Page:Mind and the Brain (1907).djvu/275

 and to provoke movements, even after ceasing to be perceived. Those who are not uncompromising idealists readily admit this independence of the objects with regard to our consciousness, but the converse is not true. It is impossible to understand a consciousness existing without an object, a perception without a sensation to be perceived, an attention without a point of application, an empty wish which should have nothing to wish for; in a word, a spiritual activity acting without matter on which to act, or more briefly still—mind without matter. Mind and matter are correlative terms; and, on this point, I firmly believe that Aristotle was much closer to the truth than many modern thinkers.

I have convinced myself that the definition of mind at which we have just arrived is, in its exactness and soberness, the only one which permits psychology to be distinguished from the sciences nearest to it. You know that it has been discovered in our days that there exists a great difficulty in effecting this delimitation. The definitions of psychology hitherto proposed nearly all have the defect of not agreeing with the one thing defined. Time fails us to review them all, but I shall point out one at least, because our discussion on this particular formula will serve as a preparation for taking in hand the last question that remains to