184 PSYCHOLOOT. 



at which the others appear. They become, in short, so many 

 properties of ONE and the same keal thing. This is the first 

 and great commandment, the fundamental ' act ' by which 

 our world gets spatially arranged. 



In this coalescence in a ' thing,' one of the coalescing 

 sensations is held to he the thing, the other sensations are 

 taken for its more or less accidental properties, or modes of 

 appearance.* The sensation chosen to be the thing essen- 

 tially is the most constant and practically important of the 

 lot ; most often it is hardness or weight. But the hardness 

 or weight is never without tactile bulk ; and as we can 

 always see something in our hand when we feel something 

 there, we equate the bulk felt with the bulk seen, and thence- 

 forward this common bulk is also apt to figure as of the 

 essence of the 'thing.' Frequently a shape so figures, 

 sometimes a temperature, a taste, etc. ; but for the most part 

 temperature, smell, sound, color, or whatever other phenom- 

 ena may vividly impress us simultaneously with tlie bulk 

 felt or seen, figure among the accidents. Smell and sound 

 impress us, it is true, when we neither see nor touch the 

 thing ; but they are strongest when we see or touch, so we 

 locate the source of these properties within the touched or 

 seen space, whilst the properties themselves we regard as 

 overflowing in a weakened form into the spaces filled by 

 other things. In all this, it loill he observed, the sense-data 

 whose spaces coalesce into one are yielded hy different sense- 

 organs. Such data have no tendency to displace each other 

 from consciousness, but can be attended to together all at 

 once. Often indeed they vary concomitantly and reach a 

 maximum together. We may be sure, therefore, that the 

 general rule of our mind is to locate in each other all sensa- 

 tions which are associated in simultaneous experience, and 

 do not interfere with each other's perception.t 



* Cf. Lipps on 'Complication,' Grundtatsaclien, etc., p. 579. 



f Ventriloquism shows this very prettily. The ventriloquist talks with- 

 out moving his lips, and at the same time draws our attention to a doll, a 

 box, or some other object. We forthwith locate the voice within this 

 object. On the stage an actor ignorant of music sometimes has to sing, 

 or play on the guitar or violin. He goes through the motions before our 

 ejes, whilst in the orchestra or elsewhere the music is performed. But 

 because as we listen we see the actor, it is almost impossible not to 7iear the 

 music as if coming from where he sits or stands. 



