Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/91

PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION. 77 Sec. 16. In order to avoid misconception it is to be noted that the view that each presentation is new and unique does not stand in any opposition to that form of experience which leads us to describe consciousness as a stream, or to speak of the " presentation continuum " as we do. At any given moment we have as it were a cross section of the stream of consciousness, and it is this cross section which we claim to be always new and unique. When we have the experience which forms the basis of our conception of the " presentation continuum " we are taking a retrospective view of many successive presentations which have occurred in successive moments. If the secondary presentations related to any three of these successive increments (a, ft, 7) are held at one moment in attention, then we experience a presentation of triple emphasis consisting of 1 " what a was," 2 "what ft was," and 3 "what 7 was ". In such cases we always find in (2) " what ft was," bonds of identity with both 1 and 3 ; so that "what ft was " holds " what a was " and " what 7 was " together, and gives us our experience of a continuum. But this experience surely gives us no ground for the assertion that anything in a itself has persisted unchanged through ft and 7. The fused identical elements are in the complex presentation of the moment of comparison, and involve no denial of the view that this presentation of comparison, like all other presentations, is new and unique. Sec. 17. The reader of the preceding sections will perhaps ask himself whether this doctrine of the lack of permanency of presentations, if true, will affect this practical life of ours, or will aid us in our conceptions and statements of psycho- logical theory. In answer to this question I would say that in my view there is no reason to ask the average man to make any change in the conceptions to which he has become accustomed ; nor indeed is there any reason why we as psy- shologists should necessarily alter the language of our science which has become current through long usage. Secondary presentations must for practical purposes be held to refer to the same stable objects which have brought into being thejr primary presentations. Practically in every- day life we may accept the common-sense notion that certain secondary presentations are representations, or copies of certain primary presentations ; for the value of this notion of presentative fixity, and of the stability of the objective coincidents, is felt constantly in our every-day thought and action. Nor is it probable that it would be possible, even if