100 MENTAL OPERATIONS IN RELATION TO- TIME. 



absolute synchronism of separate states or acts of mind. 1 

 But despite the difficulties of language the question 

 on which I am writing may again be intelligibly stated. 

 Is it not a more exact as well as simpler conception of 

 mental phenomena to regard their connexion as one of 

 series and succession, rather than of synchronous or co- 

 existing functions ? When the inind is in one distinct 

 state of thought or emotion, can another and different 

 state supervene without removal of the former ? The 

 distinction here cannot be challenged as one of method 

 merely. But, in truth, method itself, in a research thus 

 complex and obscure,, is one of the conditions most 

 essential to success. And, as already said, I think that 

 which I am now suggesting to be valuable, not solely 

 as subsidiary to others, but as itself affording results 

 which no others can equally obtain. To use two Greek 

 words actually applied under similar purport, I prefer 

 the ypufj.^ rather than the xux?\,o as a foundation for 

 mental analysis. 



In speaking just now of volition, I had chiefly in 

 view the action of this power on or through the mate- 

 rial organs. But also in regard to the purely mental 

 processes, the same question presses upon us, ' What is 

 the will ?' How far by effort of mind can we govern 

 the sequences of thought, and those great functions of 



1 Sir W. Hamilton encounters the question, before taken up by 

 Abraham Tucker, Bonnet, and others, what number of objects the mind 

 can embrace at once. He tried the experiment with marbles thrown on 

 the floor, and found reason to believe that the mind could simultaneously 

 grasp the number six. Mr. David Forbes (' Nature/ Feb. 9, 1871), by 

 similar experiment with beans, limited the number to four or five. But 

 this is a form of trial in which the sense is mainly concerned. 



