Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/650

 634 THE AMERICAN fOVRNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

observation of conduct like our own and inference of experience like that of which we are conscious. Even the self-consciousness involved is not metaphysical, but as argued above is as true a phenomenon as any sense-percept. Self-consciousness for the scientist is a phenomenon of which he is aware without the inter- vention of the senses; it is both the awareness and the phenome- non, which are one. With the metaphysical nature of the phe- nomenon, as a scientist, he has nothing to do ; and his knowledge of it no more implies a metaphysical method than his awareness of the external, by aid of sensation. Introspection is a variety of observation. Moreover, the trustworthy conviction of the similarity of human experience is not dependent on any meta- physical doctrine of " our organic unity in the one Self ; " it is not peculiar to those who hold that doctrine, but common to all normal men, the trustworthiness of the conviction being suffi- ciently authenticated without aid from any metaphysical element. Even the strongest sympathy which aids our understanding of an associate is adequately explained by the unmetaphysical process that has been traced, supplemented by the fact that our knowledge of another's situation arouses feelings in us like those which we believe are going on in him, since an imagined, remembered, or anticipated situation can arouse feelings as truly as an actual one. Neither can it be maintained that " ejective " interpretation of another's experience involves a metaphysical element. " Eject- ive " interpretation is called into being by our inability to secure knowledge of another's affective states by any metaphysical short- cut. That we form "ejective" interpretation of the experience of others means that we do not understand the experience of another until we have had the like ( in the only sphere open to our direct appreciation, that is) in our own consciousness; and there- after, when we see another in similar conditions, and manifesting activities similar to those which accompanied our own experience, we infer that he is having an experience like the one we had when we were in such conditions and acting as he does; or, in other words, we eject our knowledge of our own previous experience as an explanatory element, into our notion of him. If he is stung by a wasp, and the spot grows swollen and red with a white center,