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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Analysis of Mind, by Bertrand Russell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Analysis of Mind
+
+Author: Bertrand Russell
+
+Commentator: H. D. Lewis
+
+Posting Date: December 6, 2008 [EBook #2529]
+Release Date: February, 2001
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANALYSIS OF MIND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dianne Bean
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ANALYSIS OF MIND
+
+By Bertrand Russell
+
+1921
+
+
+
+
+MUIRHEAD LIBRARY OF PHILOSOPHY
+
+
+An admirable statement of the aims of the Library of Philosophy was
+provided by the first editor, the late Professor J. H. Muirhead, in his
+description of the original programme printed in Erdmann's History of
+Philosophy under the date 1890. This was slightly modified in subsequent
+volumes to take the form of the following statement:
+
+"The Muirhead Library of Philosophy was designed as a contribution to
+the History of Modern Philosophy under the heads: first of Different
+Schools of Thought--Sensationalist, Realist, Idealist, Intuitivist;
+secondly of different Subjects--Psychology, Ethics, Aesthetics,
+Political Philosophy, Theology. While much had been done in England in
+tracing the course of evolution in nature, history, economics, morals
+and religion, little had been done in tracing the development of thought
+on these subjects. Yet 'the evolution of opinion is part of the whole
+evolution'.
+
+"By the co-operation of different writers in carrying out this plan it
+was hoped that a thoroughness and completeness of treatment, otherwise
+unattainable, might be secured. It was believed also that from writers
+mainly British and American fuller consideration of English Philosophy
+than it had hitherto received might be looked for. In the earlier series
+of books containing, among others, Bosanquet's "History of Aesthetic,"
+Pfleiderer's "Rational Theology since Kant," Albee's "History of English
+Utilitarianism," Bonar's "Philosophy and Political Economy," Brett's
+"History of Psychology," Ritchie's "Natural Rights," these objects were
+to a large extent effected.
+
+"In the meantime original work of a high order was being produced both
+in England and America by such writers as Bradley, Stout, Bertrand
+Russell, Baldwin, Urban, Montague, and others, and a new interest in
+foreign works, German, French and Italian, which had either become
+classical or were attracting public attention, had developed. The scope
+of the Library thus became extended into something more international,
+and it is entering on the fifth decade of its existence in the hope that
+it may contribute to that mutual understanding between countries which
+is so pressing a need of the present time."
+
+The need which Professor Muirhead stressed is no less pressing to-day,
+and few will deny that philosophy has much to do with enabling us to
+meet it, although no one, least of all Muirhead himself, would regard
+that as the sole, or even the main, object of philosophy. As Professor
+Muirhead continues to lend the distinction of his name to the Library
+of Philosophy it seemed not inappropriate to allow him to recall us to
+these aims in his own words. The emphasis on the history of thought also
+seemed to me very timely; and the number of important works promised
+for the Library in the very near future augur well for the continued
+fulfilment, in this and other ways, of the expectations of the original
+editor.
+
+H. D. Lewis
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+This book has grown out of an attempt to harmonize two different
+tendencies, one in psychology, the other in physics, with both of which
+I find myself in sympathy, although at first sight they might seem
+inconsistent. On the one hand, many psychologists, especially those
+of the behaviourist school, tend to adopt what is essentially a
+materialistic position, as a matter of method if not of metaphysics.
+They make psychology increasingly dependent on physiology and external
+observation, and tend to think of matter as something much more solid
+and indubitable than mind. Meanwhile the physicists, especially Einstein
+and other exponents of the theory of relativity, have been making
+"matter" less and less material. Their world consists of "events," from
+which "matter" is derived by a logical construction. Whoever reads, for
+example, Professor Eddington's "Space, Time and Gravitation" (Cambridge
+University Press, 1920), will see that an old-fashioned materialism can
+receive no support from modern physics. I think that what has permanent
+value in the outlook of the behaviourists is the feeling that physics is
+the most fundamental science at present in existence. But this position
+cannot be called materialistic, if, as seems to be the case, physics
+does not assume the existence of matter.
+
+The view that seems to me to reconcile the materialistic tendency of
+psychology with the anti-materialistic tendency of physics is the view
+of William James and the American new realists, according to which the
+"stuff" of the world is neither mental nor material, but a "neutral
+stuff," out of which both are constructed. I have endeavoured in this
+work to develop this view in some detail as regards the phenomena with
+which psychology is concerned.
+
+My thanks are due to Professor John B. Watson and to Dr. T. P. Nunn
+for reading my MSS. at an early stage and helping me with many valuable
+suggestions; also to Mr. A. Wohlgemuth for much very useful information
+as regards important literature. I have also to acknowledge the help
+of the editor of this Library of Philosophy, Professor Muirhead, for
+several suggestions by which I have profited.
+
+The work has been given in the form of lectures both in London and
+Peking, and one lecture, that on Desire, has been published in the
+Athenaeum.
+
+There are a few allusions to China in this book, all of which were
+written before I had been in China, and are not intended to be taken by
+the reader as geographically accurate. I have used "China" merely as
+a synonym for "a distant country," when I wanted illustrations of
+unfamiliar things.
+
+Peking, January 1921.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  I.   Recent Criticisms of "Consciousness"
+  II.  Instinct and Habit
+  III. Desire and Feeling
+  IV.  Influence of Past History on Present Occurrences
+            in Living Organisms
+  V.   Psychological and Physical Causal Laws
+  VI.  Introspection
+  VII. The Definition of Perception
+  VIII.Sensations and Images
+  IX.  Memory
+  X.   Words and Meaning
+  XI.  General Ideas and Thought
+  XII. Belief
+  XIII.Truth and Falsehood
+  XIV. Emotions and Will
+  XV.  Characteristics of Mental Phenomena
+
+
+
+
+THE ANALYSIS OF MIND
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE I. RECENT CRITICISMS OF "CONSCIOUSNESS"
+
+There are certain occurrences which we are in the habit of calling
+"mental." Among these we may take as typical BELIEVING and DESIRING.
+The exact definition of the word "mental" will, I hope, emerge as
+the lectures proceed; for the present, I shall mean by it whatever
+occurrences would commonly be called mental.
+
+I wish in these lectures to analyse as fully as I can what it is that
+really takes place when we, e.g. believe or desire. In this first
+lecture I shall be concerned to refute a theory which is widely held,
+and which I formerly held myself: the theory that the essence of
+everything mental is a certain quite peculiar something called
+"consciousness," conceived either as a relation to objects, or as a
+pervading quality of psychical phenomena.
+
+The reasons which I shall give against this theory will be mainly
+derived from previous authors. There are two sorts of reasons, which
+will divide my lecture into two parts:
+
+(1) Direct reasons, derived from analysis and its difficulties;
+
+(2) Indirect reasons, derived from observation of animals (comparative
+psychology) and of the insane and hysterical (psycho-analysis).
+
+Few things are more firmly established in popular philosophy than the
+distinction between mind and matter. Those who are not professional
+metaphysicians are willing to confess that they do not know what mind
+actually is, or how matter is constituted; but they remain convinced
+that there is an impassable gulf between the two, and that both belong
+to what actually exists in the world. Philosophers, on the other hand,
+have maintained often that matter is a mere fiction imagined by mind,
+and sometimes that mind is a mere property of a certain kind of matter.
+Those who maintain that mind is the reality and matter an evil dream are
+called "idealists"--a word which has a different meaning in philosophy
+from that which it bears in ordinary life. Those who argue that matter
+is the reality and mind a mere property of protoplasm are called
+"materialists." They have been rare among philosophers, but common,
+at certain periods, among men of science. Idealists, materialists, and
+ordinary mortals have been in agreement on one point: that they knew
+sufficiently what they meant by the words "mind" and "matter" to be able
+to conduct their debate intelligently. Yet it was just in this point, as
+to which they were at one, that they seem to me to have been all alike
+in error.
+
+The stuff of which the world of our experience is composed is, in my
+belief, neither mind nor matter, but something more primitive than
+either. Both mind and matter seem to be composite, and the stuff of
+which they are compounded lies in a sense between the two, in a sense
+above them both, like a common ancestor. As regards matter, I have set
+forth my reasons for this view on former occasions,* and I shall not now
+repeat them. But the question of mind is more difficult, and it is this
+question that I propose to discuss in these lectures. A great deal of
+what I shall have to say is not original; indeed, much recent work, in
+various fields, has tended to show the necessity of such theories as
+those which I shall be advocating. Accordingly in this first lecture
+I shall try to give a brief description of the systems of ideas within
+which our investigation is to be carried on.
+
+     * "Our Knowledge of the External World" (Allen & Unwin),
+     Chapters III and IV. Also "Mysticism and Logic," Essays VII
+     and VIII.
+
+If there is one thing that may be said, in the popular estimation, to
+characterize mind, that one thing is "consciousness." We say that we are
+"conscious" of what we see and hear, of what we remember, and of our own
+thoughts and feelings. Most of us believe that tables and chairs are
+not "conscious." We think that when we sit in a chair, we are aware
+of sitting in it, but it is not aware of being sat in. It cannot for
+a moment be doubted that we are right in believing that there is SOME
+difference between us and the chair in this respect: so much may be
+taken as fact, and as a datum for our inquiry. But as soon as we try to
+say what exactly the difference is, we become involved in perplexities.
+Is "consciousness" ultimate and simple, something to be merely accepted
+and contemplated? Or is it something complex, perhaps consisting in our
+way of behaving in the presence of objects, or, alternatively, in the
+existence in us of things called "ideas," having a certain relation
+to objects, though different from them, and only symbolically
+representative of them? Such questions are not easy to answer; but until
+they are answered we cannot profess to know what we mean by saying that
+we are possessed of "consciousness."
+
+Before considering modern theories, let us look first at consciousness
+from the standpoint of conventional psychology, since this embodies
+views which naturally occur when we begin to reflect upon the subject.
+For this purpose, let us as a preliminary consider different ways of
+being conscious.
+
+First, there is the way of PERCEPTION. We "perceive" tables and chairs,
+horses and dogs, our friends, traffic passing in the street--in short,
+anything which we recognize through the senses. I leave on one side for
+the present the question whether pure sensation is to be regarded as a
+form of consciousness: what I am speaking of now is perception, where,
+according to conventional psychology, we go beyond the sensation to the
+"thing" which it represents. When you hear a donkey bray, you not only
+hear a noise, but realize that it comes from a donkey. When you see a
+table, you not only see a coloured surface, but realize that it is hard.
+The addition of these elements that go beyond crude sensation is said to
+constitute perception. We shall have more to say about this at a later
+stage. For the moment, I am merely concerned to note that perception
+of objects is one of the most obvious examples of what is called
+"consciousness." We are "conscious" of anything that we perceive.
+
+We may take next the way of MEMORY. If I set to work to recall what
+I did this morning, that is a form of consciousness different from
+perception, since it is concerned with the past. There are various
+problems as to how we can be conscious now of what no longer exists.
+These will be dealt with incidentally when we come to the analysis of
+memory.
+
+From memory it is an easy step to what are called "ideas"--not in the
+Platonic sense, but in that of Locke, Berkeley and Hume, in which they
+are opposed to "impressions." You may be conscious of a friend either
+by seeing him or by "thinking" of him; and by "thought" you can be
+conscious of objects which cannot be seen, such as the human race,
+or physiology. "Thought" in the narrower sense is that form of
+consciousness which consists in "ideas" as opposed to impressions or
+mere memories.
+
+We may end our preliminary catalogue with BELIEF, by which I mean that
+way of being conscious which may be either true or false. We say that a
+man is "conscious of looking a fool," by which we mean that he believes
+he looks a fool, and is not mistaken in this belief. This is a different
+form of consciousness from any of the earlier ones. It is the form which
+gives "knowledge" in the strict sense, and also error. It is, at least
+apparently, more complex than our previous forms of consciousness;
+though we shall find that they are not so separable from it as they
+might appear to be.
+
+Besides ways of being conscious there are other things that would
+ordinarily be called "mental," such as desire and pleasure and pain.
+These raise problems of their own, which we shall reach in Lecture III.
+But the hardest problems are those that arise concerning ways of being
+"conscious." These ways, taken together, are called the "cognitive"
+elements in mind, and it is these that will occupy us most during the
+following lectures.
+
+There is one element which SEEMS obviously in common among the different
+ways of being conscious, and that is, that they are all directed to
+OBJECTS. We are conscious "of" something. The consciousness, it seems,
+is one thing, and that of which we are conscious is another thing.
+Unless we are to acquiesce in the view that we can never be conscious
+of anything outside our own minds, we must say that the object of
+consciousness need not be mental, though the consciousness must be. (I
+am speaking within the circle of conventional doctrines, not expressing
+my own beliefs.) This direction towards an object is commonly regarded
+as typical of every form of cognition, and sometimes of mental life
+altogether. We may distinguish two different tendencies in traditional
+psychology. There are those who take mental phenomena naively, just as
+they would physical phenomena. This school of psychologists tends not to
+emphasize the object. On the other hand, there are those whose primary
+interest is in the apparent fact that we have KNOWLEDGE, that there is a
+world surrounding us of which we are aware. These men are interested in
+the mind because of its relation to the world, because knowledge, if
+it is a fact, is a very mysterious one. Their interest in psychology
+is naturally centred in the relation of consciousness to its object, a
+problem which, properly, belongs rather to theory of knowledge. We may
+take as one of the best and most typical representatives of this school
+the Austrian psychologist Brentano, whose "Psychology from the Empirical
+Standpoint,"* though published in 1874, is still influential and was the
+starting-point of a great deal of interesting work. He says (p. 115):
+
+     * "Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte," vol. i, 1874.
+     (The second volume was never published.)
+
+"Every psychical phenomenon is characterized by what the scholastics of
+the Middle Ages called the intentional (also the mental) inexistence of
+an object, and what we, although with not quite unambiguous expressions,
+would call relation to a content, direction towards an object (which is
+not here to be understood as a reality), or immanent objectivity. Each
+contains something in itself as an object, though not each in the same
+way. In presentation something is presented, in judgment something is
+acknowledged or rejected, in love something is loved, in hatred hated,
+in desire desired, and so on.
+
+"This intentional inexistence is exclusively peculiar to psychical
+phenomena. No physical phenomenon shows anything similar. And so we
+can define psychical phenomena by saying that they are phenomena which
+intentionally contain an object in themselves."
+
+The view here expressed, that relation to an object is an ultimate
+irreducible characteristic of mental phenomena, is one which I shall be
+concerned to combat. Like Brentano, I am interested in psychology, not
+so much for its own sake, as for the light that it may throw on the
+problem of knowledge. Until very lately I believed, as he did, that
+mental phenomena have essential reference to objects, except possibly in
+the case of pleasure and pain. Now I no longer believe this, even in
+the case of knowledge. I shall try to make my reasons for this rejection
+clear as we proceed. It must be evident at first glance that the
+analysis of knowledge is rendered more difficult by the rejection; but
+the apparent simplicity of Brentano's view of knowledge will be found,
+if I am not mistaken, incapable of maintaining itself either against
+an analytic scrutiny or against a host of facts in psycho-analysis and
+animal psychology. I do not wish to minimize the problems. I will
+merely observe, in mitigation of our prospective labours, that thinking,
+however it is to be analysed, is in itself a delightful occupation,
+and that there is no enemy to thinking so deadly as a false simplicity.
+Travelling, whether in the mental or the physical world, is a joy, and
+it is good to know that, in the mental world at least, there are vast
+countries still very imperfectly explored.
+
+The view expressed by Brentano has been held very generally, and
+developed by many writers. Among these we may take as an example his
+Austrian successor Meinong.* According to him there are three elements
+involved in the thought of an object. These three he calls the act, the
+content and the object. The act is the same in any two cases of the same
+kind of consciousness; for instance, if I think of Smith or think
+of Brown, the act of thinking, in itself, is exactly similar on both
+occasions. But the content of my thought, the particular event that
+is happening in my mind, is different when I think of Smith and when I
+think of Brown. The content, Meinong argues, must not be confounded with
+the object, since the content must exist in my mind at the moment when
+I have the thought, whereas the object need not do so. The object may
+be something past or future; it may be physical, not mental; it may
+be something abstract, like equality for example; it may be something
+imaginary, like a golden mountain; or it may even be something
+self-contradictory, like a round square. But in all these cases, so
+he contends, the content exists when the thought exists, and is what
+distinguishes it, as an occurrence, from other thoughts.
+
+     * See, e.g. his article: "Ueber Gegenstande hoherer Ordnung
+     und deren Verhaltniss zur inneren Wahrnehmung," "Zeitschrift
+     fur Psychologie and Physiologie der Sinnesorgane," vol. xxi,
+     pp. 182-272 (1899), especially pp. 185-8.
+
+To make this theory concrete, let us suppose that you are thinking of
+St. Paul's. Then, according to Meinong, we have to distinguish three
+elements which are necessarily combined in constituting the one thought.
+First, there is the act of thinking, which would be just the same
+whatever you were thinking about. Then there is what makes the character
+of the thought as contrasted with other thoughts; this is the content.
+And finally there is St. Paul's, which is the object of your thought.
+There must be a difference between the content of a thought and what it
+is about, since the thought is here and now, whereas what it is about
+may not be; hence it is clear that the thought is not identical with St.
+Paul's. This seems to show that we must distinguish between content
+and object. But if Meinong is right, there can be no thought without an
+object: the connection of the two is essential. The object might exist
+without the thought, but not the thought without the object: the three
+elements of act, content and object are all required to constitute the
+one single occurrence called "thinking of St. Paul's."
+
+The above analysis of a thought, though I believe it to be mistaken, is
+very useful as affording a schema in terms of which other theories can
+be stated. In the remainder of the present lecture I shall state in
+outline the view which I advocate, and show how various other views
+out of which mine has grown result from modifications of the threefold
+analysis into act, content and object.
+
+The first criticism I have to make is that the ACT seems unnecessary and
+fictitious. The occurrence of the content of a thought constitutes
+the occurrence of the thought. Empirically, I cannot discover anything
+corresponding to the supposed act; and theoretically I cannot see that
+it is indispensable. We say: "_I_ think so-and-so," and this word "I"
+suggests that thinking is the act of a person. Meinong's "act" is the
+ghost of the subject, or what once was the full-blooded soul. It is
+supposed that thoughts cannot just come and go, but need a person to
+think them. Now, of course it is true that thoughts can be collected
+into bundles, so that one bundle is my thoughts, another is your
+thoughts, and a third is the thoughts of Mr. Jones. But I think
+the person is not an ingredient in the single thought: he is rather
+constituted by relations of the thoughts to each other and to the body.
+This is a large question, which need not, in its entirety, concern us
+at present. All that I am concerned with for the moment is that the
+grammatical forms "I think," "you think," and "Mr. Jones thinks," are
+misleading if regarded as indicating an analysis of a single thought.
+It would be better to say "it thinks in me," like "it rains here"; or
+better still, "there is a thought in me." This is simply on the
+ground that what Meinong calls the act in thinking is not empirically
+discoverable, or logically deducible from what we can observe.
+
+The next point of criticism concerns the relation of content and object.
+The reference of thoughts to objects is not, I believe, the simple
+direct essential thing that Brentano and Meinong represent it as being.
+It seems to me to be derivative, and to consist largely in BELIEFS:
+beliefs that what constitutes the thought is connected with various
+other elements which together make up the object. You have, say, an
+image of St. Paul's, or merely the word "St. Paul's" in your head. You
+believe, however vaguely and dimly, that this is connected with what
+you would see if you went to St. Paul's, or what you would feel if you
+touched its walls; it is further connected with what other people see
+and feel, with services and the Dean and Chapter and Sir Christopher
+Wren. These things are not mere thoughts of yours, but your thought
+stands in a relation to them of which you are more or less aware. The
+awareness of this relation is a further thought, and constitutes
+your feeling that the original thought had an "object." But in pure
+imagination you can get very similar thoughts without these accompanying
+beliefs; and in this case your thoughts do not have objects or seem to
+have them. Thus in such instances you have content without object. On
+the other hand, in seeing or hearing it would be less misleading to
+say that you have object without content, since what you see or hear is
+actually part of the physical world, though not matter in the sense of
+physics. Thus the whole question of the relation of mental occurrences
+to objects grows very complicated, and cannot be settled by regarding
+reference to objects as of the essence of thoughts. All the above
+remarks are merely preliminary, and will be expanded later.
+
+Speaking in popular and unphilosophical terms, we may say that the
+content of a thought is supposed to be something in your head when you
+think the thought, while the object is usually something in the outer
+world. It is held that knowledge of the outer world is constituted by
+the relation to the object, while the fact that knowledge is different
+from what it knows is due to the fact that knowledge comes by way of
+contents. We can begin to state the difference between realism and
+idealism in terms of this opposition of contents and objects. Speaking
+quite roughly and approximately, we may say that idealism tends to
+suppress the object, while realism tends to suppress the content.
+Idealism, accordingly, says that nothing can be known except thoughts,
+and all the reality that we know is mental; while realism maintains that
+we know objects directly, in sensation certainly, and perhaps also in
+memory and thought. Idealism does not say that nothing can be known
+beyond the present thought, but it maintains that the context of vague
+belief, which we spoke of in connection with the thought of St. Paul's,
+only takes you to other thoughts, never to anything radically different
+from thoughts. The difficulty of this view is in regard to sensation,
+where it seems as if we came into direct contact with the outer world.
+But the Berkeleian way of meeting this difficulty is so familiar that I
+need not enlarge upon it now. I shall return to it in a later lecture,
+and will only observe, for the present, that there seem to me no valid
+grounds for regarding what we see and hear as not part of the physical
+world.
+
+Realists, on the other hand, as a rule, suppress the content, and
+maintain that a thought consists either of act and object alone, or of
+object alone. I have been in the past a realist, and I remain a realist
+as regards sensation, but not as regards memory or thought. I will try
+to explain what seem to me to be the reasons for and against various
+kinds of realism.
+
+Modern idealism professes to be by no means confined to the present
+thought or the present thinker in regard to its knowledge; indeed, it
+contends that the world is so organic, so dove-tailed, that from any
+one portion the whole can be inferred, as the complete skeleton of an
+extinct animal can be inferred from one bone. But the logic by which
+this supposed organic nature of the world is nominally demonstrated
+appears to realists, as it does to me, to be faulty. They argue that,
+if we cannot know the physical world directly, we cannot really know
+any thing outside our own minds: the rest of the world may be merely our
+dream. This is a dreary view, and they there fore seek ways of escaping
+from it. Accordingly they maintain that in knowledge we are in direct
+contact with objects, which may be, and usually are, outside our own
+minds. No doubt they are prompted to this view, in the first place, by
+bias, namely, by the desire to think that they can know of the existence
+of a world outside themselves. But we have to consider, not what led
+them to desire the view, but whether their arguments for it are valid.
+
+There are two different kinds of realism, according as we make a thought
+consist of act and object, or of object alone. Their difficulties are
+different, but neither seems tenable all through. Take, for the sake of
+definiteness, the remembering of a past event. The remembering occurs
+now, and is therefore necessarily not identical with the past event.
+So long as we retain the act, this need cause no difficulty. The act
+of remembering occurs now, and has on this view a certain essential
+relation to the past event which it remembers. There is no LOGICAL
+objection to this theory, but there is the objection, which we spoke
+of earlier, that the act seems mythical, and is not to be found by
+observation. If, on the other hand, we try to constitute memory without
+the act, we are driven to a content, since we must have something that
+happens NOW, as opposed to the event which happened in the past. Thus,
+when we reject the act, which I think we must, we are driven to a theory
+of memory which is more akin to idealism. These arguments, however, do
+not apply to sensation. It is especially sensation, I think, which is
+considered by those realists who retain only the object.* Their views,
+which are chiefly held in America, are in large measure derived from
+William James, and before going further it will be well to consider
+the revolutionary doctrine which he advocated. I believe this doctrine
+contains important new truth, and what I shall have to say will be in a
+considerable measure inspired by it.
+
+     * This is explicitly the case with Mach's "Analysis of
+     Sensations," a book of fundamental importance in the present
+     connection. (Translation of fifth German edition, Open Court
+     Co., 1914. First German edition, 1886.)
+
+
+William James's view was first set forth in an essay called "Does
+'consciousness' exist?"* In this essay he explains how what used to be
+the soul has gradually been refined down to the "transcendental ego,"
+which, he says, "attenuates itself to a thoroughly ghostly condition,
+being only a name for the fact that the 'content' of experience IS
+KNOWN. It loses personal form and activity--these passing over to the
+content--and becomes a bare Bewusstheit or Bewusstsein uberhaupt, of
+which in its own right absolutely nothing can be said. I believe (he
+continues) that 'consciousness,' when once it has evaporated to this
+estate of pure diaphaneity, is on the point of disappearing altogether.
+It is the name of a nonentity, and has no right to a place among first
+principles. Those who still cling to it are clinging to a mere echo,
+the faint rumour left behind by the disappearing 'soul' upon the air of
+philosophy"(p. 2).
+
+     * "Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific
+     Methods," vol. i, 1904. Reprinted in "Essays in Radical
+     Empiricism" (Longmans, Green & Co., 1912), pp. 1-38, to
+     which references in what follows refer.
+
+
+He explains that this is no sudden change in his opinions. "For twenty
+years past," he says, "I have mistrusted 'consciousness' as an entity;
+for seven or eight years past I have suggested its non-existence to my
+students, and tried to give them its pragmatic equivalent in realities
+of experience. It seems to me that the hour is ripe for it to be openly
+and universally discarded"(p. 3).
+
+His next concern is to explain away the air of paradox, for James
+was never wilfully paradoxical. "Undeniably," he says, "'thoughts' do
+exist." "I mean only to deny that the word stands for an entity, but to
+insist most emphatically that it does stand for a function. There is, I
+mean, no aboriginal stuff or quality of being, contrasted with that of
+which material objects are made, out of which our thoughts of them are
+made; but there is a function in experience which thoughts perform,
+and for the performance of which this quality of being is invoked. That
+function is KNOWING"(pp. 3-4).
+
+James's view is that the raw material out of which the world is built
+up is not of two sorts, one matter and the other mind, but that it is
+arranged in different patterns by its inter-relations, and that some
+arrangements may be called mental, while others may be called physical.
+
+"My thesis is," he says, "that if we start with the supposition that
+there is only one primal stuff or material in the world, a stuff
+of which everything is composed, and if we call that stuff 'pure
+experience,' then knowing can easily be explained as a particular sort
+of relation towards one another into which portions of pure experience
+may enter. The relation itself is a part of pure experience; one of its
+'terms' becomes the subject or bearer of the knowledge, the knower, the
+other becomes the object known"(p. 4).
+
+After mentioning the duality of subject and object, which is supposed
+to constitute consciousness, he proceeds in italics: "EXPERIENCE, I
+BELIEVE, HAS NO SUCH INNER DUPLICITY; AND THE SEPARATION OF IT INTO
+CONSCIOUSNESS AND CONTENT COMES, NOT BY WAY OF SUBTRACTION, BUT BY WAY
+OF ADDITION"(p. 9).
+
+He illustrates his meaning by the analogy of paint as it appears in a
+paint-shop and as it appears in a picture: in the one case it is just
+"saleable matter," while in the other it "performs a spiritual function.
+Just so, I maintain (he continues), does a given undivided portion
+of experience, taken in one context of associates, play the part of a
+knower, of a state of mind, of 'consciousness'; while in a different
+context the same undivided bit of experience plays the part of a thing
+known, of an objective 'content.' In a word, in one group it figures as
+a thought, in another group as a thing"(pp. 9-10).
+
+He does not believe in the supposed immediate certainty of thought. "Let
+the case be what it may in others," he says, "I am as confident as I am
+of anything that, in myself, the stream of thinking (which I recognize
+emphatically as a phenomenon) is only a careless name for what, when
+scrutinized, reveals itself to consist chiefly of the stream of my
+breathing. The 'I think' which Kant said must be able to accompany all
+my objects, is the 'I breathe' which actually does accompany them"(pp.
+36-37).
+
+The same view of "consciousness" is set forth in the succeeding essay,
+"A World of Pure Experience" (ib., pp. 39-91). The use of the phrase
+"pure experience" in both essays points to a lingering influence of
+idealism. "Experience," like "consciousness," must be a product, not
+part of the primary stuff of the world. It must be possible, if James is
+right in his main contentions, that roughly the same stuff, differently
+arranged, would not give rise to anything that could be called
+"experience." This word has been dropped by the American realists, among
+whom we may mention specially Professor R. B. Perry of Harvard and Mr.
+Edwin B. Holt. The interests of this school are in general philosophy
+and the philosophy of the sciences, rather than in psychology; they have
+derived a strong impulsion from James, but have more interest than he
+had in logic and mathematics and the abstract part of philosophy. They
+speak of "neutral" entities as the stuff out of which both mind and
+matter are constructed. Thus Holt says: "If the terms and propositions
+of logic must be substantialized, they are all strictly of one
+substance, for which perhaps the least dangerous name is neutral-stuff.
+The relation of neutral-stuff to matter and mind we shall have presently
+to consider at considerable length." *
+
+     * "The Concept of Consciousness" (Geo. Allen & Co., 1914),
+     p. 52.
+
+My own belief--for which the reasons will appear in subsequent
+lectures--is that James is right in rejecting consciousness as an
+entity, and that the American realists are partly right, though not
+wholly, in considering that both mind and matter are composed of a
+neutral-stuff which, in isolation, is neither mental nor material. I
+should admit this view as regards sensations: what is heard or seen
+belongs equally to psychology and to physics. But I should say that
+images belong only to the mental world, while those occurrences (if any)
+which do not form part of any "experience" belong only to the physical
+world. There are, it seems to me, prima facie different kinds of causal
+laws, one belonging to physics and the other to psychology. The law
+of gravitation, for example, is a physical law, while the law of
+association is a psychological law. Sensations are subject to both kinds
+of laws, and are therefore truly "neutral" in Holt's sense. But entities
+subject only to physical laws, or only to psychological laws, are not
+neutral, and may be called respectively purely material and purely
+mental. Even those, however, which are purely mental will not have that
+intrinsic reference to objects which Brentano assigns to them and which
+constitutes the essence of "consciousness" as ordinarily understood. But
+it is now time to pass on to other modern tendencies, also hostile to
+"consciousness."
+
+There is a psychological school called "Behaviourists," of whom the
+protagonist is Professor John B. Watson,* formerly of the Johns Hopkins
+University. To them also, on the whole, belongs Professor John Dewey,
+who, with James and Dr. Schiller, was one of the three founders of
+pragmatism. The view of the "behaviourists" is that nothing can be known
+except by external observation. They deny altogether that there is a
+separate source of knowledge called "introspection," by which we can
+know things about ourselves which we could never observe in others.
+They do not by any means deny that all sorts of things MAY go on in
+our minds: they only say that such things, if they occur, are not
+susceptible of scientific observation, and do not therefore concern
+psychology as a science. Psychology as a science, they say, is only
+concerned with BEHAVIOUR, i.e. with what we DO; this alone, they
+contend, can be accurately observed. Whether we think meanwhile, they
+tell us, cannot be known; in their observation of the behaviour of human
+beings, they have not so far found any evidence of thought. True, we
+talk a great deal, and imagine that in so doing we are showing that we
+can think; but behaviourists say that the talk they have to listen to
+can be explained without supposing that people think. Where you might
+expect a chapter on "thought processes" you come instead upon a chapter
+on "The Language Habit." It is humiliating to find how terribly adequate
+this hypothesis turns out to be.
+
+     * See especially his "Behavior: an Introduction to
+     Comparative Psychology," New York, 1914.
+
+Behaviourism has not, however, sprung from observing the folly of men.
+It is the wisdom of animals that has suggested the view. It has always
+been a common topic of popular discussion whether animals "think." On
+this topic people are prepared to take sides without having the vaguest
+idea what they mean by "thinking." Those who desired to investigate such
+questions were led to observe the behaviour of animals, in the hope that
+their behaviour would throw some light on their mental faculties.
+At first sight, it might seem that this is so. People say that a
+dog "knows" its name because it comes when it is called, and that it
+"remembers" its master, because it looks sad in his absence, but wags
+its tail and barks when he returns. That the dog behaves in this way is
+matter of observation, but that it "knows" or "remembers" anything is an
+inference, and in fact a very doubtful one. The more such inferences are
+examined, the more precarious they are seen to be. Hence the study of
+animal behaviour has been gradually led to abandon all attempt at mental
+interpretation. And it can hardly be doubted that, in many cases of
+complicated behaviour very well adapted to its ends, there can be no
+prevision of those ends. The first time a bird builds a nest, we can
+hardly suppose it knows that there will be eggs to be laid in it, or
+that it will sit on the eggs, or that they will hatch into young birds.
+It does what it does at each stage because instinct gives it an impulse
+to do just that, not because it foresees and desires the result of its
+actions.*
+
+     * An interesting discussion of the question whether
+     instinctive actions, when first performed, involve any
+     prevision, however vague, will be found in Lloyd Morgan's
+     "Instinct and Experience" (Methuen, 1912), chap. ii.
+
+Careful observers of animals, being anxious to avoid precarious
+inferences, have gradually discovered more and more how to give
+an account of the actions of animals without assuming what we call
+"consciousness." It has seemed to the behaviourists that similar methods
+can be applied to human behaviour, without assuming anything not open
+to external observation. Let us give a crude illustration, too crude for
+the authors in question, but capable of affording a rough insight into
+their meaning. Suppose two children in a school, both of whom are asked
+"What is six times nine?" One says fifty-four, the other says fifty-six.
+The one, we say, "knows" what six times nine is, the other does not. But
+all that we can observe is a certain language-habit. The one child has
+acquired the habit of saying "six times nine is fifty-four"; the other
+has not. There is no more need of "thought" in this than there is when
+a horse turns into his accustomed stable; there are merely more numerous
+and complicated habits. There is obviously an observable fact called
+"knowing" such-and-such a thing; examinations are experiments for
+discovering such facts. But all that is observed or discovered is a
+certain set of habits in the use of words. The thoughts (if any) in the
+mind of the examinee are of no interest to the examiner; nor has the
+examiner any reason to suppose even the most successful examinee capable
+of even the smallest amount of thought.
+
+Thus what is called "knowing," in the sense in which we can ascertain
+what other people "know," is a phenomenon exemplified in their physical
+behaviour, including spoken and written words. There is no reason--so
+Watson argues--to suppose that their knowledge IS anything beyond the
+habits shown in this behaviour: the inference that other people
+have something nonphysical called "mind" or "thought" is therefore
+unwarranted.
+
+So far, there is nothing particularly repugnant to our prejudices in the
+conclusions of the behaviourists. We are all willing to admit that
+other people are thoughtless. But when it comes to ourselves, we feel
+convinced that we can actually perceive our own thinking. "Cogito, ergo
+sum" would be regarded by most people as having a true premiss. This,
+however, the behaviourist denies. He maintains that our knowledge of
+ourselves is no different in kind from our knowledge of other people.
+We may see MORE, because our own body is easier to observe than that of
+other people; but we do not see anything radically unlike what we see
+of others. Introspection, as a separate source of knowledge, is entirely
+denied by psychologists of this school. I shall discuss this question at
+length in a later lecture; for the present I will only observe that
+it is by no means simple, and that, though I believe the behaviourists
+somewhat overstate their case, yet there is an important element of
+truth in their contention, since the things which we can discover by
+introspection do not seem to differ in any very fundamental way from the
+things which we discover by external observation.
+
+So far, we have been principally concerned with knowing. But it might
+well be maintained that desiring is what is really most characteristic
+of mind. Human beings are constantly engaged in achieving some end
+they feel pleasure in success and pain in failure. In a purely material
+world, it may be said, there would be no opposition of pleasant and
+unpleasant, good and bad, what is desired and what is feared. A man's
+acts are governed by purposes. He decides, let us suppose, to go to a
+certain place, whereupon he proceeds to the station, takes his ticket
+and enters the train. If the usual route is blocked by an accident,
+he goes by some other route. All that he does is determined--or so it
+seems--by the end he has in view, by what lies in front of him, rather
+than by what lies behind. With dead matter, this is not the case.
+A stone at the top of a hill may start rolling, but it shows no
+pertinacity in trying to get to the bottom. Any ledge or obstacle will
+stop it, and it will exhibit no signs of discontent if this happens. It
+is not attracted by the pleasantness of the valley, as a sheep or cow
+might be, but propelled by the steepness of the hill at the place
+where it is. In all this we have characteristic differences between the
+behaviour of animals and the behaviour of matter as studied by physics.
+
+Desire, like knowledge, is, of course, in one sense an observable
+phenomenon. An elephant will eat a bun, but not a mutton chop; a duck
+will go into the water, but a hen will not. But when we think of our
+own desires, most people believe that we can know them by an immediate
+self-knowledge which does not depend upon observation of our actions.
+Yet if this were the case, it would be odd that people are so often
+mistaken as to what they desire. It is matter of common observation that
+"so-and-so does not know his own motives," or that "A is envious of B
+and malicious about him, but quite unconscious of being so." Such people
+are called self-deceivers, and are supposed to have had to go through
+some more or less elaborate process of concealing from themselves what
+would otherwise have been obvious. I believe that this is an entire
+mistake. I believe that the discovery of our own motives can only be
+made by the same process by which we discover other people's, namely,
+the process of observing our actions and inferring the desire which
+could prompt them. A desire is "conscious" when we have told ourselves
+that we have it. A hungry man may say to himself: "Oh, I do want my
+lunch." Then his desire is "conscious." But it only differs from an
+"unconscious" desire by the presence of appropriate words, which is by
+no means a fundamental difference.
+
+The belief that a motive is normally conscious makes it easier to be
+mistaken as to our own motives than as to other people's. When some
+desire that we should be ashamed of is attributed to us, we notice that
+we have never had it consciously, in the sense of saying to ourselves,
+"I wish that would happen." We therefore look for some other
+interpretation of our actions, and regard our friends as very unjust
+when they refuse to be convinced by our repudiation of what we hold to
+be a calumny. Moral considerations greatly increase the difficulty of
+clear thinking in this matter. It is commonly argued that people are not
+to blame for unconscious motives, but only for conscious ones. In order,
+therefore, to be wholly virtuous it is only necessary to repeat virtuous
+formulas. We say: "I desire to be kind to my friends, honourable in
+business, philanthropic towards the poor, public-spirited in politics."
+So long as we refuse to allow ourselves, even in the watches of the
+night, to avow any contrary desires, we may be bullies at home, shady in
+the City, skinflints in paying wages and profiteers in dealing with the
+public; yet, if only conscious motives are to count in moral valuation,
+we shall remain model characters. This is an agreeable doctrine, and
+it is not surprising that men are un willing to abandon it. But moral
+considerations are the worst enemies of the scientific spirit and we
+must dismiss them from our minds if we wish to arrive at truth.
+
+I believe--as I shall try to prove in a later lecture--that desire,
+like force in mechanics, is of the nature of a convenient fiction
+for describing shortly certain laws of behaviour. A hungry animal is
+restless until it finds food; then it becomes quiescent. The thing which
+will bring a restless condition to an end is said to be what is desired.
+But only experience can show what will have this sedative effect, and it
+is easy to make mistakes. We feel dissatisfaction, and think that
+such and-such a thing would remove it; but in thinking this, we are
+theorizing, not observing a patent fact. Our theorizing is often
+mistaken, and when it is mistaken there is a difference between what we
+think we desire and what in fact will bring satisfaction. This is such
+a common phenomenon that any theory of desire which fails to account for
+it must be wrong.
+
+What have been called "unconscious" desires have been brought very much
+to the fore in recent years by psycho-analysis. Psycho-analysis, as
+every one knows, is primarily a method of understanding hysteria and
+certain forms of insanity*; but it has been found that there is much
+in the lives of ordinary men and women which bears a humiliating
+resemblance to the delusions of the insane. The connection of dreams,
+irrational beliefs and foolish actions with unconscious wishes has been
+brought to light, though with some exaggeration, by Freud and Jung and
+their followers. As regards the nature of these unconscious wishes,
+it seems to me--though as a layman I speak with diffidence--that many
+psycho-analysts are unduly narrow; no doubt the wishes they emphasize
+exist, but others, e.g. for honour and power, are equally operative and
+equally liable to concealment. This, however, does not affect the
+value of their general theories from the point of view of theoretic
+psychology, and it is from this point of view that their results are
+important for the analysis of mind.
+
+     * There is a wide field of "unconscious" phenomena which
+     does not depend upon psycho-analytic theories. Such
+     occurrences as automatic writing lead Dr. Morton Prince to
+     say: "As I view this question of the subconscious, far too
+     much weight is given to the point of awareness or not
+     awareness of our conscious processes. As a matter of fact,
+     we find entirely identical phenomena, that is, identical in
+     every respect but one-that of awareness in which sometimes
+     we are aware of these conscious phenomena and sometimes
+     not"(p. 87 of "Subconscious Phenomena," by various authors,
+     Rebman). Dr. Morton Price conceives that there may be
+     "consciousness" without "awareness." But this is a difficult
+     view, and one which makes some definition of "consciousness"
+     imperative. For nay part, I cannot see how to separate
+     consciousness from awareness.
+
+What, I think, is clearly established, is that a man's actions and
+beliefs may be wholly dominated by a desire of which he is quite
+unconscious, and which he indignantly repudiates when it is suggested
+to him. Such a desire is generally, in morbid cases, of a sort which
+the patient would consider wicked; if he had to admit that he had the
+desire, he would loathe himself. Yet it is so strong that it must force
+an outlet for itself; hence it becomes necessary to entertain whole
+systems of false beliefs in order to hide the nature of what is desired.
+The resulting delusions in very many cases disappear if the hysteric or
+lunatic can be made to face the facts about himself. The consequence
+of this is that the treatment of many forms of insanity has grown more
+psychological and less physiological than it used to be. Instead of
+looking for a physical defect in the brain, those who treat delusions
+look for the repressed desire which has found this contorted mode
+of expression. For those who do not wish to plunge into the somewhat
+repulsive and often rather wild theories of psychoanalytic pioneers, it
+will be worth while to read a little book by Dr. Bernard Hart on "The
+Psychology of Insanity."* On this question of the mental as opposed to
+the physiological study of the causes of insanity, Dr. Hart says:
+
+     * Cambridge, 1912; 2nd edition, 1914. The following
+     references are to the second edition.
+
+"The psychological conception [of insanity] is based on the view that
+mental processes can be directly studied without any reference to the
+accompanying changes which are presumed to take place in the brain, and
+that insanity may therefore be properly attacked from the standpoint of
+psychology"(p. 9).
+
+This illustrates a point which I am anxious to make clear from the
+outset. Any attempt to classify modern views, such as I propose to
+advocate, from the old standpoint of materialism and idealism, is only
+misleading. In certain respects, the views which I shall be setting
+forth approximate to materialism; in certain others, they approximate to
+its opposite. On this question of the study of delusions, the practical
+effect of the modern theories, as Dr. Hart points out, is emancipation
+from the materialist method. On the other hand, as he also points
+out (pp. 38-9), imbecility and dementia still have to be considered
+physiologically, as caused by defects in the brain. There is no
+inconsistency in this If, as we maintain, mind and matter are neither of
+them the actual stuff of reality, but different convenient groupings of
+an underlying material, then, clearly, the question whether, in regard
+to a given phenomenon, we are to seek a physical or a mental cause, is
+merely one to be decided by trial. Metaphysicians have argued endlessly
+as to the interaction of mind and matter. The followers of Descartes
+held that mind and matter are so different as to make any action of the
+one on the other impossible. When I will to move my arm, they said,
+it is not my will that operates on my arm, but God, who, by His
+omnipotence, moves my arm whenever I want it moved. The modern doctrine
+of psychophysical parallelism is not appreciably different from this
+theory of the Cartesian school. Psycho-physical parallelism is the
+theory that mental and physical events each have causes in their own
+sphere, but run on side by side owing to the fact that every state of
+the brain coexists with a definite state of the mind, and vice versa.
+This view of the reciprocal causal independence of mind and matter has
+no basis except in metaphysical theory.* For us, there is no necessity
+to make any such assumption, which is very difficult to harmonize with
+obvious facts. I receive a letter inviting me to dinner: the letter is
+a physical fact, but my apprehension of its meaning is mental. Here we
+have an effect of matter on mind. In consequence of my apprehension of
+the meaning of the letter, I go to the right place at the right time;
+here we have an effect of mind on matter. I shall try to persuade you,
+in the course of these lectures, that matter is not so material and mind
+not so mental as is generally supposed. When we are speaking of matter,
+it will seem as if we were inclining to idealism; when we are speaking
+of mind, it will seem as if we were inclining to materialism. Neither
+is the truth. Our world is to be constructed out of what the American
+realists call "neutral" entities, which have neither the hardness and
+indestructibility of matter, nor the reference to objects which is
+supposed to characterize mind.
+
+     * It would seem, however, that Dr. Hart accepts this theory
+     as 8 methodological precept. See his contribution to
+     "Subconscious Phenomena" (quoted above), especially pp. 121-2.
+
+There is, it is true, one objection which might be felt, not indeed to
+the action of matter on mind, but to the action of mind on matter. The
+laws of physics, it may be urged, are apparently adequate to explain
+everything that happens to matter, even when it is matter in a man's
+brain. This, however, is only a hypothesis, not an established theory.
+There is no cogent empirical reason for supposing that the laws
+determining the motions of living bodies are exactly the same as those
+that apply to dead matter. Sometimes, of course, they are clearly the
+same. When a man falls from a precipice or slips on a piece of orange
+peel, his body behaves as if it were devoid of life. These are the
+occasions that make Bergson laugh. But when a man's bodily movements
+are what we call "voluntary," they are, at any rate prima facie, very
+different in their laws from the movements of what is devoid of life.
+I do not wish to say dogmatically that the difference is irreducible;
+I think it highly probable that it is not. I say only that the study of
+the behaviour of living bodies, in the present state of our knowledge,
+is distinct from physics. The study of gases was originally quite
+distinct from that of rigid bodies, and would never have advanced to its
+present state if it had not been independently pursued. Nowadays both
+the gas and the rigid body are manufactured out of a more primitive and
+universal kind of matter. In like manner, as a question of methodology,
+the laws of living bodies are to be studied, in the first place, without
+any undue haste to subordinate them to the laws of physics. Boyle's law
+and the rest had to be discovered before the kinetic theory of gases
+became possible. But in psychology we are hardly yet at the stage
+of Boyle's law. Meanwhile we need not be held up by the bogey of
+the universal rigid exactness of physics. This is, as yet, a mere
+hypothesis, to be tested empirically without any preconceptions. It may
+be true, or it may not. So far, that is all we can say.
+
+Returning from this digression to our main topic, namely, the criticism
+of "consciousness," we observe that Freud and his followers, though they
+have demonstrated beyond dispute the immense importance of "unconscious"
+desires in determining our actions and beliefs, have not attempted the
+task of telling us what an "unconscious" desire actually is, and have
+thus invested their doctrine with an air of mystery and mythology which
+forms a large part of its popular attractiveness. They speak always as
+though it were more normal for a desire to be conscious, and as though
+a positive cause had to be assigned for its being unconscious. Thus
+"the unconscious" becomes a sort of underground prisoner, living in a
+dungeon, breaking in at long intervals upon our daylight respectability
+with dark groans and maledictions and strange atavistic lusts. The
+ordinary reader, almost inevitably, thinks of this underground person as
+another consciousness, prevented by what Freud calls the "censor" from
+making his voice heard in company, except on rare and dreadful occasions
+when he shouts so loud that every one hears him and there is a scandal.
+Most of us like the idea that we could be desperately wicked if only we
+let ourselves go. For this reason, the Freudian "unconscious" has been a
+consolation to many quiet and well-behaved persons.
+
+I do not think the truth is quite so picturesque as this. I believe an
+"unconscious" desire is merely a causal law of our behaviour,* namely,
+that we remain restlessly active until a certain state of affairs is
+realized, when we achieve temporary equilibrium If we know beforehand
+what this state of affairs is, our desire is conscious; if not,
+unconscious. The unconscious desire is not something actually existing,
+but merely a tendency to a certain behaviour; it has exactly the same
+status as a force in dynamics. The unconscious desire is in no way
+mysterious; it is the natural primitive form of desire, from which the
+other has developed through our habit of observing and theorizing (often
+wrongly). It is not necessary to suppose, as Freud seems to do,
+that every unconscious wish was once conscious, and was then, in his
+terminology, "repressed" because we disapproved of it. On the contrary,
+we shall suppose that, although Freudian "repression" undoubtedly occurs
+and is important, it is not the usual reason for unconsciousness of our
+wishes. The usual reason is merely that wishes are all, to begin with,
+unconscious, and only become known when they are actively noticed.
+Usually, from laziness, people do not notice, but accept the theory
+of human nature which they find current, and attribute to themselves
+whatever wishes this theory would lead them to expect. We used to be
+full of virtuous wishes, but since Freud our wishes have become, in
+the words of the Prophet Jeremiah, "deceitful above all things and
+desperately wicked." Both these views, in most of those who have held
+them, are the product of theory rather than observation, for observation
+requires effort, whereas repeating phrases does not.
+
+     * Cf. Hart, "The Psychology of Insanity," p. 19.
+
+The interpretation of unconscious wishes which I have been advocating
+has been set forth briefly by Professor John B. Watson in an article
+called "The Psychology of Wish Fulfilment," which appeared in "The
+Scientific Monthly" in November, 1916. Two quotations will serve to show
+his point of view:
+
+"The Freudians (he says) have made more or less of a 'metaphysical
+entity' out of the censor. They suppose that when wishes are repressed
+they are repressed into the 'unconscious,' and that this mysterious
+censor stands at the trapdoor lying between the conscious and the
+unconscious. Many of us do not believe in a world of the unconscious
+(a few of us even have grave doubts about the usefulness of the term
+consciousness), hence we try to explain censorship along ordinary
+biological lines. We believe that one group of habits can 'down' another
+group of habits--or instincts. In this case our ordinary system of
+habits--those which we call expressive of our 'real selves'--inhibit
+or quench (keep inactive or partially inactive) those habits and
+instinctive tendencies which belong largely in the past"(p. 483).
+
+Again, after speaking of the frustration of some impulses which is
+involved in acquiring the habits of a civilized adult, he continues:
+
+"It is among these frustrated impulses that I would find the biological
+basis of the unfulfilled wish. Such 'wishes' need never have been
+'conscious,' and NEED NEVER HAVE BEEN SUPPRESSED INTO FREUD'S REALM
+OF THE UNCONSCIOUS. It may be inferred from this that there is no
+particular reason for applying the term 'wish' to such tendencies"(p.
+485).
+
+One of the merits of the general analysis of mind which we shall
+be concerned with in the following lectures is that it removes the
+atmosphere of mystery from the phenomena brought to light by the
+psycho-analysts. Mystery is delightful, but unscientific, since it
+depends upon ignorance. Man has developed out of the animals, and
+there is no serious gap between him and the amoeba. Something closely
+analogous to knowledge and desire, as regards its effects on behaviour,
+exists among animals, even where what we call "consciousness" is hard
+to believe in; something equally analogous exists in ourselves in cases
+where no trace of "consciousness" can be found. It is therefore
+natural to suppose that, what ever may be the correct definition of
+"consciousness," "consciousness" is not the essence of life or mind. In
+the following lectures, accordingly, this term will disappear until we
+have dealt with words, when it will re-emerge as mainly a trivial and
+unimportant outcome of linguistic habits.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE II. INSTINCT AND HABIT
+
+In attempting to understand the elements out of which mental phenomena
+are compounded, it is of the greatest importance to remember that from
+the protozoa to man there is nowhere a very wide gap either in structure
+or in behaviour. From this fact it is a highly probable inference that
+there is also nowhere a very wide mental gap. It is, of course, POSSIBLE
+that there may be, at certain stages in evolution, elements which are
+entirely new from the standpoint of analysis, though in their nascent
+form they have little influence on behaviour and no very marked
+correlatives in structure. But the hypothesis of continuity in mental
+development is clearly preferable if no psychological facts make it
+impossible. We shall find, if I am not mistaken, that there are no facts
+which refute the hypothesis of mental continuity, and that, on the other
+hand, this hypothesis affords a useful test of suggested theories as to
+the nature of mind.
+
+The hypothesis of mental continuity throughout organic evolution may be
+used in two different ways. On the one hand, it may be held that we
+have more knowledge of our own minds than those of animals, and that we
+should use this knowledge to infer the existence of something similar
+to our own mental processes in animals and even in plants. On the other
+hand, it may be held that animals and plants present simpler phenomena,
+more easily analysed than those of human minds; on this ground it may be
+urged that explanations which are adequate in the case of animals ought
+not to be lightly rejected in the case of man. The practical effects of
+these two views are diametrically opposite: the first leads us to level
+up animal intelligence with what we believe ourselves to know about our
+own intelligence, while the second leads us to attempt a levelling down
+of our own intelligence to something not too remote from what we can
+observe in animals. It is therefore important to consider the relative
+justification of the two ways of applying the principle of continuity.
+
+It is clear that the question turns upon another, namely, which can we
+know best, the psychology of animals or that of human beings? If we
+can know most about animals, we shall use this knowledge as a basis for
+inference about human beings; if we can know most about human beings, we
+shall adopt the opposite procedure. And the question whether we can know
+most about the psychology of human beings or about that of animals turns
+upon yet another, namely: Is introspection or external observation
+the surer method in psychology? This is a question which I propose to
+discuss at length in Lecture VI; I shall therefore content myself now
+with a statement of the conclusions to be arrived at.
+
+We know a great many things concerning ourselves which we cannot know
+nearly so directly concerning animals or even other people. We know when
+we have a toothache, what we are thinking of, what dreams we have when
+we are asleep, and a host of other occurrences which we only know about
+others when they tell us of them, or otherwise make them inferable
+by their behaviour. Thus, so far as knowledge of detached facts is
+concerned, the advantage is on the side of self-knowledge as against
+external observation.
+
+But when we come to the analysis and scientific understanding of the
+facts, the advantages on the side of self-knowledge become far less
+clear. We know, for example, that we have desires and beliefs, but we
+do not know what constitutes a desire or a belief. The phenomena are so
+familiar that it is difficult to realize how little we really know about
+them. We see in animals, and to a lesser extent in plants, behaviour
+more or less similar to that which, in us, is prompted by desires and
+beliefs, and we find that, as we descend in the scale of evolution,
+behaviour becomes simpler, more easily reducible to rule, more
+scientifically analysable and predictable. And just because we are not
+misled by familiarity we find it easier to be cautious in interpreting
+behaviour when we are dealing with phenomena remote from those of our
+own minds: Moreover, introspection, as psychoanalysis has demonstrated,
+is extraordinarily fallible even in cases where we feel a high degree of
+certainty. The net result seems to be that, though self-knowledge has
+a definite and important contribution to make to psychology, it is
+exceedingly misleading unless it is constantly checked and controlled
+by the test of external observation, and by the theories which such
+observation suggests when applied to animal behaviour. On the whole,
+therefore, there is probably more to be learnt about human psychology
+from animals than about animal psychology from human beings; but this
+conclusion is one of degree, and must not be pressed beyond a point.
+
+It is only bodily phenomena that can be directly observed in animals,
+or even, strictly speaking, in other human beings. We can observe such
+things as their movements, their physiological processes, and the sounds
+they emit. Such things as desires and beliefs, which seem obvious
+to introspection, are not visible directly to external observation.
+Accordingly, if we begin our study of psychology by external
+observation, we must not begin by assuming such things as desires and
+beliefs, but only such things as external observation can reveal, which
+will be characteristics of the movements and physiological processes of
+animals. Some animals, for example, always run away from light and hide
+themselves in dark places. If you pick up a mossy stone which is lightly
+embedded in the earth, you will see a number of small animals scuttling
+away from the unwonted daylight and seeking again the darkness of which
+you have deprived them. Such animals are sensitive to light, in the
+sense that their movements are affected by it; but it would be rash to
+infer that they have sensations in any way analogous to our sensations
+of sight. Such inferences, which go beyond the observable facts, are to
+be avoided with the utmost care.
+
+It is customary to divide human movements into three classes, voluntary,
+reflex and mechanical. We may illustrate the distinction by a quotation
+from William James ("Psychology," i, 12):
+
+"If I hear the conductor calling 'all aboard' as I enter the depot, my
+heart first stops, then palpitates, and my legs respond to the air-waves
+falling on my tympanum by quickening their movements. If I stumble as I
+run, the sensation of falling provokes a movement of the hands towards
+the direction of the fall, the effect of which is to shield the body
+from too sudden a shock. If a cinder enter my eye, its lids close
+forcibly and a copious flow of tears tends to wash it out.
+
+"These three responses to a sensational stimulus differ, however, in
+many respects. The closure of the eye and the lachrymation are quite
+involuntary, and so is the disturbance of the heart. Such involuntary
+responses we know as 'reflex' acts. The motion of the arms to break the
+shock of falling may also be called reflex, since it occurs too quickly
+to be deliberately intended. Whether it be instinctive or whether it
+result from the pedestrian education of childhood may be doubtful; it
+is, at any rate, less automatic than the previous acts, for a man might
+by conscious effort learn to perform it more skilfully, or even to
+suppress it altogether. Actions of this kind, with which instinct and
+volition enter upon equal terms, have been called 'semi-reflex.' The
+act of running towards the train, on the other hand, has no instinctive
+element about it. It is purely the result of education, and is preceded
+by a consciousness of the purpose to be attained and a distinct mandate
+of the will. It is a 'voluntary act.' Thus the animal's reflex and
+voluntary performances shade into each other gradually, being connected
+by acts which may often occur automatically, but may also be modified by
+conscious intelligence.
+
+"An outside observer, unable to perceive the accompanying consciousness,
+might be wholly at a loss to discriminate between the automatic acts and
+those which volition escorted. But if the criterion of mind's existence
+be the choice of the proper means for the attainment of a supposed
+end, all the acts alike seem to be inspired by intelligence, for
+APPROPRIATENESS characterizes them all alike."
+
+There is one movement, among those that James mentions at first, which
+is not subsequently classified, namely, the stumbling. This is the
+kind of movement which may be called "mechanical"; it is evidently of a
+different kind from either reflex or voluntary movements, and more akin
+to the movements of dead matter. We may define a movement of an animal's
+body as "mechanical" when it proceeds as if only dead matter were
+involved. For example, if you fall over a cliff, you move under the
+influence of gravitation, and your centre of gravity describes just as
+correct a parabola as if you were already dead. Mechanical movements
+have not the characteristic of appropriateness, unless by accident, as
+when a drunken man falls into a waterbutt and is sobered. But reflex
+and voluntary movements are not ALWAYS appropriate, unless in some very
+recondite sense. A moth flying into a lamp is not acting sensibly; no
+more is a man who is in such a hurry to get his ticket that he cannot
+remember the name of his destination. Appropriateness is a complicated
+and merely approximate idea, and for the present we shall do well to
+dismiss it from our thoughts.
+
+As James states, there is no difference, from the point of view of
+the outside observer, between voluntary and reflex movements. The
+physiologist can discover that both depend upon the nervous system,
+and he may find that the movements which we call voluntary depend upon
+higher centres in the brain than those that are reflex. But he
+cannot discover anything as to the presence or absence of "will" or
+"consciousness," for these things can only be seen from within, if
+at all. For the present, we wish to place ourselves resolutely in the
+position of outside observers; we will therefore ignore the distinction
+between voluntary and reflex movements. We will call the two together
+"vital" movements. We may then distinguish "vital" from mechanical
+movements by the fact that vital movements depend for their causation
+upon the special properties of the nervous system, while mechanical
+movements depend only upon the properties which animal bodies share with
+matter in general.
+
+There is need for some care if the distinction between mechanical and
+vital movements is to be made precise. It is quite likely that, if we
+knew more about animal bodies, we could deduce all their movements from
+the laws of chemistry and physics. It is already fairly easy to see how
+chemistry reduces to physics, i.e. how the differences between different
+chemical elements can be accounted for by differences of physical
+structure, the constituents of the structure being electrons which are
+exactly alike in all kinds of matter. We only know in part how to reduce
+physiology to chemistry, but we know enough to make it likely that the
+reduction is possible. If we suppose it effected, what would become of
+the difference between vital and mechanical movements?
+
+Some analogies will make the difference clear. A shock to a mass of
+dynamite produces quite different effects from an equal shock to a mass
+of steel: in the one case there is a vast explosion, while in the other
+case there is hardly any noticeable disturbance. Similarly, you may
+sometimes find on a mountain-side a large rock poised so delicately that
+a touch will set it crashing down into the valley, while the rocks all
+round are so firm that only a considerable force can dislodge them What
+is analogous in these two cases is the existence of a great store of
+energy in unstable equilibrium ready to burst into violent motion by
+the addition of a very slight disturbance. Similarly, it requires only
+a very slight expenditure of energy to send a post-card with the words
+"All is discovered; fly!" but the effect in generating kinetic energy
+is said to be amazing. A human body, like a mass of dynamite, contains
+a store of energy in unstable equilibrium, ready to be directed in this
+direction or that by a disturbance which is physically very small,
+such as a spoken word. In all such cases the reduction of behaviour to
+physical laws can only be effected by entering into great minuteness; so
+long as we confine ourselves to the observation of comparatively
+large masses, the way in which the equilibrium will be upset cannot be
+determined. Physicists distinguish between macroscopic and microscopic
+equations: the former determine the visible movements of bodies of
+ordinary size, the latter the minute occurrences in the smallest parts.
+It is only the microscopic equations that are supposed to be the same
+for all sorts of matter. The macroscopic equations result from a process
+of averaging out, and may be different in different cases. So, in our
+instance, the laws of macroscopic phenomena are different for mechanical
+and vital movements, though the laws of microscopic phenomena may be the
+same.
+
+We may say, speaking somewhat roughly, that a stimulus applied to the
+nervous system, like a spark to dynamite, is able to take advantage of
+the stored energy in unstable equilibrium, and thus to produce movements
+out of proportion to the proximate cause. Movements produced in this way
+are vital movements, while mechanical movements are those in which the
+stored energy of a living body is not involved. Similarly dynamite may
+be exploded, thereby displaying its characteristic properties, or may
+(with due precautions) be carted about like any other mineral. The
+explosion is analogous to vital movements, the carting about to
+mechanical movements.
+
+Mechanical movements are of no interest to the psychologist, and it has
+only been necessary to define them in order to be able to exclude them.
+When a psychologist studies behaviour, it is only vital movements
+that concern him. We shall, therefore, proceed to ignore mechanical
+movements, and study only the properties of the remainder.
+
+The next point is to distinguish between movements that are instinctive
+and movements that are acquired by experience. This distinction also is
+to some extent one of degree. Professor Lloyd Morgan gives the following
+definition of "instinctive behaviour":
+
+"That which is, on its first occurrence, independent of prior
+experience; which tends to the well-being of the individual and the
+preservation of the race; which is similarly performed by all members
+of the same more or less restricted group of animals; and which may be
+subject to subsequent modification under the guidance of experience." *
+
+     * "Instinct and Experience" (Methuen, 1912) p. 5.
+
+This definition is framed for the purposes of biology, and is in
+some respects unsuited to the needs of psychology. Though perhaps
+unavoidable, allusion to "the same more or less restricted group
+of animals" makes it impossible to judge what is instinctive in the
+behaviour of an isolated individual. Moreover, "the well-being of
+the individual and the preservation of the race" is only a usual
+characteristic, not a universal one, of the sort of movements that, from
+our point of view, are to be called instinctive; instances of harmful
+instincts will be given shortly. The essential point of the definition,
+from our point of view, is that an instinctive movement is in dependent
+of prior experience.
+
+We may say that an "instinctive" movement is a vital movement performed
+by an animal the first time that it finds itself in a novel situation;
+or, more correctly, one which it would perform if the situation were
+novel.* The instincts of an animal are different at different periods of
+its growth, and this fact may cause changes of behaviour which are
+not due to learning. The maturing and seasonal fluctuation of the
+sex-instinct affords a good illustration. When the sex-instinct first
+matures, the behaviour of an animal in the presence of a mate is
+different from its previous behaviour in similar circumstances, but is
+not learnt, since it is just the same if the animal has never previously
+been in the presence of a mate.
+
+     * Though this can only be decided by comparison with other
+     members of the species, and thus exposes us to the need of
+     comparison which we thought an objection to Professor Lloyd
+     Morgan's definition.
+
+On the other hand, a movement is "learnt," or embodies a "habit," if it
+is due to previous experience of similar situations, and is not what it
+would be if the animal had had no such experience.
+
+There are various complications which blur the sharpness of this
+distinction in practice. To begin with, many instincts mature gradually,
+and while they are immature an animal may act in a fumbling manner which
+is very difficult to distinguish from learning. James ("Psychology," ii,
+407) maintains that children walk by instinct, and that the awkwardness
+of their first attempts is only due to the fact that the instinct has
+not yet ripened. He hopes that "some scientific widower, left alone with
+his offspring at the critical moment, may ere long test this suggestion
+on the living subject." However this may be, he quotes evidence to show
+that "birds do not LEARN to fly," but fly by instinct when they reach
+the appropriate age (ib., p. 406). In the second place, instinct often
+gives only a rough outline of the sort of thing to do, in which case
+learning is necessary in order to acquire certainty and precision in
+action. In the third place, even in the clearest cases of acquired
+habit, such as speaking, some instinct is required to set in motion
+the process of learning. In the case of speaking, the chief instinct
+involved is commonly supposed to be that of imitation, but this may be
+questioned. (See Thorndike's "Animal Intelligence," p. 253 ff.)
+
+In spite of these qualifications, the broad distinction between instinct
+and habit is undeniable. To take extreme cases, every animal at birth
+can take food by instinct, before it has had opportunity to learn; on
+the other hand, no one can ride a bicycle by instinct, though, after
+learning, the necessary movements become just as automatic as if they
+were instinctive.
+
+The process of learning, which consists in the acquisition of habits,
+has been much studied in various animals.* For example: you put a hungry
+animal, say a cat, in a cage which has a door that can be opened by
+lifting a latch; outside the cage you put food. The cat at first dashes
+all round the cage, making frantic efforts to force a way out. At last,
+by accident, the latch is lifted and the cat pounces on the food. Next
+day you repeat the experiment, and you find that the cat gets out much
+more quickly than the first time, although it still makes some random
+movements. The third day it gets out still more quickly, and before long
+it goes straight to the latch and lifts it at once. Or you make a model
+of the Hampton Court maze, and put a rat in the middle, assaulted by the
+smell of food on the outside. The rat starts running down the passages,
+and is constantly stopped by blind alleys, but at last, by persistent
+attempts, it gets out. You repeat this experiment day after day; you
+measure the time taken by the rat in reaching the food; you find that
+the time rapidly diminishes, and that after a while the rat ceases to
+make any wrong turnings. It is by essentially similar processes that we
+learn speaking, writing, mathematics, or the government of an empire.
+
+     * The scientific study of this subject may almost be said to
+     begin with Thorndike's "Animal Intelligence" (Macmillan,
+     1911).
+
+Professor Watson ("Behavior," pp. 262-3) has an ingenious theory as to
+the way in which habit arises out of random movements. I think there is
+a reason why his theory cannot be regarded as alone sufficient, but it
+seems not unlikely that it is partly correct. Suppose, for the sake of
+simplicity, that there are just ten random movements which may be made
+by the animal--say, ten paths down which it may go--and that only one of
+these leads to food, or whatever else represents success in the case in
+question. Then the successful movement always occurs during the animal's
+attempts, whereas each of the others, on the average, occurs in only
+half the attempts. Thus the tendency to repeat a previous performance
+(which is easily explicable without the intervention of "consciousness")
+leads to a greater emphasis on the successful movement than on any
+other, and in time causes it alone to be performed. The objection to
+this view, if taken as the sole explanation, is that on improvement
+ought to set in till after the SECOND trial, whereas experiment shows
+that already at the second attempt the animal does better than the
+first time. Something further is, therefore, required to account for the
+genesis of habit from random movements; but I see no reason to suppose
+that what is further required involves "consciousness."
+
+Mr. Thorndike (op. cit., p. 244) formulates two "provisional laws of
+acquired behaviour or learning," as follows:
+
+"The Law of Effect is that: Of several responses made to the same
+situation, those which are accompanied or closely followed by
+satisfaction to the animal will, other things being equal, be more
+firmly connected with the situation, so that, when it recurs, they will
+be more likely to recur; those which are accompanied or closely followed
+by discomfort to the animal will, other things being equal, have their
+connections with that situation weakened, so that, when it recurs,
+they will be less likely to occur. The greater the satisfaction or
+discomfort, the greater the strengthening or weakening of the bond.
+
+"The Law of Exercise is that: Any response to a situation will, other
+things being equal, be more strongly connected with the situation
+in proportion to the number of times it has been connected with that
+situation and to the average vigour and duration of the connections."
+
+With the explanation to be presently given of the meaning of
+"satisfaction" and "discomfort," there seems every reason to accept
+these two laws.
+
+What is true of animals, as regards instinct and habit, is equally
+true of men. But the higher we rise in the evolutionary scale, broadly
+speaking, the greater becomes the power of learning, and the fewer are
+the occasions when pure instinct is exhibited unmodified in adult life.
+This applies with great force to man, so much so that some have thought
+instinct less important in the life of man than in that of animals.
+This, however, would be a mistake. Learning is only possible when
+instinct supplies the driving-force. The animals in cages, which
+gradually learn to get out, perform random movements at first, which
+are purely instinctive. But for these random movements, they would never
+acquire the experience which afterwards enables them to produce the
+right movement. (This is partly questioned by Hobhouse*--wrongly, I
+think.) Similarly, children learning to talk make all sorts of sounds,
+until one day the right sound comes by accident. It is clear that the
+original making of random sounds, without which speech would never be
+learnt, is instinctive. I think we may say the same of all the habits
+and aptitudes that we acquire in all of them there has been present
+throughout some instinctive activity, prompting at first rather
+inefficient movements, but supplying the driving force while more and
+more effective methods are being acquired. A cat which is hungry smells
+fish, and goes to the larder. This is a thoroughly efficient method when
+there is fish in the larder, and it is often successfully practised by
+children. But in later life it is found that merely going to the larder
+does not cause fish to be there; after a series of random movements it
+is found that this result is to be caused by going to the City in the
+morning and coming back in the evening. No one would have guessed a
+priori that this movement of a middle-aged man's body would cause fish
+to come out of the sea into his larder, but experience shows that it
+does, and the middle-aged man therefore continues to go to the City,
+just as the cat in the cage continues to lift the latch when it has once
+found it. Of course, in actual fact, human learning is rendered easier,
+though psychologically more complex, through language; but at bottom
+language does not alter the essential character of learning, or of the
+part played by instinct in promoting learning. Language, however, is a
+subject upon which I do not wish to speak until a later lecture.
+
+     * "Mind in Evolution" (Macmillan, 1915), pp. 236-237.
+
+The popular conception of instinct errs by imagining it to be infallible
+and preternaturally wise, as well as incapable of modification. This is
+a complete delusion. Instinct, as a rule, is very rough and ready, able
+to achieve its result under ordinary circumstances, but easily misled by
+anything unusual. Chicks follow their mother by instinct, but when they
+are quite young they will follow with equal readiness any moving
+object remotely resembling their mother, or even a human being (James,
+"Psychology," ii, 396). Bergson, quoting Fabre, has made play with the
+supposed extraordinary accuracy of the solitary wasp Ammophila, which
+lays its eggs in a caterpillar. On this subject I will quote from
+Drever's "Instinct in Man," p. 92:
+
+"According to Fabre's observations, which Bergson accepts, the Ammophila
+stings its prey EXACTLY and UNERRINGLY in EACH of the nervous centres.
+The result is that the caterpillar is paralyzed, but not immediately
+killed, the advantage of this being that the larva cannot be injured by
+any movement of the caterpillar, upon which the egg is deposited, and is
+provided with fresh meat when the time comes.
+
+"Now Dr. and Mrs. Peckham have shown that the sting of the wasp is NOT
+UNERRING, as Fabre alleges, that the number of stings is NOT CONSTANT,
+that sometimes the caterpillar is NOT PARALYZED, and sometimes it is
+KILLED OUTRIGHT, and that THE DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES DO NOT APPARENTLY
+MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE TO THE LARVA, which is not injured by slight
+movements of the caterpillar, nor by consuming food decomposed rather
+than fresh caterpillar."
+
+This illustrates how love of the marvellous may mislead even so careful
+an observer as Fabre and so eminent a philosopher as Bergson.
+
+In the same chapter of Dr. Drever's book there are some interesting
+examples of the mistakes made by instinct. I will quote one as a sample:
+
+"The larva of the Lomechusa beetle eats the young of the ants, in whose
+nest it is reared. Nevertheless, the ants tend the Lomechusa larvae
+with the same care they bestow on their own young. Not only so, but they
+apparently discover that the methods of feeding, which suit their own
+larvae, would prove fatal to the guests, and accordingly they change
+their whole system of nursing" (loc. cit., p. 106).
+
+Semon ("Die Mneme," pp. 207-9) gives a good illustration of an instinct
+growing wiser through experience. He relates how hunters attract stags
+by imitating the sounds of other members of their species, male or
+female, but find that the older a stag becomes the more difficult it
+is to deceive him, and the more accurate the imitation has to be. The
+literature of instinct is vast, and illustrations might be multiplied
+indefinitely. The main points as regards instinct, which need to be
+emphasized as against the popular conceptions of it, are:
+
+(1) That instinct requires no prevision of the biological end which it
+serves;
+
+(2) That instinct is only adapted to achieve this end in the usual
+circumstances of the animal in question, and has no more precision than
+is necessary for success AS A RULE;
+
+(3) That processes initiated by instinct often come to be performed
+better after experience;
+
+(4) That instinct supplies the impulses to experimental movements which
+are required for the process of learning;
+
+(5) That instincts in their nascent stages are easily modifiable, and
+capable of being attached to various sorts of objects.
+
+All the above characteristics of instinct can be established by purely
+external observation, except the fact that instinct does not require
+prevision. This, though not strictly capable of being PROVED by
+observation, is irresistibly suggested by the most obvious phenomena.
+Who can believe, for example, that a new-born baby is aware of the
+necessity of food for preserving life? Or that insects, in laying eggs,
+are concerned for the preservation of their species? The essence of
+instinct, one might say, is that it provides a mechanism for
+acting without foresight in a manner which is usually advantageous
+biologically. It is partly for this reason that it is so important to
+understand the fundamental position of instinct in prompting both animal
+and human behaviour.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE III. DESIRE AND FEELING
+
+Desire is a subject upon which, if I am not mistaken, true views can
+only be arrived at by an almost complete reversal of the ordinary
+unreflecting opinion. It is natural to regard desire as in its essence
+an attitude towards something which is imagined, not actual; this
+something is called the END or OBJECT of the desire, and is said to be
+the PURPOSE of any action resulting from the desire. We think of the
+content of the desire as being just like the content of a belief, while
+the attitude taken up towards the content is different. According to
+this theory, when we say: "I hope it will rain," or "I expect it will
+rain," we express, in the first case, a desire, and in the second, a
+belief, with an identical content, namely, the image of rain. It would
+be easy to say that, just as belief is one kind of feeling in relation
+to this content, so desire is another kind. According to this view, what
+comes first in desire is something imagined, with a specific feeling
+related to it, namely, that specific feeling which we call "desiring"
+it. The discomfort associated with unsatisfied desire, and the actions
+which aim at satisfying desire, are, in this view, both of them effects
+of the desire. I think it is fair to say that this is a view against
+which common sense would not rebel; nevertheless, I believe it to be
+radically mistaken. It cannot be refuted logically, but various facts
+can be adduced which make it gradually less simple and plausible, until
+at last it turns out to be easier to abandon it wholly and look at the
+matter in a totally different way.
+
+The first set of facts to be adduced against the common sense view of
+desire are those studied by psycho-analysis. In all human beings, but
+most markedly in those suffering from hysteria and certain forms of
+insanity, we find what are called "unconscious" desires, which are
+commonly regarded as showing self-deception. Most psycho-analysts
+pay little attention to the analysis of desire, being interested in
+discovering by observation what it is that people desire, rather than in
+discovering what actually constitutes desire. I think the strangeness of
+what they report would be greatly diminished if it were expressed in the
+language of a behaviourist theory of desire, rather than in the language
+of every-day beliefs. The general description of the sort of phenomena
+that bear on our present question is as follows: A person states that
+his desires are so-and-so, and that it is these desires that inspire his
+actions; but the outside observer perceives that his actions are such
+as to realize quite different ends from those which he avows, and
+that these different ends are such as he might be expected to desire.
+Generally they are less virtuous than his professed desires, and are
+therefore less agreeable to profess than these are. It is accordingly
+supposed that they really exist as desires for ends, but in a
+subconscious part of the mind, which the patient refuses to admit into
+consciousness for fear of having to think ill of himself. There are
+no doubt many cases to which such a supposition is applicable without
+obvious artificiality. But the deeper the Freudians delve into the
+underground regions of instinct, the further they travel from anything
+resembling conscious desire, and the less possible it becomes to believe
+that only positive self-deception conceals from us that we really wish
+for things which are abhorrent to our explicit life.
+
+In the cases in question we have a conflict between the outside observer
+and the patient's consciousness. The whole tendency of psycho-analysis
+is to trust the outside observer rather than the testimony of
+introspection. I believe this tendency to be entirely right, but to
+demand a re-statement of what constitutes desire, exhibiting it as a
+causal law of our actions, not as something actually existing in our
+minds.
+
+But let us first get a clearer statement of the essential characteristic
+of the phenomena.
+
+A person, we find, states that he desires a certain end A, and that he
+is acting with a view to achieving it. We observe, however, that his
+actions are such as are likely to achieve a quite different end B, and
+that B is the sort of end that often seems to be aimed at by animals and
+savages, though civilized people are supposed to have discarded it. We
+sometimes find also a whole set of false beliefs, of such a kind as to
+persuade the patient that his actions are really a means to A, when in
+fact they are a means to B. For example, we have an impulse to inflict
+pain upon those whom we hate; we therefore believe that they are wicked,
+and that punishment will reform them. This belief enables us to act upon
+the impulse to inflict pain, while believing that we are acting upon
+the desire to lead sinners to repentance. It is for this reason that the
+criminal law has been in all ages more severe than it would have been if
+the impulse to ameliorate the criminal had been what really inspired
+it. It seems simple to explain such a state of affairs as due to
+"self-deception," but this explanation is often mythical. Most people,
+in thinking about punishment, have had no more need to hide their
+vindictive impulses from themselves than they have had to hide
+the exponential theorem. Our impulses are not patent to a casual
+observation, but are only to be discovered by a scientific study of our
+actions, in the course of which we must regard ourselves as objectively
+as we should the motions of the planets or the chemical reactions of a
+new element.
+
+The study of animals reinforces this conclusion, and is in many ways
+the best preparation for the analysis of desire. In animals we are
+not troubled by the disturbing influence of ethical considerations. In
+dealing with human beings, we are perpetually distracted by being told
+that such-and-such a view is gloomy or cynical or pessimistic: ages of
+human conceit have built up such a vast myth as to our wisdom and virtue
+that any intrusion of the mere scientific desire to know the facts is
+instantly resented by those who cling to comfortable illusions. But no
+one cares whether animals are virtuous or not, and no one is under the
+delusion that they are rational. Moreover, we do not expect them to be
+so "conscious," and are prepared to admit that their instincts prompt
+useful actions without any prevision of the ends which they achieve. For
+all these reasons, there is much in the analysis of mind which is more
+easily discovered by the study of animals than by the observation of
+human beings.
+
+We all think that, by watching the behaviour of animals, we can discover
+more or less what they desire. If this is the case--and I fully agree
+that it is--desire must be capable of being exhibited in actions, for it
+is only the actions of animals that we can observe. They MAY have minds
+in which all sorts of things take place, but we can know nothing about
+their minds except by means of inferences from their actions; and the
+more such inferences are examined, the more dubious they appear. It
+would seem, therefore, that actions alone must be the test of the
+desires of animals. From this it is an easy step to the conclusion that
+an animal's desire is nothing but a characteristic of a certain series
+of actions, namely, those which would be commonly regarded as inspired
+by the desire in question. And when it has been shown that this view
+affords a satisfactory account of animal desires, it is not difficult
+to see that the same explanation is applicable to the desires of human
+beings.
+
+We judge easily from the behaviour of an animal of a familiar
+kind whether it is hungry or thirsty, or pleased or displeased, or
+inquisitive or terrified. The verification of our judgment, so far
+as verification is possible, must be derived from the immediately
+succeeding actions of the animal. Most people would say that they infer
+first something about the animal's state of mind--whether it is hungry
+or thirsty and so on--and thence derive their expectations as to its
+subsequent conduct. But this detour through the animal's supposed mind
+is wholly unnecessary. We can say simply: The animal's behaviour during
+the last minute has had those characteristics which distinguish what
+is called "hunger," and it is likely that its actions during the next
+minute will be similar in this respect, unless it finds food, or is
+interrupted by a stronger impulse, such as fear. An animal which is
+hungry is restless, it goes to the places where food is often to be
+found, it sniffs with its nose or peers with its eyes or otherwise
+increases the sensitiveness of its sense-organs; as soon as it is near
+enough to food for its sense-organs to be affected, it goes to it with
+all speed and proceeds to eat; after which, if the quantity of food has
+been sufficient, its whole demeanour changes it may very likely lie
+down and go to sleep. These things and others like them are observable
+phenomena distinguishing a hungry animal from one which is not hungry.
+The characteristic mark by which we recognize a series of actions
+which display hunger is not the animal's mental state, which we cannot
+observe, but something in its bodily behaviour; it is this observable
+trait in the bodily behaviour that I am proposing to call "hunger,"
+not some possibly mythical and certainly unknowable ingredient of the
+animal's mind.
+
+Generalizing what occurs in the case of hunger, we may say that what
+we call a desire in an animal is always displayed in a cycle of actions
+having certain fairly well marked characteristics. There is first a
+state of activity, consisting, with qualifications to be mentioned
+presently, of movements likely to have a certain result; these
+movements, unless interrupted, continue until the result is achieved,
+after which there is usually a period of comparative quiescence. A cycle
+of actions of this sort has marks by which it is broadly distinguished
+from the motions of dead matter. The most notable of these marks
+are--(1) the appropriateness of the actions for the realization of a
+certain result; (2) the continuance of action until that result has been
+achieved. Neither of these can be pressed beyond a point. Either may
+be (a) to some extent present in dead matter, and (b) to a considerable
+extent absent in animals, while vegetable are intermediate, and display
+only a much fainter form of the behaviour which leads us to attribute
+desire to animals. (a) One might say rivers "desire" the sea water,
+roughly speaking, remains in restless motion until it reaches either
+the sea or a place from which it cannot issue without going uphill, and
+therefore we might say that this is what it wishes while it is flowing.
+We do not say so, because we can account for the behaviour of water by
+the laws of physics; and if we knew more about animals, we might equally
+cease to attribute desires to them, since we might find physical and
+chemical reactions sufficient to account for their behaviour. (b) Many
+of the movements of animals do not exhibit the characteristics of the
+cycles which seem to embody desire. There are first of all the movements
+which are "mechanical," such as slipping and falling, where ordinary
+physical forces operate upon the animal's body almost as if it were
+dead matter. An animal which falls over a cliff may make a number of
+desperate struggles while it is in the air, but its centre of gravity
+will move exactly as it would if the animal were dead. In this case, if
+the animal is killed at the end of the fall, we have, at first sight,
+just the characteristics of a cycle of actions embodying desire, namely,
+restless movement until the ground is reached, and then quiescence.
+Nevertheless, we feel no temptation to say that the animal desired what
+occurred, partly because of the obviously mechanical nature of the whole
+occurrence, partly because, when an animal survives a fall, it tends not
+to repeat the experience.
+
+There may be other reasons also, but of them I do not wish to speak yet.
+Besides mechanical movements, there are interrupted movements, as when
+a bird, on its way to eat your best peas, is frightened away by the boy
+whom you are employing for that purpose. If interruptions are frequent
+and completion of cycles rare, the characteristics by which cycles
+are observed may become so blurred as to be almost unrecognizable. The
+result of these various considerations is that the differences
+between animals and dead matter, when we confine ourselves to external
+unscientific observation of integral behaviour, are a matter of degree
+and not very precise. It is for this reason that it has always been
+possible for fanciful people to maintain that even stocks and stones
+have some vague kind of soul. The evidence that animals have souls is
+so very shaky that, if it is assumed to be conclusive, one might just as
+well go a step further and extend the argument by analogy to all matter.
+Nevertheless, in spite of vagueness and doubtful cases, the existence
+of cycles in the behaviour of animals is a broad characteristic by which
+they are prima facie distinguished from ordinary matter; and I think it
+is this characteristic which leads us to attribute desires to animals,
+since it makes their behaviour resemble what we do when (as we say) we
+are acting from desire.
+
+I shall adopt the following definitions for describing the behaviour of
+animals:
+
+A "behaviour-cycle" is a series of voluntary or reflex movements of an
+animal, tending to cause a certain result, and continuing until that
+result is caused, unless they are interrupted by death, accident,
+or some new behaviour-cycle. (Here "accident" may be defined as the
+intervention of purely physical laws causing mechanical movements.)
+
+The "purpose" of a behaviour-cycle is the result which brings it to an
+end, normally by a condition of temporary quiescence-provided there is
+no interruption.
+
+An animal is said to "desire" the purpose of a behaviour cycle while the
+behaviour-cycle is in progress.
+
+I believe these definitions to be adequate also to human purposes and
+desires, but for the present I am only occupied with animals and with
+what can be learnt by external observation. I am very anxious that no
+ideas should be attached to the words "purpose" and "desire" beyond
+those involved in the above definitions.
+
+We have not so far considered what is the nature of the initial stimulus
+to a behaviour-cycle. Yet it is here that the usual view of desire seems
+on the strongest ground. The hungry animal goes on making movements
+until it gets food; it seems natural, therefore, to suppose that the
+idea of food is present throughout the process, and that the thought of
+the end to be achieved sets the whole process in motion. Such a view,
+however, is obviously untenable in many cases, especially where instinct
+is concerned. Take, for example, reproduction and the rearing of the
+young. Birds mate, build a nest, lay eggs in it, sit on the eggs, feed
+the young birds, and care for them until they are fully grown. It
+is totally impossible to suppose that this series of actions, which
+constitutes one behaviour-cycle, is inspired by any prevision of the
+end, at any rate the first time it is performed.* We must suppose that
+the stimulus to the performance of each act is an impulsion from behind,
+not an attraction from the future. The bird does what it does, at each
+stage, because it has an impulse to that particular action, not because
+it perceives that the whole cycle of actions will contribute to the
+preservation of the species. The same considerations apply to other
+instincts. A hungry animal feels restless, and is led by instinctive
+impulses to perform the movements which give it nourishment; but the act
+of seeking food is not sufficient evidence from which to conclude that
+the animal has the thought of food in its "mind."
+
+     * For evidence as to birds' nests, cf. Semon, "Die Mneme,"
+     pp. 209, 210.
+
+Coming now to human beings, and to what we know about our own actions,
+it seems clear that what, with us, sets a behaviour-cycle in motion is
+some sensation of the sort which we call disagreeable. Take the case
+of hunger: we have first an uncomfortable feeling inside, producing a
+disinclination to sit still, a sensitiveness to savoury smells, and an
+attraction towards any food that there may be in our neighbourhood. At
+any moment during this process we may become aware that we are hungry,
+in the sense of saying to ourselves, "I am hungry"; but we may have been
+acting with reference to food for some time before this moment. While we
+are talking or reading, we may eat in complete unconsciousness; but we
+perform the actions of eating just as we should if we were conscious,
+and they cease when our hunger is appeased. What we call "consciousness"
+seems to be a mere spectator of the process; even when it issues orders,
+they are usually, like those of a wise parent, just such as would have
+been obeyed even if they had not been given. This view may seem at first
+exaggerated, but the more our so-called volitions and their causes are
+examined, the more it is forced upon us. The part played by words in all
+this is complicated, and a potent source of confusions; I shall return
+to it later. For the present, I am still concerned with primitive
+desire, as it exists in man, but in the form in which man shows his
+affinity to his animal ancestors.
+
+Conscious desire is made up partly of what is essential to desire,
+partly of beliefs as to what we want. It is important to be clear as to
+the part which does not consist of beliefs.
+
+The primitive non-cognitive element in desire seems to be a push, not
+a pull, an impulsion away from the actual, rather than an attraction
+towards the ideal. Certain sensations and other mental occurrences have
+a property which we call discomfort; these cause such bodily movements
+as are likely to lead to their cessation. When the discomfort ceases,
+or even when it appreciably diminishes, we have sensations possessing a
+property which we call PLEASURE. Pleasurable sensations either stimulate
+no action at all, or at most stimulate such action as is likely to
+prolong them. I shall return shortly to the consideration of what
+discomfort and pleasure are in themselves; for the present, it is
+their connection with action and desire that concerns us. Abandoning
+momentarily the standpoint of behaviourism, we may presume that hungry
+animals experience sensations involving discomfort, and stimulating such
+movements as seem likely to bring them to the food which is outside the
+cages. When they have reached the food and eaten it, their discomfort
+ceases and their sensations become pleasurable. It SEEMS, mistakenly, as
+if the animals had had this situation in mind throughout, when in fact
+they have been continually pushed by discomfort. And when an animal
+is reflective, like some men, it comes to think that it had the final
+situation in mind throughout; sometimes it comes to know what situation
+will bring satisfaction, so that in fact the discomfort does bring the
+thought of what will allay it. Nevertheless the sensation involving
+discomfort remains the prime mover.
+
+This brings us to the question of the nature of discomfort and pleasure.
+Since Kant it has been customary to recognize three great divisions of
+mental phenomena, which are typified by knowledge, desire and feeling,
+where "feeling" is used to mean pleasure and discomfort. Of course,
+"knowledge" is too definite a word: the states of mind concerned are
+grouped together as "cognitive," and are to embrace not only beliefs,
+but perceptions, doubts, and the understanding of concepts. "Desire,"
+also, is narrower than what is intended: for example, WILL is to be
+included in this category, and in fact every thing that involves any
+kind of striving, or "conation" as it is technically called. I do not
+myself believe that there is any value in this threefold division of the
+contents of mind. I believe that sensations (including images) supply
+all the "stuff" of the mind, and that everything else can be analysed
+into groups of sensations related in various ways, or characteristics of
+sensations or of groups of sensations. As regards belief, I shall give
+grounds for this view in later lectures. As regards desires, I have
+given some grounds in this lecture. For the present, it is pleasure and
+discomfort that concern us. There are broadly three theories that might
+be held in regard to them. We may regard them as separate existing
+items in those who experience them, or we may regard them as intrinsic
+qualities of sensations and other mental occurrences, or we may regard
+them as mere names for the causal characteristics of the occurrences
+which are uncomfortable or pleasant. The first of these theories,
+namely, that which regards discomfort and pleasure as actual contents in
+those who experience them, has, I think, nothing conclusive to be said
+in its favour.* It is suggested chiefly by an ambiguity in the word
+"pain," which has misled many people, including Berkeley, whom it
+supplied with one of his arguments for subjective idealism. We may use
+"pain" as the opposite of "pleasure," and "painful" as the opposite of
+"pleasant," or we may use "pain" to mean a certain sort of sensation, on
+a level with the sensations of heat and cold and touch. The latter use
+of the word has prevailed in psychological literature, and it is now
+no longer used as the opposite of "pleasure." Dr. H. Head, in a recent
+publication, has stated this distinction as follows:**
+
+     * Various arguments in its favour are advanced by A.
+     Wohlgemuth, "On the feelings and their neural correlate,
+     with an examination of the nature of pain," "British Journal
+     of Psychology," viii, 4. (1917). But as these arguments are
+     largely a reductio ad absurdum of other theories, among
+     which that which I am advocating is not included, I cannot
+     regard them as establishing their contention.
+
+     ** "Sensation and the Cerebral Cortex," "Brain," vol. xli,
+     part ii (September, 1918), p. 90. Cf. also Wohlgemuth, loc.
+     cit. pp. 437, 450.
+
+"It is necessary at the outset to distinguish clearly between
+'discomfort' and 'pain.' Pain is a distinct sensory quality equivalent
+to heat and cold, and its intensity can be roughly graded according to
+the force expended in stimulation. Discomfort, on the other hand,
+is that feeling-tone which is directly opposed to pleasure. It may
+accompany sensations not in themselves essentially painful; as for
+instance that produced by tickling the sole of the foot. The reaction
+produced by repeated pricking contains both these elements; for it
+evokes that sensory quality known as pain, accompanied by a disagreeable
+feeling-tone, which we have called discomfort. On the other hand,
+excessive pressure, except when applied directly over some nerve-trunk,
+tends to excite more discomfort than pain."
+
+The confusion between discomfort and pain has made people regard
+discomfort as a more substantial thing than it is, and this in turn has
+reacted upon the view taken of pleasure, since discomfort and pleasure
+are evidently on a level in this respect. As soon as discomfort is
+clearly distinguished from the sensation of pain, it becomes more
+natural to regard discomfort and pleasure as properties of mental
+occurrences than to regard them as separate mental occurrences on their
+own account. I shall therefore dismiss the view that they are separate
+mental occurrences, and regard them as properties of such experiences as
+would be called respectively uncomfortable and pleasant.
+
+It remains to be examined whether they are actual qualities of such
+occurrences, or are merely differences as to causal properties. I do not
+myself see any way of deciding this question; either view seems equally
+capable of accounting for the facts. If this is true, it is safer to
+avoid the assumption that there are such intrinsic qualities of
+mental occurrences as are in question, and to assume only the causal
+differences which are undeniable. Without condemning the intrinsic
+theory, we can define discomfort and pleasure as consisting in causal
+properties, and say only what will hold on either of the two theories.
+Following this course, we shall say:
+
+"Discomfort" is a property of a sensation or other mental occurrence,
+consisting in the fact that the occurrence in question stimulates
+voluntary or reflex movements tending to produce some more or less
+definite change involving the cessation of the occurrence.
+
+"Pleasure" is a property of a sensation or other mental occurrence,
+consisting in the fact that the occurrence in question either does not
+stimulate any voluntary or reflex movement, or, if it does, stimulates
+only such as tend to prolong the occurrence in question.*
+
+     * Cf. Thorndike, op. cit., p. 243.
+
+"Conscious" desire, which we have now to consider, consists of desire
+in the sense hitherto discussed, together with a true belief as to its
+"purpose," i.e. as to the state of affairs that will bring quiescence
+with cessation of the discomfort. If our theory of desire is correct,
+a belief as to its purpose may very well be erroneous, since only
+experience can show what causes a discomfort to cease. When the
+experience needed is common and simple, as in the case of hunger, a
+mistake is not very probable. But in other cases--e.g. erotic desire in
+those who have had little or no experience of its satisfaction--mistakes
+are to be expected, and do in fact very often occur. The practice of
+inhibiting impulses, which is to a great extent necessary to civilized
+life, makes mistakes easier, by preventing experience of the actions to
+which a desire would otherwise lead, and by often causing the inhibited
+impulses themselves to be unnoticed or quickly forgotten. The perfectly
+natural mistakes which thus arise constitute a large proportion of what
+is, mistakenly in part, called self-deception, and attributed by Freud
+to the "censor."
+
+But there is a further point which needs emphasizing, namely, that a
+belief that something is desired has often a tendency to cause the very
+desire that is believed in. It is this fact that makes the effect of
+"consciousness" on desire so complicated.
+
+When we believe that we desire a certain state of affairs, that often
+tends to cause a real desire for it. This is due partly to the influence
+of words upon our emotions, in rhetoric for example, and partly to the
+general fact that discomfort normally belongs to the belief that we
+desire such-and-such a thing that we do not possess. Thus what was
+originally a false opinion as to the object of a desire acquires a
+certain truth: the false opinion generates a secondary subsidiary
+desire, which nevertheless becomes real. Let us take an illustration.
+Suppose you have been jilted in a way which wounds your vanity. Your
+natural impulsive desire will be of the sort expressed in Donne's poem:
+
+     When by thy scorn, O Murderess, I am dead,
+
+in which he explains how he will haunt the poor lady as a ghost, and
+prevent her from enjoying a moment's peace. But two things stand in
+the way of your expressing yourself so naturally: on the one hand, your
+vanity, which will not acknowledge how hard you are hit; on the other
+hand, your conviction that you are a civilized and humane person,
+who could not possibly indulge so crude a desire as revenge. You will
+therefore experience a restlessness which will at first seem quite
+aimless, but will finally resolve itself in a conscious desire to change
+your profession, or go round the world, or conceal your identity and
+live in Putney, like Arnold Bennett's hero. Although the prime cause of
+this desire is a false judgment as to your previous unconscious desire,
+yet the new conscious desire has its own derivative genuineness, and may
+influence your actions to the extent of sending you round the world.
+The initial mistake, however, will have effects of two kinds. First,
+in uncontrolled moments, under the influence of sleepiness or drink
+or delirium, you will say things calculated to injure the faithless
+deceiver. Secondly, you will find travel disappointing, and the East
+less fascinating than you had hoped--unless, some day, you hear that the
+wicked one has in turn been jilted. If this happens, you will believe
+that you feel sincere sympathy, but you will suddenly be much more
+delighted than before with the beauties of tropical islands or the
+wonders of Chinese art. A secondary desire, derived from a false
+judgment as to a primary desire, has its own power of influencing
+action, and is therefore a real desire according to our definition.
+But it has not the same power as a primary desire of bringing thorough
+satisfaction when it is realized; so long as the primary desire remains
+unsatisfied, restlessness continues in spite of the secondary desire's
+success. Hence arises a belief in the vanity of human wishes: the vain
+wishes are those that are secondary, but mistaken beliefs prevent us
+from realizing that they are secondary.
+
+What may, with some propriety, be called self-deception arises through
+the operation of desires for beliefs. We desire many things which it is
+not in our power to achieve: that we should be universally popular and
+admired, that our work should be the wonder of the age, and that the
+universe should be so ordered as to bring ultimate happiness to all,
+though not to our enemies until they have repented and been purified
+by suffering. Such desires are too large to be achieved through our own
+efforts. But it is found that a considerable portion of the satisfaction
+which these things would bring us if they were realized is to be
+achieved by the much easier operation of believing that they are or
+will be realized. This desire for beliefs, as opposed to desire for the
+actual facts, is a particular case of secondary desire, and, like all
+secondary desire its satisfaction does not lead to a complete cessation
+of the initial discomfort. Nevertheless, desire for beliefs, as opposed
+to desire for facts, is exceedingly potent both individually and
+socially. According to the form of belief desired, it is called vanity,
+optimism, or religion. Those who have sufficient power usually imprison
+or put to death any one who tries to shake their faith in their own
+excellence or in that of the universe; it is for this reason that
+seditious libel and blasphemy have always been, and still are, criminal
+offences.
+
+It is very largely through desires for beliefs that the primitive
+nature of desire has become so hidden, and that the part played by
+consciousness has been so confusing and so exaggerated.
+
+We may now summarize our analysis of desire and feeling.
+
+A mental occurrence of any kind--sensation, image, belief, or
+emotion--may be a cause of a series of actions, continuing, unless
+interrupted, until some more or less definite state of affairs is
+realized. Such a series of actions we call a "behaviour-cycle." The
+degree of definiteness may vary greatly: hunger requires only food in
+general, whereas the sight of a particular piece of food raises a desire
+which requires the eating of that piece of food. The property of causing
+such a cycle of occurrences is called "discomfort"; the property of the
+mental occurrences in which the cycle ends is called "pleasure." The
+actions constituting the cycle must not be purely mechanical, i.e. they
+must be bodily movements in whose causation the special properties
+of nervous tissue are involved. The cycle ends in a condition of
+quiescence, or of such action as tends only to preserve the status quo.
+The state of affairs in which this condition of quiescence is achieved
+is called the "purpose" of the cycle, and the initial mental occurrence
+involving discomfort is called a "desire" for the state of affairs that
+brings quiescence. A desire is called "conscious" when it is accompanied
+by a true belief as to the state of affairs that will bring quiescence;
+otherwise it is called "unconscious." All primitive desire is
+unconscious, and in human beings beliefs as to the purposes of desires
+are often mistaken. These mistaken beliefs generate secondary desires,
+which cause various interesting complications in the psychology of human
+desire, without fundamentally altering the character which it shares
+with animal desire.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE IV. INFLUENCE OF PAST HISTORY ON PRESENT OCCURRENCES IN LIVING
+ORGANISMS
+
+In this lecture we shall be concerned with a very general characteristic
+which broadly, though not absolutely, distinguishes the behaviour
+of living organisms from that of dead matter. The characteristic in
+question is this:
+
+The response of an organism to a given stimulus is very often dependent
+upon the past history of the organism, and not merely upon the stimulus
+and the HITHERTO DISCOVERABLE present state of the organism.
+
+This characteristic is embodied in the saying "a burnt child fears the
+fire." The burn may have left no visible traces, yet it modifies the
+reaction of the child in the presence of fire. It is customary to assume
+that, in such cases, the past operates by modifying the structure of the
+brain, not directly. I have no wish to suggest that this hypothesis is
+false; I wish only to point out that it is a hypothesis. At the end of
+the present lecture I shall examine the grounds in its favour. If we
+confine ourselves to facts which have been actually observed, we must
+say that past occurrences, in addition to the present stimulus and
+the present ascertainable condition of the organism, enter into the
+causation of the response.
+
+The characteristic is not wholly confined to living organisms. For
+example, magnetized steel looks just like steel which has not been
+magnetized, but its behaviour is in some ways different. In the case
+of dead matter, however, such phenomena are less frequent and important
+than in the case of living organisms, and it is far less difficult
+to invent satisfactory hypotheses as to the microscopic changes of
+structure which mediate between the past occurrence and the present
+changed response. In the case of living organisms, practically
+everything that is distinctive both of their physical and of their
+mental behaviour is bound up with this persistent influence of the past.
+Further, speaking broadly, the change in response is usually of a kind
+that is biologically advantageous to the organism.
+
+Following a suggestion derived from Semon ("Die Mneme," Leipzig, 1904;
+2nd edition, 1908, English translation, Allen & Unwin, 1921; "Die
+mnemischen Empfindungen," Leipzig, 1909), we will give the name of
+"mnemic phenomena" to those responses of an organism which, so far as
+hitherto observed facts are concerned, can only be brought under causal
+laws by including past occurrences in the history of the organism as
+part of the causes of the present response. I do not mean merely--what
+would always be the case--that past occurrences are part of a CHAIN of
+causes leading to the present event. I mean that, in attempting to state
+the PROXIMATE cause of the present event, some past event or events
+must be included, unless we take refuge in hypothetical modifications of
+brain structure. For example: you smell peat-smoke, and you recall some
+occasion when you smelt it before. The cause of your recollection, so
+far as hitherto observable phenomena are concerned, consists both
+of the peat smoke (present stimulus) and of the former occasion (past
+experience). The same stimulus will not produce the same recollection
+in another man who did not share your former experience, although the
+former experience left no OBSERVABLE traces in the structure of the
+brain. According to the maxim "same cause, same effect," we cannot
+therefore regard the peat-smoke alone as the cause of your recollection,
+since it does not have the same effect in other cases. The cause of
+your recollection must be both the peat-smoke and the past occurrence.
+Accordingly your recollection is an instance of what we are calling
+"mnemic phenomena."
+
+Before going further, it will be well to give illustrations of different
+classes of mnemic phenomena.
+
+(a) ACQUIRED HABITS.--In Lecture II we saw how animals can learn by
+experience how to get out of cages or mazes, or perform other actions
+which are useful to them but not provided for by their instincts alone.
+A cat which is put into a cage of which it has had experience behaves
+differently from the way in which it behaved at first. We can easily
+invent hypotheses, which are quite likely to be true, as to connections
+in the brain caused by past experience, and themselves causing the
+different response. But the observable fact is that the stimulus of
+being in the cage produces differing results with repetition, and that
+the ascertainable cause of the cat's behaviour is not merely the cage
+and its own ascertainable organization, but also its past history
+in regard to the cage. From our present point of view, the matter is
+independent of the question whether the cat's behaviour is due to some
+mental fact called "knowledge," or displays a merely bodily habit. Our
+habitual knowledge is not always in our minds, but is called up by the
+appropriate stimuli. If we are asked "What is the capital of France?"
+we answer "Paris," because of past experience; the past experience is as
+essential as the present question in the causation of our response. Thus
+all our habitual knowledge consists of acquired habits, and comes under
+the head of mnemic phenomena.
+
+(b) IMAGES.--I shall have much to say about images in a later lecture;
+for the present I am merely concerned with them in so far as they are
+"copies" of past sensations. When you hear New York spoken of, some
+image probably comes into your mind, either of the place itself (if you
+have been there), or of some picture of it (if you have not). The image
+is due to your past experience, as well as to the present stimulus of
+the words "New York." Similarly, the images you have in dreams are
+all dependent upon your past experience, as well as upon the present
+stimulus to dreaming. It is generally believed that all images, in their
+simpler parts, are copies of sensations; if so, their mnemic character
+is evident. This is important, not only on its own account, but also
+because, as we shall see later, images play an essential part in what is
+called "thinking."
+
+(c) ASSOCIATION.--The broad fact of association, on the mental side, is
+that when we experience something which we have experienced before,
+it tends to call up the context of the former experience. The smell of
+peat-smoke recalling a former scene is an instance which we discussed a
+moment ago. This is obviously a mnemic phenomenon. There is also a more
+purely physical association, which is indistinguishable from physical
+habit. This is the kind studied by Mr. Thorndike in animals, where a
+certain stimulus is associated with a certain act. This is the sort
+which is taught to soldiers in drilling, for example. In such a case
+there need not be anything mental, but merely a habit of the body.
+There is no essential distinction between association and habit, and the
+observations which we made concerning habit as a mnemic phenomenon are
+equally applicable to association.
+
+(d) NON-SENSATIONAL ELEMENTS IN PERCEPTION.--When we perceive any object
+of a familiar kind, much of what appears subjectively to be immediately
+given is really derived from past experience. When we see an object, say
+a penny, we seem to be aware of its "real" shape we have the impression
+of something circular, not of something elliptical. In learning to draw,
+it is necessary to acquire the art of representing things according
+to the sensation, not according to the perception. And the visual
+appearance is filled out with feeling of what the object would be like
+to touch, and so on. This filling out and supplying of the "real" shape
+and so on consists of the most usual correlates of the sensational core
+in our perception. It may happen that, in the particular case, the real
+correlates are unusual; for example, if what we are seeing is a
+carpet made to look like tiles. If so, the non-sensational part of our
+perception will be illusory, i.e. it will supply qualities which the
+object in question does not in fact have. But as a rule objects do
+have the qualities added by perception, which is to be expected,
+since experience of what is usual is the cause of the addition. If our
+experience had been different, we should not fill out sensation in
+the same way, except in so far as the filling out is instinctive,
+not acquired. It would seem that, in man, all that makes up space
+perception, including the correlation of sight and touch and so on, is
+almost entirely acquired. In that case there is a large mnemic element
+in all the common perceptions by means of which we handle common
+objects. And, to take another kind of instance, imagine what our
+astonishment would be if we were to hear a cat bark or a dog mew. This
+emotion would be dependent upon past experience, and would therefore be
+a mnemic phenomenon according to the definition.
+
+(e) MEMORY AS KNOWLEDGE.--The kind of memory of which I am now speaking
+is definite knowledge of some past event in one's own experience.
+From time to time we remember things that have happened to us, because
+something in the present reminds us of them. Exactly the same present
+fact would not call up the same memory if our past experience had been
+different. Thus our remembering is caused by--
+
+(1) The present stimulus,
+
+(2) The past occurrence.
+
+It is therefore a mnemic phenomenon according to our definition. A
+definition of "mnemic phenomena" which did not include memory would,
+of course, be a bad one. The point of the definition is not that it
+includes memory, but that it includes it as one of a class of phenomena
+which embrace all that is characteristic in the subject matter of
+psychology.
+
+(f) EXPERIENCE.--The word "experience" is often used very vaguely.
+James, as we saw, uses it to cover the whole primal stuff of the world,
+but this usage seems objection able, since, in a purely physical world,
+things would happen without there being any experience. It is only
+mnemic phenomena that embody experience. We may say that an animal
+"experiences" an occurrence when this occurrence modifies the animal's
+subsequent behaviour, i.e. when it is the mnemic portion of the cause of
+future occurrences in the animal's life. The burnt child that fears the
+fire has "experienced" the fire, whereas a stick that has been thrown on
+and taken off again has not "experienced" anything, since it offers
+no more resistance than before to being thrown on. The essence of
+"experience" is the modification of behaviour produced by what is
+experienced. We might, in fact, define one chain of experience, or one
+biography, as a series of occurrences linked by mnemic causation. I
+think it is this characteristic, more than any other, that distinguishes
+sciences dealing with living organisms from physics.
+
+The best writer on mnemic phenomena known to me is Richard Semon, the
+fundamental part of whose theory I shall endeavour to summarize before
+going further:
+
+When an organism, either animal or plant, is subjected to a stimulus,
+producing in it some state of excitement, the removal of the stimulus
+allows it to return to a condition of equilibrium. But the new state
+of equilibrium is different from the old, as may be seen by the changed
+capacity for reaction. The state of equilibrium before the stimulus may
+be called the "primary indifference-state"; that after the cessation
+of the stimulus, the "secondary indifference-state." We define the
+"engraphic effect" of a stimulus as the effect in making a difference
+between the primary and secondary indifference-states, and this
+difference itself we define as the "engram" due to the stimulus. "Mnemic
+phenomena" are defined as those due to engrams; in animals, they are
+specially associated with the nervous system, but not exclusively, even
+in man.
+
+When two stimuli occur together, one of them, occurring afterwards,
+may call out the reaction for the other also. We call this an "ekphoric
+influence," and stimuli having this character are called "ekphoric
+stimuli." In such a case we call the engrams of the two stimuli
+"associated." All simultaneously generated engrams are associated; there
+is also association of successively aroused engrams, though this is
+reducible to simultaneous association. In fact, it is not an isolated
+stimulus that leaves an engram, but the totality of the stimuli at any
+moment; consequently any portion of this totality tends, if it recurs,
+to arouse the whole reaction which was aroused before. Semon holds that
+engrams can be inherited, and that an animal's innate habits may be due
+to the experience of its ancestors; on this subject he refers to Samuel
+Butler.
+
+Semon formulates two "mnemic principles." The first, or "Law of
+Engraphy," is as follows: "All simultaneous excitements in an organism
+form a connected simultaneous excitement-complex, which as such works
+engraphically, i.e. leaves behind a connected engram-complex, which
+in so far forms a whole" ("Die mnemischen Empfindungen," p. 146).
+The second mnemic principle, or "Law of Ekphory," is as follows:
+"The partial return of the energetic situation which formerly worked
+engraphically operates ekphorically on a simultaneous engram-complex"
+(ib., p. 173). These two laws together represent in part a hypothesis
+(the engram), and in part an observable fact. The observable fact is
+that, when a certain complex of stimuli has originally caused a certain
+complex of reactions, the recurrence of part of the stimuli tends to
+cause the recurrence of the whole of the reactions.
+
+Semon's applications of his fundamental ideas in various directions are
+interesting and ingenious. Some of them will concern us later, but for
+the present it is the fundamental character of mnemic phenomena that is
+in question.
+
+Concerning the nature of an engram, Semon confesses that at present it
+is impossible to say more than that it must consist in some material
+alteration in the body of the organism ("Die mnemischen Empfindungen,"
+p. 376). It is, in fact, hypothetical, invoked for theoretical uses, and
+not an outcome of direct observation. No doubt physiology, especially
+the disturbances of memory through lesions in the brain, affords grounds
+for this hypothesis; nevertheless it does remain a hypothesis, the
+validity of which will be discussed at the end of this lecture.
+
+I am inclined to think that, in the present state of physiology, the
+introduction of the engram does not serve to simplify the account of
+mnemic phenomena. We can, I think, formulate the known laws of such
+phenomena in terms, wholly, of observable facts, by recognizing
+provisionally what we may call "mnemic causation." By this I mean that
+kind of causation of which I spoke at the beginning of this lecture,
+that kind, namely, in which the proximate cause consists not merely of a
+present event, but of this together with a past event. I do not wish to
+urge that this form of causation is ultimate, but that, in the present
+state of our knowledge, it affords a simplification, and enables us
+to state laws of behaviour in less hypothetical terms than we should
+otherwise have to employ.
+
+The clearest instance of what I mean is recollection of a past event.
+What we observe is that certain present stimuli lead us to recollect
+certain occurrences, but that at times when we are not recollecting
+them, there is nothing discoverable in our minds that could be called
+memory of them. Memories, as mental facts, arise from time to time,
+but do not, so far as we can see, exist in any shape while they are
+"latent." In fact, when we say that they are "latent," we mean merely
+that they will exist under certain circumstances. If, then, there is
+to be some standing difference between the person who can remember a
+certain fact and the person who cannot, that standing difference must
+be, not in anything mental, but in the brain. It is quite probable that
+there is such a difference in the brain, but its nature is unknown and
+it remains hypothetical. Everything that has, so far, been made matter
+of observation as regards this question can be put together in the
+statement: When a certain complex of sensations has occurred to a man,
+the recurrence of part of the complex tends to arouse the recollection
+of the whole. In like manner, we can collect all mnemic phenomena in
+living organisms under a single law, which contains what is hitherto
+verifiable in Semon's two laws. This single law is:
+
+IF A COMPLEX STIMULUS A HAS CAUSED A COMPLEX REACTION B IN AN ORGANISM,
+THE OCCURRENCE OF A PART OF A ON A FUTURE OCCASION TENDS TO CAUSE THE
+WHOLE REACTION B.
+
+This law would need to be supplemented by some account of the influence
+of frequency, and so on; but it seems to contain the essential
+characteristic of mnemic phenomena, without admixture of anything
+hypothetical.
+
+Whenever the effect resulting from a stimulus to an organism differs
+according to the past history of the organism, without our being able
+actually to detect any relevant difference in its present structure,
+we will speak of "mnemic causation," provided we can discover laws
+embodying the influence of the past. In ordinary physical causation,
+as it appears to common sense, we have approximate uniformities of
+sequence, such as "lightning is followed by thunder," "drunkenness
+is followed by headache," and so on. None of these sequences are
+theoretically invariable, since something may intervene to disturb
+them. In order to obtain invariable physical laws, we have to proceed to
+differential equations, showing the direction of change at each moment,
+not the integral change after a finite interval, however short. But
+for the purposes of daily life many sequences are to all in tents and
+purposes invariable. With the behaviour of human beings, however, this
+is by no means the case. If you say to an Englishman, "You have a smut
+on your nose," he will proceed to remove it, but there will be no such
+effect if you say the same thing to a Frenchman who knows no English.
+The effect of words upon the hearer is a mnemic phenomena, since it
+depends upon the past experience which gave him understanding of the
+words. If there are to be purely psychological causal laws, taking no
+account of the brain and the rest of the body, they will have to be of
+the form, not "X now causes Y now," but--
+
+"A, B, C,... in the past, together with X now, cause Y now." For it
+cannot be successfully maintained that our understanding of a word, for
+example, is an actual existent content of the mind at times when we
+are not thinking of the word. It is merely what may be called a
+"disposition," i.e. it is capable of being aroused whenever we hear the
+word or happen to think of it. A "disposition" is not something actual,
+but merely the mnemic portion of a mnemic causal law.
+
+In such a law as "A, B, C,... in the past, together with X now, cause
+Y now," we will call A, B, C,... the mnemic cause, X the occasion or
+stimulus, and Y the reaction. All cases in which experience influences
+behaviour are instances of mnemic causation.
+
+Believers in psycho-physical parallelism hold that psychology can
+theoretically be freed entirely from all dependence on physiology or
+physics. That is to say, they believe that every psychical event has
+a psychical cause and a physical concomitant. If there is to be
+parallelism, it is easy to prove by mathematical logic that the
+causation in physical and psychical matters must be of the same sort,
+and it is impossible that mnemic causation should exist in psychology
+but not in physics. But if psychology is to be independent of
+physiology, and if physiology can be reduced to physics, it would seem
+that mnemic causation is essential in psychology. Otherwise we shall be
+compelled to believe that all our knowledge, all our store of images
+and memories, all our mental habits, are at all times existing in some
+latent mental form, and are not merely aroused by the stimuli which lead
+to their display. This is a very difficult hypothesis. It seems to me
+that if, as a matter of method rather than metaphysics, we desire to
+obtain as much independence for psychology as is practically feasible,
+we shall do better to accept mnemic causation in psychology protem,
+and therefore reject parallelism, since there is no good ground for
+admitting mnemic causation in physics.
+
+It is perhaps worth while to observe that mnemic causation is what led
+Bergson to deny that there is causation at all in the psychical sphere.
+He points out, very truly, that the same stimulus, repeated, does not
+have the same consequences, and he argues that this is contrary to the
+maxim, "same cause, same effect." It is only necessary, however, to take
+account of past occurrences and include them with the cause, in order
+to re-establish the maxim, and the possibility of psychological causal
+laws. The metaphysical conception of a cause lingers in our manner of
+viewing causal laws: we want to be able to FEEL a connection between
+cause and effect, and to be able to imagine the cause as "operating."
+This makes us unwilling to regard causal laws as MERELY observed
+uniformities of sequence; yet that is all that science has to offer.
+To ask why such-and-such a kind of sequence occurs is either to ask a
+meaningless question, or to demand some more general kind of sequence
+which includes the one in question. The widest empirical laws of
+sequence known at any time can only be "explained" in the sense of being
+subsumed by later discoveries under wider laws; but these wider laws,
+until they in turn are subsumed, will remain brute facts, resting solely
+upon observation, not upon some supposed inherent rationality.
+
+There is therefore no a priori objection to a causal law in which part
+of the cause has ceased to exist. To argue against such a law on the
+ground that what is past cannot operate now, is to introduce the old
+metaphysical notion of cause, for which science can find no place. The
+only reason that could be validly alleged against mnemic causation would
+be that, in fact, all the phenomena can be explained without it. They
+are explained without it by Semon's "engram," or by any theory which
+regards the results of experience as embodied in modifications of
+the brain and nerves. But they are not explained, unless with extreme
+artificiality, by any theory which regards the latent effects of
+experience as psychical rather than physical. Those who desire to make
+psychology as far as possible independent of physiology would do well,
+it seems to me, if they adopted mnemic causation. For my part, however,
+I have no such desire, and I shall therefore endeavour to state the
+grounds which occur to me in favour of some such view as that of the
+"engram."
+
+One of the first points to be urged is that mnemic phenomena are just
+as much to be found in physiology as in psychology. They are even to
+be found in plants, as Sir Francis Darwin pointed out (cf. Semon, "Die
+Mneme," 2nd edition, p. 28 n.). Habit is a characteristic of the body
+at least as much as of the mind. We should, therefore, be compelled
+to allow the intrusion of mnemic causation, if admitted at all, into
+non-psychological regions, which ought, one feels, to be subject only to
+causation of the ordinary physical sort. The fact is that a great deal
+of what, at first sight, distinguishes psychology from physics is found,
+on examination, to be common to psychology and physiology; this whole
+question of the influence of experience is a case in point. Now it
+is possible, of course, to take the view advocated by Professor J. S.
+Haldane, who contends that physiology is not theoretically reducible to
+physics and chemistry.* But the weight of opinion among physiologists
+appears to be against him on this point; and we ought certainly to
+require very strong evidence before admitting any such breach of
+continuity as between living and dead matter. The argument from the
+existence of mnemic phenomena in physiology must therefore be allowed a
+certain weight against the hypothesis that mnemic causation is ultimate.
+
+     * See his "The New Physiology and Other Addresses," Griffin,
+     1919, also the symposium, "Are Physical, Biological and
+     Psychological Categories Irreducible?" in "Life and Finite
+     Individuality," edited for the Aristotelian Society, with an
+     Introduction. By H. Wildon Carr, Williams & Norgate, 1918.
+
+The argument from the connection of brain-lesions with loss of memory is
+not so strong as it looks, though it has also, some weight. What we
+know is that memory, and mnemic phenomena generally, can be disturbed or
+destroyed by changes in the brain. This certainly proves that the brain
+plays an essential part in the causation of memory, but does not prove
+that a certain state of the brain is, by itself, a sufficient condition
+for the existence of memory. Yet it is this last that has to be proved.
+The theory of the engram, or any similar theory, has to maintain that,
+given a body and brain in a suitable state, a man will have a certain
+memory, without the need of any further conditions. What is known,
+however, is only that he will not have memories if his body and brain
+are not in a suitable state. That is to say, the appropriate state
+of body and brain is proved to be necessary for memory, but not to be
+sufficient. So far, therefore, as our definite knowledge goes, memory
+may require for its causation a past occurrence as well as a certain
+present state of the brain.
+
+In order to prove conclusively that mnemic phenomena arise whenever
+certain physiological conditions are fulfilled, we ought to be able
+actually to see differences between the brain of a man who speaks
+English and that of a man who speaks French, between the brain of a man
+who has seen New York and can recall it, and that of a man who has never
+seen that city. It may be that the time will come when this will be
+possible, but at present we are very far removed from it. At present,
+there is, so far as I am aware, no good evidence that every difference
+between the knowledge possessed by A and that possessed by B is
+paralleled by some difference in their brains. We may believe that
+this is the case, but if we do, our belief is based upon analogies
+and general scientific maxims, not upon any foundation of detailed
+observation. I am myself inclined, as a working hypothesis, to adopt
+the belief in question, and to hold that past experience only affects
+present behaviour through modifications of physiological structure. But
+the evidence seems not quite conclusive, so that I do not think we ought
+to forget the other hypothesis, or to reject entirely the possibility
+that mnemic causation may be the ultimate explanation of mnemic
+phenomena. I say this, not because I think it LIKELY that mnemic
+causation is ultimate, but merely because I think it POSSIBLE, and
+because it often turns out important to the progress of science to
+remember hypotheses which have previously seemed improbable.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE V. PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL CAUSAL LAWS
+
+The traditional conception of cause and effect is one which modern
+science shows to be fundamentally erroneous, and requiring to be
+replaced by a quite different notion, that of LAWS OF CHANGE. In the
+traditional conception, a particular event A caused a particular event
+B, and by this it was implied that, given any event B, some earlier
+event A could be discovered which had a relation to it, such that--
+
+(1) Whenever A occurred, it was followed by B;
+
+(2) In this sequence, there was something "necessary," not a mere de
+facto occurrence of A first and then B.
+
+The second point is illustrated by the old discussion as to whether
+it can be said that day causes night, on the ground that day is always
+followed by night. The orthodox answer was that day could not be called
+the cause of night, because it would not be followed by night if the
+earth's rotation were to cease, or rather to grow so slow that one
+complete rotation would take a year. A cause, it was held, must be such
+that under no conceivable circumstances could it fail to be followed by
+its effect.
+
+As a matter of fact, such sequences as were sought by believers in the
+traditional form of causation have not so far been found in nature.
+Everything in nature is apparently in a state of continuous change,* so
+that what we call one "event" turns out to be really a process. If this
+event is to cause another event, the two will have to be contiguous in
+time; for if there is any interval between them, something may happen
+during that interval to prevent the expected effect. Cause and effect,
+therefore, will have to be temporally contiguous processes. It is
+difficult to believe, at any rate where physical laws are concerned,
+that the earlier part of the process which is the cause can make any
+difference to the effect, so long as the later part of the process which
+is the cause remains unchanged. Suppose, for example, that a man dies
+of arsenic poisoning, we say that his taking arsenic was the cause
+of death. But clearly the process by which he acquired the arsenic
+is irrelevant: everything that happened before he swallowed it may be
+ignored, since it cannot alter the effect except in so far as it alters
+his condition at the moment of taking the dose. But we may go further:
+swallowing arsenic is not really the proximate cause of death, since a
+man might be shot through the head immediately after taking the dose,
+and then it would not be of arsenic that he would die. The arsenic
+produces certain physiological changes, which take a finite time before
+they end in death. The earlier parts of these changes can be ruled out
+in the same way as we can rule out the process by which the arsenic was
+acquired. Proceeding in this way, we can shorten the process which we
+are calling the cause more and more. Similarly we shall have to shorten
+the effect. It may happen that immediately after the man's death his
+body is blown to pieces by a bomb. We cannot say what will happen after
+the man's death, through merely knowing that he has died as the result
+of arsenic poisoning. Thus, if we are to take the cause as one event and
+the effect as another, both must be shortened indefinitely. The result
+is that we merely have, as the embodiment of our causal law, a certain
+direction of change at each moment. Hence we are brought to differential
+equations as embodying causal laws. A physical law does not say "A will
+be followed by B," but tells us what acceleration a particle will have
+under given circumstances, i.e. it tells us how the particle's motion is
+changing at each moment, not where the particle will be at some future
+moment.
+
+     * The theory of quanta suggests that the continuity is only
+     apparent. If so, we shall be able theoretically to reach
+     events which are not processes. But in what is directly
+     observable there is still apparent continuity, which
+     justifies the above remarks for the prevent.
+
+Laws embodied in differential equations may possibly be exact,
+but cannot be known to be so. All that we can know empirically is
+approximate and liable to exceptions; the exact laws that are assumed in
+physics are known to be somewhere near the truth, but are not known to
+be true just as they stand. The laws that we actually know empirically
+have the form of the traditional causal laws, except that they are not
+to be regarded as universal or necessary. "Taking arsenic is followed by
+death" is a good empirical generalization; it may have exceptions, but
+they will be rare. As against the professedly exact laws of physics,
+such empirical generalizations have the advantage that they deal with
+observable phenomena. We cannot observe infinitesimals, whether in time
+or space; we do not even know whether time and space are infinitely
+divisible. Therefore rough empirical generalizations have a definite
+place in science, in spite of not being exact of universal. They are the
+data for more exact laws, and the grounds for believing that they are
+USUALLY true are stronger than the grounds for believing that the more
+exact laws are ALWAYS true.
+
+Science starts, therefore, from generalizations of the form, "A is
+usually followed by B." This is the nearest approach that can be made
+to a causal law of the traditional sort. It may happen in any particular
+instance that A is ALWAYS followed by B, but we cannot know this, since
+we cannot foresee all the perfectly possible circumstances that might
+make the sequence fail, or know that none of them will actually occur.
+If, however, we know of a very large number of cases in which A is
+followed by B, and few or none in which the sequence fails, we shall in
+PRACTICE be justified in saying "A causes B," provided we do not attach
+to the notion of cause any of the metaphysical superstitions that have
+gathered about the word.
+
+There is another point, besides lack of universality and necessity,
+which it is important to realize as regards causes in the above sense,
+and that is the lack of uniqueness. It is generally assumed that, given
+any event, there is some one phenomenon which is THE cause of the event
+in question. This seems to be a mere mistake. Cause, in the only
+sense in which it can be practically applied, means "nearly invariable
+antecedent." We cannot in practice obtain an antecedent which is QUITE
+invariable, for this would require us to take account of the whole
+universe, since something not taken account of may prevent the expected
+effect. We cannot distinguish, among nearly invariable antecedents, one
+as THE cause, and the others as merely its concomitants: the attempt to
+do this depends upon a notion of cause which is derived from will, and
+will (as we shall see later) is not at all the sort of thing that it is
+generally supposed to be, nor is there any reason to think that in the
+physical world there is anything even remotely analogous to what will is
+supposed to be. If we could find one antecedent, and only one, that was
+QUITE invariable, we could call that one THE cause without introducing
+any notion derived from mistaken ideas about will. But in fact we cannot
+find any antecedent that we know to be quite invariable, and we can find
+many that are nearly so. For example, men leave a factory for dinner
+when the hooter sounds at twelve o'clock. You may say the hooter is
+THE cause of their leaving. But innumerable other hooters in other
+factories, which also always sound at twelve o'clock, have just as
+good a right to be called the cause. Thus every event has many nearly
+invariable antecedents, and therefore many antecedents which may be
+called its cause.
+
+The laws of traditional physics, in the form in which they deal with
+movements of matter or electricity, have an apparent simplicity which
+somewhat conceals the empirical character of what they assert. A piece
+of matter, as it is known empirically, is not a single existing thing,
+but a system of existing things. When several people simultaneously see
+the same table, they all see something different; therefore "the" table,
+which they are supposed all to see, must be either a hypothesis or
+a construction. "The" table is to be neutral as between different
+observers: it does not favour the aspect seen by one man at the expense
+of that seen by another. It was natural, though to my mind mistaken, to
+regard the "real" table as the common cause of all the appearances which
+the table presents (as we say) to different observers. But why should we
+suppose that there is some one common cause of all these appearances? As
+we have just seen, the notion of "cause" is not so reliable as to allow
+us to infer the existence of something that, by its very nature, can
+never be observed.
+
+Instead of looking for an impartial source, we can secure neutrality by
+the equal representation of all parties. Instead of supposing that there
+is some unknown cause, the "real" table, behind the different sensations
+of those who are said to be looking at the table, we may take the
+whole set of these sensations (together possibly with certain other
+particulars) as actually BEING the table. That is to say, the table
+which is neutral as between different observers (actual and possible)
+is the set of all those particulars which would naturally be called
+"aspects" of the table from different points of view. (This is a first
+approximation, modified later.)
+
+It may be said: If there is no single existent which is the source of
+all these "aspects," how are they collected together? The answer is
+simple: Just as they would be if there were such a single existent. The
+supposed "real" table underlying its appearances is, in any case, not
+itself perceived, but inferred, and the question whether such-and-such
+a particular is an "aspect" of this table is only to be settled by
+the connection of the particular in question with the one or more
+particulars by which the table is defined. That is to say, even if we
+assume a "real" table, the particulars which are its aspects have to be
+collected together by their relations to each other, not to it, since
+it is merely inferred from them. We have only, therefore, to notice how
+they are collected together, and we can then keep the collection
+without assuming any "real" table as distinct from the collection. When
+different people see what they call the same table, they see things
+which are not exactly the same, owing to difference of point of view,
+but which are sufficiently alike to be described in the same words, so
+long as no great accuracy or minuteness is sought. These closely similar
+particulars are collected together by their similarity primarily
+and, more correctly, by the fact that they are related to each other
+approximately according to the laws of perspective and of reflection and
+diffraction of light. I suggest, as a first approximation, that these
+particulars, together with such correlated others as are unperceived,
+jointly ARE the table; and that a similar definition applies to all
+physical objects.*
+
+     *See "Our Knowledge of the External World" (Allen & Unwin),
+     chaps. iii and iv.
+
+In order to eliminate the reference to our perceptions, which introduces
+an irrelevant psychological suggestion, I will take a different
+illustration, namely, stellar photography. A photographic plate exposed
+on a clear night reproduces the appearance of the portion of the sky
+concerned, with more or fewer stars according to the power of the
+telescope that is being used. Each separate star which is photographed
+produces its separate effect on the plate, just as it would upon
+ourselves if we were looking at the sky. If we assume, as science
+normally does, the continuity of physical processes, we are forced
+to conclude that, at the place where the plate is, and at all places
+between it and a star which it photographs, SOMETHING is happening which
+is specially connected with that star. In the days when the aether was
+less in doubt, we should have said that what was happening was a certain
+kind of transverse vibration in the aether. But it is not necessary
+or desirable to be so explicit: all that we need say is that SOMETHING
+happens which is specially connected with the star in question. It
+must be something specially connected with that star, since that star
+produces its own special effect upon the plate. Whatever it is must be
+the end of a process which starts from the star and radiates outwards,
+partly on general grounds of continuity, partly to account for the fact
+that light is transmitted with a certain definite velocity. We thus
+arrive at the conclusion that, if a certain star is visible at a certain
+place, or could be photographed by a sufficiently sensitive plate at
+that place, something is happening there which is specially connected
+with that star. Therefore in every place at all times a vast multitude
+of things must be happening, namely, at least one for every physical
+object which can be seen or photographed from that place. We can
+classify such happenings on either of two principles:
+
+(1) We can collect together all the happenings in one place, as is done
+by photography so far as light is concerned;
+
+(2) We can collect together all the happenings, in different places,
+which are connected in the way that common sense regards as being due to
+their emanating from one object.
+
+Thus, to return to the stars, we can collect together either--
+
+(1) All the appearances of different stars in a given place, or,
+
+(2) All the appearances of a given star in different places.
+
+But when I speak of "appearances," I do so only for brevity: I do not
+mean anything that must "appear" to somebody, but only that happening,
+whatever it may be, which is connected, at the place in question, with a
+given physical object--according to the old orthodox theory, it would be
+a transverse vibration in the aether. Like the different appearances
+of the table to a number of simultaneous observers, the different
+particulars that belong to one physical object are to be collected
+together by continuity and inherent laws of correlation, not by their
+supposed causal connection with an unknown assumed existent called a
+piece of matter, which would be a mere unnecessary metaphysical thing in
+itself. A piece of matter, according to the definition that I propose,
+is, as a first approximation,* the collection of all those correlated
+particulars which would normally be regarded as its appearances or
+effects in different places. Some further elaborations are desirable,
+but we can ignore them for the present. I shall return to them at the
+end of this lecture.
+
+     *The exact definition of a piece of matter as a construction
+     will be given later.
+
+According to the view that I am suggesting, a physical object or piece
+of matter is the collection of all those correlated particulars which
+would be regarded by common sense as its effects or appearances in
+different places. On the other hand, all the happenings in a given place
+represent what common sense would regard as the appearances of a number
+of different objects as viewed from that place. All the happenings in
+one place may be regarded as the view of the world from that place. I
+shall call the view of the world from a given place a "perspective." A
+photograph represents a perspective. On the other hand, if photographs
+of the stars were taken in all points throughout space, and in all such
+photographs a certain star, say Sirius, were picked out whenever it
+appeared, all the different appearances of Sirius, taken together,
+would represent Sirius. For the understanding of the difference between
+psychology and physics it is vital to understand these two ways of
+classifying particulars, namely:
+
+(1) According to the place where they occur;
+
+(2) According to the system of correlated particulars in different
+places to which they belong, such system being defined as a physical
+object.
+
+Given a system of particulars which is a physical object, I shall
+define that one of the system which is in a given place (if any) as the
+"appearance of that object in that place."
+
+When the appearance of an object in a given place changes, it is found
+that one or other of two things occurs. The two possibilities may be
+illustrated by an example. You are in a room with a man, whom you see:
+you may cease to see him either by shutting your eyes or by his going
+out of the room. In the first case, his appearance to other people
+remains unchanged; in the second, his appearance changes from all
+places. In the first case, you say that it is not he who has changed,
+but your eyes; in the second, you say that he has changed. Generalizing,
+we distinguish--
+
+(1) Cases in which only certain appearances of the object change, while
+others, and especially appearances from places very near to the object,
+do not change;
+
+(2) Cases where all, or almost all, the appearances of the object
+undergo a connected change.
+
+In the first case, the change is attributed to the medium between the
+object and the place; in the second, it is attributed to the object
+itself.*
+
+     * The application of this distinction to motion raises
+     complications due to relativity, but we may ignore these for
+     our present purposes.
+
+It is the frequency of the latter kind of change, and the comparatively
+simple nature of the laws governing the simultaneous alterations
+of appearances in such cases, that have made it possible to treat a
+physical object as one thing, and to overlook the fact that it is a
+system of particulars. When a number of people at a theatre watch an
+actor, the changes in their several perspectives are so similar and so
+closely correlated that all are popularly regarded as identical with
+each other and with the changes of the actor himself. So long as all
+the changes in the appearances of a body are thus correlated there is no
+pressing prima facie need to break up the system of appearances, or to
+realize that the body in question is not really one thing but a set of
+correlated particulars. It is especially and primarily such changes that
+physics deals with, i.e. it deals primarily with processes in which
+the unity of a physical object need not be broken up because all its
+appearances change simultaneously according to the same law--or, if not
+all, at any rate all from places sufficiently near to the object, with
+in creasing accuracy as we approach the object.
+
+The changes in appearances of an object which are due to changes in the
+intervening medium will not affect, or will affect only very slightly,
+the appearances from places close to the object. If the appearances
+from sufficiently neighbouring places are either wholly un changed,
+or changed to a diminishing extent which has zero for its limit, it
+is usually found that the changes can be accounted for by changes in
+objects which are between the object in question and the places from
+which its appearance has changed appreciably. Thus physics is able
+to reduce the laws of most changes with which it deals to changes in
+physical objects, and to state most of its fundamental laws in terms of
+matter. It is only in those cases in which the unity of the system of
+appearances constituting a piece of matter has to be broken up, that the
+statement of what is happening cannot be made exclusively in terms of
+matter. The whole of psychology, we shall find, is included among such
+cases; hence their importance for our purposes.
+
+We can now begin to understand one of the fundamental differences
+between physics and psychology. Physics treats as a unit the whole
+system of appearances of a piece of matter, whereas psychology is
+interested in certain of these appearances themselves. Confining
+ourselves for the moment to the psychology of perceptions, we observe
+that perceptions are certain of the appearances of physical objects.
+From the point of view that we have been hitherto adopting, we
+might define them as the appearances of objects at places from which
+sense-organs and the suitable parts of the nervous system form part
+of the intervening medium. Just as a photographic plate receives a
+different impression of a cluster of stars when a telescope is part of
+the intervening medium, so a brain receives a different impression
+when an eye and an optic nerve are part of the intervening medium.
+An impression due to this sort of intervening medium is called a
+perception, and is interesting to psychology on its own account, not
+merely as one of the set of correlated particulars which is the physical
+object of which (as we say) we are having a perception.
+
+We spoke earlier of two ways of classifying particulars. One way
+collects together the appearances commonly regarded as a given object
+from different places; this is, broadly speaking, the way of physics,
+leading to the construction of physical objects as sets of such
+appearances. The other way collects together the appearances of
+different objects from a given place, the result being what we call a
+perspective. In the particular case where the place concerned is a
+human brain, the perspective belonging to the place consists of all the
+perceptions of a certain man at a given time. Thus classification by
+perspectives is relevant to psychology, and is essential in defining
+what we mean by one mind.
+
+I do not wish to suggest that the way in which I have been defining
+perceptions is the only possible way, or even the best way. It is the
+way that arose naturally out of our present topic. But when we approach
+psychology from a more introspective standpoint, we have to distinguish
+sensations and perceptions, if possible, from other mental occurrences,
+if any. We have also to consider the psychological effects of
+sensations, as opposed to their physical causes and correlates. These
+problems are quite distinct from those with which we have been concerned
+in the present lecture, and I shall not deal with them until a later
+stage.
+
+It is clear that psychology is concerned essentially with actual
+particulars, not merely with systems of particulars. In this it differs
+from physics, which, broadly speaking, is concerned with the cases
+in which all the particulars which make up one physical object can be
+treated as a single causal unit, or rather the particulars which are
+sufficiently near to the object of which they are appearances can be so
+treated. The laws which physics seeks can, broadly speaking, be stated
+by treating such systems of particulars as causal units. The laws which
+psychology seeks cannot be so stated, since the particulars themselves
+are what interests the psychologist. This is one of the fundamental
+differences between physics and psychology; and to make it clear has
+been the main purpose of this lecture.
+
+I will conclude with an attempt to give a more precise definition of
+a piece of matter. The appearances of a piece of matter from different
+places change partly according to intrinsic laws (the laws of
+perspective, in the case of visual shape), partly according to the
+nature of the intervening medium--fog, blue spectacles, telescopes,
+microscopes, sense-organs, etc. As we approach nearer to the object, the
+effect of the intervening medium grows less. In a generalized sense,
+all the intrinsic laws of change of appearance may be called "laws
+of perspective." Given any appearance of an object, we can construct
+hypothetically a certain system of appearances to which the appearance
+in question would belong if the laws of perspective alone were
+concerned. If we construct this hypothetical system for each appearance
+of the object in turn, the system corresponding to a given appearance
+x will be independent of any distortion due to the medium beyond x, and
+will only embody such distortion as is due to the medium between x and
+the object. Thus, as the appearance by which our hypothetical system
+is defined is moved nearer and nearer to the object, the hypothetical
+system of appearances defined by its means embodies less and less of the
+effect of the medium. The different sets of appearances resulting from
+moving x nearer and nearer to the object will approach to a limiting
+set, and this limiting set will be that system of appearances which the
+object would present if the laws of perspective alone were operative
+and the medium exercised no distorting effect. This limiting set of
+appearances may be defined, for purposes of physics, as the piece of
+matter concerned.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE VI. INTROSPECTION
+
+One of the main purposes of these lectures is to give grounds for
+the belief that the distinction between mind and matter is not so
+fundamental as is commonly supposed. In the preceding lecture I dealt in
+outline with the physical side of this problem. I attempted to show
+that what we call a material object is not itself a substance, but is
+a system of particulars analogous in their nature to sensations, and in
+fact often including actual sensations among their number. In this
+way the stuff of which physical objects are composed is brought into
+relation with the stuff of which part, at least, of our mental life is
+composed.
+
+There is, however, a converse task which is equally necessary for our
+thesis, and that is, to show that the stuff of our mental life is devoid
+of many qualities which it is commonly supposed to have, and is not
+possessed of any attributes which make it incapable of forming part of
+the world of matter. In the present lecture I shall begin the arguments
+for this view.
+
+Corresponding to the supposed duality of matter and mind, there are, in
+orthodox psychology, two ways of knowing what exists. One of these, the
+way of sensation and external perception, is supposed to furnish data
+for our knowledge of matter, the other, called "introspection," is
+supposed to furnish data for knowledge of our mental processes. To
+common sense, this distinction seems clear and easy. When you see a
+friend coming along the street, you acquire knowledge of an external,
+physical fact; when you realize that you are glad to meet him, you
+acquire knowledge of a mental fact. Your dreams and memories and
+thoughts, of which you are often conscious, are mental facts, and the
+process by which you become aware of them SEEMS to be different from
+sensation. Kant calls it the "inner sense"; sometimes it is spoken of
+as "consciousness of self"; but its commonest name in modern English
+psychology is "introspection." It is this supposed method of acquiring
+knowledge of our mental processes that I wish to analyse and examine in
+this lecture.
+
+I will state at the outset the view which I shall aim at establishing.
+I believe that the stuff of our mental life, as opposed to its relations
+and structure, consists wholly of sensations and images. Sensations are
+connected with matter in the way that I tried to explain in Lecture V,
+i.e. each is a member of a system which is a certain physical object.
+Images, though they USUALLY have certain characteristics, especially
+lack of vividness, that distinguish them from sensations, are not
+INVARIABLY so distinguished, and cannot therefore be defined by these
+characteristics. Images, as opposed to sensations, can only be defined
+by their different causation: they are caused by association with a
+sensation, not by a stimulus external to the nervous system--or perhaps
+one should say external to the brain, where the higher animals are
+concerned. The occurrence of a sensation or image does not in itself
+constitute knowledge but any sensation or image may come to be known
+if the conditions are suitable. When a sensation--like the hearing of a
+clap of thunder--is normally correlated with closely similar sensations
+in our neighbours, we regard it as giving knowledge of the external
+world, since we regard the whole set of similar sensations as due to
+a common external cause. But images and bodily sensations are not so
+correlated. Bodily sensations can be brought into a correlation by
+physiology, and thus take their place ultimately among sources of
+knowledge of the physical world. But images cannot be made to fit in
+with the simultaneous sensations and images of others. Apart from their
+hypothetical causes in the brain, they have a causal connection
+with physical objects, through the fact that they are copies of past
+sensations; but the physical objects with which they are thus connected
+are in the past, not in the present. These images remain private in
+a sense in which sensations are not. A sensation SEEMS to give us
+knowledge of a present physical object, while an image does not, except
+when it amounts to a hallucination, and in this case the seeming is
+deceptive. Thus the whole context of the two occurrences is different.
+But in themselves they do not differ profoundly, and there is no reason
+to invoke two different ways of knowing for the one and for the other.
+Consequently introspection as a separate kind of knowledge disappears.
+
+The criticism of introspection has been in the main the work of American
+psychologists. I will begin by summarizing an article which seems to me
+to afford a good specimen of their arguments, namely, "The Case against
+Introspection," by Knight Dunlap ("Psychological Review," vol xix, No.
+5, pp. 404-413, September, 1912). After a few historical quotations,
+he comes to two modern defenders of introspection, Stout and James. He
+quotes from Stout such statements as the following: "Psychical states as
+such become objects only when we attend to them in an introspective way.
+Otherwise they are not themselves objects, but only constituents of the
+process by which objects are recognized" ("Manual," 2nd edition, p. 134.
+The word "recognized" in Dunlap's quotation should be "cognized.") "The
+object itself can never be identified with the present modification of
+the individual's consciousness by which it is cognized" (ib. p. 60).
+This is to be true even when we are thinking about modifications of
+our own consciousness; such modifications are to be always at least
+partially distinct from the conscious experience in which we think of
+them.
+
+At this point I wish to interrupt the account of Knight Dunlap's article
+in order to make some observations on my own account with reference to
+the above quotations from Stout. In the first place, the conception of
+"psychical states" seems to me one which demands analysis of a somewhat
+destructive character. This analysis I shall give in later lectures as
+regards cognition; I have already given it as regards desire. In the
+second place, the conception of "objects" depends upon a certain view
+as to cognition which I believe to be wholly mistaken, namely, the view
+which I discussed in my first lecture in connection with Brentano.
+In this view a single cognitive occurrence contains both content and
+object, the content being essentially mental, while the object is
+physical except in introspection and abstract thought. I have already
+criticized this view, and will not dwell upon it now, beyond saying
+that "the process by which objects are cognized" appears to be a very
+slippery phrase. When we "see a table," as common sense would say, the
+table as a physical object is not the "object" (in the psychological
+sense) of our perception. Our perception is made up of sensations,
+images and beliefs, but the supposed "object" is something inferential,
+externally related, not logically bound up with what is occurring in us.
+This question of the nature of the object also affects the view we take
+of self-consciousness. Obviously, a "conscious experience" is different
+from a physical object; therefore it is natural to assume that a thought
+or perception whose object is a conscious experience must be different
+from a thought or perception whose object is a physical object. But if
+the relation to the object is inferential and external, as I maintain,
+the difference between two thoughts may bear very little relation to
+the difference between their objects. And to speak of "the present
+modification of the individual's consciousness by which an object is
+cognized" is to suggest that the cognition of objects is a far more
+direct process, far more intimately bound up with the objects, than I
+believe it to be. All these points will be amplified when we come to the
+analysis of knowledge, but it is necessary briefly to state them now in
+order to suggest the atmosphere in which our analysis of "introspection"
+is to be carried on.
+
+Another point in which Stout's remarks seem to me to suggest what I
+regard as mistakes is his use of "consciousness." There is a view which
+is prevalent among psychologists, to the effect that one can speak of "a
+conscious experience" in a curious dual sense, meaning, on the one hand,
+an experience which is conscious of something, and, on the other hand,
+an experience which has some intrinsic nature characteristic of what
+is called "consciousness." That is to say, a "conscious experience" is
+characterized on the one hand by relation to its object and on the
+other hand by being composed of a certain peculiar stuff, the stuff of
+"consciousness." And in many authors there is yet a third confusion: a
+"conscious experience," in this third sense, is an experience of
+which we are conscious. All these, it seems to me, need to be clearly
+separated. To say that one occurrence is "conscious" of another is, to
+my mind, to assert an external and rather remote relation between them.
+I might illustrate it by the relation of uncle and nephew a man becomes
+an uncle through no effort of his own, merely through an occurrence
+elsewhere. Similarly, when you are said to be "conscious" of a table,
+the question whether this is really the case cannot be decided by
+examining only your state of mind: it is necessary also to ascertain
+whether your sensation is having those correlates which past experience
+causes you to assume, or whether the table happens, in this case, to be
+a mirage. And, as I explained in my first lecture, I do not believe that
+there is any "stuff" of consciousness, so that there is no intrinsic
+character by which a "conscious" experience could be distinguished from
+any other.
+
+After these preliminaries, we can return to Knight Dunlap's article.
+His criticism of Stout turns on the difficulty of giving any empirical
+meaning to such notions as the "mind" or the "subject"; he quotes from
+Stout the sentence: "The most important drawback is that the mind, in
+watching its own workings, must necessarily have its attention divided
+between two objects," and he concludes: "Without question, Stout is
+bringing in here illicitly the concept of a single observer, and his
+introspection does not provide for the observation of this observer;
+for the process observed and the observer are distinct" (p. 407).
+The objections to any theory which brings in the single observer were
+considered in Lecture I, and were acknowledged to be cogent. In so
+far, therefore, as Stout's theory of introspection rests upon this
+assumption, we are compelled to reject it. But it is perfectly possible
+to believe in introspection without supposing that there is a single
+observer.
+
+William James's theory of introspection, which Dunlap next examines,
+does not assume a single observer. It changed after the publication
+of his "Psychology," in consequence of his abandoning the dualism of
+thought and things. Dunlap summarizes his theory as follows:
+
+"The essential points in James's scheme of consciousness are SUBJECT,
+OBJECT, and a KNOWING of the object by the subject. The difference
+between James's scheme and other schemes involving the same terms is
+that James considers subject and object to be the same thing, but at
+different times In order to satisfy this requirement James supposes a
+realm of existence which he at first called 'states of consciousness' or
+'thoughts,' and later, 'pure experience,' the latter term including both
+the 'thoughts' and the 'knowing.' This scheme, with all its magnificent
+artificiality, James held on to until the end, simply dropping the
+term consciousness and the dualism between the thought and an external
+reality"(p. 409).
+
+He adds: "All that James's system really amounts to is the
+acknowledgment that a succession of things are known, and that they are
+known by something. This is all any one can claim, except for the
+fact that the things are known together, and that the knower for the
+different items is one and the same" (ib.).
+
+In this statement, to my mind, Dunlap concedes far more than James did
+in his later theory. I see no reason to suppose that "the knower for
+different items is one and the same," and I am convinced that this
+proposition could not possibly be ascertained except by introspection of
+the sort that Dunlap rejects. The first of these points must wait until
+we come to the analysis of belief: the second must be considered now.
+Dunlap's view is that there is a dualism of subject and object, but that
+the subject can never become object, and therefore there is no awareness
+of an awareness. He says in discussing the view that introspection
+reveals the occurrence of knowledge: "There can be no denial of the
+existence of the thing (knowing) which is alleged to be known or
+observed in this sort of 'introspection.' The allegation that the
+knowing is observed is that which may be denied. Knowing there certainly
+is; known, the knowing certainly is not"(p. 410). And again: "I am
+never aware of an awareness" (ib.). And on the next page: "It may sound
+paradoxical to say that one cannot observe the process (or relation) of
+observation, and yet may be certain that there is such a process: but
+there is really no inconsistency in the saying. How do I know that there
+is awareness? By being aware of something. There is no meaning in the
+term 'awareness' which is not expressed in the statement 'I am aware of
+a colour (or what-not).'"
+
+But the paradox cannot be so lightly disposed of. The statement "I am
+aware of a colour" is assumed by Knight Dunlap to be known to be true,
+but he does not explain how it comes to be known. The argument against
+him is not conclusive, since he may be able to show some valid way of
+inferring our awareness. But he does not suggest any such way. There is
+nothing odd in the hypothesis of beings which are aware of objects, but
+not of their own awareness; it is, indeed, highly probable that young
+children and the higher animals are such beings. But such beings cannot
+make the statement "I am aware of a colour," which WE can make. We have,
+therefore, some knowledge which they lack. It is necessary to Knight
+Dunlap's position to maintain that this additional knowledge is purely
+inferential, but he makes no attempt to show how the inference is
+possible. It may, of course, be possible, but I cannot see how. To my
+mind the fact (which he admits) that we know there is awareness, is ALL
+BUT decisive against his theory, and in favour of the view that we can
+be aware of an awareness.
+
+Dunlap asserts (to return to James) that the real ground for James's
+original belief in introspection was his belief in two sorts of
+objects, namely, thoughts and things. He suggests that it was a
+mere inconsistency on James's part to adhere to introspection after
+abandoning the dualism of thoughts and things. I do not wholly agree
+with this view, but it is difficult to disentangle the difference as to
+introspection from the difference as to the nature of knowing. Dunlap
+suggests (p. 411) that what is called introspection really consists of
+awareness of "images," visceral sensations, and so on. This view, in
+essence, seems to me sound. But then I hold that knowing itself consists
+of such constituents suitably related, and that in being aware of them
+we are sometimes being aware of instances of knowing. For this reason,
+much as I agree with his view as to what are the objects of which
+there is awareness, I cannot wholly agree with his conclusion as to the
+impossibility of introspection.
+
+The behaviourists have challenged introspection even more vigorously
+than Knight Dunlap, and have gone so far as to deny the existence of
+images. But I think that they have confused various things which
+are very commonly confused, and that it is necessary to make several
+distinctions before we can arrive at what is true and what false in the
+criticism of introspection.
+
+I wish to distinguish three distinct questions, any one of which may be
+meant when we ask whether introspection is a source of knowledge. The
+three questions are as follows:
+
+(1) Can we observe anything about ourselves which we cannot observe
+about other people, or is everything we can observe PUBLIC, in the sense
+that another could also observe it if suitably placed?
+
+(2) Does everything that we can observe obey the laws of physics and
+form part of the physical world, or can we observe certain things that
+lie outside physics?
+
+(3) Can we observe anything which differs in its intrinsic nature from
+the constituents of the physical world, or is everything that we can
+observe composed of elements intrinsically similar to the constituents
+of what is called matter?
+
+Any one of these three questions may be used to define introspection. I
+should favour introspection in the sense of the first question, i.e. I
+think that some of the things we observe cannot, even theoretically, be
+observed by any one else. The second question, tentatively and for
+the present, I should answer in favour of introspection; I think that
+images, in the actual condition of science, cannot be brought under the
+causal laws of physics, though perhaps ultimately they may be. The
+third question I should answer adversely to introspection I think that
+observation shows us nothing that is not composed of sensations and
+images, and that images differ from sensations in their causal laws, not
+intrinsically. I shall deal with the three questions successively.
+
+(1) PUBLICITY OR PRIVACY OF WHAT IS OBSERVED. Confining ourselves, for
+the moment, to sensations, we find that there are different degrees
+of publicity attaching to different sorts of sensations. If you feel a
+toothache when the other people in the room do not, you are in no way
+surprised; but if you hear a clap of thunder when they do not, you begin
+to be alarmed as to your mental condition. Sight and hearing are the
+most public of the senses; smell only a trifle less so; touch, again, a
+trifle less, since two people can only touch the same spot successively,
+not simultaneously. Taste has a sort of semi-publicity, since people
+seem to experience similar taste-sensations when they eat similar foods;
+but the publicity is incomplete, since two people cannot eat actually
+the same piece of food.
+
+But when we pass on to bodily sensations--headache, toothache, hunger,
+thirst, the feeling of fatigue, and so on--we get quite away from
+publicity, into a region where other people can tell us what they feel,
+but we cannot directly observe their feeling. As a natural result of
+this state of affairs, it has come to be thought that the public senses
+give us knowledge of the outer world, while the private senses only give
+us knowledge as to our own bodies. As regards privacy, all images, of
+whatever sort, belong with the sensations which only give knowledge of
+our own bodies, i.e. each is only observable by one observer. This is
+the reason why images of sight and hearing are more obviously different
+from sensations of sight and hearing than images of bodily sensations
+are from bodily sensations; and that is why the argument in favour of
+images is more conclusive in such cases as sight and hearing than in
+such cases as inner speech.
+
+The whole distinction of privacy and publicity, however, so long as we
+confine ourselves to sensations, is one of degree, not of kind. No
+two people, there is good empirical reason to think, ever have exactly
+similar sensations related to the same physical object at the same
+moment; on the other hand, even the most private sensation has
+correlations which would theoretically enable another observer to infer
+it.
+
+That no sensation is ever completely public, results from differences of
+point of view. Two people looking at the same table do not get the same
+sensation, because of perspective and the way the light falls. They get
+only correlated sensations. Two people listening to the same sound do
+not hear exactly the same thing, because one is nearer to the source of
+the sound than the other, one has better hearing than the other, and
+so on. Thus publicity in sensations consists, not in having PRECISELY
+similar sensations, but in having more or less similar sensations
+correlated according to ascertainable laws. The sensations which strike
+us as public are those where the correlated sensations are very similar
+and the correlations are very easy to discover. But even the most
+private sensations have correlations with things that others can
+observe. The dentist does not observe your ache, but he can see the
+cavity which causes it, and could guess that you are suffering even
+if you did not tell him. This fact, however, cannot be used, as Watson
+would apparently wish, to extrude from science observations which are
+private to one observer, since it is by means of many such observations
+that correlations are established, e.g. between toothaches and cavities.
+Privacy, therefore does not by itself make a datum unamenable to
+scientific treatment. On this point, the argument against introspection
+must be rejected.
+
+(2) DOES EVERYTHING OBSERVABLE OBEY THE LAWS OF PHYSICS? We come now to
+the second ground of objection to introspection, namely, that its data
+do not obey the laws of physics. This, though less emphasized, is,
+I think, an objection which is really more strongly felt than the
+objection of privacy. And we obtain a definition of introspection more
+in harmony with usage if we define it as observation of data not subject
+to physical laws than if we define it by means of privacy. No one would
+regard a man as introspective because he was conscious of having a
+stomach ache. Opponents of introspection do not mean to deny the obvious
+fact that we can observe bodily sensations which others cannot observe.
+For example, Knight Dunlap contends that images are really muscular
+contractions,* and evidently regards our awareness of muscular
+contractions as not coming under the head of introspection. I think it
+will be found that the essential characteristic of introspective data,
+in the sense which now concerns us, has to do with LOCALIZATION: either
+they are not localized at all, or they are localized, like visual
+images, in a place already physically occupied by something which would
+be inconsistent with them if they were regarded as part of the physical
+world. If you have a visual image of your friend sitting in a chair
+which in fact is empty, you cannot locate the image in your body,
+because it is visual, nor (as a physical phenomenon) in the chair,
+because the chair, as a physical object, is empty. Thus it seems to
+follow that the physical world does not include all that we are aware
+of, and that images, which are introspective data, have to be regarded,
+for the present, as not obeying the laws of physics; this is, I think,
+one of the chief reasons why an attempt is made to reject them. I
+shall try to show in Lecture VIII that the purely empirical reasons for
+accepting images are overwhelming. But we cannot be nearly so certain
+that they will not ultimately be brought under the laws of physics. Even
+if this should happen, however, they would still be distinguishable
+from sensations by their proximate causal laws, as gases remain
+distinguishable from solids.
+
+     * "Psychological Review," 1916, "Thought-Content and
+     Feeling," p. 59. See also ib., 1912, "The Nature of
+     Perceived Relations," where he says: "'Introspection,'
+     divested of its mythological suggestion of the observing of
+     consciousness, is really the observation of bodily
+     sensations (sensibles) and feelings (feelables)"(p. 427 n.).
+
+(3) CAN WE OBSERVE ANYTHING INTRINSICALLY DIFFERENT FROM SENSATIONS? We
+come now to our third question concerning introspection. It is commonly
+thought that by looking within we can observe all sorts of things that
+are radically different from the constituents of the physical world,
+e.g. thoughts, beliefs, desires, pleasures, pains and emotions. The
+difference between mind and matter is increased partly by emphasizing
+these supposed introspective data, partly by the supposition that matter
+is composed of atoms or electrons or whatever units physics may at the
+moment prefer. As against this latter supposition, I contend that
+the ultimate constituents of matter are not atoms or electrons, but
+sensations, and other things similar to sensations as regards extent and
+duration. As against the view that introspection reveals a mental world
+radically different from sensations, I propose to argue that thoughts,
+beliefs, desires, pleasures, pains and emotions are all built up out
+of sensations and images alone, and that there is reason to think that
+images do not differ from sensations in their intrinsic character. We
+thus effect a mutual rapprochement of mind and matter, and reduce the
+ultimate data of introspection (in our second sense) to images alone. On
+this third view of the meaning of introspection, therefore, our decision
+is wholly against it.
+
+There remain two points to be considered concerning introspection. The
+first is as to how far it is trustworthy; the second is as to whether,
+even granting that it reveals no radically different STUFF from that
+revealed by what might be called external perception, it may not reveal
+different RELATIONS, and thus acquire almost as much importance as is
+traditionally assigned to it.
+
+To begin with the trustworthiness of introspection. It is common among
+certain schools to regard the knowledge of our own mental processes as
+incomparably more certain than our knowledge of the "external" world;
+this view is to be found in the British philosophy which descends from
+Hume, and is present, somewhat veiled, in Kant and his followers.
+There seems no reason whatever to accept this view. Our spontaneous,
+unsophisticated beliefs, whether as to ourselves or as to the outer
+world, are always extremely rash and very liable to error. The
+acquisition of caution is equally necessary and equally difficult in
+both directions. Not only are we often un aware of entertaining a
+belief or desire which exists in us; we are often actually mistaken. The
+fallibility of introspection as regards what we desire is made evident
+by psycho-analysis; its fallibility as to what we know is easily
+demonstrated. An autobiography, when confronted by a careful editor
+with documentary evidence, is usually found to be full of obviously
+inadvertent errors. Any of us confronted by a forgotten letter written
+some years ago will be astonished to find how much more foolish our
+opinions were than we had remembered them as being. And as to the
+analysis of our mental operations--believing, desiring, willing, or what
+not--introspection unaided gives very little help: it is necessary to
+construct hypotheses and test them by their consequences, just as we do
+in physical science. Introspection, therefore, though it is one among
+our sources of knowledge, is not, in isolation, in any degree more
+trustworthy than "external" perception.
+
+I come now to our second question: Does introspection give us materials
+for the knowledge of relations other than those arrived at by reflecting
+upon external perception? It might be contended that the essence of what
+is "mental" consists of relations, such as knowing for example, and that
+our knowledge concerning these essentially mental relations is entirely
+derived from introspection. If "knowing" were an unanalysable relation,
+this view would be incontrovertible, since clearly no such relation
+forms part of the subject matter of physics. But it would seem that
+"knowing" is really various relations, all of them complex. Therefore,
+until they have been analysed, our present question must remain
+unanswered I shall return to it at the end of the present course of
+lectures.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE VII. THE DEFINITION OF PERCEPTION
+
+In Lecture V we found reason to think that the ultimate constituents*
+of the world do not have the characteristics of either mind or matter
+as ordinarily understood: they are not solid persistent objects moving
+through space, nor are they fragments of "consciousness." But we found
+two ways of grouping particulars, one into "things" or "pieces of
+matter," the other into series of "perspectives," each series being what
+may be called a "biography." Before we can define either sensations
+or images, it is necessary to consider this twofold classification
+in somewhat greater detail, and to derive from it a definition of
+perception. It should be said that, in so far as the classification
+assumes the whole world of physics (including its unperceived portions),
+it contains hypothetical elements. But we will not linger on the grounds
+for admitting these, which belong to the philosophy of physics rather
+than of psychology.
+
+     * When I speak of "ultimate constituents," I do not mean
+     necessarily such as are theoretically incapable of analysis,
+     but only such as, at present, we can see no means of
+     analysing. I speak of such constituents as "particulars," or
+     as "RELATIVE particulars" when I wish to emphasize the fact
+     that they may be themselves complex.
+
+The physical classification of particulars collects together all those
+that are aspects of one "thing." Given any one particular, it is
+found often (we do not say always) that there are a number of other
+particulars differing from this one in gradually increasing degrees.
+Those (or some of those) that differ from it only very slightly will
+be found to differ approximately according to certain laws which may be
+called, in a generalized sense, the laws of "perspective"; they include
+the ordinary laws of perspective as a special case. This approximation
+grows more and more nearly exact as the difference grows less; in
+technical language, the laws of perspective account for the differences
+to the first order of small quantities, and other laws are only
+required to account for second-order differences. That is to say, as the
+difference diminishes, the part of the difference which is not according
+to the laws of perspective diminishes much more rapidly, and bears to
+the total difference a ratio which tends towards zero as both are made
+smaller and smaller. By this means we can theoretically collect together
+a number of particulars which may be defined as the "aspects" or
+"appearances" of one thing at one time. If the laws of perspective were
+sufficiently known, the connection between different aspects would be
+expressed in differential equations.
+
+This gives us, so far, only those particulars which constitute one thing
+at one time. This set of particulars may be called a "momentary
+thing." To define that series of "momentary things" that constitute
+the successive states of one thing is a problem involving the laws of
+dynamics. These give the laws governing the changes of aspects from
+one time to a slightly later time, with the same sort of differential
+approximation to exactness as we obtained for spatially neighbouring
+aspects through the laws of perspective. Thus a momentary thing is a set
+of particulars, while a thing (which may be identified with the whole
+history of the thing) is a series of such sets of particulars.
+The particulars in one set are collected together by the laws of
+perspective; the successive sets are collected together by the laws
+of dynamics. This is the view of the world which is appropriate to
+traditional physics.
+
+The definition of a "momentary thing" involves problems concerning time,
+since the particulars constituting a momentary thing will not be all
+simultaneous, but will travel outward from the thing with the velocity
+of light (in case the thing is in vacuo). There are complications
+connected with relativity, but for our present purpose they are not
+vital, and I shall ignore them.
+
+Instead of first collecting together all the particulars constituting
+a momentary thing, and then forming the series of successive sets,
+we might have first collected together a series of successive aspects
+related by the laws of dynamics, and then have formed the set of such
+series related by the laws of perspective. To illustrate by the case of
+an actor on the stage: our first plan was to collect together all the
+aspects which he presents to different spectators at one time, and then
+to form the series of such sets. Our second plan is first to collect
+together all the aspects which he presents successively to a given
+spectator, and then to do the same thing for the other spectators, thus
+forming a set of series instead of a series of sets. The first plan
+tells us what he does; the second the impressions he produces. This
+second way of classifying particulars is one which obviously has more
+relevance to psychology than the other. It is partly by this second
+method of classification that we obtain definitions of one "experience"
+or "biography" or "person." This method of classification is also
+essential to the definition of sensations and images, as I shall
+endeavour to prove later on. But we must first amplify the definition of
+perspectives and biographies.
+
+In our illustration of the actor, we spoke, for the moment, as though
+each spectator's mind were wholly occupied by the one actor. If this
+were the case, it might be possible to define the biography of one
+spectator as a series of successive aspects of the actor related
+according to the laws of dynamics. But in fact this is not the case.
+We are at all times during our waking life receiving a variety of
+impressions, which are aspects of a variety of things. We have to
+consider what binds together two simultaneous sensations in one
+person, or, more generally, any two occurrences which forte part of one
+experience. We might say, adhering to the standpoint of physics, that
+two aspects of different things belong to the same perspective when
+they are in the same place. But this would not really help us, since a
+"place" has not yet been defined. Can we define what is meant by saying
+that two aspects are "in the same place," without introducing anything
+beyond the laws of perspective and dynamics?
+
+I do not feel sure whether it is possible to frame such a definition or
+not; accordingly I shall not assume that it is possible, but shall
+seek other characteristics by which a perspective or biography may be
+defined.
+
+When (for example) we see one man and hear another speaking at the
+same time, what we see and what we hear have a relation which we
+can perceive, which makes the two together form, in some sense, one
+experience. It is when this relation exists that two occurrences become
+associated. Semon's "engram" is formed by all that we experience at one
+time. He speaks of two parts of this total as having the relation of
+"Nebeneinander" (M. 118; M.E. 33 ff.), which is reminiscent of Herbart's
+"Zusammen." I think the relation may be called simply "simultaneity." It
+might be said that at any moment all sorts of things that are not part
+of my experience are happening in the world, and that therefore the
+relation we are seeking to define cannot be merely simultaneity.
+This, however, would be an error--the sort of error that the theory
+of relativity avoids. There is not one universal time, except by an
+elaborate construction; there are only local times, each of which may
+be taken to be the time within one biography. Accordingly, if I am (say)
+hearing a sound, the only occurrences that are, in any simple sense,
+simultaneous with my sensation are events in my private world, i.e. in
+my biography. We may therefore define the "perspective" to which
+the sensation in question belongs as the set of particulars that are
+simultaneous with this sensation. And similarly we may define the
+"biography" to which the sensation belongs as the set of particulars
+that are earlier or later than, or simultaneous with, the given
+sensation. Moreover, the very same definitions can be applied to
+particulars which are not sensations. They are actually required for the
+theory of relativity, if we are to give a philosophical explanation
+of what is meant by "local time" in that theory The relations of
+simultaneity and succession are known to us in our own experience;
+they may be analysable, but that does not affect their suitability for
+defining perspectives and biographies. Such time-relations as can be
+constructed between events in different biographies are of a different
+kind: they are not experienced, and are merely logical, being designed
+to afford convenient ways of stating the correlations between different
+biographies.
+
+It is not only by time-relations that the parts of one biography are
+collected together in the case of living beings. In this case there are
+the mnemic phenomena which constitute the unity of one "experience," and
+transform mere occurrences into "experiences." I have already dwelt upon
+the importance of mnemic phenomena for psychology, and shall not
+enlarge upon them now, beyond observing that they are what transforms a
+biography (in our technical sense) into a life. It is they that give the
+continuity of a "person" or a "mind." But there is no reason to suppose
+that mnemic phenomena are associated with biographies except in the case
+of animals and plants.
+
+Our two-fold classification of particulars gives rise to the dualism of
+body and biography in regard to everything in the universe, and not only
+in regard to living things. This arises as follows. Every particular of
+the sort considered by physics is a member of two groups (1) The group
+of particulars constituting the other aspects of the same physical
+object; (2) The group of particulars that have direct time-relations to
+the given particular.
+
+Each of these is associated with a place. When I look at a star, my
+sensation is (1) A member of the group of particulars which is the star,
+and which is associated with the place where the star is; (2) A
+member of the group of particulars which is my biography, and which is
+associated with the place where I am.*
+
+     *I have explained elsewhere the manner in which space is
+     constructed on this theory, and in which the position of a
+     perspective is brought into relation with the position of a
+     physical object ("Our Knowledge of the External World,"
+     Lecture III, pp. 90, 91).
+
+The result is that every particular of the kind relevant to physics is
+associated with TWO places; e.g. my sensation of the star is associated
+with the place where I am and with the place where the star is. This
+dualism has nothing to do with any "mind" that I may be supposed to
+possess; it exists in exactly the same sense if I am replaced by a
+photographic plate. We may call the two places the active and passive
+places respectively.* Thus in the case of a perception or photograph
+of a star, the active place is the place where the star is, while the
+passive place is the place where the percipient or photographic plate
+is.
+
+     * I use these as mere names; I do not want to introduce any
+     notion of "activity."
+
+We can thus, without departing from physics, collect together all the
+particulars actively at a given place, or all the particulars passively
+at a given place. In our own case, the one group is our body (or
+our brain), while the other is our mind, in so far as it consists of
+perceptions. In the case of the photographic plate, the first group is
+the plate as dealt with by physics, the second the aspect of the heavens
+which it photographs. (For the sake of schematic simplicity, I am
+ignoring various complications connected with time, which require some
+tedious but perfectly feasible elaborations.) Thus what may be called
+subjectivity in the point of view is not a distinctive peculiarity of
+mind: it is present just as much in the photographic plate. And the
+photographic plate has its biography as well as its "matter." But
+this biography is an affair of physics, and has none of the peculiar
+characteristics by which "mental" phenomena are distinguished, with the
+sole exception of subjectivity.
+
+Adhering, for the moment, to the standpoint of physics, we may define a
+"perception" of an object as the appearance of the object from a place
+where there is a brain (or, in lower animals, some suitable nervous
+structure), with sense-organs and nerves forming part of the intervening
+medium. Such appearances of objects are distinguished from appearances
+in other places by certain peculiarities, namely:
+
+(1) They give rise to mnemic phenomena;
+
+(2) They are themselves affected by mnemic phenomena.
+
+That is to say, they may be remembered and associated or influence our
+habits, or give rise to images, etc., and they are themselves different
+from what they would have been if our past experience had been
+different--for example, the effect of a spoken sentence upon the hearer
+depends upon whether the hearer knows the language or not, which is
+a question of past experience. It is these two characteristics, both
+connected with mnemic phenomena, that distinguish perceptions from the
+appearances of objects in places where there is no living being.
+
+Theoretically, though often not practically, we can, in our perception
+of an object, separate the part which is due to past experience from the
+part which proceeds without mnemic influences out of the character of
+the object. We may define as "sensation" that part which proceeds in
+this way, while the remainder, which is a mnemic phenomenon, will have
+to be added to the sensation to make up what is called the "perception."
+According to this definition, the sensation is a theoretical core in
+the actual experience; the actual experience is the perception. It
+is obvious that there are grave difficulties in carrying out these
+definitions, but we will not linger over them. We have to pass, as soon
+as we can, from the physical standpoint, which we have been hitherto
+adopting, to the standpoint of psychology, in which we make more use
+of introspection in the first of the three senses discussed in the
+preceding lecture.
+
+But before making the transition, there are two points which must be
+made clear. First: Everything outside my own personal biography is
+outside my experience; therefore if anything can be known by me outside
+my biography, it can only be known in one of two ways:
+
+(1) By inference from things within my biography, or
+
+(2) By some a priori principle independent of experience.
+
+I do not myself believe that anything approaching certainty is to be
+attained by either of these methods, and therefore whatever lies outside
+my personal biography must be regarded, theoretically, as hypothesis.
+The theoretical argument for adopting the hypothesis is that it
+simplifies the statement of the laws according to which events happen
+in our experience. But there is no very good ground for supposing that
+a simple law is more likely to be true than a complicated law, though
+there is good ground for assuming a simple law in scientific practice,
+as a working hypothesis, if it explains the facts as well as another
+which is less simple. Belief in the existence of things outside my own
+biography exists antecedently to evidence, and can only be destroyed, if
+at all, by a long course of philosophic doubt. For purposes of science,
+it is justified practically by the simplification which it introduces
+into the laws of physics. But from the standpoint of theoretical logic
+it must be regarded as a prejudice, not as a well-grounded theory. With
+this proviso, I propose to continue yielding to the prejudice.
+
+The second point concerns the relating of our point of view to that
+which regards sensations as caused by stimuli external to the nervous
+system (or at least to the brain), and distinguishes images as
+"centrally excited," i.e. due to causes in the brain which cannot be
+traced back to anything affecting the sense-organs. It is clear that,
+if our analysis of physical objects has been valid, this way of defining
+sensations needs reinterpretation. It is also clear that we must be able
+to find such a new interpretation if our theory is to be admissible.
+
+To make the matter clear, we will take the simplest possible
+illustration. Consider a certain star, and suppose for the moment
+that its size is negligible. That is to say, we will regard it as, for
+practical purposes, a luminous point. Let us further suppose that it
+exists only for a very brief time, say a second. Then, according to
+physics, what happens is that a spherical wave of light travels outward
+from the star through space, just as, when you drop a stone into a
+stagnant pond, ripples travel outward from the place where the stone hit
+the water. The wave of light travels with a certain very nearly constant
+velocity, roughly 300,000 kilometres per second. This velocity may be
+ascertained by sending a flash of light to a mirror, and observing
+how long it takes before the reflected flash reaches you, just as the
+velocity of sound may be ascertained by means of an echo.
+
+What it is that happens when a wave of light reaches a given place we
+cannot tell, except in the sole case when the place in question is a
+brain connected with an eye which is turned in the right direction. In
+this one very special case we know what happens: we have the sensation
+called "seeing the star." In all other cases, though we know (more or
+less hypothetically) some of the correlations and abstract properties
+of the appearance of the star, we do not know the appearance itself. Now
+you may, for the sake of illustration, compare the different appearances
+of the star to the conjugation of a Greek verb, except that the number
+of its parts is really infinite, and not only apparently so to the
+despairing schoolboy. In vacuo, the parts are regular, and can be
+derived from the (imaginary) root according to the laws of grammar,
+i.e. of perspective. The star being situated in empty space, it may be
+defined, for purposes of physics, as consisting of all those appearances
+which it presents in vacuo, together with those which, according to
+the laws of perspective, it would present elsewhere if its appearances
+elsewhere were regular. This is merely the adaptation of the definition
+of matter which I gave in an earlier lecture. The appearance of a star
+at a certain place, if it is regular, does not require any cause or
+explanation beyond the existence of the star. Every regular appearance
+is an actual member of the system which is the star, and its causation
+is entirely internal to that system. We may express this by saying that
+a regular appearance is due to the star alone, and is actually part of
+the star, in the sense in which a man is part of the human race.
+
+But presently the light of the star reaches our atmosphere. It begins
+to be refracted, and dimmed by mist, and its velocity is slightly
+diminished. At last it reaches a human eye, where a complicated process
+takes place, ending in a sensation which gives us our grounds for
+believing in all that has gone before. Now, the irregular appearances of
+the star are not, strictly speaking, members of the system which is the
+star, according to our definition of matter. The irregular appearances,
+however, are not merely irregular: they proceed according to laws which
+can be stated in terms of the matter through which the light has
+passed on its way. The sources of an irregular appearance are therefore
+twofold:
+
+(1) The object which is appearing irregularly;
+
+2) The intervening medium.
+
+It should be observed that, while the conception of a regular appearance
+is perfectly precise, the conception of an irregular appearance is one
+capable of any degree of vagueness. When the distorting influence of the
+medium is sufficiently great, the resulting particular can no longer be
+regarded as an appearance of an object, but must be treated on its own
+account. This happens especially when the particular in question cannot
+be traced back to one object, but is a blend of two or more. This case
+is normal in perception: we see as one what the microscope or telescope
+reveals to be many different objects. The notion of perception is
+therefore not a precise one: we perceive things more or less, but always
+with a very considerable amount of vagueness and confusion.
+
+In considering irregular appearances, there are certain very natural
+mistakes which must be avoided. In order that a particular may count as
+an irregular appearance of a certain object, it is not necessary that
+it should bear any resemblance to the regular appearances as regard
+its intrinsic qualities. All that is necessary is that it should be
+derivable from the regular appearances by the laws which express
+the distorting influence of the medium. When it is so derivable,
+the particular in question may be regarded as caused by the regular
+appearances, and therefore by the object itself, together with the
+modifications resulting from the medium. In other cases, the particular
+in question may, in the same sense, be regarded as caused by several
+objects together with the medium; in this case, it may be called a
+confused appearance of several objects. If it happens to be in a brain,
+it may be called a confused perception of these objects. All actual
+perception is confused to a greater or less extent.
+
+We can now interpret in terms of our theory the distinction between
+those mental occurrences which are said to have an external stimulus,
+and those which are said to be "centrally excited," i.e. to have no
+stimulus external to the brain. When a mental occurrence can be regarded
+as an appearance of an object external to the brain, however irregular,
+or even as a confused appearance of several such objects, then we may
+regard it as having for its stimulus the object or objects in question,
+or their appearances at the sense-organ concerned. When, on the other
+hand, a mental occurrence has not sufficient connection with objects
+external to the brain to be regarded as an appearance of such objects,
+then its physical causation (if any) will have to be sought in the
+brain. In the former case it can be called a perception; in the latter
+it cannot be so called. But the distinction is one of degree, not of
+kind. Until this is realized, no satisfactory theory of perception,
+sensation, or imagination is possible.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE VIII. SENSATIONS AND IMAGES
+
+The dualism of mind and matter, if we have been right so far, cannot be
+allowed as metaphysically valid. Nevertheless, we seem to find a certain
+dualism, perhaps not ultimate, within the world as we observe it. The
+dualism is not primarily as to the stuff of the world, but as to causal
+laws. On this subject we may again quote William James. He points out
+that when, as we say, we merely "imagine" things, there are no such
+effects as would ensue if the things were what we call "real." He takes
+the case of imagining a fire.
+
+"I make for myself an experience of blazing fire; I place it near my
+body; but it does not warm me in the least. I lay a stick upon it and
+the stick either burns or remains green, as I please. I call up water,
+and pour it on the fire, and absolutely no difference ensues. I account
+for all such facts by calling this whole train of experiences unreal, a
+mental train. Mental fire is what won't burn real sticks; mental water
+is what won't necessarily (though of course it may) put out even a
+mental fire.... With 'real' objects, on the contrary, consequences
+always accrue; and thus the real experiences get sifted from the mental
+ones, the things from our thoughts of them, fanciful or true, and
+precipitated together as the stable part of the whole experience--chaos,
+under the name of the physical world."*
+
+     * "Essays in Radical Empiricism," pp. 32-3.
+
+In this passage James speaks, by mere inadvertence, as though the
+phenomena which he is describing as "mental" had NO effects. This is, of
+course, not the case: they have their effects, just as much as physical
+phenomena do, but their effects follow different laws. For example,
+dreams, as Freud has shown, are just as much subject to laws as are the
+motions of the planets. But the laws are different: in a dream you may
+be transported from one place to another in a moment, or one person
+may turn into another under your eyes. Such differences compel you to
+distinguish the world of dreams from the physical world.
+
+If the two sorts of causal laws could be sharply distinguished, we could
+call an occurrence "physical" when it obeys causal laws appropriate to
+the physical world, and "mental" when it obeys causal laws appropriate
+to the mental world. Since the mental world and the physical world
+interact, there would be a boundary between the two: there would be
+events which would have physical causes and mental effects, while there
+would be others which would have mental causes and physical effects.
+Those that have physical causes and mental effects we should define as
+"sensations." Those that have mental causes and physical effects might
+perhaps be identified with what we call voluntary movements; but they do
+not concern us at present.
+
+These definitions would have all the precision that could be desired if
+the distinction between physical and psychological causation were clear
+and sharp. As a matter of fact, however, this distinction is, as yet, by
+no means sharp. It is possible that, with fuller knowledge, it will be
+found to be no more ultimate than the distinction between the laws of
+gases and the laws of rigid bodies. It also suffers from the fact that
+an event may be an effect of several causes according to several causal
+laws we cannot, in general, point to anything unique as THE cause of
+such-and-such an event. And finally it is by no means certain that
+the peculiar causal laws which govern mental events are not really
+physiological. The law of habit, which is one of the most distinctive,
+may be fully explicable in terms of the peculiarities of nervous tissue,
+and these peculiarities, in turn, may be explicable by the laws of
+physics. It seems, therefore, that we are driven to a different kind of
+definition. It is for this reason that it was necessary to develop
+the definition of perception. With this definition, we can define a
+sensation as the non-mnemic elements in a perception.
+
+When, following our definition, we try to decide what elements in our
+experience are of the nature of sensations, we find more difficulty
+than might have been expected. Prima facie, everything is sensation that
+comes to us through the senses: the sights we see, the sounds we hear,
+the smells we smell, and so on; also such things as headache or the
+feeling of muscular strain. But in actual fact so much interpretation,
+so much of habitual correlation, is mixed with all such experiences,
+that the core of pure sensation is only to be extracted by careful
+investigation. To take a simple illustration: if you go to the theatre
+in your own country, you seem to hear equally well in the stalls or the
+dress circle; in either case you think you miss nothing. But if you go
+in a foreign country where you have a fair knowledge of the language,
+you will seem to have grown partially deaf, and you will find it
+necessary to be much nearer the stage than you would need to be in your
+own country. The reason is that, in hearing our own language spoken, we
+quickly and unconsciously fill out what we really hear with inferences
+to what the man must be saying, and we never realize that we have not
+heard the words we have merely inferred. In a foreign language, these
+inferences are more difficult, and we are more dependent upon actual
+sensation. If we found ourselves in a foreign world, where tables looked
+like cushions and cushions like tables, we should similarly discover how
+much of what we think we see is really inference. Every fairly familiar
+sensation is to us a sign of the things that usually go with it, and
+many of these things will seem to form part of the sensation. I remember
+in the early days of motor-cars being with a friend when a tyre burst
+with a loud report. He thought it was a pistol, and supported his
+opinion by maintaining that he had seen the flash. But of course there
+had been no flash. Nowadays no one sees a flash when a tyre bursts.
+
+In order, therefore, to arrive at what really is sensation in an
+occurrence which, at first sight, seems to contain nothing else, we have
+to pare away all that is due to habit or expectation or interpretation.
+This is a matter for the psychologist, and by no means an easy matter.
+For our purposes, it is not important to determine what exactly is the
+sensational core in any case; it is only important to notice that
+there certainly is a sensational core, since habit, expectation and
+interpretation are diversely aroused on diverse occasions, and the
+diversity is clearly due to differences in what is presented to
+the senses. When you open your newspaper in the morning, the actual
+sensations of seeing the print form a very minute part of what goes
+on in you, but they are the starting-point of all the rest, and it
+is through them that the newspaper is a means of information or
+mis-information. Thus, although it may be difficult to determine what
+exactly is sensation in any given experience, it is clear that there is
+sensation, unless, like Leibniz, we deny all action of the outer world
+upon us.
+
+Sensations are obviously the source of our knowledge of the world,
+including our own body. It might seem natural to regard a sensation as
+itself a cognition, and until lately I did so regard it. When, say, I
+see a person I know coming towards me in the street, it SEEMS as
+though the mere seeing were knowledge. It is of course undeniable that
+knowledge comes THROUGH the seeing, but I think it is a mistake to
+regard the mere seeing itself as knowledge. If we are so to regard it,
+we must distinguish the seeing from what is seen: we must say that, when
+we see a patch of colour of a certain shape, the patch of colour is one
+thing and our seeing of it is another. This view, however, demands the
+admission of the subject, or act, in the sense discussed in our first
+lecture. If there is a subject, it can have a relation to the patch of
+colour, namely, the sort of relation which we might call awareness. In
+that case the sensation, as a mental event, will consist of awareness of
+the colour, while the colour itself will remain wholly physical, and
+may be called the sense-datum, to distinguish it from the sensation.
+The subject, however, appears to be a logical fiction, like mathematical
+points and instants. It is introduced, not because observation reveals
+it, but because it is linguistically convenient and apparently demanded
+by grammar. Nominal entities of this sort may or may not exist, but
+there is no good ground for assuming that they do. The functions that
+they appear to perform can always be performed by classes or series or
+other logical constructions, consisting of less dubious entities. If we
+are to avoid a perfectly gratuitous assumption, we must dispense with
+the subject as one of the actual ingredients of the world. But when
+we do this, the possibility of distinguishing the sensation from
+the sense-datum vanishes; at least I see no way of preserving the
+distinction. Accordingly the sensation that we have when we see a patch
+of colour simply is that patch of colour, an actual constituent of the
+physical world, and part of what physics is concerned with. A patch of
+colour is certainly not knowledge, and therefore we cannot say that pure
+sensation is cognitive. Through its psychological effects, it is the
+cause of cognitions, partly by being itself a sign of things that
+are correlated with it, as e.g. sensations of sight and touch are
+correlated, and partly by giving rise to images and memories after the
+sensation is faded. But in itself the pure sensation is not cognitive.
+
+In the first lecture we considered the view of Brentano, that "we may
+define psychical phenomena by saying that they are phenomena which
+intentionally contain an object." We saw reasons to reject this view in
+general; we are now concerned to show that it must be rejected in the
+particular case of sensations. The kind of argument which formerly made
+me accept Brentano's view in this case was exceedingly simple. When I
+see a patch of colour, it seemed to me that the colour is not psychical,
+but physical, while my seeing is not physical, but psychical. Hence
+I concluded that the colour is something other than my seeing of
+the colour. This argument, to me historically, was directed against
+idealism: the emphatic part of it was the assertion that the colour is
+physical, not psychical. I shall not trouble you now with the grounds
+for holding as against Berkeley that the patch of colour is physical; I
+have set them forth before, and I see no reason to modify them. But it
+does not follow that the patch of colour is not also psychical, unless
+we assume that the physical and the psychical cannot overlap, which I
+no longer consider a valid assumption. If we admit--as I think we
+should--that the patch of colour may be both physical and psychical, the
+reason for distinguishing the sense-datum from the sensation disappears,
+and we may say that the patch of colour and our sensation in seeing it
+are identical.
+
+This is the view of William James, Professor Dewey, and the American
+realists. Perceptions, says Professor Dewey, are not per se cases of
+knowledge, but simply natural events with no more knowledge status
+than (say) a shower. "Let them [the realists] try the experiment of
+conceiving perceptions as pure natural events, not cases of awareness or
+apprehension, and they will be surprised to see how little they miss."*
+I think he is right in this, except in supposing that the realists will
+be surprised. Many of them already hold the view he is advocating, and
+others are very sympathetic to it. At any rate, it is the view which I
+shall adopt in these lectures.
+
+     * Dewey, "Essays in Experimental Logic," pp. 253, 262.
+
+The stuff of the world, so far as we have experience of it, consists, on
+the view that I am advocating, of innumerable transient particulars such
+as occur in seeing, hearing, etc., together with images more or less
+resembling these, of which I shall speak shortly. If physics is true,
+there are, besides the particulars that we experience, others, probably
+equally (or almost equally) transient, which make up that part of the
+material world that does not come into the sort of contact with a
+living body that is required to turn it into a sensation. But this topic
+belongs to the philosophy of physics, and need not concern us in our
+present inquiry.
+
+Sensations are what is common to the mental and physical worlds; they
+may be defined as the intersection of mind and matter. This is by no
+means a new view; it is advocated, not only by the American authors I
+have mentioned, but by Mach in his Analysis of Sensations, which was
+published in 1886. The essence of sensation, according to the view I am
+advocating, is its independence of past experience. It is a core in our
+actual experiences, never existing in isolation except possibly in very
+young infants. It is not itself knowledge, but it supplies the data for
+our knowledge of the physical world, including our own bodies.
+
+There are some who believe that our mental life is built up out of
+sensations alone. This may be true; but in any case I think the only
+ingredients required in addition to sensations are images. What images
+are, and how they are to be defined, we have now to inquire.
+
+The distinction between images and sensations might seem at first sight
+by no means difficult. When we shut our eyes and call up pictures of
+familiar scenes, we usually have no difficulty, so long as we remain
+awake, in discriminating between what we are imagining and what is
+really seen. If we imagine some piece of music that we know, we can go
+through it in our mind from beginning to end without any discoverable
+tendency to suppose that we are really hearing it. But although such
+cases are so clear that no confusion seems possible, there are many
+others that are far more difficult, and the definition of images is by
+no means an easy problem.
+
+To begin with: we do not always know whether what we are experiencing is
+a sensation or an image. The things we see in dreams when our eyes are
+shut must count as images, yet while we are dreaming they seem like
+sensations. Hallucinations often begin as persistent images, and only
+gradually acquire that influence over belief that makes the patient
+regard them as sensations. When we are listening for a faint sound--the
+striking of a distant clock, or a horse's hoofs on the road--we think
+we hear it many times before we really do, because expectation brings
+us the image, and we mistake it for sensation. The distinction between
+images and sensations is, therefore, by no means always obvious to
+inspection.*
+
+     * On the distinction between images and sensation, cf.
+     Semon, "Die mnemischen Empfindungen," pp. 19-20.
+
+We may consider three different ways in which it has been sought to
+distinguish images from sensations, namely:
+
+(1) By the less degree of vividness in images;
+
+(2) By our absence of belief in their "physical reality";
+
+(3) By the fact that their causes and effects are different from those
+of sensations.
+
+I believe the third of these to be the only universally applicable
+criterion. The other two are applicable in very many cases, but
+cannot be used for purposes of definition because they are liable to
+exceptions. Nevertheless, they both deserve to be carefully considered.
+
+(1) Hume, who gives the names "impressions" and "ideas" to what may,
+for present purposes, be identified with our "sensations" and "images,"
+speaks of impressions as "those perceptions which enter with most force
+and violence" while he defines ideas as "the faint images of these (i.e.
+of impressions) in thinking and reasoning." His immediately following
+observations, however, show the inadequacy of his criteria of "force"
+and "faintness." He says:
+
+"I believe it will not be very necessary to employ many words in
+explaining this distinction. Every one of himself will readily perceive
+the difference betwixt feeling and thinking. The common degrees of these
+are easily distinguished, though it is not impossible but in particular
+instances they may very nearly approach to each other. Thus in sleep, in
+a fever, in madness, or in any very violent emotions of soul, our ideas
+may approach to our impressions; as, on the other hand, it sometimes
+happens, that our impressions are so faint and low that we cannot
+distinguish them from our ideas. But notwithstanding this near
+resemblance in a few instances, they are in general so very different,
+that no one can make a scruple to rank them under distinct heads, and
+assign to each a peculiar name to mark the difference" ("Treatise of
+Human Nature," Part I, Section I).
+
+I think Hume is right in holding that they should be ranked under
+distinct heads, with a peculiar name for each. But by his own confession
+in the above passage, his criterion for distinguishing them is not
+always adequate. A definition is not sound if it only applies in cases
+where the difference is glaring: the essential purpose of a definition
+is to provide a mark which is applicable even in marginal cases--except,
+of course, when we are dealing with a conception, like, e.g. baldness,
+which is one of degree and has no sharp boundaries. But so far we have
+seen no reason to think that the difference between sensations and
+images is only one of degree.
+
+Professor Stout, in his "Manual of Psychology," after discussing various
+ways of distinguishing sensations and images, arrives at a view which is
+a modification of Hume's. He says (I quote from the second edition):
+
+"Our conclusion is that at bottom the distinction between image
+and percept, as respectively faint and vivid states, is based on a
+difference of quality. The percept has an aggressiveness which does not
+belong to the image. It strikes the mind with varying degrees of force
+or liveliness according to the varying intensity of the stimulus. This
+degree of force or liveliness is part of what we ordinarily mean by
+the intensity of a sensation. But this constituent of the intensity of
+sensations is absent in mental imagery"(p. 419).
+
+This view allows for the fact that sensations may reach any degree of
+faintness--e.g. in the case of a just visible star or a just audible
+sound--without becoming images, and that therefore mere faintness cannot
+be the characteristic mark of images. After explaining the sudden shock
+of a flash of lightning or a steam-whistle, Stout says that "no mere
+image ever does strike the mind in this manner"(p. 417). But I believe
+that this criterion fails in very much the same instances as those in
+which Hume's criterion fails in its original form. Macbeth speaks of--
+
+               that suggestion
+           Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
+     And make my seated heart knock at my ribs
+     Against the use of nature.
+
+The whistle of a steam-engine could hardly have a stronger effect than
+this. A very intense emotion will often bring with it--especially
+where some future action or some undecided issue is involved--powerful
+compelling images which may determine the whole course of life, sweeping
+aside all contrary solicitations to the will by their capacity for
+exclusively possessing the mind. And in all cases where images,
+originally recognized as such, gradually pass into hallucinations, there
+must be just that "force or liveliness" which is supposed to be always
+absent from images. The cases of dreams and fever-delirium are as
+hard to adjust to Professor Stout's modified criterion as to Hume's. I
+conclude therefore that the test of liveliness, however applicable in
+ordinary instances, cannot be used to define the differences between
+sensations and images.
+
+(2) We might attempt to distinguish images from sensations by our
+absence of belief in the "physical reality" of images. When we are aware
+that what we are experiencing is an image, we do not give it the kind of
+belief that we should give to a sensation: we do not think that it has
+the same power of producing knowledge of the "external world." Images
+are "imaginary"; in SOME sense they are "unreal." But this difference
+is hard to analyse or state correctly. What we call the "unreality" of
+images requires interpretation it cannot mean what would be expressed
+by saying "there's no such thing." Images are just as truly part of the
+actual world as sensations are. All that we really mean by calling an
+image "unreal" is that it does not have the concomitants which it would
+have if it were a sensation. When we call up a visual image of a chair,
+we do not attempt to sit in it, because we know that, like Macbeth's
+dagger, it is not "sensible to feeling as to sight"--i.e. it does not
+have the correlations with tactile sensations which it would have if it
+were a visual sensation and not merely a visual image. But this means
+that the so-called "unreality" of images consists merely in their not
+obeying the laws of physics, and thus brings us back to the causal
+distinction between images and sensations.
+
+This view is confirmed by the fact that we only feel images to be
+"unreal" when we already know them to be images. Images cannot be
+defined by the FEELING of unreality, because when we falsely believe an
+image to be a sensation, as in the case of dreams, it FEELS just as real
+as if it were a sensation. Our feeling of unreality results from our
+having already realized that we are dealing with an image, and cannot
+therefore be the definition of what we mean by an image. As soon as an
+image begins to deceive us as to its status, it also deceives us as to
+its correlations, which are what we mean by its "reality."
+
+(3) This brings us to the third mode of distinguishing images from
+sensations, namely, by their causes and effects. I believe this to be
+the only valid ground of distinction. James, in the passage about the
+mental fire which won't burn real sticks, distinguishes images by their
+effects, but I think the more reliable distinction is by their causes.
+Professor Stout (loc. cit., p. 127) says: "One characteristic mark of
+what we agree in calling sensation is its mode of production. It is
+caused by what we call a STIMULUS. A stimulus is always some condition
+external to the nervous system itself and operating upon it." I think
+that this is the correct view, and that the distinction between images
+and sensations can only be made by taking account of their causation.
+Sensations come through sense-organs, while images do not. We cannot
+have visual sensations in the dark, or with our eyes shut, but we can
+very well have visual images under these circumstances. Accordingly
+images have been defined as "centrally excited sensations," i.e.
+sensations which have their physiological cause in the brain only, not
+also in the sense-organs and the nerves that run from the sense-organs
+to the brain. I think the phrase "centrally excited sensations" assumes
+more than is necessary, since it takes it for granted that an image must
+have a proximate physiological cause. This is probably true, but it is
+an hypothesis, and for our purposes an unnecessary one. It would seem to
+fit better with what we can immediately observe if we were to say that
+an image is occasioned, through association, by a sensation or another
+image, in other words that it has a mnemic cause--which does not prevent
+it from also having a physical cause. And I think it will be found that
+the causation of an image always proceeds according to mnemic laws, i.e.
+that it is governed by habit and past experience. If you listen to a man
+playing the pianola without looking at him, you will have images of his
+hands on the keys as if he were playing the piano; if you suddenly look
+at him while you are absorbed in the music, you will experience a shock
+of surprise when you notice that his hands are not touching the notes.
+Your image of his hands is due to the many times that you have heard
+similar sounds and at the same time seen the player's hands on the
+piano. When habit and past experience play this part, we are in the
+region of mnemic as opposed to ordinary physical causation. And I think
+that, if we could regard as ultimately valid the difference between
+physical and mnemic causation, we could distinguish images from
+sensations as having mnemic causes, though they may also have physical
+causes. Sensations, on the other hand, will only have physical causes.
+
+However this may be, the practically effective distinction between
+sensations and images is that in the causation of sensations, but not
+of images, the stimulation of nerves carrying an effect into the brain,
+usually from the surface of the body, plays an essential part. And
+this accounts for the fact that images and sensations cannot always be
+distinguished by their intrinsic nature.
+
+Images also differ from sensations as regards their effects. Sensations,
+as a rule, have both physical and mental effects. As you watch the train
+you meant to catch leaving the station, there are both the successive
+positions of the train (physical effects) and the successive waves
+of fury and disappointment (mental effects). Images, on the contrary,
+though they MAY produce bodily movements, do so according to mnemic
+laws, not according to the laws of physics. All their effects, of
+whatever nature, follow mnemic laws. But this difference is less
+suitable for definition than the difference as to causes.
+
+Professor Watson, as a logical carrying-out of his behaviourist theory,
+denies altogether that there are any observable phenomena such as
+images are supposed to be. He replaces them all by faint sensations, and
+especially by pronunciation of words sotto voce. When we "think" of a
+table (say), as opposed to seeing it, what happens, according to him, is
+usually that we are making small movements of the throat and tongue
+such as would lead to our uttering the word "table" if they were more
+pronounced. I shall consider his view again in connection with words;
+for the present I am only concerned to combat his denial of images. This
+denial is set forth both in his book on "Behavior" and in an article
+called "Image and Affection in Behavior" in the "Journal of Philosophy,
+Psychology and Scientific Methods," vol. x (July, 1913). It seems to me
+that in this matter he has been betrayed into denying plain facts in
+the interests of a theory, namely, the supposed impossibility of
+introspection. I dealt with the theory in Lecture VI; for the present I
+wish to reinforce the view that the facts are undeniable.
+
+Images are of various sorts, according to the nature of the sensations
+which they copy. Images of bodily movements, such as we have when we
+imagine moving an arm or, on a smaller scale, pronouncing a word,
+might possibly be explained away on Professor Watson's lines, as really
+consisting in small incipient movements such as, if magnified and
+prolonged, would be the movements we are said to be imagining. Whether
+this is the case or not might even be decided experimentally. If there
+were a delicate instrument for recording small movements in the mouth
+and throat, we might place such an instrument in a person's mouth and
+then tell him to recite a poem to himself, as far as possible only in
+imagination. I should not be at all surprised if it were found that
+actual small movements take place while he is "mentally" saying over
+the verses. The point is important, because what is called "thought"
+consists mainly (though I think not wholly) of inner speech. If
+Professor Watson is right as regards inner speech, this whole region
+is transferred from imagination to sensation. But since the question
+is capable of experimental decision, it would be gratuitous rashness to
+offer an opinion while that decision is lacking.
+
+But visual and auditory images are much more difficult to deal with in
+this way, because they lack the connection with physical events in the
+outer world which belongs to visual and auditory sensations. Suppose,
+for example, that I am sitting in my room, in which there is an empty
+arm-chair. I shut my eyes, and call up a visual image of a friend
+sitting in the arm-chair. If I thrust my image into the world of
+physics, it contradicts all the usual physical laws. My friend reached
+the chair without coming in at the door in the usual way; subsequent
+inquiry will show that he was somewhere else at the moment. If regarded
+as a sensation, my image has all the marks of the supernatural. My
+image, therefore, is regarded as an event in me, not as having that
+position in the orderly happenings of the public world that belongs to
+sensations. By saying that it is an event in me, we leave it possible
+that it may be PHYSIOLOGICALLY caused: its privacy may be only due to
+its connection with my body. But in any case it is not a public event,
+like an actual person walking in at the door and sitting down in
+my chair. And it cannot, like inner speech, be regarded as a SMALL
+sensation, since it occupies just as large an area in my visual field as
+the actual sensation would do.
+
+Professor Watson says: "I should throw out imagery altogether
+and attempt to show that all natural thought goes on in terms of
+sensori-motor processes in the larynx." This view seems to me flatly to
+contradict experience. If you try to persuade any uneducated person that
+she cannot call up a visual picture of a friend sitting in a chair, but
+can only use words describing what such an occurrence would be like,
+she will conclude that you are mad. (This statement is based upon
+experiment.) Galton, as every one knows, investigated visual imagery,
+and found that education tends to kill it: the Fellows of the Royal
+Society turned out to have much less of it than their wives. I see no
+reason to doubt his conclusion that the habit of abstract pursuits makes
+learned men much inferior to the average in power of visualizing, and
+much more exclusively occupied with words in their "thinking." And
+Professor Watson is a very learned man.
+
+I shall henceforth assume that the existence of images is admitted, and
+that they are to be distinguished from sensations by their causes,
+as well as, in a lesser degree, by their effects. In their intrinsic
+nature, though they often differ from sensations by being more dim
+or vague or faint, yet they do not always or universally differ from
+sensations in any way that can be used for defining them. Their privacy
+need form no bar to the scientific study of them, any more than the
+privacy of bodily sensations does. Bodily sensations are admitted by
+even the most severe critics of introspection, although, like images,
+they can only be observed by one observer. It must be admitted, however,
+that the laws of the appearance and disappearance of images are little
+known and difficult to discover, because we are not assisted, as in the
+case of sensations, by our knowledge of the physical world.
+
+There remains one very important point concerning images, which will
+occupy us much hereafter, and that is, their resemblance to previous
+sensations. They are said to be "copies" of sensations, always as
+regards the simple qualities that enter into them, though not always
+as regards the manner in which these are put together. It is generally
+believed that we cannot imagine a shade of colour that we have never
+seen, or a sound that we have never heard. On this subject Hume is the
+classic. He says, in the definitions already quoted:
+
+"Those perceptions, which enter with most force and violence, we may
+name IMPRESSIONS; and under this name I comprehend all our sensations,
+passions and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul.
+By IDEAS I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning."
+
+He next explains the difference between simple and complex ideas, and
+explains that a complex idea may occur without any similar complex
+impression. But as regards simple ideas, he states that "every simple
+idea has a simple impression, which resembles it, and every simple
+impression a correspondent idea." He goes on to enunciate the general
+principle "that all our simple ideas in their first appearance are
+derived from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and
+which they exactly represent" ("Treatise of Human Nature," Part I,
+Section I).
+
+It is this fact, that images resemble antecedent sensations, which
+enables us to call them images "of" this or that. For the understanding
+of memory, and of knowledge generally, the recognizable resemblance of
+images and sensations is of fundamental importance.
+
+There are difficulties in establishing Hume's principles, and doubts
+as to whether it is exactly true. Indeed, he himself signalized an
+exception immediately after stating his maxim. Nevertheless, it is
+impossible to doubt that in the main simple images are copies of similar
+simple sensations which have occurred earlier, and that the same is true
+of complex images in all cases of memory as opposed to mere imagination.
+Our power of acting with reference to what is sensibly absent is largely
+due to this characteristic of images, although, as education advances,
+images tend to be more and more replaced by words. We shall have much
+to say in the next two lectures on the subject of images as copies of
+sensations. What has been said now is merely by way of reminder that
+this is their most notable characteristic.
+
+I am by no means confident that the distinction between images and
+sensations is ultimately valid, and I should be glad to be convinced
+that images can be reduced to sensations of a peculiar kind. I think it
+is clear, however, that, at any rate in the case of auditory and visual
+images, they do differ from ordinary auditory and visual sensations, and
+therefore form a recognizable class of occurrences, even if it should
+prove that they can be regarded as a sub-class of sensations. This is
+all that is necessary to validate the use of images to be made in the
+sequel.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE IX. MEMORY
+
+Memory, which we are to consider to-day, introduces us to knowledge in
+one of its forms. The analysis of knowledge will occupy us until the end
+of the thirteenth lecture, and is the most difficult part of our whole
+enterprise.
+
+I do not myself believe that the analysis of knowledge can be effected
+entirely by means of purely external observation, such as behaviourists
+employ. I shall discuss this question in later lectures. In the present
+lecture I shall attempt the analysis of memory-knowledge, both as an
+introduction to the problem of knowledge in general, and because memory,
+in some form, is presupposed in almost all other knowledge. Sensation,
+we decided, is not a form of knowledge. It might, however, have
+been expected that we should begin our discussion of knowledge with
+PERCEPTION, i.e. with that integral experience of things in the
+environment, out of which sensation is extracted by psychological
+analysis. What is called perception differs from sensation by the fact
+that the sensational ingredients bring up habitual associates--images
+and expectations of their usual correlates--all of which are
+subjectively indistinguishable from the sensation. The FACT of past
+experience is essential in producing this filling-out of sensation, but
+not the RECOLLECTION of past experience. The non-sensational elements in
+perception can be wholly explained as the result of habit, produced
+by frequent correlations. Perception, according to our definition in
+Lecture VII, is no more a form of knowledge than sensation is, except
+in so far as it involves expectations. The purely psychological problems
+which it raises are not very difficult, though they have sometimes been
+rendered artificially obscure by unwillingness to admit the fallibility
+of the non-sensational elements of perception. On the other hand, memory
+raises many difficult and very important problems, which it is necessary
+to consider at the first possible moment.
+
+One reason for treating memory at this early stage is that it seems to
+be involved in the fact that images are recognized as "copies" of
+past sensible experience. In the preceding lecture I alluded to Hume's
+principle "that all our simple ideas in their first appearance are
+derived from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and
+which they exactly represent." Whether or not this principle is liable
+to exceptions, everyone would agree that is has a broad measure of
+truth, though the word "exactly" might seem an overstatement, and
+it might seem more correct to say that ideas APPROXIMATELY represent
+impressions. Such modifications of Hume's principle, however, do not
+affect the problem which I wish to present for your consideration,
+namely: Why do we believe that images are, sometimes or always,
+approximately or exactly, copies of sensations? What sort of evidence is
+there? And what sort of evidence is logically possible? The difficulty
+of this question arises through the fact that the sensation which an
+image is supposed to copy is in the past when the image exists, and can
+therefore only be known by memory, while, on the other hand, memory of
+past sensations seems only possible by means of present images. How,
+then, are we to find any way of comparing the present image and the past
+sensation? The problem is just as acute if we say that images differ
+from their prototypes as if we say that they resemble them; it is the
+very possibility of comparison that is hard to understand.* We think
+we can know that they are alike or different, but we cannot bring them
+together in one experience and compare them. To deal with this problem,
+we must have a theory of memory. In this way the whole status of images
+as "copies" is bound up with the analysis of memory.
+
+     * How, for example, can we obtain such knowledge as the
+     following: "If we look at, say, a red nose and perceive it,
+     and after a little while ekphore, its memory-image, we note
+     immediately how unlike, in its likeness, this memory-image
+     is to the original perception" (A. Wohlgemuth, "On the
+     Feelings and their Neural Correlate with an Examination of
+     the Nature of Pain," "Journal of Psychology," vol. viii,
+     part iv, June, 1917).
+
+In investigating memory-beliefs, there are certain points which must
+be borne in mind. In the first place, everything constituting a
+memory-belief is happening now, not in that past time to which the
+belief is said to refer. It is not logically necessary to the existence
+of a memory-belief that the event remembered should have occurred,
+or even that the past should have existed at all. There is no logical
+impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five
+minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered"
+a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between
+events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or
+will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world
+began five minutes ago. Hence the occurrences which are CALLED knowledge
+of the past are logically independent of the past; they are wholly
+analysable into present contents, which might, theoretically, be just
+what they are even if no past had existed.
+
+I am not suggesting that the non-existence of the past should be
+entertained as a serious hypothesis. Like all sceptical hypotheses, it
+is logically tenable, but uninteresting. All that I am doing is to use
+its logical tenability as a help in the analysis of what occurs when we
+remember.
+
+In the second place, images without beliefs are insufficient to
+constitute memory; and habits are still more insufficient. The
+behaviourist, who attempts to make psychology a record of behaviour, has
+to trust his memory in making the record. "Habit" is a concept involving
+the occurrence of similar events at different times; if the behaviourist
+feels confident that there is such a phenomenon as habit, that can only
+be because he trusts his memory, when it assures him that there have
+been other times. And the same applies to images. If we are to know as
+it is supposed we do--that images are "copies," accurate or inaccurate,
+of past events, something more than the mere occurrence of images must
+go to constitute this knowledge. For their mere occurrence, by itself,
+would not suggest any connection with anything that had happened before.
+
+Can we constitute memory out of images together with suitable beliefs?
+We may take it that memory-images, when they occur in true memory, are
+(a) known to be copies, (b) sometimes known to be imperfect copies
+(cf. footnote on previous page). How is it possible to know that a
+memory-image is an imperfect copy, without having a more accurate copy
+by which to replace it? This would SEEM to suggest that we have a way
+of knowing the past which is independent of images, by means of which
+we can criticize image-memories. But I do not think such an inference is
+warranted.
+
+What results, formally, from our knowledge of the past through images
+of which we recognize the inaccuracy, is that such images must have two
+characteristics by which we can arrange them in two series, of which one
+corresponds to the more or less remote period in the past to which
+they refer, and the other to our greater or less confidence in their
+accuracy. We will take the second of these points first.
+
+Our confidence or lack of confidence in the accuracy of a memory-image
+must, in fundamental cases, be based upon a characteristic of the image
+itself, since we cannot evoke the past bodily and compare it with the
+present image. It might be suggested that vagueness is the required
+characteristic, but I do not think this is the case. We sometimes
+have images that are by no means peculiarly vague, which yet we do not
+trust--for example, under the influence of fatigue we may see a friend's
+face vividly and clearly, but horribly distorted. In such a case we
+distrust our image in spite of its being unusually clear. I think
+the characteristic by which we distinguish the images we trust is the
+feeling of FAMILIARITY that accompanies them. Some images, like some
+sensations, feel very familiar, while others feel strange. Familiarity
+is a feeling capable of degrees. In an image of a well-known face,
+for example, some parts may feel more familiar than others; when this
+happens, we have more belief in the accuracy of the familiar parts than
+in that of the unfamiliar parts. I think it is by this means that we
+become critical of images, not by some imageless memory with which
+we compare them. I shall return to the consideration of familiarity
+shortly.
+
+I come now to the other characteristic which memory-images must have
+in order to account for our knowledge of the past. They must have some
+characteristic which makes us regard them as referring to more or less
+remote portions of the past. That is to say if we suppose that A is the
+event remembered, B the remembering, and t the interval of time between
+A and B, there must be some characteristic of B which is capable of
+degrees, and which, in accurately dated memories, varies as t varies.
+It may increase as t increases, or diminish as t increases. The question
+which of these occurs is not of any importance for the theoretic
+serviceability of the characteristic in question.
+
+In actual fact, there are doubtless various factors that concur in
+giving us the feeling of greater or less remoteness in some remembered
+event. There may be a specific feeling which could be called the feeling
+of "pastness," especially where immediate memory is concerned. But apart
+from this, there are other marks. One of these is context. A recent
+memory has, usually, more context than a more distant one. When a
+remembered event has a remembered context, this may occur in two ways,
+either (a) by successive images in the same order as their prototypes,
+or (b) by remembering a whole process simultaneously, in the same way in
+which a present process may be apprehended, through akoluthic sensations
+which, by fading, acquire the mark of just-pastness in an increasing
+degree as they fade, and are thus placed in a series while all sensibly
+present. It will be context in this second sense, more specially, that
+will give us a sense of the nearness or remoteness of a remembered
+event.
+
+There is, of course, a difference between knowing the temporal relation
+of a remembered event to the present, and knowing the time-order of two
+remembered events. Very often our knowledge of the temporal relation
+of a remembered event to the present is inferred from its temporal
+relations to other remembered events. It would seem that only rather
+recent events can be placed at all accurately by means of feelings
+giving their temporal relation to the present, but it is clear that such
+feelings must play an essential part in the process of dating remembered
+events.
+
+We may say, then, that images are regarded by us as more or less
+accurate copies of past occurrences because they come to us with two
+sorts of feelings: (1) Those that may be called feelings of familiarity;
+(2) those that may be collected together as feelings giving a sense of
+pastness. The first lead us to trust our memories, the second to assign
+places to them in the time-order.
+
+We have now to analyse the memory-belief, as opposed to the
+characteristics of images which lead us to base memory-beliefs upon
+them.
+
+If we had retained the "subject" or "act" in knowledge, the whole
+problem of memory would have been comparatively simple. We could then
+have said that remembering is a direct relation between the present act
+or subject and the past occurrence remembered: the act of remembering
+is present, though its object is past. But the rejection of the subject
+renders some more complicated theory necessary. Remembering has to be
+a present occurrence in some way resembling, or related to, what is
+remembered. And it is difficult to find any ground, except a pragmatic
+one, for supposing that memory is not sheer delusion, if, as seems to be
+the case, there is not, apart from memory, any way of ascertaining that
+there really was a past occurrence having the required relation to our
+present remembering. What, if we followed Meinong's terminology, we
+should call the "object" in memory, i.e. the past event which we are
+said to be remembering, is unpleasantly remote from the "content," i.e.
+the present mental occurrence in remembering. There is an awkward gulf
+between the two, which raises difficulties for the theory of knowledge.
+But we must not falsify observation to avoid theoretical difficulties.
+For the present, therefore, let us forget these problems, and try to
+discover what actually occurs in memory.
+
+Some points may be taken as fixed, and such as any theory of memory must
+arrive at. In this case, as in most others, what may be taken as certain
+in advance is rather vague. The study of any topic is like the continued
+observation of an object which is approaching us along a road: what is
+certain to begin with is the quite vague knowledge that there is SOME
+object on the road. If you attempt to be less vague, and to assert that
+the object is an elephant, or a man, or a mad dog, you run a risk of
+error; but the purpose of continued observation is to enable you to
+arrive at such more precise knowledge. In like manner, in the study of
+memory, the certainties with which you begin are very vague, and the
+more precise propositions at which you try to arrive are less certain
+than the hazy data from which you set out. Nevertheless, in spite of the
+risk of error, precision is the goal at which we must aim.
+
+The first of our vague but indubitable data is that there is knowledge
+of the past. We do not yet know with any precision what we mean by
+"knowledge," and we must admit that in any given instance our memory may
+be at fault. Nevertheless, whatever a sceptic might urge in theory,
+we cannot practically doubt that we got up this morning, that we did
+various things yesterday, that a great war has been taking place, and so
+on. How far our knowledge of the past is due to memory, and how far to
+other sources, is of course a matter to be investigated, but there can
+be no doubt that memory forms an indispensable part of our knowledge of
+the past.
+
+The second datum is that we certainly have more capacity for knowing the
+past than for knowing the future. We know some things about the future,
+for example what eclipses there will be; but this knowledge is a matter
+of elaborate calculation and inference, whereas some of our knowledge of
+the past comes to us without effort, in the same sort of immediate way
+in which we acquire knowledge of occurrences in our present environment.
+We might provisionally, though perhaps not quite correctly, define
+"memory" as that way of knowing about the past which has no analogue in
+our knowledge of the future; such a definition would at least serve to
+mark the problem with which we are concerned, though some expectations
+may deserve to rank with memory as regards immediacy.
+
+A third point, perhaps not quite so certain as our previous two, is that
+the truth of memory cannot be wholly practical, as pragmatists wish
+all truth to be. It seems clear that some of the things I remember are
+trivial and without any visible importance for the future, but that my
+memory is true (or false) in virtue of a past event, not in virtue of
+any future consequences of my belief. The definition of truth as the
+correspondence between beliefs and facts seems peculiarly evident in the
+case of memory, as against not only the pragmatist definition but also
+the idealist definition by means of coherence. These considerations,
+however, are taking us away from psychology, to which we must now
+return.
+
+It is important not to confuse the two forms of memory which Bergson
+distinguishes in the second chapter of his "Matter and Memory,"
+namely the sort that consists of habit, and the sort that consists of
+independent recollection. He gives the instance of learning a lesson
+by heart: when I know it by heart I am said to "remember" it, but this
+merely means that I have acquired certain habits; on the other hand,
+my recollection of (say) the second time I read the lesson while I was
+learning it is the recollection of a unique event, which occurred only
+once. The recollection of a unique event cannot, so Bergson contends,
+be wholly constituted by habit, and is in fact something radically
+different from the memory which is habit. The recollection alone is true
+memory. This distinction is vital to the understanding of memory. But
+it is not so easy to carry out in practice as it is to draw in theory.
+Habit is a very intrusive feature of our mental life, and is often
+present where at first sight it seems not to be. There is, for example,
+a habit of remembering a unique event. When we have once described the
+event, the words we have used easily become habitual. We may even have
+used words to describe it to ourselves while it was happening; in that
+case, the habit of these words may fulfil the function of Bergson's true
+memory, while in reality it is nothing but habit-memory. A gramophone,
+by the help of suitable records, might relate to us the incidents of its
+past; and people are not so different from gramophones as they like to
+believe.
+
+In spite, however, of a difficulty in distinguishing the two forms of
+memory in practice, there can be no doubt that both forms exist. I can
+set to work now to remember things I never remembered before, such
+as what I had to eat for breakfast this morning, and it can hardly be
+wholly habit that enables me to do this. It is this sort of occurrence
+that constitutes the essence of memory Until we have analysed what
+happens in such a case as this, we have not succeeded in understanding
+memory.
+
+The sort of memory with which we are here concerned is the sort which is
+a form of knowledge. Whether knowledge itself is reducible to habit is
+a question to which I shall return in a later lecture; for the present
+I am only anxious to point out that, whatever the true analysis of
+knowledge may be, knowledge of past occurrences is not proved by
+behaviour which is due to past experience. The fact that a man can
+recite a poem does not show that he remembers any previous occasion on
+which he has recited or read it. Similarly, the performances of animals
+in getting out of cages or mazes to which they are accustomed do not
+prove that they remember having been in the same situation before.
+Arguments in favour of (for example) memory in plants are only arguments
+in favour of habit-memory, not of knowledge-memory. Samuel Butler's
+arguments in favour of the view that an animal remembers something of
+the lives of its ancestors* are, when examined, only arguments in favour
+of habit-memory. Semon's two books, mentioned in an earlier lecture, do
+not touch knowledge-memory at all closely. They give laws according to
+which images of past occurrences come into our minds, but do not discuss
+our belief that these images refer to past occurrences, which is what
+constitutes knowledge-memory. It is this that is of interest to theory
+of knowledge. I shall speak of it as "true" memory, to distinguish it
+from mere habit acquired through past experience. Before considering
+true memory, it will be well to consider two things which are on the way
+towards memory, namely the feeling of familiarity and recognition.
+
+     * See his "Life and Habit and Unconscious Memory."
+
+We often feel that something in our sensible environment is familiar,
+without having any definite recollection of previous occasions on which
+we have seen it. We have this feeling normally in places where we have
+often been before--at home, or in well-known streets. Most people and
+animals find it essential to their happiness to spend a good deal of
+their time in familiar surroundings, which are especially comforting
+when any danger threatens. The feeling of familiarity has all sorts
+of degrees, down to the stage where we dimly feel that we have seen a
+person before. It is by no means always reliable; almost everybody
+has at some time experienced the well-known illusion that all that is
+happening now happened before at some time. There are occasions when
+familiarity does not attach itself to any definite object, when there is
+merely a vague feeling that SOMETHING is familiar. This is illustrated
+by Turgenev's "Smoke," where the hero is long puzzled by a haunting
+sense that something in his present is recalling something in his past,
+and at last traces it to the smell of heliotrope. Whenever the sense of
+familiarity occurs without a definite object, it leads us to search the
+environment until we are satisfied that we have found the appropriate
+object, which leads us to the judgment: "THIS is familiar." I think
+we may regard familiarity as a definite feeling, capable of existing
+without an object, but normally standing in a specific relation to some
+feature of the environment, the relation being that which we express in
+words by saying that the feature in question is familiar. The judgment
+that what is familiar has been experienced before is a product of
+reflection, and is no part of the feeling of familiarity, such as a
+horse may be supposed to have when he returns to his stable. Thus
+no knowledge as to the past is to be derived from the feeling of
+familiarity alone.
+
+A further stage is RECOGNITION. This may be taken in two senses,
+the first when a thing not merely feels familiar, but we know it is
+such-and-such. We recognize our friend Jones, we know cats and dogs
+when we see them, and so on. Here we have a definite influence of past
+experience, but not necessarily any actual knowledge of the past. When
+we see a cat, we know it is a cat because of previous cats we have
+seen, but we do not, as a rule, recollect at the moment any particular
+occasion when we have seen a cat. Recognition in this sense does not
+necessarily involve more than a habit of association: the kind of object
+we are seeing at the moment is associated with the word "cat," or with
+an auditory image of purring, or whatever other characteristic we may
+happen to recognize in the cat of the moment. We are, of course, in
+fact able to judge, when we recognize an object, that we have seen it
+before, but this judgment is something over and above recognition in
+this first sense, and may very probably be impossible to animals that
+nevertheless have the experience of recognition in this first sense of
+the word.
+
+There is, however, another sense of the word, in which we mean by
+recognition, not knowing the name of a thing or some other property of
+it, but knowing that we have seen it before In this sense recognition
+does involve knowledge about the Fast. This knowledge is memory in
+one sense, though in another it is not. It does not involve a definite
+memory of a definite past event, but only the knowledge that something
+happening now is similar to something that happened before. It differs
+from the sense of familiarity by being cognitive; it is a belief or
+judgment, which the sense of familiarity is not. I do not wish to
+undertake the analysis of belief at present, since it will be the
+subject of the twelfth lecture; for the present I merely wish to
+emphasize the fact that recognition, in our second sense, consists in
+a belief, which we may express approximately in the words: "This has
+existed before."
+
+There are, however, several points in which such an account of
+recognition is inadequate. To begin with, it might seem at first sight
+more correct to define recognition as "I have seen this before" than
+as "this has existed before." We recognize a thing (it may be urged) as
+having been in our experience before, whatever that may mean; we do not
+recognize it as merely having been in the world before. I am not sure
+that there is anything substantial in this point. The definition of "my
+experience" is difficult; broadly speaking, it is everything that is
+connected with what I am experiencing now by certain links, of which
+the various forms of memory are among the most important. Thus, if I
+recognize a thing, the occasion of its previous existence in virtue
+of which I recognize it forms part of "my experience" by DEFINITION:
+recognition will be one of the marks by which my experience is singled
+out from the rest of the world. Of course, the words "this has existed
+before" are a very inadequate translation of what actually happens when
+we form a judgment of recognition, but that is unavoidable: words are
+framed to express a level of thought which is by no means primitive,
+and are quite incapable of expressing such an elementary occurrence as
+recognition. I shall return to what is virtually the same question in
+connection with true memory, which raises exactly similar problems.
+
+A second point is that, when we recognize something, it was not in fact
+the very same thing, but only something similar, that we experienced on
+a former occasion. Suppose the object in question is a friend's face. A
+person's face is always changing, and is not exactly the same on any two
+occasions. Common sense treats it as one face with varying expressions;
+but the varying expressions actually exist, each at its proper time,
+while the one face is merely a logical construction. We regard two
+objects as the same, for common-sense purposes, when the reaction they
+call for is practically the same. Two visual appearances, to both
+of which it is appropriate to say: "Hullo, Jones!" are treated as
+appearances of one identical object, namely Jones. The name "Jones" is
+applicable to both, and it is only reflection that shows us that many
+diverse particulars are collected together to form the meaning of the
+name "Jones." What we see on any one occasion is not the whole series of
+particulars that make up Jones, but only one of them (or a few in quick
+succession). On another occasion we see another member of the series,
+but it is sufficiently similar to count as the same from the standpoint
+of common sense. Accordingly, when we judge "I have seen THIS
+before," we judge falsely if "this" is taken as applying to the actual
+constituent of the world that we are seeing at the moment. The
+word "this" must be interpreted vaguely so as to include anything
+sufficiently like what we are seeing at the moment. Here, again, we
+shall find a similar point as regards true memory; and in connection
+with true memory we will consider the point again. It is sometimes
+suggested, by those who favour behaviourist views, that recognition
+consists in behaving in the same way when a stimulus is repeated as we
+behaved on the first occasion when it occurred. This seems to be the
+exact opposite of the truth. The essence of recognition is in the
+DIFFERENCE between a repeated stimulus and a new one. On the first
+occasion there is no recognition; on the second occasion there is. In
+fact, recognition is another instance of the peculiarity of causal laws
+in psychology, namely, that the causal unit is not a single event, but
+two or more events Habit is the great instance of this, but recognition
+is another. A stimulus occurring once has a certain effect; occurring
+twice, it has the further effect of recognition. Thus the phenomenon
+of recognition has as its cause the two occasions when the stimulus has
+occurred; either alone is insufficient. This complexity of causes
+in psychology might be connected with Bergson's arguments against
+repetition in the mental world. It does not prove that there are no
+causal laws in psychology, as Bergson suggests; but it does prove that
+the causal laws of psychology are Prima facie very different from those
+of physics. On the possibility of explaining away the difference as due
+to the peculiarities of nervous tissue I have spoken before, but this
+possibility must not be forgotten if we are tempted to draw unwarranted
+metaphysical deductions.
+
+True memory, which we must now endeavour to understand, consists of
+knowledge of past events, but not of all such knowledge. Some knowledge
+of past events, for example what we learn through reading history, is
+on a par with the knowledge we can acquire concerning the future: it
+is obtained by inference, not (so to speak) spontaneously. There is
+a similar distinction in our knowledge of the present: some of it is
+obtained through the senses, some in more indirect ways. I know that
+there are at this moment a number of people in the streets of New York,
+but I do not know this in the immediate way in which I know of the
+people whom I see by looking out of my window. It is not easy to state
+precisely wherein the difference between these two sorts of knowledge
+consists, but it is easy to feel the difference. For the moment, I shall
+not stop to analyse it, but shall content myself with saying that, in
+this respect, memory resembles the knowledge derived from the senses.
+It is immediate, not inferred, not abstract; it differs from perception
+mainly by being referred to the past.
+
+In regard to memory, as throughout the analysis of knowledge, there are
+two very distinct problems, namely (1) as to the nature of the present
+occurrence in knowing; (2) as to the relation of this occurrence to what
+is known. When we remember, the knowing is now, while what is known is
+in the past. Our two questions are, in the case of memory:
+
+(1) What is the present occurrence when we remember?
+
+(2) What is the relation of this present occurrence to the past event
+which is remembered?
+
+Of these two questions, only the first concerns the psychologist; the
+second belongs to theory of knowledge. At the same time, if we accept
+the vague datum with which we began, to the effect that, in some sense,
+there is knowledge of the past, we shall have to find, if we can, such
+an account of the present occurrence in remembering as will make it not
+impossible for remembering to give us knowledge of the past. For the
+present, however, we shall do well to forget the problems concerning
+theory of knowledge, and concentrate upon the purely psychological
+problem of memory.
+
+Between memory-image and sensation there is an intermediate experience
+concerning the immediate past. For example, a sound that we have just
+heard is present to us in a way which differs both from the sensation
+while we are hearing the sound and from the memory-image of something
+heard days or weeks ago. James states that it is this way of
+apprehending the immediate past that is "the ORIGINAL of our experience
+of pastness, from whence we get the meaning of the term"("Psychology,"
+i, p. 604). Everyone knows the experience of noticing (say) that
+the clock HAS BEEN striking, when we did not notice it while it was
+striking. And when we hear a remark spoken, we are conscious of the
+earlier words while the later ones are being uttered, and this retention
+feels different from recollection of something definitely past. A
+sensation fades gradually, passing by continuous gradations to the
+status of an image. This retention of the immediate past in a condition
+intermediate between sensation and image may be called "immediate
+memory." Everything belonging to it is included with sensation in what
+is called the "specious present." The specious present includes elements
+at all stages on the journey from sensation to image. It is this fact
+that enables us to apprehend such things as movements, or the order of
+the words in a spoken sentence. Succession can occur within the specious
+present, of which we can distinguish some parts as earlier and others as
+later. It is to be supposed that the earliest parts are those that have
+faded most from their original force, while the latest parts are those
+that retain their full sensational character. At the beginning of a
+stimulus we have a sensation; then a gradual transition; and at the
+end an image. Sensations while they are fading are called "akoluthic"
+sensations.* When the process of fading is completed (which happens very
+quickly), we arrive at the image, which is capable of being revived on
+subsequent occasions with very little change. True memory, as opposed to
+"immediate memory," applies only to events sufficiently distant to
+have come to an end of the period of fading. Such events, if they are
+represented by anything present, can only be represented by images, not
+by those intermediate stages, between sensations and images, which occur
+during the period of fading.
+
+     * See Semon, "Die mnemischen Empfindungen," chap. vi.
+
+Immediate memory is important both because it provides experience of
+succession, and because it bridges the gulf between sensations and
+the images which are their copies. But it is now time to resume the
+consideration of true memory.
+
+Suppose you ask me what I ate for breakfast this morning. Suppose,
+further, that I have not thought about my breakfast in the meantime, and
+that I did not, while I was eating it, put into words what it consisted
+of. In this case my recollection will be true memory, not habit-memory.
+The process of remembering will consist of calling up images of my
+breakfast, which will come to me with a feeling of belief such as
+distinguishes memory-images from mere imagination-images. Or sometimes
+words may come without the intermediary of images; but in this case
+equally the feeling of belief is essential.
+
+Let us omit from our consideration, for the present, the memories
+in which words replace images. These are always, I think, really
+habit-memories, the memories that use images being the typical true
+memories.
+
+Memory-images and imagination-images do not differ in their intrinsic
+qualities, so far as we can discover. They differ by the fact that
+the images that constitute memories, unlike those that constitute
+imagination, are accompanied by a feeling of belief which may be
+expressed in the words "this happened." The mere occurrence of images,
+without this feeling of belief, constitutes imagination; it is the
+element of belief that is the distinctive thing in memory.*
+
+     * For belief of a specific kind, cf. Dorothy Wrinch "On the
+     Nature of Memory," "Mind," January, 1920.
+
+There are, if I am not mistaken, at least three different kinds of
+belief-feeling, which we may call respectively memory, expectation and
+bare assent. In what I call bare assent, there is no time-element in
+the feeling of belief, though there may be in the content of what is
+believed. If I believe that Caesar landed in Britain in B.C. 55, the
+time-determination lies, not in the feeling of belief, but in what is
+believed. I do not remember the occurrence, but have the same feeling
+towards it as towards the announcement of an eclipse next year. But when
+I have seen a flash of lightning and am waiting for the thunder, I
+have a belief-feeling analogous to memory, except that it refers to the
+future: I have an image of thunder, combined with a feeling which may be
+expressed in the words: "this will happen." So, in memory, the pastness
+lies, not in the content of what is believed, but in the nature of
+the belief-feeling. I might have just the same images and expect their
+realization; I might entertain them without any belief, as in reading a
+novel; or I might entertain them together with a time-determination, and
+give bare assent, as in reading history. I shall return to this subject
+in a later lecture, when we come to the analysis of belief. For the
+present, I wish to make it clear that a certain special kind of belief
+is the distinctive characteristic of memory.
+
+
+The problem as to whether memory can be explained as habit or
+association requires to be considered afresh in connection with the
+causes of our remembering something. Let us take again the case of my
+being asked what I had for breakfast this morning. In this case the
+question leads to my setting to work to recollect. It is a little
+strange that the question should instruct me as to what it is that I am
+to recall. This has to do with understanding words, which will be the
+topic of the next lecture; but something must be said about it now. Our
+understanding of the words "breakfast this morning" is a habit, in spite
+of the fact that on each fresh day they point to a different occasion.
+"This morning" does not, whenever it is used, mean the same thing, as
+"John" or "St. Paul's" does; it means a different period of time on
+each different day. It follows that the habit which constitutes
+our understanding of the words "this morning" is not the habit of
+associating the words with a fixed object, but the habit of associating
+them with something having a fixed time-relation to our present. This
+morning has, to-day, the same time-relation to my present that yesterday
+morning had yesterday. In order to understand the phrase "this morning"
+it is necessary that we should have a way of feeling time-intervals,
+and that this feeling should give what is constant in the meaning of the
+words "this morning." This appreciation of time-intervals is, however,
+obviously a product of memory, not a presupposition of it. It will be
+better, therefore, if we wish to analyse the causation of memory by
+something not presupposing memory, to take some other instance than that
+of a question about "this morning."
+
+Let us take the case of coming into a familiar room where something has
+been changed--say a new picture hung on the wall. We may at first
+have only a sense that SOMETHING is unfamiliar, but presently we shall
+remember, and say "that picture was not on the wall before." In order to
+make the case definite, we will suppose that we were only in the room
+on one former occasion. In this case it seems fairly clear what happens.
+The other objects in the room are associated, through the former
+occasion, with a blank space of wall where now there is a picture. They
+call up an image of a blank wall, which clashes with perception of the
+picture. The image is associated with the belief-feeling which we found
+to be distinctive of memory, since it can neither be abolished nor
+harmonized with perception. If the room had remained unchanged, we
+might have had only the feeling of familiarity without the definite
+remembering; it is the change that drives us from the present to memory
+of the past.
+
+We may generalize this instance so as to cover the causes of many
+memories. Some present feature of the environment is associated, through
+past experiences, with something now absent; this absent something comes
+before us as an image, and is contrasted with present sensation. In
+cases of this sort, habit (or association) explains why the present
+feature of the environment brings up the memory-image, but it does
+not explain the memory-belief. Perhaps a more complete analysis could
+explain the memory-belief also on lines of association and habit, but
+the causes of beliefs are obscure, and we cannot investigate them
+yet. For the present we must content ourselves with the fact that the
+memory-image can be explained by habit. As regards the memory-belief,
+we must, at least provisionally, accept Bergson's view that it cannot be
+brought under the head of habit, at any rate when it first occurs, i.e.
+when we remember something we never remembered before.
+
+We must now consider somewhat more closely the content of a
+memory-belief. The memory-belief confers upon the memory-image something
+which we may call "meaning;" it makes us feel that the image points to
+an object which existed in the past. In order to deal with this topic
+we must consider the verbal expression of the memory-belief. We might
+be tempted to put the memory-belief into the words: "Something like
+this image occurred." But such words would be very far from an accurate
+translation of the simplest kind of memory-belief. "Something like this
+image" is a very complicated conception. In the simplest kind of memory
+we are not aware of the difference between an image and the sensation
+which it copies, which may be called its "prototype." When the image
+is before us, we judge rather "this occurred." The image is not
+distinguished from the object which existed in the past: the word "this"
+covers both, and enables us to have a memory-belief which does not
+introduce the complicated notion "something like this."
+
+It might be objected that, if we judge "this occurred" when in fact
+"this" is a present image, we judge falsely, and the memory-belief,
+so interpreted, becomes deceptive. This, however, would be a mistake,
+produced by attempting to give to words a precision which they do not
+possess when used by unsophisticated people. It is true that the image
+is not absolutely identical with its prototype, and if the word "this"
+meant the image to the exclusion of everything else, the judgment "this
+occurred" would be false. But identity is a precise conception, and no
+word, in ordinary speech, stands for anything precise. Ordinary speech
+does not distinguish between identity and close similarity. A word
+always applies, not only to one particular, but to a group of associated
+particulars, which are not recognized as multiple in common thought or
+speech. Thus primitive memory, when it judges that "this occurred," is
+vague, but not false.
+
+Vague identity, which is really close similarity, has been a source
+of many of the confusions by which philosophy has lived. Of a vague
+subject, such as a "this," which is both an image and its prototype,
+contradictory predicates are true simultaneously: this existed and does
+not exist, since it is a thing remembered, but also this exists and did
+not exist, since it is a present image. Hence Bergson's
+interpenetration of the present by the past, Hegelian continuity and
+identity-in-diversity, and a host of other notions which are thought to
+be profound because they are obscure and confused. The contradictions
+resulting from confounding image and prototype in memory force us to
+precision. But when we become precise, our remembering becomes different
+from that of ordinary life, and if we forget this we shall go wrong in
+the analysis of ordinary memory.
+
+Vagueness and accuracy are important notions, which it is very necessary
+to understand. Both are a matter of degree. All thinking is vague
+to some extent, and complete accuracy is a theoretical ideal not
+practically attainable. To understand what is meant by accuracy, it will
+be well to consider first instruments of measurement, such as a balance
+or a thermometer. These are said to be accurate when they give different
+results for very slightly different stimuli.* A clinical thermometer
+is accurate when it enables us to detect very slight differences in the
+temperature of the blood. We may say generally that an instrument
+is accurate in proportion as it reacts differently to very slightly
+different stimuli. When a small difference of stimulus produces a great
+difference of reaction, the instrument is accurate; in the contrary case
+it is not.
+
+     * This is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. The
+     subject of accuracy and vagueness will be considered again
+     in Lecture XIII.
+
+Exactly the same thing applies in defining accuracy of thought
+or perception. A musician will respond differently to very minute
+differences in playing which would be quite imperceptible to the
+ordinary mortal. A negro can see the difference between one negro and
+another one is his friend, another his enemy. But to us such different
+responses are impossible: we can merely apply the word "negro"
+indiscriminately. Accuracy of response in regard to any particular kind
+of stimulus is improved by practice. Understanding a language is a
+case in point. Few Frenchmen can hear any difference between the sounds
+"hall" and "hole," which produce quite different impressions upon us.
+The two statements "the hall is full of water" and "the hole is full
+of water" call for different responses, and a hearing which cannot
+distinguish between them is inaccurate or vague in this respect.
+
+Precision and vagueness in thought, as in perception, depend upon the
+degree of difference between responses to more or less similar stimuli.
+In the case of thought, the response does not follow immediately upon
+the sensational stimulus, but that makes no difference as regards our
+present question. Thus to revert to memory: A memory is "vague" when
+it is appropriate to many different occurrences: for instance, "I met a
+man" is vague, since any man would verify it. A memory is "precise" when
+the occurrences that would verify it are narrowly circumscribed: for
+instance, "I met Jones" is precise as compared to "I met a man." A
+memory is "accurate" when it is both precise and true, i.e. in the above
+instance, if it was Jones I met. It is precise even if it is false,
+provided some very definite occurrence would have been required to make
+it true.
+
+It follows from what has been said that a vague thought has more
+likelihood of being true than a precise one. To try and hit an object
+with a vague thought is like trying to hit the bull's eye with a lump of
+putty: when the putty reaches the target, it flattens out all over it,
+and probably covers the bull's eye along with the rest. To try and hit
+an object with a precise thought is like trying to hit the bull's
+eye with a bullet. The advantage of the precise thought is that it
+distinguishes between the bull's eye and the rest of the target. For
+example, if the whole target is represented by the fungus family and the
+bull's eye by mushrooms, a vague thought which can only hit the target
+as a whole is not much use from a culinary point of view. And when I
+merely remember that I met a man, my memory may be very inadequate to my
+practical requirements, since it may make a great difference whether I
+met Brown or Jones. The memory "I met Jones" is relatively precise. It
+is accurate if I met Jones, inaccurate if I met Brown, but precise in
+either case as against the mere recollection that I met a man.
+
+The distinction between accuracy and precision is however, not
+fundamental. We may omit precision from out thoughts and confine
+ourselves to the distinction between accuracy and vagueness. We may then
+set up the following definitions:
+
+An instrument is "reliable" with respect to a given set of stimuli when
+to stimuli which are not relevantly different it gives always responses
+which are not relevantly different.
+
+An instrument is a "measure" of a set of stimuli which are serially
+ordered when its responses, in all cases where they are relevantly
+different, are arranged in a series in the same order.
+
+The "degree of accuracy" of an instrument which is a reliable measurer
+is the ratio of the difference of response to the difference of stimulus
+in cases where the difference of stimulus is small.* That is to say, if
+a small difference of stimulus produces a great difference of response,
+the instrument is very accurate; in the contrary case, very inaccurate.
+
+     * Strictly speaking, the limit of this, i.e. the derivative
+     of the response with respect to the stimulus.
+
+A mental response is called "vague" in proportion to its lack of
+accuracy, or rather precision.
+
+These definitions will be found useful, not only in the case of memory,
+but in almost all questions concerned with knowledge.
+
+It should be observed that vague beliefs, so far from being necessarily
+false, have a better chance of truth than precise ones, though their
+truth is less valuable than that of precise beliefs, since they do not
+distinguish between occurrences which may differ in important ways.
+
+The whole of the above discussion of vagueness and accuracy was
+occasioned by the attempt to interpret the word "this" when we judge in
+verbal memory that "this occurred." The word "this," in such a judgment,
+is a vague word, equally applicable to the present memory-image and to
+the past occurrence which is its prototype. A vague word is not to be
+identified with a general word, though in practice the distinction
+may often be blurred. A word is general when it is understood to be
+applicable to a number of different objects in virtue of some common
+property. A word is vague when it is in fact applicable to a number of
+different objects because, in virtue of some common property, they
+have not appeared, to the person using the word, to be distinct. I
+emphatically do not mean that he has judged them to be identical, but
+merely that he has made the same response to them all and has not judged
+them to be different. We may compare a vague word to a jelly and
+a general word to a heap of shot. Vague words precede judgments
+of identity and difference; both general and particular words are
+subsequent to such judgments. The word "this" in the primitive
+memory-belief is a vague word, not a general word; it covers both the
+image and its prototype because the two are not distinguished.*
+
+     * On the vague and the general cf. Ribot: "Evolution of
+     General Ideas," Open Court Co., 1899, p. 32: "The sole
+     permissible formula is this: Intelligence progresses from
+     the indefinite to the definite. If 'indefinite' is taken as
+     synonymous with general, it may be said that the particular
+     does not appear at the outset, but neither does the general
+     in any exact sense: the vague would be more appropriate. In
+     other words, no sooner has the intellect progressed beyond
+     the moment of perception and of its immediate reproduction
+     in memory, than the generic image makes its appearance, i.e.
+     a state intermediate between the particular and the general,
+     participating in the nature of the one and of the other--a
+     confused simplification."
+
+But we have not yet finished our analysis of the memory-belief. The
+tense in the belief that "this occurred" is provided by the nature of
+the belief-feeling involved in memory; the word "this," as we have seen,
+has a vagueness which we have tried to describe. But we must still ask
+what we mean by "occurred." The image is, in one sense, occurring now;
+and therefore we must find some other sense in which the past event
+occurred but the image does not occur.
+
+There are two distinct questions to be asked: (1) What causes us to say
+that a thing occurs? (2) What are we feeling when we say this? As to the
+first question, in the crude use of the word, which is what concerns us,
+memory-images would not be said to occur; they would not be noticed
+in themselves, but merely used as signs of the past event. Images are
+"merely imaginary"; they have not, in crude thought, the sort of reality
+that belongs to outside bodies. Roughly speaking, "real" things would
+be those that can cause sensations, those that have correlations of the
+sort that constitute physical objects. A thing is said to be "real"
+or to "occur" when it fits into a context of such correlations. The
+prototype of our memory-image did fit into a physical context, while
+our memory-image does not. This causes us to feel that the prototype was
+"real," while the image is "imaginary."
+
+But the answer to our second question, namely as to what we are feeling
+when we say a thing "occurs" or is "real," must be somewhat different.
+We do not, unless we are unusually reflective, think about the presence
+or absence of correlations: we merely have different feelings which,
+intellectualized, may be represented as expectations of the presence
+or absence of correlations. A thing which "feels real" inspires us with
+hopes or fears, expectations or curiosities, which are wholly absent
+when a thing "feels imaginary." The feeling of reality is a feeling akin
+to respect: it belongs PRIMARILY to whatever can do things to us without
+our voluntary co-operation. This feeling of reality, related to
+the memory-image, and referred to the past by the specific kind of
+belief-feeling that is characteristic of memory, seems to be what
+constitutes the act of remembering in its pure form.
+
+We may now summarize our analysis of pure memory.
+
+Memory demands (a) an image, (b) a belief in past existence. The belief
+may be expressed in the words "this existed."
+
+The belief, like every other, may be analysed into (1) the believing,
+(2) what is believed. The believing is a specific feeling or sensation
+or complex of sensations, different from expectation or bare assent in
+a way that makes the belief refer to the past; the reference to the
+past lies in the belief-feeling, not in the content believed. There is
+a relation between the belief-feeling and the content, making the
+belief-feeling refer to the content, and expressed by saying that the
+content is what is believed.
+
+The content believed may or may not be expressed in words. Let us
+take first the case when it is not. In that case, if we are merely
+remembering that something of which we now have an image occurred,
+the content consists of (a) the image, (b) the feeling, analogous
+to respect, which we translate by saying that something is "real" as
+opposed to "imaginary," (c) a relation between the image and the feeling
+of reality, of the sort expressed when we say that the feeling refers
+to the image. This content does not contain in itself any
+time-determination.
+
+The time-determination lies in the nature of the belief feeling, which
+is that called "remembering" or (better) "recollecting." It is only
+subsequent reflection upon this reference to the past that makes us
+realize the distinction between the image and the event recollected.
+When we have made this distinction, we can say that the image "means"
+the past event.
+
+The content expressed in words is best represented by the words "the
+existence of this," since these words do not involve tense, which
+belongs to the belief-feeling, not to the content. Here "this" is
+a vague term, covering the memory-image and anything very like it,
+including its prototype. "Existence" expresses the feeling of a
+"reality" aroused primarily by whatever can have effects upon us without
+our voluntary co-operation. The word "of" in the phrase "the existence
+of this" represents the relation which subsists between the feeling of
+reality and the "this."
+
+This analysis of memory is probably extremely faulty, but I do not know
+how to improve it.
+
+NOTE.-When I speak of a FEELING of belief, I use the word "feeling" in
+a popular sense, to cover a sensation or an image or a complex of
+sensations or images or both; I use this word because I do not wish to
+commit myself to any special analysis of the belief-feeling.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE X. WORDS AND MEANING
+
+The problem with which we shall be concerned in this lecture is the
+problem of determining what is the relation called "meaning." The word
+"Napoleon," we say, "means" a certain person. In saying this, we are
+asserting a relation between the word "Napoleon" and the person so
+designated. It is this relation that we must now investigate.
+
+Let us first consider what sort of object a word is when considered
+simply as a physical thing, apart from its meaning. To begin with, there
+are many instances of a word, namely all the different occasions when it
+is employed. Thus a word is not something unique and particular, but a
+set of occurrences. If we confine ourselves to spoken words, a word has
+two aspects, according as we regard it from the point of view of the
+speaker or from that of the hearer. From the point of view of the
+speaker, a single instance of the use of a word consists of a certain
+set of movements in the throat and mouth, combined with breath. From
+the point of view of the hearer, a single instance of the use of a
+word consists of a certain series of sounds, each being approximately
+represented by a single letter in writing, though in practice a letter
+may represent several sounds, or several letters may represent one
+sound. The connection between the spoken word and the word as it reaches
+the hearer is causal. Let us confine ourselves to the spoken word, which
+is the more important for the analysis of what is called "thought."
+Then we may say that a single instance of the spoken word consists of
+a series of movements, and the word consists of a whole set of such
+series, each member of the set being very similar to each other member.
+That is to say, any two instances of the word "Napoleon" are very
+similar, and each instance consists of a series of movements in the
+mouth.
+
+A single word, accordingly, is by no means simple it is a class of
+similar series of movements (confining ourselves still to the spoken
+word). The degree of similarity required cannot be precisely defined:
+a man may pronounce the word "Napoleon" so badly that it can hardly be
+determined whether he has really pronounced it or not. The instances
+of a word shade off into other movements by imperceptible degrees. And
+exactly analogous observations apply to words heard or written or read.
+But in what has been said so far we have not even broached the
+question of the DEFINITION of a word, since "meaning" is clearly what
+distinguishes a word from other sets of similar movements, and "meaning"
+remains to be defined.
+
+It is natural to think of the meaning of a word as something
+conventional. This, however, is only true with great limitations. A new
+word can be added to an existing language by a mere convention, as
+is done, for instance, with new scientific terms. But the basis of
+a language is not conventional, either from the point of view of the
+individual or from that of the community. A child learning to speak is
+learning habits and associations which are just as much determined by
+the environment as the habit of expecting dogs to bark and cocks to
+crow. The community that speaks a language has learnt it, and modified
+it by processes almost all of which are not deliberate, but the results
+of causes operating according to more or less ascertainable laws. If
+we trace any Indo-European language back far enough, we arrive
+hypothetically (at any rate according to some authorities) at the stage
+when language consisted only of the roots out of which subsequent words
+have grown. How these roots acquired their meanings is not known, but a
+conventional origin is clearly just as mythical as the social contract
+by which Hobbes and Rousseau supposed civil government to have been
+established. We can hardly suppose a parliament of hitherto speechless
+elders meeting together and agreeing to call a cow a cow and a wolf a
+wolf. The association of words with their meanings must have grown up
+by some natural process, though at present the nature of the process is
+unknown.
+
+Spoken and written words are, of course, not the only way of conveying
+meaning. A large part of one of Wundt's two vast volumes on language in
+his "Volkerpsychologie" is concerned with gesture-language. Ants appear
+to be able to communicate a certain amount of information by means of
+their antennae. Probably writing itself, which we now regard as merely
+a way of representing speech, was originally an independent language,
+as it has remained to this day in China. Writing seems to have consisted
+originally of pictures, which gradually became conventionalized, coming
+in time to represent syllables, and finally letters on the telephone
+principle of "T for Tommy." But it would seem that writing nowhere
+began as an attempt to represent speech it began as a direct pictorial
+representation of what was to be expressed. The essence of language
+lies, not in the use of this or that special means of communication,
+but in the employment of fixed associations (however these may have
+originated) in order that something now sensible--a spoken word, a
+picture, a gesture, or what not--may call up the "idea" of something
+else. Whenever this is done, what is now sensible may be called a "sign"
+or "symbol," and that of which it is intended to call up the "idea" may
+be called its "meaning." This is a rough outline of what constitutes
+"meaning." But we must fill in the outline in various ways. And,
+since we are concerned with what is called "thought," we must pay more
+attention than we otherwise should do to the private as opposed to the
+social use of language. Language profoundly affects our thoughts, and
+it is this aspect of language that is of most importance to us in our
+present inquiry. We are almost more concerned with the internal speech
+that is never uttered than we are with the things said out loud to other
+people.
+
+When we ask what constitutes meaning, we are not asking what is the
+meaning of this or that particular word. The word "Napoleon" means a
+certain individual; but we are asking, not who is the individual meant,
+but what is the relation of the word to the individual which makes the
+one mean the other. But just as it is useful to realize the nature of a
+word as part of the physical world, so it is useful to realize the sort
+of thing that a word may mean. When we are clear both as to what a word
+is in its physical aspect, and as to what sort of thing it can mean, we
+are in a better position to discover the relation of the two which is
+meaning.
+
+The things that words mean differ more than words do. There are
+different sorts of words, distinguished by the grammarians; and there
+are logical distinctions, which are connected to some extent, though not
+so closely as was formerly supposed, with the grammatical distinctions
+of parts of speech. It is easy, however, to be misled by grammar,
+particularly if all the languages we know belong to one family. In some
+languages, according to some authorities, the distinction of parts of
+speech does not exist; in many languages it is widely different from
+that to which we are accustomed in the Indo-European languages. These
+facts have to be borne in mind if we are to avoid giving metaphysical
+importance to mere accidents of our own speech.
+
+In considering what words mean, it is natural to start with proper
+names, and we will again take "Napoleon" as our instance. We commonly
+imagine, when we use a proper name, that we mean one definite entity,
+the particular individual who was called "Napoleon." But what we know
+as a person is not simple. There MAY be a single simple ego which was
+Napoleon, and remained strictly identical from his birth to his death.
+There is no way of proving that this cannot be the case, but there is
+also not the slightest reason to suppose that it is the case. Napoleon
+as he was empirically known consisted of a series of gradually changing
+appearances: first a squalling baby, then a boy, then a slim and
+beautiful youth, then a fat and slothful person very magnificently
+dressed This series of appearances, and various occurrences having
+certain kinds of causal connections with them, constitute Napoleon as
+empirically known, and therefore are Napoleon in so far as he forms
+part of the experienced world. Napoleon is a complicated series of
+occurrences, bound together by causal laws, not, like instances of a
+word, by similarities. For although a person changes gradually, and
+presents similar appearances on two nearly contemporaneous occasions,
+it is not these similarities that constitute the person, as appears from
+the "Comedy of Errors" for example.
+
+Thus in the case of a proper name, while the word is a set of similar
+series of movements, what it means is a series of occurrences bound
+together by causal laws of that special kind that makes the occurrences
+taken together constitute what we call one person, or one animal or
+thing, in case the name applies to an animal or thing instead of to
+a person. Neither the word nor what it names is one of the ultimate
+indivisible constituents of the world. In language there is no direct
+way of designating one of the ultimate brief existents that go to make
+up the collections we call things or persons. If we want to speak of
+such existents--which hardly happens except in philosophy--we have to do
+it by means of some elaborate phrase, such as "the visual sensation
+which occupied the centre of my field of vision at noon on January 1,
+1919." Such ultimate simples I call "particulars." Particulars MIGHT
+have proper names, and no doubt would have if language had been invented
+by scientifically trained observers for purposes of philosophy and
+logic. But as language was invented for practical ends, particulars have
+remained one and all without a name.
+
+We are not, in practice, much concerned with the actual particulars
+that come into our experience in sensation; we are concerned rather
+with whole systems to which the particulars belong and of which they
+are signs. What we see makes us say "Hullo, there's Jones," and the fact
+that what we see is a sign of Jones (which is the case because it is one
+of the particulars that make up Jones) is more interesting to us than
+the actual particular itself. Hence we give the name "Jones" to the
+whole set of particulars, but do not trouble to give separate names to
+the separate particulars that make up the set.
+
+Passing on from proper names, we come next to general names, such as
+"man," "cat," "triangle." A word such as "man" means a whole class
+of such collections of particulars as have proper names. The several
+members of the class are assembled together in virtue of some similarity
+or common property. All men resemble each other in certain important
+respects; hence we want a word which shall be equally applicable to all
+of them. We only give proper names to the individuals of a species when
+they differ inter se in practically important respects. In other cases
+we do not do this. A poker, for instance, is just a poker; we do not
+call one "John" and another "Peter."
+
+There is a large class of words, such as "eating," "walking,"
+"speaking," which mean a set of similar occurrences. Two instances of
+walking have the same name because they resemble each other, whereas
+two instances of Jones have the same name because they are causally
+connected. In practice, however, it is difficult to make any precise
+distinction between a word such as "walking" and a general name such as
+"man." One instance of walking cannot be concentrated into an instant:
+it is a process in time, in which there is a causal connection between
+the earlier and later parts, as between the earlier and later parts
+of Jones. Thus an instance of walking differs from an instance of man
+solely by the fact that it has a shorter life. There is a notion that an
+instance of walking, as compared with Jones, is unsubstantial, but this
+seems to be a mistake. We think that Jones walks, and that there could
+not be any walking unless there were somebody like Jones to perform
+the walking. But it is equally true that there could be no Jones unless
+there were something like walking for him to do. The notion that actions
+are performed by an agent is liable to the same kind of criticism as
+the notion that thinking needs a subject or ego, which we rejected in
+Lecture I. To say that it is Jones who is walking is merely to say that
+the walking in question is part of the whole series of occurrences which
+is Jones. There is no LOGICAL impossibility in walking occurring as an
+isolated phenomenon, not forming part of any such series as we call a
+"person."
+
+We may therefore class with "eating," "walking," "speaking" words
+such as "rain," "sunrise," "lightning," which do not denote what would
+commonly be called actions. These words illustrate, incidentally, how
+little we can trust to the grammatical distinction of parts of speech,
+since the substantive "rain" and the verb "to rain" denote precisely the
+same class of meteorological occurrences. The distinction between the
+class of objects denoted by such a word and the class of objects denoted
+by a general name such as "man," "vegetable," or "planet," is that the
+sort of object which is an instance of (say) "lightning" is much simpler
+than (say) an individual man. (I am speaking of lightning as a sensible
+phenomenon, not as it is described in physics.) The distinction is one
+of degree, not of kind. But there is, from the point of view of ordinary
+thought, a great difference between a process which, like a flash of
+lightning, can be wholly comprised within one specious present and a
+process which, like the life of a man, has to be pieced together by
+observation and memory and the apprehension of causal connections.
+We may say broadly, therefore, that a word of the kind we have been
+discussing denotes a set of similar occurrences, each (as a rule) much
+more brief and less complex than a person or thing. Words themselves, as
+we have seen, are sets of similar occurrences of this kind. Thus there
+is more logical affinity between a word and what it means in the case of
+words of our present sort than in any other case.
+
+There is no very great difference between such words as we have just
+been considering and words denoting qualities, such as "white" or
+"round." The chief difference is that words of this latter sort do not
+denote processes, however brief, but static features of the world. Snow
+falls, and is white; the falling is a process, the whiteness is not.
+Whether there is a universal, called "whiteness," or whether white
+things are to be defined as those having a certain kind of similarity to
+a standard thing, say freshly fallen snow, is a question which need
+not concern us, and which I believe to be strictly insoluble. For our
+purposes, we may take the word "white" as denoting a certain set of
+similar particulars or collections of particulars, the similarity being
+in respect of a static quality, not of a process.
+
+From the logical point of view, a very important class of words
+are those that express relations, such as "in," "above," "before,"
+"greater," and so on. The meaning of one of these words differs very
+fundamentally from the meaning of one of any of our previous classes,
+being more abstract and logically simpler than any of them. If our
+business were logic, we should have to spend much time on these words.
+But as it is psychology that concerns us, we will merely note their
+special character and pass on, since the logical classification of words
+is not our main business.
+
+We will consider next the question what is implied by saying that a
+person "understands" a word, in the sense in which one understands
+a word in one's own language, but not in a language of which one is
+ignorant. We may say that a person understands a word when (a) suitable
+circumstances make him use it, (b) the hearing of it causes suitable
+behaviour in him. We may call these two active and passive understanding
+respectively. Dogs often have passive understanding of some words, but
+not active understanding, since they cannot use words.
+
+It is not necessary, in order that a man should "understand" a word,
+that he should "know what it means," in the sense of being able to say
+"this word means so-and-so." Understanding words does not consist in
+knowing their dictionary definitions, or in being able to specify the
+objects to which they are appropriate. Such understanding as this may
+belong to lexicographers and students, but not to ordinary mortals
+in ordinary life. Understanding language is more like understanding
+cricket*: it is a matter of habits, acquired in oneself and rightly
+presumed in others. To say that a word has a meaning is not to say that
+those who use the word correctly have ever thought out what the meaning
+is: the use of the word comes first, and the meaning is to be distilled
+out of it by observation and analysis. Moreover, the meaning of a word
+is not absolutely definite: there is always a greater or less degree of
+vagueness. The meaning is an area, like a target: it may have a bull's
+eye, but the outlying parts of the target are still more or less within
+the meaning, in a gradually diminishing degree as we travel further from
+the bull's eye. As language grows more precise, there is less and less
+of the target outside the bull's eye, and the bull's eye itself grows
+smaller and smaller; but the bull's eye never shrinks to a point, and
+there is always a doubtful region, however small, surrounding it.**
+
+     * This point of view, extended to the analysis of "thought"
+     is urged with great force by J. B. Watson, both in his
+     "Behavior," and in "Psychology from the Standpoint of a
+     Behaviorist" (Lippincott. 1919), chap. ix.
+
+     ** On the understanding of words, a very admirable little
+     book is Ribot's "Evolution of General Ideas," Open Court
+     Co., 1899. Ribot says (p. 131): "We learn to understand a
+     concept as we learn to walk, dance, fence or play a musical
+     instrument: it is a habit, i.e. an organized memory. General
+     terms cover an organized, latent knowledge which is the
+     hidden capital without which we should be in a state of
+     bankruptcy, manipulating false money or paper of no value.
+     General ideas are habits in the intellectual order."
+
+A word is used "correctly" when the average hearer will be affected
+by it in the way intended. This is a psychological, not a literary,
+definition of "correctness." The literary definition would substitute,
+for the average hearer, a person of high education living a long time
+ago; the purpose of this definition is to make it difficult to speak or
+write correctly.
+
+The relation of a word to its meaning is of the nature of a causal law
+governing our use of the word and our actions when we hear it used.
+There is no more reason why a person who uses a word correctly should
+be able to tell what it means than there is why a planet which is moving
+correctly should know Kepler's laws.
+
+To illustrate what is meant by "understanding" words and sentences, let
+us take instances of various situations.
+
+Suppose you are walking in London with an absent-minded friend, and
+while crossing a street you say, "Look out, there's a motor coming."
+He will glance round and jump aside without the need of any "mental"
+intermediary. There need be no "ideas," but only a stiffening of the
+muscles, followed quickly by action. He "understands" the words, because
+he does the right thing. Such "understanding" may be taken to belong to
+the nerves and brain, being habits which they have acquired while the
+language was being learnt. Thus understanding in this sense may be
+reduced to mere physiological causal laws.
+
+If you say the same thing to a Frenchman with a slight knowledge of
+English he will go through some inner speech which may be represented by
+"Que dit-il? Ah, oui, une automobile!" After this, the rest follows as
+with the Englishman. Watson would contend that the inner speech must be
+incipiently pronounced; we should argue that it MIGHT be merely imaged.
+But this point is not important in the present connection.
+
+If you say the same thing to a child who does not yet know the word
+"motor," but does know the other words you are using, you produce a
+feeling of anxiety and doubt you will have to point and say, "There,
+that's a motor." After that the child will roughly understand the word
+"motor," though he may include trains and steam-rollers If this is the
+first time the child has heard the word "motor," he may for a long time
+continue to recall this scene when he hears the word.
+
+So far we have found four ways of understanding words:
+
+(1) On suitable occasions you use the word properly.
+
+(2) When you hear it you act appropriately.
+
+(3) You associate the word with another word (say in a different
+language) which has the appropriate effect on behaviour.
+
+(4) When the word is being first learnt, you may associate it with an
+object, which is what it "means," or a representative of various objects
+that it "means."
+
+In the fourth case, the word acquires, through association, some of the
+same causal efficacy as the object. The word "motor" can make you
+leap aside, just as the motor can, but it cannot break your bones. The
+effects which a word can share with its object are those which proceed
+according to laws other than the general laws of physics, i.e. those
+which, according to our terminology, involve vital movements as opposed
+to merely mechanical movements. The effects of a word that we understand
+are always mnemic phenomena in the sense explained in Lecture IV, in
+so far as they are identical with, or similar to, the effects which the
+object itself might have.
+
+So far, all the uses of words that we have considered can be accounted
+for on the lines of behaviourism.
+
+But so far we have only considered what may be called the
+"demonstrative" use of language, to point out some feature in the
+present environment. This is only one of the ways in which language
+may be used. There are also its narrative and imaginative uses, as
+in history and novels. Let us take as an instance the telling of some
+remembered event.
+
+We spoke a moment ago of a child who hears the word "motor" for
+the first time when crossing a street along which a motor-car is
+approaching. On a later occasion, we will suppose, the child remembers
+the incident and relates it to someone else. In this case, both the
+active and passive understanding of words is different from what it is
+when words are used demonstratively. The child is not seeing a motor,
+but only remembering one; the hearer does not look round in expectation
+of seeing a motor coming, but "understands" that a motor came at some
+earlier time. The whole of this occurrence is much more difficult to
+account for on behaviourist lines. It is clear that, in so far as the
+child is genuinely remembering, he has a picture of the past occurrence,
+and his words are chosen so as to describe the picture; and in so far
+as the hearer is genuinely apprehending what is said, the hearer is
+acquiring a picture more or less like that of the child. It is true that
+this process may be telescoped through the operation of the word-habit.
+The child may not genuinely remember the incident, but only have the
+habit of the appropriate words, as in the case of a poem which we know
+by heart, though we cannot remember learning it. And the hearer also
+may only pay attention to the words, and not call up any corresponding
+picture. But it is, nevertheless, the possibility of a memory-image in
+the child and an imagination-image in the hearer that makes the essence
+of the narrative "meaning" of the words. In so far as this is absent,
+the words are mere counters, capable of meaning, but not at the moment
+possessing it.
+
+Yet this might perhaps be regarded as something of an overstatement. The
+words alone, without the use of images, may cause appropriate emotions
+and appropriate behaviour. The words have been used in an environment
+which produced certain emotions; by a telescoped process, the words
+alone are now capable of producing similar emotions. On these lines it
+might be sought to show that images are unnecessary. I do not believe,
+however, that we could account on these lines for the entirely different
+response produced by a narrative and by a description of present facts.
+Images, as contrasted with sensations, are the response expected during
+a narrative; it is understood that present action is not called
+for. Thus it seems that we must maintain our distinction words used
+demonstratively describe and are intended to lead to sensations, while
+the same words used in narrative describe and are only intended to lead
+to images.
+
+We have thus, in addition to our four previous ways in which words can
+mean, two new ways, namely the way of memory and the way of imagination.
+That is to say:
+
+(5) Words may be used to describe or recall a memory-image: to describe
+it when it already exists, or to recall it when the words exist as a
+habit and are known to be descriptive of some past experience.
+
+(6) Words may be used to describe or create an imagination-image: to
+describe it, for example, in the case of a poet or novelist, or to
+create it in the ordinary case for giving information-though, in the
+latter case, it is intended that the imagination-image, when created,
+shall be accompanied by belief that something of the sort occurred.
+
+These two ways of using words, including their occurrence in inner
+speech, may be spoken of together as the use of words in "thinking."
+If we are right, the use of words in thinking depends, at least in its
+origin, upon images, and cannot be fully dealt with on behaviourist
+lines. And this is really the most essential function of words, namely
+that, originally through their connection with images, they bring us
+into touch with what is remote in time or space. When they operate
+without the medium of images, this seems to be a telescoped process.
+Thus the problem of the meaning of words is brought into connection with
+the problem of the meaning of images.
+
+To understand the function that words perform in what is called
+"thinking," we must understand both the causes and the effects of their
+occurrence. The causes of the occurrence of words require somewhat
+different treatment according as the object designated by the word is
+sensibly present or absent. When the object is present, it may itself
+be taken as the cause of the word, through association. But when it is
+absent there is more difficulty in obtaining a behaviourist theory of
+the occurrence of the word. The language-habit consists not merely
+in the use of words demonstratively, but also in their use to express
+narrative or desire. Professor Watson, in his account of the acquisition
+of the language-habit, pays very little attention to the use of words in
+narrative and desire. He says ("Behavior," pp. 329-330):
+
+"The stimulus (object) to which the child often responds, a box, e.g. by
+movements such as opening and closing and putting objects into it, may
+serve to illustrate our argument. The nurse, observing that the child
+reacts with his hands, feet, etc., to the box, begins to say 'box' when
+the child is handed the box, 'open box' when the child opens it, 'close
+box' when he closes it, and 'put doll in box' when that act is executed.
+This is repeated over and over again. In the process of time it comes
+about that without any other stimulus than that of the box which
+originally called out the bodily habits, he begins to say 'box' when he
+sees it, 'open box' when he opens it, etc. The visible box now becomes
+a stimulus capable of releasing either the bodily habits or the
+word-habit, i.e. development has brought about two things: (1) a series
+of functional connections among arcs which run from visual receptor to
+muscles of throat, and (2) a series of already earlier connected arcs
+which run from the same receptor to the bodily muscles.... The object
+meets the child's vision. He runs to it and tries to reach it and says
+'box.'... Finally the word is uttered without the movement of going
+towards the box being executed.... Habits are formed of going to the
+box when the arms are full of toys. The child has been taught to deposit
+them there. When his arms are laden with toys and no box is there, the
+word-habit arises and he calls 'box'; it is handed to him, and he opens
+it and deposits the toys therein. This roughly marks what we would call
+the genesis of a true language-habit."(pp. 329-330).*
+
+     * Just the same account of language is given in Professor
+     Watson's more recent book (reference above).
+
+We need not linger over what is said in the above passage as to the use
+of the word "box" in the presence of the box. But as to its use in the
+absence of the box, there is only one brief sentence, namely: "When his
+arms are laden with toys and no box is there, the word-habit arises and
+he calls 'box.'" This is inadequate as it stands, since the habit has
+been to use the word when the box is present, and we have to explain its
+extension to cases in which the box is absent.
+
+Having admitted images, we may say that the word "box," in the absence
+of the box, is caused by an image of the box. This may or may not
+be true--in fact, it is true in some cases but not in others. Even,
+however, if it were true in all cases, it would only slightly shift our
+problem: we should now have to ask what causes an image of the box to
+arise. We might be inclined to say that desire for the box is the cause.
+But when this view is investigated, it is found that it compels us to
+suppose that the box can be desired without the child's having either an
+image of the box or the word "box." This will require a theory of desire
+which may be, and I think is, in the main true, but which removes desire
+from among things that actually occur, and makes it merely a convenient
+fiction, like force in mechanics.* With such a view, desire is no longer
+a true cause, but merely a short way of describing certain processes.
+
+     * See Lecture III, above.
+
+In order to explain the occurrence of either the word or the image
+in the absence of the box, we have to assume that there is something,
+either in the environment or in our own sensations, which has frequently
+occurred at about the same time as the word "box." One of the laws which
+distinguish psychology (or nerve-physiology?) from physics is the
+law that, when two things have frequently existed in close temporal
+contiguity, either comes in time to cause the other.* This is the basis
+both of habit and of association. Thus, in our case, the arms full of
+toys have frequently been followed quickly by the box, and the box in
+turn by the word "box." The box itself is subject to physical laws, and
+does not tend to be caused by the arms full of toys, however often it
+may in the past have followed them--always provided that, in the case in
+question, its physical position is such that voluntary movements cannot
+lead to it. But the word "box" and the image of the box are subject to
+the law of habit; hence it is possible for either to be caused by the
+arms full of toys. And we may lay it down generally that, whenever we
+use a word, either aloud or in inner speech, there is some sensation
+or image (either of which may be itself a word) which has frequently
+occurred at about the same time as the word, and now, through habit,
+causes the word. It follows that the law of habit is adequate to account
+for the use of words in the absence of their objects; moreover, it would
+be adequate even without introducing images. Although, therefore, images
+seem undeniable, we cannot derive an additional argument in their favour
+from the use of words, which could, theoretically, be explained without
+introducing images.
+
+     *For a more exact statement of this law, with the
+     limitations suggested by experiment, see A. Wohlgemuth, "On
+     Memory and the Direction of Associations," "British Journal
+     of Psychology," vol. v, part iv (March, 1913).
+
+When we understand a word, there is a reciprocal association between
+it and the images of what it "means." Images may cause us to use words
+which mean them, and these words, heard or read, may in turn cause the
+appropriate images. Thus speech is a means of producing in our hearers
+the images which are in us. Also, by a telescoped process, words come in
+time to produce directly the effects which would have been produced
+by the images with which they were associated. The general law of
+telescoped processes is that, if A causes B and B causes C, it will
+happen in time that A will cause C directly, without the intermediary
+of B. This is a characteristic of psychological and neural causation.
+In virtue of this law, the effects of images upon our actions come to
+be produced by words, even when the words do not call up appropriate
+images. The more familiar we are with words, the more our "thinking"
+goes on in words instead of images. We may, for example, be able to
+describe a person's appearance correctly without having at any time had
+any image of him, provided, when we saw him, we thought of words which
+fitted him; the words alone may remain with us as a habit, and enable
+us to speak as if we could recall a visual image of the man. In this and
+other ways the understanding of a word often comes to be quite free from
+imagery; but in first learning the use of language it would seem that
+imagery always plays a very important part.
+
+Images as well as words may be said to have "meaning"; indeed, the
+meaning of images seems more primitive than the meaning of words. What
+we call (say) an image of St. Paul's may be said to "mean" St. Paul's.
+But it is not at all easy to say exactly what constitutes the meaning of
+an image. A memory-image of a particular occurrence, when accompanied
+by a memory-belief, may be said to mean the occurrence of which it is an
+image. But most actual images do not have this degree of definiteness.
+If we call up an image of a dog, we are very likely to have a vague
+image, which is not representative of some one special dog, but of dogs
+in general. When we call up an image of a friend's face, we are not
+likely to reproduce the expression he had on some one particular
+occasion, but rather a compromise expression derived from many
+occasions. And there is hardly any limit to the vagueness of which
+images are capable. In such cases, the meaning of the image, if defined
+by relation to the prototype, is vague: there is not one definite
+prototype, but a number, none of which is copied exactly.*
+
+     * Cf. Semon, Mnemische Empfindungen, chap. xvi, especially
+     pp. 301-308.
+
+There is, however, another way of approaching the meaning of images,
+namely through their causal efficacy. What is called an image "of"
+some definite object, say St. Paul's, has some of the effects which the
+object would have. This applies especially to the effects that depend
+upon association. The emotional effects, also, are often similar:
+images may stimulate desire almost as strongly as do the objects they
+represent. And conversely desire may cause images*: a hungry man will
+have images of food, and so on. In all these ways the causal laws
+concerning images are connected with the causal laws concerning the
+objects which the images "mean." An image may thus come to fulfil the
+function of a general idea. The vague image of a dog, which we spoke of
+a moment ago, will have effects which are only connected with dogs in
+general, not the more special effects which would be produced by some
+dogs but not by others. Berkeley and Hume, in their attack on general
+ideas, do not allow for the vagueness of images: they assume that every
+image has the definiteness that a physical object would have This is not
+the case, and a vague image may well have a meaning which is general.
+
+     * This phrase is in need of interpretation, as appears from
+     the analysis of desire. But the reader can easily supply the
+     interpretation for himself.
+
+In order to define the "meaning" of an image, we have to take account
+both of its resemblance to one or more prototypes, and of its causal
+efficacy. If there were such a thing as a pure imagination-image,
+without any prototype whatever, it would be destitute of meaning. But
+according to Hume's principle, the simple elements in an image,
+at least, are derived from prototypes-except possibly in very rare
+exceptional cases. Often, in such instances as our image of a friend's
+face or of a nondescript dog, an image is not derived from one
+prototype, but from many; when this happens, the image is vague, and
+blurs the features in which the various prototypes differ. To arrive
+at the meaning of the image in such a case, we observe that there are
+certain respects, notably associations, in which the effects of images
+resemble those of their prototypes. If we find, in a given case, that
+our vague image, say, of a nondescript dog, has those associative
+effects which all dogs would have, but not those belonging to any
+special dog or kind of dog, we may say that our image means "dog" in
+general. If it has all the associations appropriate to spaniels but
+no others, we shall say it means "spaniel"; while if it has all the
+associations appropriate to one particular dog, it will mean that dog,
+however vague it may be as a picture. The meaning of an image, according
+to this analysis, is constituted by a combination of likeness and
+associations. It is not a sharp or definite conception, and in many
+cases it will be impossible to decide with any certainty what an image
+means. I think this lies in the nature of things, and not in defective
+analysis.
+
+We may give somewhat more precision to the above account of the meaning
+of images, and extend it to meaning in general. We find sometimes that,
+IN MNEMIC CAUSATION, an image or word, as stimulus, has the same effect
+(or very nearly the same effect) as would belong to some object, say,
+a certain dog. In that case we say that the image or word means that
+object. In other cases the mnemic effects are not all those of one
+object, but only those shared by objects of a certain kind, e.g. by all
+dogs. In this case the meaning of the image or word is general: it means
+the whole kind. Generality and particularity are a matter of degree. If
+two particulars differ sufficiently little, their mnemic effects will be
+the same; therefore no image or word can mean the one as opposed to the
+other; this sets a bound to the particularity of meaning. On the other
+hand, the mnemic effects of a number of sufficiently dissimilar objects
+will have nothing discoverable in common; hence a word which aims at
+complete generality, such as "entity" for example, will have to be
+devoid of mnemic effects, and therefore of meaning. In practice, this is
+not the case: such words have VERBAL associations, the learning of which
+constitutes the study of metaphysics.
+
+The meaning of a word, unlike that of an image, is wholly constituted
+by mnemic causal laws, and not in any degree by likeness (except in
+exceptional cases). The word "dog" bears no resemblance to a dog, but
+its effects, like those of an image of a dog, resemble the effects of an
+actual dog in certain respects. It is much easier to say definitely
+what a word means than what an image means, since words, however they
+originated, have been framed in later times for the purpose of having
+meaning, and men have been engaged for ages in giving increased
+precision to the meanings of words. But although it is easier to
+say what a word means than what an image means, the relation which
+constitutes meaning is much the same in both cases. A word, like an
+image, has the same associations as its meaning has. In addition to
+other associations, it is associated with images of its meaning, so that
+the word tends to call up the image and the image tends to call up the
+word., But this association is not essential to the intelligent use of
+words. If a word has the right associations with other objects, we shall
+be able to use it correctly, and understand its use by others, even if
+it evokes no image. The theoretical understanding of words involves only
+the power of associating them correctly with other words; the practical
+understanding involves associations with other bodily movements.
+
+The use of words is, of course, primarily social, for the purpose of
+suggesting to others ideas which we entertain or at least wish them to
+entertain. But the aspect of words that specially concerns us is their
+power of promoting our own thought. Almost all higher intellectual
+activity is a matter of words, to the nearly total exclusion of
+everything else. The advantages of words for purposes of thought are so
+great that I should never end if I were to enumerate them. But a few of
+them deserve to be mentioned.
+
+In the first place, there is no difficulty in producing a word, whereas
+an image cannot always be brought into existence at will, and when it
+comes it often contains much irrelevant detail. In the second place,
+much of our thinking is concerned with abstract matters which do not
+readily lend themselves to imagery, and are apt to be falsely conceived
+if we insist upon finding images that may be supposed to represent them.
+The word is always concrete and sensible, however abstract its
+meaning may be, and thus by the help of words we are able to dwell on
+abstractions in a way which would otherwise be impossible. In the third
+place, two instances of the same word are so similar that neither has
+associations not capable of being shared by the other. Two instances of
+the word "dog" are much more alike than (say) a pug and a great dane;
+hence the word "dog" makes it much easier to think about dogs in
+general. When a number of objects have a common property which is
+important but not obvious, the invention of a name for the common
+property helps us to remember it and to think of the whole set of
+objects that possess it. But it is unnecessary to prolong the catalogue
+of the uses of language in thought.
+
+At the same time, it is possible to conduct rudimentary thought by
+means of images, and it is important, sometimes, to check purely verbal
+thought by reference to what it means. In philosophy especially the
+tyranny of traditional words is dangerous, and we have to be on our
+guard against assuming that grammar is the key to metaphysics, or that
+the structure of a sentence corresponds at all accurately with the
+structure of the fact that it asserts. Sayce maintained that all
+European philosophy since Aristotle has been dominated by the fact that
+the philosophers spoke Indo-European languages, and therefore supposed
+the world, like the sentences they were used to, necessarily divisible
+into subjects and predicates. When we come to the consideration of truth
+and falsehood, we shall see how necessary it is to avoid assuming too
+close a parallelism between facts and the sentences which assert them.
+Against such errors, the only safeguard is to be able, once in a way, to
+discard words for a moment and contemplate facts more directly through
+images. Most serious advances in philosophic thought result from some
+such comparatively direct contemplation of facts. But the outcome has
+to be expressed in words if it is to be communicable. Those who have
+a relatively direct vision of facts are often incapable of translating
+their vision into words, while those who possess the words have
+usually lost the vision. It is partly for this reason that the highest
+philosophical capacity is so rare: it requires a combination of vision
+with abstract words which is hard to achieve, and too quickly lost in
+the few who have for a moment achieved it.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE XI. GENERAL IDEAS AND THOUGHT
+
+It is said to be one of the merits of the human mind that it is capable
+of framing abstract ideas, and of conducting nonsensational thought.
+In this it is supposed to differ from the mind of animals. From Plato
+onward the "idea" has played a great part in the systems of idealizing
+philosophers. The "idea" has been, in their hands, always something
+noble and abstract, the apprehension and use of which by man confers
+upon him a quite special dignity.
+
+The thing we have to consider to-day is this: seeing that there
+certainly are words of which the meaning is abstract, and seeing that we
+can use these words intelligently, what must be assumed or inferred, or
+what can be discovered by observation, in the way of mental content to
+account for the intelligent use of abstract words?
+
+Taken as a problem in logic, the answer is, of course, that absolutely
+nothing in the way of abstract mental content is inferable from the
+mere fact that we can use intelligently words of which the meaning
+is abstract. It is clear that a sufficiently ingenious person could
+manufacture a machine moved by olfactory stimuli which, whenever a dog
+appeared in its neighbourhood, would say, "There is a dog," and when
+a cat appeared would throw stones at it. The act of saying "There is a
+dog," and the act of throwing stones, would in such a case be equally
+mechanical. Correct speech does not of itself afford any better evidence
+of mental content than the performance of any other set of biologically
+useful movements, such as those of flight or combat. All that is
+inferable from language is that two instances of a universal, even when
+they differ very greatly, may cause the utterance of two instances
+of the same word which only differ very slightly. As we saw in the
+preceding lecture, the word "dog" is useful, partly, because two
+instances of this word are much more similar than (say) a pug and a
+great dane. The use of words is thus a method of substituting for two
+particulars which differ widely, in spite of being instances of the same
+universal, two other particulars which differ very little, and which
+are also instances of a universal, namely the name of the previous
+universal. Thus, so far as logic is concerned, we are entirely free to
+adopt any theory as to general ideas which empirical observation may
+recommend.
+
+Berkeley and Hume made a vigorous onslaught on "abstract ideas." They
+meant by an idea approximately what we should call an image. Locke
+having maintained that he could form an idea of triangle in general,
+without deciding what sort of triangle it was to be, Berkeley contended
+that this was impossible. He says:
+
+"Whether others, have this wonderful faculty of abstracting their ideas,
+they best can tell: for myself, I dare be confident I have it not. I
+find, indeed, I have indeed a faculty of imagining, or representing to
+myself, the ideas of those particular things I have perceived, and of
+variously compounding and dividing them. I can imagine a man with two
+heads, or the upper parts of a man joined to the body of a horse. I
+can consider the hand, the eye, the nose, each by itself abstracted or
+separated from the rest of the body. But, then, whatever hand or eye
+I imagine, it must have some particular shape and colour. Likewise the
+idea of a man that I frame to myself must be either of a white, or a
+black, or a tawny, a straight, or a crooked, a tall, or a low, or
+a middle-sized man. I cannot by any effort of thought conceive the
+abstract idea above described. And it is equally impossible for me to
+form the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving, and
+which is neither swift nor slow, curvilinear nor rectilinear; and the
+like may be said of all other abstract general ideas whatsoever. To be
+plain, I own myself able to abstract in one sense, as when I consider
+some particular parts of qualities separated from others, with which,
+though they are united in some object, yet it is possible they may
+really exist without them. But I deny that I can abstract from one
+another, or conceive separately, those qualities which it is impossible
+should exist so separated; or that I can frame a general notion, by
+abstracting from particulars in the manner aforesaid--which last are
+the two proper acceptations of ABSTRACTION. And there is ground to think
+most men will acknowledge themselves to be in my case. The generality of
+men which are simple and illiterate never pretend to ABSTRACT NOTIONS.
+It is said they are difficult and not to be attained without pains and
+study; we may therefore reasonably conclude that, if such there be, they
+are confined only to the learned.
+
+"I proceed to examine what can be alleged in defence of the doctrine of
+abstraction, and try if I can discover what it is that inclines the men
+of speculation to embrace an opinion so remote from common sense as that
+seems to be. There has been a late excellent and deservedly esteemed
+philosopher who, no doubt, has given it very much countenance, by
+seeming to think the having abstract general ideas is what puts the
+widest difference in point of understanding betwixt man and beast.
+'The having of general ideas,' saith he, 'is that which puts a perfect
+distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the
+faculties of brutes do by no means attain unto. For, it is evident
+we observe no footsteps in them of making use of general signs for
+universal ideas; from which we have reason to imagine that they have not
+the faculty of abstracting, or making general ideas, since they have
+no use of words or any other general signs.' And a little after:
+'Therefore, I think, we may suppose that it is in this that the species
+of brutes are discriminated from men, and it is that proper difference
+wherein they are wholly separated, and which at last widens to so wide a
+distance. For, if they have any ideas at all, and are not bare machines
+(as some would have them), we cannot deny them to have some reason. It
+seems as evident to me that they do, some of them, in certain instances
+reason as that they have sense; but it is only in particular ideas, just
+as they receive them from their senses. They are the best of them tied
+up within those narrow bounds, and have not (as I think) the faculty
+to enlarge them by any kind of abstraction.* ("Essay on Human
+Understanding," Bk. II, chap. xi, paragraphs 10 and 11.) I readily agree
+with this learned author, that the faculties of brutes can by no means
+attain to abstraction. But, then, if this be made the distinguishing
+property of that sort of animals, I fear a great many of those that
+pass for men must be reckoned into their number. The reason that is here
+assigned why we have no grounds to think brutes have abstract general
+ideas is, that we observe in them no use of words or any other general
+signs; which is built on this supposition-that the making use of words
+implies the having general ideas. From which it follows that men who use
+language are able to abstract or generalize their ideas. That this is
+the sense and arguing of the author will further appear by his answering
+the question he in another place puts: 'Since all things that exist are
+only particulars, how come we by general terms?' His answer is: 'Words
+become general by being made the signs of general ideas.' ("Essay on
+Human Understanding," Bk. III, chap. III, paragraph 6.) But it seems
+that a word becomes general by being made the sign, not of an abstract
+general idea, but of several particular ideas, any one of which it
+indifferently suggests to the mind. For example, when it is said 'the
+change of motion is proportional to the impressed force,' or that
+'whatever has extension is divisible,' these propositions are to be
+understood of motion and extension in general; and nevertheless it will
+not follow that they suggest to my thoughts an idea of motion without
+a body moved, or any determinate direction and velocity, or that I must
+conceive an abstract general idea of extension, which is neither line,
+surface, nor solid, neither great nor small, black, white, nor red,
+nor of any other determinate colour. It is only implied that
+whatever particular motion I consider, whether it be swift or slow,
+perpendicular, horizontal, or oblique, or in whatever object, the axiom
+concerning it holds equally true. As does the other of every particular
+extension, it matters not whether line, surface, or solid, whether of
+this or that magnitude or figure.
+
+"By observing how ideas become general, we may the better judge how
+words are made so. And here it is to be noted that I do not deny
+absolutely there are general ideas, but only that there are any ABSTRACT
+general ideas; for, in the passages we have quoted wherein there is
+mention of general ideas, it is always supposed that they are formed by
+abstraction, after the manner set forth in sections 8 and 9. Now, if
+we will annex a meaning to our words, and speak only of what we can
+conceive, I believe we shall acknowledge that an idea which, considered
+in itself, is particular, becomes general by being made to represent
+or stand for all other particular ideas of the same sort. To make this
+plain by an example, suppose a geometrician is demonstrating the method
+of cutting a line in two equal parts. He draws, for instance, a black
+line of an inch in length: this, which in itself is a particular line,
+is nevertheless with regard to its signification general, since, as it
+is there used, it represents all particular lines whatsoever; so that
+what is demonstrated of it is demonstrated of all lines, or, in other
+words, of a line in general. And, as THAT PARTICULAR LINE becomes
+general by being made a sign, so the NAME 'line,' which taken absolutely
+is particular, by being a sign is made general. And as the former owes
+its generality not to its being the sign of an abstract or general line,
+but of all particular right lines that may possibly exist, so the latter
+must be thought to derive its generality from the same cause, namely,
+the various particular lines which it indifferently denotes." *
+
+     * Introduction to "A Treatise concerning the Principles of
+     Human Knowledge," paragraphs 10, 11, and 12.
+
+Berkeley's view in the above passage, which is essentially the same as
+Hume's, does not wholly agree with modern psychology, although it comes
+nearer to agreement than does the view of those who believe that there
+are in the mind single contents which can be called abstract ideas. The
+way in which Berkeley's view is inadequate is chiefly in the fact that
+images are as a rule not of one definite prototype, but of a number of
+related similar prototypes. On this subject Semon has written well.
+In "Die Mneme," pp. 217 ff., discussing the effect of repeated similar
+stimuli in producing and modifying our images, he says: "We choose a
+case of mnemic excitement whose existence we can perceive for ourselves
+by introspection, and seek to ekphore the bodily picture of our nearest
+relation in his absence, and have thus a pure mnemic excitement before
+us. At first it may seem to us that a determinate quite concrete picture
+becomes manifest in us, but just when we are concerned with a person
+with whom we are in constant contact, we shall find that the ekphored
+picture has something so to speak generalized. It is something like
+those American photographs which seek to display what is general about a
+type by combining a great number of photographs of different heads over
+each other on one plate. In our opinion, the generalizations happen by
+the homophonic working of different pictures of the same face which we
+have come across in the most different conditions and situations, once
+pale, once reddened, once cheerful, once earnest, once in this
+light, and once in that. As soon as we do not let the whole series
+of repetitions resound in us uniformly, but give our attention to one
+particular moment out of the many... this particular mnemic stimulus at
+once overbalances its simultaneously roused predecessors and successors,
+and we perceive the face in question with concrete definiteness in that
+particular situation." A little later he says: "The result is--at least
+in man, but probably also in the higher animals--the development of a
+sort of PHYSIOLOGICAL abstraction. Mnemic homophony gives us, without
+the addition of other processes of thought, a picture of our friend
+X which is in a certain sense abstract, not the concrete in any one
+situation, but X cut loose from any particular point of time. If the
+circle of ekphored engrams is drawn even more widely, abstract pictures
+of a higher order appear: for instance, a white man or a negro. In my
+opinion, the first form of abstract concepts in general is based upon
+such abstract pictures. The physiological abstraction which takes
+place in the above described manner is a predecessor of purely logical
+abstraction. It is by no means a monopoly of the human race, but shows
+itself in various ways also among the more highly organized animals."
+The same subject is treated in more detail in Chapter xvi of "Die
+mnemischen Empfindungen," but what is said there adds nothing vital to
+what is contained in the above quotations.
+
+It is necessary, however, to distinguish between the vague and the
+general. So long as we are content with Semon's composite image, we MAY
+get no farther than the vague. The question whether this image takes us
+to the general or not depends, I think, upon the question whether, in
+addition to the generalized image, we have also particular images
+of some of the instances out of which it is compounded. Suppose, for
+example, that on a number of occasions you had seen one negro, and
+that you did not know whether this one was the same or different on
+the different occasions. Suppose that in the end you had an abstract
+memory-image of the different appearances presented by the negro on
+different occasions, but no memory-image of any one of the single
+appearances. In that case your image would be vague. If, on the other
+hand, you have, in addition to the generalized image, particular images
+of the several appearances, sufficiently clear to be recognized as
+different, and as instances of the generalized picture, you will then
+not feel the generalized picture to be adequate to any one particular
+appearance, and you will be able to make it function as a general
+idea rather than a vague idea. If this view is correct, no new general
+content needs to be added to the generalized image. What needs to be
+added is particular images compared and contrasted with the generalized
+image. So far as I can judge by introspection, this does occur in
+practice. Take for example Semon's instance of a friend's face. Unless
+we make some special effort of recollection, the face is likely to come
+before us with an average expression, very blurred and vague, but we can
+at will recall how our friend looked on some special occasion when he
+was pleased or angry or unhappy, and this enables us to realize the
+generalized character of the vague image.
+
+There is, however, another way of distinguishing between the vague, the
+particular and the general, and this is not by their content, but by
+the reaction which they produce. A word, for example, may be said to be
+vague when it is applicable to a number of different individuals, but to
+each as individuals; the name Smith, for example, is vague: it is always
+meant to apply to one man, but there are many men to each of whom it
+applies.* The word "man," on the other hand, is general. We say, "This
+is Smith," but we do not say "This is man," but "This is a man." Thus
+we may say that a word embodies a vague idea when its effects are
+appropriate to an individual, but are the same for various similar
+individuals, while a word embodies a general idea when its effects are
+different from those appropriate to individuals. In what this difference
+consists it is, however, not easy to say. I am inclined to think that it
+consists merely in the knowledge that no one individual is represented,
+so that what distinguishes a general idea from a vague idea is merely
+the presence of a certain accompanying belief. If this view is correct,
+a general idea differs from a vague one in a way analogous to that in
+which a memory-image differs from an imagination-image. There also
+we found that the difference consists merely of the fact that a
+memory-image is accompanied by a belief, in this case as to the past.
+
+     * "Smith" would only be a quite satisfactory representation
+     of vague words if we failed to discriminate between
+     different people called Smith.
+
+It should also be said that our images even of quite particular
+occurrences have always a greater or a less degree of vagueness. That is
+to say, the occurrence might have varied within certain limits without
+causing our image to vary recognizably. To arrive at the general it
+is necessary that we should be able to contrast it with a number of
+relatively precise images or words for particular occurrences; so long
+as all our images and words are vague, we cannot arrive at the contrast
+by which the general is defined. This is the justification for the
+view which I quoted on p. 184 from Ribot (op. cit., p. 32), viz. that
+intelligence progresses from the indefinite to the definite, and that
+the vague appears earlier than either the particular or the general.
+
+I think the view which I have been advocating, to the effect that a
+general idea is distinguished from a vague one by the presence of a
+judgment, is also that intended by Ribot when he says (op. cit., p. 92):
+"The generic image is never, the concept is always, a judgment. We know
+that for logicians (formerly at any rate) the concept is the simple
+and primitive element; next comes the judgment, uniting two or several
+concepts; then ratiocination, combining two or several judgments. For
+the psychologists, on the contrary, affirmation is the fundamental
+act; the concept is the result of judgment (explicit or implicit), of
+similarities with exclusion of differences."
+
+A great deal of work professing to be experimental has been done in
+recent years on the psychology of thought. A good summary of such
+work up to the year agog is contained in Titchener's "Lectures on the
+Experimental Psychology of the Thought Processes" (1909). Three articles
+in the "Archiv fur die gesammte Psychologie" by Watt,* Messer** and
+Buhler*** contain a great deal of the material amassed by the methods
+which Titchener calls experimental.
+
+     * Henry J. Watt, "Experimentelle Beitrage zu einer Theorie
+     des Denkens," vol. iv (1905) pp. 289-436.
+
+     ** August Messer, "Experimentell-psychologische Untersuchu
+     gen uber das Denken," vol. iii (1906), pp. 1-224.
+
+     *** Karl Buhler, "Uber Gedanken," vol. ix (1907), pp. 297-365.
+
+For my part I am unable to attach as much importance to this work as
+many psychologists do. The method employed appears to me hardly to
+fulfil the conditions of scientific experiment. Broadly speaking, what
+is done is, that a set of questions are asked of various people, their
+answers are recorded, and likewise their own accounts, based upon
+introspection, of the processes of thought which led them to give
+those answers. Much too much reliance seems to me to be placed upon the
+correctness of their introspection. On introspection as a method I have
+spoken earlier (Lecture VI). I am not prepared, like Professor Watson,
+to reject it wholly, but I do consider that it is exceedingly fallible
+and quite peculiarly liable to falsification in accordance with
+preconceived theory. It is like depending upon the report of a
+shortsighted person as to whom he sees coming along the road at a moment
+when he is firmly convinced that Jones is sure to come. If everybody
+were shortsighted and obsessed with beliefs as to what was going to be
+visible, we might have to make the best of such testimony, but we should
+need to correct its errors by taking care to collect the simultaneous
+evidence of people with the most divergent expectations. There is no
+evidence that this was done in the experiments in question, nor indeed
+that the influence of theory in falsifying the introspection was at all
+adequately recognized. I feel convinced that if Professor Watson had
+been one of the subjects of the questionnaires, he would have given
+answers totally different from those recorded in the articles in
+question. Titchener quotes an opinion of Wundt on these investigations,
+which appears to me thoroughly justified. "These experiments," he says,
+"are not experiments at all in the sense of a scientific methodology;
+they are counterfeit experiments, that seem methodical simply because
+they are ordinarily performed in a psychological laboratory, and involve
+the co-operation of two persons, who purport to be experimenter and
+observer. In reality, they are as unmethodical as possible; they possess
+none of the special features by which we distinguish the introspections
+of experimental psychology from the casual introspections of everyday
+life."* Titchener, of course, dissents from this opinion, but I cannot
+see that his reasons for dissent are adequate. My doubts are only
+increased by the fact that Buhler at any rate used trained psychologists
+as his subjects. A trained psychologist is, of course, supposed to have
+acquired the habit of observation, but he is at least equally likely to
+have acquired a habit of seeing what his theories require. We may take
+Buhler's "Uber Gedanken" to illustrate the kind of results arrived at
+by such methods. Buhler says (p. 303): "We ask ourselves the general
+question: 'WHAT DO WE EXPERIENCE WHEN WE THINK?' Then we do not at all
+attempt a preliminary determination of the concept 'thought,' but choose
+for analysis only such processes as everyone would describe as
+processes of thought." The most important thing in thinking, he says, is
+"awareness that..." (Bewusstheit dass), which he calls a thought. It
+is, he says, thoughts in this sense that are essential to thinking.
+Thinking, he maintains, does not need language or sensuous
+presentations. "I assert rather that in principle every object can be
+thought (meant) distinctly, without any help from sensuous presentation
+(Anschauungshilfen). Every individual shade of blue colour on the
+picture that hangs in my room I can think with complete distinctness
+unsensuously (unanschaulich), provided it is possible that the object
+should be given to me in another manner than by the help of sensations.
+How that is possible we shall see later." What he calls a thought
+(Gedanke) cannot be reduced, according to him, to other psychic
+occurrences. He maintains that thoughts consist for the most part of
+known rules (p. 342). It is clearly essential to the interest of this
+theory that the thought or rule alluded to by Buhler should not need to
+be expressed in words, for if it is expressed in words it is immediately
+capable of being dealt with on the lines with which the behaviourists
+have familiarized us. It is clear also that the supposed absence of
+words rests solely upon the introspective testimony of the persons
+experimented upon. I cannot think that there is sufficient certainty
+of their reliability in this negative observation to make us accept a
+difficult and revolutionary view of thought, merely because they have
+failed to observe the presence of words or their equivalent in their
+thinking. I think it far more likely, especially in view of the fact
+that the persons concerned were highly educated, that we are concerned
+with telescoped processes, in which habit has caused a great many
+intermediate terms to be elided or to be passed over so quickly as to
+escape observation.
+
+     * Titchener, op. cit., p. 79.
+
+I am inclined to think that similar remarks apply to the general idea of
+"imageless thinking," concerning which there has been much controversy.
+The advocates of imageless thinking are not contending merely that there
+can be thinking which is purely verbal; they are contending that there
+can be thinking which proceeds neither in words nor in images. My own
+feeling is that they have rashly assumed the presence of thinking in
+cases where habit has rendered thinking unnecessary. When Thorndike
+experimented with animals in cages, he found that the associations
+established were between a sensory stimulus and a bodily movement (not
+the idea of it), without the need of supposing any non-physiological
+intermediary (op. cit., p. 100 ff.). The same thing, it seems to me,
+applies to ourselves. A certain sensory situation produces in us a
+certain bodily movement. Sometimes this movement consists in uttering
+words. Prejudice leads us to suppose that between the sensory
+stimulus and the utterance of the words a process of thought must have
+intervened, but there seems no good reason for such a supposition. Any
+habitual action, such as eating or dressing, may be performed on the
+appropriate occasion, without any need of thought, and the same seems
+to be true of a painfully large proportion of our talk. What applies to
+uttered speech applies of course equally to the internal speech which is
+not uttered. I remain, therefore, entirely unconvinced that there is
+any such phenomenon as thinking which consists neither of images nor of
+words, or that "ideas" have to be added to sensations and images as part
+of the material out of which mental phenomena are built.
+
+The question of the nature of our consciousness of the universal is
+much affected by our view as to the general nature of the relation of
+consciousness to its object. If we adopt the view of Brentano, according
+to which all mental content has essential reference to an object, it
+is then natural to suppose that there is some peculiar kind of mental
+content of which the object is a universal, as oppose to a particular.
+According to this view, a particular cat can be PERceived or imagined,
+while the universal "cat" is CONceived. But this whole manner of viewing
+our dealings with universals has to be abandoned when the relation of
+a mental occurrence to its "object" is regarded as merely indirect and
+causal, which is the view that we have adopted. The mental content is,
+of course, always particular, and the question as to what it "means"
+(in case it means anything) is one which cannot be settled by merely
+examining the intrinsic character of the mental content, but only by
+knowing its causal connections in the case of the person concerned. To
+say that a certain thought "means" a universal as opposed to either a
+vague or a particular, is to say something exceedingly complex. A horse
+will behave in a certain manner whenever he smells a bear, even if
+the smell is derived from a bearskin. That is to say, any environment
+containing an instance of the universal "smell of a bear" produces
+closely similar behaviour in the horse, but we do not say that the horse
+is conscious of this universal. There is equally little reason to
+regard a man as conscious of the same universal, because under the same
+circumstances he can react by saying, "I smell a bear." This reaction,
+like that of the horse, is merely closely similar on different occasions
+where the environment affords instances of the same universal. Words
+of which the logical meaning is universal can therefore be employed
+correctly, without anything that could be called consciousness of
+universals. Such consciousness in the only sense in which it can be
+said to exist is a matter of reflective judgment consisting in the
+observation of similarities and differences. A universal never appears
+before the mind as a single object in the sort of way in which something
+perceived appears. I THINK a logical argument could be produced to show
+that universals are part of the structure of the world, but they are
+an inferred part, not a part of our data. What exists in us consists of
+various factors, some open to external observation, others only visible
+to introspection. The factors open to external observation are primarily
+habits, having the peculiarity that very similar reactions are produced
+by stimuli which are in many respects very different from each other. Of
+this the reaction of the horse to the smell of the bear is an instance,
+and so is the reaction of the man who says "bear" under the same
+circumstances. The verbal reaction is, of course, the most important
+from the point of view of what may be called knowledge of universals. A
+man who can always use the word "dog" when he sees a dog may be said,
+in a certain sense, to know the meaning of the word "dog," and IN THAT
+SENSE to have knowledge of the universal "dog." But there is, of course,
+a further stage reached by the logician in which he not merely reacts
+with the word "dog," but sets to work to discover what it is in the
+environment that causes in him this almost identical reaction on
+different occasions. This further stage consists in knowledge of
+similarities and differences: similarities which are necessary to the
+applicability of the word "dog," and differences which are compatible
+with it. Our knowledge of these similarities and differences is never
+exhaustive, and therefore our knowledge of the meaning of a universal is
+never complete.
+
+In addition to external observable habits (including the habit of
+words), there is also the generic image produced by the superposition,
+or, in Semon's phrase, homophony, of a number of similar perceptions.
+This image is vague so long as the multiplicity of its prototypes is not
+recognized, but becomes universal when it exists alongside of the more
+specific images of its instances, and is knowingly contrasted with them.
+In this case we find again, as we found when we were discussing words
+in general in the preceding lecture, that images are not logically
+necessary in order to account for observable behaviour, i.e. in this
+case intelligent speech. Intelligent speech could exist as a motor
+habit, without any accompaniment of images, and this conclusion applies
+to words of which the meaning is universal, just as much as to words of
+which the meaning is relatively particular. If this conclusion is valid,
+it follows that behaviourist psychology, which eschews introspective
+data, is capable of being an independent science, and of accounting
+for all that part of the behaviour of other people which is commonly
+regarded as evidence that they think. It must be admitted that this
+conclusion considerably weakens the reliance which can be placed upon
+introspective data. They must be accepted simply on account of the
+fact that we seem to perceive them, not on account of their supposed
+necessity for explaining the data of external observation.
+
+This, at any rate, is the conclusion to which we are forced, so long
+as, with the behaviourists, we accept common-sense views of the physical
+world. But if, as I have urged, the physical world itself, as known,
+is infected through and through with subjectivity, if, as the theory
+of relativity suggests, the physical universe contains the diversity of
+points of view which we have been accustomed to regard as distinctively
+psychological, then we are brought back by this different road to the
+necessity for trusting observations which are in an important sense
+private. And it is the privacy of introspective data which causes much
+of the behaviourists' objection to them.
+
+This is an example of the difficulty of constructing an adequate
+philosophy of any one science without taking account of other sciences.
+The behaviourist philosophy of psychology, though in many respects
+admirable from the point of view of method, appears to me to fail in
+the last analysis because it is based upon an inadequate philosophy of
+physics. In spite, therefore, of the fact that the evidence for images,
+whether generic or particular, is merely introspective, I cannot
+admit that images should be rejected, or that we should minimize their
+function in our knowledge of what is remote in time or space.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE XII. BELIEF
+
+Belief, which is our subject to-day, is the central problem in the
+analysis of mind. Believing seems the most "mental" thing we do,
+the thing most remote from what is done by mere matter. The whole
+intellectual life consists of beliefs, and of the passage from one
+belief to another by what is called "reasoning." Beliefs give knowledge
+and error; they are the vehicles of truth and falsehood. Psychology,
+theory of knowledge and metaphysics revolve about belief, and on the
+view we take of belief our philosophical outlook largely depends.
+
+Before embarking upon the detailed analysis of belief, we shall do well
+to note certain requisites which any theory must fulfil.
+
+(1) Just as words are characterized by meaning, so beliefs are
+characterized by truth or falsehood. And just as meaning consists in
+relation to the object meant, so truth and falsehood consist in
+relation to something that lies outside the belief. You may believe that
+such-and-such a horse will win the Derby. The time comes, and your horse
+wins or does not win; according to the outcome, your belief was true or
+false. You may believe that six times nine is fifty-six; in this case
+also there is a fact which makes your belief false. You may believe that
+America was discovered in 1492, or that it was discovered in 1066. In
+the one case your belief is true, in the other false; in either case
+its truth or falsehood depends upon the actions of Columbus, not upon
+anything present or under your control. What makes a belief true or
+false I call a "fact." The particular fact that makes a given belief
+true or false I call its "objective,"* and the relation of the belief to
+its objective I call the "reference" or the "objective reference" of the
+belief. Thus, if I believe that Columbus crossed the Atlantic in 1492,
+the "objective" of my belief is Columbus's actual voyage, and the
+"reference" of my belief is the relation between my belief and the
+voyage--that relation, namely, in virtue of which the voyage makes my
+belief true (or, in another case, false). "Reference" of beliefs differs
+from "meaning" of words in various ways, but especially in the fact that
+it is of two kinds, "true" reference and "false" reference. The truth
+or falsehood of a belief does not depend upon anything intrinsic to
+the belief, but upon the nature of its relation to its objective. The
+intrinsic nature of belief can be treated without reference to what
+makes it true or false. In the remainder of the present lecture I shall
+ignore truth and falsehood, which will be the subject of Lecture XIII.
+It is the intrinsic nature of belief that will concern us to-day.
+
+     * This terminology is suggested by Meinong, but is not
+     exactly the same as his.
+
+(2) We must distinguish between believing and what is believed. I may
+believe that Columbus crossed the Atlantic, that all Cretans are liars,
+that two and two are four, or that nine times six is fifty-six; in
+all these cases the believing is just the same, and only the contents
+believed are different. I may remember my breakfast this morning, my
+lecture last week, or my first sight of New York. In all these cases the
+feeling of memory-belief is just the same, and only what is remembered
+differs. Exactly similar remarks apply to expectations. Bare assent,
+memory and expectation are forms of belief; all three are different from
+what is believed, and each has a constant character which is independent
+of what is believed.
+
+In Lecture I we criticized the analysis of a presentation into act,
+content and object. But our analysis of belief contains three very
+similar elements, namely the believing, what is believed and the
+objective. The objections to the act (in the case of presentations)
+are not valid against the believing in the case of beliefs, because the
+believing is an actual experienced feeling, not something postulated,
+like the act. But it is necessary first to complete our preliminary
+requisites, and then to examine the content of a belief. After that, we
+shall be in a position to return to the question as to what constitutes
+believing.
+
+(3) What is believed, and the believing, must both consist of present
+occurrences in the believer, no matter what may be the objective of
+the belief. Suppose I believe, for example, "that Caesar crossed the
+Rubicon." The objective of my belief is an event which happened long
+ago, which I never saw and do not remember. This event itself is not in
+my mind when I believe that it happened. It is not correct to say that
+I am believing the actual event; what I am believing is something now
+in my mind, something related to the event (in a way which we shall
+investigate in Lecture XIII), but obviously not to be confounded with
+the event, since the event is not occurring now but the believing is.
+What a man is believing at a given moment is wholly determinate if we
+know the contents of his mind at that moment; but Caesar's crossing of
+the Rubicon was an historical physical event, which is distinct from the
+present contents of every present mind. What is believed, however true
+it may be, is not the actual fact that makes the belief true, but a
+present event related to the fact. This present event, which is what is
+believed, I shall call the "content" of the belief. We have already had
+occasion to notice the distinction between content and objective in the
+case of memory-beliefs, where the content is "this occurred" and the
+objective is the past event.
+
+(4) Between content and objective there is sometimes a very wide gulf,
+for example in the case of "Caesar crossed the Rubicon." This gulf may,
+when it is first perceived, give us a feeling that we cannot really
+"know" anything about the outer world. All we can "know," it may be
+said, is what is now in our thoughts. If Caesar and the Rubicon cannot
+be bodily in our thoughts, it might seem as though we must remain cut
+off from knowledge of them. I shall not now deal at length with this
+feeling, since it is necessary first to define "knowing," which cannot
+be done yet. But I will say, as a preliminary answer, that the feeling
+assumes an ideal of knowing which I believe to be quite mistaken. It
+assumes, if it is thought out, something like the mystic unity of knower
+and known. These two are often said to be combined into a unity by the
+fact of cognition; hence when this unity is plainly absent, it may
+seem as if there were no genuine cognition. For my part, I think such
+theories and feelings wholly mistaken: I believe knowing to be a very
+external and complicated relation, incapable of exact definition,
+dependent upon causal laws, and involving no more unity than there is
+between a signpost and the town to which it points. I shall return to
+this question on a later occasion; for the moment these provisional
+remarks must suffice.
+
+(5) The objective reference of a belief is connected with the fact that
+all or some of the constituents of its content have meaning. If I say
+"Caesar conquered Gaul," a person who knows the meaning of the three
+words composing my statement knows as much as can be known about the
+nature of the objective which would make my statement true. It is clear
+that the objective reference of a belief is, in general, in some way
+derivative from the meanings of the words or images that occur in its
+content. There are, however, certain complications which must be borne
+in mind. In the first place, it might be contended that a memory-image
+acquires meaning only through the memory-belief, which would seem, at
+least in the case of memory, to make belief more primitive than the
+meaning of images. In the second place, it is a very singular thing that
+meaning, which is single, should generate objective reference, which is
+dual, namely true and false. This is one of the facts which any theory
+of belief must explain if it is to be satisfactory.
+
+It is now time to leave these preliminary requisites, and attempt the
+analysis of the contents of beliefs.
+
+The first thing to notice about what is believed, i.e. about the content
+of a belief, is that it is always complex: We believe that a certain
+thing has a certain property, or a certain relation to something else,
+or that it occurred or will occur (in the sense discussed at the end of
+Lecture IX); or we may believe that all the members of a certain class
+have a certain property, or that a certain property sometimes occurs
+among the members of a class; or we may believe that if one thing
+happens, another will happen (for example, "if it rains I shall bring my
+umbrella"), or we may believe that something does not happen, or did not
+or will not happen (for example, "it won't rain"); or that one of two
+things must happen (for example, "either you withdraw your accusation,
+or I shall bring a libel action"). The catalogue of the sorts of things
+we may believe is infinite, but all of them are complex.
+
+Language sometimes conceals the complexity of a belief. We say that a
+person believes in God, and it might seem as if God formed the whole
+content of the belief. But what is really believed is that God exists,
+which is very far from being simple. Similarly, when a person has a
+memory-image with a memory-belief, the belief is "this occurred," in
+the sense explained in Lecture IX; and "this occurred" is not simple.
+In like manner all cases where the content of a belief seems simple at
+first sight will be found, on examination, to confirm the view that the
+content is always complex.
+
+The content of a belief involves not merely a plurality of constituents,
+but definite relations between them; it is not determinate when its
+constituents alone are given. For example, "Plato preceded Aristotle"
+and "Aristotle preceded Plato" are both contents which may be believed,
+but, although they consist of exactly the same constituents, they are
+different, and even incompatible.
+
+The content of a belief may consist of words only, or of images only, or
+of a mixture of the two, or of either or both together with one or more
+sensations. It must contain at least one constituent which is a word
+or an image, and it may or may not contain one or more sensations as
+constituents. Some examples will make these various possibilities clear.
+
+We may take first recognition, in either of the forms "this is of
+such-and-such a kind" or "this has occurred before." In either case,
+present sensation is a constituent. For example, you hear a noise, and
+you say to yourself "tram." Here the noise and the word "tram" are both
+constituents of your belief; there is also a relation between them,
+expressed by "is" in the proposition "that is a tram." As soon as your
+act of recognition is completed by the occurrence of the word "tram,"
+your actions are affected: you hurry if you want the tram, or cease to
+hurry if you want a bus. In this case the content of your belief is a
+sensation (the noise) and a word ("tram") related in a way which may be
+called predication.
+
+The same noise may bring into your mind the visual image of a tram,
+instead of the word "tram." In this case your belief consists of a
+sensation and an image suitable related. Beliefs of this class are what
+are called "judgments of perception." As we saw in Lecture VIII, the
+images associated with a sensation often come with such spontaneity
+and force that the unsophisticated do not distinguish them from the
+sensation; it is only the psychologist or the skilled observer who is
+aware of the large mnemic element that is added to sensation to make
+perception. It may be objected that what is added consists merely of
+images without belief. This is no doubt sometimes the case, but
+is certainly sometimes not the case. That belief always occurs in
+perception as opposed to sensation it is not necessary for us to
+maintain; it is enough for our purposes to note that it sometimes
+occurs, and that when it does, the content of our belief consists of a
+sensation and an image suitably related.
+
+In a PURE memory-belief only images occur. But a mixture of words
+and images is very common in memory. You have an image of the past
+occurrence, and you say to yourself: "Yes, that's how it was." Here the
+image and the words together make up the content of the belief. And
+when the remembering of an incident has become a habit, it may be purely
+verbal, and the memory-belief may consist of words alone.
+
+The more complicated forms of belief tend to consist only of words.
+Often images of various kinds accompany them, but they are apt to
+be irrelevant, and to form no part of what is actually believed. For
+example, in thinking of the Solar System, you are likely to have vague
+images of pictures you have seen of the earth surrounded by clouds,
+Saturn and his rings, the sun during an eclipse, and so on; but none of
+these form part of your belief that the planets revolve round the sun
+in elliptical orbits. The only images that form an actual part of such
+beliefs are, as a rule, images of words. And images of words, for the
+reasons considered in Lecture VIII, cannot be distinguished with any
+certainty from sensations, when, as is often, if not usually, the case,
+they are kinaesthetic images of pronouncing the words.
+
+It is impossible for a belief to consist of sensations alone, except
+when, as in the case of words, the sensations have associations which
+make them signs possessed of meaning. The reason is that objective
+reference is of the essence of belief, and objective reference is
+derived from meaning. When I speak of a belief consisting partly of
+sensations and partly of words, I do not mean to deny that the words,
+when they are not mere images, are sensational, but that they occur as
+signs, not (so to speak) in their own right. To revert to the noise of
+the tram, when you hear it and say "tram," the noise and the word are
+both sensations (if you actually pronounce the word), but the noise is
+part of the fact which makes your belief true, whereas the word is not
+part of this fact. It is the MEANING of the word "tram," not the actual
+word, that forms part of the fact which is the objective of your
+belief. Thus the word occurs in the belief as a symbol, in virtue of
+its meaning, whereas the noise enters into both the belief and its
+objective. It is this that distinguishes the occurrence of words as
+symbols from the occurrence of sensations in their own right: the
+objective contains the sensations that occur in their own right, but
+contains only the meanings of the words that occur as symbols.
+
+For the sake of simplicity, we may ignore the cases in which sensations
+in their own right form part of the content of a belief, and confine
+ourselves to images and words. We may also omit the cases in which
+both images and words occur in the content of a belief. Thus we become
+confined to two cases: (a) when the content consists wholly of images,
+(b) when it consists wholly of words. The case of mixed images and words
+has no special importance, and its omission will do no harm.
+
+Let us take in illustration a case of memory. Suppose you are thinking
+of some familiar room. You may call up an image of it, and in your image
+the window may be to the left of the door. Without any intrusion of
+words, you may believe in the correctness of your image. You then have a
+belief, consisting wholly of images, which becomes, when put into words,
+"the window is to the left of the door." You may yourself use these
+words and proceed to believe them. You thus pass from an image-content
+to the corresponding word-content. The content is different in the two
+cases, but its objective reference is the same. This shows the relation
+of image-beliefs to word-beliefs in a very simple case. In more
+elaborate cases the relation becomes much less simple.
+
+It may be said that even in this very simple case the objective
+reference of the word-content is not quite the same as that of the
+image-content, that images have a wealth of concrete features which are
+lost when words are substituted, that the window in the image is not a
+mere window in the abstract, but a window of a certain shape and size,
+not merely to the left of the door, but a certain distance to the left,
+and so on. In reply, it may be admitted at once that there is, as a
+rule, a certain amount of truth in the objection. But two points may be
+urged to minimize its force. First, images do not, as a rule, have that
+wealth of concrete detail that would make it IMPOSSIBLE to express
+them fully in words. They are vague and fragmentary: a finite number
+of words, though perhaps a large number, would exhaust at least their
+SIGNIFICANT features. For--and this is our second point--images enter
+into the content of a belief through the fact that they are capable of
+meaning, and their meaning does not, as a rule, have as much complexity
+as they have: some of their characteristics are usually devoid of
+meaning. Thus it may well be possible to extract in words all that
+has meaning in an image-content; in that case the word-content and the
+image-content will have exactly the same objective reference.
+
+The content of a belief, when expressed in words, is the same thing (or
+very nearly the same thing) as what in logic is called a "proposition."
+A proposition is a series of words (or sometimes a single word)
+expressing the kind of thing that can be asserted or denied. "That all
+men are mortal," "that Columbus discovered America," "that Charles I
+died in his bed," "that all philosophers are wise," are propositions.
+Not any series of words is a proposition, but only such series of words
+as have "meaning," or, in our phraseology, "objective reference." Given
+the meanings of separate words, and the rules of syntax, the meaning of
+a proposition is determinate. This is the reason why we can understand
+a sentence we never heard before. You probably never heard before the
+proposition "that the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands habitually
+eat stewed hippopotamus for dinner," but there is no difficulty in
+understanding the proposition. The question of the relation between
+the meaning of a sentence and the meanings of the separate words is
+difficult, and I shall not pursue it now; I brought it up solely as
+being illustrative of the nature of propositions.
+
+We may extend the term "proposition" so as to cover the image-contents
+of beliefs consisting of images. Thus, in the case of remembering a
+room in which the window is to the left of the door, when we believe the
+image-content the proposition will consist of the image of the window
+on the left together with the image of the door on the right. We will
+distinguish propositions of this kind as "image-propositions"
+and propositions in words as "word-propositions." We may identify
+propositions in general with the contents of actual and possible
+beliefs, and we may say that it is propositions that are true or false.
+In logic we are concerned with propositions rather than beliefs, since
+logic is not interested in what people do in fact believe, but only
+in the conditions which determine the truth or falsehood of possible
+beliefs. Whenever possible, except when actual beliefs are in question,
+it is generally a simplification to deal with propositions.
+
+It would seem that image-propositions are more primitive than
+word-propositions, and may well ante-date language. There is no reason
+why memory-images, accompanied by that very simple belief-feeling which
+we decided to be the essence of memory, should not have occurred before
+language arose; indeed, it would be rash to assert positively that
+memory of this sort does not occur among the higher animals. Our more
+elementary beliefs, notably those that are added to sensation to make
+perception, often remain at the level of images. For example, most of
+the visual objects in our neighbourhood rouse tactile images: we have a
+different feeling in looking at a sofa from what we have in looking at
+a block of marble, and the difference consists chiefly in different
+stimulation of our tactile imagination. It may be said that the tactile
+images are merely present, without any accompanying belief; but I think
+this view, though sometimes correct, derives its plausibility as a
+general proposition from our thinking of explicit conscious belief only.
+Most of our beliefs, like most of our wishes, are "unconscious," in the
+sense that we have never told ourselves that we have them. Such beliefs
+display themselves when the expectations that they arouse fail in any
+way. For example, if someone puts tea (without milk) into a glass, and
+you drink it under the impression that it is going to be beer; or if you
+walk on what appears to be a tiled floor, and it turns out to be a soft
+carpet made to look like tiles. The shock of surprise on an occasion of
+this kind makes us aware of the expectations that habitually enter into
+our perceptions; and such expectations must be classed as beliefs, in
+spite of the fact that we do not normally take note of them or put them
+into words. I remember once watching a cock pigeon running over and over
+again to the edge of a looking-glass to try to wreak vengeance on the
+particularly obnoxious bird whom he expected to find there, judging by
+what he saw in the glass. He must have experienced each time the sort of
+surprise on finding nothing, which is calculated to lead in time to
+the adoption of Berkeley's theory that objects of sense are only in the
+mind. His expectation, though not expressed in words, deserved, I think,
+to be called a belief.
+
+I come now to the question what constitutes believing, as opposed to the
+content believed.
+
+To begin with, there are various different attitudes that may be taken
+towards the same content. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that
+you have a visual image of your breakfast-table. You may expect it while
+you are dressing in the morning; remember it as you go to your work;
+feel doubt as to its correctness when questioned as to your powers of
+visualizing; merely entertain the image, without connecting it with
+anything external, when you are going to sleep; desire it if you are
+hungry, or feel aversion for it if you are ill. Suppose, for the sake of
+definiteness, that the content is "an egg for breakfast." Then you have
+the following attitudes "I expect there will be an egg for breakfast";
+"I remember there was an egg for breakfast"; "Was there an egg for
+breakfast?" "An egg for breakfast: well, what of it?" "I hope there
+will be an egg for breakfast"; "I am afraid there will be an egg for
+breakfast and it is sure to be bad." I do not suggest that this is a
+list of all possible attitudes on the subject; I say only that they
+are different attitudes, all concerned with the one content "an egg for
+breakfast."
+
+These attitudes are not all equally ultimate. Those that involve desire
+and aversion have occupied us in Lecture III. For the present, we are
+only concerned with such as are cognitive. In speaking of memory, we
+distinguished three kinds of belief directed towards the same
+content, namely memory, expectation and bare assent without any
+time-determination in the belief-feeling. But before developing this
+view, we must examine two other theories which might be held concerning
+belief, and which, in some ways, would be more in harmony with a
+behaviourist outlook than the theory I wish to advocate.
+
+(1) The first theory to be examined is the view that the differentia of
+belief consists in its causal efficacy I do not wish to make any author
+responsible for this theory: I wish merely to develop it hypothetically
+so that we may judge of its tenability.
+
+We defined the meaning of an image or word by causal efficacy, namely by
+associations: an image or word acquires meaning, we said, through having
+the same associations as what it means.
+
+We propose hypothetically to define "belief" by a different kind
+of causal efficacy, namely efficacy in causing voluntary movements.
+(Voluntary movements are defined as those vital movements which are
+distinguished from reflex movements as involving the higher nervous
+centres. I do not like to distinguish them by means of such notions as
+"consciousness" or "will," because I do not think these notions, in any
+definable sense, are always applicable. Moreover, the purpose of the
+theory we are examining is to be, as far as possible, physiological and
+behaviourist, and this purpose is not achieved if we introduce such a
+conception as "consciousness" or "will." Nevertheless, it is necessary
+for our purpose to find some way of distinguishing between voluntary and
+reflex movements, since the results would be too paradoxical, if we were
+to say that reflex movements also involve beliefs.) According to this
+definition, a content is said to be "believed" when it causes us to
+move. The images aroused are the same if you say to me, "Suppose there
+were an escaped tiger coming along the street," and if you say to me,
+"There is an escaped tiger coming along the street." But my actions will
+be very different in the two cases: in the first, I shall remain calm;
+in the second, it is possible that I may not. It is suggested, by the
+theory we are considering, that this difference of effects constitutes
+what is meant by saying that in the second case I believe the
+proposition suggested, while in the first case I do not. According
+to this view, images or words are "believed" when they cause bodily
+movements.
+
+I do not think this theory is adequate, but I think it is suggestive
+of truth, and not so easily refutable as it might appear to be at first
+sight.
+
+It might be objected to the theory that many things which we certainly
+believe do not call for any bodily movements. I believe that Great
+Britain is an island, that whales are mammals, that Charles I was
+executed, and so on; and at first sight it seems obvious that such
+beliefs, as a rule, do not call for any action on my part. But when we
+investigate the matter more closely, it becomes more doubtful. To begin
+with, we must distinguish belief as a mere DISPOSITION from actual
+active belief. We speak as if we always believed that Charles I was
+executed, but that only means that we are always ready to believe it
+when the subject comes up. The phenomenon we are concerned to analyse
+is the active belief, not the permanent disposition. Now, what are
+the occasions when, we actively believe that Charles I was executed?
+Primarily: examinations, when we perform the bodily movement of writing
+it down; conversation, when we assert it to display our historical
+erudition; and political discourses, when we are engaged in showing what
+Soviet government leads to. In all these cases bodily movements (writing
+or speaking) result from our belief.
+
+But there remains the belief which merely occurs in "thinking." One may
+set to work to recall some piece of history one has been reading, and
+what one recalls is believed, although it probably does not cause any
+bodily movement whatever. It is true that what we believe always MAY
+influence action. Suppose I am invited to become King of Georgia: I find
+the prospect attractive, and go to Cook's to buy a third-class ticket to
+my new realm. At the last moment I remember Charles I and all the other
+monarchs who have come to a bad end; I change my mind, and walk out
+without completing the transaction. But such incidents are rare, and
+cannot constitute the whole of my belief that Charles I was executed.
+The conclusion seems to be that, although a belief always MAY influence
+action if it becomes relevant to a practical issue, it often exists
+actively (not as a mere disposition) without producing any voluntary
+movement whatever. If this is true, we cannot define belief by the
+effect on voluntary movements.
+
+There is another, more theoretical, ground for rejecting the view we
+are examining. It is clear that a proposition can be either believed or
+merely considered, and that the content is the same in both cases. We
+can expect an egg for breakfast, or merely entertain the supposition
+that there may be an egg for breakfast. A moment ago I considered the
+possibility of being invited to become King of Georgia, but I do not
+believe that this will happen. Now, it seems clear that, since believing
+and considering have different effects if one produces bodily movements
+while the other does not, there must be some intrinsic difference
+between believing and considering*; for if they were precisely similar,
+their effects also would be precisely similar. We have seen that the
+difference between believing a given proposition and merely considering
+it does not lie in the content; therefore there must be, in one case
+or in both, something additional to the content which distinguishes the
+occurrence of a belief from the occurrence of a mere consideration
+of the same content. So far as the theoretical argument goes, this
+additional element may exist only in belief, or only in consideration,
+or there may be one sort of additional element in the case of belief,
+and another in the case of consideration. This brings us to the second
+view which we have to examine.
+
+     * Cf. Brentano, "Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte,"
+     p. 268 (criticizing Bain, "The Emotions and the Will").
+
+(1) The theory which we have now to consider regards belief as belonging
+to every idea which is entertained, except in so far as some positive
+counteracting force interferes. In this view belief is not a positive
+phenomenon, though doubt and disbelief are so. What we call belief,
+according to this hypothesis, involves only the appropriate content,
+which will have the effects characteristic of belief unless something
+else operating simultaneously inhibits them. James (Psychology, vol.
+ii, p. 288) quotes with approval, though inaccurately, a passage from
+Spinoza embodying this view:
+
+"Let us conceive a boy imagining to himself a horse, and taking note of
+nothing else. As this imagination involves the existence of the horse,
+AND THE BOY HAS NO PERCEPTION WHICH ANNULS ITS EXISTENCE [James's
+italics], he will necessarily contemplate the horse as present, nor will
+he be able to doubt of its existence, however little certain of it he
+may be. I deny that a man in so far as he imagines [percipit] affirms
+nothing. For what is it to imagine a winged horse but to affirm that the
+horse [that horse, namely] has wings? For if the mind had nothing before
+it but the winged horse, it would contemplate the same as present, would
+have no cause to doubt of its existence, nor any power of dissenting
+from its existence, unless the imagination of the winged horse were
+joined to an idea which contradicted [tollit] its existence" ("Ethics,"
+vol. ii, p. 49, Scholium).
+
+To this doctrine James entirely assents, adding in italics:
+
+"ANY OBJECT WHICH REMAINS UNCONTRADICTED IS IPSO FACTO BELIEVED AND
+POSITED AS ABSOLUTE REALITY."
+
+If this view is correct, it follows (though James does not draw
+the inference) that there is no need of any specific feeling called
+"belief," and that the mere existence of images yields all that is
+required. The state of mind in which we merely consider a proposition,
+without believing or disbelieving it, will then appear as a
+sophisticated product, the result of some rival force adding to the
+image-proposition a positive feeling which may be called suspense or
+non-belief--a feeling which may be compared to that of a man about to
+run a race waiting for the signal. Such a man, though not moving, is in
+a very different condition from that of a man quietly at rest And so the
+man who is considering a proposition without believing it will be in
+a state of tension, restraining the natural tendency to act upon the
+proposition which he would display if nothing interfered. In this view
+belief primarily consists merely in the existence of the appropriate
+images without any counteracting forces.
+
+There is a great deal to be said in favour of this view, and I have some
+hesitation in regarding it as inadequate. It fits admirably with the
+phenomena of dreams and hallucinatory images, and it is recommended by
+the way in which it accords with mental development. Doubt, suspense
+of judgment and disbelief all seem later and more complex than a wholly
+unreflecting assent. Belief as a positive phenomenon, if it exists,
+may be regarded, in this view, as a product of doubt, a decision after
+debate, an acceptance, not merely of THIS, but of THIS-RATHER-THAN-THAT.
+It is not difficult to suppose that a dog has images (possible
+olfactory) of his absent master, or of the rabbit that he dreams of
+hunting. But it is very difficult to suppose that he can entertain mere
+imagination-images to which no assent is given.
+
+I think it must be conceded that a mere image, without the addition of
+any positive feeling that could be called "belief," is apt to have a
+certain dynamic power, and in this sense an uncombated image has the
+force of a belief. But although this may be true, it accounts only for
+some of the simplest phenomena in the region of belief. It will not, for
+example, explain memory. Nor can it explain beliefs which do not issue
+in any proximate action, such as those of mathematics. I conclude,
+therefore, that there must be belief-feelings of the same order as those
+of doubt or disbelief, although phenomena closely analogous to those of
+belief can be produced by mere uncontradicted images.
+
+(3) I come now to the view of belief which I wish to advocate. It seems
+to me that there are at least three kinds of belief, namely memory,
+expectation and bare assent. Each of these I regard as constituted by
+a certain feeling or complex of sensations, attached to the content
+believed. We may illustrate by an example. Suppose I am believing,
+by means of images, not words, that it will rain. We have here two
+interrelated elements, namely the content and the expectation. The
+content consists of images of (say) the visual appearance of rain, the
+feeling of wetness, the patter of drops, interrelated, roughly, as the
+sensations would be if it were raining. Thus the content is a complex
+fact composed of images. Exactly the same content may enter into the
+memory "it was raining" or the assent "rain occurs." The difference of
+these cases from each other and from expectation does not lie in the
+content. The difference lies in the nature of the belief-feeling.
+I, personally, do not profess to be able to analyse the sensations
+constituting respectively memory, expectation and assent; but I am
+not prepared to say that they cannot be analysed. There may be other
+belief-feelings, for example in disjunction and implication; also a
+disbelief-feeling.
+
+It is not enough that the content and the belief-feeling should coexist:
+it is necessary that there should be a specific relation between them,
+of the sort expressed by saying that the content is what is believed.
+If this were not obvious, it could be made plain by an argument. If
+the mere co-existence of the content and the belief-feeling sufficed,
+whenever we were having (say) a memory-feeling we should be remembering
+any proposition which came into our minds at the same time. But this is
+not the case, since we may simultaneously remember one proposition and
+merely consider another.
+
+We may sum up our analysis, in the case of bare assent to a proposition
+not expressed in words, as follows: (a) We have a proposition,
+consisting of interrelated images, and possibly partly of sensations;
+(b) we have the feeling of assent, which is presumably a complex
+sensation demanding analysis; (c) we have a relation, actually
+subsisting, between the assent and the proposition, such as is expressed
+by saying that the proposition in question is what is assented to. For
+other forms of belief-feeling or of content, we have only to make the
+necessary substitutions in this analysis.
+
+If we are right in our analysis of belief, the use of words in
+expressing beliefs is apt to be misleading. There is no way of
+distinguishing, in words, between a memory and an assent to a
+proposition about the past: "I ate my breakfast" and "Caesar conquered
+Gaul" have the same verbal form, though (assuming that I remember my
+breakfast) they express occurrences which are psychologically very
+different. In the one case, what happens is that I remember the content
+"eating my breakfast"; in the other case, I assent to the content
+"Caesar's conquest of Gaul occurred." In the latter case, but not in the
+former, the pastness is part of the content believed. Exactly similar
+remarks apply to the difference between expectation, such as we have
+when waiting for the thunder after a flash of lightning, and assent to a
+proposition about the future, such as we have in all the usual cases of
+inferential knowledge as to what will occur. I think this difficulty in
+the verbal expression of the temporal aspects of beliefs is one among
+the causes which have hampered philosophy in the consideration of time.
+
+The view of belief which I have been advocating contains little that is
+novel except the distinction of kinds of belief-feeling--such as memory
+and expectation. Thus James says: "Everyone knows the difference between
+imagining a thing and believing in its existence, between supposing a
+proposition and acquiescing in its truth...IN ITS INNER NATURE, BELIEF,
+OR THE SENSE OF REALITY, IS A SORT OF FEELING MORE ALLIED TO THE
+EMOTIONS THAN TO ANYTHING ELSE" ("Psychology," vol. ii, p. 283. James's
+italics). He proceeds to point out that drunkenness, and, still more,
+nitrous-oxide intoxication, will heighten the sense of belief: in the
+latter case, he says, a man's very soul may sweat with conviction, and
+he be all the time utterly unable to say what he is convinced of. It
+would seem that, in such cases, the feeling of belief exists unattached,
+without its usual relation to a content believed, just as the feeling
+of familiarity may sometimes occur without being related to any definite
+familiar object. The feeling of belief, when it occurs in this separated
+heightened form, generally leads us to look for a content to which to
+attach it. Much of what passes for revelation or mystic insight probably
+comes in this way: the belief-feeling, in abnormal strength, attaches
+itself, more or less accidentally, to some content which we happen to
+think of at the appropriate moment. But this is only a speculation, upon
+which I do not wish to lay too much stress.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE XIII. TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD
+
+The definition of truth and falsehood, which is our topic to-day, lies
+strictly outside our general subject, namely the analysis of mind. From
+the psychological standpoint, there may be different kinds of belief,
+and different degrees of certainty, but there cannot be any purely
+psychological means of distinguishing between true and false beliefs.
+A belief is rendered true or false by relation to a fact, which may lie
+outside the experience of the person entertaining the belief. Truth and
+falsehood, except in the case of beliefs about our own minds, depend
+upon the relations of mental occurrences to outside things, and thus
+take us beyond the analysis of mental occurrences as they are in
+themselves. Nevertheless, we can hardly avoid the consideration of truth
+and falsehood. We wish to believe that our beliefs, sometimes at least,
+yield KNOWLEDGE, and a belief does not yield knowledge unless it is
+true. The question whether our minds are instruments of knowledge, and,
+if so, in what sense, is so vital that any suggested analysis of mind
+must be examined in relation to this question. To ignore this question
+would be like describing a chronometer without regard to its accuracy
+as a time-keeper, or a thermometer without mentioning the fact that it
+measures temperature.
+
+Many difficult questions arise in connection with knowledge. It is
+difficult to define knowledge, difficult to decide whether we have any
+knowledge, and difficult, even if it is conceded that we sometimes have
+knowledge to discover whether we can ever know that we have knowledge
+in this or that particular case. I shall divide the discussion into four
+parts:
+
+I. We may regard knowledge, from a behaviourist standpoint, as exhibited
+in a certain kind of response to the environment. This response must
+have some characteristics which it shares with those of scientific
+instruments, but must also have others that are peculiar to knowledge.
+We shall find that this point of view is important, but not exhaustive
+of the nature of knowledge.
+
+II. We may hold that the beliefs that constitute knowledge are
+distinguished from such as are erroneous or uncertain by properties
+which are intrinsic either to single beliefs or to systems of beliefs,
+being in either case discoverable without reference to outside fact.
+Views of this kind have been widely held among philosophers, but we
+shall find no reason to accept them.
+
+III. We believe that some beliefs are true, and some false. This raises
+the problem of VERIFIABILITY: are there any circumstances which can
+justifiably give us an unusual degree of certainty that such and such a
+belief is true? It is obvious that there are circumstances which in fact
+cause a certainty of this sort, and we wish to learn what we can from
+examining these circumstances.
+
+IV. Finally, there is the formal problem of defining truth and
+falsehood, and deriving the objective reference of a proposition from
+the meanings of its component words.
+
+We will consider these four problems in succession.
+
+I. We may regard a human being as an instrument, which makes various
+responses to various stimuli. If we observe these responses from
+outside, we shall regard them as showing knowledge when they display
+two characteristics, ACCURACY and APPROPRIATENESS. These two are quite
+distinct, and even sometimes incompatible. If I am being pursued by
+a tiger, accuracy is furthered by turning round to look at him, but
+appropriateness by running away without making any search for
+further knowledge of the beast. I shall return to the question of
+appropriateness later; for the present it is accuracy that I wish to
+consider.
+
+When we are viewing a man from the outside, it is not his beliefs,
+but his bodily movements, that we can observe. His knowledge must be
+inferred from his bodily movements, and especially from what he says
+and writes. For the present we may ignore beliefs, and regard a man's
+knowledge as actually consisting in what he says and does. That is to
+say, we will construct, as far as possible, a purely behaviouristic
+account of truth and falsehood.
+
+If you ask a boy "What is twice two?" and the boy says "four," you take
+that as prima facie evidence that the boy knows what twice two is. But
+if you go on to ask what is twice three, twice four, twice five, and so
+on, and the boy always answers "four," you come to the conclusion that
+he knows nothing about it. Exactly similar remarks apply to scientific
+instruments. I know a certain weather-cock which has the pessimistic
+habit of always pointing to the north-east. If you were to see it first
+on a cold March day, you would think it an excellent weather-cock; but
+with the first warm day of spring your confidence would be shaken. The
+boy and the weather-cock have the same defect: they do not vary their
+response when the stimulus is varied. A good instrument, or a person
+with much knowledge, will give different responses to stimuli which
+differ in relevant ways. This is the first point in defining accuracy of
+response.
+
+We will now assume another boy, who also, when you first question him,
+asserts that twice two is four. But with this boy, instead of asking him
+different questions, you make a practice of asking him the same question
+every day at breakfast. You find that he says five, or six, or seven, or
+any other number at random, and you conclude that he also does not know
+what twice two is, though by good luck he answered right the first time.
+This boy is like a weather-cock which, instead of being stuck fast, is
+always going round and round, changing without any change of wind. This
+boy and weather-cock have the opposite defect to that of the previous
+pair: they give different responses to stimuli which do not differ in
+any relevant way.
+
+In connection with vagueness in memory, we already had occasion to
+consider the definition of accuracy. Omitting some of the niceties of
+our previous discussion, we may say that an instrument is ACCURATE when
+it avoids the defects of the two boys and weather-cocks, that is to say,
+when--
+
+(a) It gives different responses to stimuli which differ in relevant
+ways;
+
+(b) It gives the same response to stimuli which do not differ in
+relevant ways.
+
+What are relevant ways depends upon the nature and purpose of the
+instrument. In the case of a weather-cock, the direction of the wind is
+relevant, but not its strength; in the case of the boy, the meaning of
+the words of your question is relevant, but not the loudness of your
+voice, or whether you are his father or his schoolmaster If, however,
+you were a boy of his own age, that would be relevant, and the
+appropriate response would be different.
+
+It is clear that knowledge is displayed by accuracy of response to
+certain kinds of stimuli, e.g. examinations. Can we say, conversely,
+that it consists wholly of such accuracy of response? I do not think
+we can; but we can go a certain distance in this direction. For this
+purpose we must define more carefully the kind of accuracy and the kind
+of response that may be expected where there is knowledge.
+
+From our present point of view, it is difficult to exclude perception
+from knowledge; at any rate, knowledge is displayed by actions based
+upon perception. A bird flying among trees avoids bumping into their
+branches; its avoidance is a response to visual sensations. This
+response has the characteristic of accuracy, in the main, and leads
+us to say that the bird "knows," by sight, what objects are in its
+neighbourhood. For a behaviourist, this must certainly count as
+knowledge, however it may be viewed by analytic psychology. In this
+case, what is known, roughly, is the stimulus; but in more advanced
+knowledge the stimulus and what is known become different. For example,
+you look in your calendar and find that Easter will be early next year.
+Here the stimulus is the calendar, whereas the response concerns the
+future. Even this can be paralleled among instruments: the behaviour of
+the barometer has a present stimulus but foretells the future, so that
+the barometer might be said, in a sense, to know the future. However
+that may be, the point I am emphasizing as regards knowledge is that
+what is known may be quite different from the stimulus, and no part of
+the cause of the knowledge-response. It is only in sense-knowledge that
+the stimulus and what is known are, with qualifications, identifiable.
+In knowledge of the future, it is obvious that they are totally
+distinct, since otherwise the response would precede the stimulus. In
+abstract knowledge also they are distinct, since abstract facts have no
+date. In knowledge of the past there are complications, which we must
+briefly examine.
+
+Every form of memory will be, from our present point of view, in one
+sense a delayed response. But this phrase does not quite clearly
+express what is meant. If you light a fuse and connect it with a heap of
+dynamite, the explosion of the dynamite may be spoken of, in a sense,
+as a delayed response to your lighting of the fuse. But that only means
+that it is a somewhat late portion of a continuous process of which the
+earlier parts have less emotional interest. This is not the case
+with habit. A display of habit has two sorts of causes: (a) the past
+occurrences which generated the habit, (b) the present occurrence which
+brings it into play. When you drop a weight on your toe, and say what
+you do say, the habit has been caused by imitation of your undesirable
+associates, whereas it is brought into play by the dropping of the
+weight. The great bulk of our knowledge is a habit in this sense:
+whenever I am asked when I was born, I reply correctly by mere habit. It
+would hardly be correct to say that getting born was the stimulus, and
+that my reply is a delayed response But in cases of memory this way
+of speaking would have an element of truth. In an habitual memory, the
+event remembered was clearly an essential part of the stimulus to the
+formation of the habit. The present stimulus which brings the habit into
+play produces a different response from that which it would produce if
+the habit did not exist. Therefore the habit enters into the causation
+of the response, and so do, at one remove, the causes of the habit. It
+follows that an event remembered is an essential part of the causes of
+our remembering.
+
+In spite, however, of the fact that what is known is SOMETIMES an
+indispensable part of the cause of the knowledge, this circumstance is,
+I think, irrelevant to the general question with which we are concerned,
+namely What sort of response to what sort of stimulus can be regarded
+as displaying knowledge? There is one characteristic which the response
+must have, namely, it must consist of voluntary movements. The need
+of this characteristic is connected with the characteristic of
+APPROPRIATENESS, which I do not wish to consider as yet. For the present
+I wish only to obtain a clearer idea of the sort of ACCURACY that a
+knowledge-response must have. It is clear from many instances that
+accuracy, in other cases, may be purely mechanical. The most complete
+form of accuracy consists in giving correct answers to questions, an
+achievement in which calculating machines far surpass human beings. In
+asking a question of a calculating machine, you must use its language:
+you must not address it in English, any more than you would address
+an Englishman in Chinese. But if you address it in the language it
+understands, it will tell you what is 34521 times 19987, without a
+moment's hesitation or a hint of inaccuracy. We do not say the machine
+KNOWS the answer, because it has no purpose of its own in giving the
+answer: it does not wish to impress you with its cleverness, or feel
+proud of being such a good machine. But as far as mere accuracy goes,
+the machine leaves nothing to be desired.
+
+Accuracy of response is a perfectly clear notion in the case of answers
+to questions, but in other cases it is much more obscure. We may say
+generally that an object whether animate or inanimate, is "sensitive" to
+a certain feature of the environment if it behaves differently according
+to the presence or absence of that feature. Thus iron is sensitive to
+anything magnetic. But sensitiveness does not constitute knowledge, and
+knowledge of a fact which is not sensible is not sensitiveness to
+that fact, as we have seen in distinguishing the fact known from the
+stimulus. As soon as we pass beyond the simple case of question and
+answer, the definition of knowledge by means of behaviour demands the
+consideration of purpose. A carrier pigeon flies home, and so we say
+it "knows" the way. But if it merely flew to some place at random, we
+should not say that it "knew" the way to that place, any more than a
+stone rolling down hill knows the way to the valley.
+
+On the features which distinguish knowledge from accuracy of response in
+general, not much can be said from a behaviourist point of view without
+referring to purpose. But the necessity of SOMETHING besides accuracy of
+response may be brought out by the following consideration: Suppose
+two persons, of whom one believed whatever the other disbelieved,
+and disbelieved whatever the other believed. So far as accuracy and
+sensitiveness of response alone are concerned, there would be nothing to
+choose between these two persons. A thermometer which went down for warm
+weather and up for cold might be just as accurate as the usual kind; and
+a person who always believes falsely is just as sensitive an instrument
+as a person who always believes truly. The observable and practical
+difference between them would be that the one who always believed
+falsely would quickly come to a bad end. This illustrates once more that
+accuracy of response to stimulus does not alone show knowledge, but must
+be reinforced by appropriateness, i.e. suitability for realizing one's
+purpose. This applies even in the apparently simple case of answering
+questions: if the purpose of the answers is to deceive, their falsehood,
+not their truth, will be evidence of knowledge. The proportion of
+the combination of appropriateness with accuracy in the definition
+of knowledge is difficult; it seems that both enter in, but that
+appropriateness is only required as regards the general type of
+response, not as regards each individual instance.
+
+II. I have so far assumed as unquestionable the view that the truth or
+falsehood of a belief consists in a relation to a certain fact,
+namely the objective of the belief. This view has, however, been often
+questioned. Philosophers have sought some intrinsic criterion by which
+true and false beliefs could be distinguished.* I am afraid their chief
+reason for this search has been the wish to feel more certainty than
+seems otherwise possible as to what is true and what is false. If
+we could discover the truth of a belief by examining its intrinsic
+characteristics, or those of some collection of beliefs of which it
+forms part, the pursuit of truth, it is thought, would be a less arduous
+business than it otherwise appears to be. But the attempts which
+have been made in this direction are not encouraging. I will take two
+criteria which have been suggested, namely, (1) self-evidence, (2)
+mutual coherence. If we can show that these are inadequate, we may
+feel fairly certain that no intrinsic criterion hitherto suggested will
+suffice to distinguish true from false beliefs.
+
+     * The view that such a criterion exists is generally held by
+     those whose views are in any degree derived from Hegel. It
+     may be illustrated by the following passage from Lossky,
+     "The Intuitive Basis of Knowledge" (Macmillan, 1919), p.
+     268: "Strictly speaking, a false judgment is not a judgment
+     at all. The predicate does not follow from the subject S
+     alone, but from the subject plus a certain addition C, WHICH
+     IN NO SENSE BELONGS TO THE CONTENT OF THE JUDGMENT. What
+     takes place may be a process of association of ideas, of
+     imagining, or the like, but is not a process of judging. An
+     experienced psychologist will be able by careful observation
+     to detect that in this process there is wanting just the
+     specific element of the objective dependence of the
+     predicate upon the subject which is characteristic of a
+     judgment. It must be admitted, however, that an exceptional
+     power of observation is needed in order to distinguish, by
+     means of introspection, mere combination of ideas from
+     judgments."
+
+
+(1) Self-evidence.--Some of our beliefs seem to be peculiarly
+indubitable. One might instance the belief that two and two are four,
+that two things cannot be in the same place at the same time, nor one
+thing in two places, or that a particular buttercup that we are seeing
+is yellow. The suggestion we are to examine is that such: beliefs have
+some recognizable quality which secures their truth, and the truth of
+whatever is deduced from them according to self-evident principles of
+inference. This theory is set forth, for example, by Meinong in his
+book, "Ueber die Erfahrungsgrundlagen unseres Wissens."
+
+If this theory is to be logically tenable, self-evidence must not
+consist merely in the fact that we believe a proposition. We believe
+that our beliefs are sometimes erroneous, and we wish to be able to
+select a certain class of beliefs which are never erroneous. If we
+are to do this, it must be by some mark which belongs only to certain
+beliefs, not to all; and among those to which it belongs there must be
+none that are mutually inconsistent. If, for example, two propositions
+p and q were self-evident, and it were also self-evident that p and q
+could not both be true, that would condemn self-evidence as a guarantee
+of truth. Again, self-evidence must not be the same thing as the absence
+of doubt or the presence of complete certainty. If we are completely
+certain of a proposition, we do not seek a ground to support our belief.
+If self-evidence is alleged as a ground of belief, that implies that
+doubt has crept in, and that our self-evident proposition has not
+wholly resisted the assaults of scepticism. To say that any given person
+believes some things so firmly that he cannot be made to doubt them is
+no doubt true. Such beliefs he will be willing to use as premisses in
+reasoning, and to him personally they will seem to have as much evidence
+as any belief can need. But among the propositions which one man finds
+indubitable there will be some that another man finds it quite possible
+to doubt. It used to seem self-evident that there could not be men at
+the Antipodes, because they would fall off, or at best grow giddy from
+standing on their heads. But New Zealanders find the falsehood of this
+proposition self-evident. Therefore, if self-evidence is a guarantee of
+truth, our ancestors must have been mistaken in thinking their beliefs
+about the Antipodes self-evident. Meinong meets this difficulty by
+saying that some beliefs are falsely thought to be self-evident, but in
+the case of others it is self-evident that they are self-evident, and
+these are wholly reliable. Even this, however, does not remove the
+practical risk of error, since we may mistakenly believe it self-evident
+that a certain belief is self-evident. To remove all risk of error, we
+shall need an endless series of more and more complicated self-evident
+beliefs, which cannot possibly be realized in practice. It would seem,
+therefore, that self-evidence is useless as a practical criterion for
+insuring truth.
+
+The same result follows from examining instances. If we take the four
+instances mentioned at the beginning of this discussion, we shall
+find that three of them are logical, while the fourth is a judgment of
+perception. The proposition that two and two are four follows by purely
+logical deduction from definitions: that means that its truth results,
+not from the properties of objects, but from the meanings of symbols.
+Now symbols, in mathematics, mean what we choose; thus the feeling of
+self-evidence, in this case, seems explicable by the fact that the whole
+matter is within our control. I do not wish to assert that this is
+the whole truth about mathematical propositions, for the question is
+complicated, and I do not know what the whole truth is. But I do wish to
+suggest that the feeling of self-evidence in mathematical propositions
+has to do with the fact that they are concerned with the meanings of
+symbols, not with properties of the world such as external observation
+might reveal.
+
+Similar considerations apply to the impossibility of a thing being in
+two places at once, or of two things being in one place at the same
+time. These impossibilities result logically, if I am not mistaken, from
+the definitions of one thing and one place. That is to say, they are not
+laws of physics, but only part of the intellectual apparatus which we
+have manufactured for manipulating physics. Their self-evidence, if this
+is so, lies merely in the fact that they represent our decision as to
+the use of words, not a property of physical objects.
+
+Judgments of perception, such as "this buttercup is yellow," are in
+a quite different position from judgments of logic, and their
+self-evidence must have a different explanation. In order to arrive at
+the nucleus of such a judgment, we will eliminate, as far as possible,
+the use of words which take us beyond the present fact, such as
+"buttercup" and "yellow." The simplest kind of judgment underlying the
+perception that a buttercup is yellow would seem to be the perception of
+similarity in two colours seen simultaneously. Suppose we are seeing
+two buttercups, and we perceive that their colours are similar. This
+similarity is a physical fact, not a matter of symbols or words; and it
+certainly seems to be indubitable in a way that many judgments are not.
+
+The first thing to observe, in regard to such judgments, is that as they
+stand they are vague. The word "similar" is a vague word, since there
+are degrees of similarity, and no one can say where similarity ends
+and dissimilarity begins. It is unlikely that our two buttercups have
+EXACTLY the same colour, and if we judged that they had we should have
+passed altogether outside the region of self-evidence. To make our
+proposition more precise, let us suppose that we are also seeing a
+red rose at the same time. Then we may judge that the colours of the
+buttercups are more similar to each other than to the colour of the
+rose. This judgment seems more complicated, but has certainly gained
+in precision. Even now, however, it falls short of complete precision,
+since similarity is not prima facie measurable, and it would require
+much discussion to decide what we mean by greater or less similarity. To
+this process of the pursuit of precision there is strictly no limit.
+
+The next thing to observe (although I do not personally doubt that most
+of our judgments of perception are true) is that it is very difficult to
+define any class of such judgments which can be known, by its intrinsic
+quality, to be always exempt from error. Most of our judgments of
+perception involve correlations, as when we judge that a certain noise
+is that of a passing cart. Such judgments are all obviously liable to
+error, since there is no correlation of which we have a right to be
+certain that it is invariable. Other judgments of perception are derived
+from recognition, as when we say "this is a buttercup," or even merely
+"this is yellow." All such judgments entail some risk of error,
+though sometimes perhaps a very small one; some flowers that look like
+buttercups are marigolds, and colours that some would call yellow others
+might call orange. Our subjective certainty is usually a result of
+habit, and may lead us astray in circumstances which are unusual in ways
+of which we are unaware.
+
+For such reasons, no form of self-evidence seems to afford an absolute
+criterion of truth. Nevertheless, it is perhaps true that judgments
+having a high degree of subjective certainty are more apt to be true
+than other judgments. But if this be the case, it is a result to be
+demonstrated, not a premiss from which to start in defining truth and
+falsehood. As an initial guarantee, therefore, neither self-evidence nor
+subjective certainty can be accepted as adequate.
+
+(2) Coherence.--Coherence as the definition of truth is advocated by
+idealists, particularly by those who in the main follow Hegel. It is set
+forth ably in Mr. Joachim's book, "The Nature of Truth" (Oxford, 1906).
+According to this view, any set of propositions other than the whole
+of truth can be condemned on purely logical grounds, as internally
+inconsistent; a single proposition, if it is what we should ordinarily
+call false, contradicts itself irremediably, while if it is what we
+should ordinarily call true, it has implications which compel us to
+admit other propositions, which in turn lead to others, and so on, until
+we find ourselves committed to the whole of truth. One might illustrate
+by a very simple example: if I say "so-and-so is a married man," that
+is not a self-subsistent proposition. We cannot logically conceive of a
+universe in which this proposition constituted the whole of truth. There
+must be also someone who is a married woman, and who is married to
+the particular man in question. The view we are considering regards
+everything that can be said about any one object as relative in the same
+sort of way as "so-and-so is a married man." But everything, according
+to this view, is relative, not to one or two other things, but to all
+other things, so that from one bit of truth the whole can be inferred.
+
+The fundamental objection to this view is logical, and consists in a
+criticism of its doctrine as to relations. I shall omit this line of
+argument, which I have developed elsewhere.* For the moment I will
+content myself with saying that the powers of logic seem to me very
+much less than this theory supposes. If it were taken seriously, its
+advocates ought to profess that any one truth is logically inferable
+from any other, and that, for example, the fact that Caesar conquered
+Gaul, if adequately considered, would enable us to discover what the
+weather will be to-morrow. No such claim is put forward in practice, and
+the necessity of empirical observation is not denied; but according to
+the theory it ought to be.
+
+     * In the article on "The Monistic Theory of Truth" in
+     "Philosophical Essays" (Longmans, 1910), reprinted from the
+     "Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society," 1906-7.
+
+Another objection is that no endeavour is made to show that we cannot
+form a consistent whole composed partly or wholly of false propositions,
+as in a novel. Leibniz's conception of many possible worlds seems to
+accord much better with modern logic and with the practical empiricism
+which is now universal. The attempt to deduce the world by pure thought
+is attractive, and in former times was largely supposed capable of
+success. But nowadays most men admit that beliefs must be tested by
+observation, and not merely by the fact that they harmonize with other
+beliefs. A consistent fairy-tale is a different thing from truth,
+however elaborate it may be. But to pursue this topic would lead us
+into difficult technicalities; I shall therefore assume, without further
+argument, that coherence is not sufficient as a definition of truth.
+
+III. Many difficult problems arise as regards the verifiability of
+beliefs. We believe various things, and while we believe them we think
+we know them. But it sometimes turns out that we were mistaken, or at
+any rate we come to think we were. We must be mistaken either in our
+previous opinion or in our subsequent recantation; therefore our beliefs
+are not all correct, and there are cases of belief which are not cases
+of knowledge. The question of verifiability is in essence this: can we
+discover any set of beliefs which are never mistaken or any test which,
+when applicable, will always enable us to discriminate between true
+and false beliefs? Put thus broadly and abstractly, the answer must be
+negative. There is no way hitherto discovered of wholly eliminating the
+risk of error, and no infallible criterion. If we believe we have found
+a criterion, this belief itself may be mistaken; we should be begging
+the question if we tried to test the criterion by applying the criterion
+to itself.
+
+But although the notion of an absolute criterion is chimerical, there
+may be relative criteria, which increase the probability of truth.
+Common sense and science hold that there are. Let us see what they have
+to say.
+
+One of the plainest cases of verification, perhaps ultimately the only
+case, consists in the happening of something expected. You go to the
+station believing that there will be a train at a certain time; you
+find the train, you get into it, and it starts at the expected time This
+constitutes verification, and is a perfectly definite experience. It is,
+in a sense, the converse of memory instead of having first sensations
+and then images accompanied by belief, we have first images accompanied
+by belief and then sensations. Apart from differences as to the
+time-order and the accompanying feelings, the relation between image and
+sensation is closely similar in the two cases of memory and expectation;
+it is a relation of similarity, with difference as to causal
+efficacy--broadly, the image has the psychological but not the physical
+effects that the sensation would have. When an image accompanied by
+an expectation-belief is thus succeeded by a sensation which is the
+"meaning" of the image, we say that the expectation-belief has been
+verified. The experience of verification in this sense is exceedingly
+familiar; it happens every time that accustomed activities have results
+that are not surprising, in eating and walking and talking and all our
+daily pursuits.
+
+But although the experience in question is common, it is not wholly easy
+to give a theoretical account of it. How do we know that the sensation
+resembles the previous image? Does the image persist in presence of the
+sensation, so that we can compare the two? And even if SOME image does
+persist, how do we know that it is the previous image unchanged? It does
+not seem as if this line of inquiry offered much hope of a successful
+issue. It is better, I think, to take a more external and causal view of
+the relation of expectation to expected occurrence. If the occurrence,
+when it comes, gives us the feeling of expectedness, and if the
+expectation, beforehand, enabled us to act in a way which proves
+appropriate to the occurrence, that must be held to constitute the
+maximum of verification. We have first an expectation, then a sensation
+with the feeling of expectedness related to memory of the expectation.
+This whole experience, when it occurs, may be defined as verification,
+and as constituting the truth of the expectation. Appropriate action,
+during the period of expectation, may be regarded as additional
+verification, but is not essential. The whole process may be illustrated
+by looking up a familiar quotation, finding it in the expected words,
+and in the expected part of the book. In this case we can strengthen
+the verification by writing down beforehand the words which we expect to
+find.
+
+I think all verification is ultimately of the above sort. We verify a
+scientific hypothesis indirectly, by deducing consequences as to the
+future, which subsequent experience confirms. If somebody were to doubt
+whether Caesar had crossed the Rubicon, verification could only be
+obtained from the future. We could proceed to display manuscripts to our
+historical sceptic, in which it was said that Caesar had behaved in this
+way. We could advance arguments, verifiable by future experience, to
+prove the antiquity of the manuscript from its texture, colour, etc. We
+could find inscriptions agreeing with the historian on other points,
+and tending to show his general accuracy. The causal laws which our
+arguments would assume could be verified by the future occurrence of
+events inferred by means of them. The existence and persistence of
+causal laws, it is true, must be regarded as a fortunate accident, and
+how long it will continue we cannot tell. Meanwhile verification remains
+often practically possible. And since it is sometimes possible, we
+can gradually discover what kinds of beliefs tend to be verified by
+experience, and what kinds tend to be falsified; to the former kinds
+we give an increased degree of assent, to the latter kinds a diminished
+degree. The process is not absolute or infallible, but it has been
+found capable of sifting beliefs and building up science. It affords
+no theoretical refutation of the sceptic, whose position must remain
+logically unassailable; but if complete scepticism is rejected, it gives
+the practical method by which the system of our beliefs grows gradually
+towards the unattainable ideal of impeccable knowledge.
+
+IV. I come now to the purely formal definition of the truth or falsehood
+of a belief. For this definition it is necessary first of all to
+consider the derivation of the objective reference of a proposition from
+the meanings of its component words or images.
+
+Just as a word has meaning, so a proposition has an objective reference.
+The objective reference of a proposition is a function (in the
+mathematical sense) of the meanings of its component words. But the
+objective reference differs from the meaning of a word through the
+duality of truth and falsehood. You may believe the proposition "to-day
+is Tuesday" both when, in fact, to-day is Tuesday, and when to-day is
+not Tuesday. If to-day is not Tuesday, this fact is the objective of
+your belief that to-day is Tuesday. But obviously the relation of your
+belief to the fact is different in this case from what it is in the case
+when to-day is Tuesday. We may say, metaphorically, that when to-day is
+Tuesday, your belief that it is Tuesday points TOWARDS the fact, whereas
+when to-day is not Tuesday your belief points AWAY FROM the fact. Thus
+the objective reference of a belief is not determined by the fact alone,
+but by the direction of the belief towards or away from the fact.* If,
+on a Tuesday, one man believes that it is Tuesday while another believes
+that it is not Tuesday, their beliefs have the same objective, namely
+the fact that it is Tuesday but the true belief points towards the fact
+while the false one points away from it. Thus, in order to define the
+reference of a proposition we have to take account not only of the
+objective, but also of the direction of pointing, towards the objective
+in the case of a true proposition and away from it in the case of a
+false one.
+
+     * I owe this way of looking at the matter to my friend
+     Ludwig Wittgenstein.
+
+This mode of stating the nature of the objective reference of a
+proposition is necessitated by the circumstance that there are true and
+false propositions, but not true and false facts. If to-day is Tuesday,
+there is not a false objective "to-day is not Tuesday," which could be
+the objective of the false belief "to-day is not Tuesday." This is the
+reason why two beliefs which are each other's contradictories have the
+same objective. There is, however, a practical inconvenience, namely
+that we cannot determine the objective reference of a proposition,
+according to this definition, unless we know whether the proposition
+is true or false. To avoid this inconvenience, it is better to adopt
+a slightly different phraseology, and say: The "meaning" of the
+proposition "to-day is Tuesday" consists in pointing to the fact "to-day
+is Tuesday" if that is a fact, or away from the fact "to-day is not
+Tuesday" if that is a fact. The "meaning" of the proposition "to-day is
+not Tuesday" will be exactly the opposite. By this hypothetical form
+we are able to speak of the meaning of a proposition without knowing
+whether it is true or false. According to this definition, we know the
+meaning of a proposition when we know what would make it true and what
+would make it false, even if we do not know whether it is in fact true
+or false.
+
+The meaning of a proposition is derivative from the meanings of its
+constituent words. Propositions occur in pairs, distinguished (in
+simple cases) by the absence or presence of the word "not." Two such
+propositions have the same objective, but opposite meanings: when one is
+true, the other is false, and when one is false, the other is true.
+
+The purely formal definition of truth and falsehood offers little
+difficulty. What is required is a formal expression of the fact that a
+proposition is true when it points towards its objective, and false when
+it points away from it, In very simple cases we can give a very simple
+account of this: we can say that true propositions actually resemble
+their objectives in a way in which false propositions do not. But for
+this purpose it is necessary to revert to image-propositions instead of
+word-propositions. Let us take again the illustration of a memory-image
+of a familiar room, and let us suppose that in the image the window is
+to the left of the door. If in fact the window is to the left of the
+door, there is a correspondence between the image and the objective;
+there is the same relation between the window and the door as between
+the images of them. The image-memory consists of the image of the window
+to the left of the image of the door. When this is true, the very same
+relation relates the terms of the objective (namely the window and
+the door) as relates the images which mean them. In this case the
+correspondence which constitutes truth is very simple.
+
+In the case we have just been considering the objective consists of
+two parts with a certain relation (that of left-to-right), and the
+proposition consists of images of these parts with the very same
+relation. The same proposition, if it were false, would have a less
+simple formal relation to its objective. If the image-proposition
+consists of an image of the window to the left of an image of the door,
+while in fact the window is not to the left of the door, the proposition
+does not result from the objective by the mere substitution of images
+for their prototypes. Thus in this unusually simple case we can say that
+a true proposition "corresponds" to its objective in a formal sense in
+which a false proposition does not. Perhaps it may be possible to modify
+this notion of formal correspondence in such a way as to be more widely
+applicable, but if so, the modifications required will be by no means
+slight. The reasons for this must now be considered.
+
+To begin with, the simple type of correspondence we have been exhibiting
+can hardly occur when words are substituted for images, because, in
+word-propositions, relations are usually expressed by words, which are
+not themselves relations. Take such a proposition as "Socrates
+precedes Plato." Here the word "precedes" is just as solid as the words
+"Socrates" and "Plato"; it MEANS a relation, but is not a relation. Thus
+the objective which makes our proposition true consists of TWO terms
+with a relation between them, whereas our proposition consists of THREE
+terms with a relation of order between them. Of course, it would be
+perfectly possible, theoretically, to indicate a few chosen relations,
+not by words, but by relations between the other words. "Socrates-Plato"
+might be used to mean "Socrates precedes Plato"; "Plato-Socrates" might
+be used to mean "Plato was born before Socrates and died after him"; and
+so on. But the possibilities of such a method would be very limited. For
+aught I know, there may be languages that use it, but they are not among
+the languages with which I am acquainted. And in any case, in view of
+the multiplicity of relations that we wish to express, no language could
+advance far without words for relations. But as soon as we have words
+for relations, word-propositions have necessarily more terms than the
+facts to which they refer, and cannot therefore correspond so simply
+with their objectives as some image-propositions can.
+
+The consideration of negative propositions and negative facts introduces
+further complications. An image-proposition is necessarily positive:
+we can image the window to the left of the door, or to the right of the
+door, but we can form no image of the bare negative "the window not to
+the left of the door." We can DISBELIEVE the image-proposition expressed
+by "the window to the left of the door," and our disbelief will be true
+if the window is not to the left of the door. But we can form no image
+of the fact that the window is not to the left of the door. Attempts
+have often been made to deny such negative facts, but, for reasons which
+I have given elsewhere,* I believe these attempts to be mistaken, and I
+shall assume that there are negative facts.
+
+     * "Monist," January, 1919, p. 42 ff.
+
+Word-propositions, like image-propositions, are always positive facts.
+The fact that Socrates precedes Plato is symbolized in English by the
+fact that the word "precedes" occurs between the words "Socrates" and
+"Plato." But we cannot symbolize the fact that Plato does not precede
+Socrates by not putting the word "precedes" between "Plato" and
+"Socrates." A negative fact is not sensible, and language, being
+intended for communication, has to be sensible. Therefore we symbolize
+the fact that Plato does not precede Socrates by putting the words "does
+not precede" between "Plato" and "Socrates." We thus obtain a series of
+words which is just as positive a fact as the series "Socrates precedes
+Plato." The propositions asserting negative facts are themselves
+positive facts; they are merely different positive facts from those
+asserting positive facts.
+
+We have thus, as regards the opposition of positive and negative, three
+different sorts of duality, according as we are dealing with facts,
+image-propositions, or word-propositions. We have, namely:
+
+(1) Positive and negative facts;
+
+(2) Image-propositions, which may be believed or disbelieved, but do
+not allow any duality of content corresponding to positive and negative
+facts;
+
+(3) Word-propositions, which are always positive facts, but are of two
+kinds: one verified by a positive objective, the other by a negative
+objective.
+
+Owing to these complications, the simplest type of correspondence is
+impossible when either negative facts or negative propositions are
+involved.
+
+Even when we confine ourselves to relations between two terms which are
+both imaged, it may be impossible to form an image-proposition in which
+the relation of the terms is represented by the same relation of the
+images. Suppose we say "Caesar was 2,000 years before Foch," we express
+a certain temporal relation between Caesar and Foch; but we cannot allow
+2,000 years to elapse between our image of Caesar and our image of Foch.
+This is perhaps not a fair example, since "2,000 years before" is not a
+direct relation. But take a case where the relation is direct, say, "the
+sun is brighter than the moon." We can form visual images of sunshine
+and moonshine, and it may happen that our image of the sunshine is
+the brighter of the two, but this is by no means either necessary or
+sufficient. The act of comparison, implied in our judgment, is something
+more than the mere coexistence of two images, one of which is in fact
+brighter than the other. It would take us too far from our main topic if
+we were to go into the question what actually occurs when we make this
+judgment. Enough has been said to show that the correspondence between
+the belief and its objective is more complicated in this case than in
+that of the window to the left of the door, and this was all that had to
+be proved.
+
+In spite of these complications, the general nature of the formal
+correspondence which makes truth is clear from our instances. In the
+case of the simpler kind of propositions, namely those that I call
+"atomic" propositions, where there is only one word expressing a
+relation, the objective which would verify our proposition, assuming
+that the word "not" is absent, is obtained by replacing each word
+by what it means, the word meaning a relation being replaced by this
+relation among the meanings of the other words. For example, if the
+proposition is "Socrates precedes Plato," the objective which verifies
+it results from replacing the word "Socrates" by Socrates, the word
+"Plato" by Plato, and the word "precedes" by the relation of preceding
+between Socrates and Plato. If the result of this process is a fact,
+the proposition is true; if not, it is false. When our proposition is
+"Socrates does not precede Plato," the conditions of truth and falsehood
+are exactly reversed. More complicated propositions can be dealt with on
+the same lines. In fact, the purely formal question, which has occupied
+us in this last section, offers no very formidable difficulties.
+
+I do not believe that the above formal theory is untrue, but I do
+believe that it is inadequate. It does not, for example, throw any
+light upon our preference for true beliefs rather than false ones. This
+preference is only explicable by taking account of the causal efficacy
+of beliefs, and of the greater appropriateness of the responses
+resulting from true beliefs. But appropriateness depends upon purpose,
+and purpose thus becomes a vital part of theory of knowledge.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE XIV. EMOTIONS AND WILL
+
+On the two subjects of the present lecture I have nothing original to
+say, and I am treating them only in order to complete the discussion of
+my main thesis, namely that all psychic phenomena are built up out of
+sensations and images alone.
+
+Emotions are traditionally regarded by psychologists as a separate
+class of mental occurrences: I am, of course, not concerned to deny
+the obvious fact that they have characteristics which make a special
+investigation of them necessary. What I am concerned with is the
+analysis of emotions. It is clear that an emotion is essentially
+complex, and we have to inquire whether it ever contains any
+non-physiological material not reducible to sensations and images and
+their relations.
+
+Although what specially concerns us is the analysis of emotions, we
+shall find that the more important topic is the physiological causation
+of emotions. This is a subject upon which much valuable and exceedingly
+interesting work has been done, whereas the bare analysis of emotions
+has proved somewhat barren. In view of the fact that we have defined
+perceptions, sensations, and images by their physiological causation, it
+is evident that our problem of the analysis of the emotions is bound up
+with the problem of their physiological causation.
+
+Modern views on the causation of emotions begin with what is called
+the James-Lange theory. James states this view in the following terms
+("Psychology," vol. ii, p. 449):
+
+"Our natural way of thinking about these coarser emotions, grief, fear,
+rage, love, is that the mental perception of some fact excites the
+mental affection called the emotion, and that this latter state of mind
+gives rise to the bodily expression. My theory, on the contrary, is that
+THE BODILY CHANGES FOLLOW DIRECTLY THE PERCEPTION OF THE EXCITING FACT,
+AND THAT OUR FEELING OF THE SAME CHANGES AS THEY OCCUR _IS_ THE EMOTION
+(James's italics). Common sense says: we lose our fortune, are sorry
+and weep; we meet a bear, are frightened and run; we are insulted by
+a rival, are angry and strike. The hypothesis here to be defended says
+that this order of sequence is incorrect, that the one mental state is
+not immediately induced by the other, that the bodily manifestations
+must first be interposed between, and that the more rational statement
+is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid
+because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble, because
+we are sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be. Without the bodily
+states following on the perception, the latter would be purely cognitive
+in form, pale, colourless, destitute of emotional warmth."
+
+Round this hypothesis a very voluminous literature has grown up. The
+history of its victory over earlier criticism, and its difficulties with
+the modern experimental work of Sherrington and Cannon, is well told
+by James R. Angell in an article called "A Reconsideration of James's
+Theory of Emotion in the Light of Recent Criticisms."* In this article
+Angell defends James's theory and to me--though I speak with diffidence
+on a question as to which I have little competence--it appears that his
+defence is on the whole successful.
+
+     * "Psychological Review," 1916.
+
+Sherrington, by experiments on dogs, showed that many of the usual marks
+of emotion were present in their behaviour even when, by severing the
+spinal cord in the lower cervical region, the viscera were cut off from
+all communication with the brain, except that existing through certain
+cranial nerves. He mentions the various signs which "contributed to
+indicate the existence of an emotion as lively as the animal had ever
+shown us before the spinal operation had been made."* He infers that
+the physiological condition of the viscera cannot be the cause of the
+emotion displayed under such circumstances, and concludes: "We are
+forced back toward the likelihood that the visceral expression of
+emotion is SECONDARY to the cerebral action occurring with the psychical
+state.... We may with James accept visceral and organic sensations
+and the memories and associations of them as contributory to primitive
+emotion, but we must regard them as re-enforcing rather than as
+initiating the psychosis."*
+
+     * Quoted by Angell, loc. cit.
+
+
+Angell suggests that the display of emotion in such cases may be due
+to past experience, generating habits which would require only the
+stimulation of cerebral reflex arcs. Rage and some forms of fear,
+however, may, he thinks, gain expression without the brain. Rage and
+fear have been especially studied by Cannon, whose work is of the
+greatest importance. His results are given in his book, "Bodily Changes
+in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage" (D. Appleton and Co., 1916).
+
+The most interesting part of Cannon's book consists in the investigation
+of the effects produced by secretion of adrenin. Adrenin is a substance
+secreted into the blood by the adrenal glands. These are among the
+ductless glands, the functions of which, both in physiology and in
+connection with the emotions, have only come to be known during recent
+years. Cannon found that pain, fear and rage occurred in circumstances
+which affected the supply of adrenin, and that an artificial injection
+of adrenin could, for example, produce all the symptoms of fear. He
+studied the effects of adrenin on various parts of the body; he found
+that it causes the pupils to dilate, hairs to stand erect, blood vessels
+to be constricted, and so on. These effects were still produced if
+the parts in question were removed from the body and kept alive
+artificially.*
+
+     * Cannon's work is not unconnected with that of Mosso, who
+     maintains, as the result of much experimental work, that
+     "the seat of the emotions lies in the sympathetic nervous
+     system." An account of the work of both these men will be
+     found in Goddard's "Psychology of the Normal and Sub-normal"
+     (Kegan Paul, 1919), chap. vii and Appendix.
+
+Cannon's chief argument against James is, if I understand him rightly,
+that similar affections of the viscera may accompany dissimilar
+emotions, especially fear and rage. Various different emotions make
+us cry, and therefore it cannot be true to say, as James does, that we
+"feel sorry because we cry," since sometimes we cry when we feel glad.
+This argument, however, is by no means conclusive against James, because
+it cannot be shown that there are no visceral differences for different
+emotions, and indeed it is unlikely that this is the case.
+
+As Angell says (loc. cit.): "Fear and joy may both cause cardiac
+palpitation, but in one case we find high tonus of the skeletal muscles,
+in the other case relaxation and the general sense of weakness."
+
+Angell's conclusion, after discussing the experiments of Sherrington
+and Cannon, is: "I would therefore submit that, so far as concerns
+the critical suggestions by these two psychologists, James's essential
+contentions are not materially affected." If it were necessary for me to
+take sides on this question, I should agree with this conclusion; but I
+think my thesis as to the analysis of emotion can be maintained without
+coming to a probably premature conclusion upon the doubtful parts of
+the physiological problem.
+
+According to our definitions, if James is right, an emotion may be
+regarded as involving a confused perception of the viscera concerned
+in its causation, while if Cannon and Sherrington are right, an emotion
+involves a confused perception of its external stimulus. This follows
+from what was said in Lecture VII. We there defined a perception as an
+appearance, however irregular, of one or more objects external to the
+brain. And in order to be an appearance of one or more objects, it is
+only necessary that the occurrence in question should be connected
+with them by a continuous chain, and should vary when they are varied
+sufficiently. Thus the question whether a mental occurrence can be
+called a perception turns upon the question whether anything can be
+inferred from it as to its causes outside the brain: if such inference
+is possible, the occurrence in question will come within our definition
+of a perception. And in that case, according to the definition in
+Lecture VIII, its non-mnemic elements will be sensations. Accordingly,
+whether emotions are caused by changes in the viscera or by sensible
+objects, they contain elements which are sensations according to our
+definition.
+
+An emotion in its entirety is, of course, something much more complex
+than a perception. An emotion is essentially a process, and it will be
+only what one may call a cross-section of the emotion that will be a
+perception, of a bodily condition according to James, or (in certain
+cases) of an external object according to his opponents. An emotion in
+its entirety contains dynamic elements, such as motor impulses, desires,
+pleasures and pains. Desires and pleasures and pains, according to the
+theory adopted in Lecture III, are characteristics of processes, not
+separate ingredients. An emotion--rage, for example--will be a certain
+kind of process, consisting of perceptions and (in general) bodily
+movements. The desires and pleasures and pains involved are properties
+of this process, not separate items in the stuff of which the emotion
+is composed. The dynamic elements in an emotion, if we are right in our
+analysis, contain, from our point of view, no ingredients beyond those
+contained in the processes considered in Lecture III. The ingredients
+of an emotion are only sensations and images and bodily movements
+succeeding each other according to a certain pattern. With this
+conclusion we may leave the emotions and pass to the consideration of
+the will.
+
+The first thing to be defined when we are dealing with Will is a
+VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. We have already defined vital movements, and we have
+maintained that, from a behaviourist standpoint, it is impossible to
+distinguish which among such movements are reflex and which voluntary.
+Nevertheless, there certainly is a distinction. When we decide in the
+morning that it is time to get up, our consequent movement is voluntary.
+The beating of the heart, on the other hand, is involuntary: we can
+neither cause it nor prevent it by any decision of our own, except
+indirectly, as e.g. by drugs. Breathing is intermediate between the two:
+we normally breathe without the help of the will, but we can alter or
+stop our breathing if we choose.
+
+James ("Psychology," chap. xxvi) maintains that the only distinctive
+characteristic of a voluntary act is that it involves an idea of the
+movement to be performed, made up of memory-images of the kinaesthetic
+sensations which we had when the same movement occurred on some former
+occasion. He points out that, on this view, no movement can be made
+voluntarily unless it has previously occurred involuntarily.*
+
+     * "Psychology," Vol. ii, pp. 492-3.
+
+I see no reason to doubt the correctness of this view. We shall say,
+then, that movements which are accompanied by kinaesthetic sensations
+tend to be caused by the images of those sensations, and when so caused
+are called VOLUNTARY.
+
+Volition, in the emphatic sense, involves something more than
+voluntary movement. The sort of case I am thinking of is decision after
+deliberation. Voluntary movements are a part of this, but not the whole.
+There is, in addition to them, a judgment: "This is what I shall
+do"; there is also a sensation of tension during doubt, followed by a
+different sensation at the moment of deciding. I see no reason whatever
+to suppose that there is any specifically new ingredient; sensations and
+images, with their relations and causal laws, yield all that seems to
+be wanted for the analysis of the will, together with the fact that
+kinaesthetic images tend to cause the movements with which they are
+connected. Conflict of desires is of course essential in the causation
+of the emphatic kind of will: there will be for a time kinaesthetic
+images of incompatible movements, followed by the exclusive image of
+the movement which is said to be willed. Thus will seems to add no new
+irreducible ingredient to the analysis of the mind.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE XV. CHARACTERISTICS OF MENTAL PHENOMENA
+
+At the end of our journey it is time to return to the question from
+which we set out, namely: What is it that characterizes mind as opposed
+to matter? Or, to state the same question in other terms: How is
+psychology to be distinguished from physics? The answer provisionally
+suggested at the outset of our inquiry was that psychology and physics
+are distinguished by the nature of their causal laws, not by their
+subject matter. At the same time we held that there is a certain subject
+matter, namely images, to which only psychological causal laws are
+applicable; this subject matter, therefore, we assigned exclusively to
+psychology. But we found no way of defining images except through
+their causation; in their intrinsic character they appeared to have no
+universal mark by which they could be distinguished from sensations.
+
+In this last lecture I propose to pass in review various suggested
+methods of distinguishing mind from matter. I shall then briefly sketch
+the nature of that fundamental science which I believe to be the true
+metaphysic, in which mind and matter alike are seen to be constructed
+out of a neutral stuff, whose causal laws have no such duality as that
+of psychology, but form the basis upon which both physics and psychology
+are built.
+
+In search for the definition of "mental phenomena," let us begin with
+"consciousness," which is often thought to be the essence of mind.
+In the first lecture I gave various arguments against the view that
+consciousness is fundamental, but I did not attempt to say what
+consciousness is. We must find a definition of it, if we are to feel
+secure in deciding that it is not fundamental. It is for the sake of the
+proof that it is not fundamental that we must now endeavour to decide
+what it is.
+
+"Consciousness," by those who regard it as fundamental, is taken to be a
+character diffused throughout our mental life, distinct from sensations
+and images, memories, beliefs and desires, but present in all of
+them.* Dr. Henry Head, in an article which I quoted in Lecture III,
+distinguishing sensations from purely physiological occurrences, says:
+"Sensation, in the strict sense of the term, demands the existence of
+consciousness." This statement, at first sight, is one to which we feel
+inclined to assent, but I believe we are mistaken if we do so. Sensation
+is the sort of thing of which we MAY be conscious, but not a thing
+of which we MUST be conscious. We have been led, in the course of our
+inquiry, to admit unconscious beliefs and unconscious desires. There is,
+so far as I can see, no class of mental or other occurrences of which we
+are always conscious whenever they happen.
+
+     * Cf. Lecture VI.
+
+The first thing to notice is that consciousness must be of something. In
+view of this, I should define "consciousness" in terms of that relation
+of an image of a word to an object which we defined, in Lecture XI, as
+"meaning." When a sensation is followed by an image which is a "copy" of
+it, I think it may be said that the existence of the image constitutes
+consciousness of the sensation, provided it is accompanied by that sort
+of belief which, when we reflect upon it, makes us feel that the image
+is a "sign" of something other than itself. This is the sort of belief
+which, in the case of memory, we expressed in the words "this occurred";
+or which, in the case of a judgment of perception, makes us believe
+in qualities correlated with present sensations, as e.g., tactile and
+visual qualities are correlated. The addition of some element of belief
+seems required, since mere imagination does not involve consciousness of
+anything, and there can be no consciousness which is not of something.
+If images alone constituted consciousness of their prototypes,
+such imagination-images as in fact have prototypes would involve
+consciousness of them; since this is not the case, an element of belief
+must be added to the images in defining consciousness. The belief must
+be of that sort that constitutes objective reference, past or
+present. An image, together with a belief of this sort concerning it,
+constitutes, according to our definition, consciousness of the prototype
+of the image.
+
+But when we pass from consciousness of sensations to consciousness of
+objects of perception, certain further points arise which demand an
+addition to our definition. A judgment of perception, we may say,
+consists of a core of sensation, together with associated images, with
+belief in the present existence of an object to which sensation and
+images are referred in a way which is difficult to analyse. Perhaps we
+might say that the belief is not fundamentally in any PRESENT existence,
+but is of the nature of an expectation: for example, when we see an
+object, we expect certain sensations to result if we proceed to touch
+it. Perception, then, will consist of a present sensation together with
+expectations of future sensations. (This, of course, is a reflective
+analysis, not an account of the way perception appears to unchecked
+introspection.) But all such expectations are liable to be erroneous,
+since they are based upon correlations which are usual but not
+invariable. Any such correlation may mislead us in a particular case,
+for example, if we try to touch a reflection in a looking-glass under
+the impression that it is "real." Since memory is fallible, a similar
+difficulty arises as regards consciousness of past objects. It would
+seem odd to say that we can be "conscious" of a thing which does not or
+did not exist. The only way to avoid this awkwardness is to add to our
+definition the proviso that the beliefs involved in consciousness must
+be TRUE.
+
+In the second place, the question arises as to whether we can be
+conscious of images. If we apply our definition to this case, it seems
+to demand images of images. In order, for example, to be conscious of
+an image of a cat, we shall require, according to the letter of the
+definition, an image which is a copy of our image of the cat, and has
+this image for its prototype. Now, it hardly seems probable, as a matter
+of observation, that there are images of images, as opposed to images
+of sensations. We may meet this difficulty in two ways, either by boldly
+denying consciousness of images, or by finding a sense in which, by
+means of a different accompanying belief, an image, instead of meaning
+its prototype, can mean another image of the same prototype.
+
+The first alternative, which denies consciousness of images, has already
+been discussed when we were dealing with Introspection in Lecture VI. We
+then decided that there must be, in some sense, consciousness of images.
+We are therefore left with the second suggested way of dealing with
+knowledge of images. According to this second hypothesis, there may be
+two images of the same prototype, such that one of them means the other,
+instead of meaning the prototype. It will be remembered that we defined
+meaning by association a word or image means an object, we said, when it
+has the same associations as the object. But this definition must not be
+interpreted too absolutely: a word or image will not have ALL the
+same associations as the object which it means. The word "cat" may
+be associated with the word "mat," but it would not happen except by
+accident that a cat would be associated with a mat. And in like manner
+an image may have certain associations which its prototype will not
+have, e.g. an association with the word "image." When these associations
+are active, an image means an image, instead of meaning its prototype.
+If I have had images of a given prototype many times, I can mean one of
+these, as opposed to the rest, by recollecting the time and place or any
+other distinctive association of that one occasion. This happens, for
+example, when a place recalls to us some thought we previously had in
+that place, so that we remember a thought as opposed to the occurrence
+to which it referred. Thus we may say that we think of an image A when
+we have a similar image B associated with recollections of circumstances
+connected with A, but not with its prototype or with other images of the
+same prototype. In this way we become aware of images without the
+need of any new store of mental contents, merely by the help of new
+associations. This theory, so far as I can see, solves the problems of
+introspective knowledge, without requiring heroic measures such as those
+proposed by Knight Dunlap, whose views we discussed in Lecture VI.
+
+According to what we have been saying, sensation itself is not an
+instance of consciousness, though the immediate memory by which it is
+apt to be succeeded is so. A sensation which is remembered becomes an
+object of consciousness as soon as it begins to be remembered, which
+will normally be almost immediately after its occurrence (if at all);
+but while it exists it is not an object of consciousness. If, however,
+it is part of a perception, say of some familiar person, we may say that
+the person perceived is an object of consciousness. For in this case
+the sensation is a SIGN of the perceived object in much the same way
+in which a memory-image is a sign of a remembered object. The essential
+practical function of "consciousness" and "thought" is that they enable
+us to act with reference to what is distant in time or space, even
+though it is not at present stimulating our senses. This reference
+to absent objects is possible through association and habit. Actual
+sensations, in themselves, are not cases of consciousness, because they
+do not bring in this reference to what is absent. But their connection
+with consciousness is very close, both through immediate memory, and
+through the correlations which turn sensations into perceptions.
+
+Enough has, I hope, been said to show that consciousness is far too
+complex and accidental to be taken as the fundamental characteristic
+of mind. We have seen that belief and images both enter into it. Belief
+itself, as we saw in an earlier lecture, is complex. Therefore, if any
+definition of mind is suggested by our analysis of consciousness, images
+are what would naturally suggest themselves. But since we found
+that images can only be defined causally, we cannot deal with this
+suggestion, except in connection with the difference between physical
+and psychological causal laws.
+
+I come next to those characteristics of mental phenomena which arise out
+of mnemic causation. The possibility of action with reference to what
+is not sensibly present is one of the things that might be held to
+characterize mind. Let us take first a very elementary example. Suppose
+you are in a familiar room at night, and suddenly the light goes out.
+You will be able to find your way to the door without much difficulty
+by means of the picture of the room which you have in your mind. In this
+case visual images serve, somewhat imperfectly it is true, the purpose
+which visual sensations would otherwise serve. The stimulus to the
+production of visual images is the desire to get out of the room, which,
+according to what we found in Lecture III, consists essentially of
+present sensations and motor impulses caused by them. Again, words heard
+or read enable you to act with reference to the matters about which they
+give information; here, again, a present sensible stimulus, in virtue of
+habits formed in the past, enables you to act in a manner appropriate
+to an object which is not sensibly present. The whole essence of the
+practical efficiency of "thought" consists in sensitiveness to signs:
+the sensible presence of A, which is a sign of the present or future
+existence of B, enables us to act in a manner appropriate to B. Of
+this, words are the supreme example, since their effects as signs are
+prodigious, while their intrinsic interest as sensible occurrences on
+their own account is usually very slight. The operation of signs may or
+may not be accompanied by consciousness. If a sensible stimulus A calls
+up an image of B, and we then act with reference to B, we have what may
+be called consciousness of B. But habit may enable us to act in a manner
+appropriate to B as soon as A appears, without ever having an image of
+B. In that case, although A operates as a sign, it operates without the
+help of consciousness. Broadly speaking, a very familiar sign tends to
+operate directly in this manner, and the intervention of consciousness
+marks an imperfectly established habit.
+
+The power of acquiring experience, which characterizes men and animals,
+is an example of the general law that, in mnemic causation, the causal
+unit is not one event at one time, but two or more events at two or more
+times.& A burnt child fears the fire, that is to say, the neighbourhood
+of fire has a different effect upon a child which has had the sensations
+of burning than upon one which has not. More correctly, the observed
+effect, when a child which has been burnt is put near a fire, has for
+its cause, not merely the neighbourhood of the fire, but this together
+with the previous burning. The general formula, when an animal has
+acquired experience through some event A, is that, when B occurs at some
+future time, the animal to which A has happened acts differently from
+an animal which A has not happened. Thus A and B together, not either
+separately, must be regarded as the cause of the animal's behaviour,
+unless we take account of the effect which A has had in altering the
+animal's nervous tissue, which is a matter not patent to external
+observation except under very special circumstances. With this
+possibility, we are brought back to causal laws, and to the suggestion
+that many things which seem essentially mental are really neural.
+Perhaps it is the nerves that acquire experience rather than the mind.
+If so, the possibility of acquiring experience cannot be used to define
+mind.*
+
+     * Cf. Lecture IV.
+
+Very similar considerations apply to memory, if taken as the essence of
+mind. A recollection is aroused by something which is happening now,
+but is different from the effect which the present occurrence would
+have produced if the recollected event had not occurred. This may be
+accounted for by the physical effect of the past event on the brain,
+making it a different instrument from that which would have resulted
+from a different experience. The causal peculiarities of memory may,
+therefore, have a physiological explanation. With every special class of
+mental phenomena this possibility meets us afresh. If psychology is
+to be a separate science at all, we must seek a wider ground for its
+separateness than any that we have been considering hitherto.
+
+We have found that "consciousness" is too narrow to characterize mental
+phenomena, and that mnemic causation is too wide. I come now to a
+characteristic which, though difficult to define, comes much nearer to
+what we require, namely subjectivity.
+
+Subjectivity, as a characteristic of mental phenomena, was considered in
+Lecture VII, in connection with the definition of perception. We there
+decided that those particulars which constitute the physical world can
+be collected into sets in two ways, one of which makes a bundle of all
+those particulars that are appearances of a given thing from different
+places, while the other makes a bundle of all those particulars which
+are appearances of different things from a given place. A bundle of
+this latter sort, at a given time, is called a "perspective"; taken
+throughout a period of time, it is called a "biography." Subjectivity is
+the characteristic of perspectives and biographies, the characteristic
+of giving the view of the world from a certain place. We saw in Lecture
+VII that this characteristic involves none of the other characteristics
+that are commonly associated with mental phenomena, such as
+consciousness, experience and memory. We found in fact that it is
+exhibited by a photographic plate, and, strictly speaking, by any
+particular taken in conjunction with those which have the same "passive"
+place in the sense defined in Lecture VII. The particulars forming one
+perspective are connected together primarily by simultaneity;
+those forming one biography, primarily by the existence of direct
+time-relations between them. To these are to be added relations
+derivable from the laws of perspective. In all this we are clearly not
+in the region of psychology, as commonly understood; yet we are also
+hardly in the region of physics. And the definition of perspectives
+and biographies, though it does not yet yield anything that would
+be commonly called "mental," is presupposed in mental phenomena, for
+example in mnemic causation: the causal unit in mnemic causation, which
+gives rise to Semon's engram, is the whole of one perspective--not of
+any perspective, but of a perspective in a place where there is nervous
+tissue, or at any rate living tissue of some sort. Perception also,
+as we saw, can only be defined in terms of perspectives. Thus the
+conception of subjectivity, i.e. of the "passive" place of a particular,
+though not alone sufficient to define mind, is clearly an essential
+element in the definition.
+
+I have maintained throughout these lectures that the data of psychology
+do not differ in, their intrinsic character from the data of physics.
+I have maintained that sensations are data for psychology and
+physics equally, while images, which may be in some sense exclusively
+psychological data, can only be distinguished from sensations by their
+correlations, not by what they are in themselves. It is now necessary,
+however, to examine the notion of a "datum," and to obtain, if possible,
+a definition of this notion.
+
+The notion of "data" is familiar throughout science, and is usually
+treated by men of science as though it were perfectly clear.
+Psychologists, on the other hand, find great difficulty in the
+conception. "Data" are naturally defined in terms of theory of
+knowledge: they are those propositions of which the truth is known
+without demonstration, so that they may be used as premisses in proving
+other propositions. Further, when a proposition which is a datum asserts
+the existence of something, we say that the something is a datum, as
+well as the proposition asserting its existence. Thus those objects
+of whose existence we become certain through perception are said to be
+data.
+
+There is some difficulty in connecting this epistemological definition
+of "data" with our psychological analysis of knowledge; but until such
+a connection has been effected, we have no right to use the conception
+"data."
+
+It is clear, in the first place, that there can be no datum apart from a
+belief. A sensation which merely comes and goes is not a datum; it only
+becomes a datum when it is remembered. Similarly, in perception, we do
+not have a datum unless we have a JUDGMENT of perception. In the sense
+in which objects (as opposed to propositions) are data, it would seem
+natural to say that those objects of which we are conscious are data.
+But consciousness, as we have seen, is a complex notion, involving
+beliefs, as well as mnemic phenomena such as are required for perception
+and memory. It follows that no datum is theoretically indubitable, since
+no belief is infallible; it follows also that every datum has a greater
+or less degree of vagueness, since there is always some vagueness in
+memory and the meaning of images.
+
+Data are not those things of which our consciousness is earliest in
+time. At every period of life, after we have become capable of thought,
+some of our beliefs are obtained by inference, while others are not.
+A belief may pass from either of these classes into the other, and may
+therefore become, or cease to be, a belief giving a datum. When, in what
+follows, I speak of data, I do not mean the things of which we feel sure
+before scientific study begins, but the things which, when a science
+is well advanced, appear as affording grounds for other parts of
+the science, without themselves being believed on any ground except
+observation. I assume, that is to say, a trained observer, with an
+analytic attention, knowing the sort of thing to look for, and the sort
+of thing that will be important. What he observes is, at the stage of
+science which he has reached, a datum for his science. It is just as
+sophisticated and elaborate as the theories which he bases upon it,
+since only trained habits and much practice enable a man to make
+the kind of observation that will be scientifically illuminating.
+Nevertheless, when once it has been observed, belief in it is not based
+on inference and reasoning, but merely upon its having been seen. In
+this way its logical status differs from that of the theories which are
+proved by its means.
+
+In any science other than psychology the datum is primarily a
+perception, in which only the sensational core is ultimately and
+theoretically a datum, though some such accretions as turn the sensation
+into a perception are practically unavoidable. But if we postulate an
+ideal observer, he will be able to isolate the sensation, and treat this
+alone as datum. There is, therefore, an important sense in which we
+may say that, if we analyse as much as we ought, our data, outside
+psychology, consist of sensations, which include within themselves
+certain spatial and temporal relations.
+
+Applying this remark to physiology, we see that the nerves and brain
+as physical objects are not truly data; they are to be replaced, in
+the ideal structure of science, by the sensations through which the
+physiologist is said to perceive them. The passage from these sensations
+to nerves and brain as physical objects belongs really to the initial
+stage in the theory of physics, and ought to be placed in the reasoned
+part, not in the part supposed to be observed. To say we see the
+nerves is like saying we hear the nightingale; both are convenient but
+inaccurate expressions. We hear a sound which we believe to be causally
+connected with the nightingale, and we see a sight which we believe
+to be causally connected with a nerve. But in each case it is only
+the sensation that ought, in strictness, to be called a datum. Now,
+sensations are certainly among the data of psychology. Therefore all the
+data of the physical sciences are also psychological data. It remains
+to inquire whether all the data of psychology are also data of physical
+science, and especially of physiology.
+
+If we have been right in our analysis of mind, the ultimate data of
+psychology are only sensations and images and their relations. Beliefs,
+desires, volitions, and so on, appeared to us to be complex phenomena
+consisting of sensations and images variously interrelated. Thus (apart
+from certain relations) the occurrences which seem most distinctively
+mental, and furthest removed from physics, are, like physical objects,
+constructed or inferred, not part of the original stock of data in the
+perfected science. From both ends, therefore, the difference between
+physical and psychological data is diminished. Is there ultimately
+no difference, or do images remain as irreducibly and exclusively
+psychological? In view of the causal definition of the difference
+between images and sensations, this brings us to a new question, namely:
+Are the causal laws of psychology different from those of any other
+science, or are they really physiological?
+
+Certain ambiguities must be removed before this question can be
+adequately discussed.
+
+First, there is the distinction between rough approximate laws and
+such as appear to be precise and general. I shall return to the former
+presently; it is the latter that I wish to discuss now.
+
+Matter, as defined at the end of Lecture V, is a logical fiction,
+invented because it gives a convenient way of stating causal laws.
+Except in cases of perfect regularity in appearances (of which we can
+have no experience), the actual appearances of a piece of matter are not
+members of that ideal system of regular appearances which is defined
+as being the matter in question. But the matter is, after all, inferred
+from its appearances, which are used to VERIFY physical laws. Thus, in
+so far as physics is an empirical and verifiable science, it must assume
+or prove that the inference from appearances to matter is, in general,
+legitimate, and it must be able to tell us, more or less, what
+appearances to expect. It is through this question of verifiability and
+empirical applicability to experience that we are led to a theory of
+matter such as I advocate. From the consideration of this question it
+results that physics, in so far as it is an empirical science, not a
+logical phantasy, is concerned with particulars of just the same sort
+as those which psychology considers under the name of sensations. The
+causal laws of physics, so interpreted, differ from those of psychology
+only by the fact that they connect a particular with other appearances
+in the same piece of matter, rather than with other appearances in the
+same perspective. That is to say, they group together particulars having
+the same "active" place, while psychology groups together those having
+the same "passive" place. Some particulars, such as images, have no
+"active" place, and therefore belong exclusively to psychology.
+
+We can now understand the distinction between physics and psychology.
+The nerves and brain are matter: our visual sensations when we look
+at them may be, and I think are, members of the system constituting
+irregular appearances of this matter, but are not the whole of the
+system. Psychology is concerned, inter alia, with our sensations when we
+see a piece of matter, as opposed to the matter which we see. Assuming,
+as we must, that our sensations have physical causes, their causal laws
+are nevertheless radically different from the laws of physics, since
+the consideration of a single sensation requires the breaking up of
+the group of which it is a member. When a sensation is used to verify
+physics, it is used merely as a sign of a certain material phenomenon,
+i.e. of a group of particulars of which it is a member. But when it is
+studied by psychology, it is taken away from that group and put
+into quite a different context, where it causes images or voluntary
+movements. It is primarily this different grouping that is
+characteristic of psychology as opposed to all the physical sciences,
+including physiology; a secondary difference is that images, which
+belong to psychology, are not easily to be included among the aspects
+which constitute a physical thing or piece of matter.
+
+There remains, however, an important question, namely: Are mental events
+causally dependent upon physical events in a sense in which the converse
+dependence does not hold? Before we can discuss the answer to this
+question, we must first be clear as to what our question means.
+
+When, given A, it is possible to infer B, but given B, it is not
+possible to infer A, we say that B is dependent upon A in a sense in
+which A is not dependent upon B. Stated in logical terms, this amounts
+to saying that, when we know a many-one relation of A to B, B is
+dependent upon A in respect of this relation. If the relation is a
+causal law, we say that B is causally dependent upon A. The illustration
+that chiefly concerns us is the system of appearances of a physical
+object. We can, broadly speaking, infer distant appearances from near
+ones, but not vice versa. All men look alike when they are a mile away,
+hence when we see a man a mile off we cannot tell what he will look like
+when he is only a yard away. But when we see him a yard away, we can
+tell what he will look like a mile away. Thus the nearer view gives us
+more valuable information, and the distant view is causally dependent
+upon it in a sense in which it is not causally dependent upon the
+distant view.
+
+It is this greater causal potency of the near appearance that leads
+physics to state its causal laws in terms of that system of regular
+appearances to which the nearest appearances increasingly approximate,
+and that makes it value information derived from the microscope or
+telescope. It is clear that our sensations, considered as irregular
+appearances of physical objects, share the causal dependence belonging
+to comparatively distant appearances; therefore in our sensational life
+we are in causal dependence upon physical laws.
+
+This, however, is not the most important or interesting part of our
+question. It is the causation of images that is the vital problem. We
+have seen that they are subject to mnenic causation, and that mnenic
+causation may be reducible to ordinary physical causation in nervous
+tissue. This is the question upon which our attitude must turn towards
+what may be called materialism. One sense of materialism is the view
+that all mental phenomena are causally dependent upon physical phenomena
+in the above-defined sense of causal dependence. Whether this is the
+case or not, I do not profess to know. The question seems to me the
+same as the question whether mnemic causation is ultimate, which we
+considered without deciding in Lecture IV. But I think the bulk of the
+evidence points to the materialistic answer as the more probable.
+
+In considering the causal laws of psychology, the distinction between
+rough generalizations and exact laws is important. There are many rough
+generalizations in psychology, not only of the sort by which we
+govern our ordinary behaviour to each other, but also of a more nearly
+scientific kind. Habit and association belong among such laws. I will
+give an illustration of the kind of law that can be obtained. Suppose a
+person has frequently experienced A and B in close temporal contiguity,
+an association will be established, so that A, or an image of A, tends
+to cause an image of B. The question arises: will the association work
+in either direction, or only from the one which has occurred earlier
+to the one which has occurred later? In an article by Mr. Wohlgemuth,
+called "The Direction of Associations" ("British Journal of Psychology,"
+vol. v, part iv, March, 1913), it is claimed to be proved by experiment
+that, in so far as motor memory (i.e. memory of movements) is concerned,
+association works only from earlier to later, while in visual and
+auditory memory this is not the case, but the later of two neighbouring
+experiences may recall the earlier as well as the earlier the later.
+It is suggested that motor memory is physiological, while visual and
+auditory memory are more truly psychological. But that is not the point
+which concerns us in the illustration. The point which concerns us
+is that a law of association, established by purely psychological
+observation, is a purely psychological law, and may serve as a sample
+of what is possible in the way of discovering such laws. It is, however,
+still no more than a rough generalization, a statistical average. It
+cannot tell us what will result from a given cause on a given occasion.
+It is a law of tendency, not a precise and invariable law such as those
+of physics aim at being.
+
+If we wish to pass from the law of habit, stated as a tendency or
+average, to something more precise and invariable, we seem driven to the
+nervous system. We can more or less guess how an occurrence produces a
+change in the brain, and how its repetition gradually produces something
+analogous to the channel of a river, along which currents flow more
+easily than in neighbouring paths. We can perceive that in this way, if
+we had more knowledge, the tendency to habit through repetition might
+be replaced by a precise account of the effect of each occurrence
+in bringing about a modification of the sort from which habit would
+ultimately result. It is such considerations that make students of
+psychophysiology materialistic in their methods, whatever they may be in
+their metaphysics. There are, of course, exceptions, such as Professor
+J. S. Haldane,* who maintains that it is theoretically impossible to
+obtain physiological explanations of psychical phenomena, or physical
+explanations of physiological phenomena. But I think the bulk of expert
+opinion, in practice, is on the other side.
+
+     *See his book, "The New Physiology and Other Addresses"
+     (Charles Griffin & Co., 1919).
+
+The question whether it is possible to obtain precise causal laws in
+which the causes are psychological, not material, is one of detailed
+investigation. I have done what I could to make clear the nature of the
+question, but I do not believe that it is possible as yet to answer it
+with any confidence. It seems to be by no means an insoluble question,
+and we may hope that science will be able to produce sufficient grounds
+for regarding one answer as much more probable than the other. But for
+the moment I do not see how we can come to a decision.
+
+I think, however, on grounds of the theory of matter explained in
+Lectures V and VII, that an ultimate scientific account of what goes on
+in the world, if it were ascertainable, would resemble psychology rather
+than physics in what we found to be the decisive difference between
+them. I think, that is to say, that such an account would not be content
+to speak, even formally, as though matter, which is a logical fiction,
+were the ultimate reality. I think that, if our scientific knowledge
+were adequate to the task, which it neither is nor is likely to become,
+it would exhibit the laws of correlation of the particulars constituting
+a momentary condition of a material unit, and would state the causal
+laws* of the world in terms of these particulars, not in terms of
+matter. Causal laws so stated would, I believe, be applicable to
+psychology and physics equally; the science in which they were stated
+would succeed in achieving what metaphysics has vainly attempted, namely
+a unified account of what really happens, wholly true even if not the
+whole of truth, and free from all convenient fictions or unwarrantable
+assumptions of metaphysical entities. A causal law applicable to
+particulars would count as a law of physics if it could be stated in
+terms of those fictitious systems of regular appearances which are
+matter; if this were not the case, it would count as a law of psychology
+if one of the particulars were a sensation or an image, i.e. were
+subject to mnemic causation. I believe that the realization of the
+complexity of a material unit, and its analysis into constituents
+analogous to sensations, is of the utmost importance to philosophy, and
+vital for any understanding of the relations between mind and matter,
+between our perceptions and the world which they perceive. It is in this
+direction, I am convinced, that we must look for the solution of many
+ancient perplexities.
+
+     * In a perfected science, causal laws will take the form of
+     differential equations--or of finite-difference equations,
+     if the theory of quanta should prove correct.
+
+It is probable that the whole science of mental occurrences, especially
+where its initial definitions are concerned, could be simplified by the
+development of the fundamental unifying science in which the causal laws
+of particulars are sought, rather than the causal laws of those systems
+of particulars that constitute the material units of physics. This
+fundamental science would cause physics to become derivative, in the
+sort of way in which theories of the constitution of the atom make
+chemistry derivative from physics; it would also cause psychology to
+appear less singular and isolated among sciences. If we are right in
+this, it is a wrong philosophy of matter which has caused many of the
+difficulties in the philosophy of mind--difficulties which a right
+philosophy of matter would cause to disappear.
+
+The conclusions at which we have arrived may be summed up as follows:
+
+I. Physics and psychology are not distinguished by their material. Mind
+and matter alike are logical constructions; the particulars out of which
+they are constructed, or from which they are inferred, have various
+relations, some of which are studied by physics, others by psychology.
+Broadly speaking, physics group particulars by their active places,
+psychology by their passive places.
+
+II. The two most essential characteristics of the causal laws which
+would naturally be called psychological are SUBJECTIVITY and MNEMIC
+CAUSATION; these are not unconnected, since the causal unit in mnemic
+causation is the group of particulars having a given passive place at
+a given time, and it is by this manner of grouping that subjectivity is
+defined.
+
+III. Habit, memory and thought are all developments of mnemic causation.
+It is probable, though not certain, that mnemic causation is derivative
+from ordinary physical causation in nervous (and other) tissue.
+
+IV. Consciousness is a complex and far from universal characteristic of
+mental phenomena.
+
+V. Mind is a matter of degree, chiefly exemplified in number and
+complexity of habits.
+
+VI. All our data, both in physics and psychology, are subject to
+psychological causal laws; but physical causal laws, at least in
+traditional physics, can only be stated in terms of matter, which is
+both inferred and constructed, never a datum. In this respect psychology
+is nearer to what actually exists.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Analysis of Mind, by Bertrand Russell
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