Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/488

 the outer layer of the neuroglia, and in these the separate cortical cells, and in these the cell-nuclei, and so on. All physiological processes and states of the organs and their parts are in him; but never a perception, sensation, idea, etc.

It is just the same with a thought and with thinking. Avenarius says expressly: “Analysis of that which is called ‘I’ tells us indeed that it has a brain and thoughts, but it never tells us that the brain has the thoughts. A thought is indeed a thought of my Ego; but it is not therefore a thought of my brain, any more than my brain is the brain of my thought. That is to say: The brain is not the dwelling-place, seat, producer; it is not the instrument or organ, not the supporter or substratum, etc., of thought. Thought is not the inhabitant or commander, not the other half or side, etc., but neither is it a product; it is not even a physiological function, or merely some state of the brain.”

All functions of the brain are qualitatively the same, even as change-processes; they vary only according to form, magnitude, direction, connexions, etc. “Thought” is only the designation and characterisation for the starting of a change-process, which is not peripherally but centrally conditioned, and which is therefore not a primary occurrence, but a reproduction; and “thinking” is only the designation of the process of combining thoughts in series.

But still the expression, “We have in us perception, thinking, etc.,” may have a true meaning. By the proposition “London is on the Thames” I do not mean to say that the sound-complex “London” is on the Thames, but “that which is designated as London”; and in the same way by the proposition “We have in us a thought” I may mean “We have in us what is designated and characterised in reference to its specific conditions as ‘thought’“. But that is the change-process specifically determinable by its constitutionand characteristics, and this we indubitably have in us. So long as I mean to say only this and nothing else I am correct.

But that is just what the prevalent Psychology and Philosophy does not mean to say; it is rather of opinion that in addition to the physiological process we have something else in us, a metaphysico-animistic something, by means of which the physical first becomes, as it is called, “psychical”; e.g., a perception by means of which we project our impressions, a thinking by means of which we first attain to thoughts, etc. Knowing how easily our language with its constant anthropomorphism misleads us into errors, Avenarius urges that we should never say that perception, sensation, thought, consciousness, etc., are in us, but merely