252 PSYCHOLOGY. 



emptiness, no one of wliicli taken in itself has a name, 

 but all different from each other. The ordinary way is to 

 assume that they are all emptinesses of consciousness, and 

 so the same state. But the feeling of an absence is toto coelo 

 other than the absence of a feeling. It is an intense feel- 

 ing. The rhythm of a lost word may be there without a 

 sound to clothe it ; or the evanescent sense of something 

 which is the initial vowel or consonant may mock us fit- 

 fully, without growing more distinct. Every one must 

 know the tantalizing effect of the blank rhythm of some 

 forgotten verse, restlessly dancing in one's mind, striving 

 to be filled out with words. 



Again, what is the strange difference between an expe- 

 rience tasted for the first time and the same experience 

 recognized as familiar, as having been enjoyed before, 

 though we cannot name it or say where or when ? A tune, 

 an odor, a flavor sometimes carry this inarticulate feeling 

 of their familiarity so deep into our consciousness that we 

 are fairly shaken by its mysterious emotional power. But 

 strong and characteristic as this psychosis is — it probably 

 is due to the submaximal excitement of wide-spreading 

 associational brain-tracts — the only name we have for all 

 its shadings is ' sense of familiarity.' 



When we read such phrases as ' naught but,' ' either 

 one or the other,' ' a is b, but,' ' although it is, neverthe- 

 less,' ' it is an excluded middle, there is no terfium quid,' 

 and a host of other verbal skeletons of logical relation, is it 

 true that there is nothing more in our minds than the 

 words themselves as they pass ? What then is the mean- 

 ing of the words which we think we understand as we read ? 

 What makes that meaning different in one phrase from 

 what it is in the other? 'Who?' 'When?' 'Where?'' 

 Is the difference of felt meaning in these interrogatives 

 nothing more than their difference of sound? And is it 

 not (just like the difference of sound itself) known and 

 understood in an affection of consciousness correlative to 

 it, though so impalpable to direct examination ? Is not 

 the same true of such negatives as ' no,' ' never,' ' not 

 yet'? 



The truth is that large tracts of human speech are noth- 



