Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/85

PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION. 71 increased to enable it to rise above the ' threshold of con- sciousness ' and become a distinct object of attention ". But it is apparent upon more careful consideration that such a position cannot be accepted unreservedly in the face of the fact that we recognise that what we have to-day is exactly not what we conceive that we had at the time of the death of our friend, say five years ago. It is recognised to be but a mere unsatisfactory ghost of what we had in mind immediately after his death. It is clear here that we are making comparison of two different partial secondary presentations in one complex pre- sentation. We have before us a secondary presentation (a), " the face of our friend as it appeared five years ago as a secondary presentation, or image " ; this secondary presenta- tion of this present moment not being at all the same as the secondary presentation " the face of our friend " as it existed five years ago, but being called by the same name. We have also before us a secondary presentation (b) " the face of our friend as it appears in memory to-day ". And beyond this we have before us to-day the comparison of these two secondary presentations which are partial presentations in one more complex presentation ; in which comparison (a) " the face of our friend as it appeared five years ago as a secondary presentation " and (6) " the face of our friend as it appears in memory to-day " are found different and not at all alike. That this difference implies some sort of identity, as the basis of the unity between these two secondary presentations, as they are held together yet apart in the psychosis of the moment of comparison, is of course clear. But this identity is in the complex presentation of the moment, and can in no way be regarded as evidence of a permanent form of presentation which has persisted through all these five years, or indeed through any two successive moments. Sec. 12. In order to make this point clearer let us carry our symbolisation of section 8 a little farther, and that we may gain some measure of simplicity in description and symbol- isation let us suppose that, at the moment previous to the stimulation from the environment, the activity of the whole nervous system with which presently the field of attention is to correspond, is reduced to zero. Such a condition can in fact never actually occur in our experience, but it may be sufficiently approximated to, to warrant the assumption ; for example, in the case of a man who is sleeping very soundly and who is fully awakened by a violent crash of thunder.