But now I know, or believe I know, that one and the same real Object A corresponds to both _a_ and _a^1_. I am convinced, moreover, that _a_ represents A better than does _a^1_. Instead, however, of giving to my conviction this, its only correct, expression, and keeping the content of my consciousness and the real object, the representation and what it means, distinct from each other, I substitute the real object for the content of the consciousness, and talk of the experience as if it consisted in one and the same object (namely, the surreptitiously introduced real one), constituting twice over the content of my consciousness, once in a clear and distinct, the other time in an obscure and vague fashion. I talk now of a distincter and of a less distinct _consciousness_ of A, whereas I am only justified in talking of two consciousnesses, _a_ and _a^1_, equally distinct _in se_, but to which the supposed external object A corresponds with different degrees of distinctness." (P. 38-9.) CHAPTER VII. THE METHODS AND SNARES OF PSYCHOLOGY We have now finished the physiological preliminaries of our subject and must in the remaining chapters study the mental states themselves whose cerebral conditions and concomitants we have been considering hitherto. Beyond the brain, however, there is an outer world to which the brain-states themselves 'correspond.' And it will be well, ere we advance farther, to say a word about the relation of the mind to this larger sphere of physical fact. PSYCHOLOGY IS A NATURAL SCIENCE. That is, the mind which the psychologist studies is the mind of distinct individuals inhabiting definite portions of a real space and of a real time. With any other sort of mind, absolute Intelligence, Mind unattached to a particular body, or Mind not subject to the course of time, the psychologist as such has nothing to do. 'Mind,' in his mouth, is only a class name for _minds_. Fortunate will it be if his more modest inquiry result in any generalizations which the philosopher devoted to absolute Intelligence as such can use.