I. PHENOMENOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY Present-day psychology, as the science of the "psychical" in its concrete connection with spatio-temporal reality, regards as its material whatever is present in the world as "ego-istic"; i.e., "living," perceiving, thinking, willing, etc., actual, potential and habitual. And as the psychical is known as a certain stratum of existence, proper to men and beasts, psychology may be con sidered as a branch of anthropology and zoology. But animal nature is a part of physical reality, and that which is concerned with physical reality is natural science. Is it, then, possible to separate the psychical cleanly enough from the physical to es tablish a pure psychology parallel to natural science? That a purely psychological investigation is practicable within limits is shown by our obligation to it for our fundamental conceptions of the psychical, and most of those of the psycho-physical.
But before determining the question of an unlimited psychology, we must be sure of the characteristics of psychological experience and the psychical data it provides. We turn naturally to our immediate experiences. But we cannot discover the psychical in any experience, except by a "reflection," or perversion of the ordi nary attitude. We are accustomed to concentrate upon the mat ters, thoughts, and values of the moment, and not upon the psychical "act of experience" in which these are apprehended. This "act" is revealed by a "reflection"; and a reflection can be practised on every experience. Instead of the matters themselves, the values, goals, utilities, etc., we regard the subjective experi ences in which these "appear." These "appearances" are phe nomena, whose nature is to be a "consciousness-of" their object, real or unreal as it be. Common language catches this sense of "relativity," saying, I was thinking of something, I was frightened of something, etc. Phenomenological psychology takes its name from the "phenomena," with the psychological aspect of which it is concerned : and the word "intentional" has been borrowed from the scholastic to denote the essential "reference" character of the phenomena. All consciousness is "intentional."
In unreflective consciousness we are "directed" upon objects, we "intend" them ; and reflection reveals this to be an immanent process characteristic of all experience, though infinitely varied in form. To be conscious of something is no empty having of that something in consciousness. Each phenomenon has its own inten tional structure, which analysis shows to be an ever-widening system of individually intentional and intentionally related com ponents. The perception of a cube, for example, reveals a mul tiple and synthesized intention : a continuous variety in the "ap pearance" of the cube, according to differences in the points of view from which it is seen, and corresponding differences in "per spective," and all the difference between the "f rent side" actually seen at the moment and the "backside" which is not seen, and which remains, therefore, relatively "indeterminate," and yet is supposed equally to be existent. Observation of this "stream" of "appearance-aspects" and of the manner of their synthesis, shows that every phase and interval is already in itself a "consciousness of" something, yet in such a way that with the constant entry of new phases the total consciousness, at any moment, lacks not syn thetic unity, and is, in fact, a consciousness of one and the same object. The intentional structure of the train of a perception must conform to a certain type, if any physical object is to be perceived as there! And if the same object be intuited in other modes, if it be imagined, or remembered, or copied, all its intentional forms recur, though modified in character from what they were in the perception, to correspond to their new modes. The same is true of every kind of psychical experience. Judgment, valuation, pur suit, these also are no empty experiences having in consciousness of judgments, values, goals and means, but are likewise experi ences compounded of an intentional stream, each conforming to its own fast type.