250 CONSCIOUSNESS AND EXPERIENCE 



gist. He is continually and perforce occupied 

 with minute and empirical investigation of special 

 facts states of consciousness, if you please. But 

 these neither define nor exhaust his scientific prob 

 lem. They are his footprints, his clues through 

 which he places before himself the life-process he is 

 studying with the further difference that his foot 

 prints are not after all given to him, but are de 

 veloped by his investigation. 1 



The supposition that these states are somehow 

 existent by themselves and in this existence provide 

 the psychologist with ready-made material is just , 

 the supreme case of the &quot; psychological fallacy &quot; : 

 the confusion of experience as it is to the one ex 

 periencing with what the psychologist makes out 

 of it with his reflective analysis. 



The psychologist begins with certain operations, 

 acts, functions as his data. If these fall out of 



1 This is a fact not without its bearings upon the question 

 of the nature and value of introspection. The objection that 

 introspection &quot; alters &quot; the reality and hence is untrust 

 worthy, most writers dispose of by saying that, after all, it 

 need not alter the reality so very much not beyond repair 

 and that, moreover, memory assists in restoring the ruins. 

 It would be simpler to admit the fact: that the purpose 

 &amp;gt; of introspection is precisely to effect the right sort of altera 

 tion. If introspection should give us the original experi 

 ence again, we should just be living through the experience 

 over again in direct fashion; as psychologists we should not 

 be forwarded one bit. Reflection upon this obvious proposi 

 tion may bring to light various other matters worthy of note. 



