Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/369

 356 F. H. BRADLEY I tion," but I dissent from very much that has been joined to the word. The English school in my opinion has failed to show the origin of the higher phenomena, because in its starting-point it has been seriously mistaken. Both the elements and the laws, into which (like all science) it has analysed the given, have been formulated in such a way that successful advance from them seems not possible. And the main cause is to be found in that dogmatic Atomism, which (whatever it might be as a statement of first principles) had no right to interfere with an empirical science. But I will not repeat a criticism which elsewhere I felt bound to urge to the extreme, and perhaps urged too harshly. I would rather feel that, in helping (so far as I can help) to modify the starting-point and to make progress easier, I am endeavouring at least to work in the spirit of the best English tradition. For more reasons than one I cannot pretend to offer here the satisfactory treatment of so large a subject. I shall attempt in the first place to mark out the ground by point- ing to the main characteristic of Thought ; I shall then try to show rapidly how this feature has arisen, from what foundation, and by what laws ; and in the third place shall deal with some difficulties. I shall have everywhere to be so brief as to require the utmost indulgence of the reader, and will at once begin with the first of my tasks. What is the chief characteristic of Thought ? I shall make on this point a very short statement, and must be allowed to refer to my Principles of Logic. The main feature is objectivity, and this means a control proceeding from the object. That which suffers control is the entire psychical process, so far as it does not subserve the development of the object. Sensations, emotions, fancies, volitions, are suppressed or modified to suit this end. I may of course will to think, and to think this or that, but the way in which this or that shapes itself in thought is independent of my liking. To interfere would be to vitiate or wholly destroy. But now what is the object ? That it is not mere sense-experience should be a common-place. Nor is it simply whatever is excluded from the self, because the self is also an object of thought. And to say it is that of which we are conscious, would throw no light, if we may be conscious where we do not (strictly) think. The object is any portion of the psychical process, so far as it bears and subserves a certain character. It must in the first place have a meaning, an ideal content which is distinct from its existence as a psychical occurrence. And further, this