Ixxxii INTRODUCTION 



perceptions, reasoning, memory, will, etc. We cannot 

 straight away explain them ; and hence we immediately postu- 

 late an entity called " mind," of which they are special states. 

 To the physiologist, the additional entity merely cumbers 

 the ground : it explains nothing : it stands in the way of 

 true physiological explanations of those " mental pro- 

 cesses " : and, worst perhaps of all, it litters up the whole 

 subject with a false system of terminology. The very name 

 " mental process," which I am compelled to use, implies a 

 process of an entity called mind, whose existence I am 

 compelled to deny. When once false ideas become current 

 in any subject, the terminology of that subject becomes 

 correspondingly false. The false ideas become frozen into 

 a permanent language : and their displacement is far more 

 difficult than in a fluid condition. 



The influence of language upon thought is largely, I should 

 suppose, in the direction which it inevitably gives to the 

 attention of the student. When he comes fresh to the new 

 subject, all is disorder and confusion. The terminology 

 comprises, however, a system of names which indicate or 

 should indicate the prominent and significant facts and 

 principles to be noted in reducing the subject to order. Now, 

 if that terminology is wrong, the whole subject will be 

 wrongly focussed : what should be prominent remains 

 unnoticed : what is really insignificant is held to be an 

 important foundation principle : the attention is wrongly 

 directed throughout. 



These remarks apply with overwhelming force to psycho- 

 logy. Until recent times, the relative importance of different 

 sections of the subject were grossly misinterpreted. The 

 accents were all on the wrong parts. People gaped at the 

 problem of free-will and determinism : they thought it a 

 fundamental and genuine issue : they ranged themselves as 

 free-willists and necessitarians. In point of fact, the problem 

 is neither fundamental nor genuine : it does not even indicate 

 a true cleavage of opinion among philosophers. It is a 

 factitious paradox, as foolish as that of Achilles and the 



