Chapter II.-COGNITION OF MATTER, 101-103 Chapter III-PERCEPTION OF SPACE PART II.-THE IDEAL. Chapter I.-The Good, the Beautiful, AND THE TRUE Chapter II.-THE IDEAL-REAL 104-136 137-151 152-61 INDEX 152-9 160-1 162-4 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. The ambiguous use of technical terms is a great hindrance to the advance of any science, and psychology seems to suffer more in this respect than any other. Dr. Ward, in his article in the Ency. Brit., puts it none too strongly when he says that "it seems to be the fate of this science to be restricted in its terminology to the illdefined and well-worn currency of common speech, with which every psychologist feels at liberty to do what seems right in his own eyes, at least within the wide range which a loose connotation allows." In no case is this ambiguity greater or more confusing than in the use of the term sensation. Sensation and intellection are fundamental characteristics of every stage, process, or content of human consciousness; yet the definition of neither can be found clearly stated in psychological literature. The necessity of precise definitions has, of course, been recognized, and repeated attempts have been made to give them; but the definitions have varied with each successive writer, who has generally, since the time of Locke, restricted the scope of the term sensation and broadened that of intellection. In this way the term sensation has been successively narrowed in meaning from Berkeley's sweeping inclusion of "the sun, moon, and stars, and every other object of the senses," down through Hamilton's "subject-object" and J. S. Mill's "signs of Permanent Possibilities," to Herbert Spencer's unconscious "nervous shock," or "ultimate unit of consciousness." And finally, T. H. Green argues that neither sensation nor intellection can have any meaning taken separately; but that, on the contrary, they are "inseparable and mutually dependent," and "each in its full reality includes the other." The term sensation being still used in many of these different senses, it becomes highly important to determine the number of essentially different views held concerning its nature, and the relation of these views to one another. In analyzing the nature and relation of sensation and intellection, it is necessary to discuss the relation of the relative and the absolute to the ideal and the real; and in setting forth their functions, it is necessary to set forth the distinction between the ideal and the real, in order to show either the correspondence of the primary sub-divisions of each to the fundamental intellectual faculties, or the function of each of these faculties in cognition. Book I. of this thesis gives an analysis of sensation and intellection, defines each, and determines the relation of each to the other and to consciousness as a whole. Book II. discusses the distinction between the ideal and the real, the correspondence of the primary subdivisions of each to the fundamental intellectual faculties, and the function of sensation and intellection in the cognition of each. |