Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/159

148 NOTES AND COEEESPONDENCE. are formed upon which representation proceeds more and more easily, how the stream of representations breaks off and stops its course, how re- presentations or complexes of such are raised out of the stream and made into objects of special interest, while others are pressed back and robbed of in- terest, all these questions, not be be solved by mere "general conception s, ;) are considered at length. The investigation is based both on immediate observation and on psychical measurements so far as yet carried out ; these being to some extent discussed in detail. On the other hand, the discus- sion opens out everywhere into fundamental questions of ^Esthetics and Theory of Knowledge. "Besides what has just been indicated, I draw attention in particular to the following additional points. In c. ix., for example, there is a general theory of pleasure and pain ; c. xi. gives a theory of harmony and dis- cord which modifies and re-establishes an old theory unjustly banished by Helmholtz and Wundt ; c. xii. treats of physiological and what is quite different from this psychological " contrast ". This last subject is treated further in c. xiv., which, in immediate connexion with the phenomena of psychological and aesthetic fatigue, derives the various psychological and aesthetic effects of contrast from the mechanism of representation. " The first chapter of the second of the two sections mentioned above con- tains among other matter an explanation of our aesthetic interest in the human form, landscape, &c. It is shown that the interest rests on associa- tions of experience which are pointed out in detail. Chapter xvii. disc: apperception and the classes of judgments, in particular the judgments of comparison and of " Beziehung ". The latter kind of judgment results of it- self from the reciprocal action of combinations of representations as deter- mined by experience. Just in the same way, according to c. xviii., from the reciprocal action of judgments result in succession the concepts or "categories of condition, ground, cause and substratum. In the series of these categories every successive category marks only a special case of the foregoing. But they all have modes of association of representations for their peculiar con- tent. The law also that every change requires its cause is derived from the law of Association. There follows in c. xix. the contrast of things and per- sonality. The unity of personality or of the Ego, as also of the foreign personality standing over against it, originates for our consciousness in experience. The section concludes at c. xx. with a discussion of the mechanism of thinking, so far as it has general content. Induction and deduction, the origin and nature of the concept, and language as the vehicle of general thinking, find here their place. " The whole fifth section is devoted to Space and Time, in particular giving (at a length of 116 pages) a new and complete theory of the origin of the intuition of space, which again I may best characterise as a thorough-going Association-theory. Or is this theory also "already known" to my re- viewer? A German critic calls it "interesting and original". I hope it is also correct. At least I know till now no other that can stand beside it. Other leading divisions concern tactile space, the origin of the third dimension, the union of the spatial images of the diil'crcnt .-.-MM-S, illusions of ocular measurement (including one not previously observed). " Lastly, the sixth section deals with Conation, as an activity of represen- tation struggling airain-t hindrances. The investigation opens out into the fundamental conceptions of Ethics and also of .Ksthetics. For the person- ality, as it is the object of moral willing and judging, LB also the true content of all beauty ; as, again, the negation of the personality is the c.-M-nce of evil and ugliness. The different kinds of conation deliberation and expectation, desire and wish, will and sense of obligation begin the section. Chaps, xxviii. and xxix. go more into detail and discourse of the many kinds of content or end of conation, in particular of the highest end, the person-