[9] Ibid.
[10] Microkosmus, Book V, chap. 4.
[11] Logic, Vol. II, p. 235; see the whole discussion, §§ 325 through 327.
[12] The emphasis here is upon the term "existences," and in its plural form. Doubtless the distinction of some experiences as belonging to me, as mine in a peculiarly intimate way, from others as chiefly concerning other persons, or as having to do with things, is an early one. But this is a distinction of concern, of value. The distinction referred to above is that of making an object, or presentation, out of this felt type of value, and thereby breaking it up into distinct "events," etc., with their own laws of inner connection. This is the work of psychological analysis. Upon the whole matter of the psychical I am glad to refer to Professor George H. Mead's article entitled "The Definition of the Psychical," Vol. III, Part II, of The Decennial Publications of the University of Chicago.
[13] We have a most acute and valuable criticism of Lotze from this point of view in Professor Henry Jones, Philosophy of Lotze, 1895. My specific criticisms agree in the main with his, and I am glad to acknowledge my indebtedness. But I cannot agree in the belief that the business of thought is to qualify reality as such; its occupation appears to me to be determining the reconstruction of some aspect or portion of reality, and to fall within the course of reality itself; being, indeed, the characteristic medium of its activity. And I cannot agree that reality as such, with increasing fulness of knowledge, presents itself as a thought-system, though, as just indicated, I have no doubt that reality appears as thought-specifications or values, just as it does as affectional and æsthetic and the rest of them.
[14] Bradley's criticisms of rationalistic idealism should have made the force of this point reasonably familiar.
[15] The common statement that primitive man projects his own volitions, emotions, etc., into objects is but a back-handed way of expressing the truth that "objects," etc., have only gradually emerged from their life-matrix. Looking back, it is almost impossible to avoid the fallacy of supposing that somehow such objects were there first and were afterward emotionally appreciated.
[16] Of course, this very element may be the precarious, the ideal, and possibly fanciful of some other situation. But it is to change the historic into the absolute to conclude that therefore everything is uncertain, all at once, or as such. This gives metaphysical skepticism as distinct from the working skepticism which is an inherent factor in all reflection and scientific inquiry.
[17] But this is a slow progress within reflection. Plato, who was influential in bringing this general distinction to consciousness, still thought and wrote as if "image" were itself a queer sort of objective existence; it was only gradually that it was disposed of as psychical, or a phase of immediate experience.
[18] Of course, this means that what is excluded and so left behind in the problem of determination of this objective content is regarded as psychical. With reference to other problems and aims this same psychic existence is initial, not survival. Released from its prior absorption in some unanalyzed experience it gains standing and momentum on its own account; e. g., the "personal equation" represents what is eliminated from a given astronomic time-determination as being purely subjective, or "source-of-error." But it is initiatory in reference to new modes of technique, re-readings of previous data—new considerations in psychology, even new socio-ethical judgments. Moreover, it remains a fact, and even a worthful fact, as a part of one's own "inner" experience, as an immediate psychical reality. That is to say, there is a region of personal experience (mainly emotive or affectional) already recognized as a sphere of value. The "source of error" is disposed of by making it a fact of this region. The recognition of falsity does not originate the psychic (p. 38, note).