Page:The Distinction between Mind and Its Objects.djvu/22

 we are following makes no compromise. Acts, and acts only, belong to mind. Objects, all objects, including what are called contents, are external, and with few exceptions, physical. Blue, for instance, is a physical existent. It is an aspect of physical reality, and is there in space, over against our mind. No doubt, if we had no suitable retina and optic nerve, we should be unable to see it. But that, so to speak, would be merely our loss. It would no more affect the existence of blue than my missing the train affects the existence of the train.

Mind, then, it follows, is cut down to the narrowest limit. It is nothing but a system of efforts in various directions, efforts which carry with them feelings of relative success and ill-success which amount to pleasure and pain. Consciousness is nothing but effort with its felt direction to our object, and the affections which attend such effort and direction. The object is always non-mental. The direction and effort are such as you feel in any desire or voluntary progression—you