CHAPTER II

THE ELEMENTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

In our last chapter we have discussed the general and formal characteristics of consciousness. These have appeared to us in the scope of consciousness, in the different grades of clearness and distinctness of its content, and lastly, connected with this, in the relations of apprehension and apperception. The next question that immediately presents itself is: Of what kind is the specific content that appears to us in these forms? The answer to this question includes the task of explaining the ultimate parts of this content, that cannot be further disintegrated. Such ultimate parts are generally called elements. Now it is one of the first tasks of each science, that deals with the investigation of empirical facts, to discover the elements of the phenomena. Its second task is to find out the laws according to which these elements enter into combinations. The whole task of psychology can therefore be summed up in these two problems: (1) What are the elements of consciousness? (2) What combinations do these elements undergo and what laws govern these combinations?

In contradistinction to the elements of consciousness let us call any combination of such elements a psychical compound. The relation of the two to each other can be at once made clear by the examples that lie at hand. Let us return to our metronome. If we let one single beat work upon consciousness and then immediately arrest the pendulum, we have a psychical element. Such a beat cannot in general be further disintegrated if we, as can easily be done in such a case, abstract from the fact that we hear it from some special direction in space, &c. If, on the other hand, we let two beats work, they constitute at once a psychical compound. This becomes always more complex, the more such beats we combine into a row, and the more we increase this complication by different degrees of accentuation, as in the examples of 2/8 and 4/4 time described above. Such an element of consciousness as the single beat is called a sensation, a combination of elements into rhythms of more or less complicated constitution is called an idea. Even at the present time many psychologists use the word "idea" only for a complex that does not arise from direct outward impressions, i.e. only for so-called "memory images." For ideas formed by outward sense impressions they generally use the word "perception." Now this distinction is psychologically of absolutely no importance, since there are really no valid differences between memory ideas and so-called sense-perceptions. The memory ideas of our dreams are in general quite as lively as sense impressions in the waking state, and it is for this reason that they are often held to be really experienced phenomena. The word "idea" denotes well the essential characteristic of all these complexes. The idea (Greek idea) is the form or appearance of something in the outer world. In the same sense, as belonging to the outer world, we speak of the sensations and their complexes arising in our own body as organic sensations, because we locate them in out own body, e.g. the sensations of fatigue of our muscles, the pressure and pain sensations of the inner organs, &c. The relatively uniform elements of touch and organic sensations are distributed among the sensations of pressure, warmth, cold, and pain. In contra-distinction to these, the special senses of hearing, seeing, smelling, and tasting present an abundance of sensations, each of which, according to its peculiar constitution, is called a quality of sensation. Each such quality is besides variable in its intensity. We can, for example, produce a certain beat in very variable intensities, while the quality remains the same.

In all these cases we meet with the same relations between sensations and ideas, as we saw in the metronome beats described above. Green or red, white or black, &c., are called visual sensations; a green surface or a black body is called a visual idea. The relation is exactly the same as between the single beat and the row of beats. Only in this case the combination of several sensations to an idea of a surface or of a body forces itself upon us much more directly, and it requires a very careful abstraction from this combination into an ideational complex, in order to retain the conception of a sensation. But we can vary our ideas of surfaces and bodies at will, while the colour remains the same. So at last we are forced to look upon this element, that remains the same in spite of all changes in the combinations, as a simple sensation. In the same way we consider a simple tone as a sensation of hearing, and a clang or chord, composed of several tones, as an auditory idea, and so on. If the tones follow each other in a melodious and rhythmical combination, then ideas of increasing complexity arise, and in the same manner several relatively simple visual ideas may be bound together into more extensive simultaneous or successive unities. The senses of sight and of hearing in especial form in this way a great variety of sensations and ideas, and they do this in two ways--firstly, through the qualities of their simple sensations, and secondly, through the complications of ideas, into which these sensations may be combined. The simple scale of tones, from the deepest to the highest tone that can be heard, consists of an infinite gradation of tonal qualities, out of which our musical scale chooses only certain tones, which lie at relatively large distances from each other. Musical clangs are combinations of a number of such simple tonal sensations, and the so-called compound clangs increase this complicated constitution of the clangs by emphasising to a greater degree certain partial tones. The simple light-sensations form a more concise manifoldness, but one that stretches into different directions. Red, for example, on the one hand goes over by constant gradations into orange and then into yellow, and on the other hand we have just as many constant gradations from each of these colour-shades through the lighter colour-tones into white, or through the darker ones into black, and so on. The ideas of this sense are absolutely inexhaustible. If we think of the manifold forms of surfaces and bodies, and of the differences in distance and direction, in which we perceive objects, it is obvious that it is absolutely impossible to find any limit here. Thus the richness in sensations and ideas, which each of the senses conveys, stands in close relation to the spatial distance of the objects which they introduce into consciousness. The narrowest region is that of the touch and organic sense, where the impressions all refer to our own body. Then come the sensations of the two so-called chemical senses of taste and of smell. Even in man they have the important function of organs of help or protection in the choice of food, as is the case in the whole animal kingdom. The sensations and ideas of hearing stretch much further. By means of them the outer world enters into relation with our consciousness in language, song, and music. And last of all, the sense of sight, the sense of distance in the real meaning of the word, gives form and content to the whole picture of the outer world, that we carry in our consciousness.

However different the qualities of sensations and the forms of ideas may be, yet these elements and complexes all agree in one particular--they all refer to the objective world, to things and processes outside of us, to their qualities, their combinations, and their relations. Our own body, to which touch and organic sensations relate, forms in contradistinction to our consciousness a part of this outer world. It is the nearest to us, but still a mere part of the outer world. The question immediately arises: Do these objective elements and complexes form the only content of consciousness? Or in other words, are the only psychical elements such as we project outwards? Or are there in our consciousness, besides this picture of the outer world, other elements, which we do not apprehend as objects or their qualities that stand in contradistinction to ourselves?

To answer this question let us use the metronome to help us. If we choose time intervals of a medium length, say 1/2 to 1 1/2 seconds, and if we make such a row of beats rhythmical by the voluntary emphasis of certain beats in the manner described above, then each single beat represents a sensation and the whole row of beats represents an idea. At the same time, during the impression on consciousness of such a rhythmical whole we notice phenomena that are not contained in our definition of sensation or idea. Above all, we have at the end of the row of beats the impression of an agreeable whole. If we wish to define this concept of "agreeable" more accurately, we may describe it as a subjective feeling of pleasure, which is caused by outward impressions, which we therefore call agreeable. This concept consists therefore of two parts--an objective idea, in our case the row of beats, and a subjective feeling of pleasure. This latter is obviously not in itself included in the impression of the row of beats or in that which we call the idea. It is clearly an added subjective element. It also shows itself to be such from the fact that we do not project it into the outer world. It is apprehended directly as a reaction of our consciousness, or rather, to express it at once more fittingly, of our apperception. This shows itself also in the relative independence of this feeling of pleasure from the objective constitution of the impression. Since in such a simple compound as a rhythmical row of beats the agreeableness is generally very moderate, we clearly observe that with many individuals the feeling of pleasure contained in it often sinks below the threshold of consciousness, so that they only perceive the objective constitution of the beats. With others this subjective reaction becomes very prominent. The feeling of pleasure will, as is well known, become more intense, when harmonious tones combine with the rhythmical beat into one melodious whole. The agreeable feeling that then arises from the melody can scarcely be wanting in any individual consciousness. Just here we note that the degree of this feeling of pleasure for one and the same melody can vary extraordinarily for different individuals. And these subjective differences increase more and more as the melodious compound becomes more complicated. A complicated tone-structure may produce the greatest ecstasy in a musician, whereas it may leave an unmusical person absolutely cold. The latter, on the other hand, may perhaps find a very simple melody agreeable, and this same melody may appear trivial to the musician and therefore disagreeable. In all these cases we see that the feeling of pleasure, which is bound to certain sensations and ideas, is purely subjective. It is an element that is not only dependent upon the impression itself, but also and always and most of all dependent upon the subject receiving the impression. And negatively the subjective character of this feeling is shown in the fact that it is never projected into the outer world, although it may be so closely bound up with the idea that refers to the outer world.

But feelings of pleasure are not the only ones that we observe in our rhythm experiments. If we call to mind the exact state of consciousness between two beats of a rhythmical row, we notice that the apprehension of the identity of two intervals arises by means of a subjective process. This process takes place in the same manner within each of the two compared intervals, and thereby gives rise to the impression that they coincide. In ordinary life we generally speak of the phenomena, that are observed in such cases, as a change from "expectation" to "realisation." If we follow these phenomena a little more closely, we notice that in our case the process of expectation is a continuous and regularly varying one. At the moment immediately following one beat, expectation strains itself to catch the next one, and this straining increases until this beat really occurs. At the same moment the strain is suddenly relieved by the realisation of the expected, when the new beat comes. Then the same process is repeated during the next interval. If the arrangement of the beat is more complicated because of different degrees of emphasis, then these subjective processes become in proportion more complicated, since several such processes of expectation and realisation overlap one another.

What do these processes, which we so often meet, although not always in such regular change as in a rhythmical row of beats, consist of? It is obvious at a glance that expectation and realisation are both elements that are not bound to the objective impression itself. These processes can vary subjectively just as much as the agreeable feeling that arises from a rhythmical row of beats or from a melody. It is now pretty generally agreed that these peculiar elements of consciousness arise within us and not without us. There is, however, still one possibility that remains. It might be that sensations are the bearers of these subjective phenomena of expectation, perhaps sensations that are perceived while listening to a row of beats, arising partly in the interior of the ear because of the straining of the membrane of the tympanum, and partly in the mimic muscles that surround the ear. These sensations correspond to the similar sensations in the eye in expectation of visual impressions. Yet this hypothesis, on closer examination, proves untenable for various reasons. First of all these sensations continue, during the whole period of expectation, in a relatively constant intensity, as far as can be observed. There is no trace of that regular increase and that sudden transition to the opposite process of realisation, such as we observed in our rhythm experiments. Secondly, we can produce exactly similar sensations in our ear, or round about our ear, or in the region surrounding the eye, if we voluntarily contract the muscles in question, without our being in a state of expectation, or if we send a slight electric current through such muscles. In both cases the characteristic element of expectation is wanting. Lastly, it is obviously impossible to account for these phenomena by means of uniform muscle-sensations if we wish to explain that superposition of states of expectation of different degrees and extents, which we observed in more complicated rhythmical rows of beats, or which happens in complicated psychical states arising through intellectual processes. How could the sensations of the membrane of the tympanum, or of the fixation muscles of the eye, account for that intense feeling of expectation which an exciting novel or a good play may cause? Add to this the fact that these states are quite as subjective and dependent on the individual disposition of consciousness as a feeling of pleasure that is awakened by an agreeable rhythm, and it is at once obvious that these states, which we shall call for shortness the contrasts of strain and relaxation, have the very same right to be called feelings. For feelings, wherever they arise, accompany, as subjective reactions of consciousness, sensations and ideas, but are never identical with them.

We obtain therefore, with the above-mentioned medium rapidity of the metronome, feelings of pleasure and feelings of strain and relaxation in close connection with each other, as regular concomitants of rhythmical impressions. This, however, is essentially changed if the rapidity of the beats is altered. If we chose intervals of from to 3 seconds, strain and relaxation follow similarly as before. They appear even more distinctly, since the strain increases, to a greater intensity because of the longer intervals. But just as distinctly does the feeling of pleasure decrease with this increase in the length of the interval, and we soon reach the limit where the strain of expectation becomes painful. Here, then, the former feeling of pleasure is transformed into a feeling of displeasure, which is again closely connected with the feelings of strain and relaxation. Now let us proceed in the opposite direction by making the metronome beats follow each other after intervals of 1/2 to 1/4 of a second, and we notice that the feelings of strain and relaxation disappear. In their place appears an excitement that increases with the rapidity of the impressions, and along with this we have generally a more or less lively feeling of displeasure. We see, therefore, a new feeling added to those already found. We may call it most appropriately excitation. It is sufficiently well known to us in ordinary life in its more complicated forms, where it obviously forms an essential component of many emotions, e.g. anger, lively joy, &c. We can also find the contrast to this feeling of excitation with the help of the same instrument, by suddenly decreasing the rapidity of the beats to their medium rapidity again. This change is regularly accompanied by a very distinct feeling of quiescence (a quieting or subduing feeling).

Accordingly our metronome experiments have brought to light three pairs of feelings--pleasure and pain, strain and relaxation, excitation and quiescence. At the same time it has been shown that only very seldom do these forms of feeling appear isolated. Several of them are generally combined together into one feeling-compound. We may call this latter the aggregate feeling, and the former the partial feelings. It is evident that between these two a similar relation exists as between ideas and pure sensations. Besides this, the contrasts of each pair of feelings--e.g. pleasure and displeasure--include the possibility of all these contrasts balancing each other, so that a state almost free from feeling may result. Just as, on the other hand, several partial feelings very often join together to form one aggregate feeling, so in more complicated states of emotion contrasting feelings may be intertwined. They do not therefore in all cases compensate one another. They sometimes join together to make contrasting combinations. Simple cases of such contrasting combinations or disjointed moods can be brought about in a simple form by means of the metronome. We arrange the time of the beats so that the feeling of strain just begins to become painful, while at the same time the feeling of relaxation, and partly also the strain directed on this, still causes pleasure.

Let us now leave rhythmical acoustical impressions and consider any other sense. We find everywhere the same pairs of feelings that we produced by means of the metronome. It is very striking how the feeling-character always follows in the same directions, if we give successive impressions that give rise to contrasting feelings. Red is exciting, while blue in contrast to it is quieting. In the same way a deep and a high tone contrast. At the same time, the feeling-contrast is here a mixed one, as the expressions "serious" and "solemn" for deep tones, and "bright" and "lively" for the high ones, show. It would seem as if with the deepest tones pleasure and displeasure combine together to that total impression of seriousness, and to this a quieting feeling is added when the deep tone stands in contrast to preceding high tones.

The feelings joined to the impressions of the senses of touch and smell and taste are in general more uniform and simpler. Here we have as contrasts the strong displeasure of a sensation of pain, and the feeling of pleasure of a weak sensation of tickling. Similarly with the pleasant impression of a sweet and the unpleasant impression of an intensely bitter or sour taste, and so on. It is obvious, however, that already among the smells we find many that possess a composite feeling-quality, e.g. pleasant and at the same time exciting, as menthol-ether, or unpleasant and exciting, as ammonia and asafoetida. The organic or common sensations are also often of a mixed feeling-character. Yet pleasure and displeasure predominate here most of all.

An important characteristic of feelings consists lastly in the fact that they combine themselves into an affective process, which as a rule is joined to an ideational process. A temporal process of this kind with an affective and ideational content, that changes but is nevertheless joined together, we call an emotion, or with less intensity and a more lasting nature of the feelings, a disposition. Joy, delight, merriness, hope are emotions in which the predominant feeling is pleasure; anger, grief, sorrow, and fear are emotions in which displeasure predominates. Now in both these series of emotions the exciting and quieting feelings and the feelings of strain and relaxation in many cases often play an important part. The quieting feeling combined with displeasure we call depression. Joy and anger are exciting emotions, grief and fear are depressing, hope, sorrow, and fear are straining. When, however, an expected result takes place, or when the emotion of fear disappears, a strong feeling of relaxation generally occurs. Many emotions are also characterised by a fluctuating affective process, sometimes changing in intensity and sometimes in quality. Anger, hope, and sorrow in especial show great fluctuations in intensity. With hope, fear, and sorrow we very often find fluctuations in quality. Hope and sorrow often change between themselves, and in most cases increase in intensity because of this contrast. Especially with the emotions we can perceive this affective process objectively in the movements of the mimic muscles of the face, and when the emotions are very strong in the other muscles of the body. These so-called mimic and pantomimic "expression movements" are always combined with characteristic changes of the movements of the heart and lungs. They are in so far the most sensitive characteristics of these subjective processes, since they can be observed even with the weakest emotions and even with the simplest feelings, that have not yet been bound together into an affective process. The expansion and contraction of the small blood-vessels, especially of the face, that often happens in a state of emotion, must also be mentioned here. In anger and shame we notice blushing, and in fear and fright pallor.

A further class of important compound processes stands in close connection with the emotions, i.e. the volitional processes. In many cases, even at the present day, the will is held to be a specific psychical element, or it is considered in its essence to be identical with the idea of an intended act. A closer investigation of the volitional process as to its subjective and objective characteristics shows, however, that it is most closely connected with the emotions, and that it really is to be considered an affective process. There is no act of volition in which feelings of greater or less intensity, which combine into an affective process, are not present. The characteristic in which a volitional process differs from an emotion consists essentially in the end of the process that immediately precedes and accompanies the act of volition. If this end is not reached, it remains simply an emotion. We speak of the emotion of anger if a man merely shows his angry excitement in his expression movements. On the other hand we speak of an act of emotion if he fells to the ground the person who has excited his anger. In many cases the emotions and their feeling-content, which form the constituent parts of the volitional process, are weaker, but they are never absolutely wanting. A voluntary action without feeling, one that follows from purely intellectual motives, as many philosophers presuppose, does not exist at all. On the other hand the volitional processes are marked out from the ordinary emotions by characteristics which give volition its peculiar character. Firstly there are certain ideas in the process which possess a more or less strong feeling-tone, and which are in direct connection with the end stage of the act of volition, and prepare for it. We call such ideas the motives of volition. Secondly, the end stage consists of characteristic feelings, which always occur in essentially the same manner in all volitional processes. These we generally call feelings of activity. They are very probably compounded of feelings of excitation, of strain, and of relaxation, as a closer subjective analysis and the concomitant objective expression-symptoms, especially the movements of breathing, show. Excitation and strain precede the conclusive act, relaxation and excitation accompany the act, and continue for a short time afterwards. It is obvious that the number and the reciprocal action of the motives are of decisive moment for the constitution of the volitional process. If only one single motive is present, which prepares the emotion and its discharge into action, we call the volitional process an impulsive act; The acts of animals are clearly in most cases such simple volitional acts. So also in the psychical life of man they play a very important part--the leading part in the more composite volitional processes, and they very often arise out of these latter when these have been often repeated. The actions that arise out of several conflicting motives of strong feeling-tone we call voluntary acts, or if we are clearly aware of a previous conflict of opposite motives, selective or discriminative acts. According to this complication of motives, the end stage, which is especially characteristic of the volitional processes, takes different forms. With impulsive acts the whole process takes place quickly; the concluding feelings of excitation, strain, and relaxation are generally crowded together in a very short time. With voluntary and especially with selective acts, the whole process is much slower, and the feelings often fluctuate up and down. The same is often the case with those complex volitional acts, which do not show themselves outwardly in certain bodily movements, but which give rise to changes in the process of consciousness itself. Such inner volitional acts are noticed above all in the voluntary concentration of attention, in the direction of thought guided by special motives, and so on.

Now if we investigate more closely these feelings of strain, excitation, and relaxation, which make up these inner volitional acts, we notice at once the great conformity of these with the processes which accompany the apperception of an impression or of an idea arising in consciousness through recollection. It is obvious that these elements, grouped together under the name of "feelings of activity," make up along with varying sensations the essential part of impulsive and voluntary acts in the one case, and of the processes of attention and apperception in the other. These processes also coincide in so far as different forms of apperception correspond to impulsive and voluntary action. If we apprehend an impression which is given to us without our assistance, the attention seems in a sense to be compelled to turn to this impression, following this single motive. We can express this by saying we apprehend it passively. The feeling of activity always follows such an impression. If on the other hand we turn to an expected impression, then these feelings of strain and excitation clearly precede the impression. We are aware that our apperception is active. These have often been called processes of involuntary and voluntary attention. But these expressions are unsuitable, since in reality volitional processes are present in both cases. They are, like impulsive and voluntary acts, merely processes of different grades. It is at once evident that, by reason of this inner conformity, apperception itself may be looked upon as a volitional process. It occurs as an essential factor in all inner and outer volitional acts, and as an ever-present one in the feelings of activity so characteristic of the will. Herein lies the chief motive for the fact that we look upon the will as our most private possession, the one that is most identical with our inner nature itself. Our ideas seem in comparison with it to be something external, upon which our will reacts according to its feelings. And so at bottom our will coincides with our "ego." Now this ego is neither an idea, nor a specific feeling, but it consists of those elementary volitional processes of apperception which accompany the processes of consciousness. They are always changing but they are always present, and in this way form the lasting substratum of our self-consciousness. The inner line of fortifications of this ego are the feelings, which represent nothing more than the reactions of apperception to outer experience. The next line consists of this experience itself--the ideas, of which the ones that are nearest to us, i.e. those of our own body, are most closely connected with the volitional processes that are at work in the apprehension of them. And so it happens at a naive stage of consciousness that they are combined together with the ego itself into one unity.

We have now learned to recognise the emotions, dispositions, and volitional processes as psychical contents, all of which differ from each other in their characteristic processes. None of them, however, contain anywhere specific elements. They can all of them be analysed into the same forms of feelings. Although the volitional process in especial is very peculiar, yet this peculiarity nowhere depends upon specific ideational or affective elements, but solely upon the mode of combination of these elements into emotions with their end stages again composed merely of general affective forms. Still there remains another question to be answered, which has not yet been settled by the reduction of all feelings to the above-mentioned six principal forms, viz. pleasure, displeasure, strain, relaxation, excitation, and quiescence. Is each of these forms perfectly uniform? Does it always return in the same quality? Or does it stand in a similar relation as the colour "blue" stands to the different shades of that colour, so that the principal form may not only appear in different grades of intensity, but also in various qualities? To answer these questions let us turn again to our metronome. It has again the advantage of illustrating our problem by means of a very simple example. Let us take two rows of beats in 4/4 time with the accents arranged differently as in A and B, obtained by the method of subjective rhythm as described above.

Both contain the same number of rises and falls, but in a different arrangement. A shows a pronounced example of a descending row of beats, B a similar example of a row that first ascends and then descends. With a suitable rapidity of the metronome we can easily hear at will into the uniform beats of the pendulum each of these rhythms. If, however, we have once made our choice between the two forms, then we group the beats that follow the row A in exactly the same manner as the row A, and the same thing happens with the row B. Such a spontaneous repetition is only possible owing to the fact that at the last beat of each row we group the whole together. This we do with the succeeding beats as well, just as we have seen to be generally the case in measuring the scope of consciousness. Now if we observe our feelings we obtain an important addition to our previous observations. They showed us that a very important part of such a process was composed of the alternating feelings of strain and relaxation, and perhaps also of excitation and quiescence, and lastly of agreeableness. This last feeling was especially strong at the end of a row of beats, caused by the arrangement of the single element into one rhythmically ordered whole. It is obvious now that the centre of gravity of the affective process lies every time at the end of a row, where the superimposed rhythmical feelings run together into one unity. For it is unmistakably this feeling that allows us directly to apprehend the succeeding rows as identical with the preceding ones in a succession of similar rows. What we apperceive is not the preceding row itself. The greater number of its elements lie already in the darker field of consciousness. We apperceive rather this aggregate feeling, which is joined to the last directly apperceived element, and which is the resultant of the preceding affective processes. Now let us compare this terminal feeling, that lends a given rhythm its essential and peculiar affective character, as it appears in the two examples represented by A and B. It is evident that however much on the one hand a row may depend upon the constitution and the arrangement of the preceding components, it yet on the other hand always possesses its own specific quality. It is true that we can always classify this under one or more of the six chief qualities, and yet we do not thereby account for its own peculiar quality, which differentiates it from the others of the same class. It also cannot be considered a mere summation of the simple feelings that axe joined to the separate parts of the process. The feelings of strain and relaxation that are distributed over the rows A and B are the same. They differ at most in the degree of intensity. We cannot therefore understand why the feelings that remain behind at the end of each row should be so different. But it is so. We can convince ourselves of this more directly than in the experiments with voluntary rhythmical emphasis, if we produce the rows A and B after one another by means of knocking and without a metronome. Here the emphasised beats are not only subjectively, but also objectively accentuated. If, by this method, another observer compares the rows A and B given successively, he obtains at the end of each row such differing impressions that he cannot decide with certainty whether the rows are of equal or of different lengths. We saw above, that with the repetition of similar rows of beats, five rows of 4/4 time could be apprehended at once. Now, however, as soon as the rhythm is changed, it is impossible to compare one single row with another of differing rhythm. The aggregate feeling concentrated at the end of each row of beats possesses each time a qualitative colouring dependent upon the constitution of the rhythm. This colouring coincides in its general form with the feeling of agreeableness that arises at the end and with the feeling of relaxation following the strain of expectation. These observations supplement essentially our former results as to the apprehension of longer rows of beats. We found that the knowledge that two rows were the same, always came at the end of a row, and that this verification followed the rows directly in one uniform act of apperception. Now we can explain this phenomenon perfectly by the uniform nature and the instantaneous rise of that resulting aggregate feeling. Because of this the last beat in a rhythmical row comes to represent the whole row. 'The quality of the rhythmical feeling that corresponds to the time in question concentrates itself in a perfectly adequate manner in the apperception. Thus the qualitative shades of feeling that are bound to the idea come to represent the idea itself. This substitution is of the greatest importance, above all from the fact, as we have clearly seen in the rhythmical experiments, that the ideas and their components lying in the darker fields of consciousness influence in their apperceptive affective power the process of consciousness.

What has been here explained with the simple example of a row of beats, can now be applied to ideational content of every kind. If we form a melody by combining the rhythm with a certain ordered change of tones, and if it is repeated, exactly the same process takes place as with the repetition of an unmelodious row of beats. The qualitative resultant of this whole, which here again is concentrated on the apperception of the last impression and which makes an immediate repetition possible, has, however, become very much richer. Here in the terminal feeling, preparing itself during the course of the melodious collection of tones, the whole concentrates itself again to a perfectly uniform affective product complete in itself. It is the very same with any other ideational compound. Even although the affective value is very weak, it always receives a qualitative colouring from the composition of the idea. This colouring appears, where other more lively affective reactions are wanting, as a modification of the delicate feelings of strain and excitation which accompany all processes of consciousness, and especially of apperception. The great importance which feelings have for all the processes of consciousness is often overlooked. This applies to the processes of memory, cognition and recognition, and also to the so-called activities of imagination and understanding. We shall return to this when we discuss these various forms of psychical combinations. At this point let us emphasise once again the result that our observations have led us to as to the real nature of feeling. We have called the feelings states that were connected with the subject, subjective reactions of consciousness. We see now that this description is not exactly incorrect, but that it is inadequate. What gives its psychical value to a feeling arising from any objective content of consciousness is not its connection with consciousness, but the fact that it is closely bound up with the apperceptive processes. Feeling is always bound to an apperceptive act. This came plainly to light in the rhythmical experiments where the feeling arose from preceding impressions. Feeling may therefore be looked upon as the specific way in which the apperception reacts upon the content of consciousness that stands in connection with the immediately apperceived impression.

Lastly, two other questions present themselves. How is it that feeling possesses the characteristic of appearing in certain contrasts, viz. pleasure and displeasure, &c.? And how is it that just three such pairs of contrasts exist, which we shall call for the sake of shortness the three dimensions of feeling? Since we are here dealing with ultimate facts of psychological experience, which cannot be further analysed, the answers to our questions cannot in the proper sense give an explanation of these facts. That is, in reality, as impossible as to explain why a blue colour is blue and a red one red. Considering, however, the connection of the feelings with the total processes of consciousness, we can try to explain these contrasts in this connection The view of feeling as a way of reaction of the apperception upon a given content gives us some help in understanding these affective contrasts. We found that the act of apperception represented a simple volitional act.

Now each volition contains latently either an attracting or an opposing element. Our volition is attracted by the desired object, and it turns away from the one that opposes us. Herein lies expressed, as we can see, that fundamental relation of affective contrasts which now spreads into different directions in the basal forms of feeling. Among these the pair of contrasts of pleasure and displeasure may be looked upon as a modification of the attracting and opposing elements, which are directly connected with the qualitative constitution of the impression or the idea. What we desire is joined with pleasure, what opposes us with displeasure. On the other hand, the pair of contrasts of excitation and quiescence will very likely stand in direct relation to the intensity with which apperception enters into action, even although qualitatively the content that calls it into action be pleasurable, or the reverse, or indifferent. Now in so far as this action, called forth by a certain content, consists of an increase or decrease of the normal function of apperception, so the intensive side of the reaction divides up into these two opposites--excitation and quiescence. Lastly, because of the relation between the successive processes of consciousness, each act of apperception stands at the same time in connection with the preceding and the succeeding processes. Now, according as apperception is directed to an immediately passed or to an immediately coming row, a feeling of relaxation or of strain arises. We may therefore look upon each single feeling in principle as a compound that can be divided up into all these dimensions and into their two principal directions. In each feeling these components are emphasised more or less strongly or are quite wanting, while all the time the total qualitative constitution of the content of consciousness gives to the whole its specific colouring, which distinguishes it from every other content.