ABSTRACT
Complexity.—The fact that one’s mental state at any moment is usually a complex mixture has already been emphasized. As the reader sees this page, he feels the temperature of the room and the well or ill-being of his body, thinks of the meanings of the words in this paragraph, has flitting images of this or that called up by them and is mildly interested or bored or satisfied or disgusted with it all. Even if we take but a momentary bit of his mental state it may contain many of these different elements. Although, to study the body of thought and feeling of a human life, we dissect it out into this, that and the other specially named kinds of mental facts, we must not forget that in reality a mental life is a series of confused mixtures of thought-stuff, a rich blending of various elements, and that often all the names so far given to denote different \ sorts of mental facts would be needed to describe the mental state of a. man for a single minute. Mental life is not like a series of solos, now sensations, now memories, now decisions; but is like the performance of an orchestra in which many sounds fuse into a total. One instrument may predominate for a while, but only very rarely is it active alone.
