Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/46

32 P- H. BRADLEY : more than an event is certainly an event in that soul, and it is just because it is more than an event that in this case it is also more of an event in the history of that soul. And it is from this side of event that psychology has to do with the matter in its origin, and in its content so far as that qualifies the soul and also influences its future history. And all this falls within psychology as I have defined it. Psy- chology in short abstracts one side of the living whole and considers that apart. And its abstraction is the opposite of that abstraction which considers reality and truth apart from its appearance as event in the history of finite souls. And at least the abstraction made by psychology is both legi- timate and necessary. (iv.) But a further objection has been made that there may be " an unanalysable element in every psychical event," and yet that this is not an event. I must confess that I do not know what this objection means. It seems obvious that any aspect of any event will itself happen in time and will occupy time, and will thus itself, whenever it happens, be an event, however identical and however unanalysable it may remain, and whatever may be its duration. And, as I have replied elsewhere, " changes in the intensity of the element would of course be events, as would be also the changes in the relation of that element to others " (MiND, 47, p. 355). And without attempting further to understand I must leave the matter thus. If this " element " comes into the experienced at all it is certainly an event, but, if it is not in this sense an event or a phenomenal relation between events or a law of events, then it has no place within psychology. Let us pass on to a new objection. (v.) " On your understanding of it," it will be said, " psy- chology is not true. We want to know the real truth about the soul, and we do not want to be put off with a series of events which are abstractions and laws which in part are fic- tions." Well then, I answer, by all means betake yourself to metaphysics, and gain of course what you seek there. But why, I urge, beside metaphysics may there not be a phenomenal psychology for persons like myself ? " But it will not be a science," you reply, " if it does not give or seek the real truth." I on the contrary should maintain that, if it gives or seeks the real truth, it is not a separate science at all. The very essence of such a science everywhere, I should say, is to employ half-truths, in other words to use convenient fiction and falsehood. And if you deny this in general, I will urge that at least it is so with psychology. Do you really mean to tell me that I am not to use and work with such ideas as a