246 PSYCHOLOGY. 



iug of blue or a feeling of cold. Yet we do not : so invetei\ 

 ate has our habit become of recognizing the existence of 

 the substantive parts alone, that language almost refuses 

 to lend itself to any other use. The Empiricists have al- 

 ways dwelt on its influence in making us suppose that 

 where we have a separate name, a separate thing must 

 needs be there to correspond with it ; and they have right- 

 ly denied the existence of the mob of abstract entities, 

 principles, and forces, in whose favor no other evidence 

 than this could be brought up. But they have said noth- 

 ing of that obverse error, of which we said a word in Chap- 

 ter VII, (see p. 195), of supposing that where there is no name 

 no entity can exist. All dumb or anonymous psychic states 

 have, owing to this error, been coolly suppressed; or, if 

 recognized at all, have been named after the substantive 

 perception they led to, as thoughts ' about ' this object or 

 * about ' that, the stolid word abotd engulfing all their del- 

 icate idios}^Ticrasies in its monotonous sound. Thus the 

 greater and greater accentuation and isolation of the sub- 

 stantive parts have continually gone on. 



Once more take a look at the brain. We believe the 

 brain to be an organ whose internal equilibrium is always 

 in a state of change, — the change affecting every part. The 

 pulses of change are doubtless more violent in one place 

 than in another, their rhythm more rapid at this time than 

 at that. As in a kaleidoscope revolving at a uniform rate, al- 

 though the figures are alwaj's rearranging themselves, there 

 are instants during which the transformation seems minute 

 and interstitial and almost absent, followed by others when 

 it shoots with magical rapidity, relatively stable forms ^hus 

 alternating with forms we should not distinguish if seen 

 again ; so in the brain the perpetual rearrangement must 

 result in some forms of tension lingering relatively long, 

 whilst others simply come and pass. But if consciousness 

 corresponds to the fact of rearrangement itself, why, if 

 the rearrangement stop not, should the consciousness ever 

 cease ? And if a lingering rearrangement brings with it 

 one kind of consciousness, why should not a swift rearrange- 

 ment bring another kind of consciousness as peculiar as 

 the rearrangement itself ? The lingering consciousnesse.s. 



