Page:Philosophical Review Volume 12.djvu/354

338 of sensation. A modified form of Presentationism admits pleasure-pain to an equality with sensation, but denies the will admission to the sacred circle of elements. Even when Presentationism is explicitly disavowed, the intellectualistic bias persists in identifying the will with attention, although "the will is declared to be an ultimate aspect of mind" (p. xii). "The facts that pertain to the reactive side of mind" are ignored to the detriment of a sound theory of the principles of human conduct.

Presentationism explains the phenomena of conduct in terms of sensation and pleasure-pain. So far as tendencies to reaction are concerned, the mind is as a "sheet of white paper void of characters." "The tabula rasa doctrine has been generally abandoned as untenable in the realm of cognition. It is recognized that knowledge would be impossible if definite intellectual tendencies did not exist. These tendencies spring directly from the nature of the mind" (p. 122). Since "the tabula rasa hypothesis has been found inconsistent with the facts of cognition" (p. xiii), surely it is not rash to claim that "it can be shown to be at variance with the phenomena of conduct"? This Dr. Irons does by showing that emotion presupposes "primary tendencies to action ' ' more fundamental than the emotions connected with them; and that "the psychical individual as such has a definite character which expresses itself in a multiplicity of primary reactions," which are "directly conditioned by the constitution of his nature" (p. 171). It is, therefore, as a criticism of Presentationism in ethics that Dr. Irons's book challenges careful examination. His theory of emotion, if established, involves the overthrow of Presentationism. He did not elect to attack by the more spectacular method of reductiones ad absurdum, or by a severe application of the logical test of consistency. His appeal is to facts. When he has made clear what the facts declare the nature of emotion to be, he shows what such a view of the nature of emotion implies about the nature of man. The success of this method depends upon the facts brought forward. Are they trustworthy? Are they exhaustive? Dr. Irons's final court of appeal is introspection. Thus, in speaking of the consciousness of activity, he says: "Here introspection is the only possible guide, for introspection alone can give a verdict in regard to the ultimate qualitative distinctions between psychical phenomena" (p. xvi). Elsewhere he summarizes the results of an examination of the view that emotion is "the sum of organic sensations aroused by the bodily disturbance," thus: "This view does not seem to harmonize with introspective results" (p. 56). Again, when