“The science of physical objects is relative; psychological science is absolute.”
Let us examine this by the rapid analysis of any perception taken at haphazard. What I perceive directly, immediately, we are told, is not the object, it is my state of consciousness; the object is inferred, concluded, and taken cognisance of through the intermediary of my state of consciousness. We only know it, says Lotze, circa rem. It is therefore apprehended less immediately, and every natural science employs a more roundabout method than that of psychology. This last, by studying states of consciousness, which alone are known to us directly, comprehends reality itself, absolute reality. “There is more absolute reality,” M. Rabier boldly says, “in the simple feeling that a man, or even an animal, has of its pain when beaten than in all the theories of physics, for, beyond these theories, it can be asked, what are the things that exist. But it is an absurdity to ask one’s self if, beyond the pain of which one is conscious, there be not another pain different from that one.”[1]
Let us excuse in psychologists this petty and common whim for exaggerating the merit of the science they pursue. But here the limit is really passed, and no scholar will admit that the perception and representation of a body, as it may take
- ↑ Elie Rabier, Leçons de Philosophie, “Psychologie,” p. 33.
