Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/402

 KNOWLEDGE AS IDEALISATION. 389 And discrimination is not the introduction of unlikeness between ideas as occurrences in the psychical life. They are already as unlike as they can be, each being already a unique distinct existence : as Hume says, every distinct idea is a separate existence. Nor can it mean recognition of this unlikeness of existence, except in the sense that it is re- cognised that the two psychical occurrences do not mean the same. They may be unlike, but we should never know they were did we not discover that they did not point to or symbolise the same intellectual content. They must mean difference of times at least, and conscious experience of difference of times is just as much a matter of interpretation of sensations as recognition of spatial differences is. Wundt has shown clearly enough, as it seems to me, that association is finally a function of attention ; but, not to confuse ourselves with terms, let us take a simple example. Of all the sensations which, as existences, are presented to us at any one time, how many come into consciousness to- gether ? To put it in the old-fashioned way, how many ideas can we be conscious of at once ? To answer the question in this form : Of idea in the sense of meaning, we can be conscious of but one ; of idea in the sense of existence, or psychical occurrence due to separate stimulation, we may be conscious of an indefinite, limitless number. Just as many as can be made to convey one meaning, just so many may be compre- hended in one idea. If we make, for the sake of example, the assumption that the universe is a unity, it is theoretically possible to grasp every detail of the universe in one idea. In fact, it must be so grasped, for the unity of the world can only mean that it ultimately possesses oneness of meaning. In any given complex of presentations, therefore, just as much will be selected and united into a conscious experience as harmonises in meaning. The astronomer cannot attend to the ticking of the clock and to the passage of a star at the same time, because they are interpreted in two different ways. Were they interpreted in the same content of significance, they would be, ipso facto, members of the same experience. To borrow Wundt 's illustration, if the eye sees a falling rod at one place, and there is a noise made at a slight distance, and if the noise occurs regularly after the rod falls, although there is no connexion between them, the sight of the rod and the sound will be united in the same idea. So ineradi- cable is the mind's bent after meaning, that it will force it, if it be possible. In case, however, the noise is not harmo- niously related to the fall of the rod, the mind will have to alternate between the two facts. They cannot both be pre-