CHAPTER I. LIMITATION OF THE SUBJECT. § 274. Unless he is warned against doing so, the reader will expect to find in the following chapters analyses of states of consciousness of all orders. The phenomena presented by the emotions, as well as those presented by the intellect, will be assumed to fall within the scope of the inquiry. A resolution into their components, not only of thoughts, but also of sentiments, will be looked for. On comparing these two orders of our mental states, however, it will be seen that though one of them promises to yield satisfactory results under analysis, the other does not. Anything that is to be explained by separation of its parts and examination of the modes in which they are joined to one another, must be something which presents distinguishable parts united in definable ways. And when we have before us something which, though obviously composite, has its heterogeneous elements so mingled and fused together that they cannot be severally identified with clearness, we may conclude that an attempted analysis, if not absolutely fruitless, will bring us to conclusions that are doubtful or incomplete, or both. Now these contrasted characters are possessed by the modes of consciousness we class respectively as intellectual and emotional. A thought, no matter how simple or how complex, contains more or less definable and nameable elements, having connexions that may be described with distinctness. But a sentiment is altogether vague in its outlines, and has a structure which continues indistinct even under the most patient introspection. Dim traces of different components may be discerned; but the limitations both of the whole and of its parts are so faintly marked, and at the same time so entangled, that none but very general results can be reached. And this is a character which the genesis of the emotions, as we have traced it, necessarily implies. Whoever recalls §§ 214, 247 in Parts IV. and V., will see that emotions, having been evolved by the consolidation of clusters upon clusters of heterogeneous simple feelings, and the consolidation of such compound clusters into still larger and more heterogeneous ones, will see that analysis must fail to resolve them into their components. Passing over the emotions, therefore, as not admitting of further interpretations than those which we reached synthetically in the last volume, we will here limit our analyses to the phenomena classed as intellectual. § 275. An analysis conducted in a systematic manner, must begin with the most complex phenomena of the series to be analyzed. After resolving them into phenomena that stand next in order of complexity, it must proceed similarly with these components; and so, by successive decompositions, must descend to the simpler and more general, reaching at last the simplest and most general. Consistently to pursue this method throughout Subjective Psychology is difficult. The commonest operations of consciousness are perplexing to persons unaccustomed to introspection, and its highlyinvolved operations, if dealt with at the outset, may be expected to tax the powers even of the habitual student. Disadvantageous, however, in this respect, as such an arrangement of the subject may be, it is so much the best fitted for exhibiting the general law which it is the object of this Special Analysis to disclose, that I do not hesitate to adopt it. A little patience only is asked during the perusal of the next few chapters. What he finds in them that is not very comprehensible, the reader must pass over until subsequent chapters give the key to it. Should some of the matters discussed seem to him unimportant, perhaps he will suspend his judgment until their bearing on the doctrine at large becomes visible. And if he should not perceive the reason for interpreting certain mental phenomena after a particular manner, he is requested to take the analyses upon trust, in the belief that they will eventually be justified. |