258 PSYCHOLOGY. 



which ought to have been expressed."* In these cases 

 one of two things must have happened: either some local 

 accident of nutrition blocks the process that is due, so that 

 other processes discharge that ought as yet to be but nas- 

 cently aroused; or some opposite local accident furthers 

 the latter processes and makes them explode before theii 

 time. In the chapter on Association of Ideas, numerous 

 instances will come before us of the actual effect on con- 

 sciousness of neuroses not yet maximally aroused. 



It is just like the ' overtones ' in music. Different in- 

 struments give the * same note,' but each in a different 

 voice, because each gives more than that note, namely, vari- 

 ous upper harmonics of it which differ from one instrument 

 to another. They are not separately heard by the ear ; 

 they blend with the fundamental note, and suffuse it, and 

 alter it ; and even so do the waxing and waning brain- 

 processes at every moment blend with and suffuse and alter 

 the psychic effect of the processes which are at their cul- 

 minating point. 



Let us use the words psychic overtone, suffiision, or fringe^ 

 to designate the influence of a faint brain-process upon our 

 thought, as it makes it aware of relations and objects but 

 dimly perceived. f 



If we then consider the cognitive function of different 



* Mental Physiology, § 236. Dr. Carpenter's explanation differs materi- 

 ally from that given in the text. 



f Cf. also S. Strieker : Vorlesungen ilber allg. u. exp. Pathologic (1879), 

 pp. 462-3,501, 547; Romanes: Origin of Human Faculty, p. 82. It is so 

 hard to make one's self clear that I may advert to a misunderstanding of 

 my views by the late Prof. Thos. Maguire of Dublin (Lectures on Philoso- 

 phy, 1885). This author considers that by the ' fringe ' I mean some sort 

 of psychic material by which sensations in themselves separate are made 

 to cohere together, and wittily says that I ought to " see that uniting sensa- 

 tions by their ' fringes ' is more vague than to construct the universe out 

 of oysters by platting their beards" (p. 211). But the fringe, as I use the 

 word, means nothing like this ; it is part of the object cogrwised,— substantive 

 qualities and things appearing to the mind in ?i fringe of relations. Some parts 

 — the transitive parts— of our stream of thought cognize the relations rather 

 than the things ; but both the transitive and the substantive parts form one 

 continuous stream, with no discrete ' sensations ' in it such as Prof. Ma- 

 guire suppose^;, and supposes me to suppose, to be there. 



