190 PSTCHOLOGT. 



ing of things in general we are notoriously fallible, why not 

 also here ? Comte is quite right in laying stress on the 

 fact that a feeling, to be named, judged, or perceived, must 

 be already past. No subjective state, whilst present, is its 

 own object; its object is always something else. There 

 are, it is true, cases in which we appear to be naming our 

 present feeling, and so to be experiencing and observing 

 the same inner fact at a single stroke, as when we say ' I 

 feel tired,' ' I am angry,' etc. But these are illusory, and 

 a little attention unmasks the illusion. The present con- 

 scious state, when I say ' I feel tired,' is not the direct 

 state of tire ; when I say ' I feel angry,' it is not the direct 

 state of anger. It is the state of say ing- I-f eel-tired, of 

 say ing -1-f eel-angry, — entirely different matters, so different 

 that the fatigue and anger apparently included in them are 

 considerable modifications of the fatigue and anger directly 

 felt the previous instant. The act of naming them has 

 momentarily detracted from their force. ''^ 



The only sound grounds on which the infallible veracity 

 of the introspective judgment might be maintained are 

 empirical. If we had reason to think it has never yet 

 deceived us, we might continue to trust it. This is the 

 ground actually maintained by Herr Mohr. 



*' The illusions of our senses," says this author, " have undermined 

 our belief in the reality of the outer world; but in the sphere of inner 

 observation our confidence is intact, for we have never found ourselves 

 to be in error about the reality of an act of thought or feeling. We 



Second, internal observation is better litted to grasp clearly conscious 

 states, especially voluntary mental acts: such inner processes as are ob- 

 scurely conscious and involuntary will almost entirely elude it, because 

 the effort to observe interferes with them, and because they seldom abide 

 in memory." (Logik, ii. 433.) 



* In cases like this, where the state outlasts the act of naming it, exists 

 before it, and recurs when it is past, we probably run little practical risk 

 of error when we talk as if the state knew itself. The state of feeling and 

 the state of naming the feeling are continuous, and the infallibility of 

 such prompt introspective judgments is probably great. But even here the 

 certainty of our knowledge ought not to be argued on the a priori ground 

 X\i2tX percipi and esse are in psychology the same. The states are really 

 two; the naming state and the named state are apart; 'percipt is esse' is not 

 the principle that applies. 



