§ 80. Illusions of Recognition and Memory. — Illusory memories and recognitions are of two kinds: we may re- member or recognise something which is really unfamiliar to us, and we may fail to recognise or remember some- thing which was once familiar. Both types of illusion are quite common.
Most people have had experience of what is called para- mnesia, — a 'feeling' that 'this has all happened before,' which continues in spite of the knowledge that the experi- ence is novel. Various explanations have been offered of the phenomenon. The simplest appears to be the follow- ing. Certain part-processes of the novel experience are in- definitely recognised; they are vaguely supplemented, and evoke the recognitive mood. The vague supplementary ideas are checked, forced out of consciousness, by the knowledge that the situation has not occurred in previous 286 Recognition^ Memory and Imccgination experience; but the verbal supplement ' familiar ' still per- sists, and carries with it the mood of ' at home.'
On the other hand, we fail to recognise or to remember an impression or situation because we have * forgotten ' it; i.e.^ because its connections with other ideas, at the time of its presentation, were not often enough repeated, did not attract the attention, did not fit in with our mental constitution, etc. (§ 55). We do not remember the events of our early childhood, partly because our mental constitu- tion was of the * scatter-brained ' type, and no impression held the attention for any long time or with any degree of power, but more especially because they occurred before we had learned to speak fluently, i.e., before they could be fixed in our minds by verbal association, and so constantly repeated in verbal form.
CHAPTER XII Self-consciousness and Intellection § 8 1. Self-consciousness. — A 'self,' in the psychological meaning of the term, is a mind; the mind which is given together with an individual body, and whose constitution is determined by that body. My ' self ' is the sum total of conscious processes which run their course under the conditions laid down by my bodily tendencies. Selfhood, that is, is the special and peculiar way in which the processes of an individual mind are arranged, in which they hold together or break apart, follow or accompany one another. The meaning of ' self ' includes the mean- ings of 'mind' and of 'mental constitution,' and at the same time makes these meanings very definite: the * mind ' is thought of as consisting not merely of ' ideas,' 'feelings,' etc., but of tJicsc ideas and those feelings; and the ' mental constitution ' is thought of not as a general 'reasonableness' or ' sanguineness,' but as the familiar and especial reasonableness or sanguineness of a jDartic- ular man.
It is the combination of these two meanings in the same word that makes it possible for us to say that every individual is a different self. The raw materials of all normal minds are the same: a certain limited number of sensations and affections. Regarded as minds, then, all normal minds are alike. But regarded as selves, they 288 Self -Consciousness and Intellection differ in two ways. In the first place, no two mental constitutions are precisely similar; the ' shape ' of one man's mind (§ 35) is never exactly like his neighbour's. And secondly, though two men may be so far alike mentally that we are obliged to speak of their mental con- stitutions as the same, — although the bodily moulds in which their mental experience is run are so far similar that we speak of both their memories as ' logical ' and both their temperaments as 'phlegmatic,' — yet the con- crete processes of which their minds are made up are dissimilar. The fact that they are born at different times, or brought up in different homes, is enough to give the stamp of individuality to the groupings of sen- sations and affections of which their consciousnesses are composed.
My 'self,' then, is my mind conceived of as working in my way. A self-consciousness is a consciousness in which the idea of such a psychological self occupies the princi- pal place, — is, as it were, the centre of interest to which all the other components of that consciousness are referred, and from which they receive a special significance. The problem which self-consciousness sets us is, therefore, twofold: How does one come to have an idea of one's own mind, and of the way in which its workings differ from those of other minds } And of what part-processes is the idea of self, as it appears in the normal conscious- ness, ordinarily composed 1 The second question is the easier of the two to answer. There are certain mental processes which come to the forefront of consciousness whenever I think of myself, which are the invariable constituents of a self-conscious- ness. These processes are common, organic and cutaneous sensations (pressures, pains, temperatures, strains, respir- atory sensations, etc.); the visual picture of my body, in some characteristic attitude and dress; and the verbal idea of ' I ' or ' my.' The reason for the prominence of these processes is not far to seek. The organic sensations remain, for the most part, practically unchanged, through- out the life of the organism, neither advancing nor degen- erating. Very few of them rise to the level of ideas (§ 51); they are not a medium of communication, as sights and sounds are; they are able to attract the attention more exclusively than is usual among sensations, — in other words, they have an unusually strong affective tone, and so are liable to be swamped in feelings (§ 56); they are * subjective ' processes, not representative of objects or processes of the world outside our own body. The visual picture of the body or of parts of it is, also, always with us; we cannot escape from it. And ' I ' or ' my ' is the verbal associate of both these sets of processes.
The remaining contents of the idea of self may vary within wide limits. Thus the idea may be that of the total self, or of some partial self, my national, social or professional self, or my moral, rehgious or scientific self. Each of these ideas will con- tain a different group of reproductions, or a different set of verbal supplements; though the core of all — the essential components of the idea of self — remains the same.
The idea of self is rendered exceedingly stable by the constant repetition of the connections among its components. It is further cemented, welded together, by pleasantness and unpleasantness. Those who can recall the dawning of self-consciousness in their own Hfe assert that the experience has its root in an intense pain (common sensation and unpleasantness) or an intense pleasure. And in the adult Hfe, the self-idea, except when called up for purposes of psychological or philosophical examination, is hardly 290 Self -Consciousness and Intellection ever indifferent. It is often coloured by a strongly affective senti- ment; perhaps by vanity or pride (pleasant), perhaps by shame or remorse (unpleasant), — according to the circumstances under which it appears. Otherwise, it rests upon a background of affect- ive temperament: one thinks of oneself with self-satisfaction or self-depreciation. In popular parlance, ' self-consciousness ' denotes a temperament of this kind, a conceited or bashful dis- position.
The idea of self is plainly not an idea in the precise sense in which we defined that term (§51). It is rather a complex of ideas and sensations \ a simultaneous association, any part of which can be brought into prominence by the attention. Its complexity is shown by the fact that we speak of a self ' consciousness ' as well as of the 'idea 'of self. Nevertheless, the close connection of its components, and its singleness of meaning, lead us to term it an ' idea.'
Complexes of this sort are sometimes called aggt^egate ideas. We have already had illustrations of the part played by aggregate ideas in the mental life: the complexes which are disjoined by the attention in judgment and constructive imagination are aggre- gate ideas.
At this point we are met by a new difficulty. An idea is, by definition, the conscious representative of an object or process of the physical world. Surely, then, our ter- minology is wrong; for the ' idea of self ' seems to be the idea of our inside world. Apparently, we must either give up our definition or admit that the ' idea ' of self is not an idea at all.
We may, however, find a means of escape from this dilemma by attempting to solve the first of the two prob- lems set us by self-consciousness: How do we come to have the ' self -idea ' at all t If we can discover the way in which this complex is put together, our explanation may help us to decide whether there is any justification for calUng it an ' idea ' or not. We pass, then, to the iirst of our two questions.
How do we come to have an idea of our * self ' } — We must remember that the individual human being: is born into a society, and passes his life in a society. We obtain an idea of our mental constitution by noticing the differences that exist between those about us, and by hearing from them how they look upon us (§ 35). In the same way, we obtain an idea of our self, in the first instance, from parents, teachers and companions. From the time when we begin to understand the words spoken in our hearing, we are familiar with the term 'mind,' with the fact that minds differ, and with the use of personal names or pronouns to denote the different persons to whom these minds are ascribed. Under these conditions, it is possible to 'objectify' oneself, to imagine how one looks, thinks, acts, etc., as if the self were really some- thing apart, something of the same kind as the objects or processes of one's physical surroundings. When we have an idea of self, the self is, so to speak, projected outwards into the world, and there surveyed. The idea of the internal world is projected into the external world, and only thus does it become an idea.
We have a parallel to this process of objectifying or projection not only in the idea of mental constitution, but also in that of We said that the solitary botanist of § 35 would never know that he had a leaning to the study of plants, that there was any difference between ' human consciousness ' and ' botanist's con- sciousness.' He would never form an idea of mental constitution. He might, however, — and this is implied in the use of the phrase 292 Self-Consciousness and Intellection ' human consciousness ' in that Section, — form some sort of idea of himself. Although he is not in the company of other human beings, he is in that of animals. And we find that primitive man looks upon his whole environment as man-like; that he anthro- pomorphises, i.e., makes men of, not only his fellow-men, but animals, plants and inanimate objects as well.
The question how the idea of self first took shape, how it arose in primitive society, is one for the anthropological psychologist (§5) to answer. It is evidently a different question from that which we have attempted to answer in the text. The child born into a civilised society, finds the idea of self ready-made, in the minds of his elders, and accepts it from them. Our chief concern is with the adult normal consciousness of civilised man, and it would take us too far from our topic if we should try to show in detail how the idea of self first arose. We may, however, note roughly the stages in its formation.
The individual in a primitive society is, as a rule, too closely connected with his family or clansmen to form a very clear idea of his individual self. But he is, and he is looked upon as an in- dependent centre or source of action. He boasts of his prowess, and his fellows praise him; the tribe wants food, and he has his own place in the tribal hunt or raid; he is skilled in some special handicraft, and the rest resort to him to supply them with its prod- ucts. Last, but not least, he is named; he has, perhaps, a title descriptive of his courage or skill, or derived from some striking event in his life, — a nickname, — in addition to his tribal name. All these incidents are, as mental experiences, strongly affective. They give us the materials for the formation of a professional or social self-idea; and it is only a matter of time for this to be re- fined to the idea of the individual self. Each man is a self; his selfhood is brought home to him, sooner or later, as he mixes with his fellow-men or struggles with natural forces, and the self-idea, once formed, is confirmed, as it were soldered together into an indissoluble whole, by pleasantness or unpleasantness.
We may recall here the statement of § 36 that "belief in the activity or spontaneity of mind is almost universal." What has just been said helps us to understand the persistence of this behef; it is as old as man, a belief ingrained in humanity. Indeed, there can be no doubt that if we were called upon to define the ' I ' which is the verbal expression of our idea of self, to say what we mean by it in ordinary conversation, we should have to confess that we think, not of the peculiar way in which our mental experience hangs together, but of a thing, a permanent and active something which lives within our body and directs its movements. Yet in- trospection reveals no trace of this ' thing '; and introspection is more worthy of credence than is an unreasoned belief. Fortu- nately, we need not let ourselves be misled, as psychologists, by habits of thought and forms of expression. The astronomer speaks of a ' sunset,' just as if he were ignorant of astronomy; but his con- formity to custom does not interfere with his having an accurate knowledge of the true nature of the phenomenon. Similarly in general conversation, we may continue to use the words ' I ' and ' self in their ordinary meaning; but as psychologists we must put a different interpretation upon them.
§ 82. Intellection. — The psychology of sensation and its derivatives is often spoken of as the psychology of the * intellect.' We have been dealing with the intellect, then, in our discussions of sensation, of perception or idea, of the association of ideas, of memory and imagination, and of the idea of self..
The v^ord ' intellection ' is used in a narrower sense, to cover certain intellectual processes, certain associations and the formation of certain ideas, which make their appearance in consciousness only at an advanced stage of mental devel- opment. The most elementary form of intellection, in this meaning of the term, is judgment (§ 54). Other intel- lectual processes, which we have not yet discussed, are conception or the formation of concepts, and reasoning or relating. Further, all intellection involves two processes, which we have described, but not described under their 294 Self-Co7tsciousness and Intellection special names: comparison or discrimination, and abstrac- tion.
The older psychology, from which we have received the terms * association,' ' memory,' etc., divided the discussion of mind into three great chapters, which it entitled Intellect, Feeling and Will, and looked upon each of these chapters as concerned with a mental faculty or power. Intellect was the power to understand; will the power to choose, act, etc. Modern psychology has kept the three terms, but uses them merely for purposes of classifica- tion. Thus intellect embraces all those processes enumerated above; feeling covers affection, feeling, emotion, mood, passion, temperament, sentiment; will includes conation, attention, volun- tary action.
The ' faculty psychology ' may very well be compared with the older '■ vitalistic ' physiology. The older physiologists believed in a special vital force or power, — the power of living. When a wound healed, it was supposed to heal because the organism pos- sessed enough of this vital force to resist the injury. We should say to-day that life is the general name for a number of com- plicated physical and chemical processes, not an added principle, a mysterious something over and above them. Similarly, we no longer think of mind as something apart from mental processes, and of intellect, feehng and will as faculties with which this some- thing is endowed. Mind is a sum of mental processes; and intel- lect, feeling and will are subdivisions of mind, special groups of the processes contained in the sum.
§ 83. The Formation of Concepts. — We have seen that the typical memory-idea is a reproduction of a previous, peripherally aroused idea; but that it is inevitable, as time goes on, that the reproduction should cease to be entirely accurate. In the first place, lapse of time blurs the out- lines and obscures the qualities of the reproduction; and, secondly, mental experience is so complex that the con- stituents of every idea will have formed connections, more or less numerous, with the constituents of other ideas. If I had seen a cat for the first time ten years ago, and had never seen another, my present memory of the animal would not be very trustworthy: the image would have faded, the reproductive supplements of the word ' cat ' would have grown indefinite. As it is, I see hundreds of cats in ten years; so that my mental picture of that i:)articular cat — unless the animal had certain very striking character- istics — is not a true memory at all, but a reproductive imagination.
It is clear that, other things equal, a blurred reproduc- tion will be more often aroused by a present idea than a very definite reproduction would be. When I see a lion- cub, I am at once reminded of a cat; the reproductive idea of ' cat ' is vague enough to be called up by the present idea of the cub. If the reproductive cat-idea had been photographically accurate, the chances of its recall would have been much less. Differences of colour, of form, of attitude, of precision of movement, etc., might well have sufficed to prevent the formation of the connection lion- cub — cat.
A reproductive idea of this kind, a blurred reproduction, which is liable to be recalled by a large number of differ- ent ideas, peripherally aroused, is called in psychology an abstract idea. It has been compared to what is termed a * composite photograph.' If we wish to get a typical face, — the typical face of a statesman, or a soldier, or a stu- dent, or a consumptive, or a dement, — we photograph a number of individual faces upon the same sensitive plate. Thus the composite photograph of ten students would be obtained by photographing each in turn upon the same plate, giving him one-tenth of the normal exposure-time 296 Self 'Consciousness and Intellection required by the plate. As a result, we obtain a picture in which the resemblances are emphasised and the differences slurred. The abstract idea of a cat, on this analogy, is a reproduction in which all the cat-resemblances are empha- sised, and all the cat-differences left faint and obscure.
Now there can be no doubt that the abstract idea might take this form in an * all-round ' mind, a mind which was equally well developed in all its sense departments. But it is not the form which the idea does take, as a matter of fact, in the average consciousness. The photographic plate is impartial; it gives equal attention, so to speak, to every detail of the picture before it. The organism, on the contrary, is always biassed; it gives more attention to some constituents of an idea than to others. My abstract idea of a cat, therefore, is a composite photograph only of those cat-attributes which have caught my attention; it is more like an impressionist sketch of a cat — the sketch of some particular artist, throwing into relief the particular characteristics which have ' struck ' him — than like a composite photograph of some hundred cats.
In other and more technical words: the abstract idea takes shape as the second term in a large number of associations after disjunction. A complex is presented: I disjoin it, by help of the attention, — dividing at this or that point, as my mental constitution dictates, — and then rejoin what I have dissociated. The abstract idea is made up of the common elements which have attracted the attention in a large number of complexes.
t Thus our abstract idea of * hotel ' (§ 54) is made up of all those processes which represent what our experience has taught us to look upon as the peculiar hotel-attributes. The idea will differ in different minds, since hotel-experiences differ. And our own § 83. TJie Foiination of Concepts 297 abstract idea will vary as our experience broadens. — Thus one abstract idea may consist of reproductions of a monotonous regularity of structure, cold, scant attendance, exorbitant prices: these will be the elements which have attracted the attention in a large number of residences at hotels. Another may consist of reproductions of luxurious furniture, obsequious service, moderate charges: these will be the part-processes disjoined by the atten- tion from a number of total hotel- experiences.
We defined an idea (§ 51) as the conscious representative of a single object or process in the outside world. The idea of self has already forced us to modify our definition a little: that ' idea ' is, in strictness, a simultaneous association of ideas and sensations. Nevertheless, we found reasons for letting it pass as an idea (§ 81). The same thing holds of the abstract idea. It is not, in strictness, an idea, but a complex, made up of residua from many ideas: it corresponds not to a single object or process, but to a large number of objects or processes in the outside world. Unfortunately, ' idea ' is the only term in current use which we can employ to designate it. It has been proposed to call it a ' recept ': we /-frceive objects, and r<?ceive their salient features into our minds. But it is not probable that this word will oust the phrase ' abstract idea.'
When an association after disjunction is an association of verbal ideas, v^e speak of it as a judgment. The abstract verbal idea is termed a concept. The concept, that is, is the predicate-word which is predicable of a large number of subject-words. It is the verbal link which holds a number of particular ideas together.
Thus the '■ I ' which is one of the ingredients in our aggregate idea of ' self ' is a concept. The ' I ' is the link which holds together the various ideas of social position, professional position, scientific attitude, rehgious attitude, etc., contained in the self- idea.
SqB Self -Consciousness and Intellection There are some abstract ideas which would be extremely vague, however accurate the composite photograph of them in conscious- ness, if secondary associations were not employed to give them definiteness. Take, e.g.^ the idea of a minute of time i^cf. § 29). This could be formed only as a composite photograph of all the events which can happen or in our experience have happened within the space of a minute. The photograph would be worthless. In such cases we are either content with the word, the concept, or have recourse to external associations. Thus the author's abstract ideas of a minute and a second of time — the reproduc- tions which carry the meanings of ' minute ' and * second ' when the words themselves are not em- . ployed — are represented in the ^y^ ^*S— ^ accompanying Figure. The visual 'j>'^^^_^..<^ 7 form a, which is the minute idea, ' /& is plainly a blurred reminiscence of CL the seconds' dial of a watch or Fig. 9. clock; and the form b, which represents the second, is the picture of one of the division-marks upon the circumference of the dial. In this case, an experience in early childhood has determined the form of the abstract idea for the rest of life. The sign for a 'second of arc' ("), learned later than the form of the watch- dial, has not been able to change the single stroke, which first meant a second, into two strokes.
There is no lack of experiments to show that the concept, the verbal associate of the abstract idea, is the most prompt and ready supplement of a given impression. We have no doubt that a particular impression is a ' sound '; but we may be very doubt- ful as to its exact nature. We have no doubt that two given impressions are ' different '; but we may be wholly unable to say wherein their difference consists. We have no doubt that a face is ' famihar 'to us; but we may be completely at a loss to de- scribe the circumstances under which it became familiar.
Method. — Set down the points of a pair of drawing compasses upon the skin, as explained in § 44, starting from so small a separation of the points that but a single impression is sensed. Gradually increase the separation, till the two points are distin- guishable. You will find at this stage that though the subject is certain of the duality of the impression (general concept), he is entirely unable to state the direction of the straight line joining the two points (more special concept). — In the same way, cuta- neous movement is perceived sooner than the direction of the movement; a stimulus is cognised as a light stimulus before its specific quality can be made out, etc.
Pathology confirms our position, showing that concepts, which are most often associated to given ideas, are also more firmly attached to them than are any other verbal supplements. When memory begins to fail, with advancing age, it is the concrete words which are first forgotten: personal names, particular names of all kinds. Abstract words, concepts, remain longest of all. It is hardly possible to forget that a certain complex of visual stimuli is a ' man '; it is quite possible to forget that it is ' George.'
§ 84. Reasoning. — Reasoning is the name given to a successive association of judgments. It is thus the verbal counterpart of the reproductive processes involved in con- structive imagination. As total processes, the reproduc- tive associations of the poet or inventor and the verbal associations of the scientific thinker are one and the same: both are a series of associations after disjunction. The dif- ference in the nature of the constituent part-processes, the difference between reproductive and verbal ideas, points simply to a difference of mental constitution.
In every association 'two ideas are brought into connec- tion. When the connection itself has become the object of attention, when, i.e.y we have formed an idea of connec- tion, as distinct from the ideas which are connected, we speak of it as relation. Now reasoning, like the verbal simultaneous association, and like the judgment, has upon 300 Self -Consciousness and Intellection it the mark of completeness, of finality. This plainly means that reasoning, as defined above, is possible only when we have among our available stock of ideas an ex- plicit idea of relation; for unless we know a relation when we see it, we may lengthen out our series of judgments indefinitely, on the pattern of a train of ideas, and pass our goal without realising that we have attained it. Reason- ing, then, implies an idea of relation; an idea which guides us in our argument, as the idea of movement guides us in the performance of an action.
What are the part-processes contained in the idea of relation 1 And how is the idea formed } — The idea may be reproductive or verbal. In the former case, it consists of a picture of certain objects or processes as somehow bound or chained or clamped together; in the latter, sim- ply of the word * relation,' auditory, visual or tactual. The idea is formed very much as the ideas of mind, self and mental constitution are formed. We grow up among people who have the idea of relation; who speak in terms of cause and effect, likeness and difference, substance and attribute, whole and part, etc.
As to the original formation of the idea of relation, in the past history of the human race, we can do no more than speculate. It must be remembered (i) that the relation expressed in the judgment is a relation of parts now dissociated, but originally together in the aggregate idea; and (2) that primitive man looked at everything from an unconsciously anthropomorphic standpoint. Since in judgment the part is drawn out of the whole, the attribute drawn out of the substance, the effect drawn out of the cause, it may be that a pictorial idea of connection or relation took shape at a very early stage of thought. What a man makes or does ' belongs ' to him; that is, his mind lengthens out to it, holds to it, as if by a physical bond. If the § 85. Comparison or Discrimination, and Abstraction 301 clouds are looked on as men who make the rain, the sun as a man who makes the rainbow, etc., this idea of belonging, of being con- nected, might easily assume definite form. From the reproductive or pictorial idea to the verbal, and from the more concrete to the more abstract verbal idea, are steps of no difficulty.
We have indications of the pictorial origin of the idea in the word ^connection' (Lat. nectere, to bind), and in the German 'Beziehung' {ziehen; cf. 'tie') and ' Verhaltniss ' {Jialten; cf. 'hold'). 'Relation' suggests to us that the association is an association after disjunction {re-ferre, to put back again). 'Asso- ciation ' itself emphasises the after, the temporal position of that which is associated {ad-socius, from seqiior, I follow).
§85. Comparison or Discrimination, and Abstraction. —