Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/186

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ON THE STUDY OF ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 175 ences. The facts, if recorded exactly as they were observed (eliminating the personal equation so far as is possible), may be put on one side for attentive study as the pure material of science. 3. As to the inferences, let us inquire, What is their nature and their value ? The inferences are of two kinds : (a) Inferences concerning the nature, cause, and mode of origin of the habits, customs, activities, &c. These are Objective Inferences. (5) Inferences concerning the underlying mental states, feelings, motives, &c. These are Subjective, or better (following Clifford), Eject ive Inferences. With regard to the objective inferences, they are of undoubted scientific value. Let us by all means draw them with all possible caution and verify them with all possible care. It is with the ejective inferences that I wish specially to deal. They are clearly psychological in character, and form the basis of the modern science of Comparative Psychology. 4. In all psychological investigation, " the fundamental isolation of the individual mind " is a fact to be steadily borne in remembrance. The only mind with which any one of us is directly acquainted is his own mind. Our concep- tions of the world and of man must be framed in terms of our own individual modes of consciousness. For each of us this is our one standard. Each of us lives in his own world which he makes for himself. The world of the melancholy Jaques differs toto ccelo from the world of the genial Mark Tapley. A great true mind cannot conceive the littlenesses and falsities of small mindlets ; nor can a little mind ap- preciate a great man, but picks out, according to idiosyncrasy, some pretty little trait of character, or some little fault or fad, and for ever harps on that. I need not dwell upon this point, I take it as generally admitted that for each man his own mind is the one criterion he has in matters mental. My neighbour's mind is not, and never can be, an object to me ; it is an eject, an image of my own consciousness which I throw out of myself. I hold this term, eject to be of great scientific value. To say that other minds than my own are ejects is a great advance in clearness and definiteness on the statement that my knowledge of other minds than my own is inferential. It marks clearly the fact that my conception of other minds must be framed in terms of my own mind.