The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2)James, William
Science
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
This is commonly called an angular relation.
If these relations are sensations, no less so are the relations of
position. _The relation of position between the top and bottom points
of a vertical line is that line,_ and nothing else. The relations of
position between a point and a horizontal line below it are potentially
numerous. There is one more important than the rest, called its
distance. This is the sensation, ideal or actual, of a perpendicular
drawn from the point to the line.[155] Two lines, one from each
extremity of the horizontal to the point, give us a peculiar sensation
of triangularity. This feeling may be said to constitute the _locus_ of
all the relations of position of the elements in question. _Rightness
and leftness, upness and downness, are again pure sensations_ differing
specifically from each other, and generically from everything else.
Like all sensations, they can only be indicated, not described. If
we take a cube and label one side _top_, another _bottom_, a third
_front_, and a fourth _back_, there remains no form of words by which
we can describe to another person which of the remaining sides is
_right_ and which _left_. We can only point and say _here_ is right and
_there_ is left, just as we should say _this_ is red and _that_ blue.
Of two points seen beside each other at all, one is always affected by
one of these feelings, and the other by the opposite; the same is true
of the extremities of any line.[156]
Thus it appears indubitable that all space-relations except those of
magnitude are nothing more or less than pure sensational objects. But
_magnitude_ appears to outstep this narrow sphere. We have relations
of muchness and littleness between times, numbers, intensities, and
qualities, as well as spaces. It is impossible, then, that such
relations should form a particular kind of simply spatial feeling.
This we must admit: the relation of quantity is generic and occurs in
many categories of consciousness, whilst the other relations we have
considered are specific and occur in space alone. When our attention
passes from a shorter line to a longer, from a smaller spot to a
larger, from a feebler light to a stronger, from a paler blue to a
richer, from a march tune to a galop, the transition is accompanied
in the synthetic field of consciousness by a peculiar feeling of
difference which is what we call the sensation of _more_,--more length,
more expanse, more light, more blue, more motion. This transitional
sensation of _more_ must be identical with itself under all these
different accompaniments, or we should not give it the same name in
every case. We get it when we pass from a short vertical line to a long
horizontal one, from a small square to a large circle, as well as when
we pass between those figures whose shapes are congruous. But when the
shapes are congruous our consciousness of the relation is a good deal
more distinct, and it is most distinct of all when, in the exercise
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