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Classification of the Sci
32

the action it represents. Thus the consciousness of a purpose must needs be a consciousness protended in time, and not a mere consciousness of the present. Any other theory must differ from this substantially in supposing all that this theory supposes and in addition supposing an instantaneous synthetized representation of the purpose. But why thus complicate the hypothesis. There is no element of the phenomenon of which an explanation is so gained. It is simply a useless complication introduced because Descartes, who was thinking of mathematical diagrams, got the idea that a thought is a passive something which the mind contemplates, and this notion has clung to the philosophers precisely because they were not mathematicians enough to understand the source of the opinion of Descartes and to be able to evaluate its merits and demerits.