240 PSYCHOLOGY. 



a rectangular cross grows slant-legged ; now a slant-legged 

 one grows rectangular. 



Almost any form in oblique vision may be thus a deriva- 

 tive of almost any other in ' primary ' vision ; and we must 

 learn, when we get one of the former appearances, to trans- 

 late it into the appropriate one of the latter class ; we must 

 learn of what optical ' reality ' it is one of the optical signs. 

 Having learned this, we do but obey that law of economy 

 or simplification which dominates our whole psychic life, 

 when we attend exclusively to the ' reality ' and ignore as 

 much as our consciousness will let us the ' sign ' by which 

 we came to apprehend it. The signs of each probable real 

 thing being multiple and the thing itself one and fixed, 

 we gain the same mental relief by abandoning the former 

 for the latter that we do when we abandon mental images, 

 with all their fluctuating characters, for the definite and 

 unchangeable names which they suggest. The selection of 

 the several ' normal ' appearances from out of the jungle 

 of our optical experiences, to serve as the real sights of 

 which we shall think, is psychologically a parallel phenom- 

 enon to the habit of thinking in words, and has a like use. 

 Both are substitutions of terms few and fixed for terms 

 manifold and vague. 



Seiisations ivJiicJi we Ignore. 



This service of sensations as mere signs, to be ignored 

 when they have evoked the other sensations which are their 

 significates, was noticed first by Berkeley and remarked in 

 many passages, as the following : 



"Signs, being little considered in themselves, or for their own sake, 

 but only in their relative capacity and for the sake of those things 

 whereof they are signs, it comes to pass that the mind overlooks them, 

 so as to carry its attention immediately on to the things signified . . . 

 which in truth and strictness are not seen, but only suggested and ap- 

 prehended by means of the proper objects of sight which alone are 

 seen." (Divine Visual Language, § 12.) 



Berkeley of course erred in supposing that the thing 

 suggested was not even originally an object of sight, as the 

 sign now is which calls it up. Eeid expressed Berkeley's 

 principle in yet clearer language : 



" The visible appearances of objects are intended by nature only as 

 signs or indications, and the mind passes instantly to the things sig- 



