Activity Of Consciousness
Naturalism takes refuge in the doctrine of association, when it does not
attain anything with its first claims, and applies this theory in such a
way that it seems possible from this standpoint to interpret mental
processes as having an approximate resemblance to mechanically and
mathematically calculable phenomena. As in physics the molecules and
atoms, so here the smallest mental elements, the simplest units of feeling
their groupings and movements, it is supposed that the whole mental world
may be constructed up to its highest contents, will, ideals, and
development of character. But even the analogy, the model which is
followed, and the fact that a model is followed at all, show that this
method is uncritical and not unprejudiced. What reason is there for
regarding occurrences in the realm of physics as a norm for the
psychical? Why should one not rather start from the peculiar and very
striking differences between the two, from the primary and fundamental
fact, not indeed capable of explanation, but all the more worthy of
attention on that account, that there is an absolute difference between
physical occurrences and mental behaviour, between physical and mental
causality? These most primitive and simplest mental elements which are
supposed to float and have their being within the mind as in a kind of
spiritual ether are not atoms at all, but deeds, actions, performances.
The laws of the association of ideas are not the laws of a mental
chemistry, but laws of mental behaviour; very fixed and reliable laws, but
still having to do with modes of behaviour. Their separating and uniting,
their relations to one another, their grouping into unities, their
"syntheses," are not automatic permutations and combinations, but express
the activity of a thinking intelligence. Not even the simplest actual
synthesis comes about of itself, as psychologists have shown by a neat
illustration.
horizontal lines a and b, the same lengths as the widths of the
squares below them. Caption: a and b only associated. Squares of a
and b in juxtaposition.]
length as the width of the square below it. Caption: a and b really
synthetised to c. Square of a + b as a true unity = c2.]
Given that, through some association, the image of the line a calls up
that of the line b, and both are associatively ranged together, we have
still not made the real synthesis a + b = c. For to think of a and
b side by side is not the same thing as thinking of c, as we shall
readily see if we square them. The squares of a and b thought of
beside one another, that is, a2 and b2, are something quite different
from the square of the really synthetised a and b, which is (a +
b)2 = a2 + 2ab + b2, or c 2. This requires quite a new view, a
spontaneous synthesis, which is an action and not a mere experience.
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Activity Of Consciousness
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