OF THE SOUL. 



279 



deals with the facts of consciousness, meaning by con- 

 sciousness the individual self. To avoid falling back 

 into a discussion of abstract consciousness, the ob- 

 ject of consciousness is defined as that continuum of 

 (sensory and motor) presentations which to every person 

 constitutes his actual self, as known by him. By in- 

 troducing this term in the place of the more famil- 

 iar expressions such as soul, mind, consciousness, ideas, 

 &c., the various tendencies of older psychologies to 

 become metaphysical, abstract, or intellectualistic, are 

 guarded against. Further, by speaking of feeling, know- 

 ing, and doing, instead of the intellect and the will, the 

 older faculty-psychology is avoided ; the conception of a 

 continuum, instead of that of separate sensations and ideas, 

 guards the psychologist against that atomistic conception 

 of the mental life which was common to the association- 

 psychology in England, and to the psychology of the 

 school of Herbart abroad. 1 It is characteristic of Ward 



we lose sight of the wood among 

 the trees " (p. 366) : and he there 

 puts forward the view, afterwards 

 elaborated by him, that in every 

 concrete "state of mind" there is 

 presentation of an object or com- 

 plex of objects to a subject ; this 

 presentation entailing, on the part 

 of the subject, both attention and 

 change of feeling (i.e., pleasure or 

 pain). By "subject" in this con- 

 nection, he proposes to " denote the 

 simple fact that everything mental 

 is referred to a self" (p. 368) ; but 

 adds that " it must be allowed that 

 the attempt to legitimate this con- 

 ception as a constituent element 

 of experience is as much beyond 

 the range of psychology as the 

 attempt to invalidate it even as 

 a formal or regulative conception. 

 If Hume is wrong on the one side, 



Reid is equally at fault on the 

 other" (p. 369). 



1 Although the metaphysical con- 

 ception of the soul is discarded, 

 there remains in Ward's funda- 

 mental psychological position the 

 primary dualism of subject and 

 object ; the former as a central and 

 uniting point of reference, the " I " 

 of our language as the knowing, 

 feeling, and willing subject which 

 in and through this knowing, feel- 

 ing, and willing is connected with 

 and stands over against its sensory 

 or motor-presentations or objects. 

 Through this scheme the atomising 

 tendency of the older faculty-psy- 

 chology, which analysed the one 

 subject into a variety of distinct 

 powers or forces, is quite as much 

 avoided as, on the other side, 

 through the idea of the continuum 



