Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/158

 NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 147 processes. In particular the question is entirely left aside, what physio- logical significance the unconscious processes may have. The aim is to make the " fundamental facts of the mental life," that is to say, the mental and spiritual phenomena which compose or must compose the content of Psychology in the narrower sense, and further of the Theory of Knowledge, ^Esthetics and Ethics, build themselves up, so to speak, out of the ultimate elements and by means of the most general laws. The ultimate elements are the simple Sensations, or the component parts of them, so far as these admit of being psychologically discovered ; the laws are the laws of Associa- tion on the ground of Similarity and Simultaneous Concurrence in the mind, and the law of the " Narrowness of Consciousness ". To these add the law of " Fusion " which results from them on certain presuppositions. On the other hand, all forces and powers are rejected that claim to be any- thing else than another expression for the joint action of these elements and laws, also Attention and Will so far as appearing to be active factors of a special kind. The whole work is a thorough-going Association- psychology ; it therefore shows itself everywhere dominated by the con- trast of the two kinds of Association. The mental life is represented as a result of the mechanism of Association, but without prejudice to its dignity, and in particular without impeaching the freedom of the will, or rather of the personality so far as it has moral significance. " The first chapters of the book prepare the ground. They mark the place and problem of (pure) psychology, criticise hurtful prejudices and discuss the most general facts. With reference to these chapters, the reviewer is right when he says the interest of the work is " more in the treatment of general questions than in the details ". On the other hand, the very contrary is true of the following chapters, left entirely unnoticed >y the reviewer, and comprising over 500 pages. They certainly have in view, like every scientific investigation, to gain knowledge as general as possible ; but only on the ground of analysis of the manifold facts, going into the minutest particulars. Still less grounded is the affirmation that the work is one " where the author's aim is chiefly to set forth what is already known ". Of the disclosure of entirely new, till now entirely unheard-of, mental processes, naturally there can be little to say. On the other hand, the theory is in important respects an entirely new one ; and where this is not the case, at least it modifies existing theories and places them in new points of view. Finally, I even raise the claim to have been the first to put, and consequently the first to seek an answer to, many important questions. The views of others are, on principle, only brought in so far as the criticism of them appeared serviceable to my own construc- tive aims ; so that the reader would find himself misled, who, trusting to my reviewer, expected to learn from the book " what general conceptions have become most prominent in contemporary German psychology, and what kind of modifications in them are proposed by a German critic". Here the accentuation of German psychology is again misleading, since with regard to my general conceptions I believe myself to owe much to English psychology. " Of the first chapters of the book I will say no more. Chapters ix.-xv. (pp. 177-362) investigate the flow of representations as it develops itself under the influence of the relations (Verhaltnisse) of similarity (agreement, affinity) and contrast ; cc. xvi.-xxii. (pp. 362-451), the flow of representa- tions as it shapes itself under the influence of " Beziehungen," that is to say, of the associations resting on experience. In these sections many questions of detail had to be discussed, which elsewhere are not commonly raised. How on the ground of " Verhaltnisse " and " Beziehungen " repre- sentations support or impede one another, how connected series of repre- sentations separate from one another and become firmer, how tracks