Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/256

 242 SHADWORTH H. HODGSON : ation, and so on, from one another, and consequently considering the phenomena attributed to one as different in kind from those attributed to others ; a method which, however convenient for psychological experimentation, would, if assumed as a basis in philosophy, not only lead to conclusions contrary to the plainest facts of experience, but would land us once more in philosophical atomism, from which, and from the a priori assumptions which it seemed to necessitate, it has taken us a whole century to escape. Experience after all, not psychological theory, is the ultimate source and test of knowledge. Will Dr. Stout maintain, that his two eminent German authorities have made it impossible to suppose that we can ever in immediate perception hear, say, a postman's double rap, or distinguish it in immediate perception from a single rap? Yet that such simple experiences as these are facts of daily and hourly occurrence, and that they supply the simplest instances of our perception of sequence, is all that I am maintaining in my chapter ii., as the result of an analysis of the sequence C, D, following on one of note G alone. Next as to the case of duration, as in hearing a single note C. Here, indeed, and here only, apart from Dr. Stout's misconceptions, do I seem to come into real antagonism with the opinion of one of Dr. Stout's German authorities, Herr Schumann, whom, at page 3, he quotes as saying : " For me, a tone-sensation of one second's duration is a unity not really capable of further division, a unity which can give rise to a plurality of judgments judgments re- ferring to intensity, pitch, timbre and temporal duration ". No notice is here taken of the fact, that some duration is an essential and inseparable element in the perception of every tone-sensa- tion, though its relative duration as compared to others may no doubt be the object of a judgment, because, as the passage quoted proceeds (in psychological fashion) to argue, " the simplest as- sumption is that a tone which lasts a short time for that very reason affects us differently from a tone which lasts a longer time". I, on the other hand, being mainly occupied, not with judg- ments as to the relative length of durations, nor with ascertaining the minimum of duration requisite for audibility, nor yet with the length of duration within which no differences are audible, but with duration as an inseparable element of heard sounds, and building on this inseparability as an undeniable fact, have ex- pressly remarked, that " memory in its essential characteristic, namely, retention of a past in a present moment, has now been shown to take its place among the ultimate facts of experience, being involved in the simplest cases of perception, for which in fact it is but another name " (Metaphysic of Experience, vol. i. p. 71). The fact of retention, when consciousness is the thing spoken of, is directly involved in duration, since duration of itself implies difference between former and latter parts in time, though this difference can only be positively observed when there is some difference in the content perceived, that is, when sequence