DOC.
395
OCTOBER
1917 395
could notice
nothing,
as
you yourself
had
emphasized
at
the
beginning
of
your
letter.
Therefore,
all
the
manifolds
that
we
really experience,
the
whole abun-
dance of
our
discrete
experiences,
must find
expression
in
the
momentary
state.
First
of
all,
it
is
certain that
in
spatio-optical sensation,
when
we see an
object,
we
have
a
strictly
simultaneous manifold in
our
consciousness,
since otherwise
we
clearly
could not
speak
of
seeing
an
object
but
would
merely
have
a
point
of color
in
our
consciousness.[9]
If
the other
points
were
in
our
consciousness
even
only
a
millionth of
a
second earlier
or
later,
we
would not have
the total
optical
im-
pression.
The
past
perception would,
of
course,
be in
the other
world of
the
past
state.
Nevertheless,
we
do
see complete,
extended
spatial
images.
At
the
same
time,
however,
we
certainly
see distinctly
areas
that
are
larger
than the
one
that
immediately
falls
on
the
eye
in
one
moment
of
focussed
looking,
which
is probably
explained physiologically
in
that
we move our eye
very rapidly
and combine
the
individual
partial
images,
be
it
as a
result of
the
physiological
aftereffect in
the
eye or
in
the
brain.
It
is not
good, though,
and
is just
confusing,
to allow oneself
to
be influenced
at all
by
such
physiological
considerations
in
judging
what
is
experienced directly.
In
any case, one
thing
is
“evident,”
though,
and
this
in
the
literal
sense, namely,
that
we see
a
manifold simultaneously.
But
by
no means
does this exhaust
the
immense
variety
of
what must
neces-
sarily
be found within
a
momentary
state
of
consciousness, although
these subtle
things
are
so
difficult to catch.
It
is
a
matter
of
the
immeasurable manifold of
grades
of coloration
featured
in the state
of
consciousness mentioned in
the
fore-
going.
It
is
clearest and
simplest
if
we
deal with
the
considerations of these
af-
tereffects in connection with musical
interpretation,
even
though
this
also
applies
to
the
interpretation
of
the
spoken sentence; yet
in
this
case
there
is
the
added
complication
that, in
the
first
place, one
must
agree
that
the
sense
of
the
words
corresponds
to
something
within immediate consciousness. Thus
as
concerns
mu-
sic,
you
will
also find
briefly
discussed
on
page
2
of
my
paper
that
we
would have
no
notion of
a
complete melody
if,
with each received
tone,
a
very
definite
linger-
ing
effect
of
the
foregoing
tones
were
not
simultaneously
in
the
consciousness.[10]
If
this
were
not
the
case,
we
would
then
just
have
a
perception
of
isolated
tones
or
harmonies. This aftereffect
naturally
does not consist in
the
graphic concept
of the
preceding
tones,
otherwise
we
would
obviously
have
a
terribly
dissonant
impression;
rather,
it
is
something very specific.
When
you
consider these
simple
circumstances
a
little,
you
must
understand
what
an
immeasurable manifold
of
states
of
consciousness
there
is of
the
subtlest
differences in hue and how much
such
a
manifold differs from
a
Mach element.
Every
musical
sequence
we
hear
and take
in,
however
great
it
is
in
length,
is
unequivocally assigned
to
a
very
discrete state of
consciousness;
that
is,
this
state
corresponds
in
our
temporal
order to each moment of
the
totality of
what has been heard
until
then,
for
if
this