§ 9a. Difficulties of Analysis. The work of psychological analysis can only be understood by a reference to the form of the mental life. To begin with then, our consciousness is a continuous flow which cannot be divided into distinct "states" without altering its character. Thus every successive though. is coloured by its relation to preceding thoughts, so that the whole psychosis is a transition. Analysis into constituent elements or factors is thus always in a measure artificial, and its dangers must be kept in view.1

Again, so far as we are justified in resolving the concrete movement of consciousness into discrete parts, we find that this is rendered difficult by the complexity of the phenomena and intricate interweaving of the several constituents, e.g., the elements of sensation (chill, trembling, etc.), imagination, etc., in a state of fear. The constituents, moreover, are in a constant state of flux, some rising, others falling in intensity from moment to moment. Hence a peculiar difficulty in singling out for special attention any one of these constituents. This difficulty, as we shall see by-and-by, is fully illustrated in modern investigations into the nature and structure of our sensations, e.g., those of musical sound.

In spite of such difficulties, however, psychological analysis has proved itself practicable within certain limits. The discovery and singling out of particular constituents in our complex. psychical states has been greatly aided by the circumstance that the same, that is, perfectly similar, elements occur in other connexions also. In other words, we detect a constituent in a whole, e.g., a flavour in a dish, because we are able to identify this as like what we have before experienced apart from its present concomitants. To analyse is thus, as we shall see, to assimilate or classify.

The limits of analytical division of complex wholes into parts are fixed partly by the original structure of our organism, partly by association and habit. The most striking examples of incapacity to analyse meet us in the region of sensation. Thus, as is well known, many persons cannot pick out the partial tones which enter into musical clang. In some cases it is certain that the nervous processes answering

1 On this feature of consciousness as a continual movement in which no discrete divisions are discernible see W. James, Principles of Psychology, i. chap. ix. He would distinguish the contents, ideas, thoughts as the substantive parts, the relational features as the transitive.

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to the constituents themselves coalesce so that no separation of psychical parts is possible. The whole sensation must in this case be regarded as a new, indivisible unity.1

89b. Results of Analysis. By such a mode of investigation the psychologist, improving on the rough analysis and classification of mental states embodied in everyday language, is able to reduce the complexity and variety of the psychical scene to something like order and simplicity. Thus he separates out the thought-element in mental processes as something radically distinct from feeling (pleasure and pain). The division of mind into three main functions-feeling, intellection, and conation—which is now commonly adopted in psychology, is the result of such introspective analysis. Our analysis may carry us still further, and help us to reduce each of these functions to its simplest form or expression. Thus it has been by introspective analysis carried forward to a higher degree of perfection that recent psychologists have improved on the old account of intellect as made up of distinct faculties, as observation and imagination, and resolved all processes of intellection into one or two elementary forms of functional activity.

§ 10. Analysis and the Search for Primitive Elements. As already suggested, the psychologist has not merely to regard the phenomena of his complex mental experience as the resultant of certain elementary forces, functional activities, viewed as operating at the moment. A given thought, say that of physical force in general, is a product of past agencies. It has been developed out of a mass of experiences, e.g., of moving our limbs, grasping material objects, etc. In other words, the psychologist has to regard a psychical phenomenon as formed or developed by the aid of certain materials or elements supplied by antecedent experience. Thus he has to supply a history or a geology of mind, and in the first instance he has to find his way to the elemental experiences or facts out of which the products are developed.

It has been the common assumption of psychologists that it is in all cases possible to resolve psychical products into

1 On the nature and limits of psychological analysis see Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, ii. pp. 21, 22; G. H. Lewes, The Study of Psychology, chap. xi. ; Volkmann, Lehrbuch der Psychologie, p. 6; Stumpf, Tonpsychologie, i. p. 96 ff. and more fully, ii. p. 3 ff.; cf. also James, Principles of Psychology, i. p. 156.

their historical elements. Thus they have endeavoured to read in such presumably complex formations as the idea of space, and the feeling of moral disapprobation, the record of their mode of production. The unprofitable prolongation of discussion on the origin of our ideas suggests that psychical formations do not thus clearly disclose their history to the introspective eye. It must be evident, indeed, that the process of psychical formation, being one of organic change, must differ from a mechanical combination of parts. It is essentially a process of development in which elements are elaborated into more or less new forms determined by the organism, and in which conse quently their individual characteristics become disguised.1

Here then it would seem we come to the limits of subjective analysis, and must eke it out by other methods of research. At first the idea suggests itself that in trying to get back to rudimentary mental experiences we may avail ourselves of objective observation, and especially that of the simpler grades of mental life in children and uncivilised races. And there is no question that such objective observation has been of real service. here. Thus the study of the origin and mode of composition of our visual perception of space has been materially aided by observation of the crude perceptions of infants, and still more of children born blind and afterwards coming into possession of the sense.

At the same time it must be evident from what has been said above respecting the precarious and inferential character of such objective observation that it is unable to supply us with a clear apprehension of ultimate psychical elements. What the simplest sensations entering into the most rudimentary forms of consciousness are really like, it is impossible for us ever to say. So inextricably are our simplest feelings interwoven with products of experience, that in trying to read the first mental experiences of infants we find ourselves unable to separate the two so as to conceive of pure sensations of sound and colour absolutely free from all associations or

1 The process is likened to chemical composition by J. S. Mill, Logic, bk. vi. chap. iv. § 3. But, as Brentano points out, the process of transformation is rarely if ever as complete as in the case of chemical modes. Cf. James, Principles of Psychology, i. p. 158 seq., who well brings out the fact that psychical products are transformations, that is, new psychical phenomena.

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suggestions. Hence in seeking to get back to psychical elements we have to carry out a process of ideal construction analogous to that which the physicist carries out in constructing his material atoms. That is to say, we invent a kind of hypothetical fiction as a necessary presupposition of the knowable psychical phenomena.

§ 11. Analysis and Induction. In close connexion with this analytical inquiry into the constituent elements of mind we have the inductive investigation into the laws of mental activity. Thus we try to discover how the different functional activities work, on what conditions their operation depends, and what are the causes of their variations; and in addition to this we endeavour, in connexion with the historical analysis of mental products, to ascertain the general laws of psychical combination, or, to speak more correctly, psychical development. Thus we seek to determine those relations of psychical phenomena which produce association or cohesion, the conditions under which such combining elements fuse into an indistinguishable mass, and so forth. It is by this properly inductive investigation that the psychologist has reached the most valuable principles of his science, more particularly the Laws of Association. Such general laws, though they may not be ultimate, are of a sufficient degree of comprehensiveness to serve as a starting-point in the explanation of the concrete phenomena of mind.

While psychological induction thus grows out of subjective analysis, it is by no means confined to the department of subjective research. The newest developments of psychological method lay stress on a wide objective comparison of psychical phenomena as a basis of sound scientific induction. Thus in the branch of infant psychology the general characteristics of the child are being ascertained by an inductive comparison of a number of separate observations. The latest indication of this tendency to place psychology on an objective inductive basis is the introduction of statistical inquiry into the science. The inquiries of Mr. Galton into the visualising powers of a large number of persons of various ages, etc., and the more recent investigation into the frequency of hallucinations among normal persons illustrate this new direction of statistical investigation.

§ 12. Synthesis in Psychology and the Genetic Method. It is evident that we require a knowledge of these psychical elements

and of the laws of their combination in order to account for the complex products of the mature human consciousness. Now, the perfect account of a thing means the history of that thing from its first crude to its completed form. When the psychologist has succeeded by analysis, aided by objective observation and hypothesis, in obtaining the requisite data he proceeds to reconstruct the course of psychical development. In so doing he supplements Analysis by Synthesis. That is to say, he sets out now at the other end, with a simple instead of a complex state of things, and by gradually introducing new factors, new forces, seeks to show how the main stages of the process of development have arisen. This historical unfolding of the course of psychical development is most properly described as the Genetic Method, that is to say, the method which exhibits the genesis or becoming of things.

The logical method or form of reasoning followed in this supplementary synthetic process will, it is evident, be deduction. That is to say, from a knowledge of the elements and of the laws at work the psychologist seeks to deduce the successive phases of the typical mental history. Thus he attempts to show how our common perceptions of objects about us are developed out of sense-experiences elaborated by psychical activity, and how our generalised knowledge is developed out of the knowledge of particular things, and so forth. In carrying out this process of deductive reasoning he will throughout compare his conclusions with the observed facts of mental development, more especially of its earlier stages as they are presented to us in the objective study of the child and of primitive man.

§ 13. Historical Note. It has here been assumed that a scientific explanation of mental phenomena is possible apart from any metaphysical presuppositions as to their inherent nature. By some, as by Volkmann, this is denied. They consider that the principles by which we are to account for the observable facts must be derived from metaphysics. In saying that by a process of inductive investigation, carried out on the observed facts, we can reach a knowledge of psychical laws, we do not imply that these are ultimate. They may afterwards be seen to flow from essential principles of mind as the metaphysician conceives of it.1

In the history of the science analysis has played a foremost part. The primary motive to psychological investigation was a philosophical one. Descartes set himself to a methodical analysis of his ideas into their simplest parts, in order, as he

1 On the supposed necessity of setting out with metaphysical principles, sec Volkmann, Lehrbuch der Psychologie, § 3.