252 CONSCIOUSNESS AND EXPERIENCE 



point of departure, that prescribed the problem 

 and that set the limits, physical as well as intel 

 lectual, of subsequent investigation. Reference to 

 function makes the details discovered other than a 

 jumble of incoherent trivialities. One might as 

 well devote himself to the minute description of a 

 square yard of desert soil were it not for this trans 

 lation. States of consciousness are the morphol 

 ogy of certain functions. 1 What is true of anal 

 ysis, of description, is true equally of classifica 

 tion. Knowing, willing, feeling, name states of 

 consciousness not in terms of themselves, but in 

 terms of acts, attitudes, found in experience. 2 



1 Thus to divorce &quot; structure psychology &quot; from &quot; function 

 psychology &quot; is to leave us without possibility of scientific 



7 comprehension of function, while it deprives us of all 

 standard of reference in selecting, observing, and explaining 

 the structure. 



2 The following answer may fairly be anticipated: &quot;This 

 is true of the operations cited, but only because complex 

 processes have been selected. Such a term as knowing 

 does of course express a function involving a system of 

 intricate references. But, for that very reason, we go back 

 to the sensation which is the genuine type of the state 

 of consciousness as such, pure and unadulterate and un 

 sophisticated.&quot; The point is large for a footnote, but the 

 following considerations are instructive: (1) The same 

 psychologist will go on to inform us that sensations, as 

 we experience them, are networks of reference they are 

 perceptual, and more or less conceptual even. From which 

 it would appear that whatever else they are or are not, 

 the sensations, for which self -inclosed existence is claimed, 

 are not states of consciousness. And (2) we are told that 



