Cobwebs of Thought | Page 5

the physical. Of course measuring sensations is only
measuring "the outside of the mind"--but it produces among others one
very suggestive result: "that as time is relative, if all things moved
much more slowly or quickly than at present, we should not feel any
change at all. But if our objective measures of time moved twice as fast,
whilst physiological movements and mental processes went on at the
same rate as now, the days of our years would be seven score, instead
of three score years and ten, yet we should not be any the older, or live
any the longer. If on the other hand the rate of our physiological and
mental motions was doubled and we lived exactly as many years as
before, we should feel as if we lived twice as long and were twice as
old as now." This is a suggestion for Mr. Well's "Anticipations" Is
evolution leading us in this direction or the other? Is it retarding or
"quickening the molecular arrangements of the nervous system?" Are
we becoming "more delicately balanced so that physical changes
proceed more quickly as thoughts become more comprehensive,
feelings more intense, and will, stronger." Does the time it needs to
think, feel, and will become less? And we may add are the physical and
mental processes of the intelligent brain, quicker, or slower than the
unintelligent? For if it is the sensitive quick witted organisation, which
is destined to live twice as long as it does now, how will it bear the
burden of such added years? Leaving aside inquiries into Time, and

Space Sense--(and what enormous faculty our minds must have that
can supply these)--let us go on to Mr. J. McKeen Cattell's analysis of
memory--which is perhaps the most interesting of all to the student of
mind--the analysis of memory, attention and association of ideas. Just
as the eye can only see (attend to) a certain number of vibrations, for if
the requisite amount is added to, the result is blankness, darkness, so
the mind can only attend to a certain amount of complexity--add to the
complexity and attention ceases, but, a certain degree of complexity is
necessary to produce any conscious attention at all. In experiments with
a Metronome and the ticking of a watch, it is found the attention at
certain intervals gets weaker--from 2 to 3 seconds. The impression
produced by the ticking of the watch is less distinct, it seems to
disappear and then is heard again. "This is not from fatigue in the sense
organ," but apparently represents "a natural rhythm in consciousness or
attention," which interferes with the accuracy of attention. What a
suggestive fact this is! Have we not all at times, felt an inexplicable
difficulty in listening and attending to certain speakers, which may
perhaps be explained by a difference between the rhythm of our own
consciousness, and that of the voice of the speaker. In Association of
Ideas the time that it takes for one idea to suggest another has been
determined, but of course, it must be the average time, for people differ
enormously in the speed in which ideas occur to them. It is impossible
to allude here to more points, but in the same interesting article Mr.
Mck Cattell considers it proved that "experimental methods can be
applied to the study of mind, and that the positive results are
significant," and he hopes, "one day, we shall have as accurate and
complete a knowledge of mind as we have of the physical world."
Beyond this knowledge of mind as a machine, the Psychologist goeth
not. He ends, and what do we know more as to what mind is?
Philosophy properly so-called, begins here or ought to begin. In science
we experiment widely and constantly with mind and arrive at some
knowledge of its workings and capacities; we learn occupation with the
mind itself as a subject for observation, and we practise a self-analysis,
which adds to the sum of general knowledge. Through this study we
know more about our senses and their faculties, more of our own
tendencies and idiosyncrasies, and in what direction they tend. We are
on the way to solve some such problems as: "the influences of early

impressions, the ingredients of character, the varying susceptibility to
mental anguish, the conquest of the will," and many another. These are
beginnings--there is much more to attain to, if we would know mind
even scientifically, for we have only attacked its breast works, but we
are on the right road, as we believe, towards this most interesting of all
sciences--Mind Science. From Philosophy we do not as yet know
definitely that mind is, or what it is, or why it is. The psychologist
accepts the word mind, but it is not accepted as a philosophical