Outlines of psychology : an elementary treatise, with some practical applications

Cearfjers* professional 3Litotp

EDITED BY NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER

Outlines of Psychology

Outlines of Psychology

AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE
WITH SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

BY

JOSIAH ROYCE, PH.D., LL.D.

PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1903

All rights reserved

COPYRIGHT, 1903,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up, elcctrotyped, and published May, 1903. Reprinted
October, 1903.

Norwood Press

J. 8. Cutting & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

PREFACE

A NUMBER of years since I was a contributor to a
large volume entitled, In Sickness and in Health — the
joint work of a number of authors. The volume was
intended as a popular guide regarding various aspects
of public and private hygiene, of nursing, and of related
topics. The treatise, however, contained introductory
statements, composed by different writers, and setting
forth the most general outlines of Anatomy, of Physi
ology and of Psychology. It was my own task merely
to contribute to this volume the sketch of some of the
elementary principles and practical applications of Psy
chology. The later essays of the volume were the work
of physicians. The introductory statements were ac
cordingly very strictly limited, as to their plan and as
to their contents, by their relation to the highly practical
treatise in which they formed so subordinate a part.

By the consent of the publishers of the work thus
prepared, I have been able to use the material of this,
my former very summary sketch of Psychology, as the
core of the present elementary book. I have indeed
revised such of the former discussion as I here use ; and
I have added a proportionately large amount of new
text, and have endeavoured to give the present volume its
own unity. What remains from the original sketch is,
however, especially the tendency to make a number of
practical applications of psychological theory at various

vi PR K FACE

places in my discussion — a tendency which may be of
service to some readers who, like myself, are fond of
defining a good many of the problems of teaching, and
of practical life, more or less in psychological terms, so
far as they are able to do so. Otherwise, as I hope, the
present work speaks for itself.

This is not a book upon the Philosophy of Mind, nor
does it deal with any philosophical problems. Such
problems I have indeed discussed at length in other pub
lications of my own. But the reader of my various
philosophical inquiries will already know that I make a
sharp difference between the business of the student of
philosophy and that of the psychologist. In the present
volume, I am concerned solely with certain problems of
the natural history of mind ; metaphysical issues are here
not at all in question. On the other hand, this volume
is indeed no effort to summarise the more technical
results of modern Experimental Psychology, although I
believe thoroughly in the importance of Experimental
Psychology, and personally take no small interest in fol
lowing, so far as I can, the labours of my colleagues of
the laboratories ; and although I hope that this book
shows a good many signs of my having profited by such
an interest. My plan has led me, however, to concern
myself here with elementary principles rather than with
technical details, and to attempt, to some extent, practi
cal applications of these principles, rather than state
ments of the fascinating, but complex special researcher,
of recent laboratory Psychology.

PREFACE Vll

For the same reason, this volume makes no attempt
to deal with the special Psychology of the senses, with
the details of the theory of space-perception, or with
any of the other special regions where modern Experi
mental Psychology has already won its greatest triumphs.
I do not, indeed, undervalue what has been accomplished
in those fields. But I have no desire to try to compete
with the numerous recent expositions in which the later
conquests of Experimental Psychology have been sum
marised. On the contrary, I hope that my reader's
curiosity may be aroused in such wise that he may be
led to look elsewhere for what I do not pretend to give
him. My own purpose, and my chosen limitations,
assign to me another task.

I presuppose, then, a serious reader, but not one
trained either in experimental methods, or in philo
sophical inquiries. I try to tell him a few things that
seem to me important, regarding the most fundamental
and general processes, laws, and conditions of mental
life. I say nothing whatever about the philosophical
problem of the relations of mind and body, and nothing
about the true place of mind in the universe. Mean
while, I try to view the matters here in question in a
perspective which is of my own choosing. The treat
ment of mental phenomena, under the three heads of
Sensitiveness, Docility, and Initiative, is especially char
acteristic of the plan of my book. This arrangement
and classification of well-known facts involves a point

Vlli PREFACE

of view which seems to me to possess a certain relative
novelty. The entire subordination of the usual dis
tinctions of Feeling, Intellect, and Will, to these deeper
distinctions, which my own division of the phenomena
of mind is intended to emphasise, — the persistent
stress that I lay upon the unity of the intellectual and
the voluntary processes, which, in popular treatises, are
too often sundered, and treated as if one of them could
go on without the other, — these are also characteristic
of the present discussion. Furthermore, in the chapter
on the Feelings, I have presented views which are in
some respects of my own devising. The traditional
view makes Pleasure and Displeasure the sole elementary
qualities of Feeling. Wundt has recently insisted upon
the existence of three different "dimensions" of feel
ing ; i.e. he has maintained that there are three " pairs
of opposing qualities," to be found amongst the
elementary feelings, — pleasure and its opposite together
constituting one only of these pairs. I have here at
tempted, provisionally, a taw-dimensional scheme of
the elementary feelings. The interest of my hypothesis,
if it has any value, lies in the statement which it makes
possible concerning the relation of Feeling and Conduct.
I am able to define, in terms of my view, the possibility
of certain forms of conduct, and of certain tendencies
of the attention, which the customary pleasure-dis
pleasure theory, as I think, is unable to describe.

In addition to these matters, relating to the theoretical

PREFACE

aspects of my book, there is one further topic which
may interest some more technical readers. In the
chapter on Mental Initiative, I have, namely, stated
certain views regarding the origin of novel modes of
conduct, and novel forms of consciousness, — views
which, as I hope, are worthy of some consideration, and
which are, in some respects, relatively independent.
They are introduced into this book especially for the
sake of their practical bearings. But they also have a
theoretical aspect which may interest the more profes
sional reader of this volume.

To my mind, namely, an interesting side-light has
been shed upon the well-known controversies between
the associationists on the one hand, and the school of
Wundt, and the partisans of " mental activity " gener
ally, on the other, by the stress that Professor Loeb has
recently laid upon the part that what he calls " tropisms "
play in the life of animals of all grades. By a
" tropism," Loeb means a response, on the part of an
organism, to some type of physical or chemical stimulus,
-a response taking the form of some characteristic
movement, which may or may not be adaptive in any
particular case, but which is determined by the nature
of the stimulus and of the organism. Loeb's "trop
isms" are exemplified by the actions of such organisms
as turn toward the light, or as flee the light, or as find
their way into crevices, or as do any other characteristic
thing, with a mechanical certainty, whenever they are

X PREFACE

stimulated in special fashions by light, by the touch of
solid objects, or by other stimuli, e.g. by chemical
stimuli. The moth's flight into the candle-flame is an
instance of such a "tropism." As thus appears, the
"tropism" need not, in any one case, prove to be an
adaptive response to the environment, although the
resultant of all of the " tropisms " together must in
general, in any organism, tend to the survival of the
type of organism in question.

Now it is especially notable that the "tropisms" of
Loeb are not, like the " reflex actions " of the usual theo
ries, modes of activity primarily determined by the
functions of specific nerve-centres. Furthermore, they
are more general and elemental in their character than
are any of the acquired habits of an organism. At any
one moment when they are called into activity, they may
run counter to the acquired habits. In brief, Loeb's
concept of a " tropism " is different from the ordi
nary concept of a reflex action, and is different, too,
from the concept of an acquired adaptive habit of action.
Loeb has insisted that the new concept is more funda
mental than the old ones, and that both habits and reflex
actions must ultimately be explained as results of "trop
isms." Now it has occurred to me to maintain, in sub
stance, that the factor in mental life which Wundt's
school define as "Apperception," and which others so
often call "spontaneity," " active attention," "conscious
activity," or, sometimes, " self-activity," may well be

PREFACE XI

treated, from the purely psychological point of view, as
the conscious aspect or accompaniment of a collection of
tendencies of the type which Loeb has called " tropisms."
These tendencies appear at once as elemental, and at
the moment at which they are aroused, as sovereign
over acquired habits and associations of ideas ; in other
words, as directive of the course of our conscious life.

In thus reducing the physical accompaniment of the
process which Wundt calls " Apperception," and which
others call "self-activity" to the type of what Loeb
calls " tropisms," I am able to explain, in so far as the
point of view of the psychologist requires such explana
tion, the frequent appearance in our mental life of a
factor which (i) is more general than is any specific
mental function due to our acquired habits, and which
(2) seems at any moment to be capable of directing the
course of our associations, rather than to be merely the
result of experience and association. Yet in order to
explain the presence of such a factor, I am not obliged
to go beyond the presuppositions which determine the
point of view of the psychologist. Wundt has insisted
that his " Apperception " is no disembodied spiritual en
tity. I conceive that Loeb has indicated to us, in the
concept of the "tropism," how a power more or less
directive of the course of our associations, and more
general than is any one of the tendencies that are due,
in us, to habit, or to specific experience, can find its em
bodiment in the most elemental activities of our organ-

XI 1 PREFACE

ism. Wunclt's opponents, on the contrary, insist that all
our activities must be due to inherited reflexes, modified
by experience, and organised by the law of habit ; and
that consequently the law of association must determine
the sequence of all our mental states. Loeb shows how
the " tropisms " are more elemental than the reflexes, and
how they are capable of suddenly modifying our habits.
The result must be, as I maintain, that the associa-
tionist view of mental life must have its limitations.

Upon the basis of the ideas thus indicated, I have
sketched, in Chapter XVIII of my text, a theory of how
the apparent " originality," or " spontaneity," or in
another phraseology, the Initiative, of the organism, and
of the individual mind, are to be treated from the point
of view of the psychologist. Meanwhile this theory
has indeed deeper relations, in my own mind, to certain
philosophical views of mine as to the real nature of
individual choice and originality. These views I have
elsewhere in part already set forth ; but they are not in
place in a book dealing with Psychology. And they are
indeed far enough from the views which Professor Loeb
has in mind in his researches.

I have thus indicated, not only to those readers to
whom I especially appeal, but also to the more technical
student, wherein lie some of the more characteristic of
the features which this little book possesses. The less
technical reader, however, for whom my text, especially
in its more practical discussions, is chiefly intended,

PREFACE xiii

need not trouble himself as to what is mine or is not
mine, nor as to the deeper problems of theory which I
touch upon, nor as to how my views are related to those
of other students. I have tried to help such a reader,
who may often be, as I hope, like myself, a teacher, to
understand some of the best known of the results of
psychological study, and at the same time to view those
results in a light that may sometimes justly appear to
him to be novel. I have also tried to help him a little
to apply his knowledge in practice.

I have still to acknowledge my constant indebtedness
in this book, first, to the one who was amongst my
earliest guides in the study of Psychology, namely, to
my honoured friend and colleague, Professor William
James, and secondly to Professor Baldwin, to whose
treatment of the problems of Mental Evolution my
own discussion of Mental Initiative owes not a little,
and whose discussions of the social factors in mental
development have also much influenced my own.

The fact that I have been forced to correct the proof-
sheets of the present volume, during a temporary leave
of absence from my usual place of work, and while at
a distance both from my publisher and my library, may
help to explain some of the errors which may have
crept into the printed text, and which may have escaped
my notice.

JOSIAH ROYCE.

MARCH 30, 1903.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

INTRODUCTORY DEFINITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS .... 1-19

§ i. Definition of psychology. Contrast between mental and

physical phenomena ....... I

§ 2. In what sense mental phenomena are internal . . 3

§ 3. A science of mental phenomena is made possible by the

fact that mental phenomena have physical expressions 5
§ 4. Such a science is further made possible by the fact that

mental phenomena occur under physical conditions . 9
§ 5. These physical conditions include certain nervous processes 10
§ 6. Nervous functions that are attended with mental life and

those that are not so attended; their general relations II
§7. The three essential undertakings of psychological study . 12
§ 8. Psychological methods: (i) The study of the expressive
signs of mental life; (2) The study of the relations

between brain and mind 13

§9. Psychological methods : (3) Introspection; (4) Psycho
logical experiment J6

CHAPTER II

THE PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 20-57

§ 10. The signs of mental life. The discriminating sensitive
ness of beings that possess minds .... 20

§ II. The forms of this sensitiveness: (i) The signs of feeling 22

§ 12. The forms of discriminating sensitiveness continued:

(2) The signs of sensory experience .... 24

§ 13. Practical uses of the foregoing class of signs of mental

life. Difficulty of estimating these signs correctly . 27

CONTENTS

§ 14. The signs of sensory discrimination may seem to he present
where there still may not he the corresponding con
sciousness. The heliotropism of plants and Loeh's
general conception of a " tropism." Practical conse
quences as to these signs of mind .... 28

§ 15. The signs of mental life continued : The signs of the influ
ence of former experience upon present conduct . . 32

§ 1 6. Inheritetl instincts and acquired habits. The latter as

furnishing the signs of the influence of experience . 34

§ 17. Relation between the signs of the influence of experience

and the signs of sensitiveness 3^

§ 18. General definition of docility .... -37

§ 19. The signs of mental life continued: The signs of what

seems to be spontaneity 3&

§ 20. Difficulty of asserting the existence of spontaneity in the
actions of any being. Docility may lead to what seems
spontaneity 39

§ 21. Examples of what seem to be more genuine instances of

spontaneity ......••• 42

§ 22. Provisional definition of the concept of mental initiative . 46

§ 23. The relation of the signs of initiative to the signs of

docility 51

§ 24. Initiative in relation to what is often called " self-activity,"
and to the questions as to the influence of heredity and
environment ........ 53

§ 25. Summary : The signs of sensitiveness, of docility, and of
initiative as the three classes of the signs of mind.
Division of the later discussion 55

CHAPTER III

THK NERVOUS CONDITIONS OF THE MANIFESTATION OF MIND 58-80

§ 26. The structure of the nervous system. The neurons . 58

§ 27. Sensory and motor nerves 6l

§28. Characteristics of cerebral processes: Habit, localization
of function, generali/ed and specialized habits. " Set "
of brain .....•••• 64
§ 29. Relation of the cortex to lower nervous centres. Guid
ance, coordination, inhibition 70

CONTENTS XV11

PACK

§ 30. Inhibition considered more in detail. Its importance . 70
§ 31. Examples of inhibition in relation to mental processes.

The hierarchy of functions 73

§ 32. Practical applications of the principle of the inhibitory

character of the higher nervous processes 75

CHAPTER IV
GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE .... 81-118

§ 33. What cerebral functions are attended by conscious life ? . 81

§34. The " stream of consciousness " and its " contents ". . 82

§ 35. The " unity of consciousness." What it means and its

general relation to the variety of our conscious states . 85

§ 36. The variety of our conscious states as an essential condi
tion of our consciousness and of its unity ... 89

§ 37. Difference and sameness as inseparable relations amongst
the various states present within the unity of conscious
ness. The relation of sameness and difference to unity
and variety and to one another 90

§ 38. Practical applications of the principles regarding the
relations of sameness and difference. How we teach
people to note resemblances and differences . . 94

§ 39. The unity of consciousness as not only simultaneous, but
successive. The "present moment" as possessing a
finite length 95

§ 40. The question whether our mental life is a complex con
sisting of certain ultimate elements. The concept of
elementary sensations and feelings .... 97

§ 41. The concept of mental elements more generally stated.
Mental elements in relation to cerebral functions. The
" blending " of mental elements 100

§ 42. Psychological experiment as a means of isolating and

defining the mental elements 103

§ 43. Examples of the analysis of conscious states. The analysis

of musical sounds and of other complexes . . .104
§ 44. Criticism of the foregoing theory of the constitution of
our conscious life. The " mental elements" exist when
they are consciously observed, not otherwise. Analysis
alters the consciousness that is analysed . . . 107

xviii CONTENTS

PACK

§ 45. And nevertheless the theory of the mental elements ex
presses important truths. What the experimental
analyses do show concerning our consciousness . .112

§ 46. The law that for any ordinary state of consciousness an
analysed state or series of states can be substituted.
Significance of this law 115

§47. Classification of the subsequent discussion . . . 117

CHAPTER V

SENSITIVENESS. A. SENSORY EXPERIENCE .... 119-147

§48. The concept of a sensation 119

§ 49. The relation of consciousness to sensations . . . 120
§ 50. Sensations as relatively simple mental states experimen
tally producible . . . . . . . .122

§ 51. Every grade and form of normal consciousness is affected
by the accompanying sensory experience. Practical
consequences of this principle. Examples . . .123
§ 52. External and internal sensory experience and their general

relationships . . 129

§ 53- Organic and dermal sensory experience . . . . 131
§54. Sensory experiences of taste, smell, sight, and hearing . 134
§55. The attributes of sensation. Quality and intensity . . 136
§ 56. Extensity as an attribute of sensory experience. The
bases of our knowledge of space. The relation of
space to the reactions of orientation .... 139

CHAPTER VI

SENSITIVENESS. B. MENTAL IMAGERY 148-162

§ 57. Definition and characteristics of mental images . . 148
§ 58. The classes of mental images. Gallon's inquiries. The

types of imagery characteristic of different minds . 151
§ 59. Relations of mental images to consciousness in general,
to current sensory experience, and to motor processes
and tendencies. Practical considerations concerning
mental imagery 157

CONTENTS XIX

CHAPTER VII

PAGE

SENSITIVENESS. C. THE FEELINGS 163-196

§ 60. The feelings in general. Their traditional relation to the

intellect and the will. Their place in the present study 163

§ 61. Elementary feelings not as extensively to be studied by
experiment as are elementary sensations. The " sub
jective " character of feelings 165

§ 62. The classification of the feelings into those of pleasure
and those of displeasure. Apparent difficulty about
this classification. Usual answer to this difficulty . 167

§ 63. The antagonism of pleasure and displeasure. Their rela
tion to conduct I71

§ 64. Further difficulties in the way of viewing the foregoing
classification as exhaustive. The " mixed " feelings
and their complexity 173

§ 65. Wundt's " three-dimensional" classification of the feelings 176

§ 66. Hypothesis of a ftw-dimensional classification of the feel
ings. Two pairs of opposed tendencies in feeling:
(i) Pleasure and displeasure; (2) Restlessness and
quiescence 177

§ 67. Characterisation of pleasure and displeasure. Charac
terisation of restlessness and quiescence . . .179

§ 68. The quiescent and the restless states of displeasure and

the restless and quiescent pleasures . . . .182

§ 69. Relation of the two pairs of antagonistic feelings to con
sciousness in general 184

§ 70. The four types of mixed feelings more exactly defined

and illustrated 185

§ 71. The relatively simple states of feeling. Relation of rest
lessness and quiescence, and of pleasure and displeas
ure, to the attention 189

§ 72. Review of the whole survey of conscious processes up to
the present point. Question as to the completeness of
the classification, thus far given, of our present con
scious states. Is the will such as to include still other
sorts of mental states ? ...... 192

xx CONTENTS

PACK

§ 73. The place of the will in consciousness. The relation of
will to sensory experience, to imagery, and to feeling.
Result as to the completeness of the classification up
to the present point *93

CHAFFER VIII

THE GENERAL LAW OF DOCILITY i97~2I7

§ 74. The evidences of docility are furnished by facts that have

to do both with knowledge and with conduct . . 197

§ 75. The cerebral law of habit and its relation to our conscious

processes 19%

§ 76. The process of formation of a new habit; simplification;
welding of partial processes into unity. Training welds
simultaneous as well as successive functions . . 2OO

§ 77. The law of association as the expression of the law of
habit in mental terms. Inadequacy of this expression.
Simultaneous and successive association . . . 203

§ 78. Consequences of the inadequacy of the mental process to
represent the complexity of the cerebral process. As
sociation by similarity. Its reduction to the law of
habit 2°5

§ 79. The theory that association binds mental elements to
gether. Criticism of this theory 208

§ 80. The traditional forms of association 209

§ 81. Inadequacy of the general law of association to determine
what one of various possible associations shall prove
effective in any one case 210

§ 82. Vividness and recency as factors which determine the

course of association .212

§ 83. Factors which determine the course of association (con
cluded) : The present "set " of the brain . . . 214

CIIAFTER IX

DOCILITY. A. PERCEITION AND ACTION .... 218-228
§84. General plan of the following discussion . . . .218
§ 85. General relation of perceptions to actions. Illustration

from the life of infancy • 2I^

CONTENTS xxl

221

§ 86. Perception and action in adult life . . • • •
§ 87. The feelings which accompany perception. The feeling

of familiarity 224

§ 88. Practical consequences of the relations between percep
tion and action * 225

CHAPTER X

DOCILITY. B. ASSIMILATION 229-247

§ 89. Assimilation, differentiation, and the social aspect of
docility as the remaining aspects of docility to be

treated in this discussion 229

§ 90. The assimilation of new habits to old ones as a conse
quence of the law of habit 23X

§ 91. The mental aspect of the process of assimilation . . 234
S 02. Illustrations of mental assimilation. The Herbartian

23C

" Apperception J->

§ 93. Illustrations of mental assimilation (continued) : Our

memory of the past as an assimilative process. Errors

of memory which result 236

§ 94. Further illustrations of defective memory

§ 95. The assimilative process is never the only aspect of our

conscious relation to our experience .... 242
§ 96. Assimilation in its relations to the thinking process.

" Explanation " and reasoning as assimilative processes 245

CHAPTER XI

DOCILITY. C. DIFFERENTIATION 248-273

§ 97. The general nature of the differentiation which accom
panies the development of the mind .... 240

§ 98. The derivation of our consciousness of simultaneous

variety from our consciousness of successive variety . 250

§ 99. Illustration from our consciousness of space . . • 252
§ 100. Education as an instance of differentiation. Practical

importance of the dramatic element in instruction . 254

§ 101. Judgment, and the thinking process in general, as a

process of differentiation. Analysis and synthesis . 255

xxii CONTENTS

PAGE

§ 102. Practical consequences 257

§ 103. The process of attention as an aspect of the process of

differentiation ........ 258

§ 104. The limits of differentiation and the "psycho-physic law" 264
§ 105. The psycho-physic law as a law not of sensation, but of

the limitations of our docility ..... 268

CHAPTER XII

DOCILITY. D. THE SOCIAL ASPECT OF THE HIGHER FORMS OF

DOCILITY 274-298

§ 106. Human mental life as primarily social .... 274

§ 107. The bases of social consciousness: Imitation . . . 275

§ 108. The bases of social consciousness: The love of opposition 277
§ 109. The general relations of the thinking process to social

stimulations and habits. Why language becomes so

significant for the development of the thinking process 280

§ 1 10. The formation of general ideas ..... 285

§ ill. General ideas as "plans of action" .... 288
§ 112. Social activities as the means of bringing these plans of

action to clear consciousness ..... 290
§ 113. Judgment as dependent for its development upon social

conditions 292

§ 114. The social aspect of the development of the reasoning

process 293

§115. The social aspect of the development of self-consciousness 296

CHAPTER XIII

THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL INITIATIVE .... 299-332

§ 1 1 6. The problem as to the possibility of mental initiative

stated . 299

§ 117. The early imperfection and the slow development of the

manifestations of our inherited tendencies to action . 302
§ 118. Consequences of these facts for the early training of the

individual 304

§ 119. The persistence of the young organism in acts that are

not yet adaptive 306

CONTENTS XX111

PAGE

S 120. Illustrations of the restless persistence in acts that are so

far not adaptive in the case of adult animal organisms 312
§ 121. Illustrations of a similar restless persistence in adult

human beings 3I5

§ 122. Such restless persistence in advance of adaptation as

the one source of significant initiative in conduct and

. 318

in mind .

§ 123. Illustrations from the plays of children .

§ 124. Illustrations of a similar initiative in the activities o

youth ' . ; 324

§ 125. Illustrations of restless persistence in case of the s
tendencies toward individualism

§ 126. Ordinary active attention as a process of restless per
sistence in advance of adaptation. Attention and the
" tropisms " of Loeb ,', ^

§ 127. The bases of all initiative are to be found in « tropisms "
that lead to a restless persistence in types of action
which are not yet adaptive. Practical consequences 330

CHAPTER XIV

CERTAIN VARIETIES OF EMOTIONAL AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE 333~363

§ 128. Recapitulation and survey of further practical appli
cations

§129. The nature of the emotions

§ 130. The relation of the emotions to their physical expression 337

§ 131. The practical aspect of the life of the emotions. Emo
tional variability. The emotional " undertone " -34°

§ 132. Abnormal emotions. The sexual emotions and their
abnormities. Practical considerations as to the ab
normities of emotional life in general . . -343

§ 133. The intellectual life in general. Principles that preside

over its practical guidance 349

§ 134. The abnormities of the intellectual life. Secondary

impairment of the intellectual life . . • • 352
§135. Primary intellectual disorders illustrated. Hallucinations

and delusions 355

§ 136. Eccentricity of intellectual life. Practical rule for judg
ing " original " characters and persons . . • 3°°

xxiv CONTENTS

CHAPTER XV

I'AGE

THE WILL OR THE DIRECTION OF CONDUCT .... 364-379

§ 137. The will, in the wider sense of the term, as our whole

consciousness of our activity 364

§ 138. The relation of attention to volition. Choice, and the

will in the narrower sense 367

§ 139. Conscious choice and its unoriginal character. The will
in the narrower sense takes its rise in " involuntary "
action 369

§ 140. Illustration of volition by the case of the growth of the

speech-function . 371

§ 141. The practical aspect of the training of the will . . 373

§ 142. Abnormities of volition 375

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

As Psychology has taken on something of the aspect
of a natural science, it has presented new difficulties to
the student. The natural sciences are based on an
elaborate series of presuppositions, none of which are
tested or examined by those sciences. The older form
of psychology began by setting forth its presupposi
tions, many of them crude and untenable, perhaps, but
nevertheless it made the fact clear that the superstruc
ture had a foundation of some sort. Psychology as now
expounded is as chary of stating its presuppositions
as is physics, with consequent loss of clearness and
cogency to the philosophically minded student. As a
result, there is constant need for a summing-up and
interpretation of the results of special inquiries and
investigations. Without this summing-up and inter
pretation, the student of psychology in its newer forms
is lost in a maze of details, whose interrelations he com
prehends very imperfectly, if at all.

It may be assumed, I think, that the fundamental
fact to be grasped in psychology is what has been
called the "isolation of the individual mind." Professor
Royce refers to this in his opening paragraphs. When

xxvi INTRODUCTION

this viewpoint is clearly held, then the function and
value of the several methods used in psychology, as
well as the significance of the departments into which
its facts are classified, become plain. Genetic, compara
tive, and social psychology are then terms with a real
meaning, and such qualifying words as " rational," "ex
perimental," and "physiological" are seen to have ref
erence primarily to methods of study, rather than to
varying data.

The student of psychology must put to himself these
questions and others like them, and must search in his
study for the grounds on which correct answers to
them rest: —

How and by what warrant do I pass from a knowl
edge of my own mental states to a knowledge and inter
pretation of the mental states of others ? What are the
primary evidences of mind ? Into what and how few
simplest units can my own complex mental states be
broken up ? What are the processes of mental growth
and development, and what laws govern them ?

If he gains clear and reasonable convictions on such
points as these, he has not studied psychology in vain.

There has been much useless and misleading discus
sion as to the special value of psychology to the
teacher. I fail to see how the proposition that a
knowledge of psychology is of use to the teacher is
open to discussion at all, unless through a juggling with
the plain meaning of words. That the average teacher

INTRODUCTION XXvii

need not spend much time in mastering the more tech
nical details of modern psychology, is obvious; but it
is equally obvious that the average teacher should be
familiar with what may, perhaps, be called general psy
chology, particularly in its genetic aspects. No process
is known to man by which knowledge will surely be
converted into sympathy and insight ; but sympathy
and insight, however great, are invariably made greater
when knowledge is added to them.

In this belief, Professor Royce's exposition of the
main facts and principles of psychology is gladly
included in a series of volumes intended particularly
to meet the needs of studious teachers.

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK,
April 15, 1903.

OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY DEFINITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS

§ i. Psychology, in a general way, has the same sort
of relation to the functions of the human mind that
physiology has to the functions of the human body.
Psychology is, namely, the doctrine which attempts to
describe our mental life, and, as far as possible, to dis
cover its conditions and its laws. And by our mental
life, as opposed to our physical life, we mean a certain
collection of states and of processes with which, from
moment to moment, each one of us is, in his own case,
very directly or immediately acquainted, while, on the
other hand, it is impossible that any one else besides
the original observer, whose mental life this is, should
ever get this immediate sort of acquaintance with just
this collection of states and processes. Herein, then, lies
the essential characteristic of our mental life. Others
may learn, from observing our acts and our words, a
great deal about this, our own mental life ; but each one
of us is the only being capable of becoming directly
aware of his own mental states. On the other hand,

OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

however, our physical life, in its external manifesta
tions, may be observed by any one who gets the op
portunity. And thus the fact that the mental life of
each one of us can be directly present, as a series of
experienced facts, to one person only, may well be used
as a means of defining the difference between our physi
cal and our mental life. Thus physical facts are usually
conceived as ''public property," patent to all properly
equipped observers. All such observers, according to
our customary view, see the same physical facts. But
psychical facts are essentially " private property," ex
istent for one alone. This constitutes the very concep
tion of the difference between "inner" psychical or
mental, and physical or "outer" facts — a conception
behind which, in the following discussion, we shall not
seek to go.1

1 This method of defining the general nature of the mental world, and
of distinguishing the mental from the physical world, is founded upon
philosophical considerations which I have more fully explained elsewhere.
Cf. my Spirit of Modern Philosophy (Boston, Riverside Press, 1892),
Chapter XII; the essay on "Self-consciousness, Social Consciousness,
and Nature," in my Studies of Good and Evil (New York, Applcton & Co.,
1898); and the second and fourth lectures in my Gifford Lectures ; The
World and the Individual, Second Series (New York, The Macmillan
Company, 1901). The present is no place for developing these meta
physical considerations. It may, however, interest the philosophically
disposed reader to know that my own philosophical position is that of
Constructive or Absolute Idealism, and that, accordingly, the distinction
here made between the mental and the physical worlds is, to my mind,
only a relative distinction due to the special conditions to which our
human knowledge of both these worlds is subject. None the less, for

DEFINITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS 3

§ 2. It is this fundamental difference that leads us
often to speak of the mental as the " internal life " or
the "inner world," and to oppose it both to our own
physical life and to the " external physical world."
This way of expressing the distinction between mental
facts and all others is fairly good, but must be carefully
guarded against misinterpretation. The physiological
processes of our bodies are physical, but are indeed also
often viewed as "internal," since they go on within our
bodies, and are in general mainly hidden from direct
external observation. But our mental life is " internal "
in quite a different sense. Digestion, circulation, and
the changes of our tissues are processes which are
actually altogether hidden from many forms of outer
observation, and which, at best, can only be observed
very partially, and for the most part very indirectly, by
observers who view us from without. But, on the other
hand, these processes, in the case of each one of us, are
also very ill known to us ourselves, and are in large
part not even indirectly represented by any of our own
conscious mental states. So that, when we speak of our
physiological processes as internal, the word "internal,"

human experience, in so far as it is concerned with the special sciences,
the distinction here made is of paramount practical importance.

My colleague, Professor Miinsterberg, whose philosophical position is
not the same as my own, has nevertheless quite independently reached
the same definition of the fundamental contrast between the mental and
the material phenomena. See his Psychology and Life and his Grundzuge
der Psychologic.

4 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

although it here generally implies " hidden, in whole
or in part, from actual outer observation," does not
imply " directly felt by us ourselves." But when we
speak of a pain as an "inner" mental fact, we mean
that while nobody but the sufferer can possibly get any
direct acquaintance with its presence, the sufferer him
self can do so, and is aware of the pain. Furthermore,
the fact that other observers cannot directly watch our
inner physiological processes, is itself something rela
tively accidental, dependent upon the limitations of the
sense organs, or upon the defective instrumental devices,
of those who watch us. But the fact that our mental
states are incapable of observation by anybody but our
selves seems to be not an accidental, but an essential
character of these mental states. Were physiologists
better endowed with sense organs and with instruments
of exact observation, we can, if we choose, conceive
them as, by some now unknown device, coming to
watch the very molecules of our brains ; but we cannot
'conceive them, in any possible case, as observing from
without our pains or our thoughts in the sense in which
physical facts are observable. Were my body as trans
parent as crystal, or could all my internal physical
functions be viewed and studied as easily as one now
observes a few small particles eddying in a glass of
nearly clear water, my mental states could not even
then be seen floating in my brain. No microscope
could conceivably reveal them. To me alone would

DEFINITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS 5

these states be known. And I should not see them
from without; I should simply/;/^ them, or be aware
of them. And what it is to find them, or to be aware
of them, I alone can tell myself.

§ 3. Mental life has thus been defined by pointing
out its contrast with all that is physical. Now, psy
chology is to undertake the study of mental life for the
sake of trying to describe and, in a measure, to explain
its facts. But this undertaking may, for the first,
appear to be quite hopeless. How can one describe,
with any sort of accuracy, where the facts to be de
scribed are in any case open to the inspection of one
observer only ? Successful description, made with any
scientific purpose, seems to involve the possibility of
comparing together the various attempts at description
made by different observers in view of the same facts.
When astronomers observe celestial objects, they com
pare the results of the various observations of different
astronomers. Upon the multitude of trained observers,
occupying, upon occasion, widely different positions on
the earth's surface, but all looking at the same heavenly
bodies, the possibility of the growth of astronomical
science seems to depend. How, then, shall psychology
progress if, in our various mental lives, no two ob
servers can ever take note of precisely the same facts ?
Is it not as if there were as many real moons as there
are astronomers observing the heavens, and a different,
real moon for each astronomer, which nobody but him-

6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

self could ever see ? In such a case, one may ask,
What would become of astronomy ?

Without in the least going into the extended and
interesting philosophical problems suggested by these
questions, it is enough here to point out at once that,
while no two persons among us can ever observe the
same series of mental facts and processes, psychological
study is nevertheless made possible by the fact (a fact
of the most fundamental importance) that we all of us
not only have our mental states, but also appear to give
these mental states a physical expression in certain bodily
acts, viz., in what may be called our expressive func
tions. The mental states themselves each one of us
observes for himself alone. Their physical expression
is something that, like any other physical fact, is patent
to all observers.

Now, any one of us can often observe for himself
what sort of physical expression some given sort of
mental states gets in his own case. Thus one can
sometimes observe how, by cries or by groans, he him
self gives expression to his own pain ; or how, by
appropriate bodily attitudes, he expresses the mental
states of attentive interest which we call " looking,"
" listening," " watching," and the like ; or, finally, how
he adapts the familiar words of his mother-tongue to
the expression of multitudinous inner moods, and other
personal experiences, for many of which, in fact, we
have no definite and conscious bodily expression at our

DEFINITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS 7

voluntary disposal except such words as chance to occur
to us as appropriate at the moment when these states
are passing. Cries, groans, sighs, tears, gestures, atti
tudes, words, and other far less easily observable ex
pressions — some voluntary, some involuntary — are
thus found to accompany our mental processes. But all
these expressive movements are themselves facts in the
physical world, and are, as such, matters both for
common observation and for exact scientific scrutiny.
Most of these expressive acts show marked similarity,
either in several, in many, or in all men. And mean
while, what states in each one of us they express, the
individual observer experiences for himself. In at
tempting to describe our mental experiences to one
another we therefore constantly make use of the names
of familiar expressive functions, such as laughter, weep
ing, and the like.

Some of our expressive acts, like the ones just named,
viewed apart from their names, are of instinctive origin
and are only partially under the influence of conven
tions. Other expressive acts, like the use of the words
of our mother-tongue to embody or to describe our
mental states, are of purely conventional origin, and
have only become moulded by slow degrees to a certain
sort of uniformity as regards their relation to similar
mental states in many people. Whether one person
means by the word " love " a state very closely similar
to the state that another person means by the same

8 orruxKs OF PSYCHOLOGY

word may be, and often is, a very difficult question to
decide. Yet the use of the words of our common
mother-tongue to express our mental states, guided as
this use has been since childhood by the effort to con
form our expressions to the comprehension of our
fellows, is often brought to a point which enables us to
be decidedly sure that the states which many people
agree in describing in given words are themselves in
pretty close agreement. With some caution, the same
may be regarded as true, within limits, as to the states
described in various languages by parallel words and
phrases.

While we are then unable to make our mental
states objects of common observation, in the sense in
which the astronomers are said to observe the same
star, we nevertheless can observe in common our nat
ural and conventional, our simple and complex, our
voluntary and involuntary, our more subtle and our
less subtle motor expressions of our mental states,
whether in our outward deeds or in the permanent
products of these deeds (as in works of skilful art),
or in our words, or in our momentary gestures, or,
finally, in our established habits of behaviour. The
inner meaning of such expressions each of us can, by
more or less attentive scrutiny, discover for himself.
Their agreement in many persons enables mental
facts, private though they be, to be indirectly sub
mitted to a comparative study in many people, and

DEFINITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS 9

to some sort of generalisation, classification, and even
explanation.

§ 4. While this outward physical expression, which
our mental life gets, makes psychology, as a compara
tive and more or less scientific study of mind, pos
sible, our study itself is very greatly aided by a
further consideration, viz., that we not only express
our minds through our movements, but seem to our
selves to be dependent, for at least very much of our
mental life, upon more or less definable physical condi
tions, which we recognise, even apart from any special
study, as matters well known in daily life, and as
matters which we can study in common. Thus the pri
vate mental condition is noticed by its one observer to
vary with the presence or absence of physical facts
that he and his fellows can observe together. That
one cannot see in the dark, that one feels cold at a
time when the thermometer reveals the physical fact
of a low temperature, that violent physical exercise
makes one weary —these are facts which have, at the
very same time, their psychical aspect manifest to one
observer, and their physical aspect manifest to all ob
servers. A more scientific study, moreover, shows us
that not merely some, but all of our mental states
vary with physical conditions of one sort or another.
Now, this sort of union of the public and the private,
of the generally accessible and of the purely individ
ual, gives us many means for indirectly comparing

10 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

and classifying mental facts and for studying their
conditions in various people.

§ 5. But both the expressive movements and the
physical conditions thus far mentioned prove, upon
closer examination, to have a character as physical
processes that makes them still further the topics of
a scientific scrutiny ; for we possess, as a most impor
tant part of our physical structure, our nervous systems.
And it may be shown that the expressive physical
functions (acts, gestures, words, habits, etc.) in which
our mental life gets its outward representation and
embodiment, are all of them, as physical events, deter
mined by physiological processes that occur in our ner
vous systems. In other words, the functions of the
nervous system, while they include many other pro
cesses as well, still also include, as a portion of them
selves, precisely those functions by which, from
moment to moment, our mental states get expressed.
Thus the scientific study of our expressive functions
becomes linked to the general study of nervous physi
ology. On the other hand, however, those numerous
physical conditions, both without and within our
bodies, which have been mentioned as appearing to
determine in some way our mental states, prove to be
conditions that are effective in so far as they at the
same time physically influence our nervous systems.
Thus in two ways the scientific study of mental life
may get aid from the study of the nervous system.

DEFINITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS II

§ 6. Now the physical functions of the nervous
system are capable of a very extended comparative
and experimental investigation. Those of the nervous
functions which are not closely related (as apparent
conditions or as expressions) to our mental processes,
appear, in the light of such study, to differ from
those nervous functions which are so related, chiefly
in respect of the relative simplicity of the nervous
functions which are not thus closely related to the
mind, when compared with the relative complexity of
those nervous functions which are more intimately
related to mental processes. But no one easily de
finable dividing line appears between the two, except
the familiar fact that the nervous functions most
closely related to our mental life are localised, so far
as concerns their central stations, in the cortex or
grey matter at the external surface of the brain, while
the nervous functions that have no discoverable men
tal accompaniment are, for the most part, directed
from centres placed below the level of this brain cor
tex. Otherwise, as we shall see from time to time
hereafter, it is hard to prove any essential difference
in kind between the physical functions whose ner
vous conditions are centred in the cortex and those
which are centred lower down. The higher functions
are, indeed, often vastly the more complex. They
change much more during life, and under the in
fluence of our experience, than do our lower nervous

12 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

functions. They show more signs of what is often
called "spontaneity" -that is, of a certain relative
(although never complete) independence of the pres
ent external physical surroundings in which our body
chances to be placed. But these, although large differ
ences, are differences of degree. Physically speaking,
and despite vast differences in detail, the same general
or fundamental types, both of structure and of function,
are observable, both high up and low down in the
nervous centres.

§ 7. Yet one must insist that the study of neuro
logical facts has, although very great, still only relative
value for the psychologist. For one thing, what the
psychologist wants to understand is mental life, and to
this end he uses all his other facts only as means ; and
for the rest, any pJiysical expression of mental life which
we can learn to interpret, becomes as genuinely interest
ing to the psychologist as does a brain function. A
pyramid or a flint hatchet, a poem or a dance, a game
or a war, a cry or a book, the nursery play of a child or
the behaviour of an insane person, may be a physical
expression of mental life such as the appreciative
psychologist can both observe and more or less fully
comprehend. The study of such facts, and of their
physical causes and results, throws light both upon
what goes on in minds and upon the place which minds
occupy in the natural world. To be a student of psy
chology thus involves three essential things: (i) to

DEFINITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS 13

observe carefully the signs which express mental life,
and to interpret these expressions as far as possible;
(2) to examine those physical processes which in any
case appear to condition mental life or to cause its
expressions to occur; and (3), with constant reference
to the foregoing classes of facts, to describe by means
of a self-examination, or ''introspection," the one series
of mental facts which can alone be directly observed by
the individual psychologist. Studies of the sorts (i) and
(2) can be made by all properly equipped observers
together, and in presence of what are called the " same "
external facts. Studies of the sort (3) each psychologist
must make alone for himself ; but by the aid of the
facts acquired through studies of the sorts (2) and (3)
he can indirectly compare his introspective results with
those of other psychologists. The first two sorts of
study are very greatly furthered by what we know of
the nervous system, but are by no means confined to
this region of knowledge. Psychology is by no means
a branch of neurology. On the contrary, wherever, in
the physical world, any mind gets intelligible expression,
or any physical conditions appear to determine mental
states, the psychologist finds what he wants, in so far as
he seeks means of comparing his introspective observa
tions with the experiences of other minds.

§ 8. The foregoing conditions already serve to define
the principal methods of psychology, whereof we may
next name the most important.

14 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

(i) Our first method — the study of the expressive
signs of mental life — is in some forms extremely
familiar to the popular mind. Every person of any
experience is his own psychologist in judging almost
constantly the ideas, moods, and intents of his fellows,
by watching not only their faces, but also their whole
range of voluntary and involuntary expressive move
ments. The relatively scientific use of such study as a
method of more careful psychological investigation
depends both upon extending the range of its application,
and upon rendering more minute the scrutiny employed.
The naturalist employs this method when he studies the
minds of animals through an observation of their be
haviour and of their skill. It should be carefully
remembered, however, that not merely the passing
functions of the moment, but the established habits and
the permanent physical productions of any animal, are
of importance as outwardly expressing its mind ; and a
similar thing holds of physical facts and processes that
express the cooperative work of many intelligent beings.
Works of art, institutions, languages, customs, faiths,
cities, national life in general — all these things and
processes are instances of complex expressions of
mental life in outwardly observable physical forms.

The inevitable dangers and difficulties of this, the
most constantly employed of all the methods of study
ing minds, are meanwhile, in part, well known. The
facts to be studied are very numerous and complex, and

DEFINITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS 1$

easily misjudged, especially in case of minds that are
markedly different from our own. A good example of
this difficulty is the common failure of even very intelli
gent men to understand a good many among the expres
sive functions of women, or the similar failure of
women to comprehend a great many among those of
men. The barrier of sex will probably prove a per
manent hindrance, in some important directions and
regions, to the progress of the scientific study of the
human mind, so far as that study seeks to make the
mental life of one sex fully comprehensible to psycholo
gists who belong to the other.

(2) The second method of the psychologist begins by
proceeding backwards from the study of the outwardly
expressive functions, in which our mental states get a
sort of embodiment, to the scrutiny of their nervous
conditions. These, once found to be, as they are,
centred in the organisation and in the functions of the
brain, this second method develops into that of tti& study
of the relations that exist betiueen mental life and brain
processes. This method is necessarily an indirect one.
It takes very numerous special forms. One of these
is furnished by the study of nervous diseases, with
reference to those changes, in the expressive signs of
mental life, which are the result of whatever form of
nervous disorder is each time in question. In so far as
the phenomena of insanity are already, despite our
defective knowledge, traceable to otherwise known and

l6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

definable physical disorders of the nervous system, the
study of such phenomena for the purpose of the psy
chologist also obviously belongs here. A further
extension of the present method is offered by those
experiments upon the nervous systems of animals
which involve any noteworthy and intelligible changes
in the signs of mind which these animals show. And
it is thus that the functions of the brain have been fre
quently and very fruitfully studied during the last
twenty-five years, despite the difficulty of drawing exact
conclusions as regards the human brain and the human
mind from the interpretation of such experiments. Nor
does the use of the present method cease here ; for,
apart from disease and from vivisection, we are able to
perform an experiment upon the functions of the brain
whenever (as by stimulating our sense organs in par
ticular ways) we can harmlessly bring about any
physical change in a living man, whose mental life can
indirectly be studied through his own accounts of it,
while the physical effect that the experiment has upon
his brain functions is meanwhile capable of a more or
less determinate estimate. It is in this way that we
study what is sometimes called " the physiology of the
senses."

§ 9. (3) In close connection with the first, and in fre
quent connection with the second of the foregoing
methods, stands the mctJiod of introspection, by which
the individual psychologist undertakes to observe Jiis oivn

DEFINITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS I?

mental states and processes. If carried on alone, with
out constant reference to the physical conditions of the
mental life observed, and without a frequent comparing
of notes with one's fellows, introspection can accomplish
little of service for psychology. But, in union with
other methods, introspection becomes an absolutely in
dispensable adjunct to all serious psychological study.
The man who has never observed within will never
be able to interpret the minds of others. The student
of neurology can directly contribute to psychological
science only in case he learns to scrutinise carefully his
individual mental processes, even while he indirectly
learns about their nervous conditions. Introspection is,
however, for the scientific psychologist, despite its im
portance, rather to be used as an auxiliary of the other
methods than as a method capable of leading the way.
For psychology is concerned with what is common to
many or to all human minds. We are guided in our
search for these common characters of minds by studying
the expressions and the conditions of mental life. Intro
spection helps us mainly to an interpretation of the com
mon features. However expert a man may be in his
own mental states, it therefore takes a wide intercourse
with his fellows, an outwardly observant examination of
the signs of mind in others, and a careful study of the
physical conditions in which given mental states arise, to
reach any conclusions worthy of scientific consideration.
The truly great " introspective psychologists " of the

1 8 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

past, from Aristotle down, were none of them, as psy
chologists, at all exclusively devoted to the study of their
own personal experiences. They were, for instance,
greatly influenced both by the traditional views of their
social order, and by the popular psychology which lay
more or less concealed in the languages that they used.
(4) A centrally important modern method, which
unites or may unite features belonging to all the fore
going methods, is the method of psychological experiment
in the stricter sense. This method involves bringing
to pass mental processes of greater or less complexity (acts
of attention, simple acts of will or more complex acts of
choice, associations of ideas, processes of memory or
of computation, emotional states, etc.) under physical
and mental conditions which can be exactly controlled or
determined. Then, according as he wishes, the psy
chologist studies one or more of the various noteworthy
aspects of the situation that has been experimentally
brought to pass. Thus one can examine by direct intro
spection what goes on in a single observer under the
circumstance of a given experiment. Here one takes
advantage of the definiteness which the experimental
devices may give to the whole experience. Or again,
in a series of related experiments, one can introspec-
tively note how the mental states or processes alter
as the physical conditions undergo certain determinate
variations. Further, through comparing the reports, or
the other expressive signs which various subjects give

DEFINITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS 19

of what goes on in their minds under similar experimen
tal conditions, one can get results as to the relations
that exist between the mental life of various people. In
some cases it is also possible to determine, to a certain
extent, what physical changes in the central nervous
system are produced by the experiment, and thus our
knowledge of the relations of particular nervous and
particular mental states may be furthered.

Very important results have also flowed from the
careful noting of the various time relations of any or of
all the foregoing classes of facts as they occur when
exact experimental conditions have been established.
The problem, how long a given mental process takes,
and how this time element varies with given variations
in the situation, is one of great interest to the psy
chologist.

Experimental psychology is the most recent of the
branches of psychological work. For the most part it
has to be carried on in special laboratories, where there
are instrumental means for measuring time relations, as
well as for determining precisely the physical conditions
under which the mental processes to be studied take
place.

CHAPTER II
THE PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND

§ 10. In view of what has now been said about
methods, we may best begin our analysis of the general
characteristics of mental life by asking what are the
most general classes of expressive signs by which the
living beings that have minds manifest to us their men
tal life. How, then, do those animals which are high
enough in the scale to seem to show us that they cer
tainly possess mental life differ from those living beings
which, like the plants, give us no such manifestations ?

The most general answer to this question is, on the
whole, not very difficult. When a cat watches for a
mouse, when a dog finds his way home over strange
country, we do not doubt that here are real signs of the
presence of mind. When a tree that is cut with the axe
shows no sign of feeling the blow, we note that here
signs of mind are absent. To be quite certain just
where to draw the line between living beings that seem
to have no minds and living beings that possess minds,
does indeed involve us in great difficulties. But there
are some general signs of mind which we all usually
regard as unmistakable, and some cases of lack that

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 21

seem to us to exclude the presence of any functions
such as the psychologist studies.

In the most general way of viewing the matter, beings
that seem to us to possess minds show in their physical
life what we may call a great and discriminating sensi
tiveness to wJiat goes on at any present time in tJieir
environment. And by this their sensitiveness we here
mean something which, though a sign of mind, is it
self purely physical, viz., a capacity, observable from
without, to adjust themselves by fitting movements, or
by their internal physical functions, to what takes place
near them. This sensitiveness is called discriminating
because it is never a mere tendency to respond to every
sort of change at random, or to all effective changes in
the same way ; but it is a tendency to respond to some
changes (e.g. light or sound) rather than to others, and
to various changes in various fitting ways. To be sure,
plants also show very many signs of well-adjusted re
sponses to the changes in their environments. And
even so those functions of animals which need show
no signs of any mental accompaniments (e.g. gland
secretions, or the regulation of the body's temperature)
are also discriminatingly sensitive, in the physical sense,
to external conditions. But the matter is here first one
of degree. Greater, quicker, or else more highly elabo
rate is the sensitiveness of the beings that appear to
have minds, as it is shown in their expressive functions.
Duller, or slower, or else simpler, appears the phys-

22 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

ical sensitiveness of the non-mental being or function
when the environment changes.

But it is not merely this very general difference in
degree which we note when we consider this discrimi
nating sensitiveness as a general sign of the presence
of mind. If we come closer to the facts, we next note
that the general sensitiveness of the beings that have
minds determines itself, as we watch it, in various
special ways, and expresses itself in conduct, whose
relation to the former experience of the creature in
question, and whose apparent spontaneity and varia
bility it concerns us to study. Let us, therefore, ex
amine a little more closely the various classes of signs
of mind.

§ ii. (i) The sensitiveness of the psychically en
dowed beings first manifests itself by what, with a
ready sympathy, we easily interpret as signs of satis
faction or of dissatisfaction, of pleasure or of pain,
and of various emotions. These signs, in their simplest
forms, are so well known that we need hardly describe
them. Where, as in the earthworm, we can detect
nothing that we ordinarily call intelligence, we seem
to be able to note the signs of pain. Writhing, with
drawal from a source of injury, and other simple move
ments of an obviously protective character, are such
elementary signs of dissatisfaction. Still other move
ments, even in very low forms of life, seem to indicate
satisfaction. Higher up in the animal scale we meet

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 23

with reactions of fear, of anger, of joy, of the more
elaborate forms of desire, and, in the end, of numerous
other emotional states. We may for the present class
all these as the SIGNS OF FEELING. The beings that
have minds thus seem to us, from the first, to show
signs of more or less immediately valuing, or estimat
ing, their own state, or their own relation to their
environment.

It must be remarked that we are not here at all con
cerned with the question whether our usual interpreta
tion of these kinds of feelings in case of lower animals,
and especially in case of animals far distant from our
selves, is an actually correct interpretation. In case of
human beings, our interpretations of such signs of men
tal life are subject to a social control that makes us
able to criticise, with more or less success, their ac
curacy. But in case of lower animals, such control is
no longer possible. Nevertheless, the signs of mental
life that we seem to get, the movements that we are
disposed to interpret as of psychical significance, in
case of organisms decidedly distant in character from
our own, are often so simple as to suggest at once a
certain useful analysis of our own mental processes,
when we compare the latter with the mental processes
which these creatures seem to exhibit. For the human
being shows us signs of feeling that are inseparable
from the signs which he gives us of his intelligence or
of his volition. Hence we do not at once so easily dis-

24 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

tinguish between his feelings and the rest of his mental
life. The lower organism that shows no indications of
higher intelligence, but that simply indicates what we
readily take to be a state of feeling, may indeed not
be exhibiting to us any genuine sign of consciousness
whatever. Or, at least, if the signs do stand for a gen
uine consciousness, the psychologist may be unable to
interpret the facts with the clearness possible in case
of human beings. Yet the analogy of these simpler
reactions to certain aspects, present in the behaviour
of human beings, are useful to us for the purpose of
beginning an analysis both of the functions and of
the mental processes that appear in connection with
higher organisms. Hence the use of these symptoms
that, while extremely simple, still seem to us to mani
fest mental life. We cite them here, not because their
interpretation is psychologically certain, but because
they attract our attention to an aspect of mental life
which we shall henceforth distinguish, namely, the as
pect of the feelings.

§ 12. (2) The second manifestation of the sensitive
ness of beings that appear to us to have minds takes
the form of tendencies on their part to discriminate
between the various kinds of pliysieal facts and pro
cesses in tJieir environment, to react to some and not
to others, and to react in sucJi a way, to tJiose by
which they are influenced, as seems to show us that
they discriminate between these various classes of

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 2$

physical facts. The manifestations of sensitiveness
which thus appear are very closely bound up with
those signs of feeling, that is of satisfaction and
dissatisfaction, which we have just characterised. On
the other hand, these signs of sensitiveness to the
physical differences of the environment tend from
the very first to a far greater specialisation than is
possessed by the mere signs of feeling as such.
Thus, the creature endowed with what we take to be
mental characteristics may appear to be sensitive to
the presence of light, and sensitive to differences in
intensity of light or in the colour of the light. Or it
may respond to considerable jars and shocks which
occur in the physical environment. Or again, it may
behave differently according to whether the more deli
cate form of vibration which constitutes a sound is
present or not, or according as it is touched or not
by an external physical object. Its reactions in the
presence of such stimuli may take the simple form of
approaching the source of the stimuli, or of otherwise
moving so as to increase the stimuli, as if the resulting
experiences were agreeable. Or the reactions may seem
to express dissatisfaction with some stimulus, through
a tendency to remove the organism from exposure
thereto. But on the basis of these more fundamental
and simple reactions of approach and retreat there
develop, in all higher creatures, a very richly varied
collection of responses for which the only general

26 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

description is tJiat tJiey tend to be different for different
stimuli, and tJic same for the same stimulus. Thus,
the reactions to light tend to include the acts
which we interpret as looking. They may also tend
to involve a vast number of reactions which we
interpret as involving discriminations of colours and
shades. And similar varieties exist in case of other
senses.

Now it is true that, in all the higher animals, such
discriminating sensitiveness shows itself, at least in
the animal that has for some time been exposed to
disturbance, principally in connection with the signs
of mind that we shall mention in our subsequent
enumeration — that is, in connection with the signs of
what is called recognition, of intellect, or of choice.
Yet all the higher and more complex reactions of an
animal must depend upon its power to discriminate
between the various disturbances that come to it from
without. Whatever habits it may acquire, however
much it may seem to be independent of its present
situation, and dependent upon its past experience, still
its present behaviour is, in all normal cases, sure to
be decidedly influenced by its present relation to its
environment The signs of mind thus obtained are
the SIGNS OF SENSORY EXPERIENCE ; and so the dis
criminating sensitiveness of any creature to the im
pressions which the environment is constantly making
upon its organism is, quite apart from the relation

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 2J

of this sensitiveness to the signs of feeling, a highly
important factor in determining our estimate of the
sort of mental life that the creature possesses.

§ 13. It seems well to add here some words as to
the psychological uses and the limitations of the pres
ent class of the signs of mind. In our intercourse
with human beings we sometimes too readily overlook
the importance of the present relations of the organism
to the environment as determining what goes on in
mental life. Thus, a teacher may be disposed to
charge a pupil with stupidity, when a closer exami
nation reveals the fact that the defect in the child's
conduct is due to some slighter derangement of sense
organs. So the short-sighted or the astigmatic pupil
may be accused of stupidity, or inattentiveness, or even
of malicious unwillingness to study, because his defect
of vision makes him unable to discriminate objects seen
on a blackboard at a certain distance, or in certain rela
tionships to one another. Similar accusations may be
even more easily made with injustice in case a pupil suf
fers from a slight deafness. In all such instances the
failure to make a correct diagnosis of mental life de
pends upon not observing, or upon not interpreting cor
rectly, the signs of the presence or absence of a certain
condition of sensitiveness to present impressions, on the
part of the organism in question. In other words, the
signs of mental life are misinterpreted, in such wise
that what is due to a defect of sense organs is judged

28 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

as a defect of the intellect, or of the will, in other
words, as a defect in the habits and in the self-direction
of the pupil. It follows that the study of mind must
always take account of tlic difference between wJiat is
due to tJic present relation of the creature to its environ
ment, and what is due to the relation between its present
experience and its past acquisitions.

§ 14. Meanwhile it is indeed also important to note,
in the case of this form of the discriminating sensi
tiveness, quite as much as in the signs of feeling, that
we are unable to conclude from the mere presence of a
certain kind of reaction to sensory stimulation that
tJic creature in question is certainly possessed of sucJi
mental life as we ourselves have when similar dis
criminations take place in us. The general rule
already mentioned holds, that decidedly low organ
isms and that in general the plants may respond in
what seems to us a decidedly discriminating way to
disturbances of the environment, when nevertheless
the psychologist finds it of no service to his science
to attribute mental life to the organisms in question.

In recent biological research a tendency has conse
quently appeared to describe the apparently sensitive
and discriminating reactions of lower organisms in
terms of a phraseology that does not presuppose the
existence of any mental life whatever. In such cases
one names the stimulus that proves to be effective, such
as light, colour, the touch of a solid object on the surface

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 29

of the organism, or something of the kind. One names
also the kind of reaction which this stimulus provokes
in a given organism. Thus, some organisms turn them
selves towards the light when they are exposed to the
light, or else go through certain reactions that end in
getting them away from the light. Other organisms
respond in a highly sensitive way to the presence of
moving objects in their environment. In the researches
here in question the effort is made to describe these
characteristic reactions in terms of certain purely physi
cal and chemical processes which occur in the organ
isms exposed to the stimulations. And the reactions
receive names accordingly — names intended merely to
describe the relation of the organism to the stimulus,
and perhaps to define the hypothetical nature of the
physical or chemical process to which the reaction may
be due. Thus, in botany, the term " heliotropism " has
been used to name a well-known, typical reaction of
certain plants when exposed to sunlight. Professor
Loeb in a well-known book l has used the general term
" tropism " to name any uniform and characteristic re
action of an organism to its environment such as is
the turning of a plant to the light, or the flying of a
moth into the flame. Such a "tropism" Loeb explains
as due to physical and chemical processes. From this
point of view, the presence of what we call discriminat-

1 Loeb, Comparative Physiology of the Brain and Comparative Psy
chology. New York, Putnams, 1900.

3O OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

ing sensitiveness in the responses of an organism, is, by
itself alone, only a proof of the presence of certain
physical processes occurring in the organism when it is
disturbed in a particular way. From the point of view
of Loeb it is not even any essential character of these
" tropisins " that they involve a nervous system. Simple
organisms that possess no nervous system also show
these " tropisms." Organisms normally possessed of a
nervous system may retain a considerable part of their
discriminating sensitiveness even when, by experimen
tal interference, their nervous mechanisms have been
put out of function, so far as the "tropisms" in ques
tion are concerned.

Furthermore, even in ourselves, in whom our power
to discriminate between the various disturbances that
affect our organs of sense, is certainly bound up with
our conscious and mental functions, it nevertheless
remains the case that the activities of our sense organs
are due to physical and chemical processes of the same
general kind as those that occur in organisms so low that
the followers of Loeb would regard them as showing no
sufficient evidence of the presence of mind. It fol
lows that discriminating- sensitiveness to tJie present dis
turbances of our sense organs is never by itself alone a
sufficient sign of in hat tJie psychologist is obliged to re
gard as a mental process. Nevertheless, in beings tJiat
for otJtcr reasons we regard as possessed of mind, there is
no doubt tJtat this discriminating sensitiveness possesses

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 31

a very great importance for tJie interpretation of what
mental life is taking place. Here, as so often elsewhere,
the higher involves the lower. If we merely see a crea
ture respond to the lesser differences in his physical
environment, we are indeed not sure what sort of mind
this creature possesses, or whether he possesses any
mind at all, so far as the psychologist can hope to study
his life. But, on the other hand, if a creature does pos
sess a mind, we can never understand this mind unless
we know what discriminating sensitiveness is present.

It also remains true that where we are sure of the
presence of mind, we observe a very highly developed and
varied sensitiveness to sense impression to be present,
whenever the other signs of mind groiv numerous and
important. Thus, the artist is distinguished from other
men not merely by his acquired habits, and by his voli
tions, but by his sensitiveness to certain special disturb
ances of his sense organs. He responds to colours or to
tone, either in a more discriminating way, or in a more
emotional way, than other men show. In general, the
genius of any type is such because of the sort of sensi
tiveness that he exhibits to certain kinds of present
experience, as well as because of the habits and the
voluntary tendencies that he ultimately develops on
the basis of this peculiar sensitiveness. The mechanic,
the naturalist, the business man, the administrator, the
philosopher, no matter how highly developed their other
functions may be, differ from one another by virtue of

32 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

the sorts of discrimination that they show in dealing,
from moment to moment, with the condition of their
environment as it passes before them. Where one's
senses do not discriminate, one's thought is incapable
of forming abstract ideas such as are adequate to the
facts. Persons who do not possess certain senses may
develop a very high degree of intelligence. But the
character of this intelligence is profoundly affected by
the defects of sensation to which such persons are sub
ject. While the relation between sense experience and
acquired habit will become a little clearer farther on, it
is already possible to say that, to adapt an old phrase,
there is nothing in the intellect which is not affected by
what occurs in t/ie region of the senses ; so that as our
sensitiveness to present stimulations varies, our whole
mental constitution, even on the highest level, is af
fected. Hence, the signs of discriminating sensitiveness
remain among the most important of the evidences that
we can use in analysing mental life, and in discovering
the laws that determine its development.

§ 15. We have now considered two aspects of that
discriminating sensitiveness to present stimuli which the
beings that seem to us to have minds manifest, viz., the
signs of feeling and of sensory experience. But we said
above that the relation of a creature's sensitiveness to
its former experience would also interest us. In fact, a
still more remarkable aspect of animal sensitiveness
than the ones yet noticed appears, in simple forms,

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 33

decidedly low down in the scale, becomes in certain lines
of evolution rapidly more and more important higher
up, and reaches its highest expression in man. The
animal, and especially the vertebrate animal, in propor
tion to its elevation in the mental scale, shows a disposi
tion to be determined in its present action by what has
happened to it in the past. That is, it is not merely sensi
tive in particular ways to particular changes ; but it seems
to learn by experience. What response the organism
makes at any given time is determined not merely by its
inherited structure, nor yet by present sensory disturb
ances, but, in addition, by the results of former stimuli,
which have affected it during its intercourse with its
world. This capacity to be moulded by experience
greatly elaborates the discriminating sensitiveness of the
organism that is able thus to appear to learn. Wher
ever this capacity assumes its higher and more complex
forms, the signs of such plasticity, of such power to be
taught by the world in which the animal lives, consti
tute, when taken together, the signs of intelligence, as
well as the signs of habitual voluntary conduct.

It is true that, in ourselves, nervous functions which
seem to have no mental aspect, are still often moulded
by experience. Not every case then of this sort of
plasticity is itself a sign of mental life. In fact, all the
so-called "acquired characters" of animal organisms
plainly involve, in some measure, a capacity to be
moulded by physical experiences. But, once more, the

34 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

matter is one of degree. The power to show the effects
of past experience is, in its more elaborate forms, the
most persuasive of all the signs of the presence of
mind. Especially convincing is this sign when it ap
pears as a power to apply the results of former ex
perience in the adjustment of an animal's actions to
decidedly novel conditions. When wild animals, after
having experienced something of the nature of traps,
become especially skilful in detecting and avoiding new
sorts of traps, we do not easily doubt that this is a sign
of some sort of intelligence. When ( as is narrated in
an account quoted by Romanes) an elephant, taught to
pick up articles and pass them to the man who is on
his back, detects at once the character of some novel
article (e.g. a sharp knife), and guided by some subtler
indication, handles this novel article carefully, or with
a careless haste, we are sure that this acquired skill
indicates the presence of mental life of some highly
developed kind.

§ 1 6. Decidedly different is the case where the ac
tions of an animal show great apparent present skill in
their successful adjustment to surrounding conditions,
while, nevertheless, the adjustment in question seems to
be largely an inherited function of the animal, which is
only in part, perhaps in very small part, moulded by the
animal's own past experience. In this case we call the
actions that we observe cases of relatively unmodified
instinct. The signs of unmodified instinct cannot of

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 35

themselves be regarded as signs of what, from the psy
chologist's point of view, is identical with intelligence or
with conscious volition. The most marvellous develop
ments of unmodified instinctive functions occur in in
vertebrate animals, especially among the insects ( e.g.
ants, bees, and wasps). While these instincts get in
some respect readjusted to passing experience, they are
sometimes remarkably perfect apart from the influences
of any past experience. The instincts of the higher
vertebrates are generally a good deal moulded by the
experiences of the individual animal, so that although
an important aspect or portion of the functions may be
directly inherited, the mind of such an animal is never
theless subject in its growth to the laws of the intelli
gence and is here seldom free from great modifications
during the life of its possessor. In man the inherited
instincts, although they lie at the basis of all our intel
lectual life, get so much modified and moulded by our
experience that we generally fail to recognise their pres
ence as instincts. Yet, as James and others have
shown, man has, at the outset, an extremely large num
ber of elaborate and inherited instinctive predispositions
to given sorts of conduct.

In so far, however, as we leave out of account the rel
atively unalterable inherited instincts, we can then say
that by the signs of intelligence and of the presence of
voluntary although habitual conduct, we mean those
signs which show an animal's plasticity in tJie presence of

36 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

experience, and especially its skill in adjusting the results
of past experience to the meeting of novel situations.

§ 17. It will be observed that, in case of the class of
signs of the presence of mind here in question, all such
signs are intimately bound up with those described
under the previous head, and cannot exist apart from
them. The animal which at present shows that its con
duct is affected by the results of former experience,
generally displays this influence by being sensitive to
aspects of its environment to which it would otherwise
not adjust itself. Furthermore, as we shall see when
we come further to examine the mental processes which
accompany intelligent behaviour, many of these pro
cesses involve certain mental states called images, or
ideas, or called by similar names. Such states we shall
find to be similar to these which present external dis
turbance of sense organs would arouse. And, as we
shall also find, the existence of these various states and
processes proves to be explicable only in case we lay
stress upon the relation between the animal's present
external sense disturbances and its former experiences.
In other words, even its present sensitiveness involves
mental features which, whenever it is really intelligent,
are different from what they would have been in case
certain other experiences had not preceded them. We
are consequently unable to deal with the mental pro
cesses involved in genuinely intelligent actions, with
out taking account of something more than the present

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 37

discriminating sensitiveness of the animal's organism.
Yet this something affects the present state of its con
sciousness. Hence the study of phenomena of the
present class is very naturally distinguished from the
study of the phenomena, physical or mental, which
have to do with the present disturbance of the animal's
organs of sense, and is nevertheless very closely bound
up with the latter study.

§ 1 8. There seems to be need of a name whereby we
may distinguish and characterise the group of signs of
mind here in question. We have already used the
name " plasticity." But this name naturally suggests
present modifications of an animal's behaviour, as well as
the relation of its present behaviour to its former life.
The name ''intelligence," which we have also used, im
plies distinguishing certain mental processes as having
to do with the knowledge about its world which the
intelligent animal shows. While this name is indeed
applicable in case of all the functions here in question,
it does not, so expressly as we could wish, lay stress
upon the fact that the intelligent activities are always
due, in creatures such as ourselves, to the influence of
former experiences upon present habits and upon
present consciousness. Moreover, all these intelligent
activities are also more or less expressions of will.
They constitute conduct as well as show intellect.
Furthermore, we need at this stage of our inquiry a
name that lays stress quite as much upon the externally

38 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

observable character of certain signs of mind as upon
the inner character of the accompanying mental pro
cesses themselves. I suggest therefore as a good name
for the present type of signs of mental life the term
DOCILITY. By tJie docility of an animal we mean the
capacity sJiown in its acts to adjust these acts not merely
to a present situation, but to the relation between this
present situation and what has occurred in the former life
of this organism. The same term "docility" we shall
also come to apply later to the mental processes which
accompany these external manifestations of the ten
dency to profit by former experience. The term
" docility " is chosen therefore as a convenient name both
for the physical manifestations of the animal's power
to profit by experience, and for the mental processes
that accompany this same power.

It will be noticed that we do not here distinguish
signs of the possession of intellect from signs of the
possession of a will. As we shall hereafter see, the
so-called will and intellect of ordinary psychological
study are but two aspects of a single process.

§ 19. We now come to still another group of the
signs of mental life. The adjustment of an organism
to its environment involves everywhere not merely the
reception of impressions from without, but the occurrence
of responses which are in some sense initiated within the
organism. All the signs of mind without exception
include the reaction of the creature that possesses the

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 39

mind to the world in which it lives. Yet in some cases
our attention, as we study an organism, is more attracted
by what happens to the organism, that is, by what comes
to it from without ; in other instances our attention is
more attracted by the novel character of tlie response itself
which the creature makes to the conditions in which we
find it. In the one case we are disposed to say that the
animal which we are observing merely shows signs of
being disturbed. In the other case, we are likely to say
that this animal shows "spontaneity" of movement.
Now when we speak of " spontaneity" we speak of
what common sense regards as one of the most charac
teristic signs of the presence of mind. Yet before we
can estimate the value of this sign, we have to consider
somewhat carefully in what sense spontaneity is ever
observable in the actions of a living creature, and in
what sense this spontaneity, when it appears to exist,
can be of any use to us as a mark of mental life.

§ 20. The discriminating sensitiveness with which we
began the series of the signs of mental life generally
does not seem to us to be something very noticeably
spontaneous on the part of the animal that shows it.
When a creature is disturbed by an external cause, and
shows signs of pleasure or of pain, we have indeed its
own reaction to its world — a reaction which may be
very characteristic of its own special type of life. But,
on the other hand, the particular reaction seems to us
to be rather directly due to the disturbance than to be

40 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

something initiated from within the animal organism.
Yet in some sense such relative initiation from within
always takes place. For what the disturbed creature
does, depends on what nervous centres it has. On the
other hand, when, in the absence of any disturbance
that, at the moment, seems to us notable, a living
creature moves about (as so often happens in very vari
ous grades of animal life), we then speak of " spontane
ous movements," and easily think of them as initiated
directly from within the organism. If an animal is
obviously disturbed by light or by sound, and shows
merely the usual signs of seeing or of hearing, we are
likely to regard this mainly as a direct response to an
outer impression. But when a dog, in the absence of
his master, begins to show signs of restlessness, and,
running to the window, looks out in a way that we
regard as indicating a desire to look for his master's
return, this we are disposed to consider a relatively
" spontaneous activity." Or when a man, made angry
by a blow, returns the blow instantly, we may regard
this merely as an instinctive response to a present dis
turbance. But when another man, after brooding over
an injury, writes a challenge to a duel, or when he plans
the murder of his enemy, common sense regards this as
a relatively " spontaneous activity," and may attribute it
to what is called the " free will " of the individual in
question.

But our estimate of this contrast between the so-

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 41

called "direct response" of a living being to its
environment, and the apparently " spontaneous activ
ity" of the same or of some other living creature,
appears in a somewhat different light if we consider,
not merely what we have called the present discrimi
nating sensitiveness of the creature in question, but
that docility of a higher organism upon which we
have now insisted. We know that what an animal
at present does may be a result, not merely of the
momentary stimulation, but also of great numbers of
past habits. These habits may affect present con
duct in such wise that what is now done is rather a
repetition of some former act than a fitting response
to a present situation. Thus, when a tune " runs in
one's head," the singing of the tune may seem to an
external observer a very " spontaneous " kind of
action. Closer examination may, however, show how
the singing of the tune is due to the past habit of
singing it, and to the fact that this habit has been
reawakened in some way through its accidental con
nection with a passing present experience. It results
that, when we take into account the combined effect of
sensitiveness and docility, ^ve have very much to limit
the extent to which we can judge the activities of any
animal to be even relatively spontaneous. And from
this point of view the so-called spontaneous move
ment of the undisturbed animal may turn out to be
habitual adjustments to stimuli — and to stimuli that

42 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

we have failed to notice in our observations of the
creature in question. Thus, when we take into con
sideration both the present impressions and the habits
of the being in question, the whole appearance of
" spontaneity " may seem to vanish ; and we may
come to regard the reaction as a purely " mechanical
adjustment," determined by current events and pre
vious habits. From this point of view, even the
plans of the revengeful man, slowly maturing, and
resulting in his challenge or in his crime, may now
seem to us to involve no new evidences of mind
besides those which we may characterise in terms of
sensitiveness and docility. For his enemy has aroused
him, and he is by habit a fighting man.

§ 21. Nevertheless, when we follow the activities
of beings high up in the scale of mental life, and
even when we follow some of the processes which
occur lower down in the animal kingdom, where the
evidences of mental life seem doubtful, we do meet
many signs which we fail thus easily to describe in
terms either of the present discriminating sensitive
ness, or of the gradually acquired habits of the
organism, or of both combined, so far as we can at
the outset judge of them. In case of our own minds,
we also observe a good many processes which we
cannot readily reduce to the discoverable laws of our
docility, and which we are equally unable to explain
by a reference to the present disturbance of our

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 43

sense organs. That all such phenomena must con
form to some sort of law, every psychological investi
gation naturally presupposes. For a scientific inquiry
is concerned with what one hopes to reduce to rule.
On the other hand, the explanation of such phenom
ena may actually have to be sought in other direc
tions than those which we follow when we consider
merely our sensitiveness and our docility.

This is not the place to determine as yet whether
such special explanations of the processes in question
will finally prove to be necessary. We are considering,
thus far, merely the signs of mind. What interests us is
that there are phenomena which, prima facie, suggest
that something at least relatively spontaneous is occur
ring — something due to what goes on within an organ
ism, and something not easily describable either in
terms of the present disturbances of sense organs or
in terms of the already acquired habits of the organ
ism. Phenomena of this kind appear most prominently
in such cases as the following. First, an animal may
be in a situation where it will have to learn a new
art of some kind, in case it is to become suitably adapted
to its environment. For example, an imprisoned ani
mal may have to learn how to get out of the cage,
in case it is to reach food or comfort. Its present
sense impressions do not lead to successful responses.
Its already acquired habits may prove, at first, in
adequate to guide it to successful escape. It is, namely,

44 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

not intelligent enough to adjust these habits to the
novel situation through any sort of direct examination
of the facts before it. The animal may struggle for
a good while, and then finally escape. In thus escap
ing it may establish new habits, which will lead it to
escape more readily if imprisoned again. In this
case, it indeed does not occur to us that the process
is one involving anything incapable of reduction to
law. But, on the other hand, we may have to take
account of other factors besides the simple docility
of the creature, and of something over and above its
inherited instincts, before we can fully understand the
process whereby this art was learned. The descrip
tion of what happens, in so far as we can get such
description, does indeed turn out to be, in the sup
posed case, comparatively simple. A process of " trial
and error" seems to take place, and this process
results, after numerous failures, in a chance success.
Yet this very process certainly involves features that
are somewhat different from those by which an
animal which has been repeatedly fed learns the
place where its food is customarily given to it. And
it may therefore prove to be worth while to give a
special name to the kind of process which this series
of trials and errors involves.

Or, in the second place, on a very much higher level
of mental life, an inventor, or a scientific investigator,
may long stand baffled in presence of a problem be-

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 45

longing to his art or science. He may finally solve the
problem. In doing so, he may at the same time invent
a new method of procedure which henceforth becomes
applicable, by himself or by other men, to similar prob
lems. The process of discovering this original solution
of the problem may well involve elements that need a
name of their own. Neither one who observes from
without the activities of such a person, nor one who
examines from within their psychological characteris
tics, may be able to describe what happens wholly in
terms of the discriminating sensitiveness to experience
which the organism manifests, or which the mind pos
sesses at any one moment. Nor may such an observer
be able to reduce the process to the laws governing the
ordinary docility of this organism or of this mind. In
such a case the signs of mind visible to an outward
observer seem to need a name of their own. The
mental processes involved seem to stand somewhat by
themselves, and to suggest, if they do not necessitate,
peculiar modes of describing their laws.

Or, finally, a man in a perplexing situation, a states
man in the presence of some new political problem, a
reformer at some crisis in social affairs, may, after long
deliberation, resolve upon some highly original mode
of conduct. In such cases the result may be momen
tous for the whole subsequent history of one or of many
nations. We may or we may not be wrong to refer the
decision in such a case to what common sense calls the

46 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

"free will" of the man in question. It may or it may
not turn out that the act of choice was as necessary
as is sneezing or digestion. But whatever the result
of inquiry may be, the act as it stands possesses for
any observer characteristics which seem to indicate a
peculiar kind of mental life. This type of mental life
may need a name for which our former terms, " sensi
tiveness " and " docility," appear distinctly inadequate.
§ 22. In all these classes of cases it will be observed
that we need not suppose anything of an entirely novel
character to have occurred, and that in fact we need not
make any presuppositions as to whether any essentially
novel factors are involved at all. But it is also certain
that such learning of new arts, such inventions, such
apparently original decisions, are phenomena that have
a very considerable importance as symptoms of mind,
and that tend to suggest to us a type of mental life
somewhat distinct from any other. As to the fitting
name to give to responses of this kind, we have already
pointed out that they very readily suggest the word
"spontaneity." The imprisoned animal, apart from its
previous training, appears "spontaneously" to learn
how to escape. The inventor "spontaneously" solves
the problem. The man at the practical crisis shows
what we call his power of "spontaneous" choice. Vet
the word "spontaneous," although in common usage, has
unhappy suggestions attending it. It seems to imply
that something occurs apart from any conditions what-

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 47

ever. And as we have seen, psychology has no inter
est in recognising uncaused events. And very obviously
we can never observe that a given event has no causes,
while here we are merely endeavouring to find a name
whereby to characterise a type of observed events.
For the same reason, the term " creativeness " has
false suggestions. The most of the phenomena that
are here in question have very prominently some of
the characters which common sense has in mind when
we speak of uacts of will" or of "voluntary" pro
cesses. Yet, as we shall later see, the term " will " is so
variously used by common sense as to make it conven
ient for our present purpose to avoid determining our
classification of the signs of mind by means of a use
of that word. Much that is relatively habitual is also
voluntary. All voluntary conduct depends in part on
docility. And so far as we are at present concerned,
these relatively novel acts, these signs of apparent
spontaneity, which we are defining, may prove to be
either what common sense calls voluntary, or what are
to be regarded as involuntary. Their novelty, and the
fact that they cannot be reduced by any direct observa
tion to the signs of the two former types, that is, to
the signs of the sensitiveness or to the signs of docility
— this is here what we are concerned to emphasise.

We are aided in finding a name for such processes
by remembering that, in the modern theory of evolu
tion, a difference has long been recognised in the char-

48 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

acteristics possessed by living organisms, between what
is due to heredity and what is due to variation. The
characters of any organism are, namely, either repeti
tions of ancestral characters, or else characters that
appear in the individual organism, without having
been due to such repetition, unchanged, of ancestral
traits. And of the variations, that is, of the new indi
vidual characters that appear in an organism, some
may be acquired during the life of the individual in
question. Such variations, in fact, are all those due to
injuries and mutilations, and all those due to the for
tunes and experiences of the individual organism. But,
on the other hand, some of the individual variations
may be due to congenital causes ; so that, in addition to
what it inherits from its ancestors, the organism has
from the very beginning relatively independent vari
ations, which are characteristic of itself, and which
are not repetitions of anything which its ancestors
possessed.

Now in that portion of the life of an organism which
interests the psychologist, the successive activities that
appear fall into classes which somewhat roughly cor
respond to the classes of phenomena in which the theory
of evolution is interested when it considers the relation
of the life-history of each organism to the race from
which the organism sprung. To the process of hered
ity in the race corresponds, in the individual, what
we have called its docility; for by heredity an organ-

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 49

ism of one generation repeats the characters of its
ancestors, while the docility of an individual involves
the tendency of its present acts to repeat its past
conduct. On the other hand, to what the evolutionists
call the variations of the individual organism when
compared to its race, there correspond, in the life-
history of each individual, the relatively novel acts
and experiences of this individual — the acts and ex
periences, namely, which are not repetitions of its
own former acts and experiences. Now some of these
novelties in the life of an individual seem to us to be
more directly due, as we have seen, to external disturb
ances. But, in case of the facts that we are now con
sidering, we come to variations in the conduct of an
individual which seem to us to be due, in part, neither
to external disturbances nor to the effects of former
habits. These new acts play the same part in the
life of an individual that what the Darwinian theory
calls spontaneous variations play in the life of a race.
Just as congenital variations are due, not to the ex
ternal disturbances that come to an organism, but to
the processes that brought it into existence, so here,
in the present class of the signs of mind, we have to
do with variations or novelties of conduct that can
not easily be referred either to the former habits or
to the present sense experiences of the organism in
question.

In consequence the characteristic of the signs of

50 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

mental life which we have here in question might well
be summed up by speaking of the variation of conduct
in general, or by using the term "variability," or the
other term " spontaneous variability," to characterise
the process in question. Yet in order to avoid the
various confusions to which the term " spontaneous
variation " has given rise in evolutionary theory, and in
order to avoid also the indefiniteness that attaches to
the otherwise used and extremely general terms " varia
tion " and " variability," it seems better to find still a
new, although a closely related term, for the particular
kind of variability here in question.

I propose then to call the signs of mind which are
here in question, signs of INITIATIVE, or more particu
larly of MENTAL INITIATIVE. The word " initiative"
suggests that where initiative is present there is at least
considerable apparent novelty of behaviour on the part
of the creature that exhibits initiative. The word is
not meant to convey the conception that the initiative
in question involves independence of definite causal
connection. We have no difficulty in speaking of a
new organism as "initiated" by the process of genera
tion. Yet it does not occur to us to suppose that the
new organism is disconnected from its ancestors, or
that its ancestors are not the cause of its initiation. TG
speak of the beginning or of the initiation of anything,
is simply to call attention to an observable fact, and
is not to make any presupposition as to the presence

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 51

or absence of lawful connection between this fact and
previous phenomena. In speaking therefore of men
tal initiative, I merely call attention to the fact that
there are certain of the signs of mind which are pre
sented to us by tlie appearance of relatively novel acts in
tJie life of an intelligent creature, in cases where these
novel acts cannot be directly referred to the present
external disturbances to which the organism is subject.
The acquisition of new ways of behaviour, which are
not merely impressed upon the organism from without,
the appearance of inventive activities, the novel deeds
of genius, the momentous choices, upon which so much
in the life of individuals and of nations may depend
— these are all instances of the signs of mental
initiative.

§ 23. It remains, even in this introductory sketch,
to compare the signs of initiative with the signs of
docility, as evidences of the existence of mental pro
cesses, and to indicate the significance of the signs of
initiative. It must be distinctly admitted that it is
only where the signs of mental initiative appear in close
connection with the signs of docility that they are of
importance for the psychologist, or furnish any notable
evidence of the presence of significant mental life.
The mere fact that an organism does something which
it has never done before, and which is not wholly de-
scribable in terms of its present sensitiveness to ex
ternal disturbances, is in itself, apart from its relation

52 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

to intelligent activities, no sign that a valuable mental
function is going on. Thus, the first epileptic fit which
should appear in the life of one who was to be hence
forth an epileptic sufferer, would not be by itself any
sign of a psychologically important process, although
there might be some reason to speak of it as an ap
parently " spontaneous " physiological occurrence. For
the epileptic fit is not, like the new invention, a varia
tion of tJie already significant intelligent Jiabits of tJie
organism. In any case, the act which manifests men
tal initiative must have the character of a real adjust
ment to the environment, and must not be, like the
epileptic fit, a failure of adjustment. Furthermore,
even a new adjustment to the environment, in so far
as it possesses simply the character of a coming to
light of an inherited instinct, which has not previously
entered into or been affected by the habits of the or
ganism, is a change possessing no such psychological
significance as an invention or a novel choice may
possess. In the lives of human beings the sudden
appearance of instinctive functions not previously con
nected with the acquired habits of the organism occurs,
except at some points in the early development of
childhood, only in decidedly modified form. But in
such changes of behaviour as occur when a child first
walks, or when it rapidly passes to a new stage in the
acquisition of language, or even when later in youth
new relations to the opposite sex are determined by

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 53

instincts which previous experience has not at all ade
quately wrought upon — in all such cases the vari
ability of mental processes involved has a decidedly
different significance from that possessed by the forms
of mental initiative just exemplified. The sort of men
tal initiative which is especially in question in the present
discussion is that which appears when already acquired
and intelligent habits are decidedly altered, or are de
cidedly re combined, in such fashion as to bring to pass
a novel readjustment to our environment.

§ 24. Yet if inventions and critical choices are
classic instances of mental initiative, our instance of
the struggling animal, striving to escape from its
cage, has already shown us that the elementary forms
of mental initiative appear decidedly low down in the
scale of animal activities. We shall find hereafter that
the processes in question are very widely prevalent,
in all the manifestations of mind. A general under
standing of how such processes are to be explained,
despite the fact that they are not mere instances of
docility, and that they are not directly due to present
sense impressions, will throw no small light upon what
are usually regarded as amongst the obscurest ques
tions of psychological theory. Every teacher, in these
days, hears a great deal of "self-activity," and of
the supposed principle that every human mind in a
very large measure determines its own choices, its
own beliefs, and its own destiny. On the other hand,

54 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

every student of mental phenomena becomes early
acquainted with the view that all of our mental life
is due to environment and to training. Our environ
ment impresses us, because we are discriminatingly
sensitive. Our training becomes significant to us
because of our docility. To say that environment
and training suffice to determine our mental life in
evitably involves denying the presence in us of that
"spontaneity" upon which the partisans of mental
activity love to lay stress. But there are also many
students of mental life who add to the factors called
environment and training the now so well-known
hereditary factor, which is expressed in the original
constitution and in the permanent tendencies of our
organism. But heredity appears, from the cus
tomary point of view, to be as decidedly opposed as
are training and environment to the existing of spon
taneity. And those who regard heredity, environ
ment, and training as the sole factors determining
our mental life, are usually regarded as necessarily
opponents of those who look to "self-activity" as a
significant factor in our growth. Plainly a decision
as to the relation of all these factors, and as to the
possible existence of anything worthy to be called
" self-activity," depends upon a study of that side of
mental life which the signs here in question bring to
our notice. What we so far see is, that while some
of the apparently spontaneous activities of animals

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF MIND 55

and of men can indeed be explained by a more care
ful study of their present sensory disturbances, or
of their past habits, some of these seemingly sponta
neous doings involve processes that seem more stub
bornly to resist a reduction to the two other types.
It seems worth while to give these classes of phe
nomena, at least provisionally, their separate name.
Plainly they include much of what is often referred
to "free will." Plainly they also include a great
many phenomena of mental variability which seem
to be of a much less startling and momentous char
acter. But in so far as inventiveness also is included
among the manifestations of the type here in ques
tion, these phenomena appear to include much of
what is usually described as ingenuity, and so in
volve what is usually regarded as the intellect as well
as what is commonly conceived to be the will.

Here, therefore, as in the case of docility, the
phenomena of mind which are under consideration
include both those usually classed under the intellect,
and those usually considered under the head of the
will. For we show initiative both as to our know
ledge and as to our conduct.

§ 25. Under four headings we have now discussed
what amount in sum to three provisionally distinct
types of the signs of mind. The first type possesses
two sub-types, whose difference is, for the psychol
ogist, of great practical importance. We accordingly

56 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

discussed these two sub-types separately under our first
and second heads. They were respectively the two
sorts of signs of discriminating sensitiveness ; namely,
the signs of FEELING, that is, of satisfaction and dis
satisfaction ; and the signs of a tendency to discrimi
nate between the various SENSORY DISTURBANCES that
come to our organism from without. The signs of
these two types consisted throughout in modes of be
haviour of tJie organism ; for we are never able to dis
tinguish the signs of any sorts of mental states, apart
from that reaction of the organism to its environment
which accompanies these mental states. On the other
hand these signs, so far as they went, directly indi
cated to us merely the organism's present state, and
the relation of this state to external disturbances. The
second type of the signs of mind, discussed under our
third head, consisted of the signs of DOCILITY. They
are especially useful to the psychologist as indicating
the presence of what is called Intelligence and of
what is called Conduct. They are inevitably mingled
with and inseparable from the signs of the first type.
But they are signs of docility so far as they show us
that wJiat the organism now docs depends upon wJiat it
has done and upon wJiat Jias happened to it in the
past. On the higher level we regard these signs as
convincing indications of the presence of mind ; and
therefore the analysis of these signs and the study of
their laws becomes of great aid to us in the compre-

PHYSICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OE MIND 57

hension of mental processes. The third type of the
signs of mind we have defined as the signs of MEN
TAL INITIATIVE. They are suggested to us by such
variations of intelligent habits as cannot readily be
explained either by the present sense disturbances or
by the former experiences and habits of the organism
in question. While they are often suggested to us
by the phenomena that manifest what is often called
the will, they also appear in case of the processes of
the type of thoughtful invention ; and their relation
to what is usually called the intellect, as well as to
what is usually called the will, must form the topic
of our later study. But by analysing these signs,
even in this preliminary way, we have enabled our
selves to map out in advance the territory which
psychology must attempt to study.

CHAPTER III

THE NERVOUS CONDITIONS OF THE MANIFESTATION OF

MIND

§ 26. The organic conditions for all these manifes
tations of mind is the presence of a nervous system.
At all events, such signs of mental life as some have
believed to be present in organisms too low to show us
any differentiated nervous systems are such as to need
here no further mention. The externally observable
discriminating sensitiveness which everywhere accom
panies all the higher manifestation of mind is, physi
cally speaking, a property of nervous tissue.

Leaving to the anatomist and the physiologist every
extended description of the structure and functions of
our nervous system and of its instruments, viz., the
sense organs and the organs of muscular movement,
the psychologist can here only try to show very sum
marily what characters of the nervous system most
interest his own undertaking.

The nervous system consists, for our purposes, of a
vast collection of "elements," each one of which is a
"nerve cell" that, in addition to its minute central mass,
possesses prolongations which are either " nerve fibres "

53

NERVOUS CONDITIONS 59

or else are other so-called "processes," viz., minute
and multiformly branching extensions of the substance
of the nerve cell. These processes, extending, in the
central nervous system, from one cell to the immediate
neighbourhood of other cells, form an extremely com
plex network of finely divided threads of mosslike or of
mouldlike collections of short and long threads and
branchings. A current and authoritative but not per
fectly certain opinion holds that the processes of one
cell probably never really unite either with the processes
or with the central substance of any other cell. Thus
each cell, with its processes, lies it would seem side by
side with other cells, whose processes, intertwining like
the foliage of neighbouring trees with its own processes,
still never grow into its own substance, so that all
these " elements," i.e. cells, each with its own exten
sions, are anatomically independent. The nerve fibres
proper, which grow out of what are called the axis-
cylinder processes of cells, run often for long dis
tances unbroken through the nervous system, either
reaching their various terminal organs in the outer or
" peripheral" portions of the body, or else coming to an
end in tuftlike branchings in the immediate neighbour
hood of the cells whose functional relation to their own
parent cells they are destined to determine. Nerve
fibres often divide into branches of equal value, or else
send off, in their course through the central regions
of the nervous system, many accessory branches, which

60 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

may terminate as does the main fibre, but at points often
far removed from one another. Thus any given fibre,
with its branches and accessories, may serve to bring
its parent cell into some sort of relation to many other
regions of the central nervous system. On the other
hand, the anatomical independence of the elements
which has thus been probably made out suggests that
every cell has some sort of relative and subordinate
independence of function. When it has once received
any disturbances, it probably sends out, through its
processes and its fibre, its own sort of excitation ; but
very possibly this excitation does not pass over from
the terminations of the cell branches to any other ner
vous element without considerable alteration in form,
and perhaps in degree. It has been suggested by the
experimental work of several neurologists that what a
cell does to its neighbours or to the more distant cells
with which its fibres bring it into relation must be some
what analogous to "induction" as known in case of
electrical phenomena. From this point of view the
excitation of a cell through the excitation of its nerve
fibre or by any other means may " induce " other cells,
with which the first cell stands in relation, to give out,
in their turn, their own form of excitement, which they
then pass over by induction to yet other cells. In any
case, the known general structure of the nervous system
seems especially adapted (i) to the manifold propaga
tion of excitements in various directions, (2) to the con-

NERVOUS CONDITIONS 6 1

stant variation of the form of this excitement as it passes
from element to dement of the nervous system, and (3)
to the most complex influence of the excitations of one
part of the nervous system upon the independently
aroused excitations which happen to be present in other
parts of the system.

§ 27. The best-known division that exists in the
functions of the nervous system is that between the
sensory and the motor functions. Beginning in the more
external or peripheral regions of the organism, disturb
ances are constantly passing inwards from the sense
organs, where the fibres of the sensory nerves have
their outward endings. These sensory fibres carry phys
ical disturbances of some still unknown form to the
neighbourhood of more centrally situated cells, which
in their turn may, and in general obviously do, send the
excitation or its induced resultants to very various parts
of the still more centrally situated nervous tissue. The
rate at which the nervous disturbances are carried in
nerves is in general known, although not so accurately
in the sensory as in the motor nerves, and is from thirty
to forty metres per second. In the meantime, centrally
initiated physical disturbances are constantly passing
outwards over motor nerves to the terminations of these
nerves in muscles, glands, etc., where these disturbances
produce complex effects upon the organs of voluntary
and involuntary movement, upon the circulation, and
upon the secretions. In general, the sensory nerves, in

62 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

view of their actual relations to the rest of the organism,
are so disposed as to carry disturbances only inwards, and
the motor nerves so disposed as to carry only outwards,
although this law seems to be not absolute, but only a
resultant of the usual conditions. The sensory nerves
terminate outwardly, as has just been said, in sense
organs, which are in general so constructed as to expose
their nerve fibres to only one sort of physical excita
tion (as the fibres of the optic nerve are normally
exposed to the effects which light produces upon the
retina, the auditory nerve to the effects of sound
waves, etc.).

This division between sensory and motor nerves is,
in the first instance, a purely physical matter, and does
not by any means name functions that must have any
direct relation to our mental states. For disturbances
travelling inwards over sense nerves need not be passed
on through the nerve centres until they reach the level
of the cortex of the brain ; and unless they do reach the
cortex, we have no sensory experience, and the sensory
motor process then goes on without mental accompani
ment. Just so, very numerous motor currents pass out
wards from centres — i.e. from groups of cells situated
wholly in the spinal cord or elsewhere below the level
of the cortex — and are in no wise due to excitations
aroused in the cortex. In such cases the motor pro
cesses in question have no relation to our will. A
pigeon deprived of its brain hemispheres can fly, avoid-

NERVOUS CONDITIONS 63

ing obstacles ; can perch, balance, walk, etc., when
stimulated to such acts by appropriate sensory disturb
ances. It, however, no longer shows hunger, fear, love,
or similar sorts of discriminating sensitiveness, and
gives no sufficient signs of such intellectual life as
would characterise an uninjured pigeon. If left alone,
it rests in apparently absolute repose and indifference to
its environment. Driven from one perch, it merely flies
till it finds another. Thus the sensory excitations which
reach the brainless pigeon's nervous centres produce,
probably apart from any definite mental life, physical
disturbances of cells, such as stimulate in an always
rigidly determined serial succession (through the inter
mediation of motor nerves) just the right muscular fibres
which are needed to produce each time the pigeon's acts
of balancing, flying, or perching. Yet all this appears,
in the end, to involve none of the watchful, often
hesitant, tremulous, emotionally busy sensitiveness of
the normal pigeon. The brainless pigeon seems like a
delicate but strictly determined machine, which never
really seeks to escape, and never shows the least normal
concern for its own preservation, but merely perches
when it touches a perch, flies when it is in the air,
balances when it begins to fall — and all this with the
stubbornness of a steadily working clock.

So far, then, a sensory impression has appeared in our
account as a physical disturbance that passes inwards
from a sense organ over a sensory nerve. In the cen-

64 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

tral masses of cells such disturbances, occurring as they
do, at any moment, in great numbers, produce changes
that are often far-reaching, but that are usually deter
minate as regards their total outcome, and that often
are so quite apart from any signs of intellect, of feeling,
or of will. In most cases, however, the outcome, if defi
nite, is some sort of " adjustment to the environment,"
i.e. is of a nature to be, in general, serviceable to the
life of the organism. The adjustment is modified by
the endless interchange of excitations throughout the
central nervous system, whose enormous numbers of
relatively independent "elements," mutually inducing
different forms of excitement in one another as soon as
any of them are disturbed, tend both to the multiplica
tion and to the control of the effects of every disturb
ance. The useful movements that result are such as
they are because, in the end, groups of muscle fibres
get excited in a definite serial order for every complex
act. And this serial order is determined by the total
structure and the consequent functions of the central
nervous system.

§ 28. But now, where the signs of mind are definitely
shown, the accompanying nervous processes are still of
the same fundamental sort as in the cases just discussed.
The difference lies in the place, in the complexity, and
in the significance of the central nervous processes in
volved. When, as in our own cases, the cortex of the
brain is present and is actively functioning, it functions

NERVOUS CONDITIONS 65

as it does because of the current sense disturbances
which reach it. The result of the brain process is
always an outward-flowing, but very highly orderly — a
serially arranged — collection of disturbances which,
acting through the cooperation of lower centres, result
either in actual external movements, or in tendencies to
movement, or, finally, in the prevention of movements
which would be carried out, at the time, by the lower
centres if the latter were not under the control of the
brain. Intermediate between the ceaseless income of
the sensory disturbances that reach the cortex so long
as it is active, and the equally ceaseless outgo of the
motor processes (or of the processes tending to the con
trol of movements), that leave the cortex all through
our waking life, there are central processes occurring in
the form of an interchange of induced cellular disturb
ances among the elements of which the cortex of the
brain is composed. As there are some hundreds of
millions of these elements in the grey matter which
forms the surface of the brain, and as the intertwining
foliage of the branching forest of cell processes, together
with the masses of innumerable winding fibres that
wander from region to region of the brain, must deter
mine an august multiplicity of interrelations among
these elements, it is no wonder that these central pro
cesses should show a simply inexhaustible complexity.
Still more marvellous, however, from a purely physical
point of view, is the orderliness which reigns amid the

F

66 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

complexity. This orderliness is, in general, due to the
great law of habit. The brain tends to do tJic sort of
tiling tJiat it has already often done. The brain is,
meanwhile, persistently retentive of its own once-formed
habits regarding these interchanges of the activities of
its various elements whenever they are excited in partic
ular ways. And it is thus persistent to a degree which
we can never cease to regard with more wonder the
more we study the brain's functions. On the other
hand, the cortex remains, to a remarkably late period
in life, persistently sensitive to a great variety of new
impressions, and capable of forming at least a certain
number of specialised new habits — such as are involved
whenever we learn to recognise and name a new ac
quaintance, or to carry out a new business enterprise.
And all these things, it must be remembered, the cortex
accomplishes as a physical mechanism. If we change
- by experimental interference, by accident, by poison
ing, by disease — any of the physical conditions of the
cortex, we interfere with some or with all of these
functions. Meanwhile, if we at any time were to cut
off all sensory stimulations, the brain, as many facts
indicate, would either soon cease to act at all, or would
remain active only in a slight or in an almost utterly
insignificant way. On the other hand, so long as the
brain is active, it sends out motor stimulations, or
stimulations that tend to control or to suppress the
activities guided by lower centres. And it is precisely

NERVOUS CONDITIONS 6/

this motor outgo of the brain that determines the very
signs of mind which we discussed above.

Furthermore, while the brain is, during waking life,
full of general activity, it is now well known that every
definite outflowing process, as well as every defi
nite sensory stimulation, involves sharply localised
regions of the brain. Eye and ear, arm and leg, have
definite centres in the brain corresponding to the stimu
lation of the sense organ, or to the movements of the
limb. Each of the numerous habits of the brain means,
then, tendencies to the excitement of localised tracts and
paths under given physical conditions. An excitement
passing over one set of paths leads to one system of
external movements, e.g. from eye centre to hand
centre, when one sees and then grasps. If circum
stances vary the paths, they vary the motor results. It
is possible to have, in cases of localised brain disorder,
the survival of a few very complex habits of movement
in the midst of the utter wreck of all the other related
habits of the same grade of complexity and of similar
significance — as when a patient loses all power to
remember his native tongue except for a few surviving
words, chosen by the disease, as it were, either at
random or in more or less typical fashion, to outlast the
rest. In this case a few definite and localised habit-
worn paths for the induction of activity remain after all
the related paths of the region in question have been
destroyed.

68 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

Meanwhile, what the brain at any moment does, in
answer to the current sensory stimulations, is deter
mined both by its entire past history and by its inherited
"temperament" or original type of structure. For by
heredity the brain has come to be just this vast colony
of functionally united cells. And, on the other hand,
whatever has happened to the brain in the past has
meant some definite and usually sharply localised
interchange of induced activities among its elements.
Every such interchange has altered the minutest struc
ture of all the elements concerned, has established
localised paths between them for future inductions to
follow. They can never act again precisely as they
would have done had they not acted once in just this
way. And this is what is meant by saying that the
brain forms its habits. One must now, in addition,
note that this formation of habits may occur in the most
subtle fashions. Parts that have often functioned
together tend to function more easily together again.
This is true down to the minutest detail of localised
functions. But what is still more significant for all our
higher mental life is, that general forms or types of ac
tivity, Jiowever subtle their nature, when once they have
resulted from a given exchange of induced activities (due
to sensory stimulations], may tend thereby to become
henceforth more easily reexcited, so that the habits of our
brain may come to be fixed, not merely as to the mere
routine which leads to this or to that special act, but as

NERVOUS CONDITIONS 69

to the general ways in which acts are done. A given
" set " of the brain as a whole, that is, a given sort of
preparedness to be influenced in a certain way — yes,
even a given tendency to change, under particular con
ditions, our more specific fashions of activity — may
thus become a matter of relatively or of entirely fixed
habit ; so that, under given conditions, the brain, so long
as it remains normally intact, is sure to respond to cer
tain sensory disturbances by assuming this " set," by
being ready for this relatively new influence, or by
actually seeming to change even its specific past habits
themselves in a certain general but habitually predeter
mined direction, whenever given sorts of stimulation are
presented. It is known, for instance, that " fickleness "
of conduct, irrational change of plan of behaviour, can
itself become a hopelessly fixed habit in a given brain.
There is, then, no type of activity so general that some
brain cannot be trained to become habitually and
fatally predetermined to just that type of interchange
of internal functions, and so to that type of outward-
flowing activity. On the other hand, it is indeed true
that, owing to the localised character of the phenomena
which determine single habits, the training of one
specialised cerebral function, in any particular case,
may not result in the training of some other specialised
function, even where we, viewing the matter from with
out, have supposed that these two functions were very
intimately connected. The question as to just what

70 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

effect the training of any one special function will have
upon other functions, or upon the general tendencies of
the brain, is therefore always a question to be answered
by specific experience. This the teacher, in estimating
the general effects of new educational devices upon the
pupils, must always remember.

§ 29. Of the general relation of the activities of the
cortex to those of the lower nervous centres, and of the
relations between various activities of the cortex itself,
it still remains to say here a few words. The brain
cortex directs, by itself alone, and apart from the co
operation of lower nervous centres, no externally
observable motor processes. What it does is partly to
combine and elaborate, partly to guide by slight altera
tions, and partly to hold back or to inhibit the activi
ties which other centres, left to themselves, would carry
out in response to the sensory stimuli which reach
them. The brain also arouses the lower centres to
act in its service by substituting its own stimulations
for external disturbances. The character of the cortex
as an organ for preventing or " inhibiting" the functions
of lower centres is of very great importance, and well
exemplifies the sort of hierarchy which obtains among
our nervous centres. Within the brain itself a similar
hierarchy exists, and a similar system of mutual inhibi
tions gets formed on the basis of our experience.

§ 30. Upon the process of " inhibition," i.e. of
the prevention or overcoming of one form of nervous

NERVOUS CONDITIONS 7 1

excitement through the very fact of the presence of an
other, the organisation of all our higher life depends.
What, in any situation, we are restrained from doing is
as important to us as what we do. Tension, the mutual
opposition and balancing of numerous tendencies, is
absolutely essential to normal life. The brain receives,
at every waking instant, an enormous overwealth of
sensory stimulation. For instance, the habits of those
portions of the brain which receive the fibres of the
optic nerve, and of those portions which direct our
eye movements, are such- that every object of the least
note in our field of vision actually acts as a stimulus to
incite us to look directly at itself. Consequently, if
the eyes are idle, the presence of any one bright light
in the otherwise indifferent field of vision is a physical
disturbance, to which the natural motor response is the
turning of the eyes toward that light. And so, if the
field of vision is full of interesting objects, all of them
thus tend to excite various motor responses on the part
of the eyes. In order to look steadily, for even a
moment, in any one direction, we therefore have to
inhibit all of these tendencies except the one whose tri
umph means seeing the preferred object. This is only
one among the countless cases where the accomplish
ment of a given act means the inhibition of other acts
to which the brain is meanwhile incited by the presence
of some habitually effective stimulation.

As every normal stimulation that reaches our brains

/2 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

during our adult years is likely to appeal more or less
vigorously to some established brain habit, the need of
such suppression of possible motor processes is abso
lute and continuous. The problem of the inhibition
of those habits of movement whose presence at any
given moment would injure the useful adjustment of
our organisms to their environment is, despite its com
plexity, solved, in case of all the higher nervous cen
tres by the presence of certain general and very
characteristic physical processes whose nature is still
very ill understood, but whose beautiful adaptation
to their purpose we can already to some extent esti
mate. We have before spoken of what may be called
the general "set," or " sort of preparedness for a given
kind of excitation," which the brain at any moment
maybe brought to assume. This "set" is in general
itself the obvious result of a previous series of sensory
stimulations, and of an appeal to old habits, and it
may come to pass either suddenly or quite gradually.
Once assumed, any given " set " of the brain mani
fests itself by the fact that, for the time, one group of
sense experiences tends to arouse the motor habits that
have become attached to them in consequence of the
past experiences of the brain, while the motor habits
to which all other current sense impressions appeal are
in great measure inhibited. Yet these relatively in
effective sense impressions certainly reach, in most
cases, their centres in the brain ; for, if altered a

NERVOUS CONDITIONS 73

little from their current character, they may at once
assert their presence by calling out movements that
show concern in the alteration. A similar " set " may
be given by the action of the brain to a group of lower
centres, which then proceed to react automatically to
external stimuli until the whole process is cut off by
external stimuli, or by a new signal from the cortex ;
and while this " set " continues, all other motor habits
of the centres in question are inhibited.

§ 31. Examples, both of inhibition in general and
of its relation to the passing general " condition of
preparedness " of the higher and lower centres, are
easy to give. In general, all higher intellectual pro
cesses are accompanied by processes in the cortex
which appear, when seen from without, enormously
inhibitory. One absorbed in writing or reading lets
pass without response countless impressions which
pretty certainly reach the brain — impressions to which,
under ordinary circumstances, he would respond by
acts of looking, of listening, of grasping, or of other
more or less useful or playful types of adjustment.
Let him cease the higher activity, and he adjusts him
self more vivaciously to the lesser matters of his en
vironment. An absorbed public speaker, an actor, or
a man in a formal social company, inhibits those move
ments, however habitual they are in other company,
and however strong the momentary sensory solicitation
to them, which his habits have taught him to suppress

74 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

as being here "out of character." This word "char
acter," here names the mental equivalent of a given
"set" of brain. So long as one assumes the "char
acter" the well-practised inhibitions triumph. If one
goes home, or changes one's company, those former
inhibitions may vanish as if they never had been, and
it may be even impossible to reassume them, except in
particular surroundings. In case of the relations of
higher and lower centres, the " set " of a group of
lower nervous processes is well illustrated by the ac
tivity of walking, which consists of a regulated series
of motor adjustments to sensory stimulation, — leg move
ments, acts of balancing, etc. This series is largely
under the control of relatively lower centres, both in
the cortex and below. It may be initiated by a signal
from above. Once begun, it is continued with a con
sequent inhibition of all inconsistent muscular move
ments, and with little or no guidance from the more
complex groups of brain centres, until the signal to
pause is given. Then other activities of adjustment
take the place of the ones that have come to an end.
Thus one pauses in a walk through a garden to sur
vey more carefully the appearance of the flowers, to
do a piece of work that requires the skilful use of the
hands, etc. The rule of inhibition, as regards the
before-mentioned hierarchy of the nervous centres,
seems to be that the higher a given function is, the more
numerous are the inhibitory influences that it exercises

NERVOUS CONDITIONS 75

over lower centres. Intense brain activity of the high
est sort is opposed, while it lasts, to nearly all the sim
pler functions above the level of the vital necessities,
except the very few, such as reading or speaking, which
training may have brought into the direct service of
the highest activity itself. Excite a child's brain to
anything approaching absorbing activity (e.g. by telling
the child an interesting story), and for the time you
''keep him quiet." Otherwise he runs about, looks
here and there, laughs, wriggles, kicks, prattles — all
adjustments to his environment, adjustments either use
ful or playful, but of a simpler sort. These may cease
by inhibition when the story begins. The child may
then sit for a short time with moveless hands, with
optic axes parallel, i.e. with eyes "gazing far off,"
with legs hanging loosely, with falling lower jaw-
all of them more or less inhibitory phenomena.

§ 32. The practical consequences of this general
principle of the inhibitory character of the higher
nervous processes are multitudinous. Absence of in
hibitions is a familiar sign of nervous disorder or
degeneration, and also, in children, of immaturity.
" Self-control " is an essential part of health. This
principle furnishes the reason why so much of our
educational work has to be expended in teaching "self-
control," whose physical aspect is always the presence
of inhibitory functions. The moral law has often been
expressed in the form of the well-known " Thou shalt

76 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

not." Such negative precepts always presuppose that
in the person who really needs to be taught by the
precept, a disposition or habit of brain preexists which
involves, when left to itself, a certain sort of response
to a given environment, e.g. in an extreme case, a
tendency to the expressive acts called, in human social
relations, theft or murder. Instead of telling such a
man what positive motor activity to substitute for such
doings, the negative precept undertakes to point out
that, as a condition prior to any better adjusted con
duct, these motor tendencies, at least, must be inhib
ited. But their inhibition is to be actually brought
about, in case of the successful moral precept, through
the influence of what is called in psychological lan
guage "suggestion." The physical efficacy of such
"suggestion" depends, however, upon its appeal to
brain habits, of a very high level, which, like the
other higher processes, have a general capacity to
act in an inhibitory sense, as against functions of
lower levels or of a more primitive simplicity.

But just as we often train habits of inhibition as a
preliminary to the more positive establishment of use
ful higher functions, it is, even so, true that, whenever
we can get higher functions of a positive sort estab
lished, we thereby train inhibitory tendencies. And,
on the whole, this is the wiser course for the teacher
of the growing brain to take, where such a course is
possible. Inhibition is a constant means, but it is still

NERVOUS CONDITIONS 77

but a means to an end. The end is the right sort of
motor process. You teach a man to control or to re
strain Jiimsclf so soon as you tcacJi him what to do
in a positive sense. Healthy activity includes self-
restraint, or inhibition, as one of its elements. You
in vain teach, then, self-control, unless you teach much
more than self-control. The New Testament state
ment of " the law and the prophets " substitutes
"Thou shalt love," etc., for the "Thou shalt not"
of the Ten Commandments. A brain that is de
voted to mere inhibition becomes, in very truth, like
the brain of a Hindoo ascetic — a mere " parasite " of
the organism, feeding, as it were, upon all the lower
inherited or acquired nervous functions of this organ
ism by devoting itself to their hindrance. In persons of
morbidly conscientious life such inhibitory phenomena
may easily get an inconvenient, and sometimes do get
a dangerous intensity. The result is then a fearful,
cowardly, helpless attitude toward life — an attitude
which defeats its own aim and renders the sufferer not,
as he intends to be, " good," but a positive nuisance.

The practical problem as to the degree of inhibition
which it is well to establish in our nervous life is one
which wholesome people meet in part by the device of
a duly changing or alternating activity of the central
nervous system. The strain of absorbing intellectual
work is, in considerable part, pretty obviously cither
conditioned or intensified by two factors : ( I ) the actual

78 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

nen>ous expenditure involved in the inhibitory processes
themselves. While one works, countless excitations tend
to set free lower motor functions, and all these tenden
cies have to be held back by counter signals from higher
nervous stations. This in itself involves a great deal of
motor expenditure. "To sit still" is itself, in general,
a motor process, and is often a very hard one, e.g.
when one is in an exciting or harassing situation, and
when prudence says, "Do nothing; wait and see."
(2) The indirect effects of non-exercise of the inhibited
functions: to sit still and think, to restrain ourselves,
means to condemn many groups of muscles to inac
tivity. This means a tendency to disturbed nutritive
processes, and so in the end an unequal development
or an actual degeneration of the whole organism. We
relieve the strain as well as favour the neglected organs
when we substitute exercise for inhibition. Variation
of labour is thus, in itself, and within limits, actual
motor rest or recreation. " To let ourselves go,"
within the bounds of propriety, duty, and modera
tion, involves a rest from the heavy motor task of
"holding ourselves still." This is especially true in
children, in whom the inhibitory processes are ill-
formed, and therefore the more laborious. Young
children should never be asked to continue long any
one type of inhibitory process. With them any one
persistent "set" of the brain becomes very soon an
injurious incident.

NERVOUS CONDITIONS 79

On the other hand, not every change of the "set"
of brain is itself restful. The phenomena of "worry"
include many " changes of mind," i.e. of more special
" set " of the brain. Yet the result is disastrous. But
the effects of worry seem to be very largely due to the
strong tension existing in the worried person between his
abnormally numerous sensory incitations to particular
acts and that general " set " of his brain which, so long
as he is worried, survives all his actual changes of
special "set" or plan, and tends to inhibit all sorts
of definite or connected activity. Whether he rushes
about or lies still in pretended rest, whether his mood
is this or that, he is all the while incited to act, and is
busy holding himself back from effective action. His
endless question, " What shall I do ? " his motor rest
lessness, his petty and useless little deeds, all express
his inability to choose between the numerous tenden
cies to movement which his situation arouses. Count
less motor habits are awakened, and then at once sup
pressed. In his despair he tries to inhibit all acts until
the plan — the saving plan — shall appear. And so, ac
complishing nothing, he may do far more motor work
than an acrobat. But let the dreaded calamity over
whose mere possibility he worries actually befall him.
Then, indeed, there is often but one course of conduct,
perhaps a very simple one, suggested by his new situ
ation. The useless inhibitions vanish. One definite
"set" of brain is, indeed, substituted for the pre-

80 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

ceding state, but the new one is free from the over-
numerous and violent special tensions between higher
and lower centres and functions which characterised
the former. The recently worried man may hereupon
become cool, may wonder that he can bear the worst so
much more easily than he could the uncertainty, and
may by contrast find not only rest, but a kind of joy
in the relief occasioned by the cessation of useless
motor processes. Where the man himself has wor
ried, it is thus often the part of the seemingly most
cruel fate to rest him ; and this the latter then does
by cutting off the extra inhibitions in favour of an
easily accomplished response to definite stimulations.
Finally, in this connection, it may be observed that
when a given series of acts, involving a certain number
of successive inhibitions, has to be accomplished, much
more mental strain is involved and more weariness
results, according as the inhibitions themselves have
to be made objects of a more definite consciousness
or volition. And the degree of strain increases very
rapidly with the attention given to the inhibitory side
of the process. Hence the hard labour involved in
learning new adjustments, in acts of voluntary atten
tion, and in conscious self-restraint generally.

CHAPTER IV

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE

§ 33. A certain proportion of the foregoing func
tional processes are attended by mental states. In
general our mental life, or, as it is often called, our
consciousness, attends those processes which, while
involving the cortex, are of a decidedly complex grade
and of a relatively hesitant character, or which come
in consequence of the graver interferences on the part
of our environment. Our most perfect adjustments to
our environment are accomplished unconsciously, un
less we chance to become aware of them through
their relations to what is actually concerning our con
scious life. Our mental life, however, regularly at
tends (i) those of our habitual cortical functions which
are at any time considerably altered to meet novel
conditions, and which accordingly have, despite their
skill, a relatively hesitant fallibility about them ; (2)
those of our functions which are considerably disturbed
in their normal flow by the intensity or the novelty
of the external stimulation ; and (3) those of our func
tions which, in relation to the other functions present
G 81

82 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

in the cortex, have a physical intensity that exceeds
the average of what is going on at the same time.
For example, we are conscious when we think out a
new plan, but we perform numerous acts of mere
routine without noticing them. What we do very
rapidly we fail to follow, in its details, with our men
tal life. What, as being somewhat novel, we do with
" deliberation," we may follow very adequately. But
the physical accompaniments of strong states of feel
ing, however swiftly they bring some reaction to pass,
still imply a change in our consciousness. And in
tense experiences, such as disagreeable noises (the
sound of a hand-organ or of a hurdy-gurdy), may long
retain a place in consciousness which may be out of
proportion either to the importance, or to the novelty,
or to the complexity, or to the deliberateness of the
motor functions which they arouse. Meanwhile, the
precise conditions that mark the boundary between
those functions which have no mental equivalents
and those to which consciousness corresponds, is un
known. What we are sure of is that our consciousness
is a very inadequate representative of what goes on in
our cortex.

§ 34. The mental life which accompanies these
functions consists of a " stream of consciousness " in
which we can generally distinguish many " states " or
different " contents " of consciousness. The " stream
of consciousness " is the name frequently applied to

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE 83

what passes in our mental life, because, mentally speak
ing, we live in a state of constant inner change, so
that no portion of our consciousness ever remains
long without some alteration, while most of our con
tents are always changing pretty rapidly. On the
other hand, the changes in our inner state are, in
general, however swift they may be, still somewhat
gradual when compared with the swifter physical
changes known to us. A flash of lightning lasts
very much longer for our sight than it does as a
fact in the physical world. This is partly due to the
"inertia" of the retina of the eye. But a similar
" inertia " holds of all our central processes. Every
mental experience always joins on, more or less, to
subsequent experiences, and in general to previous
experiences also. A new experience gradually wins
our attention, reaches its height, and dies away as
our attention is turned to the next ; and even in very
sudden experiences this relatively gradual character
of the process can be noted, if not at the beginning
then at the end of the experience, as it slips away
into a mere memory. If one listens to any simple
rhythm, such as the ticking of a watch, one can note
how the succession of separate ticks is viewed by
our consciousness in such a way that the successive
beats do not stand as merely separate facts, but are
always elements in the whole experienced rhythm to
which they seem to belong, while the successive pres-

84 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

entations of the rhythm form a sort of stream of
events, each one of which gradually dies out of mind
as the new event enters. In consciousness there is
no such thing as an indivisible present moment. What
happens in our minds during any one thousandth of
a second of even the busiest inner life none of us can
possibly make out. The contents of mind, as we know
them in the " psychological present," constitute at the
very least a considerable and flowing series of changes,
the least appreciable portion of which takes up a con
siderable fraction of a second.

As for these " contents " themselves of the stream of
consciousness, it is well to say at once that they never
form any mere collection of " ideas " or of other simple
and divided states. Consciousness is not a shower of
shot, but a stream with distinguishable ideas or other
such clearer mental contents floating on its surface.
What we find in any passing moment is a little portion
of the "stream," a "pulse," or "wave" of mental
change, some of whose contents may be pretty sharply
distinguished, by what is called our attention, from the
rest, while the body of the stream consists of contents
that can no longer be sharply sundered from one
another. If one listens to music, the notes or the
chords may, in their series as they pass, appear as
sharply separable contents. But these stand out, or
float, upon a stream of mental life which includes one's
estimate of the time sequence of the music as a whole,

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE 85

one's pleasure in hearing the music, one's train of
associated memories, one's general sense of the current
bodily comfort and discomfort, and much more of the
sort, which no man can analyse into any collection of
separate or even separable states. In consequence, we
are never able, by any device at our disposal, to tell
with certainty the whole of what is, or just was, present
to any one moment of our conscious life. The old
question whether one can have " more than one idea at
a time" present to one's mind is a question absurdly
put. Present at any one time to one's mind is a small
portion of the flowing stream of mental contents, in
which one can in general distinguish at least two, and
sometimes more, elements of content (perceptions, feel
ings, images, ideas, words, impulses, motives, hopes,
intentions, or the like), while beside and beneath what
one can distinguish there is the body of the stream or
(to change the metaphor) the background of conscious
ness, where one can no longer distinguish anything in
detail, although in some other moment one may easily
note how the whole background has changed.

§ 35. In this general characterisation of the " stream
of consciousness " we have already by implication
answered certain questions that are of fundamental
importance for psychological theory. Plainly the con
scious state of any moment involves two characteristic
features, the so-called " UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS," as it
is exemplified at that precise moment, and the equally

86 OUTLINES OK PSYCHOLOGY

obvious presence of a VARIETY of mental states, which
have to one another relations of similarity and of dif
ference. By the phrase "unity of consciousness" we
mean the fact that, at any time, whatever- is present
tends to form an always incomplete but still, in some re
spects ', single conscious condition. If you look at your
open hand you see at once more than one finger. On
this page you see at once more than one printed letter.
If you look at a person who is speaking to you, you at
once see him and hear him. If bad news disturbs your
mind, you are at once conscious of certain ideas which
the bad news arouses, and of the distress which this
news occasions. In all these cases, the phrase " at
once " stands for the fact that we more technically
characterise as the present unity of consciousness. The
facts present to mind are not merely various, they occur
together. In what way they occur together, in what sense
we are " at once " aware of them, every person must
observe for himself. The unity of consciousness is
directly accessible only to its own single observer.
Nobody else can directly verify the fact that such unity
exists. But the agreement in the various reports given
of this unity by many observers constitutes the objective
evidence upon which the psychologist depends when
he makes his assertion. The phrase " at once " is of
common occurrence, even in popular language, as a
means of characterising the unity of conscious states.
When more careful examination is made for psychologi-

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE 87

cal purposes the character of this unity becomes more
precisely definable, yet, after having made proper
provisions for securing exact observation, every one
must judge for himself the aptness of any characterisa
tion which may be offered in the effort to express the
nature of the unity of consciousness.

This fact of the unity of every conscious state is
one for which there is no precise parallel in the
physical world, as we are ordinarily accustomed to
conceive that world. There are many senses in which
various phenomena of nature, occurring outside of
our minds, may be regarded as forming a unity.
Thus we speak of one forest, of one range of moun
tains, or of one ocean. In a similar way each thing
in the physical world is regarded as in some sense
a unity of many properties and states. Yet, in all
such cases, the sense in which we speak of the
physical object as one or as many seems somewhat
arbitrary ; and changes with our own point of view
as external observers of the facts. We sometimes say
that the word " forest " is merely a collective name
for the many trees, or even that the term " thing "
stands for a collection of physical facts and processes
which our subjective interests unify, but which " in
themselves " are so many distinct facts. But the
unity of consciousness is a fact constantly forced
upon us whatever our point of view. For no one can
observe a mental variety of inner states without finding

88 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

these states together in his one inclusive condition of
mind.

The unity of consciousness is sometimes compared
to that of a living organism. Just as the various
functions and organs of a living body constitute in
some sense a single whole, so, as one often says, the
various states present at once to mind have an
organic unity. Yet the comparison is not altogethci
satisfactory. For the considerations that lead us to
regard a living organism as a unity of many organs
and functions are decidedly complicated, and are pre
sented to us indirectly, so that we often have to
think, with considerable doubt, whether or no we
shall call some large organism a single individual,
or a colony of many individuals. But the unity of
consciousness we have always with us, not because
we think out some reason why consciousness must
be one, but because all that happens at any moment
within our minds constitutes for us a single event,
however complex this event may be. Furthermore,
the reasons that lead us to call an organism one de
pend wholly upon cooperation and mutual support of
various organic processes. But the unity of con
sciousness exists in some degree, however distracted
our inner state may be, and however much the
various tendencies present may seem to disturb or to
oppose one another. Thus, if an intolerable discord
breaks into the midst of a musical harmony (as when,

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE 89

while some one is playing beautiful music, a hand-
organ begins outside, or the scraping of a file upon
metal is heard), these various mental presentations
seem not mutually to support one another in any
organic way ; yet, so far as they are present at once,
there is still a unity of consciousness, however dis
tracted and incomplete this unity may appear.

§ 36. On the other hand, the fact of the VARIETY
present to consciousness at any moment is equally
obvious. The one conscious state of the moment is
always a unity consisting of a multiplicity. The
relation between these two aspects of the present
consciousness is best observable in cases where the
unity and the multiplicity involve a certain harmoni
ous effect. This occurs when we listen to music, and
are aware at once of several harmoniously related
facts, such as tone, harmony, and rhythm. It occurs
also when we enjoy decorative art, and are aware
of a complex of lines, of forms, and of colours, com
posing a pleasing totality. Yet, as already pointed
out, disharmonious and distracting conscious states
contain the contrasting aspects of unity and variety,
in so far as the most painful and distressing com
plications of the moment are experienced at once.
There are some cases where the unity of the con
scious state seems to be predominant, and where the
element of variety tends to lapse. Such states occur
on the borderland of sleep, or in conditions where

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for any reason we become aware rather of the total
impression of the instant, rather than of the variety
of experiences that occur within this instant. Yet
the variety never wholly disappears, unless conscious
ness itself disappears. When the last differences lapse,
then we become insensible. When we are aware only
of unity, it appears that we then become aware of
nothing at all.

§ 37. As the last statement made indicates, the
variety present at any one instant of consciousness
is a variety of different elements. To say this is to
utter in one sense the barest of commonplaces. Yet,
in another sense, the statement becomes important,
because it attracts attention to the two most funda
mental relations which can exist amongst the various
states that are present in consciousness. These rela
tions are: (i) difference, and (2) similarity or partial
sameness. Whatever these various states are, they
are known as different from one another. The kind
of difference that they possess may itself vary end
lessly. Colours and shades differ from one another in
the field of our visual experiences. Colours differ from
odours, as we observe when we look at a flower and
smell it. Mental states due to the direct disturbance
of our organs of sense differ from images that we
can observe in the absence of objects. Thoughts
differ from one another, and from feelings or from
decisions. And so on indefinitely. All variety of

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE 91

which we are to be conscious involves difference.
And the experience of difference is amongst the most
fundamental of the facts of mental life.

Yet difference itself is never found as a relation
between two facts without there being present an
other relation which is of equally fundamental impor
tance. When we observe that one fact differs from
another, we also are able to observe that these two
facts have, as we say, something in common, or are
similar to one another. Colours differ from odours.
But both the colour and the odour of a rose have in
common the features that enable a psychologist to
recognise that they are both sensations. The mental
image that I can form of my friend's face when he
is absent, differs from the mental image that I can
form of the sound made by a violin, which I have
heard somebody play. Yet if I have both images
present to my mind at once, I can observe that they
have in common something which makes me call
them both images. Thus, sameness and difference are
inseparable characters. Not only is this the case in
the most general sense, but in special instances my
consciousness of the similarity of two objects that are
present to my mind helps me to become aware of
their differences, and vice versa ; so that the con
sciousness of similarity and the consciousness of
difference are, in certain cases at least, mutually sup
porting facts so that to become aware of one of

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these relations helps me to become aware of the
other. Thus I can readily observe the difference
between right and left as directions, because I am
aware of their similarity as being both of them direc
tions within the one space world of which at any
moment I seem to be conscious. The relation of
similarity between the successive chords and phrases
of a musical composition helps me to become aware
of the differences present in the musical experience.
In the effects of decorative art the similarities
present, for example, the symmetries, help me to
appreciate more definitely and pleasantly those dif
ferences of experience upon which the decorative
effect depends. On the other hand, in so far as
a consciousness of difference seems to be present
without much consciousness of similarity, this con-
sciousness of difference itself acquires a charac
teristically baffling and puzzling effect, so that I
am likely to say, in such cases, that I am aware
of the difference, but am not aware wherein the
difference lies. Thus, a sudden shock, such as a
thunder clap, an explosion, or the experience of the
discharge of a Leyden jar through one's organism,
may give one a vague consciousness of difference,
whose intensity still does not insure any clear con
sciousness of what the difference is, until, at the
moment when we recognise the nature of the shock,
we come to possess certain conscious states that are

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE 93

not only different from, but observably similar to,
other states.

Thus the unity of present consciousness is indeed
diversified by differences. But these differences are
never without greater or less similarities amongst the
different states. Where the similarities and differences
support one another, so that we become aware of each
by means of the other, and so that each makes the
other precise, as is the case when we observe the
object of decorative art, or the musical phrase, then
our consciousness acquires a character called CLEAR
NESS, — a character which must, once more, be experi
enced in order to be appreciated. In this sense, for
instance, an object upon which our eyes are focussed
is seen clearly ; or a series of sounds that are not
too confusingly mixed with other sounds are heard
clearly. And it is in this sense that the beauty of
the object of art is clearly observable.

It is worth while also to notice that the Unity and
the Variety of consciousness, at any moment, stand
in a relation to one another that may be also called
a relation of similarity and difference. For the unity
of this present instant of consciousness is itself differ
ent from the variety of this instant. And on the
other hand, the unity and variety are similar to one
another, in so far as they characterise the same in
stant of consciousness. Meanwhile, in so far as the
relation of sameness and the relation of difference

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are considered in themselves, it appears that the
sameness, or the similarity, of the various conscious
states present at any one moment, seems to bring
these states rather into relation to the unity of
consciousness, while the differences amongst the states
seem rather to relate them to the aspect of variety.

§ 38. The extremely elementary but often neg
lected facts about the unity of consciousness which
have thus been enumerated have, even when taken by
themselves, a very important practical application. If
it is our purpose to make any one, as for instance a
pupil, clearly conscious of some kind of difference be
tween facts, we carefully cJioose facts tJiat, while simi
lar to one anotJicr in as many otJicr ways as possible,
clearly manifest just this particular difference. On tJic
other Jiand, if we wisJi to make one observe a similar
ity, as Jiappcns when we desire to illustrate a law or a
type or a class of facts, we carefully present different
instances of tJiis same type ; tJiat is, we illustrate same
ness through difference, and difference through same
ness. And in both cases we tend to succeed in proportion
as we bring the differences and tJie samenesses that are
to be studied into some single unity of consciousness,
by presenting various objects at once. If this simple
rule is neglected, if for instance one merely presents
objects with a view to their arousing the effect of
difference, as when one tries merely to surprise a
pupil by the shock of startling varieties, one produces

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE 95

indeed a vague consciousness of differences, and a
consciousness that, even in the worst case, is sure to
be attended with some consciousness of similarity. But
this consciousness remains uninstructive, because the
similarities and differences presented are not so arranged
as to support one another. If on the other hand,
for the sake of making one aware of certain similar
ities we present him a true monotonous series of
objects in which no difference can be detected, or at
least no interesting difference, we tend to reduce the
pupil's consciousness to the lowest level. And
in so far we fail to instruct him. The rule for arous
ing the kind of consciousness to which the teacher
appeals is similar to the rules followed in the decora
tive arts or in music : present similarities and differ
ences together in such fashion that each shall support
the other. Or, expressing the rule with reference to
the unity of consciousness : aim to secure the most
complete unity of consciousness that is consistent with a
desired degree of variety of experience, and vice versa.
§ 39. But we now come to another aspect of the
unity of consciousness, and to one which the fore
going account of the " stream of consciousness " has
inevitably mentioned. We have here to call special
attention to it afresh. The term "at once" used with
reference to the unity of consciousness, is inevitably
ambiguous. We always appreciate at once a variety
of coexisting or of contemporaneous conscious facts.

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We also experience "at once" but in another sense of
tJie term "at once" a brief series of successive conscious
states. As above stated, our consciousness knows noth
ing directly of an indivisible present moment, such as
physical and mathematical theories assume to occur in
time. We are aware at once of more than one succes
sive tone or chord in a musical sequence, of more than
one stage or state of our own action, when we are per
forming some rapid series of deeds. What the German
psychologist, Wilhelm Stern, has called the " psychical
present moment," what Professor James has called " the
specious present " (herein following the usage of sev
eral recent English writers), is no infinitesimal instant
of time, but always has an appreciable length, somewhat
more than the tenth of a second, and apparently not
longer than two or three seconds. The length of this
"specious present" probably varies with decidedly com
plex conditions. It seems to be longest when we are
following the succession of a decidedly regular rhythmic
process, which is presented to our consciousness with
the most favourable degree of complexity of structure.
It seems to be shortest when the sequence of conscious
facts contains a rapid series of distracting differences,
whose similarities we fail clearly to grasp. What occurs
within this psychical present moment is known to us in
some sense as one, but nevertheless as a sequence, which
contains within it successive various states, of which
some are observed to precede, while others follow.

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE 97

Every consciousness of change depends upon our power
thus to observe "at once" a considerable, although also,
from a larger point of view, brief sequence of mental
states. Now it is in following such a sequence of states
that we tend to become especially and most clearly
aware of the differences which are there present. The
perception of sequence aids us in the perception of differ
ence. If two experiences are in any sense coexistent,
that is, if their causes are presented to me at the same
time, I may fail to notice the difference between them.
But if they follow one after another, I shall be much
more likely to note the fact that they are different, in
case the succession is immediate, and without any in
terval between. Hence, our discriminations, in a great
number of cases, occur in a succession of acts. This fact
has great and obvious practical importance ; and it
partly explains why stories interest us more than
mere descriptions, for the former constantly remind us
of interesting sequences.

§ 40. The foregoing considerations have now pre
pared us to face a problem upon which modern psy
chological writers naturally lay great stress. This is
the problem : of what elements does our mental life
consist ? and in what sense does it consist of elements
at all ? The example set by the physical sciences
naturally makes many psychologists interested in re
ducing mental life, at the outset of the inquiry, to its
simplest elements, just as the physicist and the chemist

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reduce complex bodies, first to the relatively simple
aggregates (such as solids, liquids, gases), or, in chemis
try, to the chemical elements whereof they are com
posed, and then to the hypothetical molecules or atoms
whereof these elements are constituted. Such analysis
having proved so useful in the case of physical phe
nomena, the question arises whether the psychologist
has a right to use this method. As a fact, this method
has been very greatly used in modern psychology, and
with very important results. An indication of the na
ture both of the processes used and of the results
reached, is necessary in order that we should be able
to estimate the theoretical and practical value of every
such procedure.

When we look at an object, such as a rose, when we
touch it, and inhale its odour, we plainly have a complex
mental state ; that is, there is a variety within the
unity of our consciousness. Now of what elements
does this variety consist ? It is not difficult for even an
untrained introspection to detect the fact that our total
impression of the rose which is present to us is made
up of the conscious seeing of colours, of the conscious
smelling of odours, and of the equally conscious impres
sions of the sense of touch. Since these various kinds
of conscious states are obviously due to the external
disturbance of our sense organs, the name "sensation "
readily suggests itself for them. In addition to these
sensations we have also a feeling of pleasure in the

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE 99

rose. In addition, the rose arouses in us a conscious
ness of its name, and gives us various other mental
states of the type usually called "ideas" or "images."
Our consciousness of the rose thus appears to be a
unity of all these elements. But a further analysis
seems to show that all of these states are themselves
enormously complex. What we call the colour of a rose
is an experience made up of varieties that a closer
analysis soon begins to detect, since the various parts
of the rose do not give us exactly the same kind of
visual impression. If we pursue still farther such an
analysis, by appealing to what can be discovered more
or less indirectly, and experimentally regarding the rela
tion of our organ of vision to the rose that we see, we
seem able to discover that various portions of the retina
of the eye are receiving sensory impressions, any one of
which, if it were alone, would produce in our conscious
ness a particular sensation of colour, which we should
then localise at some one point of the visual field. It
appears hereupon natural to say that our total impres
sion of the colour of the rose is a mental complex of many
different sensations, no one of which we do experience
alone, but every one of which must be present as a con
stituent of our total mental state.

But now we indeed cannot by direct analysis discover,
in our total impression of the rose at the moment when
its colour and odour impress us, of precisely what ultimate
elementary sensations all the impression is composed.

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For only indirectly, by experimental devices, can we
isolate one or another of the simplest sensations which
any one smallest sensible portion of the object, that is
of the rose, would give us, if that portion did alone act
upon our sense organs. There results the theory that
our total mental state is not only a unity consisting of
various conscious facts which we ourselves can by more
or less effort directly observe within this unity, but is
also a unity consisting of certain ultimate sensations
and feelings tJiat we cannot ourselves detect except in
directly, tJirougJi experiments which isolate such elements,
and which bring them before us in moments of con
sciousness when the original total impression is absent.
Hereupon we may be led to declare that these now
isolated elements somehow blended to form the total
impression that then we had.

§ 41. Generalising somewhat from such instances as
the ones just used, we can state in more universal terms
the theory of the constitution of our mental life which is
just suggested as follows : At any moment we have
a total mental state possessing the characteristic unity
of consciousness. This state we may call T. T con
sists, as we have already said, of a variety of mental
life which we can by direct analysis very readily
detect as present in the total condition. Let us call
the elements directly observable in this variety, a, b,
ct d. But now, according to the present theory, each
one of these relatively simple mental processes, a, b,

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE IOI

c, d, is, as a fact, enormously complex. Thus #, let
us say, is a totality of the sort such as our visual image
of the rose when we remember it, or our visual per
ception of the rose when we see it, exemplifies. But
a is due to an excitation, of sense organs, and of brain
tracts, or of brain tracts alone, or at least accompanies
such excitation. Let the brain centres, excited when a
comes to consciousness, be denominated by I, 2, 3,
etc. Through experiments of the nature of those
already indicated we can in many cases produce an
excitation of some brain centre in relative isolation. In
such cases we may discover that this excitation is
accompanied with a conscious process s, which we shall
suppose to be a conscious process due to as simple a
brain process as we can hope to excite in any relatively
isolated way. A similarly isolated excitement of the
brain process which we have called 2 would produce
another conscious process, which we may call sr.
The conscious states s and sr may be such that when
we have observed them in isolation, we can detect an
aspect of the original process T, namely, of our whole
mental state, which we may regard as " due " to them,
or to either one of them. We may proceed in a similar
fashion to isolate conscious elements that correspond
to those other processes in the brain, which form parts
of the original total brain processes. Isolations of this
kind we can carry out with especial success in cases
where we are dealing with conscious states due to the

102 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

excitement of sense organs. With somewhat greater
difficulty we can approach such isolations of portions
of the total brain processes in other instances also,
namely, in case of brain processes that have to do with
our images of absent objects, and also in some other
instances. Where such processes of isolation cannot
be actually accomplished, we can conceive them
possible.

Since every complex brain disturbance thus consists
of processes that could be excited in relative isolation,
and since each one of these processes may be con
ceived as attended, when this process is excited alone,
by some conscious process of a simple nature, and of
the type of s, in the instance just mentioned, we are,
according to the present theory, justified in asserting
that the original mental state T consists of elements
s, s', and many other such elements, of which it is said
to be made up. These elements may escape in any
single instance our direct analysis. But we may^ con
ceive them capable of isolation by some such process
as that which has just been in general formulated. If
we conceive each one of these elements of the type of
s so simple that no further analysis of this element
will be possible, we may call s, for the purposes of
psychology, an absolutely elementary mental state.
The theory here in question declares that all conscious
ness is made up of such elementary states. They are
said to " blend" together, or to come into some sort of

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE 1 03

" union," in order to form our total conscious state at
any moment. The task of psychology is declared to
include an exhaustive catalogue of these elementary
mental states, and then a further examination of the
laws according to which they blend, or otherwise
unite, to form the more massive states of consciousness
which we directly observe to be present at any moment.
The parallel of such an analysis to the atomic theory,
as the latter has been so successfully developed in mod
ern physical and chemical science, is obvious.

§ 42. But the present theory lays claim to a basis
in experience which has been frequently denied to the
atomic theory, as the latter exists in chemistry. For,
as a general rule, the mental elements of which the
modern psychologists make use are themselves facts
which are capable of being observed in greater or less
isolation by experimental devices, although we may fail
to detect these elements in the conscious state in which
they are said to enter, so long as we merely look to the
sort of analysis which we can ordinarily make of con
sciousness at any one instant. It is psychological ex
periment that enables us to get elements in relative
isolation, and also to show that they correspond to
disturbances of sense organs, and to resulting excita
tions of brain, which we can prove to be part of the
physical accompaniment of those conscious processes
into which these elements are said to enter. Further
more, when the elements have once been isolated by

104 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

experimental devices, it very generally proves to be
possible to detect their presence within conscious states
closely similar to the very ones in which it was at first
impossible to find them. At all events, it is possible by
analysis to find, in our total conscious state, at least
traces of something similar to the isolated elements,
when once we have observed the latter. It is true that,
even then, the conscious processes in which we find
traces of the elements that we have once learned to
analyse, through the experimental devices that have
given us these elements in isolation, are processes
which occur after our experiments have been made ;
and are therefore no longer identical with those states
of our na'fve and untrained consciousness in which we
could not as yet discover any trace of these elements
by any effort then possible to us. Nevertheless, tJic
theory here in question supposes tJictt all our conscious
processes, even the ones whose elements we hai'e never
learned to observe in isolation, are actually composed
of such elements. And because of the experimental
results whose nature has been in general indicated,
this view is commonly advanced as a strictly empirical
conclusion.

§ 43. A few further examples are still necessary to
illustrate the way in which such a conclusion comes to
appear to many so convincing. When the unmusical
person hears a musical chord, or listens to a complex
harmony, he is unable, in general, to give any com-

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE 105

plete account of the elementary tones of which the
harmonious sounds consist. He is indeed aware of a
certain richness in the whole experience, which would
enable him to say that he is listening to something
complex. In the case of the harmony due to various
instruments or voices, he is more or less able to distin
guish, as he listens, what belongs to each instrument or
voice, unless indeed the voices and instruments are
numerous, when once more he quickly loses his power
to analyse. The musician, accustomed to hear voices,
instruments, and single tones, in isolation, as well as in
harmonious union, analyses at pleasure the harmonious
effect, and knows that the sound consists of a certain
collection of tones, which even while they blend, consti
tute for him still a distinguishable collection. But physi
cal and psychological experiments go still further in
the analysis of tones than the ordinary musical con
sciousness goes. The physical disturbance produced by
striking a single key on the piano is a highly complex,
but analysable, system of sound waves. It is discovered
that the more elementary constituents of which this sys
tem of vibrations consists can be experimentally isolated.
In this case, such more elementary constituents of the
total physical process, when they are isolated, produce
certain sensations, namely, the " partial tones," of which
the original tone is consequently said to consist. When
once the ear has been trained, by listening to the partial
tones in isolation, it then becomes possible for con-

106 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

sciousness to discover, by analysis, the presence of these
partial tones in what at first appeared to be the single
tone of the piano. In consequence the tJicory scons
warranted tJiat the original tone, viewed as a conscious
state, was not simple, but was a blending of various
elementary states, corresponding to the so-called funda
mental tone which determines the pitch of the note
that the untrained ear hears, and to the various " partial
tones," which sound along with the fundamental tone,
and which constitute part of the total physical process
upon which our original hearing of the tone depends.
It seems, at first sigJit, that we Jicrc have an empirical
proof of /iow a mental state whicJi seems to the untrained
consciousness simple, actually consists of many mental
elements.

In a very different field we meet with a correspond
ing analysis of a complex mental state, in case of what
has been called the "feeling of effort," which we
observe when we make a movement requiring a consid
erable exertion of energy. Our ordinary consciousness
does indeed indicate that this " feeling of effort " is
a complicated state. But processes of isolation of the
kind already illustrated gradually bring us to observe
that such a " feeling of effort " is a complex state
possessing a decidedly discoverable constitution, and
due to various sensory disturbances produced by the
contraction of our muscles, by the rubbing of our joint
surfaces together, by stretching and pressure, occurring

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE IO/

in skin, tendons, etc., or finally to mental images sug
gested to us by the results of former sensory expe
riences of just this kind. The " feeling of effort" is
consequently said by the present theory to consist of
mental elements corresponding to these various elementary
excitations.

§ 44. So much must suffice as a general indication
of the theory of the structure of consciousness here in
question. No one can doubt the importance of the ex
perimental evidence upon which it is based. And no
one can doubt that this importance is partly a matter
of psychological concern. We do gain a great deal
for the understanding of our conscious processes when
we discover that they accompany physical processes
whose complex structure can be studied, and whose
more elementary constituents can be analysed. We
gain also when we learn that these more elementary
physical processes can be found to be accompanied,
when once they are isolated, by certain simpler mental
states. We also advance in insight when we learn
that, when once our powers of analysis have been
trained, we can detect the traces of such simpler
states in the massive states of consciousness with
which we began, although these massive states at
first seemed to defy any minute analysis. On the
other hand, it may well be questioned whether these
results of experience are rightly interpreted by the
theory that we have just been summarising. Con-

108 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

sciousness, as we have already said, is not a shower
of shot. // docs not come to us as consisting of tJicse
elementary states. When what is called the " analy
sis " of the original unity of consciousness takes place
through these devices of isolation, and through a com
parison of the results of isolation with the complex
mental states that we produce after studying the iso
lated elements, for the sake of verifying the results
of our "analysis," then what is " analysed " is not the
original naive consciousness, which was whatever it was
found to be at the time when it occurred. On the con
trary, what we " analyse " is a new sort of consciousness
that takes the place of our original and naifve con
sciousness — a more sophisticated consciousness, so to
speak. Now the psychologist is indeed equally inter
ested both in naive and in sophisticated conscious
ness. But whatever the relations between the two
may be, he is not justified in asserting of the naYve
consciousness that it already possesses the structure
which experimentally trained analysis can learn to find
in the more sophisticated consciousness.

Whoever hears the chord and does not analyse it,
has heard a certain whole in which he simply did not
detect parts such as the later analysis detects in the
chords that it examines. Now a state of conscious
ness exists when somebody is conscious of that state.
When nobody is conscious of that state, it does not
exist. When the musician observes the chord to be

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE IOQ

an unity wherein he finds an actually conscious and
analysed variety, he finds what he finds. But what
he finds is simply not present in the consciousness of
the unmusical listener. The elements that analysis de
tects exist, as conscious states, when they are detected
and not before. Not only is this true of the elements
that can be isolated only by careful experiment or by
means of technical training. It holds also of those
elements which we can either find or not in a given
present conscious state, according as we do or do not
choose to attend to them. As has been said, we
always observe in any conscious state unity and mul
tiplicity. But the conscious state contains exactly
such multiplicity as we do observe. The multiplicity
that we might observe ', and do not observe, belongs to
a possible mental state which, at the moment of our
failure to observe, we do not possess.

It now seems to us, therefore, wrong to say that a
mental state consists at any time of elements which
we ourselves do not distinguish in that state. When
we assert that these elements are nevertheless there,
although they are not distinguished, we are consider
ing not the mental state itself, but either what we
know about the complex external physical object of
which we suppose this mental state to be the sign ;
or else what we know about the state of the brain ;
or again what we know about the meaning of this
mental state, when the latter is regarded as a stage

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in a logically or morally significant process; or else,
finally, we are referring to a more sophisticated state
of mind which the psychologist, by his devices for
analysis, has substituted for the original and naive
consciousness. The physical world contains countless
aspects that at any moment we might observe, but do
not. If this physical world is viewed as the object of
which at any moment our consciousness is showing
us some aspect, we can indeed quite correctly say that
our consciousness fails to observe tJic elements of which
its physical object all the time consists. In a similar
fashion, a complex brain process consists of elemen
tary processes. And just so every state of conscious
ness that we have is also a stage in a mental process
that in the whole of our lives has a very rich mean
ing. Of this meaning we may become conscious
afresh from various and countless points of view.
We may accordingly quite rightly say that any con
scious state means a great deal of which we are just
then not conscious. If, by analysis, we can detect
something of this meaning, we can then say that what
our analysis discovers was present, as a meaning, in
the state that we did not analyse. But the concept
of the psychological element, present when it is not
observed, but constitutive, along with other elements,
of the mental state in which it was not observed, is a
conception neither of a physical fact nor of a moral
or logical or aesthetic meaning. Such elements are

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE ill

found only in those states of mind which result from
habits of analysis.

If the musician says to the unmusical man, " You
heard the chord ; and, as a fact of your consciousness
that chord was composed of these tones ; yet of these
tones you were not conscious," we can understand what
the musician means if he intends to say something
about the physical constitution of the sound-vibra
tion. We also can easily understand him if he means
to say something about the constitution of the process
in the sense organ or in the brain centres of the one
who heard the tone. And we can well understand
his meaning if he intends to say something about
the musically valuable fact, if for instance he implies
something of this sort "the aesthetic reason why that
chord was so rich to you or so beautiful depended
upon the fact that it had this constitution." In this
last case the musician may be analysing not so much
the physical or the neurological complexity of the
processes concerned, as the meaning which the whole
state had for the one who admired the chord, but
who did not analyse it. But if the musician persists
in saying "the chord as a conscious fact consisted
for you of mental states corresponding to its various
constituent tones, but you are not aware of these
mental states, because they blended into the one total
impression," then indeed the musician seems to be
asserting the existence of a mental state which was not

I I 2 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

the mental state of anybody — not of the musician,
since he analyses the chord, nor of the unmusical
man, since the supposed element finds no place in
his consciousness that he himself, for whom alone
his mental facts can exist, is capable of observing.

§ 45. But what from this point of view, as one may
insist, becomes of the vast body of empirical evidence
whose existence we before admitted ? We answer (as
the just cited case of the musical and the unmusical
experience indicates) : All this evidence exists indeed,
but it does not prove that our consciousness consists of
any other elements than of those which we at any time
observe as the variety present within its unity. Our
consciousness is what we find it to be. What the
psychologists can tell us about it must consist, first, of
a more careful restatement and generalisation of the
characters that, upon various occasions, various human
beings actually find there. It is the business of the
psychologists to note what the ordinary consciousness
forgets, namely, the various observations which we can
from time to time make, or do from time to time make,
upon the contents of consciousness. And now, second,
it is the business of the psychologists to discover what
ordinary observation altogether ignores, or at best only
fragmentarily notices, namely, the sequence and con
nection of our successive mental states. And, third, it
is indeed a very important part of the psychologists'
task to discover the laws that govern these sequences,

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE 113

and their relation to their physical accompaniments and
conditions. It is especially in connection with this last
great task of the psychologists that the experimental
facts, which are usually supposed to prove the ex
istence of mental elements, find their true place and
significance.

What these empirical evidences do show is first, the
relation of our conscious states to their physical accom
paniments and conditions. One of the most important
of these relations is statable in the following terms :
when we have a conscious state which as a fact we do
not analyse or discover to be various in its constitution
beyond a certain point, this mental state is in general
dependent upon very complex physical conditions. These
physical conditions are in large measure due to stimu
lations of our sense organs. They are also in large
measure due to such central brain disturbances as are
only indirectly connected with our sense organs. Now
these complex physical conditions are capable, in many
cases, of being excited in relative isolation. When this
occurs we very generally find what has been already
reported, namely, that to the elementary and more or less
completely isolated physical disturbance, there corresponds
a relatively simple mental state. So much then for the
thus discovered relations of mental and of cerebral
processes. We further discover that if we get again a
total mental state as similar as possible to the one wJiicli
before we did not analyse (for example, if we strike
i

114 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

again the same musical chord after having experienced
one of its elements in isolation) we can then, in a very
large number of cases, detect in the renewed mental state
the elements wJiicJi we have observed in isolation, and
iv hie h we did not observe in the original state. In brief,
by devices of this sort we can learn to substitute
analysed mental states for unanalysed mental states. 1
Since we can conceive this process of substitution
carried much farther than our experimental processes
have carried it at any particular stage of the process,
we can form upon good empirical grounds a general
theory of the type thus expressed : To every unanalysed
mental state there may be made to correspond an analys-
able mental state, or, in case of actual success, an actually
analysed mental state. The physical conditions of the
new state agree in the main with the conditions of
the original mental state, except in so far as these
conditions include such habits of brain as have been
acquired by the intervening experiments, or by other
analytic devices. The mental expression of these
habits is the habit of analysis itself. In the analysed
mental state the variety that consciousness detects
corresponds to a variety that may also be discovered
in the physical or physiological conditions, both of the

1This substitution is not possible in all cases where an analysis of the
physical disturbance into simpler physical disturbances is possible, e.g. in
case of the colours of mixed light. But the remark in the text is true of a
large class of cases.

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE 1 15

original mental state, and of the analysed mental state.
This is the summary of the empirical facts. The facts
are important because they enable us to learn what we
should otherwise miss concerning the constitution of
the physical conditions upon which both our analysed
and our unanalysed mental states depend. Further
more, the whole series of phenomena shows an inter
esting and uniform connection betiveen analysed and
unanalysed mental states. Since, as we shall see, the
whole development of our intelligent life involves an in
creasing differentiation of our mental powers, it becomes
of the utmost importance to understand the conditions
upon which such differentiation depends. The experi
mental processes that we have summarised form an
invaluable contribution to this knowledge. They show
us by experiment how consciousness becomes differentiated,
in other words, how a most important aspect of mental
growth takes place.

§ 46. Finally, if we choose another way of sum
marising these same facts, we may indeed say that
since, in so many cases, an analysed state of conscious
ness can be made to correspond to a previous unana
lysed state in the way pointed out, and since, where
this process is not carried out, we have good reasons
to conceive it possible, we may declare that every state
of consciousness which is due to a complex collection
of sensory and central processes may, when viewed
with reference to its physical conditions, be treated as

Il6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

// it were complex of mental elements corresponding
to certain more elementary physical processes, such
that these more elementary processes, when isolated,
are capable of producing elementary mental states,
and such that these elementary states can be found
by our attention as constituents of analysed states of
consciousness. But when we use this mode of expres
sion, we must remember that we are employing a con
venient fiction. The mental state presented to the naive
consciousness is just then what it seems to be, and is,
literally speaking, no more various than at the moment
we find it to be. It can be treated as if it were com
posed of elements that we do not analyse, only in so
far as we compare it in the before-mentioned way with
the analysed mental states that correspond to it when
ever our habits of analysis have been formed, and when
we consider it with reference to its physical and physio
logical conditions.

That other way of analysing mental states which
has been mentioned in the course of the foregoing dis
cussion — that way of analysing the meaning which
they possess in the logical or in the otherwise signifi
cant context of our mental life — does not concern the
psychologist. The logician, the metaphysician, the
moralist, and the student of aesthetics, are interested in
the meaning of mental life. The psychologist is inter
ested, first, in what is literally present to consciousness
at any one moment ; second, in the various series or

GENERAL FEATURES OF CONSCIOUS LIFE \\J

successions of mental states that are discoverable ; and
third, in the laws which govern both these processes
and the physical condition upon which they depend.
For the psychologist, therefore, the complex meaning
which every mental state undoubtedly possesses may
indeed be infinite, but is not relevant.

§ 47. We have now considered the general charac
teristics of consciousness, and have also in the most
general outlines indicated its relation to its external
conditions, and cerebral accompaniments; and in the
remainder of our discussion our task will fall into the
following principal divisions : —

(i) We shall make a summary statement of the prin
cipal kinds of states of consciousness that occur within
the range of our psychological experience ; and we
shall consider these with especial relations to the sorts
of physical conditions upon which they depend. Since
states of consciousness take place from moment to
moment in connection with the present state of the
organism, and since in consequence all consciousness,
at the moment when it takes place, may be regarded
as an accompaniment of the responses of our sensitive
organism to the world in which it exists, we may regard
all this first division of our task as A STUDY OF SENSI
TIVENESS. This study will contain three subdivisions,
the first dealing with our SENSORY EXPERIENCE, the

Il8 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

second with our IMAGES, the third with our FEEL
INGS.

(2) Having become better acquainted, in this way,
with the contents of consciousness as it passes, we
shall next proceed in a series of chapters to a study of
the relations that bind the consciousness of any mo
ment to previous experience. This division of our
discussion may be regarded as A STUDY OF DOCILITY.

(3) Since, as we saw before, our mental states not
only appear to be dependent upon our relations to
past experience, but also to depend upon factors that
make possible that kind of variation of our conduct,
and of our mental processes, which we sketched in one
section of our discussion of the signs of mental life, we
shall need to include under a third head a very sum
mary chapter which we may entitle, THE CONDITIONS
OF MENTAL INITIATIVE.

CHAPTER V

SENSITIVENESS
A. SENSORY EXPERIENCE

§ 48. It is customary, in modern text-books of psy
chology, to introduce the study of all the higher forms
of mental life by a statement of the results which
experimental research has now reached regarding
what are called the sensations. The term " sensation "
is one employed, in its usual modern usage, in connec
tion with that theory of the real existence of mental
elements to which we have already devoted some
attention. For the theory in question a sensation
is an elementary mental state that is due, either to
the direct excitement of some sense organ and of
the corresponding brain centre, or to some central
brain process that may be regarded as equivalent to
a disturbance produced through a sense organ. It is
essential to the concept of a sensation, from this point
of view, that a sensation should be an ideally simple
state. So far as the present state of our consciousness
is directly due to the excitement of our organs of
sense, our consciousness is considered, by the theory in
question, as a complex consisting of such elementary sen
sations. In so far as our present consciousness con-

119

120 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

sists of images of objects that are not now physically
present to us, it is said by the theory in question to be
made up of elementary states which may be due to, or
which perhaps must be due to, former sensations. In
any case, these elementary states, as they at present
occur,— the elementary mental states, namely, of which
our images of absent objects consist, or of which
in general our "ideas" are said to be composed,—
are regarded by many recent psychologists as composed
of elements which do not differ in any essential charac
ter from sensations. They are said to be " faint sen
sations." Or again they are called " centrally aroused
sensations," so that they are often regarded not merely
as being due to former sensations, but as being even
at present of the nature of sensations.

On the basis of such a theory, the concept of a sen
sation becomes one of the most fundamental impor
tance for all descriptive psychology. The only other
sorts of elementary mental states which such views
commonly recognise are the elementary states called
"feelings." Apart from the feelings, our present
consciousness is regarded by such theories as entirely
made up of the elements called sensations.

§ 49. Our own attitude toward theories of this type
has already been indicated. In what sense conscious
ness can be said to be composed of any elementary
states we have indicated, in so far as such indication
is, in my opinion, possible. As we shall now have to

SENSITIVENESS — SENSORY EXPERIENCE 121

see more in detail, all our present consciousness, of
whatever type, is accompanied by central disturbances
of the brain, which are either directly due to the ex
citements of our sense organs, or are of a type essen
tially similar to the disturbances which are due to the
sense organs. In consequence, it is literally true for
the psychologist that all consciousness, when it occurs,
and whatever else it implies or contains, is a manifesta
tion of present sensitiveness, that is of the fact that our
organism is disturbed by external or internal stimula
tions, and of the fact that these disturbances reach the
cortex of the brain. It is also unquestionably true that
every present excitement of the brain consists of pro
cesses which can be more or less perfectly resolved
by experimental analysis into elementary processes,
such as can occur in relative isolation ; and of these
elementary processes there are a good many which,
when excited in such relative isolation, are attended
by relatively simple mental states. All this has been
illustrated in the foregoing discussion, for example,
by the case of musical chords and tones. But we can
not say that our consciousness in any literal sense con
sists of sensations, and still less that it consists of
absolutely elementary sensations. Nor would the
statement become true if we merely added the word
"feeling" to the word " sensation." On the other
hand, since our consciousness may thus be unquestion
ably described as an accompaniment of the sensitive-

122 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

ness of our organism, and since this sensitiveness of
our organism is something very complex, and since
its various modes can be more or less completely ana
lysed, considerable light is thrown upon the relation
of consciousness, both to its conditions and to our own
habits of conscious analysis, when we examine as pre
cisely as the modern experimental study of sensation
does, the various relatively simple states of mind that
can be produced in response to relatively simple stimula
tions of our sense organs.

§ 50. From our point of view, then, a sensation may
be defined as a relatively simple mental state, which we
can by experiment more or less completely isolate, and
which, when isolated, is found to be due to a relatively
simple stimulation of brain centres, either through the
sense organs or through the revival of dispositions
which previous sense disturbance has left in the brain
centres. The relation of sensations to our actual
consciousness, as it from moment to moment occurs, is
the one formerly pointed out, namely, that to every
present conscious state there may be made to corre
spond a mental state, or a collection of mental states
which through training we have learned to analyse, and
that, in these analysed mental states, elements, corre
sponding to what we have called sensations, will be
found to be prominent. To discover this principle is
to show how largely our conscious state at any moment,
however lofty its dignity, or however unanalysable it

SENSITIVENESS — SENSORY EXPERIENCE 123

then may seem, is actually due to conditions that ac
company the excitement of our sense organs in de
terminate fashion.

§ 51. The general relations between our sense organs
and the conscious present moments of our lives may be
briefly summarised as follows : — In our normal waking-
life every conscious process, of whatever grade, may be
said to be supported by sensory stimuli ; that is, our con
sciousness accompanies central nervous processes that
depend upon the current stimulation of sense organs.
On the other hand, every conscious process of normal
waking life accompanies nervous processes that at least
tend to produce more or less definite movements, and
that, if not controlled through inhibitory processes,
actually do so. A process of high intellectual level,
such as writing, obviously illustrates this general
principle. The conscious processes that occur when
we write are in their most essential features inseparable
from the sensory stimuli that we receive as we write,
and from the movements that constitute the writing
process itself. But the same holds true of mental
activities that do not so obviously express themselves
without in characteristic movements, and that are gen
erally supposed to be mainly independent of our
momentary relations to the outer world. The most
absorbed meditation is affected by the sensory stimuli
that we are receiving. This is shown by our well-
known preference for certain places, surroundings, or

124 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

objects, as aids to our meditations. One carries on a
meditation of a given type best in his study, or again
best in church, or again by preference during a walk in
the fields. At such times one may not be at all directly
conscious of how one's inner process is related to the
sensory stimuli. Thus, in the fields, one may suppose
that one is entirely oblivious of the natural facts about
one, just because one is absorbed in some train of
thought that bears on a scientific topic, or on a personal
and practical problem. But none the less, the external
objects are all the time sending in their sensory dis
turbances. These maintain certain current conditions
of the brain. Were these conditions to change, the
train of thought would change. And even where the
connection between surrounding objects and the train of
thought pursued is by no means one of which we are
definitely conscious, the just mentioned preference for
one sort of surrounding as against another, as the place
for a given kind of meditation, illustrates how important
this relation may be.

It is true that, for the purpose of supporting certain
kinds of inner life, it is customary to cut off certain
sensory stimuli. And while this is in obvious accord
ance with the principle here in question, it is also true
that in certain cases the process may go so far as to
make it appear as if the exclusion of sensation alto
gether, or as far as possible, is the device most useful
for supporting some processes of meditation, or some

SENSITIVENESS — SENSORY EXPERIENCE 125

phases of what is often called the "interior life." Thus,
religious meditation has often been supported by de
vices which include solitude, going " into the closet and
shutting the door," and the effort to obtain silence in
one's surroundings. Mystics and ascetics have carried
such processes of exclusion of external sensory disturb
ances very far ; and have often supposed them to prove
that certain aspects of the higher life are dependent
upon the exclusion, rather than upon the support, of
any sensory stimuli.

But the psychologist is obliged to note that all such
processes of excluding certain sensory stimuli, are sim
ply devices for the securing of the presence of other
sensory stimuli. When the eyes are closed, we still
have a visual experience, that of the darkness of the
field of vision — an experience of a distinctly sensory
character, due to the remaining activities of the retina
of the eye. If silence is obtained so far as external
sounds are concerned, one may all the more hear
sounds due to the circulation of the blood. To sup
press the disturbances of the usually more prominent
types, means all the more to emphasise those masses
of sensory disturbance which are due to our internal
organs. The importance that instinct or habit may
give to these organic sense disturbances, when once
our consciousness comes to be very strongly coloured
through their presence, may be very great. The liter
ature of meditation is full of evidences of the promi-

126 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

nonce that experiences thus determined have possessed
in the life of those who often imagined themselves to
be independent of the senses in precisely the highest
of their mental processes. Thus fasting and wakeful-
ness are productive of characteristic, although, in vari
ous people, of decidedly different sorts of sensory
experience, due to the alterations of organic condi
tions. If an ascetic or a meditative person uses
fasting or vigil as a means to support his medita
tion, he is quite as definitely dependent upon the ex
citement of certain sense organs as if he ate olives or
played the violin. And it is perfectly true that certain
of the organic sensations have a relation to the higher
mental life which those who are devoted to the observa
tion of things outside the organism often fail to discover.
But the connection between our mental and sensory
life is not even thus exhausted. For, as we have just
said, our sense disturbances, and the attendant central
processes of whatever type, normally tend to get
themselves expressed outwardly in motion. But our
movements, when tJicy occur, are at every stage the source
of new sensory experiences. The contractions of mus
cles, the series of positions of a moving organ such as
the hand or the leg, become reflected in our conscious
ness through sensory disturbances that inform us of
what takes place wJicn we move. These sensory dis
turbances are largely of the kind that, when isolated,
give us the sensations known as the muscular sensa-

SENSITIVENESS — SENSORY EXPERIENCE I2/

tions, the joint sensations, the sensations of strain, and
in general our motor experiences. Visual experiences
take part in this same process whereby we become
aware of our movements. For at every moment, as we
walk, we guide our steps by means of the eye ; and
most of the skilful activities of the hand are more or
less supported in the same way. Experiences due to
the sense of hearing guide us whenever we use the
voice ; so that deafness, even when acquired very late
in life, tends to affect vocal skill. The weight of the
experimental and pathological evidence is to the effect
that we are unaware of our own movements except in
terms of tlie sensory experiences which tJius accompany
and result from their occurrence. To the outgoing ner
vous current in the motor nerves, consciousness does
not directly correspond. But all the more must our
sensory experiences become important for the support
of our voluntary as well as of our intellectual life, in
view of the fact that our sensory experience is not only
a constant accompaniment of the processes that deter
mine our movements, but furnishes the basis for the
only knowledge that we are able to possess of what
our movements are.

The practical application of the foregoing considera
tions regarding the centrally important place which sen
sory experience occupies in our lives, is obvious, and is,
for every one who has to guide minds, of the most criti
cal importance. The development and support of men-

128 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

tal activities of every grade is dependent upon the constant
and proper use of tJie sense organs. Every cultivation of
even the highest inner life involves a cultivation of the
sense organs. To use a very imperfect simile : the
sense organs are related to the higher mental life some
what as the keys and stops of the organ are related to
the music. In vain is the organist's skill, if the keys
and stops will not work. In vain is the composer's art,
if the mechanism of the instrument is not also in work
ing order.

The life of the senses does not constitute a sort of
lower life, over against which the higher intellectual,
emotional, and voluntary life stands, as a markedly con
trasted region, relatively independent of the other, and
ideally capable of a certain divorce from it. On the
contrary, sensory experience plays its part, and its essen
tial part, in the very highest of our spiritual existence.
When we wish to cultivate processes of abstract think
ing, our devices must therefore include a fitting plan for
the cultivation of the senses, and must not seek to
exclude sense experience as such, but only to select
among sensory experiences those that will prove useful
for a purpose.

In the attempt to cultivate and to support religious
meditation of the higher type, the ritualist has con
sequently often appeared more psychological in his
devices than did the Puritan of old, who endeavoured to
support religious life by excluding what he regarded as

SENSITIVENESS — SENSORY EXPERIENCE 1 29

a confusing or as a corrupting appeal to the senses. In
so far as the devices of exclusion which so often charac
terise the Puritan forms of worship, were accompanied by
an equal fear both of externally attractive sense experi
ences, and of many of the forms of worship which mys
tics have employed for the sake of arousing the fitting
organic sensations, Puritanism, in some of its forms,
seems to have tended inevitably to the impoverishment
of religious experience. When it escaped this result,
and passed through its times of awakening and of fer
vour, its success was due not to its mere exclusion of
appeals to the senses, but to its encouragement of those
forms of sensory experience which were connected with
strenuous and dutiful activities, and with the motor pro
cesses accompanying earnest prayer. The mystics
themselves, in waiting for " the voice of the spirit,"
were psychologically aided by the concentration of their
attention upon certain types of organic sensation. In
brief, whatever be the best form of religious training, it
ought deliberately to make use of a proper appeal to the
senses.

In general, then, higher mental training depends not
upon avoiding sensory experience, but upon selecting
the right kind of sense disturbance, and upon present
ing sensory experiences in such order as to train fitting
habits of movement.

§ 52. Any extended discussion of the various types
of special sensations is impossible in this place. A full

130 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

account would demand, in the present state of experi
mental research, hundreds of pages. A mere catalogue
of the distinguishable sorts of simple sensory experi
ences would prove uninstructive. For fuller accounts
the reader must accordingly be referred to more special
treatises. Our concern is here with some of the most
general considerations as to the classification of our
sensory experience.

One must distinguish, in the first place, between the
sensory states that especially or principally give us
information concerning tJic movements and tlie internal
changes of our organism, and those which principally
give us information regarding stimuli which are exter
nal to the organism,

The distinction here in question is indeed not alto
gether a sharp one. It cannot be sharp, simply because
every external disturbance which affects our conscious
ness is also, in some degree, a disturbance of the whole
organism. Moreover, when I move my hand, in order to
grasp an object, I both see the outer object and also see
my moving hand, so that, in this case, sensory experi
ences of the same general type give me information both
concerning my own movements and concerning the exter
nal things. I use both these results of seeing as I guide
my act of grasping. The same holds true when, in
walking, I both see the inequalities of the path, and
by means of my eyes am able in part to guide the
movements whereby I adjust my feet to the ground;

SENSITIVENESS — SENSORY EXPERIENCE 131

or when, in conversing, I both hear my fellow's speech
and am able, through my ear, to guide the modulations
of my own voice. But there are indeed certain sorts of
sensory experience, namely, the so-called " organic sen
sations," which are principally of use as informing me
regarding the internal states of my organism; while
such sensory experiences as those of sight are most
indispensable to me when they are sources of know
ledge about facts external to my organism. For while
I can learn to carry out very complicated voluntary
movements in the dark, and could learn such arts even
if I were blind ; on the other hand, if I were blind, I
could never learn to distinguish between the presence
and absence of light in the outer world.

§ 53. Beginning, then, with the sensory experiences
which are predominantly internal, i.e. which especially
inform one as to the states and the changes of one's
own organism, we may name, first, the " organic
sensations " themselves. Sensory experiences of this
type form a vast, and in part a very vaguely complex
realm ; and the experimental production of analysed
states of mind, such as enable us to study definite
small groups of organic sensations in isolation, is ex
tremely difficult. We are able, however, to name, as
especially important amongst the organic sensory
experiences: (i) those which inform us as to the
general position of our bodies, and as to the changes in
the bodily equilibrium. These experiences include cer-

!32 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

tain sensory facts that enable us to judge of the direc
tion of movement of the organism, especially of the
head, whenever this direction is suddenly altered.
(2) We have to name those organic sensory experiences
by which we become aware of our more special and
differentiated movements, in so far as these are known
to us through sense disturbances directly due to the
contraction of muscles, the stretching of tendons, the
contact of the internal surfaces of joints, etc. There
are also (3) those experiences which take the form
of more or less sharply localised internal pains;
(4) those complexes of sensory experience which
appear in hunger, tJiirst, and similar organic states;
and (5) those which, when taken together with cer
tain masses of feelings, give special character to our
emotional experiences (as for instance the " choking
in the throat " which accompanies anger, and many
of the other sensory accompaniments of emotion).
Of the importance of these organic sensations, as
constituting a decidedly fundamental sensory aspect of
all our mental life, we shall speak further in other con
nections.

Next to the organic sensations, both in their gen
eral character and in the kind of significance which
they possess for our mental life, stand the sensory ex
periences due to the disturbances of the skin. In case
of a large number of our organic sensory experiences,
the disturbances of the skin due to stretching, to wrin-

SENSITIVENESS — SENSORY EXPERIENCE 133

kling, to tickling, to perspiration, etc., join with the more
internal organic conditions to determine what we notice
as our own present bodily condition. The same is
true of the sensations of pain, which a vast number of
points on the skin can so freely give us.

In so far the "dermal sense," as it is sometimes
called, is a part of the condition of our organic sensory
experience. But the skin also contains a vast number
of sense organs which are of constant use to us in learn
ing about external objects. The sensory experiences
here in question are those of contact and of temperature.
They are due to the excitation of points on the skin
which differ for the various special sorts of experiences
in question. Experiment shows that certain points of
the skin are especially sensitive to stimulations given by
cold objects, while other points are sensitive to disturb
ances due to hot objects. Our ordinary sensory expe
rience of warmth or of cold is due to a complex excite
ment of many points of both these types. Still other
points on the skin, very wealthily interspersed amongst
the others, give us, if excited in isolation, sensations of
contact or of pressure. Complex sensory excitations,
due to the disturbances of the skin, sometimes with and
sometimes without, notable accompanying organic dis
turbances, give us our experiences of hard and soft, of
rough and smooth, of dry and moist objects. Sensory
experiences due to our own movements, made as we ex
plore and handle objects, are seldom lacking as aspects

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or portions of the experiences whereby we judge both
the foregoing, and many other of the qualities of the
bodies with which we come in contact.

§ 54. Next to the dermal sensations, in that series of
our sensory experiences which is now in question, come
experiences of the senses of taste and smell. These,
as they usually appear in our consciousness, are
very decidedly coloured by feelings, and are conse
quently closely associated in our mind with our
estimate of our own bodily state; but, on the other
hand, they are constantly used as indications of the
nature of external objects. The sensory experiences
of these two senses are very frequently aroused
together. This is the case with most articles of food.
Experimental analysis shows that, while the sense of
taste is comparatively simple in its experiences, there
being but four distinct qualities that can be referred to
the sense of taste alone, the sense of smell, on the other
hand, gives us experiences of an enormous variety, for
which no satisfactory classification has yet been found.
The four classes of taste experiences are those of the
qualities : sweet, acid, salt, and bitter. For the experi
ences of the sense of smell, language has a considerable,
but altogether inadequate collection of names, mostly
derived from the names of the objects to which the
odours belong. The more precise relations among these
odours are very little known either to common sense or
to psychologists.

SENSITIVENESS — SENSORY EXPERIENCE 135

The two highest among the senses are those of sight
and hearing. Their experiences are of special impor
tance to us in all our relations to the world outside the
organism. Yet, as has already been pointed out, we
also use the data of these senses in becoming aware of
our own reactions to the environment. These senses
then do indeed make us acquainted with our own
bodily state, but their predominant value lies in the
knowledge of outer objects that they furnish.

The sensory experiences of the sense of sight are of
two great classes, — those possessed of the quality known
as colour, and those possessed of the quality of colourless
light. As to the precise relation of these two classes of
experiences, it is impossible here further to speak. We
can, however, point out that the sensory experiences of
the sense of sight are capable of a decidedly exhaustive
classification, and constitute one of the best-known
regions of sensory experience. The experiences of
the sense of hearing belong to the two great classes
of the noises and of the musical tones. The musical
tones have relationships whose aesthetic importance has
made them extremely familiar. Nowhere better than in
the case of the sense of hearing are we able to study
the precise relations between our sensory experiences
and their external physical causes; but the theory of
the sense experiences of hearing forms again a specialty
far too complex for the present discussion to enter
upon.

136 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

As the senses of sight and of hearing are preeminent
in their power to give us an acquaintance with the ex
ternal world, so they are especially marked by the sorts
of discriminating analysis which their sensory experi
ences awaken in the trained consciousness. The vari
ous sensory experiences of the sense of sight come to
us, from moment to moment, with such an order and
arrangement that we are able clearly to distinguish one
visible object from another, and, with minute accuracy,
to differentiate one part of the field of vision from
another part. The experiences of the sense of hearing
are such as to permit the training of a very high degree
of power to analyse the constitution of sounds — a
power of which we have already made mention in
giving our examples of the general nature of analysed
states of mind.

§ 55. Common to all the various types of sensory
experiences which have been indicated in the foregoing
discussion, is the presence of two notable cJiaractcrs
which are sometimes called Attributes of Sensation.
Every sensation possesses, namely, Quality and Inten
sity. Sensations differ in quality when the difference
is of the sort whereby we distinguish two colours, or is
of the sort whereby we distinguish hot and cold, or
sweet and bitter. Two sensations differ in intensity
when they differ as a loud tone at a given pitch differs
from a softer tone at the same pitch, or as our experi
ence of a notable pressure differs from our experience

SENSITIVENESS — SENSORY EXPERIENCE 137

of a very light pressure. The characteristics of quality
and of intensity can be most exactly attributed to single
sensations in so far as the latter have been experimen
tally isolated. But the same characters are to be found
also in the masses of sensory experience which charac
terise our nai've consciousness. Ideally speaking, sen
sations or sensory experiences of any sort can be exactly
compared in intensity only in so far as they very closely
agree in quality. Thus, it is impossible to say whether
a given sensory experience of weight is more intense in
its heaviness than a given sound is intense in its loud-
ness. Yet, owing to the fact that entirely isolated
sensations which are precisely the same in quality, but
which differ only in intensity, are decidedly ideal objects
of psychological conception, comparisons of the inten
sity of our experiences are generally more or less min
gled with differences of quality. The variations in
intensity of sensation are capable of being arranged
in series corresponding, although not proportionate, to
the physical magnitudes of the external sources of
stimulation. To a stimulation that sufficiently exceeds
another in magnitude, there will correspond, when com
parisons in intensity are possible, a sensory experience
of a noticeably greater intensity. But the correspond
ence in question must not be interpreted as implying
that the intensities of sensations are themselves quan
tities in the same sense in which physical magnitudes
are quantities. As to the relation between the intensi-

138 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

ties of sensations and the magnitudes of the stimuli,
there has been very elaborate experimental investiga
tion. The outcome of this investigation has been for
mulated in the so-called " psycho-physic law," which
we shall briefly consider later under the head of Mental
Docility.

The qualities of sensation have a much richer vari
ety than the variations in intensity possess ; for while
the variations in the intensity of sensory experiences
possessing the same quality form a simple series, the
variations of quality of our sensory experiences can
be arranged in no single series, but are presented to
our attention, in so far as we have learned to discrimi
nate them, in a very great complexity of series of
facts. In our indication of the various general classes
of sensations, we have already made some mention of
certain characteristic and well-known qualities of sen
sory experience. The various senses are distinguished
from one another in terms of sense qualities. Thus,
the colours and the sounds differ from one another in
quality. Here the difference of quality is associated
with a very obvious difference of the sense organs. In
other cases, where it requires decidedly careful experi
ments to detect any difference of the sense organs, the
differences in quality first attract our attention. So
it has been, for instance, in the case of the sense
experience of the hot and cold points of the skin.
It was long supposed that the temperature sense pos-

SENSITIVENESS — SENSORY EXPERIENCE 1 39

sessed a single type of sense organs, all of which
gave us, according to the intensity of the stimulation,
experiences of hot and cold qualities. It is now
known that these qualities are due to the excitation
of different sense organs. But within the field of any
one sense, as for instance the sense of sight, we have
variations of sense quality which correspond not only
to differences of sense organ but also to differences
in the way in which a single sense organ is stimulated
by different external disturbances. No absolutely gen
eral rule can therefore be given as to the extent to
which qualitative differences of sensory experiences
imply the excitation of different sense organs. But,
on the whole, the qttalities of sensation as they come
to consciousness depend, in general, upon two types of
facts, namely, first upon the different sense organs stimu
lated, and secondly upon the pJiysically different char
acters of the external stimuli.

§ 56. It remains to speak of still another attribute
possessed by a great number of our sensory expe
riences, and especially by those of the dermal sense
and of the sense of sight. This character is the one
upon which our developed ideas of Space depend.
It is a character noticeable in every instance of our
sensory experiences of the types in question, however
simple the experience may otherwise be. This char
acter may be called Extensity. Thus, every disturb
ance of the sense of sight gives us an impression of

140 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

light which, even if it be of the character of the
simplest possible point of light, still possesses some
feature whereby the point of light is localised in the
field of vision, i.e. is related to our consciousness of
visual space. Our ordinary experiences of the sense
of sight are experiences of a disturbance which
extend over a considerable portion of the field of
vision. Precisely so, in the field of the experiences
of touch, we are normally affected by stimuli which
appear to us to be in contact with a considerable
surface of the skin. And, even in case of the most
nearly simple or punctual sensation of touch which
we can experience, there still remains about this ex
perience a character which enables us to localise with
considerable accuracy the point touched.

While the accurate localisation of our sensory ex
periences of sight and touch unquestionably depends
upon habits and associations which are phenomena of
our docility, and not of our merely present sensory
experience, it is impossible to regard our present visual
and tactile experiences, even when taken apart from
habit, as wholly destitute of spatial characters. What
ever we see or touch has spatial magnitude as one of
its directly presented characters. How far extensity
belongs in any measure to the senses of smell and
taste when considered in themselves, apart from their
associations with other sensory experience, is a matter
of question. The experiences of the sense of hearing

SENSITIVENESS — SENSORY EXPERIENCE 141

seem to possess some measure of extensity ; and this
character is very markedly present in a considerable
portion of our organic sensations, if not in all of them.
So that there is much to say for the view that all our
sensory experience without exception possesses the primi
tive character upon which our developed notion of space
is founded.

To say, however, that this character belongs to our
various sensory experiences, is not to say that the char
acter in question is in all respects as ultimate and inex
plicable as are the qualities of our sensations. Why the
colours should possess their immediate quality, and the
sounds their quality, it is of course impossible to at
tempt in any sense to explain. But why our sensory
experiences possess a certain primitive extensity may
be, not indeed entirely explained, but brought into
relation with other facts, if we take account of certain
phenomena which have important relations to our
whole organic life. The researches of Loeb and
others have called attention, in the recent literature of
genetic psychology, to the vast importance which is pos
sessed, in all grades of animal life, by the types of reac
tion which have been called tropisms of Orientation}*
We earlier made mention of such reactions when we
were speaking of the various tropisms which Loeb has
experimentally examined, as they exist in lower organ
isms. The general character of such reactions is that

1 Cf. Fritz Hartmann's monograph, Die Orientirung, Leipzig, 1902.

142 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

they determine, in an organism of a given type, a certain
characteristic normal position of the organism with
reference to its environment, and certain equally char
acteristic tendencies on the part of the organism to
recover its normal position when it is for any reason
temporarily lost, and to assume, in the presence of
stimuli of certain types, certain directions of movement
and certain attitudes wliicJi may persist tJiroitgJi a great
variety of special activities. The phenomena here in
question are, in a sense, very familiar to us all. The
animal laid upon its back may struggle back again
to the normal position. Or again, the human being
when engaged in normal activities either sits or stands
erect. When the eyes are engaged in their normal
activity, the head is held erect, or, if these normal
attitudes are modified, as in reading or in writing, the
modification occurs only within certain limits. To
attempt to carry on the same activities when lying on
one's back, leads to discomfort, and interferes with the
normal special movement of the eyes. It is thus a
familiar fact that a certain orientation of body, that is,
a certain general direction of the organism with reference
to its environment and with reference to the most impor
tant kinds of stimulation which are falling upon it, is a
condition prior to all special activities. Hence the reac
tions of orientation are amongst the most fundamental
phenomena of healthy life. Profound disturbances of
orientation necessarily imply very considerable defects,

SENSITIVENESS — SENSORY EXPERIENCE 143

and in most cases very gravely important defects, in
central functions. Thus our responses to our environ
ment are not only special deeds, such as grasping this
object, or looking at that object, but include general
attitudes, namely, such acts as sitting or standing erect
or holding the head up in order that we may see. And
the special acts are always superposed itpon the general
acts, in such wise that if the general tropisms of
orientation are seriously disturbed, the special acts,
however habitual, will be interfered with or will prove
to be impossible.

Now, as has been pointed out in the foregoing, all
our voluntary activities tend to be represented from
moment to moment in our sensory experience. It
follows therefore that our sensory experience at any
moment will stand partly for our more general activities
of orientation, and partly for our more special reactions to
individual objects. Since, meanwhile, every disturbance
produced in us by an external object will become a con
scious disturbance only in so far as we tend to respond
to the presence of this object in some way, all our
particular sensory experiences will be related, not only to
our special acts, but to our general acts of orientation, arid
to those experiences which result from these acts.

Now the acts of orientation — such acts as holding
ourselves erect, balancing as we move, keeping the
organism as a whole alert in its relations to the world —
are attended by organic sensations of a massive but

144 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

usually unanalysed character. These include, for
instance, those organic sensations by means of which
our movements are so controlled that we keep our
equilibrium — the organic sensations, namely, which are
deranged when we are dizzy. It is well known how the
sensations of dizziness are generally associated with a
defect, and, if they are intense, with a profound failure,
of orientation. On the other hand, in normal conditions,
our sensations of equilibrium are of the utmost impor
tance as a basis for guiding all our special acts.1 Fur
thermore, the movements that we make as we keep our
equilibrium are represented in our consciousness by
numerous massive sensory experiences due to muscles,
joints, etc.

It follows that our sensory consciousness of the world
in which we are, and of our own response to this world,
will constantly be of a type such that if we become eon-
scions of any particular sensory experience, especially of
the senses of sight and of touch, we shall discriminate
this particular experience upon a background of sensory
experience wJiicJi is made up of the general present con
tents due to our experiences of orientation. The experi
ences of orientation will form a general basis for our
special sensory consciousness. Within the whole of ex
perience that our experiences of orientation determine,
all our special sensory experiences will be found. This

1 These sensory experiences are due to the organ of the so-called " static
sense," viz., to the semicircular canals of the internal ear.

SENSITIVENESS — SENSORY EXPERIENCE 145

will be especially true of the senses of sight and of
touch, because of the very significant relations of these
experiences to certain specific movements of the eyes
and of the organs of locomotion. It will be to a less
extent true of the experiences of sound, in so far as
these are related to movements of the head. It will be
to a still less degree true of the sensory experiences of
smell and of taste, because the relation of these to
specific voluntary movements is less constant, or is such
as less to alter our relation to our external environment.
It appears, in consequence, that the character of
extensity possessed by our individual sensations is a
character which Jias some intimate connection with the
relation possessed by these experiences to the total complex
of our experiences of orientation. When our experiences
of orientation come to us as a single undifferentiated
whole, they appear to constitute our primal experience
of tJie character known as extensity. Our organism, as
something oriented in a particular way in reference to
its environment, appears in consciousness as some
thing large, and as something that possesses what we
shall learn to call "directions," just as soon as we have
begun to discriminate within the total experience. Our
special sensory experiences of the types most concerned
with our particular movements are such that they tend
to appear as facts differentiated within this whole of our
total experience of organic orientation. That this fact
should occur, we do not indeed attempt here wholly to

146 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

explain. But we point out that the conscious relation
ship here mentioned is parallel to, or correspondent
with, that relation between our general acts of orienta
tion and our special acts which we have already indi
cated in the foregoing summary. As the general
orientation of the organism is to its special acts and
sensory experiences, so is, in our consciousness, our
general organic sensory experience of the presence and
the total orientation of our organic activity, to the
special experiences which our differentiated acts give
us. Whatever character a particular sensory experi
ence possesses which enables us to localise this experi
ence as coming at a certain point in the organism, and
whatever character a given movement possesses which
enables us to specify its particular direction and other
special characters, and, finally, whatever character a
complex visual or tactual experience possesses which
enables us to judge of the size of the object that we
see or touch, all such sensory experiences appear to
our consciousness as facts existent within a certain
primitive whole, which, apart from differentiation, is onr
experience of the general orientation of the entire organ
ism. We know special facts about space, such as sizes,
particular directions, and distances, in terms of certain
acts of our own, which we either perform from moment
to moment, or imagine in consequence of habits already
formed. We know of 'the world as possessing spatial char
acters at ally because ive experience our general relation to

SENSITIVENESS — SENSORY EXPERIENCE 147

our environment in the form of our organic sensory expe
riences of orientation. The special facts of our spatial
consciousness are related to our general experience of
extensity, because the single facts of sense, and the sin
gle movements which we make, are always related to,
or, as one may say, are differentiations of, our general
orientation )•

1 Compare the somewhat different but related view as to the basis of
our consciousness of extensity in the monograph of Storch, " Muskelfunk-
tion und Bewusstsein " in Number X of the Grenzfragen des Nerven und
Seelenlebem, 1901.

CHAPTER VI

SENSITIVENESS
B. MENTAL IMAGERY

§ 57. The field of mental sensitiveness includes not
merely those aspects of our mental life which are due
to the present disturbance of sense organs. It in
cludes also those processes whose mental aspects
appear in the IMAGES which constantly accompany
all our more complex conscious processes. These
images are in general the indirect results of previous
sensory disturbances. In so far the consideration of
the conditions which determine their appearance be
longs under the head of Mental Docility. On the
other hand, in so far as the images from moment to
moment appear, they depend upon the present state of
the brain. They manifest a part of the present dis
turbance which is produced in us by our whole rela
tion to the world about us. They are therefore in
so far manifestations of our present sensitiveness to
such disturbances. If we suppose, by way of a
fiction, that there could exist a mental state consist
ing altogether of mental images, and involving no
aspects of consciousness due to the present disturb-

148

SENSITIVENESS — MENTAL IMAGERY 149

ance of our organs of external or of organic sensa
tion, this mental state would none the less accompany
a condition of brain which would itself be a part of
our organic response to the situation in which at any
time we find ourselves. Such a mental state would,
therefore, manifest our sensitiveness, in so far as our
organism thrills, or shows resonance, in consequence
of what is happening to us. For all our central con
ditions are affected by sensory disturbances, even
when the sensory disturbances in question are not
directly manifested in our conscious state in the form
of present and conscious sensory experience.

It is, therefore, natural that the partisans of the
usual view, which regards our consciousness as a
complex of mental elements, should consider our
images as complexes of what are often called " cen
trally aroused sensations," that is, sensations due not
to the disturbance of sense organs, but to disturbances
which reach given brain centres from other brain cen
tres, and not directly from sensory nerves. This way
of stating the case calls proper attention to the fact
that our sensitiveness at any moment includes pro
cesses whose physical aspect is due to disturbances
that pass from one part of the brain to the other,
and that, therefore, may be referred to what we have
just called the resonance of our central organs. For
the environment of every portion of the brain in
cludes not only the external world and the organism

OUTLINES OK PSYCHOLOGY

outside the brain, but the rest of the brain, in so far
as what goes on at one point in the brain can be
due to stimulations brought thither from other points of
the brain.

When special mental images come to our conscious
ness as a distinguishable part of our total mental
state, they are of types that correspond to the various
types of our sensory experience. Thus we have
visual images, images of sound, of touch, and so on.
These images differ from our current sense experi
ences, due to external stimulation, or to organic con
ditions outside the brain, in ways which may be
generally characterised thus: The images are usu
ally somewhat fainter, and in fact very much fainter,
than our sensory experiences themselves. They are
vague. They are not so clear or so definite in out
line and in structure as are the sensory experiences
due to the direct presence of external objects. They
are commonly more evanescent and changeable than
are the sensory experiences. It becomes more diffi
cult to us to observe their minor differences when we
compare them together, or when we endeavour to com
pare them with present sensory experience. A good
illustration of this character of our mental images is
the difficulty of trying to match the colour of some
absent object, with the colour of some present object,
when we have only the image of the absent object
to guide our process of matching. There exist per-

SENSITIVENESS — MENTAL IMAGERY 151

sons who in shopping can choose a ribbon that will
precisely match a ribbon that they have left at home,
although they carry no sample with them. But such
success is comparatively rare. In consequence of
such differences, images have normally no tendency
to be mistaken for present sense experiences. Yet
the boundary line is, in certain conditions of conscious
ness/ by no means perfectly sharp. When we listen
at night for an expected footstep, or in a silent place
for the anticipated ringing of a distant bell, we may
" seem to hear " the sound before it really takes place ;
and under such conditions images and sensory expe
riences tend to become confused. The relative vague
ness of our images when compared with our normal
sensory experiences comes to light as soon as we
begin to cross-question ourselves with regard to what
we can observe in the image. Thus we can form
after a fashion a visual image of a printed page.
But if we ask ourselves what is the third word in the
fourth line, we find in most cases that the image is
unable to tell us.

Notwithstanding these usual characteristics of our
images, closer examination shows that mental imagery
varies very widely from mind to mind, and probably,
if we were able to compare directly the processes of
various minds, we should find a diversity even wider
than our present means of comparison make clear.

§ 58. The modern study of the types of mental

152 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

imagery was begun by Mr. Francis Galton, who pub
lished his first results in the book called Inquiries
into Human Faculty and its Development. Galton
used the method of the so-called " questionaire "
a method since widely used in other psychological
researches. He sent, namely, a circular to a large
number of people, asking them to state in some
detail the way in which they formed mental pictures
of objects. His circular related to the so-called visual
imagination, that is, to the power of seeing absent
objects " with the mind's eye," or of forming images
of objects that, when present, had been perceived
through the sense of sight. He studied, in particular,
the visual images of familiar objects. His results
have since been supplemented by a large number of
similar inquiries, many of which have been extended
so as to cover the images belonging to other senses
than that of sight. Certain pathological facts, pre
sented by the cases of persons whose normal mental
imagery had been affected by brain disease, called
attention, a few years after the publication of Galton's
study, to the importance of comparing the promi
nence which the imagery of one sense had in a life
of any given person, with the importance possessed
by the imagery of other senses.

The general results of these researches have been
to show that the imagery of any one sense, in par
ticular that of sight, has very great normal varia-

SENSITIVENESS — MENTAL IMAGERY 153

tion from person to person. While in general the
rule holds that normal mental imagery differs in a
very marked fashion from the experiences produced
through the direct excitation of sense organs, it
is still possible [to find people in whom the visual
images seem decidedly comparable in clearness,
in vividness, and in detail to the original sense per
ception. In many such persons it is possible to see
" in the mind's eye " more of a given familiar scene,
such as the interior of a room, than could be seen
from any one point of view in actual perception. It
is as if various images coalesced to form a mental
whole, which could not be attained in any one act
of perception. On the other hand, a very large num
ber of persons have visual imagery which they them
selves describe as very much less clear and definite
than the original object ; and the test of asking such
persons questions about how much of the detail of a
visualised object they can report, if the test be
further controlled by comparing the report with the
original object, shows very decided limitations as to
the minuteness and the accuracy of the images that
are in question. A familiar test takes the form of
asking a person to visualise the face of his own
watch, and then to answer questions about the figures
on the watch face, and the position of the dial of the
second-hand with reference to these figures. Such
tests may be multiplied indefinitely. They show that

154 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

a large number of persons who have but a moderate
vividness and clearness of visual imagination are
conscious of images which are decidedly defective (i)
as to the scope of the field which they can get
before them in imagination, (2) as to the brightness
of the light and the precise shade of colour in this
field, and (3) as to the minuteness of detail which is
represented in the image. The last feature, namely,
the minuteness of detail, has a lower limit that, in
such cases, is very decidedly low when it is compared
with the normal precision of actual visual perceptions.
In many cases of a poorer visual imagination, i.e. in
the lower grades of the scale of visual imagination
which Galton originally set up, the individual objects,
when presented to the visual imagination, appear in
a blurred and fragmentary way, so that only parts
of them can be seen at once. Thus, for example, a
decidedly poor visualiser may be able to picture at
one time only the bowl of a silver spoon, or again
only a part of its handle, but never the whole spoon
at once. There remain a considerable number of
persons, often of a high degree of intelligence and
mental training, who have almost no visual images
at all, and whose mental imagery is made up entirely
of material belonging to other senses.

It is difficult to get sufficiently exact returns from
untrained people to estimate precisely the distribution
of these various classes of persons in the community

SENSITIVENESS — MENTAL IMAGERY 155

at large. On the whole, it appears that children, and
young people generally, possess a better and richer
visual imagination than the same people are likely
to possess in middle life. It also appears that women
possess a better visual imagination than men. The
students of American institutions of learning appear
on the whole to be better visualisers than the English
men of science, of whose experiences Galton gives
some account in his original study. How far the
visual imagination can be trained, or prevented through
training from fading away in middle life, is not yet
known. There is some evidence that training has
less effect upon the type of one's visual memory than
some sanguine teachers are accustomed to suppose.
At all events, there is considerable unlikelihood that
a naturally poor visualiser can be turned into a very
good one through training.

The visual imagery is predominant over the imagery
of the other senses in a very great number of people, and
this fact accounts for a great deal of the usage of
language when the imagination is in question. Those
who prefer the visual images, seem, so to speak, to have
had possession of the language; so that the word " image,"
derived from visual experiences, is the only one at our dis
posal in the description of this type of mental processes;
while the expressions concerning " mental vision," " clear
ness of insight," and the rest, which are so common
in popular language in describing mental imagery,

156 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

show that the experiences of the visualisers have come
to be treated as if they were the only characteristic
types of mental imagery. But, as a fact, there exist
images belonging to the sense of sound, and to the
types of sensory experience, muscular, organic, etc.,
in terms of which we recall our movements. Images
of the sense of smell have been declared by some
psychologists to be very rare ; but there are indications
in the reports of some collectors of facts which seem to
point in the contrary direction, although it is obvious
that such images are usually very subordinate. Images
of taste appear most markedly in association with pres
ent sense perception, as when the sight of an apple
known to be sour, or of vinegar, arouses the image of
the sour taste. Yet in this case the taste image is
probably much mingled with other forms of sensory
experience.

Two types of persons have come to be especially
noted in the literature of the subject as those in whom
some other form of sense imagery is more prominent
than the visual imagery. These two types are (i) the
auditory type, in whom images of sounds predominate ;
and (2) the motor type, perhaps better to be called the
verbal-motor type, in whom the predominant imagery
takes the form of images of movement, together with
images partly motor in type, but partly also auditory,
of words. The third of these types seems to be, at least
under modern conditions of training, and in middle life,

SENSITIVENESS — MENTAL IMAGERY 157

decidedly common, although also decidedly inferior in
number to the more or less skilful visualisers whose
visual imagery predominates in their own experience.
The motor type image their world especially in terms
either of the movements that they themselves tend to
make in the presence of things, or, in particular, in terms
of the words which they use in naming and in describ
ing things. Much less skilful than the good visualisers
in seizing upon, and retaining the visible details of
objects, they may be more skilful than some fairly
good visualisers in forming precise ideas of the space
relations of objects. In consequence, they are often
skilful in noting those various more abstractly definable
characters of things which can either be interpreted in
terms of motor experience or fittingly described in words.
§ 59. The relation of our mental imagery to the
higher mental processes must be indicated in passing,
even before we reach the study of mental docility. All
our higher mental processes, in so far as they occur at
any present moment, and in so far as they do not con
sist merely of sensory experiences and of feelings, must
involve mental imagery. Whatever the mental signifi
cance of a thought, however far-reaching its scope, how
ever vast its meaning, it must, as a present thought, be
embodied in a consciousness either of objects present to
the senses or of objects present as images. The sen
sory experience and the imagery, of any moment, when
taken together with the state of feeling of that moment,

158 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

constitute the mental material of the moment ; and that,
too, whether we are thinking of the loftiest or of the
most trivial matters. The cultivation of the right men
tal imagery consequently constitutes a very important
aspect of mental training.

It is to be noted, however, that our current mental
imagery is normally by no means independent, either
of our sense perceptions, or of our motor reactions.
When we are engaged in the ordinary processes of
external perception, the sensory experiences and the
images of the moment are usually very intimately
associated, so as to appear closely welded together.
So it is when the sight of an edged tool is associated
with the images of a possible cut to be received from
it, or when the perception of a tennis-racket arouses
the motor images which have their origin in the move
ments made when one used it. Even those trains of
images which the reading of a story arouses have a
similar connection with the sense impressions made by
the printed page as one reads; and the trains of
imagery which seem most independent of present
sense perceptions (as in case of revery, when one
stares into the fire or is in the dark) are still con
nected with the sense impressions produced by the
firelight, or by the disturbances of the retinal field in
the dark, or by organic sensory experiences. It follows
that tlic training of tJic imagination cannot normally
occur apart from a fitting training Of the senses. For

SENSITIVENESS— MENTAL IMAGERY 159

not only are our imaginations, in general, due to re
vivals of the effects left by former sensory experiences,
but the revival itself has relations to present sensory
experience which we shall later mention in connection
with mental docility. The lesson of these obvious con
siderations has been neglected by those who have en
deavoured to cultivate certain forms of abstract thought,
or of religious imagination, or, in general, of meditation,
apart from a due attention to the connection between
normal images and normal present sense experiences.

Less frequently noticed is the connection between sen
sory images and our motor response to our environment.
This connection appears, with special evidence, in the
case of our motor images themselves. When in pres
ence of familiar objects, such as our pen, our watch,
our knife, our dictionary, or our bunch of keys, we
examine the images that these objects awaken in us
as we observe them, we may often find images of a
more or less obviously motor type — images which take
the form of tendencies to conceive to ourselves certain
familiar acts which these objects call up in our minds.
Thus the pen may arouse the image of grasping the
pen for the purpose of writing, the knife may suggest
cutting, and so on. Especially common is the presence
of a word-image at the moment when we observe an
object whose name we for any reason find it at all con
venient to recall. Such an image stands for the fact
that we actually begin the motor reaction of naming

160 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

the object. It is not, however, necessary that the
images recalled in the presence of an object should be
explicit motor images in order that they should be
nevertheless related to the acts which the objects tend
to arouse in us. At the sight of a steamboat that plies
upon a lake or river known to me, I at once may be
gin to image, perhaps in visual form, scenes and other
experiences that I have had as a tourist on that boat.
But these images themselves very likely stand for a
tendency now present in my consciousness to become
again a voyager on the boat, and if I am at leisure,
such images may erelong give place to the actual
motor process of buying a ticket and going on board
the boat. Furthermore, a vast number of images, vis
ual as well as motor, relate to our anticipations of
future events. But these anticipations generally go along
with tendencies to prepare for the future events by one
or another sort of action. In brief, the whole normal life
of our imagination has a most intimate connection to our
conduct, and should not be studied apart from conduct.
The central processes which our images accompany
form themselves a part of our reaction to our environ
ment, and our more organised series of mental images

t>

actually form part of our conduct. This aspect of the
matter is one which many psychological studies of our
mental imagery lead us altogether too much to neg
lect. And many teachers suppose that to train the
imagination of children involves something quite dif-

SENSITIVENESS— MENTAL IMAGERY l6l

ferent from training their motor processes. But the
normal imagination of healthy children is likely to get
a rich expression in the form of their plays, of their
dramatic impersonations, of their story-telling, and of
their questions about things. And the most wholesome
training of tJie imagination is properly to be carried out
in connection with the training of conduct.

As is seen from the foregoing, the term " imagina
tion " is most conveniently used as a name for the
sum total of the mental processes that express them
selves in our mental imagery. When used psychologi
cally, the word "imagination" conveys no implication
that the mental imagery in question stands for unreal
or for merely fantastic objects. All mental imagery
results from former sensory experience. Why images
arise in the order in which they do arise is a question
whose answer belongs under the head of our Mental
Docility. As a consequence of the general character
of all our mental imagery, our images tend to be
decidedly imperfect representatives of real objects,
and may be very highly fantastic. But the estimate
of the value of our images is an estimate founded very
much more on the consideration of the sort of conduct
which results from their presence, than from any direct
estimate of their value as pictures of objects. Good
imagery is that which leads us to correct opinions and
to useful conduct, as well as to harmlessly agreeable
and satisfactory states of consciousness in general.

M

1 62 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

In training the imagination, a decided respect has
to be paid to the varieties of types of mental images
which have now been mentioned. The teacher who
endeavours to train all pupils as if they were alike good
visualisers, will indeed, in view of the fact that the
good visualizers are numerous, obtain many successes.
But he will be likely to regard as stupid those pupils
who perhaps are defective only in the peculiar type of
mental imagery which he asks them to use. There are
some branches of early education, especially spelling,
whose successful acquisition must to a considerable
extent depend upon the choice, on the pupil's part, of
the right sort of mental imagery for the retaining of
the desired facts. What the right sort is, will depend
upon whether such a pupil is rather of the visual, of
the auditory, or of the motor type. For this will
determine whether he most readily learns to spell by
eye, by ear, or by means of the use of his tongue. In
cases where the pupil himself finds difficulty in choosing
the right imagery, the teacher may do well to take
pains to discover something of what his type of
imagination is, and direct his attention accordingly.

CHAPTER VII

SENSITIVENESS

C. THE FEELINGS

§ 60. We now come to that aspect of our mental
sensitiveness which is the one most immediately inter
esting to ourselves, and also the one that, psychologi
cally speaking, still remains the most obscure. This
is the aspect which is sometimes known by the name
of the FEELINGS. Owing to the ambiguous way in
which the word " feeling " is used in popular language,
some psychologists have preferred to speak of the
" affective aspect " of our mental life. The term " affec
tion," used in a technical sense, has also been employed
for this aspect of our mental life. In speaking, in
our introduction, of the signs of mental life, we have
already called attention to the aspect of consciousness
which is here in question. It is the aspect which
becomes extremely prominent in case of very notable
pleasures or pains due to our sense experience. It is
the aspect also very marked in all our emotional life.
It is also the aspect upon which our immediate sense
of the present worth or value of our conscious states
as they appear to ourselves must always rest.

163

1 64 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

It is plain that this aspect of our consciousness has
a very close relation to our activities, since both the
attainment of pleasant or of satisfactory feelings, and
the avoidance of painful states, constitute important
factors in the determination of our conduct. Those
who divide mental life, in the well-known traditional
way, into the life of cognition, the life of feeling, and
the life of will, are accustomed to assign to the feelings
a stage intermediate between the life of cognition and
the life of will. From this point of view our cognitive
consciousness first furnishes to us facts. In terms of
our feelings we estimate the values of these facts for
us. In view of these values our acts are determined.
That this traditional view has a real significance can
not be questioned. But in the present exposition of
the structure and laws of consciousness we are not at all
closely following the lines of the traditional exposition.

From our present point of view all consciousness
without exception may be considered as accompanying
our acts, or at all events as taking place side by side
with the tendencies to action, which are at any moment
aroused within our organism. And thus all conscious
ness without exception might be considered as an expres
sion of the will, since that of which we are aware is
always related, in our own minds, to some tendency
on our part to act thus or thus. Furthermore, in so
far as our consciousness is an expression of our sensi
tiveness to the disturbances which the environment pro-

SENSITIVENESS — THE FEELINGS 165

duces, our whole consciousness Jias a cognitive aspect.
And since our consciousness is related, as we shall
later see, not only to the present state, but to the
acquired habits of our organism, or in other words is
a result of our docility, our consciousness has no vol
untary aspect that is not also in some respects a cognitive
aspect. Since the feelings form a part of a conscioiisness
which is thus always more or less obviously both cogni
tive and volitional, the feelings can hardly be regarded
as a link binding together two relatively distinct phases
of consciousness, namely, the cognitive and the volun
tary. For us, in this discussion, the feelings, in so far
as they are present, are phases of our present mental
sensitiveness. In what sense they have a cognitive
significance we can better see in a later portion of
our discussion. Their volitional significance will also
come to light more clearly in later connections. We
are concerned with them at present in so far as they
stand side by side with our sensory experiences, as an
aspect of our present conscious response to the situation
in which at any moment we find ourselves.

§ 61. In view of our attitude toward the doctrine
of mental elements, it is no part of our present task
to look for elementary feelings, and to give a catalogue
of these before showing how they, in connection with
other elements, enter into our more complex conscious
life. While some of the feelings can be more or less
definitely isolated by means of psychological experi-

OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

meat, the motives that make a catalogue of the sen
sations a convenient preliminary to the study of the
sensory side of our present consciousness do not exist,
in the present state of experimental psychology, in
nearly the same degree, in case of the affective aspect
of consciousness. . For the isolated feelings that can
be produced, — not, indeed, in absolute isolation, but in
connection with certain simple sense experiences, such
as odours, tastes, and sounds, — for the purposes of ex
perimental observation, form but a small portion of
our affective life, and do not, as in case of the sensa
tions, furnish to us anywhere nearly an exhaustive
list of the qualities of feelings which our ordinary ex
perience seems to furnish. On the whole we are there
fore still forced to accept, in the case of the feelings,
accounts and analyses which are but very imperfectly
subjected to experimental control.

Our ordinary consciousness very frequently distin
guishes within its own unity, between the facts of
which we are aware, and the present value that t/iese
facts seem to us to possess. This present value, for
instance, — the pleasurable or painful character of a
sound, or of a sensory experience of touch, — we learn
to refer, in our ordinary life, to t/ie relation of the object
to ourselves. My suffering does not belong to the
character of the object that touches or burns my skin ;
but as I am accustomed to say to myself, " It is my
suffering, it exists alone in me." Thus my sensory ex-

SENSITIVENESS — THE FEELINGS 1 67

periences, as such, tend to be referred to objects, the
things of the world which cause them, while my feel
ings appear to me to be my own. This aspect of the
distinction between feelings and other experiences
can be fully justified and described only on the basis
of a theory of what I mean by myself. And such a
theory cannot be assumed at the outset of psychology
as a means of furnishing a sufficient account of the
true nature of feeling. Yet it is an important feature
of the feelings that, when we have once developed our
notion of the difference between the self and the
world, we refer feelings especially to the self rather
than to the world without the self. This "subjective"
character of feeling is used by many psychologists as
a means of defining its essential nature.

§ 62. If we look for a simpler criterion of what we
mean by feeling, it seems worth while to point out
that by feeling, we mean simply our present sensitiveness
to the values of things in so far as these values are
directly present to consciousness. My feelings do not
assure me of what the ethical, or the scientific, or the
otherwise remote value of an object may be. But as
they pass, my feelings tell me what is the seeming pres
ent value of this state of consciousness, or of this com
plex of states of consciousness, as the contents of
consciousness pass before me. The question, What
aspects of feelings, or of what kinds of feelings exist ?
therefore reduces itself to the question, In what way

1 68 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

do our states of consciousness seem to us, as they pass,
to possess a present and immediate value ? The usual
answer to this question in the psychological text-books
is, that the present values of our conscious states, the
present kinds of feelings, can be reduced to two opposed
kinds, either one of which may predominate, or be
alone present, as the one immediate value of a passing
state, at any present moment. The two types of feel
ing in question are often called PLEASURE AND PAIN,
or again the Agreeable and the Disagreeable, or
again Pleasure and Displeasure, or the Pleasant and the
Unpleasant. It is often said that only feelings of these
two kinds exist. The further question whether there
exist, under each of these kinds, subordinate types (for
example whether there exist pleasures of various kinds
which cannot be reduced one to another), is a question
about which great difference of opinion has existed.
The well-known theory thus defined denies, however, in
any case, the existence of any other essentially differ
ent kinds of feelings except those of pleasure and of
displeasure.

This theory seems at first to meet with a very obvious
obstacle, so soon as an effort is made to apply it to the
case of our more highly complicated affective states,
such as our moods, our emotions, and our passions.
But here, in many modern text-books, the already con
sidered theory that our consciousness -is composed of
mental elements, in connection with a certain result of

SENSITIVENESS— THE FEELINGS 169

the habits of introspective analysis which experimental
psychology has trained, comes to the aid of the partisan
of the pleasure-pain theory of the feelings. Our emo
tions, viz., when carefully studied, prove to be, in large
measure, sensory experiences. By analysis we become
more or less able to substitute for a complex emotional
condition an analysed mental state, or a series of such
states, wherein we take note of the sensory elements
that, as the usual theory insists, are present in our
ordinary and unanalysed emotions. For such a view,
an emotion consists of elements due to organic sensations,
these elements being joined very closely with a vast com
plex of elements of the pleasure-pain type. Thus, in case
of anger we have complexes of sensations due to the
organic excitement which accompanies the emotion —
sensations of choking in the throat, sensations of the
violent beating of the heart, sensations due to the ac
tive movements which express anger, etc. It is said
that, if we abstract from our ideas of the object which
arouses our anger, and from these various masses of
organic sensory experience, there remains in the emo
tions, as the aspect constituting our present sense of the
value of our state, only the pleasure-pain aspect. Anger
is very generally a painful emotion. Some stages of it,
however, may be relatively pleasant. Similar analyses,
it is asserted, will hold true of such emotions as fear,
love, joy, or of the relatively placid moods such as ac
company our unexcited mental condition. Thus there

1 70 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

would remain, as the essential kinds of feeling, pleasure
and pain.

In order to complete the general statement of the
analysis of feeling thus attempted, it remains only to
note the fact that the word " pain," as used in ordinary
language, is somewhat ambiguous. It is very often
used to name certain sensations, which have already
been mentioned in our catalogue of the elementary
sensory experiences. It is also used to name the pain
ful, i.e. the unpleasant or disagreeable feelings. Now
in many of our more ideal sorrows, and in many of the
feelings associated even with our direct sensory experi
ences, there is no kind of sensation of pain. On the
other hand, the sufferings due to an intestinal disorder,
or to a burn, have a close connection with sensations of
pain, or with sensory experiences, that, from the point
of view of the usual theory, are complexes of such sen
sations. When a disagreeable combination of colours, or
an otherwise offensive object of decorative art, gives us
displeasure, the sensations present, or the sensory ex
periences, are of a totally different character from those
present when we are aware of a burn or of an intestinal
suffering. There are no sensations of pain amongst the
purely visual experiences. But the intestinal suffering
and the burn agree with the disagreeable aesthetic
experience in so far as painful, i.e. unpleasant feeling
enters into both, i.e. in so far as both are more or less
intolerable to us. In the same way an ideal sorrow

SENSITIVENESS — THE FEELINGS l/l

is disagreeable, but it is not necessarily accompanied
with any sensations of pain. If once the ambiguity
in the use of the word " pain " is detected, and the word
is used as the name for unpleasant feelings, not as the
name for painful sensory experiences, the theory here
in question receives a statement which avoids all unnec
essary misunderstanding.

As regards that aspect of the theory thus stated
which involves the doctrine that consciousness is com
posed of simple elements, we of course need here make
no new comments. For our present purpose the issue
is, whether the aspects which give our consciousness its
present and passing value are sufficiently described by
classifying tJiem into two kinds, and whether these two
kinds are sufficiently characterised by the names Pleas
ure and Pain, or by the somewhat less ambiguous
names, Agreeable and Disagreeable, or Pleasant and
Unpleasant.

§ 63. It will be noticed in any case that the feelings,
as thus characterised, are divided into two antagonistic
groups. Whether we can at once be conscious of the
presence of agreeable and disagreeable objects, i.e.
whether we can at once enjoy and suffer, or find our
present state agreeable and disagreeable (as Juliet
seems to do when she calls parting " such sweet sor
row "), this is a question concerning which opinions
somewhat differ. But nobody can doubt that there is a
distinct opposition between our sense of the agreeable

172 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

and our sense of the disagreeable, so that, in so far as
we tend to find something disagreeable, we at least tend
to exclude finding it then and there agreeable. In other
words, pleasure and pain, as antagonistic values, tend to
exclude each the other. The feelings thus have a char
acter which does not to any similar extent belong to the
sensory experiences. Colours are not antagonistic to
sounds. And both are consistent with experiences of
touch and of movement. But pleasures war with pains,
and where one conquers the other is abolished.

And now according to the theory here in question,
the same also holds true as to the relation of the feelings
to our voluntary actions. Pleasure, it is said, necessarily
attracts us, so that we tend to get more of it. Painful
feeling repels us, so that we tend, in so far as possible,
to remove its cause from consciousness or from exist
ence, so that the pain may cease. The two sorts of
antagonistic feelings are thus connected with antagonistic
tendencies of action. And as there are only two kinds
of feeling, so there are also only two antagonistic sorts
of action, — the sort of action by which we seek to ap
proach, to retain, to get more of an object, and the sort
of action by which we seek to get away from an object,
or to destroy it. In brief, we desire the pleasurable,
we show aversion toward the painful.

And finally, as this theory insists, pleasurable and
painful states of consciousness are respectively associ
ated with antagonistic organic conditions. Where

SENSITIVENESS — THE FEELINGS 173

pleasurable feeling is found, the organism shows vari
ous signs of present heightened vitality. There is an
expansiveness and a vigour about the whole life which is
absent in case of painful emotion. On the other hand,
in painful emotion, the organism tends to contract in
various ways, to " shrink," and, in the long run, shows
signs of lowered vitality. Thus facts relating to our
actions, as well as those relating to our organic conditions,
tend to support the dual theory of the life of the feelings.
§ 64. Nevertheless, after all this has been said, it
remains true that there is a great deal about the com
plex life of the feelings which seems to render doubtful
the sufficiency of the foregoing dual theory. For one
thing, we are frequently conscious of an attitude toward
objects which seems to give them at once more than one
kind of value, and which determines value in other than
pleasure-pain terms. Thus, we may find a situation
painful, and yet be in a state of feeling which renders
us decidedly averse to altering what is essential to the
situation, even for the sake of escaping the pain. For
instance, the sulky child, although suffering the pangs
of its mood, may decline to accept comfort, apparently
because it finds the pain somehow fascinating. On a
far higher level, the mourner may refuse a proffered
and comforting distraction, because he finds his sorrow
for some reason preferable to a cheer that he all the
while knows to be possible. The athlete, the military,
and the moral hero may all of them agree in choosing a

174 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

situation which involves suffering, although they dislike
the suffering. For they find this very suffering itself in
some wise also fascinating.

In order to explain such cases of complex feeling,
the dual theory of the two antagonistic types of feeling
finds it necessary, either to suppose that pleasure and
pain are mixed at the same moment, and that the
pleasurableness of the experience which attracts us,
despite its painfulness, predominates over the painful-
ness itself ; or else to assert that pleasurable and pain
ful aspects of a situation, or of an object, are alternately
presented to our consciousness, in such wise that we
sometimes find agreeable what at other moments we
find disagreeable; while, in case of the fascinating
sorrows, the pleasurable feelings that we obtain prove
to be more effective in directing our action or our
attention than the intervening sufferings.

But to both these ways of explaining the so-called
mixed feelings some objection naturally arises. That
the pleasurable and painful aspects of the fascinating
but miserable experience merely alternate in conscious
ness seems hardly to be verified by introspection. For
here the whole weight of the evidence furnished by the
literature of sorrow, by the poets, the autobiographers,
and the other confessors of human experience, who
have brooded over such conditions as these, and have
reported them, seems to be in favour of the view that the
mixed feelings offer instances of actual conflict, within

SENSITIVENESS— THE FEELINGS 175

tJie conscious field, between opposed feelings. Such con
flict is reported by the most various observers, even in
cases where those who report find the conflict inexplica
ble, and think that it ought not to exist. On the other
hand, granting that various conflicting feelings can
at once be found present in the same consciousness, it
seems somewhat difficult to accept the view that the
only antagonism present is that between the pleasurable
and the painful aspects of the object of consciousness.
For the one who reports such conflict is likely to say
that what he finds attractive, he also finds painful, or
that what he delights in, that he also in some fashion,
and at the same time, abhors and despises. But that
the one aspect is in such wise opposed to the other,
that the one simply tends to annul the other, is often
not reported. One is very conscious of being pulled in
various ways at once, rather than of the fact that his
conscious account has, so to speak, two opposed sides
that tend to balance each other. For the rest, we
should expect pleasure and pain, if present together in
equal intensity, to come to consciousness as values op
posed in such wise that the sum of the two equal and
opposite values would be nothing at all. But the report
generally is that the opposing values present are so to
speak incommensurate, so that the sense in which the
experience is pleasurable is simply not the sense in
which it is at the same time abhorrent. The account
consequently suggests that the terms " pleasure" and

1/6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

" pain " may be made by the theory now in question to
cover tendencies of feeling which are really not of two
kinds only, but of more than two.

§ 65. In decidedly recent psychology, the great ex
perimental psychologist and philosopher, Wundt, has
been led, not indeed upon the basis of such general
considerations as this, but upon the basis of experi
mental investigations (pursued in his own laboratory),
to a theory of the types of feeling which he still ad
vances in a somewhat tentative fashion, but which
promises to throw a very considerable light upon the
complex facts of feeling. According to Wnndt, the
feelings, which he views, in accordance with the theory
of mental elements, as consisting of a vast number of
different elementary states, form a complex whose facts
vary in three different "directions!' One feeling may
differ from another according to its place in a series
whose members differ according to any one of these
"directions," or according to all three at once. The
three directions are those : first, of the pleasure-pain or
pleasant-unpleasant series; second, of a series which
Wundt calls the "excitement-depression series," and
third, of the "tension-relief series." There are some
feelings whose place is in a single one of these series
almost wholly. Thus there are feelings of pleasure
and pain purely, which have no place in the other
series. Again, there are feelings of excitement and of
depression which are neither pleasurable nor painful.

SENSITIVENESS — THE FEELINGS 177

Finally, there are feelings of tension and relief which
have hardly any trace of the two other characters. But
many feelings, even very elementary ones, have, accord
ing to Wundt, two or all three of these characters
at once.

In view of the facts which constitute Wundt's admit
tedly still incomplete evidence for his three " directions "
of feelings, and in view of the really very large body of
inexact but impressive evidence on the subject which
the literature of the emotions seems to contain, I am
disposed to regard it as decidedly improbable that the
dual theory of the feelings gives an adequate account
of the phenomena. On the other hand, there can be no
doubt of the great difficulty which exists in distinguish
ing, in introspective analysis, between the aspects of
sensory experience which any complex state of feeling
accompanies, and this state of feeling itself; so that
we have indeed to admit that almost any account of the
feelings which seeks to differentiate them from the
sensory experiences is at present open to the objection
that it confuses these two aspects of our mental life
whenever it goes beyond the dual theory in its account
of the feelings.

§ 66. Nevertheless, it seems worth while to attempt,
in the present connection, a tentative view of the nature
of the feelings — a view which shall try to be just to
the classes of facts that the literature of the emotions,
and the experiments of Wundt seem, in very different

1/8 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

ways, to emphasise. I venture, then, to advance the
hypothesis that our feelings differ from one another
in at least two decidedly distinct and relatively indepen
dent ways, while I am uncertain whether Wundt's three
dimensions, or some still more complex account, may
not prove in the end to be more acceptable. I limit
my hypothesis to two relatively independent " dimen
sions " of feeling, only because at least so much varia
tion seems very probable, while more "dimensions"
seem less probable. In each of these two ways in
which feelings can differ, I find mutually opposed
kinds, or antagonistic characters of feeling. First,
then, feelings differ as to their pleasantness and un
pleasantness. In so far we have the pleasure-pain
dimension, as it might be called, of the variation of the
feelings. At the same time the feelings differ as being
more or less cither feelings of restlessness or feelings of
quiescence. By restlessness and quiescence I mean a
sort of antagonism introspectively easy to observe, but
on the other hand rather easily confounded (as I
readily admit) with those aspects of sensory experience
which guides us in knowing what movements we are
making. By a feeling of restlessness I mean, however,
not the sensory experience of movements that we are
actually carrying out, but the feeling of that value of our
experience which makes it an object of momentary dis
content. By a feeling of quiescence, on the other hand,
I do not mean exclusively such a feeling as is associated

SENSITIVENESS — THE FEELINGS 179

with the word " contentment " when that word is op
posed to the word " discontent," because by the word
"contentment" language has come to mean a feeling of
quiescence which is also one of pleasure ; while feel
ings of quiescence, as I shall point out in a moment,
may be relatively painful. The word "quiescence"
does, however, fairly express my meaning. I shall now
illustrate the ways in which, as I maintain, feelings can
vary in eitJier one of these two dimensions, or types of
variation, in suck fashion that instead of two, there will
be at least four principal kinds of mixed feeling present
in various states of consciousness, as well as two pairs
of mutually antagonistic, unmixed forms of feeling
possible.

§ 67. First, then, to call attention afresh to Pleasure
and Displeasure. Pleasures are feelings that seem to
accompany states in which the organism is being, so
to speak, built up, or prevailingly refreshed, so that its
vitality is for the moment heightened. Pain or dis
pleasure, on the other hand, is such feeling as is pre
dominant at moments when the organism is breaking
down, or is being lowered in vitality. In so far, pleas
ure and displeasure tend to reflect a condition of the
organism as a whole, although at any moment they
may, in my opinion, be more or less mixed, just be
cause the processes that have to do with increase and
decrease of vitality are so complex, and are so im
perfectly represented in consciousness. Meanwhile,

I SO OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

pleasure and displeasure, when they appear, are aspects
or qualities of conscious states in so far as they arc now
present, and not in so far as our consciousness emphasises
the changes which are constantly going on in the conscious
field.

On the other hand, restlessness and quiescence are
sorts of feeling tJiat have to do with our consciousness,
not of any particular movements, but of t/ie general ten
dency to a change in the motor processes present in our
organism. In consciousness itself these feelings there
fore have to do with the cJianging or temporal aspects
of our conscious states.1 We tend on the whole to
regard with restlessness whatever tendency involves
our interest in immediately future changes. The emo
tions of expectation, of curiosity, of fear, of hope, of
suspense, are accordingly especially coloured by rest
less feelings. On the other hand, the feelings of
quiescence predominate when no change is notably
interesting to us, or when no conscious stress is
laid upon the changes that are occurring. In con
sequence, we regard the past, when we look back to
it, with a quiescence which we do not generally adopt
toward the future. The complex mood called " fatal
ism " is one in which all happenings, both past and
future, are regarded with a predominance of those

1 A similar reference of the feelings of excitement and depression, and
of tension and relief, to the temporal aspect of consciousness, appears
in Wundt's theory.

SENSITIVENESS — THE FEELINGS l8l

quiescent feelings that usually predominate when we
think of the past. Hence the fatalist views the future
as having the same value for his feelings that the
irrevocable past already has. Again, quiescent feelings
predominate both when we approach sleep, and when
we suffer from marked and long-continued physical
depression. On the other hand, restless feelings pre
dominate when we are wide awake, or when the stored
energies of the organism are in a condition which dis
poses them to rapid and vigorous discharge. What
is commonly called active attention, as when we listen
intently for a faint sound, is characterised by feelings
of restlessness. On the other hand, the so-called pas
sive states of one who helplessly observes a present
object is characterised by a predominance of quiescent
feelings.

The restless and the quiescent feelings may, and in
general do, colour particular sensory experiences. That
is, we may be prominently conscious of the sensory
experience, and of what it means, and may, at the
same time, be aware of its value as one which arouses
us to restless activity, or which leaves us quiescent.
On the other hand, it seems to me an inadequate state
ment to identify our feeling of restlessness with the
sensory experience that informs us of what movement
we are making at a moment when we are active. We
are restless in so far as we are actively dissatisfied with
a present experience, and are so disposed to change the

1 82 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

experience. The result of this dissatisfaction will in
general be a consciousness of movement. While the
movement is going on, every stage of it will be some
what unsatisfactory, and our consciousness will be
one of restlessness. But our consciousness tliat we are
moving is a sensory experience. Our consciousness tJiat
we all the while feel res f less, or disposed to move, con
stitutes the feeling here in question. This feeling
makes us aware of the value of our present state,
which in case of restlessness is a value that we desire
momentarily to change.

§ 68. And now for the relation between the pleasure-
pain dimension of the feelings and the second dimen
sion, that of restlessness and quiescence. It is true
that, as the customary view says, we never wholly
"acquiesce" in presence of pain or of the disagreeable.
On the other hand, there are sufferings which leave us
relatively quiescent, while there are sufferings which
are accompanied with vigorous restlessness. When a
physical pain begins, we are restless, and our feelings
include those usually called rebellious. After hours of
suffering, we may remain still as clearly conscious of
the pain as ever, and quite as ready as ever to call it
intolerable. That is, our unpleasant feeling is as
notable as ever. But we may find ourselves very
much less disposed to any present tendency to change
our situation. We then fall into the state of passive
suffering. We even feel that we could not do anything,

SENSITIVENESS — THE FEELINGS 183

that we have no tendency to strive against the pain.
In this case, we combine suffering with quiescence of
feeling. The emotion called "despair" is a classic
instance of such an union of unpleasant feeling with
predominantly quiescent feeling. Various classes of
nervous sufferers confess such an union of pain and
quiescence as something which they themselves find
puzzling. The apathetic stages of nervous exhaustion
may furnish instances of what the patient describes as
great suffering, but as misery against which he has no
conscious tendency to contend.

On the other hand, pleasure may be of the restless
type. In this case, although we like what we Jiave, we
are dissatisfied with the situation, and restlessly seek for
more. In active temperaments and states of mind this
character of pleasant feelings becomes very prominent ;
hence those observations of the dissatisfying character
of the pleasures which are found so richly scattered
through the writings of poets and moralists. They
rest, I think, upon the basis of a sound introspection.
But the ordinary dual theory of the feelings offers no
sufficient account of their significance. Goethe's Faust
makes a wager with the Devil which is substantially to
the effect that Faust is ready to give up his soul to the
adversary, whenever the latter can furnish to him a
satisfying pleasure, i.e. a pleasure that he desires to
keep at the very moment when he has it. The signal
that this result has been reached is to be furnished,

1 84 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

according to the terms of the wager, whenever Faust
is ready to say to the present moment : —

" O moment, stay, thou art so fair."

As a fact, the Devil leads Faust through the entire
round of sense pleasures and worldly felicities, without
being able to get this report from the hero, until a
situation is reached, in the closing scene of Faust's life,
which does not here concern us.

But from the psychological point of view, it is indeed
possible that pleasure sJiould be associated with a rela
tively, although never absolutely, perfect feeling of
quiescence. In this case the pleasure is of the kind that
satisfies. The conscious attitude is then one, not of
seeking for more pleasure, but of desiring nothing more,
and nothing other than what we have. The attainment
of this state is indeed never complete, but constitutes
an ideal limit of our conscious search for pleasure.

§ 69. The relation of pleasure and displeasure, and
of restlessness and quiescence, to consciousness in
general, is somewhat different. The painful is capable
of coming very prominently and very intensely to
consciousness. Seldom does pleasure compare in its
intensity with the degree of consciousness which the
unpleasant often attains. On the other hand, there is
nothing in the nature of pleasure which forbids our
being decidedly and intensely conscious of its presence.
Restlessness, however, is distinctly more capable of

SENSITIVENESS — THE FEELINGS 185

becoming intense in consciousness than is quiescence.
The feeling of quiescence, or the tendency in our feel
ings which I intend to characterise by the word, can
indeed be present to consciousness ; but, on the whole,
quiescence never becomes entirely complete so long as
consciousness persists. It might be objected to my
whole account that quiescence means rather the ab
sence of disquiet, or of restlessness, than the presence
of any positive character of feeling. But while I admit
that restlessness is a much more positive experience
than is any extreme form of quiescence, there still
seems to me ground for regarding quiescence as a posi
tive state of feeling. But that restlessness is decidedly
distinct from painfulness or from unpleasantness seems
to me to be illustrated by the foregoing instances ;
while the positive character of the experience of quies
cence seems to me to be at least probable, and to be
distinct from the character which we associate with the
name Pleasurable.

§ 70. From the point of view now advanced there
would therefore be at least possible four distinct kinds of
mixed feelings, due to the union of the two pairs of char
acters, or of the two dimensions of feelings now defined.
These four kinds would be : First, the pleasures that
are quiescent. These would be illustrated, especially,
by instances of what is usually called contentment, as
opposed to discontent. The quiescent pleasures would
again be the most distinctly satisfactory sorts of feeling

1 86 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

that we possess, so far as the judgment of the present
moment is concerned. On the other hand, the tendency
of quiescence to be associated with a diminution of con
scious intensity is responsible for the fact that the
pleasures which tend to content us are in general not
very prominent or intense experiences, and are there
fore regarded with a certain restless contempt by
active-minded people, who do not often possess such
experiences, and who, viewing them from without, find
them indeed morally unsatisfactory, or tame, as Goethe
and his Faust do find them.

Second, we find the dissatisfying pleasures. These
have the present character of being pleasant. On the
other hand they are distinctly unsatisfactory. As we
have already pointed out, the dual theory of the feelings
finds it very difficult to assign to them a definite place.
If pleasure is the state of feeling that we desire, and if
we have it, why are we not satisfied with it ? But such
discontent is the well-known, and in fact the normal,
experience of human nature with regard to most pleas
ures. As Faust says : —

" So in desire I hasten to enjoyment,
And in enjoyment pine to feel desire. M

From our point of view such mixed states become
natural enough. The pleasnrably restless feeling in
volves, in any case, dissatisfaction with the pleasure
so far as that is merely present. Our desires in such
cases, when defined in terms of ideas (that is, when our

SENSITIVENESS — THE FEELINGS 187

consciousness is not merely of our feelings but of our
thoughts and our objects), may be either desires for
other pleasures of a different kind, or desires for more
of the same kind of pleasure, or may sometimes involve
a discontent which prefers even painful experiences
to the present pleasures, simply because the painful
experiences will give an opportunity for the exertion of
those activities which our restless feelings demand.
Wagner's Tannhauser, at the point where he is about
to attempt escape from the Venusberg, experiences such
an union of restlessness with pleasure. Browning's hero,
who expresses —

" The need of a world of men for me,"

is similarly dissatisfied with the enjoyments whose pres
ence he still experiences.

The biological importance of this union of pleasure
and dissatisfaction is very great. The normal animal,
engaged in successful activity, experiences many states
of consciousness that accompany heightened vitality
and that are accordingly pleasurable. But since its
relations to its environment need constantly fresh read
justment, such an animal must feel not merely the pleas
ure, but the incompleteness of its present state, in order
that it may constantly desire such readjustment.

Third, we find in many feelings the union of the pain
ful and the restless. Our experience is painful in so
far as it accompanies a certain present diminution of

1 88 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

the energy at the disposal of the organism, or in so far
as the present situation is more or less injurious to the
organism. Such pain is, in so far, very naturally
accompanied with dissatisfaction. But since dissatis
faction can accompany pleasure without thereby neces
sarily involving the distinctly painful feeling, we must
indeed distinguish between the restlessness that accom
panies suffering and the suffering itself. If the organic
injury to which the suffering is due is present, but is
not very severe, the restlessness may predominate over
the suffering. /;/ all such cases, according to our
account, the feeling present has two distinct aspects,
namely, our sense of the present pain, and our feeling
of the restless tendency to change our situation. The
dual theory of the feelings regards this connection be
tween pain and restlessness as an inevitable one; and
distinguishes the one from the other only by calling
the pain a quality of the present state, and the restless
ness, perhaps, a sensory experience of the movements
that we make in order to escape from the pain. Our
own theory regards the restlessness and the pain as
distinguishable aspects, both of which belong to the
world of the feelings, and neither of which is wholly
dependent upon the other.

Fourth, we may have, in certain feelings, the union
of suffering and quiescence. As already admitted, this
quiescence is never an absolute indisposition to make
any change whatever. On the other hand, the quies-

SENSITIVENESS — THE FEELINGS 189

cent aspect of consciousness seems to me to have a
positive character which is distinctly illustrated by all
those experiences to which Wundt gives the names
Feelings of Depression and Feelings of Relief. That
feelings of the relatively quiescent sort can be associ
ated even with great suffering seems to be illustrated
by the emotion of despair, and by our passive accept
ance of the hopeless sorrow, or of the overwhelming
physical pain. Very great and long-continued pain
inevitably tends to bring about a state in which feel
ings of quiescence are prominent.

§ 71. If the foregoing are the four kinds of possible
mixtures of the two types of feelings, it may be indeed
also pointed out that we have feelings in which one of
the two types of variation here in question may so pre
dominate that the other of the dimensions of feeling almost
wholly vanishes. Such feelings, in so far as pleasures
and pains are concerned, have been especially noted
in experimental work in the laboratory. Disagreeable
tastes, experimentally and unexpectedly produced by
stimuli put into the mouth of a passive subject, may
be for a moment almost purely disagreeable ; pleasant
tastes may be almost purely agreeable; and in both
cases there may be comparatively little prominence
given to the other dimension of feeling. Yet, on the
whole, such experiences of the unpleasant, if not very
intense, will be in general associated rather with feel
ings of quiescence than with those of restlessness, just

190 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

in so far as the subject remains passive. On the other
hand, feelings of restlessness and of quiescence can be
obtained in various degrees with little mixture of pleas
antness and unpleasantness. This especially occurs in
case of the phenomena of what are called active and pas
sive attention to indifferent objects. By the phrase " in
different objects," the customary dual theory of the
feelings distinguishes those objects that seem to us at
any moment neither pleasurable nor painful. Such, it is
usually said, are the vast number of objects of our
colder "intellectual" concern. Such, in general, are
all very familiar objects, of whose presence we may
take note, while their character as pleasant or un
pleasant is almost if not altogether absent. But we
may, and constantly do, attend to such objects. If we
attend to them in what is called the passive way, they
become clear and prominent in our consciousness with
out any effort of our own. If we attend to them with
some effort, they become prominent, but not without
thereby obtaining some sort of present and relatively
active interest to us. From our point of view, attention
to site k "indifferent objects" whether it be active or
passive attention, involves processes into which feeling
enters. The feeling is one of quiescence in passive atten
tion, of restlessness in active attention. The moods of
intellectual interest, the feelings which accompany our
questions and determine our curiosity, are feelings in
which restlessness is prominent, and in which we are

SENSITIVENESS — THE FEELINGS IQI

therefore dissatisfied with the imperfect knowledge that
we get so long as our insight is incomplete. But feel
ings of pleasantness and unpleasantness may be, in
such cases, almost wholly absent however active our
attention is.

It is notable that, as the ordinary theory admits,
our active attention may also be awakened, either by
pleasant or by unpleasant objects. The fact that both
pleasantness and unpleasantness may thus agree in con
stituting stimuli for our active attention, while neverthe
less the difference between attention and inattention
seems to be one that is largely determined by feel
ing this fact involves a problem which the ordinary

dual theory of the feelings leaves unexplained. If
both pleasure and displeasure tend to make us actively
attend, what kind of feeling is it that makes us in
attentive ? From our point of view, the explanation
lies in the fact that active attention involves feelings
of restlessness, while feelings of quiescence tend to
the cessation of active attention. Thus, both pleasur
able and painful objects may awaken our active atten
tion, because both may arouse feelings of restlessness.
In case active attention succeeds in bringing the state
of knowledge which we desire, the result is a feeling
of quiescence which once more leads to the cessa
tion of active attention, and consequently to that
which, apart from passive attention, would constitute
the state of inattention.

1 92 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

§ 72. We have now considered those aspects of our
consciousness which are especially concerned in the
sensitiveness to its present surroundings that the mind
manifests at any moment. In considering the stream
of consciousness, we already saw one of the principal
characteristics of what is called our present Attention
to a portion of the states of consciousness that at
any moment float before us. In the narrow field of
the present passing moment, some* states are empha
sised, or are clear, while the rest of the passing states
constitute what is often called the background of con
sciousness. The states present, whether they are in
the background or not, are of three principal kinds,
Sensory Experiences, Images, Feelings. These states
are not a mere collection of separate facts. Still less
are they, when they ordinarily occur, composed of
the elements that analysis can discover in those
analysed mental states which, as a result of special
training and of experiment, can be substituted for
the states of our naive consciousness. On the con
trary, consciousness as it passes always involves Unity,
and within this unity finds a certain Variety then
and there distinguished. The unity and the variety
are inseparable aspects of the conscious life of any
moment. Neither can be resolved into the other.
And at each moment there exist only such unity and
such variety as is then and there observed. When
we consider the conditions upon which the conscious

SENSITIVENESS — THE FEELINGS 193

ness of the instant depends, we are able to refer one
aspect of all our conscious life to the present activi
ties of our sense organs. And this aspect we have
called our present sensory experience. A similar
study of the conditions of consciousness enables us
to distinguish our images from our more direct sen
sory experiences. Finally, our feelings are distin
guished from our other experiences by the direct
consciousness of the moment ; but their classification
is rendered difficult, because of their evanescent charac
ter, and of the variety of the ways in which they appear
at different present moments of consciousness. The
classification that we have offered is merely an effort
to be just to the complexity of the facts. It follows
in some respects Wundt's account, but simplifies the
latter.

Yet now the question may still arise as to whether
the account thus far given of our passing consciousness
is exhaustive. For is there not, one may ask, still an
other kind of consciousness present, namely, that which
constitutes what is usually called the Will, as it is
manifested at any moment ? Is not this other kind of
consciousness that which is sometimes also called
Conation ?

§ 73. To this question we answer by a few further
words concerning the place which the Will ought to
occupy in a psychological study. All consciousness
without exception accompanies the reaction of the

194 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

organism to its environment There is no sensitiveness
without at least a tendency to the outward expression of
this sensitiveness. While the manifold inhibitions of
which we have earlier spoken may suppress the out
ward appearance of the movements which we tend to
make, inhibition itself is, on the physical side, an essen
tially motor process ; and there is therefore no excep
tion to the rule that all consciousness accompanies
responses of the organism to stimulation. As these
responses, in so far as we are aware of them, not only
are from the objective point of view adjustments to our
situation, but in general are viewed by ourselves as ex
pressions of our desire, there is a general sense in which
we can speak of all consciousness as an inner interpreta
tion of our oivn attitude toward our world. Of whatever
I may be conscious, I am always aware of how some
thing is consciously estimated with reference to my
needs and desires. There is, therefore, a good general
ground for declaring that the whole of our consciousness
involves will, that is, a collection of attitudes which we
feel to be more or less responsive to our world.

But, as a fact, this our conscious response to our
world takes the form of being aware of objects, of being
aware of what we are doing about the objects, and of feel
ing pleasure and pain, restlessness and quiescence, in the
presence of these objects and of our own acts. The ques
tions as to why we act as we do, and why we feel as we
do, involve inquiries that can only be answered in the

SENSITIVENESS— THE FEELINGS 195

light of considerations which will concern us later under
the head of Docility or of Mental Initiative. But in
our consciousness of our present action, and of our pres
ent attitude toward the world, in other words, in the con
sciousness of our present will, there are involved no other
present features than those already described, namely,
tJie sensory experiences, the images, and the feelings, as
they are present at any time in the unity of consciousness.
The words "desire," "longing," "choice," and the rest
of the terms which are very properly used for the ele
mentary attitudes of the will, are names for conscious
processes in which the aspects of sensory experience,
of images, and of feelings can be readily distinguished.
But besides these aspects, no essentially new ones are
to be found, except in so far as we take account of the
conditions upon which desire, choices, and the rest, de
pend. Of these conditions we shall later speak. But
so far as present consciousness is concerned, to desire an
object is to feel pain at its absence, or else is to be restless
in the presence of our mere images of the object. To
strive after an object is to combine such a feeling of
restlessness with the sense of strain due to our organic
sensory experience of the actions whereby we pursue
the object. To make a choice, is to assume an attitude
toward certain objects which involves special instances
of attention, accompanied with certain shades of feeling
wherein various restless feelings gradually or suddenly
give place to certain characteristic feelings of quiescence.

196 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

In brief, while we are far from denying the presence
of will in consciousness, our own view is that, in one
aspect, the wJiole consciousness of any moment is an ex
pression of the will of that moment, in so far as that will
is concerned with these sensory experiences, and with
these objects, in view of the present values which our
feelings give to the objects in question. The term " will"
itself is one which is derived rather from a consideration
of the significance of our conscious life, when ethically
estimated, or when viewed with reference to the out
ward acts which express it, or with regard to the in
ward results which flow from it, than a term of
psychological description. The understanding of the
phenomena of the will from a psychological point of
view cannot result from a study of present conscious
ness alone, but must involve the considerations which
concern us in later sections. We conclude, then, that
the term " conation " stands for no aspect of present
consciousness which has not been already, in general,
characterised.

Herewith our study of mental sensitiveness is com
pleted. We turn from the examination of our present
consciousness to a consideration of the relation of this
consciousness to our former experiences, and to the
acquired habits of our organism.

CHAPTER VIII
THE GENERAL LAWS OF DOCILITY

§ 74. Our whole method of treatment in this sketch
forbids us to separate the study of the intellectual life
from the study of the life that gets expressed in our
conduct. Accordingly, in our account of mental docil
ity, we are equally concerned with the question as to how
we acquire knowledge, and with the question as to how
our habits of action become moulded by our environment,
in such wise that these habits get represented in our
consciousness. Externally viewed, the organism shows
docility by its power to exhibit, in the activities of any
moment, the results of former experiences, that is, of
what has happened to the organism in the past. From
the point of view of consciousness, our docility shows
itself in the fact that our consciousness at any moment
not only involves a response to the present situation,
but shows signs of the way in which present experience
is related to former experience. Since the conscious
ness of any moment is concerned both with the objects
which we know, and with the acts which we perform or
tend to perform in the presence of these objects, as well
as with the feeling that the objects arouse in us, our

197

I98 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

docility is equally shown: (i) by the fact that our
present knowledge of things shows traces of the influ
ence of former experience; (2) by the fact that our
present consciousness of our acts shows signs of being
influenced by a consciousness that we have possessed
of former acts, at the time when they occurred, and
(3) by the fact that our present feelings show signs
of being influenced in their character by our former
feelings. Since all these evidences of docility con
stantly coexist in consciousness, there is no reason,
except convenience, for treating them at all separately.
The general laws that govern docility in the one case
apply to all three cases. Our course of treatment of
the phenomena of docility will therefore begin by
pointing out the most general laws which govern the
process, and by then illustrating the applications of
this law to various special cases.

§ 75. In speaking of the functions of the brain, we
already laid stress upon the principle that determines
all our docility, in so far as that docility depends upon
physical conditions. Any function of the brain tends,
within limits, to be performed with the more facility
the more frequently it has been performed before. This
is the law of Habit. Its interpretation in terms of
consciousness is, that any conscious process which is of
a type that has occurred before, tends to recur more
readily, up to the point where the limit of training has
been reached, and to displace rival conscious processes,

THE GENERAL LAWS OF DOCILITY 199

according as its type has frequently occurred. We
speak a foreign language the more readily the oftener
we have already spoken it. We repeat a poem more
easily the oftener we have already repeated it. A
frequently recurring emotion is of a type such that we
readily fall into that emotional condition. The only
qualification needed in making this assertion depends
upon the fact that our training may reach a limit,
beyond which we do not increase in facility.

The chief consideration that needs carefully to be
borne in mind, in even the most general application of
the cerebral law of habit to the phenomena of con
sciousness, is expressed by calling attention to the fact
that we can only speak of the recurrence of a certain
type or sort of consciousness, never of the recurrence
or repetition of a given conscious state itself. There
are reasons why, without danger of serious error, we
can speak of the same cerebral function as recurring.
But it is not proper to speak of the same state of con
sciousness, or of the same experience, as being re
peated. For into the stream of consciousness no one
can twice step and find it the same. No state of con
sciousness ever recurs. We can only speak of the
repetition at different times of the same type or kind of
conscious condition. The sorrows, the ideas, the sights,
all the experiences of last year, of yesterday, or of ten
minutes ago, have vanished, and will never recur in the
world known to the psychologist. But the sorrow or

2OO OUTLINES OF PSYCIIOI/XiV

sight or thought of this moment may resemble, in type,
experiences of former consciousness. And in so far as
the same brain function recurs, the similar state of con
sciousness will occur also, and will repeat the type of
its predecessor, which on the former occasion accom
panied that function. It is with this restriction that
the law of habit may be translated from cerebral terms
into the terms that apply to consciousness.

§ 76. The first result of the law of habit is that
any complex cerebral function, which in the course
of our experience gets established, is likely to have a
history which includes events of the following sort.
The function first comes to be established, in general,
through the results of external disturbance, trans
mitted through sense organs to the brain. Let the dis
turbance involve the sensory elements A, />, C, D.
Let the cerebral function which these disturbances at
first determine involve certain corresponding processes
<?, />, c, d. What these corresponding reactions of the
brain are, will depend upon the inherited structure of
the brain, and upon the habits that it has acquired
up to the time of the occurrence of the disturbances
in question. In general, if the disturbances are novel,
the brain will exhibit a certain inertia, or a certain
slowness of definite response to the new stimuli.
This inertia will be a symptom of the fact that the
stimulation is new. Let the disturbances, however,
often recur, and let the functions a, b, r, d, be often

THE GENERAL LAWS OF DOCILITY 2OI

repeated. Then, in general, these functions will become
quicker, and more definite, and will recur more read
ily. In a large number of cases the functions will
appear to be not only quickened, but simplified, as
the process often recurs. At the first, the response
of the brain to the new disturbances may be decidedly
diffuse, and may contain elements that are not useful
to the organism. As a result of frequent stimulation,
the useless elements may tend to be removed from
the response, which may therefore become less diffuse
and more simple, as well as more definite. Witness
the way in which, when we acquire a new habit of a
skilful sort, we gradually eliminate, even quite apart
from any conscious selection, many useless movements
of the type of " overflow," many awkwardnesses and
redundancies which accompany our first efforts. The
question why these redundancies disappear is a com
plex one, which involves physiological problems re
lating to the whole process of adaptation. But we
all know that early movements of any sort are likely
to be hesitant and redundant ; and that the sign of
acquired habit is the presence at once of swiftness
and of useful simplification.

But still a further modification of the brain function
results from the law of habit. The elementary pro
cesses which constitute the cerebral response may be
come so united together that, when the habit becomes
well established, only a portion of t/ie original stimuli

202 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

may suffice to produce the whole of the habitual response.
Thus, in time, A may suffice as a stimulus to release
the entire system of now closely knit elementary pro
cesses of which the response a, by c, d, is made up. In
creasing swiftness, useful simplification, dcfinitcncss,
and a close welding together of elementary processes
in such wise that the stimulus which arouses one
suffices to arouse all — these are the familiar phe
nomena of cerebral habits as these become settled.
Such phenomena may be illustrated without limit in
case of what happens with all our trained movements,
with all our skilful arts.

It will be noticed that the welding together of
various elementary functions, which is so important
a factor in the acquisition of complex habits, may
appear either in the simultaneous or in the successive
functions of the brain. Thus if, when we acquire any
skill, the various fingers of one hand, or of both hands,
have been led, through the appropriate stimulations,
to cooperate in the same movement, as in sewing, or
in knitting, or in playing a musical instrument, the
brain functions which direct them in this activity may
become so welded together that a single stimulation,
or at all events a very simple one, may suffice to release
at once all the simultaneous motor disturbances which
are needed to carry out the function in question. Thus,
when one learns music, the various fingers have at first
to be guided by different stimulations into the acts

THE GENERAL LAWS OF DOCILITY 2O3

that are necessary for the playing of chords ; but, for
the trained musician, a glance at the printed music
may suffice to put at once all the fingers needed into
the simultaneous positions which secure his striking the
chord. The same holds true in successive functions ;
that is, one whom any stimulus starts in the motor
processes that lead to a given series of acts may find
these acts so welded together by habit that the
accomplishment of each act in the habitual process
furnishes of itself the sufficient sensory stimulus for
the accomplishment of the next stage in the same pro
cess, so that no new guidance is needed for carrying
out the whole series of acts, beyond the first stimulation,
and the resulting series of motor, sensory, and central
processes.

§ 77. Interpreted with reference to consciousness,
the law of habit appears as the LAW OF ASSOCIATION.
The conscious states that accompany any process
which becomes habitual are such that, within certain
limits, they are similar in any particular instance to the
states that accompany any other repetition of the
same process. In so far as they are similar, they
directly illustrate the law of habit. If to the cerebral
functions a, b, c, dy at the time when they were first
performed, there corresponded the conscious states i, 2,
3, 4, then when the function recurs, a sequence of con
scious states i', 2', 3', 4', may be observable, similar
to the former ones. Or if the functions a, b, c, d,

204 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

involve elements that are simultaneous, and if in the
same way the conscious facts I, 2, 3, 4, are a simul
taneous variety within the same unity of consciousness,
upon the recurrence of the function, a similar simul
taneous variety of conscious states will tend to be
observable. In consequence, there will appear in the
conscious states the law that conscious processes which
have been cither simultaneously or successively associated
will have such a relationship cstablisJied that frequently,
wlien states similar to one or to more of these associated
states occur, states similar to the others will tend to
associate themselves with tJicsc new states, so that, for
instance, when the states i' and 2', similar to the
former states I and 2 are found in consciousness,
states 3' and 4', similar to the states 3 and 4 will tend
to take place. Just as there will be a law of the
tendency of various functions of the brain to become
welded together either simultaneously or successfully,
precisely so the laivs of mental association will involve
both simultaneous and successive associations. The
existence of such instances of mental association, and
their relations to the laws of cerebral habit, appear
very readily in any case where we learn by heart a
series of words, and so illustrate, as we repeat our
lesson, the principle of successive association. Such
connections also appear, on the other hand, when for
instance we put a key into a lock. Here, however,
we have simultaneously associated ideas, corresponding

THE GENERAL LAWS OF DOCILITY 205

both to the keyhole and to the shape and position of
the key. But it is indeed the case that the facts of
mental association tend, in one respect, to lose their
parallelism to the facts of cerebral habit when we take
account of the easily verifiable principle that, when our
acts become very rapid, or our simultaneous motor func
tions become very complex or very closely welded, our con
scious states no longer possess a wealtJi at all correspondent
to the complexity of the functions. To the rapidly per
formed act, only a single conscious state may correspond.
To the complex collection of simultaneous functions
there may correspond only a single idea. Thus, ac
quiring a skilful habit, such as is involved in writing
our own names, we may almost entirely lose conscious
ness of how we form the single letters. The musician,
in striking the chord, may be aware only of how he
intends the chord to sound, and may no longer have
any mental process corresponding to the conscious
states which were in his mind when first he learned
simultaneously to adjust his fingers to the act.

§ 78. In consequence of this failure of our conscious
processes to correspond in their wealth to our habits,
many further psychological complications result. For
instance, we may learn a song. The function involves
cerebral processes having to do both with the words and
with the tune. These processes are perhaps developed
somewhat in isolation, but, in any case, become welded
together when we acquire the power to sing the song.

206 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

Because of the welding together of the functions, and
because the tune and the words are represented also in
our consciousness, we come to have a mental association
of the words with the tune. In so far, the mental asso
ciation very correctly represents the cerebral facts,
although it is never adequate to their wealth. It may
now happen that, in some entirely different context, we
hear a tune which, while not identical with the former
tune, resembles the latter in some of its strains, or in
the chords of its harmony, or sometimes merely in ex
tremely subtle features, such for instance as the char
acter of its rhythm, or the way in which it is sung.
In such a case music, which is remotely similar to the
original tune, may arouse in our minds a memory of the
former tune and of the associated words. Such " asso
ciations by similarity " may occur in cases where the
connection seems still more remote. Thus an expres
sion on a stranger's face may remind us of something
that was said at home yesterday. Upon examination
we may discover that this expression resembled one
which frequently appears on the face of some in
mate of our home, and that it was this inmate who
uttered the words in question. In all such instances
the associative process, as it is represented in con
sciousness, seems to bring togetJier facts tJiat have
never before been represented by similar conscious facts
tJiat occurred together. And hence, in such cases,
the conscious association may at first seem to be

THE GENERAL LAWS OF DOCILITY 2O/

following other lines than those which the laws of
habit suggest.

But if we pass to the conditions of the conscious state,
in so far as these conditions are cerebral functions, we
are able to reduce the explanation to the law of habit.
The new experience that arouses what is called an
" association by similarity," awakens functions that are
not only habitual, but that involve elementary functions
which had also taken part in other habits. Because, in
these other habits, these elements had become welded
with yet other simultaneous or successive functions,
they have tended to arouse those other habitual func
tions into which they had entered. But these other
functions, when once aroused, are accompanied by con
scious processes whose similarity to the conscious processes
that reminded us of them we can only detect after the as
sociation has taken place. Thus the music now heard
involves a harmony or a cadence whose cerebral accom
paniment has occurred before in my life. And this
elementary cerebral function, when it has occurred
before, has been a part of the very process that I went
through when I learned a certain familiar tune with
which certain words were associated. The elementary
function once having awakened the rest of the habit of
which it was formerly a part, I proceed to recall words
which are associated with a music only remotely similar
to the music now heard. A similar explanation holds
in the other case cited. Hence my habits may so work

208 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

as to bring together conscious facts such as were never
together before.

§ 79. The partisans of the theory of mental ele
ments, and in particular the school of Wundt, are
nowadays accustomed to summarise all such processes
as are here in question by saying that associations
arc formed not principally amongst our various total
states of consciousness, but amongst the elements of which
these states consist, so tJiat tJie elements which enter into
one mental state may recall through simultaneous or
through successive association elements which make up
other mental states. In this way total states of con
sciousness, such as have never been habitually together
in consciousness, may, upon occasion, appear to become
associated through the association existing amongst
their elements.

If we substitute for the fictitious mental "elements"
the elementary cerebral functions which take place as
the accompaniment and condition of our mental pro
cesses, the application of the law of cerebral habit seems
to be always possible ; and then our account is freed
from the entanglements of the theory of mental ele
ments. From this point of view every elementary cere
bral function, a, may become habitually united witJi
various other cerebral functions in various complex
habits. Whenever a state of consciousness, i, occurs,
which accompanies this elementary function, a, then, if
the conditions favour the awakening of some other

THE GENERAL LAWS OF DOCILITY 2CX)

cerebral habit into which the elementary cerebral func
tion enters, the other habit, if once awakened, will be
accompanied with another mental process which will
hereupon appear to be associated with the conscious
process that we have called I. /;/ consequence, tJic
associative connections amongst ottr various conscious
states will generally be much more subtle than the gross
application of the law of Jiabit will at once suggest.

On the other hand, when we learn to substitute for
our nai've states of consciousness those analysed states
which we have before described, and which the theory
of mental elements regards as such important guides,
we tend more and more to detect, in these analysed
states of consciousness, relatively simple states which
now correspond to the elementary cerebral functions,
and which enable our account of the associations to
be stated more in terms of the habitual connections
amongst the mental processes whose types we now
have consciously before us. Thus we are able to say
that the expression of the stranger's face now appears
as that factor in the present consciousness whose simi
larity to the expression of the face of the inmate of our
own family has directly suggested, by habitual connec
tion, the word spoken yesterday. And this is the
empirical truth that lies at the basis of Wundt's theory
of the association of mental elements.

§ 80. In ordinary mental experience we most readily
observe associative connections in two forms, which
p

210 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

tradition has long since called by the names, Asso
ciation by Contiguity and Association by Similarity.
Association by contiguity is illustrated by any case
where, for instance, a saddle reminds us of a horse, or
a man reminds us of some other man with whom he
has often been seen. Association by similarity has
already been illustrated. It takes place, also, in case
a portrait reminds us of a living man. The older
accounts of the associative process sometimes mentioned
other associative connections than these. Thus one
spoke of association by contrast, as when a wedding
reminds us of a funeral, or when a good man reminds
us of a vicious man, whose characteristics are strongly
opposed to his own. But such association can easily
be viewed as association either by contiguity or by
similarity. Association by cause and effect used some
times to be mentioned, and illustrated by cases such as
those wherein the surgical instrument reminds us of
an operation, or when the gathering clouds before a
thunder-storm remind us of the rain. But here again
association by contiguity is obviously prominent. From
what has been said it is now evident that all these
forms of association are instances of the same funda
mental process, viz., the law of habit.

§ 8 1. It is manifest that the general law of associa
tion, as thus far stated, concerns itself only with ten
dencies constantly present; but in no wise exhaustively
describes the conditions that determine any individual

THE GENERAL LAWS OF DOCILITY 2II

sequence, or simultaneous union, of our conscious states.
For, at any moment, our present consciousness accom
panies cerebral functions that have been in the past
connected with very different other processes. Which
one of these connections shall determine the actual
process which hereupon becomes prominent in the
life of the brain or in our outward conduct, is not
thus determined. Thus, for instance, the speaking
of any word of our language involves a cerebral func
tion, which has in the past been connected with great
numbers of other functions, since we have spoken this
word in the most various contexts, and have connected
the speaking of the word with very different other
functions. In consequence, the general law of habit
insures indeed that the word, if familiar, shall arouse
certain functions which are inseparably associated with
it. But the general law of habit does not determine
what other functions, for instance what other words,
or what other cerebral processes of a nature such that
mental images accompany them, shall be aroused
immediately after we have heard or have spoken a
given word. In consequence, our mental associations
with the word may, upon different occasions, vary very
widely, and yet all be due to the general law of asso
ciation. Thus, for instance, let the question be asked,
Of what other word does the word " curfew " remind
me? In case I have begun to repeat Gray's Elegy,
the word "curfew" will at once by habit arouse the

212

OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

sequence of words, "tolls the knell of parting day."
In case a familiar modern bit of verse comes to mind,
the word "curfew" will be associated with the phrase
"shall not ring to-night." And thus the associations
may vary indefinitely.

What particular cerebral habit triumphs in case of
a given present experience, the general statement of
the law of habit enables us to predict, only in so far as
it lays stress upon the fact that, all other things being
equal, the most frequently exercised habit tends in any
given case to be most readily aroused. As a fact, the
word " curfew " is certain to have some inevitable, or
as some call it "inseparable," association in the mind
of any one who is familiar with the word. This associa
tion will be determined by the frequency of the repeti
tion of the habit in the past. But beyond this most
general rule, the law of habit cannot lead us, unless
it is supplemented by other considerations.

§ 82. One of the most familiar of these supplemen
tary considerations is the one expressed by saying that
vividly experienced and connected mental contents tend
to be favoured by the associative process. Interpreted
in terms of cerebral habit, this means that functions
which have involved decidedly vigorous alterations of
our central condition tend to persist, and to be re-
aroused more readily because of the deep impression
made. Or, in other words, habitual tendencies become
more potent not only by virtue of frequency of repeti-

THE GENERAL LAWS OF DOCILITY 213

tion, but also by virtue of the vigour of the central im
pressions made when the habit is established. Thus, a
single occurrence of a connection that makes a very deep
impression may suffice to fix a habit which is expressed
to consciousness in an inseparable association. Yet
this principle of the associative potency of the vividness
of our experience is insufficient to supplement the
principle of frequency sufficiently to explain our actual
associations. A further principle of considerable guid
ing value is furnished by the fact that habitual func
tions which have recently been aroused, tend to affect
the direction which present functions take. When we
have been for some time speaking in a foreign tongue,
the present act of speech is accomplished more readily
than it is when we first begin, after a long pause, to
speak the foreign language. Here our present associa
tions are in part determined by the character of the
immediately preceding associations. Every kind of
activity tends to run more smoothly after it has been
carried on for a little time. If we miss our way in
repeating a well-known recitation, the prompter may
fail to guide us successfully if he gives us but a single
word. But if he repeats several words of the forgot
ten passage, the combined associative effect of these
words enables us to go further. Thus, in general, the
present course of association is determined by the associa
tive influence, not merely of mental states now present
to consciousness > but of mental states which have re-

214 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

cently been present to consciousness. The interpreta
tion of this fact in terms of the nature of our cerebral
function is not difficult. Every function, when once
exercised, tends to prepare the way not only for the
immediately succeeding functions, but for functions
which follow at any time within a considerable interval.
And consequently, amongst the associations that might
occur at any moment, that one most likely triumphs
which is most helped out by recent associations.

§ 83. But the course of our associations is also deter
mined by still more complex processes. Some of these
are dimly represented by the whole state of our feelings
at any moment. In one mood we think of one kind
of series of objects; or in other words, one set of
associations then triumphs over all others. Change the
mood, and the direction of our associations changes.
James instances in this connection the influence which
an emotional disturbance, such as that which accom
panies sea-sickness, may seem to exert upon the
sequence of our associations. Yet the emotions them
selves are inadequate to indicate the way in which the
general conditions of our brains at any moment deter
mine the selection of one rather than another series of
habits as the triumphant tendency.

We earlier spoke of what we called the " set " of the
brain at any time. As, in a great railway station, with
a system of interlocking switches, one group of tracks
may be simultaneously set so that they are open to

THE GENERAL LAWS OF DOCILITY 21$

traffic, while other tracks are closed, so, only with infi
nitely greater complexity, the brain at any time is in
a condition of preparedness for one rather than for
another collection of interrelated and interwoven func
tions. Associations that correspond to some other con
nection of functions may be entirely excluded by this
present " set " of the brain. Thus, during a lecture,
the lecturer is forced to one series of associations, which
the various incidents of the lecture room may modify,
but which nothing but an entire interruption of the
lecture can alter during the hour. The lecture over,
his brain soon assumes another " set," and he may be
even unable to recall sequences of ideas that during the
lecture appeared perfectly obvious and necessary. Now
our current mood, or emotional condition, often repre
sents with considerable accuracy such a general condi
tion of preparedness on the part of the brain. In
consequence, we may know that, in a given mood, we
can think successfully on certain kinds of subjects, but
not upon certain others. But there are indeed changes
and conditions of "set" of brain which are not ade
quately represented by our moods and changes of
mood. In such cases we have very imperfect conscious
warning as to what course our associations will take,
and are obliged to find out what connections are then
paramount merely by observing the result.

Social influences especially affect the " set " of the
brain. In one kind of company we find ourselves pre-

2l6 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

pared for one type of association, while in another
company the same objects or ideas when presented
arouse wholly different conscious consequences. In
the phenomena which occur in great crowds of people,
under exciting conditions (the so-called " phenomena of
the mob"), the alteration of associative processes from
those which occur under ordinary conditions may be
very impressive. Thus, at a public foot-ball game, a
woman, usually pitiful and tender-hearted, and accus
tomed to associate the sight of physical injury only
with kindly acts, or with expressions of sympathy or
of horror, may show, in the excitement of the moment,
extravagant signs of joyous fury at the sight of an
injury to a player on the side to which she is opposed,
and may for the time be reminded by this sight of noth
ing so much as the wish that this opponent should be
rendered wholly incapable of playing further. The
popular excitements of the French Revolution were
largely made up, so far as concerns the psychical
processes involved, of anomalous associations of ideas,
and of deeds due to such changes in brain habits
as were occasioned by the extraordinary social situ
ations of the time. Such phenomena tend greatly
to veil the regularity of the general laws of asso
ciation, and come to be explained only when we
observe that the habits aroused at such moments
have a sufficient basis in cerebral tendencies estab
lished far back in the childhood of the persons

THE GENERAL LAWS OF DOCILITY 2 1/

concerned, or in activities that their normal life keeps
in the background.

Amongst the general brain conditions which most
modify the types of associative processes that can
occur, the conditions of acute fatigue, and those
chronic conditions which are in many respects equiva
lent to those of acute fatigue, are prominent. The
German psychologist and psychiatrist Kraepelin has
experimentally investigated such processes in his labora
tory. In acute fatigue the associations tend to acquire
a character of incoherence, somewhat similar to that
which is observable in the deliriums that accompany
exceedingly exhausting nervous disorders. In the field
of verbal associations, rhyming and punning associa
tions often tend in such states of fatigue to take the
place of more rational and useful sorts of association.
The habits upon which the power to add figures
depends come to work loosely at such times, and fre
quent errors result. The phenomena are in a measure
known to us in ordinary life. Laboratory experiment
emphasises them, and shows them to be present in cases
where they would escape ordinary observation. The
psychological continuity between the phenomena of
fatigue and those of the incoherent forms of delirium
is thus suggested.

CHAPTER IX

DOCILITY
A. PERCEPTION AND ACTION

§ 84. The general law of habit is manifested through
out the whole range of our docility. But its results
appear in a large number of different types of mental
phenomena, whose relations to the general law may
now be illustrated. In case of all these types of expe
rience, we have phenomena illustrating the way in which
what has happened to our organism in the past modifies
both the present state of our consciousness and the
present tendencies of our actions. We shall endeavour
as far as possible to develop both these aspects side by
side, not sundering the intellectual life, which has to do
with our consciousness of objects, from our voluntary
life, which has to do with our consciousness of acts,
except in so far as mere convenience of exposition ren
ders it advisable to do so.

§ 85. When external physical objects affect our sense
organs, they produce complex disturbances both of these
and of the corresponding centres of the brain. These
disturbances in general tend to pass over into motor
tracts, and to produce certain movements which, at first,

218

DOCILITY — PERCEPTION AND ACTION 219

are determined by the hereditary tendencies of the brain,
i.e. by what is called our instincts ; while, in the long
run, these instincts, modified as well as aroused through
our various and repeated sensory stimulation, take the
form of acquired habits of action. TJie accompanying
consciousness y in so far as it is simple •, and is determined
by our habits of direct adjustment to objects that are re
peatedly present, constitutes what we call our perception
of these objects.

Thus, to take a comparatively simple instance, a child
in the first year of life, who has already reached the
"grasping" age, sees a bright-coloured object, grasps
at it, seizes it, and carries it to his mouth. The act is
determined by complex sensory stimulations, visual and
tactual. The act itself consists of a series of move
ments. These involve focusing the eyes upon the ob
ject, by movements which include the accommodation
of each eye to the function of clear vision, and the
convergence of the eyes through a cooperation of the
muscles of both. That the eyes thus act together as
a single organ, has resulted from a very early training
of inherited tendencies. The movements concerned
also include the act of grasping. This is a complex
motor process, which depends upon a modification of
instinctive tendencies that slowly grow up during the
early months of life. When the sight of the object is
followed by the seizing of the object, one set of sense
impressions leads, through a series of movements, to the

220 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

obtaining of another set of sense impressions, viz., those
of touch. The child's effort to get at the object, in
order to seize it, suggests to us that, before he grasps
the object, he has mental images which, in connection
with certain feelings of restless eagerness, constitute a
certain anticipation of how the object will feel when it
is touched. These images are similar to former experi
ences of touch which the child has already obtained
when, on former occasions, he grasped something. The
successful seizure of the object leads over, through a
series of feelings, and perhaps of images, to the con
sciousness that the child obtains when he gets the object
into his mouth.

We have here, in the outward manifestations of mind,
a sequence of movements which are manifestations of hab
its, the habits being due to the effect of former experi
ence upon inherited instinct. Within the child's mind
we may very naturally suppose a sequence of conscious
states, which is determined partly by sense impressions,
and partly by associations. When he sees the bright
object, he simultaneously associates with this object cer
tain images and feelings ; and these images and feelings
resemble his former experiences in cases where he has
seen and grasped objects. The child's consciousness, as
it proceeds from this first simultaneous association to
the later stages of his grasping of the object, consti
tutes what we should call a series of perceptions of the
object which he successively sees, touches, and tastes.

DOCILITY — PERCEPTI ON AND ACTION 221

But when he sees the object, he already, by means of
simultaneously associated images of touch, and of his
own muscular movements, and possibly of taste, antici
pates and perhaps eagerly desires what later becomes a
present fact of his consciousness. In other words, the
sight of the object becomes to him a sign of its attrac
tiveness and of its character as an object of touch and of
taste. And in similar ways the object, when touched or
when tasted, becomes to him, through association, a sign
of yet other experiences than those that are present to
him. For he continues to experiment upon it until he
drops the play and passes over to some other object.

The process thus hypothetically analysed from our
point of view, is of a type that we are likely to con
ceive as present to the child's mind, just because the
child, when awake and lively, may show, for a while,
such a strong interest in studying the objects of
sense.

§ 86. In our own perceptive consciousness, as we or
dinarily possess it, there is usually less of emotional
concern and of varied sensory examination than the
child shows us. Hence our own perceptions often
seem to us to be purely intellectual facts directly
present to consciousness when our sense organs are
stimulated, and not to be so mingled with a conscious
ness of our feelings and of our motor processes as
the child's consciousness would seem to be. But we
have only to consider the origin of our present per-

222 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

ceptions in order to become convinced that what at
present our sense organs show us with regard to tJie
object, not only constitutes but a small portion of what
we know or may know about the object, but also has
acquired its whole present meaning for us through pro
cesses that, in the past, have been as complex as those
of the grasping child, or perhaps much more complex
than his have yet become. Our present conscious per
ception of any object which impresses our sense
organs is a sort of brief abstract and epitome of our
previous experience in connection with such objects.
Because we have so often grasped such objects or
approached them, or considered them, from various
points of view, because they have so often excited
the movements of our sense organs, or have incited
us to get this or that control over them, because
they have so often aroused our feelings of restless
ness or of quiescence, of pleasure or of pain, because
so often we have discovered by experience the results
which follow upon our movements in the presence of
these objects — because of all this, I say, do our pres
ent sense experiences come to mean to us what they
do at the moment when we perceive anything. We
may perceive a remote object, which we have never
grasped, such as the moon or as yonder mountain.
But this object has in the past aroused us to great
numbers of acts whose results we have experienced.
Or, if the object is new to us, similar objects have

DOCILITY — PERCEPTION AND ACTION 22$

aroused our movements. These movements have been
attended with feelings, and have led to definite results.
The total result of all sucJi experiences is epitomised
in the present instantaneous perception of this object.

At the very least, then, when we perceive, our con
sciousness involves whatever our sense experience, due
to the object, now forces upon our attention. Our
consciousness also includes, as a general rule, some
thing corresponding to those complicated tendencies
to movement which the object arouses within us. For
perception accompanies some adjustment of our sense
organs. And this adjustment is reflected in our con
sciousness, in however faint or unanalysed a form.
And the perceived object, if dwelt upon, very fre
quently, reminds us in a more or less vague fashion
of various sorts of action that in the past we have
performed in the presence of such objects, in addition
to these adjustments of our sense organs.

Look long at a knife, and you are likely to think of
cutting. Dwell long on your perceptions of a dog or
of a horse, and you will find yourself tending to fondle
or perhaps to avoid him. To perceive the curbstone
just before you, as you walk, is to adjust your move
ment to the object. To hear the bell ring at the close
of the school hour, or of a lecture, is to be aware of
something now to be done. And meanwhile, as you
dwell upon your perception of the object, you are
likely to image what would be the result of doing this

224 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

or that with the object. When you perceive the sharp-
edged knife, you may be reminded not only of the
act of cutting, but of the possible experience of being
cut. When you see the heavy object, you may find
yourself anticipating the effort that you would feel in
lifting it. When you observe the bottle of medicine,
you may remember the unpleasant taste of the dose.
§ 87. Meanwhile, whatever your other memories,
the perceived object is pretty certain, if you dwell upon
it, to arouse at least a sliadc of feeling. If it is a fa
miliar object, it feels familiar. The "feeling of famil
iarity" has been a good deal discussed by some recent
psychologists. It normally accompanies the percep
tion of well-known objects. It is, on the whole, of the
type of the feelings of quiescence. It is slightly pleas
urable in so far as other characters of the object do
not unite with it painful feelings. Its persistent
absence makes us long, when in a foreign land, for the
sight of something homelike. Its marked presence
when we return makes the most indifferent aspects of
the home land seem decidedly pleasurable, so long as
the joy of return lasts. In very faint form this feeling
colours a great number of perceived objects, when
other features of the perceptive consciousness are al
most wholly obscured. The feeling may be present
even when we are quite unable to recall upon what
former occasion we have observed a given object. The
occurrence of the feeling under relatively abnormal

DOCILITY— PERCEPTION AND ACTION 225

conditions, that is, when we are sure that the object to
which the feeling attaches itself is not really familiar,
leads to that uncanny sense of having " experienced
this before," which some people find a frequent and
puzzling incident in their experience. In such cases
the incident is due to conditions which remain still
obscure, but which seem to be of central origin, and
of a slight significance as signs of weariness or of a
certain diminution of nervous tone. And in such cases
the feeling of familiarity leads at once to contrasting
and to often disagreeable feelings of restlessness and
perplexity.

Now the feeling of familiarity seems to be a normal
accompaniment of the excitement of established cere
bral habits, and seems to have to do with the ease
with which they are carried out. And thus this aspect
of the conscious process of perception has its obvious
relation to our cerebral habits.

§ 88. What we mean by the perception of an object
is a cerebral process involving features of the fore
going kinds. The substance of the matter is that
the present sense disturbance is at once associated with
a consciousness diie to already established motor habits,
which have been trained in the presence of objects similar
to tJie one noiv present. These habits may be of the
most various kinds, and the consciousness excited by
the object may have the most various relations to the
habits themselves. They were slowly acquired, by

226 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

means of acts that took a considerable time, and that
were associated with the varied and complex conscious
ness. The perception is relatively instantaneous. //
is a case of simultaneous association. It is relatively
simple. None tJic less, it is what it could not have
become except for tJie previous habits of movement in
tJie presence of such objects. When dwelt upon, a per
ception tends to pass over into a more explicit con
sciousness of what some of these motor habits are.
It also tends to develop, in such cases, some of these
habits themselves ; since, as we watch an object, we
are likely to approach it, to grasp it, to point at it, to
name it, and otherwise to indicate that our perception
is but a fragment of a possible consciousness involving
a wJiole system of feeling and of conduct in the presence
of such an object.

The practical application of all this is obvious. If
you are to train the powers of perception, you must
train the conduct of the person ivho is to learn hoiu to
perceive. Nobody sees more than his activities have
prepared him to see in the world. We can observe
nothing to which we have not already learned to
respond. The training of perception is as much a
practical training as is the learning of a trade. And
it is this principle upon which the value of all arts,
such as those of drawing, of experimenting, and of
workmanship, depends, in so far as such arts are
used, as in all modern training is constantly done,

DOCILITY — PERCEFHON AND ACTION 227

for the sake of developing the power to perceive.
It is because he has played music that the musician
so well perceives music. It is because of his habits
of workmanship that the skilled artisan or engineer
can so well observe the things connected with his
trade. It is because they do not know what to do
that the untrained travellers in a foreign land often
see so little, and find what they had hoped to be a
wealth of new experience a dreary and profitless series
of perplexities.

The ordinary tourist who goes out in a "personally
conducted party " to see the beauties of nature, or to
marvel at the wonders of art, first looks to his guide
book or to the conductor of his party to find out
what he should do or say or remember in the pres
ence of the wonders when he meets them. His device
is in so far psychological enough. But since the
guide-book and the conductor only teach him to re
peat formulas, such as the number of feet contained
in the height of the pyramid or the precipice, or
such as the phrases of admiration that it is customary
to use in certain cases, the tourist, unacquainted with
other modes of familiar reaction in the presence of
the great objects which he is to observe, gains from
the trip little but the memory that he has been in
certain places, and has gone through the fitting pos
tures and the conventional speeches. Such a traveller
brings back what he carries with him. And so indeed

228 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

must all of us do, only it is a pity that the habits
to which such perceptive processes appeal are so
barren. It is the leisurely traveller who finds time
to cultivate new habits, and thus gradually to see the
wonders as they are.

CHAPTER X
DOCILITY

B. ASSIMILATION

§ 89. All our higher intellectual and voluntary pro
cesses depend upon the general laws of habit in ways
which still need a further characterisation. This char
acterisation must consider three aspects of the ways
in which our habits become organised, and of the
external and internal conditions which determine such
organisation. The first of these aspects may be ex
pressed in the following formula : New habits tend to
become assimilated to older habits. The result is that
all new events in tJie conscious realm tend, in conse
quence of the workings of the associative process, to
be assimilated in type to the conscious events which
have already occurred. The more special results of
this tendency are seen in the fact that our intellectual
life is an interpretation of new data in terms of
already formulated ideas. A parallel consequence ap
pears in the fact that our new fashions of behaviour
tend to superpose themselves upon our former habits
in such wise as to produce a minimum of change in
these latter. All forms of conservatism, both in the

229

230 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

life of the individual and in the life of society, illus
trate this principle.

The second general aspect of our higher intellectual
and voluntary life is expressed by the principle : In
the course of mental development our conduct tends from
simplicity and uniformity toward a constant differentia
tion — a differentiation which is not opposed to, but
which runs parallel with the processes of assimilation
just characterised. At the same time, and for the same
reason, our consciousness, as it develops, tends to tliat
substitution of more highly analysed and more definitely
varied states of mind which we have already illus
trated when we spoke of the way in which the psy
chologist tends, as he studies mental life, to substitute
analysed for unanalysed states and processes of con
sciousness. The existence of psychology itself is con
sequently an extreme instance of this tendency to
differentiation in the course of the development of
consciousness. Yet it is not alone the psychologist
whose mental life tends in the course of its develop
ment from the simple and uniform to the complex,
analysed, and differentiated. All higher development
illustrates the process. It is true that this process is
always opposed and limited in its development by
tendencies which we have already illustrated when we
spoke of the general physical laws of habit. For
functions which have become habitual do indeed tend,
by virtue of that welding together of elementary pro-

DOCILITY — ASSIMILATION 231

cesses of which we before spoke, to become so swift
that our consciousness no longer follows their complex
ity. But in so far as our functions remain conscious,
our consciousness tends to a constant differentiation.

Third, we have an aspect of the higher conscious
processes which no mere outline of psychology can
pretend to treat adequately, but which even such an
outline cannot venture wholly to ignore. The habits of
the human being and his accompanying consciousness
are on all their higher levels principally determined by
social influences. His acts are either imitations of the
acts of his fellows, or else are acts determined by a
spirit of opposition to them. In consequence, we may
formulate the principle here in question as follows :
All our more significant activities and states of con
sciousness occur under social conditions, are responses
to socially significant stimuli, and lead to the organisa
tion of a socially effective personality. The general
significance of this principle will soon be made more
manifest.

I propose briefly to treat these three principles in
their order, and to show how they influence the higher
grades of mental life. The first, Assimilation, shall
form the topic of the present chapter, the others of
the immediately subsequent chapters.

§ 90. In stating the general law of habit, we sup
posed the ideal case of a brain subjected to the influence
of certain new stimuli A, B, C, and D. We supposed

232 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

the response of this brain to these stimuli to take the
form of the corresponding cerebral adjustments a, b, c,
d. We then pointed out how these functions, a, bt c, d,
would hereupon tend to become associated together, so
that further occurrences of even a portion of the former
stimuli might be sufficient to arouse to activity this
whole collection of functions, whether they were simul
taneous or successive functions. But as a fact, when
the already highly developed brain is impressed by new
stimuli, or by new combinations of stimuli, the resulting
cerebral functions are sure to be functions that already
have habitual connections with still other cerebral
functions, which the law of habit has already woven
into closely related total processes. Thus the function
a, which the new experience tends to arouse in connec
tion with the functions b, c, d, is already connected by
habit with functions a', a", etc. In similar fashion b
is connected with functions b\ b", etc. And the same
holds true of the other functions concerned in that new
connection which the disturbance A, />, C, D, tends to
bring to pass. It follows that the new connection a, b,
c, d, cannot be formed, through the influence of the
new external disturbance, without the attendant awaken
ing of former connections amongst cerebral functions.
But these older connections may, and generally will, be
antagonistic to the formation of the new habit. For
the connection of the function a with a' may by itself
tend to lead to an act very different from that in which

DOCILITY — ASSIMILATION 233

the functions a, b, c, d, express themselves when they
are free to be carried out.

To illustrate : Let the new stimuli be the sounds of
certain words heard in this connection for the first time.
The new habit, which this series of words would by
itself tend to establish, would take the form of a power
to repeat just that series of words. But now each one
of these words may already have other habitual associa
tions. If any one of these associations is so strong that
it tends at the moment to get expressed in acts, these
acts, so far as they become realised, will prove an
tagonistic to the formation of the new habit. In
general, if familiar objects are already known to me
in certain connections, it may be for that reason all
the harder to learn to remember them in new connec
tions. Or again, suppose that I am required to repeat
some familiar act or series of acts, in a novel order, as
for example to repeat the alphabet backwards. The
new habit will meet at every step with a certain
opposition due to the persistence of the old habit. A
complex case of the difficulties in question is furnished
by the perplexities of a countryman who first comes to
live in a city, or by the vexations of a traveller in a
foreign country. For, in all such instances, many of the
new impressions tend to revive old habits, and conse
quently tend to hinder the acquisition of those new
habits, which are needed in order to adjust the stranger
to his novel surroundings.

234 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

In consequence of this inevitable relation of new
habits to old ones, what is most likely to occur in
consequence of the influence of new disturbances
upon an already highly trained organism, tends to
involve a sort of compromise betivcen new impressions
and former habits. Because the new impressions are
vivid, they will tend of themselves very strongly to the
formation of new habits and adjustments. But because
the older habits are persistent, either they will constantly
tend, by their interference, to prevent the new habits
from becoming fixed, or, in case such fixation occurs,
the old habits will gradually assert their influence by
adding to the new functions older ways of behaviour, or
by eliminating some of the characteristic features of the
newer modes of conduct, or in general by assimilating
the newly acquired functions to functions already present.

§ 91. The resulting effects upon our consciousness is
very profound. New ideas are likely to be acquired only
in case they become in a considerable measure assimilated
to ideas suck as we already possess. New fashions of
thinking tend, as we form them, to lose something of
their novelty by assimilation with older ways of think
ing. Our whole life both of conduct and of intellect,
both of volition and of comprehension, is therefore
pervaded by interpretations of new facts in terms of
old facts, by reduction of new practices to the form
of old practices, and by a stubborn resistance, which
increases with our age and training, to the formation

DOCILITY — ASSIMILATION 235

of novel customs, or to the acceptance of novel
opinions.

This bearing of the laiv of the conservatism of cere
bral habits upon the constitution of our conscious life,
is of the sort that we already in general characterised
when we spoke of the law of association. While our
consciousness does not in general correspond in its
complexity to the wealth of our habitual cerebral pro
cesses, there are no connections amongst our conscious
states which are not also represented by connections
amongst our cerebral processes. Hence, the tendency
of new habits to be assimilated to old ones is repre
sented by the tendencies of relatively novel mental
states and connections to resemble in type those
to which we are already used.

§ 92. The illustrations of the law of assimilation in
our conscious life are multitudinous, and are of great
practical importance to the teacher. It may be well
to enumerate a few of them : —

First, novel objects, that are otherwise indifferent,
and that are presented to the senses, tend to awaken
our attention, and to become objects of definite con
sciousness, at the moment when we are able in some
respect to recognise them. Apart from some decided
importance which a novel object possesses for our
feelings, the new in our experience, in so far as it is
unassimilable, tends to escape our notice. This has
already been illustrated in case of our perceptions.

236 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

The way for new experiences that are to be assimi
lated must be carefully prepared. If a pupil is to
be made to understand novel objects, they must be
made, as far as possible, to seem relatively familiar
to him at each step of the process, as well as relatively
novel. Otherwise he may simply fail to notice them.
Sense in vain presents what organised experience is
not prepared to assimilate. The exceptions to this
rule occur, as just pointed out, only in case either
of very intense experiences or of experiences that
appeal pretty strongly to the feelings. Since experi
ences of this latter sort play too small a part in the prac
tical work of teaching, the law of assimilation must
be especially and consciously considered by the teacher.
We sec in our world, in general, what we come prepared
to see.

The psychologists of the Herbartian school are ac
customed to call this process of the acquisition of
knowledge through the assimilation of new data to
former experience by the name of Apperception.
The insistence that all learning is a process of apper
ception, and that perception without apperception is
impossible, is one of the principal practical services
of the Herbartian psychologists in their efforts to
apply psychology to education.

§ 93. But the principle here in question is not con
fined in its application to the phenomena of direct
perception. TJic tendency of tJic old to assimilate the

DOCILITY — ASSIMILATION

237

new influences the formation of all our customary men
tal imagery. We have but a very inadequate tendency
to image the details of our past experience, in so far
as these details are unique, and are not repetitions
of customary facts. Hence it is that our memory of
our past lives takes the form of a memory of typical
fashions of behaviour, of experience, aud of feeling, rather
than the form of a precise and detailed recall of the
exact order of individual events. How far this holds
true, popular psychology is disposed to ignore. For
since it is indeed true that we do often recall, with
more or less accuracy, a large number of detailed
events in our own past lives, it becomes customary to
suppose that such recall of details is the regular mani
festation of a normal memory. As a fact, however,
the individual events in our past experience which we
accurately remember, and which we are able to bring
before us in the form of precise and adequate images,
are but an extremely small portion of our actual past
lives. Let the reader try to write down how many
of the events that occurred in a single month of last
year he can remember or image, as they occurred in
his experience, and in their true order, and he will
quickly be able to verify how small a proportion of
the facts of which his life has consisted he is able to
recall in the way in which they occurred. One reason
why we commonly fail to take note of these defects
of our memory for the details of experience lies in

238 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

the fact that those events which we most easily do re
call are likely to have been so often gone over and
over in our memory that, in the case of such events,
we have formed certain fixed habits of narrating them,
or of presenting to our consciousness detailed series
of .images by means of which we depict them. But
in all such instances a generalised habit has been in
large measure substituted for the live memory of the
individual event itself. And so we indeed recall this
or that scene of childhood or of last year very clearly ;
but we cannot recall how often we have recalled that
event. For, as a fact, the memory of the individual
event, as it now is in mind, is the result of gradually
acquired habits of depicting the event in this or in
that way. These habits, as they have been formed,
have been subject to the law of assimilation. Repeated
efforts to recall interesting past events have taken
place, in accordance with our tendency to repeat over
and over certain fashions of action, and to assimilate
new processes with old processes. The result is tJiat
most of our memories of long-past events are systemati
cally, altJiongJi very unequally, falsified by Jiabit. We
remember a way of recounting, or of imaging our
own past, rather than this past itself. The result very
clearly appears when one is able to compare the remi
niscences of pioneers, military heroes, and similar re
porters of their own experience, with contemporary
records and monuments.

DOCILITY — ASSIMILATION 239

§ 94. What we do remember with the greatest accu
racy regarding our past life is the repeated occurrence
of some type of experience. Thus, you remember what
kind of person your brother is, and what it means to
meet with him or to converse with him. But you do
not remember upon how many and what individual
occasions you have seen your brother. If some such
occasions do indeed stand out with a relatively indi
vidual character in your experience, that is because,
through the assimilation of new events to former fash
ions of memory and of behaviour, you have formed cer
tain fixed habits of .repeating over and over in the same
way your images or your narratives relating to those
individual occasions. Or again, you remember the way
home ; but you do not remember how many times
you have passed over that way.

A classic instance, both of the defects of our mem
ory and of its general subjection to the law of assimi
lation, is furnished by the well-known accounts which
older people are accustomed to give of what they fre
quently describe as the "old-fashioned winters " of their
childhood. "The winters," so such a person may say,
" are no longer such as they used to be when I was a
boy. At that time the snow began to fall in November,
and lay almost steadily until March. We had sleighing
nearly all the time, and especially at Christmas. The
harbour used to freeze over. The skating was almost
steadily good. But nowadays the winters are full of

240 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

unsteady weather : there are frequent thaws ; the sleigh
ing and skating are in no wise trustworthy ; the harbour
almost never freezes; in fine, the climate has changed."
That such reports are in general not confirmed by
meteorological records, may and usually does seem of
little importance to the reporters of such reminiscences.
His memory is his own. Facts are facts; and meteoro
logical science, he tells you, is notoriously uncertain.
He prefers to trust his memory, which is perfectly
clear on the subject. Now what most persons fail to
notice is that the "old-fashioned winter" of such remi
niscences is, on its very face, a psychological and not a
meteorological phenomenon. The human memory is
essentially incapable of retaining a series of accurate
reports of phenomena so variable and inconstant as
those of the weather. In such a field only general
characteristics can be remembered, especially after
many years. How good an account can you now give,
from memory, of the precise weather changes of even
the past month ? But even general characteristics are
themselves not accurately recorded by memory, in case
of the weather, as they were presented in fact ; since we
have no cerebral habits that are capable accurately
of representing either mean temperatures, or amounts
of snow fall, so long as precise records of these phe
nomena were not kept at the time. On the contrary,
what we can retain in mind, especially from our early
youth, arc tJic memories of tJ:c more interesting' and

DOCILITY — ASSIMILATION 24!

significant habits that winter wcatJicr formerly developed
in us. In our memories the images that survive are,
for the most part, assimilated by those which, when we
recall the past, are directly connected with our more
vividly recalled habits. As the youth formed his most
important winter habits in connection with great snow
storms and decidedly cold weather, and as such phe
nomena occurred sometimes early and sometimes late
in winter, and were of especial importance to him in
holiday season, his memories were formed accordingly.
What the old man recalls is therefore a general collec
tion of interesting winter habits, and of images clustered
about them. These habits define for his consciousness
a certain typical object, the "old-fashioned winter,"
which presumably never existed as he remembers it.
The dreary individual detail of the actual winters of his
boyhood has happily escaped his memory. But since
lately, say in the present winter, he has such dreary
details forced upon his present attention by uncom
fortable experiences, he does indeed recognise that
there is a present state of facts which he cannot assimi
late to his memories of the "old-fashioned winter" in
question. He consequently concludes that the climate
is changing or has changed. Similar processes occur
in all cases where the "good old times," the "young
people as once they were," and the other facts of the
past, are praised on the basis of established memory
habits.

242

OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

§ 95. Notwithstanding the prevalence of assimilative
processes of this kind, it indeed remains true that we
arc able, by persistent activities, aroused in us by our
environment, to establish new habits which do stand in
strong contrast to the habits formerly acquired. The
assimilative tendency is merely one aspect, although
indeed an enormously important aspect, of the brain's
functions. And even the very fact mentioned already
in connection with the general laws of association -
the fact, namely, that at any stage of our development
a great number of habits have already been developed
in the brain, and that these older habits themselves tend
to conflict with one another — gives us a means for find
ing room for decidedly new tendencies. For if a new
tendency, namely, is to be formed, if there is also a
predisposition to assimilate this new tendency to a
previous cerebral tendency "a," and if in addition,
there is a predisposition to assimilate the same new
function to still another former tendency " b " ; but
if meanwhile the functions " a " and "#" are incon
sistent with each other, and so tend to inhibit each
other mutually, then there is, relatively speaking, more
room for a new function to get established, much as
it might have been established, in a brain not already
burdened by the former habits "a" and " />." Thus
assimilation, which is usually a foe to novelty, may
indirectly become a supporter of novelty, if only there
are conflicting tendencies to various assimilations which

DOCILITY — ASSIMILATION

243

in some respects inhibit one another, while nevertheless
enough of our former habits remain positively effective
to prepare us in a sufficient measure for the new com
ing habits.

Thus, to illustrate : the untrained traveller sees at
first little that is important in the foreign country, be
cause he assimilates what he sees, in so far as it
interests him, to the things which he already under
stands, while what he does not assimilate he despises.
On the other hand, let a traveller who has already seen
various countries, for instance, countries in Europe and
countries in North America and in Asia, visit another
new country, such as one in South America, or in
Africa. Such a traveller learns, of course, by assimila
tion, like any one else. But he also learns more in the
same time than does the inexpert traveller ; and, while
he assimilates, he rapidly acquires new insight. Why ?
In part, because what he sees tends at once to remind
him of the conditions present in various formerly
observed countries. But any two sets of recognitions,
in such cases, stand as rivals one of the other. If both
reach his clearer consciousness, the resulting contrast
is helpful. If each inhibits the other altogether, the
traveller is all the more prepared to be impressed by the
new facts. In brief, if I observe C, and tend to assimi
late C both to A and to B, while A and B are them
selves so different from one another that each
assimilation tends to inhibit the other, then through

244 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

this very conflict, I may become more aware of the
novel features of C. My assimilation is then no longer
an unobstructed process in which the new is apper-
ceived merely in so far as it at once " blends " with
the old ; but becomes an obstructed process in con
nection with which I have the maximum of opportunity
to acquire decidedly new habits and images.

It will thus be seen that the assimilative process is
by itself never tJie whole of the process of acquiring
knoiv ledge, or of organising either our perceptions or
our memories. The novel object that is merely assimi
lated is perceived indeed, but not as to its essentially
novel features. In order that new habits and ideas
should be acquired, i.e. in order that knowledge
should grow, it is in general necessary that our assimi
lative processes should be obstructed as well as potent,
and that there should be conflict amongst our former
habits as well as support of new habits by them.
In brief, just as the perception of similarity is sup
ported by the perception of difference in all our con
sciousness, just so the acquisition of knowledge never
occurs by means of mere assimilation. Assimilation
must always be supported by the presence of disturb
ances which arouse us to attempt the expression of our
habits, and consequently must always involve such
activities as tend in some measure to the modification
of former habits by virtue of the influence of the new
disturbances.

DOCI LITY — ASSI M I LATION 24 5

§ 96. Our assimilations have not merely to do with
the processes of perception and of memory : they ap
pear on the highest level of the intellectual life. All
our thinking involves assimilation. When a novel ob
ject puzzles us, or when a problem baffles us, that is
because we have not yet learned to assimilate the new
experience to our former fashions of conduct. But
when our puzzle is thoughtfully satisfied, this occurs
because we have learned to assimilate the new facts to
the old principles, i.e. to adjust our former methods of
conduct, with a minimum of change, to the new situa
tion. When the problem is solved, that is because what
baffled us about a question which was asked, but to
which we could not respond, disappears, because we
have assimilated the matter at issue by remembering
from our former experience an answer that serves the
purpose. To be sure, such assimilation may be accom
panied with alterations of habits that will need to be
considered later under the head of Mental Initiative.
But every thoughtful process is, in at least one aspect, a
process of assimilation. The same consideration occurs
to us when we take note of what is meant by the
process so characteristic of all the workings of thought,
viz,, of the process called, in ordinary language, the
" explanation " of facts. To " explain " a particular fact,
is to mention a principle under which that fact falls.
But if this principle is to explain the fact, it must be an
already known principle. An already known principle

246 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

exists for our consciousness, because we have formed
certain habits of conduct and of memory which this prin
ciple expresses in a brief formula. Before we discover
how to explain the fact, it affects us as any sensory dis
turbance does, arousing reactions, but not as yet estab
lishing in us any sufficiently definite reaction. When
we find the principle that explains the fact, we assimilate
our mode of treating the fact to the already established
habits of behaviour which the principle exemplifies.

The reasoning process, as it usually occurs in con
sciousness, also involves, psychologically, a form of
assimilation. We reason in so far as we discover that a
result is true because of its relation to previous results.
The "conclusion" of a process of reasoning follows
from the " premises," because we already believe the
premises, and observe that, if they are true, we are com
mitted, in advance, to the conclusion. The psychologi
cal processes that go on when we reason involve the
assimilation of the act which our conclusion expresses
to the habits of action expressed by the premises. The
psychologist is indeed not concerned with the logical
question as to why the conclusion necessarily follows
from the premises. But he is interested to observe that
what goes on in the mind when we reason is of the
nature of an assimilation of relatively new modes of
conduct, such as the conclusion expresses, to already
established modes of conduct which the premises put
into words. That no such assimilation is complete, that

DOCILITY — ASSIMILATION 247

every new mode of conduct differs in some respects
from every former mode of conduct, even from those
which it most resembles, has already been pointed out.
In a later chapter we shall study certain higher aspects
of the reasoning process. What here concerns us is
that while reasoning is decidedly more than mere assimi
lation, it always involves assimilation.

Thus, on the higJiest and on the lowest levels of con
sciousness the assimilative process appears — never as
the whole of what happens, since whenever we assimi
late anything new to anything old, we also establish
new associative connections ; but always as an aspect
of what happens, since the trained organism can never
do anything entirely new, and since relatively new
habits inevitably involve modifications of already ex
isting habits.

CHAPTER XI

DOCILITY

C. DIFFERENTIATION

§ 97. In speaking of the unity of consciousness we
pointed out that there is in it always a variety, which
is itself inseparable from some sort of unity. We
also pointed out that this variety appears in two ways;
namely, as simultaneous variety ; (as, for instance, when
we see at once several letters on the page before us)
and successive variety (for instance, when we hear in
the psychological present moment a brief series of
sounds, such as drum-taps, or such as the successive
tickings of a watch). We further saw that, as our
consciousness develops, we may come to possess more
and more highly analysed mental states, such as the
musician possesses when he analyses the chord that,
to the unmusical man, is a single, although rich sound,
whose variety is but faintly observable. It is important
to notice that this increase in analytic power occurs
especially in case of our analysis of the simultaneous
variety present in consciousness. If the tones of the
chord are struck separately and successively, even the
unmusical man notes their variety, in case the succes-

248

DOCILITY — DIFFERENTIATION 249

sion is sufficiently rapid, and is not too rapid. The
musician observes the variety when it is simultaneous.
It is, indeed, true that, in different states of our con
sciousness, we are, indeed, differently disposed to observe
successive varieties ; and by habit we do greatly in
crease our skill in observing the successions that occur
in the world. Nevertheless, the increase in our power
to perceive simultaneotis variety and to bring it into re
lation to successive variety, especially marks mental
growth. To the untrained man a collection of pre
sented facts is likely to seem a confused unity. To
the trained mind collections of facts which are pre
sented simultaneously are more clearly differentiated.
To be sure, our power to distinguish simultaneously
presented facts, is always very sharply limited by the
narrowness of our conscious field. Only a very few
(three or four) distinct facts can be discriminated in
any single act of observation of simultaneous varieties.
But within the limits of consciousness we can learn to
discriminate what is not successive. And doing this,
even in our own narrow way, again and again, gives
our consciousness its character as a sustained process
of distinguishing between the facts present to us. In
general, nearly every instance of such power, as it
appears in the adult consciousness, seems to involve
acquired skill. It is this skill to which we refer when
we speak of the differentiation of consciousness. The
result of such skill is that, at every moment, the simul-

250 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

taneous and the successive varieties of consciousness
come to be intimately interwoven and connected.

§ 98. How the world appears to the wholly un
trained consciousness we can only conjecture. But
we certainly get no evidence that, at the outset of
life, the infant clearly distinguishes between various
present facts. It is also certain that, as the case of
the musical chord shows, the significant discrimina
tions made farther on in life are, in general, the re
sults of training. Of what nature is this training ?
As pointed out by Professor James, and as very gen
erally emphasised by modern psychological work, our
discriminations of simultaneous facts seem, in general,
to be derived from previous discrimination of successive
facts. It is not possible to say that this law is absolute,
or that no discriminations of the simultaneous can occur
apart from previous experience of the successive. But
on the whole, the influence of the discriminations that
we actually make between successive facts upon our
later discriminations of simultaneous facts is obvious,
and is of very great importance. Thus, when the
notes of the chord have been heard in quick suc
cession, it then becomes much easier to distinguish
them when they are sounded simultaneously in the
chord. When one has first observed in succession
a number of various tones of red, and has then ob
served in succession a number of cases of red that
differ only in saturation, i.e. in the degree in which

DOCILITY — DIFFERENTIATION 2 5 I

they resemble colourless light, it then becomes possi
ble to distinguish between the colour and the satura
tion of a given presented instance of red. When
one has become acquainted separately and at dif
ferent times with two persons who look very much
alike (as for instance, twins), it becomes much easier
to observe the difference between them when they
are together. Whoever wishes to compare very care
fully two objects that are nearly alike, examines them
in succession, first one, and then the other. Then, as
he sets them side by side, their difference becomes
more obvious. The general result of such familiar
facts is .the proof that, on the whole, we learn about
the differences of things as these differences appear in
succession, and that hereby we acquire, or at any rate
very greatly increase, our power to observe simultaneous
differences.

The process in question goes on through life. Suc
cessive variety is continually used as a means of inter
preting simultaneous variety. The series of conscious
facts that follow one after another are constantly used
as a means of interpreting the coexistent varieties of the
world without us. This tendency to interpret the simul
taneous in terms of the successive, is one of the most
deeply rooted tendencies in our nature. It has to do
with that connection between consciousness and movement
upon which we have all along been insisting. Our acts
come first to our consciousness as successive experiences

252 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

which present to us differences as they pass. As a
result of these successively observed differences we be
come able, even when we cease some particular act, to
become aware, even in our simultaneous experiences, of
varieties which correspond to those that the act pre
sented to us successively. In consequence, our world
comes to seem to us differentiated into various coexist
ent and contemporaneous facts. Yet we first learn of
these very facts through our consciousness of the suc
cessive stages of our deeds. Our whole idea of the
world of coexistent facts seems thus to be derived, just
so far as it is an articulate idea, from our perception of
successive facts. At least, if this is not wholly the case,
the matter is in the main thus to be expressed.

§ 99. The first great example of the way in which
the world of coexistence becomes differentiated as a
consequence of what we have learned through succes
sive acts, is furnished to us by the properties which we
ascribe to the physical ivorld in space. In space before
me I see two objects which I regard as coexistent, and
which I more or less clearly observe as simultaneously
present. Yet I learn to discriminate just such objects,
to compare their places, to know whatever I know about
their spatial relations, through successive acts by which
I first fix my eyes upon one, and then focus them upon
another of these objects, or by which I first touch one
and then the other. In other words, I continually ex
plore space through countless successive acts of sight

DOCILITY — DIFFERENTIATION 253

and of touch, and through countless movements which
I also accomplish successively. But I also constantly
reap the harvest of these numberless successive acts in
the form of my power to discriminate simultaneously
present spatial phenomena, and to set them in definite
relations as coexistent. The process, despite its com
plexity, reduces to the general type already described,
viz., I perceive the difference between a and b as simul
taneous facts, because I constantly study afresh the suc
cessive differences of the type of a transition from a to b.
This process of exploring space by successive move
ments never comes to an end throughout our waking
life. Our restlessly moving eyes, our constantly chang
ing attitudes, as we observe spatial relations, show that
we are all the while interpreting spatial relations afresh
in terms of our experiences of succession. But what
here most interests us is that we constantly make use
of the successive discriminations for the sake of inter
preting coexistent and simultaneous facts. The physi
cal world without us contains coexistences. These we
wish to interpret as they are. But we must first give
these coexistences, so to speak, a dramatic expression,
in terms of our acts, in order that we shall be able to
appreciate their very coexistence. How numerous
and how fine the acts of successive discrimination are
which we thus employ in our observations of the
space world, modern experimental psychology renders
constantly more obvious. Every picture that we ob-

254 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

serve is explored by the eyes in ways which deter
mine our whole judgment of the relations of the
various parts of the coexistent picture. Every care
fully observed object about us has its contour explored
by successive focussing of the eyes on one part and
another of its outline.

§ 100. Another important instance of the bearing of
succession upon simultaneity in the acquiring of new
powers to discriminate, appears in the wJiole process of
education. To learn about a new subject-matter that
involves complex relationships of any sort includes, in
the first place, long series of successive acts properly
arranged, — acts of sensory observation, of recalling
images, of repeating words, of drawing diagrams, of
performing experiments, and so on indefinitely. Then
we acquire gradually the power to "survey at a glance"
the results slowly brought to consciousness through
these successive acts. This process of surveying at a
glance involves a high degree of differentiation of our
simultaneous conscious states. This differentiation of
the simultaneous slowly results from the repeated acts,
and from the powers of discrimination which have been
cultivated in connection with them. The more success
ful we have been in the successive acts, the more skil
ful we shall be in the perception of relationships
between simultaneous facts. The results of our deeds
may thus be surveyed by us as if from above, as the
traveller who has reached a height looks back with

DOCILITY — DIFFERENTIATION 255

appreciation on the country through which he has
wandered, while unless he had wandered through it,
or through similar country, the view from above would
mean little to him. Narrow as our field of conscious
ness always remains, what power we have to stirvey the
simultaneous bearings of its facts is thus due to our
power to find in tJie instant, in some sense, an epitome
of the history of our own deeds.

An important practical result follows as to the mean
ing of the prominence that the dramatic element has in
all instruction. Narrative more readily appeals to us
than does description, because the latter calls upon us
rather more for the formation of distinct but simultane
ous groups of images, while the latter plainly appeals
to our power to repeat, in the form of images, succes
sive acts with whose types we are already familiar.
Although, in case of both narrative and description, as
they appeal to a somewhat mature consciousness, both
simultaneous and successive images are presented to
consciousness, still narrative has the advantage of fix
ing our attention more upon the kind of discrimination
which we find easiest, namely, the discrimination of suc
cessive facts.

§ 101. A very notable further instance of our ten
dency to interpret simultaneously presented objects,
images, and relationships, in terms of successive acts,
is furnished by oiir whole process of jiidgment, and in
consequence by the entire work of our thought. If a rose

256 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

is before me, and I proceed to judge that this rose pos
sesses colour, odour, and various other properties, the
properties are simultaneously present in the rose ; and
I wish to make clear to myself and to others this simul
taneous complex structure of the rose. But I do this
through a series of acts of successive attention, which
differentiate to my mind first one and then another of
the properties of the rose. Having thus distinguisJied
the properties through successive acts of attention, I am
able to recognise them again as present simultaneously in
my object. That they coexist is something that I
appreciate and express by successive deeds. Only at
the conclusion of these deeds do I again appreciate, at
a glance, the variety in unity of the rose. Our judg
ments thus always involve two aspects of the conscious
process, — aspects which are often called Analysis and
Synthesis. The analysis, — here the naming and
attentive dwelling upon each of the various characters
of the rose, is accomplished through a succession of
deeds, whereby I bring to my mind names, and other
associates of the various properties which I distinguish.
The so-called synthesis, in so far as it is a simultaneous
synthesis, I accomplish at the instant when I am able to
be aware of these properties not merely as successive
facts, but as coexisting in the rose. The synthesis
results from the analysis. But the judgment is not
complete until both processes are accomplished. The
mere analysis gives me a succession of states of mind,

DOCILITY — DIFFERENTIATION 257

which are in so far not perceived as aspects of the one
rose. To obtain this latter knowledge I must possess
the synthesis. Yet the synthesis could not be unless I
analysed. All our processes of judgment involve such
reconstructions in terms of successive acts, — reconstruc
tions of that unity of things which we conceive as also
possessing a simultaneous character. One may also
call our judgments Imitative Processes, whereby ive
reconstruct our views of objects by putting together suc
cessive ideas of our own. But such imitations do not
get their complete meaning for us until we have recog
nised that they express, in our own terms, what we find
in the object that our imitative reconstruction is analys
ing. And this is what we have called the recognition
that, in our object, those characters are brought into
simultaneous synthesis, which our judgment has inter
preted througJi a succession of deeds. Whenever, again,
we study the nature of an object by drawing a picture
of it, our successive processes make us conscious of what
is simultaneously present in the object, in the same way
in which our processes of judgment accomplish a similar
end.

§ 1 02. The differentiation of consciousness occurs
then in the main through these dramatic processes. It
is in this very way that the psychologist himself learns
to substitute analysed states of consciousness for the
relatively unanalysed states of our naive consciousness.
It is in this way too that all the simultaneous relations

258 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

of things become clear to us. It is in this way that
comparison and scientific synthesis and our conception
of the whole of things grows up in our minds. For the
trainer of minds the general resulting advice is : Under
take to systematise this differentiation of consciousness
through fitting scries of successive deeds. Remember
that without such successive deeds there is no noteworthy
intellectual understanding of simultaneous facts. The
whole process of education is therefore a dramatic process,
an interpretation of truth through conduct, a learning to
appreciate the universe by successively responding to
various parts of it, a reaching of unity through variety,
an attainment of synthesis by means of analysis.

§ 103. The process of differentiation is accompanied
by a series of phenomena of which we already made
mention in our opening account of the unity of con
sciousness (§ 34). The consideration of this series of
phenomena brings to light a most important relation
between our current feelings and our docility. To
this series of phenomena we give the name : The
Process of Attention.

As we saw in our opening statement, our developed
consciousness has a foreground and a background, or,
again, has two or three or four mental states that at
any moment possess a certain " relief " as they " float
on the stream," while "the body of the stream con
sists of contents that can no longer be sharply sun
dered from one another."

DOCILITY — DIFFERENTIATION 259

It is needful here to speak of the process by which
our momentary mental states get this clearness or the
" relief." In so far as we consciously profit by the
relation between our present and our former states,
our mental states are the expressions of docility. But
in so far as we are directly satisfied or dissatisfied
with our passing mental states they are the objects
of our feelings. And now as it happens, we often
find present in ourselves feelings of satisfaction and
dissatisfaction in the very fact that given present states
have some sort of relation to former states (e.g. are
novel or familiar, are puzzling or comprehensible,
have obvious relation to our past habits, or need new
adjustments, etc.). But thus our experiences come to
have a new and important relation to our feelings. An
experience may be said to possess intellectual value
in so far as it tends to mould our conscious habits.
This value it possesses over and above the value for
passing feeling of what, as a momentary mental state,
it contains (as, for example, pleasure or pain). But
as a fact we are able to have feelings which express an
immediate, a passing, and, of course, often a mistaken,
estimate of this intellectual value itself. Such feel
ings are called our current "feelings of interest."
They have, in the main, the character of feelings of
restlessness and of quiescence, — of restlessness so
far as we question, seek, or expect information, of
quiescence so far as we get our interests satisfied.

260 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

They have, however, a curious and invariable char
acter, which often brings them into sharp conflict
with our other feelings of the same moment. A pain
or an agonisingly perplexing problem, although we
hate it keenly, may interest us intensely, because ive
want to dwell upon it until we have understood its
cause or nature. When such interests are those of
predominant satisfaction they may lead us to dwell
on the experience for its own sake, as a familiar or
comprehended fact. Thus a young child may love to
have its known stories told over and over, or to find
picture after picture of familiar objects (e.g. men),
and to say triumphantly " Man," " Man," on viewing
each picture. Here the mere familiarity of the
experience is itself what satisfies. But even if the
predominant interest in the experience is one of dis
satisfaction (as when one is pained or puzzled), still,
the only way to satisfy the current intellectual inter
est in the pain or puzzle (i.e. to reduce the dissatis
faction) is again to dwell on the experience until its
relation to the past has been altered (e.g. until it has
become familiar or has been " made out "). So it is
peculiar to the feelings of interest, or to the " intellec
tual feelings," that, whether they are cases of satisfac
tion or of dissatisfaction, the only way to hold the
satisfaction or to diminish the dissatisfaction is, in any
case, to dwell for the time on the experience as an
experience. For, as we have here defined our term,

DOCILITY — DIFFERENTIATION 26 1

the interest is not a feeling of satisfaction or of dis
satisfaction with what the mental state in itself alone
chances to contain (e.g. with its pleasurable or painful
tone as such), but with its relation to other states or
to one's habits. Hence in states of intellectual inter
est, one questions, analyses, compares — does whatever
tends to relate this object to other objects. One is
seeking to know "what to do with it," or is rejoicing
in the fact that one does know what to do with it.

Now, attention is a process that involves states of
mind and physical activities which tend to satisfy such
an intellectual interest or, in other words, attention is
the process of furthering our current interest in an
experience when viewed just as an experience. When
I attend to a thing I either try to recognise or to
understand it, or I take contentment in an already
existent recognition or understanding of it, and dwell
upon it accordingly. Attention is called " active " in so
far as the feelings of restlessness which accompany our
trying to recognise or to understand, predominate, or
are at any rate prominent, amongst the feelings pres
ent at the moment of attention. But when the other
phenomena of attention are present, while the pre
dominant feelings are those of quiescence, the atten
tion is called "passive."

If our attention succeeds in any case — i.e. if our
passing feeling of current interest is furthered — the
object of this interest grows clearer in our minds ;

262 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

that is, it grows more definite and gets a better
"relief" upon its background. This is the one sure
result of the furthering of the temporary and pass
ing intellectual interest, as this interest has here been
defined. What we attend to may, as a mental state,
be faint in content, but as an experience it grows
important. It is differentiated better from whatever
goes along with it, is more effective in arousing asso
ciations, is recognised more readily, if already some
what familiar, and tends to be more effective in
modifying our already existent habits. Attention in
volves, of course, by definition, feelings. But these
feelings from their nature have, even as feelings, their
intellectual value. And attention is the conditio sine
qua non of all important intellectual processes.

The less artificial and adventitious are our passing
interests, the easier and more effective is their satis
faction. Accordingly, it is difficult to attend long to
anything merely because we abstractly think that we
ought to attend. We must have our interest pretty
spontaneously, or we can never hope to satisfy it.
What already attracts us in itself is therefore, in
general, the more readily attended to in regard to its
interest as an experience. The relatively familiar is
also more closely attended to than the incomprehen
sibly strange, unless the latter, by its painful or its
portentous aspect, or by its sensuous or other direct
charm, arouses our longing to comprehend its signifi-

DOCILITY — DIFFERENTIATION 263

cance. Children often wholly neglect whatever is not
yet comprehensible to them in their lessons, although
some uncomprehended things, such as fairyland, or
the doings of their elders, may arouse their keen in
terest by appealing to their love of beauty, or by
awakening their imitative instincts. Interest in ob
jects because of their familiarity or their comprehen-
sibility has been called "derived" interest, and its
furthering " derived attention " ; but, as a fact, all
current interests are, as already shown, more or less
secondary feelings. In general, active attention to
any one object is highly unsteady and fluctuating in
its character. Sustained active attention, just because
of the restlessness involved, is possible only in case
our objects, or our own relations to them, are con
stantly undergoing change.

The physiological accompaniments of attention seem
to be of three sorts : (i) Adjustments, of a motor type,
whereby our sense organs are brought into better rela
tions with the object of our interest, or are brought
into positions that habit has associated with clear at
tention, while our organisms are also rendered other
wise more impressible. Certain characteristic attitudes,
gestures, and alterations of breathing and of circula
tion, belong to this type. (2) The assumption of a
"set" of brain that tends especially to favour those
cerebral habits which are of most use to use in our
efforts to comprehend objects of the kind wherein we

264 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

are interested. The control which the attention ap
pears to possess over our trains of association is due
to this type of cerebral accompaniments of the pro
cess. (3) In close connection with (2), the assumption
of a "set" of brain which tends to inhibit all move
ments and habits such as would interfere with the
satisfaction of the ruling interest. Hence the still
ness, the "absorption" of the attentive person. Ac
tive attention is always a highly inhibitory function.
Herein lies another reason for its fluctuating character
in children, and in many of our states of weakness.

§ 104. The presence of discrimination in our trained
consciousness is subject, even on the highest levels,
to decidedly obvious limitations. If we are carrying
a heavy weight, and some one adds to that weight a
very small additional burden, we do not feel the dif
ference. If the sun is shining through the window
and somebody lights a gas-jet, we notice very little, if
at all, the difference. In brief, decidedly slight differ
ences in the intensity of our sensory experiences es
cape us. This is a matter of common knowledge.
But the very mention of these facts calls also atten
tion to another and closely associated consideration, —
one which has acquired great notoriety through the close
examination which modern experimental psychology
has given to the whole subject. If we estimate the
character of our mental experiences merely in terms
of the characters which we know to belong to their

DOCILITY — DIFFERENTIATION 265

stimuli, we are disposed at first to expect that, if we
are observing a bright light, and if some one adds a
new light (namely that of the gas-jet) to the light al
ready present, we shall observe the difference, if the
additional stimulus is great enough. But from this
point of view we should expect that the lighting of
the additional gas-jet would make the same difference
to our internal experience, whatever might be the
brightness of the light before the new gas-jet was
added. Or to take another illustration, if I have an
experience corresponding to the attempt to lift an ob
ject that weighs a pound, and if this experience nor
mally corresponds to that object, then I should be
disposed to expect that in case I were carrying ten
pounds and some one added a pound to my burden,
the addition would make the same difference to me
as it would make if I were carrying a hundred pounds,
and the pound were then added to my burden. But
a moment's reflection shows us that we are unable thus
to make our mental experiences precisely correspond,
in all respects, to what we know about the objects
which are the stimuli of these experiences. For the
addition of the pound will be noticed if it be added to
the burden of ten pounds. It may altogether escape
attention if it is added to the very much heavier bur
den. The lighting of the gas-jet will make a very
great difference if the gas-jet is lighted when the room
is nearly dark. But the lighting of this same gas-jet

266 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

will make very little difference to our experience if
the room is already bright, that is if the sun is shining.
A stimulus may thus be such that, if it acted alone,
the corresponding experience would be very important
or very intense. Yet if this stimulus be added to an
other which is of considerable magnitude, and which
has already produced an experience of great intensity,
the additional stimulus may go wholly unnoticed. That
the principle here concerned has some very deep re
lations to our experience becomes fairly evident, even
apart from experiment, if we consider certain other
very familiar facts. When we are reading print on a
page before us, we are constantly guided in our reading
by the fact that we discriminate between the brightness
of the white page and the lesser brightness of the por
tion of the page where the printer's ink lies. Our
power clearly to see the letters depends upon this
difference of brightness. But if the light fades, it
may fade very considerably before we notice that the
letters have begun to grow dim. Yet when the light
is faint the actual difference in brightness between the
white page and the black letters will be very much
less than the difference between the two when they
are seen in a bright light. Not only does this hold
true of objects such as letters printed on a page. It
holds true, within limits, of the finer markings in an
etching or a drawing. The light may diminish consid
erably and yet we may see as much and as fine de-

DOCILITY— DIFFERENTIATION 267

tail in the drawing as we saw in the brighter light.
Thus even ordinary experience forces upon us the
fact that our judgments of differences are in some meas
ure relative. One of the earliest fields of research in
modern experimental psychology was the one opened up,
in the effort to understand such facts, by Weber, and by
the distinguished psychologist and philosopher Fech-
ner. Experimental research soon showed that our dis
crimination of small differences, in the case of weights
and in case of a considerable number of other types
of experience, conforms to a rule which these common-
sense observations already suggested. The rule was
stated in one form by Weber and in another by Fech-
ner, and appears in modern text-books as the so-called
" psycho-physic law." This law has been subjected in
later years to an elaborate variety of experimental
tests. In a very considerable region of our sensory
experiences it has been found to remain approximately
valid. In certain regions of our sensory experience
it cannot be verified. In case of decidedly faint or of
decidedly intense sensory experiences of any sense it
appears not to hold. Where it is approximately valid
it is so for sensory experiences of medium intensity.

The law is that in order that differences of sensory
experience should have, in two different cases of com
parison, the same value for our reacting consciousness,
or should appear to be equal differences, the stimuli
that are compared in the two different cases must differ

268 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

from one another, not by the same absolute physical
difference in their magnitude, but by the same relative
difference. Thus, if we suppose that, in a given region
of sensation, a stimulus having a physical magnitude 21
appear to have a just perceivable difference from a
stimulus possessing the magnitude 20, then, in order
that a stimulus of the same type, and appealing to
the same sense, but having the magnitude 42, should
appear just appreciably greater than another stimulus,
this other stimulus would have to have the magni
tude 40. While if, again, a stimulus having a magni
tude 84 was to appear just less than another stimulus,
this other stimulus would have to have a magni
tude 80; and so on. Or if, in case of the same
series of sensations, stimuli of the magnitudes 10
and 20 appear to consciousness as possessing a cer
tain difference, then two stimuli, possessing, other
things being equal, the magnitudes 20 and 40, would
produce in consciousness sensory experiences having
appreciably as much difference, or the same differ
ence, as the foregoing pair of stimuli. Thus one
pair of stimuli have the same difference for conscious
ness as another pair of stimuli, in case the members
of the tivo pairs have the same proportionate magni
tude when compared together.

§ 105. With the range of validity of this law, and
with its apparent exceptions, we have here no space
to deal. That it stands for a very important relation

DOCILITY — DIFFERENTIATION 269

between our conscious discriminations of stimuli and
the physical facts seems unquestionable. What it is
important for us to note however in this connection
is that the psycho-physic law, whatever else it is,
is a law relating to our Mental Docility, i.e., to ottr
power to acquire skill in discriminating between the
facts of our sensory experience. The psycho-physic
law is treated in some discussions as a law directly
relating to our sensations. It is often said, that
like differences in intensity of sensation correspond
to like proportional differences in the stimulations.
But as a fact the experiments upon which the psycho-
physic law is based are not and cannot be experi
ments upon the pure sensory experiences as they
exist in themselves, still less upon the absolutely pure
and isolated sensations. For the first, we never have
any purely sensory experiences which are not woven
into complexes that have value for our whole present
unity of consciousness. For the rest, to compare two
sensory experiences, and to judge them as different, is
to perform a specific reaction in the presence of this
pair of experiences, that is, it is to pronounce the
judgment " Different," or it is to make some other re
action which shows that the difference has value for
consciousness. The difference is perceived when tJie
reaction is accomplished. It is not perceived unless
some such reaction is present, at least as a tendency.
Now most experiments upon the psycho-physic law

2/0 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

are carried on under conditions of concentrated atten
tion, the attention being directed to the comparison
of the stimuli in question. In so far as the common-
sense experiences before mentioned throw light upon
the tendency which the law represents, or in so far
as the laboratory experiments are made to approxi
mate to the conditions of the naive consciousness, it
still holds true that the perception of the difference
between two experiences takes the form of some specific
reaction to this difference.

Now in the present chapter we have been setting
forth the conditions under which sensory discrimina
tions are learned. We have seen that these condi
tions favour the sensory discrimination of successive
differences, although we can acquire the power to
discriminate simultaneous differences. We have also
seen that the power to discriminate successive differ
ences, for example, the power to observe the differ
ence between two weights by lifting first one and
then immediately the other, or the power to distin
guish between two tones by hearing first one and
then the other, is a power that can indeed be culti
vated by attention, and by training various kinds of
reaction in the presence of the objects. The psycho-
physic law appears now to formulate a certain limit
to which tJic Docility of tJie organism in responding
to finer differences in stimulation is subject.

It has often been disputed whether the psycho-physic

DOCILITY — DIFFERENTIATION 2? I

law is a physiological one, having to 'do with what hap
pens in the organs of sensation before the centres are
reached, or whether it is a psychological law, having to
do with the way in which our conscious process repre
sents what goes on in the world. From our present
point of view the psycho-physic law may well be both
physiological and psychical. It certainly has a physical
or physiological aspect. If I am affected by two
stimuli A and B, in proper relations of succession, / am
able to discriminate between them in case I am able to
perform some act of which I am conscious, an act due
to the difference between them, or an act such that I re
spond to A in a way different from the way in which I
respond to B. If I cannot perform the act, I cannot make
the conscious discrimination. The limitation of my con
scious discrimination must run parallel to the limitation
of my power to act.

Now what the phenomena summed up under the
psycho-physic law indicate is, that if you ask a man
to react in the form of a judgment of difference, or in
any other exactly definable form, which is subject to
test, and if you ask him to perform this act in the
presence of stimulations, then if the stimulations A
and B are sufficient to produce an act indicating dis
crimination, stimulations having physical magnitudes
other than those of A and B, must have the same
proportional difference in order to produce the same
result. What the facts teach is therefore that both

2/2 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

the organism and the conscious process tend to adjust
themselves to relative and not to absolute differences of
stimuli. The tendency is so strong that no degree
of closeness of attention and no degree of docility at
our disposal enables us to overcome it. The law there
fore stands for a limitation of our docility. It also
stands for an obviously convenient relation between
the organism and the external world. As many physical
stimuli are subject, in case of variations in light or
in other physical conditions of our surroundings,
to proportional variations in physical intensity, while
these variations do not affect the relative importance
of the objects that produce these stimuli when con
sidered in their bearing upon the organism, it is of
course important that the kind of reaction which the
organism makes should not be affected by these unes
sential variations in our environment. In other cases
a similar teleological relation of the facts to our behav
iour in their presence can readily be traced. It is im
portant, however, to remember that the psycho-physic
law is not a laiv directly relating to our sensations, but
is rather a law of our reactions. It is substantially the
law that we make, within limits, the same reaction to the
same relative variation in the magnitude of stimuli.
The relation of the law to consciousness is simply due
to the fact that we are conscious of a response that we
actually tend to make, and of differences among facts,
only in so far as we respond to these differences. If it

DOCILITY — DIFFERENTIATION 273

be remembered that the conscious process accompanies
not merely our external sensory experiences, but our
total organic reactions to these experiences, the mystery
which has sometimes been made about the pyscho-
physic law appears less significant

CHAPTER XII

DOCILITY

D. THE SOCIAL ASPECT OF THE HIGHER FORMS OF
DOCILITY 1

§ 106. Man's response to his environment is not
merely a reaction to things, but is, and in fact pre
dominantly, is, a reaction to persons. There is no
opportunity, in the present connection, to trace with
any detail the rise and growth of our consciousness
of the human personalities with whom we are accus
tomed to deal. The laws of habit and of association
are unquestionably of importance as throwing light
upon the way in which we come to regard certain
objects in our environment not merely as physical
things possessing size, movement, etc., but as objects
endowed with an experience like our own, and pos
sessing a consciousness that, inaccessible as it may
be to us, is still, in so far as we get its expressions,
essentially intelligible and profoundly interesting to
us. It is necessary in the present connection, without
undertaking in the least the task of a specific social

1 Cf. on the present topic the author's papers on " Self-consciousness,
Social Consciousness and Nature " and on the " Anomalies of Self-con
sciousness " in Studies of Good and E-'il (New York, 1898).

274

HIGHER FORMS OF DOCILITY 275

psychology, to give some indication of the way in
which all our higher intellectual and voluntary habits
are affected by this our conscious interpretation of the
inner life of our fellows.

§ 107. The foundation for our whole social con
sciousness seems to lie in certain instincts which char
acterise us as social beings, and which begin to
assume considerable prominence toward the end of
the first year of an infant's life. These instincts
express themselves first in reactions of general inter
est in the faces, in the presence, and in the doings,
of our social fellow beings. Among these reactions
some show great pleasure and fascination. Some,
the reactions of bashfulness, show fear. This fear is an
instinctive character, and in some cases may display
itself in reactions of violent terror in the presence of
strangers. But on the whole, more prominent, in the
life of a normally tended infant, is pleasurable reac
tion at the sight of people. It is unquestionable that,
from the very first, these instincts are subject to the
regular processes that everywhere determine our do
cility. Our social environment is a constant source
of numerous sensory pleasures, and by association
becomes interesting to us accordingly. But, in addi
tion to the pleasures of sense which are due to our
human companions, there are, no doubt, from the first,
deep instinctive and hereditary sources of interest in
the activities of human beings. On the basis of the

276 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

general social interests, there appear more special
instincts, amongst which the most prominent is the
complex of instincts suggested by the name IMITA
TION.1 It is by imitation that the child learns its
language. It is by imitation that it acquires all the
social tendencies that make it a tolerable member of
society. Its imitativeness is the source of an eager
and restless activity which the child pursues for years
under circumstances of great difficulty, and even when
the processes involved seem to be more painful than
pleasurable. Imitativeness remains with us through
life. It attracts less of our conscious attention in our
adult years, but is present in ways that the psycholo
gist is able to observe even in case of people who
suppose themselves not to be imitative.

This human imitativeness assumes very notable
forms in excited crowds of people, in what the recent
psychologists have called in general " the mob." A
mob, in the technical sense, is any company of per
sons whose present set of brain involves the abandon
ment of such habits as have most determined their
customary individual choices, and the assumption, for
the moment, merely of certain generalised modes of
reaction which are of an emotional, a socially plastic,
and a decidedly imitative type. Under the influence
of such social conditions, the members of the mob

1 Cf. Professor Baldwin's Mental Development in the Child and in tht
Ract, especially the second volume of that work.

HIGHER FORMS OF DOCILITY

may perform acts of the type before referred to, acts
which seem to the casual observer quite out of char
acter in view of the training and of the ordinary
opinions of the people concerned. Outside of the
mob, the imitative reactions appear in all the phe
nomena of fashion and of transitory custom, such as
any popular craze of the day, or the success of any
favourite song, opera, or novel, may daily illustrate.
The most of people's political opinions, the most of
their religious creeds, the most of their social judg
ments, are very highly imitative in their origin.

§ 1 08. Side by side with the social processes of the
imitative type appear another group of reactions prac
tically inseparable from the former, but in character
decidedly contrasted with them. These are the phe
nomena of SOCIAL OPPOSITION and of the love for con
trasting ones self with one's fellows in behaviour, in
opinion, or in power. These phenomena of social con
trast and opposition have an unquestionably instinctive
basis. They appear very early in childhood. They
last in most people throughout life. They may take
extremely hostile and formidable shapes. In their nor
mal expression they constitute one of the most valuable
features of any healthy social activity. This fact may
be illustrated by any lively conversation or discussion.

As a rule, the acts that express this fondness for
social contrast, and for opposing one's self to the social
environment are, in their origin, secondary to the imita-

2/8 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

tive acts. It is true that the instinctive basis for them
appears quite as early as do the manifestations of the
imitative instincts. And since this fondness for opposi
tion is in part based upon the elemental emotions of the
type expressed in anger, obstinacy, and unwillingness
to be interfered with, the instinctive basis for the type
of action here in question may be said to be manifest
even earlier in infancy than is the case with the imita
tive reactions. But while the instinctive basis of oppo
sition is primitive, the social acts that can express such
instincts must be acquired. And in order to contrast
one's self with one's social environment it is necessary,
in general, first to learn how to do something that has
social significance. I cannot oppose you by my speech
unless I already know how to talk. I cannot rival you
as a musician unless I already understand music. I
cannot endeavour to get the better of a political rival
unless I already understand politics. But speech and
music and politics have to be learned by imitation.
Hence the social reactions which express the fondness
for contrast and opposition must on the whole follow in
their development the social reactions dependent upon
imitation. This accounts for that close weaving to
gether of the two types of functions, of which we have
already spoken. The playful child already seizes what
ever little arts he has acquired by imitation to express
his wilfulness, or to develop his own devices, or to dis
play himself to his environment. And, on the other

HIGHER FORMS OF DOCILITY 279

hand, a form of wilf ulness, or of obstinacy, in an already
highly intelligent being, may lead to a deliberately
painstaking process of imitation, such as happens when
ever an ambitious artist devotes himself long to training
in order that thereby he may get the better of his rivals.
In brief, the preservation of a happy balance between
the imitative functions and those that emphasise social
contrasts and oppositions forms the basis for every
higher type of mental activity. And the entire process
of conscious education involves tJie deliberate appeal to
the docility of these t^cvo types of social instincts. For

whatever else we teach to a social being we teach him
to imitate. And whatever use we teach him to make of
his social imitations in his relations with other men, we
are obliged at the same time to teach him to assert him
self, in some sort of way, in contrast with his fellows,
and by virtue of the arts which he possesses.

The full consideration of the social value of imitative-
ness and of the love of social contrast and opposition,
would carry us wholly beyond our present limits. What
we are concerned to notice, in this elementary study of
psychology, is that the nature of these functions pro
foundly affects the structure and the development of the
processes known as thought and reasoning. We are
also concerned merely to mention a fact into whose
adequate consideration we cannot hope to enter, the
fact, namely, that all the functions which constitute self-
consciousness show themselves outwardly in social re-

280 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

actions, tJiat is, in dealings with other real or ideal
personages, and are, in our own minds, profoundly related
to and inseparable from our social consciousness,

§ 109. To specify more exactly the matters to which
reference has thus been made : w/iat is called thought
consists (as has already been pointed out) of a scries
of mental processes that unquestionably tend to express
themselves in characteristic motor reactions. Many of
these reactions notoriously take the form of using, of
applying, and of combining words. Now the reasons
why our thinking process should so largely depend
upon using words have often been discussed by psy
chologists, but at first sight they may appear to the ele
mentary student of psychology somewhat puzzling. The
general solution of the problem lies in the fact that
words are the expressions of certain reactions that we
have acquired ivhcn we were in social relations to our
fellows. If we once understand how these social rela
tions determine that character of our consciousness
which essentially belongs to all thinking, we become
able to see why verbal associations and habits should
be so prominent in connection with all the thinking
processes. We shall also be able to see what is fre
quently neglected by psychologists, namely, the possi
bility fort, processes of thought should on occasion appear
dissociated from verbal expression, although never disso
ciated from tendencies to action which have a social
origin essentially similar to that of language.

HIGHER FORMS OF DOCILITY 281

Our words are first learned as part of our social inter
course with our fellows. As recent students of the
psychology of the language of childhood have pointed
out, words cannot be said at the outset to express to
a child any exact abstract ideas. They are at first,
as Wundt and his school have well insisted, rather
the expressions of feelings than the embodiments of
thought.1 The whole vocal life of infancy is primarily
an expression of feeling. In social relationships it
later becomes to a child associated with his socially
fascinating feelings, with the sense of companionship,
with his joy in the power to make sounds which others
admire, and to imitate sounds which he hears others
make. But now, in time, these expressions of the
child's feelings become associated not only with social
situations and delights, but with objects and deeds
observed. The social utility of taking advantage of
these associations, is emphasised, in the child's training,
by the behaviour, and by the deliberate efforts at in
struction in language, which he meets with in his elders.
At length a stage comes when language is the ex
pression of the child's wish, at once to characterise
objects present in his experience, and to appeal intel
ligibly to the minds of his fellows. Now these two
aspects of the language processes are never to be
separated from one another, either in the life of child
hood or in our much later rational development. A

1 See Wundt's Volkerpsychologie, Vol. I, " Die Sprache."

282 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

we

ord, a phrase, a discourse, is always at once a response
to certain facts in the outer or inner world which we
attempt to characterise, and an appeal to the conscious
ness of our fellow. It is the latter aspect which gives
language its primary practical importance. Language
is not a direct adjustment to the facts apart from the
purpose of communication. It is the purpose of com
munication that alone makes language essentially sig
nificant as a part of our mental equipment. But in
view of this fact it is obvious that language acquires its
value as a means of characterising facts through pro
cesses which appear, in the mind of one who learns lan
guage, in the form of a long-continued, a laborious, and
generally a fascinating process of comparing his own
way of using words -with the ways employed by otJier
people. From the time when a child plays at imi
tating his nurse's words, or at hearing his own babble
imitated, to the time when, perhaps, as a lawyer, he
adjusts his arguments to the requirements of judges
and juries, and to the criticisms of an opponent, he
•constantly adjusts his reactions, as he speaks, to the
reactions of other people, by comparing his own way of
behaviour with the behaviour of others. Such compari
son involves inevitably both of the two great social
motives before emphasised. That is, it involves both
the motives of imitation, pure and simple, and that love
of social contrast which has before been emphasised.
But now what is the inevitable result of all such

HIGHER FORMS OF DOCILITY 283

activities ? It is that the one who makes such social
comparison becomes very higJily conscious of tlie details
of his oivn acts, and of the criticisms that other peo
ple are making upon these acts, and of the feelings
which these acts arouse both in himself and in others.
But now it is at the same time the case that the acts
of which one becomes conscious are also acts which
one is also seeking to adjust to objects as well as to
social judgments. The result of this twofold adjustment
is precisely the kind of consciousness which constitutes
thinking. For thinking differs from naive action chiefly
in this : When we act in nai've fashion, we are espe
cially conscious of the objects to which we adjust our
selves, and of the feelings of success or of failure, that
is, of satisfaction or of restlessness, of pleasure or of
pain, that accompany these acts. Of the details of our
acts we are not in such cases conscious, although our
consciousness of our objects is unquestionably depend
ent upon the performance of our acts. Thus, one who
seeks food is very imperfectly aware of how he moves
his legs or his arms in walking or in grasping ; but he
is aware of his images of the food, and of his relatively
satisfactory or unsatisfactory efforts to obtain it. The
reason why the details of our acts do not come in such
cases clearly to consciousness is dependent upon the
fact that our sensory experiences of the objects in ques
tion are prominent, while our sensory experiences of
our acts, just in so far as the acts have become habit-

284 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

ual, tend to be too swift for consciousness to follow ;
while only our feelings remain, amongst our internal
experiences, as the prominent accompaniments of the
act. But, on the other hand, one who thinks makes it
fart of his ideal to be conscious of how he behaves in the
presence of things. And this he does because the social
comparison of his acts with the acts of other people
not only controls the formation of his acts, but has
made his observation of his own acts an ideal. For so
far as he is imitating others, he is fascinated by the
adjustment of his behaviour to the behaviour of others.
So far as he is dwelling upon social conflicts and con
trasts he is displaying his own acts to the other people ;
and so he is conscious that they are observing him, and
is desirous that they should do so. /;/ consequence, the
social conditions, under which language is acquired pro
duce the thinking process, just because it is of the
essence of the thinking process that we should become
aware of how our acts arc adjusted to our objects.

The acts in which we express our thinking are not,
however, exclusively confined to the process of using
words or of combining them. The drawing of a scien
tific diagram, the construction of a work of art, the
performance of an experiment, the adjustment of the
playing of one's musical instrument to the criticisms
of one's musical rival, or to the guidance of the con
ductor of an orchestra — all these are activities which
involve thinking processes. They do so because they

HIGHER FORMS OF DOCILITY 285

are social adjustments of the type now in question,
that is, social adjustments, involving imitations and
social contrasts, arid including the consciousness of how
one performs the act, and so of Jiow it is adjusted to the
ideal.

§ no. Such, then, is the general character of thought,
namely, that it is our consciousness of an act or of a
series of acts adjusted to an object, in such wise as fit
tingly to represent that object, or to portray it, or to
characterise it, and in such wise that the one who thinks
is conscious of the nature of his act. Hence it will
follow that, all the special processes of thinking, such
as those usually discriminated as conception, judg
ment, and reasoning, exemplify this general character
of the thinking process, and result from the effects of
social stimulations. The process of contrasting my
own acts with my fellow's acts, and in consequence
of contrasting my own views with what I regard as the
ideas of my fellow, this is the process which is respon
sible for that kind of consciousness which appears in
all of our thoughtful activities.

Let us exemplify these considerations by a few words
about each of the thinking processes which have just
been mentioned. The process called Conception, or
the formation of Abstract General Ideas, is rightly re
garded as essential to the thinking process. General
ideas are the ideas which we associate with those words
that have an application to any one of many individual

286 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

cases or situations. The word "man" or "horse" is a
word of general application. The knowledge of what
this word means involves a possession of a general idea
of men or of horses. Now of what mental material
does such an idea consist ? When it is a lively, or a
highly conscious idea, it unquestionably involves, in all
cases, and in one aspect, some kind of mental imagery.
This imagery may, in visualising people, take predomi
nantly the form of mental pictures of representative
men or of representative horses. It may in some minds
take the form of vague mental pictures corresponding
to what one might call " composite photographs," such
as the mind would seem to have formed from retaining
in imagination the characters common to many individ
ual horses or men, while forgetting the characters
wherein various individuals differ from one another.
But it is, nevertheless, possible for one who is not a
visualiser to have as clear an idea of what he means by
"man" or "horse" as the visualising man possesses.
And our more developed abstract ideas, such as mathe
matical abstractions, or such as our conception of jus
tice, involve mental processes to whose portrayal visual
imagery is extremely inadequate. One comes nearer to
dwelling upon the essential characteristics which the ab
stract ideas of a horse or of a man must possess when
one observes that whoever knows wJiat a Jiorsc or man in
general is, knows of some kind of act u'hich it is Jiff ing
to perform in the presence of any object of tJic class in

HIGHER FORMS OF DOCILITY 28/

question. This act is of such a nature as either directly
portrays the characters of the object, or else in some
fashion tends, if expressed outwardly, to convey to an
other the idea of man or of horse that one possesses.
The name " man " or " horse," the word-image associ
ated with any such object, is itself a part of a well-
known act by which one may react in the presence of
an object of the class in question. For naming objects
is one way of responding to their presence. And the
name has value for consciousness, not merely because
it happens to be associated with the object, but because
it is associated with the object as my fitting and proper
way of treating the object or of reacting to its presence,
especially in case I wish to inform another of the fact
that I have seen man or horse. But/in addition to the
use of the name, the one who possesses the correct
general idea of the objects is able to perform numer
ous other fitting acts in presence of any object of the
class in question. At the moment when he brings
to clearer consciousness his general idea of man or
horse, he either remembers some such act — some act
by which he could fittingly characterise his own usual
relations to man or horse, —or some act by means of
which he could imitate or portray (much as, in the
gesture language, any one portrays an object by an
imitative sign) an aspect of the nature of man or of
horse ; or else, if he performs no such act at the mo
ment, he has a feeling of confidence that he could perform

288 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

such an act, that he could tell himself, if he chose, more
clearly what he means by man or by horse. Such a
feeling of confidence is a feeling similar to those feel
ings of familiarity earlier described. It is a feeling of
the relatively quiescent type. Such a feeling frequently
takes the place in our minds of any more explicit effort
consciously to understand what we mean by a familiar
word ; so that often what we call the understanding of
a word is simply the hearing of the word, attended by a
feeling of familiarity, and of confidence that we could,
if necessary, proceed to give further accounts or por
trayals of the nature of the object whereof the word is
the general name. But as soon as we proceed from
such feelings to the more concrete act of conception,
our general ideas, if they become explicit, must take tJie
form of further tendencies to conduct, of tendencies to por
tray or to describe or to depict tJie nature of the object by
a fitting series of reactions, such as would be suitable, on
our part, in the presence of any object of the class
in question, and such as would be suitable to portray to
another our general ideas.

§ in. Our general ideas, whether exact or inexact,
stand therefore for certain mental attitudes assumed
toward any object of the class of which we have the
general idea. Any such mental attitude is accom
panied by imagery, and the mental imagery may be
so prominent that certain people, especially visualisers,
suppose that they sufficiently describe their conscious

HIGHER FORMS OF DOCILITY 289

states when they characterise their general ideas as
images, more or less vague, of typical objects of the
class in question. But, as we pointed out in discussing
our mental imagery, our mental images of outer objects
are never to be divorced from our reactions. When we
have lively images, we tend to express our whole atti
tude toward their objects in fitting behaviour, as the
child, when playing with imaginary comrades, or
telling stories, illustrates. Moreover, whoever has a
general idea of a class of things, is able to show you
that he has a correct general idea only in so far as this
idea expresses itself in fitting acts. Whoever believes
himself to have a correct general idea of a tiger,
merely because he has an image of a tiger, has only
to ask himself whether his general idea of a tiger is
such as to permit him to believe that when you meet
a tiger you pat him on the head and ask him to give
you his paw, in order to see that his image of a tiger
possesses what Professor James has so skilfully called
a " fringe " — a fringe which at once excludes any such
disposition to deal with a tiger as one does with a
pet dog. One's general idea of a tiger includes states
of feeling, which may indeed be represented to mo
mentary consciousness only in the form of a general
sense of familiarity with the idea or with the word
"tiger," or only by the general confidence that, if one
were asked to portray the nature of a tiger, one could
in some respect fittingly do so. But these feelings of
u

2QO OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

quiescence in the presence of the familiar name or
image are themselves indications of tendencies which
tell one how one ought to act in the presence of an
object of the class in question. If one's confidence,
that one's general idea is a good one, is well founded,
and if one then allows one's general idea of the object
in question to become explicit and fully developed,
instead of remaining a mere fragmentary image or
word-memory, then one discovers that the whole general
idea involves what one may as well call " a plan of
action" that is, a way of behaviour wliicJi is fitting to
characterise and portray an object of the class in question.
§ 112. The fact that too many psychological ac
counts of the nature of general ideas have resulted
from confining psychological attention to the frag
mentary images which may appear at any stage of
the development or expression in consciousness of a
general idea, instead of considering the total mental
process which is needed in order to portray with
relative completeness any general idea whatever, is
responsible for the result that the traditional account
of general ideas has usually missed this, their relation
to our conduct. But if this relation exists, if every
complete general idea is a conscious plan of action, fitted
for the characterisation and portrayal of the nature of
that of which we have a general idea, the psychological
question regarding the genesis of general ideas is
simply the question as to how we could become clearly

HIGHER FORMS OF DOCILITY 291

conscious of such plans of action. For, as we pointed
out above, we are not usually clearly conscious of pre
cisely those acts which have become most habitual, unless
special conditions call our attention to their constitution.

Our answer to the question thus raised has already
been stated. The fact that all our general ideas have
been formed under social conditions, and that the ways
in which we describe, portray, and characterise things
have been throughout determined by motives of com
munication, by a disposition to imitate the behaviour of
our fellows, and by a disposition to compare our own
mental attitudes with theirs, this fact sufficiently ex
plains why the social contrasts and comparisons in
question have tended to make us and keep us conscious
not only of our own objects, but of our own modes of
rational behaviour in their presence.

Meanwhile, the essentially imitative character of all
complex general ideas appears in all our most thought
ful processes, namely, in our more elaborate scientific
general ideas. Such general ideas are best expressed
by drawing diagrams, or by going through the processes
of a scientific experiment, or by writing formulas on a
blackboard, or, finally, by describing objects in well-
ordered series of descriptive words. From this point of
view one might declare that all our higher conceptions,
just in proportion as they are thoughtful and definite,
involve conscious imitations of things. And these con
ceptions are general, merely because the fashion of imi-

2Q2 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

tation tJiat ^ve employ in tJie presence of one object will
regularly be applicable to a great number of objects.

Our numerical ideas illustrate this principle very well.
They are more or less abbreviated expressions of the
motor activity of counting, and of the results of this
activity. The geometrical conception of a circle as a
curve that can be constructed by fixing one end of a
straight line, by leaving the other free, and by allowing
this end to rotate in a plane, is another instance of a
conception that is identical with our memory of a cer
tain mode of portrayal by which a circle can be recon
structed. In brief, we have exact conceptions of tJiings in
so far as we know how tJic things are made, or Jioiv they
can be imitatively reconstructed tJirougJi our portrayals.
Where our power to imitate ceases, our power definitely
to conceive ceases also. All science is thus an effort
to describe facts, to set over against the real world an
imitation of it. Hence the vanity of endeavouring to
describe the process of conception merely in terms of
images, without remembering that mental imagery,
when definite, is always related to our action. But it
is our social life that has made its conscious of our
actions, and that has thus taught us how to form abstract
ideas.

§ 113. The mental process called Judgment is the
second essential aspect of the thinking process. While
judgment involves many other aspects, its essential
feature lies in the fact that, when we judge, we accept

HIGHER FORMS OF DOCILITY 293

or reject a given proposed portrayal of objects as adequate,
or as fitting for its own purpose. The general concep
tion, as we have just seen, is a portrayal, which one
may compare to a photograph of a man. The act of
judgment is comparable to the act whereby one to
whom the photographer sends the proofs of a pho
tograph, accepts or rejects the photograph as a worthy
representation of the object in question. But our
consciousness regarding the acceptance or rejection
of proposed portrayals of objects has become critical,
has come to involve a sharp distinction between truth
and error, because we have so often compared our judg
ments witJi those of our fellows, and have so often
criticised, accepted, or rejected their expressions, their
attitudes toward things. Here again the conditions upon
which the social consciousness depends have proved
necessary to the formation of our thought.

§ 1 14. The process of reasoning, the third aspect
of the thinking process, is in general the process of con
sidering the results of proposed conceptions and judg
ments, of taking them, so to speak, as if they were
themselves original objects, and of reading off from
some new point of view the results which these concep
tions or judgments, when once accepted, involve. The
reasoning process is often regarded by students of
psychology as in the main a case of the association
of ideas. And that associations are concerned in
every step of the reasoning process is indisputable.

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Conceptions and judgments inevitably express habitual
activities. Thought is a result of experience, and
nothing appears in the thinking process which is not
profoundly influenced, from the psychological point of
view, by the laws of habit. But to regard a train
of reasoning as merely an associative train of images
is indeed to emphasise a true aspect of a train of
reasoning, but is to neglect its most important aspect.
So too, as we have before asserted, all thinking and
so all reasoning, involves assimilation (§ 96). But we
have also said that thought is much more than mere
assimilation. As a fact, every act of reasoning in
volves new reactions of our own in the presence of a
situation which we get before us as the result of
former acts. The essence of reasoning, as of the
whole thinking process, is that I am not merely con
cerned with the way in which images float before me,
but with my consciousness of what I am doing with
tJicse images, or wit/i tJic objects tJiat tJic images sug
gest. When I reason, the object before me for con
sideration is principally represented by images of the
results of former acts. My reasoning process involves
a new judgment based upon these former acts.

Thus, if I am constructing a diagram, and upon
a right line have placed a point B to the right of
point A, and have placed a point C to the right of
point />, I so far actually portray a situation which I
may regard as representing the nature of some series

HIGHER FORMS OF DOCILITY 295

of objects. If, hereupon, I observe that my construc
tion involves as a fact that C, being to the right of
B, must by so much the more be to the right of A,
and if I hereupon note that this must hold true of
the object which the diagram represents, then I rea
son. My reasoning thus consists in finding out from
some new point of vieiv what I have meant by my
former acts and judgments. We bring out the essence
of the reasoning process when, in an appeal to a
careless child who has done some mischief, we say,
" See what you have done." Reasoning is thus the
reading off of the result of our former thoughtful acts
from some new point of view. But it indeed involves
no essentially new mental tendency. It is a con
tinuation of the consciousness which characterises the
whole thinking process, only of this consciousness on
a higher level.

As reasoning involves a constantly more and more
elaborate consciousness of the nature and results of our
own action so again we see, from the whole history of
the development of the reason amongst men, that
reasoning is a consequence of social situations ', and espe
cially of the process of comparing various opinions and
connections of opinion, as these have grozvn up amongst
men. The whole method of the reasoning process has
come to the consciousness of men as the result of dis
putation, that is, of processes whereby men have com
pared together their various ways of portraying things,

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and of taking accounts of the results of their own
actions. Nobody learns to reason except after other people
have pointed out to Jiim how they view Jiis attempts to
give his own acts of thought connection, and to proceed
from one act to another. Like the thinking process in
general, the reasoning process develops out of condi
tions which at the outset involve a very rich, and in
fact predominant presence of feelings and of complex
emotions. That is, reasonings have resulted from what
were at first decidedly passionate contrasts of opinion ;
and the dispassionate reason has grown up upon the
basis of decidedly emotional efforts of men to persuade
other men to assume their own fashions of conduct, and
their own self-conscious view of how their various acts
were connected together. If the process of conception
is the formation of a plan of conduct, the process of
reasoning results from trying so to portray t Jiis plan as to
persuade otJier men to assume it. Persuasion and con
troversy, upon earlier stages of mental development, are
always associated with passionate vehemence. The
ineffectiveness of mere passion to attain its own social
ends, the growth of ingenuity in the process of per
suasion, and the gradual elaboration of social habits,
formed through the successful bringing of men to agree
ment, — such are the motives upon which the develop
ment of the reasoning process has depended.

§ 115. It remains here very briefly to characterise
the highest and most complex of all the intellectual

HIGHER FORMS OF DOCILITY 297

processes, namely that one • which has to do with what
is called our " Self-consciousness " in general, that is,
the consciousness which the Ego, the Self, possesses of
its own life, activities, and plans. The Self of any man
comes to consciousness only in contrast ivitJi other selves.
There is no reason why one should be aware of his
whole plan of life, or of his personal character, or of
the general connections amongst his various habits, or
of the value of his own life, or of any of the features
and attributes which our present consciousness ascribes
to the Self, unless he has had occasion to compare his
behaviour, his feelings, and his ideals, with those of
other men. It is true that when developed, this Self
includes amongst its possessions all the states of con
sciousness that make up the inner life of which we
spoke in our opening paragraphs, that inner life which
we conceived as in some sense inaccessible to, and sun
dered from, the inner life of anybody else. But there
is no reason why these states of consciousness should
form, from our own point of view, a world by themselves,
unless we had some world of other facts to compare
and contrast them with. And the whole evidence of
our social consciousness is to the effect that it is by
virtue of our ideas of other people, and of their minds
and conscious states, that we have come to form the
conception of our own inner life as, in its wholeness,
distinct from theirs.

The conception of the so-called Empirical Self, that

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is, of the Self of our ordinary experience, is one which
we find to be especially centred about certain of our
most important organic sensations, and also centred
about those feelings of pleasure, pain, restlessness, and
quiescence, which are most persistent and prominent in
our lives. But the mere possession of these organic
sensations and feelings is not sufficient to explain why
we regard them as peculiarly belonging to the Self. It is
only when we see the importance that our social life
with our fellows has given to these organic sensations
that we recognise how we first have come to contrast
our own experience with what we for various reasons
conceive to be the inner experiences of other people,
and then, by virtue of the prominence which our social
contrasts and oppositions give to these organic sensa
tions, have come to regard them as especially the imme
diate expression of our independence, and of that which
keeps us apart from all other selves.

That the Self comes to consciousness in normal
cases only in connection with organised plans of con
duct, is obvious from what has already been said. Our
social self-consciousness leads us to form such plans,
and to compare them with those of other people. Our
consciousness of ourselves as personalities is there
fore simply an extreme instance of that relation be
tween social consciousness and the higher intellectual
development which we have already set forth in our
account of the general nature of thought.

CHAPTER XIII

THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL INITIATIVE

§ 116. In treating of docility we have everywhere
had to take account of the presence of novelty both
in our experience and in our conduct. But on the
whole, such novelty has thus far been treated as some
thing due, in the main, to the external stimuli, and to
the order in which they come. A new habit, as we
have said, may arise because certain stimuli A, By C, D,
act upon the organism. These stimuli have never
been thus together before. The resulting brain pro
cesses, a, b, c, d, excited together, tend by the law of
habit to become connected through repetition, so that
they are more easily aroused.

We have indeed observed that, when new habits are
formed, not all that occurs can be said to be due either
to the external stimuli or to their repetition. For there
is a certain internally conditioned tendency on the part
of the gradually improving habit to grow more defi
nite, to lose its useless elements, to involve less diffuse
discharges. This tendency, as we have said, is due
to the general adaptability of the organism. We left
it to biological science further to explain the existence

299

300 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

of such tendencies to the elimination of the unfit con
stituents of habits. But the rest of the process of
the acquisition and the welding of habits involves
features that were, as thus far considered, of one gen
eral type. This is the type which determines our
whole docility, both in its intellectual and in its vol
untary aspects. Assimilation, as we found, tends to
minimise whatever novelties new disturbances intro
duce into the organism. Even the differentiation of
conscious states we also found to be an exemplifica
tion of the law of habit. For differentiation is due to
the fact that habits of successive action, when once
acquired, determine our consciousness of the differ
ences of simultaneous facts. The processes of the
attention have appeared as further examples of the
law of habit. The organisation of conduct follows
the same line. So far there has therefore seemed to
be no room left for any normal initiative which could
be said to be due in the main to the organism or, on
its psychical side, to the mind.

Yet as our introduction pointed out, there is at
least the appearance of mental initiative in the phe
nomena of human ingenuity, in the acts which tradition
has regarded as due to free-will, and in the processes
of " self-activity " generally. This appearance we now
need in conclusion to examine more carefully. We
should come to the subject with no prejudice in favour
of finding that this appearance of mental initiative

THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL INITIATIVE 301

either is or is not a well-founded appearance. We
ought neither to be surprised to find the processes in
question reducible to those which govern our docility,
nor unwilling to admit that in some respects they are
not thus reducible.

Modern biological theory, by its recognition of what
have been called " spontaneous variations " as factors
in evolution has, at all events, prepared the way for the
recognition of the possible presence in the psycholo
gist's world of tendencies which are essentially disposed
to the production of novel forms of conduct, such as the
environment does not wholly predetermine, and to the
formation of novel combinations of mental processes,
such as previous habits have not wholly rendered nec
essary. That such relative novelties should be pos
sible in the psychologist's world, is in itself no more
surprising than that variations of stature, of protective
colouring, or of inherited functions, should occur in
the world that the zoologist studies. Certainly a gen
eral view of tJie place wJiicli beings with minds occupy
in the physical world strongly suggests that their organ
isms may especially Jiave significance as places for the
initiation of more or less novel types of activity. That
such novelty does not mean the absence of law, we
have already pointed out.

We do not expect that the psychologist will ever be
interested in events whose relations to previous events
he regards as reducible to no sort of rule. Every

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science studies its facts for the sake of finding them
instances that conform to rule. But nature furnishes
us, even in the inorganic world, with numerous instances
of what are called " critical points," viz., points where
one kind of process ends, and a process of a decidedly
distinct kind appears quite suddenly to begin. The
advance of scientific theory does, indeed, depend upon
discovering that, even at these critical points, there
is no absolute discontinuity in the physical processes
involved. But this fact does not deprive the critical
points of their scientific interest. By so much the
more might we expect to find that, in the development
of a creature with a mind, there are indeed critical
points, — places where something decidedly novel be
gins to appear ; and where this novelty is not wholly
determined by the relations between the organism and
its environment, but is also in part determined by fac
tors which are due to the organism itself, and which
are not wholly reducible to the laws governing our
docility. That such critical points in the development
of an organism or of a mind involve no absolute dis
continuities, we shall unquestionably admit. But that
fact need not deprive the phenomena of mental initia
tive of their very considerable interest.

§ 117. We have heretofore spoken of the instincts,
which lie at the basis of the development of our con
duct, as if they were finished products of heredity. We
have pointed out that, when external experiences arouse

THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL INITIATIVE 303

these instincts, the result is the performance of actions
which leave traces in our central nervous system, and
which therefore tend to the formation of habits. But,
as a fact, the phenomena of the appearance of instinct,
either in infancy or later in the course of our develop
ment, are not so simple as this general formula would in
dicate. In general, our most important instincts appear
slowly, bit by bit, not as at all finished tendencies to
specific kinds of reaction, but as at first crude and
awkward tendencies in the general direction of a given
kind of action. The unfinished form in which the
instincts appear in all the higher vertebrates seems to
be of great importance for the development of the
individual animal. It gives opportunities to train the
individual to special adaptations to his environment,
such as are indicated by the special circumstances in
which he finds himself. Thus, the aquatic bird may
have to learn, and that somewhat slowly, its first acts
of swimming. And still more obviously the human
infant spends a long time in training the preliminary
stages that lead it on the way toward creeping, climb
ing, and walking. The reader of Miss Shinn's
elaborate and highly instructive monograph on • The
Development of a Child will find in her account a
remarkably minute discussion of the phenomena that
appear in the case of the infant whom she studied.
Every one of the acts that finally resulted in the attain
ment of the power to creep, to climb, and to walk, was

304 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

very slowly reached as the result of a training whose
details were nowhere predetermined by heredity, while
on the other hand, every step of the process was indeed
predetermined by hereditary constitution to tend, in the
normal child, toward a result tJiat would give it, under
tJic circumstances of its individual life, the powers of
locomotion suited to a human being. In consequence,
the development of the individual child, with regard
to such activities as those of locomotion, is at every
step subject to sucJi modifications as tend to adapt the
child to its individual surroundings. The child does
not possess its instinctive adaptations in any finished
form, nor even in such form that habits, having a defi
nite character, can at all rapidly be acquired. On the
contrary, the early habits, in case of such complex
processes as those of locomotion, appear for a long
time in the form of very gradual and awkward acts,
that do indeed, in some measure, adjust the child to its
environment, but for a long time leave this adjustment
very poor and ineffective.

§ 1 1 8. The same principle seems to hold true with
regard to all the instincts upon whose modification and
gradual training all our higher rational habits depend.
The higher we arc in the scale of mental existence, the
slower is the process of learning to adapt ourselves to the
environment, the more awkward are the intermediate
stages, lying between the first signs that we possess a
given instinctive tendency, and the fitting expression

THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL INITIATIVE 305

of the modifications of this instinctive tendency in the
form of definite conduct. Hence the long continued
awkwardness of the growing boy and youth. Hence
the long apprenticeship through which many forms of
professional skill and artistic ability have to pass.
That, in the course of such a development, there should
be a constant tendency to the appearance of variations of
individual conduct, whose precise details are not prede
termined by heredity, and yet are not easily to be ex
plained merely in terms of docility, is fairly plain ; for if
our instinctive tendencies come to light only slowly as
the nervous centres grow toward maturity, the ex
ternal expressions of our conduct will be determined
not merely by what happens to the organism nor by
what the organism has inherited, but also by the highly
individual and unpredictable phenomena of the growth
of the nervous centres themselves during our early life.

As a fact, the brain of man which seems to be pro
vided at birth with all its neurons, develops for a long
time after birth, and especially during the first seven
years of life, constantly new connections, structural and
functional, amongst its various parts. The formation of
these connections is determined not merely by the in
herited tendencies of the organism, nor yet wholly by
the laws of habit, but by the circumstances of growth.
These circumstances are unquestionably affected by the
actual conduct of the organism in question. But they
are not in such wise determined by it as the habits are

306 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

determined by it in previous behaviour. It follows that

there is a factor, hitherto neglected in our account, a

factor which tends to explain the appearance of unpre
dictable variation in the conduct of an immature organ
ism of our own type. This factor is the organic growth.
So far as this organic growth includes the appearance,
at certain stages, of decidedly new instincts, such as
those which appear at puberty, the phenomena have
already been excluded, by our initial definition, from
those phenomena of variability which concern us here.
But in so far as the phenomena are determined by
the growth of nervous centres and of nervous con
nections which are all the while undergoing train
ing in accordance with the laws of habit, the con
sequences will appear in a type of variation such
as our general account has already characterised.
That is, the results will appear in the form of a
modification of Jtabits in directions which arc on the
whole adaptive in their diameter, while they arc not
wholly to be explained on the basis of previous instincts,
or as mere phenomena of docility. The variations which
determine the gradual organisation of the movements
of the creeping child seem to belong in a considerable
measure under this head.

§ 119. But closely associated with these processes
there are others, whose significance for our whole
organic life is very great, although they seem to be
rather too generally neglected in theoretical accounts of

THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL INITIATIVE 307

the development of our conduct. What especially at
tracts our attention, in following the development of the
creeping child, is the fact that it persists in a great
number of its still unadaptive movements^ in a great
number of its still useless actions, despite their inefficacy.
As Miss Shinn expresses the results of her own observa
tions in the case of some of these phenomena, the child
seemed to take delight, or to persist, in certain pro
cesses, because of the inner impulse to try them again
and again.

Professor Baldwin, in his work on Mental Develop
ment in the Child and in the Race has done no little
service by laying stress upon the importance of such
"try, try, again " activities for the development of imita
tive and of other intelligent functions. Now all such
actions may unquestionably be regarded as due to in
stinctive tendencies. But the general instinct to persist
in trying, is not like such a special instinctive activity as
is the converging of the optic axes when the eyes are
fixed upon an object. For the latter, the special
instinct, is, by itself, a directly adaptive instinct But on
the other hand, the general tendency to persist in
actions which are thus far not adaptive, is a tendency
which does not, at the moment, or in any brief time,
necessarily lead to results that are serviceable to the
organism. Nor, on the other hand, is this general ten
dency one that predetermines precisely what kind of
act, whether adaptive or in so far ineffective, shall be

308 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

carried out. The eager child is disturbed by its environ
ment, and hereupon is led somehow to a reaction which,
owing to the immaturity of the organism, is thus far
very imperfectly adapted to the environment. To the ob
server the child seems to be trying to do something, but
not to know what it wants to do. The particular act in
question may be the expression of some instinct not yet
completely developed. But hereupon there now ap
pears the other instinct, — the mere tendency to persist,
— a tendency which has a decidedly generalised form,
and which may be described as a tendency to do again
and again, with variations, whatever tJie cliild Jias once
begun to do, without any especial regard to whether
the act is immediately adaptive or not.

That this tendency plays a considerable part in the
life of childhood, any observer may see for himself.
Miss Shinn's subject, during all the period of learning
to creep, to walk, and to climb, showed this persist
ence in manifold ways. It was not a persistence due
in every case to the child's observation that she had
already accomplished an important or otherwise use
ful reaction. It was frequently a persistence in what
was so far awkwardness. I have called the persist
ence a tendency of a more generalised kind, because
it seems to be a normal expression of the vigorous
activity of a growing organism. It seems also to be
an expression which may be applied in various direc
tions, so that of itself it does not predetermine what

THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL INITIATIVE 309

activities shall be persisted in, but only that any one
of a large number of imperfect instinctive tendencies,
if once begun, shall be repeatedly pursued. This
tendency seems to be represented in consciousness by
feelings in terms of which the child estimates the
acts that chance experience, acting upon its immature
instincts, may have so far initiated. Observers usually
interpret these feelings as, in the normal case, predomi
nantly those of pleasure. Professor Baldwin, who lays
great stress upon the " heightened activities " of the
organism as a basis for the acquisition of new special
adaptations to the environment, regards these height
ened activities themselves as, at the outset of the evo
lutionary process, the accompaniments of pleasurable
feelings; and that this is to a considerable extent
true is unquestionable. But one has only to take a
somewhat wider view of activities of this type to see
many cases in which, even when they first appear in
the course of evolution, they seem to be inevitable,
although they do not appear to be markedly pleasur
able. From our own point of view, the feeling that
consciously accompanies such early activities is the
feeling of restlessness rather than that of pleasure.

Some act, due to a stimulus working upon a still
immature nervous system, is awkwardly performed,
and leads thus far to no satisfactory result. What
shall be the consequence ? The consequence of course
may be, and often is, that the mere activity of the

310 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

healthy organism is itself joyous, whatever its result.
In this case the child will take pleasure in the act
and will repeat it. The repetition will be an expres
sion at once of the general law of habit and of the
usual effects of pleasurable excitement. Professor
Baldwin finds at the basis of all such repetitions
a certain fundamental tendency of the organism to
what he calls "circular reactions," that is, to sorts of
reaction whereby any stimulus, if once presented, is, if
possible, again repeated. The " circular reactions "
thus include all acts that tend to be repeated over and
over. Granting the existence, in an organism, of in
herited tendencies to such circular reactions, granted
the heightened activity with its pleasurable conscious
accompaniments, and granted the occurrence, in con
sequence, of any sort of reaction, however imperfect
or awkward ; and then, indeed, the tendency to try
and try again, may be regarded as a natural expression
of the whole relation between the organism and the
environment.

Nevertheless when we ourselves are able consciously
to observe, even in maturity, similar processes, the con
scious accompaniments need not be pleasurable. We
may find, in ourselves, at such times, simply the sense
that the result thus far reached is unsatisfactory, and
we may feel a restlessness. This restlessness may con
stitute either a painful, or a comparatively indifferent
state of feeling, so far as pleasure and pain are con-

THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL INITIATIVE 311

cerned. But the feeling in all such cases will be a
distinctly restless feeling, and may accompany the
general organic tendency to persist in trying afresh.
This doing of something further may, for the reasons
upon which Professor Baldwin has insisted, appear
predominantly in the form of a series of ''circular reac
tions." But the trying again may also give place to
another sort of restlessness which leads to efforts at
movements in some new direction. The dissatisfied
creature may persist, but may persist in a restless
search for whatever else can be done under the circum
stances. And the trying again may be but a mere
incident of this restlessness, an incident due to the
fact that the repetition of the awkward act is one of
the comparatively few resources which recent ex
perience has made available. In any case, the persist
ence in some sort of behaviour, which is involved in every
such activity, tends to result in bringing the organism into
constantly nciv relations with the environment. It may
also result, as is probable, in hastening- the growth
of those nervous connections which, in the immature
organism, will be necessary preliminaries to the acqui
sition of better adaptations. In general, the result of
the disposition to persist, either, with pleasure, in trying
again the awkward act, or, with restlessness, in trying
anything whatever proves to be possible, will be a
tendency that at the moment when it most forcibly
expresses itself in action is not a directly adaptive

312 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

tendency. Furthermore, its results will not be wholly
predetermined by heredity, nor yet by the kind of
relation to the environment which the growing organ
ism has yet attained. The most important consequence
of this vague struggle for something more will be that
opportunities will be given to the organism to acquire
adaptations which it never could acquire, unless this
predisposition to endless experiment and to the try-
IHS °f various relations with the environment were
present.

§ 120. The significance of the processes thus charac
terised will better appear if we hereupon consider two
different classes of cases, the one much lower and
simpler than is the case with the child, the other much
more complex, but nearer to our own present conscious
ness.

Let us return to the case of the caged animal, or of
the pet animal turned out of doors and anxious to get
in again. Owing to the environment, such an animal
is, at the moment, unable, on the basis either of instinct
or of acquired habit, to make a desirable adaptation to
its environment. It tries, struggles, and fails. What
is the result ? The result may be that, after a certain
number of efforts, the discomfort of the struggle is so
great that further effort is inhibited, and the animal
passively resigns itself to the situation. So far no
phenomena appear which are not generally explicable
on the basis of sensitiveness, instinct, and docility. But

THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL INITIATIVE 313

now on the other hand, the animal may continue its
attempts to escape or to get in. It may continue them
in the form of constantly varied activities whereby
it tries experiments, such as bring it into entirely
novel contact with the environment. These experi
ments may ultimately result in the occurrence of acts
for which the animal's previous training had not pre
pared it. When these acts finally occur, they will
indeed be the result of a process of trial and error.
They will indeed be instances of sensitiveness and
docility. They may involve successful adaptations.
They may thereupon establish useful habits for the
animal's future conduct. But one feature of the
whole process remains which is not fully explained
in terms of the animal's special instincts (such as
desire for warmth or for food or for comfort), and
which is also not explained upon the basis of the
animal's previous habits. This feature is suggested
by the question : Why did the animal persist, under
apparently hopeless conditions, and despite failures ?
Why did it persist in activities which were so far not
adaptive ?

The answer to this question may sometimes be stated
in terms of the animal's painful feelings. One may say
that the animal continued to long for food, or for other
comfort, and to have some idea, based upon its former
experience — some idea of the attainment of its ends.
Its docility and its already established habits would then

314 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

explain why, with such feelings, it persisted. But such
an explanation in terms of the animal's feelings is, after
all, ambiguous. For the struggle is painful, as well as
the failure. The point may come where the pain of the
struggle becomes greater than the pain of the lack. In
case of a sufficiently hopeless struggle this point is actu
ally reached, and the animal finally surrenders to fate.
But what determines whether the one of these two pains
is greater than the other ? The answer is, of course, to
be given in terms of the nervous constitution of the
animal itself.

But when one considers this constitution, one has to
take account of still another fact. Some animals are
actively persistent. They are so by inherited disposition.
However painful certain situations, they will not give up
until exhaustion sets in. Other animals, which appear
no more sensitive in many ways than are the former,
are more quiescent. They surrender more readily. The
difference between two such different animals may of
course be described in terms of pleasure and pain. But
this difference also seems equally to suggest a descrip
tion in terms of feelings of restlessness and quiescence,
that is in terms of nervous predispositions which have to
do, not so mncJi with pleasure and pain, as with being
disposed to persevere and to vary activity. Such predis
positions are themselves matters of the greatest vari
ation both in ourselves and in the lower animals. Thus
the horse can be broken to harness, because, in certain

THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL INITIATIVE 315

painful situations which are opposed in many ways to
his primitive instincts, he erelong gives way. The
zebra is said generally to escape being broken to har
ness, not perhaps because he finds it more painful, but
because he actually persists longer in his struggle. In all
such cases, where mere persistence in a certain type of
action characterises an animal, and leads to a process of
trial and error that finally results in adaptive reactions,
one finds a factor which, for a time, may produce appar
ently useless activities ; but it leads, in the end, to the
establishment of fitting relations to the environment.
Now this factor, this peculiar persistence, belongs to
the temperament of the animal. The creature that has
such a tendency is likely, in certain situations, to form
new habits, or to vary his old habits, in an adaptive direc
tion. The heightened activities that lie at the basis of
such tendencies are primarily activities of tJie restless
type. They may be pleasurable activities, or they may
be activities that involve the effort to escape pain. But
they are not to be uniquely characterised in these terms.
It is best to characterise them as the activities which
lead to very various sorts of persistent experiment, that is,
to repetitions and variations of such acts as so far prove
to be maladaptations.

§ 121. To turn now to a case that appears in the
life of human beings. A problem baffles us. It
may be a practical problem. It may be a matter of
voluntary decision. It may be, in the main, an in-

316 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

tellectual problem. The environment arouses us to
action. But we are provided with no present adapta
tion. Our efforts to meet the situation prove abortive
and disappointing. What shall we do ? One in vain
endeavours, at such times, to define our activities in
terms merely of pleasure and pain. Of course our
present failure is painful, and we indeed seek to
escape from this suffering. Of course the thought
of our thus far unattainable ideal arouses new desires
to attain it. But there are various ways of escap
ing from such pains. The effort to escape by fresh
attempts at winning the goal is itself painful. It
involves renewed disappointments. Meanwhile, if we
can once persuade ourselves to give up the strug
gle, the pain again diminishes. What shall determine
whether we go on or not ? Whatever does determine is
something that lies very deep in our nature, that varies
from person to person, and that is best expressed in
consciousness in feelings not so much of pain and
pleasure as of restlessness and quiescence. This
deciding factor is our disposition to persevere either in
repeating with variations the particular acts that Jiave so
far proved abortive, or in searching elsewhere — any
where — for a chance solution of our problem. If this
tendency is sufficiently predominant, we continue our
efforts, and may do so when they are intensely painful.
The result may be, in extreme cases, the " do-or-clie "
mood, which will end either in success, and in a novel

THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL INITIATIVE 317

form of adaptation to the environment, or else in our
entire destruction. What is noticeable about this per
sistent tendency, when it appears, is that it is a very
general tendency. It is the expression of an instinct,
related to our special habits and instincts as the gen
eral experiences of orientation are related to our special
experiences of the place of a point in space. It is
aroused, not by a special stimulation, but by our finding
that we are in the position of having undertaken some
thing, and of having thus far failed. It predisposes
us to no one kind of action, except to the general effort
to try other reactions that may have to do with the
task which we have begun. Thus, at first, it merely
seems to dispose us to persist in mal adaptations. In
case of kindlier fortune this tendency may be very
pleasurable ; but it appears in instances that cannot be
explained in terms of Professor Baldwin's heightened
reactions due to pleasure. Nor can I wholly accept
the special explanations that Professor Baldwin has
offered when he deals with the presence of such per
sistent activities as are, for the moment, painful. But
what is certain is that our power to learn decidedly new
variations of our habits will usually depend upon the
presence of this perseverance. And this is what every
moral counsellor of resolution practically recognises.
The restless men may prove to be failures, but the most
successful of human beings are the men who are in some
respects prodigiously restless. These persist in doing

318 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

what just now need not be done. They persist in
trials despite maladaptations. Failure stimulates them.
What the environment cannot yet teach them, they teach
the environment to furnish them, sooner or later, in a
form that they can assimilate.

§ 122. Now my thesis is that the apparently spontane
ous variations of our habits which appear in the course
°f Ufa and which cannot be altogether explained as due
to external stimulation, have as their principal internal
cause this restlessness. The restlessness itself appears
sometimes in more or less specific forms. But it is,
on the whole, something very much more general
in its character, than is any one of the specific instincts
upon which our particular habits are founded.

The thesis that the restless over-activity of the organ
ism in carrying out its instinctive processes, or in seeking
opportunity for the establishment of new functions, is the
principal condition of every significant form of mental
initiative, may seem to reduce the province of mental
initiative to a very modest and narrow range. But one
has only to observe a little more closely our life, in
order to see that the range thus left to mental initiative
is, as a fact, very large. The environment and the
inherited tendencies of an organism determine at any
moment specific acts. The already acquired habits of
the organism determine how these specific acts shall be
based upon former actions. So far, however, the envi
ronment appears as the one source of whatever novel-

THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL INITIATIVE 319

ties are to appear in conduct ; while the organism
appears disposed to persist in its former modes of con
duct, or to repeat such actions as its ancestral tenden
cies, its experience, and its docility, predetermine. But
if, amongst the various reactions of the organism, there
arc suck as take tJie form of a restless searcJi for novelty
of environment and of conduct, then novelties will appear
in tJie actions of tJie organism — novelties wJiich are due,
in an important measure, to tJie tendencies which the or
ganism itself has inherited. And yet the resulting acts
will be not mere repetitions of ancestral acts, because
they will have resulted from novel relations to an envi
ronment. It thus comes to be the case with the organ
ism and with the mind, as it is with the emigrant to
a foreign country. In the new country he lives a new
life, and not the life of his ancestors. This result is
indeed due to the new environment. Yet the new envi
ronment would never have come to him if he had not
wandered. And he would never have wandered had
it not been the result of a restlessness that was his
own.

§ 123. The kinds of mental initiative which can result
from the tendencies now summarised may next be
briefly surveyed. First and most notable in the devel
opments of early childhood are the forms of novelty
in conduct, and of accompanying mental initiative,
which are displayed in the plays of children. As Groos
has shown in his monographs on the Play of Ani-

32O OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

ma Is and The Play of Man, the value of play lies
especially in its relation to the future activities of
the adult organism. The various instincts which are
manifested in play, whether in animals or in men, are
indeed inherited instincts. But like all the higher in
stincts in vertebrate animals, they are inherited, as we
have seen, in an imperfect form ; and their expression
is subject to much individual variation in consequence
of the experience acquired by the individual animal
or child as it plays. Just because the play activities
are carried out at a time when they are not necessary
to the preservation of the organism, they receive a free
and manifold development for which there would be
no opportunity if the same activities were postponed
until the necessities of adult life called for the arts in
question. The kitten, playing with sticks, and with
leaves, and with other kittens, gets an expertness in
pursuing and catching prey which it would not have
time to acquire if it waited until hunger drove it to
pursue food. Precisely the same principle holds with
regard to the far more complicated plays of children.
I have heard a sea captain tell how, in middle life, he
saved his ship, in an emergency, through a device of
navigation that he first learned, in a crude form, when,
in boyhood, he was playing with his sail-boat in his
native harbour. The same general principle holds
regarding numerous arts which children acquire in
connection with early and spontaneous plays. Now

THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL INITIATIVE 32!

the most notable characteristic of the play activity,
whether in the animal or in the child, is its apparent
spontaneity. Yet every detail of a playful function
can of course be interpreted as the result of the laws
of habit, and of the immediate influence of the envi
ronment upon an organism, endowed with such and
such instincts, and subject to such and such stimuli.
Wherein, then, lies the peculiarly spontaneous charac
ter of the playful activities ? Wherein does play most
differ from any other activity, such as eating or as run
ning from an enemy ? The natural answer is that the
playful activity appears spontaneous because it is earned
out when there is no necessity of carrying it out. In
other words, a playful activity is not an adaptation to
the environment such as the momentary conditions
imperatively call for. But to say this is to admit that
the spontaneous aspect of a playful function lies es
pecially in the- restless overflow of activities that the
playful organism shows. It seems to us, the specta
tors, as if the world did not require the child to play.
Yet after all the child's play is like any other action,
— a response to the environment, a response involving
sensitiveness and docility, and dependent upon previous
habits. Why do we make this comment on the appar
ent needlessness of the play ? Because we recognise in
the playful activities precisely the character of restless
overflow, a character which we recognise, in other
forms, in the persevering struggles of the imprisoned

322 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

animal to escape, and in the equally persevering efforts
of the inventor or of the reformer to solve the problems
of his art or of his age.

In the case of the play of childhood we have, in
fact, a collection of functions whose value lies not in
the immediate adjustments to the environment then car
ried out, but in what we might call the propJictic im
portance of the activities in question. These are
not only repetitions of ancestral activities, but they
are in part (although indeed not altogether) an in
dication and foreshadowing of functions which are
afterward to become important. And the playful
functions acquire such importance in the child's life,
not merely because the environment suggests them,
and not merely because the child's special instincts
and habits make the plays at the moment fascinating,
but because the child's restless eagerness, — his insistence
upon trying over and over the playful activity until it
wholly satisfies his own ideals, — because, I say, these
tendencies of the child keep Jiim at play with an ear
nestness wJiicJi expresses his own initiative. Conse
quently, as any close observer of childhood knows,
children play, not merely because it pleases them, but
because they must play. They often play to the point
of exhaustion. They play, on occasion, distinctly pain
ful, as well as, on occasion, agreeable games. Their
playful activities may sometimes possess all the per
sistence of the " tropisms " that Loeb has observed

THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL INITIATIVE 323

in lower organisms. These considerations hold true
not only of many social, but of some solitary games.
The child may grow much overexcited in the pursuit
of a self-chosen play ideal, even when he "has no com
rade to urge him to emulation. He may weep or
rage over a failure to accomplish one of his own
playful designs. He may insist upon one of his
playful ideas with a seriousness and intensity that
may weary all his family and friends. If such phe
nomena occasionally seem pathological, their normal
equivalents are of the utmost importance in the life
of every intelligent child. And my present insistence
is upon the thought that in this eagerness, in this
perseverance, and in the restlessness with which tJie
whole playful activity is pursued, lies the initiative
which the child may himself be said to contribute
toward the organisation of his playful functions.

This initiative keeps him busy in perfecting old
plays, or in searching for new ones. It makes him
endure the criticisms of playfellows, and submit to
the often severe discipline which the social forms of
play early involve amongst the groups of children
concerned. This initiative makes of the child very
frequently a specialist in some form of childish art,
or of amateur collection. And what such initiative
may accomplish for the organisation of the child's
mental life, becomes manifest when we for a moment
consider the great variety of arts and ideas that chil-

324 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

dren teach themselves through play. The various
types of self-consciousness, such as appear during the
dramatic impersonations of early childhood ; the vari
ous arts, silch as drawing, manual training, sleight
of hand, skill with boats, or with other objects of early
play — these, together with a knowledge of nature,
and sometimes a certain literary inventiveness, are a
few of the mental treasures that childhood may win
from its various games. Such are some of the forms
in which what is often well called the " originality "
of a child may display itself. One sees, then, that
in the mere persistence of the playful child one has a
factor whose value for mental initiative it is hard to
overestimate.

§ 124. Second, amongst the regions where mental
initiative is displayed, we may name the activities of
youth as they appear at the point where youthful
productivity is most manifest and important. If we
ask why an original genius produces his first great
work, or why a man of talent first discovers his
mission, or why a man of mediocrity wins that control
over his powers which makes him the successful busi
ness man or professional person, our answer, so far
as we can give it at all, must of course take account,
in large measure, of features of which we have already
spoken when we discussed sensitiveness and docility.
What a man can do, depends upon what he can ob
serve, upon what he can feel, and upon what he can

THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL INITIATIVE 325

learn as his instincts are trained. And when thus re
garded, a man seems to be the creature of his environ
ment. But there is one thing that Jiis environment cannot
determine. Nor yet can his special instincts — for in
stance, the instincts that prepare him to be a painter
or a poet or a politician or a good salesman — deter
mine whether or no this one thing shall be present.
This one thing is the power of the organism to persist
in seeking for new adjustments, whether the environ
ment at first suggests them or not, to persist in strug
gling toward its w//<?/^/ unknown goal, whether there
is any apparent opportunity for reaching such a goal
or not. Suck persistence is the one initiative that the
organism can offer to the world. It appears, in the
individual case, in the form of passionate interests in
apparently useless activities. Such passionate interests
may in some cases prove to be as decidedly injurious
as they may in other cases be useful. Thus a passion
ate interest in gambling may lead straight to destruc
tion. But the gambler's interests, where they appear,
involve in their own way a sort of initiative which,
destructive though it proves, has, in common with the
nobler devotions, exactly the feature that makes all
such devotion of such critical importance to the or
ganism and to the mind. Without such insistent
interests, restless in their manifestations, persevering
in their tendencies to repeat over and over, and to
vary, fascinating activities, the organism and the mind

326 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

remain the prey of the environment. With such inter
ests mental initiative becomes prominent. What a
man is to learn still depends upon experience and
opportunity ; but the restlessly active man regards his
world as destined to express his purpose. He moulds
his environment accordingly. And in the long run
his life thus becomes not only a bit of the world's
life, but his own life.

§ 125. A third class of illustrations of this sort of
significance which persistent restlessness may possess
we find, on the social side of our activities, in a tendency
which we already mentioned, in an earlier chapter, in
describing the bases of our social docility. We there
pointed out that, as a social being, man is strongly dis
posed, on the one hand, to imitate his fellows, on the
other hand to set himself in opposition to them — to
lay stress upon the social contrast between his environ
ment and himself. Now the persistent tendency to estab
lish a contrast between one s social activities and those of
one s fellows lies at the root of tJie social tendency called
Individualism. Individualism may of course appear in
unhealthy forms. But where it is rightly connected
with social docility, it forms the most important aspect
of what may be called our Social Initiative. Now our
social initiative depends upon constantly using social
arts, upon our continually employing socially acquired
habits. On the other hand, the wisely persistent,
the restless although rational desire to be, as we

THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL INITIATIVE 327

say, "ourselves," to "call our souls our own," this is
the continual mother of invention in all our social activi
ties. This it is which inspires repartee, which enlivens
conversation, which, in childhood, leads to our endless
questions, and which, in later life, makes us considerate
and thoughtful as to our answers. This it is which pro
vides the hostess with her devices for entertainment, the
teacher with his plans to introduce novelty into school
life, the literary man with designs for his new works.
The enormously complicated mental processes involved
in such successful activities are all of them subject
to the laws of habit and of sensitiveness. They are
impossible unless the environment continually suggests,
and unless habit and training constantly support, the
activities and the ideas of which inventive minds make
use. But my present interest lies in pointing out that
unless tJiis eagerness for the diversification of social life,
this insistence upon individualistic desires, were persist
ently present, Jiabit and environment would in vain
provide the materials for inventiveness. Social inven
tiveness depends upon individualistic restlessness. The
latter, in its turn, depends upon vital activities that are
as elemental as the " tropisms " of the organisms upon
which Loeb experimented. The people who have such
vitality of concern in social success, and who have such
an elemental love of social contrasts, are the initiators.
If you find a whole nation consisting largely of such
persons, you stand in presence of the ancient Greeks

328 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

at their best. Individualism always depends upon quite
elemental tendencies, — upon dispositions to pursue
social contrast-effects with eagerness, even where such
experiences possess, at the moment of pursuit, com
paratively little adaptive value. In short, " the king
dom of heaven is taken by violence."

§ 126. A final series of illustrations of the conditions
of mental initiative we have furnished to us by the
ordinary activities of our attentive functions. It has
been common, in recent psychology, to insist upon the
active attention as a factor of great significance for the
understanding of the apparently spontaneous processes
of consciousness. The school of Wundt have used the
name " apperception " to signify, not so much the
assimilative process upon which Herbart laid stress when
he used that name, as the process by which, from mo
ment to moment, our attentive consciousness moulds its
own material in accordance with intellectual ideals, and
influences the processes of association, so that these
shall assume a definitely significant and thoughtful
form. It has been objected to the partisans of Wundt
that the term " apperception," as thus used, seems to
signify a factor in mental life which can be explained
neither in terms of what we have called sensitiveness,
nor in terms of the law of habit. It has also been
objected that the conception of a conscious process, en
gaged in influencing its own states, is a conception
which confuses together metaphysical and psychological

THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL INITIATIVE 329

motives. The psychologist, engaged as he is, not in
studying how Reason forms the world, but in observing
and reducing to rule the mere phenomena of human
mental life as they occur, is not interested, it has been
asserted, in a power whose influence upon mental phe
nomena seems to be of so ambiguous a character as is
that which the Wundtian " apperception " possesses.

It is far from my present purpose to enter into the
subtle controversies to which this conception of Wundt's
has given rise. This is the place neither to expound
nor to estimate Wundt's theory. But it does here con
cern us to point out that what occurs in mind whenever
we are actively attentive is attended witJi a feeling of
restlessness, which makes us dissatisfied with all those
associative processes that do not tend to further our cur
rent intellectual interests. On the other hand, the cere
bral processes that accompany active attention are
certainly such as tend to inhibit many associative
processes that would, if free, hinder our current intel
lectual interests. Meanwhile, our active attention itself
is always the expression of interests which possess the
same elemental character that we have all along been
illustrating in the foregoing paragraphs. The attentive
inventor is eager about the beautiful things that he
thinks of while he is trying to invent. The attentive
hostess is eager about social success. The attentive
caged animal is eager about whatever suggests a way
of escape. In brief, whoever is persistently attentive is

330 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

expressing an attitude of the organism which has the es
sential character of tJie now frequently mentioned " trop-
isms " of tJic animals of Locb's experiments. Active
attention does not appear in our life as in any sense a
supernatural, or disembodied force. It appears as an
eagerness to get into some kind of relation to objects or to
ideas, — an eagerness which is accompanied with restless
feelings, and which while in itself not directly creative,
is continually selective. The organic conditions which
accompany active attention tend toward the persistent
bringing before consciousness of certain ideas and com
binations of ideas, and to the equally persistent inhibi
tion of other ideas and combinations of ideas. The
result of the continued influence of such a process is
the constant moulding of our relations to our environment
and of our habits, in suck wise that certain mental com
binations appear, which would otherwise have been
impossible. Thus it is that our active attention contin
ually exemplifies, even in the ordinary processes of
waking life, mental initiative. But it does so in no other
way than in the way already exemplified when we spoke
of the play of children, of the constructive activities of
youth, and of the effectiveness of individualism.

§ 127. If the foregoing discussion is at all well
founded, we now have before us the bases upon which
the natural history of all " self-activity " must be
founded. Apart from the effects of experience, apart
from the influence of special instincts and of training,

THE CONDITIONS IN MENTAL INITIATIVE 331

what may be called the self-activity of an individual
depends upon certain general instincts, — instincts which
manifest themselves in a form of a restless tendency
to a certain overwealth of persistent activities. These
activities are pursued at times when the results are
not immediately adaptive. All such activities espe
cially involve a tendency to alter, in a relatively spon
taneous way, our own relations to our environment. In
the simplest form they appear as efforts towards a local
change of environment. In their highest and subtlest
form they take shape from moment to moment in the
processes of our active attention. All such activities are
characterised by the feeling of restlessness. In tJieir
physical aspect they are examples of the " tropisms " of
Loeb. They may be abnormal and dangerous. In their
normal form they work to produce a continual and rela
tively spontaneous modification of our existing habits.
They cannot be referred altogether to that heightened
intensity of organic processes which is due to pleasur
able stimuli. For in general, we have found reason to
believe that the feeling of restlessness is decidedly inde
pendent of the feeling of pleasure. In the most impor
tant part of our activities we are eager not for pleasure,
but for rationally satisfactory change both of our en
vironment and of our conduct. Upon such rational
eagerness is based all that is most characteristic of our
men ta I in itia five.

The practical consequence is obvious. Nothing is

332 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

more significant for mental life than the cultivation of
strenuous activity. Every sign of such a tendency
should be encouraged by a teacher. It is equally true
that every effort should be made not to confuse such
activities with those which merely give a child pleasure.
The purpose of a teacher is not merely to aid a child
" to do what he likes to do." The purpose of the
teacher is to assist the child to become eager to do some
thing that is in itself of a rationally significant tendency.
That this eagerness is pleasant, is indeed often the
case. But the pleasure is by-play. The restless eager
ness is the essential. And it is such eagerness that
accompanies us into later life, wherein we may often
be deeply interested in life, even when we find only
very moderate pleasure in it. As Schiller states the
case, " Passion flees, but love must remain." And in
this chapter we have been discussing that elemental
love of rational novelty upon which all mental initiative
depends.

CHAPTER XIV

CERTAIN VARIETIES OF EMOTIONAL AND INTELLEC
TUAL LIFE

§ 128. Our general survey of the mental processes
has not been determined by the usual division of
mental life into Feeling, Intellect, and Will. But now
that our survey of the conditions of Sensitiveness,
Docility, and Initiative has been completed, we may,
in a practical review of some of the varieties and
defects of mental life, as they are likely to come
under the observation of the teacher, return, for the
moment, to the ordinary classification. While all our
mental life illustrates sensitiveness and docility, and
while all of it is subject to the conditions upon which
we have found that mental initiative may depend,
some of our mental life is most prominently charac
terised by the presence of feelings, some of it makes
more prominent to our consciousness our power to
know about the world, while some of it especially
brings to light the organisation of our outwardly
observable conduct. That portion of our mental life
which was most characterised by the presence of feel
ing, constitutes the emotions. That portion of our

333

334 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

mental life in which our consciousness is most con
cerned with what we know, constitutes what we
usually call our intellect. That portion of our
mental life in which conduct consciously predomi
nates is that of which we are chiefly reminded when
we ordinarily hear the word "Will" used. So far as
this latter word is concerned, we have indeed already
shown that the term " Will " refers rather to the whole
significance of our conscious life, viewed as our con
scious response to our environment, or as our men
tal attitude toward our world ; and that the word
"Will" is of little use, as a purely psychological term,
in the classification of mental life. The same is true,
in a less degree, regarding the word "Intellect." This
term emphasises a certain significant aspect of our
mental life, namely our power to have knowledge of
the world. But as soon as one begins to study the
natural history of the intellect, this significant aspect
loses its apparent separateness ; and we find ourselves
dealing with special functions and processes, such
as those which we have illustrated under the head of
sensitiveness and docility. Even the term " Emotion "
suggests, at first, to our minds, rather the moral or
aesthetic significance of the objects that we love and
hate, than the natural history of the emotional pro
cesses. In consequence, our purely psychological study
has so far prospered all the better through keeping
somewhat in the background the terms here in ques-

VARIETIES OF EMOTION AND INTELLECT 335

tion, although we have by no means attempted wholly
to avoid their use. But the practical student of
Mind is frequently concerned with asking what sort
of will or intellect or emotion he is dealing with in a
given case before him. And it is now our purpose
to connect the foregoing general exposition with a
few questions such as the practical student of mental
life may ask concerning the processes and variations
of the emotions, of the intellect, and of the will. In
the present chapter we shall first briefly deal with
some of the phenomena of the emotions; and shall
point out some of the variations and abnormities to
which the emotional life may be subject. We shall
then abstract that aspect of our mental life which we
commonly have in view in making use of the term
" Intellect," and shall speak of the practical study and
of a few of the abnormities of intellectual life. Our
next and concluding chapter shall be devoted to a
brief review of the processes usually emphasised when
one speaks of the will.

§ 129. Our feelings do not appear in our actual
consciousness in simple and isolated forms as mere
pleasures, pains, and experiences of restlessness or of
quiescence. In our concrete consciousness, we pos
sess what are called by the general term " Emotions."
Amongst these there are some, the relatively calm
and gentle emotions, for which the word " Moods " has
been proposed. In addition there are the more vehe-

336 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

ment and intense emotions, such as anger, fear, strong
love, and the like. The moods and the emotions
have in common this feature, that, when we are con
scious of them, we are aware, not only of feelings
but of images, general ideas, thoughts, and external
objects. And the feelings that are present seem
either to colour these ideal states or to give value
to their external objects. The moods and the emo
tions differ, however, very widely, both in intensity
and in endurance. It is no part of our present pur
pose to present any catalogue of the various moods
and more vehement emotions, or to describe them in
any detail. We can mention, purely by way of illus
tration, only one or two typical instances. Let us
take, for the first, the emotion of grief. Here feelings
of a painful character, accompanied by states in which
either restlessness or quiescence may predominate, give
character to the emotion. But all these feelings are
centred about certain objects and ideas. Without
these objects and ideas, the emotion of grief would
have no meaning. We grieve over the loss of a
beloved object. Or again, let us take the widely
contrasting gentle emotion, or mood, called Curiosity.
Here certain feelings of restlessness, and of pleasure
or slight pain, accompany and colour ideas whose
relation to our attention, and to our processes of in
tellectual inquiry, is characteristic of the whole emo
tional state. Or finally, let us take the emotion of

VARIETIES OF EMOTION AND INTELLECT 337

Anger. Here the central idea is of some object that
seems to be doing us an injury, while the accompanying
feelings involve intense pain, sometimes also a certain
pleasure, and restlessness, in very characteristic ways.

A glance at any such emotion shows the enormous
complexity of the conditions upon which it depends.
As soon as, following certain psychological interests
previously discussed, we proceed to substitute for the
emotion in question an analysed mental state, or a
series of such analysed mental states, we find that a
consciousness of certain bodily activities, a very complex
consciousness of our relation to objects, and a very
complex collection of more elementary feelings, come
to take the place of the original emotion, which here
upon appears as an enormously complicated mental
condition. The angry man has a swift succession of
thoughts and beliefs regarding the object of his anger.
He assumes a rapid succession of bodily attitudes
toward it. He has very numerous states of restless
ness, of pain, and even in some cases of pleasure as
he faces the object. Our present purpose, however,
lies not in the analysis of all these complications, but
in the briefest possible indication of the nature of
the conditions upon which our emotional life depends.

§ 130. In recent literature, much attention has
been called to the fact that, whatever the other sources
may be of the feelings that accompany our more com
plicated emotions, much depends for our emotional

33& OUTLINES OK PSYCHOLOGY

life upon the fact that each emotion has certain char
acteristic bodily expressions. The movements that
we make, the instinctive or voluntary expressive re
actions which go on when we are under the influence
of an emotion, are in well-known ways characteristic
of the emotion. For thus we can judge from without
whether a man is angry, afraid, loving, etc. Now
as we already know, our consciousness is con
stantly affected by our sensory experience of our
movements, and of the organic conditions that accom
pany these movements. If our emotions have char
acteristic motor and organic expression, it follows that
our emotional consciousness will itself be affected by
the expressive movements, and by the accompanying
organic states ; and thus much of our conscious feeling
is actually secondary to wJiat is called the expression of
the feeling. Thus our griefs alter their emotional tone
according to the sort of external expression that chances
to be forcing itself upon us. Tearless grief is one
thing, tearful grief another; and no doubt an impor
tant part of the inner attitude of mind which constitutes
the grief is determined by our very sensory conscious
ness of how we are expressing ourselves. This manner
of expression is largely determined by our inherited in
stincts and acquired habits. Reacting to a given en
vironment in a given way, we then feel our own reaction.
In telling about the tone of one's own emotions one
often has to say, "My heart stood still," or "I felt a

VARIETIES OF EMOTION AND INTELLECT 339

choking in my throat," or " I found myself gasping."
The poets are accustomed thus to remind us of emo
tional tones by mentioning their manner of expression,
and by so suggesting how this manner of expression it
self feels to one who finds himself giving way to it.
Thus Bayard Taylor tells how, as the soldiers in the
Sebastopol trenches sang "Annie Laurie," "something
upon the soldiers' cheeks washed out the stains of
powder." This importance of the instinctive or habit
ual expressive movement as a primary reaction to a
given environment — the emotion being the secondary
sensory experience of this reaction — has been of late
especially insisted upon by Professor James.

Meanwhile, however, there can be no doubt that, in
addition to all states of our organs of external and of
internal bodily sense, ptirely central nervous conditions
have much to do with the tone and intensity of our
emotions. Brain-fatigue of all degrees, from the light
est to the gravest, is likely to show itself in altered
emotional tones, even where it gives few other easily
marked signs of its presence. There are known dis
eases of the brain (such as the extreme forms of ner
vous exhaustion known as Melancholia and Mania) whose
principal symptoms are profound alterations of emo
tional tone. The phenomena of these disorders, as well
as other known facts, have been regarded by some as
indicating that the current conditions of the blood sup
ply in the brain are direct causes of our emotional states.

340 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

§ 131. The practical aspect of the life of the feel
ings, and in particular of the masses of feeling and
ideas called the emotions, is of great importance.
Whatever their precise physiological explanation may
be, we are in any case warranted in saying that in the
feelings, and in their expressive signs, we have in gen
eral an especially useful index of the current state of the
nervous centres viewed as a whole. The state of a man's
present feelings may indeed, at first sight, throw com
paratively little light on his character or on his
experience, except where one already knows what
opportunities he has had to cultivate or to learn to con
trol just these feelings. It is notoriously unfair to
judge any man by his momentary mood. The now
violently angry man may be, in general, a person of
amiable self-control. Especially absurd, as well as un
charitable, is, therefore, the habit of those who regard a
character as best to be read by considering the most
passionate or otherwise marked emotional excesses, or
the weakest or most foolish moods which are known to
occur in the life of its possessor. So to judge is to com
mit what may be called the scandalmonger's fallacy.
But, on the other hand, for a good observer, an emo
tional reaction, regarded with due reference to its exter
nal causes, does tend to indicate the passing general
nervous state in a way which is of great value for psy
chological diagnosis. Nervous exhaustion, mental over
strain, show themselves (as just pointed out) first of all

VARIETIES OF EMOTION AND INTELLECT 341

in emotional variability. This the popular mind gener
ally recognises. What is not popularly so well recog
nised is the fact that this emotional variability of
overstrain is not by any means always equivalent to the
tendency to " black moods " or to ill-temper, but may
show itself — and in grave forms, too — in emotions of
a relatively cheerful or benign seeming. The sufferer
from nervous overstrain may have hours, or even peri
ods, of abnormal vivacity, when his friends, remember
ing his former fits of gloom, feel that now he is surely
restored to himself, since he is so ambitious and ani
mated. But the symptomatic value of an emotional
state lies ratlier in the degree of its variation from the
normal mean of tJie individual temperament than in its
agreeable or disagreeable seeming.

If emotional variability is often a useful index of
nervous overstrain, the permanent common quality at the
basis of any man s normal emotions, if once made out, is
indeed also an important index as to the fundamental
type of his nervous temperament. By this one does not
always mean his predominant emotions, which may
be made predominant merely by his business or his
fortune. One means something deeper. The emotional
undertone, as one may call it, of any given individual, is
always one of the most interesting features of his char
acter. It must be made out by observing him in a
number of sharply contrasted passing moods, especially
when such moods are determined by circumstances

342 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

rather unfamiliar to him. One then finds it henceforth
curiously independent of fortune. The fundamentally
cheerful man is thus to be found, even in the midst of
the keenest distress, and even when he cries out with
his bitterest anguish, still, at heart, not really despair
ing, but in possession of a certain fundamental sense of
satisfaction in living, which no mere fortune can over
come, and which only a serious brain disorder can set
aside. There are other men, and often very resolute
men too, who have withal a deep-seated emotional dis
trust of life, which never leaves them in the midst of
the most joyous good luck. They may be enduring,
patient, even heroic, but they are never on decidedly
good terms with their own inner state.

Such undertones of emotion, when one has learned
to observe them in any individual, remind one of
the temper of an old violin, or of the quality of
an individual's voice — facts which remain amid
the greatest varieties in the music played or sung.
Like the violin's temper and the voice's quality,
this emotional undertone is unquestionably the accom
paniment of a permanent physical organisation. In
case of the emotional undertone, this is the inherited
temperament of the brain — a fact which, when
once thus diagnosed, may be henceforth counted upon
with great assurance. The emotional undertone
appears to be noticeable in many cases fairly early
in childhood, although it is liable to great changes

VARIETIES OF EMOTION AND INTELLECT 343

in the course of development, particularly in early
youth.

§ 132. Abnormal emotions may occur in a great
variety of forms. They appear not only as varia
tions from the normal intensity or steadiness of the
otherwise unobjectionable emotions, but as associa
tions of emotions with objects, situations, or habits,
with which these emotions ought not to be associ
ated in a healthy organism. Our feelings, as we
have seen, accompany certain nervous conditions which
colour, and in part determine, our whole " adjustment
to our environment." If the feelings are distorted, this
indicates a distortion of these nervous conditions, and
so this whole adjustment must tend to fail. Conversely,
a failure of our adjustment, if determined by nervous
conditions which express themselves in signs of feeling,
is itself a proof that the feelings are worthy to be called
abnormal; for our main test of the "normal" is the
power of successful adjustment to one's world. All
violent passions in ordinary life are therefore relatively
abnormal emotional states. The man who adjusts him
self well " keeps his head," whatever the temptations to
passing moods of confusion. Just so, however, morbid
fondnesses for dangerous objects or deeds (e.g. a crav
ing for intoxicants or a love for unwholesome reading)
demonstrate their unhealthfulness by the very fact that
their results are instances of moral or of physical failure
to adjust one's self to one's environment. But the mor-

344 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

bid emotion need not be either a violent or a special ex
perience. The whole emotional undertone of any " per
verse " character is, in its own degree, an abnormity;
and such an abnormity may calmly outlast years of
training, and thousands of broken and spasmodic reso
lutions. In fact, what is called "perversity" of char
acter generally means simply an abnormity of the
emotional undertone, and is as hard to alter as the
latter.

Yet, of course, great and enduring emotional abnor
mities can be the result, not of heredity, but of train
ing. Some of our emotions (e.g. our cheerful or gloomy
undertone) are principally due to heredity ; but others
are very much moulded as they develop in our early
lives. Hence the importance of care as to guarding
the growth of such sorts of emotion as are subject to
the greatest degree of development during childhood
and youth.

A striking and critical instance is here the whole
world of the sexual emotions, including the romantic
and the "sentimental" tendencies. These, normally
absent or only sporadically hinted at in the emotional
life of childhood, develop with great rapidity at puberty
and for some years afterwards. They normally occur
at first as the phenomena of reaction to particular series
of facts in the environment, and they occur both with
and apart from more definite acts. But they also nor
mally tend to spread through and colour gently one's

VARIETIES OF EMOTION AND INTELLECT 345

whole life to its very highest and noblest levels. Reli
gious emotion, for instance, has deep relations to them.
It is the business of parents, teachers, and other guar
dians of youth, to see to it that these more subtle emo
tional reactions are controlled by duly controlling both
this environment, and the youth's sentimental and pas
sionate relations thereto. The laws of brain-habit
determine the principle that when experiences are
keen and novel, any reaction then accomplished de
termines the brain's whole future to a degree never
later equalled by other actions of the same sort and
number. Does one early form an association between
certain objects and certain vigorous emotional responses,
one's emotions are thenceforth given what may prove a
permanent " set." This, as recent investigations have
more and more shown, is peculiarly the case with the
sexually emotional reactions. Whether a youth is to be
a libertine at heart or not, and whether or no his sexual
imagination and feeling are to be definitely perverted
even while they grow (perverted in fashions that are
sometimes horribly grotesque and mischievous), is often
determined by the earliest stages of his sexual experi
ence, wherein must be psychologically included most
of his youthfully sentimental experience, together with
even his religious emotions. However convention, or
resolution, or morality, may later teach him to control
his more definite or more external acts, the " set " of
his inner sexual consciousness, and of all that more

346 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

or less unconsciously gets built up thereupon, the
purity or impurity of his feeling as a whole, his
capacity for honourable love, the whole colouring of
even his highest social emotions, his love of honour,
his truthfulness, his humanity of sentiment, may be
made or marred for life by the emotional responses
that he makes to a comparatively few situations in his
early world of ignorant youthful sexuality — a world
to him uncomprehended, and one where too often,
alas, he is wholly unguided. It is one of the saddest
of psychological blunders that even wiser guides often
leave the young to fight this confusing battle of these
inner emotional states alone, and so such guardians,
entrusting the young to the mere chances of foolish
companionships, subject some of the most delicate and
momentous emotional functions of the youthful brain
to a treatment that no man of sense would give to his
watch, or even to his boots. To be sure, a false light,
a deceitful guidance, an ignorant sort of terror at possi
ble mishaps, would in these matters itself determine or
even constitute a perversion. Guidance does not mean
mere random meddling. And even a cheerful indiffer
ence accomplishes far more than a morbid anxiety. But
one need not ask for a false artificiality of instruction,
only for a cool and reasonable "symptomatic guidance"
of the young, given confidentially, and treated as a matter
of course, by watchful guardians ; given, moreover, just
when the charge is seen actually to need it. There is,

VARIETIES OF EMOTION AND INTELLECT 347

meanwhile, no one routine of instruction as to such mat
ters. Each case ought to be watched for itself.

The mention of abnormal emotions leads to the prac
tical problem of estimating their significance when once
they are present. Regarding the phenomena of any
given morbid emotional state, whether permanent or
transient, it is a general rule that, of two morbidly emo
tional moods or individuals, viewed in general, and
apart from special causes, the cheerfully morbid is likely
to prove worse than the painfully morbid. False
despair, within limits, is, psychologically speaking,
much more benign than false confidence or than vain
glory. One sees classic instances of this in the case of
the before-mentioned fundamentally "perverse" char
acters. Such persons, in case their abnormal emotional
" undertone " is one of dissatisfaction (of gloom, or self-
distrust, of morbid conscientiousness), may be indeed,
in the strict sense, incurable, since one cannot provide
them with a new heredity. But they can often learn,
within their limits, how to get a very effective sort of self-
control, and to live tolerable or even nobly useful lives,
simply because they suffer for their frailties, and con
sequently strive for some sort of salvation. But the
cheerfully perverse, whose undertone is often one of
vainglory, and who accordingly revel in their own per
versities, are much more hopeless cases. You may
give them the clearest sort of knowledge, and they
may have a high order of intelligence with which to

348 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

grasp it, to restate it in their own words, and even to
preach it ; yet at heart they understand their own per
versity only, in secret, or openly, to admire it. The
sole hope lies in getting them where they keenly suffer,
not, to be sure, any external or arbitrary penalty, but
what they can come to view as the natural result of
their own characters. Even then, however, it is a
ceaseless marvel to the onlooker how much they can
suffer without either losing their false optimism or
essentially mending their evil ways. They may change
numerous special habits of conduct, but they still cling
to the central enemies of their life. Self-induced an
guish is often their only possible medicine, yet they
tolerate it in simply enormous doses, and often go on
as before to their doom, persisting that they have
learned wisdom, but daily manifesting that they are
fools.

A similar rule holds, as said above, regarding the
judgment of even passing moods. A state of nervous
fatigue which is extremely disagreeable, is in general
nearer to the normal than a condition in which we are
actually very tired, but feel extraordinarily vivacious.
Cheerful insomnia is far worse than is even a decidedly
painful sense of weariness when accompanied by sleepi
ness. Even anger that is uncontrollably violent, and
that causes the keenest suffering to the angry indi
vidual, is less abnormal than that lucid type of fury
which its possessor fairly enjoys and nurses. Temper

VARIETIES OF EMOTION AND INTELLECT 349

of the first sort quickly wears itself out in pathetically
helpless reactions. Temper of the cheerily malicious
sort may make its possessor a criminal before it lets go
its hold. After great calamities people are often
" dazed " into an ominous insensitiveness. The return
to the normal is then marked by an anguish which the
sufferer himself welcomes as a sign that he is again
"coming to his senses." Thus, in general, good ob
servers are not easily appalled by the mere appearance
of suffering. Mental anguish, viewed as a psychologi
cal phenomenon, and apart from any otherwise known
and serious external cause for sorrow, is always an
abnormal incident; but it is frequently, in its conse
quences, benign ; in its direct indications, relatively
insignificant.

So much must here suffice for our study of some of
the practical aspects of the life of the emotions. We
turn to our projected sketch of some aspects of the life
of the intellect.

§ 133. All the contents of the stream of conscious
ness, in so far as they constitute experience, — i.e. in so
far as we learn from them, — are contents of intellect.
When we view these contents from one side, we find in
them, everywhere present, a certain colour of passing
estimate, an immediate sense that they are worth some
thing to us at any given moment, or that they then have
an interest to us. When we view these same contents
in another light, we observe that not merely their pass-

350 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

ing interest as such has a real importance for us, but
that this momentary value, as we feel it, is but a hint,
and sometimes a poor one, of the real place that they
have in relation to our adjustment to our environment.
Not only that given states now pass, but tJiat certain
former states have been, guides us in our dealing with
the world. In so far as we eitJier recognise or otherwise
profit by tJiis relation between our present and our former
states, or in so far as, by virtue of such a relation to the
past states, we are led to expect any future state, our
mental states arc said to be experiences, and they then
have, in addition to their direct value as feelings, an in
direct value as indications of truth, as sources of know
ledge, or, once more, as intellectual conditions. This
" indirect value" we have already called their "intel
lectual value."

The laws of docility determine how our mental states
come to get this, their intellectual value. The special
processes of the intellect have been treated under that
head. We are here concerned with practically interest
ing illustrations.

The practical study and proper guidance of the
intellectual life constitutes one of the principal prob
lems of civilisation. All efforts to deal with the prob
lem must set out from the fact that the intellectual
life is precisely the " organisation of experience," and
that, on the other hand, both the expression and the
very existence of the intellect are dependent upon the

VARIETIES OF EMOTION AND INTELLECT 351

formation of rational habits of conduct, useful motor
adjustments.

The first principle is itself twofold. It means that
the intellectual life depends, as to its genesis in each
of us, upon experience, and that, apart from experience,
we have no sound intellectual guidance. It also means
that no experience is of importance unless it is organised,
and that chaotic or irrationally ordered experience
is useless, and may be worse than useless. The second
principle shows, in general terms, how experience is
organised. It is organised by teaching certain fitting
habits of conduct (imitative processes, constructive
activities, language-functions, habits of attentive ob
servation), such as are at once constant, familiar, and
accurate as to their general types, and at the same time
plastic, adaptable, and controllable, with reference to
the novel circumstances that may arise. That this
complex object may be attained in case of healthy
brains is itself a matter of experience. How to attain
it belongs to the art of the teacher — an art whose rules,
so far as they can be stated abstractly at all, must be
founded on the laws of habit, of interest, and of inhi
bition — all of them laws which can best be stated in
terms of the physical functions of the brain. At all
events, he teaches in vain who does not in some way
organise the activities, the intellectually expressive
deeds of his pupils. Thought is either action or
nothing.

352 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

§ 134. The abnormities of the intellectual life are
more manifold and sharply definable than are those of
the emotional life. The common formula for them all
is a failure of due imitative adjustment to the environ
ment, conditioned either by defective sense organs or
by defective or by hindered intellectual habits of brain.
This failure, whether its cause lies in hereditary tem
perament, or in early training, or in acute or in chronic
disease, is very generally a matter that shows itself
more or less plainly to every close observer. The
intellectually abnormal person seems "queer," or is
called a "fool" or a "crank," or makes a "failure of life,"
or, in cases of acute acquired malady, "becomes stupid,"
or "loses his memory," or otherwise "breaks down."
Such things, in a general way, one constantly hears.
Intellectual defects and disorders, if considerable, do
not easily escape notice, because the keen struggle for
existence sets every man busily adjusting himself to
his environment, and a serious failure of the brain to
display useful habitual functions is sooner or later
pretty unsparingly exposed.

On the other hand, the diagnosis of what is the actual
failure present in any individual case is much more
difficult. There is, one must remember, no such thing
as "foolishness" in general, unless, as in case of the
extreme idiot or of the patient suffering from advanced
dementia, one means thereby simple absence of all
significant cortex functions. Otherwise what gets called

VARIETIES OF EMOTION AND INTELLECT 353

" foolishness " or " crankiness " is some particular group
of defects ; and then the question is, each time, What
group ? It is regarding this question that careless
judgment, in general, hopelessly errs.

Here it must be noted, in the first place, that many
intellectual defects and disorders are but secondary
phenomena, due to disorders whose primary manifesta
tion lies rather in the realm of the feelings. The grief-
stricken, the anxious, the worried, the exhausted man,
or the victim of violent physical pain, may have, for a
longer or shorter period, an almost complete suspen
sion, or else an extensive degradation, of all the higher
intellectual functions. This sort of thing, in case of
sufferers from acute nervous exhaustion, may assume
an outwardly very formidable aspect, and may give the
sufferer and his friends numerous fears of impending
insanity, even where the whole trouble is of relatively
very superficial character. The nervously exhausted
are likely not only to be, for the time, intellectually
inefficient, but to be keenly aware of the fact, so that
their fears of disorder may often tend to aggravate
what disorder they have. It is important, therefore, to
distinguish the false fire from the real mental danger
in these regions.

In cases of simple nervous exhaustion, the attention is
usually one of the most easily affected intellectual func
tions. It grows unequal — spasmodically intense as to
some matters, uncontrollably helpless as to others. A

2A

354 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

sense of confusion overtakes one in the midst of busi
ness complications or of other intellectual tasks. One's
favourite mental work grows unaccountably distasteful,
or else morbidly engrossing in its portentousness, so
that one cannot lay it aside during the hours of rest.
One forgets in the middle of a sentence what one was
going to say, and is terrified accordingly. One then
talks of entire mental collapse. Memory may become
more or less unequal or helplessly uncontrollable before
the case has progressed far. A complaint of the
" total loss of memory " — a complaint, to be sure, often
absurdly unfounded — is very common with ner
vously exhausted patients. Over all these things, how
ever, "the sense of inefficiency," a collection of feelings,
may easily be seen to preside, if one observes more
closely. And a noteworthy characteristic of this whole
state is that the nervously exhausted man can often
do all, or nearly all, that he declares himself unable to
do, can perform nearly all the brain functions that he
regards as impaired, can speak coherently, can avoid
confusion, can attend closely, can remember very fairly,
if only, without his express expectation, you engage
him in a conversation that gets him for the time
" out of his ruts," and that so temporarily frees his
essentially intact brain from the emotional cloud that
is hindering his habits from their natural expression.
This is, of course, an objective proof that the clouded
functions are not yet destroyed. So that the question

VARIETIES OF EMOTION AND INTELLECT 355

of mental diagnosis is not here what the nervous patient
can not do (when he is left to his anxiety or confusion),
but what he still can do when for the time you get his
thoughts "out of himself."

§ 135- This may serve as a suggestion of the nature
of a secondary impairment of otherwise intact intellec
tual processes. But we must proceed to exemplify the
intellectual disorders proper. A striking example of
disorders directly intellectual in type is furnished by the
morbid phenomena, of a sensory character, called " Hal
lucinations," or false perceptions, which have no foun
dation in external facts. These occur normally in our
dreams, often also on the borderland of sleep, and in
a great variety of mental disorders. Sporadically, as
single brief waking experiences, they occur also in the
lives of healthy people. But they are never present in
any considerable number or persistence in a wide-awake
person without a decidedly serious nervous cause.
This may be a cause seated in part in the external
sense organs; but it generally involves those portions
of the brain where the sensory nerves of the sense
affected have their central stations. An hallucination
is, in any case, prima facie evidence of an abnormal
form of central excitement Yet hallucinations, as
morbid phenomena, may occasionally exist for a good
while in a comparatively isolated form in the mind.
The patient may then be quite cool about them, may
reason correctly that they are only hallucinations, and

356 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

may be in all other intellectual respects apparently un
impaired. But this clearness can seldom thus last long.
The strangeness of the hallucinatory experience fixes
attention upon it. The physical cause of the trouble
is usually pretty general. In the further development
of the case either a general delirium follows, or the
intellectual habits, even if they remain relatively intact,
are gradually but dangerously modified by these
sensory intruders. The delirium of fevers, and of a
number of other nervous conditions of toxic origin is
largely characterised by the presence of manifold and
massive hallucinations, along with great emotional dis
turbances.

The hallucination, in itself alone considered, is a fair
example of a special disorder of the intellectual life.
But another form of intellectual impairment appears in
what are technically called Delusions. Delusions are
morbid derangements of one's habits of judgment.
These may be, like sporadic hallucinations, phenomena
confined to a decidedly limited region of the intellectual
life. But this seems to be seldom the case. If a man
suffers from one delusion, he commonly falls a prey to
more than one, although then his delusions may still
relate, for the most part, to some one class of topics.
Yet the psychological mechanism is such that delusions,
from their nature, tend to influence all of the sufferer's
intellectual habits, and nobody can be trusted to remain
long "insane on one topic only." One can never tell

VARIETIES OF EMOTION AND INTELLECT 357

when the false habit may not show itself in some unex
pected region.

While the phenomena of insanity proper belong else
where, this sketch mentions delusions simply because
of the practically interesting psychological problems of
diagnosis which they suggest As to the name, the
psychological usage differs somewhat from the popular
usage. The latter often confounds hallucinations with
delusions. The psychologist means by delusion a mor
bidly defective type of opinions, while hallucinations
are false perceptions. When a man groundlessly and
morbidly accuses his family of trying to poison him,
this is a case of delusion. When a patient hears unreal
voices talking about him, this is a case of hallucination.
Of course, phenomena of both kinds may be combined ;
and in many forms of insanity they always are com
bined. The distinction, however, is important; be
cause, from a purely psychological point of view,
a delusion is, in general, the sign of a deeper derange
ment than is a mere hallucination. The latter may be
due to transient conditions of cerebral excitement. The
former, the delusion, stands at once for the distortion
of one of the most significant of our habitual functions,
namely, the function of judging our relation to our
environment. And it is a universal rule of psychologi
cal diagnosis that the more general the habit of brain
which has been really deranged (and not merely hin
dered by temporary emotional disturbances), the worse

358 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

is the abnormal indication. To forget a familiar name
is possibly an abnormal, but is so far a decidedly super
ficial incident. To hear a voice when none is really
speaking may be a very grave matter, if it becomes
chronic ; but of itself, as a single incident, it indicates
merely a state of excitement which may soon pass
away. But coolly to insist, without any objective
ground, that you are indubitably aware that your wife
means to poison you — this indicates an established
"set" of brain which (unless the cause is an acute and
transient delirium) is likely to prove serious in propor
tion to the number and tftfe generality of the altered
habits which must lie at the basis of the perversion.
(On the "general" habits of the brain, compare what
has been said in § 28 near the end.)

On the whole, other things being equal, the cooler
and less emotional a delusion is, in the tone with which
it is held and expressed, the worse is the indication,
because the more does this state of things indicate a
direct perversion of the more general " set " of the
brain. The delusions of a fever delirium are largely
secondary to violent emotions, and so in their contents
they are confused, and they may soon pass away, when
the temporary brain-poisoning is relieved. The wild,
fleeting, and scarcely utterable delusions of an ether-
intoxication are as massive as is the stormy emotional
outburst of the intoxicated condition, and they vanish
with recovery. But an experienced insane patient may

VARIETIES OF EMOTION AND INTELLECT 359

hold to his chronic delusions with considerable coolness
and clearness of head. His power to do so may of
itself indicate the hopelessness of his state. Especially
grave is the tendency of cooler delusions to get thought
out, or " systematised," by the patient. For thus all of
a man's habits of brain get wrought over into the ser
vice of his delusion, and then he can never even con
ceive the way out. All of the foregoing indications
must of course be modified by the circumstances of
individual cases, but these suggestions may serve as
hints of the principles of psychological diagnosis.

A morbid delusion, for the rest, is by no means the
same thing as a foolishly false opinion. When one
gets superstitions, or other absurd views, by hearsay,
and from the tradition of the social order to which one
belongs, the process of acquiring the false belief is
then normal, however false the faith. There is no
view so ill-founded that perfectly sane men may not
hold it, given a sufficient weight of social tradition and
of popular ignorance. But the peculiarity of the mor
bid delusion is that a man does not get it by normal
methods, e.g. by accepting current social traditions,
but comes upon it alone, as a matter of his private
experience. The exceptions to this rule are, for our
present purpose, insignificant. Moreover, the morbid
delusion has always a characteristic reference to the
patient's own private fortunes or dignity, instead of
being, like the socially acquired tradition, a matter

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which concerns others quite as much as himself.
A morbid delusion may, indeed, assume a philanthropic
seeming, but a closer inspection always shows that the
deranged man is to an abnormal degree at the centre
of his false world. It is he who, of all men, is most
persecuted or exalted.

§ 136. So much must here suffice as a mere hint
as to the greater intellectual abnormities. Very com
mon, however, is another problem, viz., that of the
diagnosis of mere eccentricity of intellectual life, apart
from any specifically manifest perversions. It is nor
mal for us to acquire the most of our intellectual hab
its, by imitation, from the society to which we belong.
Our social experiences are normally the most potent
of all our experiences. Speaking, reading, writing,
investigating, the knowledge of our profession or busi
ness, the thoughts of our daily life — these are all de
termined for us, in great measure, by our guardians
and teachers in early life ; by our friends, comrades,
rivals, and other fellows in later life. Hence the most
of our intellectual habits ought to be of a sort that
we have in common with many of our fellows. When
one's intellectual life varies, however, from the average
intellect of his tribe or of his class, then, according to
the degree and the noticeableness of the variation, one
is called " striking," "individual," "original," "indepen
dent," "a man of parts," "a genius"; or, in less
kindly speech, one is declared " eccentric," " queer,"

VARIETIES OF EMOTION AND INTELLECT 361

"quaint," "odd," "a fool," or "a crank." Now it is
manifest that variations from the average intellectual
type are, within certain degrees, advantageous both to
the individual and to the community. The best commu
nities cultivate certain types of originality. One habit
that ambitious young people often catch by imitation
is the very habit of seeming not to imitate, i.e. of
striving to be original. On the other hand, there is a
good deal of intellectual originality in the asylums,
and certain forms of eccentricity are of themselves
abnormal. The question of diagnosis often offers it
self: Is this particular sort of intellectual eccentricity
(e.g. in this young man) a mark of wholesome talent
or of dangerous crankiness ?

The answer must be founded upon principles, some
of which can easily be stated. Conformity to one's
environment is, as we must insist, in the end the test of
normality. But some original men first win their en
vironment over to conform to them ; and herein they
show, even through an early conflict with the environ
ment, their higher sort of capacity to find a place in
their world. Moreover, all young men have to spend
some time in learning what they are fit for before
harmonious life becomes possible. Thus the test of
the conformity of a given intellectual life to a given
environment must be applied, especially in early life,
very cautiously. Some eccentric young men are so
because they are "ugly ducklings," who will turn out

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swans. Still others, however, are rather geese among
swans. The psychological observer is therefore not
afraid of the mere show of eccentricity, even where
it is great in degree. It is the sort of eccentricity
that such an observer tries to consider more carefully
before he judges. And now a general test of the
abnormally eccentric intellectual life, where it involves
as yet no graver disorders, — no delusions, no vio
lently morbid emotional states, is to be found in
much the same region as the one in which the morbid
character of true delusions was just seen to manifest
itself. The morbidly eccentric intellect is one in which
the interesting experiences are to an extraordinary
degree centred about matters which have too little social
concern, and too much private concern for the morbid
individual himself. This test is not applicable, of
course, in childhood, since all young children are ex
tremely self-centred. But it is, despite the normal sel
fishness of youth, already fairly applicable in the later
years of youth. A young man may indeed be very
extremely and grossly " self-centred " and intellectually
commonplace at once, without much mental danger ;
for he belongs to his herd, and his herd will take care
of him. His socially submissive instincts may, and
probably will, offset the selfish grossness of his con
scious aims. He will live, like the rest of his kind, a
poor intellectual life, but a normal one. He will think
mostly about his private concerns, but still society will,

VARIETIES OF EMOTION AND INTELLECT 363

after all, determine what he shall think about them.
Not so, however, is the eccentric or "original" mind
fatally protected by the instincts of the herd. And
where an intellectually eccentric or original mind is
extraordinarily devoted to thinking over, dwelling upon,
planning, the private success, the exalted dignity, the
selfish preferment, of just this individual, then, in the
combination of intellectual eccentricity and selfish narrow
ness of personal aim, there are strong marks of danger.
To be sure, even such a being might have the brain of
a Napoleon; but that is, to speak mildly, uncommon.
On the other hand, a naive eccentricity of intellectual
life, sincerely, not falsely, devoted to objective concerns
(mathematical problems, scientific pursuits, the study of
nobler literature, the pursuit of a modest but effective
philanthropic career), is consistent with a true promise
even where the anomaly is relatively great. A note
worthy test, then, is whether the anomalous young person
really looks rather without than within. One need
not add that to apply such a test needs often a pretty
close scrutiny. Selfish greed may wear many cloaks
and may use noble phrases.

CHAPTER XV

THE WILL, OR THE DIRECTION OF CONDUCT

§ 137. The life of the Will has already been charac
terised, as we have repeatedly seen, at every step of our
whole inquiry. We here confine ourselves to such illus
trations of the growth of the will, and of its variations,
as will help to render our foregoing discussions more
easily applicable to the facts of life. It is therefore
possible to be here especially summary in our method
of treatment.

By the term Will in the narrower sense, one very com
monly means so much of our mental life as involves the
attentive guidance of our conduct. How such guidance
is possible we have in this practical study, to summarise.

All definite brain processes tend to express themselves
without in movements by which we adjust ourselves
to our environment. Many of these movements pass
more or less unnoticed by ourselves. But all of them,
in proportion as they are marked and effective move
ments, tend not merely to result from brain processes,
but to influence, in their turn, the very brain whose
processes have initiated them. If one's arm moves, the
movement is itself a fact in the world outside the mind,

364

THE WILL, OR THE DIRECTION OF CONDUCT 365

and, like any other outer fact, it may be once more per
ceived and remembered. One sees the arm move, feels
the sensations of muscular contraction, and is in still
other ways advised through one's sense organs of the
processes which the arm's movement involves. More
over, if the arm, by moving, accomplishes something
definite, such as an act of grasping, one perceives the
resulting movements of the object grasped. If the arm
is engaged in writing or in drawing, one sees on paper
the lines which the moving hand traces. In all such
cases one observes, then, the results of one's doings.
And so, in short, ones own activity constantly becomes
itself a part of one's experience. If an experience is any
mental state in so far as its relation to past states guides
our present thoughts and deeds, and if all of our mental
life accompanies those expressive movements, or tenden
cies to movement, which the brain initiates and directs,
it follows that every mental state has an aspect in which
it may be regarded as involving an experience of our own
fashions of action, or of our own attitudes toward our
world ; for at every instant we are acting, or tending
to act, and so at every instant we are experiencing the
results of our own activity, or of our own tendencies to
action. So far, then, there is an aspect in all of our
mental life which constitutes this life a series of experi
ences of our own doings, a series which can take on, by
the laws of intellectual growth, a highly organised and
rational character in proportion as our habits of conduct

366 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

become themselves regular, uniform, and complex, and
are observed by ourselves for what they are.

But just as our activity has its intellectual aspect, in
so far as we constantly learn what we have done and
are doing, so, too, this activity has also its passing value
for us in our direct feelings. It either gives us pleasure
or pain ; or else it makes us either restless or quiescent ;
or possibly it combines pleasure or pain with restless
ness or quiescence. What we are doing at any given
moment is thus satisfactory or unsatisfactory to us. Ac
tion which, by virtue of its passing character as a felt
mode of action, relatively satisfies us, we call an expres
sion of our desires. When an action is such that the
feeling which estimates it is one of predominant dis
satisfaction, the act opposes our ruling desires, and tends
to be inhibited accordingly. TJius, tJien, every mental
state tends to Jiave, as a fact of feeling, an aspect which
embodies onr current relative satisfaction or dissatisfaction
with onr own momentary doings. A desire means a ten
dency to action, experienced as sncJi, and at tJic same time
felt as a relatively satisfactory tendency.

So far, then, we sec : ( I ) that our own activity forms
constantly a part of our experience ; (2) that this same
activity constantly results in a modification of our feel
ings of satisfaction and dissatisfaction in what we are
doing. If one combines these two aspects of our in
ner life, one can say that together they involve a vast
experience of our own desires and aversions, of our own

THE WILL, OR THE DIRECTION OF CONDUCT 367

doings and inhibitions, and of the inner results of these
doings and inhibitions, together with a constant play of
feelings of inner content and discontent with our own
motor processes, and with the tendencies or attitudes which
accompany our partially suppressed movements.

Thus we briefly characterise that aspect of our inner
life which constitutes the world of desire and of its out
come. Thus viewed, our minds appear as full of pass
ing impulses, of tendencies to action, of passions, and
of concerns for what we take to be our welfare. All
these impulses and concerns get woven, by the laws
of habit, into systems of ruling motives which express
themselves without in our regular fashions of conduct.
The whole of our inner life, viewed in this aspect,
appears as the purposive side of our consciousness, or as
the will in the wider sense.

§ 138. But it remains to lay stress upon one further
aspect, by virtue of which the world of the more or
less organised impulses, concerns, passions, and other
desires gets its fully developed character as the world
of the will in the stricter or more narrow sense. We
not only observe and feel our own doings and atti
tudes or tendencies as a mass of inner facts, viewed
all together, but in particular we attend to them with
greater or less care, SELECTING now tJiese, now those ten
dencies to action as the central objects in our experience of
our own desires. For the process of attention often
has as its objects not only external facts, or facts of

368 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

sense perception, but also desires, actions, inhibitions,
tendencies to action, concerns, feelings, passions — in
brief, whatever constitutes the active side of our nature.
But to attend to anything is to emphasise that object,
to give it " relief " as against the rest of what is in
our minds. To attend to any action, or to any tendency
to action, to any desire, or to any passion, is the same
thing as "to select," or "to choose," or "to prefer,"
or "to take serious interest in," just that tendency or
deed. And sncJi attentive preference of one course of
conduct, or of one tendency or desire, as against all
others present to our minds at any time, is called a
voluntary act.

The will is, in its more complex manifestations, the
attentive furthering of our interest in one act or desire
as against another. The act or desire is in itself of
more or less interest to us. If we attend to this act
or desire, we further our interest in it. The furthered
interest results in a clearer consciousness of the act
or tendency in question. But the very existence of
such clear consciousness implies (by the principles in
dicated in § 33), that the condition of brain which
naturally expresses itself in just this form of outward
activity is, at the moment of clear consciousness, a
predominant condition of the brain. The furthered
interest, if intense enough, therefore means, on the
physical side, that the form of activity in which we
are interested gets an actual outer expression just as

THE WILL, OR THE DIRECTION OF CONDUCT 369

soon as our attention sufficiently prefers the thought of
this act to the thought of any other act.

To think of any sort of activity, therefore, already
implies a tendency to this form of activity. And
actually to will a given act is to think attentively of that
act to the exclusion or neglect of the representation
or imagining of any and all other acts. Whenever
one idea of action or one type of desire becomes
really predominant in consciousness through attentive
consideration, then the action or desire in question at
once gets carried out, until some restraining idea arises
and in its turn gets attended to. Choice bears, there
fore, the same relation to actions that intellectual
attention bears to images, ideas, or thoughts; and in
discussing the phenomena of attention (see § 103 and
§ 126), we have already discussed all that is essential
to the comprehension of an act of will.

§ 139- It remains to note here only one or two
considerations of no small practical moment. The
first is that, strange as the statement may seem, we
can never consciously and directly will any really
novel course of action. We can directly will an act
only when we have before done that act, and have so
experienced the nature of it. The will is as dependent
as the intellect upon our past experience. One can
indeed will an act which is sure to involve, in a given
environment, absolutely novel consequences; but the
act itself, so far as one wills it, is a familiar act. Thus

370 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

a suicide can will an act which results in his own
death, and so far he seems to be willing something
which wholly transcends his past experience. But,
as a fact, the act itself which he makes the direct
object of his will (e.g. pointing a pistol and pulling
a trigger, or swallowing a dose) is itself an act with
which he is long since decidedly familiar. One can
will to visit a far country, to engage in a new sort of
speculation, to choose a still unfamiliar profession, to
marry, or to do anything else whose consequences
one cannot foresee. But it is the consequences that
are novel ; the act which one directly wills is not
novel. What one does at the decisive moment is to
buy a ticket, to sign one's name, to say "Yes," or
otherwise to repeat deeds whose contents are already
perfectly familiar, while the circumstances under which
they are willed may make them to any extent momen
tous. But, on the other hand, one cannot will to fly,
because one has never learned how. We can thus
will to do tuJiat ive have learned to do. " Con
trol yourself," says the stern adviser to the spoiled
child. But the adviser upbraids in vain. How can
the spoiled child will to control himself if nobody has
ever shown him, by an appeal to his imitative in
stincts, what self-control means ? Our choice, psycho
logically viewed, is thus an absolutely unoriginal
power. It gives back what experience has taught it.
But, on the other hand, the will, if not in itself original,

THE WILL, OR THE DIRECTION OF CONDUCT 371

may be to any extent originative, because to repeat
such an unoriginal act as signing one's name, or say
ing " Yes," may, under given conditions, begin a new
life for the doer. Moreover the voluntary process is
always bound up with the conditions which determine
Mental Initiative (see Chapter XIII).

Closely connected with the foregoing consideration
is the further principle that, before we can come to
possess a will, we must first perform numerous and
complex acts by virtue of the inherited tendencies of
the brain. Such original tendencies of the brain are
the source of our human instincts. The will is based
upon instincts. These get moulded by experience.
The resulting acts, gradually organised by the laws
of habit, come at last to our notice, in so far as our
doings are themselves a part of our experience. The
accompanying feelings colour our acts so that they are
also expressions of desire. Then attention fixes now
on this, now on that conceived act, tendency, or desire,
according as our interest plays over the whole series
of such experiences of our activity. The emphasis
which attention gives, in the end, to the ruling idea of
action is the inner and psychological aspect of our
current act of will or of choice.

§ 140. The growth of language in any child is an
excellent example of the evolution of the will. In
herited instinct expresses itself in the infantile actions
known outwardly as cries, and later as more vocal

372 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

sounds — babblings, primitive efforts at wholly mean
ingless articulation. Then the child begins to observe
these acts of his own, to feel satisfaction in them, to
desire their repetition. The result, so far, is the devel
opment of a chaos of vocalised expressions, but not yet
anything resembling true speech. However, long be
fore this process is completed, another inherited instinct
intervenes. The child is imitative. This instinct in
volves complex processes which result in making the
child's vocal noises tend to resemble those which he
hears from other people. This resemblance, once
more noticed by the child, also becomes a much-desired
ideal ; and hereby the child first gradually learns and
then definitely wills to reproduce the utterances of
others. Then there is added, while these processes
are still under way, the intellectual experience that
many of the sounds uttered by other people mean
something — are names for things, or for feelings, or
for purposes. This, erelong, shows the child that he
too can express his meaning by using the right sounds.
Now he becomes selective, attentive to speech as such,
desirous of harmonising what he says with what others
say or understand ; and finally, upon the basis of all
these elaborately moulded instincts and habits, the in
telligent will to talk takes form ; and henceforth the
child says whatever he predominantly and attentively
desires or chooses to say, whenever he is thinking of
speech rather than of any other mode of activity.

THE WILL, OR THE DIRECTION OF CONDUCT 373

§ 141. While the expression of our minds in and by
our conduct is the one great tendency upon which all our
knowledge of mind from without, and all the serviceable-
ness of mental life for the interests of society, depends,
it is nevertheless the case that the practical study and
training of the will are almost always regarded as
secondary to the practical study and training of the
feelings and the intellect. The reason for this cur
rent view is obvious. Apart from intellectual train
ing, the life of our desires is mainly the expression
of our inherited instincts, which nobody can hope to
eradicate altogether, or to enrich by the addition of
any entirely novel instincts. What can be done for
its is to organise our planlessly numerous inherited
instincts in such fashion that there shall result valu
able and consciously directed habits. The devices for
accomplishing this aim are largely appeals to our
universal human love of social imitation. Hereby we
" learn how " to act aright ; and unless we have
"learned how," one appeals to our will in vain.
Hence what appears as an intellectual acquisition — a
"learning how" to be good, industrious, skilful, self-
directing, etc. — is always prior to the successful
moulding of the will as such. As every such "learn
ing how " involves interests, the feelings are appealed
to at every point. But the will itself, whose proper
moulding is indeed in one sense the goal of all edu
cation, seems to be capable of only this indirect

3/4 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

approach. Or, again, to teach one to will involves
teaching him first to take note of his own conduct.
But to teach him this you must first establish in him
the desired conduct. You must get him to do before
he has consciously willed this particular sort of doing.
The involuntary conduct must precede the voluntary ;
but the right sort of involuntary conduct you can
only establish through appeals to the feelings, and
through presenting the fitting objects of knowledge
to the intellect.

For the same reason disorders and defects of the
will never exist alone. They always involve altera
tions either of the feelings or of the intellect, and
must be studied in connection therewith. It is note
worthy that insanity, in the popular mind, is usually
conceived as primarily an intellectual defect rather
than as primarily a defect of the will, and this despite
the notorious fact that insanity can only manifest itself
through some sort of " queer " or " wrong " expressive
action.

Nevertheless, it is often important to consider mental
defects or disorders from the side of the will. So
viewed, what are usually and practically named the
" disorders of the will " may be said to manifest them
selves in three general types. The first type is that of
the absence or serious impairment of the ability to
carry out important voluntary acts, when such acts
have already been in the past learned as well as often

THE WILL, OR THE DIRECTION OF CONDUCT 375

performed. This first defect is often known by the
rather vague name of " weakness of will." A technical
name is " Aboulia," or morbid will-lessness. The sec
ond type of defects of will is that of the chaotic or
" segmented " will, whose plans do not hang together,
whose action is morbidly impulsive, capricious, incon
sistent, or inwardly anarchical. The third type of
defects of will appears in those morbidly perverted
persons (e.g. in morbid criminals) whose activity, with
out being confused or chaotic, is still steadfastly such
as fails of any tolerable adjustment to the environment,
and especially to the civilised social environment.

§ 142. The first type, aboulia, is sometimes a mani
festation of the temperament as such. In such cases
one naturally looks for its cause in the emotional
"undertone" (cf. § 131). The deeply hesitant or mor
bidly indecisive man, who, despite having learned how
to do a given thing, and despite his clearly knowing
that it is to his interest to act, still remains permanently
fast bound in a Hamlet-like incapacity to will anything
for himself at the important moment, has become a
favourite topic for literary portrayal. Hamlet notori
ously refers his own defects of will to intellectual
causes. His "native hue of resolution" is "sicklied
o'er with the pale cast of thought." But such de
fective will may appear with a less obvious intellectual
basis than in Hamlet's case. Then, however, the de
fect would probably be definable, in emotional terms,

376 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

as the pretty constant presence of some emotion of
painful timidity or scrupulosity, in the presence of
which all very decisive action seems in general un
satisfactory. "Apathy" of temperament — i.e. an
enduring state of abnormally depressed emotional sen
sitiveness — might have the same effect.

But aboulia is a frequent acute symptom in cases of
more or less transient nervous exhaustion. In a meas
ure, every one can occasionally notice such a defect of
will as an incident of normal weariness. At such times
we may find it especially hard to make a decision, even
when we seem to ourselves clearly able to see just what
decision ought to be made, and even while we feel that,
as we say, we " want " or even " long " to decide. The
feeling of helplessness is then itself often extremely
painful. If by chance we actually begin a decisive
course of conduct, then the feeling that we are " com
mitted " gives a great sense of relief, and the defect
of will may at once, for the time, vanish altogether.

In cases of nervous exhaustion, such aboulia is an
inconvenient complication, in so far as it tends to set
a habit of indecision which may long survive the period
of exhaustion itself. In itself, however, this acute
aboulia is apparently no very alarming incident. The
nervously exhausted man should be carefully relieved,
so far as possible, from every necessity of making diffi
cult choices. He should, therefore, if possible, " resign
his will " into the hands of some one, or at most two

THE WILL, OR THE DIRECTION OF CONDUCT 377

or three competent and harmonious advisers ; and he
must be protected from every confusing variety of
plans. On the other hand, whenever decisions are
really necessary, he should always be gently but firmly
helped to a quick and irrevocable choice, since hesi
tancy is a very exhausting incident in his experience,
and since even a poor choice is often better for him
than doubt. But if such care is taken, the aboulia
itself is no very serious symptom. Sometimes one
meets with light cases of weariness where such aboulia
is, in fact, almost the only discoverable morbid symp
tom, and these cases are actually encouraging as to
the outlook for quick recovery.

Much more manifold are the chaotic disorders of the
morbidly inconsistent or capricious will. Tempera
ments abound which are characterised by phenomena
of this kind, and in both acute and chronic disorders
the disorganised will is a well-known symptom. This,
for example, is especially true in hysterical disorders.
But ordinary nervous exhaustion is frequently burdened
with enemies of the kind. One often sees, for instance,
the man who forms morbidly one-sided resolutions for
the conduct of this or of that portion of his life. He
means to permit only this or this train of thought, or
to exclude wholly this or this possibility of temptation.
Over the well-meant but possibly useless resolution he
grows morbidly conscientious, and upbraids his friends
for not sufficiently appreciating and aiding his efforts.

378 OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

Meanwhile, however, he freely indulges himself in
graver defects than the one which he is so elaborately
correcting, and inconsistently encourages even the very
tendencies which he is fighting by giving them a false
importance through his over-wrought self-scrutiny. In
more hysterically disposed cases such defectively insist
ent broodings will be subject also to vast changes of
plan, so that the sufferer alters his religious faith, or
the whole ideal of his life, without any clear reason,
and throws to the winds a whole system of good resolu
tions in favour of some other equally useless scheme.
The habit of mere fickleness may thus become finally
prevalent over all other habits (cf. § 28, p. 69). One
thus finds people who acquire a " mania" for changing
their religious faiths or their callings.

Simpler, but often very stubborn, are the phenomena
of disorganisation of will in case some one more or
less generalised motor habit becomes rcbelliously insist
ent — e.g., the habit of counting or of examining gas-
jets, locks, etc., to see whether they have been safely
adjusted, or of asking useless questions about some sort
of topics. Disorganisations of this kind appear in
many patients on the basis of a defective hereditary
constitution. But in children and quite young people
they are also often present as mere disorders of devel
opment, which pass away with maturity. And nervous
exhaustion can bring them on as acute symptoms in
otherwise unburdened people. A surprisingly large

THE WILL, OR THE DIRECTION OF CONDUCT 379

number of such morbid habits can often exist without
destroying or even seriously endangering in other
respects the general capacity of the brain that suffers
from them ; and the fears of an impending general
insanity which they often arouse are therefore very fre
quently unfounded. On the other hand, they are cer
tainly grave inconveniences, and are not to be trifled
with. They are best treated, apart from the medical
care of the patient's general health, through a discreet
moral support, given by a competent adviser, who can
often help the patient to or towards a relatively effec
tive and cheerful ignoring of his enemies.

In estimating all such defects the rule holds here, as
in case of the defects of the intellect, that the stronger
the attendant emotional colouring of the disorder, the
more hopeful, other things being equal, is the outlook.
The cooler the emotional tone of the sufferer from a
defective will, in so far as concerns his immediate feel
ing about his disorder, the fewer are the means of influ
encing his morbid state. And this finally suggests why
the morbidly perverted characters whose wills are rela
tively well organised, firm, and cool, but whose behaviour
is intolerable, are in general incurable. In consequence,
we may as well here abandon the task of further
describing such characters, whose mission in the
world seems to be to illustrate the variability but not
the healthy docility of our human nature.

INDEX

[In use, this index should be supplemented by the analysis of the
text in the Table of Contents.]

Aboulia, 375.

/Esthetic experiences, as instances of
the harmonious relation of the unity
and variety present in consciousness,
89 ; aesthetic values of musical chords,
in relation to analysis, in.

Affection, and the affective aspect of
consciousness, 163. See Feeling.

Analysis, the, of conscious states into
elements, 97-107; question whether
the doctrine of mental elements is
right in its interpretation of the facts,
107-113; what the facts, upon which
the doctrine of mental elements is
founded, really show, 113-115; analy
sis as a substitution of analysed for
naive states of consciousness, 114;
the process of analysis in the course
of the actual differentiation of con
sciousness, 242-257. See Differen
tiation.

Animals, lower, experiments upon, and
the relation of such experiments to
the general methods of psychological
study, 16; signs of mental life in ani
mals, 22, 25, 34 ; questions as to the
value and interpretation of such signs,
23, 28-30 ; the pigeon when deprived
of its cerebral hemispheres, 63 ; ani
mal activities as indicating mental
initiative, 43, 312-315.

Apperception, Herbartian doctrine of,
236 ; Wundt's definition and doctrine
of apperception, 328, 329.

Assimilation, 229-247; physical basis
of, 231 ; illustrations of, 235-247 ; re
lation to perception, 235 ; to memory,

237 ; to thought, 245. See also Same
ness, and the analysis of Chapter X.

Association, as the representative in
the conscious process of the results
of the law of habit, 203-205 ; forms
of association, 210; explanation of
cases where the law of habit seems
not to explain the associative process,
205-208 ; association of mental ele
ments, 208 ; criticism of this last doc
trine, 209; factors which determine
the actual course of association in
our ordinary consciousness, 210-217 ;
association in its relation to assimila
tion, 229-247 ; active attention in re
lation to association, 262, 328-330.

Attention, its general relation to the
field of consciousness, 84, 85 ; to the
feelings, 190, 191 ; definition of atten
tion, 261 ; discussion of its principal
characteristics and conditions, 258-
264; active and passive attention,
190, 191, 261 ; relation of attention to
habit, 263, cf. 226, 227, 235, 236;
fluctuations of attention, 263, 264;
social conditions that determine us
to regard attentively our own acts,
283-285, 290, 291, 297 ; relation of at
tention to mental initiative, 328-332 ;
active attention as dependent upon
" tropisms," 331 ; as an instance of
restless persistence in advance of
adaptation, 329. Attention in rela
tion to voluntary action, 367-369.
Attention in nervously exhausted
patients, 353.

Auditory type, of mental imagery, 156.

38'

382

INDEX

Baldwin, Professor J. Mark, on imi
tation, 276; on heightened activities
and the conditions of mental initia
tive, 307, 309, 310, 311, 317.
Brain, as seat ot the nervous processes
that condition mental life, n; the
study of the relations between brain
processes and mental life as one of
the methods of psychology, 15 ; com
plexity of brain structure, 65 ; gen
eral way of functioning of the brain,
65 ; the law of habit in relation to the
brain, 66, 198, 200-203, 2I9> a3T-23S I
localisation of cerebral functions, 67 ;
the law of habit in relation to the dis
tinction between general and special
habits, 68, 69 ; " set " of brain, 69, 72,
78,79, 214, 215, 263; relation of the
brain to lower centres, 70; inhibition
as a cerebral phenomenon, 70-75 ;
hierarchy of the functions of the
brain, 70, 74; the higher cerebral
functions as especially inhibitory in
their relations to lower functions, 73 ;
relation of the functions of the brain
to consciousness, 80, 81 ; inadequacy
of the conscious process to corre
spond to the complexity of the brain
processes, 199, 205 ; formation of
new habits, under the influence of
new combinations of stimuli, 200-
203; influence of inherited tempera
ment of brain upon prevailing emo
tional tone of the individual, 342.
Browning, Robert, 187.

Charge, as present in the stream of
consciousness, 83 ; in relation to the
unity of consciousness, 95-97; sig- j
nificance of change and succession
for discrimination, and for the differ- j
entiation of mental life, 248-257;'
change in relation to our direct con- j
sciousness of temporal succession, '
95-97-

Childhood, mental phenomena in, diffi
culty of diagnosing certain mental
defects in a child, when these in
volve sense organs, 27 ; sudden ap
pearance of the signs of inherited

tendencies at certain points in child
hood, 52; inhibition in childhood,
75- 78; visualisation in childhood,
155; mental imagery as related to
conduct in children, 161; conflict
of feelings in the sulky child, 173;
perception in infancy, 219-221 ; the
expression of interest in a child in
the form of repetitions of acts, 260;
fluctuations of attention in childhood'
264; social tendencies in childhood,
275-279 1 the development of lan
guage in childhood, 281, cf. 371 ; ini
tiative in childhood, 303-312; plays
of childhood, as examples of initia
tive, 319-324; further passages, 332,
342, 344 sy.

Clearness of consciousness, defined,
93 ; how attained in practice, 94, 95 ;
results from attention, 261, 262; its
relation to social conditions in case
of the thinking process, 283-285, 290,
291. See also Difference, Differen
tiation, and Discrimination.
Conation, 193. See Will and Conduct.
Conduct, in its general relation to
docility, 33, 37, i97( 198; in its
general relation to initiative, 39-55 ;
in its general relation to the signs of
sensory experience, 24 sqq. ; in its
relation to mental imagery, 159-161 ;
in its relation to the feelings, 172-
176, 182-191 ; in its relation to per
ception, 218-228; in its relation to
the assimilative process, 234, 242.
The two fundamental social types of
conduct, 276-279; social conditions
that tend to make us conscious of our
own conduct, 283-285. 291, 295, 297.
The variations of conduct, and the
conditions of mental initiative, 300-
319; illustrations of initiative, 319-
331 ; relations of conduct to attention,
328-330,367-369; relations of con
duct to intellect, 350, 351 ; to dis
crimination, 251-258. Defects of
conduct, 347, 348. 373~379-
Consciousness, see also Mental life.
The general features of conscious
life discussed, 81-117; the "stream

INDEX

383

of consciousness," 82-85; tne unity
of consciousness characterised, 85-
89; variety essential to conscious
ness, 89 ; what processes in the cortex
are accompanied by consciousness,
81, 82; consciousness inadequate as
a representation of the complexity of
the habits and functions of the brain,
J99. 295 1 psychological results of
this inadequacy, in case of our asso
ciations, 205-209; consciousness as
not consisting merely of a complex
of mental elements, 84, 85, 97-117;
the analysis of consciousness as a
substitution of analysed states for
unanalysed ones, 114, 115; when
the unity of consciousness too much
predominates over the variety, con
sciousness tends to cease, 89 ; where
the unity and variety of conscious
ness, and the samenesses and dif
ferences present in consciousness,
support one another, consciousness
possesses what is called clearness,
93 ; how this clearness is practically
attained, 94, 95 ; how the differentia
tion of consciousness occurs in the
course of our mental development,
248-258.

Contact, sensory experience of, 133.

Cortex of the brain, as the seat of the
nervous processes that are attended
by mental life, n; what one amongst
the functions of the cortex are so
attended, 81, 82; complexity of the
structure and functions of the cortex,
65 ; inadequacy of the conscious
process to represent the wealth of
the functions of the cortex, 199, 205.
See also Brain.

Counting, as a motor process of an
imitative character, 292.

Delusion, 356.

Dermal sense, 133.

Description, why inferior to narrative

as a method of portrayal, 255.
Description, scientific, conditions of

success in, 5.
Desire, 195, 186, 187. See also Rest

lessness, Pleasure and Displeas
ure, Feeling, Will.
Difference, as a relation always present
amongst the various states that are
found within the unity of conscious
ness, 90 ; difference inseparable from
sameness, 91 ; if the consciousness
of difference too much predominates
over that of sameness, the nature of
the difference becomes problematic
for our consciousness, 92 ; the same
nesses and differences must support
one another if consciousness is to be
clear, 93; relation of difference to
variety in consciousness, 93 ; how we
teach pupils to take definite notice
of differences, 94, 95 ; successive dif
ferences of conscious states, and their
relation to discrimination, 95-97 ;
an increasing consciousness of dif
ferences accompanies mental devel
opment, 230, 248 sqq. ; perception
of simultaneous differences develops,
on the whole, on the basis of habits
formed through the consciousness of
successive differences, 249-257; dif
ferences in the spatial positions of
objects come to consciousness on the
basis of a certain general extensity of
our sensory experience, due to our
total experience of orientation, 141-
147 ; the perception of differences of
sensory stimulation is a perception
not of absolute, but of relative differ
ences, 264-267 ; the psycho-physic
law, 267-273 ; the consciousness of
the differences between our own ac
tivities and those of our social fellows,
and the importance of this conscious
ness for our thought and for our self-
consciousness, 282-285, 29°, 29i, 293,
295. 297.

Differentiation, of consciousness as a
process occurring during mental de
velopment, and determined by the
laws of docility, 248-273. See the
analysis of Chapter XI in Table
of Contents. See also Difference,
Discrimination, Attention, Psycho-
physic law.

INDEX

Discrimination, discriminating sensi
tiveness as a sign of mind, 21 ; its
manifestation in the signs of feeling,
22, 23 ; in the signs of sensory expe
rience, 24-28 ; its relation to uncon
scious reactions and tropisms, 28-31 ;
its importance in all grades of con
scious life, 31, 32. Discrimination
of simultaneous facts is aided by
habits formed through the discrimi
nation of successive facts, 249-257 ;
practical consequences of this prin
ciple, 258 ; relation of discrimination
to attention, 258 sqq. ; discrimination
in relation to the psycho-physic law,
264-273. See also Difference.

Displeasure, feeling of, 168-176, 179,
180. See Feeling, Pleasure and
Displeasure, and the analysis of
Chapter VII in the Table of Con
tents.

Docility, definition of, 38; outer ex
pressions of, 32-38, 198; forms of,
218, 229-281. General laws of, 197-
217 ; law of cerebral habit in relation
to law of mental association, 198-
208 ; perception as an instance of,
218-228. Assimilation as one aspect
of, 229-247 ; differentiation as an
aspect of, 248-273 ; the higher forms
of, 274-298 ; relation of Docility to
initiative, 41, 51, 303, 318; relation
of docility to intellect and will,
198, 199, 334 ; Docility in relation
to habit and association, 198-208.
Docility often sufficiently explains the
appearance of spontaneity in con
duct, 41. See also the analysis of
Chapters VIII. IX, X, XI, and XII,
in the Table of Contents.

Dramatic element in all successful in
struction, its relation to the general
process by which differentiation
takes place in consciousness, 255.

Elements, mental, the doctrine which
maintains that consciousness is com
posed of such elements discussed,
97-117; the doctrine as applied to
associative processes, 208, 209.

Elements of the nervous system, 58, 59.

Equilibrium, sensory experiences of,
in relation to orientation, and to our
consciousness of space, T44.
| Exercise, physical, its value as furnish
ing a relief from inhibitions, 78.

Experience, the signs of an animal's
relation to its own former experience,
32-38. See also Consciousness,
Mental life, Sensitiveness, Sen
sory experience, Docility, Intellect,
Habit, Association, Assimilation,
Differentiation, Perception. Rela
tion ot any new experience to the
immediately previous and subse
quent states of consciousness, 83 ;
relation of experience to the intellec
tual life, 351.

Experiment, upon nervous functions
as an auxiliary method in the study
of mind, 16 ; psychological experi
ment in the stricter sense, as a lead
ing method of psychology, 18, 19;
as in particular an aid to psychologi
cal analysis, loo, 103; interpretation
of the results of experimental analy
sis, 112-116; experiment as a means
of isolating and studying sensation,
105, 106, 122, 131, 133; Wundt's
experimental study of the feelings,
176; experiment and the psycho-
physic law, 267 ; experiments on
fatigue, 217; experiment upon the
movements by which we acquire
our consciousness of space relations,
253-

Experimental psychology, 18, 19; see
Experiment. See also Preface.

Expressions, and Expressive acts
and movements as signs of the
presence and the processes of men
tal life, and as means by which men
tal life is studied, 6-9, 14; their
relation to the introspective study of
mind, 17; their classification, 21-57;
difficulty of interpreting them with
certainty, 14, 15; their value as evi
dences that consciousness is present
at all, 21, 23, 28-31 ; the expressions
that are signs of feeling, 23 ; the

INDEX

385

signs of sensory experience, 24-27 ;
of docility, 32-38 ; of initiative, 38-
58 ; the physical conditions of ex
pressive movements, 9, 10, 58-79;
the inhibition of expressive move
ments, 70 sqq. See also Feeling,
Docility, Perception, Initiative, Con
duct, Will, for the various types and
characters of expressive movements.

Fatigue, 217.

Faust, Goethe's, as illustrating certain
aspects of feeling and desire, 183, 186.

Fechner, and the psycho-physic law,
267.

Feeling, the signs of, 22 sq. ; general
nature of, defined, 167, cf. also 163-
165 for preliminaries to this defini
tion ; classification of feelings : tra
ditional classification, 168 ; Wundt's
classification, 176 ; author's classifi
cation, 178 ; definition of the feelings
of pleasure and displeasure, 168-173,
179; of restlessness and quiescence,
180-182; mixed feelings, and their
types, 182-189; relation of the feel
ings to the attention, 190, 191, 259,
261, 329, 331 ; to conduct, 172-176,
182-191; to the emotions, 335-349;
practical significance of, 340-349.
See also the analysis of Chapter VII
in the Table of Contents.

French Revolution, mental phenomena
of its popular excitements, 216.

Functions, see Expressions and Ex
pressive movements. See also Nerv
ous system, Brain, Sensitiveness,
Docility, Initiative, Will. Higher
and lower nervous functions, their
distinction, u, 33, 34.

Galton, Francis, on mental imagery,
152 sqq.

General ideas, see Ideas, general.

Geometrical ideas, as imitative in char
acter, 292.

Goethe, 183, 186.

Groos, on play, 319, 320.

Habit, law of, first stated, 66; re
stated, 198 ; generalised habits, 68 ;
2C

special habits, 69; general relation
of cerebral habits to consciousness,
199, 205 ; the process of the forma
tion of a habit, 200-203 ; habit and
association, 203-208 ; habit and per
ception, 219-228 ; the assimilation of
new habits by old ones, 231-235 ;
consequences for mental life, 235-
247 ; the habits by which the power
to discriminate between simultane
ous facts is cultivated, 251 sqq. ; our
social habits and their significance,
276-298 ; novel habits, how acquired,
either in a growing brain or in one
already possessed of habits, 242-244,
302-332 ; abnormal habits, 343-348,

374-379-

Hallucination, 355.

Hartmann, Fritz, on orientation, 141.

Hearing, 135 ; relation of, to our con
sciousness of space, 140, 141, 145 ;
analysis of sensory experience of the
sense of hearing as an instance of
psychological analysis in general,
104-106, 108, in.

Heliotropism, as an instance of out
wardly observable sensitiveness that
need not be attended with mental
life, 29.

Herbartian doctrine of apperception,
236.

Idealism, 2 note.

Ideas, general or abstract ideas, nature
and social conditions of, 285-292;
definition of the term, general idea,
286 ; general ideas are in one aspect
indeed images, 286, cf. 157, 158 ; but
this aspect is never dissociated from
our consciousness of our acts, 286-
288, cf. 159, 193, 194; and we become
conscious of the details of our acts,
especially under social conditions,
283, 291 ; correct general ideas ex
pressible only in terms of fitting
deeds, 289 ; feelings that accompany
and colour our consciousness of
ideas, 288, 289, 290; imitative charac
ter, especially of our more elaborate
scientific ideas, 291 ; ideas and Ian-

386

INDEX

gunge, 280-284, cf. 371,372;
not the exclusive expression of gen
eral ideas, 284 ; ideas as attitudes,
288 ; as plans of action, 290.

Images, and Imagery, the general
nature of mental images indicated,
148 ; their relation to sensory dis
turbances, 148-150, 158 ; differences
between sensory experiences and
images, 150, 151; the variations of
mental imagery in different indi
viduals, 151-157 ; the types of mental
imagery, 156; the relation of mental |
imagery to higher mental processes, j
157; to our motor activities and to j
our conduct, 159-161.

Imagination, 161.

Imitation, as a fundamental social
tendency, 276; its relation to the
tendency to social opposition, 278;
combination and balance of the two
tendencies as a social ideal, 279 ;
imitative character of our more
elaborate general ideas, 287, 291 ;
numerical and geometrical ideas as
examples of this fact, 292 ; judgment
as acceptance or rejection of pro
posed imitative portrayals of objects,
293 ; imitative aspect of processes of
judgment, 257 ; language and imita
tion, 281-284, cf. 372; imitation and
originality in intellectual life, 361.

Impulses, insistent, 378.

Inertia of cerebral processes, and re
lation of this inertia to conscious
ness, 83.

Inherited tendencies, see Instincts.

Inhibition, 70-80; definition, 70; im
portance of, 71; the "set" of the j
brain in relation to, 72; examples!
of in processes of high grade, 73-75 ; |
practical results of the doctrine of,
75-80. Relation of attention to in
hibition, 264.

Initiative, definition of, 50 ; signs of
in general, 38-50; many signs th.it
appear to be those of spontaneous
initiative on the part of an organism j
are to be explained as (in*- to scnsi- |
tiveness or to docility, 39-42 ; but not |

all such signs can be thus explained
away, 42; illustrations ot initiative,
43-46; the term "spontaneity" not
the best to define such activities, 46 ;
analogy of such activities to varia
tions in the process of heredity, 48,
49, 301 ; initiative always closely
connected with docility, 51-53, 303
sqq. ; initiative and self-activity, 53-55,
330; initiative appears both in the
intellectual and in the voluntary life,
55 ; the problem regarding initiative
restated, 300 sq. ; the development
of our inherited, but at the outset
very imperfect, instinctive tendencies
as giving an opportunity for initiative,
302-306 ; persistence in actions, and
in the variation of actions, in advance
of adaptation, as the principal source
of initiative, 306-319 ; illustrations of
the results of such persistence, 319-
330; the persistence as based upon
tropisms, 331. See also Table of
Contents, Chapter XIII.

Inner and outer worlds, contrast of,
i, 2 sq. See also Mental life.

Insistent impulses, 378.

Instincts and inherited tendencies, 34,
35, 44, 52, 125 ; the tropisms of orien
tation and their importance for our
consciousness of space, 141 sqq. ;
inherited tendencies at the basis ot
habits, 200 s</</. ; as related to per
ceptions, 219 sqq. ; the instincts that
lie at the basis of sociality, 275-27^ ;
inherited tendencies in relation to
initiative, 302 sqq. ; tropisms that
support initiative, 306-331. Other
inherited tendencies, 341, j^., 375.

Intellect and intelligence, relation !••>
discriminating sensitiveness, 31,32;
to docility, 37; to initiative, 55; to
will, 37, 164, 165, 334, 351 ; to experi
ence, 351 ; to the feelings, 164, 165;
to the attention, 259-262; perception
in relation to the intellect, 218 sqq. ;
assimilation in relation to the intel
lect, 234 sqq. ; differentiation in re
lation to the intellect, 248 sqq. ;
higher intellectual processes, 274-

INDEX

387

298 ; social aspects of intellectual life,
id.; general ideas, 285 sqq. ; judg
ment, 255-257, 292, 293 ; reasoning
293-296 ; practical aspects of the
intellectual life, 350-363.

Interest, in its relation to feeling, and
to the process of attention, 259.

Introspection as a psychological
method, 16; its uses and limitations,
17; was not the exclusive method of
Aristotle, nor of the other greater
psychologists of former times, 17, 18.

James, William, on instinct in human
beings, 35; on the "specious pres
ent, "96; on discrimination, 250; on
" fringes," 289. See also Preface.

Judgment, in relation to the general
process of differentiation, 255-257;
in relation to the social conditions
under which the process of judg
ment has come to our own con
sciousness, 293.

Language, its development in the
child, 371, 372; its development as
indicating its relation to thought,
280-285 1 i*s relation to imitation,
281, 284; it is not exclusively the
function in which thinking gets ex
pressed, 284, 285.

Loeb, on tropisms, 29, 30, 141, 322,
327, 330, 331 ; on orientation, 141.
See also Preface.

Memory, in relation to the assimilative
process, 236-241. See also Habit,
Docility, Association.

Mental life, general definition and
character of, i ; relation of this defi
nition to philosophical opinions of
author, 2 ; problems as to the possi
bility of studying mental life, 5 sq. ;
solution of problem indicated, 6 sqq. ; \
relation of mental life to its physical
expression, 6 sqq. ; general relation '
of mental life to its physical condi
tions, 9-n, 15, 59, 64 sqq., 70-78,
81-83, 100-103, I07. IIQ; relation of
mental life to physical conditions in
case of sensory experience, 117, 121-

129; the organs of sense in their
relations to mental lite, 130-135, 137;
the conditions of spatial conscious
ness, 139-146; relation to physical
conditions in case of mental im
agery, 148-150; relation to physical
conditions in case of feelings, 179-
182; the relation of the associative
processes of mental life to their
physical conditions, 203-208. Clas
sification of the processes of mental
life, 55-57 ; more detailed discussion
of the signs of mental life, 20-57.
See also Consciousness, Sensitive
ness, Docility, Initiative, Percep
tion, Assimilation, Differentiation,
Will.

Methods of psychology defined in
general, 14-19.

Mob, mental phenomena of the, 216, 276.

Moral Law, its relation to the processes
of inhibition, 75-77.

Motor imagery, and the motor type of
persons when classified with respect
to imagery, 156.

Motor nervous processes, 61-65, 67,
68 ; their inhibition, 70-75 ; their
relations to the law of habit, 66, 67,
198-205; how they come to be repre
sented in consciousness, 127; their
relations to mental imagery, 159, 156,
157. See also Conduct, Habit, Will.

Movement, see also Expression and
Expressive movements. How we be
come aware of our own movements,
127, 365 ; of our movements of orien
tation, and, through them, of our
spatial relations, 141-147. For the
significance of our movements for
consciousness in general, see also
Conduct, Perception, Discrimina
tion, Will, Tropisms, Motor ner
vous processes.

Multiplicity of conscious states, in
relation to the unity of conscious
ness, 89. See also Consciousness.

Miinsterberg, Professor Hugo, 3.

Narrative, why more interesting than
description, 255.

388

INDEX

Nervous system, its general relation
to mental life, 10. Distinction be
tween nervous processes that are,
and those that are not, attended by
mental life, n, 33, 34, 64, Si, 82; the
study of the nervous processes that
accompany and condition mental
life as one of the methods of psy
chology, 15 ; general characterisa
tion of the structure of the nervous
system, 59-61 ; possible nature of the
transmission of nervous excitation,
60 ; sensory and motor nervous fibres
and functions, 61-64; adjustments to
the environment as determined by
nervous functions, 64; complexity of
higher nervous processes, 65 ; locali
sation, 67 ; habits of nervous centres,
68-70 ; the hierarchy of nervous
functions, 74; inhibition, 70-75. Ner
vous conditions of habit and associa
tion, 198-203. Inertia of the nervous
processes, 83. Some phenomena of
nervous exhaustion, 353-355, 376-
See also Brain.

Neurons, or " elements," of the nervous
system, 58, 59, 305.

New Testament, positive precepts in,

77-

Numerical, general ideas, as imitative
in character, 292.

" Old-fashioned winter," the, as an
example of an idea due to a charac
teristic defect of human memory,
239-241.

Opposition, as a social tendency, na
ture and significance of, 277-279;
its relation to imitation, 278 ; to ar
gument and reasoning, 296; to indi
vidualism and to the social forms of
initiative, 326-328.

Organic sensation, 131, 132; in rela
tion to orientation, arid consequently
to the bases of our consciousness
of space, 141-147; in connection
with the emotions, 169, 337-339; in
relation to our consciousness of our
movements, 127, 365.

Orientation, the Junctions of, in rela

tion to our consciousness of space,
141-147 ; reactions of orientation,
141, 142; th<iir representation in our
sensory experience, 143 ; all our sen
sory experiences related to our acts
of orientation, id. ; result as to any
special sensory experience of which
we become conscious, 144 ; the pri
mal experience of extensity, 145 ;
consequences for the nature of our
spatial consciousness, 146, 147.

Pain, sensations of, 132, 170; feelings
of, 168-173, 179. See Pleasure and
Displeasure, Feeling, and the analy
sis of Chapter VII in the Table of
Contents.

Perversion, of character, 344, 347, 348,
375. 379 ; of emotion, 343-346.

Physical conditions of mental life,
9; always include conditions involv
ing the nervous system, 10. See
also Brain, and Nervous System.
Controllable physical conditions in
experimental psychology, 18.

Physical expressions of mental life,
see also Expressions. Every physi
cal expression of mind, direct or in
direct, interesting to the psychologist,
12, 14. The physical signs of the
presence of mind classified, 20-57.

Physical facts, the general nature of
the contrast between physical and
mental facts, 2 sqq.

Plasticity as a sign of mind, 32-38.
See Docility.

Pleasure and Displeasure, feelings
of, their signs, 22, 23 ; the traditional
theory, which regards all teelings as
of these two types, stated, 167-173;
application of the theory to the case
of the emotions, 169-171 ; relation of
pleasure and displeasure to conduct
according to this theory, 172; doubts
concerning th<* sufficiency of this the
ory. 173-176 ; Wundt's view as to the
classification of the feelings, 176, 177 ;
the author's classification, 177 sqg.
Relation of pleasure and displeas
ure to other feelings, on this basi?,

INDEX

389

179 sqq. See also analysis of Chap
ter VII in Table of Contents.
Positive and negative precepts, their
psychological relations to inhibition,

76, 77-

Practical applications, of the study
of the signs of sensory experience,
27 sq. ; of the relations between the
various special habits of the brain,
70; of the facts relating to inhibition,
75-79; practical results of excessive
inhibition, 77 ; the relief from inhibi
tions as one use of physical exercise,
78 ; the practical significance of the
phenomena of worry, 79, 80; prac
tical consequences of the doctrine
regarding the relations of sameness
and difference, 94 ; the significance
of the proper training of the senses
for the development of any and all
grades of conscious life, 127 sq. ; the
life of the senses not a lower life, but
an auxiliary of the highest mental
processes, 128 ; the relations of men
tal imagery to conduct, 159 ; need of
considering, in guiding minds, the
individual varieties of mental im
agery, 162; practical application of
the doctrine as to the relation between
perception and conduct, 226-228 ; of
the doctrine of assimilation, 236; of
the doctrine as to the differentiation
of consciousness, 257 ; of the doc
trine of the social factors of the
higher forms of docility, 279 ; of the
doctrine of mental initiative, 331.
Practical suggestions concerning the
life of the emotions, 340-349; con
cerning the intellectual processes,
349-351 ; concerning some intellec
tual disorders, 353-355, 358-360, and
anomalies, 360-362. Considerations
concerning the will, 364-379. See
also Conduct, and the analyses of
Chapters XIV and XV in the Table
of Contents.

Present moment of consciousness as
not indivisible, 84 ; but as of finite
length, 95-97 ; what is present to con
sciousness at any one moment, 85.

Psychology, defined, i ; how possible
as a science, 5 sqq.; essentials of
all psychological study, 12, 13; how
related to neurological science, 10-
13 ; the methods of psychology,
13-19 ; the business of psychology
restated, 112, 113, 116, 117; psycho
logical analysis as a process of sub
stitution, 114; as a further carrying
out of the tendency of the developing
consciousness towards differentia
tion, 230, 257. See also Conscious
ness and Mental life.

Psycho-physic law, 138, 264-273 ; as
a law regarding the limitations of
our docility, 269.

Quiescence, feelings of, 178, 179 ; their
relation to feelings of restlessness,
1 80, 181; of pleasure and displeas
ure, 182, 183; quiescence as a posi
tive state of consciousness, 185 ; the
quiescent pleasures, 185; the rela
tively quiescent experiences of dis
pleasure, 188, 189; despair as an
instance of such union of displeas
ure and quiescence, 189; relation of
quiescence to passive attention, 190,
191, 261 ; the feeling of familiarity
as a relatively quiescent feeling, 224 ;
the feeling of confidence (which
sometimes takes the place of a
general idea) is of the quiescent
type, 288.

Reasoning, nature of the reasoning
process defined, 293, 294 ; illustrated,
295; the reasoning process as the
result of social training, 295, 296;
its relation to the devices of social
persuasion, 296.

Restlessness, feelings of, 178 sqq.; their
general relation to feelings of quies
cence, 179, 180 ; to feelings of pleasur.,-
and displeasure, 182, 183 ; the four re
sulting mixed types of feeling, 179,
185-189 ; the relation of these mixed
types of feeling to desire and to con
duct, id.; the relation of restlessness
to the active attention, 190, 330 ; the

390

INDEX

relation of restlessness to the con
ditions which determine the persist
ence in and the variation of types of
action, in advance of adaptation,
306-331 ; resulting theses as to men
tal initiative, 318, 331 ; the relation of
restlessness to desire, 195.
Rhythm, as an example of the presence
of unity and variety in consciousness,
84, 89, 93 ; relation of rhythm to the
duration of the present moments of
consciousness, 96.

Sameness, as a relation always present
amongst the various states in the
unity of consciousness, 91 ; sameness
and difference are inseparable facts,
91 ; each may help us to become
aware of the other, 92; if sameness
too much predominates, conscious
ness tends to lapse, 89; relation of
sameness and difference to unity and
variety, 93 ; relation of consciousness
of sameness to clearness of conscious
ness, 93 ; the consciousness of same
ness as a factor in the process of
thought, 245 ; the consciousness of
sameness in relation to our power
to observe objects, 235.

Science, descriptive, conditions which
make it possible, 5 ; problem as to
how a science of mental states is
possible, 5-13 ; the relation of scien
tific inquiry to the discovery of law,

43-

Self, and the consciousness of self, in
relation to the social conditions
which determine self-consciousness,
296-298 ; see also 283-285, 291, and
the analysis of Chapter XII in the
Table of Contents. On the self as
the sole observer of mental states,
see 1-5. On the character of feelings
as states referred especially to the
self, 166, 167.

Self-activity, see Initiative.

Sensation, definition of, 122 ; the signs
of the presence of, 24-28 ; the classi
fication of, 129-136; the attributes
of: intensity and quality, 136-139;

extensity as an attribute of sensation,
an4 its relation to our experiences
of orientation, 139-147; conscious
ness not a mere complex of elemen
tary sensations, 120-122.
Senses, the physiology of the senses,
16; the classification of the various
senses indicated, 129-136; the life of
the senses plays its part in all grades
of consciousness, 123-129.
Sensitiveness, discriminating, as the
most general sign of the presence ot
mind, 21 ; the forms of this sensitive
ness, 22-32; why called discrimi
nating, 21 ; relation of sensitiveness
to habit, and to plasticity or docility,
27,36; to apparent spontaneity, 39.
The outer appearance of discrimi
nating sensitiveness as not an un
questionable sign of the presence of
mind, 23, 28-30; but of great im
portance in the interpretation of
mind where we know that mind is
present, 31. The appearance of
spontaneity often only a phase of
sensitiveness, 39. The first form
of sensitiveness : sensory experi
ence, its relation to consciousness
of all grades, 121-129; its classifi
cation, 129-136; the attributes of
sensory experience, 136-147. The
second form of sensitiveness, mental
imagery, 148-161. The third form
of sensitiveness, feeling, 163-195.
See Table of Contents, Chapters V,
VI, and VII.

Sensory Experience, the signs of, 24-
28 ; the interpretation of these signs
not always certain, 28-30; but these
si.^ns are of great importance for the
interpretation of all grades of mental
life, 30-32. See further the analysis
of Chapter V in the Table of Contents.

Sensory nervous processes, 61-65.

Sequence of states in consciousness,
see Change and Succession.

Sexual emotions, 344-346.
i Shinn. Miss M. W., on early habits
in childhood, 303, 307, 308.

Sight, 135, 136 ; relation of, to the con-

INDEX

391

sciousness of extensity, 139 sqq. ; to
perceptive processes, 219 sqq. Im
agery of objects once seen, 152 sqq.

Signs of mental life, see Expression
and Expressive movements.

Similarity, see Sameness and Differ
ence.

Simultaneous association, see Asso
ciation.

Simultaneous facts, how the differen
tiation of such facts comes to con
sciousness, see Differentiation.

Simultaneous functions, how affected
in case of the formation of habits,
202, 203.

Smell, sense of, 134.

Social conditions and tendencies which
determine the higher forms of docil
ity, see Imitation, Opposition, and
the analysis of Chapter XII in the
Table of Contents.

Space, consciousness of, its relation to
our consciousness of sameness and
difference, 92; its basis in our gen
eral experiences of the orientation
of the organism, 139-147; differen
tiation of this consciousness of space
through our experiences of move
ment, 252-254; the perception of
single objects in space, 219-223.

Spontaneity, appearance of, in the
nervous functions that attend mental
life, 12, 22, 39; apparent spontaneity
as often but a phase of sensitiveness,
39 sq., or of docility, 41 ; but some
forms of spontaneity not easily thus
to be explained, 42-46. Spontaneity
does not mean a lack of causal con
nection, 47 ; objections to the use of
the term, id. ; the term Initiative
substituted, which also see for further
facts of spontaneity.

Static sense, 144.

Stern, William, on the " present mo
ment" of consciousness, 96.

Storch, on our consciousness of space,
147.

Succession, in the stream of conscious
ness, 83 ; in relation to the unity of
consciousness, 95-97; the signifi

cance of our consciousness of suc
cession as a means of developing our
habits of discriminating simultaneous
facts, 248-258. The consciousness
of succession as related to the con
sciousness of difference, 97. See
also Time.

Suggestion, negative, in relation to
inhibition, 76.

Synthesis, 256, 258.

Taste, sense of, 134.

Temperature, sensory experience of,

133-

Ten Commandments, the, as examples
of appeal to inhibitory tendencies,

77-

Thinking process, see Thought.

Thought, in relation to our sensory
experience, 123-129; in relation to
the assimilative process, 245-247 ; in
relation to the process of differentia
tion, 255-257 ; in relation to our
social habits and training, 280-296;
thought and language, 381-285;
thought in relation to conduct,

351-

Time, our consciousness of the present
moment always a consciousness of
a finite duration, never of an in
divisible present moment, 95-97;
temporal succession as significant
for the formation of our habits of
discrimination, 248-258; temporal
sequence an essential character of
the stream of consciousness, 83 ; our
memory of past time affected by
assimilative processes, 237~24r ; the
relation of our feelings to our con
sciousness of time, 180,181.

Touch, see Dermal sense.

Tropisms, of Loeb, general usage and
definition of the term, 29, 30 (see
also Preface) ; see also 141, 322, 327,
330, 331-

Unity of Consciousness, see Con
sciousness and Mental life ; the
unity of consciousness generally
characterised, 85 sqq.

392

INDEX

Variations in the race as analogous to
the appearance of initiative in the
functions of the individual, 48, 301.

Variety as an aspect of mental life,
89; see also Consciousness, Mental
life, Change, Differentiation.

Verbal-motor type of mental imagery
and of persons when classified with
respect to imagery, 156, 157.

Visual type, of mental imagery,
I53 S(1(I- The variations in visualis
ing power from person to person,
I53< X54- The relative predominance
of visual imagery over other imagery
in the " visualising " type of persons,
155, 156-

Volition, see Will.

Voluntary acts, as resulting from atten
tion, 367-369; in what sense volun
tary acts are never, as such, original,
369^371 1 the growth of language as
an instance of the development of a
voluntary function, 371-372.

Wagner, Richard, 187.

Weber, and the psycho-physic law, 267.

Will, in the wider sense, as our total
consciousness of our activity, and of
our own attitude towards our world,
194-196, 364-367; in the narrower
sense, as the process of the attentive
selection of one way of action as
against another, 367-369; will in re
lation to intellect, 37, 164, 165, 334,
351; the term "will" as of little use
for purposes of purely psychological
classification, 196, 334; will in rela
tion to feeling in general, 164, 165;
in relation to the special types of
feeling, see Feeling. For the prac
tical aspects of the life of the will,
especially in reference to the nar
rower use of the term, see analysis
of Chapter XV in Table of Con
tents.

Worry, phenomena of, 79, 80.

Wundt, Wilhelm, on the classification
of the feelings, 176, 177, 180; on the
association of mental elements, 208,
209 ; on the early stages of the de
velopment of language, 281 ; on
apperception, 328.

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