... This not-me character
of my recollections and expectations does not
imply that the external objects of which I am
aware in those experiences should necessarily
be there also for others. The objects of dreamers
and hallucinated persons are wholly without
general validity. But even were they centaurs
and golden mountains, they still would
be 'off there,' in fairy land, and not 'inside' of
ourselves."(1)
This certainly is the immediate, primary,
naif, or practical way of taking our thought-of
world. Were there no perceptual world to
serve as its 'reductive,' in Taine's sense, by
---
1 Munsterberg: _Grundzuge_der_Psychologie_, vol. I, p. 48.
---
21
being 'stronger' and more genuinely 'outer'
(so that the whole merely thought-of world
seems weak and inner in comparison), our
world of thought would be the only world, and
would enjoy complete reality in our belief.
This actually happens in our dreams, and in
our day-dreams so long as percepts do not
interrupt them.
And yet, just as the seen room (to go back to
our late example) is _also_ a field of consciousness,
so the conceived or recollected room is
_also_ a state of mind; and the doubling-up of the
experience has in both cases similar grounds.
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