EXPOSITION.
When a man who has done so much valuable work for the progress of science as Professor Ernst Mach finds it necessary to change the position he has taken,—a position which has appeared to many thinkers as a satisfactory solution of the most intricate problem in the philosophical and psycho-physical field,—there must exist in the solution some difficulty which has either been overlooked or at least too little appreciated. If there is a flaw in it, I wish it to be exposed. And convinced that its discovery must be of general interest, I take pleasure in publishing Professor Mach's criticism of the view which I have defended in a former article of mine.
The main source of most differences, it seems to me, springs from misapprehensions. I shall therefore attempt to elucidate the subject with reference to the objections presented by Professor Mach.
#Recapitulation.#
The main idea set forth in my article "Feeling and Motion" may be briefly recapitulated as follows. Our feelings are phenomena which to an observer who could see all the processes taking place in our brain, would appear as motions of a special kind. Motions and feelings are two aspects of one and the same reality. But feeling cannot be explained as transformed motion. Accordingly, the elements of the conscious feeling which now exists and now disappears, must have existed before. The presence of elements of feeling must be an additional feature of the processes of nature not included in the term motion, and not observable in motions, yet inseparably bound up in motions. Or, in other words, feelings and the elements of feeling are the subjective aspect of what objectively appears as and is called motions.
The term "elements of feeling" employed in this sense has been adopted from Clifford. The idea that feelings and motions are two aspects of one and the same reality has been held by several psychologists; among whom are the founders of the science of psycho-physics, especially Fechner.