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THE EGO AND ITS STATES.

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7a. Relation of psychical phenomena to Subject or Ego. Consciousness in the sense just defined is wider than self-consciousness. We are often conscious, e.g., when tracing out connexions of events in the physical world by the help of present and past observations, without any distinct consciousness of self. At the same time, as Lotze has pointed out, our psychical states if not always actually apprehended as our states are capable of being so as soon as we go back upon them and reflect on them. In this sense, therefore, we may say that all psychical changes are modifications of a conscious subject.1

If the distinguishing mark of mental processes is reference or capability of reference to a subject, it might seem the simplest mode of differentiating these processes to describe them as activities of a conscious subject or ego, and this has frequently been done. It has been said by more than one writer that the psychologist has to posit or assume such a subject in order to give any intelligible account of his phenomena. There is no doubt that, our common ways of talking about mental events, e.g., 'I feel,' 'The mind attends,' and so forth, suggest this way of envisaging the matter. This view has been recently urged with great force by Dr. J. Ward. According to him we cannot represent psychical occurrences except under the form of a subject reacting on certain matter presented to it, e.g., colour-impressions. He is careful to point out that this presupposition does not imply that self-consciousness or consciousness of itself on the part of the subject necessarily enters into all states of consciousness. And, further, he tries to distinguish between the psychological subject and the spiritual substance of the metaphysician.

It may, however, be said that the assumption of such an ego or subject is after all extra-psychological. By making it we place ourselves nearer the popular point of view, but do not gain in scientific precision. No psychologist seeks to explain the phenomena of thought and feeling by the aid of such a conception, which consequently becomes a purely formal one. Even in the system of Mr. Ward it remains a psychologically barren idea; for it is the processes of attention themselves, not the active subject which is supposed to initiate them, that form the real key to the intricacies of the mental workings. It seems better, therefore, so long as we are merely psychologists to deal with the ego or self only when it becomes a factor of consciousness, that is to say, in self-consciousness. Of this as psychical phenomenon the psychologist has to give an account. And in so doing he will find a psychological meaning for the familiar modes of speech 'I think,' etc. For the rest the relation of psychical processes to a subject is a question to be reserved for philosophy, together with the connected question of the relation of this subject to what we call object.2

This reference to consciousness as the organising activity which discriminates and combines the multitude of particular mental phenomena, and which in its clearest form becomes self-consciousness, appears to be the best way of marking off mental phenomena. An attempt has been made by Dr. Brentano to differentiate mental phenomena at the outset by the positive characteristic of reference to a content or object, or, as we may perhaps express it, apprehension more or less

1 Metaphysic, i. p. 423.

* On the need of postulating an ego or subject on the threshold of psychological inquiry see Waitz, Lehrbuch der Psych., § 7; Volkmann, Lehrbuch der Psych., 10; Lotze, Metaphysic, bk. iii. ch. i.; Ward, Encyclopædia Britannica, art. "Psychology," p. 39.

distinct of an object.1 Dr. Ward's view that the simplest mental process has the formal characteristic of presentation of some content to a subject, may perhaps be also described as making apprehension of object the essential circumstance in all mental activity. Other writers, as Dr. Bain, appear to hold that no one common character distinguishes mental phenomena from material, and that the only way to define mind positively is to enumerate those fundamental properties into which all the variety of mental phenomena can be resolved, viz., the commonly recognised triad of distinct and irreducible mental functions-feeling, will and intellect.3

§ 8. Range of Psychical Phenomena. Psychology, as a general theory of mind, takes account of all varieties and grades of mental life. It occupies itself primarily and mainly with the human mind, as being not only the most highly developed, most interesting, and of the greatest practical importance, but also that nearest to and best observable by us. At the same time it is bound to notice all lower forms of consciousness as well. Thus all the actions of animal life which plainly manifest the rudiments of a consciousness as just defined properly fall within the scope of psychology. When, for instance, there appears the clear and unambiguous manifestation of an act of discrimination and choice, there the psychologist finds a proper subject of study.3

Within the limits of human life mind must be viewed as coextensive with consciousness in its most comprehensive sense. That is to say, it will include not only that region of distinct consciousness in which attention is directed to the contents of mind at the moment so as to define and discriminate them, but also that obscure region of sub-consciousness, as it has been called, in which impressions and feelings are only imperfectly separated out and related one to another. Thus our mental life covers the dim region of bodily or organic sensation in which numerous elements are massed together in a vague feeling of comfort or discomfort. Such feelings are properly included in the phenomena of our mental life, inasmuch as they will be found to be connected with and zo perceptibly influence the flow of those thoughts and emotions which make up clear consciousness, and are, moreover, capable of being rendered more distinct by a deliberate effort of atten

1 See Psychologie, buch ii. cap. i. § 5.

* See Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, Intr. ch. i. 2.
3 See Romanes, Mental Evolution in Animals, chap. i.

EXTENT OF PSYCHICAL DOMAIN.'

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tion. Similarly all fugitive impressions which disappear too rapidly to be fixed by a process of attention are psychical phenomena, in so far as they momentarily enter into and can afterwards be seen to have influenced the current of conscious life. On the other hand, purely physiological processes, i.e., those which have no discoverable psychical concomitant do not come within the scope of the psychologist.1

§ 9. Problem of Psychology. We are now in a better position to define the special aim or problem of psychology. Its main concern is to give an account of the phenomena of the developed consciousness as it manifests itself in man. Such a scientific account will include a proper arrangement or classification of the various distinguishable factors that enter into our mental life, and also an explanation of their origin and development. The aim of psychology is thus not merely to describe mental phenomena, but to trace back their genesis and history. By what modes of investigation and methods of reasoning this aim is to be best realised will be discussed in the following chapter.

§ 10. Place of Psychology in the System of Sciences. In concluding this account of the scope or purpose of psychology we may seek to define somewhat more fully and systematically its relations to other departments of knowledge.

(a) To begin with then, as a positive science dealing with a special group of phenomena, psychology is to be co-ordinated with the physical sciences. And if, as is commonly done, we arrange the special sciences in a scale of decreasing generality or increasing speciality and complexity, we shall place psychology at the end, after biology. Thus the main departments of science will stand as follows: Mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology.2

(b) But, again, psychology as the theory of mind stands out from and in antithesis to the group of physical sciences. Among the phenomena of which it seeks to give an account the men

1 Concomitant must here be taken for simultaneous accompaniment or at least immediate consequent. The remote organic antecedents of psychical events, e.g., the changes in the retina which precede a sensation of colour, are only of secondary consequence to the psychologist.

"On the best way of classifying the sciences see Bain, Logic, vol. i., Appendix A; and Masaryk, Versuch einer concreten Logik, buch i.

tal processes which make up knowing or cognition occupy a foremost place. And in this account of the process of knowing it embraces every form and variety of knowledge, the mathematician's, chemist's, and so forth, on its subjective side, i.e., as the activity of some particular mind or minds. In this way psychology is coextensive with and supplements the work of all the special sciences. It takes the objective facts and truths reached by the sciences and views this certified knowledge as the outcome of certain mental processes which constitute knowing.

(c) We may now define the relation of psychology to philosophy. As already pointed out, modern psychology has asserted a position for itself as a science by separating itself in a measure from philosophy. At the same time this separation cannot, in the nature of the case, be complete. The scientific study of mind, though capable of being carried out independently of any metaphysical suppositions as to its ultimate nature or substance, necessarily leads up to the problems of rational psychology, the substance of the soul, its immortality, and so forth. So too, while it is right and important to distinguish, as we have done, the psychology of cognition, which confines itself to giving an account of the process of knowing, from the Theory of Knowledge, which deals with the objective truth or validity of our so-called cognitions, it must be evident that the two are connected. It may be safely said indeed that a psychological study of the process of cognition is a necessary preliminary to the discussion of the problems of the nature and the criterion of true cognition.

Turning now to sciences which have the more distinctly practical function of guiding action, we see at once that psychology will furnish the necessary foundation for those systems of rules by which we may direct and control mental activity. If, to anticipate our exposition, we adopt the common distinction of three psychical functions-cognition, feeling, and volition-we find a regulative science corresponding to each. Thus the psychology of cognition forms the basis of the regulative science of Logic, which aims at giving us rules by which we may know that we are thinking or reasoning correctly. The psychology of the feelings underlies Esthetics as the regulative science which seeks to determine the true objective

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE GROUP OF SCIENCES.

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standard of what is beautiful and worthy of admiration. Lastly, the psychology of the will connects itself with the regulative science of Ethics which aims at fixing the grounds of moral obligation and the standard of right conduct.1

In addition to these comprehensive regulative sciences there are others of a more distinctly practical character, having a more narrow and special end, which are also based on psychology. Thus the whole work of education, or of aiding in the development of others' minds, is clearly grounded on a knowledge of the mental processes. And the sciences of jurisprudence, political government, and so forth, which aim at controlling or otherwise influencing other minds, have to borrow their principles from the science that supplies a general theory of the workings of the human mind.2

REFERENCES FOR READING.

On the Standpoint and Scope of Psychology see Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, i. lect. vii. and viii.; Lotze, Metaphysic, bk. iii. chap. i.; Volkmann, Lehrbuch der Psych., Einleitung, § 1; Brentano, Psychologie, bk. i. chap. i.; G. H. Lewes, The Study of Psychology, chaps. i.-iii.; Dr. Ward, Encyclopædia Britannica, art. "Psychology".

1 Hamilton recognised these regulative sciences under the head Nomology of Mind (Lectures on Metaphysics, i. p. 122).

2 On the relation of psychology to the other sciences see the article by Prof. Croom Robertson already referred to (Mind, vol. viii. p. 1); Prof. Bain's article, Definition and Demarcation of the Subject Sciences (Mind, xiii. p. 527); and Masaryk, Versuch einer concreten Logik, 3es buch, vi.

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