272 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



be the antecedent of processes of which it is notoriously 

 the effect ? In other words, how could the optical lamp 

 influence the retinas and the nerves, since we know that 

 our seeing the lamp as an optical image follows the irrita- 

 tion of these parts of our organisation ? It would be an 

 absurdity. We therefore must not begin our analysis with 

 the " optical " lamp, but must begin it with something else. 

 Certainly a " lamp " may be assumed to exist as the first 

 link of the phenomena in question, but, briefly speaking, it 

 is a "tactile" lamp, tangible say by my left hand; this tactile 

 lamp, as a constituent of immediate Givenness, influences 

 my retina, also taken in the tactile sense, which may be 

 admitted at least in principle. Stimulation of my " tactile " 

 or at least tangible optic nerve follows, and then 

 follows stimulation of my tactile brain, and only at the end 

 of all these processes is the " optical " lamp given to me. 1 

 It is a smoking lamp ; and now this smoking calls forth 

 the whole series of conscious phenomena mentioned before : 

 identification with former cases of smoking, remembrance 

 of their unpleasant effects, desire to stop smoking, remem- 

 brance of past cases of such stopping, of the means to effect 



1 Our whole instance might be reversed, of course: the "optical" lamp 

 might be the beginning of the process studied and the "tactile" lamp the 

 end. In this case all the processes of the nerves and brain would have to be 

 considered as "optical" also. But the whole example would become rather 

 clumsy in this case. A good instance of this class would be a wasp that flies 

 upon my hand and is then removed by " myself." The reader is advised to 

 analyse this example by himself. The phases of the "continuous series" 

 would be these : (1) " Optical," i.e. "seen " wasp ; (2) optical skin affected, i.e. 

 changed ; (3) optical sensory nerve affected ; (4) optical part of brain affected ; 

 (5) " tactile wasp " experienced. All the subsequent phases (identification, 

 association, will, moving the hand) are the same as in our instance dis- 

 cussed in the text. Of course the new instance would force us to assume 

 hypothetically that we can see our nerves and brain at least by means of a 

 mirror. 



