in Kant's view of thinking the analogy which he emphasised between the conception of object and the representation of a universal rule. According to his view, the object apprehended was, in its own nature, that which determined in a general or universal way the combination of presentations or sense-intuitions constituting the matter apprehended.

Now, though it does not seem possible to accept in its entirety the Kantian view of thought, yet there is much to be said in favour of the intimate relation here implied between objectivity and universality in our thought. Evidently whatever is universalised must have, in one sense, the aspect of objectivity. It is represented as at all events independent of the individual act of thinking, as common for all intelligences, as in some way, therefore, related to intelligence as such.

Equally evident is it that this highly abstract form of objectivity cannot in that way be involved in the simple recognition of the objective in perception. Nevertheless it points to the presence of a corresponding factor in perception. The object there, however concretely represented, has the two aspects (1) of being independent of and determining the immediate act of perceiving, and (2) of being common to all percipient minds. Generality, then, and, as we might call it, independence of the particular act of apprehending, these two features are presented, in the first instance crudely no doubt, in perceptive consciousness. And their combination suggests the reflexion that there is not an opposition but only a difference of degree between the objectivity of fact, which we are in the habit of confining to perception, and the objectivity of truth, which we are in the habit of assigning specifically to thought. To relate these two in such a way as to regard them as so far identical in nature does not in any way imply that we are entitled to transfer

what is found to hold good of the one forthwith to the other. Any such transference must depend not on the formal identity of significance between the two, but on the material character or content which is apprehended in either case. Nevertheless the result to which we are led seems to be that, in the long run, in ultimate analysis, fact and truth coincide; and that, therefore, what we call the necessity of thought' will be found ultimately not to differ from but to be of like kind with the necessity of fact.

Still we have to consider more particularly what is involved in the undoubted divergence of our thinking activity from perception,-a divergence which is commonly, though inaccurately, expressed in the opposition between individual and universal. We can never disentangle this perplexing problem so long as we retain the imperfect representation of our mental life as consisting of isolated facts or atoms. If we represent to ourselves perceptions or sensations as individuals, we are necessarily led to represent the thought which relates to these, and is their generalisation, as though it resulted from some process performed upon the given units,—a process expressible only in metaphorical and wholly inappropriate terms.

But if we recognise that, in concrete reality, the inner life is always a complex process from which these units are pure abstractions of our own, then we may be able to see that the transition from the stage of perception to that of thinking. consists in a re-arrangement of what is at first given, a re-arrangement that may involve even an increase of complexity. Thus the isolated perception, as we call it, is really in consciousness only as one part of a complex whole, involving relations as well as the related parts, and involving not merely the immediate impressions of sense but also revived ideas.

Moreover, that primary distinction which renders possible any furthur progress in mind, the distinction between self and not-self, implies an increased complexity of the total state of mind at any moment. The true unit, if we will employ that term, is always the entire sum of consciousness at any given moment, a sum of which we are able to say in general that, as mind develops, it becomes increasingly more complex; and we are equally entitled to say that, in the development of mind, as in development generally, this complexity involves a relatively greater independence of the parts which are originally fused with one another. Thus, while primitive consciousness involves but little discrimination between the parts related and the relations, it is the characteristic of developed mind that these should be clearly held apart from one another, and that thereby each should acquire a more definite form. The severing of the relations from the related parts by no means implies that we know each separately, and that each retains the form in which it was first presented: rather, it implies that, while each of these is apprehended more distinctly, the content of each is affected by every distinction that has enabled the separation to come about.

Now, we describe this process in general terms as though it came about by itself: actually, it comes about only in and through the supply of fresh material in consciousness; and it depends therefore on quite natural conditions. For example, little or no advance would be possible in any direction in a mental life in which little or no provision was made for the retention and revival of those presentations which have already occurred in consciousness. Putting the matter roughly, one may say that the grade of mind is expressed by the range, the span or compass, of consciousness at any moment. A mind which can hold but little together at any one moment is altogether incapable of

drawing the distinctions, and becoming aware of the relations, which make its experience a connected systematic whole.

In the case before us perceptive consciousness presents us with the rudimentary form of certain relations which are at first not distinguished, or distinguished but little, from the content of the given presentations. On the one hand we have the relations of space and time, on the other hand, the relations of identity and difference, unity and plurality; but these are not at first involved in the way naturally suggested by the abstract terms used. Now, thinking first makes its appearance in and through the separation of these relations from the related contents; and thus the first products of thought, themselves complex facts in mind, are the generalised representations of spaceand-time relations and of such identities as are forced on attention in the given material of presentation.

Our thinking, then, is, in and through the recognition of these relations, a universalising or generalising of what is immediately given. There is, therefore, a certain continuous advance from the simple form of perception to the more developed structure of thought. This advance is, at each stage, dependent on the supply of concrete material; and it results, not only in the establishment of a connected system of thoughts, but in the transformation of perceptive consciousness. The generalising work of thought does not leave perception unaffected: the distinctions which enter into it become themselves generalised. Again, therefore, one must hesitate to accept as final the opposition commonly supposed to obtain between perceiving and thinking.

One aspect of that commonly accepted opposition may be considered for a moment. The content of thought, at all events in its developed fashion, is the representation of an order which is, so to speak, independent of time. Time indeed may be represented in the content: my thought,

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for example, may be the representation of the uniform way in which events succeed one another; but, taken in itself as universal, the content seems independent of time. On the other hand, it is urged, perception is always dependent on time. But one might fairly ask, Is there not some confusion here? are we not comparing two totally different aspects of perception and thought? It is perfectly true that perception is dependent on the given sense-impression of the moment; equally true that it is the apprehension of what exists now: that is to say, the determination of present time is part of the total content apprehended in perception. But the act of thinking at any moment is just as obviously dependent on temporal conditions: the human mind at all events thinks at one time and not at another; and there may perfectly well be a temporal determination in the content that is apprehended in thought. If we compare the first feature (that perceiving is dependent on momentary conditions) with the second feature (that the content of thought may be the representation of a constant order), no doubt there appears to be a difference of kind. But such an opposition is quite inappropriate the contrast is wrongly made; and, in truth, so far as apprehension is concerned, both perceiving and thinking present the aspect of being independent of time. There is, therefore, it appears to me, no fundamental opposition in respect to the element of time between perceiving and thinking.

III. Thinking and Self-consciousness.-With the development of thinking there goes naturally, inevitably, the development of other elements in the mental life. In particular we may notice the connexion which seems to hold between the development of thought and the development of self-consciousness. Any development of thought

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