Samuel Alexander

“It may be added, to prevent misunderstanding, that when I speak of contemplated objects in this last phrase as objects of contemplation, the act of contemplation itself is of course an enjoyment.”

“Curiosity begins as an act of tearing to pieces or analysis.”

“An object is not first imagined or thought about and then expected or willed, but in being actively expected it is imagined as future and in being willed it is thought.”

“Both expectations and memories are more than mere images founded on previous experience.”

“The perceptive act is a reaction of the mind upon the object of which it is the perception.”

“But unfortunately Locke treated ideas of reflection as if they were another class of objects of contemplation beside ideas of sensation.”

“Desire then is the invasion of the whole self by the wish, which, as it invades, sets going more and more of the psychical processes; but at the same time, so long as it remains desire, does not succeed in getting possession of the self.”

“We cannot therefore say that mental acts contain a cognitive as well as a conative element.”

“What is the meaning of the togetherness of the perceiving mind, in that peculiar modification of perceiving which makes it perceive not a star but a tree, and the tree itself, is a problem for philosophy.”

“Thus the same object may supply a practical perception to one person and a speculative one to another, or the same person may perceive it partly practically and partly speculatively.”

“The mental act of sensation which issues in reflex movement is so simple as to defy analysis.”

“For psychological purposes the most important differences in conation are those in virtue of which the object is revealed as sensed or perceived or imaged or remembered or thought.”

“But though cognition is not an element of mental action, nor even in any real sense of the word an aspect of it, the distinction of cognition and conation has if properly defined a definite value.”

“An expectation is a future object, recognised as belonging to me.”

“Mental life is indeed practical through and through. It begins in practice and it ends in practice.”

“Time is the Mind of Space.”

“In the perception of a tree we can distinguish the act of experiencing, or perceiving, from the thing experienced, or perceived.”

“The thing of which the act of perception is the perception is experienced as something not mental.”

“Psychology is the science of the act of experiencing, and deals with the whole system of such acts as they make up mental life.”

“The sensory acts are accordingly distinguished by their objects.”