The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)James, William
Philosophy
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
[229] E.g.: "The stream of thought is not a continuous current, but a
series of distinct ideas, more or less rapid in their succession; the
rapidity being measurable by the number that pass through the mind in a
given time." (Bain: E. and W., p. 29.)
[230] Few writers have admitted that we cognize relations through
feeling. The intellectualists have explicitly denied the possibility of
such a thing--e.g., Prof. T. H. Green ('Mind,' vol. vii, p. 28): "No
feeling, as such or as felt, is [of?] a relation.... Even a relation
between feelings is not itself a feeling or felt." On the other hand,
the sensationists have either smuggled in the cognition without giving
any account of it, or have denied the relations to be cognized, or
even to exist, at all. A few honorable exceptions, however, deserve
to be named among the sensationists. Destutt de Tracy, Laromiguière,
Cardaillac, Brown, and finally Spencer, have explicitly contended for
feelings of relation, consubstantial with our feelings or thoughts
of the terms 'between' which they obtain. Thus Destutt de Tracy says
(Éléments d'Idéologie, T. Ier, chap. iv): "The faculty of judgment
is itself a sort of sensibility, for it is the faculty of feeling
the relations among our ideas; and to feel relations is to feel."
Laromiguière writes (Leçons de Philosophie, IIme Partie, 3me Leçon):
"There is no one whose intelligence does not embrace simultaneously
many ideas, more or less distinct, more or less confused. Now, when
we have many ideas at once, a peculiar feeling arises in us: we feel,
among these ideas, resemblances, differences, relations. Let us call
this mode of feeling, common to us all, the feeling of relation,
or relation-feeling (_sentiment-rapport_). One sees immediately
that these relation-feelings, resulting from the propinquity of
ideas, must be infinitely more numerous than the sensation-feelings
(_sentiments-sensations_) or the feelings we have of the action of
our faculties. The slightest knowledge of the mathematical theory of
combinations will prove this.... _Ideas_ of relation originate in
feelings of relation. They are the effect of our comparing them and
reasoning about them."
Similarly, de Cardaillac (Études Élémentaires de Philosophie, Section
i, chap. vii):
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