Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/75

 62 j. WARD : mutual attractions, repulsions, associations, complications, &c., &c. dispense with the postulation of a subject alto- gether, at least any subject but that very complex idea which is "generated" under appropriate circumstances when ideas are grouped with sufficient distinctness ? What- ever our sentimental preferences may be, it is hard to see any scientific objection to such an attempt if only it could succeed. The one question to be asked then is : Can it ? Perhaps we shall find an answer to this question in the course of examining the line of argument developed by Mr. Bradley in the article to which Prof. Bain has referred. As already said, it is difficult to seize the precise point of Mr. Bradley's contention : though avowedly polemical, his article is for the most part in agreement with what are styled the latest results of modern psychology ; it is, in fact, very largely but an able restatement of an able note by J. S. Mill (James Mill's Analysis, ii. 372-377). Taking attention to mean "predominance in consciousness," whatever it may be besides, Mr. Bradley inquires "how we are able to produce this condition or what is the machinery which effects the production ". Now at the outset at all events, that is to say, in the statement of his question, Mr. Bradley tacitly admits the distinction between the conscious subject on the one hand, the " we who are able to produce," and the field of consciousness on the other, in which this or that object may become predominant. Further, a machine, whether simple or complex, is not itself a motive power, but only a means of directing or modifying or economically expending such power. Nobody now-a-days supposes that in producing' the predominance at any given moment of any given presen- tation any special instrumentality is employed distinct from " the working of the ordinary laws of redintegration, blend- ing," &c., or however else it may seem fit to denote the various interactions of objects. Neither, it may be safely said, is any student moderately versed in modern psychology likely to urge the objection that an idea of an idea is not admissible, or to find any difficulty in comprehending that " the idea of myself somehow engaged" will, provided it is interesting of which more anon produce its effect in the ordinary way. Where " the mass of psychologists " who ignore all this, or fail to comprehend it, are to be found, is best known to Mr. Bradley. But now, granting that wherever there is predominance in the field of consciousness there is attention, and conversely ; granting too that even the resolve to attend " produces in the common psychological way the means to its realisation," viz., through the idea of self-attending; and granting a