Chapter I: Front Matter

The distinction between mind and matter--Knowable not homogeneous--Criterion employed, enumeration not concepts

CHAPTER II

OUR KNOWLEDGE OF EXTERNAL OBJECTS ONLY SENSATION

Modern theories of matter--Outer world only known to us by our sensations--Instances--Mill's approval of proposition, and its defects--Nervous system only intermediary between self and outer world--The great X of Matter--Nervous system does not give us true image--Müller's law of specificity of the nerves--The nervous system itself a sensation--Relations of sensation with the unknowable the affair of metaphysics

CHAPTER III

THE MECHANICAL THEORIES OF MATTER ARE ONLY SYMBOLS

Physicists vainly endeavour to reduce the rôle of sensation--Mathematical, energetical, and mechanical theories of universe--Mechanical model formed from sensation--Instance of tuning-fork--No one sensation any right to hegemony over others

CHAPTER IV

ANSWERS TO SOME OBJECTIONS, AND SUMMARY

Objections of spiritualists--Of German authors who contend that nervous system does give true image--Of metaphysicians--Common ground of objection that nervous system not intermediary--Answer to this--Summary of preceding chapters

BOOK II

THE DEFINITION OF MIND

CHAPTER I

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN COGNITION AND ITS OBJECT

Necessity for inventory of mental phenomena--Objects of cognition and acts of cognition--Definition of consciousness

CHAPTER II

DEFINITION OF SENSATION

Sensation defined by experimental psychology--A state of consciousness--Considered self-evident by Mill, Renouvier, and Hume--Psycho-physical according to Reid and Hamilton--Reasons in favour of last definition--Other opinions examined and refuted

CHAPTER III

DEFINITION OF THE IMAGE

Perception and ideation cannot be separated--Perception constituted by addition of image to sensation--Hallucinations--Objections anticipated and answered

CHAPTER IV

DEFINITION OF THE EMOTIONS

Contrary opinions as to nature of emotions--Emotion a phenomenon _sui generis_--Intellectualist theory of emotion supported by Lange and James--Is emotion only a perception? Is effort?--Question left unanswered

CHAPTER V

DEFINITION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS--THE RELATION SUBJECT-OBJECT

Can thoughts be divided into subject and object?--This division cannot apply to the consciousness--Subject of cognition itself an object--James' opinion examined--Opinion that subject is spiritual substance and consciousness its faculty refuted

CHAPTER VI

DEFINITION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS--CATEGORIES OF THE UNDERSTANDING

Principle of relativity doubted--Tables of categories: Aristotle, Kant, and Renouvier--Kantian idealism--Phenomenism of Berkeley examined and rejected--Argument of _a priorists_--The intelligence only an inactive consciousness--Huxley's epiphenomenal consciousness--Is the consciousness necessary?--Impossibility of answering this question

CHAPTER VII

DEFINITION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS--THE SEPARABILITY OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS FROM ITS OBJECT--DISCUSSION OF IDEALISM

Can the consciousness be separated from its object?--Idealists consider the object a modality of the consciousness and thus inseparable, from it--Futility of this doctrine--Object can exist without consciousness

CHAPTER VIII

DEFINITION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS--THE SEPARATION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS FROM ITS OBJECT--THE UNCONSCIOUS

Can ideas exist without consciousness?--No consciousness without an object--Can the consciousness die?--Enfeeblement of consciousness how accounted for--Doubling of consciousness in hysterics--Relations of physiological phenomena to consciousness--Consciousness cannot become unconscious and yet exist

CHAPTER IX

DEFINITIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY

Difficulty of defining psychology--Definition by substance--Psychology not the science of the soul--Definition by enumeration: its error--Definition by method contradicts idea of consciousness--Externospection and introspection sometimes confused--Definition by content--Facts cannot be divided into those of consciousness and of unconsciousness--Descartes' definition of psychology insufficient--"Within and without" simile unanalogous--Definition by point of view--Inconsistencies of Ebbinghaus' contention--W. James' teleological theory--Definition by the peculiar nature of mental laws only one possible: why?

BOOK III

THE UNION OF THE SOUL AND THE BODY

CHAPTER I

THE MIND HAS AN INCOMPLETE LIFE

Problem of union of mind and body stated--Axiom of heterogeneity must be rejected--Phenomena of consciousness incomplete--Aristotle's _relatum_ and _correlatum_ applied to the terms mind and matter

CHAPTER II

SPIRITUALISM AND IDEALISM

Spiritualist view that death cuts link between soul and body--Explanation of link fatal to system--Consciousness cannot exercise functions without objects of cognition--Idealism a kaleidoscopic system--Four affirmations of idealism: their inconsistency--Advantages of historical method

CHAPTER III

MATERIALISM AND PARALLELISM

Materialism oldest doctrine of all: many patristic authors lean towards it--Modern form of, receives impulse from advance of physical science--Karl Vogt's comparison of secretions of brain with that of kidneys--All materialist doctrines opposed to principle of heterogeneity--Modern materialism would make object generate consciousness--Materialists cannot demonstrate how molecular vibrations can be transformed into objects--Parallelism avoids issue by declaring mind to be function of brain--Parallelists declare physical and psychical life to be two parallel currents--Bain's support of this--Objections to: most important that it postulates consciousness as a complete whole

CHAPTER IV

MODERN THEORIES

Berkeley's idealism revived by Bergson, though with different standpoint--Admirable nature of Bergson's exposition--Fallacy of, part assigned to sensory nerves--Conscious sensations must be subsequent to excitement of sensory nerves and dependent on their integrity

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

Author's own theory only a hypothesis--Important conditions for solution of problem--Manifestations of consciousness conditioned by brain, but this last unconscious--Consciousness perceives only external object--Specificity of nerves not absolute--Why repeated excitements of nerve tend to become unconscious--Formation of habit and "instinct"--Resemblance to and distinction of this from parallelism--Advantages of new theory

CHAPTER VI

RECAPITULATION

Description of matter--Definition of mind--Objections to, answered--Incomplete existence of mind--Other theories--Nervous system must add its own effect to that of its excitant