150 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE

and we have but a vague feeling of our existence a feeling

resulting from the unobserved synthesis of all the various

sensations and impressions we may then be subject to.

Such a blending of feelings is a form of consentience, and it

is by this faculty that the unconscious sleep-walker receives

and accurately responds to the varied impressions which

surrounding objects make on his organs, and by it also the

idiot makes such responses, as he may be able to make, to

similar impressions. It is to consentience again that the

ability to perform many instinctive actions is due.

In many of our rational actions, which consciousness knows

and can analyze, we can by attention detect the merely

sensuous elements of our cognitions. These elements might

be expected to be capable of producing in lower natures in

mere animals acts apparently intelligent, but which are not

really so.

Thus we may recognize the presence of feelings of self-

activity or passivity accompanying our perceptions of those

states. When we draw our hand over a foreign body or

grasp it, we may detect one such feeling underlying our

perceptions, and both at once, when rubbing the hands

together or when struggling against a violent wind.

Similarly, a variety of sensations, real and imagined, underlie

our perceptions of succession, extension, position, shape, size,

number, and motion, and can, with a little care, be easily

detected and discriminated. Thus as we feel the series of

sensations of contact when the links of a chain are drawn

across the hand, we have feelings corresponding with

succession and motion. When handling a solid cube we

have feelings related to extension, shape, size. Again, in a

multitude of actions for example, in climbing up a bank

we have feelings relating to " relative position," and we may

also acquire such by merely drawing our hand from the ankle

upwards to the thigh. Of course, we have no feeling of

and we have but a vague feeling of our existence a feeling

resulting from the unobserved synthesis of all the various

sensations and impressions we may then be subject to.

Such a blending of feelings is a form of consentience, and it

is by this faculty that the unconscious sleep-walker receives

and accurately responds to the varied impressions which

surrounding objects make on his organs, and by it also the

idiot makes such responses, as he may be able to make, to

similar impressions. It is to consentience again that the

ability to perform many instinctive actions is due.

In many of our rational actions, which consciousness knows

and can analyze, we can by attention detect the merely

sensuous elements of our cognitions. These elements might

be expected to be capable of producing in lower natures in

mere animals acts apparently intelligent, but which are not

really so.

Thus we may recognize the presence of feelings of self-

activity or passivity accompanying our perceptions of those

states. When we draw our hand over a foreign body or

grasp it, we may detect one such feeling underlying our

perceptions, and both at once, when rubbing the hands

together or when struggling against a violent wind.

Similarly, a variety of sensations, real and imagined, underlie

our perceptions of succession, extension, position, shape, size,

number, and motion, and can, with a little care, be easily

detected and discriminated. Thus as we feel the series of

sensations of contact when the links of a chain are drawn

across the hand, we have feelings corresponding with

succession and motion. When handling a solid cube we

have feelings related to extension, shape, size. Again, in a

multitude of actions for example, in climbing up a bank

we have feelings relating to " relative position," and we may

also acquire such by merely drawing our hand from the ankle

upwards to the thigh. Of course, we have no feeling of