THE COMPOSITION OF MIND 



emanate. Thus our apparently simple sensa- 

 tions of musical sound are enormously complex. 

 When ¥-in-alt is sounded on the violin, there 

 are produced, in the course of a single second, 

 several thousand psychical states which together 

 make up the sensation of pitch, fifty-five times 

 as many psychical states which together make 

 up the sensation of quality, and an immense 

 number of other psychical states which together 

 make up the sensation of intensity. These psy- 

 chical states are not, in any strict sense of the 

 term, states of consciousness ; for if they were 

 to rise individually into consciousness, the re- 

 sult would be an immense multitude of sensa- 

 tions, and not a single homogeneous sensation. 

 There is no alternative, therefore, but to con- 

 clude that in this case a seemingly simple state 

 of consciousness is in reality compounded of an 

 immense multitude of sub-conscious psychical 

 changes. 



Returning now to what we have called the 

 elementary sound, by the manifold compound- 

 ing of which all cognizable tones, qualities, and 

 intensities are built up, we shall the more read- 

 ily yield to the evidence which shows that even 

 this primitive unit of sound is not elementary. 

 For as M. Taine observes, each so-called ele- 

 mentary sound, in passing from its minimum to 

 its maximum, passes through an infinite series 

 of degrees of intensity, and, unless there were 



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