r. A sermon
_seems_ long; was it _really_ long? There is only one way of measuring
its real length. We must refer to the clock, to the sun, to some
change in the physical world. We _seem_ to live years in a dream; was
the dream _really_ a long one? The real length can only be determined,
if at all, by a physical reference. Those apparent years of the dream
have no place in the real time which is measured by the clock. We do
not have to cut it and insert them somewhere. They belong to a
different order, and cannot be inserted any more than the thought of a
patch can be inserted in a rent in a real coat.

We see, thus, when we reflect upon the matter, that mental phenomena
cannot, strictly speaking, be said to have a time and place. He who
attributes these to them materializes them. But their physical
concomitants have a time and place, and mental phenomena can be
ordered by a reference to these. They can be assigned a time and
place of existing in a special sense of the words not to be confounded
with the sense in which we use them when we speak of the time and place
of material things. This makes it possible to relate every mental
phenomenon to the world system in a definite way, and to distinguish it
clearly from every other, however similar.

We need not, when we come to understand this, change our usual modes of
speech. We may still say: The pain I had two years ago is like the
pain I have to-day; my sensation came into being at such a moment; my
regret lasted two days. We speak that we may be understood; and such
phrases express a truth, even if they are rather loose and inaccurate.
But we must not be deceived by such phrases, and assume that they mean
what they have no right to mean.

39. OBJECTIONS TO PARALLELISM.--What objections can be brought against
parallelism? It is sometimes objected by the interactionist that it
abandons the plain man's notion of the mind as a substance with its
attributes, and makes of it a mere collection of mental phenomena. It
must be admitted that the parallelist usually holds a view which
differs rather widely from that of the unlearned.

But even supposing this objection well taken, it can no longer be
regarded as an objection specifically to the doctrine of parallelism,
for the view of the mind in question is becoming increasingly popular,
and it is now held by influential interactionists as well as by
parallelists. One may believe that the mind consists of ide