held in this sense, is, it may be observed in passing, one of the
oddest of philosophic superstitions. Whatever facts may be cited in
its favor are due to the properties of nerve-tissue, which may be
exhausted by too prolonged an excitement. Patients with neuralgias
that last unremittingly for days can, however, assure us that
the limits of this nerve-law are pretty widely drawn. But if
we physically could get a feeling that should last
eternally unchanged, what atom of logical or psychological argument
is there to prove that it would not be felt as long as it
lasted, and felt for just what it is, all that time? The reason for
the opposite prejudice seems to be our reluctance to think that
so stupid a thing as such a feeling would necessarily be, should be
allowed to fill eternity with its presence. An
interminable acquaintance, leading to no knowledge-about,--such
would be its condition.] we allow the feeling to be of as short a
duration as they like, that universe will only need to last an
infinitesimal part of a second. The feeling in question will thus be
reduced to its fighting weight, and all that befalls it in the way
of a cognitive function must be held to befall in the brief
instant of its quickly snuffed-out life,--a life, it will also be
noticed, that has no other moment of consciousness either preceding
or following it.

Well now, can our little feeling, thus left alone in the universe,--
for the god and we psychological critics may be supposed left out of
the account,--can the feeling, I say, be said to have any sort of a
cognitive function? For it to KNOW, there must be something to be
known. What is there, on the present supposition? One may reply,
'the feeling's content q.' But does it not seem more proper to call
this the feeling's QUALITY than its content? Does not the