We speak of virtue, honour, reason; but our thought does not translate any one of these concepts into a substance.

If we take an unprejudiced view of the processes of consciousness, free from all the so-called association rules and theories, we see at once that an idea is no more an even relatively constant thing than is a feeling or emotion or volitional process. There exist only changing and transient ideational processes ; there are no permanent ideas that return again and disappear again.

We know, from ordinary life, that we are not able to direct our attention perfectly steadily and uniformly to one and the same object... At times the attention turns towards the object most intensely, and at times the energy flags.

Psychology, on the other hand, seeks to give account of the interconnexion of processes which are evinced by our own consciousness, or which we infer from such manifestations of the bodily life in other creatures as indicate the presence of a consciousness similar to our own.

Hence, wherever we meet with vital phenomena that present the two aspects, physical and psychical there naturally arises a question as to the relations in which these aspects stand to each other.

Physiological psychology is, therefore, first of all psychology.

The distinguishing characteristics of mind are of a subjective sort; we know them only from the contents of our own consciousness.