272 PSYCHOLOGY. 



space is a mere symbol of succession ; or (2) there is an ex- 

 tensive quality given immediately in certain particular sen- 

 sations ; or, finally, (3) there is a quality produced out of the 

 inward resources of the mind, to envelop sensa.tions which, 

 as given originally, are not spatial, but which, on being 

 cast into the spatial form, become united and orderly. This 

 last is the Kantian view. Stumpf admirably designates it 

 as the ' psychic stimulus ' theory', the crude sensations being 

 considered as goads to the mind to put forth its slumbering 

 power. 



Brown, the Mills, and Bain, amid these possibilities, 

 seem to have gone astray like lost sheep. With the * men- 

 tal chemistry ' of which the Mills speak — precisely the 

 same thing as the ' psychical synthesis ' of Wundt, which, 

 as we shall soon see, is a principle expressly intended to do 

 what Association can never perform — they hold the third 

 view, but again in other places imply the first. And, be- 

 tween the impossibility of getting from mere association 

 anything not contained in the sensations associated and the 

 dislike to allow spontaneous mental productivity, they 

 flounder in a dismal dilemma. Mr. Sully joins them there 

 in what I must call a vague and vacillating way. Mr. 

 Spencer of course is bound to pretend to ' evolve ' all 

 mental qualities out of antecedents different from them- 

 selves, so that we need perhaps not wonder at his refusal 

 to accord the spatial quality to any of the several elemen- 

 tary sensations out of which our space-perception grows. 

 Thus (Psychology, ii. 168, 172, 218) : 



" No idea of extension can arise from a simultaneous excitation " of 

 a multitude of nerve-terminations lik'e those of the skin or the retina, 

 since this would imply a " knowledge of their relative positions '" — that 

 is, " a pre-existent idea of a special extension, which is absurd." " NO' 

 relation between successive states of consciousness gives in itself any 

 idea of extension." " The muscular sensations accompanying motion 

 are quite distinct from the notions of space and time associated with 

 them. " 



Mr. Spencer none the less inveighs vociferously against 

 the Kantian position that space is produced by the mind's 

 own resources. And yet he nowhere denies space to be a 

 specific affection of consciousness different from time ! 



