Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/363

350 w. JAMES : Having learned this, we do but obey that law of economy or simplification which dominates our whole psychic life, when we attend exclusively to the ' reality ' and ignore as much as our consciousness will let us the ' sign ' by which we came to apprehend it. The signs of each reality being multiple and the ' reality ' one and constant, we gain the same mental relief by abandoning the former for the latter, that we do when we abandon a mental image, with all its fluctuating characters, for the perfectly definite and un- changeable name it suggests. The selection of the several ' normal ' appearances from out of the jungle of our optical experiences, to serve as the real sights of which we shall think, is psychologically a parallel phenomenon to the habit of thinking in words, and has a like use. Both are substi- tutions of terms few and fixed for terms manifold and vague. 5. The Intellectualist TJieory of Space. This service of sensations as mere signs, to be ignored when they have evoked the other sensations which are their significates, was noticed first by Berkeley and remarked in many passages, as the following : " Signs, being little considered in themselves, or for their own sake, but only in their relative capacity and for the sake of those things whereof they are signs, it conies to pass that the mind overlooks them, so as to carry its attention immediately on to the things signified . . . which in truth and strictness are not seen, but only suggested and apprehended by means of the proper objects of sight which alone are seen " (Divine Visual Lan- guage, 12). Berkeley of course erred in supposing that the thing sug- gested was not even originally an object of sight, as the sign now is which calls it up. Eeid expressed Berkeley's principle in yet clearer language : " The visible appearances of objects are intended by nature only as signs or indications, and the mind passes instantly to the things signified, with- out making the least reflection upon the sign, or even perceiving that there is any such thing. . . . The mind has acquired a confirmed and in- veterate habit of inattention to them (the signs). For they no sooner appear than, quick as lightning, the thing signified succeeds and engrosses all our regard. They have no name in language ; and although we are conscious of them when they pass through the mind, yet their passage is so quick and so familiar that it is absolutely unheeded ; nor do they leave any footsteps of themselves, either in the memory or imagination " . (Inquiry, chap, v., 2, 3). If we review the facts we shall find every grade of non- attention between the extreme form of overlooking mentioned by Eeid (or forms even more extreme still) and complete conscious perception of the sensation present. Sometimes it is literally impossible to. become aware of the latter.