Physiol.Psych., i.351, 458-60.The full inanity of the law of relativity is best to be seen in Wundt's treatment, where the great ' allgemeiner Gesetz der Beziehung,' invoked to account for Weber's law as well as for the phenomena of contrast and many other matters, can only be defined as a tendency to feel all things in relation to each other! Bless its little soul! But why does it change the things so, when it thus feels them in relation?
Ladd: Physiol.
Psych., p.348.
Mind, x.567.
Zwangsmässige Lichtempfindung durch Schall (Leipzig, 1881).
Ptlüger's Archiv, XLII.154.
Classics editor's note: James' insertion.
Physiological Psychology, 385, 387.See also such passages as that in Bain: The Senses and the Intellect, pp.364-6.
Especially must we avoid all attempts, whether avowed or concealed, to account for the spatial qualities of the presentations of sense by merely describing the qualities of the ****** sensations and the modes of their combination.
It is position and extension in space which constitutes the very peculiarity of the objects as no longer mere sensations or affections of the mind.As sensations, they are neither out of ourselves nor possessed of the qualities indicated by the word spread-out." (Ladd, op.cit.p.
391.)
A.Riehl: Der Philosophischer Kriticismus, Bd.ii.Theil ii.p.64.
On Intelligence, part ii.bk.ii.chap.ii.§§ vii, viii.Compare such statements as these: "The consequence is that when a sensation has for Its usual condition the presence of an object more or less distant from our bodies, and experience has once made us acquainted with this distance, we shall situate our sensation at this distance.-- This, in fact, is the case with sensations of hearing and sight.The peripheral extremity of the acoustic nerve is in the deep-seated chamber of the car.That of the optic nerve is in the most inner recess of the eye.But still, in our present state, we never situate our sensations of sound or color in these places, but without us, and often at a considerable distance from us....All our sensations of color are thus projected out of our body, and clothe more or less distant objects, furniture, walls, houses, trees, the sky, and the rest.This is why, when we afterwards reflect on them, we cease to attribute them to ourselves; they are alienated and detached from us, so far as to appear different from us.Projected from the nervous surface in which we localize the majority of the others, the tie which connected them to the others and to ourselves is undone...
.Thus, all our sensations are wrongly situated, and the red color is no more extended on the arm-chair than the sensation of tingling is situated at my fingers' ends.They are all situated in the sensory centres of the encephalon; all appear situated elsewhere, and a common law allots to each of them its apparent situation." (Vol.ii.pp.47-53.) -- Similarly Schopenhauer:
"I will now show the same by the sense of sight.The immediate datum is here limited to the sensation of the retina which, it is true, admits of considerable diversity, but at bottom reverts to the impression of light and dark with their shades, and that of colors.This sensation is through and through subjective, that is, inside of the organism and under the skin."
