Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/261

WILHELM WUNDT, Grundzuge d. Physiologischen Psychologic. 247 often been criticised, and I wish to make one point only. In dis- cussing the feelings Wundt points out that they are " unitary functions," and continues, "This unity of consciousness is brought about by its specific unity-function (Einheits-function) which suc- cessively brings to especial clearness individual contents of con- sciousness by inhibiting all the others, and which we therefore call the central function of consciousness or, in distinction from the perceived contents of consciousness, apperception " (ii., p. 357). The feeling is the reaction of the apperception or unity-function of consciousness on the content of consciousness, and, since the feel- ing-tone of consciousness is at any moment a unitary state, " we are justified in postulating a unitary substratum for the physical phenomena accompanying and corresponding to the feelings" (ii., p. 360). According to Wundt, then, consciousness has not only a manifold content but also a specific function, that of unifying itself by inhibiting the superfluous sensory contents, and the exercise of this function gives rise to the state of feeling, the affective element of consciousness ; and this unifying process of apperception has its physical correlate producing parallel effects in the nervous system, an inhibiting function residing in the prefrontal lobes and called into activity by stimuli from the sensory centres. Many serious objections may be made to this doctrine both on its psychological and its physiological side, especially the fact that clearness of apprehension and intensity of feeling are apt to vary inversely rather than directly, as demanded by the doctrine. Here I only wish to point out that this complex and unnatural speculation is rendered unnecessary by the acceptance of principles laid down by Wundt himself in the final or sixth section of the book, which, a new feature of this edition, consists of discussions of general principles. Wundt here lays down certain "principles of psychical causality" which govern the combinations and relations of psychical elements and insists very rightly, as it seems to me, that these relations and combinations are not to be regarded as being the parallels of any relations or combinations among the corresponding nervous pro- cesses. The first and most important of these principles is that of " schopferische Resultanten," which may be adequately translated as psychical syntheses. According to this principle every psychical complex is a synthesis of the elements which analysis discovers in it, and is more than and quite other than the mere sum of the elements, e.g., " every spatial presentation is a product, in which certain elements have lost their independence in imparting to it a wholly new property, the spatial relations of the sensations ". But if these syntheses of psychical elements are purely psychical processes or effects, what need have we to postulate a nervous organ in the prefrontal lobes or elsewhere to bring about such unification of the contents of consciousness and to serve as the unitary substrate of the nervous correlate of feeling ? And it is not only the nervous organ of apperception that is superfluous but the psychical organ also, the " specific unity- function of conscious-