that of the more adorable things, and that the things of worth are all concretes and singulars. The only value of universal characters is that they help us, by reasoning, to know new truths about individual things. The restriction of one's meaning, moreover, to an individual thing, probably requires even more complicated brain-processes than its extension to all the instances of a kind; and the mere mystery, as such, of the knowledge, is equally great, whether generals or singulars be the things known. In sum, therefore, the traditional Universal-worship can only be called a bit of perverse sentimentalism, a philosophic 'idol of the cave.'

Nothing can be conceived as the same without being conceived in a novel state of mind. It seems hardly necessary to add this, after what was said on p. 156. Thus, my armchair is one of the things of which I have a conception; 1 knew it yesterday and recognized it when I looked at it. But if I think of it to-day as the same arm-chair which I looked at yesterday, it is obvious that the very conception. of it as the same is an additional complication to the thought, whose inward constitution must alter in consequence. In short, it is logically impossible that the same thing should be known as the same by two successive copies of the same thought. As a matter of fact, the thoughts by which we know that we mean the same thing are apt to be very different indeed from each other. We think the thing now substantively, now transitively; now in a direct image, now in one symbol, and now in another symbol; but nevertheless we somehow always do know which of all possible subjects we have in mind. Introspective psychology must here throw up the sponge; the fluctuations of subjective life are too exquisite to be described by its coarse terms. It must confine itself to bearing witness to the fact that all sorts of different subjective states do form the vehicle by which the same is known; and it must contradict the opposite view.

CHAPTER XV.

DISCRIMINATION.

Discrimination versus Association.-On p. 15 I spoke of the baby's first object being the germ out of which his whole later universe develops by the addition of new parts from without and the discrimination of others within. Experience, in other words, is trained both by association and dissociation, and psychology must be writ both in synthetic and in analytic terms. Our original sensible totals are, on the one hand, subdivided by discriminative attention, and, on the other, united with other totals,—either through the agency of our own movements, carrying our senses from one part of space to another, or because new objects come successively and replace those by which we were at first impressed. The simple impression' of Hume, the simple idea' of Locke are abstractions, never realized in experience. Life, from the very first, presents us with concreted objects, vaguely continuous with the rest of the world which envelops them in space and time, and potentially divisible into inward elements and parts. These objects we break asunder and reunite. We must do both for our knowledge of them to grow; and it is hard to say, on the whole, which we do most. But since the elements with which the traditional associationism performs its constructions-simple sensations,' namely-are all products of discrimination carried to a high pitch, it seems as if we ought to discuss the subject of analytic attention and discrimination first.

Discrimination defined. The noticing of any part whatever of our object is an act of discrimination. Already on p. 218 I have described the manner in which we often spon

taneously lapse into the undiscriminating state, even with regard to objects which we have already learned to distinguish. Such anæsthetics as chloroform, nitrous oxide, etc., sometimes bring about transient lapses even more total, in which numerical discrimination especially seems gone; for one sees light and hears sound, but whether one or many lights and sounds is quite impossible to tell. Where the parts of an object have already been discerned, and each made the object of a special discriminative act, we can with difficulty feel the object again in its pristine unity; and so prominent may our consciousness of its composition be, that we may hardly believe that it ever could have appeared undivided. But this is an erroneous view, the undeniable fact being that any number of impressions, from any number of sensory sources, falling simultaneously on a mind WHICH HAS NOT YET EXPERIENCED THEM SEPARATELY, will yield a single undivided object to that mind. The law is that all things fuse that can fuse, and that nothing separates except what must. What makes impressions separate is what we have to study in this chapter.

Conditions which favor Discrimination.—I will treat successively of differences:

(1) So far as they are directly felt;

(2) So far as they are inferred;

(3) So far as they are singled out in compounds.

Differences directly felt.-The first condition is that the things to be discriminated must BE different, either in time, place, or quality. In other words, and physiologically speaking, they must awaken neural processes which are distinct. But this, as we have just seen, though an indispensable condition, is not a sufficient condition. To begin with, the several neural processes must be distinct enough. No one can help singling out a black stripe on a white. ground, or feeling the contrast between a bass note and a high one sounded immediately after it. Discrimination is here involuntary. But where the objective difference is

less, discrimination may require considerable effort of attention to be performed at all.

Secondly, the sensations excited by the differing objects must not fall simultaneously, but must fall in immediate SUCCESSION upon the same organ. It is easier to compare successive than simultaneous sounds, easier to compare two weights or two temperatures by testing one after the other with the same hand, than by using both hands and comparing both at once. Similarly it is easier to discriminate shades of light or color by moving the eye from one to the other, so that they successively stimulate the same retinal tract. In testing the local discrimination of the skin, by applying compass-points, it is found that they are felt to touch different spots much more readily when set down one after the other than when both are applied at once. In the latter case they may be two or three inches apart on the back, thighs, etc., and still feel as if they were set down in one spot. Finally, in the case of smell and taste it is well-nigh impossible to compare simultaneous impressions at all. The reason why successive impression so much favors the result seems to be that there is a real sensation of difference, aroused by the shock of transition from one perception to another which is unlike the first. This sensation of difference has its own peculiar quality, no matter what the terms may be, between which it obtains. It is, in short, one of those transitive feelings, or feelings of relation, of which I treated in a former place (p. 161); and, when once aroused, its object lingers in the memory along with the substantive terms which precede and follow, and enables our judgments of comparison to be made.

Where the difference between the successive sensations is but slight, the transition between them must be made as immediate as possible, and both must be compared in mem ory, in order to get the best results. One cannot judge accurately of the difference between two similar wines whilst the second is still in one's mouth. So of sounds, warmths, etc.-we must get the dying phases of both sen

sations of the pair we are comparing. Where, however the difference is strong, this condition is immaterial, and we can then compare a sensation actually felt with another carried in memory only. The longer the interval of time between the sensations, the more uncertain is their discrimination.

The difference, thus immediately felt between two terms, is independent of our ability to say anything about either of the terms by itself. I can feel two distinct spots to be touched on my skin, yet not know which is above and which below. I can observe two neighboring musical tones to differ, and still not know which of the two is the higher in pitch. Similarly I may discriminate two neighboring tints, whilst remaining uncertain which is the bluer or the yellower, or how either differs from its mate.

I said that in the immediate succession of m upon n the shock of their difference is felt. It is felt repeatedly when we go back and forth from m to n; and we make a point of getting it thus repeatedly (by alternating our attention at least) whenever the shock is so slight as to be with difficulty perceived. But in addition to being felt at the brief instant of transition, the difference also feels as if incorporated and taken up into the second term, which feels 'different-from-the-first' even while it lasts. It is obvious that the second term ' of the mind in this case is not bald n, but a very complex object; and that the sequence is not simply first 'm,' then 'difference,' then 'n'; but first 'm,' then 'difference,' then 'n-different-from-m. The first and third states of mind are substantive, the second transitive. As our brains and minds are actually made, it is impossible to get certain m's and n's in immediate sequence and to keep them pure. If kept pure, it would mean that they remained uncompared. With us, inevitably, by a mechanism which we as yet fail to understand, the shock of difference is felt between them, and the second object is not n pure, but n-as-different-from-m. The pure idea of n is never in the mind at all when m has gone before.