12 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY 



main curve AB is always equal to the algebraic sum 

 of the distances between the axis and the other curves. 

 These latter we call the harmonic constituents of the 

 curve AB, supposing them to " add up " so as to form 

 it. But AB was something quite simple and elemental 

 and its constituents cannot be said to have existed 

 in it when we drew it freehand ; it was only by an 

 artifice of practical utility in mathematical computa- 

 tions that we constructed them. It may be, of course, 

 that the harmonic constituents of a curve had actual 

 existence apart from the curve itself, but, in the case 

 that we take, they certainly had not. Now we must 

 think of our stream of consciousness in much the same 

 way. It is something immediately experienced and 

 elementary ; it is the concomitant, if we choose so to 

 regard it, of the external processes that go on outside 

 our bodies. We can investigate it by thinking about 

 it, and attending to one aspect of it after another, 

 thus arbitrarily detaching one " part " of it from all 

 the rest, but immediately we do this we rise above 

 the flux of experience into the region of intellectual 

 concepts. We have converted a multiplicity of states 

 of consciousness, all of which co-exist along with each 

 other, and in each other, and which have no spatial 

 existence, into a multiplicity of states, visual, auditory, 

 olfactory, etc., which have become separated from 

 each other and have therefore acquired extension. 

 This dissociation of the flux of experience is the process 

 of conceptual analysis carried out by thought. 



If we dissociate the stream of consciousness in this 

 way, breaking it up into states which we choose to 

 regard as separate from each other, we shall see that 

 of the elements which we thus isolate many are like 

 each other and can be associated. Obviously there 

 is a greater resemblance between different smells 



