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THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

By Bertrand Russell

1921




MUIRHEAD LIBRARY OF PHILOSOPHY


An admirable statement of the aims of the Library of Philosophy was
provided by the first editor, the late Professor J. H. Muirhead, in his
description of the original programme printed in Erdmann's History of
Philosophy under the date 1890. This was slightly modified in subsequent
volumes to take the form of the following statement:

"The Muirhead Library of Philosophy was designed as a contribution to
the History of Modern Philosophy under the heads: first of Different
Schools of Thought--Sensationalist, Realist, Idealist, Intuitivist;
secondly of different Subjects--Psychology, Ethics, Aesthetics,
Political Philosophy, Theology. While much had been done in England in
tracing the course of evolution in nature, history, economics, morals
and religion, little had been done in tracing the development of thought
on these subjects. Yet 'the evolution of opinion is part of the whole
evolution'.

"By the co-operation of different writers in carrying out this plan it
was hoped that a thoroughness and completeness of treatment, otherwise
unattainable, might be secured. It was believed also that from writers
mainly British and American fuller consideration of English Philosophy
than it had hitherto received might be looked for. In the earlier series
of books containing, among others, Bosanquet's "History of Aesthetic,"
Pfleiderer's "Rational Theology since Kant," Albee's "History of English
Utilitarianism," Bonar's "Philosophy and Political Economy," Brett's
"History of Psychology," Ritchie's "Natural Rights," these objects were
to a large extent effected.

"In the meantime original work of a high order was being produced both
in England and America by such writers as Bradley, Stout, Bertrand
Russell, Baldwin, Urban, Montague, and others, and a new interest in
foreign works, German, French and Italian, which had either become
classical or were attracting public attention, had developed. The scope
of the Library thus became extended into something more international,
and it is entering on the fifth decade of its existence in the hope that
it may contribute to that mutual understanding between countries which
is so pressing a need of the present time."

The need which Professor Muirhead stressed is no less pressing to-day,
and few will deny that philosophy has much to do with enabling us to
meet it, although no one, least of all Muirhead himself, would regard
that as the sole, or even the main, object of philosophy. As Professor
Muirhead continues to lend the distinction of his name to the Library
of Philosophy it seemed not inappropriate to allow him to recall us to
these aims in his own words. The emphasis on the history of thought also
seemed to me very timely; and the number of important works promised
for the Library in the very near future augur well for the continued
fulfilment, in this and other ways, of the expectations of the original
editor.

H. D. Lewis




PREFACE

This book has grown out of an attempt to harmonize two different
tendencies, one in psychology, the other in physics, with both of which
I find myself in sympathy, although at first sight they might seem
inconsistent. On the one hand, many psychologists, especially those
of the behaviourist school, tend to adopt what is essentially a
materialistic position, as a matter of method if not of metaphysics.
They make psychology increasingly dependent on physiology and external
observation, and tend to think of matter as something much more solid
and indubitable than mind. Meanwhile the physicists, especially Einstein
and other exponents of the theory of relativity, have been making
"matter" less and less material. Their world consists of "events," from
which "matter" is derived by a logical construction. Whoever reads, for
example, Professor Eddington's "Space, Time and Gravitation" (Cambridge
University Press, 1920), will see that an old-fashioned materialism can
receive no support from modern physics. I think that what has permanent
value in the outlook of the behaviourists is the feeling that physics is
the most fundamental science at present in existence. But this position
cannot be called materialistic, if, as seems to be the case, physics
does not assume the existence of matter.

The view that seems to me to reconcile the materialistic tendency of
psychology with the anti-materialistic tendency of physics is the view
of William James and the American new realists, according to which the
"stuff" of the world is neither mental nor material, but a "neutral
stuff," out of which both are constructed. I have endeavoured in this
work to develop this view in some detail as regards the phenomena with
which psychology is concerned.

My thanks are due to Professor John B. Watson and to Dr. T. P. Nunn
for reading my MSS. at an early stage and helping me with many valuable
suggestions; also to Mr. A. Wohlgemuth for much very useful information
as regards important literature. I have also to acknowledge the help
of the editor of this Library of Philosophy, Professor Muirhead, for
several suggestions by which I have profited.

The work has been given in the form of lectures both in London and
Peking, and one lecture, that on Desire, has been published in the
Athenaeum.

There are a few allusions to China in this book, all of which were
written before I had been in China, and are not intended to be taken by
the reader as geographically accurate. I have used "China" merely as
a synonym for "a distant country," when I wanted illustrations of
unfamiliar things.

Peking, January 1921.



CONTENTS

  I.   Recent Criticisms of "Consciousness"
  II.  Instinct and Habit
  III. Desire and Feeling
  IV.  Influence of Past History on Present Occurrences
            in Living Organisms
  V.   Psychological and Physical Causal Laws
  VI.  Introspection
  VII. The Definition of Perception
  VIII.Sensations and Images
  IX.  Memory
  X.   Words and Meaning
  XI.  General Ideas and Thought
  XII. Belief
  XIII.Truth and Falsehood
  XIV. Emotions and Will
  XV.  Characteristics of Mental Phenomena




THE ANALYSIS OF MIND




LECTURE I. RECENT CRITICISMS OF "CONSCIOUSNESS"

There are certain occurrences which we are in the habit of calling
"mental." Among these we may take as typical BELIEVING and DESIRING.
The exact definition of the word "mental" will, I hope, emerge as
the lectures proceed; for the present, I shall mean by it whatever
occurrences would commonly be called mental.

I wish in these lectures to analyse as fully as I can what it is that
really takes place when we, e.g. believe or desire. In this first
lecture I shall be concerned to refute a theory which is widely held,
and which I formerly held myself: the theory that the essence of
everything mental is a certain quite peculiar something called
"consciousness," conceived either as a relation to objects, or as a
pervading quality of psychical phenomena.

The reasons which I shall give against this theory will be mainly
derived from previous authors. There are two sorts of reasons, which
will divide my lecture into two parts:

(1) Direct reasons, derived from analysis and its difficulties;

(2) Indirect reasons, derived from observation of animals (comparative
psychology) and of the insane and hysterical (psycho-analysis).

Few things are more firmly established in popular philosophy than the
distinction between mind and matter. Those who are not professional
metaphysicians are willing to confess that they do not know what mind
actually is, or how matter is constituted; but they remain convinced
that there is an impassable gulf between the two, and that both belong
to what actually exists in the world. Philosophers, on the other hand,
have maintained often that matter is a mere fiction imagined by mind,
and sometimes that mind is a mere property of a certain kind of matter.
Those who maintain that mind is the reality and matter an evil dream are
called "idealists"--a word which has a different meaning in philosophy
from that which it bears in ordinary life. Those who argue that matter
is the reality and mind a mere property of protoplasm are called
"materialists." They have been rare among philosophers, but common,
at certain periods, among men of science. Idealists, materialists, and
ordinary mortals have been in agreement on one point: that they knew
sufficiently what they meant by the words "mind" and "matter" to be able
to conduct their debate intelligently. Yet it was just in this point, as
to which they were at one, that they seem to me to have been all alike
in error.

The stuff of which the world of our experience is composed is, in my
belief, neither mind nor matter, but something more primitive than
either. Both mind and matter seem to be composite, and the stuff of
which they are compounded lies in a sense between the two, in a sense
above them both, like a common ancestor. As regards matter, I have set
forth my reasons for this view on former occasions,* and I shall not now
repeat them. But the question of mind is more difficult, and it is this
question that I propose to discuss in these lectures. A great deal of
what I shall have to say is not original; indeed, much recent work, in
various fields, has tended to show the necessity of such theories as
those which I shall be advocating. Accordingly in this first lecture
I shall try to give a brief description of the systems of ideas within
which our investigation is to be carried on.

     * "Our Knowledge of the External World" (Allen & Unwin),
     Chapters III and IV. Also "Mysticism and Logic," Essays VII
     and VIII.

If there is one thing that may be said, in the popular estimation, to
characterize mind, that one thing is "consciousness." We say that we are
"conscious" of what we see and hear, of what we remember, and of our own
thoughts and feelings. Most of us believe that tables and chairs are
not "conscious." We think that when we sit in a chair, we are aware
of sitting in it, but it is not aware of being sat in. It cannot for
a moment be doubted that we are right in believing that there is SOME
difference between us and the chair in this respect: so much may be
taken as fact, and as a datum for our inquiry. But as soon as we try to
say what exactly the difference is, we become involved in perplexities.
Is "consciousness" ultimate and simple, something to be merely accepted
and contemplated? Or is it something complex, perhaps consisting in our
way of behaving in the presence of objects, or, alternatively, in the
existence in us of things called "ideas," having a certain relation
to objects, though different from them, and only symbolically
representative of them? Such questions are not easy to answer; but until
they are answered we cannot profess to know what we mean by saying that
we are possessed of "consciousness."

Before considering modern theories, let us look first at consciousness
from the standpoint of conventional psychology, since this embodies
views which naturally occur when we begin to reflect upon the subject.
For this purpose, let us as a preliminary consider different ways of
being conscious.

First, there is the way of PERCEPTION. We "perceive" tables and chairs,
horses and dogs, our friends, traffic passing in the street--in short,
anything which we recognize through the senses. I leave on one side for
the present the question whether pure sensation is to be regarded as a
form of consciousness: what I am speaking of now is perception, where,
according to conventional psychology, we go beyond the sensation to the
"thing" which it represents. When you hear a donkey bray, you not only
hear a noise, but realize that it comes from a donkey. When you see a
table, you not only see a coloured surface, but realize that it is hard.
The addition of these elements that go beyond crude sensation is said to
constitute perception. We shall have more to say about this at a later
stage. For the moment, I am merely concerned to note that perception
of objects is one of the most obvious examples of what is called
"consciousness." We are "conscious" of anything that we perceive.

We may take next the way of MEMORY. If I set to work to recall what
I did this morning, that is a form of consciousness different from
perception, since it is concerned with the past. There are various
problems as to how we can be conscious now of what no longer exists.
These will be dealt with incidentally when we come to the analysis of
memory.

From memory it is an easy step to what are called "ideas"--not in the
Platonic sense, but in that of Locke, Berkeley and Hume, in which they
are opposed to "impressions." You may be conscious of a friend either
by seeing him or by "thinking" of him; and by "thought" you can be
conscious of objects which cannot be seen, such as the human race,
or physiology. "Thought" in the narrower sense is that form of
consciousness which consists in "ideas" as opposed to impressions or
mere memories.

We may end our preliminary catalogue with BELIEF, by which I mean that
way of being conscious which may be either true or false. We say that a
man is "conscious of looking a fool," by which we mean that he believes
he looks a fool, and is not mistaken in this belief. This is a different
form of consciousness from any of the earlier ones. It is the form which
gives "knowledge" in the strict sense, and also error. It is, at least
apparently, more complex than our previous forms of consciousness;
though we shall find that they are not so separable from it as they
might appear to be.

Besides ways of being conscious there are other things that would
ordinarily be called "mental," such as desire and pleasure and pain.
These raise problems of their own, which we shall reach in Lecture III.
But the hardest problems are those that arise concerning ways of being
"conscious." These ways, taken together, are called the "cognitive"
elements in mind, and it is these that will occupy us most during the
following lectures.

There is one element which SEEMS obviously in common among the different
ways of being conscious, and that is, that they are all directed to
OBJECTS. We are conscious "of" something. The consciousness, it seems,
is one thing, and that of which we are conscious is another thing.
Unless we are to acquiesce in the view that we can never be conscious
of anything outside our own minds, we must say that the object of
consciousness need not be mental, though the consciousness must be. (I
am speaking within the circle of conventional doctrines, not expressing
my own beliefs.) This direction towards an object is commonly regarded
as typical of every form of cognition, and sometimes of mental life
altogether. We may distinguish two different tendencies in traditional
psychology. There are those who take mental phenomena naively, just as
they would physical phenomena. This school of psychologists tends not to
emphasize the object. On the other hand, there are those whose primary
interest is in the apparent fact that we have KNOWLEDGE, that there is a
world surrounding us of which we are aware. These men are interested in
the mind because of its relation to the world, because knowledge, if
it is a fact, is a very mysterious one. Their interest in psychology
is naturally centred in the relation of consciousness to its object, a
problem which, properly, belongs rather to theory of knowledge. We may
take as one of the best and most typical representatives of this school
the Austrian psychologist Brentano, whose "Psychology from the Empirical
Standpoint,"* though published in 1874, is still influential and was the
starting-point of a great deal of interesting work. He says (p. 115):

     * "Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte," vol. i, 1874.
     (The second volume was never published.)

"Every psychical phenomenon is characterized by what the scholastics of
the Middle Ages called the intentional (also the mental) inexistence of
an object, and what we, although with not quite unambiguous expressions,
would call relation to a content, direction towards an object (which is
not here to be understood as a reality), or immanent objectivity. Each
contains something in itself as an object, though not each in the same
way. In presentation something is presented, in judgment something is
acknowledged or rejected, in love something is loved, in hatred hated,
in desire desired, and so on.

"This intentional inexistence is exclusively peculiar to psychical
phenomena. No physical phenomenon shows anything similar. And so we
can define psychical phenomena by saying that they are phenomena which
intentionally contain an object in themselves."

The view here expressed, that relation to an object is an ultimate
irreducible characteristic of mental phenomena, is one which I shall be
concerned to combat. Like Brentano, I am interested in psychology, not
so much for its own sake, as for the light that it may throw on the
problem of knowledge. Until very lately I believed, as he did, that
mental phenomena have essential reference to objects, except possibly in
the case of pleasure and pain. Now I no longer believe this, even in
the case of knowledge. I shall try to make my reasons for this rejection
clear as we proceed. It must be evident at first glance that the
analysis of knowledge is rendered more difficult by the rejection; but
the apparent simplicity of Brentano's view of knowledge will be found,
if I am not mistaken, incapable of maintaining itself either against
an analytic scrutiny or against a host of facts in psycho-analysis and
animal psychology. I do not wish to minimize the problems. I will
merely observe, in mitigation of our prospective labours, that thinking,
however it is to be analysed, is in itself a delightful occupation,
and that there is no enemy to thinking so deadly as a false simplicity.
Travelling, whether in the mental or the physical world, is a joy, and
it is good to know that, in the mental world at least, there are vast
countries still very imperfectly explored.

The view expressed by Brentano has been held very generally, and
developed by many writers. Among these we may take as an example his
Austrian successor Meinong.* According to him there are three elements
involved in the thought of an object. These three he calls the act, the
content and the object. The act is the same in any two cases of the same
kind of consciousness; for instance, if I think of Smith or think
of Brown, the act of thinking, in itself, is exactly similar on both
occasions. But the content of my thought, the particular event that
is happening in my mind, is different when I think of Smith and when I
think of Brown. The content, Meinong argues, must not be confounded with
the object, since the content must exist in my mind at the moment when
I have the thought, whereas the object need not do so. The object may
be something past or future; it may be physical, not mental; it may
be something abstract, like equality for example; it may be something
imaginary, like a golden mountain; or it may even be something
self-contradictory, like a round square. But in all these cases, so
he contends, the content exists when the thought exists, and is what
distinguishes it, as an occurrence, from other thoughts.

     * See, e.g. his article: "Ueber Gegenstande hoherer Ordnung
     und deren Verhaltniss zur inneren Wahrnehmung," "Zeitschrift
     fur Psychologie and Physiologie der Sinnesorgane," vol. xxi,
     pp. 182-272 (1899), especially pp. 185-8.

To make this theory concrete, let us suppose that you are thinking of
St. Paul's. Then, according to Meinong, we have to distinguish three
elements which are necessarily combined in constituting the one thought.
First, there is the act of thinking, which would be just the same
whatever you were thinking about. Then there is what makes the character
of the thought as contrasted with other thoughts; this is the content.
And finally there is St. Paul's, which is the object of your thought.
There must be a difference between the content of a thought and what it
is about, since the thought is here and now, whereas what it is about
may not be; hence it is clear that the thought is not identical with St.
Paul's. This seems to show that we must distinguish between content
and object. But if Meinong is right, there can be no thought without an
object: the connection of the two is essential. The object might exist
without the thought, but not the thought without the object: the three
elements of act, content and object are all required to constitute the
one single occurrence called "thinking of St. Paul's."

The above analysis of a thought, though I believe it to be mistaken, is
very useful as affording a schema in terms of which other theories can
be stated. In the remainder of the present lecture I shall state in
outline the view which I advocate, and show how various other views
out of which mine has grown result from modifications of the threefold
analysis into act, content and object.

The first criticism I have to make is that the ACT seems unnecessary and
fictitious. The occurrence of the content of a thought constitutes
the occurrence of the thought. Empirically, I cannot discover anything
corresponding to the supposed act; and theoretically I cannot see that
it is indispensable. We say: "_I_ think so-and-so," and this word "I"
suggests that thinking is the act of a person. Meinong's "act" is the
ghost of the subject, or what once was the full-blooded soul. It is
supposed that thoughts cannot just come and go, but need a person to
think them. Now, of course it is true that thoughts can be collected
into bundles, so that one bundle is my thoughts, another is your
thoughts, and a third is the thoughts of Mr. Jones. But I think
the person is not an ingredient in the single thought: he is rather
constituted by relations of the thoughts to each other and to the body.
This is a large question, which need not, in its entirety, concern us
at present. All that I am concerned with for the moment is that the
grammatical forms "I think," "you think," and "Mr. Jones thinks," are
misleading if regarded as indicating an analysis of a single thought.
It would be better to say "it thinks in me," like "it rains here"; or
better still, "there is a thought in me." This is simply on the
ground that what Meinong calls the act in thinking is not empirically
discoverable, or logically deducible from what we can observe.

The next point of criticism concerns the relation of content and object.
The reference of thoughts to objects is not, I believe, the simple
direct essential thing that Brentano and Meinong represent it as being.
It seems to me to be derivative, and to consist largely in BELIEFS:
beliefs that what constitutes the thought is connected with various
other elements which together make up the object. You have, say, an
image of St. Paul's, or merely the word "St. Paul's" in your head. You
believe, however vaguely and dimly, that this is connected with what
you would see if you went to St. Paul's, or what you would feel if you
touched its walls; it is further connected with what other people see
and feel, with services and the Dean and Chapter and Sir Christopher
Wren. These things are not mere thoughts of yours, but your thought
stands in a relation to them of which you are more or less aware. The
awareness of this relation is a further thought, and constitutes
your feeling that the original thought had an "object." But in pure
imagination you can get very similar thoughts without these accompanying
beliefs; and in this case your thoughts do not have objects or seem to
have them. Thus in such instances you have content without object. On
the other hand, in seeing or hearing it would be less misleading to
say that you have object without content, since what you see or hear is
actually part of the physical world, though not matter in the sense of
physics. Thus the whole question of the relation of mental occurrences
to objects grows very complicated, and cannot be settled by regarding
reference to objects as of the essence of thoughts. All the above
remarks are merely preliminary, and will be expanded later.

Speaking in popular and unphilosophical terms, we may say that the
content of a thought is supposed to be something in your head when you
think the thought, while the object is usually something in the outer
world. It is held that knowledge of the outer world is constituted by
the relation to the object, while the fact that knowledge is different
from what it knows is due to the fact that knowledge comes by way of
contents. We can begin to state the difference between realism and
idealism in terms of this opposition of contents and objects. Speaking
quite roughly and approximately, we may say that idealism tends to
suppress the object, while realism tends to suppress the content.
Idealism, accordingly, says that nothing can be known except thoughts,
and all the reality that we know is mental; while realism maintains that
we know objects directly, in sensation certainly, and perhaps also in
memory and thought. Idealism does not say that nothing can be known
beyond the present thought, but it maintains that the context of vague
belief, which we spoke of in connection with the thought of St. Paul's,
only takes you to other thoughts, never to anything radically different
from thoughts. The difficulty of this view is in regard to sensation,
where it seems as if we came into direct contact with the outer world.
But the Berkeleian way of meeting this difficulty is so familiar that I
need not enlarge upon it now. I shall return to it in a later lecture,
and will only observe, for the present, that there seem to me no valid
grounds for regarding what we see and hear as not part of the physical
world.

Realists, on the other hand, as a rule, suppress the content, and
maintain that a thought consists either of act and object alone, or of
object alone. I have been in the past a realist, and I remain a realist
as regards sensation, but not as regards memory or thought. I will try
to explain what seem to me to be the reasons for and against various
kinds of realism.

Modern idealism professes to be by no means confined to the present
thought or the present thinker in regard to its knowledge; indeed, it
contends that the world is so organic, so dove-tailed, that from any
one portion the whole can be inferred, as the complete skeleton of an
extinct animal can be inferred from one bone. But the logic by which
this supposed organic nature of the world is nominally demonstrated
appears to realists, as it does to me, to be faulty. They argue that,
if we cannot know the physical world directly, we cannot really know
any thing outside our own minds: the rest of the world may be merely our
dream. This is a dreary view, and they there fore seek ways of escaping
from it. Accordingly they maintain that in knowledge we are in direct
contact with objects, which may be, and usually are, outside our own
minds. No doubt they are prompted to this view, in the first place, by
bias, namely, by the desire to think that they can know of the existence
of a world outside themselves. But we have to consider, not what led
them to desire the view, but whether their arguments for it are valid.

There are two different kinds of realism, according as we make a thought
consist of act and object, or of object alone. Their difficulties are
different, but neither seems tenable all through. Take, for the sake of
definiteness, the remembering of a past event. The remembering occurs
now, and is therefore necessarily not identical with the past event.
So long as we retain the act, this need cause no difficulty. The act
of remembering occurs now, and has on this view a certain essential
relation to the past event which it remembers. There is no LOGICAL
objection to this theory, but there is the objection, which we spoke
of earlier, that the act seems mythical, and is not to be found by
observation. If, on the other hand, we try to constitute memory without
the act, we are driven to a content, since we must have something that
happens NOW, as opposed to the event which happened in the past. Thus,
when we reject the act, which I think we must, we are driven to a theory
of memory which is more akin to idealism. These arguments, however, do
not apply to sensation. It is especially sensation, I think, which is
considered by those realists who retain only the object.* Their views,
which are chiefly held in America, are in large measure derived from
William James, and before going further it will be well to consider
the revolutionary doctrine which he advocated. I believe this doctrine
contains important new truth, and what I shall have to say will be in a
considerable measure inspired by it.

     * This is explicitly the case with Mach's "Analysis of
     Sensations," a book of fundamental importance in the present
     connection. (Translation of fifth German edition, Open Court
     Co., 1914. First German edition, 1886.)


William James's view was first set forth in an essay called "Does
'consciousness' exist?"* In this essay he explains how what used to be
the soul has gradually been refined down to the "transcendental ego,"
which, he says, "attenuates itself to a thoroughly ghostly condition,
being only a name for the fact that the 'content' of experience IS
KNOWN. It loses personal form and activity--these passing over to the
content--and becomes a bare Bewusstheit or Bewusstsein uberhaupt, of
which in its own right absolutely nothing can be said. I believe (he
continues) that 'consciousness,' when once it has evaporated to this
estate of pure diaphaneity, is on the point of disappearing altogether.
It is the name of a nonentity, and has no right to a place among first
principles. Those who still cling to it are clinging to a mere echo,
the faint rumour left behind by the disappearing 'soul' upon the air of
philosophy"(p. 2).

     * "Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific
     Methods," vol. i, 1904. Reprinted in "Essays in Radical
     Empiricism" (Longmans, Green & Co., 1912), pp. 1-38, to
     which references in what follows refer.


He explains that this is no sudden change in his opinions. "For twenty
years past," he says, "I have mistrusted 'consciousness' as an entity;
for seven or eight years past I have suggested its non-existence to my
students, and tried to give them its pragmatic equivalent in realities
of experience. It seems to me that the hour is ripe for it to be openly
and universally discarded"(p. 3).

His next concern is to explain away the air of paradox, for James
was never wilfully paradoxical. "Undeniably," he says, "'thoughts' do
exist." "I mean only to deny that the word stands for an entity, but to
insist most emphatically that it does stand for a function. There is, I
mean, no aboriginal stuff or quality of being, contrasted with that of
which material objects are made, out of which our thoughts of them are
made; but there is a function in experience which thoughts perform,
and for the performance of which this quality of being is invoked. That
function is KNOWING"(pp. 3-4).

James's view is that the raw material out of which the world is built
up is not of two sorts, one matter and the other mind, but that it is
arranged in different patterns by its inter-relations, and that some
arrangements may be called mental, while others may be called physical.

"My thesis is," he says, "that if we start with the supposition that
there is only one primal stuff or material in the world, a stuff
of which everything is composed, and if we call that stuff 'pure
experience,' then knowing can easily be explained as a particular sort
of relation towards one another into which portions of pure experience
may enter. The relation itself is a part of pure experience; one of its
'terms' becomes the subject or bearer of the knowledge, the knower, the
other becomes the object known"(p. 4).

After mentioning the duality of subject and object, which is supposed
to constitute consciousness, he proceeds in italics: "EXPERIENCE, I
BELIEVE, HAS NO SUCH INNER DUPLICITY; AND THE SEPARATION OF IT INTO
CONSCIOUSNESS AND CONTENT COMES, NOT BY WAY OF SUBTRACTION, BUT BY WAY
OF ADDITION"(p. 9).

He illustrates his meaning by the analogy of paint as it appears in a
paint-shop and as it appears in a picture: in the one case it is just
"saleable matter," while in the other it "performs a spiritual function.
Just so, I maintain (he continues), does a given undivided portion
of experience, taken in one context of associates, play the part of a
knower, of a state of mind, of 'consciousness'; while in a different
context the same undivided bit of experience plays the part of a thing
known, of an objective 'content.' In a word, in one group it figures as
a thought, in another group as a thing"(pp. 9-10).

He does not believe in the supposed immediate certainty of thought. "Let
the case be what it may in others," he says, "I am as confident as I am
of anything that, in myself, the stream of thinking (which I recognize
emphatically as a phenomenon) is only a careless name for what, when
scrutinized, reveals itself to consist chiefly of the stream of my
breathing. The 'I think' which Kant said must be able to accompany all
my objects, is the 'I breathe' which actually does accompany them"(pp.
36-37).

The same view of "consciousness" is set forth in the succeeding essay,
"A World of Pure Experience" (ib., pp. 39-91). The use of the phrase
"pure experience" in both essays points to a lingering influence of
idealism. "Experience," like "consciousness," must be a product, not
part of the primary stuff of the world. It must be possible, if James is
right in his main contentions, that roughly the same stuff, differently
arranged, would not give rise to anything that could be called
"experience." This word has been dropped by the American realists, among
whom we may mention specially Professor R. B. Perry of Harvard and Mr.
Edwin B. Holt. The interests of this school are in general philosophy
and the philosophy of the sciences, rather than in psychology; they have
derived a strong impulsion from James, but have more interest than he
had in logic and mathematics and the abstract part of philosophy. They
speak of "neutral" entities as the stuff out of which both mind and
matter are constructed. Thus Holt says: "If the terms and propositions
of logic must be substantialized, they are all strictly of one
substance, for which perhaps the least dangerous name is neutral-stuff.
The relation of neutral-stuff to matter and mind we shall have presently
to consider at considerable length." *

     * "The Concept of Consciousness" (Geo. Allen & Co., 1914),
     p. 52.

My own belief--for which the reasons will appear in subsequent
lectures--is that James is right in rejecting consciousness as an
entity, and that the American realists are partly right, though not
wholly, in considering that both mind and matter are composed of a
neutral-stuff which, in isolation, is neither mental nor material. I
should admit this view as regards sensations: what is heard or seen
belongs equally to psychology and to physics. But I should say that
images belong only to the mental world, while those occurrences (if any)
which do not form part of any "experience" belong only to the physical
world. There are, it seems to me, prima facie different kinds of causal
laws, one belonging to physics and the other to psychology. The law
of gravitation, for example, is a physical law, while the law of
association is a psychological law. Sensations are subject to both kinds
of laws, and are therefore truly "neutral" in Holt's sense. But entities
subject only to physical laws, or only to psychological laws, are not
neutral, and may be called respectively purely material and purely
mental. Even those, however, which are purely mental will not have that
intrinsic reference to objects which Brentano assigns to them and which
constitutes the essence of "consciousness" as ordinarily understood. But
it is now time to pass on to other modern tendencies, also hostile to
"consciousness."

There is a psychological school called "Behaviourists," of whom the
protagonist is Professor John B. Watson,* formerly of the Johns Hopkins
University. To them also, on the whole, belongs Professor John Dewey,
who, with James and Dr. Schiller, was one of the three founders of
pragmatism. The view of the "behaviourists" is that nothing can be known
except by external observation. They deny altogether that there is a
separate source of knowledge called "introspection," by which we can
know things about ourselves which we could never observe in others.
They do not by any means deny that all sorts of things MAY go on in
our minds: they only say that such things, if they occur, are not
susceptible of scientific observation, and do not therefore concern
psychology as a science. Psychology as a science, they say, is only
concerned with BEHAVIOUR, i.e. with what we DO; this alone, they
contend, can be accurately observed. Whether we think meanwhile, they
tell us, cannot be known; in their observation of the behaviour of human
beings, they have not so far found any evidence of thought. True, we
talk a great deal, and imagine that in so doing we are showing that we
can think; but behaviourists say that the talk they have to listen to
can be explained without supposing that people think. Where you might
expect a chapter on "thought processes" you come instead upon a chapter
on "The Language Habit." It is humiliating to find how terribly adequate
this hypothesis turns out to be.

     * See especially his "Behavior: an Introduction to
     Comparative Psychology," New York, 1914.

Behaviourism has not, however, sprung from observing the folly of men.
It is the wisdom of animals that has suggested the view. It has always
been a common topic of popular discussion whether animals "think." On
this topic people are prepared to take sides without having the vaguest
idea what they mean by "thinking." Those who desired to investigate such
questions were led to observe the behaviour of animals, in the hope that
their behaviour would throw some light on their mental faculties.
At first sight, it might seem that this is so. People say that a
dog "knows" its name because it comes when it is called, and that it
"remembers" its master, because it looks sad in his absence, but wags
its tail and barks when he returns. That the dog behaves in this way is
matter of observation, but that it "knows" or "remembers" anything is an
inference, and in fact a very doubtful one. The more such inferences are
examined, the more precarious they are seen to be. Hence the study of
animal behaviour has been gradually led to abandon all attempt at mental
interpretation. And it can hardly be doubted that, in many cases of
complicated behaviour very well adapted to its ends, there can be no
prevision of those ends. The first time a bird builds a nest, we can
hardly suppose it knows that there will be eggs to be laid in it, or
that it will sit on the eggs, or that they will hatch into young birds.
It does what it does at each stage because instinct gives it an impulse
to do just that, not because it foresees and desires the result of its
actions.*

     * An interesting discussion of the question whether
     instinctive actions, when first performed, involve any
     prevision, however vague, will be found in Lloyd Morgan's
     "Instinct and Experience" (Methuen, 1912), chap. ii.

Careful observers of animals, being anxious to avoid precarious
inferences, have gradually discovered more and more how to give
an account of the actions of animals without assuming what we call
"consciousness." It has seemed to the behaviourists that similar methods
can be applied to human behaviour, without assuming anything not open
to external observation. Let us give a crude illustration, too crude for
the authors in question, but capable of affording a rough insight into
their meaning. Suppose two children in a school, both of whom are asked
"What is six times nine?" One says fifty-four, the other says fifty-six.
The one, we say, "knows" what six times nine is, the other does not. But
all that we can observe is a certain language-habit. The one child has
acquired the habit of saying "six times nine is fifty-four"; the other
has not. There is no more need of "thought" in this than there is when
a horse turns into his accustomed stable; there are merely more numerous
and complicated habits. There is obviously an observable fact called
"knowing" such-and-such a thing; examinations are experiments for
discovering such facts. But all that is observed or discovered is a
certain set of habits in the use of words. The thoughts (if any) in the
mind of the examinee are of no interest to the examiner; nor has the
examiner any reason to suppose even the most successful examinee capable
of even the smallest amount of thought.

Thus what is called "knowing," in the sense in which we can ascertain
what other people "know," is a phenomenon exemplified in their physical
behaviour, including spoken and written words. There is no reason--so
Watson argues--to suppose that their knowledge IS anything beyond the
habits shown in this behaviour: the inference that other people
have something nonphysical called "mind" or "thought" is therefore
unwarranted.

So far, there is nothing particularly repugnant to our prejudices in the
conclusions of the behaviourists. We are all willing to admit that
other people are thoughtless. But when it comes to ourselves, we feel
convinced that we can actually perceive our own thinking. "Cogito, ergo
sum" would be regarded by most people as having a true premiss. This,
however, the behaviourist denies. He maintains that our knowledge of
ourselves is no different in kind from our knowledge of other people.
We may see MORE, because our own body is easier to observe than that of
other people; but we do not see anything radically unlike what we see
of others. Introspection, as a separate source of knowledge, is entirely
denied by psychologists of this school. I shall discuss this question at
length in a later lecture; for the present I will only observe that
it is by no means simple, and that, though I believe the behaviourists
somewhat overstate their case, yet there is an important element of
truth in their contention, since the things which we can discover by
introspection do not seem to differ in any very fundamental way from the
things which we discover by external observation.

So far, we have been principally concerned with knowing. But it might
well be maintained that desiring is what is really most characteristic
of mind. Human beings are constantly engaged in achieving some end
they feel pleasure in success and pain in failure. In a purely material
world, it may be said, there would be no opposition of pleasant and
unpleasant, good and bad, what is desired and what is feared. A man's
acts are governed by purposes. He decides, let us suppose, to go to a
certain place, whereupon he proceeds to the station, takes his ticket
and enters the train. If the usual route is blocked by an accident,
he goes by some other route. All that he does is determined--or so it
seems--by the end he has in view, by what lies in front of him, rather
than by what lies behind. With dead matter, this is not the case.
A stone at the top of a hill may start rolling, but it shows no
pertinacity in trying to get to the bottom. Any ledge or obstacle will
stop it, and it will exhibit no signs of discontent if this happens. It
is not attracted by the pleasantness of the valley, as a sheep or cow
might be, but propelled by the steepness of the hill at the place
where it is. In all this we have characteristic differences between the
behaviour of animals and the behaviour of matter as studied by physics.

Desire, like knowledge, is, of course, in one sense an observable
phenomenon. An elephant will eat a bun, but not a mutton chop; a duck
will go into the water, but a hen will not. But when we think of our
own desires, most people believe that we can know them by an immediate
self-knowledge which does not depend upon observation of our actions.
Yet if this were the case, it would be odd that people are so often
mistaken as to what they desire. It is matter of common observation that
"so-and-so does not know his own motives," or that "A is envious of B
and malicious about him, but quite unconscious of being so." Such people
are called self-deceivers, and are supposed to have had to go through
some more or less elaborate process of concealing from themselves what
would otherwise have been obvious. I believe that this is an entire
mistake. I believe that the discovery of our own motives can only be
made by the same process by which we discover other people's, namely,
the process of observing our actions and inferring the desire which
could prompt them. A desire is "conscious" when we have told ourselves
that we have it. A hungry man may say to himself: "Oh, I do want my
lunch." Then his desire is "conscious." But it only differs from an
"unconscious" desire by the presence of appropriate words, which is by
no means a fundamental difference.

The belief that a motive is normally conscious makes it easier to be
mistaken as to our own motives than as to other people's. When some
desire that we should be ashamed of is attributed to us, we notice that
we have never had it consciously, in the sense of saying to ourselves,
"I wish that would happen." We therefore look for some other
interpretation of our actions, and regard our friends as very unjust
when they refuse to be convinced by our repudiation of what we hold to
be a calumny. Moral considerations greatly increase the difficulty of
clear thinking in this matter. It is commonly argued that people are not
to blame for unconscious motives, but only for conscious ones. In order,
therefore, to be wholly virtuous it is only necessary to repeat virtuous
formulas. We say: "I desire to be kind to my friends, honourable in
business, philanthropic towards the poor, public-spirited in politics."
So long as we refuse to allow ourselves, even in the watches of the
night, to avow any contrary desires, we may be bullies at home, shady in
the City, skinflints in paying wages and profiteers in dealing with the
public; yet, if only conscious motives are to count in moral valuation,
we shall remain model characters. This is an agreeable doctrine, and
it is not surprising that men are un willing to abandon it. But moral
considerations are the worst enemies of the scientific spirit and we
must dismiss them from our minds if we wish to arrive at truth.

I believe--as I shall try to prove in a later lecture--that desire,
like force in mechanics, is of the nature of a convenient fiction
for describing shortly certain laws of behaviour. A hungry animal is
restless until it finds food; then it becomes quiescent. The thing which
will bring a restless condition to an end is said to be what is desired.
But only experience can show what will have this sedative effect, and it
is easy to make mistakes. We feel dissatisfaction, and think that
such and-such a thing would remove it; but in thinking this, we are
theorizing, not observing a patent fact. Our theorizing is often
mistaken, and when it is mistaken there is a difference between what we
think we desire and what in fact will bring satisfaction. This is such
a common phenomenon that any theory of desire which fails to account for
it must be wrong.

What have been called "unconscious" desires have been brought very much
to the fore in recent years by psycho-analysis. Psycho-analysis, as
every one knows, is primarily a method of understanding hysteria and
certain forms of insanity*; but it has been found that there is much
in the lives of ordinary men and women which bears a humiliating
resemblance to the delusions of the insane. The connection of dreams,
irrational beliefs and foolish actions with unconscious wishes has been
brought to light, though with some exaggeration, by Freud and Jung and
their followers. As regards the nature of these unconscious wishes,
it seems to me--though as a layman I speak with diffidence--that many
psycho-analysts are unduly narrow; no doubt the wishes they emphasize
exist, but others, e.g. for honour and power, are equally operative and
equally liable to concealment. This, however, does not affect the
value of their general theories from the point of view of theoretic
psychology, and it is from this point of view that their results are
important for the analysis of mind.

     * There is a wide field of "unconscious" phenomena which
     does not depend upon psycho-analytic theories. Such
     occurrences as automatic writing lead Dr. Morton Prince to
     say: "As I view this question of the subconscious, far too
     much weight is given to the point of awareness or not
     awareness of our conscious processes. As a matter of fact,
     we find entirely identical phenomena, that is, identical in
     every respect but one-that of awareness in which sometimes
     we are aware of these conscious phenomena and sometimes
     not"(p. 87 of "Subconscious Phenomena," by various authors,
     Rebman). Dr. Morton Price conceives that there may be
     "consciousness" without "awareness." But this is a difficult
     view, and one which makes some definition of "consciousness"
     imperative. For nay part, I cannot see how to separate
     consciousness from awareness.

What, I think, is clearly established, is that a man's actions and
beliefs may be wholly dominated by a desire of which he is quite
unconscious, and which he indignantly repudiates when it is suggested
to him. Such a desire is generally, in morbid cases, of a sort which
the patient would consider wicked; if he had to admit that he had the
desire, he would loathe himself. Yet it is so strong that it must force
an outlet for itself; hence it becomes necessary to entertain whole
systems of false beliefs in order to hide the nature of what is desired.
The resulting delusions in very many cases disappear if the hysteric or
lunatic can be made to face the facts about himself. The consequence
of this is that the treatment of many forms of insanity has grown more
psychological and less physiological than it used to be. Instead of
looking for a physical defect in the brain, those who treat delusions
look for the repressed desire which has found this contorted mode
of expression. For those who do not wish to plunge into the somewhat
repulsive and often rather wild theories of psychoanalytic pioneers, it
will be worth while to read a little book by Dr. Bernard Hart on "The
Psychology of Insanity."* On this question of the mental as opposed to
the physiological study of the causes of insanity, Dr. Hart says:

     * Cambridge, 1912; 2nd edition, 1914. The following
     references are to the second edition.

"The psychological conception [of insanity] is based on the view that
mental processes can be directly studied without any reference to the
accompanying changes which are presumed to take place in the brain, and
that insanity may therefore be properly attacked from the standpoint of
psychology"(p. 9).

This illustrates a point which I am anxious to make clear from the
outset. Any attempt to classify modern views, such as I propose to
advocate, from the old standpoint of materialism and idealism, is only
misleading. In certain respects, the views which I shall be setting
forth approximate to materialism; in certain others, they approximate to
its opposite. On this question of the study of delusions, the practical
effect of the modern theories, as Dr. Hart points out, is emancipation
from the materialist method. On the other hand, as he also points
out (pp. 38-9), imbecility and dementia still have to be considered
physiologically, as caused by defects in the brain. There is no
inconsistency in this If, as we maintain, mind and matter are neither of
them the actual stuff of reality, but different convenient groupings of
an underlying material, then, clearly, the question whether, in regard
to a given phenomenon, we are to seek a physical or a mental cause, is
merely one to be decided by trial. Metaphysicians have argued endlessly
as to the interaction of mind and matter. The followers of Descartes
held that mind and matter are so different as to make any action of the
one on the other impossible. When I will to move my arm, they said,
it is not my will that operates on my arm, but God, who, by His
omnipotence, moves my arm whenever I want it moved. The modern doctrine
of psychophysical parallelism is not appreciably different from this
theory of the Cartesian school. Psycho-physical parallelism is the
theory that mental and physical events each have causes in their own
sphere, but run on side by side owing to the fact that every state of
the brain coexists with a definite state of the mind, and vice versa.
This view of the reciprocal causal independence of mind and matter has
no basis except in metaphysical theory.* For us, there is no necessity
to make any such assumption, which is very difficult to harmonize with
obvious facts. I receive a letter inviting me to dinner: the letter is
a physical fact, but my apprehension of its meaning is mental. Here we
have an effect of matter on mind. In consequence of my apprehension of
the meaning of the letter, I go to the right place at the right time;
here we have an effect of mind on matter. I shall try to persuade you,
in the course of these lectures, that matter is not so material and mind
not so mental as is generally supposed. When we are speaking of matter,
it will seem as if we were inclining to idealism; when we are speaking
of mind, it will seem as if we were inclining to materialism. Neither
is the truth. Our world is to be constructed out of what the American
realists call "neutral" entities, which have neither the hardness and
indestructibility of matter, nor the reference to objects which is
supposed to characterize mind.

     * It would seem, however, that Dr. Hart accepts this theory
     as 8 methodological precept. See his contribution to
     "Subconscious Phenomena" (quoted above), especially pp. 121-2.

There is, it is true, one objection which might be felt, not indeed to
the action of matter on mind, but to the action of mind on matter. The
laws of physics, it may be urged, are apparently adequate to explain
everything that happens to matter, even when it is matter in a man's
brain. This, however, is only a hypothesis, not an established theory.
There is no cogent empirical reason for supposing that the laws
determining the motions of living bodies are exactly the same as those
that apply to dead matter. Sometimes, of course, they are clearly the
same. When a man falls from a precipice or slips on a piece of orange
peel, his body behaves as if it were devoid of life. These are the
occasions that make Bergson laugh. But when a man's bodily movements
are what we call "voluntary," they are, at any rate prima facie, very
different in their laws from the movements of what is devoid of life.
I do not wish to say dogmatically that the difference is irreducible;
I think it highly probable that it is not. I say only that the study of
the behaviour of living bodies, in the present state of our knowledge,
is distinct from physics. The study of gases was originally quite
distinct from that of rigid bodies, and would never have advanced to its
present state if it had not been independently pursued. Nowadays both
the gas and the rigid body are manufactured out of a more primitive and
universal kind of matter. In like manner, as a question of methodology,
the laws of living bodies are to be studied, in the first place, without
any undue haste to subordinate them to the laws of physics. Boyle's law
and the rest had to be discovered before the kinetic theory of gases
became possible. But in psychology we are hardly yet at the stage
of Boyle's law. Meanwhile we need not be held up by the bogey of
the universal rigid exactness of physics. This is, as yet, a mere
hypothesis, to be tested empirically without any preconceptions. It may
be true, or it may not. So far, that is all we can say.

Returning from this digression to our main topic, namely, the criticism
of "consciousness," we observe that Freud and his followers, though they
have demonstrated beyond dispute the immense importance of "unconscious"
desires in determining our actions and beliefs, have not attempted the
task of telling us what an "unconscious" desire actually is, and have
thus invested their doctrine with an air of mystery and mythology which
forms a large part of its popular attractiveness. They speak always as
though it were more normal for a desire to be conscious, and as though
a positive cause had to be assigned for its being unconscious. Thus
"the unconscious" becomes a sort of underground prisoner, living in a
dungeon, breaking in at long intervals upon our daylight respectability
with dark groans and maledictions and strange atavistic lusts. The
ordinary reader, almost inevitably, thinks of this underground person as
another consciousness, prevented by what Freud calls the "censor" from
making his voice heard in company, except on rare and dreadful occasions
when he shouts so loud that every one hears him and there is a scandal.
Most of us like the idea that we could be desperately wicked if only we
let ourselves go. For this reason, the Freudian "unconscious" has been a
consolation to many quiet and well-behaved persons.

I do not think the truth is quite so picturesque as this. I believe an
"unconscious" desire is merely a causal law of our behaviour,* namely,
that we remain restlessly active until a certain state of affairs is
realized, when we achieve temporary equilibrium If we know beforehand
what this state of affairs is, our desire is conscious; if not,
unconscious. The unconscious desire is not something actually existing,
but merely a tendency to a certain behaviour; it has exactly the same
status as a force in dynamics. The unconscious desire is in no way
mysterious; it is the natural primitive form of desire, from which the
other has developed through our habit of observing and theorizing (often
wrongly). It is not necessary to suppose, as Freud seems to do,
that every unconscious wish was once conscious, and was then, in his
terminology, "repressed" because we disapproved of it. On the contrary,
we shall suppose that, although Freudian "repression" undoubtedly occurs
and is important, it is not the usual reason for unconsciousness of our
wishes. The usual reason is merely that wishes are all, to begin with,
unconscious, and only become known when they are actively noticed.
Usually, from laziness, people do not notice, but accept the theory
of human nature which they find current, and attribute to themselves
whatever wishes this theory would lead them to expect. We used to be
full of virtuous wishes, but since Freud our wishes have become, in
the words of the Prophet Jeremiah, "deceitful above all things and
desperately wicked." Both these views, in most of those who have held
them, are the product of theory rather than observation, for observation
requires effort, whereas repeating phrases does not.

     * Cf. Hart, "The Psychology of Insanity," p. 19.

The interpretation of unconscious wishes which I have been advocating
has been set forth briefly by Professor John B. Watson in an article
called "The Psychology of Wish Fulfilment," which appeared in "The
Scientific Monthly" in November, 1916. Two quotations will serve to show
his point of view:

"The Freudians (he says) have made more or less of a 'metaphysical
entity' out of the censor. They suppose that when wishes are repressed
they are repressed into the 'unconscious,' and that this mysterious
censor stands at the trapdoor lying between the conscious and the
unconscious. Many of us do not believe in a world of the unconscious
(a few of us even have grave doubts about the usefulness of the term
consciousness), hence we try to explain censorship along ordinary
biological lines. We believe that one group of habits can 'down' another
group of habits--or instincts. In this case our ordinary system of
habits--those which we call expressive of our 'real selves'--inhibit
or quench (keep inactive or partially inactive) those habits and
instinctive tendencies which belong largely in the past"(p. 483).

Again, after speaking of the frustration of some impulses which is
involved in acquiring the habits of a civilized adult, he continues:

"It is among these frustrated impulses that I would find the biological
basis of the unfulfilled wish. Such 'wishes' need never have been
'conscious,' and NEED NEVER HAVE BEEN SUPPRESSED INTO FREUD'S REALM
OF THE UNCONSCIOUS. It may be inferred from this that there is no
particular reason for applying the term 'wish' to such tendencies"(p.
485).

One of the merits of the general analysis of mind which we shall
be concerned with in the following lectures is that it removes the
atmosphere of mystery from the phenomena brought to light by the
psycho-analysts. Mystery is delightful, but unscientific, since it
depends upon ignorance. Man has developed out of the animals, and
there is no serious gap between him and the amoeba. Something closely
analogous to knowledge and desire, as regards its effects on behaviour,
exists among animals, even where what we call "consciousness" is hard
to believe in; something equally analogous exists in ourselves in cases
where no trace of "consciousness" can be found. It is therefore
natural to suppose that, what ever may be the correct definition of
"consciousness," "consciousness" is not the essence of life or mind. In
the following lectures, accordingly, this term will disappear until we
have dealt with words, when it will re-emerge as mainly a trivial and
unimportant outcome of linguistic habits.




LECTURE II. INSTINCT AND HABIT

In attempting to understand the elements out of which mental phenomena
are compounded, it is of the greatest importance to remember that from
the protozoa to man there is nowhere a very wide gap either in structure
or in behaviour. From this fact it is a highly probable inference that
there is also nowhere a very wide mental gap. It is, of course, POSSIBLE
that there may be, at certain stages in evolution, elements which are
entirely new from the standpoint of analysis, though in their nascent
form they have little influence on behaviour and no very marked
correlatives in structure. But the hypothesis of continuity in mental
development is clearly preferable if no psychological facts make it
impossible. We shall find, if I am not mistaken, that there are no facts
which refute the hypothesis of mental continuity, and that, on the other
hand, this hypothesis affords a useful test of suggested theories as to
the nature of mind.

The hypothesis of mental continuity throughout organic evolution may be
used in two different ways. On the one hand, it may be held that we
have more knowledge of our own minds than those of animals, and that we
should use this knowledge to infer the existence of something similar
to our own mental processes in animals and even in plants. On the other
hand, it may be held that animals and plants present simpler phenomena,
more easily analysed than those of human minds; on this ground it may be
urged that explanations which are adequate in the case of animals ought
not to be lightly rejected in the case of man. The practical effects of
these two views are diametrically opposite: the first leads us to level
up animal intelligence with what we believe ourselves to know about our
own intelligence, while the second leads us to attempt a levelling down
of our own intelligence to something not too remote from what we can
observe in animals. It is therefore important to consider the relative
justification of the two ways of applying the principle of continuity.

It is clear that the question turns upon another, namely, which can we
know best, the psychology of animals or that of human beings? If we
can know most about animals, we shall use this knowledge as a basis for
inference about human beings; if we can know most about human beings, we
shall adopt the opposite procedure. And the question whether we can know
most about the psychology of human beings or about that of animals turns
upon yet another, namely: Is introspection or external observation
the surer method in psychology? This is a question which I propose to
discuss at length in Lecture VI; I shall therefore content myself now
with a statement of the conclusions to be arrived at.

We know a great many things concerning ourselves which we cannot know
nearly so directly concerning animals or even other people. We know when
we have a toothache, what we are thinking of, what dreams we have when
we are asleep, and a host of other occurrences which we only know about
others when they tell us of them, or otherwise make them inferable
by their behaviour. Thus, so far as knowledge of detached facts is
concerned, the advantage is on the side of self-knowledge as against
external observation.

But when we come to the analysis and scientific understanding of the
facts, the advantages on the side of self-knowledge become far less
clear. We know, for example, that we have desires and beliefs, but we
do not know what constitutes a desire or a belief. The phenomena are so
familiar that it is difficult to realize how little we really know about
them. We see in animals, and to a lesser extent in plants, behaviour
more or less similar to that which, in us, is prompted by desires and
beliefs, and we find that, as we descend in the scale of evolution,
behaviour becomes simpler, more easily reducible to rule, more
scientifically analysable and predictable. And just because we are not
misled by familiarity we find it easier to be cautious in interpreting
behaviour when we are dealing with phenomena remote from those of our
own minds: Moreover, introspection, as psychoanalysis has demonstrated,
is extraordinarily fallible even in cases where we feel a high degree of
certainty. The net result seems to be that, though self-knowledge has
a definite and important contribution to make to psychology, it is
exceedingly misleading unless it is constantly checked and controlled
by the test of external observation, and by the theories which such
observation suggests when applied to animal behaviour. On the whole,
therefore, there is probably more to be learnt about human psychology
from animals than about animal psychology from human beings; but this
conclusion is one of degree, and must not be pressed beyond a point.

It is only bodily phenomena that can be directly observed in animals,
or even, strictly speaking, in other human beings. We can observe such
things as their movements, their physiological processes, and the sounds
they emit. Such things as desires and beliefs, which seem obvious
to introspection, are not visible directly to external observation.
Accordingly, if we begin our study of psychology by external
observation, we must not begin by assuming such things as desires and
beliefs, but only such things as external observation can reveal, which
will be characteristics of the movements and physiological processes of
animals. Some animals, for example, always run away from light and hide
themselves in dark places. If you pick up a mossy stone which is lightly
embedded in the earth, you will see a number of small animals scuttling
away from the unwonted daylight and seeking again the darkness of which
you have deprived them. Such animals are sensitive to light, in the
sense that their movements are affected by it; but it would be rash to
infer that they have sensations in any way analogous to our sensations
of sight. Such inferences, which go beyond the observable facts, are to
be avoided with the utmost care.

It is customary to divide human movements into three classes, voluntary,
reflex and mechanical. We may illustrate the distinction by a quotation
from William James ("Psychology," i, 12):

"If I hear the conductor calling 'all aboard' as I enter the depot, my
heart first stops, then palpitates, and my legs respond to the air-waves
falling on my tympanum by quickening their movements. If I stumble as I
run, the sensation of falling provokes a movement of the hands towards
the direction of the fall, the effect of which is to shield the body
from too sudden a shock. If a cinder enter my eye, its lids close
forcibly and a copious flow of tears tends to wash it out.

"These three responses to a sensational stimulus differ, however, in
many respects. The closure of the eye and the lachrymation are quite
involuntary, and so is the disturbance of the heart. Such involuntary
responses we know as 'reflex' acts. The motion of the arms to break the
shock of falling may also be called reflex, since it occurs too quickly
to be deliberately intended. Whether it be instinctive or whether it
result from the pedestrian education of childhood may be doubtful; it
is, at any rate, less automatic than the previous acts, for a man might
by conscious effort learn to perform it more skilfully, or even to
suppress it altogether. Actions of this kind, with which instinct and
volition enter upon equal terms, have been called 'semi-reflex.' The
act of running towards the train, on the other hand, has no instinctive
element about it. It is purely the result of education, and is preceded
by a consciousness of the purpose to be attained and a distinct mandate
of the will. It is a 'voluntary act.' Thus the animal's reflex and
voluntary performances shade into each other gradually, being connected
by acts which may often occur automatically, but may also be modified by
conscious intelligence.

"An outside observer, unable to perceive the accompanying consciousness,
might be wholly at a loss to discriminate between the automatic acts and
those which volition escorted. But if the criterion of mind's existence
be the choice of the proper means for the attainment of a supposed
end, all the acts alike seem to be inspired by intelligence, for
APPROPRIATENESS characterizes them all alike."

There is one movement, among those that James mentions at first, which
is not subsequently classified, namely, the stumbling. This is the
kind of movement which may be called "mechanical"; it is evidently of a
different kind from either reflex or voluntary movements, and more akin
to the movements of dead matter. We may define a movement of an animal's
body as "mechanical" when it proceeds as if only dead matter were
involved. For example, if you fall over a cliff, you move under the
influence of gravitation, and your centre of gravity describes just as
correct a parabola as if you were already dead. Mechanical movements
have not the characteristic of appropriateness, unless by accident, as
when a drunken man falls into a waterbutt and is sobered. But reflex
and voluntary movements are not ALWAYS appropriate, unless in some very
recondite sense. A moth flying into a lamp is not acting sensibly; no
more is a man who is in such a hurry to get his ticket that he cannot
remember the name of his destination. Appropriateness is a complicated
and merely approximate idea, and for the present we shall do well to
dismiss it from our thoughts.

As James states, there is no difference, from the point of view of
the outside observer, between voluntary and reflex movements. The
physiologist can discover that both depend upon the nervous system,
and he may find that the movements which we call voluntary depend upon
higher centres in the brain than those that are reflex. But he
cannot discover anything as to the presence or absence of "will" or
"consciousness," for these things can only be seen from within, if
at all. For the present, we wish to place ourselves resolutely in the
position of outside observers; we will therefore ignore the distinction
between voluntary and reflex movements. We will call the two together
"vital" movements. We may then distinguish "vital" from mechanical
movements by the fact that vital movements depend for their causation
upon the special properties of the nervous system, while mechanical
movements depend only upon the properties which animal bodies share with
matter in general.

There is need for some care if the distinction between mechanical and
vital movements is to be made precise. It is quite likely that, if we
knew more about animal bodies, we could deduce all their movements from
the laws of chemistry and physics. It is already fairly easy to see how
chemistry reduces to physics, i.e. how the differences between different
chemical elements can be accounted for by differences of physical
structure, the constituents of the structure being electrons which are
exactly alike in all kinds of matter. We only know in part how to reduce
physiology to chemistry, but we know enough to make it likely that the
reduction is possible. If we suppose it effected, what would become of
the difference between vital and mechanical movements?

Some analogies will make the difference clear. A shock to a mass of
dynamite produces quite different effects from an equal shock to a mass
of steel: in the one case there is a vast explosion, while in the other
case there is hardly any noticeable disturbance. Similarly, you may
sometimes find on a mountain-side a large rock poised so delicately that
a touch will set it crashing down into the valley, while the rocks all
round are so firm that only a considerable force can dislodge them What
is analogous in these two cases is the existence of a great store of
energy in unstable equilibrium ready to burst into violent motion by
the addition of a very slight disturbance. Similarly, it requires only
a very slight expenditure of energy to send a post-card with the words
"All is discovered; fly!" but the effect in generating kinetic energy
is said to be amazing. A human body, like a mass of dynamite, contains
a store of energy in unstable equilibrium, ready to be directed in this
direction or that by a disturbance which is physically very small,
such as a spoken word. In all such cases the reduction of behaviour to
physical laws can only be effected by entering into great minuteness; so
long as we confine ourselves to the observation of comparatively
large masses, the way in which the equilibrium will be upset cannot be
determined. Physicists distinguish between macroscopic and microscopic
equations: the former determine the visible movements of bodies of
ordinary size, the latter the minute occurrences in the smallest parts.
It is only the microscopic equations that are supposed to be the same
for all sorts of matter. The macroscopic equations result from a process
of averaging out, and may be different in different cases. So, in our
instance, the laws of macroscopic phenomena are different for mechanical
and vital movements, though the laws of microscopic phenomena may be the
same.

We may say, speaking somewhat roughly, that a stimulus applied to the
nervous system, like a spark to dynamite, is able to take advantage of
the stored energy in unstable equilibrium, and thus to produce movements
out of proportion to the proximate cause. Movements produced in this way
are vital movements, while mechanical movements are those in which the
stored energy of a living body is not involved. Similarly dynamite may
be exploded, thereby displaying its characteristic properties, or may
(with due precautions) be carted about like any other mineral. The
explosion is analogous to vital movements, the carting about to
mechanical movements.

Mechanical movements are of no interest to the psychologist, and it has
only been necessary to define them in order to be able to exclude them.
When a psychologist studies behaviour, it is only vital movements
that concern him. We shall, therefore, proceed to ignore mechanical
movements, and study only the properties of the remainder.

The next point is to distinguish between movements that are instinctive
and movements that are acquired by experience. This distinction also is
to some extent one of degree. Professor Lloyd Morgan gives the following
definition of "instinctive behaviour":

"That which is, on its first occurrence, independent of prior
experience; which tends to the well-being of the individual and the
preservation of the race; which is similarly performed by all members
of the same more or less restricted group of animals; and which may be
subject to subsequent modification under the guidance of experience." *

     * "Instinct and Experience" (Methuen, 1912) p. 5.

This definition is framed for the purposes of biology, and is in
some respects unsuited to the needs of psychology. Though perhaps
unavoidable, allusion to "the same more or less restricted group
of animals" makes it impossible to judge what is instinctive in the
behaviour of an isolated individual. Moreover, "the well-being of
the individual and the preservation of the race" is only a usual
characteristic, not a universal one, of the sort of movements that, from
our point of view, are to be called instinctive; instances of harmful
instincts will be given shortly. The essential point of the definition,
from our point of view, is that an instinctive movement is in dependent
of prior experience.

We may say that an "instinctive" movement is a vital movement performed
by an animal the first time that it finds itself in a novel situation;
or, more correctly, one which it would perform if the situation were
novel.* The instincts of an animal are different at different periods of
its growth, and this fact may cause changes of behaviour which are
not due to learning. The maturing and seasonal fluctuation of the
sex-instinct affords a good illustration. When the sex-instinct first
matures, the behaviour of an animal in the presence of a mate is
different from its previous behaviour in similar circumstances, but is
not learnt, since it is just the same if the animal has never previously
been in the presence of a mate.

     * Though this can only be decided by comparison with other
     members of the species, and thus exposes us to the need of
     comparison which we thought an objection to Professor Lloyd
     Morgan's definition.

On the other hand, a movement is "learnt," or embodies a "habit," if it
is due to previous experience of similar situations, and is not what it
would be if the animal had had no such experience.

There are various complications which blur the sharpness of this
distinction in practice. To begin with, many instincts mature gradually,
and while they are immature an animal may act in a fumbling manner which
is very difficult to distinguish from learning. James ("Psychology," ii,
407) maintains that children walk by instinct, and that the awkwardness
of their first attempts is only due to the fact that the instinct has
not yet ripened. He hopes that "some scientific widower, left alone with
his offspring at the critical moment, may ere long test this suggestion
on the living subject." However this may be, he quotes evidence to show
that "birds do not LEARN to fly," but fly by instinct when they reach
the appropriate age (ib., p. 406). In the second place, instinct often
gives only a rough outline of the sort of thing to do, in which case
learning is necessary in order to acquire certainty and precision in
action. In the third place, even in the clearest cases of acquired
habit, such as speaking, some instinct is required to set in motion
the process of learning. In the case of speaking, the chief instinct
involved is commonly supposed to be that of imitation, but this may be
questioned. (See Thorndike's "Animal Intelligence," p. 253 ff.)

In spite of these qualifications, the broad distinction between instinct
and habit is undeniable. To take extreme cases, every animal at birth
can take food by instinct, before it has had opportunity to learn; on
the other hand, no one can ride a bicycle by instinct, though, after
learning, the necessary movements become just as automatic as if they
were instinctive.

The process of learning, which consists in the acquisition of habits,
has been much studied in various animals.* For example: you put a hungry
animal, say a cat, in a cage which has a door that can be opened by
lifting a latch; outside the cage you put food. The cat at first dashes
all round the cage, making frantic efforts to force a way out. At last,
by accident, the latch is lifted and the cat pounces on the food. Next
day you repeat the experiment, and you find that the cat gets out much
more quickly than the first time, although it still makes some random
movements. The third day it gets out still more quickly, and before long
it goes straight to the latch and lifts it at once. Or you make a model
of the Hampton Court maze, and put a rat in the middle, assaulted by the
smell of food on the outside. The rat starts running down the passages,
and is constantly stopped by blind alleys, but at last, by persistent
attempts, it gets out. You repeat this experiment day after day; you
measure the time taken by the rat in reaching the food; you find that
the time rapidly diminishes, and that after a while the rat ceases to
make any wrong turnings. It is by essentially similar processes that we
learn speaking, writing, mathematics, or the government of an empire.

     * The scientific study of this subject may almost be said to
     begin with Thorndike's "Animal Intelligence" (Macmillan,
     1911).

Professor Watson ("Behavior," pp. 262-3) has an ingenious theory as to
the way in which habit arises out of random movements. I think there is
a reason why his theory cannot be regarded as alone sufficient, but it
seems not unlikely that it is partly correct. Suppose, for the sake of
simplicity, that there are just ten random movements which may be made
by the animal--say, ten paths down which it may go--and that only one of
these leads to food, or whatever else represents success in the case in
question. Then the successful movement always occurs during the animal's
attempts, whereas each of the others, on the average, occurs in only
half the attempts. Thus the tendency to repeat a previous performance
(which is easily explicable without the intervention of "consciousness")
leads to a greater emphasis on the successful movement than on any
other, and in time causes it alone to be performed. The objection to
this view, if taken as the sole explanation, is that on improvement
ought to set in till after the SECOND trial, whereas experiment shows
that already at the second attempt the animal does better than the
first time. Something further is, therefore, required to account for the
genesis of habit from random movements; but I see no reason to suppose
that what is further required involves "consciousness."

Mr. Thorndike (op. cit., p. 244) formulates two "provisional laws of
acquired behaviour or learning," as follows:

"The Law of Effect is that: Of several responses made to the same
situation, those which are accompanied or closely followed by
satisfaction to the animal will, other things being equal, be more
firmly connected with the situation, so that, when it recurs, they will
be more likely to recur; those which are accompanied or closely followed
by discomfort to the animal will, other things being equal, have their
connections with that situation weakened, so that, when it recurs,
they will be less likely to occur. The greater the satisfaction or
discomfort, the greater the strengthening or weakening of the bond.

"The Law of Exercise is that: Any response to a situation will, other
things being equal, be more strongly connected with the situation
in proportion to the number of times it has been connected with that
situation and to the average vigour and duration of the connections."

With the explanation to be presently given of the meaning of
"satisfaction" and "discomfort," there seems every reason to accept
these two laws.

What is true of animals, as regards instinct and habit, is equally
true of men. But the higher we rise in the evolutionary scale, broadly
speaking, the greater becomes the power of learning, and the fewer are
the occasions when pure instinct is exhibited unmodified in adult life.
This applies with great force to man, so much so that some have thought
instinct less important in the life of man than in that of animals.
This, however, would be a mistake. Learning is only possible when
instinct supplies the driving-force. The animals in cages, which
gradually learn to get out, perform random movements at first, which
are purely instinctive. But for these random movements, they would never
acquire the experience which afterwards enables them to produce the
right movement. (This is partly questioned by Hobhouse*--wrongly, I
think.) Similarly, children learning to talk make all sorts of sounds,
until one day the right sound comes by accident. It is clear that the
original making of random sounds, without which speech would never be
learnt, is instinctive. I think we may say the same of all the habits
and aptitudes that we acquire in all of them there has been present
throughout some instinctive activity, prompting at first rather
inefficient movements, but supplying the driving force while more and
more effective methods are being acquired. A cat which is hungry smells
fish, and goes to the larder. This is a thoroughly efficient method when
there is fish in the larder, and it is often successfully practised by
children. But in later life it is found that merely going to the larder
does not cause fish to be there; after a series of random movements it
is found that this result is to be caused by going to the City in the
morning and coming back in the evening. No one would have guessed a
priori that this movement of a middle-aged man's body would cause fish
to come out of the sea into his larder, but experience shows that it
does, and the middle-aged man therefore continues to go to the City,
just as the cat in the cage continues to lift the latch when it has once
found it. Of course, in actual fact, human learning is rendered easier,
though psychologically more complex, through language; but at bottom
language does not alter the essential character of learning, or of the
part played by instinct in promoting learning. Language, however, is a
subject upon which I do not wish to speak until a later lecture.

     * "Mind in Evolution" (Macmillan, 1915), pp. 236-237.

The popular conception of instinct errs by imagining it to be infallible
and preternaturally wise, as well as incapable of modification. This is
a complete delusion. Instinct, as a rule, is very rough and ready, able
to achieve its result under ordinary circumstances, but easily misled by
anything unusual. Chicks follow their mother by instinct, but when they
are quite young they will follow with equal readiness any moving
object remotely resembling their mother, or even a human being (James,
"Psychology," ii, 396). Bergson, quoting Fabre, has made play with the
supposed extraordinary accuracy of the solitary wasp Ammophila, which
lays its eggs in a caterpillar. On this subject I will quote from
Drever's "Instinct in Man," p. 92:

"According to Fabre's observations, which Bergson accepts, the Ammophila
stings its prey EXACTLY and UNERRINGLY in EACH of the nervous centres.
The result is that the caterpillar is paralyzed, but not immediately
killed, the advantage of this being that the larva cannot be injured by
any movement of the caterpillar, upon which the egg is deposited, and is
provided with fresh meat when the time comes.

"Now Dr. and Mrs. Peckham have shown that the sting of the wasp is NOT
UNERRING, as Fabre alleges, that the number of stings is NOT CONSTANT,
that sometimes the caterpillar is NOT PARALYZED, and sometimes it is
KILLED OUTRIGHT, and that THE DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES DO NOT APPARENTLY
MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE TO THE LARVA, which is not injured by slight
movements of the caterpillar, nor by consuming food decomposed rather
than fresh caterpillar."

This illustrates how love of the marvellous may mislead even so careful
an observer as Fabre and so eminent a philosopher as Bergson.

In the same chapter of Dr. Drever's book there are some interesting
examples of the mistakes made by instinct. I will quote one as a sample:

"The larva of the Lomechusa beetle eats the young of the ants, in whose
nest it is reared. Nevertheless, the ants tend the Lomechusa larvae
with the same care they bestow on their own young. Not only so, but they
apparently discover that the methods of feeding, which suit their own
larvae, would prove fatal to the guests, and accordingly they change
their whole system of nursing" (loc. cit., p. 106).

Semon ("Die Mneme," pp. 207-9) gives a good illustration of an instinct
growing wiser through experience. He relates how hunters attract stags
by imitating the sounds of other members of their species, male or
female, but find that the older a stag becomes the more difficult it
is to deceive him, and the more accurate the imitation has to be. The
literature of instinct is vast, and illustrations might be multiplied
indefinitely. The main points as regards instinct, which need to be
emphasized as against the popular conceptions of it, are:

(1) That instinct requires no prevision of the biological end which it
serves;

(2) That instinct is only adapted to achieve this end in the usual
circumstances of the animal in question, and has no more precision than
is necessary for success AS A RULE;

(3) That processes initiated by instinct often come to be performed
better after experience;

(4) That instinct supplies the impulses to experimental movements which
are required for the process of learning;

(5) That instincts in their nascent stages are easily modifiable, and
capable of being attached to various sorts of objects.

All the above characteristics of instinct can be established by purely
external observation, except the fact that instinct does not require
prevision. This, though not strictly capable of being PROVED by
observation, is irresistibly suggested by the most obvious phenomena.
Who can believe, for example, that a new-born baby is aware of the
necessity of food for preserving life? Or that insects, in laying eggs,
are concerned for the preservation of their species? The essence of
instinct, one might say, is that it provides a mechanism for
acting without foresight in a manner which is usually advantageous
biologically. It is partly for this reason that it is so important to
understand the fundamental position of instinct in prompting both animal
and human behaviour.




LECTURE III. DESIRE AND FEELING

Desire is a subject upon which, if I am not mistaken, true views can
only be arrived at by an almost complete reversal of the ordinary
unreflecting opinion. It is natural to regard desire as in its essence
an attitude towards something which is imagined, not actual; this
something is called the END or OBJECT of the desire, and is said to be
the PURPOSE of any action resulting from the desire. We think of the
content of the desire as being just like the content of a belief, while
the attitude taken up towards the content is different. According to
this theory, when we say: "I hope it will rain," or "I expect it will
rain," we express, in the first case, a desire, and in the second, a
belief, with an identical content, namely, the image of rain. It would
be easy to say that, just as belief is one kind of feeling in relation
to this content, so desire is another kind. According to this view, what
comes first in desire is something imagined, with a specific feeling
related to it, namely, that specific feeling which we call "desiring"
it. The discomfort associated with unsatisfied desire, and the actions
which aim at satisfying desire, are, in this view, both of them effects
of the desire. I think it is fair to say that this is a view against
which common sense would not rebel; nevertheless, I believe it to be
radically mistaken. It cannot be refuted logically, but various facts
can be adduced which make it gradually less simple and plausible, until
at last it turns out to be easier to abandon it wholly and look at the
matter in a totally different way.

The first set of facts to be adduced against the common sense view of
desire are those studied by psycho-analysis. In all human beings, but
most markedly in those suffering from hysteria and certain forms of
insanity, we find what are called "unconscious" desires, which are
commonly regarded as showing self-deception. Most psycho-analysts
pay little attention to the analysis of desire, being interested in
discovering by observation what it is that people desire, rather than in
discovering what actually constitutes desire. I think the strangeness of
what they report would be greatly diminished if it were expressed in the
language of a behaviourist theory of desire, rather than in the language
of every-day beliefs. The general description of the sort of phenomena
that bear on our present question is as follows: A person states that
his desires are so-and-so, and that it is these desires that inspire his
actions; but the outside observer perceives that his actions are such
as to realize quite different ends from those which he avows, and
that these different ends are such as he might be expected to desire.
Generally they are less virtuous than his professed desires, and are
therefore less agreeable to profess than these are. It is accordingly
supposed that they really exist as desires for ends, but in a
subconscious part of the mind, which the patient refuses to admit into
consciousness for fear of having to think ill of himself. There are
no doubt many cases to which such a supposition is applicable without
obvious artificiality. But the deeper the Freudians delve into the
underground regions of instinct, the further they travel from anything
resembling conscious desire, and the less possible it becomes to believe
that only positive self-deception conceals from us that we really wish
for things which are abhorrent to our explicit life.

In the cases in question we have a conflict between the outside observer
and the patient's consciousness. The whole tendency of psycho-analysis
is to trust the outside observer rather than the testimony of
introspection. I believe this tendency to be entirely right, but to
demand a re-statement of what constitutes desire, exhibiting it as a
causal law of our actions, not as something actually existing in our
minds.

But let us first get a clearer statement of the essential characteristic
of the phenomena.

A person, we find, states that he desires a certain end A, and that he
is acting with a view to achieving it. We observe, however, that his
actions are such as are likely to achieve a quite different end B, and
that B is the sort of end that often seems to be aimed at by animals and
savages, though civilized people are supposed to have discarded it. We
sometimes find also a whole set of false beliefs, of such a kind as to
persuade the patient that his actions are really a means to A, when in
fact they are a means to B. For example, we have an impulse to inflict
pain upon those whom we hate; we therefore believe that they are wicked,
and that punishment will reform them. This belief enables us to act upon
the impulse to inflict pain, while believing that we are acting upon
the desire to lead sinners to repentance. It is for this reason that the
criminal law has been in all ages more severe than it would have been if
the impulse to ameliorate the criminal had been what really inspired
it. It seems simple to explain such a state of affairs as due to
"self-deception," but this explanation is often mythical. Most people,
in thinking about punishment, have had no more need to hide their
vindictive impulses from themselves than they have had to hide
the exponential theorem. Our impulses are not patent to a casual
observation, but are only to be discovered by a scientific study of our
actions, in the course of which we must regard ourselves as objectively
as we should the motions of the planets or the chemical reactions of a
new element.

The study of animals reinforces this conclusion, and is in many ways
the best preparation for the analysis of desire. In animals we are
not troubled by the disturbing influence of ethical considerations. In
dealing with human beings, we are perpetually distracted by being told
that such-and-such a view is gloomy or cynical or pessimistic: ages of
human conceit have built up such a vast myth as to our wisdom and virtue
that any intrusion of the mere scientific desire to know the facts is
instantly resented by those who cling to comfortable illusions. But no
one cares whether animals are virtuous or not, and no one is under the
delusion that they are rational. Moreover, we do not expect them to be
so "conscious," and are prepared to admit that their instincts prompt
useful actions without any prevision of the ends which they achieve. For
all these reasons, there is much in the analysis of mind which is more
easily discovered by the study of animals than by the observation of
human beings.

We all think that, by watching the behaviour of animals, we can discover
more or less what they desire. If this is the case--and I fully agree
that it is--desire must be capable of being exhibited in actions, for it
is only the actions of animals that we can observe. They MAY have minds
in which all sorts of things take place, but we can know nothing about
their minds except by means of inferences from their actions; and the
more such inferences are examined, the more dubious they appear. It
would seem, therefore, that actions alone must be the test of the
desires of animals. From this it is an easy step to the conclusion that
an animal's desire is nothing but a characteristic of a certain series
of actions, namely, those which would be commonly regarded as inspired
by the desire in question. And when it has been shown that this view
affords a satisfactory account of animal desires, it is not difficult
to see that the same explanation is applicable to the desires of human
beings.

We judge easily from the behaviour of an animal of a familiar
kind whether it is hungry or thirsty, or pleased or displeased, or
inquisitive or terrified. The verification of our judgment, so far
as verification is possible, must be derived from the immediately
succeeding actions of the animal. Most people would say that they infer
first something about the animal's state of mind--whether it is hungry
or thirsty and so on--and thence derive their expectations as to its
subsequent conduct. But this detour through the animal's supposed mind
is wholly unnecessary. We can say simply: The animal's behaviour during
the last minute has had those characteristics which distinguish what
is called "hunger," and it is likely that its actions during the next
minute will be similar in this respect, unless it finds food, or is
interrupted by a stronger impulse, such as fear. An animal which is
hungry is restless, it goes to the places where food is often to be
found, it sniffs with its nose or peers with its eyes or otherwise
increases the sensitiveness of its sense-organs; as soon as it is near
enough to food for its sense-organs to be affected, it goes to it with
all speed and proceeds to eat; after which, if the quantity of food has
been sufficient, its whole demeanour changes it may very likely lie
down and go to sleep. These things and others like them are observable
phenomena distinguishing a hungry animal from one which is not hungry.
The characteristic mark by which we recognize a series of actions
which display hunger is not the animal's mental state, which we cannot
observe, but something in its bodily behaviour; it is this observable
trait in the bodily behaviour that I am proposing to call "hunger,"
not some possibly mythical and certainly unknowable ingredient of the
animal's mind.

Generalizing what occurs in the case of hunger, we may say that what
we call a desire in an animal is always displayed in a cycle of actions
having certain fairly well marked characteristics. There is first a
state of activity, consisting, with qualifications to be mentioned
presently, of movements likely to have a certain result; these
movements, unless interrupted, continue until the result is achieved,
after which there is usually a period of comparative quiescence. A cycle
of actions of this sort has marks by which it is broadly distinguished
from the motions of dead matter. The most notable of these marks
are--(1) the appropriateness of the actions for the realization of a
certain result; (2) the continuance of action until that result has been
achieved. Neither of these can be pressed beyond a point. Either may
be (a) to some extent present in dead matter, and (b) to a considerable
extent absent in animals, while vegetable are intermediate, and display
only a much fainter form of the behaviour which leads us to attribute
desire to animals. (a) One might say rivers "desire" the sea water,
roughly speaking, remains in restless motion until it reaches either
the sea or a place from which it cannot issue without going uphill, and
therefore we might say that this is what it wishes while it is flowing.
We do not say so, because we can account for the behaviour of water by
the laws of physics; and if we knew more about animals, we might equally
cease to attribute desires to them, since we might find physical and
chemical reactions sufficient to account for their behaviour. (b) Many
of the movements of animals do not exhibit the characteristics of the
cycles which seem to embody desire. There are first of all the movements
which are "mechanical," such as slipping and falling, where ordinary
physical forces operate upon the animal's body almost as if it were
dead matter. An animal which falls over a cliff may make a number of
desperate struggles while it is in the air, but its centre of gravity
will move exactly as it would if the animal were dead. In this case, if
the animal is killed at the end of the fall, we have, at first sight,
just the characteristics of a cycle of actions embodying desire, namely,
restless movement until the ground is reached, and then quiescence.
Nevertheless, we feel no temptation to say that the animal desired what
occurred, partly because of the obviously mechanical nature of the whole
occurrence, partly because, when an animal survives a fall, it tends not
to repeat the experience.

There may be other reasons also, but of them I do not wish to speak yet.
Besides mechanical movements, there are interrupted movements, as when
a bird, on its way to eat your best peas, is frightened away by the boy
whom you are employing for that purpose. If interruptions are frequent
and completion of cycles rare, the characteristics by which cycles
are observed may become so blurred as to be almost unrecognizable. The
result of these various considerations is that the differences
between animals and dead matter, when we confine ourselves to external
unscientific observation of integral behaviour, are a matter of degree
and not very precise. It is for this reason that it has always been
possible for fanciful people to maintain that even stocks and stones
have some vague kind of soul. The evidence that animals have souls is
so very shaky that, if it is assumed to be conclusive, one might just as
well go a step further and extend the argument by analogy to all matter.
Nevertheless, in spite of vagueness and doubtful cases, the existence
of cycles in the behaviour of animals is a broad characteristic by which
they are prima facie distinguished from ordinary matter; and I think it
is this characteristic which leads us to attribute desires to animals,
since it makes their behaviour resemble what we do when (as we say) we
are acting from desire.

I shall adopt the following definitions for describing the behaviour of
animals:

A "behaviour-cycle" is a series of voluntary or reflex movements of an
animal, tending to cause a certain result, and continuing until that
result is caused, unless they are interrupted by death, accident,
or some new behaviour-cycle. (Here "accident" may be defined as the
intervention of purely physical laws causing mechanical movements.)

The "purpose" of a behaviour-cycle is the result which brings it to an
end, normally by a condition of temporary quiescence-provided there is
no interruption.

An animal is said to "desire" the purpose of a behaviour cycle while the
behaviour-cycle is in progress.

I believe these definitions to be adequate also to human purposes and
desires, but for the present I am only occupied with animals and with
what can be learnt by external observation. I am very anxious that no
ideas should be attached to the words "purpose" and "desire" beyond
those involved in the above definitions.

We have not so far considered what is the nature of the initial stimulus
to a behaviour-cycle. Yet it is here that the usual view of desire seems
on the strongest ground. The hungry animal goes on making movements
until it gets food; it seems natural, therefore, to suppose that the
idea of food is present throughout the process, and that the thought of
the end to be achieved sets the whole process in motion. Such a view,
however, is obviously untenable in many cases, especially where instinct
is concerned. Take, for example, reproduction and the rearing of the
young. Birds mate, build a nest, lay eggs in it, sit on the eggs, feed
the young birds, and care for them until they are fully grown. It
is totally impossible to suppose that this series of actions, which
constitutes one behaviour-cycle, is inspired by any prevision of the
end, at any rate the first time it is performed.* We must suppose that
the stimulus to the performance of each act is an impulsion from behind,
not an attraction from the future. The bird does what it does, at each
stage, because it has an impulse to that particular action, not because
it perceives that the whole cycle of actions will contribute to the
preservation of the species. The same considerations apply to other
instincts. A hungry animal feels restless, and is led by instinctive
impulses to perform the movements which give it nourishment; but the act
of seeking food is not sufficient evidence from which to conclude that
the animal has the thought of food in its "mind."

     * For evidence as to birds' nests, cf. Semon, "Die Mneme,"
     pp. 209, 210.

Coming now to human beings, and to what we know about our own actions,
it seems clear that what, with us, sets a behaviour-cycle in motion is
some sensation of the sort which we call disagreeable. Take the case
of hunger: we have first an uncomfortable feeling inside, producing a
disinclination to sit still, a sensitiveness to savoury smells, and an
attraction towards any food that there may be in our neighbourhood. At
any moment during this process we may become aware that we are hungry,
in the sense of saying to ourselves, "I am hungry"; but we may have been
acting with reference to food for some time before this moment. While we
are talking or reading, we may eat in complete unconsciousness; but we
perform the actions of eating just as we should if we were conscious,
and they cease when our hunger is appeased. What we call "consciousness"
seems to be a mere spectator of the process; even when it issues orders,
they are usually, like those of a wise parent, just such as would have
been obeyed even if they had not been given. This view may seem at first
exaggerated, but the more our so-called volitions and their causes are
examined, the more it is forced upon us. The part played by words in all
this is complicated, and a potent source of confusions; I shall return
to it later. For the present, I am still concerned with primitive
desire, as it exists in man, but in the form in which man shows his
affinity to his animal ancestors.

Conscious desire is made up partly of what is essential to desire,
partly of beliefs as to what we want. It is important to be clear as to
the part which does not consist of beliefs.

The primitive non-cognitive element in desire seems to be a push, not
a pull, an impulsion away from the actual, rather than an attraction
towards the ideal. Certain sensations and other mental occurrences have
a property which we call discomfort; these cause such bodily movements
as are likely to lead to their cessation. When the discomfort ceases,
or even when it appreciably diminishes, we have sensations possessing a
property which we call PLEASURE. Pleasurable sensations either stimulate
no action at all, or at most stimulate such action as is likely to
prolong them. I shall return shortly to the consideration of what
discomfort and pleasure are in themselves; for the present, it is
their connection with action and desire that concerns us. Abandoning
momentarily the standpoint of behaviourism, we may presume that hungry
animals experience sensations involving discomfort, and stimulating such
movements as seem likely to bring them to the food which is outside the
cages. When they have reached the food and eaten it, their discomfort
ceases and their sensations become pleasurable. It SEEMS, mistakenly, as
if the animals had had this situation in mind throughout, when in fact
they have been continually pushed by discomfort. And when an animal
is reflective, like some men, it comes to think that it had the final
situation in mind throughout; sometimes it comes to know what situation
will bring satisfaction, so that in fact the discomfort does bring the
thought of what will allay it. Nevertheless the sensation involving
discomfort remains the prime mover.

This brings us to the question of the nature of discomfort and pleasure.
Since Kant it has been customary to recognize three great divisions of
mental phenomena, which are typified by knowledge, desire and feeling,
where "feeling" is used to mean pleasure and discomfort. Of course,
"knowledge" is too definite a word: the states of mind concerned are
grouped together as "cognitive," and are to embrace not only beliefs,
but perceptions, doubts, and the understanding of concepts. "Desire,"
also, is narrower than what is intended: for example, WILL is to be
included in this category, and in fact every thing that involves any
kind of striving, or "conation" as it is technically called. I do not
myself believe that there is any value in this threefold division of the
contents of mind. I believe that sensations (including images) supply
all the "stuff" of the mind, and that everything else can be analysed
into groups of sensations related in various ways, or characteristics of
sensations or of groups of sensations. As regards belief, I shall give
grounds for this view in later lectures. As regards desires, I have
given some grounds in this lecture. For the present, it is pleasure and
discomfort that concern us. There are broadly three theories that might
be held in regard to them. We may regard them as separate existing
items in those who experience them, or we may regard them as intrinsic
qualities of sensations and other mental occurrences, or we may regard
them as mere names for the causal characteristics of the occurrences
which are uncomfortable or pleasant. The first of these theories,
namely, that which regards discomfort and pleasure as actual contents in
those who experience them, has, I think, nothing conclusive to be said
in its favour.* It is suggested chiefly by an ambiguity in the word
"pain," which has misled many people, including Berkeley, whom it
supplied with one of his arguments for subjective idealism. We may use
"pain" as the opposite of "pleasure," and "painful" as the opposite of
"pleasant," or we may use "pain" to mean a certain sort of sensation, on
a level with the sensations of heat and cold and touch. The latter use
of the word has prevailed in psychological literature, and it is now
no longer used as the opposite of "pleasure." Dr. H. Head, in a recent
publication, has stated this distinction as follows:**

     * Various arguments in its favour are advanced by A.
     Wohlgemuth, "On the feelings and their neural correlate,
     with an examination of the nature of pain," "British Journal
     of Psychology," viii, 4. (1917). But as these arguments are
     largely a reductio ad absurdum of other theories, among
     which that which I am advocating is not included, I cannot
     regard them as establishing their contention.

     ** "Sensation and the Cerebral Cortex," "Brain," vol. xli,
     part ii (September, 1918), p. 90. Cf. also Wohlgemuth, loc.
     cit. pp. 437, 450.

"It is necessary at the outset to distinguish clearly between
'discomfort' and 'pain.' Pain is a distinct sensory quality equivalent
to heat and cold, and its intensity can be roughly graded according to
the force expended in stimulation. Discomfort, on the other hand,
is that feeling-tone which is directly opposed to pleasure. It may
accompany sensations not in themselves essentially painful; as for
instance that produced by tickling the sole of the foot. The reaction
produced by repeated pricking contains both these elements; for it
evokes that sensory quality known as pain, accompanied by a disagreeable
feeling-tone, which we have called discomfort. On the other hand,
excessive pressure, except when applied directly over some nerve-trunk,
tends to excite more discomfort than pain."

The confusion between discomfort and pain has made people regard
discomfort as a more substantial thing than it is, and this in turn has
reacted upon the view taken of pleasure, since discomfort and pleasure
are evidently on a level in this respect. As soon as discomfort is
clearly distinguished from the sensation of pain, it becomes more
natural to regard discomfort and pleasure as properties of mental
occurrences than to regard them as separate mental occurrences on their
own account. I shall therefore dismiss the view that they are separate
mental occurrences, and regard them as properties of such experiences as
would be called respectively uncomfortable and pleasant.

It remains to be examined whether they are actual qualities of such
occurrences, or are merely differences as to causal properties. I do not
myself see any way of deciding this question; either view seems equally
capable of accounting for the facts. If this is true, it is safer to
avoid the assumption that there are such intrinsic qualities of
mental occurrences as are in question, and to assume only the causal
differences which are undeniable. Without condemning the intrinsic
theory, we can define discomfort and pleasure as consisting in causal
properties, and say only what will hold on either of the two theories.
Following this course, we shall say:

"Discomfort" is a property of a sensation or other mental occurrence,
consisting in the fact that the occurrence in question stimulates
voluntary or reflex movements tending to produce some more or less
definite change involving the cessation of the occurrence.

"Pleasure" is a property of a sensation or other mental occurrence,
consisting in the fact that the occurrence in question either does not
stimulate any voluntary or reflex movement, or, if it does, stimulates
only such as tend to prolong the occurrence in question.*

     * Cf. Thorndike, op. cit., p. 243.

"Conscious" desire, which we have now to consider, consists of desire
in the sense hitherto discussed, together with a true belief as to its
"purpose," i.e. as to the state of affairs that will bring quiescence
with cessation of the discomfort. If our theory of desire is correct,
a belief as to its purpose may very well be erroneous, since only
experience can show what causes a discomfort to cease. When the
experience needed is common and simple, as in the case of hunger, a
mistake is not very probable. But in other cases--e.g. erotic desire in
those who have had little or no experience of its satisfaction--mistakes
are to be expected, and do in fact very often occur. The practice of
inhibiting impulses, which is to a great extent necessary to civilized
life, makes mistakes easier, by preventing experience of the actions to
which a desire would otherwise lead, and by often causing the inhibited
impulses themselves to be unnoticed or quickly forgotten. The perfectly
natural mistakes which thus arise constitute a large proportion of what
is, mistakenly in part, called self-deception, and attributed by Freud
to the "censor."

But there is a further point which needs emphasizing, namely, that a
belief that something is desired has often a tendency to cause the very
desire that is believed in. It is this fact that makes the effect of
"consciousness" on desire so complicated.

When we believe that we desire a certain state of affairs, that often
tends to cause a real desire for it. This is due partly to the influence
of words upon our emotions, in rhetoric for example, and partly to the
general fact that discomfort normally belongs to the belief that we
desire such-and-such a thing that we do not possess. Thus what was
originally a false opinion as to the object of a desire acquires a
certain truth: the false opinion generates a secondary subsidiary
desire, which nevertheless becomes real. Let us take an illustration.
Suppose you have been jilted in a way which wounds your vanity. Your
natural impulsive desire will be of the sort expressed in Donne's poem:

     When by thy scorn, O Murderess, I am dead,

in which he explains how he will haunt the poor lady as a ghost, and
prevent her from enjoying a moment's peace. But two things stand in
the way of your expressing yourself so naturally: on the one hand, your
vanity, which will not acknowledge how hard you are hit; on the other
hand, your conviction that you are a civilized and humane person,
who could not possibly indulge so crude a desire as revenge. You will
therefore experience a restlessness which will at first seem quite
aimless, but will finally resolve itself in a conscious desire to change
your profession, or go round the world, or conceal your identity and
live in Putney, like Arnold Bennett's hero. Although the prime cause of
this desire is a false judgment as to your previous unconscious desire,
yet the new conscious desire has its own derivative genuineness, and may
influence your actions to the extent of sending you round the world.
The initial mistake, however, will have effects of two kinds. First,
in uncontrolled moments, under the influence of sleepiness or drink
or delirium, you will say things calculated to injure the faithless
deceiver. Secondly, you will find travel disappointing, and the East
less fascinating than you had hoped--unless, some day, you hear that the
wicked one has in turn been jilted. If this happens, you will believe
that you feel sincere sympathy, but you will suddenly be much more
delighted than before with the beauties of tropical islands or the
wonders of Chinese art. A secondary desire, derived from a false
judgment as to a primary desire, has its own power of influencing
action, and is therefore a real desire according to our definition.
But it has not the same power as a primary desire of bringing thorough
satisfaction when it is realized; so long as the primary desire remains
unsatisfied, restlessness continues in spite of the secondary desire's
success. Hence arises a belief in the vanity of human wishes: the vain
wishes are those that are secondary, but mistaken beliefs prevent us
from realizing that they are secondary.

What may, with some propriety, be called self-deception arises through
the operation of desires for beliefs. We desire many things which it is
not in our power to achieve: that we should be universally popular and
admired, that our work should be the wonder of the age, and that the
universe should be so ordered as to bring ultimate happiness to all,
though not to our enemies until they have repented and been purified
by suffering. Such desires are too large to be achieved through our own
efforts. But it is found that a considerable portion of the satisfaction
which these things would bring us if they were realized is to be
achieved by the much easier operation of believing that they are or
will be realized. This desire for beliefs, as opposed to desire for the
actual facts, is a particular case of secondary desire, and, like all
secondary desire its satisfaction does not lead to a complete cessation
of the initial discomfort. Nevertheless, desire for beliefs, as opposed
to desire for facts, is exceedingly potent both individually and
socially. According to the form of belief desired, it is called vanity,
optimism, or religion. Those who have sufficient power usually imprison
or put to death any one who tries to shake their faith in their own
excellence or in that of the universe; it is for this reason that
seditious libel and blasphemy have always been, and still are, criminal
offences.

It is very largely through desires for beliefs that the primitive
nature of desire has become so hidden, and that the part played by
consciousness has been so confusing and so exaggerated.

We may now summarize our analysis of desire and feeling.

A mental occurrence of any kind--sensation, image, belief, or
emotion--may be a cause of a series of actions, continuing, unless
interrupted, until some more or less definite state of affairs is
realized. Such a series of actions we call a "behaviour-cycle." The
degree of definiteness may vary greatly: hunger requires only food in
general, whereas the sight of a particular piece of food raises a desire
which requires the eating of that piece of food. The property of causing
such a cycle of occurrences is called "discomfort"; the property of the
mental occurrences in which the cycle ends is called "pleasure." The
actions constituting the cycle must not be purely mechanical, i.e. they
must be bodily movements in whose causation the special properties
of nervous tissue are involved. The cycle ends in a condition of
quiescence, or of such action as tends only to preserve the status quo.
The state of affairs in which this condition of quiescence is achieved
is called the "purpose" of the cycle, and the initial mental occurrence
involving discomfort is called a "desire" for the state of affairs that
brings quiescence. A desire is called "conscious" when it is accompanied
by a true belief as to the state of affairs that will bring quiescence;
otherwise it is called "unconscious." All primitive desire is
unconscious, and in human beings beliefs as to the purposes of desires
are often mistaken. These mistaken beliefs generate secondary desires,
which cause various interesting complications in the psychology of human
desire, without fundamentally altering the character which it shares
with animal desire.




LECTURE IV. INFLUENCE OF PAST HISTORY ON PRESENT OCCURRENCES IN LIVING
ORGANISMS

In this lecture we shall be concerned with a very general characteristic
which broadly, though not absolutely, distinguishes the behaviour
of living organisms from that of dead matter. The characteristic in
question is this:

The response of an organism to a given stimulus is very often dependent
upon the past history of the organism, and not merely upon the stimulus
and the HITHERTO DISCOVERABLE present state of the organism.

This characteristic is embodied in the saying "a burnt child fears the
fire." The burn may have left no visible traces, yet it modifies the
reaction of the child in the presence of fire. It is customary to assume
that, in such cases, the past operates by modifying the structure of the
brain, not directly. I have no wish to suggest that this hypothesis is
false; I wish only to point out that it is a hypothesis. At the end of
the present lecture I shall examine the grounds in its favour. If we
confine ourselves to facts which have been actually observed, we must
say that past occurrences, in addition to the present stimulus and
the present ascertainable condition of the organism, enter into the
causation of the response.

The characteristic is not wholly confined to living organisms. For
example, magnetized steel looks just like steel which has not been
magnetized, but its behaviour is in some ways different. In the case
of dead matter, however, such phenomena are less frequent and important
than in the case of living organisms, and it is far less difficult
to invent satisfactory hypotheses as to the microscopic changes of
structure which mediate between the past occurrence and the present
changed response. In the case of living organisms, practically
everything that is distinctive both of their physical and of their
mental behaviour is bound up with this persistent influence of the past.
Further, speaking broadly, the change in response is usually of a kind
that is biologically advantageous to the organism.

Following a suggestion derived from Semon ("Die Mneme," Leipzig, 1904;
2nd edition, 1908, English translation, Allen & Unwin, 1921; "Die
mnemischen Empfindungen," Leipzig, 1909), we will give the name of
"mnemic phenomena" to those responses of an organism which, so far as
hitherto observed facts are concerned, can only be brought under causal
laws by including past occurrences in the history of the organism as
part of the causes of the present response. I do not mean merely--what
would always be the case--that past occurrences are part of a CHAIN of
causes leading to the present event. I mean that, in attempting to state
the PROXIMATE cause of the present event, some past event or events
must be included, unless we take refuge in hypothetical modifications of
brain structure. For example: you smell peat-smoke, and you recall some
occasion when you smelt it before. The cause of your recollection, so
far as hitherto observable phenomena are concerned, consists both
of the peat smoke (present stimulus) and of the former occasion (past
experience). The same stimulus will not produce the same recollection
in another man who did not share your former experience, although the
former experience left no OBSERVABLE traces in the structure of the
brain. According to the maxim "same cause, same effect," we cannot
therefore regard the peat-smoke alone as the cause of your recollection,
since it does not have the same effect in other cases. The cause of
your recollection must be both the peat-smoke and the past occurrence.
Accordingly your recollection is an instance of what we are calling
"mnemic phenomena."

Before going further, it will be well to give illustrations of different
classes of mnemic phenomena.

(a) ACQUIRED HABITS.--In Lecture II we saw how animals can learn by
experience how to get out of cages or mazes, or perform other actions
which are useful to them but not provided for by their instincts alone.
A cat which is put into a cage of which it has had experience behaves
differently from the way in which it behaved at first. We can easily
invent hypotheses, which are quite likely to be true, as to connections
in the brain caused by past experience, and themselves causing the
different response. But the observable fact is that the stimulus of
being in the cage produces differing results with repetition, and that
the ascertainable cause of the cat's behaviour is not merely the cage
and its own ascertainable organization, but also its past history
in regard to the cage. From our present point of view, the matter is
independent of the question whether the cat's behaviour is due to some
mental fact called "knowledge," or displays a merely bodily habit. Our
habitual knowledge is not always in our minds, but is called up by the
appropriate stimuli. If we are asked "What is the capital of France?"
we answer "Paris," because of past experience; the past experience is as
essential as the present question in the causation of our response. Thus
all our habitual knowledge consists of acquired habits, and comes under
the head of mnemic phenomena.

(b) IMAGES.--I shall have much to say about images in a later lecture;
for the present I am merely concerned with them in so far as they are
"copies" of past sensations. When you hear New York spoken of, some
image probably comes into your mind, either of the place itself (if you
have been there), or of some picture of it (if you have not). The image
is due to your past experience, as well as to the present stimulus of
the words "New York." Similarly, the images you have in dreams are
all dependent upon your past experience, as well as upon the present
stimulus to dreaming. It is generally believed that all images, in their
simpler parts, are copies of sensations; if so, their mnemic character
is evident. This is important, not only on its own account, but also
because, as we shall see later, images play an essential part in what is
called "thinking."

(c) ASSOCIATION.--The broad fact of association, on the mental side, is
that when we experience something which we have experienced before,
it tends to call up the context of the former experience. The smell of
peat-smoke recalling a former scene is an instance which we discussed a
moment ago. This is obviously a mnemic phenomenon. There is also a more
purely physical association, which is indistinguishable from physical
habit. This is the kind studied by Mr. Thorndike in animals, where a
certain stimulus is associated with a certain act. This is the sort
which is taught to soldiers in drilling, for example. In such a case
there need not be anything mental, but merely a habit of the body.
There is no essential distinction between association and habit, and the
observations which we made concerning habit as a mnemic phenomenon are
equally applicable to association.

(d) NON-SENSATIONAL ELEMENTS IN PERCEPTION.--When we perceive any object
of a familiar kind, much of what appears subjectively to be immediately
given is really derived from past experience. When we see an object, say
a penny, we seem to be aware of its "real" shape we have the impression
of something circular, not of something elliptical. In learning to draw,
it is necessary to acquire the art of representing things according
to the sensation, not according to the perception. And the visual
appearance is filled out with feeling of what the object would be like
to touch, and so on. This filling out and supplying of the "real" shape
and so on consists of the most usual correlates of the sensational core
in our perception. It may happen that, in the particular case, the real
correlates are unusual; for example, if what we are seeing is a
carpet made to look like tiles. If so, the non-sensational part of our
perception will be illusory, i.e. it will supply qualities which the
object in question does not in fact have. But as a rule objects do
have the qualities added by perception, which is to be expected,
since experience of what is usual is the cause of the addition. If our
experience had been different, we should not fill out sensation in
the same way, except in so far as the filling out is instinctive,
not acquired. It would seem that, in man, all that makes up space
perception, including the correlation of sight and touch and so on, is
almost entirely acquired. In that case there is a large mnemic element
in all the common perceptions by means of which we handle common
objects. And, to take another kind of instance, imagine what our
astonishment would be if we were to hear a cat bark or a dog mew. This
emotion would be dependent upon past experience, and would therefore be
a mnemic phenomenon according to the definition.

(e) MEMORY AS KNOWLEDGE.--The kind of memory of which I am now speaking
is definite knowledge of some past event in one's own experience.
From time to time we remember things that have happened to us, because
something in the present reminds us of them. Exactly the same present
fact would not call up the same memory if our past experience had been
different. Thus our remembering is caused by--

(1) The present stimulus,

(2) The past occurrence.

It is therefore a mnemic phenomenon according to our definition. A
definition of "mnemic phenomena" which did not include memory would,
of course, be a bad one. The point of the definition is not that it
includes memory, but that it includes it as one of a class of phenomena
which embrace all that is characteristic in the subject matter of
psychology.

(f) EXPERIENCE.--The word "experience" is often used very vaguely.
James, as we saw, uses it to cover the whole primal stuff of the world,
but this usage seems objection able, since, in a purely physical world,
things would happen without there being any experience. It is only
mnemic phenomena that embody experience. We may say that an animal
"experiences" an occurrence when this occurrence modifies the animal's
subsequent behaviour, i.e. when it is the mnemic portion of the cause of
future occurrences in the animal's life. The burnt child that fears the
fire has "experienced" the fire, whereas a stick that has been thrown on
and taken off again has not "experienced" anything, since it offers
no more resistance than before to being thrown on. The essence of
"experience" is the modification of behaviour produced by what is
experienced. We might, in fact, define one chain of experience, or one
biography, as a series of occurrences linked by mnemic causation. I
think it is this characteristic, more than any other, that distinguishes
sciences dealing with living organisms from physics.

The best writer on mnemic phenomena known to me is Richard Semon, the
fundamental part of whose theory I shall endeavour to summarize before
going further:

When an organism, either animal or plant, is subjected to a stimulus,
producing in it some state of excitement, the removal of the stimulus
allows it to return to a condition of equilibrium. But the new state
of equilibrium is different from the old, as may be seen by the changed
capacity for reaction. The state of equilibrium before the stimulus may
be called the "primary indifference-state"; that after the cessation
of the stimulus, the "secondary indifference-state." We define the
"engraphic effect" of a stimulus as the effect in making a difference
between the primary and secondary indifference-states, and this
difference itself we define as the "engram" due to the stimulus. "Mnemic
phenomena" are defined as those due to engrams; in animals, they are
specially associated with the nervous system, but not exclusively, even
in man.

When two stimuli occur together, one of them, occurring afterwards,
may call out the reaction for the other also. We call this an "ekphoric
influence," and stimuli having this character are called "ekphoric
stimuli." In such a case we call the engrams of the two stimuli
"associated." All simultaneously generated engrams are associated; there
is also association of successively aroused engrams, though this is
reducible to simultaneous association. In fact, it is not an isolated
stimulus that leaves an engram, but the totality of the stimuli at any
moment; consequently any portion of this totality tends, if it recurs,
to arouse the whole reaction which was aroused before. Semon holds that
engrams can be inherited, and that an animal's innate habits may be due
to the experience of its ancestors; on this subject he refers to Samuel
Butler.

Semon formulates two "mnemic principles." The first, or "Law of
Engraphy," is as follows: "All simultaneous excitements in an organism
form a connected simultaneous excitement-complex, which as such works
engraphically, i.e. leaves behind a connected engram-complex, which
in so far forms a whole" ("Die mnemischen Empfindungen," p. 146).
The second mnemic principle, or "Law of Ekphory," is as follows:
"The partial return of the energetic situation which formerly worked
engraphically operates ekphorically on a simultaneous engram-complex"
(ib., p. 173). These two laws together represent in part a hypothesis
(the engram), and in part an observable fact. The observable fact is
that, when a certain complex of stimuli has originally caused a certain
complex of reactions, the recurrence of part of the stimuli tends to
cause the recurrence of the whole of the reactions.

Semon's applications of his fundamental ideas in various directions are
interesting and ingenious. Some of them will concern us later, but for
the present it is the fundamental character of mnemic phenomena that is
in question.

Concerning the nature of an engram, Semon confesses that at present it
is impossible to say more than that it must consist in some material
alteration in the body of the organism ("Die mnemischen Empfindungen,"
p. 376). It is, in fact, hypothetical, invoked for theoretical uses, and
not an outcome of direct observation. No doubt physiology, especially
the disturbances of memory through lesions in the brain, affords grounds
for this hypothesis; nevertheless it does remain a hypothesis, the
validity of which will be discussed at the end of this lecture.

I am inclined to think that, in the present state of physiology, the
introduction of the engram does not serve to simplify the account of
mnemic phenomena. We can, I think, formulate the known laws of such
phenomena in terms, wholly, of observable facts, by recognizing
provisionally what we may call "mnemic causation." By this I mean that
kind of causation of which I spoke at the beginning of this lecture,
that kind, namely, in which the proximate cause consists not merely of a
present event, but of this together with a past event. I do not wish to
urge that this form of causation is ultimate, but that, in the present
state of our knowledge, it affords a simplification, and enables us
to state laws of behaviour in less hypothetical terms than we should
otherwise have to employ.

The clearest instance of what I mean is recollection of a past event.
What we observe is that certain present stimuli lead us to recollect
certain occurrences, but that at times when we are not recollecting
them, there is nothing discoverable in our minds that could be called
memory of them. Memories, as mental facts, arise from time to time,
but do not, so far as we can see, exist in any shape while they are
"latent." In fact, when we say that they are "latent," we mean merely
that they will exist under certain circumstances. If, then, there is
to be some standing difference between the person who can remember a
certain fact and the person who cannot, that standing difference must
be, not in anything mental, but in the brain. It is quite probable that
there is such a difference in the brain, but its nature is unknown and
it remains hypothetical. Everything that has, so far, been made matter
of observation as regards this question can be put together in the
statement: When a certain complex of sensations has occurred to a man,
the recurrence of part of the complex tends to arouse the recollection
of the whole. In like manner, we can collect all mnemic phenomena in
living organisms under a single law, which contains what is hitherto
verifiable in Semon's two laws. This single law is:

IF A COMPLEX STIMULUS A HAS CAUSED A COMPLEX REACTION B IN AN ORGANISM,
THE OCCURRENCE OF A PART OF A ON A FUTURE OCCASION TENDS TO CAUSE THE
WHOLE REACTION B.

This law would need to be supplemented by some account of the influence
of frequency, and so on; but it seems to contain the essential
characteristic of mnemic phenomena, without admixture of anything
hypothetical.

Whenever the effect resulting from a stimulus to an organism differs
according to the past history of the organism, without our being able
actually to detect any relevant difference in its present structure,
we will speak of "mnemic causation," provided we can discover laws
embodying the influence of the past. In ordinary physical causation,
as it appears to common sense, we have approximate uniformities of
sequence, such as "lightning is followed by thunder," "drunkenness
is followed by headache," and so on. None of these sequences are
theoretically invariable, since something may intervene to disturb
them. In order to obtain invariable physical laws, we have to proceed to
differential equations, showing the direction of change at each moment,
not the integral change after a finite interval, however short. But
for the purposes of daily life many sequences are to all in tents and
purposes invariable. With the behaviour of human beings, however, this
is by no means the case. If you say to an Englishman, "You have a smut
on your nose," he will proceed to remove it, but there will be no such
effect if you say the same thing to a Frenchman who knows no English.
The effect of words upon the hearer is a mnemic phenomena, since it
depends upon the past experience which gave him understanding of the
words. If there are to be purely psychological causal laws, taking no
account of the brain and the rest of the body, they will have to be of
the form, not "X now causes Y now," but--

"A, B, C,... in the past, together with X now, cause Y now." For it
cannot be successfully maintained that our understanding of a word, for
example, is an actual existent content of the mind at times when we
are not thinking of the word. It is merely what may be called a
"disposition," i.e. it is capable of being aroused whenever we hear the
word or happen to think of it. A "disposition" is not something actual,
but merely the mnemic portion of a mnemic causal law.

In such a law as "A, B, C,... in the past, together with X now, cause
Y now," we will call A, B, C,... the mnemic cause, X the occasion or
stimulus, and Y the reaction. All cases in which experience influences
behaviour are instances of mnemic causation.

Believers in psycho-physical parallelism hold that psychology can
theoretically be freed entirely from all dependence on physiology or
physics. That is to say, they believe that every psychical event has
a psychical cause and a physical concomitant. If there is to be
parallelism, it is easy to prove by mathematical logic that the
causation in physical and psychical matters must be of the same sort,
and it is impossible that mnemic causation should exist in psychology
but not in physics. But if psychology is to be independent of
physiology, and if physiology can be reduced to physics, it would seem
that mnemic causation is essential in psychology. Otherwise we shall be
compelled to believe that all our knowledge, all our store of images
and memories, all our mental habits, are at all times existing in some
latent mental form, and are not merely aroused by the stimuli which lead
to their display. This is a very difficult hypothesis. It seems to me
that if, as a matter of method rather than metaphysics, we desire to
obtain as much independence for psychology as is practically feasible,
we shall do better to accept mnemic causation in psychology protem,
and therefore reject parallelism, since there is no good ground for
admitting mnemic causation in physics.

It is perhaps worth while to observe that mnemic causation is what led
Bergson to deny that there is causation at all in the psychical sphere.
He points out, very truly, that the same stimulus, repeated, does not
have the same consequences, and he argues that this is contrary to the
maxim, "same cause, same effect." It is only necessary, however, to take
account of past occurrences and include them with the cause, in order
to re-establish the maxim, and the possibility of psychological causal
laws. The metaphysical conception of a cause lingers in our manner of
viewing causal laws: we want to be able to FEEL a connection between
cause and effect, and to be able to imagine the cause as "operating."
This makes us unwilling to regard causal laws as MERELY observed
uniformities of sequence; yet that is all that science has to offer.
To ask why such-and-such a kind of sequence occurs is either to ask a
meaningless question, or to demand some more general kind of sequence
which includes the one in question. The widest empirical laws of
sequence known at any time can only be "explained" in the sense of being
subsumed by later discoveries under wider laws; but these wider laws,
until they in turn are subsumed, will remain brute facts, resting solely
upon observation, not upon some supposed inherent rationality.

There is therefore no a priori objection to a causal law in which part
of the cause has ceased to exist. To argue against such a law on the
ground that what is past cannot operate now, is to introduce the old
metaphysical notion of cause, for which science can find no place. The
only reason that could be validly alleged against mnemic causation would
be that, in fact, all the phenomena can be explained without it. They
are explained without it by Semon's "engram," or by any theory which
regards the results of experience as embodied in modifications of
the brain and nerves. But they are not explained, unless with extreme
artificiality, by any theory which regards the latent effects of
experience as psychical rather than physical. Those who desire to make
psychology as far as possible independent of physiology would do well,
it seems to me, if they adopted mnemic causation. For my part, however,
I have no such desire, and I shall therefore endeavour to state the
grounds which occur to me in favour of some such view as that of the
"engram."

One of the first points to be urged is that mnemic phenomena are just
as much to be found in physiology as in psychology. They are even to
be found in plants, as Sir Francis Darwin pointed out (cf. Semon, "Die
Mneme," 2nd edition, p. 28 n.). Habit is a characteristic of the body
at least as much as of the mind. We should, therefore, be compelled
to allow the intrusion of mnemic causation, if admitted at all, into
non-psychological regions, which ought, one feels, to be subject only to
causation of the ordinary physical sort. The fact is that a great deal
of what, at first sight, distinguishes psychology from physics is found,
on examination, to be common to psychology and physiology; this whole
question of the influence of experience is a case in point. Now it
is possible, of course, to take the view advocated by Professor J. S.
Haldane, who contends that physiology is not theoretically reducible to
physics and chemistry.* But the weight of opinion among physiologists
appears to be against him on this point; and we ought certainly to
require very strong evidence before admitting any such breach of
continuity as between living and dead matter. The argument from the
existence of mnemic phenomena in physiology must therefore be allowed a
certain weight against the hypothesis that mnemic causation is ultimate.

     * See his "The New Physiology and Other Addresses," Griffin,
     1919, also the symposium, "Are Physical, Biological and
     Psychological Categories Irreducible?" in "Life and Finite
     Individuality," edited for the Aristotelian Society, with an
     Introduction. By H. Wildon Carr, Williams & Norgate, 1918.

The argument from the connection of brain-lesions with loss of memory is
not so strong as it looks, though it has also, some weight. What we
know is that memory, and mnemic phenomena generally, can be disturbed or
destroyed by changes in the brain. This certainly proves that the brain
plays an essential part in the causation of memory, but does not prove
that a certain state of the brain is, by itself, a sufficient condition
for the existence of memory. Yet it is this last that has to be proved.
The theory of the engram, or any similar theory, has to maintain that,
given a body and brain in a suitable state, a man will have a certain
memory, without the need of any further conditions. What is known,
however, is only that he will not have memories if his body and brain
are not in a suitable state. That is to say, the appropriate state
of body and brain is proved to be necessary for memory, but not to be
sufficient. So far, therefore, as our definite knowledge goes, memory
may require for its causation a past occurrence as well as a certain
present state of the brain.

In order to prove conclusively that mnemic phenomena arise whenever
certain physiological conditions are fulfilled, we ought to be able
actually to see differences between the brain of a man who speaks
English and that of a man who speaks French, between the brain of a man
who has seen New York and can recall it, and that of a man who has never
seen that city. It may be that the time will come when this will be
possible, but at present we are very far removed from it. At present,
there is, so far as I am aware, no good evidence that every difference
between the knowledge possessed by A and that possessed by B is
paralleled by some difference in their brains. We may believe that
this is the case, but if we do, our belief is based upon analogies
and general scientific maxims, not upon any foundation of detailed
observation. I am myself inclined, as a working hypothesis, to adopt
the belief in question, and to hold that past experience only affects
present behaviour through modifications of physiological structure. But
the evidence seems not quite conclusive, so that I do not think we ought
to forget the other hypothesis, or to reject entirely the possibility
that mnemic causation may be the ultimate explanation of mnemic
phenomena. I say this, not because I think it LIKELY that mnemic
causation is ultimate, but merely because I think it POSSIBLE, and
because it often turns out important to the progress of science to
remember hypotheses which have previously seemed improbable.




LECTURE V. PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL CAUSAL LAWS

The traditional conception of cause and effect is one which modern
science shows to be fundamentally erroneous, and requiring to be
replaced by a quite different notion, that of LAWS OF CHANGE. In the
traditional conception, a particular event A caused a particular event
B, and by this it was implied that, given any event B, some earlier
event A could be discovered which had a relation to it, such that--

(1) Whenever A occurred, it was followed by B;

(2) In this sequence, there was something "necessary," not a mere de
facto occurrence of A first and then B.

The second point is illustrated by the old discussion as to whether
it can be said that day causes night, on the ground that day is always
followed by night. The orthodox answer was that day could not be called
the cause of night, because it would not be followed by night if the
earth's rotation were to cease, or rather to grow so slow that one
complete rotation would take a year. A cause, it was held, must be such
that under no conceivable circumstances could it fail to be followed by
its effect.

As a matter of fact, such sequences as were sought by believers in the
traditional form of causation have not so far been found in nature.
Everything in nature is apparently in a state of continuous change,* so
that what we call one "event" turns out to be really a process. If this
event is to cause another event, the two will have to be contiguous in
time; for if there is any interval between them, something may happen
during that interval to prevent the expected effect. Cause and effect,
therefore, will have to be temporally contiguous processes. It is
difficult to believe, at any rate where physical laws are concerned,
that the earlier part of the process which is the cause can make any
difference to the effect, so long as the later part of the process which
is the cause remains unchanged. Suppose, for example, that a man dies
of arsenic poisoning, we say that his taking arsenic was the cause
of death. But clearly the process by which he acquired the arsenic
is irrelevant: everything that happened before he swallowed it may be
ignored, since it cannot alter the effect except in so far as it alters
his condition at the moment of taking the dose. But we may go further:
swallowing arsenic is not really the proximate cause of death, since a
man might be shot through the head immediately after taking the dose,
and then it would not be of arsenic that he would die. The arsenic
produces certain physiological changes, which take a finite time before
they end in death. The earlier parts of these changes can be ruled out
in the same way as we can rule out the process by which the arsenic was
acquired. Proceeding in this way, we can shorten the process which we
are calling the cause more and more. Similarly we shall have to shorten
the effect. It may happen that immediately after the man's death his
body is blown to pieces by a bomb. We cannot say what will happen after
the man's death, through merely knowing that he has died as the result
of arsenic poisoning. Thus, if we are to take the cause as one event and
the effect as another, both must be shortened indefinitely. The result
is that we merely have, as the embodiment of our causal law, a certain
direction of change at each moment. Hence we are brought to differential
equations as embodying causal laws. A physical law does not say "A will
be followed by B," but tells us what acceleration a particle will have
under given circumstances, i.e. it tells us how the particle's motion is
changing at each moment, not where the particle will be at some future
moment.

     * The theory of quanta suggests that the continuity is only
     apparent. If so, we shall be able theoretically to reach
     events which are not processes. But in what is directly
     observable there is still apparent continuity, which
     justifies the above remarks for the prevent.

Laws embodied in differential equations may possibly be exact,
but cannot be known to be so. All that we can know empirically is
approximate and liable to exceptions; the exact laws that are assumed in
physics are known to be somewhere near the truth, but are not known to
be true just as they stand. The laws that we actually know empirically
have the form of the traditional causal laws, except that they are not
to be regarded as universal or necessary. "Taking arsenic is followed by
death" is a good empirical generalization; it may have exceptions, but
they will be rare. As against the professedly exact laws of physics,
such empirical generalizations have the advantage that they deal with
observable phenomena. We cannot observe infinitesimals, whether in time
or space; we do not even know whether time and space are infinitely
divisible. Therefore rough empirical generalizations have a definite
place in science, in spite of not being exact of universal. They are the
data for more exact laws, and the grounds for believing that they are
USUALLY true are stronger than the grounds for believing that the more
exact laws are ALWAYS true.

Science starts, therefore, from generalizations of the form, "A is
usually followed by B." This is the nearest approach that can be made
to a causal law of the traditional sort. It may happen in any particular
instance that A is ALWAYS followed by B, but we cannot know this, since
we cannot foresee all the perfectly possible circumstances that might
make the sequence fail, or know that none of them will actually occur.
If, however, we know of a very large number of cases in which A is
followed by B, and few or none in which the sequence fails, we shall in
PRACTICE be justified in saying "A causes B," provided we do not attach
to the notion of cause any of the metaphysical superstitions that have
gathered about the word.

There is another point, besides lack of universality and necessity,
which it is important to realize as regards causes in the above sense,
and that is the lack of uniqueness. It is generally assumed that, given
any event, there is some one phenomenon which is THE cause of the event
in question. This seems to be a mere mistake. Cause, in the only
sense in which it can be practically applied, means "nearly invariable
antecedent." We cannot in practice obtain an antecedent which is QUITE
invariable, for this would require us to take account of the whole
universe, since something not taken account of may prevent the expected
effect. We cannot distinguish, among nearly invariable antecedents, one
as THE cause, and the others as merely its concomitants: the attempt to
do this depends upon a notion of cause which is derived from will, and
will (as we shall see later) is not at all the sort of thing that it is
generally supposed to be, nor is there any reason to think that in the
physical world there is anything even remotely analogous to what will is
supposed to be. If we could find one antecedent, and only one, that was
QUITE invariable, we could call that one THE cause without introducing
any notion derived from mistaken ideas about will. But in fact we cannot
find any antecedent that we know to be quite invariable, and we can find
many that are nearly so. For example, men leave a factory for dinner
when the hooter sounds at twelve o'clock. You may say the hooter is
THE cause of their leaving. But innumerable other hooters in other
factories, which also always sound at twelve o'clock, have just as
good a right to be called the cause. Thus every event has many nearly
invariable antecedents, and therefore many antecedents which may be
called its cause.

The laws of traditional physics, in the form in which they deal with
movements of matter or electricity, have an apparent simplicity which
somewhat conceals the empirical character of what they assert. A piece
of matter, as it is known empirically, is not a single existing thing,
but a system of existing things. When several people simultaneously see
the same table, they all see something different; therefore "the" table,
which they are supposed all to see, must be either a hypothesis or
a construction. "The" table is to be neutral as between different
observers: it does not favour the aspect seen by one man at the expense
of that seen by another. It was natural, though to my mind mistaken, to
regard the "real" table as the common cause of all the appearances which
the table presents (as we say) to different observers. But why should we
suppose that there is some one common cause of all these appearances? As
we have just seen, the notion of "cause" is not so reliable as to allow
us to infer the existence of something that, by its very nature, can
never be observed.

Instead of looking for an impartial source, we can secure neutrality by
the equal representation of all parties. Instead of supposing that there
is some unknown cause, the "real" table, behind the different sensations
of those who are said to be looking at the table, we may take the
whole set of these sensations (together possibly with certain other
particulars) as actually BEING the table. That is to say, the table
which is neutral as between different observers (actual and possible)
is the set of all those particulars which would naturally be called
"aspects" of the table from different points of view. (This is a first
approximation, modified later.)

It may be said: If there is no single existent which is the source of
all these "aspects," how are they collected together? The answer is
simple: Just as they would be if there were such a single existent. The
supposed "real" table underlying its appearances is, in any case, not
itself perceived, but inferred, and the question whether such-and-such
a particular is an "aspect" of this table is only to be settled by
the connection of the particular in question with the one or more
particulars by which the table is defined. That is to say, even if we
assume a "real" table, the particulars which are its aspects have to be
collected together by their relations to each other, not to it, since
it is merely inferred from them. We have only, therefore, to notice how
they are collected together, and we can then keep the collection
without assuming any "real" table as distinct from the collection. When
different people see what they call the same table, they see things
which are not exactly the same, owing to difference of point of view,
but which are sufficiently alike to be described in the same words, so
long as no great accuracy or minuteness is sought. These closely similar
particulars are collected together by their similarity primarily
and, more correctly, by the fact that they are related to each other
approximately according to the laws of perspective and of reflection and
diffraction of light. I suggest, as a first approximation, that these
particulars, together with such correlated others as are unperceived,
jointly ARE the table; and that a similar definition applies to all
physical objects.*

     *See "Our Knowledge of the External World" (Allen & Unwin),
     chaps. iii and iv.

In order to eliminate the reference to our perceptions, which introduces
an irrelevant psychological suggestion, I will take a different
illustration, namely, stellar photography. A photographic plate exposed
on a clear night reproduces the appearance of the portion of the sky
concerned, with more or fewer stars according to the power of the
telescope that is being used. Each separate star which is photographed
produces its separate effect on the plate, just as it would upon
ourselves if we were looking at the sky. If we assume, as science
normally does, the continuity of physical processes, we are forced
to conclude that, at the place where the plate is, and at all places
between it and a star which it photographs, SOMETHING is happening which
is specially connected with that star. In the days when the aether was
less in doubt, we should have said that what was happening was a certain
kind of transverse vibration in the aether. But it is not necessary
or desirable to be so explicit: all that we need say is that SOMETHING
happens which is specially connected with the star in question. It
must be something specially connected with that star, since that star
produces its own special effect upon the plate. Whatever it is must be
the end of a process which starts from the star and radiates outwards,
partly on general grounds of continuity, partly to account for the fact
that light is transmitted with a certain definite velocity. We thus
arrive at the conclusion that, if a certain star is visible at a certain
place, or could be photographed by a sufficiently sensitive plate at
that place, something is happening there which is specially connected
with that star. Therefore in every place at all times a vast multitude
of things must be happening, namely, at least one for every physical
object which can be seen or photographed from that place. We can
classify such happenings on either of two principles:

(1) We can collect together all the happenings in one place, as is done
by photography so far as light is concerned;

(2) We can collect together all the happenings, in different places,
which are connected in the way that common sense regards as being due to
their emanating from one object.

Thus, to return to the stars, we can collect together either--

(1) All the appearances of different stars in a given place, or,

(2) All the appearances of a given star in different places.

But when I speak of "appearances," I do so only for brevity: I do not
mean anything that must "appear" to somebody, but only that happening,
whatever it may be, which is connected, at the place in question, with a
given physical object--according to the old orthodox theory, it would be
a transverse vibration in the aether. Like the different appearances
of the table to a number of simultaneous observers, the different
particulars that belong to one physical object are to be collected
together by continuity and inherent laws of correlation, not by their
supposed causal connection with an unknown assumed existent called a
piece of matter, which would be a mere unnecessary metaphysical thing in
itself. A piece of matter, according to the definition that I propose,
is, as a first approximation,* the collection of all those correlated
particulars which would normally be regarded as its appearances or
effects in different places. Some further elaborations are desirable,
but we can ignore them for the present. I shall return to them at the
end of this lecture.

     *The exact definition of a piece of matter as a construction
     will be given later.

According to the view that I am suggesting, a physical object or piece
of matter is the collection of all those correlated particulars which
would be regarded by common sense as its effects or appearances in
different places. On the other hand, all the happenings in a given place
represent what common sense would regard as the appearances of a number
of different objects as viewed from that place. All the happenings in
one place may be regarded as the view of the world from that place. I
shall call the view of the world from a given place a "perspective." A
photograph represents a perspective. On the other hand, if photographs
of the stars were taken in all points throughout space, and in all such
photographs a certain star, say Sirius, were picked out whenever it
appeared, all the different appearances of Sirius, taken together,
would represent Sirius. For the understanding of the difference between
psychology and physics it is vital to understand these two ways of
classifying particulars, namely:

(1) According to the place where they occur;

(2) According to the system of correlated particulars in different
places to which they belong, such system being defined as a physical
object.

Given a system of particulars which is a physical object, I shall
define that one of the system which is in a given place (if any) as the
"appearance of that object in that place."

When the appearance of an object in a given place changes, it is found
that one or other of two things occurs. The two possibilities may be
illustrated by an example. You are in a room with a man, whom you see:
you may cease to see him either by shutting your eyes or by his going
out of the room. In the first case, his appearance to other people
remains unchanged; in the second, his appearance changes from all
places. In the first case, you say that it is not he who has changed,
but your eyes; in the second, you say that he has changed. Generalizing,
we distinguish--

(1) Cases in which only certain appearances of the object change, while
others, and especially appearances from places very near to the object,
do not change;

(2) Cases where all, or almost all, the appearances of the object
undergo a connected change.

In the first case, the change is attributed to the medium between the
object and the place; in the second, it is attributed to the object
itself.*

     * The application of this distinction to motion raises
     complications due to relativity, but we may ignore these for
     our present purposes.

It is the frequency of the latter kind of change, and the comparatively
simple nature of the laws governing the simultaneous alterations
of appearances in such cases, that have made it possible to treat a
physical object as one thing, and to overlook the fact that it is a
system of particulars. When a number of people at a theatre watch an
actor, the changes in their several perspectives are so similar and so
closely correlated that all are popularly regarded as identical with
each other and with the changes of the actor himself. So long as all
the changes in the appearances of a body are thus correlated there is no
pressing prima facie need to break up the system of appearances, or to
realize that the body in question is not really one thing but a set of
correlated particulars. It is especially and primarily such changes that
physics deals with, i.e. it deals primarily with processes in which
the unity of a physical object need not be broken up because all its
appearances change simultaneously according to the same law--or, if not
all, at any rate all from places sufficiently near to the object, with
in creasing accuracy as we approach the object.

The changes in appearances of an object which are due to changes in the
intervening medium will not affect, or will affect only very slightly,
the appearances from places close to the object. If the appearances
from sufficiently neighbouring places are either wholly un changed,
or changed to a diminishing extent which has zero for its limit, it
is usually found that the changes can be accounted for by changes in
objects which are between the object in question and the places from
which its appearance has changed appreciably. Thus physics is able
to reduce the laws of most changes with which it deals to changes in
physical objects, and to state most of its fundamental laws in terms of
matter. It is only in those cases in which the unity of the system of
appearances constituting a piece of matter has to be broken up, that the
statement of what is happening cannot be made exclusively in terms of
matter. The whole of psychology, we shall find, is included among such
cases; hence their importance for our purposes.

We can now begin to understand one of the fundamental differences
between physics and psychology. Physics treats as a unit the whole
system of appearances of a piece of matter, whereas psychology is
interested in certain of these appearances themselves. Confining
ourselves for the moment to the psychology of perceptions, we observe
that perceptions are certain of the appearances of physical objects.
From the point of view that we have been hitherto adopting, we
might define them as the appearances of objects at places from which
sense-organs and the suitable parts of the nervous system form part
of the intervening medium. Just as a photographic plate receives a
different impression of a cluster of stars when a telescope is part of
the intervening medium, so a brain receives a different impression
when an eye and an optic nerve are part of the intervening medium.
An impression due to this sort of intervening medium is called a
perception, and is interesting to psychology on its own account, not
merely as one of the set of correlated particulars which is the physical
object of which (as we say) we are having a perception.

We spoke earlier of two ways of classifying particulars. One way
collects together the appearances commonly regarded as a given object
from different places; this is, broadly speaking, the way of physics,
leading to the construction of physical objects as sets of such
appearances. The other way collects together the appearances of
different objects from a given place, the result being what we call a
perspective. In the particular case where the place concerned is a
human brain, the perspective belonging to the place consists of all the
perceptions of a certain man at a given time. Thus classification by
perspectives is relevant to psychology, and is essential in defining
what we mean by one mind.

I do not wish to suggest that the way in which I have been defining
perceptions is the only possible way, or even the best way. It is the
way that arose naturally out of our present topic. But when we approach
psychology from a more introspective standpoint, we have to distinguish
sensations and perceptions, if possible, from other mental occurrences,
if any. We have also to consider the psychological effects of
sensations, as opposed to their physical causes and correlates. These
problems are quite distinct from those with which we have been concerned
in the present lecture, and I shall not deal with them until a later
stage.

It is clear that psychology is concerned essentially with actual
particulars, not merely with systems of particulars. In this it differs
from physics, which, broadly speaking, is concerned with the cases
in which all the particulars which make up one physical object can be
treated as a single causal unit, or rather the particulars which are
sufficiently near to the object of which they are appearances can be so
treated. The laws which physics seeks can, broadly speaking, be stated
by treating such systems of particulars as causal units. The laws which
psychology seeks cannot be so stated, since the particulars themselves
are what interests the psychologist. This is one of the fundamental
differences between physics and psychology; and to make it clear has
been the main purpose of this lecture.

I will conclude with an attempt to give a more precise definition of
a piece of matter. The appearances of a piece of matter from different
places change partly according to intrinsic laws (the laws of
perspective, in the case of visual shape), partly according to the
nature of the intervening medium--fog, blue spectacles, telescopes,
microscopes, sense-organs, etc. As we approach nearer to the object, the
effect of the intervening medium grows less. In a generalized sense,
all the intrinsic laws of change of appearance may be called "laws
of perspective." Given any appearance of an object, we can construct
hypothetically a certain system of appearances to which the appearance
in question would belong if the laws of perspective alone were
concerned. If we construct this hypothetical system for each appearance
of the object in turn, the system corresponding to a given appearance
x will be independent of any distortion due to the medium beyond x, and
will only embody such distortion as is due to the medium between x and
the object. Thus, as the appearance by which our hypothetical system
is defined is moved nearer and nearer to the object, the hypothetical
system of appearances defined by its means embodies less and less of the
effect of the medium. The different sets of appearances resulting from
moving x nearer and nearer to the object will approach to a limiting
set, and this limiting set will be that system of appearances which the
object would present if the laws of perspective alone were operative
and the medium exercised no distorting effect. This limiting set of
appearances may be defined, for purposes of physics, as the piece of
matter concerned.




LECTURE VI. INTROSPECTION

One of the main purposes of these lectures is to give grounds for
the belief that the distinction between mind and matter is not so
fundamental as is commonly supposed. In the preceding lecture I dealt in
outline with the physical side of this problem. I attempted to show
that what we call a material object is not itself a substance, but is
a system of particulars analogous in their nature to sensations, and in
fact often including actual sensations among their number. In this
way the stuff of which physical objects are composed is brought into
relation with the stuff of which part, at least, of our mental life is
composed.

There is, however, a converse task which is equally necessary for our
thesis, and that is, to show that the stuff of our mental life is devoid
of many qualities which it is commonly supposed to have, and is not
possessed of any attributes which make it incapable of forming part of
the world of matter. In the present lecture I shall begin the arguments
for this view.

Corresponding to the supposed duality of matter and mind, there are, in
orthodox psychology, two ways of knowing what exists. One of these, the
way of sensation and external perception, is supposed to furnish data
for our knowledge of matter, the other, called "introspection," is
supposed to furnish data for knowledge of our mental processes. To
common sense, this distinction seems clear and easy. When you see a
friend coming along the street, you acquire knowledge of an external,
physical fact; when you realize that you are glad to meet him, you
acquire knowledge of a mental fact. Your dreams and memories and
thoughts, of which you are often conscious, are mental facts, and the
process by which you become aware of them SEEMS to be different from
sensation. Kant calls it the "inner sense"; sometimes it is spoken of
as "consciousness of self"; but its commonest name in modern English
psychology is "introspection." It is this supposed method of acquiring
knowledge of our mental processes that I wish to analyse and examine in
this lecture.

I will state at the outset the view which I shall aim at establishing.
I believe that the stuff of our mental life, as opposed to its relations
and structure, consists wholly of sensations and images. Sensations are
connected with matter in the way that I tried to explain in Lecture V,
i.e. each is a member of a system which is a certain physical object.
Images, though they USUALLY have certain characteristics, especially
lack of vividness, that distinguish them from sensations, are not
INVARIABLY so distinguished, and cannot therefore be defined by these
characteristics. Images, as opposed to sensations, can only be defined
by their different causation: they are caused by association with a
sensation, not by a stimulus external to the nervous system--or perhaps
one should say external to the brain, where the higher animals are
concerned. The occurrence of a sensation or image does not in itself
constitute knowledge but any sensation or image may come to be known
if the conditions are suitable. When a sensation--like the hearing of a
clap of thunder--is normally correlated with closely similar sensations
in our neighbours, we regard it as giving knowledge of the external
world, since we regard the whole set of similar sensations as due to
a common external cause. But images and bodily sensations are not so
correlated. Bodily sensations can be brought into a correlation by
physiology, and thus take their place ultimately among sources of
knowledge of the physical world. But images cannot be made to fit in
with the simultaneous sensations and images of others. Apart from their
hypothetical causes in the brain, they have a causal connection
with physical objects, through the fact that they are copies of past
sensations; but the physical objects with which they are thus connected
are in the past, not in the present. These images remain private in
a sense in which sensations are not. A sensation SEEMS to give us
knowledge of a present physical object, while an image does not, except
when it amounts to a hallucination, and in this case the seeming is
deceptive. Thus the whole context of the two occurrences is different.
But in themselves they do not differ profoundly, and there is no reason
to invoke two different ways of knowing for the one and for the other.
Consequently introspection as a separate kind of knowledge disappears.

The criticism of introspection has been in the main the work of American
psychologists. I will begin by summarizing an article which seems to me
to afford a good specimen of their arguments, namely, "The Case against
Introspection," by Knight Dunlap ("Psychological Review," vol xix, No.
5, pp. 404-413, September, 1912). After a few historical quotations,
he comes to two modern defenders of introspection, Stout and James. He
quotes from Stout such statements as the following: "Psychical states as
such become objects only when we attend to them in an introspective way.
Otherwise they are not themselves objects, but only constituents of the
process by which objects are recognized" ("Manual," 2nd edition, p. 134.
The word "recognized" in Dunlap's quotation should be "cognized.") "The
object itself can never be identified with the present modification of
the individual's consciousness by which it is cognized" (ib. p. 60).
This is to be true even when we are thinking about modifications of
our own consciousness; such modifications are to be always at least
partially distinct from the conscious experience in which we think of
them.

At this point I wish to interrupt the account of Knight Dunlap's article
in order to make some observations on my own account with reference to
the above quotations from Stout. In the first place, the conception of
"psychical states" seems to me one which demands analysis of a somewhat
destructive character. This analysis I shall give in later lectures as
regards cognition; I have already given it as regards desire. In the
second place, the conception of "objects" depends upon a certain view
as to cognition which I believe to be wholly mistaken, namely, the view
which I discussed in my first lecture in connection with Brentano.
In this view a single cognitive occurrence contains both content and
object, the content being essentially mental, while the object is
physical except in introspection and abstract thought. I have already
criticized this view, and will not dwell upon it now, beyond saying
that "the process by which objects are cognized" appears to be a very
slippery phrase. When we "see a table," as common sense would say, the
table as a physical object is not the "object" (in the psychological
sense) of our perception. Our perception is made up of sensations,
images and beliefs, but the supposed "object" is something inferential,
externally related, not logically bound up with what is occurring in us.
This question of the nature of the object also affects the view we take
of self-consciousness. Obviously, a "conscious experience" is different
from a physical object; therefore it is natural to assume that a thought
or perception whose object is a conscious experience must be different
from a thought or perception whose object is a physical object. But if
the relation to the object is inferential and external, as I maintain,
the difference between two thoughts may bear very little relation to
the difference between their objects. And to speak of "the present
modification of the individual's consciousness by which an object is
cognized" is to suggest that the cognition of objects is a far more
direct process, far more intimately bound up with the objects, than I
believe it to be. All these points will be amplified when we come to the
analysis of knowledge, but it is necessary briefly to state them now in
order to suggest the atmosphere in which our analysis of "introspection"
is to be carried on.

Another point in which Stout's remarks seem to me to suggest what I
regard as mistakes is his use of "consciousness." There is a view which
is prevalent among psychologists, to the effect that one can speak of "a
conscious experience" in a curious dual sense, meaning, on the one hand,
an experience which is conscious of something, and, on the other hand,
an experience which has some intrinsic nature characteristic of what
is called "consciousness." That is to say, a "conscious experience" is
characterized on the one hand by relation to its object and on the
other hand by being composed of a certain peculiar stuff, the stuff of
"consciousness." And in many authors there is yet a third confusion: a
"conscious experience," in this third sense, is an experience of
which we are conscious. All these, it seems to me, need to be clearly
separated. To say that one occurrence is "conscious" of another is, to
my mind, to assert an external and rather remote relation between them.
I might illustrate it by the relation of uncle and nephew a man becomes
an uncle through no effort of his own, merely through an occurrence
elsewhere. Similarly, when you are said to be "conscious" of a table,
the question whether this is really the case cannot be decided by
examining only your state of mind: it is necessary also to ascertain
whether your sensation is having those correlates which past experience
causes you to assume, or whether the table happens, in this case, to be
a mirage. And, as I explained in my first lecture, I do not believe that
there is any "stuff" of consciousness, so that there is no intrinsic
character by which a "conscious" experience could be distinguished from
any other.

After these preliminaries, we can return to Knight Dunlap's article.
His criticism of Stout turns on the difficulty of giving any empirical
meaning to such notions as the "mind" or the "subject"; he quotes from
Stout the sentence: "The most important drawback is that the mind, in
watching its own workings, must necessarily have its attention divided
between two objects," and he concludes: "Without question, Stout is
bringing in here illicitly the concept of a single observer, and his
introspection does not provide for the observation of this observer;
for the process observed and the observer are distinct" (p. 407).
The objections to any theory which brings in the single observer were
considered in Lecture I, and were acknowledged to be cogent. In so
far, therefore, as Stout's theory of introspection rests upon this
assumption, we are compelled to reject it. But it is perfectly possible
to believe in introspection without supposing that there is a single
observer.

William James's theory of introspection, which Dunlap next examines,
does not assume a single observer. It changed after the publication
of his "Psychology," in consequence of his abandoning the dualism of
thought and things. Dunlap summarizes his theory as follows:

"The essential points in James's scheme of consciousness are SUBJECT,
OBJECT, and a KNOWING of the object by the subject. The difference
between James's scheme and other schemes involving the same terms is
that James considers subject and object to be the same thing, but at
different times In order to satisfy this requirement James supposes a
realm of existence which he at first called 'states of consciousness' or
'thoughts,' and later, 'pure experience,' the latter term including both
the 'thoughts' and the 'knowing.' This scheme, with all its magnificent
artificiality, James held on to until the end, simply dropping the
term consciousness and the dualism between the thought and an external
reality"(p. 409).

He adds: "All that James's system really amounts to is the
acknowledgment that a succession of things are known, and that they are
known by something. This is all any one can claim, except for the
fact that the things are known together, and that the knower for the
different items is one and the same" (ib.).

In this statement, to my mind, Dunlap concedes far more than James did
in his later theory. I see no reason to suppose that "the knower for
different items is one and the same," and I am convinced that this
proposition could not possibly be ascertained except by introspection of
the sort that Dunlap rejects. The first of these points must wait until
we come to the analysis of belief: the second must be considered now.
Dunlap's view is that there is a dualism of subject and object, but that
the subject can never become object, and therefore there is no awareness
of an awareness. He says in discussing the view that introspection
reveals the occurrence of knowledge: "There can be no denial of the
existence of the thing (knowing) which is alleged to be known or
observed in this sort of 'introspection.' The allegation that the
knowing is observed is that which may be denied. Knowing there certainly
is; known, the knowing certainly is not"(p. 410). And again: "I am
never aware of an awareness" (ib.). And on the next page: "It may sound
paradoxical to say that one cannot observe the process (or relation) of
observation, and yet may be certain that there is such a process: but
there is really no inconsistency in the saying. How do I know that there
is awareness? By being aware of something. There is no meaning in the
term 'awareness' which is not expressed in the statement 'I am aware of
a colour (or what-not).'"

But the paradox cannot be so lightly disposed of. The statement "I am
aware of a colour" is assumed by Knight Dunlap to be known to be true,
but he does not explain how it comes to be known. The argument against
him is not conclusive, since he may be able to show some valid way of
inferring our awareness. But he does not suggest any such way. There is
nothing odd in the hypothesis of beings which are aware of objects, but
not of their own awareness; it is, indeed, highly probable that young
children and the higher animals are such beings. But such beings cannot
make the statement "I am aware of a colour," which WE can make. We have,
therefore, some knowledge which they lack. It is necessary to Knight
Dunlap's position to maintain that this additional knowledge is purely
inferential, but he makes no attempt to show how the inference is
possible. It may, of course, be possible, but I cannot see how. To my
mind the fact (which he admits) that we know there is awareness, is ALL
BUT decisive against his theory, and in favour of the view that we can
be aware of an awareness.

Dunlap asserts (to return to James) that the real ground for James's
original belief in introspection was his belief in two sorts of
objects, namely, thoughts and things. He suggests that it was a
mere inconsistency on James's part to adhere to introspection after
abandoning the dualism of thoughts and things. I do not wholly agree
with this view, but it is difficult to disentangle the difference as to
introspection from the difference as to the nature of knowing. Dunlap
suggests (p. 411) that what is called introspection really consists of
awareness of "images," visceral sensations, and so on. This view, in
essence, seems to me sound. But then I hold that knowing itself consists
of such constituents suitably related, and that in being aware of them
we are sometimes being aware of instances of knowing. For this reason,
much as I agree with his view as to what are the objects of which
there is awareness, I cannot wholly agree with his conclusion as to the
impossibility of introspection.

The behaviourists have challenged introspection even more vigorously
than Knight Dunlap, and have gone so far as to deny the existence of
images. But I think that they have confused various things which
are very commonly confused, and that it is necessary to make several
distinctions before we can arrive at what is true and what false in the
criticism of introspection.

I wish to distinguish three distinct questions, any one of which may be
meant when we ask whether introspection is a source of knowledge. The
three questions are as follows:

(1) Can we observe anything about ourselves which we cannot observe
about other people, or is everything we can observe PUBLIC, in the sense
that another could also observe it if suitably placed?

(2) Does everything that we can observe obey the laws of physics and
form part of the physical world, or can we observe certain things that
lie outside physics?

(3) Can we observe anything which differs in its intrinsic nature from
the constituents of the physical world, or is everything that we can
observe composed of elements intrinsically similar to the constituents
of what is called matter?

Any one of these three questions may be used to define introspection. I
should favour introspection in the sense of the first question, i.e. I
think that some of the things we observe cannot, even theoretically, be
observed by any one else. The second question, tentatively and for
the present, I should answer in favour of introspection; I think that
images, in the actual condition of science, cannot be brought under the
causal laws of physics, though perhaps ultimately they may be. The
third question I should answer adversely to introspection I think that
observation shows us nothing that is not composed of sensations and
images, and that images differ from sensations in their causal laws, not
intrinsically. I shall deal with the three questions successively.

(1) PUBLICITY OR PRIVACY OF WHAT IS OBSERVED. Confining ourselves, for
the moment, to sensations, we find that there are different degrees
of publicity attaching to different sorts of sensations. If you feel a
toothache when the other people in the room do not, you are in no way
surprised; but if you hear a clap of thunder when they do not, you begin
to be alarmed as to your mental condition. Sight and hearing are the
most public of the senses; smell only a trifle less so; touch, again, a
trifle less, since two people can only touch the same spot successively,
not simultaneously. Taste has a sort of semi-publicity, since people
seem to experience similar taste-sensations when they eat similar foods;
but the publicity is incomplete, since two people cannot eat actually
the same piece of food.

But when we pass on to bodily sensations--headache, toothache, hunger,
thirst, the feeling of fatigue, and so on--we get quite away from
publicity, into a region where other people can tell us what they feel,
but we cannot directly observe their feeling. As a natural result of
this state of affairs, it has come to be thought that the public senses
give us knowledge of the outer world, while the private senses only give
us knowledge as to our own bodies. As regards privacy, all images, of
whatever sort, belong with the sensations which only give knowledge of
our own bodies, i.e. each is only observable by one observer. This is
the reason why images of sight and hearing are more obviously different
from sensations of sight and hearing than images of bodily sensations
are from bodily sensations; and that is why the argument in favour of
images is more conclusive in such cases as sight and hearing than in
such cases as inner speech.

The whole distinction of privacy and publicity, however, so long as we
confine ourselves to sensations, is one of degree, not of kind. No
two people, there is good empirical reason to think, ever have exactly
similar sensations related to the same physical object at the same
moment; on the other hand, even the most private sensation has
correlations which would theoretically enable another observer to infer
it.

That no sensation is ever completely public, results from differences of
point of view. Two people looking at the same table do not get the same
sensation, because of perspective and the way the light falls. They get
only correlated sensations. Two people listening to the same sound do
not hear exactly the same thing, because one is nearer to the source of
the sound than the other, one has better hearing than the other, and
so on. Thus publicity in sensations consists, not in having PRECISELY
similar sensations, but in having more or less similar sensations
correlated according to ascertainable laws. The sensations which strike
us as public are those where the correlated sensations are very similar
and the correlations are very easy to discover. But even the most
private sensations have correlations with things that others can
observe. The dentist does not observe your ache, but he can see the
cavity which causes it, and could guess that you are suffering even
if you did not tell him. This fact, however, cannot be used, as Watson
would apparently wish, to extrude from science observations which are
private to one observer, since it is by means of many such observations
that correlations are established, e.g. between toothaches and cavities.
Privacy, therefore does not by itself make a datum unamenable to
scientific treatment. On this point, the argument against introspection
must be rejected.

(2) DOES EVERYTHING OBSERVABLE OBEY THE LAWS OF PHYSICS? We come now to
the second ground of objection to introspection, namely, that its data
do not obey the laws of physics. This, though less emphasized, is,
I think, an objection which is really more strongly felt than the
objection of privacy. And we obtain a definition of introspection more
in harmony with usage if we define it as observation of data not subject
to physical laws than if we define it by means of privacy. No one would
regard a man as introspective because he was conscious of having a
stomach ache. Opponents of introspection do not mean to deny the obvious
fact that we can observe bodily sensations which others cannot observe.
For example, Knight Dunlap contends that images are really muscular
contractions,* and evidently regards our awareness of muscular
contractions as not coming under the head of introspection. I think it
will be found that the essential characteristic of introspective data,
in the sense which now concerns us, has to do with LOCALIZATION: either
they are not localized at all, or they are localized, like visual
images, in a place already physically occupied by something which would
be inconsistent with them if they were regarded as part of the physical
world. If you have a visual image of your friend sitting in a chair
which in fact is empty, you cannot locate the image in your body,
because it is visual, nor (as a physical phenomenon) in the chair,
because the chair, as a physical object, is empty. Thus it seems to
follow that the physical world does not include all that we are aware
of, and that images, which are introspective data, have to be regarded,
for the present, as not obeying the laws of physics; this is, I think,
one of the chief reasons why an attempt is made to reject them. I
shall try to show in Lecture VIII that the purely empirical reasons for
accepting images are overwhelming. But we cannot be nearly so certain
that they will not ultimately be brought under the laws of physics. Even
if this should happen, however, they would still be distinguishable
from sensations by their proximate causal laws, as gases remain
distinguishable from solids.

     * "Psychological Review," 1916, "Thought-Content and
     Feeling," p. 59. See also ib., 1912, "The Nature of
     Perceived Relations," where he says: "'Introspection,'
     divested of its mythological suggestion of the observing of
     consciousness, is really the observation of bodily
     sensations (sensibles) and feelings (feelables)"(p. 427 n.).

(3) CAN WE OBSERVE ANYTHING INTRINSICALLY DIFFERENT FROM SENSATIONS? We
come now to our third question concerning introspection. It is commonly
thought that by looking within we can observe all sorts of things that
are radically different from the constituents of the physical world,
e.g. thoughts, beliefs, desires, pleasures, pains and emotions. The
difference between mind and matter is increased partly by emphasizing
these supposed introspective data, partly by the supposition that matter
is composed of atoms or electrons or whatever units physics may at the
moment prefer. As against this latter supposition, I contend that
the ultimate constituents of matter are not atoms or electrons, but
sensations, and other things similar to sensations as regards extent and
duration. As against the view that introspection reveals a mental world
radically different from sensations, I propose to argue that thoughts,
beliefs, desires, pleasures, pains and emotions are all built up out
of sensations and images alone, and that there is reason to think that
images do not differ from sensations in their intrinsic character. We
thus effect a mutual rapprochement of mind and matter, and reduce the
ultimate data of introspection (in our second sense) to images alone. On
this third view of the meaning of introspection, therefore, our decision
is wholly against it.

There remain two points to be considered concerning introspection. The
first is as to how far it is trustworthy; the second is as to whether,
even granting that it reveals no radically different STUFF from that
revealed by what might be called external perception, it may not reveal
different RELATIONS, and thus acquire almost as much importance as is
traditionally assigned to it.

To begin with the trustworthiness of introspection. It is common among
certain schools to regard the knowledge of our own mental processes as
incomparably more certain than our knowledge of the "external" world;
this view is to be found in the British philosophy which descends from
Hume, and is present, somewhat veiled, in Kant and his followers.
There seems no reason whatever to accept this view. Our spontaneous,
unsophisticated beliefs, whether as to ourselves or as to the outer
world, are always extremely rash and very liable to error. The
acquisition of caution is equally necessary and equally difficult in
both directions. Not only are we often un aware of entertaining a
belief or desire which exists in us; we are often actually mistaken. The
fallibility of introspection as regards what we desire is made evident
by psycho-analysis; its fallibility as to what we know is easily
demonstrated. An autobiography, when confronted by a careful editor
with documentary evidence, is usually found to be full of obviously
inadvertent errors. Any of us confronted by a forgotten letter written
some years ago will be astonished to find how much more foolish our
opinions were than we had remembered them as being. And as to the
analysis of our mental operations--believing, desiring, willing, or what
not--introspection unaided gives very little help: it is necessary to
construct hypotheses and test them by their consequences, just as we do
in physical science. Introspection, therefore, though it is one among
our sources of knowledge, is not, in isolation, in any degree more
trustworthy than "external" perception.

I come now to our second question: Does introspection give us materials
for the knowledge of relations other than those arrived at by reflecting
upon external perception? It might be contended that the essence of what
is "mental" consists of relations, such as knowing for example, and that
our knowledge concerning these essentially mental relations is entirely
derived from introspection. If "knowing" were an unanalysable relation,
this view would be incontrovertible, since clearly no such relation
forms part of the subject matter of physics. But it would seem that
"knowing" is really various relations, all of them complex. Therefore,
until they have been analysed, our present question must remain
unanswered I shall return to it at the end of the present course of
lectures.




LECTURE VII. THE DEFINITION OF PERCEPTION

In Lecture V we found reason to think that the ultimate constituents*
of the world do not have the characteristics of either mind or matter
as ordinarily understood: they are not solid persistent objects moving
through space, nor are they fragments of "consciousness." But we found
two ways of grouping particulars, one into "things" or "pieces of
matter," the other into series of "perspectives," each series being what
may be called a "biography." Before we can define either sensations
or images, it is necessary to consider this twofold classification
in somewhat greater detail, and to derive from it a definition of
perception. It should be said that, in so far as the classification
assumes the whole world of physics (including its unperceived portions),
it contains hypothetical elements. But we will not linger on the grounds
for admitting these, which belong to the philosophy of physics rather
than of psychology.

     * When I speak of "ultimate constituents," I do not mean
     necessarily such as are theoretically incapable of analysis,
     but only such as, at present, we can see no means of
     analysing. I speak of such constituents as "particulars," or
     as "RELATIVE particulars" when I wish to emphasize the fact
     that they may be themselves complex.

The physical classification of particulars collects together all those
that are aspects of one "thing." Given any one particular, it is
found often (we do not say always) that there are a number of other
particulars differing from this one in gradually increasing degrees.
Those (or some of those) that differ from it only very slightly will
be found to differ approximately according to certain laws which may be
called, in a generalized sense, the laws of "perspective"; they include
the ordinary laws of perspective as a special case. This approximation
grows more and more nearly exact as the difference grows less; in
technical language, the laws of perspective account for the differences
to the first order of small quantities, and other laws are only
required to account for second-order differences. That is to say, as the
difference diminishes, the part of the difference which is not according
to the laws of perspective diminishes much more rapidly, and bears to
the total difference a ratio which tends towards zero as both are made
smaller and smaller. By this means we can theoretically collect together
a number of particulars which may be defined as the "aspects" or
"appearances" of one thing at one time. If the laws of perspective were
sufficiently known, the connection between different aspects would be
expressed in differential equations.

This gives us, so far, only those particulars which constitute one thing
at one time. This set of particulars may be called a "momentary
thing." To define that series of "momentary things" that constitute
the successive states of one thing is a problem involving the laws of
dynamics. These give the laws governing the changes of aspects from
one time to a slightly later time, with the same sort of differential
approximation to exactness as we obtained for spatially neighbouring
aspects through the laws of perspective. Thus a momentary thing is a set
of particulars, while a thing (which may be identified with the whole
history of the thing) is a series of such sets of particulars.
The particulars in one set are collected together by the laws of
perspective; the successive sets are collected together by the laws
of dynamics. This is the view of the world which is appropriate to
traditional physics.

The definition of a "momentary thing" involves problems concerning time,
since the particulars constituting a momentary thing will not be all
simultaneous, but will travel outward from the thing with the velocity
of light (in case the thing is in vacuo). There are complications
connected with relativity, but for our present purpose they are not
vital, and I shall ignore them.

Instead of first collecting together all the particulars constituting
a momentary thing, and then forming the series of successive sets,
we might have first collected together a series of successive aspects
related by the laws of dynamics, and then have formed the set of such
series related by the laws of perspective. To illustrate by the case of
an actor on the stage: our first plan was to collect together all the
aspects which he presents to different spectators at one time, and then
to form the series of such sets. Our second plan is first to collect
together all the aspects which he presents successively to a given
spectator, and then to do the same thing for the other spectators, thus
forming a set of series instead of a series of sets. The first plan
tells us what he does; the second the impressions he produces. This
second way of classifying particulars is one which obviously has more
relevance to psychology than the other. It is partly by this second
method of classification that we obtain definitions of one "experience"
or "biography" or "person." This method of classification is also
essential to the definition of sensations and images, as I shall
endeavour to prove later on. But we must first amplify the definition of
perspectives and biographies.

In our illustration of the actor, we spoke, for the moment, as though
each spectator's mind were wholly occupied by the one actor. If this
were the case, it might be possible to define the biography of one
spectator as a series of successive aspects of the actor related
according to the laws of dynamics. But in fact this is not the case.
We are at all times during our waking life receiving a variety of
impressions, which are aspects of a variety of things. We have to
consider what binds together two simultaneous sensations in one
person, or, more generally, any two occurrences which forte part of one
experience. We might say, adhering to the standpoint of physics, that
two aspects of different things belong to the same perspective when
they are in the same place. But this would not really help us, since a
"place" has not yet been defined. Can we define what is meant by saying
that two aspects are "in the same place," without introducing anything
beyond the laws of perspective and dynamics?

I do not feel sure whether it is possible to frame such a definition or
not; accordingly I shall not assume that it is possible, but shall
seek other characteristics by which a perspective or biography may be
defined.

When (for example) we see one man and hear another speaking at the
same time, what we see and what we hear have a relation which we
can perceive, which makes the two together form, in some sense, one
experience. It is when this relation exists that two occurrences become
associated. Semon's "engram" is formed by all that we experience at one
time. He speaks of two parts of this total as having the relation of
"Nebeneinander" (M. 118; M.E. 33 ff.), which is reminiscent of Herbart's
"Zusammen." I think the relation may be called simply "simultaneity." It
might be said that at any moment all sorts of things that are not part
of my experience are happening in the world, and that therefore the
relation we are seeking to define cannot be merely simultaneity.
This, however, would be an error--the sort of error that the theory
of relativity avoids. There is not one universal time, except by an
elaborate construction; there are only local times, each of which may
be taken to be the time within one biography. Accordingly, if I am (say)
hearing a sound, the only occurrences that are, in any simple sense,
simultaneous with my sensation are events in my private world, i.e. in
my biography. We may therefore define the "perspective" to which
the sensation in question belongs as the set of particulars that are
simultaneous with this sensation. And similarly we may define the
"biography" to which the sensation belongs as the set of particulars
that are earlier or later than, or simultaneous with, the given
sensation. Moreover, the very same definitions can be applied to
particulars which are not sensations. They are actually required for the
theory of relativity, if we are to give a philosophical explanation
of what is meant by "local time" in that theory The relations of
simultaneity and succession are known to us in our own experience;
they may be analysable, but that does not affect their suitability for
defining perspectives and biographies. Such time-relations as can be
constructed between events in different biographies are of a different
kind: they are not experienced, and are merely logical, being designed
to afford convenient ways of stating the correlations between different
biographies.

It is not only by time-relations that the parts of one biography are
collected together in the case of living beings. In this case there are
the mnemic phenomena which constitute the unity of one "experience," and
transform mere occurrences into "experiences." I have already dwelt upon
the importance of mnemic phenomena for psychology, and shall not
enlarge upon them now, beyond observing that they are what transforms a
biography (in our technical sense) into a life. It is they that give the
continuity of a "person" or a "mind." But there is no reason to suppose
that mnemic phenomena are associated with biographies except in the case
of animals and plants.

Our two-fold classification of particulars gives rise to the dualism of
body and biography in regard to everything in the universe, and not only
in regard to living things. This arises as follows. Every particular of
the sort considered by physics is a member of two groups (1) The group
of particulars constituting the other aspects of the same physical
object; (2) The group of particulars that have direct time-relations to
the given particular.

Each of these is associated with a place. When I look at a star, my
sensation is (1) A member of the group of particulars which is the star,
and which is associated with the place where the star is; (2) A
member of the group of particulars which is my biography, and which is
associated with the place where I am.*

     *I have explained elsewhere the manner in which space is
     constructed on this theory, and in which the position of a
     perspective is brought into relation with the position of a
     physical object ("Our Knowledge of the External World,"
     Lecture III, pp. 90, 91).

The result is that every particular of the kind relevant to physics is
associated with TWO places; e.g. my sensation of the star is associated
with the place where I am and with the place where the star is. This
dualism has nothing to do with any "mind" that I may be supposed to
possess; it exists in exactly the same sense if I am replaced by a
photographic plate. We may call the two places the active and passive
places respectively.* Thus in the case of a perception or photograph
of a star, the active place is the place where the star is, while the
passive place is the place where the percipient or photographic plate
is.

     * I use these as mere names; I do not want to introduce any
     notion of "activity."

We can thus, without departing from physics, collect together all the
particulars actively at a given place, or all the particulars passively
at a given place. In our own case, the one group is our body (or
our brain), while the other is our mind, in so far as it consists of
perceptions. In the case of the photographic plate, the first group is
the plate as dealt with by physics, the second the aspect of the heavens
which it photographs. (For the sake of schematic simplicity, I am
ignoring various complications connected with time, which require some
tedious but perfectly feasible elaborations.) Thus what may be called
subjectivity in the point of view is not a distinctive peculiarity of
mind: it is present just as much in the photographic plate. And the
photographic plate has its biography as well as its "matter." But
this biography is an affair of physics, and has none of the peculiar
characteristics by which "mental" phenomena are distinguished, with the
sole exception of subjectivity.

Adhering, for the moment, to the standpoint of physics, we may define a
"perception" of an object as the appearance of the object from a place
where there is a brain (or, in lower animals, some suitable nervous
structure), with sense-organs and nerves forming part of the intervening
medium. Such appearances of objects are distinguished from appearances
in other places by certain peculiarities, namely:

(1) They give rise to mnemic phenomena;

(2) They are themselves affected by mnemic phenomena.

That is to say, they may be remembered and associated or influence our
habits, or give rise to images, etc., and they are themselves different
from what they would have been if our past experience had been
different--for example, the effect of a spoken sentence upon the hearer
depends upon whether the hearer knows the language or not, which is
a question of past experience. It is these two characteristics, both
connected with mnemic phenomena, that distinguish perceptions from the
appearances of objects in places where there is no living being.

Theoretically, though often not practically, we can, in our perception
of an object, separate the part which is due to past experience from the
part which proceeds without mnemic influences out of the character of
the object. We may define as "sensation" that part which proceeds in
this way, while the remainder, which is a mnemic phenomenon, will have
to be added to the sensation to make up what is called the "perception."
According to this definition, the sensation is a theoretical core in
the actual experience; the actual experience is the perception. It
is obvious that there are grave difficulties in carrying out these
definitions, but we will not linger over them. We have to pass, as soon
as we can, from the physical standpoint, which we have been hitherto
adopting, to the standpoint of psychology, in which we make more use
of introspection in the first of the three senses discussed in the
preceding lecture.

But before making the transition, there are two points which must be
made clear. First: Everything outside my own personal biography is
outside my experience; therefore if anything can be known by me outside
my biography, it can only be known in one of two ways:

(1) By inference from things within my biography, or

(2) By some a priori principle independent of experience.

I do not myself believe that anything approaching certainty is to be
attained by either of these methods, and therefore whatever lies outside
my personal biography must be regarded, theoretically, as hypothesis.
The theoretical argument for adopting the hypothesis is that it
simplifies the statement of the laws according to which events happen
in our experience. But there is no very good ground for supposing that
a simple law is more likely to be true than a complicated law, though
there is good ground for assuming a simple law in scientific practice,
as a working hypothesis, if it explains the facts as well as another
which is less simple. Belief in the existence of things outside my own
biography exists antecedently to evidence, and can only be destroyed, if
at all, by a long course of philosophic doubt. For purposes of science,
it is justified practically by the simplification which it introduces
into the laws of physics. But from the standpoint of theoretical logic
it must be regarded as a prejudice, not as a well-grounded theory. With
this proviso, I propose to continue yielding to the prejudice.

The second point concerns the relating of our point of view to that
which regards sensations as caused by stimuli external to the nervous
system (or at least to the brain), and distinguishes images as
"centrally excited," i.e. due to causes in the brain which cannot be
traced back to anything affecting the sense-organs. It is clear that,
if our analysis of physical objects has been valid, this way of defining
sensations needs reinterpretation. It is also clear that we must be able
to find such a new interpretation if our theory is to be admissible.

To make the matter clear, we will take the simplest possible
illustration. Consider a certain star, and suppose for the moment
that its size is negligible. That is to say, we will regard it as, for
practical purposes, a luminous point. Let us further suppose that it
exists only for a very brief time, say a second. Then, according to
physics, what happens is that a spherical wave of light travels outward
from the star through space, just as, when you drop a stone into a
stagnant pond, ripples travel outward from the place where the stone hit
the water. The wave of light travels with a certain very nearly constant
velocity, roughly 300,000 kilometres per second. This velocity may be
ascertained by sending a flash of light to a mirror, and observing
how long it takes before the reflected flash reaches you, just as the
velocity of sound may be ascertained by means of an echo.

What it is that happens when a wave of light reaches a given place we
cannot tell, except in the sole case when the place in question is a
brain connected with an eye which is turned in the right direction. In
this one very special case we know what happens: we have the sensation
called "seeing the star." In all other cases, though we know (more or
less hypothetically) some of the correlations and abstract properties
of the appearance of the star, we do not know the appearance itself. Now
you may, for the sake of illustration, compare the different appearances
of the star to the conjugation of a Greek verb, except that the number
of its parts is really infinite, and not only apparently so to the
despairing schoolboy. In vacuo, the parts are regular, and can be
derived from the (imaginary) root according to the laws of grammar,
i.e. of perspective. The star being situated in empty space, it may be
defined, for purposes of physics, as consisting of all those appearances
which it presents in vacuo, together with those which, according to
the laws of perspective, it would present elsewhere if its appearances
elsewhere were regular. This is merely the adaptation of the definition
of matter which I gave in an earlier lecture. The appearance of a star
at a certain place, if it is regular, does not require any cause or
explanation beyond the existence of the star. Every regular appearance
is an actual member of the system which is the star, and its causation
is entirely internal to that system. We may express this by saying that
a regular appearance is due to the star alone, and is actually part of
the star, in the sense in which a man is part of the human race.

But presently the light of the star reaches our atmosphere. It begins
to be refracted, and dimmed by mist, and its velocity is slightly
diminished. At last it reaches a human eye, where a complicated process
takes place, ending in a sensation which gives us our grounds for
believing in all that has gone before. Now, the irregular appearances of
the star are not, strictly speaking, members of the system which is the
star, according to our definition of matter. The irregular appearances,
however, are not merely irregular: they proceed according to laws which
can be stated in terms of the matter through which the light has
passed on its way. The sources of an irregular appearance are therefore
twofold:

(1) The object which is appearing irregularly;

2) The intervening medium.

It should be observed that, while the conception of a regular appearance
is perfectly precise, the conception of an irregular appearance is one
capable of any degree of vagueness. When the distorting influence of the
medium is sufficiently great, the resulting particular can no longer be
regarded as an appearance of an object, but must be treated on its own
account. This happens especially when the particular in question cannot
be traced back to one object, but is a blend of two or more. This case
is normal in perception: we see as one what the microscope or telescope
reveals to be many different objects. The notion of perception is
therefore not a precise one: we perceive things more or less, but always
with a very considerable amount of vagueness and confusion.

In considering irregular appearances, there are certain very natural
mistakes which must be avoided. In order that a particular may count as
an irregular appearance of a certain object, it is not necessary that
it should bear any resemblance to the regular appearances as regard
its intrinsic qualities. All that is necessary is that it should be
derivable from the regular appearances by the laws which express
the distorting influence of the medium. When it is so derivable,
the particular in question may be regarded as caused by the regular
appearances, and therefore by the object itself, together with the
modifications resulting from the medium. In other cases, the particular
in question may, in the same sense, be regarded as caused by several
objects together with the medium; in this case, it may be called a
confused appearance of several objects. If it happens to be in a brain,
it may be called a confused perception of these objects. All actual
perception is confused to a greater or less extent.

We can now interpret in terms of our theory the distinction between
those mental occurrences which are said to have an external stimulus,
and those which are said to be "centrally excited," i.e. to have no
stimulus external to the brain. When a mental occurrence can be regarded
as an appearance of an object external to the brain, however irregular,
or even as a confused appearance of several such objects, then we may
regard it as having for its stimulus the object or objects in question,
or their appearances at the sense-organ concerned. When, on the other
hand, a mental occurrence has not sufficient connection with objects
external to the brain to be regarded as an appearance of such objects,
then its physical causation (if any) will have to be sought in the
brain. In the former case it can be called a perception; in the latter
it cannot be so called. But the distinction is one of degree, not of
kind. Until this is realized, no satisfactory theory of perception,
sensation, or imagination is possible.




LECTURE VIII. SENSATIONS AND IMAGES

The dualism of mind and matter, if we have been right so far, cannot be
allowed as metaphysically valid. Nevertheless, we seem to find a certain
dualism, perhaps not ultimate, within the world as we observe it. The
dualism is not primarily as to the stuff of the world, but as to causal
laws. On this subject we may again quote William James. He points out
that when, as we say, we merely "imagine" things, there are no such
effects as would ensue if the things were what we call "real." He takes
the case of imagining a fire.

"I make for myself an experience of blazing fire; I place it near my
body; but it does not warm me in the least. I lay a stick upon it and
the stick either burns or remains green, as I please. I call up water,
and pour it on the fire, and absolutely no difference ensues. I account
for all such facts by calling this whole train of experiences unreal, a
mental train. Mental fire is what won't burn real sticks; mental water
is what won't necessarily (though of course it may) put out even a
mental fire.... With 'real' objects, on the contrary, consequences
always accrue; and thus the real experiences get sifted from the mental
ones, the things from our thoughts of them, fanciful or true, and
precipitated together as the stable part of the whole experience--chaos,
under the name of the physical world."*

     * "Essays in Radical Empiricism," pp. 32-3.

In this passage James speaks, by mere inadvertence, as though the
phenomena which he is describing as "mental" had NO effects. This is, of
course, not the case: they have their effects, just as much as physical
phenomena do, but their effects follow different laws. For example,
dreams, as Freud has shown, are just as much subject to laws as are the
motions of the planets. But the laws are different: in a dream you may
be transported from one place to another in a moment, or one person
may turn into another under your eyes. Such differences compel you to
distinguish the world of dreams from the physical world.

If the two sorts of causal laws could be sharply distinguished, we could
call an occurrence "physical" when it obeys causal laws appropriate to
the physical world, and "mental" when it obeys causal laws appropriate
to the mental world. Since the mental world and the physical world
interact, there would be a boundary between the two: there would be
events which would have physical causes and mental effects, while there
would be others which would have mental causes and physical effects.
Those that have physical causes and mental effects we should define as
"sensations." Those that have mental causes and physical effects might
perhaps be identified with what we call voluntary movements; but they do
not concern us at present.

These definitions would have all the precision that could be desired if
the distinction between physical and psychological causation were clear
and sharp. As a matter of fact, however, this distinction is, as yet, by
no means sharp. It is possible that, with fuller knowledge, it will be
found to be no more ultimate than the distinction between the laws of
gases and the laws of rigid bodies. It also suffers from the fact that
an event may be an effect of several causes according to several causal
laws we cannot, in general, point to anything unique as THE cause of
such-and-such an event. And finally it is by no means certain that
the peculiar causal laws which govern mental events are not really
physiological. The law of habit, which is one of the most distinctive,
may be fully explicable in terms of the peculiarities of nervous tissue,
and these peculiarities, in turn, may be explicable by the laws of
physics. It seems, therefore, that we are driven to a different kind of
definition. It is for this reason that it was necessary to develop
the definition of perception. With this definition, we can define a
sensation as the non-mnemic elements in a perception.

When, following our definition, we try to decide what elements in our
experience are of the nature of sensations, we find more difficulty
than might have been expected. Prima facie, everything is sensation that
comes to us through the senses: the sights we see, the sounds we hear,
the smells we smell, and so on; also such things as headache or the
feeling of muscular strain. But in actual fact so much interpretation,
so much of habitual correlation, is mixed with all such experiences,
that the core of pure sensation is only to be extracted by careful
investigation. To take a simple illustration: if you go to the theatre
in your own country, you seem to hear equally well in the stalls or the
dress circle; in either case you think you miss nothing. But if you go
in a foreign country where you have a fair knowledge of the language,
you will seem to have grown partially deaf, and you will find it
necessary to be much nearer the stage than you would need to be in your
own country. The reason is that, in hearing our own language spoken, we
quickly and unconsciously fill out what we really hear with inferences
to what the man must be saying, and we never realize that we have not
heard the words we have merely inferred. In a foreign language, these
inferences are more difficult, and we are more dependent upon actual
sensation. If we found ourselves in a foreign world, where tables looked
like cushions and cushions like tables, we should similarly discover how
much of what we think we see is really inference. Every fairly familiar
sensation is to us a sign of the things that usually go with it, and
many of these things will seem to form part of the sensation. I remember
in the early days of motor-cars being with a friend when a tyre burst
with a loud report. He thought it was a pistol, and supported his
opinion by maintaining that he had seen the flash. But of course there
had been no flash. Nowadays no one sees a flash when a tyre bursts.

In order, therefore, to arrive at what really is sensation in an
occurrence which, at first sight, seems to contain nothing else, we have
to pare away all that is due to habit or expectation or interpretation.
This is a matter for the psychologist, and by no means an easy matter.
For our purposes, it is not important to determine what exactly is the
sensational core in any case; it is only important to notice that
there certainly is a sensational core, since habit, expectation and
interpretation are diversely aroused on diverse occasions, and the
diversity is clearly due to differences in what is presented to
the senses. When you open your newspaper in the morning, the actual
sensations of seeing the print form a very minute part of what goes
on in you, but they are the starting-point of all the rest, and it
is through them that the newspaper is a means of information or
mis-information. Thus, although it may be difficult to determine what
exactly is sensation in any given experience, it is clear that there is
sensation, unless, like Leibniz, we deny all action of the outer world
upon us.

Sensations are obviously the source of our knowledge of the world,
including our own body. It might seem natural to regard a sensation as
itself a cognition, and until lately I did so regard it. When, say, I
see a person I know coming towards me in the street, it SEEMS as
though the mere seeing were knowledge. It is of course undeniable that
knowledge comes THROUGH the seeing, but I think it is a mistake to
regard the mere seeing itself as knowledge. If we are so to regard it,
we must distinguish the seeing from what is seen: we must say that, when
we see a patch of colour of a certain shape, the patch of colour is one
thing and our seeing of it is another. This view, however, demands the
admission of the subject, or act, in the sense discussed in our first
lecture. If there is a subject, it can have a relation to the patch of
colour, namely, the sort of relation which we might call awareness. In
that case the sensation, as a mental event, will consist of awareness of
the colour, while the colour itself will remain wholly physical, and
may be called the sense-datum, to distinguish it from the sensation.
The subject, however, appears to be a logical fiction, like mathematical
points and instants. It is introduced, not because observation reveals
it, but because it is linguistically convenient and apparently demanded
by grammar. Nominal entities of this sort may or may not exist, but
there is no good ground for assuming that they do. The functions that
they appear to perform can always be performed by classes or series or
other logical constructions, consisting of less dubious entities. If we
are to avoid a perfectly gratuitous assumption, we must dispense with
the subject as one of the actual ingredients of the world. But when
we do this, the possibility of distinguishing the sensation from
the sense-datum vanishes; at least I see no way of preserving the
distinction. Accordingly the sensation that we have when we see a patch
of colour simply is that patch of colour, an actual constituent of the
physical world, and part of what physics is concerned with. A patch of
colour is certainly not knowledge, and therefore we cannot say that pure
sensation is cognitive. Through its psychological effects, it is the
cause of cognitions, partly by being itself a sign of things that
are correlated with it, as e.g. sensations of sight and touch are
correlated, and partly by giving rise to images and memories after the
sensation is faded. But in itself the pure sensation is not cognitive.

In the first lecture we considered the view of Brentano, that "we may
define psychical phenomena by saying that they are phenomena which
intentionally contain an object." We saw reasons to reject this view in
general; we are now concerned to show that it must be rejected in the
particular case of sensations. The kind of argument which formerly made
me accept Brentano's view in this case was exceedingly simple. When I
see a patch of colour, it seemed to me that the colour is not psychical,
but physical, while my seeing is not physical, but psychical. Hence
I concluded that the colour is something other than my seeing of
the colour. This argument, to me historically, was directed against
idealism: the emphatic part of it was the assertion that the colour is
physical, not psychical. I shall not trouble you now with the grounds
for holding as against Berkeley that the patch of colour is physical; I
have set them forth before, and I see no reason to modify them. But it
does not follow that the patch of colour is not also psychical, unless
we assume that the physical and the psychical cannot overlap, which I
no longer consider a valid assumption. If we admit--as I think we
should--that the patch of colour may be both physical and psychical, the
reason for distinguishing the sense-datum from the sensation disappears,
and we may say that the patch of colour and our sensation in seeing it
are identical.

This is the view of William James, Professor Dewey, and the American
realists. Perceptions, says Professor Dewey, are not per se cases of
knowledge, but simply natural events with no more knowledge status
than (say) a shower. "Let them [the realists] try the experiment of
conceiving perceptions as pure natural events, not cases of awareness or
apprehension, and they will be surprised to see how little they miss."*
I think he is right in this, except in supposing that the realists will
be surprised. Many of them already hold the view he is advocating, and
others are very sympathetic to it. At any rate, it is the view which I
shall adopt in these lectures.

     * Dewey, "Essays in Experimental Logic," pp. 253, 262.

The stuff of the world, so far as we have experience of it, consists, on
the view that I am advocating, of innumerable transient particulars such
as occur in seeing, hearing, etc., together with images more or less
resembling these, of which I shall speak shortly. If physics is true,
there are, besides the particulars that we experience, others, probably
equally (or almost equally) transient, which make up that part of the
material world that does not come into the sort of contact with a
living body that is required to turn it into a sensation. But this topic
belongs to the philosophy of physics, and need not concern us in our
present inquiry.

Sensations are what is common to the mental and physical worlds; they
may be defined as the intersection of mind and matter. This is by no
means a new view; it is advocated, not only by the American authors I
have mentioned, but by Mach in his Analysis of Sensations, which was
published in 1886. The essence of sensation, according to the view I am
advocating, is its independence of past experience. It is a core in our
actual experiences, never existing in isolation except possibly in very
young infants. It is not itself knowledge, but it supplies the data for
our knowledge of the physical world, including our own bodies.

There are some who believe that our mental life is built up out of
sensations alone. This may be true; but in any case I think the only
ingredients required in addition to sensations are images. What images
are, and how they are to be defined, we have now to inquire.

The distinction between images and sensations might seem at first sight
by no means difficult. When we shut our eyes and call up pictures of
familiar scenes, we usually have no difficulty, so long as we remain
awake, in discriminating between what we are imagining and what is
really seen. If we imagine some piece of music that we know, we can go
through it in our mind from beginning to end without any discoverable
tendency to suppose that we are really hearing it. But although such
cases are so clear that no confusion seems possible, there are many
others that are far more difficult, and the definition of images is by
no means an easy problem.

To begin with: we do not always know whether what we are experiencing is
a sensation or an image. The things we see in dreams when our eyes are
shut must count as images, yet while we are dreaming they seem like
sensations. Hallucinations often begin as persistent images, and only
gradually acquire that influence over belief that makes the patient
regard them as sensations. When we are listening for a faint sound--the
striking of a distant clock, or a horse's hoofs on the road--we think
we hear it many times before we really do, because expectation brings
us the image, and we mistake it for sensation. The distinction between
images and sensations is, therefore, by no means always obvious to
inspection.*

     * On the distinction between images and sensation, cf.
     Semon, "Die mnemischen Empfindungen," pp. 19-20.

We may consider three different ways in which it has been sought to
distinguish images from sensations, namely:

(1) By the less degree of vividness in images;

(2) By our absence of belief in their "physical reality";

(3) By the fact that their causes and effects are different from those
of sensations.

I believe the third of these to be the only universally applicable
criterion. The other two are applicable in very many cases, but
cannot be used for purposes of definition because they are liable to
exceptions. Nevertheless, they both deserve to be carefully considered.

(1) Hume, who gives the names "impressions" and "ideas" to what may,
for present purposes, be identified with our "sensations" and "images,"
speaks of impressions as "those perceptions which enter with most force
and violence" while he defines ideas as "the faint images of these (i.e.
of impressions) in thinking and reasoning." His immediately following
observations, however, show the inadequacy of his criteria of "force"
and "faintness." He says:

"I believe it will not be very necessary to employ many words in
explaining this distinction. Every one of himself will readily perceive
the difference betwixt feeling and thinking. The common degrees of these
are easily distinguished, though it is not impossible but in particular
instances they may very nearly approach to each other. Thus in sleep, in
a fever, in madness, or in any very violent emotions of soul, our ideas
may approach to our impressions; as, on the other hand, it sometimes
happens, that our impressions are so faint and low that we cannot
distinguish them from our ideas. But notwithstanding this near
resemblance in a few instances, they are in general so very different,
that no one can make a scruple to rank them under distinct heads, and
assign to each a peculiar name to mark the difference" ("Treatise of
Human Nature," Part I, Section I).

I think Hume is right in holding that they should be ranked under
distinct heads, with a peculiar name for each. But by his own confession
in the above passage, his criterion for distinguishing them is not
always adequate. A definition is not sound if it only applies in cases
where the difference is glaring: the essential purpose of a definition
is to provide a mark which is applicable even in marginal cases--except,
of course, when we are dealing with a conception, like, e.g. baldness,
which is one of degree and has no sharp boundaries. But so far we have
seen no reason to think that the difference between sensations and
images is only one of degree.

Professor Stout, in his "Manual of Psychology," after discussing various
ways of distinguishing sensations and images, arrives at a view which is
a modification of Hume's. He says (I quote from the second edition):

"Our conclusion is that at bottom the distinction between image
and percept, as respectively faint and vivid states, is based on a
difference of quality. The percept has an aggressiveness which does not
belong to the image. It strikes the mind with varying degrees of force
or liveliness according to the varying intensity of the stimulus. This
degree of force or liveliness is part of what we ordinarily mean by
the intensity of a sensation. But this constituent of the intensity of
sensations is absent in mental imagery"(p. 419).

This view allows for the fact that sensations may reach any degree of
faintness--e.g. in the case of a just visible star or a just audible
sound--without becoming images, and that therefore mere faintness cannot
be the characteristic mark of images. After explaining the sudden shock
of a flash of lightning or a steam-whistle, Stout says that "no mere
image ever does strike the mind in this manner"(p. 417). But I believe
that this criterion fails in very much the same instances as those in
which Hume's criterion fails in its original form. Macbeth speaks of--

               that suggestion
           Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
     And make my seated heart knock at my ribs
     Against the use of nature.

The whistle of a steam-engine could hardly have a stronger effect than
this. A very intense emotion will often bring with it--especially
where some future action or some undecided issue is involved--powerful
compelling images which may determine the whole course of life, sweeping
aside all contrary solicitations to the will by their capacity for
exclusively possessing the mind. And in all cases where images,
originally recognized as such, gradually pass into hallucinations, there
must be just that "force or liveliness" which is supposed to be always
absent from images. The cases of dreams and fever-delirium are as
hard to adjust to Professor Stout's modified criterion as to Hume's. I
conclude therefore that the test of liveliness, however applicable in
ordinary instances, cannot be used to define the differences between
sensations and images.

(2) We might attempt to distinguish images from sensations by our
absence of belief in the "physical reality" of images. When we are aware
that what we are experiencing is an image, we do not give it the kind of
belief that we should give to a sensation: we do not think that it has
the same power of producing knowledge of the "external world." Images
are "imaginary"; in SOME sense they are "unreal." But this difference
is hard to analyse or state correctly. What we call the "unreality" of
images requires interpretation it cannot mean what would be expressed
by saying "there's no such thing." Images are just as truly part of the
actual world as sensations are. All that we really mean by calling an
image "unreal" is that it does not have the concomitants which it would
have if it were a sensation. When we call up a visual image of a chair,
we do not attempt to sit in it, because we know that, like Macbeth's
dagger, it is not "sensible to feeling as to sight"--i.e. it does not
have the correlations with tactile sensations which it would have if it
were a visual sensation and not merely a visual image. But this means
that the so-called "unreality" of images consists merely in their not
obeying the laws of physics, and thus brings us back to the causal
distinction between images and sensations.

This view is confirmed by the fact that we only feel images to be
"unreal" when we already know them to be images. Images cannot be
defined by the FEELING of unreality, because when we falsely believe an
image to be a sensation, as in the case of dreams, it FEELS just as real
as if it were a sensation. Our feeling of unreality results from our
having already realized that we are dealing with an image, and cannot
therefore be the definition of what we mean by an image. As soon as an
image begins to deceive us as to its status, it also deceives us as to
its correlations, which are what we mean by its "reality."

(3) This brings us to the third mode of distinguishing images from
sensations, namely, by their causes and effects. I believe this to be
the only valid ground of distinction. James, in the passage about the
mental fire which won't burn real sticks, distinguishes images by their
effects, but I think the more reliable distinction is by their causes.
Professor Stout (loc. cit., p. 127) says: "One characteristic mark of
what we agree in calling sensation is its mode of production. It is
caused by what we call a STIMULUS. A stimulus is always some condition
external to the nervous system itself and operating upon it." I think
that this is the correct view, and that the distinction between images
and sensations can only be made by taking account of their causation.
Sensations come through sense-organs, while images do not. We cannot
have visual sensations in the dark, or with our eyes shut, but we can
very well have visual images under these circumstances. Accordingly
images have been defined as "centrally excited sensations," i.e.
sensations which have their physiological cause in the brain only, not
also in the sense-organs and the nerves that run from the sense-organs
to the brain. I think the phrase "centrally excited sensations" assumes
more than is necessary, since it takes it for granted that an image must
have a proximate physiological cause. This is probably true, but it is
an hypothesis, and for our purposes an unnecessary one. It would seem to
fit better with what we can immediately observe if we were to say that
an image is occasioned, through association, by a sensation or another
image, in other words that it has a mnemic cause--which does not prevent
it from also having a physical cause. And I think it will be found that
the causation of an image always proceeds according to mnemic laws, i.e.
that it is governed by habit and past experience. If you listen to a man
playing the pianola without looking at him, you will have images of his
hands on the keys as if he were playing the piano; if you suddenly look
at him while you are absorbed in the music, you will experience a shock
of surprise when you notice that his hands are not touching the notes.
Your image of his hands is due to the many times that you have heard
similar sounds and at the same time seen the player's hands on the
piano. When habit and past experience play this part, we are in the
region of mnemic as opposed to ordinary physical causation. And I think
that, if we could regard as ultimately valid the difference between
physical and mnemic causation, we could distinguish images from
sensations as having mnemic causes, though they may also have physical
causes. Sensations, on the other hand, will only have physical causes.

However this may be, the practically effective distinction between
sensations and images is that in the causation of sensations, but not
of images, the stimulation of nerves carrying an effect into the brain,
usually from the surface of the body, plays an essential part. And
this accounts for the fact that images and sensations cannot always be
distinguished by their intrinsic nature.

Images also differ from sensations as regards their effects. Sensations,
as a rule, have both physical and mental effects. As you watch the train
you meant to catch leaving the station, there are both the successive
positions of the train (physical effects) and the successive waves
of fury and disappointment (mental effects). Images, on the contrary,
though they MAY produce bodily movements, do so according to mnemic
laws, not according to the laws of physics. All their effects, of
whatever nature, follow mnemic laws. But this difference is less
suitable for definition than the difference as to causes.

Professor Watson, as a logical carrying-out of his behaviourist theory,
denies altogether that there are any observable phenomena such as
images are supposed to be. He replaces them all by faint sensations, and
especially by pronunciation of words sotto voce. When we "think" of a
table (say), as opposed to seeing it, what happens, according to him, is
usually that we are making small movements of the throat and tongue
such as would lead to our uttering the word "table" if they were more
pronounced. I shall consider his view again in connection with words;
for the present I am only concerned to combat his denial of images. This
denial is set forth both in his book on "Behavior" and in an article
called "Image and Affection in Behavior" in the "Journal of Philosophy,
Psychology and Scientific Methods," vol. x (July, 1913). It seems to me
that in this matter he has been betrayed into denying plain facts in
the interests of a theory, namely, the supposed impossibility of
introspection. I dealt with the theory in Lecture VI; for the present I
wish to reinforce the view that the facts are undeniable.

Images are of various sorts, according to the nature of the sensations
which they copy. Images of bodily movements, such as we have when we
imagine moving an arm or, on a smaller scale, pronouncing a word,
might possibly be explained away on Professor Watson's lines, as really
consisting in small incipient movements such as, if magnified and
prolonged, would be the movements we are said to be imagining. Whether
this is the case or not might even be decided experimentally. If there
were a delicate instrument for recording small movements in the mouth
and throat, we might place such an instrument in a person's mouth and
then tell him to recite a poem to himself, as far as possible only in
imagination. I should not be at all surprised if it were found that
actual small movements take place while he is "mentally" saying over
the verses. The point is important, because what is called "thought"
consists mainly (though I think not wholly) of inner speech. If
Professor Watson is right as regards inner speech, this whole region
is transferred from imagination to sensation. But since the question
is capable of experimental decision, it would be gratuitous rashness to
offer an opinion while that decision is lacking.

But visual and auditory images are much more difficult to deal with in
this way, because they lack the connection with physical events in the
outer world which belongs to visual and auditory sensations. Suppose,
for example, that I am sitting in my room, in which there is an empty
arm-chair. I shut my eyes, and call up a visual image of a friend
sitting in the arm-chair. If I thrust my image into the world of
physics, it contradicts all the usual physical laws. My friend reached
the chair without coming in at the door in the usual way; subsequent
inquiry will show that he was somewhere else at the moment. If regarded
as a sensation, my image has all the marks of the supernatural. My
image, therefore, is regarded as an event in me, not as having that
position in the orderly happenings of the public world that belongs to
sensations. By saying that it is an event in me, we leave it possible
that it may be PHYSIOLOGICALLY caused: its privacy may be only due to
its connection with my body. But in any case it is not a public event,
like an actual person walking in at the door and sitting down in
my chair. And it cannot, like inner speech, be regarded as a SMALL
sensation, since it occupies just as large an area in my visual field as
the actual sensation would do.

Professor Watson says: "I should throw out imagery altogether
and attempt to show that all natural thought goes on in terms of
sensori-motor processes in the larynx." This view seems to me flatly to
contradict experience. If you try to persuade any uneducated person that
she cannot call up a visual picture of a friend sitting in a chair, but
can only use words describing what such an occurrence would be like,
she will conclude that you are mad. (This statement is based upon
experiment.) Galton, as every one knows, investigated visual imagery,
and found that education tends to kill it: the Fellows of the Royal
Society turned out to have much less of it than their wives. I see no
reason to doubt his conclusion that the habit of abstract pursuits makes
learned men much inferior to the average in power of visualizing, and
much more exclusively occupied with words in their "thinking." And
Professor Watson is a very learned man.

I shall henceforth assume that the existence of images is admitted, and
that they are to be distinguished from sensations by their causes,
as well as, in a lesser degree, by their effects. In their intrinsic
nature, though they often differ from sensations by being more dim
or vague or faint, yet they do not always or universally differ from
sensations in any way that can be used for defining them. Their privacy
need form no bar to the scientific study of them, any more than the
privacy of bodily sensations does. Bodily sensations are admitted by
even the most severe critics of introspection, although, like images,
they can only be observed by one observer. It must be admitted, however,
that the laws of the appearance and disappearance of images are little
known and difficult to discover, because we are not assisted, as in the
case of sensations, by our knowledge of the physical world.

There remains one very important point concerning images, which will
occupy us much hereafter, and that is, their resemblance to previous
sensations. They are said to be "copies" of sensations, always as
regards the simple qualities that enter into them, though not always
as regards the manner in which these are put together. It is generally
believed that we cannot imagine a shade of colour that we have never
seen, or a sound that we have never heard. On this subject Hume is the
classic. He says, in the definitions already quoted:

"Those perceptions, which enter with most force and violence, we may
name IMPRESSIONS; and under this name I comprehend all our sensations,
passions and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul.
By IDEAS I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning."

He next explains the difference between simple and complex ideas, and
explains that a complex idea may occur without any similar complex
impression. But as regards simple ideas, he states that "every simple
idea has a simple impression, which resembles it, and every simple
impression a correspondent idea." He goes on to enunciate the general
principle "that all our simple ideas in their first appearance are
derived from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and
which they exactly represent" ("Treatise of Human Nature," Part I,
Section I).

It is this fact, that images resemble antecedent sensations, which
enables us to call them images "of" this or that. For the understanding
of memory, and of knowledge generally, the recognizable resemblance of
images and sensations is of fundamental importance.

There are difficulties in establishing Hume's principles, and doubts
as to whether it is exactly true. Indeed, he himself signalized an
exception immediately after stating his maxim. Nevertheless, it is
impossible to doubt that in the main simple images are copies of similar
simple sensations which have occurred earlier, and that the same is true
of complex images in all cases of memory as opposed to mere imagination.
Our power of acting with reference to what is sensibly absent is largely
due to this characteristic of images, although, as education advances,
images tend to be more and more replaced by words. We shall have much
to say in the next two lectures on the subject of images as copies of
sensations. What has been said now is merely by way of reminder that
this is their most notable characteristic.

I am by no means confident that the distinction between images and
sensations is ultimately valid, and I should be glad to be convinced
that images can be reduced to sensations of a peculiar kind. I think it
is clear, however, that, at any rate in the case of auditory and visual
images, they do differ from ordinary auditory and visual sensations, and
therefore form a recognizable class of occurrences, even if it should
prove that they can be regarded as a sub-class of sensations. This is
all that is necessary to validate the use of images to be made in the
sequel.




LECTURE IX. MEMORY

Memory, which we are to consider to-day, introduces us to knowledge in
one of its forms. The analysis of knowledge will occupy us until the end
of the thirteenth lecture, and is the most difficult part of our whole
enterprise.

I do not myself believe that the analysis of knowledge can be effected
entirely by means of purely external observation, such as behaviourists
employ. I shall discuss this question in later lectures. In the present
lecture I shall attempt the analysis of memory-knowledge, both as an
introduction to the problem of knowledge in general, and because memory,
in some form, is presupposed in almost all other knowledge. Sensation,
we decided, is not a form of knowledge. It might, however, have
been expected that we should begin our discussion of knowledge with
PERCEPTION, i.e. with that integral experience of things in the
environment, out of which sensation is extracted by psychological
analysis. What is called perception differs from sensation by the fact
that the sensational ingredients bring up habitual associates--images
and expectations of their usual correlates--all of which are
subjectively indistinguishable from the sensation. The FACT of past
experience is essential in producing this filling-out of sensation, but
not the RECOLLECTION of past experience. The non-sensational elements in
perception can be wholly explained as the result of habit, produced
by frequent correlations. Perception, according to our definition in
Lecture VII, is no more a form of knowledge than sensation is, except
in so far as it involves expectations. The purely psychological problems
which it raises are not very difficult, though they have sometimes been
rendered artificially obscure by unwillingness to admit the fallibility
of the non-sensational elements of perception. On the other hand, memory
raises many difficult and very important problems, which it is necessary
to consider at the first possible moment.

One reason for treating memory at this early stage is that it seems to
be involved in the fact that images are recognized as "copies" of
past sensible experience. In the preceding lecture I alluded to Hume's
principle "that all our simple ideas in their first appearance are
derived from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and
which they exactly represent." Whether or not this principle is liable
to exceptions, everyone would agree that is has a broad measure of
truth, though the word "exactly" might seem an overstatement, and
it might seem more correct to say that ideas APPROXIMATELY represent
impressions. Such modifications of Hume's principle, however, do not
affect the problem which I wish to present for your consideration,
namely: Why do we believe that images are, sometimes or always,
approximately or exactly, copies of sensations? What sort of evidence is
there? And what sort of evidence is logically possible? The difficulty
of this question arises through the fact that the sensation which an
image is supposed to copy is in the past when the image exists, and can
therefore only be known by memory, while, on the other hand, memory of
past sensations seems only possible by means of present images. How,
then, are we to find any way of comparing the present image and the past
sensation? The problem is just as acute if we say that images differ
from their prototypes as if we say that they resemble them; it is the
very possibility of comparison that is hard to understand.* We think
we can know that they are alike or different, but we cannot bring them
together in one experience and compare them. To deal with this problem,
we must have a theory of memory. In this way the whole status of images
as "copies" is bound up with the analysis of memory.

     * How, for example, can we obtain such knowledge as the
     following: "If we look at, say, a red nose and perceive it,
     and after a little while ekphore, its memory-image, we note
     immediately how unlike, in its likeness, this memory-image
     is to the original perception" (A. Wohlgemuth, "On the
     Feelings and their Neural Correlate with an Examination of
     the Nature of Pain," "Journal of Psychology," vol. viii,
     part iv, June, 1917).

In investigating memory-beliefs, there are certain points which must
be borne in mind. In the first place, everything constituting a
memory-belief is happening now, not in that past time to which the
belief is said to refer. It is not logically necessary to the existence
of a memory-belief that the event remembered should have occurred,
or even that the past should have existed at all. There is no logical
impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five
minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered"
a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between
events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or
will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world
began five minutes ago. Hence the occurrences which are CALLED knowledge
of the past are logically independent of the past; they are wholly
analysable into present contents, which might, theoretically, be just
what they are even if no past had existed.

I am not suggesting that the non-existence of the past should be
entertained as a serious hypothesis. Like all sceptical hypotheses, it
is logically tenable, but uninteresting. All that I am doing is to use
its logical tenability as a help in the analysis of what occurs when we
remember.

In the second place, images without beliefs are insufficient to
constitute memory; and habits are still more insufficient. The
behaviourist, who attempts to make psychology a record of behaviour, has
to trust his memory in making the record. "Habit" is a concept involving
the occurrence of similar events at different times; if the behaviourist
feels confident that there is such a phenomenon as habit, that can only
be because he trusts his memory, when it assures him that there have
been other times. And the same applies to images. If we are to know as
it is supposed we do--that images are "copies," accurate or inaccurate,
of past events, something more than the mere occurrence of images must
go to constitute this knowledge. For their mere occurrence, by itself,
would not suggest any connection with anything that had happened before.

Can we constitute memory out of images together with suitable beliefs?
We may take it that memory-images, when they occur in true memory, are
(a) known to be copies, (b) sometimes known to be imperfect copies
(cf. footnote on previous page). How is it possible to know that a
memory-image is an imperfect copy, without having a more accurate copy
by which to replace it? This would SEEM to suggest that we have a way
of knowing the past which is independent of images, by means of which
we can criticize image-memories. But I do not think such an inference is
warranted.

What results, formally, from our knowledge of the past through images
of which we recognize the inaccuracy, is that such images must have two
characteristics by which we can arrange them in two series, of which one
corresponds to the more or less remote period in the past to which
they refer, and the other to our greater or less confidence in their
accuracy. We will take the second of these points first.

Our confidence or lack of confidence in the accuracy of a memory-image
must, in fundamental cases, be based upon a characteristic of the image
itself, since we cannot evoke the past bodily and compare it with the
present image. It might be suggested that vagueness is the required
characteristic, but I do not think this is the case. We sometimes
have images that are by no means peculiarly vague, which yet we do not
trust--for example, under the influence of fatigue we may see a friend's
face vividly and clearly, but horribly distorted. In such a case we
distrust our image in spite of its being unusually clear. I think
the characteristic by which we distinguish the images we trust is the
feeling of FAMILIARITY that accompanies them. Some images, like some
sensations, feel very familiar, while others feel strange. Familiarity
is a feeling capable of degrees. In an image of a well-known face,
for example, some parts may feel more familiar than others; when this
happens, we have more belief in the accuracy of the familiar parts than
in that of the unfamiliar parts. I think it is by this means that we
become critical of images, not by some imageless memory with which
we compare them. I shall return to the consideration of familiarity
shortly.

I come now to the other characteristic which memory-images must have
in order to account for our knowledge of the past. They must have some
characteristic which makes us regard them as referring to more or less
remote portions of the past. That is to say if we suppose that A is the
event remembered, B the remembering, and t the interval of time between
A and B, there must be some characteristic of B which is capable of
degrees, and which, in accurately dated memories, varies as t varies.
It may increase as t increases, or diminish as t increases. The question
which of these occurs is not of any importance for the theoretic
serviceability of the characteristic in question.

In actual fact, there are doubtless various factors that concur in
giving us the feeling of greater or less remoteness in some remembered
event. There may be a specific feeling which could be called the feeling
of "pastness," especially where immediate memory is concerned. But apart
from this, there are other marks. One of these is context. A recent
memory has, usually, more context than a more distant one. When a
remembered event has a remembered context, this may occur in two ways,
either (a) by successive images in the same order as their prototypes,
or (b) by remembering a whole process simultaneously, in the same way in
which a present process may be apprehended, through akoluthic sensations
which, by fading, acquire the mark of just-pastness in an increasing
degree as they fade, and are thus placed in a series while all sensibly
present. It will be context in this second sense, more specially, that
will give us a sense of the nearness or remoteness of a remembered
event.

There is, of course, a difference between knowing the temporal relation
of a remembered event to the present, and knowing the time-order of two
remembered events. Very often our knowledge of the temporal relation
of a remembered event to the present is inferred from its temporal
relations to other remembered events. It would seem that only rather
recent events can be placed at all accurately by means of feelings
giving their temporal relation to the present, but it is clear that such
feelings must play an essential part in the process of dating remembered
events.

We may say, then, that images are regarded by us as more or less
accurate copies of past occurrences because they come to us with two
sorts of feelings: (1) Those that may be called feelings of familiarity;
(2) those that may be collected together as feelings giving a sense of
pastness. The first lead us to trust our memories, the second to assign
places to them in the time-order.

We have now to analyse the memory-belief, as opposed to the
characteristics of images which lead us to base memory-beliefs upon
them.

If we had retained the "subject" or "act" in knowledge, the whole
problem of memory would have been comparatively simple. We could then
have said that remembering is a direct relation between the present act
or subject and the past occurrence remembered: the act of remembering
is present, though its object is past. But the rejection of the subject
renders some more complicated theory necessary. Remembering has to be
a present occurrence in some way resembling, or related to, what is
remembered. And it is difficult to find any ground, except a pragmatic
one, for supposing that memory is not sheer delusion, if, as seems to be
the case, there is not, apart from memory, any way of ascertaining that
there really was a past occurrence having the required relation to our
present remembering. What, if we followed Meinong's terminology, we
should call the "object" in memory, i.e. the past event which we are
said to be remembering, is unpleasantly remote from the "content," i.e.
the present mental occurrence in remembering. There is an awkward gulf
between the two, which raises difficulties for the theory of knowledge.
But we must not falsify observation to avoid theoretical difficulties.
For the present, therefore, let us forget these problems, and try to
discover what actually occurs in memory.

Some points may be taken as fixed, and such as any theory of memory must
arrive at. In this case, as in most others, what may be taken as certain
in advance is rather vague. The study of any topic is like the continued
observation of an object which is approaching us along a road: what is
certain to begin with is the quite vague knowledge that there is SOME
object on the road. If you attempt to be less vague, and to assert that
the object is an elephant, or a man, or a mad dog, you run a risk of
error; but the purpose of continued observation is to enable you to
arrive at such more precise knowledge. In like manner, in the study of
memory, the certainties with which you begin are very vague, and the
more precise propositions at which you try to arrive are less certain
than the hazy data from which you set out. Nevertheless, in spite of the
risk of error, precision is the goal at which we must aim.

The first of our vague but indubitable data is that there is knowledge
of the past. We do not yet know with any precision what we mean by
"knowledge," and we must admit that in any given instance our memory may
be at fault. Nevertheless, whatever a sceptic might urge in theory,
we cannot practically doubt that we got up this morning, that we did
various things yesterday, that a great war has been taking place, and so
on. How far our knowledge of the past is due to memory, and how far to
other sources, is of course a matter to be investigated, but there can
be no doubt that memory forms an indispensable part of our knowledge of
the past.

The second datum is that we certainly have more capacity for knowing the
past than for knowing the future. We know some things about the future,
for example what eclipses there will be; but this knowledge is a matter
of elaborate calculation and inference, whereas some of our knowledge of
the past comes to us without effort, in the same sort of immediate way
in which we acquire knowledge of occurrences in our present environment.
We might provisionally, though perhaps not quite correctly, define
"memory" as that way of knowing about the past which has no analogue in
our knowledge of the future; such a definition would at least serve to
mark the problem with which we are concerned, though some expectations
may deserve to rank with memory as regards immediacy.

A third point, perhaps not quite so certain as our previous two, is that
the truth of memory cannot be wholly practical, as pragmatists wish
all truth to be. It seems clear that some of the things I remember are
trivial and without any visible importance for the future, but that my
memory is true (or false) in virtue of a past event, not in virtue of
any future consequences of my belief. The definition of truth as the
correspondence between beliefs and facts seems peculiarly evident in the
case of memory, as against not only the pragmatist definition but also
the idealist definition by means of coherence. These considerations,
however, are taking us away from psychology, to which we must now
return.

It is important not to confuse the two forms of memory which Bergson
distinguishes in the second chapter of his "Matter and Memory,"
namely the sort that consists of habit, and the sort that consists of
independent recollection. He gives the instance of learning a lesson
by heart: when I know it by heart I am said to "remember" it, but this
merely means that I have acquired certain habits; on the other hand,
my recollection of (say) the second time I read the lesson while I was
learning it is the recollection of a unique event, which occurred only
once. The recollection of a unique event cannot, so Bergson contends,
be wholly constituted by habit, and is in fact something radically
different from the memory which is habit. The recollection alone is true
memory. This distinction is vital to the understanding of memory. But
it is not so easy to carry out in practice as it is to draw in theory.
Habit is a very intrusive feature of our mental life, and is often
present where at first sight it seems not to be. There is, for example,
a habit of remembering a unique event. When we have once described the
event, the words we have used easily become habitual. We may even have
used words to describe it to ourselves while it was happening; in that
case, the habit of these words may fulfil the function of Bergson's true
memory, while in reality it is nothing but habit-memory. A gramophone,
by the help of suitable records, might relate to us the incidents of its
past; and people are not so different from gramophones as they like to
believe.

In spite, however, of a difficulty in distinguishing the two forms of
memory in practice, there can be no doubt that both forms exist. I can
set to work now to remember things I never remembered before, such
as what I had to eat for breakfast this morning, and it can hardly be
wholly habit that enables me to do this. It is this sort of occurrence
that constitutes the essence of memory Until we have analysed what
happens in such a case as this, we have not succeeded in understanding
memory.

The sort of memory with which we are here concerned is the sort which is
a form of knowledge. Whether knowledge itself is reducible to habit is
a question to which I shall return in a later lecture; for the present
I am only anxious to point out that, whatever the true analysis of
knowledge may be, knowledge of past occurrences is not proved by
behaviour which is due to past experience. The fact that a man can
recite a poem does not show that he remembers any previous occasion on
which he has recited or read it. Similarly, the performances of animals
in getting out of cages or mazes to which they are accustomed do not
prove that they remember having been in the same situation before.
Arguments in favour of (for example) memory in plants are only arguments
in favour of habit-memory, not of knowledge-memory. Samuel Butler's
arguments in favour of the view that an animal remembers something of
the lives of its ancestors* are, when examined, only arguments in favour
of habit-memory. Semon's two books, mentioned in an earlier lecture, do
not touch knowledge-memory at all closely. They give laws according to
which images of past occurrences come into our minds, but do not discuss
our belief that these images refer to past occurrences, which is what
constitutes knowledge-memory. It is this that is of interest to theory
of knowledge. I shall speak of it as "true" memory, to distinguish it
from mere habit acquired through past experience. Before considering
true memory, it will be well to consider two things which are on the way
towards memory, namely the feeling of familiarity and recognition.

     * See his "Life and Habit and Unconscious Memory."

We often feel that something in our sensible environment is familiar,
without having any definite recollection of previous occasions on which
we have seen it. We have this feeling normally in places where we have
often been before--at home, or in well-known streets. Most people and
animals find it essential to their happiness to spend a good deal of
their time in familiar surroundings, which are especially comforting
when any danger threatens. The feeling of familiarity has all sorts
of degrees, down to the stage where we dimly feel that we have seen a
person before. It is by no means always reliable; almost everybody
has at some time experienced the well-known illusion that all that is
happening now happened before at some time. There are occasions when
familiarity does not attach itself to any definite object, when there is
merely a vague feeling that SOMETHING is familiar. This is illustrated
by Turgenev's "Smoke," where the hero is long puzzled by a haunting
sense that something in his present is recalling something in his past,
and at last traces it to the smell of heliotrope. Whenever the sense of
familiarity occurs without a definite object, it leads us to search the
environment until we are satisfied that we have found the appropriate
object, which leads us to the judgment: "THIS is familiar." I think
we may regard familiarity as a definite feeling, capable of existing
without an object, but normally standing in a specific relation to some
feature of the environment, the relation being that which we express in
words by saying that the feature in question is familiar. The judgment
that what is familiar has been experienced before is a product of
reflection, and is no part of the feeling of familiarity, such as a
horse may be supposed to have when he returns to his stable. Thus
no knowledge as to the past is to be derived from the feeling of
familiarity alone.

A further stage is RECOGNITION. This may be taken in two senses,
the first when a thing not merely feels familiar, but we know it is
such-and-such. We recognize our friend Jones, we know cats and dogs
when we see them, and so on. Here we have a definite influence of past
experience, but not necessarily any actual knowledge of the past. When
we see a cat, we know it is a cat because of previous cats we have
seen, but we do not, as a rule, recollect at the moment any particular
occasion when we have seen a cat. Recognition in this sense does not
necessarily involve more than a habit of association: the kind of object
we are seeing at the moment is associated with the word "cat," or with
an auditory image of purring, or whatever other characteristic we may
happen to recognize in the cat of the moment. We are, of course, in
fact able to judge, when we recognize an object, that we have seen it
before, but this judgment is something over and above recognition in
this first sense, and may very probably be impossible to animals that
nevertheless have the experience of recognition in this first sense of
the word.

There is, however, another sense of the word, in which we mean by
recognition, not knowing the name of a thing or some other property of
it, but knowing that we have seen it before In this sense recognition
does involve knowledge about the Fast. This knowledge is memory in
one sense, though in another it is not. It does not involve a definite
memory of a definite past event, but only the knowledge that something
happening now is similar to something that happened before. It differs
from the sense of familiarity by being cognitive; it is a belief or
judgment, which the sense of familiarity is not. I do not wish to
undertake the analysis of belief at present, since it will be the
subject of the twelfth lecture; for the present I merely wish to
emphasize the fact that recognition, in our second sense, consists in
a belief, which we may express approximately in the words: "This has
existed before."

There are, however, several points in which such an account of
recognition is inadequate. To begin with, it might seem at first sight
more correct to define recognition as "I have seen this before" than
as "this has existed before." We recognize a thing (it may be urged) as
having been in our experience before, whatever that may mean; we do not
recognize it as merely having been in the world before. I am not sure
that there is anything substantial in this point. The definition of "my
experience" is difficult; broadly speaking, it is everything that is
connected with what I am experiencing now by certain links, of which
the various forms of memory are among the most important. Thus, if I
recognize a thing, the occasion of its previous existence in virtue
of which I recognize it forms part of "my experience" by DEFINITION:
recognition will be one of the marks by which my experience is singled
out from the rest of the world. Of course, the words "this has existed
before" are a very inadequate translation of what actually happens when
we form a judgment of recognition, but that is unavoidable: words are
framed to express a level of thought which is by no means primitive,
and are quite incapable of expressing such an elementary occurrence as
recognition. I shall return to what is virtually the same question in
connection with true memory, which raises exactly similar problems.

A second point is that, when we recognize something, it was not in fact
the very same thing, but only something similar, that we experienced on
a former occasion. Suppose the object in question is a friend's face. A
person's face is always changing, and is not exactly the same on any two
occasions. Common sense treats it as one face with varying expressions;
but the varying expressions actually exist, each at its proper time,
while the one face is merely a logical construction. We regard two
objects as the same, for common-sense purposes, when the reaction they
call for is practically the same. Two visual appearances, to both
of which it is appropriate to say: "Hullo, Jones!" are treated as
appearances of one identical object, namely Jones. The name "Jones" is
applicable to both, and it is only reflection that shows us that many
diverse particulars are collected together to form the meaning of the
name "Jones." What we see on any one occasion is not the whole series of
particulars that make up Jones, but only one of them (or a few in quick
succession). On another occasion we see another member of the series,
but it is sufficiently similar to count as the same from the standpoint
of common sense. Accordingly, when we judge "I have seen THIS
before," we judge falsely if "this" is taken as applying to the actual
constituent of the world that we are seeing at the moment. The
word "this" must be interpreted vaguely so as to include anything
sufficiently like what we are seeing at the moment. Here, again, we
shall find a similar point as regards true memory; and in connection
with true memory we will consider the point again. It is sometimes
suggested, by those who favour behaviourist views, that recognition
consists in behaving in the same way when a stimulus is repeated as we
behaved on the first occasion when it occurred. This seems to be the
exact opposite of the truth. The essence of recognition is in the
DIFFERENCE between a repeated stimulus and a new one. On the first
occasion there is no recognition; on the second occasion there is. In
fact, recognition is another instance of the peculiarity of causal laws
in psychology, namely, that the causal unit is not a single event, but
two or more events Habit is the great instance of this, but recognition
is another. A stimulus occurring once has a certain effect; occurring
twice, it has the further effect of recognition. Thus the phenomenon
of recognition has as its cause the two occasions when the stimulus has
occurred; either alone is insufficient. This complexity of causes
in psychology might be connected with Bergson's arguments against
repetition in the mental world. It does not prove that there are no
causal laws in psychology, as Bergson suggests; but it does prove that
the causal laws of psychology are Prima facie very different from those
of physics. On the possibility of explaining away the difference as due
to the peculiarities of nervous tissue I have spoken before, but this
possibility must not be forgotten if we are tempted to draw unwarranted
metaphysical deductions.

True memory, which we must now endeavour to understand, consists of
knowledge of past events, but not of all such knowledge. Some knowledge
of past events, for example what we learn through reading history, is
on a par with the knowledge we can acquire concerning the future: it
is obtained by inference, not (so to speak) spontaneously. There is
a similar distinction in our knowledge of the present: some of it is
obtained through the senses, some in more indirect ways. I know that
there are at this moment a number of people in the streets of New York,
but I do not know this in the immediate way in which I know of the
people whom I see by looking out of my window. It is not easy to state
precisely wherein the difference between these two sorts of knowledge
consists, but it is easy to feel the difference. For the moment, I shall
not stop to analyse it, but shall content myself with saying that, in
this respect, memory resembles the knowledge derived from the senses.
It is immediate, not inferred, not abstract; it differs from perception
mainly by being referred to the past.

In regard to memory, as throughout the analysis of knowledge, there are
two very distinct problems, namely (1) as to the nature of the present
occurrence in knowing; (2) as to the relation of this occurrence to what
is known. When we remember, the knowing is now, while what is known is
in the past. Our two questions are, in the case of memory:

(1) What is the present occurrence when we remember?

(2) What is the relation of this present occurrence to the past event
which is remembered?

Of these two questions, only the first concerns the psychologist; the
second belongs to theory of knowledge. At the same time, if we accept
the vague datum with which we began, to the effect that, in some sense,
there is knowledge of the past, we shall have to find, if we can, such
an account of the present occurrence in remembering as will make it not
impossible for remembering to give us knowledge of the past. For the
present, however, we shall do well to forget the problems concerning
theory of knowledge, and concentrate upon the purely psychological
problem of memory.

Between memory-image and sensation there is an intermediate experience
concerning the immediate past. For example, a sound that we have just
heard is present to us in a way which differs both from the sensation
while we are hearing the sound and from the memory-image of something
heard days or weeks ago. James states that it is this way of
apprehending the immediate past that is "the ORIGINAL of our experience
of pastness, from whence we get the meaning of the term"("Psychology,"
i, p. 604). Everyone knows the experience of noticing (say) that
the clock HAS BEEN striking, when we did not notice it while it was
striking. And when we hear a remark spoken, we are conscious of the
earlier words while the later ones are being uttered, and this retention
feels different from recollection of something definitely past. A
sensation fades gradually, passing by continuous gradations to the
status of an image. This retention of the immediate past in a condition
intermediate between sensation and image may be called "immediate
memory." Everything belonging to it is included with sensation in what
is called the "specious present." The specious present includes elements
at all stages on the journey from sensation to image. It is this fact
that enables us to apprehend such things as movements, or the order of
the words in a spoken sentence. Succession can occur within the specious
present, of which we can distinguish some parts as earlier and others as
later. It is to be supposed that the earliest parts are those that have
faded most from their original force, while the latest parts are those
that retain their full sensational character. At the beginning of a
stimulus we have a sensation; then a gradual transition; and at the
end an image. Sensations while they are fading are called "akoluthic"
sensations.* When the process of fading is completed (which happens very
quickly), we arrive at the image, which is capable of being revived on
subsequent occasions with very little change. True memory, as opposed to
"immediate memory," applies only to events sufficiently distant to
have come to an end of the period of fading. Such events, if they are
represented by anything present, can only be represented by images, not
by those intermediate stages, between sensations and images, which occur
during the period of fading.

     * See Semon, "Die mnemischen Empfindungen," chap. vi.

Immediate memory is important both because it provides experience of
succession, and because it bridges the gulf between sensations and
the images which are their copies. But it is now time to resume the
consideration of true memory.

Suppose you ask me what I ate for breakfast this morning. Suppose,
further, that I have not thought about my breakfast in the meantime, and
that I did not, while I was eating it, put into words what it consisted
of. In this case my recollection will be true memory, not habit-memory.
The process of remembering will consist of calling up images of my
breakfast, which will come to me with a feeling of belief such as
distinguishes memory-images from mere imagination-images. Or sometimes
words may come without the intermediary of images; but in this case
equally the feeling of belief is essential.

Let us omit from our consideration, for the present, the memories
in which words replace images. These are always, I think, really
habit-memories, the memories that use images being the typical true
memories.

Memory-images and imagination-images do not differ in their intrinsic
qualities, so far as we can discover. They differ by the fact that
the images that constitute memories, unlike those that constitute
imagination, are accompanied by a feeling of belief which may be
expressed in the words "this happened." The mere occurrence of images,
without this feeling of belief, constitutes imagination; it is the
element of belief that is the distinctive thing in memory.*

     * For belief of a specific kind, cf. Dorothy Wrinch "On the
     Nature of Memory," "Mind," January, 1920.

There are, if I am not mistaken, at least three different kinds of
belief-feeling, which we may call respectively memory, expectation and
bare assent. In what I call bare assent, there is no time-element in
the feeling of belief, though there may be in the content of what is
believed. If I believe that Caesar landed in Britain in B.C. 55, the
time-determination lies, not in the feeling of belief, but in what is
believed. I do not remember the occurrence, but have the same feeling
towards it as towards the announcement of an eclipse next year. But when
I have seen a flash of lightning and am waiting for the thunder, I
have a belief-feeling analogous to memory, except that it refers to the
future: I have an image of thunder, combined with a feeling which may be
expressed in the words: "this will happen." So, in memory, the pastness
lies, not in the content of what is believed, but in the nature of
the belief-feeling. I might have just the same images and expect their
realization; I might entertain them without any belief, as in reading a
novel; or I might entertain them together with a time-determination, and
give bare assent, as in reading history. I shall return to this subject
in a later lecture, when we come to the analysis of belief. For the
present, I wish to make it clear that a certain special kind of belief
is the distinctive characteristic of memory.


The problem as to whether memory can be explained as habit or
association requires to be considered afresh in connection with the
causes of our remembering something. Let us take again the case of my
being asked what I had for breakfast this morning. In this case the
question leads to my setting to work to recollect. It is a little
strange that the question should instruct me as to what it is that I am
to recall. This has to do with understanding words, which will be the
topic of the next lecture; but something must be said about it now. Our
understanding of the words "breakfast this morning" is a habit, in spite
of the fact that on each fresh day they point to a different occasion.
"This morning" does not, whenever it is used, mean the same thing, as
"John" or "St. Paul's" does; it means a different period of time on
each different day. It follows that the habit which constitutes
our understanding of the words "this morning" is not the habit of
associating the words with a fixed object, but the habit of associating
them with something having a fixed time-relation to our present. This
morning has, to-day, the same time-relation to my present that yesterday
morning had yesterday. In order to understand the phrase "this morning"
it is necessary that we should have a way of feeling time-intervals,
and that this feeling should give what is constant in the meaning of the
words "this morning." This appreciation of time-intervals is, however,
obviously a product of memory, not a presupposition of it. It will be
better, therefore, if we wish to analyse the causation of memory by
something not presupposing memory, to take some other instance than that
of a question about "this morning."

Let us take the case of coming into a familiar room where something has
been changed--say a new picture hung on the wall. We may at first
have only a sense that SOMETHING is unfamiliar, but presently we shall
remember, and say "that picture was not on the wall before." In order to
make the case definite, we will suppose that we were only in the room
on one former occasion. In this case it seems fairly clear what happens.
The other objects in the room are associated, through the former
occasion, with a blank space of wall where now there is a picture. They
call up an image of a blank wall, which clashes with perception of the
picture. The image is associated with the belief-feeling which we found
to be distinctive of memory, since it can neither be abolished nor
harmonized with perception. If the room had remained unchanged, we
might have had only the feeling of familiarity without the definite
remembering; it is the change that drives us from the present to memory
of the past.

We may generalize this instance so as to cover the causes of many
memories. Some present feature of the environment is associated, through
past experiences, with something now absent; this absent something comes
before us as an image, and is contrasted with present sensation. In
cases of this sort, habit (or association) explains why the present
feature of the environment brings up the memory-image, but it does
not explain the memory-belief. Perhaps a more complete analysis could
explain the memory-belief also on lines of association and habit, but
the causes of beliefs are obscure, and we cannot investigate them
yet. For the present we must content ourselves with the fact that the
memory-image can be explained by habit. As regards the memory-belief,
we must, at least provisionally, accept Bergson's view that it cannot be
brought under the head of habit, at any rate when it first occurs, i.e.
when we remember something we never remembered before.

We must now consider somewhat more closely the content of a
memory-belief. The memory-belief confers upon the memory-image something
which we may call "meaning;" it makes us feel that the image points to
an object which existed in the past. In order to deal with this topic
we must consider the verbal expression of the memory-belief. We might
be tempted to put the memory-belief into the words: "Something like
this image occurred." But such words would be very far from an accurate
translation of the simplest kind of memory-belief. "Something like this
image" is a very complicated conception. In the simplest kind of memory
we are not aware of the difference between an image and the sensation
which it copies, which may be called its "prototype." When the image
is before us, we judge rather "this occurred." The image is not
distinguished from the object which existed in the past: the word "this"
covers both, and enables us to have a memory-belief which does not
introduce the complicated notion "something like this."

It might be objected that, if we judge "this occurred" when in fact
"this" is a present image, we judge falsely, and the memory-belief,
so interpreted, becomes deceptive. This, however, would be a mistake,
produced by attempting to give to words a precision which they do not
possess when used by unsophisticated people. It is true that the image
is not absolutely identical with its prototype, and if the word "this"
meant the image to the exclusion of everything else, the judgment "this
occurred" would be false. But identity is a precise conception, and no
word, in ordinary speech, stands for anything precise. Ordinary speech
does not distinguish between identity and close similarity. A word
always applies, not only to one particular, but to a group of associated
particulars, which are not recognized as multiple in common thought or
speech. Thus primitive memory, when it judges that "this occurred," is
vague, but not false.

Vague identity, which is really close similarity, has been a source
of many of the confusions by which philosophy has lived. Of a vague
subject, such as a "this," which is both an image and its prototype,
contradictory predicates are true simultaneously: this existed and does
not exist, since it is a thing remembered, but also this exists and did
not exist, since it is a present image. Hence Bergson's
interpenetration of the present by the past, Hegelian continuity and
identity-in-diversity, and a host of other notions which are thought to
be profound because they are obscure and confused. The contradictions
resulting from confounding image and prototype in memory force us to
precision. But when we become precise, our remembering becomes different
from that of ordinary life, and if we forget this we shall go wrong in
the analysis of ordinary memory.

Vagueness and accuracy are important notions, which it is very necessary
to understand. Both are a matter of degree. All thinking is vague
to some extent, and complete accuracy is a theoretical ideal not
practically attainable. To understand what is meant by accuracy, it will
be well to consider first instruments of measurement, such as a balance
or a thermometer. These are said to be accurate when they give different
results for very slightly different stimuli.* A clinical thermometer
is accurate when it enables us to detect very slight differences in the
temperature of the blood. We may say generally that an instrument
is accurate in proportion as it reacts differently to very slightly
different stimuli. When a small difference of stimulus produces a great
difference of reaction, the instrument is accurate; in the contrary case
it is not.

     * This is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. The
     subject of accuracy and vagueness will be considered again
     in Lecture XIII.

Exactly the same thing applies in defining accuracy of thought
or perception. A musician will respond differently to very minute
differences in playing which would be quite imperceptible to the
ordinary mortal. A negro can see the difference between one negro and
another one is his friend, another his enemy. But to us such different
responses are impossible: we can merely apply the word "negro"
indiscriminately. Accuracy of response in regard to any particular kind
of stimulus is improved by practice. Understanding a language is a
case in point. Few Frenchmen can hear any difference between the sounds
"hall" and "hole," which produce quite different impressions upon us.
The two statements "the hall is full of water" and "the hole is full
of water" call for different responses, and a hearing which cannot
distinguish between them is inaccurate or vague in this respect.

Precision and vagueness in thought, as in perception, depend upon the
degree of difference between responses to more or less similar stimuli.
In the case of thought, the response does not follow immediately upon
the sensational stimulus, but that makes no difference as regards our
present question. Thus to revert to memory: A memory is "vague" when
it is appropriate to many different occurrences: for instance, "I met a
man" is vague, since any man would verify it. A memory is "precise" when
the occurrences that would verify it are narrowly circumscribed: for
instance, "I met Jones" is precise as compared to "I met a man." A
memory is "accurate" when it is both precise and true, i.e. in the above
instance, if it was Jones I met. It is precise even if it is false,
provided some very definite occurrence would have been required to make
it true.

It follows from what has been said that a vague thought has more
likelihood of being true than a precise one. To try and hit an object
with a vague thought is like trying to hit the bull's eye with a lump of
putty: when the putty reaches the target, it flattens out all over it,
and probably covers the bull's eye along with the rest. To try and hit
an object with a precise thought is like trying to hit the bull's
eye with a bullet. The advantage of the precise thought is that it
distinguishes between the bull's eye and the rest of the target. For
example, if the whole target is represented by the fungus family and the
bull's eye by mushrooms, a vague thought which can only hit the target
as a whole is not much use from a culinary point of view. And when I
merely remember that I met a man, my memory may be very inadequate to my
practical requirements, since it may make a great difference whether I
met Brown or Jones. The memory "I met Jones" is relatively precise. It
is accurate if I met Jones, inaccurate if I met Brown, but precise in
either case as against the mere recollection that I met a man.

The distinction between accuracy and precision is however, not
fundamental. We may omit precision from out thoughts and confine
ourselves to the distinction between accuracy and vagueness. We may then
set up the following definitions:

An instrument is "reliable" with respect to a given set of stimuli when
to stimuli which are not relevantly different it gives always responses
which are not relevantly different.

An instrument is a "measure" of a set of stimuli which are serially
ordered when its responses, in all cases where they are relevantly
different, are arranged in a series in the same order.

The "degree of accuracy" of an instrument which is a reliable measurer
is the ratio of the difference of response to the difference of stimulus
in cases where the difference of stimulus is small.* That is to say, if
a small difference of stimulus produces a great difference of response,
the instrument is very accurate; in the contrary case, very inaccurate.

     * Strictly speaking, the limit of this, i.e. the derivative
     of the response with respect to the stimulus.

A mental response is called "vague" in proportion to its lack of
accuracy, or rather precision.

These definitions will be found useful, not only in the case of memory,
but in almost all questions concerned with knowledge.

It should be observed that vague beliefs, so far from being necessarily
false, have a better chance of truth than precise ones, though their
truth is less valuable than that of precise beliefs, since they do not
distinguish between occurrences which may differ in important ways.

The whole of the above discussion of vagueness and accuracy was
occasioned by the attempt to interpret the word "this" when we judge in
verbal memory that "this occurred." The word "this," in such a judgment,
is a vague word, equally applicable to the present memory-image and to
the past occurrence which is its prototype. A vague word is not to be
identified with a general word, though in practice the distinction
may often be blurred. A word is general when it is understood to be
applicable to a number of different objects in virtue of some common
property. A word is vague when it is in fact applicable to a number of
different objects because, in virtue of some common property, they
have not appeared, to the person using the word, to be distinct. I
emphatically do not mean that he has judged them to be identical, but
merely that he has made the same response to them all and has not judged
them to be different. We may compare a vague word to a jelly and
a general word to a heap of shot. Vague words precede judgments
of identity and difference; both general and particular words are
subsequent to such judgments. The word "this" in the primitive
memory-belief is a vague word, not a general word; it covers both the
image and its prototype because the two are not distinguished.*

     * On the vague and the general cf. Ribot: "Evolution of
     General Ideas," Open Court Co., 1899, p. 32: "The sole
     permissible formula is this: Intelligence progresses from
     the indefinite to the definite. If 'indefinite' is taken as
     synonymous with general, it may be said that the particular
     does not appear at the outset, but neither does the general
     in any exact sense: the vague would be more appropriate. In
     other words, no sooner has the intellect progressed beyond
     the moment of perception and of its immediate reproduction
     in memory, than the generic image makes its appearance, i.e.
     a state intermediate between the particular and the general,
     participating in the nature of the one and of the other--a
     confused simplification."

But we have not yet finished our analysis of the memory-belief. The
tense in the belief that "this occurred" is provided by the nature of
the belief-feeling involved in memory; the word "this," as we have seen,
has a vagueness which we have tried to describe. But we must still ask
what we mean by "occurred." The image is, in one sense, occurring now;
and therefore we must find some other sense in which the past event
occurred but the image does not occur.

There are two distinct questions to be asked: (1) What causes us to say
that a thing occurs? (2) What are we feeling when we say this? As to the
first question, in the crude use of the word, which is what concerns us,
memory-images would not be said to occur; they would not be noticed
in themselves, but merely used as signs of the past event. Images are
"merely imaginary"; they have not, in crude thought, the sort of reality
that belongs to outside bodies. Roughly speaking, "real" things would
be those that can cause sensations, those that have correlations of the
sort that constitute physical objects. A thing is said to be "real"
or to "occur" when it fits into a context of such correlations. The
prototype of our memory-image did fit into a physical context, while
our memory-image does not. This causes us to feel that the prototype was
"real," while the image is "imaginary."

But the answer to our second question, namely as to what we are feeling
when we say a thing "occurs" or is "real," must be somewhat different.
We do not, unless we are unusually reflective, think about the presence
or absence of correlations: we merely have different feelings which,
intellectualized, may be represented as expectations of the presence
or absence of correlations. A thing which "feels real" inspires us with
hopes or fears, expectations or curiosities, which are wholly absent
when a thing "feels imaginary." The feeling of reality is a feeling akin
to respect: it belongs PRIMARILY to whatever can do things to us without
our voluntary co-operation. This feeling of reality, related to
the memory-image, and referred to the past by the specific kind of
belief-feeling that is characteristic of memory, seems to be what
constitutes the act of remembering in its pure form.

We may now summarize our analysis of pure memory.

Memory demands (a) an image, (b) a belief in past existence. The belief
may be expressed in the words "this existed."

The belief, like every other, may be analysed into (1) the believing,
(2) what is believed. The believing is a specific feeling or sensation
or complex of sensations, different from expectation or bare assent in
a way that makes the belief refer to the past; the reference to the
past lies in the belief-feeling, not in the content believed. There is
a relation between the belief-feeling and the content, making the
belief-feeling refer to the content, and expressed by saying that the
content is what is believed.

The content believed may or may not be expressed in words. Let us
take first the case when it is not. In that case, if we are merely
remembering that something of which we now have an image occurred,
the content consists of (a) the image, (b) the feeling, analogous
to respect, which we translate by saying that something is "real" as
opposed to "imaginary," (c) a relation between the image and the feeling
of reality, of the sort expressed when we say that the feeling refers
to the image. This content does not contain in itself any
time-determination.

The time-determination lies in the nature of the belief feeling, which
is that called "remembering" or (better) "recollecting." It is only
subsequent reflection upon this reference to the past that makes us
realize the distinction between the image and the event recollected.
When we have made this distinction, we can say that the image "means"
the past event.

The content expressed in words is best represented by the words "the
existence of this," since these words do not involve tense, which
belongs to the belief-feeling, not to the content. Here "this" is
a vague term, covering the memory-image and anything very like it,
including its prototype. "Existence" expresses the feeling of a
"reality" aroused primarily by whatever can have effects upon us without
our voluntary co-operation. The word "of" in the phrase "the existence
of this" represents the relation which subsists between the feeling of
reality and the "this."

This analysis of memory is probably extremely faulty, but I do not know
how to improve it.

NOTE.-When I speak of a FEELING of belief, I use the word "feeling" in
a popular sense, to cover a sensation or an image or a complex of
sensations or images or both; I use this word because I do not wish to
commit myself to any special analysis of the belief-feeling.




LECTURE X. WORDS AND MEANING

The problem with which we shall be concerned in this lecture is the
problem of determining what is the relation called "meaning." The word
"Napoleon," we say, "means" a certain person. In saying this, we are
asserting a relation between the word "Napoleon" and the person so
designated. It is this relation that we must now investigate.

Let us first consider what sort of object a word is when considered
simply as a physical thing, apart from its meaning. To begin with, there
are many instances of a word, namely all the different occasions when it
is employed. Thus a word is not something unique and particular, but a
set of occurrences. If we confine ourselves to spoken words, a word has
two aspects, according as we regard it from the point of view of the
speaker or from that of the hearer. From the point of view of the
speaker, a single instance of the use of a word consists of a certain
set of movements in the throat and mouth, combined with breath. From
the point of view of the hearer, a single instance of the use of a
word consists of a certain series of sounds, each being approximately
represented by a single letter in writing, though in practice a letter
may represent several sounds, or several letters may represent one
sound. The connection between the spoken word and the word as it reaches
the hearer is causal. Let us confine ourselves to the spoken word, which
is the more important for the analysis of what is called "thought."
Then we may say that a single instance of the spoken word consists of
a series of movements, and the word consists of a whole set of such
series, each member of the set being very similar to each other member.
That is to say, any two instances of the word "Napoleon" are very
similar, and each instance consists of a series of movements in the
mouth.

A single word, accordingly, is by no means simple it is a class of
similar series of movements (confining ourselves still to the spoken
word). The degree of similarity required cannot be precisely defined:
a man may pronounce the word "Napoleon" so badly that it can hardly be
determined whether he has really pronounced it or not. The instances
of a word shade off into other movements by imperceptible degrees. And
exactly analogous observations apply to words heard or written or read.
But in what has been said so far we have not even broached the
question of the DEFINITION of a word, since "meaning" is clearly what
distinguishes a word from other sets of similar movements, and "meaning"
remains to be defined.

It is natural to think of the meaning of a word as something
conventional. This, however, is only true with great limitations. A new
word can be added to an existing language by a mere convention, as
is done, for instance, with new scientific terms. But the basis of
a language is not conventional, either from the point of view of the
individual or from that of the community. A child learning to speak is
learning habits and associations which are just as much determined by
the environment as the habit of expecting dogs to bark and cocks to
crow. The community that speaks a language has learnt it, and modified
it by processes almost all of which are not deliberate, but the results
of causes operating according to more or less ascertainable laws. If
we trace any Indo-European language back far enough, we arrive
hypothetically (at any rate according to some authorities) at the stage
when language consisted only of the roots out of which subsequent words
have grown. How these roots acquired their meanings is not known, but a
conventional origin is clearly just as mythical as the social contract
by which Hobbes and Rousseau supposed civil government to have been
established. We can hardly suppose a parliament of hitherto speechless
elders meeting together and agreeing to call a cow a cow and a wolf a
wolf. The association of words with their meanings must have grown up
by some natural process, though at present the nature of the process is
unknown.

Spoken and written words are, of course, not the only way of conveying
meaning. A large part of one of Wundt's two vast volumes on language in
his "Volkerpsychologie" is concerned with gesture-language. Ants appear
to be able to communicate a certain amount of information by means of
their antennae. Probably writing itself, which we now regard as merely
a way of representing speech, was originally an independent language,
as it has remained to this day in China. Writing seems to have consisted
originally of pictures, which gradually became conventionalized, coming
in time to represent syllables, and finally letters on the telephone
principle of "T for Tommy." But it would seem that writing nowhere
began as an attempt to represent speech it began as a direct pictorial
representation of what was to be expressed. The essence of language
lies, not in the use of this or that special means of communication,
but in the employment of fixed associations (however these may have
originated) in order that something now sensible--a spoken word, a
picture, a gesture, or what not--may call up the "idea" of something
else. Whenever this is done, what is now sensible may be called a "sign"
or "symbol," and that of which it is intended to call up the "idea" may
be called its "meaning." This is a rough outline of what constitutes
"meaning." But we must fill in the outline in various ways. And,
since we are concerned with what is called "thought," we must pay more
attention than we otherwise should do to the private as opposed to the
social use of language. Language profoundly affects our thoughts, and
it is this aspect of language that is of most importance to us in our
present inquiry. We are almost more concerned with the internal speech
that is never uttered than we are with the things said out loud to other
people.

When we ask what constitutes meaning, we are not asking what is the
meaning of this or that particular word. The word "Napoleon" means a
certain individual; but we are asking, not who is the individual meant,
but what is the relation of the word to the individual which makes the
one mean the other. But just as it is useful to realize the nature of a
word as part of the physical world, so it is useful to realize the sort
of thing that a word may mean. When we are clear both as to what a word
is in its physical aspect, and as to what sort of thing it can mean, we
are in a better position to discover the relation of the two which is
meaning.

The things that words mean differ more than words do. There are
different sorts of words, distinguished by the grammarians; and there
are logical distinctions, which are connected to some extent, though not
so closely as was formerly supposed, with the grammatical distinctions
of parts of speech. It is easy, however, to be misled by grammar,
particularly if all the languages we know belong to one family. In some
languages, according to some authorities, the distinction of parts of
speech does not exist; in many languages it is widely different from
that to which we are accustomed in the Indo-European languages. These
facts have to be borne in mind if we are to avoid giving metaphysical
importance to mere accidents of our own speech.

In considering what words mean, it is natural to start with proper
names, and we will again take "Napoleon" as our instance. We commonly
imagine, when we use a proper name, that we mean one definite entity,
the particular individual who was called "Napoleon." But what we know
as a person is not simple. There MAY be a single simple ego which was
Napoleon, and remained strictly identical from his birth to his death.
There is no way of proving that this cannot be the case, but there is
also not the slightest reason to suppose that it is the case. Napoleon
as he was empirically known consisted of a series of gradually changing
appearances: first a squalling baby, then a boy, then a slim and
beautiful youth, then a fat and slothful person very magnificently
dressed This series of appearances, and various occurrences having
certain kinds of causal connections with them, constitute Napoleon as
empirically known, and therefore are Napoleon in so far as he forms
part of the experienced world. Napoleon is a complicated series of
occurrences, bound together by causal laws, not, like instances of a
word, by similarities. For although a person changes gradually, and
presents similar appearances on two nearly contemporaneous occasions,
it is not these similarities that constitute the person, as appears from
the "Comedy of Errors" for example.

Thus in the case of a proper name, while the word is a set of similar
series of movements, what it means is a series of occurrences bound
together by causal laws of that special kind that makes the occurrences
taken together constitute what we call one person, or one animal or
thing, in case the name applies to an animal or thing instead of to
a person. Neither the word nor what it names is one of the ultimate
indivisible constituents of the world. In language there is no direct
way of designating one of the ultimate brief existents that go to make
up the collections we call things or persons. If we want to speak of
such existents--which hardly happens except in philosophy--we have to do
it by means of some elaborate phrase, such as "the visual sensation
which occupied the centre of my field of vision at noon on January 1,
1919." Such ultimate simples I call "particulars." Particulars MIGHT
have proper names, and no doubt would have if language had been invented
by scientifically trained observers for purposes of philosophy and
logic. But as language was invented for practical ends, particulars have
remained one and all without a name.

We are not, in practice, much concerned with the actual particulars
that come into our experience in sensation; we are concerned rather
with whole systems to which the particulars belong and of which they
are signs. What we see makes us say "Hullo, there's Jones," and the fact
that what we see is a sign of Jones (which is the case because it is one
of the particulars that make up Jones) is more interesting to us than
the actual particular itself. Hence we give the name "Jones" to the
whole set of particulars, but do not trouble to give separate names to
the separate particulars that make up the set.

Passing on from proper names, we come next to general names, such as
"man," "cat," "triangle." A word such as "man" means a whole class
of such collections of particulars as have proper names. The several
members of the class are assembled together in virtue of some similarity
or common property. All men resemble each other in certain important
respects; hence we want a word which shall be equally applicable to all
of them. We only give proper names to the individuals of a species when
they differ inter se in practically important respects. In other cases
we do not do this. A poker, for instance, is just a poker; we do not
call one "John" and another "Peter."

There is a large class of words, such as "eating," "walking,"
"speaking," which mean a set of similar occurrences. Two instances of
walking have the same name because they resemble each other, whereas
two instances of Jones have the same name because they are causally
connected. In practice, however, it is difficult to make any precise
distinction between a word such as "walking" and a general name such as
"man." One instance of walking cannot be concentrated into an instant:
it is a process in time, in which there is a causal connection between
the earlier and later parts, as between the earlier and later parts
of Jones. Thus an instance of walking differs from an instance of man
solely by the fact that it has a shorter life. There is a notion that an
instance of walking, as compared with Jones, is unsubstantial, but this
seems to be a mistake. We think that Jones walks, and that there could
not be any walking unless there were somebody like Jones to perform
the walking. But it is equally true that there could be no Jones unless
there were something like walking for him to do. The notion that actions
are performed by an agent is liable to the same kind of criticism as
the notion that thinking needs a subject or ego, which we rejected in
Lecture I. To say that it is Jones who is walking is merely to say that
the walking in question is part of the whole series of occurrences which
is Jones. There is no LOGICAL impossibility in walking occurring as an
isolated phenomenon, not forming part of any such series as we call a
"person."

We may therefore class with "eating," "walking," "speaking" words
such as "rain," "sunrise," "lightning," which do not denote what would
commonly be called actions. These words illustrate, incidentally, how
little we can trust to the grammatical distinction of parts of speech,
since the substantive "rain" and the verb "to rain" denote precisely the
same class of meteorological occurrences. The distinction between the
class of objects denoted by such a word and the class of objects denoted
by a general name such as "man," "vegetable," or "planet," is that the
sort of object which is an instance of (say) "lightning" is much simpler
than (say) an individual man. (I am speaking of lightning as a sensible
phenomenon, not as it is described in physics.) The distinction is one
of degree, not of kind. But there is, from the point of view of ordinary
thought, a great difference between a process which, like a flash of
lightning, can be wholly comprised within one specious present and a
process which, like the life of a man, has to be pieced together by
observation and memory and the apprehension of causal connections.
We may say broadly, therefore, that a word of the kind we have been
discussing denotes a set of similar occurrences, each (as a rule) much
more brief and less complex than a person or thing. Words themselves, as
we have seen, are sets of similar occurrences of this kind. Thus there
is more logical affinity between a word and what it means in the case of
words of our present sort than in any other case.

There is no very great difference between such words as we have just
been considering and words denoting qualities, such as "white" or
"round." The chief difference is that words of this latter sort do not
denote processes, however brief, but static features of the world. Snow
falls, and is white; the falling is a process, the whiteness is not.
Whether there is a universal, called "whiteness," or whether white
things are to be defined as those having a certain kind of similarity to
a standard thing, say freshly fallen snow, is a question which need
not concern us, and which I believe to be strictly insoluble. For our
purposes, we may take the word "white" as denoting a certain set of
similar particulars or collections of particulars, the similarity being
in respect of a static quality, not of a process.

From the logical point of view, a very important class of words
are those that express relations, such as "in," "above," "before,"
"greater," and so on. The meaning of one of these words differs very
fundamentally from the meaning of one of any of our previous classes,
being more abstract and logically simpler than any of them. If our
business were logic, we should have to spend much time on these words.
But as it is psychology that concerns us, we will merely note their
special character and pass on, since the logical classification of words
is not our main business.

We will consider next the question what is implied by saying that a
person "understands" a word, in the sense in which one understands
a word in one's own language, but not in a language of which one is
ignorant. We may say that a person understands a word when (a) suitable
circumstances make him use it, (b) the hearing of it causes suitable
behaviour in him. We may call these two active and passive understanding
respectively. Dogs often have passive understanding of some words, but
not active understanding, since they cannot use words.

It is not necessary, in order that a man should "understand" a word,
that he should "know what it means," in the sense of being able to say
"this word means so-and-so." Understanding words does not consist in
knowing their dictionary definitions, or in being able to specify the
objects to which they are appropriate. Such understanding as this may
belong to lexicographers and students, but not to ordinary mortals
in ordinary life. Understanding language is more like understanding
cricket*: it is a matter of habits, acquired in oneself and rightly
presumed in others. To say that a word has a meaning is not to say that
those who use the word correctly have ever thought out what the meaning
is: the use of the word comes first, and the meaning is to be distilled
out of it by observation and analysis. Moreover, the meaning of a word
is not absolutely definite: there is always a greater or less degree of
vagueness. The meaning is an area, like a target: it may have a bull's
eye, but the outlying parts of the target are still more or less within
the meaning, in a gradually diminishing degree as we travel further from
the bull's eye. As language grows more precise, there is less and less
of the target outside the bull's eye, and the bull's eye itself grows
smaller and smaller; but the bull's eye never shrinks to a point, and
there is always a doubtful region, however small, surrounding it.**

     * This point of view, extended to the analysis of "thought"
     is urged with great force by J. B. Watson, both in his
     "Behavior," and in "Psychology from the Standpoint of a
     Behaviorist" (Lippincott. 1919), chap. ix.

     ** On the understanding of words, a very admirable little
     book is Ribot's "Evolution of General Ideas," Open Court
     Co., 1899. Ribot says (p. 131): "We learn to understand a
     concept as we learn to walk, dance, fence or play a musical
     instrument: it is a habit, i.e. an organized memory. General
     terms cover an organized, latent knowledge which is the
     hidden capital without which we should be in a state of
     bankruptcy, manipulating false money or paper of no value.
     General ideas are habits in the intellectual order."

A word is used "correctly" when the average hearer will be affected
by it in the way intended. This is a psychological, not a literary,
definition of "correctness." The literary definition would substitute,
for the average hearer, a person of high education living a long time
ago; the purpose of this definition is to make it difficult to speak or
write correctly.

The relation of a word to its meaning is of the nature of a causal law
governing our use of the word and our actions when we hear it used.
There is no more reason why a person who uses a word correctly should
be able to tell what it means than there is why a planet which is moving
correctly should know Kepler's laws.

To illustrate what is meant by "understanding" words and sentences, let
us take instances of various situations.

Suppose you are walking in London with an absent-minded friend, and
while crossing a street you say, "Look out, there's a motor coming."
He will glance round and jump aside without the need of any "mental"
intermediary. There need be no "ideas," but only a stiffening of the
muscles, followed quickly by action. He "understands" the words, because
he does the right thing. Such "understanding" may be taken to belong to
the nerves and brain, being habits which they have acquired while the
language was being learnt. Thus understanding in this sense may be
reduced to mere physiological causal laws.

If you say the same thing to a Frenchman with a slight knowledge of
English he will go through some inner speech which may be represented by
"Que dit-il? Ah, oui, une automobile!" After this, the rest follows as
with the Englishman. Watson would contend that the inner speech must be
incipiently pronounced; we should argue that it MIGHT be merely imaged.
But this point is not important in the present connection.

If you say the same thing to a child who does not yet know the word
"motor," but does know the other words you are using, you produce a
feeling of anxiety and doubt you will have to point and say, "There,
that's a motor." After that the child will roughly understand the word
"motor," though he may include trains and steam-rollers If this is the
first time the child has heard the word "motor," he may for a long time
continue to recall this scene when he hears the word.

So far we have found four ways of understanding words:

(1) On suitable occasions you use the word properly.

(2) When you hear it you act appropriately.

(3) You associate the word with another word (say in a different
language) which has the appropriate effect on behaviour.

(4) When the word is being first learnt, you may associate it with an
object, which is what it "means," or a representative of various objects
that it "means."

In the fourth case, the word acquires, through association, some of the
same causal efficacy as the object. The word "motor" can make you
leap aside, just as the motor can, but it cannot break your bones. The
effects which a word can share with its object are those which proceed
according to laws other than the general laws of physics, i.e. those
which, according to our terminology, involve vital movements as opposed
to merely mechanical movements. The effects of a word that we understand
are always mnemic phenomena in the sense explained in Lecture IV, in
so far as they are identical with, or similar to, the effects which the
object itself might have.

So far, all the uses of words that we have considered can be accounted
for on the lines of behaviourism.

But so far we have only considered what may be called the
"demonstrative" use of language, to point out some feature in the
present environment. This is only one of the ways in which language
may be used. There are also its narrative and imaginative uses, as
in history and novels. Let us take as an instance the telling of some
remembered event.

We spoke a moment ago of a child who hears the word "motor" for
the first time when crossing a street along which a motor-car is
approaching. On a later occasion, we will suppose, the child remembers
the incident and relates it to someone else. In this case, both the
active and passive understanding of words is different from what it is
when words are used demonstratively. The child is not seeing a motor,
but only remembering one; the hearer does not look round in expectation
of seeing a motor coming, but "understands" that a motor came at some
earlier time. The whole of this occurrence is much more difficult to
account for on behaviourist lines. It is clear that, in so far as the
child is genuinely remembering, he has a picture of the past occurrence,
and his words are chosen so as to describe the picture; and in so far
as the hearer is genuinely apprehending what is said, the hearer is
acquiring a picture more or less like that of the child. It is true that
this process may be telescoped through the operation of the word-habit.
The child may not genuinely remember the incident, but only have the
habit of the appropriate words, as in the case of a poem which we know
by heart, though we cannot remember learning it. And the hearer also
may only pay attention to the words, and not call up any corresponding
picture. But it is, nevertheless, the possibility of a memory-image in
the child and an imagination-image in the hearer that makes the essence
of the narrative "meaning" of the words. In so far as this is absent,
the words are mere counters, capable of meaning, but not at the moment
possessing it.

Yet this might perhaps be regarded as something of an overstatement. The
words alone, without the use of images, may cause appropriate emotions
and appropriate behaviour. The words have been used in an environment
which produced certain emotions; by a telescoped process, the words
alone are now capable of producing similar emotions. On these lines it
might be sought to show that images are unnecessary. I do not believe,
however, that we could account on these lines for the entirely different
response produced by a narrative and by a description of present facts.
Images, as contrasted with sensations, are the response expected during
a narrative; it is understood that present action is not called
for. Thus it seems that we must maintain our distinction words used
demonstratively describe and are intended to lead to sensations, while
the same words used in narrative describe and are only intended to lead
to images.

We have thus, in addition to our four previous ways in which words can
mean, two new ways, namely the way of memory and the way of imagination.
That is to say:

(5) Words may be used to describe or recall a memory-image: to describe
it when it already exists, or to recall it when the words exist as a
habit and are known to be descriptive of some past experience.

(6) Words may be used to describe or create an imagination-image: to
describe it, for example, in the case of a poet or novelist, or to
create it in the ordinary case for giving information-though, in the
latter case, it is intended that the imagination-image, when created,
shall be accompanied by belief that something of the sort occurred.

These two ways of using words, including their occurrence in inner
speech, may be spoken of together as the use of words in "thinking."
If we are right, the use of words in thinking depends, at least in its
origin, upon images, and cannot be fully dealt with on behaviourist
lines. And this is really the most essential function of words, namely
that, originally through their connection with images, they bring us
into touch with what is remote in time or space. When they operate
without the medium of images, this seems to be a telescoped process.
Thus the problem of the meaning of words is brought into connection with
the problem of the meaning of images.

To understand the function that words perform in what is called
"thinking," we must understand both the causes and the effects of their
occurrence. The causes of the occurrence of words require somewhat
different treatment according as the object designated by the word is
sensibly present or absent. When the object is present, it may itself
be taken as the cause of the word, through association. But when it is
absent there is more difficulty in obtaining a behaviourist theory of
the occurrence of the word. The language-habit consists not merely
in the use of words demonstratively, but also in their use to express
narrative or desire. Professor Watson, in his account of the acquisition
of the language-habit, pays very little attention to the use of words in
narrative and desire. He says ("Behavior," pp. 329-330):

"The stimulus (object) to which the child often responds, a box, e.g. by
movements such as opening and closing and putting objects into it, may
serve to illustrate our argument. The nurse, observing that the child
reacts with his hands, feet, etc., to the box, begins to say 'box' when
the child is handed the box, 'open box' when the child opens it, 'close
box' when he closes it, and 'put doll in box' when that act is executed.
This is repeated over and over again. In the process of time it comes
about that without any other stimulus than that of the box which
originally called out the bodily habits, he begins to say 'box' when he
sees it, 'open box' when he opens it, etc. The visible box now becomes
a stimulus capable of releasing either the bodily habits or the
word-habit, i.e. development has brought about two things: (1) a series
of functional connections among arcs which run from visual receptor to
muscles of throat, and (2) a series of already earlier connected arcs
which run from the same receptor to the bodily muscles.... The object
meets the child's vision. He runs to it and tries to reach it and says
'box.'... Finally the word is uttered without the movement of going
towards the box being executed.... Habits are formed of going to the
box when the arms are full of toys. The child has been taught to deposit
them there. When his arms are laden with toys and no box is there, the
word-habit arises and he calls 'box'; it is handed to him, and he opens
it and deposits the toys therein. This roughly marks what we would call
the genesis of a true language-habit."(pp. 329-330).*

     * Just the same account of language is given in Professor
     Watson's more recent book (reference above).

We need not linger over what is said in the above passage as to the use
of the word "box" in the presence of the box. But as to its use in the
absence of the box, there is only one brief sentence, namely: "When his
arms are laden with toys and no box is there, the word-habit arises and
he calls 'box.'" This is inadequate as it stands, since the habit has
been to use the word when the box is present, and we have to explain its
extension to cases in which the box is absent.

Having admitted images, we may say that the word "box," in the absence
of the box, is caused by an image of the box. This may or may not
be true--in fact, it is true in some cases but not in others. Even,
however, if it were true in all cases, it would only slightly shift our
problem: we should now have to ask what causes an image of the box to
arise. We might be inclined to say that desire for the box is the cause.
But when this view is investigated, it is found that it compels us to
suppose that the box can be desired without the child's having either an
image of the box or the word "box." This will require a theory of desire
which may be, and I think is, in the main true, but which removes desire
from among things that actually occur, and makes it merely a convenient
fiction, like force in mechanics.* With such a view, desire is no longer
a true cause, but merely a short way of describing certain processes.

     * See Lecture III, above.

In order to explain the occurrence of either the word or the image
in the absence of the box, we have to assume that there is something,
either in the environment or in our own sensations, which has frequently
occurred at about the same time as the word "box." One of the laws which
distinguish psychology (or nerve-physiology?) from physics is the
law that, when two things have frequently existed in close temporal
contiguity, either comes in time to cause the other.* This is the basis
both of habit and of association. Thus, in our case, the arms full of
toys have frequently been followed quickly by the box, and the box in
turn by the word "box." The box itself is subject to physical laws, and
does not tend to be caused by the arms full of toys, however often it
may in the past have followed them--always provided that, in the case in
question, its physical position is such that voluntary movements cannot
lead to it. But the word "box" and the image of the box are subject to
the law of habit; hence it is possible for either to be caused by the
arms full of toys. And we may lay it down generally that, whenever we
use a word, either aloud or in inner speech, there is some sensation
or image (either of which may be itself a word) which has frequently
occurred at about the same time as the word, and now, through habit,
causes the word. It follows that the law of habit is adequate to account
for the use of words in the absence of their objects; moreover, it would
be adequate even without introducing images. Although, therefore, images
seem undeniable, we cannot derive an additional argument in their favour
from the use of words, which could, theoretically, be explained without
introducing images.

     *For a more exact statement of this law, with the
     limitations suggested by experiment, see A. Wohlgemuth, "On
     Memory and the Direction of Associations," "British Journal
     of Psychology," vol. v, part iv (March, 1913).

When we understand a word, there is a reciprocal association between
it and the images of what it "means." Images may cause us to use words
which mean them, and these words, heard or read, may in turn cause the
appropriate images. Thus speech is a means of producing in our hearers
the images which are in us. Also, by a telescoped process, words come in
time to produce directly the effects which would have been produced
by the images with which they were associated. The general law of
telescoped processes is that, if A causes B and B causes C, it will
happen in time that A will cause C directly, without the intermediary
of B. This is a characteristic of psychological and neural causation.
In virtue of this law, the effects of images upon our actions come to
be produced by words, even when the words do not call up appropriate
images. The more familiar we are with words, the more our "thinking"
goes on in words instead of images. We may, for example, be able to
describe a person's appearance correctly without having at any time had
any image of him, provided, when we saw him, we thought of words which
fitted him; the words alone may remain with us as a habit, and enable
us to speak as if we could recall a visual image of the man. In this and
other ways the understanding of a word often comes to be quite free from
imagery; but in first learning the use of language it would seem that
imagery always plays a very important part.

Images as well as words may be said to have "meaning"; indeed, the
meaning of images seems more primitive than the meaning of words. What
we call (say) an image of St. Paul's may be said to "mean" St. Paul's.
But it is not at all easy to say exactly what constitutes the meaning of
an image. A memory-image of a particular occurrence, when accompanied
by a memory-belief, may be said to mean the occurrence of which it is an
image. But most actual images do not have this degree of definiteness.
If we call up an image of a dog, we are very likely to have a vague
image, which is not representative of some one special dog, but of dogs
in general. When we call up an image of a friend's face, we are not
likely to reproduce the expression he had on some one particular
occasion, but rather a compromise expression derived from many
occasions. And there is hardly any limit to the vagueness of which
images are capable. In such cases, the meaning of the image, if defined
by relation to the prototype, is vague: there is not one definite
prototype, but a number, none of which is copied exactly.*

     * Cf. Semon, Mnemische Empfindungen, chap. xvi, especially
     pp. 301-308.

There is, however, another way of approaching the meaning of images,
namely through their causal efficacy. What is called an image "of"
some definite object, say St. Paul's, has some of the effects which the
object would have. This applies especially to the effects that depend
upon association. The emotional effects, also, are often similar:
images may stimulate desire almost as strongly as do the objects they
represent. And conversely desire may cause images*: a hungry man will
have images of food, and so on. In all these ways the causal laws
concerning images are connected with the causal laws concerning the
objects which the images "mean." An image may thus come to fulfil the
function of a general idea. The vague image of a dog, which we spoke of
a moment ago, will have effects which are only connected with dogs in
general, not the more special effects which would be produced by some
dogs but not by others. Berkeley and Hume, in their attack on general
ideas, do not allow for the vagueness of images: they assume that every
image has the definiteness that a physical object would have This is not
the case, and a vague image may well have a meaning which is general.

     * This phrase is in need of interpretation, as appears from
     the analysis of desire. But the reader can easily supply the
     interpretation for himself.

In order to define the "meaning" of an image, we have to take account
both of its resemblance to one or more prototypes, and of its causal
efficacy. If there were such a thing as a pure imagination-image,
without any prototype whatever, it would be destitute of meaning. But
according to Hume's principle, the simple elements in an image,
at least, are derived from prototypes-except possibly in very rare
exceptional cases. Often, in such instances as our image of a friend's
face or of a nondescript dog, an image is not derived from one
prototype, but from many; when this happens, the image is vague, and
blurs the features in which the various prototypes differ. To arrive
at the meaning of the image in such a case, we observe that there are
certain respects, notably associations, in which the effects of images
resemble those of their prototypes. If we find, in a given case, that
our vague image, say, of a nondescript dog, has those associative
effects which all dogs would have, but not those belonging to any
special dog or kind of dog, we may say that our image means "dog" in
general. If it has all the associations appropriate to spaniels but
no others, we shall say it means "spaniel"; while if it has all the
associations appropriate to one particular dog, it will mean that dog,
however vague it may be as a picture. The meaning of an image, according
to this analysis, is constituted by a combination of likeness and
associations. It is not a sharp or definite conception, and in many
cases it will be impossible to decide with any certainty what an image
means. I think this lies in the nature of things, and not in defective
analysis.

We may give somewhat more precision to the above account of the meaning
of images, and extend it to meaning in general. We find sometimes that,
IN MNEMIC CAUSATION, an image or word, as stimulus, has the same effect
(or very nearly the same effect) as would belong to some object, say,
a certain dog. In that case we say that the image or word means that
object. In other cases the mnemic effects are not all those of one
object, but only those shared by objects of a certain kind, e.g. by all
dogs. In this case the meaning of the image or word is general: it means
the whole kind. Generality and particularity are a matter of degree. If
two particulars differ sufficiently little, their mnemic effects will be
the same; therefore no image or word can mean the one as opposed to the
other; this sets a bound to the particularity of meaning. On the other
hand, the mnemic effects of a number of sufficiently dissimilar objects
will have nothing discoverable in common; hence a word which aims at
complete generality, such as "entity" for example, will have to be
devoid of mnemic effects, and therefore of meaning. In practice, this is
not the case: such words have VERBAL associations, the learning of which
constitutes the study of metaphysics.

The meaning of a word, unlike that of an image, is wholly constituted
by mnemic causal laws, and not in any degree by likeness (except in
exceptional cases). The word "dog" bears no resemblance to a dog, but
its effects, like those of an image of a dog, resemble the effects of an
actual dog in certain respects. It is much easier to say definitely
what a word means than what an image means, since words, however they
originated, have been framed in later times for the purpose of having
meaning, and men have been engaged for ages in giving increased
precision to the meanings of words. But although it is easier to
say what a word means than what an image means, the relation which
constitutes meaning is much the same in both cases. A word, like an
image, has the same associations as its meaning has. In addition to
other associations, it is associated with images of its meaning, so that
the word tends to call up the image and the image tends to call up the
word., But this association is not essential to the intelligent use of
words. If a word has the right associations with other objects, we shall
be able to use it correctly, and understand its use by others, even if
it evokes no image. The theoretical understanding of words involves only
the power of associating them correctly with other words; the practical
understanding involves associations with other bodily movements.

The use of words is, of course, primarily social, for the purpose of
suggesting to others ideas which we entertain or at least wish them to
entertain. But the aspect of words that specially concerns us is their
power of promoting our own thought. Almost all higher intellectual
activity is a matter of words, to the nearly total exclusion of
everything else. The advantages of words for purposes of thought are so
great that I should never end if I were to enumerate them. But a few of
them deserve to be mentioned.

In the first place, there is no difficulty in producing a word, whereas
an image cannot always be brought into existence at will, and when it
comes it often contains much irrelevant detail. In the second place,
much of our thinking is concerned with abstract matters which do not
readily lend themselves to imagery, and are apt to be falsely conceived
if we insist upon finding images that may be supposed to represent them.
The word is always concrete and sensible, however abstract its
meaning may be, and thus by the help of words we are able to dwell on
abstractions in a way which would otherwise be impossible. In the third
place, two instances of the same word are so similar that neither has
associations not capable of being shared by the other. Two instances of
the word "dog" are much more alike than (say) a pug and a great dane;
hence the word "dog" makes it much easier to think about dogs in
general. When a number of objects have a common property which is
important but not obvious, the invention of a name for the common
property helps us to remember it and to think of the whole set of
objects that possess it. But it is unnecessary to prolong the catalogue
of the uses of language in thought.

At the same time, it is possible to conduct rudimentary thought by
means of images, and it is important, sometimes, to check purely verbal
thought by reference to what it means. In philosophy especially the
tyranny of traditional words is dangerous, and we have to be on our
guard against assuming that grammar is the key to metaphysics, or that
the structure of a sentence corresponds at all accurately with the
structure of the fact that it asserts. Sayce maintained that all
European philosophy since Aristotle has been dominated by the fact that
the philosophers spoke Indo-European languages, and therefore supposed
the world, like the sentences they were used to, necessarily divisible
into subjects and predicates. When we come to the consideration of truth
and falsehood, we shall see how necessary it is to avoid assuming too
close a parallelism between facts and the sentences which assert them.
Against such errors, the only safeguard is to be able, once in a way, to
discard words for a moment and contemplate facts more directly through
images. Most serious advances in philosophic thought result from some
such comparatively direct contemplation of facts. But the outcome has
to be expressed in words if it is to be communicable. Those who have
a relatively direct vision of facts are often incapable of translating
their vision into words, while those who possess the words have
usually lost the vision. It is partly for this reason that the highest
philosophical capacity is so rare: it requires a combination of vision
with abstract words which is hard to achieve, and too quickly lost in
the few who have for a moment achieved it.




LECTURE XI. GENERAL IDEAS AND THOUGHT

It is said to be one of the merits of the human mind that it is capable
of framing abstract ideas, and of conducting nonsensational thought.
In this it is supposed to differ from the mind of animals. From Plato
onward the "idea" has played a great part in the systems of idealizing
philosophers. The "idea" has been, in their hands, always something
noble and abstract, the apprehension and use of which by man confers
upon him a quite special dignity.

The thing we have to consider to-day is this: seeing that there
certainly are words of which the meaning is abstract, and seeing that we
can use these words intelligently, what must be assumed or inferred, or
what can be discovered by observation, in the way of mental content to
account for the intelligent use of abstract words?

Taken as a problem in logic, the answer is, of course, that absolutely
nothing in the way of abstract mental content is inferable from the
mere fact that we can use intelligently words of which the meaning
is abstract. It is clear that a sufficiently ingenious person could
manufacture a machine moved by olfactory stimuli which, whenever a dog
appeared in its neighbourhood, would say, "There is a dog," and when
a cat appeared would throw stones at it. The act of saying "There is a
dog," and the act of throwing stones, would in such a case be equally
mechanical. Correct speech does not of itself afford any better evidence
of mental content than the performance of any other set of biologically
useful movements, such as those of flight or combat. All that is
inferable from language is that two instances of a universal, even when
they differ very greatly, may cause the utterance of two instances
of the same word which only differ very slightly. As we saw in the
preceding lecture, the word "dog" is useful, partly, because two
instances of this word are much more similar than (say) a pug and a
great dane. The use of words is thus a method of substituting for two
particulars which differ widely, in spite of being instances of the same
universal, two other particulars which differ very little, and which
are also instances of a universal, namely the name of the previous
universal. Thus, so far as logic is concerned, we are entirely free to
adopt any theory as to general ideas which empirical observation may
recommend.

Berkeley and Hume made a vigorous onslaught on "abstract ideas." They
meant by an idea approximately what we should call an image. Locke
having maintained that he could form an idea of triangle in general,
without deciding what sort of triangle it was to be, Berkeley contended
that this was impossible. He says:

"Whether others, have this wonderful faculty of abstracting their ideas,
they best can tell: for myself, I dare be confident I have it not. I
find, indeed, I have indeed a faculty of imagining, or representing to
myself, the ideas of those particular things I have perceived, and of
variously compounding and dividing them. I can imagine a man with two
heads, or the upper parts of a man joined to the body of a horse. I
can consider the hand, the eye, the nose, each by itself abstracted or
separated from the rest of the body. But, then, whatever hand or eye
I imagine, it must have some particular shape and colour. Likewise the
idea of a man that I frame to myself must be either of a white, or a
black, or a tawny, a straight, or a crooked, a tall, or a low, or
a middle-sized man. I cannot by any effort of thought conceive the
abstract idea above described. And it is equally impossible for me to
form the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving, and
which is neither swift nor slow, curvilinear nor rectilinear; and the
like may be said of all other abstract general ideas whatsoever. To be
plain, I own myself able to abstract in one sense, as when I consider
some particular parts of qualities separated from others, with which,
though they are united in some object, yet it is possible they may
really exist without them. But I deny that I can abstract from one
another, or conceive separately, those qualities which it is impossible
should exist so separated; or that I can frame a general notion, by
abstracting from particulars in the manner aforesaid--which last are
the two proper acceptations of ABSTRACTION. And there is ground to think
most men will acknowledge themselves to be in my case. The generality of
men which are simple and illiterate never pretend to ABSTRACT NOTIONS.
It is said they are difficult and not to be attained without pains and
study; we may therefore reasonably conclude that, if such there be, they
are confined only to the learned.

"I proceed to examine what can be alleged in defence of the doctrine of
abstraction, and try if I can discover what it is that inclines the men
of speculation to embrace an opinion so remote from common sense as that
seems to be. There has been a late excellent and deservedly esteemed
philosopher who, no doubt, has given it very much countenance, by
seeming to think the having abstract general ideas is what puts the
widest difference in point of understanding betwixt man and beast.
'The having of general ideas,' saith he, 'is that which puts a perfect
distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the
faculties of brutes do by no means attain unto. For, it is evident
we observe no footsteps in them of making use of general signs for
universal ideas; from which we have reason to imagine that they have not
the faculty of abstracting, or making general ideas, since they have
no use of words or any other general signs.' And a little after:
'Therefore, I think, we may suppose that it is in this that the species
of brutes are discriminated from men, and it is that proper difference
wherein they are wholly separated, and which at last widens to so wide a
distance. For, if they have any ideas at all, and are not bare machines
(as some would have them), we cannot deny them to have some reason. It
seems as evident to me that they do, some of them, in certain instances
reason as that they have sense; but it is only in particular ideas, just
as they receive them from their senses. They are the best of them tied
up within those narrow bounds, and have not (as I think) the faculty
to enlarge them by any kind of abstraction.* ("Essay on Human
Understanding," Bk. II, chap. xi, paragraphs 10 and 11.) I readily agree
with this learned author, that the faculties of brutes can by no means
attain to abstraction. But, then, if this be made the distinguishing
property of that sort of animals, I fear a great many of those that
pass for men must be reckoned into their number. The reason that is here
assigned why we have no grounds to think brutes have abstract general
ideas is, that we observe in them no use of words or any other general
signs; which is built on this supposition-that the making use of words
implies the having general ideas. From which it follows that men who use
language are able to abstract or generalize their ideas. That this is
the sense and arguing of the author will further appear by his answering
the question he in another place puts: 'Since all things that exist are
only particulars, how come we by general terms?' His answer is: 'Words
become general by being made the signs of general ideas.' ("Essay on
Human Understanding," Bk. III, chap. III, paragraph 6.) But it seems
that a word becomes general by being made the sign, not of an abstract
general idea, but of several particular ideas, any one of which it
indifferently suggests to the mind. For example, when it is said 'the
change of motion is proportional to the impressed force,' or that
'whatever has extension is divisible,' these propositions are to be
understood of motion and extension in general; and nevertheless it will
not follow that they suggest to my thoughts an idea of motion without
a body moved, or any determinate direction and velocity, or that I must
conceive an abstract general idea of extension, which is neither line,
surface, nor solid, neither great nor small, black, white, nor red,
nor of any other determinate colour. It is only implied that
whatever particular motion I consider, whether it be swift or slow,
perpendicular, horizontal, or oblique, or in whatever object, the axiom
concerning it holds equally true. As does the other of every particular
extension, it matters not whether line, surface, or solid, whether of
this or that magnitude or figure.

"By observing how ideas become general, we may the better judge how
words are made so. And here it is to be noted that I do not deny
absolutely there are general ideas, but only that there are any ABSTRACT
general ideas; for, in the passages we have quoted wherein there is
mention of general ideas, it is always supposed that they are formed by
abstraction, after the manner set forth in sections 8 and 9. Now, if
we will annex a meaning to our words, and speak only of what we can
conceive, I believe we shall acknowledge that an idea which, considered
in itself, is particular, becomes general by being made to represent
or stand for all other particular ideas of the same sort. To make this
plain by an example, suppose a geometrician is demonstrating the method
of cutting a line in two equal parts. He draws, for instance, a black
line of an inch in length: this, which in itself is a particular line,
is nevertheless with regard to its signification general, since, as it
is there used, it represents all particular lines whatsoever; so that
what is demonstrated of it is demonstrated of all lines, or, in other
words, of a line in general. And, as THAT PARTICULAR LINE becomes
general by being made a sign, so the NAME 'line,' which taken absolutely
is particular, by being a sign is made general. And as the former owes
its generality not to its being the sign of an abstract or general line,
but of all particular right lines that may possibly exist, so the latter
must be thought to derive its generality from the same cause, namely,
the various particular lines which it indifferently denotes." *

     * Introduction to "A Treatise concerning the Principles of
     Human Knowledge," paragraphs 10, 11, and 12.

Berkeley's view in the above passage, which is essentially the same as
Hume's, does not wholly agree with modern psychology, although it comes
nearer to agreement than does the view of those who believe that there
are in the mind single contents which can be called abstract ideas. The
way in which Berkeley's view is inadequate is chiefly in the fact that
images are as a rule not of one definite prototype, but of a number of
related similar prototypes. On this subject Semon has written well.
In "Die Mneme," pp. 217 ff., discussing the effect of repeated similar
stimuli in producing and modifying our images, he says: "We choose a
case of mnemic excitement whose existence we can perceive for ourselves
by introspection, and seek to ekphore the bodily picture of our nearest
relation in his absence, and have thus a pure mnemic excitement before
us. At first it may seem to us that a determinate quite concrete picture
becomes manifest in us, but just when we are concerned with a person
with whom we are in constant contact, we shall find that the ekphored
picture has something so to speak generalized. It is something like
those American photographs which seek to display what is general about a
type by combining a great number of photographs of different heads over
each other on one plate. In our opinion, the generalizations happen by
the homophonic working of different pictures of the same face which we
have come across in the most different conditions and situations, once
pale, once reddened, once cheerful, once earnest, once in this
light, and once in that. As soon as we do not let the whole series
of repetitions resound in us uniformly, but give our attention to one
particular moment out of the many... this particular mnemic stimulus at
once overbalances its simultaneously roused predecessors and successors,
and we perceive the face in question with concrete definiteness in that
particular situation." A little later he says: "The result is--at least
in man, but probably also in the higher animals--the development of a
sort of PHYSIOLOGICAL abstraction. Mnemic homophony gives us, without
the addition of other processes of thought, a picture of our friend
X which is in a certain sense abstract, not the concrete in any one
situation, but X cut loose from any particular point of time. If the
circle of ekphored engrams is drawn even more widely, abstract pictures
of a higher order appear: for instance, a white man or a negro. In my
opinion, the first form of abstract concepts in general is based upon
such abstract pictures. The physiological abstraction which takes
place in the above described manner is a predecessor of purely logical
abstraction. It is by no means a monopoly of the human race, but shows
itself in various ways also among the more highly organized animals."
The same subject is treated in more detail in Chapter xvi of "Die
mnemischen Empfindungen," but what is said there adds nothing vital to
what is contained in the above quotations.

It is necessary, however, to distinguish between the vague and the
general. So long as we are content with Semon's composite image, we MAY
get no farther than the vague. The question whether this image takes us
to the general or not depends, I think, upon the question whether, in
addition to the generalized image, we have also particular images
of some of the instances out of which it is compounded. Suppose, for
example, that on a number of occasions you had seen one negro, and
that you did not know whether this one was the same or different on
the different occasions. Suppose that in the end you had an abstract
memory-image of the different appearances presented by the negro on
different occasions, but no memory-image of any one of the single
appearances. In that case your image would be vague. If, on the other
hand, you have, in addition to the generalized image, particular images
of the several appearances, sufficiently clear to be recognized as
different, and as instances of the generalized picture, you will then
not feel the generalized picture to be adequate to any one particular
appearance, and you will be able to make it function as a general
idea rather than a vague idea. If this view is correct, no new general
content needs to be added to the generalized image. What needs to be
added is particular images compared and contrasted with the generalized
image. So far as I can judge by introspection, this does occur in
practice. Take for example Semon's instance of a friend's face. Unless
we make some special effort of recollection, the face is likely to come
before us with an average expression, very blurred and vague, but we can
at will recall how our friend looked on some special occasion when he
was pleased or angry or unhappy, and this enables us to realize the
generalized character of the vague image.

There is, however, another way of distinguishing between the vague, the
particular and the general, and this is not by their content, but by
the reaction which they produce. A word, for example, may be said to be
vague when it is applicable to a number of different individuals, but to
each as individuals; the name Smith, for example, is vague: it is always
meant to apply to one man, but there are many men to each of whom it
applies.* The word "man," on the other hand, is general. We say, "This
is Smith," but we do not say "This is man," but "This is a man." Thus
we may say that a word embodies a vague idea when its effects are
appropriate to an individual, but are the same for various similar
individuals, while a word embodies a general idea when its effects are
different from those appropriate to individuals. In what this difference
consists it is, however, not easy to say. I am inclined to think that it
consists merely in the knowledge that no one individual is represented,
so that what distinguishes a general idea from a vague idea is merely
the presence of a certain accompanying belief. If this view is correct,
a general idea differs from a vague one in a way analogous to that in
which a memory-image differs from an imagination-image. There also
we found that the difference consists merely of the fact that a
memory-image is accompanied by a belief, in this case as to the past.

     * "Smith" would only be a quite satisfactory representation
     of vague words if we failed to discriminate between
     different people called Smith.

It should also be said that our images even of quite particular
occurrences have always a greater or a less degree of vagueness. That is
to say, the occurrence might have varied within certain limits without
causing our image to vary recognizably. To arrive at the general it
is necessary that we should be able to contrast it with a number of
relatively precise images or words for particular occurrences; so long
as all our images and words are vague, we cannot arrive at the contrast
by which the general is defined. This is the justification for the
view which I quoted on p. 184 from Ribot (op. cit., p. 32), viz. that
intelligence progresses from the indefinite to the definite, and that
the vague appears earlier than either the particular or the general.

I think the view which I have been advocating, to the effect that a
general idea is distinguished from a vague one by the presence of a
judgment, is also that intended by Ribot when he says (op. cit., p. 92):
"The generic image is never, the concept is always, a judgment. We know
that for logicians (formerly at any rate) the concept is the simple
and primitive element; next comes the judgment, uniting two or several
concepts; then ratiocination, combining two or several judgments. For
the psychologists, on the contrary, affirmation is the fundamental
act; the concept is the result of judgment (explicit or implicit), of
similarities with exclusion of differences."

A great deal of work professing to be experimental has been done in
recent years on the psychology of thought. A good summary of such
work up to the year agog is contained in Titchener's "Lectures on the
Experimental Psychology of the Thought Processes" (1909). Three articles
in the "Archiv fur die gesammte Psychologie" by Watt,* Messer** and
Buhler*** contain a great deal of the material amassed by the methods
which Titchener calls experimental.

     * Henry J. Watt, "Experimentelle Beitrage zu einer Theorie
     des Denkens," vol. iv (1905) pp. 289-436.

     ** August Messer, "Experimentell-psychologische Untersuchu
     gen uber das Denken," vol. iii (1906), pp. 1-224.

     *** Karl Buhler, "Uber Gedanken," vol. ix (1907), pp. 297-365.

For my part I am unable to attach as much importance to this work as
many psychologists do. The method employed appears to me hardly to
fulfil the conditions of scientific experiment. Broadly speaking, what
is done is, that a set of questions are asked of various people, their
answers are recorded, and likewise their own accounts, based upon
introspection, of the processes of thought which led them to give
those answers. Much too much reliance seems to me to be placed upon the
correctness of their introspection. On introspection as a method I have
spoken earlier (Lecture VI). I am not prepared, like Professor Watson,
to reject it wholly, but I do consider that it is exceedingly fallible
and quite peculiarly liable to falsification in accordance with
preconceived theory. It is like depending upon the report of a
shortsighted person as to whom he sees coming along the road at a moment
when he is firmly convinced that Jones is sure to come. If everybody
were shortsighted and obsessed with beliefs as to what was going to be
visible, we might have to make the best of such testimony, but we should
need to correct its errors by taking care to collect the simultaneous
evidence of people with the most divergent expectations. There is no
evidence that this was done in the experiments in question, nor indeed
that the influence of theory in falsifying the introspection was at all
adequately recognized. I feel convinced that if Professor Watson had
been one of the subjects of the questionnaires, he would have given
answers totally different from those recorded in the articles in
question. Titchener quotes an opinion of Wundt on these investigations,
which appears to me thoroughly justified. "These experiments," he says,
"are not experiments at all in the sense of a scientific methodology;
they are counterfeit experiments, that seem methodical simply because
they are ordinarily performed in a psychological laboratory, and involve
the co-operation of two persons, who purport to be experimenter and
observer. In reality, they are as unmethodical as possible; they possess
none of the special features by which we distinguish the introspections
of experimental psychology from the casual introspections of everyday
life."* Titchener, of course, dissents from this opinion, but I cannot
see that his reasons for dissent are adequate. My doubts are only
increased by the fact that Buhler at any rate used trained psychologists
as his subjects. A trained psychologist is, of course, supposed to have
acquired the habit of observation, but he is at least equally likely to
have acquired a habit of seeing what his theories require. We may take
Buhler's "Uber Gedanken" to illustrate the kind of results arrived at
by such methods. Buhler says (p. 303): "We ask ourselves the general
question: 'WHAT DO WE EXPERIENCE WHEN WE THINK?' Then we do not at all
attempt a preliminary determination of the concept 'thought,' but choose
for analysis only such processes as everyone would describe as
processes of thought." The most important thing in thinking, he says, is
"awareness that..." (Bewusstheit dass), which he calls a thought. It
is, he says, thoughts in this sense that are essential to thinking.
Thinking, he maintains, does not need language or sensuous
presentations. "I assert rather that in principle every object can be
thought (meant) distinctly, without any help from sensuous presentation
(Anschauungshilfen). Every individual shade of blue colour on the
picture that hangs in my room I can think with complete distinctness
unsensuously (unanschaulich), provided it is possible that the object
should be given to me in another manner than by the help of sensations.
How that is possible we shall see later." What he calls a thought
(Gedanke) cannot be reduced, according to him, to other psychic
occurrences. He maintains that thoughts consist for the most part of
known rules (p. 342). It is clearly essential to the interest of this
theory that the thought or rule alluded to by Buhler should not need to
be expressed in words, for if it is expressed in words it is immediately
capable of being dealt with on the lines with which the behaviourists
have familiarized us. It is clear also that the supposed absence of
words rests solely upon the introspective testimony of the persons
experimented upon. I cannot think that there is sufficient certainty
of their reliability in this negative observation to make us accept a
difficult and revolutionary view of thought, merely because they have
failed to observe the presence of words or their equivalent in their
thinking. I think it far more likely, especially in view of the fact
that the persons concerned were highly educated, that we are concerned
with telescoped processes, in which habit has caused a great many
intermediate terms to be elided or to be passed over so quickly as to
escape observation.

     * Titchener, op. cit., p. 79.

I am inclined to think that similar remarks apply to the general idea of
"imageless thinking," concerning which there has been much controversy.
The advocates of imageless thinking are not contending merely that there
can be thinking which is purely verbal; they are contending that there
can be thinking which proceeds neither in words nor in images. My own
feeling is that they have rashly assumed the presence of thinking in
cases where habit has rendered thinking unnecessary. When Thorndike
experimented with animals in cages, he found that the associations
established were between a sensory stimulus and a bodily movement (not
the idea of it), without the need of supposing any non-physiological
intermediary (op. cit., p. 100 ff.). The same thing, it seems to me,
applies to ourselves. A certain sensory situation produces in us a
certain bodily movement. Sometimes this movement consists in uttering
words. Prejudice leads us to suppose that between the sensory
stimulus and the utterance of the words a process of thought must have
intervened, but there seems no good reason for such a supposition. Any
habitual action, such as eating or dressing, may be performed on the
appropriate occasion, without any need of thought, and the same seems
to be true of a painfully large proportion of our talk. What applies to
uttered speech applies of course equally to the internal speech which is
not uttered. I remain, therefore, entirely unconvinced that there is
any such phenomenon as thinking which consists neither of images nor of
words, or that "ideas" have to be added to sensations and images as part
of the material out of which mental phenomena are built.

The question of the nature of our consciousness of the universal is
much affected by our view as to the general nature of the relation of
consciousness to its object. If we adopt the view of Brentano, according
to which all mental content has essential reference to an object, it
is then natural to suppose that there is some peculiar kind of mental
content of which the object is a universal, as oppose to a particular.
According to this view, a particular cat can be PERceived or imagined,
while the universal "cat" is CONceived. But this whole manner of viewing
our dealings with universals has to be abandoned when the relation of
a mental occurrence to its "object" is regarded as merely indirect and
causal, which is the view that we have adopted. The mental content is,
of course, always particular, and the question as to what it "means"
(in case it means anything) is one which cannot be settled by merely
examining the intrinsic character of the mental content, but only by
knowing its causal connections in the case of the person concerned. To
say that a certain thought "means" a universal as opposed to either a
vague or a particular, is to say something exceedingly complex. A horse
will behave in a certain manner whenever he smells a bear, even if
the smell is derived from a bearskin. That is to say, any environment
containing an instance of the universal "smell of a bear" produces
closely similar behaviour in the horse, but we do not say that the horse
is conscious of this universal. There is equally little reason to
regard a man as conscious of the same universal, because under the same
circumstances he can react by saying, "I smell a bear." This reaction,
like that of the horse, is merely closely similar on different occasions
where the environment affords instances of the same universal. Words
of which the logical meaning is universal can therefore be employed
correctly, without anything that could be called consciousness of
universals. Such consciousness in the only sense in which it can be
said to exist is a matter of reflective judgment consisting in the
observation of similarities and differences. A universal never appears
before the mind as a single object in the sort of way in which something
perceived appears. I THINK a logical argument could be produced to show
that universals are part of the structure of the world, but they are
an inferred part, not a part of our data. What exists in us consists of
various factors, some open to external observation, others only visible
to introspection. The factors open to external observation are primarily
habits, having the peculiarity that very similar reactions are produced
by stimuli which are in many respects very different from each other. Of
this the reaction of the horse to the smell of the bear is an instance,
and so is the reaction of the man who says "bear" under the same
circumstances. The verbal reaction is, of course, the most important
from the point of view of what may be called knowledge of universals. A
man who can always use the word "dog" when he sees a dog may be said,
in a certain sense, to know the meaning of the word "dog," and IN THAT
SENSE to have knowledge of the universal "dog." But there is, of course,
a further stage reached by the logician in which he not merely reacts
with the word "dog," but sets to work to discover what it is in the
environment that causes in him this almost identical reaction on
different occasions. This further stage consists in knowledge of
similarities and differences: similarities which are necessary to the
applicability of the word "dog," and differences which are compatible
with it. Our knowledge of these similarities and differences is never
exhaustive, and therefore our knowledge of the meaning of a universal is
never complete.

In addition to external observable habits (including the habit of
words), there is also the generic image produced by the superposition,
or, in Semon's phrase, homophony, of a number of similar perceptions.
This image is vague so long as the multiplicity of its prototypes is not
recognized, but becomes universal when it exists alongside of the more
specific images of its instances, and is knowingly contrasted with them.
In this case we find again, as we found when we were discussing words
in general in the preceding lecture, that images are not logically
necessary in order to account for observable behaviour, i.e. in this
case intelligent speech. Intelligent speech could exist as a motor
habit, without any accompaniment of images, and this conclusion applies
to words of which the meaning is universal, just as much as to words of
which the meaning is relatively particular. If this conclusion is valid,
it follows that behaviourist psychology, which eschews introspective
data, is capable of being an independent science, and of accounting
for all that part of the behaviour of other people which is commonly
regarded as evidence that they think. It must be admitted that this
conclusion considerably weakens the reliance which can be placed upon
introspective data. They must be accepted simply on account of the
fact that we seem to perceive them, not on account of their supposed
necessity for explaining the data of external observation.

This, at any rate, is the conclusion to which we are forced, so long
as, with the behaviourists, we accept common-sense views of the physical
world. But if, as I have urged, the physical world itself, as known,
is infected through and through with subjectivity, if, as the theory
of relativity suggests, the physical universe contains the diversity of
points of view which we have been accustomed to regard as distinctively
psychological, then we are brought back by this different road to the
necessity for trusting observations which are in an important sense
private. And it is the privacy of introspective data which causes much
of the behaviourists' objection to them.

This is an example of the difficulty of constructing an adequate
philosophy of any one science without taking account of other sciences.
The behaviourist philosophy of psychology, though in many respects
admirable from the point of view of method, appears to me to fail in
the last analysis because it is based upon an inadequate philosophy of
physics. In spite, therefore, of the fact that the evidence for images,
whether generic or particular, is merely introspective, I cannot
admit that images should be rejected, or that we should minimize their
function in our knowledge of what is remote in time or space.




LECTURE XII. BELIEF

Belief, which is our subject to-day, is the central problem in the
analysis of mind. Believing seems the most "mental" thing we do,
the thing most remote from what is done by mere matter. The whole
intellectual life consists of beliefs, and of the passage from one
belief to another by what is called "reasoning." Beliefs give knowledge
and error; they are the vehicles of truth and falsehood. Psychology,
theory of knowledge and metaphysics revolve about belief, and on the
view we take of belief our philosophical outlook largely depends.

Before embarking upon the detailed analysis of belief, we shall do well
to note certain requisites which any theory must fulfil.

(1) Just as words are characterized by meaning, so beliefs are
characterized by truth or falsehood. And just as meaning consists in
relation to the object meant, so truth and falsehood consist in
relation to something that lies outside the belief. You may believe that
such-and-such a horse will win the Derby. The time comes, and your horse
wins or does not win; according to the outcome, your belief was true or
false. You may believe that six times nine is fifty-six; in this case
also there is a fact which makes your belief false. You may believe that
America was discovered in 1492, or that it was discovered in 1066. In
the one case your belief is true, in the other false; in either case
its truth or falsehood depends upon the actions of Columbus, not upon
anything present or under your control. What makes a belief true or
false I call a "fact." The particular fact that makes a given belief
true or false I call its "objective,"* and the relation of the belief to
its objective I call the "reference" or the "objective reference" of the
belief. Thus, if I believe that Columbus crossed the Atlantic in 1492,
the "objective" of my belief is Columbus's actual voyage, and the
"reference" of my belief is the relation between my belief and the
voyage--that relation, namely, in virtue of which the voyage makes my
belief true (or, in another case, false). "Reference" of beliefs differs
from "meaning" of words in various ways, but especially in the fact that
it is of two kinds, "true" reference and "false" reference. The truth
or falsehood of a belief does not depend upon anything intrinsic to
the belief, but upon the nature of its relation to its objective. The
intrinsic nature of belief can be treated without reference to what
makes it true or false. In the remainder of the present lecture I shall
ignore truth and falsehood, which will be the subject of Lecture XIII.
It is the intrinsic nature of belief that will concern us to-day.

     * This terminology is suggested by Meinong, but is not
     exactly the same as his.

(2) We must distinguish between believing and what is believed. I may
believe that Columbus crossed the Atlantic, that all Cretans are liars,
that two and two are four, or that nine times six is fifty-six; in
all these cases the believing is just the same, and only the contents
believed are different. I may remember my breakfast this morning, my
lecture last week, or my first sight of New York. In all these cases the
feeling of memory-belief is just the same, and only what is remembered
differs. Exactly similar remarks apply to expectations. Bare assent,
memory and expectation are forms of belief; all three are different from
what is believed, and each has a constant character which is independent
of what is believed.

In Lecture I we criticized the analysis of a presentation into act,
content and object. But our analysis of belief contains three very
similar elements, namely the believing, what is believed and the
objective. The objections to the act (in the case of presentations)
are not valid against the believing in the case of beliefs, because the
believing is an actual experienced feeling, not something postulated,
like the act. But it is necessary first to complete our preliminary
requisites, and then to examine the content of a belief. After that, we
shall be in a position to return to the question as to what constitutes
believing.

(3) What is believed, and the believing, must both consist of present
occurrences in the believer, no matter what may be the objective of
the belief. Suppose I believe, for example, "that Caesar crossed the
Rubicon." The objective of my belief is an event which happened long
ago, which I never saw and do not remember. This event itself is not in
my mind when I believe that it happened. It is not correct to say that
I am believing the actual event; what I am believing is something now
in my mind, something related to the event (in a way which we shall
investigate in Lecture XIII), but obviously not to be confounded with
the event, since the event is not occurring now but the believing is.
What a man is believing at a given moment is wholly determinate if we
know the contents of his mind at that moment; but Caesar's crossing of
the Rubicon was an historical physical event, which is distinct from the
present contents of every present mind. What is believed, however true
it may be, is not the actual fact that makes the belief true, but a
present event related to the fact. This present event, which is what is
believed, I shall call the "content" of the belief. We have already had
occasion to notice the distinction between content and objective in the
case of memory-beliefs, where the content is "this occurred" and the
objective is the past event.

(4) Between content and objective there is sometimes a very wide gulf,
for example in the case of "Caesar crossed the Rubicon." This gulf may,
when it is first perceived, give us a feeling that we cannot really
"know" anything about the outer world. All we can "know," it may be
said, is what is now in our thoughts. If Caesar and the Rubicon cannot
be bodily in our thoughts, it might seem as though we must remain cut
off from knowledge of them. I shall not now deal at length with this
feeling, since it is necessary first to define "knowing," which cannot
be done yet. But I will say, as a preliminary answer, that the feeling
assumes an ideal of knowing which I believe to be quite mistaken. It
assumes, if it is thought out, something like the mystic unity of knower
and known. These two are often said to be combined into a unity by the
fact of cognition; hence when this unity is plainly absent, it may
seem as if there were no genuine cognition. For my part, I think such
theories and feelings wholly mistaken: I believe knowing to be a very
external and complicated relation, incapable of exact definition,
dependent upon causal laws, and involving no more unity than there is
between a signpost and the town to which it points. I shall return to
this question on a later occasion; for the moment these provisional
remarks must suffice.

(5) The objective reference of a belief is connected with the fact that
all or some of the constituents of its content have meaning. If I say
"Caesar conquered Gaul," a person who knows the meaning of the three
words composing my statement knows as much as can be known about the
nature of the objective which would make my statement true. It is clear
that the objective reference of a belief is, in general, in some way
derivative from the meanings of the words or images that occur in its
content. There are, however, certain complications which must be borne
in mind. In the first place, it might be contended that a memory-image
acquires meaning only through the memory-belief, which would seem, at
least in the case of memory, to make belief more primitive than the
meaning of images. In the second place, it is a very singular thing that
meaning, which is single, should generate objective reference, which is
dual, namely true and false. This is one of the facts which any theory
of belief must explain if it is to be satisfactory.

It is now time to leave these preliminary requisites, and attempt the
analysis of the contents of beliefs.

The first thing to notice about what is believed, i.e. about the content
of a belief, is that it is always complex: We believe that a certain
thing has a certain property, or a certain relation to something else,
or that it occurred or will occur (in the sense discussed at the end of
Lecture IX); or we may believe that all the members of a certain class
have a certain property, or that a certain property sometimes occurs
among the members of a class; or we may believe that if one thing
happens, another will happen (for example, "if it rains I shall bring my
umbrella"), or we may believe that something does not happen, or did not
or will not happen (for example, "it won't rain"); or that one of two
things must happen (for example, "either you withdraw your accusation,
or I shall bring a libel action"). The catalogue of the sorts of things
we may believe is infinite, but all of them are complex.

Language sometimes conceals the complexity of a belief. We say that a
person believes in God, and it might seem as if God formed the whole
content of the belief. But what is really believed is that God exists,
which is very far from being simple. Similarly, when a person has a
memory-image with a memory-belief, the belief is "this occurred," in
the sense explained in Lecture IX; and "this occurred" is not simple.
In like manner all cases where the content of a belief seems simple at
first sight will be found, on examination, to confirm the view that the
content is always complex.

The content of a belief involves not merely a plurality of constituents,
but definite relations between them; it is not determinate when its
constituents alone are given. For example, "Plato preceded Aristotle"
and "Aristotle preceded Plato" are both contents which may be believed,
but, although they consist of exactly the same constituents, they are
different, and even incompatible.

The content of a belief may consist of words only, or of images only, or
of a mixture of the two, or of either or both together with one or more
sensations. It must contain at least one constituent which is a word
or an image, and it may or may not contain one or more sensations as
constituents. Some examples will make these various possibilities clear.

We may take first recognition, in either of the forms "this is of
such-and-such a kind" or "this has occurred before." In either case,
present sensation is a constituent. For example, you hear a noise, and
you say to yourself "tram." Here the noise and the word "tram" are both
constituents of your belief; there is also a relation between them,
expressed by "is" in the proposition "that is a tram." As soon as your
act of recognition is completed by the occurrence of the word "tram,"
your actions are affected: you hurry if you want the tram, or cease to
hurry if you want a bus. In this case the content of your belief is a
sensation (the noise) and a word ("tram") related in a way which may be
called predication.

The same noise may bring into your mind the visual image of a tram,
instead of the word "tram." In this case your belief consists of a
sensation and an image suitable related. Beliefs of this class are what
are called "judgments of perception." As we saw in Lecture VIII, the
images associated with a sensation often come with such spontaneity
and force that the unsophisticated do not distinguish them from the
sensation; it is only the psychologist or the skilled observer who is
aware of the large mnemic element that is added to sensation to make
perception. It may be objected that what is added consists merely of
images without belief. This is no doubt sometimes the case, but
is certainly sometimes not the case. That belief always occurs in
perception as opposed to sensation it is not necessary for us to
maintain; it is enough for our purposes to note that it sometimes
occurs, and that when it does, the content of our belief consists of a
sensation and an image suitably related.

In a PURE memory-belief only images occur. But a mixture of words
and images is very common in memory. You have an image of the past
occurrence, and you say to yourself: "Yes, that's how it was." Here the
image and the words together make up the content of the belief. And
when the remembering of an incident has become a habit, it may be purely
verbal, and the memory-belief may consist of words alone.

The more complicated forms of belief tend to consist only of words.
Often images of various kinds accompany them, but they are apt to
be irrelevant, and to form no part of what is actually believed. For
example, in thinking of the Solar System, you are likely to have vague
images of pictures you have seen of the earth surrounded by clouds,
Saturn and his rings, the sun during an eclipse, and so on; but none of
these form part of your belief that the planets revolve round the sun
in elliptical orbits. The only images that form an actual part of such
beliefs are, as a rule, images of words. And images of words, for the
reasons considered in Lecture VIII, cannot be distinguished with any
certainty from sensations, when, as is often, if not usually, the case,
they are kinaesthetic images of pronouncing the words.

It is impossible for a belief to consist of sensations alone, except
when, as in the case of words, the sensations have associations which
make them signs possessed of meaning. The reason is that objective
reference is of the essence of belief, and objective reference is
derived from meaning. When I speak of a belief consisting partly of
sensations and partly of words, I do not mean to deny that the words,
when they are not mere images, are sensational, but that they occur as
signs, not (so to speak) in their own right. To revert to the noise of
the tram, when you hear it and say "tram," the noise and the word are
both sensations (if you actually pronounce the word), but the noise is
part of the fact which makes your belief true, whereas the word is not
part of this fact. It is the MEANING of the word "tram," not the actual
word, that forms part of the fact which is the objective of your
belief. Thus the word occurs in the belief as a symbol, in virtue of
its meaning, whereas the noise enters into both the belief and its
objective. It is this that distinguishes the occurrence of words as
symbols from the occurrence of sensations in their own right: the
objective contains the sensations that occur in their own right, but
contains only the meanings of the words that occur as symbols.

For the sake of simplicity, we may ignore the cases in which sensations
in their own right form part of the content of a belief, and confine
ourselves to images and words. We may also omit the cases in which
both images and words occur in the content of a belief. Thus we become
confined to two cases: (a) when the content consists wholly of images,
(b) when it consists wholly of words. The case of mixed images and words
has no special importance, and its omission will do no harm.

Let us take in illustration a case of memory. Suppose you are thinking
of some familiar room. You may call up an image of it, and in your image
the window may be to the left of the door. Without any intrusion of
words, you may believe in the correctness of your image. You then have a
belief, consisting wholly of images, which becomes, when put into words,
"the window is to the left of the door." You may yourself use these
words and proceed to believe them. You thus pass from an image-content
to the corresponding word-content. The content is different in the two
cases, but its objective reference is the same. This shows the relation
of image-beliefs to word-beliefs in a very simple case. In more
elaborate cases the relation becomes much less simple.

It may be said that even in this very simple case the objective
reference of the word-content is not quite the same as that of the
image-content, that images have a wealth of concrete features which are
lost when words are substituted, that the window in the image is not a
mere window in the abstract, but a window of a certain shape and size,
not merely to the left of the door, but a certain distance to the left,
and so on. In reply, it may be admitted at once that there is, as a
rule, a certain amount of truth in the objection. But two points may be
urged to minimize its force. First, images do not, as a rule, have that
wealth of concrete detail that would make it IMPOSSIBLE to express
them fully in words. They are vague and fragmentary: a finite number
of words, though perhaps a large number, would exhaust at least their
SIGNIFICANT features. For--and this is our second point--images enter
into the content of a belief through the fact that they are capable of
meaning, and their meaning does not, as a rule, have as much complexity
as they have: some of their characteristics are usually devoid of
meaning. Thus it may well be possible to extract in words all that
has meaning in an image-content; in that case the word-content and the
image-content will have exactly the same objective reference.

The content of a belief, when expressed in words, is the same thing (or
very nearly the same thing) as what in logic is called a "proposition."
A proposition is a series of words (or sometimes a single word)
expressing the kind of thing that can be asserted or denied. "That all
men are mortal," "that Columbus discovered America," "that Charles I
died in his bed," "that all philosophers are wise," are propositions.
Not any series of words is a proposition, but only such series of words
as have "meaning," or, in our phraseology, "objective reference." Given
the meanings of separate words, and the rules of syntax, the meaning of
a proposition is determinate. This is the reason why we can understand
a sentence we never heard before. You probably never heard before the
proposition "that the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands habitually
eat stewed hippopotamus for dinner," but there is no difficulty in
understanding the proposition. The question of the relation between
the meaning of a sentence and the meanings of the separate words is
difficult, and I shall not pursue it now; I brought it up solely as
being illustrative of the nature of propositions.

We may extend the term "proposition" so as to cover the image-contents
of beliefs consisting of images. Thus, in the case of remembering a
room in which the window is to the left of the door, when we believe the
image-content the proposition will consist of the image of the window
on the left together with the image of the door on the right. We will
distinguish propositions of this kind as "image-propositions"
and propositions in words as "word-propositions." We may identify
propositions in general with the contents of actual and possible
beliefs, and we may say that it is propositions that are true or false.
In logic we are concerned with propositions rather than beliefs, since
logic is not interested in what people do in fact believe, but only
in the conditions which determine the truth or falsehood of possible
beliefs. Whenever possible, except when actual beliefs are in question,
it is generally a simplification to deal with propositions.

It would seem that image-propositions are more primitive than
word-propositions, and may well ante-date language. There is no reason
why memory-images, accompanied by that very simple belief-feeling which
we decided to be the essence of memory, should not have occurred before
language arose; indeed, it would be rash to assert positively that
memory of this sort does not occur among the higher animals. Our more
elementary beliefs, notably those that are added to sensation to make
perception, often remain at the level of images. For example, most of
the visual objects in our neighbourhood rouse tactile images: we have a
different feeling in looking at a sofa from what we have in looking at
a block of marble, and the difference consists chiefly in different
stimulation of our tactile imagination. It may be said that the tactile
images are merely present, without any accompanying belief; but I think
this view, though sometimes correct, derives its plausibility as a
general proposition from our thinking of explicit conscious belief only.
Most of our beliefs, like most of our wishes, are "unconscious," in the
sense that we have never told ourselves that we have them. Such beliefs
display themselves when the expectations that they arouse fail in any
way. For example, if someone puts tea (without milk) into a glass, and
you drink it under the impression that it is going to be beer; or if you
walk on what appears to be a tiled floor, and it turns out to be a soft
carpet made to look like tiles. The shock of surprise on an occasion of
this kind makes us aware of the expectations that habitually enter into
our perceptions; and such expectations must be classed as beliefs, in
spite of the fact that we do not normally take note of them or put them
into words. I remember once watching a cock pigeon running over and over
again to the edge of a looking-glass to try to wreak vengeance on the
particularly obnoxious bird whom he expected to find there, judging by
what he saw in the glass. He must have experienced each time the sort of
surprise on finding nothing, which is calculated to lead in time to
the adoption of Berkeley's theory that objects of sense are only in the
mind. His expectation, though not expressed in words, deserved, I think,
to be called a belief.

I come now to the question what constitutes believing, as opposed to the
content believed.

To begin with, there are various different attitudes that may be taken
towards the same content. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that
you have a visual image of your breakfast-table. You may expect it while
you are dressing in the morning; remember it as you go to your work;
feel doubt as to its correctness when questioned as to your powers of
visualizing; merely entertain the image, without connecting it with
anything external, when you are going to sleep; desire it if you are
hungry, or feel aversion for it if you are ill. Suppose, for the sake of
definiteness, that the content is "an egg for breakfast." Then you have
the following attitudes "I expect there will be an egg for breakfast";
"I remember there was an egg for breakfast"; "Was there an egg for
breakfast?" "An egg for breakfast: well, what of it?" "I hope there
will be an egg for breakfast"; "I am afraid there will be an egg for
breakfast and it is sure to be bad." I do not suggest that this is a
list of all possible attitudes on the subject; I say only that they
are different attitudes, all concerned with the one content "an egg for
breakfast."

These attitudes are not all equally ultimate. Those that involve desire
and aversion have occupied us in Lecture III. For the present, we are
only concerned with such as are cognitive. In speaking of memory, we
distinguished three kinds of belief directed towards the same
content, namely memory, expectation and bare assent without any
time-determination in the belief-feeling. But before developing this
view, we must examine two other theories which might be held concerning
belief, and which, in some ways, would be more in harmony with a
behaviourist outlook than the theory I wish to advocate.

(1) The first theory to be examined is the view that the differentia of
belief consists in its causal efficacy I do not wish to make any author
responsible for this theory: I wish merely to develop it hypothetically
so that we may judge of its tenability.

We defined the meaning of an image or word by causal efficacy, namely by
associations: an image or word acquires meaning, we said, through having
the same associations as what it means.

We propose hypothetically to define "belief" by a different kind
of causal efficacy, namely efficacy in causing voluntary movements.
(Voluntary movements are defined as those vital movements which are
distinguished from reflex movements as involving the higher nervous
centres. I do not like to distinguish them by means of such notions as
"consciousness" or "will," because I do not think these notions, in any
definable sense, are always applicable. Moreover, the purpose of the
theory we are examining is to be, as far as possible, physiological and
behaviourist, and this purpose is not achieved if we introduce such a
conception as "consciousness" or "will." Nevertheless, it is necessary
for our purpose to find some way of distinguishing between voluntary and
reflex movements, since the results would be too paradoxical, if we were
to say that reflex movements also involve beliefs.) According to this
definition, a content is said to be "believed" when it causes us to
move. The images aroused are the same if you say to me, "Suppose there
were an escaped tiger coming along the street," and if you say to me,
"There is an escaped tiger coming along the street." But my actions will
be very different in the two cases: in the first, I shall remain calm;
in the second, it is possible that I may not. It is suggested, by the
theory we are considering, that this difference of effects constitutes
what is meant by saying that in the second case I believe the
proposition suggested, while in the first case I do not. According
to this view, images or words are "believed" when they cause bodily
movements.

I do not think this theory is adequate, but I think it is suggestive
of truth, and not so easily refutable as it might appear to be at first
sight.

It might be objected to the theory that many things which we certainly
believe do not call for any bodily movements. I believe that Great
Britain is an island, that whales are mammals, that Charles I was
executed, and so on; and at first sight it seems obvious that such
beliefs, as a rule, do not call for any action on my part. But when we
investigate the matter more closely, it becomes more doubtful. To begin
with, we must distinguish belief as a mere DISPOSITION from actual
active belief. We speak as if we always believed that Charles I was
executed, but that only means that we are always ready to believe it
when the subject comes up. The phenomenon we are concerned to analyse
is the active belief, not the permanent disposition. Now, what are
the occasions when, we actively believe that Charles I was executed?
Primarily: examinations, when we perform the bodily movement of writing
it down; conversation, when we assert it to display our historical
erudition; and political discourses, when we are engaged in showing what
Soviet government leads to. In all these cases bodily movements (writing
or speaking) result from our belief.

But there remains the belief which merely occurs in "thinking." One may
set to work to recall some piece of history one has been reading, and
what one recalls is believed, although it probably does not cause any
bodily movement whatever. It is true that what we believe always MAY
influence action. Suppose I am invited to become King of Georgia: I find
the prospect attractive, and go to Cook's to buy a third-class ticket to
my new realm. At the last moment I remember Charles I and all the other
monarchs who have come to a bad end; I change my mind, and walk out
without completing the transaction. But such incidents are rare, and
cannot constitute the whole of my belief that Charles I was executed.
The conclusion seems to be that, although a belief always MAY influence
action if it becomes relevant to a practical issue, it often exists
actively (not as a mere disposition) without producing any voluntary
movement whatever. If this is true, we cannot define belief by the
effect on voluntary movements.

There is another, more theoretical, ground for rejecting the view we
are examining. It is clear that a proposition can be either believed or
merely considered, and that the content is the same in both cases. We
can expect an egg for breakfast, or merely entertain the supposition
that there may be an egg for breakfast. A moment ago I considered the
possibility of being invited to become King of Georgia, but I do not
believe that this will happen. Now, it seems clear that, since believing
and considering have different effects if one produces bodily movements
while the other does not, there must be some intrinsic difference
between believing and considering*; for if they were precisely similar,
their effects also would be precisely similar. We have seen that the
difference between believing a given proposition and merely considering
it does not lie in the content; therefore there must be, in one case
or in both, something additional to the content which distinguishes the
occurrence of a belief from the occurrence of a mere consideration
of the same content. So far as the theoretical argument goes, this
additional element may exist only in belief, or only in consideration,
or there may be one sort of additional element in the case of belief,
and another in the case of consideration. This brings us to the second
view which we have to examine.

     * Cf. Brentano, "Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte,"
     p. 268 (criticizing Bain, "The Emotions and the Will").

(1) The theory which we have now to consider regards belief as belonging
to every idea which is entertained, except in so far as some positive
counteracting force interferes. In this view belief is not a positive
phenomenon, though doubt and disbelief are so. What we call belief,
according to this hypothesis, involves only the appropriate content,
which will have the effects characteristic of belief unless something
else operating simultaneously inhibits them. James (Psychology, vol.
ii, p. 288) quotes with approval, though inaccurately, a passage from
Spinoza embodying this view:

"Let us conceive a boy imagining to himself a horse, and taking note of
nothing else. As this imagination involves the existence of the horse,
AND THE BOY HAS NO PERCEPTION WHICH ANNULS ITS EXISTENCE [James's
italics], he will necessarily contemplate the horse as present, nor will
he be able to doubt of its existence, however little certain of it he
may be. I deny that a man in so far as he imagines [percipit] affirms
nothing. For what is it to imagine a winged horse but to affirm that the
horse [that horse, namely] has wings? For if the mind had nothing before
it but the winged horse, it would contemplate the same as present, would
have no cause to doubt of its existence, nor any power of dissenting
from its existence, unless the imagination of the winged horse were
joined to an idea which contradicted [tollit] its existence" ("Ethics,"
vol. ii, p. 49, Scholium).

To this doctrine James entirely assents, adding in italics:

"ANY OBJECT WHICH REMAINS UNCONTRADICTED IS IPSO FACTO BELIEVED AND
POSITED AS ABSOLUTE REALITY."

If this view is correct, it follows (though James does not draw
the inference) that there is no need of any specific feeling called
"belief," and that the mere existence of images yields all that is
required. The state of mind in which we merely consider a proposition,
without believing or disbelieving it, will then appear as a
sophisticated product, the result of some rival force adding to the
image-proposition a positive feeling which may be called suspense or
non-belief--a feeling which may be compared to that of a man about to
run a race waiting for the signal. Such a man, though not moving, is in
a very different condition from that of a man quietly at rest And so the
man who is considering a proposition without believing it will be in
a state of tension, restraining the natural tendency to act upon the
proposition which he would display if nothing interfered. In this view
belief primarily consists merely in the existence of the appropriate
images without any counteracting forces.

There is a great deal to be said in favour of this view, and I have some
hesitation in regarding it as inadequate. It fits admirably with the
phenomena of dreams and hallucinatory images, and it is recommended by
the way in which it accords with mental development. Doubt, suspense
of judgment and disbelief all seem later and more complex than a wholly
unreflecting assent. Belief as a positive phenomenon, if it exists,
may be regarded, in this view, as a product of doubt, a decision after
debate, an acceptance, not merely of THIS, but of THIS-RATHER-THAN-THAT.
It is not difficult to suppose that a dog has images (possible
olfactory) of his absent master, or of the rabbit that he dreams of
hunting. But it is very difficult to suppose that he can entertain mere
imagination-images to which no assent is given.

I think it must be conceded that a mere image, without the addition of
any positive feeling that could be called "belief," is apt to have a
certain dynamic power, and in this sense an uncombated image has the
force of a belief. But although this may be true, it accounts only for
some of the simplest phenomena in the region of belief. It will not, for
example, explain memory. Nor can it explain beliefs which do not issue
in any proximate action, such as those of mathematics. I conclude,
therefore, that there must be belief-feelings of the same order as those
of doubt or disbelief, although phenomena closely analogous to those of
belief can be produced by mere uncontradicted images.

(3) I come now to the view of belief which I wish to advocate. It seems
to me that there are at least three kinds of belief, namely memory,
expectation and bare assent. Each of these I regard as constituted by
a certain feeling or complex of sensations, attached to the content
believed. We may illustrate by an example. Suppose I am believing,
by means of images, not words, that it will rain. We have here two
interrelated elements, namely the content and the expectation. The
content consists of images of (say) the visual appearance of rain, the
feeling of wetness, the patter of drops, interrelated, roughly, as the
sensations would be if it were raining. Thus the content is a complex
fact composed of images. Exactly the same content may enter into the
memory "it was raining" or the assent "rain occurs." The difference of
these cases from each other and from expectation does not lie in the
content. The difference lies in the nature of the belief-feeling.
I, personally, do not profess to be able to analyse the sensations
constituting respectively memory, expectation and assent; but I am
not prepared to say that they cannot be analysed. There may be other
belief-feelings, for example in disjunction and implication; also a
disbelief-feeling.

It is not enough that the content and the belief-feeling should coexist:
it is necessary that there should be a specific relation between them,
of the sort expressed by saying that the content is what is believed.
If this were not obvious, it could be made plain by an argument. If
the mere co-existence of the content and the belief-feeling sufficed,
whenever we were having (say) a memory-feeling we should be remembering
any proposition which came into our minds at the same time. But this is
not the case, since we may simultaneously remember one proposition and
merely consider another.

We may sum up our analysis, in the case of bare assent to a proposition
not expressed in words, as follows: (a) We have a proposition,
consisting of interrelated images, and possibly partly of sensations;
(b) we have the feeling of assent, which is presumably a complex
sensation demanding analysis; (c) we have a relation, actually
subsisting, between the assent and the proposition, such as is expressed
by saying that the proposition in question is what is assented to. For
other forms of belief-feeling or of content, we have only to make the
necessary substitutions in this analysis.

If we are right in our analysis of belief, the use of words in
expressing beliefs is apt to be misleading. There is no way of
distinguishing, in words, between a memory and an assent to a
proposition about the past: "I ate my breakfast" and "Caesar conquered
Gaul" have the same verbal form, though (assuming that I remember my
breakfast) they express occurrences which are psychologically very
different. In the one case, what happens is that I remember the content
"eating my breakfast"; in the other case, I assent to the content
"Caesar's conquest of Gaul occurred." In the latter case, but not in the
former, the pastness is part of the content believed. Exactly similar
remarks apply to the difference between expectation, such as we have
when waiting for the thunder after a flash of lightning, and assent to a
proposition about the future, such as we have in all the usual cases of
inferential knowledge as to what will occur. I think this difficulty in
the verbal expression of the temporal aspects of beliefs is one among
the causes which have hampered philosophy in the consideration of time.

The view of belief which I have been advocating contains little that is
novel except the distinction of kinds of belief-feeling--such as memory
and expectation. Thus James says: "Everyone knows the difference between
imagining a thing and believing in its existence, between supposing a
proposition and acquiescing in its truth...IN ITS INNER NATURE, BELIEF,
OR THE SENSE OF REALITY, IS A SORT OF FEELING MORE ALLIED TO THE
EMOTIONS THAN TO ANYTHING ELSE" ("Psychology," vol. ii, p. 283. James's
italics). He proceeds to point out that drunkenness, and, still more,
nitrous-oxide intoxication, will heighten the sense of belief: in the
latter case, he says, a man's very soul may sweat with conviction, and
he be all the time utterly unable to say what he is convinced of. It
would seem that, in such cases, the feeling of belief exists unattached,
without its usual relation to a content believed, just as the feeling
of familiarity may sometimes occur without being related to any definite
familiar object. The feeling of belief, when it occurs in this separated
heightened form, generally leads us to look for a content to which to
attach it. Much of what passes for revelation or mystic insight probably
comes in this way: the belief-feeling, in abnormal strength, attaches
itself, more or less accidentally, to some content which we happen to
think of at the appropriate moment. But this is only a speculation, upon
which I do not wish to lay too much stress.




LECTURE XIII. TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD

The definition of truth and falsehood, which is our topic to-day, lies
strictly outside our general subject, namely the analysis of mind. From
the psychological standpoint, there may be different kinds of belief,
and different degrees of certainty, but there cannot be any purely
psychological means of distinguishing between true and false beliefs.
A belief is rendered true or false by relation to a fact, which may lie
outside the experience of the person entertaining the belief. Truth and
falsehood, except in the case of beliefs about our own minds, depend
upon the relations of mental occurrences to outside things, and thus
take us beyond the analysis of mental occurrences as they are in
themselves. Nevertheless, we can hardly avoid the consideration of truth
and falsehood. We wish to believe that our beliefs, sometimes at least,
yield KNOWLEDGE, and a belief does not yield knowledge unless it is
true. The question whether our minds are instruments of knowledge, and,
if so, in what sense, is so vital that any suggested analysis of mind
must be examined in relation to this question. To ignore this question
would be like describing a chronometer without regard to its accuracy
as a time-keeper, or a thermometer without mentioning the fact that it
measures temperature.

Many difficult questions arise in connection with knowledge. It is
difficult to define knowledge, difficult to decide whether we have any
knowledge, and difficult, even if it is conceded that we sometimes have
knowledge to discover whether we can ever know that we have knowledge
in this or that particular case. I shall divide the discussion into four
parts:

I. We may regard knowledge, from a behaviourist standpoint, as exhibited
in a certain kind of response to the environment. This response must
have some characteristics which it shares with those of scientific
instruments, but must also have others that are peculiar to knowledge.
We shall find that this point of view is important, but not exhaustive
of the nature of knowledge.

II. We may hold that the beliefs that constitute knowledge are
distinguished from such as are erroneous or uncertain by properties
which are intrinsic either to single beliefs or to systems of beliefs,
being in either case discoverable without reference to outside fact.
Views of this kind have been widely held among philosophers, but we
shall find no reason to accept them.

III. We believe that some beliefs are true, and some false. This raises
the problem of VERIFIABILITY: are there any circumstances which can
justifiably give us an unusual degree of certainty that such and such a
belief is true? It is obvious that there are circumstances which in fact
cause a certainty of this sort, and we wish to learn what we can from
examining these circumstances.

IV. Finally, there is the formal problem of defining truth and
falsehood, and deriving the objective reference of a proposition from
the meanings of its component words.

We will consider these four problems in succession.

I. We may regard a human being as an instrument, which makes various
responses to various stimuli. If we observe these responses from
outside, we shall regard them as showing knowledge when they display
two characteristics, ACCURACY and APPROPRIATENESS. These two are quite
distinct, and even sometimes incompatible. If I am being pursued by
a tiger, accuracy is furthered by turning round to look at him, but
appropriateness by running away without making any search for
further knowledge of the beast. I shall return to the question of
appropriateness later; for the present it is accuracy that I wish to
consider.

When we are viewing a man from the outside, it is not his beliefs,
but his bodily movements, that we can observe. His knowledge must be
inferred from his bodily movements, and especially from what he says
and writes. For the present we may ignore beliefs, and regard a man's
knowledge as actually consisting in what he says and does. That is to
say, we will construct, as far as possible, a purely behaviouristic
account of truth and falsehood.

If you ask a boy "What is twice two?" and the boy says "four," you take
that as prima facie evidence that the boy knows what twice two is. But
if you go on to ask what is twice three, twice four, twice five, and so
on, and the boy always answers "four," you come to the conclusion that
he knows nothing about it. Exactly similar remarks apply to scientific
instruments. I know a certain weather-cock which has the pessimistic
habit of always pointing to the north-east. If you were to see it first
on a cold March day, you would think it an excellent weather-cock; but
with the first warm day of spring your confidence would be shaken. The
boy and the weather-cock have the same defect: they do not vary their
response when the stimulus is varied. A good instrument, or a person
with much knowledge, will give different responses to stimuli which
differ in relevant ways. This is the first point in defining accuracy of
response.

We will now assume another boy, who also, when you first question him,
asserts that twice two is four. But with this boy, instead of asking him
different questions, you make a practice of asking him the same question
every day at breakfast. You find that he says five, or six, or seven, or
any other number at random, and you conclude that he also does not know
what twice two is, though by good luck he answered right the first time.
This boy is like a weather-cock which, instead of being stuck fast, is
always going round and round, changing without any change of wind. This
boy and weather-cock have the opposite defect to that of the previous
pair: they give different responses to stimuli which do not differ in
any relevant way.

In connection with vagueness in memory, we already had occasion to
consider the definition of accuracy. Omitting some of the niceties of
our previous discussion, we may say that an instrument is ACCURATE when
it avoids the defects of the two boys and weather-cocks, that is to say,
when--

(a) It gives different responses to stimuli which differ in relevant
ways;

(b) It gives the same response to stimuli which do not differ in
relevant ways.

What are relevant ways depends upon the nature and purpose of the
instrument. In the case of a weather-cock, the direction of the wind is
relevant, but not its strength; in the case of the boy, the meaning of
the words of your question is relevant, but not the loudness of your
voice, or whether you are his father or his schoolmaster If, however,
you were a boy of his own age, that would be relevant, and the
appropriate response would be different.

It is clear that knowledge is displayed by accuracy of response to
certain kinds of stimuli, e.g. examinations. Can we say, conversely,
that it consists wholly of such accuracy of response? I do not think
we can; but we can go a certain distance in this direction. For this
purpose we must define more carefully the kind of accuracy and the kind
of response that may be expected where there is knowledge.

From our present point of view, it is difficult to exclude perception
from knowledge; at any rate, knowledge is displayed by actions based
upon perception. A bird flying among trees avoids bumping into their
branches; its avoidance is a response to visual sensations. This
response has the characteristic of accuracy, in the main, and leads
us to say that the bird "knows," by sight, what objects are in its
neighbourhood. For a behaviourist, this must certainly count as
knowledge, however it may be viewed by analytic psychology. In this
case, what is known, roughly, is the stimulus; but in more advanced
knowledge the stimulus and what is known become different. For example,
you look in your calendar and find that Easter will be early next year.
Here the stimulus is the calendar, whereas the response concerns the
future. Even this can be paralleled among instruments: the behaviour of
the barometer has a present stimulus but foretells the future, so that
the barometer might be said, in a sense, to know the future. However
that may be, the point I am emphasizing as regards knowledge is that
what is known may be quite different from the stimulus, and no part of
the cause of the knowledge-response. It is only in sense-knowledge that
the stimulus and what is known are, with qualifications, identifiable.
In knowledge of the future, it is obvious that they are totally
distinct, since otherwise the response would precede the stimulus. In
abstract knowledge also they are distinct, since abstract facts have no
date. In knowledge of the past there are complications, which we must
briefly examine.

Every form of memory will be, from our present point of view, in one
sense a delayed response. But this phrase does not quite clearly
express what is meant. If you light a fuse and connect it with a heap of
dynamite, the explosion of the dynamite may be spoken of, in a sense,
as a delayed response to your lighting of the fuse. But that only means
that it is a somewhat late portion of a continuous process of which the
earlier parts have less emotional interest. This is not the case
with habit. A display of habit has two sorts of causes: (a) the past
occurrences which generated the habit, (b) the present occurrence which
brings it into play. When you drop a weight on your toe, and say what
you do say, the habit has been caused by imitation of your undesirable
associates, whereas it is brought into play by the dropping of the
weight. The great bulk of our knowledge is a habit in this sense:
whenever I am asked when I was born, I reply correctly by mere habit. It
would hardly be correct to say that getting born was the stimulus, and
that my reply is a delayed response But in cases of memory this way
of speaking would have an element of truth. In an habitual memory, the
event remembered was clearly an essential part of the stimulus to the
formation of the habit. The present stimulus which brings the habit into
play produces a different response from that which it would produce if
the habit did not exist. Therefore the habit enters into the causation
of the response, and so do, at one remove, the causes of the habit. It
follows that an event remembered is an essential part of the causes of
our remembering.

In spite, however, of the fact that what is known is SOMETIMES an
indispensable part of the cause of the knowledge, this circumstance is,
I think, irrelevant to the general question with which we are concerned,
namely What sort of response to what sort of stimulus can be regarded
as displaying knowledge? There is one characteristic which the response
must have, namely, it must consist of voluntary movements. The need
of this characteristic is connected with the characteristic of
APPROPRIATENESS, which I do not wish to consider as yet. For the present
I wish only to obtain a clearer idea of the sort of ACCURACY that a
knowledge-response must have. It is clear from many instances that
accuracy, in other cases, may be purely mechanical. The most complete
form of accuracy consists in giving correct answers to questions, an
achievement in which calculating machines far surpass human beings. In
asking a question of a calculating machine, you must use its language:
you must not address it in English, any more than you would address
an Englishman in Chinese. But if you address it in the language it
understands, it will tell you what is 34521 times 19987, without a
moment's hesitation or a hint of inaccuracy. We do not say the machine
KNOWS the answer, because it has no purpose of its own in giving the
answer: it does not wish to impress you with its cleverness, or feel
proud of being such a good machine. But as far as mere accuracy goes,
the machine leaves nothing to be desired.

Accuracy of response is a perfectly clear notion in the case of answers
to questions, but in other cases it is much more obscure. We may say
generally that an object whether animate or inanimate, is "sensitive" to
a certain feature of the environment if it behaves differently according
to the presence or absence of that feature. Thus iron is sensitive to
anything magnetic. But sensitiveness does not constitute knowledge, and
knowledge of a fact which is not sensible is not sensitiveness to
that fact, as we have seen in distinguishing the fact known from the
stimulus. As soon as we pass beyond the simple case of question and
answer, the definition of knowledge by means of behaviour demands the
consideration of purpose. A carrier pigeon flies home, and so we say
it "knows" the way. But if it merely flew to some place at random, we
should not say that it "knew" the way to that place, any more than a
stone rolling down hill knows the way to the valley.

On the features which distinguish knowledge from accuracy of response in
general, not much can be said from a behaviourist point of view without
referring to purpose. But the necessity of SOMETHING besides accuracy of
response may be brought out by the following consideration: Suppose
two persons, of whom one believed whatever the other disbelieved,
and disbelieved whatever the other believed. So far as accuracy and
sensitiveness of response alone are concerned, there would be nothing to
choose between these two persons. A thermometer which went down for warm
weather and up for cold might be just as accurate as the usual kind; and
a person who always believes falsely is just as sensitive an instrument
as a person who always believes truly. The observable and practical
difference between them would be that the one who always believed
falsely would quickly come to a bad end. This illustrates once more that
accuracy of response to stimulus does not alone show knowledge, but must
be reinforced by appropriateness, i.e. suitability for realizing one's
purpose. This applies even in the apparently simple case of answering
questions: if the purpose of the answers is to deceive, their falsehood,
not their truth, will be evidence of knowledge. The proportion of
the combination of appropriateness with accuracy in the definition
of knowledge is difficult; it seems that both enter in, but that
appropriateness is only required as regards the general type of
response, not as regards each individual instance.

II. I have so far assumed as unquestionable the view that the truth or
falsehood of a belief consists in a relation to a certain fact,
namely the objective of the belief. This view has, however, been often
questioned. Philosophers have sought some intrinsic criterion by which
true and false beliefs could be distinguished.* I am afraid their chief
reason for this search has been the wish to feel more certainty than
seems otherwise possible as to what is true and what is false. If
we could discover the truth of a belief by examining its intrinsic
characteristics, or those of some collection of beliefs of which it
forms part, the pursuit of truth, it is thought, would be a less arduous
business than it otherwise appears to be. But the attempts which
have been made in this direction are not encouraging. I will take two
criteria which have been suggested, namely, (1) self-evidence, (2)
mutual coherence. If we can show that these are inadequate, we may
feel fairly certain that no intrinsic criterion hitherto suggested will
suffice to distinguish true from false beliefs.

     * The view that such a criterion exists is generally held by
     those whose views are in any degree derived from Hegel. It
     may be illustrated by the following passage from Lossky,
     "The Intuitive Basis of Knowledge" (Macmillan, 1919), p.
     268: "Strictly speaking, a false judgment is not a judgment
     at all. The predicate does not follow from the subject S
     alone, but from the subject plus a certain addition C, WHICH
     IN NO SENSE BELONGS TO THE CONTENT OF THE JUDGMENT. What
     takes place may be a process of association of ideas, of
     imagining, or the like, but is not a process of judging. An
     experienced psychologist will be able by careful observation
     to detect that in this process there is wanting just the
     specific element of the objective dependence of the
     predicate upon the subject which is characteristic of a
     judgment. It must be admitted, however, that an exceptional
     power of observation is needed in order to distinguish, by
     means of introspection, mere combination of ideas from
     judgments."


(1) Self-evidence.--Some of our beliefs seem to be peculiarly
indubitable. One might instance the belief that two and two are four,
that two things cannot be in the same place at the same time, nor one
thing in two places, or that a particular buttercup that we are seeing
is yellow. The suggestion we are to examine is that such: beliefs have
some recognizable quality which secures their truth, and the truth of
whatever is deduced from them according to self-evident principles of
inference. This theory is set forth, for example, by Meinong in his
book, "Ueber die Erfahrungsgrundlagen unseres Wissens."

If this theory is to be logically tenable, self-evidence must not
consist merely in the fact that we believe a proposition. We believe
that our beliefs are sometimes erroneous, and we wish to be able to
select a certain class of beliefs which are never erroneous. If we
are to do this, it must be by some mark which belongs only to certain
beliefs, not to all; and among those to which it belongs there must be
none that are mutually inconsistent. If, for example, two propositions
p and q were self-evident, and it were also self-evident that p and q
could not both be true, that would condemn self-evidence as a guarantee
of truth. Again, self-evidence must not be the same thing as the absence
of doubt or the presence of complete certainty. If we are completely
certain of a proposition, we do not seek a ground to support our belief.
If self-evidence is alleged as a ground of belief, that implies that
doubt has crept in, and that our self-evident proposition has not
wholly resisted the assaults of scepticism. To say that any given person
believes some things so firmly that he cannot be made to doubt them is
no doubt true. Such beliefs he will be willing to use as premisses in
reasoning, and to him personally they will seem to have as much evidence
as any belief can need. But among the propositions which one man finds
indubitable there will be some that another man finds it quite possible
to doubt. It used to seem self-evident that there could not be men at
the Antipodes, because they would fall off, or at best grow giddy from
standing on their heads. But New Zealanders find the falsehood of this
proposition self-evident. Therefore, if self-evidence is a guarantee of
truth, our ancestors must have been mistaken in thinking their beliefs
about the Antipodes self-evident. Meinong meets this difficulty by
saying that some beliefs are falsely thought to be self-evident, but in
the case of others it is self-evident that they are self-evident, and
these are wholly reliable. Even this, however, does not remove the
practical risk of error, since we may mistakenly believe it self-evident
that a certain belief is self-evident. To remove all risk of error, we
shall need an endless series of more and more complicated self-evident
beliefs, which cannot possibly be realized in practice. It would seem,
therefore, that self-evidence is useless as a practical criterion for
insuring truth.

The same result follows from examining instances. If we take the four
instances mentioned at the beginning of this discussion, we shall
find that three of them are logical, while the fourth is a judgment of
perception. The proposition that two and two are four follows by purely
logical deduction from definitions: that means that its truth results,
not from the properties of objects, but from the meanings of symbols.
Now symbols, in mathematics, mean what we choose; thus the feeling of
self-evidence, in this case, seems explicable by the fact that the whole
matter is within our control. I do not wish to assert that this is
the whole truth about mathematical propositions, for the question is
complicated, and I do not know what the whole truth is. But I do wish to
suggest that the feeling of self-evidence in mathematical propositions
has to do with the fact that they are concerned with the meanings of
symbols, not with properties of the world such as external observation
might reveal.

Similar considerations apply to the impossibility of a thing being in
two places at once, or of two things being in one place at the same
time. These impossibilities result logically, if I am not mistaken, from
the definitions of one thing and one place. That is to say, they are not
laws of physics, but only part of the intellectual apparatus which we
have manufactured for manipulating physics. Their self-evidence, if this
is so, lies merely in the fact that they represent our decision as to
the use of words, not a property of physical objects.

Judgments of perception, such as "this buttercup is yellow," are in
a quite different position from judgments of logic, and their
self-evidence must have a different explanation. In order to arrive at
the nucleus of such a judgment, we will eliminate, as far as possible,
the use of words which take us beyond the present fact, such as
"buttercup" and "yellow." The simplest kind of judgment underlying the
perception that a buttercup is yellow would seem to be the perception of
similarity in two colours seen simultaneously. Suppose we are seeing
two buttercups, and we perceive that their colours are similar. This
similarity is a physical fact, not a matter of symbols or words; and it
certainly seems to be indubitable in a way that many judgments are not.

The first thing to observe, in regard to such judgments, is that as they
stand they are vague. The word "similar" is a vague word, since there
are degrees of similarity, and no one can say where similarity ends
and dissimilarity begins. It is unlikely that our two buttercups have
EXACTLY the same colour, and if we judged that they had we should have
passed altogether outside the region of self-evidence. To make our
proposition more precise, let us suppose that we are also seeing a
red rose at the same time. Then we may judge that the colours of the
buttercups are more similar to each other than to the colour of the
rose. This judgment seems more complicated, but has certainly gained
in precision. Even now, however, it falls short of complete precision,
since similarity is not prima facie measurable, and it would require
much discussion to decide what we mean by greater or less similarity. To
this process of the pursuit of precision there is strictly no limit.

The next thing to observe (although I do not personally doubt that most
of our judgments of perception are true) is that it is very difficult to
define any class of such judgments which can be known, by its intrinsic
quality, to be always exempt from error. Most of our judgments of
perception involve correlations, as when we judge that a certain noise
is that of a passing cart. Such judgments are all obviously liable to
error, since there is no correlation of which we have a right to be
certain that it is invariable. Other judgments of perception are derived
from recognition, as when we say "this is a buttercup," or even merely
"this is yellow." All such judgments entail some risk of error,
though sometimes perhaps a very small one; some flowers that look like
buttercups are marigolds, and colours that some would call yellow others
might call orange. Our subjective certainty is usually a result of
habit, and may lead us astray in circumstances which are unusual in ways
of which we are unaware.

For such reasons, no form of self-evidence seems to afford an absolute
criterion of truth. Nevertheless, it is perhaps true that judgments
having a high degree of subjective certainty are more apt to be true
than other judgments. But if this be the case, it is a result to be
demonstrated, not a premiss from which to start in defining truth and
falsehood. As an initial guarantee, therefore, neither self-evidence nor
subjective certainty can be accepted as adequate.

(2) Coherence.--Coherence as the definition of truth is advocated by
idealists, particularly by those who in the main follow Hegel. It is set
forth ably in Mr. Joachim's book, "The Nature of Truth" (Oxford, 1906).
According to this view, any set of propositions other than the whole
of truth can be condemned on purely logical grounds, as internally
inconsistent; a single proposition, if it is what we should ordinarily
call false, contradicts itself irremediably, while if it is what we
should ordinarily call true, it has implications which compel us to
admit other propositions, which in turn lead to others, and so on, until
we find ourselves committed to the whole of truth. One might illustrate
by a very simple example: if I say "so-and-so is a married man," that
is not a self-subsistent proposition. We cannot logically conceive of a
universe in which this proposition constituted the whole of truth. There
must be also someone who is a married woman, and who is married to
the particular man in question. The view we are considering regards
everything that can be said about any one object as relative in the same
sort of way as "so-and-so is a married man." But everything, according
to this view, is relative, not to one or two other things, but to all
other things, so that from one bit of truth the whole can be inferred.

The fundamental objection to this view is logical, and consists in a
criticism of its doctrine as to relations. I shall omit this line of
argument, which I have developed elsewhere.* For the moment I will
content myself with saying that the powers of logic seem to me very
much less than this theory supposes. If it were taken seriously, its
advocates ought to profess that any one truth is logically inferable
from any other, and that, for example, the fact that Caesar conquered
Gaul, if adequately considered, would enable us to discover what the
weather will be to-morrow. No such claim is put forward in practice, and
the necessity of empirical observation is not denied; but according to
the theory it ought to be.

     * In the article on "The Monistic Theory of Truth" in
     "Philosophical Essays" (Longmans, 1910), reprinted from the
     "Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society," 1906-7.

Another objection is that no endeavour is made to show that we cannot
form a consistent whole composed partly or wholly of false propositions,
as in a novel. Leibniz's conception of many possible worlds seems to
accord much better with modern logic and with the practical empiricism
which is now universal. The attempt to deduce the world by pure thought
is attractive, and in former times was largely supposed capable of
success. But nowadays most men admit that beliefs must be tested by
observation, and not merely by the fact that they harmonize with other
beliefs. A consistent fairy-tale is a different thing from truth,
however elaborate it may be. But to pursue this topic would lead us
into difficult technicalities; I shall therefore assume, without further
argument, that coherence is not sufficient as a definition of truth.

III. Many difficult problems arise as regards the verifiability of
beliefs. We believe various things, and while we believe them we think
we know them. But it sometimes turns out that we were mistaken, or at
any rate we come to think we were. We must be mistaken either in our
previous opinion or in our subsequent recantation; therefore our beliefs
are not all correct, and there are cases of belief which are not cases
of knowledge. The question of verifiability is in essence this: can we
discover any set of beliefs which are never mistaken or any test which,
when applicable, will always enable us to discriminate between true
and false beliefs? Put thus broadly and abstractly, the answer must be
negative. There is no way hitherto discovered of wholly eliminating the
risk of error, and no infallible criterion. If we believe we have found
a criterion, this belief itself may be mistaken; we should be begging
the question if we tried to test the criterion by applying the criterion
to itself.

But although the notion of an absolute criterion is chimerical, there
may be relative criteria, which increase the probability of truth.
Common sense and science hold that there are. Let us see what they have
to say.

One of the plainest cases of verification, perhaps ultimately the only
case, consists in the happening of something expected. You go to the
station believing that there will be a train at a certain time; you
find the train, you get into it, and it starts at the expected time This
constitutes verification, and is a perfectly definite experience. It is,
in a sense, the converse of memory instead of having first sensations
and then images accompanied by belief, we have first images accompanied
by belief and then sensations. Apart from differences as to the
time-order and the accompanying feelings, the relation between image and
sensation is closely similar in the two cases of memory and expectation;
it is a relation of similarity, with difference as to causal
efficacy--broadly, the image has the psychological but not the physical
effects that the sensation would have. When an image accompanied by
an expectation-belief is thus succeeded by a sensation which is the
"meaning" of the image, we say that the expectation-belief has been
verified. The experience of verification in this sense is exceedingly
familiar; it happens every time that accustomed activities have results
that are not surprising, in eating and walking and talking and all our
daily pursuits.

But although the experience in question is common, it is not wholly easy
to give a theoretical account of it. How do we know that the sensation
resembles the previous image? Does the image persist in presence of the
sensation, so that we can compare the two? And even if SOME image does
persist, how do we know that it is the previous image unchanged? It does
not seem as if this line of inquiry offered much hope of a successful
issue. It is better, I think, to take a more external and causal view of
the relation of expectation to expected occurrence. If the occurrence,
when it comes, gives us the feeling of expectedness, and if the
expectation, beforehand, enabled us to act in a way which proves
appropriate to the occurrence, that must be held to constitute the
maximum of verification. We have first an expectation, then a sensation
with the feeling of expectedness related to memory of the expectation.
This whole experience, when it occurs, may be defined as verification,
and as constituting the truth of the expectation. Appropriate action,
during the period of expectation, may be regarded as additional
verification, but is not essential. The whole process may be illustrated
by looking up a familiar quotation, finding it in the expected words,
and in the expected part of the book. In this case we can strengthen
the verification by writing down beforehand the words which we expect to
find.

I think all verification is ultimately of the above sort. We verify a
scientific hypothesis indirectly, by deducing consequences as to the
future, which subsequent experience confirms. If somebody were to doubt
whether Caesar had crossed the Rubicon, verification could only be
obtained from the future. We could proceed to display manuscripts to our
historical sceptic, in which it was said that Caesar had behaved in this
way. We could advance arguments, verifiable by future experience, to
prove the antiquity of the manuscript from its texture, colour, etc. We
could find inscriptions agreeing with the historian on other points,
and tending to show his general accuracy. The causal laws which our
arguments would assume could be verified by the future occurrence of
events inferred by means of them. The existence and persistence of
causal laws, it is true, must be regarded as a fortunate accident, and
how long it will continue we cannot tell. Meanwhile verification remains
often practically possible. And since it is sometimes possible, we
can gradually discover what kinds of beliefs tend to be verified by
experience, and what kinds tend to be falsified; to the former kinds
we give an increased degree of assent, to the latter kinds a diminished
degree. The process is not absolute or infallible, but it has been
found capable of sifting beliefs and building up science. It affords
no theoretical refutation of the sceptic, whose position must remain
logically unassailable; but if complete scepticism is rejected, it gives
the practical method by which the system of our beliefs grows gradually
towards the unattainable ideal of impeccable knowledge.

IV. I come now to the purely formal definition of the truth or falsehood
of a belief. For this definition it is necessary first of all to
consider the derivation of the objective reference of a proposition from
the meanings of its component words or images.

Just as a word has meaning, so a proposition has an objective reference.
The objective reference of a proposition is a function (in the
mathematical sense) of the meanings of its component words. But the
objective reference differs from the meaning of a word through the
duality of truth and falsehood. You may believe the proposition "to-day
is Tuesday" both when, in fact, to-day is Tuesday, and when to-day is
not Tuesday. If to-day is not Tuesday, this fact is the objective of
your belief that to-day is Tuesday. But obviously the relation of your
belief to the fact is different in this case from what it is in the case
when to-day is Tuesday. We may say, metaphorically, that when to-day is
Tuesday, your belief that it is Tuesday points TOWARDS the fact, whereas
when to-day is not Tuesday your belief points AWAY FROM the fact. Thus
the objective reference of a belief is not determined by the fact alone,
but by the direction of the belief towards or away from the fact.* If,
on a Tuesday, one man believes that it is Tuesday while another believes
that it is not Tuesday, their beliefs have the same objective, namely
the fact that it is Tuesday but the true belief points towards the fact
while the false one points away from it. Thus, in order to define the
reference of a proposition we have to take account not only of the
objective, but also of the direction of pointing, towards the objective
in the case of a true proposition and away from it in the case of a
false one.

     * I owe this way of looking at the matter to my friend
     Ludwig Wittgenstein.

This mode of stating the nature of the objective reference of a
proposition is necessitated by the circumstance that there are true and
false propositions, but not true and false facts. If to-day is Tuesday,
there is not a false objective "to-day is not Tuesday," which could be
the objective of the false belief "to-day is not Tuesday." This is the
reason why two beliefs which are each other's contradictories have the
same objective. There is, however, a practical inconvenience, namely
that we cannot determine the objective reference of a proposition,
according to this definition, unless we know whether the proposition
is true or false. To avoid this inconvenience, it is better to adopt
a slightly different phraseology, and say: The "meaning" of the
proposition "to-day is Tuesday" consists in pointing to the fact "to-day
is Tuesday" if that is a fact, or away from the fact "to-day is not
Tuesday" if that is a fact. The "meaning" of the proposition "to-day is
not Tuesday" will be exactly the opposite. By this hypothetical form
we are able to speak of the meaning of a proposition without knowing
whether it is true or false. According to this definition, we know the
meaning of a proposition when we know what would make it true and what
would make it false, even if we do not know whether it is in fact true
or false.

The meaning of a proposition is derivative from the meanings of its
constituent words. Propositions occur in pairs, distinguished (in
simple cases) by the absence or presence of the word "not." Two such
propositions have the same objective, but opposite meanings: when one is
true, the other is false, and when one is false, the other is true.

The purely formal definition of truth and falsehood offers little
difficulty. What is required is a formal expression of the fact that a
proposition is true when it points towards its objective, and false when
it points away from it, In very simple cases we can give a very simple
account of this: we can say that true propositions actually resemble
their objectives in a way in which false propositions do not. But for
this purpose it is necessary to revert to image-propositions instead of
word-propositions. Let us take again the illustration of a memory-image
of a familiar room, and let us suppose that in the image the window is
to the left of the door. If in fact the window is to the left of the
door, there is a correspondence between the image and the objective;
there is the same relation between the window and the door as between
the images of them. The image-memory consists of the image of the window
to the left of the image of the door. When this is true, the very same
relation relates the terms of the objective (namely the window and
the door) as relates the images which mean them. In this case the
correspondence which constitutes truth is very simple.

In the case we have just been considering the objective consists of
two parts with a certain relation (that of left-to-right), and the
proposition consists of images of these parts with the very same
relation. The same proposition, if it were false, would have a less
simple formal relation to its objective. If the image-proposition
consists of an image of the window to the left of an image of the door,
while in fact the window is not to the left of the door, the proposition
does not result from the objective by the mere substitution of images
for their prototypes. Thus in this unusually simple case we can say that
a true proposition "corresponds" to its objective in a formal sense in
which a false proposition does not. Perhaps it may be possible to modify
this notion of formal correspondence in such a way as to be more widely
applicable, but if so, the modifications required will be by no means
slight. The reasons for this must now be considered.

To begin with, the simple type of correspondence we have been exhibiting
can hardly occur when words are substituted for images, because, in
word-propositions, relations are usually expressed by words, which are
not themselves relations. Take such a proposition as "Socrates
precedes Plato." Here the word "precedes" is just as solid as the words
"Socrates" and "Plato"; it MEANS a relation, but is not a relation. Thus
the objective which makes our proposition true consists of TWO terms
with a relation between them, whereas our proposition consists of THREE
terms with a relation of order between them. Of course, it would be
perfectly possible, theoretically, to indicate a few chosen relations,
not by words, but by relations between the other words. "Socrates-Plato"
might be used to mean "Socrates precedes Plato"; "Plato-Socrates" might
be used to mean "Plato was born before Socrates and died after him"; and
so on. But the possibilities of such a method would be very limited. For
aught I know, there may be languages that use it, but they are not among
the languages with which I am acquainted. And in any case, in view of
the multiplicity of relations that we wish to express, no language could
advance far without words for relations. But as soon as we have words
for relations, word-propositions have necessarily more terms than the
facts to which they refer, and cannot therefore correspond so simply
with their objectives as some image-propositions can.

The consideration of negative propositions and negative facts introduces
further complications. An image-proposition is necessarily positive:
we can image the window to the left of the door, or to the right of the
door, but we can form no image of the bare negative "the window not to
the left of the door." We can DISBELIEVE the image-proposition expressed
by "the window to the left of the door," and our disbelief will be true
if the window is not to the left of the door. But we can form no image
of the fact that the window is not to the left of the door. Attempts
have often been made to deny such negative facts, but, for reasons which
I have given elsewhere,* I believe these attempts to be mistaken, and I
shall assume that there are negative facts.

     * "Monist," January, 1919, p. 42 ff.

Word-propositions, like image-propositions, are always positive facts.
The fact that Socrates precedes Plato is symbolized in English by the
fact that the word "precedes" occurs between the words "Socrates" and
"Plato." But we cannot symbolize the fact that Plato does not precede
Socrates by not putting the word "precedes" between "Plato" and
"Socrates." A negative fact is not sensible, and language, being
intended for communication, has to be sensible. Therefore we symbolize
the fact that Plato does not precede Socrates by putting the words "does
not precede" between "Plato" and "Socrates." We thus obtain a series of
words which is just as positive a fact as the series "Socrates precedes
Plato." The propositions asserting negative facts are themselves
positive facts; they are merely different positive facts from those
asserting positive facts.

We have thus, as regards the opposition of positive and negative, three
different sorts of duality, according as we are dealing with facts,
image-propositions, or word-propositions. We have, namely:

(1) Positive and negative facts;

(2) Image-propositions, which may be believed or disbelieved, but do
not allow any duality of content corresponding to positive and negative
facts;

(3) Word-propositions, which are always positive facts, but are of two
kinds: one verified by a positive objective, the other by a negative
objective.

Owing to these complications, the simplest type of correspondence is
impossible when either negative facts or negative propositions are
involved.

Even when we confine ourselves to relations between two terms which are
both imaged, it may be impossible to form an image-proposition in which
the relation of the terms is represented by the same relation of the
images. Suppose we say "Caesar was 2,000 years before Foch," we express
a certain temporal relation between Caesar and Foch; but we cannot allow
2,000 years to elapse between our image of Caesar and our image of Foch.
This is perhaps not a fair example, since "2,000 years before" is not a
direct relation. But take a case where the relation is direct, say, "the
sun is brighter than the moon." We can form visual images of sunshine
and moonshine, and it may happen that our image of the sunshine is
the brighter of the two, but this is by no means either necessary or
sufficient. The act of comparison, implied in our judgment, is something
more than the mere coexistence of two images, one of which is in fact
brighter than the other. It would take us too far from our main topic if
we were to go into the question what actually occurs when we make this
judgment. Enough has been said to show that the correspondence between
the belief and its objective is more complicated in this case than in
that of the window to the left of the door, and this was all that had to
be proved.

In spite of these complications, the general nature of the formal
correspondence which makes truth is clear from our instances. In the
case of the simpler kind of propositions, namely those that I call
"atomic" propositions, where there is only one word expressing a
relation, the objective which would verify our proposition, assuming
that the word "not" is absent, is obtained by replacing each word
by what it means, the word meaning a relation being replaced by this
relation among the meanings of the other words. For example, if the
proposition is "Socrates precedes Plato," the objective which verifies
it results from replacing the word "Socrates" by Socrates, the word
"Plato" by Plato, and the word "precedes" by the relation of preceding
between Socrates and Plato. If the result of this process is a fact,
the proposition is true; if not, it is false. When our proposition is
"Socrates does not precede Plato," the conditions of truth and falsehood
are exactly reversed. More complicated propositions can be dealt with on
the same lines. In fact, the purely formal question, which has occupied
us in this last section, offers no very formidable difficulties.

I do not believe that the above formal theory is untrue, but I do
believe that it is inadequate. It does not, for example, throw any
light upon our preference for true beliefs rather than false ones. This
preference is only explicable by taking account of the causal efficacy
of beliefs, and of the greater appropriateness of the responses
resulting from true beliefs. But appropriateness depends upon purpose,
and purpose thus becomes a vital part of theory of knowledge.




LECTURE XIV. EMOTIONS AND WILL

On the two subjects of the present lecture I have nothing original to
say, and I am treating them only in order to complete the discussion of
my main thesis, namely that all psychic phenomena are built up out of
sensations and images alone.

Emotions are traditionally regarded by psychologists as a separate
class of mental occurrences: I am, of course, not concerned to deny
the obvious fact that they have characteristics which make a special
investigation of them necessary. What I am concerned with is the
analysis of emotions. It is clear that an emotion is essentially
complex, and we have to inquire whether it ever contains any
non-physiological material not reducible to sensations and images and
their relations.

Although what specially concerns us is the analysis of emotions, we
shall find that the more important topic is the physiological causation
of emotions. This is a subject upon which much valuable and exceedingly
interesting work has been done, whereas the bare analysis of emotions
has proved somewhat barren. In view of the fact that we have defined
perceptions, sensations, and images by their physiological causation, it
is evident that our problem of the analysis of the emotions is bound up
with the problem of their physiological causation.

Modern views on the causation of emotions begin with what is called
the James-Lange theory. James states this view in the following terms
("Psychology," vol. ii, p. 449):

"Our natural way of thinking about these coarser emotions, grief, fear,
rage, love, is that the mental perception of some fact excites the
mental affection called the emotion, and that this latter state of mind
gives rise to the bodily expression. My theory, on the contrary, is that
THE BODILY CHANGES FOLLOW DIRECTLY THE PERCEPTION OF THE EXCITING FACT,
AND THAT OUR FEELING OF THE SAME CHANGES AS THEY OCCUR _IS_ THE EMOTION
(James's italics). Common sense says: we lose our fortune, are sorry
and weep; we meet a bear, are frightened and run; we are insulted by
a rival, are angry and strike. The hypothesis here to be defended says
that this order of sequence is incorrect, that the one mental state is
not immediately induced by the other, that the bodily manifestations
must first be interposed between, and that the more rational statement
is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid
because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble, because
we are sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be. Without the bodily
states following on the perception, the latter would be purely cognitive
in form, pale, colourless, destitute of emotional warmth."

Round this hypothesis a very voluminous literature has grown up. The
history of its victory over earlier criticism, and its difficulties with
the modern experimental work of Sherrington and Cannon, is well told
by James R. Angell in an article called "A Reconsideration of James's
Theory of Emotion in the Light of Recent Criticisms."* In this article
Angell defends James's theory and to me--though I speak with diffidence
on a question as to which I have little competence--it appears that his
defence is on the whole successful.

     * "Psychological Review," 1916.

Sherrington, by experiments on dogs, showed that many of the usual marks
of emotion were present in their behaviour even when, by severing the
spinal cord in the lower cervical region, the viscera were cut off from
all communication with the brain, except that existing through certain
cranial nerves. He mentions the various signs which "contributed to
indicate the existence of an emotion as lively as the animal had ever
shown us before the spinal operation had been made."* He infers that
the physiological condition of the viscera cannot be the cause of the
emotion displayed under such circumstances, and concludes: "We are
forced back toward the likelihood that the visceral expression of
emotion is SECONDARY to the cerebral action occurring with the psychical
state.... We may with James accept visceral and organic sensations
and the memories and associations of them as contributory to primitive
emotion, but we must regard them as re-enforcing rather than as
initiating the psychosis."*

     * Quoted by Angell, loc. cit.


Angell suggests that the display of emotion in such cases may be due
to past experience, generating habits which would require only the
stimulation of cerebral reflex arcs. Rage and some forms of fear,
however, may, he thinks, gain expression without the brain. Rage and
fear have been especially studied by Cannon, whose work is of the
greatest importance. His results are given in his book, "Bodily Changes
in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage" (D. Appleton and Co., 1916).

The most interesting part of Cannon's book consists in the investigation
of the effects produced by secretion of adrenin. Adrenin is a substance
secreted into the blood by the adrenal glands. These are among the
ductless glands, the functions of which, both in physiology and in
connection with the emotions, have only come to be known during recent
years. Cannon found that pain, fear and rage occurred in circumstances
which affected the supply of adrenin, and that an artificial injection
of adrenin could, for example, produce all the symptoms of fear. He
studied the effects of adrenin on various parts of the body; he found
that it causes the pupils to dilate, hairs to stand erect, blood vessels
to be constricted, and so on. These effects were still produced if
the parts in question were removed from the body and kept alive
artificially.*

     * Cannon's work is not unconnected with that of Mosso, who
     maintains, as the result of much experimental work, that
     "the seat of the emotions lies in the sympathetic nervous
     system." An account of the work of both these men will be
     found in Goddard's "Psychology of the Normal and Sub-normal"
     (Kegan Paul, 1919), chap. vii and Appendix.

Cannon's chief argument against James is, if I understand him rightly,
that similar affections of the viscera may accompany dissimilar
emotions, especially fear and rage. Various different emotions make
us cry, and therefore it cannot be true to say, as James does, that we
"feel sorry because we cry," since sometimes we cry when we feel glad.
This argument, however, is by no means conclusive against James, because
it cannot be shown that there are no visceral differences for different
emotions, and indeed it is unlikely that this is the case.

As Angell says (loc. cit.): "Fear and joy may both cause cardiac
palpitation, but in one case we find high tonus of the skeletal muscles,
in the other case relaxation and the general sense of weakness."

Angell's conclusion, after discussing the experiments of Sherrington
and Cannon, is: "I would therefore submit that, so far as concerns
the critical suggestions by these two psychologists, James's essential
contentions are not materially affected." If it were necessary for me to
take sides on this question, I should agree with this conclusion; but I
think my thesis as to the analysis of emotion can be maintained without
coming to a probably premature conclusion upon the doubtful parts of
the physiological problem.

According to our definitions, if James is right, an emotion may be
regarded as involving a confused perception of the viscera concerned
in its causation, while if Cannon and Sherrington are right, an emotion
involves a confused perception of its external stimulus. This follows
from what was said in Lecture VII. We there defined a perception as an
appearance, however irregular, of one or more objects external to the
brain. And in order to be an appearance of one or more objects, it is
only necessary that the occurrence in question should be connected
with them by a continuous chain, and should vary when they are varied
sufficiently. Thus the question whether a mental occurrence can be
called a perception turns upon the question whether anything can be
inferred from it as to its causes outside the brain: if such inference
is possible, the occurrence in question will come within our definition
of a perception. And in that case, according to the definition in
Lecture VIII, its non-mnemic elements will be sensations. Accordingly,
whether emotions are caused by changes in the viscera or by sensible
objects, they contain elements which are sensations according to our
definition.

An emotion in its entirety is, of course, something much more complex
than a perception. An emotion is essentially a process, and it will be
only what one may call a cross-section of the emotion that will be a
perception, of a bodily condition according to James, or (in certain
cases) of an external object according to his opponents. An emotion in
its entirety contains dynamic elements, such as motor impulses, desires,
pleasures and pains. Desires and pleasures and pains, according to the
theory adopted in Lecture III, are characteristics of processes, not
separate ingredients. An emotion--rage, for example--will be a certain
kind of process, consisting of perceptions and (in general) bodily
movements. The desires and pleasures and pains involved are properties
of this process, not separate items in the stuff of which the emotion
is composed. The dynamic elements in an emotion, if we are right in our
analysis, contain, from our point of view, no ingredients beyond those
contained in the processes considered in Lecture III. The ingredients
of an emotion are only sensations and images and bodily movements
succeeding each other according to a certain pattern. With this
conclusion we may leave the emotions and pass to the consideration of
the will.

The first thing to be defined when we are dealing with Will is a
VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. We have already defined vital movements, and we have
maintained that, from a behaviourist standpoint, it is impossible to
distinguish which among such movements are reflex and which voluntary.
Nevertheless, there certainly is a distinction. When we decide in the
morning that it is time to get up, our consequent movement is voluntary.
The beating of the heart, on the other hand, is involuntary: we can
neither cause it nor prevent it by any decision of our own, except
indirectly, as e.g. by drugs. Breathing is intermediate between the two:
we normally breathe without the help of the will, but we can alter or
stop our breathing if we choose.

James ("Psychology," chap. xxvi) maintains that the only distinctive
characteristic of a voluntary act is that it involves an idea of the
movement to be performed, made up of memory-images of the kinaesthetic
sensations which we had when the same movement occurred on some former
occasion. He points out that, on this view, no movement can be made
voluntarily unless it has previously occurred involuntarily.*

     * "Psychology," Vol. ii, pp. 492-3.

I see no reason to doubt the correctness of this view. We shall say,
then, that movements which are accompanied by kinaesthetic sensations
tend to be caused by the images of those sensations, and when so caused
are called VOLUNTARY.

Volition, in the emphatic sense, involves something more than
voluntary movement. The sort of case I am thinking of is decision after
deliberation. Voluntary movements are a part of this, but not the whole.
There is, in addition to them, a judgment: "This is what I shall
do"; there is also a sensation of tension during doubt, followed by a
different sensation at the moment of deciding. I see no reason whatever
to suppose that there is any specifically new ingredient; sensations and
images, with their relations and causal laws, yield all that seems to
be wanted for the analysis of the will, together with the fact that
kinaesthetic images tend to cause the movements with which they are
connected. Conflict of desires is of course essential in the causation
of the emphatic kind of will: there will be for a time kinaesthetic
images of incompatible movements, followed by the exclusive image of
the movement which is said to be willed. Thus will seems to add no new
irreducible ingredient to the analysis of the mind.




LECTURE XV. CHARACTERISTICS OF MENTAL PHENOMENA

At the end of our journey it is time to return to the question from
which we set out, namely: What is it that characterizes mind as opposed
to matter? Or, to state the same question in other terms: How is
psychology to be distinguished from physics? The answer provisionally
suggested at the outset of our inquiry was that psychology and physics
are distinguished by the nature of their causal laws, not by their
subject matter. At the same time we held that there is a certain subject
matter, namely images, to which only psychological causal laws are
applicable; this subject matter, therefore, we assigned exclusively to
psychology. But we found no way of defining images except through
their causation; in their intrinsic character they appeared to have no
universal mark by which they could be distinguished from sensations.

In this last lecture I propose to pass in review various suggested
methods of distinguishing mind from matter. I shall then briefly sketch
the nature of that fundamental science which I believe to be the true
metaphysic, in which mind and matter alike are seen to be constructed
out of a neutral stuff, whose causal laws have no such duality as that
of psychology, but form the basis upon which both physics and psychology
are built.

In search for the definition of "mental phenomena," let us begin with
"consciousness," which is often thought to be the essence of mind.
In the first lecture I gave various arguments against the view that
consciousness is fundamental, but I did not attempt to say what
consciousness is. We must find a definition of it, if we are to feel
secure in deciding that it is not fundamental. It is for the sake of the
proof that it is not fundamental that we must now endeavour to decide
what it is.

"Consciousness," by those who regard it as fundamental, is taken to be a
character diffused throughout our mental life, distinct from sensations
and images, memories, beliefs and desires, but present in all of
them.* Dr. Henry Head, in an article which I quoted in Lecture III,
distinguishing sensations from purely physiological occurrences, says:
"Sensation, in the strict sense of the term, demands the existence of
consciousness." This statement, at first sight, is one to which we feel
inclined to assent, but I believe we are mistaken if we do so. Sensation
is the sort of thing of which we MAY be conscious, but not a thing
of which we MUST be conscious. We have been led, in the course of our
inquiry, to admit unconscious beliefs and unconscious desires. There is,
so far as I can see, no class of mental or other occurrences of which we
are always conscious whenever they happen.

     * Cf. Lecture VI.

The first thing to notice is that consciousness must be of something. In
view of this, I should define "consciousness" in terms of that relation
of an image of a word to an object which we defined, in Lecture XI, as
"meaning." When a sensation is followed by an image which is a "copy" of
it, I think it may be said that the existence of the image constitutes
consciousness of the sensation, provided it is accompanied by that sort
of belief which, when we reflect upon it, makes us feel that the image
is a "sign" of something other than itself. This is the sort of belief
which, in the case of memory, we expressed in the words "this occurred";
or which, in the case of a judgment of perception, makes us believe
in qualities correlated with present sensations, as e.g., tactile and
visual qualities are correlated. The addition of some element of belief
seems required, since mere imagination does not involve consciousness of
anything, and there can be no consciousness which is not of something.
If images alone constituted consciousness of their prototypes,
such imagination-images as in fact have prototypes would involve
consciousness of them; since this is not the case, an element of belief
must be added to the images in defining consciousness. The belief must
be of that sort that constitutes objective reference, past or
present. An image, together with a belief of this sort concerning it,
constitutes, according to our definition, consciousness of the prototype
of the image.

But when we pass from consciousness of sensations to consciousness of
objects of perception, certain further points arise which demand an
addition to our definition. A judgment of perception, we may say,
consists of a core of sensation, together with associated images, with
belief in the present existence of an object to which sensation and
images are referred in a way which is difficult to analyse. Perhaps we
might say that the belief is not fundamentally in any PRESENT existence,
but is of the nature of an expectation: for example, when we see an
object, we expect certain sensations to result if we proceed to touch
it. Perception, then, will consist of a present sensation together with
expectations of future sensations. (This, of course, is a reflective
analysis, not an account of the way perception appears to unchecked
introspection.) But all such expectations are liable to be erroneous,
since they are based upon correlations which are usual but not
invariable. Any such correlation may mislead us in a particular case,
for example, if we try to touch a reflection in a looking-glass under
the impression that it is "real." Since memory is fallible, a similar
difficulty arises as regards consciousness of past objects. It would
seem odd to say that we can be "conscious" of a thing which does not or
did not exist. The only way to avoid this awkwardness is to add to our
definition the proviso that the beliefs involved in consciousness must
be TRUE.

In the second place, the question arises as to whether we can be
conscious of images. If we apply our definition to this case, it seems
to demand images of images. In order, for example, to be conscious of
an image of a cat, we shall require, according to the letter of the
definition, an image which is a copy of our image of the cat, and has
this image for its prototype. Now, it hardly seems probable, as a matter
of observation, that there are images of images, as opposed to images
of sensations. We may meet this difficulty in two ways, either by boldly
denying consciousness of images, or by finding a sense in which, by
means of a different accompanying belief, an image, instead of meaning
its prototype, can mean another image of the same prototype.

The first alternative, which denies consciousness of images, has already
been discussed when we were dealing with Introspection in Lecture VI. We
then decided that there must be, in some sense, consciousness of images.
We are therefore left with the second suggested way of dealing with
knowledge of images. According to this second hypothesis, there may be
two images of the same prototype, such that one of them means the other,
instead of meaning the prototype. It will be remembered that we defined
meaning by association a word or image means an object, we said, when it
has the same associations as the object. But this definition must not be
interpreted too absolutely: a word or image will not have ALL the
same associations as the object which it means. The word "cat" may
be associated with the word "mat," but it would not happen except by
accident that a cat would be associated with a mat. And in like manner
an image may have certain associations which its prototype will not
have, e.g. an association with the word "image." When these associations
are active, an image means an image, instead of meaning its prototype.
If I have had images of a given prototype many times, I can mean one of
these, as opposed to the rest, by recollecting the time and place or any
other distinctive association of that one occasion. This happens, for
example, when a place recalls to us some thought we previously had in
that place, so that we remember a thought as opposed to the occurrence
to which it referred. Thus we may say that we think of an image A when
we have a similar image B associated with recollections of circumstances
connected with A, but not with its prototype or with other images of the
same prototype. In this way we become aware of images without the
need of any new store of mental contents, merely by the help of new
associations. This theory, so far as I can see, solves the problems of
introspective knowledge, without requiring heroic measures such as those
proposed by Knight Dunlap, whose views we discussed in Lecture VI.

According to what we have been saying, sensation itself is not an
instance of consciousness, though the immediate memory by which it is
apt to be succeeded is so. A sensation which is remembered becomes an
object of consciousness as soon as it begins to be remembered, which
will normally be almost immediately after its occurrence (if at all);
but while it exists it is not an object of consciousness. If, however,
it is part of a perception, say of some familiar person, we may say that
the person perceived is an object of consciousness. For in this case
the sensation is a SIGN of the perceived object in much the same way
in which a memory-image is a sign of a remembered object. The essential
practical function of "consciousness" and "thought" is that they enable
us to act with reference to what is distant in time or space, even
though it is not at present stimulating our senses. This reference
to absent objects is possible through association and habit. Actual
sensations, in themselves, are not cases of consciousness, because they
do not bring in this reference to what is absent. But their connection
with consciousness is very close, both through immediate memory, and
through the correlations which turn sensations into perceptions.

Enough has, I hope, been said to show that consciousness is far too
complex and accidental to be taken as the fundamental characteristic
of mind. We have seen that belief and images both enter into it. Belief
itself, as we saw in an earlier lecture, is complex. Therefore, if any
definition of mind is suggested by our analysis of consciousness, images
are what would naturally suggest themselves. But since we found
that images can only be defined causally, we cannot deal with this
suggestion, except in connection with the difference between physical
and psychological causal laws.

I come next to those characteristics of mental phenomena which arise out
of mnemic causation. The possibility of action with reference to what
is not sensibly present is one of the things that might be held to
characterize mind. Let us take first a very elementary example. Suppose
you are in a familiar room at night, and suddenly the light goes out.
You will be able to find your way to the door without much difficulty
by means of the picture of the room which you have in your mind. In this
case visual images serve, somewhat imperfectly it is true, the purpose
which visual sensations would otherwise serve. The stimulus to the
production of visual images is the desire to get out of the room, which,
according to what we found in Lecture III, consists essentially of
present sensations and motor impulses caused by them. Again, words heard
or read enable you to act with reference to the matters about which they
give information; here, again, a present sensible stimulus, in virtue of
habits formed in the past, enables you to act in a manner appropriate
to an object which is not sensibly present. The whole essence of the
practical efficiency of "thought" consists in sensitiveness to signs:
the sensible presence of A, which is a sign of the present or future
existence of B, enables us to act in a manner appropriate to B. Of
this, words are the supreme example, since their effects as signs are
prodigious, while their intrinsic interest as sensible occurrences on
their own account is usually very slight. The operation of signs may or
may not be accompanied by consciousness. If a sensible stimulus A calls
up an image of B, and we then act with reference to B, we have what may
be called consciousness of B. But habit may enable us to act in a manner
appropriate to B as soon as A appears, without ever having an image of
B. In that case, although A operates as a sign, it operates without the
help of consciousness. Broadly speaking, a very familiar sign tends to
operate directly in this manner, and the intervention of consciousness
marks an imperfectly established habit.

The power of acquiring experience, which characterizes men and animals,
is an example of the general law that, in mnemic causation, the causal
unit is not one event at one time, but two or more events at two or more
times.& A burnt child fears the fire, that is to say, the neighbourhood
of fire has a different effect upon a child which has had the sensations
of burning than upon one which has not. More correctly, the observed
effect, when a child which has been burnt is put near a fire, has for
its cause, not merely the neighbourhood of the fire, but this together
with the previous burning. The general formula, when an animal has
acquired experience through some event A, is that, when B occurs at some
future time, the animal to which A has happened acts differently from
an animal which A has not happened. Thus A and B together, not either
separately, must be regarded as the cause of the animal's behaviour,
unless we take account of the effect which A has had in altering the
animal's nervous tissue, which is a matter not patent to external
observation except under very special circumstances. With this
possibility, we are brought back to causal laws, and to the suggestion
that many things which seem essentially mental are really neural.
Perhaps it is the nerves that acquire experience rather than the mind.
If so, the possibility of acquiring experience cannot be used to define
mind.*

     * Cf. Lecture IV.

Very similar considerations apply to memory, if taken as the essence of
mind. A recollection is aroused by something which is happening now,
but is different from the effect which the present occurrence would
have produced if the recollected event had not occurred. This may be
accounted for by the physical effect of the past event on the brain,
making it a different instrument from that which would have resulted
from a different experience. The causal peculiarities of memory may,
therefore, have a physiological explanation. With every special class of
mental phenomena this possibility meets us afresh. If psychology is
to be a separate science at all, we must seek a wider ground for its
separateness than any that we have been considering hitherto.

We have found that "consciousness" is too narrow to characterize mental
phenomena, and that mnemic causation is too wide. I come now to a
characteristic which, though difficult to define, comes much nearer to
what we require, namely subjectivity.

Subjectivity, as a characteristic of mental phenomena, was considered in
Lecture VII, in connection with the definition of perception. We there
decided that those particulars which constitute the physical world can
be collected into sets in two ways, one of which makes a bundle of all
those particulars that are appearances of a given thing from different
places, while the other makes a bundle of all those particulars which
are appearances of different things from a given place. A bundle of
this latter sort, at a given time, is called a "perspective"; taken
throughout a period of time, it is called a "biography." Subjectivity is
the characteristic of perspectives and biographies, the characteristic
of giving the view of the world from a certain place. We saw in Lecture
VII that this characteristic involves none of the other characteristics
that are commonly associated with mental phenomena, such as
consciousness, experience and memory. We found in fact that it is
exhibited by a photographic plate, and, strictly speaking, by any
particular taken in conjunction with those which have the same "passive"
place in the sense defined in Lecture VII. The particulars forming one
perspective are connected together primarily by simultaneity;
those forming one biography, primarily by the existence of direct
time-relations between them. To these are to be added relations
derivable from the laws of perspective. In all this we are clearly not
in the region of psychology, as commonly understood; yet we are also
hardly in the region of physics. And the definition of perspectives
and biographies, though it does not yet yield anything that would
be commonly called "mental," is presupposed in mental phenomena, for
example in mnemic causation: the causal unit in mnemic causation, which
gives rise to Semon's engram, is the whole of one perspective--not of
any perspective, but of a perspective in a place where there is nervous
tissue, or at any rate living tissue of some sort. Perception also,
as we saw, can only be defined in terms of perspectives. Thus the
conception of subjectivity, i.e. of the "passive" place of a particular,
though not alone sufficient to define mind, is clearly an essential
element in the definition.

I have maintained throughout these lectures that the data of psychology
do not differ in, their intrinsic character from the data of physics.
I have maintained that sensations are data for psychology and
physics equally, while images, which may be in some sense exclusively
psychological data, can only be distinguished from sensations by their
correlations, not by what they are in themselves. It is now necessary,
however, to examine the notion of a "datum," and to obtain, if possible,
a definition of this notion.

The notion of "data" is familiar throughout science, and is usually
treated by men of science as though it were perfectly clear.
Psychologists, on the other hand, find great difficulty in the
conception. "Data" are naturally defined in terms of theory of
knowledge: they are those propositions of which the truth is known
without demonstration, so that they may be used as premisses in proving
other propositions. Further, when a proposition which is a datum asserts
the existence of something, we say that the something is a datum, as
well as the proposition asserting its existence. Thus those objects
of whose existence we become certain through perception are said to be
data.

There is some difficulty in connecting this epistemological definition
of "data" with our psychological analysis of knowledge; but until such
a connection has been effected, we have no right to use the conception
"data."

It is clear, in the first place, that there can be no datum apart from a
belief. A sensation which merely comes and goes is not a datum; it only
becomes a datum when it is remembered. Similarly, in perception, we do
not have a datum unless we have a JUDGMENT of perception. In the sense
in which objects (as opposed to propositions) are data, it would seem
natural to say that those objects of which we are conscious are data.
But consciousness, as we have seen, is a complex notion, involving
beliefs, as well as mnemic phenomena such as are required for perception
and memory. It follows that no datum is theoretically indubitable, since
no belief is infallible; it follows also that every datum has a greater
or less degree of vagueness, since there is always some vagueness in
memory and the meaning of images.

Data are not those things of which our consciousness is earliest in
time. At every period of life, after we have become capable of thought,
some of our beliefs are obtained by inference, while others are not.
A belief may pass from either of these classes into the other, and may
therefore become, or cease to be, a belief giving a datum. When, in what
follows, I speak of data, I do not mean the things of which we feel sure
before scientific study begins, but the things which, when a science
is well advanced, appear as affording grounds for other parts of
the science, without themselves being believed on any ground except
observation. I assume, that is to say, a trained observer, with an
analytic attention, knowing the sort of thing to look for, and the sort
of thing that will be important. What he observes is, at the stage of
science which he has reached, a datum for his science. It is just as
sophisticated and elaborate as the theories which he bases upon it,
since only trained habits and much practice enable a man to make
the kind of observation that will be scientifically illuminating.
Nevertheless, when once it has been observed, belief in it is not based
on inference and reasoning, but merely upon its having been seen. In
this way its logical status differs from that of the theories which are
proved by its means.

In any science other than psychology the datum is primarily a
perception, in which only the sensational core is ultimately and
theoretically a datum, though some such accretions as turn the sensation
into a perception are practically unavoidable. But if we postulate an
ideal observer, he will be able to isolate the sensation, and treat this
alone as datum. There is, therefore, an important sense in which we
may say that, if we analyse as much as we ought, our data, outside
psychology, consist of sensations, which include within themselves
certain spatial and temporal relations.

Applying this remark to physiology, we see that the nerves and brain
as physical objects are not truly data; they are to be replaced, in
the ideal structure of science, by the sensations through which the
physiologist is said to perceive them. The passage from these sensations
to nerves and brain as physical objects belongs really to the initial
stage in the theory of physics, and ought to be placed in the reasoned
part, not in the part supposed to be observed. To say we see the
nerves is like saying we hear the nightingale; both are convenient but
inaccurate expressions. We hear a sound which we believe to be causally
connected with the nightingale, and we see a sight which we believe
to be causally connected with a nerve. But in each case it is only
the sensation that ought, in strictness, to be called a datum. Now,
sensations are certainly among the data of psychology. Therefore all the
data of the physical sciences are also psychological data. It remains
to inquire whether all the data of psychology are also data of physical
science, and especially of physiology.

If we have been right in our analysis of mind, the ultimate data of
psychology are only sensations and images and their relations. Beliefs,
desires, volitions, and so on, appeared to us to be complex phenomena
consisting of sensations and images variously interrelated. Thus (apart
from certain relations) the occurrences which seem most distinctively
mental, and furthest removed from physics, are, like physical objects,
constructed or inferred, not part of the original stock of data in the
perfected science. From both ends, therefore, the difference between
physical and psychological data is diminished. Is there ultimately
no difference, or do images remain as irreducibly and exclusively
psychological? In view of the causal definition of the difference
between images and sensations, this brings us to a new question, namely:
Are the causal laws of psychology different from those of any other
science, or are they really physiological?

Certain ambiguities must be removed before this question can be
adequately discussed.

First, there is the distinction between rough approximate laws and
such as appear to be precise and general. I shall return to the former
presently; it is the latter that I wish to discuss now.

Matter, as defined at the end of Lecture V, is a logical fiction,
invented because it gives a convenient way of stating causal laws.
Except in cases of perfect regularity in appearances (of which we can
have no experience), the actual appearances of a piece of matter are not
members of that ideal system of regular appearances which is defined
as being the matter in question. But the matter is, after all, inferred
from its appearances, which are used to VERIFY physical laws. Thus, in
so far as physics is an empirical and verifiable science, it must assume
or prove that the inference from appearances to matter is, in general,
legitimate, and it must be able to tell us, more or less, what
appearances to expect. It is through this question of verifiability and
empirical applicability to experience that we are led to a theory of
matter such as I advocate. From the consideration of this question it
results that physics, in so far as it is an empirical science, not a
logical phantasy, is concerned with particulars of just the same sort
as those which psychology considers under the name of sensations. The
causal laws of physics, so interpreted, differ from those of psychology
only by the fact that they connect a particular with other appearances
in the same piece of matter, rather than with other appearances in the
same perspective. That is to say, they group together particulars having
the same "active" place, while psychology groups together those having
the same "passive" place. Some particulars, such as images, have no
"active" place, and therefore belong exclusively to psychology.

We can now understand the distinction between physics and psychology.
The nerves and brain are matter: our visual sensations when we look
at them may be, and I think are, members of the system constituting
irregular appearances of this matter, but are not the whole of the
system. Psychology is concerned, inter alia, with our sensations when we
see a piece of matter, as opposed to the matter which we see. Assuming,
as we must, that our sensations have physical causes, their causal laws
are nevertheless radically different from the laws of physics, since
the consideration of a single sensation requires the breaking up of
the group of which it is a member. When a sensation is used to verify
physics, it is used merely as a sign of a certain material phenomenon,
i.e. of a group of particulars of which it is a member. But when it is
studied by psychology, it is taken away from that group and put
into quite a different context, where it causes images or voluntary
movements. It is primarily this different grouping that is
characteristic of psychology as opposed to all the physical sciences,
including physiology; a secondary difference is that images, which
belong to psychology, are not easily to be included among the aspects
which constitute a physical thing or piece of matter.

There remains, however, an important question, namely: Are mental events
causally dependent upon physical events in a sense in which the converse
dependence does not hold? Before we can discuss the answer to this
question, we must first be clear as to what our question means.

When, given A, it is possible to infer B, but given B, it is not
possible to infer A, we say that B is dependent upon A in a sense in
which A is not dependent upon B. Stated in logical terms, this amounts
to saying that, when we know a many-one relation of A to B, B is
dependent upon A in respect of this relation. If the relation is a
causal law, we say that B is causally dependent upon A. The illustration
that chiefly concerns us is the system of appearances of a physical
object. We can, broadly speaking, infer distant appearances from near
ones, but not vice versa. All men look alike when they are a mile away,
hence when we see a man a mile off we cannot tell what he will look like
when he is only a yard away. But when we see him a yard away, we can
tell what he will look like a mile away. Thus the nearer view gives us
more valuable information, and the distant view is causally dependent
upon it in a sense in which it is not causally dependent upon the
distant view.

It is this greater causal potency of the near appearance that leads
physics to state its causal laws in terms of that system of regular
appearances to which the nearest appearances increasingly approximate,
and that makes it value information derived from the microscope or
telescope. It is clear that our sensations, considered as irregular
appearances of physical objects, share the causal dependence belonging
to comparatively distant appearances; therefore in our sensational life
we are in causal dependence upon physical laws.

This, however, is not the most important or interesting part of our
question. It is the causation of images that is the vital problem. We
have seen that they are subject to mnenic causation, and that mnenic
causation may be reducible to ordinary physical causation in nervous
tissue. This is the question upon which our attitude must turn towards
what may be called materialism. One sense of materialism is the view
that all mental phenomena are causally dependent upon physical phenomena
in the above-defined sense of causal dependence. Whether this is the
case or not, I do not profess to know. The question seems to me the
same as the question whether mnemic causation is ultimate, which we
considered without deciding in Lecture IV. But I think the bulk of the
evidence points to the materialistic answer as the more probable.

In considering the causal laws of psychology, the distinction between
rough generalizations and exact laws is important. There are many rough
generalizations in psychology, not only of the sort by which we
govern our ordinary behaviour to each other, but also of a more nearly
scientific kind. Habit and association belong among such laws. I will
give an illustration of the kind of law that can be obtained. Suppose a
person has frequently experienced A and B in close temporal contiguity,
an association will be established, so that A, or an image of A, tends
to cause an image of B. The question arises: will the association work
in either direction, or only from the one which has occurred earlier
to the one which has occurred later? In an article by Mr. Wohlgemuth,
called "The Direction of Associations" ("British Journal of Psychology,"
vol. v, part iv, March, 1913), it is claimed to be proved by experiment
that, in so far as motor memory (i.e. memory of movements) is concerned,
association works only from earlier to later, while in visual and
auditory memory this is not the case, but the later of two neighbouring
experiences may recall the earlier as well as the earlier the later.
It is suggested that motor memory is physiological, while visual and
auditory memory are more truly psychological. But that is not the point
which concerns us in the illustration. The point which concerns us
is that a law of association, established by purely psychological
observation, is a purely psychological law, and may serve as a sample
of what is possible in the way of discovering such laws. It is, however,
still no more than a rough generalization, a statistical average. It
cannot tell us what will result from a given cause on a given occasion.
It is a law of tendency, not a precise and invariable law such as those
of physics aim at being.

If we wish to pass from the law of habit, stated as a tendency or
average, to something more precise and invariable, we seem driven to the
nervous system. We can more or less guess how an occurrence produces a
change in the brain, and how its repetition gradually produces something
analogous to the channel of a river, along which currents flow more
easily than in neighbouring paths. We can perceive that in this way, if
we had more knowledge, the tendency to habit through repetition might
be replaced by a precise account of the effect of each occurrence
in bringing about a modification of the sort from which habit would
ultimately result. It is such considerations that make students of
psychophysiology materialistic in their methods, whatever they may be in
their metaphysics. There are, of course, exceptions, such as Professor
J. S. Haldane,* who maintains that it is theoretically impossible to
obtain physiological explanations of psychical phenomena, or physical
explanations of physiological phenomena. But I think the bulk of expert
opinion, in practice, is on the other side.

     *See his book, "The New Physiology and Other Addresses"
     (Charles Griffin & Co., 1919).

The question whether it is possible to obtain precise causal laws in
which the causes are psychological, not material, is one of detailed
investigation. I have done what I could to make clear the nature of the
question, but I do not believe that it is possible as yet to answer it
with any confidence. It seems to be by no means an insoluble question,
and we may hope that science will be able to produce sufficient grounds
for regarding one answer as much more probable than the other. But for
the moment I do not see how we can come to a decision.

I think, however, on grounds of the theory of matter explained in
Lectures V and VII, that an ultimate scientific account of what goes on
in the world, if it were ascertainable, would resemble psychology rather
than physics in what we found to be the decisive difference between
them. I think, that is to say, that such an account would not be content
to speak, even formally, as though matter, which is a logical fiction,
were the ultimate reality. I think that, if our scientific knowledge
were adequate to the task, which it neither is nor is likely to become,
it would exhibit the laws of correlation of the particulars constituting
a momentary condition of a material unit, and would state the causal
laws* of the world in terms of these particulars, not in terms of
matter. Causal laws so stated would, I believe, be applicable to
psychology and physics equally; the science in which they were stated
would succeed in achieving what metaphysics has vainly attempted, namely
a unified account of what really happens, wholly true even if not the
whole of truth, and free from all convenient fictions or unwarrantable
assumptions of metaphysical entities. A causal law applicable to
particulars would count as a law of physics if it could be stated in
terms of those fictitious systems of regular appearances which are
matter; if this were not the case, it would count as a law of psychology
if one of the particulars were a sensation or an image, i.e. were
subject to mnemic causation. I believe that the realization of the
complexity of a material unit, and its analysis into constituents
analogous to sensations, is of the utmost importance to philosophy, and
vital for any understanding of the relations between mind and matter,
between our perceptions and the world which they perceive. It is in this
direction, I am convinced, that we must look for the solution of many
ancient perplexities.

     * In a perfected science, causal laws will take the form of
     differential equations--or of finite-difference equations,
     if the theory of quanta should prove correct.

It is probable that the whole science of mental occurrences, especially
where its initial definitions are concerned, could be simplified by the
development of the fundamental unifying science in which the causal laws
of particulars are sought, rather than the causal laws of those systems
of particulars that constitute the material units of physics. This
fundamental science would cause physics to become derivative, in the
sort of way in which theories of the constitution of the atom make
chemistry derivative from physics; it would also cause psychology to
appear less singular and isolated among sciences. If we are right in
this, it is a wrong philosophy of matter which has caused many of the
difficulties in the philosophy of mind--difficulties which a right
philosophy of matter would cause to disappear.

The conclusions at which we have arrived may be summed up as follows:

I. Physics and psychology are not distinguished by their material. Mind
and matter alike are logical constructions; the particulars out of which
they are constructed, or from which they are inferred, have various
relations, some of which are studied by physics, others by psychology.
Broadly speaking, physics group particulars by their active places,
psychology by their passive places.

II. The two most essential characteristics of the causal laws which
would naturally be called psychological are SUBJECTIVITY and MNEMIC
CAUSATION; these are not unconnected, since the causal unit in mnemic
causation is the group of particulars having a given passive place at
a given time, and it is by this manner of grouping that subjectivity is
defined.

III. Habit, memory and thought are all developments of mnemic causation.
It is probable, though not certain, that mnemic causation is derivative
from ordinary physical causation in nervous (and other) tissue.

IV. Consciousness is a complex and far from universal characteristic of
mental phenomena.

V. Mind is a matter of degree, chiefly exemplified in number and
complexity of habits.

VI. All our data, both in physics and psychology, are subject to
psychological causal laws; but physical causal laws, at least in
traditional physics, can only be stated in terms of matter, which is
both inferred and constructed, never a datum. In this respect psychology
is nearer to what actually exists.





End of Project Gutenberg's The Analysis of Mind, by Bertrand Russell