It is necessary to coin a name for those minds to which the duality of element and character becomes appreciable at no stage of the process. I propose for psychical data at this earliest stage of their existence the word Henid (from the Greek ἔν, because in them it is impossible to distinguish perception and sensation as two analytically separable factors, and because, therefore, there is no trace of duality in them).
Naturally the "henid" is an abstract conception and may not occur in the absolute form. How often psychical data in human beings actually stand at this absolute extreme of undifferentiation is uncertain and unimportant; but the theory does not need to concern itself with the possibility of such an extreme. A common example from what has happened to all of us may serve to illustrate what a henid is. I may have a definite wish to say something particular, and then something distracts me, and the "it" I wanted to say or think has gone. Later on, by some process of association, the "it" is quite suddenly reproduced, and I know at once that it was what was on my tongue, but, so to speak, in a more perfect stage of development.
I fear lest some one may expect me to describe exactly what I mean by "henid." The wish can come only from a misconception. The very idea of a henid forbids its description; it is merely a something. Later on identification will come with the complete articulation of the contents of the henid; but the henid is not the whole of this detailed content, but is distinguished from it by a lower grade of consciousness, by an absence of, so to speak, relief, by a blending of the die and the impression, by the absence of a central point in the field of vision.
And so one cannot describe particular henids; one can only be conscious of their existence.
None the less henids are things as vital as elements and characters. Each henid is an individual and can be distinguished from other henids. Later on I shall show that probably the mental data of early childhood (certainly of the first fourteen months) are all henids, although perhaps riot in the absolute sense. Throughout childhood these
