d. Space and number lay hold of it. And soon all that remains
of what was movement and life is combinations formed and annulled, and
forces mechanically composed in a whole of juxtaposed atoms, and to
represent this whole a collection of petrified concepts, manipulated in
dialectic like counters.

Quite different appears the true inner reality, and quite different
are its profound characteristics. To begin with, it contains nothing
quantitative; the intensity of a psychological state is not a
magnitude, nor can it be measured. The "Essay on the Immediate Data of
Consciousness" begins with the proof of this leading statement. If it
is a question of a simple state, such as a sensation of light or weight,
the intensity is measured by a certain quality of shade which indicates
to us approximately, by an association of ideas and thanks to our
acquired experience, the magnitude of the objective cause from which it
proceeds. If, on the contrary, it is a question of a complex state,
such as those impressions of profound joy or sorrow which lay hold of
us entirely, invading and overwhelming us, what we call their intensity
expresses only the confused feeling of a qualitative progress, and
increasing wealth. "Take, for example, an obscure desire, which has
gradually become a profound passion. You will see that the feeble
intensity of this desire consisted first of all in the fact that it
seemed to you isolated and in a way foreign to all the rest of your
inner life. But little by little it penetrated a larger number of
psychic elements, dyeing them, so to speak, its own colour; and now
you find your point of view on things as a whole appears to you to have
changed. Is it not true that you become aware of a profound passion,
once it has taken root, by the fact that the same objects no longer
produce the same impression upon you? All your sensations, all your
ideas, appear to you refreshed by it; it is like a new childhood." (Loc.
cit., page 6.)

There is here none of the homogeneity which is the property of
magnitude, and the necessary condition of measurement, giving a view of
the less in the bosom of the more. The element of number has vanished,
and with it numerical multiplicity extended in space. Our inner states
form a qualitative continuity; they are prolonged and blended into one
another; they are grouped in harmonies, each note of which contains an
echo of the whole; they are encircled by an innumerable degradation of
ha