Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/80

 PSYCHOLOGICAL PEINCIPLES. (ill.) 67 subject) a feeling, which is pleasure or pain according to circumstances. The subject of this feeling is in general pleased when the psychical mass that constitutes the first appearance of self expands, and pained in general when this psychical mass contracts ; and the expansion or contraction of " the group of the self" is to be understood as relative to a concomitant contraction or expansion of the rest of our psychical contents, i.e., the not-self. But why should the expansion of the one portion give or bring pleasure rather than the expansion of the other ? Both are so far nothing but groups of ideas. The author tells us two things about the pleasurable expansion: (1) it "is not the consciousness of activity " this is only its delusive interpretation ; but (2) it merely is and is felt in a certain way. Here again, as in the case of the conscious subject and " the first appearance of self," we have the old distinction of subjective fact and objective reflexion ; only that in this case we are expressly warned that the mirror is false. But is it ? What then are we to make of the following sentence ? " We are active, when the not-self . . . changes in the presence of an idea, and (I will add) [a most important addition] a desire of that change within the self" (p. 320). The change in the not- self we may fairly take to be a contraction : as to the desire, Mr. Bradley has not analysed this for us ; but it seems plain that he regards it also as pertaining to the subject that feels, and not to that group of our psychical contents that forms the appearance of self. Thus we have the conscious subject and f psychical contents of which it is conscious " con- nect first by pleasure and pain, and secondly by desire, i.e., first by feeling and secondly by action. Add to this that the contraction is spoken of as implying resistance, and that " in getting the idea of self-expansion the muscular element is most important ". Yet for all this the conception of activity is only an intellectual construction: "in fact, of course, being nothing at all". How does Mr. Bradley propose to convince us of this not very evident conclu- sion ? By a judicious use of the words facts and events : " In all this, he says, there is a happening a happening of events ; there is nothing beside facts coexistent and succes- sive with the result of other facts. And I think in this way we could give throughout psychology a definite meaning to action and passivity." With some reserve on the point of definiteness, no doubt, we shall all agree. Not only psycho- logy but most other things can be explained after this fashion, but what is a fact ? And how is the reality of activity affected by an empty generalisation of everything into happenings and facts ?