Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/210

 CONCEIVABILITY AND THE INFINITE. 199 merely marks by a distinct name his recognition of an operation different from imagination, and which is implied in all comparison of objects. What may be the peculiar psychic elements present in the operation he does not neces- sarily know, nor express when he uses the name. 1 Arguing from the analogy of the visual element in vision, one might conclude that what is actually present in con- sciousness in comparing lengths, for example, is the distinc- tive element or sensation which is present in combination with other elements (and consequently in a modified form) in all our experience of extended objects, and which, in the act of comparing objects, may be brought into sufficient prominence to be considered, for the moment, alone, and alone compared with its kind. When we make the attempt to call it into clear consciousness, the element appears as modified by, and in combination with, others ; but it is not improbable that, in the act of comparison, it obtains in its pure state sufficient recognition to make possible a compari- son with a similar element also in its pure state. However, whether we can describe just what is present during the act or not, we may be sure that a mental separation of two objects into their elements is necessary in order to a recog- nition of them as in some points similar and in some dissimilar. In view of the foregoing, I would, therefore, regard the fact as beyond all doubt, that there are mental operations differing distinctly from imagination, in that certain elements, of which we have usually, as single elements, no analytic consciousness but which are merged with others into an indivisible whole, are brought for the time being into such prominence as to be compared individually with similar elements and recognised as like or unlike. We cannot hold these up to inspection as single elements, but from the fact of the comparison, about which there can be no doubt, we may be very sure that the operation in question has taken place. Now when we return to the particular conception that we have been considering, that of an infinite line, we find it 1 Kant seems to have despaired of the possibility of ever making this analysis : " Dieser Schematismus unseres Verstandes, in Ansehung der Erscheinungen und ihrer blossen Form, ist eine verborgene Kunst in den Tiel'en der menschlichen Seele, deren wahre Handgritte wir der Natur schwerlich jemals abrathen und sie unverdeckt vor Augen legen werden" (Kritik d. reinen Vernunft: " Von dem Schematismus der reinen Verstandes- begriffe ") ; yet Kant did not doubt the existence of the operation.