Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/119

FE. PAULHAN, Esprits Logiques et Esprits Faux. 103 sound that a critic who is at the pains to compare its opinions may find them in a high degree coherent. But the man himself, who represents the type of instinctive logic, has never systematised them or judged how far they are coherent. As there are contra- dictions in our thought of which we remain unconscious so are there consistencies. And the resulting harmony or absence of conflict is in neither case the result of systematic association. (3) There is the complex and perfectly balanced mind as opposed to the mind of the extremist or specialist, and this is not to be measured by the degree of coherence and systematic association, but the degree in which the mind is open-eyed to facts and sur- veys them from many sides. (4) There is the harmony which is indeed a result of systematic association but produces not a logical connexion of ideas but an aesthetic harmony. In constructing a drama the poet does not attempt to eliminate incoherence and contradiction from the minds of his characters, because he knows that he would be false to nature in representing man as self- consistent. (5) There is the harmony which means that the ideas are not in conflict in the sense of not tending to realise conflicting ends. This is the outcome of systematic association. For if ideas are associated for a common end, if irrelevant or hostile ideas are excluded, this means that the connexion of ideas established is in harmony with that end. In a system of ideas all is in harmony in this sense at least, that all is relevant to its end or object. As M. Paulhan passes from the highest types of systematic association which are characterised by this harmony to the lower types of strife and contrast, he represents this strife as due to the decreasing efficiency or amount of systematic association. The germ of this strife, he remarks, is already present in the tendency of a mental element to associate with other elements for a common end, since this involves the inhibition of ideas which are useless or hostile. Now suppose that " the struggle is pro- longed, that the inhibitory action cannot be rigorously exercised," l we witness a struggle of opinions which may endure a lifetime. But this introduces us to a meaning of strife which, so far from being the witness of the relative absence or inefficiency of syste- matic association, is the witness of its presence and vigour. The psychological process of doubt and question is essential to our progress in knowledge. It is strictly relevant to that end and in this sense in harmony with it. But it is a process of conflict. We do not know which of two conflicting opinions is true, and we search for long without obtaining a conclusive answer. So far from avoiding a conflict of opinion the scien- tific thinker seeks for it. Then why is the man whose mental life is passed in such struggles, who as soon as he emerges from one enters upon another connected with it, who through 1 P. 178.