Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/160

 148 H. STEINTHAL'S ABRISS DER SPRACHWISSENSGHAFT, i. sible, as regards ihe elementary psychical processes, to arrive at some real mental atomic theory ? And the answer he gives to that question constitutes his real merit as an original thinker. Here we must remember that the proper subject of psychology is not intuitions and concepts, but presentations. What, then, is the doctrine of the mechanism underlying mental life ? In the eternal flux of matter and soul, nothing is stable but law, which directs the movements, and form, or the idea in which, however often they separate, the elements again unite. Psychologically considered, form is here understood to mean the phases of mental life, such as language, religion, art, marriage, &c., which are often called ideas. But, since form itself is subject to law, we must say that law is the only thing in the universe which is persistent. And law is nothing but a definite and constant relation of movements. Now the laws of presentation are those of persistence, attraction, and combination ; and, for the sake of clearness not because it is essentially necessary Prof. Steinthal seeks to express the psy- chical processes in formulae. Thus, for the elementary processes we have : A + A + A ... = A, as formulating the psychical law of identity ; showing that it is essentially different from that of physics, which is A + A + A. . . = nA. The formula for the blending or amalgamation of ideas is : A + A + A ... = A". For reproduction, which is effected by simple association, the general formula would be : Granted the ligature a = b' ', c, d' . . .', and there is given in sensuous perception b ; the reproduc- tion is b' + (c f + d' . . . ). The effected ligatures of psychical mo- menta become connected in two ways, either by one as a whole becoming connected with another as a whole (association and re- production), or, as more often happens, by the fact that two liga- tures are brought into contact because they have certain elements in common. This is called by Steinthal complication. "Every member of a series a, b, c, d. . . may form the beginning, middle, or end of one or of many other series ; for no single psychical atom is so insignificant as not to stand in manifold relation to other atoms, and one can easily see that the concrete psychical creations are complications of many quite heterogene- ous elements." Complication effects amalgamation, substitution, transfer and infusion of ideas. Apperception may be defined as the movement of two masses of ideas toward each other for the production of a cognition. Eespecting its formulation we have, as the formula for the simplest process, where P is the passive and A the active ele- ment : P + A 1 = A 2 . From a logical standpoint the relation of the two factors to each other may be considered in four ways, namely, as identification, subsumption, harmonisation, and crea- tion. The identifying apperception consists in the amalgamation of both elements, whereby the individual is apperceived by the individual. In the subsumptive apperception, on the other hand,