Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind (Vol. 1 of 3)

The doctrine of Pythagoras, in its application to the material world, is in this respect philosophically accurate:

Tempus edax rerum, tuque invidiosa vetustasOmnia destruitis, vitiataque dentibus æviPaulatim lenta consumitis omnia morte.Nec species sua cuique manet; rerumque novatrixEx aliis alias reparat natura figuras.Nec perit in toto quicquam, mihi credite, mundo,Sed variat faciemque novat; nascique vocaturIncipere esse aliud quam quod fuit ante, —moriqueDesinere illud idem. Cum sint hue forsitan illa,Hæc translata illuc, summa tamen omnia constant.136

With respect to the mere elements of matter, therefore, the present may be said, and truly said, to be exactly the past; and, in the whole series of phenomena of the material universe, from the moment of its creation to this present moment, there has been nothing new, but mere changes of relative position. This absolute sameness of result, in all the apparent changes of matter, Condillac applies, by a most unwarrantable extension, to the mere affections of the mind; and, because two affections of mind are followed by a third, he considers this third to be the two former co-existing, or, as he terms it, transformed. The feeling which follows another feeling, however seemingly different, is thus, in his system, the same, because it results from it; and it is very easy for him, in this way, to prove all our feelings to be sensations, by this simplest of arguments, that sensation was the first state induced in mind, and that, hence, since all our other feelings, of every species, must have followed it, they must have originated in it, and therefore, been this very sensation under a mere change of form. It is number one of the long series; and, if number two be a transformed sensation, because it results from number one, which was a sensation, number three must be equally so, because it follows number two; and thus, successively, the whole series. I perceive a hare; I perceive a sheep: – each of these separate states of my mind is a sensation. I cannot attend to them long, he says, without comparing them, and perceiving those circumstances of agreement, which lead me to apply to both the word quadruped. All this is most indubitably true. It is impossible, or, at least, it is not very common for us to observe any two animals long, together, without thinking of some of the circumstances in which they agree or differ. The one state of mind is a consequence of the other state of mind. But this is far from proving the comparison itself, as a subsequent state or phenomenon of the mind, to be the same mental state as the mere perception of the two animals which simply preceded it. If the evidence of our consciousness is to be trusted, it is very different; and in what other evidence can the assertion of their sameness be founded? We do not feel the state of mind, which constitutes the comparison, to be virtually equal to the two states of mind which constituted the separate perception, as we feel the relation of virtual equality between our notion of the number eight, and our notions of six and two combined; the one feeling does not virtually comprehend the two others, and it surely does not comprehend them in any grosser physical sense; for there certainly is nothing in the absolute spiritual unity of our thinking principle which can lead us to believe that the state or affection of mind which constitutes the perception of a horse, and the state or affection of mind which constitutes the perception of a sheep, unite, in that different state or affection of mind, which constitutes the comparison of the two, in the same manner as the solid chrystals of any salt unite, in solution, with the liquid which dissolves them. They do not involve or constitute, they merely give occasion to this third state, and give occasion to it, merely in consequence of the peculiar susceptibilities of the mind itself, as formed, by its divine Author, to be affected in this particular manner, after being affected in those different manners, which constitute the separate perceptions, as sensation itself, the primary feeling, was made, to depend on some previous organic affection produced by an external object. It is not, therefore, as being susceptible of mere sensation, but as being susceptible of more than mere sensation, that the mind is able to compare its sensations with each other. We may see, and certainly do see, objects together, without forming uniformly the same comparison; which could not be the case if the mere coexistence of the two perceptions constituted or involved the comparison itself. In the case of a horse and sheep, for example, though these, in the sensations which they excite, cannot, at different times, be very different, we compare, at different times, their colour, their forms, their magnitudes, their functions, and the uses to which we put them, and we consider them as related in various other ways. The perceptions being the same, the comparisons, or subsequent feelings of relation, are different; and though the relation cannot be felt but when both objects are considered together, it is truly no part of the perception of each. According to the French system, the science, which we now strangely regard as of difficult acquirement, would be nothing more than the mere opening of our eyes. Were we to shew to a peasant, absolutely unacquainted with the very elements of geometry, diagrams representing two right angles, and a plane triangle, he might certainly, though he could not give them names, perceive these figures as clearly as the most expert mathematician. Every thing which mere sensation could produce, in this case, would be the same in both; and nothing can be added to this primary sensation, since every thing is said to be actually involved in the sensation itself. Yet, with all his accurate perception of the figures, however clear, and vivid, and lasting, the peasant would not find, in this immediate perception, the equality of the two right angles taken together to the three angles of the triangle, or any other geometrical relation. The comparison, then, and the belief of an universal truth of proportion, which results from that comparison, are certainly something more than the mere sensation itself. They are, in short, new states of mind, as distinct from the mere perception of the figures in the diagram, as the perception of a circle itself differs from the perception of a square. To compare one animal with another, is, indeed, to have different visual images; but the mere coexistence of visual images is only a group, larger, or smaller, as the images are more or fewer, and all which transformation can do is to add to this group or take away from it. Innumerable objects may be, and are, continually present to us at once, so as to produce one complex affection of mind, – fields, groves, mountains, streams, – but the mere coexistence of these, so as to form in our thought one scene, involves no feeling of comparison; and if the mind had not been susceptible of other affections than those of sense, or of mere remembrance of the past objects of sense, either in whole or in part, it might, when such a scene was present, have existed forever in the state which forms the complex perception of the scene, without the slightest notion of the RELATION of its parts to the whole, or to each other.

When I thus attempt to prove, by so many wearying arguments, that the feeling which constitutes our comparison of our sensations, or, in other words, our belief of their agreement or disagreement, is itself a state of mind, different from either of the separate sensations which we compare, and different from both, as merely coexisting, I cannot but feel, what many of you have probably felt already, as if I were labouring to demonstrate a mere truism. Indeed, when I consider the argument as any thing more, it is necessary for me to call to mind the great name, and great talents, of the author whose system I oppose, – the praise which the system has received, of extreme subtlety of analysis, combined with extreme simplicity, and its wide diffusion, as the universal, or nearly universal, metaphysical creed, of one of the most enlightened nations of Europe.

But for these remembrances, I must confess, that the system which supposes our comparison to be the ideas compared, and nothing more, as if these had flowed together into one, would appear to me to correspond almost exactly with an ironical theory of the same process, and, indeed, of all the intellectual processes, proposed in our own country, – not in the Essay on Human Understanding, but in a very different work, – a theory which supposes comparison, or judgment, to be only the conflux of two ideas, in one propositional canal.

“Simple ideas are produced by the motion of the spirits in one simple canal: when two of these canals disembogue themselves into one, they make what we call a proposition: and when two of these propositional channels empty themselves into a third, they form a syllogism, or a ratiocination. Memory is performed in a distinct apartment of the brain, made up of vessels similar, and like situated to the ideal, propositional, and syllogistical vessels, in the primary parts of the brain. After the same manner, it is easy to explain the other modes of thinking; as also why some people think so wrong and perversely, which proceeds from the bad configuration of those glands. Some, for example, are born without the propositional or syllogistical canals; in others, that reason ill, they are of unequal capacities; in dull fellows, of too great a length, whereby the motion of the spirits is retarded; in trifling geniuses, weak and small; in the over-refining spirits, too much intorted and winding; and so of the rest.”137

In examining the system of Condillac, which must certainly be allowed to bear a considerable resemblance to this system, I have instanced the feeling of relation, in comparison, merely as being one of the simplest examples which I could select. I might, with equal reason, have instanced other states of mind; in particular, all the variety of our emotions, —astonishment or desire, for example, which are as little sensations, in the philosophical meaning of the term, as they are fear or sorrow. The feeling of pleasure, in all its degrees of vividness or faintness, is a state of mind very different from that which constitutes desire of the recurrence of its object; for, otherwise, the desire would be itself the very gratification, which it supposes to be absent. It is induced, indeed, by the remembrance of the pleasure; but it is a consequence of the remembrance, not a part of it. It is like that general activity of life, to which amid the mild breathings of spring, the torpid animal awakes, that, in continual winter would have slumbered forever in insensibility, – or, like the bud, which, without warmth and moisture, never could have burst from the leafless stem; but which is still, in itself, something very different from the sunshine and the shower.

It seems to me not improbable, that the error of Condillac, and of the other French metaphysicians, who have adopted his leading doctrine, may have arisen in part, or, at least, may have escaped detection more readily, from the ambiguous signification of the word sentir, which is a verb originally, indeed, and strictly expressive of mere sensation; but applied also, by a sort of metaphorical extension, to our emotions and other affections of mind, that do not originate directly like sensation, in an external cause. Though this mere arbitrary word, however, may be applicable to a variety of feelings, it does not, therefore, follow, that these are all modifications of that small class of feelings, to which the word was, in its primary sense, confined, – any more than from the still wider use, in our language, of the term feeling, as applicable to all the states of the mind, it would follow, that these are all modes of affection of our sense of touch. Still, however, I cannot but think, that, if the term sentir had been of less vague application, a mind, so acute as that of Condillac, could not have failed to discover, in the imaginary proof which he offers of the intellectual transmutations of his simple and universal principles, those unwarrantable assumptions, which, even to humbler minds, seem so obvious, as scarcely to require for the detection of them, many moments' thought.

These observations, I flatter myself, have shown sufficiently the error of the system, which would convert all our feelings into sensations, in some indescribable state of metamorphosis. The system, I confess, appears to me a very striking example of an extreme, into which we are more apt to fall, from the very false notion, that it is characteristic of philosophic genius, – the extreme of excessive simplification, – which is evil, not merely as being false in itself, but, I may remark also, as being productive of the very confusion, to which simplicity is supposed to be adverse. When we think of love, or hate, or fear, or hope, as fundamentally and truly nothing more than affections of external sense, we try to recognize the original sensations of smell, taste, hearing, touch, and sight, which have been transformed into them; but we try in vain to recognize what is essentially different, and lose ourselves, therefore, in the attempt. We perceive every thing, as it were, through a mist, which it is impossible for our vision to penetrate, and we are at least as much perplexed by having only one object to seek amid the multitude, as if we considered all the phenomena of mind, without any classification whatever.

Before closing this slight review of the theory of transformed sensations, I must remark, that, even though it were strictly true, that all the feelings of the mind, if considered simply as feelings of the mind, are mere sensations varied or transformed by some strange internal process, undescribed and indescribable, – still, in conformity with every just principle of philosophizing, it would be necessary to form two classes of these mental phenomena, corresponding with the primary classification which we have made of them. That the mind should begin immediately to exist in a certain state, in consequence of the presence of external objects, so that it would not, at that moment, have existed in that state, but for the presence of the external object, is a proof of one set of laws, which connect mind directly and immediately with matter. That it should afterwards begin to exist in a similar state, without the recurrence of any external cause whatever, in consequence of its own susceptibilities only, is a proof of another set of laws peculiar to the mind itself. The complete difference of the cause, in the two instances, would justify, or rather require a different arrangement of the effect; as, when the same motion of a piece of iron is produced, at one time by impulse, at another by the presence of a magnet, at another by its mere gravity, we consider the motion, though itself the same in velocity and direction, as referable to different physical powers. With the same states of mind variously produced, we should still have to speak of external and internal mental susceptibilities of affection, as, with the same motions of a piece of iron variously produced, we speak of magnetism, impulse, gravitation.

The very celebrated system which I have now been combating, – a system, which, by the universality of transmutation supposed in it, truly deserves the name of intellectual alchymy, – may then be regarded as exemplifying one species of error in arrangement, – the error of a simplification beyond what the phenomena allow. This species of error, in the philosophy of mind, has not prevailed very generally in our country, – by far the more general tendency, especially on this part of the island, being to excessive amplification. Instead of wasting the labour of our analysis on elements that do not admit of any further decomposition, we have given up this labour too soon, and have classed, in many cases, as ultimate principles, what appear to me to be susceptible of still nicer analysis. The phenomena of mind are, accordingly, in the general technical language of the science, referred by us to many powers, which I cannot but think, are not so different as to furnish ground of ultimate distinction, but are truly only varieties of a few more simple powers or susceptibilities.

While I am far from conceiving, therefore, with Condillac and his followers, that all our states of mind are mere sensations modified or transformed, since this belief appears to me to be a mere assumption without even the slightest evidence in our consciousness, I am equally unwilling to admit the variety of powers, of which Dr Reid speaks. In one sense, indeed, the susceptibilities, or powers, which the mind possesses, may be said, with propriety, to be still more numerous, – as numerous as its feelings themselves, – for it must never be forgotten, that what we term classes, are only words of our own invention, – that the feelings which we arrange as belonging to one class, are truly different in themselves, precisely in the same manner as the feelings arranged in different classes are reciprocally different, – that each feeling is, and must be, indicative of a peculiar susceptibility of being affected in that particular manner, – and that the mind has, therefore, truly, as many susceptibilities, as, in various circumstances, it can have different feelings. But still, when we arrange these different phenomena in certain classes, it is an error in classification to give a new name to varieties that can be referred to other parts of the division already made; and it is on this account I object to the unnecessary amplification of our intellectual systems, in arranging the phenomena of mind under so many powers as those of which we are accustomed to speak.

Our various states or affections of the mind, I have already divided into two classes, according to the nature of the circumstances which precede them, – the External and the Internal, – and this latter class into two orders, – our Intellectual States of Mind, and our Emotions. It is with the intellectual phenomena that we are at present concerned; and this order I would arrange under two generic capacities, that appear to me to comprehend or exhaust the phenomena of the order. The whole order, as composed of feelings, which arise immediately, in consequence of certain former feelings of the mind, may be technically termed, in reference to these feelings which have induced them, Suggestions; but, in the suggested feelings themselves, there is one striking difference. If we analyse our trains of intellectual thought exclusively of the Emotions which may coexist or mingle with them, and of sensations that may be accidentally excited by external objects, we shall find them to be composed of two very distinct sets of feelings, – one set of which are mere conceptions or images of the past, that rise, image after image, in regular sequence, but simply in succession, without any feeling of relation necessarily involved, – while the perceptions of relation, in the various objects of our thought, form another set of feelings, of course as various as the relations perceived. Conceptions and relations, – it is with these, and with these alone, that we are intellectually conversant. There is thus an evident ground for the arrangement of the internal suggestions, that form our trains of thought, under two heads, according as the feeling excited directly by some former feeling, may be either a simple conception, in its turn, perhaps, giving place to some other conception as transient; or may be the feeling of a relation which two or more objects of our thought are considered by us as bearing to each other. There is, in short, in the mind, a capacity of association; or as, for reasons afterwards to be stated, I would rather term it, – the capacity of Simple Suggestion, – by which feelings, formerly existing, are revived, in consequence of the mere existence of other feelings, as there is also a capacity of feeling resemblance, difference, proportion, or relation in general, when two or more external objects, or two or more feelings of the mind itself, are considered by us, – which mental capacity in distinction from the former, I would term the capacity of Relative Suggestion; and of these simple and relative suggestions, our whole intellectual trains of thought are composed. As I am no lover of new phrases, when the old can be used without danger of mistake, I would very willingly, substitute for the phrase relative suggestion, the term comparison, which is more familiar, and expresses very nearly the same meaning. But comparison, though it involve the feeling of relation, seems to me also to imply a voluntary seeking for some relation, which is far from necessary to the mere internal suggestion or feeling of the relation itself. The resemblance of two objects strikes me, indeed, when I am studiously comparing them; but it strikes me also, with not less force, on many other occasions, when I had not previously been forming the slightest intentional comparison. I prefer, therefore, a term which is applicable alike to both cases, when a relation is sought, and when it occurs, without any search or desire of finding it.

The term judgment, in its strict philosophic sense, as the mere perception of relation, is more exactly synonymous with the phrase which I have employed, and might have been substituted with safety, if the vulgar use of the term, in many vague significations, had not given some degree of indistinctness even to the philosophical use of it. I may remark, too, that in our works of logic and intellectual physiology, judgment and reasoning are usually discussed separately, as if there were some essential difference of their nature; and, therefore, since I include them both, in the relative suggestions of which I shall afterwards have to treat, it seems advisable, not to employ for the whole, a name which is already appropriated, and very generally limited, to a part. As the rise in the mind of the feeling of relation, from the mere perception or conception of objects, is, however, what I mean to denote by the phrase Relative Suggestion; and as judgment, in its strictest sense, is nothing more than this feeling of relation, – of any two or more objects, considered by us together, – I shall make no scruple, to use the shorter and more familiar term, as synonymous, when there can be no danger of its being misunderstood.

The intellectual states of the mind, then, to give a brief illustration of my division, I consider as all referable to two generic susceptibilities, – those of Simple Suggestion and Relative Suggestion. Our perception or conception of one object excites, of itself, and without any known cause, external to the mind, the conception of some other object, as when the mere sound of our friend's name, suggests to us the conception of our friend himself, – in which case, the conception of our friend, which follows the perception of the sound, involves no feeling of any common property, with the sound which excites it, but is precisely the same state of mind, which might have been induced, by various other previous circumstances, by the sight of the chair on which he sat, – of the book which he read to us, – of the landscape which he painted. This is Simple Suggestion.

But, together with this capacity of Simple Suggestion, by which conception after conception arises in the mind, – precisely in the same manner, and in the same state, as each might have formed a part of other trains, and in which the particular state of mind that arises by suggestion does not necessarily involve any consideration of the state of mind which preceded it, – there is a suggestion of a very different sort, which, in every case, involves the consideration, not of one phenomenon of mind, but of two or more phenomena, and which constitutes the feeling of agreement, disagreement, or relation of some sort. I perceive, for example, a horse and a sheep at the same moment. The perception of the two is followed by that different state of mind which constitutes the feeling of their agreement in certain respects, or of their disagreement in certain other respects. I think of the square of the hypotenuse of a rightangled triangle, and of the squares of the two other sides; – I feel the relation of equality. I see a dramatic representation; I listen to the cold conceits which the author of the tragedy, in his omnipotent command over warriors and lovers of his own creation, gives to his hero, in his most impassioned situations; – I am instantly struck with their unsuitableness to the character and the circumstances. All the intellectual successions of feeling, in these cases, which constitute the perception of relation, differ from the results of simple suggestion in necessarily involving the consideration of two or more objects or affections of mind that immediately preceded them. I may think of my friend, in the case of simple suggestion, – that is to say, my mind may exist in the state which constitutes the conception of my friend, without that previous state which constitutes the perception of the sound of his name; for the conception of him may be suggested by various objects and remembrances. But I cannot, in the cases of relative suggestion, think of the resemblance of a horse and a sheep; of the proportion of the squares of the sides of a right-angled triangle; or of the want of the truth of nature in the expressions of a dramatic hero, without those previous states of mind, which constitute the conceptions of a horse and a sheep – of the sides of the triangle, – or of the language of the warrior or lover, and the circumstances of triumph, or hope, or despair, in which he is exhibited to us by the creative artist.