the use of the concept at present. Professor Ladd, it is true, maintains that psychical facts cannot even be correctly stated or described without the assumption that there is some sort of a real being corresponding to the 'I' which perceives, thinks, and feels (p. 55). Notwithstanding the force of his arguments, there still appears to me to be a distinct advantage in the persistent attempt to describe our experiences down to the last fibre 'content-wise.' If the psychical processes are translated into terms of that unique being, 'the Self,' is there not danger that we shall be tempted to stop short in our analysis? Is it probable, for instance, that Professor James would ever have written that brilliant chapter on "The Consciousness of Self," if he had not resolutely abjured 'the soul,' and turned the search-light of his analysis upon" the blank unmediated process"? If, as I believe, experience has shown that this latter method has proved more fruitful of results, it must never be forgotten by those who employ it that this is not the end of the matter. The epistemological and metaphysical explanations of Mind have not by any means been rendered unnecessary, and in solving their own peculiar problems these latter sciences may find indispensable quite different conceptions and categories from those employed by the psychologist.
In Chapters IV-VI, and XI, XII, the author deals with the existence and nature of the Mind. On the one hand, he is concerned to maintain against the radical 'modern' psychologists the existence of Mind as a 'real being,' an 'active agent.' At the same time, however, it is the psychological reality of Mind, "the concrete reality of Mind as known by Mind," for which he contends. He repudiates almost fiercely any intention of upholding "the pure being, or being per se of Mind" (p. 123), and lays about him like an empiricist when any mention is made of the 'Transcendental Ego.'" The peculiar, the only intelligible and indubitable reality which belongs to Mind is its being for itself by actual functioning of self-consciousness, of recognitive memory, and of thought" (p. 147). "For it is not the soul out of consciousness, 'out of time,' 'eluding cognition,' a forever 'unknown and unknowable' substance (whatever such nonsense may mean), a 'pure Ego,' etc., in whose unity our interests are concerned. On the contrary, it is the Soul in consciousness, … coming to be in time, and always being itself a time-process, for whose unity we contend" (p. 201). The soul is to be a real being, but it is also to be expressible in psychological terms.
