In the first place it is found, when the difference of two sensations approaches the limit of discernibility, that at one moment we discern it and at the next we do not. There are accidental fluctuations in our inner sensibility which make it impossible to tell just what the least discernibleincrement of the sensation is without taking the average of a large number of appreciations. Theseaccidental errorsare as likely to increase as to diminish our sensibility, and are eliminated in such an average, for those above and those below the line then neutralize each other in the sum, and the normal sensibility, if there be one (that is, the sensibility due to constant causes as distinguished from these accidental ones), stands revealed. The best way of getting at the average sensibility has been very minutely worked over. Fechner discussed three methods, as follows:
(1)The Method of just-discernible Differences.Take a standard sensationS, and add to it until you distinctly feel the additiond; then subtract fromS+duntil you distinctly feel the effect of the subtraction;[448]call the difference hered'. The least discernible difference sought isd+d'/2; and the ratio of this quantity to the originalS(or rather toS+d-d') is what Fechner calls the difference-threshold.This difference-threshold should be a constant fraction(no matter what is the size ofS)if Weber's law holds universally true.The difficulty in applying this method is that we areso often in doubtwhether anything has been added toSor not. Furthermore, if we simply take the smallestdabout which we areneverin doubt or in error, we certainly get our least discernible difference larger than it ought theoretically to be.[449]
Of course thesensibilityis small when the least discernible difference is large, andvice versâ; in other words, it and the difference-threshold are inversely related to each other.
(2)The Method of True and False Cases.A sensation which is barely greater than another will, on account of accidental errors in a long series of experiments, sometimes be judged equal, and sometimes smaller; i.e., we shall make a certain number of false and a certain number oftrue judgments about the difference between the two sensations which we are comparing.
"But the larger this difference is, the more the number of the true judgments will increase at the expense of the false ones; or, otherwise expressed, the nearer to unity will be the fraction whose denominator represents the whole number of judgments, and whose numerator represents those which are true. Ifmis a ratio of this nature, obtained by comparison of two stimuli,AandB, we may seek another couple of stimuli,aandb, which when compared will give the same ratio of true to false cases."[450]
"But the larger this difference is, the more the number of the true judgments will increase at the expense of the false ones; or, otherwise expressed, the nearer to unity will be the fraction whose denominator represents the whole number of judgments, and whose numerator represents those which are true. Ifmis a ratio of this nature, obtained by comparison of two stimuli,AandB, we may seek another couple of stimuli,aandb, which when compared will give the same ratio of true to false cases."[450]
If this were done, and the ratio ofatobthen proved to be equal to that ofAtoB, that would prove that pairs of small stimuli and pairs of large stimuli may affect our discriminative sensibility similarly so long as the ratio of the components to each other within each pair is the same. In other words, it would in so far forth prove the Weberian law. Fechner made use of this method to ascertain his own power of discriminating differences of weight, recording no less than 24,576 separate judgments, and computing as a result that his discrimination for the same relative increase of weight was less good in the neighborhood of 500 than of 300 grams, but that after 500 grams it improved up to 3000, which was the highest weight he experimented with.
(3)The Method of Average Errorsconsists in taking a standard stimulus and then trying to make another one of the same sort exactly equal to it. There will in general be an error whose amount is large when the discriminative sensibility called in play is small, andvice versâ. The sum of the errors, no matter whether they be positive or negative, divided by their number, gives the average error. This, when certain corrections are made, is assumed by Fechner to be the 'reciprocal' of the discriminative sensibility in question. It should bear a constant proportion to the stimulus, no matter what the absolute size of the latter may be, if Weber's law hold true.
These methods deal with just perceptible differences. Delbœuf and Wundt have experimented with larger differencesby means of what Wundt calls theMéthode der mittleren Abstufungen, and what we may call
(4)The Method of Equal-appearing Intervals.This consists in so arranging three stimuli in a series that the intervals between the first and the second shall appear equal to that between the second and the third. At first sight there seems to be no direct logical connection between this method and the preceding ones. By them we compare equallyperceptibleincrements of stimulus in different regions of the latter's scale; but by the fourth method we compare increments which strike us as equallybig. But what we can but just notice as an increment need not appear always of the same bigness after it is noticed. On the contrary, it will appear much bigger when we are dealing with stimuli that are already large.
(5) The method of doubling thestimulushas been employed by Wundt's collaborator, Merkel, who tried to make one stimulus seem just double the other, and then measured the objective relation of the two. The remarks just made apply also to this case.
So much for the methods. The results differ in the hands of different observers. I will add a few of them, and will take first thediscriminative sensibility to light.
By the first method, Volkmann, Aubert, Masson, Helmholtz, and Kräpelin find figures varying from 1/3 or 1/4 to 1/195 of the original stimulus. The smaller fractional increments are discriminated when the light is already fairly strong, the larger ones when it is weak or intense. That is, the discriminative sensibility is low when weak or overstrong lights are compared, and at its best with a certain medium illumination. It is thus a function of the light's intensity; but throughout a certain range of the latter it keeps constant, andin so far forthWeber's law is verified for light. Absolute figures cannot be given, but Merkel, by method 1, found that Weber's law held good for stimuli (measured by his arbitrary unit) between 96 and 4096, beyond which intensity no experiments were made.[451]König and Brodhunhave given measurements by method 1 which cover the most extensive series, and moreover apply to six different colors of light. These experiments (performed in Helmholtz's laboratory, apparently,) ran from an intensity called 1 to one which was 100,000 times as great. From intensity 2000 to 20,000 Weber's law held good; below and above this range discriminative sensibility declined. The increment discriminated here was the same for all colors of light, and lay (according to the tables) between 1 and 2 per cent of the stimulus.[452]Delbœuf had verified Weber's law for a certain range of luminous intensities by method 4; that is, he had found that the objective intensity of a light which appeared midway between two others was really the geometrical mean of the latter's intensities. But A. Lehmann and afterwards Neiglick, in Wundt's laboratory, found that effects of contrast played so large a part in experiments performed in this way that Delbœuf's results could not be held conclusive. Merkel, repeating the experiments still later, found that the objective intensity of the light which we judge to stand midway between two others neither stands midway nor is a geometric mean. The discrepancy from both figures is enormous, but is least large from the midway figure or arithmetical mean of the two extreme intensities.[453]Finally, the stars have from time immemorial been arranged in 'magnitudes' supposed to differ by equal-seeming intervals. Lately their intensities have been gauged photometrically, and the comparison of the subjective with the objective series has been made. Prof. J. Jastrow is the latest worker in this field. He finds, taking Pickering's Harvard photometric tables as a basis, that the ratio of the average intensity of each 'magnitude' to that below it decreases as we pass from lower to higher magnitudes, showing a uniform departure from Weber's law, if the method of equal-appearing intervals be held to have any direct relevance to the latter.[454]
Soundsare less delicately discriminated in intensity than lights. A certain difficulty has come from disputes as to the measurement of the objective intensity of the stimulus. Earlier inquiries made the perceptible increase of the stimulus to be about 1/3 of the latter. Merkel's latest results of the method of just perceptible differences make it about 3/10 for that part of the scale of intensities during which Weber's law holds good, which is from 20 to 5000 of M.'s arbitrary unit.[455]Below this the fractional increment must be larger. Above it no measurements were made.
Forpressure and muscular sensewe have rather divergent results. Weber found by the method of just-perceptible differences that persons could distinguish an increase of weight of 1/40 when the two weights were successively lifted by the same hand. It took a much larger fraction to be discerned when the weights were laid on a hand which rested on the table. He seems to have verified his results for only two pairs of differing weights,[456]and on this founded his 'law.' Experiments in Hering's laboratory on lifting 11 weights, running from 250 to 2750 grams showed that the least perceptible increment varied from 1/21 for 250 grams to 1/114 for 2500. For 2750 it rose to 1/98 again. Merkel's recent and very careful experiments, in which the finger pressed down the beam of a balance counterweighted by from 25 to 8020 grams, showed that between 200 and 2000 grams a constant fractional increase of about 1/13 was felt when there was no movement of the finger, and of about 1/19 when there was movement. Above and below these limits the discriminative power grew less. It was greater when the pressure was upon one square millimeter of surface than when it was upon seven.[457]
Warmth and tastehave been made the subject of similar investigations with the result of verifying something like Weber's law. The determination of the unit of stimulus is, however, so hard here that I will give no figures. The results may be found in Wundt's Physiologische Psychologie, 3d Ed. i, 370-2.
The discrimination of lengths by the eyehas been found also to obey to a certain extent Weber's law. The figures will all be found in G. E. Müller,op. cit.part ii, chap. x, to which the reader is referred. Professor Jastrow has published some experiments, made by what may be called a modification of the method of equal-appearing differences, on our estimation of the length of sticks, by which it would seem that the estimated intervals and the real ones are directly and not logarithmically proportionate to each other. This resembles Merkel's results by that method for weights, lights, and sounds, and differs from Jastrow's own finding about star-magnitudes.[458]
If we look back over these facts as a whole, we see that it is not any fixed amount added to an impression that makes us notice an increase in the latter, but that the amount depends on how large the impression already is. The amount is expressible as a certain fraction of the entire impression to which it is added; and it is found that the fraction is a well-nigh constant figure throughout an entire region of the scale of intensities of the impression in question. Above and below this region the fraction increases in value. This isWeber's law, which in so far forth expresses an empirical generalization of practical importance, without involving any theory whatever or seeking any absolute measure of the sensations themselves. It is in the
that Fechner's originality exclusively consists, in his assumptions, namely, 1) that the just-perceptible increment is thesensation-unit, and is in all parts of the scale the same (mathematically expressed, Δs= const.); 2) that all our sensations consist of sums of these units; and finally, 3) that the reason why it takes a constant fractional increase of the stimulus to awaken this unit lies in an ultimate law of the connection of mind with matter, whereby the quantities of our feelings are related logarithmically to the quantities of their objects. Fechner seems to find something inscrutably sublime in the existence of an ultimate 'psychophysic' law of this form.
These assumptions are all peculiarly fragile. To begin with, themental factwhich in the experiments corresponds to the increase of the stimulus is not anenlarged sensation, but ajudgment that the sensation is enlarged. What Fechner calls the 'sensation' is what appears to the mind as theobjective phenomenonof light, warmth, weight, sound, impressed part of body, etc. Fechner tacitly if not openly assumes that such ajudgment of increaseconsists in the simple fact that anincreased numberof sensation-units are present to the mind; and that the judgment is thus itself a quantitatively bigger mental thing when it judges large differences, or differences between large terms, than when it judges small ones. But these ideas are really absurd. The hardest sort of judgment, the judgment which strains the attention most (ifthatbe any criterion of the judgment's 'size'), is that about thesmallestthings and differences. But really it has no meaning to talk about one judgment being bigger than another. And even if we leave out judgments and talk of sensations only, we have already found ourselves (inChapter VI) quite unable to read any clear meaning into the notion that they are masses of units combined. To introspection, our feeling of pink is surely not a portion of our feeling of scarlet; nor does the light of an electric arc seem to contain that of a tallow-candle in itself. Compoundthingscontain parts; and one such thing may have twice or three times as many parts as another. But when we take a simple sensible quality like light or sound, and say that there is now twice or thrice as much of it present as there was a moment ago, although we seem to mean the same thing as if we were talking of compound objects, we really mean something different. We mean that if we were to arrange the various possible degrees of the quality in a scale of serial increase, thedistance, interval, ordifferencebetween the stronger and the weaker specimen before us would seem about as great as that between the weaker one and the beginning of the scale.It is theserelations,thesedistances,which we are measuring and not the composition of the qualities themselves, as Fechner thinks. Whilst if we turn to objects whicharedivisible, surely a big object may be known in a little thought. Introspection shows moreoverthat in most sensations a newkindof feeling invariably accompanies our judgment of an increased impression; and this is a fact which Fechner's formula disregards.[459]
But apart from thesea prioridifficulties, and even supposing that sensations did consist of added units, Fechner's assumption that allequally perceptibleadditions areequally greatadditions is entirely arbitrary. Why might not a small addition to a small sensation be asperceptibleas a large addition to a large one? In this case Weber's law would apply not to the additions themselves, but only to their perceptibility. Ournoticingof a difference of units in two sensations would depend on the latter being in a fixed ratio. But thedifference itselfwould depend directly on that between their respective stimuli. So many units added to the stimulus, so many added to the sensation, and if the stimulus grew in a certain ratio, in exactly the same ratio would the sensation also grow, though itsperceptibilitygrew according to the logarithmic law.[460]
IfAstand for the smallest difference whichwe perceive, then we should have, instead of the formula Δs= const., which is Fechner's, the formula Δs/s= const., a formula which interprets all thefactsof Weber's law, in an entirely different theoretic way from that adopted by Fechner.[461]
The entire superstructure which Fechner rears upon thefacts is thus not only seen to be arbitrary and subjective, but in the highest degree improbable as well. The departures from Weber's law in regions where it does not obtain, he explains by the compounding with it of other unknown laws which mask its effects. As ifanylaw could not be found inanyset of phenomena, provided one have the wit to invent enough other coexisting laws to overlap and neutralize it! The whole outcome of the discussion, so far as Fechner's theories are concerned, is indeednil. Weber's law alone remains true, as an empirical generalization of fair extent:What we add to a large stimulus we notice less than what we add to a small one, unless it happenrelatively to the stimulusto be as great.
One can express this state of things otherwise by saying that the whole of the stimulus does not seem to be effective in giving us the perception of 'more,' and the simplest interpretation of such a state of things would bephysical. The loss of effect would take place in the nervous system. If our feelings resulted from a condition of the nerve-molecules which it grew ever more difficult for the stimulus to increase, our feelings would naturally grow at a slower rate than the stimulus itself. An ever larger part of the latter's work would go to overcoming the resistances, and an ever smaller part to the realization of the feeling-bringing state. Weber's law would thus be a sort oflaw of frictionin the neural machine.[462]Just how these inner resistances and frictions are to be conceived is a speculative question. Delbœuf has formulated them as fatigue; Bernstein and Ward, as irradiations. The latest, and probably the most 'real,' hypothesis is that of Ebbinghaus, who supposes that the intensity of sensation depends on thenumberof neural molecules which are disintegrated in the unit of time. There are only a certain number at any time which arecapableof disintegrating; and whilst most of these are in an average condition of instability,some are almost stable and some already near to decomposition. The smallest stimuli affect these latter molecules only; and as they are but few, the sensational effect from adding a given quantity of stimulusat firstis relatively small. Medium stimuli affect the majority of the molecules, but affect fewer and fewer in proportion as they have already diminished their number. The latest additions to the stimuli find all the medium molecules already disintegrated, and only affect the small relatively indecomposable remainder, thus giving rise to increments of feeling which are correspondingly small. (Pflüger's Archiv, 45, 113.)
It is surely in some such way as this that Weber's law is to be interpreted, if it ever is. The FechnerianMaasformeland the conception of it as an ultimate 'psychophysic law' will remain an 'idol of the den,' if ever there was one. Fechner himself indeed was a GermanGelehrterof the ideal type, at once simple and shrewd, a mystic and an experimentalist, homely and daring, and as loyal to facts as to his theories. But it would be terrible if even such a dear old man as this could saddle our Science forever with his patient whimsies, and, in a world so full of more nutritious objects of attention, compel all future students to plough through the difficulties, not only of his own works, but of the still drier ones written in his refutation. Those who desire this dreadful literature can find it; it has a 'disciplinary value;' but I will not even enumerate it in a foot-note. The only amusing part of it is that Fechner's critics should always feel bound, after smiting his theories hip and thigh and leaving not a stick of them standing, to wind up by saying that nevertheless to him belongs theimperishable glory, of first formulating them and thereby turning psychology into anexact science,
"'And everybody praised the dukeWho this great fight did win.''But what good came of it at last?'Quoth little Peterkin.'Why, that I cannot tell,' said he,'But 'twas a famous victory!'"
[406]Human Understanding, ii, xi, 1, 2.
[406]Human Understanding, ii, xi, 1, 2.
[407]Analysis, vol. i, p. 71.
[407]Analysis, vol. i, p. 71.
[408]The Senses and the Intellect, page 411.
[408]The Senses and the Intellect, page 411.
[409]Essays Philosophical and Theological: First Series, pp. 268-273.
[409]Essays Philosophical and Theological: First Series, pp. 268-273.
[410]Montgomery in 'Mind,' x, 527. Cf. also Lipps: Grundtatsachen des Seelenlebens, p. 579 ff.; and see below, Chapter XIX.
[410]Montgomery in 'Mind,' x, 527. Cf. also Lipps: Grundtatsachen des Seelenlebens, p. 579 ff.; and see below, Chapter XIX.
[411]Stumpf (Tonpsychologie, i, 116 ff.) tries to prove that the theory that all differences are differences of composition leads necessarily to an infinite regression when we try to determine the unit. It seems to me that in his particular reasoning he forgets the ultimate units of the mind-stuff theory. I cannot find the completed infinite to be one of the obstacles to belief in this theory, although I fully accept Stumpf's general reasoning, and am only too happy to find myself on the same side with such an exceptionally clear thinker. The strictures by Wahle in the Vierteljsch. f. wiss. Phil. seem to me to have no force, since the writer does not discriminate between resemblance of things obviously compound and that of things sensibly simple.
[411]Stumpf (Tonpsychologie, i, 116 ff.) tries to prove that the theory that all differences are differences of composition leads necessarily to an infinite regression when we try to determine the unit. It seems to me that in his particular reasoning he forgets the ultimate units of the mind-stuff theory. I cannot find the completed infinite to be one of the obstacles to belief in this theory, although I fully accept Stumpf's general reasoning, and am only too happy to find myself on the same side with such an exceptionally clear thinker. The strictures by Wahle in the Vierteljsch. f. wiss. Phil. seem to me to have no force, since the writer does not discriminate between resemblance of things obviously compound and that of things sensibly simple.
[412]Thebelief that the causesof effects felt by us to differ qualitatively are facts which differ only in quantity (e.g. that blue is caused by so many ether-waves, and yellow by a smaller number) must not be confounded with the feeling that the effects differ quantitatively themselves.
[412]Thebelief that the causesof effects felt by us to differ qualitatively are facts which differ only in quantity (e.g. that blue is caused by so many ether-waves, and yellow by a smaller number) must not be confounded with the feeling that the effects differ quantitatively themselves.
[413]Herr G. H. Schneider, in his youthful pamphlet (Die Unterscheidung, 1877) has tried to show that there are no positively existent elements of sensibility, no substantive qualities between which differences obtain, but that the terms we call such, the sensations, are but sums of differences, loci or starting points whence many directions of difference proceed. 'Unterschiedsempfindungs-Complexe' are what he calls them. This absurd carrying out of that 'principle of relativity' which we shall have to mention in Chapter XVII may serve as a counterpoise to the mind-stuff theory, which says that there are nothing but substantive sensations, and denies the existence of relations of difference between them at all.
[413]Herr G. H. Schneider, in his youthful pamphlet (Die Unterscheidung, 1877) has tried to show that there are no positively existent elements of sensibility, no substantive qualities between which differences obtain, but that the terms we call such, the sensations, are but sums of differences, loci or starting points whence many directions of difference proceed. 'Unterschiedsempfindungs-Complexe' are what he calls them. This absurd carrying out of that 'principle of relativity' which we shall have to mention in Chapter XVII may serve as a counterpoise to the mind-stuff theory, which says that there are nothing but substantive sensations, and denies the existence of relations of difference between them at all.
[414]Cf. Stumpf, Tonpsychologie, i, 121, and James Ward, Mind, i, 464.
[414]Cf. Stumpf, Tonpsychologie, i, 121, and James Ward, Mind, i, 464.
[415]The ordinary treatment of this is to call it the result of thefusionof a lot of sensations, in themselves separate. This is pure mythology, as the sequel will abundantly show.
[415]The ordinary treatment of this is to call it the result of thefusionof a lot of sensations, in themselves separate. This is pure mythology, as the sequel will abundantly show.
[416]"We often begin to be dimly aware of a difference in a sensation or group of sensations, before we can assign any definite character to that which differs. Thus we detect a strange or foreign ingredient or flavor in a familiar dish, or of tone in a familiar tune, and yet are wholly unable for a while to say what the intruder is like. Hence perhaps discrimination may be regarded as the earliest and most primordial mode of intellectual activity." (Sully: Outlines of Psychology, p. 142.Cf.also G. H. Schneider: Die Unterscheidung, pp. 9-10.)
[416]"We often begin to be dimly aware of a difference in a sensation or group of sensations, before we can assign any definite character to that which differs. Thus we detect a strange or foreign ingredient or flavor in a familiar dish, or of tone in a familiar tune, and yet are wholly unable for a while to say what the intruder is like. Hence perhaps discrimination may be regarded as the earliest and most primordial mode of intellectual activity." (Sully: Outlines of Psychology, p. 142.Cf.also G. H. Schneider: Die Unterscheidung, pp. 9-10.)
[417]In cases where the difference is slight, we may need, as previously remarked, to get the dying phase ofnas well as ofmbeforen-different-from-mis distinctly felt. In that case the inevitably successive feelings (as far as we can sever what is so continuous) would be four,m, difference, n, n-different-from-m. This slight additional complication alters not a whit the essential features of the case.
[417]In cases where the difference is slight, we may need, as previously remarked, to get the dying phase ofnas well as ofmbeforen-different-from-mis distinctly felt. In that case the inevitably successive feelings (as far as we can sever what is so continuous) would be four,m, difference, n, n-different-from-m. This slight additional complication alters not a whit the essential features of the case.
[418]Analysis. J. S. Mill's ed., ii, 17. Cf. also pp. 12, 14.
[418]Analysis. J. S. Mill's ed., ii, 17. Cf. also pp. 12, 14.
[419]There is only one obstacle, and that is our inveterate tendency to believe that where two things or qualities are compared, itmustbe that exact duplicates of both have got into the mind and have matched themselves against each other there. To which the first reply is the empirical one of "Look into the mind and see." When I recognize a weight which I now lift asinferiorto the one I just lifted; when, with my tooth now aching, I perceive the pain to belessintense than it was a minute ago; the two things in the mind which are compared would, by the authors I criticise, be admitted to be an actual sensation and an image in the memory. An image in the memory, by general consent of these same authors, is admitted to be a weaker thing than a sensation. Nevertheless it is in these instances judged stronger; that is, an object supposed to be known only in so far forth as this image represents it, is judged stronger. Ought not this to shake one's belief in the notion of separate representative 'ideas' weighing themselves, or being weighed by the Ego, against each other in the mind? And let it not be said that what makes us judge the felt pain to be weaker than the imagined one of a moment since is our recollection of thedownward nature of the shock of differencewhich we felt as we passed to the present moment from the one before it. That shock does undoubtedly have a different character according as it comes between terms of which the second diminishes or increases; and it may be admitted that in cases Where the past term is doubtfully remembered, the memory of the shock asplusorminus, might sometimes enable us to establish a relation which otherwise we should not perceive. But one could hardly expect the memory of this shock to overpower our actual comparison of terms, both of which arepresent(as are the image and the sensation in the case supposed), and make us judge the weaker one to be the stronger.—And hereupon comes the second reply: Suppose the mind does compare two realities by comparing two ideas of its own which represent them—what is gained? The same mystery is still there. The ideas must still beknown; and, as the attention in comparing oscillates from one to the other, past must be known with present just as before. If you must end by simply saying that your 'Ego,' whilstbeingneither the idea ofmnor the idea ofn, yet knows and compares both, why not allow your pulse of thought, whichisneither the thingmnor the thingn, to know and compare both directly? 'Tis but a question of how tonamethe facts least artificially. The egoistexplainsthem, by naming them as an Ego 'combining' or 'synthetizing' two ideas, no more than we do by naming them a pulse of thought knowing two facts.
[419]There is only one obstacle, and that is our inveterate tendency to believe that where two things or qualities are compared, itmustbe that exact duplicates of both have got into the mind and have matched themselves against each other there. To which the first reply is the empirical one of "Look into the mind and see." When I recognize a weight which I now lift asinferiorto the one I just lifted; when, with my tooth now aching, I perceive the pain to belessintense than it was a minute ago; the two things in the mind which are compared would, by the authors I criticise, be admitted to be an actual sensation and an image in the memory. An image in the memory, by general consent of these same authors, is admitted to be a weaker thing than a sensation. Nevertheless it is in these instances judged stronger; that is, an object supposed to be known only in so far forth as this image represents it, is judged stronger. Ought not this to shake one's belief in the notion of separate representative 'ideas' weighing themselves, or being weighed by the Ego, against each other in the mind? And let it not be said that what makes us judge the felt pain to be weaker than the imagined one of a moment since is our recollection of thedownward nature of the shock of differencewhich we felt as we passed to the present moment from the one before it. That shock does undoubtedly have a different character according as it comes between terms of which the second diminishes or increases; and it may be admitted that in cases Where the past term is doubtfully remembered, the memory of the shock asplusorminus, might sometimes enable us to establish a relation which otherwise we should not perceive. But one could hardly expect the memory of this shock to overpower our actual comparison of terms, both of which arepresent(as are the image and the sensation in the case supposed), and make us judge the weaker one to be the stronger.—And hereupon comes the second reply: Suppose the mind does compare two realities by comparing two ideas of its own which represent them—what is gained? The same mystery is still there. The ideas must still beknown; and, as the attention in comparing oscillates from one to the other, past must be known with present just as before. If you must end by simply saying that your 'Ego,' whilstbeingneither the idea ofmnor the idea ofn, yet knows and compares both, why not allow your pulse of thought, whichisneither the thingmnor the thingn, to know and compare both directly? 'Tis but a question of how tonamethe facts least artificially. The egoistexplainsthem, by naming them as an Ego 'combining' or 'synthetizing' two ideas, no more than we do by naming them a pulse of thought knowing two facts.
[420]I fear that few will be converted by my words, so obstinately do thinkers of all schools refuse to admit the unmediated function ofknowing a thing, and so incorrigibly do they substitutebeing the thingfor it. E.g., in the latest utterance of the spiritualistic philosophy (Bowne's Introduction to Psychological Theory, 1887, published only three days before this writing) one of the first sentences which catch my eye is this: "What remembers? The spiritualist says, the soul remembers; it abides across the years and the flow of the body, andgathering up its past, carries it with it" (p. 28). Why, for heaven's sake, O Bowne, cannot you say 'knows it'? If there is anything our soul doesnotdo to its past, it is to carry it with it.
[420]I fear that few will be converted by my words, so obstinately do thinkers of all schools refuse to admit the unmediated function ofknowing a thing, and so incorrigibly do they substitutebeing the thingfor it. E.g., in the latest utterance of the spiritualistic philosophy (Bowne's Introduction to Psychological Theory, 1887, published only three days before this writing) one of the first sentences which catch my eye is this: "What remembers? The spiritualist says, the soul remembers; it abides across the years and the flow of the body, andgathering up its past, carries it with it" (p. 28). Why, for heaven's sake, O Bowne, cannot you say 'knows it'? If there is anything our soul doesnotdo to its past, it is to carry it with it.
[421]Sensations of Tone, 2d English Ed., p. 65.
[421]Sensations of Tone, 2d English Ed., p. 65.
[422]Psychology, i, 345.
[422]Psychology, i, 345.
[423]A Budget of Paradoxes, p. 380.
[423]A Budget of Paradoxes, p. 380.
[424]The explanation I offer presupposes that a difference too faint to have any direct effect in the way of making the mind notice itper sewill nevertheless be strong enough to keep its 'terms' from calling up identical associates. It seems probable from many observations that this is the case. All the facts of 'unconscious' inference are proofs of it. We say a painting 'looks' like the work of a certain artist, though we cannot name the characteristic differentiæ. We see by a man's face that he is sincere, though we can give no definite reason for our faith. The facts of sense-perception quoted from Helmholtz a few pages below will be additional examples. Here is another good one, though it will perhaps be easier understood after reading the chapter on Space-perception than now. Take two stereoscopic slides and represent on each half-slide a pair of spots,aandb, but make their distances such that thea's are equidistant on both slides, whilst theb's are nearer together on slide 1 than on slide 2. Make moreover the distanceab = ab'''and the distanceab' = ab''. Then look successively at the two slides stereoscopically, so that thea's in both are directly fixated (that is fall on the two foveæ, or centres of distinctest vision). Thea's will then appear single, and so probably will theb's. But the now single-seemingbon slide 1 will look nearer, whilst that on slide 2 will look farther than thea. But, if the diagrams are rightly drawn,bandb'''must affect 'identical' spots, spots equally far to the right of the fovea,bin the left eye andb'''in the right eye. The same is true ofb'andb''. Identical spots are spots whose sensations cannot possibly be discriminated as such. Since in these two observations, however, they give rise to such opposite perceptions of distance, and prompt such opposite tendencies to movement (since in slide 1 weconvergein looking fromatob, whilst in slide 2 wediverge), it follows that two processes which occasion feelings quite indistinguishable to direct consciousness may nevertheless be each allied with disparate associates both of a sensorial and of a motor kind. Cf. Donders, Archiv f. Ophthalmologie, Bd. 13 (1867). The basis of his essay is that we cannotfeelon which eye any particular element of a compound picture falls, but its effects on our total perception differ in the two eyes.
[424]The explanation I offer presupposes that a difference too faint to have any direct effect in the way of making the mind notice itper sewill nevertheless be strong enough to keep its 'terms' from calling up identical associates. It seems probable from many observations that this is the case. All the facts of 'unconscious' inference are proofs of it. We say a painting 'looks' like the work of a certain artist, though we cannot name the characteristic differentiæ. We see by a man's face that he is sincere, though we can give no definite reason for our faith. The facts of sense-perception quoted from Helmholtz a few pages below will be additional examples. Here is another good one, though it will perhaps be easier understood after reading the chapter on Space-perception than now. Take two stereoscopic slides and represent on each half-slide a pair of spots,aandb, but make their distances such that thea's are equidistant on both slides, whilst theb's are nearer together on slide 1 than on slide 2. Make moreover the distanceab = ab'''and the distanceab' = ab''. Then look successively at the two slides stereoscopically, so that thea's in both are directly fixated (that is fall on the two foveæ, or centres of distinctest vision). Thea's will then appear single, and so probably will theb's. But the now single-seemingbon slide 1 will look nearer, whilst that on slide 2 will look farther than thea. But, if the diagrams are rightly drawn,bandb'''must affect 'identical' spots, spots equally far to the right of the fovea,bin the left eye andb'''in the right eye. The same is true ofb'andb''. Identical spots are spots whose sensations cannot possibly be discriminated as such. Since in these two observations, however, they give rise to such opposite perceptions of distance, and prompt such opposite tendencies to movement (since in slide 1 weconvergein looking fromatob, whilst in slide 2 wediverge), it follows that two processes which occasion feelings quite indistinguishable to direct consciousness may nevertheless be each allied with disparate associates both of a sensorial and of a motor kind. Cf. Donders, Archiv f. Ophthalmologie, Bd. 13 (1867). The basis of his essay is that we cannotfeelon which eye any particular element of a compound picture falls, but its effects on our total perception differ in the two eyes.
[425]A. W. Volkmann: Ueber den Einfluss der Uebung, etc., Leipzig Berichte, Math.-phys. Classe. x, 1858, p. 67.
[425]A. W. Volkmann: Ueber den Einfluss der Uebung, etc., Leipzig Berichte, Math.-phys. Classe. x, 1858, p. 67.
[426]Ibid.Tabelle 1, p. 43.
[426]Ibid.Tabelle 1, p. 43.
[427]Professor Lipps accounts for the tactile discrimination of the blind in a way which (divested of its 'mythological' assumptions) seems to me essentially to agree with this. Stronger ideas are supposed to raise weaker ones over the threshold of consciousness by fusing with them, the tendency to fuse being proportional to the similarity of the ideasCf.Grundtatsachen, etc., pp. 232-3; also pp. 118, 492, 526-7.
[427]Professor Lipps accounts for the tactile discrimination of the blind in a way which (divested of its 'mythological' assumptions) seems to me essentially to agree with this. Stronger ideas are supposed to raise weaker ones over the threshold of consciousness by fusing with them, the tendency to fuse being proportional to the similarity of the ideasCf.Grundtatsachen, etc., pp. 232-3; also pp. 118, 492, 526-7.
[428]Sensations of Tone, 2d. English Edition, p. 62.
[428]Sensations of Tone, 2d. English Edition, p. 62.
[429]Compare as to this, however, what I said above, Chapter V,pp. 172-176.
[429]Compare as to this, however, what I said above, Chapter V,pp. 172-176.
[430]When a person squints, double images are formed in the centre of the field. As a matter of fact, most squinters are found blind of one eye, or almost so; and it has long been supposed amongst ophthalmologists that the blindness is a secondary affection superinduced by the voluntary suppression of one of the sets of double images, in other words by the positive and persistent refusal to use one of the eyes. This explanation of the blindness has, however, been called in question of late years. See, for a brief account of the matter, O. F. Wadsworth in Boston Med. and Surg. Journ., cxvi, 49 (Jan. 20, '87), and the replies by Derby and others a little later.—W. J.
[430]When a person squints, double images are formed in the centre of the field. As a matter of fact, most squinters are found blind of one eye, or almost so; and it has long been supposed amongst ophthalmologists that the blindness is a secondary affection superinduced by the voluntary suppression of one of the sets of double images, in other words by the positive and persistent refusal to use one of the eyes. This explanation of the blindness has, however, been called in question of late years. See, for a brief account of the matter, O. F. Wadsworth in Boston Med. and Surg. Journ., cxvi, 49 (Jan. 20, '87), and the replies by Derby and others a little later.—W. J.
[431]Tonempfindungen, Dritte Auflage, pp. 102-107.—The reader who has assimilated the contents of ourChapter V, above, will doubtless have remarked that the illustrious physiologist has fallen, in these paragraphs, into that sort of interpretation of the facts which we there tried to prove erroneous. Helmholtz, however, is no more careless than most psychologists in confounding together the object perceived, the organic conditions of the perception, and the sensations whichwouldbe excited by the several parts of the object, or by the several organic conditions,providedthey came into action separately or were separately attended to, and in assuming that what is true of any one of these sorts of fact must be true of the other sorts also. If each organic condition or part of the object is there, its sensation, he thinks, must be there also, only in a 'synthetic'—which is indistinguishable from what the authors whom we formerly reviewed called an 'unconscious'—state. I will not repeat arguments sufficiently detailed in the earlier chapter (see especiallypp. 170-176), but simply say that what he calls the 'fusion of manysensationsinto one' is really the production of one sensation by the co-operation of manyorganic conditions; and that what perception fails to discriminate (when it is 'synthetic') is notsensationsalready existent but not singled out, but new objectivefacts, judged truer than the facts already synthetically perceived—two views of the solid body, many harmonic tones, instead of one view and one tone, states of the eyeball-muscles thitherto unknown, and the like. These new facts, when first discovered, are known in states of consciousness never till that moment exactly realized before, states of consciousness which at the same time judge them to be determinations of the samematter of factwhich was previously realized. All that Helmholtz says of the conditions which hinder and further analysis applies just as naturally to the analysis, through the advent ofnewfeelings, ofobjectsinto their elements, as to the analysis of aggregate feelings into elementary feelings supposed to have been hidden in them all the while.The reader can himself apply this criticism to the following passages from Lotze and Stumpf respectively, which I quote because they are the ablest expressions of the view opposed to my own. Both authors, it seems to me, commit the psychologist's fallacy, and allow their later knowledge of the things felt to be foisted into their account of the primitive way of feeling them.Lotze says: "It is indubitable that the simultaneous assault of a variety of different stimuli on different senses, or even on the same sense, puts us into a state of confused general feeling in which we are certainly not conscious of clearly distinguishing the different impressions. Still it does not follow that in such a case we have a positive perception of an actual unity of the contents of our ideas, arising from their mixture; our state of mind seems rather to consist in (1) the consciousness of our inability to separate what really has remained diverse, and (2) in the general feeling of the disturbance produced in the economy of our body by the simultaneous assault of the stimuli.... Not that the sensations melt into one another, but simply that the act of distinguishing them is absent; and this again certainly not so far that the fact of the difference remains entirely unperceived, but only so far as to prevent us from determining the amount of the difference, and from apprehending other relations between the different impressions. Anyone who is annoyed at one and the same time by glowing heat, dazzling light, deafening noise, and an offensive smell, will certainly not fuse these disparate sensations into a single one with a single content which could be sensuously perceived; they remain for him in separation, and he merely finds it impossible to be conscious of one of them apart from the others. But, further, he will have a feeling of discomfort—what I mentioned above as thesecondconstituent of his whole state. For every stimulus which produces in consciousness a definite content of sensation is also a definite degree of disturbance, and therefore makes a call upon the forces of the nerves; and the sum of these little changes, which in their character as disturbances are not so diverse as the contents of consciousness they give rise to, produce the general feeling which, added to the inability to distinguish, deludes us into the belief in an actual absence of diversity in our sensations. It is only in some such way as this, again, that I can imagine that state which is sometimes described as the beginning of our whole education, a state which in itself is supposed to be simple, and to be afterwards divided into different sensations by an activity of separation. No activity of separation in the world could establish differences where no real diversity existed; for it would have nothing to guide it to the places where it was to establish them, or to indicate the width it was to give them." (Metaphysic, § 260, English translation.)Stumpf writes as follows: "Of coexistent sensations there are always a large number undiscriminated in consciousness, or (if one prefer to call what is undiscriminated unconscious) in the soul. They are, however, not fused into a simple quality. When, on entering a room, we receive sensations of odor and warmth together, without expressly attending to either, the two qualities of sensation are not, as it were, an entirely new simple quality, which first at the moment in which attention analytically steps inchanges intosmell and warmth.... In such cases we find ourselves in presence of an indefinable, unnamable total of feeling. And when, after successfully analyzing this total, we call it back to memory, as it was in its unanalyzed state, and compare it with the elements we have found, the latter (as it seems to me) may be recognized as real parts contained in the former, and the former seen to be their sum. So, for example, when we clearly perceive that the content of our sensation of oil of peppermint is partly a sensation of taste and partly one of temperature." (Tonpsychologie, i, 107.)I should prefer to say that we perceive that objective fact, known to us as the peppermint taste, to contain those other objective facts known as aromatic or sapid quality, and coldness, respectively. No ground to suppose that the vehicle of this last very complex perception has any identity with the earlier psychosis—least of all is contained in it.
[431]Tonempfindungen, Dritte Auflage, pp. 102-107.—The reader who has assimilated the contents of ourChapter V, above, will doubtless have remarked that the illustrious physiologist has fallen, in these paragraphs, into that sort of interpretation of the facts which we there tried to prove erroneous. Helmholtz, however, is no more careless than most psychologists in confounding together the object perceived, the organic conditions of the perception, and the sensations whichwouldbe excited by the several parts of the object, or by the several organic conditions,providedthey came into action separately or were separately attended to, and in assuming that what is true of any one of these sorts of fact must be true of the other sorts also. If each organic condition or part of the object is there, its sensation, he thinks, must be there also, only in a 'synthetic'—which is indistinguishable from what the authors whom we formerly reviewed called an 'unconscious'—state. I will not repeat arguments sufficiently detailed in the earlier chapter (see especiallypp. 170-176), but simply say that what he calls the 'fusion of manysensationsinto one' is really the production of one sensation by the co-operation of manyorganic conditions; and that what perception fails to discriminate (when it is 'synthetic') is notsensationsalready existent but not singled out, but new objectivefacts, judged truer than the facts already synthetically perceived—two views of the solid body, many harmonic tones, instead of one view and one tone, states of the eyeball-muscles thitherto unknown, and the like. These new facts, when first discovered, are known in states of consciousness never till that moment exactly realized before, states of consciousness which at the same time judge them to be determinations of the samematter of factwhich was previously realized. All that Helmholtz says of the conditions which hinder and further analysis applies just as naturally to the analysis, through the advent ofnewfeelings, ofobjectsinto their elements, as to the analysis of aggregate feelings into elementary feelings supposed to have been hidden in them all the while.
The reader can himself apply this criticism to the following passages from Lotze and Stumpf respectively, which I quote because they are the ablest expressions of the view opposed to my own. Both authors, it seems to me, commit the psychologist's fallacy, and allow their later knowledge of the things felt to be foisted into their account of the primitive way of feeling them.
Lotze says: "It is indubitable that the simultaneous assault of a variety of different stimuli on different senses, or even on the same sense, puts us into a state of confused general feeling in which we are certainly not conscious of clearly distinguishing the different impressions. Still it does not follow that in such a case we have a positive perception of an actual unity of the contents of our ideas, arising from their mixture; our state of mind seems rather to consist in (1) the consciousness of our inability to separate what really has remained diverse, and (2) in the general feeling of the disturbance produced in the economy of our body by the simultaneous assault of the stimuli.... Not that the sensations melt into one another, but simply that the act of distinguishing them is absent; and this again certainly not so far that the fact of the difference remains entirely unperceived, but only so far as to prevent us from determining the amount of the difference, and from apprehending other relations between the different impressions. Anyone who is annoyed at one and the same time by glowing heat, dazzling light, deafening noise, and an offensive smell, will certainly not fuse these disparate sensations into a single one with a single content which could be sensuously perceived; they remain for him in separation, and he merely finds it impossible to be conscious of one of them apart from the others. But, further, he will have a feeling of discomfort—what I mentioned above as thesecondconstituent of his whole state. For every stimulus which produces in consciousness a definite content of sensation is also a definite degree of disturbance, and therefore makes a call upon the forces of the nerves; and the sum of these little changes, which in their character as disturbances are not so diverse as the contents of consciousness they give rise to, produce the general feeling which, added to the inability to distinguish, deludes us into the belief in an actual absence of diversity in our sensations. It is only in some such way as this, again, that I can imagine that state which is sometimes described as the beginning of our whole education, a state which in itself is supposed to be simple, and to be afterwards divided into different sensations by an activity of separation. No activity of separation in the world could establish differences where no real diversity existed; for it would have nothing to guide it to the places where it was to establish them, or to indicate the width it was to give them." (Metaphysic, § 260, English translation.)
Stumpf writes as follows: "Of coexistent sensations there are always a large number undiscriminated in consciousness, or (if one prefer to call what is undiscriminated unconscious) in the soul. They are, however, not fused into a simple quality. When, on entering a room, we receive sensations of odor and warmth together, without expressly attending to either, the two qualities of sensation are not, as it were, an entirely new simple quality, which first at the moment in which attention analytically steps inchanges intosmell and warmth.... In such cases we find ourselves in presence of an indefinable, unnamable total of feeling. And when, after successfully analyzing this total, we call it back to memory, as it was in its unanalyzed state, and compare it with the elements we have found, the latter (as it seems to me) may be recognized as real parts contained in the former, and the former seen to be their sum. So, for example, when we clearly perceive that the content of our sensation of oil of peppermint is partly a sensation of taste and partly one of temperature." (Tonpsychologie, i, 107.)
I should prefer to say that we perceive that objective fact, known to us as the peppermint taste, to contain those other objective facts known as aromatic or sapid quality, and coldness, respectively. No ground to suppose that the vehicle of this last very complex perception has any identity with the earlier psychosis—least of all is contained in it.