"two endless parallel lines in swift longitudinal motion ... on a uniform misty background ... together with a constant sound or whirr, not loud but distinct ... which seemed to be connected with the parallel lines.... These phenomena occupied the whole field. There were present no dreams or visions in any way connected with human affairs, no ideas or impressions akin to anything in past experience, no emotions, of course no idea of personality. There was no conception as to what being it was that was regarding the two lines, or that there existed any such thing as such a being; the lines and waves were all."[244] Similarly a friend of Mr. Herbert Spencer, quoted by him in 'Mind' (vol iii, p. 556), speaks of "an undisturbed empty quiet everywhere except that a stupid presence lay like a heavy intrusion _somewhere_--a blotch on the calm." This sense of objectivity and lapse of subjectivity, even when the object is almost indefinable, is, it seems to me, a somewhat familiar phase in chloroformization, though in my own case it is too deep a phase for any articulate after-memory to remain. I only know that as it vanishes I seem to wake to a sense of my own existence as something additional to what had previously been there.[245] Many philosophers, however, hold that the reflective consciousness of the self is essential to the cognitive function of thought. They hold that a thought, in order to know a thing at all, must expressly distinguish between the thing and its own self.[246] This is a perfectly wanton assumption, and not the faintest shadow of reason exists for supposing it true. As well might I contend that I cannot dream without dreaming that I dream, swear without swearing that I swear, deny without denying that I deny, as maintain that I cannot know without knowing that I know. I may have either acquaintance-with, or knowledge-about, an object O without think about myself at all. It suffices for this that I think O, and that it exist. If, in addition to thinking O, I also think that I exist and that I know O, well and good; I then know one more thing, a fact about O, of which I previously was unmindful. That, however, does not prevent me from having already known O a good deal. O _per se_, or O _plus_ P, are as good objects of knowledge as O _plus me_ is. The philosophers in question simply substitute one particular object for all others, and call it _the_ object _par excellence_. It is a case of the 'psychologist's fallacy' (see p. 197). _They_ know the object to be one thing and the thought another; and they forthwith foist their own knowledge into that of the thought of which they pretend to give a true account. To conclude, then, _thought may, but need not, in knowing, discriminate between its object and itself._ We have been using the word Object. _Something must now be said about the proper use of the term Object in Psychology._