Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/122

 106 CRITICAL NOTICES : them distinct series of beliefs which remain isolated " ; l and how contradictions are thus developed of which the individual remains totally unconscious. And these incoherences become still more marked among the frivolous, a type which M. Paulhan has admirably portrayed. Here the mind is incapable of reflexion or of following a train of reasoning. It is at the mercy of every impression, and at each moment a new one drives out and effaces the preceding. 2 Thus the amount of incoherence and contradic- tion of thought may be in a general way connected with the rela- tive absence or decay of systematic association, but all incoherence and contradiction cannot be so interpreted. There is the difference between one man and another in the degree of clearness of his thinking. Why is it that our ideas are sometimes confused and at others distinct ? No doubt, as a rule, when they are most distinct, we find a greater degree of systematic connexion. But the degree of their systematic connexion does not wholly produce their degree of distinctness ; their degree of distinctness in its turn influences their degree of systematic connexion. A vague idea has less power to suggest other ideas which are identical with it than a clear idea. Its vagueness renders it unsteady, and it is liable to be effaced by any idea which is clearer; it is relatively worthless as a centre of systematic association. For in systematic association we require one idea to develop other ideas which are at some precise point identical with it identical as examples of its type, as means to its end, as conditions or consequences of it. But the vague idea has no precise point ; it loosely suggests now r an idea connected with it in one way, now one connected in another : and from its inability to be precise and to distinguish arise all those errors and contradictions which we class as confusions of thought. Illogical thought must then be held to have a source distinct from the degree of systematic as- sociation ; although on the other hand an idea can only reach its highest degree of distinctness when we have systematically asso- ciated with it all the ideas from which w r e have to distinguish it. Another source of error and sophistry which cannot be explained by M. Paulhan's principle is that which he mentions as due to the influence of sentiment. 3 Here we must again reiterate that we cannot oppose without qualification the intellect and the sentiments. It is not the love of truth which produces sophistry, but sentiments other than the love of truth. Each sentiment organises a certain amount of thought, and this thought may be relatively free from error where it represents the means to a given end, for the desires subordinate to the sentiment desire to attain their ends. But it is where a doubt is cast on the value or right- ness or wisdom of these ends from the point of view of some other sentiment that sophistry arises. For desire must defend its end against competing desires : and truth may not enter the 1 P. 330. 2 P. 342. s P. 310 et seq.