COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



feeling has nothing in common with a unit of 

 motion becomes more than ever manifest 

 when we bring the two into juxtaposition. And 

 the immediate verdict of consciousness thus 

 given might be analytically justified were this 

 a fit place for the needful analysis. For it 

 might be shown that the conception of an oscil- 

 lating molecule is built out of many units of feel- 

 ing ; and that to identify it with a \_psychical~\ 

 shock would be to identify a whole congeries of 

 units with a single unit.'* ^ 



^ Spencer, Principles of Psycho logy ^ vol. i. p. 158. [Part 

 II. chap. i. § 62.] I have taken the liberty to alter Mr. 

 Spencer* s metaphorical phrase "nervous shock'* into the 

 more literally accurate phrase ** psychical shock." The term 

 ** nervous shock,** though partially justified by the colloquial 

 use of the word "nervous** in description of psychical states 

 (as when we speak of feeling nervous or flighty), is never- 

 theless a bad term in an argument like the present, where the 

 strictest accuracy is above all things desirable. For besides this 

 psychological use of it, the term ** nervous shock ** is used in 

 physiology in a sense strictly synonymous with one kind of 

 ** physical pulsation. ** So that, to those who pay more atten- 

 tion to an author's slips of expression than to his manifest 

 meaning, the term may seem to contain the materialistic im- 

 plications which it is the express purpose of Mr. Spencer* s 

 argument to avoid. Any such misapprehension is impossible 

 if we substitute the term "psychical shock.*' (Mr. Spencer 

 authorizes me to add that he thoroughly approves of this 

 emendation. ) 



[On the relation between Fiske's view and Spencer's as to 

 this point, see Fiske's statement in the address on the ** Scope 

 and Purport of Evolution ** (^ Century of Science, chap. i.). 

 280 



