206 Transaetiofis, — MisceUmiemia. 



The feelings or mental states of which we have experience comprise the 

 comparatively vivid ones known as sensations and emotions, the fainter 

 copies of these, sometimes called " ideas," which constitute the material of 

 which thought is woven, and certain unique states of mind which form 

 integral parts of volition and helief- — states of mind which assimilate most 

 nearly to emotions, hut which may be described as somewhat too colourless, 

 if the term be allowable, to be fairly classed with these. 



All the real existences we know of being mental states, the totality of 

 existence falls for each individual into two sections : his own mental states, 

 i.e. mental states which form a part of his own consciousness, and mental 

 states not his own. The former constitute a stream or chain, extending from 

 a past that is more or less remote into a future almost wholly unknown ; 

 his present condition of mind being a transverse section of the stream, or a 

 Imk in the chain. His knowledge of the portion anterior to the present 

 moment is obtained partly by the faculty of memory, and partly by a system 

 of inferences ; his anticipations as to the portion that is still future are 

 grounded entirely on inference. 



Now, by a process essentially identical with that by which he infers 

 these future portions, and some of the past portions, of his own stream or 

 chain of consciousness, each individual comes to believe, at a very early 

 stage of his career, in the existence of other streams or chains of conscious- 

 ness which are more or less like his own, but which are entirely outside 

 it. He believes that his fellow- creatures are conscious beings, and that 

 the higher animals are sentient. The process by which this conclusion is 

 reached, and by which it may be justified, is fully described by Mr. MiU 

 in a well-known passage of his "Examination of Sir William Hamilton's 

 Philosophy." There is a further inference drawn which is of great impor- 

 tance, and which I hope will engage our attention in a future paper. The 

 inference is drawn that there exist relations of sequence and of synchronism 

 between his own feelings and the feelings which compose the other streams 

 of consciousness. These relations had already been recognized among his 

 own feehngs, and might easily be inferred as existing among the feelings of 

 any other one stream of consciousness taken by itself. But it might seem 

 a more perilous step to infer cross-relations of this kind between different 

 streams ; nevertheless, this inference, endorsed every hour a thousand times 

 by the common sense of mankind, is one which I think can be shown to be 

 logically justifiable. Without, however, dwelling any longer on this point, 

 we may note that each individual conceives of other streams of conscious- 

 ness as running parallel to his own in Time, and that their outsideness to 

 his own consciousness is quite a difi'erent thing from the apparent outside- 

 ness of any material body. A material body, or, as it is usuaUy called in 



