HANS COBNELIUS, Psychologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft. 259 state of consciousness at any moment has its nature determined by elements which at the moment are not distinguished. Cornelius rightly insists on this from beginning to end of his Psychology. But he never faces the difficulty of mere unrealised possibilities persisting as operative factors, each contributing its share to deter- mine the nature of our actual experience. It would certainly seem that his doctrine requires considerable modification if it is to be made self-consistent. If we take into account the positive part played by undiscriminated factors, it is hard to see how the view of Cornelius differs from such a theory of psychical dispositions as is advocated by Lipps. The book by no means wholly consists of theory of knowledge substituted for psychology, or of theory of knowledge applied to psychology. It also contains much valuable work of a directly psychological nature. In particular, attention may be drawn to the acute and careful exposition of the mode in which dis- crimination gradually increases in delicacy; to the discussion of the interesting question whether we can distinguish in the memory-image what we have failed to distinguish in actual perception ; to the criticism of atomistic psychology ; and to the statement of the laws of association. Much is made throughout the work of the principle of the " economy of thinking " ; but it is difficult to make out whether this principle is to be regarded as epistemological or psychological, or both without distinction. It sometimes seems to figure as an ultimate test of truth ; but if we inquire what claim it has to this position, we are left to gather the answer for ourselves. It would seem that Cornelius regards the principle of the economy of think- ing as an ultimate test of truth simply because he regards it as a fundamental law of psychical process. But the mere fact that we take as little trouble as possible in the attainment of our ends, whether theoretical or practical, does not seem of itself to constitute a reason why our mode of procedure should be a right one. On the whole, the psychological application of the principle of economy, as it is followed out by Cornelius, is valuable and suggestive ; but it throws little light on theory of knowledge. In conclusion, we must refer to the part played in the psycho- logy of Cornelius by what he calls the " memory-image ". If we understand him rightly, he regards the memory-image as always having a certain individuality and independence which make it separately reproducible apart from actual impressional experi- ence. At the same time, he regards all recognition as depending on the memory-image, and the delicacy with which different objects are discriminated as depending on the delicacy with which their memory-images are discriminated. This seems certainly wrong. To refer to no other objections, a man may be able to discriminate objects perfectly well by sight, and yet have virtually no power at all of reproducing visual imagery. Since I have dwelt so much on points on which I am compelled
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