similar. And so we can define psychical phenomena by saying that
they are phenomena which intentionally contain an object in
themselves."

The view here expressed, that relation to an object is an
ultimate irreducible characteristic of mental phenomena, is one
which I shall be concerned to combat. Like Brentano, I am
interested in psychology, not so much for its own sake, as for
the light that it may throw on the problem of knowledge. Until
very lately I believed, as he did, that mental phenomena have
essential reference to objects, except possibly in the case of
pleasure and pain. Now I no longer believe this, even in the case
of knowledge. I shall try to make my reasons for this rejection
clear as we proceed. It must be evident at first glance that the
analysis of knowledge is rendered more difficult by the
rejection; but the apparent simplicity of Brentano's view of
knowledge will be found, if I am not mistaken, incapable of
maintaining itself either against an analytic scrutiny or against
a host of facts in psycho-analysis and animal psychology. I do
not wish to minimize the problems. I will merely observe, in
mitigation of our prospective labours, that thinking, however it
is to be analysed, is in itself a delightful occupation, and that
there is no enemy to thinking so deadly as a false simplicity.
Travelling, whether in the mental or the physical world, is a
joy, and it is good to know that, in the mental world at least,
there are vast countries still very imperfectly explored.

The view expressed by Brentano has been held very generally, and
developed by many writers. Among these we may take as an example
his Austrian successor Meinong.* According to him there are three