The Science of Thought

FEW words have been used in so many different senses as Thought. I mean by Thought The meaning the act of thinking, and by thinking I of Thought. mean no more than combining. I do not pretend that others have not the right of using Thought in any sense which they prefer, provided only that they will clearly define it. I only wish to explain what is the meaning in which I intend to use the word, and in which I hold that it ought to be used. I think means to me the same as the Latin Cogito, namely co-agito, 'I bring together,' only with the proviso that bringing together or combining implies separating, for we cannot combine two or many things without at the same time separating them from all the rest.

Hobbes expressed the same truth long ago, when he said that all our thinking consisted in addition and subtraction.

Humiliating as this may at first sight appear, it is really not more so than that the most subtle and complicated mathematical processes, which to the uninitiated seem beyond all comprehension, can be reduced in the end to addition and subtraction.

Thinking may not seem so marvellous an achievement as we formerly imagined, when we looked up with vague admiration to the mathematical calculations of Newton, or to the metaphysical speculations of Kant; yet, if what these thinkers achieved has been achieved by such simple processes as addition and subtraction, combining and separating, their work to my mind becomes in reality far more marvellous than it appeared at first.

Much, however, depends on what we combine and Materials of separate, and we have therefore to consider Thought. what corresponds in thinking to the numbers with which the mathematician operates, what are, in fact, the known quantities that constitute the material of our thoughts, what are the elements which we bring together or co-agitate.

It is possible to distinguish in our knowledge four things: Sensations (Empfindungen), Percepts 1 (Vorstellungen), Concepts (Begriffe), and Names (Namen).

But though we can distinguish them, we must not imagine that these four ever exist as separate entities. No words are possible without concepts, no concepts without percepts, no percepts without sensations. This is more readily admitted by most philosophers. But if we ourselves postulate sensations as the causes of percepts, percepts as the causes of concepts, and concepts as the causes of names, it would seem a very natural conclusion that sensations could exist previous to and therefore inde

1 I use percept instead of presentation, because it is better understood in English, and, if only properly defined, will answer exactly the same purpose as the German Vorstellung.

pendent of percepts, percepts of concepts, concepts of words. And yet we have And yet we have only to try the experiment in order to convince ourselves that, as a matter of fact, thought, in the usual sense of the word, is utterly impossible without the simultaneous working of sensations, percepts, concepts, and names, and that in reality the four are inseparable.

themselves?

If we are asked whether it is impossible to conceive that sensations may exist without Can Sensabeing perceived, percepts without being tions exist by conceived, concepts without being named, the answer is somewhat difficult. We may have to admit in theory the possibility of sensations which do not assume the character of percepts, of percepts which have not yet reached the stage of concepts, and of concepts still waiting to be named. But possibility is very different from reality, and when speaking of the reality of thought, I deny altogether the separate existence of the four constituent elements of thought.

It has been pointed out, however, by those who call themselves physiological psychologists that our organs of sense are constantly receiving sensations which are either not fully realised or not realised at all. This I do not mean to deny, difficult as it may be to explain it only I should in this case use the word impression rather than sensation. While I sit at my table or pace up and down my room, I know, as a matter of fact, that the heat of the room, the scent of the flowers, the noises in the street, the colour of the table-cloth and the carpet, are all acting on my senses. Yet, they do not at present exist for me. I have neither perception, nor

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