186 P8TCH0L00 T. 



tliought indifferently. Moreover, ' feeling ' has acquired in 

 tlie hearts of platonizing thinkers a very opprobrious set of 

 implications ; and since one of the great obstacles to mutual 

 understanding in philosophy is the use of words eulogisti- 

 cally and disparagingly, impartial terms ought always, if 

 possible, to be preferred. The word psychosis has been 

 proposed by Mr. Huxley, It has the advantage of being 

 correlative to neurosis (the name applied by the same author 

 to the corresponding nerve-process), and is moreover tech- 

 nical and devoid of partial implications. But it has no 

 verb or other grammatical form allied to it. The expres- 

 sions ' affection of the soul,' ' modification of the ego,' are 

 clumsy, like 'state of consciousness,' and they implicitly 

 assert theories which it is not well to embody in terminol- 

 ogy before they have been openly discussed and apjDroved. 

 ' Idea ' is a good vague neutral word, and was by Locke 

 employed in the broadest generic way ; but notwithstanding 

 his authority it has not domesticated itself in the language 

 so as to cover bodily sensations, and it moreover has no 

 verb. ' Thought ' would be by far the best word to use if 

 it could be made to cover sensations. It has no opprobri- 

 ous connotation such as ' feeling ' has, and it immediately 

 suggests the omnipresence of cognition (or reference to an 

 object other than the mental state itself), which we shall 

 soon see to be of the mental life's essence. But can the 

 expression * thought of a toothache ' ever suggest to the 

 reader the actual present pain itself ? It is hardly possi- 

 ble ; and we thus seem about to be forced back on some 

 j)air of terms like Hume's 'impression and idea,' or Ham- 

 ilton's ' presentation and rej^resentation,' or the ordinary 

 * feeling and thought,' if we wish to cover the whole ground. 

 In this quandary we can make no definitive choice, but 

 must, according to the convenience of the context, use 

 sometimes one, sometimes another of the synonyms that 

 have been mentioned. My oicn partiality is for either 

 FEELING or THOUOHT. I shall probably often use both words 

 in a wider sense than usual, and alternately startle two 

 classes of readers by their unusual sound ; but if the con- 

 nection makes it clear that mental states at large, irrespec- 



