Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/67

 54 j. WAED : term " muscular consciousness," we have found a similar distinction between the particular ks, which are presentations, and " the consciousness of energy put forth " in actualising these. Now, when explaining the volitional character of feeling, Prof. Bain no longer speaks of associative links between a feeling p, (i.e., an instance of Fj) and a movement k, nor even of this feeling commanding the movement. But he tells us "The Will is moved by the feelings ; pleasure causing pursuit and pain avoidance " feelings being here plainly JBV It is also plain that Will does not in this passage mean a sum of movements, but rather the subject that is conscious of making these movements, or of acting voluntarily, i.e., under the influence of feeling consequent on, but distinct from, the mere presentations that make him feel. To sum up : the contention is that Prof. Bain's exposition of the general features of mind involves substantially the same analysis as that made by the present writer, 1 but that the wavering and uncertain connotations of such terms as consciousness, feeling, will, volition, state, act, activity and the like have rendered any clear issue impossible. If we had any satisfactory system of expressing the varying im- plications of these abstract conceptions, much as physicists, e.g., can express in terms of three fundamental units the dimensions of the quantities with which they deal, psycho- logy would become comparatively plain sailing, though still beset with more difficulties than biology has to face. Now let the reader imagine himself trying to deal more pliysico with the broad facts of mind as manifested through- out the entire range of animal life, not as Prof. Bain does, only with " human knowledge, experience or con- sciousness," and it will not be long before the contrast of subject and object presents itself as fundamental. We can often form a distinct conception of the relation between two terms when we have no such distinct conception of the terms themselves. So here : without waiting to examine ontological theories we can ask how subject and object are related. We say of man, mouse or monkey that it feels, remembers, perceives, infers, desires, strives and so forth. Leaving aside the first term, which is ambiguous, it is obvious that all the rest imply activity and an object. The question then arises as to the possibility of resolving these instances and others like them into a form in which the diversity of the act appears as a diversity of the object. It 1 See MIND, viii. 484.