148 PSYCHOLOGY. 



begin with, no one can for an instant liesitate to say that 

 some of them are qualities of sensation, just as the total 

 vastness is in which they lie. Take figure : a square, a. 

 circle, and a triangle appear in the first instance to the eye 

 simply as three different kinds of impressions, each so pecul- 

 iar that we should recognize it if it were to return. When 

 Nunnely's patient had his cataracts removed, and a cube and 

 a sphere were presented to his notice, he could at once 

 perceive a difference in their shapes ; and though he could 

 not say which was the cube and which the sphere, he saw 

 they were not of the same figure. So of lines : if we can 

 notice lines at all in our field of vision, it is inconceivable 

 that a vertical one should not aff'ect us differently from an 

 horizontal oue, and should not be recognized as affecting us 

 similarly when presented again, although we might not yet 

 know the name 'vertical,' or any of its connotations, beyond 

 this jjeculiar affection of our sensibility. So of angles : an 

 obtuse one affects our feeling immediately in a different way 

 from an acute one. Distance-apart, too, is a simple sensa- 

 tion — the sensation of a line joining the two distant points r 

 lengthen the line, you alter the feeling and with it the 

 distance felt. 



Space-rela tions. 



But with distance and direction we pass to the category 

 of space-re?oit07is, and are immediately confronted by an 

 opinion which makes of all relations something toto ccelo 

 different from all facts of feeling or imagination whatsoever. 

 A relation, for the Platonizing school in psychology, is an 

 energy of pure thought, and, as such, is quite incommen- 

 surable with the data of sensibility between which it may 

 be perceived to obtain. 



We may consequently imagine a disciple of this school 

 to say to us at this point : " Suppose you have made a sep- 

 arate specific sensation of each line and each angle, what 

 boots it? You have still the order of directions and of 

 distances to account for ; you have still the relative magni- 

 tudes ot all these felt figures to state ; you have their re- 

 spective positions to define before you can be said to have 

 brought order into your space. And not one of these de- 



