260 PSYCHOLOGY. 



portant and just as cognitive as they, and just as much 

 unrecognized by the traditional sensationalist and intellect- 

 ualist philosophies of mind. The tirst fails to find them 

 at all, the second finds their cognitive function, but denies 

 that anything in the way of feeling has a share in bringing 

 it about. Examples will make clear what these inarticu- 

 late psychoses, due to waxing and waning excitements of 

 the brain, are like.* 



Suppose three successive persons say to us: 'Wait!' 

 * Hark ! ' * Look ! ' Our consciousness is thrown into 



tinction caunot be absolute. Besides admitting that, as au element of 

 consciousness, a relation is a momentary feeling, we must also admit that 

 just as a relation can have no existence apart from the feelings which form 

 its terms, so a feeling can exist only by relations to other feelings which 

 limit it in space or time or both. Strictly speaking, neither a feeling nor 

 a relation is an independent element of consciousness : there is throughout 

 a dependence such that the appreciable areas of consciousness occupied by 

 feelings can no more possess individualities apart from the relations which 

 link them, than these relations can possess individualities apart from the 

 feelings they link. The essential distinction between the two, then, 

 appears to be that whereas a relational feeling is a portion of consciousness 

 inseparable into parts, a feeling, ordinarily so called, is a portion of con- 

 sciousness that admits imaginary division into like parts which are related 

 to one another in sequence or coexistence. A feeling proper is either 

 made up of like parts that occupy time, or it is made up of like parts thait 

 occupy space, or both. In any case, a feeling proper is an aggregate of 

 related like parts, while a relational feeling is undecomposable. And this 

 is exactly the contrast between the two which must result if, as we have 

 inferred, feelings are composed of units of feelings, or shocks." 



* M. Paulhan (Revue Philosophique, xx. 455-6), after speaking of the 

 faint mental images of objects and emotions, says: " We find other vaguer 

 states still, upon which attention seldom rests, except in persons who by 

 nature or profession are addicted to internal observation. It is even dilB- 

 cult to name them precisely, for they are little known and not classed ; 

 but we may cite as an example of them that peculiar impression which we 

 feel when, strongly preoccupied by a certain subject, we nevertheless are 

 engaged with, and have our attention almost completely absorbed by, mat- 

 ters quite disconnected therewithal. We do not then exactly think of the 

 object of our preoccupation; we do not represent it in a clear manner; and 

 yet our mind is not as it would be without this preoccupation. Its object, 

 absent from consciousness, is nevertheless represented there by a peculiar 

 unmistakable impression, which often persists long and is a strong feeling, 

 although so obscure for our intelligence." "A mental sign of the kind is 

 the unfavorable disposition left in our mind towards an individual by pain- 

 ful incidents erewhile experienced and now perhaps forgotten. The sign 

 remains, but is not understood; its definite meaning is lost." (P. 458.) 



