Experience

EXPERIENCE The Problem.—The desire to know "what is going on in the mind" is natural and legitimate. So far from being one that the psychologist may ignore, it is precisely that which he is called upon to meet. The challenge of those who deny the feasibility of the venture,. hardly calls for a priori argument; the answer lies in the facts which the so-called Introspective Method has succeeded in bringing to light.

The question is : what exactly do we discover, when, leaving to others the observation of behaviour from the standpoint of the natural sciences, we make ourselves subjects of investiga tion? The answer, in general, is that we find ourselves living through an experience which to us is "immediate" but which can be only indirectly revealed to anyone "outside." Experience admits of verbal description, and description is "behaviour," but it "makes sense" only to one who interprets it by reference to experience of his own, which he might similarly describe. It is with the nature and laws of experience that Psychology is pri marily concerned. We have first to consider in a general way some fundamental concepts in the analysis of experience.

Presentations.

A tree is a physical and not a mental fact; propositions about a tree fall within the province of botany but not of Psychology. On the other hand, an idea of a tree is men tal and not physical ; propositions about ideas (e.g., that they are distinct or indistinct, or that one is associated with, and suggests, another), are distinctively psychological. What, then, is the differ ence between a tree and someone's idea of a tree? The answer is that the idea of a tree is the tree itself as it seems to be to an experiencing individual, who is in some way cognisant of it and interested in it. As it appears variously to different individuals, or to the same individual in different stages of his history, we say that the idea changes and varies. Such change and variation is properly psychological. We are however debarred from using the term "idea" comprehensively for objects so far as they enter into individual experience. The reason is that, in present usage, both popular and technical, the word "idea" is applied only to what is thought of without being perceived. In perceiving a tree, we do

not say that we are having an idea of it. We may remedy this defect by calling the tree as it appears in sense perception a "percept." But we still need a comprehensive term to cover both percepts and ideas. Following Ward we shall use the term Pres entation in this wide sense. Anything whatever is a presenta tion if and so far as someone is cognisant of it and interested in it.

Sense and Thought.

Nothing can be thus present to the mind unless it is thought of. Otherwise we could not be said to be cognisant of it or interested in it at all. But presentations are not merely thought of. In part they are also sensibly experi enced. In a cold bath cold is sensibly experienced. But the bather may, in anticipation or reminiscence, think of the cold as sensibly experienced without actually experiencing it. Similarly, when he sees someone else plunge into cold water, he may think of the other's sensations without having them himself. In such instances the object of thought is itself intrinsically capable of being sensibly experienced. But this is very far from being uni versally true. Universals and possibilities cannot as such be sensibly presented. Physical objects and their objective charac ters and relations, as apprehended by common sense and science, cannot be resolved into actual and possible sensations.

Thought essentially involves something in the nature of judg ment however rudimentary—including under the term "judgment" questioning and supposition as well as assertion and denial. What we think of we characterise in some manner and degree as being this or that, such and such, so and so related. If we ask what the object of thought is, we cannot express it without using proposi tions. The bather thinks of the coldness before entering his bath as something which he may actually experience, or is about to experience. When he is actually feeling it, he thinks of it, e.g., as being coldness, as actually present, as about to continue for some time, as felt by him, etc. He does not know anything unless he knows something about it; but "knowledge about" is thought or judgment.