Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/166

152 F. H. BEADLEY: nexion of each member with the idea of the whole. 1 And with this brief warning on a matter of the greatest import- ance I must pass on to pursue further the subject of this article. We are aware of and think of the past as past always by an ideal construction from the present, and the immediate presentation of the past as such would be a gratuitous miracle. But the past comes to us not by memory alone but also in mere fancy and again by pure inference, and it is clear that we are here concerned with serious differences. I may for instance remember that yesterday I sent a letter to the post, or I may imagine how I might have done this, though in fact I know that I did not, or again, while I cannot remember my act, I can perhaps prove that it happened. I will now briefly discuss the nature of these differences, beginning with mere fancy in its contrast with thought, and taking thought here in the sense of proof or inference. How does mere imagination differ from inference ? The question, difficult in itself, has been obscured by a fundamental error, a superstition about the abstract nature of thought proper. Deferring the consideration of this, I will state briefly the true ground of distinction. In inference there is, or at least there is supposed to be, a continuous necessity, and there is necessity because in a word there is identity. The self-same subject develops itself ideally in the process, and is qualified in the conclusion. And it qualifies itself through- out by itself, without the intrusion at any point of an extraneous connexion. We say that b is c and c is d and d is e, and each of these is not because of anything outside, but simply. Hence A.b must be Ae because in the end it is so. And whatever difficulties may be raised as to the possi- bility of using in our actual practice this type, this type at 1 This consideration, I need hardly add, should never be lost sight of, as at times it has been, in investigating the subject of "successive," "re- gressive," and again "indirect " association. Another aspect of the same problem is the existence of general forms or schemata of series. It seems clear from abstract considerations as well as from particular facts that these must exist and be used in the retaining of concrete series. Our awareness of gaps and our transition over them, and our power of repre- senting series in an abbreviated form point in this direction. But these schemata, being themselves presumably psychical and associative, tend to confirm the doctrine of our text. There are some results bearing on this point in the investigations of Schomann and Miiller. The subject is both very obscure and very difficult, and it deserves more attention than it appears to have received, a remark which applies emphatically to the perception of a series in general.