' Have they sent for fire-engines? Is it probable that the man who has the key is off hand? Is the man a careful sort of person? Will the key be hanging on a peg? Am I thinking rightly? Perhaps they don't lock the depot' -- my foot would be lifted to go down; I should be conscious to excitement that I was losing my chance; but I should be unable to stir until all these absurdities were entertained and disposed of.In the most critical moments of my life, when I ought to have been so engrossed as to leave no room for any secondary thoughts, I have been oppressed by the inability to be at peace, and in the most ordinary circumstances it is all the same.Let me instance the other morning I went to walk.The day was biting cold, but1 was unable to proceed except by jerks.Once I got arrested, my feet in a muddy pool.One foot was lifted to go, knowing that it was not good to be standing in water, but there I was fast, the cause of detention being the discussing with myself the reasons why I should not stand in that pool.'' (T.S.Clouston, Clinical Lectures on Mental Diseases, 1883, p.43.See also Berger, in Archiv f.Psychiatrie, vi.217.)"
Note to Jas.Mill's analysis, I
Classics editors note: James' Insertion Classics editors note: James' Insertion Classics editors note: James' Insertion For an excellent account of the history of opinion on this subject see A.Marty, in Vierteljahsch.f.wiss.Phil., vii.161
ff.(1884).
We saw near the end of Chapter XIX that a candle-image taking exclusive possession of the mind in this way would probably acquire the sensational vividness.But this physiological accident is logically immaterial to the argument in the text, which ought to apply as well to the dimmest sort of mental image as to the brightest sensation.
Classics editors note: James' Insertion Classics editors note: James' Insertion Classics editors note: James' Insertion In both existential and attributive judgments a synthesis is represented.The syllable ex in the word Existence, da in the word Dasein , express it.'The candle exists' is equivalent to 'The candle is over there.' and the 'over there' means real space, space related to other reals.The proposition amounts to saying:
'The candle is in the same space with other reals.' It affirms of the candle a very concrete predicate -- namely, this relation to other particular concrete things.Their real existence, as we shall later see, resolves itself into their peculiar relation to ourselves.Existence is thus no substantive quality when we predicate it of any object; it is a relation, ultimately terminating in ourselves, and tit the moment when it terminates, becoming a practical relation.But of this more anon.I only wish now to indicate the superficial nature of the distinction between the existential and the attributive proposition.
I define the scientific universe here in the radical mechanical way.Practically, it is oftener thought of in a mongrel way and resembles in more points the popular physical world.
It thus comes about that we can say such things as that Ivanhoe did not really marry Rebecca, as Thackeray falsely makes him do.In that world does not marry Rebecca.The objects within that world are knit together by perfectly definite relations, which can be affirmed or denied.Whilst absorbed in the novel, we turn our backs on all other worlds, and, for the time, the Ivanhoe-world remains our absolute reality.When we wake from the spell, however, we find a still more real world, which reduces Ivanhoe, and all things connected with him, to the fictive status, and relegates them to one of the sub-universes grouped under No.5.
The world of dreams is our real world whilst we are sleeping, because our attention then lapses from the sensible world.
Conversely, when we wake the attention usually lapses from the dream-world and that becomes unreal.But if a dream haunts us and compels our attention during the day it is very apt to remain figuring in our consciousness as a sort of sub-universe alongside of the waking world.Most people have probably had dreams which it is hard to imagine not to have been glimpses into an actually existing region of being, perhaps a corner of the 'spiritual world.'And dreams have accordingly in all ages been regarded as revelations, and have played a large part in furnishing forth mythologies and creating themes for faith to lay hold upon.The 'larger universe,' here, which helps us to believe both in the dream and in the waking reality which is its immediate reductive, is the total universe, of Nature plus the Super-natural.
The dream holds true, namely, in one half of that universe ; the waking perceptions in the other half.Even to-day dream-objects figure among the realities in which some ' psychic-researchers' are seeking to rouse our belief.All our theories, not only those about the supernatural, but our philosophic and scientific theories as well, are like our dreams in rousing such different degrees of belief in different minds.
Distinguishes realities from unrealities.
the essential from the rubbishy and neglectable.
Inquiry concerning Hum.Understanding, sec.
v.pt.2 (slightly transposed in my quotation)
Note to Jas.Mill's Analysis, I.394.
