bernard bosanquet psychology of the moral self london 1897 rep 1904

8/3/2019 Bernard Bosanquet PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF London 1897 rep 1904

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PSYCHOLOGY.-- 'OF

THE M.ORAL SELF

BY

B. BOSANQUET

iLonbonM A C M I L ~ A N AND CO., LIMITED

NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COlwlPANY

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PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF


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PREFACEIT seems clear that a work is needed which shouldtreat of modern psychological conceptions in theirbearing upon ethical problems. No doubt, psycho-logy is still full of controversy, and fundamentalquestions are sub Judice. But it would be anexaggeration to assert that no dominant tendencyis now discernible in the best psychological thought.The doctrine of Apperception, and such an idea asthat of cc vital series," which is implied though notinsisted on in the present work, are far enoughadvanced to throw a wholly new light upon thenature of Will, considered as the man in relation toaction. When I say "a new light," I mean a ligl1twhich is new as compared with the popular philo-sophy of the la.st generation. For that the mostrecent psychology is definitely corroborating thenotions of Hellenic as ofmodern idealism, constitutesits absorbing interest, and its claim on the ethicalstudent. B ~ s i d e s Mr. F. H. Bradley, my debt towhom need not be further insisted on, I have foundthe g r o ~ n d w o r k of my psychological ideas in thewritings of Professor William James, Mr. Stout, and


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VI PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELFMiinsterberg. Professor Sully's Human Mind hasalso been of great service to me, and constitutes, ifI may venture to express an opinion, a strikingadvance upon his earlier writings.

My principal acknowledgments are due, however, to my wife, whose assistance in reducing mylecture-notes to readable form renders her share inthe work about equal to my own.

I am aware that these lectures are brief, andeven curt. But I believe that they will give a usefulclue to students who desire to approach moralphilosophy with s o m ~ genuine ideas on the natureand working of mind.

I have added at the end of the book a bibliographical note, for beginners, and the questionswhich were set week by week to the students attending the lectures. They serve to insist upon themain points of importance.

B. BOSANQUET.LoNDON, Marc" 1897.


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CONTENTSLECTURE I

PAGR

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW

LECTURE 11GENERAL NATURE OF PSYCHICAL EVENTS 11

LECTURE IIICOGNITION-THE GROWTH OF CONSCIOUSNESS 22

LECTURE IVTHE ORGANISATION OF INTELLIGENCE

LECTURE VSELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

LECTURE VI

FEELING .

34

47

S8


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viii PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF

LECTURE VII

VOLITION

LECTURE VIIIVOLITION (contintted)

I ~ E C T U R E IXREASONABLE ACTION

LECTU"RE X" BODY AND SOUL

PAGE. 70

. 82

99

114


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LECTURE ITHE PSYCHOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW

I. IN explaining the subject with which we are dealingwe may begin by contrasting such a term as thecc province U of a science with its cc point of view."Botany, for instance, has a cc province," or a denota-tion j that is, a distinguishable class of material

. objects with which alone it deals,-there is nobotany of rocks or gases, but only of plants. Botany,indeed, has a "point of view" as well as a province,as we see when we compare it with medicine, whichdeals with plants in so far as they have a specificaction on the body; the point of view is a differentone. But it remains true that the cc point of view"of the science is limited by its "province," and viceversd, in much the same way as in logic we say thatconnotation is limited by denotation. Every naturalscience is thus restricted to a certain range of objects

In Psychology the case is different. The limit isone of "point of view" only, and no special provincecan be marked oft: Some writers (e.g. Mr. Sully inThe Human MlItt!) attempt to limit the science bysaying that it deals with internal as opposed toexternal experience; but as Mr. Ward points outB


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2 PSYCHOLOGY OF TIlE MORAL SELF LECT.

(Ency. Brit., Ninth ed., vot. xx. p. 37), the distinctionis either inaccurate or inapplicable. It is generally.used as meaning "in the mind" opposed to cc inspace," with a more or less vague implication thatthe contents of the mind are ideas, and similarimpalpable entities, while the contents of spaceare solid things; but the antithesis is an unmeaningone, owing to the ambiguity of the word" in JJ in itsdouble application to consciousness and space. Theconception of being "in" space is a familiar one;what is meant by being " in JJ a mind or " in JJ con-sciousness we shall consider directly. Someti.mesthe distinction is merely used to indicate what takesplace within the limits of the body as opposed towhat takes place without those limits; but in thissense it does not distinguish the province of Psycho-logy from what falls outside Psychology, since Psy-chology deals with all perceptions whether of internalor external events.

In the same way the distinction between "mental"and "material" fails to help us in marking off ourprovince (see Mr. Ward, I.e. p. 38), unless we explainit as a mere difference in the point of view we take.Unless, that is, we say that a material object whenconsidered as presented in experience is mental, andso belongs to Psychology, and when not consideredas presented does notThus we find that we must come to a distinction

by the point of view from which Psychology works,and not by the province with which it deals. Thenthe question arises-Can we say that Pyschologytakes a subjective point of view, and all other sciencesan objective one? Here again we must answer inthe negative. If we are distinguishing, say, logically


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THE PSYCHOLOGICAL POINT OF' VIEW 3

or ethically between our presentations, then some ofthem will be more subjective, and others more objec-tive; but for Psychology there is no such distinction.Nor is the science specially uncertain because it dealswith mental facts; as objects of observation andinference they.are just as good as any other facts,and as a science Psychology must take itself to beobjective, i.e. to be such as any.rational being wouldconstruct with the s.ame data. This suggests thedistinction which has been made by Mr. HerbertSpencer, and adopted by Hoffding (translation, p. 24),between Subjective and Objective Psychology. Ac-cording to this distinction, Objective Psychologyincludes "physiological and sociological data," whileSubjective Psychology deals with the "natures ofparticular modes of consciousness, as ascertained byintrospection." But, if we regard them from thepoint of view of throwing light on mind, all ourfacts, whether we borrow them from physiology andsociology, or whether we glean them from intro-spection, are equally objective. It is only whenthey are considered for their value from a philo-sophical point of view that the former constitute parexcellence objective mind.

Mr. Ward himself (I.c.) suggests as a distinctionthat Psychology takes an individualistic point ofview, while other sciences take one that is universal-istic. This seems to mean that the psychologistdeals solely with facts of presentation to particularminds, while the student of natural science neglectsthis characteristic, and thinks of his objects quiteapart from their relation to particular minds. If weaccept this we must be careful that it does not tieus down to any assumption about the individual


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4 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF LECT.

mind being there to begin with, or remaining limitedto any particular source of self-feeling or content, as,e.g., the body. We must leave ourselves quite freeto study the growth of mind in its earlier stages,and all possible sources from which it may deriveits content.Keeping in mind the necessity of this freedomwe may try two other definitions. James, in hisText-book of Psychology, adopts one given by Ladd :"Psychology is the description and explanation ofstates of consciousness as such." Here we are metby the difficulty that consciousness is as yet adisputed term, that there is no agreement amongpsychologists as to what facts are included in it, orwhether or not it covers the whole of psychical ormental .life.

The second definition is one given by Bradley(Mlnd, O.S., xii. 354). Psychology" has to dowith psychical occurrences and their laws," l.e. withthe facts experienced within a single soul, consideredmerely as events which happen. " Experience" and" soul" are here used as very wide terms, which donot commit us at starting to any assumptions aboutconsciousness or self-consGiousness, or about the" subject" and similar conceptions. Experiencecannot be defined in any way, for it is all inclusive,and leaves nothing by which it can be limited; wecan only, as it were, point it out, or indicate it.

2. Psychical events, then, or the facts experiencedwithin a soul, together with their laws or ways ofhappening, form the subject-matter of Psychology.What do we mean by ''In a soul?" Bearing inmind what we have said about the polnt of view, we


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THE PSYCHOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW 5may reply, "everything that goes to make up itsworld." Here we have to recall the distinction madein introducing the lectures on logic (Essentlals ofLogic, p. 7); the distinction between the psychological and logical modes of regarding the contentsof the mind. The formed world-e.g. as it exists forme in space, or, again, your mind to me-is more thanan event in my mind; but it ls an event in mymind, and it is only from this latter point of viewthat Psychology considers i t What more it may beis a question for other sciences. To use an. illustration, we may say that the psychologist ismerely a looker-on, an observer; and that to himyour mind, with its contents or object, is like amicroscope with its object to one who looks at itfrom the outside. YOtt are interested in the objectfor its- own sake, but he does not want to knowabout this primarily; he is interested in finding outby what machinery it was focussed and illuminated,what caused it to be thus before you, and what willcause it to disappear again and bring something elsein its place. In thzs sense there is no object in yourworld which is not in your soul, and Psychologyonly considers it as in your soul.

The sciences, indeed, which deal with the organised reality, although clearly differentiated from Psychology, may themselves afford material for psychological treatment. ..tEsthetics, e.g., treats ofmentalcontents from the point of view of their capacity foryielding resthetic pleasure or emotion, and the mindthat is trained to resthetic enjoyment may affordvery different material for psychological study fromthe mind that is not so trained.

Logic, again, has an entirely different sphere from


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6 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE );10RAL SELF LECT.Psychology in that it deals with mental events asmaterial for the construction of reality; and itsprinciples are not psychological laws, but principlesby which reality is-constructed. But all the same, amind which is swayed by a logical principle, whetherconsciously or unconsciously,will differ psychologicallyfrom one which is not, or from itself when not underthe influence of the principle; the mental contentswill be differently organised in the two cases, andwill thus afford different material for the psychologist.

3. It will help us here if we mention, merely ingeneral, what Aristotle had to say about the natureof the soul. It will show, that is, how the problempresented itself to a great man approaching it whileit was comparatively fresh an d free from preconceptions about immortality, free-will, an d muscular contraction. We may n o t i c e : -

Ca.) It presents itself to him as a matter ofgradation. I t is difficult to say where the soulbegins; there is vegetative mind or life, sensitivemind, rational and volitional mind. In proportionas the order of Nature takes on a certain individualand apparently purposive form, the problem of mindbegins and it continues upwards into consciousness.Here we can see no apparent dread of materialism,or at an y rate of continuity with the unconscious;and it is very hard to find out what was thoughtby Plato and Aristotle of the relation of the Soulto consciousness. They think more of order andthe appearance of purpose than of mere consciousness.

(ft.) The definition is more like that of a problem


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THE PSYCHOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW 7or a postulate than of a thing. Mind, he tells us,begins with "The simplest mode of self-realisationof an organic body." This leaves room for othermodes of mind above, and growing out ot thesimplest, and does not tie us down to any mode ofsubject or substance; we might paraphrase it bysaying that "mind is the way in which the unityof an organic body displays itsel" He afterwardsdistinguishes to the best of his power the differentphases of the psychical, as we also must endeavourto do, and in so doing he connects infant Psychologywith that of animals.

The point is, that stating the problem in thislarge way enables us to approach it quite differentlyfrom the way in which a ready-made dogmatiserapproaches i t We are led to look at the mind,pnma facie, as beginning a long way down, and asa sort of struggle towards unity. I do not saythat this view could be true, e.g., in metaphysics;but it is very convenient to be allowed to take itin Psychology. We grant readily that we cannotexplain mind as a co-operation of bodily parts-ofmonads or the like; nevertheless, it does seem tobe a co-operation of elements in experience, elementswhich are not merely drawn from our own body,but which all ultimately appear to have definiteconnections in the environment which we construct.

4. The soul, then, for us is simply our immediateexperience, which we take as belonging to a thingthat has past and future, in a way just analogous tothat in which we construct anything in space andgive it identity. We trace our soul backward, andconstruct it from our given experience. The word


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8 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF LECT." immediate" perhaps needs explanation here; it isused to exclude the real world which is the contentof experience. If this was included, as we saw, thesoul would be everything. But though the soul isnot in the full sense everything which it knows, yetit is different because of what it knows; the content,or world of realities, of course affects the immediateexperience, giving it colour and definite filling.

5. The abstract ego is a different conceptionfrom that of the soul, and we need not reallytrouble ourselves with it in Psychology. It represents the argument that the subject which .knowsmust be other than the object which is known, andthat it must be identical throughout. As to the .pnma facle truth of this we may note what actuallytakes place in our ordinary conceptions of the self,which seem to involve a constant transposition ofcontent between the self and not-selt: (See Ward,Ency. Brlt., Ninth ed., vol. xx. p. 39). At one time theself is identified with the body, and at another it isdistinguished from it, while there is always a tendencyto describe certain phases or regions of consciousnessas the real or true s e l ~ as opposed to others withwhich we are less inclined to identify ourselves.But the point is that the self, in Psychology, seemsalways to be identified with some positive content,and not always with the same. Whether or notthere is a positive identical nucleus of presentationis still a question for discussion. But what wewould suggest is that the abstract ego is merely away of describing one characteristic of the concreteself, and does not really help to explain it. At allevents, it could be of no use to us in Psychology


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THE PSYCHOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW 9unless it declared itself in some way by affectingthe sequence and connections of our presentations,and this seems only possible through some positivecontent; a mere abstract point would not imposeany special direction or grouping upon our presentations. And if it merely represents the generalcharacter of these presentations themselves-theirtendency, for instance, to reproduce one another incertain ways-we want only this character itself inso far as it works, and need not trouble ourselveswith any theory about its origin.. Concluslon.-This, then, is the picture of a soulwhich I have tried to suggest; not a ready-mademachine working on certain material, but a growthof material more like a process of crystallisation,the material moulding itself according to its ownaffinities and c o h e ~ i o n s . The nervous system mayindeed be regarded from' one point of view asa pre-existing machine; but not psychically, forit constitutes no special part of our presenta-. tions. Given this view we may ask, looking atthe general purpose of our lectures, "Ought aspiritual philosophy to be content with such a viewas this?" This, of course, is only an objectionwhich mlght be urged, not one which should be, forPhilosophy has no right to dictate to Psychology.But our answer would be "Yes; it is just a splritualphilosophy which cal1, be content with it." If youthink the whole universe is mechanical or brutematter, then we can understand your trying to keepa little mystic shrine within the individual soul,which may be sacred from intrusion and differentfrom everything else-a monad without windo\vs.But if you are accustomed to take the whole as


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10 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF LECT. 1spiritual, and to find that the more you look at itas a whole the more spiritual it is, then you do notneed to play these little tricks in order to get a lastrefuge for freedom by shutting out the universe.

It has always been the most spiritual philosophythat has been most audacious in simply taking thesoul as an operation or appearance within theuniverse, incapable of being cut off from otheroperations and appearances, and demanding to beinvestigated quite impartially with reference to the'origin and connection of its elements. There isnothing to be afraid of in finding that the operativecontent, the actual being of the soul, comes from theenvironment. How else, indeed, should we have areal communion with other souls?


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L E C T U R E 11GENERAL NATURE OF PSYCHICAL EVENTS

I . BEFORE going on to consider the general natureof psychical events it will be well to say a wordabout the attitude we should take in interpretingwhat different psychologists may have said. In allsuch interpretations there are two pitfalls to avoid.In the first place we must be careful not to forceevery difference of expression between one writerand another into a difference of principle. Forinstance, Locke's use of the term idea for anypresentation is probably peculiar to himself, butwhen we understand the sense in which he appliedit we find that it covers no difference of principle.On the other hand, we must not allow ourselves todeny that there are differences of principle, on theground that the qifferent terms employed must havereferred to experience which is the same for thosewho use them. The only safe rule in critical historyis to study our writers as a whole, and see whatthey really wished to maintain; what the whole driftof their language supports. There is, of course, sucha thing as confusion o f th ou gh t; where the writerhimself has not been clear as to what was involvedin his statements. We may perhaps find an instance


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12 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF LECT.of this in Mill's theory of inference from particulars toparticulars.

2 . The history of modern Psychology ma y besaid to begin with Hobbes, and is at first mainlyconcerned with the doctrine of Association. (SeeCroom Robertson's article in the EncyclopaedaBritannica on "Association "). This doctrine wastaken up by Locke and Hume, but is said to havebeen first thoroughly applied to the whole of mindby Hartley. For our present purpose we ma yconsider it as it developed in the hands of Lockeand Hume.

They were the authors of the "PsychologicalPhilosophy" which has so frequently been criticised.The necessary effect of narrowing down all Philosophy into Psychology is to cut away the materialof Psychology itself. The method employed is tobegin by laying it down that the validity of ideasdepends upon their mode of origin, and not uponself-evidence; and then to proceed by inquiringinto this mode of origin in the history of the.individual mind. Thus the problem which presentsitself to them is that of putting together the mindand the world out of mere psychical events, out ofirreducible facts or data. By refusing to take morethan what is given, they are tied down to theconsideration of events in the soul, an d this leadsto subjective idealism, because all ideas ma y beregarded as events in the soul, and any question asto what validity they have as making up a worldbelongs to a different enquiry altogether. Moreoverthe followers of this method are prevented even fromstating the full nature of the events in question; for


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interest was to know, in the first place, whether ourmore important ideas either of sound and colour orof space, or again of substance and causation or 0("the self, were irreducible data; and, secondly, howthey came to cohere or to be associated together.They rummaged about in experience and foundwhat they looked for-the most striking events inthe soul; and having found them they were soon,and rightly, satisfied that the history of the individualsoul is a history of events, which, as events, asirreducible data, gave no purchase for steppingacross to anything from them. Nor would a deeperinvestigation, if conducted from the same standpoint,have directly influenced their views; although in-directly it would have done so, and in the longrun it did greatly help to alter the views of theirsuccessors. For Hume, then, the mind was like astring of beads without the string, or a peal of bells,and this is \vhat we mean when we speak ofAtomism. (Atomism is merely the Greek form forindividualism, only it happens that atom has cometo mean a thing and individual a person). Thereappear to be two stages of Atomism; the first, inwhich it is a sheer fiction and is now a thing of thepast, the second, in which it involves a psychologicalconfusion which we must consider more in detail.

(i.) As a statement of Hume's theory of simplesensations and ideas as units of the mind we mayquote the following passage (pp. 320, 32 I , Black'sedition, vol. i.)." It is evident that the identity which we attributeto the human mind, however perfect we may imagineit to be, is not able to run the several perceptionsinto one and make them lose their characters of


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11 GENERAL NATURE OF PSYCHICAL EVENTS IS. distinction and difference, which are essential tothem. It is still true that every distinct perceptionwhich enters into the composition of the mind is adistinct existence, and is different and distinguishableand separable from every other perception, eithercontemporary or successive."

And again, " What we call mind is nothing but aheap or collection of different perceptions unitedtogether by certain relations, and supposed, thoughfalsely, to be endowed with a perfect simplicity andidentity."This kind of description is a sheer fiction if itimplies that discriminated sensations and ideas area primitive constant and the only contents of themind. Probably this is what it did, on the whole,imply in Locke, making due allowance for thepassage above quoted,! where he says that sensa-tions are modified by the judgment. Really thispassage only serves to emphasise the doctrine, whichwe can trace henceforward in all the British psycho-logistS down to Bain inclusive.To bring out what is implied in the doctrine,

take as an instance the sort of vision an artist hasof clearly discriminated colour p a ~ c h e s ; these aresensations perhaps most nearly approximating toHume's distinct perceptions. Can we think that ababy, near the commencement of its psychologicalexperience, has anything like these .clearly definedsensations; or must we not rather regard them asthe result of a long process of education in dis-crimination? What is really meant by the singlesensation which we find alluded to in psychologicalmanuals? Is it a primary and fixed constituent

.1 Essay, Bk. ii. ch. ix. sect. 8.


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16 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF LECT.in all perception; or is it, as experienced by anadult, a result of discrimination which normallydisappears in perception? In other words, ismental growth a process of compounding unitsdistinctly given, or is it rather a process of discrimination within a mass which cannot and doesnot change its character all at once (as the focus ofattention may do from moment to moment) becauseit is not all attended to in the same measure at once.

It is important for the student to note carefullythe line taken by psychological text-books aboutthis. To note, that is, whether they represent mindas compounded out of given units by a process ofassociation, or as growing by differentiation of acontinuous tissue or texture. It is interesting in thisrespect to compare Sully's earlier and later books(Outllnes of Psychology an d TIle Human Mlnd), andto note also how far the structlire of his book tellsthe same tale with its doctrines. James, in thepreface to his text-book, explains that he prefers toproceed "from the more concrete mental aspectswith which we are best acquainted to the so-calledelements which we naturally come to know later byway of abstraction. The opposite order of ' buildingu p ' the mind out of i t s ' units of composition' hasthe merit of expository elegance, and gives a neatlysubdivided table of contents; but it often purchasesthese advantages at the cost of reality and truth ...we really gain a more living understanding of themind by keeping our attention as long as possibleupon our entire conscious states as they are concretelygiven to us, than by the post-morte1n .study of theircomminuted 'elernents.' This last is the study ofartificial abstractions, not of natural things."


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11 GENERAL NATURE OF PSYCHICAL EVENTS 17

Ward's account of the psychical continuum (Ency.B,it., Ninth ed., vol. xx. p. 45) is quite clear, and shouldbe carefully read. " We are led," he tells us, "alikeby particular facts and general considerations to theconception ofatotum ob.jectlvum or objective continuumwhich is gradually differentiated, thereby becomingwhat we call distinct presentations, just as with mentalgrowth some particular presentation, clear as a whole,as Leibnitz would say, becomes a complex of distinguishable parts. Of the very beginning of thiscontinuum we can say nothing: absolute beginningsare beyond the pale of science. Actual presentationconsists in this continuum being differentiated, andevery differentiation constitutes a new presentation."The Atomism which denies a psychical continuum inthis sense is a fallacy very like (and contemporarywith) the fallacy of the social contract in its crudestform; it antedates the independent existence of theindividual.

We have said that, indirectly, better observationon psychological ground has done much to rectifythis fallacy. We may mention two points withreference to which this is specially noticeable: (a)less conscious or sub-conscious presentations; (b) onespecial portion of these--organic sensations.(a) With regard to sub-conscious presentations ingeneral, it was probably Herbart who first drewattention to them. By employing the conception ofthe cc threshold of consciousness," and thinking ofpresentations as rising above or falling below thisthreshold according as they are more or less clearlypresent, we avoid the mistake of confining ourtheoretical considerations to that part of consciousness which we are most definitely attending to. We

C


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18 PSYCHOLOGY OF THoE MORAL SELF LECT.may illustrate this from the focus of vision. Whenwe fix our eyes upon any object so that it is clearlydiscriminated-that forms, as it were, the centre ofour vision, but does not cover the whole field-thereis much that is not attended to, that is out of focus,and therefore indistinct. In the same way thepresentations which occupy the focus of attention atany moment are really the smallest part of whatthe mind has present to it; there is a field which isoccupied by presentations which are not in focus,and therefore not discriminated, and the whole state of consciousness takes its colouring very much fromthese. This sub-conscious mass changes very slowly,and in every person probably has certain permanentand many habitual elements, and in this way goesfar to bind consciousness together as one whole. I tis interesting to connect this theory of sub-consciousness with the question of Feellng and the elementsof thought and reason which are implicit in it, an dwhich enable it to serve as a real principle. (SeeHegel, Htst. ofPhilos. (E. Tr.), Hi. 400.)(b) The so-called organic sensations consist of allthe obscure sensations that go to make up our bodilycomfort or discomfort; the total result is sometimescalled the Crenesthesis or "common feeling." Thisdoes not seem to be noticed by Locke or Hume, butit .. is noticed in Bain. I t forms a very importantfactor in the psychical continuum, for though it isnot usually in the focus of attention, it is always inthe margin, and forms the background of our wholeconscious life. While it persists, our sense of ouridentity remains unshaken, whatever vicissitudes wemay undergo; while to grave changes in it areprobably due such pathological phenomena as the


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11 GENERAL NATURE OF PSYCHICAL EVENTS 19"duplication of the ego," or the hallucination ofpoisoning which is apt to accompany the onset oflunacy.

To omit these elements as absolute facts ofpsychological observation was sheer omission ofpsychical material on the part of the older psycho-logists. By taking this material in, our view of themind is made much more concrete. The simile ofa series, or collection, or train of ideas now yields tothat of mass and wave (the base of the wave contain-ing the marginal, its crest the focal elements), ofwhich all the parts react on each other.(H.) But even when we have accepted the psychicalcontinuum and the psychical mass or wave, there isstill the question as to how we should regard itscontinuity. After all is said, it remains true thateach pulse of mind, each advance of the wave, inone sense each presentation, is an event which neverrecurs. We need, therefore, some account of thenature of the continuity or identity of this con ..tinuum; and it is quite possible for the essentialfaults of Atomism to continue along with the recogni-tion of a mass or wave of presentations as a psychicalfact. We may, that is, continue to confuse theevents with their reference or meaning.

A very fair test as to whether psychologists makethis confusion is their statement of the Law ofAssociation (here we are anticipating). What is itthat Association marries? events in the soul orgeneralised contents? Take Bain's statement (Mentalor Moral Science, p. 85)-" Actions, Sensations, andStates of Feeling, occurring together in close succes-sion, tend to grow together or cohere in such a waythat when anyone of them is afterwards presented


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20 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF LECT.to the mind, the others are apt to be brought up in.idea." Clearly what we have here is a resurrectionof mere events. (For a further criticism of this viewsee Ward, EnC)'. Brit., Ninth ed., vol. xx. p. 60.)A further test of the presence of this confusion isthe use of the" Law of Obliviscence JJ as a normalpart of the Associative process. If A suggests d, itis said, it does so because it suggests a, which wasformerly presented as abed, and so is connectedwith d; but because only d is now suggested, it isnecessary to account for the disappearance of abcby the law of obliviscence, by the action of whichthey are so attenuated as to become invisible links.In other words, on this theory, in order to get fromthe A which suggests to the d which is suggested. wemust, it is said, go round through the details of aformer presentation. But since these details do notappear in consciousness, it is obvious that we cannotverify them, and the question is whether we reallygo through them at all. .1 pass a particular house,and it recalls to me a friend who used to live there.Must I on principle, suppose that my mind has goneround-unconsciously-through the details of someformer event in which he and the house were con-nected-say a call which I made there on the 2ndof May; or may I not suppose simply that ageneral connection has been formed by which onepart of the content directly reinstates the other?As an instance of the misleading influence of thistheory, we may notice its application (first by aclergyman named Gay, and afterwards by Hartleyand others) to the problem of means and ends.The miser, it is said, begins by desiring money-likeother people-for what it will get; it is at first only


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IJ GENERAL NATURE OF PSYCHICAL EVENTS 21

a means to other ends. By what process does hecome to make the money the one end of his exist-ence to the exclusion of all others? The Associa-tionists explain that it is because the feelingsformerly connected with the ends have becomegradually associated with the means so closely thatfinally they become transferred to it. (See Bradley'sEthical Studies, p. 60.)With this ordinary law of Association we maynow compare Bradley's statement (Mind, O.S., xii.358). "Every mental element when present tendsto reinstate those elements with which it has beenpresented." An cc element" here means any dis-tinguishable aspect of the matter or content, and notany particular event in the soul. We need not herego further into this question, which has been raised

in this lecture merely to explain Atomism. But wemust bear in mind that we shall always haveAtomismin pnnciple, until the content of the soul connectsitself together, and in order to do this it must gobeyond events to meanings. So long as the workof connection is thrown upon" attention," or "the sub-ject," and so long as events are connected instead ofcontents, we continue to have psychological confusion.

What is really wanted to complete the idea ofthe psychical continuum is fl true account of identity.This' must just reverse Hume's doctrine (I.e.) thatidentity is added to the string of perceptions by theobserver, who thus comes to regard the mind as identi-cal with itself: Identity must really belong to theperceptions, and unite them together. The questionis, whether we take identity to consist in the exclusionofdifference; if we db, we have Atomism, and can getno further than A is A. We shall return to this later.


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LECTURE IIICOGNITION-THE GROWTH OF CONSCIOUSNESS

IN this lecture we have to consider what Cognitionis from the point of view of Psychology; in otherwords, we have to consider the development of aworld as it takes place de facto. The question ofthe valldity of the cognition does not primarilyconcern us. In our next lecture we shall considermore in detail the processes by which Cognitiondevelops.

Our criticism of the doctrine of Association maybe supplemented by contrasting the term itself withsuch terms as " community," " corporation," orcc unity." It implies that the view taken is of independent units, which are the same in the combination as out of it, and are tied or linked as such byAssociation; and historically it really originated insuch a view. The general truth implied in it is,that phases of the soul, such as presentations, canbe traced in time, and that a sort of causation, or atleast a natural sequence, can be observed in them;the real principle being, however, not a linking ofunits, but organisation by identities of content.

Our starting-point, then, must be different fromthat assumed by the doctrine of Association strictly


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LBCT. III COGNITION-GROWTH OF CONSCIOUSNESS 23

taken. I t must be a continuous presentation, to bedescribed either as feeling, or, as others would say,as having the three aspects of feeling, conation, andsensation (or cognition). The conception is that ofa direct experience which is a multiplicity of determinations, but does not distinguish them; a stateprior to consciousness, and also continuing as oneside of consciousness. The question is important asan attempt to get something which embraces ourwhole psychosis as a single experience-as ourself:Then, if we call it Feeling, it is not feeling in th esense of mere Pleasure or Pain. But there is not avery great practical difference between the two views,for there must be movement and variety in feeling,and it becomes merely a question of how weought to describe their presence in a very simplestate of soul. Fo r instance, there would be changein feeling as the presentations changed, but not atfirst a feeling of succession; that needs some one (ormore) group of presentations which is felt as persistent against the rest. Thus movement would bethere, but how would it be presented? We have toimagine a more or less vaguely felt continuum,gradually differentiating itself into qualitativelydistinct sensations, and then developing into theconsciousness which is so varied as to have theappearance of being made up of tnany differentelements and aspects. In its earlier stages thisvague continuum might be like our dream-world,through which ghosts of presentations are constantlygliding without any attempt on our part to organisethem, or mould them into the solidity of reality.Hence the saying that there is no surprise indreams; every wave of presentation just is, and


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PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF LECT.we accept it without speculation as to its source orreason.

The problem for Psychology is to get from thisvague continuum, or dream-world, to our wakingworld, as organised in Space and Time, and as contrasted with our mere ideas-the world to which,in our Cognition, Perception is especially relative.We are capable of Perception in the most generalsense when we have erected a persistent group within

our presentations into a "real object," i.e. into something which is a presentation, but is more than amere presentation, and which therefore exercisesconstraint on the course of psychical events. Objects in space are the simplest instance. Withthem there arises the distinction between signs andobjects; mere ideas are signs.

In order to get to this stage from the mere massof feeling which is the undeveloped soul, the chiefmatter of principle is to obtain the distinction betweenchanges in the presentation mass which are due toits previous course, and changes which maintainthemselves against its course, or which seem tointerfere with it, to collide with or guide it. Thisis the germ of the distinction between mere ideaand reality, and it is only with reality that we getto Cognition. To work out the development wouldinvolve an account of a very long stage of evolution;but there is no doubt that the force at work is thatof interference-as a rule, of disappointment.

In order to account for the development we haveto assume-

Ci.) That the total presentation has recurringelements.(ii.) That a presented element tends to reproduce


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II I COGNITION-GROWTH OF CONSCIOUSNESS 2Sthe elements with which it has been presented (aform of the laws of Association) in such a wayUlat there is a tendency to form groups.

(Hi.) That there are movements in the organismwhich are brought about by, and themselves bringabout, changes in the presentation mass, and thatthese changes are pleasant or painful.Then the general type of process would be:change in the presentation mass, say an indication

of food within reach, followed by a movement whichis felt, and is such as has previously brought aboutanother change in the presentation mass, say contactwith the food. If the movement always succeededin bringing about this second change, it is difficultto see how progress should take place. But if wesuppose the movement (which is felt) to fail, thenit would result in two contradictory presentationstied together. The change in the presentation wouldbe forced to analyse itself: to break up into con-flicting elements. The movement would in partproduce the same feeling .as before by its effect onthe outside of the organism (we leave out for thepresent 11,olor feelings, if there are any), and thiswould reproduce by association the feeling of contactwith food and consequent pleasure; but the fact offailure would actually produce a different feeling,possibly contact with some substance that causedpain. The two elements would struggle, there wouldbe tension and pain, and finally the objective one,as we call i t - the one corresponding to the physicalfact-would drive the other, or merely mental element,out.

At first this is all nothing more than a successionof psychical modifications. Strictly speaking, we


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cannot say that it is expectation and disappoint-ment, because the suggestion of contact with foodsimply came as a fact of presentation, and we mustnot assume that at first the soul treats it as ane ~ p e c t a t i o n - i . e . as something which promised or re-ferred to cl future fact of a different order from itselBut after experience of the conflict then thesuggestion of pleasure would tend to become a mereexpectation; that is to say, when the feeling or" themovement was agaln suggested it would bring thecollision of feelings along with it; the suggestion ofthe food would be there, but accompanied by asuggestion of possible failure, and this must ulti-mately lead to the required distinction when, afterthe movement, th e presentation either occurs ordoes not occur.

The conflict would then give ri.se to a distinctionbetween the continuous psychical course and thegrouped and recurring presentations that have powerto constrain or disappoint it. The conflicting sug-

g ~ s t i o n s of pleasant and painful contact necessarilycome to be distinguished from the unambiguouspresentations which the reality will give; and finally,a psychical suggestion would come to be regarded asa mere separable sign of the constraining presentation,-a sign, that is, which might be experienced apartfrom the presentation, but is no longer a single factin its own right.Perception would then become possible. Itsessence would not be th e mere blending of apsychical suggestion with a presentation havingpoints of identity with i t -not merely a feeling offood rel1iforced by contact with real food and somaintaining itself; it would be the blending of ideal


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III COGNITION-GROWTH OF CONSCIOUSNESS 27

elements by identity with the objective presentationafter the two have passed through a thoroughopposition to each other, and the sign is distinguished from the thing signified. THIS is what Iwanted, or THIS is my food. F is f. Then at lastthe blending through identity of points in thecontent means a judgment.Perceptlon of Space (Inner and Outer).-Our. explanation of the Perception of Space, and of howit has been developed, will depend again uponwhether we accept or reject psychological Atomism.

To the Associationist, Space can be constructed bythe linking together of sensations which originallyformed one or more Time series, and then byoccurring simultaneously became associated into theperception of Space. This, however, really amountsto saying that sense of Space is at bottom the senseof Time; and that is quite contrary to the facts ofexperience. (See Ward, Ency. Ent., Ninth ed., vol.xx. p. 53.)

On the other hand we make the problem evenharder than it is by treating elementary presentationsas if they had to be either inward or outward in thedeveloped sense. This is a distinction which onlyappears later; for we cannot have Inner except incontrast with Outer. Thus the problem is not inan y case one of changing inner presentations-i.e.mental changes, known as suck-into outer ones; butof differentiating a given world, a world which wouldnot present itself as changes in a mind, as a time-series, but simply as a given mass.

Ward and James express this non-inwardnesswhich precedes the development of full spatialcharacter, by saying that "extensity," as the mere


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possibility of differentiation, is primitive. James,indeed, seems to say that all sensations are extendedin .three d im en si on s- t: e. t ha t they all contain theelement of voluminousness, which is the originalsensation of space; a view which seems incomprehensible, e.g., about sound. Nor does it seem likelythat his belief in an original third dimension of space,which is perceived immedlately, can be justified. Butthere is no doubt that, whether we accept the termcc extensity" or not, sensations of touch and sightmust have from the beginning a kind of more andless which is other than intensity; that is, they musthave spatial character, parts outside one another,and capable of being recognised as outside oneanother in the developed consciousness.When we have assumed spatial quality as belonging to certain of our presented groups, then recog-'nisable feelings of movement and contact help us togive definition to the size an d relative position ofthose groups. All localisation must have its originin reference to the body, and the first question whicharises is the question as to how sensations arelocalised by the subject in different parts of thebody. The process can only be explained by as-'suming some difference in the sensations themselves,or their accompaniments, which e n ~ b l e s us afterexperience to assign them to some definite positionin space. The sensation must contain or be accompanied by some sign indicating the locality at whichthe stimulus is felt. One suggestion has been thatevery nerve conveys in addition to the sensation an"extra-impression," which serves as this local sign,and indicates to what position the stimulus whichgives rise to the sensation is to be referred. Lotze,


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III COGNITION-GROWTH OF CONSCIOUSNESS 29in discussing the nature of this extra-impression,suggests that no stimulus, not even the prick of apin, is really confined in its effect to a mathematicalpoint, but that owing to the continuity of the skinthere are accompanying displacements, each in itsturn giving rise to its special subordinate sensationwhich acc_ompanies the main sensation in consciousness. This .Would fulfil the requirement Cl that all thespatial relations of the stimulus acting on us should bereplaced by" (or translated into) "a system of graduated qualitative tokens," or local signs. (Lotze, Meta-physics, Bk. Hi. ch. iv.; see also Ward, Ency. En"t., Ninthed., vol. xx. p. 54).1 When we have succeeded indeveloping this system of local signs-when, that is,experience has enabled lis to differentiate them out ofthe original vague continuum-then we are able to referthings to their places in connection with our bodies.

Another question arises as to the perception ofdistance. Is it only obtained by association with touchand movement, or is it a true optical sensation?James seems to maintain that it is seen immediately,and is not .merely constructed from our experience.But strictly speaking it is not visible; in the line ofvision point covers point, and it is only as planesurfaces emerge that there is anything to be seen.It is our interpretation of the relations between theseplane surfaces, as given in their sizes and colouring,and combined with our experience of movements,which enables us to construct a third dimension, l.e.to see distance. But James's conception of measurement by thi1zgs which we identify seems very true asan account of the development of the perception"

1 For a criticism of Lotze's view, see Ktilpe's Outlines ofPsychology(E . Tr.), sect. 61.


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PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF LECT.Touch and movement are necessary to give us thefirst idea of the third dimension, but the presentationalgroups would help to develop i t Here we seehow much depends on the identification of presenta-tional groups. Spatial reality is the system of groupswhich we connect with our bodies.

So also in Time; the essence of the perceptiondepends on the formation within the psychicalcontinuum of groups that have phases. But inorder that succession may give rise to the idea ofsuccession, there must be something which is recog-nised as interesting and persistent throughout thesuccessive phases. It seems natural to suppose thatthe interest in succession (such as expectation, or thecontrast of the actual present and the unreal future,and memory as introducing expectation) would existlong before what we mean by Time arose-that is,before any idea of comparative duration arose.Tenses have been said to arise out of moods.Probably at first, Time would be merely a systemof occasions or signals for action, which would thus bemuch like any instinctive action, and it might havevery little to do with sense of duration. Birds willgo to roost in an eclipse, accepting the darkness asa signal, without regard to the time at which itoccurs, i.e. to the duration of the day. But thisnaturally develops into a process of holding togetherthe phases of two groups, which may of course beone's bodily feelings and another group, and notinghow far they coincide. Fatlure to coincide would beespecially noticeable; "mid-day sun and no food! "and the fear that the light would go before food wasobtained would give rise to interest in succession.James's idea of measurement by things perhaps


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III COGNITION-GROWTH OF CONSCIOUSNESS 31applies in Time also. It seems doubtful whether webegin measurement by accurate phases of the bodygroup; though we might begin with hunger. Thephases of those objects which demand customaryaction would develop the idea of comparative duration by the attention directed upon them. If wetake for instance the distinction between winter andsummer nights, the difference of length could suggestitself very slowly. An animal might by instinctavoid a long chase on a winter's day, and try it on asummer's day; but when a creature came to remember and notice that it could go very muchfurther by daylight in summer than in winter, thenwe have the germ of a comparison of duration.

The essential for any idea of succession at all is,that several phases of some rhythm should be heldtogether in memory against some constant element;and this is the germ of comparing two sets of phasestogether by asking how many of the one rhythm goto one of the other? It is impossible to comparedirectly the phases of the same succession. Thereis no attempt at accurate JlIdgment until we come tosimple physical theory, such as is involved in thewater-clock or the sand-glass; there is, indeed, noneed to ask whether the days are equal, so longas sunrise, noon, and sunset adequately dictate ourmovements.

With regard to our construction of the temporalseries, Ward suggests that it is effected, or at leastfacilitated by the cc movements of attention." Theadjustments of expectation, etc., may be remembered,and so help us to throw a series into order when welook back upon it; but unless there were also somereason for the order the tendency would probably


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32 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF LECT.not be very strong. The judging of short intervals,again, has to do with the rhythm of respiration, etc.,but this is not the principal source of division usedfor practical purposes. That is always axiomatic,resting on the assumed constancy of some naturalprocess, as in the examples above referred to. (C:author's Knowledge and Reality, p. 329).Pltyst"cal Reality implies both Space and Time;Space as relation to the body group, and Time asthe iq.ea of persistence apart from our psychicalcourse. It has' been shown above how we endowthings with separate existence in order to explaincontradictions, due to change of phases contradictingthe suggestions of our psychical course.Consciousness. - Consciousness as opposed tounconsciousness is taken to cover all soul-life; butin this sense it must not be identified with consciousnesspar e ~ c e l l e n c e - t h e state of mind which definitelyhas an object before it, and seems to have little orno content for the subject; the state of mind, thatis, which regards the objective world as a givensomething which is not itself: This is the positionof common sense, and it is continued by abstractionin the physical sciences, which, as we saw, take nonotice of belng in the soul at all, but treat the processof knowledge as a mere analysis of something givenoutside the self. No doubt consciousness may bebound to become se(t:consciousness as soon as wereflect upon it, but the position of common-senseis that it does not reflect.Is not the body the self in early soul-life? Notexactly so; there is more and less in the nucleusof the Self from the first; and the body is graduallypassed over into the objective world. This process


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In COGNITION-GROWTH OF CONSCIOUSNESS 33really leads up to a reaction. Common-sense endsby passing everything over into the "other," e.g.when we discover that sensation is not at the nervetips, we begin to treat nerves as outside mind; butthis "other" is being organised, and really is theorganised content of the soul; although we, in ourcommon-sense stage, have forgotten that it is so,and have set it over against the bare abstract Self,thus preparing for another stage.

D

\,\,\


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LECTURE IVTHE ORGANISATION OF INTELLIGENCE

I. THE central point of our last lecture was thedevelopment of cognition as it takes place in theformation of groups within the psychical continuum.In this lecture we shall consider the names givento different aspects of the processes by which thesegroups are formed and react upon one another insuch a way as to develop thought We shall find.that these processes fall under two main heads,Blending and Reproduction. The aspects knownas Assimilation, Discrimination, and Apperceptionbelong chiefly to Blending; while Association be-longs to Reproduction. (The subject of attention istoo wide to be dealt with here. It may be regardedeither as a general name for the laws according towhich presentation takes place, or in a more specialsense for volition.)

2. Assimilation and Discrimination are generallytreated as correlative processes, both employed inthe " elaboration of mind JJ (see Sully, Human Mt"nd,chap. vii.), but of an opposite tendency. The fact is,that apart from the theory of identity (see Lecture11.), their relation is very hard to state. Generally


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LECT. IV THE ORGANISATION OF INTELLIGENCE 3S

speaking, they are regarded as alternating, first alittle of one and then a little of the other; andaccording as psychologists have a preference for oneor the other, that one is represented as being ofprimary importance, and preceding the other. (SeeSully, I.e.) We seem to get nearer the truth if weregard them both as different aspects of one and thesame process. Certainly we can hardly describe theone without implying the other.(a) Assimilation is elementary recognltion (seeWard,Enty. Brlt., Ninth ed., vol. xx.), the' mere percez:vlngas like; that is to say, it is recognition unaccompaniedby any process of localisation, or of conscious com-parison. In this sense it is recognition in its earlierstages, or the germ of recognition.1 The process issomething like this: a change in the presentationcontinuum such as has taken place before, recurs; inrecurring, it coalesces with the residuum of its fonner. occurrence, and it thus appears as familiar; i.e. itis recognised as a. previous experience, even thoughthe circumstances of its former occurrence cannot bereproduced.Why does the recurrence of a change make itseem familiar? The mere reinforcement by theresiduum of a previous change may make the im-pression stronger or clearer than it would otherwisehave been, but there seems to be no reason why itshould give rise to a feeling of familiarity, theconsciousness that it has been there before. This

1 I do not feel sure whether the note of familiarity, of cc I have seenthat before," which marks assimilation par excellence, is present in allperception in an appreciable degree, except where there is distinct un-familiarity. In returning to one's own house or room it is certainlythere. But the interest ofa positive perception-the"what is i t ? " -often dwarfs the cc seen before."


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must probably be due to a suggestion of difference.The change itself has occurred before, but underdifferent circumstances, and 'therefore with differentpsychical accompaniments. As the new contentblends with the residuum of the old, ,two differentcontexts, the present and the past, are broughttogether, and we are aware-more or less con-sciously-of the same content in different settings.This is what constitutes familiarity. The process isthus a twofold one; the blending of new and oldbrings to light, or at any rate suggests, difference, andat the same time the element of identity is rein-forced. For instance, I am looking for a street, buthave forgotten its name. Suddenly I come upon itand recognise it ; i.e. in the first place I nottee thename; I pick it out from amongst all the othersbecause it is emphasised by blending with the sub-conscious residuum. But this by itself is not enough.I might notice it because it was written in largerletters, and so emphasised above the others; and merenoticing is not recognition. But as I notice thename it also faintly suggests the past context inwhich it was presented, and which differed in somerespects from the present; thus a difference, a vaguevista of continuity reaching beyond the given context,is suggested, and the feeling of fam.iliarity appears ;the feeling o as it were, comparing the presentationwith itself and finding it the same.Strictly speaking, to assimilate would morenaturally mean to make like, than to recognise asbeing like. Wundt brings this out clearly byinsisting on the way in which we are apt to transferthe different context of our present perception to theprevious one to which it is assimilated, or vice


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IV THE ORGANISATION OF INTELLIGENCE 37versa, of the previous perception to the present one.This may be done to a degree which actuallyamounts to illusion; our preconceived idea actuallymodifies the presentation as we receive it. He givesas an instance the illusion produced by the roughdaubs of the scene-painter, which are supplementedby, or assimilated to, our former experience of landscapes, and so endowed with the qualities of reality.It is, no doubt, a question how far there is an illusionby means of the transference of differences, and howfar the presentation does actually undergo change.

Why do the groups of presentations within thepsychical continuum form as they do? Why, thatis, do not colours group with colours, smells withsmells, and touches with touches; instead of feel andcolour and smell combining together in one group asone thing? One reason, no doubt, is that Associationdoes not take place-as it has so often been saidto do-by similarity. (See Ward, Ency. Brit., Ninthed., vol. xx., p. 56.)But the chief reason is, that the groups, in thefirst place, are given in this way, and in the second,act (i.e. are interesting for us) in these combinations.Sensations of the same sense, such as two colours ortwo sounds, tend to exclude each other. It is sensations of different senses that can most naturally bepresented together, ~ n when the group has beenformed the one sensation becomes a sign of theothers. Groups which constantly cohere in this waycome to be assimilated (recognised) as wholes whichaffect us, and are therefore discriminated from thebackground because of their importance for life,before their elements are separately assimilated andrecognised as qualities. In science, that is when we


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PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF LECT.begin to reflect upon them, we do arrange our sensations in qualitative series; we disengage them, thatis, from the groups in which they are originallygiven, and re-group them according to their kind.

(13) This leads us to Discrimination. Here wemay note some points in James's chapter on Discrimination (Text-book, p. 244). In the first placethe elements to be discriminated must, as he says, bedifferent if we are to know them as different. Butdifference does not of itself make discrimination.T,vo different elements may be presented withoutthe difference being noticed; this corresponds to anunassimilated presentation. As James points out,impressions, to be discriminated, must be erperi'encedseparately by the mind. But here we must be careful to define what we mean by separately j an isolatedimpression is never experienced. The point is, thatany element, before it can be discriminated, must bepresented in different surroundings or in a differentcontext. Further, the elements to be discriminatedmust have a common basis. Take as an instance" goodness" and "two o'clock." Each is itself, thetwo are quite different, but there is neither assimilation nor discrimination between them; there is nopsychical relation at all. We cannot have discrimination, i'.e. felt or perceived difference, without afight on the basis of identity, without having thesame content in different contexts (see last lecture),and this begins with assimilation. The very senseof familiarity has the germ of difference in it, ofpersistence through two contexts.Using a formula, we may say, A is given in twocontexts, AB and AC; when it is presented againit suggests both Band C, which must conflict until


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IV THE ORGANISATION OF INTELLIGENCE 39

they find a modus v':vendi. This modus vlvendl is arelation of difference. "When a red ivory ball, seenfor the first time, has been withdrawn, it will leave amental representation of itself, in which all that itsimultaneously gave us will indistinguishably co-exist.Let a white ball succeed to it; now, and not before,will an attribute detach itself, and the colour, by forceof contrast, be shaken out into the foreground. Letthe white ball be replaced by an egg, and this newdifference will bring the form into notice fromits previous slumber, and thus, that which began bybeing simply an object cut out from the surroundingscene becomes for us first a red object, then a redround object, and so on U (Martineau in lames, I.e.).Or we may take as another instance a tree as itappears with its leaves off, and again with its leaveson; here what is needed to make us recognise it asthe same tree under different conditions is the relationof time-difference, with all that it involves. But quiteat first no definite relation is perceived; there is simplya feeling of familiarity, of persistence; a feeling, thatis, of a former context accompanying assimilation.

3. Apperception.-James deals with this term ina short section in his chapter on Perception, andexplains that he has not used it because of the verydifferent meanings which have at various timesattached to i t It is a word with an eventful history,and .played a great part in Kant's system. Wemay perhaps say that what it meant for Kant wasthe modification produced in the matter of perceptionowing to the nature of the perceiving mind. Thisis an attempt to do what has since been done morefully-to insist, that is, upon the activity of the mind


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PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF LECT.in perception, and to explain the nature of thatactivity. In this explanation the chief danger tobe avoided is that of representing Apperception assome kind of innate faculty, in a sense approachingthat of the old faculty-Psychology. For its modernor Herbartian meaning we may take Mr. Stout'sdefinition of Apperception as "the process by whicha mental system appropriates a new element, orotherwise receives a fresh determinati6>n." It is onecase of blending, sometimes leading to the reproduction of a former context; but the term hasspecial reference to the modifications which areproduced in the new element by its incorporationwith the old. In this respect it is not unlikeWundt's assimilation. It is important to remarkthat the old element itself may, or indeed must, bemodified in the process. We cannot treat the oldelements, the "apperceiving mass," a being entirelyactive, while the new element is entirely passive,and merely allows itself to be appropriated withoutexercising an y influence on its appropriator. Onthis point James quotes from Steinthal as follows:"Although the a pnori moment commonly showsitself to be the more powerful, Apperception-processes can perfectly well occur in which the newobservation transforms or enriches the apperceivinggroups of ideas. A child who hitherto has seennone but four-cornered tables apperceives a roundone as a table, but by this the apperceiving mass(' table ') is enriched. To his previous knowledgeof tables comes this new feature, that they need notbe four-cornered, but may be round." In this waythe doctrine connects with that of Connotation andDenotation, illustrating the defectiveness of the view


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according to which they vary inversely; by addingto the kinds of things denoted by a term, the childadds also to the qualities connoted by it.This influence of the mind upon perception, whichconstitutes what is known as apperception, is capableof infinite illustration. The child who called a ferna " pot of green feathers" interpreted the novelobject by an acquired disposition; he saw what hehad seen before, not what the country child would: see.The different perceptions which different people willhave of the same object can only be explained bythe contents of their minds, which have interpretedthe perception differently in each case. "On aparticular occasion during the recent visit of theEmpress of Germany to London it became the dutyof the reporters of the public journals to describeHer Imperial Majesty's dress. The Times statedthat the Empress was in 'gold brocade,' whileaccording to the Daily News she wore a C sumptuouswhite silk dress.' The Standard, however, tookanother view- ' The Empress wore something whichwe trust it is not vulgar to call light mauve.' Onthe other hand, the Daily Chronicle was hardly inaccord with any of the others- ' To us it seemedalmost a sea-green, and yet there was now a creamand now an ivory sheen to it '" (Quoted from Globe,in Rooper on " Object-teaching.") It is the old truth,that "the eye can only see what it brings with itthe power of seeing," expanded into a whole theoryof mind. It may be illustrated in a wider way fromthe varying conceptions of history; our" histories"are the offspring of our current interests.

The psychical elements which form the contentsof the mind are so grouped and interconnected as


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42 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF LECT.to constitute what are technically known as Ap -percipient masses or systems. M. Paulhan (Stout'sPsychology) compares this mental grouping to theorganisation within a commonwealth. Some of thesystems may be very simple, while others are verycomplex; the simpler ones will be generally subordinate to the complex ones, and throughout therewill be more or less interaction. Systems maycompete with each other, they may also co-operate.They will compete when, and in so far as, theytend to exclude each other from contact with agiven presentation; difficulties in classifying anynew object or cc specimen" will be due to this rivalrybetween appercipient systems, or indecision as towhich of two interests we will sacrifice. On theother hand they will co-operate in so far as theyexcite each other by some coherence between them.A system is strengthened in competition by thenumber of co-operating systems which are excited,so to say, on lts Stae. By their adherence it gains inweight and interest, and gradually drives its rivalfrom the field. Appercipient masses are the ideaswhich are more or less dominant pro te1n., and theywill vary in prominence according to the interestbefore the mind, whether this interest be internally orexternally originated. They cc rise to the occasion."Generic ideas are in this sense appercipientmasses. By blending they reinforce that elementof the presentation which has a common contentwith them, and the other elements which they donot share are thrust out of sight, unless some otherappercipient mass is awakened to receive them.

As an instance of the way in which the dominantmass determines what content shall hold the field,


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we ma y note the effect of contert in determiningthe interpretation we put upon words. The word" secular" has two meanings; and if it stands inisolation, there is no way of deciding what meaningis to be attached to it ; probably the most commonone will be suggested. But in reading the line"Through all the secular to be," the force of thecontext is so strong as not only to determine themeaning, but in some cases as to exclude even thesuggestion of the alternative. The same is trueof all words in so far as they are found in a livingcontext, and not in the isolation of the spelling-book.

Not only may the systems of appercipient massesbe compared to organisations of persons; they actu-ally constitute their common mind and will. Tosay that certain persons have common interestsmeans that in this or that respect their minds aresimilarly or correlatively organised, that they willreact in the same or correlative ways upon givenpresentations. It is this identity of mental organisa-tion w h i c ~ is the psychological justification for thedoctrine of the General Will.Passing from Apperception we come to Associa-tion. In philosophical interest it is subordinate toapperception, which is almost equivalent to theorganised working of the mind, an d this. carries usto the higher stages of conscious life; but as themachlnery of the mind Association is fundamental.The doctrine really dates from Plato (Phaedo, 73 sq.).His point is to bring the whole process of knowledgeunder the law of reproduction, in order to establishhis avap,V'1}Uf,f;; it is the recovery by Association ofmental possessions which we have lost For him


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the process of reproduction is the same as that ofknowledge. All given presentations act by suggestion, and therefore come under the general headof reproduction. In Phaedo, 76, he clearly indicatescases of association by contiguity and resemblance."For we saw that this was possible: that when perceiving something, whether by sight or hearing orany other kind of sense, one may, from this perception, get a suggestion of something else which onehad forgotten, to which the first mentioned wascontiguous, though unlike, or to which it \vas like."Aristotle, again, suggests as the laws of Association - Resemblance, Contrast, Co-existence, andSuccession, or, combining the last two, Contiguity.Contrast is now admitted to be a case of contiguity, and similarity remains as the great recentcrux (see Bradley, Logic, and Ward, I.e.). It is adifficulty of principle. Similarity only exists whentwo ideas are before the mind, and therefore itcannot be used to reproduce one of those two.Moreover, it is only needed as an explanation if weregard images' as simple; if we admit that they areall complex, it can be reduced to contiguity (seeLecture 11.). The given elements abe reproducetheir former context by contiguity, and that formercontext persists and is compared with the givenobject. Take the case of the portrait, which Platouses; the portrait consists of elements abcde, theidea of the actual person consists of elements abcfg.The identical abc suggests fg, with which it is contiguous in the other context, and then the portraitis compared \vith the idea of the actual person.James points out (Text-Book, p. 270) that thereis no tendency to this recall by similarity amongst


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\V THE ORGANISATION OF INTELLIGENCE 4Sslmple ideas; it is only where compiex ideas havean identical element that we find it. In what hecalls "focalised' recall," the active element, afterawakening its new set of associates, continues per-szstently active along with them; that is, it is anelement identical in the two ideas.

Contigulty.-It is no doubt an improvement toreduce association to contiguity, as Ward and Jameshave done; but the question of the elements betweenwhich the contiguity or connection operates stillremains. The principle that Association marriesonly universals has been discussed in dealing withPsychological Atomism. When the identical elementin operation has a number of associates, what determines which will be recalled? (See James, p. 264 ;Bradley, Logic.) It resolves itself into a questionof apperception; those associates which are in connection with the dominant appercipient system willbe introduced, while others will be neglected.

The nature of identity is at the root of thequestion. We might represent it by a forked lineY; two lines having an identical part. Certainly it isnot singularity (see Ward, I.e., p. 8 I), for this excludesdifference. The way in which the whole questionof Atomism is here involved may be brought out byasking ourselves in what our ideal of knowledgeconsists. Is it " A is A," the mere repetition of thesame concept? or is it "man is animal," the connection of two concepts by an element common toboth?

The distinction has been drawn between materialand individual identity, but perhaps it is not anultimate one. Individual identity is one of content,in which we may treat a new beginning as consti-


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46 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF LECT. IVtuting an essen.tial difference or not, according toits laws of change. If interruption in time is to beregarded as fatal to individual identity, what becomesof the identity of my mind, with its periodicallapses? or, again, of the House of Commons as anelement in the British Constitution?

To sum up: All cognition is Identity assertingitself:


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LECTURE VSELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

I . Its Relation to Consclousness. - Regarded asphases in the development of mind, consciousnessand self-consciousness are not strictly successive,although of course the higher tends to becomepredominant in the later stages of developmentAccording to our view of self-consciousness, a savagemust have his form of it (perhaps even the higheranimals have something corresponding to it) in hisfeelings of success or of being equal to what has tobe done. In quite an elementary stage of development we have the feeling of what is expected of us,or necessary, in order that the world may recogniseus; the feeling that finds expression, e.g., in saying" eta me connait" instead of" I know it."

2. Its RelatiOn to Cognition.-Consciousness, onthe whole, we have classed mainly under cognition;it is necessarily a more one-sided state of mind thanself-consciousness. As its type we took the Judgment of Perception; or, on a large scale, NaturalScience. The attitude of consciousness is: I knowthis object, which is given, which is simply contrasted with me. The subject in this state of mind


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PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF LECT.is very abstract, or indeed practically disappears;the self is felt rather than reflected on.Self-consciousness has, of course, its cognitiveside, but it can hardly be included under cognition.In explaining the origin even of consciousness, wehad to take action into account, and this is still morethe case with self-consciousness. When reflection isattracted to the s e l ~ which is more or less of a unity,the will cannot be disregarded, though in ~ o g n i t i o nwe may perhaps abstract from it. As Sciencecorresponds to Consciousness, so Philosophy corresponds to Self-consciousness; as compared with theabstract sciences it is a return to the concrete, andin it again we come nearer to the element of Will.I t expresses the attitude of the self to experience,and in this sense experimental science has someaffinity to it.

3. The Element of Will.-The general nature ofself-consciousness is that it recognises itself as anobject, which passes into recognising the object asitself: Conscionsness keeps the two, the self andthe object, distinct and apart (see James's Analysisof the Self). In producing this recognition theelement of self-assertion is plainly operative. Wemay recall the effect ascribed to disappointment ingenerating consciousness; successful self-assertionagainst the object tends to produce the feeling thatits independence or resistance is a sham, that it isnot really alien. Indeed, as Hegel points out, wedo not really believe that the objects of the externalworld exist in their own right, since we go so faras to eat and drink them. We have a parallel tothis in Cognition when we discover that science,


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v SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 49"the reality of things," is, in fact, a system ofthoughts. Then" otherness" takes a last refugein the "Thing in itself," which is a mere thought;cc we lift the curtain which hides the last recess, andfind that there is nothing to be seen, unless, indeed,we go behind the curtain ourselves, both for thepurpose of seeing and in order that there may besomething to see" (Hegel, Phenom. p. 126). Thenat last we recognise that all along this process hasin some sense or another been within the self; thatthe object is not alien, but is always passing overinto the self:

4. The Recognition of Persons.-Hegel illustratesthe transition from Consciousness to Self-consciousness by a social evolution-that from slavery tocivilised equality in a commonwealth. The importantelement to him is the element of recognition ofanother's personality, or of our own personality byanother; and this in its lowest form exists as theresult of a struggle, such as the struggle betweenslave and master. (Compare also the strugglebetween Beatrice and Benedick.) The slave, thoughin one sense a mere thing, is capable of recognition,and has accepted the position of subservience insuch a way that he reflects his master's will or selfassertion, "and thereby makes it aware of itself:Then by a long process of evolution this inequalityis stripped of4 until in a civilised commonwealthwe have the reciprocal recognition of free individuals,in whom the same self-consciousness responds toitself, and constitutes a system of rights and dutiesand aims which is the positive substance of selfconseiousness. If we compare self-consciousness inE


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so PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MORAL SELF LECT.the bad sense, we find that the term is used whenthe self is indeed aware of itself but cannot countupon a positive place, upon that definite recognition. which constitutes its reality. It is the form ofself-consciousness without an adequate content.Speaking generally, it is only in the medium ofrecognition that a ...realised self-consciousness canexist; outside of this medium we get either thehero or the lunatic. This is important for thetheory of rights.

In recent Psychology this view is represented bythe account of the self as a person (Ward, I.e., p. 84), orof the social self (James). It may be questioned howfar the conflict with other selves, and recognition bythem, are necessary to the psychological developmentof self-consciousness. All that seems necessary intheory is collision against our object, with enoughimpression on it to mark it as " mine." Is the body,as the source of pleasure and pain, sufficient for thepurpose? It is extraordinary how much it takesto start self-consciousness, especially in the absenceof looking-glasses; 1 in the early part of a healthylife it hardly occurs to us that we have an appearanceat all; and we shall find that it is usually theestimate of others, or our estimate of them, thatsuggests it. A tiger, or even a savage, can only feelthe effect of its own appearance from seeing itsfellows. Language, self-decoration, sexual selection,the family, everything which helps to fix the attention on those persistent presentation groups whichare in definite relation with the s e l ~ must help. To

1 Cf. "Cas. Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?Brut. No, Cassius; for the eye ~ e not itself,But by reflection, by some other things."


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v SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS SI

sum up: Self-consciousness, as we experi'ence -it, isfor the most part social.s. The Meani'ngs of Se{f.-James makes a useful.distinction between " I " and (( me " ; the self asknower and the self as known. The known self orme he distinguishes again into the materi'al me, the .soci'al tne, and the spiritual me. These are not somuch phases as different aspects of the developed

s e l ~ an analysis of what can be called "mine" intodivisions which correspond roughly to (i.) propertyor products, (ii.) reputation, (Hi.) mind. All that isin any sense mine goes to make up the me, andfrom the first more is mine than my own body.Perhaps also less. According to James our socialselves are other people's ideas of us; but to this weshould add that they are other people's ideas of usas reflected i'nto our own 'ideas. These analyses arevery important for questions of altruism and egoism,and we shall have more to say of them. But if wecompare pp. I 84, 194, 195, we shall find that Jamesdoes not make full use of his analyses. He comesto use the expressions "bodily self-seeking" and" egoism" quite uncritically, in the vulgar sense;forgetting, e.g., that the material or bodily me, as hehas described it, would include quite impersonalresults, such as an artist's pictures.Ward's analysis is perhaps more difficult. Hedistinguishes the Bodily Self, the Inner Self, and theSelf as Person. These are more like phases thanelements, and' we may note that he uses theexpression "first of all" in speaking of the BodilySelf. But from the first the core of experiencesidentified' with feeling probably includes more than


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the body group; it includes whatever has not beenseparated by special division, such as experiences ofthe home and family, and there seems no reason tothink that these would be sifted out as we go backto more primitive stages where discrimination is less.Of course we must not think of an accurate perception of our bodies at an early stage: that developswith the spatial discrimination of objects in general.

The Inner Self (see also Sully) 1 seems to bethe mind considered as a thing inside the body, likethe ghost or soul which the savage believes in, andlocated perhaps in the breast, where emotion seemsto be felt. There is a difficulty in distinguishingbetween content and locality. The Homeric Greeksays, cc I too have a mind fashioned in my breast, inno way defective." He identifies the seat of mindwith that of emotional d i s t u ~ b a n c e , but the contentof his self.-his body and arms and ancestry andactions-is not confined to this mind-thing. Herewe have the germ of the distinction between thePsychological and Logical point of view. Thesavage has his mind; it is not hi

bernard bosanquet psychology of the moral self london 1897 rep 1904

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