Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/74

 60 GEORGE GALLOWAY: sciousness the act of reflexion which marks off the. percept from the perceiving mind would not be possible. Neverthe- less we must guard against a rigid division of perceptual from conceptual experience. For the process of development is continuous, and in perception itself unconscious inference is present. Even in the higher animal self-conservation implies a rudimentary capacity to draw conclusions. Only, however, on the level of conscious generalisation can indi- vidual experience receive a name and acquire a meaning. In his Lectures on Naturalism and Agnosticism Prof. Ward has justly insisted that conceptual thought is developed by intersubjective intercourse. In other words it involves language, and therefore a social system. It is not as an isolated individual but as a member of society that man has universal] sed his experience. On the other hand, we must bear in mind that intersubjective intercourse could not create an intellectual realm apart, but has only developed to clear consciousness elements implicitly present at the perceptual If, then, the distinction of outer and inner experience only becomes possible on the level of conceptual thought, how and why was it made and elaborated then ? Great certainty on such a matter can hardly be expected. I shall first ex- amine an ingenious theory on this point which is originally due to K. Avenarius. It is termed the fallacy of introjection. The theory is reproduced by Prof. Ward in his Lectures on Naturalism and Agnosticism, and for convenience I shall take his statements in explanation. Substantially the pro- cess called introjection rests on an error which is due to common thought and language. Its essence "consists in applying to the experiences of my fellow-creatures concep- tions which have no counterpart in my own. ... Of another common thought and language lead me to assume not merely that his experience is distinct from mine, but that it is in him in the form of sensations, perceptions, and other ' internal states '. . . . Thus while my environment is an external world for me, his experience is for me an internal world in him." 1 Consequently as we apply this conception to the experience of others, and they do the same for us, we are also led to apply it to ourselves, and so to construe our own experience in the light " of a false but highly plausible The foregoing solution of the problem is plausible, but, as it stands, somewhat artificial and not quite convincing. 1 Naturalism and Agnosticism, vol. ii., p. 172.