lied in any case. These only supply inadequate analogies and
symbols which never really represent the actual state of the case.

Let us take, for instance, a motive, _m_, that impels us towards a
particular action, and another, _n_, that hinders us. If these meet in us,
the result is not simply a weakening of the power of the one, and a
remaining motive of the strength of _m_ minus _n_. The meeting of the two
creates an entirely new and peculiar mental situation, which gives rise to
conflict and choice, and the resultant victorious motive is never under
any circumstances _m-n_, but may be a double or three-fold _m_ or _n_.
Thus, in the different aspects of psychical activity, there are factors
which make it impossible to compare these with other activities, remove
them outside of the scope of the law of the equivalence of cause and
effect, and prove that there is self-increase and growth on the part of
psychical energies. And all such phenomena lead us away from the
standpoint of any mere theory of association.

Activity of Consciousness.

Naturalism takes refuge in the doctrine of association, when it does not
attain anything with its first claims, and applies this theory in such a
way that it seems possible from this standpoint to interpret mental
processes as having an approximate resemblance to mechanically and
mathematically calculable phenomena. As in physics the molecules and
atoms, so here the smallest mental elements, the simplest units of feeling
are sought for, and from their relations of attraction and repulsion,
their groupings and movements, it is supposed that the whole mental world
may be constructed up to its highest contents, will, ideals, and
development of character. But even the analogy, the model which is
followed, and the fact that a model is followed at all, show that this
method is uncritical and not unprejudiced. What reason is there for
regarding occurrences in the realm of physics as a _norm_ for the
psychical? Why should one not rather start from the peculiar and very
striking differences between the two, from the primary and fundamental
fact, not indeed capable of explanation, but all the more worthy of
attention on that account, that there is an absolute difference between
physical occurrences and mental behaviour, between physical and mental
causality? These most primitive and simplest mental elements which are
supposed to float and have their being within the mind as in a kind o