CH. XV.] TEE COMPOSITION OF MIND. 119 



these relations, and all mental processes wliatever, is the 

 relation of likeness and unliJccness between primary states of 

 consciousness. Given the power of recognizing two feelings 

 or conscious states as like each other, and two other feelings 

 or conscious states as unlike each other, and we have the 

 primordial process in the manifold compounding of which all 

 operations of intelligence consist. Let us now take into the 

 account the universally-admitted fact that consciousness is 

 rendered possible only by ceaseless change of state — that a 

 uniform state of consciousness is in no respect different from 

 complete unconsciousness. If our minds were to become 

 spellbound, like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty, all our 

 thoughts and feelings remaining fixed in statu quo, our con- 

 scious existence would be practically at an end. For con- 

 sciousness to exist at all, it is necessary that a given state 

 should be followed by a different state. But this is not all 

 that is required. A succession of feelings, of which no two 

 were alike, would not give rise to consciousness, since the re- 

 cognition of any feeling implies its classification with some 

 antecedent like feeling. Consciousness, therefore, " is not 

 simply a succession of changes, but an m^derly succession of 

 changes — a succession of changes combined and arranged in 

 special ways." Thus we reach the law of the Composition 

 of Mind. Since intelligence cannot arise or continue unless 

 consciousness is continually passing from one state into a 

 different state, it follows that there must be a continuous 

 differentiation of states ; and again, since intelligence cannot 

 arise or continue unless particular states of consciousness are 

 continually known as like certain previous states, it follows 

 that there must be a continuous integration of states. Alike 

 in the most rudimentary perception and in the most deve- 

 loped reasoning, the essential process is the separation of the 

 nnlike and the bringing together of the like. So that, 

 " under its most general aspect, all mental action whatever is 

 definabJe as the contimiozis differentiation and integration of 



