Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/480

 the general emotional attitude, the movement of feeling, moods, etc., are assigned to the characteristic of varying relevance as thus described.

(5) The mode in which a change-process is affected by practice and training is defined as a further characteristic,—it is called familiarity; and to this Avenarius assigns those E-values which are most influenced by habit, i.e., the three great groups of statements, “real,” “known,” and “certain,” with all their variations.

If now, instead of a vital-difference of the first order, one of a higher order introduces itself, that is, a variation of work, then the variation of the change-process may have special reference either to the form, or to the familiarity, or to the totality of the inner connexions, etc.

(1) In variation of the form we get on the one hand a deviation from the familiar form, on the other hand a reapproximation towards it. To these are assigned the groups of statements expressed in terms like “differently,” “in other manner,” etc., and “the same,” “in like manner,” etc.

(2) When the familiarity of the change-process varies, then we get the statements which depend upon varied, i.e., diminished, familiarity: “less real or not real,” “unknown,” “uncertain,” etc.

(3) When the totality of the connexion of the inner change-processes varies, these latter become more active, more differentiated, more articulated. The progressive perception of finer details (discrimination) is made dependent upon this—a most interesting inclusion of the problem of attention in the general connexion between E-values and the change-processes of system C.

Now, readers may ask to what purpose all these classifications are made. In assigning those great groups of E-values to certain conditions defined from a merely logical point of view, Avenarius does not purpose to explain the content of these E-values, but he is enabled to determine the general form of their dependence and to find the unit, without which a general view of the world is impossible. He paves the way—not for the psychologist in the metaphysical sense—but for the physiologist, who is now confronted with the task of setting forth what those conditions, which empiriocriticism defines in a purely logical manner, really are, of what physiological processes they consist. Without this methodological investigation, the physiologist is perplexed with superabundance of details, which, however exact they may be, he is not able to unify.

We must say one word more as to the way in which