第52章

Note next that they form concurrent series; or rather let us call them,not series, which implies linear arrangements, but heterogeneous streamsor processions. These run side by side; each now broadening and now narrowing,each now threatening to obliterate its neighbour and now in turn threatenedwith obliteration, but neither ever quite excluding the other from theircommon channel. Let us watch the mutual actions of the two currents. Duringwhat we call states of activity, the vivid manifestations predominate. Wesimultaneously receive many and varied presentations -- a crowd of sights,sounds, resistances, tastes, odours, etc.; some groups of them changing andothers temporarily fixed, but altering as we move; and when we compare inits breadth and massiveness this stream of vivid manifestations with thestream of faint ones, these last sink into relative insignificance. Theynever wholly disappear, however. Always along with the vivid manifestations,even in their greatest obtrusiveness, there goes a thread called thoughtsconstituted of the faint manifestations. Or if it be contended that the occurrenceof a deafening explosion or an intense pain may for a moment exclude everyidea, it must yet be admitted that such breach of continuity can never beimmediately known as occurring; since the act of knowing is impossible inthe absence of ideas. On the other hand, after certain vivid manifestationswhich we call the acts of closing the eyes and adjusting ourselves so asto enfeeble the vivid manifestations called pressures, sounds, etc., thefaint manifestations become relatively predominant. The current of them,no longer obscured by the vivid current, grows distinct, and seems almostto exclude the vivid current. But the vivid manifestations, however smallthe current of them becomes, still continue: pressure and touch do not whollydisappear. It is only during the state termed sleep, that manifestationsof the vivid order cease to be distinguishable as such, and those of thefaint order come to be mistaken for them. And even of this we remain unawaretill manifestations of the vivid order recur on awaking. We can never interthat manifestations of the vivid order have been absent, until they are againpresent; and can therefore never directly know them to be absent. Thus, ofthe two streams of manifestations, each preserves its continuity. As theyflow side by side, either trenches on the other; but at no moment can itbe said that the one has, then and there, broken through the other.

Besides this longitudinal cohesion there is a lateral cohesion, both ofthe vivid to the vivid and of the faint to the faint. The components of thevivid series are bound together by ties of co-existence as well as by tiesof succession; and the components of the faint series are similarly boundtogether. Between the degrees of union in the two cases there are, however,marked and very significant differences. Let us observe them. Over a limitedarea of consciousness, as we name this double stream, lights and shades andcolours and outlines constitute a group to which we give a certain name distinguishingit as an object; and while they continue present, these united vivid manifestationsremain inseparable. So, too, is it with co-existing groups of manifestations: each persists as a special combination; and most of them preserve unchangingrelations with those around. Such of them as do not -- such of them as arecapable of what we call independent movements, nevertheless show us a constantconnexion between certain of the manifestations they include, along witha variable connexion of others. And though after certain vivid manifestationsknown as a change in the conditions of perception, there is a change in theproportions among the vivid manifestations constituting any group, theircohesion continues. Turning to the faint manifestations, we see that theirlateral cohesions are much less extensive, and in most cases by no meansso rigorous. After the group of feelings I call closing my eyes, I can representan object now standing in a certain place, as standing in some other place,or as absent. While I look at a blue vase, I cannot separate the vivid manifestationof blueness from the vivid manifestation of a particular shape; but, in theabsence of these vivid manifestations, I can separate the faint manifestationof the shape from the faint manifestation of blueness, and replace the lastby a faint manifestation of redness, and I can also change the shape andthe size of the vase to any extent. It is so throughout: the faint manifestationscling together to a certain extent, but most of them may be re-arranged withfacility. Indeed none of the individual faint manifestations cohere in thesame indissoluble way as do the individual vivid manifestations. Though alongwith a faint manifestation of pressure there is always some faint manifestationof extension, yet no particular faint manifestation of extension is boundup with a particular faint manifestation of pressure. So that whereas inthe vivid order the individual manifestations cohere indissolubly usuallyin large groups, in the faint order the individual manifestations none ofthem cohere indissolubly, and are most of them loosely aggregated: the onlyindissoluble cohesions among them being between certain of their genericforms.