Complex Mental States.-No absolute and sharp classification can be made. It is not necessary or even wise to make a cut-and-dried classification of all thoughts and feelings, since in the ordinary course of mental life mixtures of different kinds of mental states are the common occurrences. E.g., one thinks of a man and at the same time has feelings of attention to the mental image and of aversion toward the man, and perhaps a judgment that he is dishonest. Memory image, attentiveness, emotion and judgment thus combine. Nearly all mental states are pervaded by a feeling of selfhood, by sensations of one's own bodily condition and by a general feelingtone of well-being or ill-being. It is, however, profitable in studying human nature to analyze complex states of mind into their component parts, to study separately the simpler aspects or parts of the total thought or feeling.

Intermediate Mental States. It is also true that in the richness of an actual human mind's life there exist very many mental states which do not fall readily into one class rather than another. E. g., is the sound of a bell ringing a sensation or a percept, a feeling of a quality or of a thing? Is the feeling of impatience an emotion or a state of will? Shall the feeling of effort or strain that one has as one holds the mind to a disagreeable task be called a sensation or an emotion? Just as there are some things which may be called either animals or plants, just as there are some streams which are equally well classified as brooks or as rivers,-so there are in mental life intermediate, halfway stages between sensation and perception, perception and image, sensation and state of will, etc. It would be misleading to suppose that a man's mind was by nature divided up into a number of neat bundles, one of sensations, one of percepts, and the like, and that each bundle was quite distinct and separate from

all the rest. The division is not absolute, but is like that made when a city is divided into a Chinese quarter, Italian quarter, Jewish quarter, and the like. The divisions grade into each other imperceptibly.

Exercises

1. In studying which of the following studies does one make the most use of (a) the emotions, (b) feelings of meaning, (c) percepts, (d) states of will?-Botany, Music, Grammar, Literature?

2. What kind of a mental fact is referred to by each sentence, except (h), in the following passages?—

(a) "An unaccountable dread seized him. (b) He heard only the rustle of the wind in the trees. (c) Before his mind's eye came a vision of the man whom he had been compelled to forsake. (d) Halting between the choice from two apparently equal evils, he could make up his mind neither to go forward nor to return. (e) 'I shall lose in any case,' he mused."

(f) "In utter amazement, Silas fell on his knees and bent his head low to examine the marvel: (g) it was a sleeping child -a round, fair thing, with soft yellow rings all over its head. (h) Could this be his little sister come back to him in a dreamhis little sister whom he had carried about in his arms for a year before she died, when he was a small boy without shoes or stockings? (i) But along with that question, and almost thrusting it away, there was a vision of the old home and the old streets leading to Lantern Yard-and within that vision another, of the thoughts which had been present with him in those faroff scenes." (Silas Marner.)

3. Which sort of mental fact is usually expressed by a proper noun? By an interjection? By a preposition?

4. What varieties of mental states may verbs express? Give an illustration in each case.

5. Give illustrations of a noun expressing a percept, as when a baby says 'Man, Man'; of a noun expressing a general notion, as when one says, 'Men are mortal'; of a noun expressing an emotion, as when one says, 'Man alive!'

83. A General View of Human Action

Since the majority of human actions are directly connected with thoughts or feelings, psychology deals with not only the mental states, but also the acts or conduct of men.

Conduct Equals Movements and Their Connections. All acts are reducible to movements of the body brought about by the contraction and relaxation of muscles. The common notion of an act, however, includes, besides the mere act itself, the thoughts and feelings leading to it and the circumstances under which it occurs. Thus we commonly regard Caesar's crossing the Rubicon as an act of unique importance, although the act itself was really only a series of alternate muscular contractions identical with the act of going to breakfast. The mere act of saying 'Yes' is the same whether it be a slice of bread or a husband that is accepted. The million things a man does from birth to death are at bottom only some thousands of muscular contractions. A comparatively small number of movements make up the infinite variety of human conduct by being combined in different ways, caused by different feelings and employed in different circumstances. Thus the movements of speech are only varied enough to produce some hundreds of sounds, degrees of loudness and qualities of pitch and timbre, but these few elementary movements combine to produce hundreds of languages, each with thousands of words, capable of making millions of statements and questions, each of which may be an act of many differing meanings according to the intentions and circumstances of its utterance. Human conduct is then made up of (1) acts proper, or movements, and (2) the connections between these movements and the various circumstances of life.

The Classification of Movements.-The common classifications of acts, as right and wrong, conscious and unconscious, normal and abnormal, and the like, are classifications not of acts proper, but of the circumstances under which they occur. The same movement—e. g., winking,—may of course be now right, now wrong, now conscious, now unconscious.

Acts proper or movements may be classified in three ways (1) according to their composition, (2) according to their location, and (3) according to their function or use. The last is the classification of importance to psychology.

1. Movements are simple or complex. A complex movement is one that is made up of simpler movements. A simple movement is one that is not.

2. Movements are hand-movements, eye-movements, chest-movements, etc.

3. Movements are physiological, expressive and effective. Movements of physiological function, such as those involved in swallowing, in the contraction of the heart, in the peristalis of the intestines, or in the expansion of the lungs, have as their chief direct function to keep the body alive.

Movements of expression, such as those involved in laughing, crying, staring and groaning, have as their chief direct function to reveal inner conditions,-states of mind.

Movements of effect, such as those involved in running, striking, grasping and dropping, have as their chief direct function to bring about results in things or persons.

Exercises

1. Describe cases in which the same movement results from several different mental states.

2. Describe cases in which the same mental state results in several different movements.

3. Describe cases in which four or five movements result in ten or twelve different actions (in the common meaning of the word) according to the ways in which the movements are connected.

4. Classify the following acts into acts of physiological function, acts of expression and acts of effect: (a) wrinkling the forehead, (b) lifting the arm, (c) curling the fingers in, (d) sneezing, (e) coughing, (f) walking, (g) pushing, (h) raising the eye-brows.

5. Into which of the three classes mentioned in the fourth question would (a) movements of the arms generally fall? (b) Movements caused by facial muscles? (c) Movements of the stomach?

84. A General View of the Connections of Mental Facts

The Classification of Mental Connections.-The stuff out of which a human life is made is mental states and movements. What sort of a life it shall be depends upon: first, what mental states and movements compose it, and second, how these are connected. To understand a man's intellect we must know not only what thoughts and feelings he has, but also in what circumstances, that is, in what connections, he has them: to understand his character we must know not only what are his acts, but also in what connection he performs them. All men feel love: the question is what they love. All men drink: the difference between the total abstainer and the drunkard lies in the stimulus that provokes the act of drinking. Psychology, to study human life fully, must study not only mental states and bodily acts, but also their connections. And since both thoughts and movements are aroused by