of course, we must treat it as
non-mental or as mental.

Our body itself is the palmary instance of the ambiguous. Sometimes I
treat my body purely as a part of outer nature. Sometimes, again, I
think of it as 'mine,' I sort it with the 'me,' and then certain local
changes and determinations in it pass for spiritual happenings. Its
breathing is my 'thinking,' its sensorial adjustments are my
'attention,' its kinesthetic alterations are my 'efforts,' its visceral
perturbations are my 'emotions.' The obstinate controversies that have
arisen over such statements as these (which sound so paradoxical, and
which can yet be made so seriously) prove how hard it is to decide by
bare introspection what it is in experiences that shall make them either
spiritual or material. It surely can be nothing intrinsic in the
individual experience. It is their way of behaving towards each other,
their system of relations, their function; and all these things vary
with the context in which we find it opportune to consider them.

I think I may conclude, then (and I hope that my readers are now ready
to conclude with me), that the pretended spirituality of our emotions
and of our attributes of value, so far from proving an objection to the
philosophy of pure experience, does, when rightly discussed and
accounted for, serve as one of its best corroborations.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] [Reprinted from _The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and
Scientific Methods_, vol. II, No. 11, May 25, 1905.]

[76] It will be still better if he shall have also read the [essay]
entitled 'A World of Pure Experience,' which follows [the first] and
develops its ideas still farther.

[77] [Cf. _The Principles of Psychology_, vol. II, ch. XXV; and "The
Physical Basis of Emotion," _The Psychological Review_, vol. I, 1894, p.
516.]

[78] [See above, pp. 34, 35.]

[79] Page 102.

[80] [Cf. Janet and Seailles: _History of the Problems of Philosophy_,
trans. by Monahan, part I, ch. III.]

[81] [Cf. Descartes: _Meditation_ II; _Principles of Philosophy_, part
I, XLVIII.]

[82] [Cf. A. E. Taylor: _Elements of Metaphysics_, bk. III, ch. IV.]

[83] [Cf. K. Pearson: _Grammar of Science_, ch. III.]

[84] It is enough for my present purpose if the appreciative characters
but _seem_ to act thus. Believers in an activity _an sich_, other than
our mental experiences of activity, will find some farther reflections
on the subject in my address on 'The Experience of Activity.