290 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



referred to, it is admitted that in modern psychology, i.e., 

 in the methodical study of the phenomena of the inner 

 life, we can dispense with that time - honoured word. 

 Psychology, instead of being the doctrine of the soul or of 

 the mind, is now variously described as a treatment of 

 the individual human self, as a study of the things of the 

 inner world, as that of the normal flow of consciousness, 

 of the unity of thinking, feeling, and willing, or, lastly, as 

 the science of individual experience. All these definitions, 

 if we contrast them with those that were in use in the 

 older treatises of the soul, agree in this, that the object 

 of psychology is not a definite thing, but a series of 

 occurrences or happenings which make up the continuous 

 stream of our conscious life; more or less importance 

 being at the same time attached to the intervals or the 

 background of unconsciousness, and the breaks in the 

 continuity by which the conscious and continuous flow 

 is accompanied or interrupted. 



Secondly, the older conceptions, which divided the 



subjective unity of mind into different faculties or the 



objective field into separate sensations or ideas, have been 



abandoned; it being more and more recognised that 



thinking, feeling, and willing are not in reality distinctly 



marked off, but that they proceed through continual 



es. interchange, alternation, and blending. In two distinct 



on activity directions modern psychological treatises stand in a 



and feeling. 



marked contrast to the earlier ones. The intellectual 

 process is now generally conceived as being dependent 

 quite as much on the active as on the receptive functions 

 of the human mind. And, so far as feeling is concerned, 

 it now receives much more attention from psychologists 



