Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/468

ME. JAMES WARD'S " PSYCHOLOGY ". 467 local colouring. Let us suppose that the heavens were made up of stars without such difference : would anyone in that case contend that our visible conception of space must prove abortive ? Mr. "Ward handles with great success the play of move- ments in developing our notion of space. In all this he is on secure ground, and I cannot help thinking that, without either of his two subtleties of " extensity" and local signs, the capabilities of movement, working upon simultaneous plurality, would carry him to his journey's end. The third meaning of Perception is a great meaning the Intuition of Reality or Actuality. Here he adverts very properly to our sense of resistance in giving us ' body,' and the fixity of order of some impressions, as connected with external reality ; while he blames empirical psychologists for not considering that the point of fixed order is essential. He puts it to those that make so much of the law of simi- larity, why it is that this does not override contiguity, and make the white of snow lead to a classing of whites, instead of a grouping of the associated qualities of coldness and powdery softness. Then comes the question of unity in the midst of change, and that leads to another continuity in time, or persistence. For this the first datum is our body, which we never part with, whereby we are prepared for regarding the re-appearance of other bodies, after absence, as the continuance of the same, and not the appearance of others resembling. And finally, the quality of physical solidity, affecting our sense of resistance, is the groundwork of all substantiality, continuance and invariability. This concludes Perception. Next comes " Imagination or Ideation," as rising above perception. The handling of this large subject is a good test of psychological ability. Starting from Hume's very imperfect account of the distinction be- tween impressions and images, our author first warns us that there are no ideas answering to simple or isolated impres- sions, as redness by itself ; what are revived in memory and imagination are percepts, not unlocalised sensations and move- ments. Our idea of red is some red thing originally a percept. Ideas are the material of association proper. There is a grouping of distinct elements in the percept : this Mr. Ward prefers to call " complication," although of course he would not deny that it involves the retentive power of the mind. The criticism of the weak points of Hume's distinction between presentations and images as consisting in superior force and liveliness is just and well-put. However faint a primary impression may be it has a steadiness and fixity all