Page:Principles of Psychology (1890) v1.djvu/285

265 THE 8TBEAM OF THOUGHT. 265 Each word, in such a sentence, is felt, not only as a word, but as having a meaning. The ' meaning ' of a word taken thus dynamically in a sentence may be quite differ- ent from its meaning when taken statically or without con- text. The dynamic meaning is usually reduced to the bare fringe we have described, of felt suitability or unfitness to the context and conclusion. The static meaning, when the word is concrete, as 'table,' 'Boston,' consists of sensory images awakened ; when it is abstract, as ' criminal legisla- tion,' ' fallacy,' the meaning consists of other words aroused, forming the so-called ' definition,' Hegel's celebrated dictum that pure being is identical with pure nothing results from his taking the words stati- cally, or without the fringe they wear in a context. Taken in isolation, they agree in the single point of awakening no sensorial images. But taken dynamically, or as significant, — as thought, — their fringes of relation, their affinities and repugnances, their function and meaning, are felt and understood to be absolutely opposed. Such considerations as these remove all appearance of paradox from those cases of extremely deficient visual im- agery of whose existence Mr. Galton has made us aware (see below). An exceptionally intelligent friend informs me that he can frame no image whatever of the appearance of his breakfast-table. When asked how he then remembers it at all, he says he simple ' knoivs ' that it seated four people, and was covered with a white cloth on which were a butter- dish, a coffee-pot, radishes, and so forth. The mind-stuff of which this ' knowing ' is made seems to be verbal images exclusively. But if the words 'coffee,' 'bacon,' 'muffins,' and ' eggs ' lead a man to speak to his cook, to pay his bills, and to take measures for the morrow's meal exactly as visual and gustatory memories would, why are they not, attention only to substantive starting points, turning points, and conclu- sions here and there. All the rest, ' substantive ' and separately intelligible as it may potentially be, actually serves only as so much transitive material. It is internodal consciousness, giving us the sense of continuity, but having no significance apart from its mere gap-filling function. The children probably feel no gap when through a lot of unintelligible words they ai-e swiftly carried to a familiar and intelligible terminus.