INTRODUCTION.
65
Their laws of thought always turn out, at best, to be mere laws of imagination"we ought to think something to exist which we cannot think at all," is pointed out the philosopher's defence is sometimes this: When hard pressed, he says that by "think," in the latter clause, he means "imagine,"—picture to the fancy. This admission brings to light a new feature in his case. We thought that he had been treating us to an exposition of the laws of thought; but no, he is treating us, it seems, only to an exposition of the laws of imagination. Had this been explained at the outset, no possible mistake could have arisen, and the truth of all that was advanced would have been readily admitted. But it is not explained, either at the outset or in the sequel. From first to last the psychologist gives out that he is laying down the laws, not of imagination, but of intellect—not of fancying, but of thinking: and therefore his table is either contradictory (§ 71), or it is confused (§ 72), or it places before us something different from what it professes to place before us, and something which we do not want (§ 73). We do not require to be told that we may very well think something to exist which we cannot imagine. We assent to that truism as indisputable. But when we are told, as we sometimes are, that we can think something to exist which we cannot think of at all—in these words, our reason encounters the shock of a contradiction. These remarks apply not to any one psychologist, but to all—indeed, rather to the whole system than to its
