Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/398

 KNOWLEDGE AS IDEALISATION. 385 What then is the nature of meaning, of significance, of that which is conveyed by every fact of consciousness, and which constitutes the value of that fact? It is, of course, a mediate factor ; it is due to inference. In passing, I must commend this statement to those who are telling us that the only realities which we can ultimately admit are those which are immediately present in some state of conscious- ness, and that we must reject all inference if we are to get the fact. For my part, it seems that when the mediate element is gone, meaning is gone, and consciousness itself disappears. If someone takes away from me all the infer- ence contained in a fact, hunt as hard as I will, I cannot find but that he has taken with him the fact also. He may have left me with nervous tremors in my brain, but all significance, i.e., conscious experience, is gone. So far is it from being true that we know only what is immediately present in consciousness, that it should rather be said that what is immediately present is never known. But we must leave these general statements and come to particulars. That which is immediately present is the sensuous existence ; that which is known is the content conveyed by this existence. The sensuous material is of worth only as it is a sign ; it is a sign only as it signifies or points out meaning. This meaning is present as mediated. It is not there as existence ; it is there as pointed towards, as symbolised. If we owe nothing else to what is called physiological psychology, the experimental result reached by Helmholtz, that we always neglect sensations, or pay no attention to them as existence, in behalf of the meaning conveyed by them, gives physiological psychology a higher scientific stand than introspective psychology has yet attained ; for introspective psychology is always descriptive, while Helmholtz's generalisation explains. It is true, for example, that every experience of tone is complex, contain- ing the fundamental and the partials. Yet we are entirely unconscious of this complexity, which as matter of sensuous existence is the all-important thing. Why ? Because this complexity is taken solely as a sign of the instrument to which the tone is referred human voice, violin, piano. We interpret the various combinations of sensations as signifying this or that object. We are equally unconscious of the nature of the sensations in themselves, and of the process we go through. Psychical result or significance is all in- telligence cares for. Starting-point and way to this result are swallowed up in what they symbolise. This explains ' unconscious cerebration ' on its psychical side. Processes, 25