but that we are thinking it ALIKE, and thinking of much of its
extent.

Without the practical effects of our neighbor's feelings on our own
world, we should never suspect the existence of our
neighbor's feelings at all, and of course should never
find ourselves playing the critic as we do in this article. The
constitution of nature is very peculiar. In the world of each of us
are certain objects called human bodies, which move about and act on
all the other objects there, and the occasions of their action are
in the main what the occasions of our action would be, were they our
bodies. They use words and gestures, which, if we used them, would
have thoughts behind them,--no mere thoughts uberhaupt, however, but
strictly determinate thoughts. I think you have the notion of
fire in general, because I see you act towards this fire in my room
just as I act towards it,--poke it and present your person towards
it, and so forth. But that binds me to believe that if you feel
'fire' at all, THIS is the fire you feel. As a matter of fact,
whenever we constitute ourselves into psychological critics, it is
not by dint of discovering which reality a feeling 'resembles' that
we find out which reality it means. We become first aware of which
one it means, and then we suppose that to be the one it resembles.
We see each other looking at the same objects, pointing to them and
turning them over in various ways, and thereupon we hope and trust
that all of our several feelings resemble the reality and each
other. But this is a thing of which we are never theoretically sure.
Still, it would practically be a case of grubelsucht, if a ruffian
were assaulting and drubbing my body, to spend much time in subtle
speculation either as to whether his vision of my body resembled
mine, or as to whether the body he really MEANT to insult were not