The Commens Dictionary

Quote from ‘Pragmatism’

A feeling is a cross-slice, or lamina, out of the current of consciousness, taken in itself, without any analysis and tearing apart, any comparison (since comparisons consist in community of elements, and feeling is not cut up into elements.) Only “feeling” is to be understood in the sense of quality, not in that of an event, which would be existential. Every feeling, being a lamina of life, is sui generis, like the personal consciousness. But [since] no man can summon up the superhuman effort that would be required quite to inhibit the processes of mental elaboration in reproducing that instantaneous state, it follows that we have to put up with generalized feelings in place of the feelings themselves; and in these substitutes we find only remnants of the sui generis character.