DISCUSSIONS.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 'RELATION.'
"A mind," said Hume, "is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions, united together by certain relations."[1] Professor Huxley's criticism of this is, in effect, that there exist in consciousness, alongside of content-feelings, irresolvable relation-feelings; feelings which, in Hume's phraseology, must be called 'impressions of relation.'[2] Herbert Spencer regards mind as 'composed' of feelings and relations between feelings. These latter themselves are, or correspond to, a "kind of feeling,—the momentary feeling accompanying the transition" from one content-feeling proper to another.[3] Professor James contends explicitly for the existence of feelings of relations; the 'transitive,' as opposed to the 'substantive' parts of mind.[4] Dr. Lehmann posits relation-feelings (Beziehungsgefühle),—using feeling in a technical sense.[5] And Dr. Schrader has recently maintained the thesis, that the 'conscious relation' is a constitutive element of consciousness.[6]
At the time when Professor James' notice of the last-mentioned author's work, written for this Review, was in the printer's hands,—a notice which concludes with a strong statement as to the needlessness of seriously meeting the theory that we 'have no consciousness of relations,'[7]—there had been despatched to the Editor of the American Journal of Psychology my own review of the same book, in which occurred an almost equally positive rejection of the relation-consciousness doctrine. That rejection could not be substantiated within the limits of a notice of a short monograph; and it may be understood to imply a denial of Professor James' 'if' and 'but' feelings,—an implication which was not purposed. Here, as so often, the facts are common property: it is in the explanation of the facts that individuals differ.
The thesis which I defend is, in brief, this: that all conscious processes are 'content' processes. And the logical order of the
