Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/476

 increase of nourishment (term 1). The characteristic expression “he himself does not know, etc.,” shows us neatly how the subsequent work-values, being habitual and familiar (term 2), attract no attention to themselves. It is the usual cigar which the merchant smokes, it is the usual newspaper which he reads, familiar in form and type, in its political views, etc.,—and it is also the familiar environment in which he finds himself, so familiar that he no longer notices its arrangement, its component parts and their qualities. As yet then we are still dealing with a vital-series of the first order like those mentioned above. (The two first terms of a vital-series of the higher order coincide with the terms of a vital-series of the first order.)

Now something fresh intervenes, the telegram: “Jonas & Co. have failed”. What is now introduced no longer fits in with the course of a vital-series of the first order as sketched above (p. 458). An increase of work is indeed given, but its value is no longer that of a habitual one. Here then we have the varied relations of the second case, a vital-difference of the higher order, characterised by the appearance of a variation in work (term 3).

All that the merchant thinks and does in the time subsequent to the receipt of the news, all his action and thought, is to be taken as dependent upon the very varied and manifold adjustments of system C, which finally annul the variation which has been introduced—in so far as system C asserts itself under the diminution of its vital maintenance-value (term 4). In conclusion, however, such a change is brought about in system C as actually annuls the variation of work. Upon this depends the concluding E-value of the individual in question: “Thank God, I am safe from the worst”.

I have already mentioned that the adjustments of system C in annulling its changes may be most varied in kind. In the first volume of the Kritik Avenarius submits them to a searching investigation. From this I select only the distinction of changes conceivable in system C into ectosystematic and endosystematic. Those changes are called ectosystematic which, though their first phases occur in system C, complete their course outside of it, as in movements of the limbs. Those changes are called endosystematic which take place entirely within system C. When, for instance, something is lost, the vague running and searching for it depends upon ectosystematic changes; the reflective consideration of the circumstances in which it was mislaid or lost depends upon endosystematic changes. When philosophers try to solve the