belongs
to a comparatively late period of child life.2

Finally it is to be observed that the identification

1 This dependence of the secondary qualities, colour, taste, &c. , on the
primary (geometrical and mechanical) is well illustrated by J. S. Mill, Exami-
nation of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, Chap. XIII., p. 262, et scq. ; cf.
Taine, On Intelligence, Part II., Book II., Chap. I., Section IV.

2 The recognition of a particular substance, as wood, iron, or glass, illus-
trates the mere process. The similarities of colour, texture, and lustre, aro

200 PERCEPTION

of objects is greatly aided by the social environment
and by language. A child learns to perceive and
recognise objects in association with others. From
the first the mother or nurse is pointing oat objects
to him ; describing their characteristics, and naming
them. By these interchanges of impressions and this
social guidance he learns that others see things as he
sees them, that external things are common objects of
perception. And by hearing them again and again
called by the same name he learns more quickly to
regard them as the same.

The recognition ef an object as the same as that previously seen
implies the belief in the permanence of the object when not seen.
This only becomes distinct when the child by repeated experiences
discovers a fixed order among his perceptions, and the dependence of
his perceptions on his voluntary movements. Thus he finds out that
lie can see and touch a particular object, say his rocking horse, every
time he chooses to enter his nursery. The fact that others see objects
when he no longer sees them, and talk to him of their impressions
greatly helps the growth of this idea of things as permanent.1

Perception of our own Body. In close connection
with the perception of external objects the child
comes to know the several parts of his own body
As has been said, sensations when not referred to
external bodies are in adult life localised in some
part of the organism. Thus all organic sensations, as
skin-sensations of " creeping," burning, or tickling, are
definitely localised in some region of the arm, foot,

detected amid differences of form. The assimilation of very Tinlike things,
as oranges, grapes, &c., under the head of a wide class of objects, fruits,
involves a higher exercise of the assimilative function to be illustrated by
and by.

1 The dependence of our knowledge of things as permanent on the renew-
ableness of sensations is illustrated by J. S. Mill in the work just referred to
(Chap. XI., p. 221, et scj.).

KNOWLEDGE OF OWN BODY. 201

and so on. Even in the perception of external objects
there is a more or less distinct reference to the sense-
organ concerned. In the act of hearing a sound, and
even of seeing an object, we are vaguely aware of
receiving the sensation by way of the ear or eye.
In touching objects this reference to the organ be-
comes much more distinct. In grasping a thing, as a
spoon, a child is directly aware (by the local characters
of his touch sensations and by muscular sensations)
of the locality or position on the surface of the hand
of the several impressions received. The recognition
of the form and magnitude of the spoon is indeed
based on this localising of his sensations of touch in
certain definitely represented portions of the hand.

This knowledge of the 'seat of sensation' and of
the form of the bodily organism is, just like the
knowledge of external things, acquired by experience.
The distinctness of the several nerve-fibres, and the
definite local character' marking off the sensations
corresponding to each of these must be assumed. The
child could never learn to localise a sensation in his
toe, if the sensations received by way of the particular
nerves concerned had n® distinctness of character at
the outset. But the referring of a bodily sensation
to a definite region of the body implies more than
this, namely, experiences of active Touch and Sight as
employed about the body itself. A child's body is an
object which he can touch and see, like an external
thing. The whole of the surface can be explored by
the hands, and a good part of it by the eyes as well.

Let us suppose that the child has a sensation of irri-
tation at a point P on his ri^ht foot. This sensation

202 PERCEPTION.

has the ' local colouring ' TT, By a certain sweep of his
arm he is able to carry his hand to this point and so
to modify the sensation. Again and again he performs
this kind of movement and either modifies a pre-
existing sensation having the character TT or produces
a new one (by the contact of his hand with P). By
repeated movements of this kind all sensations having
the character TT become associated with this particular
sweep of the arm. Similarly in the case of other
sensations having other local colourings tft IT", and
so on. By moving his hand over his body, as in
stroking himself, he gains a clearer apprehension of
the relative position of the parts, and of the form
of the bodily surface. In this way he gradually
gains a tactual map of his bodily organism which he
henceforth carries about with him. This tactual map
is supplemented by a visual map gained by looking
at the various parts of the body either directly or by
the aid of mirrors, &c. When this stage is reached
all sensations are instantly referred to their proper
locality on the bodily surface.

For the sake of convenience it is here assumed that we learn to
localise sensations of contact on the bodily surface without any aid from
the movements of the part touched, just as we assumed before that we
learn to refer touch-sensations to different external points solely by aid
of these movements. But in truth the capability of localising sensations
at the surface, and of externalising them are only two sides of one capa-
bility, and are developed pari passu. This is illustrated in the truth
emphasised by Vierordt, that the more mobile the part of the surface,
the better our topographical representation of it. We localise sensations
of touch on the hand, or at the tip of the tongue, much more distinctly
than on a portion of the immobile trunk. l

1 Experiments have been conducted by Professor G. Buccola with a view
to ascertain the rapidity of the localising process. The most important result
reached is the following :— " It is not always the excitation of the regions of

KNOWLEDGE OF OWN BODY. 203

The truth expounded above that our ability to localise a sensation on
the surface of the body depends on the tactual and visual exploring of
this surface is shown in a striking manner in the illusions of those who
have had a limb amputated. When the truncated nerve is excited and
a corresponding sensation occurs, the patient instantly refers it to the
extremity of the limb as before. Thus the man who has lost a leg still
local-ises certain sensations in his toe. This tendency to project sensa-
tions to the periphery, whatever the region of the nerve acted upon by
the stimulus, is known as the Law of Eccentricity. And this is fully
explained by the fact that under normal circumstances we only have
sensations when the peripheral extremity of the nerve is stimulated ;
that is to say when some portion of the bodily surface accessible to
touch (or to touch and sight) is acted upon. This dependence is further
illustrated by the indistinctness of the localisation of internal " organic
sensations," as those of indigestion, which are connected with parts of the
body not accessible to touch and sight.1

Bodily Organism and Self. To a child his bodily
organism is marked off from all other objects by the
fact that it is connected in a peculiar way with his
conscious life, and more particularly his feelings of
pleasure and pain. The experience of touching his
foot with his hand differs from that of touching a
foreign body inasmuch as there is not only a sensa-
tion in the hand, but an additional one in the foot.
The contact of a soft or agreeable, or of a hard and
painful substance with the skin is an (immediate)
antecedent of a pleasurable or painful sensation. His
pleasures and pains are largely bodily feelings. And
these, whether due to external influences (as a blow

the surface furthest removed from the psychical centre which brings about tho
slowest reactions (or the longest reaction-time) ; but the duration of the pro-
cess is constant provided the cutaneous zone excited is capable of a prompt
exercise of tactual capability." In other words, "there exists a close relation
between the localising capability and the time of the reaction " (La Legge del
Tempo nei Fenomeni del Pensiero, Chap. VIII., p. 245).

1 For a fuller account of these false localisations see my work, Illusions, p.
59, et seq. An interesting summary of the process of localising sensations is
given by M. Taine in his volume On Intelligence, Part II., Book II., Chap.
II., Section I. and following.

204 PERCEPTION.

or caress), or to internal changes (e.g., in the circula-
tion or temperature), are always found to be connected
with some part of the organism. Hence his body is
regarded as a part of himself, and in early life pro-
bably makes up the chief part of the meaning of the
word x self. It is contrasted with all other and foreign
objects on the one hand, and, on the other hand, with
all other like human organisms.

The child has little power of abstraction and cannot
therefore turn his attention inward or reflect on his
own thoughts and feelings. What is known by the
term 'internal perception/ or 'reflection/ that is to
say the observation of the mind's own states, is a
comparatively late attainment. The young have of
course some little knowledge of their feelings, but
this is of a very vague character. The reason of
this is that they cannot attend to their mental states
in themselves and apart from the objects which excite
them and the bodily organism with which they are
connected. And the same is true of their knowledge
of the feelings of others. Thus the antithesis of self
and not-self, the internal mind and external things is
imperfectly developed in the first years of life. The
recognition of things as external, so far as a child
attains to this knowledge at all, seems to imply out-
ness in relation to the bodily organism.1 A know-
ledge of externality in the sense of detachment from
and independence of percipient mind is only attained

1 In the case of all of us this reference to the bodily organism is always
present The very word ' externality ' implying relation in space points to
this. The most abstract of philosophers never succeeds altogether in pro-
jecting his own body into the external world and regarding it as a part of the
liot-selt

KNOWLEDGE OF OWN BODY. 2Q5

miich later, in connection with that of the permanence
of objects ; though, as we have seen, the child at an
early period begins dimly to descry this relation.1

Auditory Perception : Space Perception. As has
been said, the recognition of space relations by means
of the ear is very imperfect. Hence this organ is not an
organ of perception as the hand and the eye are. This
deficiency is connected with the fact that the ear is
wanting in local discrimination and in mobility. What
knowledge of space is directly accessible to hearing is
due to the circumstance that the difference of impres-
sions in the case of the two ears serves as a germ of
local discrimination, and that movements of the head
make up to some extent for the immobility of the ear.
The perception of space by the ear is binaural just as
that by the eye is binocular. The sense of direction in
hearing seems to arise by noting the difference in the
two impressions. If a sound is on one side of us this
may suffice. Thus we instantly recognise the proxi-
mity of a buzzing insect to one ear. If the sound
comes from a point in front or behind, movements of
the head are necessary in order to bring about a dif-
ference of auditory impression. When sounds are far
off this discrimination of direction becomes very de-

* This truth is rightly apprehended by Mr. Tennyson in the lines : —

" The baby new to earth and sky,
What time his tender palm is prcst
Against the circle of the breast,
Has never thought that ' this is I ' ;

But as he grows he gathers much,
And learns the use of ' J,' and 'me,'
And finds ' I am not what I see,'
And other than the things I touch."

— (In Memoriam- XLIV.)

206 PEllCEPTION.

fective.1 The perception of distance by the ear is
only distinct and certain when we know the sound
and can compare the intensity of the sensation with
that experienced when the body is near us.

Time-Perception. While hearing thus gives us
very little knowledge of space, it affords us exact
perceptions of time-relations. By this is meant the
grasping of a succession of impressions together, as a
series, noting the order of their occurrence, and their
individual and collective duration. This perception
of successive or time-ordered impressions is something
more than a succession of impressions or perceptions.
It involves a subsequent act of reflection, by means
of which the mind is able at the same time to com-
prehend them as a whole.

Sight affords us a knowledge of time-relations as
when we watch a series of pendulum oscillations, or
the more varied series of movements of a dance. But
the ear is the principal organ of time-perception.
Indeed it may be said that the ear perceives time-
forms just as the eye perceives space-forms. This is
connected with the fact already noted, that the ear is
finely discriminative of the duration of its impres-
sions, and can distinguish them when occurring in
rapid succession. Thus we are able to apprehend with
great clearness the length of a vowel-sound, also the
succession of sounds constituting a word, and a series
of words. It is this capability of finely distinguishing
each member in a series of sounds, and of grasping

1 It is possible that tactual sensations of the outer ear contribute to the
sense of direction. For an account of the most recent investigations into this
difficult subject, see Bernstein, Five Senses of Man, Section III., Chap. 2 ;
"NVundt, Physiol. Psychologic, II., Cap. 12, § 5.

AUDITORY PERCEPTION. 207

them as a whole in their time-order that enables us
so easily to understand speech, that is to say, to seize
the relations of the underlying ideas.

This auditory appreciation of time-form becomes
more complex in the perception of the rhythmic suc-
cessions of verse and of music. Here the sense of
duration becomes more important. What we mean
by the appreciation of time in music includes the
comparison of successive durations, both of single
sounds and of series of sounds. Thus hi * common
time ' the ear recognises the equality of duration
of the crotchets, &c., and of the successive groups of
four crotchets making up the bars. The full appre-
ciation of rhythm in music, and measure in verse,
implies a recognition of numerical relations. The ear
notes the periodic recurrence of a number of sounds
in the case of each musical bar, and this recognition
underlies the appreciation of time.1 Further, the
perception of the characteristic rhythm of a tune
depends on the alternation of an accented sound with
a certain number of unaccented ones. Similarly the
appreciation of (modern) metre rests on the recogni-
tion of a periodic recurrence of a definite number of
accents. 2

Perception and Observation. All perception re-

1 That is 'time' in the meaning of the German word Takt as distinguished
from Tempo.

2 We also appreciate rhythm, &c., by way of sensations of movement, as in
dancing or watching another dance. But this appreciation is much less fine
than the auditory appreciation. For a fuller analysis of the perception of
time and rhythm by the ear, the reader is referred to my volume, Sensation
and Intuition, Chap. VIII. The differences between the perception of space-
form by the eye, and of time-form by the ear, are well illustrated by Mr. E.
Gurney, Power of Sound, Chaps. IV. and V.

203 PEKGEPTION.

quires some degree of attention to what is present.
But we are often able to discriminate and recognise an
object by a momentary glance which suffices to take
in a few prominent marks. Similarly we are able by a
cursory glance to recognise a movement or action of
an object. Such incomplete fugitive perception is
ample for rough everyday purposes. On the other
hand we sometimes need to throw a special degree of
mental activity into perception so as to note com-
pletely and accurately what is present. This is par-
ticularly the case with new and unfamiliar objects.
Such a careful direction of the mind to objects is
known as Observation. To observe is to look at a
thing closely, to take careful note of its several parts
or details. It implies too a deliberate selection of an
object or action for special consideration, a preparatory
adjustment of the attention, and an orderly going to
work with a view to see what exactly takes place in
the world about us. Hence we may call observation
regulated perception.1

Distinctness and Accuracy of Observation. Good
observation consists in careful and minute attention
to what is before us. Thus in order to observe nicely
a particular flower or mineral we must note all the
individual characteristics, the less conspicuous as well
as the more prominent. Similarly if we wish to
observe a process such as evaporation, or the move-
ments of expression in a person's face, we must care-
fully seize all the steps of the operation By such a

1 Observation commonly means a prolonged or extended act of attention
to things with a view to note the relations of objects to their surroundings,
and of events to succeeding events.

PERCEPTION AND OBSERVATION. 209

close effort of attention we give distinctness to our
observations, and accurately mark off what we are
looking at from other and partially similar objects or
processes with which they are liable to be confused.1
It is to be added that accuracy of observation implies
freedom from prepossession. We are apt to think
we see what we strongly expect to see, and in this
way we fall into illusory perception. To observe
accurately is to put aside prepossession, to restrain
the imagination, and to direct the mind with single-
ness of purpose to what is actually present to the

senses.2

Development of Perceptual Power. Our analysis ol
perception has suggested the way in which our percepts
are gradually built up and perfected. In the first
weeks of life there is little if any recognition of outer
things. Impressions are made on the child's mind,
but at best they are only vaguely referred to an ex-
ternal world. It is by the daily renewed conjunctions
of simple sense-experiences that the little learner comes
to refer any impression when it occurs to an object in
space. Of these conjunctions the most important are
those between touch and sight. By continually looking
at the objects handled, the visual perception of direc-
tion becomes perfected, as also that of distance within
certain limits. The child learns to put out its haud
in the exact direction of an object, and to move it

1 We often distinguish between a ' clear ' and a distinct perception. Thus
we may see an object distinctly, in the sense that it is discriminated from its
surroundings, without seeing it clearly, in the sense that it is well lit and so
distinct in its parts or details.

2 On the nature and sources of illusory perception see the author's work
Illusions, Chapters III. -VI.

210 PERCEPTION.

just far enough.1 The perception of the distance of
more remote objects remains very imperfect before loco-
motion is attained. The change of visible scene as the
child is carried about the room impresses him no
doubt, but the meaning of these changes only becomes
fully seized when he begins to walk about, and to find
out the amounts of locomotive exertion answering to
the different appearances of things. It is some years,
however, before he begins to note the signs of dis-
tance in the case of remote objects.2

After many conjunctions of impressions the child
begins to find out the nature of objects and the visible
aspects which are their most important marks. That
is to say he begins to discriminate objects one from
another by means of sight alone, and to recognise
them as they reappear to the eye. Sight now grows
self-sufficient. What may be roughly marked off as
the touching age gives place to the seeing age. Hence-
forth the growth of perception is mainly an improve-
ment of visual capability.

At first this power of discerning the forms of objects
with the eye is very limited.3 The child notes one

1 A child known to the present writer was first seen to stretch out his hand
to an object when 2£ months old. The hand misses the exact point at iirst,
passing beside it, but practice gives precision to the movement. The same
child at 6 months knew when an object was within reach. If a biscuit or
other object was held out of his reach, he made no movement, but as soou as
it was brought within his reach he instantly put out his hand to take it. On
the other hand, Prof. Preyer says his boy tried to seize the lamp in the ceiling
of a railway compartment when 58 weeks old (Die Scele des Kindes, p. 38).

2 The same remark applies to the perception of solidity. A good many
experiences of picture-books, &c. , are necessary before a child distinguishes a
flat surface from a solid body.

8 The first objects to be so recognised are of course those of most interest
to the child, that is to say most directly connected with his pleasurable (or

GROWTH OF PERCEPTUAL POWER. 211

or two prominent and striking features of a thing but
overlooks the others. Thus in looking at real animals,
or at his toy or picture imitations, he will distinguish
a quadruped from a bird, but not one quadruped
from another. Similarly he will distinguish a very
big dog from a small one, but not one dog from ano-
ther of similar size.

The progress of perception grows with increase of
visual discrimination, that is to say, of the capability
of distinguishing one colour, one direction of a line,
and so on, from another. It presupposes further the
growth of attention. As experience advances the
child finds it easier to note the characteristic aspects
of things and to recognise them ; and he takes more
pleasure in detecting their differences and similarities.
In this way his observations tend gradually to im-
prove in distinctness and in accuracy. Not only so,
an increased power of attention enables him to seize
and embrace in a single view a number of details.
In this way his first c sketchy ' percepts get filled out.
Thus a particular flower, or animal, is seen more com-
pletely in all its details of colour, and its relations of
form. At the same time he acquires the power of
apprehending larger and more complex objects, such
as whole buildings, ships, &c.

Waitz remarks that the apprehension of form by the child takes its
start, not from the periphery or contour of the object, but from some
striking detail (e.g., the trunk of the elephant). Little by little he
acquires the power of taking up into his view the other adjacent parts
of the figure. Finally, by following the contour (in alternation with

painful) sensations. Prof. Preyer says that of inanimate objects bottles were
among the first which his child carefully observed and recognised (Die Seelc
des Kindes, p. 42).

212 PERCEPTION.

this simultaneous apprehension) he comes to grasp the whole form in
its unity and its distinctness from its surroundings. (Allgemeine Pceda-
gogik, 1^ Theil, § 8, p. 108). l

The observing powers may develop in different direc-
tions according to special natural capabilities, or special
circumstances. A particularly good colour -sense,
accompanied by a lively interest in colours, will lead
to a more careful observation of this aspect of things.
Thus the painter will observe the delicate tints of
objects of which others are hardly sensible. A natu-
ralist has a keen eye for details of form which
escape the common eye. Objects may thus be said
to acquire a different content for different individuals
according to the habitual direction of their observing
powers. And this applies not only to the perception
of the visible aspects, but to that of others as well.
Thus to a man accustomed to handle and so test the
quality of woollen stuffs, the sight of these objects
will convey more than they do to another who is
without these experiences. The visual impression
which a piece of furniture makes on the mind of a
carpenter is supplemented by a peculiarly rich accumu-
lation of tactual and muscular associations.

Psychology and Philosophy of Perception. In the foregoing
account of the development of perception, we have been concerned only
with its subjective side, that is to say the nature of the psychical process
by which percepts are formed. We have been answering the question :
By what steps, by aid of what discoverable psychical facts, does a child
reach what we call a knowledge of things in space and time ?

1 Progress in power of perception and observation may be roughly measured
by the rapidity with which the forms of familiar objects are recognised, as in
looking at drawings of animals, &c., at some distance : also the rapidity with
which complex groups or numbers are distinctly apprehended ; and the
rapidity with which similar forms are distinguished.

GROWTH OF PEECEPTUAL POWER. 213

After this problem has been answered there remains another question,
or group of questions dealing with the objective side of perception, that is
to say, with its validity as cognition when we have it. Looking at per-
ception on this side we ask : What is the value of perception as an
(apparently) immediate knowledge of something external to, and inde-
pendent of, the knowing mind 1 What is meant by a thing, or external
object, by space and by time ? Do these terms stand for anything more
than the product of complex groupings of sense-experience ? Thus, is a
stone nothing more than a sum of sensations of touch, &c., actually
experienced at the time, or represented as uniformly occurring under
certain circumstances, or does our knowledge of it as a material object
iu space imply more than the sum of all the sensations by the aid of
which we come to know it? If the latter (as perhaps most persons
would say), how is such knowledge guaranteed or made certain 1 Are
we to suppose things existing out of all relation to mind, and somehow
coming from time to time into relation with it? Or are we to conceive
that the reality which things have is constituted by the constructive
activity of intelligence itself ? These problems belong to the Philosophy,
as distinguished from the Psychology, of Perception. They are variously
known as the problem of Presentative Knowledge or of External Per-
ception, of the External World, of Realism and Idealism.1

The Training of the Senses. If the senses give us the materials
of knowledge the proper use of tliem constitutes an important
element in tlie economy of mind. To exercise the senses in the
best way so as to accumulate the richest store of clear impressions,
is the first step in the attainment of wide and accurate knowledge
about the world in which we live. An eye uncultivated in a nice
detection of form, means a limitation of all after-knowledge.
Imagination will be hazy, thought loose and inaccurate, where the
preliminary stage of perception has been hurried over. The best
modern theories of Education have grasped this truth, and tried to

1 The distinction between the psychology and philosophy of perception is
more fully illustrated in my work on Illusions, pp. 36, 353. The student
who cares to go into the philosophic side of perception may consult Prof.
Eraser, Selections from Berkeley; Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics,
Vol. II., XXI., and following; J. S. Mill, Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's
Philosophy, Chap. X. , and following ; H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology,
Vol. II., Pt. VII., Chap. III., and following; Prof. Bain, The Senses and
the Intellect, 'Of External Perception," p. 364, &c. A summary of the
different Theories is given by the last writer in his Compendium of Mental
Science.

214 PERCEPTION.

impress it on teachers' minds. Yet practice is, alas, far behind
theory, and teachers make haste to build up the fabric of ideas
in the young mind without troubling about a solid firm foundation
of sense-knowledge.

The exercise of the senses implies the voluntary direction of
attention on the part of the child to what is present. Sense-know-
ledge is gained by the young mind coming into contact with things
immediately, and not mediately by the intervention of another
mind. Hence the function of the teacher in this first stage of the
growth of knowledge is a limited one. A good part of the exercise
of the senses in early life goes on, and it is fortunate that it does
so, with very little help from mother or nurse.1 The child's own
activity, if he is healthy and robust, will urge him to use his eyes,
his> hands, and other organs in exploring things ,bout him.

Nevertheless a good deal may be done indirectly to help on this
process of acquisition. The mother has the control of the child's sur
roundings, and may do much to hasten or retard the development
of sense-knowledge by a wise attention to them or an indolent
neglect of them. To supply children from the first with suitable
materials for the exercise of their sense-organs, more especially those
of touch and sight, is the first and probably most important part of
what is meant by training the senses, at least in very early life.
Next to this comes the more direct co-operation of mother,
nurse, or teacher in directing their attention to unobserved
points in objects, and in arousing interest in things by appealing
to the impulses of curiosity, and so on. It may be added that a
large part of the gain of such co-operation is realised independently
of any methodic procedure. There are no rules of good observa-
tion which would enable one to teach it as an art. A child will
profit more by daily companionship with an acute observer, be he
teacher or playfellow, than by all systematic attempts to train the
senses. A boy privileged to be the companion of his naturalist
father in his daily walks will insensibly fall into the way of at-
tending to the phenomena of nature, of being on the look out for
things.

1 Of course a good deal is done undesignedly in training the senses of the
child. Thus he tends from the first to follow the lead of others, to inspect
what they are looking at and talking about.

TRAINING OF SENSES. 215

The training of the senses ought to begin very early in life, and
a good part of it should be got over before the child comes
under the more systematic discipline of the school. In the nur-
sery he should have his discriminative sensibility exercised by the
supply of a sufficient number and variety of sense-impressions.
Thus a number of coloured objects should be placed before him,
so that he may gradually distinguish shades of colour. The dif-
ferences must first be wide and striking, smaller ones being intro-
duced as the discriminative power of the sense advances. And
here the mother will do well to bring the colours to be distinguished
into juxtaposition, so that the attention may easily pass from one
to the other, and the differences be carefully marked.1 With variety
should go a certain repetition of previous impressions, so that they
may become familiar and be easily identified. All the senses should
be exercised according to their relative importance. And this
means that the child should be allowed the utmost possible liberty
of action in handling things, examining their surface, their internal
structure, and so on, and also in moving about so as to bring the mus-
cular sense into full exercise. As we have seen, an important part of
the knowledge of material objects is directly gained through the exer-
cise of the muscles. The young child delights to exercise his, and
finds a large part of his pleasure in investigating by his own active
experiments the qualities of bodies. Ifot only so, the very play of
the child may be turned to good account in furthering sense-
knowledge. There is no toy he tires of less rapidly than a box
of bricks. And the manipulating of these with a view to con-
struction, is an excellent means of ascertaining the form of objects.

By thus supplying food for his active impulses as well as his
senses we are putting the child in the way of co-ordinating his experi-
ences of movement and touch on the one hand, and of sight on the
other, and so of arriving at a rapid automatic recognition of things
by sight alone. As has been said, sight takes the lead in observa-
tion, and when once the visual signs of position, solid figure, and
magnitude and nature of surface have been learnt, the training of
the observing powers will consist mainly in exercising vision.

1 A special chart of colours suitable to the education of the eye has been
published by H. Magnus of Breslau, under the title, 2'afel zur Erziehung des
Farbensinnes.

21 G PERCEPTION.

Objects must be brought before the child's eye in sufficient variety,
so that the stimulus of change and novelty may be introduced,
and the power of readily discriminating one thing from another
be strengthened. On the other hand, there must be a certain
measure of permanence in the young inquirer's environment, in
order that the deeper sort of curiosity may be awakened, the
observation of things grow in depth, and the power of rapidly
identifying objects be exercised. A young child may easily have
a redundance of good things in the shape of new toys, new
picture-books, &c. In like manner, he may easily be taken about
too much and shown too many sights. A habit of close inspec-
tion presupposes a certain measure of familiarity with things, and
a certain depth of interest which only comes of daily companion-
ship with them.

The school may be made a field of exercise for the senses in a
number of ways. In the regulated play of the Kindergarten the
senses are rightly the thing most attended to. Froebel has built
on solid psychological ground in maintaining that knowledge and
activity are closely related, that the child's spontaneous activity is
the force that sets the mechanism of the senses in movement, that
perception includes the employment not only of the eye but of the
hand, and that a nice perception of form is only gained in connec-
tion with the device of manual reproduction. The well-known
active employments of paper-folding, stick-building, and better still,
modelling, train the sense of form by compelling a close attention
to it in a way that no mere presentation of an object to passive
contemplation could do. 1 Nor is this all : the execution of the
required manual movements in all such simple constructive em-
ployments helps to bring out more prominently the correspondence
between the visual and tactual experiences concerned in the per-
ceptions of form. The same line of remark applies too to drawing.
An experienced draughtsman reads more than another man into the
forms submitted to his eye.

The vast importance of a fine perception of form may suggest
that every child should undergo a systematic training of the eye in
this particular. Such training would of course begin in the nursery

1 In the same way the colour-sense is best trained by painting, the sense
of pitch in sound by singing.

TRAINING OF SENSES. 217

by presenting a variety of concrete forms to the child's notice as,
those of animals, plants, &c. Striking differences, as that between
an elm and a cedar, would be at first selected, and then finer
differences, as that between an oak and a beech, introduced. Tin-
coloured drawings, supplementing the objects themselves or models,
would be useful here as removing the more interesting feature of
colour. After a sufficient amount of exercise in discriminating
concrete forms, and when the powers of attention were strong
enough, the more abstract consideration of form by observing the
less striking form-elements should be encouraged. Lines, curves,
and their simpler combinations would now be learnt. Finally,
this synthetic treatment of form should go on hand in hand with
an analytic treatment of concrete forms of objects. The pupil
should be led on to discover the vertical line, the spiral curve, the
triangular figure, &c., in natural or artificial objects, as the tree-
stem, the coiling vine tendril, the house-gable. In this way, the
perception of concrete forms would grow in distinctness.1

An appeal to children's own observation is now rightly resorted
to as much as possible in every branch of instruction. The teaching
of Natural Science sets out with the object lesson, which in its
simplest form is a mere exercise of the pupils' observing powers in
noting the properties of a thing. Whatever the difficulties cf the
object lesson nobody really doubts that a large amount of valuable
knowledge about simple substances, as chalk and coal, natural
forms, as those of plants and animals, as well as art products, can
be given to a number of children in this way. This first-hand
knowledge of things through personal inspection is worth far more
than any second-hand account of them by description. Hence
the desirability of using models and maps in teaching geography,
of pictures in teaching history, and of such an apparatus as Mr.
Sonnenschein's in teaching the elements of number. Yet while
the senses may thus be appealed to in almost any branch of
instruction, they are far more concerned in some departments
than in others. It is now generally admitted that the careful and
thorough study of one or more of the natural sciences supplies
the most efficient training in sense-observation. It is plain for

1 Mr. Spencer insists on beginning with concrete forms, even in teaching
the child to draw, Education, Chap. II., p. 80.

218 PERCEPTION.

example that a wide observation of the characters of plants aa
roqnired by botany must tend greatly to sharpen the sense of
colour and form.

APPENDIX.

For a fuller account of the way in which we learn to localise impressions
and perceive objects the reader is referred to Prof. Bain's treatise, Senses and
Intellect, under 'Sense of Touch, 'Sect. 13, &c. ; under 'Sense of Sight, 'Sect. 12,
&c. ; and later, under ' Intellect,' Sect. 33, &c. ; also to the excellent analysis
in Mr. H. Spencer's Principles of Psychology, Vol. II., Pt. VI., Chaps. IX.
to XVIII. With these may be compared M. Taine's interesting chapter on
External Perception and the Education of the Senses, On Intelligence, Pt. II.,
Bk. II., Chap. II. For a knowledge of the current German theories of space-
perception the reader should consult Lotze, Metaphysic, Bk. III., Chap. IV. ;
"Wundt, Physiolog. Psychologic, Vol. II., Cap. XI. and XIII. ; Stumpf, Ueber
den psychologischen Ursprung der Raumvorstellung ; and Mind, Vol. III.,
1878, pp. 1, 167.

On the practical side of the subject, the training of the Senses, the reader
will do well to consult Mr. Spencer's Essay on Education, Ch. II., and Miss
Youmann's little work on the Culture of the Observing Poiccrs of Children.
The difficult subject of the Object Lesson is dealt with in a suggestive way
by Dr. Bain, Education as a Science, Chap. VIII., p. 247, &c. ; and by Mr.
Calkins, New Primanj Object Lessons (Harper & Brothers), p. 359, &c. The
German reader may with advantage read Waitz, Allgemcine Pcedagoyik, 2nd
Pt., 1st Section, 'Dia Bildung der Anschauung ',

CHAPTER VII.

REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION (MEMORY).

After-effects of Perception. Perception is the great
primal source of knowledge. But the act of percep-
tion is momentary, and there would be no enduring
knowledge of things if we were limited to sense-
cognition. The existence of such lasting knowledge
depends on the fact that the impression made on
the mind in the act of perception persists after the
removal of the object.1 In other words the percept
is in a manner retainable. The form in which it
appears after the removal of the object is known as a
mental image or representative image.2

Temporary Persistence of Percepts : After-percepts.
Percepts leave a temporary effect behind them. The
perception of a bright object is often followed for

1 ' Percept ' and 'impression* are used much in the same sense in reference
to this after-effect.

2 The term image in psychology points to a double distinction. On the
one hand it is representative whereas a percept is presentative (or largely so) ;
on the other side it is a representation of a concrete object, or a mental
picture, and is thus distinguished from a concept or general notion which
typifies a class of things. The terra ' idea* is commonly used to include both
images and concepts, marking off the whole region of the representative from
the presentative. But like the term notion, it tends now to be confined to
concepts.

220 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

some seconds by what is known as an ' after-image,
but which may be better marked off, perhaps, as an
' after-percept/ of the object. This after-image is due
to the continuance of the process of excitation in the
nerve-centres. Thus after looking at the disc of the
setting sun, we often continue to see, whether the
eyes be closed or open, one or more pale yellowish t
images or ' spectra ' of the object.

These after-images just referred to are known as 'positive'. They
are distinguished from ' negative ' after-images which arise from a tem-
porary fatigue and disablement of the retina, either as a whole or in
some of its elements. The first effect is illustrated by the transforma-
tion of a positive after-image of a bright object, say the window, into a
black image. The second effect is illustrated by the familiar coloured
images known as complementary spectra.1

The (positive) after-images, or after-percepts, are phenomena of great
psychological interest in relation to mental reproduction. They form
the connecting link between percepts and images properly so-called
(revived images). They approximate closely to complete percepts in
respect of their psychical marks, namely, vividness or intensity,2 dis-
tinctness of parts, and definiteness of localisation (either in the field of
objects if the eyes are open, or in the dark field if they are shut). The
chief difference consists in this, that they appear to shift their position
in the field of view with every movement of the eyes. This is owing
to the fact that they depend on a (relatively) permanent state of the
retina, and not on the immediate action of an external stimulus.

Temporary Mental Images. In addition to these
after-images, which are only occasional and fugitive,
every vivid and distinct impression begets a mental
image, properly so called, which endures for a much
longer period. Thus after seeing a friend the image

1 For a fuller account of the difference between positive and negative
after-images, see my work Sensation and Intuition, Chap. III., pp. 40, 41.

2 The vividness of an after-image, as of the mental image to be spoken of
presently, seems to refer more particularly to the degree of luminosity and
force of colouring (degree of saturation) present in the image or represented
by it

TEMPORARY IMAGES. 221

of his face lingers in consciousness awliile, and con-
tinues for some time to revert of itself as soon as
other objects of attention are removed. This tem-
porary image may be observed to become little by
little blurred and indistinct. There is thus a gradual
subsidence or dying away of percepts.

Though shading off into the other when it occurs, the after-image or
after-percept may be readily distinguished from the temporary mental
image proper. The latter is less vivid and distinct, and when definitely
localised (as it is in the early stages) it is fixed in some region of
external space (corresponding to the place where the actual object pre-
sented itself).

This temporary persistence of percepts as images is a matter of great
importance in the apprehension of all successions or series of impressions,
as those of sound, and in the perception of Time. If the impressions
o, 6, c, d, e follow one another, the grasp of the whole as one series im-
plies that the earlier members of the series a and b persist when the later
ones (d and e) occur. It is supposed that the range of our grasp of suc-
cessive impressions (as those of sound produced by a series of pendulum
oscillations) is limited by the persistence of such impressions. According
to the researches of Wundt the maximum range of such combining
consciousness is 12 distinct impressions. (Op cit., Cap. XV., § 3.)

It may be added that this temporary persistence of a percept as an
image underlies many of the lesser acts of what is popularly called
remembering. Thus in carrying a message to a person a child has the
sound of the words persisting in his mind for a few minutes. And this
persistence makes the work of retaining and repeating easy.1

Persistence and Revival of Impressions. This
temporary ' echo ' of impressions is, however, of little
account for knowledge. When we talk of picturing
or mentally representing an object we imply a mental
capability of having permanent images, as distin-
guished from the temporary ones just spoken of. That
is to say, we suppose an ability to recall, revive or
recover a past impression after an interval. All such

1 On the rapulity of this subsidence, see Stunipf, Tonpsychologie, p. 230.

'222 EEPKODUUT1VE IMAGINATION.

revival of percepts is known in Mental Science as
Imagination. Thus we imagine when we call up a
mental picture of a person's face or of a particular
church, when we recall a particular word, or the taste
of a certain fruit. Since visual perceptions constitute
the most important kind of sense-knowledge, visual
images form the chief part of our mental representa-
tions. Hence the employment in psychology of the
term ' image ' for all varieties of representation.1

This revival of impressions or presentations has, as
its physiological conditions, the modification of the
centres in some way and the production of ' a physio-
logical disposition.2 Owing to this, though excitation
of the centres can take place at first only through
some peripheral stimulation, it may subsequently be-
come independent of it. Milton mentally picturing
scenery after he had lost his sight, and Beethoven
representing musical sounds after he had lost his
hearing, are striking illustrations of this surviving
central effect of external stimulation.

While we thus distinguish between the temporary
after-effects of perception and the revival of percepts,
or between temporary and permanent images, we
must not overlook the connection between them.
Speaking generally, we may say that the revival of

1 We are wont to speak indifferently of the revival or reproduction either
of the original impression or of the derived image. Were it not for this
fixed usage of speech, it might be best, perhaps, to describe the process either
as the reproduction or revival of the percept or presentation, or as the ap-
pearance or occurrence of the image (after an interval). Since this process
means the calling up in the mind of a representation of some object, we
are apt in everyday language to talk of it as a recalling of an object op
incident.

2 See above, p. 55.

IIEVIVAL OF 1MPKESSIONS. 223

an impression is more perfect soon after its actual
occurrence, and becomes less perfect as the interval
increases. We can commonly recall with ease, and in
a considerable degree of distinctness, a face or a tune
that impressed us a few days before, though after the
lapse of a month or six months the mind loses its
hold on the impression. Images may be said (roughly)
to lose in vividness and distinctness in proportion to
the remoteness of the corresponding percepts.

Reproductive Imagination. The simplest kind of
imagination is that in which the several parts of the
representation follow the order of perception. This
is known as Eeproductive Imagination. What is
commonly understood by Memory, that is to say
the recalling of particular impressions and pieces of
knowledge (as distinguished from the retention of
general truths) thus falls under the head of repro-
ductive imagination. Another variety of imagination
which answers more closely to the popular use 01 the
term will be discussed in the next chapter.

Retention and Reproduction. It is customary to
distinguish the stage intervening between the percep-
tion and the representation as that of Retention or Con-
servation ; and the process of representation itself as
that of Reproduction. Impressions, it is commonly said ,
must be laid up in ' the store-house,* or the * pigeon-
holes ' of the mind before they can be brought forth
and made use of by the reproductive faculty.1 It is a
point of dispute as to what the retention as distin-
guished from the reproduction, of an impression in-

1 For an account of the various ways of conceiving and describing the fact
of retention, see Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. II., Lect. XXX.

224 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

volves. Without discussing this question we may
distinguish retention from actual representation as the
capability of representing. If a child retains an im-
pression for a week, this implies that he has been
capable of representing it at any time during this
interval.

This is not strictly true, since we often recall impressions in special
circumstances (e.g., in excited moments, or moments of exceptional
brain-vigour) which we were before unable to recall. Still if an
impression is recalled after an interval we may safely assume the
possibility of recall during the interval, provided certain conditions are
realised.

The nature of retention is conceived differently according to the
general conception of mind, and of its relation to body. Those who
hold that there is a large region of unconscious mind below the thres-
hold of consciousness are wont to talk of presentations as sinking below
the level of consciousness but still existing, and ready to rise above the
level again (see above, p. 74). Others again who are disposed to rely
on purely physiological considerations in accounting for psychical
phenomena, conceive the only persisting residuum of the presentation
when it drops out of consciousness to be the modification of the nerve-
structures concerned. According to these writers the essential fact in
retention is an organic property. 1

Images how distinguished from Percepts. We
A ave no difficulty in general in distinguishing between
an actual perception and an imagination of a thing.

1 The former view is common among German psychologists, especially the
Herbartians. It is briefly summarised in the following quotation from an
article by Mr. James Ward (Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. XVII., No.
2) : — " What, now, do we know concerning this central image in the intervals
when it is not consciously presented ? Manifestly our knowledge in this case
can only be inferential at the best. But there are two facts, the importance
of which Herbart was the first to see, from which we may learn something :
I refer to what he calls the rising and falling of presentations. All presenta-
tions having more than a liminal intensity rise gradually to a maximum and
gradually decline ; and when they have fallen below the threshold of con-
sciousness altogether, the process seems to continue, for the longer the time
that elapses before their 'revival,' the fainter they api'i-ar when revived, ;iml
the more slowly they rise. This evanescence is most rapid at first, becoming

IMAGES AND PERCEPTS. 225

We instantly feel the difference between looking at
an object, as a horse, and forming a mental picture
of it when it is absent. We roughly define the
difference by saying that the image is the copy of
the percept, that it is less vivid, and less distinct in
its parts.

This distinction is by no means the whole, otherwise we shoul 1
confuse a faint and indistinct percept (e.g., the sight of a very distant, or
of a badly lit object) with an image. Among other distinctive marks
of percepts and images are the following : The former do not depen 1
on our will, while the latter do, to a considerable extent at least. We
cannot help seeing an object if it is present and our eyes are fixed in
the required direction, but we can (usually) banish an image by a diver-
sion of the attention. On the other hand percepts depend on move-
ments (of the sense-organ and body) while images do not. An image
persists whether we turn our eyes to the right or to the left, and (as a
rule) is very imperfectly localised in space". Again percepts occur sud-
denly, and cease as suddenly, whereas images rise and subside gradually.
These and other points of contrast suffice in general for the distin-
guishing of them. But in exceptional circumstances as in sleep where
percepts are wanting as a corrective to the images, and where the latter
attain an unusual degree of vividness and persistence, we confuse
them.1

The central nervous structures engaged in percepts and images are
supposed to be the same. The seat of the percept is the seat of the
image. The difference appears to be that in the latter case the excitation

less as the intensity of the presentation diminishes. It is too much to say
that this holds with mathematical accuracy, although Herbart has gone thi >
length. Still, it is true enough to suggest the notion that an object, even
when it is no longer able to influence attention, continues to be presented,
though with ever less and less absolute intensity, till at length its intensity
declines to an almost dead level just above zero." A similar hypothesis was
propounded by Sir W. Hamilton, under the title 'Latent Mental Modifica-
tions ' Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. II., Lect. XXX.). The latter view
respecting retention, that it is fully explained by a reference to the properties
of the nervous substance, is represented by Dr. Maudsley, and others.

1 The difference between actual impressions and images, and the circum-
stances favouring the confusion of the two are fully given by Taine, On
Intelligence, Part I., Book II., Chap. I. ; and, Part II., Book I., CLaps. L
and II. ; cf. Horwicz, Psycholoyische Analyscn, Theil I., Sect. 50.

226 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

is less strong, and has a narrower range, being confined to the central
nerve structures and not reaching to the peripheral regions.1

Images involved in Percepts. Just as in mature
life we rarely or never have a sensation without some
admixture of the representative element which consti-
tutes it a percept, so we rarely if ever have a percept
in which an image is not embodied. Since to recog-
nise an object is to identify it with some object pre-
viously seen, it is plain that all recognition involves
the co-operation of an image, the product of the
previous act of perception. When a child sees a
familiar person, as Ms nurse, the percept is overlaid
with a whole series of images. That is to say, there
coalesce with the percept the residua or traces of pre-
vious percepts.

Such a nascent undeveloped state of an image must,
however, be distinguished from an image proper, that
is to say one distinct and fully developed. We are
often able to identify an object, as a face, when we
actually see it, without having any corresponding
power of imaging it when it is absent. A dog will
recognise his master after years of separation, but it
is doubtful whether he could distinctly picture his
appearance in his absence. The power of identifying
objects is independent of the power of picturing them,
and is often found in great perfection where the latter
is very imperfect.2

1 For the proof that presentation and representation involve the same
central structures, see Prof. Bain's Senses and Intellect, 'Intellect,' Chap. I.,
§ 7, and following. See also the interesting facts quoted from Wundt,
Appendix D ('Seat of Revived Impressions ').

2 So far as I have been able to observe. I should say that this is true of
many persons addicted to scientific pursuits or abstract studies.

IMAGES AND PERCEPTS. 227

Interaction of Images and Percepts. The fact that a percept
contains an image in a nascent form has been illustrated in a striking
mariner by the experiments already referred to under the head Expectant
Attention.1 The process of preadjusting attention to an impression
plainly involves the pre-existence in the mind of the corresponding
image. And the expediting of the process of perception (or what is
known as the 'reaction-time') suggests that perception takes place by
a coalescence of an impression (or group of impressions) and an image,
which last factor in the process is in this case already completed through
the very attitude of expectancy.3 In this way images act upon, con-
dition, or assist in producing percepts. The most signal instance of the
furtherance of percepts by images is that under certain circumstances
the percept occurs too soon — that is to say, the impression is referred to a
moment slightly in advance of that of its actual occurrence — owing to
the pre-existence of the image which combines or fuses with it.

We may say then that there is a reciprocal action or interaction
between percepts and images. On the one hand images evidently depend
on percepts, being indeed survivals of these. And they not only have
them as their remote conditions, but in many cases (as we shall see
presently) they have them also as their proximate conditions ; that is to
say, they are called up or suggested by actual impressions. In this
way the external order of presentations determines the internal order of
representations. On the other hand, in normal as well as abnormal
circumstances, images may react on percepts, and the inner order of
representation to a certain extent interfere with or modify the external
order of presentation.

Distinctness of Images. The chief merit or excel-
lence of a representative image consists in its distinct-
ness or clearness. By this is commonly meant that
the image be definite and not vague, that the several
parts or features of the object be distinctly pictured
in their relations one to another. Thus we have a
distinct image of a person's face when we call up its
several features, as the outline or contour of the
whole, the shape of the mouth, and the colour of the
eyes. On the other hand the image is spoken of as

I See Chap. IV., p. 89.

2 1 have elsewhere called this preliminary process ' pre-perception '. (See
Illusions, p. 27, seq.)

228 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION

indistinct, obscure, or vague, when instead of all the
details or lineaments of the object being pictured with
sharp definition, only a few are represented, or when
the details are pictured in a vague or hazy manner,
as in the case of a blurred or half-effaced portrait.

Closely connected with the distinctness of images
as just defined, is their distinctness in relation to other
images. The expression "a distinct mental picture,"
seems often to imply detachment from other pictures.
Thus we are said to represent a face " distinctly "
when we do not confuse it with another face. l

The terms clearness and distinctness seem to be employed almost
interchangeably for each of the above aspects of images. If it were
possible to break through a habit of speech, it might be advantageous
to use the antithesis clear — obscure with reference to the first kind of
distinctness (distinctness of parts or details), and the antithesis distinct
— confused with reference to the second kind (distinctness of the
whole). The close connection between the terms distinct and clear
will be illustrated again by and by, in connection with general ideas or
concepts.

Our mental imagery shows all degrees of distinctness.
Many of our representations are vague, blurred, and
indistinct, and as a consequence tend to be confused
one with another. The recent investigations of Mr.
F. Galton into the nature of visual representation, or
what he calls ' visualisation/ go to show that this
power varies widely among individuals (of the same
race), that many persons have very little ability to

1 It is customary to distinguish between the liveliness or vividness of an
image and its distinctness. For purposes of knowledge the latter is more
important than the former. A certain degree of vividness in an image may
lead on to hallucination. There may be a fair degree of distinctness with a
comparatively low degree of vividness.

PERFECTION OF IMAGES. 229

call up distinct mental pictures of objects as figured,
coloured, &C.1

Definiteness and Accuracy of Images. From the
distinctness of an image we must carefully distin-
guish its accuracy. By this is meant its fidelity as a
copy, or its perfect correspondence with the original,
the percept. Want of distinctness commonly leads to
inaccuracy, if in no other way, in that of deficiency.
But what we ordinarily mean by an inaccurate image
includes more than this. It implies the importation of
some foreign element into the structure of the image.
Thus we have an inaccurate image of a face when we
ascribe a wrong colour to the eyes, &c. It is probable
that all images tend to become inaccurate, by way not
only of loss, but of confusion, of elements, with the
lapse of time. It is to be added that though there is
confusion here, there need be no sense of confusion as
there is in what we commonly call a 'confused image'.

Conditions of Reproduction. The capability of
representing an object or event some time after it
has been perceived depends on two conditions. In
the first place the impression must be stamped on the
mind with a certain degree of force. This circum-
stance may be called the depth of the impression.
In the second place there is needed in ordinary cases
the presence of something to remind us of the object
or to suggest it to our minds. This second circum-
stance is known as the force of association.

1 Among the curious results reached by Mr. Galton are the following.
Men given to abstract thinking are as a rule weak in visualising power.
The capability does not vary apparently with keenness of sight (perceptual
power), nor with the power of dreaming. (See his Inquiries into Human
Faculty, 'Mental Imagery,' p. 83, &c.)

230 UKPKODUCT1VE IMAGINATION.

(A) Depth of Impression : Attention and Retention.
In the first place then (assuming that there has been
only one impression) we may say that a distinct
imnp-e presupposes a certain force and distinctness of
the impression. A loud sound will in general be
recalled better than a faint one ; a bright object dis-
tinctly seen, better than a dull one obscurely seen.
For this reason actual impressions are in general
much better recalled than products of imagination.
We recall the appearance of a place we have actually
seen better than one that has been described to us.
The habit of repeating words audibly when we want
to remember them is based on this principle.

Again, the permanence of an impression is deter-
mined not merely by its external character but by
the attitude of the mind in relation to it. If our
minds are preoccupied a brilliant object may fail to
make a lasting impression. Hence we have to add
that the permanence of an impression depends on the
degree of interest excited by the object and the cor-
responding vigour of the act of attention. Where a
boy is deeply interested, as in watching a cricket match,
he remembers distinctly. Such interest and direction
of attention ensure a clear discrimination of the object,
both in its several parts or details, and as a whole.
And it is on the fineness of the discriminative pro-
cess that retention appears mainly to depend.

The interest determining the force of attention may,
as we have seen, arise directly out of some aspect of
the object, as its novelty, beauty, its suggestiveness,
and so on. A pleasurable feeling springing up in
the very process of perception is the best guarantee

CONDITIONS OF REPRODUCTION. 231

of close attention and fine discrimination.1 The events
of early childhood which are permanently retained
commonly show an accompaniment of strong feeling
(wonder, delight, awe, and so forth). Where this
powerful intrinsic interest is wanting a vigorous effort
of voluntary attention may bring about a permanent
retention. But this is hardly as effective as the first.
We find it hard to retain an impression, however
closely we attend to it, if it fails to arouse some
degree of pleasurable interest.

Finally it is to be observed that our minds are not
always equally susceptible to this process of stamping
in impressions. Much will depend on the degree of
mental vigour and brain vigour at the time. A fresh
condition of the brain is an important element in the
retention of impressions.

Repetition and Retention. We have just assumed
that the object or event represented has been per-
ceived but once only, But a single impression rarely
suffices for a lasting representation. Every impression
tends to lose its effect after a time. The surviving
image grows faint and indistinct unless it be re-in-
vigorated by new impressions. Most of the events
of life are forgotten just because they never recur in
precisely the same form. The bulk of our mental
imagery answers to objects which we see again and
again, and events which repeatedly occur. Here then

1 This is true -within limits only, for, as has been remarked above, strong
emotional excitement is unfavourable to nice discrimination. Powerful
feeling seems to stamp impressions on the mind simply by the added strength
it gives to attention, and independently of the degree of intellectual (dis-
criminative) activity cnlled forth. (On the preri«e relation of discrimination
to retention, see Stumpf, Tonpsycholocjie, pp. 287-259.)

232 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

we have a second circumstance determining the depth
of an impression. The more frequently an impression
is repeated the more enduring will be the image.
Where the repetition of the actual impression is im-
possible, the repeated reproduction of it serves less
effectually to bring about the same result. We are
able to remember permanently a few events of early
life by going back to them from time to time and so
freshening the images of them.

While we thus speak of the repetition of an impression we must not
forget that the perfect and exact reduplication of a presentation is a
comparatively rare occurrence. Familiar visible objects as the figures
of our friends, undergo considerable changes of aspect (see above p. 199).
Even what we call one and the same impression of sound, as that of a
word, presents itself with varying degrees of intensity, and differences
of quality (timbre) according to the force employed by the speaker,
and the character of his voice. It follows that our seemingly simple
images are in a measure composite. This fact will be referred to again
by and by.

Frequency of Repetition. It is important to add
that it is not the mere number of repetitions which
determines the final depth of the impression ; it is
the frequency of the repetitions. As has been re-
marked, every impression loses its effect after an
interval. In order then that a second impression A2
may add something to the effect of the first Aj it
must occur before this interval has expired. Only in
this way can there be a cumulative effect. In learning
a new language we may look up in a dictionary an
uncommon or rarely occurring word, and a common or
frequently recurring word exactly the same number
of times, and at the end retain the latter but not the
former. The process may be likened to that of

CONDITIONS OF KEPRODUCTION. 233

dimming a stream with stones. If we throw in the
stones with sufficient rapidity, we may succeed in
fixing a barrier. But if we throw in one to-day, and
another to-morrow, the effect of the first throw will
be obliterated by the force of the stream before the
reinforcing effect of the second is added.

These two conditions, a certain amount of atten-
tion, and a certain frequency of repetition, are both
necessary to permanent retention. As we have just
seen, repetition is commonly needed to supplement
attention. And on the other hand mere repetition
without attention is ineffectual. We cannot dis-
tinctly represent even such a familiar object as a
friend's face unless we have carefully attended to its
several features.

It may perhaps be said that these two conditions are ultimately re-
ducible to one. Whether an impression has occurred once or more than
once the degree of perfection of the retention and reproduction will be
determined by the amount of attention bestowed on it. The only
difference is that in the one case a certain amount of attention is given
at one time, while in the other case it is given at different times. It
does not follow from this, however, that the effect will be quite the same
if we bestow a certain quantity of attention on a thing at one time, or
distribute the same quantity over different times.

(B) Association of Impression. When an impres-
sion has been well stamped on the mind there remains
a predisposition or tendency to reproduce it under
the form of an image. The degree of facility with
which we recall any object always depends in part on
the strength of this predisposition.1 Nevertheless this
predisposition will not in ordinary cases suffice in

1 The strength of this predisposition will, of course, be greatest in the
case of recent impressions.

234 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

itself to effect a restoration after a certain time has
elapsed. There is needed further something present
to the mind to suggest the image, or remind us of the
event or object.1 Thus the sight of a place reminds
us of an event which happened there, the hearing of
a, person's name of that person, and so on. Such a
reminder constitutes the 'exciting' as distinguished
from the 'predisposing* cause. The reason why so
many impressions of our life, including our deeply
interesting dream- experiences, appear to be wholly
forgotten is that there is nothing to remind us of
them.

Now we are reminded of an impression by some
other impression (or image) which is somehow con-
nected in our minds or 'associated' with it. Thus
the event is associated with the place which recalls
it, and the person with his name. Hence we speak
of association as the second great condition of repro-
duction.

Different kinds of Association. One impression may
be associated with another in different ways. Let A
stand for the antecedent or reminder, B for the con-
sequent or the representation called up. Then A and
B may correspond to two objects locally connected,
as two adjacent buildings, or to two events following:

«/ O * O

one another in time, as sunset and the coming on of
darkness. Or again they may stand for two like

JThis at least is true of the vast majority of our revivals. Whether
there is ever a perfectly spontaneous revival, as for example in dreams, and
in other exceptional conditions of mind, need not concern us here. Of course
the suggestive force is often of the slightest, as in the case of the most fre-
quently recurring and familiar objects (our friends, and so on), the images
of which are ready to start up at any moment.

ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY. ,235,

>9d»'

objects, as a portrait and the original. These various
kinds of connection are reduced by the psychologist
to the smallest number of principles or laws of as-
sociation.

Association by Contiguity. Of these kinds of asso-
ciation the most important is that known as contiguous
association, or Association by Contiguity. By this is
meant the association of two or more impressions
through, or on the ground of, their connection in time.
Its principle may be stated briefly as follows : Presen-
tations or impressions which occur together, or in im-
mediate succession, will afterwards tend to revive,
recall, or suggest one another.1

It is obvious from this bare statement of the prin-
ciple of Contiguous Association, that it implies two
facts and a relation of dependence between them.
First of all we have a fact of the external order, the
presentation, simultaneously or in close succession, of
two objects. This is marked off as the conjunction
of impressions. Secondly, we have a fact of the sub-
sequent internal order, the appearance or occurrence f/
together of the corresponding images. The term
' association ' properly applies not to the conjunction
of impressions in itself, but to the connection of images
resulting from this.2

1 This law applies also, as we have seen, to other mental states, namely
feelings of pleasure and pain, and actions, being indeed, a general principle
of mental development (see p. 50). For the present, however, we are only
interested in its application to intellectual phenomena, or presentations.

2 The reader should note the ambiguity in the current phrases ' association
of impressions, ' or ' of objects '. As the classical phrase ' association of ideas '
shews, the term association refers directly to the resulting relation of the

representations.

236 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

We see at once that this kind of association covers
not only the connection of contemporaneous or suc-
cessive events, such as the flash and the sound of an
explosion, the flow and ebb of the tide, but also that
of cause and effect, and of objects in space as co-
existent. For the relation of cause and effect clearly
makes itself known through a connection in time.
And it is easy to see that we observe the local re-
lations of objects by repeated successions of percepts.
Thus we know the situation of a building in relation
to its surroundings by successive acts of attention :
we know the situation of a town or of a river
relatively to adjacent places by moving from one to
the other.

Law of Contiguity. In order to understand more
precisely what is meant by the Law of Contiguous
Association, we may let A and B stand for two im-
pressions (percepts) occurring together, and a and b
for the two representations answering to these. Then
the Law asserts that when A (or a) recurs it will tend
to excite or call up b; and similarly that the recur-
rence of B (or b) will tend to excite a. Thus the
actual sight of a person or the mental picture of that
person calls up the image of the place where we last
saw him. It is to be added that the actual impres-
sion A will tend to call up b more powerfully than
the representation a. Seeing a place will bring back
an occurrence that happened there much more cer-
tainly and forcibly than merely imagining that place.

If instead of two simultaneous percepts or impressions we take two
successive ones the same thing occurs. Only it is to be remarked here
that the antecedent tends to call up the image of the consequent more

ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY1. 237

forcibly than the consequent the image of the antecedent. This truth
is illustrated in the familiar difficulty of repeating the alphabet back-
wards.

Finally what is true of two percepts or impressions
is true of any number. Of a whole group of contem-
poraneous events any one may call up the image of
any other. In the case of a series of events each link
tends to call up the adjacent links, the consequent
more forcibly than the antecedent.

The physiological basis of this contiguous association seems to be the
fact that two nerve structures which have repeatedly acted together,
acquire a disposition to act in combination in the same way. This fact
is explained by the hypothesis that such a conjoint action of two nerve
centres somehow tends to fix the line of nervous excitation or nervous
discharge when one centre is again stimulated in the direction of the
other. In other words paths of ^connection are formed between the two
regions. But it may be doubted whether physiologists can as yet give
a satisfactory account of the nervous concomitants of the associativ
process (see above p. 55).

Degrees of Associative Force. The Law of Con-
tiguity speaks of a tendency to call up or suggest.
This means that the suggestion does not always take
place, that A is not always followed by 6, and that in
some cases it is much more prompt than in others.
We may easily see by observation that this is so.
Thus we sometimes hear names of persons and places
without representing the corresponding objects, in
other words the names do not call up the appropriate
images. In other cases, again, the revival is certain
and rapid, as when a familiar word in the native tongue
as ' home/ ' father/ calls up its image. Indeed in
a certain class of cases the revival is so rapid that the
mind is hardly aware of a transition from antecedent

238 EErilODUCTlVE IMAGINATION.

to consequent. Such are the suggestions of a vocal
action by the connected sound (articulate or musical),
of a manual movement by a visible sign or signal, and
of a feeling say of anger, by the visible expression.
We express this fact by saying that there are various
degrees of associative or suggestive force.

O *— '*— '

On what Associative Force depends. The associa-
tive force in any case depends mainly on the same
two circumstances as we found governing the per-
sistence of impressions regarded as single or apart.
These are first the amount of attention given to the
impressions A and B in conjunction ; and secondly
the frequency of their concurrence. After what has
been said a,s to the effect of these circumstances
on single impressions, a word or two will suffice to
illustrate their effect on conjunctions of impres-
sions.

(A) Connective Attention. Two (or more) impres-
sions may become closely associated with one another
by a special act of conjoint attention at the time. Thus
a child sees a stranger and hears his name, and by
attending closely to the two things together, and in
their connection, his mind in a manner makes one
object of them, so that the recurrence of the one
suggests the other. A place vividly recalls some
pleasurable or painful incident which happened there,
just because the mind being greatly excited at the
moment threw a special force of attention into its
perceptions, seizing the several parts of its sur-
roundings in one comprehensive glance. A v )luntary
concentration of mind on a plurality of objects or
events in their connection one with another will, to

ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY. 239

some extent, effect the same result.1 The greater the
force of attention directed to two objects, and the
more closely the mind connects them by one act of
attention, the stronger will be the resulting associa-
tion.

It follows from this that the order of our repre-
sentations is not wholly determined by the external
order. We ourselves determine this order to some
extent by the direction we give to our attention. Our
interest in the objects presented is an important factor
in fixing the special mental connections formed. This
may be seen by comparing the dissimilar internal re-
sults of the same external order of impressions on
different minds. Two persons, say an uneducated,
and an educated man, will give very unlike accounts
of an incident which they have witnessed or of a
speech which they have heard. In the former case
the path followed by the attention in watching the
event or listening to the discourse (which in this
instance is determined largely by external forces, or
degrees of impressiveness), shows itself in the want of
any logical connection in the several parts of the
recital. In the latter case the path of attention (here
largely voluntary and determined by a desire to piece
together and understand) shows itself in the presence
of such a logical connection in the narration.2

1 On the nature of such a comprehensive act of attention see above, pp.
78, 100.

2 The dependence of the representative order on the direction of attention
has been recently emphasised by Mr. James Ward in a paper which is un-
fortunately not yet accessible to the general public. He expresses this by
saying that the memory-continuum (or order of representations) is "deter-
mined by the movements of attention".

240 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

(B) Repetition and Association. It is however but
rarely that a single conjunction of two experiences
effects a permanent association. Repetition of the
original experiences is necessary in the great majority
of instances. All our enduring knowledge about the
things around us, such as the persons and places we are
familiar with, the permanent natural objects, sun, moon,
and stars, together with their movements, actions,
or changes, owes its persistence to a number of recur-
ring conjunctions of impressions. The more frequent
the conjunction of two percepts or impressions the
stronger the resulting bond of association between
them. The closest associations, such as those between
vocal actions and the resulting sounds, words and the
things named, the movements of expression and the
feelings expressed, are the result of innumerable con-
junctions extending throughout life.

It is to be observed that the order of our presenta-
tions varies greatly at different times. Thus we find
the same animal form with different colours : we
encounter persons in different places ; and we come
across words and phrases in different connections.
So far as this is the case, no firm associations are
possible. The dissimilarities of the concomitants
tend to counteract one another, and the image of
the object is not associated with any one of them.
On the other hand, the fixed order of nature, and of
human life, implies uniformity in variety, a certain
amount of repetition, along with much variation, of
concomitants. This is illustrated in the uniform
relation between natural phenomena and their condi-
tions, between human actions and certain corres-

ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY. 241

ponding circumstances and motives, and between,
words and their grammatical connections. It is by
the aid of this cumulative effect of many repetitions
that the mind comes gradually to disentangle these
uniformities of connection among things.

Relation of Eepetition to Attention. It would seem to follow
from the above that the degree of associative force in any case will vary
as the sum of the quantities of conjoint attention given at different
times. In other words, it will be represented by the product of the
number of repetitions and the average degree of attention called forth.

It is to be observed, however, that the degree of attention called
forth at any time depends in part on the frequency of the repetition.
We do not attend to oft-recurring and customary conjunctions. A
certain measure of familiarity deadens interest, and leaves the attention
slumbering.1 Conjunctions which struck us as odd at first, as that of a
person having an unsuitable name, cease in time to be attended to at all.
On the other hand, repetition is sometimes a condition of attending to
a conjunction. The attention is here called out by the very fact of a
repetition, or a recurring similarity in our experiences. This applies to
the recurring conjunctions of natural phenomena just touched on. We
only notice these, as a rule, after a good many repetitions.8

Different Forms of Contiguous Association. From a considera-
tion of these conditions of contiguous association, we can see that the
result will differ in different classes of cases, that is according to the
nature of the impressions, or the way in which they are presented
together.

For example, though impressions connected in the time-order, and
those connected in the space-order both illustrate the action of conti-
guity, they illustrate it in a different manner. In the case of two
fugitive impressions, as the sound of a horse's hoofs and the sight of
the animal, the attention is momentary only. And, if as commonly
happens, one succeeds the other, the movement of attention is fixed to
one order, that is to say from antecedent to consequent, and not con-
versely. Hence the fact already touched on that successive impressions,
as the letters of the alphabet, or the words of a poem, can only with
great difficulty be called up in the reverse order. On the other hand
when two objects are collocated in space, as Eichmond Hill and the
Thames, the attention can be prolonged, pass indifferently from the

1 As will be seen by and by, the effect involves in this case the discovery
of similarity amid variety, constancy amid change.

2 See above, p. 85.

242 KEPEODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

first to the second, or in the reverse order, and finally comprehend them
in a single (or approximately single) act. Hence in this case, the repre-
sentations call up one another with equal force, and appear rather as
parts of one representation.

Again the connection formed between representations will differ
according as the presentations are homogeneous or heterogeneous. As
was remarked above, the attention passes more rapidly or easily from
one impression to another like itself, than to a disparate one. Thus we
can in general more readily connect two succeeding sounds than a sound
and say a sight accompanying or following it. Heterogeneous associa-
tion may thus be distinguished from homogeneous.

A very important variety of association depending on the peculiar
action of attention, is that between signs and significates. A sign is
some impression which has no interest for us except as a mark to
denote, or recall to our minds, some object which is interesting. In
learning his notes a child is not interested in the visual figures them-
selves, but attends to them solely in their relation to the sounds for
which they stand. The result of this paramount interest in. one member
of a couple is that the sign tends to reinstate the representation of the
thing signified with much greater force than that with which this last
tends to suggest the first. When we see a person the image of his name
may hardly be excited at all. But when we hear his name the image
of the owner starts up instantly and uniformly. The full importance
of this circumstance will appear presently when we consider the nature
of verbal signs.

Some interesting statistical enquiries into the relative strength of
different associations have been recently carried on by Mr. F. Galton in
England, and by Prof. W. "VVundt in Germany. Mr. Galton's researches
show among other things that those associations (with words) recur
most persistently which reach back to early life. Prof. Wundt's experi-
ments aim at determining the relative rapidity of different kinds of
reproduction. He found, as might be expected, that a familiar word,
or one having a close association with some image or idea, recalls this
much quicker than an unfamiliar word, or an isolated word not standing
in a close connection. (Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty, ' Psycho-
metric Experiments,' p. 185, &c. ; Wundt, Physiologische Psychologic, 2nd
Ed., II., p. 279, &c.)

Trains of Representations. All that has been said
respecting pairs of representations applies also to a
whole series. A good part of our knowledge consists
of trains of representations answering to recurring
and oft-repeated series of presentations. Thus our

ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY. 243

knowledge of a street, and of a whole town, consists
of a recoverable train of visual images. In like
manner, we are able to recall a series of visible move-
ments or actions, as those of a play, and a succession
of sounds as those of a tune. Our knowledge of
every kind is closely connected with language, and
is retained to a considerable extent by help of series
of words. Again our practical knowledge, our know-
ledge how to perform actions of various kinds, such
as dressing and undressing, speaking and writing, is
made up of numerous chains of representations.

All such chains illustrate the effects of attention
and of repetition. The more closely we have at-
tended to the order of a dramatic action, the better
will the several links of the chain be connected. And
the more frequently we have seen a play, or heard
a musical composition, or written out a sentence, the
easier will it be for the mind afterwards to run over
the series. It is to be noticed that in the case of
all such recurring trains the effect of repetition is
to beget a powerful tendency to pass from one mem-
ber of the series to the following members. The
attention here moving in a habitual path, cannot
easily arrest or fix any member of the series, but
tends to be carried off to its successors.1 The full
effect of this repetition is to reduce the required
amount of attention to a minimum. We take in a
familiar tune, and repeat a familiar train of words in
a semi-conscious or automatic way.

At first these trains of representations are not self-

1 On the formation of such a tendency to move along habitual lines, see
above, p. 89.

244 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

supporting. They are bound up with, and dependent
on, actual presentations. Thus a child learning a
tune is able at first only to recall the successive notes
•step by step as he hears the tune sung (or plays it
himself). That is to say, revival is still dependent
on the stronger suggestive force of actual impressions.
Gradually the series of representations becomes inde-
pendent. The child's mind, on the recurrence of the
first notes, can move on in advance. Not only so,
when the train is perfectly built up, he will be able
to recall it as a whole without any aid from external
impressions.

Composite Trains. Again, in nearly all cases of
representative trains, we have to do not with a
single series of elements, but with a number of con-
current series. For instance, our representation of
a play is made up of a visual series, answering to the
several scenes, movements of the actors, &c., and an
auditory series, answering to the flow of the dialogue.
The effect of repetition is here to bind together the
several elements of each successive complex experi-
ence into one whole, and each of these wholes to
succeeding ones. Thus each visible situation is
firmly associated with the corresponding words, and
this composite whole associated with what precedes
and follows it. Frequent repetition tends here to
consolidate each successive group into one mass, so
that the whole series approximates to a single series.
At the same time, a certain independence of the
several concurrent series remains, since the attention
is able to fix itself according to circumstances, now
on one series, now on another. Thus in recalling a

ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY. 245

familiar play, sometimes the series of visual images
is the prominent one, at other times the series of
auditory representations.

Symbolic Series. An interesting variety of such
composite trains is that of symbolic series. Here we
have a chain of presentations or impressions of no
interest in themselves, but employed as marks of
other things. The visual symbols answering to
musical or articulate sounds may be taken as an
example. Here the first step in the process of asso-
ciation is to knit together firmly the several symbols
or signs with the symbolised objects or significates.
The degree of perfection attained here will depend on
the careful discrimination of each sign and of each
significate from other members of its respective class,
and the connection of the two members of each
couple by repeated acts of conjoint attention. When
this point is attained the mind is able to recognise
each symbol rapidly and with the slightest amount
of attention, and to pass from this to the representa-
tion of the significate. Thus after thoroughly learning
her notes a girl at once recalls the sound on seeing
the visual symbol. So rapid does this process of
interpreting symbols tend to become that at last the
mind is hardly aware of attending to the symbol at
all.

When this process of firmly coupling the separate
symbols with their meanings or contents has been
completed, there is a further process of association in
binding together numbers of these couples in series.
Learning the scale of printed notes, or the printed
alphabet, may be taken as illustrating the process.

246 KEPKODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

By the frequent repetition of such a train, each mem-
ber at once calls up, and leads the mind on to, the
succeeding one. Every successive going over the
scales of note-symbols and sounds concurrently con-
firms this tendency, so that the learner gradually
becomes independent of the presentations, and finally
on the reinstatement of the initial members of the
train, anticipates the whole succession.

Finally, the same influence of repetition is observ-
able in the learning of definite groupings of such
note-symbols, answering to particular tunes. Each
repetition of the particular chain tends to confirm the
attachments between the succeeding links. When
the young learner has often gone over such a row of
symbols she can read off the melody with more and
more ease, and with less detailed attention to the
members of the symbol-series ; till at length by aid
of a few initial members of the visual series she can
recover the whole series of sound-representations.
Even in the case of new tunes, the process of ' read-
ing off' is greatly expedited by the reappearance of
familiar successions of symbols, answering to habitual
intervals, musical phrases, &c. Hence, the mind
of a musician engaged in reading a new score, tends,
by the aid of association and anticipation, to pass
with great rapidity from symbol to symbol ; the pro-
cess of combining the symbols assumes something of
an automatic character.1

Series of Motor Representations. Another group
of these recurring composite trains of representations,

1 In the construing of new groups of familiar symbols, there is a further
process of mental construction, which will be described in the next chapter.

ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY. 247

closely related to the last, are those answering to our
repeated or habitual actions. Every voluntary move-
ment presupposes a representation of that movement,
or a motor representation. Before we stretch out the
hand to take something we rapidly represent this
action. Hence the performance of a series of actions
is immediately supported by a series of motor repre-
sentations. Not only so, along with this series there
goes one or more series of sensory representations,
namely, those of the sense-impressions immediately
resulting from the several movements. Thus in
walking there is not only the series of images an-
swering to the muscular actions, but that answering
to the sensations of contact due to the bringing of
the feet alternately to the ground} and in most cases,
too, that corresponding to the visual sensations arising
from the changing appearances of the moving organ,
and of the ground. So in singing or speaking, the
series of vocal representations is bound up with one
of auditory images.

In general the motor representations are weak as
compared with the sensory. Hence the train of
motor representations depends on the presence of the
sensory elements. And so these last are analogous
to symbols. They serve as the marks of the succes-
sive actions. Thus in writing the succession of
manual movements is directed by the visual impres-
sions. How much this is the case, may be known
by the simple experiment of trying to write in the
dark.

The effect of frequent repetition or practice is to
dispense with that close attention to the detailed

248 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

elements of such a composite train which was neces-
sary at first. This is seen in the fact that the
sensory elements which had first to be distinctly
attended to, become indistinct. Thus a child learning
her notes has at first to look at her fingers. Later
on she can strike the notes with only an indistinct
indirect glance at them. In this way practice tends,
to a considerable extent, to render a chain of move-
ments independent of sensory elements.1 The series
of actions approximates to an apparently single series,
in which the sensation accompanying the execution of
one step calls up a representation of the following,
which is too fugitive to be distinguished from the
subsequent presentation. The final outcome of this
repetition is a habitual or quasi-automatic action in
which all the psychical elements, presentations and
representations alike, become indistinct.2

Verbal Associations. Among the most important
of our associations are those of words. Language is
the medium by which we commonly recall impres-
sions. This arises from the circumstance that we
are social beings, dependent on communication with
others. A word is at once a passive impression and
a vocal action. And this points to the two-sided

1 That the sensory elements are still present as indistinctly recognised
factors, is seen in the fact that a man who has lost skin-sensibility has to
look at his feet in order to walk.

2 It is a nice point whether in these rapid successions there is a momen-
tary attention to each member of the series, though too fugitive to be after-
wards remembered. Dugald Stewart held that this is so. On the other
hand, Sir W. Hamilton considered this a case of ' unconscious ' mental
operations. See Lectures mi Metaphysics, Vol. I., XVIII. ; cf. Mill's Exami-
nation of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, Chap. XV. ; and Dr. Carpenter's
Mental PJnjsiology, Book II., Chap. XIII. (Unconscious Cerebration).

ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY. 249

function of language as the medium of imparting
and of receiving knowledge. The conditions of social
life have as their result the intimate association of
verbal signs and images generally. Hence words
play a most important part in the revival of impres-
sions. If, further, it is remembered that language is , ,
the medium by which all the higher products of intel-
lectual activity are retained and recalled, its importance
will be still more apparent.1

The value of our selected system of signs, articulate sounds, in rela-
tion to this function of recalling, depends on certain characteristics of
the sensations concerned. As we saw above, sounds are finely distin-
guishable in their quality. Articulate sounds constitute a wide range
of finely discriminated elements. Again, these elements are susceptible
of being rapidly discriminated from one another when occurring in
succession, and further of being grouped together and grasped as a whole
series.2 To this refinement of the auditory sense, there answers a
considerable degree of delicacy in the muscular sensibility of the vocal
organ, as well as a high degree of flexibility or capability of rapidly
varying its actions.

It follows from this brief account of words that
verbal associations will illustrate the characteristics
of symbolic association and motor combination just
described. The building up of verbal associations
begins with the knitting together of the several
elements entering into each verbal complex or word.

1 The full use of language in (general) thinking can only be explained later
on. Here it is enough to dwell on its service as a medium of reproducing
knowledge both of concrete objects and of classes.

2 See above, p. 206. It may be added here, as a fact in favour of an ear
language rather than an eye or gesture language, that the former sense can dis-
tinguish two successive sensations separated only by an interval '016 sec.,
whereas the latter cannot distinguish two impressions when separated by a
smaller interval than '047 sec. (Wundt, Physiol. Psychologic, II., Cap. 16,
p. 261).

250 EEPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

Here the first step is the linking of the vocal action
to its respective sound. To this must be added, in
the case of the educated, the combining of this pair
with a visual symbol, more particularly the printed
word.1 Not only so, since words are symbols, of
interest only as representing ideas, the building up
of these verbal aggregates is completed by the firm
attachment of the word-complex to the corresponding
image or idea. Here, too, the general conditions of
association hold good. The better the several ele-
ments, sounds, vocal actions, visual symbols and,
finally, ideas, are discriminated from other members
of their respective classes ; and the closer and the
more frequent the act of attention to the different
constituents of each group or complex in their rela-
tion one to another, the firmer will be the associa-
tion.

When this process of association is complete, any
member of the verbal aggregate tends instantly to
call up the others. But all the elements are not
called up with equal distinctness in every case. To
begin with, since the words are symbols, interesting
only as standing for ideas, words tend in general to
call up ideas more powerfully than these last to call
up words. The sound or sight of a word, instantly
carries the mind on to some image of an object. But
we may have images of persons, places, &c., with only
a very faint verbal accompaniment. 2

1 The other visual symbol, the written word, is only of importance in con-
nection with the action of writing.

3 The strong tendency of words to call up ideas is, however, counteracted
in certain cases. Like human representatives, words tend to become the
substitutes of that foi which they stand. This will be touched on by and by.

ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY. 251

Not only so, all the elements of a verbal aggregate
are not always called up with equal distinctness.
Thus when listening to the words of another the
mind (if interested) is instantly carried on from the
sounds to the ideas, and there is only an incipient
resurgence of the images of the vocal actions. On the
other hand, in speaking, or reading out from a book,
the vocal representations become much more distinct.

It follows that in our wholly internal mental processes of represen-
tation, diflVivnt verbal elements will be called up at different times.
In general the most distinct verbal accompaniments of images arc
representations of sounds : those of the corresponding vocal actions are
(according to what was said above respecting motor representations
generally) much h-ss distinct. But much will depend on differences of
past experience. Ideas which we have acquired by reading will tend to
be accompanied by pictures of the visual symbols. Much will depend,
too, on individual differences of representative power. A mind with a
high degree of visualising power will tend habitually to represent words
as word-pictures.

The verbal groups or complexes just described are
capable of becoming associated in definite series,1 and
it is by the aid of such series that our knowledge of
things in their order of time and place is largely
built up. The general conditions of the formation
of such highly composite series are the same as
before. The more closely the several elements
(sounds, vocal actions, &c.), have been attended to
in their succession, and the more frequently the
series has been run over, the firmer the bond of
connection.

It follows from what was said just now that in
learning a train of words together with its accom-

1 Strictly speaking a word is a (short) series of sounds, vocal actions, and
visual symbols.

252 KErRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

panying ideas, all the elements of the complex are
not commonly presented. Thus when a child is
learning a poem out of a book, and repeats the words
audibly, there is the full operation of the different
associative agencies (the linking of one visual symbol,
of one vocal action, &c., to its successor) at work.
On the other hand, in committing to mind what has
been said to us, the retention turns principally on
the knitting together of the succeeding sounds ; and
in learning a passage from an author the process of
acquisition depends, to some considerable extent at
least, on firmly binding together the visual symbols.

Memory and Expectation. Our images and trains
of images are commonly accompanied by some more
or less distinct reference to the corresponding pre-
sentations, and to the time of their occurrence ; in
other words, by some amount of belief in the corre-
sponding events. In some cases, no doubt, this
accompaniment is of the vaguest kind. In a state of
listless reverie we may have a series of images with-
out any distinct reference to the corresponding
experiences. We simply picture the objects, without
reflecting where or when we have seen them or shall
see them. In other cases, however, we distinctly
refer the images to some place in the time-order of
our experience. This reference assumes one of two
well-marked forms : (a) a reference to the past or
Memory, or more fully Memory of Events, and ( b) a
reference to the future or Expectation.1

1 It were to be wished that there were some word to mark off this fuller
process of memory from the mere revival of images. Some German psycho-
logists, as Drobisch and Volkmann, would distinguish the former as Recol-

ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY. 253

Both memory and expectation involve a series of
images ordered in time, and both illustrate the action
of association. Thus in remembering the events of a
particular day the mind retraces the (principal) steps
of a succession of experiences, the images following in
the order of the events, and being ' localised ' in this
order. Similarly in anticipating the succession of the
events of a journey similar to one already performed,
the mind passes over a succession of images having
the same time-order as the events of which they are
copies, and held together by the bond of contiguity.

Again, both memory and expectation are modes of
belief; but they are perfectly distinct modes. In
memory we have to do with a reality which is over,
which is no longer. In general the mind is in a
passive attitude with respect to it. The train of
memory images may indeed excite faint feelings of
regret or longing, but these are momentary only, and
the mind resigns itself to the fact that the events are
past. When we experience longing or regret in
looking back, there seems to be a momentary assimi-
lation of a past to a present moment. By dwelling on
the past situation we tend to imagine it as a present
one, in which we are able to act, in order to attain
some good or avert some evil.

In expectation, on the other hand, the attitude of

lection (Erinnerung), contending that this distinction is supported by long
usage. (See Drobisch, Empirische Psychologic, § 35 ; Volkmann, Lehrbuch
der Psychologic, Vol. I., p. 464.) But this distinction seems hardly borne
out by popular speech. Besides, the word Recollection seems best confined
to the active side of the reproductive process. There is something to be said
for Brown's use of the word remembrance to indicate the process of suggestion
supplemented by the time-reference. (Philosophy of the Human Mir.d, Lect.
XLL).

254 KEPKODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

the mind is one of strenuous activity. It stretches
forwards in anticipation of the coming event. There
is a preparatory fixing of the attention. To expect a
thing is to be on the look-out for it, to be ready to
apprehend the impression when it occurs, or to have
the attention preadjusted. Not only so, it implies a
readiness to act in conformity with the occurrence.
Thus while memory is a comparatively passive state
of mind, expectation is one of tension, effort or strain.

The mental state known as expectation varies according to the num-
ber and character of the images called up. Where the anticipation is
definite, that is where the actual presentation of the moment calls up
one series of images, the active tension is greater. In waiting for a
person to begin to recite a familiar poem we eagerly look on and desire
to realise the coming sounds. If, on the contrary, the expectation is
indefinite, as when we are watching a person who is about to recite
some poem, though we know not what, different series of images are
called up, more or less distinctly. And ill this case the eagerness of
mind takes another and more complex form, including an impatient
curiosity to know which of the anticipated series it is to be. 1

Not only so, the state of mind will vary greatly according as the
representations are pleasurable or painful. In each case the attention
is fixed, only in a different way. In the former case the direction of
the attention is more of a voluntary act, and is accompanied by an
active desire to realise the anticipated good. In the latter case the
attention is bound and fettered, while at the same time there is a
shrinking away from, or an impulse to put the evil further off. In
extreme cases, as in that of a paralysing terror, this overpowering of the
attention may reach to such a pitch that all effort to avoid the evil is
precluded. The will cannot detach the attention from the evil, in
order to direct it to the means of warding it off.2

We thus see that memory and expectation involve a succession of

1 A state of uncertainty often adds to the eagerness of expectation through
desire to exchange a painful state of doubt for one of rest. We are less
impatient when sure of the fruition of some hope, than when there is an
element of uncertainty.

2 The difference of mental state in looking forward to a good and to an
evil will be illustrated more fully by and by when we examine into the
nature of willing.

ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY. 255

images and an accompaniment of belief. It is to be added that there
is often the latter adjunct without the appearance of either (definite)
memory or expectation. In representing, for example, any recurring
conjunction of experiences, as the sequence, the setting of the sun and
the appearance of the stars, we do not recall any particular occasion on
which this observation was made. Similarly of the relations in space
of permanent objects, as the proximity of the Houses of Parliament and
Westminster Abbey. There is belief here without a distinct reference
to a particular time. Nevertheless, there may be said to be in all such
cases a vague reference to the past, though the very fact of the repetition
of the experience precludes a definite reference to a particular time.
According to some, too, such a belief implies an element of vague antici-
pation. Not only so, it has been said by certain psychologists that
belief, in some degree, always attends the revival of images.1 The
question as to the nature of belief will be considered more fully later on.

Representation of Time. The mental states marked
off as memory and expectation plainly involve the
representation of time. To recall an event is to refer
to a past, to expect one is to refer to a future. Both
expectation and memory are developed in close con-
nection with the growth of this representation of tim®.

It is difficult for us at first to conceive that a child
could ever have had a succession of unlike experiences
and not instantly referred these to their positions in
the time-order as before and after. Yet. there is
every reason to think that the knowledge of time is
a late acquisition. In its developed form the repre-
sentation of events in their temporal order is attained
much later than that of objects in their spatial or local
order. The genesis of the former is intimately con-
nected with the process of reproductive imagination,
whereas the origin of the latter is connected with
that of sense-perception. Children attain very clear
ideas about the position of objects in space, the rela-

1 For example, Dugald Stewart and M. Taine. See the latter 's work, On
Intelligence, Pt. I., lik. II., Chap. I., Sect. III.

2o6 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

tions of near and far, inside and outside, &c., before
they have any definite ideas about the succession and
duration of events. Thus a child of three and a-half
years, who had a very precise knowledge of the rela-
tive situations of the several localities visited in his
walks, showed that he had no definite representations
answering to the terms ' this week/ ' last week,' and
still tended to think of ' yesterday ' as an undefined
past.

As we saw above, some discrimination of successions of sensations as
Biich, as well as of their durations, is presupposed in the development of
the space-perception. To this extent, then, the apprehension of time
precedes that of space. But this first representation of time is vague
and limited only. Space, or portions of it, can be seen at one moment
by the aid of a number of sensations locally discriminated. Time can
only be apprehended by the aid of representations recognised as such.
This is manifest even in the case of that rudimentary apprehension or
' perception ' of short periods of time by the sense of hearing described
above. l

Representation of Succession. The representation
of time begins with the recognition of two successive
experiences as successive. This, as has already been
remarked, is more than the mere fact of succession.2
It implies an act of reflection upon the succeeding
presentations, and a representation of them together,
at the same moment, as successive. And this, again,

1 We may be said directly to apprehend or ' perceive ' the present, and to
represent the past as that which was once a present, and the future as that
which is to be a present. Popularly, we talk of perceiving time when we
apprehend short periods of time ending in the present moment. The expres-
sion ' perception of time ' seems to have reference, further, to the distinction
between apprehending time by way of a succession of objective changes, e.g.,
movements of the hand of the clock, and by way of the individual's own
'subjective' feelings.

2 See p. 206.

ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY. 257

as we saw also, presupposes the persistence of presen-
tations for an appreciable period.1

This representation of succession appears to begin
by noting the relation of a present actual experience
or presentation to some represented experience, im-
mediately preceding, or about to follow. The present
moment is the starting point in all representations of
time. We cannot imagine or think of time without
some present point of view from which we may pro-
spectively represent a future, and retrospectively a
past.2

How Representation of a Past arises. The sim-
plest form of time-apprehension would seem to arise
in the following way. A child is watching some
interesting object, say the play of the sunbeam on
the wall of his nursery. Suddenly the sun is ob-
scured by a cloud and the marvel of the dancing
light vanishes. In place of the golden brilliance
there now stands the dull commonplace wall-paper.
This cessation, however, as we saw above, does not
imply an instantaneous sinking of the presentation
below the level of consciousness. The image persists,
and attracts the attention by reason of its interesting-
ness. At the same time there is the actual present,
the sight of the sunless wall. Here then the contrast
between presentation and representation, the actual

1 See p. 221.

2 It is curious, here, as in other respects to note the similarities and dis-
similarities between the representations of time and space. The space we
see is in front of us : with this is contrasted the space behind us which
we only represent. On the other hand, space extends away from our stand-
point in many directions. Again we cannot picture space, even that behind "p
our backs, except by imagining ourselves facing it, that is, having it in front *
of us.

258 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

experience of the present, and the represented ex-
perience which is not now, would disclose itself. The
antithesis of now, and not-now would be reached.

Not only so, in this persistence of a representation
along with a presentation the relation of succession
between the corresponding events would be discerned.
The representation a, and the presentation B, would
tend to group themselves in a certain order. Every
time the attention was recalled to a (by reason of its
persistence and interestingness), it would tend (fol-
lowing the direction of its movement in successively
fixing the presentations A, B) to be carried on to
B. That is to say, a would take up its place as an
antecedent to B, and the relation of the corresponding
presentations A, B, would thus be represented as a
transition from A to B, and not conversely. And
this apprehension would be aided by the fact that a
declines in intensity and distinctness, while B, as the
actual presentation, persists intact, and so gains in
force relatively to a. In this way the child's mind
would fully seize the fact that A had been displaced
by B. The vague representation of a ' not-now '
would be developed into the more definite representa-
tion of a ' no-longer ',

How Representation of a Future arises. Let us
now take the case of anticipation. The representation
of a future arises, like that of a past, in connection
with an actual present. Here, it is obvious, the pre-
vious occurrence of the succession is presupposed. A
presentation A cannot call up the representation of
its consequent B, unless the two have become asso-
ciated by one or more past experiences. If the pre-

ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY". 259

sentation B follows A at once, or as soon as the
corresponding image is called up, there is no room for
anticipation, or for the representation of a future.
But if there is an interval between the calling up of
the image and the realisation of it by the occurrence
of the actual experience, the representation of a future
will arise.

In order to retrace the process, we will imagine the
situation of a hungry child who sees all the prepara-
tions of his food. Under these circumstances the
representation of the pleasurable experience of eating
is vividly suggested. Since in this case the image is
immediately associated with, and directly called up
by, an actual impression it will attain an exceptional
degree of intensity and persistence. And the plea-
surable character of the representation would still
further ensure its persistence. Here again, then,
there are all the conditions for noting the contrast of
presentation and representation, the realised 'now*
and the unrealised ' not-now '.

In this case, however, the relation of representation
and presentation would be a different one. During
the prolonged existence of the two in mental juxta-
position, the child would discover that every time the
actual presentation A rose into distinct consciousness
it would be followed by the representation 6. The
presentation and representation would thus assume a
different order in this case from that taken up in the
first. Through repeated mental transitions from A
to 6, moreover, b would gain in force, and not lose,
as in the former case. That is to say the relation
between presentation and representation would dis-

260 IIEPKODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

close itself in a tendency in the latter to supplant the
former, and not vice versa, as in the first case. And
on the ground of this relation between A and 6, the
child would ascribe a different order to the actual
occurrences. A would be viewed as leading on, and
about to give place, to B. In other words b would
be projected in advance of A as its consequent.
Here, then, the vague representation of a 'not-now'
will be differentiated into the representation of a
'not-yet'.1

Representation of a Time-series. The representa-
tion of a number of successions, or of a time-series
takes place, in much the same way, in connection
with an actual presentation. Suppose a series of
events A. B, C, D . . . . H. Then when the
presentation H occurs, the representations a, 6, c, d,
&c., persist in consciousness. These last will, as
shown above, be referred to the past. But they will
not be referred to the same points in this past. In
considering in rapid succession the group of images,
the attention is determined to a certain order. It
moves easily and smoothly along the series a&c, &c.,
but only with difficulty along another order say cba,
or cab. In this case, too, the differences of the
intensity of the images due to unequal degrees of sub-
sidence would make themselves felt, and serve as an
additional clue to the temporal order of the events.

1 If, indeed, as is fairly certain, each presentation and resulting repro- .
sentation occupies a certain duration, and goes through a rapid series of
changes of rise and decline, it would seem that a consciousness of the decline
of the representation and the rise of the presentation in the first case, and of
the reverse process in the second, would further serve to suggest the dis-
tinction between the 'no-longer' and the 'not-yet'

ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY. 261

Representation of Duration. Somewhat different
from the representation of a time-order or a series of
events in time is that of duration, or a length or
portion of time. Here the conditions of the growth
of the representation are not a succession of unlike
experiences or changes, but rather the persistence of
an (approximately) uniform experience. Further,
there seems to be needed an experience which ia
uninteresting, in order that the attention may be in a
manner compelled to direct itself to its aspect of
duration.

These conditions appear to be fulfilled in the case
of a prolonged expectation. A child, for example,
might probably obtain his first distinct idea of a
time-length when told to wait for the satisfaction
of an expressed wish. In such a situation his
attention fixes itself on the representation of the
promised gratification. Owing to this state of pre-
occupation, the succession of events filling the inter-
val, the other images intruding themselves, are not
distinctly attended to. The anticipation is the all-
engrossing representation, and so may be said to
constitute the content of the interval. Under these
circumstances the apprehension of duration becomes
distinct as a consciousness of a prolonged present in
antithesis to a desired future. Eeflection on this
prolonged process, this continued anticipation of a
pleasure accompanied by a recurring recognition of its
non-realisation, leads to an apprehension of a certain
length or duration.

Here, again, we have to suppose certain temporal marks or signs by
which the extent of time at any particular stage of the waiting would

262 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

be estimated. That at any two successive stages the mental states
somehow differ, is manifest. For the waiting is itself an experience,
the representation of which persists. In truth, at any point in this
interval of waiting, the mind is aware of so much waiting gone through.
The successive acts of forward attention, and the succeeding rebuffs, are
vaguely represented, and thus there is a degree of mental fatigue which
varies with the duration of the process. It may be added that a dis-
tinctly painful experience from which we desire to escape would also
supply the conditions of the genesis of this apprehension of duration.
A boy ' kept in ' by task-work, or undergoing the experience of being
'bored' by a moral disquisition, is in a favourable position for gaining
an acquaintance with time.1

Higher Form of Time-representation. The perfect
representation of time involves a combination of the
two kinds of representation just described. Time is
for us a succession of events having individually and
collectively a certain duration. Just as we only clearly
intuit a certain length of space, or distance, when this
is marked off or denned by two tangible or visible
objects : so the distinct representation of any duration
involves that of two denning points, a beginning and
an end. And the representation of a time-series is
incomplete without that of the time-intervals between
the successive members of the series.

The apprehension of the duration of a chain of
experiences is developed by aid of the discovery that
different successions of events may run on together,
or take place in the same time. We do not directly
apprehend the duration of a series of events which

1 In this respect, too, there is a close analogy between the apprehension of
space and of time. In each there is something more than the knowledge of
discrete points : there is the cognition of a continuum in which these points
are contained. And in each case this apprehension arises by way of a per-
sistent uninterrupted mental state, in which there are no abrupt changes,
but only gradual ones (experience of movement in the one case, that of
waiting in the second).

ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY. 263

greatly interests ns : for in this case attention is fixed
on the experiences themselves. It is by finding out
that while we have been thus interested, another
scries of events has transpired the duration of which
we already know, that we are able to measure the
duration of the first experience.

In this way, the 'subjective' and highly variable
estimate of time described above is supplemented and
corrected by a reference to an 'objective' standard,
which answers to a constant (or approximately con-
stant) time-experience of ourselves, and to a common
time-experience of ourselves and others. Such a
standard of reference seems to be found in movement,
and more particularly, visible movement. The move-
ments of the sun, of its shadow on the dial, or of the
hands of a clock, supply such a standard of reference.
Uniform movement from point to point of space
serves to define time-length, inasmuch as the positions
successively taken up by the moving body correspond
to, and at once suggest points of time. In this way
our space intuitions, though presupposing a vague
knowledge of time, serve in their turn to perfect the
representation of time.1

As we have seen, the measurement of time by noting the intervals
between a succession of sounds, may be rendered very exact. It is not
improbable that in the case of a musician the habitual objective stan-
dard of reference may be sound-intervals. It is probable, farther, that
our own bodily movements supply us with a customary mode of mea-
suring time. It has been found that when we try to reproduce a small
time-interval, as that between two strokes of a pendulum, we tend
unconsciously to assimilate it to a particular interval (about f of a

1 Cf. Herbert Spencer, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II., Ft. VI,, Gh.
XV., p. 267, &c.

2G-1 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

second). This answers roughly to the duration of a movement of the
leg in rapid walking. And Wundt argues from this fact that the sense
of duration has been developed in connection with the most constantly
practised movements of the body, which have thus supplied us with our
customary unit of time.1

Our representation of the past is a fragmentary one
only; and what we are wont to call an immediate
assurance of a past event is often in part a matter of
inference. In going over bygone years we only recall
a very few events, and these but indistinctly. Our
representation of a continuous past is built up out of
representations of successive durations or time-por-
tions, days, weeks, &c. The further off the time re-
called, the fewer are the images of events revived, and
the more the representation approximates to one of a
mere time-length, or an empty portion of time. Thu.:'
in recalling a year of early life we represent at most,
perhaps, the circumstance of our being at school at
the time. For the rest, the reproduction is accom-
panied by a vague representation of the succes-
sion of seasons, which, since they constitute regularly
recurring sequences of events, can be inferred to have
entered into the year's experience.

The construction of this time-scheme is effected by numerous pro-
cesses of reviewing or retraversing the prominent members of the series
of experiences. This process may be carried on. in one of two ways :
(a) in the forward direction, as when we recall some past event and
move onwards towards the present ; or (b) in the backward direction,
as when we return to some remote period of life by way of the inter-
vening stages. This last retrogressive mental movement is, however,
always the more difficult.2

^Physic/I. Psychology, Vol. II., Cap. XVI., p. 286.

3 This retrogressive movement from the present to the past is aided by a
number of circumstances, e.g., social converse, representations of the time-
order in space-symbols, as in lists of years, chronological tables, and all
written records of the past.

ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY. 265

Much the same line of remark as that followed in dealing with the
representation of the past, applies also to the representation of the
future. It consists of representations of successions of experiences of
certain durations. And the further off the time, the less definite or
complete the representation of the contents. At the same time, it is
obvious that in this case the representation of the concrete experiences
making up the content of the time-scheme must be much more scanty,
vague, and variable, than in the case of retrospection.

Localising Events in the Past. After this repre-
sentation of past time has been developed, the rise in
consciousness of any image is at once followed by a
more or less elaborate process of projection into the
time-series. This implies that we refer it to a point
of time in the past, the position of which is estimated
with reference first of all to the present, and secondly
to some other events the temporal distance or remote-
ness of which is already known. In many cases this
reference is extremely vague and incomplete, as when
we remember that we have met a person on some
occasion, but cannot recall the date. We here give
the event some undefined degree of remoteness from
the present, but cannot localise it relatively to other
events. Such an imperfect localisation of an event
appears to be determined by the degree of distinct-
ness of the image. In other cases we are able to
reproduce the relations of the events to other events
preceding and succeeding it, and so to assign it a
definite position in the time-scheme.1

1 The origin of our idea of time has met with but scant treatment at the
hands of English psychologists. Brown has a few good suggestions on the
subject (Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Lect. XLI.) ; and
Reid has a chapter on Duration (Essays on the Intellectual Powers, III., Chap.
III.). Cf. James Mill's Analysis, Ch. XIV., Sect. V., and Mr. Spencer's Princi-
ples of Psycholoyy, II., 1't. VI., Chap. XV.). German psychologists seek to
account for the development of anticipation and memory by their theory of

26 G REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

It is only as memory is developed in this distinct
and complete form that there arises a clear conscious-
ness of personal identity, that is to say an idea of a
permanent self continuing to exist in spite of the
numberless changes of its daily experience. Since
the consciousness or knowledge of self thus presup-
poses a considerable development of representative
power, it is attained much later than a knowledge
of external things.1

Association by Similarity. Although the principle
of contiguity covers most of the facts of memory, it is
usual to lay down other principles of association as
well. Of these the most important is Association
through Similarity, This principle asserts that an
impression (or image) will tend to call up an image
of any object previously perceived which resembles
it. Thus a new face suggests by resemblance another
and familiar one, a word in one language as the
Italian toro, a word in another as the Latin taurus,
and so on. The more conspicuous the point of re-
semblance between two things, and the greater the
amount of their resemblance compared with that of
their difference, the greater the suggestive force.

This kind of association is strongly marked-off from

the mutual hindrance (Hemmung) of representations. See Waitz, Lehrbuch
der Psychologic, § 52 ; and Volkmann, Lehrbuch der Psychologic, II., Section
V., A, p. 12 and following. The above account of our time-representation
follows pretty closely their treatment of the subject. A somewhat similar
mode of explanation is followed by M. Taine, On Intelligence, Pt. II., Book
III., Sects. VII. and IX. The writer has dealt with the defects and errors
incident to the process of representing time in his work on Illusions, Chap.
X., p. 239, &c. ; cf. Chap. XL, p. 302, &c.

1 The way in which the idea of self is reached will be touched on again
later on.

ASSOCIATION BY SIMILARITY. 267

the first. Contiguity associates things which are
adjacent in our experience, that is to say events which
are contemporaneous or immediately successive in
time, and things contiguous in place. Similarity on
the other hand brings together experiences widely
remote in the time order. Thus a face seen to-day in
London may remind us of one seen years ago in a
distant part of the globe.

Relation of Similarity to Contiguity. The exact relation between
he two laws of Contiguity and Similarity has given rise to much discus-
sion. Some seek to reduce both kinds of association to one. Thus Sir
W. Hamilton endeavoured to carry up both laws into the Law of
Redintegration.1 Mr. Spencer follows out this suggestion and aims at
reducing contiguity to similarity. That is to say, he holds that the
cohering of impressions ('feelings') with previously experienced impres-
sions of the same class is the sole mode of association. When a present
impression A calls up the images a, b, the essential fact is the similarity
between A and a. That b is also recalled is due to the circumstance
that it has a similar relation in time or space (or both) to a.2

On the other hand some would do away with similarity as a distinct
mode of association, recognising only contiguity. According to these,
when an impression recalls a similar one the process may be symbolised
as follows. The present percept axb is followed by the image pxq, x
being the element of similarity. The calling up of the x element in the
group pxq is not a case of association at all. The presence of x in the
new group axb lifts the representation x in the group pxq above the
threshold of consciousness.3 The real process of association is seen in
the revival along with this x of its accompaniments p and q. And this
is a case of contiguous association.4

There is little doubt that the two laws of association are not ulti-

1 Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. I., XXXI.

2 See Principles of Psychology, Vol. I., Ft. II., Chaps. VII. and VIII.,
especially § 120.

3 This revival of an impression by a present similar one, with which the
revived element coalesces, is recognised by some psychologists as ' Immediate
Reproduction/ while revival by way of contiguous association is called Mediate
Reproduction. See Drobisch, Empirische Psychologie, § 32, 33 ; Volkmann,
iehrbuch der Psychologie, Vol. I., Section IV., A and B.

4 This is the view taken by Mr. James Ward in the article already re-
ferred to. Cf. Prof. W. James, The Association of Ideas, p. 14.

268 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

mately distinct from one another. Each mode of reproduction may be
said to involve the co-operation, in different proportions, or with different
degrees of distinctness, of two elements, a link of similarity or identity
and a link of contiguity. Thus when a person's name calls up the
image of his face, it is because the present sound is automatically
identified with previously heard sounds.1 So too revival by similarity
commonly involves contiguity as shown above. Sometimes indeed the
action of similarity is seen in something like its purity, as when on seeing
a person's face we recognise it as familiar, that is distinctly recall a
past similar impression, without being able to recover any of its accom-
paniments. But in ordinary cases what we call revival by similarity
involves the calling up of concomitant circumstances. Hence the rela-
tion between the two laws may be symbolised as follows : —

A A

Contiguity, Similarity, .

(a) — TT ; c-a-f

That is to say, in the first case the process of identification is automatic
or slurred over ; and the revived concomitants are thought of as quite
distinct from that which revives them ; whereas in the second case the
identification is the important step in the process, and the concomitants
are not distinctly separated from the identified element.

Yet while thus recognising the fundamental identity of the two
Laws of Association, we may say that the formal distinction between
them justifies us in recognising them as two laws. The fact that in the
one case, and not in the other, there is that peculiar concomitant known,
as the consciousness of similarity (amid diversity), with the tinge of
emotional excitement appertaining to this, constitutes a real psycho-
logical difference. And for practical purposes it is very important to
distinguish between the movement ef mind from the representation of
a fact to that of its adjunct in time, and the mental transition from the
representation of one object or event to that of another separated from
it in time.

Influence of Law of Similarity. The force of simi-
larity exerts a wide influence on the flow of our
representations. When it is impossible by an act

"The reproduction of a presentation (Vorstellung) is called mediate,
•when it takes place along with, and through another representation either
immediately or mediately called up ; so that the ultimate ground of the
reproduction must always be a perception and an immediate reproduction of
a presentation effected through this. "— Drobisch, loc. cit., p. 86. Cf. Prof.
Bain's account of the relation between contiguity and similarity, Senses and
Intellect, 'Intellect,' Ch. II., § 2.

ASSOCIATION BY SIMILARITY, 269

of reflection to find a link of contiguity connecting
an antecedent image and its consequent, the thread
of connection can be found in some likeness or
analogy. Among these links of similarity must be
included what has been called the ' Analogy of
feeling '. One thing is apt to remind us of another
and disconnected thing by reason of its similar
emotional effect. Disparate sensations, as those of
colour and of tone, have certain similarities in their
emotional accompaniment. Hence the transference
of the language proper to one class to another, as
when we talk of a 'harsh tone' in a picture, or of
the * rich colouring ' of an orchestral accompaniment.
We have classical authority for likening a trumpet
note to a brilliant scarlet colour. The strange
associations formed by some, as the now famous
brothers Nussbaumer, between certain sounds and
certain colours may be due in part to such an analogy
of feeling l

Acquisition is greatly aided by this ' attraction of
similars ' as it has been called, or the tendency of
like to call up like. If everything we had to learn,
whether by actual observation or by books, were
absolutely new the labour would be colossal. When
we study a new language, for example, the similarities
very greatly shorten the labour. Thus, when the
German word Vogel calls up tLe familiar name fowl,
its meaning is at once fixed. The new acquisition
is permanently attached to the pre-existing stock of

1 For an account of these curious associations of colours and sounds, see
G. H. Lewes Problems of Life and Mind, Prob. III., Chap. IV. ; F. Galton,
Inquiries into Human Faculty : Colour Association, p. 145, &c.

270 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION

acquisitions through a link of similarity. Or as we
commonly express it, the new is assimilated to the
old.

While the binding force of similarity thus in a measure aids in
memory-work, it is apt to interfere with a full and distinct picturing
of past events. Every approximation of two images, not connected by
contiguity, serves to loosen them from their proper connections of time.
A mind strongly impressed by resemblances is liable to become confused
in its recollections. Thus by connecting two words, two places, because
of their resemblance we are apt to transfer some of the (unlike) features
or accompaniments of the one to the other. Not only so, by going on
connecting two objects, as two faces, by a link of likeness we are
beginning to form a typical image which shall be equally representative
of both. And this is a germ of the process of generalising, which
belongs to the operations of the Understanding to be considered by
and by.

It follows that the 'attraction of similars' may oppose the revival
of distinct mental pictures, and to this extent be unfavourable to the
development of a good pictorial memory. But if so it subserves the
growth of another kind of memory, that which is known as the
' philosophical ' or which might perhaps be better called the scientific.
It is the binding force of similarity which leads to that grouping or
arranging of particular facts which prepares the way for the processes
of thought ; and, after these have been performed, to the connecting of
facts with the principles of which they are the illustrations.

Association by Contrast. In addition to the prin-
ciple of Similarity another principle of association
known as Contrast is commonly laid down. By this
is meant that one impression, object or event tends
to call up the image of its opposite or contrast. Thus
it is said that black suggests white, poverty, wealth,
a flat country a mountainous, and so forth.

It is, however, extremely doubtful whether contrast as such consti-
tutes a bond of attraction among representations. On the contrary, it
would rather appear that contrast between two representations leads to
an opposition and a mutual hindrance. A presentation or a representa-
tion tends to exclude its opposite from consciousness.

Suggestion by contrast, so far as it is a fact seems to owe its force

ASSOCIATION BY CONTRAST. 271

mainly to the circumstance that all knowledge of things begins by
marking off broad differences or contrasts, such as light and dark, noise
and silence, great and small. Not only does the mother or teacher
begin to instruct the child by pointing out these contrasts to him, he
spontaneously brings one thing into contrast with another, or views it
in that relation, as when he says ' This is a hot plate, this is not a cold
plate'. This being so it may be said that whenever we perceive any
object marked by a prominent quality, such as a tall man, a flat country,
a stormy sea, we are vaguely setting it in antithesis to its opposite,
namely a short man, a hilly country, a calm sea. The usages of speech
confirm this tendency by continually bringing together such opposites
as hot — cold, tall — short. And thus the representations of the con-
trasting objects become more firmly united by a bond of contiguity. It
is added by some, e.g., Drobisch and Prof. Bain, that suggestion by con-
trast illustrates the force of similarity, since two contrasting representa-
tions, e.g., hot — cold, tall — short, imply a difference in respect of one
and the same quality or aspect (temperature, height). 1

Contrast plays only a limited part in memory or
acquisition. Its chief use is to arouse attention and
thereby to stamp deeper on the mind what is unusual,
exceptional, and in contrast with the ordinary run of
experience, such as the sight of a giant or a dwarf,
the roar of Niagara, and so on. In some cases it
appears to co-operate with contiguity in bringing
about an association between the images of two
objects or events. The impression made on the
memory by the juxtaposition of barren mountains
and fertile valleys, by the combination of a high-
sounding name and a very insignificant-looking per-
son, or by the succession of a prosperous and an
adverse reign in English history, illustrates the

1 Drobisch adds that in all cases of suggestion by contrast the suggestive
force resides in the likeness, and not in the contrast. Thus when a drawing
of a group of laughing faces reminds us of another of a group of weeping
faces previously seen, the revival "takes place manifestly only through the
similarity of the faces in their juxtaposition " (Empirische Psychologie, § 32,
p, 85).

2*72 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

effect of contrast in confirming a contiguous associa-
tion.1

Complex Association. So far it has been assumed
that association is simple, that one and the same
image only enters into a single associative combina-
tion. But this does not correspond with the facts.
Association is highly complex One element may
enter as a member into a number of distinct combi-
nations. Thus the image of the Colisseum at Rome
is associated with that of events in my personal his-
tory, of pleasant days passed at Rome, of historical
events, such as the gladiatorial combats of the Em-
pire, its conquests and luxury, &c. The threads of
association are not distinct and parallel, like the
strings of a harp, but intersect one another, forming
an intricate network.

Convergent Associations. One result of this com-
plexity is that different threads of association con-
verge in the same point ; so that the recall of an
image may take place by a number of suggesting
forces. This co-operation of associative forces is
involved in the composite trains of images described
above. The process may be very well illustrated by
the case of a succession of words.

A verbal series committed to memory consists, as
we have seen, of series of auditory, vocal, and visual
representations ; and this composite series is supple-
mented by a series of object-images. The whole
series is thus a highly intricate sort of cord in which
a number of threads are intertwined. Hence in re-

1 For an historical account of the different views held as to the Laws of
Association, see Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. II., Lect. XXXI.

COMPLEX ASSOCIATION, 273

calling a scries of words, as those of a poem, the mind
may travel along any one of the parallel series of
images. Thus it may move now along that of the
sounds, now along that of the visual signs, and now
along the picture-series corresponding to the objects
described and events narrated. It follows that if
the members of one series are not firmly knit toge-
ther, the mind can pass by one of the other series.

Not only so, supposing that the elements of each
word-complex are closely attached to one another,
the mind on finding the path along any one series
interrupted, may pass over to another path and return
to the first path beyond the gap by a circuitous route.
Thus a child in reciting a poem from memory may at
some point fail to recall the auditory and vocal link
of the complex chain, but by recalling the associated
images or ideas, or the look of the page out of which
the poem was taken, he may be able to move on to
the next member of one of these series, and so return
at the next stage to the series in which he is specially
interested at the time. In this way the several
threads of association strengthen one another.

Associations of Numbers. The advantage to memory of such
parallel and connected threads of association seems to be shown in the
fact that many young persons visualise numerals in certain number-
forms, or geometric schemes, more or less elaborate, and in some cases
highly coloured as well.1 The explanation seems to be as follows. The
learning of numbers illustrates the associating of a series of sound-
representations with a series of visual images. In the case of the lower
numbers the sound tends to call up a concrete image of the number,
e.g., the arrangement of the dots on a domino or card. But in the case
of the higher numbers no such image is possible. Here all that is

1 Nearly one in four of the Charterhouse boys was found thus to visualise
numbers in some form.

274 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

called up (in the way of a concrete object) by the number-sound is the
visual symbol (as 100, 1000, &c.). Thus the association of the double
series of auditory and visual symbols is the main process in learning
numbers. What the child requires, indeed, in manipulating numbers,
whether working out a sum on a slate, or mentally calculating, is a
clear representation of these visual symbols.

Now, in order to bind together the series of visual symbols, it would
be enough to link together the successive sounds, provided that the
proper visual symbols were firmly attached to these. But children's
memories being weak, they find it an advantage to retain the visual
series independently. It is probable indeed that owing to the genera*
superiority of visual to auditory reproduction, it would in most cases be
much easier to commit to mind a series of sounds by aid of a firmly
associated series of visual impressions, than to acquire the latter series
by the aid of the former. This independent visual reproduction is
effected by giving the images of the symbols a local arrangement, and
grouping them according to a design. By so doing, they can recall the
separate numerals and their place in the series by recalling the design
as a whole. In this way their minds are able to move from number to
number not only by one route, that of the successive sounds, but by a
second route, that of the local arrangement of the number-symbols. l

This co-operation of associations is seen in another
form in those cases where one and the same image is
attached to a number of quite disconnected images or
series of images. In this case the mind may return
to a particular point by a number of paths, not
running side by side as in the case of composite
trains, but starting from widely remote points.

In most of our acquisitions there is this form of
combination of associative forces. Thus the date of
an historical event is associated with chat of simul-

1 For an account of these number-forms, see F. Gallon, Inquiries into
Human Faculty, p. 114, &c. These forms vary greatly in different cases,
and suggest that accidents of individual experience serve in part to determine
the precise arrangement. But the recurrence of the same peculiarities of
form, e.g., a sudden change of direction of the numerical line at 10, seems
to show that common causes have co-operated as well (e.g., the feeling of an
analogy between the marked change of the numeral form and number sound
at 10, and a sudden change of direction in lines).

COMPLEX ASSOUIAITIOJJ', 275

taneous events at home or abroad, and of preceding
and succeeding events. And it may be recalled by
way of any one of these channels. These combina-
tions include associations by similarity as well as by
contiguity. A person's name may be recalled not
only by recalling his appearance, the book of which
he is the author, and so on, but also by hearing
another name which resembles it. The succession
of Saxon kings is aided by the similarity of their
names. So the learning of the verses of a poem is
aided by the similarities of metre and rhyme.

Divergent Associations. While looked at from one
point of view the fact of the complexity of association
is an aid to memory, looked at from another, it is an
obstruction. If an image is associated with a number
of other and disconnected images, then the mind in
setting out from this image may move along any one
of a divergent series of paths. Accordingly it is less
likely to strike upon any one particular path that is
required at the moment. It is like being in a town
and having to find one's way out in a particular direc-
tion, instead of being outside and having to find the
way into it. The multiplicity of paths which was an
advantage in the one case, is a hindrance in the other.
The errors of confusion to which we are liable in
repeating a poem, or playing a tune from memory,
are due to the fact that certain members of the
series enter into other associations, and so lead us
astray. This aspect of association has been marked
off as Obstructive Association.

Passive and Active Memory : Recollection. The
reproduction of presentations is a passive or mechanical

276 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

operation. It is independent of the will and controlled
by its own laws. When there is perfect retention, the
flow of images goes on automatically without the least
intervention of the active mind. In many of our idle
moments, as in taking a walk in the country, we thus
give ourselves up to the unimpeded flow of images.

In this passive process of reproduction, the par-
ticular sequence followed at any time will be the
resultant of all the forces of revival acting at the
time. The actual impressions of the moment, or
recent events, will constitute the starting points.
These will call up images of other objects and events
associated with them, according to the degree of
firmness of the associative bonds and the strength
of the general tendency of the images to recur. 1 The
continual incursion of new and disconnected impres-
sions, which start new trains of images, as well as
the co-operation of similarity with contiguity, and
the frequent calling off of the mind from one train
by divergent paths, will serve to give to such a
purely passive flow of images the appearance of a dis-
orderly chaotic succession.

In contrast to this passive reproduction there is

' an active reproduction in which the will co-operates.

Here the succession of images is still ultimately

determined by the laws of association. The will

cannot secure a revival of any impression except by

It follows from our exposition of the laws of the revival of images, that
every revival is the resultant of two forces : (a) the disposition of the image
to recur which depends on the whole number of repetitions of this impression
(whatever its accompaniments), and which is greatly strengthened by recency
of impression ; and (b) the degree of cohesion between the image and the
anteceden* which excites it.

RECOLLECTION. 277

the aid of these laws. That is to say, a person
cannot recall a thing by directly willing it. All
that he can do is to put himself in the mental attitude
suitable to remembering it. But this ability to look
out for, and aid in the revival of, an image, tends
greatly to modify the passive flow of images described
above. Hence we say that the process of reproduc-
tion though an automatic process is susceptible of
being controlled by the will. This active side of
memory is best marked off as Recollection.1

Attention and Recollection. In order to under-
stand this co-operation of the will in the processes
of reproduction, we will first examine the case in
which its activity is present in a marked degree,
viz., in the process known as 'trying to remember'
a thing. The will works here as in the case of
all other intellectual operations, through the atten-
tion. To try to remember is to concentrate the
mind on the operation, to shut out disturbing
influences. The very bodily expression of the atti-
tude, the fixed look, compressed lips, and so on, shows
tha.t there is a special effort of concentration.

The effect of this effort of attention is to give
greater distinctness and persistence to what is be-
fore the mind. Thus if a child is asked the .date
of a certain battle he may by an act of attention
give clearness and fullness to the representation of
the battle. And by so doing he helps to give
effect to the associative force connecting the event
and the date. Not only so, the will accomplishes an

1 Sir W. Hamilton, following Latin writers, gives to it the name .Remi-
niscence.

278 EEPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION,

important work in resisting obstructive associations,
turning away from all misleading suggestions, and
following out the clues. The revival of an impres-
sion, as of a name, or an event, is a gradual process.
We are often dimly aware beforehand of the character
of the image we desire to call up clearly. And so we
know well enough whether we are on our way to it,
or not. (See Maudsley, Phys. of Mind, pp. 519, 520.)
It is obvious that this process of trying to re-
member a definite fact shows deficient memory,
absence of perfect associative * cohesion '. And at
best it can but poorly compensate for the want of a
firm mental connection. Yet its value is not to be
under-estimated. In the case of the most tenacious
memory there must be many loose associations which
need the co-operation of attention. It may be added
that even where trying to recollect seems futile, it may
effect something. The sudden return of a name after
many efforts to recollect it, points to the conclusion
that the revival of the image had been in a measure
furthered by these acts of concentration.

Commanding the Store ot Images. It is, however,
not in this form of severe effort to aid in the revival
of some particular image, that the co-operation of the
will is chiefly important. It enters, in a less marked
manner, into all our ordinary processes of revival.
Even in repeating a familiar poem the will, by an
effort so slight that we are scarcely aware of it, steadies
the whole operation, securing the due succession of
the several members of the train, and the avoidance
of misleading suggestions.1

1 Even in the "passive " revivals described above there commonly enters a
semi-conscious process of selection. See Mr. S. Hodgson's Space and Time, p.
267, &c.

RECOLLECTION. 279

This ability to control the reproductive processes
reaches its highest development in a habit of going
over the contents of memory, and following out, now
one path now another, according to the purpose in
hand. Thus when a poet needs a simile, or a
scientific teacher an illustration of some kind, he is
able to inspect the store of his accumulations in so far
as it bears on the purpose in hand. This ready
command of images by the will presupposes that there
has been an orderly arrangement of the materials,
that when new acquisitions were made, these were
linked on (by contiguity and similarity) to old acqui-
sitions. It is only when there has been the full
co-operation of the will in this earlier or acquisitive
stage that there will be a ready command of the
materials gained in the later stage of reproduction.

Degrees of Recollection : Forgetfulness. Curability
to recall impressions varies indefinitely from total
inability up to the point at which all sense of effort
vanishes and the reproduction is certain and instan-
taneous. At one extreme we have total forgetfulness
or oblivescence , at the other, perfect recollection and
perfect knowledge as determined by retentiveness.

Perfect recollection at any time embraces but a very
few of the impressions recalled by the mind. The
conditions of such facile recall are too complex to
allow of its realisation in the large majority of cases.
Interest, repetition, association with what is near at
hand, and so offers a starting point in the process
of recovery, are all necessary to this result. What
we can recollect instantly, and without mental exer-
tion is either included in, or firmly attached to, our

280 BEPKODUCTIVE IMAGINATION,

permanent surroundings, dominant interests, and
habitual pursuits. Thus we can at any time recall
without effort the scenery of our homes, or place of
business, the sound of our friends' voices, the know-
ledge we habitually revert to and apply in our daily
actions, our profession, amusements, &c.

Next to this perfect recollection comes that which
involves a greater effort and is less uniform and cer-
tain. This applies to a good many of our acquisi-
tions which have been firmly built up at the outset,
but to which we have had little occasion to go back
of late. Our knowledge of many striking events of
the more remote past, much of our school knowledge,
as that of classics or mathematics, not turned to prac-
tical account in later life, is an illustration of such
imperfect recollection. We can only recall it by a pro-
longed effort, and by the help of special circumstances,
e.g., talking with some old acquaintance, steeping our
minds for awhile in a Latin or Greek author.

Partial Oblivescence. Here, it is obvious, we
reach the first stage of Forgetfulness or Oblivesence.
There is partial or temporary oblivesence, yet not
total forgetfulness. The mind has evidently retained,
but an exceptional strength of reviving or resusci-
tative force is needed to call up the image. This
temporary forgetfulness may be momentary only, and
due to the condition of the brain and mind at the
instant, as fatigue, emotional agitation, f absence of
mind' or preoccupation. Or the inability to recall
may extend over a longer period. For instance, our
difficulty in speaking a foreign language which we
learnt some years ago and have not recently had any

FORGETFULNESS. 281

occasion to make use of, may require for its removal a
day or two's sojourn in the country.

Such partial or temporary forgetfulness suggests that at any time
the sense-impressions and related thoughts which interest us and occupy
our attention serve to crowd out the images and ideas which are not of
present interest. The field of distinct consciousness has a very limited
area, and there is a continual opposition between different and discon-
nected masses or aggregates of impressions and images, each tending to
expel or crowd out the other from the region of clear consciousness.
This antagonism and rivalry between different mental aggregates
shows itself very plainly in the tendency of presentations and represen-
tations to exclude one another, and more particularly of the former to
exclude the latter. Illustrations of this exclusion will occur to the
reader at once. The sensations of light and sound which greet the mind
on waking at once extrude the but recently vivid images of sleep. On
the other hand, when the senses are at rest, as when we sit and muse in
a quiet room in the evening twilight, the force of images preponderates,
and these attain a great intensity. In like manner one group of repre-
sentations may by its persistence effectually exclude another. In this
way we account for the banishment of earlier acquisitions by later, and
the resurgence of the former when the pressure of the latter is removed,
e.g., in old age.

Total Oblivescence. The final stage of perfect
oblivescence is reached when no effort of will, and no
available aid from suggestive forces succeeds in
effecting the reproduction. This holds good of the
large majority of our impressions. After a short
interval they fade into complete oblivion. Kepro-
duction in their case is practically impossible.

Whether we are to regard impressions thus beyond the reach of re-
collection as absolutely obliterated, is a question of some difficulty. It
may be said that we can never be sure that reproduction is impossible.
Very exceptional circumstances, such as ii tense mental exaltation, or
the recurrence of certain sensations (e.g., those of odour which often
show so powerful a reviving force) might suffice to effect a recall. This
line of remark, however, would seem to apply only to impressions which
have at some remote time been graven on the mind by the forces of in-
terest and repetition. But, as already remarked, the vast majority of

REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

our sense-experiences do not thus stamp themselves on the mind. And
it seems unmeaning to say that such impressions have any protracted
mental existence.1

Divisions of Memory. Although we speak of
memory as if it were a simple indivisible faculty,
we must bear in mind that it is really made up of a
number of distinct parts, as the retention of sights,
sounds, and so forth. It is one thing to recall a musical
sound or a series of such sounds, another to recall a
group of visible objects. There are as many compart-
ments of memory as there are kinds of impression.
Thus there is a memory for visual impressions, and
another for auditory impressions. Within the limits of
one and the same sense, too, there are distinct dif-
ferences of memory. Thus the memory for colours is
different from the memory for forms, the memory for
musical sounds, from the memory for articulate sounds.
In addition to these retentions of passive impressions
there are retentions of active experiences, as our
various manual movements and our vocal actions.

That the memory of one order of impressions is distinct from that of
another is fully emphasised by Volkmann, who says : " There are as
many species of memory as there are species of representations. . . .
a memory is everywhere : the memory nowhere ".2 This truth is seen,
quite apart from the individual differences to be touched on presently,

1 An unexpected capability of recalling apparently forgotten impressions
shows itself in certain morbid conditions. Injuries to particular portions of
the brain appear sometimes to effect an exceptional revival of images, see
Taine, on Intelligence Ft. I., Bk. II., Chap., II., V. It may be added that
Sir W. Hamilton, by the aid of his peculiar theory that all mental activity
must persist, argues that a total obliteration of impressions is impossible.
There is always retention, though there is not reproduction, see Lectures on
Metaphysics, XXX.

3 Lehrbuch der Psychologie, Vol. I., § 83, pp. 463, 464 ; cf., G. H. Lewes,
Problems of Life and Mind, Third Series, Prob. II., Chap. IX., pp. 119, 120.

DIVISIONS OF MEMORY. 283

in the facts of disease. Lesions in certain portions of the brain may
bring about the loss of a limited group of acquisitions, e.g., the know-
ledge of a particular language.1

Speaking generally, and disregarding for the present
individual differences, we may say that the higher the
sense in point of discriminative refinement the better
the corresponding memory. We appear to recall
sights best of all; then sounds, touches, tastes and
smells. Further, since the muscular sense is charac-
terised by a high degree of refinement, the retention of
our active experiences is in general relatively good. It
must be remembered, too, that our muscular experi-
ences are uniformly attended with passive impressions,
and that these serve materially to support the reten-
tion. Thus the mechanic recalls his manual perform-
ances partly by representing the visual appearance of
the moving hands ; similarly the orator recalls a string
of vocal utterances by help of the images of the sounds
which immediately follow them.2

Remembering Things and Remembering Words.
Of all impressions visual percepts are the most impor-
tant. As has been shown above, visual perceptions,
gathering up as they do the results of our sense-ex-
perience as a whole, make up the chief part of sense-
knowledge. And since sight is the most discriminative
of the senses we find that visual percepts are better
recalled than any others. Visual images or pictures of
objects thus constitute the staple of our ordinary re-

1 See Dr. Carpenter, Menial Physiology, Book II., Cheap. X., p. 443, &c. ;
and T. Ribot, Les maladies de la Memoire, Chap. III.

2 On the different degrees of revivability of our several orders of sensa-
tions; see Herbert Spencer, Principles of Psychology Vol. I.,Pt. II., Chap. V.

284 KEPJRODUGT1VE IMAGINATION.

callings. In representing a particular object, as the
interior of a room, Westminster Abbey, John Smith,
and so on, we picture its visible aspect, and represent
other qualities (even though the most interesting, as
the taste of an orange) only vaguely in the back-
ground. To remember a thing is thus pre-eminently
to recall its look or visible aspect.1

Next to visual images come those of words. Owing
to the importance of verbal signs pointed out just
now, representations of these constitute a large fraction
of our mental reproductions. So close, indeed, is th^
association between words and things that we rarely
represent an object without at the same time more or
less distinctly reproducing its name. Not only so, the
retention and reproduction of all the higher products
of intellectual activity, general notions, judgments, and
trains of reasoning, is effected by way of language.

To remember a name, however, is not necessarily
to remember the corresponding object (or idea). We
may distinctly recall the name of a particular place or
person, and yet possess only a very vague and indis-
tinct representation of the visible object denoted.
In order to preserve distinct images in connection
with words, it is necessary first of all to have deep
impressions, or clear percepts of the objects, and
secondly to associate these closely with the corres-
ponding names.

At first sight there might seem a contradiction between the assertion
that we can often retain impressions of words and not those of the cor-

1 This superiority of visual retentiveness is seen in the fact that most of
us tend to connect together even the comparatively revivable impressions of
hearing hy the aid of series of visual images (see above p. 274).

DIVISIONS OF MEMOBY. 285

responding objects, and the statement previously made that words are
symbols having no interest in themselves but only in relation to their
significates. But in reality there is no contradiction here. Words are
originally of no interest apart from things : but there are powerful
forces tending to alter this natural relation. As we shall see by and
by, the very function of words as general signs renders them extremely
liable to be divorced from the objects for which they stand. Not only
so, as social beings we are, to a considerable extent, more immediately
concerned with the mastering or storing up of words, e.g., in acquiring
knowledge when young, in studying the art of conversation, &C.1

Growth of the Reproductive Faculty: Beginnings of
Memory. Memory presupposes Sensation and Per-
ception. Images do not appear till sense-knowledge
has reached a certain stage of development. Reten-
tiveness in the early period exists only as the power
of recognising objects when they are present. A child
less than 3 months old will remember the face of his
nurse or father for some weeks. The first images only
appear later as the result of many accumulating traces
of percepts. They are such as are immediately called
up by the actual impression of the moment. The
interesting experiences of the meal, the bath, and
the walk are the first to be distinctly represented.
As the interest in things extends and the observing
powers grow, distinct mental pictures of objects are
formed. M. Perez tells us of a child of 8 months who
had been accustomed to watch a bird singing in a
cage, and who on seeing the cage without the bird
showed all the signs of bitter disappointment.2

Repetition of Experience. As experiences repeat
themselves and traces accumulate, representations be-

1 The tendency of the mind to content itself with words which have but
little content or meaning, will be more fully illustrated by and by.
8 Les trois premieres anntes de P enfant, p. 122.

REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

come more distinct, and are more firmly associated ;
also the number of representations and of associative
links increases. The learning of the meaning of words,
which, as is well known, may precede the actual em-
ployment of them by several months, greatly enlarges
the range of suggestion. After this the mother or the
nurse is able to call up the image of absent objects,
such as persons or animals, by talking of them. The
repetition of conjunctions of experience further brings
about whole groups and series of representations. The
child's mind is able to pass not only from the actual
impression of the moment to the image of something
immediately accompanying it, but from this last to
another image, and so on. Thus a child of 1 8 months
will mentally rehearse a series of experiences, as those
of a walk : " Go tata, see geegee, bow-wow," &c.

New Experiences. The child's experience is not a
mere series of repetitions. There is a continual
widening of the range of presentations, an addition
of new experiences. This extension of the area of
impression is due in part to the expansion of his
interest in things, and in part to the changes in his
environment. In this way fresh materials are being
stored up in the memory. To some extent these
displace the old. The temporary impressions of last
week are dislodged by the temporary impressions of
this week. But the growth of memory means an
increase in retentive capacity. The progress of the
child is marked by the fact that the new displaces the
old less and less, that there is a gradual enlargement
of the store of permanent acquisitions.

How Memory improves. This process of growth,

GROWTH OF MEMORY. 287

this continual increase in the store of acquisitions,
implies an improvement in the power of seizing and
retaining new impressions. By this is meant that
any particular acquisitive task will become easier, and
that more difficult feats of retention will become pos-
sible.

The progress of retentive and reproductive power
may be viewed under three aspects. First of all
impressions will be acquired or stored up more easily
(for a given time). Less esoncentration is needed for
the stamping in of an impression. Or to put it other-
wise, a given amount of concentration will lead to a
storing up of more material, that is, more complex
groups of impressions. This may be called increased
facility in acquisition. Secondly, impressions are
retained longer. A given amount of effort in the
acquisitive stage will result in a more enduring or
permanent retention. This aspect may be marked off
as an increase in the tenacity of memory. Thirdly,
this progress implies a more perfect form of revival.
That is to say impressions will be recalled more readily
and in a higher degree of distinctness and fidelity
than formerly. The details of the mental image will
be fuller, and the whole image or group of images
better separated from other like images or groups.1

The three characteristics of a good memory here touched on are not
wholly independent one of another. The memory may develop under
one aspect and not to the same extent under the other. Thus there
may be a growth of acquisitive skill in the shape of a quickness of mind
in seizing new impressions and retaining them for a short time. This,
however, would only amount to an improvement of temporary reten-

1 Progress may be measured under each of these three aspects. The first
two lend themselves best to exact measurement (see above, p. 34).

288 EEPRODUCTIVJB IMAGINATION.

tion. Similarly there may be an improvement of tenacity without any
commensurate increase in readiness of reproduction. Different indi-
viduals show these aspects of memory in very unequal degrees.1

Causes of Growth of Memory : Plastic Power of
Brain. This increase in retentive power is due to
some considerable extent to the spontaneous unfolding
of the brain powers. All mental acquisition appears
to involve certain formations or structural changes in
the brain. The capability of the brain of undergoing
these changes, or what has been called its plastic
power, increases rapidly during the early part of life.
Impressions of all sorts stamp themselves more deeply
on the mind of a child ten years old than on that of
a child three or four years old, owing to this greater
plasticity of the brain. This condition explains the
precocity of memory. It is commonly said that the
power of storing up new impressions reaches its maxi-
mum in early youth and the fact is undoubtedly
connected with the physiological fact that later on
the structure of the brain is more set, or less modi-
fiable*

Just as memory is one of the first faculties to be developed, so it is
one of the first to be impaired by age. The loss of the power to build
up new acquisitions, as the names of new acquaintances, marks the
proximity of the culminative point of mental development. The
decline of memory, like its development, shews well marked stages.

1 On the essentials of a good memory, see D. Stewart, Elements of the
Philosophy of the Human Mind, Pt. I., Chap. VI. Drobisch recognises four
characteristics of a good or ' strong ' memory : (1) Facility of apprehension
or acquisition ; (2) Trustworthiness, or fidelity of conservation and reproduc-
tion ; (3) Lastingness or permanence ; and (4) Serviceableness, i.e., readiness
of recollection, Empirische Psychologic, § 35. Locke points out that the two
main defects of memory are oblivion, i.e., (want of tenacity) and slowness
(want of readiness in reproduction), Essay on the Human Understanding, Bk.
IL, Chap. X., Sect. 8.

GKOWTH OF MEMORY.

The weakest associations (e.g., between proper names and their objects)
corresponding to the lowest stage of nervous organisation, are the first
to give way. The same order of decline is seen in mental disease.
Thus in disorders involving loss of memory for words, those classes of
words which answer to the lowest degree of cohesion or nervous co-ordi-
nation disappear first.1

Improvement of Memory by Exercise. Yet allowing
its full weight to this fact we can easily see that a
large part of the improvement of memory is due to
exercise. The successive changes in the plastic power
of the brain assign limits to acquisition : but the
actual amount of retention reached is determined
(within these limits) by the amount of exercise.

New Acquisition aided by Old. In one sense all
acquisition renders further acquisition easier by
offering more points of attachment. A student of 25,
well versed in languages, will master a new language
in much less time than a boy of 12 or 15, even
though the plastic power of his brain is less. All
fresh acquisition, in so far as it is assimilating new to
old material, is assisted by the results of past acquisi-
tion. In this sense exercise improves memory, and
enables it to go on developing long after the plastic
age has been past.8

Habits of Memory. Not only so, memory is

1 For an account of the physical changes involved in the decline of memory
with old age, see Dr. Carpenter, Mental Physiology, Book II., Chap. X., §
351. The order of failure of words in mental disease (aphasia) is said by M.
Ribot to be from the particular to the general. Thus proper names are lost
before common, substantives before adjectives. This corresponds, according
to M. Ribot, with the range of the uses of these classes of words, and so with
the degree of co-ordination involved. See his work, Les Maladies de la
Memoire, Chap. III., p. 132, &c.

2 It follows that there is a reciprocal benefit in linking on new to old
knowledge. The new is attached to what is alieady in our grasp, and this
last, by being revived in connection with the new acquisition, is kept fresh.

290 EEPKODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

strengthened by exercise in a narrower and stricter
sense. Increase of facility in acquiring and repro-
ducing new knowledge is aided by the formation of
intellectual habits. By these are meant close con-
centration of mind on the subject-matter learnt,
searching out and noting all its points of attachment
to previously acquired impressions or facts, repetition
or going over the new impression, and finally concen-
tration of mind at the moment of recall. The more
perfect these habits, the higher will be the capacity
for seizing and retaining new knowledge.

Varieties of Memory, General and Special. There
is probably no power which varies more among indi-
viduals than memory. The interval which separates
a person of average memory from one of the historical
examples, as Joseph Scaliger or Pascal, seems enor-
mous.1 There is every reason to think that some
excel others in their power of memory as a whole,
by which is meant their capability of retaining and
reproducing impressions generally.2

More commonly, however, the observed differences
appear in some special direction, or with respect to
some particular class of impressions. Thus one person
has a good retentive power for visual or auditory

aCasaubon says of Scaliger — "He read nothing (and what did he not
read ?) which he did not forthwith remember ". Pascal says he never forgot
anything which he had read or thought. For other examples of capacious
memory, see D. Stewart, Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Pt.
I., Chap. VI., § 3 ; and Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. II.,
Lect. XXXI.

2 As Volkmann points out in the passage just referred to, this 'general
memory' has reference to an average ability of reproduction in respect of
different orders of impressions or images. The reader should compare the
distinction between general and special retention, with that drawn above
between general and special discrimination (see p. 145).

VAE1ETIES OF MEMORY. 291

impressions as a whole ; or for those of some variety
of these, as impressions of colour, or of musical sound ;
or, finally, for a circumscribed group of objects, as
faces. In this way arise what are known as the pic-
torial memory, the musical memory, the local memory,
&c. As illustrations of such exceptional retentive
power in particular directions, may be mentioned
Horace Vernet and Gustave Dore who could paint a
portrait from memory, Mozart who wrote down~ the
Miserere of the Sistine Chapel after hearing it twice,
Menetrier who could repeat three hundred discon-
nected words after once hearing them.1

Even differences in general power of memory pro-
bably turn to a considerable extent on special dif-
ferences, namely in verbal retention. Although, as
we have seen, to recall words is not the same as to
recall things, the latter operation cannot be carried
on to any considerable extent apart from the former.
Hence a good memory for impressions generally has
in all cases been largely sustained by an exceptional
verbal memory.2

The differences of memory among individuals are numerous, and by
no means easy to classify. To begin with more general points of
inequality, persons may differ from one another with respect to the
relative degrees of prominence of the aspects of memory distinguished
above. For instance, some boys are quick in acquisition but not
tenacious : they can carry impressions for a short time, but not for a
long period. Others again are tenacious but not correspondingly ready
to call forth and apply what they know. Again, if we look to more
special differences, we find that minds vary not only with respect to the
particular impressions which are best recalled, but also with respect to

1 For other instances, see Taine, On Intelligence, Pt. I., Bk. II., Chap. I.

2 This is amply illustrated in the historical instances given by Hamilton,
as well as by the well-known case of Macaulay.

292 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

the particular mode of grouping which is most successful. Thus some
appear to connect visible objects locally better than others ; whereas
these last may have a better power of linking together successive pic-
tures answering to events. The former would have a better local,
pictorial, or geographical memory, the latter a better historical memory.1
Closely connected with these differences are those due to the habitual
way of committing things to memory, or arranging acquisitions in the
mind. We have already touched on the fact that some minds tend to
connect things with their adjuncts of time and place, whereas others
order or arrange facts according to their relations of similarity, cause and
effect, &c. In the same way different minds adopt different habits of
'memorising' verbal material. Hence the threefold division of memory
emphasised by Kant : (a) the Mechanical memory, which is satisfied
with linking together the words (auditory or visual symbols) in series ;
(b) the Ingenious memory which calls in the aid of series of pictures
somehow resembling the series of sounds, visual symbols, or the ideas
signified ; and (c) the Judicious memory, in which the understanding
takes part, and the logical relations of the ideas are made the connecting
bond.3

Causes of Difference. These differences are plainly
due either to native inequalities or to differences in
the kind and amount of exercise undergone in the
course of the past life. There are probably native
differences of retentive power generally. One child
is from the first capable of retaining impressions
of all kinds more easily than another. Such ine-
qualities are no doubt connected with differences in

1 This difference would affect the retention of scientific facts, such as the
coexistences (in place) of physiography, astronomy, &c., and the successions in
time of the action of forces as dealt with by mechanics.

2 See Drobisch, Empirische Psychologic, § 36. As an example of ingenious
memorising he gives the following : we remember the date of Charlemagne's
death, 814, by regarding the first cipher as an hour glass, the symbol of death,
the second as a spear, the symbol of war, and the third as a plough, the symbol
of peace. D. Stewart has some good remarks about the distinction between a
1 Systematical ' or ' Philosophical ' memory, which connects things according
to their deeper resemblances, their relations of cause and effect, &c., and the
Casual Memory which links them together only by their more superficial
resemblances, and their accidental juxtapositions in time and place, Op. cit.,
Chap. VI., Sect. 2.

VARIETIES OF MEMORY. 293

tlie degree of structural perfection of the organs as
a whole including the brain.1 There are also special
differences to start with, which are connected with
the varying degrees of perfection of particular sense-
organs. Thus a child with a good natural ear for
musical sounds would be likely to retain these im-
pressions better than another child wanting this
sense-endowment. And this for a double reason :
(1) because such a superiority would imply a finer
discriminative capacity in respect of sound (and
retentiveness varies roughly with the degree of dis-
crimination) ; and (2) because this natural superiority
commonly carries with it a special interest in the
impressions concerned. A child with a good ear for
musical sounds will in general take special pleasure
in noting their peculiarities.

On the other hand, these differences are due in
part to the differences of circumstances, exercise, and
education. While each individual has in his amount
of * natural retentiveness' or degree of 'brain plas-
ticity' limits set to his memory as a whole, much
may be done to improve the memory within these
limits by exercise. Speaking roughly we may say
that the educated have as a rule a better memory
than the uneducated.

It is, however, in the improvement of memory in
special directions that the effects of exercise are most
conspicuous. The habitual direction of the mind to
any class of impressions strengthens the retentive

1 Prof. Bain emphasises this degree of natural retentiveness or plastic
power of the brain as setting limits to each individual's memory as a whole.
See Mind and Body, Chap. V., p. 93, &c.

294 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

power in respect of these. Each mind thus becomes
specially retentive in the direction in which its
ruling interest lies, and its attention is habitually
turned. Thus every special employment, as that of
engineer, linguist, or musician, tends to produce a
corresponding special retentiveness of memory.

It is to be added that the growth of general and of
special memory are in a measure connected. While
everybody's retentive power is limited, while a special
development of memory in one direction precludes an
equal development in others, the exercise and im-
provement of the memory in one direction tends to a
certain extent to the strengthening of the memory as
a whole. For the growth of memory takes place by
the formation of certain habits (concentration, repeti-
tion, arrangement of materials) ; and these habits will
stand a person in good stead when he goes on to
commit new kinds of material to memory.

Training of the Memory. The training of the memory, though
it is not the whole of intellectual education, is certainly an impor-
tant portion of it. " Tantum scimus quantum memoria tenemus."
To know a thing implies the remembrance of it. 1 Only when the
memory is well stored with distinct images and series of such
images, can the higher operations of the understanding be carried
out. As Kant observes, " The understanding has as its chief
auxiliary the faculty of reproduction".2

The culture of a child's memory may be said to begin with the
use of language by the nurse and mother in naming to him the
various objects of sight. The systematic training of the memory

1 This is implied in the use of such forms as the Latin novi and the German
Ich habe ihn kennen gelernt.

2 Ueber Pcedagogik, p. 492 (Werke Edn- Hartenstein). The relation of a
good memory to intellectual power as a whole is discussed by both Stewart
and Hamilton in the works referred to.

TEAINING OF MEMORY. 295

should be first carried out in close connection with observation.
The meaning of words should be taught by connecting them with,
the real objects, that is to say, by simultaneously naming and
pointing out an object. And as supplementary to this, the child
should be exercised in recalling by means of words the impressions
directly received from external objects.

After a sufficient store of first hand knowledge has thus been
accumulated, the memory should be trained in the acquisition of
knowledge about things at second hand, that is to say through the
medium of verbal (oral and literary) communication. The early
period of school life is commonly said to be the most favourable
one for the building up of such verbal acquisitions. It costs
less effort in this early stage of development to learn the concrete
facts of history, geography, or language, than it would cost at a
later date. Hence it has been called the ' plastic period '. 1

Two Branches of Mnemonic Training. The training of the
memory by the Teacher falls into two parts : (a) the calling forth
of the pupil's power of acquisition, or storing up knowledge : (b)
the practising him in recalling what he has learnt. In respect of
each part a judicious and effective training will proceed by recog-
nising the natural conditions of retention, and the particular stage
of development reached.

Exercise in Acquisition. In this stage the first rule to be
attended to is to take the child at his best. Committing anything
to memory is a severe demand on the brain energies, and should
so far as possible be relegated to the hours of greatest vigour and
freshness. Then everything must be done to arouso the attention
by making the matter as interesting as possible. The teacher
should aim at exciting a pleasurable state of mind at the time
in connection with the object of acquisition. Sometimes a
painful experience may have to be resorted to. A boy who
has made a ridiculous error in history, e.g., by confounding Sir
Thomas More and the poet Tom Moore, and been well laughed
at, is little likely afterwards to forget the difference. Further,
the subject learnt must be put before the mind again and
again, so that there be a sufficient deepening of the impression.

1 Professor Bain regards the period of maximum plasticity as extending
from about the 6th to the 10th year. (Science of Education, p. 186.)

296 EEPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

The writing out of a lesson is a familiar aid in fixing in the
mind a piece of new knowledge. And the child should be en-
couraged to dwell on the subject committed to memory, and to
go back to it, so that the full force of repetition may be realised.
Lastly, the teacher must be careful to point out the relations
between one part and another of the subject-matter, and between
this as a whole and previously acquired knowledge. In this way
the binding forces of association will be brought into play. Thus
in narrating an event in history, as the Norman Conquest, the
several incidents with their relations of dependence should be
pointed out, and the points of similarity and of contrast between
this and other invasions (those of the Eomans, and Saxons) set
in a clear light. 1

Learning by Rote. Hardly anything requires to be said per-
haps at this time of day on the necessity of learning things and
not simply words. The cardinal doctrine of the modern theory
of education is that all knowledge has to do with real objects, and
that language is simply the medium by which such knowledge is
conveyed, and by which it can be recalled. The insistence on the
adequate exercise of the senses and the powers of observation points
clearly to the idea that knowledge has to do with sensible realities.
As has been already pointed out, cultivation of the memory should
at first to a considerable extent proceed hand in hand with the
exercise of observation. Not only so, when the age is reached
for acquiring large additions of second-hand knowledge, or book-
lore, it is of the highest consequence that the realities underlying
the words should be distinctly realised by means of clear and vivid
representations.9 It is only when the facts of history, geography,
and the images of poetry are fully grasped by the mind that the
subjects can be said to be truly learnt.

Art of Mnemonics. In ancient times great importance was
attached to certain devices for aiding memory and shortening its
work, which devices were called Mnemonics. This idea of relieving

1The connecting of events in their relations of dependence, &c., clearly
involves an appeal to the higher faculties of Understanding and Reason. To
explain a thing is one way of fixing it in the memory.

s How such representations are to be formed will be explained in the fol-
lowing chapter.

TRAINING OF MEMORY. 297

memory was connected with the exploded theory that the main
business of learning is to commit words to memory.1 When this
theory obtained, learning was necessarily a dry occupation, and the
pupil's mind was wearied by excessive tasks in verbal acquisition.
Hence the eagerness to find devices for shortening the toil. Now
that this theory is abandoned less importance is attached to a
mnemonic art. The inventions of rhyme, alliteration, and so on,
obviously help the mind to retain a series of rules. But when
things are taught only in so far as they can be understood, it is
held that the relations between the facts, or the ideas learnt,
should form the main basis of acquisition. In other words, the
more things are connected in their natural relations, the less will
be the task imposed on the verbal memory.2

Although there are no definite rules for aiding the memory
which are valid in all cases, there is such a thing as a skilful
management of the memory. This will include the formation
of habits, not only of concentration and repetition, but of selecting
and grouping or arranging. Memory-labour is greatly economised
by detecting what is important and overlooking what is unim-
portant; and children should be exercised in such selection. It
is furthered too by finding appropriate ' pegs ' on which to
hang new acquisitions.3 Here individual differences must be
studied. Some children will remember ideas better by the aid of
visual pictures, others better by series of sound-representations.
The young are wont to help themselves out of the difficulty of
retaining what is difficult, e.g., letters, numbers, dates, by the
aid of visual forms (geometrical schemes, and so on). And
teachers would do well to find out these spontaneous tendencies

1 We are apt to treat this theory too contemptuously, perhaps, by for-
getting that when the written records of knowledge was less easily accessible,
the verbal memory was a matter of much greater consequence than it is
now.

2 For a fuller inquiry into the value of mnemonics see James Mill's Analysis
of the Human Mind, pp. 324, 5 ; Dugald Stewart's Elements of the Philosophy
of the Human Mind, Chap. VI., § VII.

3 Among these pegs must be reckoned the places in which information can
be found. To associate book-knowledge with particular books, and places in
these, other kinds of knowledge with particular persons (experts), is a great
saving of memory-labour.

298 EEPKODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

of children's minds and to aid them in the process of econo-
mising intellectual labour.1

Exercise in Recalling. The mere act of taking in new facts
and truths is not enough. The teacher aims, or should aim,, at
keeping fresh and clear in the pupil's mind what is learnt, or in
other words, at rendering the memory quick and accurate in re-
producing what has been learnt. This result can only be secured
by renewed exercises in reproduction. Here again it is important
to seize the right moment. To recollect is to concentrate the
mind on itself, to 'reflect,' as we commonly say, and implies a
higher effort of attention than external observation. In this way
a habit of going back on what has been learnt may be gradually
induced.

A considerable element in the art of teaching is skill in putting
questions to children so as to exercise their power of recalling and
reproducing what they have learnt. It is only by frequent going
back that the meaning or content of verbal knowledge is preserved
fresh. In order to test the knowledge of things, the teacher must
call on the pupil to give out what he has learnt in his own words.
By such skilful questioning he will find out how far the learner
has seized and retained the distinctive features of the subject-
matter attended to, so as to keep his mental images clear and dis-
tinct. Not only so, by this same practice of questioning the
manifold ramifications and connections of each piece of knowledge
are more clearly brought into view. It is impossible to point out
all, or even most of these at the moment of acquisition : they can
only be found out gradually by repeated processes of reproduction. a

1 Compare what was said above (p. 292) on the different modes of memo-
rising. Kant thought lightly of the ' ingenious ' memory, as involving an
unnecessary loading of the mind. But this is to overlook the fact pointed
out in dealing with the co-operation of associations, that the addition of a
new series of elements often lightens the labour, provided first that the new
series can be better retained than the other which it is the special object to
retain, and secondly that it is firmly attached (by the force of analogy or
otherwise) to this series. The importance of noting individual peculiarities
with a view to determine the most advantageous medium of reproduction in
any given case is well brought out by Dr. Mortimer Granville in his little
work, Secret of a Good Memory.

2 The importance of exercises in reproduction in training the memory is
well illustrated by Mr. Landon in his volume, School Management, Chap. IV..

TRAINING OF MEMORY. 299

Subjects which Exercise the Memory. All branches of study
exercise the memory in some measure. The student of the higher
mathematics remembers the principles and the demonstrations of
his science, and this largely by the aid of language or other visual
symbols. But when we talk of a subject exercising the memory
we mean more (or less) than this. We refer to those subjects which
have to do mainly with the particular, and the concrete, and which
appeal but little to the understanding. Such subjects are Natural
Science, in its simpler or descriptive phase, Geography, History,
Language, and the lighter departments of Literature. Arithmetic,
though now recognised as a subject which necessarily calls forth
the child's powers of generalising and reasoning, also makes a heavy
demand on the verbal memory.

Training of Memory but a part of Education. It cannot too
clearly be borne in mind that to acquire any amount of knowledge
respecting the particular and concrete is not to be educated.
Perfect knowledge implies the taking up of the particular or
concrete into the general, the connecting of a variety of particulars
under a universal principle. It follows that memory may be over-
stimulated. A certain knowledge of the concrete, a certain store
of images, is undoubtedly necessary to the exercise of the higher
intellectual faculties : but if the teacher aims simply at mass or
volume of details the higher powers of the mind will be unexer-
cised. Such a course would involve growth, or bare increase in
the bulk of mind, but not development.

The danger of over-stimulating the memory is all the greater
owing to the great natural inequalities among children. It may be
necessary that every child should have a certain minimum of
knowledge in subjects like geography and history ; but it is neither
necessary nor desirable that a child with a poor retentiveness for
languages should be made to study a number of foreign tongues.
To judge in a given case how much time and energy should be
given to pure memory work is one of the nicest problems in the
art of Education.

p. 75, &c. The two branches of memory-exercise here distinguished should
of course be carried on together. Linking on new knowledge to old is at
once an exercise in acquisition and in reproduction.

300 REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

APPENDIX.

The reader who has the time may follow Prof. Bain through his detailed
illustrations of the Law of Contiguity (Senses and Intellect or Compendium).
An interesting account of Memory, its varieties and the means of improving
it, may be found in Dugald Stewart's Philosophy of the Human Mind, Part
L, Ch. VI. With this may be compared Sir W. Hamilton's account of
Memory, Lectures on Metaphysics, especially Lectures XXXI. and XXXII. ;
also Mr. Shadworth Hodgson's Time and Space, Part I., Chap. V. The
German reader may with advantage consult Volkmann, Lehrbuch der Psy-
chologic, I., 4«s Hauptstiick ; "Wundt, Physiol. Psychologie, II., 1769 Cap. ;
and J. Huber, Ueber das Geddchtniss.

On the practical side the reader will do well to consult Locke, Some
Thoughts on Education, especially § 176 ; Miss Edgeworth, Essays on Prac-
tical Education, Vol. II., Chap. XXI. ; Mdme. Necker, L' Education, Livre
VI., Chap. VII. ; J. G. Fitch, Lectures on Teaching, Chap. V. ; Beneke
(Erzuh. und Unterrichtslehre, Vol. L, §§ 20-22) and Waitz (Allgem. Pceda-
goffHe, 2nd Part, 3rd Sect.). There are some good remarks on the cultivation
of Memory in Kant's Essay, Ueber Pcedagogik.

CHAPTER VIII.

CONSTEUCTIVE IMAGINATION,

Reproductive and Constructive Imagination.

Memory is the picturing of objects and events in what
are called images, and is thus a form of imagination.
In memory, however, the images are supposed to be
exact copies of past impressions. In other words
imagination is here reproductive. But what is popu-
larly known as imagination implies more than this.
When we imagine an unfamiliar coming event, or a
place which is described to us, we are going beyond our
past personal experience. The images of memory are
being in some way modified, transformed, and recom-
bined. Hence this process is marked off as Productive
or Constructive Imagination.1 And the results of the
process may be spoken of as secondary or derivative
images, in contradistinction to the primary or radical
images of memory.

It is to be observed, however, that what we call reproductive imagi-
nation commonly involves a passive or unconscious transformation. We
rarely recall a series of events exactly as they occurred. When events
are remote the mental images left by them undergo various changes,
some members of the group being dropped out, others modified, and so

1 Since this Constructive Imagination answers roughly to the popular term
Imagination, we may for convenience' sake employ the latter for the former.

302 CONSTRUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

forth. This passive process will be considered again presently. It
follows that there is no sharp boundary between reproductive and pro-
ductive imagination.

Modes of Imaginative Activity. Imagination works
in different ways altering or modifying the products
of retention. Thus it transforms by omitting certain
elements. The mind pictures an object as a house or
tree apart from its usual local surroundings, or leaps
over a number of links in a chain of events. We can
imagine an object reduced in size, or wanting one of
its features. In addition to this isolating activity of
imagination, there is the combining. By this is meant
connecting parts of different wholes, whether juxta-
positions in space or sequences in time, in new com-
binations. Thus the mind of the child adds new
features to an object, or pictures its size greatly
enlarged, and interposes new incidents in a series of
events. And by this double process of separating
and adding, imagination weaves together portions of
unlike experiences into new combinations. This is
the perfect form of imaginative activity commonly
known as Construction.1

What Imagination includes. We may see at once
from this definition that imagination is much wider
than poetic imagination or phantasy, that is to say
the picturing of the unreal. It stands in an inti-
mate relation to knowledge. In anticipating what is

1 According to the older theory, there were three kinds of imaginative
activity, the abstracting, the determining, and the combining. By the first
was meant the isolating activity described in the text. By the second was
signified the supplementary process of filling out the results of abstracting
imagination ; as in first picturing the sun as a wheel, then as a chariot, &c.
By the third process was meant the combining of elements taken from dif-
ferent wholes. See Volkmann, op..cit., Vol. I., pp. 470, 471.

NATUKE OF IMAGINATION. 303

going to happen from moment to moment, in picturing
the aspects of new objects before actual inspection, the
child's imagination is ever coming into play. Still
more widely is it exercised in learning about things
from others. Every time he listens to his mother's
narratives and descriptions he is working up the
images supplied by his own past observation into
new forms. To learn is thus to employ the imagina-
tion as well as the memory. Further, imagination is
concerned in interpreting the signs of others' thoughts
and feelings. To J'read' the mind of another is to
represent a new mental state by aid of the memory of
our own past states. Finally, construction, which is
the essential thing in imagination, enters into action,
in the discovery and mastering of new combinations
of actions. In this form it is known as Invention.
Every new sentence which the child utters, every new
manual movement which he executes, takes place by
bringing together in a new form representations of
actions previously performed.

Imaginative Construction as Passive and as Active.
The images of memory tend, as has been remarked,
to become transformed by a passive, unconscious, or
automatic process. Successive presentations of the
.same object with different adjuncts would lead to
the formation of secondary images in which elements
of different primary images would be combined.
And the revival of images by the force of similarity
would conduce still further to such coalescence of
different primary images. Finally, simultaneous re-
vival of previously disconnected images might suffice
to effect such an amalgamation. This is illustrated

304 CONSTRUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

both in dreams and in waking fancy where com-
binations appear to the mind suddenly and inde-
pendently of any conscious exertion on its part. The
sports of childish imagination are not the product of
any mental effort, but seem rather to be the result of
such a " fortuitous concourse of (imaginative) atoms ",
Any kind of mental excitement by greatly increasing
the number of images called up, as well as their
degree of vividness, is favourable to this free uncon-
trolled play of imagination.

But the more important kind of combination is
carried on consciously by an act of mental concen-
tration and an exertion of will. There is a gradual
progress towards some desired result, a building up
by a deliberate effort of mind of the complex product.
Thus, to take the best marked instance of imaginative
activity, the poet goes to work in a systematic manner
to fashion an image of some scene, gradually reaching
the perfect shape which satisfies him. It is this
orderly regulated process of construction which is of
most account in relation to knowledge.1

There is a germ of this active process in what is commonly called
reproduction. An intelligent person cannot describe a place which he
has just visited, or an incident which he has witnessed without per-
forming a rudimentary process of constructing or re-arranging. As
Volkmann remarks, it is only among the uneducated that a strictly
faithful reproduction of impressions is found. A common man describes
an incident with all its attendant circumstances however unimportant.

1 The contrast between passive and active imagination appears to correspond
to one aspect of the ill-defined and much-discussed distinction between Fancy
and Imagination. Thus Wordsworth remarks of the former : " Fancy depends
upon the rapidity and profusion with which she scatters her thoughts and
images" (Preface to Poems, p. xxxvi.). Stewart emphasises the promi-
nence of the active element in Imagination (Elements of the Philosophy of the
Human Mind, Pt. I., Ch. V., § 1).

NATUKE OF IMAGINATION. 305

On the other hand a cultivated mind ' unconsciously ' omits, selects and
regroups. 1

Analysis of Constructive Process. (1) Reproduc-
tion of Images. — This .process of construction may
be said roughly to fall into two stages. Of these the
first is the revival of primary images, or images of
memory, according to the laws of association. Thus
the poet in imagining scenes and events of his ideal
world sets out by recalling the facts of his experience,
the images of which serve as the elements out oi

which the new image-structure is to be built up.

It follows that the excellence of the constructive
process is limited by the strength of the reproductive
faculty. Unless memory restore the impressions of
our past experience we cannot picture a new scene, or
a new event. Thus unless a child recalls, with some
measure of distinctness, one or more of the blocks of
ice which he has actually seen, he cannot imagine
an iceberg, or a glacier. The same applies to practical
construction or invention. The elementary move-
ments must first be mastered and retained before
there can be the process of building up new com-
binations.

(2) Elaboration of New Images. — The images of
memory being thus recalled by the forces of suggestion
or association, they are worked up as materials into a
new imaginative product. This is the formative or
constructive act or process proper. The process re-
sembles that of building a new physical structure out
of old materials. Certain of these are rejected, others

1 See Volkmann, Lehrbuch der Psychologic, Vol. I., Section IV. D, §84,
p. 469.

306 CONSTRUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

are selected and held before the mind. Some mate-
rials are available after a process of lopping off or
breaking up. Finally the approved materials are
joined together into a new whole.

This active process is controlled by a representation
of the result aimed at, and a sense or judgment as to
what is fitting for the purpose in hand. And it is on
the quality of this guiding sense that the excellence
of the constructive process mainly depends. Ac-
cording as a poet, for example, has a clear and dis-
criminating, or a dull and obtuse, sense of what is
aesthetically valuable, congruous, harmonious, &c., his
constructive work will be well or ill performed.

This guiding sense must be distinguished from the desire for an
end, though they are closely related. A man may have a keen desire
to compass some result, e.g., a mechanical improvement, but no corre-
sponding sense of what is fitting to bring it about. Hence the strength
of the desire, though an important factor in the process of construction,
is less important than the sense of fitness. The strength of the desire
secures the success of the operation by giving clearness and steadiness
to this guiding sense of fitness.

The result aimed at and the corresponding guiding
sense of fitness, will differ in different cases. In
reading a book of travels or a poem we seek
to frame clear mental pictures which fit in with
the rest of the series. We know when we have hit
on the right combination of images in this case by
the feeling that we understand what we read. Again
in combining movements in order to bring about a
wished-for practical end, we are guided by the repre-
sentation of this end. The child combining words
in order to express a want, knows he has succeeded
when his want is understood and relieved.

NATURE OF IMAGINATION. 307

The process of construction here briefly described is commonly more
intricate than has been assumed. In many cases the stages seem to be
as follows : A desire for some end or result, say some mechanical appli-
ance to reduce the cost of producing a commodity, arises in the mind.
This calls up numerous representations associated with the purpose,
images of appliances resorted to in similar cases, &c. By a merely
passive process, these coalesce to some extent, supplying an indistinct
mental scheme or framework ; and this constitutes the first prevision of
what is wanted. This bare outline is, then, gradually filled in and
developed by the processes of separation, selection, and combining
named above. That there is present, from an early stage of the process,
in the obscure background of the mind an image-scheme serving as a
model or pattern, seems to be shown by the fact that when the right
combination is hit upon it is instantly recognised as the right one. 1

Receptive and Creative Imagination. The con-
structive act assumes one of two unlike forms which
it is a matter of some practical importance to dis-
tinguish. Sometimes the direction of the activity
is determined by definite external suggestion. Thus
in reading a poem and forming a mental picture of
the object described the mind of the reader is tied
down to the particular combination originated by
the poet and expressed by a particular order of
words. This may be called receptive imagination,
and is a comparatively simple operation.2 The
imagination of the poet, on the other hand, which
created the combination had no such framework

1 "In the case of none of these active imaginative creations is the whole
composed, in the manner of a mosaic, out of its parts, but the whole stands first
in consciousness : it constitutes the idea of the work of art, the conception,
often flashing on the mind lightening-like, of an intellectual creation. " Wundt,
Physiol. Psychologic, II., Cap. XVII., § 4, pp. 322, 323. The reader should
compare this process of the gradual development of an indistinct model-image
into a distinct and perfect shape with that of calling up by active recollection
an image of memory indistinctly present in the mind.

2 There is something analogous to this in the perception of material
objects, as when we look at the inaccessible clouds and imaginatively repre-
sent the corresponding tactual experiences.

308 CONSTRUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

witliin wliicli to confine its activity. The act
of construction in this case is of a higher order,
involving more complex processes of reproduction,
rejection, and selection, and directed solely by an
internal sense of what is beautiful or harmonious.
Hence we commonly mark this off as original imagi-
nation. In the region of practical construction,
again, the same difference is illustrated in imitative
movements, such as those of drill exercises, and
free inventions, where the child hits out new com-
binations of movement for himself.

Limits to Imagination. All imaginative activity is
limited by experience. To begin with, it is confined
to breaking up or separating and recombining ex-
periences. There is no such thing as a perfectly new
creation. The greatest imaginative genius could not
picture a perfectly new colour. Again the processes
of separation and combination are limited. When
two things have always been conjoined in our experi-
ence it is impossible to picture them apart. Thus we
cannot picture the surface of an object having no
colour (including under ' colour ' black, white, and

The more uniformly two things are conjoined, the
more difficult is it to separate them. Thus it is much
easier to picture a moving object, as a man, apart from
local surroundings than a stationary one, as a church.
On the other hand the mind finds it difficult to com-
bine images as new wholes when experience suggests
that the elements to be combined are incompatible.
The Oriental king could not picture solid water or
ice. We all find it hard to imagine persons on the

NATURE OF IMAGINATION. 309

other side of the globe with their leet towards ours,
and yet not falling downwards. Just in proportion
to the uniformity or invariability of our experience
is the difficulty of breaking up and regrouping its
several parts. Hence the reason why we so easily
imagine objects greatly increased in size, as a giant,
or greatly altered in colour, as a gold mountain : for
in respect of apparent magnitude and colour our
experience is highly variable.

The reader must be careful to distinguish between the difficulty or
impossibility of picturing objects, and that of understanding how they
could be as we picture them. The ambiguous word ' conceive,' as J. S.
Mill pointed out, covers both meanings. We can picture the most
grotesque combinations, as Atlas carrying the earth, or a human figure
poised in the air, but we cannot conceive the corresponding combina-
tions of objects as possible. So far as the capability of merely picturing
is concerned, the freaks of fancy of the young and of all of us in passive
conditions of reverie and dreaming would suggest that the only limits
to such pictorial combination are the incompatibilities of space and
time. We cannot of course picture two objects in the same place at
one moment : but our dream fancy does almost everything short of
this.1

Various Forms of Construction. It has been re-
marked that the essential process in imagination
enters into a variety of mental operations. These
may be grouped under three heads : (1) Construction
as subserving knowledge about things ; (2) Practical
construction as aiding in the acquisition of knowledge
how to do things, or to adapt means to ends ; and
(3) Construction as satisfying the emotions. The
first may be called the Cognitive Imagination; the

1 While the imagination thus transcends the powers of Understanding, we
shall see in the next chapter that these last may, in another respect, greatly
transcend the limits of imaginative activity.

310 CONSTEUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

second, the Practical Imagination or Invention ; and
the third, the Esthetic or Poetic Imagination.

(A) Cognitive Imagination. It must be evident
that the expansion of knowledge beyond the bounds
of personal experience and observation involves
imaginative activity. This is seen alike in the
acquisition of new knowledge from others respecting
things, places, and events, and also in the inde-
pendent discovery of new facts by anticipation. The
first illustrates the receptive, the second, the creative
kind of imaginative activity.

Imagination and Acquisition. The process of re-
calling, selecting, and regrouping the traces of
personal experience is illustrated in every case of
acquisition. What is ordinarily called ' learning/
whether by oral communication or by books, is not
simply an exercise of memory ; it involves an exer-
cise of the imagination as well. In order that the
meaning of the words heard or read may be realised,
it is necessary to frame clear and distinct pictures of
the objects described or the events narrated. Thus
in following a description of a desert the child begins
with familiar experiences called up by the words
' plain,' ' sand/ and so on. By modifying the images
thus reproduced by memory he gradually builds up
the required new image.

It may be noted that here as elsewhere knowledge
consists in discriminating and assimilating. The
child has to assimilate what is told him in so far as
it is like his past observations, and at the same
time to note how the new scene differs from the old
ones. The formation of a distinct and accurate image

IMAGINATION AND KNOWING. 311

will greatly depend on the degree of perfection at-
tained in this part of the process. In following a
description children are apt to import too much into
their mental picture, and take up the adjuncts of the
images and ideas corresponding to the words. That
is to say, the process of selection is incomplete.

On the success of this imaginative effort what is
known as the understanding of the description will
depend. If, for example, the mind of a child, in
following a description of an iceberg, pictures a mass
of ice, but does not distinctly represent its magni-
tude, he will not understand the dangers arising to
ships from those floating masses. Here we see the
close relation between clear imagination and clear
thinking, a relation to be spoken of again by and by.

Imagination and Scientific Acquisition. The activity
of imagination enters not only into the study of sub-
jects like geography and history, which have to do in
the main with concrete objects and events, but to
some extent also into the study of Science. Science
has to do with the general. Yet before the mind can
seize the general it must have clear images of concrete
examples. These must of course be based as far as
possible on perception; but this cannot be the case
always. The movements of the planets, the circula-
tion of the blood, are things which we are called on
to a large extent to imagine by aid of analogies with
objects of perception. Even the objects and processes
which escape the observation of the senses, as the
vibrations of light and heat, the conjunctions and
disjunctions of atoms and molecules in chemical
changes, have in a way to be pictured by the mind,

312 CONSTRUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

and so the understanding of these may be said to
exercise the imagination.1 Only when clear pictures of
the particulars are first formed can the subsequent
operations of generalisation and reasoning be well
carried out.

Reducing the Abstract to the Concrete. This kind
of imaginative work, so far from being easy, is exceed-
ingly difficult. It must be remembered that language
is in its nature general and abstract. Hence all verbal
description involves a gradual process of qualification
or individualisation. That is to say, the general name
has to be supplemented by a number of qualifying
terms, each of which helps to mark off the individual
thing better. Thus the historian depicts a particular
king or statesman by progressively enumerating his
several physical and mental qualities. Now each o±
these qualifications, again, is in itself nothing but an
abstraction. Thus the terms c tall,' ' handsome,' and
so on, applied to a person are abstract terms, and each
applicable to a number of persons. The process of
realising the description turns on the combination of
these into a concrete object. The scientific descrip-
tion of a new animal or plant by means of a highly
technical terminology illustrates the difficulties of this
process of ' concreting the abstract ' in a yet more
marked manner. And a still greater strain is imposed
by the description of the ' extra-sensible ' world of
atoms and molecules, with their intricate interactions.
To ' visualise 'or see with the internal eye what is thus

1 That is, pictured up to a certain point by the aid of analogous sense-
experiences, though, as we shall see later oil, there can in this case be no
perfect imagination of the objects thought about.

IMAGINATION AND KNOWING. 313

described implies a considerable exertion of the imagi-
native power.

Imagination and Discovery. The discovery of new
knowledge is largely a matter of careful observation
and patient reasoning from ascertained facts and
truths. Yet the scientific imagination materially
assists in the process. The inquiring, searching mind
is always passing beyond the known to the unknown
in the form of conjecturings which cannot be reduced to
a process of conscious reasoning. The power of thus
divining unobserved facts is known as imaginative
insight into things. The child shows this capability
when picturing to himself the make of his toys, the
way in which plants nourish themselves and grow,
and so on.

Not only does imagination thus reach out in an-
ticipation of unobserved facts, it is busy devising
hypotheses for the explanation of them. A scientific
hypothesis when fully developed assumes the form of
a general truth. But it is reached by the help of a
process of constructive imagination. That is to say,
the mind pictures to itself the action of the forces at
work by aid of past observations. Thus the undu-
latory movements of sound and light were at first
' visualised ' by the help of certain visible undulations,
as for example those of the sea.

Imagination has thus a close connection with scien-
tific curiosity. Each reacts on the other. The desire
to know stimulates the imagination to frame pictures
of unexplored realities ; and the activity of imagi-
nation, leading to conjectural prevision, quickens the
desire to investigate in order to verify the conjecture.

314 CONSTRUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

It is true that imagination, if not controlled by a
critical spirit, may take the place of patient investiga-
tion. But when duly restrained by judgment it is a
great aid to investigation.

Imagination of Untried Experiences. Our know-
ledge has to do not simply with the outer world, but
with the inner world of feeling and thought. And
this knowledge, too, implies, in addition to memory, a
process of imaginative construction. Our knowledge
of ourselves consists not merely in recalling what we
have actually felt and done but in representing how
we should feel, think and act in new circumstances.
In anticipating the future we are continually repre-
senting to ourselves the effects of new surroundings
on our emotional susceptibilities and our active in-
clinations.1

(B) Practical Contrivance.2 A process of construction
enters into practical acquisition, learning how to do
things, as talk, dress, write, draw, and so forth. The
child's movements are being continually modified,
separated and recombined in conformity with new
circumstances and new needs. He is by nature en-
dowed with plentiful active energy, and this of itself
leads continually to new tentatives, new experiments.
A good part of the child's mental energy thus finds its
natural vent in the direction of practical imagination.

Imitative Construction. Much of this new motor

1 The imagination of others' experiences, their feelings and doings, illus-
trates the same process. This will be shown more fully when we come to deal
with sympathy.

2 Although the exercise of constructive activity in practical invention is
related to the growth of will, there is some convenience in anticipating and
treating it here along with imaginative construction in the narrow sense.

IMAGINATION AND DOING. 315

acquisition is guided by others' actions. The impulse
of imitation leads a child to attempt all sorts of action
which he sees others perform. This is seen plainly
enough in his play, which is largely a mimicry of
the serious actions of adults. This is the receptive
side of practical imagination. The exercises of the
school, such as singing and writing, illustrate the same
process. The simpler actions of the voice or of the
hand which are already mastered are combined in
more complex operations under the guidance of an
external model.

Such combinations are rarely hit on precisely at
once. The child's first attempts at vocal imitation
are often wide of the mark.1 The same applies to the
manual actions involved in drawing, or writing. In
many cases, moreover, the new combination implies a
separation of movements previously associated, and
such separation adds to the difficulty of the operation.
Thus we may observe that the child in building up
new vocal combinations is apt to be clogged by irrele-
vant associations. Hence it is only by repeated trial
and gradual approximation that the required com-
bination is effected. Progress in such acquisition
depends on his previous command of the muscles in
simpler movements, and on concentration of mind
and perseverance.

Original Construction: Invention. While new prac-
tical acquirements are thus learnt by imitation and
instruction, they are also being gained by individual

1 This is by no means always the case. Indeed, one is often surprised at
the readiness of a young child endowed with a good ear and a good articula-
tion in giving back a new grouping of sounds.

316 CONSTRUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

origination and invention. Children find out many
new combinations of movement for themselves. Their
strong active impulses find a satisfaction in manual
and other experiments. The pleasure of doing a
thing, of overcoming difficulty, is an ample reward
for many an effort in practical construction. Such
activity is, moreover, closely connected with the im-
pulse of curiosity, the desire to find out about things,
their structure and less obvious qualities. In this way
practical invention assists in the discovery of facts
and truths. A considerable part of the knowledge of
things is thus gained experimentally, that is to say
by means of actively separating, dividing, combining,
and otherwise manipulating objects.

(c) /Esthetic Imagination. ./Esthetic or Poetic
Imagination is not subservient to the pursuit of know-
ledge, whether knowledge about things or knowledge
how to attain results. It aims at immediate enjoy-
ment. This applies alike to the receptive and to the
creative side of the process. The child listening to a
story, or inventing a story for himself, is in each case
impelled by the desire for the enjoyment which the
images afford. It is this mode of constructive activity
which answers to the popular conception of imagination.

Imagination and Feeling. ./Esthetic Imagination is
thus distinguished by the presence of feeling or emo-
tion. This gives a peculiar vividness to imagination,
and also directs it in certain channels which answer
to the feeling. Any feeling may thus stimulate the
activity of imagination. Thus when fear is excited
in the mind the imagination is swayed and bent in
the direction of what answers to the feeling, that is to

IMAGINATION AND FEELING. 317

say, the terrible and horrible. The pleasurable emo-
tions, such as love, the emotion of power, the sentiment
of beauty, are wont to indulge themselves, or seek
a certain mode of satisfaction or gratification through
the activity of imagination. Thus the mother dwells
on the future of her child : the boy dreams of great
achievements : the poet shapes forms which thrill
the mind with wonder and yield the pure delight of
beauty. In this way the mind adds what are called
' ideal/ to its real satisfactions. The mother by dwelling
in fancy on the possibilities of the future, gains a
measure of the same enjoyment which the actual realisa-
tion of her wishes would bring. The imaginary scenes
and actions of poetry afford something of the same
delight which the actual perception of such objects
would supply.

All imaginative activity, in so far as it is impelled by some motive
involves an element of feeling. Thus in working out some conjecture
the mind of a lawyer or of a scientific man is stimulated by curiosity or
the love of knowledge. In such cases, however, the feeling is present
in the highly intellectualised form of a calm motive to action. It is
only when discovery is near that anything like an element of emotional
excitement presents itself. In the case of what is here called poetic,
that is feeling-impelled, imagination, the emotional state is present in a
palpable degree throughout the operation, and it supplies a force dis-
tinct from that of will, properly so-called. This is seen plainly enough,
in the case of painful feelings, such as terror, the influence of which in
keeping certain images before the mind is distinctly anti-voluntary.
And even in the case of pleasurable feelings, such as the emotion of
beauty, the presence of the emotional excitement affects the character
of the whole mental process. The end in this case being simply the
furtherance and deepening of a feeling already excited in a measure,
the whole operation of selection and grouping appears to be immediately
determined or controlled by the feeling, with only the slightest admixture
of the volitional element, that is to say, a conscious aiming at a result.1

1 This properly emotive control of the imaginative process is well illus-
trated in our dreams. See my volume, Illusions, Chap. VII., p. 164, &c.

318 CONSTEUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

Transcending the Real. We have seen that imagi-
nation is able (within certain limits) to vary or trans-
form the actual events of our experience. Under the
stimulus of an emotion, such as the feeling for the
beautiful, or the sublime, imagination is wont to rise
above the ordinary level of experience and to picture
objects, circumstances, and events surpassing those
of every day life. The ideal creations of the imagina-
tion are thus apt to transcend the region of sober fact.
Hence the realm of romance and fairyland.

Imagination opposed to Intellect. The indulgence
in these pleasures of imagination is legitimate within
certain bounds. But it is attended with dangers, moral
and intellectual. A young person whose mind dwells
long on the wonders of romance may grow discon-
tented with actual life. Or he learns to find his
satisfaction in such ideal indulgence ; and so by the
habitual severance of emotion and volition, ceases
to feel the presence of every day motives, a result
illustrated by the history of Coleridge and other
' dreamers '. This constitutes the moral danger. The
intellectual danger is that by an excessive activity of
imagination the regions of fact and fiction may become
confused. All vivid imagination appears, as was sug-
gested above, to be attended with a measure of belief.
Children of very lively imagination easily drift into
the belief that their dream-images and their waking
fancies answer to realities.

Intellectual Value of Imagination. We have now
seen that the imagination stands in a double relation
to intellection or knowing. On the one hand, when
controlled by the will and directed to the ends of

VALUE OF IMAGINATION. 319

truth it is an important ancillary in the acquisition
and discovery of knowledge. On the other hand,
when uncontrolled, or when subjected to the powerful
sway of emotion, it easily opposes the progress of
knowledge.

Writers on the imagination have been wont to
dwell rather on this second aspect, and to overlook
the function of the imagination in thinking and
understanding. The old opposition of imagination
and understanding rested on an inadequate appre-
hension of its operations. No doubt imagination and
thought are broadly contrasted, since the former has
to do with the concrete in its fulness of detail, while
the understanding has to do with the general in its
bareness and simplicity.1 Yet there is a connection
between the two, which recent psychologists have
come to see. When duly controlled imaginative
activity prepares the way for the higher processes-
of thinking. By giving mobility and flexibility to
the images of memory it is an essential preliminary
to the activity of thought.2 Thus by breaking up or
dissolving complex images and series of images into
their parts and allowing of the isolated picturing of
objects and events, it facilitates the processes of
abstraction (turning the mind from the complexities
of individual things). And by combining mental
pictures in new wholes it paves the way for the syn-

1 The broad contrast between the two has been illustrated in a very
interesting way by Mr. Gal ton. As he justly remarks, "our bookish and
wordy education tends to repress this valuable gift of nature". Inquiries
into Human Faculty, p. 113.

2 Goethe somewhere talks of the imagination as ' die Vorschule des
Denkens ".

320 CONSTRUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

thetic activity of thought in combining thought-
elements (notions) in new relations. 1

Development of Imagination. Just as memory only
begins to develop when the faculty of perception has
been exercised up to a certain point, so imagination
only distinctly appears when memory has attained a
certain stage of perfection. This applies alike to
construction as concerned with objects and with
actions. The child must be able to recall distinctly
a number of previous sense-experiences before he can
build up new pictures of what is going to happen,
or strike out new combinations of movement.

Germ of Imagination. Although the infant shows
the germ of imagination under the form of antici-
pating what is new, it is not till language is mastered
that its activity becomes well marked. It is in
listening to the simple narrations and descriptions
of the mother or nurse that the power of framing
new pictures is first exercised. It is noteworthy that
the child will only manifest interest in such narra-
tions after he has been accustomed to a verbal recital
of his own personal experiences.2 The capability of
representing a new series of events depends on the
exercise of the reproductive imagination in recalling
old successions. In this way the child's knowledge
of things gradually widens, passing outwards from the

1 The function of imagination in thinking will be touched on again in the
following chapter. Its importance in relation to intellect and thought has
been emphasised by Mr. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, II., Pt. VIII.,
Chap. III., §§ 491, 492: by George, Lchrbuch der Psychologic, 2nd Pt. 5,
p. 278, &c. : Volkmann, Lehrbuch der Psychologic, Section IV., D, § 84,
p. 469.

2 See Perez, Les trois premieres anndes de I' enfant, p. 163.

GKOWTH OF IMAGINATION. 321

narrow circle of his individual observations, and
embracing larger and larger regions of space and
time.

Children's Fancy: Nature of Play. After a certain
amount of exercise of constructive power in this
simple receptive form, the child shows a spontaneous
disposition to build up fancies on his own account.
The feeling of possessing a new power seems to act as
a motive here. At first this activity of fancy mani-
fests itself in close connection with the perception of
actual objects. This is illustrated in children's play.
Play offers as we have seen ample scope for practical
ingenuity : it is the natural vent of active impulse,
the liking to do things, and to find out new ways of
doing them. But it owes its interest to another cir-
cumstance, namely that it is a mimicry and kind of
make-believe of the actions of adults. When at play
the child realises by an exercise of fancy the objects
and actions which he is mimicking. The actual pre-
sentations supply a basis of fact on which the imagina-
tion more easily constructs its fabric.1 By the alchemy
of imagination the doll becomes in a manner trans-
formed into a living child, the rude stick into a horse,
and so on. A very rough basis of analogy will suffice
for these creations of fancy : hence a boy will derive
as much pleasure from a broken and shapeless hobby
horse as from the most life-like toy. Play thus illus-
trates in a striking manner the liveliness of children's
fancy. In their spontaneous games they betray the

1 The aid rendered by the presence of an actual object to the activity of
imagination is illustrated in the fact quoted by Mr. Galton, that chess-players
can think out a game better when they have the empty chess-board present.

21 •

322 CONSTKUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

germs of artistic imagination : they are in a sense at
once poets and actors.

Children's Fictions. A child of three or four years
who has heard a number of stories will display great
activity in modelling new ones.1 These fabrications
show the influence of the child's own experience and
observation as well as of the narratives of others. At
this period original fancy is apt to assume extravagant
shapes. A strong susceptibility to the excitement
of the marvellous, often supplies the impelling force
in these constructions. Young children are wont
to project themselves in fancy to distant regions of
space and to transform themselves into other objects.
Thus a child barely 3 years was accustomed to wish
she might live in the water with the fishes, or be
a beautiful star in the sky. The daring of these com-
binations is to a considerable extent accounted for
by the child's ignorance of what is impossible and
improbable in reality. To the young mind to fly up
into the sky is an idea which has nothing absurd
about it. The riotous activity of children's fancy is
thus due in part to their want of experience and
judgment.

Imagination brought under Control. The progress
of experience and the growth of knowledge lead to a
moderation of childish fancy. From the first spon-
taneous form in which it is free to follow every capri-
cious impulse, it passes into the more regulated form in

1 These fanciful creations are often built up on a slender basis of observation.
Thus a little girl (5f years) once found a stone with a hole in it, and set to
work to weave a pretty fairy tale respecting it. To her fancy it became the
wonderful stone, having inside it beautiful rooms, and lovely fairies who
dance, sing, and live happily.

GROWTH OF IMAGINATION. O-~<

which it is controlled by an enlightened will. That is to
say, its activity becomes directed by the sense of what
is true, life-like, and probable. The old nursery stories
cease to please. Narratives based on real life, histories
of children, their doings and experiences, take their
place. In this way the earlier impulses, the love of
the marvellous, the liking for the grotesque and ridi-
culous, are replaced by higher motives, a desire to
learn about things, and a regard for what is true to
nature and life.

Later Growth of Imagination. Although through
the development of the powers of judgment and reason-
ing the child's fancy becomes restricted, it is a mis-
take to suppose that it ceases to grow We are apt
to attribute to children a high degree of imaginative
power just because we are struck by the boldness of their
conceits. But when they talk of the sky tumbling
down, or of their flying up to a tree, they are in truth
exercising imagination in a very rudimentary way.
The combinations are very easy ones from their point
of view, being simple in structure and modelled on
the pattern of familiar everyday facts. The same
child that performs these 'feats' could not perhaps
form a clear mental picture of an animal or a city that
was described to him. The power of imaginative con-
struction goes on developing with the accumulation
of elements and the repeated exercise of the faculty

What Improvement in Imagination implies. The
progress of imaginative power with the advance of
years means first of all increased facility in grouping
elements. A piece of imaginative work of the same
degree of complexity would be executed in less time

324 CONSTRUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

and with less effort. Thus the student of botany or
zoology would find it easier to realise a description of
a plant or animal. In the second place this progress
implies an increase in the difficulty of the operations
which become possible. By more difficult operations
must be understood, either more complex combinations,
such as the visualising of a large and intricate scene,
say a battle ; or combinations more remote from our
everyday experience, as the scenery and events of
Paradise Lost, or the life of primitive races. It
need hardly be added that original construction must
be taken as indicating higher imaginative power than
receptive or imitative construction.

Varieties of Imaginative Power. Different persons
differ in power of imagination no less markedly
perhaps than in that of memory. These differences
may be either general or special. One man has
excellent constructive ability generally, which is
something distinct from a mere superiority in repro-
ductive power. More commonly, excellence in imagi-
native capability shows itself in some special direction.
Thus we have a good imagination for visible scenery,
for musical combinations, for practical expedients,
and for others' internal experiences. And as a more
circumscribed development we find a specially good
imagination for faces, for historical scenes, and so
forth.

These differences plainly depend partly on native
inequalities and partly on differences in surroundings,
the influence of companionship, and special exercise
and training. Children differ from the first in
their formative power as a whole. Some minds

.VARIETIES OF IMAGINATION. 325

are able to recast tlie various results of their ex-
perience more easily than others. Again there may
be a special native bent to one kind of imagi-
native activity, due to a specially good sense, with
its accompanying superior degree of retentiveness.
In this way the born painter with his fine eye
and his good memory for colour would naturally
find it easy to exercise his imagination on this
material. The emotional susceptibilities, too, have
much to do with fixing the special line of develop-
ment of the imagination. A naturally strong liking for
scientific discovery leads a boy to exercise his imagi-
nation in relation to natural phenomena and their
laws, whereas a deep feeling for the beautiful aspect
of things would impel the imagination to follow the
line of poetic combination.

While in this way much of the difference, with
respect both to the general and to the special
development of imaginative power, is predetermined
by natural aptitude and inclination, the influence of
surroundings and of education is a considerable one.
Systematic training will never make a naturally
unimaginative child quick to imagine, but it may
materially improve the power, and even raise it
to a considerable height in some special direction.

Training of the Imagination. The side of imaginative activity
which will chiefly interest us here is the cognitive side. The
peculiar position of the faculty in relation to Intellect on one side
and Emotion on the other gives rise to problems of peculiar diffi-
culty. As we have seen, the power of picturing what has never
been actually seen is of the utmost value for knowledge. And yet
this same power if indulged in to excess may give rise to illusions,
and so frustrate the purposes of intellect.

32G CONSTKUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

Restraining Immoderate Fancy. That imagination requires
restraining nobody will doubt. " Nothing is more dangerous to
reason than the flight of imagination. . . . Men of bright fan-
cies may in this respect be compared to those angels whom the
Scriptures represent as covering their eyes with their wings."1 In
the case of children of' very vivid imaginations the treatment of
the faculty is often a matter of some difficulty. Wild, disconcerting,
and injurious fancies must, it is plain, be dispelled. And the vivid-
ness of fancy must not be carried to the point of confusing fiction
and reality. In such a case the immediate object of training should
be to strengthen concurrently the powers of judging and reasoning
as a make-weight against a too lively imagination.

Guiding the Fancy. It seems probable, however, that the perils
of indulging children's fancy have been somewhat exaggerated. In
the case of healthy children who are kindly treated the exercise of
fancy rarely leads to bad moral or intellectual consequences. Children
appear to dream vividly, yet as a rule they soon distinguish between
their dreams and their real waking experiences. A strong native
bent to imaginative activity requires to be guided rather than
resisted and frustrated. By a judicious course of training it may
be transformed into the germ of a fine historical, scientific, or
poetic imagination.

Stimulating the Imagination. Not only so, in average cases it
is desirable to stimulate the imaginative power by supplying appro-
priate objects. The habitual narration of stories, description of
places, and so on, is an essential ingredient in the rudimentary
stages of education. The child that has been well drilled at home
in following stories, will, other things being equal, be the better
learner at school. The early nurture of imagination by means of
good wholesome food has had much to do with determining the
degree of imaginative power, and, through this, of the range of
intellectual activity ultimately reached.

Conditions of Sound Training. In order to train the imagina-
tion wisely we must attend to the natural laws of its operation.
Thus it is obvious that the constructive tasks imposed should be
adapted to the experiences of the child. The first rule then is to
see that the child has command of the necessary materials. By

1 Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. I., Pt. IV., § 7.

TEAINING OF IMAGINATION. 327

these are meant not only the images which supply the elements
or details of the mental picture, but a representation or represen-
tations which may serve as a rough model for the composition.
Thus to take a simple example, a child will be aided to form a
mental picture of a snow mountain not only by recalling the
mountain form and the white snow, but also by referring to
some familiar object which shall serve as type or model, as a loaf
of sugar. The second rule is to awaken an adequate interest or
motive. The materials provided for constructive activity, the
scene described, or the action narrated, must be interesting and
attractive, as well as within the child's grasp. Here the study of
the emotional side of child-nature, and of its many variations is
necessary.

Gradation of Exercise. The imaginative faculty, like every
other faculty, must be called into play gradually. Not only must
the constructive operation be adapted to the growing experience of
the child, and the natural order of unfolding of his feelings, it
must be suited to the degree of imaginative power already attained.
Thus descriptions and narrations should increase in length and
intricacy by gradual steps. The first exercises of the imagination
should be by means of short accounts of interesting incidents
in animal and child life. Such stories deal in experiences which
are thoroughly intelligible and interesting to the child. The best
of the traditional stories, as that of Cinderella, are well fitted by
their simplicity as well as by their romantic and adventurous
character to please and engross the imagination. And fables in
which the moral element is not made too burdensome, and in
which the child's characteristic feelings, e.g., his love of fun, are
studied, will commonly be reckoned among his favourites. When
new feelings of curiosity unfold, and the imaginative faculty gains
strength by exercise, more elaborate and less exciting stories may
be introduced.

Children's Literature. It may be safely said that a good part
of the so-called children's literature offends by inattention to the
obvious conditions of success. It is not needful to dwell on the
'night mare' stories which injure children by disposing them to
images of the terrible, though examples of this are not wanting in
classical collections of fairy-tales. • Nor need one refer to the

328 CONSTRUCTIVE IMAGINATION.

'goody' books which commonly weary them (when they succeed in
engaging any measure of their attention at all). It is enough to
touch on the common error of describing experiences, situations,
impressions and feelings, quite out of their mental reach. The
writers of children's books but too rarely have the art of looking
at the world with the eyes of a young person. His powers of
understanding and his emotional capabilities are alike over-rated.
He is expected to understand intricate motives, to appreciate
delicate touches of humour which would escape many an adult,
and to manifest an aesthetic taste on a level with the latest refine-
ments. Anybody who will take a little trouble to scan the so-
called 'popular' children's stories of the present day, and what
is more, carefully observe how children read them, will satisfy
himself that even in this prolific age the stories which really come
home to young minds are few enough.

Exercise of the Imagination in Teaching. As we have seen,
the imagination is called into activity in all branches of teaching.
In some branches, as History and Geography, it is more especially
exercised. Here then a knowledge of the laws of operation of the
faculty will be a matter of great importance to the teacher. A
word or two must suffice on this head.

To begin with, since new images can only be formed out of old
materials, it is desirable to call up past impressions in the most
vivid way. This end will be secured to some extent by a wise
selection of words. These must be simple and familiar, fitted to
call up images at once. More than this, the teacher should remind
the child of facts in his experience the representations of which
may serve as the elements of the new image, or as its model.
Thus in describing an historical event the several features must
be made clear by parallel facts in the child's small world and the
whole scene made distinct by the help of rough analogies. In
doing this, however, the teacher must be careful to help the child
to distinguish the new from the old and not to import into the
new image the accidental and irrelevant accessories of his ex-
perience.

Once more, the teacher must seek to follow the natural order in
exercising the imagination. He should remember that clear images
are built up gradually. There is first a dim outline, a blurred

TRAINING OF IMAGINATION. 329

scheme, and this gradually grows distinct by additions of detailed
features. Thus the description of a country best begins with a
rough outline of its contour, its surroundings, and its larger
features, as mountain-chains, &c. Similarly historical narrative
best sets out with some general outline of events which may
serve as a time-scheme for the particular incidents to be dealt
with. Not only so, the teacher should progress by steps from the
known to the unknown and from the simple to the complex.
The method in teaching geography, of setting out with the child's
immediate surroundings, and gradually passing to more distant
regions, illustrates the importance of the first condition. The
practice in the teaching of history, of giving a biographical
account of a sovereign with the least possible reference to social
circumstances, illustrates the importance of the second condition.
Finally, the imagination may be greatly aided by sense-presen-
tations. It has been remarked above that fancy builds up its
creations most easily when there is a basis of actual observation
at the moment. And this condition is complied with by a
judicious use of maps, models, pictures, &c.

APPENDIX.

The processes of constructive imagination have not been fairly dealt with
by English psychologists. The accounts given by D. Stewart and Sir W.
Hamilton are slight and inadequate. Prof. Bain deals more fully with the
theme in his own manner under the head of ' Constructive Association '
(Senses and Intellect : Intellect, Chap. IV. ). Among German writers who
have ably treated the subject may be mentioned George, Lehrbuch der Psy-
chologie, 2nd Part, 5 ; and Volkmann, Lehrbuch der Psychologic, Section 4 D,
§84.

On the cultivation of the imagination the reader may consult Mdme.
Necker, L' '.Education, Livre III., Chap. V., and Livre VI., Chap. VIII. and
IX. ; Beneke, op. cit., § 23, 24 ; Waitz, op. cit., § 10 ( Vom Spiele) ; Pfisterer,
Paedagogische Psychologic, § 14. There are some good remarks on practical
constructiveness in Miss Edgeworth's Essays, Vol. II., Chap. XXI. (On
Memory and Invention). The application of the psychology of the imagina-
tion to the teaching of History and Geography is well illustrated in Mr.
Fitch's treatment of these subjects, Lectures on Teaching, Chaps. XII. and
XIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CONCEPTION.

Particular and General Knowledge : Thought. The
intellectual operations hitherto considered have had
to do with individual things. To perceive, remember,
and imagine have reference to some particular object,
as the River Thames, or a particular occurrence, as
the opening of the New Law-Courts. But we may
reflect and reason about rivers or ceremonies in general.
When we do so we are said to think* All thinking is
representation like imagination, but it is a different
sort of representation. It is the representation not of
individual things (e.g., John Smith) but of classes
(e.g., Englishman, human being).2 In thinking we
are concerned not with single objects in their ' con-
crete' fulness of individual peculiarities or charac-
teristics (e.g., this tree with all its individual pecu-
liarities of form, colour, &c.), but with certain of their
' abstract ' qualities, that is to say aspects common to
them and many other things (e.g., the possession of

1 Here again we have a word used in a sense somewhat different from its
everyday sense. We often say we cannot ' think ' of a thing when we mean
we cannot recall it.

2 Or inasmuch as it represents a number of concrete representations, it may
be called, as it is by Mr. Spencer, re-representative.

NATURE OF THINKING. 331

life). This higher province of intellectual activity
broadly marks off human from animal intelligence.

Thinking Defined. Thinking may be roughly de-
fined as a going over, sorting, and arranging the store
of particular cognitions gained by sense-perception
and retained by memory. Like the simpler forms of
cognition it consists in discrimination and assimilation,
in detecting differences and agreements. It differs
from these in the mode of exercise of these funda-
mental functions. Thinking is discrimination and
assimilation performed on the results of sense-percep-
tion and reproduction. Not only so, as we shall see
presently, it is assimilation and discrimination of a
higher kind, involving much more activity of mind.
To this it may be added that whereas in the know-
ledge of single concrete objects by sense-perception
discrimination was the chief thing, and assimilation
was a subordinate operation, in thinking the relation
is rather reversed. To discover the general in the
particular, to bring many individual things under one
head, is to trace out the similarities of things ; and
to think is pre-eminently to detect similarity amid
diversity.1 At the same time, this process of detecting
resemblances is attended, as we shall see presently
with a clearer apprehension of differences.

Thinking and Understanding. Thinking is closely
related to Understanding, and indeed the two words
are often used to mark off the same region of intel-
lectual operation. When we view an object as a

1 Wit and poetic imagination when striking out similes exemplify, as we
shall see presently, the same fundamental process. Wit and understanding
have always been regarded as closely connected one with another.

332 CONCEPTION.

concrete whole we apprehend it : when however we
regard it under some common aspect we comprehend
it. The child apprehends this particular building,
that is to say as an individual thing distinct from sur-
rounding things, having a particular shape, size, &c. :
he comprehends it when he recognises it as a church.
Similarly he understands an event when he assimilates
it to other and already familiar events on the ground
of a common cause. Thus he understands the fall of
snow when he takes a lump into his hand and finds
out that it has weight.1 To understand things is

o o

thus to assimilate them to other things, and this is
just what we mean by thinking.

Thinking based on Comparison. All thinking im-
plies comparing one object with another. By an act
of comparison is meant the voluntary direction of
attention to two or more objects at the same moment,
or in immediate succession, with a view to discover
their differences or their agreements. The objects
may be both present together, and placed in juxta-
position, as when a teacher compares the handwriting
of a child with the copy ; or, as often happens, may
be (either wholly or in part) represented, as when we
recall a person's face in order to compare it with ano-
ther which we are now observing.

As we saw above, a child in perceiving an object
discriminates and assimilates. Thus in recognising a
figure as that of his father, he marks off the object
in respect of height, &c., from other objects. In like

1 The terms Thought and Understanding are often used for intellectual
operations as a whole. The name of the highest manifestation of intellectual
activity naturally tends to represent the whole of the activity.

NATURE OF THINKING. 333

manner when he recognises an object as an orange, he
assimilates it to other and previously seen objects.
Yet here the differences and similarities are latent, so
to speak. The child does not distinctly recall other
figures from which that of his father differs, nor does
he distinctly recall other oranges which the present
one resembles. The relation of likeness or unlikeness
is implicitly seized, but it is not explicitly set forth
to the mind.

This last process involves a further intellectual
activity which is known as comparison. In this we
place the objects differing or agreeing in mental juxta-
position, so as to distinctly view them as related by
way of similarity or dissimilarity. This act of com-
paring objects involves the germ of thinking, and
marks a certain development of intellectual power.
An intelligent dog can distinguish and recognise,
but he cannot mentally juxtapose objects or com-
pare them, except, perhaps, in a very imperfect and
rudimentary way.

This act of comparing two objects illustrates the
highest kind of exercise of the power of voluntary
concentration. In viewing two or more objects in
their relation one to another a peculiar effort of
mental fixation is involved. The attention has to
pass rapidly from one to the other in order that the
point of dissimilarity or similarity may become
clear and well-defined. It may be added that the
juxtaposition in space of two objects greatly assists
in the detection of likeness or unlikeness. Such
proximity of the object is most favourable to a rapid
transition of the attention, and an (approximately)

334 CONCEPTION.

instantaneous co-observation of the two in their
relation.1

As one derivation of the word suggests (Lat. comparare, from con and
par, equal ; cf. Germ, vergleichen, from gleich, like or equal) comparison
refers more particularly to the discovery of resemblances. The com-
parisons of wit, and of poetic fancy, are clearly illustrations of the
process of assimilating or likening one thing to another. Even when
we compare two things so as to note their differences, the idea of their
likeness is implied. We only compare them by first bringing them
together and regarding them under some aspect of similarity, e.g., height
in the case of persons. In truth we only talk, generally speaking, of
comparing things when there is a considerable amount of likeness, and
when accordingly the detection of difference (if such there be) necessi-
tates close concentration of mind, as in inspecting two similar hand-
writings, two similar coins, &c. Hence the expression : ' They are too
unlike to be compared '.

Comparisons which involve Reproduction. The
process of comparing assumes a somewhat different
form when the objects to be compared are not pre-
sented at the moment. This, as before hinted, is
the common case. The range of thinking would
almost be reduced to a mathematical point if our
minds were confined to the accidental juxtapositions
of objects in space, and of events in time. By the
aid of memory we are able to bring together objects
and events far removed from one another in our ex-
perience, and in this way to give unity and order to
our experience as a whole.

In this representative mode of comparison the
images are commonly called up by the force of simi-
larity itself. Thus in comparing a person's face with
another previously seen, the first step in the process

X0n the nature of comparison, see Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics,
Vol. I., Lect. XIV. ; Lotze, Metaphysic, Book III., Chap. III., and Stumpf,
Tonpsychologic, § 6, p. Ill seq.

NATURE OF THINKING. 335

is the revival of the image of this last in the manner
already explained (p. 266). The act of comparison
follows, and consists of a reflection on the point or
points of similarity, already vaguely discerned, with
a view to render these distinct or definite.

Comparisons of Wit and Fancy. This same process of repre-
sentative comparison is illustrated in the assimilations of remote objects
or ideas in strokes of wit, and poetic similes. The source of the intel-
lectual pleasure in each case is the sudden discovery of some affinity
between things which we have hitherto been accustomed to view as
totally unlike and disconnected.1 The mental juxtaposition is due in
the first instance to the attraction of similars. It is the similarity of
the words in a pun, or of the ideas in wit proper, and in poetic fancy,
which causes the two to come together in the mind. And the mind
which is quick at striking out witty comparisons, or poetical similes,
must be peculiarly susceptible to this mode of suggestion by similarity.
But this is only a part of the process. The final perfectly elaborated
parallel or analogy implies (in most cases at least) a careful comparison
of the things thus brought together, a detection of the precise point of
analogy between them, and a setting this forth clearly to the mind.

Analysis and Synthesis. Thinking is often des-
cribed as a process of separating and combining, or
of analysis and synthesis. By mental analysis we
mean the taking apart of a complex whole and
attending separately to its parts. By synthesis, on
the other hand, is meant the reverse process of com-
bining parts in a complex whole. Just as the chemist
analyses and recombiues his substances, so the mind
is capable of breaking up a complex product into its
parts and re-grouping them.2

1 Of course this is not the only ingredient in the charm of wit or of poetic
simile. The pleasure in both cases seems to be a complex mental state.

2 The analogy between physical and mental analysis and synthesis only
holds up to a certain point. On the different uses of the words see the article
Analysis in the 9th Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

336 CONCEPTION.

It is plain that in finding out the similarities of
things we analyse. A percept and its corresponding
image are, as we have seen, highly complex, made
up of an aggregate of many sense-impressions, and
involving many relations of parts one to another.
Thus in representing an orange the mind grasps a
whole group of properties, form, colour, &c. When
we consider the similarity of an orange to other
things, e.g., other fruits, or other globular bodies, we
pick out certain aspects of the object and consider
these separately, that is we analyse.

But analysis though a very important part of
thinking is not the whole of it. Thinking involves
processes of combination or synthesis as well. In
forming the idea planet, for example, the mind com-
bines the results of previous processes of analysis,
such as the idea of a spherical body, of motion about
a centre, and so on. An important part of thinking
is concerned with discovering the causal relations
which bind objects and events together; and this
operation involves a bringing together of ideas
hitherto disconnected. When, for instance, the child
finds out that snow, sugar, and other things are
melted by heat he connects the idea of melting with
that of heat. l

Our knowledge of particulars may be said to imply the germs of
analysis and synthesis. In sense-perception we single out some object,
or part of an object, -for special notice, disregarding its surroundings.
And this selective process of the attention is a kind of analysis. Again,
since a percept is a complex psychical product formed by a coalescence
of sense-elements, we may say that it is the result of a kind of ' uncon-

1 The meaning of synthesis will be brought out more fully presently in
connection with judging ami reasoning

NATUKE OF THINKING. 337

scious synthesis'. Once more, in the processes of reproduction we
found both a separating of images from their surroundings as well as
a combining of them by an act of conjoint attention. The germ of the
process of synthesis is best illustrated in constructive imagination.

It follows from this that the words analysis and synthesis may be
extended so as to correspond more nearly to the terms discrimination
and assimilation. We may be said to analyse a sense-impression, per-
ception, or idea, whenever we distinguish some element or aspect of it
from its surroundings. On the other hand, when we mentally combine
things on the ground of their resemblance we may be said to perform a
process of synthesis. If we were to employ the terms in this wider
sense, we might say that analysis and synthesis (discrimination and
assimilation) are but twe sides or aspects of the same mental process.
To single out any part of a (complex) sensation or idea for special con-
sideration, is to bring it into relation to other and similar sensations or
ideas. 1

Thinking and Language. It is allowed by all that
there is an intimate connection between thinking and
language. Man is distinguished from the lower
animals by the attribute of speech as well as by
that of understanding. The thinking powers of the
several races of mankind vary with the degree of
complexity and elaborateness of their language. The
child's power of thought grows step by step with his
power of speech. Much of our thinking is plainly
carried on by the aid of spoken language, namely
all that is connected with conversing or exchanging
ideas. And even in the case of solitary or silent
thought, internal observation at once tells us that
an inaudible or suppressed speech co-operates.2

Language is in its very nature a system of general
signs or symbols which may be applied to an indefinite

1 This is generally true, though, as we saw before, discrimination seems
the more fundamental part or first stage of the process (see p. 142).

2 In the case of all of us, and more particularly, perhaps, the uneducated,
this inaudible speech is apt to become audible.

CONCEPTION.

number of objects. And it is only by the help of
language (or some other equivalent set of signs) that
we can think, in the strict sense of the word, that is
to say, consider things under their general or common
aspects. In dealing with memory we saw how im-
portant a part language played as a medium of
representing the concrete, or of recalling particular
objects or occurrences. We shall now have to deal
with a yet more important function of language, that
is to say, its service as a medium of representing the
general or abstract, or as an instrument of thought.

Stages of Thinking. We commonly distinguish
three stages of thinking. First of all there is the
formation of general notions or concepts, which may
be said to constitute the elements of thought, such
as ' material body/ ' weight '. This is called Con-
ception. Next to this comes the combining of two
concepts in the form of a statement or proposition,
as when we say ' material bodies have weight '.
This is termed an act of Judgment. Lastly, we
have the operation by which the mind passes from
certain judgments (or statements) to certain other
judgments, as when from the assertions 'material
substances have weight,' 'gases are material sub-
stances,' we proceed to the further assertion 'gases
have weight'. This process is described as Rea-
soning, or drawing an inference or conclusion.

These distinctions have been fixed by logicians and
not psychologists. The mental process in each case
is substantially the same. Not only so, as we shall
see presently, these operations are not carried on
separately, but are involved one in the other. Never-

NATURE OF THINKING. 339

theless, since they roughly mark off the more simple
and the more complex modes of thinking, and pro-
ducts of thought, it is convenient to the psychologist
to adopt the distinctions. We shall accordingly in
the present chapter deal with the process of concep-
tion, or concept-formation, and in the following chapter
consider the processes of judging and reasoning.

Logical and Psychological View of Thinking. The reader must
carefully distinguish between the different ways in which the Logician
and the Psychologist view the processes of thinking. The former is
concerned in regulating or controlling the operations according to some
standard of correctness. He requires a comparatively simple form or
type of thinking by a reference to which the value of any specimen of
actual thinking may be guaged. Hence he does not need to go into a
careful and exhaustive analysis of the ordinary processes of thinking in
concrete individual minds. Thus he assumes that concepts are fully
developed before they are combined in judgments. Similarly he assumes
that when we reason (deductively) we set out from a general truth in
the way indicated by the syllogism.

The psychologist, on the other hand, is concerned not with the
question 'How can we think correctly?' but with the question 'How
do we ordinarily think V Hence he has to make a much more careful
analysis of the actual processes of thinking. Thus he has to keep in
mind the fact that Conception and Judgment are closely connected one
with another, and that our reasoning processes are much more variable
in form than is assumed in Logic.

Definition of General Notion or Concept. A con-
cept, otherwise called a general notion or a general
idea, is the representation in our minds answering to
a general name, such as soldier, man, animal. There
has been much discussion concerning the nature of
these general representations, or 'abstract ideas' as
they are sometimes called. It is clear that they are
related to concrete images of particular objects. Thus
the concept ' soldier ' is connected in my mind with
the representations of various individual soldiers

340 CONCEPTION.

known to me. But when I use the word 'soldier'
I do not fully represent any individual soldier with
his particular height, style of- uniform, &c., nor do I
distinctly represent a succession of such individuals.
What is in my mind is a kind of composite image
formed by the fusion or coalescence of many images
of single objects, in which individual differences are
blurred, and only the common features stand out
distinctly. Thus my representation of a soldier
corresponds to a rough sketch of the soldier figure
with some kind of uniform and carrying some kind
of weapon. This may be called a typical or generic
image. 1

As was suggested above, even images of single objects have some-
thing of the character of generic images. My image of a particular
place or of a particular person is really compounded out of many
slightly different perceptions. Thus we see Hyde Park now in good
weather now in bad, now in summer now in winter. Similarly we see
one of our friends in different surroundings, wearing different expres-
sions, and performing different actions. In each case the resulting
image or representation is a conglomerate of a number of partially unlike
percepts, in which the common elements strengthen one another and the
variable ones tend to cancel or obliterate one another. 2

If instead of the word ' soldier ' we take ' animal '
we find still less of the image-character. We cannot
form a mental picture of animal in general. The
word covers too wide a variety of forms (dogs, mice,
beetles, and so on), for us to combine the corres-
ponding images in a generic image. These more
' abstract ' concepts do indeed contain a shadowy

1 A colour-clement answering to the most frequent accompaniment, say
scarlet, might also enter into the image.

2SeeTaine. On Intelligence, Pt. I., Bk. II., Ch. II., p. 88.

NATURE OF CONCEPT. 341

reminiscence of images. Thus the word e animal '
seems to call up very vaguely one or more (generic)
images corresponding to the variety of animal most
familiar, as the well known quadrupeds. But we
distinctly represent only a limited side or aspect of
these, that is to say the features, traits or qualities
which are common to them. Thus the word 'animal'
may be roughly said to call up the idea of a material
body of a symmetrical but otherwise ill-defined form,
endowed with life and movement.

It is important to distinguish between a concept proper, a fully
developed and independent mental product, and a concept in its nascent
incomplete form as embodied in a percept. Just as a sensation commonly
nvolves the germ of a percept, and a percept the germ of an image,
iso a percept (and the image formed from this) may be said to contain
the germ of a concept. In seeing an individual object as a particular
tree we view it as a concrete embodiment of the common tree-form.
Recognition of an object present to sense as one of a class thus involves
a nascent form of the concept. But this process is not the same as
the independent forming of a concept by means of a word when no
object is present. The former is an easier intellectual operation and
precedes the latter in the order of mental development. Children can
identify an object as one of a class (as when they say, ' There is a dog !')
before they can call up distinct concepts by the aid of language only.

How Concepts are formed. The more concrete
concepts or ' generic images ' are formed to a large
extent by a passive process of assimilation. The
likeness among dogs for example is so great and
striking that when a child already familiar with one
of these animals sees a second he recognises it as
identical with the first in certain obvious aspects.
The representation of the first combines with the
presentation of the second bringing into distinct relief
the common dog-features, more particularly the canine

342 CONCEPTION.

form. In this way the images of different dogs come
to overlap, so to speak, giving rise to a typical image
of dog.1 Here there is very little of active direction
of mind from one thing to another in order to dis-
cover where the resemblance lies : the resemblance
forces itself on the mind.2 When, however, the
resemblance is less striking, as in the case of the
more abstract concepts (e.g., animal), a distinct
operation of active comparison is involved. This is
the operation which we have now specially to inves-
tigate.

Comparison, Abstraction, and Generalisation. The
active mental process by which concepts are formed
is commonly said to fall into three stages, comparison,
abstraction, and generalisation. These are however
very intimately related, and are only distinguishable
aspects of the same mental operation.

First of all it is needful that a number of objects
having a certain degree of likeness should be somehow
brought before the mind. As already pointed out,
these objects may be actually present or may be called
up by the representative imagination. We then com-
pare them, that is regard them by a special act of at-
tention in their mutual relation, in order to see how
far, and in what respects, they resemble one another.

Now when things are widely unlike one another, as

1 Mr. Galton compares these generic images to composite pictures formed
by the overlapping or superimposing of a number of photographic impressions
on a plate. See Inquiries into Human Faculty, Appendix, ' Generic Images,'
p. 349.

8 This relatively passive process which is clearly brought out in Mr.
Galton's theory of generic images, has been fully recognised by German
psychologists. See Waitz, Lehrbuch der Psychologic, § 48, Die Abstraction.

FORMATION OF CONCEPT. 343

for example different fruits, as a strawberry, a peacli,
and so on, we must in order to note the resemblance
turn the mind away from the differences of form,
colour, &c. This is the difficult part of the operation.
Great differences are apt to impress the mind, and it
requires a special effort to turn aside from them and
to keep the mind directed to the underlying similarity.
This effort is known as abstraction. It implies a high
exercise of the power of voluntary attention acting in
opposition to what is impressive or interesting (see p.
98).1 The greater the vigour of mind thrown into
this act of abstraction, the clearer or more perfect
will be the detection of the common features (e.g.,
the fruit marks or traits).

Finally, having thus seized by an effort of abstrac-
tion the" common traits of the several individual
objects compared, the child generalises, that is to
say forms a notion of a class of things which have
the qualities detected. Thus out of the images of
apple, plum, &c., he builds up a concept of the class,

fruit.2

Conception and Naming. This process of concep-

1 Abstraction means etymologically the active withdrawal (of attention)
from one thing in order to fix it on another thing (Lat. ab and traho).
Although we commonly speak of abstraction in reference to turning away
from differences to similarities the same process shows itself in other forms.
Thus in looking at a face we may withdraw attention from the eyes and fix it
on some less impressive feature. If two things (e.g., two sheep) are very like
we need to make an effort of abstraction in order to overlook the similarities
and attend to the differences.

2 This last part of the process is also spoken of as classification, since it
involves the formation of an idea of a class of things. But the process of.
classification is, as we shall see presently, more complex than this. The
relation between the last two stages of the process of Conception — Abstraction
and Generalisation, will be discussed presently.

344 CONCEPTION.

tion takes place in immediate connection with naming.
For the sake of simplicity we will first suppose that
the child begins to use the name when he compares
a number of objects, and seizes the points of resem-
blance among these ; just as a scientific discoverer
invents a name to mark off some newly-discovered
class of things. He applies the term fruit to the
various objects compared and found to have certain
common characters or marks. The name is thus given
not to one object but to a number ; and it is given to
them with special reference to their points of similarity.
That is to say, by being given to the several objects,
pears, oranges, &c., the name serves in a peculiar way
to indicate, define, and fix this relation of similarity
among them. But for the appending of a name the
recognition of points of similarity would be vague and
momentary only.

The full importance of the process of naming, or
appending general signs to, the results of the com-
parison only appears afterwards. The resulting con-
cept is the effect of combining a number of compared
images by means of one common name or sign. Owing
to this, a peculiar association will be constituted be-
tween the word and the images of the several objects.

After the process described above is complete,
the child on hearing the word fruit will not form a
concrete image, as that of a pear of a particular size.
For this same verbal sign has been associated in pre-
cisely the same manner, and with precisely the same
degree of strength, with other objects, plums, peaches,
&c. It is clear that the name cannot at one and the
same moment call up all these images. The repre-

CONCEPTION AND NAMING. 345

sentations of the forms of the pear and the apple, and
of the colours of the grape and the orange, are plainly
incompatible or mutually exclusive. And since the
name is coupled with all alike, there is no ^special
tendency in it to call up one image rather than ano-
ther. Hence it does not call up any one image in its
completeness, but only a number of nascent or incom-
plete images in which the several tendencies to com-
plete development, with all the concrete details
distinctly pictured, are counteracted, or, in other
words, in which the individual differences are can-
celled. That is to say, the word as a general sign
corresponds to a group of representations or to that
typical mental scheme or framework, which has been
defined above as a concept.

For the same reason, our observer will be henceforth
disposed to apply the name fruit to any object (fami-
liar or unfamiliar) in which he discovers the marks or
characters specially associated with the name. Thus
on seeing a lemon or a fig, he will call the object a
fruit. That is to say just as on meeting with the name
the concept or typical idea will be called up, so on
meeting with any of the corresponding things the
name will be called up. The name has thus become
a class-name, denoting a number of objects resembling
one another in certain particulars ; and connoting
these common characters by virtue of which the ob-
jects are mentally connected and called by one name.1

We must now, however, abandon the supposition

1 According to logicians, every concrete 'general name denotes or points
out things, and connotes the common attributes of these things. See J. S.
Mill, System of Logic, Bk. L, Ch. II., § 5.

346 CONCEPTION.

that the child fashions his concept at one time and in
the systematic way described above. The process of
abstraction is a slowly progressive one. Thus the
notion fruit is only gradually extricated from percepts
and images after many successive comparisons, each
of which adds an element of exactness to the growing
concept. And this implies that words are not at first
used as general signs. Thus the name fruit might at
the outset be applied to one kind, or at most to two
kinds, of fruit. At this stage it would call up a
blurred image, or a nascent or rudimentary concept
only. The growth of the concept progresses step by
step with the extension of the name to new objects.
Only after numbers of partially unlike images have in
this way been conjoined with the word, and repeated
processes of abstraction have taken place, does the
name become a general sign or concept-symbol, pro-
perly so called.

Discovering the Meaning of Words. One other
correction of the above account of the conceptual
process remains to be made. We have supposed that
the child brings objects together and compares them
on his own account without any guidance from others.
This process does actually take place. Children dis-
cover resemblances among things and call them by
the same name quite spontaneously and without any
suggestion from others. At the same time it is
obvious that the greater part of their concepts are
formed (in part at least) by listening to others and
noting the way in which they employ words. The
process is in this case very much the same as before.
A child finds out the meaning of a word, such as

CONCEPTION AND NAMING. 347

' man/ e good boy/ and so forth, by comparing the dif-
ferent instances in which it is used, abstracting from
the variable accompaniments and fixing the attention
on the common or essential circumstance.1

Nominalism and Conceptualism. The nature of general notions,
concepts, or 'abstract ideas,' and their precise relation to names, has
given rise to much discussion. This discussion had its origin in a
properly philosophical question, namely that respecting the nature of
general knowledge. It was asked whether there is any external reality
corresponding to our general notions, e.g., 'man,' over and above that
of certain individuals whom we have seen, or we or others might see.
Certain thinkers have held that there is a universal reality, that in the
region of external existence there is something corresponding to ' man '
as distinct from ' James Smith,' ' John Brown,' &c. These were called
Kealists. In opposition to these the Nominalists asserted that the uni-
versal or general has no existence in the realm of nature or objective
reality, but only in the name as a common sign applicable alike to any
object of a certain kind.

In modern times the controversy has tended to assume the character
of a psychological discussion. Instead of the ancient Eealists we have
the Conceptualists, who assert that our ideas may be general, or that the
mind has, over and above the power of picturing individual objects, that
of forming general notions, or ideas of classes of things. These general
ideas are not 'sensible representations' of individual objects, but abstract
ideas, that is representations of the common features (or the relations of
similarity) of many individuals. In opposition to these the Nominalists
assert that when we use general names we are still picturing or imaging
individuals, but in a very imperfect way, that is by attending exclusively
to certain features marked off by the general name. The nature of the
concept is only understood by considering the function of general signs.
Inasmuch as a name is such a sign, applicable alike to an indefinite
number of individual objects, we are able by means of it, and the trun-
cated image immediately called up by it, to think or reason in a general
manner. The word has become the symbol of an indefinite number of
images corresponding to those concrete examples which we have seen,
and to those which we can imagine ourselves as seeing under certain
circumstances. If the simultaneous rise of all these images in their full

1 It may, perhaps, be said that owing to the circumstance that unlike
objects are found to have the same name, there is in the child's mind an
anticipation of the generalising stage. Words are recognised as names of
many objects before the processes of comparison and abstraction have been
carried out.

348 CONCEPTION.

distinctness were psychologically possible, this, so far from aiding
thought (i.e., considering or reflecting about things in their general
aspects) would frustrate it. The name owes its important use or function
in thinking to the circumstance that it has in a manner become a sub-
stitute for these, their potential rather than their actual sign.1

Psychology of Language. We see from the above that the func-
tion of language in thinking resembles in certain respects its function
in imagination. Just as a word as a particular mark or sign may enable
us to recall and make known to another some concrete fact, so as a
general sign it aids in the preservation and communication of general
ideas or knowledge. And the same excellences of our adopted system
of language which we found to be so useful in the one case are equally
useful in the other. The accuracy and facility of thinking turn in no
small measure on the fine discrimination and distinct reproduction of
sounds together with the correlated vocal actions, and on their flexibility
and susceptibility of combination in easily apprehended series (see above,
p. 249).

C It must be observed however that the relation between words and ]
'general ideas or concepts is a much closer one than that between
words and images. In recalling a succession of events we may have
hardly anything before the mind but a string of visual images, there
being only a vague accompaniment of verbal representations. But
when we think, we are dependent at every step on distinct verbal
representations. This arises from that close organic connection between
the name as a common or general sign and the image-aggregate or con-
cept which we have just illustrated. The name is the combining force,
the ' vital principle ' which holds together this aggregate and keeps it
from falling apart again into its constituent images.

1 Nominalists do not perfectly agree as to what is in the mind when we use
a general name. Some say it is one image with all individual features re-
pressed or obscured. Others say that it is a number of images. It probably
differs greatly at different times, according to the fluctuations of our experi-
ence. Since it is allowed that we are capable of attending exclusively to the
common features of the image or images present at the moment, and of over-
looking all individual peculiarities, there does not seem to be a wide gulf
between this view and the conceptualist doctrine that the concept is different
in its nature from ' sensible images ' of individuals, and is a representation of
'an intelligible relation' among individuals (Mansel). Mr. Galton's doctrine
of Generic Images seems to offer to some extent a basis of reconciliation for
the rival views. For a further account of Conceptualism and Nominalism,
see Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, II., XXXV. ; Mansel, Prolegomena
Logica, Chap. I., p. 13, &c. ; J. S. Mill, Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's
Philosophy, Chap. XVII. ; Dr. Bain, Compendium of Mental Science, Bk. II,,
Ch. V., cf. Appendix A ; and M. Taine, On Intelligence, Pt. I., Bk. I., Chaps.
I. and II. ; Pt. II., Bk. IV., Chap. I.

CONCEPTION AND NAMING. 349

Language and Speech. As was pointed out in dealing with its
relations to reproductive imagination, language is something more than
a system of finely differenced auditory impressions. It has an active or
motor side as well, which aspect is marked off by the term Speech.
Every element of a language is thus two-sided, consisting of a vocal
action, and a sound-impression resulting from this. That this active
side is of great importance, may be seen in the fact that when other
signs than auditory ones are resorted to, as in the visible gesture or
pantomime language of uncivilised races, and the manual sign lan-
guage of the deaf and dumb, a correlative action or movement always
appears.

The explanation of this is that language is a social phenomenon,
having its origin in social relations, and having for its function to sub-
serve the communication of mind with mind, and the formation of that
aggregate or organised body of common experience which we call know-
ledge. The relation between the vocal action and the sound-impres-
sion answers to the communication of an idea or piece of knowledge
by one mind, and its reception and comprehension by another.

The close correlation between language and social life only becomes
apparent when we regard it in its full significance as a system of
general signs. Particular impressions are (to a large extent at least)
confined to an individual, or at most to a few individuals : they depend
on the accidents of time and place. The common body of knowledge is
thus necessarily general. It consists of the particular observations of
many individuals combined and organised in general truths. And this
generalising or universalising of knowledge, this piecing together and
elaborating of the individual fragmentary portions of knowledge into an
organic unity is effected, and can only be effected, by the aid of general
speech.

This being so, we see that speech is the medium by which a double
process is continually going on. On the one side by the use of a
common speech the social mind is working on the individual mind,
communicating of its store of knowledge, and bringing the individual
intelligence into conformity with its fixed modes of activity or 'forms
of thought'. This side of the process answers to instruction and intel-
lectual education in the wide sense of the term. On the other side, by
falling in with the common speech the individual is continually ad-
justing (consciously or unconsciously) his intellectual habits to these
common forms. Every time he uses general speech he is virtually
stepping away from the isolated individual point of view, and adopting
the central social point of view. To employ the common speech is thus
a social act, a recognition of an authority above the individual. Not
only so, this use of the organised speech-structure by the individual
implies social co-operation. By employing it the individual puts his
private or particular knowledge in a form which renders it generally

350 CONCEPTION.

available. And in this way the individual is able to react on the
common forms of thought and the connected forms of speech.

Physiology of Speech. The close connection between speech and
thought appears plainly enough in what is known respecting their
physiological conditions or nervous concomitants. A general idea or
notion being built up out of visual percepts and images, is regarded by
the physiologist as involving certain complex processes in the (sensory)
centres of perception and imagination (called by some ideational centres).
And it is held that these complex nervous processes are dependent on
the co-ordination of these centres with other centres known as speech
centres. These last, corresponding to the psychical couple, vocal action
and sound-impression, are partly motor and partly sensory. Patho-
logical evidence goes to show that the integrity of these speech centres
is necessary to a due performance of the higher intellectual operations.1

Growth of Language and of Thought in the Race and in the
Individual. The question as to the psychological relation of language
to thought is closely connected with the problem of the origin ef
language in the history of the race. In spite of the series of elaborate
researches commenced by Herder, there is still a good deal of uncer-
tainty on this point. We may, however, pretty safely say that both the
view that regards the origin of language as due to a conscious process of .
invention which presupposes a considerable development of the power
of thought ; and the opposite view which makes the growth of thought
wholly a result of the possession of the organ and the power of speech,
are one-sided and inexact. The mere possession of an organ of speech
would not guarantee the development of language without some corre-
lative development of brain-power and thought. On. the other hand,
thought could never have reached more than a rudimentary or nascent
stage without the aid of language. Thus the growth of thought and of
speech react one on the other.2 The interaction of thought and lan-
guage is well described by Sir W. Hamilton by aid^pf a simile, the
relation between the processes of excavating and propping up with
masonry in boring a tunnel. "Language is to the mind precisely what

1 For a fuller account of the physiology of speech, and the kindred pro-
cesses of reading from visual symbols and writing, see Dr. Maudsley, The
Physiology of Mind, Chap. VIII. ; Dr. Ferrier, The Functions of the Brain,
Chap. XI. ; Dr. Bastian, The Brain as an Organ of Mind, Chap. XXIX.

2 The question of the origin and development of language, though not
considered a part of psychology, has an important bearing on the science.
And this relation between philology and psychology is coming to be recog-
nised by psychologists, especially in Germany. For the latest theories on the
origin of language, the reader must be referred to the works of Professors Max
Miiller and Sayce in this country, and of Geiger, Steinthal and Noire in
Germany.

CONCEPTION AND NAMING. 351

the arch is to the tunnel. The power of thinking and the power of
excavation are not dependent on the word in the one case, on the
mason-work in the other ; but without these subsidiaries, neither pro-
cess could be carried on beyond its rudimentary commencement " (Lec-
tures on Logic, VIIL, pp. 138, 139).

It is a somewhat different problem when we consider the relation of
the growth of thought and of speech-power in the case of the individual.
Here, again, the powers of speech (articulation) and of thought develop
pari passu. To some extent he reproduces the probable course of things
in the early development of language in the race by spontaneously
uttering word-sounds of his own invention in order to indicate the
resemblances which he discovers in things.1 But this spontaneous
speech is soon abandoned in favour of that adopted by others and
impressed on him by way of his social needs and impulses. And it is
plain that this process of learning and reproducing a highly-developed
speech-structure, embodying the thought distinctions and thought rela-
tions of many generations, is widely different from that of groping the
way after new sounds as new ideas arise. Through this action of the
speech-medium the progress of intellectual growth is furthered and
expedited to an incalculable extent. The child becomes familiar with
concepts such a§ ' thing,' and relations of these, as ' cause ' and ' effect,'
long before his unaided intelligence could have even dimly descried
them.

The difference between the two processes of growth here touched on
affects the interesting psychological problem, how names of things were
first used, whether as names of individuals (proper names) or of classes
(common names). The difficulty here, in the case of the first employ-
ment of words by the individual, is owing to the circumstance that he
is surrounded by those who use words as general signs to denote a
number of partially dissimilar objects. The probability seems to be
that the child first uses words to mark the resemblances of things which
strike him. And this, whether the object be the same object seen after
an interval, as in exclaiming ' Papa' on seeing his father after an absence ;
or different objects, as when he extends the word ' Papa' to other men.
' Same thing ' is distinguished from ' similar things ' later. 2

1 11. Taine would regard such utterances as analogous to emotional expres-
sions. They express the emotive state of mind of the observer who is struck
by a resemblance (On Intelligence, Parti., Book L, Chap. II.). This view
connects the early speech of the individual with the speech of primitive man
in so far as it was the expression of an emotional state either of an individual
or of a number in common.

2 The question whether knowledge begins with the individual or the
general (the problem of the Primum Cognitum) is fully discussed by Sir W.
Hamilton in his Lectures on Metaphysics (Lect. XXX VI.).

352 CONCEPTION.

Degrees of Abstraction. Our more concrete con-
cepts (generic images) involve, as we have seen, but
little active comparison. In arriving at the concepts
plough, dog, and so on, the child finds no difficulty in
turning away from differences. Eesemblance here
preponderates over difference, and the exercise of the
power of abstraction is slight. It is only when we
carry the process of analysis further and seek out
more widely extended points of similarity that a seri-
ous effort of abstraction is required. Thus in finding
out what is common among ploughs, saws and other
implements, or what is shared in by dogs, horses and
other quadrupeds, the child needs to consider closely
and turn away from many and striking differences.
Speaking roughly, we may say that the wider the
range of objects compared the smaller will be the
amount of resemblance among them. And the more
dissimilarity thus preponderates over similarity the
greater will be the effort of abstraction required.

Marking off Single Attributes. By abstraction,
finally, we can view things under some one aspect
common to them and other things, as rotundity of
form, colour, and so forth. The separate detection of
such attributes is marked by the use of adjectives.
When, for example, the child calls his ball round, or
his cart heavy, he is able to fix his mind on some one
feature of an object. Here again comparison and
generalisation are involved, though less obviously.
The ehild would not call his ball round if he had
not seen a number of round objects and compared
them under this aspect. And to call a thing round
implies at least a vague notion of a class of round

STAGES OF ABSTRACTION. 353

objects. This higher power of abstraction enables
the child to carry the process of analysis still further,
and not only to break up his percepts (or images) so
as to form (complex) notions of classes, but to break
up these notions of classes into simple notions of
qualities, distinguishing and enumerating the several
features or marks which constitute the class. Thus
he is able to analyse his notion water into something
fluid, transparent, and so on. l

Formation of Abstract Names. Logicians distinguish "between
adjectives as red, round, and the substantives formed from these as
redness, roundness, calling the first concrete names or names of things,
and the latter abstract names or names of attributes. But the psy-
chologist views them as answering to two modes of the same funda-
mental process of abstraction. There is no material difference between
the notion or idea 'heavy object' and the notion 'weight'. We can-
not conceive a quality apart from a thing possessing it. But by the
help of language we are able to mark off a common trait of many things
with only a very vague reference to the concrete objects themselves, and
this final stretch of abstraction is illustrated in the formation of ideas of
qualities, states, actions, &c., corresponding to abstract names. That
such concepts answer to the more severe efforts of abstraction is seen in
the fact that the names are derived from, and therefore formed later
than the corresponding concrete names j and also by the fact that they
are first used by the child long after these last.

Abstraction and Generalisation. A good deal of discussion has
arisen respecting the exact relation of Abstraction to Generalisation. In
the process of concept-formation described above the two are clearly
very closely connected. But does abstraction always imply genera-
lising] Dugald Stewart writes: "A person who had never seen but
one rose might yet have been able to consider its colour apart from its
other qualities ; and, therefore, there may be such a thing as an idea

1 When this stage of abstraction is reached the complex class-notion may
be more distinctly ?-«formed by combining the qualities thus separately con-
ceived. Some writers (as Sir W. Hamilton) describe this as a process of
synthesis. This, however, must be distinguished from the process to be
touched on presently, where the mind brings together the results of abstrac-
tion which have not been hitherto connected. This is synthesis in the fuller
meaning of the term.

354 CONCEPTION.

which is at once abstract and particular ". l But there is no reason to
suppose that we could attend to the colour of a rose before comparing
many objects in respect of their colour. A young child cannot attend to
the colour or the form of an object apart from its adjuncts or surround-
ings. Such a recognition of a particular quality in any object presup-
poses a considerable development of the powers of conception. And it
is by the aid of the results of comparing and generalising that we are
able to fix the attention on any quality of a concrete object, isolating it
for the moment from its surroundings. Hence it may be said that such
abstraction always involves an indistinct or sub-conscious process of
generalising. In attending to any single quality of an individual object
we are ceasing to regard it as an isolated object, and are viewing it in its
relation to other objects. This is true even of some individual peculi-
arity of form, &c. For in attending to it as form, we are carrying out a
rudimentary process of generalisation. This is only to repeat in other
words what was suggested just now, that analysis, or the singling out
for special consideration of some particular aspect of an object, implies
synthesis in the sense of assimilating the object on that side to other
objects.2

Notions which involve Synthesis. Many of our
notions involve, in addition to a process of abstraction
and analysis, a process of combination or synthesis.
That is to say, we require to regroup the results of
abstraction in new combinations. Thus in the study
of history we have to build up out of the results of
observation and abstraction such notions as * Eoman
Emperor/ ' feudal system/ &c.

This process, the synthetic formation of complex
concepts, goes on in many cases hand in hand with a

1 Quoted by Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, Yol. II., XXXV.

2 The attending ,to a distinct aspect or quality of an object must be dis-
tinguished from the fixing of the eye on a certain locally distinct portion of
it. This last, though often called abstraction, does not involve withdrawal
of the attention from individual differences to characters common to many
objects. It may be added that the same close relation between analysis and
synthesis holds good in respect of complex sensations, as those of mixed
flavour, musical timbre, &c. Our power of separating such a complex whole
into its parts depends to a considerable extent on our previous familiarity
with the constituents apart or in other connections.

CONCEPTION AND SYNTHESIS, 355

process of constructive imagination. By this last an
image, or a number of images, are first elaborated,
which give the peculiar form or structure to the con-
cept. In this way we should form an idea of a Roman
consul, of a volcano, and so forth. In other cases,
however, this accompaniment of constructive imagina-
tion is wanting. Conception passes beyond the limits
of distinct visual representation.

Ideas of Magnitude and Number. This process of
transcending the limits of imagination is illustrated
in the formation oi ideas of all objects of great mag-
nitude and of these magnitudes themselves. Our
ideas of objects of small size, as a single building, a
troop of soldiers, a yard-measure or a bushel, as well
as of small durations, as a second, are all based on
percepts and images. On the other hand, our notions
of objects or collections of vast size, as a city, a planet,
a nation, the distance from the earth to the sun, and
of vast durations, as a century, do not correspond to
any distinct images. These ideas are reached by a
process of continued summation or addition of magni-
tudes which are themselves intuitable and picturable
Thus in forming an idea of the earth we have to take
some familiar magnitude, say that of a school globe,
and to perform a prolonged process of piling up quan-
tity on quantity, or measure on measure.

The nature of this process is clearly illustrated in
the building up of the ideas of all the larger numbers.1
As was pointed out above, we can intuit the smaller

1 All distinct ideas of magnitudes which are not imaginable are of course
formed by the aid of numbers. We can have no idea of a vast distance
except as determined by a definite number of unit-measurements, e.g., feet,
yards, milas.

356 CONCEPTION.

numbers as groups of tilings characterised by certain
visual differences (see p. 192). Our ideas of such
numbers, therefore, might be obtained by comparison
of different local arrangements of the same group, and
of groups of unlike things, e.g., pebbles, trees, sheep.
Even in the case of these smaller numbers, however,
a process of composition and decomposition (synthesis
and analysis) was found to be involved. We only
fully apprehend 5 or 6 as a particular number, when
we know its mode of production by a summation of
units. In the case of the larger numbers, 20, 100,
1000, &c., this process of summation makes up the
whole meaning of the number-symbol. The symbol
100 does not correspond to an intuition of sight, or
to a visual image. It stands for the unpicturable
result of a prolonged process of summing, counting,
or reckoning, performed on units (or small groups of
these) which are themselves picturable.

This peculiarity of our ideas of number is illustrated
in the lateness of their formation in the history of the
individual and of the race. Thus, a child of three and
a half, generally observant and intelligent, and capable
of comparing the magnitudes of things (e.g., the
heights of two persons), showed an almost complete
inability to apprehend relations of number. Though
taught to say one, two, three, &c., in connection with
concrete objects, he persisted in confounding number
or discrete quantity, with magnitude or continuous
quantity. Thus one day on seeing beads of three
sizes, he called the smallest ' four,' those next in size
* five,' and the largest ' six '. It is well known that
savages, though they are able to remark a diminution

IDEAS OF NUMBER. 357

in the number of their cattle, &c., because they know
each individually, are rarely able to count above 5,
and at most only attain to 10. This suggests that
reckoning was first developed by aid of the fingers of
the two hands, which supply an always available
concrete illustration of number, and which would
naturally come to be used as a symbol for number in
the early gesture stages of language.1

It may be added that certain notions of magnitude
and number illustrate the reverse of the process here
described. In forming an idea of a molecule, of a
millimetre, &c., we are breaking up or dividing an
intuitable whole into its parts and carrying the pro-
cess beyond the limits of imagination. So of the
ideas of all small abstract quantities represented by
fractions. We may form an image corresponding to
^ because we may picture an object separated into
three parts : but our ideas of 555, BO& &c., clearly
transcend the limits of distinct picturing.

Notions of Geometry, &c. This synthetic activity
is illustrated in a somewhat different way in the
formation of another class of notions. Our idea of
a mathematical line, a circle, and so forth, does not
exactly answer to any observable form. No straight
line, for instance, discoverable in any actual object,
perfectly answers to the geometric definition. Even

1This is borne out by the fact that some tribes, e.g., those of Australia,
signify 5 by the expression 'one hand,' and 10 by 'two hands'. It is also
supported by the existence of the term digit and the form of the Roman
numerals, I., II., &c. (For an interesting account of the origin and growth
of our ideas of number, see the anonymous volume, The Alternative (Mac-
millan & Co.), B.C. I., Chap. XIX. The psychological process by which
number-concepts are reached is described by Waitz, Lehrbuch der Psychologie,
§ 52, p. 599, fcc.).

358 CONCEPTION.

the most carefully drawn line would be found on
closer inspection to deviate to some extent from the re-
quired type. It follows that these notions involve more
than a simple process of abstraction, such as suffices,
for example, for the detection of the quality colour
or weight. They presuppose in addition to this a
process of idealisation. The student of geometry in
thinking about a perfectly straight line has to frame
a conception of something to which certain actual
forms only roughly approximate. The notion thus
represents, like that of a large number, the result of
a prolonged mental process which surpasses the limits
of distinct imagination.

It is much the same with the notions smooth plane,
perfect fluid, rigid body, &c., in physics. In framing
these notions we are called on to modify, perfect, or
idealise the results of abstraction, to form ideal
notions which transcend the limits of distinct imagi-
nation, and yet which are definite enough for the
purposes of scientific reasoning.1

The distinction between notions answering to pictures, and those
which cannot be reduced to images is related to the difference between
Symbolic and Intuitive knowledge. We have an intuitive knowledge
of the number three, or of the figure triangle, because we can picture
them. But we have only a symbolic knowledge of the number
thousand, or of the figure chiliagon (one of a thousand sides). Leibniz,
who emphasised the difference, adds that intuitive knowledge is more
perfect than symbolic. This illustrates the importance of the function
of imagination in relation to thought a

1 For a good account of these ideal notions see Taine, On Intelligence, Book
IV., Ch. I., § II.

2 For a brief account of the distinction see Jevons', Elementary Lessons in
Loffic. Lesson VII. Mansel argues that all general notions are an example
of symbolic as distinguished from intuitive knowledge. (Prolegomena Logica,
Chap. I., p. 26).

SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS. 359

Conception and Discrimination. Notions are com-
monly said to be formed by attending to resemblances
among things and passing over differences. Never-
theless in conception there is always a reference more
or less explicit to differences. In forming the concept
animal, for example, we are not only connecting many
unlike things on the ground of their resemblances
(animal structure and functions), but are marking
these off from other things lacking these points of
similarity (plants, and inanimate objects). When we
think of European we are tacitly referring to non-
Europeans (Asiatics, &c.). Indeed we cannot con-
stitute a class by the presence of certain marks
without at the same distinguishing it from other
things wanting these marks. In all cases where
there are well marked contraries or opposites, as
heavy — light, sweet — bitter, good — bad, and so on,
this process of discrimination becomes more explicit.
To bring a thing under the conception light, is to
set it over against the conception heavy. Thus while
in conception assimilation is the main and prominent
activity, discrimination still plays a subordinate part.

Systems of Notions : Classification and Division.
The orderly systematic review of the agreements and
the differences of things leads to what is called classi-
fication or division. To classify things is to view
them in such a way that their different degrees of
resemblance and difference may be clearly exhibited.1

1 The reader must be careful not to be misled by the figure of speech,
'classing,' or 'arranging things in classes'. This is not a material process,
bringing objects together in space. It is a mental process, a bringing of
objects together in our thoughts, or a representing of them in their relations
of similarity. To this it may be added that, owing not only to our limited

360 CONCEPTION.

Tliis takes place by proceeding through a series of
gradations from notions of a low degree of generality
to those of a higher degree. Thus supposing we have
the concepts ' plough/ ' spade/ and so forth, we may
group them under a more general head, ' agricultural
implements '. With these we may take other things
such as carpenters' * tools/ * surgical instruments/
* machines/ &c., and bring them under a still more
general head, 'instruments of labour'. Any lower
class is called in relation to the higher class under
which it is brought a species ; and the higher class
is called in relation to the lower a genus. In each
step of this process we are co-ordinating or placing
side by side certain lower classes or species differenced
from one another by particular qualities (e.g., surgical
instruments, agricultural implements) and subordi-
nating them under a larger class or genus.

In the upward movement from species to genera
we continually discard differences (e.g., surgical, agri-
cultural use) and bring out a wider similarity (e.g.,
quality of being an aid to labour of some sort). But
we may set out with a large class, and by a downward
movement break it up into successively smaller classes.
For instance, given the class Art, we may break it up
into the Useful and the Fine Arts : each of these
classes, again, may be further broken up into sub-
varieties. Thus, the Fine Arts may be mentally
separated into those of the Eye (Painting, Sculp-

knowledge, but also to the very nature of conceptual representation, we never
at any one time think of the range of objects included. As was pointed out
above, the intelligent use of a general term implies not an actual reference at
the time to the things denoted, but rather a readiness to apply it to things,
as they present themselves.

CLASSIFICATION AND DIVISION. 361

ture, Architecture), and the Ear (Poetry and Music).
This downward movement from the general to the
particular is known as Division. It proceeds not by
a gradual discarding of differences but by a gradual
introduction of them, or what is called by logicians
a process of ' determination '. Thus the notion Fine
Art is further determined by the addition of the
qualification visual, and so on. In this way the dif-
ferences among things as well as their resemblances1
are brought into view.

It is evident that in the ascending stage of this opera-
tion we are performing a process of gradual analysis.
That is to say, we are taking complex mental repre-
sentations and singling out certain elements. On the
other hand, in the descending stage (division) we
are carrying out the supplementary process of gradual
synthesis, combining new conceptual elements at each
step, and so obtaining more complex representations.
Here, then, again, we see illustrated the close connec-
tion between the two operations, analysis and syn-
thesis.1

The most striking illustration of this orderly ar-
rangement of notions is seen in the classifications of
natural history, more particularly those of zoology
and botany. But any general notion may thus be
taken up into a system of notions. Thus our notion

1 Some writers, as Sir W. Hamilton, point out that each stage of the
process is at once analysis and synthesis. In the upward movement we
separate qualities and combine things ; in the descending movement we
separate things and combine qualities (Lectures on Logic, XXIV., p. 5, &c.).
But from a psychological point of view, which is concerned rather with the
nature of the mental representations than with the range of objects repre-
sented, the process of analysis and synthesis referred to in the text is the
more important.

362 CONCEPTION.

of building, book, language, and so on, may be divided
in a number of ways. Even the notions corresponding
to abstract names admit of this orderly treatment.
For example, we can classify the several sorts of colour,
or of virtue. By thus taking up a notion into a
system of notions, we bring into light its affinities and
its oppositions, and prepare the way for a systematic
presentation of knowledge respecting the correspond-
ing things.

Imperfection and Perfection of Notions. Our
notions are apt to be defective in a number of ways.
There is much more reason for indistinctness in the
case of notions than in that of percepts or of images.
And, as in the case of these last, indistinctness is apt
to lead on to positive inaccuracy. This special liability
of concepts to remain defective or incomplete is con-
nected with the very nature of the conceptual process,
and with the fact that its results are embodied in
language. It is possible to use words roughly for
everyday purposes without any distinct notion of
their purport. Many of the operations of reasoning
can be carried on with only a momentary glance at
the meaning of the terms employed. Hence the wide
opening for vague concepts.

Many notions are thus defective from the first be-
cause the process of abstraction described above has
not been perfectly carried out. And the fact that all
of us form our notions to a large extent by attending
to the way in which words are employed by others,
renders us still more liable to entertain indistinct ideas
about things. Hearing others apply the same word
to things a child acquires a vague idea of some common

IMPEKFECTIONS OF NOTIONS. 362

feature or circumstance long before he can distinctly
seize the true nature of the resemblance. Not only
so, through the mere lapse of time words which once
had a distinct meaning tend to drop this and to grow
ill-defined and hazy in their signification. We have
now to consider these defects, and the processes by
which they are corrected.1

Distinctness of Concepts. By a distinct, clear, or
well-defined concept is meant one in which the several
features or characters forming the concept-elements
are distinctly represented. Thus we have a distinct
idea of metal or plant, when we clearly distinguish
and seize together the several features of metals, or
plants. On the other hand, an idea is indistinct, hazy,
or ill-defined when the several characters of the ob-
jects are not thus distinctly represented.

Closely connected with the distinctness of a concept,
as just defined, is its distinctness with respect to other
concepts. By this is meant that the concept remains
detached or distinguished from other and partially
Bimilar concepts with which it is liable to be confused.
Thus we have a distinct idea of a nut when we dis-
tinguish the group of characters from those of an
ordinary fruit ; of a planet, when we distinguish the
characters from those of a fixed star, &c. On the
other hand a concept is indistinct or confused when
it tends to amalgamate with a kindred concept. Thus
our notion of limited monarchy is confused when it is

1 The full investigation of this subject belongs to Logic which has to do
with the regulation of the intellectual processes according to some objective
standard of correctness. Still the psychologist may consider the mental pro-
cesses by which such an adjustment to an objective standard is carried out.

364 CONCEPTION.

apt to run into and be confused with that of absolute
monarchy.

It is evident that in general these two kinds of
distinctness will correspond one with another. In
proportion as the concept characters are distinctly
represented will it be distinguished as a whole from,
other concepts. Yet this correspondence is not as
close as might at first appear.

We can best test the distinctness of a concept by
our facility in applying the name or recognising a
member of the class of things denoted. In general
all want of distinctness, whether of the first or second
kind, must tend to obstruct such application of names.
Want of distinctness in the connotation leads to want
of certainty with respect to the denotation. At the
same time we are often able to name things readily
with only imperfectly distinct concepts. Thus a
child or an uneducated adult will (in many cases at
least) at once recognise a fruit, and yet be unable
perhaps to say what the constituent fruit-marks are.
This suggests that a concept may be distinct in the
second sense without being so in the same degree in
the first. The complex of marks is represented with
sufficient distinctness for keeping the name apart from
other names and for applying it roughly to things ;
but there is no analysis of these into their constituent
parts.

It may, perhaps, be said that in this case the concept is only nascent
or imperfectly developed, being dependent on the presence of some
corresponding percept with which it is involved. Just as many minds
can (as we saw above) recognise an object presenting itself after a long
interval, but cannot imagine it (with any cegr^e of distinctness) during
this interval, so they may be able to classify objects, and name one of a

DISTINCTNESS OF CONCEPTS. 365

class when they meet with it, but not to represent the class in the
absence of all of its members. It is plain, however, that where there is
an absence of a full and distinct representation of the class-marks the
capability of recognising members of the class, and of readily applying
the name, must be limited.

Distinctness and Clearness of Concepts. Some writers have
distinguished between the two kinds of distinctness just indicated in
the following way : A notion is clear when we can recognise the corre-
sponding things : obscure when we cannot do this. It is distinct when
the several parts or elements are distinctly represented : indistinct or
confused when this is not the case. 1

It would, however, be better to reverse this and call a notion distinct
when it is distinguished as a whole from other notions, and clear when
its parts or details are clearly represented. This, as Locke suggests,
would correspond more closely with the primary use of the words as
employed about objects of sight.2 It is evident, however, from the
almost perfect interchangeableness of the words in ordinary speech, that
the distinction here drawn is of little practical moment. In general the
two kinds of distinctions increase (or decrease) together.

Causes of Indistinctness of Concepts. The imper-
fections just spoken of may arise from either of the
causes stated above. Many notions are indistinct
from the first because the percepts and images are so ;
or because the process of abstraction has never been
carried far enough to bring into distinct relief the

1 This is the distinction drawn by Leibniz and adopted by Sir W. Hamil-
ton. (See the latter's Lectures on Logic, IX.)

2 Compare what was said above (p. 228) respecting images. Locke's view
may be gathered from the following quotations: — "The perception of the
mind being most aptly explained by words relating to the sight, we shall
best understand what is meant by 'clear' and 'obscure' in our ideas, by
reflecting on what we call 'clear' and 'obscure' in the objects of sight.
Light being that which discovers to us visible objects, we give the name of
' obscure" to that which is not placed in a light sufficient to discover minutely
to us the figure and colours which are observable iu it, and which in a better
light would be discernible." Again, "As a clear idea is that whereof the
mind has such a full and evident perception as it does receive from an outward
object operating duly en a veil-disposed organ, oo a distinct idea is that
whersin the mind perceives a difference from all others, and a confused idea
is such an cne as is not sufficiently distinguishable from another from which
it ought to be different".— &SOM/ on the Human Understanding, Bk. II.,
Chap. XXIX., Sect. I., &c.

366 CONCEPTION.

common characters of a class of things. This last
remark applies with special force to the notions of the
young and uneducated, who can in most cases distin-
guish different kinds of objects sufficiently for practical
purposes by the aid of general names, but who have
not carefully reflected on the content of their notions.
But again, our notions are apt to become indistinct
(in both senses) from the lapse of time, and the im-
perfections of memory. As we have seen above, a
concept is held together as an organic unity by the
conjoint attachment of a number of images to one and
the same word. Hence it may become dissolved or
disintegrated by the weakening of the bond of associa-
tion. Some or all of the images are loosened from
their verbal attachment and disappear, and thus the
notion fades for want of the imaginative root. Or
if the images remain, they are not firmly united
to the verbal symbol, but become in a measure
detached one from another, presenting themselves
as a series of images rather than a welded mass of
images. Hence the representation of the common
characters, that is to say the notion, grows blurred
and ill-defined : the notional features no longer stand
out in well-defined relief. In this manner the concept
tends by the lapse of time to return to its early crude
state of a string of images, or an imperfectly combined
mass of images,1

1 We often find ourselves in this state of mind with respect to names the
meaning of which we learnt when young, but which we have since had but
little occasion to use, e. g. , those of Roman or Greek officials, and technical names
in science. The word calls up the images of one or two of the more striking
examples or specimens, but with only the dimmest discernment of the common
characters.

INDISTINCT NOTIONS. 367

It is to be added that this indistinctness of concepts
with the lapse of time is greatly favoured by the very
nature of language, the subtleties which are a neces-
sary part of a developed language, as well the imper-
fections from which the best language is not free.
Every language aims at expressing all distinctions of
thought. Hence the existence of many words whose
meanings overlap, or answer to finely distinguishable
aspects of the same things or relations among things.
Instance the terms, nation, society. The obtuse mind
unable to draw such distinctions naturally attaches
hazy ideas to the terms. There is probably a vague
sense of some difference, but this is not rendered
clear to the mind.

Not only so, the imperfections of language, its
defects and redundancies, promote indistinctness
of conception. The ambiguity of terms, the fact
that one word expresses a variety of shades of
meaning, often distinguishable only with great diffi-
culty, has been commonly recognised by thinkers as
one of the most fertile sources of vague and ill-defined
notions. To this it must be added that the redun-
dancies of language, the fact that two words are
(commonly at least) employed as synonyms without
any appreciable difference of meaning, is unfavourable
to distinctness. In this case the same notion has to
attach itself to two unlike symbols, the unlikeness
of which necessarily suggests that there must be a
difference of meaning between them.1

lOn the ambiguity of language and the indistinctness of thought con-
nected with tliis, see Locke, Essay on the Human Understanding, Bk. III.,
Chap. IX. ; J. S. Mill, System of Logic, Bk. IV., Chaps. IV.— VL

368 CONCEPTION.

Accuracy and Inaccuracy of Concepts. As in the

case of images, so here we have to distinguish between
the mere indistinctness of a concept, and its positive
inaccuracy, A distinct notion depends on our clearly
representing the marks we take up into our notion :
an accurate notion depends on our taking up the
right elements. By this is meant that we include the
common characters of the class, or more exactly, all
those included in the current meaning of the word,
and no others. Or, to express the same thing in
different language, an accurate concept is such that
the word in which it is embodied will cover or stand
for all the things commonly denoted by that name,
and for no others.

This suffices for an ordinary definition of accuracy. It is evident,
however, that there is implied here a double reference, namely, to the
qualities which things actually have, and to those which they are com-
monly regarded as having. In the case of the large majority of men,
and of all young persons, it is sufficient that their notions correspond to
the common notions. The correctness of their ideas will be judged by
their conformity to the fixed usages of speech. On the other hand, it ia
given to a few individuals to seek, by a fuller and more exact knowledge
of things, to improve on this fixed usage of words, and to bring the
commonly accepted notions into closer conformity to things. Such a
person sets up a higher and ideal standard of accuracy by which he
aims at rectifying the common one.

Inaccuracy of conception, like mere indistinctness,
may arise either through an imperfect performance of
the initial processes of comparison and abstraction,
including the discrimination of one group of things
from another ; or through a subsequent process of
conceptual dissolution or disintegration.

(A) inaccurate Notions depending on Imperfect
Abstraction. To begin with, then, a notion may be

INACCURATE NOTIONS. 369

inaccurate because the process of abstraction or notion-
formation is incomplete. The first notions of all of
us are rough and inexact, answering to a process of
comparative inspection which is imperfectly followed
out. Owing to these imperfections, the notions are
inaccurate ; that is to say, the range of the name is
not coextensive with that of the things commonly
or properly denoted by it, but covers a smaller, or a
larger group. In the first case we may call the notion
too narrow, in the second, too wide.

Notions which are too Narrow. In the first place,
a notion may be formed on too narrow an observation
of things, the consequence of which is that accidental
features not shared in by all members of the class are
taken up into the meaning of the word as a part of
its essential import. For example, a child that has
only seen red roses is apt to regard redness as a part
of the meaning of rose. Similarly an uneducated
Englishman is apt to think of government as implying
the existence of a monarch. Such notions are too
narrow.

Notions which are too Wide. In the second place,
a notion may be inaccurate by being too wide. If
the observation of things is superficial and hasty only
a part of the common traits or marks are embodied in
the name. The notions of children and of the unedu-
cated are apt to be too wide. They pick up a part,
but only a part, of the significance of the words they
hear employed. Thus they observe among different
fish the conspicuous circumstance that they live in
the water, and so they are disposed to call seals, dol-
phins, and so on, fish. In a similar way a child will

370 CONCEPTION.

call all meals 'tea/ overlooking the fact that 'tea'
connotes besides the characters of 'meal/ that of
taking place towards the close of the day.

(B) Inaccurate Notions depending on Loss of Ele-
ments. While notions may thus be inaccurate at the
outset owing to defective observation, they tend still
further to become so by the lapse of time and the
gradual obliteration of the conceptual elements. Every
successive loss of such concept-elements plainly in-
volves a discrepancy between the name and the things
denoted. In other words the concept grows too wide.
As names are emptied of their full significance they
thus become too inclusive. Thus by forgetting that
the term 'selfish' means what is done with a conscious
reference to self, or knowingly for the advantage or
good of self, some writers have tended to make the
term cover all actions, benevolent as well as others.
Not only so, this decay of the conceptual organism
leads on to the coalescence of one concept with ano-
ther, and the consequent erroneous confusion of the
corresponding names. The first elements of meaning
to disappear from a word are the less prominent
features which serve to give it its precise shade
of meaning, and to mark it off from other and
related words. The loss of these obviously leads to
the complete confusion of the connected words. Thus
it would be easy to confuse the meanings of the
expressions, 'a benevolent act,' and a 'beneficent
act/ by dropping in the former case the representation
of the internal factor of good- will or kindly intention.1

1 On the nature of confusion of ideas see Locke, Essay on the Human
Understanding, Book II., Chap. XXIX., Sect. 6.

PEKFECTION OF NOTIONS. 371

It is evident from this brief reference to the sources
of inaccuracy in notions, that this defect is very closely
connected in its origin with the other defect, indis-
tinctness. Where there is want of definiteness and of
sharp discrimination of the notion from other notions,
there are the circumstances favourable to inaccuracy.
The notion which is hazy and confused in the sense
that it is only vaguely differenced from another is
likely pretty soon to be ' confused ' with it in the full
sense, that the boundary-line is lost sight of alto-
gether.

It is interesting to compare the changes marking the history of words
and concepts in the individual mind, with those changes which charac-
terise the history of them in a community. What is known as ' gene-
ralisation ' or the widening of the meaning of terms corresponds with
the extension of the range of words described above, and may be said,
like it, to involve a certain forgetfulness. On the other hand there is
the process of ' specialisation,' by which new marks are added, and the
range of the denotation consequently narrowed. To this there answers
in the case of the individual, the gradual, and often unconscious incor-
poration of the results of accidental individual experience.1

Revision of Notions. It follows from the above
that perfect concepts commonly presuppose not one
process of comparison and abstraction simply, but a
succession of conceptual processes, by the aid of
which the first crude concepts are perfected, and also
the tendencies in words to lose their significance are
counteracted. Defective conception at the outset
(whether ending in a vague or a positively erroneous
notion) can only be made good by more searching
inspection of the things submitted to examination,

1 On the changes marking the use of words in the history of a community
see Trench, On the Study of Words; J. S. Mill, System of Logic, Book IV.,
Chap. V.

372 CONCEPTION.

and also by a wider and more varied observation of
objects in their similarities and dissimilarities.

Not only so, even when the concepts have been
properly formed they can only be kept distinct,
and consequently accurate, by going back again and
again to the concrete objects out of which they
have in a manner been extracted. Only when we
do this shall we avoid the error of taking empty
names for realities, and keep our representations fresh
and vivid. Conception is in this way continually
renewed by contact with actual concrete fact by way
of perception and imagination. The frequent appli-
cation of names to individual things is thus a condi-
tion of preserving vitality in our concepts. Thinking
is not the same thing as imagining, yet it is based
on it and cannot safely be divorced from it. Clear
concepts imply images of particular objects in the
back-ground, ready to come into the full light of
consciousness as occasion requires. We only attach
a definite meaning to a name when we are in a posi-
tion to recall a concrete example, or rather a variety
of concrete examples.

Relation of Conception to Imagination. The above
remarks help to bring out still more distinctly the
relation between imagination and thought. As we
have seen, a notion differs from an image in that it
contains a representation of common features only,
and not of individual peculiarities. When a word
tends strongly to call up an image of a concrete
object, rather than a notion of a class, the processes
of thought are obstructed. The highly imaginative
mind which instantly reduces a word-symbol to some

DEFINITION OF NOTIONS. 3*73

concrete instance is heavily handicapped in following
out trains of abstract thought.1 The many interesting
accompaniments of the individual things interfere wi1 h
the grasping of their general aspects.

At the same time, notions are formed out of images.
Thinking is thus based on imagination (both repro-
ductive and constructive). The meaning or 'content
of a word is wholly derived from the inspection of
concrete things. Hence a notion in order to be full,
distinct, and stable must be continually supported by
images. To every word there ought to correspond
several tendencies to form images ; though since the
images are often very different, these tendencies
should in general counteract one another.2 Only
when there is this vital connection between thought
and imagination can the mind steer clear of the perils
of empty words.

On Defining Notions. Our notions are rendered
distinct and accurate not merely by going back to
concrete facts or examples but by a number of supple-

1 This is of course generally the case with the young and the uneducated.
The narrowness of their experience, and the feebleness of their powers of
abstraction, cause words to be pictorial, descriptive of concrete individuals
rather than symbolically representative of classes. This tendency is amusingly
illustrated by Mr. Galton. Some one began narrating : ' I am going to tell
you about a boat '. A young lady of an imaginative turn being asked what
the word 'boat' called up answered " a rather large boat, pushing off from
the shore, full of ladies and gentlemen ". (Inquiries into Human Faculty,
p. 110).

a This close connection between the notion or typical image, and the par-
ticular images out of which it is developed, is seen in the readiness of these
to arise when we dwell on the meaning of a word. In all such cases we have,
as M. Taine observes, a shifting image, or succession of images, each imperfect
but tending to grow complete. (On Intelligence, Pt. I., Bk. I., Chap. II., II.).
The fact is also seen in the rapidity with which the mind in realising a verbal
description reduces a concept, by the aid of the suggestions of the context, to
a distinct image.

3Y4 CONCEPTION.

mentary processes which may be roughly grouped
under the head of definition. To define a word in
the logical sense is to unfold its connotation, to
enumerate more or less completely the several char-
acters or attributes which make up its meaning. As
we have seen, we form many concepts such as ' metal/
* man/ * civilised country/ before we are able to
represent distinctly the several attributes which com-
pose the connotation of the words. It is only when
the mind's power of abstraction increases that this
higher stage of analysis becomes possible. When it
has been performed the mind will be able to retain
the essentials of the concept by means of the verbal
definition. When for example the child has learnt
that glass is a transparent substance, composed of
certain materials, brittle, easily fused by heat, a bad
conductor of heat, and so on, the string of properties
stored up by aid of the verbal memory will serve to
give distinctness to the concept.1

A second and subordinate part of this process of
definition of names consists in the discrimination of
the notion from other notions. The precise meaning
of a word is only brought out by setting the notion
over against its opposite or contrast, and by discrimi-
nating it from nearly allied notions. Thus for example
the notion ' wise ' is elucidated by contrasting it with
' foolish ' and by distinguishing it from allied notions
as 'learned'.

1 This applies to composite notions only, that is to say to such as involve
a number of common traits. It is to be added that many classes of things
possess so many attributes that an exhaustive examination is impossible. We
are content to specify the most important characters of 'iron,' 'fish,' and
BO forth.

DEFINITION OF NOTIONS. 375

Finally our notions may be defined or rendered
more sharp in outline by a reference to a classification
of things. Logicians say that the best way to define
a class name (especially when the qualities are too
numerous, and many of them too imperfectly known,
for us to enumerate them completely) is to name the
higher class, or ' genus/ and add the ' difference/
that is the leading features which mark off the class
from co-ordinate classes. Thus we may define a
parallelogram by saying that it is a four-sided figure
(higher class) having its opposite sides parallel (dif-
ference). Such a definition serves to fix in the mind
some of the more important marks of the objects, and
to keep the concept distinct from other concepts
(e.g., those of other four-sided figures). In a manner,
too, dividing a term, or pointing out the sub-classes
composing the class of things denoted, serves to clear
up or define our notions. Since a concept is formed
by means of an inspection of things, an occasional
reference to the whole extent of things covered by a
name helps to give definiteness to the concept. Thus
in teaching a child the meaning of a term like metal,
it is well to connect it in his mind with all the prin-
cipal or more familiar varieties. In fact the two
processes here touched on, bringing out the connota-
tion (logical ' definition'), and exposing the denotation
(logical ' division '), are mutually complementary.

Other Results of Abstraction : Idea of Self. The
same process of abstraction whereby the child learns
to group external objects according to their resem-
blances enables him to ascertain the nature of the
inner world, his own mind. His idea of self begins,

376 CONCEPTION.

as we have seen, with the perception of his own
organism as the object in which he localises his vari-
ous feelings of pleasure and pain. Even this partial
idea is slowly acquired. As Prof. Preyer points out,
the infant does not at first know his own organism
as something related to his feelings of pleasure and
pain. When more than a year old his boy bit his
own arm just as though it had been a foreign object.1
This stage of self-representation seems to correspond
roughly at least to the early period of life in which
the child speaks of himself by his proper name. That
is te say, the child does not as yet set himself in
opposition to all outer objects, including all other
persons, but regards himself as one among many
objects.

As the power of abstraction grows this idea of self
becomes fuller and includes the representation of
internal mental states. The child does not at first
reflect or turn his attention inwards on his ©wn feel-
ings. He is glad or sorrowful, but as soon as the
momentary feeling is over he is apt to forget all about
it. His attention is absorbed in outward things. To
attend to the facts of the inner life implies an effort,
an active withdrawal of the mind from the outer
world. This only occurs later on, and first of all
probably in connection with the development of cer-
tain feelings. Thus, his nascent emotion of pride in
doing things, in bringing about changes in his little
world, would aid in the development of a conscious-
ness of self: and this result would be furthered by
rivalries with others and the attendant feelings of

1 Die Seele des Kindes, p. 360.

NOTION OF SELF. 377

triumph, &c. The influence of others, too, would aid
greatly in the growth of this fuller idea of self. More
particularly, perhaps, its development would be pro-
moted by the experience of moral discipline and the
reception of blame or praise. It is when the child's
attention is driven inwards in an act of reflection on
his own actions as springing from good or bad motives,
that he wakes up to a fuller consciousness of himself.1
The gradual substitution for the proper name of ' me,'
' I,' ' my,' which is observable in the third year pro-
bably marks the date of a more distinct reflection on
internal feelings, and consequently of a clearer idea of
the mental self.

A further process of abstraction is implied in ar-
riving at the idea of a permanent self, now the reci-
pient of impressions from without, now the subject
of feelings of pleasure and pain, hopes and fears, and
now the cause of outward actions. The image of the
enduring and always present object, the bodily self,
undoubtedly contributes an important element to this
idea. But this supplies only the more concrete or
pictorial part of the representation. The highly ab-
stract idea of an enduring mental self, one and the
same through all the changes of feeling, involves a
certain development of memory and the power of
retracing in its main features the series of past per-
sonal experiences (see p. 264). The idea is formed
by turning away the attention from the endless diver-
sities of this chain of experiences and fixing it on

1 Of course the social environment plays an important part in aiding the
growth of self-consciousness by its modes of speech. The relation of self and
not self, including that between the I and the You, is continually being
pressed on the child's attention by the language of others.

378 CONCEPTION.

the common underlying circumstance, that they are
all parts of one connected whole, links in one con-
tinuous chain of mental events.1

Our Notions of Others. In one sense the indi-
vidual self stands in contrast to all outer things,
including other persons. The child distinguishes the
' I ' from the ' you '. At the same time the know-
ledge of self underlies and leads on to the knowledge
of others as something more than material objects
perceived by the senses, as beings endowed with feel-
ings, desires, thoughts, &c.

There seems to be an instinctive tendency to endow
other human beings with life and consciousness. As
we shall see by and by, children appear to interpret
roughly the signs of others' feelings, such as the
smile, before individual experience could have led
them to connect, by way of their own experience of
like feelings, these signs with their proper significates.
Not only so, there is some reason to suppose that
the child at first tends to attribute life, feeling, and
intention to all outer objects which in any way
simulate the appearance of human form and move-
ment.2 This personifying of objects around him is
based on his knowledge of his own double existence,
bodily and mental.

1 For a fuller account of the growth of the idea of self the reader may
consult M. Taine's work On Intelligence, Pt. II., Bk. III. ; and my volume,
Illusions, Chap. X., p. 285, &c. The German reader should consult Lotze,
Med. Psychologic, § 37 scq. ; and Waitz, Lehrbueh dcr Psychologic, § 58.

2 This has been questioned, but seems to be borne out by the observa-
tion of children's way of speaking about things. Among many cases one
could instance is the following. A little girl of 5 once said to her mother,
"Ma, I do think this hoop must be alive, it is so sensible, it goes wherever
I want it to ".

IDEA OF SELF. 379

As intelligence grows and he reflects more dis-
tinctly on his own feelings, wishes and aims, he learns
to attribute definite feelings and thoughts to others
when the corresponding external signs are present.
Later on he projects a persistent conscious self behind
the bodily framework answering to his first idea of his
mother, his brother, &c., fashioned after the model of
his own self. A still higher exercise of abstraction
leads on to the formation of notions of different kinds
of persons, wise, kind, good, and so on. In this way
he reaches general notions of men based on their
mental traits, their dispositions and characters.

Growth of Conceptual Power. As we have seen,
the power by which the mind frames general notions
is merely an expansion of powers which show them-
selves in a germinal form in the earlier intellectual
processes of perception. The essential mental pro-
cess is seizing similarity in the midst of diversity.
This the child does in the first year of life. To
recognise the mother's voice, for example, as one
and the same amid all the changes of loudness and
softness, and all the variations of pitch, clearly implies
a certain rudimentary power of abstraction.

Early Notions. The gradual development of the
power of comprehending things or classes, or of
forming general notions is one of the most interesting
phases in the mental history of the individual. By
a careful observation of children at the time when
they begin to understand and use words we may
learn much as to the way in which this power grows.

In studying this phase of intellectual progress we
must be on our guard against a source of error. As

380 CONCEPTION.

has been pointed out before, children do not learn
to speak as the race may be supposed to have acquired
language, that is to say inventing new names to
express the similarities of things which they first
notice. The child finds a language ready made for
him, and through the force of imitation and the need of

making himself understood, he is impelled to adopt
the signs employed by others. Now it would be
absurd to suppose that when he first understands and
reproduces a name he attaches to this sign the same
general meaning that adults attach to it. Such names
as ' puss,' ' bow-wow/ and so on, when first used
have not the full force of general signs, but repre-
sent particular individuals. The growth of the con-
ceptual power at this early stage is best illustrated
perhaps by means of the child's own unaided exten-
sions of the application of words to new cases.

As might be expected, the first notions to be formed
correspond to narrow classes of objects having a num-
ber of striking points of resemblance ; and, further, to
those varieties of things which have a special interest
for the child. Thus he readily recognises particular
objects of diet, as milk and pudding. In like
manner he soon learns to assimilate certain kinds of
toy as tops, and other objects having well-marked
resemblances, as watches and clocks. For the same
reason, he at once extends the term 'bow-wow' or
' puss ' to a number of dogs or cats, and the name
' papa ' to other male adults.

Growth of Conception and of Discrimination. It
is to be noted that the child's concepts grow in
clearness and definiteness with the power of noting

PKOGRESS OF ABSTRACTION. 381

differences as well as likenesses. At first there seems
to be no clear discrimination of classes from indi-
viduals. The name is used for a number of objects
as seen to be alike, but, so far as we can see, without
any clear apprehension whether they are the same
thing or different things. This is probably true of
the extension of the word papa to other men besides
the father. The concept becomes definite just in
proportion as differences are recognised and the
images of individual objects, this and that person,
this and that dog, and so on. acquire separateness
in the mind. This same circumstance explains
another fact, namely, that the child often uses the
names of genera (if not too large classes) before those
of species. Thus he lumps together animals resem-
bling dogs as goats, under the name 'bow-wow'.1
In like manner he will apply a word like apple to
fruit generally or a variety of fruits as apple, pear,
orange, &c. Similarly, he will understand in a rough
way the meaning of the word flower before he com-
prehends the names ' daisy/ or ' rose '.

Formation of more Abstract Conceptions. A higher
step is taken when the child forms classes founded on
a single property. The first examples of this higher
power of abstraction occur very early in relation to
aspects of objects of great interest to him. He first
displays a considerable power of generalisation in

1 See M. Taine's article, On the Acquisition of Language by Children, in
Mind, Vol. II. (1877), p. 255. It is possible indeed that a child has a vague
notion corresponding to animal (namely, something which moves about and
makes a noise) before he distinguishes classes of animal. Thus M. Perez
(in his work, Les trois premieres anne'es de V enfant, Chap. XII.), says that an
infant gave out a sound ' appa ' accompanied by signs of longing when dif-
ferent animals, as a kitten, a chick, and a small bird, were brought near it.

382 CONCEPTION.

grouping together edible things. Mr. Darwin in his
interesting account of the early mental development
of one of his children tells us that when just a year
old he invented the word ' mum ' to denote different
kinds of food. He then went on to distinguish varie-
ties of food by some qualifying adjunct. Thus sugar
was 'shu-mum'.1 Attention to common visual fea-
tures comes later. A little boy known to the present
•writer when in his eighteenth month extended the
word " ball ' to bubbles which he noticed on the sur-
face of a glass of beer. This implied the power of
abstracting from colour and size and attending to the
globular form.

As experience widens and the power of abstraction
strengthens less conspicuous and more subtle points
of agreement are seized. Children often perplex their
elders with their use of words just because the latter
cannot seize the analogy between things or events which
the young mind detects.2 By degrees the young mind
advances to the formation of more abstract ideas.
One of the earliest of these is that of disappearance, or
the state of being absent, commonly expressed by the
sign ' ta-ta ' or some similar expression. 3

1 See his article, 'Biographical Sketch of an Infant' in Mind, July, 1877
(VoL IL) ; ef., M. Taine's account of a little girl's first generalisation of
sweet things under the name cola (chocolate) in the same volume of Mind, p.
256. See also M. Taine's work, On Intelligence, Vol. II., Book IV., Ch. I.,
§ I., Par. II.

2 For example a child of two and a half years seeing a number of fowls
perched in a row on a fence, said, ' They are having tea '. He had associated
the idea of sitting in a row with sitting up at table.

8 Prof. Preyer (Die Seele des Kindes, p. 295) says his boy reached this
notion of disappearance by the fifteenth month. The boy known to the
writer certainly used the sound ta-ta or d 6 (all gone) for signifying the dis-
appearance, as well as the absence of a thing when he was sixteen months old.

PROGRESS OF ABSTRACTION. 383

Use of Adjectives. A distinct progress in the con-
ceptual power of the child is seen when objects come
to be qualified by the use of adjectives. A child will
from the first stage of speech pick up and use a few
adjectives, such as 'hot,' and 'nice'. In these cases
the qualities answer to simple sensations of very
great interest to him. A more difficult achievement
is seizing the meaning of a relative epithet such as
'big'. The boy already referred to first employed
this word when he was nearly 22 months old. He
saw a rook flying over his head, and called out ' Big
bird'.

Among these more abstract conceptions reached in
this early period of life those of number and time
deserve a passing notice. Prof. Preyer says that his
boy in his 26th month had not the remotest idea of
number. Another boy, already referred to, when 22
months old distinguished one object from a plurality
of objects, and this was long before he could distinguish
two from three, and so on.1 In like manner he marked
off all periods of the past under the head of e yester-
day,' and all periods of the future under the head of
'morrow' or 'by and by'. A considerable advance
in intelligence (including observation, &c.), is neces-
sary before the child passes from this rough discrimi-
nation of one and many to the recognition of particular
numbers ; and from a mere discrimination between

1 He called any number of objects (besides one) ' two, three, four,' accord-
ing to the formula taught him by his mother. M. Perez (Les trois premieres
ann€es de I 'enfant, Chap. XIII.) tells us that this corresponds to an animal's
distinction of number. A cat with only one kitten left it out of a number
was miserable : but when 2 were left it out of 5 it was contented. It thus
distinguished between one and many.

384 CONCEPTION.

past and future to the recognition of definite divisions
of time, as yesterday, to-morrow, last week, next week.

Period of Fuller Development. The power of ab-
straction, of analysing things and discovering their
common aspects, qualities and relations, only attains
a considerable strength in the stage of youth as dis-
tinguished from that of childhood. The earlier period
is pre-eminently that of concrete knowledge. During
this time the number of concepts formed is compara-
tively small, and these are such as involve the
presence of numerous or obvious resemblances. But
from about the fourteenth year onwards a marked
increase in the power of abstraction is observable.
In cases where the powers of observation and of
imagination have been properly cultivated we may
notice at this stage a strong disposition to view things
under their common aspects. The language becomes
more general and more abstract.

How Progress in Conceptual Power is to be Mea-
sured. This advance may be measured in different
ways. As the power of abstraction grows, particular
impressions and observations are brought more and
more under general heads. Again it is noticeable
that concepts on the same level of generality are
framed with greater and greater facility. Less time
and effort are needed to form a new notion. Once
more, the concepts reached show a higher degree ot
generality and are more abstract in character. The
use of such words as 'action/ 'life/ 'idea/ marks a
considerable step onward. The most exact way of
measuring progress is by noting the degree of remote-
ness of the concepts attained from the concrete ex-

GEOWTH OF CONCEPTION. 385

periences of everyday life. The progress of con-
ceptual power is also marked by a growth of dis-
tinctness in the concepts formed, a greater facility
in defining the terms used, and in distinguishing
them from other terms with which they are apt
to be confused.

Varieties of Conceptual Power. Individuals
differ considerably in their power of abstraction.
Some minds are much quicker in seeing simi-
larity amid diversity, in mentally separating the
common aspects of individual objects. These dif-
ferences turn mainly on inequalities of the assimi-
lative power of the mind. They appear to imply,
too, differences in the power of controlling the
attention, of resolutely turning the mind away from
individual differences and fixing it on what is
common to many instances.1

These differences commonly show themselves with
respect to various kinds of subject-matter, such as the
ideas of number, space, physical processes, and so on.
Good abstractive power shows itself in a superior readi-
ness to frame any kind of concept. At the same time
we find with these general inequalities more special
differences. Thus one student will show a fairly good
power of abstraction with reference to physical pro-
cesses and agencies, or to the ideal notions of mathe-
matics, and yet be comparatively wanting in the
power of thinking about subjective mental states.
Contrariwise there may be a specially good power of

1 It is probable that some minds are more interested in differences and
more ready to note them, while others are more attracted by similarities and
more ready to detect them.

386 CONCEPTION.

abstraction in the latter direction with a decided
deficiency in the former.

These differences, again, clearly depend in part on
native differences. Children are not endowed at the
outset with the same degree of assimilative power.
Moreover the peculiar constitution or cast of the mind
may give a natural bent to one kind of conception.
Thus other things being equal a boy with a fine eye for
form will show a good conceptual power in geometry,
while another with great muscular activity and a strong
bent towards practical contrivance will naturally occupy
himself in forming notions about nature's processes,
the notions with which mechanics specially deals. At
the same time the degree of power of abstraction
attained generally or in any special direction turns to
a considerable extent on the amount of exercise,
training, or culture undergone. Speaking roughly
we may say that the educated youth is most clearly
marked off from the uneducated by the possession of
a large stock of general notions and a facility in
seizing the common aspects of the things about him.
And it is no less manifest that special devotion to any
branch of study, as mathematics, will in average cases
result in a marked increase in a special conceptual
aptitude in this particular region.

Training of Power of Abstraction. The problem of exercising
the power of abstraction and generalisation is attended with
peculiar difficulties. Children, it is commonly said, delight in the
concrete, and find abstraction arduous and distasteful. Neverthe-
less it is certain that the young are much given to discovering
resemblances among things and to a certain kind of generalisation.
There is indeed a distinct intellectual satisfaction in discovering

TEAINING OF ABSTRACTION. 387

similarities among things. A young child's face may be seen to
hrighten up on newly discovering some point of similarity.1 And
to some extent this pleasure may be utilised in training the child's
powers. His lack of interest in generalities is often due to the fact
that his mind is not supplied with the necessary concrete examples
out of which the notions have to be formed.2

The training of the conceptual power should begin in connection
with sense-observation. Objects should be laid in juxtaposition,
and the child invited to discover their similarities of form, &c.
And here his active impulses may be appealed to, by giving him a
confused multitude of objects and inviting him to sort them into
classes. By such a direct inspection of a number of examples
together notions of simple classes of natural objects, as species of
animal and flowers, as well as of geometric forms and numbers
may be gained. The process of generalising may be still further
aided by a judicious selection of particulars for inspection. It is
well, as a rule, to set out with good average specimens of the class,
in which the common characters are conspicuous and not disguised
by striking individual peculiarities of colour, &c. These would
serve as typical specimens. After this, extreme instances may be
introduced. A sufficient variety of instances must be supplied in
every case, but the number required will differ according to the
character of the notion to be formed.3 Throughout this process of
calling into play the power of abstraction the teacher should seek
to combine the exercise of discrimination with that of assimilation.
He should invite the child to contrast one chemical substance, one
class of plants or animals with another. The essential marks of
a triangle are brought out by juxtaposition with quadrangles, &c.
This operation of comparing and classing should be supplemented

1 E.g., when a boy (26 months old) watching a dog panting after a run,
exclaimed with evident pleasure, ' Dat like a puff puff' (locomotive).

2 " There is nothing the human mind grasps with more delight than gene-
ralisation or classification, when it has already made an accumulation of
particulars ; but nothing from which it turns with more repugnance in its
previous state of inanition." — Isaac Taylor.

3 As Dr. Bain points out, a child may obtain a notion of a single property
as weight by the aid of one or two instances only, whereas he requires a good
many examples of the classes metal, plant, &c. (Education as a Science, Chap.
VII., p. 197).

b88 CONCEPTION.

by naming the objects thus grouped together, and pointing out in
the form of a definition the more important of the traits they have
in common.1

In these exercises of the conceptual power the mother or teacher
must be satisfied in the first instance with the discovery of the more
prominent points of likeness among the things examined, and the
naming of these. It would be absurd for example to expect a
child at the outset to point out all the structural differences which
characterise a particular species of plant. The definitions must
gradually increase in fulness and precision as the power of abstrac-
tion grows.

The special difficulty in this branch of intellectual training arises
in connection with the formation of these notions which cannot be
reached by direct inspection of objects. The child is continually
hearing words which he does not understand. Many of these lie
out of his reach, and it is well to let him know it. But all instruc-
tion involves the unfolding of the meaning of general terms. In
the most elementary lesson in geography or history general terms
are necessarily employed. Here the learner will be called on to
perform a process of synthesis, to recombine the results of abstrac-
tion practised on objects of direct personal observation. His
success will depend on the degree of perfection of these first efforts,
as Avell as on the force of his imagination.

There is perhaps no part of intellectual training which requires
so much careful attention as the control of the child's use of words.
It is vain to expect him from the first to seize the exact meaning
of all the terms which he employs. He must discourse with
others, and the improvement of his conceptions progresses partly
in connection with his employment of words. On the other hand,
the mind is only too prone to be satisfied with loose and vague
notions about things, and this intellectual indolence is the most
fatal obstacle to clear and accurate knowledge. The dangers can
only be averted by seeking to form in the pupil's mind from the
outset a habit of making his notions as clear and distinct as pos-

1 It is evident that this exercise of the child's powers of comparing different
objects with a view to classification should arise naturally, and by insensible
gradations, out of the earlier exercise of inspecting single objects already
illustrated (p. 217).

TRAINING OF ABSTRACTION. 389

sible. He should be exercised from the first in explaining the
•words he employs. It is a good rule never to let a child employ
any word without attaching some intelligible meaning to it. He
should be questioned as to his meaning, and prove himself able to
give concrete instances or examples of the notion, and (where
possible) to define his term roughly at least. The meaning which
he attaches to the word may be far from accurate to begin with.
But the teacher may be satisfied with a rough approximation to
accuracy as long as the meaning is definite and clear to the child's
mind. As knowledge widens the teacher should take pains to
supplement and correct these first crude notions, substituting exact
for rough and inexact definitions. At the same time he should aim
at giving greater precision to the pupil's notions by encouraging
him in the discrimination of closely allied words, including proxi-
mate synonyms.

The problem when to take up the subjects requiring a consider-
able measure of the power of abstraction, such as the physical
sciences, grammar, and so on, is one of the most perplexing ones
in the art of education. It is probable that individuals differ so
much in respect of the rapidity of this side of intellectual develop-
ment that no universal rule can be laid down. What is certain is
that subjects which mainly appeal to the memory and imagination
like geography and history should precede these which make a large
demand on the powers of abstraction and generalisation. There is
a psychological error in attempting to teach the generalities of
grammar before the mind has been well stored with particulars.
It is probable that even the rudimentary branches of mathematics,
namely arithmetic and geometry, though deriving so much aid from
sense-intuition, are apt to be begun too soon for the most economic
management of brain-power. But in the case of arithmetic at least
the recognition of the paramount utility of the study is likely to
override purely theoretical considerations.

APPENDIX.

On the nature of abstraction and the formation of concepts, see Sir W.
Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, Lect. XXXIV. ; Prof. Bain, Menial
Science, Book II., Chap. V. ; M. Taine, On Intelligence, Part II., Book IV. ;
and Lotze, Logic, Book I., Chap. I. For an account of the early develop-
ment of the generalising power the student may consult the articles already

390 CONCEPTION.

referred to in Mind (1877) by Mr. Darwin and M. Taine. The work of Prof.
Preyer, Die Seele des Kindes (3ter Theil) gives a very full account of lingual
progress during the first three years. Cf. Les trois premieres annecs de I' enfant,
par Bernard Perez, Ch. XII.

On the practical side of the subject the reader would do well to read
Locke's valuable chapters on the Imperfection and Abuse of Words, Essay,
Book III., Chap. IX. -XL The difficulties of exercising the powers of
abstraction and the best means of alleviating these are well dealt with by
Dr. Bain, Education as a Science, Ch. VII., pp. 191-197. The German
reader should also consult Beneke, op. cit., §§ 26-38. In connection with
this subject the teacher should read those chapters in Logic which deal with
terms and their distinctions, and with division and definition (e.g., Jevons,
Ekmentary Lessons in Logic, III. — V. and XII.).

CHAPTEE X

JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

Higher Stage of Thinking: Judging and Reasoning.

Thinking as we have seen includes besides Concep-
tion, or the process of forming concepts, the operations
commonly marked off as judging and reasoning.
Having a concept we may go on to apply this to some
individual thing or class of things, as when we decide
that a particular piece of stone is granite, or that
diamonds are combustible. We are then said to
judge. And having framed given judgments we may
pass from these to other judgments, as when we con-
clude that air has weight because all material sub-
stances have weight. We are then said to reason.
These two remaining processes of thinking, which are
closely connected one with the other, are to be the
subject of the present chapter.

Judgment Defined. In everyday discourse the word
judge is used to express the process of coming to a
decision about a thing, when we do not reason out a
conclusion explicitly or formally, but apply in a rapid
and automatic manner the results of past experience
to a new case. Thus we judge that a man is sincere
or insincere, that a plan is good or bad, and so forth.1

1 This at least is the more common meaning. The term is used too for the
process of forming an opinion as to the Tightness of conduct, or the beauty of

392 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

In Mental Science we greatly extend the application
of the term. Whenever we connect two representa-
tions one with another under the form of a statement
we perform an act of judgment. It does not matter
by what mental process we reach the assertion, whe-
ther directly by observation, as when we say ' This
rose is blighted,' or by a process of inference, as when
we conclude from certain signs in the sky that it is
going to rain.1

Judgment and Proposition. The result of an act
of judgment is a verbal statement or proposition.
The connection between judging and asserting in
words is quite as close as that between forming a
concept and naming. An infant or an intelligent
brute may probably form a few rudimentary judgments
(e.g., I am going to be fed) without language. But
in later life we rarely if ever judge without making a
verbal statement or proposition externally or inter-
nally. Every proposition is made up of two principal
parts : (1) the subject or the name of that about which
something is asserted, (2) the predicate, or the name
of that which is asserted. Thus when we affirm ' This
knife is blunt,' we affirm or predicate the fact of
being blunt of a certain subject, namely 'This knife'.
Similarly when we say ' Air corrodes,' we assert or
predicate the power of corroding of the subject
'air'.

As just suggested, there are many implicit judgments where there is

an object by referring it to some standard for comparison. The expression is
one of great ambiguity, and consequently not easily susceptible of exact
definition. See Prof. Baiu's Education as a Science, Chap. IV., p. 122,

irriie term judgment lias been extended to the simplest intellectual acts of
sense discrimination. (See Stumpf, Tunpsyclwiwjic, Theil I., Absch. I.)

UHIVER!

NATUKE OF JUDGMENT.

no statement. This applies to acts of perception and recollection.
The child's first exclamation on seeing a large object, 'big,' may be
said to imply the statement 'That is a big object'. So in recalling
an event we implicitly affirm the occurrence of the event at a particular
time. The close association of thought and language makes it difficult
for us to form an idea of these unworded judgments.

Judgments about Individuals and Classes. It is
evident from these examples that the predicate of a
judgment is always some general notion.1 On the other
hand, the subject may be either a " singular notion,"
i.e., the representation of some one individual thing,2
or a general notion about a class of things. Thus I
can assert something about a particular flower, or a
particular man, as when I say ' This flower is faded ' ;
' John Smith is an industrious man '. These are
known as Singular Judgments. They are the first to
be formed by the child, and constitute a very important
step in the development of thought.

In addition to these Singular Judgments we have
what are known as Universal Judgments, that is to
say, statements about classes. The propositions ' Lau-
rels are evergreens/ ' Wise men are not dogmatic,' are
such general or universal statements.2 These Uni-
versal Judgments stand in much the same relation to
the others as general names to names of individuals
(proper names). They gather up in a succinct form

lrrhe apparent exceptions to this statement, as when both subject and
predicate are proper names, e.g., "Tully is Cicero," need not concern us
here.

2 On the difference between merely imagining an object, and thinking of it
as a thing or substance, see Lotze, Logic, Sect . 26.

3 The student will notice the diiference between the psychological and
logical treatment of judgments. The logician commonly groups singular
judgments with universal, marking both off from particular statements (made
about some or a part of a class). The psychologist sets singular judgments in
direct contrast to universal.

394 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

our knowledge respecting an indefinite number of in
vidual objects.

Judging, a Process of Synthesis. To judge is to
connect or combine two representations (of indivi-
duals or classes) one with another. When for example
we judge that a particular person A. B. is untruthful,
we combine the idea or notion ' untruthful ' with our
representation of A. B. Similarly when we judge that
iron is a conductor of heat, we connect the notion
' conductor of heat ' with the notion ' iron '. More
particularly, we add or append the notion answering to
the predicate to the notion answering to the subject.
An act of judgment may thus be described as a process
of synthesis by which we connect two conceptions one
with another.1

Since all ideas are representative of things (real or
imaginary), in connecting two representations in the
form of a judgment, we are plainly representing the
things as conjoined or connected with, or related to,
one another. Thus in judging that iron is a con-
ductor of heat, we are representing this metal as
possessing the quality or power affirmed of it.

Judgment and Conception. As has been pointed
out, a judgment differs in form from a concept. And
we are now able to see more clearly wherein the
difference consists. In conception there is, as we saw,
a process of combining. Thus the concept ' iron ' is
formed by mentally grouping together a number of
properties, as a certain weight, degree of hardness

1 If the conceptions answer to tilings conjoined or given together in ex-
perience, the process of synthesis takes a lower form than it assumes when
the mind first brings them together, as in drawing a conclusion or framing a
hypothesis.

NATUKE OF JUDGMENT. 395

or impenetrability, &c. But in this case the various
elements combined fall together in one complex repre-
sentation. The mind here comprehends the several
qualities as together comprising one thing or sub-
stance. In judgment, on the other hand, we distinctly
set forth two representations as two, keeping them
apart from one another, while at the same time we
connect them one with another. We think of certain
objects or qualities as distinct, and at the same time
explicitly view them as related. Thus in affirming
that iron is a good conductor of heat, we think of the
quality ol conducting heat as something apart from
the iron, something new which in the act of affirming
we add to it. In other words, we represent iron in a
special relation to this quality, as the subject of it, or
the substance in which it inheres.

At the same time, as hinted above, there is a close
connection between the processes of conception and
judgment. Concepts are formed by means of a suc-
cession of judgments. In mentally bringing objects
together on the ground of their likeness we ' judge '
them to be similar. So, too, in separating things on
the ground of their dissimilarity. Not only so, our
concepts are built up gradually, by successively dis-
covering new points of likeness among things. Thus
a child after knowing the more obvious properties of
iron, as its colour, weight, and hardness, finds out less
conspicuous properties, as that it is softened by great
heat. And every such addition to his knowledge
about iron takes the form of a judgment. To the
iron as he has known it he now appends the new
feature or property, setting forth the result of this

396 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

process in the statement * Iron is softened by heat '.
In this way each successive development, or stage of
development, of a concept is brought about by the
aid of a process of judgment ; while in its turn this
fuller concept becomes an element or constituent in
later judgments.

Synthetic and Analytic Judgments. Logicians distinguish be-
tween judgments which combine with the subject a new idea, as 'iron
rusts,' and those which simply unfold a part of what was contained in
the subject, that is to say, a part of the connotation of the term, as 'iron
is heavy'. The first are called synthetic judgments (or real proposi-
tions), the second analytic judgments (or verbal propositions). Defini-
tions are thus analytic judgments. This distinction answers to that
drawn above between the concept and the judgment. We may by an
act of special attention single out some property or element of a complex
concept and set it forth (formally) as a judgment. But the characteristics
of a judgment proper, a connection of representations previously distin-
guished, and the representation of a corresponding relation between the
things, are here wanting. There is not the reality but only the appear-
ance of a process of judging in this case.

This distinction is a logical one, drawn for the purpose of guiding
our processes of thought according to a normal or common standard. It
assumes that we all know the full meaning of terms, and use them in
the same sense, that is, give them the same connotation. The psycho-
logist, however, is interested in the growth of knowledge in the indi-
vidual mind. Hence it is of immediate importance to him to distinguish
between analytical and synthetical judgments as determined by the
individual's previous knowledge. As observed above, we find out the
properties of things gradually, and each successive discovery leads to a
judgment which is based on an act of synthesis. Thus, in the instance
given, the child is really adding a new element to his concept iron. On
the other hand, after discovering a new property in a thing we tend to
take this up into our notion of that thing, even though it may not be
a part of the meaning of the term as commonly understood. And this
being so, it may be said that when afterwards we have occasion to
explicitly assert it, we are virtually analysing a complex mental repre-
sentation. Hence one may say that all our judgments are at first
synthetic, though they tend to become analytic as our knowledge of
things is perfected. l

1 The difference in the logical and the psychological treatment of analytical
and synthetical judgments is well brought out by Volkinann, Lehrbuch der
Psychologic, Vol. II., Section VII. B, § 121.

BELIEF. 397

Judgment and Belief. If we look at the process of
judging a little more closely we shall see that it is
accompanied by the mental state known as belief. As
was pointed out above, in connecting two representa-
tions we are representing the corresponding things as
connected with, or related to, one another. And this
representation or apprehension of a relation between
things involves belief. When I represent iron as
capable of being softened by heat, I believe in its
possessing this property. A mere joining of two re-
presentations cannot constitute an act of judgment if
this element of belief is wanting. When, for example,
in a state of idle reverie there is a chaotic conflux of
ideas, there is no belief attending the momentary
combinations. We only believe when we look on our
ideas on their objective or representative side, that is
to say, view them as representative of real things, and
make some relation between the things the object or
matter of distinct thought.1

The nature of an act of judgment can hardly be understood com-
pletely without some reference to the question what it is that constitutes
the object of belief, that we specially represent or think about in the act
of judging. Taking as an example of the common form of judgment,
' Water is a compound substance,' it would appear that what the mind
grasps or apprel. jnds is the relation of a substance or thing of a certain
kind (water), to a quality which appertains to, or inheres in, it (com-
posite character). At the same time, as we saw above, we cannot view
a thing as possessing a quality without more or less distinctly bringing
it into relation to other things which share in this quality. Hence it
may be said that another relation thought of and affirmed (though in

1 Some thinkers describe the process of judgment as having to do exclu-
sively with a comparison of the mind's ideas. But this view of the process
overlooks one of its main ingredients, viz., the state of belief (see J. S.
Mill's Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, Chap. XVIII., p.
403, &c.).

398 JUDGMENT AND KEASONING.

most cases much less distinctly) is one of similarity between the thing
water and the other things known to be compounds. 1

Nature of Belief. The precise psychological nature of belief is a
problem of some uncertainty. This is seen in the fact that different
writers have referred it to different regions of mental phenomena. Most
appear to regard it as an intellectual state : yet some (e.g. Hume) have
spoken of it as a feeling or emotion, while others have connected it very
closely with the active side of mind. Belief is clearly intellectual
inasmuch as it enters as an essential ingredient into our processes of
knowing. At the same time, it has a certain emotional complexion. To
believe, to be sure about anything, implies a characteristic state of
feeling, as contrasted with that which attends the opposite mental con-
dition of doubt, to be spoken of presently. Finally it is evident that
there is, generally speaking, a close relation between belief and activity.
As we saw in a preceding chapter, expectation, which is one of the
simplest forms of belief, involves a readiness to act. Yet while the state
of belief is thus closely related to other mental states, it cannot be
analysed into these. It seems to be a perfectly simple mental state,
having a unique character of its own.2

While belief is thus a unique mental state, it varies much in character
according to the nature of the object believed, and the attendant mental
feelings. Belief in a good (hope) is different from belief in an evil (fear).
Belief in a matter which has no direct bearing on our action, as a piece of
political news or a new fact of science, differs from belief in the efficacy
of some agency which we may be called on to test. Our belief in our
own powers of doing things is a different mental state from our trust in
another's abilities. As we saw above (p. 253), there is a well-marked
difference in the character of our memories and expectations. It has
been argued that all our assertions respecting the enduring relations of
objects, and all our universal judgments, are resolvable into expectations
(with a ground- work of memory). Thus our belief that water is a com-
pound substance may be said to be the assurance that we should find
any speciman of water with which we chose to experiment resolvable
into elements. This view of the exact object of belief in universal

1 We are apt to speak of the verbal statement itself as the object of belief ;
but our belief in a proposition is a belief in its truth, that is its correspondence
with the actual relation of things. The relation is not in all cases one of
substance to its qualities ; it may be one of similarity, cause and effect,
&c. For a fuller account of the objects of belief, the reader is referred to J.
S. Mill's System of Logic, Book I. , Chap. V.

2 For a fuller consideration of the nature of belief, the reader is referred
to my volume, Sensation and Intuition, Chap. IV., p. 75 &c. Cf. Dr. Bain's
work, The Emotions and the Will, 3rd edition, Belief, p. 505 &c. The way
in which belief is influenced or determined by intellectual and other causes
will be spoken of presently.

BELIEF. 399

truths would seem to follow from the doctrine expounded above, that in
using a general term we are regarding it as standing for an indefinite
number of objects which we do not separately image at the moment. 1
Supposing this to be so, however, it is evident that the indefiniteness of
the expectations in this case affects the character of the mental state.
There is an absence of that activity of mind which we found to accom-
pany an expectation of some concrete fact in the immediate future.

Affirmation and Negation. Judgment begins in
affirmation, in combining two representations and in
deciding that there is a connection between the cor-
responding things. But all our judgments are not
affirmative. We deny as well as affirm. We declare
that things are not, as well as that they are. Negation
presupposes affirmation. To say ' It is not going to
rain ' implies that the corresponding affirmation (' It
is going to rain') has actually been made by some-
body, or has somehow been proposed or suggested to
the mind (e.g., by a question 'Is it going to rain?').
Negation is the rejection of an affirmation as untrue
or false. Our minds refuse to perform the process of
synthesis required. Now since every statement that
is made must be either true or false, it follows that
our minds (if they decide at all) are shut up to a
choice between an affirmation and a negation. For
example we have to say : Either this is a real diamond
or a spurious one : Either this boy is guilty or is not
guilty, that is, innocent. Hence an act of judgment
(when its meaning is made explicit) is a choice ; it is
a deciding between two alternatives, and so resembles
the decision of a judge.

1 This is the doctrine of belief developed by J. S.* Mill. See his
edition of James Mill's Analysis of the Human Mind, Vol. I., Chap. XL,
note (p. 402).

400 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

So far as judgment is concerned about the similarities of things,
affirmation answers to a process of assimilation, and negation to one of
discrimination. Thus when in classifying animals we affirm that a lion
is a quadruped, and that a whale is not a fish, we assimilate in the
first case and discriminate in the second. Resemblance is thus the
positive aspect of objects, it is that by which we bring them together
mentally. Difference, on the other hand, is the negative aspect, inas-
much as it serves not to conjoin, but to separate things.

Belief and Disbelief. Belief and disbelief with respect to the
same statement obviously exclude one another. If I believe that A. B.
is guilty I cannot at the same time disbelieve it, that is, believe that he
is innocent. It is to be observed, however, that belief in a statement
implies disbelief with respect to the opposite statement. If I believe that
A. B. is innocent I disbelieve any assertion of his guilt. If I accept the
statement, * all men are fallible ' I (implicitly or explicitly) reject the
statement, 'some men are infallible'. Belief and disbelief are thus
intimately associated and may be described as the same attitude of mind
in relation to two conflicting or contradictory statements. *

Belief and Doubt. So far, it lias been assumed that
the mind either accepts or rejects a statement, that it
must come to some decision about the matter. But this
is not the only alternative. We may waver between
acceptance and rejection, and suspend our judgment.
This is a state of doubt.2 Thus I mav feel altogether

«* o

uncertain whether it is going to rain or not, and so
cannot be said to form any judgment about the matter.
The state of mind is the opposite of that called belief.
When we believe in a thing our minds are at rest, and
we are in a state of readiness to act. When we doubt
our minds are pulled in two directions, there is a sense

3 In connection with the subject of affirmation and negation the student
should read some text book in logic respecting the nature of opposition among
propositions, paying particular heed to the distinction between two contra-
dictory and two contrary statements. The double aspect of every statement,
as affirming and at the same time denying, is well brought out by Prof. Bain
in his doctrine of Obversion. See Logic (Deduction), Chap. III., § 27.

2 The etymology of the word (dulio, from duo, cf. German zwcifcln, from.
zwei) suggests this oscillation of mind between two conflicting alternatives.

BELIEF. 401

of conflict or discord, and action is impossible. Doubt
is thus a more complex state than belief, and shows
itself much later in the history of the child. Children
have many confident expectations about things (e.g.,
' I am going to have dinner/ ' 1 am going out for a
walk/ and so on) before they take up the cautious
attitude of doubt. This last state of mind arises, as
we shall see presently, only when experiences have
multiplied.

Degrees of Belief. Doubt implies a tendency of the mind towards
and away from a given act of judgment. The two opposing forces may
exist in very different proportions. Hence a scale of degrees of doubt
and belief. At one end we have perfect confidence in a statement:1
doubt is wholly excluded. Then comes a series of gradations of belief iri
which the repulsive force increases in strength till it may exactly equal
the other. This is a state of perfect doubt or equilibrium of contending
forces. Then follows a lower series of gradations in which the tendency
to reject is stronger than the tendency to accept. Finally there is the
lowest level, answering to absolute rejection or disbelief, at which the
repulsive force completely overpowers the attractive force.

Sources of Belief. Our beliefs, and along with
these our doubts, are products, having their condi-
tions. We cannot at will bring any two ideas
together in the mind and entertain belief or doubt
respecting the corresponding external relations. We
say that our belief has been generated or produced in
a certain way, as by observation of facts, reasoning,
tradition, &c. It is only when certain antecedent
conditions are fulfilled that any two representations
come together in the particular way which involves
an act of belief. In other words, certain psychical

Tins seems to be the state of mind required in a jury before convicting
a man of a crime.

402 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

forces are necessary to bind the representations to-
gether in that synthesis which, as we have seen, under-
lies an act of judgment or belief. The psychologist
seeks to group these conditions or sources of belief
under the most general heads.

(1) Experience and Association. The most obvious
condition or generative antecedent of belief is ex-
perience. The combination of presentations in our
experience determines, as we saw above, the associa-
tion of representations. And the force which com-
monly determines the combination of representations
in the act of judgment is this force of association.
This was illustrated in the simplest types of belief,
memory and expectation. In both cases the belief is
determined by the order of experiences.

Speaking generally, we may say that the strength
of belief varies as the degree of associative force at
work. Thus our expectations are strong when the
corresponding conjunctions of experience are very
numerous, as in expecting to see a body fall when
support is withdrawn. On the other hand, when ex-
periences vary, and the associative forces are conse-
quently feeble, we find a modified belief or a state of
doubt. One set of suggestions competes with another,
and in consequence, the tendency to belief is checked
or crossed by another tendency. Doubt first springs
up in these circumstances. Thus a boy that is some-
times taken out by his mother in her walks, some-
times not, is in a state of doubt when he next sees her
dressed for a walk. 1

1 For a fuller account of the way in which early belief is checked, see my
volume, Sensation and Intuition, Chap. IV., p. 92.

BELIEF. 403

It has been said that a number of conjunctions of experience is not
a prerequisite of firm belief. A single experience, if of an impressive
kind, produces a great strength of belief which is not proportionately (if
at all) increased by subsequent repetitions. 1 If only all the suggestive
force is one way, it seems to matter little whether it represents a large
or a small number of experiences. Yet since repetition is a general
condition of an enduring association, it seems to be commonly involved
in belief. The importance of a number of conjunctions comes into view
where experiences are no longer uniform. In this case it is the propor-
tion of experiences pointing one way to those pointing another way
which determines the state of belief or doubt.

(2) Verbal Suggestion. Experience is not the only
agency which effects a combination of representations
in the form of a judgment. Other influences play
a considerable subordinate part in generating and
moulding belief. Of these the most important is
verbal suggestion. The close connection between the
act of belief and its expression in a verbal statement
or proposition has already been pointed out. The
proposition is the external embodiment of the internal
belief. Hence the closest possible association between
the two. Hence, further, the tendency to accept
another's statement quite apart from any process of
' weighing testimony ' The combination of words
strongly excites in the hearer's or reader's mind the
combination of ideas and a nascent belief in the corre-
sponding connection of things. We see this in the per-
manent acceptance of traditional statements, and in the
momentary tendency to believe even an extravagant
assertion. It is seen too in the reflex effect of our
own utterances. As Hartley has observed, a person

1 Dr. Bain recognises a primitive tendency to belief (apart from experience
and association) under the title ' Primitive Credulity,' see The Emotiuns and
the Will, ' Belief,' § 7 and following.

404 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

by the mere act of repeating a story which he does
not at first credit comes in time to believe in it.1

(3) Effect of Feeling. Once more, our beliefs are
greatly influenced by our feelings and wishes. As
was pointed out when dealing with the influence of
feeling on imagination, emotional excitement gives
greater vividness to the images called up, and deter-
mines the order of their combination. By bringing to-
gether ideas and dwelling on them under the sway of
strong feeling, the mind tends strongly to believe in
the corresponding realities. This is seen in the
strength of belief attaching to the wild dreams of
youth. Commonly, of course, the combination has
some support in the order of experience. What the
feeling does is to keep a certain suggestion or class of
suggestions before the mind, and to exclude others
which, but for the feeling, would be much more
powerful than the first. This is the state of mind
known as bias or prejudice, in which strong likings,
wishes, &c., interrupt the due sequences of thought.
Belief in tradition is greatly supported by the senti-
ment of authority.

Belief and Activity. As was remarked just now,
belief and activity are closely related. To begin with,
belief is clearly an antecedent of intelligent action.
In order to aim at a purpose or result, we must
discern a connection between the means employed
and the result. Not only so, to believe is, in many
cases at least, to be prepared to act. Belief is com-
monly, perhaps, accompanied by a more or less dis-
tinct reference to a possible need of acting.

1 Observations on Man, Ft. I., Chap. III., Sec. 4, p. 390.

BELIEF. 405

Yet while belief is thus in a manner prior to action,
implying a reference to future action, it is in another
way a product of activity. Strong active impulse,
leading to great eagerness to act, promotes the be-
lieving, as contrasted with the doubting, state of
mind. As will be shown more fully by and by,
belief, in the form of a confidence in the result of
action, is the characteristic of youth with its strong
desires and active impulses. Doubt and hesitation,
on the other hand, presuppose u curbing of these im-
pulses by the lessons of experience. The contrast
which thus shows itself in the case of eager youth
and cautious age, discloses itself in a less marked way
in the case of the practical and the speculative mind.
The former, strongly impelled to act and therefore
to decide somehow, is impatient of that state of un-
certainty which with the speculative mind is a very
common one.

It follows that belief and activity react on one another. Strong
conviction favours action, and on the other hand, a strong desire to act
predisposes the mind to decision. It is often difficult to say which is
cause and which is effect. Thus it is difficult to determine how far the
confidence of youth is the result of ignorance or rather of uniformity of
experience and suggestion, and to this extent a condition of its active
eagerness ; and how far it is the outcome of the strong active impulses
themselves. Belief appears to stand in a relation to vividness of imagi-
nation. It has been said that any vivid representation, however
incongruous 'with the order of experience, tends to excite belief. The
effect of vividness is seen in the immediate suggestions of actual pre-
sentations. The expectation of an immediate consequent of a present
impression, e.g., the appearance of the moon from behind a cloud when
the edge grows bright, is stronger than the expectation of a more
remote consequent. The influence of feeling on belief seems, too, to be
explained in part by the added vividness given to the representations
called up.1

10n the dependence of belief on imagination see Dugald Stewart, Elements
of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Part I., Chap. III. (Conception), p.

406 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

Degree of Perfection of Judgments : Clearness.
Our judgments, like our notions, have different de-
grees of imperfection or perfection. Of these perfec-
tions the first is clearness. By this is meant that the
concepts combined in the judgment be distinct, and
that the relations involved be distinctly apprehended.
Want of distinctness in terms leads to indefmiteness
in statement. The judgment, ' Penuriousness is a
vice,' has just as much clearness as belongs to the
ideas ' penuriousness ' and ' vice '. Not only so, a
judgment cannot be clear unless the mind discerns all
that is immediately implied in the assertion, the
equivalence of the assertion to other verbally unlike
statements, and its incompatibility with other contra-
dictory statements.

Judgments tend to be indistinct in a number of
ways. A common source of indefiniteness is imper-
fect observation, which may give rise to the appre-
hension of some relation of things though the exact
nature of this relation is not made clear to the mind.
Thus we often note a connection between facts but
have not gone far enough to ascertain how they are
connected, which is the dependent one, and so forth.
Again, defects of memory by leading to indistinct re-
production are a great obstacle to clearness of judg-
ment. If the mind fails to recall the exact qualities
of things, it will be incapable of making definite asser-

149 : Taine, On Intelligence, Part L, Book II., Chap. I., Sect. III. : </.
my volume, Sensation and Intuition, Chap. IV., p. 83, and following. The
effect of vividness in an image seems to be to generate an expectation of
speedy realisation. Whether this should be called a stronger belief than an
undoubting confidence in a more remote realisation, may, perhaps, be ques-
tioned.

PERFECTIONS OF JUDGMENTS. 407

tions about them. As in the case of concepts, so in
that of judgments, what was once clear may become
hazy or indefinite by the impoverishment of words.
Truths at first clearly apprehended may in time by
repetition and habit pass into lifeless formulae, in
which there is no clear apprehension of the contents,
and no vivid belief. As a last source of indistinct-
ness may be mentioned the intrusion of feeling into
the intellectual domain. Strong feeling is incom-
patible with careful observation, fine discrimination
of ideas, &c. Judgments passed under the influence
of strong emotion are in general characterised by
vagueness.

One source of indistinctness of judgment calls for
special notice. We saw how the notions of the young
tend to be indistinct owing to the fact that they
acquire them by attending to the words of others.
In a. like manner, want of clearness in judgment
arises to a considerable extent through the adoption
of beliefs or opinions from others. It is obvious that
each of us acquires a large part of his knowledge from
others by way of tradition and instruction. This
transmission of the accumulated knowledge of many
generations to each individual, though a vast benefit,
is at the same time productive of a habit of vague
judgment. The powerful tendency of the mind to
believe what is asserted by another leads us to adopt
statements hastily without any close inspection of the
underlying truths. We are apt to don the opinions
of others as we don their fashion of dress. In all
such cases there is no full exercise of judgment on
our part. The opinions adopted are not taken into

408 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

the mind, the ideas fully grasped, and the relations
asserted distinctly apprehended.

Accuracy of Judgment. Again, our judgments,
like our notions, may be accurate or inaccurate. An
accurate judgment is one which corresponds precisely
to the realities represented, or which faithfully ex-
presses the relations of things. Want of clearness in
judging leads on naturally to looseness of judgment.
Propositions which are not clearly understood tend to
be misunderstood. Positive inaccuracy arises from a
number of causes. Some of these are similar to those
which produce indistinctness of judgment. Thus it
is obvious that when observation is defective, or when
facts are not accurately recalled, there will be room
for inaccuracy. Again, it is evident that strong
feeling may produce not only indistinctness but posi-
tive inaccuracy. The tendency to exaggerate what
has been seen or heard illustrates this effect. The
influence of the active impulses in sustaining a foolish
belief in our own powers, in the efficiency of the
agencies at our command, illustrates another and
somewhat analogous effect of deflection of judgment
from the standard of accuracy.

In addition to these sources of inaccuracy, we have
to recognise the imperfections and limitations of each
individual's experience. Our judgments are the out-
come of our special type of experience, our individual
associations. Accuracy of judgment thus presupposes
the interaction of the individual and the social intel-
ligence, the continual correction of the * personal
equation' in judgment due to accidents of tem-
perament, experience, ruling associations, by refer-

PERFECTIONS OF JUDGMENTS. 409

ence to the standard of common or average
experience.1

Other qualities of Judgment: Promptness, Sta-
bility, &c. Besides these merits and defects which
belong to judgments viewed in themselves there are
others which refer to the way in which they are
formed and adhered to. These qualities serve greatly
to determine the degree of excellence we attribute to
a person's faculty of judgment.

To begin with, the act of judging plainly involves
a readiness to decide on a matter. A certain degree
of promptness in decision is thus a condition of judg-
ment. A mind drawn hither and thither by con-
flicting tendencies and unable to master these, is weak
in judgment. On the other hand, there is the oppo-
site fault of impulsiveness or rashness, that is to say,
an overeagerness in coming to a decision, accompanied
by an impatience of the delay involved in reflecting,
weighing evidence, &c. A good judgment combines
promptness with deliberateness. This cpality will be
illustrated more fully by and by in connection with
practical decision.

Just as judgments are excellent or otherwise in
respect of their mode of formation, so they are meri-
torious or defective in respect of their persistence
when formed. A judgment when arrived at tends to
persist. It is only by this tendency to persistence
that consistency among judgments is possible. To
assert one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow
shows great weakness of the faculty of judgment.
On the other hand, our judgments are liable to be

1 See my volume, Illusions, Chap. XI., p. 324, and following.

410 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

modified by new influences, whether new facts of ex-
perience, or new processes of reflection. If firmness
of judgment is a merit, obstinacy is clearly a defect.
The first condition of mental growth is that we keep
our minds open to new impressions. Hence we should
be ready to weigh new evidence when it presents
itself, and to modify our opinions. Excellence of
judgment in this respect lies between two extremes of
instability and obstinacy

Closely related to the quality of stability is that of
independence. When there is no strong individual
opinion, the mind is at the mercy of the social sur-
roundings of the time. On the other hand, a disre-
gard of the beliefs of others is the mark of an obstinate
and intractable intelligence. Here, again, excellence
of judgment lies between two extremes. A sound
judgment combines a measure o± intellectual inde-
pendence with a due regard for the claims of others'
convictions.

Enough has been said to illustrate the truth thafc a
sound judgment presupposes a combination oi many
conditions. An act of judgment is the outcome of
our whole experience, and involves the processes of
observation, reproduction, comparison. &c. It is only
when these processes are perfectly performed that the
judgment will be free from imperfections. A sound
judgment implies, too, a considerable development of
the power of controlling the thoughts and the feelings,
of fixing the mind on the matter in hand, and of re-
sisting the forces of bias.

Relation of Individual to Social Intelligence. It is seen
from the above that the relation of the individual to the social intel-

PERFECTIONS OF JUDGMENTS. 411

ligence is a complex one. On the one hand, the individual depends on
the community (and the race) for a large part of its knowledge. To set
at nought the carefully garnered intellectual products of many genera-
tions would be only worthy of an insane man. The influence of the
social intelligence in supplementing and correcting private belief is an
incalculable benefit. On the other hand, the individual may fall in too
readily with accepted opinions. The assertion of individual opinion is
implied in a full exercise of the faculty of judgment. Not only so, the
current beliefs of any age cannot be regarded as final. The growth of
knowledge means the continual modification of common ideas respecting
nature, human life, &c. Hence an undue pressure of the social on the
individual mind is not only injurious to the latter, but may retard the
extension of the common stock of ideas. The problem of the adjust-
ment of private to public belief, of avoiding anything like unhealthy or
abnormal eccentricity of judgment on the one hand, and yet of per-
mitting the full exercise of a sound individuality, is a particularly
difficult one.

Relation of Processes of Judging and Reasoning.

Hitherto we have been considering judgments, so
far as this was possible, without any reference to
the question whether we reach them directly without
any process of inference from previous judgments, or
indirectly by way of such a process. This distinc-
tion is a much more important one from a logical,
than it is from a psychological point of view. For
as we shall see, many judgments which can be
grounded on other judgments are not in the first
place reached by way of these as their psychical ante-
cedents. Nevertheless, the difference does roughly
answer to a psychological distinction. For whenever
inference precedes judgment, the psychical process is a
more complex one, and the belief finally adopted
differs to this extent that it is consciously based or
grounded on other beliefs.

Intuitive and Reasoned Judgments. Many of our
judgments are arrived at intuitively or immediately,

412 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

and apart from a process of reasoning or inference. If
this were not so, there would be no starting-points for
us to reason from, no nails from which our chains of
argument could be suspended. Such judgments may
be called intuitive. Many of our Singular Judgments
are plainly of this kind. All assertions which gather
up the results of observation and memory, as for
example ' This stone is lustrous,' ' I met A. B. yester-
day,' are intuitive. They involve, in ordinary cases
at least, no process of inference.

Range of Intuitive Belief. The question as to the exact range
of immediate or intuitive beliefs is one of considerable difficulty, and
has constituted one of the main disputes in philosophy. Many thinkers
hold that there are certain universal beliefs which are wholly inde-
pendent of experience, and not reached by any process of inference.
Such are the first principles of the mathematical sciences, e.g., ' Things
equal to the same thing are equal to one another,' and the great prin-
ciples underlying the physical sciences, 'Nature is uniform,' 'Every
event has its conditions or cause '. Such directly apprehended truths
have been variously named Intuitions of Eeason, Necessary Forms of
Intelligence, Principles of Common Sense, &c. On the other hand, an
opposite school asserts that these beliefs, though in the mature mind they
assume the appearance of intuitions, have in reality been derived from in-
numerable facts of experience. They are thus inferences from experience,
though of such a simple kind, and answering to such a wide range of
facts, that the mind reached them too early for us to recall the process
of inference. Finally, the evolutionist seeks to mediate between these
opposed views by means of the doctrine that beliefs derived from
innumerable experiences of our ancestors are transmitted to us in the
form of inherited intellectual tendencies. l

Common Sense. Without going into the philosophical question as
to the ultimate source and ground of validity of these self-evident prin-
ciples, we may note the psychological fact that many of the apparently
self-evident judgments of mature life were in the first instance reached
by a process of rough, informal inference. JCl follows, indeed, from the

1 On the nature of such transmitted intellectual dispositions, see above, p.
61. For a brief historical account of the controversy respecting the origin
and source of validity of these beliefs, see Dr. Bain's Mental and Moral Science,
Appendix B.

INTUITIVE JUDGMENTS. 413

psychological theory of judgment that any belief which has become
firmly established in the mind should in time acquire the appearance
of an independent or self-sufficient belief. We forget its history and its
antecedents, and tend to regard it as something original and underived.
This applies to that stock of common uninvestigated belief, with refer-
ence more particularly to matters of practical interest, which makes up
a chief part of what ordinary people appear to mean by 'Common
Sense'. Each of us reaches these beliefs partly by way of personal
observation, and so by a rough kind of inductive reasoning, partly
through the promptings of instinctive impulse and feeling, but largely
through the powerful forces of tradition. The belief that life is a good
thing, or that men know their own interest best, illustrates such a
seemingly original self-sufficient belief. To question the validity of
these beliefs is regarded as a sign of a degree of mental eccentricity that
verges on insanity. This mass of self-assertive common-sense belief is
thus one of the principal forces of the social intelligence which, as we
saw just now, tend to control and mould the individual mind. More
especially it acts as a check to the reasoning impulse discouraging all
investigation into the grounds of the principles, postulates, assumptions
on which our everyday judgments seem to rest.1

On the other hand, it is evident that a large re-
mainder of our judgments both singular and universal
are reached by a process of reasoning or inference.
By this is meant that we derive the judgment as a
conclusion from previously gained judgments which
in relation to the last are called premises. Thus
in asserting that it is going to rain because the baro-
meter is falling, or that all diamonds are combustible
because this, that, and the other diamond have been
burnt, or that philosophers are fallible because all men
are fallible, we are said to infer or draw a conclusion.
All conclusions may be called reasoned judgments.

1 For an account of the meanings of ' Common Sense ' in everyday life
and in philosophy, see Hamilton's Edition of Reid's Works, Note A. The
nature of Common Sense is discussed by Dr. Carpenter, Mental Physiology,
Bk. II., Chap. XI., who brings out clearly the co-operation of hereditary
influences with those of personal experiences. The tendency of derived beliefs
to simulate the appearance of primary ones is dealt with in the author's work
on Illusions, Chap. XI.

414 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

There is much the same relation of reciprocal de-
pendence between judgment and reasoning as between
conception and judgment. Our judgments are in
many cases reached by a process of reasoning more or
less perfectly developed. And all judgments thus
reached are capable of becoming starting points or
premises in further processes of reasoning,

Nature of Reasoning. To reason is, as we have seen,
to pass from a certain judgment or certain judgments
to a new one. This implies that the mind accepts
the conclusion on the ground of the premises. In
other words, the resulting belief is in this case due
to a recognition of the relation between the new and
the old judgments, of the fact that the premises carry
with them or necessitate the conclusion, or that the
latter follows from the former. What, it may be
asked, is the essential intellectual process here ? What
relation does the mind detect between premise and
conclusion in thus passing from a belief in the one to
a belief in the other ?

In order to ascertain this, let us take a simple example
of reasoning : ' The barometer is falling, therefore it is
going to rain '. In drawing this conclusion we identify
the present state of the barometer with past states
which we have observed or heard about But we do
not simply identify this phenomenon as an isolated
fact • we identify it in respect of its accompaniments
or attendant circumstances (altered state of the atmo-
sphere, and results of this, rain). From this it appears
that reasoning is only a higher and more complex
process of assimilation, identification, or classing. It
differs from perception (the recognition of a single

PEOCESS OF KEASONING. 415

object), and from conception (the assimilation of many
objects) inasmuch as it is the assimilation of things
in their connection with certain other things, or,
briefly, the identification of relations among things.

We thus see that reasoning proceeds by way of
assimilation. We only reason in so far as we note the
resemblances among objects and events. Discrimina-
tion enters into reasoning, but not as the uniting
binding link between the old and the new judgment.
From mere difference we can infer nothing. This is
seen plainly enough in mathematical reasoning. If
we know that A and B are both unequal to a third
quantity C, we are not able to pronounce any relation
between A and B.

At the same time, discrimination plays a subordi-
nate part in reasoning. The power of reasoning, of
connecting one judgment with another, implies the
ability to detect similarity. What we commonly
mean by a dull stupid mind is one that cannot reason,
and cannot follow a process of reasoning, that fails
to assimilate, to seize the bond of similarity which
ties together premise and conclusion. On the other
hand, a confused mind is one that is apt to reason
badly by not discriminating, by supposing similarity
to exist where it does not. Our reasoning is only
accurate in so far as we distinguish as well as assimi-
late.

Inference and Proof. While we thus assume that
in reasoning the mind consciously passes from premise
to conclusion, we must remember that this does not
answer to the actual order of mental events in many,
and perhaps, the majority of cases. The conclusion

416 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

presents itself first, and the ground, premise, or reason,
when it distinctly arises in the mind at all, recurs
rather as an after- thought, and by the suggestive force
of the similarity between the new case and the old.
In the case just instanced, the mind passes at once to
the conclusion (here an expectation). It does not
distinctly recall the past instances at first, and may
not do so at all unless when the conclusion is chal-
lenged or doubt somehow suggested. The distinct
reference to the antecedent judgment is thus rather a
part of the final revisional process of proof, than of
the first process of inference. Here again we must be
on our guard against taking the logician's account of
how our processes of thought may be carried on as
representing faithfully the manner in which they
actually take place in ordinary cases. *

Implicit Reasoning. This operation of passing from
one or more judgments to another may assume one of
two well-marked forms. In the first place we may
pass directly from one or more singular judgments to
another singular judgment without clearly setting forth
to ourselves or to others the ground of our conclusion
under the form of a general truth or principle. Thus
a boy having observed on one or more past occasions
that particular pieces of wood float in water will con-
clude directly in a new instance that this piece of
wood will float. This has been called reasoning from
particulars. It may also be called implicit reasoning,
because the general ground or principle is implied and
not explicitly set before the mind.

1 On the nature of such inference, see Stumpf, Tonpsychologie, § 5, pp.
89, 90 ; cf. A. Sidgwick, Fallacies, Part I., Chap. I., Sect. I.

IMPLICIT SEASONING. 417

Here, again, it is to be observed that there need be
no conscious reference to the past instances. Thus
the boy's mind passes directly from the perception of
the piece of wood to the idea of its floating. As we
saw when dealing with expectation, the mind is deter-
mined by the forces of association to pass directly to
an anticipation of an event without any conscious
reference to the past experiences which form the
groundwork of the association. Indeed, when the
past experiences are very numerous, any distinct re-
presentation of them is obviously precluded.

This form of reasoning is the simplest and earliest
in the order of development. What germ of reasoning
the lower animals possess shows itself under this form.
The reasonings of children are of this kind too. They
pass from old experiences, some or all of which are
more or less distinctly recalled according to circum-
stances, to new ones without seizing the general rule
or principle involved in their procedure. And even
adults in the large majority of cases reason in the
same way. In matters of everyday experience, even
when general assertions are available, we do not, in
ordinary cases, consciously go back to them. And in
not a few cases, e.g., in reasoning as to the motives or
reasons of other persons' conduct, we should find it
very hard to connect the conclusions reached with
any such universal judgments.

Practical Judgment, Tact, &c. This kind of reasoning may be
described as unconscious, or better, as automatic. There is no distinct
record of past instances from which the mind sets out. Numerous past
experiences have left their accumulated traces in the shape of tendencies
to judge in a certain way. There is something here in the region of
intellect analogous to habit in the region of action. Just as in the case

418 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

of a habitual or ' automatic ' action we tend to do something without
antecedently forming a clear representation of an end or purpose, so in
the case of automatic inference we tend to pass to a conclusion without
previously representing the ground or starting point. It is probable
that in each case the result is largely dependent on firmly established
nervous connections. How little conscious reference there is to previous
knowledge in these cases is seen in the familiar fact that many persons
who can (in most cases) reach sound conclusions are quite unable after-
wards to justify them. Not only have they no guiding general prin-
ciples, they have not a full mental retention of the facts which when
clearly set forth would supply the starting point, or point of analogy.
This applies with especial force to conclusions formed about practical
matters. A man of 'practical judgment' is one who can rapidly adapt
the aggregate results of his past experiences in this automatic way to
new cases. Joseph Hume, a man of this sort, often resorted to for his
valuable advice, was accustomed to say " Such is my opinion but I can-
not tell you how I arrived at it "-1 What is meant by quick intuitive
insight into others feelings or character, tact in dealing with persons, pre-
sence of mind in quickly adapting actions to unforeseen circumstances,
all illustrate the operation of such automatic intellectual tendencies in
slightly different forms. In each of these highly useful qualities we
have the effect of numerous past experiences and observations no longer
individually recoverable but associated in an indissoluble psychical pro-
duct, a firmly fixed tendency to judge in. a certain way under a par-
ticular class of circumstances.8

The tendency of the mind thus to reason directly
from one particular case to another is seen, perhaps,
most plainly in the reverse process of going back from
a new fact to an old one by way of explaining or
finding a reason for the former. Children and the
uneducated do this to a large extent. They find a

1 See Carpenter's Annual Physiology, Chap. XI. , p. 478.

2 For a fuller account of this capability of automatic inference, see J. S.
Mill, System of Logic, Bk. II., Ch. III., § 3. Carpenter, loc sit. The last
writer groups this quality under ' Common Sense '. As Hamilton points out
in the note referred to, one of the meanings of this term points to that un-
common quality, practical intelligence or tact. In this extension of the
phrase we see that it is still setting itself in opposition to reasoning as a con-
scious process susceptible of formal presentation. The nature of Tact is
fully dealt with by Prof. T azarus, Das Lebcn der Seele, Band 3.

EXPLICIT REASONING. 419

certain intellectual satisfaction in assimilating a new
and strange occurrence to one or more familiar occur-
rences. They account for it by connecting it with
what is already common and familiar, without in-
quiring into the general principle involved in the
particular cases. In talking figuratively of the move-
ments of inanimate objects, as when we describe a
spark as ' flying ' upwards, we all seem to find a
measure of that satisfaction which a full explanation
by means of a general truth brings to the logical
mind.

Explicit Reasoning. It is evident when we reflect
on these reasoning processes that we do implicitly
assume a general statement. The boy in our example
tacitly assumes that 'all wood floats'. If he were
not sure of this he would have no business to con-
clude, ' This piece of wood will float '. And as soon
as he is asked to give the ground of his conclusion,
or to ' prove ' his assertion, he sets forth this general
statement. The reasoning then becomes explicit.
In so far as we reflect on our reasoning operations
we naturally tend to bring them into this form. All
the reasoning of science, as distinguished from the
rough processes of everyday life, proceeds by way of
such general truths or principles. The adoption of
this form of reasoning marks the growth of human
intelligence, the attainment of the power of general
thinking, of distinctly seizing and making clear to
consciousness the points of similarity among things.

Inductive and Deductive Reasoning. The full ex-
plicit process of reasoning by way of a universal
judgment is commonly said to fall into two parts

420 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

or stages. Of these the first (a) is the operation of
reaching a general judgment or assertion. This is
known as induction. The second (b) is the operation
of applying the truth thus reached to some par-
ticular case (or class of cases). This is known as
deduction. Induction is an upward movement of
thought from particular instances to a general truth,
principle, or law ; deduction, a downward movement
from some general statement to a particular state-
ment, or at least a statement less general than the
first.

Nature of Inductive Reasoning. The psychological
process in passing from particulars to a general truth
illustrates the essential process of all thinking, the
detecting of similarity amid diversity. Let us examine
an instance of inductive reasoning. The child observes
that his toys, spoons, knives, he himself, and a vast
multitude of other objects when not supported fall.
He gradually compares these facts one with another
and seizes the essential feature of them or the general
truth implied in them. He discovers that what all
these things have in common is that they are material
bodies. He then extricates this general conception,
and along with it the circumstance (falling to the
ground) which has invariably accompanied it. That
is to say, he judges that all material bodies (when
unsupported) fall to the ground The operation io a
process of reasoning or inference because his mind in
making the universal assertion passes beyond the
limits of the observed cases. ' All ' includes not onf-
all the instances he has examined, however numerous
these may be, but all unobserved cases.

INDUCTIVE KEASONING. 421

This process is clearly related to that of gene-
ralisation : indeed, induction is often spoken of as gene-
ralisation. In each case we trace out a similarity
among a diversity of things ; in the case of generalisa-
tion we do so in things viewed as single or apart, in
the case of induction, in things viewed in their con-
nection with some other thing. And just as there
are higher and lower conceptions so there are higher
and lower inductions. The child begins with a
number of narrow inductions, e.g., 'flies die,' 'birds
die,' and so forth. He then compares these one with
another and extracting what is common to them
reaches the higher truth ' All animals die . Later
on he couples this with the kindred truth similarly
reached 'All plants die,' and so arrrives at the yet
more comprehensive induction, 'All living things
die'.

Although we usxially speak of the process of induction as having to
do with classes, there is a precisely similar operation involved in ascer-
taining the qualities of individual objects in so far as these Qualities
manifest themselves in a variety of forms. Thus the mental process
by which we ascertain that a child is truthful, that a man has a
refined taste, and so forth, is a comparison of many partially unlike
phenomena, viz., actions, and a detection of the underlying common
quality.

Spontaneous Induction. The child has a natural
tendency to generalise from experience. A single
instance often suffices to beget the inference to ;>.
general rule. One experience of the burning pro-
perties of fire is enough to produce the belief that
all fire burns. This natural impulse leads in early
life to hasty induction. Here is an example. A
boy of two and a half was accustomed to dwell on

422 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

the fact that he would one day grow to be big. One
day as he was using a small stick as a walking stick
his mother told him it was too small, on which he at
once remarked, ' Me use it for walking stick when
stick be bigger'. He had implicitly argued that all
things tend to grow bigger in time. The inductions
of the young and of the uneducated are often of this
type. The tendency of all of us is to argue that what
is true of ourselves, and of our own little sphere of
observation is true of mankind and of things gene-
rally.1

Regulated Induction. This natural impulse to
generalise on a narrow and precarious basis becomes
corrected by wider experience, as well as by educa-
tion. Thus the child that generalises that all nurseries
have a rocking horse like his own, that all dogs take
to the water, and so on, learns either by his own
observations or from what others tell him that his
conclusion is hasty and inaccurate. Pulled up, so to
speak, in his early attempts to generalise, he grows
more cautious. The impulse to generalise is not
arrested, it is simply guided and controlled. Induc-
tion now proceeds in a more circumspect and methodi-
cal manner. The young inquirer takes pains to collect
a wider variety of observations. He examines the
instances he thus collects more closely in order to
ascertain their essential, as distinguished from their

1 On the evils of hasty generalisation see Locke, Of the Conduct of the
Understanding (edited by Prof. Fowler), Lect. XXV. He remarks : ' General
observations drawn from particulars are the jewels of knowledge, compre-
hending great store in a little room ; but they are therefore to be made with
the greater care and caution, lest, if we take counterfeit for true, our loss and
shame be the greater when our stock comes to a severe scrutiny '.

INDUCTIVE EEASONING. 423

accidental, resemblances. Thus, for example, he finds
out that the fact of growth is connected with those
properties of things which we call life, and he will
consequently restrict the idea to living things.

Induction and Causation. Among the most impor-
tant truths reached by way of inductive reasoning are
those having to do with the causes of things. In
order to produce any result we must know the condi-
tions which regulate or determine it. We can only
predict events with certainty when we know the cir-
cumstances on which they depend. Inquiry into the
causes of things thus constitutes a chief part of our
reasoning. This is seen in the very use of the word
'reason'. To find a reason for a thing commonly
means to ascertain its cause, and so to explain its
occurrence.

How the Child reaches the Idea Or Cause. The
child's daily experience is continually presenting events
or occurrences in a certain order. Thus he soon finds
out that food satisfies hunger, that water quenches
thirst, that a hard blow gives him pain, and so on.
He soon learns too that his own actions produce cer-
tain results. Thus he discovers that he can break a
stick (if not too stout) by bending it, that he can open
the door by turning the handle and then pulling (or
pushing), &c. Later on he observes that things about
him are related to one another in the same way ; for
instance, that the appearance of the sun is connected
with day-light, of rain with muddy streets. Out of
numerous experiences of this kind he gradually arrives
at the idea of cause. He then goes beyond the limits
of observed facts and concludes that everything that

424 JUDGMENT AND EEASONING.

happens, every change in the world about him has its
cause.

Idea of Cause and of Purpose. There is good
reason to suppose that the child moulds his idea of
cause on the pattern of his own actions and their
results. That is to say, he conceives of everything
which happens as the consequence of some action
analogous to his own. The first enquiries of young
children, ' who made the snow ? ' ' who made the
flowers grow1?' and so forth, point to this conclusion.
The production of any result is thought of as brought
about by a muscular action. The full development
of this idea is seen in the supposition of young
children that everything has its use or purpose. The
meaning of the question 'why?' in the mouth of a
child of three or four is equivalent to, ' For what
purpose or end?' It is only after a certain develop-
ment of intelligence that the child learns to distinguish
between the sphere of action with purpose or end, and
that of physical causation, or causation without end. l

Natural Reasoning about Causes. Children show
the natural impulse to generalise most distinctly in
concluding about the causes of things. The early
age at which they begin to inquire into the causes
of events favours the hypothesis that they have an
inherited disposition to think in this way, that is to
say, to view things as happening because of other
things happening. The play of this natural impulse
results in many hasty inductions. A very slight

1 The traces of the origin of the idea are never lost. In the ideas of force
which science employs there is still a reference to the original type of causa-
tion, action involving muscular exertion.

INDUCTIVE REASONING. 425

analogy between things often leads a child to conclude
that they have the same cause. This has already
been illustrated in the tendency of the young to look
at the changes going on in the inanimate world as
the results of actions analogous to their own.

Hasty induction with respect to causes shows itself
too in other ways. The desire to find some cause for
a thing often leads to the fixing of the mind on some
attendant circumstance which is only accidentally pre-
sent, and has nothing to do with the effect produced.
Thus a little boy of two once argued that milk was
white because it came from a white cow which he had
happened to see.

Again, the mind is apt to argue that a thing is
always produced by one and the same cause, and this
leads to error. Thus a child (about two and a half)
having found out that the wind blew off his hat,
argued that the slipping off of his glove was the result
of the wind's action too.

Regulated Reasoning about Causes. The careful
discovery of causes is often a very difficult process,
and always implies a method of procedure. Among
the more important processes here involved are a
careful observation and retention of a variety of in-
stances of the effect produced, and further a pains-
taking analysis of these instances in order to see
exactly what the invariable and essential circumstance
is on which the result depends. Thus in order to
ascertain the causes of combustion, we compare
numerous instances, and by examining these arrive at
the common circumstance, the presence of oxygen and
of something capable of combining with this.

426 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

The process implies, further, active experimenting
with things in order to ascertain what circumstances

can be taken away oj eliminated without affecting the
result, and what cannot. Thus in inquiring into the
cause of combustion we find that the nitrogen of the
air can be removed and the process of combustion still
go on, while the oxygen cannot.

The reader shcmkl note the close correspondence between the sources
of erroneous induction and those of inaccurate conception (see p. 369).
As just suggested, a wrong induction arises (commonly) either by
examining too few instances, or by hastily and insufficiently inspecting
the instances observed. J. S. Mill illustrates the double source of error
by the example of crediting a fortune-teller. A person may commit
this error either by overlooking all the cases in which the soi-disant
prophet is wrong ; or by not noting that in the cases in which he is
right he had been in collusion with another who gave him the infor-
mation. 1

Deductive Reasoning. By Induction the child
reaches a large number of general or universal judg-
ments. These are supplemented by all the general
statements made to him by others in the way of
instruction. Having these universal statements he is
able to pass on to the second stage of explicit rea-
soning, namely, Deduction. By this is meant reasoning
downward from a general truth or principle to some
particular case or class of cases. Thus a child who
has been told that all persons are liable to make mis-
takes, is apt to apply the truth by arguing that his
mother or his governess makes mistakes. The type of

1 System of Logic, Vol. II., Book V., Chap. IV., Sect. 2. The student
who wishes to understand the systematic orderly processes by which causes
are discovered, should consult Mill's treatise, or some other work on Inductive
I -ogic.

DEDUCTIVE SEASONING. 427

deductive reasoning when fully set forth is known as
a syllogism, and is as follows :

All M is P. Everything made by labour costs money.
All S is M. Toys are made by labour.
Therefore All S is P. Therefore Toys cost money.

Or for negative arguments ;

No M is P. No naughty children are loved.
All S is M. This is a naughty child.
Therefore No S is P. Therefore he will not be loved.

It is evident from this that the nature of the mental
process is substantially the same as in the case of
inductive reasoning. The essential fact is still
assimilation. We recognise an identity between the
particular case (S) and a class of cases (M) in respect
of its possessing (or not possessing) a certain adjunct
or concomitant (P). Thus in the first of the above
examples we assimilate toys to other things as pro-
ducts of labour, and by so doing we further assimilate
them as having the peculiarity of costing money.

Here, again, we must distinguish between the logi-
cal order, required for purposes of proof, and the actual
psychological order of the process of inference. We
rarely (if ever) proceed in the formal way here set
forth from premises to conclusion. In some cases the
conclusion first distinctly presents itself to the mind,
and the other judgments rise into distinct conscious-
ness later ; and in other cases the mind does not at
any stage distinctly represent more than one of the
two truths making up the premises.

In cases of simple deductive reasoning where both premises are well
known beforehand, the mind may pass at once to the conclusion by
means of the process of suggestion already explained. In these circum-

428 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

stances it only distinctly recalls the grounds of the judgment afterwards
by way of justifying it or finding a reason for it. In many cases, how-
ever, the mind does explicitly refer to one of the premises before reaching
the final judgment. The reason why in most instances we do not explicitly
refer to both is that we rarely obtain the two pieces of knowledge
answering to these statements at the same time. Sometimes we first of
all reach the former, at other times, the latter of the premises. As soon
as the second piece of knowledge is reached, the mind tends to pass at
once from this to the conclusion with only a very indistinct reference
to the first and familiar truth. Thus a child who already knew that
toys were made by labour, might on first learning that things made by
labour cost money, pass directly from this judgment to the judgment,
toys (as well as other things) cost money. Similarly, if the second
premise happened to be the later piece of knowledge, his mind would
not distinctly recall the first.

Induction is sometimes spoken of as a process of analysis, and Deduc-
tion of Synthesis. And there is some ground for this distinction. In
induction we are chiefly concerned with discovering the common cir-
cumstances in a variety of instances, that is to say, with analysing these so
as to reach the points of similarity connecting them. On the other hand
in deduction, the most striking part of the process is Synthesis or Combi-
nation. It is by bringing together two distinct judgments that we reach
the conclusion, and facility in deductive reasoning depends on the ability
thus to combine old pieces of knowledge in new groupings. In deduc-
tion, moreover, the final judgment illustrates the more perfect form of
synthesis in which two things are brought together by the mind, and
not directly associated by a connection in our experience. At the same
time, induction clearly implies a measure of synthesis in so far as it
combines two notions in the form of a universal judgment. And on the
other hand deduction may be analytic when the judgments are analytic
as in the following : — Men are rational beings, Negroes are men, There-
fore they are rational beings. 1

Finding Applications and Finding Reasons. De-
ductive reasoning may begin at one of two ends.
"We may have a principle given us and be asked to

1 The precise nature of deductive reasoning has been much discussed by
Logicians. It is doubtful, as Mr. Spencer and others have pointed out,
whether the syllogistic form described in the text is capable of representing
many of our processes of deductive inferences. Mr. Spencer has fully shown
that our inferences, even in cases where they are susceptible of being thrown
into this scheme, do not actually conform to it (see his Principles of Psycho-
logy, Vol. II., Part VI., Chap. VIII. , Sect. 305, &c.).

DEDUCTIVE REASONING. 429

draw conclusions from it. This is applying a prin-
ciple, or finding out new illustrations of a truth.
New discoveries may be made by a skilful combining
of truths already known. Thus for example a child
after being told or having discovered that air has
weight and that it is elastic or compressible might
argue out for himself that the lower strata must be
denser than the higher.

On the other hand we may set out not with a
general truth but with a particular statement or fact
of observation, and seek for a principle under which
it may be brought. This is finding a reason for a
statement, or explaining a fact. Thus a child when
told that a certain action is wrong may be asked
to say why it is wrong, that is to find out the
general rule under which it falls. In observing what
happens about him the child is continually explaining
things to himself and others by a reference to general
truths already acquired. Thus he accounts for the
melting of the snow by the sun by bringing it under
the general principle that heat melts substances.
Similarly he accounts for praise or blame administered
in a particular case by referring to a general rule, as
that all kind actions are praiseworthy or that all cruel
actions are blameworthy.1

Imperfect and Perfect Deductive Reasoning. The
processes of deductive reasoning may lead to a valid

1 When no previously ascertained principle or rule can be found, the mind
is capable of supposing a reason. This is called framing a hypothesis. In
common life and in scientific inquiries we are frequently driven to invent
suppositions or hypotheses for the sake of explaining observed facts. This is
one of the highest manifestations of the constructive or synthetic activity of
the mind.

430 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

or invalid conclusion. It is the business of Logic to
point out the conditions of valid argument. The
psychologist is only interested in the distinction in so
far as he has to account for all processes of inference,
unsound as well as sound.

Without going into the details of deductive error
or fallacy, we may point out that since reasoning is a
detection of similarity, the great source of erroneous
reasoning is confusion or want of discrimination. As
was pointed out above, the bad reasoner cannot see
where similarity ends and difference begins. Among
the most common errors in deductive argument are
those arising from the ambiguity of terms. When the
mind fails to distinguish between different shades of
idea attaching to the same word, it is exceedingly
liable to go astray. Our very eagerness to find a
reason for a thing may precipitate us into this confu-
sion ; as we see every day in the explanations offered
by loose reasoners of things lying beyond their special
ken. And any agitation of feeling, by dulling the
discriminative power, is greatly favourable to such
confusion of thought.

This liability is furthered by the circumstance that
in our processes of reasoning words tend to become
the substitutes of clear ideas about things. The rela-
tions of dependence between judgment and judgment
can to a large extent be detected quite apart from any
inspection of the meaning of the terms. In many of
the rapid processes of internal thought the mind tends
to rush from step to step of the reasoning with only
the slightest glance at the meaning of the terms.
Hence the liability to confusion. Similarly in follow-

DEDUCTIVE SEASONING. 431

ing the argument of another. When there is the
appearance of a logical order in a speaker's or writer's
statements, we are strongly disposed to accept the
reasoning as valid. The critical mind is one that
keeps this impulse to u$e words ' mechanically ' in
due check by closely examining into the ideas under-
lying the words. l

Complex Reasoning. Most of our everyday rea-
sonings are not of the simple character just described.
They are compound processes. Thus a fact or facts
which we observe may suggest a truth (induction)
We then go on to draw a conclusion from. this. Then
perhaps we test this conclusion by new observations.
Or we bring the truth thus suggested into relation to
other truths already reached, in order to see whether
it is consistent with these, and whether it receives
any support from them. In other cases we pass by
way of deduction alone through a whole chain of
reasoning, as when we think out a series of effects
of some known cause which we suppose to be put into
operation. What we know as a lengthy process of
argument is a highly complex chain of inference, in
which the mind now sets out from facts or illustra-
tions mounting to truths or principles, now traces
out the results of known truths. The methods of
science too are made up of such combinations of in-
ductive and deductive reasoning.

Reasoning about Probabilities. An important de-
partment of complex reasoning has to do with proba-

1 Of course this mechanical use of language is in certain cases not only
allowable, but a good saving, e.q., in the symbolic language of mathematics
(algebraic symbols, &c.). On the nature and limits of such a legitimate use of a
language, see J. S. Mill, System oj Logic, Vol. II., Book IV., Chap. VI., § 6.

432 JUDGMENT AND SEASONING.

bilities. Many so-called universal truths are only
rouglily or * approximately ' universal. They hold
good of most cases of a certain class, but not of all.
Hence we cannot have that degree of certainty in
reasoning from them that we have in reasoning from
such truths as those of geometry, which have no ex-
ception. Our conclusions are only probable. The
great region of probability is human action, the
motives which determine it, and its results. It is
always hazardous to say a man must have acted in a
certain instance from a given motive ; or that a cer-
tain plan of action, involving the co-operation of other
minds, will in a particular case be followed by a
definite result.

This being so, reasoning about probabilities takes
place by combining a number of considerations. Thus
in order to prove a fact on testimony it is necessary
to have corroborative evidence. We cann%t safely
conclude that because one man asserts a thing, it is
true. He may have been mistaken in what he thought
he saw. Again, these processes of reasoning involve a
weighing of considerations one against another. For
example we have often to settle a problem like this :
' Did the child, break this by accident or on purpose ?'
' Is it self-interest or affection which is prompting him
to do this?' 'Will this plan of treatment correct the
boy's fault or will it harden him ?' In all such cases
the mind is called on to consider a number of circum-
stances and the principles applicable to them, and to
decide according to the preponderance of evidence on
one side or another, and in some cases even to suspend
judgment altogether.

COMPLEX REASONING. 433

In all such cases the final belief (or suspension of judgment) is a
resultant of different tendencies, answering in their relative degrees of
strength to the degrees of firmness of the associations involved. Hence
the different probative or belief-producing force of the same considera-
tions to different individual minds according to their special experience.
It may be added that here, too, the conclusion is frequently reached in
the first instance by a process of rapid ' intuitive ' insight before the
several considerations are distinctly set forth as a logical theory of pro-
bability would require. In many cases, indeed, minds which display
considerable skill in reaching conclusions by such a complex process of
semi-conscious inference are quite unable to set forth the grounds of their
conclusion. As we saw above, a man of ' practical judgment ' can often
decide well, and yet not be able to justify his decisions to others.

The region of practical conduct illustrates this kind
of complex reasoning. As we shall see by and by,
rational or wise conduct involves the capability of
taking in all the circumstances, of measuring accu-
rately the relative probability of this or that result,
and the comparative advantages and disadvantages of
this or that course of action.

Activity of Mind in Reasoning. From this brief
account of the chief varieties of the reasoning process
the reader will see its close dependence on the earlier
intellectual processes, observation, and reproduction.
To carry on a process of reasoning it is necessary that
the mind be well stored with facts gained either by
personal observation or by instruction. It is further
necessary that the mind have a firm hold on truths or
principles fitted to explain new facts. To this must
be added facility in construction, in forming new
notions and hypotheses.

Nor will all this avail without a proper development
of voluntary attention and the power of concentration.
To reason out a thing implies intense and prolonged
activity of mind. In seeking an explanation of some

43 i JUDGMENT AND KEASONING.

fact, say the odd conduct of one of our friends, the
mind performs an elaborate process of search. It
has from the beginning to keep steadily in view the
object of this search. It then singles out for special
consideration from among all the thoughts called up
those which bear on this object. Thus in the case
supposed we fix our attention on other actions of the
same person, or of other persons, on familiar prin-
ciples of human nature, and so forth, in the hope of
finding the key to the puzzle. Not only so, when
the process is perfect the will is called on to resist the
tendencies to confusion, and the influences of feeling
and bias, which have been spoken of above. The
greater the concentration, the more perfectly the re-
presentation of the desired result dominates all the
mental processes of the time, compelling them to con-
verge on this result, the higher will be the quality of
the reasoning. l

Belief and Knowledge. As we have seen, all knowledge on its
subjective side is belief. To know a truth is to be assured of it. What
the term knowledge implies more than belief is an objective fact, namely
the adjustment and conformity of belief to reality or truth. The ques-
tion as to the validity of knowledge, the criterion by which we are to
decide how far any belief is objectively valid, is as already pointed out
a problem not of psychology, but of theory of knowledge.

Without entering into this philosophical question we may briefly
refer to the psychological marks which difference merely believing from
knowing. The most obvious difference is one of degree. In every day
language we speak of knowing when we are perfectly certain and free
from doubt, as when we say that the sun is now shining, or that two
and two make four. On the other hand, we talk of believing when we
have an inferior degree of certainty as when we say, that it will rain by
and by, or that there are icebergs in the arctic regions. In matters of

1 Compare the remarks on the relation between power of concentration and
intellectual power (p. 100). The nature of the will's action in the control of
thought and feeling will be more fully investigated by and by.

REASONING AS ACTIVITY. 435

memory we say that we know a thing happened when the occurrence is
recent and the remembrance distinct, but that we believe it happened
when the event is remote and the images indistinct. Mere strength or
intensity of belief, however, is not the sole distinguishing mark of
knowing. We often feel ' instinctively ' sure of a thing without being
able to say that we have knowledge. Blind faith may be of the
strongest, yet it is marked off from cognition. Knowing implies over
and above mere belief, a process of reflection on it, a clearing, illu-
mining, or intellectualising of it by critical inspection. In believing
we have the emotional aspect of conviction uppermost ; in knowing we
have its intellectual side made prominent. Most of our knowing begins as
vague conjecture or foreboding, and grows distinct by stages. This applies
not only to our every day knowledge, but also to scientific cognition.1

The ' conduct of the understanding ' has for its object the testing and
sifting of our beliefs. This consists in critically examining the meaning
of our judgments, rendering the ideas distinct, and finally of considering,
in the light of logical principles, their relations of dependence. By these
processes the mind reaches knowledge, first of all in the shape of persistent
intuitive beliefs which no critical reflection can shake, and secondly, of
beliefs which are recognised as following necessarily from these. In
this way the first crude beliefs become clear apprehensions of truth, or
are dissolved into mere phantoms of knowledge.2

Development of Powers of Judgment and Reason-
ing. The powers of judging and reasoning show
themselves later than the power of conception. A
child a year old will, as we have seen, name objects,
and form rudimentary notions about things, but he
cannot yet form explicit judgments.3 The first ex-

1 It may be added that the mental state implied in knowing involves a
more or less distinct reference to the common mind. Belief, as conti'asted
with knowledge, is variably affected by the temperament and circumstances
of the individual. Hence the consciousness of possessing knowledge includes
the assurance that we are one with the common intelligence.

2 The psychological characteristics of knowledge are dealt with by Volk-
mann, Lehrbuch dcr Psychologie, § 124. The distinction between Belief and
Kuovvledge has played an important part in philosophical discussions. See
Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures on Logic, Vol. II., Lect. XXVII., p. 63, and p.
70 seq. J. S. Mill, Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, Chap. V.

3 When a child of eighteen months on seeing a dog exclaims ' Bow-wow, '
or on tasting his food exclaims 'Ot' (hot), or on letting fall his toy says
' Dou ' (down), he may be said to be implicitly framing a judgment : ' That is
a dog,' ' This milk is hot,' ' My plaything is down '.

436 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

plicit judgments are concerned with individual objects.
The child notes something unexpected or surprising in
an object and expresses the result of his observation
in a judgment. Thus, for example, the boy more
than once referred to, whom we will call C., was first
observed to frame a distinct judgment when 19 months
old, by saying ' Dit ki ' (sister is crying).

These first judgments have to do mainly with the
child's food, or other things of prime importance to
him. Thus among the earliest attempts at com-
bining words in propositions made by C. already
referred to were the following : * Ka in milk ' (some-
thing nasty in milk) ; ' Milk dare now ' (there is still
some milk in the cup). Towards the end of the
second year quite a number of judgments is given
out having to do with the peculiarities of objects
which surprise or impress the mind, their altered posi-
tions in space, &c. Among these may be instanced the
following : ' Dat a big bow-wow' (that is a large dog) ;
' Dit naughty ' (sister is naughty) ; ' Dit dow ga '
(sister is down on the grass). As the observing
powers grow, and the child's interest in things widens,
the number of his judgments increases. And as his
powers of detecting relations and of uttering and
combining words develop, he ventures on more
elaborate statements, e.g., 'Mama naughty say dat
(2 years).

An interesting phase of this early stage of the
growth of judgment is the acquisition of the signs
of negation, 'no,' 'not'. The first sign of negation
is a shake of the head, but this is used as a mark
rather of unwillingness or disinclination than of

GROWTH OF JUDGMENT. 437

logical rejection. C. did not make a distinct negative
statement till well on in his third year.

The employment of the sign ' no ' presupposes
a knowledge of two alternatives (truth and falsity).
It is greatly aided by the habitual employment of
questions. A question when understood brings home
to the mind two opposed and mutually exclusive
statements. The way in which the negative particles
are first used is very instructive. C. (early in his
third year) was in the habit of framing a statement
and then appending the sign of negation thus : ' N.
(his name for himself) go in water — no'. It was
observed, further, in the case of two children that
during the third year they were apt to couple affirma-
tive and negative statements, e.g., 'This I's cup, not
mania's cup'; 'This a nice bow-wow, not nasty bow-
wow '. This suggests that a child at this early stage
when first seizing the meaning of a negation is wont
to set forth explicitly the negation implied in an affir-
mation.

As intelligence develops the child becomes capable
of judging not only about particular objects but about
classes. Thus he picks up and repeats the general
statements made by those about him as for example,
' naughty children play with the dirt '. The growth
of the power of judging is marked by an increase oil
a cautious and critical spirit in relation to affirmation.
What is seen is described more accurately The
tendencies to exaggerate, to misstate, due to the influ-
ence of feeling (the desire to astonish, amuse, and so
on) are curbed. The tendency to give reality to the
fictions of fancy is restrained. The child's wider

438 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

experience supplies him with a rudimentary standard
of what is possible and impossible, probable and im-
probable. Further, the statements of others are
inspected and criticised, and so the power of denying
or negating strengthened. The transition from child-
hood to youth is marked by a considerable increase of
independence in judging about things. The boy of
twelve is apt to form his own opinions about things,
and to adhere to them even when opposed by others.

Growth of Reasoning Power. In close connection
with this progress of judgment there goes on the
development of the power of inferring or drawing
conclusions. At first, as observed, the process is
implicit, from particulars to particulars. The first
distinct trace of this power was seen in the case of C.
when he was 17 months old. He asked fo» bread and
butter (which he called ' bup '). Not being immedi-
ately attended to, he stretched out his hand towards
the bread-knife lying on the table, still repeating the
sound. This action clearly implied the recognition of
a relation between the knife and the satisfaction of
his want. The pressure of want first brought his
power of inference into play.1 A distinct step was
noted at the end of the 21st month. His father told
him not to eat some brown sugar which he was taking
out of a bag. He answered promptly and emphatically
'Ni!' This was clearly finding a reason by way of
justification, ' I eat it because it is nice '.

First Reasonings about Cause. As already ob-

His father purposely tried his patience a day or two after when he was
asking for 'blip' He looked at him, still clamouring for 'bup'. Then
getting more excited he bethought him of the expedient of pointing to his
empty plate.

GROWTH OF REASONING POWER. 439

served, the child's first reasonings about cause are
very crude. He snatches from his past experience
any analogous case in order to explain the happening
of things. This leads to an anthropomorphic inter-
pretation of events. For example, C. in his 24th
month found a pebble in his box of bricks. His
mother asked him what it was doing there, and he
replied, 'Wa pay bricks'.1 Early in his third year
he got into the way of asking who made this and
that thing. He argued that everything imperfect,
such as a flower without a stem, could be ' mended '
Again, noticing pips in an orange, he asked 'Who
put pips there — cook ?'

By the end of the third year a child is wont to
perplex his mother by asking the 'Why?' of every-
thing. He now looks at things as occurring for a
purpose, and can only understand them in so far as
they present some analogy to his own purposive ac-
tions.

As the child's mind expands the real relations of
things are more clearly detected and set forth in the
shape of inductive conclusions. He now begins to
apprehend the true nature of causation, to understand
the working of the forces of nature about him. But
it is probable that no adequate discrimination of the
region of human action and of natural causes is reached
in average cases till the period of youth is entered
on.2 And it is only in this later stage of development

1 That is, 'Wants to play bricks' In justice to C. it must be added
that he instantly went on to reflect. Looking at the pebble he sagely
observed, ' No auds ' (' It has no hands ').

2 A girl aged 5 years 9 months once asked her mother, 'What nrakes the
wind, mama ? Is it a great big fan somewhere ?'

440 JUDGMENT AND EEASONING.

when the powers of abstraction are acquiring strength
that the higher inductions which we call the laws and
principles of science can be fully grasped.

The same line of remark applies to the growth of
deductive reasoning. A boy of 3 or 4 will apply
a simple rule to a particular example. But such
applications are of the most obvious kind. To recog-
nise an action as one of a certain class (e.g., cruel, or
kind), and to reason that it is on that account worthy
of condemnation or commendation implies but little
power of abstraction, and but little power of detecting
similarity among the relations of things. Facility in
drawing conclusions from principles is gradually ac-
quired by means of repeated exercises. The growth
of reasoning power will manifest itself in discovering
the less obvious applications of a rule or principle.
And as his stock of general truths increases the boy
will find more and more scope for exercising his
reasoning powers in drawing conclusions from them.
Finally, after his powers of deductive reasoning have
been thus strengthened in comparatively simple exer-
cises, he will be able to perform more difficult feats
of complex argument, and work out chains of demon-
stration as those of Euclid.

Varieties of Reasoning Power. There are well
marked differences of reasoning power among indi-
vidual minds. One person has a greater aptitude in
discovering similarities among things and their re-
lations, in seizing and applying a principle, than
another person. Thus of two men in view of the
same group of facts, one will leap quickly to the
general law or principle underlying them, while

DIFFERENCES OF REASONING POWER. 441

another will fail to detect it. Similarly or e man
much more readily brings new facts under old truths
than another. Superiority of reasoning power is
roughly measurable by the facility with which new
principles are thus discovered and old ones applied to
new cases.

These differences, like those in the case of the other
faculties, are general or special. A may be a better
reasoner all round than B. But it usually happens
that A will show his superiority in some special
direction. To begin with, there may be a special
leaning to one kind of reasoning process. There is
the inductive mind,' quick in the observation and
analysis of facts, and delighting to trace out the
laws of phenomena. Such a mind is wont to refer
from principles to facts, and to be sceptical of asser-
tions not grounded on observed facts On the other
hand, there is the deductive or demonstrative mind
given to dwelling on abstract truths rather than on
concrete facts, and skilful in combining these into an
orderly argument. The first type is that of the
physical inquirer, the second that of the mathema-
tician. A third type is the practical reasoner, apt at
seizing all the principles bearing on a complex case,
and balancing one reason against another so as to
arrive at a just or probable conclusion.

It is to be observed, further, that excellence of rea-
soning power commonly displays itself in relation to
some particular kind of subject-matter. Thus the
geometrical reasoner is one who reasons well about
geometrical matters, who is quick in detecting the
relations between the several properties of figures,

442 JUDGMENT AND' SEASONING.

and of applying geometrical principles or axioms
in new ways. In like manner we find the good
chemical reasoner, the good mechanical reasoner, and
so on.

These differences, like other intellectual inequalities,
turn partly on inequalities of native aptitude, and
partly on differences in circumstances and education.
Children are not equally endowed with reasoning
power to begin with. This is a truth too familiar to
need illustration. Not only so, a child may be led
by natural taste and disposition to exercise his rea-
soning powers in a particular way. Thus the boy
with a decided turn for active experiment will natu-
rally (other things being equal) be a better physical
inquirer than a comparatively inactive boy given to
reflection and reverie. Yet while the measure of
reasoning power, and to some extent the special field
of its operation, are thus in a manner determined by
nature, they are both liable to be greatly influenced
by the special surroundings of the child, and the type
of education which he receives. Though endowed
with comparatively feeble reasoning power, he may by
judicious exercise attain, if not a brilliant, yet at least
a fair measure of proficiency. And mucu may be
done by special training in fixing the precise line of
development of the reasoning faculty.1

1 The effect of practice or habit in improving the reasoning power in
special directions is well shown by Locke. " It is true that he that reasons
well in any one thing has a mind naturally capable of reasoning well in others,
and to the same degree of strength and clearness, and possibly much greater,
had his understanding been so employed. But it is as true that he who can
reason well to-day about one sort of matters, cannot at all reason to-day about
others, though perhaps a year hence he may" (Of the Conduct of the Under-
standing, Sect. 6, pp. 20, 21).

DIFFERENCES OF REASONING POWER. 443

Training of the Powers of Judgment and Reasoning. To

train a child's power of judging is to exercise him in framing
judgments by inviting him to observe and describe an object, to
narrate something which has happened to him, to repeat carefully
what he has heard, to submit propositions for his acceptance and
rejection, and so on. Here the mother or teacher should aim at
caution and accuracy of statement. The tendency of children to
exaggerate needs to be carefully watched and counteracted. The
child should be accustomed to think well about the words he uses,
to see all that is implied in them, as well as all that is contradicted
by them. And here a knowledge of the logical processes called
opposition, conversion, and obversion will prove serviceable to the
teacher. All this regulation of judgment is however a matter of
some delicacy. Children delight in vivid and picturesque state-
ment, and a touch of exaggeration is perhaps pardonable. A too
strict insistence on precision in the early stages may discourage
confidence, and lead to an untimely hesitation in judgment.

A perplexing problem in the training of the judgment is to
draw the line between excessive individual independence, and
undue deference to authority. The power of judgment is, as we
have seen, more fully exercised when the child forms an opinion
for himself than when he passively receives one from his mother
or teacher. To exercise the judgment is thus to draw out his
power of judging for himself. And this can be very well done
in certain regions of observation, as for example in judging
about the beauty of natural objects and works of art. On the
other hand, it is obvious that with respect to other matters the
child's liberty of judging must be curtailed. It would not do to
allow a young child with his limited experience to decide what is
possible or probable in a given case ; and still less to permit him
to pronounce on the Tightness or wrongness of an action. To
combine the ends of authority and of individuality in respect of
judging requires much wisdom and skill in the trainer of the
young. Differences of children's temperament (sexual and indi-
vidual) must here be taken account of. To train a boy's power of
judgment is in general a different process from that of training a
girl's. A timid child disposed to rely on others requires another
regime from that suitable to a rash and confident child disposed

444 JUDGMENT AND KEASONING.

to question all authority and to set up dogmatically his own views
of things.

The training of the Reasoning Powers must go on hand in hand
with that of Judgment. In the earliest stage (from about the
beginning of the 4th year) the mother is called on to satisfy the
child's curiosity or desire for explanation. This period is an
important one for the subsequent development of the child.
Parents are apt to think that children not infrequently put ques-
tions in a half-mechanical way, without any real desire for an expla-
nation, and even for the sake of teasing. "Without as yet going
into the question of the nature of children's impulses of curiosity,
we may say that so far as their questionings involve a genuine desire
for knowledge, it is well in general to heed and satisfy them. It
seems a good rule to give an explanation wherever a simple one is
possible, provided of course that the knowledge is not attainable
by the child's own intellectual exertions. This is Locke's advice :
' Encourage his Inquisitiveness all you can, by satisfying his de-
mands, and informing his Judgment, as far as it is capable (Some
Thoughts concerning Education, § 122)'.1 It may be even well at
first to descend to the child's level, and to look at the world
through his anthropomorphic glasses. The forces of nature may
be personified and so her simple processes (e.g., the exhalation of
vapour and its condensation in rain) presented to the child in a
form which is not only intelligible but which is certain to interest
him by its picturesqueness. 2

1 Of course children's questions are often unanswerable. Thus a little
girl of 4^ years once drove her mother to one of the most difficult problems
of philosophy — thus : She sees a wasp on the window pane and wants to
touch it. Her mother says, ' No, you must not, it will sting you '. Child :
' Why doesn't it sting the glass ?' Mother : ' Because it can't feel '. Child :
' Why doesn't it feel ?' Mother : ' Because it has no nerves '. Child : ' Why
do nerves feel ? ' The young must be exercised in taking some truths on
trust, and not asking the ' why ? ' of everything. George Eliot says some-
where : ' Reason about everything with your child, you make him a monster,
without reverence, without affections '. The problem how to deal with children's
questions is thoughtfully handled by M. Perez, L' Education dbs le Berceau,
Chap. II., p. 45, scq. The solution of the problem clearly turns largely on our
view of the nature of children's curiosity, a subject to be touched on by and by.

2 This way of presenting simple scientific facts and truths to children has
been attempted with eminent success by Miss A. Buckley in her pleasant
volume, The Fairyland of Science.

TRAINING- OF REASONING FACULTY. 445

But the training of the reasoning powers includes more than
the answering of the spontaneous questionings of children. The
learners must be questioned in their turn as to the causes of what
happens about them. A child cannot too soon be familiarised with
the truth that everything has its cause and its explanation. The
mother or teacher should aim at fixing a habit of inquiry in the
young mind by repeatedly directing his attention to occurrences,
and encouraging him to find out how they take place. He must
be induced to go back to his past experiences to search for analogies,
in order to explain the new event.

The systematic training of the reasoning powers must aim at
avoiding the errors incident to the processes of induction and
deduction. Thus children need to be warned against hasty induc-
tion, against taking a mere accidental accompaniment for a con-
dition or cause, against overlooking the plurality of causes. This
systematic guidance of the child's inductive processes will be much
better carried on by one who has studied the rules of Inductive
Logic. In like manner the teacher should seek to direct the young
reasoner in drawing conclusions from principles, by pointing out
to him the limits of a rule, by helping him to distinguish between
the cases that do, and those that do not fall under it, and by
familiarising him with the dangers that lurk in ambiguous lan-
guage. And here some knowledge of the rules of Deductive Logic
will be found helpful.

The training of the powers of judgment and reasoning should
be commenced by the mother and the elementary teacher in con-
nection with the acquisition of common everyday knowledge
about things. Its completion, however, belongs to the later stage
of methodical school instruction. There is no subject of study
which may not in the hands of an intelligent and efficient teacher
be made helpful to this result. Thus the study of physical geo-
graphy should be made the occasion for exercising the child in
reasoning as to the causes of natural phenomena. History, again,
when well taught, may be made to bring out the learner's powers
of tracing analogies, finding reasons for events (e.g., motives for
actions) and balancing considerations so as to decide what is pro-
bable, wise, or just in given circumstances.

The teaching of science is however the great agency for strength-

446 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

ening and developing the reasoning powers. Science is general
knowledge expressed as precisely as possible, and the study of it
serves to give accuracy to all the thinking processes. Science is
further an orderly arrangement of knowledge according to its
dependence. It sets out with principles gained by induction, and
then proceeds in a systematic way to trace out deductively the
consequences of these principles. It thus serves to train the
reasoning powers in an orderly and methodical way of proceeding.

Some sciences exhibit more of the inductive process, others more
of the deductive. The physical sciences are all, to some extent,
inductive, resorting to observation, experiment and proof of law
by fact. And some of these, as for example chemistry and physio-
logy, are mainly inductive. In these the inquirer is largely con-
cerned with observing and analysing phenomena and arriving at
their laws. On the other hand, the mathematical sciences are
almost entirely deductive. Here the principles are simple and self-
evident, and the stress of the reasoning is the combining of these
and arriving at new results by deduction or demonstration. Hence
physical science offers a better training in inductive reasoning,
whereas mathematics supplies the better exercise in deductive
reasoning.

All sciences as they progress tend to grow deductive. That is
to say, deduction plays a larger and larger part in them. This is
illustrated in the growing application of mathematics or the science
of quantity to the physical sciences. It holds good, however, of
all branches of science. Thus, for example, it applies to grammar
and the science of language. At first men had to observe and
analyse the facts, the various forms and connections of words, as
used in every day speech, and to discover the laws which govern
them. But the laws once reached, the science takes on a deductive
form, that is, sets out with definitions and principles and traces
out their results.

This being so, it follows that the proper order of exposition, or
the method of teaching, may deviate from the natural order of
arriving at knowledge by the individual mind left to itself. In
other words the ' Method of Instruction ' differs from the ' Method
of Discovery '. 1 Yet the natural order ought never to be lost sight

1 See Jevons, Elementary Lessons in Logic, Lesson XXIV.

TKAINING OF SEASONING FACULTY. 447

of. Principles cannot be taught before some examples are given,
though it may be unnecessary to retravel over all the inductive
steps by which the race has arrived at these principles. Even such
'self-evident' truths as the axioms of geometry require, as mathe-
matical teachers are well aware, a certain amount of illustration by
concrete instances.1 Thus the right method of teaching a subject
illustrates in a manner the order of discovery.

Much the same kind of considerations as apply to the best
order of expounding a single subject apply to the best order of
dealing with different subjects. This is broadly determined by
psychological principles, the laws of the growth of faculty. Psy-
chology tells us that subjects appealing mainly to memory and
imagination (e.g., geography and history) should precede subjects
exercising the reasoning powers (mathematics, physical science).
But within these broad limits the special arrangement has to be
determined by logical considerations. That is to say, we have to
consider the relative simplicity of the subjects, and the dependence
of one subject on another. By such considerations we arrive at
the rule that applied mathematics should follow pure, and that
physiology should come after chemistry.2

APPENDIX.

On the nature of the processes of Judging and Reasoning it is difficult to
refer the reader to good authorities in English. These operations have heen
usually dealt with by the logician for his special purpose, and the psychologist
has too often heen content to accept his account of them. Perhaps the best
analysis of the reasoning process is contained in Mr. H. Spencer's chapters on
Reasoning in his Principles of Psychology, Vol. II., particularly Chap. VIII.
It is however in German works on psychology that the nature of the opera-
tions of judging and reasoning is best unfolded. See especially Waitz.
Lehrbuch der Psychologic, Section IV., § 49 and following ; Volkmann, Lelir.
buck der Psychologic, Section VII. B and C ; Horwicz, Psychologischc Analyscn,
2er Theil, le Hiilfte.

1 What applies to practical principles applies to those of Science

" Longum iter est per praecepta :
Breve et efficax per exempla ".

2 In connection with this subject the reader should read Prof. Bain, Edu-
cation as a Science, Chap. VI., 'Sequence of Subjects— Psychological,' Chap.
VII., 'Sequence of Subjects— Logical' ; also his appendix on the classification
of the Sciences in his Manual of Lopic.

448 JUDGMENT AND SEASONING.

In connection with the practical side the student should read Locke's
little work Conduct of the Understanding (edited by Prof. T. Fowler). He
should further master the elements of deductive and inductive logic as ex-
pounded in such a work as Professor Jevons' Elementary Lessons. Finally, on
the application of Logic to Educational Method the student may consult (in
addition to the chapter in Jevons' Elementary Lessons) Th. Waitz's Allge-
meine Pcedagogik, § 22.

CHAPTER XI.

FEELING : SIMPLE FEELINGS.

HAVING now briefly reviewed the growth of intellect,
we may pass on to trace the second great phase of
mental development, the growth of the feelings.

Feeling defined. By feeling is meant any state of
consciousness which is pleasurable or painful. The
feelings are pleasures and pains of various sorts,
agreeable and disagreeable states of mind. Every
feeling is either pleasurable or painful, agreeable or
disagreeable, in some degree. At the same time
there are many mixed states of feeling, such as grief,
anger, and so on, which are partly the one and partly
the other, and it is sometimes difficult to say which
element preponderates.1

In the second place feeling includes pleasures and
pains of all kinds. Thus the term covers first of all
those simple mental effects which are the direct result
of nerve-stimulation, and which are commonly marked
off as ' sensations ' of pleasure and pain, such as the
pains of hunger and thirst, and the corresponding

1 Prof. Bain speaks of a third mode of feeling distinct from pleasure and
pain, which he calls neutral excitement (The Emotions and the Will, 3rd Ed.,
p. 13, &c.). It may, however, be questioned whether any feeling as such
can be indifferent. See Volkmann, Lehrbuch dcr Psycliologie, II., Sect. 128.

450 FEELING.

pleasures. In the second place, the term feeling com-
prehends the more complex effects which depend on
mental activity of some kind, and which are marked
off as emotions, such as fear, hope, admiration, and
regret.

Importance of studying the Feelings. As we have
seen, the feelings constitute a distinct, well-marked
phase or division of mind. Our pleasures and pains
make up the interesting side of our experience. The
objects of the external world only have a value for us
in so far as they touch our feeling. The life of
feeling, of joy and sorrow, is in a peculiar sense our
own inner life. Our knowledge has to do with ex-
ternal things, our actions when carried out are external
events, but our feelings belong to the inner subjective
world. Since the feelings are the elements of happi-
ness (or misery) it is clear that some knowledge of
their nature and laws is necessary to a sound theory
of the conditions of happiness.

But feeling is not merely a subject of great import-
ance in itself: it stands in certain relations to the
other two sides of mind. On the one hand it is con-
nected with intellectual growth, since it supplies the
interest of study. Hence no theory of intellectual
culture can be complete without some reference to the
emotional susceptibilities. On the other hand, feeling
stands in intimate connection with action and will.
The incentives and motives to action are represented
feelings (anticipations of satisfactions of various kinds).
The habitual directions of conduct follow the lead of
the dominant feelings. Hence the study of the feel-
ings is of great practical moment as a preparation for

NATURE OF FEELING. 451

the theory of moral culture, and the formation of
character.

Relation of Feeling to Knowing. The relation of
the emotional to the intellectual side of mental growth
calls for a little fuller consideration. It is a relation
at once one of mutual opposition and of reciprocal aid.

In the first place, feeling and knowing are in a
manner opposed. The mind cannot at the same
moment be in a state of intense emotional excitement
and of close intellectual application. All violent
feeling takes possession of the mind, masters the
attention, and precludes the due carrying out of the
intellectual processes. Nice intellectual work, such
as discovering unobtrusive differences or similarities
among objects, or following out an intricate chain
of reasoning, is impossible except in a compara-
tively calm state of mind. Even when there is
no strong emotional agitation present, intellectual
processes may be interfered with by the subtle influ-
ence of the feelings on the thoughts working in the
shape of bias. Thus a child that finds a task dis-
tasteful is apt to reject the idea that the study is
useful. His feeling of dislike prejudices his mind and
blinds him to considerations which he would otherwise
recognise. Hence the special difficulties which, as
every teacher knows, are connected with the intel-
lectual training of children of a highly emotional
temperament.1

On the other hand, as we saw above, all intellectual

1 On the effect of feeling in interrupting the intellectual processes, see above,
pp. 316, 404. The perturbing effect of violent excitement on the attention
is closely connected with its effect on the muscles to be spoken of presently.

452 FEELING.

activity, since it implies interest, depends on the pres-
ence of a certain moderate degree of feeling.1 It may
be said, indeed, that all good and effective intellectual
work involves the presence of a gentle wave of plea-
surable emotion. Attention is more lively, images
recur more abundantly, and thought traces out its
relations more quickly when there is an under-current
of pleasure. Hence rapid intellectual progress is fur-
thered by lively intellectual feelings.2

It would appear to follow from this that the
growth of intellect itself in all its higher phases im-
plies the strengthening of certain feelings. In order
that there may be an interest in study and a motive
for intellectual effort certain emotions must be deve-
loped in the child's mind, such as the pleasure of
gaining reward, affection, and the ' intellectual emo-
tions ' of curiosity and love of knowledge.

While the progress of knowing thus depends in a
measure on that of feeling, the latter is still more
largely determined by the former. Feeling in all its
higher forms (emotions) involves intellectual pro-
cesses. It is the immediate accompaniment of per-
ceptions, representative images, and so on. Thus fear
is occasioned by the sight or the mental image of an

*/ O

object, e.g., a mad dog. Self-esteem (in its developed
form) presupposes the idea of self and the recognition
of certain qualities (e.g., skill, virtue) as belonging
to self. Many of our feelings, as affection for a person
and patriotism, involve numerous and complicated

1 See above, pp. 83, 92.

3 Goethe observes that the greatest depth of thought involves the greatest
development of emotion.

FEELING AND KNOWING. 453

processes of intellectual representation. The highest
feelings of all, such as reverence for truth and the
sentiment of justice, presuppose a process of abstract
thought, and consequently a considerable measure of
intellectual development. Hence the changes of emo-
tional life attending changes of intellectual pursuits,
and the progress of intellectual culture. This de-
pendence of feeling on intellectual activity makes it
convenient that the exposition of the Emotions should
follow that of the Intellect. l

We thus see how the cultivation of intellect and of
emotion involve one another in a measure. In order
to exercise the intellectual powers to the utmost, we
must aim at making study pleasurable. And if we
wish to strengthen the higher emotions, such as the
moral sentiment and the love of truth, we must seek
to exercise the intellectual powers,

The Expression of Feeling. The close connection
between mind and body is nowhere more plainly illus-
trated than in the correlation between states of feeling

1 The close connection between feeling and intellectual activity (representa-
tion) is emphasised by the German psychologists. Herbart, the founder of
the modern German school of psychology, sought to explain pleasure and
pain as the result of the interaction (mutual furtherance and hindrance) of
representations. The relation of feeling to intellectual activity (Vorstellen)
is carefully discussed by Volkmann fLehrbuch der Psychologic, Vol. II., Sect.
127 and Sect. 129), who argues strenuously against the older psychological
theory that feeling and intellection are necessarily antagonistic. Of. Lotze,
Mikrokosmits, Vol. I., p. 272, &c. In this country the intellectual or repre-
sentative substratum of feeling has been emphasised by Mr. H. Spencer
(Principles of Psychology, Vol. L, Part IV., Chap. VIII.). This writer gives
a new significance to this connection by means of his theory of Evolution.
According to this, our feelings are to no small extent made up of confused
representations (vague memories, echoings) of ancestral experiences. A novel
view of the relation of feeling to Intellection or thought has been propounded
by Horwicz, who regards thought as secondary to, and as a reaction on, feeling.
(See Appendix B.)

454 FEELING.

and certain bodily accompaniments. Feeling is accom-
panied by well-marked physical changes, including those
external manifestations which are commonly called
expression, facial movements, gestures, modifications
of vocal utterance, &c., together with certain internal
organic effects. Pleasure and pain, and to some ex-
tent the several kinds of pleasurable or painful feeling,
as anger, fear, love, reverence, have their distinct or
characteristic expression. So close is this connection
between the feeling and its bodily manifestation that
the adoption of the external signs of an emotion (look,
gesture, &c.) disposes the mind to fall into the appro-
priate feeling. This is illustrated not only in the
experiences of the actor but also in the workings of
sympathy which appears to begin with the imitation
of the external signs of feeling. The same fact of a
close connection between feeling and its bodily mani-
festation is seen in the control of feeling by the will.
This, as we shall see, involves the checking or inhi-
biting of the external movements.

The relation of Emotion to its bodily concomitants is a peculiarly
close one. All feeling, as involving an excitation of the nerve centres,
tends to 'diffuse itself over the nervous system in a cycle of effects.
The full development and continuance of a feeling depends on this
series of irradiating physical effects. When these are cut off, as when
we instantly repress the manifestation of a feeling, the emotional excite-
ment is greatly abated, and tends to subside. These physical changes
have in their turn concomitant sense-feelings (e.g., those attending the
disturbance of the heart's action in fear, those accompanying the partial
innervation of certain voluntary muscles in anger) and these last com-
bine with, and serve in part to give the character to, the emotion. But
they can be distinguished from the emotion proper to some extent, and
as Volkmann points out, they frequently outlast this in duration. The
familiar fact that ' giving way ' to the pressure of feeling tends to expe-
dite its subsidence may be explained by the consideration that the

EXPRESSION OF FEELING. . 455

movements carried out in this case cause a loss of intensity in the sen-
sations accompanying the emotion. r

Theories of Expression. These movements of expression are
partly instinctive, partly acquired. Crying, smiling, frowning, &c., are
instinctive, appearing uniformly in all cases very early in life Other
movements as clenching the fist are largely if not altogether instinctive.
In certain cases, imitation (conscious or unconscious) plays a part. In
this way we acquire to some extent, at least, the actions expressive of
moral displeasure (scolding, &c.) ennui, and so forth. In some cases
the will distinctly co-operates in the acquisition of so-called expressive
movements, as in adopting the customary look, tone of voice and gesture
of polite life.

Several theories have been propounded to account for these expres-
sive movements. It is generally agreed that owing to the close corre-
lation of mental and bodily processes, all feeling tends to produce
certain bodily effects, including movements, which are in their strength
and range proportionate to the intensity and persistence of the feeling.
Mr. Spencer seeks to show how feeling as it rises in intensity engages
muscles of larger and larger calibre, e.g., movement of fingers (twitch-
ing), then movement of arms, &c., as agitation increases. Wundt
adds that all feeling involves the motor centres of attention, and so
tends to disturb the due regulation of the thoughts. This is seen most
conspicuously in the effect of violent emotion of all kinds. In this
case, where we have the effect known as emotional shock, there is not
only a paralysing of the muscles, but an overpowering of the attention. 2

In order to account for the distinctive movements connected with
special kinds of feeling various theories have been propounded. Dr.
Bain contends that since pleasure is connected with an increase, and
pain with a decrease, in the vital energies, the expression of pleasure
contrasts in general with that of pain in respect of the greater vigour of
the actions. But the differences of vigour characterising the expression
of the various feelings do not seem to be connected with their pleasur-
able or painful character. Strong and violent feelings whether plea-
surable or painful have very like results. Not only so, the strongly
marked contrast in point of energy between certain feeling, e.g., anger
on the one side, and fear on the other, does not coincide with a contrast
of pleasurable and painful. It seems connected with the nature of the
feeling as exciting to activity or energetic in character, or depressing
and paralysing.3

1Tliis is Volkmann's theory. The reader will do well to read his interest-
ing account of the relation of emotion to what he calls reflex sensation,
Lehrbuch der Psychologic, Vol. II., § 129.

2 See his Pkysiol. Psychologic, II., Cap. XVIII., p. 328, &c.

3 Kant divided feelings according to this mode of manifestation into sthenic
and asthenic. See Wundt, loc. cit., p. 329.

456 FEELING.

This leads on to the question how particular modes of feeling, as
anger, come by their characteristic bodily expression. So far as these
expressions are instinctive, they are attributed to the action of two
causes. (1) Certain movements were originally connected with certain
pleasurable or painful sensations as useful or serviceable actions,
whether consciously carried out for a purpose or not. Thus the mus-
cular action involved in shedding tears was originally called forth by
the presence of an irritating substance in the eye ; the action of raising
the palate and pressing down the tongue at the thought of something
'bitter' was originally performed in swallowing a bitter substance.
This would bring about a firm association between sensation and move-
ment, so that the representation of the former would tend to call forth
the latter. (2) The extension of the movement (by the force of sugges-
tion by similarity) to analogous feelings of all kinds. Thus the action
of secreting tears would become associated with all painful feelings, the
action of raising the palate, &c., with all 'bitter' experiences. These
connections or associations have been slowly built up in the course of
the development of the race, and are transmitted to each individual in
the form of instinctive tendencies. x

The Observation of Feeling: Temperament. The

fact that feeling thus distinctly manifests itself by
well-known expressive movements is of great import-
ance for the accurate observation of feeling. More
particularly the feelings of the young (who as a rule,
not having yet learnt the art of self-control and dis-
guise, are very frank in the expression of their feelings),
can be easily observed by means of these external
manifestations. In this way we are able to some
extent to measure feeling or emotional susceptibility.
Thus we may compare two children with respect to
the intensity and duration of a feeling under similar
circumstances. Or we may proceed by comparing the

1 On the principles by which the phenomena of emotional expression can
be explained, see H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, II., Part VIII., Chap.
IV. ; Prof. Bain, The Semes and the Intellect, 3rd Ed., Chap. IV., § 11 et seq,
(cf. Appendix B) ; C. Darwin, Expression of the Emotions, Chaps. I. — III. ;
Wundt, Physiol. Psychol., II., Cap. XXII. I have critically compared the
main theories in my volume, Sensation and Intuition, Chap. II.

LAWS OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 457

different amounts of stimulus or exciting force needed
to call forth a certain quantity of feeling in two
cases.

By this means something may be done to determine
differences of emotional temperament. We shall find
that some minds are more susceptible to pleasurable
and painful stimulations generally ; others more sus-
ceptible to the pleasurable than the painful results of
stimulation, or vice versa; and others, again, more
susceptible to particular modes of stimulation, as for
example the excitation of angry feeling, and so on.1

Laws of Pleasure and Pain. Psychologists have
long endeavoured to bring all the varieties of plea-
sure and pain, 'bodily' and mental/ under certain
laws. Although they cannot as yet be said to have
perfectly succeeded, they have formulated one or two
principles which appear to be approximately correct,
and which are of some practical consequence.

Law of Stimulation or Exercise. Of these the
principal law may be called the Law of Stimulation
or the Law of Exercise. All pleasure is the accom-
paniment of the activity of some organ which is con-
nected with the nerve centres, or the seat of conscious
life. Or, since this activity has its psychical con-
comitant, we may say that all pleasure is connected
with the exercise of some capability, faculty, or
power of the mind. And it will be found in general

] On the difficulties of estimating others' feelings, see Bain, The Emotions
and the Will, 3rd Ed., Chap. 1. (Interpretation and Estimate of Feeling). The
problem of classifying differences of emotional temperament on a scientific
principle has not yet been solved. The problem has been touched on by
Lotze, MfkrokotJmu, 6«s Buch, 2es Rap ; Wundt, Physiol. Psi/cho7oc/ie, Cap.
18, § 2 ; and by the other writers already referred to (see p. 37). See further,
my volume, Pessimism, Chap. XIV.

458 FEELING.

that all moderate stimulation of an organ, or all
moderate exercise of a capability, produces pleasure.

We may look at the pleasure as connected either with nervous con-
ditions, the activity of some organ, as sense-organ, muscle, brain itself,
or with some mode of mental activity. In setting forth the principle
some writers, as Hamilton, refer to the mental activity involved, whereas
others refer to the nervous processes. In general the nervous conditions
are more obvious in the case of simple sense-pleasures, the mental
activity, in the case of the complex pleasures or emotions. But nervous
conditions of some kind are involved in all varieties of pleasure. On
the other hand, even in the case of the simplest pleasures there is in-
volved a rudimentary form of mental activity, namoly that necessary to
having an impression with a certain degree of vividness.1 The objec-
tion against speaking of pleasure generally as connected with mental
activity is that by so doing we are apt to overlook passive pleasures,
more particularly those connected with the stimulation of the sense-
organs. Looking at its physiological conditions we find that pleasure
seems specially related to the sensory side of the nervous system. Even
in the case of active pleasures, e.g., those of muscular exercise, sensory
stimulation probably plays an important part.

This general law is most clearly illustrated in the
region of sensation, and particularly the sensations of
the higher senses. All moderate excitation of the eye
and the ear by their appropriate stimuli is pleasurable.
And the pleasure goes on increasing with the strength
of the stimulus up to a certain point. This may be
seen in the effect of dawn, and of a crescendo passage
in music. The same law is observable too in the case
of muscular exercise, and what we mark off as brain
exercise or intellectual activity. Moderate excitation
is agreeable, and the degree of its pleasure increases
with the amount of activity up to a certain point.

When, however, the stimulation passes a certain

1 Some writers, as Leibniz, suppose that in all cases the immediate con-
dition of 'pleasure is a mode of mental activity, namely a cognition ('percep-
tion,' ranging through all degrees of distinctness) of furthered vitality.

LAW OF STIMULATION. 459

limit the pleasurable effect diminishes, and rapidly
passes into a distinctly painful effect. Thus when
the light of the rising sun exceeds a certain intensity
the eye is fatigued or ' blinded ' Similarly very loud
sound is disagreeable to the ear. Violent muscular
exercise, intellectual activity involving great effort,
are for a like reason painful.

Scale of pleasurable and painful Stimulation. The exact rela-
tion of the degree of pleasurable or of painful feeling to the strength
of the stimulus is a matter of some difficulty. Wundt conceives a scale
somewhat as follows. As soon as the stimulus passes the threshold and
causes an appreciable sensation it begins to be pleasurable, and the
pleasure goes on increasing as the stimulus is increased. At length a
point or region of maximum pleasure is reached which probably answers
to that medium region of the scale where the finest discrimination is
possible. From here on the pleasure rapidly diminishes till a certain
'point of indifference' is reached. Above this any further increase,
produces pain, which in its turn increases till at the point known as
the Height (see above, p. 115) the maximum of pain is reached (Physiol.
Psychologie, Cap. X., Sect. 1). Wundt's supposition of an indifference-
point corresponds to some extent with Bain's idea of a neutral mode of
excitement already referred to.

While all pleasure seems to come by way of mode-
rate stimulation or activity, all pain does not arise by
way of excessive stimulation. Painful states of feeling
are occasioned in certain cases by the want of an
appropriate stimulus. This is illustrated to some
extent in the effect of darkness. Prolonged darkness
gives rise to a craving for light, which in part seems
connected with the circumstance that the organ is
ready for activity, but wants the necessary stimulus.
The restlessness and uneasiness of an active boy who
cannot indulge in muscular activity, and the mental
condition known as tedium, ennui, dullness, which is
connected with the absence of agreeable mental

460 FEELING.

stimuli or of outlet for mental activity, illustrate the
same principle.1

The painful feeling of craving is apt to be aroused
by all obstructions to activity These give rise to a
disagreeable sense of arrested or impeded activity.
Thus when a train of thought is obstructed by for-
getfulness of some link there is this craving for a
free outlet. The pains due to obstruction commonly
involve in addition to this an excess of activity in the
shape of a wearing effort to overcome them.2

It appears to follow that pleasurable activity lies
between two extremes of excessive or strained, and
defective or impeded exercise. It is important to add
that the terms moderate, excessive and defective are
relative to the customary amount of activity answering
to the natural strength, and the acquired habits of the
organ. An organ like the eye that is called on to be
active through a great portion of the waking life rarely
gives us the pain of fatigue. On the other hand, a
sense-organ like that of smell, which is only stimulated
at rare intervals, and in an irregular way, gives us no
sense of craving when the stimulus is absent. The
moderate degree of activity is, further, -related to the
temporary condition of an organ as fresh and vigorous,
or feeble. An amount of muscular exercise which is
pleasurable to a vigorous child will be painful to a
weakly one.

It is reasonable to suppose that the moderate ac-
tivity of an organ (as now defined) is beneficial to

1 These pains ot want or craving are duly emphasised by Mr. Spencer,
Principles of Psychology, Vol. I., Part II., Chap. IX.

2 Here the state of want, craving, or desire is looked on as a passive state
of feeling only. Its relation to action will be considered further on.

LAW OF STIMULATION. 461

that organ, promoting its health, and continued effici-
ency On the other hand either excess or deficiency
of activity may be supposed to be injurious, the first
by overtaxing and exhausting its energy (and possibly
damaging its structure), the second by leaving energy
pent up and needing a vent. We may say then that
pleasure depends on a due balance between the pro-
cess of stimulation on the one hand, and that of
reinvigoration on the other, or between the expendi-
ture and the accumulation of energy.

There are, as hinted, one or two apparent exceptions to this general
principle. In the first place, even low degrees of stimulation, involving
no excess of activity, may be painful. For example, bitter tastes are
disagreeable in all degrees. Wundt tries to meet this difficulty by saying
that in this case the indifference-point is so low that it is no longer
distinguishable from the threshold.1 Other phenomena, however, as
those of musical dissonance, which are disagreeable in all degrees, have
led some, as Fechner, to conjecture that pleasurable activity may de-
pend not only on the quantity or degree, but on the form of the
stimulus as suitable or unsuitable in some way to the requirements of
the organ.2 In the second place the absence of activity seems to be the
occasion not only of the pains of craving but of the pleasures of repose.
This will be touched on again under the following supplementary prin-
ciple.3

Principle of Change or Contrast. As a second
subordinate principle of pleasure and pain we have

1 Loc. cit., pp. 470, 471.

2 Vorschulc der dSsthetik, II., p. 266.

5 The law of stimulation nr exercise just formulated has been variously
expressed. Thus the pleasure has been referred to the increase of nerve-
energy, the transformation of potential energy into living force, and so forth.
For some of the modes of expressing the main law of pleasure, see Hamilton,
Lectures on Metaphysics, XLIII. ; L. Dumont, The'orie de la Sensibilite,
ire Part, Chap. II. ; Horwicz, Psych. Analysen, £er Theil, 2e Hiilfte, Sect. 2
seq. On the difficulties in the way of reducing all pleasures to a simple
principle of stimulation, see J. S. Mill, Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's
Philosophy, Chap. XXV., and Mr. E. Gurney, Power of Sound, Chap. I.,
Sect. 2.

40 2 FEELING.

the law of change or contrast. We have already
seen (p. 85) that a change of impression is a condi-
tion of prolonged mental activity. We have now to
note its effect on the feelings, and more particularly
on the pleasures. The understanding of the precise
bearing of change or variety of stimulation on the
emotional life is a matter of prime importance.

Effect of Prolongation of Pleasurable Stimulus.
In order to understand the effect of change on the
intensity of our pleasures it may be well to glance
at the correlative fact, the effect of prolonged and
of unvarying stimulation, and, generally, of what we
call familiarity and custom. It follows from the
general principle of pleasurable stimulation, that a
powerful stimulus continuing to act, or frequently
renewing its action, may become painful by fatiguing
or injuring the organ concerned. A momentary blast
of a horn, may be agreeable, but the continuance or
frequent 'renewal of the sound will be disagreeable.

In the second -place, even when there is no dis-
agreeable effect produced, a pleasurable stimulus if it
continues to act loses its pleasurable effect. The same
sight or sound ' over and over again ' soon ceases to
be a stimulus to attention. When we first walk out
into the fields on a spring morning the bright green
of the fields and woods, and the song of the birds
ravish us. But after an hour's walking we hardly
notice them. Many of the activities of the organism,
being constant and unvarying, supply under ordinary
circumstances no distinct consciousness, and therefore
no pleasure at all. Thus there is little enjoyment
attending the exercise of the respiratory functions in

PRINCIPLE OF CHANGE. 463

a usual way. And mental activity in so far as it
becomes regularly recurrent and uniform approximates
in character to this bodily activity. Our daily routine
of work is apt to lose its first pleasurableness by its
very uniformity. Unvarying surroundings however
agreeable at first, the same scenery and the same
faces, are apt to pall on the mind, producing the sense
of monotony and the craving for change.

Some writers have sought to give a precise form to the law of abate-
ment or 'decay' of pleasurable excitement. Dr. Bain argues that "it
is rapid at first ; while after a certain time, which may be weeks or
months, but seldom years, the further diminution is imperceptible"
(The Emotions and the Will, Pt. I., Chap. IV., § 3). We must carefully
distinguish between the effects of perfect uniformity or constancy and
of frequency in the application of the stimulus. Our home surround-
ings, the pictures on the walls, &c., by being always with us tend to lose
their pleasurable effect. On the other hand regularly recurring plea-
sures, as those of the table, social intercourse, &c., though by reason of
their regularity subject to the effect of abatement, by reason of their
intermittant character satisfy the conditions of change to some extent.
This tendency to loss or abatement in the case of all prolonged or
frequently recurring pleasures is counteracted in a measure by a
number of agencies. Of these one of the most important is the imagi-
nation of the absent term of the antithesis or contrast. By keeping in
mind the state of things in which the customary source of pleasure is
absent we are able to renew at will to some extent the first vivid inten-
sity of enjoyment. Thus we derive a considerable pleasure from the
consciousness of being in health, of being well provided for, &c., by
recalling the time when we wanted these go^. things, or by imagining
ourselves as wanting them. Hence the value .f all art that depicts or
represents wretchedness : it supplies to the imagination the foil or
element of contrast by a reference to what we realise some customary
good, and an old and familiar pleasure becomes in a manner a new one.
Persons of a vivid imagination, though they are exposed to more suffering
on this account, are in a much better position to derive pleasure from
customary and abiding sources than others. *

1 Other counteractions, more particularly the effect of association in
deepening the emotional value of what is familiar will be spoken of by and

by.

464 FEELING.

Effects or Change on Pleasurable Feeling. We see

then that pleasure involves change or contrast of
mental condition for a double reason : (1) because all
the more powerful modes of pleasurable stimulation
need to be limited in duration if they are not to
fatigue and produce pain instead of pleasure ; and (2)
because change, variety, or contrast of impression, is
a condition of that vigorous activity of attention on
which all vivid states of mind depend. The greater
the amount of change involved (provided it is not
violent, that is so great and sudden as to produce the
disagreeable effect of shock) the more intense in
general will be the resulting pleasure. Hence the
peculiar effect of strong contrasts in our experience,
e.g., between town and country surroundings.

This principle of change may be viewed under one of
two forms. In the first place, a pleasurable activity
of any kind may be regarded as a transition from an
inferior degree of activity of the particular organ or
faculty concerned. By inferior is here meant less
pleasurable, or painful instead of pleasurable. This
may be called the effect of change or contrast in the
degree of activity. In the second place, a pleasurable
activity may be viewed as a deviation from a pre-
ceding unlike mode of activity This may be called
the effect of change or contrast in the kind of activity.
It is commonly known as the effect of Variety and
Novelty. A word or two may suffice to illustrate
each effect.

Change in Degree of Activity. Activity is plea-
surable in so far as it is a transition from a previous
state of inactivity or of less activity The most in-

LAW OF CHANGE. 465

tensely pleasurable activities are preceded by a state
of impeded activity or enforced inactivity, with its
attending painful feeling of craving. Thus we greatly
enjoy fresh air after being deprived of it for a while.
Similarly the full enjoyment of health, liberty, and
so on, depends on a temporary loss and sense of need
of these possessions. A rise from a lower point in the
scale of activity gives the pleasurable feeling in a less
marked form. An increase in bodily vigour, in know-
ledge, in material possessions, in reputation, and so
forth, is attended with a pleasurable sense of ex-'
pan ding activity.

As pointed out by Fechner, there is a certain analogy between the
relation of increase of (pleasurable) stimulus to increase of pleasure, and
the ratio of increase of stimulus to that of sensation formulated in
Weber's Law. The more money ('fortune physique') a man has the
greater must be the increase in order that his happiness ('fortune
morale') may be appreciably augmented.1 But the relation is com-
monly more complicated than this. According to this theory a given
amount of new information ought to increase the pleasurable conscious-
ness of knowledge much more in the case of an ignorant than of a wise
person. Probably the relation does hold roughly as between childhood
and manhood. A new piece of knowledge is more to a child than to an
adult because it implies a greater increase of .his whole stock of know-
ledge. At the same time it must be remembered that the pleasure of
acquiring a new fact or truth varies directly as the amount of previous
knowledge with which it can be brought into connection.

Again, a transition from a state of excessive to one
of moderate activity is a common condition of plea-
sure. The passage from glaring sunlight to a moderate
light is accompanied by a distinct sense of relief.
When a task either bodily or mental is beyond our
powers, anything which lightens it gives a pleasant
sense of ease. The removal of hindrances or impedi-

1 G. T. Fechner, Elemente der Psijcho-plnjsik, Vol. I., IX., § 6.
30

466 FEELING.

ments which have necessitated a painful effort brings
pleasure by allowing activity to proceed at its natural
pace. All transition from states of over-excitement
to modes of quiet activity is agreeable. Even the
repose of an organ if unduly fatigued will be a source
of pleasure. The rest of the body after prolonged
muscular exercise, and of the brain after protracted
study gives a distinct feeling of pleasurable relief.

Change in the kind of Activity. In order that an
activity may be pleasurable it is not always necessary
that it should be preceded by a painful state of
craving or of over-exertion An adequate element of
change may be supplied by a due variation in the
kind of activity. In this way a pleasurable flow of
mental and bodily activity may be maintained over
a prolonged period, each organ and faculty having its
alternate stages of work and repose with a minimum
of the pains both of excessive and of defective activity.
Here again the effect of the change on the intensity
of the pleasure will vary as the amount of the change.
A transition from bodily to mental activity, or vice
versa, from the exercise of one sense-organ to another,
from one train of thought to a fresh and wholly dis-
connected train, illustrates this effect.

What are known as the pleasures of Novelty are
but one illustration of this law of change or Variety.
What is new, unfamiliar, or rare, acts, as we have
seen, as a very powerful stimulus to the attention,
and the mental activity as a whole : it involves a
marked change from customary modes of activity.
A novel experience in early life, such as the first
party, the first visit to the Pantomime, the first

VARIETY AND NOVELTY. 467

journey abroad, calls out new activities of mind, or
exercises the faculties in a fresh and unaccustomed
way. Hence the peculiar intensity of enjoyment
belonging to these first experiences of life. Where
the perfect enjoyment of novelty is precluded a
modest substitute for it is found in the rarity or
infrequency of an experience. The coming holidays
are always a pleasant excitement to a boy or a girl
at school. Any experience which is disconnected
with preceding events, and so comes upon us unex-
pectedly has something of the same effect.

The dependence of pleasure on change has been fully recognised by
ancient and modern writers. The doctrine of Plato that all pleasure is
negative, presupposing a preceding state of pain from which it is merely
an escape, emphasises this idea of the relativity of pleasurable feeling.
Many of our pleasures plainly depend on the removal of a previous
state of pain. It is doubtful, however, whether any pleasure owes its
existence solely to the circumstance of change or relief. The satisfaction
of a craving or a painful desire commonly liberates activities of some
kind. On the other hand, the pleasures of repose probably involve a
positive source of enjoyment in the setting free of energy for other
activities. Thus bodily repose by ending the drain on the energies
made by the muscles, favours the pleasurable activity of the vital organs,
and the flow of the mental operations.1

Dr. Bain singles out certain feelings, "Wonder, Novelty, Liberty, and
Power, as ' Emotions of Relativity,' since they depend in a peculiar
manner on a change of circumstances as their conditions. Thus the
delight in liberty is the pleasurable release from restraint. We only
enjoy freedom when we contrast the condition with that of restraint,
one actually experienced or imagined. Similarly with the pleasures of
power, superiority, &c.a

1 The theory that all pleasure is negative, being simply deliverance from a
previous state of pain was propounded by Plato, and has been adopted by
many of his successors. For an historical account of the theory see Dumont,
Theorie Scientifique de la Sensibilite, Part I., Chap. I. Those who regard
pain and pleasure as the concomitants of a hindrance and a liberation from
the same, tend to regard pleasure as something secondary and dependent
though positive. See Volkmann, op. tit., II., § 128.

2 The Emotions and the Will, Part I., Chap. IV.

468 FEELING.

Effect of prolonged painful Stimulation. So far we
have been considering the effects of prolongation and
of variation of stimulation in relation to pleasure only.
But in order to grasp all the conditions on which
pleasure depends we must glance at the influence of
the same circumstances on our pains.

A painful stimulation if prolonged tends in general
to lose its first powerful effect. A patient suffers less
from prolonged bodily pain (supposing the cause not
to increase), and we all suffer less from worries and
troubles when these are permanent and familiar.1
What is known as the loss or deadening of (painful)
sensibility illustrates the same principle. A child often
rebuked or laughed at suffers less and less. The
frequent application of the painful stimulus induces
a state of comparative apathy or indifference. Hence
we may say that intense pain like intense pleasure im-
plies a certain degree of change, variety, or novelty.

Accommodation to Stimulus. The effect of prolonged
stimulation, whether pleasurable or painful, in dimi-
nishino1 the intensity of the feeling evidently implies
a change in the condition of the. organ. There is a
process of adjustment or accommodation. What is
commonly called accommodation of organ to stimulus
involves more than this. It implies that a stimulus
which at first is distinctly disagreeable may in time
become not only indifferent but positively pleasurable.
This is illustrated in the acquired likings of the palate,
the fondness for alcoholic drinks, bitter condiments,

1 This tendency is often disguised by the fact that prolonged painful
stimulation involves more and more disturbance and therefore cause of piiiu.
Also the memory of previous pains persists and combining with the present
tends to augment the whole effect.

ACCOMMODATION TO STIMULUS. 469

and so on. As we shall see presently, the growth of
an organ or a faculty implies an accommodation to a
greater strength of stimulus, so that an amount of
exercise which was at first' excessive and painful, be-
comes pleasurable. In these cases the organ under-
goes a permanent accommodation either to a new kind
or a new degree of stimulation. *

Habituation. One other effect of prolongation or
frequent recurrence of stimulation in its bearing on
our pains remains to be touched on. As we saw
above, in the case of all customary pleasurable
stimuli the first intensity is lost. When we
become accustomed to our surroundings, our modes
of occupation, and even our modes of recreation,
these lose their first intense pleasurableness, and
become either sources of a comparatively quiet en-
joyment, or perhaps indifferent. But on the other
hand, the very fact that they are customary has as
its further result the attachment or clinging of the
mind to them, so that their removal or interruption
occasions a painful sense of strangeness and craving.
In other words repetition and use have in this case
given birth to a corresponding want. In this way
the effect of the prolongation or frequent recurrence
of a stimulus is not only to diminish the positive
pleasure connected with its presence, but also to
augment the negative pain (craving) connected with
its absence. This last part of the effect may be con-
veniently marked off as that of Habituation.

There is something corresponding to this in the case of prolonged

1 It is probable that in each case there is a strengthening of the organ,
though in different ways.

470 FEELING.

painful stimulation. The effect of repetition and custom is not only to
deaden sensibility and induce apathy so long as the painful stimulus
lasts, but to intensify the pleasure when the stimulus is withdrawn. A
child used to hard rebuffs will show a keen delight at receiving a kind
word. But here the case is complicated by the fact that the frequent
wounding of a sensibility tends to destroy it as a whole, that is on its
pleasurable and painful side alike. A child habitually treated with
harshness tends to become indifferent to others' feelings arid behaviour
altogether. It is said that the effect of long protracted confinement is to
destroy the relish for liberty when it conies. Every feeling requires a
certain amount of satisfaction or gratification, that is pleasurable stimu-
lation, for its maintenance as an emotional susceptibility.

The principles of Accommodation and Habituation
just touched on tend to limit the action of the
principle of Change, Variety, or Novelty, Change
is only a condition of pleasure within certain limits.
So far as the mind is able to accommodate itself to a
stimulus originally disagreeable, prolongation of the
process of stimulation is a condition of the enjoyment.
And so far as the mind comes under the influence of
habit, change is productive of pain and not of plea-
sure.

It is to be observed, further, that many pleasures, those that depend
on complex conditions, are only experienced after a certain measure of
mental persistence. The beauty of a natural scene, of a melody, and so
forth, is only felt after dwelling on it, or after a frequent return and
renewal of the impression. Hence all the more refined (intellectual
and aesthetic) pleasures involve a limitation of change. The love of
variety in its extreme form thus precludes the deeper kinds of enjoy-
ment.

The craving for change, and the clinging to what is
customary, are two great opposed principles in our
emotional life. The new ceases to delight when it
implies a rupture of continuity with the past, the
customary type of experience. Our happiness de-

LIMITS TO CHANGE. 471

pends on a due adjustment of these conditions. It
may be added that different minds have by nature
these two tendencies in very unequal measure. Some
children are by temperament fond of excitement,
variety, novelty. They delight in seeing new faces,
in being taken to new houses, and so on. Others
cling tenaciously to the old and familiar.1

Mutual Furtherance and Hindrance of Activities.
One other subordinate principle of pleasure and pain
has to be touched on. So far we have spoken of
the activity of an organ as though it were something
complete in itself and isolated from other activities.
But this is not the case. The several organs, brain,
sense-organs, muscles, &c., are closely connected one
with another. Hence the stimulation of any one has
indirect, remote, or extended effects, as well as direct,
proximate, or restricted effects. For instance, the
stimulation of the ear by a fine musical clang calls
into activity not only the auditory centre giving rise
to the sensuous pleasure of sound, but other con-
nected centres giving rise to a number of ideal or
associated pleasures. Not only so, as has been
pointed out in connection with the subject of the
physical accompaniments and expression of emotion,
every pleasurable or painful mental activity is at-
tended by a still wider range of effects in the shape of
modifications of the actions of the vital organs, and
the voluntary muscles.

It follows from this close connection of the several
nerve structures or organs that the condition of

1 On the whole effect of change and habit on pleasures and pains alike, see
G. T. Fechner, Vorschule der jEsthetik, I., p. 251, &c. ; II. , Chaps. XXXVIII.
and XXXIX,

472 FEELING.

one affects that o? the others. When the vital
processes of digestion and circulation go on well
the cerebral activities are furthered, the thoughts
flow freely, and the mind takes on a cheerful tone.
Conversely when the mind is cheered by happy
thoughts, the organic processes are promoted. On
the other hand, an overtaxing or impeding of the acti-
vities of any organ, not only leads to a painful feeling
in connection with that organ, but interferes with the
due pleasurable exercise of the other organs. A
striking example of this law is seen in the prostrating
effects of intensely painful emotion as terror, and
passionate grief. These distressing forms of mental
activity enfeeble not only the powers of the brain,
but those of the muscular and internal organs.

In general the pleasurable condition of one organ tends to the like
condition of the rest. The organism is a harmonious system in which,
the prosperity of each part furthers that of the other parts. But this,
though the general tendency, is liable to certain exceptions. A very
powerful mental stimulus may give immediate pleasure, but produce
hurtful secondary results. Boisterous mirth enfeebles and exhausts.
A sudden shock of joy may be almost as disastrous as a crushing blow.
On the other hand, a stimulus may have as its direct result a painful
feeling and yet promote indirectly a measure of pleasurable activity. A
disagreeable shock (e.g., a loud sound, a cold plunge, a sharp blow) may
set in activity somnolent energies and so further pleasure. 1

1 The indirect effects of stimulation, namely those on the vital processes,
are regarded by Dr. Bain as constituting the leading circumstance in plea-
sure. Pleasure, according to him, is connected with an increase, pain, with
an abatement of the vital functions, The Senses and the Intellect, Chap. IV., p.
283. Mr. H. Spencer regards the interdependence of different pleasurable
activities as involved in the very conception of an organism or consensus of
functions. He goes on further to reason from the doctrine of evolution that
the special organs are so constituted that their normal and pleasurable func-
tions must subserve the sum of organic functions which we call life. In
other words the pleasurable activity of any organ (e.g., the palate) coincides
in general with what is beneficial or life-preserving to the organism. (Prin-
ciples of Psychology, I., § 124, et scq.)

HABMONY AND CONFLICT. 473

Harmony and Conflict among Mental States.
Something analogous to this mutual furtherance and
hindrance of bodily and mental activity takes place
with respect to different modes of mental activity
arising at the same time. The mind is a unity in
even a stricter sense than the bodily organism with
which it is connected. Out of all the ao-preo-ate of

oo O

states connected with the several activities of the
moment, only a small fraction rises into the region of
clear consciousness. Distinct consciousness approxi-
mates, as we have seen, to a single chain of successive
mental states. Hence the mind cannot be in two
dissimilar states at the same moment. When, then, it
is acted upon or affected in two unlike 01 opposed ways,
there arises an effect of mutual conflict, accompanied
by a painful feeling of jar 01 discord. On the other
hand, if two varieties of pleasurable activity simultane-
ously excited are homogeneous and capable of com-
bining, there results a mutual furtherance of the
activities, accompanied by a pleasurable feeling of
harmony.

The conflict may arise through the sense of an
opposition between external circumstances and our
inclinations and desires, or of the presence of some
obstacle to our activity. A child shut up in a
room experiences conflict through the collision of
outer circumstances with his desires, inclinations,
and recurring groups of mental images (of the play-
ground, &c.). To be disappointed in an expectation
means a sense of discord between expectation and
reality. On the other hand, when circumstances
are seen to answer to desire, when anticipation is

474 FEELING.

fulfilled, and so on, there is a pleasurable sense of
harmony.1

What is commonly meant by the feeling of conflict
occurs when two or more distinct modes of mental
activity oppose and interfere with one another. The
effect of mental distraction is an example of this.
When we are surrounded by a number of persons
talking, our attention is drawn hither and thither,
and a painful sense of confusion arises. When, on
the other hand, simultaneous impressions are connected
one with another, a feeling of harmony arises. Other
examples of conflict and harmony are the state of
doubt and its solution ; the sense of contradiction
between assertion and fact (or assertion and asser-
tion), and of reconciliation : the conflict of impulses
and motives, when inclination draws us at the same
moment in different directions, or when inclination
and duty are opposed, and the happy convergence of
different impulses in one and the same direction of
action. As a last illustration may be named the
effects of others' sympathy and want of sympathy
with us, and of their approval and disapproval of our
actions. The absence of sympathy or approval pro-
duces a painful sense of difference and opposition
analogous to the intellectual feeling of contradiction ;
while the expression of these feelings results in a
pleasant consciousness of agreement and unity.

The Principle of Harmony and Conflict which is adopted in some
form by all psychologists assumes the place of the leading law of plea-

1 Probably the pleasure of rhythm in music and verse depends in part on
a continual satisfaction of expectation of a rapid, vague, and half-conscious
kind.

HARMONY AND CONFLICT. 475

emre anil pain in the hands of these who connect all feeling with a
process of mutual hindrance and furtherance among representations.

The principle has a wide range in our emotional life. Most of our
feelings are complex made up of many elements of pleasure, of pain, or
of both. A subordinate element of conflict may add to the intensity of
a pleasure, by providing the necessary point of contrast. This is true
of the feelings with which we commonly look forward to some uncertain
good, and look backwards on some lost happiness. It is true, also, of
the feelings with which we follow a tragedy. In the emotions of humour
and sublimity, again, we are aware of a painful and dissonant element
which though tending to rise into distinct consciousness is kept down
by the greater force of other representations. *

Varieties of Pleasure and Pain : Classes of Feeling. \

As already remarked, feelings of pleasure and pain fall
into two main divisions, those arising immediately
from a process of nervous stimulation, more particu-
larly, the excitation of sensory (incarrying) nerves,
and those depending on some mode of mental activity.
The first (popularly marked off as bodily feelings) as
involving processes in the outlying parts of the orga-
nism may be called peripherally excited feelings or
more briefly sense-feelings. The second being con-
nected with central nerve-processes (in the brain)
may be described as centrally excited feelings, or as
emotions.

(A) Sense- Feel ings. Each of these classes may be

1 The exact nature of the principle of Harmony is a matter of some doubt.
Those who regard feeling as necessarily embodied in intellectual activity con-
sider the relations of harmony and its opposite to hold of the representations
and not of the feelings themselves. Feelings cannot act one upon another,
but only the representations of which they are the concomitants. (See Volk-
mann, op. cit., § 128, p. 303, and § 131). There is a certain degree of analogy
between the emotional appreciation of harmony and the intellectual recogni-
tion of similarity or identity. The highest aesthetic feeling, the appreciation
of harmonious relations of form, approaches an intellectual act, and in the
logical feelings of consistency the emotion attaches itself distinctly to the
idea of identity.

476 FEELING.

subdivided into smaller classes. The sense-feelings
may arise from certain changes or disturbances in
some part of the organism itself. These are the
organic sense-feelings, such as hunger, thirst, feelings
connected with increase and decrease of temperature
in the skin, &c. Since, as we saw above (p. 110),
the sensations of which these feelings are the im-
mediate accompaniments are to a large extent wanting
in defmiteness of character and unsusceptible of dis-
tinct localisation, the several elements of feeling are
not easily distinguishable one from another.

The second group of sense-feelings consists of the
pleasures and pains connected with the stimulation
of the special senses. To these may be added the
pleasures and pains of muscular sensation, pleasures
of movement, pain of prolonged effort, and so forth.
These are much more definitely distinguishable than
the organic pleasures and pains, and they are suscep-
tible of localisation. The pleasures of the two higher
senses hearing and sight have certain distinguishing
marks which bring them into close connection with
the mental feelings.1

It is to be noted that in the case of the internal
organic sensations, painful feeling preponderates over
pleasurable. The due performance of the functions
of circulation, digestion, &c., gives us but little plea-
sure. On the other hand, in the case of sensations
of the special senses, the pleasurable element becomes

1 For a good account of the sense-feelings see Nahlowsky, Das GefUhls-
leben 2n<lEd. p. 99, &c. ; Wundt, Physiol. Psych., L, lOes Kap ; and Hor-
wicz, Psychologische Analyscn, 2er Theil, 2^ Halfte, Sect. 6. The organic
sensations are classified by B;iin, Senses and Intellect, p. 104, and by Honvicz.
See Mind, Vol. VII. (1882), p. 302.

SENSE-FEELINGS. 477

more prominent, and in the higher senses seems to
preponderate over the painful element.

Importance of Sense-Feelings. We may dismiss
this class of feelings at once with a word or two.
They are of great importance for our happiness and
misery. More particularly in early life before the
emotions are developed they constitute a chief part
of the life of feeling. The pains of indigestion, of
cold, of hunger, and so on, make up a chief part of
the infant's misery. On the other hand, the pleasures
of eating and drinking, of warmth, of contact, light
and sound, make up most of his happiness.

It is to be remarked further that owing to the close
connection between body and mind, the organic feel-
ings have a far-reaching effect on the higher emotional
life. An uneasy attitude of body, the pressure or
chafing of a garment, or the chilliness of a limb, is
quite enough to depress the mental powers, to induce
irritability of temper, a disposition to peevishness,
and to outbreaks of angry passion. On the other hand,
pleasurable states of the body lead to a cheerful,
hopeful state of mind. The sum of all the imper-
fectly discriminated organic feelings at any time con-
stitutes the basis of what is known as the coenses-
thesis or general feeling of well-being, or its opposite,
malaise, which has much to do with determining the
dominant mental tone or mood of cheerfulness, or
depression.

Finally, the sense-feelings as a whole will be found
to supply important elements out of which the emo-
tions proper are developed. Thus fear and anger
have their rise in the mental reproduction of some

478 FEELING.

organic pain (e.g., the effect of a burn or of a blow).
So noble a feeling as love itself may have as its
humble origin in the infant's mind a memory of
numerous organic pleasures (satisfactions of appetite,
of warmth, &c.). The pleasures of the higher senses
are taken up into the emotion of beauty.

(B) Emotions and their Classes. The higher feel-
ings or emotions clearly fall into certain well-marked
varieties of pleasurable, together with the corresponding
painful, susceptibilities, such as the pleasures and pains
of Self-esteem, Love, and so on.1 It is the object of
mental science to discover the deepest or most
essential resemblances and differences among these

commonly recognised groups of feeling, and to classify
them according to these. No very satisfactory classi-
fication has as yet been settled on, and we must con-
tent ourselves with taking a few of the best marked
varieties and grouping these roughly according to
some principle.

The most convenient plan seems to be to arrange
them in a series or ascending scale, according to
their degree of complexity, or representativeness.
If we take as an extreme case the emotions Fear and
the Moral Sentiment, this fact of a difference in com-
plexity becomes manifest. Where analysis fails us
we may fall back on the order of development of the
feelings in the individual life. So far as practicable,
then, we shall deal first of all with the simpler emo-

1 In most cases the pleasurable feeling is specially indicated, the corre-
sponding pain being understood. In the case of Fear, however, the painful
feeling is commonly looked on as the positive side, whereas the feeling of
restored confidence, and courage, is viewed rather as the negative.

THE EMOTIONS. 479

tions involving little representativeness, such as fear,
anger, and the earlier forms of love, and then take
up the more representative emotions, such as sym-
pathy, and the moral sentiment.

Difficulties of Classifying the Emotions. There are peculiar
difficulties in the way of a good scientific classification of the emotions.
These difficulties are connected with the very nature of emotion, the
way in which it is bound up with a mass of obscure representation.
Popular psychology has marked off clearly distinguishable varieties as
Love, Anger, and so on, but the feelings thus distinguished often shade
into one another and combine in a perplexing way. Thus fear is a
different emotion from reverence, yet a trace of it is probably present in
this last.

. Again it is difficult to find a simple principle of classification. The
most obvious one is the distinction between pleasure and pain. But to
make this the basis of a classification would be to overlook the numerous
and important points of similarity between correlative pleasures and
pains, those of love, of self-esteem, and so forth. This may be seen
by a glance at one of the most ingenious attempts to classify feelings
on this principle, that of the late Le"on Dumont. i

Another way would be to divide the emotions according to the degree
of intellectual activity or representativeness involved. Thus there
would be grades of emotion answering to sensation, perception, imagi-
nation, and thought. This is the principle followed by Mr. Spencer
who arranges feelings, like cognitions, in the following grades : (1)
presentative (actual sense -feelings), (2) presentative - representative
(actual and revived sense-feelings), (3) representative (revived sense-
feelings), and (4) rerepresentative (involving a more complex or abstract
form of representation, as the sentiment of property or of justice).2
Since however one and the same type of emotion, e.g., beauty may
be excited under any one of the forms 2, 3, or 4, it is plain that this
does not distinguish the emotions according to their qualitative differ-
ences.

1 TMorie Scientifique de la Sensibilite, Part II., Chap. I. The author,
who regards pleasure as depending on a balance of accumulation and expendi-
ture of force, rebognises two groups of pleasures and pains, positive and
negative. Positive pains arise from too great expenditure, negative, from
insufficient accumulation. Positive pleasures result from increase of excita-
tion, negative, from diminution of expenditure. Among positive pains are
such heterogeneous feelings as those of effort bodily and mental, of the
hideous, &c.

2 See Principles of Psychology, II., Part VIII., Chap. II.

480 REELING

If we try to arrange the emotions according to the degree of their
complexity many difficulties arise. Must we assume that all emotions
are developments out of sense-feelings ? This seems very doubtful.
Certain feelings as surprise, disappointment, seem to depend on the
relations between impressions and the reaction of the mind in attention
on its impressions, or on the relations between simultaneous or succes-
sive mental states. In other words, the very form of mental activity
contributes its element of pleasure or the opposite. The fact, too,
that the several emotions often combine one with another in a very
disguised way makes it difficult to arrange them according to their
degree of complexity. As a final difficulty there is the fact that many
if not all of the main forms of emotion are in a measure instinctive.
These instinctive germs may include the complex results of ancestral
experience. And this being so, it is plainly impossible to estimate
relative degrees of complexity with any certainty or exactitude.1

It seems to follow from all this that it is practically impossible to
make a satisfactory scientific classification of the emotions in respect of
their complexity. All that can be done is to make a rough serial
arrangement, so far as analysis will help us, and supplement this
method by following the natural order of development of the emotions
in the individual and in the race. a

Development of Emotion. The same general laws
of mental development which we have found to hold
good in the case of the intellectual faculties apply
also to the emotions. The feelings are deepened and
fixed by exercise, and there is a progress from feelings
simple in their composition, involving little mental
representation, to feelings complex in their nature,
and implying a high degree of representative activity.
We will first consider the growth of the emotions
singly so far as this is one and the same process in all

1 Mr. Spencer, who traces all emotions to sense-feelings, those of the indi-
vidual or of his ancestors, sketches out roughly a scale of complexity in his
interesting chapter, 'The Feelings,' Principles of Psychology, L, Part IV.,
Chap. VIII.

2 The difficulties of classifying the emotions are well brought out by Prof.
Bain, Emotions and Will, 3rd Ed.. Chap. III. ; cf. Mr. Spencer's criticism,
Essays, Vol. T., Essay VII. For the common German way of dividing the
Feelings, see Horwicz, Psych. Anahjscn, 2er Theil, 2e Halfte, Sect. 5a.

GROWTH OF EMOTION.

cases. We will then endeavour to trace in rougl
outline the order in which the several varieties of
emotion unfold themselves.

Growth of Emotion, (l) Instinctive and Heredi-
tary Element. — It is now commonly acknowledged
that the growth of the several emotions cannot be
fully explained as the result of individual experience,
that is, as a product of sense-feelings. There are
instinctive capacities of emotion of different kinds,
answering to such well-marked classes of feeling as
fear, anger, and love. These emotions arise uniformly
when the appropriate circumstances occur, and for
the most part very early in life. Thus there is an
instinctive disposition in the child to feel in the par-
ticular way known as anger or resentment when he
is annoyed or injured. It is probable, too, that
an instinctive element enters into feelings which
may be shown to be to a considerable extent the
result of individual experience, such as the moral
sentiment.

This instinctive capacity for emotion of a particular
kind is not the same in all cases. We find that
similar circumstances and experiences do not result in
the same intensity of emotion in different individuals ;
and this shows that children are born with very
unequal amounts of native disposition to feel in vari-
ous ways. The sum of these native or instinctive "
dispositions constitutes the emotional nature or tem-
perament. It is doubtless connected with physical
differences, namely in the structure and mode of
working of the brain and nervous system as a whole,
together with the muscular system and the vital

482 FEELING.

organs which are concerned in the outgoings of

o O o

feeling.

There is good reason to suppose that these instinc-
tive emotional tendencies may be referred in part to
ancestral experience. Not only does the child possess
the germs of the several emotional capacities, but
these capacities are called forth in connection with
a particular kind of object or excitant. And this
seems to show that there are transmitted associations
in the case, which associations are somehow embodied
in the inherited nervous structure. For example, the
infant smiles when only a few weeks old' at the sight
of his mother's face. This seems to imply that there
is a transmitted tendency to feel pleasure of a parti-
cular kind in connection with this kind of object, the
human face. The charm of the mother's face for the
child would be explained by saying that it vaguely
recalls countless pleasurable experiences of companion-
ship and love in the past development of the race.
Again, it seems probable that the child has an
instinctive fear of strange men, and of certain
animals. And this might similarly be explained as
being the transmitted result, and a kind of vague
reminiscence, of evils and dangers which the experi-
ence of the race has led it to associate with the sight

of strangers, and wild animals.1 The transmission of
special emotional tendencies among particular races,

1 For a fuller account of the alleged facts of instinctive emotional pheno-
mena, and of their interpretation by the principle of inheritance, see G. H.
Schneider, Der menschliche Wille, p. 2J1 ct seq., cf. 60 seq. The question of
an instinctive fear of animals in children is ably discussed by Preyer, Die
Seele des Kindcs, p. 104, &c. Mr. H. Spencer seeks to show how the several
emotional capacities may have been built up through the experience of the
race and its predecessors, Principles of Psychology, I., p. 491 seq.

GllOWTH OF EMOTION. 483

and families, appears to illustrate the action of certain
laws of inheritance in the region of emotion.

(2) The Effect of Exercise, Experience, &c. — In
the second place, every emotion in its developed form
presupposes processes of experience and acquisition
in the individual life. The feelings, like the intel-
lectual operations, become perfected by exercise of
the native capabilities. This takes place in different
ways.

(A) Strengthening of Activity : Adaptation. To
begin with, since pleasure is the accompaniment of
activity of some kind, the capacity for enjoyment
increases with the strengthening of the several powers
of the body and mind. What is difficult, irksome,
and painful at first tends to grow pleasant as practice
improves the capability. This is true of the simple
sense-pleasures which accompany the exercise of the
sense-organs and muscles. As they gain in strength
their activities become more pleasurable, or a higher
degree of pleasurable activity becomes possible.
Similarly in the region of mental activity we find
that the intellectual powers become adapted to the
strength of the stimulus, or the amount of work re-
quired of them. To attend carefully to what is said,
to exercise the powers of imagination and thought,
become through repetition easy and pleasant instead
of difficult and unpleasant.

(B) Emotional Traces and Dispositions. Again,
every experience of pleasure or pain leaves its stamp,
impress, or after-trace on the mind. Just as every
single exercise of the powers of attention leaves the
mind (and the connected brain-centres) modified and

484 FEELING.

disposed to that particular kind of activity in the
future, so every indulgence of a feeling leaves a dis-
position behind it towards that particular mode of
feeling.

Quickening of Susceptibility. One effect of this
retention of emotional traces is that the exercise of a
susceptibility tends to strengthen or quicken that
susceptibility, so that less stimulus is henceforth re-
quired to call forth the feeling. A child that cherishes
an angry or spiteful feeling in one case is more easily
moved to that mode of feeling afterwards. Every
response of the mind to what is beautiful, ludicrous,
&c., renders it quicker in responding to the same kind
of stimulus.

Deepening of Feelings. Another, and closely re-
lated effect of this persistence of emotional traces is
that every feeling tends to a certain extent to become
deeper by repetition. Traces of previous feelings of
a like kind mingle with the new feeling ; or the new
feeling wakens echoes of previous like feelings. In
this way, for example, a feeling of gratitude, or of
resentment, tends to be deepened. The pain attending
the sense of a present injury, the pleasure attending
the sense of a present favour, is reinforced by vague
revivals of past like experiences. Just as every
sense-impression gains in defmiteness by a fusion
with it of traces of past impressions, so a feeling gains
in depth by a coalescence of the traces of past like
feelings.

Emotional Revival. As a third result of this per-
sistence of emotional traces we have what is called
revived or ' ideal ' feeling. After having experienced

GROWTH OF EMOTION. 485

fear, anger, and so on, in the actual, the child
is able when the representative power is sufficiently
developed, to represent or imagine the feeling.
Thus he can recall a fit of anger, or can imagine him-
self feeling angry again by supposing himself in new
circumstances, and can enter into another's feeling' of

* o

anger when he sees it expressed. Here, again, we
have an effect analogous to the cumulative result of
sense -impressions. Just as images become possible
through the aggregation of sense-impressions, so ideal
feelings become possible through the accumulation of
the traces of actual feelings.

(c) Association of Feeling. This revival or repre-
sentation of feeling takes place according to the Law
of Contiguity. A feeling of pleasure or of pain is
recalled to the mind by the recurrence of the impres-
sion, object, or circumstance of which the feeling was
an accompaniment. Thus the sight of a muff by
calling up the tactual sensations of soft contact, calls
up the pleasurable feeling attending this. The pre-
sence of a person who has done us a kindness gives
us pleasure by calling up in our mind the memory of
this kindness.

All revived feeling depends on association with
presentations of some kind. We can only recall
feelings in so far as we can recall the impressions of
which they were the concomitants.1 The growth of
a feeling, as love for a person or for one's country,
implies an increased facility of revival. And readi-

1 This is true in the main, though as we shall see directly feeling does not
always involve a distinct reproduction of the presentations. Volkmann says
that strictly speaking there is no reproduction of feeling, but only a new and
imperfect production. See op. cit., § 131, p. 333.

486 FEELING.

ness of revival depends here, as in the case of presen-
tations, on the intensity of the original feeling, on
the firmness of the association with a particular pre-
sentation, and lastly on the diversity or range of the
associations. A child of an emotional temperament
forms strong and numerous associations of feeling
with presentations.

Feelings of pleasure and pain become associated
not only with the objects which are their exciting
causes, but with any collateral circumstances. The
feeling is then said to be ' transferred '. A feeling of
pleasure or of pain reflects itself on all the surroundings
of the moment, and colours our subsequent percep-
tions and recollections of them. A striking example
of this is the growth of likings and dislikings for
places where pleasurable or painful experiences have
been undergone. A child may conceive a lasting
antipathy to a room where something dreadful has
occurred. The beginning of a personal dislike in a
child's mind may be some quite ' accidental ' associa-
tion of the person with a particular misery. The
emotional temperament shows itself in the quickness
with which such associations are formed, or, in other
words, in the range of this irradiation or reflection of
emotion upon objects.1

All feelings of pleasure and pain are not equally revivable. The sense-
feelings of the higher senses, pleasures of colour, form, tone, &c., are in
general more vividly recalled than those of the lower senses, and the
organic sense ; and emotions, as the pain of a disappointment, the
pleasure of success, are more vividly recalled than sense-feelings. These
differences turn on the fact that the higher and more revivable feelings

1 For a fuller account of the action of the laws of association in the region
of feeling, see Bain, The Emotions and the Will, Part I., Chap. V.

GKOWTH OF EMOTION. 487

are connected with well-discriminated sense- impressions and percepts
whereas the lower feelings are the accompaniments of vague imdiscrinii-
nated mental states. Individuals differ greatly in their power of re-
taining and recalling feelings of pleasure and pain. In general, as we
might expect, children of a strongly marked emotional temperament
who feel intensely, recall their feelings better than others. The sensi-
tivs child shrinks from a prospect of pain, and is excited by the
anticipation of a joy. But the memory for pleasures and pains does not
depend simply on this circumstance. There are children who feel
deeply at the time, and yet easily forget their feelings. The child that
suffers most from a deprivation does not always remember it longest.
Differences in general power of retentiveness will tell here. There
seem, too, to be more special differences involved. Thus some appear
to recall pleasures better than pains, and others conversely. The former
being wont to dwell on pleasure are apt to be hopeful and rash : the
latter being disposed rather to keep possibilities of evil in mind are
timid and cautious.

(D) Growth of Composite Emotion. The emotions
in their fully-developed form are composite feelings,
made up of many simpler feelings (sense-feelings or
simpler emotional states), which combine or coalesce
in an aggregate or mass of feeling. The process
here is only a more complex form of the processes of
retention and reproduction just described. When one
object successively excites or otherwise becomes
associated with a number of pleasurable (or painful)
feelings, the memories of these all adhering to that
object combine in a homogeneous mass of feeling,
giving rise to what we know as a permanent feeling of
liking (or disliking). In this way arise the child's
likings for his favourite toys and books, his home sur-
roundings, the hills and woods which are his frequent
resort, and his brute and human companions. The
more numerous and varied the experiences involved,
the greater the volume of the resulting feeling.

This process may be illustrated by the growth of

488 FEELING.

an affection for a person. The child's love for his
mother is a very gradual growth. At first it is faint
and fitful, and it is only after many experiences that
it becomes strong, deep, and persistent. The daily
experience of the child gradually invests the mother
with pleasurable associations and memories. These
become more numerous as life advances and intelli-
gence grows. At first made up largely of revived
sense-feelings, the emotion becomes enriched by
memories of assuaged griefs, consolations, guidances
in times of difficulty, and so on. In its mature form
it takes up and assimilates still higher elements, intel-
ligent admiration of the mother's wisdom and skill,
and moral respect for her character.

Just as a liking for an object is thus built up out
of numerous pleasurable experiences, so a rooted an-
tipathy is commonly developed out of a number of
unpleasant experiences. A child's dislike of a place
where he is not happy, or of a person from whom he
frequently receives unkindness is the cumulative re-
sult of the successive painful experiences associated
with the object.

When the associations are heterogeneous the resulting feeling will
depend on the preponderance of the pleasurable or the painful ex-
periences. Our feelings towards places where we have lived and to-
wards persons are often of this mixed character. A slight admixture
of the painful element often tends to deepen a feeling pleasurable on
the whole. • The father in the parable loved his repentant prodigal son
with a special love. Here another principle comes in, the action of
contrast between the present and the past, and the resulting feeling of
relief.

As already hinted, such a deep complex feeling does not involve a
distinct reproduction of the several presentations (circumstances, inci-
dents, &c.), with which it is so closely involved. The very nature of
the mental process precludes this. We cannot at the same moment dis-

GKOWTH OF EMOTION. 489

tinctly recall a host of unlike events which happen to be associated
with the same object. Thus on revisiting our early home, or on meeting
with an old school-fellow, we are dimly aware of a multitude of indis-
tinct images of past experiences. But the representations follow one
another too rapidly, and mingle one with another too closely for any
one to rise into clear consciousness. The revivals are, however, suffi-
cient for a reinstatement of the associated feelings. Hence, the depth
and volume of the emotion.1

It seems to follow from this that in the case of inherited emotional
associations the transmitted representative element must be of the most
indistinct character. Without raising the perplexing question how an
individual can have a memory of ancestral experience, that is of experi-
ence not entering into his personal life, we may say that the very
number of the experiences, as well as the remoteness in time of the
majority of them, would preclude any approach to distinct represen-
tation. The representative element here attains its maximum of
obscurity. 2

(E) Formation of Habits of Feeling. In this way a
habit of feeling, in the narrow sense of the word, is
formed. The child who has contracted a permanent
liking or disliking for a person, or a place, cannot see
or think of the object without experiencing a revival of
the feeling. The stronger the feeling, and the closer
the relation between the child and the object, the
more frequent and habitual will be the flow of the
feeling.

The progress of the emotional life, like that of the
intellectual, is marked by the fixing of such definite
modes or habits. Certain kinds of feeling become
recurring, fixed in connection with particular objects

1 The reader should note the analogy between the process of imperfect
revival of the images associated with a general name resulting in a concept,
and that of imperfect revival of images associated with one and the same
object resulting in an emotion.

2 Schneider (loc. cit. ) contends strongly against the idea that representa-
tions are inherited. What is inherited is the causal relation between certain
perceptions and certain feelings.

490 FEELING.

or circumstances. Thus the feeling for the home, the
different members of the family, the school, and so
forth, becomes a frequently recurrent and permanent
ingredient of the emotional life.

Now this result implies both a gradual deepening
of feeling on the one hand, and a loss of freshness and
vividness on the other. Customary or recurring feelings
are not vivid. The intensity of feeling belonging to
a fresh experience is out of the question here. Chil-
dren cannot go on maintaining an exuberant tender-
ness or love for their mother. Use, familiarity, as we
have seen, dulls the edge of enjoyment, and may even
deaden emotional susceptibility.1 But this absence
of intensity and profusion on ordinary occasions is
compatible with great depth of emotion. There is a
potential intensity in the child's riper love for his
mother which shews itself as soon as some unusual
circumstance occurs (e.g., meeting her after an interval
of separation, receiving some unlooked for kindness
from her). What we call a habitual feeling is one
which is habitually or customarily called forth in a
calm form by a permanent object of the environment,
so as to diffuse itself over large tracts of life in a
smooth current.

Finally, the formation of habits of feeling means
the growth of corresponding emotional needs and
cravings. Every recurring mode of activity, by leaving
a disposition to that same mode of activity behind it,
begets a correlative need. This is a main feature in
what we mean by habit. In the case of feeling, the

1 As an example we may take the frequent effect of recurring religious
observances, and of imposing ceremonies and forms generally.

GROWTH OF EMOTION. 491

underlying activities (bodily and mental) being set in
definite directions, there arises a feeling of uneasiness
and discontent when the customary stimulus or vent
is wanting. When the activities are regular and
periodic, there occurs a periodic craving or desire
akin to the natural bodily appetite (e.g., the artificial
appetite of the smoker, the various desires for study,
social entertainment, &c.). When deep voluminous
feelings, as love, acquire a regular flow the want of
the customary vent through the loss of the object
which excites and •' gratifies ' the emotion is the occa-
sion of keen suffering. The intensity and persistence
of grief at the loss of a friend measures the depth of
the affection, the intensity of its enjoyments (actual
or potential), and finally the hold of the feeling over
the mind as a habit.

(F) Formation of General Emotional Dispositions.
The growth of emotion means not simply the perma-
nent adhesion of a mass of feeling to a particular
object. It implies further the expansion of emotional
susceptibility, and the formation of a disposition to
feel in a particular way towards all objects of an
appropriate character. As we have seen, every exer-
cise or indulgence of a feeling strengthens the corre-
sponding susceptibility or disposition. A child that
has cherished feelings of love and respect for one
person, will be more ready to love and respect others.
Similarly in the case of feelings of an opposite kind,
as defiance. Or to take an instance from one of the
higher emotions, the growth of a sentiment of attach-
ment in a child's mind to his natural surroundings pre-
pares the way for a wider aesthetic (or possibly scientific)

492 FEELING.

interest in nature as a whole. In this way general
dispositions or tendencies of feeling are formed, the
gratification of which grows with experience and
knowledge. Such general emotional habitudes, bring-
ing corresponding needs and cravings, constitute what
we call the ruling interests and inclinations.

This growth of a general emotional disposition must be distinguished
from the impulse of the fickle mind to transfer feeling to new objects.
Children are much swayed by novelty, and since retentiveness and
association do not yet exercise a strong force in their case, they easily
take up with new objects of attachment, transferring all the intensity
and exclusiveness of the old liking to the new object. We see this in
the sudden transference of their preference from one playmate to another,
one teacher to another, and so on. This tendency to fluctuation and
dissipation of feeling is no process of growth at all but works against it.
Real growth means the addition of general and comparatively faint
likings to special and relatively strong attachments. It is to be added
that while the particular affection tends to some extent to favour a
general affection, the former is in extreme cases opposed to the latter.
We all know children, as adults, of intense, narrow, and absorbing affec-
tions. This is but one illustration of the opposition between habit in
the narrow sense, and growth in the full sense, already referred to
(p. 49).

(G) Growth of Emotion in Refinement. Other
aspects of the growth of emotion may be included
under the head, increase in point of refinement.
A sense may be said to grow in refinement when
it requires a less powerful stimulus to call it into
activity, and when it becomes more highly dis-
criminative.1 Similarly with an emotion. A feeling
like affection grows in refinement when it attaches
itself to, and allows itself to be called forth by, the
less obvious and more subtle aspects of the beloved
object (little unobtrusive beauties or excellences of

1 See above, p. 143.

GROWTH OF EMOTION. 493

person and character, &c. ). A refined feeling for beauty
discovers the out-of-the-way unnoticed charms of
nature. This increase in emotional sensitiveness is
commonly attended by a progress in discriminative
susceptibility. The growth of certain emotions or
sentiments, as the feeling for beauty and the moral
sentiment, is marked by this increase in emotive
discriminativeness.

Closely connected with this growth of feeling in
discriminative delicacy is its progress in point of
clearness. By this is meant that the feeling comes
to attach itself to certain aspects and relations of
objects. All feeling is at first obscure, being accom-
panied by no distinct apprehension of its sources,
causes, or objects. As intellectual culture ad-
vances, however, the mind learns by a process of
abstraction to detect the common traits which answer
to the feeling. In this manner all feeling becomes
intellectualised or illumined, and bases itself on a con-
scious process of judgment. This result will be seen
most manifestly in the case of the higher feelings or
Sentiments.1

The reader will note that by the processes just described feeling
passes through the same principal phases of development as intellect.
It is first of all presentative, called forth by actual presentations, then
representative, the accompaniment of concrete images, and finally,
abstract or rerepresentative, attaching itself to certain abstract ideas.
This applies not only to the Sentiments of Truth, Justice, &c., but to
the earlier egoistic feelings. Thus a feeling of anger is at first blind,

1 It may perhaps be said that in the earlier stages feeling underlies know-
ledge. Thus we know a thing to be good because it pleases us, or a person
to be amiable because we like him. In the later stages knowledge comes
more and more to underlie feeling. Thus we pronounce a person to be amiable
because we discover iu him certain qualities of mind and character.

494 FEELING.

accompanied with little consciousness of self. As the mind develops
the idea of self and of its well-being rises into distinct consciousness and
becomes the intellectual support of the feeling.

Order of Development of the Emotions. As has
been remarked, the emotions appear to unfold them-
selves in the order of increasing complexity and
representativeness. Thus fear and anger precede the
feelings of benevolence and justice, because they are
much more simple in their composition, and involve a
smaller amount and an easier kind of representative
activity. Although we cannot trace out the order of
growing representativeness into all the details of the
emotional history we may show that it is the order of
development when looked at as a wThole, or in its
broad outlines.

Three Orders of Emotion. Looking, then, at emo-
tional development in this way, we may conveniently
distinguish between three groups or orders of emotion,
constituting successive stages in the progress of the
emotional life. First of all come what may be called
the Individual or Personal Emotions. By these are
meant those emotions which are confined to the indi-
vidual, depending on some special personal experience
or relation to an object. Or to express it otherwise,
they all imply a more or less distinct personal re-
ference.1 Such are the feelings which grow up about
the representation of self and its activities, the pleasures
of hope, of success, of reputation, &c. Or they attach
themselves to objects standing in some special relation

JThis reference may not always be made consciously ; but it is always in-
volved in some degree, and in the case of the fully developed feeling rises into
distinct consciousness.

THEEE OKDERS OF EMOTION. 495

to self, such as the love of a child for his home, or
his mother; his antipathy to one who has wronged
him, or his feeling of rivalry with another child.

In the second place we have the Sympathetic Feel-
ings. By these are meant participations in others'
pleasurable and painful experiences, and kindliness or
benevolence of disposition generally. These are purely
representative feelings. In sympathy or fellow-feeling
with another we have to imagine or represent how
another feels. And the sympathetic feelings follow
the personal feelings because they presuppose some
amount of ' first hand ' emotional experience. They are
non-personal and common as distinguished from the
individual and personal feelings. In sympathy we are
engaged with another's experiences or interests, and
do not refer to ourselves. Further, they imply no
special and restricted relation between the mind which
feels and the object which excites the feeling, but may
be called forth in a number of minds by the same ob-
ject (the manifestation of another's suffering).

In the third place we have a group of highly com-
plex feelings known as Sentiments, such as patriot-
ism, the feeling for nature, for humanity. These are
commonly brought under three heads, the Intellectual
Sentiment, or the attachment to Truth, the Esthetic
Sentiment or admiration of the Beautiful, and the
Moral Sentiment or reverence for Duty (including the
worship of moral excellence and the feeling for
humanity). These emotions in their developed form
attach themselves to certain qualities in things or
abstract ideas, truth, beauty, moral goodness. They
involve a higher form of representativeness than

496 FEELING.

direct sympathy. They depend to a considerable ex-
tent on sympathy, and may be said always to involve
it in an indirect form. Hence they follow it in the order
of development. They are essentially non-personal and
common emotions.1 In admiring a beautiful painting,
or in feeling delight at some new scientific truth we
are not thinking of ourselves or our own individual
interests. The mind is turned wholly away from
self and its concerns, and is engaged in a disinterested
contemplation of an object. And these sentiments
can be participated in by a number. Knowledge or
Truth, Beauty and Human Goodness, are common
objects of contemplation or thought.

This threefold arrangement is only intended as a very rough one
convenient for surveying the phenomena. It is sometimes difficult to
say to which class a feeling should belong. For example, a child's love
for his mother is compounded partly of personal elements (gratitude for
favours) and partly of non-personal elements (admiration of her intelli-
gence, moral esteem, &c.). Similarly the love of liberty commonly
involves a mingling of personal feeling, a sense of the value of individual
liberty for ourselves, with a sympathetic appreciation of its value for
others. Feelings shade off from the one extreme, the purely personal,
to another extreme, the purely non-personal. A feeling of liking or
disliking towards a person may be largely personal, the reference to self
being distinct and prominent, or altogether non-personal or 'disin-
terested '. The growth of a feeling frequently illustrates in its succes-
sive stages all these gradations.2 Again, we have the same gradations

1 It may be added that Sympathy is less of a non-personal feeling than
these sentiments inasmuch as the object calling forth the feeling is a personal
feeling.

2 Where, as is often the case with affection and antipathy, a non-personal
feeling grows out of a personal one, it would seem to lack one of the charac-
teristics of the former class, viz., unrestrictedness. But if we consider a
feeling in itself and apart from its origin we may say that it takes on the
appearance of an unrestricted one in the measure in which it detaches itself
from all reference to self, and attaches itself to the representation of an object
as something intrinsically agreeable or disagreeable. The terms subjective
and objective would help to bring out the contrast here indicated.

THREE ORDERS OF EMOTION. 497

exhibited in feelings of unequal range, as the love of home common to
all members of a family, of locality common to all neighbours, and of
country common to all copatriots.

It may be remarked that this distinction of personal and non-personal
answers in emotion to the difference between the higher and lower sen-
sations in the region of sense-feeling. Organic pleasures (gratification
of appetite, &c.) are connected with a particular state of the organism
and are limited to an individual: the pleasures of light, colour, and
sound, are supplied by external objects and are possible to many. Hence,
as we shall see presently, their rank as aesthetic pleasures.

It is to be added that in speaking of the egoistic or personal feelings
as the earlier we do not mean that they are completely developed be-
fore the others. The feeling for self only attains its perfect develop-
ment after the idea has become distinct ; and as we saw when tracing
its growth, the formation of this idea belongs to the higher and more
difficult stages of abstraction. The three groups of feeling here dis-
tinguished, do, however, in their beginnings and earlier forms answer
to successive stages of emotional development.

Characteristics of Children's Feelings. As we have
seen, children's feelings are limited by their experience
and their power of mental representation. Their joys
and griefs are all related to what is present, or what
is immediately behind or before. Among these early
feelings the sense-feelings occupy a foremost place.
The alternation of sensations of hunger and its ap-
peasement, of impeded and prosperous digestion, of
cold and warmth, of impeded and unimpeded move-
ment, and so forth, serves largely to determine the
young child's outbreaks of passionate misery, and of
exulting joy.

Feeling being thus dependent on presentations is
apt, on the one hand, to be violent and absorbing
while it lasts, and, on the other hand, to be transitory
and soon forgotten. The very feebleness of memory
and anticipation exposes the child to the full force of
the present. The pain caused by a blow, or by the

498 FEELING.

taking away of a toy, fills the whole mind at the
time. Hence the violence of passion and the emo-
tional abandonment which we never see in later life.
As soon, however, as new objects or new suggestions
are presented to the child's mind, the torrent of
passion is arrested. And so the little sufferer, on
whose head there seemed to be heaped but a moment
ago an insupportable burden of misery, becomes his
usual serene and even cheerful self again.

Earlier Emotions : Egoistic Feelings. The
earlier emotions of childhood are largely egoistic or
personal feelings. Among these are the hopes and
fears excited by the anticipation of good or ill, the
pleasures of successful muscular activity, and so on.
Children are as a rule timid by nature, and as we
have seen, probably inherit definite tendencies to fear.
Moreover their want of bodily and mental strength
exposes them to special dangers, and so renders them
apprehensive. On the other hand, a healthy and
vigorous child delights in putting forth his powers,
overcoming obstacles, and accomplishing his wishes.
He learns, further, at an early stage the meaning of
property or ownership, the difference between "mine"
and " thine," and takes pleasure in acquiring and in
keeping things, such as toys, picture-books, &c.

Anti-Social Feelings: Rivalry. The strongly-marked
egoistic character of children's first feelings is seen in
their disposition towards others. To begin with, the
anti-social feelings, namely, anger, antipathy, envy,
feeling of power or love of dominion over others, are
strong. A child at a very early date begins to feel
the collision between his own wants and inclinations

EGOISTIC FEELINGS. 499

and those of others. In this way the feelings of
antagonism, dislike, and envy are aroused. He resists
force employed to make him do things, he resents
injuries done him, slapping his brother or sister who
takes his toys, and so on. He dislikes to see others
enjoying things, and under the pangs of envy cherishes
a momentary anger towards the more fortunate pos-
sessor of what he covets. He loves to domineer over
others, to make others the instruments of satisfying
his wishes.

The pleasures of mere ^activity and of successful
effort are largely reinforced in early life by the
feelings of emulation or rivalry. By these are meant
in part the enjoyment attending the strenuous activity
which competition calls forth. More than this, rivalry
implies antagonism, the situation of opposition, and
some degree of those feelings of anger or malevolence
which belong to this situation. It is this which gives
the zest of animal excitement to all contest and com-
petition. Finally, rivalry has for its crowning plea-
sure the delight of victory, which is not simply the
pleasure of success, but involves a distinctly anti-
social element, viz., the pleasurable sense of superiority
to another, of discomfitting and humiliating another.
The impulse of imitation, so strong in childhood, is
as we shall see by and by closely related to the
feeling of rivalry. Children are apt to feel at
a disadvantage if they cannot do what they see
others perform, and, on the other hand, enjoy a
sense of equality when they are able to match their
achievements.

Social Feelings of Childhood. The same thing is

500 FEELING.

seen in the first emotions of a social character. Chil-
dren are from the first social beings. The pleasure in
the infant's face when he gazes at the mother attests
this. A child goes to his mother for companionship,
for the expression of interest and sympathy in his
doings and concerns. A boy of 16 months showed
this desire for sympathy in his pleasures. When he
saw anything which delighted or amused him, he used
to touch his mother's face, and try and turn it in the
direction of the object. The proximity of the mother
or nurse evidently gives pleasure. He is happy when
at her side engaging as much of her attention as
possible, and occasionally indulging his young love
by a warm caress. On the other hand, he is miserable
when long away from her, whether alone or with
strangers. The very dependence of childhood on
parental care forms a bond that binds the child to his
mother. But this early affection is largely a personal
and interested feeling. The child feels the mother or
playmate to be necessary to him. He values them as
sources of pleasure to himself. He has as yet hardly
any disinterested feeling for their concerns, and as
little appreciation of what they are in themselves,
and out of relation to himself.

Love of Approbation. One of the most valuable
traits of childhood is its strong love of others' recog-
nition, good opinion, and approbation. This is not a
non-personal or disinterested feeling. When a child
finds pleasure in another's approval he is obviously
thinking of himself. It is thus a form of self-love or
self-appreciation. The child is pleased (according to
the principle of harmony) when others' opinion is

EGOISTIC FEELINGS. 501

favourable, chiming in with, his instinctive disposition
to think well of himself.

At the same time this feeling is distinct from other
personal feelings in one important respect, that it
involves a reference to others. To set store by the
good opinions of others means that we respect others.
Not only so, it implies a vague reference to the feelings
of others. It is another's pleasurable feeling which is
the ground of the self-gratulation in the case, another's
painful feeling which is the basis of the self-humilia-
tion or sense of shame. Hence the moral and educa-
tional value of this feeling. It is, to use Mr. Spencer's
expression, an ' ego-altruistic ' sentiment which serves
to bind the child to others, and prepares the way for
a purely disinterested type of social feeling. *

The child has a native disposition to value others'
approbation. This is connected with the instinctive
tendency to value and extol self and its concerns.
It is not improbable too that long experience of the
utility of other's favourable opinion in the history of
the race has brought about an inherited disposition
to attach particular importance to the opinions and
sentiments of others. However this be the experi-
ence of life will soon shew to a child how much his
daily happiness depends on the favourable judgments
of his parents, teachers, and (to a less extent) those
of his play-fellows. 2

Pride, Self-Esteem, &c. The crowning phase of

1 For a fuller account of this feeling in relation to the emotion of self-
love see Bain, The Emotions and the Will, Pt. I., Chap. XL, §§ 10-17.

2 For an account of the way in which such a feeling may have been evolved
in the history of the race see H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, II., Pt.
VIII., Ch. VII.

502 FEELING.

this egoistic stage of feeling is the development of
a distinct emotion of complacency with respect to
self. The love of self, the disposition to value self
and its concerns, is, as has been observed, instinctive,
and connected with the impulse of self-conservation.
But in this early form it is unreflective and ' uncon-
scious'. In its developed form it involves difficult
intellectual processes of inner self-reflection, and so
appears later than the love of others' approbation.

This latter feeling contributes in no small measure
to the growth of the former. Just as the talk of
others about the child does much to lead him to
reflect on himself, so the feeling of self-complacency or
self-approval is fed and nurtured in no small measure
by experiences of others' good opinion. The child
first feels satisfied or dissatisfied with himself in
direct response to the utterance of others' satisfaction
or dissatisfaction. On the other hand, children who
experience little of others' favourable opinion are as a
rule wanting in self-complacency and self-confidence.
The young are thus, morally as well as physically,
dependent on others.1

As however a child's powers unfold themselves,
and he learns to reflect about himself and his
concerns, distinct feelings of self-satisfaction and
self-approval arise. The very instinct of self-preser-
vation would, as just remarked, further the growth of
self-esteem. And where circumstances are favourable,

1 Dr. Bain regards self-love as an extension of tender feeling, properly
called forth by the sight of human beings, to one's own personality ( The
Emotio-ns and the Will, Part I., Chap. XL, p. 203). But this applies to only
one side of the feeling. It has an independent root in the instinct of self-
preservation.

EGOISTIC FEELINGS. 503

and the child succeeds in accomplishing his daily
objects, there grows up in the way already explained
a mass of agreeable feeling in relation to himself and
his surroundings. The boy feels abreast with his
surroundings : he is conscious of progressing in
physical power, knowledge, and the accumulation of
material possessions. And so there arises in con-
nection with the persistent consciousness of self, a
customary mode of agreeable feeling which, viewed in
slightly different ways, we call pride, self-complacency,
or self-esteem. The customary strength of this plea
surable feeling serves to determine to a considerable
extent the amount of the individual's happiness. 1

The sentiment of self-esteem and the idea of self grow together and
further one another. The feeling of self-assertion is at first a vague
instinctive impulse. And as was pointed out in tracing the growth of
the idea of self (p. 376), the feeling is one factor in developing a clear
consciousness of self. On the other hand, the distinct idea of self when
once attained gives clearness to the pleasurable (or painful) sentiment.
Thus the boy's first blind elation of pride in doing something difficult
becomes later on a clear consciousness of personal power or excellence.

Cultivation of Emotion. The practical problem of cultivating
the emotions is beset with peculiar difficulties. The means of
stimulating the intellectual powers of the child lie in the teacher's
hand. He can set objects before his eye, communicate knowledge
by means of words, and so directly act upon his faculties.
But how is he to work on the feelings of the child ? It is plain
that much less can be done in the way of commanding results in
the case of the feelings than in that of the intellect. Moreover
the vast differences in emotional temperament among children
complicate the problem of cultivating emotion in a peculiar manner.

1 This is true even of the excess of the feeling. Overweening conceit is
probably one of the most certain sources of a pleasurable existence. For a
fuller account of the origin of this feeling see my volume, Illusions, Chap.
XL, p. 319, and following.

504 FEELING.

Let us see what resources Education has with respect to the culture
of feeling.

The culture of the emotions falls into two well-marked divisions,
(a) the negative culture, and (6) the positive culture.

Repression of Feeling. There are emotions which are apt to
exist in excess, such as fear, and the anti-social feelings, anger,,
envy, &c. These must to a certain extent be repressed, and kept
within due bounds. The problem of subduing the force of feeling
in the young is in some respects a peculiarly difficult one. As we
have seen, their emotional outbursts are marked by great violence.
Moreover, the great agency by which, as we shall see by and by,
the force of emotion is checked and counteracted, namely an effort
of self-restraint, cannot be relied on in the case of young children,
owing to the feebleness of their wills. On the other hand, the
very mobility of the child's mind is favourable to an easy diver-
sion of his attention by a skilful educator from the exciting cause
of the passion.

In addition to seeking to subdue the force of undesirable feel-
ings when actually excited, the wise teacher will aim at weakening
the underlying emotional sensibilities. In some cases he has to
take care that feelings needing repression are not too powerfully
excited. A timid child should be shielded to some extent from
circumstances likely to excite terror. An envious child ought not
to be placed in a situation which is pretty certain to excite this
feeling. An emotional susceptibility may to some extent be
weakened and even 'starved out' through want of exercise. Again,
feelings may be weakened by strengthening the intellectual side of
the child's mind, adding to his knowledge and exercising his
powers of reflection and judgment. In this way, for example,
groundless terror will be undermined, and the violence of grief
and anger mitigated. Finally, the weakening or deadening of an
undesirable, feeling may often be most effectively carried out bj*
exciting some opposed or incompatible feeling. Thus, every
exercise of a feeling of regard for others' good qualities tends to
enfeeble a child's conceit. Every exercise in kindness and con-
sideration for others helps to weaken the impulses of anger and
envy.

Stimulation of Emotion. What we call the culture of feeling

CULTIVATION OF EMOTION. 505

is, however, largely concerned with the problem of awakening and
strengthening desirable and useful emotions, such as affection, the
sense of duty, and so on. Speaking roughly we may say that as
the egoistic feelings require to be weakened, sympathy and the
higher sentiments need to be strengthened. Since feeling grows
by exercise the problem is how to call forth an emotional suscepti-
bility into full and vigorous play. There are two things which
the educator can do here. (1) First of all the child may be intro-
duced to objects, circumstances, modes of activity, which are fitted
to excite a particular feeling. Thus objects may be presented, e.g.,
in a pathetic story, which are fitted to excite his sympathy.
Beautiful objects of nature and art may be submitted to his
notice, and so the aesthetic feeling of admiration awakened. Noble-
actions may be narrated to him, and so the moral sense stimulated.
Finally, by inducing him (by the application of any motive) to
put forth his activities we set him in the way of acquiring experi-
ences, and discovering new modes of pleasure. In this manner an
indolent, unambitious child may be roused to activity by a first
taste of the pleasures of success, and the delight of well-earned
commendation.

(2) In the second place, much may be done by the habitual
manifestation of a particular feeling by those who constitute the
child's social environment. Children tend to reflect the feelings
they see expressed by their parents, teachers, and young com-
panions. This fact will be touched on again when we come to the
subject of sympathy. Here it is enough to name it as affording
one of the great instrumentalities by which the teacher may to
some extent mould or give shape to the growing emotional nature
of the child.

In seeking to stimulate the feelings the Educator needs to be
on his guard lest he repress what he seeks to foster. This risk is
peculiarly great in education owing to the frequent need of
stimulating sensibility on its painful side, for purposes of deterring.
As was pointed out above, the oft-repeated wounding of any
emotional susceptibility tends to deaden it. This is specially the
case with a delicate feeling like shame, which as Locke points out
" cannot be kept and often transgress'd against V

1 Thoughts concerning Education, § 60.

506 FEELING.

The Management of the Egoistic Feelings. The problem of
the Educator with respect to the egoistic feelings is partly one of
repression, partly one of development. There is no doubt that
they are apt to exist in excess in children. The mother and teacher
have to seek to restrain the violent painful emotions as terror and
grief. More particularly the anti-social feelings, angry passion,
antipathy, envy, and other unlovely feelings have to a, large extent
to be stamped out.

Yet the problem is not merely a negative one. The emotions
which grow up about self are needful for the child's continued
existence and success in the struggle for life. We cannot eradicate
them even if we would, and it would not be well to do so if we
could. The egoistic impulses may even be deficient and require posi-
tive stimulation. There are listless and lethargic children whom it is
well to try and rouse to self-assertion. In their case it may be
desirable to seek to quicken the feelings of pride, ambition, and (in
extreme cases) even the distinctly anti-social feeling of antagonism
and delight in beating others. On the other hand, an over-rash
child may require a strengthening of the emotion of fear.

Even when there is no natural deficency in these feelings the
educator has not so much to repress them as to direct them to
higher objects or aspects of objects. He seeks to transform them
by refining them. Thus he aims at leading the child up from
the fear of physical evil to the fear of moral evil ; from the enjoy-
ment of bodily contest to that of mental competition ; from pride
in the possession of material objects (personal beauty, &c.) to pride
in the possession of intellectual qualities, and so forth. This pro-
cess goes hand in hand with the exercise of the higher and dis-
interested emotions.

The difficulties of the educational problems connected with the
management of the egoistic feelings come out clearly enough in
current discussions respecting the proper motives to be appealed
to in intellectual education. The way to deal with the feeling
or impulse of emulation or rivalry is one of the puzzles of educa-
tional science. In its pure form this emotion is an egoistic and
anti-social feeling and there is no doubt that among school-com-
petitors it often develops into genuine hatred. A boy from habitu-
ally regarding another as his rival, as one who may obtain the

CULTIVATION OF EMOTION. 507

prize he covets, and with whom he is called on to measure his
strength, comes unconsciously, perhaps, to cherish a special dis-
like or antipathy towards his opponent. Hence the impulse must
be checked.

At the same time, the feeling is far too powerful, as well as
too necessary a force to he dispensed with in education. Pro-
vided it be kept within due limits, and tempered by kindly
generous feelings under the form of a friendly rivalry, it is un-
objectionable. The great practical objection t® it is its limited
range. Eivalry comes into full play in competition for prizes,
and other honours. Hence slow and backward children come
little under the influence of this feeling. And since clever chil-
dren may in general be supposed to derive more pleasure from
study itself than stupid ones, the application of the stimulus of
reward for absolute attainment, looks very much like giving " to
him that hath ". This points to the need of habitually exercising
another feeling, the love of approbation. This acts on all alike,
and as a semi-social feeling is of a higher moral value than the
feeling of rivalry. Hence the more the educator can appeal to this
feeling in the early stage of school-life the better. By uniformly
recognising effort made, and progress attained, in other words,
relative as distinguished from absolutive proficiency, the teacher
is helping to build up a feeling of self-reliance and self-esteem,
which when sufficiently developed will make the intellectual
industry of the pupil independent of all external stimulus.

APPENDIX.

For a fuller account of the emotions in detail, see Dr. Bain's volume, The
Emotions and the Will. The reader of German should look at Dr. J. W.
Nahlowsky's work, Das Gefiihlsleben (Leipzig, 1862) ; also Dr. L. George's
Lehrbuch der Psychologic (Berlin, 1854), Part I., § 5 and 6, and Part III.,
§ 4 ; and A. Horwicz's Psychologische Analysen, 2er Theil, 2e Halfte. For
an account of the way in which the Feelings are developed, see along
with Bain's work, Herbert Spencer's Principles of Psychology, Vol. I., Part
IV., Chap. VIII. ; and Vol. II., Part VIII., Chap. II., VI., VII.

On the educational problem, see Bain, Education as Science, Ch. III. (Play
of Motives : — the Emotions). On the general problem of cultivating emo-
tion, see Th. Waitz, Allgemeine Pcedagogik, 2ter Abschnitt, p. 140, &c.

CHAPTEE XII.

THE COMPLEX FEELINGS : SENTIMENTS.

Sympathy. The transition from the lower level of
personal Emotion to the higher plane of non-personal
Sentiment, is, as we have seen, effected to a large
extent by the development of the capacity for sym-
pathy. By sympathy is meant, as the etymology of
the word suggests (crvv, with, and 7ra#os, feeling),
fellow-feeling or feeling along with others. It is the
great force which binds the individual to his social
environment (family, school, or nation). In its per-
fect form it constitutes disinterestedness, or altruistic
feeling, a readiness to sacrifice personal comfort and
happiness for the welfare of others.

Origin of Sympathy . Contagion of Feeling. Sym-
pathy with others is based on a tendency to reflect
the feelings or emotional states of those about us. In
its simplest form this tendency shows itself in an
unconscious reproduction or imitation of another's
feeling. The mind of the person affected does not
consciously represent or dwell on the feeling which
affects him, but simply vibrates in unison with it.

This tendency manifests itself very early. There is

SYMPATHY. 509

possibly some instinctive knowledge of the signs of
feeling, and, connected with this, a native disposition
to answer smile with smile, &C.1 But some amount of
individual experience is needed for fixing the connection
between the several feelings and their external expres-
sions. When this is acquired the child tends automa-
tically to take on the moods of hilarity, anxiety,
depression, of those about him. This appears to be due
to the working of an imitative impulse which leads to
the more or less complete adoption of the external
attitude, gesture, tone, &c.2 When surrounded by a
number of people all manifesting the same kind of
feeling, there is a strong disposition to fall in with or
echo their emotion. A child suddenly placed in
the midst of a group of merry children catches the
prevailing tone of gladness. The spread of a feeling
of indignation, or of admiration, through a com-
munity, as a school, or a nation, illustrates this ten-
dency of a strongly manifested emotion to reflect
itself in others. This fact is known as the contagion

of feeling.

Nature of Sympathy. In its fully-developed form
sympathy is more than this resonance or imitative
reproduction of a manifested feeling. It implies a
distinct representation of another's pleasure or pain,
and a disposition to make it our own, or to identify

1 That the child has a vague intuitive knowledge of others' feelings seems
shown by the fact that he responds to the smile of his mother long before his
own experience could have taught him to associate pleasurable feeling with
this particular facial movement. This is well maintained in the work already
referred to, The Alternative, § LXXII.

2 For an explanation of the genesis of sympathy on evolution principles,
see H. Spencer, Priiiciples of Psychology, Vol. II., Pt. VIII., Chap. V.

510 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

ourselves with the subject of it. It is feeling for as
well as with another. Inasmuch as it includes mental
representations of others' inner experiences, it is
closely related to the knowledge of other minds. But
it is more than knowledge, for we may recognise the
existence of suffering and yet not enter into it and
suffer with and for the sufferer.1 Although we com-
monly have in view feeling for pain rather than for
pleasure when we talk of sympathy, this last really
includes both. To sympathise is to weep with those
that weep and to rejoice with those that rejoice. It
includes the disposition to felicitate as well as the
disposition to commiserate.

Sympathy and Benevolence. Sympathy is a thing
of degree. We often feel a momentary feeling for
one in trouble, but instantly lose sight of the suffer-
ing. Similarly in the case of another's pleasure,
This fugitive kind of sympathy is of little moral
value as it does not affect action. Sympathy is only
complete when it takes a firm hold on the mind, so
that we make the suffering which we witness our
own, and are disposed to make efforts to relieve it
just as though we were ourselves suffering. This
complete identification of ourselves with another is
implied in kindness, considerateness, or benevolence
(well- wishing). It is this active side of sympathy,
this passing of a mere feeling into disinterested im-
pulse, the desire to relieve another's pain and further
his pleasure, which as we shall see later on forms the

1 The exact connection between fellow-feeling and mutual knowledge has
been ingeniously treated by Mr. Leslie Stephen in his Science of Ethics, Ch.
VI., Sect. II.

SYMPATHY. 511

foundation of a morally good and virtuous disposition
or character.1

Process of Sympathy. This feeling for another's
pleasure or pain is the result of a process of observa-
tion and interpretation of the external signs of
feeling, (l) The first step is observation. We must
note the facial movements, the modulations of voice,
and so on, if we are to be affected by another's joy
or grief. Sympathy with adults often requires fine
observation, since they are accustomed to conceal
their emotions. (2) The second step is the interpre-
tation of the signs by the recalling of our past per-
sonal emotional experiences. When we sympathise with
a child in his success or his disappointment, we do so
by a revival of similar experiences of our own. When
another's happiness or unhappiness recalls nothing
similar in our experience, we fail to understand, and
so to sympathise. (3) Finally, in its higher forms
sympathy involves an effort of constructive imagi-
nation. The joys and sorrows of others rarely
resemble our own in all particulars. In order to
interpret another's emotional experience we have to
modify, separate, and regroup the elements of our
personal experience. We have to imagine an untried
set of circumstances, and more than this, allow for
differences of emotional susceptibility between our-
selves and those whose feelings we seek to share.

Basis of Sympathetic Disposition. From this rough
account of the process of sympathy we may easily

1 The exact nature of this disinterested impulse has been the subject of
much discussion. See Bain, The Emotions and the Will, Chap. VI., § 12, and
following. Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, Chap. VI., § III. (Altruism).

512 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

define the main constituents in the sympathetic
temperament. (a) First of all, intense and wide
sympathies involve the emotional temperament, that
is to say a keen and varied susceptibility to pleasures
and pains. To feel deeply, readily and widely with
others implies that we have felt much and variously
ourselves, and are able to recall our feelings easily.1
(b) In the second place, there must not only be
high emotional capacity, but also quickness and fine-
ness of observation, a readiness in noting the external
signs of others' feelings. This condition is by no
means contained in the first. Strong emotional sus-
ceptibilities are often accompanied by the ' subjective
attitude ' of mind, a tendency to brood on one's own
feelings, to be introspective and preoccupied with self
and its concerns. This is fatal to sympathy. Quick
sympathies imply a lively interest in observing ex-
ternal things, and more particularly an interest in
the play of feeling in others. 2 (c) Finally a sympa-
thetic nature involves imaginativeness. Ready and
wide sympathy depends on the ability to project
ourselves easily into new circumstances and situations,
and spell out from the alphabet of our own emotional
experiences the expression of unfamiliar feelings. The
want of this sympathetic imagination may render even
persons of strong and deep feeling and good observa-
tion slow and inept in reading the feelings of others.
To this brief account of the positive (internal)

1 Differences in retentive power are here overlooked, though of course they
affect the disposition to feel for others.

2 This is a good part of the special interest in faces which underlies a
specially good memory for them.

SYMPATHY. 513

conditions of sympathy may be added a word on
the negative conditions. All preoccupation is of
course unfavourable to sympathy. A paramount
interest in activity (so common in children), in in-
tellectual inquiry, or in art, is inimical to close and
deep sympathy. The most important mental obstacle,
however, is the presence of some opposite or incom-
patible feeling, such as the feeling of satisfaction at
another's discomfiture, or envy of his happiness. All
anti-social feeling stifles the promptings of sympathy.
In general, sympathy with pain is much less ob-
structed than sympathy with pleasure by the upris-
ing; of these egoistic feelings. Kejoicing at another's

«/ <—>

serious suffering (Schadenfreude) is less common than
a feeling of dissatisfaction and envy at another's
happiness.1 Hence the great difficulty of a deep
and genuine feeling for another's gladness (Mitfreude).
As Jean Paul says, " Zum Mitleiden geniigt ein
Mensch ; zur Mitfreude gehort ein Engel."

Effects of Sympathy. The giving of sympathy is
partly pleasurable partly painful. To enter into
another's joy is a pure pleasure. On the other hand,
to sorrow with the sorrowful is to share in a painful
state of mind. The pain is no doubt mitigated by
an undercurrent of tender emotion, yet it remains.
The real pleasure of sympathy is for the recipient
rather than for the donor. The happy child has his

1 It has been contended by Dr. Bain that we are capable of deriving plea-
sure from the mere sight of another's pain, and that this constitutes the
ingredient of sweetness in retaliation. But this position has been {questioned.
(See Mind, Vol. I., pp. 235, 429: Vol. VIII., pp. 415, 562). However this
may be, the effect of culture is certainly to greatly limit the range of this
gratification.

514 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

delight increased by his mother's sympathetic interest:
the unhappy one has his grief assuaged by her pity.
Sympathy thus increases our pleasure by adding a
harmonious resonance, and diminishes our pain by
supplying the grateful element of consolation.

More than this, sympathy serves to deepen and
fix more firmly our various sentiments and convic-
tions about things. A child who is pleased with a
successful effort and disposed to think well of him-
self has his self-complacency confirmed by the praise
of his mother or teacher. His likings both for per-
sons and things, his admirations, his moral senti-
ments, are all strengthened by finding that others
share in his feelings. All our habitual feelings are
sustained to a considerable extent by this support of
sympathy.

Mutual Sympathy. The giving of sympathy is
largely a matter of exchange. The pleasure of re-
ceiving sympathy calls forth responsive feeling. We
cannot long go on feeling for another if he gives us
back no emotional equivalent. Accordingly persons
greatly absorbed in their own concerns come in as a
rule for little sympathy.

This mutual sympathy may take the form of an
exchange of feeling with respect to strictly personal
joys and sorrows, as in the case of two friends who
mutually unbosom their secret happiness or unhappi-
ness. More frequently it enters as an accompani-
ment into a common joy or grief. In the delight of
a school at winning a match, or in the sorrow of a
family at the loss of one of its members, we see
mutual sympathy augmenting a common pleasure

SYMPATHY. 515

or softening a common pain. A good deal of the
refined happiness of life consists in interchanges of
common feelings and convictions, as political senti-
ments, aesthetic impressions, and so on. This mutual
sympathy is a powerful influence in the direction of
maintaining public sentiment and moral tone in a
school or other community.

Circumstances favouring Mutual Sympathy. It
follows from what has been said respecting the nature
of the feeling that warm and close sympathy between
two persons depends on special circumstances. It is
not enough that both are of a sympathetic nature :
more special conditions are necessary.

(1) To begin with, there must be a certain simi-
larity of temperament and emotional experience.
Great difference of age, temperament, tastes or
mode of life is fatal to close sympathy. The young
are proverbially inept in entering into the unfamiliar
feelings of the old ; and the latter, though they have
had youthful experiences, have rarely much sympathy
to bestow on the former.

(2) In the second place, there must be a certain
amount of daily contact and community of experience.
Unless two persons are thrown much together they
are not in the way of observing one another's feelings
closely. Added to this there is the important circum-
stance that living together exposes persons to the same
external influences, the same causes of sorrow and
joy. Children in the same home or same school enjoy
to a large extent the same pleasures, feel the same
restraints, and so on. Owing to this circumstance
they get into the habit of sharing in one another's

516 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

feelings, and of giving and looking for sympathy.
Against this must be set off the liability of persons
living in daily contact to come into a relation of
rivalry or competition. This is one reason why chil-
dren are apt to feel so little for one another's troubles :
they are disposed to regard one another as competitors
for the same advantages.

(3) As a third circumstance may be named the
growth of personal liking. Anything which calls
forth tender regard from one person to another
secures that vivid attention on which sympathy de-
pends ; and, further, a feeling of liking disposes a
person to bestow sympathy on the beloved object.
Hence the common union of liking or pleasurable
regard and sympathy in what we call affection and
love. To call forth tenderness, gratitude, admira-
tion, is thus to attract the sympathies. On the other
hand, a cold respect, in which there is no warm pulsa-
tion of tenderness, is unfavourable to the outgoings
of sympathy.

Growth of Sympathy. It follows from this brief
account of the nature and conditions of sympathy
that it is a comparatively late acquirement. As al-
ready remarked there appears to be an instinctive
disposition to answer smile with smile, and tears with
tears. Mr. Darwin's boy when 6 months and 11 days
expressed an imitative sympathy " by his melancholy
face, with the corners of his mouth well depressed,
when his nurse pretended to cry 'V

This instinctive tendency needs, however, to be
developed and perfected by the aid of experience

l Biographical Sketch of an Infant, Mind, Vol. II. (1877), p. 289.

SYMPATHY. 517

and exercise. Sympathy in its complete conscious
form, fellow-feeling, first appears as a feeling of
pity or commiseration for others. The pains first
sympathised with are of course the familiar bodily
feelings, such as cold, fatigue, injury, together with
the simple emotional states as fear and disappoint-
ment. A very young child will show unmistakably
the signs of dejection and sorrow at the actual
sight or narration of another child's sufferings.
And the lower animals with their simple and easily
apprehended emotional experiences come in for a
considerable share of this early pity. To give an
instance, a boy of 21 months on seeing a drowned
dog taken out of a pond and buried, burst into tears,
and continued for days to talk in plaintive tones of
the unfortunate quadruped. Every mother knows
how much the interest of nursery stories depends on
a gratification of the impulses of pity.1

The capability of entering into the pleasures of
others is at this early period limited. The child
is no doubt agreeably affected by the sight of others'
happiness, but this is only an unconscious sym-
pathy which includes no impulse of felicitation.
The familiar fact that a young child takes more
pleasure in hearing about others' happiness in the
region of fiction than in witnessing it in the realm
of reality, suggests that the promptings of envy are
as yet too powerful. But the exercise of sympathy
under the form of compassion strengthens the capa-

1 Strictly speaking pity is something more than sympathy : it includes
an outgoing of tender or loving feeling towards the helpless, or unfortunate
creature, and this ingredient is distinctly pleasurable. Hence Mr. Spencei
talks about the luxury of pity (Principles of Psychology, Vol. II., p. 622).

518 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

city and in a measure fits it for the higher task of
rejoicing at others' happiness.

The progress of sympathy may be marked in dif-
ferent ways. Every exercise of the capacity tends to
fix the disposition and to induce a habit of sympa-
thising. And this is seen in the greater certainty
and promptness with which the feeling is called forth.

Again, as the capacity is thus strengthened and the
intelligence and representative power grows the child
becomes capable of a wider range of sympathy. Sym-
pathy naturally begins at home, with those who have
most in common with the child. But as his capabilities
unfold he learns to feel not only for those of his own
house, but for the poor stranger in the streets, and
even the distant slave. In this way a general
disposition to sympathy which we call kindness or
benevolence is developed.

Finally, the growth of sympathy means a pro-
gress in refinement. As the whole emotional nature
grows the child becomes capable of entering into
the more complex and subtle feelings of others.
He began by sharing in the simple distresses of his
playmates, and pet animals : he ends by feeling his
way into the many shades of emotion which a culti-
vated mind experiences.

Uses of Sympathy in Education. The impulses of sympathy
are a matter of prime concern to the teacher. The fundamental
fact of sympathy that feeling tends to propagate itself is fraught
with important educational consequences. The maxim that the
teacher should exhibit good feeling himself, and cultivate a healthy
tone of sentiment in his class or school, depends on this circum-
stance. In its fuller and more complete form, too, sympathy is a

SYMPATHY. 519

matter of supreme interest. The teacher's success with a pupil
will turn largely on his ability to cultivate and maintain a relation
of mutual sympathy between himself and his charge. His object
should be to stimulate the young learner to enter to some extent
into his own feeling of enthusiasm for knowledge, into his tastes,
and so on ; and for this purpose he should know something of the
way in which sympathy is excited. Finally sympathy plays a
prominent part in moral development. The child grows moral to
some extent by unconsciously imbibing the moral feelings of those
about him. But, more than this, sympathy with others is, as we shall
see presently, an essential ingredient in the moral sentiment. The
disinterested love of right presupposes the capacity and habit of
representing and realising the interests and claims of others. It
follows from all this that the cultivation of sympathy will occupy
a prominent place in intellectual and moral training.

Cultivation of Sympathy. The problem of cultivating sym-
pathy is complicated by the very great differences of native
temperament among children. Leaving these out of sight we may
lay down one or two general considerations for the guidance of the
mother or teacher. To begin with, the capacity for sympathy
must be supplied with appropriate stimuli. Objects may be sup-
plied, either in actual life, or, in default of these, in fiction, for the
purpose of exciting sympathy. l The child should from the first be
made familiar with the experiences of others. Since want of sym-
pathy is often due to inadvertency it behoves the teacher to exercise
the child in a habit of attending to others' feelings. More particu-
larly he should be prompted to note the effects on others of his own
actions. Thus he should be led to see how he wounds and hurts
others by his acts of folly and insubordination, by his propensity
to self-indulgence. And on the other hand he should be encouraged
to note the happy results of good conduct, the comfort and satis-
faction he confers on others. Finally the child should be exercised
in the following out of sympathetic impulses, that is to say in
benevolent actions. He should be encouraged to relieve distress
whenever he is able, and to confer happiness on others by giving up

1 As a part of moral training, that is the exercise of the will in action for
the relief of others' distress and the promotion of their happiness, the present-
ment of ideal objects is of far less efficacy. It tends when resorted to in
excess to beget the habit of feeling for others without acting on the feeling.

520 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

his toys, books, and so on. This exercise should be gradual, be-
ginning with the sharing of a possession with another, and going
on to the more difficult feat of self-denial. In this way he will
reach an experience of the delights of sympathy, and have the dis-
position to sympathise fixed as a ruling motive to conduct.

An important auxiliary agency in the cultivation of a child's
sympathy is the manifestation of sympathy with him. Children
are at first egoistic and cannot rise to the height of pure unrewarded
disinterestedness. Their first outgoings of sympathy are a kind of
exchange for similar favours received. Hence they first confer
their sympathy on those (as mother and nurse) who are kind and
sympathetic towards them. The more the teacher shews kind con-
sideration for his pupil, enters into his special difficulties, troubles,
and his favourite interests, the more likely is he to evoke a respon-
sive sympathy. If the teacher wishes his pupil to step up to his
level of feeling, he must first descend to his humbler level. In
addition to shewing sympathy to the particular child, the teacher
will help to cultivate his capacity of sympathy by shewing a kindly
disposition in general. Sympathy, like other modes of feeling, is
acquired in part through the influence of example. Children
brought up in the midst of those who are considerate are themselves
likely to grow considerate.

The Intellectual Sentiment : Love of Knowledge.
Having briefly considered the nature of sympathy we
pass to the consideration of those non-personal emo-
tions or sentiments which gather about certain objects
and ideas common to all. Of these the first is the
Intellectual Sentiment or the pleasurable feeling which
attaches itself to knowledge and truth, together with
the corresponding painful emotion which connects
itself with ignorance and error. This sentiment is
developed in connection with the pursuit of know-
ledge. Viewed under slightly different aspects it is
known as the satisfaction of curiosity, the pleasure of
discovery, and the reverence for truth.

INTELLECTUAL SENTIMENT. 521

Pleasures of Knowledge Analysed: Delight in New
Knowledge. All mental activity is as we have seen
pleasurable provided it is suitable to the strength of
the faculty and to the condition of the brain at the
time. Intellectual occupation of all kinds is thus
within certain limits agreeable. But the enjoyment
only becomes considerable when the charm of novelty
is added. To observe a familiar object, to recall a
well-known fact, gives little enjoyment. On the
other hand, to exercise the powers of observation on a
new object, or to recall an occurrence that seemed
forgotten, yields keen enjoyment. Hence all acquisi-
tion and discovery of new knowledge is fitted to give
pleasure, the enjoyment being greater when the facts
or truths contrast strikingly with our previous know-
ledge. In this case we experience the pleasurable
excitement of surprise or wonder. The first intro-
duction of the young mind to the new world opened
up by science (e.g., Astronomy, Chemistry) gives a
thrill of delightful wonder.

Wonder and Perplexity. The pleasures of know-
ledge illustrate the effect of contrast in another way.
They are greatly intensified by a preceding state of
mental distress. To be in the dark, to feel ourselves
ignorant, is to have a painful sense of want. The
child that is made to feel the misery of ignorance is
in the best situation to relish the pleasures of know-
ledge.1

A still better preparation for the pleasures of
knowledge than a mere consciousness of ignorance,

1 This was the Socratic way of seeking to rouse a desire for knowledge in.
the minds of the contented Athenians.

522 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

is a feeling of perplexity and confusion in view of
what is strange and exceptional. What is strange,
far removed from the ordinary level of our experience,
may, as just pointed out, give the mind the pleasur-
able excitement of wonder. This feeling if excessively
indulged in is antagonistic to knowledge. The intense
craving for the wonderful, the love of the marvellous,
has something of an intoxicating effect, and paralyses
the impulses of inquiry. But in its moderate degrees
the emotion of wonder is the natural stimulus to
further inquiry. Wonder lives by isolating the new
fact or circumstance from the familiar order of ex-
perience. But such isolation becomes disagreeable
through the rise of the intellectual impulse to under-
stand. When on a close and prolonged direction of
the mind to a thing it maintains its isolated and
strange appearance, the mind experiences a feeling of
perplexity. Thus the child first wonders at some
striking new fact, say the ascent of a balloon. This
gives him the momentary gratification of wonder. But
presently he begins to feel curious, and if unable to
assimilate the new fact to old ones, he has a disagree-
able sense of perplexity. The keener joys of discovery
are commonly preceded by a temporary state of mental
difficulty, perplexity, or confusion.

Emotion of Wonder. Wonder occupies a peculiar place amor
the emotions. In its simplest form of surprise at what is new or un-
expected it constitutes the simplest form of emotional excitement. Des-
cartes regarded it as the first of all the emotions and placed it at the head
of his classification (Les Passions de Vdme, Art. LIII.) Dr. Bain gives
it a place among the simplest emotions (those of Belativity). And
Prof. Wundt regards it as the simplest form of emotional excitement,
'Affect' (Physiol Psychol. II., cap. 18, p. 332). Lastly, according to the

INTELLECTUAL SENTIMENT. 523

observations of Prof. Preyer, surprise is one of the first emotions which
are distinctly manifested by the child (Die Seele des Kindes, p. 108,
seq.}.

The emotion of wonder is a more complex mental state than the
feeling of surprise. The latter is the momentary effect of something
unexpected for which the attention is not fully adjusted. Wonder
implies a more or less distinct comparison of the object with other
objects, with familiar types of experience, and a recognition of a marked
contrast with or deviation from these. What is wholly new or unex-
pected always surprises us, but does not necessarily excite wonder.

According to Dr. Bain Surprise and Wonder are neutral or indiffer-
ent feelings. This may be so in certain cases, but it is doubtful whether
the conditions are often fulfilled. A certain degree of the shock of sur-
prise, by rousing the attention and the intellectual powers to full
activity, is pleasurably stimulating. On the other hand, when the shock
is violent it is disconcerting and disagreeable.

Wonder at what is unusual seems, in most cases at least, a distinctly
pleasurable emotion, whence the expression 'the love of the marvel-
lous '. The value we ascribe to things on the ground of their rarity
points to the pleasurableness of wonder. Even the most repulsive
objects, as moral infamy, are redeemed to some extent by the element of
pleasurable excitement which they afford by reason of their extraordinary
startling character. This pleasurable excitement of wonder frequently
combines with aesthetic and other pleasurable emotions in the form of
admiration. On the other hand, wonder is related as a disturbing
shock to the emotion of fear. What is wholly strange is apt to give
us a sense of insecurity. The fear of the dark, which (pace Locke)
seems to arise in young children apart from the suggestions of others,
is probably connected with the strangeness and absence of knowledge
belonging to the situation. It may be added that the exhilarating and
depressing effect of what is new and unfamiliar varies much with indi-
vidual temperament.

From this brief account of the feeling of wonder it may be seen that
it stands in a peculiar and complex relation to the Intellectual Emotion.
In its simplest form of surprise the feeling implies a measure of intel-
lectual activity, fixing of the attention. All wonder, further, implies the
exercise of the fundamental function of intellect, discrimination. In
wondering we distinguish and contrast. As depending on temporary
inability to assimilate and comprehend, it may, as pointed out, oppose
further intellectual activity, as we see in the gaping of the vulgar
mind at the marvels of the conjuror, &c. But in the case of the inqui-
sitive mind it forms the natural starting point in inquiry. Just as
discrimination leads on to assimilation, so the pleasurable excitement of
wonder conducts (by way of an after-feeling of perplexity) to the final
pleasure of mastering and understanding. Finally, as we shall see

524 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

immediately, this last assimilative process itself supplies a pleasure very
similar to that of wonder.

Pleasures of Assimilation. Every kind of intel-
lectual activity has its own characteristic pleasure.
Thus the discrimination of objects, or ideas, one
from another gives a quiet satisfaction. The detec-
tion of the finer shades of difference, making a greater
demand on the intellectual energies, is if not fatiguing
a distinctly enjoyable occupation. A more exciting
kind of pleasure is obtained from the exercise of the
' assimilating ' power, the tracing out of identities
amid diversities. This operation, gives a peculiar
thrill of pleasure which has been called the effect
of a ' flash of identity '« The poet ministers to
this feeling in his similes by which he brings to-
gether widely remote objects or ideas. All under-
standing of new facts supplies a measure of this
enjoyment, which varies with the degree of strange-
ness or unfamiliarity of the new facts. The more
arduous processes of thought, the searching out
of analogies, causes, and reasons, are now and again
rewarded by the full intensity of this intellectual
pleasure.

Pleasures of Discovering Knowledge. The full en-
joyment of intellect is only known in those more
prolonged operations where the mind is actively
searching for some new fact or truth. The passive
reception of a new piece of knowledge, even when
the pains of ignorance or of perplexity have preceded,
gives but little delight compared with the active
discovery of it for oneself. A boy who works out
unaided a problem in geometry has an amount of

INTELLECTUAL SENTIMENT. 525

satisfaction wholly incommensurable with that of
another who has the solution at once supplied him.
In this case the full activity of the mind is awak-
ened, trains of ideas pass rapidly through the mind
and there is the glow of intellectual excitement. In
addition to this there is the pleasure of pursuing an
end, the delight of intellectual chase. A certain
amount of resistance only stimulates the powers
further, and so adds to the zest. At the end there
is the joyous feeling of successful attainment of diffi-
culties overcome and of triumph.1

Pleasure in Possessing Knowledge. When the
knowledge is attained its possession is accompanied
by a pleasurable consciousness of power. The mind
is aware of being enriched by a new possession. And
the new attainment is felt to be a source of strength.

It has lessened for us the region of the unknown and
obscure, and adds to our self-confidence in confronting
the world about us. In many cases, too, the new
possession gives us a firmer hold on previous acquisi-
tions. It throws light on facts which were once
obscure, it serves to bind a number of fragments of
knowledge under some uniting principle. Finally, the
new acquisition gives us the pleasurable sense of
increased active efficiency. Knowledge is power in
the sense that it ^nables us to act or do things. The
consciousness of knowing something involves an agree-

1 This delight of pursuit is treated by Dr. Bain under the head "Emotions
of Action ". It enters not only into the pleasures of such active occupations
as the chase, exploration of new territories, &c., but into intellectual plea-
sures and those of beauty and art. Hogarth found the source of pleasure of
his ' line of beauty ' in a pursuit or chase by the eye. The pleasure of music
depends in no small measure on the same principle.

526 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

able confidence in our ability to act on it when the
time comes.1

Other Forms of Intellectual Sentiment : Logical
Feelings. Besides the feeling of pleasure which springs
up in connection with the pursuit and attainment of
knowledge, there are other feelings incident to intel-
lectual processes, which may be styled the Logical
Feelings. As we have seen, all doubt is in a measure
a painful state of discord, whereas belief is a state of
agreeable repose. Statements which run counter to
our experience give the sense of contradiction, whereas
those which chime in with it are wont to be assented
to with a pleasurable sense of harmony.

Closely related to these feelings are those which are
excited by inconsistency and consistency of statement.
Two incompatible assertions distress the mind by a
sense of conflict, whereas consistency in statement
pleases by affording the sense of harmony. The
transition from a state of mental conflict (whether
due to an apparent opposition between statement and
fact, or statement and statement) to one of harmony
supplies a peculiarly keen satisfaction. A good deal
of the interest of scientific research turns on recon-
ciling apparent hostility, on assimilating the new to
the old knowledge, with which it at first seems to
collide. The feeling of veneration for truth includes
a regard for consistency, as well as for accuracy of
statement. It is closely related to the moral senti-

1 Tliis pleasure is of course liable to the effect of the principle of change.
It is only intense when the knowledge is fresh. But it may afterwards be
revived by contrasting our present state with our past state, or with the pre-
sent ignorance of others.

INTELLECTUAL SENTIMENT. 527

ment which attaches to veracity, or the disposition
to be truthful.

The Intellectual Feelings are differently treated by different writers.
Some, as Volkmann, recognise no special group under this head.
Nahlowsky understands by intellectual feelings states of belief or assur-
ance not reduced to clear intellectual apprehensions of truth (Das
Gef'dklsleben, § 16). This answers to the fact that we commonly speak
of feeling sure of that which we cannot establish satisfactorily to another
mind. But though this conception of intellectual feeling brings out
the important fact that intense feeling and intellection are opposed, it
takes a very inadequate view of the range of intellectual feeling. There
is an element of feeling accompanying the clearest logical discernment
of a truth. The intellectual, like the other feelings, have their lower
blind stage and their higher illumined stage. Wundt includes under
Intellectual Feelings all the sentiments, Intellectual, Esthetic, Moral,
and Religious. The first species are marked off as Logical Feelings.1

Growth of Intellectual Feeling: Children's Curiosity.

Children from a very early age take a certain pleasure
in finding out new facts, and obtaining explanations.
This is seen in the vividness of their curiosity,
which is simply the pleasure of gaining new know-
ledge taking on the active form of desire. The
very novelty of the things happening about them
supplies a strong stimulus to their curiosity. But
this curiosity is at first a feeble and restricted feeling.
A child of three or four who is apt to plague his
parents with questions would take but little trouble
to find out what he asks for. The inquisitiveness is
often momentary only, and if not gratified, leads to
no distress of mind. It is also apt to be restricted
in its range, directing itself mainly to that which is
near at hand, intrinsically striking, or associated with
the inquirer's personal interests.

1 On the relation of the intellectual feelings to the processes of thought seo
lay volume Sensation and Intuition, chap. IV., pp. 106-108.

528 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

The nature of children's curiosity has probably been greatly mis-
understood, alike by those who, from a sentimental tendency to exagge-
rate the value of the several traits of childhood, are wont to extol this
quality, and by those who with a touch of cynicism seem disposed to
resolve children's questionings into " a display of egotism ". They both
appear to fail to recognise that there are two stages of development of
the feeling. In the first place, there is the lower or earlier form of
curiosity in which there is a vague consciousness that things have
their reason or explanation, but little discernment as to what kind of
explanation is needed in a particular instance. This curiosity is often
apparently satisfied by the mere semblance of an explanation. In the
second place, there is the higher and more exacting form of curiosity
which presupposes a trained intelligence, and a definite antecedent
notion as to what kind of explanation is needed in any given case. The
earlier and comparatively blind form shades insensibly into the later.
An intelligent child of 3 or thereabouts will generally shew that he well
knows the difference between a genuine and a counterfeit explanation of
any matter with the nature of which his mind is already familiar. l

Earlier Stage of Intellectual Sentiment. In the

early stages of school life the child's interest in
knowledge is due to no small extent to the value
which is put on it by others. The boy or girl finds
that everybody else is busy amassing knowledge.
Progress is rewarded : the children who get up their
lessons well are approved, and regarded with favour
by their teacher and by their companions. Thus a
reflected feeling of respect for knowledge is acquired,
which will vary in intensity according to the suscep-
tibility of the child to the pleasures of approbation
and reputation. He is proud of knowing his lesson
mainly because others hold knowledge in high esteem.
Affection and Sympathy will, as we have seen, also
play a part. The affectionate child takes to study
because he wishes to please his teacher. Moreover

1 For different views respecting the worth of this feeling, see Perez, L' Edu-
cation des le £erccau,Cha,\). II., Sect. I. j Bain, Education as a Science, p.
90, seq.

INTELLECTUAL SENTIMENT. 529

he finds that his ignorance excludes him from the
pleasures of companionship and sympathy, and that
every advance in knowledge brings him nearer his
teacher. Finally knowledge will be valued for its
practical utility, Children set store by those kinds
of knowledge which they can turn to practical
account. Where, as often happens, the usefulness of
knowledge is not apparent they are apt to feel less
concern about it.

Later Stage of Intellectual Sentiment. A genuine
love of knowledge develops partly as the result of
these reflected feelings, and partly through the
exercises of the intellect themselves, and experiences
of properly intellectual enjoyment. Each enlarge-
ment of knowledge supplies a new emotional ex-
perience, a fresh taste of the enjoyments of the
search for, discovery and possession of knowledge.
Through the accumulation of many such experiences
a deeper feeling of regard or respect for knowledge is
developed.

Here too we see the effects of habit in limiting;

the range of the feeling. The child comes to value
knowledge of certain kinds only, namely, those which
are most closely related to his natural tastes, or those
which he has made a special object of pursuit.1 In
other words the love of knowledge is not so much an
interest in acquiring new information generally, as a
special interest in particular subjects, as history, or
mathematics. All branches of intellectual pursuit long

1 The effect of others' estimate, must not be lost sight of here. A child
tends to attach special value to those branches of knowledge which he hears
extolled.

530 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

followed out tend to be made a personal concern, to
be identified with the individual's interests. A purely
disinterested love of knowledge is more than this, and
embraces a feeling of curiosity for knowledge of all
kinds, that which lies outside our special region of
observation and study, as well as that which lies
within it. This wide impartial interest in knowledge
is rarely developed in early life. It presupposes a
considerable measure of intellectual culture. Even
among adults it is one of the rarest attainments.

The development of the Logical Feelings, the senti-
ment of consistency and accuracy, is a slow process
which only begins in the ordinary period of school
life. Children often show a certain quickness in
spying out inaccuracies and inconsistencies in others'
statements, but the interest here is rather the feeling
of pleasure in " taking another down," than a genuine
intellectual repugnance to contradiction. Such feel-
ings in their keener form are rare, and presuppose a
certain refinement of emotional nature to begin with.
Their development is closely connected with intel-
lectual progress and the growth of a love of knowledge.
A keen desire for knowledge leads naturally to a deep
respect for accuracy and consistency. This last is
further promoted by a practical experience of the
evils of inaccuracy and error.

The Cultivation of the Intellectual Sentiment. The cultiva-
tion of the emotions which grow up about knowledge goes on hand
in hand with intellectual culture. The best kind of intellectual
training necessarily involves the calling forth of a genuine interest
in knowledge and of a habitual feeling of curiosity. Here the thing
to attend to is to adapt as far as possible the work to the capabilities

INTELLECTUAL SENTIMENT. 531

and natural tastes of the child so that the fullest enjoyment' may
be derived from it. The pupil must be led (at the outset by the
help of adventitious motives) to make acquaintance with the plea-
sures of intellectual activity, of finding out things, and of overcom-
ing obstacles. A judicious use should be made of the principle
of association. All the accompaniments of study should be made
as agreeable as possible, so that a pleasurable feeling may be
reflected on to intellectual pursuits. The ' get up ' of a text-book
may materially affect the child's liking for a particular study at
this early period. And the more attractive the school sur
roundings, the more likely are the scholars to take kindly to
learning. Further, in seeking to awaken a pleasurable interest in
knowledge resort must be had to the principle of contrast. The
pleasures of knowledge cannot in themselves be very keen at first
but by inducing beforehand a feeling of ignorance, of wonder and
perplexity, we may be able to excite a strong impulse of curiosity,
the satisfaction of which craving will greatly enhance the pleasure
which attends the actual attainment of knowledge. Once more,
whenever it is practicable the young should be invited to make
their own discoveries in order that they may taste the full enjoy-
ment of intellectual pursuit. A skilful method of instruction will
always manage to leave some room for the play of the child's
impulse to divine facts, and search out reasons.

The /Esthetic Sentiment. The second of the three
sentiments to be now considered is known as the
Esthetic Emotion, the Pleasures of Beauty or the
Pleasures of Taste. These include a variety of plea-
surable feelings, namely those corresponding to what
is pretty, graceful, harmonious, sublime, ludicrous,
in natural objects (including human beings) or in
works of art. To these pleasures there correspond
the disagreeable feelings excited by what is ugly,
inharmonious, and so forth.

How /Esthetic Pleasure arises. These pleasures
are the accompaniments of impressions made on the

532 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

mind by external objects through one of the two
higher senses, Sight and Hearing, and more particu-
larly Sight. The pleasure arises in connection with
the perception or recognition of some agreeable feature
or quality in the object. The most general name for
this quality is beauty. But this term really answers
to a variety of features any one of which may excite
this species of pleasure. Thus we speak of the beauty
of a colour, meaning its brilliance or purity : of a statue,
meaning its graceful lines, and its proportions of form,
and so on. These aspects or features of objects have
this in common that they excite a peculiar feeling of
delight in the spectator's mind. The distinguishing
peculiarity of this aesthetic pleasure is that it springs
immediately out of the act of contemplation itself and
involves no relation (save that of spectator) between
the subject and the object. The mother's delight
in gazing on her child, even the gem-collector's delight
in looking at his treasures, is not a purely aesthetic
feeling. As Kant observes, aesthetic enjoyment to be
pure must not even include the personal element of a
desire to possess.

Characteristics of XEsthetic Enjoyment. From this
brief account of the way in which aesthetic pleasure
arises we may see what are its leading characteristics :
(1) First of all, coming to us through the two higher
and intellectual senses, the aesthetic pleasures stand
out in contrast to the coarser enjoyments of the
senses (such as the pleasures of the table, &c.), as
eminently refined enjoyments. They are distinguished
by their purity or freedom from disagreeable accom-
paniments (preceding desire or appetite, succeeding

ESTHETIC SENTIMENT. 533

satiety), and by their capability of prolongation and
variation.

The pleasures of the lower senses are commonly preceded by a state
of desire, those of the higher not so. Again in the lower senses the
pains are at least commensurate with the pleasures, whereas in the
higher they are much less intense. In the case of sight the capability
of rapid recovery from fatigue allows of a prolonged stimulation. A
further peculiarity of the two .^Esthetic Senses is that their impressions
are susceptible of grouping in certain pleasing forms, space and time
forms. See G. Allen Physiological ^Esthetics, p. 39, c/., p. 147, seq ; E.
Gurney Power of Sound, Chap. I.

(2) A see~<5nd characteristic is closely connected
with this first. The activities of which these plea-
sures are the accompaniment are not in any way
necessary or ' life-preserving,' such as those concerned
in maintaining health, putting down crime, and so
on. In contemplating a beautiful object the pleasure
springing out of the act of contemplation is its sole
end. A work of art is produced solely for the plea-
sure which it gives. This peculiarity of beauty and
art is expressed in the ancient antithesis between the
Beautiful and the Useful. Esthetic enjoyment is
thus a net addition to the sum of life's pleasure. It
is to the serious business of life what play is to work,
something quite useless, and an end to itself.

It is this circumstance which differentiates the ^Esthetic from the
other two sentiments, the Intellectual and Moral. Though these,
too, imply a disinterested attitude on the part of the contemplator they
are related to what is useful, for the community if not for the individual.
The contemplation of the most abstract truth furthest removed from
practical needs approximates to an {esthetic intuition. The modern
doctrine of evolution has given a new meaning to the old antithesis of
the useful and beautiful by means of the conception of a redundant play-
like activity. See H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, II., Pt. VIII.,
Ch. IX. ; G. Allen, Physiological Esthetics, Chap. III.

534 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

(3) The third characteristic of the aesthetic plea-
sures is their shareability. Since they come to us
through the two senses sight and hearing, which can
be acted on by objects at a distance, and since
they involve no special relation between spectator
and object, they may be enjoyed simultaneously by a
large number. Hence they are susceptible of great
enhancement by the interchanges of sympathy.

Elements of /Esthetic Enjoyment. As has been
observed, aesthetic enjoyment arises in connection
with the recognition of a variety of features in objects,
as, for example, purity of colour, or grace of form and
movement. In most if not all cases the pleasure which
a beautiful, object affords is a complex mass of enjoy-
ment, answering to the presence of a number of
agreeable features in the object. We have now to
distinguish between these elements of beauty and the
corresponding modes of aesthetic enjoyment.

We may in a rough way group the various elements
in aesthetic enjoyment under three heads : (l) Of
these, the first is the sensuous or material element.
Impressions of bright light, of pure colour, of pure
even tone, and smooth even lines (whether straight or
curved) are pleasurable in their character, and these
contribute the sensuous material out of which beauti-
ful objects are composed. A good deal of the charm
of visible objects and of series of sounds is due to
combinations of pleasurable sense-impressions in such
a way as to give ample variety of impression, and
agreeable or ' harmonious ' juxtapositions of colour,
sound, and line.

(2) The second factor in aesthetic enjoyment is th

AESTHETIC SENTIMENT. 535

perceptual or formal element. This ingredient of
pleasure is connected with the exercise of the percep-
tual faculty in following out a variety of details, arid
in binding these together by some thread of unity.
In the case of visible objects the eye traces out pleas-
ing space-form, in its several aspects of free variety of
line, symmetry and proportion of form. In the case
of sounds, articulate or musical, the ear follows out
pleasing time-form under the aspect of free varied
movements bound together by the laws of rhythm,
metre, tonality, &C.1

(3) The third element of aesthetic enjoyment may
be marked off as the associative or ideal element.
This includes all the pleasure which arises through
the suggestions of the objects presented. A good deal '
of the beauty of natural objects turns on association.,'
The cawing of rooks is not a pleasing sound in itself,
but is commonly regarded as such through its sug-
gestions, e.g., sunny park, and country repose. The
effect of sublimity is largely a matter of suggestion.
We are thrilled at the sight of an Alpine crag because
of the suggestions of power, danger, and isolation
which attend it. By means of this process of sugges-
tion aesthetic objects supply not only sense-feelings in
an ideal form, but also an ideal gratification of the
several emotions.

The influence of association on aesthetic impressions is
illustrated further in the pleasurable effect of what has
been called relative or dependent beauty, viz., that of

1 For a further exposition of the formal element see my article on Pleasures
of Visual Form in Mind, Vol. V. (1880), p. 191 : also Sensation and Intui-
tion, Ch. VIII. (Aspects of Beauty in Musical Form), cf., E. Gurney, Power
of Sound, Chap. IV. and V.

536 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

all objects wliich are seen to be well fitted to their
purpose, as a well constructed piece of furniture or
tool. The agreeable effect of symbols and emblems
of what is worthy or sublime, is also due to a process
of suggestion.1

The above three-fold division of the elements or constituents of
aesthetic impressions is a rough one only, and must not be pressed too
far. Strictly speaking, the element here singled out as the formal,
namely, a pleasing blending of unity with variety pervades the whole
aesthetic impression. Even in the sense-elements themselves the mind
is vaguely aware of the presence of uniformity. A mass of pure colour,
an even tone, a straight line, all embody a germ of unity.2 A beautiful
curve illustrates uniformity with change. According to the researches
of Helmholtz, musical harmony and melody depend on a vague recogni-
tion of a partial similarity in the combining elements.3 And what is
known as the harmony of colours consists largely in a discernable
colligation of a multitude of elements by a bond of unity.1 Again,
this same ingredient, unity in variety, is discernable in the suggestions
or ideal content of the object. Thus the unity in variety of an organic
structure, a plant or animal, resides not merely in the space-relations,
a beautiful disposition of lines and contours, but also in the utilities or
functions of the several parts which are suggested, the subordination of
all organs and all activities to one end, the maintenance and furtherance
of the structure. Similarly of a beautiful landscape, melody, or poem : the
blending of unity with variety appears not only in the grouping of
Sense-Elements ('form' in the narrow meaning) but also in that of
the represented content or signification of these.

It may be added that association probably enters into the effect both
of the sense-elements apart, colours, tones, and lines, and of their com-
binations. Individual colours and harmonious combinations of these

1 These suggestions are due partly to the experiences of the individual,
partly to those of the race. Mr. Spencer emphasises the influence of heredity
on the aesthetic feelings, as those excited by beautiful scenery, music, &c.
See Principles of 'Psychology I., Pt. IV., Ch. VIII., §214, II., Pt. VIII., Ch. IX.,
cf., Darwin's explanation of the emotional effects of music in The Descent of
Man, Pt. II., Ch. XIX. : also E. Gurney's chapter on 'Association,' Power of
Sound, Chap. VI.

'See G. T. Fechner, VorschaU der sEstlictik, I., p. 58.

3 See Sensation and Intuition, Chap. VIII.

4 See my article on Harmony of Colours in Mind, Vol. IV. (1879), p. 183,
et. seq.

ESTHETIC SENTIMENT. 537

owe some of their aesthetic value to pleasurable associations built up
during the life of the individual or of the race.1 The same is probably
true of tones of certain timbre. And the aesthetic value of beautiful
forms (time and space forms) may to a considerable extent depend on
the co-operation of associations.2

The whole effect of a beautiful object, so far as we
can explain it, is a harmonious confluence of these
delights of sense, intellect, and emotion, in a new
combination. Thus a beautiful natural object, as a noble
tree, delights us by its gradations of light and colour,
the combination of variety with symmetry in its con-
tour or form, the adaptation of part to part, and 01
the whole to its surroundings ; and finally by its
effect on the imagination, its suggestions of heroic
persistence, of triumph over the adverse forces of wind
and storm. Similarly a beautiful painting delights
the eye by supplying a rich variety of light and
shade, of colour, and of outline ; gratifies the intellect
by exhibiting a certain plan of composition, the setting
forth of a scene or incident with just the fulness of
• detail for agreeable apprehension ; and lastly, touches
the many-stringed instrument of emotion by a har-
monious impression, the several parts or objects being
fitted to strengthen and deepen the dominant emo-
tional effect, whether this be grave or pathetic on the
one hand, or light and gay on the other. The effect
of beauty, then, appears to depend on a simultaneous
presentment in a single object of a well-harmonised

1See my article already referred to, Mind, 1879, p. 191. The effect of
heredity in determining the pleasures of colour has been well brought out
by Mr. Grant Allen in his work on The Colour-Sense.

2 See the article already referred to, Mind, 1880, p. 197, scq. Of. Mr.
Grant Allen's article on Symmetry, in Mind, 1879, p. 301, seq.

538 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

mass of pleasurable material or pleasurable stimulus
for sense, intellect, and emotion.

The above analysis of the effect of beauty answers pretty closely to
that given by Mr. H. Spencer (Principles of Psychology, Vol. II., Pt.
VIII., Chap. IX.). The problem of explaining the whole impression
of beautiful objects is still far from being completely resolved. By
tracing out carefully the many modes of combination of variety and
unity, and the different emotional effects of these, much may be done to
account for aesthetic impression.1 But such an analysis still leaves
much to be explained. It has recently been argued by Mr. E. Gurney
that reason is incapable of discovering any one principle running
through all modes of aesthetic impression. The principle conmionly
adopted as the leading law of aesthetic impression, unity amid diversity,
is viewed by this writer rather as determining the broad limits within
which beautiful form must move, than as unfolding the nature of beautiful
form itself. It is to beauty and art what grammatical rules are to style.2
The hypothesis of a hereditary transmission of associated effects of tones,
colours, and their combinations, if adopted, would account for the large
remainder of obscure unanalysable effect in esthetic impressions.3

The Sublime- Among properly aesthetic feelings it is usual to dis-
tinguish between the effect of beauty in the narrow sense, in which
harmony, unity, proportion is the prominent aspect, from that of sub-
limity. Here magnitude and not form is the prominent circumstance.
We are only affected by the feeling of sublimity in presence of some-
thing vast, whether in space, in time, or in degree or energy. The feeling
is in general less composite than that of beauty. On the other hand, it
involves in most cases a subordinate element of painful feeling. The
sublime excites and exhilirates us by presenting a powerful stimulus to
perception and imagination. It excites a full measure of pleasurable
activity. At the same time, by its very magnitude it baffles a facile

1 This has been attempted in a thoroughly scientific spirit by G. T. Fceliner
in his Vorschule dcr ^sthetik, Vol. I., Chap. VI. He seeks to connect this
law of {esthetic impressions with a still more general principle of pleasurable
mental activity. The analogy between the law of harmony governing the
emotional region, and in a peculiar manner, that of aesthetic feeling, and the
properly intellectual pleasure of tracing out similarity or identity, has already
been touched on.

2 See The Power of Sound, Chap. IX., 'The Eolations of Reason and Order
to Beauty '.

3 A historical resume of the different theories of the Beautiful will be found
in the writer's article, Esthetics, in the 9th Edition of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica.

AESTHETIC SENTIMENT. 539

simultaneous grasp of it as a whole. These states usually alternate in
looking at a vast and sublime object. In some cases the first, and in
others the second predominates. The spectacle of splendid energy
(physical or moral) elates us with a sympathetic thrill of expansion.
On the other hand, as that which baffles comprehension, which has no
sharp boundaries but is undefined, a sublime spectacle usually excites
a nascent feeling of fear, or sense of insecurity. We look on the vast
space of the starry heavens and on the vast procession of the ages with
an emotion of awe. In many forms of sublime spectacle, e.g., mountain
scenery, titanic energy, suggestions of danger become still more distinct.1
The Ludicrous. Still further removed than the feeling of the
sublime from the effect of the beautiful is another variety of sesthetic
sentiment known as the feeling of the ludicrous. The sublime like the
beautiful is a worthy dignified spectacle : the ludicrous is rather the
presentation of something wanting in dignity, in value. The emotion
called forth, expressing itself in the characteristic movements of laughter,
is quite unlike that excited by either a beautiful or a sublime object. The
movements of laughter are an accompaniment of a number of pleasurable
feelings. It has properly physical stimuli, more particularly that form
of intermittent stimulation known as tickling. In many cases, especially
in early life, it seems to be the outcome of a sudden accession of good
spirits or gaiety of mind. It seems further to ally itself to a state of
mental rebound or relaxation after a constrained attitude of mind, in-
volving the inhibition of movement, e.g., in listening to a discourse. The
emotion of the ludicrous, properly so-called, is called forth by the spec-
tacle of what is unusual, odd, or incongruous (provided no other feeling
such as fear or disgust is aroused). The effect in this case is by no means
clearly understood. There is evidently present in a marked degree the
pleasurable exhilaration of surprise (often intensified by expectation of
something different). The element of incongruity would seem to be

1 Writers on the sublime have usually emphasised either the one or the
other side of the emotional effect. Thus Burke thought the essence of the
sublime was the terrible operating either openly or latently. Longinus and
after him many others found the effect in a glorying or sense of inward great-
ness. D. Stewart, basing his argument on the etymology of the word, looks
on the feeling of elation attending an eleva.ted position as the simplest form
of the emotion, and an essential ingredient in all its forms (Philosophical
Ussays II.). Dr. Bain regards the sublime of force (and not of space) as
the fundamental type , and conceives the essential ingredient of the effect to
be a sympathetic consciousness of the power contemplated ( The Emotions and
the Will, Ft. II., Chap. XIV., § 27, &c.). Hamilton recognised both a pleasur-
able and a painful element in the sublime (Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. II. ,
Lect. XLVI.). Mr. G. Allen has attempted to trace the development of the
emotion in the history of the race (Mind, 1878, p. 324 seq.)

540 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

fitted to awaken a disagreeable feeling, namely one of contradiction ; but
this painful ingredient is instantly overpowered by a pleasurable rebound
as the unreality or insignificant nature of the contradiction is recognised.
The emotion of the ludicrous properly so-called is usually accompanied
by other pleasurable feelings. The most frequent accompaniment is
a feeling of power or elation at the spectacle of a slight discomfiture or
degradation of a person (or thing) possessing dignity. It also combines
with a feeling of tenderness and kindliness in the form of humour.1

./Esthetic Feeling and /Esthetic Judgment : Faculty
of Taste. We commonly speak indifferently of a
feeling for beauty, or of a perception or recognition
of beauty. And this shows that the element of feeling
is closely connected with a properly intellectual pro-
cess. The more fundamental fact is that of feeling.
An object when perceived gives us pleasure of a cer-
tain kind and intensity.. We instantly pronounce it
beautiful on the basis of this emotional effect. That
is we say it is beautiful because it affects us in a
certain way. This may be called an automatic or
unconscious aesthetic judgment. A conscious er intel-
ligent judgment includes more than this, namely a
process of comparison of object with object, and the
detection of certain common aspects, such as purity
of colour, or elegance of form, which are the specific
source of the enjoyment. And this, again, implies a
conscious discrimination of these qualities or aspects
of things which are beautiful from those which are
commonplace, or positively ugly. What we call the
^Esthetic Faculty or Taste consists of the combination

1 The reader who seeks more information on this obscure subject may con-
sult H. Spencer's Essays, Vol. I., IV. (Physiology of Laughter) ; Dr. Bain's
treatise, The Emotions and the Will, Pt. I., Chap. XV., § 38 ; also my
volume, Sensation and Intuition, p. 262, scq. The German reader should
consult E. Hecker. Die Physiologic und Psychologic dcs Lachen und des
Komischen.

AESTHETIC SENTIMENT. 5-il

of the emotional susceptibility to the pleasurable
effects of what is charming, noble, and so on, with
the intellectual power of discriminating, comparing,
and judging.

Standard of Taste. Taste is proverbially uncertain
and capricious ('De gustibus non est disputandum;'
'Chacun a son gout,' &c.) Individuals differ greatly as
to their aesthetic likings and preferences. Thus one
person likes a dull sage green, while another detests
it. One musician prefers Schumann to Schubert,
another conversely. These individual differences of
taste correspond to native differences of sensibility
and of emotional temperament, and to acquired differ-
ences due to accidental peculiarities of experience. So
far as they exist there is no objective standard of taste.

Such a standard is, however, found within certain
limits, by considering what on the whole a given com-
munity holds pleasing and aesthetically right. There
is a large amount of agreement as to what is beautiful,
graceful, and seemly, in a particular society at any
one time,1 and this supplies the proximate standard
for each individual. Taste is very much under the
influence of the principle of custom and habit already
spoken of. We tend to like what we have been used
to, to think that what is, is right. Hence each indi-
vidual tends to fall in more or less with the current
aesthetic standard of his country and time.2 ^Esthetic

1 In order not to complicate the matter differences of school and sect in
matters of art are here overlooked .

2 This tendency to persistence in matters of taste is opposed by the craving
for change and novelty . The history of national tastes in matters of dress,
house decoration, &c., is one great illustration of this opposition and mutual
counteraction of tendencies.

542 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

education aims first of all at correcting individual
eccentricities and limiting the area of individual dif-
ference in the region of taste, assimilating the likings
and judgment of each member of a community to
those of the whole of which he is a part.

Such a standard, however, is too empirical and
confined. A wider range of observation tells us that
each nation has its peculiar likings in matters of art.
It requires a Scotchman to find either a kilt or bag-
pipes ' a thing of beauty '. These differences of
national taste are in part connected with differences
of temperament, natural surroundings and habits of
life, and cannot be eliminated. In part they seem to
be very much the result of accident, having their
origin in the caprice of conspicuous and influential
individuals. Hence the need of supplementing the
relative standard of our own community by an ab-
solute standard.

This absolute standard can only be gained by
comparing the aesthetic likings and judgments of
different communities, and of different ages. In this
way we shall be able to separate what is constant and
essential from what is variable and accidental in the
national taste of our time. As the final stage in this
constitution of an objective standard of taste, we have
the interpretation of these uniformities of feeling by
a reference to psychological principles. Thus, for
example, certain preferences in tone and colour com-
bination found to hold good in the Eastern and
Western world, and in classical and modern times,
would be connected with simple physiological or
psychological conditions of pleasure. In this way we

AESTHETIC SENTIMENT. 543

should have the objective basis on which to ground
our aesthetic judgments.

Good or Healthy Taste. By help of such a line of
inquiry as that roughly sketched out we might arrive
at the idea of a normal taste. By this is meant what
answers to a perfect and healthy nature well adapted
to its environment. A normal aesthetic faculty pre-
supposes the common human sensibilities and faculties.
This idea would help us to say, in certain cases at
least, whether any particular aesthetic judgment was
sound, or whether it indicated a good or healthy taste.
Thus, for example, we could condemn the Chinese
taste for pinched feet or the English taste for pinched
waists as bad, because indicating a state of feeling out
of harmony with the conditions of life. Similarly,
we might pronounce against a preference for dingy
over bright colours, because this is a sign of feebleness
in the organ concerned.1

Refined Taste. We are apt to talk of a good and
a refined taste as though these were the same ; but
this is not accurate. ' A good taste ' points to what
is common to all (normal) men, ' a refined taste '
points to what distinguishes a higher stage of develop-
ment or culture from a lower, whether among indi-
viduals or races.2 Now we may assume perhaps that
culture tends on the whole to the increase of well-
being, to the better adaptation of nature to sur-
roundings. So far as this is the case a good and

1 For a fuller discussion of the way in which we may arrive at a standard
of taste see H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II., Part VIII., Chap.
IV. ; also my Sensation and Intuition, Chap. XIII.

2 On the meaning of the term refinement as applied to emotion generally,
see above, p. 492.

544 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

refined taste coincide. Refinement as contrasted with
coarseness of taste clearly involves this superiority..
A coarse taste is one which finds pleasure in things
which pain the fully developed normal man by sug-
gestions of physical pain, immorality, and so forth.
But it is allowed by all that refinement may some-
times come into conflict with goodness or healthiness
of taste. Refinement as opposed to simplicity of taste
is not necessarily a mark of a good aesthetic faculty.
An ' over-refined ' taste, which has lost the relish for
simple common enjoyments, as brilliant colour, and
invigorating sound, is bad and not good. An ideally
perfect taste thus seems to be one that combines to
the utmost the common simple pleasures (as those of
bright light, and vivid colour) with the more intel-
lectual and subtle delights (as of tone, gradation,
harmony in colours). In other words it involves a
combination of range and catholicity with delicacy
and discriminativeness of taste. *

Active Side of Taste: Art-Production. The aesthetic
feeling is commonly spoken of as one of passive con-
templation which has no relation to active impulse or
will. When we look at a beautiful object as a water-
fall or a chain of snow-peaks and appreciate its beauty
we experience, it is said, no promptings of activity.
Nevertheless the feeling for beauty is a powerful
motive to action. There exists in the human mind
a strong plastic tendency, an impulse to fashion or
create objects of beauty for the mere delight of th
creator and of others. The fine arts owe their exist-

1 For a fuller discussion of this relation see G. T. Feclmer, Vorschule der
ik, 1., Chap. XVI II.

AESTHETIC SENTIMENT. 545

ence to this artistic impulse. Tins creative tendency
is connected in part with the powerful natural bent of
a vigorous child to activity. When the active powers
are no longer engaged in necessary work they find a
field for pleasurable exercise in play and art-produc-
tion (e.g., shaping of figures, or pantomimic represen-
tation). With this love of activity there go other
and specially artistic impulses or tendencies. These
are imitation, or the desire to copy a natural object,
action, &c., and the specifically creative impulse, the
desire to body forth some new image of beauty, to
conceive and realize some new artistic idea. These
artistic motives are largely reinforced by the love of
display, the desire to shew productive skill, and to
outstrip competitors.

Varieties of Fine Art. The working out of this
artistic impulse in its various forms has led to the
cultivation of the several Fine Arts. Of these the
best recognised varieties are five, namely, Architecture,
Sculpture, Painting, Music, and Poetry. These may
be variously distinguished. Thus we may mark off
(a) the Visual Arts, namely, those arts which appeal
to the eye or make use of visual impression as their
material (Painting, Sculpture, Architecture), from (b)
the Auditory Arts, or those which appeal to the ear,
or make use of auditory impression (Music and Poetry i.1
Or we may divide them into (a) Imitative Arts, those
which imitate natural objects and are greatly con-
trolled by the ends of truth (Painting, Sculpture,
and Poetry) ; and (b) Non-Imitative Arts, those

1 These may be called Space and Time Arts, or, to adopt Lessing's
language, arts of the coexistent, and of the successive.

546 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

which are more free and in a peculiar sense creative
(Music and Architecture). In the imitative arts the
element of suggestion or ideality prevails over the
formal element : in the non -imitative arts beauty of
form is the main thing aimed at.1

Connection between Art- Production and Art-
Appreciation. The passive contemplation and the
active production of works of art are closely con-
nected, and exert a distinct influence one on the
other. On the one hand, the fashioning of a statue, or
the painting of a picture, has for its end the delight
of sesthetic contemplation. And in the process of
production the aesthetic faculty is called into full play.
In order to paint from nature, to reproduce by aid of
the colour-box and brushes what is present to the eye,
close attention to colour and form is required. On the
other hand, the fact of production makes a difference
in our way of looking at a product of art. We do not
look at a landscape painting as we look at a real land-
scape in nature. We regard it as a product, and a
good deal of the pleasure which we derive from it is
due to the recognition of verisimilitude or truth to
nature or life, and to suggestions of the artist's origi-
nality and skill in design and execution. It follows
then for a double reason that the full development of
taste or appreciative feeling for the beauty of art will
include a certain degree of familiarity with the pro-
cesses of artistic production.

1 Besides these well-recognised varieties, there are other and mixed forms
as the histrionic (Pantomime, Drama, Opera), which appeal at once to the
eye and the ear. The problem of dividing the Fine Arts has given rise to a
great deal of discussion. See the writer's article on Esthetics in the new
edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

AESTHETIC SENTIMENT. 54?

Growth of ^Esthetic Faculty. The feeling for beauty
in its higher form is a late attainment, and presup-
poses an advanced stage of intellectual and emotional
culture. ' Yet the germ of the aesthetic faculty exists
from the first.

The order of development of the aesthetic feeling
answers roughly to the above triple division of its
elements. The first crude delight in beauty is
excited by sense-impressions, as the dance of the
sunlight on the wall, the brilliant colouring of a
tulip, the sweet sounds of a voice or musical instru-
ment.1 The feeling for form (symmetry, rhythm,
&c.) comes later. And much experience is necessary
before the mind is able to enter into the pleasurable
suggestions of objects.

While we may thus roughly mark off the sen-
suous as the first stage, and so on, we must
remember that each side of the aesthetic faculty ad-
vances concurrently. There is a gradual transition
from crude and coarse to refined pleasure, from simple
to complex enjoyment. The young child takes plea-
sure at first only in the more striking and vivid effects
of light and sound. Then he begins to note more
unobtrusive beauties. His feeling for the sensuous
beauties of things develops with his discriminative
sensibility. As he learns to distinguish one colour,
line, or tone from another, and to appreciate purity of
colour and tone, and evenness of line, his pleasures
are multiplied and refined. Similarly his appreciation

1 A boy when only seven weeks old took an odd fancy to a gaily tinted em-
bossed card with gilded border and having the figure of a woman on it, which
hung on the wall of the cottage where he was lodging. When carried to the
place where it hung he would look up, gaze on it for some time, and smile.

548 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

of juxtapositions of colours and sounds, and of rela-
tions of form grows in refinement. At first he can
only enjoy striking contrasts of colour, but lie gradu-
ally learns to observe and delight in the more subtle
relations of harmony.1 He begins with admiring
simple patterns of a perfectly regular form, and
gradually goes on to enjoy more intricate forms of a
less obvious regularity. Finally, as his experience
widens and his knowledge increases the meanings
and suggestions of things grow in richness. A flower
acquires a deeper charm as the mind comes to under-
stand its marvellous arrangements of structure and
function, the harmonious combination of activities
which constitutes its life. And it becomes more
valuable as the mind learns from its own experiences
and from the reading of poetry to invest it with
beautiful associations.

While the aesthetic faculty thus develops on the
passive side the active side is progressing too. Chil-
dren show even in their first year a germ of artistic
impulse. They enter into the spirit of playful acting;2
they exhibit an impulse to fashion or arrange things
with their tiny hands. Children's play is a kind of
simple art-production. It illustrates the impulse to
imitate or copy what is familiar, as well as to construct
or shape new forms. In their games children are

1 The lateness of this attainment (so far as I have been able to observe) ;
bears out the conclusion that harmony of colours is not a simple sense-effect
like harmony of simultaneous tones. See my article on the subject, Mind,
Vol. IV. (1879), p. 172.

2 Mr. Darwin observes that his boy when about 13 months old shewed 'a
touch of the dramatic art ' by pretending to be angry and slapping his father
for the sake of the agreeable denoument, a kiss. See Mind, Vol. II. (1877),
p. 291.

AESTHETIC SENTIMENT. 549

actors, architects, and poets, and sometimes musical
composers as well. As their taste, and their powers
of execution progress, they derive a greater enjoyment
from the production of pretty and tasteful effects,
And on the other hand the exercise of these active
impulses leads on naturally to a genuine interest in
the contemplation of art-products generally.

Again, as a result of the child's aesthetic experience
the power of judgment grows in precision and in
nicety. The impressions derived from natural objects
and works of art supply the material out of which
he fashions a standard. Here he will necessarily be
influenced largely by custom, and the current maxims
of taste of his social environment. As his experience
widens, his feeling for what is beautiful will grow in
refinement, and as his intellectual powers develop, his
aesthetic judgment will grow in clearness. That is
to say he will no longer judge this and that to be
pretty, funny, and so on, without distinguishing the
element of prettiness or ludicrousness, but will con-
sciously refer to some pattern, norm or rule of taste.
Not only so, his judgment will improve. His standard
will be gradually modified under the influence of
growing experience, education, and individual reflec-
tion.

This modification will be in a double direction.
On the one hand, the standard will be widened and
the judgment grow more catholic as the child comes to
see beauty in things which once failed to arrest his eye.
On the other hand, the standard will be narrowed,
and the judgment grow more exacting. As his taste
grows in refinement he is less easily satisfied than he

550 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

used to be. His crude gaudily tinted toys and picture
books, his jingling nursery rhymes and melodies no
longer satisfy eye and ear. They will grow trivial
and common-place just in proportion as he becomes
capable of the fuller and more complex delights of
genuine art.

The Education of Taste. The full and healthy development
of taste implies certain external influences. Among these, educa-
tion or training plays an important part. Although a mother or
teacher cannot implant a faculty of taste if this is wanting, they may
do much to ' draw out ' and strengthen the natural aptitudes.

(a) To begin with, since the aesthetic faculty, like the other
faculties, grows by exercise on suitable material, it is important to
surround the child from the first with what is pretty, attractive,
and tasteful. As far as possible he should be taken out into the
fields and woods so as to become familiar with nature's beauties,
both sights and sounds. It is only by such early companionship
with nature that the most valuable associations which lend so deep
a charm to stream, wood, and mountain side can be built up. And
in the artificial surroundings of home, neatness and picturesqueness
should be aimed at. First impressions produce the deepest effect
in the education of taste as well as in that of the other faculties.
The influence of a refined mother who studies grace in furniture,
pictures, and in her own dress and manner, may be all-important
in awaking the first feeling for what is graceful and beautiful.
Custom, as has been remarked, plays a great part in determining
our standard of what is correct in matters of taste. It is all-
important, therefore, to accustom the child at the outset to what,
though simple and adapted to the child's sensibilities, is in good
taste. By daily familiarity with examples of what is becoming
and harmonious in dress, house-decoration, gesture, modulation
of voice, and generally what we call manners, a standard will
be unconsciously built up by the child, by a reference to which he
will afterwards judge as to what is aesthetically right.

(&) In the second place much may be done by the mother or
other educator by way of directing the attention to what is beauti-

ESTHETIC SENTIMENT. 551

fill, pointing out those aspects of objects which are fitted to please
the eye and mind, and so calling the aesthetic faculty into exercise.
The training of the sensuous side of the faculty is in itself a con-
siderable work. We all tend to overlook the exact character of
sense-impressions, the finer details of colour and line in objects,
owing to the superior interest of their suggestions, namely the
objects themselves, and their uses, &c. A child looking at a tree-
trunk overgrown with moss, or an old wall tinted with lichens and
flowers, is wont to think of the tree and the wall as wholes or things,
to wonder how high they are, whether he could climb them, and
so on. In order to see exactly what is present to the eye, a special
interest in sense-impressions and a habit of close attention is neces-
sary. A cultivated mother or teacher may do much to exercise the
child's faculty by repeatedly calling off his attention from ideas of
doing things, and fixing it in quiet contemplation on the beautiful
elements in Nature's sights and sounds.

In addition to calling his attention to what is worthy in the
sense-impressions of Nature, the educator should exercise him in
noting the beauties of form of natural objects, the symmetry
of the mountain, the serpentine windings of the stream, and the
beautiful regularities and proportions of crystals, and of organic
structures. Lastly, it is obvious that the cultivation of a feeling
for art, for painting, music, and so forth, consists largely in this
systematic direction of the child's attention to what is beautiful
both in the elements (colour, line, sound), in their combinations
(symmetrical form, rhythm, &c.), and in the meaning of the whole
(what it represents or expresses).

(c) In the third place, the faculty of taste should be exercised
on its active side. A child's feeling for what is agreeable, refined,
or elegant in vocal utterance and expression, gesture, dress,
&c., is only fully cultivated when he is led to take pleasure in
producing these effects himself. A fine feeling for beauty of
colour, line, or sound, is best secured by exercising the child in
reproducing what he sees or hears. The teaching of drawing,
painting, singing, or other art is the only effective means of
developing a fine and discriminative aesthetic faculty.

Great care should be taken not to hurry the process of cultiva-
tion. Children who h. ••• • ' • - v; fined a standard set before them

552 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

are apt to affect a taste for what they do not really care about.
Young persons should not only be allowed but even encouraged to
relish simple aesthetic enjoyments, the charm of brilliant colours,
and forcible contrasts of colour, of simple symmetrical patterns,
and so on. Great care must be taken not to over-refine their taste,
to deaden the healthy instinctive feelings, and so unduly narrow
the region of enjoyment.

With respect to the exercise of the aesthetic judgment children
should be encouraged to be natural, and to pronounce opinion for
themselves. The teacher should never forget the great individual
differences of sensibility and taste, and should allow a legitimate
scope to independent judgment. Taste is the region which admits
of the greatest freedom of opinion, and constitutes, therefore, the
best field for the exercise of individual judgment. On the other
hand, the child should be taught to express opinion modestly, to
avoid dogmatism, and to respect the tastes of others.

The cultivation of the aesthetic sentiment may enter into almost
every department of education. On one side it stands in close
connection with intellectual training. The feeling for what is
graceful or elegant may be developed to some extent in connection
with the seemingly prosaic exercises, learning to read and to write ;
and by this means a certain artistic interest may be infused into
the employment. The teaching of the use of the mother-tongue
in composition offers a wider field for the exercise of the aesthetic
sense in t> growing feeling for style. Physical geography may
be so taught as to elicit a feeling for the picturesque and sublime
in nature, and history, so as to call forth a feeling of admiration
for what is great and noble in human character and life. Even
the more abstract studies, as geometry and physical science,
may be made a means of evoking and strengthening a feeling for
what is beautiful (e.g., regularity, symmetry in geometric figure, the
beauties of form and colour of minerals, plants, and animals).

On another side the training of the aesthetic sense comes into
contact with moral training. To adopt and practise in mode of
dress, in speech, and generally in manners, what is agreeable to the
aesthetic feelings of others, is a matter of so much social import-
ance that it is rightly looked on as one of the lesser moral obliga-
tions. Hence the stress laid in the early period of training on thft

ESTHETIC SENTIMENT.

cultivation of naturalness, ease, fitness, and grace in movement,
tone of voice, selection of words, &c.

The full systematic training of the aesthetic feeling will go be-
yond these exercises and make use of special modes of cultivation
in connection with the Fine Arts. Singing, music, drawing and
painting, and finally poetry and literature, are the most important
instruments of aesthetic discipline.

The question how far the study of art should enter into the
ordinary course of education, and what branches of art are of most
educational value, raise important practical questions which cannot
be fully discussed here, but one or two considerations bearing on
the question may be just touched on. Among these, the most im-
portant is that of the place filled loy aesthetic delight in the whole
enjoyment of life. From this point of view the cultivation of
music might be regarded as all-important, and this preference might
be confirmed by a reference to the socialising and moralising effects
of the art. On the other hand, an art like drawing might be pre-
ferred on the ground of its value in connection with intellectual
discipline and practical training. Perhaps poetry might be placed
highest in respect both of the amount of pleasure it brings immedi-
ately, and of its intellectual importance. A certain order of artistic
culture should be adopted answering to the order of development
of the special sensibilities and faculties concerned. Thus, for ex-
ample, singing may be taught with advantage before drawing, and
this again before literary composition.

Ethical or Moral Sentiment. We now come to the
last of the three sentiments, that known as the Ethical
or Moral Sentiment. This feeling is commonly spoken
of under a variety of names, such as the Feeling of
Moral Obligation or the Sentiment of Duty, the feel-
ing of reverence for the Moral Law, the Sentiment of
Moral Approbation and Disapprobation, the Love of
Virtue.

How the Moral Feeling is called forth. The Moral
Sentiment has for its proper object conduct or action
of a certain kind. It is called forth by a perception

554 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

of, and reflection upon, actions which we commonly
distinguish as good and bad, and more narrowly as
right and wrong. These actions may be our own or
those of another. We approve what is right in our-
selves and in others. Eight action may be pro-
visionally defined as that which conforms to the moral
law. This law seeks to define and determine the
conditions of the common good. It is based on the
recognition of the social relations, of the interde-
pendence of individuals, and of the fact that each
may in a number of ways further or retard the
interests and happiness of others.

It is important to add that the moral feeling is
only pure when it is free from all personal reference.
A child's regret at wrongdoing, if it means simply a
fear of punishment, is personal and non-moral. Simi-
larly his impulse to requite a wrong done by another
to himself involves a feeling of personal resentment,
and so is non-moral. A genuinely moral feeling
approves what is right or good in itself, or merely as
right or good, and not because of its bearing on our
personal interests.

Peculiarities of Moral Sentiment. From this rough
definition of the objects or exciting causes of the
moral feeling we may see what are its leading features
or characteristics.

(a) In the first place, it is the Social Sentiment in
a pre-eminent sense. The love of knowledge and the
feeling for beauty imply social relations and common
interests. But there is no direct reference to the
pleasure, interest, or happiness of another in the joys
of discovery, or the delight of aesthetic contemplation.

MORAL SENTIMENT. 555

The moral feeling on the other hand contains such a
direct reference. The feeling of duty necessarily in-
volves a consideration of others, their interests, and
claims. It is in a peculiar sense the sentiment which
attaches and binds man to man, the individual to the
community.1

(b) In the second place, the moral sentiment is
characterised by the presence of a feeling of necessity
and of obligation. Right conduct is felt to be some-
thing which we are not free to do or not to do, but
which imposes itself on us with the force of some
authority. It includes a distinct reference to a law
or command outside of us, to which we owe allegiance
or conformity : whether conceived as imposed and
enforced by a human or by a divine will ; or regarded
in a more abstract manner as something independent
of all personal volition, a law imposed by the very
nature of things. In this way the moral sentiment
is clearly marked off from the other two. Knowledge
is useful, but we do not feel that we are bound to
pursue it, and still less do we feel under any necessity
to cultivate beauty and art. This circumstance serves
to give the peculiar quality to the ethical feeling, as
one of reverence or awe before a superior will, or of
subjection to an authority above the individual.2

1 That the moral sentiment involves a distinct reference to others and the
relations of the individual to the community must be allowed by all who
would distinguish the moral from the religious sentiment. Writers are, how-
ever, not agreed as to the exact relation of the moral feeling to social senti-
ment (benevolence, altruism). See Mr. F. H. Bradley's Ethical Studies, Essay
VII., p. 248 and following.

2 The nature of this feeling, and its effect in depressing the feelings of
Self (conceit, &c. ), are well described by Kant. See The Metaphysics of Ethics.
Edited by Dr. Calderwood, Book II., Chap. II.

556 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

(c) Closely connected with these features of the
moral sentiment, is a third, namely its practical
character. Having conduct for its object, it is emi-
nently a tendency or impulse towards certain kinds of
actions, and away from their opposites. To see and
feel what is wrong in ourselves or another is to shrink
from it. The thought of what is good, morally worthy
and noble, is immediately attended with an impulse
of desire or aspiration. The moral feeling thus
touches the springs of the will, and instantly sets it
in movement. It stands in this respect in antithesis
both to the intellectual and to the aesthetic sentiment,
and more particularly to the latter, which as we saw
involves an attitude of passive contemplation.

Forms of Moral Sentiment. The essential element
in the moral sentiment is the feeling of something
that ought to be. What is right and good is that
which the moral law commands us to do. But this
feeling shews itself in a variety of forms. To begin
with, it makes a difference whether the action approved
or disapproved is our own or another's. In con-
demning something that we ourselves have done we
have the specific pain known as pangs of conscience,
sense of shame or remorse. Here the consciousness
of self is uppermost : we feel ourselves at variance
with the moral law which is above us and commands
us. On the other hand, in condemning another's
wrong action we are not thus conscious of self. We
identify ourselves at the time with the moral law and
act as its representatives.

Again a difference in the nature of the action as

well as in the subject of that action affects our feeling

MORAL SENTIMENT. 557

towards it. Thus different kinds of bad or good con-
duct excite different shades of moral feeling. The
peculiar sting which enters into the feeling of injustice
or unfairness, the element of horror which enters into
the moral feeling towards cruelty, the ingredient of
contempt which colours the moral feeling for what is
base and mean, may be taken as illustrations of this
variety of tone in the moral feelings.

Not only so, there is a marked difference between
the feeling which is called forth by a bare fulfilment of
a well defined duty, such as honesty, and that which
is excited by some extraordinary performance of duty,
as when a captain keeps to his post in his sinking ship,
or by some exceptional manifestation of virtue as the
philanthropic devotion of Howard. The former is the
comparatively cold feeling of satisfaction with a com-
pliance which is expected and counted upon, the latter
contains a warm element of admiration for what is
unexpected, rare, and wonderful, and an impulse to
reward with praise. Or if the virtuous action be our
own, the feeling of bare self-approval is supplemented
by the more pleasurable consciousness of moral ex-
cellence.

It follows from this that the moral sentiment is sillied to other
feelings, and more particularly the aesthetic sentiment. It may be
said, indeed, that the moral feeling is more complex than the aesthetic,
since it commonly involves an element of the latter.1 To this it may
be added that in the ethical feeling for veracity and the corresponding
feeling towards falsehood and deceit the intellectual feeling has a place.

1 On the relation between the two see Mr. L. Stephen's Science of Ethics,
Chap. VIII., Sect. III. ; also my Sensation and Intuition, Chap. X., p. 273.
seq. Volkmann regards the moral feeling in general as a species of aesthetic
feeling, though differenced from other varieties by its direct reference to the
ego or subject. See Lehrbuch der PsycJwlogie, Sect. 134, p. 353.

558 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

Thus the moral sentiment is properly discussed after the other two, as
more complex in its structure.

Moral Feeling and Moral Judgment. Here, as in
the case of the aesthetic faculty, the emotional element
is bound up with a properly intellectual process. Con-
science includes not only a susceptibility to feeling of
a certain kind, but a power or faculty of recognising
the presence of certain qualities in actions (rightness,
justness, &c.), or of judging an act to have a certain
moral character. Some amount of intellectual dis-
crimination must of course accompany and precede
every moral feeling. We cannot feel moral repugnance
at an act of meanness or cruelty except when we
discern to some extent the character of the action.
In some cases, however, the judgment is only a vague
unconscious one, and largely based on the fact of feeling.
Thus we may have a strong feeling of the injustice of an
action and yet be quite unable to say wherein exactly
the injustice lies. In contrast to this blind emotive
judgment there is the conscious and intelligent one
which controls or guides feeling. The full exercise of
the moral faculty includes the co-operation of feeling
or sentiment and the intellectual faculty of judgment.

The Moral Standard. Men's judgments as to what
is right and wrong are not perfectly uniform. We
find different standards set up in different communi-
ties or in the same community at different times.
Thus among Oriental nations we find a standard of
morals differing in several respects from our own.
The same differences show themselves in smaller
communities. In one school current ideas and
feelings about what is mean, dishonourable, and so

MOKAL SENTIMENT. 559

on, may vary considerably from those reigning in
another school. Yet in spite of numerous differences
there is a large region of uniformity. All men agree
(within certain limits at least) that it is wrong to kill,
to rob, or to deceive others. The moralist compares
different systems of morals with a view to find out
what is common to them. He then seeks by reflec-
tion on the highest and best interests of man to
construct an approximately correct statement of the
moral law. Such a construction supplies roughly at
least a universal and correct standard of right and

wrong.

Origin of the Moral Sentiment. It has been long
disputed whether the moral faculty is innate and
instinctive, or whether it is the result of experience
and education. Writers have been wont to suppose
that the authority of conscience would be impaired
if it were allowed that it could be developed out of
simpler feelings. But this view is less common now
than it was. It is recognised that the question of the
validity of conscience is to some extent distinct from
that of its origin. Even if it is not directly implanted
in the child's nature, but has gradually grown up as
the result of a process of education, it may still possess
all the authority ever claimed for it.

That the moral sentiment is in part instinctive may
be allowed. It is probable that as the result of long-
ages of social experience a habit of feeling and judging
in a moral way has been formed, which transmits
itself to each new child as an instinctive disposition
to fall in with and conform to the moral law. Yet
supposing this to be so it remains indisputable that

560 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

the moral faculty is to a large extent built up in the
course of the individual life.

Sources of Moral Sentiment. The common modern
doctrine respecting the growth of the moral sentiment
may be briefly summarised as follows : — (1) The
peculiar feeling of moral obligation or reverence for
duty is an outgrowth from simpler feelings. These
consist to some extent of egoistic feelings. It is
everybody's interest to be good up to a certain point.
The purely egoistic feelings, as fear of punishment,
aided by the love of approbation, would tend to beget
a certain measure of respect for the moral law. But
this is not enough. In order that a pure disinterested
love of right may grow up in the mind, the social
feelings, properly so called, more particularly sym-
pathy, must come into play. A genuine regard for
duty springs out of a habit of feeling for others, of
caring for their interests, and of making their claims
our own.

(2) This development out of simpler feelings of a
new type of feeling, what we know as the distinctively
moral sentiment, depends upon certain external con-
ditions. It is emphatically the result of social rela-
tions and social experience.

The social experience more particularly concerned
in this development of a feeling for duty, is of two
kinds. In the first place, every member of a com-
munity enters from the first into a relation of subjec-
tion to some authority as that of his parents,
guardian, or tutor. That is to say, commands are
imposed on him, and disregard of these is visited
with certain penalties. These may be artificial

MORAL SENTIMENT. 561

punishments as corporal chastisement, confinement, or
more natural penalties as loss of others' esteem with
all that this entails. It is argued that this kind of
experience is necessary to the formation of a genuine
feeling of obligation and of reverence for the moral
law. And observation appears to bear this out ; for
children who have known little of discipline, restraint,
and authority in early life, are as a rule comparatively
wanting in a sense of moral obligation.

In the second place, each individual enters into a
freer kind of relationship with others. The child finds
himself in a family, coming into daily contact with
the other members. This daily companionship offers
a field for the feelings of rivalry and hostility. At
the same time it serves to bind the several members
of a household together by community of interests
and pursuits, and the bonds of mutual affection and
sympathy. It is in this freer kind of social relation-
ship that the individual is supposed to reach an inde-
pendent regard for the moral law, a feeling for duty
for its own sake. It is by the intricate play of
individal impulses and wills, as we see it going on in
the nursery and playground, that the child comes to
recognise the ' solidarity ' and interdependence of his
own interests and those of his fellows. And it is by
such daily intercourse that those social feelings are
developed which underlie a pure respect for moral
goodness. l

Growth of Moral Sentiment : Influence of Authority.

1 'The first condition of the development of the moral feeling lies in
association (living together) with others and the manifestation of the different
relations into which this association brings the individual agent with others.'
Volkmann, op. cit., § 134, p. 355.

562 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

Let us now briefly trace the successive stages by
which the moral sentiment unfolds itself. As we
have seen, the respect for the moral law has its begin-
ning in the experience of authority. The parental
authority is the first form of moral control. At first
the child's repugnance to wrongdoing is little more
than the egoistic feeling of dislike to or fear of
punishment. By the effect of the principle of as-
sociation or ' transference ' dislike to the consequences
of certain actions might lead on to a certain measure
of dislike for the actions themselves. Yet it is pro-
bable that other forces combine from the first.
Children of two years and less, who have had but
little experience of punishment, manifest a feeling of
deference towards a command impressively laid down.
Moreover, as we have seen, the young love the approval
of others, and this feeling (though, looked at strictly,
an egoistic one) would aid in the growth of a feeling
of submission to, and respect for the moral law.

When the forces of affection and sympathy come
into play this feeling of respect would be greatly
improved in character. An affectionate and sympa-
thetic child finding that disobedience and wrongdoing
offend and distress his mother or father would shrink
from these actions. A strong affection for the parent
who exercises authority is the best guarantee for the
growth of a genuine repugnance to wrongdoing as
such. Love and reverence for the father lead on
naturally to love and reverence for the moral law
which he represents, enforces, and in a measure
embodies.

Influence of Free Companionship. Even now,

MOKAL SENTIMENT. 563

however, the love of right is not a feeling for
the intrinsic value of right : it is still a blind respect
for what is enjoined by certain persons who are
respected and beloved (parents or teachers). In order
that an intelligent appreciation of the moral quality
in the actions enjoined may arise, the child must have
the second kind of social experience.

Thrown with others he very soon finds that he is
affected in various ways by their actions. Another
child takes a toy from him, or strikes him, and he
suffers, and experiences a feeling of anger, and an
impulse to retaliate. On the other hand, if the other
child is generous and shares his toys, &c., with him his
happiness is augmented and he is disposed to be
grateful. In this way the child gains experience of
the effect of others' good and bad actions on his own
welfare. By so doing his apprehension of the meaning
of moral distinctions is furthered. ' Right ' and
' wrong ' acquire a significance in relation to his
individual well-being. He is now no longer in the
position of an unintelligent subject to a command ; he
steps up to the place of an intelligent approver of the
command. Indeed, he takes upon himself the
function of administrator of the moral law, and
pronounces the doer of the selfish act 'naughty,'
and of the kind action ' good '.l

This crude and restricted form of moral feeling

would be refined by reflection. More experience

1 The moral feeling has one of its main sources in the feeling of self as
called forth by the actions of others affecting the individual, whether bene-
ficially or injuriously. This is well brought out by J. S. Mill in his
analysis of the sentiment of justice, Utilitarianism, p. 76 seq : cf., Wundt,
Physiol. Psychologic, Vol. II., Chap. XVIIL, p. 348.

564 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

will teach A the reciprocity of good (or bad)
conduct, how the honesty, fairness, and kindness of
B, C, D, &c., are conditional on his own conformity
to their code of action. In this way he would
be led to attach importance to the performance of
right actions on his own part. Yet such egoistic
reflection would only carry him a little way. In
order that he may feel a genuine repugnance for
wrongdoing, other feelings, namely the sympathetic,
must come more fully into play.

Co-operation of Sympathy. In order to trace the
effects of sympathy, let us suppose that A suffers
from B's angry outbursts, or his greedy propensities.
He finds that C and D also suffer in much the same
way. And through his own sufferings he is able
to put himself in the place of the injured one and
to resent his injury just as though it were done to
himself. At the beginning he will feel only for those
near him and the objects of a strong affection, as
his mother, or brothers and sisters. Hence the moral
importance of family affection as serving first to de-
velop sympathy with others and consideration for their
interests and claims. As his power of sympathy
grows this indignation against wrongdoing takes a
a wider sweep, and embraces a larger and larger circle
of his fellows. In this way he conies to exercise his
moral faculty as a disinterested spectator of others'
conduct, or as a representative of (rather than a sub-
ject to) the moral law.

Development of Self-judging Conscience. The final
outcome of this habit of sympathetic indignation
against wrong is a disinterested repugnance to wrong

MOKAL SENTIMENT. 565

when done by himself. He injures another, say B.
His habit of sympathy now makes him suffer with B.
He puts himself at the point of view of the injured
one, and from that point of view looks back on him-
self, the doer of the wrong, with a feeling of moral
indignation, of self-condemnation. The pain which
he suffered before when he did wrong, namely through
fear of punishment or of others' condemnation, is now
reinforced by a new pain which has sprung out of
the sympathetic side of his nature. As representa-
tive of the moral law he is compelled by his very
habits of feeling and judging to inflict this pain on
himself as the subject of the broken law. When
this stage is reached, at which the child not merely
puts himself under the moral law, but on the side of
it, taking up its cause as impartially against himself
as against others, he may be said to have a consci-
ence, in the full sense of the word, that is a pure and
disinterested attachment to duty.

The moral sentiment and the moral faculty grow
by exercise. The feeling of repugnance to wrong in
all its forms tends like other emotions to deepen as
experience widens, and the evil nature and effects of
wrongdoing are realised. In this way the feeling 01
attachment to a duty like veracity and fidelity to
promise becomes stronger and more tenacious with
years. The moral judgment too becomes improved
by exercise, and so the moral sentiment grows in
point of refinement or delicacy. In this way the
finer moral distinctions come to be recognised, the
real nature of right and wrong to be intelligently

506 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

apprehended, and what is only seemingly good or bad
to be distinguished from that which is so really.

Range of influence of Social Surroundings. It is
necessary to add that throughout this process of
growth the child is largely dependent on the aid of
others. Society aims not merely at enforcing certain
laws on the individual, it seeks to win his attachment
by appealing to his intelligence and his good feeling.
The whole system of moral and religious instruction
aims at educating and improving the moral faculty,
at removing prejudice, and at leading the young on
to a higher view of duty.

It follows that the precise form of the moral faculty
will in every individual case be determined to a very
large extent by the social surroundings. Thus the
quality of the moral discipline which a child under-
goes in the home and in the school will be a very
important factor in shaping his moral faculty. A lax
discipline, combined with over-indulgence, appears to
be fatal to the growth of a proper veneration for
duty. Next to the effect of discipline in the narrow
sense, is that of the prevailing moral sentiments and
ideas in the community in which the child lives.
These will in part be assimilated by a process of un-
conscious imitation, though largely enforced by social
penalties (loss of esteem and goodwill). Where a
high moral tone is kept up and enforced in a school,
the growth of the moral faculty is likely to be a
healthy one. On the other hand the prevalence of a
low standard of morals tends to lower the individual's
habitual mode of feeling and judging.

Individual observation and reflection are of course a

MORAL SENTIMENT. 567

necessary supplement to this effect of social influence.
No high development of the moral sentiment is ever
reached except by the aid of such individual reflec-
tion directing itself to customary moral rules and
maxims with a view to test their intrinsic excellence.
Yet in the majority of cases we cannot expect an
individual to rise very far above the moral level of
his early surroundings.

Religious Sentiment. With the Moral Sentiment is commonly
taken the Eeligious Sentiment. In the mental development of the
individual born into a civilised society, the religious feeling commonly
takes its rise in close connection with moral discipline. The religious
idea is introduced as a supplementary force and sanction on the side of
morality. If, however, we look at the development of the religious
sentiment in the race, we find that in its earlier forms it is detached
from moral feeling, showing itself as a fear or awe of a Power (or powers)
governing the operations of nature and human life, and capable of
promoting the weal or woe of the individual and the community. The
feeling of awe in presence of a mysterious Power, with the accompanying
feeling of dependence, is probably the simplest type, as well as the most
constant element, of the religious feeling. In its fully developed form,
the religious emotion assimilates elements from the other sentiments,
and so becomes the most complex of the feelings. The feeling for truth
reflects itself in the religious sentiment, as the worship of the Omnis-
cient, the source of all human knowledge. The aesthetic sentiment
as feeling for beauty finds in the conception of a Being uniting all
intellectual and moral perfections the full manifestation of that unity
and harmony which is dimly discernable in nature and human char-
acter, while as feeling for sublimity, it finds in the conception of the
Infinite an object which gathers up into itself and transcends the
sublimities of space, time, and force. Finally, the moral sentiment
finds in the religious idea the supreme authority and perfect embodi-
ment of the moral law, the ideal of moral excellence, fitted to call forth
the strongest impulses of reverent affection. 1

1 The nature of the Religious Sentiment and its relation to the moral is
discussed by Volkuiann, op. cit., Vol. II., § 134, p. 356, seq. ; and by Wundt
Physiol. Psycliologie, Vol. II., Cap. 18, pp. 349-350. The former views the
emotion as distinct from the moral in its origin and early development : the
latter finds its source in the moral feelings.

568 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

The Training of the Moral Faculty. The problem of exercis-
ing the child's moral feelings is clearly connected with that of
forming his moral character. As we have seen, the feeling of right
and wrong is essentially a practical emotion, bearing directly on
conduct, and the educator is chiefly concerned with it as a motive
to right action. Here we are concerned with the preliminary
problem of rendering the moral feelings quick and vivid, and the
moral judgment sound and exact.

It is hardly too much to say that the whole influence of the
parent and teacher on the child should be directed to the helping
on of the growth of the child's moral faculty. The first thing here
is to make the system of discipline under which the child lives as
effective and beneficial as possible. Rules must be laid down
absolutely, and enforced consistently, yet with a careful considera-
tion of circumstances and individual differences. Only in this way
will the child come to apprehend and respect the moral law as a
fixed and abiding system, perfectly impartial in its approvals and
disapprovals. Much too will depend on the spirit and temper in
which discipline is enforced. A measure of calm becomes the
judicial function, and a parent or teacher carried away by violent
feeling is unfit for moral control. Everything like petty personal
spite should be rigorously excluded.

On the other hand, the educator should not be a cold impersonal
abstraction. He must represent the moral law, but in representing
it he must show himself a living personality capable of being deeply
pained at the sight of wrongdoing. In this way the moral educa-
tor may appeal to the child's personal feelings of love and respect
for himself. The child should be led up to feel how base it is to
lie, how mean and cowardly to injure a weak and helpless creature,
by witnessing the distress it causes his beloved parent or teacher.
In like manner he should be led on to feel the nobility of
generosity and self-sacrifice by witnessing the delight which it
brings his moral teacher. It is only where morality becomes
infused with life and warmth by the feelings, the moral repugnances
and enthusiasms, of the instructor, that it takes a deep root in
the child's nature. It is the moral personality and character which
make the training of one parent and one teacher so much more
powerful a moulding influence than that of another.

MOKAL SENTIMENT. 569

The training of the moral faculty in a self-reliant, mode of feel-
ing and judging includes the habitual exercise of the sympathetic
feelings together with the powers of judgment. And here much
may be done by directing the child's attention to the effects of his
conduct. The consequences of wrongdoing and the beneficent
results of rightdoing ought to be made clear to the child, and his
feelings enlisted against the one and on the side of the other.
Not only so, his mind should be exercised in comparing actions,
in detecting similar moral characteristics in a variety of actions,
and in distinguishing betweeen like actions under different circum-
stances, so that he may become ready and apt in pronouncing
moral judgment.

What is called moral instruction should in the first stages of
education consist largely of presenting to the child's mind examples
of duty and virtue with a view to call forth his moral feelings and
to exercise his moral judgment. His own little sphere of observa-
tion should be supplemented by the page of history and of fiction.
In this way a wider variety of moral action is exhibited, and the
level of everyday experience is transcended. Such instruction is
moral education in the full sense, since it attracts (or repels) the
feelings as well as enlightens the judgment. On the other hand,
the mere teaching of the parts of the moral law, the code of duties,
the classification of virtues, and so on, while giving knowledge, and
to some extent aiding the intellectual side of the moral faculty, does
not call the feelings into exercise.

It follows from the above account or the way in which the
moral faculty grows that in order to a full and complete develop-
ment the influence of the parent and teacher must be aided by
other influences. The companionship of other children is an
important condition of a healthy growth of the moral feelings.
The sense of justice grows up in connection with the interplay of a
number of individual interests and claims. A single child brought
up alone is commonly wanting in this feeling. The free region of
activity, the nursery and playground, have a moralising effect by
accustoming each child to consider himself as one of a number, to
see the reciprocity of good conduct (honesty, kindness, &c.), and
to limit his expectations in deference to others' claims.

Not only so, this daily contact with a number of children is

570 COMPLEX FEELINGS.

morally important as familiarising the child with the non-personal
character of the moral law. In the home he finds the germ of a
public opinion in the common sentiment of the family. But it is
in the school that this new agent exercises its full power. Where
there is a healthy moral tone in a school, a contempt for cowardice,
meanness, cruelty, and an admiration for pluck, fidelity, gene-
rosity, it is a most valuable agency in fashioning the growing
moral sentiment of the individual. It is in this wider experience
that the boy comes to recognise that the distinctions of right and
wrong are not the impositions of an individual, however good and
wise, but are imposed and enforced by the common will ; that the
moral law is a universal law sustained by the collective voice of
mankind. And it is by this ampler experience of membership of a
society that he comes to realise fully his own part in representing
and enforcing the moral law.

It follows from this that the guidance and illumination of this
common sentiment and public opinion is one of the main functions
of the moral educator. Custom has an enormous force in deter-
mining our moral standard. Even adults are wont to think the
fact that society allows a thing a sufficient proof of its intrinsic
lightness. And in early life we are strongly inclined to steer our
individual judgment by the compass of the sentiment of the
body to which we belong. If then a child falls into a community
where unhealthy moral feelings exist, his moral development will
be hindered. The head of a school must be careful to see that the
force which is so valuable an aid to moral growth when it acts in
the right direction is not working in the opposite direction, per-
verting the moral faculty.

APPENDIX.

On the nature of Sympathy, consult Bain, The Emotions and the Will, Pt.
I., Ch. VI. ; Herbert Spencer, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II., Part VIII.,
Chap. V. ; Volkmann, Lehrbuch der Psychologic, II., § 136 ; Horwicz, Psycho-
logist Analysen, 2er Theil, 2« Halfte, Sect. 12. On the cultivation of Sym-
pathy in the young, see Miss Edgewortb, Essays on Practical Education,
Chap. X. ; and Mdme. Necker, L' Education, Livre V., Chap. IV.

On the nature of the Intellectual Feelings, see Bain, The Emotions and the
Will, Pt. I., Chap. XII. ; Nahlowsky, Das Gefuhlsleben, 2 Buch, 2 Absch.,
§ 16 ; and especially Horwicz, Psychologische Analysen, 2er Theil, 2e Halfte,

MORAL SENTIMENT. 571

Sect. 8. On the awaking of a pleasurable interest in knowledge, see Bain,
Education as Science, Chap. VI., p. 177, &c.

On the nature of the ^Esthetic Sentiment, see Bain, The Emotions and the
Will, Chap. XIV. ; Spencer, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II., Pt. VIII.,
Ch, IX. ; Nahlowsky, Das Gefiihlslcben, § 17, seq. ; and Volkmann, Lehrluch
der P., § 133. On the cultivation of Taste, read Mdme. Necker, L' Educa-
tion, Livie V., Ch. III. ; Miss Edgeworth, Practical Education, Ch. XXII. ;
Bain, Education as Science, Chap. XIII. ; Th. Waitz, Allgem. Pcedagogik,
2er Theil, 2es Absch., § 19.

On the nature and growth of the Moral Sentiment, see Bain, The Emotions
and the Will, L, Chap. XV. ; H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II.,
Part VIII., Chaps. VII. and VIII. ; Waitz, Lehrbuch der Psychologic, § 39.
The relation of the ethical sentiment to the social feelings is well brought
out by Horwicz, Psychol. Analysen, 2er Theil, 2« Halfte, 2es Buch. The early
stages of moral development are dealt with by Pfisterer, Pceila</og. Psycho-
logie, Kap. 2, § 16, 18. On the training of the moral faculty by discipline,
&c., see Mdme. Necker, L' Education, Livre III., Chap. VI. ; H. Spencer,
Education, Chap. III. ; Bain, Education as Science, Ch. III., p. 100, &c., cf.
Ch. XII. ; Beneke, Erzichungs und Untcrrichts-lehre, L, 2es Kap., Absch-
nitt, 2 and 4 ; Th. "Waitz, Allgem. Pcedagogik, 2«r Theil, 2er Absch., § 14.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE WILL : VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT.

WE may now pass on to the consideration of the de-
velopment of the third side or phase of mind, namely
the Active side or Willing.

Phenomena included under Will. The term Will
is used in Mental Science to include all active
operations of mind. By active operations are meant
not only external actions or movements, but also
internal acts of mental concentration, together with
certain preliminary stages of action, as desiring a
thing, reflecting or deliberating about an action, and
resolving to do a thing.

Of these phenomena completed external actions are
the most important. What we commonly mean by a
manifestation of will is some outward action or move-
ment. Will is thus seen to stand in close relation to
the motor side of the nervous system. As we popu-
larly phrase it, the active organs (limbs, voice, &c.)
are the instruments of the will.

Actions or movements, though in a wide sense
belonging to the region of will, are not all commonly
called voluntary. We distinguish between voluntary
and involuntary, or better, non- voluntary movements.

PHENOMENA OF WILLING. 573

Warding off a blow with the hand is voluntary,
blinking when an object is suddenly brought near the
eye is non-voluntary. Some of these non- voluntary
actions, as we shall see presently, are scarcely mental
operations at all, since consciousness enters very
faintly into them. Others, again, though having a
distinct mental accompaniment are not consciousl}'
directed to any end. Voluntary actions in the full
and complete sense may thus be marked off as actions
accompanied by consciousness, and characterised by
the presence of a purpose or end. Briefly they may
be described as actions consciously directed towards
some end.

Relation of Willing to Knowing and Feeling. By
means of this rough definition of the phenomena in-
cluded under the term Willing we shall be able to
assign its relation to knowing and feeling. Here

O o o

again we have to note an opposition and a connection.
The outgoings of the mind in action, involving the
excitation or ' innervation ' of the motor nerves and
muscles, are incompatible with the comparatively pas-
sive state of observing something or thinking about
something, with its physical accompaniment of bodily
stillness. The man of energetic action is popularly
contrasted with the man of reflection. Similarly
strong emotional excitement and action are incom-
patible, and the man of strong will is one who among
other things brings emotion under control.

At the same time, voluntary action always includes
an element of knowing and of feeling. The motive to
voluntary action, the end or thing desired, is the
gratification of some feeling (e.g., ambition, or the

574 THE WILL.

love of applause). And we cannot act for a purpose
without knowing something about the relation be-
tween the action we are performing and the result
we are aiming at. Thus it is feeling which ultimately
supplies the stimulus or force to volition, and intellect
which guides or illumines it.

Nature of Willing. A voluntary action has been
defined as an action consciously directed to some end.
We have now to examine a little more closely what is
involved in such an action. Let us take an example
out of child life. A boy sees a flower growing on the
wall above his head. He raises his body and stretches
out his hand to pluck it. This is a voluntary act.
What happens here ? The sight of the flower calls up
to his mind a representation of the pleasure of smell-
ing it or carrying it in his buttonhole. This at once
excites a desire for or impulse towards the object.
The desire again suggests the appropriate action which
is recognised as the means which will lead to the
desired end. In other words there is the belief (more
or less distinctly present) that the action is fitted to
secure the result desired.

Take another case. A girl playing in the garden
suddenly feels heavy drops of rain and hears the
murmurs of thunder. She runs into the bower.
Here the action is similar, only that it is due rather
to an impulse away from a disagreeable experience
than to an impulse towards an agreeable one. We
say that the force at work here is not a desire for
something pleasurable, but an aversion to something
painful.

These simple examples may suffice to show that the

NATUEE OF WILLING. 575

fundamental element in willing is desire, either in its
positive form, as desire for what is agreeable, pleasur-
able, or in its negative form, what we best mark off
as aversion. The inclination, or tendency of the
active mind towards what is pleasurable and away
from what is painful, is the essential fact in willing.
Experience teaches the child what is pleasurable or
painful, and what kind of actions are fitted to realise
the one and avoid the other. But the impulse to seek
pleasure and to avoid pain is primordial and instinc-
tive.

Analysis of Desire. It follows from this brief in-
spection of the process of willing that in order to
understand its nature we must first understand that
of desire. The state of desire is the more elementary
phenomenon which underlies and precedes volition.

(l) Representative Element. In analysing the men-
tal state known as desire we find as the most conspi-
cuous element a representation. When we desire a
material possession, a person's good opinion, or a par-
ticular occupation, we are it is plain representing some-
thing which is said to be the object of desire. Since
it involves a representation desire is related to the
intellectual side of mind. Where there is no know-
ledge there can be no desire. We must have had
experiences and be able to recall these before we can
have a desire for new and similar ones. In desiring
a cool plunge on a hot day a boy is recalling a past
experience. Hence our desires multiply with our
experience and knowledge.

The representation involved in desire may be
either an image of memory (reproduced or primary

576 THE WILL.

image) or one of constructive imagination (constructed
or secondary image). We desire things of which we
have had no actual experience, provided that we are
able to build up the necessary images. Hence desire
accompanies not only the recallings of past personal
experience but the imagination of untried experiences,
as in listening to others' recitals, in reading, in
weaving images of possible experiences in the future.
Finally, desire may attach itself to abstract ideas or
concepts. The desire for truth, or for virtue, illus-
trates this mode of desire.

(2) Element of Feeling. A closer inspection of
the state of desire shows us that all representations
do not excite desire. Many images and concepts
arise in the mind without any appreciable accompani-
ment of desire. The mental agitation of desire is
only aroused by the representation of concrete objects
(or qualities of things) as pleasurable or pleasure-
bringing. In desiring a succulent fruit a child
represents the delight of eating it : in desiring a good
social position or a high reputation a man represents
the situation or circumstances on their pleasurable
side.

Now the representation of something pleasurable
itself contains an ingredient of pleasurable feeling.
In representing a beautiful landscape, or a graceful
melody, the mind has an ideal * sip ' of the actual
pleasure. But in ordinary cases this ideal element is
greatly inferior to the reality, and is recognised as
inferior. And it is with this consciousness of
inferiority that the state of desire is immediately
connected. Desire implies a sense or consciousness

' NATURE OF DESIRE. 577

of want, deficiency, of the absence of something ; and
this arises in connection with the representation of
something agreeable or pleasure-bringing in so far as
there is a recognition of its non-realisation at the
moment. When, on the other hand, this sense of
discrepancy between the present and the absent state,
representation and presentation, the ideal and the
actual, disappears, desire expires. In intense expec-
tation, in the vivid imagination of unattainable de-
lights, as in reading a work of fiction, and in absorbing
moral and religious aspiration approaching to ecstasy,
desire succumbs, giving place to a momentary sense
of fruition or realisation.

It seems paradoxical at first to speak of the representation of a
pleasure which is aware of its own shortcoming. It might appear as
if we must realise our object in the measure of completeness in which
we represent it. But this sense of non-realisation in desire is by no
means a solitary mental phenomenon. In memory, for example, we
are aware of the inferiority of the present representation to the past
presentation. In other words, the mental image is attended by a
peculiar mental state or feeling, namely, the assurance that there was
something more, unrealised at the moment. It is not improbable that
in representing a class of objects by means of a concept or generic
image there is a similar mental concomitant. The mind is aware of
an indefinite range of objects not directly represented or distinctly
imaged, but only vicariously represented, or re-represented.1

Relation of Desire to Feeling. It is to be noted
that the relation between feeling and desire is a
particularly close one. We mark off a pure feeling as
a passive phenomenon. There is no ingredient of
activity in an enjoyment, say that of a delicate flavour,

1 See, on the whole subject of such vague accompaniments of our move
distinct mental states, an interesting article, by Prof. W. James in Mind,
Jan., 1884, ' On some omissions of Introspective Psychology '.

578 THE WILL.

considered as a mental state apart. At the same
time, as we saw above, all feeling vents itself in
movement, and to this extent has an active accom-
paniment. And further, every feeling, whether in
the actual or ideal form, tends to excite desire. Not
only does the representation of a pleasure arouse
desire, the actual experience of one commonly leads
on to a desire for its prolongation, and possibly its
increase in intensity. Similarly, actual pain, as well
as the mere representation of it, is a common ante-
cedent of the other active state, aversion.

The excitation of desire in connection with an actual pleasure is
probably a similar process to that involved in its excitation by a
representation of pleasure. Actual enjoyment so far as complete, that
is considered simply in itself, is not desire-provoking but satisfying or
quieting.1 In so far as we enjoy a thing at the moment we cease to
desire. But no enjoyment remains long at one level of intensity. As
we saw above, the prolongation of any pleasurable stimulation tends to
diminish its effect. And it is probably the sense of a falling-off which
is the real excitant of the ever-renewed desire which we commonly
find in these circumstances.

While feeling is thus an antecedent and main con-
dition of desire, desire in its turn contributes new
elements of feeling. As pointed out above, one great
class of pains are those of want or craving. The
essential ingredient of desire, the sense of the in-
feriority of the actual to the ideal, of what is actually
present to what is represented, is distinctly painful,
and when desire is fully developed, that is to say,
is not immediately replaced by its satisfaction, the
painful ingredient becomes intense. We thus see

1 Mr. Stephen expresses this by saying that pleasure is a state of
equilibrium, or a state in which there is a tendency to persist, Science of Ethics,
Chap. II., § 12.

NATURE OF DESIRE. . 579

that the whole state of desire is a mixed state in
which a pleasurable element (the accompaniment of
the representation) is continually opposed and counter-
acted by a painful (the sense of deficiency, short-
coming).1

(3) Element of Activity. Desire is essentially an
active phenomenon. It is this characteristic which
differences it at once from knowing and from mere
feeling. It is in virtue of this characteristic that it
constitutes the connecting point between knowing
and feeling on the one side and willing on the other.
In desiring the mind is in a state of active tension,
or active tending towards the realisation of the feeling
only represented at the moment. This innermost core
of desire has been variously described as a movement
of the mind (e.g., by Aristotle) and more commonly
as a striving towards the fruition or realisation of the
object.2

This element of active prompting in desire takes
two directions, (a) In the first place, it assumes the
form of mental activity, that is a concentration of
the attention on the representation. In desiring a
pleasure strongly the mind is as we commonly say
" full of the idea ". The representation tends to
persist and to monopolise the attention.

This direction of the attention tends to the fuller development and
intensification of the representation. Hence it involves a conscious or

1 The relation of desire to feeling is carefully discussed by Volkmann,
Lchrbuch der Psychologic, Vol. II., § 143.

2 This state of activity only becomes what we ordinarily call striving
when the object of desire is withheld for a time, so that desire is fully de-
veloped. Hence, perhaps, it is better to use the expression 'tendency to
strive '.

580 . THE WILL.

unconscious striving towards a fuller realisation. The exact nature of
this striving is a matter of uncertainty. Volkmann connects it with
the fundamental property of the ' Vorstellung ' namely its tendency to
assert itself over against all limitation or hindrance (op. cit., § 139).

(6) In the second place, desire is naturally related
to bodily or muscular activity. All feeling as we saw
involves as its effect some excitation of the motor
organs. In the state of desire this motor element
becomes still more prominent. This is plain enough
in cases where experience has taught the mind that a
certain mode of muscular action leads to the realisa-
tion of desire. But the relation is probably a pri-
mordial one. Antecedently to the teachings of
experience we see desire prompting to some degree
and range of motor activity. It is this branch of the
activity of desire which is commonly marked off as
impulse (Trieb).

The tendency to muscular action in desire seems to involve, in addi-
tion to the process of innervation accompanying the act of attention, a
wider sub-excitation of motor tracts. And it is the psychical concomi-
tants of these motor processes, namely, sensations of innervation, aided
by those of muscular contraction, which probably give the character to
the whole state of desire as one of restlessness and readiness to act.

The term impulse (Trieb) is commonly confined to those innate
promptings of activity in which there is no clear representation of a
pleasure, and consequently no distinct desire. Here the active element
is preatly in excess of the intellectual. But in all desire there is a
stirring of motor activity, and so an ingredient of active impulse.1

In the foregoing analysis of desire the common view has been
adopted that desire is related to the representation of what is pleasure-
bringing. This seems to be clearly the case in many instances, as in
desiring sensuous gratifications, the pleasures of social entertainment,
art, &c. In other cases, as in desiring knowledge, and more particularly
virtue, the pleasurable ingredient is less conspicuous. We seem to
desire moral goodness withoiit representing the possession of it as

3 On the relation of impulse to desire, see Volkmaua op. tit., §§ 141, 142:
Wundt, op. tit., Cap. XVIII. , § 1.

NATURE OF DESIRE. 581

pleasurable. Or, at least, the pleasure represented is quite dispropor-
tionate to the strength of the desire. These apparent exceptions are
probably to be accounted for by such considerations as these : (1) Since
pleasure is the immediate accompaniment of certain presentations
(sensations and perceptions) we cannot represent it except by recalling
these and fixing our attention on the representations. Hence in
desire the image of the objects or circumstances directly contributing
the pleasure tends to become most prominent in consciousness. (2)
In all dependent desires, i.e., desires for the more remote conditions cf
pleasure, and for means to ends, the representation of the pleasure falls
back still more into indistinct consciousness. And as we shall see by
and by, the very nature of voluntary action necessitates the concentra-
tion of the mind on its immediate results, though these are only means
to the object really desired. (3) As will be shown presently, we may
go on desiring things under the force of habit when we no longer repre-
sent them as pleasurable with the same distinctness as at first. (4)
Lastly, as will be shown also, the force of what seems a positive desire
for an object is in many cases derived from a negative desire or aversion
to some correlative pain. 1

A point of some interest concerning the intellectual side of desire is
its relation to belief. Is desire accompanied by a belief in the
attainability of the object desired 1 In most cases, this element is not
present in a clear conscious form. We desire many things, e.g., those of
which others tell us, without entertaining the question of their
possibility. It is to be remarked, too, that the confident expectation of
a good is apt to weaken desire. The assurance of a coming realisation
is taken as a present equivalent for the reality. On the other hand,
desire as a tendency or striving towards fulfilment, contains the germ of

1 On the question as to whether pleasure is the object of desire, see Dr.
Bain, The Emotions and the Will, Part I., Chap. VIII., Sect. 7 ; Prof.
H. Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, Chap. IV. ; Mr. L. Stephen, Science of
Etf/ics, Chap. II., § 11, and following. German psychologists are no less
divided than English moralists as to the real object of desire. Waitz
maintains that it is pleasure (Lehrbuch der Psychologic, § 40). On the other
hand, Volkmann argues against the old psychological dictum, " nihil
appetimus, nisi sub specie boni ". He holds that what is desired is
not the object considered in itself as a good or as pleasure-bringing, but simply
the representation in its full measure of intensity ; that in desiring there is no
reference to the pleasure actually attending its satisfaction ; that in cases
' ' where we recognise an object to be a good and desire it, we do so not because
it presents itself to us as a good in itself apart from the desire, but because,
being in the act of desiring brought into relation to the pain, it makes
itself known as the dissolution of this pain," op. at., §§ 139-143. The
author adds a valuable historical resume of opinions as to the nature of desire
(p. 389).

582 THE WILL.

confidence. A clear consciousness of the unattainableness of a good is
fatal to desire.

Desire and Aversion. The great contrast in the
region of feeling between pleasure and pain has its
counterpart in the domain of activity. While the
representation of what is pleasurable excites the
positive form of desire, the representation of what is
painful awakens the negative form of aversion. We
incline or strive towards what gives us pleasure, and
away from what gives us pain. If the pain be actual,
aversion takes the form of craving for relief, if it be
simply imagined it assumes the form of a mental
recoil or shrinking back.

It will be noted that while desire has always to do with the absent and
the non-realised, aversion may have to do with the actual and present.
In suffering pain the mind longs for a doing away with the actual, or a
change from the present.1 While the object of desire is something
positive, pleasure, that of aversion is something negative, absence of
pain. Hence though both prompt to action their mode of prompting is
different. Pain though a powerful stimulus to the will has a limited
range. The object of aversion is realised at a definite point, namely
when the pain ceases. But the object of desire is in a sense never fully
realised, since however great the pleasure the mind can still desire an
increase or at least a prolongation of it. This distinction has, as we
shall see, an important bearing on the education of the will. It is to
be added that while desire and aversion are thus contrasted, they are
very closely connected one with another. The pleasure of an agreeable
flavour is opposed to or incompatible with the pain of a disagreeable
one, the pleasure of harmony, with the pain of discord, &c. Hence in
desiring the positive enjoyment the mind tends to pass on more or less
fully to the complementary state of aversion. The connection between
the two states is particularly close in all cases where the pleasure de-
sired, or the pain feared, is relative to, or dependent on, the opposite

1 Even in shrinking from a future pain we seem first to represent it as an
actual present state, and then to crave for its removal. This would give a
meaning to the assertion of Waitz, that aversion involves a belief in the
reality of the pain, whereas desire involves no belief in the reality of the
pleasure, Lehrbucfi der Psychologic, § 42, p. 443.

NATUEE OF DESIRE. 583

state of feeling. Thus in dreading the pain of a loss of some good, as
a friend or wealth, we are more or less distinctly desiring a continua-
tion of the good. On the other hand, in desiring liberty, health, or
knowledge, we are more or less distinctly shrinking from the pain of
restraint, of sickness, or of ignorance. The force of the desire for moral
objects, the approval of others or self-approval, is to a large extent de-
rived from a shrinking from the pains of condemnation and self-reproach.
Finally, it may be observed that since all desire when fully developed
involves a painful element, every craving for a positive good or happi-
ness tends when prolonged to be accompanied by an aversion to pain.
When any good is slow in coming, the desire for it is apt to assume the
form of a longing to escape from the pangs of desire. Such shrinking,
however, is a later and secondary form of desire. In its initial form
it is desire for something represented as pleasure-bringing.1

On what Strength of Desire and Active Impulse
depends. Desire, and along with it, active impulse,
admits of different degrees of strength or energy.
Our desires range through all degrees of intensity
and persistence, from vague fugitive wishes, up to
intense and absorbing longings. These differences
show themselves in different ways. A strong desire
prompts to great and prolonged activity or exertion,
whereas a weak desire fails to do so. Again, strength
of desire may be measured by the amount of pain in-
curred if the desire is unsatisfied.

The most important circumstance determining the
strength of desire or active prompting is the magni-
tude of the pleasure represented. In general it may
be said that the greater the pleasure represented the
stronger will be the desire, and the more energetic
the outward stream of active impulse. Thus a school-

1 This seems to be the ingredient of truth in the doctrine derived from
Plato, and adopted by modern Pessimists, that all desire is at bottom aversion,
that is a striving away from a present pain. This doctrine of will is naturally
allied to the theory of feeling which regards all pleasure as negative, con-
sisting merely in the cessation of pain. See my work on Pessimism, Chap. IX.

584 THE WILL

boy's activity (mental and bodily) is roused to a much
greater extent by the prospect of a whole holiday
than by that of going home half-an-hour earlier than
usual. Speaking roughly we may say that the
strength of desire varies with the intensity of the
pleasure desired. But we must be careful to note
that the image may not accurately represent the
degree of the actual enjoyment. The prospect of a
prize in the remote future may excite little desire
because the child is ' weak in futurity ' and cannot
picture distinctly and steadily the far-off delight.
That which is near influences us, by way both of
attraction and repulsion, more powerfully than that
which is remote. It follows that the real determining
force in desire is the magnitude of the pleasure as re-
presented.

It follows from what was said above that by adequate representation
here is not meant a vividness of representation approximating to realisa-
tion. We may represent a pleasure, say that of a visit to a new country,
as great without realising its full intensity. Combining what has just
been said with what was said before, we see that a strong desire in-
volves first the relative magnitude of the represented pleasure, i.e., a
sense of the great superiority of the reality to the representation, and
secondly the absolute magnitude, i.e., a sense of the greatness of the
actual pleasure in itself, or in relation to other actual pleasures.

This general principle must however be qualified
by one or two considerations. In the first place, the
mind is not at all times equally disposed to activity.
A more powerful inducement is needed to stir active
impulse when we are inactive and indolent than when
we are strongly inclined to activity. This varying
mental condition seems to depend on the varying
supply of active energy in the motor organs, central

NATURE OF DESIEE. 585

and peripheral. A plentiful supply of such energy
may so dispose a healthy child to do things, to put
forth exertion, that the slightest suggestion of a result-
ing pleasure or end suffices to awaken desire and stir
the currents of

This disposition to muscular action seems to be specially connected
with a well-recruited and consequently ' unstable ' or excitable condition
of the motor centres. Mere vigour of muscle does not imply this
readiness. Such a state is an antecedent condition of a wide range of
pleasurable activity : the more vigorous the motor organs and the more
ready for work, the higher can the exercises be carried without becoming
excessive and painful. The opposite state of active lethargy or in-
dolence, on the other hand, corresponds with a restricted range of plea-
surable activity, or in other words, a wide range of excessive and effort-
attended action. Hence, as we shall see by and by, the inclination to
activity is commonly attended by a more or less distinct representation
of the pleasure of the activity itself, as distinguished from that which
constitutes the object of the primary desire. Similarly, indolence com-
monly implies a shrinking from a represented pain ; that of excessive
or effort-attended action. It may be added that though this readiness
to act would directly strengthen merely the active outcome of the desire,
it tends indirectly to strengthen the desire as a whole. The mind of a
vigorous child, strongly disposed to act somehow, will through the co-
operation of this force be more energetic and persistent in entertaining
objects of desire. Finally it is to be noted that the principle applies
not only to bodily activity but to mental. A vigorous condition of the
brain involving an alertness of the attention is favourable to any direc-
tion of the mind to what is agreeable.

Finally, active impulse conies under the dominion
of the principle of habit. When the mind has fre-
quently and habitually erected certain representations
into objects of desire, and striven towards their real-
isation there is generated a tendency to go on desiring
and striving in these directions. In this way habitual
desires or fixed inclinations are formed.

This effect of custom or habit in fixing desire in
definite directions shows itself most distinctly in the

586 THE WILL.

continued striving with unabated energy towards ob-
jects which are no longer pleasure-bringing, in their
original degree, and even objects which cease to be so
altogether. The confirmed student may pursue study
with undiminished energy long after he has outlived
the early intense delight of gaining knowledge. The
case of the habitual drunkard desiring what he knows
is harmful and productive of pain, is a familiar ex-
ample of this principle.

Here, again, it may be said that it is merely the active outcome of
the desire, in other words, the external action originally prompted by
it, which is fixed and strengthened by habit. If we cease to find plea-
sure in a thing we can no longer go on desiring it. But this idea does
not accord with the facts. When customary objects of desire are with-
holden, wel see all the manifestations of intense craving. The intensity
of desire in this instance is not to be accounted for by the presence of
the old pleasurable representation alluring and deceiving the mind,
though this is often a factor in the maintenance of desires (e.g., those of
the old sportsman, and of all who have outlived a certain mode of en-
joyment which they can still in a measure picture). The full explana-
tion is that as we saw above (p. 469) habit or use directly intensifies the
pain of craving. The customary pursuit of any object tends to render
that object necessary to us, so that its absence seems like the removal of a
part of ourselves. Hence in all habitual desires the striving tends to
take on more and more the negative form of an aversion, or striving
away from a present pain. It may be added that what we call innate
impulse or instinct illustrates the same relation between the positive
and negative aspects of desire. The ' blind impulse ' of the migratory
bird seems to contain no distinct representation of and desire for a posi-
tive pleasure, but merely a striving away from its own misery, or to-
wards its own appeasement.

Individual Differences of Will : Active Temperament.
By help of the above considerations we may roughly
define the more general conditions on which indi-
vidual differences in respect of activity or what may
be called will-material depend. A specially strong
will-capability involves in the first place keenness

NATUKE OF DESIRE. 587

of desire. Since desire stands in the closest relation
to feeling, keenness of desire clearly carries with it
vividness or intensity of feeling. Strong emotional
susceptibilities are thus an antecedent condition of
vigorous activity. But feeling in itself is not enough.
Many children have strong feelings but no corres-
ponding degree of will-capability. What is needed
over and above this is a powerful disposition to act,
or what we specially mark off as the active tempera-
ment. The natural basis of an energetic will is a
good supply of feeling organically connected with
strong active impulse. The conditions of the higher
manifestations of activity in calm rational volition
will appear later on.

The close connection between intensity of feeling and strength of
will is strikingly illustrated in pathological conditions. Patients affected
by enfeeblement of will-power or an inability to carry out the purposes
they form are characterised by diminution or loss of sensibility. As M.
Blbot observes, " the real cause of these enfeeblements is a relative in-
sensibility, a general weakening of sensibility : that which is impaired is
the life of feeling, the possibility of being moved " (Les Maladies de la
VolontJ, p. 53).

Desire and Volition. Thus far we have been con-
cerned with the root-principle or underlying force of
willing. We have now to study it in its full mani-
festation of volition, or voluntary action. The mere
desire for a thing and the tendency to strive towards
it, though presupposed in volition, do not consti-
tute it. We frequently desire things and are con-
scious of the incipient outgoings of activity, and yet
do not reach the stage of voluntary action. In order
to the full development of an act of will another
factor is needed.

588 THE WILL.

This new factor involves the representation, not
only of some object of desire, but also of some
action which we recognise as leading to the realisation
of this object. It is only when the rise of a desire
for an object is accompanied by a representation of
an appropriate action that we are in a position to will
a thing and to perform an act of will. Here, again, it
is obvious that the necessary factor has to be supplied
by experience and association. When, to take a
simple example, the desire for warmth prompts the
action of going to the fire, it is because this parti-
cular action has in our experience become connected
with the object desired.

The process involved in the simplest type of volun-
tary action may be described as follows. The initial
stage is the rise of some desire in the mind. This
desire is accompanied by the representation of some
movement (motor representation) which is recognised
as subserving the realisation of the object. The re-
cognition of the causal relation of the action to the
result involves a germ of belief in the attainability of
the object of desire, or in the efficacy of the action.
Finally we have the carrying out of the action thus
represented. This may be described as the direction
of the active impulse involved in the state of desire
into the definite channel of action suggested. This
last stage of the process of volition is known as the
act. The desire which precedes and determines this
is called its moving force, stimulus or motive. Since
this motive involves the anticipation of the final
realisation, this consummation is spoken of as the
object, purpose, or end of the action and correla-

VOLUNTARY ACTION. 589

tively, the action as the means of gaining or realism a-
the object of desire.

It is plain that we have here to do with a double order, that of actual
presentation and of representation. In actually carrying out an action
the pleasure follows the action. It is the 'end' in the sense of the pro-
duct or result of the action. But in representing it the order is reversed.
The representation of the end, or the resulting pleasure, precedes the
representation and performance of the action. Thus while the action
is the cause of the (actual) pleasure, the anticipation of the pleasure is
the cause of the action. Hence the tendency to use ' motive ' and ' end '
as synonymous terms.1

The end of the action corresponds strictly to the object of the desire,
that is, the pleasure (or cessation of pain) represented. But as the re-
presentation of the pleasure is necessarily bound up with that of the
situation or circumstances of which it is an accompaniment, we tend to
include this last in ' end ' and still more perhaps in ' purpose '. Prim-
arily, at least, we only desire and aim at the pleasure. But in recog-
nising the action as leading to the pleasure we may be said to desire
this in a subordinate degree. From this borrowed or reflected desire
for an action we must carefully distinguish the desire for it considered
as intrinsically pleasurable. As we shall see by and by, this frequently
combines with the desire for its pleasurable result.2

The exact relation of the mental process here described to the actual
carrying out of the action has given rise to discussion. Some would
say that a further link in the chain of psychical events is here required
namely, a volition proper, or a determination to carry out the repre-
sented action. But this ingredient appears to belong to more complex
processes of volition than that now considered. The probable explana-
tion of the sequence of the psychical and physical event is as follows.
Every motor representation appears to involve a nascent excitation of
the motor centres engaged in the actual process of innervating the
muscles, and may indeed be described, physically as well as psychically,
as a rudimentary stage of the movement. This is borne out by such

1 A fuller analysis would show that in representing the action we repre-
sent it as preceding or leading up to the fruition. To this extent then the
representation of means precedes that of ends.

2 Volkmann says that in a voluntary action the desire of the end is the
cause of the desire of the means op. cit., § 147. Psychologically, as well as
ethically, it is important to distinguish between the emotive and desire-prompt-
ing element in the complex volitional representation, and the merely intel-
lectual element, representation of the action itself and other collateral results
not desired. This answers to the ethical distinction between ' motive ' and ' in-
tention '.

590 THE WILL.

facts as the tendency to move the limbs involuntarily when a movement
is vividly suggested (as in watching another person move). But
movement excited by desire involves more than this. Desire itself
includes a state of active tension or sub-excitation of the motor centres,
and so a tendency to muscular action. When, then, in a state of desire
a particular movement is suggested this force discharges itself along the
particular line thus opened up.1

Willing and Attending. It is customary to dis-
tinguish between two branches of will the External,
muscular action or movement, and the Internal, men-
tal action, voluntary attention or concentration. These
two phases are rightly distinguished. They answer
roughly to two directions of will-development, illus-
trated in the man of thought and the man of action.

At the same time the two modes of activity are
not wholly independent one of another. On the one
side, attention involves, as we saw above, a certain
amount of motor innervation and muscular activity.
On the other side, all voluntary movement involves
attention. In doing a thing in order to realise some
end the mind is fixed on the object desired and
aimed at, and in a subordinate measure, on the action
subserving this. In the more complex processes of
willing (deliberating, choosing, &c.), attention will be
found to play a still more conspicuous part.2

1 The relation of desire to volition is well given by Waitz, op. cit., § 41,
ef., Volkmann, op. cit., § 147. Dr. Bain looks on desire as more complex
than, and as secondary to, volition. There is the " solicitation of the motive "
or the "prompting " without the ability to act on it. (The Emotions and the
Will, Part II., Chap. VIII.) As pointed out above, a fully developed
desire or state of craving involves as its negative condition the absence of a
representation of an appropriate action. It is as Dr. Bain observes a state of
conflict. But the essential principle of desire is present in all voluntary
action. Dr. Bain's language implies, indeed, that every process of stimulat-
ing or motiving the will involves desire.

2 This applies to all actions performed with full consciousness. As we
shall see by and by, repetition and habit tend to diminish the amount of at-

VOLUNTARY ACTION. 591

Development of Willing. Having thus roughly
analysed the process of willing, we proceed to trace
its development. Here we shall be concerned first of
all with the manifestation of will in external action.
Its other manifestation in voluntary concentration,
which has already been discussed to some extent in
its bearing on intellect, will be reconsidered later on.

The growth of Willing, like that of Knowing and
Feeling, is from the simple to the complex, and
from the presentative to the representative. The
actions of a young child, e.g., carrying something
to his mouth, are comparatively simple movements
directed to immediate enjoyments. The actions of
an adult, e.g., writing a letter, preparing for an
examination and so forth, are complex chains of
movements, and involve an increase of representative
power or power of picturing remote ends.

Again, action is at first presentative in the sense
that it is peripherally initiated, being a response to
present sense-impressions (e.g., the sight of food).
Later on it becomes representative in that it is
centrally initiated, being called forth by internal
processes of imagination and not directly by sense-
impressions.

A series of gradations of voluntary movement may be distinguished
corresponding to the grades of Intellection, namely, Sensation, Perception,
Representative Imagination, and Thought. G. H. Schneider correlating
difl'erent grades of active impulse with different grades of feeling divides
the former into Sensational, Perceptional, Ideational, and Rational (Der
thierische Wille, cf., Mind, Vol. V., 1880, p 426).

tention involved ; but in so doing they detract from the full voluntary char-
acter of the actions. For a fuller account of the relation of these two modes
of activity, see Wundt, Physiol. Psychologic, Vol. II., Cap. XX., Sect. 1.

592 THE WILL.

Once more, the higher stages of action show a
marked increase in respect of complexity and repre-
sentativeness in that the psychical process preceding
the overt action becomes more complicated. Instead
of a rapid process, the representation of an end and
the appropriate action, we have intricate processes
of representation known as deliberation, choice, and
resolution. Finally, the higher developments of action
embrace modes of willing which are altogether
internal. These are the actions which make up the
control of movement, feeling, and thought.

The growth of the Will, like that of Intellect and
Emotion, implies the presence of certain instinctive
capabilities and dispositions. Thebe have already
been touched on and will have to be considered more
closely presently. In addition to these we must
reckon the effect of exercise, experience, &c. The
Will grows by exercise. Each form of its activity
becomes more perfect by practice. And the lower
forms of exercise in bodily movement prepare the
way to some extent at least for the higher exercises.
As will be seen more fully presently, the whole pro-
cess of growth illustrates the effects of experience and
association. The primitive impulses of will have to
be guided into definite channels, fixed in certain direc-
tions, and this is the work of experience.

In the present chapter we shall be concerned with
the first stage of will-development, that of presenta-
tive action or bodily movement. We have to enquire
by what steps the child comes to command his muscles
and his bodily organs and to make them the instru-
ments of his desires and purposes.

GKOWTII OF WILL.

How Voluntary Movement Arises. As we have
seen, voluntary movement includes a definite repre-
sentation of a particular object or end, and of an
action fitted to attain the object. And it is plain that
the knowledge of this particular end, and also of the
means of realising it, must have been gained from
experience. And this seems to imply that the move-
ment must first have been performed without any
clear representation either of the movement itself or
of its result. What we have to do then is to observe
closely the early forms of movement in order to see
how action wanting this definiteness of prevision
passes into voluntary action proper, that is to say
action accompanied by such a definite prevision. In
order to this we must begin by distinguishing the
several classes of early movement.

Early Movements Classed. (l) Unprompted or
Random Movements. — Of the early movements which
precede voluntary ones the first class is that known
as spontaneous, unprompted or random movements.1
These include all movements which result from the
excitation of motor centres. They are not preceded
by any conscious element, feeling or desire, and have
no psychical accompaniment at all beyond the mus-
cular experience attending the carrying out of the
movement. They appear as altogether wanting in
purpose, and so are called ' random ' movements.
They are described as the spontaneous overflow of
energy locked up in the central motor organs, as the
result of the disposition of a healthy and vigorous

1 They have also been called ' automatic movements ' (Wundt) and im-
pulsive movements (Preyer)

594 THE WILL.

motor organ to fall into a state of activity. Many of
the spasmodic and irregular movements of young
animals and children soon after birth belong to this
class. Such are movements of the arms, legs, eyes,
&c., which appear to be due to no impression received
from without and no internal feeling.

(2) Reflex Movements. — These differ from the first
class in being the result of a process of sensory stimu-
lation. They are responses to external stimuli, and
as such involve a double current of excitation, an
inward through the sensory nerves, and an outward
through the motor nerves. They agree, however,,
with random movements in the circumstance that
they involve no distinct psychical antecedent.
The impression resulting from the incoming nerve-
process is fugitive, evanescent, and ' sub-conscious,'
the incoming excitation being instantly followed by
the outgoing excitation and the movement. The
movement is restricted in character and is connected
by direct nervous paths with the sensory organ con-
cerned. Reflex movements have slightly more of
the appearance of a purposive character than auto-
matic movements, though this is in many cases very
vague and ill-defined. And there is no element of
conscious desire present. Such are the actions of
closing the fingers on an object put in the infant's
hand, blinking when an object is suddenly brought
near the eye. Some of these as breathing, swallowing,
are necessary for the child's existence, and are (ap-
proximately) perfect from birth. Others as blinking
appear somewhat later.1 As we shall see presently,

lSee Preyer, Die Keele des Kindes, p. 20, cf., Cap X.

0-KIGLS OF VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. 595

voluntary actions often repeated and become habitual
tend to approximate to this reflex type.

The exact nature and range of reflex action or reflexes is a point
which has given rise to much discussion. Many actions commonly des-
cribed as reflex, that is non-volitional, responses to stimuli are preceded
by a conscious sensory impression, e.g., closing the eyes at a dazzling
light, starting at a loud sound. These are marked off by some (e.g., Dr.
Carpenter) as sensory -motor reflexes. These involve the activity of the
centres of consciousness. On the other hand, there are many reflexes
involving only the lower centres in which there is no antecedent sensa-
tion, e.g., the movement of the limbs, in response to stimuli, of a sleeping
child or of a decapitated animal. These have been marked off as excito-
motor actions.1

(3) Instinctive Movements. — It is not easy to dis-
tinguish these from reflex movements. Like these
last they are responses to stimuli. But they are
marked off from reflex movements first of all by being
more complex in character ; and secondly, what is
more important, by having a distinct psychical ac-
companiment, namely, a feeling of some kind. They
are further differenced from reflex actions in that they
have a distinctly marked purposive character. It
seems probable, moreover, that there is some element
of desire or striving towards an end present in in-
stinctive actions though the consciousness of the end
is of a very vague character. They are inherited
tendencies to act answering to actions of a uniform
character and repeated in innumerable instances in
the life of the race. The instinctive actions of the
lower animals such as the incubation of the female

1 On the nature of reflex action the reader may consult Dr. Carpenter,
Mental Physiology, Chap. II., Par. 47, 66, and following; G. H. Lewes,
Physical Basis of Mind, Prob. IV. ; Wundt, op. cit., II., Cap. XXI., pp. 403-
412 ; G. H. Schneider, Der mensMiche Wille, Kap. II.

596 THE WILL.

bird, the building of cells by bees, and of dams by
beavers, are of this type. In man the number of
perfect instincts is few. Sucking is one of the
best marked examples. When the feeling of hunger
arises, and the proper object is present the action
follows. As we shall see presently, many actions
acquired in early life, such as seizing objects with the
hand, sitting upright, walking, are partly instinctive
in character, being greatly aided by definite inherited
tendencies.

The nature of Instinctive Action has given rise to even more specu-
lation than that of reflex action. The analogy between instinctive and
habitual action has already been touched on. This is illustrated by the
fact that we commonly describe a perfectly habitual (secondarily-auto-
matic) act as performed 'instinctively'. The distinctly purposive char-
acter of instinctive actions in the lower animals, coupled with the want
of experience, has led to the somewhat fanciful hypothesis of a power
of clairvoyance.1 The persistent carrying out of instinctive actions
when the 'purpose' can no longer be realised (e.g., when a beaver shut
tip in a room continues to follow out his constructive or dam-building
instinct) seems to show that there is no clear representation in the case.a
The question as to the relation of reflex to instinctive action can hardly
be said to be yet settled. Some, as Mr. Spencer, regard instinctive
actions as compound reflexes, and G. H. Schneider has recently adopted
the same view. But the psychical accompaniment, feeling and striving,
seem to differentiate them sufficiently from the others.3

1 See my work on Pessimism, p. 118.

2 Volkmaim would distinguish the dark impulse (Trieb) in instinct which
springs from an organic sensation and is based on an original physiological
' preformation,' from the desire which is subsequently excited by a perception
and the associated images (op. cit., pp. 428, 429).

8 On the nature of instinctive action see II. Spencer, Principles of Psycho-
logy, Part IV., Chap. V. ; G. J. Romanes, Animal Intelligence, p. 10. and
following. Of., Mental Evolution in Animals, Chap. XL, and following;
Wundt, op. cit., Cap. XVI1L, p. 336, and Cap. XXL, p. 415 ; G. H.
Schneider, Der menschliche Willc, Part II. The range of instinctive im-
pulse in human life is well brought out by the Inst writer and by I'reyer,
op. cit., Cap. XL

ORIGIN OF VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. 597

Other Forms of Early Movement. In order to make
this brief survey of early movements complete we
must touch on one or two other groups. Of these
the first are the expressional movements already con-
sidered (crying, pouting, &c.) These stand in close
connection with instinctive movements in so far as
they involve a feeling and are to a considerable extent
inherited. They are marked off by the want of pur-
posiveness, and for this reason are commonly ex-
cluded from the head of will. But as we shall see
presently, they stand in close relation to the simplest
and earliest forms of voluntary movement.

Finally, mention may just be made of another
group, viz., imitative movements. These appear to be
wanting, to a large extent at least, in the element of
desire and purpose, though on the other hand they
imply a distinct representation of the movement itself.
According to the latest observations these manifest
themselves at an early period, and greatly aid in the
growth of the will. They will have to be considered
more fully by and by.1

Instinctive Germ of Voluntary Movement. Let us
now see how far these simple kinds of movement will
supply a starting point in the development of volun-
tary movement. And to begin with the first, random
movement. A child by bringing his limbs into play
in this manner would it is clear have experience of

1 For an interesting account of the early movements see Lotze, Medici-
nischc Psychologic, Btich II., Kap. III., § 24 ; Preyer, Op. cit., Cap 8, et srq.
An exhaustive classification of movements would have to include late acquisi-
tions, and more particularly habitual or secondarily automatic movements.
For a more elaborate classification of movements see Carpenter, Animal
Physiology, Chap. II.

598 THE WILL.

moving his organs, and after a number of these per-
formances would be able to represent the move-
ment. Not only so, he might find that under certain
circumstances pleasure resulted from such a random
movement. Thus if when a bright object is held
out to him he happens to extend his arm and come
into contact with it, he will obtain the pleasure of
possessing it. After one or more such ' coincidences '
he would learn that when an object is held out to
him this movement of stretching out his hands will
be followed by the enjoyment of handling it. Some
have supposed that this is the way in which children
uniformly come to do things intelligently and with
purpose. l

That there is some truth in this theory may be
admitted. Unprompted actions may thus lead to
voluntary ones. Moreover, the fact emphasised by
this theory, that vigorous motor organs involve a
disposition to activity, is a circumstance which must
be taken into account in seeking to trace the de-
velopment of will. A vigorous motor system ready
to act and to act energetically is a condition of a
rapid development of will. Nevertheless this does
not supply us with an adequate theory of the way
in which voluntary movement arises. It is very
doubtful to begin with whether there is any con-
siderable number of strictly unprompted movements.

1 This is more particularly Prof. Bain's view. He has sought to establish
the wide range of such spontaneous movement, especially in early life. And
by the aid of his ' Law of Self-Conservation ' he endeavours to show that
all spontaneous movements bringing pleasure would be directly furthered and
prolonged by the increased vitality accompanying the pleasure. See his
volume ' The Emotions and the Will,' 'The Will,' Chap. I.

ORIGIN OF VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. 599

Many which seem such, as the odd irregular spas-
modic movements of infants, are probably responses
to faint sensory stimuli internal or external. In view
of the small number and the infrequency of purely
random movements, it seems unlikely that the number
and variety of coincidences required for explaining
the origin of voluntary movement on this theory
would arise in the way supposed. And observation
of young children does not bear out the theory.1

Again, some look on reflex action as the starting
point in the growth of voluntary movement. As we
have juft seen, many (if not all) of the so-called un-
prompted actions are rather reflex in character being
responses to peripheral stimuli. The movement known
as starting, e.g., at a sudden sound, suggests that by
the very structure of the nervous system all sensory
stimulation tends to call forth a variety of move-
ments, the range varying with the strength of the
stimulus. If this is so, we may understand how a
number of purposeless movements would be excited
by the constant play of sensory stimuli on the child's
organism, which movements might afterwards become
voluntary. Thus to take our previous example, the
sight of a bright object might call forth a variety of
movements, and among others, that of stretching out
the hand, and in this way the child would come to
know the connection between this particular move-
ment and the result, and so perform it in a voluntary
way.

This theory again probably contains an ingredient

1 See Wundt, Physiol. Psychologie, II., Cap. 21, Sect. 1, Preyer, op. cit.,
Cap. 9.

600 THE WILL.

of truth. A certain range of reflex action, as in start-
ing, might no doubt happen to lead to the happy
results supposed. But the theory obviously assumes
too much in supposing that the required number and
variety of coincidences would arise. And further it
overlooks the fact that in the case just referred to there
is a distinct element of feeling, the pleasurable excite-
ment caused by the sight of the bright object. This
leads us to consider the third class of movements,
known as instinctive.

The theory that reflex movement is the starting point in the develop-
ment of voluntary movement is naturally suggested by the very
structure and mode of working of the nervous system, which involves
the sequence, sensory stimulation (aiferent impulse) and motor inner-
vation (efferent impulse). It is further supported by the fact that this
mode of action is the lowest grade of movement in the case of man and
the most general and therefore the typical form in that of the animal
world as a whole. Hence it has frequently been taken as the starting
point in the development of voluntary action in the case of the human
individual, e.g., by Lotze, who, however, recognises the possibility of
random movements due to processes of assimilation (Stoff-wechsel) in
the centres (op. dt., pp. 289-292). Hence, too, Mr. Spencer in tracing the
development of will through the animal series takes reflex action as the
initial stage. So far as reflex action means simply the conjunction of two
nervous processes, a sensory and a motor, this view seems to be just. The
first movements of the child are largely if not altogether called forth by
sensory stimuli. But if we use the term reflex in the narrow sense so
as to exclude instinctive actions, we must be careful to observe the ele-
ment of feeling which differences the first actions of the child from such
reflex movements.

Instinctive movement is (unlearned) movement of
a particular kind called forth by a sensory impression,
but preceded by feeling, and apparently by a vague
element of desire. Now the type of movement out
of which voluntary movement emerges is most closely
related to this. It may be illustrated by the move-

OKIGIN OF VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. 601

ments called forth when a child has the sensation of
hunger. There seems from the first to be an element
of craving or desiring present in the case, though
this is of the vaguest kind. The movements con-
tinue as long as the pressure of the feeling lasts, and
it is out of these blind groping movements prompted
by a painful sensation that the required movements
(carrying the head to the breast, &c.) grow. This
type of movement may conveniently be called Ap-
petitive Movement.1

A large proportion of the early movements of the
infant appear to be preceded and determined by
feeling. It is probable that all sensations (special or
organic) when accompanied by a distinct feeling of
pleasure or pain are immediately followed by an active
impulse of some kind. This in its simplest form is
merely the active consciousness attending the outgoing-
motor impulses. This aspect of it is illustrated in the
phenomena of emotional expression, which as we have
seen are (to a considerable extent) instinctive move-
ments. All feeling vents itself in movements of some
kind. Moreover, as we saw above, all feeling is
closely related to the active state of desire. And at the
beginning of life expressive movement and appetitive
movement are very imperfectly distinguishable.

The latter becomes differenced from the former as
soon as the child has reached the first dim conscious-
ness of futurity. Henceforth a pleasurable feeling
will prompt to action for the sake of its continuance.

1 Appetite is said to be marked off from desire proper in that it is a craving
which springs out of a recurring bodily want, and in its pure or early form
does not presuppose experience. (Of. Bain, Soises and Intellect, p. 240, scq.)

602 THE WILL.

This simple form of striving after something appears
very early in life. It is closely related to the act of
attending to what is pleasant, in which the non-
voluntary form of attention passes into the voluntary.1

On the other hand, pain excites movements accom-
panied by a vague longing for relief. Here the pro-
perly volitional element of desire or striving appears
still more conspicuously. As has been pointed out,
instinctive movement, to which this early appetitive
movement bears so close an analogy, is determined
rather by the pressure (Drang) of painful organic
sensations, than by any representation of a resulting
pleasure. And appetitive movement itself is evi-
dently a vague striving to get rid of a pain.

The particular direction which these appetitive
impulses take in any given case is determined to a
considerable extent by inherited nerve-connections.
They are thus (in part at least) instinctive move-
ments in the full sense of the term.2 This applies
to a number of movements, such as rubbing or scratch-
ing the head, &c., carrying objects to the mouth,
stretching out the hand to seize objects, reaching for-
ward with the body, and walking. There seems a
definite tendency from the first to respond to certain
impressions by certain movements, and also to group

1 See above, p. 96. Wundt regards the activity of mind shown in the
reaction of attention on impressions (apperception) as the fundamental mode
of activity, out of which will takes its rise. Physiol. Psychologic, Vol. II.,
p. 385, seq.

2 This seems to be Wundt's view when he says : " As no being in the first
utterance of its impulses can have a knowledge of its own movements and
their effects, we must regard the movement at the same time as a mechanical
effect, grounded in the inherited organisation, of the external sensory stimuli
which have excited the feeling". (Op. cit., p. 412.)

OlilGIN OF VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. 603

movements (e.g., those of the two eyes, two arms,
and two legs) in a certain way, though the right move-
ment or combination may only be reached gradually
after a series of trials and a process of approxima-
tion. On the other hand, some movements may be
selected from among a number of heterogeneous
movements prompted by a feeling and a vague
craving, because they are found to bring relief or
pleasure. Thus a child lying in an uncomfortable
position may be noticed to execute a number of
movements, some of which have little adaptation
to the object, till by and by certain movements
are hit upon which bring about a more comfortable
position.

The germ of voluntary movement may thus be
resolved into the following elements. Feeling tends
from the first to stir active impulse. As soon as
consciousness begins to develop and a vague represen-
tation of a future like the present or contrasting with
it becomes possible, this prompting of impulse assumes
the more distinctly voluntary character of an appeti-
tive movement, with its vague striving towards an
end.1 Random movement may supply a certain
experience of movement which is useful. And how-
ever this be, the vigour of the active organs and their
readiness to act is an important condition of this
early development. Again, reflex movements, of
which starting is the type, may co-operate to a

1 The process here is closely analogous to thai; of natural selection. The
urgency of feeling brings about a wide variety of movement, answering to the
' accidental ' variations of organic forms. Out of these, certain movements
are picked out and pursued which are found to be useful, just as certain
forms of structure are preserved when advantageous to their possessors.

604 THE WILL.

very slight extent. And definitely circumscribed
reflex movements may be taken up into voluntary,
as in the complex act of grasping a thing. Finally,
definite instinctive tendencies to perform particular
kinds of movement in particular circumstances and
under the pressure of particular modes of feeling
enter, often in a very disguised way, into voluntary
movement, expediting the transformation of the ear-
lier vague appetitive, into the later definite volun-
tary movement.1

Effect of Experience. Thus far we have been
dealing with the primitive germs of will, the
innate tendencies which underlie the first simple
experiments in movement. We have now to con-
sider more carefully the effects of experience, and
of the successive performances or exercises of the
active organs in the pursuit of the simple ends of
early life.

(a) To begin with, when the child acting under
the first vague impulse to attain a pleasure or avoid
a pain succeeds in performing the appropriate move-
ment the prompting of his will becomes definite.
He has now had experience of the attainment of a
particular kind of pleasure, and the ' traces ' of this
subsequently stored up will serve to give definiteness
to his impulses. Thus after stretching out his hand
again and again and seizing objects, he is able to
shape a distinct representation of the pleasure of
handling an object, and in this way when occasion

1 Preyer shows in an interesting way, in the case of learning to stretch
ont and seize an object, how the will thus appropriates reflex and instinctive
elements, op. cit., Cap. XL, p. 152, &c.

GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. 605

arises he will experience a definite desire towards this
particular end.

(b) In the second place, this experience oi move-
ment brought about by these first vague desires gives
precision and definiteness to the particular movement
concerned. As we have seen, the first movements are
ill-defined and unsteady Experience teaches the
child the kind of movement needed to compass his
ends. The ' traces of the motor experience persist,
and after a time give rise to a distinct motor repre-
sentation. Thus after several experiences of turning
the head, the child is able to picture that particular
movement.

This will involve, further, a diminution of effort and
an increase of facility in the movement. This will
be brought about in part by the very growth ot the
organ, the strengthening of the muscles. It will be
furthered, too, by the repetition of the particular kind
of movement. Through the accumulation of motor
traces, and the growth of distinct motor representa-
tions, the movement will become easier in the sense
that it calls for less effort of mind, that is less concen-
tration. Distinctness of representation involves ease
and rapidity in the succeeding performance or exe-
cution.

(c) In the third place, this effect of experience
involves association. To begin with, the end becomes
associated with a definite kind of movement. The
repeated attainment of a pleasurable experience by
means of a particular movement serves to connect the
two in the mind, so that the recurrence of the repre-
sentation of this pleasure and the attendant desire is

606 THE WILL.

at once followed by the representation of the necessary
movement. Thus after a little experience the recur-
rence of the sensation of hunger and the desire for
food at once calls forth the appropriate movements,
leaning forward, stretching out the hands, opening
the mouth, and so on.

In addition to this, the influence of association is
seen in the fact that the representation of the end
together with the appropriate movement is suggested
by the appearance of a particular object or set of
circumstances. This early voluntary movement is, as
we have seen, a response to sense-impressions. It is
the sight of the food, the bath, the favourite toy, and so
forth, which excites desire and motor impulse. Desire
is now no longer dependent on the presence of an
actual sensation pleasurable or painful : it has as its
antecedent not a sensation but a percept. It arises
upon seeing something related to the end or object of
desire.

The growth of these volitional associations illustrates the general laws
of retentiveness, the effects of interest, concentration, and repetition.
The special power of representing actions arid their results turns on a
good memory for feeling, and a good discrimination and corresponding
retentiveness for motor experiences.

Extension of Range of Movement. While particular
modes of voluntary movement are thus being per-
fected, new modes are being found out and executed.
When the child has learnt to use his hands in one
way he is in a better position to use them in another
way. A fresh situation occurs ; his toy falls out
of his lap to one side of him. The movements of
stretching out the hands already learnt come to his

GKOWTH OF VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. 607

aid. He has a vague representation of what he has
to do, and adapts his actions to the new circum-
stances. In all this we see that the process of
acquiring command over the organs is a series of
experiments and tentatives, by which vague indefinite
promptings are gradually transformed into definite
promptings.

By this same process of adapting old attainments
to new occasions a child gradually learns to combine
movements. Thus he learns to perform simul-
taneously movements of the two hands, as in holding
an apple with one hand and picking out the pips with
the other. Similarly he goes on to execute a series
of movements, as in stretching out his hand to an
object, seizing it, and carrying it to his mouth. If
he has already learnt separately the movement of
grasping an object, and of carrying one to his mouth,
the combination of the two follows when the appro-
priate circumstances occur. Most of the child's move-
ments are strictly speaking complex movements, and
chains of movement. He begins to construct almost
as soon as he learns to command his motor organs
at all.

Although we commonly speak of new movements
being combined out of old elements, it is necessary to
observe that the widening of the range of movement
involves separation as well. At first motor excita-
tion tends to diffuse itself and to engage a large
number of muscles. This is illustrated in the move-
ments of the tongue, &c., which commonly accom-
pany the first tentatives in writing. Certain groups
of movements, e.g., those of the two arms, of the

608 THE WILL.

fingers of the same ha.nd, are in a measure co-ordinated
from the first, so that a special effort at separating
them is needed. Motor construction, like that of
new sensory images, thus involves isolation as well
as combination.1

Imitation. The term imitation is popularly used
for the adoption of any movement, feeling, or even
peculiarity of thought from others. In mental science
it is confined to actions. By an imitative movement
is meant one which is called forth directly by the
sight of that movement as performed by another.
Thus it is an imitative action when a child pouts in
response to another's pout.

Imitation implies a connection between the sight
of a movement and its actual performance as known
through muscular experience. To some extent this
connection seems to be instinctive and inherited.
Preyer tells us that his child when less than 4 months
pouted in response to his father's pout.2 It seems
impossible that his individual experience could have
taught him the connection between the appearance
of the movement and the execution of it. Such
an action, like the infant's responsive smile, might
be ascribed to the fact that there were inherited
nervous connections between the centres of sight and
oral movement, involving an original disposition to
respond to the lead of another's movement. But
though there is probably a certain instinctive ele-

1 "The will is neither coordinating only, nor isolating only, but both."
Preyer, op. cit., 214.

3 Op. cit., p. 177. This agrees with a remark of Mr. Darwin that his boy
appeared to imitate sounds when 4 months old. See his Biographical Sketch
of an Infatri, in Mind, Vol. II. (1877), p. 291.

IMITATION. 609

ment in imitation the imitative impulse does not
come into full play till about the middle of the 2nd
year, that is to say after the child has learnt to per-
form many actions in the way described above. l

Leaving the possibility of instinctive imitation out
of account we may say that imitation presupposes a
certain experience of movement and a stock of motor
acquisitions. It includes the power of framing a
distinct representation of a movement apart from
the special circumstances and needs which first called
it forth. And this power again presupposes special
attention to the movement itself at the time of its
performance. More particularly it implies that the
motor representation has become firmly associated
with the particular visual impression which we call
the sight or appearance of the movement.

To this it must be added that the impulse to imitate
others implies a certain facility in the performance of
the action and a corresponding disposition or readiness
to perform it again. As we have seen, the repetition
of any action makes that action easier, that is dimi-
nishes the effort involved. This being so, less motive
force would be required to call forth the action.

It must be remembered further that the exercise of
the active organs (within limits) is pleasurable, and a
child who begins to feel that he is gaining command
of his motor organs finds a distinct satisfaction in
bringing them into play. He does things (e.g., in
romping play) for the pleasure of doing them. Hence

1 Mr. Darwin (loc. cit.) says that his boy when 11^ months old "could
readily imitate all sorts of actions ". For a detailed account of the growth of
the imitative impulse see Preyer, op. cit., Cap. XII.

610 THE WILL.

where a close association has been formed between
certain visual impressions and certain movements, the
sight of another performing a particular movement
may suffice to call it forth. The action is not fully
voluntary. There is no distinct element of desire or
wish for an end present in the child's mind. At most
there is a vague desire for the pleasure of movement,
and even this is not, apparently, present in all cases.
The impression vividly suggests, and is immediately
followed by the action, without any intermediate
stage of looking onward and desiring a result.

Imitation is a signal example of the tendency already touched on to
carry out any movement vividly suggested at the moment. As was
pointed out, a motor representation appears to involve a nascent stage of
the process of innervation, and consequently tends to pass into the
actual performance of the movement. In closely watching another's
movements, e.g., the strokes of a billiard player, we are, as Lotze observes,
apt to accompany them with slight movements of the same kind (Medi-
cinische Psychologie, p. 293). Other instances of this tendency are the
non-voluntary utterances of a person ' thinking aloud '. More striking
examples are to be met with in abnormal conditions, in the carrying
out of id^es fixes, or ideas of actions which have for some reason acquired
a preternatural persistence in the mind. These are commonly sus-
tained by a strong force of emotion. Mr. Romanes observes that the
imitative tendency which shews itself most conspicuously in the more
intelligent animals, in savage races, in the insane, and at an early period
of child life, " is characteristic of a certain area of mental evolution "
(Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 225). 1

Later on this 'unconscious' mechanical imitation
tends to become a more conscious and definitely
voluntary operation. A child of 6 or 8 imitates the

1 Wundt rightly remarks that every distinct representation of a movement
is attended by an impulse to perform it (Physiolog. Psychologic, II., p. 390).
For a fuller account of the process involved the reader should consult Dr.
Carpenter's account of Ideo-motor action, Mental Physiology, Bk. I. , Chap.
VI., Sect. 3, and Dr. Bain's illustration of the influence of Fixed Ideas on
action. The Emotions and the Will, Pt. II., Chap. V., Sect. 5.

IMITATION.

actions of others under the influence of a conscious
desire to do what others do. The motive here seems
to be in part the love of display assuming the particular
form of rivalry, or a wish to equal or outstrip others.
A child likes to show his powers, to prove that he can
do what he sees other children do. On the other
hand, the motive is closely connected with social feel-
ings, with affection and admiration for others. Thus
a boy thinks it a fine thing to imitate the actions of
his father or his elder brother. Where there is strong
affection for a parent or teacher the impulse to follow
their lead will be more powerful. We thus see that
imitation is closely related to sympathy both in itself
and in its conditions.1

So far we have supposed that the imitative move-
ment is a faithful reproduction of an action that has
been previously acquired under the pressure of some
special desire, and this frequently happens. Thus,
children open their mouths, shout, and so forth, in
response to the lead of others' movements. But
imitation is much more than this. The child imitates
new actions. Thus the infant learns to wave his
hand in response to the action of the mother. Here,
however, the same conditions are presupposed. A
certain range of motor acquisition related to the new
movement seems always to precede such constructive
imitation. This is strikingly illustrated in the case
of vocal imitation, which is preceded by a certain
stage of spontaneous or feeling-prompted exercise of
the organ.2

1 The impulse of imitation takes on a special form in the artistic or
creative propensity.

2 Of. above, pp. 314, 315.

612 THE WILL.

The tendency to imitate those about us is a very
important aid to the development of the will. From
the very earliest it co-operates with the force of the
child's spontaneous desires, and so tends greatly to
shorten the process of acquisition in the case of useful
movements which he would otherwise perform. Thus
a child thrown with other children learns to walk
more quickly than one cut off from the example of
others. And example tends to suggest a large variety
of new modes of movement, and so to enlarge very
much the range of action. We see this exemplified
in a striking manner in the reproduction of tricks of
gesture, vocal combination, &c., of other children about
the end of the third year.

Children vary much in the strength of the imita-
tive impulse. This is partly connected with unequal
degrees of vigour in the active organs. An energetic
active child will be more disposed to pick up the
actions of others than a feeble lethargic child. Much,
too, will depend on the closeness of attention to the
visible effects of movements, when performed by the
child himself and by others. Finally the strength of
the impulse to imitate others will vary much with
the emotional temperament. There are children
strongly disposed to fall in with the ways of others,
to rely on their authority, to follow their lead. These
are especially imitative. Others again of a more
independent self-assertive turn of mind are apt to
strike out their own modes of action. Such are
much less influenced by example and the impulse of
imitation.

Movement and Verbal Suggestion : the Word of

IMITATION. 613

Command. Very closely related to imitative move-
ment, is movement called forth by some arbitrarily
attached sign, and more particularly some verbal sign.
This is illustrated in movements in response to com-
mand. These imply a still higher degree of the
power of distinctly representing or picturing a move-
ment apart from the desire for any special result
which follows in particular circumstances. In order
to perform them the child must be able to detach the
movement from its attendant circumstances and make
it an object of separate attention. There is further
involved here an association between an action and a
verbal sign.

This connection, unlike that between a movement
and its visible effect, is an artificial one, and as such
Las to be built up by a process of teaching or dis-
cipline. Thus the dog comes to respond to verbal
or other signs as ' go back,' ' lie down,' by a system of
training. Many repetitions of the command coupled by
'interpretations' of its meaning are necessary before
the association becomes perfect. But when it is per-
fect, the sound of the command calls up the appro-
priate movement with scarcely any conscious element
of desire. Similarly in the case of the disciplined
child. The mere suggestion of a command calls forth
a prompt response. This is illustrated in the move-
ments of a Kindergarten class or a drilling class.
Here again we see that when a thoroughly acquired
movement is vividly suggested we are disposed to
follow it out with little reference to its consequences.

Through the medium of language the child's move-
ments come to a large extent under the guidance and

614 THE WILL.

control of others. Our elaborate terminology for the
several parts of the body and their various movements
enables a mother or teacher to give the child minute
directions as to his movements. If only there is a
vigorous active system and a faint wish to please,
the suggestion of a movement will commonly suffice
to call it forth. Thus the mother suggests that the
child should run in the garden and play a while, and
the suggestion is at once followed out.

Through these associations with words the educator
has an additional means of calling forth new modes of
movement. Having for example learnt the meaning
of ' Hold the head up/ ' Keep the arms straight down/
the drilling master is able to call forth the combination
of these movements. Children are daily acquiring
new modes of movement under the verbal direction
or guidance of their parents, teachers, playmates, &c.

Internal Command of Movement. In all the forms
of movement considered so far action occurs in re-
sponse to external impressions. It arises on occasion
either of a sensation, or of a perception (of an object,
movement, word, &c.). A higher stage is reached
when movement becomes detached from external
impressions, and follows an internal process of imagi-
nation. In this way it becomes centrally or inter-
nally initiated or excited. Thus a child may as the
result of a process of suggestion think of a particular
toy put away somewhere, and experiencing the desire
to play with it carry out the necessary movements.

From the ability to perform a particular move-
ment whenever a wish arises for a definite result,
the child easily passes to the ability to move when he

INTERNAL COMMAND OF MOVEMENT. 615

wishes to do so apart from any special result. This
power of internal, independent motor representation
(apart from external impressions) appears to involve a
considerable degree of facility in the performance of
the movement, and a proportionate readiness to carry
it out. Hence a certain tendency to movement
whenever the motor representation arises, even where
there is no special purpose to be gained at the time.
This being so the recurrence of so slight a desire as
the mere wish to move an organ, suffices to excite or
call forth the movement. This ability to move from
the mere desire or wish to move constitutes in the full
sense the internal command of the bodily organs, the
bringing of them under the sway of internal processes
of representation (imagining and wishing) and the
setting them free from the influence of external
circumstances.

The process of working up old motor attainments
into new forms is perfected by this internal com-
mand of the active organs. It is only when the
child is able at will to move his several organs
and more particularly his arms, hands, and fingers,
steadily and easily in various directions, that he is in
a position to go on rapidly to new and more complex
motor attainments.

This attainment of a wide and perfect command of
the bodily organs involves the growth of will in more
ways than one. As has been remarked, all external
actions, including the most elaborate processes of
moral conduct, are carried out by means of movements
of various kinds. The command of the motor organs
is thus a necessary preliminary to the higher kinds of

616 THE WILL.

action. Not only so, the very process of acquiring
this command of movement implies the exercise in a
rudimentary form of the higher voluntary powers,
and more particularly persistence in effort and trial,
determination to overcome difficulties, and practical
intelligence in comparing and choosing between alter-
natives. Anybody who watches an infant trying to
combine manual movements so as to raise or turn over
an intractable object, may see how in this early and
crude form of action the attributes of the higher voli-
tion begin to manifest themselves.

Movement and Habit. The term habit is commonly
used with reference to any recurring mode of mental
operation, as ' habit of thought '. More strictly it is
confined to mental phenomena lying within the region
of will or action. In this region it indicates the full
or extreme effect of repetition and of association.
We do a thing from habit when we give the action
the minimum of attention, and when there is no dis-
tinct element of desire or purpose present in the case.
A habitual action has in its uniform undeviating cha-
racter, as well as in its want of a distinctly conscious
element, a quasi-mechanical character, and so resembles
reflex and instinctive actions. Hence, as already ob-
served, habitual actions are often said to be performed
* instinctively ' or automatically. l

As we have seen, every movement tends by frequent
performance to grow easy. There remains a ' disposi-
tion ' to perform it whenever it is suggested, and

1 Habitual action has been called 'secondarily automatic ' to distinguish
it from primarily automatic or reflex action. See Carpenter's Mental Physio-
logy, pp. 16-24.

HABIT. 617

apart from any strong promptings of desire. This
disposition implies not only a psychological fact, a
greater readiness to perform the particular action, but
a physiological fact, namely a modification of the
nerve-structures concerned. This fixed disposition or
tendency, produced by repetition and practice, to act
in a given way in response to the slightest stimulus
is one ingredient in what we call habit.

The second constituent of habit is the close associa-
tion between a definite movement and a certain ex-
ternal impression, by virtue of which the latter calls
forth the former immediately and without any inter-
mediate stage of distinct volition or even motor re-
presentation. When a person under the force of habit
takes out his latch-key in arriving at the door of a
house at which he is staying, the explanation is that
the sight of the door instantly suggests and calls
forth the action associated with the object. Here
again we have as the physiological groundwork a ' co-
ordination ' or organic connection of the nerve-centres
concerned.

As an illustration of the principle of habit, we
may instance movement under command when made
prompt and unreflecting by practice. The movements
of a perfectly trained soldier, the actions of a signal-
man in response to instructions sent him, exhibit this
mechanical and quasi-reflex character in a high degree.
In a less marked degree habit enters into most of our
customary every day movements.

Habit and Complex Movements. When a number
of movements are combined, the frequent performance
of these in combination, tends to consolidate the

618 THE WILL.

separate links, so that each step calls up the succeed-
ing ones without a distinct intervention of conscious-
ness. Simple examples of this are to be found in the
series of movements involved in walking, swimming,
dancing, in playing a piece of music from memory,
reciting a familiar poem, and so on.

Such chains of action approximate in character to
the sequences of movement in breathing, and other
movements into which consciousness from the first
enters but faintly. These rapid and half-conscious
series of movements imply that the nervous centres
concerned have become perfectly co-ordinated so that
the action of one at once excites the corresponding
activity of the others.1 The only element of volitioi
is at the outset (e.g., deciding to go out for a walk,
sitting down to the piano to play, and so on). When
the familiar series has been started the mind may be
so little occupied as to be able to attend to other
matters. Thus a person may carry on a train of
thought while walking, or engage in conversation
while playing a well-known piece of music.

Such chains of movement not only lack distinct volitional impulses,
but also distinct motor representations. As we saw above (p. 247) a
succession of movements consists of a chain of motor experiences and
of sensory impressions (sounds, touches). When often repeated the
muscular experience together with the passive sensation attending the
execution of any step in the movement appears at once to excite the
next movement without the intervention of a distinct representation of
this movement.2 The fact that the intrusion of a volitional impulse in

1 See Carpenter, op. cit., p. 75.

2 Wundt seeks to trace the successive stages of habitual or secondarily
automatic actions. From being fully voluntary they grow first into impul-
sive movements (Trieb-bewegungen), involving a preceding conscious sensa-
tion (often a sensation of movement) and accompanied by a feeling of satisfied
impulse, then, finally, into perfectly reflex, inasmuch as the element of sensa-
tion disappears out of consciousness (op. cit., p. 415).

HABIT. 619

the shape of an effort of attention distinctly deranges such a habitual
train suggests that this mechanical effect depends on the co-ordination of
certain lower centres the action of which is interfered with ('inhibited')
by the influence of the higher centres of volition.

Habit and Routine. In a measure all customary
successions of movement illustrate the effect of the
principle of habit. The performance of one action or
chain of actions suggests and excites its usual suc-
cessor. In this way much of our daily routine tends
to take on a semi-automatic character. Thus the
man of routine passes with only a faint or nascent
volitional impulse from the meal to the walk, from
the walk to the business of the day, and so forth.
That this force of habit involves a process of physio-
logical adjustment is seen in the fact that the due
succession brings a certain satisfaction to the mind,
while any interruption of the customary sequence
produces a feeling of distress analogous to that which
accompanies the obstruction of a natural instinct.

What we ordinarily call the force of habit includes not only this
tendency in one group of actions to call forth their customary successors,
but further the fixing of certain feelings and desires as periodic. The
man of routine tends to do all things, even to seek his amusements, in a
regular periodic fashion. In this respect habit or ' second nature ' still
further resembles instinctive impulse, which is determined in the first
place by recurring organic sensations.

Strength of Habit. Habits (like associations between
representations) are of very different degrees of
strength. The degree of perfection of a habit may
be estimated by the promptness, and uniformity of
the active response to stimulus. Thus the soldier's
response to an order is ' mechanically perfect ' when it
follows immediately and in every case. The strength

620 THE WILL.

of a habit may be estimated in other ways also. It
follows from the above account of the mechanism of
habit, that it is a tendency to a special kind of action
which is physiologically better organised than those
accompanied by clear consciousness. It is thus a
force which it is difficult for deliberate volition to
reach and counteract. And the strength of a habit
may be estimated by the difficulty of modifying the
customary succession.1

Conditions of the Strength of Habit. The condi-
tions On which the strength of a habit depends are

(1) the amount of motive force brought to bear and
of attention given at the outset in order to make the
action perfect. The action must it is obvious be per-
fect as a voluntary one before it becomes habitual.
The will must itself gain full possession of an action
before it can hand it over to its subordinate, habit.

(2) The frequency with which the action has been
performed. Repetition is the great means of fixing
movement in the channels of habit. (3) The uni-
formity or continuity of its performance in like cir-
cumstances. The importance of not intermitting the
performance of an action is known to every parent
and teacher. For example a child may put away
his toys after playing with them a good many times,
and yet not acquire a habit of doing so, if he now
and again omits to perform the action. A perfect habit
presupposes a certain length of unbroken or unvary-
ing experience.

1 The strength of the active impulse may also be measured by the degree
of discomfort arising from a checking or hindering of the habit. But this
characteristic of habit is best illustrated in the higher and more complex
type of action.

HABIT. 621

It is to be added that the growth of habit is much
easier iii the early 'plastic' period of life than later
on. A more extended process of acquisition, a larger
number of repetitions are needed to fix action in a
definite direction in later years.1 The habitual modes
of movement acquired in early life commonly cling to
the child to the end. His peculiar carriage and gait,
his mode of articulation and intonation, his way of
doing all the homely performances of everyday life,
all illustrate the effect of early habituation.

Learning and Unlearning Habit. There is another
reason why it is so much more difficult to form a new
habit as life advances. It commonly involves the
unlearning of an old habit. The problem is thus
greatly complicated. A child that has acquired an
awkward way of sitting, or unpleasant tricks of
manner, gives special difficulty to the educator. In
order to build up the new habit he has to work
against the resisting force of the old one. Move-
ment tends to set in the old direction, and many a
painful effort is needed to check the current.

Fixity and Plasticity of Movement. A good many
of our recurring daily movements illustrate the prin-
ciple of habit. So large a part of our life is a recurrence
of similar circumstances and similar needs, that it is
well for our actions to grow habitual to a considerable
extent. The actions by which we care for the needs
of the body, our behaviour before others, and so
forth, are dominated by this principle. In this way
nerve-energy is economised and the powers of the mind

1 This is connected with the special plasticity or adaptability of the nervous
system at this period. (See Carpenter, loo. dt. )

622 THE WILL.

are left free for other matters. Wherever the same
(or similar) circumstances frequently recur and call for
like modes of action, the co-operation of the principle
of habit is a clear gain.

At the same time human life differs from animal
life in the greater degree of its complexity and varia-
bility. We are not furnished with an outfit of
'instincts' to start with as the lower animals are.
And this fact suggests that much of our life consists
in modifying our movements and adapting them to
new circumstances. The growth of will implies thus
a twofold process : (a) the deepening of particular
active aptitudes and tendencies, that is the fixing of
oft-repeated actions in a definite and unvarying form ;
(b) the widening of these active capabilities by a con-
stant variation of old actions, by new adaptations, or
special combinations suited to the particular circum-
stances of the time.

The Training of the Will and the Exercise of the Active
Organs. The exercise of the muscular organs belongs in part to
what is called physical education. It is carried on to a consider-
able extent for purposes of bodily health. The march and dance
of the Kindergarten, the drilling lesson of the school have a direct
reference to health, and are dictated by the rule ' A healthy mind in
a healthy body '. Not only so, bodily practice is carried on to a
large extent for the sake of attaining some distinctly physical
excellence, a well developed physique, robustness and agility of
limb. This applies to the training of the Greek youth which had
a military significance, the training of the modern runner, oarsman,
and so on.

On the other hand, the exercise of the active organs stands in a
close relation to intellectual education. This applies more particu-
larly to the hand and the voice. Teaching children to speak dis-
tinctly, to read, and to write, is commonly looked on as a part of

TKA1NING OF ACTIVE OliGANS. 623

intellectual instruction. It is obvious that these actions largely
subserve the ends of knowledge, and are indeed necessary to the
taking in and giving out of knowledge.

While the special exercise of the active organs in particular
directions seems thus to fall under physical or intellectual training,
the general exercise of them comes more appropriately under the
head of moral training. As we have seen, the growth of the will
begins with the attainment of the power of commanding the organs
of movement. The outgoings of desire or active impulse first
appear in connection with movement. It is in movement that
clear purpose and intention first display themselves. And it is
here that perseverance in trial and resolution first manifest them-
selves. Further, all the higher actions of life depend on the
attainment of a general control of the bodily organs. Consequently
the exercising of these capabilities involves a rudimentary training
of the will. All practice in doing things, then, whatever its
primary object may be, is to some extent a strengthening of voli-
tional power.

It should be borne in mind at the outset that children are dis-
posed to activity and in their self-appointed occupations and play
show that they are capable of making real progress without any
direct control from parent or teacher. The young child should
from the beginning have ample opportunity for exercising his
active organs. His nursery and his playground should be pro-
vided with objects fitted to call forth movement, manual and
bodily. The important part played by imitation in the growth of
voluntary movement suggests the advantages of companionship in
these early occupations. A child is stimulated by the sight of
others doing some new thing.1

The special province of the educator in the training of the will
in the performance of bodily movement begins with showing the
child how to do things. This requires judgment. It is better for
the child to find out the way to do a thing for himself where he
can, just as it is better for him to discover a fact or a truth for
himself. Nothing is more fatal to growth of will than that indo-
lence which shrinks from trial and experiment, and which comes

1 Social games have a further and more distinctly moral effect in that they
cultivate the power of united action.

624 THE WILL.

helplessly to parent or nurse crying 'What shall I do?' or 'Do
this for me '. But there are many things which the child obviously
cannot do with the best of wills. Hence an occasional intrusion
into children's play with new suggestions will often prove a useful
stimulus and encouragement to renewed activity.

From the first the child has to be taught to obey, to do things
when he is told to do them. Thus he is required to sit at table
and eat his food in a certain way, and so forth. Here the educator
becomes in a new and more important sense the trainer of the
child's will. As we have seen, movement under command is one
important stage in the growth of voluntary action. The exercise
of a firm but wise discipline in this early stage of youth will do
more than anything else to strengthen voluntary power. Hence
the importance of making the connection between command and
action as close as possible, so that the responses may be certain
and prompt. Here it is desirable not only to observe the general
conditions of a wise and effective authority, but to consult the
child's powers, not to demand what is beyond these, and even
to consider his varying degrees of readiness to act. When the
mother or teacher has succeeded in gaining a perfect control over
the child's actions the power of educating the young will is greatly
enlarged.

Almost all school exercises involve the co-operation of the child's
active powers to some extent. Even the oral lesson demands that
children should take up a certain bodily attitude, and keep the
head and the eyes fixed in a particular direction. The reading and
writing lessons and the drilling lesson all call forth activity in
their special way. The great agency here is still command supple-
mented by example or showing the child how to perform the
required movement. The impulses of imitation should be appealed
to, so as to realise the full benefit of educating children in numbers.
It must never be forgotten that the growth of the active powers,
like other mental growth, is a gradual process. The ready com-
mand of the active organs is the result of a long series of experi-
ences. The child may of course fail to execute the requind
movement because he is not concentrating his mind on what he is
doing. Then the teacher is justified in blaming him. If however,
as often happens, the failure is the result of insufficient preparatory

TRAINING OF ACTIVE ORGANS. 625

exercise of the organ concerned, the blame rather falls on the
teacher for imposing an unsuitable task. The careful graduation of
work according to capability is well illustrated in teaching deaf
mutes to speak by a process of imitative movement. The teacher
begins with movements of the external parts of the body which
are distinctly visible to the child when he himself performs them.
Only after a certain practice of the imitative capability in this
simple form does he go on to call forth the more delicate and
hidden movements of the organ of articulation by the aid of the
sense of touch.

A proper understanding of the principle of habit is a matter of
great importance to the teacher. Throughout the whole of prac-
tical training, from the acquisition of those simple actions which
enter into good manners, up to the most elaborate manual and
vocal performances, the force of habit is called into requisition.
In teaching a child to talk, to write, to be well-behaved, and so on,
the teacher aims at bringing about an easy, rapid, and quasi-
mechanical mode of action. The conditions necessary to the forma-
tion of habit need to be attended to. Thus the educator should
be careful to supply a certain strength of inducement at the outset
so as to overcome the mental inertia, or some opposed natural im-
pulse of the pupil, and to insist uniformly on the performance of
the action when the circumstances recur. It may be added that
a clear recognition of the truth that a perfect habit represents a long
series of repetitions, will tend to make the teacher patient and
hopeful.

APPENDIX.

On the different classes of movement see Carpenter's Mental Physiology
(4th Ed.), Ch. II. On the growth of voluntary movement the reader may
compare the views of Bain, The Emotions and the Will, Part II., Chaps.
I. -III. ; H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, I., Pt. IV., Ch. IX. ; and G.
H. Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, 3rd Series, Vol. II., Problem III.,
Chap. XIII. The reader of German will do well to consult the following
works : Th. Waitz, Lehrbuch der Psychologie, § 40, 41 ; W. Wundt, Physio-
logische Psychologie, Vol. II., pp. 383-395 ; cf. pp. 333-343 ; W. Preyer, Die
Seele des Kindes, Part II. ; and G. H. Schneider, Der menschliche Wille.

On the relation of Bodily Training to Education see "Waitz, Allgemewe
Pcedagog-iJc, § 7. On the bearings of the principle of Habit on Education,
see P. Radestock, Die Gewohnung und ihre Bcdeutung fur die Erziehung.

CHAPTER XIV.

COMPLEX ACTION : CONDUCT.

IN the previous chapter we have traced the process
by which the child acquires the command of his
moving organs. It is in bringing these into play
that he first exercises his power of will. And until
he has become capable of performing this and that
movement, and combination of movements, at will, he
is not in a position to carry out those higher actions
in which the fully developed will manifests itself.
These complex actions always involve muscular
actions of some kind. What marks off this higher
region of action from that of movement is not so
much the complexity of the movements themselves,
as the amount of reflection (anticipation, &c.) and the
degree of complexity of the feelings or motives which
enter into them. Early action is characterised by
impulsiveness, late action by rationality or ' thought-
fulness '.

This is seen in the everyday use of language. We commonly call an
action a movement when little representativeness enters into it, and
when the movement itself is the chief part of the whole process. On the
other hand we dignify it by the term action, when the results of the
movement, so far as they are represented, become a prominent feature.

SIMPLE AND COMPLEX ACTION. 627

Thus stretching out the arm in imitation of another is a movement :
whereas the same movement if performed in order to present something
to another would be called an action. The relation is seen too in the
fact that very different movements if leading to the same kind of result,
and having the same motive, would be spoken of as one and the same
kind of action.

Growth of Intellectual Power and Growth of Will.

This transformation of simple into complex action is
brought about to a considerable extent by the pro-
gress of experience and the growth of a higher capa-
bility of representation. This shows itself most con-
spicuously in the increase of prevision or foresight.
At first, action is directed to an immediate result. The
child is concerned with some enjoyment which follows
closely on a movement or short series of movements.
As experiences widen, and the powers of intelligence
expand, he takes a further look into the future. He
finds out that his actions have remote as well as near
consequences. For example, he breaks his toy in a
fit of passion and finds there is no toy left to play
with. On the other hand, he may, under the impulse
of imitation, put some fresh-plucked flowers in a
glass of water, and find that they are fresh and
fragrant on the morrow. By such experiences he is
led to reflect, to " look ahead," to consider his action
in relation to remote as well as near results. When
the power of representation is sufficiently strong the
consideration of these remote results supplies the
initial motive to action. The child begins to aim at
distant good. For instance, he puts by his sweetmeats
in order to enjoy them to-morrow. Or he sows seed
in the garden in order to see the flowers months after-
wards.

628 COMPLEX ACTION.

The growth of intelligence and of representative
power will not only enlarge the child's view of ends
of action, but will at the same time widen his com-
mand of means. It is obvious, indeed, that the re-
cognition of the dependence of a remote result on an
action will enlarge his idea of his own capabilities and
resources. This enlargement of his view of available
means to desired ends will be further effected by
the development of the power of associating a number
of representations in a series or train. When this
point of intellectual growth is reached the child will
learn to connect a succession of single actions as a
group of means subserving the same end. Thus, to
revert to one of the above examples, the young
gardener will come to recognise the dependence of
the desired result, the fully grown plant, on a pro-
longed activity, or a continued line of action, sowing
the seed, watering the young plant, weeding, and so
forth. In this way action will gain in complexity by
becoming consolidated into series of actions, all the
parts of which are united as means to a common end,
and as progressive stages in the attainment of this
end.1

Growth of Feeling and Growth of Will. Just as
the growth of will is aided by the development of
intelligence or knowledge, so it is furthered by the
growth of feeling. Since, as we saw above, feeling
supplies, in the shape of desire, the spring or im-
pelling force of volition, progress in the capacity of

1 The relation is even closer than this : for not only does the result depend
on the whole series taken together, each member of the series depends on the
carrying out of the preceding steps.

GKOWTIJ OF FEELING AND WILL. 629

feeling must tend to advance the development of the
will.

In studying the early growth of will we assumed that
only the simpler feelings came into play. The com-
mand of the bodily organs is gained to a considerable
extent under the stimulus of the sense-feelings. The
first desires and aversions which rouse the muscular
organs are connected with the pleasures and pains of
the bodily life and the senses. With these impulses
there co-operate from an early period the forces of
the simpler and earlier emotions, such as the love of
activity and of displaying power, curiosity or the
desire to inspect and find out about things. The effect
of the first awaking of social feeling is seen in the
play of imitation and of the impulse to obey com-
mands, which as we have found contribute, in an
important measure, to the acquirement of this com-
mand over movement.

As the feelings grow in number the active powers
are called forth by a larger variety of desires. Thus
the child begins to do things for the sake of earning
praise, of giving pleasure to others, or of doing what
is right. Every such advance in emotional develop-
ment tends to widen the range of desire, and so to
multiply the motives to action. As life progresses
the will is prompted by a larger and larger number of
desires.

It is to be observed that the effect of this develop-
ment of the feelings and desires involves a further
increase in the degree of representativeness of action.
As we saw above, the higher feelings are marked off
from the lower by their greater complexity and repre-

630 COMPLEX ACTION.

sentativeness. Accordingly, as action comes under
the dominion of these higher feelings it necessarily
becomes enriched by many new elements of reflection.
Thus a child who aims at winning the commendation
of his parent or teacher is representing a remote result
of his action, how it will appear to another's eye,
affect another's mind, and modify the relation be-
tween himself and that other.

Aiming at Permanent Ends. As a further result of
this development of intelligence and emotion the ends
of action become greatly enlarged or expanded. The
child comes to apprehend the existence of enduring
interests, permanent conditions of pleasure which con-
stitute happiness. In this way he learns to regard
health, knowledge, reputation, and so on, as things
which last, which are of value to-day and to-morrow
alike, and which form parts of the enduring good of
life. Similarly he comes to apprehend a larger or
wider good than his personal happiness, the interests
of his family, his school, his country, and of mankind
at large.

When his mind is able to seize these comprehensive
and enduring ends his action becomes intelligent or
rational in a new sense. He now acts with a reference
not merely to immediate results in the present case
but to the bearing of his action on this sum of per-
manent good. Thus he will be industrious in pursuing
knowledge not only for the pleasure which every new
acquisition of knowledge brings directly, but for the
sake of the permanent value of this knowledge. Simi-
larly he will seek to please his teacher not simply
with a view to the immediate advantages which the

PERMANENT ENDS. 631

action brings, but with the thought of improving his
permanent relations with his teacher, gaining a higher
place in his esteem, and so on.

When the child begins to view each individual
action in its bearing on some portion of his lasting
welfare, his actions become united and consolidated
into what we call conduct. Impulse as an isolated
prompting for this or that particular enjoyment be-
comes transformed into comprehensive aim and rational
motive. Or to express the change otherwise, action
becomes pervaded and regulated by principle. The
child consciously or unconsciously begins to refer to
a general precept or maxim of action, as ' maintain
health,' 'seek knowledge,' 'be good,' and so forth.
Particular actions are thus united under a common
rule, they are viewed as members of a class of actions
subserving one comprehensive end. In this way the
will attains a measure of unity.

Nature of Permanent Ends: Desiring Means as Ends. The

pursuit of these permanent ends illustrates in a specially distinct form
the tendency in all desire to iix the attention on the conditions of, or
means of realising, the pleasure desired. As was pointed out above, the
desire for a thing begets a desire for the action which is seen to lead on
to the realisation of it. In all action the mind is required to fix itself
on the immediate result of the act, as that which guides and controls
the action. Hence the tendency to erect this proximate result into an
end. Thus if a boy feels cold and goes to shut the door, the closed door
becomes the immediate object of his action. For the moment he loses
sight of the feelings of cold, and of the desired warmth, and is occupied
in shutting the door. If an obstacle occurs, as when the latch does not
answer, he becomes wholly absorbed in this secondary end. In the case
of pursuing money, health, &c., this preoccupation of the mind with
means becomes still more marked. Money represents many alternative
possibilities of avoiding ill and realising good. The mind cannot, it is
obvious, represent even a small part of these at one time. Hence the
sinking back into indistinct consciousness of the primary end, or ends,
and the engagement of the attention by the secondary or derivative end.

632 COMPLEX ACTION.

It is to be remarked that in all these cases of transforming means
into ends, an independent desire for the means as a good in itself usually
co-operates in the later stages. Thus in the example given above, the
boy if impeded in his desire to shut the door will come under the
stimulus of the desire to display his muscular strength or skill. The
same thing is true in the case of a pursuit of knowledge. As already
shown, a child begins to seek it for the sake of something else, or as
means to an end, but gradually discovers something desirable in the
knowledge itself.1

These permanent or aggregated ends illustrate the fact that mental
development on each of its three sides tends towards generality. In the
desire for health, property, truth, virtue, or happiness, the impulse
seems, as already observed, to attach itself to a general or abstract idea.
The object desired here takes on the form of a highly representative, or
re-representative idea ; and this in a double way. First of all, as was
just pointed out, the desire for a particular portion of wealth or know-
ledge implies a kind of condensed symbolic representation of a large
variety of pleasures. In the second place, what is known as the general
desire for any one of these ends involves a readiness to pursue it at all
times, and under all forms. Thus a man may be said to have a general
desire for scientific knowledge when he is inclined to seek it and to pro-
mote it to the best of his ability under all circumstances. This state of
mind seems to involve the attachment of a certain calm impulse of desire
to the corresponding abstract symbol or general name.8

Complex Action. Action, as we have seen, gains in
representativeness as the mind of the agent takes
remote consequences into account. And this increase
of representativeness implies an increase in complexity.
By a complex action is meant here one which is not
the result of a single impulse tending towards an

1 This is precisely similar to the growth of an intrinsic interest out of a
reflected one already described (p. 93).

2 It has been assumed here that these highly intellectual or rational ends
owe their force as objects of desire to their relation to our pleasures and pains.
Their apparent dissimilarity to the lower motives, in which the element of
feeling is much more conspicuous, is on this supposition referred to their
highly representative or intellectualised character. For the opposite view
that mere intelligence or reason (apart from feeling) may supply a motive force,
see Mr. H. Sidgwick's discussion of the relation of pleasure to desire already
referred to (Method of Ethics, Book I., Chap. IV.).

COMBINATION OF IMPULSES.

immediate end, but involves a plurality of impulses,
a representation of a number of objects of desire or
aversion, and so an expansion and complication of the
internal representative process.

This expansion of the representative stage of action
assumes one of two very unlike forms. In the first
place, the desires or impulses simultaneously called
up may be harmonious and co-operative, converging
towards the same action. In the second place, the
desires may be discordant and opposed, or diverging
into different lines of action.

(A) Co-operation of Impulses. The combination
of desires or impulses tending in the same direction
is by no means an unfrequent experience. Many
actions which seem at first sight to have but one im-
pelling motive will be found on closer inspection to
have a number. Thus, to take a simple example, the
action of a child in response to a request from his
mother may be the result not simply of a desire to
please, but of a wish to reap some personal advantage
following from the action. Here there is clearly a
more complex process of desire ; at the same time,
since the different currents of impulse set in the same
direction, the resulting action is rather expedited
than delayed.

Action as Pleasurable or Painful. The most in-
teresting example of this co-operation of desires is
when in addition to the primary impulse related to
the pleasure following the action there presents itself
a secondary impulse related to the activity itself. As
we saw above, we may be said in all cases of volun-
tary action to desire the action in a subordinate way,

634 COMPLEX ACTION.

as means to an end. But in some cases we distinctly
represent the action as intrinsically pleasurable. In
all such cases the action becomes complex by a com-
position of impulses. To the initial impulse to realise
some end there is added another, to follow out an
agreeable line of action. We are frequently deter-
mined to some extent to act by such a representation
of an agreeable mode of activity. In all sportive or
play-like action this secondary impulse attains a special
degree of prominence.

Although the desire for the pleasure of the action is here spoken ol
as secondary, it is not meant that it is in all cases the less potent factor.
The proportion of intensity between the desire for the result or the end
and for the means may vary within wide limits. In some cases the re-
presentation of the pleasure of doing a thing is subordinate and semi-
conscious. In other cases it becomes the dominant force. This is true
of most games where the interest turns largely on the pleasure of
physical exercise or intellectual activity (search for a solution, con-
structive activity). In some cases the desire for the pleasure of an
action becomes the initial and sole motive. This applies to a large part
of imitative action. In most cases, however, the desire to do a thing
for the pleasure of doing it is prompted by the suggestion of some
pleasurable result.1

(B) Opposition of Impulses. The second variety
of complex action in which two (or more) impulses
come into antagonism and conflict is much more im-
portant than the other. Owing to the circumstance
of antagonism the representative or reflective stage of
the action becomes much more prolonged and compli-

1 Mr. Sidgwick regards the case of pleasures of pursuit, as illustrated in
field-sports, as supporting the theory that pleasure is not always the object of
desire. The sportsman must desire the result of the chase, that is something
intrinsically non-pleasurable and indifferent, in order to enjoy the pleasure
of the activity (The Methods of Ethics, Book I., Chap. IV.). This case,
which is undoubtedly a difficult one, seems to illustrate the co-operation of a
secondary desire for the action with a primary desire for its result.

OPPOSITION OF IMPULSES. 635

cated than in the case of co-operating impulses.
in addition to its special psychological importance' tb;
type of action has a peculiar interest from an <>
point of view. For moral conduct, or obedience to
the moral law, is the outcome of this mode of com-
plex action.

Arrest of Action : Inhibition. This variety of
complex action is characterised by the presence of a
new element, the arrest or inhibition of action. When-
ever two impulses or tendencies arise simultaneously
or in close succession having different directions, each
serves to check and counteract the other. Hence
there arises an arrest of action, which may be tem-
porary only, leading to a delay or postponement of
the action, or final, ending in a complete suppression
of the action.1 This inhibitory effect of one desire
or impulse on another is closely analogous to the effect
of one object in drawing off the attention from another
object. Just as the mind is able to attend to one im-
pression only at a time, so that the solicitation of at-
tention in one direction checks the movement of it in
another ; so only one impulse to action can be carried
out at a given time, and any other impulse tending in
another direction serves to check or frustrate the first.

Physiological Conditions of Arrest. Much has been written

respecting the physiological conditions of arrest or inhibition. Just as
all clear consciousness seems to depend on a concentration of nerve-
energy in certain channels, and a corresponding repression of it in
others (the correlative of mental concentration), so it appears probable

1 Since there may be no completed action in this case, there seems an
inappropriateness in bringing the phenomenon under the head of complex
action, yet it clearly involves active elements, and may be described as a
truncated action.

COMPLEX ACTION.

thfi^ excitation of any region of the motor centres involves some
u|nce unfavourable to the simultaneous excitation of other motor
.ctures. According to this view the arrest of impulse by reflec-
, to be spoken of presently, involves an opposing nervous current
issuing from the higher motor centres, including those of attention,
and passing downwards to the lower motor centres excited by the impulse.
That there is such a counteractive nervous influence concerned seems
likely from the fact that the restraint of movement (e.g., in a moment of
passion) is often accompanied by a vigorous contraction of other muscles
the action of which serves as a counterpoise to the tendency to move-
ment. As to the exact nature of this interference of nervous processes
little is known. It is possible that it resembles the interference of light
and sound vibrations. There is much to support the theory that the
nervous process consists in the propagation of molecular vibrations some-
what analogous to that of ether vibrations underlying the phenomena of
light ; and this theory implies the possibility of such interference.1

Action Arrested by Doubt. The simplest case of
arrested or inhibited action is that in which the belief
necessary to the carrying out of an impulse is
checked. Children are, as we have seen, prone to be
confident, and this confidence shows itself in their
action. Their first experiments in movement are
performed with a perfect assurance that they will
succeed. And a look of perplexity is apt to come
over their features when they first encounter failure,
as in trying to lift a heavy body from the ground.
These failures suggest uncertainty, and a sense of
uncertainty or doubt arrests or temporarily paralyses
action. Thus a child who has had experience of his
inability to lift heavy bodies, has his impulse checked
the next time he desires to lift a heavy-looking object.

This arrest will be temporary or complete and final

1 On the physiological nature of inhibition, and the question of special
centres of inhibition, see G. H. Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, Second
Series ( Physical Basis of Mind), Chap. VIII., pp. 293-301 ; Hermann, Human
Physiology, p. 480, seq. Terrier, The Functions of the Brain, § 102.

ARREST OF ACTION. 037

according to the circumstances, such as the strength
of the impulse, and of the disposition to act aif me
time. Differences of temperament, too, will affect the
result. A vigorous motor system, involving ener-
getic impulses to action, is unfavourable to doubt.1 A
cautious temperament appears to be related to a cer-
tain degree of moderation in the active impulses. To
this it must be added that the contrast will involve a
difference in the degree of retentiveness for feelings.
The memory for pleasure does not vary exactly as the
memory for pain. The hopeful temperament involves
a specially good memory for pleasures, the cautious,
apprehensive temperament, a specially good memory
for pains.

Recoil of Desire: Deterrents from Action. The
second kind of arrest occurs when the mind is im-
pelled towards a certain action under the influence of
a desire for some pleasure, and at the same time the
action is represented as having some painful accom-
paniment or result. In this case the positive desire
to act for the sake of a pleasure is opposed by the
negative desire, or the aversion to this same action.

And so far as this shrinking from a painful experience
frustrates the positive impulse, we are said to be
deterred from the action.

The deterring force may reside either in the repre-
sentation of the action itself as disagreeable, or in
the representation of it as leading to a disagreeable
result.

1 Of. above, pp. 404, 405. For a fuller account of this influence of acti-
vity on belief see the chapter on ' Belief ' in Sensation and Intuition, pp.
Ill, 112.

638 COMPLEX ACTION.

The first case is illustrated in the want of alacrity
in action in states of indolence. In such a condition
there is not only the want of the auxiliary force,
desire for the pleasure of action, but the presence of
a distinctly antagonistic force, the tendency to recoil
from or avoid what is disagreeable. A slu^o-ish or

O Oo

indolent child shrinks from performing an action
which is suggested to him by some wish, or by the
words of another, just because he represents it as
accompanied by the disagreeable feeling of effort.

The outcome of -this process of arrest will depend
here, as in all other cases, on the relative strength of
the opposing tendencies. If the dislike to exertion
is stronger than the desire for the pleasure, this last
will be frustrated. Now, as we saw above, the in-
tensity of desire or impulse towards action is deter-
mined in part by the degree of readiness to act at the
time. Hence, when there is great indolence, the
desires are likely to be enfeebled. As a consequence
of this there will be no violent opposition and check-
ing of an impulsive force. Thus children of a slug-
gish temperament rarely experience this kind of
antagonism in its full strength. Desire only reaches
a rudimentary or nascent stage.

Let us now take the other case of recoil from action,
that in which an action to which the mind is impelled
by a positive desire for a pleasure is seen to lead to
another and painful result. For example, a child con-
fined by a cold looks out of the window and sees his
brother at play. He feels impelled to go out and
join him, but fears the rebuke of his mother, or
perhaps the natural effect of the rash action. In

RECOIL OF DESIRE. 639

this case, too, the impulse will be thwarted, partially
or completely. Since the mind shrinks from or seeks
to shun pain, the recognition of a painful consequence
to an action has as its immediate result a recoil, or
movement of the mind away from the action, just as
though the action were itself represented as disagree-
able.

Here again the effect of the prevision of evil in
repressing impulse will vary according to a number of
circumstances, such as the relative strength of the
attractive and deterrent forces, and the strength of the
disposition to do something at the time. And here,
too, we see marked differences of effect according as
the temperament is wary or cautious, or on the other
hand impulsive and impatient of delay.

Rivalry of Impulses. In the third place, the arrest
of action may be connected with the play of a plurality
of active impulses By this is meant that the mind
is at the same time excited by distinct desires, that is
desires for different pleasurable objects, and so is
drawn in different directions or towards different
lines of action. For example, a girl is sitting reading
a story. Her brother comes and asks her to join him
in a walk. She has a desire both to accede to his
request, and to go on reading her story. In this case
each impulse checks the action of the other according
to the degree of its strength or energy.

The essential element in this state of rivalry of desires or impulses
is the simultaneous prompting of desires towards different lines of action.
The situation takes on a slightly different aspect in different cases. In
some instances the opposition seems to arise rather through the limita-
tions of action and of the means at our command (e.g., inability to be
in two places at one time, to do two things at the same time, to employ

640 COMPLEX ACTION.

a given sum of money in procuring different objects, &c.). In other
cases the opposition seems rather to spring out of the incompatibility of
the objects desired (e.g., a state of great bodily vigour and high scholarly
attainment).

It is to be added that the two cases here distinguished as recoil of
desire and rivalry of impulses are not perfectly distinct from one another.
As we saw above, desire and aversion are closely related one to another,
and pass one into the other. Thus in the instance of recoil of desire
given above the boy's fear of giving offence to the mother would easily
become the positive desire to retain her favour, in which case the situa-
tion would become distinctly one of rivalry of impulses. On the other
hand, when there is rivalry of desires the impulse towards each action
tends to transform itself into an aversion to the alternative action, and
so operates as a deterrent on the other desire.

Different Forms of Rivalry. This rivalry of im-
pulses or desires may take different forms. Two actual
feelings may prompt in different directions. Thus a
child comes in tired and hot from a walk. He desires
to rest, and at the same time to go and quench his
thirst. Or two represented feelings or particular
ends may collide, as in the case cited in the pre-
ceding paragraph. Or, again, two permanent ends
may collide, as in the common case of the opposition
between an arduous pursuit of study and a regard for
health. Finally an impulse of one order may collide
with one of another order below or above it. Thus a
represented feeling may oppose itself to an actual one,
as in the common antagonism between the pleasure
of indolence and a desire to make an exertion for
some purpose. Or a permanent end may oppose itself
to a lower impulse. The collisions between appetite
and a prudent regard for health, between the im-
pulses of play and the motives of study, are familiar
examples of this opposition.

Strife of Desires and its Passive Resolution. When

RIVALRY OF IMPULSES. 641

the mind is thus at the same time drawn towards and
repelled from an action, or drawn towards two different
lines of action, there arises a postponement of action
and a process of alternate inclination in this and that
direction. To revert to our illustration. The girl

pictures the pleasures of the walk : images of the
shady lanes, their banks sown with primroses, the
sound of birds, and so on, succeed one another. While
these are before the mind there is a nascent impulse
to comply with the brother's suggestion. But before
this impulse has time to work itself out the other
series of images, remaining in the cool of the house,
and perusing the pleasant story, arise and excite a
desire towards the alternative course. This successive
excitation of desire which is instantly opposed by
another force, gives rise to a painful sense of conflict.
This process tends to terminate of itself. One of the
impulses often proves stronger and more persistent than
the other, and so succeeds in expelling it altogether, and
having its way. Or the pain of the state of conflict itself
is so great as to hasten a result one way or another.
The mind follows out one of the opposing impulses
rather than go on enduring the conflict. A strong
tendency to act somehow at the time greatly expe-
dites this passive resolution of the conflict. Children
with strong active impulses and weak power of repre-
senting consequences are incapable of such a prolonged
process of alternate representation and desire.

This purely passive process of resolution answers in certain respects
to the effect of a number of mechanical forces acting on one and the
same body. Just as the body tends to follow the direction of the stronger
force, so action tends to follow the direction of the stronger desire. And
just as two opposed forces when equal may counteract one another pro-

642 COMPLEX ACTION.

ducing a state of equilibrium and rest, so two opposing desires may just
counteract one another and so produce as their conjoint result not action
but inaction. But this rarely happens with the young and those strongly
disposed to activity. The tendency to act somehow, which is greatly
enforced by the growing aversion to the pain of conflict, operates as a
powerful factor on the side of some action.1 Which action is finally
carried out, is in cases of approximately equal ' stimuli very much a
matter of accident, depending on which of the impulses happens to be
in the ascendant or most distinctly present at the moment when the
desire to act somehow, and the aversion to the pain of conflict reach a
certain strength.

Regulated Conflict : Deliberation. Thus far we have
supposed the process of inhibition of action and con-
flict of impulse, as well as its resolution, to be a
comparatively passive one in which the several con-
tending impulses are left uncontrolled to determine the
result according to their relative degrees of strength.
And this supposition corresponds roughly at least
with many of our complex actions, and more parti-
cularly those of early life when the will-power is low.

But the development of the will implies a trans-
formation of this comparatively passive process into
an active one, in which a new element enters, that
which we customarily mark off as an effort of will in
arresting and controlling impulse. Owing to the pre-
sence of this new factor, the process of contention
becomes regulated and takes on the form of an effort
not to follow out an impulse, and a resulting process
of deliberation. The will exerts itself in a new and
more difficult form, in striving not to act but to
postpone action, so as to allow time for the several
conflicting considerations to come up.

1 The pain of conflict in such a case, being proportionate to the intensity
and persistence of the desires, will in general be greatest in the case of those
having a strongly marked active temperament.

DELIBERATION. 643

This form of will-exertion, striving not to act at the
moment, is a peculiarly difficult one. To begin with,
it presupposes the presence of a new and highly re-
presentative motive, namely, the apprehension of, and
aversion to, the evils of rash or impulsive action.
This motive is a slow growth presupposing many ex-
periences, careful attention to the less obvious and
immediate results of action and even processes of
comparison and abstraction. And while the motive
to such voluntary inhibition of impulse is thus diffi-
cult of attainment, the act of inhibiting is itself beset
with peculiar difficulty. To strive not to act when
impulse prompts implies a considerable power of at-
tention, an ability to keep a representation steadily
before the mind when it tends to be overpowered by
impulse. This again involves the strengthening of
the higher brain centres, more particularly, perhaps,
those motor centres which seem to be specially con-
cerned in volitional attention. Hence the special diffi-
culty of such exertion in the case of the young, who,
moreover, as we have seen, are characterised by a
powerful bent to action.

The will having thus exerted itself in checking
action, proceeds to supervise the process of alternation
and collision of impulse. That is to say, the attention
is voluntarily directed to the several objects desired so
as to keep them all before the mind long enough to
estimate precisely the full value of each in itself, and
to compare these values one with another. Thus if
it be simply a question of doing or not doing a
particular thing, the mind carefully counts up the
advantages and disadvantages and sets the one

644 COMPLEX A.CTION.

against tlie other. Or if it be a case of two rival
ends, it compares one object of desire with another,
so as to determine their relative magnitude or value.
This is known as deliberation.

In addition to this deliberation respecting ends,
there is a deliberation respecting means. Here the
co-operation of intellect in volition becomes much
more distinct. The estimation of this and that end,
though involving comparison and discrimination, is
ultimately a matter for feeling and desire. The pro-
cess of deliberation simply allows of the fullest de-
velopment of the individual's desires. In the case of
deliberating about means, however, the estimation is
wholly a matter of (practical) knowledge and judg-
ment. In order to know which action will best
contribute to a desired result, we have to recall the
different degrees of perfection in which the actions
have usually brought this about, and also the various
degrees of probability of the several means being-
effective. This presupposes a considerable develop-
ment of the intellectual powers.

Choice or Decision. As the final stage of this regu-
lated process of conflict we have an act of choice or
decision. After duly weighing the pleasure and pain,
the good and evil, resulting Irom any action the one is
seen to preponderate over the other. Then the mind
knowingly chooses or decides to act or not to act.
Thus, to return to our illustration, the child finding
that the probable evil of running out into the garden
is greater than the good, abandons the wish, and
decides not to act. This involves a dismissal of the
alluring image from the mind. Similarly in the case

CHOICE. 645

of rival ends. Thus, to revert to our other example,
the girl finding that on the whole the pleasure of
remaining at home is greater than that of taking a
walk decides on the former course, deliberately selecting
it as the better. In like manner the mind chooses
between different means, deciding which course of
action is best fitted to bring about a desired end.

It is to be added that the resulting decision is rarely
of the perfect form here described. The force of
activity or the tendency to do something, aided by
an impulse to escape from the painful state of conflict,
frequently helps to resolve the point, both in choosing
ends and choosing means, in a comparatively passive
way. This is particularly true of the decisions of
early life.

It is plain from the above account of choice that it is related to dis-
crimination. It may indeed be said to be in the region of action what
discrimination is in that of intellection. And just as we recognised an
implicit discrimination, in which only one term is present to the mind
at the time, and an explicit in which both terms are present, being
distinctly compared one with another, so we may distinguish between
an implicit and an explicit choice. Thus there is a rudiment of choice
in an animal's selection of nutritious substances.1 On the other hand,
explicit choice involving comparison (of ends or means) belongs to the
higher stages of will-development.

Calmness and Strength of Will. The ability to
check impulse or postpone action, and to deliberate
and choose, is the characteristic of a calm enlightened
and regulated will. Its development is a slow process
and only commences in early life. The young child
cannot defer acting. In cases of conflict the pressure

1 This is the way in which Mr. Romanes has employed the term choice,
making it co-extensive with conscious action (Mental Evolution in Animal; ,
Chap. I.).

646 COMPLEX ACTION.

of impulses, assisted by the pain of the state of conflict
itself, is too much for him, and he is unable to master
the rival forces and reduce them to order. He wants
too the intelligence for comparing and deciding.

The most important ingredient in the natural basis
of this higher power of will is a certain retentiveness
for feelings, more especially painful experiences. As
observed above, children have not an equally good
memory for the pleasurable and painful. And a
strong tendency to action favours the dwelling on
the attractions to, rather than the deterrents from
an action. Children very early show differences in
this respect, as in varying degrees of rashness, cau-
tiousness or circumspection of temper. Along with
this element of cautiousness there must go a certain
strength of the practical intelligence. A good chooser
must not only be able to master impulse, he must
be able to weigh and compare. We thus see that
vigorous activity is not the only condition of a strong
will. Disciplined strength depends on a combination
of active vigour, strength of desire and impulse, on
the one side, and of cautiousness on the other. Its
natural foundation lies between the extremes of over-
activity leading to rashness, and of over-cautiousness
leading to inaction.

Resolution: Perseverance. One other common
accompaniment of this higher and more reflective type
of action remains to be touched on, namely, resolu-
tion. By this is meant the formation of a distinct
determination to perform an action which is seen to
lead to a desired end. It is something more than
deciding on an end, and an appropriate action, as good.

RESOLUTION. 647

Such decision often passes instantly into action, in
which case the stage of resolution is not fully de-
veloped. Thus resolution has reference to an action
not capable of being carried out at the instant. For
example, a child breaks something : decides that it is
best to tell his mother : and finally resolves to do so
when he next sees her. Eesolution is thus the internal
equivalent of a complete voluntary action (and so
differs from a mere desire to act), though the completed
mental process is debarred by the circumstances of the
moment from issuing in the final stage, the external
action. It involves a distinct belief in the future
occurrence of certain circumstances, and a preliminary
volitional activity in the shape of expectant attention
and a preparedness to act in a definite way when the
moment arrives. Being thus the most fully developed
form of the psychical process of willing, resolution is
commonly taken as the type of all volition. To will
is pre-eminently to resolve to do a thing.

It is plain from this brief account of resolution that
it enters as an ingredient into all prolonged actions
and chains of actions. For in every such case it is
not enough to will each action at the moment of its
performance, all stages of the action must from the
first be resolved on.

There is a germ of resolution in ordinary actions,
since they commonly involve a prolonged series
of movements. Thus, to revert to our simple case,
the child that decides to go out and play must,
it is plain, maintain this decision for a time long
enough to carry it into practice. It is, however, in
those more lengthy actions or chains of action which

648 COMPLEX ACTION.

involve distant results that the stage of resolution
comes distinctly into view. In all serious undertak-
ings, as in learning to swim, in working for a prize,
the mind has to go on directing itself to one end, and,
in subordination to this, resolving to carry out a pro-
longed succession of active steps.

Here power of will is manifested in strength and
pertinacity of resolve. A child with a robust will
perseveres in spite of difficulties, does not relax
effort because of a delay in success. He will not allow
himself to be turned aside by other objects, or by
the example and persuasion of others. This quality
of firmness in resolution involves the power of keeping
steadily before the mind a definite result, and shutting
out all considerations which would cause the will to
deflect from this particular direction. It thus implies
a certain continuity of interest, and persistence of the
attention in a particular direction. It is in the
sphere of action what concentration is in the sphere
of knowledge.

While we have considered resolution on its positive side only (as
resolution to do), we may see at once that the same process is involved
in its negative side (resolution not to do). To resolve not to do a thing
involves the anticipation of a certain situation, the prompting to a
certain action, and the preparedness of mind to curb the impulse.
Eesolution, though conceived here to follow a process of choice, fre-
quently appears without any explicit comparison of different actions.
Its sufficient conditions are a desire suggesting a certain action which is
recognised as realisable in the future. Since resolution implies the
representation of future circumstances, it persists only so long as the
anticipation of these recurs. Hence many resolutions are temporary
only. Again, since resolutions are arrived at in the absence of the
appropriate circumstances, they are, even when strong and persistent,
no guarantee for actual performance. Their future efficiency depends on
the adequate representation of all the circumstances. This accounts for
the ignominious collapse of so many brave resolutions when brought

EESOLUTION. 649

face to face with actual circumstances. Finally, it is to be observed
that increase in the power of foreseeing action tends to widen the area
of resolution. Thus so far as our daily actions become ordered according
to a plan, they all have a stage of resolution as their antecedent. We
habitually look forward to the succession of actions making up the
business, &c., of the day, and resolve to perform them in due order as
circumstances occur. And the subordination of action to ruling ends
implies, as hinted above, a habitual state of resolution, that is prepared-
ness to act in certain ways in certain circumstances.

Firmness of Will. This quality of resoluteness is
one of high moral value. It is one of the special
characteristics of a firm or stable will. It is to some ex-
tent distinct from the power of choosing and coming to
a decision, for many persons who find great difficulty in
choosing are strong and unmoved when they have once
made a choice. The excess of this quality is obstinacy
which will not face the fact of the fruitlessness of
effort, which refuses to profit by new experience, and
to learn from the advice of others. Children through
their inability to represent steadily the remote future
are commonly deficient in that firmness of will which
is required for attaining a distant result. On the
other hand, their strong impulses to action, and
their disinclination to defer doing things and to con-
sider, lead them to resist the efforts of others to guide
and persuade them. This gives to them that appear-
ance of obstinacy (self-will) which we are apt to
regard as a characteristic of childhood. But there
are well-marked individual differences among children
in this respect.

Self-control. (A) Control of Action. The term self-
control points to the ability of the developed will to
overcome and keep within due limits special forces or
tendencies viewed as opposed to it at the time. It

650 COMPLEX ACTION.

thus consists in the main of what has here been
called inhibition. All inhibition is however not con-
trol. In order that it be dignified with that name
it must be of the active kind (involving an effort not
to do something or to suppress an impulse), bringing
into exercise the highest form of will-activity in the
shape of voluntary attention, and further include the
subordination of a comparatively presentative impulse
to a representative or rational motive. The term has
thus a reference to the order of development. Con-
trol is subordination of the earlier to the later. It is
something not natural to the child, but difficult and
involving effort. The term has too a slightly ethical
significance, and implies, in most cases at least, the
sway of the higher and worthier motive over the
lower and less worthy.1

The first variety of self-control is the control of
action or active impulse. By this is meant in the
first place, and principally, the restraining of any
kind of tendency to movement growing out of a
simple or early form of impulse. Thus it includes
the ability to inhibit not only impulses to act for the
sake of immediate gratification, but tendencies to
movement springing out of restlessness or desire to
act, and also the dispositions (whether congenital or
due to habit) to move in response to certain sensory
stimuli, and to conjoin movements in certain ways.

Although the control of action consists mainly of

o »

this negative mode of activity, the inhibiting of im-

1 The repression of a generous impulse by calling in prudential considera-
tions would illustrate a psychological process of self-control, though hardly
an ethical.

CONTEOL OF ACTION. 651

pulse to movement, it includes as a subordinate feature
a positive mode of activity. This is the ability and
readiness to exert activity and perform actions when
these are in themselves or their immediate conse-
quences disagreeable. The full control or command
of the active organs implies the ability to bring them
into activity when the actual circumstances of the
moment deter from action.1

Stages of Self-control. It follows from our brief
account of the development of the will that there is a
gradual progress in self-control. The simplest form is
seen when an actual feeling is checked and overpowered
by the mere anticipation of a feeling. Thus when a
child overcomes his indolence and sets about preparing
his lesson in order to avoid punishment he is exercising
the power of self-control. Again when a present or
immediate gratification is postponed to a future one,
as when a child puts by his sweetmeats m order to
enjoy them to-morrow, he exercises self-control.

A much higher stage of control is reached when
intelligence is developed and the child apprehends
enduring ends, or interests, such as health, reputation,
and knowledge. The subordination of particular and
temporary ends to these general and permanent
interests is an exercise of control. Thus the child
reaches a higher form of control when he sets the
maintenance of his health before him as an enduring
end, and represses all desires inconsistent with this.
In this way he practises the virtue of temperance.

The highest stage of this self-control, in so far as it

1 The term 'command,' though used in much the same sense as 'control,'
seems to point more distinctly to this positive aspect.

652 COMPLEX ACTION.

has to do with personal good, is the exercise of pru-
dence. By this is meant that the several aims and
interests of life are so adjusted as to yield the greatest
sum of happiness to the individual. This implies the
subordination of each of the enduring interests, health,
knowledge, &c., to a still higher and more compre-
hensive principle of action. And such subordination
involves an effort to restrain a lower force by means
of a higher.

Finally, the individual good is subordinated in a
measure to the common good. The general good or
happiness, including that of ourselves and of others,
is a wider principle of action than personal good, and
easily conflicts with it. Children naturally desire
their own happiness, and are but little concerned
about the good of others. To restrain selfish prompt-
ings, to consider what others like and expect, involves
an effort of self-control of a peculiarly difficult kind.
The pursuit of ' common ' interests, as knowledge
and art, since they lift the individual above the
thought of personal good, and attach him to an object
of common pursuit, may be said to limit in a manner
the egoistic promptings. But the motives which most
effectively oppose and check the personal aims and
desires are those of duty, benevolence, and generally
what we call humanity. It is in the collisions of
interest and duty, of egoistic and 'altruistic' prompting,
that the highest attainments in the art of self-control
are reached.

The exact relation of the motive of benevolence which underlies the
pursuit of others' happiness to the motives prompting to individual or
personal good, is a matter of great psychological difficulty. It has been

CONTROL OF ACTION. 653

already pointed out that in aiming at relieving another's pain, or at
increasing his pleasure, we in a manner substitute his welfare for
our own. The peculiarity of this type of action is recognised clearly
enough in the everyday distinction between selfish and unselfish or dis-
interested conduct, a distinction which has been the subject of much
ethical discussion. Although a sympathetic person himself derives
pleasure from ministering to another's pleasure, this does not seem to
be the object distinctly represented in a benevolent action. Hence this
mode of action has been withdrawn by some from the class of volitional
actions proper. Thus Dr. Bain regards it as analogous to the group of
ideo-motor actions or those actions due to the force of persistent ideas
(id^es fixes). (See The Emotions and the Witt, Pt. I., Chap. VI., § 12.) '

These operations of self-control when intelligently
performed may assume the form of acts of obedience to
a self-imposed command. The agent applies to himself
the rule or maxim ' Be temperate/ * Be truthful,' and
so forth. In this way the child from simply obeying
an external authority and following external counsel
learns to obey the inward voice, and to follow the
persuasions of reason.

(B) Control of Feelings. The growth of will thus
manifests itself in checking and overpowering im-
pulse or lower motive, and generally in curbing and
governing movement. But this is not the only form
of self-control. The will is called on to restrain and
regulate other forces lying outside the region of action
proper.

Of these extraneous forces the first and most
obvious is feeling, emotion or passion. Feeling as we
have seen discharges itself in movement. The control
of feeling is thus analogous in certain respects to that
of impulse. The first thing a child has to do in

1 On the nature of benevolent or disinterested action consult further Mr.
Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics, Book I., Chap. IV., § 3; and Mr. Stephen's
Science of Ethics, Chap. VI.

654 COMPLEX ACTION.

checking the force of passion (anger, grief, &c.) is to
inhibit the external actions, such as crying, and throw-
ing the arms about. Here some effect is produced in
the motor centres as in the case of restraining impul-
sive action. Since, moreover, feeling and its bodily
expression are closely connected one with another it
follows that this arrest of external action will tend to
some extent to allay the feeling itself. By making
an effort to repress the signs of grief, the grief seems
to lessen.

What the exact effect of this restraint of external
movements will be in any given case depends
partly on the strength of the feeling. If an emo-
tion say of anger is very intense, the suppression
of its external signs may do little to stifle the feeling
itself. The mind may cherish the passion internally
brooding on ideas of satisfaction. The result of such
external self-restraint will vary too with the tempera-
ment of the individual. When this is favourable to
tenacity of feeling, it may smoulder on and have
sway over the mind even when its outer expression
has been checked.1 Hence the need of some additional
means of restraining feeling. This will be spoken of
presently.

The control of feeling is a more difficult attainment
than that of active impulse. Children's feelings are
violent and all-subduing at the time, and the will is

1 The failure of the inhibition of its external movement to repress a feeling
depends on the fact that the muscular actions though adding something to
the feeling serve as a channel of relief or escape for the pressure of emotion.
This effect of relief appears to be more marked in the case of quick-tempered
persons. (See Dr. Carpenter, Mental Physiology, Book I., Chap. VII., § 265,
cf. §270.)

CONTROL OF FEELING. 655

sometimes called on to stay a torrent. The first
efforts at self-restraint only begin when the power of
controlling active impulse has been exercised up to a
certain point. This gives the necessary ability to
inhibit movement. To this we must add the circum-
stance that the motives to the control of feelino- are

late in their development. Children are proverbially
frank in manifesting feeling. It requires considerable
experience and knowledge of the ill effects of unre-
strained passion on the child's wellbeing, as well as a
certain measure of regard for others, to practise this
form of self-control.

Here, again, it is to be noted that volitional control,
though mainly a negative process of inhibition, in-
cludes a positive element. The command of the
feelings by the will implies the ability and disposition
to assist in calling up desirable emotions. This is
illustrated in the art of good manners, which involves
the deliberate cultivation of kindly feeling, and still
more distinctly in all self-appointed exercises for
promoting moral and religious feeling.

(c) Control of the Thoughts. A second group of
forces against which the will has in a manner to work
in order to subordinate them to its own ends, are those
of intellect. By these are meant the tendency of
all presentations or representations when they occur
to attract the attention, together with the tendency
of these when present in the mind to suggest or call
up other images or thoughts in any way associated
with them. The inhibitory action of the will in coun-
teracting these forces is, as was pointed out above,
immediately connected with a positive action, namely,

656 COMPLEX ACTION.

the fixing and detaining of certain presentations or
representations before the mind so as to secure their
greatest measure of distinctness, and the aiding in
the calling up of representations of which the mind is
at the time in need.

As we have seen, intellectual growth and dis-
cipline imply at every stage the control of these
forces or tendencies by the will. At the very be-
ginning of knowledge, the mind is exercised in giving
fixed attention to a particular external object, to the
disregard of other and distracting sense-solicitations.
Observation means the ability to keep the attention
concentrated on an object for a time, and to resist
the natural tendency of the mind to flit from this to
that object. Again, in learning or committing some-
thing to memory, the will is called into play in the
form of concentration on the subject of study. And
in order to keep his mind steadily fixed on his lesson
the child must have a certain power both of shutting
out external impressions, and of excluding any associa-
tions with the words or facts he is committing to
memory which happen to be foreign to the matter in
hand. And this power of controlling the forces of
suggestion is seen in * trying to remember' some-
thing. Finally in the higher processes of construc-
tive imagination, of abstraction and reasoning, this
power of turning the attention away from what is
interesting and of resisting the forces of suggestion,
is called into exercise in a much higher form. All
calm and regulated thinking implies not only the
power of turning away from external objects, of
' abstraction ' in the popular sense, but also the com-

CONTEOL OF THOUGHTS. 657

mand of the intellectual trains themselves, the capability
of interfering with the natural flow or succession of the
images or ideas, selecting those which are suitable and
retaining them before the mind, and excluding those
which are unsuitable.

Connection between Control of Thought, Feeling,
and Impulse. While we have thus distinguished be-
tween these three forms of control, we may easily see
that they are closely related one to another. For,
in the first place, feeling, thought, and action are to
a, certain extent opposed or mutually exclusive states
of mind ; and this being so, it follows that the posi-
tive furtherance of any one by the command of the
will involves the inhibition of the opposing force.
A word or two will suffice, after what has already
been said, to make this clear.

To begin with the effects of feeling, since strong or
violent emotion of all kinds agitates the mind, dis-
arranging the mechanism of attention, and substi-
tuting an emotional order for a logical order in the
flow of the thoughts, it follows that the perfect com-
mand of the intellectual processes presupposes the
capability of controlling feeling. And since, in addi-
tion to these effects, emotion takes possession of the
muscular system, it is plain that the inhibition of
feeling is involved in the full command of the move-
ments. Once more, since external action and internal
thought are opposed states of mind, the perfect com-
mand of the intellectual processes will include the
inhibition of movement. As was pointed out above,
the very attitude of attention, even when directed
externally to objects of sense, is one of bodily stillness

658 COMPLEX ACTION.

or cessation of movement. And the internal direc-
tion of the attention to the thoughts of the mind
illustrates this inhibition of movement in intellectual
activity still more plainly.1

We may now look at the relation between the
control of the thoughts, of the feelings, and of the
actions, as determined, not by the opposition, but by
the connection between these mental states. And
here we have to do with two cases, namely, the
dependence of feeling on intellection, and of action
on intellection and feeling.

(l) As has been observed, all emotion is excited in
connection with intellectual activity of some kind.
The presence of a feeling in the mind depends on
an intellectual process. Thus, the child's vexation
only lasts so long as he sees or thinks about the
source of his disappointment. Hence the importance
of controlling the thoughts as a means of controlling
the feelings. As was pointed out just now, we can
only very imperfectly control feeling by repressing
the accompanying external movements. The only
efficient way of reaching feeling is by mastering the
intellectual processes concerned, by turning the mind
by an effort of will from the exciting cause of the
feeling, and directing it on something wholly foreign
and unconnected. A child's feeling of disappointment

1 It is remarked by Dr. Ferrier that the internal diffusion of nerve-energy
involved in thought, and the external diffusion of it in muscular action, vary
in an inverse ratio. Consequently, "in the deepest attention, every move-
ment which would diminish internal diffusion is likewise inhibited. Hence,
in deep thought even automatic actions are inhibited, and a man who becomes
deep in thought while he walks may be observed to stand still " (The Func-
tions of the Brain, Chap. XII., Sect. 103).

SELF-CONTROL. 659

when not very intense is got rid of without an effort
of will, merely by a diversion of the attention to
some new object with its connected train of images.
But when more deep and persistent it can only be
completely dominated by an exertion of his own will in
resolutely turning the attention to something wholly
unconnected with the feeling.

(2) Again, feeling and thought are involved in
action. An emotion either actually excited, or at least
called up in a representative form, is the impulse to
action. In order then to control impulse, feeling must
be controlled, and along with this, the thoughts in so
far as they are conditions of the feeling. The im-
pulse to do an unkind action is only completely
repressed, when the feeling of anger out of which
it springs is repressed, and the remembrance of the
injury which excites the feeling banished from the
mind. Hence the importance assigned in the best
ethical systems to the control of the desires and
thoughts ' of the heart '. The process of deliberation
plainly implies a considerable ability in controlling
the thoughts and along with these the feelings de-
pending on them. In order to postpone action and
to consider calmly the advantages and disadvantages
of a course, the will must have the attention well
under command.

In illustrating the mutual dependence of the control of action,
feeling, and thought, we have confined our attention for the most part
to the negative or inhibitory side of control. But it is obvious that
there is also a relation between these forms of control on their positive
side. That is to say, in so far as the processes of thought, feeling, and
action are connected, the promotion of the one by an exercise of the
will must involve the command of the others. Thus since feeling

660 COMPLEX ACTION.

involves representation, the voluntary cultivation of feeling, e.g., the
aesthetic or religious emotion, depends largely on deliberately fixing the
thoughts on the appropriate objects and ideas. Conversely an exertion
of will in furthering intellectual activity (concentration of mind) may
be aided by voluntarily directing the thoughts to the value or desira-
bility of knowledge and so aiding in the excitation of a feeling and
motive. Similarly a feeling may to some extent be voluntarily pro-
moted by taking on the outward expression. Finally, sustained mus-
cular exertion depends largely on a fixing of the attention, or a steady
concentration of mind on the object or idea fitted to excite feeling and
desire. >

Limits of Control. All voluntary self-control has
its limits. There is a strength of impulse which no
motive force can overcome. No threat would hold back
a man parched with thirst if water were placed near
his lips. So too there is a iorce of passion against
which the will is powerless. And the most potent
suggestions or tendencies of thought (' inseparable
associations,' ' necessary beliefs ') cannot be controlled
by the will. The strength of any person's will in
control is measured most obviously by the amount
of force overcome. In the second place the degree of
strength displayed is estimated in relation to the
effort put iorth. On the one hand, a powerful will
is one which can make a great and prolonged effort.
On the other hand, strength of will is displayed in
the absence of effort. It implies the ability to effect
much at a small cost of effort. This last consideration
refers to the effect of repetition and habit in facilitating
the processes of control.

It is here assumed chat the force to be overcome by the will in the
cases compared is the same ; but this cannot always be counted on.
Thus two men may have equal power of will, but if the passions of the
one are mnch stronger than those of the other, there will be a less
perfect command of feeling in the former case. A good stoic is com-

SELF-CONTROL. 661

monly (if not always) not merely a man of a certain strength of will,
but a man of relatively weak passions. This answers to the pathological
fact that the loss of self-control may arise either through the increase
of the force to be mastered, or the impairment of the volitional power
of resisting and overcoming. 1

Physiology of Self-control. All self-control appears to imply the
activity of certain higher brain-centres, more particularly the motor
centres concerned in voluntary attention. These centres are the highest
in the sense that they are the ones chiefly engaged in all the more
difficult actions involving special degrees of attention, and also in the
sense that they are the latest to be developed. With this fact corres-
ponds another, namely, that as answering to the weakest degree of
organisation they are the least stable, that is, the most easily disturbed.
This is seen in the loss of the power of self-control which marks the
weakening of brain power by over-work, the excessive use of stimulants,
as alcohol, opium, and still more plainly the oncomings of mental disease.2

It is a disputed point whether the physiological processes are the
same in all cases of self-control. In the control of movement and of
feeling nervous influence appears to pass from the higher motor centres
(including those of attention) to the lower motor centres, from which
the process of innervation concerned in the impulsive or emotional
movement sets out. But whether these conditions hold good also in
the case of the control of thought is disputed. According to Prof.
Bain this is so. In controlling the thoughts the nervous process is
still some influence acting on the motor organs. Since according to
him all ideas involve a muscular element, what the will does in con-
trolling the flow of ideas is to act downwards on the motor structures
concerned. On the other hand Wundt holds (as we have seen) that
nervous influence may pass from the higher motor centres directly to
the sensory centres concerned in representation.3

Habit and Conduct. The principle of habit, the
application of which to the lower region of volition,

1 This is well shown by M. Kibot in respect both of the loss of control over
impulse, and of the impairment of the control of the attention and the flow
of images, Les Maladies de la Volonte, Chaps. II. and III.

2 On this impairment of the power of self-control under the action of stimu-
lants, and in mental disease, &c., see Dr. Carpenter, Mental Physiology, Book
II., Chaps. XVII. and XVIII. M. Ribot well brings out how in mental
disease the loss of self-control shows itself both in an impairment of the power
of inhibition (excess of impulse) and also in that of the power of exciting
activity (defect of impulse), Lcs Maladies de la Volonte, Chaps. I. and II.

3 For an account of Bain's theory see The Emotions and Will : 'The Will,'
Chap. IV., § 7, p. 370 ; cf., Ferrier, The Functions of the Brain, § 103.

662 COMPLEX ACTION.

external movement, we have already studied, reigns
in the higher region of conduct as well. The pro-
cesses of deliberation and control just described come
under the dominion of habit. This is seen in our
everyday way of speaking about them. We talk of a
habit of reflection or deliberation, and of a habit of
self-control.

Deliberation made Habitual. The fundamental fact
emphasised by the word habit ~is that any kind of
action becomes more perfect by repetition. Practice
makes perfect. Just as bodily movements at first
tentative, unsteady, and involving effort, come by
repetition to be certain, steady, and easy, so the
arrest of impulse and deliberation grow in precision,
steadiness, and facility.

At first the child when his action is arrested by
an apprehension of evil consequences vacillates, is
the subject of contending impulses, and knows not
what to do. But after he has once made an effort to
end this miserable state of conflict, and decided to act
according to reason, he has taken an important step
in moral development. The next time a collision
occurs reflection and decision will be easier. The
vehement forces of impulse have been reined in to
some extent. Every new exercise of the power makes
the pause, the consideration, the final calm decision a
less arduous process. Finally a habit of deliberation
is formed. The promptings of impulse and of the
lower motives are now checked without appreciable
effort. The temporary postponement of action, and the
performance of the preliminary steps of deliberation
and rational choice, have become in a manner natural.

HABIT AND CONDUCT. 663

Rash action has now grown impossible. The perfect
development of this habit would give us the ancient
ideal of a ' free ' man, whom reason and reflection
have set free from the promptings of appetite and
sense.

Moral Habitudes. But the principle of habit pro-
duces other effects in this region of conduct. The
final decision after deliberation, if a rational and good
one, does not need to be arrived at again and again.
The exercise of self-control in the first case as the
outcome of a process of reflection will become in suc-
ceeding cases the exercise of control without such
reflection. Thus a child who has begun by reflecting
whether he shall indulge in a forbidden enjoyment,
say staying away from school, or reading a story in
class, and decided not to do so, will be disposed after-
wards to turn away from this particular temptation
at once.

This shows that the process of self-control is be-
coming habitual in a new sense. Certain motives are
acquiring a fixed place in the mind as ruling forces,
while other and lower forces are losing ground. Every
repetition of this kind of action (that is of action
having this motive or reason) tends to fix conduct in
this particular direction. The feeling (e.g., affection,
sentiment of honour) is now not only developed as a
feeling, but passes into the form of a fixed inclination
or active disposition (e.g., to be obedient and helpful,
to avoid what is mean). Or to express the result
another way, we may say that conduct is brought
more fully under the sway of a general rule or

664 COMPLEX ACTION.

maxim.1 This result is what is known as moral habi-
tude.2 The more frequently this subordination of
impulse to a higher motive has been carried out the
more easy and quasi-mechanical does it become. The
impulse has no time to make its force felt, the domi-
nant motive, as pride, or sense of duty, being followed
out uniformly and promptly. The control of impulse
has grown perfect through the supremacy of the higher
motives, the wakefulness and alertness of which are
an effectual bar to the intrusion of lower desires.

It is obvious from this brief account of moral habitudes that they
illustrate the dependence of all habit on strength or firmness of associa-
tion. Thus a habit of veracity involving the confirmed disposition to
speak the truth implies, further, that this particular motive or tendency
is instantly called up by the circumstances (namely, having something
to tell another). The perfection of the moral habitude depends on this
instant excitation of the higher motive before the lower impulse which
would impede its realisation has time to assert itself.

Definition of Character. The word character is
used in everyday language to mark off any sort of
difference in mental or moral qualities. We speak of
intellectual peculiarities, special tastes, and so on, as
entering into a man's character. There seems, how-
ever, in all cases to be a special reference to qualities
belonging to the active side of the mind. Willing
or conduct being the final outcome and all-important
result of mind as a whole, the word character has
come to connote in a special manner active qualities,

1 On the way in which the dominant motives become developed into con-
scious principles or maxims of conduct, see some good remarks of Waitz,
Lehrbuch der Psychologie, § 56, pp. 646 and following.

2 This term seems best to answer to the f£is of Aristotle, which exactly
expresses this effect of action in developing fixed inclinations.

CHARACTER. 665

as ruling inclinations and degree of volitional energy,
and emotional and intellectual peculiarities only so
far as they are related to these.

Every individual has his own character. This is
fixed partly by his innate constitution or ' nature/
psychical and physical. Such a quality as obstinacy
for example commonly shows itself very early in life
and is no doubt connected with the innate peculi-
arities of the individual. In addition to this, every
difference in external surroundings, family life, school
discipline, profession, &c., serves to modify the
character by developing certain special traits. In
this way innate differences are partly accentuated,
partly repressed and disguised.

Moral Character. In addition to this everyday
meaning the word character has acquired an ethical
significance. It refers not to the variable peculiari-
ties (original and acquired) of individuals, but to
certain common moral qualities which it is the busi-
ness of social discipKne and education to cultivate in
all alike. In other words ' character ' has come to
stand for 'good character'. And a good character
means a moral and virtuous condition of mind, such
a disposition of the will, and, in connection with this,
of the feelings and thoughts, as will subserve the ends
of morality. We thus see that every good or moral
man possesses a character in a double sense. He has
certain peculiarities of feeling and motive, &c., which
give his mind its special colour. This is his individual
character. Along with this he possesses certain vir-
tuous tendencies which make up his moral character
and assimilate him to other moral men. This

666 COMPLEX ACTION.

moral character is largely acquired, being the product
of circumstances and education supplemented by indi-
vidual reflection. 1

Moral Character as Sum of Habitudes. Confining
ourselves now to the common type of moral character,
we see at once that this consists in the possession of
certain acquired tendencies or habitudes which we call
virtues, both private ones as temperance and pru-
dence, and public ones, as veracity, justice, and bene-
volence. The excellence of the character can be esti-
mated by the strength of these dominant dispositions.
As we have seen, in all comparatively simple and
recurring situations where a lower impulse is opposed
to a higher motive, the moral habitude shows itself
in the completeness of the control and the promptness
of the right or good action. The less the suscepti-
bility of the mind to a lower and less worthy motive,
the better the character. A perfectly temperate man
hardly feels the temptation to excess. The perfectly
truthful man cannot entertain the proposal to say
what is false. The height of moral character attained
in any case is thus determined by the strength and
fixity of the virtuous dispositions, their degree of
ascendancy over passion, and foolish or wrong im-

1 This distinction between variable or individual, and moral character
must not be pressed too far. There are different types of moral character, and
so individual differences find a certain place in the region of moral character.
The various definitions of character, from those of the Stoics downwards,
accentuate the fact or feature of fixity of motive or consistency in action (e.g.,
the Stoical definition, "semper idem velle atque idem nolle"). According
to Volkmann character consists in this, that every volition finds its maxim
ready. He distinguishes the ethical from the eud.iemonistic character, re-
marking that in the former the onesidednesses of individual temperament
appear much more compensated than in the latter. (Op. cit., § 154.)

CHAKACTER. 667

pulse. This fixity obviously involves the quality of
resoluteness as defined above. A man of character is
one who follows what is reasonable, just, and virtuous
with persistence. l

Place of Deliberation in Character. The circum-
stances of life do not, however, always allow of this
simple exercise of a virtuous disposition. Situations
arise in which the prudent course, or the just course,
is far from clear. Thus the student may have to ask
himself : * Will it be better for me to lose a prize than
run a risk of impairing my health?' We see then
that while a moral character implies the supremacy of
the higher rational and virtuous motives, and conse-
quently a readiness to act on them at once in all
simple cases, it further includes a disposition to deli-
berate carefully in all the more complicated and
doubtful cases. The function of the will which we
call deliberating and choosing is thus never outgrown.
It is the highest form of activity of the will, which it
is ever ready to exert when occasion arises. It follows
that the ideal of a good character is a combination of
promptitude in following the right when the right is
manifest, with wariness and a disposition to reflect
and choose rationally and rightly whenever the right
course is not at first apparent.

Nature of higher Volition. It is supposed by some that the pro-
cesses of volition just considered, and included under the head of self-
control, are different in kind from the earlier forms of feeling-impelled
action. It is in this later stage of development that the will properly
so-called first appears on the scene in the shape of a force above desire

1 On the interesting question how far a good character implies suscepti-
bility to temptation, and sense of effort in doing right, see some valuable
remarks by Mr. Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, Chap. VII., § 3, 'Effort'.

668 COMPLEX ACTION.

and aversion and working down on the mechanism of the earlier actior.
This new principle of action is known as free-will or as the self-deter-
mining ego.1 The assumption made in the foregoing analysis of, voli-
tional processes is that, on the contrary, the texture of action is the
same throughout, and that the later operations differ from the earlier
merely in respect of their greater complexity and representativeness.
It only remains to make this assumption, more explicit and to justify it
by a brief inspection of the phenomena which appear in a special
manner to support the hypothesis of a will independent of feeling and
desire. These are the closely connected phenomena known as effort of
Mill, and deliberative choice.

Effort of Will. As we saw above, every desire involves a tendency
to strive, varying with its strength or intensity. The full consciousness
of striving, however, arises only when the action to which the desire
impels is difficult, when there is some hindrance or obstruction present.
In this case, provided the desire is strong enough to sustain itself over
against this obstacle, we have the peculiar experience known as effort.

This experience occurs in different forms. The most familiar one is
that of muscular effort. This as was pointed out arises when an action
to which desire impels us is excessive (relatively to the power of the
organ at the moment) and so irksome or disagreeable. The feelings of
strain in lifting a heavy weight, in walking when fatigued, and so forth,
are examples of muscular effort.2

Next to muscular effort we have mental effort, or effort of attention.
Here, too, the essential circumstance is the putting forth, under the
stimulus of a desire, of an amount of activity which is excessive in re-
lation to the organ, and so involves the disagreeable accompaniment, a
feeling of strain. This has a positive and a negative form, turning the
mind to an object, as in trying to fix and detain a fugitive thought, and
turning it away from an object, as in trying to banish an alluring image.
Since, however, turning the mind away from a thing always means
turning it towards something else, it follows that the two modes o '
mental effort are closely related.3

1 See the distinction drawn between volitional and automatic action by
Dr.. Carpenter, Menial. Physiology, Bk. I., Chap. IX., Sect. 1.

2 It is beside the purpose here to inquire whether the feeling of muscular
effort is connected with the outgoing nerve-process, and so a feeling of innerva-
tion, or with an incoming process consequent on muscular contraction. Dr.
Ferrier affirms that this latter is the case, and that it is more particularly the
c )ntraction of the muscles of the chest which gives rise to the feeling of effort.
(The Functions of the Brain, Chap. IX., p. 223.)

3 It follows from what was said above, that muscular and mental effort are
not wholly distinct. For, on the one hand, close attention implies muscular
action, and it is with this that the feeling of strain is in part if not altogether

EFFORT OF WILL. 669

In these cases the irksome and disagreeable nature of the action
tends as a mode of pain to arrest the impulse. The action, however, is
sustained by the force of the desire, which (as was pointed out above)
must go on increasing as the degree of the difficulty and irksomeness of the
action increases. Now when, as often happens, e.g., when a boy is per-
forming a muscular feat in order to win admiration, the stimulus or
i npetus is strong relatively to the deterring force, there is no distinct
representation of the pain before acting, and consequently no shrinking
from it. In such a case there is the feeling of effort arising from the
action, but not an effort of will in the full sense.

This last occurs when the painful deterring circumstance is distinctly
represented and resolutely confronted by the mind. Thus the tired
labourer who goes on facing his irksome task experiences an effort of
will. Here the consciousness of effort does not arise first of all in connec-
tion with the actual doing of a thing, but appears in the preliminary stage
of representation. It is in fact an effort of decision and of resolution.
It is most strikingly illustrated in moral effort, as when a boy persists
in befriending an unpopular boy in spite of ridicule.

In addition to this positive form of effort of will or decision there is
a negative one. This is connected not with the persisting in an action
in the face of difficulty, but with the drawing back from an alluring
object and so checking action. It is illustrated in deliberating before
action, and in deciding not to act when impulse prompts.

Effort of will appears, then, to be specially connected with deficiency
of motive force. The feeling of effort arises as a concomitant of the
exiling into activity of some new force distinct from the impulses pri-
marily engaged. In making an effort the will seems to throw in its
strength on the weaker side, either encouraging and aiding a weak
impulse, or reinforcing a feeble aversion. Thus the effort involved in
jumping out of bed on a frosty morning seems to have as its object to
neutralise the momentary preponderance of certain agreeable sensations.
It compels action to follow the most irksome and disagreeable course,
' the line of greatest resistance '. 1

The explanation of this apparent exception to the general principle
of willing, that action is the result of the desires (and aversions) excited
at the moment, is probably as follows. This effort of will, appearing in
cases of insufficiency of stimulus at the moment, is due to a preliminary
voluntary action in the shape of attention to the representations con-
cerned. This act is best described as a reflective act. It implies a fixing

connected. On the other hand, voluntary action involves attention, and the
special difficulty of many muscular actions (new and delicate manual opera-
tions, &c.), is largely one of fixing the attention.

1 This is well shown in' Dr. W. James' interesting account of the pheno-
menon. The Feeling of Effort (Boston, 1880), p. 22 scq.

670 COMPLEX ACTION.

or concentrating of the mind either on a representation fitted to rouse
action (e.g., of the coveted prize) or on one fitted to excite aversion and so
deter action (e.g., of the evils of self-indulgence). In either case it has
as its effect the rendering of the representation more distinct, prominent,
and persistent, and so the adding to its motive force. Moral effort is
thus reducible to mental effort, that is, the sense of strain accompanying
an act of voluntary attention carried oui under peculiarly difficult
circumstances. 1

It only remains to say that this act of attention is, like other actions,
prompted by its proper motive, which may be called the motive of
reflection. This motive is a highly complex or representative one, pre-
supposing a wide range of experience, and numerous processes of com-
parison. It is a negative rather than a positive desire, namely a shrinking
from or aversion to the evils or pains incident to hasty action on the one
side and hasty abandonment of it on the other. It is a motive presup-
posing a high degree of intelligence. For it implies that the mind has again
and again gone back on its actions and found out by a process of com-
parison that the momentary prompting may lead to ill results, that the
actual present or proximate tends to shnt out from view the remote,
that the presentative has an unfair advantage in competition with the
representative. In ' making an effort ' to fix our mind on a distant good
or a remote evil we know that we are acting in the direction of our true
happiness. Even when the representation of the immediate result is
exerting all its force, and the representation of the distant one is faint and
indistinct, we are vaguely aware that the strongest desire lies in this
direction. 2 And the resolute direction of attention in this quarter has
for its object to secure the greatest good by an adequate process of repre-
sentation.

This motive assumes its highest form in deliberation. Here we may
be far from sure that the good lies away from the direction of the desire
uppermost. But experience has taught us that this is frequently so, and

1 Though it has been here assumed that effort of will is always in the direc-
tion of the morally best, it must be borne in mind that this is not so in every
case. A lofty moral motive (e.g., patriotism) may reach the inflammatory
stage, possessing the mind to the exclusion of others, in which case the effort
of will would tend to the calling up of comparatively unworthy prudential
considerations. The dependence of the feeling of strain in effort of will on a
difficult act of attention is illustrated by the fact that in cases of moral
decline where there is a sense of conflict, and of obstruction of impulse by
moral habit, there is no consciousness of mentally straining towards an
object.

2 This knowledge of the motive-value of a representation not fully de-
veloped at the moment is clearly analogous to the mind's awareness of the
inferiority of the representation to the presentation which, as we saw above,
is involved in all desire.

EFFORT OF WILL. 671

the risk of acting impulsively or hastily is the real deterrent from the
iction. Here the motive of reflection takes on distinctly the form of a
desire for the just and adequate representation of the whole self, that is
to say, all the feelings and inclinations of the individual which are
related to the case. 1

Free- Will. The popular notion of a free will is of a will unfettered
by humanly imposed restraint or compulsion in any of its forms. Com-
pulsion, e.g., driving the slave to his work, is the most striking case of
the application of a motive of such intensity as to overpower all others,
and practically to exclude the possibility of competition of motives, and
choice. When any potent stimulus acts on the will in such a way as to
preclude all possibility of deliberation and choice the result is apt to
resemble that of compulsion. Thus a man threatened with instant
death by the attack of a burglar would commonly be said to have been
compelled to shoot his assailant. The insane are recognised as under
the ' compulsion ' of their dominant impulses. The idea of freedom is
thus closely connected with the possession of the ability and opportunity
to reflect and choose.

Upon this popular idea of freedom there has been built up another
and distinctly philosophical idea, that in choice-accompanied actions
the result is not always determined by the several factors of desire and
aversion aroused at the time, but that it may be undetermined. The
will is here self-determining and not determined by motives. In de-
liberating and choosing the mind controls the force of motives, leading
action away from the direction of the strongest desire. This doctrine is
a philosophical or metaphysical one since it implies a certain theory
respecting the nature of the mind or the ego in itself as an active prin-
ciple, and (in close connection with this) respecting the meaning of
Power and Causality. At the same time, it is a psychological theory
in so far as it implies and is (in part at least) based on a particular view
of the phenomena or facts of willing. And it is under this aspect that
it calls for consideration here.2

Our inspection of the process known as effort of will enables us to
recognise the element of truth in this doctrine. The co-operation of
reflection does undoubtedly serve to modify the action of the motives to
some extent. It tends to neutralise the monopoly of consciousness by
a single impulse. Moreover, since all actions preceded by reflection and

1 The feeling of effort is well discussed by Prof. James in the work already
referred to. He seems, however, to draw an absolute distinction between
muscular and moral effort in so far as he supposes in the latter the co-opera-
tion of a principle of self-determination. The experience of effort in patho-
logical conditions is dealt with by M. Ribot, Les Maladies de la Volontd,
p. 64 seq.

2 The doctrine has further an ethical side. It stands in intimate relation
with the theory of moral responsibility.

672 COMPLEX ACTION.

deliberate choice are the outcome of the fully represented, as contrasted
with the partially represented self, they are felt to be our own actions
in a peculiar manner. There is more of ourselves, less of accident in
them than in hasty inconsiderate actions. But while this is clear, it
seems no less clear that the resulting actions in these cases are not un-
determined. The act of reflection has its own motive, and the energy
of this act varies with the strength of the motive, both in different indi-
viduals, and in the same individual at different times. And all that the
act of reflection can do is to bring to light or develop a latent force of
desire. It does not create impulse, it simply aids in calling it forth.
In every case the action is the resultant of the factors ultimately engaged.1
The doctrine that action may be undetermined or unmotived by
desire and aversion (as above denned), though having its strongest
apparent support in the higher volitional processes of self-control, is
rendered plausible to some extent by the difficulties of recognising all
the factors even in cases where 'effort of will' does not co-operate.
Sometimes the real motive may escape detection from its very faint-
ness, e.g., in many capricious actions of an easy kind motived by the
mere love of displaying individuality, &c. In other cases the forces are
largely outside consciousness, effects of habit or fixed tendency to act
in particular ways. The sum of these tendencies, making up what we
call the fixed character of the individual, represent the result of a pro-
cess of organisation extending beyond the limits of the individual life
into that of his ancestors. To this it may be added that in all our
actions there is a variable temporary factor, degree of strength of emo-
tional sensibility and of readiness to act, which serves to give a certain
appearance of capriciousness or accidentalness to the result. The same
prospects of pleasure affect us very differently as motives according to
our degree of emotional susceptibility at the time. All this serves to
give an appearance of arbitrariness to voluntary action even when we
observe it subjectively, that is in oiirselves. And when we consider it
objectively, in others, this semblance of indeterminateness is greatly
increased. Nevertheless, the true iinderstanding of the processes in-
volved leads to the conclusion that in every case action is determined by
the forces (psychical and physical) operating at the time.2

1 As Volkmann well puts it, "the power which reveals itself in the final
volition (Endwollen), is no power above the representations, but only a new
revelation of the powers working in the representations ; and that the final
volition gives the advantage to one of the contending volitions (or perhaps
suspends both), is explained by the fact that this very volition proves itself
ultimately to be the resultant of the collective internal movement " (Lehrbuch
der Psychologic, Vol. II., p. 456).

2 For a fuller account of the doctrine of the controversy respecting Free-
Will, see J. S. Mill, Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, Chap.
XXVI. ; H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, Part IV., Chap. IX., § 219 ;

FBEE-WILL. 673

Training of the Will. By the phrase the training of the will
we mean the exercising and strengthening of it by the various
agencies of command, encouragement, and instruction. This edu-
cational influence and control include first of all the supplying of
motives to good conduct (deterrents and inducements). The very
relation of educator and child allows of this extension of motive
force. The parent or teacher holds out the prospect of penalties
and rewards, and so alters the direction of action. But the discip-
Kne of the will is more than this. It includes the art of guiding
the young mind in reflecting on the results of his action, of calling
into play as motives feelings which are feeble and fitful, and apt
therefore to be stifled in the surging of stronger inclinations. The
training of the will thus includes in a measure the exercise of the
intellectual powers, and the cultivation of the emotions.

Need of Discipline. The need of authority, of command, or
what is more especially meant by discipline, arises as soon as the
child acquires by the growth of his bodily organs a wider scope for
action, and by the development of intelligence is enabled to under-
stand the meaning of words. Unless he were prohibited from
doing this and that which his love of activity, curiosity, or other
impulse, leads him to do, he would seriously injure himself and
be a nuisance to others. It would not do in every case to let the
child find out the natural results of foolish or wrong action. In
many cases (e.g., in playing with fire, water, and so on) the experi-
ence would be disastrous. In other cases again the child's intelli-
gence would be too weak to detect the relation between action and
result. Thus he would not connect over-eating with its effect on
his health. With respect to conduct affecting others again, it may
be safely said that if children were permitted to tease and molest
others, as they are often inclined to do, everybody would soon
shun their society.

Artificial restraints, the interposition of authority, are thus
necessary. There must be commands laid down, and penalties

Dr. Bain, The Emotions and the Will, Pt. II., Chap. XI. ; cf. H. Sidgwick,
The Methods of Ethics, Book I. , Chap. V. A brief account of the dispute is
given by Dr. Bain in his Compendium of Mental and Moral Science. The
German reader should further consult Volkmann, op. cit., § 151, who adds a
very full history of the question ; and Wundt, op. cit., Cap. XX., § 2.

674 COMPLEX ACTION.

attached to the breaking of these. And this system of discipline
is a necessary condition of the early growth of character. As we
have seen the moral sentiment presupposes some form of external
constraint. The first stage in the growth of character is a habit of
obedience. Consequently the first requisite in the formation of
character is some system of authority, command or law.

Conditions of Discipline. The effect of discipline depends on
the fact that certain consequences, and more particularly disagree-
able consequences or punishments, are attached to actions of certain
kinds. Where this association is wanting there is no moral force
supplied. Thus when an impatient mother now scolds and slaps
her child for doing a thing, now allows him to do it with impunity,
according to her changing mood, there is no motive power applied
to the young will The very beginning of discipline is the institu-
tion of a rule or command of a general nature embracing a certain
class of actions, and prohibiting these by definite penalties. Hence
the most essential conditions of a good discipline. — (a) The rule
must be intelligible, dealing with distinctions in conduct which
the child can understand. The actions prohibited must be simple
classes of action, such as taking what belongs to another, saying
what is false, and so forth, (b) The rule must be enforced uniformly,
so that the child will closely associate the action with the conse-
quence ; in other words be certain of the evil result of disobedience.

These are the most general or fundamental conditions of what
we call discipline. We will now pass to more special considerations
affecting the limits and proportion of punishment.

Limits of Punishment. All punishment is suffering, and as
such, an evil. More than this, it seems to estrange educator and
child rather than bring them together. Finally it is repressive,
checking and arresting, instead of evoking and encouraging activity.
Hence it can only be inflicted when necessary either for the good
of the offender himself or by way of example and warning to
others. Vindictive punishment, blows and harsh words adminis-
tered in temper and as a relief to feelings of annoyance, check the
will without disciplining it. Punishment cannot be justified
except in cases where it is likely to be effective as a deterrent.
Thus it ought never to be inflicted where it is likely to be
inoperative through feebleness of will. Children have only a

TRAINING OF WILL. 675

certain power of self-restraint, and of anticipating consequences.
Hence to punish them for actions lying beyond their control, as for
example crying, may be pure cruelty. Again it is inhuman to
punish a child for actions which are in no sense wrong. Trifling
faults, such as obstreperousness in an active boy, are not meet
subjects for punishment. Great care should be taken before pun-
ishing a child for an action to see that there has been an evil
intention. Thus it would be immoral to punish a boy severely for
breaking a vase the value of which be could not be supposed to
know. Also the motive must be taken into account. Thus a
child who plucks a flower in the garden in order to give pleasure
to a sick brother or sister ought not to be punished. Finally
where natural penalties can be counted on, artificial ones should
not be resorted to. As Mr. Spencer has shown, a child may be
cured, to some extent at least, of such {. bad habit as untidiness by
being led to experience the ill effects of the habit.

Proportioning of Punishment to Fault. Not only does it need
much care to determine what cases are meet for punishment, it is a
matter of delicate judgment to decide what the degree or amount
of the punishment should be in any case. The most important
consideration here is that the punishment is intended to supply a
counteracting motive. If it does not supply a sufficient force, it is
useless. Weak indulgent parents averse to severe punishment are
often unkind in the worst sense by administering slight punish-
ments which are wholly inadequate and so of no good to the child.
If on the other hand the penalty is more than adequate for the pur-
pose of counteracting an impulse, the excess is so much cruelty.
To determine the proper amount of punishment in any case
requires not only a general knowledge of children's feelings and
active propensities, but :* special knowledge of the sensibilities and
impulses of the individual child. Since this knowledge is only
acquired gradually it is a good rule to begin with slight punish-
ments, and only go to more severe ones as these prove necessary.

There is room for judgment too in selecting the kind of punish-
ment appropriate to a particular fault. The question what sorts of
punishment are best, is a very troublesome one. What is wanted
is some kind of penalty the evil of which is little affected by differ-
ences of individual sensibility, and which easily lends itself to

676 COMPLEX ACTION.

graduation or gradual increase. Over and above these considera-
tions there is another, namely the appropriateness to the particular
kind of offence. There is often a certain fitness between a wrong
act and the punishment. A child who has neglected his work for
play is appropriately punished when he is kept in during play
hours to make up arrears.

Enough has been said to show how much scope there is for
individual knowledge, good feeling, and tact in administering any
system of discipline. It is hardly too much to say that every
parent and teacher who has a discipline at all, has his own method
of discipline, the moral effects of which vary widely according to
the degree of its severity, the fineness of moral discrimination
shown, and so on.1

Reward, Encouragement. Punishment is for the most part
negative in its effect : it deters from action or arrests impulses to
action rather than excites to activity. Even where it is employed
as a stimulus to action, as when a child is punished for not pre-
paring his lesson, its depressing influence is still seen. The little
delinquent feels himself driven or forced to be industrious, and
his activity is in consequence put forth without heartiness and
even grudgingly. Moreover as a mode of pain, the fear of punish-
ment has only a restricted range. As soon as the minimum
quantity of task-work is done the pressure of the motive ceases.
As was pointed out above, aversion to pain, though a powerful
spring of action, is necessarily limited in its effects.

Discipline includes not only the checking of impulse by deter-
rents, but the stimulating of activity by positive inducements.
That is to say, it makes use not merely of the child's natural aver-
sion to pain, but of his equally natural, and more far-reaching
desire for pleasure. It may be a question how far such artificial
stimuli are necessary or desirable. Where it is possible it is well
perhaps for a child to be industrious, good, and so on, in view
of the natural consequence of his action (the good opinion and
love of others, &c.). But the weakness of the social feelings in
the young makes some amount of artificial stimulation necessary.

1 On the considerations which should determine the limits of punishment,
and the apportioning of it in different cases, the reader should read Bentham's
rules quoted by Dr. Bain, Education as a Science, p. 106.

TRAINING OF WILL. 677

And there seems to be a certain correlation between punishment
and reward, blame and praise.

Here, again, there is room for wise discernment and moral judg-
ment in determining the right occasion and ground of reward, and
the amount of reward merited. Just as in the case of punishment
there are the two extremes of over-severity and laxity, so here
there are the extremes of lavish and stinted reward. The moral
effect of reward will depend much on what is regarded as the
ground of merit. We have already seen that the rewarding of
absolute, as distinguished from relative proficiency exerts but a
limited influence. The incidence of the motive is just where it is
(in general) least needed. To this it may be added that the re-
warding of effort and industry, as distinguished from intellectual
ability, has a much better effect on the growing character of the
young. It serves to accentuate and dignify the moral element, the
exertion of will, in all intellectual attainment.

Relaxing of Discipline. Discipline both on its negative and
on its positive side is intended to be temporary only. It is the
scaffolding needed for the building up of the simpler moral habi-
tudes. As the habits grow in fixity, a smaller amount of punish-
ment becomes necessary. Physical pain, loss of liberty, and so on,
can now be exchanged for the milder penalties, exposure to shame,
private rebuke. A look, or a tone of voice, is enough, in the case of
a well-trained boy or girl, to check any nascent impulse to wrong-
doing. Similarly as good habits become formed the need of
reward grows less. The remuneration of good conduct by tangible
gifts is no longer necessary : the word and look of commendation
are a sufficient reward. In this way the good habit, industry,
punctuality, politeness, becomes independent and self-supporting.

The educator may help on this higher stage of moral attain-
ment by exercising the powers of reflection and judgment, and
strengthening the higher emotions. This can be effected to some
extent in connection with the processes of discipline themselves.
At first the child has to obey unintelligently, blindly, knowing
nothing about the reasons or grounds of the rule enforced. But
moral training includes much more than the securing of such blind
obedience. A moral habit such as veracity, is as we have seen
only fully formed when the child's mind has come to reflect about

678 COMPLEX ACTION.

it and voluntarily to adopt it. It is only when he discerns an
action to be right, and when he makes free choice of it irrespec-
tively of the penalties attached to the non-performance of it, or the
reward following the performance of it, that it is in the full sense
his own act, an outcome of his own ' second nature '. The parent
and teacher should have this end in view, and seek as soon as pos-
sible to enlist the child's intelligence and good feeling on the side
of what is wise or prudent, and morally good.

Exercise of Free Will. Over and above this the educator
should take care to secure to the child a free region of activity
uncontrolled by authority where other feelings besides those speci-
ally appealed to in discipline may be exercised as motives, and
where the powers of reflecting and choosing may be brought into
full play. Nothing is more fatal to will-growth than an excess of
discipline permeating the whole of a child's surroundings. Freedom,
in the popular sense of the term, that is liberty to decide what
to do for oneself, is essential to the development of the will. The
educator will find ample scope for the exercise of a fine judgment
in determining the boundaries of the several regions of compul-
sion, persuasion, mere suggestion or guidance, and absolute neglect.
or laissez-faire. Play owes no little of its moral value to the fact
that it provides this area of unrestricted activity.

Discipline of the Home and of the School. The home is the
garden of moral character. If the will and moral character are not
nourished and strengthened here, they will fare but ill when trans-
planted into the more artificial surroundings of school life. In the
home the whole life is in a manner brought under the supervision
of the educator. Not only so, the strong and close affection which
grows up between the parent and child gives a unique character to
the home discipline. On the one side, the mother is solicitous
about her charge as the teacher cannot be, and is far better able as
well as much more strongly disposed to study his moral peculiarities.
On the other side, the child's feeling of dependence and his love
are strong forces tending from the first in the direction of obedience.
Here then the foundations of character have to be laid if they
are to be laid at all. The relations of home moreover serve to
bring out and exercise all the moral habits, not only the rougher
virtues of obedience, veracity, the sense of right and justice, &c.,

TRAINING OF WILL. 679

but the more delicate virtues of sympathy, kindliness, and self-
sacrifice.

Contrasted with this the discipline of the school has but a very
restricted moral effect. The immediate object of school discipline
is indeed not moral training at all, but rather the carrying on of
the special business of the school, namely, teaching. Incidentally
the management of a. school necessarily does subserve moral educa-
tion, calling forth habits of obedience, orderliness, industry, defer-
ence, &c. And the teacher is expected to make the best of his
opportunities for training the will and forming the character of his
pupils. The limitations here are obvious. The first is the restricted
range of life brought under the master's control. School occupa-
tions are a kind of artificial addition to the child's natural life, and
offer but little play for his characteristic tastes and inclinations.
Again, since the teacher has to do with numbers there must neces-
sarily be wanting the aid of those moral forces of close individual
sympathy and strong personal attachment which play so important
a part in home discipline.

These defects are, however, made good to some extent by the
presence of a new agency in the school, namely that of public
opinion. We have already touched on the effect of this in shaping
and giving strength to the growing moral sentiment of the indi-
vidual. To this must now be added that the existence of public
opinion, of a mass of corporate feeling on the side of order and
right conduct, is a powerful force working in the direction of good
conduct. Such a body of sentiment may, indeed, be said to be, in
these days at least, a necessary support of the master's authority.
It is to the schoolmaster what public opinion is to the ruler of
a state. School experience familiarises the mind of the boy with
the fact that he is a member of a society, that the command to be
brave, or truthful, is enjoined by the voice not of an individual
but of a community. In this way he learns to regulate his actions
by a reference to a social law, and a common rule of conduct.

The effect of the ideal school rdgime, the master removed at a
certain distance, inspiring a feeling of awe, the little society of the
school sustaining his authority and following out the principles
and spirit of his discipline even in the playground and in his
absence, is to cultivate a certain type of moral character which

680 COMPLEX ACTION.

is in a manner supplementary to that specially cultivated by home
surroundings. The mind acquires a manly tone of self-reliance,
and the severer virtues, obedience and respect for law, courage,
ambition, sense of honour and of justice, are nourished. Where
this regime is happily favoured by the presence of a fine and
admirable personal character in the governor, and of a healthy and
lofty public spirit among the governed, it is capable, as we know,
of doing much to mould the permanent character.

APPENDIX.

On the nature of the processes of Deliberation and Choice, see Prof. Bain,
Emotions and Will, Ch. VII. ; Dr. Carpenter, Menial Physiology, Ch. IX.,
§ 4 ; H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, I. , Pt. IV. , Ch. IX. The German
reader may consult Th. "Waitz, Lehrbuch der PsychoL, § 43 ; W. Wundt,
Physiolog. Psych., II., Ch. XX., § 2. On the nature of Moral Habit and of
Character, see Bain, op. cit., Ch. IX. ; Carpenter, op. cit., Ch. VIII. ; Volk-
mann, Lehrbuch der Psychologie, § 154.

On Discipline and the Formation of Character, see Locke, On Education
especially §§ 32-117 ; Miss Edgeworth, Practical Education, Chap. IX. ; Mdme.
Necker, L' Education, Livre I., Chap. IV. -VI. ; and Livre VI., Chap. IV. ;
H. Spencer, Education, Chap. III. ; Bain, Education as Science, pp. 100-119 ;
Beneke, Erziehungs und Unterrichtslchre, Cap. II., ' Gemiiths- und Charakter-
bildung' ; Waitz, Allgcmeine Pcedagogik, §§ 11-15, pp. 140-213.

APPENDIX A.

METHOD AND DIVISIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY.

PSYCHOLOGY is in the unenviable position of being the only science
which needs to establish or justify its mode of procedure. This obli-
gation is connected with the peculiar nature of its subject-matter, and
its peculiar position in relation to the physical sciences.

(A) SUBJECTIVE METHOD. Since psychology aims at observing,
classifying, and explaining mental facts, it is evidently compelled in
the first instance to resort to introspection or self-observation. The
status of the science must thus be determined ultimately by the value
of this source of knowledge.

At first sight it might seem as if the facts of the inner world, being
directly present in the mind, woiild be more easily apprehended than
those of the outer world. Yet it has been contended by philosophers
as Auguste Comte, and by biologists as Dr. Maudsley, that this
instrument of research is valueless, and that consequently no science
of psychology is possible.

The main objections to the introspective study of mind are as fol-
lows : — (1) It is impossible for the mind to be at the same time the
observer and the thing observed. As Comte puts it, "the thinking
individual cannot divide himself in two, of which one reflects, while
the other sees it reflect". This is the main and fundamental objection.
The difficulty is seen most plainly in the case of mental states, such as
violent feeling, which preclude the attitude of calm contemplation.

(2) Again, even if there were not this fundamental difficulty in the
way of self-observation, there would be another. Unlike the external
sphere of physical phenomena, the internal region of mind is only
observable by one observer. Hence there is no possibility of supple-
menting and correcting A's reading of a phenomenon by B's and C's.

(3) If there were not these difficulties in the way of accurately studying
any phenomenon of mind by self-observation, the range of such observa-
tion would, it is evident, be very circumscribed. For (a) it only gives
us knowledge of a single concrete example of mind, whereas a scientific
knowledge presupposes the observation and comparison of many and

682 APPENDIX.

widely-unlike instances. And (6) even within the limits of this one
mind the area of accessible fact is very small relatively to that of the
whole mental life. It is confined to recent psychical states. As soon
as we attempt to reach back to remote states we secure only shadowy
phantoms of the realities, and are exposed to all the errors incident to
memory.1

These objections, though pointing to real difficulties, have been
greatly exaggerated. They are not fatal to the claim of introspection
to be the source of a sufficiently accurate knowledge of a certain limited
range of psychical fact. By a careful methodical procedure, reflecting
on the mental state at the right moment, recalling and comparing with
it previous states, &c., the sources of error may be considerably reduced.
Lastly, by a comparison of the results of different individuals' self-obser-
vation a means is available for reducing, if not eliminating, the personal
error, and for greatly extending the range of facts obtained. Psycho-
logy has grown by the constant juxtaposition of the fruits of self-
observation.2

(B) OBJECTIVE METHOD. While not fatal to the claims of introspec-
tion to be the source of some knowledge, these objections plainly show
that it is unable to give us a wide and general knowledge of mind.
Hence the need of supplementing this direct source of knowledge with
another and indirect. This is the external or objectiA'e observation of
mind.

(1) This includes first of all the widest possible study of the human
mind by means of its external effects. Here we have the observation
of different individual minds by means of their words and actions,
whether known to us personally or through the account of others, or
the page of literature. In order to make this observation comprehen-
sive and fruitful we must be careful to include widely-unlike types of
mind, due to differences of sex, temperament, and surroundings ; also
all stages of mind-growth, and particularly the phenomena of child-life;
and further striking and exceptional instances of mind, as seen in the
biographies or autobiographies of celebrated men, of those abnormally
constituted, more especially those wanting in a sense or senses, as the
blind, the deaf, &c.3

1 For an account and criticism of Comte's views, see J. S. Mill, Auguste
Comte and Positivism, p. 63 seq. Dr. Maudsley's objections are stated at
length in The Physiology of Mind (1876), Chap. I., p. 15 seq. The main ob-
jections urged against introspection, including those of Kant and Lange, are
fully set forth by Brentano, Psychologic, Buch I. , Cap. 2.

2 Cf. my volume on Illusions, Chap. VIII. (Illusions of Introspection), p.
208 seq.

3 The psychological bearing of the observations made on the blind will be
spoken of presently in a separate appendix. The observation of deaf-mutes

METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY. 683

This leads us to consider the importance of observing the facts
of mental disease. The great value of mental pathology to the psycho-
logist is that it presents to him the phenomena of mind (e.g., feeling,
imagination) in unusual intensity ; further that it brings about a varia-
tion of circumstances and enables him the better to understand complex
phenomena (e.g., volition) by isolating the different elements ; and lastly
that it helps to confirm the theory of mental evolution by exhibiting the
reverse order of mental dissolution.

Finally, this study of the facts of the human mind should include
the manifestations of the collective mind in social products, such as
language, beliefs, sentiments, and customs. The study of the psychical
characteristics of early races has added an important group of facts to
the science of mind.

(2) A perfectly comprehensive study of mind should embrace the
widest and most accurate observation of the mental life of the lower
animals. Though widely unlike the phenomena of the human niind,
these lower types of mind offer valuable material to the psychologist
in the shape of elementary psychical phenomena.

It must not be supposed that this objective study of mind is above
scientific suspicion. So far from this being the case, it may be said tu
introduce new sources of error. As Volkmann remarks, " The mental
life of others can only be observed in so far as it manifests itself exter-
nally, and in this manifestation is correctly comprehended by the
observer. With respect to the first condition, a wide field is opened up
to deception, designed and undesigned ; with respect to the second,
the region of observation is narrowed to those phenomena for which the
observer, by reason of his self-observations, has already found the com-
mentary and the analogies ; to the possible deceptions in the iitterance,
there are added the inevitable errors of self-observation."1 Auto-
biography illustrates the first source of error, and is consequently (as
Volkmann adds) a very untrustworthy means of knowledge. The dif-
ficulties and liabilities to error connected with the strangeness of the
phenomena and the absence of an adequate medium of expression, are
illustrated in the want of agreement as to the nature of the primitive
type of mind, the child-mind, and the animal mind.

and of their manual language is of great use to the psychologist as throwing
light on the nature and functions of language. One of the most interesting
cases of deficiency of sense is that of Laura Bridgman, who at the age of 26
months lost sight, hearing, and to a large extent smell and taste, and who,
notwithstanding, as the result of a scientifically conceived and carefully
followed out plan of education, attained to a considerable height of intellectual
and moral development. A full and interesting account of the facts is given
by Prof. G. S. Hall in Mind, Vol. IV. (1879), p. 149.
1 Op. at., Vol. I., p. 43.

684 APPENDIX.

The great value of this objective study resides in two circumstances :
(1) that since mind here manifests itself externally, any given manifes-
tation can be studied by a number of observers ; and (2) that owing to
the much larger range of facts here presented, the risk of error in parti-
cular cases can be better eliminated by a wide comparison of facts.1

LOGICAL METHOD IN PSYCHOLOGY : ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS.
The respective values of these different sources of knowledge respecting
psychical facts will appear more plainly if we keep clearly in view the
aim of psychology and the logical methods to be followed. Briefly we
may say that psychology has to classify mental phenomena and to
determine the laws of their production,' to show how simple states
combine in complex states. Now this^can be effected in one of two
ways.

(a) We may proceed, first of all, from effects to antecedent condi-
tions, products to factors. This mode of proceeding in psychology is
commonly spoken of as the analytical method. It may also be called
the inductive method, since the general laws respecting the aggregation
and production of mental states are in the first instance reached in this
way.

(b) In the second place, we may set out from elementary facts, and
by help of certain laws of composition (reached by the analytical way,
supplemented if necessary by hypothesis) reconstruct the successive
stages of psychical production. This is the synthetical method in
psychology. It may also be called the genetic method. It is deductive
in so far as it reasons down from laws reached by previous inductions
or by hypotheses.

It is plain that the analytical method is that necessarily pursued in
self-observation. The self-observer is an adult, face to face therefore
with a highly complex psychical organism. He has to set out from
complex products. In external observation, on the other hand, though
analysis enters in, synthesis is the great methodical weapon. Here we
are able to reach comparatively simple or elementary phenomena of
mind (e.jr., in children, primitive races, animals), and thus we complete
the analytical study of mind by seeking to build up the complex
structure of mind out of certain simple materials or elements.2

1 On the difficulties of ascertaining the facts of mental life in the case of
the lower animals, see my volume Sensation and Intuition, pp. 15, 16 ; cf.
G. H. Lewes, The Study of Psychology, p. 118 scq. For a careful account of
the different sources of knowledge respecting mind, see Brentano, loc. eit.

2 See M. Taine's following up of analysis by synthesis, On Intelligence,
Part II., Book L, Chap. I. ; cf. Volkmann, Lehrbuch der Psychologic, p. 39.
The difficulties of such psychological synthesis are connected with the fact
that the elements which combine to produce a complex result are not always
discoverable even by close scrutiny in this last. In other words, there are

METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY. 685

STUDY OF MIND AND NERVOUS CONDITIONS. The study of psychical
phenomena in connection with the physical conditions as distinguished
from the external effects of mental life is, as was pointed out above, one
important department of the objective investigation of mind. It is
strictly subordinate to the observation of mind itself. That is to say,
the relation between the physical and the psychical process can only be
ascertained by help of a properly psychological observation of the latter.
But inasmuch as it seeks to determine the physiological conditions of
mental states it may (as in the objective analysis of sensation) transcend
the limits of distinct introspective analysis. This mode of investigation
is capable of being combined with all the modes of objective observation
cited above, that of specially endowed individuals, abnormal states of
mind, primitive types of mind, and the animal mind. So far it has
been of use to the psychologist mainly in the lower departments of
psychology (theory of sensation and movement). In the higher depart-
ments the method of research is greatly restricted. The complex
phenomena of thought, emotion, and volition are not as yet susceptible
of being investigated by the physiological method.1

With the study of the physiological conditions of mind is closely
connected the experimental study of mental phenomena. The method
of psycho-physics clearly proceeds by noting as accurately as possible
the relation of psychical phenomena to well-ascertained physical pro-
cesses, and so leads on to a fuller understanding of the relations of
mental phenomena to nervous conditions. And the same remark
applies to the new and highly-promising department of inquiry which
aims at determining the duration of psychical processes. Here, too,
psychical phenomena are studied in the closest connection with their
physical conditions. The peculiar value of this region of research is
that it is an attempt (within certain limits) to give quantitative pre-
cision to psychology, an object which Kant held to be impossible, and
which Herbart attempted without any aid from physical investigations.

DIVISIONS or PSYCHOLOGY. Psychology is the science of mind in
general, and so embraces the investigation of all varieties of mental life
by whatsoever methods. Hence in a strict sense there is but one science

certain laws of coalescence of mental states, or what Mill called a mental
chemistry. It follows that we can only imperfectly deduce the successive
phases of mental development by setting out with certain elements, sensa-
tions, and assuming certain laws of coalescence. See Waitz, Lehrbuch der
Psychologic, p. 2iseq.; and J. S. Mill, System of Logic, Book VI., Chap. IV.,
§3.

1 The limits of the physiological study are clearly pointed out by Bren-
tano. He argues against Horwicz that " not only the retirement of psycho-
logical research in favour of physiological, but the admixture of the latter to a
considerable extent, is inadvisable" (op. cit., p. 83).

686 APPENDIX.

of psychology.1 For practical purposes, however, it is convenient to
distinguish between different branches of the science.

(1) At the head of this scheme we have what may be called Abstract
Psychology, or the general psychology of the human individual. This
is the modern representative of the older psychology. It sets out with
the study of mind in a highly developed form, namely in members of a
civilised community, as that most accessible to us, and of most practical
interest. Hence its method is to a considerable extent that of intro-
spective analysis. The problem of synthesis is limited to explaining
the successive stages of the development of the individual mind. The
addition of the physiological mode of investigation serves to differentiate
a certain portion of this field as that of Physiological Psychology ; and
the special section of this area again which employs experiment (psycho-
physics, &c.), might with advantage be marked off as Experimental
Psychology.

(2) In addition to this more abstract or general study of mind we
find more concrete or special branches of study. Thus there is the
great department of Mental Pathology in which the study of nervous
conditions is a prominent feature. This depends to a considerable
extent on the psychology of the normal mind, though in its turn it contri-
butes new illustrations and further verifications of this psychology.
Then there are more special subdivisions within the bounds of normal
life. These include the comparative study of different types of indi-
vidual and of race, what Mill called Ethology, or the science of character,
together with what the Germans call Volkerpsychologie, or the investi-
gation of language, manners, &c., in different communities and races of
men, more particularly backward ones. These more concrete depart-
ments of the science obviously depend on abstract psychology, in so far
as we here apply to special groups of circumstances principles obtained
in the leading branch of the science. The study of the social products
of mind in simple types of society indicates the point where psychology
overlaps or passes into sociology.

Finally under this more special psychology we have what is most
commonly understood by Comparative Psychology, namely the study of
mind in the several groups of animals and grades of animal life.

(3) As the latest development of the science we have Evolutional
Psychology. This may be said to include all the others. It is a vast
extension of the genetic treatment of mind. It has only become pos-
sible by the modern extension of the objective study of mind. More
particularly, it has grown out of a wide and careful comparative study
of mind in different stages of human and of animal development. This
theory of mind regards the processes of mental development in the
individual as parts of a much longer process, namely the development

1 This is well shown by Volkmann, loc. cit.

DIVISIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY. 687

of the mind of the race ; and this vast process, again, it connects with
a far vaster one, namely the gradual evolution of mind in the zoological
scale. If abstract human psychology is the base, evolutional psychology
may be called the apex of the science. 1

APPENDIX B.

THEEEFOLD DIVISION OF MIND.

THE tripartite or threefold classification of mental phenomena adopted
in this volume, though the common one in modern works on psychology,
is not universally accepted. The ancient division as fixed by Aristotle
was a bipartite or twofold one, intellect and will, or according to Aris-
totle, thought (vovs) and desire (opegis). This remained the customary
division in the middle ages. It survives in the classification of Eeid,
(1) Intellectual Powers and (2) Active Powers. Here feeling is sub-
sumed under one or both of the other divisions.

The present tripartite division was introduced by German psycholo-
gists (Tetens and Mendelssohn), and made prominent and authoritative
by Kant. It rests on the essential and radical dissimilarity of the three
orders of phenomena.

Supposing it to be allowed that feeling, intellect, and volition are
perfectly distinct groups of mental states, there remains the question
whether they are equally fundamental, primordial, or independent.
This question has been answered in different ways. Thus Leibniz,
Wolff, Herbart and his followers, regard intellect or the power of pre-
sentation (Wolffs vis reprcesentiva) as the fundamental one out of which
the others are derived.2 Hamilton, who strongly insists on the generic
distinctness of the three classes, feeling, knowing, and willing, goes a
certain way in the same direction when he says that " the faculty of
knowledge is certainly the first in order, inasmuch as it is the conditio
sine qua non of the others". By this he means that we only have
feelings or desires in so far as we are conscious of them, and that con-

1 On the relation of the evolution psychology to the abstract psychology
of the individual mind, see my volume, Sensation and Intuition, Chap. I.

2 The power which the Germans indicate by the verb vorstellen and the
correlative noun Vorstellung, i.e., to set before the mind or posit as object,
includes the presentative and representative faculty.

688 APPENDIX.

sciousness is knowledge. He adds that though he can conceive a being
all cognition, he cannot conceive one all feeling and volition. 1

The relation of the three classes of mental phenomena is well defined
by Lotze. He shows that they do not answer to three branches springing
up side by side from the first. Feeling is mostly called forth by intel-
lectual states (presentations and representations), and desire and will
have feeling as their antecedent condition. Yet this does not entitle
us to say that representations are the adequate cause of feelings, or
feelings of volitions. By simply considering the mind as capable of
having presentations we could never discover any reason why it should
pass into the new mode of manifestation, feeling of pleasure or pain.
Similarly we cannot derive the active element of striving from feeling.
The later mode of manifestation, though presupposing the earlier as its
antecedent condition, implies an independent and pre-existing capa-
bility. 2

While feeling has thus been denied by many the status of an inde-
pendent variety of mental state or phenomenon, an attempt has recently
been made by Horwicz to regard it as the primordial type of mental
manifestation. This assertion is based on the fact that in the early
stages of mental development both of the individual and of the animal
series the element of feeling (sense-feeling) is conspicuous and predomi-
nant. To this argument Schneider replies that in the simplest sensa-
tional consciousness there is involved a rudiment of intellection in the
shape of the discrimination of a state as favourable or unfavourable. 3

The tripartite division of mind is, as pointed out, based on differences
of nature or kind in the groups thus marked off, and has in the

1 For an historical account of the various modes of classifying mind, and
for his own view, see Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. I. , Lect. XI. Since, how-
ever, Hamilton allows the existence of unconscious mental states, "latent
mental modifications," it seems to follow that the intellectual condition of
consciousness is only necessary to feeling and willing in their higher or fully
developed forms.

2 Mikrolcosmus, I., p. 199 seq.

3 See Horwicz, Psych. Anal, Theil I., Abschn. VI., and Theil II., Halfte
1 ; cf. G. H. Schneider, Der menschliche Wille, Kap IX., p. 190 seq. ; and
J. Ward, Mind, Vol. VIII. (1883), p. 472. The tendency to deny feeling the
rank of a separate mode of consciousness is due not merely to the fact that in
its higher forms it presupposes intellection, but to the circumstance that as a
passive phenomenon it seems to be less important than the others, and not to
indicate any specific type of psychical activity. This tendency to make
activity the essential ingredient in mental states shows itself in the attempt
to regard volition (desire or striving) as the fundamental activity of mind.
To this idea, which is frankly expressed in Schopenhauer's psychology, Wundt
appears to lean in his doctrine that impulse (Trieb) is the fundamental psy-
chical phenomenon (Physiol. Psychologic, Cap. 24, § 2).

DIVISION OF MIND. 689

first instance no reference to the order of their appearance. This
order is indeed indicated in the usual arrangement— (1) Knowing, (2)
Feeling, and (3) Willing. A direct consideration of order, instead of
ultimate or radical difference of nature, tends to another mode of divi-
sion, as we find in Aristotle's division of vegetative, sensitive, and
intellectual souL This principle of division underlies Brown's bipartite
classification, external affections (sensations) and internal affections (in-
tellectual and emotional states).1

APPENDIX C.

MIND AND BODY.

As pointed out, empirical psychology does not inquire into the nature
of mind or of the meaning of its connection with the bodily organism.
Nevertheless it is plain that the study of the phenomena of mind natu-
rally leads on to the philosophic or metaphysical question of what mind
is itself as substance or active principle, and how we are to conceive its
conjunction with a material substance. The bearing of this question on
the highly interesting problem of the immortality of the soul has led to
the devotion to it of much space in works which exceed the limits of
empirical psychology and venture into the region of rational or specula-
tive psychology.

The bearings of empirical psychology on these problems may be
briefly indicated as follows : (1) What view does a consideration of the
phenomena of mind lead us to entertain respecting the inmost nature
and ultimate sources of mental activity ? More particularly, does it
lead us to the hypothesis of a spiritual substance or soul distinct in its
nature and mode of activity from material things] (2) What does a
thorough-going study of the physiological conditions or concomitants of
mental phenomena lead us to regard as the real relation between mind
and body ? And how is this relation to be interpreted from a philo-
sophical point of view ?

These different lines of inquiry have been necessarily pursued toge-
ther. The discussion as to what mind is in itself passes on to that of
the relation of mind to its foreign companion, a material organism.

1 The division according to radical qualitative differences may be called the
longitudinal section of mind : that according to order of development the
transverse section. The division of intellect into fundamental functions
and into faculties, and of feeling into pleasure and pain, and into sense-feel-
ings and emotions, illustrates the same difference in the mode or principle of
division.

690 APPENDIX.

And the attempt to interpret the Jactjaf the concomitance between the
physical and the psychical has necessarily involved a consideration of
the question what inind is as substance. But sometimes the one, some-
times the other question has assumed special prominence.

It has been suggested above that the properly psychological study of
mind has no tendency to reduce mental phenomena to terms of matter
and movement. The fundamental modes of mental manifestation,
feeling, knowing, and willing, and the laws which govern their develop-
ment, are perfectly distinct from the phenomena and laws of the
material world.

With respect to the connection between body and mind physiological
psychology is in a fair way to make out that all psychical activity has
as its concomitant some mode of physical action. Mental life is thus a
chain of events parallel to another chain of physical events. More
particularly mental life coincides with a certain central portion of the
nervous series, namely cerebral processes. Are these series independent
of one another, or is there any causal connection and interaction be-
tween them ? Is the psychical event the result of the first stage, sensory
stimulation 1 On the other side, is the mental process a condition of the
final stage, the muscular action 1 Or is this a case of mere parallelism
without actual causal contact'?1

These questions have not yet been answered by accepted scientific
methods. The physiologist setting out with physical phenomena as his
realities and following the familiar methods of physical science, is dis-
posed to regard the chain of nervous events as complete and self-ex-
planatory, and to view the accompaniment of consciousness as an
accidental appendage or " collateral result " of the physical events. On
the other hand, the psychologist setting out from the inspection of the
internal series of psychical events maintains that these are at least as
real as the physical processes and cannot be brought under the general
effects of physical action ; also that they must be included as co-ope-
rant factors or agents in the whole complex series. It would thus
appear that in the concomitance of the physical and the psychical we
have a unique fact not to be explained by being brought under the
ordinary laws of physical causation. 2

1 See a careful presentation of the facts by Dr. Bain in his Mind and
Body, Chap. VI.

2 See the account of the hypothesis that man is a 'conscious automaton,'
that his actions are adequately accounted for by the mechanism of the ner-
vous system, and the criticisms of the doctrine, in G. H. Lewes' Physical
Basis of Mind, Prob. III., especially Chap. VII. The psychological view of
the connection between psychical and physical events seems opposed to the
theory that psychological laws are derivative laws resolvable into physio-
logical laws. See Mill, Logic, Book VI., Chap. IV., § 2.

MIND AND BODY. 691

The insolubility of this question by commonly accepted scientific
methods, and the double way of approaching its solution, are clearly
illustrated in the different philosophical theories propounded to meet
the case. On the one hand, we have as the earliest attempt to
solve the mystery, Materialism, or the doctrine that the material body
is the only substance and active principle, and that what we call the
mind is an effluence from, or product of, the activity of this substratum.1
Over against this tendency we have Spiritualism, or the doctrine that
the material body is relatively dead or inert and unreal, and that the
principle of life and activity is a spiritual principle. The material-
istic tendency allied itself to a mechanical view of nature, which seeks
to reduce organic life to the effect of mechanical arrangements. The
spiritualistic tendency, on the other hand, led rather to a teleological
view of nature, to the theory that so-called inanimate objects are
vitalised by a principle which involves purpose or end.

Beside these tendencies acting singly we have combinations of them
which aim at giving equal substantive reality and power to the material
and to the mental or spiritual. The first crude form of such a combina-
tion is Dualism, according to which two co-ordinate substances exist side
by side, but exert no influence one on another ; the appearance of inter-
action being due to a Divine arrangement.2 Finally the desire to meet
the claims of each of the two connected terms and at the same time to
account for their connection or union has given rise to the doctrine of
Monism, according to which the material and the mental are related as
two attributes of the same substance, or as two aspects of one reality,
like the convex and concave sides of a curve.3

1 According to the first crude form of Materialism, the Soul was merely a
portion of finely attenuated matter, a thin unsubstantial image of the body.
See the account of early Animism in Mr. E. B. Tylor's Primitive Culture, L,
p. 387.

2 Modern science is opposed to this doctrine in so far as it assumes a stage
of purely mental activity intervening between two stages of physical action.
See Bain, loc. cit.

& For a detailed account of the main historical theories respecting Body
and Mind, see Volkmann, op. cit., §§18-22 ; cf. Wundt, op. tit., Cap. XXIII.
Volkmann classifies them as above. Wundt on the other hand recognises
three main types, viz., Materialism and Spiritualism, each of which has a
dualistic and monistic form, and Animism. Dr. Bain (op. cit., Chap. VII.),
recognises two main groups, L, those which adopt two substances ; II., those
which assume but one. This points to the difficulty of any exhaustive
classification of the theories by help of one simple principle.

The reader must carefully distinguish the philosophic question having
to do with the relation of mind as knowing subject and material bodies
as objects, from that having to do with the relation of concomitance of

APPENDIX D.

VISUAL INTUITION OF SPACE.

THE question as to the exact nature and mode of development of the
visual intuition of space has given rise to much discussion, and cannot
be said to be yet fully solvecT The contention of Berkeley that seeing
is based on touching, is the boldest result of the philosophical tendency
known variously as Empiricism, Associationism, or Sensationalism, to
trace back all knowledge^ however immediate and intuitive in appear-
ance, to antecedent experience and association ; and as such it has been
strongly opposed by Intuitionists, that is those who maintain that the mind
has independently of experience certain intuitive cognitions. Berkeley's
theory has also been opposed by followers of Kant on the supposition
that it is irreconcilable with this thinker's conception of space as the
mental form or mould into which all sensations must be received. * As
pointed out, however, in the earlier part oi this work, it is important to
keep as distinct as possible the psychological and philosophical problems
here involved. What the objective import and validity of the space-
representation is when we have it is a philosophical question, which had
better be discussed after the psychological one, how or by what succes-
sion of psychical elements the representation arises. 2

Here there are, strictly speaking, two questions which have not
always been carefully distinguished — (a) Is there a purely visual space-
intuition, independent of touch ? (b) If so, is this (wholly or in part)
perfect from the first or innate, or is it a development from visual ele-

mind and body in the human individual. They set out from two distinct
starting-points, the relation of subject to object as given in the perception of
external things, and the concomitance of mind and body which is a fact of
everyday experience. The terms Realism and Idealism indicate the first
problem, while Materialism and Spiritualism point to the second. It is
plain that the second problem is more closely bound up with psychology than
the first. Yet while starting from different points these lines of inquiry tend
to intersect. For the body is clearly a material object, and its nature cannot
be determined except by a reference to the meaning of 'object'. On the
other hand, the consideration of the union of mind and matter in human and
animal organisms leads on to the conjecture that all material things have as
a part or the whole of their reality a quasi-mental element.

1 1 have discussed the relation of this question to the Kantian problem lu
Mind, Vol. III. (1878), p. 193, &c.

2 The term representation is used here for brevity's sake as an equivalent
of the German Vorstellung, that ia as covering both the presentation (per-
ception) and representation (image) of space.

INTUITION OF SPACE. 693

ments ? In this country the second alternative has not been clearly
kept in view. It has commonly been assumed that if the visual repre-
sentation is independent of touch it is complete from the first. Hence
the discussion has of late centred about the interpretation of the observ-
able phenomena in tlie first stages of vision. The anti-Berkeleians have
sought to show that the facts here ascertainable favour the doctrine that
the visual perception of space is in its essentials present from the first.1

Two groups of facts naturally offer themselves here — (1) those of
infant-life, (2) the experiences of the blind. In each case, it is obvious,
the facts are exceedingly difficult to reach. Hence they have not yet
proved themselves to be decisive one way or another, though there is
little doubt that with improved methods of observation they will do
much to solve the problem.

With respect to the first group of facts, it is evident, first of all, that
the infant falls far below the young of the lower animals in visual
power. It has been proved by Mr. Spalding that a chick will peck
from the first with perfect aim at so small an object as a worni. 2 This
clearly involves an inherited group of nervous co-ordinations of sensory
and motor elements which are wanting in the case of the child. Th e
infant learns to fix his two eyes on an object, to follow one when moving .
and to vary the degree of convergence, from about the third week on.
Thus a certain amount of experience is necessary to the co-ordinatio r>
of retinal sensations and ocular movements. A still longer time, namely
from 7 to 9 weeks, is needed for co-ordinating visual impressions an ti
arm-movements. The act of stretching out the hand to seize an object
occurs first about this time. This movement is at first far from precise ,
since the arm often passes to the side of the object, and it only acquires
precision by practice. These facts hardly seem conclusive with respect
to the nature of the child's first visual experiences. They may, however,
be said to favour the theory adopted in this work that the visual per-
ception of space is not perfect at first, but is developed by the aid of
experience, though the rapidity with which ocular and manual adjust-
ments are acquired supports the theory of the co-operation of inherited
nerve-connections. 3

1 The doctrine that the visual perception of depth though not present at
first in a perfect form is developed by Visual Experiences alone is maintained
by E. Hering. See the article already referred to in Mind, Vol. III., p. 172
seq.

2 Mr. Spalding kept the chickens carefully hooded for two or three days
after they had left the shell, and then observed their actions. See Jlfaa-
millan's Magazine, Feb., 1873.

3 Children seem to vary considerably in respect of the rapidity of these
acquisitions. Thus Bonders speaks of a child that a few minutes after birth
could fix an object, follow it when moving sideways, and even vary the degree

694 APPENDIX.

The experiences of the blind have received much more attention.
On the one hand, the congenitally blind have been questioned as to their
ideas of space gained by way of movement and touch. But the facts
here are exceedingly scanty. Platner, a German physician and philo-
sopher, describes the results of some observations of his on a blind
subject. The results, he contends, go to show that " the sense of touch
by itself is altogether incompetent to afford us the representation of
extension and space ". The patient appears to have thought of space as
a succession of sensations merely. This bears out the theory that the
perception of coexistence presupposes more than mere experiences of
movement, namely a number of simultaneous impressions ; which con-
dition is obviously realised far more completely in the case of the eye
than of the organ of touch. At the same time, it seems likely, in view
of the geometric and other attainments of the blind, that Platner under-
rated the powers of unaided touch in leading the mind to the repre-
sentation of coexistent points. l

The observation of the congenitally blind goes to show how much
touch can teach apart from sight. This is supplemented by the obser-
vation of those cured of congenital cataract with a view to discover how
much sight can teach at first before there has been time for the building
up of associations with touch. __ Here we have a number of observations,
including the familiar cases of Cheselden's and Dr. Franz's patients.
These, however, though of great interest are far from being satisfactory.
Thus there seems to be some question how much the patients were able
to see previous to the operation. Cheselden's patient was a boy of about
12. After the operation, when able to see objects, he showed at first no
discriminative perception of distance. " He thought all objects touched
his eyes, as what he felt did his skin." He could not distinguish the
shape of one object from another by sight alone. Two months after he
was couched he discovered that pictures (which he had previously viewed
as ordinary surfaces) represented solid bodies, though now he fell into
the error of taking them for the actual objects themselves, as children
take the shadow of an object on the wall for a body in relief.2

The account of Dr. Franz's patient is much fuller and more exact.
The patient was a youth of 18. His sense of touch had attained a
remarkable degree of perfection, the lips being specially employed in
the minute inspection of objects. After the operation he was subjected

of convergence when brought nearer or moved further off. Quoted by Stumpf
(Ueber den psycholuyischen Urnprung dcr EaumvorsteUung, p. 295). For a
fuller account of the facts see Preyer, op. cit., p. 25 seq., and p. 122 seq.

1 For an account of Platncr's observations, see Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures
on Metaphysics, Vol. II., p. 173, &c. ; cf. J. S. Mill's Examination, p. 278.

2 For an account of Cheselden's case, see Sir "W. Hamilton, op. cit., p. 176
seq.

INTUITION OF SPACE. 695

to careful observation. The object was at first to discover how far he
could discriminate lines, &c., that is elements of form presumably cog-
nisable by sight alone. He was able after a little inspection to distin-
guish between a vertical and a horizontal line as such, that is to say
which was the horizontal, and which the vertical. He also distinguished
a circle, square, and triangle, as such. After this the inquiry was
directed to ascertaining how much he could discern with respect to the
distance and solidity of objects. He took solid objects as a cube, a
sphere, &c., for flat siirfaces. He could not distinguish between the
position of an object floating on the surface of some water, and another
object sunk one foot below. All objects appeared so near to him that
he was afraid of coming in contact with them. He had no idea of per-
spective, and could not understand pictures. He saw even a familiar
object of touch, such as the human face, as a flat plane.1

These observations are far from conclusive, as is seen in the different
interpretations given of the facts by writers of the two opposed schools.
As Stumpf observes, " they are of less value as a means of deciding the
point, than as a field for the exercise and confirmation of theories
already established ". It may, however, be said that they give a certain
support to the theory expounded above — (1) that with respect to the
perception of superficial form-elements sight is largely independent of
touch, though owing to the analogies between sight and touch experi-
ence each tends to recall the other ;2 and (2) that with respect to the
perception of depth, sight is dependent on touch.8

1 For a full account of Franz's observations, see Prof. Mahaffy's Critical
Philosophy for English Readers, Vol. L, Pt. I., p. 122, &c.

2 This, as Mill points out (op. cit., p. 289, note), would help to account
for F. 's patient recognising a line as horizontal, and a figure as triangular.

3 For a fuller discussion of the meaning of these facts, see Hamilton, loc.
dt. ; J. S. Mill, loc. cit. ; Prof. Mahaffy, loc. cit. ; and Stumpf, loc. cit.

IV EH SIT 7

INDEX,

Abstract, knowledge of, 45 ; reduction of, to concrete, 312.

Abstract Psychology, 680.

Abstraction, nature of, 343 ; relation of, to generalisation, 353.

Accommodation, sensations of, 185 ; of nerve to stimulus, 468.

Accuracy, of percepts, 208 ; of images, 229 ; of notions, 368 ; of judgments, 403.

Action, voluntary, nature of, 588 ; complex, 632 ; as pleasurable and painful, 633 ; arrest
of, 635 ; control of, 649. (See Movement.)

Active Sense, 140.

Activity, mental, 24, 73 ; in memory, 275 ; in imagination, 303 ; in thinking, 333 ; in
reasoning, 433 ; in desire, 579.

Activity, muscular, characteristic of children, 215 ; relation of, to belief, 404 ; accom-
paniment of desire, 580, 584.

Adaptation of organ to stimulus, 483.

Adjectives, first use of, by children, 383.

Adjustment, of mind to surroundings, 56 ; of Attention, 87.

.(Esthetic Imagination, 316.

/Esthetic Sentiment, nature of, 531 ; characteristics of, 532 ; elements of, 534 ; relation
of to aesthetic judgment, 540 ; growth of, 547 ; cultivation of, 550 ; relation of, to
moral sentiment, 557.

Esthetics, relation of, to Psychology, 16.

Affection, growth of, 488 ; co-operation of, in growth of moral sentiment, 562.

Affirmation, distinguished from negation, 399.

After-image, after-percept, 219.

Analysis, involved in thinking, 335 ; involved in conception, 353 ; involved in classi-
fication, 361 ; involved in reasoning, 428.

Analysis, psychological, 197, 684.

Analytic, judgments, 396 ; arguments, 428.

Animals, instincts of, 595 ; instinctive visual powers of, 693.

Animal Psychology, 683, 686.

Animism, nature of, 691.

Anti-social feelings, 498.

Appetitive movement, 601.

Application of principle, 428.

Approbation, love of, 500.

Aristotle, on fixed moral disposition, 664, note ; on division of mind, 687, 689.

Arrest of Action, 635.

Art (fine), production of, 544 ; varieties of, 545 ; production and appreciation of, 546.

Assimilation, function of intellect, 26, 46 ; of sensation, 141 ; relation of, to discrimina-
tion, 142 ; involved in thinking, 331, 333 ; in reasoning, 415 ; pleasures of, 524.

Association, involved in mental development, 49 ; relation of, to perception, 153 ; nature
of, 233 ; varieties of, 234 ; by contiguity, 235 ; by similarity, 266 ; by contrast, 270 ;
complex, 272 ; co-operation of, 272 ; opposition of, 275 ; effect of, on belief, 402 ; in
growth of feeling, 485 ; in aesthetic impressions, 535 ; in growth of will, 605.

700 INDEX.

Attention, relation of, to mental operations, 30 ; nature of, 73 ; objects of, 75 ; effects of,
76 ; relation of, to intellect and will, 76 ; nervous concomitants of, 77 ; extent and
intensity of, 78 ; stimuli to, 79 ; non-voluntary and voluntary, 80 ; laws of non-
voluntary, 80 ; interest and, 83 ; adjustment of, 87 ; expectant, 89 ; action of will
in, 91 ; laws of voluntary, 93 , growth of power of, 95 ; concentration and, 99 ;
habits of, 102 ; varieties of power of, 102 ; training of, 103 ; relation of, to retention,
229 ; relation of, to association of impressions, 238 ; action of, in reproduction, 277 ;
action of, in constructive imagination, 304; in comparison, 332; in abstraction,
343 ; in reasoning, 433 ; relation of, to voluntary action, 590 ; manifestation of, i.i
control of thoughts, 655.

Auditory Perception, of space, 205 ; of time, 206.

Authority, influence of, on belief, 413 ; relation of, to moral sentiment, 555, 561.

Autobiography, value of, 683.

Automatic Actions, 616.

Automatism, doctrine of, 690, note.

Aversion, relation of, to desire, 582.

Awe, relation of, to sentiment of sublime, 539. (See Reverence.)

Bain, Dr. A., on law of relativity, 85, note ; on muscular sensations, 134 ; on plastic
period of life, 295, note ; en training power of abstraction, 387, note ; on neutral
feeling, 449, note ; on physical concomitants of pleasure and pain, 455, 472, note ;
on rate of abatement of pleasure, 463 ; on emotions of relativity, 467 ; on self-love,
602, note ; on pleasure of cruelty, 513, note; on feeling of wonder, 523; on feeling
of sublime, 539 ; on desire and volition, 590, note ; on origin of voluntary movement,
598, note ; on disinterested action, 653 ; on nervous concomitants of control of
thought, 661 ; on classifying theories of Body and Mind, 691, note.

Beauty, nature of, 532 ; distinguished from utility, 533 ; dependent, 535.

Belief, involved in judgment, 397 ; object of, 397 ; nature of, 398 ; and disbelief, 400 ;
and doubt, 400 ; degrees of, 401 ; sources of, 401 ; association and, 402 ; verbal sug-
gestion and, 403 ; feeling and, 404 ; activity and, 404 ; relation of, to knowledge,
434 ; relation of, to desire, 581 ; to volition, 588, 636.

Beneke, Dr. F. E., on periods of early development, 71.

Benevolence, relation of, to sympathy, 510 ; nature of, 652.

Berkeleian Theory of Vision, 172, 184, 692.

Bias, nature of, 404, 451 ; control of, 434, 657.

Binocular Perception, 179.

Blind, tactual perceptions of, 156, 694 ; recovery of sight by, 694.

Body, localisation of sensations in, 149, 200 ; perception of, 200 ; how related to self,
203, 376.

Body and Mind, relation of, 3, 689 ; philosophic theories of, 691.

Brain, as organ of mind, 10 ; localisation of functions of, 10 ; efficiency of, how related
to mental efficiency, 12 ; influences affecting state of, 13 ; fatigue and recuperation
of, 14 ; development of, 54 ; plasticity of 288.

Brentano, Dr. F., on value of physiological research to psychology, 685, note.

Bridgman, Laura, case of, 683, note.

Buccola, Prof. G., on reaction-time in localisation, 202, note.

Burke, E., on feeling of sublimity, 539, note.

Cause, idea of, 423 ; distinguished from purpose, 424 ; natural reasoning about, 424 :
regulated reasoning about, 425 ; first reasonings about, 438.

Change of impression, bearing of, on attention, 84 ; a principle of pleasure and
pain, 461.

Character, nature of, 604 ; moral, 665.

Cheselden, case of couching, 694.

Child, exercise of attention by, 95 ; sensations of, 143; perceptions of, 203, 209, 693;
memory of, 285 ; imagination of, 320 ; notions of, 379 ; judgments of, 435 ; reasonings
of, 438 ; inqnisitiveness of, 444, 527 ; feelings of, 497 ; germ of sympathy in, 516 ;
artistic impulses of, 548 ; germ of moral feeling In, 562 ; movements of, 593 ; imitative
actions of, 608.

Choice, nature of, 644.

INDEX. 701

Clearness, of percepts, 209, note ; of images, 228 ; of concepts, 365 ; of judgment, 406 ;
of reasoning, 430.

Classification, intellectual process in, 343, note, 359.

Classification of mental operations, 19, 687.

Coenaesthesis, 477.

Colour, sensations of, 116, 130.

Colour-sense, growth of, 144 ; training of, 215.

Command, word of, as furthering growth of voluntary movement, 612, 624.

Command, internal, of movement, 614 ; relation of, to control of movement, 651.

Common Sense, 412.

Common Sensibility, 110 ; relation of, to touch, 112.

Comparison, essential element of thought, 332, 342 ; element of wit and fancy, 335.

Comparative Psychology, 686.

Complementary Colours, 131.

Comte, A., on introspection, 681.

Concentration, 99. (See Attention.)

Concept, nature of, 339 ; formation of, 341 ; synthetic, 354 ; imperfection and perfection
of, 362 ; distinctness of, 363 ; accuracy of, 368 ; revision of, 371 ; definition of, 373.

Conception, as stage of intellectual growth, 44 ; nature of, 338, 341 ; relation of, to
naming, 343 ; relation of, to discrimination, 359 ; relation of, to imagination, 372 ;
growth of power of, 379 ; varieties of power of, 385 ; training the power of, 386 ; rela-
tion of, to judgment, 394.

Conceptualism, 347.

Concrete, knowledge of, 45.

Conditions of mental operations, 8, 28.

Conflict, intellectual, 400 ; condition of pain, 473 ; volitional, 641.

Confusion, in conception, 363, 370 ; in reasoning, 415, 430.

Connate mental tendencies, 60.

Connective attention, 238.

Conscience, pains of, 556 ; self-judging, 564. (See Moral Sentiment.

Consciousness, states of, 2 ; limits to field of, 73 ; fundamental condition of mental
states, 687.

Consensus of functions, 472, note.

Construction : Constructive imagination, relation of to reproductive imagination, 301,
305 ; modes of activity of, 302 ; analysis of, 305 ; limits to, 308 ; forms of, 309 ; in
acquisition, 310 ; in discovery, 313 ; in practical contrivance, 314, 607 ; relation of, to
feeling, 316 ; intellectual value of, 318 ; development of, 320 ; differences in indi-
vidual power of, 324 ; training of, 325.

Contagion of feeling, 508.

Contiguous association, relation of, to intellectual functions, 50 ; nature of, 235 ; nervous
concomitants of, 237 ; degrees of, 237 ; conditions of, 238 ; different forms of, 241 ;
relation of, to similarity, 266.

Contrast, association by, 270 ; effect of, on pleasure, 461.

Contrivance, practical, nature of, 314.

Control, of action, 649 ; of feeling, 653 ; of thoughts, 655. (See Self-control.)

Convergence, sensations of, 185.

Convergent associations, 272.

Corresponding points of retinas, 180.

Curiosity, children's, 444, 527.

Darwin, Ch., on children's power of abstraction, 382 ; first imitative actions of child,
608, note ; 609, note.

Deaf-mutes, teaching of, 625 ; observation of, 682.

Decision, stage of willing, 644.

Deduction, mental process in, 426 ; different forms of, 428 ; imperfect and perfect, 429 ;
early forms of, 440.

Deductive method, in psychology, 684.

Deductive sciences, 446.

Definition of notions, 373.

Degree, of mental phenomena, 33 ; of stimulus, how related to attention, 81 ; of sensa-
tion, 113.

702 INDEX.

Deliberation, 642 ; place of, in character, 667.

Depth, visual perception of, 180.

Desire, element of willing, 574 ; analysis of, 575 : relation of feeling to, 577 ; question
of the exact object of, 580 ; positive form of, distinguished from aversion, 682 ;
strength of, 583 ; relation of, to voluntary act, 587 ; recoil of, 637.

Determination, logical process of, 361.

Deterrents from action, 637.

Development, nature of mental, 40 ; growth and, 40, 292 ; of single faculties, 42 ; of
sum of faculties, 43 ; unity of intellectual, 46 ; laws of, 46 ; of feeling and willing,
51 ; Interdependence of three phases of, 52 ; psychical and physical, 53 ; as ad-
justment, 56 ; external and internal factor in, 59 ; of power of attention, 95 ; of
sense-capacity, 142 ; of perceptual power, 209 ; of reproductive faculty, 285 ; of
imaginative power, 320 ; of conceptual power, 379 ; of reasoning faculty, 435 ; of
feeling, 480 ; of sympathy, 516 ; of intellectual feeling, 527 ; of moral sentiment, 561 ;
of willing, 591, 627.

Direction, perception of, by touch, 164 ; by sight, 182 ; by hearing, 205.

Disbelief, relation of, to belief, 400.

Discipline, nature of, 673 ; of the home and the school, 678.

Discovery, relation of imagination to, 313 ; pleasures of, 524.

Discovery, method of, 446.

Discrimination, 26, 46 ; of sensation, 140 ; relation of, to assimilation, 142 ; improve-
ment of sense, 143 : how affected by feeling, 231 ; involved in thinking, 331, 333 ; in-
volved in conception, 359 ; relation of, to reasoning, 415.

Disinterested action. (See Benevolence.)

Disposition, psychical, 48 ; physiological, 55 ; inherited, 60 ; general emotional, 491.

Distance, tactual perception of, 164 ; visual perception of, 184 ; auditory perception of,
206.

Distraction, nature of, 98.

Distinctness, of percepts, 208 ; of images, 227 ; of concepts, 363 ; of judgments 400.

Divergent associations, 275.

Division, logical process of, 360.

Division of mind, threefold, 20, 687.

Donders, P. C., on infants' visual powers, 693, note.

Doubt, distinguished from belief, 400 ; effect of, in arresting action, 636.

Drobisch, M. W. , on immediate and mediate reproduction, 268, note ; on association by
contrast, 271 ; on a good memory, 288, note ; on ingenious memory, 292, note

Dualism, philosophic theory of, 691.

Dumont, L., on classification of feelings, 479.

Duration, a property of mental phenomena, 34 ; of sensation, 117 ; how idea of, arises,
261.

Eccentricity, law of, 203.

Education, relation of, to psychology, 15, 16 ; bearings of psychological analysis on, 38 ;
uses of sympathy in, 518. (See Training.)

Effort, mental, 94, 668 ; of will, 642, 668 ; muscular, 668 ; moral, 669.

Ego. (See Self.)

Egoistic Feelings, nature of, 498 ; management of, 506 ; relation of, to moral sentiment,
560.

Emotion, distinguished from sense-feelings, 478 ; classification of, 478 ; development of,
480 ; instinctive element in, 481 ; effect of experience in, 483 ; deepening of, 484 ;
revival of, 484 ; effects of association upon, 485 ; growth of composite, 487 ; forma-
tion of habits of, 489 ; formation of general dispositions to, 491 ; growth of, in re-
finement, 492 ; order of development of, 494 ; early forms of, 498 ; cultivation of,
503 ; repression of, 504 ; stimulation of, 504.

Empirical Psychology, 689.

Empiricism, doctrine of, 412, 692.

Emulation, feeling of, 499 ; as a motive in education, 506.

End, definition of, 588 ; permanent, 630.

Environment, adjustment to, 56 ; the social, 63.

Ethical Sentiment. (See Moral Sentiment.)

INDEX. 703

Ethics, relation of, to psychology, 16

Ethology, science of, 686.

Evolution, doctrine of, 62, 194, 412.

Evolutional psychology, 686.

Exercise of faculty, 46 ; of brain, 54 ; pleasures of, 458.

Expectant attention, effects of, on perception, 89, 227.

Expectation, distinguished from memory, 252 ; rudimentary form of, 259 ; relation of,

to belief, 398.

Experience, effect of, on belief, 402 ; on feeling, 483 ; on growth of will, 604.
Experimental Psychology, 686.
Explanation, nature of, 418, 429.
Explicit Reasoning, 419.
Expression of Feeling, 453 ; Theories of, 455.
Extensive Magnitude, as aspect of Sensation, 119.
Externality, meaning of, 204.
External Perception, 148.
External world, problem of, 213.
Faculty, mental, nature of, 24 ; analysis of, 25 ; measurement of, 33 ; development of

single, 42 ; development of sum of, 43 ; exercise of, 46 ; training of, 70.
Fallacy, source of, in induction, 421 ; in deduction, 430.

Fancy, relation of, to Imagination, 304, note ; in children, 321 ; restraint of, 326 ; com-
parisons of, 335.
Fear, emotion of, instinctive element in, 482 ; characteristic of childhood, 498 ; relation

of, to wonder, 523.
Fechner, G. T., on physical concomitants of attention, 77 ; on discrimination of weight,

138 ; on conditions of beauty, 538, note.
Fechner's Law, 114.
Feeling, place of in mind, 20, 688 ; how related to knowing, 21, 451 ; relation of, to willing,

573 ; development of, 51 ; effect of, on imagination, 316 ; effect of, on belief, 404 ;

phenomena of, 449 ; expression of, 453 ; individual differences of, 456 ; laws of, 457 ;

classes of, 475 ; relation of, to desire, 576 ; connection of, with movement, 600 ; con-
trol of, 653, 658. (C/., Emotion and Pleasure and Pain.)
Ferrier, Dr., on mental concentration and movement, 658, note ; on muscular effort, 668,

note.

Fictions, children's, 322.
Fixed ideas, 610.

Forgetfulness, partial, 280 ; total, 281.

Form, perception of, by touch, 160 ; by sight, 177 ; training the sense of, 216.
Formal element in beauty, 535.
Franz, Dr., case of couching, 694.
Free-will, question of, 671.
Froebel, Kindergarten system of, 216.
Function, intellectual, 26, 46.
Future, idea of, how formed, 258.
Galton, F., on nature and nurture, 70, note ; on visualisation, 228 ; on different degrees

of associative cohesion, 242 ; on imaginativeness and abstract thought, 319, note ; on

generic images, 342, note.
General, knowledge of the, 44, 330.
Generalisation, nature of, 343 ; relation of, to abstraction, 353 ; of words, 371 ; relation

of, to induction, 421.
Generic images, 340.

Genius, relation of concentration to, 100.
Geography, exercise of imagination in study of, 329.
Geometric properties of bodies, 155.
Geometry, notions of, 357.
Growth. (See Development.)

Gurney, E., on the relations of reason to beauty, 538.
Habit, relation of, to growth, 48 ; of attention, 102 ; of memory, 289 ; of feeling, 489 ; of

desire, 585 ; influence of, on movement, 616 ; and routine, C19 ; strength of, 619 ;

conditions of, 620 ; learning and unlearning, 621 ; of conduct, 661.

704 INDEX.

Habituation, a law of feeling, 469.

Habitudes, moral, 663.

Hamilton, Sir W., on sensation and perception, 108, note, 148, note ; on extent of atten-
tion, 192, note ; on laws of association, 267 ; on total oblivescence, 282, note ; on
language and thought, 350 ; on logical analysis and synthesis, 361, note : on common
sense, 418, note ; on threefold division of mind, 687.

Hardness, perception of, 167.

Harmony, a law of feeling, 473 ; a condition of beauty, 537.

Hartley, D., on assertion and belief, 403.

Hearing, sensations of, 125 ; perception by, 205. (See auditory perception.)

Helmholtz, H., on sensations of pitch, 126 ; on theory of colour-sensation, 132 ; on
visual measurement of lines, 177 ; on retinal estimation of distance, 188.

Herbart, J. F., on the dependence of feeling on representation, 453, note.

Heredity, transmission of mental dispositions by, 60 ; bearings of, on mental develop-
ment, 62 ; as source of individual mental peculiarities, 68 ; bearing of, on feeling,
482 ; co-operation of, in early movements, 602.

Hering, E., on colour-sensation, 132 ; on visual perception, 693, note.

Hindrance and furtherance of mental activities, 453, note ; 471.

History, process of learning, 299, 328.

Horwicz, A., on priority of feeling, 688.

Hume, D., on uncontrolled imagination, 326.

Idea, meaning of, 219, note.

Ideal, gratification, 317 ; feeling, 484 ; element in aesthetic impression, 535,

Idealism, doctrine of, 213, 692, note.

Identification of objects, 170, 199, 226.

Identity of objects, 170 ; of self, 266.

Image, definition of, 219, note ; positive and negative, 220 ; temporary, 220 ; permanent,
221 ; relation of, to percept, 224 ; distinctness of, 227 ; interaction of, with percepts,
227 ; accuracy of, 229 ; train of, 242 ; motor, 246 ; command of, 278 ; secondary, 301 ;
generic, 340.

Imagination, as stage of intellectual growth, 51 ; nature of, 222 ; relation of, to thought,
372 ; influence of, on belief, 404, 405.

Imagination, constructive. (See construction.)

Imagination, reproductive. (See reproduction.)

Imitation, a form of construction, 314 ; nature of, 608 ; unconscious and conscious, 610 ;
importance of, 612.

Immediate and mediate reproduction, 267, note.

Implicit reasoning, 416.

Impulse, nature of, 580 ; co-operation of, 633 ; opposition of, 634 ; rivalry of, 639 ; con-
trol of, 650, 659 ; place of, in mind, 688, note.

Independence of judgment, 410, 443.

Individual, mental differences of, 22, 23, 32 ; experience of, distinguished from that of
the race, 61 ; development of, how related to that of the race, 62 ; differences in
development of, 67 ; differences in power of attention of, 102 ; in sensibility of, 144 ;
in perceptual power of, 212 ; in reproductive power of, 290 ; in imaginative power
of, 324 ; in power of abstraction of, 385 ; in reasoning powers of, 440 ; in feelings of,
457 ; in will of, 586, 646.

Indolence, nature of, 638.

Induction, mental process in, 420 ; relation of, to generalisation, 421, 426 ; spontaneous,
421 ; regulated, 422 ; with respect to causes, 423.

Inductive method in psychology, 684.

Inductive sciences, 446

Inference, distinguished from proof, 415.

Inheritance. (See heredity).

Inhibition of impulse, 635, 643 ; nervous conditions of, 635.

Innate tendencies, 60.

Innervation, sensations of, 135, 158.

Instinctive mental tendency, 60 ; element in feeling, 481 ; element In willing, 575 ;
592, 597.

INDEX. 705

Instinctive movements, nature of, 595 ; place of, in growth of voluntary movement,

600.

Instruction, Method of, 446.
Intellect. (See knowing).
Intellectual sentiment, analysis of, 521 ; relation of wonder to, 522 ; growth of, 527 ;

earlier stage of, 528 ; later stage of, 529 ; cultivation of, 530.
Intensity. (See Degree.)
Interest, relation of, to attention, 83 ; relation of novelty and familiarity to, 87 ; effect

of, in voluntary attention, 92.
Internal perception, 148. (See Introspection.)

Introspection, self-observation, relation of to perception, 148 ; absence of in children, 204.
Introspective Method, nature of, 4 ; defects of, 681.
Intuition of things, by touch, 170 ; by sight, 196.
Intuitionism, doctrine of, 412, 692.
Intuitive insight, 418.
Intuitive judgments, 411.
Intuitive knowledge of space, 196, 692.
Invention, nature of, 315.

James, Dr. W., on the feeling of effort, 671, note.
Judgment, definition of, 391 ; relation of, to proposition, 392 ; about individuals and

about classes, 393 ; nature of, 394 ; relation of, to conception, 394 ; synthetic and

analytic, 396 ; relation of, to belief, 397 ; affirmative and negative, 399 ; clearness of,

406 ; accuracy of, 408 ; promptness, stability, independence of, 409 ; intuitive and

reasoned, 411 ; practical, 417, 433 ; early forms and growth of, 435 : training of faculty

of, 443 ; aesthetic, 540 ; moral, 558.
Kant, I., on empirical and intelligible ego, 2 ; on kinds of memory, 292 ; on relation of

memory to understanding, 294; on "ingenious memory," 298, note; on aesthetic

delight, 532 ; on nature of space-perception, 692.
Kindergarten, exercise of senses by, 216.
Knowing, place of in mind, 20, 687 ; how related to feeling, 21, 451, 687 ; how related to

willing, 21, 573 ; elements of, 26 ; successive stages of, 43 ; pleasures of, 520.
Knowledge, distinguished from knowing, 15 ; relation of belief to, 434.
Language, aid of, in reproduction, 248 ; as instrument of thought, 337, 343 ; psychology

of, 348 ; physiology of, 350 ; origin and growth of, 350 ; employment of, by children,

351, 379 ; imperfections of, 367 ; generalisation and specialisation of, 371.
Laughter, causes of, 539.
Laws of mind, 8, 27, 684.

Leibniz, on intuitive and symbolic knowledge, 358.

Lewes, G. H., on the complexity of mental states, 23, note ; idea of cause, 30, note.
Light, sensations of, 129.
Literature, children's, 327.

Local discrimination, of sensation, 118 ; in touch, 124 ; in sight, 132.
Localisation, of sensations in body, 119, 147 ; on tactual organ, Igt ; how acquired, 200 ;

ofeveuts in time, 263.
Locke, John, on defects of memory, 288, note ; on clearness and distinctness of ideas,

3C5, note ; on evils of hasty generalisation, 422, note ; on varieties of reasoning

power, 442, note ; on dealing with children's questions, 444.
Logic, how related to psychology, 16, 44 ; relation of, to education, 16 : treatment of

thought by, 339 ; of judgment by, 393 ; of reasoning by, 416.
Logical feelings, 526.

Lotze, H., on early movements, 600 ; on imitative movements, 610 ; on relation of know-
ing, feeling, and willing, 688.

Ludicrous, feeling of, 539. • •^K

Magnitude, perception of, by touch, 160 ; by sight, 177, 186, 187 ; ideas of, 355.
Materialism, doctrine of, 691.
Mandsley, Dr. H., on introspection, 681.

Means to ends, definition of, 589 ; desire for, 589 ; transformation of, into ends, 631.
Measurement, how far applicable to mind, 33 ; objective and subjective, 34 ; methods of,

35 ; of tactile sensibility, 123 ; of aural sensibility, 125 ; of visual sensibility, 129 ;

uf muscular sensibility, 137.

706 INDEX.

Mechanical properties of bodies, 155.

Memory, distinguished from expectation, 252 ; passive and active, 275 ; divisions of, 282 ;
of things and of words, 283 ; growth of, 285 ; excellences of, 287 ; individual differ-
ences of, 290 ; training of, 294. (See Reproduction and Retention).

Method of Instruction and of Discovery, 446.

Method of Psychology, subjective, 4, 681 ; objective, 5, 682 ; analytical, 19, 684 ; synthe-
tical, 684.

Mill, J. S., on cause of errors in inductive reasoning, 426 ; on method of psychology, 685,
note.

Mimicry, illustrations of, in children's play, 321. (See Imitation).

Mind, definition of, 1 ; phenomena and substance of, 1, 689 ; relation of, to body, 3, 689 ;
way of studying, 4, 680 ; general knowledge of, 8 ; truths or laws of, 8, 27 ; nervous
conditions of, 9, 31, 685 ; phenomena and operations of, 18 ; classification of states
of, 19, 687 ; active and passive sides of, 23 ; faculties of, 24 ; functions of, 26 ; indi-
vidual differences of, 22, 23, 32 ; quantitative aspects of, 33 ; development of, 40.

Mnemonics, art of, 296.

Mobility of organs, 138.

Monism, doctrine of, 691.

Monotony, feeling of, 463.

Moral character, 665.

Moral habitudes, 663.

Moral law, object of moral feeling, 554, 555.

Moral standard, 558.

Moral sentiment, mode of exciting, 553 ; peculiarities of, 554 ; process of, 556 ; relation
of, to moral judgment, 558 ; origin of, 559 ; sources of, 500 ; growth of, 561 ; relation
of, to religious sentiment, 567 ; cultivation of, 568 ; relation of, to aesthetic senti-
ment, 557.

Motive, definition of, 588.

Motor representations, 246 ; involved in voluntary movement, 589.

Movement, sensations of, 136, 158 ; co-operation of, in touch, 138, 157 ; in sight, 138, 173 ;
perception of objective, 106, 1U2 ; expressional, 453, 597 ; voluntary, 588 ; random or
unprompted, 593 ; reflex, 594, 599 ; instinctive, 595, 600 ; imitative, 597, 608 ; control
of, 650.

Muscular effort, nature of, 668.

Muscular sense, nature of, 134 ; relation of, to touch and sight, 138 ; co-operation of, in
tactual perception, 157, 168 ; in visual perception, 173.

Music, sensations of, 126 ; appreciation of time in, 207.

Nahlowsky, J. W., on intellectual feelings, 527.

Names, denotation and connotation of, 345; function of general, 347, formation of
abstract, 353. (See Language.)

Naming, relation of, to generalising, 343.

Native capacity. (See Original Capability.)

Negation, distinguished from affirmation, 399.

Negative Pleasures, 467.

Nervous System, actions of, as concomitants of mind, 3, 9, 31, 690 ; interaction of, and en-
vironment, 58; nervous concomitants of attention, 77; of sensation, 108; of perception,
153 ; of imagination, 225 ; of contiguous association, 237 ; of memory, 288 ; of speech,
350 ; of feeling, 454, 458 ; of desire, 580 ; of inhibition, 635 ; of self-control, 661.

Noise, sensations of, 128.

Nominalism, doctrine of, 347.

Notion. (See Concept.)

Novelty, relation of, "to attention, 86 ; pleasures of, 466.

Number, quantitative aspect of mental states, 34 ; tactual intuition of, 165 ; visual in-
tuition of, 191 ; visualisation of, 273 ; notions of, 355 ; first ideas of, 383, note.

Object, distinguished from subject, 4, note ; of attention, 75 ; of perception, 170, 196 ; of
desire, 576, 580.

Objective movement, 166, 192 ; time, 263.

Objective method, in psychology, 5, 682.

Object-lesson, nature of, 217.

INDEX. 707

Obligation, feeling of, 555.

Oblivescence. (See forgetfulness).

Observation, relation of to perception, 207 ; excellences of, 208 ; training of power of, 214.

Obstructive association, 275.

Operations, mental, defined, 18 ; analysis of, 19 ; classification of, 19 ; fundamental, 26 ;
grades of, 27 ; laws and conditions of, 28.

Organic sensations, 110, 476.

Organism. (See Body.)

Original capability, 59 ; differences of, 67.

Past, idea of, 257.

Pathology of mind, 683, 686.

Percept, nature of, 147 ; persistence of, 219 ; relation of, to image, 224, 227.

Perception, stage of intellectual growth, 43 ; relation of, to sensation, 147 ; analysis of,
150 ; definition of, 152 ; nervous conditions of, 153 ; special channels of, 154 ; tactual,
156 ; visual, 171 ; auditory, 205 ; relation of, to observation, 207 ; development of
power of, 209 ; psychology and philosophy of, 212 ; training of power of, 213 ; after-
effects of, 219.

Perez, B., on development of colour-sense, 144, note ; on beginnings of memory, 285 ; of
children's early notions, 381, note ; 383, note.

Perplexity, feeling of, 521.

Perseverance, 646.

Personal, distinguished from non-personal emotion, 494.

Personification, in children, 378.

Pessimists, their doctrine of desire, 583, note.

Philosophy, distinguished from psychology, 2, 14, 212.

Phrenology, 10, 37.

Physiology, relation of to psychology, 4, 6, 10, 14, 685

Pitch, sensations of, 126.

Platner, E., observations on blind, 694.

Play, exercise of imagination in, 321 ; relation of art to, 533, 548.

Pleasure, relation of to attention, 82 ; and interest, 83 ; of knowledge, 520 ; relation of,
to desire, 576 ; of activity, 633.

Pleasure and pain, laws of, 457.

Poetic imagination, 316.

Practical science, 15 ; judgment, 417, 433.

Prejudice. (See bias).

Presentative knowledge, presentation, distinguished from representation, 45, 152, 224.

Pressure, sensations of, 122.

Preyer, W., on early voluntary attention, 96, note ; development of colour-sense, 144,
note ; early growth of observation, 210, note ; first ideas of number, 313, 383 ; on
first ideas of self, 376 ; on appropriation by will of reflex movements, 604, note ; on
imitation, 608 ; on function of will in movement, 608, note.

Primary qualities of bodies, 156.

Primum Cognitum, problem of, 351.

Probabilities, reasoning about, 431.

Process, mental distinguished from product, 29.

Productive imagination. (See constructive).

Promptness of judgment, 409.

Proof, distinguished from inference, 415.

Proposition, relation of judgment to, 392.

Psychology, scope of, 1 ; relation of, to physiology, 4, 6, 10, 14, 685, 690 ; method of,
4, 681 ; how related to special sciences, 14 ; relation of, to philosophy, 14, 212,
689 ~; relation of, to practical sciences, 15 ; divisions of, 685.

Psycho-physics, scope of, 11, 113, 685.
Punishment, theory of, 674.

Purpose, relation of idea of, to that of cause, 424 ; involved in voluntary action, 573, 588.

Pursuit, pleasure of intellectual, 525.

Quality, differences of, in sensations ; primary and secondary, 155 ; perception of, 170,
197.

708 INDEX.

Quantity, estimation of, in mind, 33.

Race, transmission of acquisitions of, 61 ; psychical development of, 62 ; psychology of,
683, 686.

Random movements, 593 ; relation of, to voluntary movement, 597.

Rational psychology, 25, 6S9.

Reaction-time, variations of, with changes of adjustment, 90, note, 227 ; in visual locali-
sation, 177, note ; in complex perception, 192, note ; in localisation of skin-sensations,
202, note.

Realism, doctrine of, 213, 692, note.

Reason, relation of to cause, 423 ; process of finding, 429.

Reasoning, relation of judgment to, 411 ; nature of, 414 ; implicit, 416 ; explicit, 419 ,
inductive, 420 ; about causes, 424 ; deductive, 426 ; complex, 431 ; about probabili-
ties, 431 ; activity of mind in, 433 ; development of power of, 435 ; training of power
of, 443.

Recognition, process of, 170, 199 ; relation of, to reproduction, 226.

Recollection, nature of, 275 ; relation of attention to, 277 ; degrees of, 279.

Refinement, relative degrees of, in senses, 121 ; growth of emotion in, 492 ; characteristic
of aesthetic pleasure, 532 ; of taste, 543.

Reflection, a stage of voluntary action, 669. (See Introspection.)

Reflex attention, 80.

Reflex movements, nature of, 594 ; relation of to voluntary movements, 599.

Reid, T., on division of mind, 687.

Religious sentiment, 567.

Repetition, effect of on retention, 231 ; on association, 240 : on attention, 241 ; on plea-
sure, 463.

Representation, stage of growth of intellect, 43 ; germ of, in perception, 151 ; of time,
257 ; connection of feeling with, 452, 488 ; relation to desire, 575. (See Image.)

Repression of feeling, 504. (See Control.)

Reproduction, reproductive imagination ; relation of retention to, 223 ; conditions of,
229 ; passive and active, 275 ; relation of, to constructive imagination, 301, 305 ; of
feelings, 484 ; of movements, 605

Resistance, sensation of, 137.

Resolution, volitional, 646.

Retention, property of intellect, 26 ; involved in mental development, 48 ; relation of to
reproduction, 223 ; relation of attention to, 229 ; of repetition to, 231.

Reverence, relation of, to moral sentiment, 555.

Revivability of sensations, 197, 283 ; of pleasures and pains, 486.

Revival of impressions. (See Reproduction.)

Rewards, influence of, 676.

Rhythm, relation of expectant attention to, 89 ; perception of by the ear, 207.

Ribot, Th., on loss of words in disease, 289, note ; on loss of self-control, 661, note.

Richter, Jean Paul, on sympathising with others' pleasures, 513.

Right and wrong, perception of, 554 ; standard of, 558.

Rivalry, feelings of (see Emulation) ; of impulses, 639.

Robertson, O. Croom, on active sense, 140, note.

Romanes, G. J. , on imitative impulse, 610.

Rote, learning by, 296.

Roughness, perception of, 168.

Routine, as illustration of habit, 619.

Secondary quality of bodies, 156.

Schneider, G. H., on grades of active impulse, 591 ; on priority of feeling, 688.

Science, exercise of imagination in the pursuit of, 311, 313 ; the order of studying, 446.

Self, bodily and mental, 203, 376'; persistent, 266, 375 ; feelings of, 494.

Self-control, nature of, 649 ; varieties of, 650 ; stages of, 651 ; relation of different forms
of, 657 ; limits of, 660.

Self-esteem, feeling of, 501.

Sensation, stage of intellectual growth, 43, 48 ; definition of, 107 ; relation of, to feelhig,
108, note, 476 ; general and special, 109 ; organic, 110 ; characters of, 112 ; intensity
or degree of, 113 ; quality of, 115 ; complexity of, 116 ; duration of, 117 ; local char-

INDEX. 709

acter of, 118 ; variability of, 120 ; of taste and smell, 121 ; of touch, 122 ; of hearing,
125 ; of sight, 129 ; of muscular sense, 134 ; relation of attention to, 140 ; discri-
mination of, 140 ; assimilation of, 141 ; relation of perception to, 147 ; revivability
of, 197, 283.

Sense, definition of, 111.

Sense-feeling, nature of, 108, note, 475.

Sense-organ, definition of, 111.

Sensibility, definition of, 109 ; general and special, 109 ; absolute and discriminative,
114 , improvement of, 143 ; individual differences of, 144.

Sensuous element in beauty, 534.

Sentiments, place of in classification of feelings, 495.

Sergi, G., on physiology of perception, 153, note.

Sight, sensations of, 129 ; perception by, 154, 171 ; recovery of, by blind, 694. (See Visual
Perception.)

Similarity, effect of, on attention, 88 ; association by, 266 : relation of, to contiguity, 267.

Single vision, 180.

Singular judgments, 393.

Smell, sense of, 121.

Social environment, a factor in individual growth, 63 ; undesigned and designed in-
fluence of, 64 ; range of influence of, 66 ; differences of, in individual cases, 69 ;
action of, through language, 349 ; influence of, on judgment of individual, 411 ; in-
fluence of, on moral feeling of individual, 566.

Social feelings, germs of in children, 499 ; relation of, to moral sentiment, 554.

Solidity, perceptions of, by touch, 164 ; by sight, 189.

Space-perception, tactual, 156 ; visual, 172, 692 ; auditory, 205.

Spalding, D., on instinctive visual power of animals, 693.

Specific energies, doctrine of, 112, 117.

Speech, nature of, 349. (See Language.)

Spencer, H. , on mental development, 50, 56 ; on lines of least resistance, 55 ; on unit of
mind, 116 ; on nature of perception, 152 ; on laws of association, 267 ; on syllogistic
reasoning, 428, note ; on feeling and representation, 453, note ; on emotional expres-
sions, 455 ; on consensus of functions, 472, note ; on classification of feelings, 479 ;
on instinctive actions. 596 ; on reflex actions, COO.

Spiritualism, doctrine of, 691.

Spontaneous Movement. (See Random Movement.)

Standard of taste, 541 ; moral, 558.

Stephen, Leslie, on state of pleasure, 578, note.

Stewart, D., on relation of abstraction and generalisation, 353; on feeling of sublime,
539, note.

Sthenic and asthenic feelings, 455, note.

Stimulus, mental, 35 ; relation of, to attention, 79, 81.

Stimulus, physical, relation of to degree of sensation, 113 ; to pleasure and pain, 459.

Stimulation, law of, 457.

Strife of desires, 640.

Stumpf, Dr. C., on effects of couching, 695.

Subject, distinguished from object, 4, note.

Subjective method in psychology. (See Introspection.)

Subjective Sensation, 108.

Sublime, feeling of, 539.

Substance, of mind, 2, 691 ; intuition of, in material things, 171, 198.

Suggestion, relation of, to reproduction, 234.

Surprise, feeling of, 523.

Susceptibility emotional, measurement of, 456 : quickening of, 484.

Syllogism, nature of reasoning by, 427, 428, note.

Symbols, association with, 245 ; verbal, 250, 285, 347.

Sympathy, place of in classification of emotions, 495 ; origin of, 508 ; nature of, 509 ; re-
lation of to benevolence, 510 ; process of, 511 ; basis of disposition to, 511 ; effects
of, 513 ; reciprocity of, 514 : circumstances favouring mutual, 515 ; growth of, 516 ;
uses of in education. 53 8 ; cultivation of, 519 ; an element in moral sentiment, 5GO, 564.

710 INDEX.

Synthesis, involved in thinking, 336 ; factor in conception, 354 ; in judging, 394 ; in
reasoning, 428.

Synthetic judgments, 396.

Synthetic method in psychology, 684,

Tact, nature of, 417.

Tactual perception, of space by movement, 157 ; by simultaneous tactual sensations,
161 ; of points and surfaces, 162 ; of solidity, 164 ; of single things and a number,
165 ; of moving objects, 166 ; of temperature, 167 ; of hardness, 167 ; of weight, 163 ;
of roughness and smoothness, 168 ; of concrete things, 170 ; relation of visual to,
171 ; nature of in blind, 694.

Taine, H., on origin of language, 351, note.

Taste, aesthetic, faculty of, 540 ; standard of, 541 ; good or healthy, 543 ; refined, 543 ;
growth of, 547 ; cultivation of, 550. (See ^Esthetic Sentiment.)

Taste, sense of, 21.

Temperament, varieties of, 22, 23 ; ancient doctrine of, 37 ; emotional, 456 ; active, 586.

Temperature, variability of sense of, 121, 167.

Things, intuition of, by touch, 170 ; by sight, 196.

Thinking, Thought, place of, in growth of intellect, 44 ; relation of imagination to, 319 ;
distinguished from particular knowledge, 330 ; and comparison 332 ; a process of
analysis and synthesis, 335 ; relation of, to language, 337, 348 ; stages of, 338 ;
logical and psychological view of, 339 ; volitional control of, 655.

Threshold, or liminal intensity of sensation, 11, 114.

Timbre, sensations of, 116, 127.

Time, perception of, by ear, 206 ; representation of, 256 ; idea of past, 257 ; of future,
258 ; as duration, 261 ; measurement of, 263.

Touch, sense of, 112 ; sensations of, 122 ; perception by, 154, 156. (See Tactual Percep-
tion.)

Tradition, influence of, on mental growth, 66 ; on judgment, 407, 411, 413.

Trains, of images, 242 ; of movements, 247, 618.

Training, mental, nature of, 70 ; natural order of, 71 ; of attention, 103 ; of the senses,
213 ; of the memory, 294 ; of the imagination, 325 ; of abstraction, 386 ; of the
reasoning powers, 443 ; of emotional capacities, 502 ; of the sympathies, 519 ; of in-
tellectual feelings, 530 ; of aesthetic faculty, 550 ; of moral faculty, 568 ; of active
organs, 622 ; of the will, 673.

Transference, of attention, 101 ; of feelings by association, 486.

Unconscious mental activity, region of, 74, 224 ; in perception, 152 ; in reproduction, 248 ;
in reasoning, 417 ; in movement, 616.

Understanding, relation of imagination to, 309, 311, 319 ; nature of, 331.

Universal Judgments, 393.

Useful, distinguished from beautiful, 533.

Variety, a condition of pleasure, 466.

Verbal, associations, 248, 273 ; memory, 283, 291 ; suggestion and belief, 403 ; suggestion
and voluntary movement, 612.

Versatility, 103.

Virtue, feeling excited by spectacle of, 557.

Vision, modern theory of, 172, 196, 692.

Visual Perception, relation of, to touch, 171 ; of space by movement, 173 ; by simultaneous
retinal sensations, 174 ; of visible magnitude and form, 177 ; of depth, 180 ; of direc-
tion, 182 ; of distance, 184 ; of number, 191 ; of objective movement, 192 ; theory of,
194, 692 ; of concrete things, 196 ; of children, 210, 693 ; of young animals, 693 ; of
those recovering sight, 694.

Visualisation, differences in power of, 228.

Vividness of images, 220, note, 228, note.

Volition. (See Willing.)

Vb'lkerpsychologie, scope of, 686.

Volkmann, Dr. W., on familiarity and interest, 86, 87, note; on the state and act of
attention, 93, note ; on awakening interest, 105, note ; on divisions of memory, 282 ;
on reproduction of feeling, 485, note ; on dependence of moral feeling on social sur-
roundings, 561, note ; on striving, 580 ; on desire and pleasure, 581, note ; on nature

INDEX. 711

of instinct, 596, note ; on character, 666, note ; on free-will, 672, note ; on observing
minds of others, 683 ; on classifying theories of Mind and Body, 691, note.

Voluntary Attention, 80, 91.

Voluntary movement, nature of, 572, 589 ; origin of, 593 ; instinctive germ of, 597 ; effect
of experience on, 604 ; extension of, 606 ; co-operation of imitation in, 608 ; control
of, by word of command, 612 ; internal command of, 614 ; relation of habit to, 616 ;
training of will in, 622.

Vorstellung, nature of, 687, note ; 692, note.

Waitz, Th., on action of will in concentration, 92, note ; on growth of perception, 211 ;
on object of desire, 581, note ; on desire and aversion, 582, note.

Want, pains of, 459 ; consciousness of, in desire, 577, 578.

Ward, James, on analysis of mental states, 23, note ; on retention, 224, note ; on atten-
tion and association, 239, note.

Weber, E. H. , on tactual discrimination of points, 124.

Weber's law, 114, 465. —

Weight, discrimination of, 123, 168.

Will, willing, place of in mind, 21, 688 ; how related to knowing and feeling, 21, 573 ;
development of, 51, 591, 627 ; phenomena of, 572 ; nature of, 574 ; relation of desire
to, 575, 587 ; individual differences of, 586 ; relation of attention to, 590 ; effort of,
642, 668 ; calmness and strength of, 645 ; firmness of, 649 ; question of ultimate
nature of, 667 ; freedom of, 671 ; training of, 673.

Wit, comparisons of, 335.

Wolff, C., on fundamental mental power, 687.

Wonder, Emotion of, 521, 522.

Words, associations with, 248, 273, 283 ; special memory for, 203, 291 ; discovering mean-
ing of, 346 ; loss of meaning of, 366, 370 ; substitutes for ideas in reasoning, 430.
(See Language.)

Wordsworth, W., on fancy and imagination, 304, note.

Wundt, W., on impeding the adjustment of attention, 88, note ; on the height of sensi-
bility, 115 ; on sensation and perception, 152 ; on motor sensations of eye, 173, note ;
on retinal discrimination of points, 188 ; on reaction-time in complex perception,
192, note ; on combining successive impressions, 221 ; on measurement of reproduc-
tive process, 242 ; on estimation of time, 264 ; on imaginative process, 307, note ; on
laws of emotional expression, 455 ; on fundamental form of willing, 602, note ; on
instinctive movements, 602, note ; on secondarily automatic actions, 618, note ; on
the fundamental psychical phenomenon, 688, note ; on classification of theories of
body and mind, 691, note.

Young— Helmholtz, theory of colour-sensations, 132.

ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY

YC 63482

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