364 METHODOLOGY OF SCIENCE 



affirmative, and rationalism since Kant has answered it in the nega- 

 tive. 



We, too, have seemingly followed in our discussion the course of 

 empiricism. At least, I find nothing in that discussion which a con- 

 sistent empiricist might not be willing to concede; that is, if he is 

 ready to set aside the psychological investigation of the actual pro- 

 cesses which we here presuppose and make room for a critical analysis 

 of the content of the relation of cause and effect. 1 However, the 



1 The difference between the two points of view can be made clearer by an illus- 

 tration. The case that we shall analyze is the dread of coming into contact with 

 fire. The psychological analysis of this case has to make clear the mental content 

 of the dread and its causes. Such dread becomes possible only when we are aware 

 of the burning that results from contact with fire. We coulcl have learned to be 

 aware of this either immediately through our own experience, or mediately 

 through the communication of others' experience. In both cases it is a matter of 

 one or repeated experiences. In all cases the effects of earlier experiences equal 

 association and recall, which, in turn, result in recognition. The recognition 

 explaining the case under discussion arises thus. The present stimuli of visual 

 perception arouse the retained impressions of previous visual perceptions of fire 

 and give rise to the present perception (apperception) by fusing with them. By 

 a process of interweaving, associations are joined to this perception. The apper- 

 ceptively revived elements which lie at the basis of the content of the perception 

 are interwoven by association with memory elements that retain the additional 

 contents of previous perceptions of fire, viz., the burning, or, again, are interwoven 

 with the memory elements of the communications regarding such burning. By 

 means of this interweaving, the stimulation of the apperceptive element transmits 

 itself to the remaining elements of the association complex. The character of the 

 association is different under different conditions. If it be founded only upon one 

 experience, then there can arise a memory or a recall, in the wider sense, of the 

 foregoing content of the perception and feeling at the time of the burning, or, 

 again, there can arise a revival wherein the stimulated elements of retention remain 

 unconscious. Again, the words of the mother tongue that denote the previous 

 mental content, and which likewise belong to the association complex (the apper- 

 ceiving mass, in the wider sense), can be excited in one of these three forms and 

 in addition as abstract verbal ideas. Each one of these forms of verbal discharge 

 can lead to the innervations of the muscles involved in speech, which bring about 

 some sort of oral expression of judgment. Each of these verbal reproductions can 

 be connected with each of the foregoing sensory (sachlichcri) revivals. Secondly, 

 if the association be founded upon repeated perceptions on the part of the person 

 himself, then all the afore-mentioned possibilities of reproduction become more 

 complicated, and, in addition, the mental revivals contain, more or less, only the 

 common elements of the previous perceptions, i. e., reappear in the form of 

 abstract ideas or their corresponding unconscious modifications. In the third 

 case the association is founded upon a communication of others' experience. For 

 the sake of simplicity, let this case be confined to the following instance. The 

 communication consisted in the assertion: "All fire will burn upon contact." 

 Moreover, this judgment was expressed upon occasion of imminent danger of 

 burning. There can then arise, as is perhaps evident, all the possibilities men- 

 tioned in the second case, only that here there will be a stronger tendency toward 

 verbal reproduction and the sensory reproduction will be less fixed. 



In the first two cases there was connected with the perception of the burning 

 an intense feeling of pain. In the third the idea of such pain added itself to the 

 visual perception of the moment. The associated elements of the earlier mental 

 contents belong likewise to the apperceiving mass excited at the moment, in fact 

 to that part of it excited by means of association processes, or, as we can again say, 

 depending upon the point from which we take our view, the associative or apper- 

 ceptive completion of the content of present perception. If these pain elements 

 are revived as memories, i. e., as elements in consciousness, they give rise to a new 

 disagreeable feeling, which is referred to the possible coming sensation of burning. 

 If _ the mental modifications corresponding to these pain elements remain uncon- 

 scious, as is often possible, there arises none the less the same result as regards our 

 feeling, only with less intensity. This feeling tone we call the dread. 



