118 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [PT. ii. 



civilized men, while others are performed habitually by 

 children, barbarians, and numerous animals interior to man. 

 Yet, amid all this diversity, our analysis has detected a funda- 

 mental unity. In spite of their vast differences in complexity, 

 we have seen that all these mental operations are ultimately 

 made up of the same psychical process. The grouping of the 

 relations among feelings is the elementary act which is re- 

 peated alike in each simple and direct act of perception, and 

 in each complicated and indirect act of ratiocination. At the 

 present stage of our analysis, therefore, the ultimate elements 

 of mind would seem to be feelings and the relatiuns between 

 feelings. It remains to add that relations themselves must be 

 secondary feelings due to the bringing together of primary 

 feelings. We can know a relation only as some modification 

 of consciousness resulting from some combination of the 

 feelings directly aroused in us by inner or outer agencies ; 

 and such modification of consciousness must be itself a kind 

 of feeling. For further illustration let us briefly mention the 

 different relations in the order of their decreasing complexity, 

 that we may note the fundamental relation involved in them 

 all. The most complex relations are those of similarity and 

 dissimilarity, as exemplified wlien we recognize the kinship 

 between a thorough-bred race-horse and a Shetland pony, or 

 the complicated divergences between a city and a village. 

 Simpler relations are those of cointension and non-cointeiision, 

 as when we perceive that two sounds are equal in degree of 

 loudness, or that in grasping wood and in grasping marble 

 the feelings of temperature are different in degree ; of coexten- 

 sion and non-coextension, as when two lines or two areas are 

 seen to be equal or unequal ; of coexistence and non-coexistence, 

 as when the yellow-reddish light reflected by an orange is re- 

 garded as accompanied by sweetness and juiciness, but not 

 by viscidity ; of connature and non-connature, as when greatei 

 warmth is mentally assimilated to less warmth, but distin- 

 guished from blueness or roughness. Now, underlying all 



