600 PSYCHOLOGY. 



Subject, is competent, by being present to botli of thft 

 ideas alike, to hold them together and at the same time to 

 ket\) them distinct." 



But if the plain facts be admitted that the pure idea of 

 * w ' is never in the mind at all, when ' m ' has once gone be- 

 fore; and that the feeling ^ n-diferent-from-m^ is itself an 

 absolutely unique pulse of thought, the bottom of this 

 precious quarrel drops out and neither party is left with 

 anything to fight about. Surely such a consummation 

 ought to be welcomed, especially when brought about, us 

 here, by a formulation of the facts which offers itself so 

 naturally and unsophistically.'^ 



* There is only one obstacle, and that is our inveterate tendency to be- 

 lieve that where two things or qualities are compared, it must be that 

 exact duplicates of both have got into the mind and have matched them- 

 selves against each other there. To which the first reply is the empirical 

 one of " Look into the mind and see." When I recognize a weight which 

 I now lift as inferior to the one I just lifted; when, with my tooth now 

 acUiug, I perceive the pain to be less intense than it was a minute ago; the 

 two things in the mind which are compared would, by the authors 1 criti- 

 cise, be admitted to be an actual sensation and an image in the memory. 

 An image in the memory, by general consent of these same authors, is ad- 

 mitted to be a weaker thing than a sensation. Nevertheless it is in these 

 instances judged stronger; that is, an object supposed to be known only in 

 so far forth as this image represents it, is judged stronger. Ought not this 

 to shake one's belief in the notion of separate representative ' ideas ' weigh- 

 ing themselves, or being weighed by the Ego, against each other in the 

 mind ? And let it not be said that what makes us judge the felt pain to be 

 weaker than the imagined one of a moment since is our recollection of 

 the doicnward nature of the shock of difference which we felt as we passed to 

 the present moment from the one before it. That shock does undoubtedly 

 have a different character according as it comes between terms of which 

 the second diminishes or increases; and it may be admitted that in cases 

 where the past term is doubtfully remembered, the memory of the shock, 

 as pins or minus, might sometimes enable us to establish a relation which 

 otherwise we should not perceive. But one could hardly e.xpect the mem- 

 ory of this shock to overpower our actual comparison of terms, both of 

 which are present (nfi are the image and the sensation in the case supposed), 

 and make us judge the weaker one to be the stronger. — And hereupon 

 comes the second reply: Suppose the mind does compare two realities by 

 comparing two ideas of its own which represent them— what is gained? 

 The same mystery is still there. The ideas must still be known; and, as 

 the attention in comparing oscillates from one to the other, past must be 

 known with present just as before. If you must end by simply saying 

 that your 'Ego,' wliilst being neither the idea of ?« nor the idea of ?i, yet 

 knows and compares both, why not allow your pulse of thought, which w 



