Page:Mind and the Brain (1907).djvu/169

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nerves—the optic nerve, for instance—transformed into a hollow tube, along which the emissions of miniatures should wend their way. In this case, evidently, if so strange a disposition were to be realised, and if B could see what was flowing in the optic nerve of A, he would experience a sensation almost analogous to that of A. Whenever the latter saw a dog, a sheep, or a shepherd, B would likewise see in the optic canal minute dogs, microscopic sheep, and Lilliputian shepherds. At the cost of such a childish conception, a parity of content in the sensations of our two spectators A and B might be supposed. But I will not dwell on this.

The above considerations seem to me to explain the difference generally noticed between thought and the physiological process. It is not a difference of nature, an opposition of two essences, or of two worlds—it is simply a difference of object; just that which separates my visual perception of a tree and my visual perception of a dog. There remains to know in what manner we understand the relation of these two processes: this is another problem which we will examine later.

Since the content does not give us the differentiation we desire, we will abandon the definitions of psychology by content. What now remains? The definitions from the point of view. The same