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PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



troducing a difference of subordination in the place 

 of that of co-ordination. In the course of subsequent 

 thought and analysis it has become gradually clear that 

 the difference is not one of higher and lower, nor of 

 more or less certainty, but that the difference is one 

 of exactness or of definition. 



Some of our sensations appear to be localised in space, 

 and are accordingly capable of greater definition and 

 exactness. They form a large portion of what we term 

 the experience of our outer or bodily senses. Compared 

 with these, the remainder of our experience of the outer 

 or bodily senses, as well as the whole of the experience 

 of our inner sense, is less defined and less permanent, 

 but all experiences are equally immediate and self- 

 evident : in fact, they together form our world of 

 experience or the phenomenal world ; all that we 

 know of reality. Neither of the two, neither the 

 defined nor the undefined, ever occurs alone : they are 

 continually inter-mixed, forming, as it were, the warp 

 and woof of our mental structure ; and it is only for 

 very special purposes that we pluck them asunder. 



The object of science and philosophy being to make 

 things clearer, more definite and communicable, progress 

 depends to a large extent upon eliminating, in our 

 picture of the world, those traits which are not capable 

 of exact definition, reducing the actually knowable more 

 and more to a small number of exact and well-defined 

 differences. 1 



1 It is a process of selection 

 which begins in our infancy with 

 the aid of memory, attention, and 

 intersubjective intercourse. These 



break up what James Ward terms 

 "the original continuum of pres- 

 entations " (sensory and motor), 

 and William James the " stream of 



