Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/18

4 THE EDITOR : a given tone is of short or long duration, the simplest assumption is that a tone which lasts a short time for that very reason affects us differently from a tone which lasts a longer time." The case is analogous for succession, successive tones have a combined effect which differs accord- ing to the length of the interval between them. This is the deliberate and decided deliverance of a skilled psychologist who has been experimenting for years on the perception of duration and succession. So far as I am personally con- cerned, I can only say that my experience agrees exactly with Schumann's. When I am aware of a serial succession of presentations as such, I do not apprehend the memory images of by-gone parts of the series along with that which is present at any given moment. The other side of the question is argued by Prof. Meinong in a long and elaborate article in a recent number of the Zeitschrift fur Psychologie. 1 But his defence is perhaps more damaging to the theory he maintains than Schumann's attack. For he admits most explicitly that introspective evidence yields him no support. He takes such instances as the apprehension of a melody, or of the movement of a body in space. The melody is not presented until the last note of it is heard. But in hearing the last note we utterly fail to detect by introspection the simultaneous presence of the procession of preceding notes in the form of memory images. Similarly in apprehending the movement of a body from position A to position B, we have not apprehended the movement from A to B until the body has reached B. But at the moment it reaches B we have not before con- sciousness the memory images of the body in the various successive positions which it has successively occupied on the path traversed by it. It is worth noticing that if this were necessary the entire path would have to be presented as covered by the body continuously. If the question is to be solved by a direct appeal to experience the memory- image theory has not a leg to stand on. It is true of course that a moving body often leaves behind it after-sensations, because impressions on the retina persist for some time after they are produced. If you whirl a burning stick round, you see a circle of brightness. But the circle of brightness appears as a circle. It does not constitute the presentation of the movement of the stick. On the contrary, if you only see the circle you don't see the movement of the stick at all. If, then, the memory images of previous stages of a suc- 'Bixxi., p. 182.