ABSTRACT

The word “idea,” being in common use, has various meanings in various connections. Etymologically the word means an appearance to sight; but even this is ambiguous. For an appearance may be conceived as a picture composed of various parts or elements, or it may be treated experimentally, as a stimulus, or as an indication of something else to be found or done. A mere stimulus, however, would not be an idea: it is not an idea that makes one sneeze. Nor would an idea be an index to something else without the help of an impulse not ideal in oneself which I call animal faith. The word idea directs our attention only to sight, and in seeing or even in looking we are scarcely aware of any movement within ourselves that should render vision a biological activity, rather than an absolute and placeless revelation. If instead of vision we had first examined sound, which in its purity is at least as aesthetical as light, we should have felt, especially when the sound was that of our own cry, that a strong commotion in us and a violent effort in our chest and throat produced that sound, and gave it lodgment and meaning in the life of nature. Were seeing more often accompanied by being dazzled or blinded, and looking by being intensely lustful or frightened, we should be less inclined to say that sight could reveal nothing but a patch of coloured light, not to speak of celestial essences recalled by a banished soul.