Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/94

ON THE ANALYSIS OF COMPARISON. By F. H. BBADLEY. The interesting paper on " Comparison," which Mr. Sully has published in MIND XL., suggests some fruitful lines of inquiry. And there is one point, and that one of capital importance, on which I should be glad to add a few remarks, fragmentary and, no doubt, in other ways defective. This point is the analysis of the comparing function. Mr. Sully has of course not omitted this question. He has pointed out certain features in the act of Comparison ; but I do not find what can be called an attempt to resolve the product into its elements. I will,, however, not criticise where it is probable that I do not understand, but will pass to Mr. Sully's description of the act. "The term Comparison may be roughly defined as that act of the mind by which it concentrates attention on two mental con- tents in such a way as to ascertain their relation of similarity or dissimilarity " (p. 490). "Comparison is a mode of intellectual activity involving voluntary attention" (p. 498). "But it is an act of attention of a very special kind " (p. 492). In this descrip- tion there are two points which call for remark. In the first place I should doubt if voluntary attention is essential to com- parison. This is a matter of observation, or perhaps only of wording ; but the second point is one connected with principle. Comparison is called " an act of attention of a very special kind," and this at once suggests a difficulty. If the special essences of the various intellectual functions are to be referred to differences in the kind of attention, then these kinds of attention should be described and enumerated, and, if possible, developed from the simple form. But if the differences in attention come rather from the different objects we attend to, then the speciality of the various intellectual functions must be looked for in themselves, and cannot come from varieties in attention. But I should confess that on the subject of voluntary attention, and of the position it holds in mental development, I am unable to under- stand Mr. Sully's teaching. I will now offer the remarks which I have to make on the analysis of Comparison. We may say that the mind acts on two data in such a way as to ascertain their similarity or dissimilarity. Well now, what is this way? The mind passes of course from one object to the other, but then how does it pass and what crosses in the passage? If we use technical terms, we may answer as follows. Comparison is the (unreflective) subsumption of one datum under the other reciprocally, or the apperception of each by the other in turn. Having data A and B, we pass from A to B with A in our minds as our leading idea, and then return to A