REV. A. R. WHATELY, D.D., ON IMMORTALITY. 13 



essentially distinct, however closely running into one another. 

 There was no internal connection between them. But the late 

 William James may be taken to represent the more modern 

 form of Psychological Empiricism. He refuses, like Hume, to 

 call in a soul or principle of unity to connect all our thoughts 

 and feelings into a whole ; but he considers that Hume has not 

 done justice to the actual unity which these psychic states 

 present.* The " Thought " of the moment makes its own 

 connections with past thoughts. If I recognize an object as 

 a rose, that recognition itself connects the phenomenon with the 

 other similar phenomena. If I recall a past experience, my 

 thought of it appropriates it as my own., because the revival of 

 that experience is characterized by a sense of " warmth and 

 intimacy " w4nch do not belong to our thoughts of the experi- 

 ences of other people. And yet all the time it is only the 

 thouglit of the moment that makes these connections. James 

 finds all he wants for the explanation of the unity of the Ego 

 in the actual phenomena of consciousness as a temporal stream 

 of psychic states. True he is more than an Associationist. He 

 is not satisfied with any mere external combinations of impres- 

 sions with impressions. The connection is more inward than 

 tliat. Old impressions never do return unchanged. But the 

 new bear intrinsic reference to them. The form and colour of 

 a rose is not more essential to my apprehension of it than its 

 resemblance to other roses. 



So there is a unity and a continuity, but only among the 

 thoughts themselves. He sees no need to postulate an under- 

 lying " pure Ego," or a radical " unity of apperception." He 

 criticizes Hume and the Associationists on purely psychological 

 grounds. They have merely observed the phenomenon of con- 

 sciousness imperfectly. On the other hand, those who have 

 argued for a soul substance have introduced, according to him, 

 a superfluous reduplication which explains nothing, because it 

 is itself unknown. All the unity that the phenomena possess 

 is itself phenomenal, and no more needs to be explained 

 ab extra than the discontinuity and diversity which reveal 

 themselves over against it. 



It will be well to comment on this position in a broad and 

 general manner so that the commentary may apply to the 

 empirical attitude as a whole. Also we shall, I hope, be brought 

 nearer to a positive conception. 



Principles of Psychology^ vol. i, p. 352, see ch. x, passim. 



