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Classification of the Sci
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that in it we can perform an act so particularly complicated as the simplest of thoughts. Nor does the hypothesis that we can do so aid us one whit in explaining any phenomenon whatever, since no adducible phenomenon is absolutely instantaneous; and it is certainly simpler to suppose the content of instantaneous consciousness is a mere state of feeling, which is the only quite simple consciousness, and one which so far as we are conscious of it we are conscious of it as simple. For how should we have time in an instant to compare its parts and pronounce it to be composite? This would be to suppose that within an instant we could not only draw an inference but also have time to apprehend its premises beside. Let us presume, then, that immediate consciousness,—that most occult of things,—is nothing but simple feeling without parts in itself. This feeling, however, is incessantly shifting, kaleidoscope-fashion. When such a shift takes place, I, the conscious individual, either have a sense of effecting it by an effort against a resistance or else