the other it must have a certain intensity and interest in order that we may be conscious of it at all. The upper limits of consciousness have been studied by Dietze and by myself. Dietze1 used successive sound-impressions and found that when 16 beats of a metronome followed each other at intervals of 2 to 3 sec. the number could be correctly estimated. If the interval be taken longer or shorter than this, not so many can be grasped. If the beats are combined into groups as many as 40 can be at one time in consciousness. Even when, 16 were used it is likely that they were combined into a rhythm with one accented and one unaccented beat. If this can be assumed, the results would agree with the limits of the rhythm used in music and poetry. It must, however, be difficult to be sure that the beats are not otherwise combined and perhaps unconsciously counted. With these results the experiments by Hall and Jastrow, contributed to MIND,2 should be compared. I myself determined the number of simple visual impressions, or complexity of an impression, which can be simultaneously attended to. On the average five simple impressions, such as lines or letters, can be at one time apperceived. When the impressions are combined into familiar complexes, as letters into words and sentences, many more can be grasped. The extent of consciousness varies considerably with the individual. I also determined the minimum sensation by letting colours and other objects work on the retina for a very short time. The time was found to vary for the several colours, as also with different words, letters, &c. It was thus found possible to determine the relative legibility of the letters of the alphabet. In this case we are left in doubt as to how far the inertia is in the eye and how far in consciousness. Experiments by N. Lange, however, seem to be concerned wholly with a fact of attention. Helmholtz experimenting with light and Urbantschitsch with sound had noticed that a faint stimulus is sometimes perceived, sometimes not. Thus the ticking of a watch is heard, then disappears, then is heard again, &c. Lange found the intervals between the 4 1 G. Dietze, "Untersuchungen über den Umfang des Bewusstseins bei regelmässig aufeinander folgenden Schalleindrücken," ii. 362-394. 2 G. S. Hall and J. Jastrow, "Studies of Rhythm," MIND xi. 55-62. 3 J. McK. Cattell, "Ueber die Trägheit der Netzhaut und des Sehcentrums," iii. 94-127. N. Lange, "Beiträge zur Theorie der sinnlichen Aufmerksamkeit und der activen Apperception," iv. 390-422. maxima of intensity in sensation to be constant, and that a similar alteration in distinctness takes place in the case of images. This interval, two to three seconds, does not seem due to fatigue in the sense-organ or nerve, but apparently represents a natural rhythm in consciousness or attention. Wolfe found a like rhythm in the accuracy with which musical notes can be remembered. Apart from this rhythm the accuracy of memory seems, in a general way, to vary inversely as the square of the time. A similar result had been reached by Ebbinghaus experimenting with more complex impressions.2 3 Experiments on the association of ideas have been made at Leipsic by Trautscholdt and by myself.* The former determined the time it takes for one idea to suggest another, and also in 400 cases the qualitative results, classifying them in accordance with the nature of the association. Thus have been briefly noticed the results obtained by research in the Leipsic laboratory during the past seven years. They prove conclusively that it is possible to apply experimental methods to the study of mind. The positive results are, besides, not insignificant, and will compare favourably with what has been accomplished during the same period in many chemical, physical and physiological laboratories. An increased interest is everywhere being taken in experimental psychology, and we may hope that we shall some day have as accurate and complete knowledge of mind as of the physical world. 571. H. K. Wolfe, "Untersuchungen über das Tongedächtniss," iii. 534 * See MIND, X. 454. The formulæ given by Wolfe and Ebbinghaus respectively are:— 3 M. Trautscholdt, "Experimentelle Untersuchungen über die Association der Vorstellungen,” i. 213-250. J. McK. Cattell, "Experiments on the Association of Ideas," MIND xii. 68-74. III.-INDIVIDUALISM AND STATE-ACTION. BY THOMAS WHITTAKER. ONE of the most prominent facts of contemporary politics, both theoretical and practical, is the movement away from what is called "Individualism". Philosophical writers of the most various schools, tracing their idea back to Comte or Hegel or Aristotle, or developing it independently as a psychological doctrine, insist that "society is prior to man "; that the individual man cannot be understood except as a social product, each man having in his mind the organised results of institutions, of law and of the experience embodied in language. Society is not to be thought of as something artificially formed by men for the purpose of doing some particular thing, but as the presupposition of all properly human activities. On the practical side, no fact is more familiar than the growing approval of the action of the State in matters that till lately the best reasoned political theory excluded from its competence. Yet there are, at the same time, influential thinkers who regard this whole movement, on its practical side, as reactionary. The principle of individual liberty, they insist, must remain for ever the only sound basis of political action; and to add to the functions of the governing power is to diminish the freedom of the individual. Those who advocate new activities of the State, when they are not content with empirical arguments to prove that good will result in particular cases, usually fall back on one of the philosophic theories opposed to individualism. If it is urged that the action of the State interferes with individual liberty, they reply that "the older individualism" is superseded; that it is once more a part of sound political theory that "the State may do anything". The individualistic ideals of the immediate past are the outcome of philosophical individualism. The outcome of the newer doctrine is a more authoritative ideal. In all arguments of this form there is an evident assumption. The word "individualism," as has just been indicated, is used in two distinct senses. It may mean the philosophical and psychological individualism that attempts to explain society and the State from the relations of individual men at first isolated (yet assumed to possess already all human attributes), who afterwards find their advantage in the social union and in State-organisation; or it may mean the individualism that places its political ideal in a life not authoritatively regulated from without, but developing itself spontaneously from within. These two "individualistic" doctrines have often been held by the same person: John Stuart Mill, for example, was an individualist in both senses. The views opposed to the two kinds of individualism have been similarly conjoined: Comte was an opponent of individualism in both senses. It does not follow from this, however, that either individualistic doctrine is a deduction from the other. The two meanings of the word, once distinguished, are at first sight sufficiently remote, and something more than the common name is required to prove their necessary connexion. The doctrine opposed to philosophical individualism may no doubt be expected to have important practical consequences. Legislation may not improbably be suggested by it which had formerly no theoretical basis. So far the advocates of new kinds of State-action are in the right when they appeal to the modern theory. Where they are wrong is in dismissing as henceforth baseless all objections to State-action that are founded on appeals to individual liberty. Objections of this kind, it is now clear, will have to be met on their merits. Only two ways of meeting them are open. Either the individualistic ideal must be shown to be really bound up with philosophical individualism, and so to disappear when this disappears; or the new kinds of legislation suggested by the modern doctrine must be proved not to be incompatible with the ideal of freedom. Before anything can be decided it is therefore necessary to determine the exact relations of each philosophical doctrine to this ideal. First of all, then, it is clear that in either type of doctrine individual freedom is finally secure. For the individual alone has consciousness of himself. There is no "social consciousness" outside the individual mind. From this it follows that there can be no such thing as "collective happiThe ultimate end of social life can only be attained by the individual. To the good of the individual, accordingly, social good must finally be subordinated. Now the good of each man can only be attained when all are free to seek happiness in their own way. Individual freedom, therefore, must be the ultimate end of the organisation of the State. And if it remains true that the good of society is to be preferred when it comes into conflict with individual happiness, this is because the existence and welfare of society are the condition of there being individuals at all who are able to live in freedom. In ethics this is the justification for ascribing merit to acts of self-sacrifice. In politics it is the ground of the maxim, "Salus reipublicae suprema lex". These are, in substance, the reasons given by Spinoza, and also by Mr. Herbert Spencer,-both in a sense philosophical individualists, for the place assigned to freedom in their ideal State. The reasoning, however, does not depend on the theoretical individualism of their philosophical point of view. And if, now, we leave this final reply out of account for a moment, we shall find that the doctrine of Spinoza and of Mr. Spencer, in so far as it is philosophically individualistic, is capable of being turned against the ideal of individual freedom. To put the argument first in a general form: the philosophical doctrine of individualism supposes that men on entering into the social union sacrifice part of the "rights," or powers of acting freely, which they had in the state of nature, in return for protection and other advantages. Civilisation, then, it would seem, must be a movement away from liberty. It will naturally consist in a gradual restriction of the freedom at first reserved, which becomes less as societies become more definitely organised. Turning to the particular doctrines in question, we find that according to Spinoza the form of political society in which there is most liberty is nearest to the " state of nature".1 But the state of nature is a state in which there is no justice or injustice, but "all things come alike to all," because nature is yet unmodified by human law.2 The state of liberty, then, it would seem, must be the lowest state. Mr. Spencer's conception of the social organism as built up out of individuals analogous to cells, at first only aggregated, afterwards becoming definitely grouped and coherent, and forming a hierarchy of parts, gives ground for a similar inference. For if, as Mr. Spencer affirms, the governing body represents the central nervous system, and if there is progress in the social organism, then its general movement ought, according to the analogy, to be in the direction of greater subordination of parts; this being the general direction of movement in the zoological series. Of course these objections are not unanswerable, even from the point of view of philosophical individualism. From the point of view of the modern doctrine of the priority of society, 1 Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, c. xx., § 38. |