444 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 221. 



Tjlivivid impression of a strong- sound are in 

 tic way interchangeable. If the ticking of 

 the clock in my room becomes less and less 

 vivid for me the more I become absorbed in 

 tny work, till it finally disappears, it can- 

 not be compared with the experience which 

 results when the clock to which I give my 

 full attention is brought farther and farther 

 away. The wliite impression, when it 

 loses vividness, does not become gray and 

 finally black, nor the large size small, nor 

 the hot lukewarm. Vividness is a third di^ 

 mension in the system of psycliicar ele-J 

 ments, and the psychologist who postulates 

 complete paralle'ligm has the right to de^ 

 mand that the physiologist show the cor- 

 responding process. , There are other sides 

 of the sensation for which the same is true • 

 they share mth vividness the more subjec- 

 tive character of the variation, as, for in- 

 stance, the feeling tone of the sensation or 

 its pastness and presentness. Other varia- 

 tions bring such subjective factors into the 

 complexes of sensations without a possibility 

 of understanding them from the combina- 

 tion of different kinds only ; for instance, 

 the subjective shade of ideas we believe or 

 the abstractedness of ideas in logical 

 thoughts. In short, the sensations and 

 their combinations show besides kind, 

 strength and vividness still other varia- 

 tions which may best be called the values 

 of the sensations and of their complexes. 

 Is the typical theory of modern phj-siolog- 

 ieal psychology, which, as we have seen, 

 operates merely with the local difl'erences 

 of the cells and the quantitative differences 

 of their excitement, ever able to find physio- 

 logical variations which correspond to the 

 vividness and to the values of the sensa- 

 tions ? 



An examination without prejudice must 

 necessarily deny this question. Here lies 

 the deeper spring for the latent opposition 

 which the psychophysiological claims find 

 in modern psychology. Here are facts, the 



opponents say, which find no physiological 

 counterpart, and we must, therefore, ac- 

 knowledge the existence of psychological 

 processes which have nothing to do with the 

 physiological machinery. The vividness, 

 for instance, is fully explained if we accept 

 the view that the brain determines the kind 

 and strength of the sensation, while a phys- 

 iologically independent subject turns the 

 attention more or less to the sensation. 

 The more this attention acts the more vivid 

 the sensation ; in a similar way the subjec- 

 tive acts would' determine the feeling tone 

 of the sensation by selection or rejection, 

 and so on. While the usual theory reduces 

 all to the mere association of locally sepa- 

 rated excitements, such a theory thus 

 emphasizes the view that the physio- 

 logically determined functions must be sup- 

 plemented by an apperceiving subject which 

 takes attitudes. We may call the one the 

 association theory, the other the appercep- 

 tion theory. We have acknowledged that 

 the association theory is insufiicient to solve 

 the whole problem, but it is hardly neces- 

 sary to emphasize that the aj^perception 

 theory seeks the sohition from the start in 

 a logically impossible direction, and is thus 

 still more mistaken than the association 

 theory. 



The apperception theory, whatever its 

 special label and make-up may be, does not 

 see that the renunciation of a physiological 

 basis for every psychical fact means resign- 

 ing the causal explanation altogether, as 

 psychical facts as such cannot be linked 

 directly by causality, and that resigning the 

 causal aspect means giving up the only 

 point of view which comes in question for 

 the psychologist. If those apperceptive 

 functions are seriously conceived without 

 physiological basis they represent a mani- 

 foldness which can be linked merely by the 

 teleological categories of the practical life, 

 and we sink back to the siibjectifying view 

 which controls the reality of life, but which 



