Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/583

 570 J. WAKD : clerical error. What we mean generally when we use ' activity ' is, he thinks, " an alteration of A not taken as belonging to anything outside, but as a change of something beyond A which realises something which in A was ideal." From this " general idea" of activity "we come to the soul and the perception of our own activity," and naturally expect the general idea will now be rendered more definite. But not one word does Mr. Bradley tell us of the meaning of psychical activity ; there is only the old aimless contention that the soul cannot be conscious of the activity implied in consciousness without some apprehension of a concrete self, &c.; in other words, that psychical life cannot begin with reflection. "The minimum that must be apprehended " is "a concrete and limited self-group, and a following alteration of this as against its limit ". It must surely be plain to everybody but Mr. Bradley that the apprehension of this minimum is itself an action, and none the less distinct from the said minimum because the act is that of apprehending an act. But Mr. Bradley is evidently equal to the feat of moving the world without a TTOV arc*) : to get into a basket and carry himself would be nothing to a philosopher who resolves himself into his own presentations. If Mr. Bradley had made clear to us what we are to understand by "apprehended" in the passage quoted, he would have done more to remove the scandal of which he complains. If he were now seriously to attempt this, he might find the obstacle not so much disgraceful as ultimate and insuperable. Certain differences between one kind of activity and another may be known : we may distinguish, e.g., thinking from moving, recollecting from expecting; so far, that is, as they are differences in presentations or in their inter- actions. But the common fact in all which I have called, perhaps miscalled, Attention cannot be known per se ; for it is neither a presentation, nor a relation among presentations, nor, strictly speaking, an unanalysable element in the presentations themselves. An unanalysable element in every complete state of mind it is, I admit, but one which even in reflective consciousness is not directly presented. I see no very serious objection to saying that all that we know about it is an "intellectual construction," or an interpretation, or even an inference, provided it be allowed that every proposition in psychology when completely explicated becomes nonsense if this " inference " is rejected. I allow further not only that it is a most difficult problem for psychology to ascertain how such " intellectual construction " as a state of mind has arisen, but also that it is entirely a question for epistemology to determine finally its validity as knowledge. But if science is to precede philosophy and to furnish its material, then empirical psychology, in order " to deal with its facts," will have to recognise, and always does recognise, that unanalysable element I mean by attention or psychical activity. It will have also to distinguish, and, in fact, always does distinguish, this attention