Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/121

MARY WHITON CALKINS, Standpunkt in der Psychologie. 107 defines an element as a constituent of Consciousness distinguishable within the total state by introspective analysis. Among the ele- ments as so defined are included not only the sensation qualities, intensities and extensities, together with feelings of pleasure and pain, but also feelings of reality and recognition, and relational elements. Division B is devoted to emphasising the central distinction between the two Psychologies. The most important points that are here brought out are : (1) The Psychology of Self, unlike in this respect to the Psychology of psychical states, is not a science that can utilise the Category of Causality. Causality has reference to change hi time, and the Self is not an object (Gegenstand) in time. (2) The Self is essentially a Social Self ; and the Psychology of Self, a Psychology of Self in its social relations. (3) The method is fundamentally the same for the two Psychologies. It is essen- tially introspective and proceeds by the three inductive stages of analysis, classification and explanation. The third and last division of the book contains a rapid though renchant discussion from each of the two points of view, of all the typical aspects of the mental life. The lucidity and systematic Dnsistency with which this task is carried out is most striking. ?he section on the Emotions (Affekte), pages 57-66, is particularly ine. This, and the closing section on Belief, pages 74-76, which is jually suggestive, show how clearly the author has realised the significance of her own view that a Psychology of Self essentially ils with the Self in its relations to other Selves. We may notice le following by way of illustration. In all our personal activities lere is at least an implied reference to ourselves or to other selves. Thus all perception and thought is accompanied by a consciousness -which is none the less effective for being vague and implicit that any other self would, under similar conditions, perceive or think as we do. But this personal reference may become explicit id individualised, and it is where there is this individualised refe- ince not only to my own self but to some other self, that we have the personal relation characteristic of emotion. I fear or love this or that person, but not any general idea of danger. So "every- body mistrusts the genuineness of a sentimental love for children or animals in general, for we all know that emotion is a relation between one individual self and another ". Belief, again, in essence, is not a perception of reality but an active, personal relation of one self to another. This simple view of the meaning of belief, as Miss Calkins proceeds to point out, solves the apparent contradiction between the two ethical views that belief is a duty and that yet the will to believe is immoral. For what is immoral or unworthy is to believe in the reality of anything against the evidence of reason. 3ut if belief is not a Consciousness of reality, but a personal recog- lition, however dimly realised, of the nobility of some person or leal, the discrepancy vanishes. It may be our duty to love the lighest when we see it, and in this sense to believe in it, though sason cannot assure us that we are not embracing an illusion.