The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2)James, William
Science
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
Before making a minuter study of Space as apprehended by the eye,
we must turn to see what we can discover of space as known to the
blind. But as we do so, let us cast a glance upon the results of
the last pages, and ask ourselves once more whether the building up
of orderly space-perceptions out of primitive incoherency requires
any mental powers beyond those displayed in ordinary intellectual
operations. I think it is obvious--granting the spacial _quale_ to
exist in the primitive sensations--that discrimination, association,
addition, multiplication, and division, blending into generic images,
substitution of similars, selective emphasis, and abstraction from
uninteresting details, are quite capable of giving us all the
space-perceptions we have so far studied, without the aid of any
mysterious 'mental chemistry' or power of 'synthesis' to create
elements absent from the original data of feeling. It cannot be too
strongly urged in the face of mystical attempts, however learned,
that there is not a landmark, not a length, not a point of the
compass in real space which _is_ not some _one_ of our feelings,
either experienced directly as a presentation or ideally suggested
by another feeling which has come to serve as its sign. In degrading
some sensations to the rank of signs and exalting others to that of
realities signified, we smooth out the wrinkles of our first chaotic
impressions and make a continuous order of what was a rather incoherent
multiplicity. But the _content_ of the order remains identical with
that of the multiplicity--sensational both, through and through.
HOW THE BLIND PERCEIVE SPACE.
The blind man's construction of real space differs from that of the
seeing man most obviously in the larger part which synthesis plays
in it, and the relative subordination of analysis. The seeing baby's
eyes take in the whole room at once, and discriminative attention
must arise in him before single objects are visually discerned. The
blind child, on the contrary, must form his mental image of the room
by the addition, piece to piece, of parts which he learns to know
successively. With our eyes we may apprehend instantly, in an enormous
bird's-eye view, a landscape which the blind man is condemned to build
up bit by bit after weeks perhaps of exploration. We are exactly in
his predicament, however, for spaces which exceed our visual range. We
think the ocean as a whole by multiplying mentally the impression we
get at any moment when at sea. The distance between New York and San
Francisco is computed in days' journeys; that from earth to sun is so
many times the earth's diameter, etc.; and of longer distances still
we may be said to have no adequate mental image whatever, but only
numerical verbal symbols.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account