6oG PSYCHOLOGY. 



not leave fading processes behind whicli coexist with those 

 of the present moment. Duration and events together form 

 our intuition of the specious present icith its content* Why 

 such an intuiticn shoukl result from such a combination of 

 brain-processes I do not pretend to say. All I aim at is to 

 state the most elemental form of the psycho-physical con- 

 junction. 



I have assumed that the brain-processes are sensational 

 ones. Processes of active attention (see Mr. Ward's account 

 in the long foot-note) will leave similar fading brain-pro- 

 cesses behind. If the mental processes are conceptual, a 

 complication is introduced of which I will in a moment 

 speak. Meanwhile, still speaking of sensational processes, a 

 I'emark of Wundt's will throw additional light on the 

 account I give. As is knoAvn, Wuudt and others have 

 proved that every act of perception of a sensorial stimulus 

 takes an appreciable time. When two different stimuli — 

 e.g. a sight and a sound — are given at once or nearly at 

 once, we have difficulty in attending to both, and may 

 wrongly judge their interval, or even invert their ordei . 

 Now, as the result of his experiments on such stimuli. 

 Wundt lays down this law : t that of the three possible de- 

 terminations we may make of their order — 



"namely, simultaneity, continuous transition, and discontinuous tran- 

 sition — only the first and last are realized, never the second. Invari- 

 ably, when we fail to perceive the impressions as simultaneous, we 

 notice a shorter or longer empty time between them, ivMch seems to 

 correspond to the si7^Mng of one of the ideas and to the rise of the 

 other. . . . For our attention may share itself equally between the 

 two impressions, which will then compose one total percept [and be 

 simultaneously feltj; or it may be so adapted to one event as to cause 



* It would be rash to say definitely just how many seconds loDg this 

 specious present must needs be, for processes fade ' asymptotically,' and 

 the distinctly intuited present merges into a penumbra of mere dim recency 

 before it turns into the past which is simply reproduced and conceived. 

 Many a thing which we do not distinctly date by intercalating it in a place 

 between two other things will, nevertheless, come to us with this feeling of 

 belonging to a near past. This sense of recency is a feeling sui generis, and 

 may affect things that happened hours ago. It would seem to show that 

 their brain-processes are still in a state modified by the foregoing excite- 

 ment, still in a ' fading ' phase, in spite of the long interval. 



t Physiol. Psych., ii. 263. 



