Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/460

MR. JAMES WARD'S "PSYCHOLOGY". 459 two or more individuals as co-existing; but that is too general to exclude the possibility of self-knowledge. It cer- tainly does not bring the property of self-knowledge into the foreground, which, however, is not the same as denying it. An algebraic series might know itself, without any contra- diction : the only thing against it is the want of evidence of fact. So, again, the word "state" is equally guiltless of denying self-knowledge ; its fault is that it is so general as hardly to deny anything. We have undoubtedly got into the way of describing our mental furniture by a verb whose grammatical subject is ' I ' or ' We '. Is this merely figurative, or is it the one and only way of stating the phenomena? If it is a figure, the figure may change ; if it is more than a figure, if it is the only adequate description of the situation, it certainly com- mits us to Mr. Ward's conclusion that there is a subject more or less different from the acts of knowing, feeling and acting. I am not, however, convinced of the absolute, indefeasible necessity of adopting this form of language. In speaking of our mental energies, we can hardly avoid some sort of per- sonification ; at least, we find it a convenience and a facility to have a something ' in the chair,' through whom the actions and re-actions of the mind can take place. But what the chairman is to be in his own independent character, is not so easy to settle. One quality of the subject, which Mr. Ward lays great stress upon, is re-active attention, by which the mere physical intensity of sensation is heightened, other things remaining the same. But, as we proceed, we find the properties of the Subject gradually extended, until in the final formula for the ultimate constituents of mind, it absorbs all the three elementary properties cognition, feeling and conation and leaves only sensory and motor presentations, or what we should call ' sensation,' were it not that the element of feeling is withdrawn. It is this final aggrandisement of the Subject that staggers me. In fact, it is the whole mind, with the exception of the first impressions of sense considered purely as elements of knowledge. The active verb ' I feel ' is not analysed into a subject that feels and a state of pleasure or pain. But the total capacities of the mind, in respect of feelings, will and the higher elaboration of knowledge, make a Subject, to which our first impressions of the object-world constitute the object. It is only with knowledge that the division into the knowing and the known is imperative, on pain of self- contradiction.