psychologists as feeling. The word feeling has many other well-recognised meanings, and the function which it is made to subserve in this present connection is somewhat arbitrarily imposed upon it. Moreover, certain psychologists refuse to use it in this limited fashion. Sometimes it is made synony- mous with consciousness, and writers speak of "feelings of objects as present or absent," "feelings of relation" and "feel- ings of assent." Again it is used to designate whatever is vague and unanalysed in the background of consciousness. Thus we "feel" much which we cannot describe. Both of these last two usages have much in common with the or- dinary significance of the term in daily speech. But we shall employ it to designate in a general way those conscious proc- esses which possess definite tone, which are not neutral or indifferent, but which represent distinct tendencies to such reactions as will assure either the continuance or discon- tinuance of the stimulus, as the case may be. Cogonition and feeling are not two distinct kinds of en- tire mental states. They simply designate certain distin- guishing features of such total psychical conditions. An act of memory or of reasoning is cognitive in so far as it in- volves knowledge processes. It is feeling in so far as it is my knowledge experienced in a certain way, with a certain tone. A rough distinction is sometimes made between cognition and feeling by saying that cognition furnishes us the nouns and adjectives, the "whats" of our states of consciousness, while feeling affords the adverbial "how." What are you conscious of? An object, a picture. How does it affect you? Agreeably. The first question and answer bring out the cognitive factors, the second emphasise the feelings. Another line of demarcation which is sometimes proposed is based on the assertion that cognition informs us of objects and re- lations external to our minds, whereas feeling informs us of our own internal mental condition. The general character -302- |