DISCRIMINATION AND COMPARISON. 489 



about the same topic by superior states of mind. The thing 

 thought of is unquestionably the same, but it is thought 

 twice over in two absolutely different psychoses, — once as an 

 unbroken unit, and again as a sum of discriminated jDarts, It 

 is not one thought in two editions, but two entirely distinct 

 thoughts of one thing. And each thought is within itself a 

 continuum, a plenum, needing no contributions from the other 

 to fill up its gaj)s. As I sit here, I think objects, and I 

 make inferences, which the future is sure to analyze and 

 articulate and riddle with discriminations, showing me many 

 things wherever I now notice one. Nevertheless, my 

 thought feels cpiite sufficient unto itself for the time being ; 

 and ranges from pole to pole, as free, and as unconscious 

 of having overlooked anything, as if it possessed the great- 

 est discriminative enlightenment. We all cease analyzing 

 the world at some point, and notice no more differences. 

 The last units with which we stop are our objective elements 

 of being. Those of a dog are different from those of a 

 Humboldt ; those of a practical man from those of a meta- 

 jihysician. But the dog's and the practical man's thoughts 

 feel continuous, though to the Humboldt or the metaphy- 

 sician they would appear full of gaps and defects. And 

 they are continuous, as thoughts. It is only as mirrors of 

 things that the sujierior minds find them full of omissions. 

 And when the omitted things are discovered and the un- 

 noticed differences laid bare, it is not that the old thoughts 

 split up, but that new thoughts supersede them, which make 

 new judgments about the same objective world. 



THE PRINCIPLE OF MEDIATE COMPARISON". 



When we discriminate an element, we may contrast it 

 watli the case of its own absence, of its simply not being 

 there, without reference to what is there ; or we may also 

 cake the latter into account. Let the first sort of discrim- 

 ination be called existential, the latter differential discrimina- 

 tion. A peculiarity of differential discriminations is that 

 they result in a perception of differences which are felt as 

 greater or less one than the other. Entire groups of differ- 

 ences may be ranged in series : the musical scale, the color 

 scale, are examples. Every department of our experience 



