GIFT OF I
SEELEY W. MUDD
and
GEORGE I. COCHRAN MEYER ELSASSER
DR JOHN R. HAYNES WILLIAM L. HONNOLD
JAMES R. MARTIN MRS. JOSEPH F. SARTORI
to the
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
SOUTHERN BRANCH
^msjT
'^^^^"^OR^vrj
LECTURES
r ,
ON J
THE PHILOSOPHY
OF
THE HUMAN MIND.
BY THE LATE
THOMAS BROWN, ]\I. D.
PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY LV THE UKIVERSITY OP
EDIXBt'RGH.
IN THREE V0LL3IES.
VOL. L
L93 *^
:iv
ANDOVER :
PUBLISHED BY MARK
NEWMAN
FLAGO AJfD GOULD, PRLVTERS.
1822.
r
\
• 82819
3
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
PAGE.
Introduction, 9
LECTURE II.
Relation of the Philosophy of Mind to the Sciences in general, 20
LECTURE III.
■^ Relation of the Philosophy of Mind to the Intellectual Sci-
ences and Arts, 35
LECTURE IV.
..-■ Relation of the Philosophy of Mind to the Cultivation of
Moral Feeling, 50
Qv LECTURE V.
cc On the Nature of Physical Inquiry in general, 64
LECTURE VL
On the Nature of Physical Inquiry in general, 80
LECTURE VII.
On Power, Cause, and Effect, 08
LECTURE VIII.
On Hypothesis and Theory, 1^3
iv CONTENTS.
LECTURE IX.
PAGE.
Recapitulation of the Four preceding? Lectures, .... 129
Application of the Laws of Physical Inquiry to the Study of
Mind, ^35
LECTURE X. ,
Continuation of the same Subject, 144
LECTURE XI.
Continuation of the same Subject, 162
On the Phenomena of Mind in General, ..,.•... 167
On Consciousness, 169
LECTURE XII.
On Consciousness, 1^^
On Mental Identity, ISO
Identity irreconcilable with the Doctrine of Materialism, . 180
Distinction between Personal and Menial Identity, ... 182
Shaftesbury's Opinion of Identity, 181
Objections to the Doctrine of Mental identity, 185
LECTURE XIII.
On the Direct Evidence of Mental Identity, 192
Objections answered, . . . . ^ 204
LECTURE XIV.
Continuation of the same Subject, 207
LECTURE XV.
Continuation of the same Subject, 224
Opinion of Mr LocI:e rcspoctinj2: Identity, 230
Source of bis Paradox re<;{)cctin£!f it, 2.34
Reflections suggested by bis Paradox, 236
LECTURE XV L
On the ClasBifjcation of the Phenomena of Mind, .... 239
CONTENTS. V
LECTURE XVII.
PAGE.
Continuation of the same Subject, 254
On tiie External Affections of Mind, in general, .... 262
On the less Definite External Affections, 264
LECTURE XVIII.
On the more Definite External Affections, 269
LECTURE XIX.
On the Corporeal Part of the Process, in Sensation, . . . 283
LECTURE XX.
Particular Consideration of our Sensations, 298
On Smell, 300
On Taste, 301
On Hearing, 305
LECTURE XXI.
Continuation. of the same Subject, 312
On Touch, 320
LECTURE XXII.
On the Feelings ascribed to the Sense of Touch, .... 328
Analysis of these Feelings, , 330
LECTURE XXIII.
Continuation of the same Subject, 345
LECTURE XXIV.
Continuation of the same Subject, 358
LECTURE XXV.
On the Distinction between Sensation and Perception, . . 379
On the Primary and Secondary QuaUties of Matter, ... 384
Yl CONTENTS.
LECTURE XXVI.
PAGE.
On Dr. Reid's supposed Confutation of the Ideal Sj^stem, . 395
Hypothesis of the Peripatetics regarding Perception, . . . 396
Opinion of Locke— Hobbes—Des Cartes— Arnauld—Le Clerc
De Crousaz, regarding Perception, 399
LECTURE XXVII.
Examination of Dr Reid's supposed Confutation of Idcahsm 411
LECTURE XXVIII.
Conclusion of the Subject, 427
On Vision,— Analysis of the Feelings ascribed to it, . . . 431
LECTURE XXIX.
Continuation of the same Subject, 442
LECTURE XXX.
History of Opinions regarding Perception, 459
Opinion of the Peripatetics, 462
of Des Cartes, 464
of Malebranche, 469
of St Austin, 472
LECTURE XXXI.
of Leibnitz, 474
On the External Affections combined with Desire, . . . 479
Attention, "^^^
LECTURE XXXII.
Continuation of the Same Subject, 490
On the Internal Affections of Mind, 497
On the Classilication of these Affections, ...... 500
• LECTURE XXXllI.
On Locke, Condillac, and Reid's Classilication of the Mental
■ II ... 505
Phenomena,
New Classilication of the luterual Affections, 518
CONTENTS. Vii
LECTURE XXXIV.
PAGE.
On Simple Suggestion, 523
Advantages resulting from the Principle of Suggestion, . . 526
On Mr Hume's Classification of the Associatinsr or Susrarestinaf
Principles, 532
LECTURES
ON THE
PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND,
LECTURE L~(Introduction.)
Gentlemen,
The subject on which we are about to enter, and which is to
engage, I trust, a considerable portion of your attention for many
months, is the Philosophy of the Human Miitd^ — not that speculative
and passive philosophy only, which inquires into the nature of out
intellectual part, and the mysterious connexion of this with the
body which it animates, but that practical science, which relates to
the duties, and the hopes, and the great destiny of man, and which,
even in analyzing the powers of his understanding, and tracing all
the various modifications of which it is individually susceptible,
views it chiefly as a general instrument of good — an instrument by
which he may have the dignity of co-operating with his beneficent
Creator, by spreading to others the knowledge, and virtue, and
happiness, which he is qualified at once to enjoy, and to diffuse.
" Philosophy," says Seneca, " is not formed for artificial
show or delight. It has a higher office than to free idleness of
its languor, and wear away and amuse the long hours of a day.
It is that which forms and fashions the soul, which gives to fife its
disposition and order, which points out what it is our duty to do,
what it is our duty to omit. It sits at the helm, and in a sea of
peril, directs the course of those who are wandering through the
waves." " Non est philosophia popularc artificium. nee ostentw-
10 INTRODUCTION.
tioni paratnm ; non in verbis sed in rebus est. Nee in hoc adhi-
betur ut aliqua oblectationc consumatur dies, ut dematur otio nau-
sea. Animum foi-mat et fabricat, vitam disponit, actiones regit,
agenda ct omittenda demonstrat, sedit ad gubei'naculum, et per
ancipitia fluctuantium dirigit cursum." Ep. 16.
Such, unquestionably, is the great practical object of all philos-
ophy. If it increase the happiness and virtue of human kind, it
must be allowed to have fulhlled, to human beings, the noblest of
earthly ends. The greatness of this primary object, however,
perhaps fixed too exclusively the attention of the moral inquirers of
antiquity, who, in considering man as capable of virtue and happi-
ness, and in forming nice and subtle distinctions as to his supreme
good, and the means by which he might attain it, seem almost to
have nea-lected the consideration of his intellectual nature, as aa
object of mere physical science. Hence it happens, that, while
the systems of ancient philosophy exhibit, in many instances, a dig-
nity of mpral sentiment as high, or almost as high, as the unassist-
ed reason of man could be supposed to reach, and the defects of
which Ave perhaps discover only by the aid of that purer light,
which was not indulged to them, they can scarcely be said to have
left us a single analysis of complex phenomena of thought and feel-
ing. By some of them, indeed, especially by the Peripatetics and
Stoics, much dialectic subtilty was employed in distinctions, that
may seem at first to involve such an analysis ; but even these dis-
tinctions were verbal, or little more than verbal. The unalijtical
investigation of the mind, in all its complexity of perceptions, and
thoughts, and emotions, was reserved to form almost a new sci-
ence in the comprehensive philosophy of far later yeai-s.
If. however, duniig the nourishing periods of Greek and Ro-
man letters, this intellectual analysis was little cultivated, the de-
partment of the philosophy of the mind, which relates to practi-
cal ethics, was enriched, as 1 have said, by moral speciilations the
most splendid and sublime. In those ages, indeed, and in countries
in which no revealed will of heaven had pointed out and sanctioned
one unornng rule of right, it is not to be wondered at, that, to
those who were occtipiod in endeavouring to trace and ascertain
such a rule in the moral nature of man, all other mental inquiries
should have seemed comparatively insignificant. It is even pleas-
ing thus to find the most important of all inquiries regarded as
INTRODUCTION. 11
truly the most important, and minds of the highest genius, in re-
flecting on their own constitution, so richly diversified and adorn-
ed with an almost infinite variety of forms of thought, discovering
nothing, in all this splendid variety, so worthy of investigation, as
the conduct which it is fitting for man to pursue.
But another period was soon to follow, a period in which ages
of long and dreary ignorance were to be followed by ages of futile
labour, as long and dreary. No beautiful moral speculations were
then to compensate the poverty of intellectual science. But mo-
rality, and even religion itself, were to be degraded, as little more
than technical terms of a cold and unmeaning logic. The knowl-
edge of our mental frame was then, indeed, professedly cultivated
with most assiduous zeal ; and if much technical phraseology, and
much contention, were sufficient to constitute an elaborate sci-
ence, that assiduous zeal might well deserve to have been reward-
ed with so honourable a name. But what reasonable hope of a
progress truly scientific could be formed, when to treat of the
philosophy of mind was to treat of every thing but of the mind
and its affections ; when some of the most important questions,
with respect to it, were, Whether its essence were distinct from
its existence ? whether its essence therefore might subsist, when
it had no actual existence ? and what were all the qualities inher-
ent in it as a nonentity ? In morals, whether ethics were an art
or a science ? whether, if the mind had freedom of choice, this
independent will be an entity or a quiddity ? and whether we
should say, with a dozen schoolmen, that virtue is good, because
it has intrinsic goodness, or, with a dozen more, that it has this
intrinsic goodness, because it is good ?
In natural theology, questions of equal moment were contest-
ed with equal keenness and subtilty ; but they related less to the
Deity, of whose nature, transcendent as it is, the whole universe
may be considered as in some degree a faint revelation, than to
those spiritual ministers of his power, of whose very existence na-
ture affords no evidence, and of whom revelation itself may be
said to teach us little but the mere existence. Whether angels
pass from one point of space to another, without passing through
the intermediate points ? whether they can visually discern ob-
jects in the dark ? whether more than one can exist at the same
moment in the same physical point ? whether they can exist in a
12 INTRODUCTION.
perfect vacuum, with any relation to the absolute incorporeal
void ? and whether if an angel were in vacuo, the void could still
truly be termed perfect ?— such, or similar to these were the
great inquiries in that department of Natural Theology, to which,
as to a separate science, was given the name of Mgelography :
and of the same kind were the principal inquiries with respect to
the Deity himself, not so much an examination of the evidence
which nature affords of his self-existence, and power, and wisdom,
and goodness, those sublime qualities which even our weakness
cannot contemplate without deriving some additional dignity from
the very greatness which it adores, as a solution of more subtile
points, whether he exist in imaginary space as much as in the
space that is rral? whethef he can cause a mode to exist with-
out a substance ? whether, in knowing all things, he know univer-
sal?, or only things singular? and whether he love a possible un-
existing angel better than an actually existing insect?
'• Indignandum de isto, non disputandum est." — " Sed non de-
buit hoc nobis esse propositum arguta disserere,* et philosophiam
in has augustias ex sua majestate detrahere. Quanto satius est,
ire aperta via et recta, quam sibi ipsi flexus disponere, quos cum
magna molestiadebeas relcgere ?"t— " Why waste ourselves," says
the same eloquent moralist; " why torture and waste ourselves in
questions, which there is more real subtilly in despising than in
solving ?" —
" Quid te troques et maceras, in ea quaistione quam subtilius
est contempsisse quam solvere ?"|
From the necessity of such inquiries we are now fortunately
freed. The frivolous solemnities of argument, which, in the dis-
putation^ of Scotists and Thomists, and the long controversy of
the believers and rejectors of the tmiversal a -parti rei^ rendered
human ignorance so very proud of its temporary triumphs over
human ignorance, at length are hushed forever; and, so precari-
ous is all that glory, of which men are the dispensers, that the
most subtile works, which for ages conferred on their authors
a reverence more than praise, aiui almost worship, would now
scarcely find a philosophic adventurer, so bold, as to avow them
for his own.
♦ Arguling sererc. Lcct. var.
t Seneca, Ep. 102. I Ibid, 49.
INTRODUCTION. 13
The progress of intellectual philosophy may indeed, as yet,
have been less considerable than was to be hoped under its pres-
ent better auspices. But it is not a little, to have escaped from
a labyrinth, so very intricate, and so very dark, even though we
should have done nothing more than advance into sunshine and an
open path, with a long journey of discovery still before us. We
have at last arrived at the important truth, which now seems so
very obvious a one, that the mind is to be known best by observa-
tion of the series of changes which it presents, and of all the cir-
cumstances which precede and follow these ; that, in attempting
to explain its phenomena, therefore, we should know what those
phenomena are ; and that we might as well attempt to discover,
by logic, unaided by observation or experiment, the various col-
oured rays that enter into the composition of a sunbeam, as to dis-
cover, by dialectic subtilties, a priori^ the various feelings that en-
ter into the composition of a single thought or passion.
The mind, it is evident, may, like the body to which it is unit-
ed, or the material objects which surround it, be considered sim-
ply as a substance possessing certain qualities, susceptible of vari-
ous aifections or modifications, which, existing successively as mo-
mentary states of the mind, constitute all the phenomena of thought
and feeHng. The general circumstances in which these changes
of state succeed each other, or, in other words, the laws of their
succession, may be pointed out, and the phenomena arranged in
various classes, according as they may resemble each other, in
the circumstances that precede or follow them, or in other cir
cumstances of obvious analogy. There is, in short, a science that
may be termed mental physiology, as there is another science re-
lating to the structure and offices of our cor[)oreal frame, to which
the term physiology is more commonly applied ; and as, by obser-
vation and experiment, we endeavour to trace those series of
changes which are constantly taking place in our material part,
from the first moment of animation to the moment of death ; so,
by observation, and in some measure also by experiment, we en-
deavour to trace the series of changes that take place in the mind,
fugitive as these successions are, and rendered doubly perplexing
by the reciprocal combinations into which they flow. The innu-
merable changes, corporeal and mental, we reduce, by generaliz-
ing, to a few classes ; and we speak, in reference to the mind, of
14 INTRODUCTION.
its faculties or functions of perception, memory, reason, as we
speak, in reference to the body, of its functions of respiration, cir-
culation, nutrition. This mental physiology, in which the mind
is considered simply as a substance endowed with certain suscep-
tibilities, and variously affected or modified in consequence, will
demand of course our first inquiry; and I trust that the intellect-
ual analyses, into which we shall be led by it, will afford results
that will repay the labour of persevering attention, which they
may often require from you.
In one very important respect, however, the inquiries, relating
to the phj'siology of mind, diller from those which relate to the
physiology of our animal frame. If we could render ourselves
acquainted with the intimate structure of our bodily organs, and
all the changes which take place, in the exercise of their various
functions, our labour, with respect to them, might be said to ter-
minate. But though our intellectual analysis were perfect, so that
we could distinguish, in our most complex thought or emotion, its
constituent elements, and trace with exactness the series of sim-
pler thoughts which have progressively given rise to them, other
inquiries, equally, or still more important, would remain. We do
not know all which is to be known of the mind, when we know all
its phenomena, as we know all which can be known of matter,
when we know the appearances which it presents, in every situ-
ation in which it is possible to pl.ace it, and the manner in which
it then acts or is acted upon by other bodies. When we know that
man has certain affections and passions, there still remains the
great inquiry, as to the propriety or imj)ropriety of those passions,
and of the conduct to whicli tlioy lead. AVe have to consider, not
merely how he is capable of acting, but also, whether, acting in
the manner supposed, he would be fulfilling a duty or perpetrat-
ing a crime. Every enjoyment which man can confer on man, and
every evil, which he can reciprocally inllict or suffer, thus become
objects ol" two sciences — first of that intellectual analysis which
traces the happiness and misery, in their various forms and se-
quence, as mere phenomena or states of the substance mind ; —
and soconrlly, of tliat I'thoreal judgment, which measures our ap-
[jfoliatiou and disapprobation, estimating, with more than judicial
scrutiny, not merrly what is done, but what is scarcely thought in
"vrrecy and silence, and discriminating some clement of moral good
INTRODUCTION. 2 5
or evil, in all the physical good and evil, which it is in our feehle
power to execute, or in our still frailer heart, to conceive and de-
sire.
To this second department of inquiry belong the doctrines of
general ethics.
But, though man were truly impressed with the great doctrine
of moral obligation, and truly desirous, in conformity with it, of
increasing, as far as his individual influence may extend, the sum
of general happiness, he may still err in the selection of the
means which he employs for this benevolent purpose. So essential
is knowledge, if not to virtue, at least to all the ends of virtue,
that, without it, benevolence itself, when accompanied with
power, may be as destructive and desolating as intentional ty-
ranny ; and notwithstanding the great principles of progression
in human aflairs, the whole native vigour of a state may be
kept down for ages, and the comfort, and prosperity, and ac-
tive industry of unexisting millions be blasted by regulations,
which, in the intention of their generous projectors, were to
stimulate those very energies which they repressed, and to re-
lieve that very misery which they rendered irremediable. It
therefore becomes an inquiry of paramount importance, what are
the means best calculated for producing the greatest amount of
.social good? By what ordinances would public prosperity, and
all the virtues which not merely adorn that prosperity, but pro-
duce it, be most powerfully excited and maintained ? This po-
litical department of our science, which is in truth only a subdivis-
ion, though a very important one, of general practical ethics, com-
prehends, of course, the inquiries as to the relative advantages of
different forms of government, and the expediency of the various
contrivances which legislative wisdom may have established, or
may be supposed to establish, for the happiness and defence of na-
tions.
The inquiries, to which I have as yet alluded, relate to the
mind, considered simply as an object of physiological investigation;
or to man, considered in his moral relations to a community, capa-
ble of deriving benefit from his virtues and knowledge, or of suffer-
ing by his errors and his crimes. But there is another more impor-
tant relation in which the mind is still to be viewed, — that relation
which connects it with the Almighty Being to whom it owes its exist-
16 IXTRODUCTIOX.
ence. Is man, whose frail generations begin and pass away, but one
of the links of an inrinite chain of beings like himself, uncaused, and
co-eternal with that self-existing world of which he is the feeble
tenant? or, Is he the offspring of an all creating Power, that
adapted him to nature, and nature to him, formed together with
the magniticent scene of things around him, to enjoy its blessings,
and to adore, with the gratitude of happiness, the wisdom and
goodness from which they flow ? What attributes, of a Being so
transcendent, may human reason presume to explore ? and. What
homage will be most suitable to his immensity, and our nothing-
ness ? Is it only for an existence of a few moments, in this passing
scene, that he has formed us ? or. Is there something within us,
over which death has no power,— something, that prolongs and
identities the consciousness of all which we have done on earth,
and that, after the mortality of the body, may yet be a subject of
the moral government of God ? When compared with these ques-
tions, even the sublimest physical inquiries are comparatively in-
significant. They seem to differ, as it has been said, in their rel-
ative importance and dignity, almost as philosophy itself differs
from the mechanical arts that are subservient to it. " Quantum
inter philosophiam interest,— et caeteras artes ; tantum interesse
existimo in ipsa philosophia, inter illam partem qu« ad homines et
hanc quae ad Deos spectat. Altior est haec et animosior : multum
permisit sibi ; non fuit oculis contenta. Majus esse quiddam suspi-
cata est, ac pulchrius, quod extra conspectum natura posuisset."*
It is when ascending to these sublimer objects, that the mind seems
to expand, as if already shaking off its earthly fetters, and return-
ing to its source ; and it is scarcely too much to say, that the de-
light which it thus takes in things divine is an internal evidence of
its own divinity. '• Cum ilia tetigit, alitur, crescit : ac velut vin-
culis libcratus, in originem redit. Et hoc habet argumentum divin-
itatis suae, quod ilium divina delectant."
1 have thus briefly sketched the various important inquiries,
which the philosophy of mind, in its most extensive sense, may
be said to comprehend. The nature of our spiritual being, as dis-
played in all the phenomena of feeling and thought— the ties
which bind us to our iV-llow-mon, and to our Creator— and the pros-
pect of that unfading cxi>^lx'nce, of which life is but the first dawn-
» Seneca Nat, Qua«t. Lib. 1. Pra?f,
l.VTRODUCTIOX. 17
insr gleam : such are the great objects to which in the department
of your jludies committed to my charge, it will be my otfice to
guide your attention and curiosity. The short period of the few
months to which mv course is necessanlv limited, will not. indeed,
allow me to prosecute, with such full investigation as I should
wish, every subject that may present itself in so various a range
of inquiry. But even these few months, I flatter myself, will be
sutficient to introduce you to all which is most important for you
to know in the science, and to give such lights as may enable you,
in other hours, to explore, with success, the prospects that here,
perhaps, may only have opened on your view. It is not, 1 trust,
with the labours of a single season that such inquiries, on vour
part, are to terminate. Amid the varied occupations and varied
pleasures of your future years. — in the privacy of domestic eniov-
ment, as much as in the busier scenes of active exertion. — the
studies on which you are about to enter must often rise to you
again with something mpre than mere remembrance ; because
there is nothing that can give you interest, in any period or situa-
tion of your hfe, to which they are not related. The science of
mind, is the science of yourselves; of all who surround you ; of
every thing which you enjoy or suffer, or hope or tear : so truly
the science of your very being, that it will be impossible for you
to look back on the feelings of a single hour, without constantly
retracing phenomena that have been here, to a certain extent,
the subjects of vour analysis and arrangement. The thouarhts and
faculties of your own intellectual frame, and all which you admire
as wonderful in the genius of others, — the moral obligation, which,
as obeyed or violated, is ever felt by you with delight or with re-
morse, — the virtues, of which you think as often as you think of
those whom you love ; and the vices, which you view with abhor-
rence, or with pity, — the traces of divine goodness, which never
can be absent from your view, because there is no object in nature
which does not exhibit them. — the teeling of your dependence on
the gracious Power that formed you, — and the anticipation of a.
state of existence more lasting than that which is measured by
tlie few beatings of a feeble pulse, — these in their perpetual re-
currence, must often recal to you the inquiries that, in this place,
engaged your early attention. It will be almost as little possible
for you to abandon wholly such speculations, as to look on the fa-
J 8 INTRODUCTION.
miliar faces of your home with a forg-etfulness of every hour
which they have made dehghtful, or to lose all remembrance of
the very language of your infancy, that is every moment sounding
in your ears.
Though I shall endeavour, therefore, to give as full a view ag
my limits will permit of all the objects of inquiry which are to
come before us, it will be my chief wish to awake in you, or to
cherish, a love of these sublime inquiries themselves. There is
a philosophic spirit which is far more valuable than any limited
acquirements of philosophy ; and the cultivation of which, there-
fore, is the most precious advantage that can be derived from the
lessons and studies of many academic years :— a spirit, which is
quick to pursue whatever is within the reach of human intellect ;
but which is not less quick to discern the bounds that Umit every
human inquiry, and which, therefore, in seeking much, seeks only
what man may learn :— which knows how to distinguish what is
just in itself from what is merely accredUed by illustrious names ;
adopting a truth which no one has sanctioned, and rejecting an er-
ror of which all approve, with the same calmness as if no judg-
ment were opposed to its own :— but which, at the same time,
alive, with congenial feehng, to every intellectual excellence, and
candid to the weakness from which no excellence is wholly privi-
leged, can dissent and confute without triumph, as it admires with-
out envy ; applauding gladly whatever is worthy of applause in
a rival system, and venerating the very genius which it demon-
strates to have erred.
Such is that philosophic temper to which, in the various dis-
cussions that are to occupy us, it will be my principal ambition to
form your minds; with a view not so much to what you are at
present, as to what you are afterwards to become. You are now,
indeed, onlv entering on a science, of which, by many of you,
perhaps, the very elements have never once been regarded as
bubjects of speculative inquiry. You have much, therefore, to
learn, even in lea.-ning only what others have thought. I3ut 1
should be unwilling to regard you as the passive receivers ol
a system of opinions, content merely to remember whatever
mixture of truths and errors may have obtaine<l your easy as-
sent. I cannot but look to you in your maturcr character, as
yourselves the philosophers of other years ; as those who are.
INTRODUCTION, 19
perhaps, to add to science many of its richest truths, which as yet
are latent to every mind, and to free it from many errors, in which
no one has yet suspected even the possibihty of illusion. The
spirit which is itself to become productive in you, is therefore, the
spirit which I wish to cultivate ; and happy, as 1 shall always be,
if I succeed in conveying to you that instruction which it is my
duty to communicate, I shall have still more happiness if I can
flatter myself, that, in this very instruction, I have trained you to
habits of thought, which may enable you to enrich, with your own
splendid discoveries, the age in which you live, and to be your-
selves the instructor? of all the generations that are to follow you.
20-
LECTURE II.
REL.\TION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND TO THE SCIENCES
IN GENERAL.
In my former Lecture, Gentlemen, I gave you a slight sketch
of the departments into which the Philosophy of Mind divides itself,
comprehending, in the first place, The physiology of the mind,
considered as a substance capable of the various modifications, or
states, which constitute, as they succeed each other, the phenome-
na of thought and feeling ; secondly, The doctrines of general ethics,
as to the obligation, under which man lies, to increase and extend,
as widely as possible, the happiness of all that Uve ; thirdly, The
political doctrines, as to the means which enable him, in society
with his fellow men, to further, most successfully, and with the
least risk of future evil, that happiness of all, which it is the duty
of each individually to wish and to promote ; and, founhhj. The
doctrines of natural theology, as to the existence and attributes of
that greatest of Beings, under whose moral government we live,
and the foundations of our confidence that death is only a change
of scene, which, with respect to our mortality indeed, may be said
to be its close ; but which, with respect to the soul itself, is only
one of the events of a life that is everlasting.
Of thrsn great divisions of our subi(>ct, the Physiology of the
Mi7id, or tbe consideration of the regular series of pbenomena
which it presents, simply as states or alVections of the mind, is that
to which we are first to turn our attention. But, before ' entering
on i(. it may be usrlul lo employ a few Lectures in illustrating the
advantages^ which (be study of llie mind affords, and the principles
of philosophizing, in their peculiar application to it— subjects, which,
(hough of :i general kind, will. I trust, leave an inlhience, (bat will
be felt in all the particular inciuiries in which we arc to be engag-
RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHV OF MIND, ETC. 21
ed ; preparing you, both for appreciating better the importance of
those inquiries, and for prosecuting them with greater success.
One very obvious distinction of the physical investigations of
mind and matter, is, that, in intellectual science, the materials on
which we operate, the instriinients with which we operate, and the
operating agent^ are the same. It is the mind, endowed with the I /
faculties of perception and judgment, observing, comparing, and
classifying the phenomena of (he mind. In the physics of matter^^
it is, indeed, the mind which observes, compares, and arranges;
but the phenomena are those of a world, which, though connected
with the mind by many wonderful relations of reciprocal agency,
still exists independently of it — a world that presents its phenom-
ena only in circumstances, over most of which we have no con-
troul, and over others a controul that is partial and limited. The
comparative facilit}"^, as to all external circumstances, attending the
study of the mental phenomena, is unquestionably an advantage of
no small moment. In every situation in which man can be placed,
as long as his intellectual faculties are unimpaired, it is impossible
that he should be deprived of opportunities of carrying on this in-
tellectual study ; because, in every situation in which he can be
placed, he must still have with him that universe of thought, which
is the true home and empire of the mind. No costly apparatus is
requisite — no tedious waiting for seasons of observation. He has
but to look within himself to tind the elements which he has to put
together, or the compounds which he has to analyze, and the in-
struments that are to perform the analysis or composition.
It was not, however, to point out to you the advantage which
arises to the study of our mental frame, from the comparative fa-
cility as to the circumstances attending it, that I have led your at-
tention to the difierence, in this respect, of the ph3^sics of mind and
matter. It was to show, — what is of much more importance, —
bow essential a right view of the science of mind is to every other
science, even to those sciences, which superlicial thinkers might
conceive to have no connexion with it ; and how vain it would be
to expect, that any branch of the physics of mere matter could be
cultivated to its highest degree of accuracy and perfection, without
a due acquaintance with the nature of that intellectual medium,
through which alone the phenomena of matter become visible to
us, and of those intellectual instruments, by which tlie objects of
22 RELATION OP THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
every science, and of every science alike, are measured, and di-
vided, and arranged. We might almost as well expect to form an
accurate judgment, as to the tigure, and distance, and colour of an
object, at which we look through an optical glass, without paying
any regard to the colour and refractory power of the line itself.
The distinction of the sciences and arts, in the sense in which these
words are commonly understood, is as just as it is familiar ; but it
may be truly said, that, in relation to our power of discovery, sci-
ence is itself an art, or the result of an art. Whether, in this most
beautiful of processes, we regard the mind as the instrument or the
artist, it is equally that by which all the wonders of speculative,
or practical knowledge, are evolved. It is an agent operating in
the production of new results, and employing for this purpose the
known laws of thought, in the same manner as, on other occasions,
it employs the known laws of matter. The objects, to which it
may apply itself, are indeed various, and, as such, give to the sci-
ences their different names. But, though the objects vary, the
observer and the instrument are continually the same. The limits
of the powers of this mental instrument, are not the limits of its
powers alone ; they are also the only real limits, within which
every science is comprehended. To the extent which it allows,
all those sciences, physical or mathematical, and all the arts which
depend on them, may be improved ; but, beyond this point, it
would be vain to expect them to pass ; or rather, to speak more
accurately, the very supposition of any progress beyond this point
would imply the grossest absurdity ; since human science can be
nothing more than the result of the direction of human faculties to
particular objects. To the astronomer, the faculty by which he
calculates the disturbing forces that operate on a satellite of Jupi-
ter, in its revolution round its primary planet, is as much an instru-
ment of his art, as the telescope by which he distinguishes that
almost invisible orb ; and it is as important, and surely as interest-
ing, to know the real power of the intellectual instrument, which
be uses, not for calculations of this kind only, but for all the spec-
ulative and moral purposes of life, as it can be to know the exact
power of that subordinate instrtnncnt, which he uses only for his
occasional survey of the bcavons.
To the philosophy of iniii<l, then, every speculation, in every
science, may be said to have relation as to a common centre. The
TO THE SCIENCES IN GENERAL. 23
knowledge of the quality of matter, in the whole wide range of
physicsi is not itself a phenomenon of matter, more than the knowl-
edge of any of our intellectual or moral affections ; it is truly, in
all its stages of conjecture, comparison, doubt, belief, a phenome-
non of mind ; or, in other words, it is only the mind itself existing
in a certain state. The inanimate bodies around us might, indeed,
exhibit the same changes as at present, though no mind had been
created. But science is not the existence of these inanimate
bodies ; it is the principle of thought itself variously modilied by
them, which, as it exists in certain states, constitutes that knowl-
edge which we term Astronomy ; in certain other states, that
knowledge which we term Chemistry ; in other states our Physiol-
ogy, corporeal or mental, and all the other divisions and subdivis-
ions of science. It would surely be absurd to suppose, that the
mixture of acids and alkalies constitutes Chemistry^ or that Astron-
omy is formed by the revolution of planets round a sun. Such
phenomena, the mere objects of science, are only the occasions on
which Astronomy and Chemistry arise in the mind of the inquirer,
Man. It is the mind which perceives bodies, which reasons on
their apparent relations, which joins them in thought as similar,
however distant they may be in sphere, or separates them in
thought as dissimilar, though apparently contiguous. These per-
ceptions, reasonings, and classifications of the mind must, of course
be regulated by the laws of mind, which mingle in their joint re-
sult with the laws of matter. It is the object indeed which affects
the mind when sentient ; but it is the original susceptibility of the
mind itself, which determines and modifies the particular affection,
very nearly, if I may illustrate what is mental by so coarse an im-
age, as the impresssion which a seal leaves on melted wax depends,,
not on the qualities of the wax alone, or of the seal alone, but on
the softness of the one, and the form of the other. Change the
external object which affects the mind in any case, and we all
know, that the afllection of the mind will be different. It would
not be less so, if, without any change of object, there could be a
change in the mere feeling, whatever it might be, which would
result from that different susceptibility becoming instantly as differ-
ent, as if not the mind had been altered, but the object which it
perceived. There is no physical science, therefore, in which the
laws of mind arc not to be considered together with the laws of
24 RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
matter ; and a change in either set of laws would equally produce
a change in the nature of the science itself
If, to take one of the simplest of examples, the mind had heen
formed susceptible of all the modifications which it admits at pres-
ent, with the single exception of those which it receives on the
presence of light, of how many objects and powers in nature,
which we are now capable of distinguishing, must we have remained
in absolute ignorance ! But would this comparative ignorance of
many objects be the only effect of such a change of the laws of mind,
as I have supposed ? Or rather, is it not equally certain, that this sim-
ple change alone would be sufficient to alter the very nature of
the limited science of which the mind would still be capable, as
much as it narrowed its extent ? Science is the classification of
relations; varying, too, in every case, as the relations observed
are ditlerent ; and how very differently should we, in such circum-
stances, have classed tlie few powers of the few objects, which
mio-ht still have become known to us, since we could no longer
have classed them according to any of tht)se visual relations, which
are always the most obvious and prominent. It is even, perhaps,
an extravagant supposition, that a race of the blind, unless endow-
ed with some other sense to compensate the defect of sight, could
have acquired so much command of the common arts of life, or so
much science of any sort, as to preserve themselves in existence.
But though all this, by a very strong license of supposition, were
taken fo [•''granted, it must surely be admitted, that the knowledge
which man could in those circumstances acquire, would be not
merely less in degree, but would be as truly different from that
which his powers at present have reached, as if the oi>jects of his
science, or the laws which regulate them, had themselves been
changed to an extent, at least as great as the supposed change in
the laws of mind. The astronomy of the blind, if the word might
still be used to express a science so very different from the pres-
ent, would, in truth, be a sort of chemistry. Day and night, the
magnificent and harmonious revolution of season after season, would
bo nothing more than periodical changes of temperature in the
objects an)uud ; and that great Dispenser of the seasons, the
Source of lighl, and beauty, and almost of animation, at whose ap-
proach nature seems not merely to awake, but to rise again, as it
«;is at first, from the darkness nC il< original ciiaos, if its separate
TO THE SCIENCES IN GENERAL. 93
existence could be at all inferred, would probably be classed as
something similar, though inferior in power, to that unknown
source of heat, which, by a perilous and almost unknown process,
was fearfully piled and kindled on the household hearth.
So accustomed are we, however, to consider the nature and limits
of the different sciences, as depending on the objects themselves,
and not on the laws of the mind, which classes their relations,
that it may be difficult for you at first to admit the influence of
these mere laws of mind, as modifjang general physics, at least to
the extent which I have noiv stated. But, that a change in the
laws of human thought, whatever influence it might have in alter-
ing the very nature and Umits of the physical sciences, would at
least affect greatly the state of their progress, must be immediate-
ly evident to those who consider for a moment on what discovery
depends ; the progress of science being obviously nothing more
than a series of individual discoveries, and the number of discove-
ries varying with the powers of the individual intellect. The same
phenomena which were present to the mind of Newton, had been
present, innumerable times before, not to the understandings of
philosophers only, but to the very senses of the vulgar. Every
thing was the same to him and to them, except the observing and
reasoning mind. To him alone, however, they suggested those
striking analogies, by which on a comparison of all the known cir-
cumstances in both, he ventured to class the force which retains
the planets in their orbits, with that which occasions the fall of a
pebble to the earth.
" Have ye not listen'd, while he bound the suns
And planets to their spheres ! the unequal task
Of hunaan kind till then. Oft had they roll'd
O'er erring man the year, and oft disgraced
The pride of schools.
,fj He took his ardent flight
Through the blue infinite ; and every star • .
^Vhic^l the clear concave of a winter's night
Pours on the eye, or astronomic tube,
Far stretching, snatches from the dark abyss,
Or such as farther in successive skies
To fancy shine alone, at his ai)proach
Blazed into suns, the living centre each
Of an harmonious system ; all combined,
4
26 RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
And ruled unerriog by that single power,
Which draws the stone projected to the ground."*
It is recorded of this almo&t superhuman Genius, whose powers*
and attainments at once make us proud of our common nature, and
humble us with our disparity, that, in acquiring tire Elements of
Geometry, he was able, in a very large proportion of eases, to
pass immediately from Theorem to Theorem, by reading the
mere enunciation of each, perceiving, as it were intuitively, that
latent evidence, which others are obliged slowly to trace through
a long series of Propositions. When the same Theorem was enun-
ciated, or the same simple phenomenon observed, the successions
of thought, in his mind, were thus obviously different from the
successions of thought in other minds ; but it is easy to conceive
the original susceptibilities of all minds such, as exactly to have
corresponded v. itli those of the mind of Newton. And if the minds
of all men, from the creation of the world, had been similar to the
mind of Newton, is it possible to conceive, that the state of any
science would have been, at this moment, what it now is, or in
any respect similar to what it now is, though the laws which regu-
late the physical changes in the material universe, had continued
unaltered, and no change occurred, but in the simple original sus-
ceptibilities of the mind itself?
, The laws of the observing and comparing mind, then, it must
be admitted, have modified, and must always continue to modify,
every science, as truly as the laws of that particular department
of nature of which the phenomena are observed and compared.
But, it may be said, we are Chemists, we are Astronomers, with-
out studying the pbilosophy of njind. And true it certainly is, that
there are excellent Astronomers, and excellent Chemists, who
have never paid any particular attention to intellectual philosophy.
The general principles of philosophizing, which a more accurate
intellectual philosophy had introduced, hai.e become familiar to
them, without study. liut those general principles are not less
the effect of that improved philosophy of mind, any more than as-
Irononjy and chemistry themselves have now a loss title to be con-
«idcred as sciences, — because, frum the general diflusion of knowl-
edge in society, those who have never professedly studied either
science, are acquainted with many of their most striking truths.
•Thom«on'8 i'oeuiou the Death of Sir haao Newton.
1
TO THE SCIENCES IN GENERAL. 27
It is fifradnally, and almost insensibly, that truths diffuse themselves
— at first admired and adopted by a few, who are able to compare
the present with the past, and who gladly own them, as addi-
tions to former knowledge, — from them communicated to a wider
circle, who receive them, without discussion, as if familiar and
long known ; and at length, in this widening progress, becoming
so nearly universal, as almost to seem effects of a natural instinc-
tive law of human thought : — like the light, which we readily as-
cribe to the sun, as it first flows directly from him, and forces his
image on our sight ; but which, when reflected from object to ob-
ject, soon ceases to remind us of its origin, and seems almost to be
a part of the very atmosphere which we breathe.
I am aware, that it is not to improvements in the mere philos-
ophy of mind, that the great reformation in our principles of phys-
ical inquiry is commonly ascribed. Yet it is to this source — cer-
tainly at least to this source chiefly, that I would refer the origin
of those better plans of philosophical investigation which have
distinguished with so many glorious discoveries the age in which
we live, and the ages immediately preceding. When we think of
the great genius of Lord Bacon, and of the influence of his admi-
rable works, we are too apt to forget the sort of dilhculties which
his genius must have had to overcome, and to look back to his
rules of philosophizing, as a sort of ultimate truths, discoverable
by the mere perspicacity of his superior mind, without referring
them to those simple views of nature in relation to cur faculties of
discovery, from which they were derived. The rules which he
gives us, are rules of physical investigation ; and it is very natural
for us, therefore, in estimating their value, to think of the errone-
ous physical opinions which preceded them, without paying suffi-
cient attention to the false theories of intellect, which had led to
those very physical absurdities. Lord Bacon, if he was not the
first who discovered that we were in some degree idolaters, to use
his own metaphor, in our intellectual worship, was certainly the
first who discovered the extent of our idolatry. But we must not
forget, that the temple which he purified, was not the temple of
external nature, but the temple of the mind, — that in its inmost
sanctuaries were all the idols which he overthrew, — and that it
was not till these were removed, and the intellect prepared for
the presence of a nobler divinity, that Truth would deign to unveil
28 RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
herself to adoration ; — as in the mysteries of those Eastern relig-
ions, in which the first ceremony for admission to the worship of
the God is the purification of the worshipper.
In the course of our analysis of the intellectual phenomena, we
shall have frequent opportunities of remarking the influence,
which errors with respect to these mere phenomena of mind must
have had, on the contemporary systems of general physics, and on
the spirit of the prevailing plans of inquiry. It may be enough to
remark at present the influence of one fundamental error, which,
as Jong as it retained its hold of the understanding, must have ren-
dered all its energies inefi"ectual, by wasting them in the search
of objects, which it never could attain, because in truth they had
no real existence,— to the neglect of objects that would have pro-
duced the very advantage which was sought. I alhide to the be-
lief of the schools, in the separate existence, or entity as they
technically termed it, of the various orders of universals, and the
mode in which they conceived every acquisition of knowledge in
reasoning, to take place, by the intervention of certain intelligible
forms or species, existing separately in the intellect, as the direct
objects of thought,— in the same manner as they ascribed simple
perception to the action of species of another order, which they
termed sensible species, — the images of things derived indeed from
objects without, but when thus derived, existing independently of
them. When we amuse ourselves with inquiring into the history
of human folly — that most comprehensive of all histories — which
includes, at least for many ages, the whole history of philosophy ;
or rather, to use a word more appropriate than amusement, — when
we read with regret the melancholy annals of genius aspiring to
be pre-eminently frivolous, and industry labouring to be ignorant,
we often discover absurdities of the grossest kind, which almost
cease to be absurdities, on account of other absurdities, probably
as gross, which accompany them ; and this is truly the case, in the
grave extravagance of the logic of tho schools. The scholastic
mode of philosophizing, ridiculous as it now seems, was far from
absurd, when taken in connection with the scholastic philosophy.
It was indeed the only mode of procedure, which that [»hiiosophy
could consistently admit. To those who helieved thai singular ob-
jects could afford no real knowledge, singvlariutn nnUam dari scien-
tiam : and that this was to be obtained only from what they termed
TO THE SCIENCES IN GENERAL. 29
iatelligibh species^ existingnot in external thing?, but in the intellect
itself, it must have seemed as absurd to wander, in quest ol^ knowl-
edge, out ot^ that region in which alone they supposed it to exist,
and to seek it among things singular, as it would now, to us, seem
hopeless and absurd, to found a system of physical truths on the con-
templation and comparison of universals. While this false theory of
the mental phenomena prevailed, was it possible, that the phenom-
ena of matter should have been studied on sounder principles of in-
vestigation, w^hen any better plan must have been absolutely inconsis-
tent with the very theory of thought ? It was in mind that the student
of general nature was to seek his guiding light, without which all
then was darkness. The intellectual philosopher, if any such had
then arisen, to analyze simply the phenomena of thought, without
any reference to general physics, would in truth have done more in
that dark age, for the benefit of every physical science, than if
he had discovered a thousand properties of as many ditferent sub-
stances.
Let us suppose, for a moment, that an accurate view of the in-
tellectual process of abstraction could have been communicated to
a veteran sage of the schools, at the very moment when he was
intently contemplating the tree of Porphyry, in all its branches of
species and genera, between the individual and the suinmum gemis ;
and when he was preparing perhaps, by this contemplation ot a
few universals, to unfold all the philosophy of colours, or of the
planetary movements, would the benefit which he received from
this clearer view of a single process of thought have terminated in
the mere science of mind — or would not rather his new views of
mind have extended with a most important influence to his whole
wide views of matter ? — He must immediately have learned, that,
in the whole tree of genera and species, the individual at the bot-
tom of his scale was the only real independent existence, and that
all the rest, the result of certain comparisons of agreement or dis-
agreement, were simple modifications of his own mind, not pro-
duced by any thing existing in his intellect but by the very consti-
tution of his intellect itself; the consideration of a number of indi-
viduals as of one species being nothing more than the feeling of
their agreement in certain respects, and the feeling of this agree-
ment being as simple a result of the observation of them together,
as the perception of each, individually, was of its individual pros-
30 RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
ence. It would surely have been impossible for him, with this
new and important light, to return to his transcendental inquiries,
into entities, and quiddities, and substantial forms ; and the simple
discovery of a better theory of abstraction, as a process of the
mind, would thus have supplied the place of many rules of philos-
ophizing.
The philosophy of mind then, we must admit, did, in former
ag'es at least, exercise an important influence on general science :
— and are we to suppose that it has now no influence ?
Even though no other advantage were to be obtained from our
present juster views of mind, than the protection which they give,
from those gross errors of inquiry to which the philosophers of so
long a series of ages were exposed, tliis alone would surely be no
slight gain. But, great as this advantage is, are we certain, that it
is all which the nicest mental analysis can afford, — or rather, is it
not possible at least, that we may still, in our plans of physical in-
vestigation, be suffering under the influence of errors from which
we should be Saved, by still juster views of the faculties employed
in every physical inquiry ?
That we are not aware of any such influence, argues nothing ;
for to suppose us aware of it, would be to suppose us acquainted
with the very errors which mislead us. Aquinas and Scotus, it is
to be presumed, and all their contentious followers, conceived them-
selves as truly in the right path of physical investigation, as we
do at this moment ; and, though we are free from their gross mis-
takes, there may yet be others of which we are less likely to di-
vest ourselves, from not having as yet the slightest suspicion of
their existence. The question is not. Whether our method of
inquiry be juster than theirs? — for, of our superiority in this re-
spect, if any evidence of fact were necessary, the noble discove-
ries of these later years are too magnificent a proof to allow us
to have any doubt, — but, Whether our plan of inquiry may not
etill be susceptible of improvements, of which we have now as lit-
tle foresight, as the Scotists and Aquinists of the advantages which
philosophy has received from the general prosecution ol the in-
ductive method ? There is, indeed, no reason now to fear, that
the observation of particular objects, with a view to general sci-
ence, will be despised as incapable of giving any direct knowl-
edge, and all real science be conliucd to uuiversals. " Siugulari-
TO THE SCIENCES IN GENERAL. 31
urn Ja<Mr scientia." But, though a sounder view of one intellec-
tual process may have banished from philosophy much idle con-
tention, and directed inquiry to litter objects, it surely docs not
therefore follow, that subsequent improvements in the philosophy
of mind are to be absolutely unavailing. On the contrary, the
presumption unquestionably is, that if by understanding better the
simple process of abstraction, we have freed ourselves from many
errors in our plans of inquiry, a still clearer view of the nature
and limits of all the intellectual processes concerned in the dis-
covery of truth, may lead to still juster views of philosophizing.
Even at present, I cannot but think that we may trace, in no
inconsiderable degree, the influence of false notions, as to some
of the phenomena of the mind, in misdirecting the spirit of our
general philosophy. I allude in particular, to one very impor-
tant intellectual process, — that by which we acquire our knowl-
edge of the relation on which all physics may be said to be found-
ed. He must have paid little attention to the history of philoso-
phy, and even to the philosophy of his own time, who does not
perceive, how much the vague and obscure notions entertain-
ed of that intermediate tie, which is supposed to connect phe-
nomena with each other, have tended to favour the invention and
ready admission of physical hypotheses, Avhich otherwise could not
have been entertained tor a moment ; — hypotheses, which attempt
to explain what is known by the introduction of what is unknown ;
as if successions of phenomena were rendered easier to be under-
stood merely by being rendered more complicated. This very
unphilosophic passion for complexity, (which, unphilosophic as it
is, is yet the passion of many philosophers,) seems, tome, to arise,
in a great measure, from a mysterious and false view of causation j
as involving always, in every series of changes, the intervention
of something unobserved, between the observed antecedent and
the observed etfect; — a view which may very naturally be su])-
posed to lead the mind, when it has observed no actual inter-
vention, to imagine any thing which is not absolutely absurd, that
it may flatter itself with the pleasure of having discovered a cause.
It is unnecessary, however, to enlarge at present on this subject,
as it must again come before us ; when you will perhaps see
more clearly, how much the general diffusion of juster views,
as to the nature and origin of our notion of the connection of
32 RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
events, would tend to the simplification, not of our theories of
mind only, but, in a still higher degree, of our theories of matter.
The observations already made, I trust, have shown how im-
portant, to the perfection of every science, is an accurate ac-
quaintance with that intellectual medium, through which alone
the objects of every science become known to us, and with those
intellectual instruments, by which, alike in every science, truth is
to be detected and evolved. On this influence, wlaich the phi-
losophy of mind must always exercise on general philosophy, I
have dwelt the longer, because, important as the relation is, it is
one which we are pecuUarly apt to forget ; and the more apt to
forget it, on account of that very excellence of the physical sci-
ences, to which it has itself essentially contributed. The discov-
eries, which reward our inquiry into the properties of matter, as
now earned on, on principles better suited to the nature and lim-
its of our powers of investigation, are too splendid to allow us to
look back to the circumstances which prepared them at a distance ;
and we avail ourselves of rules, that are the result of logical anal-
ysis, without reflecting, and almost without knowing, that they are
the result of any analysis whatever. We are. in this respect, like
navigators on the great ocean, who perform their voyage success-
fully by the results of observations, of which they are altogether
ignorant ; who look, with perfect confidence, to their compass
and chart, and think of the stars as useful only in those early ages,
when the pilot, if he ventured from shore, had no other directors
of his course. It is only some more skilful mariner who is sUll
aware of their guidance ; and who knows, how much he is indebt-
ed to the satellites of Jupiter for the accuracy of that very chart,
by which the crowds around him are mech mically directing their
course.
The chief reason, however, for my dwelling so long on this
central and governing relation, which the philosophy of intellect
bears to all other philosophy, is, that I am anxious to impress their
relation strongly on your minds; not so much with a view to the im-
portanro which it may seem to give to the particular science that
i. to engage us together, as with a view to those other sciences in
which you may already have been engaged, or which may yet await
you in the course of your studies. The consideration of mind, as
universally i.rescnt and presidii.g,-at once the medium of all the
TO THE SCIENCES IN GENERAL. 33
knowledge which can be acquired, and the subject of all the truths
of which that knowledge consists, — gives, by its own unity, a sort of
unity and additional dignity to the sciences, of which their scattered
experiments and observations would otherwise be unsusceptible.
It is an unfortunate effect of physical inquirj'^, when exclusively de-
voted to the properties of external things, to render the mind, in
our imagination, subordinate to the objects on which it is directed ;
the faculties are nothing, the objects every thing. The very na-
ture of such inquiry leads us perpetually without to observe and
arrange, and nothing brings us back to the observer and arranger
within ; or, if we do occasionally cast an inquisitive glance on the
phenomena of our thought, we bring back with us what Bacon, in
his strong language, calls '• the smoke and tarnish of the furnace ;"
— the mind seems, to us, to be broken down to the littleness of the
objects which it has been habitually contemplating ; and we re-
gard the faculties that measure earth and heaven, and that add in-
finity to infinity, with a curiosity of no greater interest, than that
with which we inquire into the angles of a crystal, or the fructifi-
cation of a moss. " Ludit istis animus," says one of the most elo-
quent of the ancients, — '' Ludit istis animus, non proficit; et phi-
losophiam a fastigio deducit in planum." To rest in researches
of this minute kind, indeed, if we were absolutely to rest in them,
without any higher and profounder views, would truly be, as he
says, to drag down philosophy from that pure eminence on which
she sits, to the very dust of the plain on which we tread. To the
inquirer, however, whose mind has been previously embued with
this first philosophy, and who has learned to trace, in the won-
ders of every science, the wonders of his own intellectual frame,
there is no physical research, however minute its object, which
does not at once elevate the mind, and derive elevation l>om it.
Nothing is truly humble, which can exercise faculties that are
themselves sublime.
Search, undismayed the dark profound,
Where Nature works in secret ; view the beds
Of mineral treasure, and the eternal vault
That bounds the hoary ocean ; trace the forme
Of atoms, moving with incessant chansre.
Their elemental round ; behold the seeds
Of bein?, and the energy of life,
Kindling the mass with ever active flame ;
34 RELATION OP THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND, ETC.
Then to the secrets of the working mind
Attentive turn ; from dim oblivion call
Her fleet ideal band ; and bid them go
Break through time's barrier, and o'ertake the hour
That saw the heavens created; then declare,
If ought were found in these external scenes
To move thy wonder now.*
In the physics of the material universe, there is, it must be
owned, much that is truly worthy of our philosophic admiration,
and of the sublimest exertions of philosophic genius. But even
that material world will appear more admirable, to him who con-
templates it, as it were, from the height of his own mind, and
who measures its infinity with the range of his own limited but
aspiring faculties. He is unquestionably the philosopher most
worthy of the name, who unites to the most accurate knowledge
of mind, the most accurate knowledge of all the physical objects
amid which he is placed ; who makes each science, to each, re-
ciprocally a source of additional illumination ; and who learns,
from both, the noblest of all the lessons which they can give, —
the knowledge and adoration of that divine Being, who has alike
created, and adapted to each other, with an order so harmonious,
the universe of matter, and the universe of thought.
* Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination, Book I. v. 512—526.
35
LECTURE III.
RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND TO THE SCIENCES AND
ARTS MORE STRICTLY INTELLECTUAL.
In my last Lecture, Gentlemen, I illustrated, at great length,
the relation which the Philosophy of Mind bears to all the other sci-
ences, as the common centre of each. These sciences I repre-
sented, as, in their relation to the powers of discovery, that are
exercised in them, truly arts, in all the various intellectual pro-
cesses of which, the artist is the same, and the instruments the
same; and as to the perfection of any of the mechanical arts, it is
essential, that we know the powers of the instruments employed
in it, so, in the inventive processes of science of every kind, it
seems essential to the perfection of the process, that we should
know, as exactly as possible, the powers and the limits of these
intellectual instruments, which are exercised alike in all, — that we
may not waste our industry, in attempting to accomplish with them
what is impossible to be accomplished, and at the same time may
not despair of achieving with them any of the wonders to which
they are truly adequate, if skilfully and perseveringiy exerted ;
though we should have to overcome many of those difficulties
which present themselves, as obstacles to every great effort, but
which are insurmountable, only to those who despair of surmount-
ing them.
It was to a consideration of this kind, as to the primary impor-
tance of knowing the questions to which our faculties are compe-
tent, that we are indebted for one of the most valuable works in
our science, a work, which none can read even now, without be-
ing impressed with reverence for the great talents of its author ;
but of which it is impossible to feel the whole value, without an
acquaintance with the verbal trifling, and barren controversies.
36 RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHV OF MIND
that still perplexed and obscured intellectual science at the period
when it was written.
The work to which I allude is the Essay on the Human Under-
standings to the composition of which Mr Locke, in his preface, states
himself to have been led by an accidental conversation with some
friends who had met at his chamber. In the course of a discus-
sion, which had no immediate relation to the subject of the Essay,
they found themselves unexpectedly embarrassed by difficulties
that appeared to rise on every side, when after many vain at-
tempts to extricate themselves from the doubts which perplexed
them, it occurred to Mr Locke, that they had taken a wrong
course, — that the inquiry in which they were engaged was prob-
ably one which was beyond the reach of human faculties, and,
that their first inquiry should have been, into the nature of the un-
derstanding itself, to ascertain what subjects it was fit to explore
and comprehend.
" When we know our own strength," he remarks, " we shall
the better know what to undertake with hopes of success : and
when we have well surveyed the powers of our own minds, and
made some estimate what we may expect from them, we shall
not be inclined either to sit still, and not set our thoughts on work
at all, in despair of knowing anything ; or, on the other side, ques-
tion every thing, and disclaim all knowledge, because some things
are not to be understood. It is of great use to the sailor, to know
the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the
depths of the ocean. It is well he knows, that it is long enough
to reach the bottom, at such places as are necessary to direct his
voyage, and caution him against running upon shoals that may ru-
in him. — This was that which gave the first lise to this essay con-
cerning the understanding. For I thought, that the first step to-
wards satisfying several inquiries, the mind of man was very apt
to run into, was to take a survey of our own understandings,
examine our own powers, and see to what things they were
adapted. Till tliat was done, I suspected we began at the wrong
end, and in vain sought for satisfaction in a quiet and sure pos-
session of truths that most concerned us, while we let loose our
thoughts into the vast ocean of being, as if all that boundless
extent were the natural .and untiouhted possession of our under-
standings. — Thus men, extending their inquiries beyond their
TO THE INTELLECTUAL SCIENCES AND ARTS. 37
capacities, ami letting^ their thoughts wander into those depths,
where they can lind no sure footing, it is no wonder that they
raise questions and multiply disputes, which, never coming to
any clear resolution, are proper only to continue and increase
their doubts, and to confirm them, at last, in perfect scepticism ;
whereas, were the capacities of our understanding well consider-
ed, the extent of our knowledge once discovered, and the horizon
found, which sets the bounds between the enlightened and dark
parts of things, between what is and what is not comprehensible by
us, men would perhaps, with less scruple, acquiesce in the avowed
ignorance of the one, and employ their thoughts and discourse,
with more advantage and satisfaction in the other."*
These observations of Mr Locke illustrate, very happily, the
importance of a right view of the limits of our understanding, for
directing our inquiries to the objects that are truly within our
reach. It is not the waste of intellect, as it lies torpid in the
great multitude of our race, that is alone to be regretted in rela-
tion to science, which in better circumstances, it might improve
and adorn. It is in many cases, the very industry of intellect,
busily exerted, but exerted in labours that must be profitless, be-
cause the objects, to which the labour is directed, are beyond the
reach of man. If half the zeal, and, I may add, even half the
genius, which, during so many ages, were employed in attempting
things impossible, had been given to investigations, on which the
transcendental inquirers of those times would certainly have look-
ed down with contempt, there are many names that are now
mentioned only with ridicule or pity, for which we should cer-
tainly have felt the same deep veneration, which our hearts so
readily offer to the names of Bacon and Newton ; or perhaps even
the great names of Bacon and Newton might, in comparison with
them, have been only of secondary dignity. It was not by idleness
that this high rank of instructors and benefactors of the world was
lost, but by a blind activity more hurtful than idleness itself. To
those who never could have thought of numbeiing the population
of our own little globe, it seemed an easy matter to number, with
precise arithmetical accuracy, the tribes of angels, and to assign
to each order of spiritual beings its separate duties, and separate
dignities, with the exactness of some heraldic pomp ; and, amid
* Essay on the Human Understanding. — Introd. sect. 6, 7.
38 RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
all those visible demonstrations of the Divinity which surround
us wherever we turn our view, there were minds that could think
in relation to him, of every thing but his wisdom and goodness ; as
if He who created us, and placed around us this magniticent sys-
tem of things, were an object scarcely worthy of our reverence,
till we had fixed his precise station in our logical categories, and
had determined, not the majestic relations which he bears to the
universe, as created and sustained by his bounty, but all the friv-
olous "relations which he can be imagined to bear to impossibilities
and nonentities.
O, son of earth ! attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains pii'd on mountains, to the skies !
Heaven still, with laughter, the vaiu toil surveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.*
It is, indeed, then, to borrow Mr Locke's metaphor, of no slight
importance to know the length of our line, though we cannot, with
it, fathom all the depths of the ocean. With the knowledge, that,
to a certain depth at least, we may safely confide in it, we shall
not be corrupted, by our fear, to coast along the shore, with such
cautious timidity as to lose all the treasures which might be ob-
tained by a more adventurous voyage ; nor tempted in the rash-
ness of ignorance or despair, to trust ourselves wildly to every
wind, though our course should bo amidst rocks and quicksands.
The study of the natural limits of the faculties of the mind,
has, indeed, sometimes been misrepresented, as favouring a ten-
dency to vague and nuiiniited doubt on all subjects, even on
those most important to individual and social happiness; as if the
great names, to which we have long given our admiration, for
(he light which they have thrown on ihe powers and weaknesses
of the hum;m understanding, were not also the very names which
we hino been accustomed, not (o admire merely, but to venerate,
for excellence of a still nobler kind. Far from leading to general
scepticism, it is, on the contrary, a sound study of the principles
of our intrllortual and moral nature, which alone can free from
the danger of it. If the sceptical philosophy be false, as the as-
sertors of tliis oUjcrtion will allow lli;il it most assuredly is, it can
be overcome and destroyed only l»y a philosophy that is true ;
• Pope's Essay on Man, Kp. iv. v. 73—76.
TO THE INTELLECTUAL SCIENCES AND ARTS. 39
and the more deeply, and the more early, the mind is embued
with the principles of truth, the more confidently may we rely on
its rejection of the errors that are opposed to them. It is impos-
sible for one, who is not absolutely born to labour, to pass through
life without forming, in his own mind, occasionally, some imper-
fect reflections on the faculties by which he perceives and reasons;
or without catching, from those with whom he may associate,
some of those vague notions, of a vague philosophy, which pass
unexamined from mind to mind, and become current in the very
colloquial language of the day. The alternatives, therefore, (if
we can, indeed, think of any other alternative when truth is one,)
are not those of knowledge and absolute ignorance of the mental
phenomena, but of knowledge more or less accurate ; because ab-
solute ignorance, even though it were a state to be wished, is be-
yond our power to preserve, in one who enjoys, in any respects,
the benetit of education and liberal society. We might, with much
greater prospect of success, attempt, bj' merely keeping from his
view all professed treatises on Astronomy, to prevent him from
acquiring that slight and common acquaintance with the system of
the heavenly bodies, which is necessary for knowing that the sun
does not go round the earth, than we could hope to prevent him
from forming, or receiving, some notions, accurate or inaccurate,
as to the nature of mind ; and we surely cannot suppose, that the
juster those opinions are, as to the nature and force of the princi-
ples of belief, the feebler must the principles of belief appear. It
is not so, that nature has abandoned us, with principles which we
must fear to examine, and with truths and illusions which we must
never dare to separate. In teaching us what our powers are in-
capable of attaining, she has at the same time, taught us what
truths they may attain ; and within this boundary, we have the sat-
isfaction of knowing, that she has placed all the truths that are im-
portant for our virtue and happiness. He, whose eyes are the clear-
est to distinguish the bounding circle, cannot surely, be the dullest
to perceive the truths that arc within. To know only to doubt, Ls
but the first step in philosophy ; and to rest at this first step, is either
imbecility or idleness. It is not there that Wisdom sees, and com-
pares, and pronounces ; it is Ignorance, that, with dazzled eyes,
just opening from the darkness of the night, perceives that she has
been dreaming, without being able to distinguish, in the sunshine.
40 RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
what objects really existing are around. He alone is the philoso-
pher truly awake, who knows both how to doubt, and how to be-
lieve ; believing what is evident on the very same principles,
which lead him to doubt, with various degrees of uncertamty,
where the evidence is less sure. To conceive, that inquiry must
lead to scepticism, is itself a species of scepticism, as to the power
and evidence of the principles to which we have given our assent,
more degrading, because still more irrational, than that open and
consistent scepticism which it dreads. It would, indeed, be an
unworthy homage to truths, which we profess to venerate, to
suppose, that adoration can be paid to them only while we are ig-
norant of their nature ; and that to approach their altars would
be to discover, that the majestic forms, which seem animated at
a distance, are only lifeless idols, as insensible as the incense
which we have offered to them.
The study of the powers and limits of the understanding, and
of the sources of evidence in external nature and ourselves, in-
stead of either forming or favouring a tendency to scepticism, in
then, it appears, the surest, or rather the only mode, of removing
the danger of such a tendency. That mind may soon doubt even
of the most important truths, which has never learned to distin-
guish the doubtful from the true. But to know well the irresisti-
ble evidence on which truth is founded, is to believe in it, and to
believe in it forever.
Nor is it from the danger of scepticism only, that a just view
of the principles of his intellectual constitution tends to pre-
serve the philosophic inquirer. It saves him, also, from that pre-
sumptuous and haughty dogmatism, which, though free from doubt,
is not, therefore, necessarily free from error; and which is, in-
deed, much more likely to be fixed in error than in truth, where
the inquiry, that precedes conviction, has been casual and incom-
|)lete. A just view of our nature as intelligent beings, at the same
time that it teaches us enough of our strength to allow us to rest
with confidence on the great principles, physical, moral, and relig-
ious, ill which alono it is of importance for us to confide, teaches
IIS also enough of our weakness, fo render us indulgent to the
weakness of others. We cease lo he astonished that mnllifudes
should differ from us; because we know well, that while nalure
has made a provi'-ion for the universal assent of mankuid to those
TO THE INTELLECTUAL SCIENCES AND ARTS. 41
fundamental physical truths, which are essential to their very ex-
istence, and those fundamental truths of another kind, which are
equally essential to their existence as subjects of moral govern-
ment, she has left them, together with principles of improvement
that ensure their intellectual progress, a susceptibility of error,
without which there could be no progression ; and while we al-
most trace back the circumstances which have modified our own
individual belief, we cannot but be aware, at the same time, how
many sources there are of prejudice, and, consequently, of differ-
ence of opinion, in the various situations in which the multitudes,
that differ from us, have been placed. To feel anger at human
error, says an ancient philosopher, is the same thing as if we were
to be angry with those who stumble in the dark, — with the deaf
for not obeying our command, — with the sick, — with the aged, —
with the weary. That very dulness of discernment, which ex-
cites at once our wonder and our wrath, is but a part of the gen-
eral frailty of mortality; and the love of our errors is not less in-
"herent in our constitution than error itself. It is this general
constitution which is to be studied by us, that we may know with
what mistakes and weaknesses we must have to deal, when we
have to deal with our fellow-men ; and the true art, therefore, of
learning to forgive individuals^ is to learn first how much we have
to forgive to the whole human race. " lllud potius cogitabis, non
esse irascendum erroribus. Quid enim, si quis irascatur in tene-
bris parum vestigia certa ponentibus? Quid si quis surdis, impe-
ria non exaudientibus? Quid si pueris, quod neglecto dispectu
officiorum, ad lusus et ineptos sequalium jocos spectent? Quid si
illis irasci velis, qui aegrotant, senescunt, fatigantur 1 Inter caetera
mortalitatis incommoda, et haic est, caligo mentium : nee tantum
necessitas errandi, sed errorum amor. Ne singulis irascaris, uni-
versis ignoscendum : generi humano venia tribuenda est."*
How much of the fury of the persecuting spirit of darker ages
would have been softened and turned into moderation, by juster
views of the nature of man, and of all the circumstances on which
belief depends! It appears to us so very easy to believe what
we consider as true, — or, rather, it appears to us so impossible to
disbelieve it, — that, if we judge from our own momentary feelings
* Seneca, de Ira, lib. ii, cap. 9.
6
42 RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
only, without any knowledge of the general nature of belief, and
of all the principles in our mental constitution by which it is diver-
sified, we very naturally look on the dissent of others as a sort of
wilful and obstinate contrariety, and almost as an insulting denial
of a rio-ht of approbation, which we consider ourselves, in these
circum'kances, as very justly entitled to claim. The transition
from this supposed culpability to the associated ideas of pains and
penalties, is a very natural one ; and there is, therefore a sutficient
fund of persecution in mere ignorance, though the spirit of it were
not, as it usually is, aggravated by degrading notions of the divine
Being, and false impressions of religious duty. Very different are
the sentiments which the science of mind produces and cherishes.
It makes us tolerant, not merely by showing the absurdity of en-
deavouring to overcome, by punishment, a belief which does not
depend on suffering; but which may remain, and even gather ad-
ditional strength, in imprisonment, in exile, under the axe, and at
the stake. The absurdity of every attempt of this kind it shews
indeed ; but it makes us feel, still more intimately, that injustice
of it, which is worse than absurdity,— by shewing our common na-
ture, in all the principles of truth and error, with those whom we
would oppress ; all having faculties that may lead to truth, and
tendencies of various kinds which may mislead to error, and the
mere accidental and temporary difference of power being, if not
the greatest, at least the most obvious circumstance, which, in all
ages, has distinguished the persecutor from the persecuted.
Let not this weak, unknowing hand,
I'resume thy i)olts to throw ;
Or deal damnation round the land,
Oil all I judge thy foe !
If 1 am right,— thy grace impart,
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong,— O, teach my heart.
To lind the hotter way.*
Such iH the langnago of devout philosophy. No proud assertion
of individual infallihility,— no tri.imph over the consoqumces in
ethers, of a fallible nature, » hirh ourselves partake in common,—
* Popc'3 Universal Prayer, v. 25—32.
TO THE INTELLECTUAL SCIENCES AND ARTS. 43
but the expression of feelings more suited to earthly weakness, —
of a modest joy of belief, which is not less delightl'ul for the humil-
ity that tempers it ; and of a modest sorrow for the seeming errors
of others, to which the consciousness of our own nature gives a
sympathy of warmer interest. The more important the subject of
difference, the greater^ not the less, will be the indulgence of him
who has learned to trace the sources of human error, — of error,
that has its origin not in our weakness and imperfection merely,
but often in the most virtuous affections of the heart, — in that re-
spect for age, and admiration of virtue, and gratitude for kindness
received, which make the opinions of those whom we love and
honour seem to us, in our early years, as little questionable, as the
virtues which we love to contemplate, or the very kindness which
we feel at every moment beaming on our heart, in the tender
protection that surrounds us. That the subjects on which we may
differ from others, are important to happiness, of course implies,
that it is no slight misfortune to have erred ; and that the mere er-
ror, therefore, must be already too great an evil to require any
addition from our individual contempt or indignation, far less from
the vengeance of public authority, — that may be right, in the
opinions which it conceives to be insulted by partial dissent ; but
which must be wrong, in the means which it takes to avenge them.
To be sincerely thankful for truths received, is, by the very na-
ture of the feeling, to be sensible how great a blessing those have
lost who are deprived of the same enjoyment ; and to look down,
then, with insolent disdain, on the unfortunate victim of error, is,
indeed to render contemptible, (as far as it is in our feeble pow-
er to render it contemptible,) not the error which we despise, but
the truth which allows us to despise it.
The remarks which I have as yet made, on the effects of ac-
quaintance with the Philosophy of Mind, relate to its influence on
the general spirit of philosophical inquiry; the advantages which
must be derived, in every science, from a knowledge of the ex-
tent of the power of the intellectual instruments which we use for
the discovery of truth ; the skill which we thence acquire in dis-
tinguishing the questions in which we may justly hope to discover
truth, from those questions of idle and endless controversy, the
decision of which is altogether beyond the reach of ouriacul-
tio< ; and the consequent moderation in the temper, with which
44 RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
we look both to our own possible attainments, and to the errors of
others.
But beside these general advantages, which the Philosophy of
Mind extends to all the inquiries of which human genius is capa-
ble, there are some advantages more peculiarly felt in certain
departments of science or art. It is not merely with the mind that
we operate ; the subject of our operations is also often the mind
itself. In education, in criticism, in poetry, in eloquence, the
mind has to act upon mind, to produce in it either emotions that
are temporary^ or affections and opinions that are permanent. We
have to instruct it, — to convince it, — to persuade it,— to delight it,
to soften it with pity, — to agitate it with terror or indignation ;
and all these eifocts, when other circumstances of genius are the
same, we shall surely be able to produce more readily, if we
know the natural laws of thought and emotion ; the feelings whiph
are followed by other feelings; and the thoughts, which, expand-
ing into other thoughts, almost of themselves produce the very
passion, or conviction, which we wish to excite.
'' One considerable advantage," says Mr Hume, " which re-
sults from the accurate and abstract philosophy, is its subserviency
to (be easy and humane ; which, without the former, can never
attain a suthcient degree of exactness in its sentiments, precepts,
or reasonings. All polite letters are nothing but pictures of hu-
man life in various attitudes and situations; and inspire us with
different sentiments of praise or blame, admiration or ridicule,
according to the qualities of the object which they set before us.
An artist must be better qualified to succeed in this undertaking;
who, besides a delicate taste and quick apprehension, ])0ssesses an
accurate knowledge of the internal fabric, the operations of the
understanding, the workings of the passions, and the various spe-
cies of sentiment which discriminate vice and virtue. However
painful this inward search or inquiry may appear, it becomes, in
some measure, requisite to those who would describe with success
the obvious and outward appearances of life and manners. The
anatomist presents to the oyo. the most hideous nnd disagreeable
objects; but his science is highly usrCiil to the painter in deline-
atinir even a Venus or an llcb'n. While the latter employs all
(he richest colours of his art, and gives his figures the most grace-
ful ;ui<l engaging airs, he must still carry his attention to the in-
TO THE INTELLECTUAL SCIENCES AND ARTS. 4^
ward structure of the human body, the position of the muscles,
the fabric of the bones, and the use and figure of every part or
organ. Accuracy is, in every case, advantageous to beauty, and
just reasoning to dehcacy of sentiment ; — in vain would we exalt
the one by depreciating the other."*
There is a most striking passage to the same purport, in that
beautiful dialogue on ancient oratory, which has been ascribed,
without any very satisfactory evidence, to various authors, partic-
ularly to Quinctilian, the younger Pliny, and Tacitus, and which
is not unworthy of the most emment of the names to which it has
been ascribed. After dwelling on the universal science and eru-
dition of the great master of Roman eloquence, the chief speaker
in the dialogue proceeds to show the peculiar advantage which
oratory must derive from moral and intellectual science, to the neg-
lect of which fundamental stud}^, as superseded by the frivolous
disputations of the rhetorical schools, he ascribes the decay of elo-
quence in the age of which he speaks.
" Ita enim est, optimi viri, ita, ex multa eruditione, ex pluri-
bus artibus, et omnium rerum scientia, exundat et exuberat ilia
admirabilis eloquentia. Neque oratoris vis et facultas, sicut cete-
rarum rerum, angustis et brevibus terminis eluditur; sed is est
orator, qui de omni quaestione pulchre, et ornate, et ad persuaden-
dum apte dicere, pro dignitate rerum ad utilitatem temporum, cum
voluptate audientium, possit. Ha^c sibi ilii veteres persuadebant.
Ad haec eflicienda intelligebant opus esse, non ut Rhetorum scholis.
declamarent, — sed ut his artibus pectus implerent, in quibus de
bonis ac malis, de honesto ac turpi, de justo et injusto disputatur;
— de quibus copioscp, et varie, et ornate, nemo dicere potest, nisi
qui cognovit naturam humanam. — Ex his fontibus etiam ilia pro-
fluunt, ut facilius iram judicis vel instiget, vel leniat, qui scit quid
ira, promptius ad miserationem impeliat qui scit quid sit mis-
ericordia, et quibus animi motibus concitetur. In his artibus ex-
ercitationibusque versatus orator, sive apud infestos, sive apud
cupidos, sive apud invidentes, sive apud tristes, sive apud timentes
dicendum habuerit, tenebit habenas animorum, et prout cujusque
natura postulabit, adhibebit manum et temperabit orationcm, pa-
rato omni instrumento, et ad usum reposito."''!
* Inquiry concerning; the Human Understanding, sec. I.
t Tacitus, edit. Lipsii, p. 48 J, 5.
46 RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
What is the whole art of criticism, in its most important appli-
cations, but the knowledge of the most natural successions of thought
and feeling in the mind? We judge of the perspicuity and order
of a discourse, by knowing the progress in which the mind, by the
developement of truth after truth, may be made at last to see the
full meaning of the most complex proposition. We judge of the
beauty of impassioned poetry or eloquence, by knowing whether
the figures, the images, the very feeUngs described, be such ^s,
from our observation of the laws that regulate the internal series
of chansres in the mind, we know to be consistent with that state of
emotion, in which a mind must exist that has been placed in the
situation supposed. If all other circumstances be equal, he will
undoubtedly bo the best critic, who knows best the phenomena of
human thought and feeling; and, without this knowledge, critici-sm
can be nothing but a measurement of words, or a repetition of the
ever repeated and endless common places of rhetoric. The knowl-
edge o{ nature, — of the necessity of which critics speak so much,
and so justly, and which is as essential to the critic himself, as to
the writer on whom he sits in judgment, — is only another name for
the knowledge of the successive transitions of feeling of the mind,
in all the innumerable diversities in which it is capable of being
moditied, by the variety of circumstances in which it may be plac-
ed. It is for this reason, that, with so great an abundance of the
mere aW, or rather of the mere technical phrases of criticism, we
have so very little of the scietice of it; because the science of crit-
icism implies an acquaintance with the philosophy of thought and
passion, which few can be expected to possess ; and though noth-
ing can be easier than to deliver opinions, suclras pass current in
the drawing-room, and oven in the literary circle, which the friv-
olous may admire as profound, and the ignorant as erudite, and
which many voices may be proti.l to repeat ; though even the dull
:m(l jiodantic are as al)io as tlio wise to say, in fluent language,
that one passage of a work of genius is beautiful, and anotlior the
reverse, because one of tliem is in accordance with some techni-
cal rules, or because Homer and Mill on have passages similar to
the one, and not to the otiier : it is far from being equally easy to
show, how the one passage is beautiful, from its tnitb of charac-
ter, and th<- other,lhough perhaps ri( li in li.ninony of rhythm and
rl.etorical ornament, is yet faulty, by its violation of the more im-
TO THE INTELLECTUAL SCIENCES AND ARTS. 47
portant harmony of thoug-ht and emotion, — a harmony which na-
ture observes as faithfully, in the progress of those vehement pas-
sions that appear most wild and irregular, as in the calmest succes-
sions of feeling of the most tranquil hours. It would indeed, be
too much to say, as in the well known couplet of Pope,
" Let such teach others who themselves excel,
And censure freely, who iiave written well ;"*
for the critic requires only o7ie of the two great talents, which in
the poet, ought to exist together, but which may yet exist sepa-
rately. In the poet, there must be, in the first place, an inventive
fancy to bring together thoughts and images which have never
been combined before ; and with this inventive fancy, a discrimi-
nating judgment, which is to measure, by the standard of nature,
the products of invention ; and to retain them, only if they appear
such, as though perhaps never before combined, might yet, in con-
formity with the natural laws of thought, have occurred to a mind,
in the circumstances represented, as truly, as the other thoughts
or images, which the works of other poets have rendered more fa-
miliar. This latter talent, — the judgment which determines the
intrinsic beauty and fidelity to general nature, — is all which is
absolutely requisite to the critic^ who is not, therefore, under the
necessity of being himself " the great sublime" which he draws.
Yet, though all the elements of excellence in the artist are not ab-
solutely requisite for the judgment of the sage and discriminating
admirer of the noble woxks which that excellence may have pro-
duced, some of these elements unquestionably are requisite, — ele-
ments, for which the critic may search in vain in all the rules of
rhetoricians, and even in the perusal of all the masterpieces of an-
cient and modern times, unless, to an acquaintance with these, he
add an accurate acquaintance with that intellectual and moral na-
ture of man, the beautiful conformity to which was the essential
charm of all the pathos, and all the eloquence, which he has ad-
mired.
There is another art, however, to which knowledge of the in-
tellectual and moral nature of man is still more important — that
noble art, which has the charge of training the ignorance and im-
* Essay on Criticism, v. 15, 16.
43 RELATION or THE THlLOSOrHY OF MIND
becility of infancy into all the virtue, and power, and wisdom of
maturer manhood — of forming-, of a creature, the frailest and fee-
blest perhaps which heaven has made, the intelligent and fearless
sovereio-n of the whole animated creation, the interpreter, and
adorer, and almost the representative of the Divinity. The art,
which performs a transformation so wondrous, cannot but be admi-
rable itself; and it is from observation of the laws of mind, that all
which is most admirable in it is derived. These laws we must fol-
low indeed, since they exist not by our contrivance, but by the
contrivance of that nobler wisdom, from which the very existence
of the mind has flowed ; yet, if we know them well, we can lead
them, in a great measure, even while we follow them. And, while
the helpless subject of this great moral art is every moment re-
quiring our aid, — with an understanding that may rise, from truth
to truth, to the sublimest discoveries, or may remain sunk forever
in ignorance, and with susceptibilities of vice that may be re-
pressed, and of virtue that may be cherished, — can we know too
well the means of checking what is evil, and of fostering what is
good ? It is too late to lie by, in indolent indulgence of affection,
till vice be already formed in the little being whom we love, and
to labour then to remove it, and to substitute the virtue that is op-
posite to it. Vice already formed, is almost beyond our power.
It is only in tiic state of latent propensity, that we can with much
reason expect to overcome it by the moral motives which we are
capable of presenting; and lo distinguish this propensity before it
has expanded itself, and even before it is known to the very mind
ill which it exislx, — to tame those passions which are never to rage,
and to prepare, at a distance, the virtues of other years,— implies
a knowledf^e of the mental constitution, which can be acquired
only bv a diligent study of the nature, and progress, and successive
transformations of feeling. It is easy to know, that praise or cen-
sure, reward or iMinishmcnf, may increase or lessen, the tendency
to the repetition of any particular action ; and this, together with
the means of elementary instruction, is all which is commonly
termed education, r.uf the true science of education is something
far more than this, ii implies a skilful observation of the past, and
that long foresight of the future, which experience and judgment
united afford. It is the art of seeing, not the iinmediate effect only,
but the series of effects which may follow any particular thought or
TO THE INTELLECTUAL SCIENCES AND ARTS. 49
feeling, in the infinite variety of possible combinations — the art of-
ten of drawing virtue from apparent evil, and of averting evil that
may rise from apparent good. It is, in short, the philosophy of the
human mind applied practically to the human mind, — enriching it,
indeed, with all that is useful or ornamental in knowledge, but at
the same time giving its chief regard to objects of yet greater mo-
ment — averting evil, which all the sciences together could not
compensate, or producing good, compared with which all the sci-
ences together are as nothing.
50
LECTURE IV.
RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND TO THE CULTIVATION
OF MORAL FEE1.ING.
We have already, Gentlemen, considered the relation which
the Philosophy of Mind bears to the Sciences in general^ and its par-
ticular application to those sciences and arts, in which the mind is
not merely the instrument with which we carry on our intellectual
operations, but the very subject on which we operate, as in the
fi^reat arts of roasoning, and persuadinj^, of delighting with all the
charms of poetry and eloquence, of judging of the degrees of ex-
cellence that have been attained in these delightful arts; and, still
more, its application to the noblest, though, in proportion to its
value, the least studied of all the arts, the art of education. It re-
mains still, to point out some moral effects which the study of the
Science of Mind produces in the «tn(jf!arer himself., effects which may
not be obvious at first sight, but which result from it, as truly as
the intellectual advantages already pointed out.
One very powerful and salutary intluence of moral science aris-
es directly from the mere contemi)lation of the objects with which
it is conversant — the benevolent affections, the pleasure which at-
tends these, the sacrifices that are made by generous virtue, and
all the sublime admiration which they excite — the sordid and ma-
levolent, and joyless passions of the selfish — the fear and shame
that attend the guilty in society, and tlic horrors that, with a cer-
tainty of constant return more dreadful than their very presence,
await them in their solitary hours. It is good to have these often
before us, and to trace and contrast all the immediate, and all the
remote effects of vice and virtue, even though we should form, at
the time, no direct reference to our ow u i)a>t or future conduct.
Without any such reference to ourselve-^, we nni>( >U\\ be sensible
of the pleasure and serene confidence which attend the one, and of
RELATION OF THE PHILOSOTHY OF MIND, ETC. 5l
the insecurity and remorse which forever hang over the other ;
and the remaining impressions of love and disgust, will have an in-
"^fluence on our future conduct, of which we may probably be alto-
gether unconscious at the time. It is, in truth, like the influence
of the example of those with whom we habitually associate, which
no one perceives at any particular moment, though all are every
moment subject to it ; and to meditate often on virtue and happi-
ness, is thus almost to dwell in a sort of social communion with the
virtuous and happy. The influence of moral conceptions has, in •
this respect, been compared to that of lights which it is impossible
to approach, without deriving from it some faint colouring, even
though we should not sit in the very sunshine, — or to that of pre-
cious odours, amid which we cannot long remain, without bearing
away with us some portion of the fragrance. " Ea enim philoso-
phiae vis est, ut non solum studentes, sed etiam conversantes juvet.
Qui in solem venit, licet non in hoc venerit, colorabitur : qui in
unguentaria taberna resederunt, et paulo diutius commorati sunt,
odorem secum loci ferunt : et qui apud philosophiam fuerunt, trax-
erint aliquid necesse est, quod prodesset etiam negligentibus."*
The nature of the process, by which this moral benefit arises/
from the mere contemplation of moral objects, frequently repeat-;
ed, is far from obscure, though it depends on a cause to which vou
may perhaps as yet have paid httle attention, but which, in an af-
ter part of the course, I shall have an opportunity of illustrating
at length, — the influence of the associatiag- principle ia- thajniind, v-^
— of that principle, by which ideas and other feelings, that have
often co-existed, .acquircj^/orever after, an ahnQ.st indissoluble
i ipion. , It is not merely, therefore, by having traced, more accu-
rately than others, the consequences of vice and virtue, as affecting
the general character, that the lover of moral science strengthens
his admiration of virtue, and his abhorrence of vice. But, by the
frequent consideration of virtue, together with the happiness which \
it affords, and of vice, together with its consequent miser}', the
notions of these become so permanently, and so deeply associated,
that future virtue appe ars almos t likei^pp in ese a haui.to-be-cnjoy-
edj an dnfuT u^^^ylce- like arpproachtfig misery. The dread of mise-
ry, and the love of happiness, which are essential principles of our I
very physical existence, are thus transformed into principles of mor-l
* Seneca, Ep. 108. '
52 RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
1 al conduct^ that operate, before reflection, with the rapidity, and
J almost with the ener2~onnItmcTs7— and that, after reflection, add
to our virtuous resolutions a force and stability, which, as results
of mere reasoning, they could not possess.
It is, besides, no small advantage of the abstract consideration
of virtue, as opposed to the m series of vice, that, in considering
these philosophically, we regard them as stripped of every thing
that can blind or seduce us ; and we behold them, therefore, truly
as they are. It is not in the madness of intemperate enjoyment,
that we see drunkenness in the goblet, and disease in the feast.
Under the actual seduction of a passion, we see dimly, if we see at
all, any of the evils to which it leads; and if the feelings, of
which we are then conscious, were those which were forever af-
ter to be associated with the remeralirance of the passion, it would
appear to us an oljject, not of disgust or abhorrence, but of de-
light and choice, and almost of a sort of moral approbation. It is
of importance, then, that we should consider the passion, at other
moments than these, that tiie images associated with it may be not
of that brief and illusive pleasure, which stupifies its unfortunate
victim, but of its true inherent character, of deformity, and of the
contempt and hatred which it excites in others. Such is the ad-
vantage of the point of view, in vvhich it is seen by the moral in-
quirer, to whom it presents itself, not under its momentary charac-
ter of pleasure, but under its lasting character of pain and disgust.
By habituating himself to consider the remote, as well as the immedi-
ate results of all the affections and passions, he learns to regard vir-
tue, not merely as good in itself, at the moment in which it is called
into exercise, but as an inexhaustible source of good which is con-
tinually encrcasiiig; and vice not merely as a temporary evil in
itself, but as a source of permanent anil yet deeper misery and de-
gradcition. Every generous principle, which nature has given
him, is thus continually deriving new strength, from the very con-
templation of the good which it affords; and if, in the frailty of
mortality, he should still be subject to the occasional influence of
those very passions, which, in cooler moments, he detests, he yet
does not fall, thoroughly and hopolessly. 'riiero nro lingering as-
I fiociations of moral bea>ity and happiness in his mind, which may
1 save him-«tfll,— associations' th;it must render it, in some degree
at least, more difficult for him than for others, (o yield to sediic-
TO THE CULTIVATION OF MORAL FEELIN6. 53
tioDS, of which he has long known the vanity, and which perhaps
even may, in some happier hour, lead him back to that virtue, of
which he has never wholly forgotten the charms.
The charms of virtue, indeed, it is scarcely possible, for him
who has felt them, wholly to forget. There may be eyes that
can look unmoved on the external beauty which once delighted
them. But who is there that has ever been alive to its better
influence, who can think of moral loveliness without a feeling of
more than admiration, — without a conscious enjoyment, in the pos-
session of what is so truly admirable, or a sigh at having lost the
privilege of dwelling on it with delight, and at being obliged to
shrink from the very thought of what it once appeared ?
" For what can strive
With virtue ? which of nature's regions vast
Can in so manj forms produce to sight
Such powerful beauty ? — Beauty, which the eye
Of hatred cannot look upon secure ;
Which Envy's self contemplates, and is turn'd
Ere long to tenderness, to infant smiles,
Or tears of humblest love. Is ought so fair,
In all the dewy landscapes of the Spring,
The Summer's noontide groves, the purple eve
At harvest-home, or in the frosty moon
Glittering on some smooth sea, is aught so fair
As virtuous friendship ? As the honoured roof,
Whither, from highest heaven, immortal love,
His torch etherial, and his golden bow,
Propitious brings, and there a temple holds,
To whose unspotted service gladly vow'd,
The social bond of parent, brother, child,
With smiles, and sweet discourse, and gentle deeds,
Adore his power ? What gift of richest clime
E'er drew such eager eyes, or prompted such
Deep wishes, as the zeal, that snatcheth back
From Slander's poisonous tooth a/oe'i renown,
Or crosseth Danger in his lion-walk,
A rival's life to rescue r"
The study of moral science, then, we have seen, has a direct
tendency to strengthen our attachment to the virtues which we
habitually contemplate. Another most important advantage deriv-
ed from it. relates to u? in our higher character of beings capable
54 RELATION OP THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
©/"reZiVton, increasing our devotion and gratitude to the Divinity,
by the clearest manifestation which it gives us of his provident
goodness in the constitution and government of the moral world.
The external universe, indeed, though our study were confined
to the laws which regulate its phenomena, would afford, in itself,
abundant proof of the power and wisdom by which it was created.
But power and wisdom alone excite admiration only, not love ;
which, though it may be feigned in the homage that is universally
paid to power, is yet, as an offering of the heart, paid to it only
when it is combined with benevolence. It is the splendid benevo-
lence, therefore, of the Supreme Being, which is the object of
our grateful adoration ; and, to discover this benevolence, we
must look to creatures that have not existence merely, like inani-
mate things, but a capacity of enjoyment, and means of enjoy-
ment. It is in man, — or in beings capable of knowledge and hap-
piness, like man,— that we find the solution of the wonders of the
creation ; which would otherwise, with all its regularity and beau-
ty, be but a solitary waste, like the barren magnificence of rocks
and deserts. God, says Epictetus, has introduced man into the
world, to be the spectator of his works, and of their divine Au-
thor ; and not to be the spectator only, but to be the announcer
and interpreter of the wonders which he sees and adores. 'O Sevg
— TOv uvd()0)nov deuTt]v ihtiyayiv uvtuu fs nal Toiv tfjycov rb)v
avTOv- nui ov ^lOPOi' deacriv uXku -/.ul th'iyt]rt]v umoiv* " Hajc
qui contemplatur," eays another ancient Stoic, with a little of the
bold extravagance of his school,—" lla^c qui contemplatur, quid
Deo praistat? Ne tanta ejus opera sine teste sint."— " Curiosum
nobis natura ingeniiim deilit ; et artis sibi ac pulchritudinis suae
conscia, spectatores nos tantis rerum spcctaciilis genuit, perditura
fructum sui, si tam magna, lam clara, tam subtiliter ducta, tarn
nitida, et non uno gene re formosa solitudini ostenderet."!
In the study of what might be considered as the very defects
of our moral nature, how pleasing is it, to the philosophic inquir-
er, to discover that provident arrangement of a higher Power,
which has rendered many of the most striking of the apparent
evils of life .subservient to the production of t i general ul ility^bat
♦ DIssertat. ab Arrian, collect, lib. i. c. C— p. 05. Edit. Upton,
t Seneca de otio Sapent. c. 3"2.
TO THE CULTIVATION OF MORAL PEELING. 55
had never entered into the contempUition of its remote authors.
He who has never studied the consequences of human actions,
perceives, in the great concourse of mankind, only a multitude of
beings consulting each his own peculiar interest, or the interest of
the very small circle immediately around him, with little, if any,
apparent attention to the interests of others. But he who has'
truly studied human actions and their consequences, sees, in the
prosecution of all these separate interests, that universal interest
jvhich is th eir great result ; and the very principle of. sreli^regard
thus c ontributing to social happiuess,^ — unconsciously indeed, but
almost as surely as the principle of benevolence itself.
Each individual seeks a several goal,
But Heaven's |reaijifiW--l3-(m£^aad-tbat,tha_wholej_.
'^Fiat'couiiTerworks each folly and caprice ;
That disappoints the effect of every vice ; —
All Virtue's ends /rom Vanity's can raise ;
Which seeks no interest, no reward but praise ;
And build on wants, and on defects of mind,
The joy, the peace, the glory of mankind.*
I have already,! — when treating of the influence of just views
of the extent and limits of our faculties, in fixing the proper tone
of inquiry, and lessening equally the tendency to the opposite ex-
tremes of dogmatism and scepticism, — stated some important mor-
al advantages that arise from this very moderation of the tone of
inquiry, particularly with respect to the temper with which it
prepares us to receive dissent from our opinions without anger,
or insolent disdain, or even astonishment. So much of the inter-
course of human society consists in the reciprocal communication
of opinions which must often be opposed to each other, that this
preparation of the temper, whether for amicable and equal dis-
cussion, or for mutual silent forbearance, is not to be lightly ap-
preciated as an element in the sum of human happiness. On this
point, however, and on its relation to the still greater advantages,
or still greater evils, of national or legislative tolerance or intol-
erance, I before oft'ered some remarks, and therefore merely al-
hide to it at present.
The tolerance with which we receive the opinions of others is
* Pope's Essay on Man, Ep. ii. y. 237—240, and 245—248.
t Lect. III.
56 RELATION OF THfi PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
a part, and an indispensable part, of that general refinement of
manners to which we give the name of politeness. But polite-
ness itself, in all its most important respects, — indeed in every
respect, in which it is to be separated from the mere fluctu-
ating and arbitrary forms and ceremonies of the month or year,
is nothing more than knowledge of the human mind directing gen-
eral benevolence. It is the art of producing the greatest happiness,
which, in the mere external courtesies of life, can be produc-
ed, by raising such ideas or other feelings in the minds of those
with whom we are conversant, as will afford the most pleas-
ure, and averting, as much as possible, every idea which may
lead to pain. It implies, therefore, when perfect, a fine knowl-
edge of the natural series of thoughts, so as to distinguish, not
merely the thought which will be the immediate or near effect of
what is said or done, but those which may arise still more remote-
ly ; and he is the most successful in this art of giving happiness,
who sees the future at the greatest distance. It is this foresight
acquired by attentive observation of the various characters of man-
kind in a long intercourse with society, Avhich is the true knowl-
edge of the world; for the knowledge of the mere forms and cer-
emonies of the world, which is of tar easier acquisition, is scarce-
ly worthy of being called a part of it. The essential, and the
only valuable part of politeness then, is as truly the result of study
of the human mind, as if its minutest rules had formed a regular
part of our systems of intellectual and moral philosophy. It is the
philosophy indeed of those, who scarcely know that they are phi-
losophizing ; because philosophy, to them, implies something which
has no other ornaments than diagrams and frightful algebraic char-
acters, laid down in systems, or taught in schools and universities,
with tbe methodical tediousness of rules of grammar ; and they
tire conscious, that* all, or the greatest part of what they know,
has been the result of their own observation, and acquired in the
very midst of the amusements of life. But he, who knows the
world, must have studied the mind of man, or at least— for it is
only a partial view of the mind which is thus formed— must have
studied it ill some of its most striking aspects. He is -.i practical
j.liiloso|)lw>i-, and, tlier(!fore, a speculative one also, since he must
hav(r founded his rules of action on certain principles, the results
of his own obsfM-vation and rcllcction. These results arc, indeed.
TO THE CULTIVATION OF MORAL FEELING. 57
usually lost to all but to the individual : and the loss is not to be
considered as slight, merely because the knowledge, which thus
perishes, has been usually applied by its possessor to frivolous
purposes, and sometimes perhaps to purposes still more unworthy.
When we read the maxims of La Rochefoucauld, which, false as
they would be, if they had been intended to give us a faithful uni-
versal picture of the moral nature of man, were unfortunately too
faithful a delineation of the passions and principles that immedi-
ately surrounded their author, and met his daily view, in the
splendid scenes of vanity and ambitious intrigue to which his ob-
servation was confined, — it is impossible not to feel, that, acute
and subtle as they are, many of these maxims must have been on-
ly the expression of principles, which were floating, without be-
ing fixed in words, in the minds of many of his fellow courtiers;
and the instruction, which might be received from those who
have been long conversant with mankind, in situations fiivourable
to observation, if, by any possibility, it could be collected and ar-
ranged, would probably furnish one of the most important addi-
tions which could be made to moral science.
How much politeness consists in knowledge of the natural suc-
cession of thoughts and feelings, and a consequent ready foresight
of the series of thoughts, vvhich it is in our power indirectly to ex-
cite or avert, must have presented itself in a very striking manner
to every one, whose professional duties, or other circumstances,
have led him to pay attention to the lower orders of society. The
most benevolent of the poor, in situations too in which their be-
nevolence is most strongly excited, as in the sickness of their re-
lations or friends, and in which they exert themselves to relieve
obvious pain, with an assiduity of watching and fatigue, after all
the ordinary fatigues of the day, that is truly honourable to their
tenderness, have yet little foresight of the mere pains of thought ;
and while in the same situation, the rich and better educated,
with equal, or perhaps even witii less benevolence of intention,
carefully avoid the introduction of any subject, which might sug-
gfest, indirectly to the sufferer the melancholy images of parting
life, the conversation of the poor, around the bed of their sick
friend, is such as can scarcely fail to present to him every mo-
ment, not the probability merely, but alniost the certainty of ap-
proaching doatii. Il is impossible to bo pro«rnt, in Ihcsc two situ-
58 RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF WIND
ations, without remarking' the benefit of a little knowledge of the
human mind, without which, far from fulfilling its real wishes, be-
nevolence itself may be the most cruel of torturers.
'^' The same species of foresight which is essential to the refine-
ments of social intercourse, is equally essential in the active occu-
pations of life, to that knowledge of times and circumstances,*
which is so important to success; and though this knowledge may
be too often abused, to unworthy purposes, by the sordid and the
servile, it is not the less necessary to those who pursue only hon-
ourable plans, and who avail themselves only of honourable means.
Such is the nature of society, that the most generous and patriotic
designs still require some conduct to procure for them authority ;
and, at least in the public situations of life, without a knowledge
of the nature both of those who are to govern, and of those who
are to be governed, though it may be very easy to wish well to
society, the hardest of all tasks will be the task of doing it good.
May I not add, as another salutary moral effect of the Science
of Mind, the tendency which the study of the general properties
of our common nature has to lessen that undue veneration, which,
in civilized society, must always attend the adventitious circum-
stances of fortune, and to bring this down, at least some degrees,
nearer to that due respect which is indispensable for the tranquil-
lity and good order of a state, and which no wise and patriotic
moralist, therefore, would wish to see diminished. It is only in
the tumultuous plirenz}' of a revolution, however, or in periods
of great and tceneral discontent, that the respect of the multitude
for those who are elevated above them, in rank and fortune, is
likely to fall beneath this salutary point. So many of the strong-
est principles of our nature, favour the excess of it, that, in the
ordinary circumstances of society, it must always pass far beyond
tlie point of calm respect; so far beyond it, indeed, that the les-
son which the people require most frequently to be taught, is, not
to venerate the very guilt and folly of the rich and powerful, be-
cause they are the guilt and folly of the rich and powerful. It is
to the objects of the idolatry themselves, however, tli;it the study
of a science, which considers thorn as stripjjcd of every adventi-
tious distinction, and [)ossessing oidy the common virtues and tal-
ents of mankind, must be especially salutary. In the oidinary cir-
cumstances of a luxurious age, it is scarcely possible for the great
TO THE CULTIVATION OF MORAL FEELIXe. 59
to consider themselres as what they truly are ; and tliough, if
questioned as to their belief of their common origin with the rest
of mankind, they would no doubt think the question an absurd one,
and readily own their descent from the same original parentage :
there can be as little doubt, that in the silence of their own mind,
and in those hours of vanity and ambition, which, to many of
them, are almost the whole hours of life, this tie of common na-
ture is rarely, if ever felt. It is impossible indeed, that it should
be often felt, because, in the circumstances in which thej^are plac-
ed, there is every thing to i-cmind them of a superiority, of which
their passions themselves are sufliciently ready to remind them,
and very little to remind them of an equality^ from the contempla-
tion of which all their passions are as ready to turn away. There
are, however, some circumstances which are too strong for all
these passions to overcome, and which force in spite of them, up-
on the mind that self-knowledge, which in other situations, it is
easy to avoid. In pain and sickness, notwithstanding all the vain
magnificence which the pride of grandeur spreads around the
couch, and the profusion of untasted delicacies, with which officious
tenderness strives to solicit an appetite that loathes them, he who
lies upon the couch within, begins to learn his own nature, and
sees through the splendour that seems to surround him, as it were,
without touching him, how truly foreign it is to that existence, of
which before it seemed to form a part. The feeling that he is
but a man, in the true sense of that word, as a frail and depen-
dant being like those around him, is one of the first feelings, and
perhaps not one of the least painful, which arise in such a sit-
uation. The impression, however, of this common nature, is,
while it lasts, a most salutary one ; and it is to be regretted only,
that health cannot return without bringing back with it all those
flattering circumstances which offer the same seductions as before
to his haughty superiority.
The sight of death, or of the great home of the dead, in like
manner, seldom fails to bring before us our common and equal na-
ture. In spite of all the little distinctions which a churchyard ex-
hibits, in mimic imitation, and almost in mockery, of the great dis-
tinctions of life, the turf, the stone with its petty sculptures, and
all the columns and images of the marble monument; as we read
the inscription, or walk over the sod, we think only of what lies
60 RELATION OP THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
beneath in undistinguishahle equalihj. There is scarcely any one
on Avhom these two great equalizing objects, sickness and the
sight of death, have not produced, for a short time, at least, some
salutary moral impression. Jiut these are objects which cannot
often occur, and which are accompanied with too many distress-
ing circumstances, to render it desirable that they should be of
very frequent occurrence. The study of the mind, of our com-
mon moral and intellectual nature, and of those common hopes
which await us, as immortal beings, seems in some degree to afford
the advantage, without the mixture of evil: for, though in such
speculative inquiries, the impression may be less striking than
when accompanied with painful circumstances, it is more perma-
nent, because, from the absence of those powerful circumstances,
it is more frequently and willingly renewed. In the philosophy
of mind, all those heraldic differences which have converted mere
human vanity into a science, are as nothing. It is man that is the
object of investigation, and man with no distinctions that are ad-
ventitious. The feelings, the faculties, which we consider, are
endowments of the rich and powerful indeed ; but they are en-
dowments also of the meanest of those on whom they look with
disdain. It is something, then, for those whose thoughts are con-
tinually directed by external circumstances, to that perilous eleva-
tion on which they are placed, to be led occasionally, as in such
inquiries they must be, to measure themselves and others without
regard to the accidental differences of the heights on which they
Ptand, and to see what it is in whicli they truly differ, and what it
is ill which they truly agree.
In the remarks already made, on the study of the Science of
Mind, we have considered its effects on the progress of the other
sciences, and on the moral dispositions. But, though the study
had no effects of this kind, moral or intellectual, is not the mind
itself a part of nature, and as a mere physical object, deserving of
our prnfoundcsl and most intetit investigation ? or shall it be said,
tliiit while we strive, not merely 1o measure the whole earth, and
to lollow in our thought the revolutions of these great orbs, whose
majesty may almost be said to force from us this homage of admi-
ration, but to arrange, in distirut Iribes, those animalcular atoms,
whose very existence we learn only from the glass through which
we view Ihem ; the observing and calculating mind itself is less
TO THE CULTIVATION OF MORAL FEELING. 61
an object of universal science, than the antennae of an insect, or
the filaments of a weed? Would it be no reproach lo man, even
though he knew all things besides, that he yet knew far less accu-
rately than he might know, his own internal nature, — like voyag-
ers who delight in visiting every coast of the most distant country,
without the slightest acquaintance, perhaps, with the interior of
their own ?
Qui terra; pelagique vias, mundique per omnes
Articulos spatiatur ovans, metasque suorum
Herculeas audet supra posuisse laborum,
Neglectus jacet usque sibi, dumque omDia quaerit,
Ipse sui qua?sitor abest ; incognita tellus
Solus uauta latet, propiorque ignotior orbis.
Would the lines which follow these, if indeed there were any
one to whom they were applicable in their full extent, convey
praise less high than that which might be given to the observer
of some small nerve or membrane, that had never been observed
before, or the discoverer of a new species of earth, in some pebble
before unanalyzed ?
Tu melior Tiphjs, spreto jam Phasidis auro,
Inte vela paras, animates detegis orbes,
Humanasque aperis ausis ingeatibus eras.
Jamque novos laxari sinus, animajque latentis
Arcanas reserare vias, coelosque recessus
Fas aperire tibi, totamque secludere mentem.
To the 7nind^ considered as a mere object of physical inquiry,
there is one circumstance of interest, that is pecuhar. It is the
part of our mixed nature which we have especially in view as
often as we think of self, — that by which we began to exist, and
continue to exist, by which in every moment of our being, we
have rejoiced, and hoped, and feared, and loved ; or rather, it is
that which has been itself, in all our emotions, the rejoicer, the
hoper, the fearer. To inquire into the history of the mind, there-
fore, is in truth to look back, as far as it is permitted to us to look
back, on the whole history of our life. It is to think of those
many pleasing emotions which delighted us when present, or of
those sadder feelings, which when considered as past, become de-
lightful, almost like the leeHngs that were in themselves originally
pleasing, and in many cases, are reviewed with still greater inter-
62 RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
est. We cannot attempt to think of the origin of our knowledge,
without bringing befoix us scenes and persons most tenderly famil-
iar ; and though the effect of such remembrances is perhaps less
powerful, when the mind is prepared for philosophical investiga-
tion, than in moments in which it is more passive, still the influ-
ence is not wholly lost. He must be a very cold philosopher in-
deed, who, even in intellectual analysis, can retrace the early im-
pressions of his youth, with as little interest as that with which he
looks back on the common occurrences of the past day.
But it is not any slight interest which it may receive from such
peculiar remembrances, that can be said to give value to the phi-
losophy of mind. It furnishes, in itself, the Sublimest of all specu-
lations, because it is the philosophy of the sublimest of all created
things. " There is but one object," says St. Augustine, " greater
than the soul, and that one is its Creator." " Nihil est potentius
ilia creatura qux. mens dicitur rationalis, nihil est sublimius. (^iiic-
quid supra illam est jam Creator est.'''* When we consider the poAV-
ers of his mind, even without reference to the wonders which he
has produced on earth, what room does man afford for astonish-
ment and admiration ! His senses, his memory, his reason, the
past, the present, the future, the whole universe, and, if the uni-
verse have any limits, even more than the whole universe,
comprised in a single thought; and, amid all these changes of
feelings that succeed each other, in rapid and endless variety, a
permanent and unchangeable duration, compared with which, the
duration of external things is but the existence of a moment.
" O wliat a patrimony Una I a being
Of such inherent strength and majesty,
Not worlds pogsest can raise it ; worlds destroyM
Not injure ;* wliich Ijolds on its glorious course,
Wlien thiae, O Nature, ends :"t
Such, in dignity and grandeur, is the mind considered, even
abstractedly. But when, instead of considering the mind itself,
we look to the wonders which it has performed — (he cities, the
cultivated ])lains, mnl ;ill the varieties of that splendid scene to
which the art of man lias transformed the desarts, and forests, and
rocks of original nature ; when uc l)ohol(l him, not limiting the
• Can't injure. Orig.
1 Young's Night Thoughts, VI. v. 535—539.
«
TO THE CULTIVATION OF MORAL FEELING. 63
operations of his art to that earth to which he seemed confined,
but bursting through the very elements, that appeared to encircle
him as an insurmountable barrier — traversing the waves — strug-
gling with the winds, and making their very opposition subservi-
ent to his coti|i^c ; when we look to the still greater transforma-
tions which he has wrought in the moral scene, and compare with
the miseries of barbarous life, the tranquillity and security of a
well ordered state ; when we see, under the influence of legisla-
tive wisdom, insurmountable multitudes obeying, in opposition to
their strongest passions, the restraints of a power which they
scarcely perceive, and the crimes of a single individual marked
and punished, at the distance of half the earth ; is it possible for
us to observe all these wonders, and yet not to feel some curiosity
to examine the faculties by which they have been wrought, some
interest in a being so noble, that leads us to speculate on the fu-
ture wonders which he may yet perform, and on the final destiny
which awaits him? This interest we should feel, though no com-
mon tie connected us with the object of our admiration ; and we
cannot surely admit that the object of our admiration is less inter-
esting to us, or less sublime in nature, because the faculties which
we admire are those which ourselves possess, and the wondera
«nich as we are capable of achieving and surpassing.
G4
LECTURE V.
ON THE NATURE OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY IN GENER-\L.
The preceding Lectures, Gentlemen, have, I trust, sufficiently
convinced you of the importance of the science on which we are
to enter,— if, indeed, many of the advantages which we have
considered were not of themselves so obvious, as readily to have
occurred to your own reflection, or at least to require less illus-
tration, than,— in my desire to interest not your attention merely,
but your zealous ardour, in a science which appears to me so truly
to deserve it,— 1 have thought necessary to give them. We have
seen, how interesting the mind is, as an object of study, /ro/rt its
o-wn intrinsic excellence, even though it were to be considered in
no other light, than as a mere part of the universal system of
ibings, necessary, therefore, to be comprehended with every oth-
er existing substance, in a system of general physics. We have
seen, likewise, in how many important respects, the study of the
science of Mind is favourable to the growth of virtuous sentiment,
and to the refinement and happiness of society ; and, above all,
how essential an acquaintance with it is, to the proper conduct of
our inquiries,— not merely in those sciences, the objects of which
are kindred or analogotis, but in every other science, the various
objects of whicb, ho^vever independent, and even remote from it
they may seem, must always be considered, not as they exist ni
themselves, but as they exist in relation to it ; since they can be
known to us only tbrough the medium of the mental affections,
or feelings, excited l.y Hiem, which have laws peculiar to them-
selves, and analyzed and arranged only by our mental faculties,
which have tlieir own peculiar limits of extent and power.
The first great division of our course of inquiry is purely phys-
iological. It has for its object the mind, considered as susceptible
ON THE NATURE OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY. 66
of various states or affections, and constituting-, as it is thus various-
ly affected, tiie whole phenomena of thoug^ht and feeling-, which,
thoug-h expressed by a variety of terms, of functions, or faculties,
are stili but the one mind itself existing- in dift'erent states. On re-
tracing- these states, which form the whole progress of our sen-
tient, intellectual, and moral life, we have to inquire into the prop-
erties of the substance, mind, according -to the same laws of in-
vestigation, by which we inquii-e into the properties of external
substances, — not by assuming- principles, from which the phenom-
ena may be supposed to liow, but by observing- and generalizing-,
till we arrive at those few simple principles or laws, which, how-
ever pompous the term laws may seem, as if it denoted something
different from the phenomena themselves, and paramount to them,
are in truth, nothing more than the expression of the most general
circumstances, in which the phenomena themselves have been felt
by us to agree. As we say of gold, that it is that which is of a
certain specific weight, yellow, ductile, fusible at a certain tem-
perature, and capable of certain combinations, — because all these
properties have been observed by ourselves or others, — so we say
of the mind, that it is that which perceives, remembers, compares,
and is susceptible of various emotions or other feelings ; because
of all these we have been conscious, or have observed them indi-
rectly in others. We are not entitled to state with confidence any
quality, as a property of gold, which we do not remember to have
observed ourselves, or to have received on the faith of the obser-
vation of others, whose authority we have reason to consider as
indubitable ; and as little are we entitled to assert any quality, or
general susceptibility, as belonging to the human mi?id, of wlrch
we have not been conscious ourselves in the feelings resulting from
it, or for which we have not the authority of the indubitable con-
sciousness of others. The exact coincidence, in this respect, of
the physics of mind and of matter, it is important that you should
have constantly before you, that you may not be led to regard the
comparative indistinctness and vagueness of the mental phenomena
as a warrant for greater boldness of assertion, and looseners of rea-
soning wMth respect to them. There is, on the contrary, in such
a case, still greater reason to adhere rigidlv to the strict rules of
philosophizing ; because the less definite the phenomena are, the
greater danger is there of being misled in discriminating and class-
66 »S THE NATURE OF
iB^ them. The laws of inquiry, those general principle? of tht>
logic of physics, which regulate our search of truth in all things,
external and internal, do not vary with the name of a science, or
its objects or instruments. They are not laws of one science, but
of every science, whether the objects of it be mental or material,
clear or obscure, definite or indefinite ; and they are thus univer-
sal, because, in truth, though applicable to many sciences, they are
only laws of the one inquiring iiiind^ founded on the weakness of its
powers of discernment, in relation to the complicated phenomena
on which those powers arc exercised. The sort of reasoning
which would be fiilse in chemistry, would be false in astronomy,
would be false in the physiology of our corporeal or intellectual
and moral nature, and in all, for the same reason ; because the
mind is the inquirer in all alike, and is limited, by the very consti-
tution of its faculties, to a certain order of inquiry, which it must,
ijQ this case of supposed, erroneous reasoning, have trani^gressed.
On these general laws of inquiry, as relating alike to the inves-
tigation of the properties of matter and of inincl, it is my intention
to dwell, for some time, with full discussion ; for, though the sub-
ject may be less pleasing, and may require more severe and unre-
mitting attention on your part, than the greater number of the in-
quiries which await us, it is still more important than any of these,
because it is, in truth, essential to them all. The season of your
life is not that which gathers the harvest ; it is that which pre-
pares the soil, by diligent cultivalion,. for tlie fruits which are to
adorn and enrich it; — or, to speak without a metaphor, you do not
come here, tluit you may make yourselves acquainted, in a few
months, with all the phenomena of the universe, — as if it were
only to look on the motions of the planets in an orrery, or to learn
a few names of substances and qualities, — but that you may acquire
those j)hilosop,'iical principles, which in the course of a long and
honourable life, are to enable you to render yourselves more fa-
miliar every day with the works of nature, and with the sublime
plans of its beneficent Author: — and if williont the knowledge of
a single word of fact, in mattor or in mind, it were possible loryou
to carry away I'rom these walls a clear notion of the objects of in-
quiry, and of the plan on which alone ivestigation can be pursued
will) advantage, I sliould conceive, that you had profited far more»
thun if, with confused notions of the objects and plan of invcstiga-
PHYSICAL INQUIRY IN GENERAL. C7
tion, you carried with you the power of talking fluently? of obser-
yations, and experiments, and hypotheses, and systems, and of
using, in their proper places, all the hardest words of science.
I must remark, however, that I should not have thought it ne-
cessary, thus to direct so much of your attention to the principles
of scientific inquiry in general, if I could have taken for granted,
that you had already enjoyed the benefit of the instruction of my
illustrious colleague in another Chair, whose Lectures on Natural
Philosophy, exemplifying that soundness of inquiry, which I can
only recommend, would, in that case, have enlightened you more,
as to the principles of physical investigation, than any mere rules,
of which it is possible to point out to you the utility and the ex-
cellence. .
All physical science, whatever may be the variety of objects,
mental or material, to which it is directed, is nothing more than
the comparison of phenomena, and the discovery of their agree-
ment or disagreement, or order of succession. It is on observation.
therefore, or on consciousness, which is only another name for in-
ternal observation, that the whole of science is founded ; because
there can be no comparison, without observation of the phenome-
na compared, and no discovery of agreement or disagreement,
without comparison. So far, then, as man has observed the phe-
nomena of matter or of mind, so far, and no farther, may he infer,
with confidence, the properties of matter and of mind ; or, in the
words of the great primary aphorism of Lord Bacon, which has
been so often quoted, and so often quoted in vain, " Homo, naturae
minister et interpres, tantum facit et intelligit, quantum de naturae
ordine re vel mente observaverit ; nee amplius scit aut potest."*
What is it that we truly mean, however, when we say, that we
are about to inquire into the nature and properties of any sub-
stance ? The question is a most important one, and is far from be-
ing so simple as it may at first appear. J>om the mere misundei*-
standing of the impoi't of this question, the brightest talents of a
long succession of ages, — talents, which, with clearer views of this
single point, might have anticipated all the discoveries of our own
time, and introduced us, perhaps, to discoveries still more brilliant
and astonishing, were wasted in inquiries as barren as the Irivolous
glory which attended them, — that produced indeed much contcn-
• Nov. Org. Aph. 1.
68 ON THE NATURE OF
tion, and more pride, but produced nothing more ; and, without
giving any additional knowledge, took away from ignorance only
its humility, and its power of being instructed.
What is it that we truly have in view, or should have in view,
- when we inquire into the nature of a substance ?
The material universe, and all the separate substances which
compose it, may be considered in two lights, — either simply, as
composed of parts that co-exist, and are to our feelings continuous,
so as to form, of many separate and independent elements, one ap-
parent YV'holc ; or of parts that change their relative positions, con-
stituting, by this change of place, all the physical events of tlic
material system of the world ; and inquiry may have reference to
a substance in both, or either of those points of view. What is
this body ? may be inquired of us, when any particular body is
pointed out ; and the answer which we give will be very different
according to the particular light in which we may have viewed it,
though it must always relate to it in one or other of these two as-
pects. Let us suppose, for example, the body, concerning which
the question is put, to be a piece of glass; I select intentionally a
substance which is fomiliar to you all, and of which many of you
probably have sufficient chemical knowledge to be acquainted with
the composition. It may be asked of us, then. What is the sub-
stance termed glass ? and our answer will vary, as I have said,
with the view which we take of it. If we consider it merely as a
continuous whole^ our answer will be, that it is a compound of alka-
line and siliceous matter — meaning that particles of alkali and Hint co-
exist, and arc apparently continuous, in that mass of which avc speak.
Such is one of the answers which may be given to the ques-
tion ; and this sort of answer is one which is very commonly given
to such questions. It is, you will perceive, nothing more than the
enumeration of the constituent parts of the substance, and consid-
ers the substance, simply as it exists alone, without regard to any
other bodies that may exist around ii, or near it, and without any
allusion to change of any kind.
This sort of view, however, may be aKogether reversed ; and,
instead of thinking of the parts that exist tr>gether in the substance,
without reference to any changes, of which it is either the agent
or the subject, we may think only of such changes, without refers
ence to its constituent partt*.
PHYSICAL INQUIRY IN GENERAL. 69
In this latter point of view, we may say, in answer to the ques-
tion, as to the nature of the substance termed glass, that it is a
transparent substance, which, according to the general laws of re-
fraction, bends the light that passes through it variously, according
to the different density of the medium through which the rays
have immediately passed before arriving at it, or of the medium,
through which they are to pass after penetrating it; that it is a sub-
stance fusible at a certain temperature, not dissolved by the common
powerful acids, but soluble in a particular acid termed the Jluoric'
acid ; that, when strongly rubbed, by certain other substances, it
communicates, for a time, to various bodies, the power of attract-
ing or repelling other bodies ; and we may add to our desci-iption,
in like manner, as many other qualities as there are various sub-
stances which produce in it any change, or are in any way chang-
ed by it. In all answers of this kind, you will perceive that re-
gard is uniformly had, not to the mere substance^ concerning which
the question is put, but also to some other substance with which,
in consequence of some motion of one or other of the bodies, at
the time of the phenomenon of which we speak, it has changed its
relative position ; for, if all the objects in nature remained con-
stantly at rest, it is very evident that we could have nq notion of
any property of matter whatever. In the enumeration of the qual-
ities of glass, for example, when we speak of its properties, we
suppose it to have changed, in every case, some relative position
with the light that passes through it, the heat that melts it, i\\e flu-
oric acid that dissolves it, and the various bodies that excite in it,
or conduct from it, electricity ; and all these bodies, therefore, we
must have in view, in our enumeration, as much as the glass itself.
As there are only these two diiferent aspects in which matter
can be viewed, all physical inquiry, with respect to matter, mtisi,
as I have said, have reference to one of them ; and if we think
that we are inquiring further concerning it, our inquiry is truly
without an object, and we know not what we seek. We may con-
sider it, simply as it exists in space, or as it exists in time. Any
substance, considered as it exists in space, is the mere name which
ourselves give to the co-existence of a multitude of bodies, simi-
lar in nature, or dissimilar, in apparent continuity ; considered
as it exists in time, it is that which is affected by the prior changes
of other bodies, or which itself produces a change of some sort in
70 «N THE -NATURE OF
«ther bodies. As it exists in space, therefore, we inquire into its
composition, or, in other words, endeavour to discover what are
the elementary bodies that co-exist in the space which it occupies,
and that are all which we truly consider, when we think that we are
considering the compound as one distinct body. As it exists in time,
we inquire into its susceptibihties or its powers, or, in other words,
endeavour to trace all the series of prior and subsequent changes,
of which its presence forms an mtermediate link.
This, then, is our meaning, when we speak of inquiring into
the nature of a substance. We have one, or both of two objects
in view, the discovery of the separate bodies that co-exist in the
substance, or rather that constitute the substance, which is nothing
more than the separate bodies themselves, or the discovery of that
series of changes, of which the presence of this particular sub-
stance, in some new relative position with respect to other bodies,
forms a part ; the changes which other bodies, in consequence of
this altered relative position, occasion in if, Avith the changes which
it occasions in other bodies.
On these two different objects of physical investigation, the co-
exist?ng elements of bodies, and their successions of changes, it
may be of advantage to dwell a little more fully in elucidation of
the method which we have to pursue in our own department of
phj'sical research ; for, though it may perhaps at iirst appear to
you, that to treat of the principles of inquiry, in Iho physics of met-
ier, is to wander from the .ntellectual and moral sjjeculations which
peculiarly concern us ; it is in truth only as they are illustrative of
inquiries which we are to pursue in the physiology of the mind,
that 1 am led to make these general remarks. The principles of
phiiosoi.hic investigation are, as I have already said, common to
all the sciences. By acquiring more precise notions of the objects
of any one of them, we can scarcely fail to acquire, in some de-
gree, more precision in our notions of every other, and each sci-
ence may tlii.s be said to prolit indirectly by every additional light
(bat is thrown nj.oi. each, it is by this dilTusive tendency of ils
5pirif, almost as much as by ils own sublime truths, and the impor-
tant applications of tl.ese to general physics, that the study of ge-
ometry has been of such inestimable advantage to science. Those
precise definiliuns wi.ich in^ur.^ to rvery word the same exact sig-
nification, in the mind of every one who hears it pronounced, and
PHYSICAL INQUIRY IN GENERAL. 71
that lucid progress in the developement of truth after truth, which
gives, even to ordinary powers, almost the same facility of coat-
prehension with the highest genius, are unquestionably of the ut-
most benefit to the mathematical student, while he is prosecuting
his particular study, without any contemplation of other advanta-
ges to be reaped from them. But there can be no doubt that
they are, at the same time, preparing his mind for excellence in
other inquiries, of which he has then no conception ; that he will
ever after be less ready to employ, and be more quicksighted than
he would otherwise have been in detecting vague and indefinite
phraseology, and loose and incoherent reasoning ; and that a gen-
eral spirit of exactness and perspicuity may thus at length be dif-
fused in society, which will extend its inlluence, not to the scien-
ces merely, but, in some faint degree, also to works of elegant lit-
erature, and even to the still lighter graces of conversation itself.
"The spirit of geometrical inquiry," says Fontenelle, "is not so
exclusively attached to geometry, as to be incapable of being ap-
plied to other branches of knowledge. A work of morals, of pol-
itics, of criticism, or even of eloquence, will, if all other circum-
stances have been the same, be the more beautiful, for having
eome from the hand of a geometrician. The order, the clearness,
the precision, which, for a considerable time, have distinguished
works of excellence on every subject, have most probably had
their origin in that mathematical turn of thought, which is now
more prevalent than evei', and which gi'adually communicates it-
self even to those who are ignorant of mathematics. It often hap-
pens that a single great man gives the tone to the whole age in
which he lives ; and we must not foi-get, that the individual who
has the most legitimate claim to the glory of having introduced
and established a new art of reasoning, was an excellent geome-
ter." * The philosopher to whom this improvement of the art of
reasoning is ascribed, is evidently Descartes, whose claim is cer-
tainly much less legitimate than that of our own illustrious coun-
tryman ; but the works of Bacon were not very extensively stud-
ied on the continent, at the time at which Fontenelle wrote ; while
especially in France, the splendid reputation of the great geome-
ter, who shook, as much with his own wild hypothesis, as with the-
weight of his reasoning, the almost idolatrous worship of fho Go4
* Preface aux Eloges— fEuvres, (om. v. p. S.
72 ON THE NATURE OF
of the Schools, seemed to sweep before it the glory of every oth-
er reformer. The instance of Descartes, however, is a still more
happy one than his ingenious countryman, who was himself a Car-
tesian, could have imagined it to be. It is, indeed, impossible to
conceive a more striking example of that dilYusive influence of the
general spirit of scientific inquiry, which I wish to illustrate ; since,
in this instance, it survived the very system by which it was dif-
fused ; all that was sceptical in that mixed system of scepticism
and dogmatism which constituted the philosophy of Descartes, hav-
ing long continued, and even now continuing, to operate benefi-
cially, when scarcely a doctrine of his particular philosophy retains
its hold. , , , • i- .
You will not then, I trust, take for granted, that precise notions
as to the objects of inquiry, in any science, even in the department
ofexternal physics, can be so absolutely without benefit to our
plans of inquiry into mind, which must be pursued on the same
principles, if it be pursued with any prospect of success ; and 1
may, therefore, safely solicit your attention to a little farther elu-
cidation of the two objects which we have in view, in general
physical inquiry, whether it be relative to matter or to mind.
To inquire into the composition of a substance, is to consider
as one, many substances, which have not the less an independ-
ent existence, because they are in immediate proximity to each
other. What we term a body, however minute, is a multitude of
bodies, or to speak more exactly, an infinite number of bodies,
which appear limited to us, indeed, but may perhaps appear, m
their true character of infinity, to beings of a higl;cr order, who
may be able to distinguish as infinite, what our limited senses al-
low us to perceive only as finite. IMiey are one, not in nature,
but in our thought; as one thousand individuals, that in nature
must always be one thousand, receive a sort of unity that is rela-
tive merely to our conception, when ranked by us as a single reg-
iment, or as many regiments become one by forming together an
army. In the energies of external matter, the innumerable separ-
ate bodies are thus regarded by us as one, when the space which
divides them is not measurable by our imperfect vision, and aa
distinct or separate, when the si)ace can be measured by us. The
unity of the aggregate is here no absolute i|uality of the mass, but
is truly relative to the observer's power of distinguishing the com-
PHYSICAL INQUIRY IN GENERAL, 73'
ponent parts ; the mass being one or many, as bis senses are less
or better able to distinguish these. This whole globe of earth,
with its oceans, and rivers, and moimtains, and woods, and with
all the separate multitudes of its animated inhabitants, may seem
to some being of another species, only one continuous and uniform
mass ; as the masses, that seem to us unilorm and continuous, may
seem a whole world of separate and varied parts, to the insect
population that swarms upon its surface. "A single leaf of a tree,"
to borrow an obvious illustration from a French writer, " is a little
world inhabited by invisible animals, to whose senses it appears
of immense extent, who see in it mountains and abysses that are
almost immeasurable, and who, from one side of the leaf to the
other, hold as little communication with the opposite animalcula,
who have their dwellings there, as we do with our Antipodes."*
Nothing can appear to our eyes more uniform than a piece of
glass; yet we know, from its composition, as a product of art, that
it is a congeries of bodies, which have no similarity to each other,
and which truly exist separately from each other, in the com-
pound, as they existed separately bet'ore the composition, though
the lines of space which divide them have now ceased to be visi-
ble to our weak organs ; and though, instead of being composed
of alkaline and siliceous matter, which we know to be different
in their qualities, the beautiful transparent substance, considered
by us, were, as far as we know, simple^ in the chemical sense of
the term, it would still be as truly an aggregate of many bodies,
not dissimilar, indeed, as in the former case, but each similar in
quahties to the aggregate itself The aggregate, in short, is, in
every case, but a name invented by ourselves ; and what we term
the constituent elements, are all that truly exists. To inquire
into the composition of a body, is, therefore, onh' to inquire
what these separate bodies are which we have chosen to consid-
er as one^ or rather which are ranked by us as one, from their
apparent continuity.
I have dwelt the longer on this point of the unity of an aggre-
gate mass, as derived from the mind of the observer only, and not
from its constituent bodies, which are truly separate and independ-
ent of each other, and must always be seperate and independent,
* Fontenelle, Phiralite des Mondcs, ConveMat. 3.
10
74 on THE NATURE OF
whatever changes they may seem to undergo, in the various pro-
cesses of composition and decomposition, because this is one of the
most simple, and, at the same time, one of the most convincing
examples of a tendency of the mind, which we shall often have
occasion to remark in the course of our intellectual analysis, —
the tendency to ascribe to substances without, as if existing in
them like permanent physical qualities, the relations which our-
selves have formed, by the mere comparison of objects with ob-
jects, and which, in themselves, as relations, are nothing more
than moditications of our own mind. It is very difficult for us to
believe, that, when we speak of a rock, or a mountain, or, per-
haps, still more, when we speak of a single leaf or blade of grass
as one^ we speak of a plurality of independent substances, which
may exist apart, as they now exist together, and which have no
other unity than in our conception. It is the same with every other
species of relation. The tallness of a tree, the lowness of a shrub
or weed, as these relative terms are used by us in opposition,
do not express any real quality of the tree, or shrub, or weed, but
only the fact that our mind has considered them together ; all
which they express, is the mere comparison that is in us, not any
quality in "the external objects; and yet we can scarcely bring
ourselves to think, but that independently of this comparison,
there is some quality, in the tree, which corresponds with our no-
tion of tallness, and some opposite quality in the shrub or weed,
which corresponds with our notion of shortness or lowness ; so
that the tree would deserve the name of tall, though it were the on-
ly object in existence, and tlie shrub or weed, in like manner, the
epithet of lowly, though it alone existed, without a single object
with which it could be compared. These instances, as I have
said, are simple, but they will not be the less useful, in preparing
your minds for considering the more important natures of relation
in general, that imply, indeed, always some actual qualities in the
objects themselves, the perception of which leads us afterwards
to con.sider them as related, but no actual quality in either of the
objects that primarily and directly corresponds with the notion ol
the relation itself, as there are qualities of objects that correspond
directly with our sensations of warmth or colour, or any other ol
the sensations excited immediately by external things. The re-
lation is, in every sense of the word 7nental^ not merely as being a
PHYSICAL INQUIRY IN GENERAL. 7^
feeling of the mind, for our knowledge of the qualities of external
things is, in this sense, equally mental ; but, as having its cause
and origin directly in the very nature of the mind itself^ which can-
not regard a number of objects, without forming some comparison,
and investing them consequently with a number of relations. I
have already spoken of the intellectual medium, through which
external objects become known to us ; and the metaphor is a just
one. The medium, in this case, as truly as in the transmission of
light, communicates something of its own to that which it conveys;
and it is as impossible for us to perceive objects long or often to-
gether, without that comparison which instantly invests them with
certain relations, as it would be for us to perceive objects, for a
single moment, free from the tint of the coloured glass through
which we view them, '* Omnes perceptiones," says Lord Bacon,
using a similar figure, " omnes perceptiones, tam sensus quam men-
tis, sunt ex analogia hominis, non ex analogia universi ; estque in-
tellectus humanus instar speculi inaequalis ad radios rerum, qui
suam naturam natura; rerum immiscet, eamque distorquet et in-
ficit."
But, whatever may be thought of relations in general, there
can be no question, at least, as to the nature of that unity which
we ascribe to bodies. We have seen, that the substance, which,
in thought we regard as one^ is, in truth, not one^ but many substan-
ces, to which our thought alone gives unity ; and that all inquiry,
therefore, with respect to the nature of a substance, as it exists in
space, is an inquiry into the nature of those separate bodies, that
occupy the space which we assign to the imaginary aggregate.
To dissipate this imaginary aggregate of our own creation, and
to show us those separate bodies which occupy its space, and are
all that nature created, is the great office of the analytic art of
Chemistry^ which does for us only what the microscope does, that
enables us to see the small objects which are before us at all time?,
without our being able to distinguish them. When a chemist
tells us, that glass, which appears to us one uniform substance, is
composed of different substances, he tells us, what, with livelier
perceptive organs, we might have known, without a single exper-
iment; since the siliceous matter and the alkali were present to
us in every piece of glass, as much before he told us of their pre-
sence, as after it. The art of aaah^sis, therefore, has its origin in
76 ON THE NATURE OF
the mere imperfection of our senses, and is truly the art of the
blind, whose wants it is always striving to remedy, and always dis-
coverin<»" sufllcient proof of its inability to remedy them.
We boast, indeed, of the chemical discoveries which we have
made of late, with a rapidity of })rogres5 as brilliant, as it is unex-
ampled in the history of any other science ; and we boast justly,
because we have found, what the generations of inquirers that
have preceded us on our globe, — far from detecting, — had not
even ventured to guess. Without alUiding to the agency of the
Galvanic povuer, — by which all nature seems to be assuming before
ris a different aspect — we have seen tixed in the products of our
common tires, and in the drossy rust of metals, the purest part of
that ethereal fluid which we breathe, and the air itself, which was
so long considered as simple, ceasing to be an element. Yet
whatever unsuspected similarities and diversities of composition
we may have been able to trace in bodies, all our discoveries
have not created a single nev/ particle of matter. They have
only shown these to exist, where they always existed, as much be-
fore our analysis as after it, — unmarked indeed, but unmarked,
only because our senses alone were not capable of making the
nice discrimination. If man had been able to perceive, with his
mere organs of sense, the dilTerent particles that form together
the atmospheric air — if he had at all limes seen the portion of these
which unites with the fuel that warms him, enter into this union,
as distinctly as he sees the ma.ss of fuel itself, which he tiings into
his furnace, he could not have thought it a very great intellectual
r.chievement, to state in words so common and familiar a lact, —
(he mere well-known change of place of a few well-known parti-
cles ; and yet this is what, in tiie imperfect state of his perceptive
organs, he so proudly terms his Theory of Combustion, the devel-
opcment of which was hailed by a wondering world, and in these
rircumstances justly bailed by it, as a scientific era. To beings,
capable of perceiving and distinguishing the different particles,
that form by their aggregation, those small masses, which, after
the minutest mechanical division of which we are capable, appear
atoms to us, the pride which we feel, in our chemical analyses,
must seem -.x^ ludicrous, as to us would srem the jiride of (he blind,
if one, who had never enjoyed the opi)ortunity of beholding the
•un, were to boast of having discovered, by a nice comparison of
PHYSICAL INQUIRY IN GENERAL. 77
the changing temperature of bodies, that, during certain hours of
the day, there passed over our earth some great source of heat.
The addition of one new sense to us, who have already the inesti-
mable advantages which vision affords, might probably, in a few
hours, communicate more instruction, with respect to matter,
than all which is ever to repay and consummate the physical la-
bours of mankind, — giving, perhaps, to a single glance, those slow
revelations of nature, which, one by one, at intervals of many cen-
turies, are to immortalize the future sages of our race.
" All philosophy,"' says an acute foreign writer, " is founded
on these two things, — that we have a great deal of curiosity, and
very bad eyes. In astronom^^, for example, if our eyes were bet-
ter, we should then see distinctly, whether the stars really are,
or are not, so many suns, illuminating worlds of their own ; and if,
on the other hand, we had less curiosity, we should then care a
very little about this knowledge, which would come pretty nearly
to the same thing. But we wish to know more than we see, and
there lies the difficult3\ Even if we saw xcell the little which we
do see, this would at least be some small knowledge gained. But
we observe it different from what it is; and thus it happens, that
a true philosopher passes his life, in not believing what he sees,
and in labouring to guess what is altogether beyond his sight. I
cannot help figuring to myself,"' continues the same lively writer,
" that nature is a great public spectacle, which resembles that of
the opera. From the place at which we sit in the theatre, we do
not see the stage quite as it is. The scenes and machinery arc
arranged, so as to produce a pleasing effect at a distance ; and the
weights and pullies, on which the different movements depend,
are hid from us. We therefore do not trouble our heads with
guessing, how this mechanical part of the performance is carried
on. It is perhaps only some mechanician, concealed amid the
crowd of the pit, who racks his brain about a flight through the
air, which appears to him extraordinary, and who is seriously bent
on discovering by what means it has been executed. This me-
chanic, gazing, and wondering, and tormenting himself, in the pit
of the opera, is in a situation very like that of the philosopher in
the theatre of the world. But what augments the difficulty to the
philosopher, is, that, in ihe machinery which nature presents, the
cords are completely concealed from him, — so completely indeed,
78 •^' THE NATCRE 6F
that the constant puzzle has been to guess, what that seci*et con*
trivance is, which produces the visible motions in the frame of the
universe. Let us imagine all the sages collected at an opera, —
the Pythagorases, Platos, Aristotles, and all those great names,
which now-a-days make so much noise in our ears. Let us sup-
pose, that they see the flight of Phaeton, as he is represented
carried off by the winds ; that they cannot perceive the cords
to which he is attached ; and that they are quite ignorant of
every thing behind the scenes. It is a secret virtue, says one
of them, that carries off Phaeton. Phaeton, says another, is
composed of certain numbers, which cause him to ascend. A
third says. Phaeton has a certain affection for the top of the
stage. He does not feel at his ease, when he is not there. Phae-
ton, says a fourth, is not formed to fly ; but he likes better to Jly,
than to leave the top of the stage empty, — and a hundred other
absurdities of the kind, that might have ruined the reputation of
antiquity, if the reputation of antiquity, for wisdom could have been
ruined. At last, come Descartes, and some other moderns, who
say, Phaeton ascends, because he is drawn by cords, and because
a weight, more heavy than he, is descending as a counterpoise.
Accordingly, we now no longer believe, that a body will stir, un-
less it be drawn or impelled by some other body, or that it will
ascend, or descend, unless by the operation of some spring or
counterpoise ; and thus to see nature, such as it really is, is to see
the back of the stage at the opera."*
In this exposition of the phenomena of the universe, and of
those strange " follies of the wise," which have been gravely
propounded in the systems of philosophers concerning them, there
is much truth, as well as happy pleasantry. As far, at least, as
relates to matter, considered merely as existing in space, — the
first of the two lights in which it may be physically viewed, —
there can be no question, that philosophy is nothing more than an
endeavour to repair, by art, the badness of our eyes, that we may
be able to see what is actually before us at every moment. To
he fairly behind the scenes of the great spectacle of nature, how-
ever, is something more than this. It is not merely to know, at
any one niomciit, (hat (here are many objects existing on the
* Fonlencllc, Pluralitc dcs Mondes, Convereat. 1.
PHYSICAL INQUIRY IN GENERAL. . 79
Stage, which are invisible where the spectators sit, but to know
them as pieces of machinery, and to observe them operating in all
the wonders of the drama. It is, in short, to have that second
rievv of nature, as existing in time as well as space, to the consid-
eration of which I am to proceed in my next Lecture.
80
LECTURE VI.
THE SAIME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
In my last Lecture, Gentlemen, I considered, at some length,
the nature ol^ Physical Inquiry in general^ and stated to you, in par-
ticular, the tzi)o lights, in which objects may be physically viewed,
as existing simply in space, or as existing in lime, — the inquiries,
with respect to the one, having regard to the compo^ItioD of bod-
ies ; the inquiries, with respect to the other, having regard to the
changes, ol'which they are either the subjects or occasions, and
consequently to their susceptibilities or their powers — their sus-
ceptibilities of being affected by other substances, their powers of
atiecting other substances. 1 use the word susceptibility, you will
perceive, as, in this case, synonymous with what Mr Locke, and
some other writers, have denominated passive pozver, to avoid the
apparent verbal contradiction, or at least the ambiguity, which
may arise from annexing tlie term passive to a word, which is
generally employed to signify, not the sitbject of change, hut the
causa or occasion of change.
Of these two points of view, then, in which an object may be
regarded, when the (piestion is put. What is it? we have seen, I
hope, sufhciently distinctly, the nature of one. If, in answering
the question, we regard tiie object merely as it exists in space,
and say, that it is a compound of certain substances, we mean no-
thing more, than that, in the portion of space, which we conceive
to be occupied by tiiis one imaginary aggregate, there is truly a
plurality of bodies, which, tiiough seemingly contiguous, have an
existence, as separate and independent of each other, as if they
were at the most remote distance ; the one aggregate being no-
thing more than a name for these separate bo(nes, to which our-
selves give all the unity which tbey have, merely by considering
them as one.
ON THE NATURE OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY, ETC. 81
The necessity of inquiring into the nature of these separate
elementary bodies, — which constitutes one of the two great de-
partments of physical investigation, — we found to arise from the
imperfection of our senses, that are not sufficiently acute to dis-
cover, of themselves, the component parts of the masses, which
nature everywhere presents to us. We are thus obliged to form
to ourselves an art of analysis, merely that we may perceive what
is constantly before our eyes, in the same manner, as we are
obliged to have recourse to the contrivances of the optician, to
perceive stars and planets, that are incessantly shedding on us
their light.
There is, indeed, something truly worthy of our astonishment,
in the sort of knowledge of the qualities of matter, which, with
our very imperfect senses, we are still able to attain. What we
conceive ourselves to know is an aggregate of many bodies, of
each of which, individually, we may be said, in the strictest sense
of the term, to be absolutely ignorant ; and yet the aggregate,
which we know, has no real existence, but as that very multitude
of bodies, of which we are ignorant. When water was regarded
as a simple substance, every one who looked upon a lake or river,
conceived that he knew as well what the liquid was which flowed
in it, as the chemist, who now considers it as compound ; and the
chemist, who has learned to regard it as compound, is perhaps as
ignorant of the true nature of the separate bodies that exist in it,
as those who formerly regarded it as simple ; since one additional
discovery may prove the very elements, which he now regards as
the ultimate constituents of water, to be truly compounded of
other elements, still more minute, and now altogether unknown to
him.
That our only knowledge of matter should be of a multitude
©f bodies, of the nature of each of which, individually, we are in
absolute ignorance, may seem, at first sight, to justify many of the
most extravagant doubts of the sceptic : and yet there is really no
ground for such scepticism, since, though the coexisting bodies be
separately unk.iown, the effect, which they produce when coexist-
ing in the circumstances observed by us, is not the less certain and
definite ; and it is this joint effect of the whole, thus certain and
definite, which is the true object of our knowledge ; not the un-
certain effect, which the minuter elements might produce, if they
11
82 ON THE NATURE OF
existed alone. The same aggregates, whatever their elementary
nature may be, operate on our senses, as often as they recur, in
the same manner ; the unknown elements which constitute an oak,
or a tower, or the ivy that clings around it, exciting in the mind
those particular sensations, to the external causes of which we
continue to give the name of oak or toiiaer or ivy ; and exciting
these, as precisely and uniformly, as if we were acquainted with
each minute element of the objects without. Our knowledge of
nature must in this way, indeed, be confined to the mixed effects of
the masses which it exhibits ; but it is not on that account less
valuable, nor less sure ; for to the certainty of this limited knowl-
edge all which is necessary is uniformity of the mixed effects,
whatever their unknown coexisting causes may be. It is with
masses only, not with elements that we are concerned, in all the im-
portant purposes of life ; and the provident ivisdom of the Author
of Nature, therefore, has in this as in every other case, adapted
our powers to our necessities, — giving to all mankind the knowl-
edge, that is requisite for the purposes which all mankind must
equally have in view, and leaving to a few philosophic inquirers,
the curiosity of discovering what the substances around us truly
are in their elementary state, and the means of making contin-
ual progress, in this never-ending analysis.
Such then is the nature of one of the views, in which physical
inquiry may be directed, to the discovery of elements, that are ex-
isting together, at the same moment. But is not this species of
inquiry, it may be asked, peculiar to mutter, or may it also be ex-
tended to mind? It is easy to conceive that, if matter always
have extension, and therefore necessarily be composed of parts,
an inquiry into its composition may form an important part of physi-
cal investigation ; but this sort of inquiry will seem to you altogeth-
er inadmissible in the philosophy of mind, s'mcG the mind is not
composed of parts that coexist, but is sinii)le and indivisible. If,
indeed, the term composition, in this application of it, be under-
stood strictly in thr same sense as when applied to matter, it is
very evident, that there can be no inquiry into the composition of
thoughts and feelings, since every thought and fooling is as sim-
ple and indivisible as the mind itself; being, in (ruth, nothing
more than the mind itself existing at a certain moment in a certain
state ; and yet, in consequence of some very wonderful laws, which
PHVSICAL INQUIRY IN GENERAL. 83
regulate the successions of our mental phenomena, the science of
mind is, in all its most important respects, a science of analysis, or
at least a science which exhibits to our contemplation the same re-
sults as if it were strictly analytical ; and we inquire into the sepa-
rate ideas or other feelings, involved in one complex thought or emo-
tion, very nearly as we inquire into the corpuscular elements, that
coexist in one seemingly continuous mass. The nature of this
very wonderful application of analysis, or at least of a process
which is virtually the same as analysis, to a substance, that is nec-
essarily at all times simple and indivisible, will, however, be better
understood by you, after we liave turned our attention to the oth-
er general division of physical inquiry, which is still to be consid-
ered by us. I need not I hope, repeat, after the remarks which
I made in my last Lecture, that, in leading your thoughts, for so
long a time, to the subject of general science, I have had constantly
in view its application to the phenomena of our own department of
it, and that we are truly learning to study mind with accuracy,
when we are learning what it is, which is to be studied in the
great system of things. There can be no question at least, that
he who has erroneous notions of the objects of physical investiga-
tion in the material universe, will be very likely also to err, or
rather cannot fail to err, in his notions of the objects of physical
investigation, as it relates to mind.
I proceed, then, to consider, what it is which we truly have in
view, when we direct our inquiry, not to the mere composition of
objects existing continuously in space, but to the succession of
changes which they exhibit in time^ — to their susceptibility of be-
ing affected by other substances, or their power of affecting other
substances. The inquiry, as you must perceive, involves the con-
sideration of some words about which a peculiar mystery has been
very generally supposed to hang — causation, power, connexion of
events. But we shall perhaps find that what is supposed so pe-
culiarly mysterious in them, is not in the very simple notions
themselves, but in the misconceptions of those who have treated
of them.
It is not in this case, as in the former department of physical
investigation, the mere imperfection of our senses, that produces
the necessity of inquiry. Matter, as existing in space, is wholly
before us, and all which is necessary for perfect knowledge of it,
84 ON THE NATURE OF
in this respect, is greater delicacy of our perceptive organs, that
we may distinguish every element of the seemingly continuou3
mass. To know the mere composition of a substance, is to know
only what is actually present at the very moment, which we may
imagine senses of the highest perfction to be capable of instantly
perceiving ; but to know all the susceptibilities and powers of a
substance, the various modes in which it may affect or be affected
by every other, is to know it, not merely as it exists before us in
the particular circumstances of any one moment, but as it might
have existed, or may exist, in all possible circumstances of combi-
nation,— which our senses, that are necessarily confined to the
circumstances of the present moment, never could teach us, even
though they were able to distinguish every atom of the minutest
mas«.
If, indeed, there were any thing, in the mere appearance of a
body, which could enable us to predict the changes that would
take place in it, when brought into every possible variety of situ-
ation, with respect to other bodies, or the changes which it would
then produce in those other bodies, the two views, into which I
have divided physical inquiry, would coincide exactly ; so that to
know the continuous elements of any substance, would be to know,
at the same time, its susceptibilities and powers. But there is no-
thing, in the mere sensible qualities of bodies, considered sepa-
rately, that can give us even the slightest intimation of the
changes, which, in new circumstances- of wnton, they might re-
ciprocally suffer or produce. Who could infer, from the sim-
ilar appearance of a lump of sugar and a lump of calcareous
spar, that the one would be soluI)le in water, and the other
remain unmelted ; or, from the different aspect of gunpowder
and snow, that a spark would be extinguished, if it fell upon the
one, and, if it fell upon the other, would excite an explosion that
would be almost irrcsistable ? But for experience, we should be
altogether inrapable of predicting any such effects from cither of
the objects coni|)aro(l ; or, if we did know, that the peculiar sus-
ceptibility belonged to one of the two, and not the other, we
might as readily suppose, that calcareous spar would melt in wa-
ter as sugar, and as readily, that snow as thai gicupowder would de-
tonate, by the contact of a sj)ark. ll is experience alone, which
teaches ua that these effects ever take place, and that they take
PHYSICAL INQUIRY IN GENERAL. 85
place, not in all substances, but only in some particular sub-
stances.
It has, indeed, been supposed by many ingenious philosophers,
.that, if we were acquainted with what they term the intimate struc-
ture of bodies, we should then see, not merely what corpuscular
changes take place in them, but why these changes take place
in them ; and should thus be able to predict, before expe-
rience, the effects which they would reciprocally produce. " I
doubt not," says Locke, " but if we could discover the fig-
ure, size, texture, and motion of the minute constituent parts
of any two bodies, we should know without trial several of their
operations one upon another, as we do now the properties of a
square or a triangle. Did we know the mechanical affections of
the particles of rhubarb, hemlock, opium, and a man ; as a watch-
maker does those of a watch, whereby it performs its operations,
and of a file, which by rubbing on them will alter the figure of
any of the wheels ; we should be able to tell before-hand, that
rhubarb will purge, hemlock kill, and opium make a man sleep ;
as well as a watch-maker can, that a little piece of paper laid on
the balance will keep the watch from going, till it be removed ;
or that, some small part of it being rubbed by a file, the machine
would quite lose its motion, and the watch go no more. The dis-
solving of silver in aquafortis, and gold in aqua regia, and not vice
versa^ would be then perhaps no more diflicult to know, than it is
to a smith to understand why the turning of one key will open a
lock, and not the turning of another. But while we are destitute
of senses acute enough to discover the minute particles of bodies,
and to give us ideas of the mechanical affections, we must be con-
tent to be ignorant of their properties and ways of operation ; nor
can we be assured about them any farther, than some few trials
we make are able to reach. But whether they will succeed again
another time, we cannot be certain. This hinders our certain
knowledge of universal truths concerning natural bodies : and our
reason carries us herein very little beyond particular matter of fact.
" And therefore I am apt to doubt, that how far soever human
industry may advance useful and experimental philosophy in phys-
ical things, scientifical will still be out of our reach; because we
want perfect and adequate ideas of those very bodies which are
nearest to us, and most under our command. Those which we
86 ON THE NATURE OF
have ranked into classes under names, and we think ourselves
best acquainted with, we have but very imperfect and incomplete
ideas of. Distinct ideas of the several sorts of bodies that fall un-
der the examination of our senses perhaps we may have ; but ad;
equate ideas, I suspect, we have not of any one among them.
And though the former of these will serve us for common use and
discourse, yet while we want the latter, we are not capable of
scientifical knowledge ; nor shall ever be able to discover general,
instructive, unquestionable truths concerning them. Certainty and
demonstration are things we must not, in these matters, pretend
to. By the colour, figure, taste, and smell, and other sensible
quahties, we have as clear and distinct ideas of sage and hemlock,
as we have of a circle and a triangle ; but having no ideas of the
particular primary quahties of the minute parts of either of these
plants, nor of other bodies which we would apply them to, we
cannot tell what effects they will produce ; nor when we see those
effects, can we so much as guess, much less know, their manner of
production. Thus having no ideas of the particular mechanical
atTections of the mmute parts of bodies that are within our view
and reach, we are ignorant of their constitutions, powers, and op-
erations : and of bodies more remote we are yet more ignorant,
not knowing so much as their very outward shapes, or the sensi-
ble and grosser parts of their constitutions."*
The fallacy of the reasoning of this very eminent philosopher
consists partly, in the present case, in a sort of petiiio principii, or,
at least, a false assumption that is involved in the very phrase me-
chanical afftctlons, and in all the mechanical illustrations adduced.
If rhubarb purge, and hemlock kill, by qualities that can be said
to be mechanical, and if these qualites be permanent, there can be
no question, that to know accurately the mechanical qualities of
these substances, in relation to the human body, wotild be to know,
that rhubarb must purge, and hemlock kill, as much as to know
the mechanism of a watch would be to know, that the watch mmt
stop, if a small part of it were rubbed by a file. But the inquiry
i<; still left, whether it be thus, by the mere principles of mechan-
ical action, that rhubarb and hemlock produce their peculiar ef-
fects on the animal system, and that silver is .lissolved in aqua fortis,
and gold in aqua regia ; and, if there be no reason whatever to
• Essay concerniog Human UudcntanJing, book iv. c. 3. sec. 25, 26.
• PHYSICAL INQUIRY IN GENERAL. 87
suppose this, we must then surely admit that the prophecy would
still be beyond our power, though we were acquainted with " the
figure, size, texture, and motion, of the minute constituent parts"
of the different bodies. In the same manner, as, in the mechanical
division of a substance, we must still come to other substances ca-
pable of further division, so, though we could reduce all the chan-
ges that appear to be wrought in the great masses around us, to
the changes wrought in their minute parts, we must still come to
certain ultimate changes as inexpUcable as those which we see
at present. It is as difficult to predict, without experience, the
motion of one atom to or from another atom, as the motion of one
mass of atoms to or from another mass of atoms. That the globe
of the earth should tend towards the sun, which is at so great a
distance from it, and should thus be every moment arrested with-
in that orbit, from which, if there were no such deflecting force,
it would every moment have a tendency to escape by flying off in
a straight line, is, indeed, most wonderful. But precisely the
8ame laws which operate on the whole globe of the earth, ope-
rate on every particle of which the earth is composed, — since the
earth itself is only these separate particles under another name ;
and if it be wonderful that all of these should have a tendency
to approach the sun, it must be equally wonderful, that each mi-
nute constituent particle should tend individually, though, to use
Mr Locke's words, we were accurately acquainted with the " fig-
ure, size, texture, and motion of each." The same original mys-
tery of gravitation, then, would remain, though our senses enabled
us to discover every gravitating particle in the intimate struc-
ture of the gravitating mass. By knowing the intimate struc-
ture of bodies, we should indeed, know -xhat were their elements-
mutually affected, but not why these elements were mutually af-
fected, or were affected in one way rather than in another.
The chief error of Mr Locke, in this respect, evidently con-
sisted, as I have said, in his assumption of the very thing to be
proved, by taking for granted, that all the changes of bodies are
the effects of their immediate contact and impulse, and of a kind,
therefore, which may be termed strictly mechanical, — an assump-
tion, indeed, which harmonized with the mathemetical chemistry
and medicine of the age in which he lived, but of the justness of
which there is not the sUghtest evidence in the general phenom-
83 ON THE NATURE OF
ena, chemical and nervous, of which he speaks. If, instead of con-
fining his attention to the action of bodies in apparent contact, he
had turned his thought to the great distant agencies of nature in
the motions of the planetary world, it is scarcely possible to con-
ceive that he should not have discovered his mistake. In another
of his works, his Elements of Natural Philosophy, he has stated very
justly, as a consequence of the law of gravitation, that if the earth
were the sole body in the universe, and at rest, and the moon
were suddenly created at the same distance from the earth as at
present, the earth and the moon would instantly begin to move
towards one another in a straight hue. What knowledge of the
" figure, size, and texture,*' of the particles of the earth could have
enc'bled'its human inhabitants to predict this mstant change ? and
if the particles of gold and aqua regia, and of hemlock, rhubarb,
and opium, which, together with all the other particles of our
-lobe, would in the case supposed, instantly begin to move towards
the moon,— can thus attract and be attracted, in gravitation, with
tendencies that are independent of every mechanical affection,
what authority can there be for supposing, that the chemical and
vital agencies of the same particles must be mechanical, or that
the one set of changes could have been predicted o priori, if the
other was confessedly beyond the power of philosophic divma-
tion? . r «.
But even with regard to the mechanical affections ot matter
themselves, though all the changes which take place in nature
were truly reducible to them, we should still have ultimately the
same difficulty in attempting to predict, without experience, the
chano-es that would ensue from them. The mechanical properties
are indeed the most familiar to our thought, because they are
tho'^e which we are constantly witnessing in the great displays of
human power that are most striking to our senses. The house, the
bridge, the carriage, the vessel, every implement which we use, and
the whole wide surface of the cultivated earth, present to us, as it
were, one universal trophy of the victories of the great mechanist,
man Wo cannot look back to the time when we w(M-e ignorant of
the mechanical properties of matter; but still there was a time
when they first became known to us, and became known by experi-
ence of the motions that resulted from them. What can be simpler
than the phenomena of impulse ? That a ball m motion, when it
PHYSICAL INQUIRY" IN GENERAL, 89
meets another at rest, should force this to quit its place, appears
now to be something which it required no skill or experience to
predict ; and yet, though our faculties were, in every respect, as
vigorous as now, — if we could imagine this most common of all
phenomena to be wholly unknown to us, — what reason should
we be able to discover in the circumstances that immediately pre-
cede the shock, for inferring the effect that truly results, rather
than any other effect whatever? Were the laws of motion pre-
viously unknown, it would be in itself as presumable, that the mov-
ing ball should simply stop when it reached the other, or that it
should merely rebound from it, as that the quiescent ball should
be forced by it to quit its state of rest, and move forward in the
same direction. We know, indeed, that the effect is different, but
it is because we have witnessed it that we know it ; not because
the laws of motion, or any of the mechanical affections of matter
whatever are qualities that might be inferred independently of ob-
servation.
Experience, then, is necessary in every case, for discovering
the mutual tendencies of the elements of bodies, as much as for de-
termining the reciprocal affections of the masses. But experience
teaches us the past only, not the future, and the object of physical
inquiry is, not the mere solitary fact of a change which has taken
place,but the similar changes which will continually take place as of-
ten as the objects are again in the same circumstances, — not the phe-
nomena onh^, but the power's by which the phenomena are produced.
Why is it, then, we believe that continual similarity of the fu-
ture to the past, which constitutes, or at least is implied, in our
notion of power ? A stone tends to the earth, — a stone will always'
tend to the earth, — are not the same proposition ; nor can the first
be said to involve the second. It is not to experience, then, alone
that we must have recourse for the origin of the belief, but to some
other principle, which converts the simple facts of experience into
a general expectation, or confidence, that is afterwai'ds to be phys-
ically the guide of all our plans and actions.
This principle, since it cannot be derived from experience it-
self, which relates only to the past, must be an original principle
of our nature. There is a tendency in the very constitution of the
mind from which the expectation arises, — a tendency that, in eve-
ry thing which it adds to the mere focts of experience, may truly
12
/
90 ON THE NATURE OF
be termed inslinctive ; for though that term is commonly supposed
to imply something pecuharly mysterious, there is no more real
mystery in it than in any of the simplest successions of thought,
which are all, in like manner, the results of natural tendency of
the mind to exist in certain states, after existing in certain other
states. The belief is, a state or feeling of the mind as easily con-
ceivable as any other state of it, — a new feeling, arising in cer-
tain circumstances as uniformly as in certam other circumstances.
There arise other states or feelings of the mind, which we
never consider as mysterious ; those, for example, which we term
the sensations of sweetness or of sound. To have our nerves
of taste or hearing affected in a certain manner, is not, indeed,
to taste or to hear, but it is immediately afterwards to have
those particular sensations ; and this merely because the mind was
originally so constituted, as to exist directly in the one state after
existing in the other. To observe, in like manner, a series of an-
7 tecedents and consequents, is not, in the very feeling of the mo-
■: ment, to believe in the future similarity, but, in consequence of a
\ similar original tendency, it is immediately afterwards to believe,
tliat the same anUcedents will invariably be followed by the same
J consequents. That this belief of tlie future is a state of mind very
different from the mere perception or memory of the past, from
which it flows, is indeed true ; but what resemblance has sweet-
ness, as a sensation of »'ie mind, to the-strhrtion'of a few particles
of sugar on the tongue, — or the harmonies of music, to the vibra-
■ tion of particles of air? All which we know, in both cases, is, that
these successions regularly take place ; and in the regidar succes-
sions of nature, which could not, in one instance more than in
another, have been predicted without experience, nothing is mys-
terious, or every thing is mysterious. It is wonderful, indeed, —
for what is not wonderful ? — that any belief should arise as toa/«-
Jujie which as yet has no existence ; and which, therefore, cjuihof,
in the strict sense of the word, be an object of our knowledge.
Hut, when we consider Who it was who formed us, it would, in
truth, have been more wonderful, if the mind had been so differ-
ently constituted Uiat the belief bad not arisen; because, in that
case, the phenomena of nature, however regularly arranged,
would have been arranged in vain, and that Almighty Being, who,
by enabling us to foresee the physical events that are to arise,
PHYSICAL INQUIRY IN GENERAL. 91
has enabled us to provide for them, would have left the crea-
tures, for whom he has been so bounteously provident, to perish,
ignorant and irresolute, amid elements that seemed waiting to
obey them, — and victims of confusion, in the very midst of all
the harmonies of the universe.
Mr-ftTimeTlndeed, has attempted to show, that the belief of
the similarity of future sequences of events is reducible to the in- ,
fluence o f cust om, without the necessity of any int uitive exp ecta-
tion ; but he has completely lalled in theTeasohmg with which he /
has endeavoured to support this opinion. Custom may account for
the mere suggestion of one object by another, as a part of a train
of images, but not for that belief of future realities, which is a
very different state of mind, and which, perhaps, does not follow
every such suggestion, however frequent and habitual. The phe-
nomenon A, a stone has a thousand times fallen to the earth ; the
phenomenon B, a stone will always, in the same circumstances,
fall to the earth ; are propositions that diifer as much as the pro-
positions, A, a stone has once fallen to the earth ; B, a stone will
always fall to the earth. At whatever link of the chain we be-
gin, we must still meet with the same difficulty— ;the._crurt£Xsiou
of th£.past into„thejruture. If it be absurd to make this conver-
sion at one stage of inquiry, it is just as absurd to make it at any
other stage ; and, as far as our memory extends, there_ never was
a tjme at which_we did not make the instant conversion. — no peri-
od, however early, at which we were capable of knowing that a
stone had fallen, and yet believed that, in exactly the same cir-
cumstances, there was no reason to suppose that it would fall
again. But on this particular error of Mr Hume, the very narrow
outline, within which the present sketch is necessarily bounded,
will not permit me to enlarge. I have examined it, at considerable
length, in the third edition of the Inquiry which I liave published
on the Relation of Cause and Effect.
It is more immediately our present purpose to consider, What
it truly is which is the object of inquiry, when we examine the
physical successions of events, in whatever manner the belief of
their similarity of sequence may have arisen? Is it the mere se-
ries of regular antecedents and consequents themselves ? or. Is it
any thing more mysterious, which must be supposed to intervene
and connect them by some invisible bondage ?
92 ON THE NATURE OF
We see, in nature, one event followed by another. The fall
of a spark on gunpowder, for example, followed by the deflagra-
tion of the gunpowder; and, by a pecuUar tendency of our con-
stitution, which we must take for granted, whatever be our theo-
ry of power, we believe, that as long as all the circumstances con-
tinue the same, the sequence of events will continue the same ;
that the deflagration of gunpowder, for example, will be the in-
variable consequence of the foil of a spark on it ; — in other words,
we believe the gunpowder to be susceptible of deflagration on the
application of a spark, — and a spark to have the power of defla-
grating gunpowder.
There is nothing more, then, understood in the trains of
events, however regular, than the regular order of antecedents
and consequents which compose the train ; and between which, if
anv thing else existed, it would itself be a part of the train. All
that we mean, when we ascribe to one substance a susceptibility
of being affected by another substance, is, that a certain change
will uniformly take place in it when that other is present; — all
that we mean, in like manner when we ascribe to one substance a
power of affecting another substance, is, that, when it is present
a certain change will uniformly take place in that other substance.
Power, in short, is significant not of any thing different from the
invariable antecedent itself, but of the mere invariablcness of the
order of its appearance in reference to some invariable conse-
quent, — theJnyiw-"iftWe -ftftLoc^jJent^bei^^ a .^J?^!15*' ^^^
V invariabl e consequent ^^^l -To say, that water has the pow-
er^f dissolving salt, and to say, that salt will always melt when
water is poured upon it, are to say precisely the same thing; —
there is nothing in the one proposition, which is not exactly, and
to the same extent, enunciated in the oilier.
It would, indeed, be a very different theory of causation, if,
without taking into account the important circumstance of i^ria-
bleness, or the uniform certainty of being at all times followed by
a particular event, we were to say, that power is mere antece-
dence ; for there can be no question, that ])honomena precede
other phenomena, which we never consider as having any i)erma-
nent relation to them. They are regarded as antocedcnts, but
not invariable antecedents, and the reason of this is obvious. In-
numerable events arc constantly taking place together in the inar
PHYSICAL INQUIRY IN GENERAL. 93
mense S3\stem of the universe. There must, therefore, always be
innumerable co-existing- series, the parts of each of which, though
permanently related to each other, may have no permanent rela-
tion to the parts of the other series ; and one event of one scries,
may thus precede, not its own effect merely, which is to be its
constant and uniform attendant, in all similar circumstances, but
the events also of other co-existing series, which may never oc-
cur with it again at the same moment. There is no superstition
in believing that an eclipse may be followed by a pestilence, or an
unpleasant dream by some unforeseen calamity of the day, though
there would be much superstition in believing, that these antece-
dents and consequents had any permanent relation to each other.
In ordinary and familiar cases, at least, every one knows sufficient-
ly the distinction of what is thus casual only, and what is invaria-
ble in the order of nature. Yet it is only by losing all sight of a
distinction so very obvious, and confounding invariable with casu-
al consequences, that Dr Reid, and other eminent philosophers,
have been led into much laborious argumentation, in the confi-
dence of confuting one of the simplest and justest of metaphysical
opinions. To prove that power is more than invariable antece-
dence, they prove that it is more than casual antecedence, and
that events do not follow each other, loosely and confusedly, as if
antecedents could be invariable, which had not consequents as in-
A^ariable, or, as if an uniform series were not merely another
name for a number of uniform antecedents and consequents. A
cause is, perhaps, not that which has merely once preceded an
event ; but we give the name to that which has always been fol-
lowed by a certaiaeYeat^-i* follt)W6a~t)y~a~^eiTjriTr-ev€nt,.iuid ac-1
cording to our belief, -jsiU continue to be in future followed by that
event, as its immediate consequent7~^mH''causalit5w,"~poweT7'o'r any
other synonymous words which Ave may use, express nothing more
than this permanent relation of that which has preceded to that \
which has followed. If this invariabl eness of "^ur.rps"'""; past, '
present, and future, be not that u-fiich constitutes one event the
effect of another, Dr Reid, at least, lias not pointed out any addi-
tional circumstance which we must combine with it, in our defini-
tion of an effect, though he has shown, indeed, with mpst abun-
dant evidence, if any evidence at all were necessar}', that the an-
tecedents and consequents arc not (he same; that we use active
94 ON THE NATURE OF
and passive verbs, in diflerent senses, applying, as might well be
supposed, the one to the antecedent, the other to the consequent;
that we speak of effects and causes as if truly different, since it is
unquestionably not the same thing to follow uniformly a certain
chano-e, and to precede uniformly a certain change, and that we
never think of giving those names where we do not conceive that
there is some permanent relation. But, though these distinctions
might be allowed to have irresistible weight, in opposition to the
scepticism, if such extravagant scepticism there ever were, which
affirmed the sequences of events to be altogether casual and irreg-
ular, they are surely of no weight against that simple definition of
power, which affirms it to consist in the probability of the invari-
able sequence of some event as its immediate consequent ; since this
very regularity of the sequences, which is supposed by the defini-
tion, must, of itself, have given occasion to all those distinctions of
thought and language which Dr Reid has adduced.
That one event should invariably be followed by another event,
is indeed, it will be allowed, as every thing in nature is, most won-
derful, and can be ascribed only to the infinite source of every
thing wonderful and sublime ; the will of that divine Being, who
gave the universe its laws, and who formed these with a most be-
neficent arrangement for the happiness of his creatures, who, with-
out a belief in the uniformity of these laws, to direct their conduct,
could not have known how to preserve even their animal exist-
ence. But the uniformity of succession is surely not rendered less
wonderful, by a mere change of name. It is the same unaltered
wonder still, when we ascribe the term power to the prior of two
events, as when we ascribe to it the exactly synonymous phrase
invariableness of antecedence ; each of these terms implying nothing
more tlian that the one event cannot take place without being im-
mediately followed by the other. The permanence and uniformity
of the relation are the essential circumstances. To be that which
cannot exist, without being instantly followed by a certain event,
is to be the cause of the eveni^ as a correlative effect. It is impos-
sible for us to believe, that the invari:iblo arileredcnt is any thing
but the cause, or the cause any thing but llie invariable antece-
dent ; as it is imi)ossible for us (o believe that homo is the Latin
synonime of ma^i, and yet that man is not the English synoniinc ol
homo.
I'HYSICAL INQUIRY IN GENERAL. 95
To know the poxaers of nature, is, then, nothing more than toi
know what antecedents are and will be invariable^ followed by I y
what consequents; for this invariableness, and not any distinct ex-|
istence, is all which the shorter term power, in any case, express-
es ; and this, and this alone, is the true object of physical inquiry,
in that second point of view, in which we have considered it, as
directed to the successions of events.
Whenever, therefore, the question is put, as to any object,
What is it ? there are two answers, and only two answers, that can
be given with meaning. We may regard it as it exists m space^ and
state the elements that co-exist in it, or rather that constitute it ;
or we may regard it, as it exists in time, and state, in all the series
of changes, of which it forms an invariable part, the objects to
which it is related as antecedent or consequent.
To combine these two views of nature, as it exists in space and
time, and to know, with perfect accuracy, every element of every
aggregate, and every series of changes, of Avhich each forms, or
can form, a part, would be to know every thing which can be phys-
ically known of the universe. To extend our mere physical in-
quiry still farther into the phenomena of nature, after this perfect
knowledge, would be to suppose erroneously, that, in the com-
pounds before us, of which we know every element, there is some
element, not yet discovered, or, in the well-known successions of
events, some antecedent or consequent as yet unobserved ; or it
would be to inquire without any real object of inquiry, — a sort of
investigation, which, for two thousand years, was almost the sole
employment of the subtile and the studious, and which is lar from
having perished, with those venerable follies of the schools, at
which we know so well how to smile, even while we are imitatins'
them, perhaps, with similar errors of our own. I cannot but think,
for example, that, on this very subject of the connexion of events,
the prevalent notions and doctrines, even of very eminent philoso-
phers, are not far advanced beyond the verbal complexity of the
four causes of which Aristotle treats, the material, the formal, the
efficient, and the final ; or Plato's five causes, which Seneca, in one
of his Epistles, brietly defines the id ex quo, the id a quo, the id
quo, the id ad quod, and the id propter quod,* and though there
were no other evidence than this one subject affords, it would still,
*Epist. C.J.
90 ON THE NATURE OP
I fear, prove sufficiently, that, with all our manilest improvements
in our plans of philosophical investigation, and all the splendid dis-
coveries to which these improvements have led, we have not whol-
ly lost that great art, which, for so long a time, supphed the place
of the whole art of philosophizing — the art of inquiring assiduous-
ly, without knowiiig what we are inquiring about.
It is an art, indeed, which, there is too much reason to suppose,
will accompany philosophy, though always, it is to be hoped, in
less and less proportion, during the whole course of its progress.
There will forever be points, on which those will reason ill, who
may yet reason, with perfect accuracy, on other matters. With all
those sublime discoveries of modern times, which do us so much
honour, and with that improved art of discovery, which is still
more valuable to us than the discoveries produced by it, we must
not flatter ourselves with exemption from the errors of darker
age-=— of ages truly worthy of the name of dark, but to which we
perhaps give the name, with more readiness, because it seems to
imply, that our own is an age of light. Our real comfort, in com-
paring ourselves with the irrefragable and subtile doctors of other
times, is not that we do not sometimes reason as indefatigably ill
as they, and without knowing what we are truly reasoning about,
but that we do this much less frequently, and are continually less-
ening the number of cases, in which we reason as ill, and increas-
ing, in proportion, the number of cases, in which we reason better,
and do truly know, what objects we are seeking.
Of all the cases, however, in which it is of importance, that
the mind should have precise notions of its objects of inquiry, the
most important are those which relate to the subject at present
considered by us ; because the nature of power, in the relation
which it is impossible for us not to feel of events, as reciprocally
cITects and causes, must enter, in a great measure, into every m-
quiry which we are capable of making, as to the successive phe-
n.)mona, either of matter or of mind. It is of so much importance,
therefore, to our future inquiries, that you should know what this
universal and paramount relation is, that I have dwelt on it at
a length, which 1 fear must have already exhausted your pa-
tience; since it is a discu-'^ion, 1 mtist confess, which rcjuires con-
siderable effort of attention; and which has nothing, I mast also
confe.ss, to recommend it. but its dry utihty. 1 trust, however, that
PHYSICAL INQUIHV IN GENERAL. 97
you are too well acquainted with the nature of science, not to
know, that it is its utility which is its primary recommendation ;
and that you are too desirous of advancing in it, not to disregard
the occasional ruggedness of a road, which is far from being al-
ways rugged. It may be allowed to him, who walks only for the
pleasure of the moment, to turn away from every path, in which
he has not flowers and verdure beneath his feet, and beauty wher-
ever he looks around. But what should we have thought of the
competitor of the Olympic course, whose object was the glory of
a prize, contested by the proudest of his contemporary heroes, if,
with that illustrious reward before him, — with strength and agility
that might ensure him the possession of it, — and with all the as-
sembled multitudes of Greece to witness his triumph, he had turn-
ed away, from the contest, and the victory, because he was not to
tread on softness, and to be refreshed with fragrance, as he moved
along ! In that knowledge which awaits your studies, in the vari-
ous sciences to which your attention may be turned, you have a
much nobler prize before you ; and, therefore, I shall not hesitate
to call forth occasionally all the vigour of your attention, at the
risk of a little temporary fatigue, as often as it shall appear to me,
that, by exciting you to more than ordinary intellectual activity,
I can facilitate your acquisition of a reward, which the listless
exertions of the indolent never can obtain, and which is as truly
the prize of strenuous effort, as the Palms of the Circus or the
Course.
13
98
LECTURE VII.
ON POWER, CAUSE, AND EFFECT.
My last Lecture, Gentlemen, was chiefly employed in examin-
ing xvhat it is, which is the real object of inquiry, when we consid-
er the phenomena of nature as successive ; and we found, that,
by an original principle of our constitution, we are led, from the
mere observation of change, to believe, that, when similar circum-
stances recur, the changes, which we observed, will also recur in
the same order,— that there is hence conceived by us to be a per-
manent relation of one event, as invariably antecedent, to another
event, as invariably consequent,— and that this permanent relation
is all which constitutes pozver. It is a word, indeed, of much seem-
ling mystery ; but all which is supposed to be mysterious and per-
plexing in it vanishes, when it is regarded in its true light as only
\ short general term, expressive of invariable antecedence, or, in
other words, of that, which cannot exist in certain circumstances,
without being immediately followed by a certain definite event,
which we denominate an effect, in reference to the antecedent,
which we donominato a cause. To express, shortly, what appears
to me to he the only intelligible meaning of the three most import-
ant words in physics, immediate invariable antecedence^ iapower^ —
the immediate invariable antecedent, in any sequence, is a cause,—
the immediate invariable consequent is the correlative effect.
The object of philosophic inquiry, theD,in that second dei)artmenl
of it, which we considered with respect to the phenomena of nature
as successive, we have found not to be any thing diHerent from the
phenomena themselves, but to be those very phenomena, as preced-
ing or following, in certain regular series. Fewer is not anything
that can exist separately from a substance, but is merely the sub-
stance itself, considered in relation to another substance,— in the
ON POWER, CAUSE, AND EFFECT. 99
same manner, as what we denominate/orw, is not any thing separate
from the elementary atoms of a mass, but is merely the relation of
a number of atoms, as co-existing in apparent contact. The sculp-
tor at every stroke of his chisel, alters the form of the block of
marble on which he works, not by communicating to it any new
qualities, but merely by separating I'rom it a number of the cor-
puscles, which were formerly included by us, in our conception of
the continuous whole ; and when he has given the last delicate
touches that finish the Jupiter, or the Venus, or Apollo, the divine
form which we admire, as if it had assumed a new existence be-
neath the artist's hand, is still in itseli' unaltered^ — the same quies-
cent mass, that slumbered for ages in the quarry of which it was a
part.
Quale fuscse marmor in Africae
Solo recisum, sumere idoneum
Quoscunque vultus, seu Diana
Seu Cytlieraea magis placebit ;
Informis, ater, sub pedibus jacet,
Donee politus Phidiaca manu
FornQosa tandem destinatae
Induitur lapis era diva;.
Jam, jamque poni duritiem placens,
Et nunc ocelli, et gratia mollium
Spirat genarum, nunc labella et
Per nirium coma sparsa collum.
The form of bodies is the relation of their elements to each
other in space, — the power of bodies is their relation to each other
in time ; and both form and power, if considered separately from
the number of elementary corpuscles, and from the changes that
arise successively, are equally abstractions of the mind, and no-
thing more. In a former Lecture, I alluded to the influence of
errors with respect to the nature of abstraction, as one of the prin-
cipal causes that retard the progress of philosophy. We give a
name to some common quality of many substances ; and we then
suppose, that there is in it something real, because we have given
it a name, and strive to discover, what that is in itself, which, in
itself, has no existence. The example, which I us^d at that time,
was the very striking one, of the genera, and species, and the whole
classes of ascending and descending utyversals of the schools. 1
100 ON POWER, CAUSF,
might have found an example, as striking, in those abstractions ot
form and power, which we are now considering,— abstractions,
that have exercised an influence on philosophy, as injurious as the
whole series of universals in Porphyry's memorable tree, and one
of which, at least, still continues to exercise the same injurious in-
fluence, when the tree of Porphyry has been long disregarded,
and almost forgotten.
In the philosophy of Aristotle, /orm, which all now readily al-
low to be a mere abstraction of the mind, when considered sepa-
rately from the figured substance, was regarded as something
equally real with matter itself; and indeed, 7natter, which was sup-
posed to derive {rom form all its qualities, was rather the less im-
portant of the two. Of substantial forms, however, long so om-
nipotent, we now hear, oniy in those works which record the er-
rors of other a-es, as a part of the history of the fallible being,
man, or in those higher works of playful ridicule, which convert
our very lollies into a source of amusement, and find abundant
materials, therefore, in what was once the wisdom of the past,
Crambe, the young companion of Martinus Scribblerus, we are
told, " regretted extremely, that substantial forms, a race of harm-
less beings, which had lasted for many years, and aflorded a com-
fortable subsistence to many poor philosophers, should be now
hunted down like so many wolves, without the possibility of a re-
treat. He considered that it had gone much harder with them,
than with essences, which had retired from the schools, into the
apothecaries' shop^, where some of them bad been advanced into
the degree of quintessences. He thought there should be a retreat
for poor substantial forms among the Gentlemen Ushers at Court,
and that there were indeed substantial forms, such as forms of
Prayer and forms of Government, without wliich the things them-
selves could never long subsist.''*
'JMie subject of this pleasantry is, indeed, it must be owned, so
absurd in itself, as scarcely to require the aid of wit, to render it
ridiculous; and yet this more Uian poetic personification of the
mere figure of a body, as itself a separate unity, which appears to
us too absurd almost to be feigned as an object of philosophic belief,
even to such a mind as that of CramlM-, wa^ what, forage after age,
• Mart. Scrib. c. 7.— Pope'i Work*, Kd. 1767, v. vii. p. 58. 59.
AND EFFECT. 101
seemed to the most intelligent philosophers a complete explana-
tion of all the wonders of the universe; and substantial forms, far
from needing a retreat among Gentlemen Ushers at Court, had
their pi ice of highest honours amid Doctors and Disputants, in
every rchool and College, where, though they certainly could not
give science, they at least served the temporary purpose of render-
ing the want of it unfelt, and of giving all the dignity which science
itself could have bestowed.
The vague and obscure notions, at present attached to the words
power, cause, effect, appear to me very analagous to the notions of the
Peripatetics, and, indeed, of the greater number of the ancient phi-
losophers, With re-pect to ibrm ; and, I trust that as we have now
universallj' learned to consider form, as nothing in itself, but only
as the relation of bodies co-existing immediatelj^ in space, so pow-
er will at length be as universally considered as only the relation
which substances bear to each other in time, according as their
phenomena are immediate!}^ successive ; the invariable antecedent
being the cau^e, the invariable consequent the effect ; and the
antecedent and consequent being all that are present in any phe-
nomenon. There are, in nature, only substances ; and all the sub-
stances in nature, are every thing that truly exists in nature.
There is, therefore, no additional power, separate, or different
from the antecedent itself, more than there is form, separate oV
different from the figured mass, or any other quality, without a sub-
stance. In the beautiful experiment of the prismatic decomposition
of light, for example, the refracting power of the prism is not an_)
thing separate or separable from it, more than its weight or
transparency of colour. There are not a prism and transparency,
but there is a prism giving passage to light. In like manner,
there are not a prism, and refracting power, and coloured raj's.
but there are a prism and rays of various colours, which we have
perceived to be deflected variously from their original line of di-
rection, when they approach and quit the lens, and which we be-
lieve, will, in the same circumstances, continuall}' exhibit the
same tendency.
It is the mere regularity of the successions of events, not an}'
additional and more mysterious circumstance, which power may
be supposed to denote, that gives the whole value to our physical
knowledge. It is of importance for us to know, what antecedents
102 ON POWER, CAUSE,
truly precede what consequents ; since we can thus provide for
that future, which we are hence enabled to foresee, and can,
in a great measure, modify, and almost create, the future to our-
selves, by arranging the objects over which we have command,
in such a manner, as to form with them the antecedents, which
we know to be invariably followed by the consequents desired by
us. It is thus we are able to exercise that command over nature,
which He, who is its only real Sovereign, has designed, in the mag-
nificence of His bounty, to confer on us, together with the still
greater privilege of knowing that Omnipotence to which all our
delegated empire is so humbly subordinate. It is a command which
can be exercised by us, only as- beings, who, according to one of
the definitions that have been given of man, look both before and
behind: or, in the words of Cicero, who join and connect the fu-
ture with the present, seeing things, not in their progress merely,
but in the circumstances that precede them, and the circumstan-
ces that follow them, and being thus enabled to provide and ar-
range whatever is necessary for that life, of which the whole
course lies open before us. " Homo autem (quod rationis est
particcps, per quam consequentia cernit, causas rerum videt,
earumque progressus et quasi antecessiones non ignorat, similitudi-
nes comparat, et rebus pra^sentibus adjungit atquc annectit futuras)
facile totius vitae cursum videt, ad eamque degendam pra;parat
res neccssarias."*
That power is nothing more than the relation of one object
or event as antecedent to another object or event, though its im-
mediate and invariable consequent, may, perhaps, from the influ-
ence of former habits of thought, or rather, of former abuse of
language, at first appear to you an unwarrantable simplification ;
for, though you may never have clearly conceived, in power, any
thing more than the immediate sequence of a certain change or
event, as its uniform attendant, the mere habit of attaching to it
many phrasps of mystery, may, very naturally, lead you to con-
ceive, that, in itself, independently of these phrases, there must
be something peculiarly mysterious. But the longer you attend to
the notion, the more clearly will you perceive, that all which you
have ever understood in it, is thr inimodiale sequence of some
• Cicero dc Officiii, lib. i. c. 4.
AND EFFECT. 103
change with the certainty of the future recurrence of this effect,
as often as the antecedent itself may recur in similar circumstan-
ces. To take an example, which I have already repeatedly em-
ployed, when a spark falls upon gunpowder, and kindles it into ex-
plosion, every one ascribes to the spark the power of kindling' the
inflammable mass. But let any one ask himself, what it is which
he means by the term, and, without contenting himself with a
few phrases that signify nothing, reflect^ before he give his an-
swer, and he will find, that he means nothing more than that,
in all similar circumstances, the explosion of gunpowder will be
the immediate and uniform consequence of the application of a
spark. To take an example more immediately connected with
our own science, we all know, that as soon as any one, in the
usual circumstances of health and freedom, wills to move his
arm, the motion of his arm follows ; and we all believe, that, in
the same circumstance of health, and in the same freedom from
external restraint, the same will to move the arm, will be constant-
ly followed by the same motion. If we knew and believed nothing
more, than that this motion of the arm would uniformly follow the
will to move it, would our knowledge of this particular phenome-
non be less perfect, than at present, and should we learn any thing
new, by being told, that the will would not merely be invariably
followed by the motion of the arm, but that the will would also
have the power of moving the arm ; or would not the power of
moving the arm be precisely the same thing, as the invariable se-
quence of the motion of the arm, when the will was immediately
antecedent ?
This test of identity, as I have said in my Essay on the subject,
appears to me to be a most accurate one. When a proposition is
true, and yet communicates no additional information, it must be
of exactly the same import, as some other proposition, formerly
understood and admitted. Let us suppose ourselves, then, to know
all the antecedents and consequents in nature, and to believe, not
merely that they have once or repeatedly existed in succession,
but; that they have uniformly done so, and will continue forever
to recur in similar series, so that, but for the intervention of the
Divine will, which would be itself, in that case, anew antecedent.
it will be absolutely impossible for any one of the antecedents t«>
exist again, in similar circumstances, withpnt being instantly fol-
104 ON POWER, CAUSE,
lowed by its original consequent. If an effect be something more
than what invariably follows a particular antecedent, we might, on
the present supposition, know every invariable consequent of eve-
ry antecedent, so as to be able to predict, in their minutest circum-
stance, what events would forever follow every other event, and
yet have no conception of power or causation. We might know,
that the flame of a candle, if we hold our hand over it, would be
instantly followed by pain and burning of the hand, — that, if we
ate or drank a certain quantity, our hunger and thirst would cease :
we might even build houses for shelter, sow and plant for suste-
nance, form legislative enactments for the prevention or punish-
ment of vice, and bestow rewards for the encouragement of vir-
tue ; in short, we might do, as individuals and citizens, whatever
we do at this moment, and with exactly the same views, and yet,
(on the supposition that power is something different from that in-
variable antecedence which alone we are supposed to know,) we
might with all this unerring knowledge of the future, and undoubt-
ing confidence in the results which it was to present, have no
knowledge of a single power in nature, or of a single cause or ef-
fect. To him who had previously kindled a fire, and placed on it
a vessel full of water, with the certainty that the water, in that
situation, would speedily become hot, what additional information
would be given, by telling him that the fire had the power of boil-
ing water, that it was the cause of the boiling, and the boiling its
effect ? And, if no additional information would in this case be giv-
en, then, according to the test of this identity of propositions, be-
fore stated, to know events as invariably antecedent and conse-
(fuent, is to know tliem as causes and effects; and to know all the
powers of every substance therefore, would be only to know what
chano-es or events would, in all possible circumstances, ensu^, when
preceded by certain other changes or events. It is only by con-
founding casua/ with uniform and invariable antecedence, that pow-
vt can be conceived, to be something different from antecedence.
It certainly is something very different from the priority of a sin-
gle moment ; but it is impossible to form any conception of it what-
ever, except merely as that which is constantly followed by a cer-
tain effect.
Such is the !i'im]Ac.^ and, as it appears to mo, iho onlxj intelligi-
ble view of/Jott'8r, as discoverable in tlie successive phenomena of
AND EFFECT. ] Oj
nature. And jet, how different from this simple view is the com-
mon, or, I may ahnost say, the universal notion of the asfencics,
which are supposed to be concerned in tlie phenomena that are
the objects of philosophic inquiry. It is the detection of the pow-
ers of nature, to which such inquiry is supposed to lead, — but not
of powers, in the sense in which alone that phrase is intelligible,
as signifying the objects themselves which uniformly precede cer-
tain changes. The powers which our investigation is to detect, or
which, at least, in all the phenomena that come under our obser-
vation, we are to consider as the sole efficient, though invisible
producers of them, are conceived by us to be something far more
mysterious, — something that is no part of the antecedent, and yet
is a part of it, — or that intervenes between each antecedent and
consequent, without being itself any thing intermediate, — as if it
were possible that any thing could intervene in a series, without in-
stantly becoming itself a part of the series, — a new link in the
lengthened chain, — the consequent of the former antecedent, and
the antecedent of the former consequent.
To me, indeed, it appears so very obvious a truth, that the sub-
stances which exist in nature — the world, its living inhabitants, and
the adorable Being who created them, — are all the real existences
in nature, and that, in the various changes which occur, therefore,
there can as little be any powers or susceptibilities different from
the antecedents and consequents themselves, as there can be forms
different from the co-existing particles which constitute them, —
that to labour thus to impress this truth upon 3'our minds, seems
to me almost like an attempt to demonstrate a self-evident propo-
sition. An illusion, however, so universal, as that which supposes
the powers of nature, to be something more, than the more series
of antecedents themselves, is not rashU^, or without very full inqui-
ry, to be considered as an illusion ; and, at any rate, in the case of
a mistake, so prevalent and so important in its consequences, it
cannot be uninteresting, to inquire into the circumstances, that ap-
pear most probably to have led to it. Indeed the more false, and
the more obviously false the illusion is, the more must it deserve
our inquiry, zchnt those circumstances have been which have so
long obtained for it the assent, not of common understanding mere-
ly, but of the quick-sighted and the subtile. For a full view of ray
opinions on this subject, I must refer you to the work which I have
14
106 ON POWER, CAUS"E,
published on the Relation of Cause and Effect ; and the short ab-
stract of them which I now offer, as it would be superfluous for
those who have read and understood that work, is chiefly for the
sake of those who may not have had an opportunity of perusing:
the volume itself.
One source of the general fallacy unquestionably is that mflu-
ence of abstraction, to which I before alluded, as aided, and in a
great measure perpetuated, by the use of language, and the com-
mon unavoidable modes of grammatical construction. We speak of
the powers of a substance, of substances that have certain power
—of the figure of a body, or of bodies that have a certain figure,
in the same manner as we speak of the students of a university, or
of a house that has a great number of lodgers ; and we thus learn
to consider the power, which a substance possesses, as something
different from the substance itself, inherent in it indeed, but inher-
ent, as something that may yet subsist separately. In the ancient
philosophy, this error extended to the notions both of form and
power. In the case of form, however, we have seen, that the il-
hision, though it lasted for many ages, did at length cease, and that
no one now regards the figure of a body, as anything but the body
itself It is probable that the illusion, with respect to power, as
something different from the substance that is said to possess it,
would, in like manner, have ceased, and given place to juster
views, if it had not been for the cause, which I am next to con-
sider.
This cause is the imperfection of our senses, the same cause
which, in the other department of physics before examined by us,
—the department, that relates to matter considered merely as ex-
isting in space,— we find to give occasion to all our inquiries into
the compositions of bodies. In this department of physics, howev-
er, which relates to the successions of phenomena in time, the im-
perfection of our senses operates in a diff.Mont way. It is not that
which gives occasion to the necessity of iiupiiry ; for wc have seen,
that senses, of the utmost accuracy and delicacy, could not, of thcm-
9elve.s, and wiHiout exporieiice, have enabled us to predict any
one event, in the innumerable scries of phenomena (hat are con-
stantly taking i.iace around us. But, though senses of the nicest
discrimination could not have rendered incpiiry into the successions
of eventi superfluous, they would have saved us from much idle
AND EFFECT. 207
inquiry, and have given far greater precision, if not to our ruZe*, at
Jeast to our uniform practice, of philosophizing.
As our senses are at present constituted, they are too imper-
fect, to enable us to distinguisli ail the elements, that co-exist in
bodies, and of elements, which are themselves unknown to us, the
minute changes which take place in them, must o( course be un-
known. We are hence, from our incapacity of discovering these
elements by our imperfect senses, and imperfect analysis, incapa-
ble of distinguishing the whole series of external changes that oc-
cur in them, — the whole progressive series of antecedents and con-
sequents in a phenomenon that appears to our senses simple ; and,
since it is only between immediate antecedents and consequents,
that we suppose any permanent and invariable relation, we are
therefore constantly on the watch, to detect, in the more obvious
changes that appear to us in nature, some of those minuter ele-
mentary changes, which we suspect to intervene. These minute
invisible changes, when actually intervening, are truly what con-
nect the obvious antecedents with the obvious consequents ; and
the innumerable discoveries, which we are constantly making of
these, lead us habitually to suppose, that, amid all the visible chang-
es perceived by us, there is something latent which links them to-
gether. He who for the tirst time listens to the delightful sounds
of a violin, if he be ignorant of the theory of sound, will very nat-
urally suppose that the touch of the strings by the bow is the cause
of the melody which he hears. He learns, however, that this pri-
mary impulse would be of little effect, were it not for the vibra-
tions excited by it in the violin itself; and another discovery, still
more important, shews him that the vibration of the instrument
would be of no effect, if it were not for the elastic medium, inter-
posed, between his ear and it. It is no longer to the violin, there-
fore, that he looks, as the direct cause of the sensation of sound,
but to the vibrating air; nor will even this be long considered by
him as the cause^ if he turns his attention to the structure of the
organ of hearing. He will then trace effect after effect, through
a long series of complex and very wonderful parts, till he arrive
at the auditory nerve, and the whole mass of the brain, — in some
unknown state of which he is at length forced to rest, as the cause
or immediate antecedent, of that affection of the mind, which con-
stitutes the particular sensation. To inquire into the latent cans-
108 ON POWER, CAUSE,
es of events is thus to endeavour to observe changes which we
suppose to be actually taking place before us unobserved, very
nearly in the same manner, as to inquire into the composition of a
substance is to strive to discover the bodies that are constantly
before us, without our being able to distinguish them.
It is quite impossible, that this constant search, and frequent
detectionofcauses, before u'.iknown, thus found to intervene be-
tween all the phenomena observed by us, should not, by the influ-
ence of the common principles of our mental constitution, at length
associate, almost indissolubly, With the very notion of changes as
perceived by us, the notion of something intermediate, that as yet
lies hid from our search, and connects the parts of the series which
we at present perceive. This latent something, supposed to inter-
vene between the observed antecedent and the observed conse-
quent, being the more immediate antecedent of the change which
we observe, is of course regarded by us as the true cause of the
chan-e, while the antecedent actually observed by us, and known,
cease's, for the same reason, to be regarded as the cause, and a
cause is hence supposed by us, to be something very mysterious;
since we give the name, in our imagination, to something of the
nature of" which we must be absohitely ignorant, as we are, by
supposition, ignorant of its very existence. The parts of a series
of changes, which we truly observe, are regarded by us as little
more than si-ns of other intervening changes as yet undetected ;
and our thought is thus constantly turned from the known to the
unknown, as often as wo think of discovering a cause.
The expectation of discovering something intermediate and
unknown between all known events, it thus ai-pears, is very read-
ily convertible into the common notion of power, as a secret and
' invisible tie. Why does it do this ? or, How does it produce this
effect ? is tjie question which we are constantly disposed to put,
when we are told of any change which one substance occasions in
another; and the common answer, in all such cases, is nothing
more than the statement of some intervening object, or event, sup-
posed to be unknown to the asker, but as truly a mere antecedent
in the sequence, as the more obvious antecedent which he is sup-
nosed to know. How is it that we see objects at a distance— a
tower, for example, on the summit of a hill, on the opposite side
of a river? Because rays of light are rcllcctcd from the to^wer t»
AND EFFECT. 109
the eye. The new antecedent appears to us a very intelHgihle
reason. And why do rays of" light, that fall in confusion from ev-
ery hody, within our sphere of vision, on every point of the sur-
face of the eye, — from the wood, the rock, the bridge, the river,
as well as the tower, — give distmct impressions of all these differ-
ent objects? Because the eye is formed of such refracting power,
that the rays of light, %vhich fall confusedly on its surface, con-
verge within it, and form distinct images of the objects from which
they come, on that part of the eye which is an expansion of the
nerve of sight. Again we are told only of intervening events be-
fore unknown to us ; and again we consider the mere knowledge
of these new antecedents as a very intelligible explanation of the
event which we knew before. This constant statement of some-
ihing intermediate^ that is supposed to be unknown to us, as the
cause of the phenomena which we perceive, whenever we ask,
how or why they take place ? continually strengthens the illusion,
which leads us ta regard the powers of objects as something dil-
ferent from the perceived objects themselves; — and yet it is evi-
dent, that to state intervening changes, is on\y to state other ante-
cedents, — not any thing different from mere antecedence, — and
that whate per number of these intervening changes we may dis-
cover between the antecedent and the consequent, which we at
present know, we must at length come to some ultimate change,
which is truly and immediately antecedent to the known effect.
We may say, that an orator, when he declaims, excites the sensa-
tion of sound, because the motion of his vocal organs excites vibra-
tions in the intervening air, — that these vibrations of air are the
cause of the sound, by communicating vibration to parts of the ear,
and that the vibrations of these parts of the ear are the_Qijuse of
the sound, by affecting in a particular manner the nerve of hear-
ing, and the brain in general ; — but, when we come to the xdii-
mate affection of the sensorial organ, which immediately precedes
the sensation of the mind, it is evident, that we cannot say of it,
that it is the cause of the sound, by exciting any thing intermedi-
ate, since it then could not itself be that by which the sound was
immediately preceded. It is the cause, however ; exactly in the
same manner as all the other parts of the' sequence were caus-
es, merely by being the immediate and invariable antecedent of
the particular effect. If, in our inability of assigning any thing in-
■ JJO ON POWER. CAUSE,
termediate, we were to say, that this last affection of the sensorial
orgaa occasioned the sound, because it had the power of occasioa-
ing sound, we should say nothing more than if we said at once,
that it occasioned the sound, or, in other words, was that which
could not exist in the same circumstances without the sound as its
instant attendant.
" What is there," says Malebranche, '• which Aristotle cannot
at once propose and resolve, by his fine words of genus, species,
act, power, nature, form, faculties, qualities, causa per se, causa per
accidens ? His followers find it very difficult to comprehend that
these words signify nothing ; and that we are not more learned
than we were before, when we have heard them tell us, in their
best manner, that fire melts metals, because it has a solvent facul-
ty ; and that some unfortunate epicure, or glutton digests ill, be-
cause he has a weak digestion, or because the vis concoctrix does
not pcrtorm well its functions."'*
We see only parts of the great sequences that are taking place
in nature ; and it is on this account we seek for the causes of
what we know in the parts of the sequences that are unkno-j:n. If
our senses had originally enabled us to discriminate every element
of bodies, and consequently, all the minute changes which take
place in these, as clearly as the more obvious changes at pre-
sent perceived by us; in short, if, between two known events,
we had never discovered any thing intermediate and unknown,
forming a new antecedent of the consequent observed before, our
notion of a cause would have been very different from that myste-
rious unintelligible something which we now conceive it to be ;
and we should then, perhaps, have found as little dimcully in ad-
mitting it to be what it simply and truly is,— only another name
for the immediate invariable antecedent of any event,— as we now
find in admitting the fonn of a body, to be only another name for
the relative position of the parts that constitute it.
But,- 1 have said in my Essay,— though the powers of created
things be nothing more than their relation to certain events that
invariably attend them, is this definition consistent with the notion
which we form of the power of the Creator? or, Is not his elh-
fiency altogether different in nature, as well as in degree? The
• Recherche de U veritc, liv. iv. c. ii.— Vol. 11, p. 322.
; AND EFFECT. Ill
omnipotence of God, it must, indeed, be allowed, bears to every
created power the same relation of awful superiority, which his
infinite wisdom and goodness bear to the humble knowledge and
virtue of his creatures. But as we know his wisdom and good-
ness, only by knowing what that human wisdom and goodness
are, which, with all their imperfection, he has yet permitted to
know and adore him, — so, it is only by knowing created power,
weak and limited as it is, that we can rise to the contemplation
of his omnipotence. In contemplating it, we consider only his M»i//,
as the direct antecedent of those glorious effects which the universe
displays. The power of God is not any thing different from God ;
but is the Almighty himself, willing whatever seems to him good,
and creating or altering all things by his very will to create or al-
ter. It is enough for our devotion to trace every where the char-
acters of the Divinit}', — of provident arrangement prior to this sys-
tem of things, — and to know, therefore, that, without that divine
will as antecedent^ nothing could have been. Wherever we turn
our eyes, — to the earth — to the heavens — to the myriads of beings
that live and move around us — or to those more than myriads of
worlds, which seem themselves almost like animated inhabitants
of the infinity through which they range, — above us, beneath us,
on every side, we discover, with a certainty that admits not of
doubt, intelligence and design, that must have preceded the exist-
ence of every thing which exists. Yet, when we analyse those,
great, but obscure, ideas which rise in our mind, while we attempt
to think of the creation of things, we feel, that it is still only a se-
quence of events which we are considering, — though of events,
the magnitude of which allows us no comparison, because it
has nothing in common with those earthly changes which fall
beneath our view. We do not see any third circumstance exist-
ing intermediately, and binding, as it were, the will of the Omnip-
otent Creator to the things which are to be ; we conceive only
the diviiie will itself^ as if made visible to our imagination, and all
nature at the very moment rising around. It is evident, that in
the case of the divine agency, as well as in every other instance
of causation, the introduction of any circumstance, as a bond of clos-
er connexion, would onl}^ furnish a new phenomenon to be itself
connected ; but even though it were possible to conceive the clos-
er connexion of such a third circumstance, as is supposed to con-
112 ON POWER, CAUSE, AND EFFECT.
stitute the inexplicable efficiency between the will of the Creator
and the rise of the universe, it would diminish, indeed, but it certain-
ly cannot be supposed to elevate, the majesty of the person, and
of the scene. Our feeling of his omnipotence is not rendered
stronger by the elevation of the complicated process ; it is, on
the contrary, the immediate succession of the object to the de-
sire, which impresses the force of the omnipotence on our mind ;
and 'it is to the divine agency, therefore, that the representation
oi instant sequence seems peculiarly suited, as if it were more em-
phatically powerful. Such is the great charm of the celebrated
passage of Genesis, descriptive of the creation of light. It is from
stating nothing more than the antecedent and consequent, that the
majesUc simplicity of the description is derived. God speaki, and
it is done. We imagine nothing intermediate. In our highest
contemplation of His power, we believe only, that, when He will-
ed creation, a world arose; and that, in all future time, His will
to create cannot exist, without being followed by the instant rise
into being of whatever He may have willed; that His will to de-
stroy any thing, will be, in like manner, followed by its non-exist-
ence • and His will to vary the course of things, by miraculous
appearances. The will is the only necessary previous change ;
and that Being has almighty power, whose every will is immedi-
ately and invariably /o//ou'ec2 by the existence of its object.
113
LECTURE VIII.
ON HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY.
The observations which I have already made on poiocr, Gentle-
men, have, I hope, shown you, both what it truly is, and the
sources of that illusion, which leads us to regard it as something
more mysterious.
The principal source of this illusion, we found to be our incapac-
ity of distinguishing the minute elements of bodies, — that leads us,
in a manner, which it is unnecessary now to recapitulate, to sus-
pect constantly some intermediate and unobserved objects and
events, between the parts of sequences, which we truly observe,
and, by the influence of this habit, to transfer, at least, the notion of
power, from the antecedent which we observe, to the supposed
more direct antecedent, which we only imagine, and to consider
the causes of events as some unknown circumstances, that exist
between all the antecedents which we know, and the consequents
which we know, and connect these together in mysterious union.
The same imperfection of our senses, which, from our inca-
pacity of discovering all the minute elements, and consequently
all the minute elementary changes, in bodies, leads us to form er-
roneous notions of power and causation, has tended, in like manner,
to produce a fondness for hypotheses, which, without rendering the
observed phenomena, in any respect, more intelligible, only ren-
der them more complicated, and increase the very difficulty, which
they are supposed to diminish.
Of this tendency of the mind, which is a very injurious one to
the progress of sound philosophy, I must request your attention to
a little fuller elucidation. To know well, what hypotheses truly
are in themselves, and what it is which they contribute to the ex-
planation of phenomena, is, lam convinced, the surest of all pre-
servatives against that too ready assent, ivhich you might other-
15
114 ON HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY.
wise be disponed to give to them ; and to guard you from thc'
ready adoption of such loose conclusions, in the reasonings of
others, and from the tendency "to similar rashness of arrangement
and inference, in your own speculative inquiries, is to perform for
you the most important office that can be performed, for the reg-
ulation, both of your present studies, and of those maturer inves-
tigations, to which, 1 trust, your present studies are to lead.
* I have also endeavoured to point out to you, in what manner
we are led to believe, that we explain the sequence of two events,
by stating some intermediate event. If asked, How it is that we
hear a voice at a distance, or see a distant object? we immedi-
ately answer, Because the primary vibration of the organs oi
speech is propagated in successive vibrations through the mter-
venino- air, and because light is reflected or emitted from the dis-
tant object to the eye ; and he who hears this answer, which is
obviously nothing more than the statement of another effect, or
series of effects, that takes place before that particular effect, con-
cerning which the question is put, is perfectly satisfied, for the
time, with the acquisition which he has made, and thinks, that he
now knows, how it is, that we hear and see. To know u/ir/ a
succession of events takes place, is thus at length conceived by us,
to be the same thing, as to know some other changes, or series of
changes, which take place between them; and, with this opinion,
as to*the necessary presence of some intervening and connecting
link, it is very natural, that, when we can no longer stale or im-
agine any thing which intervenes, we should feel as if the se-
quence itself were less intelligible, though unquestionably, when
we can state some intervening circumstance, we have merely
found a new antecedent in the train of physical events, so as to
have now two antecedents and consequents, instead of one sim-
ple antecedent and consequent, and have thus only doubled our
sujjposed mystery, instead of removing it.
Since it does appear to us, however, to remove the very mys-
tery which it doubles, it is the same thing, with respect to our
general practice of philosophizing, as if it did remove it. If we
suppose the intervention of some unknown cause, in every phc-
monon wbicb we perceive, we must be equally desirous of dis-
covering that unknown cause, which we suppose to be intermedi-
ate,— and, when this is not easily discoverable, we must feel a
ON HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY. 115
■strong tendency to divine what it is, and to acquiesce, more read-
iJy than we should otherwise have done, in the certainty of what
we have only imagined, — always, of course, imagining the cause,
which seems to have most analogy to the ohserved etiect.
Such is the nature of that illusion, from which the love of hy-
potheses flows, — as seeming, by the intervention of a new antece-
dent, to render more intelligible the sequences of events that are
obviously before us. — though all which is truly done, is to double
the number of antecedents ; and, therefore, to double, instead of
removing the diihculty, that is supposed to be involved in the con-
sideration of a simple sequence of events. A stone tends to the
ground — that it should have this tendency^ in consequence of the
mere presence of the earth, appears to us most wonderful; and
we think, that it would be much less wonderful, if we could dis-
cover the presence, though it were the mere presence^ of some-
thing else. We therefore, in our mind, run over every circum-
stance analogous, to discover something which we may consider
as present, that may represent to our imagination the cause which
we seek. The eflfect of impulse, in producing motion, we know
by constant experience ; and, as the motion, which it produces, in
a particular direction, seems analogous to the motion of the stone
in its particular direction, we conceive, that the motion of a stone,
in its fall to the earth, is rendered more intellisrible. by the imag--
ined intervention of some impelling body. The circumstances,
which we observe, however, are manitestly inconsistent with the
supposition of the impulse of any ^ ery gross matter. The analo-
gies of gross matter are accordingly excluded from our thoughts,
and we suppose the impulse to proceed from some very subtle
fluid, to which we give the name of ether^ or any other name,
which we may choose to invent tor it. The hypothesis is found-
ed, you will observe, on the mere analogy of another spe-
cies of motion, and which would account for gravitation b}' the
impulse of some line fluid. It is evident, that there may be, in
this way, as many hypotheses to explain a single fact, as there
have been circumstances analogous observed in all the various
phenomena of nature. Accordingly, another set of philosophers,
instead of explaining gravitation by the analogy of impuhe, have
had recourse to another analogy, still more intimately lamiliar to
us — that of the phenomena of life. We are able to move our
H6 OR HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY.
limbs by our mere volition. The mind, therefore, it is evident,
can produce motion in matter; audit is hence some interposed
spiritual agent, which produces all the phenomena of gravitation.
Every orb, in its revolution on its axis, or in its great journey
through the heavens, has, according to this system of philosophi-
cal mythology, some peculiar genius, or directing spirit, that reg-
ulates its course, in the same manner as, of old, the universe it-
self was considered as one enormous animal, performing its vari-
ous movements by its own vital energies. It is the influence of
this analogy of our own muscular motions, as obedient to our vo-
lition,— together with the mistaken beUef of adding greater hon-
our to the divine Omnipotent,— which has led a very large class
of philosophers to ascribe every change in the universe, material
or intellectual, not to the original /or.^5%/i( and arrangement mere-
ly,— the irresistible evidence of which even the impiety, that
professes to question it, must secretly admit,— but to the direct op-
eration of the Creator and Sovereign of the world,—
" The mijhty Hand,
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres,
Works in the secret deep ; shoots streaming thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring ;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day ;
Feeds every creature ; hurls the tempest forth ;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life."
So prone is the mind to complicate every phenomenon, by the
insertion of imagined causes, in the simple sequences of physical
events, that one hypothesis may often be said to involve in it
many other hvpothcsos, invented for the explanation of that very
phcnomenoM,'which is adduced in explanation of another phenom-
enon, as simple as itself. The production of muscular motion by
the will, which is the source of the hypothesis of direct spiritual
agency, in every production of motion, or change, in the universe,
has itself given occasion to innumerable speculations of this kind.
Indeed, on no subject has the imagination been more fruitful of
fancies, that have been strangely given to the world under the
name of philosophy. Though you cannot be supposed to be ac-
quainted with the minute nomrndature of anatomy, you yet all
know, that there are parts termed muscles, and other parts term-
ON HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY. 117
ed nerves, and that it is by the contraction of our muscles that our
limbs are moved. The nerves, distributing to the different mus-
cles, are evidently instrumental to their contraction ; since the
destruction of the nerve puts an end to the voluntary contraction
of the muscle, and consequently to the apparent motion of the
limb. But what is the influence that is propagated along the
nerve, and in what manner is it propagated ? For explaining this
most familiar of all phenomena, there is scarcely any class of phe-
nomena in nature, to the analogy of which recourse has not been
had, — the vibration of musical chords, — the coiling or uncoiling
of springs, — the motion of elastic fluids, electricity, magnetism,
galvanism ; — and the result of so many hypotheses, — after all the
labour of striving to adapt them to the phenomena, and the still
greater labour of striving to prove them exactly adapted, when
they were far from being so — has been the return to the simple
fact, that muscular motion follows a certain state of the nerve ; —
in the same manner, as the result of all the similar labour, that
has been employed to account, as it has been termed, for gravita-
tion, has been a return to the simple fact, that, at all visible dis-
tances observed, the bodies in nature tend toward each other.
The mere sequence of one event after another event, is, how-
ever, too easily conceived, and has too Httle in it of that compli-
cation, which at once busies and delights us, to allow the mind to
rest in it long. It must forever have something to disentangle,
and, therefore, something which is perplexed ; for, such is the
strange nature of man, that the simplicity of truth, which might
seem to be its essential charm, — and which renders it doubly
valuable, in relation to the weakness of his faculties, — is the very
circumstance that renders it least attractive to him ; and though,
in his analysis of every thing that is compound in matter, or in-
volved in thought, he constantly flatters himself, that it is this very
simplicity, which he loves and seeks, he yet, when he arrives at
absolute simplicity, feels an equal tendency to turn away from it,
and gladly prefers to it any thing that is more mysterious, merely
because it is mysterious. " I am persuaded," said one, who knew
our nature well, " that, if the majority of mankind could be made
to see the order of the universe, such as it is, as they would not
remark in it any virtues attached to certain numbers, nor any
properties inherent in certain planet*, nor fatalities, in certain
11$ ON HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY.
times and revolutions of these, they Avould not be able to re-
strain themselves, on the sight of this admirable regularity and
beauty, from crying out with astonishment, What, is this all ?"
For the fidelity of this picture, in which Fontenelle has so
justly represented one of the common weaknesses of our intellec-
tual nature, we unfortunately need not refer to the majority of
mankind alone, to whom, it may be said, almost with equal truth,
that every thing is wonderful, and that nothing is wonderful.
The feeling which it describes exists even in the most philosophic
mind, and had certainly no increased influence even on that mind
which described it so truly, when it employed all its great powers,
in still striving to support the cumbrous system of the Vortices,
against the simple theory of attraction. Even Newton himself,
whose transcendent intellect was so well fitted to perceive the
sublimity, which simplification adds to every thing that is truly
great in itself, yet, showed, by his query with respect to the agen-
cv of ether, that he was not absolutely exempt from that human
infirmity of which I speak ; and though philosophers may now
be considered as almost unanimous with respect to gravitation, —
in considering it as the mere tendency of bodies towards each
other, we yet, in admiring this tendency which we perceive, feel
some reluctance to admit a mere fact, that presents itself so sim-
ply to our conception, and would be better pleased, if any other
mode could be pointed out, by which, with some decent appear-
ance of reason on its side, the same effect could seem to be
brought about, by a natural apparatus, bettor suited to gratify
our passion for the complicated and the wonderful. Though the
theory of Vortices can scarcely be said now to have any lingering
defender left, there is a constant tendency, and a tendency which
requires all our philosophy to repress it,— to relapse into the sup-
position of a great etherial fluid, by the immense ocean, or im-
mense streams, of which the phenomenon now asserted to gravi-
tate, may be explained, and we have no objection, to fill the
whole houndless void of the universe, wiili an infinite profusion of
this invisible matter, merely that we ;iiay think, with more com-
fort, that we know how n feather fails to the ground ;— though the
fall of the feather, after this magnificent cast of contrivance,
would still be as truly inexplicable as at present ; and though
many other dillicultics must, in that case, be admitted in addition.
ON HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY. 119
It is only in geometry, that we readily allow a straight line, to be
the shortest that can be drawn between any two points. In the
ph3'^sics of mind, or of matter, we are far from allowing this. We
prefer to it almost any curve that is presented to us by others, —
and, without all doubt, any curve which we have described our-
selves ; and we boldly maintain, and, which is yet more fairly be-
lieve, that we have found out a shorter road., merely because, in
our philosophical peregrination, we have chosen to journey many
miles about, and in our delight of gazing on new objects, have
never thought of measuring the ground which we have trod.
I am aware, indeed, that, in the consideration of the simple
antecedents, and consequents which nature exhibits, it is not the
mere complication of these, by the introduction of new interven-
ing substances or events, which obtains from the mind so ready an
adoption of hypotheses. On the contrary, there is a sort of false
simplification in the introduction of hypotheses, which itself aids
the illusion of the mystery. I term the simplification /t//je, be-
cause it is not in the phenomena themselves, but in our mode of
conceiving them. It is certainly far more simple, in nature, that
bodies should have a tendency toward each other, than that there
should be oceans of a subtle fluid, circulating around them, in vor-
tices, — or streams of such a fluid, projected continually on them
from some unknown source, merely to produce the same exact mo-
tions, which would be the result of the reciprocal tendency in the
bodies themselves. But the interposition of all this immensity of
matter, to account for the fall of a feather or rain-drop, cumbrous
as the contrivance must be allowed to be, is yet in one respect, more
simple to our conception, because, instead of two classes of phe-
nomena, those of gravitation and of impulse, we have, in referring
all to impulse, only one general class. Man loves what is simple
much, but he loves what is mysterious more ; and a mighty ocean
of ether, operating invisibly in all the visible phenomena of the
universe, has thus a sort of double charm, by uniting the false sim-
plification, of which I have spoken, with abundance of real myste-
ry. This mixture of the simple and the mysterious, is, in some
measure, like the mixture of uniformity with diversity, that is so
delightful in works of art. However pleasing objects may separ-
ately be, we are soon wearied with wandering over them, when,
from their extreme irregularity, we cannot group them in any dis-
J20 ON HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY.
tinct assemblage, or discover some slight relation of parts to the
whole ; and we are still sooner, and more painfully fatigued, when
every object which we see is in exact symmetry with some other
object. In like manner, the mind would be perplexed and oppress-
ed, if it were to conceive a great multitude of objects or circum-
stances, concurring in the production of one observed event. But
it feels a sort of dissatisfaction also, when the sequences of events
which it observes, are reduced to the mere antecedents and con-
sequents of which they consist, and must have a little more com-
plication to flatter it with the beUef, that it has learned something
which it is important to have learned. To know that a withered
leaf Iklls to the ground, is to know, what the very vulgar know,
as well as ourselves ; but an ocean of ether, whirling it downward,
is something of which the vulgar have no conception, and gives a
kind of mysterious magnificence to a very simple event, which
makes us think, that our knowledge is greater, because we have
given, in our imagination, a sort of cumbrous magnitude to the
phenomenon itself.
That hypotheses, in that wide sense of the word which im-
plies every thing conjectural, are without use in philosophy, it
would be absurd to affirm, since every inquiry may, in that wide
sense, be said to pre-suppose them, and must always pre-suppose
them'if the inquiry have any object. They are of use, however,
not as superseding investigation, but as directing investigation to
certain objects,— not as telling us, what we are to believe, but as
pointing out to us what we are to endeavour to ascertain. An hy-
pothesi'^, in this view of it, is nothing more than a reason for mak-
ing one experiment or observation rather than another; and it is
evident, that, without some reason of this kind, as experiment and
observations are almost infinite, inquiry would be altogether profit-
Jess. To make experiments, at random, is not lo philosophize; it
becomes philosophy, only when the experiments are made with
a certain view ; and to make them, with any particular view, is
to suppose the presence of something, the operation of which
they wHI tend cither to prove or disprove. When Torricelli, for
f.^ample.— proceeding on the observation previously made, by
Galileo, with respect to the limited height lo which water could
1,P made to ri-e in a pump,— that memorable observation, which
demonstrated, at last, after so many ages of errors, what ought
ON HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY. i'Sl
not for a single moment to have required to be demonstrated ; the
absurdity of the horror of a void ascribed to nature — when, pro-
ceedmg in this memorable observation, Torricelli made his equal-
ly memorable experiment with respect to the height of the column
of mercur}'^ supported in an inverted tube, and found, on compar-
ison of their specific gravities, the columns of mercury and water
to be exactly equiponderant, it is evident that he was led to the
experiment with the mercury by the supposition, that the rise of
fluids in vacuo was occasioned by some counterpressure, exactly
equal to the weight supported, and that the column of mercury,
therefore should be less in height than the column of water, in the
exact inverse ratio of their specific gravities, by which the counter-
pressure was to be sustained. To conceive the air, which was
then universally regarded as essentially light, to be not light
but heavy, so as to press on the fluid beneath, was, at that time,
to make as bold a supposition as could be made. It Avas indeed,
a temporary hypothesis, even when it led to that experimental
demonstration of the fact, which proved it forever after not to be
hypothetical.
An hypothesis, then, in the first stage of inquiry, far from be-
ing inconsistent with sound philosophy, may be said to be essential
to it. But it is essentia! only in this first stage, as suggesting what
is afterwards to be verified or disproved ; and, when the experi-
ments or observations to which it directs us do not verify it, it is
no longer to be entertained, even as an hypothesis. If we observe
a phenomenon, which we never have observed before, it is abso-
lutely impossible for us, not to think of the analogous cases which
we may have seen ; since they are suggested by a principal of as-
sociation, which is as truly a part of our constitution, as the
senses with which we perceived the phenomenon itself; and, if
any of these analogies strike us as remarkably coincident, it is
equally impossible for us not to imagine, that the cause, which we
knew in that former instance, may also be present in this analogi-
cal instance, and that they may, therefore, both be reduced to the
same class. To stop here, and, from this mere analogy, to infer
positive identity of the causes, and to follow out the possible con-
sequences in innumerable applications, would be to do, as many
great artists in systematizing have done. What a philosopher, of
sounder views, however, would do in such a case, is very diflar-
16
J2$2 ON HVPOTHESIS AND THEORV.
enl. He would assume, indeed, as possible or perhaps as probable,
the existence of the supposed cause. But he would assume it, only
to direct his examination of its reality, by investigating, as far as
be was able, from past experience, what the circumstances would
have been, in every respect, if the cause supposed had been actu-
ally present ; and, even if these were all found to be exactly coinci-
dent, though he would think the presence of the cause more
probable, he would be very far from considering it as certain, and
would still endeavour to lessen the chances of fallacy, by watch-
ing the circumstances, should they again recur, and varying them,
by experiment, in every possible way.
This patience and caution, however, essential as they are to
just philosophizing, require, it must be confessed, no slight efforts
of self-denial, but of a self-denial which is as necessary tomtellect-
ual excellence as the various moral species of self-denial are to
excellence and virtue.
"Mr Locke, I think," says Dr Reid, "mentions an emment
musician, who belived that God created the world in six days, and
rented the seventh, because there are but seven notes in music. I
myself," he continues, " knew one of that profession, who thought
that there could be only three parts in harmony, to wit, bass, ten-
or, and treble ; because there are but three persons in the Trm-
itv."* '
The minds that could be satisfied with analogies so very slight,
must, indeed, have been little acquainted with the principles oi
philosophic inquiry; and yet how many systems have been ad-
vanced in different ages, admired by multitudes, who knew Ihom
only by name, and still more revered by the philosophers, who
gloried in adopting them, that have been founded on analogies al-
most as slight.
" The philosophers who form hypothetical systems ot the
universe, and of all its most secret laws," says Voltaire, m one ol
his lively similes, "are Ukc our travellers that go to Constantino-
ple, and think that they must tell us a great deal about the serag-
lio They pretend to know every thing which passes w.thm it-
Ihe whole secret history of the Sultan and bib favourites, aiul they
have seen nothing but its outride walls."
* On the Powers of the llumau Mind, Essay vi. Chap. viii. Vol. II. p. 334.
ttvo. edit.
ON HYl'OTHKSIS AND THEORY. 123
In one respect, however, philosophers, in their hypothetical
systems, far outdo the travellers to Constantinople. They not
merely tell us secrets of nature, which they have no opportunity
of learning-, but they believe the very tales of their own fancy.
To see any usual phenomenon, is, indeed, to wonder at it, at first ;
but to explain it, is almost the very next step, reason serving rath-
er to defend the explanation, when it is made, than to assist great-
ly in making it ; and, in many cases, each philosopher has his sep-
arate explanation, on which he is disposed to put as much reliance,
as on the certainty of the fact itself, not abandoning the hypothe-
sis, even though the fact should prov^e to have been different, but
making it bend, with a happy pliability, to all the diversities dis-
covered, so as at last, perhaps, to account for circumstances the
very reverse of those which it was originally invented to explain.
" I have heard," says Condillac, " of a philosopher, who had the
happiness of thinking that he had discovered a principle, which
was to explain all the wonderful phenomena of chemistry ; and
who, in the ardour of his self-congratulation, hastened to commu-
nicate his discovery to a skilful chemist. The chemist had the
kindness to listen to him, and then calmly told him, that there was
but one unfortunate circumstance for his discovery, which was, that
the chemical /acis were exactly the reverse of what he had sup-
posed. Well then, said the philosopher, have the goodness to tell
me what they are, that I may explain them by my system." * To
those who know that fondness for conjecture, which may almost be
said to be a sort of intellectual appetite, there is nothing in all the
wonders which Swift tells us of his fabled Houynhnhms, that marks
them more strongly as a different race from mankind, than the to-
tal absence of hypothesis from their systems of knowledge.
" I remember," says Gulliver, " it was with extreme difJiculty
that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the
word opinion^ or how a point could be disputable ; because reason
taught us to affirm or deny only when we are certain ; and beyond
our knowledge we cannot do either. So that controversies, wrang-
lings, disputes, and positiveness, in false or dubious propositions,
are evils unknown among the Houynhnhms. In the like manner,
when I used to explain to him our several systems of Natural
Philosophy, he would laugh, that a creature pretending to reason,
* Traite des Sjstemes, chap. xii. Vol. 11. p. 372.
124 ON HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY.
should value itself upon the knowledge of other people's conjec-
tures, and m things, Avhere that knowledge, if it were certain,
could be of no use. Wherein he agreed entirely with the senti-
ment? of Socrates, as Plato delivers them, which I mention as the
higiiest honour I can do that Pnnce of philosophers. I have often
since reflected what destruction such a doctrine would make in the
libraries of Europe, and how many paths to fame would be then
shut up in the learned world.-'*
While 1 wish to caution you against a fondness for hypotheses,
by shewing you, not merely that they are hable to error,— for in-
quiry, of every kind, must be so in some degree,— but that, in
truth, they leave the real difficulty of the succes .on of the ob-
served consequents to the observed antecedents as great as before,
and only add, to the supposed difficulty of explaining one sequence,
the necessity of explaining a sequence additinv.a!, — 1 must remark,
at the same time, that wia' is commonly termed theory, in opposi-
tion to hypothesis, is far Irom^ being so different from it as is com-
monly represented,— at least, in the very wide application which
is usually made of it. We are told, by those who lay down rules
of philosophizing, that the object of philosophy is, to observe par-
. ticulars, and, from these, 'o Irame general iaws, which may, again,
be applied to the explanation of particulars ; and the view which
is thus given of the real province of philosophy is undoubtedly a
just one ;— but there is an ambiguity in the language which may
deceive you, and with respect to which, therefore, it is necessary
for you to be on your guard. If, by the term general /a-^', be
meant the agreement in some common circumstances of a number
of eve s observed, there can be no question that we proceed safe-
ly in framing it, and that wliat we have already found in a numi)or
of events, m^ust be applicabh' to that number of events; in the
same manner, as, after combining in the term animal the circum-
stances in which a dog, a horse, a sheep agree, we cannot err in
applying the term animal to a dog, a horse, a sheep. But the only
particular to which, in this case, we can, with perfect confidence,
apply a general law, are the very particulars that have been be-
fore observed by u'^. If it be understood as more general than the
circumstances observed, and, therefore, capable of being applied
with perfect certainty to the explanation of new phenomena, we
• Travel., Part iv, chap. 8. Swift's Works, edit. Nicholi-, Vol. ix. p. 300.
ON HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY. 125
evidently, to the extent in which the general law is applied be-
yond the circumstances observed, proceed on mere supposition, as
truly, as in any hypothesis which we could have framed ; and
though the supposition may be more and more certain, in propor-
tion to the number of cases thus generalized, and the absence of
any circumstance which can be supposed, in the new case, to be
inconsistent with it, it never can amount to actual certainty. Let
us take, for example, one of the most striking cases of this sort.
That bodies tend to each other, in all circumstances, with a force
increasing directly as their quantities, and inversely as the squares
of their distances, may seem in the highest degree probable in-
deed, from the innumerable facts observed on our globe, and in
the magnificent extent of the planetary movements ; but it cannot
be said to be certain at all distances, in which we have never had
an opportunity of making observations, — as it seems to be verified
in the heights of our atmosphere, and in the distances of the plan-
ets, in their orbits, from the sun, and from each other. It is not
necessary, however, to refer, for possible exceptions, to spaces
that are beyond our observation; since, on the surface of our own
earth, there is abundant evidence, that the law does not hold uni-
versally. Every quiescent mass that is capable of greater com-
pression, and of which the particles, therefore, before that com-
pression, are not in absolute contact, shews sufficiently, that the
principle of attraction, which, of itself, would have brought them
into actual contact, must have ceased to operate, while there was
still a space between the particles that would have allowed its free
operation ; and, in the phenomena of elasticity., and impulse in gen-
eral, it has not merely ceased, but is actually reversed, — the bodies
which, at all visible distances, exhibited a reciprocal attraction^
now exhibiting a reciprocal repulsion., in consequence of which
they mutually tly off, as readily as they before approached, — that
is to say, the tendency of bodies to each other being converted
into a tendency yror/i each other, by a mere change of distance, so
slight as to be almost inappreciable. When a ball rebounds from
the earth, toward which it moved rapidly before, and the gravitat-
ing tendency is thus evidently reversed, without the intervention
of any foreign force, what eye, though it be aided by all the nicest
apparatus of optical art, can discover the lines which separate
those infinitesinial differences of proximity, at which the particio*
12S ON HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY.
of the ball still continue to gravitate toward the earth, and are af-
terwards driven from it in an opposite direction ; — yet the phe-
nomenon itself is a sufficient proof, that in these spaces, which
seem, to our organs of sense, so completely the same, that it is ab-
solutely impossible for us to distinguish them, the reciprocal ten-
dencies of the particles of the ball and of the earth are as truly op-
posite, as if the laws of gravitation had, at the moment at which
the rebound begins, been reversed through the whole system of
the universe.
It is, indeed, scarcely possible to imagine a more striking proof
of the danger of extending, with too great certaint}^, a general law,
than this instant conversion of attraction into repulsion^ without the
addition of any new bodies, without any change in the nature of
the bodies themselves, and a change of their circumstances so very
slight, as to be absolutely indistinguishable, but for the opposite
motions that result from it, with a change of their circumstances.
After observing tlve gravity of bodies, at all heights of our atmos-
phere, and extending our survey through the wide spaces of our
solar system, — computing the tendency of the planets to the sun,
and their disturbing forces, as they operate on each other, — and
finding the resulting motions exactly to correspond with those
which we had predicted by theory ; — in these circumstances, after
an examination so extensive, if we had affirmed, as an universal
law of matter, that, at all distances, bodies tend toward each other,
we should have considered the wideness of the induction, as justi-
fying the affirmation ; and yet, even in this case, we find, on the
surface of our earth, in the mutual shocks of bodies, and in their
very rest, sufficient evidence, that, in making the universal affir-
mation, we should have reasoned falsely. There is no theory,
then, which, if applied to the explan;ition of new phenomena, is
not, to a certain degree, conjectural ; because it must proceed on
the supposition, that what was true in certain circumstances, is
true also in circumstances that have not been observed. It admits
of certainty, only when it is applied to the very substancpi. observ-
ed, — in the very circumstances observed, — in which case, it may
be strictly said to be nothing more than the application of a gen-
eral term to tiie particular.'^, which we have before agreed to com-
prehend in it. Whatever is mere than this is truly hypothetical,—
the difference being, that we commonly give the name oi' kypothe-
ON HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY. 127
^is to cases, in which we suppose the intervention of some sub-
stance, of the existence of which, as present in the phenomenon,
we have no direct proof, or of some additional quaUty of a sub-
stance before unobserved, — and the name of Iheory to cases, which
do not suppose the existence of any substance, that is not actually
observed, or of any quality that has not been actually observed,
but merely the continuance, in certain new circumstances, of ten-
dencies observed in other circumstances. Thus, if a planet were
discovered revolving in the space which separates the orbits of
any two planets at present known, were we to suppose of matter,
in this new situation, that it would be subject to the same exact
law of gravitation, to which the other planets were known to be
subject, and to predict its place in the heavens, at any time, ac-
cording to this law, we should be said to form a theory of its mo-
tions ; as we should not take for granted, any new quality of a sub-
stance, or the existence of any substance, which was not evidently
present, but only of tendencies observed before in other circum-
stances, — analogous indeed, but not absolutely the same. We
should be said to form an hypothesis on the subject, if, making the
same prediction, as to its motions, and place in the heavens, at any
given time, we were to ascribe the centripetal tendency, which
confines it within its orbit, to the impulse of ether, or to any other
mechanical cause. The terms, however, I must confess, though
the distinction which I have now stated would be, in all cases, a
very convenient one, are used very loosely, not in conversation
merely, but in the writings of philosophers, — an hypothesis often
meaning nothing more than a theory, to which we have not given
our assent, — and a theory, an hypothesis which we have adopted-
or still more, one which we have formed ourselves.
A theory, then, even in that best sense, to which I wish it ac-
curately confined, as often as it ventures a single hair-breadth be-
yond the line of lormer observation, maybe wrong, as an hypoth-
esis may be wrong. But, in a theory, in this sense of it, there are
both less risk of error, and less extensive evil from error, than in
an hypothesis. There is less risk of error, because we speak on-
ly of the properties of bodies, that must be allowed actually to ex-
ist ; and the evil of error is, for the same reason, less extensive,
since it must be confined to this single point ; whereas, if we were
to imagine falsely the presence of some third substance, our sup-
128 ON HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY.
position might involve as many errors, as that suhstance has quali-
ties ; since we should be led to suppose, and expect, some or all
of the other consequences, which usually attend it, when really
present.
The practical conclusion to be drawn from all this very long
discussion, is, that we should use hypotheses to suggest and direct
inquiry, not to terminate or supersede it ; and that, in theorizing, —
as the chance of error, in the application of a general law, dimin-
ishes, in proportion to the number of analogous cases, in which it
is observed to hold, — we should not form any general proposition,
till after as wide an induction, as it is possible for us to make ;
and, in the subsequent application of it to particulars, should never
content ourselves, in any new circumstances, with the mere prob-
ability, however high, which this application of it affords ; while
it is* possible for us to verify, or disprove it, by actual experiment.
129
LECTURE IX.
RECAPITULATION OF THE FOUR PRECEDING LECTURES ; AND
APPLICATION OF THE LAWS OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY TO THE
STUDY OF I\nND, CO.^LMENCED.
For several Lectures, Gentlemen, we have been employed
in considering the objects that are to be had in view, in Physical
Inquiry in g-eneral, a clear conception of which seems to me as
essential to the Philosophy of Mind, as to the Philosophy of Mat-
ter. I should now proceed to apply these general remarks more
particularly to our own science ; but, before doing this, it may be
of advantage to retrace slightly our steps in the progress already
made.
All inquiry, with respect to the various substances in nature,
we have seen, must regard them as they exist in space^ or as they
exist in time, — the inquir3% in the one case, being into their com-
position ; the inquiry, in the other case, into the changes which
they exhibit. The first of these views we found to be very simple,
having, for its object, only the discovery of what is actually before
us at the moment, — which, therefore, if we had been, endowed
with senses of greater delicacy and acuteness, we might have
known, without any inquiry whatever. It is the investigation of
the elements, or separate bodies, that exist together, in the sub-
stances which we considered, or rather that constitute the sub-
.etances which we considered, by occupying the space which we
assign to the one imaginary aggregate, and are regarded by us as
one substance, — not from any absolute unity which they have in
nature, since the elementary atoms, however continuous or near,
have an existence as truly separate and independent, as if they
had been created at the distance of worlds, — l)ut from a unity,
that is relative only to our incapacity of distinguishing them as
17
130 RECAPITULATION OF THE
separate. It is to the imperfection of our senses, then, that this
first division of Physical Inquiry owes its origin; and its most com-
plete results could enable us to discover only, what has been be-
fore our eyes from the moment of our birth.
The second divi;;ion of inquiry, — that which relates to the
successions of phenomena in time,— we found, however, to have
a different origin ; since the utmost perfection of our mere senses
could show us only what is, at the moment of perception, not
what has been, nor what will be ; and there is nothing in any qual-
ities of bodies perceived by us, which, without experience, could
enable us to predict the changes that are to occur in them. The
foundation of all inquiry, with respect to phenomena as successive,^
we found to be that most important law, or original tendency, of
our nature, in consequence of which we not merely perceive the
changes exhibited to us at one particular moment, but from this
perception, are led irresistibly to believe, that similar changes
have constantly taken place, in all similar circumstance.^, and will
constantly take place, as often as the future circumstances shall
be exactly similar to the present. We hence consider events, not
as casually antecedent and consequent, but as invariably antece-
dent and consequent,— or, in other words, as causes and effects;
and we give the name of poiver to this permanent relation of the
invariable antecedent to its invariable consequent. The powers
of substances, then, concerning which so many vague, and confus-
ed, and mysterious notions prevail, are only another name for the
substances themselves, in relation to other substances,— not any
thing separate from them and intermediate,— as the form of a
body, concerning which too, for many ages, notions as vague and
mysterious prevailed, is not anything different from the body, but
is only the body itself, considered according to the relative posi-
tion ofits elements. Form is the relation of immediate proximi-
ty, which bodies bear to each other in space ,— power is the rela-
tion of immediate and uniform proximity, which evenJs hear to
each other in time; and the relation, far from being different, as
is commonly supposed, when applied to matter and to spirit, is
precisely the same in kind, whetlior the events, of which we think,
be material or immatnial. It is of invariable antecedence thai
we ppeak alike in both cases, and of invariablf anfecp<lonce only.
When we sav, that a magnet has the power of attracting iron, we
FOUR PRECEDING LECTURES. 131
mean only, that a mag-net cannot be broug'ht near iron, Avithout
the instant motion of the iron towards it. When we say, in treat-
ing o{ mental influence, that man, in the ordinary circumstances of
health, and when free from any foreign restraint, has the power
of moving his hand, we mean only, that, in these circumstances,
he cannot will to move his hand, without its consequent motion.
When we speak of the omnipotence of the Supreme of Beings, —
who is the fountain of all power, as he is the fountain of all exis-
tence, — we mean onl}^, that the universe arose at his command,
as its instant consequence, and that whatever he nnlls to exist or
perish, exists, or is no more.
This simple view of power, as the mere antecedent substance
itself, in its relation to its immediate and invariable consequences,
without the intervention of any mysterious tie, — since there sure-
ly can be nothing in nature, but all the substances which exist in
nature, — it was necessary to illustrate, at great length, in conse-
quence of the very false notions, that are generally, or, I may say,
universally prevalent on the subject. The illustration, I am
aware, must, to many of you, have appeared very tedious, and a
sufficient exemplitication of that license of exhausting occasional-
ly your attention, and perhaps, too, your patience, of which I
claimed the right of exercise, whenever it should appear to me
necessary, to make any important, but abstract truth familiar to
your mind. I shall not regret, however, any temporary feeling
of weariness which I may have occasioned, by dwelling on this
great fundamental subject, if I have succeeded in making tamiliar
to your minds, the truths Avhich I wished to impress on them,
and have freed you from those false notions of occult and unintel-
ligible agency in causes, — as something different from the mere
caises or antecedents themselves, — which appear to me to have
retarded, in a very singular degree, the progress of philosoph}^ —
not merely, by habituating the mind to acquiesce in the use of
language, to which it truly affixes no meaning, though even this
evil is one of very serious injury in its general effects, — but by
misdirecting its inquiries, and leading it, from the simplicity of
nature, — in which every glance is truth, and every step is [iro-
gress, — to bewilder itself, with the verbal mysteries of the schools,
where there is no refreshment of truth to the eye, that is weari-
ed with wandering only from shadow to shadow, — and where
132 RECAI'ITULATION OF THR
there is all the fatigue of continual progress, without the advance
of a single step.
Even those philosophers, who have had thd' wisdom to per-
ceive, that man can never discover any thing in the phenomena
of nature, but a succession of events, that follow each other m
regular series, — and who, accordingly, recommend the observa-
tion and arrangement of these regular antecedents and conse-
quents, as the only attainable objects of philosophy, yet found
this very advice, on the distinction of what they have termed ef-
ficient causes, as different from the physical causes, or simple an-
tecedents, to which they advise us to devote our whole attention.
There are certain secret causes, they say, continually operating
in the production of every change which we observe, and causes _
which alone deserve the name of efficient; but they are, at the
same time, careful to tell us, that, although these causes are con-
stantly operating before us, and are all which are truly acting be-
fore us, we must not hope, that we shall ever be able to detect
one of them ; and indeed, the prohibition of every attempt to dis-
cover the efficient causes of phenomena,— repeated in endless va-
rieties of precept or reproof, — is the foundation of all their rules
of philosophizing; as if the very information,— that what we are
to consider exclusively, in the phenomena of nature, is far less
important, than what we are studiously to omit,— were not, of it-
self, more powerful, in stimulating our curiosity to attempt the
forbidden search, than any prohibition could be in repressing it.
" Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas." This will forever
be the feeling of the inquirer, while he thinks that there are
any causes, more than those, which he has already investigated.
Even Neuton himself, that sagest of observers and reasoners, who
could say, with the simplicity of pure philosophy. Hypotheses non
jingo.'' yet showed, as we have seen, by one of the most hypothet-
ical of his Queries, that he was not exempt from the error which
he wished to discourage— that inordinate love of the unknown,
which must always lead those, who believe that there is some-
thing intermediate and undiscovered truly existing between events,
to feel the anxious dissatisfaction of mcom|»lele intiuiry, in consid-
ering the mere antecedents and consequents which nature exhib-
its, and to turn, therefore, as if for comfort, to any third circum-
«tancc, which can be introduced, witiiout obvious absurdity, as a
FOUR PRECEDING LECTURES. 133
sort of connecting link, between the pairs of event?. To suppose
that the mind should not have this disposition, would, indeed, he to
suppose it void of that principle of curiosily, without which there
can be no inquiry of any kind. He who could believe, that, between
all the visible phenomena, there are certain invisible agencies
continually opex-ating, which have as real an existence as all that
he perceives, and could yet content himself with numbering the
visible phenomena, and giving them names, wilhout any endeav-
our to discover the intervening powers, by which he is constantly
surrounded, or at least to form some slight guess, as to that univer-
sal machinery, by which he conceived all the wonders of nature
to be wrought, must be a being as different from the common in-
tellectual beings of this earth, as the perfect sage of the Stoics
from the frail creatures, of mingled vice and virtue, that live and
err around us. That, in considering the phenomena of nature,
we should confine our attention to the mere antecedents and con-
sequents, which succeed each other in regular series, is unques-
tionably the soundest advice that can be given. But it is sound ad-
vice, for this reason more than any other, that the regular series
is, in truth, all that constitutes the phenomena, and that to search
for any thing more, is not to have an unattainable object in view,
but to have no conceivable object whatever. Then only can the
inquirer be expected to content himself with observing and class-
ing the sequences, which nature presents to us spontaneousl}^, or
in obedience to our art, when he is convinced, that all the sub-
stances which exist in the universe — God and the things which
he has created — are every thing which truly exists in the uni-
verse, to which nothing can be added, which is not itself a 7ie-ji'
substance ; that there can be nothing in the events of nature,
therefore, but the antecedents and consequents which are present in
them ; and that these, accordingly, or nothing, are the very caus-
es and efiects, which he is desirous of investigating.
After this examination of the notions connected with the uni-
form successions of events, our attention was next turned to the
nature and origin of hypothetical inquiry, which we found reason
to ascribe to the imperfection of our senses, that renders it impos-
sible for us to know whether we have observed the whole train
of sequences in any phenomenon, from our inability to distinguish
134 RECAPITULATION, ETC.
the various elements that may be the subjects of minute changes
unobserved.
We are hence eag-er to supply, by a little guess-work of fancy,
the parts unobserved, and suppose deliciencies in our observatioa
-u here there may truly have been none ; till at length, by this ha-
bitual process, every phenomenon becomes, to our imagination,
the sign of something intermediate as its cause, the discovery of
which is to be an explanation of the phenomenon. The mere
succession of one event to another appears, to us, very difhcult to
be conceived, because it wants that intervening something, which
we have learned to consider as a cause ; but there seems to be no
longer any mystery, if we can only suppose something intervening
between them, and can thus succeed in doubling the difhculty,
Avhich we flatter ourselves with having removed ; since, by the in-
sertion of another link, we must now have two sequences of events
instead of one simple sequence. This tendency of the imagination
to form and rest on hypotheses,— or, in other words, to suppose
substances present and operating, of the existence of which we
have no direct proof, — we found to be one great source of error
in our practice of philosophizing.
Another source of error, we found to be the too great extension
of what are termed general laws; which though a less error in
itself, is yet, in one respect, more dangerous than the former; be-
cause it is the error of better understandings, — of understandings
that would not readily fall into the extravagant follies of hypothe-
ses, but acknowledge the essential importance of induction, and
think they are proceeding on it without the slightest deviation, al-
most at the very moment when they are abandoning it for conjec-
ture. To observe the regular series of antecedents and conse-
quents, and to class these as similar or dissimilar, are all which
jihilosophers can do with complete certainty. But there is a con-
Ftanl tf-ndency in the mind, to convert a general law into an uni-
zicrsal law, — to suppose, after a wide induction, that what is true
of many subslanres that have a very striking analogy, is as certain-
ly true of uH thai have this striking analogy, — and that what is
true of them in certain circumstances, is true of them in all circum-
stances, — or, at least, in all circumstances which are not remarka-
bly dilTcrenl. The widest induction which we can make, howev-
er, is still limited in its nature ; and, though we may have observed
ON THE LAWS OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY, ETC. 335
substances in many situations, there may be some new situations,
in which the event may be different, or even, perhaps, the very
reverse of that which we should have predicted, by reasoning from
the mere analogy of other circumstances. It appeared to me ne-
cessary, therefore, in consequence of the very ambiguous manner
in which writers on this higher branch of logic speak of reasoning
from general laws to particulars, to warn you, that the applica-
tion to particulars can be made with certainty, only to the very
particulars before observed and generalized, — and that, however
analogous other particulars may seem, the application of the gen-
eral law to them admits only of probability^ which may, indeed, as
the induction has been wider, and the circumstances of observed
analogy more numerous, approach more or less to certainty, but
must always be short of it, even in its nearest approximation.
Such, then, is physical inquiry, both as to its objects, and its
mode of procedure, particularly as it regards the universe without j
and the laws which regulate our inquiry in the internal world of
thought are, in every respect, similar. The same great objects
are to be had in view, and no other, — the analysis of what is com-
plex, and the observation and arrangement of the sequences of
phenomena, as respectively antecedent and consequent.
In this respect, also, I may remark, the philosophy of matter
and the philosophy of mind completely agree — that, in both equal-
ly, our knowledge is confined to the phenomena which they exhib-
it. We give the name of matter to the unknown cause of various
feelings, which, by the constitution of our nature, it is impossible
for us not to refer to something external as their cause. What
it is, independent of our perception, we know not; but as the sub-
ject of our perception, we regard it as that which is extended, and
consequently divisible, impenetrable, mobile ; and these qualities,
or whatever other qualities we may think necessary to include for
expressing the particular substances that affect our senses various-
ly, constitute our whole definition of matter, because, in truth,
they constitute our whole knowledge of it To suppose us to
know what it is in itself, in absolute independence of our percep-
tion, would be manifestly absurd : since it is only b}- our percep-
tion, — that is to say, by the feelings of our mind, — that it can he
known to us at all ; and these mere feelings of thr- miiul mu-t de-
136 ON THE LAWS OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY
pend, at least, as much on the laws of the mind affected, as on the
laws of the substance that affects it. Whatever knowledge we
may acquire of it, therefore, is relative only, and must be rela-
tive in all circumstances; though, instead of the few senses which
connect us with it at present, we were endowed with as many
senses as there are, perhaps, qualities of matter, the nature of
which we are at present incapable of distinguishing ; — the only ef-
fect of such increased nimiber of senses being, to render, more
qualities of matter known to us, not to make matter known to us
in its very essence, as it exists without relation to mind.
'■'• Tell me," says Micromegas, an inhabitant of one of the plan-
ets of the Dog Star, to the secretary of the Academy of Sciences
in the planet Saturn, at which he had recently arrived in a journey
throuo-hthe heavens, — '• Tell me, how many senses have the men
on your globe ?" — I quote, as perhaps the name has already in-
formed you from an ingenious philosophic romance of Voltaire,
who, from various allusions in the work, has evidently had Fon-
tenelle, the illustrious secretary of the French Academy of Scien-
ces, in view, in the picture which he gives of the Saturnian secre-
tary, '' We have seventy-two senses,'' answered the academician,
•' and we are, everyday, complaining of the smallness of the num-
ber. Our imagination goes far beyond our wants. What are sev-
enty-two senses! and how pitiful a boundary, even for beings with
such limited perceptions, to be cooped up within our ring, and
our live moons ! In spite of our curiosity, and in spite of as many
passions as can result from six dozen of senses, we fmd our hours
hang very heavily on our hands, and can always lind time enough
for yawning."—" 1 can very well believe it," says Micromegas,
" for, in our globe, we have very near one thousand senses ; and
yet, with all these, we feel continually a sort of listless inquietude
and vague desire, which are forever telling us that we are noth-
ing, and that there are beings infinitely nearer perfection. I have
travelled a good deal in the universe. I have seen many classes
of mortals far hciicalh us, and many as much superior; but I have
never had the good fortune to find any, who had not always more
desires than real necessities to occupy their life. — And, pray, how
long may you Saturnians live with your few senses ?" continued
the Sirian.— " Ah ! hut a very short time, indeed !" .«aid the little
man of Saturn, with a r^igh. — " it is the same with us," said the
IN RELATION TO THE STUDY OF MIND. 137
traveller ; " we are forever complaining of the shortness of life.
It must be an universal law of nature." — " Alas !" said the Satur-
Hian, " we hve only five hundred great revolutions of the sun,
(which is pretty much about fifteen thousand years of our counting.)
You see well, that this is to die almost the moment one is born.
Our existence is a point — our duration an instant — our globe an atom.
Scarcely have we begun to pick up a little knowledge, when death
rushes in upon us, before we can have acquired any thing like ex-
perience. As for me, I cannot venture even to think of any project.
I feel myself but like a drop of water in the ocean ; and, especially
now, when I look to you and to myself, I really feel quite ashamed
of the ridiculous appearance which I make in the universe."
" If I did not know that you were a philosopher," replied Mic-
romegas, " I should be afraid of distressing you, when I tell you,
that our life is seven hundred times longer than yours. — But what
is even that ? and, when we come to the last moment, to have liv-
ed a single day, and to have lived a whole eternity, amount to the
very same thing. I have been in countries where they live a
thousand times longer than with us ; and I have always found them
murmuring, just as we do ourselves. — But you have seventy-two
senses, and they must have told you something about your globe.
How many properties has matter with you ?" — " If you mean essen-
tial properties," said the Saturnian, " without which our globe
could not subsist, we count three hundred, extensive, impenetrable,
mobile, gravitation, divisibility, and so forth." — ■•• That small num-
ber," replied the gigantic traveller, " may be sufficient for the
views which the Creator must have had with respect to your nar-
row habitation. Your globe is little ; its inhabitants are so too.
You have few senses ; your matter has few quaUties. In all this,
Providence has suited you most happily to each other."
'•The academician was more and more astonished with every
thing which the traveller told him. At length, after communicat-
ing to each other a little of what they knew, and a great deal of
what they knew not, and reasoning, as well and as ill, as philoso-
phers usually do, they resolved to set out together, on a little tour
of the universe."*
That, with the one thousand senses of the Sirian, or even the
seventy-two senses of the inhabitant of Saturn, our notions of mat-
Voltaire CEuvres, torn. xiv. p. 99—101. 4lo Edit, of 1771.
18
133 OM THE LAWS OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY
ter would be very different from what they are at present, cannot
be doubted ; since we should assign to it qualities, corresponding
with all the varieties of our six dozen or one thousand classes ot
sensations. But, even with all these sensations, it is evident, that
we should still know as little of ma«er, independent of the phenom-
ena which it exhibits in relation to us, as we know, at this moment.
Our detinition of it would comprehend more phenomena ; but it
would still be a defiuition of its phenomena only. We might per-
-haps be able to fill up the Saturnian catalogue of three hundred
essential properties, but these would be still only the relations of
matter to our own perception. A change in the mere susceptibil-
ity of our organs of sense, or of our sentient mind, would be rela-
tively to us, like a change in the whole system of things, commu-
nicating, as it were, new properties to every object around us. A
single sense additional, in man, might thus be to external nature,
like the creation of the sun, when he first burst upon it in splen-
dour, " like the god of the new world," and pouring every where
his, own effulgency, seemed to shed on it the very beauties which
he only revealed.
If our knowledge of matter be relative only, our knowledge of
mind is equally so. We know it only as susceptible of feelings
that have already existed, and its susceptibilities of feelings which
have not arisen, but which may, in other circumstances, arise, we
know as little, as the blind can be supposed to know of colours, or
as we, with all our senses, know of the qualities which matter might
exhibit to us, if our own organization were different. Of the es-
sence of mind, then, we know not lung, but in relation to the slates
or feelings that form, or have lormed, our momentary conscious-
ness. Our knowledge is not absolute but relative ; though, I must
confess, that the term rdalivt is ai)plied, in an unusual manner,
when, as in the present instance, the relative and correlative are
the same. It is unquestionably the same individual mind, which,
in intellectual investigation, is at once the object and the observer.
But the noble endowment of memory, with which our Creator ha«
blessed us, solves all the mystery of this singular paradox. In
consequoiice of this one faculty, our mind, simple and indivisible
CIS it truly is, is, as it wore mulliplicd and oxtfuided, expanding it-
self over that long scries of sensations and emotions, in which it
seems to live again, an.l to li\f with many lives. But for memo-
IN RELATION TO THE STUDY OF MIND. 139
ry, there can be no question that the relation of thought to thought
could not have been perceived ; and that hence there could have
been no philosophy whatever, intellectual or moral, physical or
metaphysical. To this wonderful endowment, then, which gives
us the past to compare with the present, we owe that most won-
derful of relations, of which the same being is at once the object
and the subject^ contemplating itself, in the same manner, as it casts
its view on objects that are distant from it, comparing thought
%vith thought, emotion with emotion, approving its own moral ac-
tions, with the complacency with which it looks on the virtues of
those whom it admires and loves, in the most remote nation or
age, or passing sentence on itself, as if on a wretch whom it
loathed, that was trembhng with conscious delinquency, under
the inquisition of a severe and all-knowing judge.
The past feelings of the mind, then, are, as it were, objects pre-
sent to the mind itself, and acquire, thus truly, a sort of relative ex-
istence, which enables us to class the phenomena of our own spirit-
ual being as we class the phenomena of the world without. The
mind is that which we know to have been susceptible of all the
variety of feelings which we remember ; and it is only as it is sus-
ceptible of all these varieties of feeling, that we can have any
knowledge of it. We define it therefore, by stating its various
susceptibilities, including more or fewer of these, in our dofmition,
as we may either have observed or remembered more or less, or
generalized more or less what we have observed and remem-
bered ; precisely as in our definition of matter, we include more or
fewer qualities, according to the extent of our previous observa-
tion and arrangement.
That we know matter^ only as relative to our own susceptibil-
ity of being atfected by it, does not lessen the value of the knowl-
edge of it, which we are able to acquire ; and, indeed, it is only
as it is capable of affecting us, that the knowledge of it can be of
any direct and immediate utility. It would, indeed, be the very
absurdity of contradiction, to suppose ourselves acquainted with
qualities which cannot aflect us. But, even though this were pos-
sible, how profitless would the knowledge be, compared with the
knowledge of the qualities which are capable of affecting us ;
like the knowledge of the seasons of the planet Saturn, or of the
planets that have the Dog Star for their sun, compare J nith the
140 ON THE LAWS OF PHYSICAL INQUIRT
more important knowledge of the seasons of our own globe, by
which we have the comfort of anticipating, in the labours of springs
the abundance of autumn, and gather in autumn the fruits, which,,
as products of vernal labour, are truly fruits of the spring.
To know matter^ even relatively^ as our limited senses allow
us to know it, is to have knowledge which can scarcely be call-
ed limited. Nothing, indeed, can seem more narrow in extent,
if we think only of the small number of our senses, by which
alone the communication can be carried on. But what infinity ot
objects has nature presented to each ! In the mere forms and col-
ours that strike our eyes, what splendid variety ! the proportion
of all things that bloom or live, the earth, the ocean, the universe,
and almost God himself appearing to our very senses, in the ex-
cellence and beauty of the works which He has made !
It is the same, with respect to the mijid, though we know it
only by its susceptibilities of atfection, in the various feelings of
our momentary consciousness, and cannot hope to know it, but as
the permanent subject of all these separate consciousnesses ; to
know thus relatively only, the afl'ections even of one single sub-
stjmce, is to have a field of the most boundless and inexhaustible
wonders ever present and open to our inquiry ! It may be said to
comprehend every thing which we perceive, and remember,
and imagine, and compare, and admire, all those mysterious
processes of thought, which, in the happy eftbrts of the philos-
opher and the poet, are concerned in the production of their
noblest results, and which are not. less deserving of our regard,
;is they are every moment exercised by all, in the humhle in-
tellectual functions of common life. In analyzing and arrang-
ing the mental phenomena, then, we consider phenomena, that are
diversified, indeed, in individuals, but, as species, are still common
to all ; for there is no power possessed by the most comprehen-
sive intellect, which it does not share, in some proportion, with
the dullest and rudest of mankind. All men perceive, remember,
reason, — alt, to a certain degree at least, from their little thfonc.%
both physical and metaphysical, of the conduct of their fellow men,
and of the pa.ssiiig events of nature ; and all, occasionally, enliven
their social iiilercourse, or their solitary hours, with inventions^
of fancy, that last but for a moment indeed, and are not worthy of
lasting longer, but which are products of the same species of in-
IN RELATION TO THE STUDY OF MIND. 141
tellectual energy, that gave existence to those glorious works, to
which ages have listened with increasing reverence, and which,
immortal as the spirits that produced them, are yet to command
the venei'ation of every future age. When we see before us, in
its finished magnificence, a temple, appropriated to the worship
of the Supreme Being, and almost worthy of being tilled with
his presence, we scarcely think that it is erected according to
the same simple principles, and formed of the same stone and
mortar, as the plain dwellings around us, adapted to the hourly
and humble uses of domestic life ; and by a similar illusion, when
we consider the splendid works of intellectual art, we can scarce-
ly bring ourselves to think, that genius is but a form of general
tendencies of association, of which all partake ; and that its mag-
nificent conceptions, therefore, rise, according to the same simple
laws which regulate the course of thought of the vulgar. In this
universality of diffusion as general tendencies, that may be vari-
ously excited by var} ing circumstances, our intellectual powers
are similar to those other principles of our nature, — our emotions,
and whatever feelings more immediately connected with moral
action have been usually distinguished by the name of our active
powers. In the philosophy of both we consider, not a few distin-
guished individuals, as possessed of principles essentially distinct
in kind, but the species man. They are to be found, wherever
there is a human being ; and we do not infer with more certainty,
when we perceive the impression of a foot upon the sand, that
man has been there, than we expect to find in him, whatever
may be his state of barbarism or civilization, some form of the
common powers, and passions, which, though directed perhaps to
different objects, we have felt and witnessed in the society around
us. " The two-legged animal," says Dr Reid, " that eats of na-
ture's dainties what his taste or appetite craves, and satisfies his
thirst at the crystal fountain ; who propagates his kind as occa-
sion and lust prompt ; repels injuries, and takes alternate labour
and repose ; is like a tree in the forest, purely of nature's growth.
But this same savage has within him the seeds of the logician, the
man of taste and breeding, the orator, the statesman, the man of
virtue, and the saint ; which seeds, though planted in his mind by
nature, jet, through want of culture and exercise^ must lie forevec
142 ON THE LAWS OP PHYSICAL INQUIRY
buried, and be hardly perceivable, by himself, or by others."*
Even of those passions of a prouder kind, which attract our atten-
tion only when they are on a theatre that allows their full display,
some vestiges are to be traced universally ; though in different
individuals, they may exist with very different degress of influ-
ence, and though their influence, according to the degree of pow-
er possessed by the individual, may be attended with very difTer-
eut consequences, to the few, or the many, comprehended within
the wide or narrow circle, to which his power extends.
-" Not kings alone,
Each villager has his ambition to ;
No sultan prouder than his fettered slave.
Slaves build their little Babjlons of straw,
Echo the proud Assyrian in their hearts,
And cry, Behold the wonders of my might. 'M
It is this universal diffusion of sympathies and emotions, indeed,
which gives its whole force to morality, as a universal obligation ;
and renders ethics truly a science.
Nature, in requiring the fruits of virtue Irom all, has not fixed
the seeds o( it, only in a few breasts. '' NuUi praeclusa virtus est,
omnibus patet, omnes admittit, omnes invilat, ingennos, libertinos,
servos, reges et exsules ; non eligit domum, nee censum ; nudo
homine contenta est."t Virtue has no partial favours or exclu-
sions. She is open to all, she admits all, she invites all. She asks
no wealth nor ancestry ; but she asks the man,— the master or
the slave, the cottager and his lord, the sovereign and the exile.
Though we know mind, then only relatively, in the series of
feelings, of which we are conscious, as we know matter relatively
in the series of phenomena, which it exhibits to our observation,
we have, in this relative knowledge, subjects worthy of the con-
templation of beings permitted, in these shadowings of a higher
power, to trace some faint image of the very majesty which form-
ed them. Even of the humblest mind, as we have seen, the vari-
ous affections, sensitive, int.dk'ctuah and moral, that arise m it as
affections of our common nnltirc, are truly admirable ; and what an
• Inquiry into the Human .Mind, Introd. p. 7. 8vo. Edit.
t Young's Nii,'ht Thought*, vii. v. ^9-2— HOT.
j: Seneca dc Bencficiis, lib. iii. c. 10.
IN RELATION TO THE STUDY OF MIND. 143
increase of sublimity do they acquire, in minds of higher powers!
But still, it must be remembered, that even in minds the most sub-
lime, as much as in the most humble, all which can be truly known
is the successive phenomena which they exhibit, not the essence
of the spiritual substance itself; and that, even of these successive
phenomena, though we become gradually acquainted with more
and more, we probably never can arrive at any bound which is to
limit their number. The susceptibilities of the mind, by which,
in different circumstances, it may exist in different states, are cer-
tainly as truly infinite as the space which surrounds us, or as that
eternity which, in its progress, measures the successions of our
feelings, and all the other changes in the universe. Every new
thought, or combination of thoughts, is in truth a new state or af-
fection, or phenomenon of the mind, and, therefore, a proof of the
susceptibihty of that new affection, as an original quality of the
mind ; and every rise in knowledge, from age to age, and from in-
quirer to inquirer, is thus only the developement of susceptibilities,
which the mind possessed before, though the circumstances which
at last called them forth, never existed till the moment of the
developement. What should we think of the half-naked savage of
some barbarous island, if, in the pride of his ignorance, he were
to conceive his own thoughts and feelings to be the noblest of
which the human intellect is capable ? and, perhaps, even the
mind of a Newton, is but the mind of such a savage, compared
with what man is hereafter to become.
144
LECTURE X.
THE S.\ME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
Gentlemen, after laying down the general laws of physical
inquiry, I had begun, in the conclusion of my last Lecture, to con-
sider them, more particularly in their relation to the study of
mind.
One very important circumstance of agreement in the physical
investigations of mind and matter, we found to be, that, of both
matter and mind, the successive phenomena are all which we
truly know, though by the very constitution of our nature, it is im-
possible for us not to ascribe these to some permanent subject. Mat-
ter is the permanent subject of certain qualities, extension, and its
consequent divisibility, attraction, repulsion ; that is to say, it is the
pennanent exhibiter to us of certain varying phenomena which we
observe. Mind is the permanent subject of certain qualities or
states or affections of a different class— perception, memory, rea-
son, joy, grief, love, hate ; that is to say, of certain varying phe-
nomena of which we are conscious. What matter is independent
of our i)erception ; what mind is independent of its temporary va-
riety of feeling, it is impossible for us to discover; since whatever
new knowledge of matter we can suppose ourselves to acquire,
must be acquired by our perception, and must, therefore, be rela-
tive to it ; and whatever now knowledge we can suppose ourselves
to acquire oi' mind, must be itself a state or affection of the mind,
and, therefore, only a new mental piienomenon to be added to
those with wliirb we were before acquainted, as one of the many
states in which tlie permanent substance mi/trf is capal)le of existing.
Since it is only \>y their relation (o our own feelings, then, that
substances can bo known to us, beyond these rclatioas it would be
vain for us to think of i.oiie I rating; as vaiu, at least, as would bo
OM THE LAWS OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY, ETC. 145
the attempts of the deaf to discover, by a process of reasoning-, the
nature of the sensations of sound, or of the blind to determine, not
the lines of direction merely, in which the various coloured rays
of light pass after refraction, for these they may optically deter-
mine, but the various sensations, corresponding with all the varie-
ties of tint into which the sun-beams are broken by the drops of a
falling shower. The substance matter, the substance mind, are, in
this respect, to the whole race of metaphysical inquirers, what the
rainbow, as a series of colours, is to opticians, who have never seen.
The absurdity of such inquiries, into any thing more than the
mere phenomena, if it be not sufficiently evident of itself, may,
perhaps, be rendered more apparent, by a very easy supposition.
Let us imagine the permanent unknown substance matter^ and the
permanent unknown substance mind, to be rendered, by the same
divine power which made them, altogether different in their own
absolute essence, as they exist independently, but to exhibit rela-
tively, precisely the same phenomena as at present, — that spring,
and summer, and autumn, and winter, in every appearance that can
affect our organs of perception, succeed each other as now, pour-
ing out the same profusion of foliage, and flowers, and fruits, and,
after the last gladness of the vintage and the harvest, sweeping
the few lingering blossoms, with those desolating blasts, which
seem like the very destroyers of nature, while they are only lead-
ing in, with great freshness, under the same benevolent e3'e of
Heaven, the same delightful circle of beauty and abundance, —
that, in mind, the same sensations are excited by the same objects,
and are followed by the same remembrances, and comparisons,
and hopes, and fears ; — in these circumstances, while alj the phe-
nomena which we observe, and all the phenomena of which we
are conscious, continue exactly the same, can we believe, that
we should be able to discover the essential change, which, accord-
ing to this supposition, had taken place, in the permanent subjects
of these unvaried phenomena ! And, if, as long as the external and
internal phenomena continued exactly the same, Ave should be in-
capable of discovering, or even suspecting, the slightest change,
where, by supposition, there had been a change so great, how ab-
surd is it to conceive that the changed or unchanered nature of the
substance itself, as it exists independently of the pJienomenon, ever
can become known to us.
10
^4G ON THE LAWS OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY
He, indeed, it ihay always safely be presumed, knows least of
the mind, who thinks that he knows its substance best. " What
is the soul ?" was a question once put to Marivaux. " I know no-
thino- of it," he answered, " but that it is spiritual and immortal.''
" Well," said his friend, " let us ask Fontenelle, and he will tell
us what it is." " No," cried Marivaux, " ask any body but Fon-
tenelle, for he has too much good sense to knon) any more about it
than isoe do.''''
It is to the phenomena only, then, that our attention is to be
given, not to any vain inquiries into the absolute nature ot the
substances which exhibit the phenomena. This alone is legiti-
mate philosophy, — philosophy which must forever retain its claim
to our assent, amid the rise and lall of all those spurious specula-
tions, to which our vanity is so fond of giving the names of theory
and system. Whatever that may be, in itself, which feels, and thinks,
and wills, — if our feelings, and thoughts, and volitions be the same
— all which we can know, and compare, and arrange, must be the
same ; and, while we confine our attention to these, the general
laws of their succession which we infer, and the various relations
which they seem to bear to each other, may he admitted equally
by those whose opinions, as to the absolute nature of the feeling
and thinkmg principle, dilTer fundamentally. It requires no pecu-
liar supposition, or belief, as to llie nature of the mind, to know,
that its trains of thought are inlluenced, by former habits, or cas-
ual association ; and every fad, which the immaterialist has accu-
rately observed and arranged, with respect to the inlluence of
habit or association, may thus, with ecpial reason, form a part ot
the intellectual and moral creed of the materialist also.
On tiiesc two systems it is not at present my intention to make
any remarks; all which I wish, now, is to explain to you, how in-
dependent the real philosophy of the niind is, of any fanciful con-
jectures, which may he formed, with re><pect to its essence. It
diflors from these, as Mr. S'cwart has well observed, in the same
manner '• as the inquiries of Galileo, concerning the laws ot mov-
ing bodies, diflcr from the disputes of the ancient Sophists, con-
cerning the existencii and the nature of motion," or as the con-
clusions of Newton, with respect to the law of gravitation, dilVer
from his query concerning the mode in which he sui)|)oso(l that
gravity might possibly be produced. The hypothesis, involved
IN RELALION TO THE STUDY OF MIND. 147
in the query, you may admit or reject ; the conchisions, with re-
spect to the law of gravitation itself, as far as relates to our plan-
etary system, are, 1 may say, almost beyond your power of reject-
ing-.
The philosophy of mind then, and the philosophy of mat-
ter, agree, in this respect, that our knowledge is, in both, confined
to the mere phenomena. They agree also, in the two species of
inquiry which they admit. The phenomena of jmnrf, in the same
manner as we have seen in the case of matter^ may be considered
as complex and susceptible of analysis, or they may be considered
as successive in a certain order, and bearing, therefore, to each
other the reciprocal relation of causes and effects.
That we can know the phenomena, only as far as we have at-
tended to their sequences, and that, without experiment, there-
fore, it would have been impossible for us to predict any of their
successions, is equally true, in mind as in matter. Many of the
successions, indeed, are so f^miiliar to us, that it may appear to
you, at first, very difficult to conceive, that we should not have
been able, at least with respect to them, to predict, originallj-,
■what antecedents would have been followed by -what consequents.
We may allow certainly, that we should not have been able to
foresee the pleasure which we receive from the finer works of
imitative art — from the successions, or co-existences, in music, of
sounds, that, considered separately, would scarcely be counted
among the sources of delight — from the charm of versification,
that depends on circumstances, so very slight, as to be altogether
destroyed, and even converted into pain, by the change of quanti-
ty of a single syllable. But, that the remembrance of pleasure
should not be attended with desire of enjoying it again, seems to
us almost inconsistent with the very nature of the pleasing emo-
tion. In like manner, we may allow, that we could not have pre-
dicted the sympathy which w^e feel with the distresses of others,
when they arise from causes that cannot affect us, and yet make,
for the time, the agony, which we merely behold, a part of our
own existence. But we can scarcely think, that we require
any experience, to know, that the contemplation of pain, which
we may ourselves have to endure, should be the cause of that
painful feeling, to which we give the name of/ear, or (hat the ac-
tual suffering should be accompanied with the desire of relief.
148 ON THE LAWS OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY
The truth is, however, that, in all these cases, and in all of them
equally, — it would have been impossible, but for experience, to
predict the consequent of any of the antecedents. The pleasure,
which we feel, in the contemplation of a work of art, the pain,
Tvhich we feel, at the sight of the misery of others, are as much
the natural effects of states of mind preceding them, as the fear
of pain is the effect of the consideration of pain as hanging over us.
Our various feelings, similar or dissimilar, kindred or discordant,
are all mere states of the mind ; and there is nothing, in any one
state of the mind, considered in itself, which, necessarily, involves
the succession of any other state of mind. That particular state,
for example, which constitutes the mere feeling of pain, instead
of being attended by that different state which constitutes the de-
sire of being freed from pain, might have continued, as one uni-
form feeling, or might have ceased, and been succeeded by some
other state, though in the original adaptation of our mental
frames, by that Creator's wisdom which planned the sequences of
its phenomena, the particular affection, which constitutes desire^
had not been one of the innumerable varieties of affection, of
which the mind was forever to be susceptible.
What susceptibilities the mind has exhibited in the ordinary
circumstances in %vhich it has been placed, we know, and they
have been limited to a certain number, corresponding with the
feelings which have arisen in these circumstances. But the Al-
mighty Power, who fixed this particular number, might have in-
creased or lessened the number at His pleasure, in the same man-
ner, as He might, at His pleasure, have multipUed or diminished
the whole number of his animated creatures ; and, where there
has been no limit, but the will of the Limiter, it is experience on-
ly whicij can give us any knowledge of the actual limitation. We
are always too much inclined to believe, that we know what must
have been, because we know what is,— and to suppose ourselves
acquainted, not merely with the gracious ends which Supreme
Goodness had in view, in creating us, but with the very object,
which each nparat*' mo(nricatioti of our intellectual and moral
constitution was intended to answer. 1 would not, indeed, ^o so
far as Pope, in that passage of the E-ssay on Man, in which he
«eems to imply, that our ignorance of the wise and harmonious in-
dentions of Providence, \n the constitution of our mind, is like the
IN RELATION TO THE STUDY OF MIND. 149
ienorance of the inferior animals, as to the motives which influ-
ence the follies and inconsistencies of their capricious master.
" When the proud steed shall kuow, why man restrains
His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains,
When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,
la now a victim, and now Egypt's God, —
Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend
His action's, passion's, being's, use and end ;
Why doing, suffering, check'd, impell'd ; and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity."*
Our Divine Author has not left us, even now, to darkness like
this. We know, in a great measure, the use and end of our ac-
tions and passions, because we know who it is who has formed us
to do and to bear, — and who, from His own moral excellence, can-
not have given us any susceptibility, even that of sutfering, which
does not tend, upon the whole, to strengthen virtue, and to conse-
crate, as in some purifying sacriiice, the sufferer of a moment to
affections more holy, and happiness more divine. Yet, though
we know, in this general sense, our action's, passion's, being's, use
and end, as subservient to the universal plan of Infinite Goodness,
we are not so well acquainted with the particular uses of each
state of the mind, as to have been able to predict it, merely as a
part or consequence of the plan. The knowledge of every suc-
cessive modification of our thought, is still as much the result of
experience, as if the gracious plan, to which all these successive
modifications are instrumental, were wholly unknown to us : —
Yet, such is the influence of habit, in famiUarizing us to phenom-
ena, that we think, that experience is nothing, only in those cases.
in which the power of experience has been most frequently and
familiarly felt ; and while in the rarer successions of feelings, we
allow, that there are phenomena of the mind, which we could
not have foreknown, we find it difficult to imagine, in the recur-
rences of the common mental phenomena, that, even originally, il
could have required any peculiar foresight to predict, what we
are now conscious of predicting with a readiness, that seems to us
almost like the instant glance of intuition.
In the philosophy of external matter, the greater or less fa-
• Ep. i. v. 61—68. Works, vol. HI. p. 5, 6.
150 ON THE LAWS OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY
miliarity of events produces an illusion exactly similar. There
are certain phenomena, which, we readily admit, could not, of
themselves, and without experience, have indicated to us, either
the changes which preceded them, or the changes which were to
follow ; while there are other phenomena, more familiar, which
seem to us to require no experience, for informing- us, both of
their antecedents and consequents, — merely because they have
been of such frequent occurrence, that we do not remember the
time, when we were ignorant of them, or of the circumstances,
by which they are usually preceded and followed. That a mag-
netic needle should tend to the north, rather than to any other
pomt, — and that glass, or amber, rubbed in a certain manner,
should exhibit the very striking phenomena of electricity, trans-
mitting this power through certain substances, and not transmit-
ting it through others, which have nothing peculiar in their sensi-
ble qualities, to mark them as less or better fitted for this commu-
nication, appear to us to be facts, which we could not have known,
till we had actually witnessed them. But that a stone, rolled from
the hand, should continue to move in the same direction, alter
quitting the hand, seems a fact, which it must have been easy for
us to foresee. AVe are not aware, that it is only the more famil-
iar occurrence of the one event, than of the others, which makes
its sequence appear more obvious ; and that, but for this greater
familiarity, we might as readily have supposed, that a stone, after
quitting the hand which flung it, should have remained in the air,
or fallen to the ground, as that the needle, without any tendency
to the north, would remain stationary, to whatever point of the
compass we might turn it.
Such is the influence of early acquaintance with the more tre-
qucnt and obvious events, whether in mind or in matter. We
have become familiar with them, and with their causes and conse-
quences, long before reflection ; and it is not very wonderful, that
we should conceive ourselves to have hwivn always, what we do
not remember to have ever learned.
Tliat to know, in the .series of mental phenomena, is^hat
are the antecedt-nts, and rv/iat their consequents, is one great
branch of the Philosophy of Mind, 1 surely need not attempt to
demonstrate; and it would be ecpially superfluous to demonstrate
iU importance, especially after the remarks — if even these were
IN RELATION TO THE STUDY OF MIND. 151
necessary, — which I made in a former Lecture ; since it is not
merely, as a very interesting branch of specuhitive knowledge,
that it is valuable, but, as I then showed, still more valuable, as
the foundation of every intellectual art, especially of those noble
and almost divine arts, which have, for their immediate object,
the illumination and amendment of mankind — the art of training
ignorance to wisdom, and even wisdom itself to knowledge still
more sublime, — of iixing youthful innocence in the voluntary prac-
tice of virtue, that is as yet little more than an instinct of which
it is scarcely conscious, — of breathing that moral inspiration, which
strengthens feeble goodness, when it is about to fall, tames even
the wildest excesses of the wildest passions, and leads back, as if
by the invisible power of some guardian spirit, even Guilt itself,
to the happiness which it had lost, and the holier wishes, which
it rejoices to feel once more.
Since the phenomena of the mind, however, are obviously 5«c-
cessive, like those of matter, the consideration of the sequences of
the mental phenomena, and the arrangement of them in certain
classes, may appear to you sufiiciently analogous to the considera-
tion and arrangement of the sequences of the phenomena of the
material world. But that there should be any inquiries, in the
philosophy of mind, corresponding with the inquiries into the com-
position of bodies, may appear to you improbable, or almost ab-
surd; since the mind, and consequently its affections — which I use
as a short general term for expressing all the variety of the modes
in which it can be affected, and which, therefore, are only the
mind itself as it exists in different states, — must be always simple
and indivisible. Yet, wonderful, or even absurd, as it may seero,
notwithstanding the absolute simplicity of the mind itself, and con-
sequently of all its feelings or momentary states, — the Science of
Mind is, in its most important respects, a source of analysis, or of
a process which 1 have said to be virtually the same as " analysis ;
and it is only, as it is in this virtual sense analytical, that any dis-
covery, at least that any important discovery, can be expected
to be made in it.
It is, indeed, scarcely possible to advance, even a step in intel-
lectual physics, without the necessity of performing some sort of
analysis, by which we reduce to simpler elements, some complex
feeling that •=eems to us virtually to involve them. In the nuud of
152 ON THE LAWS OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY
man, all is in a state of constant and ever-varying complexity, and
a single sentiment may be the slow result of innumerable feelings-
There is not a single pleasure, or pain, or thought, or emotion,
that may not, — by the intluence of that associating principle, which
is afterwards to come under our consideration, — be so connected
with other pleasures, or pains, or thoughts, or emotions, as to
form with them, forever after, an union the most intimate. The
complex, or seemingly complex, phenomena of thought, which re-
sult from the constant operation of this principle of the mind, it is
the labour of the intellectual inquirer to analyze^ as it is the labour
of the chemist to reduce the compound bodies, on which he ope-
rates, however close and intimate their combination may be, to
their constituent elements. The process, and the instruments by
which the analyses are caried on, are, indeed, as ditferent as mat-
ter is from mind, — cumbrous as mattrr, in the one case, — in the
other, simple and spiritual as mind itself. The aggre?-ates of mat-
ter we analyze by the use of other matter, adding substance after
substance, and varying manipulation after manipulation ; — the
complex mental phenomena we analyze virtually by mere reflec-
tion ; the same individual mind being the subject of analysis, the
instrument of analysis, and the analysins: inquirer.
When I speak, however, of the union of separate thoughts and
feelings in one complex sentiment or emotion, and of the analytic
power of reflection or reason, it must not be conceived, that I use
these words in a sense precisely the same as when tlM?y arc ap-
plied to matter. A mass of matter, as we have seen, is, in truth,
not one body merely, but a multitiuk of contiguous bodies; all of
which, at the time, may be considered as having a separate exist-
ence, and as placed together more by accidental apposition, than
by any essential union ;— and analysis is nothing more than what its
etomology denotes, a looseniui; of these from each other. In strict-
ness of language, this composition and analysis cannot take place
in miiid. Even the most complex feeling is still only nnc feeling ;
for we cannot divide the states or aftbctions of our mind into sep-
arate self-existing fractions, as we can divide a coni[.(>und mass of
matter into masses, which are separate and self-existing,— nor dis-
linguish half a joy or sorrow from a zuknle joy or sorrow. The
eonceplion of gold, and the conception of a mountain, may sqpar-
atelv aiiso. and may be followed by the conciption of a goldea
IN RELATION TO THE STUDY OF MIND. 153
mountain ; which may be said to be a compound of the two, in
the sense in which I use that word, to express merely, that what is
thus termed compound or complex is the result of certain previous
feelings, to which, as if existmg- together, it is felt to have the vir-
tual relation of equality, or the relation which a whole bears to
the parts that are comprehended in it. But the conception of a
golden mountain is still as much one state or feeling of one simple
mind, as either of the separate conceptions of gold and of a moun-
tain which preceded it. In cases of this kind, indeed, it is the
very nature of the resulting feehng to seem to us thus complex ;
and we are led, by the very constitution of our mind itself, to con-
sider what we term a complex idea, as equivalent to the separate
ideas from which it results, or as comprehensive of them, — as be-
ing truly to our conception — though to our conception only — and,
therefore, only virtually or relatively to us the inquirers — the
same, as if it were composed of the separate feelings co-existing, as
the elements of a body co-exist in space.
It is this feeling of the relation of certain states of mind to cer-
tain other states of mind, which solves the whole mystery of men-
tal analysis, that seemed at tirst so inexplicable, — the virtual de-
composition, in our thought, of what is by its very nature, indivisi'
hie. The mind, indeed, it must be allowed, is absolutely simple
in all its states ; every separate state or affection of it must there-
fore, be absolutely simple ; but in certain cases, in which a feeling
is the result of other feelings preceding it, it is its ver}^ nature to
appear to involve the union of those preceding feelings ; and to
distinguish the separate sensations, or thoughts, or emotions, ot
which, on reflection, it thus seems to be comprehensive, is to per-
form an intellectual process, which, though not a real analysis, is
an analysis at least relatively to our conception. It may still, in-
deed, be said with truth, that the different feelings,— the states or af-
fections of mind which we term complex, — are absolutely simple and
indivisible, as much as the feelings or affections of mind which we
term simple. Of this there can be no doubt. But the complexi-
ty with which alone we are concerned is not absolute but relative,
— a seeming complexity, which is involved in the very feeling of
relation of every sort. That we are thus impressed with certitin
feelings of relation of conceptions to conceptions, no one can doubt
who knows, that all science has its oi'igin in thr?o very feelings :
20
151 0N THE LAWS OF PHVSICAL INQUIRY
and equivalence, or equality, is one of those relations, which, from
its very constitution, it would be as impossible for the mind in cer-
tain circumstances, not to feel, as it would be impossible for it, in
certain other circumstances, not to have those simple feelings
which it compares. With perfect organs of vision, and in the full
light of day, it is not possible tor us to look on a tree, or a rock,
without perceiving it; but it is not more possible for us to form a
conception of two trees, without regarding this state of mind, sim-
ple though it truly is, when absolutely considered as virtually in-
volving, or as equal to, two of those separate feelings, which con-
stituted the conception of a single tree.
On this mere feeling of virtual equivalence, is founded all the
demonstration of those sciences, which claim the glory of being pe-
culiarly demonstrative; our equations and proportions of abstract
number and quantity involving continually this analytic valuation of
notions, as reciprocally proportional. Our conception of an angle
of fortj'-five degrees is one state or affection of mind, — one state
of one simple indivisible substance; — such, too, is our conception of
a right angle. Our notion of/our or eight is as much one affection
of mind, as our notion of a simple unit. But, in reflecting on the
separate states of mind which constitute these notions, we are im-
pressed with certain relations which they seem, to us, reciprocally
to bear, and we consider the angle of forty-five degrees as equal to
half the angle of ninety degrees, and our notion of eight as involv-
ing or equal to two of four. If one state of mind, which consti-
tutes the notion of a certain abstract number or quantity, had not
been considered in this sort of virtual comprehensiveness, as bear-
ing the relation of ec|uality, or proportion, to other states of mind,
which constitute other abstract notions of the same species, math-
ematics would not merely have lost their certainty, but there
could not, in truth, have been any such science as mathematics.
The intellectual analysis^ which appears to me to constitute so
important a part of the science of mind, is nothing more ih-.n the
successive developement, in application to the various mental
phenomena, of this feeling of equivalence, or comprehensiveness,
which is not confinMl to the mathematical notions of number and
fpiantity, (though, from the greater simj)licity of these, their
eqi:ality or proportion may be more accurately distinguished,) but
<'Xtends to every thought and feeling which we regard as complex,
IN RELATION TO THE STUDY OF MIND. 155
that is to say, to almost every thought and feeling of which the
mind is susceptible. We compare virtue with virtue, talent with
talent, not, indeed, with the same precision, but certainly in the
same manner, and with the same feeling of proportion, as we
compare intellectually one angle with another ; and we ask what
ideas are involved in our complex notions of religion and govern-
ment, with as strong a feeling that a number of ideas are virtually
involved or comprehended in them, as when we ask, how often
the square of two is repeated in the cube of six.
Analysis, then, in the Science of Mind, you will perceive, is
founded wholly on the feeling of relation which one state of mind
seems to us to bear to other states of mind, as comprehensive of
them ; but, while this seeming complexity is felt, it is the same
thing to our analysis, as if the complexity, instead of being virtual
and relative only, were absolute and real. It may be objected to
the application of the term analysis to the Science of Mind, that
it is a term which, its etj^mology shews, as I have already admit-
ted, to be borrowed from matter, and to convey, as applied to the
mind, a notion in some degree different from its etymological
sense. But this is an objection which may be urged, with at least
equal force, against every term, or almost every term, of our sci-
ence. In our want of a peculiar metaphysical language, we are
obliged in this, as in every other case, to borrow a metaphysical
language from the material world ; and we are very naturally led
to speak of mental composition and analysis, since to the mind
which feels the relation of equivalence or comprehensiveness, it is
precisely the same thing as if our ideas and emotions, that result
from former ideas and emotions, and are felt by us as if involving
these in one complex whole, could be actually divided into the
separate elements which appear to us thus virtually or relatively
to be comprehended in them.
It is from having neglected this branch of the physical investi-
gation of the mind, — by far the more important of the two, — and
having fixed their attention solely on the successions of its phe-
nomena, that some philosophers have been led to disparage the
science as fruitless of discovery, and even to deride the preten-
sions or the hopes of those who do not consider it as absolutely ex-
hausted ; — I will not say now merely, in the present improved
state of the science, but as not exhausted almost before philosophy
166 ON THE LAWS OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY
began, in the riule conpciousncs of tlie rudest savage, who saw,
and remembered, and compared, and hoped, and feared; and must,
therel'ore, it is said, have known what it is to see, and remember,
and compare, and hope, and fear.
If the phenomena of the mind were to be regarded merely as
successive. — which is one only of the two lights in which they may
be physically viewed, — it might, indeed, be said, with a little more
appearance of truth, that this mere succession must be as familiar
lo the unreflecting mind as to the mind of the philosopher ; though,
even in this limited sense, the remark is far from being accurate.
But the phenomena have other relations, fvs well as those of suc-
cession, — relations which are not involved in the mere conscious-
ness of the moment, but are discoverable by reflection only, — and
to the knowledge of which, therefore, addition after addition may
be m:ile by every new generation of reflecting inquirers. From
the very instant of its lirst existence, the mind is constantly exhib-
iting phenomena more and more complex, — sensations, thoughts,
emotions, all mingling together, and almost every feeling modify-
ing, in some greater or less degree, the feelings that succeed it ; —
and as, in chemistry, it often happens, that the qualities of the
separate ingredients of a compound body are not recognizable by
us, in the apparently different qualities of the compound itself, —
so, in this spontaneous chemistry of the mind, the compound senti-
ment, that results from the association of former feelings, has, in
many cases, on first consideration, so little resemblance to these
constituents of it, as formerly existing in their elemenfary state,
that it requires the most attentive reflection to separate, and
evolve distinctly to others, the assemblages which even a few years
may have produced. Indeed, so complex are the mental phenom-
ena, and so diflicult of analysis, — even in those most common cases,
which may be said to be familiar to all, — that it is truly wonderful
thai the difliculty of this analysis, and the field of inquiry which this
very dilficulty opens, should not have occurred to the disparagers
of intellectual discovery, and made them feel, that what they were
not able to explain could not be so well known (o all mankind as
lo be ab-:olutely incapable of additional illustration. The savage^
they will tell us, is conscious of what he feels in loving his coun-
try, a-s well as the sage; but, docs he know as well, or can even
the sage himself inform us nith precision, what the various ele-
IN RELATION TO THE STUDY OF MIND, 157
inenary feelings haA-'e been, that have successively modified, or
rather, that have constituted this local attachment ? The peasant,
indeed, may have the feeling of beauty, like the artist who pro-
duces it, or the speculative inquirer, vi^ho analyses this very com-
plex emotion —
" Ask the swain,
Who journeys homeward, from a summer day's
Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils
And due repose, he loiters to behold
The sunshine gleaming, as through amber clouds,
O'er all the western sky ? Full soon, I ween,
His rude expression, and untutored airs,
Beyond tlie power of language, will unfold
The form of Beauty smiling at his heart.
How lovely, how commanding !''*
But the mere emotion which beauty produces, is not the knowl-
edge of the simpler feelings that have composed or moditied it;
and though the pleasure and admiration were to continue exactly
the same, the peasant would surely have learned something, if he
could be made to understand, that beauty was more than the form
«nd colour which his eye perceived. What is thus true of beauty
as differently understood by the peasant and the philosopher, is
true, in like manner, of all the other complex mental phenomena.
It would, indeed, be as reasonable to affirm, that, because we all
move our limbs, we are all equally acquainted with the physiology
of muscular motion ; or, to take a case still more exactly appro-
priate, that we know all the sublimest truths of arithmetic and ge-
ometry, because we know all the numbers and figures of the mere
relations of which these are the science, — as that we are all ac-
quainted with the physiology of the mind, and the number of ele-
ments which enter into our various feelings, because we all per-
ceive, and remember, and love, and hate. It is, it will be allow-
ed, chiefly, or perhaps, wholly, as it is analytical, that the science
of mind admits of discovery ; but, as a science of analysis, in which
new relations are continually felt on reflection, it presents us with
a field of discovery as rich, and, I may say, almost as inexhausti-
ble in wonders, as that of the universe without.
" It is thus," I have elsewhere remarked, " even in plicnome-
na, which seem so simple as scarcely to have admitted combination,
* Pleasures oflmagination, Book III. v. 526—535.
158 ON THE LAWS OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY
what wonders have been developed by scientific inquiry ! Percep-
tion itself, that primary function of the mind, which was surely
the same before Berkeley examined the laws of vision as at pres-
ent, is now regarded by us very differently, in relation to the most
important of its organs ; and it would not be easy to find, amid all
the brilliant discoveries of modern chemistry, and even in the
whole range of the physics of matter, a proposition more complete-
ly revolting to popular belief, than that, which it is now the gen-
eral faith of philosophers, that the sense of sight, which seems to
bring the farthest hills of the most extended landscape, and the
very boundlessness of space before our view, is, of itself, incapa-
ble of shewing us a single line of longitudinal distance."*
If, as has been strongly affirmed, the science of mind be a sci-
ence that is, by its very nature, insusceptible of improvement by
discovery, it must have been so, before the time of Berkeley as
now, and it might have been a sufficient answer to all the argu-
ments which he adduced in support of his theory of vision, that
the phenomena which he boasted to have analysed, were only the
common and familiar phenomena of a sense that had been exercis-
ed by all mankind.
" The vulgar," I have said, "would gaze with astonishment,
were they to perceive an electrician inflame gunpowder with an
icicle ; but they would not be less confounded by those dazzling
subtleties with which metaphysicians would persuade them, that
the very actions which they feel to be benevolent and disinterest-
ed, had their source in the same principle of selfishness, which
makes man a knave or a tyrant. That this particular doctrine is
false, is of no consequence ; the whole theory of our moral senti-
ment presents results which are nearly as wonderful ; and, indeed,
the falseness of any metaphysical doctrine, if rightly considered, is
itself one of the strongest proofs that the science of mind is a sci-
ence which admits of discovery; for, if all men had equal knowl-
edge of all the relations of all the phenomena of their mind, no one
could advance an opinion on the subject, with real belief of if,
which another could discover to be erroneous. In the different
stages of the groivth of a passion, what a variety of appearances
does it assume; and how difficult is it often to trace, in the confu-
* Irniuiry into llie Uclation of Cause and Efftcf, 2cl edition, p. 32, 33.
IN RELATION TO THE STUDY OF MIND. 15!^
sion and complication of the paroxysm, those calm and simple emo-
tions, in which, in many cases, it originated ! — The love of domes-
tic pr.use, and of the parental smile of approhation, which gave
excellence to the first efforts of the child, may expand, with little
variation, into the love of honest and honourable fame ; or, in more
unhappy circumstances, may shoot out from its natural direction,
into all the guilt and madness of atrocious ambition ; — and can it
truly be maintained, or even supposed, for a moment, that all this
fine shadowing of feelings into feelings, is known as much to the
rudest and most ignorant of mankind, as it is to the profoundest in-
tellectual inquirer ? How different is the passion of the miser, as
viewed by himself, by the vulgar, and by philosophers ! He is
conscious, however, only of the accuracy of his reasonings on the
probabilities of future poverty, of a love of economy, and of tem-
perance, and certain too of strict and rigid justice. To common
observers, he is only a lover of money. They content themselves
with the passion, in its mature state ; and it would not be easy to
convince them, that the most self-denying avarice involves as its
essence, or at least originally involved, the love of those very
pleasures and accommodations, which are now sacrificed to it with-
out the least apparent relactance."*
" This light and darkness, in our chaos join'd,
What shall divide? The God within the mind."
There is, indeed, a chaos, in the mind. But there is a spirit
of inquiry, which is forever moving over it, slowly separating all
its mingled elements. It is only when these are separated, that
the philosophy of mind can be complete, and incapable of further
discovery. To say that it is now complete, because it has in it
every thing which can be the subject of analysis, is as absurd, as
it would be to suppose that the ancient chaos, when it contained
merely the elements of things, before the spirit of God moved up-
on the waters of the abyss, was already that world of life, and or-
der, and beauty, which it was after to become.
The diihcuUy which arises in the physical investigation of the
mind, from the apparent simplification of those thoughts and feel-
ings which, on more attentive reflection, are felt to be as if com-
* Inquirj- into the Relation of Cause and Effect, 2d edition, p. 26—30.
with some alterations and exclusions.
160 ON THE LAWS OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY
pounded of many other thoughts and feeling's, that have previous-
ly existed together, or in immediate succession, is similar to the
difficulty which we experience in the physics of matter, from the
imperfection of our senses, that allows us to perceive masses only,
not their elemental parts, and thus leads us to consider as simple
bodies, what a single new experiment may prove to be composed
of various elements.
In the iniellectual world, the slow progress of discovery arises,
in like manner, from the obstacles which our feeble power of dis-
crimination presents to our mental analysis. But, in mind, as well
as in matter, it must be remembered, that it is to this very feeble-
ness of our discriminating powers, the whole analytic science owes
its origin. If we could distinguish instantly and clearly in our com-
plex phenomena of thought, their constituent elements — if, for ex-
ample, in that single and apparently simple emotion, which we
feel, on the sight of beauty, as it lives before us, or in the contem-
plation of that ideal beauty, which is reflected from works of art,
we could discover, as it were, in a single glance, all the innumer-
able feelings, which, perhaps, from the first moment of life, have
been conspiring together, and blending in the production of it — we
should then feel as little interest in our theories of taste, as in a
case formerly supposed, we should have done in our theories of
combustion, if the most minute changes that take place in combus-
tion had been at all times distinctly visible. The mysteries of our
intellect, the " altae penetralia mentis,"'' would then lie for ever
open to us ; and what was said poetically of Hobbes, in the beauti-
ful verses addressed to him on his work De A''atura Hominis, would
be applicable to all mankind, not poetically, but in the strictness of
philosophic truth.
"Quae magna cocli mocnia, et tractus maris,
Terranque fines, siquid aut ultra est, capit,
Mens ipsa tandem capitur ; Omnia hactenus
Qua; nosse potuit, nota jam primum est sibi.
" Consultor audax, et Promcthei potons
Facinori* animi I quis til)i dedit deus
II»;c iritueri saeculis longc abdita,
Oculnsque luce tinxit ambrosia tuos ?
'I'u mentis omnis, r.t tn;<- nulla est capax.
IN RELATION TO THE STUDY OF MIND. 161
Hoc laude solus fruere : divinum est opus
ADimam creare ; proximum huic, ostendere.
•* Hie cerno levia affectuum vestigia,
Gracilesque Sensus lineas ; video quibus
Vehantur alis blanduli Cupidines,
Quibusque stimulis urgeant Iras graves,
Hie et Dolores et Voluptates suos
Produat recessus ; ipsi nee Timor latet."
°21
162
LECTURE XI.
APPUCATION OF THE LAWS OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY, TO THE PHI-
LOSOPHY OF IMIND, CONCLUDED. ON CONSCIOUSNESS, AND ON
MENTAL INDENTITY.
In my last Lecture, Gentlemen, I considered, very fully, the
two species of inquiry which the philosophy of^ mind admits inex-
act analogy to the two species of inquiry in the philosophy ot
mailer, the consideration of the mental phenomena, as successive,
and therefore susceptible of arrangement in the order of their
succession, as causes and effects,— and the consideration of them
as complex, and therefore susceptible of analysis. I stated to you,
that it was chiefly, if not wholly, in this latter view, as analytical,
that 1 conceived the philosophy of mind to be a science of progres-
sive discovery ; though, as a science of analogy, it has not merely
produced results, as astonishing, perhaps, in some cases, as any of
those which the analysis of matter has exhibited, but presents still
a field of inquiry, that may be considered as inexhaustible ; since
the mind cannot exist, without forming continually new combina-
tions, that modify its subsequent affections, and vary, therefore,
the products, which it is the labour of our intellectual analysis to
reduce to their original elomonts.
What the ckcmixt docs, in matter, the intellectual analysis does
in mind ; the one distinguishing I)y a purely mental process of re-
flection, the elements of his complex feelings, as the other ope-
rates on his material compounds, by processes that are themselves
material. Though tlie term analysis, however, may be used in
reference to both |)ror.essos, the menial, as well as tlie material,
since the result oftbe process is virtually the same in bolli, it has
J)een universally employed by i)hil()si)pliers, in the laws of the
mind, without any accurate dcfuiiliou of the process ; and I w;w
ON THE LAWS OF PHYSICAL INQUIRE. 163
careful, therefore, to explain to you the peculiar meaning', in
ivhich it is strictly to be understood in our science ; that you
might not extend to the mind and its affections, that essential divis-
ibility, which is inconsistent with its very nature ; and suppose
that, when we speak of complex notions, and of thoughts and feel-
ings that are united by association with other thoughts and feel-
ings, we speak of a plurality of separable things. The complex
mental phenomena, as I explained to you, are complex only in re-
lation to our mode of conceiving them. They are, strictly and
trulj^, as simple and indivisible states of a substance, which is ne-
cessarily in all its states simple and indivisible — the results, rather
than the compounds, of former feelings, — to which, however, they
seem to us, and from the very nature of the feelings themselves,
cannot but seem to us, to bear the same species of relation, which
ii 7Dhole bears to the parts that compose it. The office of intel-
lectual analysis, accordingly, in the mode in which I have explain-
ed it to you, has regard to this relation only. It is to trace the
various affections or states of mind that have successively con-
tributed, to form or to modity any peculiar sentiment or emotion,
and to develope the elements, to which, after tracing this succes-
sion, the resulting sentiment or emotion is felt by us to bear vir-
tually that relation of seeming comprehensiveness of which I
spoke.
If, indeed, our perspicacity were so acute that we could dis-
tinguish immediately all the relations of our thoughts and passions,
there could evidently be no discovery in the science of mind ; but,
in like manner, what discovery could there be, in the analysis of
matter, if our senses were so quick and delicate, as to distinguish
immediately all the elements of every compound ? It is only
slowly that we discover the composition of the masses without ;
and we have therefore a science of chemistry : — It is only slowly
that we discover the relations of complex though! to thought ;
and we have therefore a science of mental analysis.
It is to the imperfection of our faculties, then, as forcing us to
guess and explore what is half concealed from us, that we owe
our laborious experiments and reasonings, and consequently all
the science which is the result of these ; and the proudest discov-
eries which we make may thus, in one point of view, whatever
dignity they may give to a few moments of our life, be considered
164 ON THE LAWS OF I'HYSICAL INQUIRY
as proofs and memorials of our general weakness. If, in its rela-
tion to matter, philosophy be founded, in a very great degree, on
the mere badness of our eyes, which prevents us from distinguish-
ing accurately the minute changes that are constantly taking place
in the bodies around us ; we have seen, in like manner, that, in
its relation to the mind, it is founded chiefly, or perhaps wholly,
on the imperfection of our power of discriminating the elementary
feelings, which compose our great complexities of thought and pas-
sion ; the various relations of which are felt by us only on atteu-
live reflection, and are, therefore, in progressive discovery, slow-
ly add?d to relations that have before been traced. In both cas-
es, the analysis, necessary for this purpose, is an operation of un-
questionable difficulty. But it is surely not less so, in mind, than
in matter; nor, when nature exhibits all her wonders to us, in
one case, in objects that are separate from us, and foreign ; and,
in the other, in the intimate phenomena of our own consciousness,
can we jusiiy think, that it is of ourselves we know the most. On
the contrary, strange as it may seem, it is of her distant opera-
tions, that our knowledge is least imperfect ; and we have fixr less
acquaintance with the sway which she exercises in our own mind,
than with that by which she guides the course of the most remote
planet, in spaces beyond us, which we rather calculate than con-
ceive. The only science, which, by its simplicity and comprehen-
siveness, seems to have attained a maturity that leaves little for
future inquiry, is not that which relates immediately to man him-
self, or to the properties of the bodies on his own planet, that are
ever acting on his perceptive organs, and essential to his life and
enjoyment ; but that which relates to the immense system of the
universe, to which the very orb, that supports all <hq multitudes
of his race, is but an atom of dust, and to which himself, as an in-
dividual, is as nothing.
" Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind,
Describe or fix one movement of liis mind ?
Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend,
Explain his own beginning or his end?
Go, wondrous creature ! mount where Science guides,
Go, measure earth, weigh nir, and state the tides ;
Instruct tlic planets in what orhs to run,
Correct old Time, and regulate the Sun ;
IN RELATION TO THE STUDY OF MIND. 165
Go, soar with Plato to th' etopyreal sphere,
To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;
Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule —
Then drop into thyself, and be a fool 1"*
That man should know so much of the universe, and so verj
little of himself , is, indeed, one of the circumstances, tvhich, in the
lang'uage of the same poet, most strongly characterize him, as the
"jest and riddle" of that world, of which he is also no less truly
" the glory."
" That the intelligence of any being," to use the words of
D'Alembert, " should not pass beyond certain limits — that, in one
species of beings, it should be more or less circumscribed, than in
another — all this is not surprising, more than that a blade of grass
should be less tall than a shrub ; or a shrub than an oak. But that
the 5rtme being should be at once arrested by the narrow circle which
nature has traced around him, and j^et constantly reminded, that, be-
yond these limits, there are objects which he is never to attain — that
he should be able to reason, till he loses himself, on the existence
and nature of these objects, though condemned to be eternally ig-
norant of them — that he should have too little sagacity to resolve
an infinity of questions, which he has yet sagacity enough to nuike
— that the principle within us, which thinks, should ask itself in
vain, what it is which constitutes its thought, and that this thought,
which sees so many things, so distant, should yet not be able to
see itself, which is so near, — that self, which it is notwithstanding
always striving to see and to know — these are contradictions,
which, even in the very pride of our reasoning, cannot fail to sur-
prise and confound us."
All that remains for us, in that impossibility which nature has
imposed on us of attaining a more intimate knowledge of the es-
sence and constitution either of mind or of matter, is to attend to
the phenomena which they present, analysing whatever is com-
plex, and tracing the order of every sequence. By attentive re-
flecuo/i on the phenomena themselves, and on all the circum-
stances which precede or follow them, we shall be able to discov-
er the relations which they mutually bear, and to distinguish their
casual coincidence, or succession, from those invariable relations
which nature has established among them as causes and effects.
* Pope's Essay on Man, Ep. ii. v. 35—39; 19— 2} ; and 29, 30.
166 ON THE LAWS OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY
This, humble as it may seem, is, as 1 have said, the true philoso-
phy of man ; because it is all of which man is capable. To in-
quire, as may be thought, more deeply into the essences of things,
or the nature of certain supposed bonds by which they are con-
nected, is to show, not that we have advanced far in the progress
of science, but that we have gone far astray ; not that we know
jnore than philosophers of humbler views and pretensions, but that
we know less ; since it proves that we are unacquainted with the
limits within which nature has bounded our prospect, and have
not attained that prime knowledge, which consists in knowing how
little can be known.
If the philosophy, not of mind only, but of the universe, is to
be found, as Hobbes has boldly said, within ourselves. — in the same
manner as the perfect statue is to be found in the rude block of
the quarry, when all the superfluous ma«s, that adheres to it, has
been removed, — in no respect can it more justly be said to be in
our own minds than in this, that it is only by knowing the true ex-
tent, and consequently the limits, of our intellectual powers, that
we can form any rational system of philosophic investigation.
Then, indeed, Philosophy may be truly said, in his strong figura-
tive language, to be Human Reason herself, hovering over all
created things, and proclaiming their order, their causes,- and ef-
fects. " Philosophiam noli credere earn esse, per quam liunt lap-
ides philosophici, neque illam quam ostentant codices metaphysici ;
sed Rationem Humanum naturalem per omnes res creatas sedulo
volitantem, et de earum ordine, causis, et elTectibus, ea quae vera
sunt rcnuntiantcm. Mentis ergo tuae, et totius mundi filia philo-
sophia in te ipso est; nondum fortasse figurata, sed gcnitori mundo
qiialis erat in princii)io inform! similes. Faciendum ergo tibi est
quod faciunt staluarii, qui maleriam exculpentes supervacrae-
um, imaginem non faciunt sed invcniunt.""*
After those remarks on physical inquiry in general, and its
particular application to our own science, I trust that we shall
now proceerl to observe, and analyse, and arrange the mental
phenomena, witli clearer views, both of the materials on which
we havf to operate, and of the nature of the operations which we
have to prrforni. We may consider the mind as now lying open
• .\(1 Lpctorem.— A .Note iircfixcd to (lie KIcracnta riiilosophia'. 4to.
Amslclod. 1563.
IN RELATION TO THE STUDY OF MIND. 167
before us, presenting to us all its phenomena, but presenting thera
in assemblages^ which it is to be our labour to separate and ar-
range. In this separation and arrangement, there are ditFiculties,
I confess, of no slight kind. But, I trust, that you have the spirit,
which delights in overcoming ditficulties, and which, even if its
most strenuous exertions should fail, delights in the very strenu-
ousness of the endeavour. In what admits our analysis, and in what
transcends it, we shall always find much that is truly wonderful in
itself, and deserving of our profoundest admiration ; and, even in
the obscurest parts of the great field of mind, though we may see
only dimly, and must, therefore, be cautious in inquiring, and
fearful of pronouncing, we may yet, perhaps, be opening paths
that are to lead to discovery, and, in the very darkness of our
search, may perceive some gleams of that light, which, though
now only dawning upon ws, is to brighten on the inquirers of other
ages.
In proceeding to examine and compare the mental phenomena,
the first circumstance that strikes us, prior to any attempt to ar-
range them in classes, is, that the mind which exhibits these is
susceptible of a variety of feelings, every neAv feeling being a
change of its state ; and, indeed, it is by such changes alone that
it manifests itself, either in our own consciousness, or in the ac-
tions of our fellow men. If it could exist only in one everlasting
state, — such as now constitutes the feeling of any particular mo-
ment, — it is quite superfluous to say, that it could not reason upon
this state, — for this very reasoning Avould itself imply the change,
which is supposed to be impossible ; and as little could this one
unchanged and unchangeable feeling be an object of reasoning to
others, even if there were any mode of its becoming manifest to
them, which there evidently could not be. It is, perhaps, even
not too extravagant an assertion of Hobbes, who supposes a mind
so constituted as to perceive only one colour, and to perceive this
constantly, and affirms, that, in that case, it would be absurd to
say that it had any perception at all, being rather, as he expres-
ses it, stupified than seeing. " Attonitum esse et fortasse aspectare
eum, sed stupentem dicerem, videre non dicerem ; adeo senlire
semper idem, et non sentire ad idem recidunt."
Mind, then, is capable of existing in various states ; an enumer-
ation of the leading classes of w^hich. as I before remarked, is all
163 ON CONSCIOUSNESS.
that constitutes our definition of it. It is that, we say, which per-
ceives, remembers, compares, grieves, rejoices, loves, hates ; and
though the terms, whatever they may be, that are used by us, in
any such enumeration, may be few, we must not forget that the
terms are mere inventions of our own for the purpose of classifi-
cation, and that each of them comprehends a variety of feelmgs, that
are as truly diiferent from each other, as the classes themselves
are different. Ptrception is but a single word ; yet, when we con-
sider the number of objects that may act upon our organs of sense,
and the number of ways in which their action may be combined,
30 as to produce one compound effect, different from that which
the same objects would produce separately, or in otlier forms of
combination, how many are the feelings whxh this smgle word de-
notes ! 50 many, indeed, that no arithmetical computation is suffi-
cient to measure their intinity.
Amid all this variety of feelings, with whatever rapidity the
changes may succeed each other, and however opposite they may
seem, we have still the most undouhtmg belief, that it is the same
individual mmd, which is thus affected in various ways. The
pleasure, which is felt at one moment, has indeed little apparent
relation to the pain that was perhaps felt a few moments before;
and the knowledge of a subject, which we possess, after having re-
flected on it fully, has equally little resemblance to our state of
doubt when we began to inquire, or the total ignorance and indif-
ference which preceded the first doubt that we felt. It is the
same individual mind, however, which, in all these instances, is
pleased and pained, is ignorant, doubts, retlccts, knows. There
is something " clianged in all, and yet in all the same," which at
once constitutes the thoughts and emotions of the hour, and yet
oHtlives them,— something, which, from the temporary agitations
of passion, rises, unaltered and everlasting, like the pyramid, that
lifta still the same point to heaven, amid the sands and whirlwinds
of the desert.
The consideration of the mind, as one substance, capable of
existing in a variety of states, according as it is varionslv allocted,
and constituting, in these dill'erent slates, all the complex phenom-
ena of thouglit and feeling, necc'^sanly involves the consideration
i)( consciimmesn, am\ of fjersonalidenlily. To liie examination of
these, accordingly, I now proceed, us essential to all the inquiries and
ON CONSCIOUSNESS. 169
speculations, in which we are afterwards to be engaged ; since,
whatever powers or susceptibilities we may consider as attributes
of the mind, this consideration must always suppose the exist-
ence of certain phenomena, of which we are conscious, and the
identity of the sentient or thinking principle, in which that con-
sciousness resides, and to which all the varieties of those ever-
changing feelings, which form the subjects of our inquiry, are col-
lectively to be referred.
Our first inquir3% then, is into the nature of
CONSCIOUSNESS.
In the systems of philosophy, which have been most generally
prevalent, especially in this part of the Island, consciousness ha^
always been classed as one of the intellectual powers of the mind,
differing from its other powers, as these mutually differ from each
other. It is accordingly ranked by Dr Reid, as separate and dis-
tinct, in his Catalogue of the Intellectual Powers ; and he says of
it, that " it is an operation of the understanding of its own kind,
and cannot be logically defined. The objects of it are our pre-
sent pains, our pleasures, our hopes, our fears, our desires, our
doubts, our thoughts of every kind, — in a word, all the passions,
and all the actions and operations of our own minds, while they
are present." And in various parts of his works, which it
would be needless to quote, he alludes to its radical difference
from the other powers of the mind, as if it were a point on which
there could be no question. To me, however, I must confess, it
appears that this attempt to double, as it were, our various feel-
ings, by making them not to constitute our consciousness, but to be
the objects of it, as of a distinct intellectual power, is not a faith-
ful statement of the phenomena of the mind, but is founded, part-
ly on a confusion of thought, and still more on a confusion of lan-
guage. Sensation is not the object of consciousness different from
itself, but a particular sensation is the consciousness of the mo-
ment ; as a particular hope, or fear, or grief, or resentment, or
simple remembrance, may be the actual consciousness of the next
moment. In short, if the mind of man, and all the changes which
take place in it, from the tirst feeling with which life commenced,
td the last with which it closes, could be made visible to any oth-
170 ON CONSCIOUSNESS.
er thinking being, a certain series of feelings alone, that is to sa3^.,
a certain number of successive states of the mind, would be dis-
tinguishable in it, forming, indeed, a variety of sensations, and
thoughts, and passions, as momentary states of the mind, but all ot
them existing individually, and successively to each other. To
suppose the mind to exist in two different states, in the same mo-
ment, is a manifest absurdity. To the whole series of states ot
the mind, then, whatever the individual momentary successive
states may be, 1 give the name of our consciousness^ — using that
term, not to express any new state additional to the whole series,
(for to that, which is already the whole nothing can be added,
and the mind, as I have already said, cannot be conceived to ex-
ist at once in two different states,) but merely as a short mode of
expressing the wide variety of our feelings ; in the same manner,
as I use any other generic word, for expressing briefly the indi-
vidual varieties comprehended under it. There are not sensa-
tions, thoughts, passions, and also consciousness, any more than
there is quadruped or animal, as a separate being, to be added to
the wolves, tigers, elephants, and other living creatures, which I
include under those terms.
The fallacy of conceiving consciousness to be something differ-
ent from the feeling, which is said to be its object, has arisen, in a
great measure, from the use of the personal pronoun /, which the
conviction of our identity, during the various feelings, or temporary
consciousnesses of different moments, has led us to employ, as sig-
nificant of our permanent selj\ of that being, which is conscious,
and variously conscious, and which continues, after these feelings
have ceased, to be the subject of other consciousness, as transient
as the former. I am conscious of a certain feeling, really means,
however, no more than this — I feel in a certain manner, or, in oth-
er words, my mind exists in that state which constitutes a certian
feeling; the mere existence of that feeling, and not any additional
and distinguishable feeling that is to be termed consciousness, being
all which is essential to the state of my mind, at (lie |)articular
moment of sensation ; for a pleasure, or pain, of whicli we are not
conscious, is a pUjasure or pain, that, in reference to us at least,
has no existence. Hut wlu'ii we say, 1 am conscious of a particu-
lar feeling, in the usual pharaplirasfic phraseology of our language,
which hus no mode of expressing, in a single word, the mere ex-
ON CONSCIOUSNESS. 171
istence of a feeling', we are apt, from a prejudice of grammar, to
separate the sentient / and the feeling' as different, — not different,
as they really are, merely in this respect, that the feeling is one
momentary and changeable state of the permanent substance /,
that is, capable of existing also, at other moments, in other states,
— but so radically different, as to justify our classing the feeling,
in the relation of an object, to that sentient principle which we
call /, — and an object to it, not in retrospect only, as when the
feeling is remembered, or when it is viewed in relation to other
remembered feelings, — but in the very moment of the primary
sensation itself; as if there could truly be two distinct states of the
same mind, at that same moment, one of which states is to be term-
ed sensation, and the other different state of the same mind to be
termed consciousness.
To estimate more accurately the effect, which this reference
to self produces, let us imagine a human being to be born with his
faculties perfect as in mature life, and let us suppose a sensation to
arise for the first time in his mind. For the sake of greater sim-
plicity, let us suppose the sensation to be of a kind as little com-
plex as possible ; such for example, as that which the fragrance
of a rose excites. If, immediately after this first sensation, we im-
agine the sentient principle to be extinguished, what are we to
call that feeling, which filled and constituted the brief moment of
life ? It was a simple sensation, and nothing more ; and if only we
say, that the sensation has existed, — whether we say, or do not
say, that the mind was conscious of the sensation, — we shall con-
vey precisely the same meaning ; the consciousness of the sensa-
tion being, in that case, only a tautological expression of the sensa-
tion itself. There will be, in this first momentary state, no separ-
ation of self and the sensation, — no little proposition formed in the
mind, I feel, or I am conscious of a feeling ; but the feeling and
the sentient I will, for the moment, be the same. It is this simple
feeling, and this alone, which is the whole consciousness of the
first moment ; and no reference can be made of this to a. self which
is independent of the temporary consciousness ; because the knoAvl-
edge of self, as distinct from the particular feeling, implies Ihe re-
membrance of former feelings, — of feelings, which, togpllier with
the present, we ascribe to one thinking principle, — recognizing the
J72 ON CONSCIOUSNESS.
principle, the self, the one, as the same, amid all its transient diver-
gitie? of consciousness.
Let us now, then, instead of supposing life, as in the former
case, to be extinguished immediately after the first sensation, sup-
pose another sensation to be excited, as for instance that which is
produced by the sound of a flute. The mind either will be com-
pletely absorbed in this new sensation, nithout any subsequent re-
membrance,— in which case the consciousness of the sensation, as
in the case of the fragrance that preceded it, will be only another
more paraphrastic expression of the simple sensation— or the re-
membrance of the former feeling will arise. If the remembrance
of the former feeling arise, and the two different feelings be con-
sidered by the mind at once, it will now, by that irresistible law of
our nature, which impresses us with the conviction of our identity,
conceive the two sensations, which it recognizes as different in
themselves, to have yet belonged to the same being,— that being,
to which, when it has the use of language, it gives the name of
self, and in relation to which it speaks, as often as it uses the pro-
noun /.—The notion of self, as the lasting subject of successive
transient feelings, being now, and not till now, acquired, through
the remembrance of former sensations or temporary diversities of
consciousness, the mind will often again, when other new sensa-
tions may have arisen, go through a similar process, being not
merely affected with the particular raomeutpry sensation, but re-
membering other prior feelings, and identifying it with them, m
the general designation of sell^ In these circumstances the mem-
ory of the past will often mingle with and modify the present; and
now indeed, to form the verbal proposition, I am conscious ot a
particular sensation,— since the very word / implies that this re-
membrance and identification has taken place,— maybe allowed to
express something more than the mere existence of the momenta-
ry sensation : for it expresses also that the mind, which now cx-
if.ts in tlie state of this particular sensation, has formerly existed in
a different stale. There is a remembrance of former feelings, and
a belief that the present and the past have been states of one sub-
btance. But this belief, or in other words, this remembrance of
former feelings, is so far from being essential to every thought or
sensation, that Innumerable feelings every moment arise, without
any such identification with the past. They are Jelt, however, for
ON CONSCIOUSNESS. 173
this is necessarily implied in their existence ; but they exist, as
transient thoughts or sensations only, and the consciousness, which
we have of them, in these circumstances, is nothing more, than
the thoughts or sensations themselves, which could not be thoughts
or sensations if they were not felt.
In the greater number of our successions of momentary feelings,
then, when no reference is made to former states of the mind, the
consciousness is obviously nothing more than the simple momenta-
ry feeling itself as it begins and ceases ; and when there is a refer-
ence to former states of the mind, we discover on analysis only a
remembrance, like all our other remembrances, and a feeling of
common relation of the past and the present affection of the mind
to one permanent subject. It is the belief of our continued iden-
tity which involves this particular feeling of relation of past and
present feelings ; and consciousness, in this sense of the term, is
only a word expressive of that belief.
That the fragrance of a rose, the sound of a flute, and in gen-
eral all the other objects of sense, might have excited preciseh
the same immediate sensations as at present, Doctor Reid admits,
though the belief of our personal identity had not been impressed
upon us; for he ascribes this belief to an instinctive principle only,
and acknowledges, that there is nothing in our sensations them-
selves, from which any such inference could be drawn by reason.
If, then, this instinctive belief of identity had not been, as at pres-
ent, a natural law of human thought, — operating irresistibly on the
remembrance of our different feelings, we should have had no no-
tion of se//*, of me, the sentient and thinking being, who exists at
the present moment, and who existed before the present moment :
— and what, then, would have been the consciousness, accompany-
ing, and different from, our sensations, when they merely flashed
along the mind and vanished ? The most zealous defender of con-
sciousness, as a separate intellectual power, must surely admit,
that, in such circumstances, it would have been nothing more than
sensation itself It is the belief of our identity only, which gives
us the notion of self ^ as the subject of various feelings, and it is the
notion of sell", as the subject of various former feelings, which leads
us to regard the consciousness of the moment, as different from the
sensation of the moment ; because it suggests to us those for-
mer feelings, which truly were different from if, or at least thiii
174 ON CONSCIOUSNESS.
subject mind, which unquestionably existed before the present
sensation.
If it be said, that the faculty of consciousness is nothing more
than this reference to the past, and consequent belief of identity,
we may, in that case, very safely admit its existence ; though the
classification of it, as a peculiar intellectual power, would in that
case be a most singular anomaly in arrangement, and would involve
a very absurd, or at least a very awkward use of a term. To as-
sert this signifjcation of it, however, would be to admit every thing
for which I have contended. But it certainly is not tlie sense,
which has been attached to it by philosophers ; and indeed, in this
sense, consciousness, instead of having for its objects, as Doctor
Reid says, all " our present pains, our pleasures, our hopes, our
fears, our desires, our doubts, our thoughts of every kind ; in a
word, all the passions, and all the actions and operations of our
own mind, while they are present," would be limited to the com-
paratively few, of Avhich the consideration of our personal identity
forms a part. In far the greater number of our feelings, as I have
already said, the sensation dies away, almost in the moment, — not
indeed, without being enjoyed or suffered, but without any refer-
ence to self, as the subject of various feelings, or remembrance of
any prior state of mind, as distinct from the present. The belief
of our identity, is surely not the only belief that arises from an in-
stinctive principle ; and if its existence entitle us, in our systematic
arrangements, to the possession of a new intellectual power, every
other belief that arises instinctively from a principle of our consti-
tution, must give us a similar title to enlarge the catalogue of our
faculties. The never-failing and instant faith, by which we ex-
pect, without the slightest doubt of the similarity of the future,
that events will continue to follow each other, in the same order
as at present,— that bodies will fall to the ground, fire burn, food
satisfy the craving of our appetite— that immediate intuitive prin-
ciple of belief, on which all our foresight depends, and according
to which we regulate our whole conduct in providing for the fu-
ture,— should rcil-,uiil.v, it> that case, be ascribed by u>^ to some pe-
rnliarintellcrtiiiil po^v(■^, for which it would be easy to invent a
name. H i^ not, by any iiifncncc of our roason, we believe, that
the sound of a fliiie which prrriMlcd llie fragrance of a rose, and
the fnigniiire of a rose which followed the sound of a Ihite, excit^
ON CONSCIOUSNESS. 175
ed sensations that were states of the same identical mind ; for there
is nothing, in either of the separate sensations, or in both together,
from which such an inference can be drawn ; and yet, notwithstand-
ing the impossibility of inferring it, we believe this, at least as
strongly, as we believe any of the conclusions of our reasoning.
In like manner, it is not by any inference of reason we believe,
that fire will warm us to-morrow, as it has warmed us to-day ; for
there is nothing, in the fire of to-day, or in the sensation of warmth,
considered as a mere sequence of it, from which the succession
of a similar sensation to the fire of to-morrow can be inferred ;
yet we also rely on this future sequence, at least as strongly, as
we believe any of the conclusions of our reasoning. In both cas-
es the parallel is complete ; and in both, the evidence of a partic-
ular intellectual faculty, must consequently be alike, — or in nei-
ther is there sufficient evidence of such a power.
There is, indeed, one other sense, in which we often talk of
©ur consciousness of a feeling, and a sense, in which, it must be al-
lowed, that the consciousness is not precisely the same as the feel-
ing itself This is, when we speak of a feeling, not actually ex-
isting at present, but past — as when we say, that we are conscious
of having seen, or heard, or done something. Such a use of the
term, however, is pardonable only in the privileged looseness and
inaccuracy of familiar conversation : the consciousness, in this case,
being precisely synonymous with remembrance or memory, and
not a power, different from the remembrance. The remembrance
of the feeling, and the vivid feeling itself, indeed, are different.
But the remembrance, and the consciousness of the remembrance,
are the same — as the consciousness of a sensation, and the sensa-
tion, are the same ; and to be conscious that we have seen or spok-
en to any one, is only to remember that we have seen or spokem
to him.
Much of this very confusion with respect to memory, howev-
er, I have no doubt, has been always involved in the assertion of
consciousness as a peculiar and distinct power of the mind. When
we think of feelings long past, it is impossible for us not to be
aware that our mind is then truly retrospective ; and memory
seems to us sufficient to account for the whole. But when the
retrospect is of very recent feelings — of feelings, perhaps, thai
existed as distinct states of the mind, the very moment before our
J 76 ON CONSCIOUSNESS.
retrospect began, the short interval is forgotten, and we think
that the primary feehng, and our consideration of the feeling, are
strictly simultaneous. We have a sensation ;— we look instantly
back on that sensation,— such is consciousness, as distinguished
from the feeling that is said to be its object. When it is any thing
more than the sensation, thought, or emotion, of which we are
said to be conscious, it is a brief and rapid retrospect. Its object
is not a present feeling, but a past feeling, as truly as when we
look back, not on the moment immediately precedmg, but on some
distant event or emotion of our boyhood.
After thus distinguishing all that is truly present in consciousness,
from common remembrance, I surely need not undertake, at any
length, to distinguish it from that peculiar species of remembrance,
which goes under the name of conscietice ; though their similar
etymology may have a slight tendency to mislead. Conscience is
our 7noral memory ; — it is the memory of the heart, if I may apply
to it a phrase, Avhich, in its orginal application, was much more
happily employed, by one of the deaf and dumb pupils of the Ab-
be Sicard, who, on being asked what he understood by the word
gratitude, wrote down immediately, " Gratitude is the memory oj
the heart."'
The power of conscience does, indeed, what consciousness doe?
not. It truly doubles all our feelings, when they have been such
as virtue inspired; Hoc est vivere 6is, vita posse priore frui;"'
and it multiplies them in a much more fearful proportion, when
they have been of an opposite kind — arresting, as it were every
moment of guilt, which, of itself, would have passed away, as fu-
gitive as our other moments, and suspending them forever before
our eyes, in fixed and terrifying reality. '' Prima et maxima pec-
cantium est paena,"says Seneca, '' peccusse ; nee ullum scelu*, illud
fortuna cxornet muneribus suis, licet tuoatur ac vindicet, impuni-
tum est qtioniam sceleris in scelere supplicium est.'"* " The first
and the greatest punishment of guilt, is to have been guilty; nor
can any crime, though fortune should adorn it with all her most
lavish bounty, as if protecting and vindicating it, pass truly un-
punished ; because the punishment of the base or atrocious deed,
i3 in the very bareness or atrocity of the deed itself" But this
• Epi»t. 97.
ON CONSCIOUSNESS. 177
species of memory, which we denominate conscience^ and, indeed,
every species of memory, which must necessarily have for its ob-
ject the past, is essentially different from the consciousness which
we have been considering, that, in its very definition, is limited to
■present feelings, and of which, if we really had such an intellectu-
al power, our moral conscience would, in Dr Reid's sense of the
term, be an object rather than a part. ^-„ Jr^'
Consciousness, then, I conclude, in its simplest acceptation,
when it is understood as regarding the present only, is no distinct
power of the mind, or name of a distinct class of feelings, but is
only a general term for all our feelings, of whatever species
these may be, sensations, thoughts, desires ; — in short, all those
states or affections of mind, in which the phenomena of mind con-
sist ; and when it expresses more than this, it is only the remem-
brance of some former state of the mind, and a feehng of the rela-
tion of the past and the present as states of one sentient substance.
The term is very conveniently used for the purpose of abbrevi-
ation, when we speak of the whole variety of our feelings, in the
same manner as any other general term is used, to express briefly
the multitude of individuals that agree in possessing some com-
mon property of which we speak ; when the enumeration of these,
by description and name, would be as wearisome to the patience,
as it would be oppressive to the memory. But still, when we
speak of the evidence of consciousness, we mean nothing more,
than the evidence implied in the mere existence of our sensations,
thoughts, desires, — which is utterly impossible for us to believe
to be and not to be ; or, in other words, impossible for us to feel
and not to feel at the same moment. This precise Umitation of
the term, I trust, you will keep constantly in mind in the course
of our future speculations.
23
178
LECTURE XII.
ON CONSClOUSiNESS, COxNTlNUED, ON MENTAL IDENTITY, IDEN-
TITY IRRECONCILABLE WITH THE DOCTRINE OF MATERIAL-
IS;VI DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PERSONAL IDENTITY AND MEN-
TAL IDENTITY, OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF MENTAL
IDENTITY STATED.
In my last Lecture, Gentlemen, I brought to a conclusion my
remarks on the nature and objects of Physical Inquiry,— ihc clear
understanding of which seemed to me, essentially necessary be-
fore we could enter with any prospect of success, on the physio-
logical investigation of the Mind.
We then opened our eyes, as it were on the great field of thought
and passion, and on all the infinite variety of feehngs, which, in as-
semblages more or less complex, and in colours more or less brilliant
or obscure, it is every moment presenting to our internal glance.
The very attempt to arrange these transient feelings as phenom-
ena of the mind, however, implies evidently some consideration of
the nature of that varied consciousness in which they consist, and
of the identity of the permauei.t substance, as states of which we
arrange them. My last Lecture, therefore, was devoted to this
primary consideration of consciousness, — which we found reason
to regard, not as any separate and peculiar faculty of the mind,
of which our various feelings arc, to use Dr Reid's expres-
sion, ohjects, and which is, therefore, to be added, in every in-
stance, to (he separate pleasures, pain^, perceptions, rememhran-
rps, passions, that constitute llie momentary states of the mind, —
l)(it merely as a short general term, expressive of all these momen-
tary states in reference to the permanent subject mind. The sen-
sation of fragrance, for example, is the consciousness of one mo-
ON CONSCIOUSNESS. 179
ment, as the remembrance of that sensation, or some other sensa-
tion, is, perhaps, the consciousness of the succeeding moment ; —
the mind, at every moment, existing in one precise state, which,
as one state can be accui'ately denoted only by one precise name,
or by names that are synonymous, not by names that are significant
of total diversity.
All which we know, or can be supposed to know, of the mind,
indeed, is a certain series of these states or feelings that have suc-
ceeded each other, more or less rapidly, since life began ; the sen-
sation, thought, emotion, of the moment being one of those states,
and the supposed consciousness of the state being only the state
itself, whatever it may be, in which the mind exists at that par-
ticular moment ; since it would be manifestly absurd to suppose
the same indivisible mind to exist at the very same moment in two
separate states, one of sensation, and one of consciousness. It is
not simply because we/eei, but because we remember some prior
feeling, and have formed a notion of the mind as the permanent
subject of different feeling, that we conceive the proposition, " I
am conscious of a sensation," to express more than the simple ex-
istence of the sensation itself; since it expresses, too, a reference
of this to the same mind which had formed}^ been recognised as
the subject of other feelings. There is a remembrance of some
former feeling, and a reference of the present feeling .+o the same
subject ; and this mere remembrance, and the intuitive belief of
identity which accompanies remembrance, are all that philoso-
phers, by defective analyses, and a little confusion of language
and thought, have asserted to be the result of a peculiar mental
faculty, under the name of consciousness ; — though consciousness,
in this sense, far from embracing all the varieties of feeling, — that,
in the greater number of instances, begin and cease, without any
accompanying thought of that permanent substance to which the
transient feeling is referable, — must be limited to the comparative-
ly few, in which such a reference to self is made.
Consciousness, in short, whenever it is conceived to express
more than the present feeling, or present momentary state of the
mind, whatever that may be, which is said to be the object of con-
sciousness, — as if it were at once something different at every mo-
ment from the present state or feeling of the mind, and yet the
very state in which the mind is at every moment supposed to ex-
180 IDENTITY IRRECONCILABLE
ft-
ist,— ^is a retrospect of some pa^t feeling, with that belief of a
common relation of the past and present feeling to one subject
mind, which is involved in the very notion, or rather constitutes
the very notion, of personal identity, — and all which distinguish-
es this rapid retrospect from any of the other retrospects, which
we class as remembrances, and ascribe to memory as their source,
is the mere briefness of the interval between the feeling that is
remembered, and the reflective glance which seems to be immedi-
ately retrospective. A feeling of some kind has arisen, and we
look instantly back upon that feeling ; but a remembrance is sure-
ly still the same in nature, and arises from the same principle of
the mental constitution, whether the interval which precedes it be
that of a moment, or of many hours, or years.
I now then proceed, after these remarks on our consciousness
ns momcnlary, to a most important inquiry, which arises necessa-
rily from the consideration of the successions of our momentary
consciousness, and must be considered as involved in all our at-
tempts to arrange them, — the inquiry into the Wentir^ of the Mind,
as truly one and permanent^ amid all the variety of its fugitive affec-
tions.
In our examination of this very wonderful coincidence of same-
ness and diversity, I shall confine my remarks to the phenomena
which are purely mental, omitting the objections drawn from the
daily wa«te and daily aliment of our corporeal part, the whole
force of which objection may be admitted, without any scruple by
those who contend for the identity only of the thinking principle;
since the individuality of this would be as little destroyed, though
every particle of the body were comj)letely changed, as the indi-
viduality of the body itself would be destroyed, by a change of
the mere garments that invest it. The manner in which the mind
is united to a system of particles, which are in a perpetual state of
flux, is, indeed, more than we can ever hope to be able to explain ;
though it is really not more inexplicable, than its union to such a
!«ystem of particles would be, though they were to continue forever
unchanged.
1 may remark, however, by the w:iy, lliitt (liDUgh the constant
pfale of flux of tlu' corporeal jiaitirlt's lurnishes no argtmient
against the identity of the princi[)lc which feels and thinks, if feel-
ing and thought be states of a substance, that is essentially distinct
WITH THE DOCTRINE OF MATERIALISM. 181
from these changing particles, the unity and identity of this prin-
ciple, amid all the corpuscular changes, — if it can truly be proved
to be identical, — furnish a very strong argument, in disproof of
those systems which consider thought and feeling as the result of
material organization. Indeed the attempts which have been se-
riously made by materialists to obviate this difficulty, involve, in
everj'^ respect, as much absurdity, though certainly not so much
pleasantry, at least so much intentional pleasantry, as the demon-
strations, which the Society of F'reethinkers communicated to
Martinus Scriblerus, in their letter of greeting and invitation.
The arguments, which they are represented as urging in this ad-
mirable letter, ludicrous as they may seem, are truly as strong, at
least, as those of which they are a parody ; and indeed, in ihi?
case, where both are so like, a very little occasional change of ex-
pression is all which is necessary, to convert the grave ratiocina-
tion into the parody, and the parody into the grave ratiocination.
" The parts (say they) of an animal bodj^," stating the objec-
tion which they profess to answer, " are perpetually changed,
and the fluids which seem to be the subject of consciousness, arc
in a perpetual circulation; so that the same individual particles do
not remain in the brain ; from whence it will follow, that the idea
of individual consciousness must be constantly translated from one
particle of matter to another, whereby the particle A, for example
must not only be conscious, but conscious that it is the same being
with the particle B that went before.
" We answer, this is onlj-^ a fallacy of the imagination, and is to
be understood in no other sense than that maxim of the English
law, that the king never dies. This power of thinking, self-moving,
and governing the whole machine, is communicated from every
particle to its immediate successor, who, as soon as he is gone, im-
mediately takes upon him the government, which still preserves
the unity of the whole system.
" They make a great noise about this individuality, how a man
is conscious to himself that he is the same individual he was twen-
ty years ago, notwithstanding the flux state of the particles of mat-
ter that compose his body. We think this is capable of a very
plain answer, and may be easily illustrated by a familiar example,
" Sir John Culler had a pair of black worsted stockings, which-
his maid darned so often ^vith silk, that they became at last a p;ur
182 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PERSO.VAL IDENTITY
of silk stockings. Now supposing those stockings of Sir John's en-
dued with some degree of consciousness at every particular darn-
ino- they would have been sensible, that they were the same indi-
vidual pair of stockings both before and after the darning ; and
this sensation would have continued in them through all the suc-
cession of darnings ; and yet after the last of all, there was not
perhaps one thread left of the first pair of stockings ; but they were
o-rown to be silk stockings, as was said before.
" And whereas it is affirmed, that every animal is conscious of
some individual self-moving, self-determining principle ; it is an-
swered, that, as in a House of Commons all things are determined
by a majority, so it is in every animal system. As that which de-
termines the house is said to be the reason of the whole assembly ;
it is no otherwise with thinking beings, who are determined by the
greater force of several particles, which, like so many unthinking
member*, compose one thinking system."*
The identity, which we are to consider, is, as I have already
said, the identity only of the principle which feels and thhiks,
without regard to the changeable state of the particles of the brain,
or of the body in general. This unity and permanence of the
principle, which thinks, if we had still to invent a phrase, I would
rather c^M mental identity, than persona/ identity, though the latter
phrase may now be considered as almost fixed by the general use
of philosophers. On no system can there be this absolute identity,
unless as strictly mental ; for, if we adopt the system of material-
ism, we must reject the absolute lasting identity of the thinking
principle altogether ; and if we do not adopt that system, it is in
the mind alone that we must conceive the identity to subsist. The
person, in the common and familiar meaning of the term, though
involving ihe mind, is yet more than the mere mind ; and, by those,
at leaHt,''who are not conversant with the writings of plulosopherg
on the subject, sameness of person would be understood as notmen-
:al only, but as combining with the absolute identity of the mind,
some sort of identity of the body also; though, it must be confess-
ed, thai, in its application to the body, the term idetitity is not used
with the same strictness, as in its application to the mind; the bod-
ily identity being not absolute, but admitting of considerable, and
ultimately, perhaps, even of total,change, provided only the change
* Mart. Scrib. chap, vil —rope's Works, edit. 1757, v. vii. p. 82-84.
AND MENTAL IDENTITY. 183
be SO gradual, as not to be inconsistent with apparent continuity of
existence. Still, however, identity of person, at least in the popu-
lar notion of it, is something more than identity of mind.
" All mankind," says Dr Reid, " place their personality in
something, that cannot be divided or consist of parts. A part of a
person is a manifest absurdity.
" When a man loses his estate, his health, his strength, he is
still the same person, and has lost nothing of his personality. If
he has a leg or an arm cut off, he is the same person he was be-
fore. The amputated member is no part of his person, otherwise
it would have a right to a part of his estate, and be liable for a
part of his engagements ; it would be entitled to a share of his
merit and demerit, which is manifestly absurd. A person is some-
thing indivisible, and is what Leibnitz calls a monad."*
That all mankind place their personality in something, which
cannot be divided into two persons, or into halves or quarters of a
person, is true ; because the mind itself is indivisible, and the pres-
ence of this one indivisible mind is essential to personality. But,
though essential to personality in man, mind is not all, in the pop-
ular sense of the word at least, which this comprehends. "■ Thus,
if, according to the system of metempsychosis, we were to suppose
the mind, which animates any of our friends, to be the same mind,
which animated Homer or Plato, — though we should have no scru-
ple, in asserting the idenlit^^ of the mind itself, in this corporeal
transmigration, — there is no one, I conceive, who would think him-
self justifiable, in point of accuracy, in sajing of Plato and his friend,
that they were as exactl}'-, in every respect, the same person, as if
no metempsychosis whatever had intervened. It does not follow
from this, as Dr Reid very strangeh'^ supposes, that a leg or arm,
if it had any relation to our personality, Avould, after amputation,
be liable to a part of our engagements, or be entitled to a share
of our merit or demerit; for the engagement, and the moral merit
or demerit, belong not to the body, but to the mind^ which we be-
lieve to continue precisely the same, after the amputation, as be-
fore it. This, however, is a question merely as to the compara-
tive propriety of a term, and as such, therefore, it is unnecessary
to dwell upon it. It is of much more importance, to proceed to
* Essays on the InteI!<?ct!iaJ Powers, Efisay IIJ. chap, ir.— v. 1. p. 341. Edif
Ed. 1000.
134 Shaftesbury's opinion of identity-.
the consideration of the actual identity of the mind, whether we
term it simply mental or personal identity.
'• That there is something undoubtedly which thinks,'''' says
Lord Shaftesbury, " our very doubt itself and scrupulous thought
evinces. But in what subject that thought resides, and how that
subject is continued one and the same, so as to answer constantly to
the supposed train of thoughts or reflections, which seem to run so
harmoniously through a long course of life, with the same relation
still to one single and self-same person, this is not a matter so easi-
ly or hastily decided, by those who are nice self-examiners, or
searchers after truth and certainty.
" 'Twill not, in this respect, be sufficient for us to use the seem-
ing logic of a famous* modern, and say, ' IVe thirik ; therefore we
are: Which is a notably invented saying, after the model of that
like philosophical proposition, that ' What is, is.' Miraculously ar-
gued ! If ' / am, I am: Nothing more certain ! For the ego or I
being established in the first part of the proposition, the ergo, no
doubt, must hold it good in the latter. But the question is, ' \Vhat
constitutes the we or I?' And, 'Whether the I of this instant be
the same with that of any instant preceding, or to come.' For we
have nothing but memory to warrant us, and memory may be false.
We may believe we have thought and reflected thus or thus ; but
we may be mistaken. We may be conscious of that, as truth,
which perhaps was no more than dream ; and we may be conscious
of that as a past dream, which perhaps was never before so much
as dreamt of.
'•This isulnit metaphysicians mean, when they say, Ihat
identity can be proved only by co«.«ou5nm ; but that consciousness
withal may be as well llilse as real, in respect of what is past.' So
that the same succc::.^ional ivc or /must remain still, on this account,
undecided. .
" To the force of this reasoning 1 confess I must so tar submit,
as to .Uclare that for my own part, I take my being ujwn trust.
Let others philosophize as they are able; 1 shall admire their
strength, when, upon this topic, they have refuted what able mct-
aj.hysicians object, and Pyrrhonists plead in their own behalf
'•Meanwhile, there is no inipodimml, hinderance, or suspen-
sion of aciion. on account of these wuudcrfuily rcfmcd speculations.
• Monsieur Dcs Cartes. Hlmfletb.
OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE, ETC. 18ii
Argument and debate go on still. Conduct is settled. Rules and
measures are given out, and received. Nor do we scruple to act
as resolutely upon the mere supposition that isoe are, as if we had
effectually proved it a thousand times, to the full satisfaction of our
metaphysical or Pyrrhonean antagonist." *
In stating the objections, that may be urged against our men-
tal indentity, by such metaphysical or Pyrrhonean antagonists, as
those of whom Lord Shaftesbury speaks, I shall endeavour to ex-
hibit the argument in as strong a light as possible, and in a man-
ner that appears to me in some measure, new. It is surely un-
necessary for me to warn you, that the argument, however spe-
cious, is a sophistical one ; and the nature of the peculiar sophis-
try which it involves shall be afterwards pointed out to you.
But I conceive it to be most important, in teaching you to reflect
for yourselves, — by far the most important lesson which you can
be taught, — that you should be accustomed to consider the force
of objections that may be urged, as clearly by the force of that
surer evidence which they oppose, — and that even sophistry it-
self, wTi^ii" n Ts'to he exhibited and confuted, should, therefore,
Jilwa3's be exhibited fairly. We pay truth a very easy homage,
when we content ourselves with despising her adversaries. The
duty which we owe to her is of a more manly kind. It is to gird
ourselves for the battle, — to fit us for overcoming those .adversa-
ries, whenever they shall dare to present themselves in array ;
and this we cannot do, with absolute confidence, unless we know
well the sort of arms, which they may use, strong or feeble as
those arms may be. I can have no fear, that any argument of
this kind, in whatever manner it may be stated, can have the
slightest influence on your conviction ; because it is directly op-
posed by a principle of our nature, which is paramount to all rea-
soning. We beUeve our indentity, as one mind, in our feelings of
to day and our feelings of yesterday, as indubitably as we believe
that the fire, which burned us yesterday, would, in the same cir-
cumstances, burn us to-day, — not from reasoning, but from a prin-
ciple of instant and irresistible belief, such as gives to reasoning
itself all its validity. As Lord Shaftesbury justly saj's, " We act
as resolutely, upon the mere supposition that we are, as if we had
effectually proved it a thousand times."
* Shaftesbary's Characteristics;, vol. iii, p. 172 — 174. Edit. 1745,
.21
J 86 OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF
To indentity, it may be said, it is necessary that the qualities
be the same. That of which the quaUties are different, can-
not be the same ; and the only mode of discovering wheth-
er a substance have the same or different qualities, is to ob-
serve, how it affects and is affected by other substances. It
is recognized by us as the same, or, at least, as perfectly similar,
when, in two corresponding series of changes, the same substan-
ces affect it in the same manner, and it affects, in the same man-
ner, the same substances ; and when either the same substances
do not affect it in the same manner, or it does not aflect, in the
same manner, the same substances, we ha^-e no hesitation in con-
sidering it as different. Thus, if a white substance, resembling
exactly, in every external appearance, a lump of sugar, do not
melt when exposed to the action of boiling water, we do not re-
gard it as sugar, because the water does not act on it as we have
uniformly known it to act on that substance ; or if the same white
lump in every other respect resembling sugar, affect our taste as
bitter or acrid rather than sweet, we immediately, in like manner,
cease to consider it as sugar, because it does not act upon our
nerves of taste in the same manner as sugar acts upon them. Ihe
complete similarity, in other respects, is far from sufficient to
make us alter our judgment ; a single circumstance of manifest
difference, in its mode either of acting upon other substances or
of being acted upon by them, being sufficient to destroy the effect
of a thousand manifest resemblances.
Let thi^ tost of indentity, then, it may be said, be applied to
the miud, at different periods, if the test be allowed to be a just
one ; and let it be seen, whether, in the series of changes .n which
it acts or is acted upon, the phenomena precisely correspond m
every case. If the same objects do not act upon it in the same
manner, it must then be different, according to the very dehn.tion
to which we are supposed to have assented.-You, of course, un-
derstand, that 1 am at present only assuming the chanic ter of an
objector, and that I stale an argument, the principle ol which you
will afterwards find to be false. .. ., ■ r * .l„n,
When we compare tbe listless inactivity of the .niant si ni-
bering, from the moment at which he lakes his nulky food, to he
moment at which he awake, to n-quire it again, w.lh the restless
onergies of that mighty being which he is to become, m his ma-
MENTAL IDENTITY STATED. 187
turer years, pouring truth after truth in rapid and dazzling pro-
fusion, upon the world, or grasping in his single hand the dej^tiny
of empires, how few are the circumstances of rescmhlance whicii
we can trace, of all that intelligence which is afterwai'ds to be
displayed, how little more is seen, than what serves to give fee-
ble motion to the mere machinery of life. What prophetic eye
can venture to look beyond the period of distinct uttei-ance, and
discern that variety of character by which even boyhood is mark-
ed, far less are the intellectual and moral growth of the years that
follow — the genius, before whose quick glance the errors and
prejudices, which all the ages and nations of mankind have receiv-
ed as truths, are to disappear — the political wisdom, with whxh,
in his calm and silent meditations, he is to afford more security to
his country than could be given to it by a thousand armies, and
which, with a single thought, is to spread protection and happi-
ness to the most distant lands — or that ferocious ambition, with
which, in unfortunate circumstances of power, he is perhaps to
burst the whole frame of civil society, and to stamp, through
every age, the deep and dark impression of his existence, in ihe
same manner as he leaves on the earth which he has desolated,
the track of his sanguinary footsteps. The cradle has its equali-
ty almost as the grave. Talents, imbecilities, virtues, vices, slum-
ber in it together, undistinguished ; and it is well that it is so,
since, to those who are most interested in the preservation of a
life that would be helpless but for their aid, it leaves those de-
lightful illusions which more than repay their anxiety and tatigue,
and allows them to hope, for a single being, every thing which it
is possible for the race of man to become. If clearer presages of
the future mind were then discoverable, how large a portion of
human happiness would be destroyed by this single circumstance !
What pleasure could the mother feel, in her most delightful of
offices, if she knew that she was nursing into strength, powers,
which were to be exerted for the misery of that great or narrow
circle, in which they were destined to move, and which to her
were to be a source, not of blessing, but of grief, and shame, and
despair !
" These shall (he fury passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,"
says Gray, on thinking of a group of happy children ;
J 88 OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF
" For see, how all around them wait,
The ministers of humau fate,
And black Misfortune's baleful train ;
Oh I shew them, where in ambush stand,
To seize their prey, the murd'rous band !
Oh I tell them, they are men !" Ode III.
To tell them they are men, though they were capable of un-
derstanding it, even in this sense of the word, would not commu-
nicate information so melancholy or so astonishing to themselves,
as, by breaking too soon that dream of expectation, which is not
to last forever, but which fulfils the benevolent purpose of nature
while it lasts, it would communicate to the parent who watches
over them, and who sees in them only those pure virtues, and that
happiness as pure, which are perhaps more than the nature of
man admits, and which, at least in the case before her, are never
to be realized.
Is the mind, then, in infancy, and in mature life, precisely the
same, when in the one case, so many prominent diversities of
character force themselves upon the view, and, in the other case,
60 little appears to distinguish the future ornament of mankmd,
from him who is afterwards
" To eat his glutton meal with greedy haste,
Nor know the hand which feeds him ?"
If we apply the test of identity, do we find that the same objef ts,
in these different periods, act upon the mind in exactly the same
manner ; and are its own feelings, in the successive trains, intellec-
tual and moral, of which they form a part, attended with conse-
quents exactly the same ?
Every age,— it we may speak of many ages, in the few years
of human life,— seems to be marked with a distinct character.
Kach has its peculiar objects that excite lively affections ; and in
each, exertion is excited by affections, which, in other periods,
terminate, without inducing active desire. The l)oy finds a world
in less space than (bat which l)ounds his visible horizon ; he wan-
dors over his range of field, and exhausts his strength in pursuit of
objects, which, in the years that follow, are seen only to be neg-
lected ; while, to him, the objects that arc afterwards to afjsorb
his whole soul, are as indilTerent as the objects of his present pa«-
gions are destined then (o appear.
MENTAL IDENTITY STATED. 189
In the progress of life, though we are often gratified with the
prospect of benevolence increasing as its objects increase, and of
powers rising over the greatness of their past attainments, this
gratification is not always ours. Not slight changes of character
only appear, which require our attentive investigation to trace
them, but, in innumerable cases, complete and striking contrasts
press, of themselves, upon view. How many melancholy oppor-
tunities must every one have had in witnessing the progress of in-
tellectual decay, and the coldness that steals upon the once be-
nevolent heart! We quit our countr}', perhaps at an early period
of life, and, after an absence of many years, we return with all
the remembrances of past pleasure, which grow more tender as
we approach their objects. We eagerly seek him, to whose pa-
ternal voice we have been accustomed to listen, with the same
reverence as if its predictions had possessed oracular certainty, —
who first led us into knowledge, and whose image has been con-
stantly joined in our mind, with all that veneration which does not
forbid love. We find him sunk, perhaps, in the imbecility of idio-
tism, unable to recognize us — ignorant alike of the past and of
the future, and living only in the sensibility of animal gratification.
We seek the favourite companion of our childhood, whose gentle-
ness of heart we have often witnessed when we have wept together
over the same ballad, or in the thousand little incidents that call-
ed forth our mutual compassion, in those years when compassion
requires so little to call it forth. We find him hardened into man,
meeting us scarcely with the cold hypocrisy of dissembled friend-
ship — in his general relations to the world, careless of the misery
which he is not to feel — and, if he ever think of the happiness of
others, seeking it as an instrument, not as an end. When we thus
observe all that made us one, and gave an heroic interest even to
our childish adventures, absorbed in the chillness of selfish enjoy-
ment, do we truly recognize in him the same unaltered friend,
from whom we were accustomed to regret our separation, and do
we use only a metaphor of little meaning, when we say of him,
that he is become a different person, and that his mind and charac-
ter are changed ? In what does the identity consist ? The same ob-
jects no longer act upon him in the same manner; the same views
of things are no longer followed by similar approbation or disap-
probation, grief, joy, admiration, disgust; and if we affirm that sub-
190 OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF
Stance to be, in the strictest sense of identity, the same on which,
in two corresponding series of phenomena, the same objects act
differently, while itself also acts differently on the same objects ;
in short, in which the antecedents being the same, the consequents
are different, and, the consequents being the same, the antecedents
are different, what detinition of absolute diversity can we give,
with which this alhrmation of absolute identity may not be equally
consistent?
" Behold file child, bj' nature's kindly law,
Plt^asVi with a niKie, tickled with a straw;
Some livelier plaything; gives his youth delight,
A little Kiuder, but as em])ty quite ;
Scarfs, i^arters, gold, amuse his riper stage ;
And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age.
Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before ;
Till, tir'd, he sleeps,- and life's poor play is o'er."*
The supposed.test of identity, when applied to the mind in these
cases, completely fails. It neither affects, nor is affected, in the
same manner, in the same circumstances. It, therefore, it the test
be a just one, is not the same identical mind.
This argument against the identity of the mind, drawn from
thp occasional striking contrasts of character in the same individu-
al at different periods of life, or when, by great changes of fortune,
he may have been placed suddenly in circumstances remarkably
differr.nt, must, in some degree, have forced itself upon every
one who b.s been at all accustomed to reflect ; and yet, m no
one instance, I may safely say, can it have produced conviction
Pven for a moment. I have stated it to you, without attempting
to lessen its force by any allusion to the fallacy on which it is
ibundcd ; because the nature of this fallacy is afterwards to be
fully considered by us. • * fi a
There is another argument that may be urged against tne
identity of the sentient and thinking principle, which has at least
equal semldunce of force, though it .Iocs not occur so rcad.ly, De-
rause it does not proceed on those general and lasth.g changes ot
character with which every one must be struck, but on the pass-
in<. pluMiomnna of the moment, which an- not inconsistent with
. continuance of the .a,ne general character, an.I which, as common
• Poixj's Essay on Man, Ep. II. v. 275—202.
MENTAL IDENTITY STATED. 191
to all mankind, and forming, indeed, the whole customary and
familiar series of our thoughts and emotions, excite no astonish-
meirt when we look back on them in the order of their succession.
The mere diversity of our feelings at different moments, it
may be said, is of itself incompatible with the strict and absolute
unity which is supposed to belong to the thinking principle. If
joy and sorrow, such as every one has felt, be different, that
which is joyful, and that which is sorrowful, cannot be precisely
the same. On the supposition of complete unity and permanence
of the thinking principle, nothing is added to it, nothing is taken
away from it ; and, as it has no parts, no internal change of ele-
mentary composition can take place in it. But that to which no-
thing is added, from which nothing is taken away, and which has
no parts to vary their own relative positions and affinities, is so
strictly the same, it may be said, that it would surely be absurd to
predicate of it any diversity whatever. Joy and sorrow imply an
unquestionable diversity of some kind ; and if this diversity cannot
be predicated of that substance which is precisely the same, without
addition, subtraction, or any internal change of composition what-
ever, that which is joyful, and that which is sorrowful, cannot
have absolute identity ; or if we affirm, that a diversity, so strik-
ing as to form an absolute contrast, is yet not inconsistent with
complete and permanent .unity and identity, we may, in like man-
ner, affirm, that a substance which is hard, heavy, blue, transpar-
ent, — which unites with acids, not, with alkalies, — and which is
volatilizable at a low temperature,~is precisely the same substance
as that, which is soft, light, green, opaque, — which unites with al-
kalies, not with acids, — and which is absolutely infusible and fix-
ed in the highest temperature to which we can expose it.
I have thus endeavoured to place, in the strongest possible
light, the most imposing arguments which I can conceive to be
urged against the permanent ide7itity of the sentient and thinking
principle, that, in combating even Sophistry itself, you may learn,
as I have said, to combat with it on equal ground, and assume no
advantage but that irresistible advantage which Truth must alvvay-
afford to him who is the combatant of Error.
The positive evidence of the identity of the mind I shall pro-
ceed to consider in my next Lecture.
192
LECTURE XIII.
OiN THE DIRECT EVIDENCE OF MENTAL IDENTITY ; AND OBJEC-
TIONS ANSWERED.
My last Lecture, Gentlemen, was employed in considering
the great question of the Identity of the Mind, as one and perma-
nent, amid all the infinite variety of our feelings ; and particularly,
in stating the t" o most forcible objections, which I can imagine to
be urged agaast this identity,— one founded on the striking con-
trasts," intellectual and moral, which the same mind exhibits in dif-
ferent periods of life, and in different circumstances of fortune,—
the other, more abstract, and, therefore, less obvious, but not less
forcible, founded on the mere diversity of our temporary feelings,
as itself inconsistent with identity, at least with that strict and ab-
solute identity, to which, as in the case of the mind, nothing can
have been added,— from which nothing can have been taken
away,— and which, by its very nature, as simple and indivisible,
musi have been incapable of any elementary change.
Since the exposure of the fallacy, on which these objections
are founded, would, however, afford only a sort of negative evi-
dence of that great tnith which they oppose, it will be of advan-
tage, before entering on an examination of the objections them-
selves, to state, in the first place, the nature of that positive evi-
•lence, which does not, indeed, lead us to the belief of the unity
and permanence of our spiritual being, by that slow process which
IS denominated reasoning, but constitutes to us, primarily and di-
rectlv, an impossibility of disbelieving it. I do this the more read-
ily, from the opportunity which it gives of making }ou acquainted
with the paramount in.|)ortancc of those principles of intuitive be-
lief which are essenlial to philosophy in all its forms, as they are
phvsicallv essential, indeed, to the very preservation of our animal
ON THE DIRECT EVIDEVCE, ETC. 193
existence ; and which the rash and unphilosophic extension of them
by one class of philosophers, and the equally unphilosophic misap-
prehension of them by other writers who controverted them, have
rendered more necessarj', than it would otherwise have been, to
state to you with precision.
Of these first truths, as they have been termed, the subject,
which we are at present considering, affords one of the most strik-
ing examples. The belief of our identity is not the result of any
series of propositions, but arises immediately, in certain circumstan-
ces, from a principle of thought, as essential to the very nature of
the mind, as its powers of perception or memory, or as the power
of reasoning itself, on the essential validity of which, and conse-
quently on the intuitive belief of some first truth on which it is
founded, every objection to the force of these very truths them-
selves must ultimately rest. To object is to argue ; and to argue
is to assert the validity of argument, and, therefore, of the prima-
ry evidence, from which the evidence of each succeeding proposi-
tion of the argument flows. To object to the authority of such pri-
mary intuitive belief, would thus be to reason against reason, — to
affirm and deny at the same moment, — and to own that the very
arguments which we urge are unworthy of being received and
credited.
As the nature of the process of reasoning has not yet come un-
der our review, it may not at first appear to you, how essential
the truths of intuition are to those very truths which are usually
©pposed to them. But that they are thus essential, a very little at-
tention will be sufficient to show you.
All belief, it is evident, must be either direct or indirect. It is
direct, when a proposition, without regard to any former proposi-
tion expressed or understood, is admitted as soon as it is expressed
in words, or as soon as it rises silently in the mind. Such are all
the orderof truths, which have been denominated, on this account,
first truths. The belief is indirect, when the force of the propo-
sition, to which assent is given, is admitted only in consequence of
the previous admission of some former proposition, with which it
is felt to be intimately connected ; and the statement in words, or
the internal developement of these relative propositions in the or--
der in which their relation to the primary proposition is felt, is all
that constitutes reasoning. The indirect belief which attends the
25
194 ON THE DIRECT EVIDENCE
result of reasoning, even in the proudest demonstration, is thus
only another Ibrm of some first truth, which was believed directly
and independently of reasoning ; and, without this primary intuitive
assent, the demonstration itself, in all its beautiful precision and
regularity, would be as powerless and futile as the most incoherent
verbal wrangling.
Without some principles of immediate belief, then, it is mani-
fest, that we could have no belief whatever; for we believe one
proposition, because we discover its relation to some other propo-
sition, which is itself, perhaps, related, in like manner, to some
other proposition formerly admitted, but which, carried back as
far as it may, through the longest series of ratiocination, must ulti-
mately come to some primary proposition, which we admit from
the evidence contained in itself, or, to speak more accurately,
which we believe from the mere impossibility of disbelieving it.
All reasoning, then, the most sceptical, be it remarked, as well as
the most dogmatical, must proceed on some principles, which are
taken for granted, not because we infer them by logical deduction,
for this very inference must then itself be founded on some other
principle assumed without proof; but because the admission of
these first principles is a necessary part of our intellectual consti-
tution. The ridicule, therefore, with which Dr Priestley and some
other English metaphysicians, were disposed to regard the decis-
ion of philosophical questions, on certain ultimate principles of
common sense, was surely, at least in its wide degree of exten-
sion, misplaced ; though the phrase common sense, it will be admit-
ted, was not the happiest that could have been chosen. The con-
troversy, indeed, was truly a verbal and insignificant one, unless as
far as it had reference to the unnecessary multiplication of these
principles, by the philosophers of this part of the island whom Dr
Prifstley opposed ; since, if traced to their ultimate evidence, it
could iiave been only from some one or more of the principles of
common sense, at least from those primary universal intuitions of
direct belief, which were all that Dr Reid and his friends meant
to denote by the term, that the very reasonings employe.l against
them derived even the slightest seml)lance of force. An argument
that rejects not the phras.^ common sense only, which is of little
con>c(jUcnce,but al-o what the phrase was intended, by its authors,
to imply, is an argument confessedly founded upon nothing ; which,
OF MENTAL IDENTITY. 195
therefore, as wholly unfounded, requires no answer, and which, at
any rate, it would be vain to attempt to answer, because the an-
swer, if it proceed on any ground whatever, must begin with as- j^
suming what the argument rejects, as inadmissible. "O^"^ «A
■ All reasoning, then, I repeat, whether sceptical or dogmaticaP^ " '
must take for granted, as its primary evidence, the truth of cer-j
tain propositions, admitted intuitively^ and independently of the rea-i
aoning, which follows, but cannot precede, the perception of their
truth ; and hence, as we cannot suppose that the subsequent ratio-
cination, though it may afford room for errors in the process, can
at all add evidence to these primary truths ; which, as directly be-
lieved, are themselves the ultimate evidence of each successive
proposition, down to the last result of the longest argument ; we
must admit that our identity, if it be felt by us intuitively, and 1 j
felt universally, immediately, irresistibly, is founded on the very |
same authority as the most exact logical demonstration, with this
additional advantage, that it is not subject to those possibilities of
error in the steps of the demonstration, from which no long series j
of reasoning can be exempt.
So little accustomed are we, however, to think of this primary
fundamental evidence of every reasoning, while we give our whole
attention to the consecutive propositions which derive from it
their force, that we learn, in this manner, to consider truth and
reasoning as necessarily connected, and to regard the assertion of
truths that do not flow from reasoning, as the assertion of some-
thing which it would be equally unworthy of philosophy to assert
or to admit ; though every assertion and every admission, which
the profoundest reasoner can make, must, as we have seen, involve
the direct or indirect statement of some truth of this kind. Nor
is it wonderful that we should thus think more of the reasoning it-
self, than of the foundation of the reasoning ; since the first truths,
which give force to reasoning but require no reasoning to estab-
lish them, must necessarily be of a kind which all admit, and which,
therefore, as always believed by us, and undisputed by others,
have excited no interest in discussion, and have never seemed to
add to our stock of knowledge, like the results of reasoning, which
have added to it truth after truth. Yet that they are thus unin-
teresting to us, is the effect only of their primary, and universal,
and permanent force. They are the only truths, in short, which
19g ON THE DIRECT EVIDENCE
every one admits ; and they seem to us unworthy of being main-
tained as truths, merely because they are the only truths which
are so irresistible in evidence, as to preclude the possibility of a
denial.
It is not as the primary evidence of all our processes of rea-
soning, however, t^.at they are chiefly valuable. Every action of
our hves is an exemplitication of some one or other of these
truths, as ]> -acticaily leit by us. Why do we believe, that what
wo remember truly took place, and that the course of nature will
be in future such as we have already observed it? Without the
belief of these physical truths, we could not exist a day, and yet
there is no reasoning from which they can be inferred.
These principles of intuitive behef, so necessary for our very
existence, and too important, therefore, to be left to the casual
discovery of reason, are, as it were, an internal never-ceasing
voice from the Creator and Preserver of our being. The reason-
ings of men, admitted by some, and denied by others, have over
utTbut a feeble power, which resembles the general frailty of
man himself These internal revelations from on high, however,
are omnipotent like their Author. It is impossible for us to doubt
them, because to disbelieve them would be to deny what our very
constitution was formed to admit. Even the Atheist himself,
therefore, if, indeed, there be one who truly rejects a Creator
and Kuler of the universe, is thus every moment in which he
adapts his conduct implicitly, and without reasoning, to these di-
rections of the Wisdom that formed him, obeying, with most exact
subserviency, that very Foice which he is professing to question
i)V to deride.
' That the assertion of principles of intuitive belief, indepen-
/fdent of reasoning, may be carried to an extravcigant and ridiculous
''length,— as, indeed, seems to me to have been llfe-^eftse-in the
! works of Dr Keid, and some other Scotch philosophers, his con-
llemporaries and friends,— no one can deny; nor that the unneces-
'.^ary multiplication of these would be in the highest degree inju-
^ Fious to sound philosophy,— both as leading us ^to for m jahe views
(\) ofthe-nuLurc of the mind, in ascribing to it principlesWTiich are
,10 part of its constilution, and, still more, as checking the general
vigotir of^rjjluiotwipluc ilKMiin', by seducing us into the haFiFof
v/tt<- <iuiescing too soon, in the ca'^y and indolent faith, that it is ua-
i
OF MENTAL INDENTITY. 197
necessary for us to proceed farther, as if we had already advanc-
ed as far as our faculties permit. It is the more unfortunate, he-
cause our very avidity for knowledge, which is only another name
for that philosophic curiosity in which inquiry originates, is itself
favourahle to this too easy acquiescence ; tending, consequent)}',
by a sort of double intluence, to repress the very speculation to
which it gave rise. This it does, by rendering the suspense of
ungratified curiosity so painful to us, as to resemble, in a very
ereat desrree, the uneasiness which we feel from the ungratihed
cravings of bodily appetite. We more readily, therefore, yield to
the illusion which seems to remove this suspense : and are hap-
P3' to think, however falsely, that we have now completed our in-
quiry, and that, without attempting any more elementary analysis,
we may content ourselves with simply classing the results which
we have already obtained. Though there is no human being who
must not have felt doubts on some point or other, it is not every
one who knows how to doubt. To the perfection of a doubt, in-
deed, it is essential, — if I may apply to it what rhetoricians say of
an epic or dramatic narrative, — that it should have a beginning, a
middle, and in many cases, too, though not in all, an end. The
middle is a very easy matter ; the great difhculty relates to the
beginning and the end, and to the end not less than the beginning.
We err equally, when the doubt ceases too soon, and when it dues
not cease where it ought to cease. There is a scepticism as dif-
ferent from the true spirit of philosophy, as the most contented
ignorance, that has never questioned a single prejudice ; a scepti-
cism, which, instead of seeking to distinguish truth from falsehood,
professes to deny altogether the competency of our faculties as to
making such a distinction in any case, and to which any proposi-
tion, therefore, is as likely as its opposite. With this wild half
reasoning extravagance, which is ignorant whether it affirms or
denies, and which does not even know certainly that it has any un-
certainty at all, it would be manifestly absurd to reason ; and we
may even truly say of it, notwithstanding the high character of
perfect doubting which it affects, that it does not know how to doubt
more than the all-credulous imbecility which it despises and de-
rides ; because it does not know in what circumstances doubt is
legitimate, and in what circumstances it should cease. Kut. at
the same time, he also, it may be said, does not know how to
\
jjjg ON THE DIRECT EVIDENCE
doubt, who is completely satisfied with the result of an inquiry
which he is capable of prosecuting still further,— even though it
were only by the addition of a single step to the thousand which
he may already have made. Truth is the last link of many long
chains'; the tirst Unks of all of which, Nature has placed in our
hands. When we have fairly arrived at the last, and feel com-
pletely that there is no hnk beyond, it would be manifestly ab-
surd to suppose, that we can still proceed further ;— but if we stop
before we have arrived at the last, maintaining, without stretch-
ing out our hand to make the experiment, that there cannot be
yet another link after that which we have reached, it matters not
how far we may have advanced. Truth is still beyond us— to be
grasped only by an arm more vigorous and persevering.
If, instead of maintaining boldly, that we have reached the last
link of the chain, we content ourselves with affirming, that we
have reached the last which human effort can reach, we must be-
• ware that we do not measure the incapacity of the whole race of
mankind bv our own individual inability, or, which is far from im-
\probable, that we do not mistake for mabihty, even in ourselves,
What is only the irksomeness of long continued exertion. Our
power is often much greater than we are willing to believe ; and
in many cases, as La Rochefoucault very justly says, it is only to
excuse to ourselves our own indolence that we talk of things as im-
po=Mblo '' Non putant fieri," says Seneca, speaking of persons
of this character, -quicquid facere non possunt. Ex inhrmitate
sua ferunt sentent.am.-^- " Scis quare non possumus ista ? Quia
nos posse non credimus."-" Magno animo de rebus magnis judi-
candum est ; alioqui videbitur iUarum vitium esse quod nostrum
est."
Much evil, then, it must be admitted, would arise in the Phi-
losophy of Mind from a disposition to acquiesce too soon in instinc-
tive principles of belief. But though these may be, and have
been, multiplied unnecessarily, and beyond the truth of nature,
it is not less certain, that of our mental nature such principles are
trulv a part. W«; nboubl, indeed, draw monsters, not men, if we
ivere to represent the human head and trunk with a double pro-
portion of arms and legs; but we should also give an uufaithful
portraiture of the human figure, and should draw monsters, not
m,.„ if wp were to represent them with but one arm and leg, or
OF MENTAL IDENTITY. 1 9&
with no no arm or leg at all. In like manner, to suppose the
mind endowed with more principles of intuition than belong to it,
would be to imagine a species of mental monster. But it would
not less be a mental monster, if we were to attempt to strip it of
the principles which it truly possesses.
In contending, then, for the authority of certain ^r*< principles
of belief, such as that on which I conceive the conviction of our
identity to be founded, 1 am sufficiently aware, in how many in-
stances, reference to these has been rashly made by philosophers ;
when a deeper and more minute analysis would have shewn, that
the supposed tirst principles were not elementary laws of thought,
but were resolvable into others more simple. It is not to be in-
ferred, however, from the rash attempts to establish principles of
intuitive belief which do not exist, that there are no such princi-
ples in our mental constitution, any more than it is to be inferred,
from the general prevalence of bad reasoning, that it is impossi-
ble for a human being to reason accurately. I trust, at any rate,
that I have already sufficiently warned you, against the danger of
acquiescing too soon in any proposition, as a law of thought^ pre-
cludmg all further inquiry, from its own primary and independ-
ent evidence ; and that 1 have impressed you, not merely with
the necessity of admitting some principles of this sort, as essential
to every reasoning, but with the necessity also, of admitting them,
only after the most cautious examination.
The difficulty of ascertaining precisely, whether it be truth
which we have attained, is, in many cases, much greater, than the
difficulty of the actual attainment. Philosophy has in this respect
been compared, by a very happy illustration, — which, therefore,
homely and familiar as it is, I make no scruple to quote, — to " a
game at which children play, in which one of them, with his eyes
bandaged, runs after the others. If he catch any one, he is oblig-
ed to tell his name ; and if he fail to name him, he is obliged to
let him go, and to begin his running once more. It is the same,"
says Fontenelle, the author from whom I borrow this image, " in
our seeking after truth. Though we have our eyes bandaged, we
do sometimes catch it. — But then we cannot maintain with certain-
ty that it is truth, which we have caught ; — and in that moment
it escapes from us."
If there be, as it has been already shewn that there must be.u
200 ON THE DIRECT EVIDENCE
intuitive truths ; and, if we are not to reject, but only to weigh
cauliousiy, the behef which seems to us intuitive, it will be difli-
cuit to find any, which has a better claim to this distinction, than
the faith which wehaye^in our identitj^^^asone continued sentient
and thinking being, or ratKeT,-tcrspe^i more accurately, as one
permanent being capable of many varieties of sensation and
thought.
There is to be found in it, every circumstance which can be
Wquired to substantiate it as a law of intuitive,. -belief. lt_is.aini-
versal, irresistible, immediatj,_„Indeed, so truly prior and para-
mount is it to "mere reasoning, that the very notion of reasoning
I necessarily involves the belief of our identity as admitted. To
reason, is to draw a conclusion from some former proposition ; and
how can one truth be inferred from another truth, unless the mind,
Avhich admits the one, be the mind, which admitted the other? In
its order, as much as in its importance, it may be truly considered
as the first of those truths which do not depend on reasoning, and
as itself necessarily implied, perhaps in all, certainly in the great-
er number, of our other intuitions. I believe, for example, with-
out being able to infer it, or even to discover the greater proba-
bility of it, by any process of reasoning, that the course of nature
in future will resemble the past ; and, since all mankind have the
same irresistible tendency, 1 have no scruple in referring it to an
original principle of our nature. In taking for granted this simi-
larity, however, in the order of succession of t<vo distinct sets of
phenomena, I must previously have believed, that /, the same
sentient being, who expect a certain order in the future phenom-
ena of nature, have already observed a certain order in the past.
Since, then, the belief of our identity is intuitive and irresisti-
ble, the only in(iuiry which remains is as to the circumstances in
which the belief arises. Identity is a relative term. It implies of
course, in every instance, a double observation of some sort.
The identity of our mind is its continuance, as the subject of va-
rious feelings, or at least as that which is susceptible of various
feelings. The belief of it therefore, can arise only on the consid-
eration of its successive phenom«^na; and is indeed involved in the
mere consideration of these as miccessive.
Tbo knowb'dge of otir 7nind as a substance, an.l the belief of
our identity during successive feeling«, may be considered as the
OP MENTAL IDENTITY. 201
V
same notion, expressed in different words. Our identity is the
unity and sameness of that which thinks and feels, — itself sub-
stantially unchanged amid the endless variety of its thoughts and
feelings, — capable of existing separately in all these different
states; not ceasing therefore when they cease, but independent of
their transient changes. The knowledge o(mind, then, as a sub-
stance, implj'ing the belief of identity during changes of state can-
not be involved in any one of these separate states ; and, if our
feelings merely succeeded each other, in the same manner as the
moving bodies of a long procession are reflected from a mirror,
without any vestige of them as past, or consequently, any remem-
brance of their successions, we should be as incapable of forming
a notion of the sentient substance mind, abstracted from the mo-
mentary sensation, as the mirror itself; though we should indeed
differ from the mirror, in having what mind only can have, the
sensations themselves, thus rapidly existing and perishing.
But, if it be only on the consideration of some past feeling, that
the belief of the permanent substance mind can arise, it is to the
principle which recals to us past feelings, that the belief is ulti-
mately to be traced. We remember ; — and in that remembrance is
involved the belief, the source of which we seek. It is not mere-
ly a past feeling that arises to us, in what is commonly termed
memory, but a feeling that is recognized by us as ours^ in that past
time of which we think, — a feeling, therefore, of that mind which
now remembers what it before saw, perhaps, or heard, or enjoy-
ed, or suffered. We are told by writers on this subject, that it Is
from a comparison of our present with our past consciousness, that
the belief of our identity in these states arises; and this use of the
term comparison, which is commonly applied to a process of a dif-
ferent kind, may perhaps mislead you as to this simpler process.
It is true, indeed, that the beUef arises from a feeling of the past,
that is remembered, together with the consciousness of our remem-
brance as a present feeling, — a contemplation, as it were, of two
successive states of the mind. But (he comparison is nothing more
than this. — It is not to be supposed that we discover in the two feel-
ings some common quality or proportion, as when, in arithmetic or
geometry we compare two numbers, or two regular tigures ; for
the two feelings may have nothing common, except that very belief
of identity which is involved in (he remembrance itself We re-
0Q2 ON THE DIRECT EVIDENCE
member the past,— we feel the present,— we believe, and cannot'
but beUeve, that the rememberer of the past existed in that past
which he remembers. The process itself is sufficiently simple,
however truly wonderful one of the feelings may be which forms
the most important part of the process ; — for we are not to forget
that the remembrance itself, the revealer of the past, is not a past,
but a present feeling. It is the mind existing for the present mo-
ment in a particular state, as much as any primary and immedi-
ate sensation is the mind existing in a particular state. That this
state of remembrance, itself a present feeling, should be represen-
tative to us of some former feeling, so as to impress us irresistibly
with the belief of that former state of the mind, is indeed most
wonderful ; but that it does impress us with this belief, is as unde-
niable as the belief itself is irresistible.
Our fliith in our identity, then, as being only another form of
the faith which we put in memory, can be questioned only by
those who deny all memory, and with memory all reasoning of
every kind,— who believe only the existence of the present mo-
ment, and who with respect to every thing else, are as incapable
of opposing or questioning as they are of believing. If our mem-
ory be unworthy of the faith which we intuitively give to it, all
that is founded on memory, and therefore demonstration itself,
must equally deceive us. Wc cannot admit the most rigid dem-
onstration, or expect it to be admitted, without having already ad-
mitted, intuitively, that identity, which in words only we profess
to question, and to question which, even in words, is to assert the
reality of that which we deny.
The belief of the idcntily of self, then, as the one permanent
subject of the transient feelings remembered by us, arises from a
law of thought, which is essential to the very constitution of the
mind. It lias accordingly all the qualities, which I can imagine to
be required by the most rigid scrutiiuzer of our principles of in-
tuitive assent. It is universal, and immediate, and irresistible. I
.1.) not believe, with more confidence, that the half of thirty-two
is equal to the s.iuare of four, than I believe, that I, who comput-
ed the square of four, am the same with that mind, which com-
putes the half of llurty-two, and asserts the equality of the two
numbers.
Tlus consideration in of itself decisive of the question of iJcn-
OF MENTAL IDENTITY. 203
tity ; since, il it be manifest, that there is an universal, immediate,
and irresistible impression of our identity, — an impression, which
cannot be traced to any law of thought more simple, — its truth is
established by a species of evidence, which must be allowed to
be vaUd, before the very objections can be put, in which it is pro-
fessedly denied ; — every objection, however sceptical, involvmg,
as we have seen, and necessarily involving-, the assertion of some
such intuitive proposition, from which alone its authority, if it have
any authority, is derived. In endeavouring to move the whole
world of truth with his lever, there must still be some little spot
at least, on which the sceptic must be content to rest his foot as
firmly as others. Aog tto arw, he must still be condemned to
say w'ith Archimedes ; and if we allow no resting-place to his
foot, — or, even allowing him this, if we allow no fulcrum for the
instrument which he uses, he may contract or lengthen his lever
at pleasure ; but all the efforts, which in such circumstances, he
can make, will exhibit nothing so striking to those by whom the
efforts are witnessed, as the laborious impotence of him who em-
ploys them. To deny any first principles of intuitive belief, that
are not themselves to stand in need of a demonstration, — which,
as a demonstration, or series of consecutive propositions, can be
founded, in its primary evidence, only on some principle of the
same kind, — is, indeed, for such a sceptical mechanic, to set his
foot upon air, rather than on the ground, on which all around him
are standing, and to throw away the single fulcrum on which his
lever rests, and from w^hich alone all its power is derived.
The belief of our mental identity, then, we may safely con-
clude, is founded on an essential principle of our constitution, — in
consequence of which, it is impossible for us to consider our suc-
cessive feelings, without regarding them as truly our successive feel-
ings — states, or affections of one thinking substance. But though
the belief of the identity of the substance which thinks, is thus es-
tablished on the firmest of all grounds, the very ground, as we
have seen, on which demonstration itself is founded, — even though
no particular fallacy could be traced in the objections brought
against it, which I detailed in my last Lecture, — it is still an in-
teresting inquiry, in what the fallacy of the objections consists;
and the inquiry is the more interesting, as it will lead us to some
remarks and distinctions, which, I flatter myself, will throw some
204 OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRIXE OF
light on the philosophy of all the chang-es, material as well a»
mental, that are every moment taking place in the universe.
The objections brought against the identity of the mmd, from
a supposed incompatibility of its diversities of state with sameness
of substance, appear to me to depend on the assumption of a test
of identity, transferred, without sufficient reason, Irom the obvi-
ous appearances of matter to mind, and which, if matter be accu-
rately considered, is equally false, too, as applied to it. The
cause of the transterence, however, from the obvious material ap-
pearances, is a very natural one, — the same, which has included
so many analogies, from external things, in the language, which
we employ to express the intellectual functions. It is with the
changes of the material substances around us, that all our opera-
tions, which leave any fixed and permanent marks of our agency,
are immediately concerned. It is indeed only through them, that
our communication with other minds can be at all carried on ;
and it is not wonderful, therefore, that, in considering the nature
of change^ of every kind, our philosophy should be strongly taint-
ed with prejudices, derived from the material world, the scene of
all the immediate and lasting changes, which it is in our power to
produce. How much the mere materialism of our language has
itself operated, in darkening our conceptions of the nature of the
mind, and of its various phenomena, is a question, which is obvi-
ously beyond our power to solve ; since the solution of it would
imply, that the mind of the solver was itself free from the inllu-
ence which he traced and described. But of this, at least, we
mav be sure, that it is almost impossible for us to estimate the in-
lluence too highly; for we must not think, that its effect has been
contined to the works of philosopiiers. It has acted, much more
powcrfuliv, in the familiar discourse, and silent reflections of mul-
titudes, that have never had the vanity to rank themselves as
philosophers, — thus incorporating itself, as it were, with the very
essence of human thought. In that rude state of social life, in
which languages had their origin, the inventor of a word probably
thought of little more, than the temporary facility, which it might
ffivc to himself and his companions, in communicating their mutual
wants, and concerting their mutual schomrs of co-operation. He
was not aware, that, with this faint and perishing sound, which a
slight difference of breathing produced, he was creating that.
MENTAL IDENTITY, ANSWERED. 205
which was afterwards to constitute one of the most imperishable
of things, and to form, in the minds of milUons, during- every fu-
ture age, a part of the complex lesson of their intellectual exis-
tence, — o-iving rise to lasting systems of opinions, which, perhaps,
but forlhe invention of this single word, never could have pre-
vailed for a moment, and modifying sciences, the very elements
of which had not then begun to exist. The inventor of the most
barbarous term may thus have had an influence on mankind, more
important, than all which the most illustrious conqueror could ef-
fect, by along life of fatigue, and anxiety, and peril, and guilt. Of
the generalship of Alexander, and the valour of his armies, — of
all which he suffered, and planned, and executed, what perma-
nent vestiges remain, but in the writings of historians I In a very
few years, atler the termination of his dazzling career, every
thing on the earth was almost as if he had never been. A few
phrases of Aristotle achieved a much more extensive and lasting
conquest, and are, perhaps, even at this moment, exercising no
small sway on the very minds which smile at them with scorn,
and which, in tracing the extent of their melancholy influence on
the progress of science, in centuries that are past, are uncon-
scious that they are describing and lamenting prejudices, of which
they are themselves still, in a great measure, the slaves. How
many truths are there, of which we are ignorant, merely because
one man lived !
To return, however, to the objections, which we are to consider.
Diversity of any kind, it is said, is inconsistent with absolute
identity, in any case, and in the mind, which is by supposition in-
divisible, nothing can be added to it or taken away, and no internal
change can take place, in the relative positions an^ aflinities of
parts which it has not. Joy and sorrow are different in themselves ;
that which is joyful, therefore, and that which is sorrowful, cannot
be precisely the same, or diversity of any kind might be consistent
with absolute identity. That the joyful and sorrowful mind are
precisely the. same, is not asserted, if the sameness be meant to im-
ply sameness of state ; for it is admitted, that the state of the mind is
different in joy and sorrow ! and the only question is, whether this
difference, to which we give the name of difference of state, be
incompatible with complete and absolute sameness of substance.
The true key to the sophistry is, as I have already- said, that it
206 OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF, ETC.
assumes a false test of identity, borrowed, indeed, from the obvi-
ous appearances of the material world, but from these obvious
appearances only. Because diversity of any kind seems, in these
familiar cases, to be inconsistent with absolute identity, we draw
hastily the universal conclusion, that it is inconsistent with absolute
identity in any case. Paradoxical as the assertion may appear,
however, we may yet safely assert, that, not in mind only, but, as
we shall find, in matter also ; some sort of diversity is so far from
being inconsistent with absolute identity, that there is scarcely a
single moment, if, indeed, there be a single moment, in which ev-
ery atom in the universe is not constantly changing the tendencies
that form its physical character, without the slightest alteration of
its own absolute identity ; so that the variety of states or tenden-
cies of the same identical mind, in joy and sorrow, ignorance and
knowledge, instead of being opposed, as you might think, by the
general analogy of nature, is in exact harmony with that general
analogy. It is from our view of matter, unquestionably, as imply-
ing, in all its visible changes of state, some loss of identity, some
ad'dition or subtraction of particles, or change of their form of
combination, that the objection, with respect to the identity of the
mind, during its momentary or lasting changes of state, is derived ;
and yet we shall find, that it is only when we consider even mat-
ter itself superficially and slightly, that we ascribe the changes
which take place in it, to circumstances that aftect its identity. To
view it more profoundly and accurately, is to observe, even in mat-
ter, constant changes of state, where the identity has continued en-
tire, and changes as opposite, as those of the mind itself, when, at
different periods, it presents itself in different aspects, as sad and
cheerful, ignorant and wise, cruel and benevolent.
The apparent mystery of the continued identity of one simple
and indivisible mind, in all the variety of states, of which it is sus-
ceptible, is thus in a great measure, solved, when we find this
union of v:.ncty and sameness to be the result of a law that is not
limited to our spiritual being, but extends to the whole universe, or at
least to every thing which we know in the universe. It can no lon-
ger appear to us peculiarly wonderful, that the mind should exist at
different moments in opposite states, and yet l,o the same in its own
absolute nature, when we shall find that this compatibility is true
of every atom JTOund us, as much as of the mind itself
207
LECTURE XIV.
CONTINUATION OF THE ANSWER TO OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE
DOCTRINE OF MENTAL IDENTITY.
My Lecture yesterday was, in a great measure, employed in
illustrating the primary evidence of those principles of intuitive cls-
sent, to which we traced our belief of the identity of the mind as
one and permanent, in all the variety of its ever-changing affec-
tions. I explained to you, particularly with a view to that vague
and not very luminous controversy, in which Dr Priestley was en-
gaged with some philosophers of this part of the Island, in what
manner the truth of these intuitive propositions must be assumed
or admitted by all who reason, even by the wildest sceptic who
professes to question them ; pointing out to you, at the same time,
the danger to which two of the strongest principles of our consti-
tution, our indolence and our love of knowledge, alike expose us
— the danger of believing too soon that we have arrived at truths
which are susceptible of any minuter analysis. In conformity,
therefore, with the caution which this danger renders necessary^
we examined the belief of our continued identity ; and we found
it to possess the distinguishing marks, which I ventured to lay down
as the three great characters of intuition, that it is universal, imme-
diate, and irresistible ; — so universal, that even the very maniac,
who conceives that he was yesterday emperor of the Moon, be-
lieves that he is to-day the very person who had yesterday that
empire — so immediate, that we cannot consider any two feelings
of our mind as successive, without instantly considering them as
feelings of our mind, that is to say, as states of one permanent sub-
stance, and so irresistible that even to doubt of our identity, if it
were possible for «s truly to doubt of it. would be to believe, that
208 OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF
our mind, which doubts, is that very mind which has reflected and
reasoned on the subject.
Having thus stated the positive ground of belief, in our spirit-
ual identity, I proceeded to consider the negative evidence which
might arise from the confutation of the objections urged against it,
objections drawn from the supposed incompatibility of the chang-
es of our mental affections, with that strict absolute identity of sub-
stance, to which nothing can have been added, and from which
nothing can have been taken away. The test of identity, which
this supposed incompatibility implies, I stated to be a very false
one, transferred from matter to mind, and borrowed, not from a
philosophical, but from a very superficial view even of matter it-
self. If it appear, on a closer inquiry, that matter itself, without
the slightest loss oi identity, exists at ditferent moments, in states
which are not merely different but opposite, and exists in almost
infinite variety of such states, it cannot surely seem wonderful,
that the mind also should, without the slightest loss of its identity,
exist at different moments, instates that are different and opposite.
That a superficial view of matter, as it presents itself to our
mere organs of sense, should lead us to form a different opinion, is,
however, what might readily be supposed, because the analogies,
which that superficial view present?, are of a kind that seem to
mark a loss of identity whenever the state itself is altered.
In experimental philosophy, and in the obvious natural phenom-
ena of the material world, whenever a body changes its state,
some addition or separation has previously taken place. Thus,
water becomes steam by the addition, and it becomes ice by the
loss, of a portion oftliat matterof heat which is termed by chemists
caloAc ; which loss and addition are, of course, inconsistent with
Ihc notion of absolute numerical identity of the corpuscles, in the
three states of water as a solid, a liquid, and a gaseous vapour.
Perception, by which the mind is metaphorically said to acquire
knowledge, ixnA for get fulness, by which it is metaphorically said (o
lose knowledge, have, it must be confessed, a very striking analo-
gy to these processes of corpuscular loss and gain ; and, since ab-
solute identity seems to be inconsistent with a change of state in
the one set of phenomena, with which we are constantly familiar,
we find difficully in persuading ourselves, that it is not inconsistent
with a change of state in the other set also. It is a ditliculty of
MENTAL IDENTITY, ANSWERED. 209
the same kind as that which every one must have felt, when he
Jearned, for the first time, the simple physical law, that matter is
indifferent as to the states of motion and rest, and that it requires,
therefore, as much force to destroy completely the motion of a
body, as to give it that motion when at rest. We have not been
accustomed to take into account the effects of friction^ and of at-
mospherical resistance, in gradually destroying, without the in-
terference of any visible force, the motion of a ball, which we
are conscious of effort in rolling from our hand ; and we think,
therefore, that rest is the natural state of a body, and that it is the
very nature of motion to cease spontaneously. " Dediscet animus
sero, quod dedicit diu." It is a very just saying of a French writer,
that " it is not easy to persuade men to put their reason in the place
of their eijes ; and that when, for example, at\er a thousand proofs,
they are reasonable enough to do their best to believe, that the
planets are so many opaque, solid, habitable orbs, like our earth,
they do not believe it in the same manner as they would have
done if they had never looked upon them in another light.
There still comes back upon their behef something of the first
notion which they had, that clings to them with an obstinacy,
which it requires a continual effort to shake off."*
It is, then, because some substantial loss or gain does truly
take place in the changing phenomena of the bodies immediately
around us, to which we are accustomed to pay our principal at-
tention, that we learn to regard a change of state in matter as
significant of loss of identity, and to feel, therefore, some hesita-
tion in admitting the mental changes of state to be consistent with
absolute sameness of substance. Had our observation of the ma-
terial phenomena been different, there would have been a corres-
ponding difference in our view of the changes of the phenomena
©f the mind.
If, for example, instead of previously gaining or losing caloric,
— as in the constitution of things of which we have our pres-
ent experience, — the particles of the water had suddenly as-
sumed the state of vapour on the sounding of a trumpet at a dis-
tance, and the state of ice immediately on the rising of the sun, —
in short, if the different changes of state in bodies, by which their
* Fontenclle, Pluralifc des Mondes, Conversat. 6me.
27
210 OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF
r»hysical character for the time seems, in many cases, to be whol-
ly altered, had occurred without any apparent loss or gain of sub-
stance, we should then no longer have found the same difficulty
in admitting the changes of stale in mind as consistent with its
identity ; and the sentient substance, which previously existed in
a different state, might then, on the sounding of a trumpet, have
been conceived by us to begin to exist, in the state which consti-
tutes that particular sensation of hearing, or, on the rising ot
the sun, to exist in that different state which constitutes the
sun*s change of colour as readily as the material substance, pre-
viously existing in the form of water, to begin at the same mo-
ment, without any essential or numerical change, and consequent-
ly with perfect identity, to exist in the new state of steam, or in
the state of a chrystalline mass, as solid as the rock from which
it hangs as an icicle, or that glitters with its gemmy covering.
But it may be said, that the very supposition which we now
make is an absurd one ; that the mere presence of the sun in the
tirmament, at a distance from the water, cannot be supposed to
convert it into ice, unless the water gain or lose something, and
consequently cease to have absolute identity; and that the
case, therefore, is of no value, as illustrating the compatibility
of change of state in our various sensations, with unaltered
identity of the sentient mind. To this I might answer, that
although the presence of the sun certainly does not operate
in the manner supposed,— as the sequences of events arc
now arranged in the great system of nature,— it is only by ex-
perience, and not by intuition or reasoning, we know, that the
presence of the sun has not the .very effect which the separation
of caloric now produces, and that there is nothing absolutely more
wonderful in the one case than in the other. If our experience
had been the reverse of this,— if the change of place of a few
particles of caloric had not, as now, converted the liquid water m-
to that solid congeries of crystals which we call ice,— we should
then have found as little difficulty in conceiving that it should not
have this effect, as we now find in adapting our belief to the par-
ticular series of events which constitntp our present experience.
It is not necessary, however, to have recourse to supi)Ositions
of this kind, s.nce the system of nature, even according to our
present experience of it, furnishes sullicient i)roof oi: changes as
MENTAL IDENTITY, ANSWERED. 211
wonderful in the slate of bodies produced obviously at a distance,
and, therefore, without any loss or addition which can affect their
identity. For sufficient evidence of this, I need appeal only to
the agency of the celestial gravitation ; that gigantic energy of
nature which fills the universe, like the immediate presence of
the Deity himself, — to which, in the immensity of its influence,
the distances, not from planets to planets merely, but from suns
to suns, are like those invisible spaces between the elements of
the bodies around us, that seem actual contact to our eyes, — and
in comparison with which, the powers, that play their feeble
part in the physical changes on the surface of our earth, are as in-
considerable as the atoms, on which they exercise their little do-
minion, are to the ma-ssy orbs which it wields and directs at
will,—
" Those bright millions of the heavena.
Of which (he least full Godhead had proclaitn'd,
And thrown the s;azer on his knee.'' — " Admire
The tumult untumultuous ! All on wing,
In motion all ; jet what profound repose !
What fervid action, yet no noise ! — as aw'd
To silence by the presence of their Lord."
The action of these great planetary bodies on each other, — it
"urely cannot be denied, — leaves them separate identities, precise-
ly as before ; and it is a species of agonc}', so essential to the
magnificent harmony of the system, that we cannot conceive it to
have been interrupted, for a single moment, since the universe
itself was formed. An action, therefore, has been constantly tak-
ing placo on all the bodies in the universe, — and consequently a
difference of some sort produced, — which yet leaves their identi-
ties unaffected. But, though the identity of the substance of the
separate orbs is not affected by their mutual attractions, the state.,
or temporary physical character, of these orbs, — considered indi-
vidually as one great whole, — m.'ust be affected, — or it would be
absurd to speak of their mutual agency at all ; for action implies
the sequence of a change of some sort, and there can be no action,
therefore, where the substances continue precisely the same, and
their state also precisely the same, as before the action. Accord-
j^&'y^ we find, on our own globe, that great changes of state, such
as form the most striking of its regular visible phenomena, are
212 OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF
produced by this distant operation. The waters of our ocean, for
example, rise and fall, — and, therefore, must have altered states,
or pliysical tendencies, in consequence of which they rise and
fall, as there is no corresponding addition or subtraction of matter,
— at regular intervais, — which it is in our power to predict with
infallible accuracy, — not because we can divine any loss of
identity in the fluid mass, — any internal change in its elemen-
tary composition, or the nature and varieties of the winds, which
are to sweep along its surface, — but because we know well,
at what hours, and in what relative situation, a certain great
body, at the distance of some hundreds of thousands of miles, is to
be -jiassing along the heavens.
If, then, the mere position of a distant heavenly body can
cause the particles of our ocean to arrange themselves in a differ-
ent configuration, — from that in which they would otherwise have
exi:=ted, and, therefore, must have produced in the particles that
change of state, which forces them, as it were, into this altered
form, — without addition to them of any thing, or subtraction of
any thing, — in short, leaving in them the same absolute numeri-
cal or corpuscular identity as before, — there surely can be no
greater difficulty, in supposing, as in the case before imagin-
ed, that a certain position of the sun might have immediate-
ly caused the particles of a distant liquid, to arrange them-
selves in the particular configuration, that constitutes the solid ice,
— which, though perhaps a more striking change of state, would
not have been more truly a change of state, than that, which it
now unquestionably produces, in modifying the rise or fail of our
tides. And, if a distant body can produce in matter a change of
state, without affecting its identity, by any addition or subtraction,
we may surely admit, that the presence of an external body, as
in porcoption, may, in mind also, produce a change of state,
without affocliiig its identity; unless indeed, (which is not impossi-
ble, because nothing is impossible to human folly,) we should be
inclined to reverse our prejudices, and maintain, that matter may
be easily conceived to change the afiinities or tendencies that
form its physical character, in the particular circumstances ob-
served, without any addition or subtraction of substance, but that
some poHitive addition or subtraction of substance is, notwithstand-
ing, essential to the simple changes or aiTections of the mind.
MENTAL IDENTITY, ANSWERED. 213
If the moon were suddenly annihilated, our earth would still
be the same identical planet, without the loss or gain of a single
particle of substance. But the state of this planet, as a whole,
and of every atom of this planet, would be instantly altered, in
many most important respects, — so completely altered, indeed,
that not an atom of the mass would tend to the other atoms of the
mass, in the same manner as before. In like manner, if the light,
— which now, operating on one of my organs of sense, causes my
mind to exist in the state that constitutes the sensation of a partic-
ular colour, — were suddenly to vanish, the state of my mmd would
be instantly changed, though my mind itself, considered as a sub-
stance, would still continue unaltered, in both cases, — the spirit-
ual, and the material, — and in both cases, alike, — absolute identity,
in the strictest sense of the term, is consistent with innumerable
diversitiss.
In the discussion of this supposed difficulty, I have chosen, for
illustration, in the tirst place, to consider the planetary attractions,
in preterence to those which occur, in the minuter changes, that
are simply terrestrial ; because in the case of operations at a dis-
tance, it is impossible for us, not to perceive, that, even in matter,
a change of state is not inconsistent with complete permanence
of absolute corpuscular identity ; while, in the compositions or de-
compositions, that occur spontaneously, or by artificial experiment,
in the physical changes on the surface of our earth, the additions
or subtractions of matter, that appear to us to constitute these
phenomena, truly destroy the corpuscular identity of the substan-
ces, in which the change takes place ; and the change of state is
thus considered by us, as implying a positive substantial change.
But when we examine even these phenomena a little more deep-
ly, we shall find, that, like the great operations of gravitation on
the masses of the universe, — the change, in these also, is not a
positive change of substance, but is simply a change of state in a
congeries of independent substances, which we term one substance,
merely because the spaces, that are really between them, are im-
perceptible to our very imperfect organs; the addition or sub-
traction of matter being not that which constitutes the new states
or tendencies of the particles which continue present, but merely
that which gives occasion to those changes of state or tendency ;
— as the positions of the heavenly bodies do not constitute the phe-
214 OBJECTIONS TO THE DC<JTRINE OF
nomena of our tides, but merely give occasion to that clifl"erenc6 of
state in the particles of the ocean, in consequence of which they
assume of themselves a different configuration. Man is placed, as
it has been truly said, on a point, between two infinities, — the in-
finitely great^ and the infinitely little. It may be an extravagant
speculation, to which I have before alluded, — but it is not abso-
lutely absurd, to suppose, that in the unbounded system of nature,
there may be beings, to whose vision the whole planetary at-
tendants of each separate sun, which to us appear to revolve at
distances' so immense, may yet seem but one small cohesive mass,
in the same manner, as to those animalculae, whose existence and
successive generations had been altogether unknown to man, till
the microscope created them, as it were to his feeble sight,-tand
which, perhaps, are mighty animals compared with races of bcfcings
still more minute, that are constantly living in our very presence,
■and yet destined never to be known to us, — those bodies, which to
us seem one small cohesive mass, may ajjpear separated by dis-
tances, relatively as great, as to us are those of the planets. That
light, itself a body., should pass freely through a mass of solid crys-
tal, is regarded by us as a sort of physical wonder ; and yet it is
far from impossible, that, between the atoms which compose this
apparently solid mass, whole nations of living beings may be dwell-
ing, and exorcising their mutual works of peace or hostility ;
while perhaps, if philosophy can be exercised, in brains of such
infinitesimal dimensions, in the same manner as in our coarser or-
gans, the nature of the atoms, or distant worlds around them, may
be dividing with endless absurdities, the Ptolemies and Aristotles
of the little republics. We have all so much of the nature of the
inhabitants of Brobdignag, that a supposition of this kind, — which
is perhai)S truly in itself not a very probable one, — yet appears to
us much more imiiroliabJe, than it really is. We smile, as recog-
nizing our own nature, when the sovereign of that country of gi-
ants is represented by the most unfortunate, or rather the most for-
tunate of all voyager.'^, as " turning to his first minister, who wait-
ed behind him with a white staff, near as tall as the mainmast of
the Royal Sovereign, and observing how contemptible a thing was
human grandeur, wliici* could be mimicked by such diniinulive in-
secf.-'." ''And yef,'' said he, "I dare engage, those creatures
hare (heir titles and distinclions of honour; Ihcy contrive their
MENTAL IDENTITV, ANSWERED. 213
nests and burrows, that they call houses and cities ; they make a fig-
ure in dress and equipage ; they love, they light, they dispute, they
cheat, they betray." And we fully enter into the difliculty which
the savans of the country, who had all agreed that the new-dis-
covered animal could not have been produced according to the
regular laws of nature, must have found, in giving him a name.
"One of them seemed to think that I might be an embryo, or ab-
ortive birth. But this opinion was rejected by the other two, who
observed my limbs to be periect and finished ; and that I had liv-
ed several years, as it was manifest from my beard, the stumps
whereof they plainly discovered through a magnifying-glass. They
would not allow me to be a dwarf, because my littleness was be-
yond all degrees of comparison; for the queen's favourite dwarf,
the smallest ever known in that kingdom, was near thirty feet
high. After much debate, they concluded unanimously, that I was
only relplum scalcath, which is interpreted literally lusus natures ;
a determination exactly agreeable to the modern philosophy of
Europe, whose professors, disdaining the old evasion of occult
causes, whereby the followers of Aristotle endeavoured in vain to
disguise their ignorance, have invented this wondei'ful solution of
all difficulties, to the unspeakable advancement of human knowl-
edge.''*
Whatever may be thought of speculations of this kind, howev-
er, with respect to the relative distance of the atoms of bodies, it is
not the less certain, that these atoms are separate substances, in-
dependent of the other similar or different substances that appar-
ently adhere to them in continuity, — that they are, in truth, the
only material substances which really exist, since the bodies which
we term masses are only those very atoms under another name, —
that they remain, and cannot but remain, identical, amid all the
changes of chemical composition or decomposition, — and that the
change which they suffer, therefore, however strikingly their
physical character may be altered for the time, is a change not of
substance but of state onl}'. In the case of the formation of ice, for
example, the elementary atoms themselves, which are all that
truly exist in nature, are not, and cannot be, changed ; but par-
ticles, which were formerly easily separable from adjacent parti-
* Gul!i?er'9 Travels, part ii. chap. 3.
216 OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF
cles now resist this separation by a considerable force. There
is a change in their state, therefore, since they now exist with a
different degree of tendency toward each other, — a change,
to which the separation of a quantity of caloric may, indeed,
have given occasion, but which is to be distinguished from that
momentary separation itself, since the soUdity, which is only anoth-
er name for the corpuscular resistance, continues after the separ-
ation is complete, and would continue forever, unless a change of
temperature were again to restore that former state or tendency
of the particles, in which they were easily separable. To him
who has learned to consider bodies as, what they truly are, a mul-
titude of separate and independent corpuscles, there is no change
of identity, and cannot be any change of identity, in all the phe-
nomena or changes of the universe. The atoms, which alone
existed, continue as before ; and all which constitutes the phe-
nomenon, or varieties of successive phenomena, is a change of
their place or tendency.
This corpuscular view of the material universe,— which, of
course, admits an infinite variety of applications, corresponding
with the infinite variety of its phenomena, — has many most strik-
ing analogies in that moral universe, with the phenomena of w^hich
we are chiefly concerned. Indeed, when we consider any of the
masses before us, as deriving all its apparent magnitude from a
number of separate bodies, of which it is composed,— any one of
which, individually, would be too minute to be distinguishable by
IIS,— it is scarcely possible not to think of the similarity which it
presents to the multitudes of human beings that are as it were,
massed together in the great nations of the earth ; and in which
any single individual, if he could be supposed to have exercised
his powers separately, would have been truly as insignificant as a
single atom separated from the mass of which it is a part. What
we^call the greatness of a nation, is nothing more than the union
of a mimber of little interests and little passions joined in one
common object; to which insignificant elements, so wonderful
when combined, if we could distinctly reduce, by analysis, the
most unrivalled power ttiat has ever commanded the admiration
and envy of the world, it would, at fir-t view, run some little risk
of appearing contemptible. The advantages of this social union
of mankind, as silently felt ;.t ovrrv moment, are un.iucstionably
MENTAL IDENTITY, ANSWERED. 217
SO infinite in comparison, as almost to sink into nothing' the occa-
sional evils to which the aggregation and massing of so many pow-
ers, when ill directed, may give rise, — though these terrilic evils,
when they occur, may dwell more permanently in the mind ; —
like the visitations of storms and earthquakes, which we remem-
ber forever, while, with a sort of thankless forgetfulness, we
scarcely think of the calm beauty and regularity which, season af-
ter season, passes over us. The rock which, descending from the
top of a mountain, lays waste whatever it meets in its progress, —
and to attempt to stop which, while its short career lasts, would
be almost like instant annihilation, — derives this overwhelming
force from an infinite number of independent corpuscles, any one
of which, if it had fallen singly, would have been far less destruc-
tive than the flutter of an insect's wing ; and that tyrannical power
of a single man, before which, in unhappy ages of successful op-
pression, the earth has so often trembled, — as before some pow-
er of darkness, endowed with more than human sway, — has deriv-
ed its irresistible might, not from powers included in itself, — which,
in reference to the objects achieved by it, would have been fee-
ble indeed, — but from the united powers of beings still feebler,
who were trembling while they executed commands to which
themselves alone gave omnipotence.
To this corpuscular view, however, though it is unquestiona-
bly the sort of view to which, in our ultimate physical inquiries
into the phenomena of matter, we must come, you may, perhaps,
not be sufficiently accustomed, to enter fully into the reasoning on
the subject. It will probably be less difficult for you, if we take
rather, as an illustration, the simpler case of imptdse ; in which
the bodies affecting each other are not, as in chemistry, indistin-
guishable corpuscles, but masses, clearly defined, and easily per-
ceptible.
I need not, of course, repeat the arguments formerly stated,
to prove that attraction, however general it may be as a law of
matter at all visible distances, does not continue, but gives place
to an opposite tendency at those smaller distances, which we are
unable to perceive with our weak organs, and which we learn to
estimate only by effects that are inconsistent with absolute con-
fact ; — for example, by the well-known fact of the compressi-
bility of bodies, which could not take place if their particles were
28
218 OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF
already in contact, and which by continually increasing resistance
to the compressing force that would bring the corpuscles nearer,
shews, that there is, at ditierent degrees of nearness, a tendency
continuing to operate, which is the very reverse of attraction.
There is, therefore, every reason to beUeve, — since repulsion, as
the fact of forcible compression shews, takes place while the par-
ticles of bodies are still at a certain distance,— that the motion
produced in one body by another, and ascribed to immediate im-
pulse, is produced, without actual contact, by this mutual repul-
sion, as it is called, of the bodies when brought within a certain in-
visible degree of vicinity to each other ; or, in other words,— for
repulsion means nothing more mysterious than this simple fact,—
the tendency which bodies, in certain relative positions of appar-
ent but not actual contact, have to fly off from each other with
certain degrees of velocity, as in certain other relative positions,
of distinguishable distance, they have a tendency to approach each
other. This repulsion, or tendency from each other at one point
of nearness, is of itself as easy to be conceived, as that attraction^
or tendency toward each other at other points of distance, to
which we give the name of gravitation; and it is only from our
greater familiarity with the one, as operating at distances which
are visible, while the other,— except in a few cases, such as
those of magnetism and electricity,— operates only at distances
which are imperceptible to us, that we feel a little more difliculty
in admitting the repulsion than the atiraclion of matter. There is
then,— however universal gravitation may seem, when we think
only of perceptible distances,— a certain point of near approach,
before actual contact, at which gravitation ceases; and, beyond
this point, the tendency of bodies toward each other is converted,
—as the force necessary to compress them evidently shews,-into
a tendency from each other ; both tendencies, indeed, being inex-
plicable, iMit the one in no respect more so than the other.
For this apparent digression, on a point of general physics, 1
make no apology, as it is absolutely necessary for illustrating the
particular case to which I am to proceed. The consideration ot
it requires, what the whole of this discussion, indeed, has already
rerpiired from you, no small exercise of patient attention ; but I
trust that 1 suflicicntlvproparj'd you for this, in a former Lecture,
when 1 stated the importance of such attention, not merely in rela-
MENTAL IDENTITY, ANSWERED. 219
tion to the subject considered at the time, but as a part of jout
mental discipline, and the advantage which might thus be derived
to your intellectual character, from the very difficulties which the
subject presents. It is in philosophy, as in many a fairy tale. The'
different obstacles which the hero encounters, are not progressive-
ly greater and greater; but his most difficult achievements are of-
ten at the very commencement of his career. He begms, perhaps,
with attacking the castle of some enchanter, and has to force his
way, unassisted, through the griffins and dragons that oppose his
entrance. He finishes the adventure, with the death of the magi*
clan — and strips him of some ring, or other talisman, which ren-
ders his subsequent adventures comparatively easy and secure. I
cannot venture to say, indeed, that a perfect acquaintance with the
difficulties of the present question, and of some of the late ques-
tions which have engaged us, will be such a talisman to you, in
your future career of intellectual science. But I may safely say,
that the habit of attentive thought, which the consideration of sub-
jects, so abstract, necessarily produces, in those who are not too
indolent to give attention to them, or ioo indifferent to feel inter-
est in them, is more truly valuable than any talisman, of which
accident or force might deprive you. The magic with which this
endows you, is not attached to a ring^ or a gem, or any thing ex-
ternal ; it lives, and lives forever, in the very essence of your
minds.
When a billiard ball, on being struck, approaches another,
which is at rest, it soon arrives at the point of seeming, but not ac-
tual contact, at which their mutual attraction ceases, and the force
which it has acquired still carrying it on, it passes this bounding
point, and arrives at a point at which repulsion has already begun.
Accordingly the body, formerly at rest, now flies off, on a principle
precisely similar, (though the mere direction bo opposite) to that
by which the same ball, if dropped from a hand that supported it,
would, without the actual impulse of any body, have quitted its
state of rest, as in the present case, and have gravitated, or, which
is the same thing, have moved of itself toward the earth.
Before the first ball, which you will, perhaps more easily re-
member by the name. A, arrived so very near to the second balj
B, as to have come wiihin the sphere of their mutual repulsion,
this second liall was at rest, that is to say, it bail no tcndencj' to
220 OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE Of
move in any direction. This state of rest, however, is only one ot'
the many states, in which a body may exist ; and if, which must
surely he allowed, a body having a tendency to continued motion,
be in a different state, from one which has no such tendency, this
chang-e of state implying-, it must be remarked, not even the slight-
est loss of identity, has been produced in the body B, by the mere
vicinity of the body A. For the sake of illustration, let us now sup-
pose this body A to be hot or luminous. It will still, as before,
produce the new state of tendency to motion, in B, when it arrives
within the limits of their sphere of repulsion. Is it less conceiva-
ble, then, that the mere presence of this hot or luminous body
should produce the new sensation of warmth, or of colour, which
are different states of the sentient mind, without affecting in the
slightest degree the identity of the mind itself, than that it should
produce, without any loss of absolute identity, in the body B, an
immediate tendency, in that body, to move along with a certain ve-
locity, a state as difterent from that in which it remains at rest, as
the sensation of warmth, which is one state of the mind, is differ-
ent from the sensation of colour, which is another state of the
mind ? Nor does the parallel end here ; for, since a body at rest,
acquiring a tendency to begin motion in one particular direction,
as, for example, to move north, must be in a different state from
that in which it would have been, if it had acquired an instant ten-
dency to move east, or in any other direction ; and, the direction
once begun, being tlie same, since a body having a tendency to
move with one velocity, must, at every moment of its progress, be
in a different state from that in \\ liicli it has a tendency to move
with a different velocity, it is evident, that the mere presence of a
body may produce, in a second body, according to the difference
of their positions and relative magnitudes, a variety of states, that,
when all the varieties of diiection, and all the varieties of veloci-
ty are estimated together, may be considered as infinite, — equal at
least in number, to the different states of which the mind is suscep-
tible, in its almost infinite variety of feelings ; and all this without
any essential change, that can affect the identity of the quiescent
or moving body, or any essential change, that can affect (he identi-
fy of the mind.
'I am aware, that, when you consider, for the lirsl (iuie, this
assertion of an irifinite variety of 5<a(e*, corresponding with all the
MENTAL IDENTITY, ANSWERED. 221
innumerable varieties of direction and velocity, in the tendencies
of a simple billiard-ball, which, in the various circumstances sup-
posed, appears to us precisely the same, in all its sensible quali-
ties, you may be apt to conceive, that the assertion must be found-
ed on a mistake, and, from the influence of former prejudice may
be inclined to think, that, when it exhibits a tendency to begin to
move east, at one time, and, at another time, a beginning tenden-
cy to move north, this does not arise from any difference of state
in itself, but from its being merely carried along by the first ball,
which was itself previousl}' moving in one or other of these par-
ticular lines of direction. When the elastic billiard-ball, howev-
er, bounds away from the ball which strikes it, this supposition is
manifestly inapplicable ; — and, in all cases, it is the influence only
of former prejudice which can lead you to this opinion, — the influ-
ence of that prejudice, by which you may have been accustomed
to consider impulse, not as inducing a tendency to motion at some
little distance, but as involving the necessity of actual contact.
To destroy this prejudice, a very little reflection on the phenom-
ena of elastic bodies, in their shocks and mutual retrocessions, is
surely all that can be requisite ; and if the motion of B, and con-
sequently its tendency to motion, have begun, without contact of
A, as it afterwards continues while A, the elastic body which
struck it, is moving back in an opposite direction, it could not be
by mechanical trusion, as carried along by A, which is still at
some points of distance irom it when its motion begins, and at still
greater distance the longer the motion continues, that B has as-
sumed any one of its variety of states, — that, for example, in
which, in one case, it tends to move east, in another case to move
north, in one case to move rapidly, in another slowly. To say
that the body acquires this new tendency because it is impelled,
is only to say that it is inapelled because it is impelled. It is an
equally idle use of language, to affirm, as if a word could obviate
the difficulty instead of merely stating it, — that A, in communicat-
ing a different tendency to B, which was before at rest, does this
by a principle, or power of repulsion ; for this, as I have said, L«!
merely to state in a single word, the regularity in certain circum-
stances of the very fact asserted. The different tendencies of B.
and consequently the different states in which B exists. — are not
^he less different, in whatever manner the. difference may have
222 OBJECTIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF
been produced, or by whatever word, or combination of word?,
the difference may be expressed. There is no magic, in the
phrase, principle of repulsion, or po-jver of repulsion, which can
render the same, states or tendencies that are in themselves oppo-
site ;— for, as far as we understand the phrase, it expresses no-
thing more than the invariableness of the simple fact, that in cer-
tain circumstances of relative position, bodies have a tenden-
cy to fly off from each other, as in certain other circumstances
of relative position, which constitute the phenomena of gravita-
tion, they have a tendency to approach. Whatever term we may
employ to denote it, it is still a physical fact, that at a certain
point of near and seemingly close approach of another mass, a
body which was before in a state of rest, acquires immediately a
tendency to fly off in different directions, and with different veloc-
ities at different times, and consequently, that, if the tendency to
begin or to continue motion, in one direction, and with one veloc-
itv, be a state different from that which constitutes the tendency
to begin or to continue motion in another direction, and with an-
other^'velocity, the ball B, in these different circumstances, how-
ever identical it may be in substance, exists in two different
states ;— or all states, however different, may be said to be the
same.
It may be admitted, then, that the feeling of rapture is a state
of mind, completely different from that which constitutes the
feeling of og-onj/,— that the sensation of the fragrance of a rose, has
no resemblance to our conception of a sphere or of an equilateral
triangle,— and that, in general, all those thoughts and emotions,
^vhich,— more truly than the mere union of the immortal spirit
within us with the body which it animates,— may be said to con-
stitute life,
" Love, Hope, and Joy, fair Pleasure's smiling train,—
Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain ;"
these, a? they prevail, in different hours, render the same individ-
ual mind more unlike to itself, if its states or tendencies alone, and
not its substantial identity be considered, than the minds perhap*
of any two human brings, at the same moment. But still, as we
have seen, even from the analogy of the material world,— which
waa supposed to funnsh a jiowerful objection, it is no argument
MENTAL IDENTITY, ANSWERED. 223
against the absolute identity of the mind, that exists in different
states, however opposite, any more, than it is an argument against
the absolute identity of a body, that it, at one moment, has a ten-
dency to one particular motion, — at another moment a tendency
to a different motion, — and at another moment, no tendency what-
ever to motion of any kind ; since, in all these cases, as much as
in the varying affections of the mind, there is a change of statcj^
with absolute identity of substance.
224
LECTURE XV.
CONSIDERATION OF THE OBJECTIONS AGAINST IVIENTAL IDENTITY,
CONTINUED ; OPINION OF MR LOCKE RESPECTING IDENTITY J
SOURCE OF HIS PARADOX ON THIS SUBJECT ; AND REFLECTIONS
SUGGESTED BY IT.
My last Lecture, Gentlemen, was employed in considering
the general objection to the Identity of the Mind, drawn from the
contrasts of its momentary feelings,— an objection founded on the
supposed incompatibility of diversity of any kind, with strict and
absolute identity. After the very full examination which it re-
ceived, it is unnecessary to dwell at any length on the other ob-
jection, drawn from changes of general character, in the same m-
dividual, at different periods of life, or in different circumstances
of fortune; since precisely the same arguments, from the gene-
ral analogy of nature, which disprove the supposed incompatibil-
ity in the one case, disprove it also in the other. Even matter it-
self, we have seen, may, without the slightest alteration of its iden-
tity, exist in an almost infinite variety of states ; having, in some
of these states, qualities precisely the reverse of those, which it
exhibited in other states, attracting what it repelled, repelling what
it attracted ;—;uhI it surely is not more wonderful, therefore, that
the same identical mind, also, should, in relation to the same ob-
jecls, in different circumstances, be susccptil)lc of an almost mfi-
nitc variety of affections,— approving, disapproving, choosing, re-
penting. If we knew nothing more of the relations of two billiard
bulls to each other, than the phenomena which they exhibit, in
the moment of th. ii u.i.luM percussion, when they have been
forced, within a certain degree of close vicinity, by the impelling
stroke, we Hhonl.l n-;.nlll,<n.. from their instant reciprocal re-
pulsion, as having a n.tun.l tendency to lly off from each other;
MENTAL IDENTITY, ANSWERED. 225
and, ia the state in which they then exist, there is no question
that such is their tendency, — a tendency, which, in these circum-
stances, may be regarded as their genuine physical character.
Yet we have only to imagine the two bails placed at a distance
from each other, hke that of the remotest planet from tlie sun ; and,
in traversing the whole wide void that intervenes, what a dilfer-
ent physical character would they exhibit, in their accelerating
tendency toward each other, as if their very nature were lasting-
ly changed? If there are, then, such opposite tendencies in the
same bodies, without any loss of identity, why may not the same
minds also have their opposite tendencies, when, in like manner,
removed, as it were, into circumstances that are different, loving,
perhaps, what they hated before, and hating what they loved ?
If the change of state be not temporary^ but permanent, the resulting
affections may well be supposed to be permanently different ; and,
indeed, if they be different at all, cannot but be permanently differ-
ent, like the altered state. It is as little wonderful, therefore,
when any lasting change of circumstances is taken into account,
that the same individual should no longer exhibit the same intel-
lectual and moral appearances, as that matter, in its different
states, should no longer exhibit the same obvious phenomena, at-
tracting^ perhaps, the very bodies which it before repelled, and
repelling the very bodies which it before attracted, and attracting
and repelling with differences of force, and consequent differences
of velocity in the bodies moved, the varieties of which it would
require all the powers of our arithmetic to compute.
When we observe, then, in a mind, which we have long known
and valued, any marks o( altered character^ — when, for example, in
one, who, by the favour, or rather by the cruelty of Fortune, has
been raised, from a situation comparatively humble, to sudden dis-
tinctions of power and opulence, we see the neglect of all those
virtues, the wider opportunity of exercising which seemed to him
formerly the chief, or even the only, advantage that rendered such
distinctions desirable, — the same frivolous vanity, which before
appeared to him ridiculous in others, and the same contemptuous
insolence of pride, which before appeared to him contemptible, —
a craving and impatient desire of greater wealth, merely because
he has no longer any use to make of it, unless, indeed that it has
become more necessary to his avarice, than it ever was before to
29
226 OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRIKE
his want, and a gay and scornful indifference to miseries, that are
still sometimes able to force themselves upon his view, the relief
of which, that once seemed to him so glorious a privilege, would
now not require of him even the scanty merit of sacrificing a sin-
gle superfluity : When we perceive this contrast, and almost say
within ourselves, Is this the same being ? we should remember,
that the influence of lortune is not confined to the mere trapping,
which it gives or takes away, — that it operates within as much as
■without, — and that, accordingly, in the case now imagined by us,
the new external circumstances have been gradually modifying the
mind, in the same manner, as new external circumstances of a dif-
ferent kind modify the bodies, which happen to be placed in them,
— ^not affecting their identity, but altering their state ; and that, if
we could distinguish, as accurately, the series of changes, which
take phice in mind, as we can distinguish those which take place
in matter, we should not be more astonished, that, in circumstan-
ces of rare and unhappy occurrence, a disposition once apparently
generous is generous no more, than we are to observe a body, at-
tracted to another body, at one distance, and afterwards repelled
from it, in consequence merely of a change of their mutual posi-
tion,— a change so very slight, as to be altogether undistinguisha-
ble by our senses.
1 have dwelt on this question at much greater length than I
should otherwise have done, however interesting it truly is as a
question of metaphysics, because I was anxious to obviate a preju-
dice which is very closely connected with this point, and which,
most unfortunately for the progress of the Philosophy of Mind, has
given a wrong bias to the speculations of many very enlightened
men. No one, I am aware, can be so sincerely sceptical as to
doubt, even for a moment, his own identity, as one continued senti-
ent bein^, whatever ingenious sophistry he may urge in support ot
the paradox which he professes to hold. But still, while the com-
patibility of diversity with absolute identity, as now explained to
you, was but obscurely felt,— a compatibility which, to the best of
my remcmbrauco, no writer, with whom 1 am acquainted, has at-
tempted to illustrate,— the difliculty of reconciling the growth or
decay of knowledge, and all the successive contrasts or changes of
feeling, whicli our sensations, thought-', emotions, exhibit, with
the permanent indivisible unity of the same sentient principle, hafi
OF MENTAL IDENTITY. 227
been sufficient, in many cases, to produce a vague and almost un-
conscious tendency to materialism, in minds that would not other-
wise have been easily led away by a system so illusive ; and,
whei'e it has not produced this full eifect, it has at least produced
a tendency, in many cases, to encumber the simple theory of the
mental phenomena with false and unnecessary hypotheses, very
much akin to those of absolute materialism. Without this abso-
lute materialism, mind must still be left, indeed, as the ultimate
subject of sensation, and the difficulty truly remains the same ;
but it is contrived to complicate, as much as possible, the corpore-
al part of the process, which precedes this ultimate mental part, by
the introduction of phantasms, or other shadowy tilms, animal spir-
its, vibratiuncles, or other sensorial motions, that a wider room
may thus be left for a play of changes, and the difficulty of account-
ing for the diversity of sensations be less felt, when it is to be di-
vided among so many substances in almost constant motion ; while
the attention is, at the same time, led away trom the immediate
mental change, in which alone the supposed difficulty consists, to
the mere corpuscular changes, in which there is no supposed difli-
culty.
It is a general law of our internal, as well as of our external
perceptions, that we distinguish most readily what is least compli-
cated. In a chorus of many voices, a smgle discordant voice may
escape even a nice discriminator of musical sounds, who would
have detected instantly the slightest deviation from the melody of
a simple air. A juggler, when he wishes to withdraw a single
card, is careful to present to us many; and, though the card which
he withdraws is truly before our eyes at the very moment at which
he separates it from the pack, we do not discover the quick mo-
tion which separates it, however suspiciously watchful we may be,
because our vigil ince of attention is distracted by the number of
cards which he suffers to remain. It is not because the card which
he removes is not before us, then, that we do not observe the re->
moval of it, but because it is only one of many that are befoi'e us.
It is precisely the same in those complicated material processes,
with which some theorists encumber the simple phenomena of the
mind. The ditficulty which seems, to them, to attend any diver-
sity whatever in a substance that is identical, simple, indivisible,
and incapable of addition or substraction, remains, indeed, ultimate-
228 OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF
IV in all its force, and would strike us equally, if this supposed dil-
LuUy were to be considered alone. But many hypothetical yi-
brations, or other motions, are given to our consideration at the
same moment, that glance upon our mental .4ew like the rapid
o^ovements of the jugglers hand. We, therefore, do not feel so
gainfully as before a difficulty which occupies our attention o^y m
part; and, in our feeble estimation of things, to render a difficul-
ty less visible to us, is almost like a diminution of the difiiculty
'^'%or obviating this tendency to materialism, or to what may be
considered almost as a species of semi-materialism in the physiolo-
ev of the mind, it is of no small consequence to have accurate
views of the nature of our mental identity. Above all, it is of im-
portance, that we should be sufficiently impressed with the con-
viction, that absolute identity, far from excluding every sort of di-
versitv, is perfectlv compatible, as we have seen, with diversities
that ;re almost infinite. When we have once obtained a clear
view of this compatibility, as independent of any additions or sub-
tractions of substance, we shall no longer be led to convert our
simple mental operations into long continued processes, of which
the last links only are mental, and the preceding imaginary links
corporeal; as if \he introduction of all this play ot hypotheses
were necessary for saving that identity of mind, which we are
porhaps unwilling to abandon altogether; for it will ^JVP^-^-
to n. not more wonderful, that the mind, without the slightest loss
of idontity, should at one moment begin to exist in the state which
constitutes the sensation of the fragrance of a rose, and at anoth-
er moment should begin to exist in the state which constitutes the
sensation of the sound of a tlute, or in the opposite states of love
and hate, rapture and agony-tban that the same body, without
the slightest change of its identity, should exist, at one moment,
in the ;tate which constitute, the tendency to approach nnothe
bodv, and at another moment in the opposite state wh.ch cons .-
tut^s the tendency to fly from it, or thai, with the same al.oh te
identity, it should exist, at diiTerent moments in the d.lTerent stat^,
which constitute the tendencies to begin motion m directions that
are at right angles to each other, so as to b.gin to move in the
one case north, in the other east, and to continue tus mo ion at
one time with one velocity, at other tunes with other velocities,
MENTAL IDENTITV, ANSWERED. 229
and consequently, with other tendencies to motion that are infi-
nite, or almost infinite.
With these remarks, I conclude what appears to me to be the
most accurate view of the question of our personal, or, as I have
rather chosen to term it, our mental identity. We have seen,
that the belief of this arise.*, not from any inference of reasoning,
but from a principle of intuitive assent, operating universally, im-
mediately, irresistibly, and therefore justly to be regarded, as es-
sential to our constitution, — a principle, exactly of the same kind,
as those, to which reasoning itself must ultimately be traced, and
from which alone its consecutive series of propositions can de-
rive any authority. We have seen, that this belief, — though in-
tuitive, — ^is not involved in anyone of our separate feelings, which,
considered merely as present, might succeed each other, in end-
less variety, without affordmg any notion of a sentient being, more
permanent than the sensation itself; but that it arises, on the con-
sideration of our feelings as successive^ in the same manner, as our
belief of proportion, or relation .in general, arises, not from the
conception of o«e of the related objects or ideas, but only after
the previous conception of both the relative and the correlative ;
or rather, that the belief of identity does not arise as subsequent,
but is involved in the very remembrance which allows us to con-
sider our feelings as successive ; since it is impossible for us to re-
gard them as successive, without regarding them as feelings of our
sentient self; — not flowing, therefore, from experience or reason-
ing, but essential to these, and necessarily implied in them, — since
there can be no result in experience, but to the mind which re-
members that it has previously observed, and no reasoning but to
the mind which remembers that it has felt the truth of some pro-
position, from which the truth of its present conclusion is derived.
In addition to this positive evidence of our identity, we have seen,
that the strongest objections which we could imagine to be urged
against it, are, as might have been expected, sophistical, in the
false test of identity which they assume, — that the contrasts of
momentary feeling, and even the more permanent alterations of
general character, in the same individual, afford no valid argu-
ment against it; since, not in mind only, but in matter also, — (fronx
a superficial and partial view of the phenomena of which the
supposed objections are derived,) — the most complete identity of
230 OPINION OF MR LOCKE
substance, without addition of any thing, or subtraction of any
thino- is compatible with an infinite diversity of states.
I cannot quit the subject of identity, however, — though from
my belief of its importance, I may already, perhaps, have dwelt
upon it too long,— without giving you some slight account of the
very strange opinions of Mr Locke on the subject. I do this, both
because some notice is due, to the paradoxes, — even though they
be erroneous, — of so illustrious a man, and because I conceive it
to be of great advantage, to point out to you occasionally the illu-
sions, which have been able to obscure the discernment of those
bright spirits, which nature sometimes, though sparingly, grants,
to adorn at least that intellectual gloom, which even they cannot
irradiate ; that, in their path of glory, seem to move along the
heavens by their own independent light, as if almost unconscious
of the darkness below, but cannot exist there for a moment, with-
out shedding, on the feeble and doubtful throngs beneath, some
faint beams of their own incommunicable lustre. It is chiefly, as
connected with these eminent names, that fallacy itself becomes
instructive, when simply exhibited,— if this only be done, not from
any wish to disparage merits, that are far above the impotence of
such attempts, but with all the veneration which is due to Imman ex-
cellence, united as it must ever be to human imperfection. ''Even
the errors of great men," it has been said, " are fruitful of truths ;"
and, though they were to be attended with no other advantage,
this' one at least they must always have, that they teach us how
very possible it is for man to err ; thus lessening at once our ten-
dency to slavish acquiescence in the unexamined opinions of oth-
ers^, and— which is much harder to be done— lessoning also, as
much as it is possible for any thing to lessen, the strong conviction,
which we feel, that we are ourselves unerring.— The tirst, and
most instructive lesson, which man can receive, when he is capa-
ble of reflection, is to think for himself ; the second, without which
the first would be comparatively of Uttle value, is to reject, in
himself that infallibility, which he rejects in others.
The opinion of Locke, with respect to personal identity, is,
that it consists in consciousness alone ; by which term, in its ref-
erence to the past, he can mean nothing more than perfect mem-
ory. As far back as we are conscious, or remember; so far and
no fiirther, he sav-s, are we the same persons. In short, what we
nESPECTING IDENTITY. 231
do not remember, we, as persons, strictly speaking, never did.
The identity of that which remembers, and which is surely inde-
pendent of the remembrance itself, is thus made to consist in the
remembrance, that is confessedly fugitive ; and, as if that every
possible inconsistency might be crowded together in this simple
doctrine, the same philosopher, who holds, that our personal iden-
tity consists in consciousness^ is one of the most strenuous oppo-
nents of the doctrine, that the soul always thinks, or fs conscious ;
so that, in this interval of thought, from consciousness to conscious-
ness, — since that which is essential to identity is, by supposition,
suspended, the same identical soul, as far as individual personality
is concerned, is not the same identical soul, but exists when it does
not exist.
" There is another consequence of this doctrine," says Dr
Reid, " which follows no less necessarily, though Mr Locke prob-
ably did not see it. It is that a man be, and at the same time not
be, the person that did a particular action.
" Suppose a brave Officer to have been flogged when a boy
at school, for robbing an orchard, to have taken a standard from the
enemy in his first campaign, and to have been made a General in ad-
vanced life : Suppose also, which must be admitted to be possible,
that when he took the standard, he was conscious of his having
been flogged at school ; and that when made a General, he was
conscious of his taking the standard, but had absolutely lost the
consciousness of his flogging.
" These things being supposed, it follows, from Mr Locke's
doctrine, that he who was flogged at school is the same person
who took the standard ; and that he who took the standard is the
same person who was made a General. Whence it follows, if
there be any truth in logic, that the General is the same person
with him who was flogged at school. But the General's conscious-
ness does not reach so far back as his flogging, therefore, accord-
ing to Mr Locke's doctrine, he is not the person who was flogged.;
Therefore the General is, and at the same time is not, the same
person with him who was flogged at school."* ^
But it is needless to deduce consequences, from this very
strange paradox ; since its author himself has done this, most free-
* Reid's Essays on the Intellectual Powers, Essay III. Chap. vi.
232 Ol'lNlON OF MR LOCKE
ly and fully, and often with an air of pleasantry, that, but for the
place in which we tind it, as forming a part of a grave methodical
es^ay on the understanding, would almost lead us to thmk, that he
wa« himself smilmg, in secret, at his own doctrine, and propound- ^
ino- it with the same mock solemnity with which the discoverer ot
La°puta has revealed to us all the secrets of the philosophy of that
island of philosophers.
He aliotvs it to follow, from his doctrine, that, if we remem-
bered at mgkt, ^nd never but at night, one set of the events of our
life ; as, lor instance, those which happened five years ago ; and
never but in the day time, that different set of events, which hap-
pened six years ago ; this, - day and night man," to use his own
phrase, would be two as distinct persons, as Socrates and Flato;
and. in short, that we are truly as many persons as we have, or
can' be supposed to have, at different times, separate and distinct
remembrances of different series of events. In this case, mdeed, he
makes a distinction of the visible 7nan, who is the same, and ot the
verson who is different.
u But yet possibly it will still be objected," he says, suppose
1 wholly lose the memory of some parts of my life, beyond a pos-
sibility of retrieving them, so that perhaps I shall never be con-
scious of them agam ; yet am I not the same person that did those
actions, had those thoughts that 1 once was conscious of, though 1
have now forgot them ? To which 1 answer, that we must hei-e
take notice what the word 1 is applied to; wliich, in this case, is
the man only. And the same man being presumed to be the same
person, I is easilv here supposed to stand also for the same person.
But if it be possible for the same man to have distinct .ncommum-
cable consciousness at different times, it is past doubt the same
man would at different times make ditfcrent persons ; which we see
is the sense of mankind in the solemnest declaration of the.r opin-
ions ; human laws not punishing the mad man for the sober man s
actions, nor the sober man for what the mad man did, thereby mak-
ing them two persons: which is somewhat explained by our way
of speaking in English, when we say such an one is not himself, or
is beside hiniH-lf; in which phrases it is insinuated, as .f those who
„,,, or a, least first used them, thought that self was changed,
the self-same person wa^ no longrr in that man. *
- F...ay conccrnin? ilunian Uu-kTstatuling, B. ii. c. xxv... sect. .U.
RESPECTING IDENTITF. 233
Such is the doctrine of a philosopher, whose intellectual excel-
lence was unquestionably of the highest rank, and whoso powers
might be considered as entitling him to exemption, at least, from
those gross errors which far weaker understandings are capable of
discovenng, if even this humble relative privilege had not been
too great for man. lie contends, that our remembrance of having
done a certain action, is not merely to us, the rememberers, the
evidence by which we believe that we were the persons who did
it, but is the very circumstance that makes us personally to have
done it, — a doctrine, which, if the word person were to be under-
stood in the slightest degree in its common acceptation, would in-
volve, as has been justly said, an absurdity as great as if it had
been aflirmed, that our belief of the creation of the world actually
made it to have been created.
If we could suppose Mr Locke to have never thought on the
subject of personal identity, till this strange doctrine, and its con-
sequences, were stated to him by another, it may almost be taken
for granted, that he would not have failed instantly to discover its
absurdity, as a mere verbal paradox ; and, yet, after much reilec-
tion on the subject, he does not perceive that very absurdity, which
he would have discovered, but for reflection. Such is the strange
nature of our intellectual constitution. The very functions, that,
in their daily and hourly exercise, save us from innumeralile er-
rors, sometimes lead us into errors, which, but ter them, we might
have avoided. The philosopher is like a well armed and practis-
ed warrior, who, in his helmet and coat of mail, goes to the com-
bat with surer means of victory, than the ill disciplined and de-
fenceless mob around him, but who may yet sometimes fall where
others would have stood, unable to rise and extricate himself', from
the incumbrance of that very armour, to which he has owed the
conquests of many other fields.
What, then, may we conceive to have been the nature of the
illusion, which could lead a mind like that of Mr Locke, to admit,
after reflection, an absurd paradox, and all its absurd consequen-
ces, which, ie/bre reflection, he would have rejected?
It is to be traced chiefly, I conceive, to a source which is cer-
tainly the most abundant source of error in the writings and silent
rolloctions of philosophers, espocially of those who arc gifted with
originality of thought, — the ambiguity of the language they use.
30
234 SOURCE OP MR Locke's paradox
^hen they retain a word with one meaning, which is generally un-
derstood in a different sense ; the common meaning, in the course
of their speculations, often mingling insensibly with their own, and
thus producing a sort of confusion, which incapacitates them from
perceiving the precise consequences of either. Mr Locke gives
his own definition of the word person, as comprised in the very
consciousness which he supposes to be all that is essential to per-
sonal identity ; or at least he speaks of consciousness so vaguely
and indefinitely, as to allow this meaning of his dehnition to be
present to his own mind, as often as he thought of personality.
" To find " he «ays, " wherein personal identity consists, we must
consider l^h^i person stands for; which, I think, is a thinking intel-
ligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consumer itseli
as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places,
which it does only by that consciousness, which is inseparable from
thinking.'"*
Havino- once given this definition of a person, there can be no
question, That personal identity, in his sense, is wherever consctous-
ness is, and only where consciousness is. But this is true of a per-
son, only as defined by him ; and, if strictly analysed, means uoth-
ino- more, than that consciousness is wherever consciousness is,-a
do'ctrine, on which, certainly, he could not have thought it worth
his while to give any very long commentary. It appears more im-
portant however, even to himself, and worthy of the long com-
mentarv which he has given it, because, in truth, he cannot re-
frain from still keeping, in his own mind, some obscure impression
of the more common meaning of the term, and extending to a per-
son, as thus commonly understood, what is true only of a person, as
defined by him. It is as if some whimsical naturalist should give a
definition of the word anhaal, exclusive of every winged ci^ature
and should then think that he was propounding a very notable and
.subtile paradox, in affirming that no animal is capable of rising for
a few minutes above the surface of the earth. It would be a par-
adox, only ina.m.ich as it might suggest to those who heard .1, a
meanin- dW-erenl from that of the definition ; an.l, b-.l Uw this mis-
conception, which the author of it himself might share would be
., msicrmficant a truism, as n<,t to deserve even the humblest of all
praise, that of amusing abs\irdity.
• Es.ay concerning Human Unilerstandins, B. ii. c xxvi.. sect. 9.
RESPECTING IDENTITY. 235
When, in such cases as this, we discover that' singular incon-
sistency, which is to be found even in the very excellence of every
thing that is human, — the perspicacity which sees, at an immeas-
urable distance, in the field of inquiry, what no other eye has
seen, and which yet, in the very objects which it has grasped, is
unable to distinguish what is visible to common eyes, are we to
lament the imperfection of our mental constitution, which leaves
us liable to such error ? Or, as in other instances, in which,
from our incapacity of judging rightl}^, we are tempted at first to
regret the present arrangement of things, are we not rather to
rejoice that we are so constituted by nature ? if man had not
been formed to err, in the same manner as he is formed to reason,
and to know, that perfect sj'stem of faculties, which excluded er-
ror, must have rendered his discernment too quick, not to seize
instantly innumerable truths, the gradual discovery of which, by
the exercise of his present more limited faculties, has been suffi-
cient to give glory and happiness to whole ages of philosophical
inquiry. If, indeed, the field had been absolutely boundless, he
might still have continued to advance, as at present, though with
more gigantic step, and more searching vision, and found no ter-
mination to his unlimited career. But the truths which relate to
us phj'sically, on this bounded scene of things in which we are
placed, numerous as they are, are still in some measure finite, like
that scene itself; and the too rapid discoveries, therefore, of a
few generations, as to the most important properties of things,
would have left little more for the generations which were to
follow, than the dull and spiritless task of learning what others
had previously learned, or of teaching what themselves had been
taught.
Philosophy is not the mere passive possession of knowledge ; it
is, in a much more important respect, the active exercise of ac-
quiring it. We may truly apply to it what Pascal says of the con-
duct of life in general. " We think," says he, '' that we are seek-
ing repose, and all which we are seeking is agitation.''' In like
manner, we think that it is truth itself which we seek, when the
happiness which we are to feel most strongly, is in the mere search ;
and all that would be necessary, in many cases, to make the ob-
ject of it appear indifferent, would be to put it fairly within our
grasp.
236 REFLECTIONS SUGGESTED BY MR LOCKE's
" Our hopes, like towering falcons, aim
At objects in an airy height ;
But all the pleasure of the game,
Is afar oflto view the flight."
What little value do we set on discoveries that have been long
familiar to us, though their own essential value must still continue
the same. Even on the whole mass of knowledge, that has been
gradually and slowly transmitted to us, we reflect with little inter-
est, unless as it may lead to something yet unknown ; and the re-
suit of a single new experiment, which bears no proportion to the
mass to which it is added, will yet be sufficient to rouse and de-
light every philosopher in Europe. It is a very shrewd remark
of a French writer, in reference to the torpor, which the most
zealous inquirer feels, as to every thing which he knows, and his
insatiable avidity for every thing which he does not know, that
" if Truth were fairly to shoNV herself as she is, all would be ru-
ined; but it is plain, that she knows very well, of how great im-
portance it is, that she should keep herself out of sight."
If we were to acquire, by an unhappy foresight, the knowl-
edge which is not yet ours, it is very evident, that we must soon
regard it, in the same manner, as the knowledge which we have
already acquired. The charm of novelty, the delights of gratih-
ed curiosity, would not be for us. The prey would be at our
feet; and it would be vain, therefore, to expect that ardour of
soul, which is kindled, amid the hopes and the lears, the tumult
and the competition of the cliace.
- If man were omnipotent, without being God^ says Rousseau,^
■^ he ^vould be a miserable creature : he wouhl be deprived ol
the pleasure oUesiring ; and what privation would be so difl.cu
to be borne •" It may be said, at least wUh equal tru h, that, f
man were o..nucieat, without the other perfections oi the Divini-
ty, he would be far less happy than at present. 1 o inhn.te e-
nevolence, indeed, accompanied with inliuite power, a correspond-
in. i„nnity of knowlc.lge must adonl the highest of all imaginable
c^nilifications by its subservience to those gracious plans of good,
:vhich are manifeste.l n. ,1,. universe, and ubich, m making
known tu us the existence of the Supreme lieing, have n.ade lum
known to u., a« the object of grateful love and adnurat.on Ru
if, in oilier respectn. we were to continue as at present,-with our
PARADOX RESPECTING IDENTITY. 237
erring- passions, and moral weaknesses of every sort, — to be doom-
ed to have nothing to learn^ would be a punishment, not a blessing.
In such circumstances, if they were to continue forever, the annihi-
lation of our intellectual being would not be an evil so great, as the
mere extinction of our curiosity, and of all the delights and con-
solations which it affords, not merely when we gratify it, but
when we are merely seekmg to gratify it.
" Else wherefore burns,
In morfal bosoms, this unquenched hope
That breathes from day to day suhlimer things,
.4ind mocks possession 1 Wherefore darts the mind,
With such resistless ardour, to embrace
Majestic forms, impatient to be free.
Proud of the strong contention of her toils,
Proud to be daring?"* —
" Why departs she widet
From the dull track and journey of her times,
To grasp the good she knows not? In the field
Of things which may lie, in llie spacious field
Of science, potent arts, or dreadful arms.
To raise up scenes, in which her own desires
Contented may repose, — when things which arc
Pall on her temper likj a twice told tale.":]:
It is sufficient, that we are endowed with powers of discovery.
Our gratitude is due to Heaven for the gift ; and the more due for
that gracious wisdom, which has known how to limit the powers
which it gave, so as to produce a greater result of good by the
very limitation. Our prejudices, which sometimes forbid reason-
ing, and the errors, to which our imperfect reasoning often leads
us, we should consider, when all their remote relations are taken
into account, as indirect sources of happiness ; and though we
may wish, and justly wish, to analyse them, and to rise above
their influence, — for, without this exertion, and consequent feel-
ing of progress, on our part, they would be evil rather than good,
— we must not forget, that it is to them we owe the luxury, which
* Pleasures of Imagination, (first form of the i>oem,) B. i. v. 1C6 — 17 1.
173—5.
+ Why departs the soul
Wide from the track.— Grig.
X Pleasures of Imagination, (second form of the Poem,) B, i. v. 213—220.
238 REFLECTIONS SUGGESTED BY MR LOCKE.
the immediate analysis affords, and the acquisition of the innume-
rable truths, which the prevalence of these errors, m past ages,
has left to be discovered by the ages which succeed.
In this, and in every thing which relates to man, Nature has
had in view, not the individual or the single generation only, but
the permanent race. She has therefore, not exhausted her boun-
ty on any one period of the lojig succession ; but, by a provision,
which makes our very weakness instrumental to her goodness, she
has given to all, that distant and ever-brightenmg hope, which,
till we arrive at our glorious destination,
" Leads from goal to goal,
And opens stili, and opens on the soul."
With enough 0^ mental rigour to advance still flirther in the tracks,
of science that are already formed, and to point out new tracks to
tho^e who are to follow, we have enough of weakness to prevent
u« from exploring and exhausting, what is to occupy, m the same
happy search, the millions of millions that are to succeed us.
Truth itself, indeed, will always be progressive ; but there will
still at every stage of the progress, be something to discover, and
abundance to confute. " In 24,000 years," to borrow the predic
tion of a very skilful prophet,-" In 24,000 years, there will arise
philosophers, who will boast, that they are destroying the errors
which have been reigning in the world for 30,000 years past; and
there will be people who will believe, that they are then only just
beeinning to open their eyes."
In these remarks, on the nature of our varied consciousness,
and on the unity and identity of the mind in all its var.et.es,-we
have considered the mental phenomena in their general aspect.
We have now to consider them as arranged in kindred classes,-or
rather to attempt the difficult task of the classificalion itself.
To this I shall proceed in my next Lecture.
239
LECTURE XVL
ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE PHENOMENA OF MIND,
After considering the Phenomena of the Mind in general^ we
are now to proceed to consider them, in the separate classes in
which they may be arranged. The phenomena themselves, in-
deed, are almost infinite, and it might seem, on first reflection a
very hopeless task, to attempt to reduce, under a few heads, the
innumerable feelings, which diversify almost every moment of our
life. But to those, who are acquainted with the wonders, which
classification has performed, in the other sciences, the task, diffi-
cult as it is, will still seem not absolutely hopeless ; though in one
respect, its difficulty will be more highly estimated by them, than
by others ; — since they only, who know the advantage of the fixed
and definite nature of the objects of classification, in other scien-
ces, can feel, how much greater the obstacles must be, to any ac-
curate arrangement, in a science, of which the objects are indefi-
nite, and complex, incapable of being fixed for a moment in the
same state, and destroyed by the very effort to grasp them. But,
in this, as in other instances, in which nature has given us difficul-
ties with which to cope, she has not left us to be wholly over-
come ; or, if we must yield, she has at least armed us for so vig-
orous a struggle, that we gain additional intellectual strength,
even in being vanquished. " Studiorum salutarium, etiam citra
effectum, salutaris tractatio est." If she has placed us in a laby-
rinth, she has at the same time furnished us with a clue, which may
guide us, not indeed through all its dark and intricate windings, but
through those broad paths, which conduct us into day. The single
power, by which we discover resemblance or relation in general, is
a suOicient aid to us, in the perplexity and confusion of our first at-
tempts at arrangement. It begins, by converting thousands, and
240 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF
more than thousands, into one, and, reducing-, in the same manner^
the numbers thus formed, it arrives at last at the few distinctive
characters of those great comprehensive tribes, on which it ceas-
es to operate, because there is nothing- left to oppress the memo-
ry, or the understanding. If there had been no such science as
chemistry, who could have ventured to suppose, that the innumer-
able bodies, animate and inanimate, on the surface of our globe,
and all, which we have been able to explore in the very depths
of the earth itself, are reducible, and even in the imperfect state
of the science, have been already reduced, to a few simple ele-
ments ? The science of mind, as it is a science of analysis, I have
more than once compared to chemistry, and pointed out to you,
and illustrated, its various circumstances of resemblance. In this
too, we may hope the analogy will hold,— that, as the innumera-
ble aggregates, in the one science, have been reduced and simpli-
lied, the innumerable complex feelings in the other will admit of a
corresponding reduction and simplification.
The classes which we form, in the mental as well as in the ma-
terial universe, depend, as you cannot but know, on certain rela-
tions which we discover in the. phenomena; and the relations ac-
cording to ivhich objects may be arranged, are of course various,
as they are considered by different individuals in ditferent points
of view. Some of these relations present themselves immediate-
ly, as if to our very glance ; others are discoverable only after at-
tentive reflection ; — and though the former, merely as presenting
themselves more readily, may seem on that account, better suited
for the general purj)ose of arrangement, it is not the less true
that the classification, which approaches nearest to perfection, is
far from being always that which is founded on relations, that seem
at first sight the most obvious. The rudest wanderer in the fields
may imagine, that the profusion of blossoms around him, — in the
greater number of which he is able, himself, to discover many
sinking resemblances, — may bo reduced into some order of ar-
rangemen^lJiit he wouM be little aware, that the principle accord-
ing to whidi they are now universally classed, has relation, not to
the parts which appear to him to constitute the whole flower, but
to some small part of the blossom, wliicli he does not jierceive, at
the distance at which be passes it, and which scarcely attract*
Ills eye, when he plucks it from the stem.
THE PHENOMENA OF MIND. 241
To our mental classifications the remark is equally applicable,
fn these too, the most obvious distinctions are not always those
which answer best the purposes of systematic arrangement. The
phenomena of the mind, are only the mind itself existing in cer-
tain states ; and, as many of these states are in their nature agree-
able, and others disagreeable, this difference, which is to the sen-
tient being himself the most important of all differences, may be
supposed, to afford the most obvious principle of classification.
What is pleasant, what is painful, are perhaps the first classes,
which the infant has formed long before he is capable of distin-
guishing them by a name ; and the very imbecility of idiotism it-
self, to which nothing is true or false, or right or wrong, — and to
which there is no future, beyond the succeeding moment, — is yet
capable of making this primary distinction, and of regulating, ac-
cording to it, its momentary desires.
** The love of pleasure is man's eldest-born,
Born in his cradle, living to his tomb.
Wisdom, — her younger sister, though more grave,
Was meant to minister, not to dethrone*
Imperial Pleasure, queen of human hearts."t
The distribution, which %ve should be inclined to make, of our
mental phenomena, according to this obvious principle, would be
into those which are pleasing, those which are painful, and those
which are neither painful nor pleasing. But, however obvious this
first distinction may seem, as a principle of arrangement, the cir-
cumstances, on which the differences depend, are so very indefi-
nite, that the distinction, — though it may be useful to have it in
view, in its most striking and permanent cases, — cannot be adopt-
ed, as the basis of any regular system. To take the mere pleas-
ures and pains of sense, for example, — to what intell g ble division
could we reduce these, which are not merely fugitive in them-
selves, but vary, from pain to pleasure, and from pleasure to pain,
with a change of their external objects, so slight often, as to be
scarcely appreciable, and, in many cases, even when the external
objects have continued exactly the s'ime ? How small, and how
variable a boundary separates the warmth which is pleasing from
* Instead of " not to dethrone," the original has "and not (o mar."
t Night Thoughts, viii. 5Pr,— 599.
31
242 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF
the heat which pains ! A certain quantity of light is grateful le
the eve Increase it;-it becomes, not inditrerent,-though that
would be a less change,-but absolutely painful ; and, if the eye
be inflamed, even the small quantity of l.ght,-which was agreea-
ble before, and which seemed, therefore, to admit of bemg very
safely classed among the sources of pleasure,-is now converted
into a source of agony. Since it is impossible, therefore, to hx
the limits of pain and pleasure, and every affection or state ot
mind, agreeable, disagreeable, or indifferent, may, by a very tri-
flin- chan-e of circumstance, be converted into an opposite state,
it is^ evident, that anv division, founded on this vague and tran-
sient distinction, must perplex, and mislead us, in our attempts to
svstematize the almost infinite diversities of thought and feeling,
rather than give us any aid in the arrangement.
The great leading division of the mental phenomena which
ha« met with most general adoption by philosophers is into
tho- which belong to the ^mderstanding, and those which belong
to the r.n!l ;-a division which is very ancient, but though sanc-
tioned bv the approbation of many ages, very illogical; since the
will, which, in this division, is nominally opposed to the intellect, i.
so tar from being opposed to it in reality, that, even by the as-
serters of its diversity, it is considered as exercising, in the intc -
lectual department, an empire almost as wide, as in the depart-
ment allotted to itself We reason, and plan, and invent, at least
as voluntarily,-n. we esteem, or hate, or hope, or fear How
many emotions are there too, which cannot, without absolute or-
ture, be forced into ezV<er division! To take only a few instan-
ces out of many,-to what class are we to reduce grief, joy, ad-
miration, astonishment, which perhaps are not phenomena ot the
mere understandiTg, and which,_though they may lead indir c -
ly to desires or volitions,-have nothing, in themselves, that i.
voluntary, or that can be considered as in any pecuhar degree
connected' with the .ill ? The division of tbe -ental phenome-
na into those which belong to the und.rmndxng, and those »l nch
belong to the ..//, seems, therefore, to be as faulty, as would be
the division of animals, int.. those which have leg. and those
which have wings; «ince the same animah might have both legs
Ld wings, and Le whole tribes of animals have neither one uop
the other.
THE PHENOMENA OF MINB. 243
Another division of the phenomena of mind, similar to the form-
er, and of equal antiquity, since it corresponds with the very an-
cient division of philosophy into the contemplative and the active,
is into those which belong^ to the intellectual powers, and those
which belong to the active powers. " Philosophia et contemplati- '
va est et activa ; spectat simulque agit." I must confess, however,
•>that this division of the mental phenomena, as referable to the in-
tellectual and the active powers of the mind, — though it has the
sanction of very eminent names, appears to me to be faulty, ex-
actly in the same manner as the former, which, indeed, it may be
considered almost as representing, under a change of name. Its
parts are not opposed to each other, and it does not include all \
the phenomena w hich it should include. Is mere grief, for exam- j
pie, or mere astonishment, to be referred to our intellectual or to
our active powers ? I do not speak of the faculties which they
may or may not call into action; but of the feelings themselves,
as present phenomena or states of the mind. And, in whatsoever
manner we may detine the term active, is the mind more active,
when it merely desires good and fears evil, when it looks with es- i^
teem on virtue, and with indignation, or disgust, and contempt on j
vice, than when it pursues a continued train of reasoning, or fan- j
cy, or historical investigation ? when, with Newton, it lays down
the laws of planetary motion, and calculates, in what exact point
of the heavens, any one of the orbs, which move within the im-
mense range of our solar system, will be found to have its place
at any particular moment, one thousand years hereafter ; when,
with Shakespeare, it wanders beyond the universe itself, calling
races of beings into existence, which nature never knew^ but
which nature might almost oxvn — or when, with Tacitus, it en-
rols slowly, year after year, that dreadful reality of crimes and
sufferings, which even dramatic horror, in all its license of wild
imagination, can scarcely reach — the long unvarying catalogue, of
tyrants, — and executioners, — and victims, that return thanks to
the gods and die, — and accusers rich with their blood, and more
mighty, as more widely hated, amid the multitudes of prostrate
slaves, still looking whether there may not yet have escaped
some lingering virtue, which it may be a merit to destroy, and
having scarcely leisure io feel even the agonies of remorse, in the
continued sense of the precariousness of their own gloomy exi?-
(
044 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OP
tence? When it thus records the warning lessons of the past, or
expatiates in fields, which itself creates, of fairy beauty or sublim-
ity, or comprehends whole moving worlds within its glance, and
calculates and measures infimtude— the mind is surely active, or
there are no moments in which it is so. So little, indeed, are the
intellectual powers opposed to the active, that it is only when
some intellectual energy co-exists with desire, that the mmd is
said to be active, even by those who are unaccustomed to analyti-
cal inquiries, or to metaphysical nomenclature. The love of
power, or the love of glory, when there is no opportumty oi in-
tellectual exertion, may, in the common acceptation of the word,
be as passive as tranquillity itself. The passion is active only
when, with mtellectual action, it compares means with ends, and
different means with each other, and deliberates, and resolves, and
executes. Chain some revolutionary usurper to the floor ot a
dungeon, his ambition may be active still, because he may still be
inte'^lectually busy in piannmg means of deliverance and ven-
geance ; and, on his bed of straw, may conquer half the world.
But, if we could fetter his reason and fancy, as we can fetter his
limbs, what activity would remain, though he were stiil to feel
that mere desire of power or glory, which, though usually follow-
ed bv intellectual exertion, is itself as prior to these exertions, all
that^constitutes ambition, as a passion? There would, indeed
Btill be in his mmd the awful elements of that iorce, wmch
bursts upon the world with conflagration and destruction; but,
Ihou-h there wo.^ld be the thunder, it would be the thunder
sleeping in its cloud. To will, is to act with desire ; and, unless
in the production of mere muscular motion, it is only intclhclually
that we can act. To class the active powers, therefore, as dis-
tinct from the intellectual, is to class them, as opposed to that, with-
out which, as active powers, they cannot even exist.
It may, certainly, be contended, that, though the mental phe-
nomena, usually ranked under this head, are not immediately con-
nccted with action, they may yet deserve this generic distmction,
as leading to action indirectly,— and if they led, in any peculiar
sense, to action, however indirectly, the claim n.ight be allowed.
But, even with this limited meaning, it is impossible to admit the
distinction asserted for them. In what sense, for example, can it
be .aid, that grief -^ joy, which surely arc not to be classed un-
THE PHENOMENA OF MIND. 245
der the intellectual powers of the mind, lead to action even indi-
rectly, more than any other feelings, or states, in which the mind
is capable of existing ? We may, indeed, act when we are joyful
or sorrowful, as we may act when we perceive a present object,
or remember the past; but we may also remain at rest, and re-
main equally at rest, in the one case, as in the other. Our intel-
lectual energies, indeed, even in this sense, as indirectly leading to
action, are, in most cases, far more active, than sorrow, even in
its very excess of agony and despair ; and, in those cases in which
sorrow does truly lead to action, as when we strive to remedy the
past, the mere regret which constitutes the sorrow, is not so close-
ly connected with the conduct which we pursue, as the intellec-
tual states of mind that intervened — the successive judgments, by
which we have compared projects with projects, and chosen at
last the plan, which, in relation to the object in view, has seemed
to us, upon the whole, the most expedient.
If, then, as I cannot but think, the arrangement of the mental
phenomena, as belonging to two classes of powers, the intellectual
and the active, be at onceji ncomplete ,^and not accurate, even to
the extent to which it reaches, it may be worth while to try at
least some other division, even though there should not be an}'
very great hope of success. Though we should fail in our endeav-
our to obtain some more precise and comprehensive principle of
arrangement, there is also some advantage gained, by viewing ob-
jects, according to new circumstances of agreement or analog}-.
We see, in this case, what had long passed before us unobserved,
while we were accustomed only to the order and nomenclature of
a former method ; for, when the mind has been habituated to cer-
tain classifications, it is apt, in considering objects, to give its at-
tention only to those properties which are essential to the classifi-
cation, and to overlook, or at least comparatively to neglect, other
properties equally important and essential to the very nature of
the separate substances that are classed, but not included in the
system as characters of generic resemblance. The individual ob-
ject, indeed, when its place in any system has been long fixed and
familiar to us, is probably conceived by us less, as an individual,
than as one of a class of individuals, that agree in certain respects,
and the frequent consideration of it, as one of a class, must fix the
peculiar relations of the class, more strongly in the mind, and
246 G^' THE CLASSIFICATION OF
weaken proportionally the impression of every other quality that
is not so included. A new classilkation, thcreiore, which includes,
in its generic character, those neglected qualities, will of course
draw "to them attention, which they could not otherwise have ob-
tained ; and, the more various the views are, which we take of
the objects of any science, the juster consequently, because the
more equal, will be the estimate which we form of them. So tru-
ly is this the case, that 1 am convmced, that no one has ever read
over the mere terms of a new division, in a science, however fa-
miliar the science may have been to him, without learning more
than this ne ,v division itself, without being struck with some prop-
erty or relation, the importance of which he now perceives most
clearly, and which he is quite astonished that he should have over-
looked so long before.
I surely need not warn you, after the observations which I
made in my Introductory Lectures, on the Laws and Objects of
Physical Inquiry in General, that every classification has reference
only to our mode of considering objects; and that, amid all the va-
rieties of systems which our love of novelty, and our love of dis-
tinction, or our pure love of truth and order may introduce, the
phenomena themselves, whether accurately, or inaccurately class-
ed, continue unaltered. The mind is formed susceptible ot certam
affections. These states or affections we may generalize more or
less; and, according to our generalization, may give them more
or fewer names. But whatever may be the extent of our voca-
bularv,thc mind itself,— as mdependent of Uiese transient designa-
tions,' as He who tixed its constitution,— still continues to exhibit
the same unaltered susceptibilities, which it originally received ;
as the flowers, which the same divine Author formed, spring up,
in the same manner, observing the same seasons, and spreading to
the sun the same foliage and blossoms, whatever be the system
and the corresponding nomenclature according to which botanists
may have a-reed to rank and name their tribes. The great Pre-
server of nature has not trusted us, with the dangerous power of
altering a single physical law which lie has established, though
He hJgiven us unlimited power over the language which is of
our own creation. It is ^till with us, as it was with our common
sire in the original birthplace of our race. The Almighty pre-
sents To us all t!ic objects that surround us, wherever we turn our
THE PHENOMENA OT MIND. 247
view ; but He presents them to us, only that we may give them
names. Their powers and susceptibilities they already possess,
and we cannot alter these, even as they exist in a single atom.
It may, perhaps, seem absurd, even to suppose, that we should
think ourselves able to change, by a few generic words, the prop-
erties of the substances which we have classed ; and if the ques-
tion were put to us, as to this effect of our language, in any par-
ticular case, there can be no doubt, that we should answer in the
negative, and express astonishment that such a question should
have been put. But the illusion is not the less certain, because
we are not aware of its influence ; and, indeed, it could no longer
be an illusion, if we were completely aware of it. It requires,
however, only a very little reflection on what has passed in our
own minds, to discover, that, when we have given a name to any
quality, that quality acquires immediately, in our imagination, a
comparative importance, very different trom what it had before;
and though nature in itself be truly unchanged, it is ever after, re-
latively to our conception, different, A difference of words is, in
this case, more than a mere verbal difference. Though it be not
the expression of a difference of doctrine, it very speedily be-
comes so. Hence it is, that the same warfare, which the rivalries
of individual ambition, or the opposite interests, or supposed oppo-
site interests, of nations have produced, in the great theatre of civ-
il history, have been produced, in the small but tumultuous field
of science, by the supposed incompatibility of a few abstract terms ;
and, indeed, as has been truly said, the sects of philosophers have
combated, with more persevering violence, to settle what they
mean by the constitution of the world, than all the conquerors of
the world have done to render themselves its masters.
Still less, I trust, is it necessary to repeat the warning, already
so often repeated, that you are not to conceive, that any classifi-
cation of the states or affections of the mind, as referable to cer-
tain powers or susceptibilities, makes these powers any thing dif-
ferent and separate from the mind itself, as originally and essen-
tially susceptible of the various modifications of which these pow-
ers are only a shorter name. And 3'et what innumerable contro-
versies in philosophy have arisen, and are still frequently arising,
from this very mistake, strange and absurd as the mistake may
seem. No sooner for example, were certain » flections of the
248 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF
mind classed together, as belonging to the -will, and certain others,
as belonging to the understanding,— that is to say, no sooner was
the mincCexisting in certain smiej, denominated the understanding,
and in certain other states denominated the will— than the under-
standino- and the will ceased to be considered as the same individ-
ual substance, and became immediately, as it were, two opposite
and contending powers, in the empire of mind, as distinct, as any
two sovereigns, with their separate nations under their controul ;
and it became an object of as tierce contention to determine, wheth-
er certain affections of the mind belonged to the understanding, or
to the 7vill, as, in the management of poUtical affairs, to determine,
whether a disputed province belonged to one potentate, or to
another. Every new diversity of the faculties of the mind, mdeed,
converted each faculty into a little independent ,mnd,—ni it the
original mind were Uke that wonderful ammal, of which natural-
ists^tell us, that maybe cut into an almost infinite number of parts,
each of which becomes a polypus, as perfect as that from whtchit
was separated. The onlv ditlerence is, that those who make us
acquainted with this wonderful property of the polypus, acknowl-
edo-e the divisibility of the parent animal ; while those, who as-
sert the spiritual multiplicity, are at the same time assertors of the
absolute indivisibility of that which they divide.
After these warnings, then, which, I trust, have been almost
superfluous, let us now endeavour to form some classihcation of
the mental phenomena without considering, whether our arrange-
ment be similar or dissimilar to that of others. In short, let us
foro-et, as much as possible, that any prior arrangements have been
made, and think of the phenomena only. It would, indeed, re-
quire more than human vision, to comprehend all these phenom-
ena of the mind, in our gaze at once,—
" To iurvey,
Stretch'd out beneatli us, all the mazy tracts
Of passion and opiuiou, — like a waste
Of sands, and llowery lawns, and tangliog woods,
/ Where mortals roam bewilUcr'd."
But there is a mode of bringing all this multitude of objects, with-
in llH- sphere of our narrow sight, in the sanir manner, as the ex-
panse of landscape, over which the eye would be long in wander-
THE PHEN'OMENA OF MIND. 249
ing, — the plains, and hills, and woods, and waterfalls, — may be
brought, by human art, within the compass of a mirror, far less
than the smallest of the innumerable objects which it represents.
The process of gradual generalizing^ by which this reduction
is performed, I have already explained to you. Let us now pro-
ceed to avail ourselves of it.
All the feelings and thoughts of the mind, I have already fre-
quently repeated, are only the mind itself existing in certain
states. To these successive states our knowledge of the mind,
and consequently our arrangements, which can comprehend only
what we know, are necessarily limited. With this simple word
s<ate, I use the phrase affection of mind as synonymous, to express
the momentary feeling, whatever it may be, — with this difference
only, that the word affection seems to me better suited for express-
ing that momentary (eehng, when considered as an effect^ — the
feeling itself as a state of the mind, and the relation which any
particular state of mind, may bear to the preceding circumstances,
whatever they may be that have induced it. Our states of mind,
however, or our affections of mind, are the simplest terms, which I
can use for expressing the whole series of phenomena of the mind
in all their diversity, as existing phenomena, without any mixture
of hypothesis, as to the particular mode in which the successive
changes may be supposed to arise.
When we consider, then, the various states or affections of the
mind, which form this series, one circumstance of difference must ^'O'x*'^*
strike us, that some of them arise immediateh'^, in consequence of\'^ ,
the presence of externiroFijects, — andTsome, as immediately, in .
consequence of ceHaIn'~preceding affections of the mind_ itself. \^
The one set, theretbre, are obvio'usljmre result of the laws both
of matter and of mmd, — implying, in external objects, a power of
affecting the mind, as well as, in the mind, a susceptibility of be-
ing affected by them. The other set result from the susceptibili-
ties of the mind itself, which has been formed by its divine Author
to exist in certain states, and to exist in these in a certain relative
order of succession. The affections of the one class arise, be-
cause some external object is present ; — the affections of the oth-
er class arise, because some previous change in the states of the
mind has taken place. '
To illustrate this distinction by example, let us 6uppo?e. etiv-
32
250 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF
selves, in walking across a lawn, to turn our eyes to a particular
point, and to perceive there an oak. That is to say, the presence
of the oak, or rather of the light reflected from it, occasions a
certain new state of the mind, which we call a sensation ol v^^^on,
an affection, which belongs to the mind alone, mdeed, but of
which we have every reason to suppose, that the mind, oj itself,
without the presence of light, would not have been the subject^
The peculiar sensation, thereiore, is the result of the presence ot
the li-ht reflected from the oak; and we perceive it, because the
mind is capable of being affected by external things. But this af-
fection of the mind, which has an external object for its immedi-
ate cause, is not the only mental change which takes place. Oth-
er changes succeed it, without any other external impression.
We compare the oak with some other tree which we have seen
before, and we are struck with its superior magniUcence and beau-
ty—we imagine how some scene more familiar to us would
appev, if it were adorned with this tree, and how the scene be-
fore us would appear, if it were stripped of it ;-we think of the
number of years, which must have passed, since the oak was an
acorn ,— and we moralize, perhaps, on the changes, which have
taken place, in the little history of ourselves and our friends, and,
still more, on the revolutions of kingdoms,-and the birth and de-
cay of a whole generation of mankind,-while it has been silently
and regularly advancing to maturity, through the sunshine and
the storm. Of all the variety of states of the mind, which these
processes of thought involve, the only one, which can be ascribed
to an external object as its direct cause, is the primary perception
of tlie oak; the rest have been the result not immediately ol any
thin- external, but of preceding states -^f the mind ;-that particu-
lar m.'utal state, which constituted the perception of the oak, be-
in- followed immediately by that different state, which constituted
the remembrance of some tree observed before, and this by that
different state which constituted the comparison ol the two; and
80 successively, through all the different processes of thought
enumerated. The mind, indeed, could not without the presence
of the oak,-that is to sav, without the presence ot the light which
thp oak reflects,-have existed in the state which constituted the
perception of the oak. Bui a. little could any external object,
without this primary mental affection, have produced immediate-
THE PHENOMENA OP MIND. 251
Jy, any of those other states of the mind, which followed the per-
ception. There is, thus, one obvious distinction of the mental
phenomena ; as in relation to their causes, external or internal ;
and, whatever other terms of subdivision it may be necessary to
employ, we have, at least, one boundary, and know what it is we
mean, when we speak of the external and internal affections of the
mind.
The first stasre of our generalization, then, has been the reduc-
tion of all the mental phenomena to two definite classes, accord-
ing as the causes, or immediate antecedents, of our feelings are .
themselves mental or material. Our next stage must be the still
further reduction of these, by some new generalizations of the ,
phenomena of each class;
The former of these classes, — that of our external affectionsvy
of the mind, — is, indeed, so very simple, as to require but little
subdivision. The other class, however, that of the internal affec-
tions or states of the mind, — comprehends so large a proportion of
the mental phenomena, and these so various, that, without many
subdivisions, it would be itself of little aid to us in our arrange-
ment. (Q\
The first great subdivision, then, which I would form, of the i^, V^
ternal class, is into our intelle ctual states of mind, and our emotions.^A.'K/
The latter of these classes comprehends all, or nearly all the
mental states, which have been classed, by others, under the head
of active powers. I prefer, however, the term emo?io?i5, parti}', v'^ ■
because I wish to avoid the phrase active ponsers^ — which, I own,^)
appears to me awkward and ambiguous, as opposed to other pow-
ers, which are not said to be passive ; and partly, for reasons be-
fore mentioned, because our intellectual states or energies, — far
from being opposed to our active powers, — are, as we have seen,
essential elements of their activity, — so essential, that, without
them, these never could have had the name of active ; and be-
cause I wish to comprehend, under the term, various states of the
mind, which cannot, with propriety, in any case, be termed active^
— such as grief, joy, astonishment, — and others which have been
commonly, though, I think, inaccurately, ascribed to the intellec-' J
tual faculties, — such as the feelings of beauty and sublimity, — feel-j
ings, which are certainly much niore analogous to our other emo-'
tions, — to our feelings of love or awe, — for example, — than to our
252 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF
mere remembrance^ or reasonings, or to any other states of mind^
which can strictly be called mteliectual. I speak at present, it must
be remcmbered,of the mere lenings produced by the contemplation
of beautiful or sublime objects,— not of the judgment, which we
form, of objects, as more or less fit to excite these feelings ; the
judgment being truly intellectual, like all our other judgments ; but
being, at the same time,asdisiinct from the feelings which it meas-
ures,*' as any other judgment Irom the external or internal objects
which it compares.
The exact meaning of the term emotion, it is difficult to state
in any form of words,— for the same reason which makes it diffi-
cult, or rather impossible, to explain, what we mean by the term
thought, or the terms sweetness or bitterness. What can be more
opposite than pleasure and pain ! the real distinction of which is
evidently familiar, not to man only, but to every thmg that
lives ; and yet if we were to attempt to show, in what their diflfer-
ence 'consists, or to give a verbal definition of either, we should
find the task to be no easy one. Every person understands, what
is meaiU by an emotion, at least as well, as he understands what is
meant by any intellectual power ; or, if he do not, it can be ex-
plained to him, only by stating the number of feelings to which
we give the name, or the circumstances which induce them. All
of them, indeed, agree in this respect, that they imply peculiar
vividness of feeling, with this important circumstance, to distin-
guish them from the vivid pleasures and pains of sense,— that they
do not arise immediately from the presence of external objects,
but subsequently to the primary feelings, which we term sensa-
tions or perceptions. Perhaps if any definition of them be possi-
ble, they may be defined to be vivid feelings, arising immediately
In.m the consideration of objects, perceived, or remembered, or
imagined, or from other prior emotions. In some cases,— as m that
of the emoti(m which beauty excites,- they may succeed so rap-
idly to the primary perception, as almost to form a part of it.
.Vet we lln.l no great dilllculty of analysis, in separating the pleas-
in<r effect of beauty, lVo,n thr perception of the mere form and col-
our, and can very rea.lily imagine the same accurate perception
of these, witho.it the feeling of beauty, as we can imagine the
same feeling of beauty to arrompany th.. perception -I lorms and
roloui'^ ycyy di(T'M-fiif.
THE PHENOMENA OF MIND. 253
" Sure the rising sun,
O'er the cerulean convex of the sea,
With equal brightness, and with equal warmth,
Might roll his fiery orb; nor yet the soul
Thus feel her frame expanded, and her powers
Exulting in the splendour she beholds.
Like a young conqueror moving through the pomp
Of some triumphal day. When join'd at eve,
Soft murmuring streams, and gales of gentlest breath,
Melodious Philomela's wakefui strain
Attemper, could not man's discerning ear.
Through all its tones, the sj-mpathj' pursue ;
Nor yet (his breath divine of nameless joj'
Steal through his veins, and fan the awaken'd heart,
Mild as the breeze, yet rapturous as the song."*
Our emotions, then, even in the cases in which they seem
most directly to co-exist with perception, are still easily distinguish-
able from it ; and, in like manner, when they arise from the intel-
lectual states of memory, imag-ination, comparison, they are equal-
ly distinguishable from what we remember^ or imagine, or compare.
They form truly a separate order of the internal affections of
the mind, — as distinct from the intellectual phenomena, as the
class, to which they both belong, is distinguishable from the class
X)f external affections, that arise immediately from the presence
of objects without.
* Pleasures of Imagination, Book III. v. 464 — 478.
2^4
LECTURE XVII.
CLASSIFICATION OF THE PHEN03IENA OF MIND. CLASS I. EX-
TERNAL STATES. INTRODUCTORY.
In my last Lecture, Gentlemen, 1 endeavoured to prepare the
way, for arranging, in certain classes, that almost infinite variety
of phenomena, which the mind exhihits,— })ointing out to you the
peculiar difficulty of such a classification, in the case of phenome-
na so indefinite and fugitive, as those of the mind, and the nature
of that generalizing principle of analogy or resemhlance, on which
every classification, whether of the material or mental phenomena,
must alike proceed. I then took a slight view of the primary,
leading, divisions of the phenomena of the mind, which have met
with most general adoption, — the very ancient division of them, as
of two great departments, belonging to the understanding and the
^ill^ and the similar division of them, as referable to two classes
of powers, termed the intellectual and active powers of the mind.
I explained to you the reasons, which led me to reject both these
divisions, as at once incomplete, from not comprehending all the
phenomena, and inaccurate, from confounding even those phenom-
ena, which they may truly be considered as comprehending.
After rejecting these, it became necessary to attempt some
new arrangement, ospecially as we found reason to believe that
some advantage coul<l scarcely fail to arise from the attempt itself,
even though it should fail as to its great object; and we, therefore,
proceeded to consider ami arrange the phenomena, as nearly as
possible, in the same manner asi we should have done, if no ar-
rangement of thrm had ever been made before.
In thus considering them, Iho first important distinction which
occurred to u-, related to their causes, or immediate anlecedeats.
PHENOMENA OP MIND. 255
as foreign to the mind, or as belonging to the mind itself; a dis-
tinction too striking to be neglected as a ground of primary divis-
ion. Whatever that may be, which feels and thinks, it has been
formed to be suscej)tible of certain changes of state, in conse-
quence of the mere presence of external objects, or at least of
changes produced in our mere bodily organs, which, themselves,
may be considered as external to the mind ; and it is susceptible
of certam other changes of state, without any cause external to it-
self, one state of mind being the immediate result of a former state
of mind, in consequence of those laws of succession of thoughts
and feelings, which He, who created the immortal soul of man, as
a faint shadow of His own eternal spirit, has established in the
constitution of our mental frame. In conformity with this distinc-
tion, we made our first division of the phenomena of the mind, in-
to its external and internal affections ; the word affection being used,
by me, as the simplest term for expressing a mere change of state
induced, in relation to the affecting cause, or the circumstances,
whatever they may have been, by which the change was immedi-
ately preceded.
The class of internal affections^ — by far the more copious and
various of the two, — we divided into two great orders, our intellec-
tual states of mind, and our emotions^ words which are, perhaps,
better understood, before any definition is attempted of them, than
after it, but which are sufficiently intelligible without definition,
and appear to exhaust completely the whole internal affections of
the mind. We have sensations or perceptions of the objects that
affect our bodily organs ; these I term the sensitive or external af-
fections of the mind; we remember objects — we imagine them in
new situations — we compare their relations ; these mere concep-
tions or notions of objects and their qualities, as elements of our
general knowledge, are what I have termed the intellectual states
of the mind ; we are moved with certain lively feelings, on the
consideration of what we thus perceive, or remember, or imagine^
or compare, with feehngs, for example, of beauty, or sublimity, or
astonishment, or love, or hate, or hope, or fear; these, and vari-
ous other vivid feelings, analogous to them, are our emotions.
There is no portion of our consciousness, %vhich does not ap-
pear to me to be included in one or other of these three divisions.
To know all our sensitive states or affections, — all our intellectual
256 THE CLASSIFICATION OF
States,— and all our emotions, is to know all the states or phenom-
ena of the mind ;
" Unde animus scire incipiat, quibus inchoet orsa
Principiis seriem rerum tenuemque catenam
Mnemosyne ; Ratio unde, rudi suh pectore tarduin
Augeat iinpi^riuo), et prinaum mortalibus ajgris
Ira, dulor^ metus., et curce nascantur inanes."*
It must not be conceived, however, that, in dividing the class
of internal affections of the mind, into the two distinct orders of
intellectual states, and emotions ; and, in speaking of our emotions
as subsequent in their origin, I wish to be understood, that these
never are combmed, at the same moment, in that sense of combi-
nation, as applied to the mind, which I have already explained
too frequently, to need again to define and illustrate it. On the
contrai'3, they very frequently concur; but, in all cases in which
they do concur, it is easy for us to distinguish them by retlective
ani^iysis. The emotion of pity, for example, may continue in the
mind, while we are ititelUctually planning means of relief, for the
sutlerers who occasioned it ; but, though the pity and the reason-
ing co-exist, we have little difhculty in separating them in our re-
' flection. ' It is the same with all our vivid desires, which not mere-
ly lead to action, but accompany it. The sage, who in the silence
of midnight, continues still those labours which the morning be-
gan, watchmg, with sleepless eye, the fate of some experiment,
thai a most promises to place within his hand the invisible thread,
which leads into the labyrinths of nature, or exploring those se-
crets of the mind itself, by the aid of which he is afterwards to
lay down rules of more accurate philosophizing, and to become
the legislator of all who think, is not cheered, in his toils, merely
^ by occasional antlcpations of the truths that await his search.
The i)leasure of future discovery is, as it were, a constant light,
that shines upon him and warms him; and, in the very moments
in which he watches, and calculates, and arranges, there are oth-
er principles of his nature, in as lively exercise as his powers of
observation and reasoning. The warrior, at the head of an army,
w; ich he has often led from v.clory to victory, and which he
is leading aga i. to new fields of c<.iifl cl, does not think of glory
• Gray de rrincipiis Cogitaudi, Lib. I. v. 1—5.
THE PHENOMENA OF MIND. 257
only in the intervals of meditation or action. The passion which
he obeys, is not a mere inspiring genius, that occasionally de-
scends to rouse or invigorate. It is the soul of his continued exist-
ence, — it marches with him, from station to station, — it delibe-
rates with him in his tent, — it conquers with him in the field, — it
thinks of new successes, in the very moment of vanquishing ; and,
even at night, when his body has yielded at last to the influence
of that fatigue, of which it was scarcely conscious, while there
was room for any new exertion by which fatigue could be in-
creased, and when all the anxieties of military command are slum-
bering with it, the passion that animates him, more active still,
does not quit him as he rests, but is wakeful in his very sleep,
bringing before him dreams, that almost renew the tumults and
the toils of the day. Our emotions, then, may co-exist with vari-
oiis sensations, remembrances, reasonings, — in the same manner as
these feelings, sensitive or intellectual, may variously co-exist
with each other. But we do not think it less necessary to class
our sensations of vision as different from our sensations of smell, and
our comparison, as itself different from the separate sensations
compared, because we may, at the same moment, both see and
smell a rose, and may endeavour to appreciate the relative
amount of pleasure which that beautiful flower thus doubly af-
fords. In like manner, our intellectual states of mind, and our
emotions, are not the less to be considered as distinct classes, be-
cause any vivid passion may continue to exist together with those
intellectual processes of thought, which it originally prompted,
and which, after prompting, it prolongs.
In all these cases, howeA^er, in which an emotion co-exists with
the results of other external or internal influences, it is still easy
to distinguish its subsequence to the feelings that preceded it. Pity,
for example, as in the case to which I have before alluded, may
co-exist with a long train of thoughts, that arc busily occupied in
endeavouring to relieve most effectually the misei-y which is piti-
ed ; but the misery must have been itself an object of our thought,
before the state of mind which constitutes pity, could have been
induced. The emotion which we feel, on the contemplation of
beauty, may continue to co-exist with our mere perception of the
t'orms and colours of bodies ; but these forms and colours must
have been perceived by us, before the dclightlul emotion could
258 THE CLASSIFICATION OF
have been originally felt. In short, our emotions, though like
the warmth and radiance, which seem to accompany the very
presence of the sun, rather than to Qo^v from it-they may seem
in many cases to be a part of the very feelings which excite them,
are yet, in every instance, as truly secondary to these feelings, as
the light which beams on us, on the surface of our earth, is sub-
sequent to the rising of the great orb of day.
As yet, we have advanced but a short way, in our generaliza-
tion of the mental phenomena : though, as far as we have ad-
vanced, our division seems sufficiently distinct and comprehen-
sive. The mind is susceptible of certain existing affections, of
certain intellectual modifications which arise from these, and of
certain emotions which arise from both ; that is to say, it is capa-
ble of existing in certain states, the varieties of which correspond
with these particular designations. We see, we remember, or com-
I pare, what we have seen, regard what we see, or remember, or
kompare, with desire or with aversion ; and of these, or of states
analogous to these, the whole of life, sensitive, intellectual, or
moral, is composed. Every minute, therefore, of every hour, m
all its variety of occupation, is but a portion of this complicated
tissue. Let us suppose ourselves, for example, looking down
from an eminence, on the prospect beneath.— On one side all is
desolation,— and we see perhaps, at a little distance, some halt-
roofless hovel, as miserable, as the waste immediately around it,
which has scarcely the appearance of a dwelling for any living
thing, but seems rather, as if Nature herself had originally plac-
ed it there, as a part of the general sterility and ruggedness. On
the other side, all is plenty and magniticence ;— and we see, amid
lawns and wooded banks, a mansion as different in aspect, as if the
beings that inhabited it were of a ditfercnt race,— which, as a
part of the scene, where it is placed, accords so harm.miously
with the whole, that, without it, the scene itself would appear in-
complete, and almost incongruous, as if stripped of some CHsential
charm. To view these separate dwellings, and all the objects^
around them— if no other feehng arose— would 1." !«• Lave a se-
ries of external or sensitive affections only. HmI , I is scarcely
possible for us to view them, without the instant rise ol those in-
tellectual states of mind which constitute comparison, and o( those
affections of another order, which constitute the emotions ol adim-
THE PHENOMENA OF MIND 259
ration and desire in the one case, and in the other the emotions
that are opposite to admiration and desire, together perhaps with
some of those bitter emotions which the sight of misery makes in
every breast that is not unworthy of so sacred an influence.
In this example, our intellectual states of mind, and our
emotions, have for their objects things really existing without;
but the external affections of our senses, though the most perma-
nent, and usually the most vivid, and therefore the best remem-
bered, of all the sources of our internal feelings are far from be-
ing necessary, in every instance, to the production of these.
There is a constant, or almost constant succession of internal af-
fections of mind, of thoughts, and emotions, following thoughts
and emotions, which even though we were to be rendered incapa-
ble of a single new sensation, — if our animal life could in these
circumstances be long protracted, — would still preserve to u? also
that intellectual and moral existence, which is the only life, that is
worthy of the name. The knowledge which we acquire from witli-
out^ lives in us within ; and, in such a case as that which 1 have
now imagined, our memory would be to us in some measure
every sense, which we had lost, creating to us again that very
world which had vanished before us. If we could compare and
love or hate only tilings actually present, we should be far from
the maturity and perfection of an infant's mind, and should scarce-
ly be advanced to the rank of i^'iocy, which limited as it is in its
range, still comprehends in its little sphere of foresight and mem-
ory, some few moments at least of the past, and even a moment or
two of the future. It is with the future and with the past, that,
intellectually and morally, we are chiefly conversant. To these
high capacities of our being, the subjects, which can exercise our
powers and feelings, however distant in time or place, are as it
were everlastingly present^ — like that mysterious eternal 7io;i;, of
which theologians speak, — in which past, present, and future are
considered, as, in every moment of every age, alike visible to the
omniscient glance of the Divinity. We love the virtues, of which
we read, with the same sort of emotion, with which we love the
virtues that are mingling with us in the present hour. The pa-
triot of the most remote age, — of whom we know nothing, but
the historical tale, of his voluntary perils or sufferings, in some
generous cause, — is like the friend of our familiar intercourse ;
2C0 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF
and the sacrifices, that vvrou2:ht the happiness of millions of beings,
who are now not merely tuiknown to us, but of whom not a single
name is remembered on the earth, awake a sort of veneration, that is
almost combined with gratitude, as if we were in the presence of a
personal deliverer. It is the same with absolute unreality, nor mere-
ly with that which no longer exists, but with that which never had
existence. We are struck with the beauty of what we only imagine,
in the same manner, though perhaps not with the same liveliness
of feeling, as we are struck with the beauty of external things.
Our emotions then, however dependent they may have been orig-
inally, are now no longer dependent, on these external things.
They may arise, from memory or imagination, as readily as from
perception ; but when they arise from memory or imagination,
they are as truly distinguishable from what we remember and im-
agine, as they are distinguishable from our perceptions of mere
i"orms and colours and other sensible qualities, when they arise
from what we perceive.
To have arranged all the varieties of feelings of which the
mind is susceptible, in the three great divisions to which our ar-
rangement as yet has extended,— though it is unquestionably to
have made some advance in our generalization, — is yet to have
made only a small part of the necessary progress ; since each of
these three orders comprehends almost innumerable phenomena,
which require the aid of more minute division. In the class of
owr external allections, indeed, this subdivision is very simple
and e;isy ; since our separate organs of sense furnish, of them-
selves, a very evi.lent ground of distinction. But the two orders
of our internal alTcctions have no such obvious and tangible distinc-
tion, to serve as the basis of their subdivisions. They admit, how-
ever,— as I trust we shall liiid,— of distinctions, which, though
not equally obvious, are almost equally delinite, and require only
a very little reflection, to be understood as clearly, as the organic
relations, according to which we distinguish our sensations of
sound, or smell, or sight. It is not my intention, however, to
proceed, at present, to the consideration of these subdivisions ;
since the nature of the more minute arrangement will, I conceive,
be belter understood, when we come to treat of each separate or-
der fully, than they could be now, by the mere entimeration of a
few names, of the propriety of which, as mere names, and, still
THE PHENOMENA OF MIND. 261
more of the propriety of the arrangement which they involve,
you could not be expected to form any accurate judgment, with-
out a fuller elucidation.
All which I must request you, then, at present, to keep in remem-
brance, is the primary division, which we have made, of the different
states of the mind into two great classes, and the secondary division
which we have made of one of these classes, into its two very
comprehensive orders. — You will remember, then, that the vari-
ous affections, of which the mind is susceptible, are either e.T<er/ia/.
as they arise from causes without the mind, or internal, as they
arise from previous states, of the mind itself; — that of these inter-
nal affections, some are mere conceptions or notions of former
feelings, or of objects and of the qualities or relations of objects,
as remembered or variously combined or compared, — results of
different susceptibilities of our intellectual constitution, to which
different names have been given, conception, memory, imagination,
abstraction, reason, and other synonymous terms ;— that these inter-
nal affections or states of the mind, which I have denominated its
intellectual states, are distinctly separable, in our reflective anal-
ysis, from certain vivid feelings, that may arise instantly in the
mind, on the consideration of these mere intellectual results, or
on the perception of objects without, — feehngs of admiration, love,
desire, and various other analogous, or opposite states of the mind ;
— but that there is such an order of vivid feelings, which arise, iu
many cases, on the mere consideration of what we perceive or re-
member, or imagine, or compare, and that this order is what I
wish to be distinguished by the name of emotions.
According to this division, therefore, of the mental phenome-
na, into those which are of external and those which are of inter-
nal origin, and the subdivision which we have made of this latter
class, I shall proceed to consider, fir^t, The external powers or
susceptibilities of the mind ; 2dly, The intellectual powers or sus-
ceptibilities of the mind ; and, 3dly, Its susceptibilities of emotion,
— beginning with that class, which we have every reason to sup-
pose to be first, in the actual order of developement, — the powers
or susceptibilities of the mind, in its immediate relation to its own
bodily organs.
Certain states of our bodily organs are directly followed by
certain states or aft'ections of our mind ; — certain states or affec-
262 ON' THE EXTERNAL AFFECTIONS
tions of our mind are directly followed by certain states of our bod-
ily organs. The nerve of sight, for example, is affected in a cer-
tain manner ; vision, which is an affection or state of the mind, is
its consequence. 1 will to move my hand ; the hand obeys my
will, so rapidly, that the motion, though truly subsequent, seems
almost to accompany my volition, rather than to follow it. In con-
formity with the delinitions before given of power and suscepti-
bility, the one as implying a reference to something consequent,
the other a reference to something antecedent, I should be inclin-
ed to consider the sensation which follows the presence of an ex-
ternal object as indicating a mental susceptibihty of being so af-
fected ; the production of muscular motion by the will, as indi-
cating a mental power. But the terms are of less consequence, if
you understand fully the distinction that is implied in them ; and
you may be allowed still, in compliance with the general language,
to speak of the power or faculty of sensation or perception, if you
mean nothing more, as often as you use these terms, than that the
mind is affected in a certain manner, and, therefore, must have
had a previous susceptibihty of being thus affected whenever cer-
tain changes have previously taken place, in that nervous system,
with which it is connected.
/ In considering the susceptibilities of the mind, I comprehend,
under its exlernal affections, all those phenomena or states of the
/ mind, which are commonly termed sensationjj together with all
our internal organic feelings ^of pl casure_orj)ain, that arise from
\ states of the nervous system, as much as our other sensations.
Many of these arc commonly ranked under another head, that of
appcliies,—'uch as hunger, thirst, the desire of repose, or of change
of muscular position, which arises from long-continued exertion ;
the oppressive anxiety, which arises from impeded respiration,
and various other diseases, arising from bodily uneasiness. But
these appetites evidently admit of being analysed into two distinct
elements,— a pain of a peculiar species, and a subsequent desire ol
that which is to relieve the pain,— states of mind, of which one
may immediately succeed the other ; but which are, unquestiona-
bly, as different in themselves, as if no such succession took place,
-las difforrnt as the pleasure of music is from the mere desire ol
enjoying it again, or as the pain of excessive heat, in burning,
from the si.bsequent desire of coolness. The pain, ^^h.ch .s one ^
OF MIND, IN GENERAL. 263
element of the appetite, is an external affection of the mind, to be
classed with our other sensations, — the succeeding desire, which is
another element of it, is an internal affection of the mind, to be
classed with our other emotions of desire. We might have felt
the same pain of hunger, though we had not been aware, that it
arose from want of lood, and consequently could not have felt any
desire of food, but merely the general desire of rehef which at-
tends every disagreeable sensation. We might have felt the same
uneasiness, which we term thirst, though we had not been aware,
that it would be relieved by a draught of any beverage, — and the
same pain of impeded respiration or fatigue, though nature had
not led us instmctively, in the one case to perform the muscular
actions necessary for expiration and inspiration ; in the other, to
change our posture, and thus give repose to the wearied limbs.
Whatever be the organic states, which occasion these painful feel-
ings, that are elementary in our appetites, there can be no doubt,
that some organic affections precede them, as truly as some affec-
tion of an external organ precedes the pain of a burn, or the pain-
ful temporary blindness, when we are dazzled with excessive
light. And though, in the case of the appetite, we may give the
same name to the pain, and to the desire of that which is to relieve
the pain ; or rather, may give one name to the combination of the
two feelings, — which is not to be wondered at, where the two
feelings are so universally and so immediatel}'^ successive, — this er-
ror, or rather this mere abbreviation of language, is no reason that
we should consider the elementary pain itself, as different, in kind,
from our other pains, that have not merely half a term to express
them, but a whole undivided word of their own. The pain, of
which the appetite desires the relief, is a sensation, as much as any
other internal bodily pain which we feel, — a state or affection of
the mind, arising, immediately and solely, from a state or affection of
the body, — which is the only delinition that can be given of a
sensation.
The pain of hunger and thirst, then, and, in general, every
internal pain arising from a state of the bodily organs, — and
distinct from the subsequent desires which they occasion, — are a^
truly sejisationSf as any other sensations ; and the desires that fol-
low these particular sensations, are as truly desires, as any other
desires of which we have the consciousness. We mav, indeed, if
264 ON THE LESS DEFINITE
we resolve to invent a new name, for those particular desires,
that terminate immediately in the relief of bodily pain, or the pro-
duction of bodily pleasure, give to such desires the name of appe-
tites; but it is surely a very simple analysis only, that is necessary
to separate, from the desire of relief, the feeling of the pain which
we wish to be relieved ; since it is very evident, that the pain
must have existed primarily before any such desire could be felt.
That the various species of uneasiness, which are elementary
parts of our appetites, recur, at intervals, in which there is some
degree of regularity, does not alter their nature, when they do re-
cur, so as to render a peculiar arrangement necessary for includ-
ing them. The mental states, which constitute the uneasiness
that is felt, recur thus at intervals, not from any thing peculiar in
the mind itself, the phenomena of which alone we are considering,
but because the body is only at intervals in the state, which pre-
cedes or induces those peculiar mental affections. If, instead of
the two or three periods, at which the appetite of hunger recurs,
the nervous system were, one hundred times in the day, at inter-
vals the most irregular, in that state, which is immediately follow-
ed by the feeling of hunger, the painful feeling,— and the conse-
quent desire of food, which has been found to relieve it,— would
of course, be felt one hundred times in the day. The regularity,
therefore, of the recurrence of this state of the nerves, is a phe-
nomenon, which belongs to the consideration of the physiologist of
the body, not of the physioligist of the mind, whose immediate
office is finished, when he can trace any particular leehng of
the mind to some affection of our organic frame, as its invaria-
ble antecedent; and who knowing, therefore, that the feeling
of pain in any of onr appetites, is the effect or result of some
organic affection, is not surprised that it should not recur, when
that organic affection has not previously taken place,— any more
than he is surprised that we do not enjoy the fragrance of roses
or violets, when there are no particles of odour to be inhaled
by us; or do not listen to songs nnd choral harmonies, when
there is no vibration (o be transmitted to the auditory nerve. It
is at certain regular periods, that the full light of day, and the twi-
li^rht of morning and evening, are perceived by us. But we do
not think it necessary, on this account, to give any peculiar name
to these visual perceptions, to distinguish them from others less
EXTERNAL AFFECTIONS OF MIND. 265
regular, because we know, that the reason of the periodic recur-
rence of these perceptions, is that the various degrees of sunshine,
which produce them, exist only at such intervals. We are hun-
gry, when the nerves of the stomach are in a certain state ; we
perceive the sun, when the organ of vision is in a certain' state.
It is as little wonderful, that we should not have the feeling of hun-
ger, except when the nerves of the stomach are in this state, as
that we should not have the perception of the meridian sun, when
the sun itself is beneath our horizon.
Since the mere pains of appetite, however, most important as
they truly are, for the ends which they immediately answer, are
yet of Utile importance in relation to our general knowledge, it is
unnecessary to dwell on them at length. But I cannot quit the
consideration of them, without remarking that admirable provis-
ion which the gracious Author of Nature has made by them, for
the preservation not of our being merely, but of our well-being —
of that health and vigour, without which, a frail and feverish ex-
istence, at least in its relation to this earthly scene, would be of
little value. The daily waste of the body requires daily supply
to compensate it ; and if this supply be neglected, or be inade-
quate — or, on the other hand, if it be inordinately great, disease
is the necessary consequence. To preserve the medium, there-
fore, or at least to prevent any very great deviation from it. He,
who planned our feelings and faculties as well as our bodily frame,
has made it painful for us to omit what is so important to life ; and
painful also to prolong the supply in any great proportion, after
the demands of nature have been adequately satisfied. If food
had afforded gratification only as reheving the pain of hunger,
these natural boundaries of appetite would have required no aid
from moral or physical lessons of temperance. But the indulgence
of nature, in conferring on us the sense of taste, and making food a
luxury as well as a relief, we abuse, as we abuse her other kindness-
es. The pleasures of this most intemperate of senses, may lead, in
some degree, beyond the due point of supply, the greater number of
mankind ; and may drive, to excesses more injurious, all those
herds of unthinking sensualists who prefer the sickly enjoyment of
an hour, to the health and virtue, and intellectual as well as ph} ^ical
comfort, of more frugal repasts. Yet even to them, nature points
out in the feeUng of satiety, where intcmpcrur^ce begins, or where
34
266 ON THE LESS DEFINITE
it has already begun ; and if they persist, notwithstanding this feel-
ing, how much more would they be in danger of over-loading the
povvers of life, if there had been no such feeling of growing un-
easiness, to suppress the avidity of insatiable indulgence.
" Though a man knew," says Dr Reid, " that his life must be
.supported by eating, reason could not direct him when to eat, or
^Q what ; how much, or how often. In all these things, appetite is
X- a much better guide than reason. Were reason only to direct us
/ in this matter, its calm voice would ot\en be drowned in the hurry
of business, or the charms of amusement. But the voice of appe-
tite rises gradually, and, at last, becomes loud enough to call oflf
our attention from any other employment."*
If indeed, the necessary supply were long neglected, the mor-
bid state of the body which would ensue, though no pain of actu-
al hunger were to be felt, would convince, at last, the sufferer of
liis folly. But the providence of our gracious Creator, has not
tru-ted the existence of man to the dangerous admonition of so
rough a monitor, which might, perhaps, bring his folly before
him only when it was too late to be wise. The pain of hunger-
that short disease, if it may be so termed, which it is in our pow-
er so speedily to cure, prevents diseases that more truly deserve
the name. Between satiety on one side, and want on the other,
the stream of health (lows tranquilly along, which, but for these
boundaries, would speedily waste itself and disappear; as the
most magniticent river, which, if dispersed over a boundless plain,
would flow almost into nothing, owes its abundance and majestic
beauty to the very banks that seem to condne its waters within too
narrow a channel.
Besides those particular feelings of bodily uneasiness, which,
as attended with desire, constitute our appetites, there are other
affections of the same class, which, though not usually ranked
with our external sensations or perceptions, because we tind it dit-
licult to ascribe them to any local organ, are unquestionably to be
arranged under the same head ; since they are feelings which
arise, as immediately and directly from a certain state of a part of
the nervous .system, as any of the feelings which wc more com-
monly ascribe to external sense. Of this kind is that muscular
pleiLsure o( alacrity and action, which forms so great a part of the
• Od the Active Powers, Essay 111. c. 1.
EXTERNAL AFFECTIONS OF MIND. 267
delight of the young of every species of living being-s, and which
is felt, though m a less degree, at every period of life, even the
most advanced ; or which, when it ceases in age, only gives place
to another species of muscular pleasure — that which constitutes
the pleasure of ease — the same species of leeling, which doubles,
to ever one, the delight of exercise, by sweetening the repose to
which it leads, and thus making it indirectly, as well as directly, a
source of enjoyment.
In treating of what have been termed the acquired perceptions
of vision^ which are truly what give to vision its range of power,
and without which the mere perception of colour would be of
little more value than any other of the simplest of our sensations,
I shall have an opportunity of pointing out to you some most im-
portant purposes, to which our muscular feelings are instrumen-
tal ; and in the nicer analysis Avhich I am inclined to make of th^
perceptions commonl}^ ascribed to touch, — if my analysis be accu-
rate — we shall find them operating at least as powerfully. At
present, however, 1 speak of them merely as sources of animal
pleasure or pain, of pleasure during moderate exercise and repose,
and of pain during morbid lassitude, or the fatigue of oppression
and unremitted labour.
The pleasure which attends good health, and which is certain-
ly more than mere freedom from pain, is a pleasure of the
same kind. It is a pleasure, however, which, like every oth-
er long continued bodily pleasure, we may suppose, to be
diminished by habitual enjoyment; and it is therefore, chief-
ly, on recovery from sickness, when the habit has been long
broken by feelings of an opposite kind, that we recognize what
it must originall}'^ have been ; if, indeed it be in our power
to separate, completely, the mere animal pleasure from those
mingling reflecting pleasures which arise from the consideration
of past pain, and the expectation of future deUght. To those
among you, who know what it is to have risen from the long cap-
tivity of a bed of sickness, I need not say, that every function is,
in this case, more than mere vigour ; it is a happiness, but to
breathe and to move ; and not every limb merely, but almost
every fibre of every limb, has its separate sense of enjoyment.
" What a blessed thing it is to breathe the fresh air !" said Count
Struensee, on quitting his dungeon, though he was quitting it only
268 ON THE EXTERNAL AFFECTIONS OF MIND.
to be led to the place of execution, and cannot, therefore, be sup-
posed to have felt much more than the mere animal delight.
" He does not scorn it, who, imprisoned long
la some unwholesome dungeon, and a prey
To sallow sickness, which the vapours, dank
And clammy of his dark abode have bred,
Escapes at last to liberty and light;
Ilis cheek recovers soon its healthful hue ;
His eye relumines its extinguish'd fires ;
He walks, he leaps, he runs— is winged with joy,
And riots in the sweets of eviry breeze."*
On these mere animal gratifications, however, I need not
dwell any longer. There is much more to interest our curiosity,
in the sensations and perceptions which more frequently go un-
der those names ; to the consideration of which I shall proceed in
my next Lecture.
* Cowper's Task, book i.
269
LECTURE XVIII.
ON THE MORE DEFIMTE EXTERNAL AFFECTIONS OF MIND IN
GENERAL.
In my Lecture yesterday, after some further elucidation of
the triple division which we formed of the mental phenomena, as
external or sensitive affections of the mind, intellectual states of the
mind, — emotions, — I proceeded to consider the first of these divis-
ions, of which the characteristic distinction is, that the phenomena
included in it have their causes or immediate antecedents external
to the mind itself In this division, I comprehended, together with
the feelings which are universally ascribed to certain organs of
sense, many feelings, which, though unquestionably originating in
states of our bodily organs, as much as our other sensations, are
yet commonly ranked as a different order — such as our various
appetites, or rather that elementary uneasiness which is only a
part, but still an essential part of our appetites, and which is easi-
ly distinguishable from the mere desire, which is the other ele-
ment ; since, however rapid the succession of them may be, we
are yet conscious of them as successive. The particular uneasi-
ness, it is evident, must have been felt as a sensation before the
desire of that which is to relieve the uneasiness could have arisen.
To the same class, too, I referred the various organic feelings,
which constitute the animal pleasure of good health, when every
corporeal function is exercised in just degree ; and in a particu-
lar manner, our mtiscular feelings, whether of mere general lassi-
tude or alacrity ; or those fainter differences of feelings which
arise in our various motions and attitudes, from the different mus-
cles that are exercised, or from the greater or less contraction of
the same muscles. These muscular feelings, though they may be
almost unnoticed by us, during the influence of stronger sensations.
270 ON THE MORE DEFINITE EXTERNAL
are yet sufficiently powerful, when we attend to them, to render
us, independently of sight and touch, in a great measure sensible
of the position of our body in general, and of its various parts ;
and comparatively indistinct as they are, they become,— in many
cases, as in the acquired perceptions of vision, for example, and
equally too, as I conceive, in various other instances, in which lit-
tle attention has been paid to them by philosophers,— e/emen<s of
some of the nicest and most accurate judgments which we form.
It is, however, to that widest and most important order of our
external affections, which comprehends the leeUngs more com-
^ manly termed sensations^an^ universally ascribed to particular or-
, o-ans of sense, th^at we have now to proceed. In these, we find
'' the rude elements of all our knowledge, the materials on which
' tie mind is ever operating, and without which, it seems to us al-
mo«t impossible to conceive that it could ever have operated at
y all, or could, even in its absolute inactivity, have been conscious
of its own inert existence.
This order of our external feelings comprehends all those
states of mind, however various thoy may be, which immediately
I succeed the changes of state, produced, in any of our organs of
I «ense, by the presence of certain external bodies. The mental
affections are themselves,— as I have said,— commonly termed
sensations ; but we have no verb, in our language, which exactly
denotes what is expressed in the substantive noun. To feel is, in
its two senses, cither much more limited or much more general,
being confined, in its restricted moaning, to the sensations of one
organ, that of touch,— and as a more general word, being applica-
ble to all the varieties of our consciousness, as much as to those
particular varieties, which are immediately successive to the affec-
tions of our organs of sense. , We are said, in this wider use of
the term, to feel indignation, love, surprise, as readily as we are
said to feel the warmth of a fire, or the coldness of snow.
h. defining our sensations, to be those mental affections, which
are immediately successive to certain organic affections, produced
by the action of external things, it is very evident, that 1 have
niade t^voasi^umi.tions,- first <.f the existence pf external things,
/ that affect our organs~of sense; and, secondly of organs of sense,
\that are affected by external things ;— unless, indeed, the assump-
tion of the existence of organs of sense be considered,— as m phi-
AFFECTIONS OP MIND, IN GENERAL. 271
losophic truth it unquestionably is — only another form of the as-
sumption of the existence of external things, since, in relation to
the sentient mind, the organs thus supposed to exist, are, in strict-
ness of language, external, as much as the objects supposed to act
upon them. All of which we are truly conscious, in sensation, is
the mental affection, the last link of the series, in the supposed
process ; what we term our perceptions of organs of sense, or of
other external things that act upon these — our ideas, for example,
of a brain or an eye, a house or a mountain, being as truly states
of our own percipient mind, and nothing but states of our own
mind, as our feeling of joy or sorrow, hope or fear, love or hate,
— to which we never think of giving an existence^ nor a direct and
immediate cause of existence, out of ourselves. By the very con-
stitution of our nature, however, or by the influence of associa-
tions as irresistible as intuition itself, — it is impossible for us not to
feel this essential reality in the causes of one set of our mental af-
fections, in the same manner as it is impossible for us to ascribe it
to another set. The brain, the eye, the house, the mountain, we
believe, and cannot but believe, to have external existence, inde-
pendent of our own ; the joy and sorrow, hope and fear, love and
hate, we believe, and cannot but believe, to be merely states of
our own mind, occasioned by other former states of mind, and de-
pendent, therefore, for their continuance, on our own continued
existence only. Even in our wildest dreams, — in which we imag-
ine all things that are possible, and almost all things which are im-
possible ; we never consider our joy or sorrow, as directly indica-
tive of any thing separate from ourselves, and independent of us.
" While o'er our limbs sleep's soft dominioa spread,
/ What tho' our soul fantastic measures trod,
O'er fairy fields ; or mouni'd alonij the gloom
Of pathless woods; or down the crage;y steep
HurI'd headlons:, swam with pain the mantled pool ;
Or scaled the cliff, — or danced on hollow winds,
With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain;"
it was still only the cliff, the wood, the pool, which we considered
as external: the sorrow with which we mourned along our gloomy
track, the pain with which we swam the turbid water, the horror
which we felt at the antic shapes, ^vith which we mingled in
272 ON THE MORE DEFINITE EXTERNAL
the crhostly dance, were felt to be wholly in. ourselves, and consti-
tuted, while they lasted, the very feeling- of our own existence.—
The belief of an external world is, however, to come afterwards
under our full examination :— It is sufficient, for the present, to
know, that in the period after infancy, to which alone our memo-
ry extends, we are led, irresistibly, to believe in it ; and that the
belief of it, therefore, in whatever manner it may have originated
in the imperfect perceptions of our infancy, is now, when those
perceptions are mature, so completely beyond the power of argu-
ment to overcome, that it exists, as strongly, in those who reason
a<rainst it, as in those who reason for it;— that the reference to a
dl'rect external cause, however, does not accompany every feeling
of our mind, but is confined to a certain number of that long suc-
cession of feelings, which forms the varied consciousness of our life,
—and that the feelings, with respect to which this reierence is
made, are the class of sensations, which, when combined with this
roferer.ce, have commonly been distinguished by the name of per-
ceptions. That we have no perfect evidence of the external ex-
istence thus ascribed by us,— independently of our own irresistible
belief of it, may be allowed to the sceptic ; and the reasoning of
Doctor Reid on the subject, as far as he proceeds beyond the as-
sertion of this irresistible belief, and attempts, what has been com-
monly regarded as a confutation of the scepticism on this point,—
by repres°enting it as proceeding on a mistake, with respect to the
nature of our ideas,— is itself, as we shall afterwards find, nugato-
ry and fallacious. But still, notwithstanding the errors of philoso-
phers with respect to it, the belief itself is, in the circumstances
in which we now exist, so truly a part of our constitution, that to
contend against it in argument would be to admit its validity, smce
it would be to suppose the existence of some one whom we are
fairly undertaking to instruct or to confute.
In uhat circumstance the intuitive belief,— if, as I have said,
the belief be in any case intuitive,- arises ; or rather, in how large
a proportion of cases, in which the reference seems primary and
immediate, it is, more probably, the effect of secondary associa-
tion'' transferred'from sense to sense, will appear better after the
minute analysis on which we are to enter, of the different tribes
of our sensations. '
In referring to the j.artir.ilar cla" of sensation^, an-l ronsr-
AFFECTIONS OF MIND, IN GENERAL. 273
quently to an external cause, a certain number only of the affections
of our mind, there can be no doubt, that we proceed now, in the
mature state of our knowledge, with more accuracy, than we could
have attained, in that early period of life, when our original feel-
ings were more recent. We have now a clearer and more defi-
nite belief of an external world, and of objects of sensations sep-
arate from our sensations themselves ; without which general be-
lief, previously obtained, we should as little have ascribed to an
external organic cause many of our lieelings, which we now as-
cribe to one — our sensations of sound and fragrance, for example,
— as we now ascribe to such an immediate external cause, our
emotions of joy or sorrow. A still more important acquisition, is
our knowledge of our own organic frame, by which we are ena-
bled, in a great measure, to verify our sensations, — to produce
them, as it were at pleasure, when their external objects are be-
fore us, and in this way to correct the feelings, which have risen
spontaneously, by those, which we ourselves produce. Thus,
when, in reverie, our conceptions become peculiarly vivid, and the
objects of our thought seem almost to exist in our presence ; if
only we stretch out our hand, or fix our eyes on the forms that
are permanently before us, the illusion vanishes. Our organ of
touch or of sight, is not affected in the same manner, as if the ob-
ject that charms us in our musing dream, were really present ;
and we class the feeling, therefore, as a conception, — not as a sen-
sation, — which, but for the opportunity of this correction, we
should unquestionably, in many instances, have done.
But though, in forming the class of our sensations, we derive
many advantages from that full knowledge wii ich the experi-
ence of many years has given, we purchase these by disadvanta-
ges which are perhaps as great, and which are greater, from the
very circumstance, that it is absolutely out of our power to esti-
mate their amount. ^Vhat we consider as the immediate sensation,
is not the simple mental state, as it originally followed that corpo-
real change, which no%v precedes it ; but, at least in the most
striking of all the tribes of our sensations, is a very different one.
We have the authority of reason, a priori, as shewing no peculiar
connexion of the points of the retina with one place of bodies
more than with another ; and v/e have the authority also of ol)<er-
vation, in the celebrated case of the young man who was couched
35
274 ON THE MORE DEFINITE EXTERNAL
by Chesekkn, mul in other cases of the same peculiar species of
blindness, in which the eyes, by a surgical operation, have been
rendered for the tirst time capable of distinct vision, that if we had
had no organ of sense but that of sight, and no instinctive judg-
ment had been superadded to mere vision, we should not have had
the power of distinguishing the magnitude and distant place of ob-
jects;— a mere expanse of colour being all which we should have
perceived, if even colour itself could in these circumstances, have
been perceived by us as expanded. Yet it is sufficient now, that '
rays of light, precisely the same in number, and in precisely the
same direction, as those which at one period of our life, exhibited
to us colour, and colour alone, should fall once more on the same
small expanse of nerve, to give us instantly that boundlessness ot
vision, which, almost as if the fetters of our mortal frame were
shaken off, lifts us from our dungeon, and makes us truly citizens,
not of the earth only, but of the universe. Simple as the principle
may now seem, which distinguishes our secondary or acquired
perceptions of vision from those which were primary and immedi-
ate, it was long before the distinction was made ; and till a period ,
which— if we consider it in relation to those long ages of philo-
iiophic inquiry, or, rather, most unphilosophic argumentation,
which had gone before— may be considered almost as in our own
time, longitudinal distance was conceived to be as completely an
original object of sight as the varieties of mere colour and brillian-
cy. There may, tlierefore— though we have not yet been able,
and may never be able, to discover it,— be a corresponding difter-
ence in our other sensations, which now seem to us simple and im-
mediate. In the case of sound, indeed, there is a very evident
analogy to these visual accpiired perceptions; since a constant
reference to place mingles with our sensations of this class, in the
same manner, though not so distinctly, as in our perceptions of
sight. \Vc perceive the sound, as it were near or at a distance,
in one direction rather than in another; as, in the case of longitu-
dinal distance in vision, we perceive colour at one distance ratiier
than at another. Yet there is as little reason, from the nature of
the organic changes themselves, to sui)pose, that different alToc-
tions of our auditory nerves should originnUy give us diflcrent no-
lions i.f distance, as that such notions should originally bo produc-
ed by dilTerent affections of the retina: and, as in sight and hear-
AFFECTIONS OF THE MIND, IN GENERAL. 275
ing, so it is far from improbable, that, in all our senses, there may,
by the reciprocal influence of these upon each other, or by the re-
peated lessons of individual experience in each, be a similar modifi-
cation of the original simple leelings, which, in that first stage of ex-
istence that opened to us the world and its phenomena, each individ-
ual organ separately afforded. Our reasoning with respect to
them, therefore, as original organs of sense, may, perhaps, be as
false, as our chemical reasoning would be, were we to attempt to
infer the properties of an uncombined acid, or alkali, from our ob-
servation of the very difterent properties of a neutral salt, into
the composition of which we know that the acid or the alkali has
entered.
If, indeed, it were in our power to be introduced to a society,
like that of which Diderot speaks, in his Letter on the Deaf and
Dumb, and to hold communication with them, all our doubts on this
subject would be removed. '• What a strange society," says he,
" would five persons make, each of them endowed with one only of
our five different senses ; and no two of the party with the same
sense ! There can be no doubt, that, differing, as they must differ, in
all their views of nature, they would treat each other as madmen,
and that each would look upon the others with all due contempt.
It is, indeed, only an image of what is happening every moment
in the world ; we have but one sense, and we judge of every
thing."* — " There is, however," he justly remarks, " one science,
though but one science, in which the whole society of the differ-
ent senses might agree, — the science which has relation to the
properties of number. They might each arrive, by their separate
abstractions, at the subhmest speculations of arithmetic and alge-
bra ; they might fathom the depths of analysis, and propose and
resolve problems of the most complicated equations, as if they
were all so many Diophantuses. It is perhaps," he adds, " what
the oyster is doing in its shell."!
From such a society, — if, indeed, we could hold any communi-
cation with these profound algebraists, except in their common
science of numbers, — we might undoubtedly learn, what are the
direct immediate affections of mind, to which our senses individu-
ally give rise, and consequently, how much, while feeling has
* GEuvres, torn. ii. p. 12. + P. 131.
576 ON THE MORB DEFINITE EXTERNAL
blended with feeling-, they have reciprocally operated on each
other. But, in our present circumstances, unaided by intercourse
with such living abstractions, it is impossible for us to remove
wholly this uncertainty, as to the kind and degree of influence,
which experience may have had, in modifying our primary sensa-
tions. We may wish, indeed, to bo able to distinguish onr present feel-
ings, from those which the same objects originally excited ; but,
since no memory can go back to the period, at which we did not
perceive longitudinal distance, as it were, immediately by the eye,
as little, we may suppose, can any memory go back to the pe-
riod, when other sensations, less interesting than those of vision,
were lirst excited. Could we trace the series of feelings, in a sin-
gle mind, — as variously modified, in the progress from infancy to
maturity, — we should know more of the intellectual and moral
nature of man, than is probably ever to be revealed to his inquiry,
— when in ages, as remote from that in which we live, and per-
haps as much more enlightened, as our own age may be said to
be in relation to the period of original darkness and barbarism, he
is still to be searching into his own nature, with the same avidity
as now. He must, indeed be a very dull observer, who has not
felt, on looking at an infant, some desire to know the little pro-
cesses of thought, that are going on in his curious and active mind;
and who, on reflecting on the value, as an attainment in science,
which the sagest philosopher would set on the consciousness of
those acquisitions which infancy has already made, is not struck
with that nearness, in which, in some points, extreme knowledge
and extreme ignorance may almost be said to meet. What
metaphysician is there, however subtile and profound in his
analytical inquiries, and however successful in the analyses
which he has made, who would not give all his past discov-
ery, and all his hopes of future discovery, for the certainty of
knowing V, ilh exactness what every infant feels ? The full in-
'^tniction, whicli such a view of our progressive feelings, from
(heir very origin, in the first sensations of life, would afford, Na-
ture, in her wisdom, however, has not communicated to us, — more
than she has communicated to us the nature of that state of being,
which awaits the soul after it has finished its career of mortality.
Our existence seems, in our conception of it, never to have had a
hfginning. \'; fir back as we can rem«^inbor any event, there is
j,.iii....j^.
AFFECTIONS OP MIND, IN GENERAL. 277
always a period, that appears to us still farther back, the events
of which we cannot distinguish ; as, when we look toward thf dis-
tant horizon, we see, less and less distinctlj-, in the long line
which the sunshine of evening still illuminates, plains, and woods,
and streams, and hills, more distant, half melting into air, beyond
which our eye can find nothing, — though we are still certain, that
other woods, and streams, and plains are there, and that it is only
the imperfection of our sight, which seems to bound them as in
another world. It is to man, when he thinks upon his own be-
ginning, as if he felt himself in a world of enchantment, amid the
shades and flowers of which he had been wandering, unconscious
of the time at which he entered it, or of the objects that are
awaiting him, when he shall have arrived at the close of that
path, whose windings still lead him forward, — and knowing little
more, than that he is himself happy, and that the unknown Being,
who has raised this magnificent scene around him, must be the
Friend of the mortal, whom he has deigned to admit into it.
" Well pleased he scans
The goodly prospect, — and, with inward smiles,
Treads the gay verdure of the painted plain, —
Beholds the azure canopy of heaven,
And living lamps, that over-arch his head,
With more than regal splendour, — bends his ear
To the full choir of water, air, and earth ;
Nor heeds the pleasing: error of his thought,
Nor doubts the painted green or azure arch,
Nor questions more the music^s mingling sounds.
Than space, or motion, or eternal time ;
So sweet he feels their influence to attract
His fixed soul, to brighten the dull glooms
Of care, and make the destined road of life
Delightful to his feet. So, fables tell,
The adventurous hero, bound on hard exploit,
Beholds with glad surprise, by secret spell
Of some kind sage, the patron of his toils,
A visionary paradise disclosed,
Amid the dubious wild ; — With streams, and shades,
And airy songs, the enchanted landscape smiles,
Cheers his long labours, and renews his frame."*
* Pleasures of Imagination, Book IlL v. 493 — 514. The fixed soul, v.
505. Exploits, v. 508 ; and Spells, v. 509. Orig.
^78 ON THE MORE DEFINITE EXTERNAL
The philosophic use of the term sensation does not necessarily
imply, what, in its popular use, is considered almost as involved
in it; and perhaps, therefore, it may not be superfluous to warn
you, that it is not contined to feelings, which are pleasurable or
painful, but extends to every mental affection, that is the immedi-
ate consequence of impression on our organs of sense, — of which
mental states or affections, many, and, as I am inclined to think, by
far the greater number, are of a kind, that cannot be termed either
a'^reeable or disagreeable. Of the objects of sight, for example,
which are of such very frequent occurrence, how fe-jo are there,
at which we look, either with pleasure or with pain, — if we ex-
cept that indirect pleasure, which, in particular cases, they may
afford, as communicating to us information, that is valuable in it-
self, or as gratifying even our idlest curiosity. To take one of
the most striking cases of this sort, — though we may derive, from
the perusal of a work that interests us, the purest delight, it is a
delio-ht, resulting only from the conceptions, which the author, in
consequence of the happy contrivance of symbolic characters, has
been able to transfuse, as it were, from his own mind into ours ;
but, during all the time of the perusal, sensations, almost innume-
rable, have been excited in us, by the separate characters, with
which the pages are covered, that have never mingled even the
faintest direct pleasure, with the general emotion, which they,
and thc7 alone, have indirectly produced.
'• I apprehend," says Dr Reid, " that, besides the sensations,
that are either agreeable or disagreeable, there is still a greater
number that are indifferent. To these we give so little attention,
that they have no name, and are immediately forgot, as if they
had never been ; and it requires attention to the operations of our
minds, to be convinced of their existence. For this end, we may
observe, that,' to a good ear, every human voice is distinguishable
from all others. Some voices arc pleasant, some disagreeable ;
but the far greater part can neither be said to be one or the oth-^
er. The same thing may be said of other sounds, and no less oi
tastes, smells, and colours; and if we consider, that our senses are
in continual exercise while we are awake, that some sensation at-
tends every object they present to us, and that familiar objects
«eldom raise any emotion, pleasant or painful,— we shall see rea-
<f.n. br^idr- the agreealde and disagreeable, (o admit a third class
•
AFFECTIONS OF MIMD, IN GENERAL* 279
of sensations, lliat may be called indifferent. The sensations that
are indifferent, are far from being useless. They serve as signs,
to distinguish things that differ ; and the information we have con-
cerning things external, comes by their means. Thus, if a man
had no ear to receive pleasure from the harmony or melody of
sounds, he would still find the sense of hearing of great utility ;
though sounds gave him neither pleasure nor pain, of themselves,
they would give him much useful information ; and the like may
be said of the sensations we have bj' all the other senses."*
It is as signs, indeed, far more than as mere pleasures in them-
selves, that our sensations are to us of such inestimable value.
Even in the case to which I before alluded, of the symbolic or ar-
bitrar}'^ characters of a language, when we consider all the impor-
tant purposes to which these are subservient, as raising us origin-
ally from absolute barbarism, and saving us trom relapsing into it,
there might be an appearance of paradox, indeed, but there
would be perfect truth in asserting, that the sensations which are
themselves indifferent, are more precious, even in relation to hap-
piness itself, than the sensations which are themselves accompani-
ed with lively delight, or rather, of which it is the very essence
to be delightful. Happiness, though necessarily involving pres-
ent pleasure, is the direct or indirect, and often the very distant
result of feelings of every kind, pleasurable, painful, and indiffer-
ent. It is like the beautiful profusion of flowers, which adorn our
summer fields. In our admiration of the foliage, and the blossoms,
and the pure airs and sunshine, in which they seem to live, we al-
most forget the darkness of the soil in which their roots are
spread. Yet how much should we err, if we were to consider
them as deriving their chief nutriment from the beams that shine
around them, in the warmth and light of which we have wander-
ed with joy. That delightful radiance alone would have been of
little efficacy, without the showers, from which, in those very
wanderings, we have often sought shelter at noon ; or at least
without the dews, which were unheeded by us, as they fell si-
lently and almost insensibly on our evening walk.
With the common division of our sensations into five classes, —
those of smell, taste, hearing, sight, touch, we have been familiar,,
almost from our childhood ; and though the classification may be
* Ou the. Intellectaal powers, Essay II. c. IG.
280 ON THE MORE DEFINITE EXTERNAL
far from perfect, in reference to our sensations themselves, con-
sidered sim\Ay as affections of the mind, it is sufficiently accurate,
in reference to the mere organs of sense; for, though our sensa-
tions of heat and cold, in one very important respect, which is af-
terwards to be considered by us, have much less resemblance to
the other sensations which we acquire by our organs of touch, or
at least to sensations, which we are generally supposed to derive
from that organ, than to sensations, which we receive by the me-
dium of other organs, our sensations of smell and sound for exam-
ple still, as they arise from an affection of the same organ, they
may be more conveniently referred to the same, than to any oth-
er class ; since, if we quit that obvious line of distinction, which
the difference of organs affords, we shall not find it easy to define
them by other lines as precise.
But whatever may be the arbitrary division or arrangement
which we may form either of our sensations themselves, or of the
organs that are previously affected, the susceptibility of the mind,
bv which it is capable of being affected by the changes of state in
our mere bodily organs, must be regarded as, in every sense of
the word, of primary value in our mental constitution. To the
individual, indeed, it may be said to be in itself all the things
wbich are around him, however near or afar ; because it is truly
that, by which alone all things near or afar become known to him.
It constitutes by this mutual relation, which it establishes, a pow-
er of more than magic agency, before which the great gulf, that
appeared to separate forever the worlds of matter and of spirit,
disappears, — which thus links togetlier substances, that seemed, in
their nature, incapable of any common bond of union, — and which,
bringing the whole infinity of things, within the sphere of our
own mind, communicates to it some faint semblance of the omni-
presence of its Author. " What is that organ,"— says an eloquent
French writer, speaking of the eye, — " what is that astonishing
organ, in which all objects acquire, by turns, a successive exist-
ence, — where the spaces, the figures, and the motions, that sur-
round me, are as it were created,— whore the stars, that exist at
the distance of a hundred millions of leagues, become a part of
myself,— and where in a single half inch of (liamel(M-, is contained
the universe ?" This power of «-\ternal sense, which first awakes
m inlo life, continues, ever after, to watch, as it were, round the
AFFECTIONS OF MIND, IN GENERAL. 281
life which it awoke, lavishing on us perpetual varieties of instruc-
tion and delight ; and if, from the simple pleasures, and simple
elementary knowledge which it immediately affords, we trace its
influence, through all the successive feelings to which it indirect-
ly gives rise, it may be said to exist, by a sort of intellectual and
moral transmutation, in the most refined and etherial of all our
thoughts and emotions. What Grey says of it, — in the commence-
ment of his beautiful fragment De Principiis Cogitandi, addressed
to his friend West, is not too high a panegyric, — that every thing
delightful and amiable, friendship and fancy, and wisdom itself,
have their primary source in it.
" Non iila leves primordia motus
Quanquam parra, dabunt. La^tum vel araabile quicquid
Usquam oritur, trahit hinc ortum ; nee surgit ad auras,
Quia ea conspireut simul, eventusque secundeut.
Hinc varias vitai artes, ac mollior tisus,
Dulce et araicitiae vinclum : Sapientia dia
Hinc roseuin accendit lumen, vultuque sereno,
Humanas aperit mentes, nova gaudia monstrans.
lUa etiam, qua3 te (niirum) noctesque diesque
Assidue fovit inspirans, linguamque sequentem
Temperat in numeros, atque horas mnlcet inertes,
Aurea non aha si jactat origine Musa."*
So much, indeed, of human knowledge, and of all that is valua-
ble and delightful in human feeling, involves these elementary
sensations, as it were in the very essence of the thoughts and feel-
ings themselves, that one of the most acute of modern French met-
aphysicians, and, with scarcely an exception, all the philosophers
of the French metaphysical school, who are his followers, have
considered the whole variety of human consciousness, as mere sen-
sation variously transformed ; though, in stating the nature of this
transformation, and the difference of the sensations as transformed
from the primary forms of mere external feeling, they have not
been so explicit, as the assertors of a system so paradoxical ought
assuredly to have been. On the fallacies of this very prevalent
theory of mind, however, which is afterwards to be examined by
us fully, I need not at present make any remarks.
Though this excessive simplification of the phenomena of hu-
* Lib. I. V. 18—25. and 28—31,
36
282 ON THE EXTERNAL AFFECTIONS OF MIND.
man thouirlit and feeling is, however, tar more than the phenome-
na truly allow, it is not the less certain, that all the varieties of
our consciousness, though not mere transformations of external
sense, are, when traced to their source, the results of sensation, in
its various original forms. In inquiring into the phenomena of our
senses, then, we begin our inquiry, where knowledge itself begins,
and though the twilight, which hangs over this first opening of in-
tellectual life, is perhaps only a presage, or a part of that obscuri-
ty which is to attend the whole track of human investigation, it
still is twilight only, not absolute darkness. We can discover
much, thou-h we cannot discover all ; and where absolute disco-eery
is not allowed, there is still left to us a probability of conjecture,
of which, in such limited circumstances, even philosophy may
justly avail herself, without departing from her legitimate prov-
ince.
283
LECTURE XIX.
BRIEF NOTICE OF THE CORPOREAL PART OF THE PROCESS, IN
SENSATION.
The mental phenomena, of the class which is at present un-
der our consideration, being- those, which arise, in consequence ot'
certain previous affections of our organs of sense, it is necessary,
that we should take some notice of the corporeal part of the pro-
cess ; thousrh it must always be remembered, that it is the last
part of the process, the mental affection only, which truly belong'*
to our science, — and that, if this, in all its varieties, had been the
result of any other species of affections of organs constituted in
any other manner, — as long as there was the regular correspon-
dence of certain mental affections with certain organic affections,
— the philosophy of mind would have continued precisely the
same as now. Our systems of anatomy, and of the physiology of
our mere bodily frame, would indeed have been different, — but
not that more intimate physiology, which relates to the functions
of the animating spirit, whose presence is life, and without which
our bodily frame, in all its beautiful adaptation of parts to parts, is
a machine, as inert and powerless, as the separate atoms that com-
pose it.
The ofreat essential organ of all sensation is the brairt. with its
appendages, particularly the nerves that issue from it to ceriain
organs, which are more strictly termed the organs of sense ; as it
is there the immediate objects, or external causes of sensation,
the particles of light, lor example, in vision, or of odour in smell,
arrive, and come, as it were, into contact with the sensorial sub-
stance. Each organ, as you well know, ha« objects peculiar to it-
self, which it would be superfluous to enumerate ; and since the
284 ON THE CORPOREAL PART OF
blind are still sensible of sound, the deaf of colour, and both of
smell, and taste, and touch, there must evidently be some differ-
ence, either in the sensorial substance itself which is diffused over
the different organs, or in the mode of its diffusion and exposure
in the different organs, from which this striking diversity of their
Relative sensibilities proceeds. The nervous matter however, con-
sidered separately from the coats in which it is enveloped, is of
the same half-fihrous, but soft and pulpy texture, as the substance
of the brain itself, and is in perfect continuity with that substance,
forming, therefore, with it, what may be considered as one mass,
as much as the whole brain itself may be considered as one mass ;
which has, indeed, for its chief seat the great cavity of the head ;
the
'* Superai hominis sedes, arcemque cerebri ;
Nanaque illic posuit solium, et sua templa sacravit,
Mens aaimi ; — *
but which extends, by innumerable ramifications, over the whole
surface, and through the internal parts of the body. The mind, in
that central brain in which it is supposed to reside, communicating
with all these extreme branches, has been compared, by a very
obvious, but a very beautiful similitude, to the parent Ocean, re-
ceiving from innumerable distances the waters of its filial streams :
" Ac uti longinquis descendunt montibus amncs,
Velivohis Taraisis, flaventiscnie Indus arenae,
Euphratesque, Tagtisque, et opiirio (lnruiiic Ganges,
Undas quisquc suas volveris, — cursuque sonoro
In mare prorumpunt ; bos raagno acclinis in antro
Excipit Oceanus, natorumque ordine longo
Dona recognoscit venientum, ultro<|ue scrcnat
(Joerulcam faciem, et difTuso marmore ridet.
llauii alitcr species properant sc inferre novelise
Certatim menti." t
ill ibo luain itself, the anatomist is able to shew us, with per-
fi;ct clearness, many complicated parts, which we must believe to
he adapted for answering particular purposes in the economy of
Ui'i- ; but when wc have ga/cd willi admiration on all the wonders
• Gray de Princip, Cogit. lib. i. v. 40 — 50.
t f. rav df I'riiicip. CDirit. lil). i. v. 51 — 6:3.
THE PROCESS, IN SENSATION. 285
which his dissecting hand has revealed to us, and have listened to^
the names with which he most accurately distmguishes the htlle
cavities or protuberances which his knife has thus laid open to
our view, we are still as ignorant as before of the particular pur-
poses to which such varieties of form are subservient ; and our
only consolation is, — for there is surely some comfort in being
only as ignorant as the most learned^ — that we know as much of
the distinct uses of the parts as the anatomist himself, who exhib-
its them to us, and teaches us how to name them. A structure, in
every respect different, though assuredly less fit than the present
which has been chosen by infinite wisdom, might, as far as we
know, have answered exactly the same end ; which is as much as
to say, that our ignorance on the subject is complete. The only
physiological facts of importance, in reference to sensation, are,
that if the nerves, which terminate in particular organs, be great- .
ly diseased, the sensations which we ascribe to those particular or-
gans cease ; and cease, in like manner, if the continuity of the
nerves be destroyed, by cutting them in any part of their course,
or if, without loss of absolute continuity, their structure, in any
part of their course be impaired by pressure, whether trom tight
ligatures drawn around them for the purpose of experiment, or
from natural morbid causes. In short, if the brain and nerves be
in a sound state, and certain substances be applied to certain parts
of the nervous system, — as, for instance, sapid bodies to the ex-
tremities of the nerves of taste, or light to that expansion of the
optic nerve, which forms what is termed the retina, — there is then
instant sensation ; and when the brain itself is not in a sound state
to a certain extent, or when the nerve which is diffused on a par-
ticular organ is, either at this extremity of it, or in any part of its
course, to a certain degree impaired, then there is no sensation,
though the same external causes be applied. This very slight
general knowledge of the circumstances in which sensation takes
place, and of the circumstances in which it does not take place,
is all the knowledge which phj'siology affords us of the corporeal
part of the process ; — and it is likely to continue so forever, — at
least in all the more important respects of our ignorance, — since
any changes which occur in the corpuscular motion, and consequent
new arrangement of the particles of the substance of the brain and
nerves, corresponding with the diversities of feeling during those
286 ON THE CORPOREAL PART OP
'particular states,— if such corpuscular motions or changes do real-
ly take place,— are probably far too minute to be observable by our
organs; even thoughvve could lay open all the internal parts of
the briun to complete observation, without destroying, or at all af-
fecting, the usual phenomena of lite : —
In " followini: life through creatures we dissect,
We loose it, in the moment we detect.'"
Indeed, we are not able to do even so much as this ; for lile
has already vanished, long before we have come upon the verge
of its secret precim5ts. It is like a Magician, that operates at a
dista-.ce on every side, but still keeps himself apart, within a nar-
row circle. If we remain -mthout the circle, we may gaze with
never-ceasing admiration, on the wonders that play in rapid suc-
cession before our eyes. But, if we rush within, to force an avow-^
al of the secret energy that produces them, the enchanter and the
enchantments alike are fled.
The brain, then, and the various nerves of sense in continuity
with it, may, when taken together, be considered as forming one
great organ, which 1 would term briefly the sensorial organ, essen-
tial to life, and to the immediate production of those mental phe-
nomena which constitute our sensations, and, perhaps, too, modify-
ing in some measure, directly or indirectly, all the other phenom-
ena of the mind.
" Dura mens alma«aput cerebrique palatia celsa
Occupat, et famulos sublimis dirigit artiis,
El fiicili iroperio nervorum fiectit habtnas,
lilius ad nutum sensus extiaiiea rerum
Expl^rant signa, et studio exeraplaria fido
Ad dociinara adducunl ; vfl qui statione locantur
Vicina, capitisque tuentur limina, ocelli,
Naresque, auriculaeque, et vis arguta palati ;
Vel qui per tolam currit sparse agmine molera
Tactus, ad extremas speculator corporis aras.
His scnsim auxiliis iustructa lldelibui, olitn
Mens humili* nulloque jacens ingloria cultu
Carceris ii» tpofhris riiox sese altolit in auras
Dives opuin variarum, el sidera scandit Olympi."
Of the nature of the connexion of this great sensorial organ
with the sentient mind, we never shall be able to understand more
THE PROCESS, IN SENSATION. ^87
than is involved in the simple fact, that a certain affection of the
nervous S3'^stem precedes immediately a certain affection of the
mind. But, though we are accustomed to regard this species of
mutual succession of bodily and mental changes, as peculiarly
inexplicable, from the very different nature of the substan-
ces which are reciprocally aff"ected, it is truly not more so
than any other case of succession of events, where the phe-
nomena occur in substances that are not different in their proper-
ties, but analogous, or even absolutely similar ; since, in no one
instance of this kind, can we perceive more than the uniform order
of the succession itself; and of changes, the successions of which
are all absolutely inexplicable, or, in other words, absolutely sim-
ple, and unsusceptible, therefore, of further analj'sis, none can be
justly said to be more or less so than another. That a peculiar
state of the mere particles of the brain, should be followed by a
change of state of the sentient mind, is truly wonderful; but if we
consider it strictly, we shall find it to be by no means more won-
derful, than that the arrival of the moon, at a certain point of the
heavens, should render the state of a body on the surface of our
earth, different from what it otherwise would naturally be or that
the state of every particle of our globe, in its relative tendencies
of gravitation, should be instantly changed, as it unquestionably
would be, by the destruction of the most distant satellite of the
most distant planet of our system, or probably too, by the destruc-
tion even of one of those remotest of stars, which are illuminat-
ing their own system of planets, so far in the depth of infinity,
that their light, — to borrow a well-known illustration of sidereal
distance, — may never yet have reached our earth, since the mo-
ment at which they darted forth their first beams, in the creation
of the universe. We believe, indeed, with as much confidence,
that one event will uniformh' have for its consequent another
event, which we have observed to follow it, as we believe the
simple fact that it has preceded it, in the particular case observed.
But the knowledge of the present sequence, as a mere fact, to be
remembered, and the expectation of future similar sequences, as
the result of an original law of our belief, are precisely o( the
same kind, whether the sequence of changes be in mind, or in
matter singly, or reciprocally in both.
JVhat the nature of the change is, that is produced at the ex-
I
233 ON THE CORPOREAL I'ART OF
tremity of the nerve, it is beyond our power to state, or even to
guess • and we are equally ignorant of the manner in which this
affection of the nerve is communicated, or is supposed to be com-
municated, to the brain. But that some affection is gradually prop-
agated, from the one to the other, so as to render the change in
the state of the brain subsequent, by a certain interval, to the
change in the state of the nerve, is universally believed. In ap-
plying to this change the term impxesmn, a term indeed which
•. had been in common use before, Dr^Rei-d is careful to point out
^ the reason for which this term appears to him preferable to oth-
ers ; and though I confess that the word seems to me to convey
too much the notion of a peculiar well known species of action ;
thit which consists in producing a certain configuration of the ob-
ject impressed, corresponding with the figure of the impressmg
object, the very notion that has had so pernicious an effect in the
Uheory of perception; and though I conceive the simple term
hhan<re or aff^eclion to be all which is safely admissible, as long as
the nature of th^particular change is absolutely unknown; still it
must be confessed that impression is a term a little more general
than the other names of action, to which Dr Reid alludes, and
therefore preferable to them, in the present case.
" There is sufficient reason," he says, " to conclude, that, in
perception, the object produces some change in the organ;
that the organ produces some change upon the nerve; and that
the nerve produces some change in the brain. And we give
the nimc of an impression to those changes, because we have
not a name more proper to express, in a general manner,
any change produced in a body, by an external cause, without spe-
cifyin- the nature of that change. Whether it be pressure, or at-
traction, or repulsion, or vibration, or something unknown, for
which we have no name, still it may be called an impression. But
with regard to the particular kind of this change or impression^
philosophers have never I.een able to discover any thing at all. '
That thr. word impression is not so iVee, as Dr Reid supposes,
iV.nn that hypothetical moaning which he wished to avoid, 1 have
already remarked. But the reason assigned by him for his pre -
crenco of it, is umjuestiouably a just one; since a phrase which
» On thf hittllectual Towcri, Essny ll.clinp. ii.
THE PROCESS, IN SENSATION. 289
expresses the least possible knowledg-e, must be allowed to be the
best suited to human ig-norance, — that ig'norauce, which, not in the
philosophy of intellect only, but in whatever track of science we
may proceed, and whatever truths we may proudly discover in
our way, still meets us at the end of every path, as if to mock at
once our weakness and our pride, — and which seems to us to be
every where, because it is, wherever we are ourselves. The
splendour of nature, as it exists in itself, is, if I may speak figura-
tively, like sunshine on a boundless plain, on the flowers and
herbage of which, though there be innumerable varieties of col-
our, there is brilliancy in all. But the misfortune is, that, as soon
as we have approached near enough to distinguish the diversity of
tints, their brilliancy is so obscured by our very approach to them,
that their nice diversities are no longer distinguishable ; as if man
could not move along, without throwing his own shadow on ever}-"
thing before him.
When I say, that we are ignorant of the nature of that change,
which is propagated along the nerve to the brain, I speak in ref-
erence to an opinion that is universal. But, though it may be
improbable^ it is certainly far from impossible, that there is really
no such progressive communication, as this which is supposed.
The brain and nerves, though, from the difference of names, you
might be led, perhaps, to consider them as distinct, I have already-
said, are not separate organs, but are in continuity with each oth-
er, at least as much as various parts of the brain itself, which are
comprehended under that single term, can be said to be continu-
ous. When taken together, they form what is truly one compli-
cated sensorial organ, — the organ of all our sensations, according
to the different states in which the organ exists, or the different
parts of it which are chiefly affected. In hearing, for example, a
certain state of that part of the sensorial organ, which constitutes
the auditory nerves, — in vision, a certain state of that part of it,
which constitutes the optic nerves, is necessary to sensation, — and,
in both cases, according to the universal supposition on the sub-
ject, all or part of the brain likewise must exist in a certain state, of
which we know nothing more, than that it is followed, in the one
case, by the sensation of sound, in the other case by that of sight.
The connexion of the mind with the bodily frame, — which must
be equally inexplicable on every supposition that can be formed.
37
290 ON THE CORPOREAL I'ART OP
—is not supposed, by any philosopher, to depend on the state of a
single physical point of the brain alone ; and, if it extend to more
tha^'n one such point, there is nothing,— in the nature of the con-
nexion itself, independently of experience,— which necessarily
limits it to one portion of the complex sensorial organ, more than
to another— to the particles of the central mass of the brain, for ex-
ample, more than to those of the nerve itself It is experience,
(hen, to which we are relerred ; and experience, though it shows
that certain nerves are not essential to life, since life continues
equally, after they may have been impaired, or even destroyed, is
far from showing that an affection of them is not essential to sen-
sation, at the very moment of the particular sensation ; nor does
it afford even the slightest evidence, to justify the belief, that the
only use of the nerve is to communicate a certain affection to the
brain, which affection of the mere central part of the sensorial or-
gan, would, of itself, immediately induce sensation, though the
nerves were annihilated in the preceding instant. The sensation
may be the immediate effect, not of the state of the brain only,
but of the state of the brain, and of any particular nerve, consid-
ered as existing together at the moment ; in the same manner, as,
by those who ascribe the immediate origin of sensation to the
mere brain, exclusive of its nervous appendages, it is supposed to
depend on the state, not of one physical point of the central brain,
but on the state of many such co-existing points. We know not,
to what extent, in the great sensorial organ, this change is neces-
sary ; but we believe, that, to some extent, it is necessary ; and the
question is, whether, in the whole portion so affected, the affec-
tion be produced by a succession of changes, proi)agated from part
to part? This may, perhaps, be the more probable supposition:
—but, whatever may be the comparative probal)ility or improba-
bility, it certainly has not been demonstrated by observation or
exi)eriment ; nor can there be said to be, a priori, any absurdity
in the opposite supposition, that the sensorial affection, to what-
ever ext<'nt it may be necessary, is not progressive, but immedi-
ate,— that, as long as the sensorial organ, (umlcr which term
I comprehend, .-is I have already frequently repeated, not the
hniin nifrcly, but also its nervous a|)pei)dages, that exist in
apparent contiimity with the brain,) is unimpaired, by accident or
disease, the presence of the immediate object of sense, at the ex-
THE PROCESS, IN SENSATION, 231
lemal organ, which on every supposition, must be followed by
some sensorial change of state, is instantly followed by that gener-
al change of state of the internal organ, whatever it may be,
which is necessarj' to sensation, in the particular case ; in the
same manner, as the presence of a celestial body, at a certain
point in the heavens, is immediately followed by a change of state,
in the whole gravitating particles of our globe ; the change in any
long line of these gravitating particles being not communicated
from each to each, but depending only on the presence of the dis-
tant sun or planet ; and beginning in the most remote particles of
the line, at the very same instant, as in that which is nearest, on
the surface of the earth. An instant change, in the long line of
sensorial particles, — if the affection of a long line of these parti-
cles be necessary, — on the presence of a particular object, is not
more improbable in itself, than this instant and universal influence
of gravitation, that varies with all the varying positions of a distant
object.
But is it, indeed, certain, that, in sensation, there is an affec-
tion of the central brain, whether immediate or progressive ? Is it
not possible, at least, or more than possible, that the state of the
mind, when we perceive colours and sounds, may be the immedi-
ate consequent of the altered state of that part of the sensorial or-
gan, which forms the expansion of the nerve in the eye or ear ?
The sensations must be supposed, in every theory,, to be the con-
sequents of states induced in some sensorial particles, and there is
nothing but the mere names of brain and nerve, invented by our-
selves, and the notions which we have chosen, without evidence,
to attach to these mere names, which would mark the sensorial
particles in the nervous expanse itself, as less fitted to be the im-
mediate antecedents of sight and hearing, than the similar sensori-
al particles in any portion of the central mass of the brain. There
is no reason, in short a priori, for supposing that a state of the sen-
sorial particles of the nerves cannot be the cause of sensation, and
that the sensation must be the effect of a state equally unknown,
of apparently similar particles, in that other part of the general
sensorial organ, which we have denominated the brain. Sensation,
indeed, is prevented by decay, or general disease of the brain, or
by separation of the nerve, or pressure on it, in any part of its
course. But it is far from improbable, that these causes, which
592 ON THE CORPOREAL PART OF
must evidently be injurions to the organ, may act, merely by pre-
venting that sound state of the nerve, which is necessary for sen-
sation, and which, in an organ so very delicate, may be affected by
the slightest influences,— by influences far slighter, than may nat-
urally be expected to result from such an injury of such a part.
The nerves and brain, together, form one great organ ; and a
sound state of the whole organ, even from the analogy of other
grosser organs, may well be supposed to be necessary for the heal-
thy state and perfect function of each separate part.
If, indeed, the appearance of the brain and nerves were such,
as marked them to be peculiarly fitted for the communication of
motion of any sort, there might be some presumption, from this
very circumstance, in favour of the opinion, that sensation takes
place, only after a progressive series of aflections of some sort,
propagated along the nerve to the interior brain. But it must be
remembered, that the nature, both of the substance of the nerves
themselves, and of the soft and lax substance, iu which they are
loosely embedded, renders them very ill adapted for the commu-
nication of nice varieties of motion, and gives some additionallike-
lihood, therefore, to the supposition, that aff"ections of the sensori-
al organ, so distinct as our sensations are from each other, and so
exactly corresponding with the slightest changes of external ob-
jects, do not depend on the progressive communication of faint and
imperceptible motion, in circumstances so uniavourable to the un-
interrupted progress even of that more powerful motion, which
can be measured by the eye. In a case so doubtful as this, how-
ever, in which the intervening changes supposed by philosophers,
— if such a progressive series of motions do really take place, —
are confessed to be beyond our observation, it is impossible for any
one, who has a just sense of the limits, which nature has opposed
to our search, to pronounce with certainty, or even perhaps with
that faint species of belief, which we give to mere probability.
My conjectures on the subject, therefore, 1 state simply as conjec-
tures, and nothing more.
If, indeed, what is but a mere conjecture could be shown to be
well foundfui, it would add another case to the innumerable in-
stances, in which philosophers have laboured, for ages, to explain
what «lid not exist, — contenting themselves, after their long toil,
with tiie skill and industry which they have exhibited, in removing
THE PROCESS, IN SENSATIOX. 293
difficulties, which they had before, with great skill and industry,
placed in their own way. " I am not so much convinced of our
radical ignorance," says an ingenious writer, " by the things that
are. of which the nature is hid from us, as by the things that are
not, of which notwithstanding we contrive to give a very tolera-
-ble account; for this shev^s that we are not merely without the
principles which lead to truth, but that there are other principles
in our nature, which can accommodate themselves very well, and
form a close connexion, with what is positively false."
But whatever reason there may be for removing this supposed
link of the corporeal part of the process of sensation, there is an-
other prior link, which it appears to me of great importance to
separate from the chain. I allude to the distinction, which is com-
monly made, of the objects of sense, as acting themselves on our
organs, or as acting through what is termed a medium.
'' A second law of our nature," says Dr Reid, " regarding per-
ception is, that we perceive no object, unless some impression is
made upon the organ of sense, either by the immediate applica-
tion of the object, or by some medium which passes between the
object and the organ. In two of our senses, to wit, totich and taste,
there must be an immediate application of the object to the organ.
In the other three, the object is perceived at a distance, but still
by means of a medium, by which some impi^essioa is made upon
the organ. The effluvia of bodies drawn into the nostrils, with
the breath, are the medium of smell; the undulations of the air,
are the medium of hearing ; and the rays of light passing from vis-
ible objects to the eye, are the medium of sight. We see no ob-
ject, unless rays of light come from it to the ej-e. We hear not
the sound of any body, unless the vibrations of some elastic medi-
um, occasioned by the tremulous motion of the sounding body,
reach our ear. We perceive no smell, unless the effluvia of the
smelling body enter into the nostrils. We perceive no taste, un-
less the sapid body be applied to the tongue, or some part of the
organ of taste. Nor do we perceive any tangible quality of a body,
unless it touch the hands, or some part of our body."*
it is evident, that, in these cases of a supposed medium, which
Dr Reid considers as forming so important a distinction of our sen-
sations, the i^eal object of sense is not the distant object, but that
*0n the Infellectual Powers, Essay II. chap. ii.
294 ON THE CORPOREAL PART OF
which acts immediate 1}^ upon the organs, — the light itself, not the
Sim wh.ch beams it on us, — the odorous pai'ticles, which the wind
has wafted to us from the rose, not the rose itself upon its stem, —
the vibrations of the air, within our ear, not the cannon that is fir-
ed at the distance of miles. The light, the odour, the vibrating
air, by which alone our senses are affected, act on our nerves of
sight, of smell, and hearing, with an influence as direct, and as lit-
tle limited in the kind of action, as that with which the fruit, which
we eat or handle, acts on our nerves of taste or touch. This in-
fluence of the objects immediately external is all, in which our or-
gans of sense, and consequently the mind as the principle of mere
sensation, is concerned. The reference to the distant sun, or rose,
or cannon, which alone leads us to speak of a medium in any of
these cases, is the effect of another principle of our intellectual na-
ture, — the principle of association, or suggestion, — that is after-
wards to be considered by us, without which, indeed, our mere
transient sensations would be comparatively of little value ; but
which, as a quality or susceptibility of the mind, is not to be con-
founded with that, by which the mind becomes, instantly sentient,
inconsequence of a certain change produced in the state of its sen-
sorial organ. •
Since, however, precisely the same series- of changes must
take place in nature, whether we class the sun, the flower, the
cannon, as the objects of sense, or merely the light, the odorous
particles, and the vibrating air, it may perliaps be thought, that
the distinction now made is only a verbal one, of no real impor-
tance. But it will not appear such to those who are conversant
with the different theories of perception which we are afterwards
to review ; many of which, that have had the greatest sway, and
a sway the most fatal to the progress of intellectual philosophy,
af.pcar, to me, to have arisen entirely, or at least chiefly, from
this very misconception as to the real external object of sense. It
is suflicient at present to allude to tlie eflect, which the mere
distance of the supposed object must have had, in giving room to
all the follies of imagination to fill up the interval.
It may be necessary, however, to remark by the way, that
tho\jgh I do not conceive the bodies which act through a me-
dium, as it is said to be the real objects of fbo particular sense;
— the immense orb of the sun, for cxanii)lo. in all its magnitude.
THE PROCESS, IN SENSATION. 295
to be the object of that small organ by which we are sensible of
light ; or the cannon, which exists we know not where, to be the
object of that organ by which we are sensible of sound ; — I am
still far from objecting to the popular and very convenient
phraseology, by which we speak of seeing the sun, and hearing
the cannon — a phraseology that expresses briefly a reference,
which could not otherwise be expressed but by a very awkward
circumlocution, and to make any innovation in which would be as
absurd, as to reject the popular phrases of the sun's rising and
setting merely because they are inconsistent with our astronomi-
cal belief The most rigid philosophy can require no more, than
that, when we talk of the sun's actual setting, we should mean by
it, only a certain position relative to that great luminary at which
the earth arrives in its diurnal revolution, — and that, when we
talk of seeing it descend, we should mean nothing more, than that
we see light of a certain brilliancy, from which we infer the ex-
istence and relative position of the orb that has projected it.
I have been led into these observations, on the various parts
of the corporeal process which precedes sensation", by the de-
sire of removing, as much as possible, any obscurity in which
your notions on the subject might be involved, — as I know well
the influence which even a slight confusion in our notion of any
part of a comphcated process has, in spreading, as it were, its own
darkness and perplexity over parts of the process, which other-
wise we should have found no difficulty in comprehending. You
might think, that you knew less distinctly the mental sensation itself,
because you knew only obscurely the series of bodily changes that
precede sensation ; but still it must be I'emembered, that it is only
the last link of the corporeal chain, — the ultimate affection of the
sensorial organ, in whatever manner and to whatever extent it
may be affected, — immediately antecedent to the affection of the
mind, which is to be considered as that with which nature has unit-
ed the corresponding change in our mental frame. This myste-
rious influence of our bodily on our mental part has been poetical-
ly compared to that which the sun was supposed to exercise on a
lyre, that formed part of a celebrated Egyptian statue of Mem-
non, which was said to become musical when struck with its
beams ; and though the poet has extended the similitude, beyond
our mere elementary sensations, to the complex perception of
296 ON THE CORPOREAL PART OF
beauty, it is still a very happy illustration — as far as a mere po-
etic image can be an illustration — of the power which matter ex
ercises over the harmonies of mind : —
" For as old Meranon's image, long renown
By fabling Nilus, to the quivering touch
Of Titan's raj with each repulsive string
Consenting, sounded through the warbling air
Unbidden strains,— even so did Nature's hand.
To certain species of external things
Attune the finer organs of the mind.
So the glad impulse of congenial power*,
Or of sweet sound, or fair proportioned form.
The grace of motion, or the bloom of light.
Thrills through Imagination's tender frame,
From nerve to nerve. All naked and alive.
They catch the spreading rays ; till now the soul
At length discloses every tuneful spring,
To that harmonious movement from without
Responsive. Then the charm, by Fate prepar'd
Diffuses its enchantment.* Fancy dreams
Of sacred fountain?, and Elysian groves.
And vales of bliss ! the Intellectual Power
Bends from his awful throne a wondering ear,
And smiles ; the Passions, gently soothed away,
Sink to divine repose ; and Love and Joy
Alone are waking. "t
When we consider the variety of our feehngs thus wonder-
fully produced, — the pleasures^ and, still more, the inexhaustible
knowledge, which arise, by this mysterious harmony, from the im-
perceptible affection of a few particles of nervous matter, it is im-
possible for us not to be impressed with more than admiration of
that Power, which even our ignorance, that is scarcely capable of
seeing any thing, is yet, by the greatest of all the bounties of
heaven, able to perceive and admire. In the creation of this in-
ternal world of thought, the Divine Author of our being has
*" Then the charm," &c. to "enchantment," from the second form
of the Poem. The corresponding clause, in the first form, from which all the
rest of the quotation is taken, is this,
" Then the inexpressive strain
Diffuses its enchantment."
t Pleasures of ImDginatiou, Book I. v. 109—131.
THE PROCESS, IN SENSATION. 297
known how to combine infinity itself wiih that which may almost
be considered as the most tinite of things ; and has repeated, as it
were, in every mind, by the almost creative sensibilities with
which He has endowed it, that simple but majestic act of omnipo-
tence, by which, originallj'^. He called from the rude elements of
chaos, or ratlier from nothing, all the splendid glories of the uni-
verse.
38
298
LECTURE XX.
PARTICULAR CONSIDERATION OF OUR SENSATIONS. NAIMELESS
TRIBES OF SENSATIONS SENSATIONS OF SMELL OF TASTE
OF HEARING.
A CONSIDERABLE portion of ray last Lecture, Gentlemen, was
employed in illustrating the corporeal part of the process of per-
ception, which, though less immediately connected with our Sci-
ence than the mental part of the process, is still, from its intimate
connexion with this mental part, not to be altogether neglected
by the intellectual inquirer. The importance of clear notions
of the mere organic changes is, indeed, most strikingly exemplified
in the very false theories of perception which have prevailed, and
in some measure still prevail ; and which evidently, in part at
least, owe their origin to those confused notions, to which i allud-
ed in my last Lecture, of the objects of perception, as supposed
to operate at a distance through a medium, and of complicated se-
ries of changes supposed to take place in the nerves and brain.
In considering the Phenomena of our Mind, as they exist when
we are capable of making them subjects of reflection, 1 mentioned
to you, in a former Lecture, that although we have to encounter
many additional dilTiculties, in consequence of early associations,
that modify forever after our original elementary feelings, with
an influence that is inappreciable by us, because it is truly unpcr-
ceived, there are yet some advantages, which though they do
not fully compensate this evil, at least enable us to make some de-
duction from its amount. The benefit to which 1 allude, is found
chiedy in the class of phenomena which we are now considering,
a class, iudoetl, which otherwise we should not have regarded
as half so comprehensive as it truly is^, since, but for our previous
PARTICULAR CONSIDERATION, ETC. 299
belief of the existence of a permanent and independent system
of external things acquired from other sources, we should have
classed by far the greater number of the feelings, which we now
refer to sense, among those which arise spontaneously in the mind,
without any cause external to the mind itself
Though the sensations, which arise from affections of the same
organ — as those of warmth and extension for example, or at least
the feeling of warmth and a tactual feeling, that is commonly sup-
posed to involve extension, from affections of the same nerves of
touch, — are not, in every case, more analogous to each other,
than the sensations which arise from affections of different organs,
— and though, if we were to consider the sensations alone, therefore,
without reference to their organs, we might not form precisely
the same classification as at present, — the division, according to
the organs affected, in most cases corresponds, so exactly, with
that which we should make, in considering the mere sensations as
affections of the mind, and affords in itself a principle of classifica-
tion, so obvious and definite, that we cannot hesitate, in prefer-
ring it to any other which we might attempt to form. In the ar-
rangements of every science, it is of essential consequence, that
the lines of difference, which distinguish one class from another,
should be well marked ; and this advantage is peculiarly impor-
tant in the science of mind, the objects of which do not, as in the
other great department of nature outlast inquiry, but are, in every
case, so very shadowy and fugitive, as to flit from us, in the very
glance, that endeavours to catch their almost imperceptible out-
line.
In examining, then, according to their organs, our classes of
sensation ; and considering what feelings the organic affections
excite at present^ and what we may suppose them to have excited
originally, — I shall begin with those which are most simple, taking
them in the order of smell, taste, hearing, — not so much, from any
hope, that the information, which these afford will throw any
great light on the more complex phenomena of sight and touch,
as because the consideration of them is easier, and may prepare
you gradually for this difficult analysis, which awaits us after-
wards, in the examination of those more perplexing phenomena.
I begin, then, with the consideration of that very simple order
of our sensations which we ascribe to our organ of
300 ON SMELL.
SMELL.
The organ of smell, as you well know, is principally in the
nostrils, — and partly also in some continuous cavities on which a
portion of the olfactory nerves is diffused.
Naribus interea consedit odora hominum vis
Docta leves captare aura^, Panchaia quales
Vere novo exhalat, Floraeve quod oscula fragrant
Roscida, cum Zephyri furtim sub vesperis hora
Respondet votis, mollemque aspirat amorem.*
When the particles of odour affect our nerves of smell, a certaiu
state of mind is produced, varying with the nature of the odorife-
rous body. The mere existence of this state, is all the informa-
tion which we could originally have received from it, if it had
been excited previously to our sensations of a different class.
But, with our present knowledge, it seems immediately to com-
mimicate to us much more important information. We are not
merely sensible of the particular feeling, but we refer it, in the
instant,— almost in the same manner, as if the reference itself
were involved in the sensation,— to a rose, hemlock, honeysuckle,
or any other substance, agreeable or disagreeable ; the immedi-
ate presence, or vicinity of which we have formerly found to be
attended with this particular sensation. The power of making
the reference, however, is unquestionably derived from a source
different from that, from which the mere sensation is immediately
derived. We must previously have seen, or handled, the rose,
the hemlock, the honeysuckle ; or if, without making this partic-
ular reference, we merely consider our sensation ol smell as caus-
e<l by some unknown object external to our mind, we must at least
have previously seen or handled some other bodies, which excit-
ed, at the same time, sensations analogous to the present. II we
had been endowed with the sense of smell, and with no other
sense whatever, the sensations of this class would have been sim-
ple feelings of pleasure or pain, which we should as little have as-
cribed to an external cause, as any of our spontaneous feelings of
joy or sorrow, that are r(|ually lasting or o(|u:tlly transient. Even
• Gray de Principiis Cogitandi, Lib. I. v. 130—134.
ON SMELL, 301
at present, after the connexion of our sensations of a fragrance
with the bodies which we term fragrant, has been, in a great
measure, tixed in our mind, by innumerable reflections, we still,
if we attend to the process of the reference itself, are conscious
of a suggestion of remembrance, and can separate the sensation,
as a mere feeling of the mind, from the knowledge of the object
or external cause of the sensation, which seems to us a subse-
quent state of the mind, however close the succession may be. In-
deed, what is there which we can discover, in the mere sensation of
fragrance, that is itself signiHcant of solidity, extension, or what
ever we may regard as essential to the existence of things with-
out ? As a mere change in the form of our being, it may suggest
to us the necessity of some cause or antecedent of the change.
But it is far trom implying the necessity of a corporeal cause ; —
any more than such a direct corporeal cause is implied in any
other modification of our being, intellectual or moral, — in our be-
lief, for example, of the most abstract truth, at which we may
have arrived by a slow developement of proposition after propo-
sition, in a process of internal reflective analysis, — or in the most
refined and sublime of our emotions, when, without thinking of
any one of the objects around, we have been meditating on the
Divinity who formed them — himself the purest of spiritual exis-
tences. Our belief of a system of external things, then, does not,
as far as we can judge from the nature of the feelings, arise from
our sensations of smell, more than from any of our internal pleas-
ures or pains ; but we class our sensations of smell as sensations,
because we have previously believed in a system of external
things, and have found, by uniform experience, that the introduc-
tion of some new external body, either felt or seen by us, was the
antecedent, of those states of mind which we denominate sensa-
tions of smell, and not of those internal pains or pleasures, which
we therefore distinguish from them, as the spontaneous affections
of our own independent mind.
ON TASTE.
With the organ of taste you are all sufficiently acquainted. la
considering the phenomena, which it presents, in the peculiar sen-
sations that directly flow from it, it is necessary to make some lit-
302 ON TASTE,
tie abstraction from the sensation of touch, which accompanies
them, in consequence of the immediate application of the tangible
sapid body to the organ ; but the sensations, thus co-existing, are
so very different in themselves, as to be easily distinguishable.
When the organ of taste is in a sound state, the application of
certain substances produces, immediately, that change or affec-
tion of the sensorial organs, which is attended with a correspond-
ino- chano-e or affection of the sentient mind. In our present state
of knowledge, we immediately refer this simple sensation, to
something, which is bitter, or sweet, or acrid, or of som.e other
denomination of sapid quality; and we have no hesitation, in class-
ing the sensations as sensations, — effects of laws of action that be-
long jointly to matter and mind, — not as feelings that arise in the
mind, from its own independent constitution. But, if we attend
sufficiently to the feeling that arises in the case of taste, we shall
find, however immediate the reference to a sapid body may seem
to be, that it is truly successive to the simple sensation, and is the
mere suggestion of former experience, when a body previously
recognized by us as an external substance, was applied to our or-
gan of taste ;— in the same manner, as, when we see ashes and
dying embers, we immediately infer some previous combustion,
which we could not have inferred, if combustion itself had been a
phenomenon altogether unknown to us. In the simple sensation
which precedes the reference,— the mere pleasure of sweetness
or the mere pain of bitterness— there is nothing which seems to
mark more distinctly the presence of honey or wormwood, or any
similar external substance, than in any of our joys or sorrows, to
which we have not given a name ; and there can be no doubt,
that, if the particular feeling which we now term joy, and the
particular feeling which we now term sorrow, had been excited,
whenever we knew, from other sources, that certain bodies were
applied to the tongue, we should have considered these internal
feelings as sensations, in the strict sense of the word, precisely in
the same manner, as wo now regard, as sensations, the feeling
which we term sweetness, and the feeling which we term bitter-
ness, because, like these sensations, they could not have failed to
suggest to us, by the common inlluenre of association, the pres-
ence and direct coinrideirce of the object without. In the case of
taste, therefore, as in the case of smell, we could not, from the
ON TASTE. 303
simple sensations, — if these alone had been given to us, — have de-
rived any knowledge of an external world, of substances extend-
ed and resisting ; but we consider them as sensations, in the strict
philosophic meaning of the term, because we have previously ac-
quired our belief of an external world.
It may be remarked of these two classes of sensations, now con-
sidered, that they have a greater mutual resemblance, than our
sensations of any other kind. It is only a blind man who thinks,
that what is called scarlet is like the sound of a trumpet ; but there
are tastes which we consider as like smells^ in the same manner as
we consider them to be like other tastes ; and, if we had not ac-
quired a distinct knowledge of the seats of our different organs,
and had yet known that smells and tastes arose from external caus-
es acting upon some one or other of these, we should probably
have been greatly puzzled, in many cases, in our attempt to refer
the particular sensation to its particular organ.
In considering the advantages which we derive from our or-
gans of smell and taste, the mere pleasures which they directly af-
ford, as a part of the general happiness of life, are to be regarded,
from their frequent occurrence, as of no considerable amount. The
fragrance of the tields enters largely into that obscux'e but delight-
ful group of images, which rise in our minds on the mere names
of springs summer, the country, and seems to represent the very
form of ethereal purity, as if it were the breath of heav§n itself
If we imagine all the innumerable flowers which nature pours
out, like a tribute of incense to the God who is adorning her, again
to be stripped, in a single moment, of their odour, though they
were to retain all their bright diversities of colouring, it would
seem as if they were deprived of a spirit which animates them, —
how cold and dead would they instantly become, — and how much
should we lose of that vernal joy, which renders the season of
blossoms almost a new life to ourselves.
" In vain the golden Morn aloft
Waves her dew-bespangled win^ ;
With vermeil cheek and whisper soft
, She woos the fardy Spring ;
Till April starts, and calls around
The sleeping fragrance from the ground."*
*Gray on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude, Stanza I. — In v. i. the
original has, instead of " in vain," " now."
304 ON TASTE.
It is by this delightful quality that the tribes of vegetable life
seem to hold a sort of social and spiritual communion with us. It
is, as it were, the voice with which they address us, and a voice
which speaks only of happiness. To him who walks among the
flowers which he has tended,
" Each odoriferous leaf,
Each opening blossona, freely breathes abroad
Its gratitude, and thanks him with its sweets."
The pleasures of the sense of taste, in the moderate enjoyment
of which there is nothing reprehensible, are, in a peculiar man-
ner, associated with family happiness. To have met frequently at
the same board, is no small part of many of the delightful remem-
brances of friendship ; and to meet again at the same board, after
years of absence, is a pleasure that almost makes atonement for
the long and dreary interval between. In some half-civilized
countries, in which the influence of simple feelings of this kind is
at once more forcible in itself', and less obscured in the confusion
of ever varying frivolities and passions, this hospitable bond
forms, as you well know, one of the strongest ties of mutual obli-
gation, suflicient often to check the impetuosity of vindictive pas-
sions which no other remembrance could, in the moment of fury,
restrain. Had there been no pleasure attached to a repast, inde-
pendent ^f the mere relief from the pain of hunger, the coarse
and equal food would probably have been taken by each individ-
ual apart, and might even, like our other animal necessities, have
been associated with feelings which would have rendered solitude
a duty of external decorum. It would not be easy, even for those
who have been accustomed to trace a simple cause through all its
remotest operations, to say, how much of happiness, and how much
even of the warm tenderness of virtue, would be destroyed, by the
change of manners, which should simply put an end to the social
meal; tliut meal which now calls all the members of a family to
suspend their cares for a while, and to enjoy that cheerfulness,
which is best redected from others, and which can be pennanent
only when it is so reflected, from soul to soul, and from eye to eye.
One \ciy important advantage, more directly obvious than
(his, and (if a kind \vlii«;h every one may be disposed more readily
to admit, i-j aflorded by our senses of bmell and taste, in guiding
oar HEARING. 305
our selection of the substances which we take as alimentary. To
the other animals, whose senses of this order are so much quicker,
and whose instincts, in accommodation to their want of general lan-
guage, and consequent difficulty of acquiring knowledge by mutual
communication, are providentially allotted to them, in a degree,
and of a kind, far surpassing the instincts of the .«Iow but noble
reflector man^ these senses seem to furnish immediate instruction as
to the substances proper for nourishment, to the exclusion of those
which would be noxious. To man^ however, who is under the
guardianship of affections more beneticial to him than any instinct
of his own could be, there is no reason to believe, that they do
this primarily^ and of themselves, though, in the state in which he
is brought up, instructed with respect to every thing noxious or
salutarv, by those who watch constantly over him in the early pe-
riod of his life, and having, therefore, no necessity to appeal to the
mere discrimination of his own independent organs, and, still more,
as in the artificial state of things, in which he lives, his senses are
at once perplexed and palled, by the variety and confusion of lux-
urious preparation, it is not easy to say, how far his primary in-
stincts, — if it had not been the high and inevitable dignity of his
nature to rise above these, — might, of themselves, have operated
as directors. But, whatever their primary influence may be, the
secondary influence of his organs of taste and smell is not the less
important. When we have once completely learned what substan-
ces are noxious, and what are salutary, we then, however similar
they may be in their other sensible qualities, discriminate these as
often as they are again presented to us, by that taste or smell, which
they aflfect with different sensations ; and our acquired knowledge
has thus ultimately, in guiding our choice, the force and the vivac-
ity of an original instinct.
HEARING.
In considering the phenomena of the sense of hearing, to which
I now proceed, I may apply to them the same remark, which has
been already applied to the phenomena of the senses before con-
sidered. They are classed by us, as sensations, merely in conse-
quence of our previous belief in the existence of those external
30
306 ON HEARING.
bodies, the motion of which we have known to be followed by sinri"
ilar feelings. Our mind begins suddenly to exist in a certain state ;
and we call this state joy or sorrow, without supposing that it de-
pends on the immediate presence of any external object. It be-
gins again to exist, in a different state, and we say, that we hear a
Jlute^ referring the feeling immediately to an external caiise. But
there can be no doubt, that, in making this reference, in the one case,
and not in the other, we are iutluenced by experience, and by ex-
perience alone. If we suppose ourselves endowed with the single
sense of hearing, and incapable therefore of having previously seen
or felt the flute, which is breathed before us, or any other extend-
ed and resisting object whatever, we may imagine the mere sound
to recur, innumerable times, without discovering any mode by
which it can give us more knowledge, than we should receive
from a similar recurrence of any internal joy or sorrow. That we
shoijid be able to refer it to a body, such as we now mean, when
we speak of a flute, is manifestly impossible ; since this implies
knowledge of solidity^ and/orm, and colour, which could not be ac-
quired without touch and sight. But there seems even no reason
to think, that we should refer it to any external cause whatever,
unless, indeed, such a reference necessarily accompanied every
feeling, which we know is far from being the case, since we have
many internal pleasures, not more like to each other, than they
are to the sound of a flute, which we do not refer to any thing,
separate or separable, from the constitution of our own mind. In
hearing, therefore, as in taste and smell, we do not derive Irom its
sensations our knowledge of things external, but, in consequence ot
our knowledge of things external, we regard these feelings, as sen-
sations, in the common philosophic meaning of that term.
Simple as our sense of hearing may seem, it affords a striking
specimen of that almost infinite variety, which is not inconsistent
with the closest resemblance; and the notion which we may form
of the innurnerable varieties of sound, is perhaps not more vast,
when we attempt to wander over its boundless discrepancies, than
when we limit ourselves to its greatest similarities, in a single word
of a language, or, in that which we might be inclined at first to re-
gard as siinjjlicity itself, a single mnnicul tone.
"A flute, a violin, a hautboy, and a French horn,'" it has been
truly remarked, " may all sound the same tone, and be easily dis-
ON HEARING. 307
iino"uishable. Na}', if twenty human voices sound the same note,
and with equal strength, there will still be some difference. The
mine voice, while it retains its proper distinctions, may be varied
many ways, by sickness or health, youth or age, leanness or fat-
ness, good or bad humour. The saine words, spoken by foreigners
and natives, nay, by different provinces of the same nation, may
be very easily distinguished.'-*
When we speak of the value of this sense as a part of our
mental constitution, it is enough to say, that it is to it we are indi-
rectly indebted for the use of verbal language, — that power so pe-
culiarly distinctive of inan^ that, in the poetical phraseology of one
celebrated country, it gave him his name as a divider of the voice^
or, in other words, an utterer of articulate sounds. If we con-
sider speech simply as a medium of the reciprocal expression
of present feelings to the httle society of citizens and friends of
which we are a part, even in this limited view, of what inesti-
mable value does it appear ! To communicate to every one around
us, in a single moment, the happiness which we feel ourselves, —
to express the want, which we have full confidence, will be re-
lieved as soon as it is known, — or to have the still greater priv-
ilege of being ourselves the ministers of comfort to wants, which
otherwise could not have been relieved by us, because they could
not have been discovered, — when the heart which we love is
weighed down with imaginary grief, to have it in our power, by
a few simple sounds, to convert anguish itself into rapture, — these
are surely no slight advantages ; and yet compared with the bene-
fit which it affords to man as an intellectual being, even these are in
considerable. To be without language, spoken or written, is almost
to be without thought ; and if, not an individual only, living among
his fellows whose light may be reflected upon him, but our whole
race had been so constituted, it is scarcely possible to conceive
that beings, whose instincts are so much less various and power-
ful than those of the other animals, could have held over them
that dominion, which they now so easily exercise. Wherever
two human beings, therefore, are to be found, there language is.
We must not think, in a speculative comparison of this sort, of
mere savage life ; for the rudest savages would be as much supe-
*Reid'« Inquiry into the Ilumaa Mind, c. iv, sect. 1.
3Q8 ON HEARING. » /
rior to a race of beings without speech, as the most civilized na-
tions at this moment are, compared with the halt^-brutal wander-
ers of forests and desarts, whose ferocious ignorance seems to
know httle more than how to destroy and be destroyed. Even
these are still associated in tribes, that concert together verbally
their schemes of havoc and defence ; and employ, in deliberating
on the massacre of beings as little human as themselves, or the
plunder of a few huts, that seem to contain nothing but misery
and the miserable, the same glorious instrument with which Soc-
rates brought wisdom down from heaven to earth, and Newton
made the heavens themselves, and all the wonders which they
contain, descend, as it were to be grasped and measured by the
feeble arm of man.
Such are the benefits of language, even in its fugitive state ;
but the noblest of all the benefits which it confers, is in that perma-
nent' transmission of thought, which gives to each individual the
powers and the wisdom of his species ; or, rather,— for the united
powers and wisdom of his species, as they exist in myriads, at the
same moment with himself, upon the globe, would be comparative-
ly a trilling endowment,— it gives him the rich inheritance of the
accumulated acquisitions of all the multitudes, who, like himself,
in every preceding age, have inquired, and meditated, and patient-
ly discovered, or by the happy inspiration of genius, have found
truths which they scarcely sought, and penetrated, with the rapid-
ity of a single glance, those depths of nature, which the weak
steps and dim torch-light of generations afirr generations had vain-
ly laboured to explore. By that happy invention, which we owe
indirectly to the ear, the boundaries of time seem to be at once
removed. Nothing is past ; for every thing lives, as it were, be-
fore us. The thoughts of beings who had trod the most distant
Boil, in the most distant period, arise again in our mind, with the
same warmth and freshness as when they first awoke to life in the
bosom of their author. That system of perpetual transmigration,
which was but a fahle, as believed by Pythagoras,— becomes re-
ality when it is applied, not to the soul itself, but to its feelings.
There ia then a true metempsychosis, by which the poet and the
sage, in spreading their conceptions and emotions from breast to
breast, may be said to extend their existence through an ever-
changing immortality. Who docs not feel the justness of what Lu-
OV HEARING. 309
can says, when he speaks of the events of PharsaUa, and predicts
the Uvely feelings with which they are afterwards to be regarded,
not as past, and therefore indifferent, but as present, and almost
future :
" Haec et apud seras gentes, populosque nepotum,
Sive sua tantuiu venient in secula fama, —
Sive aiiqiiid magnis nostri quoque cura laboris
Nominibus prodesse potest, — cum bella lesjentur,
Spesque metusque simul, perituraque vota inovebunt;
Attonitique oiunes, veluti venienlia fata
Non transmissa legent, et adliuc tibi magni farebunt."*
" There is without all doubt," as has been justly observed, '• a
chain of the thoughts of human kind, from the origin of the world
down to the moment at which we exist, — a chain not less univer-
sal than that of the generation of every being that lives. Ages
have exerted their influence on ages ; nations on nations ; truths
on errors ; errors on truths." In conformity with this idea of the
generation of thought, I may remark, that we are in possession of
opinions, — which, perhaps, regulate our life in its most important
moral concerns, or in all its intellectual pursuits, — with respect to
which, we are as ignorant of the original authors, by whom they
have been silently and imperceptibly transmitted to us from mind
to mind, as we are ignorant of those ancestors, on whose exist-
ence in the thousands of years which preceded our entrance into
the world, our life itself has depended, and without whom, there-
fore, we should not have been.
The unlimited transmission of thought, which the invention of
language allows, brings the universe of mind into that point of
view, in which an eloquent living French author has considered
the physical universe, — as exhibiting, at once, all its splendid va-
rieties of events, and uniting, as it were, in a single moment the
wonders of eternity. " Combine," says he, " by your imagina-
tion, all the fairest appearances of things. Suppose that you see,
at once, all the hours of the day, and all the seasons of the year,
— a morning of spring and of autumn, — a night brilliant with stars,
and a night obscure with clouds, — meadows, enamelled with flow-
ers, — fields, waving with harvest, — woods, heavy with the frosls of
winter, — you will then have a just notion of the spectacle of the
* Pharsalia, lib. vii. v. 207—213.
310 OK HEARING.
universe. Is it not wondrous, that while you are admiring the
sun who is plunging beneath the vault of the west, another ob-
server is beholding him as he quits the regions of the east, — in
the same instant reposing, weary, from the dust of the evening,
and awaking, fresh and youthful, in the dews of morn ! there is
not a moment of the day, in which the same sun is not rising,
shining in his zenith, and setting on the world ! or, rather, our
senses abuse us, and there is no rising, nor setting, nor zenith, nor
east, nor west ; but all is one fixed point, at which every species
of lio-ht is beaming at once from the unalterable orb of day."
In like manner, — If I may venture to consider the phenome-
na of the mind in the same fanciful point of view, — every mo-
ment may be said to be exhibiting the birth, and progress, and de-
cay of thought. Infancy, maturity, old age, death, are mingled,
as it were, in one universal scene. The opinions which are per-
ishing in one mind, are rising in another ; and often, perhaps, at
the last fading ray of the tlame of genius, that may have almost
dazzled the world with excess of brilliancy, some star may be
kindling, which is to shine upon the intellectual universe with
equal light and glory : —
" Flowers of the skj ! ye, too, to age must yield,
Frail, as your si'ikeo sisters of the field !
Star after star from Heaveu's high arch shall rush ;
Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush ;
Headlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall,
And Death, and iNight, and Chaos, mingle all '.
Till, o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,
Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form-,
Mour.ts from her funeral pyre on wings of dame,
And soars, and shines, — another, and the same."
Such are the benefits resulting from that happiest of all inven-
tions, which we may be said to owe to our sense of Hearing,— if,
indeed, it be an invention of man, and not rather, as many have
thought, a coeval power, bestowed on liim by his provident Crea-
tor at the very moment which gave him life. But still, whether
original or invented, the ear must equally have been its primary
recipient. We have seen, in the view which we have taken of it,
that of our more social intercourse it constitutes the chief delight,
• Darwin'* Botanic Garden, Canto IV. v, 371—380.
ON HEARING, 311
—giving happiness to hours, the wearying heaviness of which
must otherwise have rendered existence an insupportable bur-
then ; and that, in its more important character, as fixed, in the
imperishable records which are transmitted, in uninterrupted pro-
gression, from the generation which passes away to the genera-
tion that succeeds, it gives to the individual man^ the product of
all the creative energies of mankind ; extending, even to the
humblest intellect, which can still mix itself with the illustriouri
dead, that privilege, which has been poetically allotted to the im-
mortality of genius, of being '' the citizen of every country, and
the contemporary of every age.-'
I
312
LECTURE XXI.
ON HEARING CONTINUED.
Gentlemen, after considerinsr, in a former Lecture, some
states of mind, which arise immediately from affections of our
nerves, and which, therefore, I can see no reason for classing
apart from our other sensations, I proceeded, in my last Lecture,
to consider the feelings, which are more commonly termed sensa-
tions, beginning with the most simple of these, in the order of
smell, laste, and hearing.
In the elucidation of these, my great object was to show, that
there is nothing, in the mere states of mind, that constitutes the
sensations of fragrance, sweetness, sound, which could have led us
to ascribe them to corporeal objects as their causes,— more than
in any of our internal joys or sorrows,— if we had had no other
means of acquiring knowledge of those causes, than are afforded
by the sensations themselves,— that, in short, we consider them
as sensations, or external affections of the mind, because we have
previously believed in an external world,— not that we believe m
an external world, merely because we have had those particular
sensations. ,
The various advantages, which these three senses afford, 1
endeavoured to point out to you ; and, in particular occupied a
groat part of my Lecture, in illustrating the advantages lor which
we are indebted to our organ of hearing, as the medium of la7i-
^uage, and by it, more or less directly, not of the high acquisi-
tions of science and civilization only, but of the rudest forms ol
social communication, and almost of social existence.
After the remarks on this advantage received from langmge,
which is unqueslionablv, and beyond all cnmi.ari^on, Ihc most in-
estimable benefit which the sense of hearing affords,-it would be
ON HEARING. 313
improper to omit wholly the mention of the pleasure, which we
receive from it, as a source of musical delight, — of that expres-
sion of feeling, which itself, almost like verbal discourse, may be
said to be a language, since it is the utterance of thought and
emotion from heart to heart, — but which has a voice, as indepen-
dent of the mere arbitrary /orms of speech., as the tears of grati-
tude, or the smiles of love, that may indeed, give eloquence to
words., but require no words to render them eloquent. Though,
when very strictly considered, even the pure, and almost spiritu-
al delight of music, may perhaps be counted only a pleasure of
sense, it yet approaches, by so many striking analogies, to the na-
ture of our intellectual enjoyments, that it may almost be said to
belong to that class ; and though, — relatively to minds that are
capable of enjoyments more truly intellectual, — it is to be consid-
ered as a mere pastime or relaxation, it assumes a far higher
character, in its relation to the general pleasures of common
minds, and may be said, at least, to be the intellectual luxury of
those, who are incapable of any other luxury, that deserves so
honourable a name. And it is well, that there should be some in-
termediate pleasure of this sort, to withdraw for a while the dull
and the sensual, from the grosser existence in which they may be
sunk, and to give them some glimpses, at least, of a state of purer
enjoyment, than that which is to be derived from the sordid gains,
and sordid luxuries, of common life.
Of the iniiuence, — whether salutary or injurious, — which mu-
sic has upon the general character, — when cultivated, to great re-
finement, and so universally as almost to become a part of the
habit of daily social life, — it is not, at present, the place to speak.
But of its temporary iniiuence, as a source of tranquillizing delight,
there can be no doubt, — nor, perhaps too, of its occasional effica-
cy, in exciting emotions of a stronger kind, when peculiar cir-
cumstances may have predisposed to them in a very high de-
gree. But there can be as little doubt, that by far the greater
number of anecdotes of this kind, which have been handed down
in ancient hifiorj'^, are as fabulous, as the existence of that god oj
music, to who?e miraculous influence alone, they could, with any
decent appearance of epic or dramatic truth, have been ascribed.
Henr, how Timotheua'' varied lays surprise,
And bid alternate passions fail aQd rise ;
40
314 ON HEARING.
While at each change, the son of Lybian Jove
Now burns with glory, and then melts with love, —
Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow,
Now, sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow ;
Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found,
And the world^s victor stood subdued— by sound !"*
On these lines, which ftllude to the celebrated ode of Dryden, —
who adapted, with most happy application, to the burning of the
Persian palace, an anecdote recorded of the power of Timotheus
over the sam€ great warrior, on another occasion, — I may remark,
by the way, what influence the accidental composition of this ode
has had, in giving almost a sort of dignity to the very madness of
the act which it records. It is impossible for us,— even though
we knew well how fictitious is the circumstance attached to it, —
not to look upon the action, in a different light, from that in which
we should have viewed it, if we had read only the historical ac-
count of it, as originating in a drunken debauch, at the instigation
of a drunken prostitute.
Such is the influence of genius. Its power extends not over
the present and the future merely, but, in some measure, also
over the past, which might have seemed fixed forever. In spite
of our conviction, we look upon an action of Alexander differently,
because an individual existed, many centuries after him, and in a
country which would then have been justly counted barbarous, by
the very barbarians whom he overcame.
Ebrio scorto de tanta re ferente sententiam, unus et alter, et
ipsi mero onerati, assentiunt : Rex quoque fuit avidior quam pa-
tientior. " Quin igitur ulcisimur Graeciara, et urbi faces subdi-
mus ?" Omnes incaluerant mero ; itaque surgunt tcmulenti ad in-
cendendam urbem, cui armati, pepercerant."t
Of the wonders, which were said, in ancient times, to have
been performed, on the mind and body, by a judicious adaptation
of musical sounds, to the nature of the particular case, intellectual,
moral, or corporeal, I might read many histories to you, from the
original authors, which would perhaps not be less truly lutUcrous
in the serious gravity of their narration, than in the aflectod so^
• Pope's Kssay on Criticism, v. 374 — 381.
i Quiatua Curtius, lib. v. cap. 7.
ON HEARING. 315
iemnity of the fictitious personag-e whose speech I am about to
quote. The experiment with which the quotation closes is, it
must be allowed, a very powerful one, and certainly could not
have been more successful, in the hands of Timotheus himself.
" The bare mention of music threw Cornelius into a passion.
' How can you dignify,' quoth he, ' this modern fiddling with the
name of music? Will any of your best hautboj's encounter a wolf
now-a-days with no other arms but their instruments, as did that
ancient piper Pythocaris ? Have ever wild boars, elephants,
deer, dolphins, whales, or turbots, shewed the least emotion at
the most elaborate strains of your modern scrapers, all which
have been, as it were tamed and humanized by ancient musicians?
Whence proceeds the degenerancy of our morals ? Is it not from
the loss of ancient music, by which (says Aristotle) they taught all
the virtues ? Else might we turn Newgate into a college of Do-
rian musicians, who should teach moral virtues to those people.
Whence comes it that our present diseases are so stubborn?
whence is it that I daily deplore my sciatical pains ? Alas ! be-
cause we have lost their true cure, by the melody of the pipe.
All this was well known to the ancients, as Theophrastus assures
us, (whence Caelius calls it loca dolentia decantare) only indeed
some small remains of this skill are preserved in the cure of the
Tarantula. Did not Pythagoras stop a company of drunken bullies
from storming a civil house, by changing the strain of the pipe to
the sober spondasus ? and yet your modern musicians want art to
defend their windows from common nickers. It is well know^n
that when the Lacedaemonian mob were up, they commonly sent
for a Lesbian musician to appease them, and they immediately
grew calm as soon as they heard Terpander sing : Yet I don't be-
lieve that the Pope's whole band of music, though the best of this
age, could keep his holiness's image from being burnt on a fifth oi
November.' ' Nor would Terpander himself,' replied Albertus,
' at Billingsgate, nor Timotheus at Hockley in the Hole, have any
manner of effect, nor both of them together bring Horneck to
common civility.' '^ That's a gross mistake,* said Cornelius, very
warml}', ' and to prove it so, I have here a small lyra of my own,
framed, strung, and tuned after the ancient manner. I can play
some fragments of Lesbian tunes, and I wish 1 were to try them
upon the most passionate creatures alive.' — ' You never had a
3lg ON HEARING.
"better opportunity,' says Albortus, ' for yonder are t^vo apple-wo-
men scolding, and just ready to uncoif one another.' With that
Cornelius, undressed as he was, jumps out into his balcony, his lyra
in hand, in his slippers,— with a stocking upon his head, and waist-
coat of murrey-coloured satin upon his body : He touched his lyra
with a very unusual sort of an harpegiatura, nor were his hopes frus-
trated. The odd equipage, the uncouth instrument, the strangeness
of the man and of the musx, drew the ears and eyes of the whole
mob that were got about the two female champions, and at last of
the combatants themselves. They ail approached the balcony, in
as close attention as Orpheus's first audience of cattle, or that of
an Italian opera, when some favourite air is just awakened. This
sudden effect of his music encouraged him mightily, and it was
observed he never touched his lyre in such a truly chromatic and
enharmonic manner as upon that occasion. The mob laughed,
sung, jumped, danced, and used many odd gestures, all which he
judged to be caused by the various strains and modulations.
' Mark,' quoth he, ' in this, the power of the Ionian, in that, you
see the effect of the iEolian.' But in a little time they began to
grow riotous, and threw stones ; Cornelius then withdrew. ' Broth-
er,' said he, ' do you observe 1 have mixed unawares too much of
the Phrygian? I might change it to the Lydian, and soften their
riotous tempers: But it is enough: learn from this sample to
speak with veneration of ancient music. If this lyre in my unskil-
ful hands can perform such wonders, what must it not have done
in those of a Timotheus or a Terpander?' Having said this he
retired with the utmost exultation in himself, and contempt of
his brother; and, it is said, behaved that night with such unusual
haughtiness to his family, that they all had reason to wish for
some ancient Tibicen to calm his temper."*
That, in enlightened countries, so many wonders should have
been related and credited, — if no phenomena that could justify
them were truly observed, — may perhaps on first reflection, ap-
pear so unaccountable, as almost to induce belief of the wonders
themselves, as less inexplicable than the very credit which was
given to them. But it must be remembered, that, in all ages,
and even in countries of pl)iIoso])hcr8, there is a very large fund
• Marl. Scrib. book I. c. 7. with some exclusione.
ON HEARING. 317
of credulity in man, — which yields, very readily, to every thing
that is not absolutely impossible, and which is even not very nice,
in estimating what is impossible, — leaning always, whenever there
is the slightest doubt on this point, with a very favourable inclina-
tion to the side of the possibility ; — and, in the second place, that
the phenomena of music are precisely of a kind, which gives this
credulity the widest scope. They are pleasing in themselves, and
of a kind therefore, on which it is gratilying to the imagination
to dwell — their influence on the mind is felt in a very high and
wonderful degree, even without any fabulous addition ; — they
are produced by instruments, which seem, in their sensible ap-
pearance, so little adequate to the production of them, that the
result is almost like the eifect of supernatural agency, to which
we know not how to give any limits ; — and, when a little mys-
tery is once admitted, the imagination, which has fairly got
over the difficulty of this first admission, is not very scrupulous af-
terwards as to degrees, but is sufliciently ready of itself to admit a
great deal more, without pausing to consider its exact amount.
The phenomena of music, in addition to their general interest,
are truly worthy, in another respect, &f our astonishment, from
that striking diversity of organic power in the perception of inelo'
dy and still more of harmony which they exhibit in different indi-
viduals, in whom all other circumstances are apparently the same,
— a diversity which has often attracted the attention of philoso-
phers, and has led even those who have no great tendency to spec-
ulation of any kind, to wonder at least, which is the first step of
all philosophizing. In the present instance, however, unfortunate-
ly, this first step is the only step which philosophers have been
able to take. They have been obliged to desist, after all their
efforts to proceed further, and to submit to share, and even to ac-
knowledge that they share, the ignorance of the vulgar. If, in-
deed, the want of musical ear had involved either a general defect
of hearing, or a general slowness of discrimination in other cases
of nice diversity, the wonder would not have been great. But
those, who are without ear for music, perceive as readily as oth-
ers, the faintest whisper ; — they distinguish like them, the faintest
shades of difference in the mere articulations of sound which con-
stitute the varieties of language, nor the articulations only, but the
differences also of the mere tones of affection or displeasure, grief
318 ON HEARING.
or gaiety, which are so strikingly analogous to the varied expres-
sion of n^'isical feeling; — and their power of discrimination in ev-
ery other case, in which the judgment can be exercised, is not
less perfect. Nay, — to increase still more the difficulty, — they
are often as sensible, as others, of the beauty of series of tones of
a different kind ; and some of our best poets and declaimers, — who
of course must have had a quick discernment of metrical rhythm,
and of the melody of elocution,— have yet been incapable of dis-
tinguishing the musical relations of sounds, as reciprocally high or
low, the melody that results from them in certain successions,
and the harmony or the discord of their union. That it depends,
chiefly, or perhaps entirely, on the structure or state of the mere
corporeal organ of hearing,— which is of a kind, it must be re-
membered, peculiarly complicated, and therefore susceptible of
great original diversity in the parts, and relations of the parts that
form it, is very probable ; though the diflerence of the separate
parts themselves, or of their relations to each other, may, to the
mere eye, be so minute, as never to be discovered by dissection,
thus leaving, to every future race of inquirers, the same difficul-
ty which has perplexed Mirselves, and the same impossibility of
overcoming it. In the sense of vision, I may remark, there is a
species of defect, very analogous to the want of musical ear,— a
defect, which consists in the difficulty, or rather the incapacity, of
distinguishing some colours from each other — and colours which,
lo general observers, seem of a very opposite kind. As the want
of musical ear implies no general defect of mere quickness of hear-
ing, this visual delect, in like manner, is to be found in persons,
who are yet capable of distinguishing, with perfect accuracy, the
form, and the greater or less brilliancy of the coloured object ;—
and I may remark too, in confirmation of the opinion, that the
want of musical ear depends on causes not me7itul but organic ; that,
in this analogous case, some attempts, not absolutely unsuccessful,
have been made, to explain the apparent confusion of colours, by
certain peculiarities of the external organ of sight. Though the
one case, however, were to throw no light upon the other, it is
still gratifying to philosophers, to have a case at all analogous, to
which, when they are weary of considering what has bafficd all
their endeavours to explain it. they m:iy have the comfort of turn-
in'- avvav their allenlion, without the mortification of seeming ab-
ON HEARING. 319
solutely to fly from the subject. Such is the strange constitution
of our nature, that merely to have another difficulty presented to
us, though it may yet be absolutely unsurmountable in itself, — if
only it have some slight resemblance to a former difficulty, — seems
to us almost as if we had succeeded in explaining the first ; — and
each difficulty, by a very convenient transposition, which our pride
knows well how to make, supplies, according as we may have
been considering the one rather than the other, the place of ex-
planation to that which is afterwards to explain it, no less clearly,
in its turn.
In considering sound relatively to its external cause, we give
the name of vibration to the successive pulses, or alternate ap-
proaches and recessions of the particles of the elastic sounding
body ; and the word is a very convenient one for expressing this
series. But still it may be necessary to warn you, that the word,
though single, is not the less expressive of a plurality of states,
which have no other unity, than as they are comprehended in this
single word, — a word, like many other single words, by which we
express the combination of various objects, or invented by us,
merely to aid our weakness, that is incapable, without such helps,
of conceiving or remembering even a small part of that wide se-
ries of physical changes, which we are able to discover in the uni-
verse, if each event of the series were to be distinguished bj' a pe-
culiar name. This mere aid of our weakness, however, we are
apt, by a very absurd, but a very general fallacy, to consider as
something, much more dignified in its nature than a mere arbitra-
ry verbal abbreviation, — as truly an explanation of the very phe-
nomena, or series of phenomena, which it simplj'^ designates. You
must not flatter yourselves, however, that you have advanced the
slightest step, in explaining the connexion of sound with the puls-
es of air, when you have merely invented a brief term for those
successive pulses, and ascribed the sound to vibration ; you have,
indeed, given a name to a series of corpuscular phenomena, but
you have not discovered any thing additional to the phenomena
themselves, which can be considered as explanatory to the changes
produced.
What, then, is truly meant, when it is said, that, for producing
the mental affection, which constitutes hearing, some previous vi-
bration is necessary ? It certainly cannot mean, as I have already
320 ON HEARING.
remarked, that the vibration is any thing in itself different from
the series of physical events which it expresses, however few or
numerous these may be, smce it is only the name which we give
to them, when we consider them together ; nor can it mean that
the direct cause of the sensation is any thing different from the one
or2-anic state immediately preceding the sensation, — a state which
may, indeed, have resulted from a long sequence of prior organic
states, produced during the continued vibratory motion of the air,
but which is itself, in its relation to the phenomenon which suc-
ceeds it, — that affection of the sentient mind which constitutes hear-
ings—to be considered independently of these prior states, that
have no other relation to the mind, than as gradually inducing that
ultimate organic state, which is the state that is followed by sensa-
tion. There is a part, less or greater, of the sensorial organ,
which must be affected, in a certain manner, before the sensation
of hearing can take place ; and, in vibration^ there is nothing but a
repeated approach and secession of the vibrating particles. If
vibration, then, or a series of pulses, be necessary, it is evident
that a corresponding series of changes in the organ is necessary ;
that is to say, there is no one instant, at which the vibrating parti-
cles are in such a state relatively to the sensorial organ, that if no
previous change had been excited in the organ itself, they could
have produced in it immediately, the precise state, which is in-
stantly followed by the mental affection of hearing. There must,
therefore, be a series of changes, in the sensorial organ itself, the
last of which only is followed by sensation. The particles of the
air, or any other elastic medium, for example, must, in their jfirsf
appulse, produce a certain state of the sensorial organ ; in their
second appulse, a different state, by acting on an organ, already af-
fected in a certain manner; in their third appulse, a still different
state ; and thus successively, till, at last, they produce that partic-
ular definite state of the sensorial organ, in consequence of which,
the mind becomes instantly sentient,— n state which could not have
been produced by any single impulse of the particles on the unaf-
fected organ, because then vibration, or a scries of pulses, would
not have been necessary.
To this successive modifiration of states of an organ, termi-
nating in a particular result, different from each of the prior states,
ihrre are ab.mdant analogies in the history of tho mind, and many
^ ON HEARING, 321
in the phenomena of sensation itself. One of the most remarka-
ble of these is the production of the sensation of whiteness^ by the
rapid revolution of a cylinder, on which the separate prismatic
colours, and the separate colours only, are painted, in certain pro-
portions ; each colour, in this case, acting- on the organ already af-
fected by a former colour, till a sensation altogether different from
the result of each of them when separate, is their joint ultimate
result, the sensation o{ whiteness^ without any external object that
is white.
In this way only, by a series of progressive organic affections,
and not by any single affection, can the vibration of an elastic me-
dium, as different from one simple unrepeated impulse, terminate
in the production of sound. It is, in short, a name for this series
of changes, and nothing more.
If, in a case so very obscure as that of musicaZ ear, in which all
that is truly evident, is, that in different individuals, there is a di-
versity of some kind or other — I could permit myself to indulge
any conjecture with respect to this diversity, — I might perhaps,
be inclined to look to the view now given of the real nature of
vibration, and its progressive effects on the auditory part of our
nervous system, as furnishing some slight ground, not, indeed, for
any theory, which is far too presumptuous a word, but for the
preference of one mere possibility, to other mere possibilities,
which is all that can be hoped in any conjecture, on so very dim
and impalpable a subject.
We have seen that the series of pulses of the vibrating air, —
if vibration, or a series of pulses be necessary to sound, — must pro-
duce a series of changes in the sensorial organ, which produce no
corresponding affection of the mind, till, at last, a state of the or-
gan is produced, which is attended with sensation. This, and this
only, can be meant, when we speak of vibration as the antecedent
of sound, — a series of organic changes, and, after this series, an
affection of the mind. In such circumstances, it is certainly more
probable, that the organ thus affected with a series of progressive
changes, does not pass instantly from the greatest change to tlie state
in which it was originally, before the first pulse, but that it retains
this state, for a time, however, short, or, at least, passes through
some series of states, in its gradual return, so that, if a new vibra-
tion be excited by the pulse of any sounding body, before the or-
41
322 ON HEARING.
gan of hearing have returned to its original state, the effect may
be supposed to be different from that which it would have been, if
the same vibration had been primarily communicated to the organ,
in its state of rest, or in that state, which, from our want of a bet-
ter word, may be termed its state of rest.
The phenomena most analogous to these vibratory affections
of the ear, as depending on successive impulses, are unquestiona-
bly the phenomena of titillation, or rather, to express what is so
famiUar and simple, by a more homely and appropriate word, the
phenomena of tickling. In this, the great circumstance distinguish-
ing musical feehug, is to be found, that the feeling arises not from
the separate impressions, but from their successions or co-exis-
tence. When the palm of the hand is gently tickled, as the finger
passes rapidly and repeatedly over the palm, the parts first affect-
ed are again affected with various degrees of pressure, as the ear,
in melody, is successively affected by repeated varieties of vibra-
tion ; and various parts of the organ of touch exist, at the same
moment, in various states, forming one joint result of sensation, as,
"* in harmony, various vibrations of the organ of hearing co-exist, and
blend together in one mingled delight. To produce tickling, a
certain rapidity of succession is necessary ; for, if the parts, first
affected, have returned to their original slate, before other parts
begin to be affected, or themselves to be affected again, the slow
motion, it is evident, may be continued, for any length of time,
without any effect, different from that of simple pressure. The
quicker, then, the return of the parts may be to their original state,
the less will be the titillation ; and, it is very probably, a differ-
ence in this quickness of return, which constitutes the difference
of ticklishness, so remarkable in different individuals, who feel,
equally, the light pressure of each separate touch. That there is
a difference of ticklishness, in different persons, you all know;
some being easily excited even to convulsive laughter, by slight
motions, that scarcely produce any effect in others, beyond that of
the simple primary sen.sation of touch. A person who is ticklish,
and a person who is not ticklish, agree in receiving tbis first tactu-
al sensation; but they differ afterwards, in this respect, that when
tbe same slight impulse is rapidly repeated, on the same surface,
it prodnc(;s a livelier effect than before, in the one, l)ul not in the
other. Tlie organ of the one who is not ticklish is in the same
ON HEARING. 323
State, or nearly in the same state, when it receives the second,
third, and fourth impression, as when it received the first, and no
peculiar excitement, therefore, is produced. The organ of the
other, more susceptible, or more tenacious of the affection produc-
ed, has not returned to its orig-'nal state, when the rapid impres-
sion is repeated, and is, therefore, at every new impression, af-
fected in a different manner.
^ Proceeding on the analogy of these phenomena, — of mere
ticklings with which I may suppose you to be all acquainted, — an
analogy which, striking as it is in many circumstances, i readily own,
does not justify more than conjecture in the case to which I would
apply it, — I conceive it to be, at least, not absolutely impossible,
since a diversity of some kind, there must be, that in those who
receive no pleasure from music, as in those who are not ticklish,
there is a rapid return of the nervous organ, after each separate
affection, to its original state ; that each separate touch or pres-
sure in the one case, and each separate tone in the other case,
produces its particular effect, — that effect which it would have
produced in all, if unaccompanied by any other tone in music, or
slight pressure in tickling, — but that a succession of these produc-
es no effect different irom that which each would have produced
singly. A certain interval is necessary for distinct hearing in
every case ; and, before this interval has passed, the auditory
nerves, in this case, may be imagined to be again quiescent, or
nearly quiescent.
1 need not add, that, in an inquiry of this sort, all which is ne-
cessary, is to account for the mere original defect of pleasure ;
since, if the relations of notes, as reciprocally high or low, never
gave any delight, the ear, having no object of interest in these
successions, would soon habitually neglect them, and at length
cease altogether to distinguish them, attending only to the verbal
meaning of sounds, and not to their tone ; in the same manner, as
we pay little attention to another relative difference of voices as
more or less loud, unless when the difference is very considera-
ble, and not in those common differences of intensity which dis-
tinguish every voice in conversation from every other voice, — or
as, after living long in a province, the dialect of which is distin-
guished by any accentual peculiarities, we at last become uncon-
scious of these, and hear the words, as it were, stripped of their
324 ^^ HEARING.
peculiarity of tone. In what is termed the cultivation of a musi-
cal ear, however, we have not an analogy merely, but a direct
proof of this influence of habit. That the ear may be improved
by cultivation, or, in other words, by nice attention to the differ-
ences of musical sound, every one knows; andif this attention can
enable us, even in mature life, to distinguish sounds as different
in themselves, which, but for the habitual attention, we should
have regarded as the same, it may well be supposed, that contin-
ued inattention, from earliest infancy, may render us insensible of
musical relations still more obvious and precise, than those which
we have thus only learned to distinguish ; or, which is the same
thing, that continued attention from infancy to slight musical dif-
ferences of sound,— an attention which may be regarded as the
natural effect of pleasure received,— may render us capable of
distinguishing tones as very dissimilar, the differences of which,
however obvious at present, we should scarcely, but for such
original attentive discrimination, have been able to detect. What,
in comparison, the refined musical ear of a performer,— almost
every hour, and every moment, of whose life has been spent amid
sounds,
" Untwisting all the chains, that tie
The hidden soul of harmony,^'—
is to a common musical car, that common musical ear may be to
those in whom this discriminating skill seems to be wholly or nearly
defective. The refined musician,— who, but for the long practice
ofhis art, would have shared that incapacity which now excites
his wonder,— is astonished, that persons of common ear do not
distinguish the nice differences which appear to him almost as re-
markable as those differences which they are capable of perceiv-
ing ; and the person of common musical ear only does the same
thing, when he is astonished that the less refined differences, re-
marked by himself, arc not obviously distinguishable by all man-
kind, or, at least, by all who have no deafness to incapacitate
them from hearing the separate sounds. The discrimination in
both has depended on jirevious attention, which has necessarily
ln-on greater in one case than in (he other; and what attention
r;in we siij.pose to have been originally given, if from the cause
which I have ventured to state as a possible one in persons with-
out musical ear. no pleasure had originally been felt by them in
ON HEARING. 325
any sequence of notes as successive, and the whole value of sound
been to them the meanhig of which it was symbolically represen-
tative, which, accordingly, they have learned to discriminate in
every case, as accurately as others.
I might follow out this speculation at much greater length ;
but I have already dwelt too long on what is at best a conjecture,
and what, perhaps, even as a mere conjecture, is founded only on
a slight analogy.
After the examination of the phenomena of Smelly Taste^ and
Hearings which are peculiarly simple, 1 proceed to the considera-
tion of Senses, which afford phenomena that are more complicat-
ed, or, at least, which seem more complicated, as considered in
the mature state of the mind ; when the sensations that arise
from one set of organs, by frequent co-existence with sensations
that arise from affections of other sets of organs, are, as it were,
blended with them in one compound perception, and so perma-
nently modified forever after, that it is difficult in all cases, and in
many cases perhaps impossible, to form any accurate notion of
the sensations as they existed in their original elementary state.
Since, of the two senses of Sight and Touch, that of Sight, — as
far, at least, as we are able, by intellectual anahsis at present to
discover its original sensations, — is more simple, and more analo-
gous to the senses before considered, I should be inclined, on these
accounts, to proceed to the consideration of it, previously to any
inquiry into the sense of Touch. But this order, though unques-
tionably the more regular, if we had to consider only the original
sensations of each organ, would be attended with great inconveni-
ence in considering their subsequent modified sensations ; since
those of Vision depend, in a very great degree, on the prior affec-
tions of Touch, with the nature of which, therefore, it is necessary
for you to be acquainted in the first place. I am aware, indeed, that,
in considering even Touch, I may sometimes find it necessary to
refer, for illustration to the phenomena of Vision, though these
have not been considered by us, and must, thei'efore, for the time,
be taken upon trust. But when phenomena are at all complicat-
ed, such occasional anticipations are absolutely unavoidable. Sen-
sation, indeed, says Aristotle, is a straight line, while intellect is a
circle, — yfiod>]oig ygufAfif], vovg y.vxXog, — or to use the paraphras-
tic translation of Cudworth, in his treatise on Immutable Morality,
326 <5N TOUCH.
" Sense is of that which is without. Sense wholly gazes and
gads abroad ; and, therefore, doth not know and comprehend its
object, because it is diiferent from it. Sense is a line, the mind is
a circle. Sense is like a line, which is the flux of a point running
out from itself; but intellect like a circle, that keeps within it-
self/'* That sense is not a circle is, indeed, true, since it termin-
ates in a point ; but far from being a straight line, it is one of the
most perplexing of curves^ and is crossed and cut by so many oth-
er curves, — into many of which it flows, and unites with them com-
pletely, — that when we arrive at the extremity of the line, it is al-
most impossible for us to determine with accuracy Avhat curve it is,
which, in the strange confusion of our diagram, we have been at-
tempting to trace from its initial point.
I proceed, then, to the consideration of the phenomena of the
sense of
TOUCH.
If priority of sensation alone were to be regarded, the sense
ef touch might deserve to be considered in the first place ; as it
must have been exercised long before birth, and is probably the
very feeling with which sentient life commences. The act of birth^
in relation to the mind of the little stranger, who is thus painfully
ushered into the wide scene of the world, is a series of feelings,
of this class ; and the first feeling which awaits him, on his en-
trance,— in the cliange of temperature to which he is exposed, —
is still to be referred to the same organ. It is at this most import-
ant moment of existence, when one dark and solitary life of months^
of which no vestige is afterwards to remain in the memory, is fin-
ished, and a new life of mun?/ i/ears,— a life of sunshine and society,
—is just beginning, that, in the figurative language of the author,
whom 1 am about to quote to you, Pain, the companion of human
life, receives him on the first step of his journey, and embraces
him in his iron arms.
" I'rimas tactus agit partes, primusque minutae
Lasal iter Ciix'urii (urlnf, rccijiitque rucntcm.
Non idem liuic motius est qui fr;ilri!)U8; amplius ille
IiDpcrium afleclat senior, penitusque mediillis,
•• rage 9«, O'J.
ON TOUCH. 327
Viceribusque habitat totis, pellisque recentem
Funditur in telam, et late per gtamina vivit.
Necdum etiam matris puer elurtatus ab alvo
Multiplices solvit tunicas, et vincula rupit;
Sopitus molii sorano, tepidoque liquore
CircumfuBUs adhuc ; tactus tumea aura lacessit
Jamdudum levior sensus, animamque reclusit.
Idque magis, siraul ac solitum blandacnque caloreoi
Frigore mutavit cceli, quod verberat acri
Impete inassuetos artus ; tuin sa;vior adstat,
Humanaiqiie comes vitae Dolor excipit ; ille
Cunctantem frustra et tremulo multa ore querentem
Corripit invadens, ferreisque amplectitur ulnis."*
It is at this moment, so painful to himself, that he is affording
to another bosom, perhaps the purest delight of which our nature
is capable, and has already kindled, in a heart, of the existence of
which he is as ignorant, as of the love which he excites in it, that
warmth of affection, which is never, but in the grave, to be cold
to Am, and to which, in the many miseries that may await him, —
in sorrow, in sickness, in poverty, — and perhaps too in the peni-
tence of guilt itself, — when there is no other eye, to whose kind-
ness he can venture to look, he is still to turn with the confidence,
that he has yet, even on earth, one friend^ who will not abandon
him, — and who will still think of that innocent being, whose eye,
before it was conscious of light, seemed to look to her for the love
and protection, which were ready to receive him.
* Gray de Princip. Cogit. lib. i, v. 64 — 80.
328
LECTURE XXII.
ON THE FEELINGS ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH,
AND ANALYSIS OF THESE FEELINGS.
l.v my Last Lecture, Gentlemen, I finished the remarks which
I hail to ofter, on our sense of hearing ; and in the conclusion of it,
had heo-un the consideration of a very important order of our feel-
ing-s, those which belong to the sense of touch.
Of these, I may mention, in the first place, the sensations of
heat and coZc/,— sensations that arise from affections of our nerves
of touch, or at least from affections of nerves, which, as equally
diffused and intermingled with them, it is impossible to distinguish
from those which constitute our organ of touch, the same wide
surface rendering us sensible, as it were, at every point of warmth
as of pressure.
I have also remarked to you, how little analogy there is of
our sensations of warmth, to the other sensations commonly ascrib-
ed to this organ; and the great difference of the feelings, has
led some physiologists to beUeve, that the organs of sensations so
different, must themselves be different. But even though the sen-
sations were as dissimilar as is supposed, there is no reason a pri-
ori to believe,— and to experience, it is evident, that, in this case,
we cannot appeal, so as to derive from it any ground for believ-
ing^_that sensations, which are very different, must arise from
affections of different organs. As far, indeed, as we can safely ap-
peal to experience, in Ibis very case, there are sensations which
we never hesitate in referring to our tactual nerves, as different
from the more common sensations ascribed to touch, as the sensa-
tion of warmth itself 1 allude to the pain of |)uuclure or lacera-
tion of (he skin. Indeed, if the brain be ultimately the great or-
FEELINGS ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OP TOUCH. 329
gan of all our sensations, it is evident that we must refer to af-
fections of one sensorial organ, not the various feelings of touch
only, but, with them the still greater variety of feelings, that
constitute our sensations of smell, taste, sound, and colour.
But are we indeed sure, that there truly is that great dissimi-
larity supposed, or may not our belief of it arise from our refer-
ence to touch of sensations that truly do not belong to it ? Such,
at least, is the opinion, to which, I think, a nicer analysis will
lead us. The primary original feelings, which we owe to our
mere organ of touch, I censider as of a kind, all of which are far
more analogous to the sensations of warmth, or of pain on punc-
ture, than to the perceptions of form and hardness, which are
generally regarded as tangible. Before entering on the analysis,
however, it will be necessary to consider, what are the sensations
which we are supposed to owe to this organ.
The sensations of heat and cold^ — as received from our organ
of touch, — we may almost lay out of account in our analytical in-
quiry. It is unnecessary to dwell on them, or even to repeat, in
application to them, the argument, which has been already appli-
ed more than once to the sensations before considered. It is quite
evident, that, in classing our warmth or chillness, as a sensation,
— and not as a feeling that has arisen spontaneously in the mind, —
we are influenced by that experience, which has previously giv-
en us the belief of objects external, — at least, of our own corpo-
real frame, — and that, if we had been unsusceptible of any other
sensations, than those of heat and cold, we should as little have
believed these to arise directly from a corporeal cause, as any of
our feelings of joy or sorrow. The same remark may be applied
10 the painful sensations of puncture and laceration.
It is only to the other more important information ascribed to
the sense of touch, therefore, that our attention is to be dii'ected.
By touchy we are commonly said to be made acquainted with
extension, magnitude, divisibility, figure, motion, solidity, liquidity,
viscidity, hardness, softness, roughness, smoothness. These terms,
I readily allow, are very convenient for expressing notions of cer-
tain forms or states of bodies, that are easily distinguishable. But,
though specifically distinguishable, they admit gencrically of very
considerable reduction and simplilicf^tion. Hardness and softness,
for example, are expressive only of greater or less resistance, —
330 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS ASCRIBED
roughness i== irregularity of resistance, when there are intervals
between the points that resist, or when some of these points pro-
ject beyond others,— smoothness is complete unitormity of resist-
ance,-liquidity, viscidity, are expressive of certain degrees oi
yieldmgness to our effort, which solidity excludes, unless when
the effort employed is violent. All, in short, I repeat, are only
different species or degrees of that which we term resi^toice, what-
ever it may be, which impedes our continued effort, and impedes
it variousfy as the substances without are themselves various.
Such is one order, then, of the feelings commonly ascribed to the
sense which we are at present considering.
To proceed to the other supposed tangible quaUties, before includ-
ed in our enumeration,— /-ure is the boundary of extension, ixsmag-
nitude is that which it comprehends; and divisibility, if we consid-
er the apparent continuity of the parts which we divide, is only
extension under another name. If we except motion, therefore,
which is not permanent, but accidental,— and the knowledge of
which is evidently secondary to the knowledge which we acquire
of our organs of sense, before which the objects are said to move,
and secondary in a much more important sense, as resulting not
from any direct immediate organic state of one particular moment,
but from a comparison of sensations past and present,— all the in-
formation, which we are supposed to receive primarily and direct-
Iv from touch, relates to moditications o[ resistance and extension.
Though it is to the sense of touch, however, that the origin of
the knowledge of these is generally ascribed, 1 am inchned to
think, in opposition to this opinion, that in both cases, the refer-
ence is wrongly made,— that if we had the sense of touch only,
we should not be sensible of resistance, nor, 1 conceive, even ol
extension,— and that we seem to perceive the varieties ot exten-
sion and resistance immediately by touch only, because the sim-
ple original tactual feeling has become representative ot these,
in the same manner, and for the same reason, as we seem to per-
ceive the varieties of distance immediately by the eye. 1 he
sen«e of touch has umjuestionably, like all our other senses, its
own peculiar feelings though, for the simple original lechngs, at-
tached to the affections of this most extensive ol organs, we have
...fortunately no name, but that which is applied in popular, and
even in philo,so,.liic language, to all the affections ol the mmd.
I
TO THE SENSE OP TOUCH. 331
Our joy or fi^rief, hope or fear, love or hate, I before remarked,
we term feelings, as readily and frequently, as we use this term to
express our sensations of touch ; and that, which, however restrict-
ed in its original meaning, is now the common name of our men-
tal aifections of every class, has, by this extension, unfortunately,
become a very unfit one, for distinguishing a limited order of those
affections.
Whatever be the term, which we may use, however, there is,
and must be, a sensation peculiar to touch, without regard to
the extent or quantity of the surface impressed, — as there is,
in colour, a sensation peculiar to vision, without regard to the
extent of the portion of the retina on which the light may have
fallen. Every physical point of our organ of touch, when exist-
ing in a certain state, is capable of inducing in the mind a pecu-
liar feeling, though no other physical point of the organ were af-
fected, — as every physical point of the retina, though but a single
ray of light were admitted to the eye, is capable of inducing in
the mind a peculiar affection of vision ; and when many such phj's-
ical points are affected together, by some impressing surface, the
form of Avhich we think that we discover immediately by touch,
it is from experience only that we can leai'n the vicinity of the
physical points of our own tactual surface thus impressed, and
consequently the continued extension of the object which impress-
es them. Before we have so much knowledge of external things,
as to know even that we have any bodily organs whatever, — and
it is of this state of absolute ignorance alone that we must think,
as often as we speculate on the information which our senses sep-
arately afford, — when we know as little of our bodily frame, as
of that material universe, of which we know nothing, we cannot,
by the very terms of this supposition, know that different points
of our organ of touch are affected in a certain manner, — that
these points are contiguous to each other — and that the mass af-
fecting these contiguous points must consequently itself be com-
posed of points, that are, in like manner, contiguous. We know
nothing of our organs — we know nothing of any external masses —
but a certain feeling is excited in our mind ; and it is this simple
feeling alone, whatever it may be, which constitutes the direct
elementary sensation of touch, though this simple elementary sen-
sation, like many other sensations, may afterwards be so blended
332 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS ASCRIBED
with Other feelings, as to become signiticant of them, and even to
.eem to involve them, as if originally and necessarily coexisting.
It is impossible for us at present, indeed, to have a body im-
pressed on us, without the immediate notion of something exter-
nal and extended,-as it is impossible for one, whose sight is per-
fect, to open his eves, in the light of day, without perceiving, as
it were immediatelv, the long line of variegated landscape, m the
scenery before him :— the one impossibility is exactly equal to the
other; yet we know, in the case of vision, that all which we im-
mediately perceive, at the very moment, when our eyes seem to
comprehend the worlds of half infinity, in the hemisphere on
which we gaze, is a small expanse of light,— if even, which I
o-reatly doubt, there truly be, in our original perceptions ot this
sense, so much of extension, as is implied in the smallest possible
expanse, la touch, in like manner, I conceive, that the immedi-
ate sensation, though, like colour, it may now seem inseparable
from extension and outness,— ii\ on the authority of Berkeley, 1 may
venture to use that barbarous but expressive term,— was, like col-
our, originallv distinct from them,— that, by the mere original sen-
sations of this organ, in short, we could as little know the exis-
tence of an impressing body, as, by the mere original sensations
of vision, we could learn that such a body existed at the extremi-
ty'of the room in which we sit.
In detining sensation, when we began our inquiry into its na-
ture, I stated it to be that affeption of the mind, which is immedi-
ately subsequent to the affection of certain organs, induced by the
action of external bodies; and 1 admitted, that, in this defmition
two assumptions were made,— the existence of foreign changeable
external bodies, as separate from the mind,— and the existence ot
organs also separate from the mind, and in relation to it truly ex-
ternal, like other bodies, but forming a permanent part of our
corporeal frame, and capable of being alfected, in a certain man-
ner, by the other bodies, of which the existence was assumed.
As far as our analytical inquiry has yet proceeded, these assump-
tions are assumptions still. We have not been able to detect, in
the sensations considered hy us, more than in any of our internal
pleasures or pains, any circumstances that seem to be iudicative
gf a material world without.
Our analytical intjuiry itself, however, even in attempting to
TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 333
trace the circumstances, in which the belief originates, must pro-
ceed on that very belief. Accordingly, in examining our senses of
smell, taste, and hearing, I uniformly took for granted the exis-
tence of odoriferous, sapid, and vibrating bodies, and considered
merely, whether the sensations, excited by these, were, of them-
selves, capable of communicating to us any knowledge of the ex-
ternal and independent existence of the bodies which excited them.
In the present stage of our inquiry, I must, in like manner,
take for granted the existence of bodies, which act, by their con-
tiguity or pressure, on our organ of touch, as the odorilerous or
sapid particles, act on our nerves of smell and taste — not that I
assume this belief, as existing in the mind whose intellectual acqui-
sitions are the subject of inquiry, — tor, in that case, the inquiry it-
self would be superfluous. I assume it, merely as existing in the
mind of us the inquirers, — and only, because it is impossible, with-
out such an assumption to make the suppositions that are necessa-
ry for the inquiry. All our language is at present adapted to a
system of external things. There is no direct vocabulary of scep-
ticism ; and even the most cautious and philosophic inquirer, there-
fore, must often be obliged to express his doubt, or his dissent, in
language that implies affirmation. In the present case, when wc
attempt to analyse our sensations, it is impossible to speak of the
circumstances in which the infant is placed, or, I may say even, to
speak of the infant himself, without that assumption which we
have been obliged to make. The real existence of an external
universe, and the belief of that existence, are, however, in them-
selves, perfectly separate and distinct ; and it is not the existence
of an external world, which we are now endeavouring to establish
as an object of belief We are only endeavouring, in our analysis
of the sensations afforded by our different organs, to ascertain in
what circumstance the belief arises. There might be a world of
suns and planets, though there were no human being, whose mind
could be affected with belief of it; and even the most zealous de-
fenders of the reality of external nature must admit, that, thougli
no created thing but ourselves were in existence, our mind might
still have been so constituted, as to have the very series of feel-
ings, which form at present its successive phenomena, and which
are ascribed in no small number to the action of external things.
Are the primary sensations derived from the organ of touch,
334 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS ASCRIBED
then, of such a kind as to afford us that knowledge, which they
are supposed to give of things without ?
Let us imagine a being, endowed with the sense of touch, and
with every other sense and faculty of our mind, but not with any
previous knowledge of his own corporeal frame, or of other things
external,— and let us suppose a small body, of any shape, to be
pressed, for the first time, on his open hand. Whatever feelings
mere touch can give, directly of itself, would of course be the
same in this case, as now, when our knowledge is increased, and
complicated, from many other sources.
Let the body, thus impressed, be supposed to be a small cube,
of the same temperature with the hand itself, that all considera-
tion of heat or cold may be excluded, and the feeling produced be
as simple as possible.
What, then, may we suppose the consequent feeling to be ?
It will, I conceive, be a simple feeling of the kind of which 1
have already spoken, as capable of arising from the affection of a
single point of our organ of touch,— a feeling that varies indeed
with the quantity of pressure, as the sensation of fragrance varies
with the number of the odorous particles, but involves as little the
notion of extension, as that notion is involved in the mere fra-
grance of a violet or a rose. The connection of this original tac-
tual feeling, however, with that of extension, is, now, so indissolu-
ble, as, indeed, it couid not fail to become, in the circumstance in
which it has uniformly arisen, that it is almost impossible to con-
ceive it as separate. ^Ve may perhaps, however, make a near
approach to the conception of it, by using the gentle gradual pres-
sure of a small pointed body, which, in the various slight feelings,
«^xcited by it,— before it penetrate the cuticle, or cause any con-
i^idorable pain,— may represent, in some measure, the simple and
i.nmediate effect, which pressure in any case produces,— exclusive-
ly of the associate feelings which it indirectly suggests.
Such of you, as have the curiosity to try the experiment, with
any small bodies, not absolutely pointed,— such as the head of »
pin, or any body of similar dimensions,— will be astonished to feel,
how very slightly, if at all, the notion of extension or fgure is in-
volved in the feeling, even after all the intimate associations of
our experience ;—ccitaiidy far less than the notion of longitudinal
distance seems to us to be involved in the immediate affections oi
TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 335
our sense of sight. It is an experiment, therefore, which I must
request you not to neglect to make.
But the pressure of such a large body, as the cube, which we
have supposed to be pressed against our organ of touch, now awak-
ens very different feelings. We perceive, as it were immediately,
form and hardness. May not, then, the knowledge of resistance
and extension, and consequently the belief of the essential quali-
ties of matter, — be originally' communicated by the affections of
this organ ?
The feeling of resistance^ — to begin with this, — is, I conceive,
to be ascribed, not to our organ of touch, but to our muscular
frame, to which 1 have already more than once directed your at-
tention, as forming a distinct organ of sense ; the affections of which,
particularly as existing in combination with other feelings, and
modifying our judgments concerning these, (as in the case of dis-
tant vision, for example,) are not less important than those of our
other sensitive organs. The sensations of Uhis class, are, indeed,
in common circumstances, so obscure, as to be scarcely heeded or
remembered by us ; but there is probably no contraction, even of
a single muscle, which is not attended with some faint degree of
sensation, that distinguishes it from the contractions of other mus-
cles, or from other degrees of contraction of the same muscle. I
must not be understood, however, as meaning that we are able, in
this manner, by a sort of instinctive anatomy, to perceive and num-
ber our own muscles, and when many of them are acting together,
as they usually do, to distinguish each from each ; for, till we study
the internal structure of our frame, we scarcely know more, than
that we have limbs which move at our will, and we are altogether
ignorant of the complicated machinery which is subservient to the
volition. But each motion of the visible limb, whether produced
by one or more of the invisible muscles, is accompanied with a cer-
tain feeling, that may be complex, indeed, as arising from various
muscles, but which is considered by the mind as one ; and it is this
particular feeling, accompanying the particular visible motion, —
whether the feeling and the invisible parts contracted be truly sim-
ple or compound, — which we distinguish from every other feeling
accompanying every other quantity of contraction. It is as if a
man, born blind, were to walk, for the first time, in a flower gar-
den. He would distinguish the fragrance of one parterre from the
336 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS ASCRIBED
fragrance of another, though he might be altogether ignorant of
the -separate odours united in each; and might even consider as
one simple perfume, what was, in truth, the mingled product ot a
thousand. .
Ob«cure as our muscular sensations are in common circumstaa-
ce« there are other circumstances,— which 1 pointed out to you
in treating before of this subject,-in which they make themselves
abundantly manifest. I need not refer to the diseased state of
the mu=c!es, in which they become painfully sensible ; and 1 will
admit, that the reference to such a morbid state, in which the
structure may be supposed to be altered by the disease would
perhaps scariely be a fair one. It is sufficient to refer to phe-
nomena of whi^h every one must have been conscious innumera-
ble times, and which imply no disease nor lastmg difference of
.tate What is the feeling of fatigue, for example, but a muscular
feelino- 7 that is to say, a feeling of which our muscles are as tru-
Iv the'organ, as our eye or ear is the organ of sight or hearing.
When a Umb has been long exercised, without su the lent interval,
of re«t, the repetition of the contraction of its muscles is accom-
panied, not with a slight and obscure sensation, but with one
which amounts, if it be gradually increased, to --- P^;;;;/
which before it arrives at this, has passed progressively through
various sta'^es of uneasiness. Even when there has been no pre-
vious fatigue, we cannot make a single powerful e^ort at any time,
without l^eing sensible of the muscular feeling connected with thi.
effort Of the pleasure which attends more moderate exercise,
every one must have been conscious in himself, even in his years
of maturity, when he seldom has recourse to it for the pleasure
alone; and must remember, still more the happiness which it afford-
ed him in other years, when happiness was of less costly and labori-
ous production 'than at present. Hy that admirable provision with
which nature accommodates the blessings which she gives, to the
wants that stand in need of them, she has, in that early period,-
when the pleasure of mental freedom, and the ambitions of busy
life, are necessarily excluded,-made ample amends to the little
.la^e of affection, in that disposition to spontaneous pleasure
which renders it almost an effort to be sad, as i. ex.tence itselt
were delight ; giving him a fund of indopon.lent app.ness in the
very air which she ha.s poured around lum, and the ready hmbs
TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 337
which move through it, almost without his bidding. In that beau-
tiful passage, in which Goldsmith describes the sounds that come
in one mingled murmur from the village, who does not feel the
force of the happiness which is comprised in the single line, thai
speaks of
" The playful children, just let loose from school ?"*
It is not the mere freedom from the intellectual task of which v. e
think ; it is much more, that burst of animal pleasure, which is
felt in every limb, when the long constraint that has repressed it
is removed, and the whole frame is given once more to all the
freedom of nature. It is by the pleasure of exertion, and the
pain of inexertion, that we are roused from that indolence, into
which, with great injury to society, that requires our contribution
of active aid, we otherwise might sink ; — as we are roused, in
like manner, by the pleasure of food, and the pain of hunger, to
take the aUment that is necessary for our individual sustenance ;
and though the mere aliment is, indeed, more important for life,,
it is not more important for happiness than that pleasure of activi-
ty which calls and forces us from our slothful repose.
" Thee, too, My Paridel, — ! saw thee there,
Stretch'd oa the rack of a too easy chair."
With the same happy provision with which she has consider-
ed the young of our own species. Nature has, in the other ani-
mals, whose sources of general pleasure are still more limited
than in the child, converted their muscular frame into an organ
of delight. It is not in search of richer pasture that the horse
gallops over his field, or the goat leaps from rock to rock ; it is
for the luxury of the exercise itself. " If the shell-tish on the
shore," says Dr Ferguson, " perform no visible action but that of
opening and closing his shell, to receive the brine that accommo-
dates, or to exclude the foul matter that annoys him, there are
other animals that, in the opposite extreme, are active ; and for
whom Nature seems to administer the means of supply, merely as
a restorative of that strength which they arc so freely to waste in
the seemingly sportive or violent exercises to which they are dis-
posed."!
* Deserted Village, v. 120.
t Principles of Moral and Political Science, Part I. c. i. sect. i.
43
338 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS ASCRIBED
" The bounding fawn, that Harts across the glade.
When none pursues, through raere delight of heart,
And spirits buoyant, with excess of glee ;
The horse as wanton, and almost as fleet,
That skims the spacious meadow at full speed.
Then stops, and snorts, and, throwing high his heels,
Starts to the voluntary race again ;
The very kine, that gaml>ol at high noon, —
The total herd, — receiving first from one.
That leads the dance, a summons to be gay ;
Though wild their strange vagaries, and uncouth
Their efforts, yet resolved, with one consent,
To give such act and utterance as they may
To ecstacy, too big to be suppressed/'*
It is this appearance of happy life which spreads a charm over
every little group, with which Nature animates her scenery; and
he who can look without interest on the young lamb, as it frol-
ics around the bush, may gaze, indeed, on the magnificent land-
scape as it opens before him, — but it will be with an eye which
looks languidly, and in vain, for pleasure which it cannot find.
These observations, on our muscular pains and pleasures, in
conformity with that view of them which I endeavoured to give
you, in a former lecture, are not digressive now, nor uselessly re-
peated. It is of great importance for the applications which we
have to make, that you should be fully aware that our muscular
frame, is not merely a part of the living machinery of motion, but
is also truly an organ of sense. When I move my arm, without
resistance, I am conscious of a certain feeling; when the motion
is impeded, by the presence of an external body, I am conscious
of a different feeling, arising partly, indeed, from the mere sense
of touch, in the moving limb compressed, but not consisting
merely in this compression, since, when the same pressure is made
by a foreign force, without any muscular effort on my part, my
general feeling is very different. It is the feeling of this resist-
ance to our progressive effort, (combined, perhaps, with the mere
tactual feeling) which forms what we term, our feeling of solidity
or hardness; and, without it, the tactual feeling would be nothing
more, than a sensation indifferent or agreeable, or disagreeable or
?everely painful, according to the force of the pressure, in the
*■ Cowpcr's Task, Book IV.
TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 339
particular case ; in the same way, as the matter of heat, acting, in
different degrees, on this very organ of touch, and on different
portions of its surface, at different times, produces all the interme-
diate sensations, agreeable, disagreeable, or indifferent, from the
pain of excessive cold, to the pain of burning; and produces them
in like manner, without suggesting the presence of any solid body,
external to ourselves.
Were the cube, therefore, in the case supposed, pressed, for
the first time, on the hand, it would excite a certain sensation, in-
deed, but not that of resistance, which always implies a muscular
effort that is resisted, and consequently not that of hardness, which
is a mode of resistance. It would be very different, however, if
we ftxirly made the attempt to press against it ; for, then, our effort
would be impeded, and the consequent feeling of resistance would
arise ; which, as co-existing in this case, and in every case of ef-
fort, with the particular sensation of touch, might afterwards be
suggested by it, on the simple recurrence of the same sensation of
touch, so as to excite the notion of hardness, in the body touched,
without the renewal of any muscular effort on our part, in the
same manner as the angular suriaces of the cube, if we chance to
turn our eye on it, are suggested by the mere plane of colour,
which it presents to our immediate vision, and which is all that
our immediate vision would, of itself, have made known to us.
The feeling of resistance, then, I trust, it will be admitted, and
consequently of hardness, and all the other modes of resistance, is
a muscular, not a tactual feeling.
But though the resistance or hardness of the cube, as imply-
ing some counter effort, may not be immediately sensible to our
superficial organ of touch, are not its dimensions so perceived ?
Its cubical form, it will be allowed, cannot be felt, as only one of
its surfaces is supposed to be pressed upon the hand ; but, is not
at least this square surface perceived immediately? In short, does
not touch, originally and immediately, convey to us the knowledge
of extension ?
With our present complete belief of external things, indeed,
and especially of our organs of sense, the most important of these,
the origin of our knowledge of extension, seems to us a matter of
very easy explanation. The square surface presses on our organ
of touch, — it affects not a single physical point merely, but a per-
\\
340 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS ASCRIBED.
(ion of the orgaq, corresponding exactl}^ in surface with itself;
and the perception of the similar square, it will be said, thus im-
mediately arises. But, in all this easy explanation, it is very
strangely forgotten, that the feeling, whatever it may be, which
the impression of the square surface produces, is not itself the
'square configuration of our tactual organ, corresponding with that
surface, but'the state of a very different substance, which is as lit-
tle square, as it is round or elliptical,— which is, indeed, from its
own absolute simplicity, incapable of resemblance in shape to any
thing ; and the resemblance of which, therefore, to the shape of
the mere organ, is as little to be expected in the sensations of
touch,— as that other state of mind, which constitutes the sensa-
tion of the fragrance of a rose, can be expected to resemble the
shape of the odorous particles themselves, or of the organ of smell,
which is affected by them. The very knowledge which touch is
supposed to give, is, in this case, most inconsistently, assumed, as
existing in the mind, before the very touch which is supposed to
give it. If, indeed, the mind could know, that a part of its exter-
nal corporeal organ is compressed into the form of a square, or
that another square surface is compressing that organ, the difficul-
ty would be at an end ; for it would, then, most undoubtedly, have
that very knowledge of extension, the origin of which we seek.
But it is not explained, how the mind, which alone can have sensa-
tion or knowledge, and which certainly is not square itself, is to be
made acquainted with the squareness of its own corporeal organ,
or of the foreign body; nor, indeed, how the squareness of the
mere external organ should produce 'this particular affection of the
mind, more than if the organ were compressed into the shape of a
polygon of one thousand sides.
Let it be supposed, that, when a small cube is pressed on the
liand, one hunched physical points of the organ of touch are afliect-
ed in a certain manner. We have, it is said, an immediate per-
ception of a square surlace. Let it next be supposed, that, instead
of one hundiUMJ ul" these continuous points of the organ, an equal
number of points, at various distances in the surface of the body,
are affected in the same manner. On thissupi)osition it will scarce-
ly he said, lliat the perception of a s(|uare would ari.so, when there
is no square, more than any otlier imagmable form, in the space
comprehended in the pressure. Yet what difference is there, in
TO THE SENSE OP TOUCH. 341
these two cases, to a mind that is, by supposition, absolutely igno-
rant of every bodily organ, and consequently ahke ignorant of the
nearness or distance of the points of the organ of touch ? In both
cases, one hundred points, equally sensible, are affected, and are
affected precisely in the same manner ; — and there is truly no dif-
ference, unless we tacitly suppose the mind to be conscious of the
bodily frame, and, therefore, of the continuity of certain points of
the organ of touch, with the other points that are proximate to
them, — a sort of knowledge, for which it would not be easy to ac-
count, and which it is impossible to conceive, without conceding
the very point in question. A little attentive reflection on the cir-
cumstances of these two cases, will, perhaps, aid you in freeing
your minds from the illusive belief, of which it may not be easy
for you at first to divest yourselves, — that the continuity and simi-
larity of shape, which are known to us the inquirers, are known
also to that httle sentient being, whose first elements of knowl-
edge we are endeavouring to trace.
We are too apt to forget, in inquiries of this sort, that it is not
in our organ of touch merely, that a certain extent of the nervous
extremity of our sensorial organ is affected. This occurs, equally,
in every other organ. In the superficial expansion of the nerves
of hearing, smell, taste, for example, it is not a point merely that
is affected, but a number of continuous points, precisely, as in the
superficial organ of touch ; and if, therefore, the notion of exten-
sion in general, or of figure, which is limited extension, arose
whenever a part of the nervous expansion was affected m any way,
we should derive these notions as much from a taste, or a smell,
or a sound, as from any of the configurations or affections of our
organ of touch.
It is not, therefore, merely because a certain limited part ol
the sensorial organ is affected, that we have the notion of the
square surface, in the case supposed by us : for, if this alone were
necessary, we should have square inches, and half inches, and
various other forms, rectilinear or curvilinear, of fragrance and
sound.
But, it may perhaps be urged, though all our organs must, in-
deed, exist ef[ually with our organ of touch of a certain shape
when affected, — and though the sensorial figure of our other or-
gans, is not accompanied with any of those mental affections, which
342 ANALYSTS OF THE FEELINGS ASCRIBED
constitute the perception of angular or curvilinear figure, there is
something, in the nature of that part of the sensorial organ, which
terminates on the general surface of the body, that impresses the
mmd, immediately, with a sensation, corresponding with the exact
figure, in which the organ may itself exist. When the square,
therefore, in the case imagined by us, is impressed upon the or-
gan, the mental affection which constitutes our notion of a square
may immediately arise, though it would not arise from the similar
squareness of (^ur organs of smell or hearing.
In answer to this mere supposition, I may remark, that the sen-
sorial organ of touch exists, at every moment, of a certain shape,
and that we yet have no perception of this shape, so as to be able
to delineate the whole extent of our tactual organ, in the same
manner as we could delineate the impressing square, in the case
supposed : or, if it be said, that the configuration of the organ
does not excite this mental affection, in the quiescent state of the
part, but only when it is itself affected, I may remark, that we are
as little able to delineate its figure, when we are exposed to the
action of heat, which yet acts most powerfully upon this very or-
gan, inducing sensati(5ns, at least as vivid as those of hardness or
figure.
It may still, however, be contended, for in a question of this
sort I wish fairly' to imagine every possible argument — it may still
be contended, that, though the organ of touch has no effect, in this
way merely as configured, and might, in any other configura-
tion operate, precisely in the same manner, on the sentient mind,
— still the harmony of the bodily and mental changes is so arrang-
ed by nature, that the organic state in touch, whatever it may be,
is immediately followed by the knowledge of the extension of the
impressing body, — in the same manner as a certain state of the
organ oC smell, whatever that state may be, is immediately follow-
ed by that affection of the mind, which constitutes our sensation
of the fragrance of a rose. Though this argument, in truth, rath-
er bogs tlie .picstion, than aUompts to meet it, let us give to it
all the force which it may claim. The accurate detorn.ination of
the point may, indeed, seem, at first almost impossible ; since in
vvhatev<M- miuincr flic seeming perception may arise, it must be
admlltf'd, tiiat we now seem to |)crc.eive extension, as it were im-
mc<liatoly, by touch ; though not more immediately than in vision
TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 343
we seem to perceive the positions of objects in different distances
before our eyes. — But there is, fortunately, at least one test, which
the point in question still admits. If the apparent perception of ex-
tension by touch, be truly and originally immediate, and not acquired,
like the apparent perception of distance in vision, so as to involve a
sort of intellectual measurement or suggestion of some sort, after
the primary sensation, — the perception must be constant and uni-
versal, not confined to a few simple and familiar forms, which, if
we can distinguish these alone, we may be supposed to have learn-
ed from experience, but extending to forms of every kind ; for it
would certainly be a very strange abuse of the license of supposi-
tion, to imagine that we perceive a square immediately, but not a
circle, or a circle but not a square, or indeed any other tigure.
Even at present, then — though the circumstances of the trial, —
when the experience of many years must have exhausted so many
varieties of form, associating the notion of these with the particu-
lar tactual feeling whatever that may be — are surely very unfa-
vourable to the opinion which I maintain, — even at present, I may
safely trust to experiment, the determination of the question.
When a body which we do not see, is pressed on any part of our
tactual organ, do we immediately discover its form, — as immedi-
atel}', as we are sensible of fragrance, when our organ of smell is
in a healthy state, and an odoriferous body is presented to it, or
of sound, when a cannon is fired beside us? This we certainly
should do, if figure were as direct an object of the sense of
touch, as fragrance and sound are of the senses of smell and hear-
ing. Even though it be a form of the simplest kind, square, round,
triangular, that is thus pressed upon our palm, we scarcely distin-
guish the precise species of figure for a moment, and are long be-
fore we can convince ourselves, that we have perceived its exact
magnitude, in the determination of which, after all, we shall very
probably be mistaken, if we confine ourselves to the mere intel-
lectual measurement ; though we should even add to the immedi-
ate sensation of touch, all the discriminating skill of our judgment
and reflection. But, if the body be iri'egular in form, — however
slight the irregularity may be, and of a species that would not
perplex in the slightest degree our sense of sight, and which cer-
tainly^, therefore, should perplex as little our sense of touch, which
is supposed to be still more immediately perceptive of form, — we
344 FEELINGS ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH.
are incapable for some time, and I may even say are incapable
altogether, of taxing, with precision, its magnitude and figure— that
very magnitude and figure which are yet said to be the direct ob-
' jects of touch. Of this a single trial may convince any one ; it is
a trial which as it seems to me decisive, I must request you to
make. Are we then entitled to say, in the case of the square sur-
face of the cube pressed upon our hand, that though we cannot
discover other forms and magnitudes, we yet discover its extension,
and consequently its figure, by the immediate sense of touch ?— or
may we not rather conclude with confidence, that what is true of
other forms is true of this also, that it is only in consequence of
more frequent experience we have learned as it were to distin-
guish, with some degree of certainty, the simpler forms, which, as
mere forms, are not more direct objects of the sense of touch than
forms the most irregular, and that without such experience, there-
fore, our mere sense of touch is incapable of informing us of the
figure of bodies, immediately and originally.
If then the knowledge of extension be not derived from our
immediate sense of touch, it must be derived from some other
source, which allows it to be associated with the feelings of touch,
and afterwards suggested by these, in the same manner as distant
extent, in the case of vision, is suggested by a few slight varie-
ties of colour. Let us endeavour, then, since some such source
there must be, to discover what the source is.
345
LECTURE XXIII.
ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS USUALLY ASCRIBED TO THE
SENSE OF TOUCH, CONTINUED.
Mv last Lecture, Gentlemen, was employed in considering the
information which we receive from the sense of touchy or rather
the information which we are commonly supposed to receive from
that sense, — but which, in a great part at least, I am inclined to
ascribe to another source.
The qualities of bodies, supposed to he made known to us by
touch, I reduced to two^ of which all — whatever be the variety of
names that express them, — are mere varieties, resistance and ex-
tension : — solidity, liquidity, viscidity, hardness, softness, rough-
ness, smoothness, being modes of resistance, and nothing more; —
figure, magnitude, divisibility, as evidently nothing more than
modes of extension : and I stated reasons, which induce me to be-
lieve, that neither our feeling of resistance nor that of extension,
has its direct origin in the sense of touch ; though the original
simple feeling, which this organ affords, is now, from constant as-
sociation, almost indiscriminately combined with both, in some one
or other of their varieties.
The first of these classes, — that which includes the various
modifications of resistance, — I examined at great length, and show-
ed, I trust, that it is not to our organ of touch we are indebted for
these, but that they are feelings of another sense, of which our
muscular frame is the organ, — the feelings, in short, of which eve-
ry one must have been conscious, who has attempted to grasp any
body, or to press against it, when the full contraction of the mus-
cles must, of course, have been impeded. According as the body
is hard or soft, rough or smooth, — that is to say, according as it
44
346 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS USUALLY
resists, in various degrees, the progress of our effort of contrac-
tion,— the muscular feeling, which arises from the variously im-
peded eifort, will vary in proportion ; and we call hard, soft, rough,
smooth, that which produces one or other of the varieties of these
muscular feelings of resistance,— as we term sweet or bitter, blue
or yellow, that which produces either of these sensations of taste
or vision. With the feeling of resistance, there is, indeed, in eve-
ry ca«p, combined, a certain tactual feeling, because we must touch
whatever we attempt to grasp ; but it is not of this mere tactual
feeling we think, when we term bodies hard or soft, — it is of the
greater or less resistance which they afford to our muscular con-
traction.
I next proceeded to consider the other class of supposed tangible
qualities, which includes the various modifications o( extension^ and
urged many arguments to show, in like manner, that, — however in-
dissolubly these may seem at present to be connected with the sim-
ple feelings of our organ of touch,— it is not to our simple origi-
nal feelings of this sense, that we owe our knowledge of them, as
qualities of things without.
Though the notion of extension^ however, may arise in the
manner which I have supposed, this, it may be said, is not the no-
tion of external existence. To what, then, are we to ascribe the
belief of external reality, which now accompanies our sensations
of touch ? It appears to me to depend on the feeling of resistance,
—the organ of which, as a muscular feeling, I before explained to
you, which breaking in, without any known cause of difference, on
an accustomed series, and combining with the notion of extension,
and consequently of divisibility, previously acquired, furnishes the
elements of that compound notion, which wo term the notion of
malier. Extension^ resistance ; — to combine these simple notions in
something which is not oui-selves, and to have the notion of mat-
ter, are precisely the same thing ; as it is the same thing to have
combined the head and neck of a man with the body and legs of a
horse, and to have the notion of that fabulous being, which the an-
cients denominated a centavr. It certainly, at least, would not be
easy for any one to driine matter more simply, than as that which
has parts, and that which resists our cllort to grasp it; and, in our
analysis of the feelnigs of infancy, we have been able to discover
how both these notions may have arisen in the mind, and arisen
ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 347
too, in circumstances, which must lead to the combination of them
in one complex notion.
The infant stretches out his arm for the first time, by that vo-
lition without a known object, which is either a mere instinct, or
very near akin to one, — this motion is accompanied with a certain
feeling, — he repeats the volition which moves his arm fifty or one
thousand times, and the same progress of feeling takes place dur-
ing the muscular action. In this repeated progress, he feels the
truth of that intuitive proposition, which, in the whole course of
the life that awaits him, is to be the source of all his expectations,
and the guide of all his actions, — the simple proposition, that what
has beeti as an antecedent, will be followed by what has been as a
consequent. At length he stretches out his arm again, and instead
of the accustomed progression, there arises, in the resistance of
some object opposed to him, a feeling of a very different kind
which, if he persevere in his voluntary effort, increases gradually
to severe pain, before he has half completed the usual progress.
There is a difference, therefore, which we may, without any ab-
surdity, suppose to astonish the little reasoner; for the expecta-
tion of similar consequents, fi'om similar antecedents, is observable
even in his earliest actions, and is probably the result of an origi-
nal law of mind, as universal, as that which renders certain sensa-
tions of sight and sound the immediate result of certain affections
of our eye or ear. To any being, who is thus impressed with be-
lief of similarities of sequence, a different consequent necessarily
implies a difference of the antecedent. In the case at present sup-
posed, however, the infant, who as yet knows nothing but himself,
is conscious of no previous difference ; and the feeling of resistance
seems to him, therefore, something unknown, which has its cause
in something that is not himself
I am aware, that the application to an infant, of a process of
reasoning expressed in terms of such grave and formal philosophic
nomenclature, has some chance of appearing ridiculous. But the
reasoning itself is very different from the terms employed to ex-
press it, and is truly as simple and natural, as the terms, which our
language obliges us to employ in expressing it, are abstract and ar-
tificial. The infant, however, in his feeling of similarity of ante-
cedents and consequents, and of the necessity, therefore, of a new
antecedent, where the consequent is difficult, has the reasonings
348 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS USUALLY
but not the terms. He does not form the proposition as universal,
and applicable to cases that have not yet existed ; but he feels it
in every particular case, as it occurs. That he does truly reason,
with at least as much subtility, as is involved in the process now
supposed, cannot be doubted by those who attend to the manifest
results of his little inductions, in those acquisitions of knowledge,
which show themselves in the actions, and, I may say, almost in
the very looks of the little reasoner,— at a period long before that
to which his own remembrance is afterwards to extend, when, in
the maturer progress of his intellectual powers, the darkness of
eternity will meet his eye alike, whether he attempt to gaze on
the past, or on the future ; and the wish to know the events, with
which he is afterwards to be occupied and interested, will not be
more unavailing, than the wish to retrace events, that were the oc-
cupation and interest of the most important years of his existence.
Then,
u So— when the mother, bending o'er his charms,
Clasps her fair nurseline; in delighted arms;—
With sparkling eye the blameless plunderer owns
Her soft embraces and endearing tones,
Seeks the salubrious fount with opening lips,
Spreads his inquiring hands, and smiles and sips."*
Even then, many a process of ratiocination is going on, which
might have served as an example of strict logic to Aristotle him-
self, and which affords results, far more valuable to the individu-
al reasoner, than all the contents of all the folios of the crowd of
that great logician's scholastic commentators.
That the notions of extension and external resistance, which
are thus supposed to be acquired from the progressive contraction
of muscles, and the dillkuKy opposed to their accustomed contrac-
tion, wbich introduces suddenly a new feeling, when all the ante-
cedent feelings had been the same, should be directly combined,
only with the sensations of touch, cannot appear wonderful, when
we reflect, that it is only in the case of touch, there is that fre-
quent coexistence or immediate succession, which is necessary lo
the subsequent union. In the case of the acquired perceptions of
vision, it might, in like manner, be asked, why is it that we do not
• DarwJn'B Botanic Garden, Canto III. v. 35J-4, and 357—360.
ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 349
smell the exact distance of a rose, as we see its exact dtstance, as
soon as we have turned our eye on the bush on which the rose is
growing ? And the only answer which can be given, is that there
has not been in smell that exact and frequent coexistence of feel-
ings which has occurred in vision. It surely is not more wonder-
ful, therefore, that the same argument should hold in the acquired
perceptions of touch, in which the coexistence is still more fre-
quent and exact. When we listen to a flute, our muscles may be
contracted as before, or quiescent as before ; when the odour of a
rose is wafted to us, not a single muscle may be more or less af-
fected. But, without the action of muscles, we cannot grasp a
ball, nor press against a resisting body, nor move our hand along
its surface. Whatever feelings, therefore, are involved in muscu-
lar contraction, may be, or rather I may sny, if the common laws
of association operate, must be associated with the simple feelings
thus constantly coexisting, whatever they may be, which the or-
gan of touch originally affords. To suppose, that, in a case of
such frequent coexistence or succession, no association takes place,
and that our feelings of touch, are, at this moment, as simple as
they were originally, would surely be to suppose the universal in-
fluence of the associating principle to be suspended in this partic-
ular case.
I have already explained the manner, in which, I suppose, the
infant, to obtain the notion of something external and separate
from himself, by the interruption of the usual train of antecedents
and consequents, when the painful feeling of resistance has arisen,
without any change of circumstances, of which the mind is con-
scious in itself; and the process by which he acquires this notion,
is only another form of the very process, which, during the whole
course of his life, is involved in all his reasonings, and regulates,
therefore, all his conclusions, with respect to every physical truth.
In the view which I take of the subject, accordingly", I do not con-
ceive that it is by any peculiar intuition, we are led to believe in
the existence of things without. I consider this belief as the ef-
fect of that more general intuition, by which we consider a new
consequent, in any series of accustomed events, as the sign of a
new antecedent, and of that equally general principle of associa^
tion, by which feelings that have frequently coexisted, flow to-
gether, and constitute afterwards one complex whole. There is
350 ANALYSIS OP THE FEELINGS USUALLY
something which is not ourself, something which is representative
of length — something which excites the ieehng of resistance to our
effort ; and these elements combined, are matter. But, whether
the notion arise in the manner 1 have supposed, or differently,
there can be no doubt that it has arisen, long before the period to
which our memory reaches; and the belief of an external world,
therefore, whether founded directly on an intuitive principle of
belief, or, as I rather think, on associations as powerful as intui-
tion in the period which alone we know, may be said to be an es-
sential part of our mental constitution, at least as far back as that
constitution can be made the subject of philosophic inquiry. What-
ever it may have been originally, it is now as impossible for us to
disbelieve the reality of some external cause of our sensations, as
it is impossible for us to disbeUeve the existence of the sensations
themselves. On this subject, scepticism may be ingenious in vain ;
and equally vain, I may say, would be the attempted confutation
of scepticism ; since it cannot affect the serious internal belief of
the sceptic, which is the same before as after argument; unshak-
en by the ingenuity of his own reasonings, or rather, as 1 have
before remarked, tacitly assumed and affirmed in that very com-
bat of argument, which professes to deny it.
It is in vain, that Berkeley asserts his system, with a zeal and
acuteness, which might, perhaps, have succeeded in convincing
others, if they could only have previously succeeded in convincing
himself, not as a speculative philosopher merely, but as a human
being, conversant with his kind, acting, and suffering, and remem-
bering, and hoi)ing, and fearing. This, however, was more than
mere ingenuity of argument could perform. Even in publishing
his work with the sincere desire of instructing and converting oth-
ers, the great and primary convert was yet to be made, in the con-
verter himself.
In the l.ife of Berkeley, prefixed to the edition of his col-
lected works, an account is given of a visit which he paid, at
Paris, to Malobranche, the celebrated author of a system, in
uinnv rPS[)oct-< siinibir to his own. He found him in a weak state
of lujalth, but alMnidantly eager to enter into dispulafion, on a sci-
ence which lie lo\ I'd. and especially on his own doctrines, which
he loved still more; but the discussion was at last carried on with
more vehemence than the f.ebU' bodily frame of Malebranche
ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 351
could bear ; and his death was said to be occasioned, or at least
hastened, by this unfortunate intellectual combat. When we con-
sider this interview of two illustrious men, each of whom, in accor-
dance with his own system, must have been incapable of any di-
rect knowledge of the existence of the other, the violent recipro-
cal action of these mutual nonentities, might seem ludicrous, if
there were not, in the death of any one, and especially of a phi-
losopher so estimable in every respect as the author of The Search
of Truth, something too serious to be consistent with any feeling
of levity. It is more suitable, both to the occasion itself, and to
our own intellectual weakness, to regard this accidental interview
of two philosophers, contending so strenously against each other,
for the truth of doctrines, which rendered the real existence of
each, at best, very problematical, as only a striking instance of the
readiness with which all the pride of human reason yields itself, as
it were, spontaneously and humbly, to the sway of those more pow-
erful principles, which He, who has arranged our mutual consti-
tution, has so graciously accommodated to the circumstances in
which He has placed us. The gift of reason itself, that most ines-
timable of our intellectual gifts, would have been truly, if nothing
more had been added to it, a perilous acquisition, to beings not ab-
solutely incapable of error ; since these are points on which a sin-
gle mistake, if there had been no opportunity of repairing it, might
have been fatal, not to our happiness merely, but to our very ex-
istence. On these points, however, Nature has not left us to a pow-
er so fallible, and to indolence, which might forget to exercise
even this feeble power. She has given us principles which do not
err, and which operate M'ithout the necessity of any eflbrt on our
part. In the wildest speculative errors, into which we may be led,
there is a voice within, which speaks, indeed, only in a whisper,
but in a whisper of omnipotence, at which the loud voice that led
us astray, is still, — thus operating on our mind^ as the secret irre-
sistible influence of gravitation operates on our body^ preserving
it, amid all the disorder and irregularity of its spontaneous motions,
still attached to that earthly home which has been prepared with
every bountiful provision for our temporary residence.
If there were, indeed, any sceptic as to the existence of an ex-
ternal world, who could seriously profess that his practical con-
duct was in accordance with, his speculative dl'jbelief, we might
352 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS USUALLY '
very iu«tly exercise, with respect to his own profession, that phi-
losophic doubt or disbeUef, which he recommends. Pyrrho, the
o-reat founder of this philosophy, is, indeed, said to have acted so
truly on his principles, that if a cart ran against him, or a dog at-
tacked him, or if he came upon a precipice he would not stir a foot
to avoid the danger. " But his attendants," says Dr Reid, '• who
happily for him, were not so great sceptics, took care to keep him
out of harm's way, so that he lived till he was ninety years of
ao-e ''* in all these cases, we may safely take for granted, that
this" venerable sceptic, when he exhibited himself with his domes-
tics knew, at least as well as the spectator, the nature of the com-
edy which he was acting, for their entertamment, and his own im-
ao-ined glorv ;-that he could discriminate, with perfect accuracy,
the times when it would be safe, and the times when it would be
unsafe, for him to be consistent ;-and that he would never feel, m
,0 strong and lively a manner, the force of his own principles, as
when he was either absolutely alone, or with attendants witlnn a
very few inches of the ground on which he was philosophizing.
We are told, accordingly, that when his passions were too strong-
ly roused, to allow him to remember the part which he was acting,
he entered with sufficient readiness into his native character of a
mere human being. Of this, one ludicrous instance '^^ ^^^^^^^^^^
in which his anger against his cook so completely got the bet ter
both of his moral and physical philosophy, that, with the spit in
his hand, and the meat on it, which had been roasting, he pursued
him to the very market-place. Many stories of this sort, howev-
er we may well suppose, would be invented against philosophers
of 'a class, that at once challenged the opposition of the whole mob
of mankind, and afforded subjects of that obvious and easy ridi-
cule, which the mob of mankind, even without the provocation of
such a challenge, are always sufficiently ready to seize.
,,,o a detail of the sceptical system of Berkeley, it is unneces-
«ary to enter at any length ; since, notwithstanding the general
ac u'teness which its truly illustrious author has displayed in thi.,
and in all his works, I cannot but consider his ^deal system a. pre-
renting a very in.porfect and inaccurate view, not merely of the
real phenomena of the mind, but even of the sceptical argument
again-t the existence of matter. It was not as a sceptic, however.
• lltid'. liiM»iry into ll.o U.iman Minil. ct.ap. i. sect. 5.
ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 353
that this most devout and amiable of philosophers, to whom Pope
scarcely paid a higher compliment than was strictly due, in ascrib-
ing to him " every virtue under heaven,'** — it was not as a scep-
tic that he was desirous of being ranked. On the contrary, I
have no doubt that his system seemed to him valuable, chiefly for
being, as he conceived, an antidote to scepticism, and that he was
far less anxious to display acuteness, than to expose the sophistry
of materialism, and to present as he thought, an additional argu-
ment for the existence of a divine omnipresent mind, which un-
questionably it would have afforded, and an argument too, it must
be owned, completely irresistible, if our mere ideas were what he
conceived them to be. These, he evidently considered, not as
Slates of the individual mind, but as separate thi7igs existing in it,
and capable of existing in other minds, but in them alone ; and it
is in consequence of these assumptions, that his system, if it were
to be considered as a system of scepticism, is chiefly defective.
But having, as he supposed, these ideas, and conceiving that the}'
did not perish, when they ceased to exist in his mind, since the
same ideas recurred at intervals, he deduced from the necessity
which there seemed for some omnipresent mind, in which they
might exist during the intervals of recurrence, the necessary ex-
istence of the Deity; and if, indeed, as he supposed, ideas be
something different from the mind itself, recurring only at inter-
vals to created minds, and incapable of existing but in mind, the
demonstration of some infinite omnipresent mind, in which they
exist during these intervals of recurrence to tinite minds, must be
allowed to be perfect. The precise nature of the argument, and
its demonstrative foixe, if the hypothetical circumstances which
Berkeley himself was far from considering as hypothetical, be
admitted, have not been sufficiently regarded by philosophers,
when they express their astonishment, that a system, which, if
not scepticism, is at least so much akin to it, or so favourable, at
least, to the general sceptical spirit, should yet have been brought
forward, as its truly pious author informs us, for the express pur-
pose of combating scepticism. He is not, indeed, always a very
perspicuous unfolder of his own opinions, but in a passage of his
third Dialogue, the series of propositions which I have now stated
* Epilogue to the Satires, Dial. II. v. 73.
45
354 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS USUALLY
as constituting his demonstration, are delivered by himself, with
great distinctness and brevity. " When 1 deny," says Philonous to
Hylas, " when I deny sensible things, an existence out of the
mind, I do not mean my mind in particular, but all mmds. Now, it
is plain, thev have an existence exterior to my mind, since 1 find
them, by experience, to" be independent of it. There is, there-
fore, some other mind wherein they exist during the intervals be-
tween the times of my perceiving them, as likewise they did be-
fore my birth, and would do after my supposed annihilation. And
as the same is true with regard to all other finite created spirits,
it necessarily follows, there is an Omnipresent Eternal Mind, which
knows and comprehends all things, and exhibits them to our view,
in such a manner, and according to such rules, as he himself hath
ordained, and are by us all termed the laws of Nature."*
The existence of ideas as separate from the mind, and the per-
manent existence of these, when they have ceased to exist in the
individual mind, are evidently assumptions as gratuitous as the as-
sumption of the external existence of matter itself could have
been ; or rather, the permanent and independent ideas, are trul>
matter, under another name ; and to beUeve that these foreign in-
dependent substance-^, which pass from mind to mmd, exist in
the mind, is not to iutellectualize matter, but to materialize intellect.
A mind containing, or capable of containing something foreign
within itself, and not merely one foreign substance, but a multi-
tude of foreign substances, at the same moment, is no longer that
simple indivisible existence, which we termed spirit. Any of the
elementary atoms of matter is, indeed, more truly spiritual ; the
very notion of recipiency of any kind, being as little consistent with
our notion of mind, as the notion of hardness or squareness.
The whole force of the pious demonstration, therefore, which
Berkeley flattered himself with having urged irresistibly, is com-
pletely obviated, by the simple denial, that ideas are any thing more
than the mind itself affected in a certain manner ; since, in this case,
our ideas exist no longer than our mind is affected, in that particu-
lar manner, which constitutes each i)articular idea ; and, to say that
our ideas exist in the divine mind, would thus be to say, only, that
our mind itself exists in the divine mind. There is not the sensa-
tion of colour, in addition to the mind, nor the sensulioa of Ira-
• Three Dialogues, &c. p. 109—110.
ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OP TOUCH. 355
grance in addition to the mind ; but, according to that juster view
of the mental phenomena, which I have repeatedly endeavoured
to impress on you, the sensation of colour is the mind existing in
a certain state^ and the sensation of fragrance, is the mind exist-
ing in a different state.
The most philosophic scepticism, as to the existence of exter-
nal things, is unquestionably thai^ which is founded on this very
view of the phenomena of the mind. All the terms, which we use .
to express our knowledge, sensations, perceptions, ideas, notions,
propositions, judgments, intuitions, conclusions,— or whatever oth-
er terms we may employ to express particular varieties of thought,
are signiticant, it may be said, and truly said, of states or affections
of the mmd, and of nothing more. What I term my perception of
the colour, or softness, or shape, or fragrance, or taste of a peach,
is a certain state of my own mind, for my mind surely can be con-
scious only of its own feelings ; or rather, as the consciousness of
present feelings is a redundancy of language, my mind, affected in a
certain manner, whether it be with what is termed sensation or
knowledge, or belief, can still be nothing more than my mind itsoll
affected in a certain manner, — my mind, itself existing in a certain
state. Against this argument, I confess that I know no mere argu-
ment which can be adduced in opposition,— any more, than I know
any mere argument which can be adduced, against the strange con-
clusions that are most legitimately drawn from the doctrine ol the
intinite divisibility of matter, and various other phj'sical and mathe-
matical applications of the notion of intinity. In no one of these
cases, however, do we feel our belief shaken ; — because it is found-
ed either on associations so early, and strong, and indissoluble, as
those which we have been endeavouring to trace, or is not in
those, or in principles of direct intuition, in that species of inter-
nal revolution which gives to reason itself, in the primary truths
on which every argument proceeds, its divine authority ; and we
only smile at conclusions, in which it is impossible for us to find a
single logical error, but which from the constitution of our nature, it
is physically impossible for us to admit, or to admit at least, with-
out an instant dissent, which renders our momentary logical admis-
sion as nugatory, as if the direct existence of an external world
had been established by the clearest logical demonstration.
In one of the Anniversary Orations of Sir William Jones, of
356 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS USUALLY
which the subject is the philosophy of the Asiatics, he informs
us that a system of idolism, very similar to that of Berkeley, is to
be fovmd in the metaphysics of Hindostan. The fundamental te-
net of one great school of the philosophers of that ancient land of
phiiosoph}^, is the disbelief of the existence of matter — the phe-
nomena of the seeming material universe, being conceived by
them to be only an illusive representation which the Deity pre-
sents to the mind, (and which they distinguish by the name of Maja:)
— while the opposite species of scepticism is to be found in anoth-
er sect of the philosophers, who disbelieve the existence of mind,
and reduce all the phenomena of thought to material organization.
The same subtilty and refinement of scepticism, which have led
to the systems of materialism and idolism in our Western World,
are to be found, v/e are told, in the corresponding systems of the
East.*
Why is it that we are struck with no common emotion on find-
ing, in the metaphysics of that distant country, systems of opin-
ions so similar to our own ? Is it that the notion of the im-
mense space, which separates us, unites with our conception, and
impresses us, as it were, with the omnipresence of our own intel-
lectual nature, — when we recognize on scenes so remote and in
circumstances of society so different, the same thoughts, and doubts,
and errors, which have perplexed, and occupied, and delighted
ourselves ? This recognition, in whatever circumstances it may
occur, gives to us a feeling of more than kindred, — a sort of iden-
tity with the universal nature of man, in all its times and places.
The belief which others share with us seems to be our own be-
lief which has passed from each to each, or is present to all, like
those permanent ideas of which Berkeley speaks, that quit one in-
tellect to exist in another. We cannot separate the thought which
we remember iVom the notion of the mind which we remember
to have conceived it; — audit seems to us, therefore, not as if
similar doubts and errors; but almost as if the very doubts and er-
rors of our own mind, and its ardour of inquiry, and frequent dis-
appointments, and occasional, hut rare felicities of discovery, had
spread and renewed themselves in a remote existence. It is this
• Tho Biil)B(ancc of (his rofen.nce occurs in the Eleventh Anniversary Dis-
coiirjt.', — Jf'oiL-3. V, i. p, lOo — G. Ito. Kdil.
ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 357
recoo-nition of our common nature, which gives the chief inter-
est to scenes that have been occu})iecl with the passions of beings
like ourselves. The mountains, which the Titans were fabled to
have heaped up in their war against Jupiter, must have excited
even in the most devout believers of Grecian mythology, emo-
tions far less ardent and immediate, than the sight of the humbler
cliffs, at which the small Spartan host, and their gallant leader,
devoted themselves in the defensive war against the Persian in-
vader. The races of men may perish, but the remembrance of
them still lives imperishable, and seems to claim kindred with us,
as often as we tread the same soil, or merely think of those w^ho
have trod it.
" Turn thy sight eastward, o'er the time-hush'd plains,
Now graves of vanish'd empire, once gleann'd o'er
From flames on hallow'd altars, haiPd by hymns
Of seers, awakeners of the worshipped Sun I
Ask silent Tigris — Bid Euphrates tell
Where is the grove -crownM Baal, to whose stern frown
Bow'd haughty Babylon : — Chaldea, famed
For star-taught sages, — hard Phenicia's sons.
Fierce fear-surmounting curbers of the deep,
Who stretched a floating sceptre o'er the seas,
.\nd made mankind one empire.' — Where is now
Egypt's wide-homag'd his? — where the Thors,
That shook the shakers of the Roman world ?'♦
The very gods of all these countries have perished, but the
mortals who bent the knee before them still survive in the immor-
tality of our common nature, — in that miiversal interest which
gives to us a sort of intellectual existence in scenes and times the
most remote, and ftiakes the thoughts and emotions of others as it
were a part of our own being, — uniting the past, the present, and
the future, and blending man with man wherever he is to be found.
358
LECTURE XXIV.
THE SAME SUBJECT, CONTINUED.
Gentlemen, having- stated, in a former Lecture, the reasons
which seem to show, that the origin of our notion of extension,
and of the notions, which it involves, of tigure, magnitude, divis-
ibility, is not to be found in our sense of touch, I endeavoured, in
my last Lecture, to trace these to their real source, — cautioning
you at the same time, with respect to the great difficulty of the
inquiry, and the very humble reliance, therefore, which we can
have any title to put, on the results of our investigation of a sub-
ject so very obscure.
In our present circumstances, when we attempt such an inves-
tip-ation, it is impossible for us to derive even the slightest aid,
from remembrance of our original feelings ; since viemonj, —
which afterwards can look back through so many long and busy
years, and comprehend all of hfc, but the very commencement of
it, — sees yet, in this dawn of being, a darkness which it cannot
penetrate. We have already formed. — spontaneously, and willi-
out the aid of any one, — our little system of physical science, and
have, in truth, enriched ourselves with acquisitions, far more im-
portant than any which we are afterwards to form, with all the
mature vigour of our faculties, and all the splendid aids of tradi-
tionary philosophy, — at a time, when we seem scarcely capable
of more than of breathing and moving, and taking our aliment,
and when the faculties, that leave us so much invaluable knowl-
edge, are to leave us no knowledge of the means, by whicii we
have acquired it.
To tiie period of our first sensations, therefore, we cannot
look back ; and, hence, ail which remains for us, in an inquiry of
this kind, is to consider lli<- cirt.umstances in which the infant is
placed, and to guess, as nearly as general analogy will allow us.
FEELINGS ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OF TOWCH. 369
(he nature and the order of the feelings, which, in such circum-
stances, would arise, in a being possessing the powers and suscep-
tibilities of man, but destitute of all the knowledge which man
possesses.
In these first circumstances of life, the infant, of course, can-
not know that he has a bodily frame, or a single organ of that
frame, more than he can know, that there are other bodies in na-
ture, that act upon his own ; and we are not entitled to suppose,
-^however difficult it may be for us to accommodate our supposi-
tion to the true circumstances of the case, — that because we, the
inquirers, know, that external bodies are pressing on his organ
of touch, the little sensitive being is to have any knowledge, but
of the mental affections, which these external bodies excite. How
the knowledge of any thing more than his own mind is acquired,
is, in truth, the very difficulty, which it is our labour to solve.
In conformity with this view, then, — when we look on the in-
fant, — one of the most remarkable circumstances, which strike us,
is its tendency to use its muscles, with almost incessant exercise,
particularly the muscles of those parts, which are afterwards its
principal organs of measurement. Its little fingers are continually
closing and opening, and its little arms extending and contracting.
The feelings, therefore, — whatever these may be, — which attend
the progressive contraction of those parts, — and some feeling un-
questionably attends the contraction in all its stages,— must be con-
tinually arismg in its mind, beginning and finishing, in regular se-
ries, and varying exactly, with the quantity of the contraction.
A succession of feelings, however, when remembered by the
mind, which looks back upon them, we found to involve, necessa-
rily, the notion of divisibility into separate parts, and, therefore, of
length, which is only another name for continued divisibility.
Time, in short, is to our conception, a series in constant onward
progress, and cannot be conceived by us, but as a progressive se-
ries, of which our separate feelings are parts ; the remembrance
of the events of our life, whenever we take any distant retrospect
of them, being like the remembrance of the space, which we have
traversed in a journey, — an indistinct continuity of length, as truly
divisible, in our conception, into the separate events which we re-
member, as the space, which we remember to have trarversed. in-
to its separate variety of scene?.
360 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS ASCRIBED
Time, then, or remembered succession, we found to involve,
not metaphorically, as is commonly said, but truly and strictly, in
its very essence, the notions of length and divisibility, — the great
elements of extension ; and whatever other feelings may be habit-
ually and uniformly associated with these, will involve, of course,
these elementary notions.
The series of muscular feelings, of which the infant is conscious,
— in incessantly closing and opening his little hand, — must, on
these principles, be accompanied with the notion, — not, indeed, of
the existence of his hand, or of any thing external, — but of a cer-
tain length of succession ; and each stage of the contraction, by
frequent renewal, gradually becomes signiticant of a particular
length, correspondmg with the portion of the series. When any
hard body, therefore, is placed in the infant's hand, — though he
cannot, indeed, have any knowledge of the object, or of the hand,
— he yet feels, that he can no longer perform the accustomed con-
traction, — or, to speak more accurately, — since he is unacquaint-
ed with any parts that are contracted, he feels, that he can no lon-
ger produce his accustomed series of feelings ; and he knows the
quantity of contraction, which remained to be performed, or rather
the leno-th of the series, which remained to be felt. The place of
this remaining length is now supplied by a new feeling, partly
muscular, and partly the result of the affection of the compressed
organ of touch, — and is supplied by the same feeling, at the same
point of the series, as often, as be attcmi)ts to renew the contrac-
tion, while the body remains within his hand. The tactual feelings
therefore, — whatever it may be, — becomes, by this frequent rep-
etition, associated with the notion of that particular progressive
series or length, of which it thus uniformly supplies the place;
;iii(l at last becomes representative of this particular length, pre-
cisely in the same manner, as, in the acquired percei)tions of vis-
ion, certain shades of colour become representative of distance, to
which they have, of themselves, no resemblance or analogy, what-
ever; and we thus learn to feel length, as we learn to see length,
not directly by the mere affections of our tactual or visual or-
gans, but by the associated notions which they suggest.
If time^ — as perceived by us in the continued series of our feel-
ing«,_do involve conceptual length and divisibility, it seems, in-
deed, scarcely possil)le, thai, in (lie circumslanrei supposed, the
TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 361
notions supposed should not arise, — that the infant should be con-
scious of a regular series of feelings, in the contraction of its fin-
gers and arms, and yet that portions of this series should not be-
come significant of various proportional lengths ; — and, if the no-
tion of certain proportional lengths do truly accompany certain de-
grees of progressive contraction, it seems equally impossible, ac-
cording to the general principles of our mental constitution, that
the compoimd tactual and muscular feeling, which must arise in
every case, in which any one of these degrees of contraction is
impeded, should not become associated with the notion of that par-
ticular length, of which it supplies the place, so as at last to be-
come truly representative of it.
In this manner, I endeavoured to explain to you, how our
knowledge of the mere length of bodies may have been acquired,
from varieties of length that are recognized as coexisting and prox-
imate, and are felt to unite, as it were, and terminate in our sen-
sation of resistance, which interrupts them equally, and interrupts
always a greater number of the coexisting truths, in proportion to
the size of the body compressed ; and, in a similar manner, our
notions of the other dimensions of bodies, which are only these va-
rieties of length in different directions. I cannot conclude this
summary, however, without recalling to yoxir attention, a very
simple experiment, which I requested you to make for j^ourselves,
— an experiment, that, even in the unfavourable circumstances in
which it must now be tried, is yet, I conceive, demonstrative of
the influence of mere time, as an element of that complex notion,
which we have been examining, when the more rapid measure-
ments of vision, — vi'hich are confessedly not original but acquired,
— are excluded. If, in passing our finger, with different degrees
of slowness or rapidity, along the same surface, with our eyes shut,
— even though we should previously know the exact boundaries
of the extent of surface, — we feel it almost impossible not to be-
lieve, — and but for the contrary evidence of vision, could not have
hesitated a single moment in believing, — that this extent is great-
er or less, according as the time employed in performing exactly
the same quantity of motion, with exactly the same force of pres-
sure, on the same quantity of our organ of touch, may have been
greater or less, — it must surely be admitted, that the notion of the
length, which thus uniformly varies with the time, when all other
46
362 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS USUALLY
circumstances are the same, is not absolutely independent of the
time,— or it must, in like manner, be believed, that our notion of
visual distance, which vanes with the distribution of a few rays of
light on the small expanse of the optic nerve, is yet independent
of those faint shades of colouring, according to the mere varieties
of which, it seems at one time to lay open to our view a landscape
of many miles, and at another time to present to us, as it were be-
fore our very eyes, an object of scarcely an inch in diameter. The
greater dimness, and diminished size of a few objects in the back
. ground of a picture, which is in itself one coloured plane of light,
does not more tvn\y seem to increase the line of distance of those
objects, than, in the other case, the increased slowness of the mo-
lion of our hand along any surface, seems to lengthen the line
which separates one of its boundaries from the other.
That we now seem to perceive extension, immediately by
touch, cannot be denied ; and, in a case so obscure as this,— with
our very limited knowledge, and our very limited power of add-
ing to this knowledge,— it may seem the most prudent, and per-
ha^ps even the most suitable,— as it is, without ail question, by
far the easiest part,— to acquiesce in the opinion, that the per-
ception, which now seems immediate, was so originally,— that the
belief of the presence of an external figured body, is, by the very
constitution of our nature, attached to a certain affection of the
mere organ of touch. But, since there are circumstances,— as we
have seen,— which show this opinion, when very nicely examin-
ed, to be inadmissible, we may, at least, attempt to proceed a lit-
tle farther, if we do this with a sufficient sense of the very great
difficulty of the attempt, in relation to our power and knowledge,
and consequently with a very humhle assurance, as to the certain-
ty of any opinion which we may be led to form. To know the
mind well, is to know its weaknessen as well as its powers ; and it is
precisely in a case of this sort, that he, whose knowledge is least
imperfect, will be the best judge of its imperfection, and, there-
fore, the least disposed to put complete reliance on it in his own
speculations,— or to assert it dogmatically, wbcn he offrr< it, as all
opinions, on so very oliscure a siil)iect, sbould be offered, to the
inquiry, rather than to the undonbting assent.
Tbe analysis, I own, is one which must require a considerable
effort ofattCDtiou on your part, because it is truly one of the most
ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 363
subtile on which I could call you to enter. But you must be aware,
that this subtlety is in the nature of the very inquiry itself; since
it is an inquiry into the elements and progressive growth of feel-
ings, which seem to us, at present, simple and immediate, and that
the alternatives, therefore, are not those of greater or less subtle-
ty and refinement of analysis, but of attempting the analysis, or
abandoning it altogether.
Before proceeding farther, in our inquiry with respect to the
origin of the notion of extension, it may, however, be of advan-
tage, to take a short retrospect of the progress which we have
already made ; for, if we have found nothing more, we have, at
least, as I conceive, found reason to reject a considerable part of
our former belief on the subject, which, though a negative acqui-
sition, is yet a ver}^ important one. Though we should not be
able to discover the true source of the notion which we seek, it is
something, at least, to know, that we have little reason to ex-
pect to find it, where we have uniformly been accustomed to
seek it.
In the first place, then, we have seen the fallacy of the suppo-
sition, that our knowledge of extension may be easily accounted
for, by the similarity in figure of the compressed part of the or-
gan of touch to the compressing body, since the notion of exten-
sion is not a state of the material organ, compressed and figured,
which, as mere matter, however exquisitely organized, is as little
capable of this notion, as of smell, or taste, love or aversion, but, a
state of the mind itself^ which is susceptible of shape or pressure,
being as little square, when it perceives a square, as when it per-
ceives a circle ; and any affection of which, therefore, may be
supposed as much to follow any one shape, as any other shape of
the mere external organ. If, indeed, as this explanation most
strangely seems to assume, we could be supposed to have any pre-
vious knowledge of the shape of our organ of touch, nothing more
would be necessary, for we should then have a perfect knowl-
edge of extension, though no other extended body but our own or-
gan of touch were in existence. To refer us to the organ is, how-
ever, only to bring the very same difficully one step nearer, since
previously to the application of an external body, the mind has as
little knowledge of the shape of its organ of touch, as it has of
the body compressing it ; and it is manifestly most absurd, to as-
364 ANALYSIS or THE FEELINGS USUALLY
cribc the orig-ia of our knowledge of extension, to our knoAvledge
of the resemblance in figure of an external body to our organ;
since this very knowledge of the resemblance must imply the pre-
vious knowledge of the figure of both, and consequently of that very
extension, which, according to this supposition, must be known to
us BEFORE it is knowu.
In the second place, we have seen, that, if the configuration of
the sensorial organ were the only circumstance necessary, to m-
duce, immediately, in mind, the notion of figure, this notion should
accompany every sensation of every kind ; the smell of a rose, for
example, as much as the pressure of a cube or a sphere : for the
nervous expansion, in the organ of smell, and in every other or-
ffan, is of a certain figure, before sensation, during sensation, and
after sensation, as much as the nervous expansion of the organ ot
touch. And, though we were to confine ourselves wholly to this
organ, t}ie nervous matter in it is, at all times, of a certain shape,
as much when there is no pressure on it, as when it is exposed to
such pressure ; yet the mere figure of the organ of touch, is not
then accompanied with the mental notion of its figure ; nor is this
the case, merely when the sense is quiescent, but, in many cases,
in which it is .iffccted in the most lively manner ; as, for example,
when we are exposp.d to great cold or heat, in which cases, the
shape of this very tactual organ, thus strongly affected, is as much
unperceivcd by us, as when there is no affection of it whatever.
Lastly, which is a point of much more importance, because it
has relation to tlie only philosophic view of touch, as the imme-
diate organ of extension; tlio view, in which the mere configura-
tion of the compressed organ, as similar to that of the compress-
ing body, is laid out of account, and the immediate belief of ex-
tension is supposed to depend on the original constitution of the
mind, by which its afi'ections have been arranged, so as to corres-
pond with certain affections of the bodily organs ; the mental state
which constitutes the perception of a square^ arising immediately
when the organ of touch is affected, in a certain manner, as that
mental state which constitutes the sensation of the fragrance of a
rose, arises immediaU-ly, when the organ of smell is allcctiul, in a
rertain irianuor; this opinion too. idiilosoj)hic as it is, compared
with those which we before considered, though, in truth, it only
assumes the point in (|U("^Uon. without uttcmpling to solve any
ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 365
difficulty, supposed to be connected with it, we have yet found to
be as Uttle tenable, as the opinions that suppose the mental no-
tion of tigure to depend on the peculiar tigure of the compressed
material organ. The consideration which, as I slated in my last
Lecture, seems to me decisive on this point, is, that, if touch in-
form us of extension immediately, as smell informs us of fragrance,
sight of colour, and hearing of sound ; it must do this in every in-
stance, without relation to particular figure, as smell, sight, and
hearing, extend to all odours, hues, and sounds ; for it would cer-
tainly be, as I said, a very strange abuse of the license of suppo-
sition, to imagine that we perceive a square immediately by touch,
but not a circle : or a circle, but not a square ; or any one figure,
but not any other figure. In short, if figure be the direct prima-
ry object of touch, as sight is of vision, we should feel immedi-
ately every form impressed, as we see immediately every colour.
It is only when the figures are very simple and regular, however,
such as we might be supposed to have easily learned, in the same
manner as we learn, visually, to judge of distances, that we are
able to discover them, as it were, immediately, by touch ; and,
even when we are able, in this manner, to determine the species
of figure^ that is to say, the mere outline of a body, we are rare-
ly able to determine the exact magnitude which that outline com-
prehends ; yet, as our organ must be affected by each part of the
compressing surface, by the central parts, as much as by the ex-
terior parts which form its outline, and by these, as much as by
the central parts ; and as every feeling which the organ direcll}'
affords, must be immediate, when there is no change of the posi-
tion, or other circumstances of the object, that might vary the
sensation, we should, if mere touch communicated to us the knowl-
edge supposed, be able to determine, exactly and instantly, the
magnitude and figure ; or, it is evident, that the determination of
magnitude and figure must depend wholly, or in part, on some-
thing that is different from touch. The magnitude we are far
from being able to discover exactly, even of simple figures; and
when the form is very irregular, and we know nothing more,
than that a certain body is pressed against our hand, — the mag-.ii-
tude and figure are alike diflicult to be discovered ; so difficult,
that I may safely say, that no one, who makes the experiment,
will find, on opening his eyes, that his tactual or intellectual meas-
366 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS USUALLY
urement has, in any one case, been exact, or his notion of the
figure half so distinct as it now is, after a single glance. Can we
then think that it is by mere touch we discover figure, as exactly
as by the glance of our mature vision, — that we discover it, in all
its varieties, originally by touch, and as accurately at fii'st, as after
innumerable trials, — when we discover it, only in a few cases, that
are previously familiar to us, and even in these very imperfectly?
The determination of the form impressed, in which we are al-
most conscious of a sort of intellectual measurement, has surely a
much greater resemblance to the perceptions, which we term ac-
quired^ than to those which are immediate. In vision, for exam-
ple, when the original power of that sense has been strengthened
and enriched, by the acquisitions which it is capable of receiving
from other sources, we see a long line of distance before us ; and
the small distances with which we are familiar, we distinguish with
sufficient accuracy; but, in our visual measurement o( greater dis-
tances, we are almost certain to err, taking often the less for the
greater, and the greater for the less. It is precisely the same ia
touch. When a small body, which we have never seen, is press-
ed upon our hand, we are able, if its surface be square, or circu-
lar, or of any other form, with which we are well acquainted, to
determine its figure, without much hesitation ; because we have
learned, tactually, to distinguish these regular figures. But, in en-
deavouring to determine, in this manner, by touch alone, the fig-
ure of any irregular body, less familiar to us, though, as a direct
object of sense, if touch be the sense of rigure, it should be equal-
ly and as immediately tangible as the most regular form, we feel
a hesitation of the same sort, as when we attempt to ascertain
by our eye, the exact distance of a remote object. To know ex-
tension or figure, is to know, not one point merely in the surface
of a body, but many continuous points ; and if, when the surface,
is circular, we know these continuous points, and their relation to
each other, immediately on pressure, we must know, as immedi-
ately, the same points and their relations, though the surface com-
prehending thorn, instead of being circular, shoidd be of an out-
line more irregular. We cortaiidy cannot know this irregular sur-
face to have any extension at all, unless we know some parts of
it; and, when the pressure is uniform from every point, and the
organ of touch uniform, on which the pressure is made, it would
ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 367
be absurd to suppose, that we know fi-fty, or eighty, of the hun-
dred points which form the impressing surface, but cannot deter-
mine its figure, because we are ignorant of the twenty of tifty re-
maming points ; when these remaining points are acting on our
organ of touch, in exactly the same manner as the fifty or eighty
which we know, and when, if the surface containing merely the
same number of points, had been circular, or of any other sin-
gle form, as familiar to us, the whole hundred points would have
been known to us equally and at once.
When our perceptions of form, then, are so various and irreg-
ular, and are more or less quick and precise, exactly as the shape
whicii we endeavour to determine, has more or less resemblance
to shapes that are familiar to us, it does not seem too bold an in-
ference to conclude, that the knowledge of figure, which, as ail
extension that is capable of being perceived by us, must have
some boundary, is nothing more than the knowledge of extension,
is not the state of mind originally and immediately subsequent to
affections of our organs of touch, any more than the perception of
distance is the state of mind originally and immediately subsequent
to affections of our organ of sight ; and the very striking analogy of
these two cases, it will be of great importance for you to have
constantly in view ; as it will render it less difficult for you to ad-
mit many circumstances, with respect to touch, which you might
otherwise have been slower to conceive. That we should seem
to perceive extension immediately by touch, though touch original-
ly, and of itself, could not have afforded this perception, will not
then appear more wonderful, than the apparently immediate per-
ception o{ distatice by the eye, which, of itself, originally afforded
us no perception of that sort ; nor the impossibility of feeling a
body, without the notion of it, as extended, be more wonderful
than the similar impossibility of separating colour from extension,
in the case of distant vision. Above all, the analogy is valuable,
as shewing the closeness and indissolubleness of the union, which
may be formed of feelings that have in themselves no resem-
blance. What common properties, could we have conceived iu
vision, and that absolute blindness, which has never had a single
sensation from light ! and, yet, it is worthy of remark, that the
perceptions of the blind, in consequence of this singular power
of association, form truly the most important part of those very
3f,8 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS USUALLY
perceptions of vision, of which, as a whole, they are unfortunate-
ly deprived. We do not merely see with our eyes, what we may
have felt with our hands ; but our eyes, in the act of vision, have
borrowed, as it were, .those very sensations.
The proof, that our perception of extension by touch, is not
an original and immediate perception of that sense, is altogether
independent of the success of any endeavour which may be made,
to discover the elements of the compound perception. It would
not be less true, that touch does not afford it, though we should
be incapable of pointing out any other source, from which it can
be supposed to be derived. Of the difficulty of the attempt, and
the caution with which we shoukl venture to form any conclusion
on the subject, 1 have already spoken. But the analysis, difficult
as it is. is too interesting not to be attempted, even at the risk, or
perhaps I should rather say, with the very great probability, of
failure.
In such an analysis, however, though we are to proceed with
the greatest caution, it may be necessary to warn you, that it is a
part of this very caution, not to be easily terrilied, by the appear-
ance of paradox, which the result of our analysis may present.
This appearance we may be certain, that any analysis which is at
all accurate must present, because the very object of the analy-
sis is to shew, that sensations, which appear simple and direct, are
aot simple, — that our senses, in shopt, are not fitted, of themselves,
to convev that information, which they now appear, and through
the whole course of our memory have a|)ppared to us instantly to
convey. It is very far, indeed from followii.g, as a necessary con-
sequence, that every analysis of our sensations which affords a par-
adoxical result, is, therefore, a just one— for error may be ex-
travagant in appearance as well as in reality. But it may truly be
regarded a« a necessary consequence, tlml every accurate and
original analysis of our ^^ensations must afford a result, that, as first
stated, will appear paradoxical.
To those who are wholly unacquainle.l with the theory of vis-
ion, nothing certainly can seem, as first stated, more absurd than
the assi-Mion, th:.l ue see, not with our eyes merely, hut chiefly
by the m.-dium of another organ, which the bliinl po^^ess in as
great perfection as ourselves, and which, at the moment of vision,
iuM.v perhaps he ulwolutely at re.l. 1 1 mu-l not surprise you,
ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 369
therefore, though the element which seems to me to form (he
most important constituent of our notion of extension should in like
manner, as first stated to you, seem a very unlikely one.
This element is our feeling of succession^ or time — a feeling,
which necessarily, involves the notion of divisibility or series of
parts, that is so essential a constituent of our more complex notion
of matter, — and to which notion of continuous divisibility, if the
notion of resistance be added, it is scarcely possible for us to
imagine, that we should not have acquired, by this union, the
very notion of physical extension, — that which has parts, and that
which resists our effort to grasp it.
That memory is a part of our mental constitution, and that we
are thus capable of thinking of a series of feelings, as successive
to each other, the experience of every moment teaches us suffi-
ciently. This succession frequently repeated, suggests immedi-
ately, or implies the notion of length, not metaphorically, as is
commonly said, but as absolutely as extension itself: and, the great-
er the number of the successive feelings may have been, the great-
er does this length appear. It is not possible for us to look back
on the years of our lile, since they form truly a progressive series,
without regarding them as a sort of length, which is more distinct
indeed, the nearer the succession of feelings may be to the mo-
ment at which we consider them, but which, however remote, is
still telt by us as one continued lengthy in the same manner, as when,
after a journey of many hundred miles, we look back, in our mem-
ory, ■ on the distance over which we have passed, we see, as it
were, a long track of which some parts, particularly the nearer
parts, are sufficiently distinct, but of which the rest seems lost in
a sort of distant obscurity. The line of our long journeying — or,
in other words, that almost immeasurable line of plains, hills, de-
clivities, marshes, bridges, woods, — to endeavour to comprehend
which in our thought, seems an effort as fatiguing as the very jour-
ney itself — we know well, can be divided into those various parts:
— and, in like manner, the progressive line of time — or, in other
words, the continued succession, of which the joy, the hope, the
fragrance, the regret, the melody, the fear, and innumerable oth-
er affections of the mind, were parts, we feel that we can mental-
ly divide into those separate portions of the train. Continuous
length and divisibility, those great elementary notions of space.
17
370 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS USUALLY
and of all that space contains, are thus found in every succession
of our feelings. There is no language in which time is not de-
scribed as long or short,— not from any metaphor— for no mere
arbitrary metaphor can be thus universal, and inevitable, as a
form of human thought— but because it is truly impossible for us
to consider succession, without this notion of progressive divisi-
bility attached to it : and it appears to us as absurd to suppose,
that by adding, to our retrospect of a week, the events of the
month preceding, we do not truly lengthen the succession, as it
would be to suppose, that we do not lengthen the line of actual
distance, by adding, to the few last stages of a long journey, the
many stages that preceded it.
It is this spreading out of life into a long expanse, which allows
man to create, as it were, his own world. He cannot change,
indeed, the scene of external things. But this may be said, in one
sense, to be the residence only of his corporeal part. It is the
moral scene in which the spirit truly dwells ; and this adapts it-
self, with harmonious loveliness, or with horror as suitable, to the
character of its pure or guilty inhabitant. If but a single moment
of life,— a physical point, as it were, of the long line— could be
reviewed at once, conscience would have little power of retribu-
tion. But he who has lived, as man should live, is permitted to
enjoy that best happiness which man can enjoy,— to behold, in
one continued series, those years of benevolent wishes or of hero-
ic suffering, which are at once his merit and his reward. He is
surrounded by his own pure thoughts and actions, which, from the
most remote distance, seem to shine upon him wherever his glance
can reach ; as in some climate of perpetual summer, in which the
inhabitant sees nothing but fruits and blossoms, and inhales only
fra-rance, and sunshine, and delight. It is in a moral climate as
se "ene and cloudless, that the destined inhabitant of a still nobler
world moves on, in that glorious track, which has heaven before,
and virtue and tranquillity behind ;— and in which it is scarcely
possible to distinguish, in the immortal career, when the earthly
part has ceased, and the heavenly begins.
Is it in metaphor only, that a youth and maturity, and old age
of guilt, seem to strctcii themselves out in almost endless extent,
to that eye wbich, with all its shuddering reluctance, is still con-
demned to gaze on them,— when, after the long retrospect seems
ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE Of TOUCH. 371
finished, some fraud, or excess, or oppression, still rises and adds
to the dreadful line — and when eternity itself, in all the horrors
which it presents, seems only a still longer line of the same dread-
ful species, that admits of no other measure, thtm the continued
sufferings, and remembrance, and terrors that compose it !
It is a just and beautiful observation of an ancient Stoic, that
time which is past is like something consecrated to the gods, over
which fortune and mortality have no longer any power, and that,
dreadful as it must be to the wicked, to whom their own memory
is an object of terror, it still, to the virtuoiis, offers itself as a con-
solation or joy — not in single moments like the present hour, but
in all that long series of years which rises beiore us, and remains
with us at our bidding. " Ille qui multa ambitiose cupiit, superbe
contempsit, insidiose decepit, avare rapuit, prodige effudit, — ne-
eesse est memoriam suam timeat. Atqui haBc est pars temporis
nostri sacra ac dedicata, omnes humanos casus supergressa, extra
regnum fortunae subducta ; quam non inopia, non metus, non mor-
borum incursus exagitat. Haec nee turbari nee eripi potest ; per-
pctua ejus et intrepida possessio est. Singuli tantiim dies, et hi
per momenta, praesentis sunt: at praeteriti temporis omnes, cum
jusseris aderunt, ad arbitrium tuum se inspici ac detineri patien-
tur."
By those, who can look back on years that are long past, and
yet say, that the continued progress, or the length and the short-
ness of time, are only metaphorical expressions, it might be said
with equal justness, that the roundness of a sphere, is a metaphor,
or the angularity of a cube. We do not more truly consider the
one as angular and the other as round, than we consider the time
to be continuously progressive, in which we considered, first the
one figure, and then the other, and inquired into the properties of
each. That which is progressive must have parts. Time, or
succession, then involves the very notions of longitudinal extension
and divisibility, and involves these, without the notion of any thing
external to the mind itself; — lor though the mind of man had
been susceptible only of joy, grief, fear, hope, and the other vari-
eties of internal feeVing., wiihout the possibility of being affected by
external things, he would still have been capable of considering
these feelings, as successive to each other, in a long continued
progression, divisible into separate parts. The notions ot length.
372 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS USUALLY
then, and of divisibility, are not confined to external things, but
are involved, in that very memory, by which we consider the se-
ries of the past,— not in the memory of distant events only, but in
those first successions of feeling, by which the mind originally be-
came conscious of its own permanence and identity. The notion
of time, then, is precisely coeval with that of the min,d itself;
since it is implied in the knowledge of succession, by which alone,
in the manner formerly explained to you, the mind acquires the
knowledge of its own reality, as something more than the mere
sensation of the present moment.
Conceiving the notion of time, therefore, that is to say of feel-
ings past and present, to be thus one of the earliest notions which
the iniant mind can form, so as to precede its notions of external
things, and to involve the notions of length and divisibility, I am
in. 'ined to reverse exactly the process commonly supposed ; and,
instead of deriving the measure of time from extension, to derive
Ihf knowledge and original measure of extension from time.
That one notion or feeling of the mind may be united indissolubly
with other feelings, with which it has frequently coexisted, and to
which, but for this coexistence, it would seem to have no common
relation, is sufficiently shown by those phenomena of vision to
which 1 have already so frequently alluded.
In what manner, however, is the notion of time peculiarly as-
sociated with the simple sensation of touch, so as to form, with it,
the perception of extension ? We are able, in the theory of vision,
to point out the coexistence of sensations which produce the sub-
sequent union ; that renders the perception of distance apparent-
ly immediate. If a similar coexistence of the original sensations
of toucli, with the notion of continued and divisible succession, can-
not be j)ointed out in the present case, the opinion which asserts
it, must be considered merely as a wild and extravagant conjec-
ture.
The source of such a coexistence is not merely to be found,
but is at least as obvious, as that which is universally admit led in
the case of vision.
Kefore I proceed, however, to state to you, in what w;iy 1 con-
ceive the noti(Mi to be ac(|uin,'d, I must again warn you of the ne-
cessity of banishing, as much as possible, from your view of the
Blind of the infant in this early process, all those notions of oxter-
ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 373
nal things, which we are so apt to regard as almost original in the
mind, because we do not remember the time, when they arose in
our own. As we know well, that there are external things, of a
certain form, acting on our organs, which are also of a certain
form, it seems so very simple a process, to perceive extension —
that is to say, to know that there exist without us those external
forms, which really exist — that to endeavour to discover the mode,
in which extension, that now appears so obvious a quality of ex-
ternal things, is perceived by us, seems to be a needless search, at
a distance, for what is already before our very eyes. And it will
be allowed, that all this would, indeed, be very easy to a mind
like ours, after the acquisitions of knowledge which it has made ;
but the difficulty of the very question is, how the mind of the in-
fant makes these acquisitions, so as to become like ours. You
must not think of a mind, that has any knowledge of things exter-
nal, even of its own bodily organs, but of a mind simply affected
with certain feelings, and having nothing but these feelings to lead
it to the knowledge of things without.
To proceed, then, — The hand is the great organ of touch. It
is composed of various articulations, that are easily moveable, so
as to adapt it readily to changes of shape, in accommodation to
the shape of the bodies which it grasps. If we shut our hand
gradually, or open it gradually, we lind a certain series of feelings,
varying with each degree of the opening or closing, and giving the
notion of succession of a certain length. In like manner, if we
gradually extend our arms, in various directions, or bring them
nearer to us again, we find that each degree of the motion is ac-
companied with a feeling that is distinct, so as to render us com-
pletely conscious of the progression. The gradual closing of the
hand, therefore, must necessarily give a succession of feehngs, — a
succession, which, of itself, might, or rather must, furnish the no-
tion of length, in the manner before stated, the length being dif-
ferent, according to the degree of the closing ; and the gradual
stretching out of the arm gives a succession of feelings, which,
in like manner, must furnish the notion of length, — the length be-
ing different accox-ding to the degree of the stretching of the arm.
To those who have had opportunities of observing infants, I need
not say, how much use, or rather what constant use, the future in-
quirer makes of his little fingers and arms ; by the frequent con-
374 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS USUALLY
traction of which, and the consequent renewal of the series of
feelings involved in each gradual contraction, he cannot fail to be-
come so well acquainted with the progress, as to distinguish each
degree of contraction, and, at last, alter enumerable repetitions,
to associate with each degree the notion of a certain length of
succession. The particular contraction, therefore, when thus of-
ten repeated, becomes the representative of a certain length, in
the same manner as shades of colour, in vision become ultimately
representative of distance, — the same principle of association,
which forms the combination in the one case, operating equally
in the other.
In these circumstances of acquired knowledge, — after the se-
ries of muscular feelings, in the voluntary closing of the hand, has
become so familiar, that the whole series is anticipated and ex-
pected, as soon as the motion has begun, — when a ball, or any
other substance, is placed for the first time in the infant's hand, he
feels that he can no longer perform the usual contraction, — or, in
other words, since he does not fancy that he has muscles which
are contracted, he feels that the usual scries of sensations does
not follow his will to renew it, — he knows how much of the ac-
customed succession is still remaining ; and the notion of this par-
ticular length, which was expected, and interrupted by a new sen-
sation, is thus associated with the particular tactual feeling ex-
cited by the pressure of the ball, — the greater or less magnitude
of the ball preventing a greater or less portion of the series of
feelings in the accustomed contraction. Ijy the frequent repeti-
tion of this tactual feeling, as associated with that feeling, which
attends a certain j)rogress ol' contraction, the two feelings at last
flow together, as in the acquired perceptions of vision ; and when
the process has been repeated with various bodies innumerable
times, it becomes, at last, as impossible to separate the mere tac-
tual f<;eling, from the feeling of length, as to separate the white-
ness of a sphere, in vision, from that convexity of the sphere,
which the eye, of itself, would liave been forever incapable of
perceiving.
As yet, howpvor, tlic only dimension of the knowledge, of
»vhich we have (raceil the origin, is mere length ; and it must
•till be e\]>laiiied, how we acquire the knowledge of the othcf
•limensions. If we had had but one muscle, it seems to me \cvy
ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 375
doubtful, whether it would have been possible for us, to have as-
sociated with touch any other notion than that of mere length.
But nature has made provision, for .giving us a wider knowledge,
in the various muscles, which she has distributed over ditTerent
parts, so as to enable us to perform motions in various directions
at the same instant, and thus to have coexisting series of feelings^
each of which series was before considered as involving the no-
tion of length. The infant bends one finger gradually on the
palm of his hand ; the finger, thus brought down, touches one part
of the surface of the palm, producing a certain affection of the
organ of touch, and a consequent sensation ; and he acquires the
notion of a certain length, in the remembered succession of the
muscular feelings durmg the contraction : — he bends another fin-
ger ; it, too, touches a certain part of the surface of the palm,
producing a certain feeling of touch, that coexists and combines^
in like manner, with the remembrance of a certain succession of
muscular feelings. When both fingers move together, the coex-
istence of the two series of successive feelings, with each of which
the mind is familiar, gives the notion of coexisting lengths, which
receive a sort of unity, from the proximity in succession of the
tactual fefelings in the contiguous parts of the palm which they
touch, — feelings, which have before been found to be proximate,
when the palm has been repeatedly pressed along a surface, and
the tactual feelings of these parts, which the closing fingers touch
at the same moment, were always immediately successive, —
as immediately successive, as any of the muscular feelings in the
series of contraction. When a body is placed in the infant's
band, and its little fingers are bent by it as before, some-
times one finger only is impeded in its progress, sometimes
two, sometimes three, — and he thus adds to the notion of mere
length, which would have been the same, whatever number
of fingers had been impeded, the notion of a certain number
of proximate and coexisting lengths, which is the very no-
tion of breadth; and with these, according as the body is larger
or smaller, is combined always the tactual affection produced bj
the pressure of the body, on more, or fewer, of the interior parts^
of the palm, and fingers, which had before become, of themselves^
representative of certain lengths, in the manner described ; ^and
the concurrence of these three rarieties of length* in the siDgl<»
376 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS USUALLY
feeling of resistance, in which they all seem to meet, when an
incompressible body is placed within the sphere of the closing fin-
gers, — houever rude the notions of concurring dimensions may be,
or rather must be, as at first formed, — seems at least to afford the
rude elements, from which, by the frequent repetition of the feel-
ing of resistance, together with the proximate lengths, of which
it has become representative, clearer notions of the kind may
gradually arise.
The progressive contractions of the various muscles which
move the arms, as affording similar successions of feelings, maybe
considered in precisely the same light, as sources of the knowl-
edge of extension ; and, by their motion in various directions, at
the same time with the motion of the fingers, they concur power-
fully, in modifying, and correcting, the information received from
these. The whole hand is brought, by the motion of the arm. to
touch one part of the face or body ; it is then moved, so as to
touch another part, and, with the frequent succession of the simple
feelings of touch, in these parts, is associated the feeling of the in-
tervening lengthy derived from the sensations that accompanied the
progressive contraction of the arm. But the motion is not always
the same ; and, as the same feeling of touch, in one part, is thus
followed by various feelings of touch in different parts, with vari-
ous series of muscular feelings between, the notion of length in
various directions^ that is to say, of length in various series com-
mencing from one power, is obtained in another way. That the
knowledge of extension, or in other words, the association of the
notion of succession with the simple feelings of touch, will be rude
and indistinct at first, I have already admitted ; but it will gradually
become more and more distinct and precise : as we can have no
doubt, that the perception of distance by the eye, is, in the first
stages of visual association, very indistinct, and becomes clearer af-
ter each repeated (rial. For many weeks or months, all is confu-
sion in the visjial perceptions, as much as in the tactual and mus-
cular. Indeed, we have abundant evidence of this continued pro-
gr(;ss of vision, even in mature life, when, in certain professions
that recjuire nice perceptions of distance, the power of perception
itself, by the gradual ac<]uisitions which it obtains from experience,
seems to unfold itself more and more, in pro[)ortion to the want^
that require it.
ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 377
The theory of the notion of extension, of which I have now
given you hut a sHght outUne, might, if the short space of these
Lectures allowed sufficient room, he developed with m-any illus-
trations, which it is now impossihle to give to it. 1 must leave
you, in some measure, to supply these for yourselves.
It may be thought, indeed, that the notion of time, or succession,
is, in this instance, a superfluous incumbrance of the theory, and
that the same advantage might be obtained, by supposing the mus-
cular feelings themselves, independently of the notion of their suc-
cession, to be connected with the notion of particular lengths. But
this opinion, it must be remarked, would leave the difficulty pre-
cisely as before; and sufficient evidence in confutation of it, may
be found in a very simple experiment, which it is in the power of
any one to make. The experiment 1 cannot but consider as of the
more value, since it seems to me, — I will not say decisive, for that
is too presumptuous a word, — but strongly corroborative of the the-
ory, which I have ventured to propose ; for it shows, that, even af-
ter all the acquisitions, which our sense of touch has made, the no-
tion of extension is still modified, in a manner the most striking
and irresistible, by the mere change of accustomed time. Let any
one, with his eyes shut, move his hand, with moderate velocity,
along a part of a table, or any other hard smooth surface, the por-
tion, over which he presses, will appear of a certain length ; let
him move his hand more rapidly, the portion of the surface press-
ed will appear less ; let him move his hand very slowly, and the
length, according to the degree of the slowness, will appear in-
creased, in a most wonderful proportion. In this case, there is
precisely the same quantity of muscular contraction, and the same
quantity of the organ of touch compressed, whether the motion be
rapid, moderate, or slow. The only circumstance of diffijrence i,^
the time, occupied in the succession of the feelings ; and this dif-
ference is sufficient to give complete diversity to the notion of
length.
If any one, with his eyes shut, suffer his hand to be guided by
another, very slowly along any surface unknown to him, he will
find it impossible to form any accurate guess as to its length.
But it is not necessar}', that we should be previously unacquainted
with the extent of suri;\ce, along which the motion is performed;
for the illusion will be nearly the same, and the experiment,
48
k
376 FEELINGS ASCRIBED TO THE SENSE OF TOUCH.
of course, be still more striking, when the motion is along a
surface with which we are perfectly familiar, as a book which
we hold in our liand, or a desk at which we are accustomed
to sit.
I must request you, not to take for granted the result which
I have now stated, but to repeat for yourselves an experiment,
which it is so very easy to make, and which, I cannot but think
is so very important, as to the influence of 7nere difference of time^
in our estimation of longitudinal extent. It is an experiment, tried,
unquestionably, in most unfavoui'able circumstances, when our
tactual feelings, representative of extension, are so strongly
fixed, by the long experience of our life ; and yet, even now, you
will find, on moving your hand, slowly and rapidly, along the same
extent of surface, though with precisely the same degree of pres-
sure in both cases, that it is as difficult to conceive the extent,
thus slowly and rapidly traversed, to be the same, as it is difhcult
to conceive the extent of visual distance to be exactly the same,
when you look alternately through die different ends of an invert-
ed telescope. If when all other circumstances are the same, the
diflerent visual feelings, arising from difference of the mere direc-
tion of light, be representative of length, in the one case, — the
longer or shorter succession of time, when all other circumstances
are the same, has surely as much reason to be considered as rep-
resentative of it, in the other case.
Are we, then, to believe, that the feeling of extension, or, in
other words, of the definite figure of bodies, is a simple feeling of
touch, iininediute.^ original, and independent of time; or is there
not rather reason to think, as I have endeavoured to show, that
it is a compound feeling, of which time^ that is to say, our notion of
(•jaccession, is an original element ?
379
LECTURE XXV.
ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN SENSATION AND PERCEPTION.
AND BETWEEN THE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES
OF MATTER.
My last Lecture, Gentlemen, was chiefly employed in consid-
ering the nature of that complex process which takes place in the
mind, when we ascribe the various classes of our sensations to
their various external objects, — to the analysis of which process
we were led, by the importance which Dr Reid has attached to
the distinction of sensation and perception; — a sensation, as under-'
stood by him, being- the simple feeling that immediately follows!
the action of an external body on any of our organs of sense, con-
sidered merely as a feeling of the mind ; the corresponding per- .
ception being a reference of this feeling to the external body as ■
its cause.
The distinction I allowed to be a convenient one, if the nature
of the complex process which it expresses be rightly understood.
The only question that seemed, philosophically, of importance,
with respect to it, was, whether the perception in this sense, — the
reference of the sensation to its external corporeal cause, — imply,
as Dr Reid contends, a peculiar mental power, coextensive with
sensation, to be distinguished by a peculiar name in the catalogue
of our faculties, or be not merely one of the results of a more gen-
eral power, which is afterwards to be considered by us, — the pow-
er of association^ — by which one feeling suggests, or induces, other
feelings that have formerly coexisted with it.
It would be needless to recapitulate the argument minutely, in
its relation to all the senses. That of smell, which Dr Reid hj^s
380 ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN
himself chosen as an example, will be sufliclent for our retro-
spect.
Certain particles of odorous matter act on my nostrils, — a pe-
; culiar sensation of fragrance arises, — 1 refer this sensation to a
; rose. This reference, which is unquestionably something super-
i added to the original sensation itself, is what Dr Reid terms the
'i perception of the fragrant body. But what is the reference itself,
and to what source is it to be ascribed ? That we should have sup-
posed our sensations to have had a cause of some sort, as we sup-
pose a cause of all our feelings internal as well as external, may in-
(icf d be admitted. But if 1 had had no other sense than that of smell,
— if I had never seen a rose, — or, rather, since the knowledge
which vision affords is chiefly of a secondary kind, if I had no
mode of becoming acquainted with the compound of extension and
resistance, which the mere sensations of smell, it is evident, are
incapable of affording, — could I have made this reference of my
sensation to a quality of a fragrant body ? Could I, in short, have
had more than the mere sensation itself, with that general belief
of ^ cause of some sort, which is not conlined to our sensations,
but is common to them with all our other feelings ?
By mere smelly as it appears to me, I could not have become
acquainted with the existence of corporeal substances, — in the
sense in which we now understand the term corporeal, — nor, con-
sequently, with the qualities of corporeal substances ; and, if so,
how could I have had that perception of which Dr Reid speaks,
— that reference to a fragrant body, of which, as a body, I was
before in absolute ignorance? I sliould, indeed, have ascribed
the sensation to some cause or antecedent, like every other feel-
ing ; but I could as little have ascribed it to a bodily cause, as any
feeling of joy or sorrow. \l refer it now to a rose; because, be-
ing endowed with other sensitive capacities, I have previousl}'
learned, from another source, the existence of causes without, ex-
tended and resisting, — because I have previously touched or seen
a rose, when the sensation of fragrance coexisted with my visual
or tactual sensation; and all which distinguishes the percefdion
from the mere sensation, is this suggestion of former experience,
which reminds me now of other feelings, with the continuance or
cessation of which, in innumerable former instances, the fragrance
itself also continued or ceased. The perception in short, in smell,
SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 381
taste, hearing', is a sensation sng^gesting', b}' association^ the notion
of some extended and resisting substance, fragrant, vapid, vibrato-
ry, — a notion which smell alone, taste alone, hearing alone, never
could have afforded ; but which, when once received from any
other source, may be suggested by these as readily as any other
associate feeling that has frequently coexisted with them. To
the simple primarj^ sensations of vision the same remark may be
applied. A mere sensation of colour could not have made me ac-
quainted with the existence of bodies, that would resist my effort
to grasp them. It is only in one sense, therefore, — that which af-
fords us the knowledge of resistance^ — that any thing like original
perception can be found ; and even in this, the process of percep-
tion, as I formerly explained to you, implies no peculiar power,
but only common sensations, with associations and inferences of
precisely the same kind, as those which are continually taking-
place in all our reasonings and trains of thought.
Extension and resistance^ I need scarcely repeat, are the com-
' plex elements of what we term matter; and nothmg is matter to
our conception, or a body, to use the simpler synonjmous term,
which does not involve these elements. If we had no other sense
than that of smell, and, therefore, could not have referred the
sensations to any fragrant body, what, in Dr Reid's meaning of
this term, would the supposed power of perception, in these cir-
cumstances, have been ? What would it have been, in like man-
ner, if we had had only the sense of taste in sweetness and bitter-
ness, — or of hearing in melody, — or of vision in colour, — without
the capacity of knowing light as a material substance, or the bod-
ies that vibrated, or the bodies of another kind that were sweet
or bitter ? It is only by the sense of touch, or, at least, by
that class of perceptions which Dr Reid ascribes to touch, —
and which, therefore, though traced by us, in part, to another
source, I, for brevity's sake, comprehend under that term in our
present discussion, — it is only by touch that we become acquaint-
ed with those elements which are essential to our very notion of
a bodij ; and to touch, therefore, in his own view of it, we must
be indebted, directly or indirectly, as often as we refer the sensa-
tions of any other class to a corporeal cause. Even in the suppos-
ed perceptions of touch itself, however, as we have seen, the ref-
erence of our feelings to an external cause is not demonstrative of
38^ ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN
any peculiar power of the mind, to be classed separately from its
other faculties. But when a body is first grasped, in infancy, by
fingers that have been accustomed to contract without being im-
peded, we learn to consider the sensation as the result of a cause
that is different from our own mind, because it breaks an accus-
tomed series of feelings, in which all the antecedents, felt by us
at the time, were such as were before uniformly followed by a
different consequent, and were expected, therefore, to have again
their usual consequent. The cause of the new sensation, which is
thus believed to be something different from our sentient self, is re-
garded by us as something which has parts, and which resists our
effort, that is to say, as an external body ; — because the muscular
feeling, excited by the object grasped is, in the first place, the
very feeling of that which we term resistance ; and, secondly^ be-
cause, by uniformly supplying the place of a definite portion of a
progressive series of feelings, it becomes ultimately representa-
tive of that particular length of series, or number of parts, of
which it thus uniformly supplies the place. Perception, then,
even in that class of feelings by which we learn to consider our-
selves as surrounded by substances extended and resisting, is only
another name, as 1 have said, for the result of certain associa-
tions and inferences that tlow from other more general principles
of the mind ; and with respect to all our other sensations, it is
only another name for the suggestion of these very percep-
tions of touch, or at least of the feelings, tactual and muscular,
which are, by Dr lleid, ascribed to that single sense. If we had
been unsusceptible of these tactual and muscular feelings, and,
consequently, had never conceived the existence of any thing ex-
tended and resisting till the sensation of fragrance, colour, sweet-
ness, or sound had arisen, we should, after any one or all of these
sensations, have still known as little of bodies without, as if no
sensation whatever had been excited.
The distinction, then, on which Dr Reid has founded so much,
involves, in his view of it, and in the view that is generally taken
of it, a false conception of the nature of the process which he de-
scribes.^' IMie two words sensutioii and perception^ are, indeed, as
1 have already remarked, very convenient for expressing, in one
case, the mere existence of an external feeling, — in the other
case, the reference wiiich the percipient mind has made of this
SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 383
. feeling to an external cause. But this reference is all, which the \
I perception superadds to the sensation ; — and the source of the ref- . J^
erence itself we are still left to seek, in the other principles of ^ ,^
our intellectual nature. We have no need, however, to invent ^\\/
peculiar power of the mind for producing it; since there are o\h- j
er principles of our nature, from which it may readily be suppos-
ed to flow, — the principle by which we are led to beheve, that
every new consequent, in a train of changes, must have had a
new antecedent of some sort in the train, — and the p rincij il£_of / y[>gi
association, by which feelings, that have usually coexisted, sug-^
^BSfor'become E£presentiitive of each other. With these princi-
ples, it certainly is not wonderful, that when the fragrance of a
rose has uniformly affected our sense of smell, as often as the flow-
er itself was presented to us, we should ascribe the fragrance to )
the flower which we have seen and handled ; — but though it 1 y
would not be wonderful, that we should make it, it would indeed
be wonderful, if, with these principles, we did not make that very
reference, for which Dr Reid thinks it necessary to have recourse
to a peculiar faculty of perception.
Such, then, is the view, which I would take of that distinction
o( sensation anA perception^ which Dr Reid, and the philosophers
who have followed him, and many of philosophers, too, that pre-
ceded him, — for the distinction, as I have said, is far from being
an original one, — have understood in a different sense ; in conse-
quence, as I cannot but think, of a defective analysis of the mental
process, which constitutes the reference of our feelings of this
class to causes that are without.
There is another distinction, which he has adopted from the
philosophers that preceded him, and which forms an important
part of his system of perception, — a distinction, that is just to a
certain extent, — though not to the full extent, and in the precise
manner, in which he and other writers have maintained ; — and
with respect to which, therefore, it will be necessary to point out
to you, how far I conceive it to be safely admissible. I allude to
the division, which has been formed of the primary and secondary
qualities of matter.
" Every one knows that extension, divisibility, figure, motion,
solidity, hardness, softness, and fluidity, were by Mr Locke called
primary qualities of body ; and that sound, colour, taste, smell, and
384 ON THE PRIMARY AND
heat or colJ, were called secondary qualities. Is there a just
foundation for this distinction ? Is there any thing common to
the primary, which belongs not to the secondary ? And what
is it ?
" I answer, that there appears to jme to be a real foundation
for the distinction ; and it is this : That our senses give us a di-
rect and a distinct notion of the primary qualities, and inform us
what they are in themselves ; but of the secondary qualities, our
senses give us only a relative and obscure notion. They inform
us onh', that they are qualities that affect us in a certain manner,
that is, produce in us a certain sensation ; but as to what they are
in themselves, our senses leave us in the dark.
" The notion we have of primary qualities is direct, and not
relative only. A relative notion of the thing, is, strictly speaking,
no notion of the thing ul all, but only of some relation which it
bears to something else.
" Thus gravity sometimes signifies the tendency of bodies to-
wards the earth ; sometimes it signifies the cause of that tenden-
cy : When it means the first, I have a direct and distinct notion of
g.'-avity: I see it, and feel it, and know perfectly what it is; but
this tendency must have a cause : We give the same name to the
cause ; and that cause has been an object of thought and of spec-
ulation. Now what notion have we of this cause, when we think
and reason about it ? It is evident, we think of it as an unknown
cause, of a known effect. This is a relative notion, and it must
be obscure ; because it gives us no conception of wbat the thing
is, but of what relation it bears to something else. Every rela-
tion which a thing uiiknovvn bears to something that is known,
may give a relative notion of it ; and there are many objects of
thought, and of discourse, of which our faculties can give no bet-
ter than a relative notion.
" Having premised these things to explain what is meant by a
relative notion, it is evident, that our notion of primary qualities
is not of this kind ; we know what they are, and not barely what
relation they hear to something else.
" It is otherwise with secondary qualities. If you ask me,
what is that quality or modification in a rose which I call its
smell, I am at a loss 1(^ answer directly.. Upon reflection I find,
that I have a distinct notion of the sensation which it produces in
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF MATTER. 385
my mind. But there can be nothing like to this sensation in the
rose, because it is insentient. The quality in the rose is some-
thing which occasions the sensations in me ; but what that some-
thing is, I know not. My senses give me no information upon this
point. The only notion, therefore, ray senses give is this. That
smell in the rose is an unknown quality or modification, which is
the cause or occasion of a sensation which 1 know well. The re-
lation which this unknown quality bears to the sensation with
which nature hath connected it, is all I learn from the sense of
smelling ; but this is evidently a relative notion. The same rea-
soning will apply to every secondary qualit}".
" Thus I think it appears, that there is a real foundation for
the distinction of primary from secondary quahties ; and that they
are distinguished by this, that of the primary we have by our sen-
ses a direct and distinct notion; but of the secondary only a rela-
tive notion, which must, because it is only relative, be obscure ;
they are conceived only as the unknown causes or occasions of
certain sensations with which we are well acquainted."*
Though, as I have explained to you fully, in my former Lec-
tures, we should not, — at least in tar the greater number of our
sensations, — have considered them, originally, as proceeding from
external causes, we yet, after the acquisitions of knowledge, with
which the first years of our life enrich us, believe, that there is an
external cause of all our sensations, — of smells and tastes, as much
as of those feelings of the mind, which constitute our notions of
extension and resistance. But the difference, in these cases, is,
that though we learn, by experience of certain successions or co-
existences of feelings, to refer to a corporeal cause our sensations
of fragrance, and various other species of sensations, there is no-
thing in the sensation of fragrance itself, or in the other analo-
gous sensations, of which I speak, that might not indicate as much
a cause directly spiritual, as a cause like that to which we at
present give the name oC body, — while the very notion of exten-
sion and resistance combined, seems necessarily to indicate a ma-
terial cause, or rather is truly that which constitutes our very no-
tion of matter.
We believe, indeed, that our sensations of fragrance, sweet-
ness, sound, have causes of some sort, as truly as we believe, that
* On the Intellectual Powers, Essay 11. c. 17.
49
386 O.V THE PRIMARY AND
our feelings of extension and resistance have a cause, or causes of
some sort ; but if we have previously given the name of matter,
with direct reference to the one set of effects, and not with di-
rect reference to the other, it necessarily Ibllows, that, in rela-
tion to matter, as often as we speak or think of it, the qualities
which correspond with the one set of effects, that have led us to
use that name, must be regarded by us as primary, and the others,
which may, or may not coexist with these, only as secondary. An
external body may, or may not be fragrant, because fragrance is
not one of the qualities previously included by us in our defini-
tion of a body ; but it muU be extended^ and present an obstacle to
our compressing force, because these are the very qualities,
which we have included in our definition, and without which,
therefore, the definition must cease to be applicable to the thing
detined.
If, originally, we liad invented the word matter to denote the
cause, whatever it miglit be, of our sensations of smell, it is very
evident, thnt fragrance would then have been to us the primary
quality o( matter, as being that which was essential to our defini-
tion of matter, — and all other qualities, by which the cause of
smell might, or might not at the same time affect our other senses,
would then have been secondary qualities only, — as being qualities
compatible with our definition of matter, but not essential to it.
What we now term matter, however, I have repeatedly ob-
served, — is that which we consider as occu/?^nio- s^ace, and resisting
our ej^'ort to compress it ; and those qualities of matter may well
be said to be primary, by which matter itselt*, as thus defined, be-
comes known to us, — or by the union of which, in our conception,
we form the complex notion of matter, and give or withhold that
Dame according as these quahties are present or absent. Exten-
sion and resistance are the distinguishing qualities that direct us in
all our applications of the word which comprehends them. Thej
are truly primary qualities, therefore ; since, without our consid-
eration of them, we never could have formed the complex notion
of the substance itself, to which we afterwards, in our analysis of
that complex notion, ascribe them separately as qualities; — and all
the other qualities, which we may afterwards find occasion to re-
fer to an extended resisting substance, must evidently be seconda-
ry, in reference to those qualities, withojit which as previously
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF MATTER. 387
combined in our thought, we could not have had the primary no-
tion ot'the substance to which we thus secondarily refer them. If,
in the c;xse which we have already frequently imagined, of the sin-
gle sense of smell, we had been absolutely unsusceptible of every
other external feeling, we might, indeed, have considered our sen-
sation as the effect of some cause, — and even of a cause that was
different from our mind itself; but it is verj-^ evident that we could
not have considered it as the effect of the presence of matter, at
least as that term is now understood bj'^ us. If, in these circum-
stances, — after frequent repetition of the fragrance, as the only
quality of bodies with which we could be acquainted, — we
were to acquire in an instant all the other senses which we now
possess, — so as to become capable of forming that complex notion
of things extended and resisting, which is our present notion of
matter, we should then, indeed, have a fuller notion of the rose,
of the mere fragrance of which we before were sensible, without
knowing of what it was the fragrance, and might learn to refer the
fragrance to the rose, by the same coexistences of sensations
which have led us, in our present circumstances, to combine the
fragrance with other qualities, in the complex conception of the
flower. Even then, however, though the fragrance, which was
our first sensation, had truly been known to us before the other
qualities, and though the sensation, therefore, would deserve the
name of primary, the reference of this earlier feeling to the exter-
nal rose as its cause, would still truly be secondary to the earlier
reference, or rather to the earlier combination of other qualities,
in one complex whole, by which we had formed to ourselves the
notion of the extended and resisting rose, as a body, that admitted
the subsequent reference of the delightful sensation of fragrance
to be made to it, as the equal cause of these different effects.
In this sense, then, the distinction of the primary and seconda-
ry qualities of matter is just, — that, whatever qualities we refer to
a material cause must be, in reference, secondary to those qualities
that are essential to our very notion of the body, to which the sub-
sequent reference of the other qualities is made. We have form-
ed our definition of matter; and, as in every other definition of ev-
ery sort, the qualities included in the definition, must always, in
comparison of other qualities, be primary and essential, relatively
to the thing defined.
383 ON THE PRIMARY AND
Nor is this all. — It will be admitted likewise, that the qualities
lermed primary, — which alone are included in our general defini-
tions of matter, and which are all, as we have seen, modifications
ol mere extension and resistance, are, even after we have learned
to consider the causes of all our sensations as substances external to
the mind, still felt by us to be external, with more clearness and
vividness, than the other qualities, which we term secondary. The
dilTerence is partly, and chiefly, in the nature of the sensations
themselves, as already explained to you, but depends also, I con-
ceive, in no inconsiderable degree, on the permanence and univer-
sality of the objects which possess the primary qualities, and the
readiness with which we can renew our feeling of them at will,
from the constant presence of our own bodily frame, itself extend-
ed and resisting, and of the other causes of these feelings of ex-
tension and resistance, that seem to be every where surrounding
us. Tastes, smells, sounds, — even colours though more lasting
than these — are not always before us ; — but there is not a moment
at which we cannot, by the mere stretching of our hand, produce
at pleasure, the fechng of something extended and resisting. It is
a very natural elTect of this difference, that the one set of causes
wliich are always before us, should seem to us, therefore, pecu-
liarly permanent, and the other set, that are only occasionally
present, should seem almost as fugitive as our sensations them-
selves.
In these most important respects, there is, then, a just ground
for the distinction of the primary from the secondary qualities of
bodies. They arc j)rimary in the order of our definition of mat-
ter; and they are felt by us as peculiarly pern)ancnt, independent-
ly of our feelings, which they seem at every moment ready to
awake. The power of affecting us with smell, taste, sight, or
hearing, may or may not be present; i»ut (be power of exciting
the feelings of extension and resistance is constantly present, and
is regarded by us as essential to our very notion of matter, — or,
in other words, wc give the name of matter, only where this com-
plex perception is excited in us. We seein, therefore, to be con-
stantly surroundetl with a material world of substances extended
and resisting, that is to say, a world of substances capable of excit-
ing in us the feelings which are asciihed to tlie |)rimary quality of
matter; — but still the feeling of these primary qualities, which we
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF MATTER. 389
regard as permanent, is not less than the feeling- of the secondary-
qualities, a state or affection of the mind, and nothing- more ;— and
in the one case, as much as in the other, in the perception of the
qualities termed secondary, as much as of the qualities termed pri-
mar\^, the feeling, when it occurs, is the direct or immediate re-
sult of the presence of the external body with the quality of which
it corresponds ; — or, if thei-e be any difference in this respect, I
conceive that our feeling of fragrance, or sweetness, was, origi-
nally at least, a more immediate result of the presence of odorous
or sapid particles, — than any feeling of extension, without the
mind, was the effect of the first body which we touched.
To the extent which I have now stated, then, the difference
of these classes of qualities may be admitted. But as to the other
differences asserted, they seem to be founded on a false view of
the nature of perception. I cannot discover any thing in the sen-
sations themselves, corresponding with the primary and secondary
qualities, which is direct, as Dr Reid says, in the one case, and
only relative in the other. All are relative^ in his sense of the
term, and equally relative, — our perception of extension and re-
sistance, as much as our perception of fragrance or bitterness.
Our feeling of extension is not itself matter, but a feeling excited
by matter. We ascribe, indeed, our sensations as effects to exter-
nal objects that excite them ; but it is only by the medium of our
sensations that these, in any case, become known to us as objects.
To say that our perception of extension is not relative, to a cer-
tain external cause of this perception, direct or indirect, as our
perception of fragrance is relative to a certain external cause,
would be to say that our perception of extension, induced
by the presence of an external cause, is not a mental phe-
nomenon, as much as the perception of fragrance, but is some-
thing more than a state of the mind ; for, if the perception of
extension be, as all our perceptions and other feelings must
surely be, a mental phenomenon, a state of mind., not of mat-
ter^ the reference made of this to an external cause, must be
only to something which is conceived relatively as the cause
of this feeling. What matter is independently of our percep-
tion, we know not, and cannot know, for it is only by our sen-
sations that we can have any connexion with it ; and even though
we were supposed to have our conuexion with it enlarged, by va-
390 ON THE PRIMARY AND
rious senses additional to those which we possess at present, and
our acquaintance with it, therefore, to be far more minute, this
very knowledge, however widely augmented, must itself be a
mental phenomenon^ in like manner, the reference of which, to mat-
ter, as an external cause, would still be relative only like our pre-
sent knowledge. That the connexion of the feeling of extension,
witli a corporeal substance really existing without, depends on the
arbitrary arrangement made by the Deity ; and that all of which
we are conscious might, therefore, have existed, as at present,
though no external cause had been, Dr Reid, who ascribes to an
intuitive principle, our belief of an external universe, virtually al-
lows ; and this very admission surely implies, that the notion does
not, directly and necessarily, involve the existence of any particu-
lar cause, whatever it may be in itself, by which the Deity has
thought proper to produce the corresponding feeling of our mind.
It is quite evident, that we cannot, in this case, appeal to experi-
ence, to inform us what sensations or perceptions are more or
less direct ; for experience, strictly understood, does not extend
beyond the feelings of our own mind, unless in this very relative
belief itself, that there are certain external causes of our feelings,
— causes which it is impossible lor us not to conceive as really ex-
isting, but of which we know nothing more than that our feelings,
in all that wide variety of states of mind, which we express briefly
by the terms sensation or perception, are made to depend on
them. Ill the series of states in which the mind has existed, from
the first moment of our life, to the present hour, the feelings of
extension, resistance, joy, sorrow, fragrance, colour, hope, fear,
heat, cold, admiration, resentment, have often had place ; and
some of these feelings, it has been impossible for us not to ascribe
to a direct external cause ; but there have not been in the mental
series, which is all of which we can be conscious, both that feel-
ing of the mind which we term the perception of extension, and
also body itself, as the cause of this feeling ; for body, as an actu-
al substance, cannot be a part of the consciousness of the mind,
which is a difTcrent siil)s(ance. It is siilTicient for us to believe,
tiial there ore external causes of this feeling of the mind, perma-
nent and independent of it, which produce in regular series, all
those phenomena that are found by us in the j)hysical events of
the universe, and with the continuance of which, therefore, our
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF MATTER. 391
perceptions also will continue ; we cannot truly suppose more,
without conceiving our very notion of extension, a mental state,
to be itself a body extended, wliich we have as little reason to
suppose, as that our sensation of fragrance, another mental state,
is itself a fragrant body. It is needless to prolong this discussion,
by endeavouring to place the argument in new points of view.
The simple answer to the question, " Is our notion of extension,
or of the other primary qualities of matter, a phenomenon or af-
fection of matter or of mind?*' would be of itself sufficient ; for if
it be a state of the mind, as much as our feeling of heat or of
fragrance, and a state produced by the presence of an external
cause, as our sensations of heat or fragrance are produced, then
there is no reason to suppose, that the knowledge is, in one case,
more direct than in the other. In both, it is the effect of the
presence of an external cause, and in both it must be relative only,
— to adopt Dr Reid's phrase, — to that particular cause which
produced it; the knowledge of which cause, in the case of exten-
sion, as much as in the case of fragrance, is nothing more than the
knowledge, that there is without us, something which is not our
mind itself, but which exists, as we cannot but believe, perma-
nently and independently of our mind, and produces according to
its own varieties, in relation to our corporeal frame at one time,
that affection of the mind which we denominate the perception of
extension ; at another time, that different affection of the mind,
which we denominate the perception of fragrance. What it is,
as it exists in absolute independence of our perceptions, we who
become acquainted with it, only by those very perceptions, know
not, in either case ; but we know it at least, — which is the only
knowledge important for us, — as it exists relatively to us ; that is
to say, it is impossible for us, from the very constitution of our
nature, not to regard the variety of our perceptions, as occasion-
ed by a corresponding variety of causes, external to our mind ;
though, even in making this reference, we must still believe our
perceptions themselves, to be altogether different and distinct
from the external causes, whatever they may be, which have
produced them ; to be, in short, phenomena purely mental, and to
be this equally, whether they relate to the primary or the secon-
dary qualities of matter ; our notion of extension, in whatever
way the Deity may have connected it with the presence of exter-
392 ON THK PRIMARY AND
nal things, being as much a state of the mind itself, as our notion
of sweetness or sound.
These observations, on the process of suggestion, which, in
Ihe reference to an extex'nal cause, distinguishes our perceptions
from our simpler sensations, — and on the real and supposed differ-
ences of the primary and secondary qualities of matter, — will
have prepared you, I trust, for understanding better the claim
which Dr Reid has made to the honour of overthrowing what he
has termed the ideal system of perception. It is a claim, as I
T.i have said, which appears to me truly wonderful, both as made by
'' ' him and admitted by others ; the mighty achievement which ap-
peared to him to be the overthrow of a great system, being no-
thing more, than the proof that certain phrases are metaphorical,
^/ \ which were intended by their authors to be understood only as
metaphors.
—^ In perception there is, as I have already frequently repeated,
a certain series — the presence of an external object — the affec-
tion of the sensorial organ — the affection of the sentient mind. '
As the two last, however, belong to one being — the being called
self — which continues the same, while the external objects around
are incessantly changing ; — it is not wonderful, that, in speaking
of perception, we should often think merely of the object as one,
and of ourself (this compound of mind and matter,) as also one,
— luiiting the organic and mental changes, in the single word
which expresses our perception. To see and to hear, for exam-
ple, are single words, expressive of this whole process — the bodi-
ly as well as the mental part — fur we do not consider the terms
as apphcal>Ie, in strict philosophic propriety, to cases, in which
the mere mental affection is the same, but the corporeal part is
believed by us to he dilferent, — as in sleep, or reverie, when the
castle, the forest, the stream, rise before us as in reality, and we
feel as if we were truly listening to voices which we love. That
we feel, as if we were listening, and feel as if we saw, is our lan-
guage, whofi, in our waking hours, we speak of this j)hcnomcna
of our drearn'^, — not that we actually aoiu and heard — thus evident-
ly shewing, that we comprehend, in these terms, — when used
without the qualifying words as if — not the mental chiuiges of
state only, but Ihe wliolc |»rocess of perception, corporeal as well
as menial. Tlie mere organic part of the process, however, be-
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF MATTER. 393
ing of importance, only as it is followed by the mental part, — and
being always followed by the mental part, — scarcely enters into
our conception, unless in cases of this sort, when we distinguish
perception from vivid imagination, or when the whole compound
process of perception is a suljject of our philosophic incpiiry. As
sight, hearing, perception, involve, in a single word, — process
both mental and corporeal, — so, 1 have no doubt, that idea, though
now confined more strictly to the feelings of the mind, was long
employed with a more vague signification, so as sometimes to
mean the mental affection, sometimes the organic affection, some-
times both ; — in the same manner, as at present we speak of sight,
sometimes as mental, sometimes as organic, sometimes as both. It
comprehends both, when we distinguish the mountain or forest
which w-e see, from the mountain or forest of which we dreavi.
It is mental only, when we speak of the pleasure of sight. It is
organic onl}^, when we say of an eye, in which the passage of the
rays of light has become obstructed, that its sight is lost, or has
been injured by disease.
The consideration of this double sense of the term idea^ in
some of the older metaphysical writers, corresponding with our
present double sense of the word perception, as involving both
the corporeal and mental part of the process, removes, I think,
much of that apparent confusion, which is sometimes to be found
in their language on the subject ; when they combine with the
term expressions, which can be understood only in a material
sense, after combining with it, at other times, expressions, which
can be understood only of the mind ; as it is not impossible that a
period may arrive, when much of our reasoning, that involves no
obscurity at present, may seem obscure and confused, to our suc-
cessors, in that career of inquiry, which, perhaps, is yet scarcely
begun ; merely because they may have limited, with stricter pro-
priety, to one part of a process, terms, which we now use as sig-
nificant of a whole process. In the same manner, as we now ex-
clude wholly from the term idea every thing organic, so may ev-
ery thing organic hereafter be excluded from the term sight ; and
from the simple phrase, so familiar at present, that an eye has
lost its sight, some future philosopher may be inclined to assert,
that we, who now use that phrase, consider the perception of vis-
ion, as in the material organ ; and. if ho have the talents of Dr
50
394 O.V THE PRIMARY AND SECOXDAUY QUALITIES, ETC.
Reiil, he may even form a series of admirable ratiocinations, ia
disproof of an opinion which nobody holds, and may consider
himself"", and perhaps, too, if he be as fortunate as the author
of the Inquiry into the Human Mind, may be considered, by
others, as the overthrower of a mighty system of metaphysical
illusion.
How truly this has been the case, in the supposed overthrow
of the ideal system, I shall proceed to shew in my next Lecture.
395
LECTURE XXVL
ON DR REID's supposed CONFUTATION OF THE IDEAL SYSTEM ;
HYPOTHESIS OF THE PERIPATETICS REGARDING PERCEPTION;
AND OPINIONS OF VARIOUS PHILOSOPHERS ON THE SAIME
SUBJECT.
The remarks which I offered, in my last Lecture, in illustra-
tion of what have been termed the primary and secondary quali-
ties of matter, were intended chiefly to obviate that false view of
them, in which the one set of these qualities is distinguished, as
affording us a knowledge that is direct, and the other set, a knowl-
edge that is relative only; — as if any qualities of matter could be-
come known to the mind, but as they are capable of affecting the
mind with certain feelings, and as relative^ therefore, to the feel-
ings which they excite. What matter is, but as the cause of those
various states of mind, which we denominate our sensations or per-
ceptions, it is surely impossible for us, by perception, to discover.
The physical universe, amid which we are placed, may have in-
numerable qualities that have no relation to our percipient mind,
— and qualities, which, if our mind were endowed with other ca-
pacities of sensation, we might discover as readily as those which
we know at present; but the qualities that have no relation to the
present state of the mind, cannot to the mind, in its present state,
be elements of its knowledge. From the very constitution of our
nature, indeed, it is impossible for us not to believe, that our sen-
sations have external causes, which correspond with them, and
which have a permanence, that is independent of our transient
feelings, — a permanence, that enables us to predict in certain cir-
cumstances, the feelings which they are again to excite in our
percipient mind ; and to the union of all these permanent exter-
nal causes, in one great system, we give the name of the materi-
396 HYPOTHESIS ON THE PERIPATETICS
al worlil. But the material world, in the sense in which alone we
are entitled to speak of it, is still only a name for a multitude of
external causes of our feelings, — of causes which are recognized
by us as permanent and uniform in their nature ; but are so re-
co!>;nized by us, only because, in similar circumstances, they excite
unitbrmly in the mind the same perceptions, or, at least, are sup-
posed by us to be unitbrm in their own nature, when the percep-
tions which they excite in us are uniform, it is accordmg to
their mode of atfecting the mind, then, with various sensations,
that we know them, — and not according to their own absolute na-
ture, which it is impossible for us to know, — whether we give the
name of primary or secondary to the qualities which atl'ect us. If
our sensations were different, our perceptions of the qualities of
things, whicl) induce these sensations in us, would instantly have
a corresponding ditVerence. All the external existences, which
we term matter, — and all the phenomena of their motion or their
rest, — if known to us at all, are known to us only by exciting ii>
ws, the percipients of them, certain feelings : — and qualities, which
are not more or less directly relative to our feelings, as sentient or
percipient beings, are, therefore, qualities which we must be for-
ever incapable even of divining.
This, and some other discussions which have of late engaged
us, were in part intended as preparatory to the incjuu-y on which
we entered in the close of my Lecture, — the inquiry into the just-
ness of the praise which has been claimed and received by Dr
Rcid, as the coiifuter of a very absurd theory of perception, till
then universally prevalent : — and if, indeed, the thcoiy, which he
is «aid to have confuted, had been the general belief of philoso-
phers till confuted by him, there can be no (juestion, that he
would have had a just claim to be considered as one of the chief
benefactors of the Philosophy of Mind. At any rate, since this
glory has been ascribed to him, and his supposed confutation of
the theory of perception, by little images of ohjects conveyed to
the mind, has been considered as forming one of the most impor-
tant eraH in intellectual science, it has acipiired, from Ibis univer-
sality of mistake with respect to it, an interest whicii, from ita
own merits, it would certainly be far from possessing.
In the Philosophy of the Peripatetics, and in all the dark ages
of the scholastic followers of that system, ideas were truly con-
REGARDING PERCEPTION. 397
sidered as little images derived from objects without ; and, as
the word idea still continued to be used after this original mean-
ino- had been abandoned, (as it continues still, in all the works
that treat of perception,) it is not wonderful that many of the ac-
customed forms of expression, which were retained together with
it, should have been of a kind that, in their strict etymological
meaning, might have seemed to harmonize more with the theory
of ideas as images, which prevailed when these particular forms
of expression originally became habitual, than with that of ideas as
mere states of the mind itself; since this is only what has happen-
ed with respect to innumerable other words, in the transmuta-
tions of meaning which they have received during the long pro-
gress of scientitic inquiry. The idea, in the old philosophy, had
been that, of which the presence immediately preceded the men-
tal perception, — the direct external cause of perception ; and ac-
cordin^'lv, it may well be supposed, that when the direct cause of
perception was believed to be, not a foreign phantasm, but a pe-
culiar affection of the sensorial organ, that word, which had for-
merly been applied to the supposed object, would still imply some
reference to the organic state, which was believed to supply the
place of the shadowy film, or phantasm, in being, what it had
been supposed to be, the immediate antecedent of perception.
Idea, in short, in the old writers, like the synonymous word per-
ception at present, was expressive, not of one part of a process,
but of two parts of it. It included, with a certain vague compre-
hensiveness, the organic change as well as the mental, — m the
same way as perception now implies a certain change produced
in our organs of sense, and a consequent change in the state of
the mind ; and hence it is surely not very astonishing, that while
many expressions are found in the works of these older writers^
which, in treating of ideas, have a reference to the mental part
of the process of perception, other expressions are occasionally
employed which relate only to the material part of the process,
— since both parts of the process, as I have said, were, to a cer-
tain degree, denoted by that single word. All this might very
naturally take place, though nothing more was meant to be ex-
pressed by it than these two parts of the process, — the organic
change, whatever it might be, and the subsequent mental change,
without the necessary intervention of something distinct from both,
such as Dr Reid supposes to have been meant by the term Idea.
398 OPINIONS OF VARIOUS PHILOSOPHERS
It is this application, to the bodily part of the process, of ex-
pressions, which he considered as intended to be applied to the
mental part of perception, that has sometimes misled him in the
views which he has given of the opinions of former philosophers.
But still more frequently has he been misled, by understanding in a
literal sense phrases which were intended in a metaphorical sense,
and which seem so obviously metaphorical, that it is trulj' difficult
to account for the misapprehension. Indeed, the same metaphors,
on the mere use of which Dr Reid founds so much, continue still
to be used in the same manner as before he wrote. We speak of
impressions on the mind, — of ideas bright or obscure, permanent
or lading, — of senses, that are the inlets to our knowledge of ex-
ternal things, — and of memory, in which this knowledge is stored,
— precisely as the writers and speakers before us used these phras-
es ; without meaning any thing more, than that certain organic
changes, necessary to perception, are produced by external ob-
jects, — and that certain feelings, similar to those originally excit-
ed in this manner, are afterwards renewed, with more or less per-
manence and vivacity, without the recurrence of the objects that
originally produced them ; — and to arrange all the moods and fig-
ures of logic in confutation of mere metaphors, such as I cannot
but think the images in the mind to have been, which Dr Reid so
powerfully assailed, seems an undertaking not very different from
that of exposing, syllogistically and seriously, all the follies of Gre-
cian Paganism as a sj'stem of theological belief, in the hope of con-
verting some unfortunate poetaster or poet, who still talks, in his
rhymings to his mistress, of Cupid and the Graces.
There is, however, one very important practical inference to
be drawn from this misapprehension, — the necessity of avoiding,
as much as possible, in philosophic disquisition, the language of
metaphor, especially when the precise meaning has not before been
pointed out, so as to render any misconception of the intended
meaning, when a mcta|)hor is used, as nearly impossible as the
condition of our intellectual nature will allow. In calculating the
possibility of this future misconception, we should never estimate
our own perspicuity very highly ; fur there is always in man a
redundant facility of mistake, beyond our most liberal allowance.
As Pope truly says, —
" The cliflLTence is as great between
Tile optics seeing, as tht: objects seen ;"
REGARDING PERCEPTION. 399
and, unfortunately, it is the object only which is in our power.
Tlie fallible optics, that are to view it, are beyond our controul ;
and whatever opinion, therefore, the most cautious philosopher may
assert, he ought never to flatter himself with the absolute certain-
ty, that, in the course of a few years, he may not be exhibited,
and confuted, as the assertor of a doctrine, not merely different
from that which he has professed, but exactly opposite to it.
The true nature of the opinions really held by philosophers is,
however, to be determined by reference to their works. To this
then let us proceed.
The language of Mr Locke, — to begin with one of the most emi-
nent of these, — is unfortunately, so very figurative, when he speaks
of the intellectual phenomena,(though I have no doubt that he would
have avoided these figures, if he could have foreseen the possibility
of their being interpreted literally,) that it is not easy to show, by
any single quotation, how very different his opinions as to percep-
tion were, from those which Dr Reid has represented them to be.
The great question is, whether he believed the existence of ideas,
as things in the mind, separate from perception, and intermediate
between, the organic affection, whatever it might be, and the men-
tal affection ; or whether the idea and the perception were con-
sidered by him as the same. " In the perception of external ob-
jects," says Dr Reid, " all languages distinguish three things, —
the mind that perceives, — the operation of that mind, which is
called perception, — and the object perceived. Philosophers have
introduced a fourth thing, in this process, which they call the idea
of the object."* It is the merit of shewing the nullity of this sup-
posed fourth thing, which Dr Reid claims, and which has been
granted to him, without examination. The perception itself, as a
state of the mind, or, as he chooses to call it, an operation of the
mind, he admits, and he admits also the organic change which
precedes it. Did Mr Locke then contend for any thing more, for
that fourth thing, the idea, distinct from the perception, — over
which Dr Reid supposes himself to have triumphed ? That he
did not contend for any thing more, nor conceive the idea to be
any thing different from the perception itself, is sufficiently appar-
ent from innumerable passages both of his Essay itself, and of his
* On the Intellectual Towers, Essay II. chap. xii.
400 OPINIONS OF VARIOUS I'HILOSOPHERS
admirable defence of the great doctrines of his Essay, in his con-
troversy with Bishop Stilhngdeet. He repeatedly states, that he
uses the word idea, as synonymous with conctption or riotion, in
the common use of those terms ; his only reason for preferring it
to notion, (which assuredly Dr Reid could not suppose to mean
any thing, distinct from the mind) being, that the term notion
seems to him better hmited to a particular class of ideas, those
which he technically terms mixed modes. That ideas are not dif-
ferent from perceptions is clearly expressed by him. " To ask at
what time a man has first any ideas," he says, " is to ask when he
begins to perceive ; having ideas and perception being the same
thing."* If he speaks of our senses, as ihe inlets to our ideas, the
metaphor is surely a very obvious one ; or, if any one will still
contend, that what is said metaphorically must have been intend-
ed really, it must be remembered, that he uses precisely the same
metaphor, in cases in which the real application of it is absolutely
impossible, as, for example, with respect to our perceptions or
sensations, and that, if we are to understand, from his use of such
metaphors, that ho believed Ihe idpas, thus introduced, to be dis-
tinct from the mind, we must understand, in like manner, that he
believed our sensations and perceptions, introduced, in like man-
ner, to be also things self-existing, and capable of being admitted,
at certain inlets, into the mind as their recipient. " Our senses,
conversant about particular sensible objects, do convey," he says,
" into the mind, several distinct perceptions of things, according
to those various ways wherein those objects do affect them,''|
" The senses are avenues provided by nature for the reception of
sensations.''! I cannot but think, that these, and the similar passa-
ges that occur in the Essay, ought, of themselves, to have convinc-
ed Dr Reid, that he who thus spoke of perceptions, conveyed
into the mind, and of avenues provided for the reception of sensa-
tions, might also, when he spoke of the conveyance of ideas into
the mind, and of avenues for the reception of ideas, have meant
nothing inf)re than the simple external origin of those notions, or
conroplioiis. or feelings, or nftoctions of mind, to which ho gave
the name ot ideas ; especially when there is not a single argument
in his Essay, or in any of his works, that is founded on the substan-
* Er-gaj conccrnioi; lltiniaii L^idcrslanding, 15. ii. chap. i. sect. 9.
+ Sect. 3. t Sect. 12.
REGARDING PERCEPTION. 401
tial reality of our ideas, as separate and distinct things in the
mind. 1 shall refer only to one additional passage, which I pur-
posely select, because it is, at the same time, very full of the par-
ticular figures, that have misled Dr Reid, and shews, therefore,
what the true meaning of the author was at the time at which he
used these figures,
" The other way of retention, is the power to revive again ia
our minds those ideas, which after imprinting have disappeared,
or have been as it were laid aside out of sight ; and thus we do,
when we conceive heat or light, yellow or sweet, the object be-
ing removed. This is memory, which is, as it were the store-
house of our ideas. For the narrow mind of man not being capa-
ble of having many ideas under view and consideration at once, it
was necessary to have a repository to lay up those ideas, which
at another time it might have use of. But our ideas being noth-
ing but actual perceptions in the mind, which cease to be any
thing, when there is no perception of them, this laying up of our
ideas in the repository of the memory, signifies no more but this,
that the mind has a power in many cases to revive perceptions,
which it has once had, with this additional perception annexed to
them, that it has had them before. And in this sense it is, that
our ideas are said to be in our memories, when indeed they are
actually no where, but only there is an abihty in the mind when
it will to revive them again, and as it were paint them a-new on
itself, though some with more, some with less difficulty ; some
more lively, and others more obscurely.'"*
The doctrine of this truly eminent philosopher, therefore, is,
that the presence of the external object, and the consequent or-
ganic change, are followed by an idea, " which is nothing but the
actual perception ;" and that the laying up of these ideas in the
memory, signifies nothing more, than that the mind has, in many
cases, a power to revive perceptions which it has once had. All
this, I conceive, is the very doctrine of Dr Reid on the subject ; and
to have confuted Mr Locke, therefore, if it had been possible for
him, must have been a very unfortunate confutation, as it would
have been also to have confuted as completely the very opinions
on the subject, which he was disposed himself to maintain.
* Essaj concerning Human Understanding, B. ii. chap. x. sect. 2.
51
402 OPINIONS OF VARIOUS PHILOSOPHERS
I may now proceed further back, to another philosopher ol'
great eminence, whose name, unfortunately for its reputation, is
associated more with his political and religious errors, than with
his analytical investigations of the nature of the phenomena of
thought. The author to whom I allude is Hobbes, without all
question one of the most acute intellectual inquirers of the coun-
try and age in which he lived. As the physiology of the mind, in
Britain at least seemed at that time to be almost a new science,
he was very generally complimented by his contemporary poets,
as the discoverer of a new land. Some very beautiful Latin vers-
es, addressed to him, I quoted to you, in a former Lecture, in
which it was said, on occasion of his work on Human Nature, that
the mind, which had before known all things, was now for the
first time made known to itself.
" Omoia hactenus
Quae nosse potuit, Dota jam primum est sibi."
And in which he was said, in revealing the mind, to have perform-
ed a work, next in divinity to that of creating it.
" Divinum est opus
Animum creare, proximum liuic ostendere."
By Cowley, who styles him " the discoverer of the golden
lands of new philosophy,'' he- is compared to Columbus, with this
difference, that the world, which that great navigator found, was
lef't by him, rude and neglected, to the culture of future industry ;
while that which Hobbes discovered might be said to have been
at once explored by him and civilized. The eloquence of his
strong and perspicuous style, I may remark by the way, seems to
have met with equal commendation, from his poetical panegyrists,
with whom, certainly not from the excellence of his own verses,
he appears to have been in singular favour. His style is thus de-
scribed, in some verses of Sheflield, Duke of Buckingham :
"Clear as a beautiful transparent skin,
Which nt- ver hides the blodd, yet holds it in ;
Like a delicious stream it ever ran
As smooth as woman, and as strong as man."*
The opinions of Hobbes, on the subject which we are consid-
ering, are stated at length, in that part of his Elements of Fhilos-
• On Hobbes and his Writings, v. 37— 40.— Works, p. 180. 4to Edit.
REGARDING PERCEPTION. 403
oplij', which he has entitled Physica ; and, far from justifying Dr
Reid's assertion, with respect to the general ideal system of phi-
losophers, may be considered, in this important respect, as far, at
least, as relates to the unity of the idea, and the perception itself,
' as' similar to his own. Sensation or perception^ he traces to the
impulse of external objects, producing a motion along the nerves
towards the brain, and a consequent reaction outwards, which he
seems to think, very falsely indeed, may account tor the reference
to the object as external. This hypothesis, however, is of no con-
sequence. The only important point in reference to the suppos-
ed universahty of the system of ideas, is whether this philosopher
of another age, asserted the existence of ideas, as intermediate
things, distinct from the mere perception ; and, on this subject,
he is as explicit as Dr Reid himself could be. The idea or phan-
tasma. as he terms it, is the very perception or actus sentiendi.
" Phaatasma enim est sentiendi actus ; neque differt a sensione,
aliter quam ^eri differt a factum esse.'''* The same doctrine, and I
may add also, the same expression of the unity of the actus senti-
endi and the phantasma, are to be found in various other parts of
his works.
I may, however, proceed still further back, to an author of
yet wider and more varied genius, one of those extraordinary men
whom nature gives to the world, for her mightiest purposes,
when she wishes to change the aspect, not of a single science
merely, but of all that can be known by man ; that illustrious
rete/, who, in overthrowing the authority of Aristotle, seemed to
have acquired, as it were by right of conquest, a sway in philoso-
phy, as absolute, though not so lasting, as that of the Grecian des-
pot. " Time,"' says one of the most eloquent of his countrymen,
" has destroyed the opinions of Des Cartes. But his glory sub-
sists still. He appears like one of those dethroned monarchs, who,
on the very ruins of their empire, still seem born for the sove-
reisrntv of mankind."
On the opinions of Des Cartes, with respect to perception,
Dr Reid has dwelt at great length, and has not merely represent-
ed him as joining in that belief of ideas, distinct from perception,
which he i"epresents as the universal belief of philosophers, but
* Elementa Philosophioe, Pars IV. c. xxv. sect. 3.
404 OPINIONS OF VARIOUS PHILOSOPHERS
has even expressed astonisliment, that Des Cartes, whose general
opinions mig^ht have led him to a different conclusion, should yet
have joined in the common one. " The system of Des Cartes,"
he says, " is with great perspicuity and acuteness explained hj
himself, in his writings, which ought to be consulted by those who
woukl understand it.'"* He probably was not aware, when he
wrote these few lines, how important was the reference which he
made, especiallj' to those Avhom he was addressing; since, the
more they studied the view which he has given of the opinions of
Des Cartes, the more necessary would it become for them to con-
sult the original author.
" It is to be observed," he says, " that Des Cartes rejected a
part only of the ancient theory, concerning the perception of ex-
ternal objects by the senses, and that he adopted the other part.
That theory may be divided into two parts, — the first, that ima-
ges, species, or forms of external objects, come from the object,
and enter by the avenues of the senses to the mind ; the second
part is, that the external object itself is not perceived, but only the
species or image of it in the mind. The first part Des Cartes and
his followers rejected, and refuted by solid arguments ; but the
second part, neither he nor his followers have thought of calling
in question ; being persuaded that it is only a representative image,
in the mind, of the external object that we perceive, and not the
object itself And this image, which the Peripatelics called a spe-
cies, he calls an idea, changing the name only, while he admits the
thing."! — "Des Cartes, according to the spirit of his own philoso-
phy, ought to have doubted of both parts of the Peripatetic hy-
potheeis, or to have given his reasons, why he adopted one part,
as well as why he rejected the other ])art; especially since the
unlearned, who have the faculty of j)ercciving objects hy their
senses, in no less perfection than philosophers, and should there-
fore know, as well as they, what it is they perceive, have been
imanimous in this, that the objects they perceive are not ideas in
their own minds, but things external. It might have been ex-
pected, that a philosopher, who was so cautious ;is not to take his
own existenc*' lor granlod, williout |)roof, would not have taken it
for granted, witlioiil i»roof, that every thing he perceived was only
ideas in his own mind.''''j.
♦■ On the Iiitellectuul Powerg, Essay II. c. 8. tibid, | Ibid.
REGARDING PERCEPTION. 405
All this mifi^ht certainly have been expected, as Dr Reid says,
if the truth had not been, that the opinions of Des Cartes are pre-
cisely opposite to the representation which he has given of them,
that, far from believing in the existence of images of external
objects, as the immediate causes or antecedents of perception, he
strenuously contends against them. The presence of the external
body, — the organic change, which he conceives to be a sort of
motion of the small febrils of the nerves and brain, — and the af-
fection of the mind, which he expressly asserts to have no resem-
blance whatever to the motion that gave occasion to it, — these are
all which he conceives to constitute the process of perception,
without any idea, as a thing distinct, — a fourth thing intervening
between the organic and the mental change. And this process is
exactly the process which Dr Reid himself supposes, with this only
difference, — an unimportant one for the present argument, — that
Dr Reid, though he admits some intervening organic change, does
not state, positively, what he conceives to be its nature, while the
French philosopher supposes it to consist in a motion of the ner-
vous fibrils. The doctrine of Des Cartes is to be found, very ful-
ly stated, in his Principia Philosophm, in his Dioptrics, and in many
passages o^ his small controversial works. He not merely rejects
the Peripatetic notion, of images or shadowy tilms, the resem-
blance of external things, received by the senses, — contending,
that the mere organic affection — the motion of the nervous fibril —
is sufficient, without any such images, " diversos motus tenuium
uniuscujusque nervi capillamentorum sufficere ad diversos sensus
producendum ;" and proving this by a very apposite case, to which
he frequently recurs, of a blind man determining the dimensions of
bodies by comprehending them within two crossed sticks, — in
which case, he says, it cannot be supposed, that the sticks transmit,
through themselves, any images of the body ; but he even pro-
ceeds to account for the common prejudice, with respect to the
use of images of perception, ascribing it to the well-known effect
of pictures in exciting notions of the objects pictured. ''Such is
the nature of tlie mind," he says, " that, by its very constitution,
when certain bodily motions take place, certain thoughts immedi-
ately arise, that have no resemblance whatever, as images, to the
motions in consequence of which they arise. The thoughts which
words, written or spoken, excite, have surely no resemblance to
406 OPINIONS OF VARIOUS PHILOSOPHERS
the words themselves. A slight chang-e in the motion of a pen
may produce, in the reader, atfections of mind the most opposite ;
uor is it any reply to this to say, that the characters traced by the
pen are only occasions, that excite the mind itself to form oppo-
site images, — for the case is equally strikmg^ when no such image
can be formed, and the feeling is the immediate result of the ap-
plication of the external body. When a sword has pierced any
part, is not the feeling excited as different altogether from the
mere motion of the sword, as colour, or sound, or smell, or taste ;
and since we are sure, in the case of the mere pain from the
sword, that no image of the sword is necessary, ought we not to
extend the same inference, by analogy, to all the other affections
of our senses, and to believe these also to depend, not on any im-
ages, or things transmitted to the brain, but on the mere constitu-
tion of our nature, by which certain thoughts are made to arise, in
consequence of certain corporeal motions?" The passage is long,
indeed, but it is so clear, and so decisive, as to the misrepresenta-
tion by Dr Reid of the opinion which he strangely considered him-
self as confuting, that I cannot refrain from quoting the original,
that you may judge for yourselves, of the real meaning, which a
translation might be supposed to have erred in conveying.
" Frobatur deinde, talem esse nostrae mentis naturam, ut ex
60 solo quod quidam motus in corpore fiant ad quaslibet cogita-
tiones, nullam istorum motunm imaginem referentes, possit impel-
li ; et speciatim ad illas confusas, quae sensus, sive sensationes di-
cuntur. Nam videmus, verba, sive ore prolata, sive tantum scrip-
ta, quaslibet in aniniis nostris cogitationes et commotiones exci-
tare. In eadcni charta, cum eodeni calamo et atramento, si tan-
tum calami extremitas certo modo sui)ra chartam ducatur, literas
oxarabit, quaj cogitationes praeliorum, tempestatum, furiarum, af-
fectusqtie indignationis et tristitiiE in lectorum animis concitabunt ;
«i vero alio modo fere simili calamus moveatur, cogitationes valde
diversas, tranquillitatis, pacis, amoenitatis, alfcctusque plane con-
trarios amoris et lietitiai eHiciet. Kespondebitur fortasse, scriptu-
ram vel loquolani nullos aflectus, nullasque rerum a se diversarum
imaginatioiK's iiniiuMlialc in meiite excitare, sed tanlummodo, diver-
sas iiilollertiones ; (juanmi deinde occasiono aiiinia ipsa variarum
rermn imagines in se olTortnat. (^uid aulem dicctur dc sensu dolo-
Fis el litillationis ? Uladius corpori nostro admovctur ; illud scin-
REGARDING PERCEPTION. 407
dit; ex hoc solo sequitur dolor; qui sane non minus diversus est a
gladii, vel corporis quod scinditur iocali motu, quam color, vel so-
nus, vel odor, vel sapor. Atque ideo cum clare videamus, doloris
sensum in nobis excitari ab eo solo, quod aliquae corporis nostri
partes contactu aliciijus alterius corporis localiter moveantur, con-
cludere licet, mentcm nostram esse talis naturae, ut ab aliquibus
etiam motibus localibus omnium aliorum sensuum affectiones pati
possit.
" Praeterea non deprehendimus uUam differentiam inter ner-
ves, ex qua liceat judicare, aliud quid per unos, quam alios, ab
organis sensuum externorum ad cerebrum pervenire, vel omnino
quidquam eo pervenire praster ipsorum nervorum motum loca-
lem.'' *
It is scarcely possible to express more strongly, or illustrate
more clearly, an opinion so exactly the reverse of that doctrine
of perception, by the medium of representative ideas or images,
ascribed by Dr Reid to its illustrious author. It would not be
more unjust, even after all his laborious writings on the subject,
to rank the supposed confuter of the ideal system, as himself one
of its most strenuous champions, than to make this charge against
Des Cartes, and to say of him, in Dr Reid's words, that " the im-
age which the Peripatetics called a species, he calls an idea,
changing the name only, while he admits the thing.'"!
To these authors, whose opinions, on the subject of percep-
tion, Dr Reid has misconceived, I may add one, whom even he
himself allows, to have*shaken off the ideal system, and to have
considered the idea and the perception, as not distinct, but the
same, a modification of the mind, and nothing more. I allude to
the celebrated Jansenist writer, Arnauld, who maintains this doc-
trine as expressly as Dr Reid himself, and makes it the foundation
of his argument in his controversy with Malebranche. But, if I
were to quote to you every less important writer, who disbeliev-
ed the reality of ideas or images, as things existing separately and
independently, 1 might quote to you almost every writer, British
and foreign, who, for the last century, and for many years preced-
wg it, has treated of the mind. The narrow limits of a Lecture
have forced me to confine my notice to the most illustrious.
* PriQCipia Plnlosophiae, Pars IV. Sect. 196.— p. 190, 191. Amst. 1664,
+ On the Intellectual Powers, Essay II. c. 8.
408 OPINIONS OP VARIOUS PHILOSOPHERS
Of all evidence, however, with respect to the prevalence of
opinions, the most decisive is that which is found, not in treatises
read only by a few, but in the popular elementary works of sci-
ence of the time, the general text-books of schools and colleges.
I shall conclude this long discussion, therefore, with short quota-
tions from two of the most distinguished and popular authors, of
this very useful class.
The first is from the logic or rather the pneumatology, of Le
Clerc, the Friend of Locke. In his chapter, on the nature of
ideas, he gives the history of the opinions of philosophers on this
subject, and states among them the very doctrme which is most
forcibly and accurately opposed to the ideal system of perception.
" Others," he says, •• held that ideas and the perception of ideas
are absolutely the same in themselves, and differ merely in our
I'elative application of them ; that same feeUng of the mind, which
is termed an idea, in reference to the object which the mind con-
siders, is termed a perception, when we speak of it relatively to
the percipient mind ; but it is only of one moditication of the mmd
that we speak in both cases." According to these philosophers,
therefore, there are, in strictness of language, no ideas distinct
from the mind itself " Alii putant ideas et perceptiones idearum
easdem esse, licet relationibus differant. Idea, uti censent, pro-
prie ad objectum refertur, quod mens considerat ; — perceptio, ve-
ro, ad mentem ipsam quae percipit; sed duplex ilia relatio ad
unam modificationem mentis pertinet. Itaque secundum hosce
philosophos, nullae sunt proprie loquendo ideae a mente nostra dis-
tinctx'."* What is it, I may ask, which Dr Reid considers him-
self as bavins: added to this very philo'^ophic view of perception?
and, if he added nothing, it is surely too much to ascribe to him
the merit of detecting errors, the counter statement to which had
long formed a part of the elementary works of the schools.
In addition to these quotations, — the number of which maj
perhaps already have produced at least as much weariness as con-
viction, — I shall content myself with a single paragraph, from a
work of De Crnusnz, the author, not of one merely, but of many
very popular elementary works of logic, and unquestionably one
of the most acute thinkers of his time. His works abound with
• Clerici Pncumatologia, Sect. i. cap. v. 9ul)sect. 10.
REGAROINU PERCEPTION. 409
many sagacious remarks, on the sources of the prejudice involved
in that ideal system, which Dr Reid conceived himself the first to
have overthrown ; and he states, in the strongest language, that
our ideas are nothing more than states or affections of our mind
itself. " Cogitandi modi — quibus cogitatio nostra modificatur, quos
induit alios post alios, sufficiunt, ut per eos ad rerum cognitionem
veniat ; nee sunt fingendae ideae, ab iUis modificationibus diversae."*
I may remark by the way, that precisely the same distinction of
sensations and perceptions, on which Dr Reid founds so much, is
stated and enforced in the different works of this ingenious writer.
Indeed so very similar are his opinions, that if he had lived after
Dr Reid, and had intended to give a view of that very system of
perception which we have been examining, I do not think that he
could have varied in the slightest respect, from that view of the
process which he has given in his own original writings.
It appears then, that, so far is Dr Reid from having the merit
of confuting the universal, or even general illusion of philoso-j
phers, with respect to ideas in the mind, as images or separate ;
things, distinct from the perception itself; that his own opinions as
to perception on this point at least, are precisely the same, as those
which generally prevailed before. From the time of the decay
of the Peripatetic Philosophy, the process of perception was gen-
erally considered, as involving nothing more, than^he presence of
an external object — arToi^^ic change or series of changes — an3"
an affection of the mind immediately subsequent, — without the in-
tervention of any idea as a fourth separate thing between the or-
ganic and the mental affection. 1 have no doubt, that, — with the
exception of Berkeley and Malebranche, — who had peculiar and
very erroneous notions on the subject, all the philosophers whom
Dr Reid considered himself as opposing, would, if they had been
questioned by him, have admitted, before they heard a single ar-
gument on his part, that their opinions, with respect to ideas were
precisely the same as his own ; — and what then would have re-
mained for him to confute ? He might, indeed, still have said,
that it was absurd, in those who considered perception as a mere
state or modification of the mind, to speak of ideas in their mind :
but the very language, used by him for this purpose, would prob-
* Tentamen Novum Melaphjsicum, Sect, xxxvii. — Groning(e, 1725.
52
/
410 OPINION'S OF VARIOUS PHILOSOPHERS.
ably have contained some metaphor as httle philosophic. We
must still allow men to speak of ideas in their mind, if they will
only consent to believe that the ideas are truly the mind itself va-
riously affected ; — as we must still allow men to talk of the rising
and setting of the sun, if they will only admit that the motion which
produces those appearances is not in that majestic and tranquil
orb, but in our little globe of earth, which, carrying along with
it, in its daily revolution, all our busy wisdom and still busier fol-
ly, is itself as restless as its restless inhabitants.
That a mind, so vigorous as that of Dr Reid, should have been
capable of the series of misconceptions which we have traced,
may seem wonderful, and truly is so ; and equally, or rather, still
more wonderful, is the general adriiission of his merit in this re-
spect. 1 trust it will impress you with one important lesson, —
which could not be taught more forcibly than by errors of so
great a mind, — that it will always be necessary for you to con-
sult the opinions of authors, — when their opinions are of sufficient
iirportance to deserve to be accurately studied — in their oxt'n
TL'orks and not in the works of those who profess to give a faith-
ful account of them. From my own experience, 1 can most truly
assure you, that there is scarcely an instance, in which, on exam-
ing the works of those authors whom it is the custom more to
cite than to read, I have found the view which I had received of
them to be faithful. There is usually something more or some-
thing less, which modifies the general result,— some mere conjecture
represented as an absolute affirmation, or some limited affirmation
extended to analogous cases, which it was not meant to compre-
hend. And, by the various additions or subtractions, thus made,
in parsing from mind to mind, so much of the spirit of the origin-
al doctrine is lost, that it may, in some cases, be considered as
having made a fortunate escape, if it be not at last represented,
as directly opposite to what it is. It is like those engraved por-
traits of the eminent men of former ages, — the copies of mere
copies, — from which every new artist, in the succession, has luken
something, or to which he has added something, till not a linea-
ment remains the same. If we arc truly desirous of a faithful
likeness, wc must have recourse once more to the original paint-
ing.
411
LECTURE XXVII.
EXAMINATION OF DR REId's SUPPOSED CONFUTATION OF
IDEALISM, CONCLUDED.
My last Lecture, Gentlemen, brought to a conclusion the re-
marks which I had to offer on the Sense of Touch, and particular-
ly on the manner in which I supposed the mind to acquire its
knowledge of external things.
With this very important question of the existence of matter,
the name of Dr Reid is intimately connected, to whom the high-
est praise is usually given, for his supposed confutation of all
scepticism on the subject ; as if he had truly established, by argu-
ment, the existence of a material world. And yet, I confess, that
with all my respect for that excellent philosopher, I do not dis-
cover, in his reasonings on the subject, any ground for the praise
which has been given. The evidence for a system of external
things, — at least, the sort of evidence for which he contends, — -
was not merely the same, but was felt also to be precisely the
same, before he wrote as afterwards. Nay, I may add, that the
force of the evidence, — if that term can be justly applied to this
species of belief, — was admitted, in its fullest extent, by the very
sceptic, against whom chiefly his arguments were directed.
That Dr Reid was a philosopfier of no common rank, every
one, who has read his works with attention, and with candour,
must admit. It is impossible to deny, that, to great power of pa-
tient investigation, in whatever inquiries he undertook, he united
great caution, in discriminating the objects of legitimate inquiry,
together with considerable acuteness, of the same sage and tem-
perate kind, in the prosecution of such inquiries as appeared to
him legitimate. And, — which is a praise, that, unfortunately for
mankind, and still more unfortunately for the individual, <loes not
J
412 EXAMINATION OF DR REID S
always attend mere intellectual renown, — it is impossible to deny
lo him the more covetable glory, that his efforts, even when he
erred speculatively, had always in view those great interests, to
which, and to which alone, philosophy itself is but a secondary
consideration, — the primary and essential interests of religion and
morality.
These praises are certainly not higher than his merits. But,
at the same time, while by philosophers in one part of the island,
his merits seem to have been unjustly undervalued, 1 cannot but
think also, that, in his own country, there has been an equal or
rather a far greater tendency to over-rate them, — a tendency
arising in part from the influence of his academic situation, and
his amiable personal character — partly, and in a very high degree,
from the general regard for the moral and religious objiects which
he uniformly had in view, as contrasted with the consequences
that arc supposed to How from some of the principles of the phi-
losopher, whose opinions he particularly combated — and partly
also, I may add, from the eloquence of his Illustrious Pupil, and
Friend, and Biographer, whose understanding, so little Hable to
be biassed by any prejudices but those of virtue and affectionate
friendship, has yet, perhaps, been influenced in some degree by
those hajipy and noble prejudices of the heart, and who, by the
persuasive charms both of his Lectures and of his Writings, could
not fail to cast, on any system of opinions which he might adopt
and exhibit, some splendour of reflection from the brilliancy of
his own mind. "^
The genius of Pr Reid does not appear to me to have been
very inventive, nor to have possessed much of that refined and
subtile acutencss, which, — ca|)able as it is of being abused, — is
yet absolutely necessary to flic perfection of metaphysical anal-
ysis.
It is chiefly on his opinions, in relation to (he subject at pres-
ent under our view, that his reputation as an original thinker rests.
Indeed, it is on these that he lias inclined himself to rest it. In
a part of a letter to Dr Gregory, preserved in Mr Stewart's Me-
^ moir, he considers his confutation of the jdcal sy-stem of {>ercep-
tion, as involving almost every thing which is U'\i\y his. " I think
there i»( hardly any Ihiiig thai can be calb-d miiu-," he says, "• in
the philosophy of mind, which docs not follow with case from the
SUPPOSED CONFUTATION OF IDEALISM. 413
detection of this prejudice."* Yet there are few circumstances,
connected with the fortune of modern philosophy, that appear to
me more wonderful, than that a mind, like Dr Reid's, so learned
in the history of metaphysical science, — and far too honourable to
lay claim to praise to which he did not think himself fairly en-
titled, — should have conceived, that, on the point of which he
speaks, any great merit — at least any merit of originality — was ^^
justly referable to him particularly. Indeed, the only circum-
stance, which appears to me more wonderful, is, that the claim /
thus made by him, should have been so readily and generally ad- .^Z
mitted.
His supposed confutation of the ideal system is resolvable into
two parts — firsts his attempt to overthrow what he terms " the
common theory" of ideas or images of things in the mind, as the
immediate objects of thought — and secondly^ the evidence which
the simpler theory of perception may be supposed to yield, of the
reality of an external world. The latter of these inquiries would,
in order, be more appropriate to our late train of speculation ;
but we cannot understand it fully, without some previous atten-
tion to the former.
That Dr Reid did question the theory of ideas or images,
as separate existences in the mind, I readily admit ; but I cannot
allow, that, in doing this, he questioned the common theory. On
the contrary, I conceive, that, at the time at which he wrote, the
theory had been universally, or at least almost universally, aban- y
"cterfed ; and that, Thoug'h-pltHw'Trptiers might have" Been TTr4he
"habit of speaking of ideas or images in the mind, — as we continue
to speak of them at this moment, — they meant them to denote no-
thing more then,, than we use them to denote now. The phrase-
ology of any system of opinions, which has spread widely, and for
a length of time, does not perish with the system itself. It is
transmitted from the system which expires, to the system which
begins to reign, — very nearly a" the same crown and sceptre pase,
through a long succession, from monarch to monarch. To tear
away our very language, as well as our belief, is more than the
boldest introducer of new doctrines can hope to be permitted, for
it would be to force our ignorance or errors too glaringly on our
* Account of the Life, Sic. p. xci. prefixed to Reid's Works. F.din. 1803.
o
Q
414 EXAMINATION OP DR REID'S
view. He finds it easier, to seduce our vanity, by leaving us
something- which we can still call our otcn, and which it is not
very difficult for him to accommodate to his own views ; so that,
while he allows us to pronounce the same words, with the same
confidence, we are sensible only of what we have gained, and are
not painfully reminded of what we have been forced to discard.
By this, too, he has the advantage of adding, in some measure, to
his own novelties the weight and importance of ancient authority;
since the feelings, associated with the name as formerly used, are
transferred, secretly and imperceptibly, with the name itselt".
There is scarcely a term in popular science, which has not gone
through various transmutations of this sort. It is not wonderful,
therefore, that the phrase image in the mind, which was no meta-
phor as used by the Peripatetics, should have been retained, in a
ligurative sense, in metaphysical discussions, long after the author-
ity of Aristotle had ceased, and when one who could maintain,
with a square cap on his head, " a thesis on the universal a parti
rei," was no longer, as Voltaire says, " considered as a prodigy."
At the time of Dr Reid's publication, the image in the mind was
as truly a mere relic of an obsolete theory of perception, as the
rising and setting of the sun were relics of that obsolete astrono-
my, in which this great luminary was supposed to make his daily
journey, round the atom which he enlightened.
Before proceeding to the proof of this assertion, however, with
respect to the originality and importance of Dr Reid's remarks on
this subject, some previous observations will be necessary.
In the discussions, which, as yet, have engaged our attention,
you may, perhaps, have remarked that I have made little, if any,
use of the word idea, — a word of very frequent occurrence, in the
speculations of philosophers, with respect to the phenomena of
purcf>ption, and the intellectual phenomena in general. I have
avoided it, partly on account of its general ambiguity, but, more
especially, with a view to the question at present before us, that,
«n examining it, you might be as free as possible, from any pre-
judice, arising from our former applications of the term.
The term, I conceive, though convenient for its brief expres-
sion of a variety of phenomena, which might otherwise require a
more parajiliraMtic ('xi)ression, might yet be omitted altogether, in
the metaphysical vocabulaiy, witliout any great inconvenience, —
SUPPOSED CONFUTATION OF IDEALISIHt 415
certainly without inconvenience, equal to that which arises from
the ambiguous use of it, with different senses, by different authors.
But, whatever ambiguity it may have had, the notion of it, as an
image in the mind separate and distinct from the mind itself, had
certainly been given up, long before Dr Reid had published a sin-
gle remark on the subject. In its present general use, it is appli-
ed to many species of the mental phenomena, to our particular
sensations or perceptions, simple or complex, to the remembrances
of these, either as simple or complex, and to the various composi-
tions or decompositions of these, which result from certain intel-
lectual processes of the mind itself. The presence of certain rays
of light, for example, at the retina, is followed by a certain affec-
tion of the sensorial organ, which is immediately followed by a
certain affection of the sentient mind. This particular affection,
which is more strictly and definitely termed the sensation or per-
ception of redness, is likewise sometimes termed, when we speak
more in reference to the external light, which causes the sensa-
tion, than to ourselves, as sentient of it, an idea of redness; and
when, in some train of internal thought, without the renewed
presence of the rajs, a certain state of the mind arises, different,
indeed, from the former, but having a considerable resemblance to
it, we term this state the conception or remembrance of redness,
or the idea of redness ; or, combining this particular idea with oth-
ers, which hkve not co-existed with it as a sensation, we form,
what we term the complex idea, of a red tree, or a red mountain,
or some other of those shadowy forms, over which Fancy, in the
moment of creating them, flings, at pleasure, her changeful colour-
ing. An idea, however, in all these applications of the term,
whether it be a perception, a remembrance, or one of those com-
plex or abstract varieties of conception, is still nothing more than
the mind affected in a certain manner, or, which is the same theo-
ry, the mind existing in a certain state. The idea is not distinct
from the mind, or separable from it, in any sense, but is trul}' the
mind itself, which in its very belief of external things, is still re-
cognizmg one of the many forms of its own existence.
** Qualis Hamadryadum, quondam, si forte sororum
Una iiovos peragrans saltus et devia rura,
(Atque illarn in viridi siiadet procurabere ripa
Fontis pura quies et opaci frigoris umbra")
416 EXAMINATIO:? OF DR REId's
Dum prona in latices speculi de margine peodet,
Mirata est subitam venienti occurrere Nympham;
Mox eosdem quos ipsa artus, eadem ora gerentem
Una inferre gradus, una succedere syhse,
Aspicit alludens, se?eqiie agnoscil in undis.
Sic sensu interno rerum simulacra suarum
Mens cief, et proprios observat cooscia vultus."*
In sensation, there is, as we have seen, a certain series, — the
presence of the external body, whatever this may be in itself, in-
dependently of our perception, — the organic affection, whatever
it may be, which attends the presence of this body, — and the af-
fection of mind that is immediately subsequent to the organic affec-
tion. I speak only of one organic affection ; because, with respect
to the mmd, it is of no consequence whether there be one only, or
a series of these, prior to the new mental state induced. It is
enough, that, whenever the immediate sensorial organ has begun
to exist in a certain state, whether the change which produces
this state be single, or second, third, fourth, or fifth, of a succes-
sion of changes, the mind is instantly affected in a certain manner.
This new mental state induced is sensation.
But, says Dr Reid, the sensation is accompanied with a percep-
tion, which is very different from it ; and on this difference of sen-
sation and perception is founded the chief part of his system. The
distinction thus made by him, has been commonly, though very
falsely, considered as original ; the radical difference itself, wheth-
er accurate or inaccurate, and the minor distinctions founded upon
this, being laid down with precision in some of the common ele-
mentary works of logic, of a much earlier period.
" When I smell a rose," he says, " there is in this operation
both sensation and perception. The agreeable odour I feel, con-
sidered by itself, without relation to any external object, is merely
a sensation. It affects the mind in a certain way ; and this affec-
tion of the mind may be conceived, without a thought of the rose,
or any other object. This sensation can be nothing else than it is
felt to be. It** very essence consists in being felt ; and when it is
not felt, it is not. There is no difference between the sensation
and the feeling of it ; they are one and the same thing. It is for
this reason, Ibal we before observed, that, in sensation, there is no
• Graj, de Princip. Cogit. Lib. I. v. 143 — 153.
SUPPOSED CONFUTATION OP IDEALISM. 417
object distinct from that act of the mind by which it is felt j and
this holds true with regard to all sensations.
" Let us next attend to the perception which we have in smelling'
a rose. Perception has always an external object ; and the object of
my perception, in this case, is that quality m the rose which I dis-
cern by the sense of smell. Observing that the agreeable sensa-
tion is raised when the rose is near, and ceases when it is remov-
ed, I am led, by my nature, to conclude some quality to be in the
rose, which is the cause of this sensation. This quality in the
rose is the object perceived ; and that act of my mind, by which
I have the conviction and belief of this quality, is what in this case
I call perception."*
That the reference to an external object is, in this case, some-
thing more than the mere sensation itself, is very evident ; the
only question is, whether it be necessary to ascribe the reference
to a peculiar power termed perception, or whether it be not ra-
ther the result of a common and more general principle of the
mind.
When I smell a rose, that is to say, when certain odorous par-
ticles act on my organ of smell, a certain state of mind is produc-
ed, which constitutes the sensation of that particular fragrance ,
and this is all which can justly be ascribed to the mind as simply
sentient. But the mind is not sensitive merely, in the strict sense
of that term, for there are many states of it, which do not depend
on the immediate presence of external objects. Those feelings,
of any kind, which have before existed, together, or in trains of
succession, arise afterwards, as it were spontaneously, in conse-
quence merely of the existence of some other part of the train.
When the tragrance of a rose, therefore, has been frequently ac-
companied with the sensations of vision, that arise, when a rose is
before us, with the muscular and tactual sensations, that arise on
handling it, the mere fragrance, of itself, will afterwards suggest
these sensations, and this suggestion is all, which, in the case of
smell, instanced by Dr Reid, is termed the perception, as distin-
guished from the mere sensation. We ascribe the fragrance to
the unseen external rose, precisely in the same manner as we as-
cribe smoke and ashes to previous combustion ; or, from a por-
* On tlie hilellectual Powers, Essay H. c. 16.
^53
418 EXAMINATION OF DR REId's
trait, or a pictured landscape, infer the existence of some artist
uho painted it. Yet, in inferring the artist from the picture, it is
surely not to any mere power of sense, that we ascribe the infer-
ence, and as httle should we trace to any such simple power, what
is in this instance termed perception. The perception is a sug-
gestion of memory, combined with the simple sensation. There
are not, in ascribing the smell to odorous particles of a rose, as
its cause, sensation, perception, and association or suggestion, as
three powers or general principles of the mind. But there are
sensation and the associate suggestion ; and, when these coexist,
perception coexists, because perception is the name which we
give to the union of the former two. There is, indeed, the be-
lief of some cause of the sensation, as there is a beUef of some
cause of every feeling of the mind, internal as well as external;
but the cause, in the case of smell, is supposed to be external,
and corporeal, merely because the presence of an external rose
has been previously learned from another source, and is suggest-
ed when the sensation of fragrance recurs, in intimate association.
In the case of tusie^ to proceed to our other senses — the per-
ception, as it is termed by Dr Reid, is precisely of the same kind
— a mere reference of association. We have previously learned,
from other sources, to believe in things without, and these, as sap-
id bodies acting on our tongue, are suggested by the mere sensa-
tion, which, but for the means of this suggestion, would have been
a sensation alone, of which the cause would have been as little
conceived to be corporeal as the causes of any of the internal af-
fections of the mind. The melody of a flute, if we had had no
sense but that of hearing — the redness of a rose, if we had had no
sense but that of vision, would as little, as the sensation of smell
when considered as a transient state of the mind, have involved,
or given occasion to, the notion of corporeal substance. We re-
fer the melody to the external flute, and redness to the external
rose, because we have previously acquired the notions of exten-
sion and resistance — of a flute and of a rose as external substan-
ces — and this reference of mere suggestion is all, which, in these
cases, distinguishes the perception from the sensation. Without
Ihe suggestions of memory, in short, we could not in these cases
have had, in Dr lleid's sense of the term, any perceptions what-
ever, to di:jtinguish the causes of our sensations as external, more
SUPPOSED CONFUTATION OF IDEALISM, 419
than the cause? of any of our other feelings. The great percep-
tion, then, in the sense, in which he understands the term, is that
by which we primarily form the complex notion of extension and
resistance — that which has parts, and that which resists our at-
tempt to grasp it — since all the other perceptions, of which he
speaks, in contradistinction from mere sensations, are only these
complex notions, suggested by the particular sensations, and com-
bined with them, in consequence of former association, and the
general reference to a cause of some sort, which may be suppos-
ed to attend our feelings of every kind, internal as well as exter-
nal, when considered as changes or new phenomena. It is not,
however, from any peculiar power, to be distinguished by the
name of perception, that this complex notion of extended resist-
ance appears to me to arise, but from the union of our notion of
extension^ acquired by the mere remembrance of various progres-
sive series of feelings, with the notion of resistance^ when an ac-
customed series of muscular feelings without any change of cir-
cumstances, in the mind itself, is interrupted by that peculiar and
very different muscular feeling which arises from impeded effort.
Perception, in short, in all our senses, is nothing more than the
association of this complex notion with our other sensations — the
notion of something extended and resisting, suggested by these
sensations, when the sensations themselves have previously aris-
en ; and suggested in the same manner, and on the same principle,
as any other associate feeling suggests any other associate feeling.
It is very evident that perception, in Dr Reid's sense, is not
the mere reference to a cause of some sort, for it would then be
as comprehensive as all the feelings or changes of the mind, — our
hope, fear, anger, pity, — which we ascribe to some cause or ante-
cedent, as much as our tastes and smells ; it is the reference of
certain feelings to a corporeal cause, that is say, to a cause extend-
ed and resisting. If, for example, without any previous knowl-
edge of external things, on the first sensation of fragrance, or
sweetness, or sound, or colour, we could be supposed to be capa-
ble of believing that there was some cause of this new state of our
being, this would not be perception, in the sense in which he uses
that term ; and yet but for our organ of touch, or at least but for
feelings which are commonly ascribed to that organ, it would be
manifestly impossible for us to make more than this vague and
420 EXAMINATION OF DR REId's
general inference. When a rose is present, we fine], and have uni-
formly found, that a certain sensation of fragrance arises, which
ceases when the rose is removed. The influence of association,
therefore, operates in this, as in every other case of ordinary co-
existence. We do not merely suppose that the sensation has
some cause, as we believe that our joys and sorrows have a cause,
but we ascribe the fragrance to the external substance, the pres-
ence ol' which we have found to be so essential to the production of
it. Perception in every case, as 1 have said, in which it is to be
distinguished from the prior sensation, is a reference of this prior
sensation to a material cause ; — and this complex notion of a mate-
rial cause, — that is to say, of something extended and resisting, —
mere smell, mere taste, mere hearing, mere vision, never could
have afforded. I have already explained how this notion of mat-
ter, as it appears to me, is produced, or may be imagined to
be produced. A train of muscular feelings has been frequent-
ly repeated, so that the series has become familiar to the in-
fant, constituting in iis remembrance the notion of a certain
progi'essive length. — \7hen all the known antecedent circum-
stances have been the i^ame, the well-known series is sudden-
ly broken, so as to excite* in the mind of the infant the notion
of a cause which is not in itself; — this cause, which is something
foreign to itself, is that which excites the particular muscular
feeling of resistance, — and it is combined with the notion of a cer-
tain length, because it uniformly supplies the ])lace of what has
been felt as a certain length, so as at last, by the operation of the
common laws of association, to become truly representative of it,
or rather to involve it in one complex feeling, in the same man-
ner as colour, in vision, seems to involve whole miles of distance.
.Such is all that seems to me to constitute what Dr lieid would
term perception, even with respect to (he feelings commonly term-
ed tactual ; — and in all the other classes of sensations it is obviously
nothing more than the suggestion of these associate feelings, in the
same »vay as any other feelings, in our trains of thought and emo-
tions, are suggested by those conceptions or other feelings which
lia\ frequently accomj)anied them. — It is suflicient to think of a
mind, jiossessing all (he other suscrp(iI)ili(ios of sensation, iMM/fosc
ivhich give us the |)orccptionH commonly ascribed to (ouch, to be
wenaihie how truly what we term perception in the other senses,
SUPPOSED CONFUTATION OF IDEALISM. ' 42 l
is the mere suggestion of these. If we were capable only of
smelling, — or had no other sensations t-iian those of mere taste,
mere sound, mere colour, — what perception could we have had
of a material cause of these sensations ? — and if it be to the mere
suggestion of the object of another sense that we owe what is
termed perception in all these sensations, — in what circumstance
does the reference of these to a resisting and extended substance,
differ from an}'^ other of the common references which the princi-
ple of association enables us to make ?
" Sensation," says Dr Reid, " can be nothing else than it is
felt to be. Its very essence consists in being felt ; and when it is
not felt, it is not. There is no difference between the sensation
and the feeling of it; they are one and the same thing."* But
this is surcl}^ equally true, of what he terms perception^ which, as
a state of mind, it must be remembered, is, according to his own ac-
count of it, as different from the object perceived, as the sensation
is. We may say of the mental state of perception too, in his own
language, as indeed we must say of all our states of mind, whatev-
er they may be, that it can be nothing else than it is felt to be.
Its very essence consists in being felt ; and when it is not felt, it is
not. There is no difference between the perception and the feel-
ing of it ; they are one and the same thing. The sensation, in-
deed, which is mental, is different from the object exciting it,
which we term material ; but so also is the state of mind which
constitutes perception ; for Dr Reid was surely too zealous an
opponent of the systems, which ascribe every thing to mind alone,
or to matter alone, to consider the perception as itself the object
perceived. That in sensation, as contradistinguished from percep-
tion, there is no reference made to an external object, is true ; be-
cause, %vhen the reference is made, we then use the new tertn of
perception ; but that in sensation there is no object distinct from
that act of the mind by which it is felt ; no object independent of
the mental feeling, is surely a very strange opinion of this philoso-
pher ; since what he terms perception, is nothing but the refer-
ence of this very sensation to its external object. The sensation
itself he certainly supposes to depend on the presence of an exter-
nal object, which is all that can be understood, in the case of per-
ception, when we speak of its objects, or, in other words, of those
* See before, p. 416.
422 EXAMINATION OF DR REId's
external causes, to which we refer our sensations ; for the mate-
rial object itself, he surely could not consider as forming a part of
the perception which is a state of the mind alone. To be the ob-
ject of perception, is nothing more than to be the foreign cause
or occasion, on which this state of the mind directly or indirectly
arises ; and an object, in this only intelligible sense, as an occasion,
or cause of a certain subsequent effect, mu?t on his own principles,
be equally allowed to sensation. Though he does not inform us,
what he means by the term object, as peculiarly applied to percep-
tion — (and indeed, if he had explained it, I cannot but think that
a great part of his sj'stem, which is founded on the confusion of
this single word, as something different from a mere external
cause of an internal feeling must have fallen to the ground.) — he
yet tells us, very explicitly, that to be the object of perception, is
something more than to be the external occasion, on which that
state of the mind arises which he terms perception ; for, in argu-
ing against the opinion of a philosopher, who contends for the ex-
istence of certain images or traces in the brain, and yet says, " that
we are not to conceive the images or traces in the brain to be
perceived, as if there were eyes in the brain ; these traces are
only occasions, on which, by the laws of the union of soul and
body, ideas are excited in the mind ; and, therefore, it is not ne-
cessary, that there should be an exact resemblance between the
traces and the things represented by them, any more than that
words or signs should be exactly like the things signified by
them :"* — He adds, " These two opinions, I think cannot be re-
conciled. For if the images or traces in the brain are perceived,
they must be the objects of perception, and not the occasions of it
only. On the other hand, if they are only the occasions of our
perceiving, they are not perceived at all."t— Did Dr Reid, then,
suppose that the feeling, whatever it may be, which constitutes
percej)tion as a state of the mind, or, in short, all of which we are
conscious in perception, is not strictly and exclusively mental, as
much as all of which we are conscious in remembrance, or in love,
or hate; — or did he wish us to believe that matter itself, in any of
its forms, is, or can be, a part of the phenomena or states of the
mind ; — a part therefore of that mental state or feeling which we
• On the Intellectual Powers, Essay 11. c. 8. 1 Ibid.
SUPPOSED CONFUTATION OP IDEALISM. 423
term a perception? Our sensations like our remembrances or
emotions, we refer to some cause or antecedent. The difference
is, that in the one case we consider the feeling as having for its
cause some previous feeling or state of the mind itself; in the
other case we consider it as having for its cause something which
is external to ourselves, and independent of our transient feelings,
— something which, in consequence of former feelings suggested
at the moment, it is impossible for us not to regard as extended
and resisting. — But still what we thus regard as extended and re-
sisting, is known to us only by the feelings which it occasions ia
our mind. What matter, in its relation to the percipient mind,
can be, but the cause or occasion, direct or indirect, of that class
of feelings which I term sensations or perceptions, it is absolutely
impossible for me to conceive.
The percipient mind, in no one of its affections, can be said to
be the mass of matter which it perceives, unless the separate exist-
ence, either of matter or of mind, be abandoned by us, the existence
of which, Dr Reid would have been the last of philosophers to
jMeld. He acknowledges that our perceptions are consequent on
the presence of external bodies, not from any necessary connex-
ion subsisting between them, but merely from the arrangement
which the Deity, in his wisdom, has chosen to make of their mu-
tual phenomena ; which is surely to sa}^, that the Deity has ren-
dered the presence of the external object the occasion of that af-
fection of the mind, which is termed perception ; or, if it be not
to say this, it is to say nothing. Whatever state of mind percep-
tion may be ; whether a primary result of a peculiar power, or a
mere secondary reference of association that follows the particular
sensation, of which the reference is made, it is itself, in either
view of it, but a state of the mind; and to be the external occa-
sion or antecedent of this state of mind, since it is to produce, di-
rectly or indirectly, all which constitutes perception, is surely,
therefore, to be perceived, or there must be something in the
mere word perceived, different from the physical reality which it
expresses.
The confusion of Dr Reid's notions on this subject, seems to
have arisen from a cause, which has been the chief source of the
general confusion that prevails in intellectual science ; and, indeed,
it was principally with the view of exhibiting this conAi'lon. and
424 EXAMINATION OF DR REId's
its source, to you strongly^ that I have dwelt so long on a criticism,
whicn, to tliose among you who are not acquainted with the ex-
tensive and important applications that have been made of this
doctrine, may, perhaps, have appeared of very little interest. Dr
Reid, it IS evident, was not suihciently in the habit of considering
the phenomena of the mind, — its perceptions, as well as its re-
membrances, judgments, passions, and all its other aft'ections, what-
ever these may be, — in the light in which 1 have represented
them to you, merely as the mind affected, in a certain manner, ac-
cording to certain regular laws of succession, but as something
more mjsterious than the subject of this sequence of feelings ; for,
but for this notion of something more mysterious, the object of
perception, and the external occasion of that state of mind which
we term perception, must have conveyed precisely the same no-
tion. To have a clear view of the phenomena of the mind, as
mere affections or states of it, existing successively, and in a cer-
tain series, which we are able, therefore, to predict, in conse-
quence of our knowledge of the past, is, 1 conceive, to have made
the most important acquisition which the intellectual inquirer can
make. To say, merel}^, that it is to have learned to distinguish
that which may be known, from that Avhich never can be known,
and which it therefore would be an idle waste of labour to attempt
to discover, — would be to say far too little. It is to see the mind,
in a great measure, as it is in nature, divested of every thing for-
eign, passing instantly from thought to thought, from sensation to
sensation, in almost endless variety of states, and dilTering as com-
pletely from that cumbrous representation of it, which philoso-
l)hcrs are fond of representing to us, as the planets revolving free-
ly ill the immense space of our solar system, differ from those mim-
ic orbs, which, without any principle of motion in themselves,
are, as it were, dragged along, in the complex mechanism of our
orreries.
In objecting, however, to Dr Reid's notion of perception, I am
far from wishing to erase the word from our metaphysical vocab-
ulary. On the contrary, I conceive it to be a very convenient
one, if the meaning attached to it be suthciently explained, l>y an
anal}'sis of the coinph.'X slate of mind, which it denotes, and the
use of it confined rigidly to cases in which it has this meaning.
Sensation may exist, -joithout any i-efcrcnce to an external cause^.
SUPPOSED CONFUTATION OF IDEALISM. 426
in the same manner as we may look at a picture, without thinking of
the painter ; or read a poem, without thinking of the poet, — or it
may exist with reference to an external cause ; and it is convenient,
therefore, to confine the term sensation to the former of these cases,
and perception to the latter. But, then, it must be understood, that
the perception is nothing but the suggestion of ideas associated with
the simple sensation^ as it originally took place, — or is only anoth-
er name for the original simple sensation itself, in the cases, if
any there be, in which sensation involves immediately in itself,
the belief of some existence external to the sentient mind, — or is
only a mere inference, like all our other inferences, if it arise, in
the manner in which I have endeavoured to explain to you, how
the notions of extension and resistance in an external cause of our
feelings, might arise, and be afterwards suggested in association
with other feelings that had frequently accompanied it.
To give a brief summary, however, of the argument which I
have urged ; — in that state of acquired knowledge, long after the
first elementary feelings of infancy, in which modified state alone,
the phenomena of the mind can become to us objects of reflective
analysis, certain feelings are relerred by us to an external mate-
rial cause. The feelings themselves, as primarily excited, are,
termed sensations, and, when followed by the reference to an ex-\ Uj.
ternal cause, receive the name of perceptions, which marks nothing ^"^
more in addition to the primary sensations, than this very refer- /
ence. But what is the reference itself, in consequence of which
the new name is given ? It is the suggestion of some extended
resisting object, the presence of which had before been found to
be attended with that particular sensation, which is now again "re-
ferred to it. If we had had no sense but that of smell ; no sense
but that of taste ; no sense but that of sound ; no sense but that
of sight; we could not have known the existence of extended re-
sisting substances, and, therefore, could not have referred the
pleasant or painful sensations of those classes to such external
causes, more than we refer directly to an external cause, any
painful or pleasing emotion, or other internal a/Tection of the
mind. In all but one class of our sensations, then, it is evident
that what Dr Kcid-cails pQxc eption, as the operation of a poculiar ^''
mental faculty, is nothing more than a suggestion of memoryjar ^
association, which dif!errHf^--jni,-X£spef;t^f?>rTr"b(liPr suggestions,
" — bi
426 EXAMINATION, ETC,
arising from other coexistences or successions of feelings, equally
nniform or frequent. It is only in a single class" oi^'^ensatkms,
therefore, — that which Dr Reid ascribes to touch,.-^that percep-
tion, which he regards as a peculiar faculty, extending to all our
sensations, can be said to have any primary operation, even
though we should agree with him in supposing, that our belief of
extended resistance is not reducible by analysis, to any more gen-
eral principles. If, however, my analysis of the complex notion
of matter be just, perception, in its relation to our original sensa-
tions of touch, as much as in relation to the immediate feelings
which we derive from smell, taste, sight, and hearing, is only one
of the many operations of the suggesting or associating principle.
But, even on his own principles, I repeat, it must be confined to
the .single class of feeling, which he considers as tactual, and is
not an original principle, coextensive with all the original varie-
ties of sensation. Even in the single class, to which it is thus, on
his own principles, to be confined, it is not so much what he would
term a faculty, as an intuitive belief, by which we are led irresis-
tibly, on the existence of certain sensations, to ascribe these to
causes that ar£ external and corporeal ; or, if we give the name
of faculty to this peculiar form of intuition, we should give it
equally to all our intuitions, and rank among our faculties, the be-
lief of the continued order of Nature, or the belief of our own
identity, as much as our belief of external things, if our senses
tiiemselves are unable to give us any information of them.
427
LECTURE XXVIII.
ON DR REID's supposed PROOF OF A MATERIAL WORLD ON
VISION AND ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS ASCRIBED TO IT.
I\ my Lecture of yesterday, Gentlemen, we were engaged
in considering the grounds of Dr Reid's claim to the honour of de-
tecting and exposing the fallacy of the hypothesis of ideas as ima-
ges, or things, in the mind, distinct from the mind itself, — a claim
which, though made by one who has many other indubitable ti-
tles to our respect and gratitude, we found, in this particular in-
stance, to be inadmissible.
It appeared, on an examination of the original works of the
eminent philosophers who preceded him for more than a centurj',
and even of the common elementary treatises of the schools, that,
though after the Peripatetic hypothesis of species had been uni-
versally or generally abandoned, the language of that hypothesis
continued to subsist metaphorically, — as it continues with equal
force at this moment, — it was only metaphorically that it did thus
continue ; and that when Dr Reid, therefore, conceived, — in prov-
ing ideas not to be self-existing things, separate and distinct from
the percipient mind itself, — that he was confuting what every
body believed, he merely assumed as real what was intended as
metaphorical, and overthrew opinions which the authors, to whom
he ascribes them, would themselves have been equally eager to
overthrow. But there is yet another point, connected with the
theory of perception, on which he is believed to have made an ^\\,,
important addition to our metaphysical knowledge. I aJiiiii^''tTr y^^
lm-s«pfuig£d^£roof of the existence of a material^ world. In this,
too, we shall find, that heliasTFuly added nothing to our former j/
knowledge ; that he has left us, in short, our belief as originality
fe\t by us, but has not supplied us with the slightest evidence ih
428 ON DR reid's supposed proof
addition to the torce of that orig'inal belief itself, nor given any
additional strength to that very belief, which before was confessed-
ly irresistible.
The confutation of the scepticism on this subject, it is evident,
nia}' be attempted in tzvo mays, — by shewing the arguments urged
by the sceptic to be logically false ; or by opposing to them the
belief itself, as of evidence either directly intuitive, or the result,
at least, of other intuitions, and early and universal associations
and inl'erences, so irresistible after the first acquisitions of infancy,
as to have then all the force of iutuiiion itself. As long as Dr
Reid confines himself to the latter of these pleas, he proceeds on
safe ground ; but his footing is not so firm when he assails the
mere logic of the sceptic, — for the sceptical argument, as a mere
play of reasoning, admits of no reply. It is vain for him to say,
that the scepticism proceeding, as he thinks, on the belief of ideas
in the mind, as the direct objects of perception, must fall with
these ideas ; for, though the scepticism may be consistent with the
belief of ideas as separate existences in the mind, it does not de-
pend, in the slightest degree, on their existence or non-existence.
We have only to change the term ideas into the synonymous
phrase affections or slates of the mind, and the scepticism, if not
stronger, is at least in strength exactly what it was before. In the
one case the sceptic will say, that we are sensible of ideas only,
not of external objects, which may have no resemblance to our
ideas ; in the other case, that perception is but a state of the mind
as much as any of our other feelings, and that we are conscious
only of this, and other states or affections of our mind, which have
variously succeeded each other, and not of external objects, which
themselves can be no parts of that train of mental consciousness.
Whatever weight there may be in the former of these sceptical
theories, exists, 1 may say, even with greater force, because with
greater simplicity, in the second ; and the task, therefore, of prov-
ing by logic, — if logical proof were requisite for our belief, — the
existence of a material world, would remain as laborious as before,
after the fullest confutation of the system, which might suppose
l)prception to be carried on by the medium of little images of bod-
ies in the mind.
So far, indeed, woubl (hn confutation of tliis hypothesis a" io
percej)tion, — even if Dr licid had truly overthrown it, — be from
OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 429
lessenino" the force of the scepticism as to the existence of matter,
that, of two sceptics, oue believing every thing with respect to
ideas which Dr Reid supposed himself to have confuted, and the
other believing ideas to be mere states of his mind, there can be
no question, that the former would be the more easy to be over-
come, since his belief would already involve the existence of some-
thing separate from the mind ; while the other might maintain,
that all of which he was conscious, was the mere series of affec-
tions of his own mind, and that beyond this consciousness he could
know nothing.
Against the argument of one, who founds his very argument oa
his consciousness merel}^, and professes to have no knowledge
either of little images, or of any thing else beyond his conscious-
ness, it would be as idle to urge, that ideas are not little images in
the mind, as it would have been for a Cartesian to attempt to con-
fute the Newtonian system of attraction, by a denial of the Ptole-
maic spheres.
All that remains, then, to supply the place of logical demon-
stration, which would be needless where the belief is as strong as
that of demonstration itself, is the paramount force of this univer-
sal and irresistible belief; and there is no fear that this can be
weakeYied by any argument, or be less felt by him who denies it,
than by him who asserts it. We are conscious, indeed, only of
the feelings that are the momentary states of our own mind ; but
some of these it is absolutely impossible for us not to ascribe to
causes that are external, and independent of us ; and the belief of
a system of external things, is one of these very states of the
mind, which itself forms, and will ever form, a part of the train of
our consciousness. This Mr Hume himself, the great sceptic
whom Dr Reid opposes, admits as readily as Dr Reid himself: —
•' A Copernican or Ptolemaic, who supports each his diflferent sys-
tem of astronomy, may hope to produce a conviction, which will
remain constant and durable, with his audience. A Stoic or Epi-
curean displays principles, which may not only be durable, but
which have an effect on conduct and behaviour. But a Pyrrhoni-
an cannot expect, that his philosophy will have any constant in-
fluence on the mind : or, if it had, that its influence would be
beneficial to society. On the contrary, he must acknowledge, if
he will acknowledge any thing, that all human life must perish,
430 ON DR reid's supposed proof
were his principles universally and steadily to prevail. All dis-
course, all action, would immediately cease ; and men remain in a
total lethargy, till the necessities of nature, unsatisfied, put an end
to their miserable existence. It is true, so fatal an event is very
little to be dreaded. Nature is always too strong- for principle ; and,
though a Pyrrhonian may throw himself, or others, into a momen-
tary amazement and confusion by his prolound reasonings, the first
and most trivial event in life will put to flight all his doubts and scru-
ples, and leave him the same, in every point of action and specula-
tion, with the philosophers of every other sect, or with those
who never concerned themselves in any philosophical researches.
When he awakes from his dream, he will be the first to join in the
laugh against himself"'* In what respect does this differ from the
\ language of Dr Reid himself, when he says, that "• the belief of a
* materiiil world is older, and of more authority, than any princi-
I pies of philosophy. It declines the tribunal of reason, and laughs
/ at all the artillery of the logician."! Surely, if it decline the tri-
bunal of reason, it is not by reasoning that it is to be supported, —
even though the reasoner should have the great talents which
Dr Reid unquestionably possessed.
/ The sceptiefand the orthodox philosopher of Dr Reid's school,
thus come precisely to the same conclusion. The creed of each,
on this point, is composed of two propositions, and of the same
/^ two propositions; the first of which is, that the existence of a sys-
Vz/tem of things, such as we understand when we speak of an exter-
Cjial world, cannot be proved by argument ; and the second, that
,!the belief of it is of a force, which is i)aramount to that of argu-
ment, and absolutely irresistible. The dilTerence, and the only
difl'eronco is, that, in asserting the same two propositions, the
sceptic pronounces the first in a loud tune of voice, and the second
in a whisper, — while his supposed antagonist passes rapidly over
(he first, and dwells on the second, with a tone of confidence.
The negation in the one case, and the affirmation in the other
case, are, however, precisely the same. To him, indeed, who
considers the lone only, and not the meanings there may seem to
be a real strife of scnliment ; but, if we neglect the tone, which
is of no consequence, and attend to the meaning only of what is
• Kj"!«ys — Irii|iiirvf rorii (Tiiin:; liumaii I'l-.di rat.'itidine:, Sect. >ii. I'art 2.
t Intjuiry intu llic lluriian Mind, k.c. Cliup. v. f^ect. 7.
OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 431
affirmed and denied by both, we shall not be able to discover even
the slightest discrepancy. There is no argument of mere reason-
ing that can prove the existence of an external world ; it is abso-
lutely impossible for us not to believe in the existence of an ex-
ternal world. We may call these two propositions, then, a sum-
mary of the doctrine of Reid, or of the doctrine of Hume, a5->
we please ; for it is truly the common and equal doctrine of the
two.
Though we have thus seen reason to deny to Dr Reid the
merit commonly ascribed to him, on the points which we have
been considering, relative to the theory of perception, I trust you
will not on that account, be insensible to the merits which he truly
possessed. He knows Httle, indeed, of the human mind, who
does not know, how compatible many errors and misconceptions
are with the brighest and most active energies of intellect. On
this "■ Isthmus of a middle State," of which Pope speaks, man,
though not" reasoning but to err," is yet subject to occasional er-
ror, even in his proudest reasonings. With all his wisdom, he is
still but " darkly wise ;" and with all the grandeur of his being,
but " rudely great."
VISION,
Our inquiry into the nature of the sensations of touch, — or at
least of those sensations, which are truly, and of others which are
commonly, though, I think, falsely, ascribed to this organ, has led
us into speculations, in the course of which 1 have been obliged
to anticipate many remarks, that more peculiarly belong to the
sense which still I'emains to be considered by us, — the sense of
sight, that to which we owe so much of our most valuable inform-
ation, with respect to nature, and so many of those pleasures,
which the bounty of Him, who, has formed us to be happy, as
well as to be wise, has so graciously intermingled, with all the
primary means of our instruction.
The anticipations, into which I have been led, were necessa-
ry for throwing light on the subjects before considered, partic-
ularly on the complex feelings ascribed to touch, — the knowledge
of which feelings, however, was still more necessary, for un«ler-
standing fully the complex perceptions of this sense. It is thu'
432 ON VISION, AND ANALYSIS OP THE
scarcely possible, in science, to treat of one subject, without con-
sidering it in relation to some other subject, and often to subjects
between which, on tirst view, it would be difficult to trace any re-
lation. Every thing throws light upon every thing, — though
the reflection, — which is, in many cases, so bright, as to force it-
self upon common eyes — may, in other cases, be so faint, as to be
perceptible only to eyes of the nicest discernment. It may al-
most be said, that there is an universal affinity in tntths, — like that
universal attraction, which unites to each other, as one common
system, the whole masses which are scattered through the inlinity
of space, and by which, as I have before remarked, the annihila-
tion of a single particle of matter, in any one of these orbs, —
however inconceivably slight its elementary modification might be
of the general sum of attraction, — would in that very instant be
productive of change throughout the imiverse. It is not easy to
say, what any one science would have been, if any other science
bad not existed. How different did Astronomy become, in conse-
quence of the accidental burning of a few sea-weeds upon the
sand, to which the origin of glass has been ascribed ; and, when
we think of the universal accessions, which navigation has made
to every department of knowledge, what an infinity of truths may
be considered as almost starting into existence, at the moment,
when the polarily of (he magnet was first observed!
"True to the pole, by thee the pilot guides
His steady helm, amid the strugglinq; tides,
Braves with hroad sail the uomeasurable sea,
Cleaves the dark air, and asks no star but thce.^'*
The anticipations, which have been made, in the present in-
stance, will be of advantage, in abridging much of the labour,
which would have been necessary in treating of vision simply. I
may now safely leave you, to make, for yourselves, the applica-
tion of many arguments, on which I have dwelt at length, in treat-
ing of the other senses.
The organ of sight, as you well know, is the eye, — a machine
of such exquisite and obvious adaj»tation to the effects produced
liy it, as to be, of itsc^If, in demonsfratiiig the existence of the Di-
• Darwin's Botanic Garden, Canto II. v. 203 — C.
FEELINGS ASCRIBED TO IT. 433
vine Being who contrived it, equal in force to many volumes of
theology. The atheist, who has seen, and studied, its internal
structure, and yet continues an atheist, may be fairly considered as
beyond the power of mere argument to reclaim. The mmuie de-
tails of its structure, however, belong to the anatomist. It is
enough for our purpose to know, that, by an apparatus of great
simplicity, all the light, which, from every quarter strikes on the
pellucid part of the ball of the eye, — and which if it continued to
pass in the same direction, would thus produce one mingled and
indistinct expanse of colour, — is so refracted^ as it is termed, or
bent from its former direction to certain focal points, as to be dis-
tributed again on the retina, in distinct portions, agreeing with
the portions which come from each separate object, so exactlj^,
as to form on it a miniature landscape of the scenery without.
Nor is this all. That we may vary, at our pleasure, the field of
this landscape, the ball of the eye is furnished with ce.iain mus-
cles, which enable us to direct it more particularly toward the
objects which we wish to view ; and according as the lig it Avhich
falls from these may be more or less intense, there are parts
which minister to the sensibility of the eye, by increasing or di-
minishing in proportion the transparent aperture at which the
light is admitted. There are, then, in this truly wonderful and
beautiful process, in the first place, as determining what objects,
in the wide scene around us, are to be visible at the moment, the
contraction of certain muscles^ on which the particular field of our
vision depends, and which may almost be said to enable us to in-
crease the extent of our field of vision, by enabling us to vary it
at will ; — in the second place, the external light, emitted from all
the objects within this radiant field, which, on its arrival at the
retina, is itself the direct object of vision ; in the third place, the
provision for increasing or diminishing the diameter of the pupil,
in proportion to the quantity of that incident light ; — in the fourth
place, the apparatus, by which the dispersed rays of light are
made to assume within the eye, the focal convergence necessary
for distinct vision; — and lastly, the expansion of the optic nerve,
as a part of the great sensorial organ, essential to sensation. The
difference of the phenomena, produced by the varieties of the exter-
nal light itself, is exhibited in almost every moment of our w;iking
existence ; and the diversities, arising from other parts of the
55
434 ON VISION, AND ANALYSIS OF THE
process, are not less striking. There are peculiar diseases whic^
affect the optic nerve, or other parts of the sensorial organ imme-
diately connected with it, — there are other diseases which affect
the refracting apparatus, — others which affect the iris, so as to
prevent the enlargement or diminution of the pupil, when differ-
ent quantities of light are poured on it, — others, which affect the
muscles that vary the position of the ball, — and, in all these cases,
we find, as might be expected, a corresponding difference of the
phenomena. '
To open our eyes at present, is not to have a single simple
feeling ; it is, as it were, to have innumerable feelings. The col-
our, the magnitude, the figure, the relative position of bodies, are
seen by us at once. It is not a small expanse of light, which we
perceive, equal merely to the surface of the narrow expansion of
the optic nerve. It is the universe itself We are present with
stars, which beam upon us, at a distance that converts to nothing
the whole wide diameter of our planetary system. It is as if the
tie, which binds us down to the globe on Avhich we dwell, belong-
ed only to our other senses, and had no influence over this^ which,
even in its union with the body, seems still to retain all the pow-
er, and unbounded freedom, of its celestial origin.
It is of importance, however, to remember, that, even in the
perception of the most distant body, the true object of vision is
not the distant body itself, but the light that has reached the ex-
pansive termination of the optic nerve; and the sense of vision,
therefore, which seems so independent of the tie that binds us to
our small spot of earth, is as truly limited to it, as any of our oth-
er senses. If the light could exist in the same manner, moving in
the same varieties of direction, as at present, — though no other
bodies were in existence, than the light itself, and our sensorial
organ, — all the sensations belonging to mere sight would be exact-
ly the same as now ; and accordingly we find, as light is, in a
great measure, manageable by us, that we have it in our power to
vary at ph-asure, the visual notions, which any one would other-
wise have formed of bodies, — without altering the bodies them-
selves, or even their position with respect to the eye, — by mere-
ly int<!rj)osing substances, to modify the light reflected or emitted
from them. The same pajter, which we term white, when we
observe it with our naked eye, seems blue or red, when we look
FEELINGS ASCRIBED TO IT, 435
at it through glass, of such a kind, as absorbs all the light which
enters it, but the rays of those particular colours ; and it seems
larger or smaller, as we look at it through a concave or convex
lens, which leaves the object precisely as it was, and affects only
the direction of the rays that come from it : — the reason of all
which diversities of perception is, that, though what we are accus-
tomed to term the object continues the same, — whatever substance
may be interposed between it and the eye, — that, which is really
the object of vision, is different ; and our perceptions, therefore,
correspond with the diversity of their real objects.
In treating of the distinction which has been made, of those
objects of sense which act directly on our organs, and of those
which act through a medium^ as it has been termed, I before re-
marked to you the confusion, into which we might be led, by this
distinction, which forgets that the supposed medium is itself the
real object, as truly, as any of the objects, which in their relations
to other senses, are termed direct. In no instance, however, has
it led to so much confusion, as in the case of vision. It is the
more important, therefore, for you, to have precise notions on
this subject, and to have constantly in mind, that, though indirect-
ly', we may be said to perceive by sight distant objects, as truly as
we perceive colour, still the direct object of vision is not the ob-
ject, existing permanently at a distance, but those rays of light,
whose existence is independent of the object, and which have re-
ceived, from the object that reflects them, nothing more than a
change of their direction, in consequence of which they have
come within the boundary of that small pellucid circle of the eye,
which, insignificant as it may seem, comprehends in itself what is
truly the whole sphere of our vision.
Sight, then, which comprehends all the varieties of colour, is
the object, and the only object, of the sense which we are consid-
ering. But, simple as it is, of what instruction, and joy, and beau-
ty, and ever-varying magnificence, is it the source !
" Carmine quo Dea te dicam, gralissima cceli
Progenies, ortumque tuum ; gemmantia rore
Ut per prata levi lustras, et floribus halans
Purpureum Veris gremium, scenamque vircntem
Tingia, et umbriferos colles, et caerula regna ?
Gratia te Venerisque lepos, et noille colorum,
436 ON VISION, AND ANALYSIS OF THE
Forinarumque chorus sequitur, motusque decentes.
At caput invisum Stygiis Nox atra tenebris.
Abdidit, horrendaeque simul Formidiriis ora
Pervigilesqiie cestus Curarum, atque anxius Angor ;
Undique Lwtitia florent raortalia corda,
Purus et arridet largij fulgoribus iEther."*
" Hail, holy light, offspring of heaven first born !
Or of the Eternal, coetcrnal beam.
May I express thee iinblam'd .' since God is ligiit,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity ; dveelt then in Thee,
Bright Effluence of bright Essence increate !
— Or hear^st thou rather, pure ethereal Stream!
Whose fountain who shall tell ? Hefore the Sun,
Before the heavens, Thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep.
Won from the void and formless infinife."t
How pathetic is the very beauty of this invocation, when we
consider the feelings with which it must have been written by
him, who,
" Like the wakeful bird,
Sung darkling,''^^
and who seems to have looked back on that loveliness of nature,
from which he was Pei)aralcd, with the melancholy readiness,
with which the thoughts of I he unfortunate and the sorrowful still
revert to past enjoyments; as the prisoner, even when lettered to
his dungeon-floor, still turns his eye, almost involuntarily, to that
single gleam of ligiit, which reminds him only of scenes that exist
no longer to him.
" Thus with the year
Seasons return ; but not to 7nc returns
iJay, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight ef vernal bloom, or summer's rose.
Or (locks, or herds, or human face divine ;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surround nie."^
• Gray, do I'rincip. Cogit. lib. i. v. 85—96.
t Paradise Lost, Book III. v. 1 — 12.
i. lb. V. 38, ;33. i lb. T. 40—41.
FEELINGS ASCRIBED TO IT. 437
How often must he have felt, — and how deeply must such a
mind have felt, — the force of that complaint, which he puts into
the mouth of Samson, — a complaint, which may surely be for-
g-iven, or almost forgiven, to the hlind : —
" O why was ^ight
To such a tender ball as the eye confined,
So obvious, and so easy to be quench'd ;
And not, as feeling-, throufijh all parts diffused,
That she might look at will through every pore ?"*
The immediate object of vision, we have seen, then, is light,
which gives rise to all the various sensations of colour ; and, since
the days of Berkeley, philosophers have, with scarcely any ex-
ception, admitted, that the knowledge of the distance, magnitude,
and real figure of objects, which seems at present to be immedi-
ately received by sight, is the result of knowledge acquired by
the other senses : — though they have, — I think without sufficient
reason, — as universally supposed, that the superficial extension,
of length and breadth, becomes known to us by sight originally ; —
that there is, in short, a visible figure of objects, corresponding with
the picture which they form on the retina, and changing, there-
fore, with their change of position relatively to the eye, — and a
tangible figure of objects, permanent and independent of their
change of place ; the latter being the real figure suggested by
the former, nearly in the same manner as the conception of ob-
jects is suggested, by the arbitrary sounds, or written character,
which denote them. The inquiry, with respect to the truth of
this visible figure, as a sensation, may, however, be omitted, till
we have considered the former opinion, which respects the visu-
al perception of distance, and of the figure and magnitude which
are termed tangible.
If it had been duly considered, that it is light which is the true
object of vision, and not the luminous body, the question, as far as
it depends on reasoning a priori, exclusively of any instinctive con-
nexions that might be supposed, could not have admitted of very
long discussion. From whatever distance light may come, it is
but the poi7it of the long line which terminates at the retina, of
which we are sensible ; and this terminating point must be the
* Samson Agonistcs, v. 93— 9T.
438 ON VISION, AND ANALYSIS OF THE
!=ame, whether the ray has come from a few feet of distance, or
from many miles. The rays, that beam from the adjacent mead-
ow, or the grove, are not nearer to my eye, at the instant of vis-
ion, than those which have been reflected from the mountain, on
the very verge of the horizon, or from the cloud that hangs at an
immeasurable distance above my head. The light, that converg-
es on our eye, from all the stars of heaven, within what we term
the field of our vision, is collected, in a space, that cannot be
larger than the retina on which it falls, A cube or a sphere is
represented to us, by the two dimensions of a coloured plane, va-
riously shaded, as truly, as by the object itself with its triple di-
mensions; and, in the determination of the exact correspondence
of these double and triple dimensions, in all their varieties of re-
lation to the eye, the w hole art of perspective consists. A coin of
a single inch in diameter, when placed before the eye, and, of
course, intercepting only an extent of light equal to the extent
of its own surface, is sufficient to hide from us, by actual eclipse,
the fields, and villages, and woods, that seemed stretched in al-
most endless continuity before us.
Unless, therefore, there be some instinctive and immediate
suggestion, of certain distances, magnitudes, and figures, by cer-
tain varieties of the sensation of colour, there is nothing in the
mere light itself, or in its relation to the eye at the moment of vis-
ion, which seems fit to communicate the knowledge of these. Not
o( distance ; for the rays from distant objects, when they produce
vision, are as near to the retina, as the rays from objects that are
contiguous to the eye. Not of real magnitude ; for an object,
with which we are familiar, appears to us of the same size, at dis-
tances, at which every thing merely visual is so completely chang-
ed, that its magniliulo, as far as it dei)cnds on mere radiation, may
be demonstrate*!, iVom the laws of optics, to be equal only to a
half, or a tenth part of its apparent magnitude, when nearer.
Not of figure ; for, without the knowledge of longitudinal dis-
tance, we could not distinguish a sphere or a cube from a plane
surface of two dimensions ; and an object, with the shape of which
we are familiar, appears to us of the same form, in all directions;
though it may be dernonstratod optically, that the visual ligure, as
far as it depends on mere radiation, must vary with every variety
•f po'iition.
FEELINGS ASCRIBED TO IT. 439
f have said, that the knowledge of the real magnitude, figure,
and position of bodies, could not be obtained immediately from the
diversities of the mere surfaces of light at the retina ; vmless it
were the suggestion of some instinctive principle, by which the
one feelino- was, originally and inseparably, connected with the
other: and Lhave made this exception, to prevent you from be-
ino- misled, by the works on this subject, so as to think, that the
orio-inal perception of distance implies, in the very notion of it, a
physical impossibility. Some diversity there evidently must be of
the immediate sensationof sight, or of other feehngs coexisting with
it, when a difference of magnitude or figure is suggested : the vis-
ual affection, which is followed by the notion of a mile, cannot be
the same as that which is attended with the notion of half a foot;
nor that which is attended with the perception of a sphere, be
the same as that which suggests a plane circular surface. What-
ever the number of the varied suggestions of this kind may be,
there must be, at least, an equal variety of the immediate sensa-
tions that give rise to them ; and these corresponding series of
sensations and suggestions, may originally be associated together
by an instinctive principle, as much as any other pairs of phe-
nomena, the connexion of which we ascribe to instinct ; or, in
other words, suppose an adaptation of them to each other, by the
gracious provision of the Power which formed us, for a purpose
unforeseen by us, and unwilled at the moment. It is not more
wonderful, a prion, that a sensation of colour should be immedi-
ately followed by the notion of a mile of distance, than that the ir-
ritation of the nostril, by any very stimulant odour, should be im-
mediately and involuntarily, followed by the sudden contraction of
a distant muscular organ, like the diaphragm, which produces, in
sneezing, the violent expiration necessary for expelling the acrid
matter; — or that an increase of the quantity of light poured on
the eye, should be instantly, and without our consciousness, fol-
lowed by a contraction of the transparent aperture. I am far
from saying, that there truly is such an instinctive association of
our original visual feelings, with corresponding notions of distance
and magnitude, in the present case ; for, at least in man^ I believe
the contrary. I mean only, that the question has, a priori, only
greater probability on one side, not absolute certainty ; and that
experience is necessary, before we can decide it with perfect con-
fidence.
440 ON VISION, AND ANALYSIS OF THE
In the case of the other animals, there seems to be little rea-
son to doubt, that the tedious process, by which man may be tru-
ly said to learn to see, is not necessary for their visual percep-
tions. The calf, and the lamb, newly dropt into the world, seem
to measure forms and distances with their eyes, as distinctly, or at
least almost as distinctly, as the human reasoner measures them,
after all the acquisitions of his long- and helpless infancy. Of these
races of our fellow animals, Nature is as once the Teacher and the
great Protectress^ — supplying to them, immediately, the powers
which are necessary for their preservation, — as, in the long con-
tinued affection of the human parent, she far more than compen-
sates to man, the early instincts which she has denied to him. If
the other animals had to learn to see, in the same manner with
ourselves, it would be scarcely possible, that their existence should
be preserved to the period, at which the acquisitions necessary
for accurate perception could be made ; even though the hoof had
been an instrument of touch and measurement, as convenient as
the hand. For this diiference in the relative circumstances of
their situation, the Almighty Being, — to whose universal benevo-
lence, nothing which he has created is too humble for his care, —
has made suflicient provision, in giving them that early maturity,
A\ hich makes them, for many months, the superiors of him, who is
afterwards to rule them with a sway, that is scarcely conscious of
oflfort.
" Hale aro (heir youns;, from human fr.'viltles freed,
Walk unsuBtaineri, and, unsupported, feed.
Ihey live al once, — forsake the dani^s warm side, —
Take the wide world, with nature for their guide, —
Hound o'er tiie lawn, or seek the distant glade,
And find a home in each delightful shade."*
This instinctive suggestion, which, however subsequent it may
be to the [)rimary visual sensation, seems like immediate percep-
tion in the young of other races of animals, is a very strong addi-
tional proof, if ;iny such were necessary, that there is no physical
impossibility, in (he supposition (hat a similar original suggestion
may take j)lac(' in man. The (|iic-tion, as 1 bcibre said, bccomcf
inily a (picstion of observation and experiment.
15ii(, in man, there is not (hat neccs>^i(y for (lie instinct, which
•• Younq's rar^phrasc on a port of the Book of Job, v. 235—210.
FEELINGS ASCRIBED TO IT. 441
exists in the peculiar situation of the other animals ; and we find
according-ly, that there is no trace of the instinct in him. It is
long before the little nurseling shews, that his eye has distinguish-
ed objects from each other, so as to fix their place. We are able
almost to trace in his efforts the progress which he is gradually
making ; — and, in those striking cases, which are sometimes pre-
sented to us, of the acquisition of sight, in mature life, in conse-
quence of a surgical operation, — after vision had been obstructed
from infancy, — it has been found, that the actual magnitude and
figure, and position, of bodies, were to be learned like a new lan-
guage, — that all objects seemed equally close to the eye, — and
that a sphere and a cube, of each of which the tangible figure was
previously known, were not so distinguishable in the mere sensa-
tion of vision, that the one could be said, with certainty, to be the
cube, and the other the sphere. In short, what had been supposed,
with every appearance of probability, was demonstrated by experi-
ment, — that we learn to see, — and that vision is truly, what Swift
has paradoxically defined it to be, the art of seeing things that are
invisible.
56
442
LECTURE XXIX.
ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS ASCRIBED TO VISION, CONTINUED.
The chief part of my last Lecture was employed in considering^
the Phenomena of Vision^ and particularly in proving, that vision,
— simple and immediate, as it now seems to us, even in its most
magnificent results, — is truly the application of an art, of long and
tedious acquirement, — of that art with which we learn to measure
forms and distances, with a single glance, by availing ourselves of
the information, previously received from other sources ; — the
mixed product of innumerable observations, and calculations, and
detections of former mistakes — which were the philosophy of our
infancy, and each of wliich, separately, has been long forgotten,
— recurring to the mind, in after-life, with the rapidity of an in-
stinct.
Of all the arts, which man can acquire, this is, without ques-
tion, the richest, both in wonder and in value — so rich in value,
that if the race of man had been incapable of acquiring it, the very
possibility of their continued existence seems scarcely conceiva-
ble ; and so rich in subjects of wonder, that to be most familiari
with these, and to study them with most attention, is to find at ev-
ery moment new miiacles of nature, worthy of still increasing ad-
miration.
" !*er (c quicquid Iiabct mun<lus, mirabile nobis,
I'andittir; !icce|)tum(juo tibi (iccus oiiine rcferlur
']"crraruin. Gentes DC<juicquatn interluit a.'8tu
Vicinas pelagus; 1u das superare viarum
Ardua, ct oljtiitu fieston conjiin]c;i8 Abydo.
Nermaris angiisti tantum discrimina solera
l^ccipig, oceanique moras ; Tii sidera Coeli
Subjicii liumanis oculii, ct diBsita longe
ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS, ETC. 443
Das spectare loca, et Dias invisere scdes.
Nativa hinc qiiatnvis feriraur gravitate deorsum
Ad Stygias sedes, Ditisque iiiamabile regnum, —
Mente tftmdP sursum rapti ad sublimia ; molem
Exuituus terrenam, animosque a^qnamus Oljmpo."*
On this subject the remarks of Dr Reid, which I am about to
quote, are not less just than they are strikingly expressed. "If
we shall suppose an order of beings, endued with every human
faculty but that of sight, how incredible would it appear to such
being*, accustomed only to the slow informations of touch, that,
by the addition of an organ, consisting of a ball and socket of an
inch diameter, they m.ght be enabled in an instant of time, with-
out changing their place, to perceive the disposition of a whole
army, or the order of a battle, the figure of a magnificent palace,
or all the variety of a landscape ? If a man were by feeling to
find out the figure of the peak of Teneriflfe, or of even St Pe-
ter's Church at Rome, it would be the work of a lifetime.
" It would appear still more incredible to such beings as we
have supposed, if they were informed of the discoveries which
may be made by this little organ in things far beyond the reach ot
any other sense : That by means of it we can find our way in the
pathless ocean ; that we can traverse the globe of the earth, de-
termine its figure and dimensions, and deUneate every region of it.
Yea, that we can measure the planetary oi'bs, and make discove-
ries in the sphere of the fixed stars.
" Would it not appear still more astonishing to such beings, if
they should be further informed. That, by means of this same
organ, we can perceive the tempers and dispositions, the passions
and affections of our fellow-creatures, even when they want most
to conceal them ? That when the tongue is taught most artful-
ly to lie and dissemble, the hypocrisy should appear in the coun-
tenance to a discerning eye ; And that by this organ, we can often
perceive what is straight and what is crooked in the mind as well
as in the body ? — How many mysterious things must a blind man
believe, if he will give credit to the relations of those that see!
Surely he needs as strong a faith as is required of a good Chris-
tian."t
•Judicium Faridis, v. 146—158. Ap. Mus. Anglican, vol. II. n. 27}. ebit,
1741.
t Inquiry into the Human Miftd, &c. c. 6. sect. t.
444 ANALYSIS OP THE FEELINGS
The same observation has been put in a strong light, by the
supposition, that it had been as uncommon, to be born with the
power of sight, as it is now to be born incapable of it ; — in which
case it has been truly said, that " the few who had this rare gift
would appear as prophets or inspired teachers to the many."*
The very easy predictions thus made, would be found, constant-
ly, or almost constantly fullilled, by those who could form no
conception of the means by which the efl'ects predicted were
foreseen ; and wonderful as the dreams and visions of prophetic
inspiration may appear, they surely could not seem more won-
derful, as a medium of communication, than that by which the
very secrets of the mind, and events apparently the most dis-
tant, were made known, through the intei'vention of a small
ball like the eye.
In shewing the manner by which we learn to combine, with
our visual sensations, the knowledge obtained by touch ; or, as I
am rather inclinetl to think, for reasons formerly stated, the
knowledge falsely ascribed to mere touch ; it will not be necessa-
ry to go over the different varieties of figure, magnitude, distance.
The most striking of these is distance^ — which, indeed, may be
truly said to involve the other two ; since the distance of an ob-
ject is merely the extension of the long line that intervenes be-
tween the object and our eye, and the consequent magnitude of
the intervening objects, and that which we consider, regarded as
one extended whole. Of this one great whole, what we term
the distant object, is nothing more than the boundary. The cot-
tage, at the end of alieid, is a i)art of that com[)ound magnitude of
which (he field and the cottage are separately parts, exactly in
the same manner as the wing of a house, is a part of the com-
pound magnitude of the whole building. The line of field which
connects our eye with the cottage, may, indeed, be a longer line,
l>ut it is a line of precisely the same sort as that which connects
lli(! wings of the house with our organ of sight, or with each
other.
It is vain (o thiidc of ascribing the pcrcei)tion of distance to
the measurement of the diflerent angles subtended by objects, at
diflerent distances, or to an o(jually nice measurement of the dif-
• Ruid's luquiry into tlie Iluuiim Mind, &c. c. 6. sect. 2.
ASCRIBED TO VISION. 445
lerent degrees of inclination of the axis of th6 eyes, necessary for
distinct vision, in particular cases, — as if all men were instinctivcv-
ly geometers, and the peasant and the very idiot were incessant-
ly occupied in measuring angles ; for if this measurement were tru-
ly instinctive, it would occur, in infancy, as in maturity, and be
immediate, in those who have acquired the power of vision, by
that surgical operation to which I alluded in my last Lecture. But
the most decisive of all considerations, with respect to this sup-
posed geotnetry, is, that the angles, subtended by the object at its
different distances, and the inclination of the optic axis, in the
spontaneous accommodation of the eyes to the distinct vision of
the object at difierent distances, though truly existing, to the
mere optical examiner of the object, and the light, and the eye,
as one compound phenomenon, have no real existence, as feelings
of the mind, of the individual who sees, and are known but to
very few of the immense multitudes, who without the slightest
acquaintance with geometry, or the slightest knowledge of the
very lines, whose angles they are supposed to measure, are yet
able to distinguish the distances of objects as accurately as the
most expert mathematician. How is it possible that the angles,
which remote objects make relatively to the eye, should be known
originally, when the remote objects themselves are not known,
but merely the points of light on the retina ? In relation to the
eye, as the organ, and to the mind, as originally sentient in vision,
these points of light were truly all that existed. The light, in-
deed, traversed a certain space, in passing from the object to the
eye, and the lines of direction of the difterent rays, in arriving at
one focal point at the retina, formed truly different angles. But
the angles could not be known, unless the radiant lines themselves
were known ; and of these, the mind could have no knowledge.
During the whole time of their convergence, till they reached
the expansion of the optic nerve, the rays of light were as little
capable of producing vision, as darkness itself; and, when they
reached the retina, the lines, and consequently the angles, existed
no more. Of whatever use, therefore, such angles may be to
the optician, in laying down, and illustrating the principles of his
science, they are of no use in the actual living measurements
of sight. Man may reason, indeed, — but he must reason from
what he knows ; and, therefore, if the determination of distance
446 ANALYSIS OP THE FEELINGS
be the result of any judgment^ it must be of a judgment formed
from feelmgs which truly have, or have had existence.
Such feelmgs, the elements of our visual judgments, it is not
very difficult to discover.
The great principle, in this case, is the principle of association,
by which the notions derived from touch, — or, at least, the no-
tions which are commonly supposed to be derived from that sense,
are suggested immediately by the visual feelings which coexist-
ed with the sensations of touch ; in the same manner, as the
words of a language, when a language has been fully learned, sug-
gest whatever the words may have been used to denote. A child,
whose eye has already learned to distinguish objects, hears the
word cup frequently repeated, when a cup is held before him ;
and the word afterwards suggests the thing. This process every
one understands. But we are not equally aware, that, in the pri-
or stage of learning to distinguish the cup by the eye, the child
went through a process exactly similar, — that the visual feeling,
which the rays of light from the cup excited, coexisted with the
tactual and muscular feeling, when he handled the cup ; and that
the one feeling was thus associated, forever after with the other.
The means by which we acquire our knowledge of the dis-
tance of ol)jects, may be reduced to three, — the difference of the
affections of the oplic nerve, — the different affections of the muscles^
employed in varying the refracting power of each eye, according
to the distance of objects, and in producing that particular inclina-
tion of the axis of the two eyes, which directs them both equally
on the particular object, — and, thirdly., the previous knowledge of
the distance of other objects, which form, with that which we are
considering, a part of one compound perception.
To begin, then, with the afl'ections of the retina. These be-
come signs of distance, in two ways, by the extent of the part of
the retina affected, and by the more or less vivid affection of the
part.
It is evident, from the laws of optics, that, according to the
distance of the object from the eye, fhero must, when all other
circumstances are the same, he a difference of the extent of the
retina, on which the light f'.ills. This iUuminated portion of the
nervouH oxj)aii«e, as supposed to he instantly perceived, is what
is termed the visihie figure of an ohject ; and, though I am dispos-
I
ASCRIBED TO VISION. 447
ed to question the knowledge, which the mind is believed to ac-
quire of this figure, from the mere sensation of colour, to which
the atfection of the retina gives rise, — I am far from denying, that
the sensation itself, whatever it may origmally be, will be differ-
ent according to the extent of the retina affected, as the sensation
of heat is different, according to the extent of the surface, which
has grown warmer or colder, — or of fragrance^ according as a
small number of odorous particles have acted on a portion of the
surface of the organ of smell, or a greater number of these on a
greater portion of that surface. The different feelings, then, when
more or less of the retina has been affected, are capable of being
associated with other feelings, which may coexist with them. An
object, held at the distance of a foot from the ej'e, affects one part
of the retina, — held at arm's length, it affects less of the retina ; and
this difference, not indeed as perceived in tigure, but as perceived
in the variety, whatever that may originally be, of the resulting
sensation, being found constant and uniform, becomes of itself sig-
nificant of the distance.
Another mode, in which the affection of the retina becomes
significant of distance, is by the brightness or dimness of the visible
figure, and its distinctness or indistinctness of outline ; or, as I
would rather say, by the peculiar sensations, without regard to
figure, which accompany those varieties of light. Since, at a dis-
tance, less light falls from objects on the eye, and their outline
becomes less definite, a new measure is thus obtained, in addition
to that which is derived from the mere difference in extent of the
retina affected. In the illusion of this spontaneous measurement,
consists the chief magic of the painter's art. By different shades
of colour, he produces corresponding perceptions of distance ; and
thus, making one part of a plane surface seem more remote than
another, converts it, as far as the mere eye can judge, into a cube
or sphere, or any other solid, which he chuses to present to us.
By the indistinct outline which he gives to his small figures, in the
back ground of a landscape, he leads us to consider them, not as
diminutive in themselves, which we should conceive them to be,
if, with equal smallncss, their outline were clearer, but merely as
less or more remote. He is thus able to vary his figures in three
ways, to make them larger or smaller, more or less bright, and
more or less precisely defined ; and, by uniting these varieties, in
448 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS
various proportions, to disting-uish not merely what is large from
what is small, but the diminutive from the distant, and the gigantic
from the near.
Accordingly we find, that, in circumstances, in which the me-
dium of transmission of light from objects is much altered, our
perception of distance and magnitude becomes less accurate. In
a fog, objects appear to us greatly magnified ; because, the effect
produced on the retina, in the extent of the visible figure and its
dimness and indefinite outline, is truly the same, as when a larger
object, in the common state of the atmosphere, is seen by us at a
distance. From the same principle, objects seen under a brighter
sky, and in purer air, seem nearer than they really are, to those,
whose notions of distance have been acquired in a less happy cli-
mate. This has been remarked, by travellers in Italy, and partic-
ularly by one of the most illustrious of those who have visited
that beautiful countr}', — a traveller, whose attention had been par-
ticularly turned to observations of this sort. The very acute ob-
server, of whom I speak, is Berkeley, in whose Theory of V^ision
there is to be found a very interesting Section, in which he at once
describes this impression, and accounts for it.
Our affections of the retina, then, both in the extent of the
nervous expansion affected, and in the species of affection, afford
one set of feelings, with which the notion of distance may be as-
sociated, in the same manner as the sounds or visual characters of
a language may be associated with the conceptions which they de-
note, or any other feelings with any other feelings.
The next set of feelings which we have to consider, in rela-
tion to our perception of distance, belong to a class, of the impor-
tance of which I have had frequent occasion to speak, the muscu-
lar feelings^ in the contraction of those muscles, which adapt the
nice refracting apparatus in each eye, to the degree of refraction,
necessary for distinct vision in the particular cstse, and produce
that inclination of the axis of vision to each other, which is neces-
sary for directing both eyes equally on the object. The muscu-
lar feeling may be slight indeed, but still it is sufticient to modify,
in some degree, the whole compound sensation of the moment.
One degree of contraction is attended with a particular feeling ;
another degree with a different feeling ; and, as there are various
muscles, subservient to the motions of the eves, some of which are
ASCRIBED TO VISIOV, 449
exerted, while others are quiescent, — the feeling, it is evident,
must vary, not with the degree of contraction merely, but also
with the muscles contracted. A certain muscular feeling, howev-
er simple or complex, accompanies the mere visual sensation, and
blends with it ; and it is with this compound feeling, muscular and
visual, that the notion of distance is associated.
The muscular adaptation, however, it may be remarked, seems,
in a great measure, to imply the very knowledge which it is sup-
posed to give ; since we cannot, instantly and voluntarily, adapt
•our eyes to the state necessary for distinct vision, at a particu-
lar distance, unless we have previously known that particular dis-
tance. The necessary adaptation, however, if it be not the result
of a rapid change of various degrees of contraction in each par-
ticular case may depend, not on our knowledge and will, but on
an instinctive connexion of certain motions with certain feelings,
in which there is as little consciousness of design, as in that very
analogous instinct, or connexion of motions with feelings, which
increases or diminishes the diameter of the pupil, according to
the quantity of light which is poured upon the eye, when the in-
dividual, far from willing the contraction, does not know even
that such a contraction has taken place.
A third element, in the calculation of the distance of an ob-
ject, is the previous knowledge of the distance of other objects,
which form together with it one compound perception. Thus,
when we look along a road, and observe a man on horseback, who
has nearly approached a house which we know, we have of
course little difficulty in determining the distance of the rider.
Every one must have felt how much easier his judgments of the
distance of moving objects are, in scenes with which he is in some
degree acquainted, than in a country which is new to him ; and
what aid the interposition of a variety of objects gives, even
though we may not be well acquainted with the exact extent and
distance of each. To an inexperienced eye, therefore, in a first
voyage, a ship at a distance seems far nearer than it truly is, from
the absence of varied intervening objects in the line between.
Even in the case of a river, which is not so broad as to prevent
us from distinguishing objects on the opposite side, it is with great
difficulty that we attempt to guess the distance, with any approach
if> exartness. There is a constant tendency to suppose the breadth
450 ANALYSIS OP THE PEELINGS
of the river less than it is, and consequently the objects on the
opposite bank nearer than they are. For the same reason, the
horizontal line, in which innumerable objects intervene between
tlie eye and the horizon, appears so much longer than the line of
altitude of the meridian, that the vault of the sky does not seem a
hemisphere, but a far smaller segment of a great sphere. On
this subject, however, rich as it is in illustration, my time will not
allow me to dwell longer. But I regret this the less, as the
subject is one of those, which in the department of optics, come
under the consideration of one of my Colleagues, whose happy
Genius has the art of describing fully what the narrow compass of
his lectures may have obliged him to state brielly ; and who
leaves little for others to add, even on subjects to which he al-
ludes only for incidental illustration.
These few very slight remjirks, however, will be sufficient to
to show, in what manner the notion of distance may be associated
with mere visual feelings, that in themselves originally involve no
notion of distance, as the words of a language, which, in them-
selves, either as sounds or characters, involve no relation to one
object more than to another, become instantly signiticant of par-
ticular objects, and excite emotions of love or joy, or hate, or
indignation, like the very presence of some living friend or foe.
It has been very justly remarked, that, if all men had uniform-
ly spoken the same language, in every part of the world, it would
be difficult for us not to think that there is a natural connexion of
our ideas and the words which we use to denote them ; and it is
not wonderful, therefore, that a similar illusion should take place
with respect to what may be termed the universal language of
vision ; since, in tiic case of visual perception, all men may be
truly said to have the same language ; the same sensations of
sight, being to all significant of magnitude and distance. And it is
well that the judgments which we form, on these important points,
arc thus prompt and spontaneous ; for, if we had to wait till we
had calculated the distance and magnitude of every thing around
u.-i, by a measurement of angles, we should be cut ofl', in our opti-
cal career, before we could, with all our geometry, determine,
with precision, whetliei' the things which we needed most, or the
objects of greatest peril to us, were ten or a thousand paces distant,
Hnd whether thev were of the bulk of a mole hill or of a mountain .
ASCRIBED TO VISION. 451
A miniature image of the objects which we see, is pictured on
the retina, in an inverted position ; and though an image is pic-
tured in each eye, we see not two object but one. To philosophers,
who are even more expert in finding mysteries than in solving them,
this single vision of the erect object, from a double image of the
object inverted, has usually seemed very mysterious ; and yet there
is really nothing in it at all mysterious, to any one, who has learn-
ed to consider how much of the visual perception is referable to
association. If the light, reflected from a single object touched by
us, had produced not two merely, but two thousand separate ima-
ges in our eyes, erect or inverted, or in any intermediate degree
of inclination, the visual feeling, thus excited, however complex,
would still have accompanied the touch of a single object ; and it
only it had accompanied it uniformly, the single object would
have been suggested by it, precisely in the same manner as it is
now suggested by the particular visual feeling that attends the
present double inverted image. To this supposed anomaly in the
language of vision, a perfect analogy is to be found in the most
obvious cases of common language. The two words he conquered
excite exactly the same notion as the single Latin word vicit ; and
if any language were so paraphrastic as to employ ten words for
the same purpose, there would be no great reason for philosophic
wonder at the unity of the notion suggested by so many words.
The two images of the single object, in the arbitrary language of
visual perception, are, as it were, two words significant of one no-
tion.
Whatever the simple original sensation of vision maybe, then,
it is capable of being associated with other notions, so as to be-
come significant of them. But to what does the simple original
sensation itself amount? Is it mere colour, — or is it something
more ?
The universal opinion of philosophers is, that it is not colour
merely which it involves, but extension also, — that there is a visi-
ble figure, as well as a tangible figure — and that the visible fig-
ure involves, in our instant original perception, superficial length
and breadth, as the tangible figure which we learn to see, involves
length, breadth, and thickness.
That it is impossible for us, at present, to separate, in the sen-
sation of vision, the colour from the extension, I admit; Ihough
452 ANALYSIS OF THE PEELINGS
not more completely impossible, than it is for us to look on the
thousand feet of a meadow, and to perceive only the small inch of
greenness on our retina ; and the one impossibility, as much as
the other, 1 conceive to arise only from intimate association, sub-
sequent to the original sensations of sight. Nor do I deny, that a
certain part of the retina, — which, being limited, must therefore
have figure, — is affected by the rays of light that fall on it, as a
ceria.n breadth of nervous expanse is affected in all the other or-
gans. I contend only, that the perception of this limited figure
of the portion of the retina affected, does not enter into the sensa-
tion itself, more than in our sensations of any other species, there
is a perception of the nervous breadth affected.
The immediate perception of visible figure has been assumed
as indisputable, rather than attempted to be proved, — as, before
the time of Berkeley, the immediate visual perception of distance,
and of the three dimensions of matter, was supposed, in like man-
ner, to be without any need of proof; — and it is, therefore, im-
possible to refer to argimients on the subject. I presume, how-
ever, that the reasons, which have led to this belief, of the imme-
diate perception of a figure termed visible, as distinguished from
that tangible figure, w hich we learn to see, are the following two, —
the only reasons which I can even imagine, — that it is absolutely im-
possible, in our present sensations of sight, to separate colour from
extension, — and that there are, in fact, a certain length and breadth
of the retina, on which the light falls.
AVitli respect to the first of these arguments, it must be admit-
ted, by those who contend for the immediate perception of visible
figure, that it is now impossible for us to refer to our original I'eel-
ings, and that we can speak, with absolute certainty, only of our
present feelings, or, at least, of those which we remember, as be-
longing to a period long after our first sensations.
What may, or may not, have been originally separable, we
cannot then, determine. But what, even now, is the species of ex-
tension, wliich it is impossible for us, in our visual porcei)tions, to
separate from colour ? Is there the slightest consciousness of a
perception of visible figure, corresponding with the affected por-
tion of the retina, — or is not the superficial magnitude, and the
only magnitude, which we connect with colour, in any ca.«e, the
very eupcrficial magnitude which we term tangiijle, — a magui-
ASCRIBKD TO VISION. 463
tnde, that does not depend on the diameter of the retina, but is
variously, greater or less, depending only on the magnitude and
distance of the external object.
The mere length and breadth, then, which we cannot sepa-
rate from colour, are not the length and breadth of the figure
termed visible, — for of the perception of these limited dimensions,
we have no consciousness, — but the length and breadth that are
truly tangible ; — and there is not a single moment of visual per-
ception, in which the slightest evidence is afforded by our con-
sciousness of that difficulty of separation, with respect to the af-
fected portion of the expanse of the retina, on which the sup«>os-
ed argument, as to the perception of visible figure, is founded.
Even though the superficial dimensions of length and breadth^
connected with colour in vision, were those of the figured retina
affected, and were necessarily limited to its small expanse, there
would still be no greater impossibility of separating the colour
from mere length and breadth in vision, than of separating it from
the triple dimensions of length, breadth, and thickness : and the
argument, therefore, if it had any force, would be equally appli-
cable to these.
I open my eyes, in the light of day, with a wide landscape
around me. I have a sensation, or perception, of varieties of col-
our, and of all the dimensions of matter. 1 cannot separate the
colour from the length and breadth of the trunk of a large oak
before me ; but equally impossible is it for me, to separate the
colour from the convexity and the magnitude ; and, from this
equal impossibility, I might conclude, with equal force, that the
perception of the convexity and the magnitude is immediate and
original, as the perception of mere length and breadth. Where
all things are equal, we cannot justly deny to one what we allow
to another. He who affirms, that, in looking at a sphere, he can
separate, as elements of his sensation, the colour and the convex-
ity, may be allowed to use this argument of impossibility, as proof
of original connexion, in the other case. But it is only a person
so privileged by nature, — and where is such a person to be found ?
— who can fairly use it.
We are able, indeed, — not while we continue to look at the
sphere, but with a sort of mental effort, afterwards to separate
the colour from the convexity, and to imagine the same colour
454 ANALYSIS OP THE FEELINGS
united witli any other surlace, plane or concave, — the reason of
which is very evident. Our sensation of colour has not been uni-
formly associated with one species of extension, but with all its
varieties ; and ma}', therefore, be suggested in possible coexist-
ence with all. In all these varieties, however, two dimensions
have been constantly implied ; and, therefore, the association of
colour with these is complete and indissoluble. If every surface
in nature had been convex, it is by no means improbable, that we
should have found the same difficult}', in attempting to separate
colour from convexity, which we now tind, in attempting to sep-
arate it from mere length and breadth.
It is the same, in various other atTections of the mind, as in our
sensations. There are feeUngs, which we cannot separate from
other feelings, and which, we yet know, must have been origin-
ally separate. I might refer to the silent growth and maturity of
almost every passion, of which the mind is susceptible. But
there is sufficient proof, even in affections, which seem instantane-
ous. The mother, when she looks at her babe, cannot behold it
without feelings, very different from those, which the same form
and colour, in another infant, would have excited ; and yet, impos-
sible as it is to separate, in this case, the mere visual sensation,
from that emotion of happy and instant fondness which accompa-
nies it, there is surely no natural connexion of the emotion, with
the mere length, and breadth, and colour.
The impossibility of separating the sensation of colour from
the notion of extension, it appears, then, is not a decisive proof of
an original connexion of these ; for, if it were decisive, it would
prove still more ; — and we might, from this alone, assert with
equal confidence, the original visual perception of three dimen-
fiions, as that of two, and of the magnitude and figure, which wc
term tangible, as much as of those, which we have chosen to
term visible. It is surely as little possible for us, when we open
our eyes on some wide and magnificent landscape, to separate
the colour, as a mere visual sensation, from the field, the moun-
tain, the forest, the stream, the sky, as to separate it from the
half inch, or inch of our retina, of the perception of which we
have no consciousness in any case; and it is too much for those
who deny the immediate perception of those greater magnitudes,
to urge, in proof of the necessary original perception of this inch
ASCRIBED TO VISIO.V, 455
or half inch, what, if valid in any respect, must establish no less
the proposition which they deny, than the proposition which they
affirm.
But, it will be said, there is truly a certain figure of the part
of the retina, on which the light falls. The fact is undeniable.
But the question is, not whether such a figure exist, but wheth-
er the perception of the figure necessarily form a part of the
sensation. The brain, and nervous system in general, are of a
certain form, when they are aftected in any manner. But it does
not therefore, follow, — as the fact sufficiently shows, — that the
knowledge of this form constitutes any part of the changeful feel-
ing of the moment. To confine ourselves, however, to the mere
senses, — it is not in the organ of sight only, that the nervous matter
is of a certain shape : — it is expanded into some shape or other,
in every organ. When the whole, or a part, therefore, of the
olfactory organ, is affected by the rays of odour, if I may so term
them, we might, with exactly the same ground for our belief, sup-
pose, that the knowledge of a certain extension must accompany
the fragrance, because a certain nervous expanse is, in this case,
affected, as that the notion of a certain extension must, for the
same reason, and for the same reason alone, accompany the sen-
sation of colour. It is because the same light, which acts upon
the organ of one person, may be made visible to another, that we
conceive it more pecuHarly to be figured, as it were, on the ner-
vous expanse, when it is not in itself truly more figured, than the
number of coexisting particles of odour, which affect the nerve of
smell. We cannot exhibit the particles of odour, however, acting
on the nostril of any one. But, when the eye is dissected from its
orbit, we can show the image of a luminous body, distinctly form-
ed upon the retina. We, the observers of the dissected eye, have
thus a clearer notion of the length and breadth of the nervous mat-
ter affected in the one case than in the other. But it is not in the dis-
sected eye that vision takes place ; and as the living eye, and the
living nostrils, are alike affected in more than one physical point^
we must surely admit, that in both cases, and in both cases equally,
a certain length and breadth are affected, and that there is an ol-
factory figure as truly as a visible figure. The mere visibility of the
image to another person cannot alter the nature of the organic af-
fection itself to the sentient individual. If the olfactory figure be
4o& A3rAl,TSIS OF THE TESXOkGS
MOt neoe^aSty acouBponied vfiih the peroepti<m of exteuBOB,
Iheie is no £&vQi^errrasan«jwiMi, to suppose tbait wliat is termed
tbe TiaUe i%vr&, — vdiich is notbi^ moi^ diaji a similar a&ctioa
of a navaoB espsBSR, — should be accarapanied with fbe knovrl-
ed^ of Hie part o^the retina aJlected.
Tliese aigoments, lH>weTer,tlMHig:h ^Hx^J seem to me to ioFali-
date coB^lettely the omij ai^nmenfes which I can imagine to be
«s«ed m si^pMt ci oer ordinal perception of %vre by the eje,
are n^aiiwe onfy. Bat fhei« is ako a paaikiwe ai^nmmt, which
seems to me trafy decasire, a^iainst the sof^osed necessary per-
cepdon of ii^Ue figure, — that it implies the Ueiidiii^ &i thii^
wUch caranot be Mended. If the mere Tisnal sraisation <rir colour
impiT. in itself, no ifignre, I can conceive it to be bl«ided with
aisij i%M3« ; bat not so, if it imply, in ilseliC, a fixed definite
&gii:^ so essential to the Teij s^Kation <^ ti^e cokMir, that with-
oot it the coloar codd not £ot a :single moment be perceiTed.
Ihoing: the wh(^ time, then, in which I am ^aiaag on a w^de
lamfecape, there is, aoconSn^ to the o|HniQn of those who contend
Sar the nece^arj perception of I'Kible l%are, not icoloar merely,
bat a certain small orfoared expai^e, of defioile ootline, c<nfitant'
ly perciKwed — ance, withomt tibis, colour itself coold not be per-
c^ved ; sHad, dnring^ aD tiiK time, there k also a notion of a ^fore
IIS* a very dEifierent kind, of three dimei^oie, and of magnitude
almcst infinitefy gxieater, combined, not witii coloar merely, bat
with the same c«rfoared es^anse. There most, therefore, be
9Mne poasiMe cGrabination of these forms and magnitodes ; sioce it
is the coloar whach we percehre that is Mended with the tangible
ms^nitbodes sa^esied. flow, diog^ there are certain feelii^
which may coexist and mute, it af^eacs tome, that there are oth-
cis which cammt be so Mended. I may combine, for example, my
notion of a plane or ooorex snr&ce, with my notion of whiteness
or Mneness, harinetit or soilness, rooghnese or snMotfaness ; bat
I TTimrf Mend my notimffi drf" these two sar&tces, the plane and the
coHTex. as one aori&ce, both plane and convex, more tiian 1 can
tlnk of a wIk^ which b l^than a ifraction of itseif, or a square,
of which the sides are not eqoal, and the angles equal only to three
tight aagles. The same Mae or white sur&ce cannot appear to
me, thfea, at once plane and convex, as it miKt do if there be a
viaUe figure of one exact ootliiie coexisting with Ihe tactual fif -
AScaiEED TO visioy. 457
ore which is of a di^rent outline ; nor, eren thoi^;1i tlie sarfstce
were in both cases plame^ can it appear to me, at the same mo-
ment, half an inch square, and manj feet sqiaare. All this imsei
he done, howeTer, as often as we open our ejes, if fbere be tnt-
\j any perception of rissbie i^raore coexisliii^ with the mere sn^-
ge^tions of touch. The Tiabie /figure of the sphere, on which I
fix mj gaze, is said to be a plane of two dimensiioas iiKepaiaJUe
from colour, and this inseparable colour miEst jet be comUned
with the sphere, which I perceire distinctlj to be conrex. Ac-
cording' to the common theoij, therefore, it is at once, to mj per-
ception, eo/uves and plane ; and, if the sphere be a lai^e ose, it £^
percerred, at the same moment, to be a ^here 4^ mauj feet is
diameter, and a plane circular snr&ce <^ the diameter of a quar-
ter of an inch. The a^eitioa of so strangle a combinatian trf* ht-
cra^Tuities w^oold, indeed, require some powexlul argmnents tf?
justilj it ; jet is has been asserted, not merelj without pcisiti^ :
eridence, as if not sfandii^ in need of anj pro(^ but in absolute
oppo^fion to our consciouaiess ; and the onij arguments whsdi
we can erer imagine to be urged for it, axe, as we hare seen-. : ^
no weight, — or would tend as nrach to proTe the ordinal ir£?«i<ai
perception of tangible figures, as of the figure that fe termed tk-
ible.
Is it not at least more probable. tAeref-rre. mat tb.':c.-i'3< I±e
the particles of odour whoi thej act up^ja oar ^jJimL^, the rrtji of
light affect a porticm of the retma, so as to prc-ii-e cq r. in 5>«2x?,
which, if the eve were separated from its orbit, and its coats dis-
sected, might be a distinct viable %uie to the eje of anodier
observer ; this %ure <^ the poificm of the retina alfetrted, enters
as little into the ample original sensatioa df^lit, as the %iire of
the portion of the oUactorj nerrous espomse^jFfa^i it is affected,
eaters into the sensafieos of anell? — and that, when the »mple
affection of sight is blended with the ideas of soggestion, in what
are termed the acquired perceptioiis of Tiaon, — aSw for example.
in the perception of a sphere, — it is colour oolj which is l^sad-
ed with the large c«OTexitT, and not a snaH coloured plane ? —
which small coloured plane beln^ nece^^arilj fin^ted in extteoit
and form, so as nerer to be ]a:i^r than the retriBa itself, caomot
blend with Tarious fesms and m^nitudes, and which, if it could
f^ven be supposed to constitute a. peri of the conrexitT of a sphen?
458 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS, ETC.
perceived by us, still could not diffuse its own limited and insep-
arable colour over the whole mag-nitude of the sphere.
1 have stated to 3'ou my own opinion with respect to visible fig-
ure. — an opinion, which to myself, I confess, appears almost certain,
or, at least, far more probable than the opinion generally entertain-
ed, that has no evidence in our consciousness at any one moment
of vision to support it. But on subjects of this kind, which are in
themselves so very subtile, and, therefore, so liable to error, I
must beg you, at all times, and especially when the opposite sen-
timent has the authority of general belief, to consider any opinion,
which I may submit to you, as offered more to your rejleclion,
than for your passive adoption of it. If I wish you, — reverently,
indeed, but still freely, — to weigh the evidence of doctrines of
philosophy, which are sanctioned even by the greatest names of
every age, I must wish you still more, because it will be still
more your duty, to weigh well the evidence of opinions that come
to you, with no other authority than that of one very fallible indi-
vidual.
In looking back on the senses which we have been consider-
ing, what a boundless field do we seem already to have been en-
deavouring to traverse ? and how admirable would the mind
have been, even though it had been capable of no other office
than that of representing, in the union of all its sensations, as in a
living mirror of the universe, the splendid conceptions of the
great Being who formed it ; or, rather of creating a-new ia itself,
that very universe which it represents and admires?
i?uch is the power of the senses ; — of
'• Bensca, (hat inherit earth and heavens,
Enjoy the various riches Nature yields ; —
Fur nobler, give the riches they enjoy ;
Give taste to fruits, and harmony to groves,
Their radiant beams to qold, and gold's bright lire ;
Take in at once the landscape of the world,
At a small inlet, which a grain migiit close,
And half create the wonderous world they see.
But for the magic organ's powerful charm,
Knrlh wore a rude, uncoloured chaos still; —
Like Milton'i Eve, when gazing on the lake,
Man makes the matchless image, man admires.*'*
* Voung'i Night Thoughts, VI. v. 420—427. 429—430. and 435—136.
45^
LECTURE XXX.
HISTORY OF OPINIONS REGARDING PERCEPTION.
Gentlemen, in my last Lecture, I brought to a conclusion my
remarks on Vision, with an inquiry into the justness of the univer-
sal belief, that, in the perception of objects by this sense, there
are two modifications of extension, a visible as well as a tangible
figure ; the one originally and immediately perceived by the eye,
the other suggested by former experience. I stated, at consider-
able length, some arguments which induce me to believe, in op-
position to the universal doctrine, — that, in what are termed the
acquired perceptions of sight, there is not this union of two separ-
ate figures of different dimensions, which cannot be combined with
each other, more than the mathematical conceptions of a square
and a circle can be combined in the conception of one simple fig-
ure ; that the original sensations of colour, though, like the sensa-
tions of smell or taste, and every other species of sensation, aris-
ing from affections of definite portions of nervous substance, do
not involve the perception of this definite outline, more than mere
fragrance or sweetness, but that the colour is perceived by us as
figured, only in consequence of being blended by intimate associa-
tions with the feelings commonly ascribed to touch. Philosophers,
indeed, have admitted, or, at least, must admit, that we have no
consciousness of that which they yet suppose to be constantly tak-
ing place, and that the only figure which docs truly seem to us, in
vision, to be combined with colour, is that which they term tangi-
ble, — that, for example, we cannot look at a coloured sphere, of
four feet diameter, without perceiving a coloured figure, which is'
that of a sphere four feet in diameter, and not a plain circular sur-
face of the diameter of half an inch ; yet, though we have no con-
sciousness of perceiving any such small coloured circle, and have
4G0 HISTORY OF OPINIONS
no rca::on to believe that such a perception takes place, they still
contend, without any evidence whatever, that we see at every
moment what we do not remember to have ever seen.
Alter our very lull discussion of the general phenomena of
perception, — as common to all our senses, and as pecuharly modi-
fied in the ditTerent tribes of our sensations, — I might now quit a
suliject, to which its primary interest as the origin of our knowl-
edge, has led me to pay, perhaps, a disproportionate attention.
But besides the theories, to the consideration of which our gener-
al inquiry has incidentally led us, there are some hypothetical
opinions on the subject, of which it is necessary that you should
know at least the outline, — not because they throw any real light
on the phenomena of perception, but because, extravagantly hy-
pothetical as they are, they are yet the opinions of philosophers,
whose eminence, in other respects, renders indispensable some
shght kuowledge even of their very errors.
In reviewing these hj'potheses, it v/ill be necessary to call
your attention to that doctrine of causation, which I before illus-
trated at great length, and which I trust, therefore, 1 may safely
take for granted that you have not forgotten.
In sensation, 1 consider the feeling of the mind to be the sim-
ple efl'ect of the presence of the object ; or, at least, of some
change, which the presence of the object produces in the senso-
rial organ. The object has the power of affecting the mind ; the
thIikI is susceptible of being affected by the object, — that is to say,
when tlie organ, in consequence of the presence of the external
object, exists in a certain state, the affection of the mind immedi-
ately follows. If the object were absent, in any particular case,
the mind would not exist in the state which constitutes the sensa-
tion produced by it ; and, if the susccplil)ility of the mind had been
dill'eixiit, the object might have existed, as now, without any sub-
i^equenl sensation. [\\ all this scries of mere changes, or affec-
tions, in consecpience of certain other preceding changes, or affec-
tions, though a part of the series be material, and another part
mental, there is truly, as 1 have repeatedly remarked to you, no
more mystery than in any other series of changes, in which the
series is not in matter and mind successively, but exclusively in
one or the other. There is a change of slate of one substance, in
consequence of a change of some sort in another substance ; and
REGARDING PERCEPTION. 451
this mere sequence of change after cliange is all which we know
in either case. The same Almighty Being, who formed the vari-
ous substa ices to which we give the name of matter^ formed also
the substance to which we give the name of mind; and the quali-
ties with which he endowed them, for those gracious ends which
he intended them to answer, are mere susceptibilities of change,
by which, in certain circumstances, they begin immediately to ex-
ist in dilferent states. The weight of a body is its tendency to
other bodies, varying according to the masses and distances ; — in
this instance, the quality may be said to be strictly material. The
greenness or redness ascribed to certain rays of light, are words
expressive merely of changes that arise in the mind when these
rays are present on the retina ; in this case, the quality, though
ascribed to the material rays as antecedent, involves the consider-
ation of a certain change of state in the mind which they affect.
But the greenness or redness, though involving the consideration
both of mind affected, and matter affecting, is not less conceivable
by us as a quality of matter than the weight, which also involves
the consideration of two substances, affecting and affected, though
both go under the name of matter alone. All the sequences of
phenomena are mysterious, or none are so.
It is wonderful, that the presence of a loadstone should cause
a piece of iron to approach it ; and that the presence of the moon,
in different parts of the heavens, should be continually altering
the relative tendencies of all the particles of our earth. In like
manner, it is, indeed, wonderful, that a state of our bodily organs
should be followed by a change of state of the mind, or a state of
our mind by a change of state of our bodily organs ; but it is not
more wonderful, than that matter should act on distant matter, or
that one affection of the mind, should be followed by another af-
fection of the mind, since all which we know in either case, when
matter acts upon matter, or when it acts upon mind, is, that a cer-
tain change of one substance has followed a certain change^ of
another substance, — a change which, in all circumstances exactly
similar, it is expected by us to follow again. We have experience
of this sequence of changes alike in both cases ; and, but for ex-
perience, we could not, in either case, have predicted it.
This view of causation, however, — as not more unintelligible
in the reciprocal sequences of events in matter and mind than in
462 HISTORV OF OPINIONS
their separate sequences, — could not occur to philosophers while
they retained their mysterious belief of secret links, connecting
every observed antecedent with its observed consequent ; since
mind and matter seemed, by their very nature, unsusceptible of
any such common bondage. A peculiar difficulty, therefore, as
3'ou may well suppose, was felt, in the endeavour to account for
their mutual successions of phenomena, which vanishes, when the
necessity of any connecting links in causation is shewn to be false-
ly assumed.
In their views of perception, therefore, as a mental effect pro-
duced by a material cause, philosophers appear to have been em-
barrassed by two great difficulties : — the production of this effect
by remote objects, — as when we look at the sun and stars, in their
almost inconceivable distances above our heads ; and the produc-
tion of this effect by a substance, which has no common property
that renders it capable of being linked with the mind in the man-
ner supposed to be necessary for causation. These two supposed
difficulties appear, to me, to have led to all the wild hypotheses
that have been advanced with respect to perception.
The former of these difficulties, — in the remoteness of the ob-
ject perceived, — even though the principle had not been false
which supposes, that a change cannot take place in any substance,
in consequence of the change of position of a distant object, — a
principle, which the gravitation of every atom disproves, — arose,
it is evident, from false views of the real objects of perception. It
is on this account, that I was at some pains, when we entered on
our in(|niry into the nature of perception, to shew the futility of
the distinction which is made of objects that act immediately on
the senses, and those which act on them through a medium, — the
medium, in this case, as light in vision, and the vibrating air in
sound, being the real object of the particular sense, — and the re-
ference to a more remote object being the result, not of the sim-
ple original sensation, but of knowledge previously acquired.
The mistake as to the real object of perception, and the sup-
posed difficulty of action at a distance, must have had very consid-
erable inrtuonce in producing the Peripatetic doctrine of percep-
tion by species, of which the cumbrous machinery seems to have
been little more than a contrivance for destroying, as it were, the
distance between the seases and the objects that were supposed
REGARDING PERCEPTION. 463
io act on them. According to this doctrine, every object is con-
tinually throwing' off certain shadowy films or resemblances of it-
self, which may be directly present to our organs of sense, at
whatever distance the objects may be, from which they flowed.
These species or phantasms, — the belief of the separate existence
of which must have been greatly favoured by another tenet of the
same school, with respect to form as essentially distinct from the
matter with which it is united, were supposed to be transmitted, in
a manner, which there was no great anxiety to explain, to the
brain and to the mind itself. I need not detail to you the pro-
cess by which these sensible species, through the intervention of
what were termed the active and passive intellect, were said to
become, at last, intelligible species, so as to be objects of our un-
derstanding. It is with the mere sensitive part of the process, that
we have at present any concern ; and in this, of itself, there is suf-
ficient absurdity, without tracing all the further modifications, of
which the absurdity is capable, if I may speak so lightly of follies
that have a name, which, for more than a thousand years, was the
most venerable of human names, to pass them current as wisdom,
— and which were read and honoured as wisdom by the wise of so
many generations.
I cannot pay you so very poor a compliment, as to suppose it
necessary to employ a single moment of your time in confuting
what is not only a mere hypothesis, (and an hypothesis which
leaves all the real difficulties of perception precisely as before,)
but which, even as an hypothesis, is absolutely inconceivable. If
vision had been our only sense, we might, perhaps, have under-
stood, at least, what was meant by the species, that directly pro-
duce our visual images. But what is the phantasm of a sound or
an odour? or what species is it, which, at one moment, produces
only the feeling of cold, or hardness, or figure, when a knife is
pressed against us, and the next moment, when it penetrates the
skin, the pain of a cut? The knife itself is exactl}^ the same unal-
tered knife, when it is merely pressed against the hand, and when
it produces the incision ; and the difference, therefore, in the two
cases, must arise, not from any species which it is constantly throw-
ing off, since these would be the same, at every moment, but from
some state of difference in the mere 7ierves affected.
I fear, however, that I have alreadv fallen into the foUv which
464 HISTORY or opinions
1 professed to avoid,— the folly of attempting to confute, what,
considered in itself, is not worthy of being seriously confuted, and
scarcely worthy even of being proved to be ridiculous. It must be
remembered, however, in justice to its author, that the doctrine of
perception, by intermediate phantasms, is not a single opinion
alone, but a part of a system of opinions, and that there are many
errors, which, if considered singly, appear too extravagant for the
assent of any rational mind, that lose much of this extravagance,
by combination with other errors, as extravagant. Whatever dif-
ficulties the hypothesis of species involved, it at least seemed to
remove the supposed difficulty of perception at a distance, and by
the half spiritual tenuity oi the sensible images, seemed also to
aftord a sort of intermediate link, for the connexion of matter
with mind ; thus appearing to obviate, or at least to lessen, the
two great difficulties, which 1 suppose to have given occasion to
the principal hypothesis on this subject.
When the doctrine of species, as modified, in the dark and bar-
ren ao-e of Dialectics, by all the additional absurdities, which the
industrious sagacity of the schoolmen could give to it, had, at
length, lost that empire, which it never should have possessed, the
orio-inal difficulty of accounting for perception, remained as before.
If the cause was to be linked, in some manner or other, with its
effect, how was matter, so different in all its properties, to be con-
nected with mmd ?
The shortest possible mode of obviating this difficulty, was, by
denying that any direct causation whatever took place between
our mind and our bodily organs? and hence arose the system of
occasional causes, as maintained by the most distinguished of the
followers of Des Cartes, — a system, which supposed, that there is
no direct agency of our mind on matter, or of matter on our mind,
ihat we are as little capable of moving our own limbs by our
volition, as of moving, by our volition, the limbs of any other per-
son, — as little capable of perceiving the rays of light, that have
entered our own eyes, as the rays which have fallen on any other
pyes, — that our perception or voluntary movement is, therefore,
to bo referred, in every case, to the immediate agency of the De-
ity, the presence of rays of light, within our eye, being the mere
occasion on which the Deity himself affects our niiiul with vision,
.iH our desire of moving our lind)s is the mere occasion, on which
the Deity himself puts our limbs in motion.
REGARDING PERCEPTION. 46i5
II is of SO much importance to have a full conviction of the de-
pendence of all events on the great Source of Being., that it is ne-
cessary to strip the doctrine, as much as possible, of every thing
truly objectionable, lest, in abandoning what is objectionable, we
should be tempted to abandon also the important truth associated
Mith it. The power of God is so magnificent in itself, that it is on-
ly when we attempt to add to it in . our conception, that we run
some risk of degrading what it must always be impossible for us to
elevate.
That the changes which take place, whether in mind or in
matter, are all, ultimately, resolvable into the will of the Deity,
who formed alike the spiritual and material S3^stem of the uni-
verse, making the earth a habitation worthy of its noble inhabitant,
— and man an inhabitant almost worthy of that scene of divine mag-
nificence, in which he is placed, is a truth, as convincing to our
reason, as it is delightful to our devotion. What confidence do we
feel, in our joy, at the thought of the Eternal Being, from whom it
flows, as if the very thought gave at once security and sanctity to
our delight ; and how consolotary, in our little hour of suffering,
to think of Him who wills our happiness, and who knows how to
produce it, even from sorrow itself, by that power which called
light from the original darkness, and still seems to call, out of a
similar gloom, the sunshine of every morning. Every joy thus be-
comes gratitude, — every sorrow resignation. The eye which looks
to Heaven seems, when it turns again to the scenes of earth, to
bring down with it a purer radiance, like the very beaming of the
presence of the Divinity, which it sheds on every object on which
it gazes, — a light
" That gilds all forms
Terrestrial, in the vast, and tlie minute ;
The unambiguous footsteps of the God,
Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing,
And wheels His throne upon the rolling worlds."*
That the Deity, in this sense, as the Creator of the world, and
wilier of all those great ends, which the laws of the universe ac-
complish, — is the author of the physical changes which take place
in it, is then most true, — as it is most true also, that the same
Power, who gave the universe its laws, can, for the particular
* Cowper's Task, Book V. v. 810—814.
39
4G0 HISTORY OF OPINIONS
purposes of his providence, vary these at pleasure. But there is
no reason to suppose, that the objects which he has made surely
for some ends, have, as made by him, no efficacy, no power of be-
ing instrumental, to his own great purpose, merely because what-
ever power they can be supposed to have, must have been deriv-
ed from the Fountain of all power. It is, indeed, only as possess-
ing this power, that we know them to exist ; and their powers,
which the doctrine of occasional causes would destroy altogether,
are, relatively to us, their whole existence. It is by affecting us
that they are known to us. Such is the nature of the mind, and of
light, for example, that light cannot be present, or, at least, the
sensorial organ cannot exist in a certain state, in consequence of
its presence, without that instant atfection of mind, which consti-
tutes vision. If light have not this power of affecting us with sen-
sation, it is, with respect to us, nothing, — for we know it only as
the cause of the visual afl'ection. That which excites in us the
feelings of extension, resistance, and all the qualities of matter, is
matter : and, to suppose that there is nothing, without us, which
excites these feelings, is to suppose, that there is no matter
without, as far as we are capable of forming any conception of
matter. The system of occasional caiifees seems, therefore, to be
onlv a more awkward and comphcated modification of the system
of Berkeley ; for, as the Deity is, in this system, himself the au-
thor of every change, the only conceivable use of matter, which
cannot affect us, more than if it were not in existence, must be as
a reineinhrance, io Him who is Omniscience itself^ at what particular
moment he is to excite a feeling in the mind of some one of his
sensitive creatures, and of what particular kind that feeling is to
be ; as if tiic Omniscient could stanil in need of any memorial, to
excite in our mind any feeling, which It is His wt^h to excite, and
which i.s to be traced wholly to his own immediate agency. Mat-
tor then, according to this system, has no relations to us; and all
its relations are to the Deity alone. The assertors of the doctrine,
indeed, seem to consider it, as representing, in a more sublime
light, the divine Omnii)rescnce, by exhibiting it to our conception,
as the only power in nature ; but they might, in like manner, af-
firm, that the creation of the infinity of worlds, with all the life
and ha[)piness that are diffused over them, rendered less instead of
more sublime, the exi.stence of Him, who, till then, was the sole
REGARDJNO PERCEPTION. 467
existence ; for power, that is derived, derogates as little from the
primary power, as derived existence derogates from the Being
from whom it flows. Yet the assertors of this doctrine, who con-
ceive, that light has no effect in vision, are perfectly willing to ad-
mit that light exists, or rather, are strenuous affirmers of its exis-
tence, and are anxious only to prove, in their zeal, for the glory
of Him, who made it, and who makes nothing in vain, that this,
and all His works, exist for no purpose. Light, they contend, has
no influence whatever. It is as little capable of exciting sensa-
tions of colour, as of exciting a sensation of melody or fragrance;
but still it exists. The production of so very simple a state as
that of vision, or any other of the modes of perception, with an
apparatus, which is not merely complicated, but, in all its compli-
cation, absolutely without efficacy of any sort, is so far from add-
ing any sublimity to the divine nature, in our conception, that it
can scarcely be conceived by the mind, without lessening, in some
degree, the sublimity of the Author of the universe, by lessening,
or rather destroying, all the sublimity of the universe which he
has made. Vv'hat is that idle mass of matter, which cannot affect
us, or be known to us, or to any other created being, more than if
it -xere not ? If the Deity produces, in every case, by his own im-
mediate operation, all those feelings which we term sensations or
perceptions, he does not first create a multitude of inert and cum-
brous worlds, invisible to every eye but his own, and incapable of
affecting any thing whatever, that he may know when to operate,
as he would have operated before. This is not the awful simplic-
ity of that Omnipresence,
" Whose word leaps forth at once to its effect ;
Who calls for tilings that are not, and thej' come." •
If, indeed, the complication of the process could remove any
difficulty which truly exists, or even any dilHculty which is sup-
posed to exist, the system 'might be more readily adopted by that
human weakness, to which the removal of a single difficulty is of
so much value. But the very attempt to remove the ditliculty, is
merely by presenting it in another form. Omnipresent, as the
Creator is, he is still, like that mind which he has formed after
•■Cowper's Ta=k, Cook V. v. 686—7.
468 HISTORY OF OPINIONS
l»is own image, a spiritual Being ; and though there can be no
question as to the extent of his power over matter, the operation
of this infinite power is as httie conceivable by us, in any other
way than as a mere antecedence of change, as the reciprocal lim-
ited action of mind and matter, in man, and the objects which he
perceives and moves. It is itself indeed, a proof of action of this
very kind ; and to state it, with the view of obviating any difficul-
ty that may be supposed to be involved in the mutual influence of
mind and matter, seems as absurd, as it would be for a sophist,
who should profess to believe, from an examination of the wings
v( hirds, that their heavy pinions are incapable of bearing them
liiroiigh the air, to illustrate his paradox by the majestic soaring
of the eagle, when he mounts still higher and higher throuo^h the
sunshine that encircles him, before he stoops from his height
above the clouds, to the cUlTs which he deigns to make his lowly
home.
The system oi" occasional causes, though it ceased to be known,
or at least to be adopted, under that name, has not the less contin-
ued, by a mere change of denomination, to receive the assent of
philosophers, who rejected it under its ancient name. It is, in-
deed, the spirit of this system alone, which gives any sense what-
ever to liio distinction that is universally made of causes, as physi-
cal and evident, — a distinction which implies, that, beside the an-
tecedents and consequents, in a series of changes, which are sup-
posed to iiave no mutual innuence, and might, therefore, be ante-
cedent and consequent in any other order, — there is some inter-
vening agency, wliich is, in every event of the series, the true ef-
ficient. Matter, in short, docs not act on mind, nor mind on mat-
ter. The physical cause, in this nomenclature, that exists for no
purpose, as being absolutely insuflicient; or, in other words, ab-
solutely incapable of producing any change whatever, is the occa-
sional cause of the other nomenclature, and nothing more ; and all
which was cumbrous and superfluous in the one, is equally cum-
brous and sujierfluous in the other. On this subject, however,
which 1 have discussed at large in my Work on Cause and Ef-
f«Tt, I need not add any reniarlis to those which I ofTei'ed in an
<'ariy part of the course. ii is siinicicnt, at jjresent, to point
nut the absolute identity of the two doctrines in every thing but
in name.
RBGARDIN6 PERCEPTION. 469
The next system to which I would direct your attention, is that
ol" JMalebranche, who is, indeed, to be ranked among the principal
asserters of the doctrine of occasional causes, which we have now
been considering, but who, in addition to this general doctrine,
had peculiar views of the nature of perception.
His opinions, on this subject, are delivered, at great length, in
the second volume of his Search of Truth — La Recherche de la
Verite — a work which is distinguished by much eloquence, and
by many very profound remarks on the sources of human error,
but which is itself an example, in the great system which it sup-
ports, of error as striking as any of those which it eloquently and
profoundly discusses. It is truly unfortunate for his reputation as
a philosopher, that these discussions do not torm a separate work,
but are blended with his own erroneous system, the outline of
which every one knows too well, to think of studying its details.
All that is necessary, to give him his just reputation, is merely
that he should have written less. He is at present known, chiefly
as the author of a very absurd hypothesis. He would have been
known, and studied, and honoured, as a very acute observer of our
nature, if he had never composed those parts of his work, to
which, probably, when he thought of other generations, he look-
ed as to the basis of his philosophic fame.
His hypothesis, as many of you probably know, is, that we
perceive not objects themselves, but the ideas of them which are ia
God.
He begins his supposed demonstration of this paradox with a
sort of negative proof, by attempting to shew the inadequacy of
every other mode of accounting for our perception of the ideas
of things ; for I need scarcely state to you, what is involved in the
very enunciation of his metaphysical theorem, — that he regards
ideas as distinct from perception itself, not the mind aifected in a
certain manner, but something separate and independent of the
mind.
He then proceeds to his positive proof, asserting, in the first
place, that it is " absolutely necessary that God should have in
himself the ideas of all the beings which he has created, since oth-
erwise he could not have produced them ;"* and, in the second
place, that God is united to our soul by his presence,, " so that he
* Recherche de la Verite, Li v. III. c. vi.
470 HISTORY OF OPINIONS
may be said to have that relation of place to 'the mind, which
space has to body."* Wherever the human mind is, there God
is, and consequently all the ideas which are in God. We have
thus a fund of all the ideas necessary for perception, and a fund,
which, in consequence of the ubiquity of the divine mind, is ever
present, requiring', therefore, for our perception of them, only
that divine will, without which no change can take place.
That perception takes place, by the presence of this one stock
of ideas eternally present in the divine mind, with which every
other mind is united, — rather than by the creation of an infinite
number of ideas in each separate mind, — he conceives to be prov-
ed, by various reasons. — by the greater simplicity of this mode, —
liy its peculiar consistency with that state of dependence on the di-
vine Being, as the source of all light, in which the mind of man
is represented in many passages of Scripture, — by various notions,
such as those of infinity^ genera^ species, &c. the universality of
which he conceived to be inconsistent with the absolute unity and
limitation of every idea, that does not derive a sort of infinity from
the mind in which it exists, — and by some other reasons, very
mystical and very feeble, in which, though it may not be difficult
to discover what their author meant, it is certainly very difficult
to conceive, how a mind so acute as his, could have been inlluenc-
ed by them.
It i», indeed, only this relation of the mind of Malebranche to
his own ver}' strange hypothesis, which there is any interest in
tracing ; for, though 1 have thought it my duty to give you a slight
sketch of the hypothesis itself, as a part of the general history of
our science, with which the reputation and genius of its author
render it necessary for you to have some acquaintance, I am far
from thinking, that it can throw any light on our speculations, in
the present improved state of the Science of Mind. I shall not
waste your time, therefore, with pointing out to you the innumer-
ahle objections to his hypothesis, which, after the view already
given by me of the simple process of perception, are, I trust, so
manifest, as not to require to be pointed out. It may be more
interesting to consider, in the history of tlie Pliilosophy of Mind,
ivliat circumstances led to llie formafion of the livjiotiiesis.
In the first place 1 may remark, that, notwithstanding his ven-
* Recherche do la Verite, Liv. III. c. vi.
REGARDING PERCEPTION. ' 471
erat'on for the greater number of the opinions of Des Cartes,
Malebranche unfortunately had not adopted the very enlightened
views of that eminent philosopher, with respect to the nature of
ideas. He considered them as existing distinct from the sentient
or percipient mind, — and, reasoning very justly from this error,
inferred their presence in the mind of the Deity, — who formed
the universe, not casually, but according to conceptions, that must
have preceded creation, — the archetypes, or exemplars, of all
that was to be created. This opinion, as to the eternal forms
subsisting in the divme mind, agrees exactly with that of Plato, in ^
one of tiie most celebrated of his doctrines, and certainly one of
the most poetical, — which, though a term of praise that usually
does not imply much excellence of philosophy, is the species of
praise to which the philosophy of Plato has the justest claim. It
has been dehvered, in very powerful verse, by one of our own
poets, who describes himself as, in science, a follower of the ge-
nius of ancient Greece, and who was worthy of the inspiring pre-
sence of that majestic guide :
" Ere the radiant sun
Sprang from the east, or 'ajid the vault of Dight
The moou suspended her serener lamp !
Ere mountains, woods, or streams, adorn'd the globe,
Or Wisdom taught the sons of men her lore, —
Then lived the Almighty One, then, deep retii-ed
In his unfathom'd essence, view'd the forms,
The forms eternal of created things ;
The radiant sun, the moon's nocturnal lamp,
The mountains, woods, and streams, the rolling globe,
And Wisdom's mien celestial. From the first
Of days, on them, his love divine, he fix'd
His admiration, till, in time complete.
What he admired and loved, his vital smile
Unfolded into being. Hence, the breath
Of life, informing each organic frame ;
Hence, the green earth, and wild resounding waves ;
Hence, light and shade alternate, warmth and cold.
And clear autumnal skies, and vernal showers,
And all the fair variety of things."*
It is in the writings of St Augustine, however, — who had him-
self imbibed a considerable portion of the spirit of the Platonic
♦ Pleasures of Imagination, Book I. v. 59 — 78.
472 HISTORY OF OPINIONS
philosophy, — that the true source of the hypothesis, which we
are now reviewing, is to be found. This very eminent father of
the church, — whose acuteness and eloquence would have entitled
him to very high consideration, even though his works had relat-
ed to subjects less interesting to man, than those noble subjects of
which they treat, — seems to have met with peculiar honour from
the French theologians, and to have giren a very evident direc-
tion to their intellectual inquiries. It is indeed impossible to read
the works of any of the theological metaphysicians of that coun-
try, without meeting with constant references to the opinions of
St Austin, and an implied reference, even where it is not express-
ed, — particularly to the very opinions most analogous to those of
Malebranche.
The opinion of Augustine, to which I particularly allude, is
that which forms the principal doctrine of his metaphysical phi-
losophy, — that there is a supreme eternal universal Truth., which
is internally present to every mind, and in which all minds alike
perceive the truths, which all alike are, as it were, necessitated
to believe, — the truths of arithmetic and geometry, for example,
and the primary essential truths of morality.
These truths we feel to be eternal, because we feel that they
are not contingent on the existence of those who perceive them,
but were, and are, and must forever be the same ; and we feel
also, that the truth is one, whatever be the number of individuals
that perceive it, and is not converted into many truths, merely by
the multitude of believers. '• If," says he, in discoursing of any
truth, I perceive that to be true which you say, and you perceive
that to be true which / say, — where, I pray you, do we both see
this at the very moment ? I rcrlainl}' sec it not in you, nor you
in me, — but both sec it in that unchangeable truth, which is be-
yond and above our individual minds. '• Si ambo videmus verum
esse quod dicis. et ambo videmus verum esse quod dico, ubi,
quaBso, id videmus ? Nee ego utique in te, ncc tu in me; sed
ambo in ipsa qua-, supra mcutes nostras est, incommutabili vcri-
tate."
Yoti must not conceive that I am contending for the justness of
the opinion which I am now stating to you — I state it merely as
illustrative of thf sv*^tom of IMalebranche. If vve siippose, with
Augustine, that there ia one eternal Truth, which contains all truths,
REGARDING PERCEPTION. 47
f>
and is present to all minds that perceive in it the truths which it
contains, it is but one step more, and scarcely one step more, to
believe that our ideas of all thmgs are contained and perceived
in one omnipresent Mind, to which all other minds arc united, and
which is itself the eternal Truth, that is present to all. Indeed,
some of the passages which are quoted in the Search of Truth,
from St Austin, show how strongly the author conceived his own
opinions to be sanctioned by that ancient authority.
For some of the happiest applications which have been made
of this very ancient system of Christian metaphj'sics, I may refer
you particularly to the works of Fenelon, — to his demonstration
of the existence of God, for example, — in which many of the
most abstract subtleties of the Metaph^'sics of Augustine become
living and eloquent, in the reasonings of this amiable writer, who
knew so well how to give, to every subject which he treated, the
tenderness of his own heart, and the persuasion and devout con-
fidence of his own undoubting belief
In this Protestant country, in which the attention of theologi-
ans has been almost exclusively devoted to the Scriptures them-
selves, and little comparative attention paid to thewritings of the
Fathers, — unless, as strictly illustrative of the texts of Scripture,
or of the mere History of the Church, — the influence of the met-
aphysical opinions of St Austin is less to be traced ; and the argu-
ment drawn from the eternal omnipresent ideas of unity, and
number and infinity, on which so much stress is laid by Catholic
philosophers, in demonstrating the existence of God, is hence
scarcely to be found at all, or, at least, occupies a very inconside-
rable place, in the numerous works of our countrymen, on the
same great subject. The system of Malebranche, might, indeed
have arisen in this country ; for we have had writers, who, with-
out his genius, have adopted his errors ; but there can be no
doubt, that it was, by its very nature, much more likely to arise,
in the country which actually produced it.
60
474
LECTURE XXXI.
HISTORY OF OPINIONS REGARDING PERCEPTION, CONCLUDED—
ON THE EXTERNAL AFFECTlOxNS CO.AIBINED WITH DESIRE, OR
ON ATTENTION.
In my last Lecture, Gentlemen, I gave you a slight sketch
of some theories, — or, to speak more accurately, of some hypo-
thetical conjectures, which have been formed with respect to
perception, — pointing out to you, at the same time, the two sup-
posed difficulties which appear to me to have led to them, in
false views of the real objects of perception, and of the nature of
causation; the difficulty of accounting, with these false views, for
the supposed perception of objects at a distance, and for the agen-
cy of matter on a substance, so little capable as mind, of being
linked with it, by any common bond of connexion.
Of such hypotheses, we considered three, — the doctrine of the
Peripatetics as to perception by species^ or shadowy tilms, that
flow from the object to the organ, — the Cartesian doctrine of the
indirect subserviency of external objects, as the mere occasions on
which the Deity himself, in every instance, produces in the mind
the state which is termed perception, — and the particular doc-
trine of Malebranche, himself a zealous defender of that general
doctrine of occasional causes, as to the perception of objects, or
rather of the ideas of objects in the divine mind.
The only remaining hypothesis, which deserves to be noticed,
is a very celebrated one, of Leibnitz, the doctrine of the pre-es-
tablished harmony, which, I have no doubt, originated in the same
false view of the necessity of some connecting link in causation;
and was intended, therefore, like the others, to obviate the sup-
posed difficulty of the action of matter on mind, and of mind on
matter.
HISTORY OF OPINIONS, ETC. 47S
According to this doctrine, the body never acts on the mind,
nor the m nd on the body, but the motions of the one, and the
feehngs of the other, are absolutely independent, having as Uttle
inlluence on each other, as they have on any other mind and body.
The mind feels pain, when the body is bruised, but, from the pre-
established order of its own alTectioas, it would have felt exactly
the same pain, though the body, at that moment, had been resting
upon roses. The arm, indeed, moves at the very moment, when
the mind has willed its motion ; but, it moves of itself^ in conse-
quence of its own pre-established order of movement, and would
move, therefore, equallj^, at that very moment, though the mind
had wished it to remain at rest. The exact correspondence of
the motions and feelings, which we observe, arises merely from
the exactness of the choice of the Deit}', in uniting with a body,
that was formed by Him, to have of itself, a certain order of inde-
pendent motions, a mind, that was formed of itself to have a cer-
tain order of independent but corresponding feelings. In the un-
erring exactness of this choice, and mutual adaptation, consists the
exqui«iteness of the harmony. But, however exquisite, it is still
a harmony only, without the slightest reciprocal action.
The mind, and its organic frame, are, in this s^-^stem, — to bor-
row the illustration of it which is commonly used, — like two tiine-
pieces^ which have no connexion with each other, however accu-
rately they may agree, — and each of which would indicate the
hour, in the very same manner, though the other had been de-
stroy ed. In like manner, the soul of Leibnitz, — for the great
theorist himself may surely be used to illustrate his own hypothe-
sis, — would, though his body had been annihilated at birth, have
felt and acted, as if with its bodily appendage, — studying the
same works, inventing the same systems, and carrying on, with
the same warfare of books and epistles, the same long course of
indefatigable controversy ; — and the body of this great philosopher,
though his SOUL had been annihilated at birth, would not merely
have gone through the same process of growth, eating, and di-
gesting, and performing all its other ordinary animal functions, —
but would have achieved for itself the same intellectual glory,
without any consciousness of the works which it was writing and
correcting, — would have argued, with equal strenuousness, for the
principle of the sufficient reason, — claimed the honours of the dif-
476 HISTORY OF OPINIONS
ferential calculus, — and laboured to prove this very system of the
pre-established harmorwj^ of which it would, certainly, in that case,
have been one of the most illustrious examples.
To say of this hypothesis, which was the dream of a great mind,
— but of a mind, I must confess, which was very ibnd of dreaming,
and very apt to dream, — that it is a mere hypothesis, is to speak of
it too favourably. Like the doctrine of occasional causes, it sup-
poses a system of external things, of which, by the very principle
of the hypothesis, there can be no evidence, and which is absolute-
ly of no utility %vhatever, but as it enables a philosopher to talk,
more justly, of pre-established harmonies, without the possibility,
however, of knowing that he is talking more justlj'. If the mind
would have exactly the same feelings as now, — the same pleas-
ures, and pains, and perceptions of men and houses, and every thing
external, though every thing external, comprehending of course
the very organs of sense, had been annihilated ages of ages before
itself existed, what reason can there be to supj)ose, that this use-
less system of bodily organs, and other external things, exist at pres-
ent ? The universal irresistible belief of mankind, to which phi-
losophers of a different school might appeal, cannot be urged in this
case, since the admission of it, as legitimate evidence, would at
once, disprove the hypothesis. We do not more truly believe, that
light exists, than we believe, that it afiects us with vision, and that,
if there had been no light, there would have been no sensation of
colour. To assert the jire-cstablislicd harmony, is, indeed, almost
the same thing, as to affirm and deny the same proposition, it is
to alfjrm, in the lirst place, positi\ely, that mailer exists, since the
harmony, which it asserts, is of matter and mind ; and then to af-
firm, as positively, that its existence is useless, that it cannot be per-
ceived by us, and that we arc, therefore, absolutely incapable of
knowing whether it exists or not.
After stating to 3()u so many hypotheses, which have been
formed on Ibis subject, 1 need scarcely remark, what a fund
of pcr|>etual conjecture, and, therefore, of perpetual controver-
sy, there is in the varied wonders of the external and internal
universe, when it is .so very didicidt for a i'ow philosphers to
agree, as to what it is which gives rise to the simplest sensation
of warmth, or frairrance, or colour. 1 1 might be tht)ught, that,
ill (he intellectual opera, if I may revert to that ingenious and
REGARDING PERCEPTION. 477
lively allegory, of which I availed myself in one of my early Lec-
tures, in treating of general physical inquiry, — as the whole spec-
tacle which we behold, is passing within our minds, we are, in this
instance at least, fairly behind the scenes, and see the mechanism
of Nature truly as it is. But though we are really behind the
scenes, and even, in one sense of the word, may be said to be our-
selves the movers of the machinery, by which the whole repre-
sentation is carried on, still the minute parts and arrangements of
the complicated mechanism are concealed from our view, almost
as completely as from the observation of the distant spectators.
The primary springs and weights, indeed, by the agency of which
Phaeton seemed to be carried off by the winds, are left visible to
us ; and we know, that when we touch a certain spring, it will put
in motion a concealed set of wheels, or that when we pull a cord,
it will act upon a system of puUies, which will ultimately produce
a particular effect desired by us ; but what is the number of wheels
or pullies, and how they are arranged and adapted to each other
so as to produce the efl'ect, — are left to our penetration to divine.
On this subject we have seen, that as many grave absurdities have
been formed into systems, and honoured with commentaries and
confutations, as in the opera of external nature, at which, in the
quotation formerly made to you, the Pythagorases and Platos were
supposed to be present. '• It is not a system of cords and pullies
which we put in motion,"' says Aristotle, " — for to move such a
heav^y and distant mass would be beyond our power, — but only a
number of little phantasms connected with them, which have the
forin^ indeed, of cords and pullies, but not the substance^ and which
are light enough, therefore, to fly at our very touch." — " We do
not truly move any wheels," says the great inventor of the Sys-
tem of Occasional Causes ; " for, as we did not make the wheels,
how can we know the principle on which their motion is to depend,
or have such a command over them as to be capable of moving
them ? But when we touch a spring, it is the occasion on which the
Mechanist himself, who is always present, though invisible, and
who must know well how to move them, sets them instantly in
motion." — '• We see the motion," says Malebranche, "not by
looking at the wheels or pullies, — for there is an impenetrable
veil which hides them from us, but by looking at the Mechanist
himself, who 7nusi see them, because He is the mover of them ;
478 ON THE EXTF.RNAL AFFECTIONS
and whose eye, in which they are imaged as he gaze? on them,
must be a living mirror of all which he moves." — '•'• It is not a
spring that acts upon the wheels," says Leibnitz; ''though, when
ihe spring is touched, the wheels begin to move immediately, and
never begin to move at any other time. This coincidence, how-
ever, is not owing to any connexion of one with the other; for,
though the spring were destroyed, the wheels would move exact-
ly as at present, beginning and ceasing at the same precise mo-
ments. It is owing to a preestablished harmony of motion in the
wheels and spring ; by which arrangement the motion of the
wheels, though completely independent of the other, alwavs be-
gins at the very moment when the si)ring is touched." — " No,"
exclaims Berkeley, " it is all illusion; The wheels, and cords, and
weights, are not seen because they exist, but exist because they
arc seen ; and, if the whole machinery is not absolutel}-^ annihilat-
ed when we shut our eyes, it is only because it finds shelter in the
mind of some other Being whose eyes are never shut, — and are al-
ways open, therefore, at the time when ours are closing."
From all this variety of conjectural speculations, the conclusion
which you will perhaps have drawn most readily, is that which is
too often the result of our researches in the History of Science, —
that there ma}', as D'Alembert truly says, be a great deal of phi-
losophizing, in which there is very little of philosophy.
I have now finished the remarks which I had to make on the
very important class of our external affections of mind, as they may
be considered simply ; but it is not always simply that they exist;
and, when they occur in combination with other feelings, the ap-
pearance which they assume is sometimes so diHerent, as to lead
to the erroneous belief, that the complex feeling is the result of a
distinct power of the mind.
When, in my attempt to arrange the various feelings of which
the mind is susceptible,! divided these into our external and inter'
nal a(Trr(ions, according as their causes are, in the one case, ob-
jects without (he mind, and, in the other ca^e, previous feelings,
or afTections of the mind itself: and sid)divided this latter class of
internal affections into the two orders of our intellectual slates of
mind, and our cmnlions ; I warned you, that you' were not to con-
sider these as always Hrising scj)arately, and as merely successive
lo each other ; — that, in the same manner, as we may both see
COMBINED WITH DESIRE. 479
aiul smell a rose', so may we see, or compare, or remember, while
under the influence of some or other of our emotions; though, at
the same time, by analysis, or at least by a reflective process that
is similar to analysis, we may be able to distinguish the emotion
from the coexisting perception, or remembrance, or comparison,
— as we are able, by a very easy analysis, in like manner, when
we both see and smell a rose, to distinguish in our complex per-
ception, thft fragrance from the colour and form.
There iso«e_eiaiitioni in particular, that is capable of so many
modiiications, and has so extensive a sway over human life, which
it may be said almost to occupy from the first wishes of our infan-
cy to the last of our old age, that it cannot fail to be combined
with many of our other feelings, bpth sensitive and intellectual.
The emotion to which I allude i'idpprp • a feeling which may ex-
ist of various species and degrees, from the strongest passion of
which the mind is susceptible, to the slightest wish of knowing a
little more accurately the most trifling object before us ; — and
though, in speaking of it at present, I am anticipating what, ac-
cording to the strict division which we have made, should not be
brought forward till we consider the emotions in general, this an-
ticipation is absolutely unavoidable for understanding some of the
most important phenomena, both of perception, which we have
been considering, and of those intellectual faculties which we are
soon to consider. I need not repeat to you, that Nature is not to
be governed by the systems which we form ; that though our sys-
tematic arrangements ought not to be complicated, her phenome-
na are almost always so ; and that, while every thing is thus inter-
mixed and coiyiected with every thing in the actual phenomena of
mind as well as of matter, it would be vain for us to think of ac-
commodating our physical discussions with absolute exactness,
even to the most perfect divisions and subdivisions which we may
be capable of forming. All that is necessary is, that we should
not depart from our order of arrangement without some advantage
in view, and an advantage greater than the slight evil which may
arise from the appearance of temporary confusion.
The reason of my anticipation, in the present instance, is to
explain to you what I conceive to constitute the phenomena of at-
toiitii. D, — a state of mind which has been understood to imply the
exercise of a peculiar intellectual power, but which, in the case
480 ON THE EXTERNAL AFFECTIONS
of attention to objects of sense, appears to be nothing more than
the coexistence of desire, with the perception of the object to
which «e are ?aid to attend ; as, in attention to other phenomena
of the mind, it is, in like manner, the coexistence of a particular
desire with these particular phenomena. The desire, indeed,
modities the perception, rendering our leeling more intense, as
any other emotion would do, that has equal relation to the object.
But there is no operation of any power distinct from the desire
and perception themselves.
To understand this fully, however, it may be necessary to
make some previous remarks on the coexistence of sensations.
In the circumstances in which we are placed by our beneficent
Creator, in a world of objecl> capable of exciting in us various
feelings, and with senses awake to the profusion of delight, —
breathing and moving in the midst of odours, and colours, and
sounds, and pressed alike in gentle reaction, whether our limbs be
in exercise or repose, by that tirm soil which supports us, or the
softness on which we rest, — in all this mingling action of external
ihings, there is scarcely a moment in which any one of our feel-
ings can be said to be truly simple.
Even when we consider but one of our organs, to the exclu-
sion of all the others, how innumerable are the objects that con-
cur in producing the complex affections of a single sense ? In the
eye, for example, how wide a scene is open to us, wherever our
glance may be turned? — woods, fields, mountains, rivers, the whole
atmosphere of light, and that magnificent luminary, which converts
into light the whole space through which it moves, as if incapa-
ble of existing but in splendour. The mere opening of our eye-
lid is like the withdrawing of a veil, which before covered the
universe : — it is more ; it is almost like saying to the universe,
which had perished. Exist again !
Innumerable objects, then, are constantly acting together on
our organs of sense ; and it is evident, that many of these can, at
onco, produce an effect of some sort in the mind, because we tru-
ly perc»ivc them as a coexisting whole. It is nut a single point of
light only which we see, but a wide landscape ; and we are capa-
ble of comparing various parts of the landscape with each other,
— ijfdistinguisihing various odours in the coni[)omid fragrance of
the uieado»v or the garden, — of feeling the harmony of various co-
oxi^ting melodie*.
COMBIXED WITH DESIRE. 481
The various sensations, then, may coexist, so as to produce one
complex aflfection. When they do coexist, it must be remarked,
that they are individually less intense. The same sound, for ex-
ample, which is scarcely heard in the tumult of the day, is capable
olatfecting us powerfully if it recur in the calm of the night; not
that It IS then absolutely louder, but because it is no longer min-
gled With other sounds, and other sensations of various kinds,
which rendered it weaker, by coexisting with it. It may be re-
garded, then, as a general law of our perceptions, that when many
sensations coexist, each individually is less vivid than if it existed
alone.
It may be considered almost as another form of the same pro-
position to say, that when many sensations coexist, each is not
merely weaker, but less distinct from the others with which it is
combined. When a few voices sing together, we easily recognize
each separate voice. In a very full chorus, we distinguish each
with more difficulty ; and, if a great multitude were singing to-
gether, we should scarcely be able to distinguish any one voice
from the rest,' more than to distinguish the noise of a single billow,
or a single dashing of a few particles of agitated air, in the whole
thunders of the ocean and the storm.
When many sensations coexist, and are, therefore, of course
weaker and less distinct, if any one were suddenly to become
much more intense, the rest would fade in proportion, so as scarce-
ly to be felt. A thousand faint sounds murmur around us, which
are instantly hushed by an}^ loud noise. If, when we are looking
at the glittering firmament of suns in a winter night, any one of
those distant orbs were to become as radiant as our own sun,
which is itself but the star of our planetary system, there can be
no question, that, like our sun on its rising, it would quench with
its brilliancy, all those little glimmering lights, which would still
shine on us, indeed, as before, but would shine on us without be-
ing perceived. It ma}'^ be regarded, then, as another general law
of the mind, that when many sensations coexist of equal intensit}',
the effect of the increased intensity of one is a diminished intensity
of those which coexist with it.
Let us now, for the application of these remarks, consider,
what it is which takes place in attention, when many objects are
together acting on our senses, and we attend, perhaps, only to a
tjl
482 ON THE EXTERXAL AFFECTIONS
•ino-Ie sensation. As a mere description of the process, I cannot
use a happier exemplification, than that which Condilhic has given
us in his Logique.
Let us imagme a castle, which commands, from its elevation,
an extensive view of a domain, rich with ail the beauties of na-
ture and art. It is night when we arrive at it. The next morn-
ing our window-shutters open at the moment when the sun has
just risen above the horizon, — and close again the very moment
after.
Though the whole sweep of country was shewn to us but for
an instant^ we must have seen every object which it comprehends
within the sphere of our vision. In a second or a third instant we
could have received only the same impressions which we receiv-
ed at first ; consequently, though the window had not been closed
again, we should have continued to see but what we saw before.
This first instant, however, though it uncpiestionably shewed
us all the scene, gave us no real knowledge of it ; and, when the
windows were closed again, there is not one of us who could have
ventured to give even the slightest description of it, — a sufficient
proof', that we may have seen many objects, and yet have learned
nothing.
At length the shutters are opened again, to remain open while
the sun is above tl e horizon ; and we see once more what we
saw at first. E\en no\v, however, if, in a sort of ecstacy, we
were to continue to see at once^ as in the first instant, all this mul-
titude of dilTtrent objects, we should know as little of them when
the night arrived, as we knew when the window shutters were
closed again after the very moment of their opening.
To have a knowledge of the scene, then, it is not suflicient to
behold it all at once^ so as to comprehend it in a single gaze ; we
must consider it in detail^ and pass successively from object to ob-
ject. This is what Nature has taught us all. If she has given
us the power of seeing many objects at once, she has given us al-
.oo the faculty of looking but at one, — that is to say, of directing
our eyes on one only ol" the multitude ; and it is to this I'aculty, —
which is a result of our organization, says Condillac, — that we
• we all (he knowledge which we acquire from sight.
The faculty is common to us all : and yet, if afterwards we
were to talk of the landscape which we had all seen, it would be
COMBINED WITH DESIRE. 483
very evident, that our knowledge of it would not be exactly the
same. By some of us, a picture might be given of it with tolera-
ble exactness, in which there would be many objects such as they
were, and many, certainly, which had very little resemblance to
the parts of the landscape which we wished to describe. The
picture which others might give, would probably be so confused,
that it would be quite impossible to recognize the scene in the de-
scription, and yet all had seen the same objects, and nothing but
the same objects. The only difference is, that some of us had
wandered from object to object irregularly, and that others had
looked at them in a certain order.
Now, what is this order ? Nature points it out to us herself.
It is the very order in which she presents to us objects. There
are some which are more striking than others, and which, of
themselves, almost call to us to look at them ; they are the pre-
dominant objects^ around which the others seem to arrange them-
selves. It is to them, accordingly, that we give our first attention;
and when we have remarked their relative situations, the others
gradually fill up the intervals.
We begin, then, with the principal objects ; we observe them
in succession ; we compare them, to judge of their relative posi-
tions. When these are ascertained, we observe the objects that
fill up the intervals, comparing each with the principal object,
till we have fixed the positions of all.
When this process of successive, but regular observation, is
accomplished, we know all the objects and their situations, and
can embrace them with a single glance. Their order, in our
mind, is no lonarer an order of mere succession ; it is simultane-
ous. It is that in which they exist, and we see it at once dis-
tinctly.
The comprehensive knowledge thus acquired, we owe to the
mere skill with which we have directed our eyes from object to
object. The knowledge has been acquired in parts successively ;
but, when acquired, it is present at once to our mind, in the same
manner, as the objects which it retraces to us, are all present to
the single glance of the eye that beholds them.
The description which I have now given you, ver\' nearly after
the words of Condillac, is, I think, a very faithful representation of a
process of which we must all repeatedly have been conscious. It
484 ON THE EXTERNAL AFFECTIONS
seems to me however, faithful as it is, as a mere description, to
leave the great dilhcultj unexphiined, and even unremarked.
We see a multitude of objects, and we have one complex indis-
tinct feeling. We wish to know the scene more accurately, and
in consequence of this wish, thoug'h the objects themselves con-
tinue as before, we no longer seem to view them all, but on-
ly one, or a few ; and the i'ew, which we now see, we see more
distinctly. Such 1 conceive to be the process ; but the ditTer-
ence is, that though we seem to view only a few objects, and
these much more distinctly, the tic Id of the eye still comprehends
a wide expanse, the light from which scarcely affects us, while
the light from other parts of it, though not .more brilliant, pro-
duces in us distinct perception. It is vain for Condillac to say,
that it is in consequence of a faculty which we have of directing
our eyes on one subject, a faculty which is the result of our organ-
ization, and which is common to all mankind ; for, in the lirst place,
if tliis direction of our eyes, of which he speaks, on a single ob-
ject, be meant, in its strict sense, of the eye itself, which we di-
rect, it is not true that we have any such i'aculty. We cannot di-
rect our eyes so as not to comprehend equally in our held of vi-
sion, many objects beside that single object which is supposed to
have fixed our attention ; and if, by the direction of our eyes, be
meant the exclusive or limited perception by our mind itself, there
remains the dilTiculty, — how it happens, that while light from in-
numerable objects falls on our retina as before, it no longer pro-
duces any distinct vision relatively to tiie objects from which it
comes, — while liglit certainly not more brilliant, from other ob-
jects, produces vision much more distinct than before. Let us con-
sider this dilliculty which, in truth, constitutes the principal phc'
nomenon of attention, a little more fully.
When Condillac speaks of the faculty of the mind, by which he
siujtpoyf's it capable of directing the eye, exclusively, on certaia
objects, he must speak of that only, of which we are conscious,
previously to the more distinct perception of those objects, as
certain parts of the scene.
What is it, then, of whirh we are conscious, between the in-
distinct perception of the wide scene, and the distinct perception
of parts of the scene ?
f^^^ In the lirst place, there is a general desire of kn owing the
5^1
COMBINED WITH DESIRE. 485
scene more_.a(lCurately. This is the primary feeling of the pro-
'cess of attention. But this primary feeling is soon succeeded hy
other?. Indistinct as the whole comi)lex scene may be, some
parts of it more brilliant, or more striking in general character,
are less indistinct than others. There are a few more prominent
parts, as Condillac says, around which the rest are indistinctly ar-
ranged.
With some one of these, then, as in itself more impressive and
attractive, we begin ; our general desire of knowing the whole
scene having been followed by a wish to know this principal part
more accurately.
The next step is to_prevent the eyej tsp.lf frnrg wanderi ng, that£i:
no new^^bjects may distract it, and that there may be as little
confusion as possible ot the r"ayi^from different objects, on that
part of the retina, on which the rays fell from the particular ob-
ject which we wish to consider. We fix our eyes, therefore, and
our whole body, as steadily as we can, by the muscles subservi-
ent to these purposes.
So far, unquestionably, no new faculty is exercised. We have
merely </ie t^esire of knowing the scene before us, — the selection
of some prominent object, or i-ather the mere perception of it, as
peculiarly prominent, — the desire of knowing it particularly, —
and the contraction of a few muscles, in obedience to our volition.
No sooner, however, has all this taken place, than instantly,
or almost instantly, and without our consciousness of any new and
peculiar state of mind intervening in the process, the landscape
bee&m£S_to our vision altogjather diffprent — Cectaia-^arts only, .
those-^axts. whlclr we wished to know particularly, are seen by
u*^ the^ remaining pafts.'se£ffiaImosLToTiaye,yanb^ It is as if
^very thing before had been but the doubtful colouring of en-
chantment, which had disappeared, and left to us the few promi-
nent realities on which we gaze ; or rather, it is as if some in-
stant enchantment, obedient to our wishes, had dissolved every
reality besides, and brought closer to our sight the few objects
which we desired to see.
Still, however, all of which we are truly conscious, as pre-
ceding immediately the change of appearance in the scene, is the
mere desire, of which I have spoken, combined certainly with ex-
pectation of that more distinct vision which follows. There may
486 ON THE EXTERNAL AFFECTIONS
be a combination of feelings, but no new and peculiar feeling,
either as simple, or coexisting with other feelings, — no indication,
in short, of the exercise of new power.
Even though we should be incapable, therefore, of under-
standing how the desire should have this effect, it would not be
the less true, that the desire of knowing accurately a particular
object in a group, is instantly, — or, at least, instantly after some
organic change which may probably be necessary, — followed by a
more vivid and distinct perception of the particular object, and a
\J comparative faintness and indistinctness of the other objects that
coexist with it ; and that what we call attention is nothing-
more.
Are the comparative distinctness and indistinctness, however,
a result which we had no reason to expect? or are they not
rather what might, in some degree at least, have been expected.
from our knowledge of the few physical facts with respect to our
co-existing sensations, which I have already pointed out to you,
and from the circumstance which we are next to consider ? We
have seen, in the observations already made by us, that many co-
existing perceptions are indistinct, and that when one becomes
more vivid, tiie others become still fainter. All that is necessary,
therefore, is to discover some cause of increased vividness of that
one to which we are said to attend.
If we can discover any reason why this should become more
vivid, the comparative indistinctness of the other parts of the scene
may he considered as following of course.
Such a cause exists, unquestionably, in that feeling of desire,
without which there can be no attention. To attend, is to have a
desire of knowing that to which we attend, and attention without
desire is a verbal contradiction, — an inconsistency, at least, as
great as if we were said to desire to know without any desire of
knowing, or to be attentive without attention.
When we attend, then, to any part of a complex group of sen-
sations, there is always an emotion of desire, however slight tbe
ftnotion may be, connected exclusively with that particular [)art
of the group to which we attend ; and whatever effect our ento-
tions produce on the complex feelings that accompany them, we
may expect to be produced, in some greater or less degree, by
the de«ire in the complex process which we term attention.
COMBINED WITH DESIRE. 4B7
The effect which our expectation might anticipate, is the very
effect that is truly found to take place, — an increased liveli-
ness of that part of the complex group, to which alone the de-
sire relates.
That it is the nature of our emotions of every sort, to render
more vivid all the mental affections with which they are peculiar-
ly combined, as if their own vivacity were in some measure divid-
ed with these, every one who has felt any strong emotion, must
have experienced. The eye has, as it were, a double quickness,
to perceive what we love or hate, what we hope or fear. Other
objects may be seen slightly ; but these, if seen at all, become in-
stantly permanent, and cannot appear to us without impressing
their presence, as it were, in stronger feeling on oar senses and
our soul.
Such is the effect of emotion, when combined even with sen-
sations that are of themselves, by their own nature, vivid ; and
mark, therefore, less strikingly, the increase of vividness receiv-
ed. The vivifying effect, however, is still more remarkable, by
its relative proportion, when the feelings with which the emo-
tion is combined, are in themselves peculiarly faint, as in the case
of mere memory or imagination. The object of any of our emotions,
thus merely conceived by us, becomes, in many cases, so vivid, as
to render even our accompanying perceptions comparatively faint.
The mental absence of lovers^ for example, is proverbial ; and
what is thus termed in popular language absence^ is nothing
more than the greater vividness of some mere conception, or oth-
er internal feeling, than of any, or all of the external objects pre-
sent at the time, which have no peculiar relation to the prevail-
ing emotion.
" The darkened sun
Loses his light ; The rosy-bosom'd Spring
To weeping Fancy pines ; and yon bright arch
Contracted, bends into a dusky vault.
All nature fades, extinct ; and she alone,
Heard, felt, and seen, possesses every thought,
Fills evere sense, and pants in every vein.
Books are but formal dulness, — tedious friends,
And sad amid the social band he sits
Lonely and unattentive. From his tongue
Tiie unfinish'd period falls ; while, borne away
488 ON THE EXTERNAL AFFECTIONS
On swelling thought, his wafted spirit flies
To the vain bosom of his distant Fair ;
And leaves the semblance of a lover, fixM
In meiancholj'^ site, with head declined
And love-dejected eyes."*
What brighter colours the fears of superstition give to the ilim
objects perceived in twilight, the inhabitants of the vilhige who
have to pass the churchyard at any late hour, and the little stu-
dents of ballad lore, who have carried with them, from the nurse-
ry, many tales which they almost tremble to remember, know well.
And in the second sight of this northern part of the island, there
can be no doubt, that the objects which the seers conceive them-
selves to heboid, truly are more vivid, as conceptions, than, but
for the superstition and the melancholy character of the natives,
which harmonize with the objects of this gloomy foresight, they
would have been; and that it is in consequence of this brightening
effect of the emotion, as concurring with the dim ami shadowy ob-
jects which the vapoury atmosphere of our lakes and vallies pre-
sents, that fancy, relatively to the individual, becomes a tempora-
ry reality. The gifted eye, which has once believed itself favour-
ed with such a view of the future, will, of course, ever after have
a quicker foresight, and more frequent revelations ; its own wilder
emotion communicating still more vivid tbrms and colours to the
objects which it dimly perceives.
On this subject, however, I need not seek an}' additional illus-
tration. I may I'airly suppose you to admit, as a general physical
law of the Phenomena of Mind, that the inHuence of every emo-
tioQ is to render more vivid the perception or conception of its
object.
I must remark, however, that when the emotion is very violent,
as in the violence of any of our fiercer passions, though it still ren-
ders every object, with which it harmonizes, more vivid and prom-
inent, it mingles with them some degree of its own confusion of
feeling. It magnifies and distorts; and what it renders bright-
er, it does not therefore render more distinct.
" The /lame of passion, through the stragt^lin^ soul
De( p-kindkd, sticWB across that sudden blaze
♦Tlioniioa's Seasons— Spring, v. 1006—1021.
COMBINED AVITH DESIiXE. 489
The object of his rapture, vast of size,
With fiercer coloure and a night of shade."*
The species of desire which we are considering-, however, is
not of this fierce and tempestuous kind.
Emotions of a calmer species have the vivifying effect, with-
out the i7ulistinctness ; and precisely of this degree is that desire
which constitutes attention as coexisting with the sensations, or
other feelings to which we are said to attend.
We have found, then, in the desire which accompanies atten-
tion, or rather which chiefly constitutes it, the cause of that increas-
ed intensity which we sought.
When all the various objects of a scene are of themselves
equally, or nearly equally, interesting or indifferent to us, the
union of desire^ with an}^ particular perception of the group, might
be supposed, a priori, to render this perception in some degree
more vivid than it was before. It is not necessary that this differ-
ence of vividness should take place wholly, or even be very strik-
ing, in the first instant; for, by becoming in the first instant even
slightly more vivid, it acquires additional colouring and promi-
nence, so as to increase that interest, which led us originally to
select it for onr first minute observation, and thus to brighten it
more and more progressively. Indeed, when we reflect on our
consciousness during what is called an effort of attention, we feel
that some such progress as this really takes place, the object be-
coming gradually more distinct while we gaze, till at length it re-
quires a sort of effort to turn away to the other coexisting objects,
and to renew with them the same process.
Attention, then, is not a simple mental state, but a process, or
a combination of feelings. It is not the result of any peculiar pow-
er of the mind, but of those mere laws of perception, by which
the increased vividness of one sensation produces a corresponding
faintness of others coexisting with it, and of'that law of our emo-
tions, by which they communicate greater intensity to every
perception, or other feeling, with which they coexist and har-
monize.
* Pleasures of f mat nation, Book 11. v. 137—140.
62
490
LECTURE XXXII.
ON THE EXTERN.VL AFFECTIONS OF IMIND COINIBINED WITH DE-
SIRE, CONTINUED. ON THE INTERNAL AFFECTIONS OF MIND.
CLASSIFICATION OF THEJVI.
I\ my last Lecture, Gentlemen, I coucludecl my sketch of the
<Jiftei"ent hypotheses of philosophers with respect to perception,
with an account of that Pre-established Harmony, by which Leib-
nitz, excluding' all reciprocal agency of mind and matter, endeav-
oured to account for the uniform coincidence of our mental feel-
ings with our bodily movements, — an hypothesis which, though it
does not seem to have gained many followers out of Germany,
produced the most enthusiastic admiration in the country of its au-
thor. I may remark by the waj', — as a very striking example of
the strange mixture of seemingly opposite qualities, which we fre-
quently iind in the character of nations, — that, while the country,
of which 1 si)eak, has met with ridicule, — most unjust in degree,
as national ridicule always is, — for the heaviness of its laborious
erudition, it must be allowed to surpass all other countries in the
passionate enthusiasm of its philosophy, ^vhicli, particularly in met-
aphysics, from the reign of Leibniiz to the more recent worship
paid to the transcendentalism of Kant, seem.s»scarcely to have ad-
mitted of any calm aj>probation, or to have known any other inquir-
ers than violent partisans and violent foes.
After my remarks on this hypothesis, which closed my view of
our external affections of mind, as they exist simply, I next pro-
ceetled to consider them, as (hey exist, combined with desire, in (hat
state of the mind, which is termed attention, — a state which has
been supposed to indicate a peculiar intellectual power, but which,
ON THE EXTERNAL AFFECTIONS, ETC. 491
I endeavoured to shew you, admits of being analyzed into other
more general principles.
^t is to our consciousness, of course, that we must refer for the
truth of any such analysis ; and the process which it reveals to us,
in attention, seems, 1 think, to justify the analysis which I made,
indicating a combination of simpler feelings, but not any new and
distmct species of feeling, to be referred to a peculiar faculty.
We see many objects together, and we see them indistinctly.
We wish to know them more accurately, — and we are aware,
that this knowledge can be acquired only in detail. We select
some one more prominent object, from the rest, — or rather, with-
out any selection on our part, this object excites, in a higher de-
gree, our desire of observing' it particularly, merely by being more
prominent, or, in some other respect, more interesting than the
rest. To observe it particularly, we fix our body, and our eyes,
— for it is a case of vision which I have taken for an example, —
as steadily as possible, that the light from the same points of the
object may continue to fall on the same points of the retina. To-
gether with our wish, we have an expectation, the natural effect
of uniform past experience, that the object will now be more dis-
tinctly perceived by us ; and, in accordance with this expectation,
when the process, which I have described, is completed, the ob-
ject, as if it knew our very wish, and hastened to gratify it, does
become more distinct ; and, in proportion as it becomes thus more
vivid, the other objects of the group become graduallj"^ fainter, till
at length they are scarcely felt to be present. Such, without the
intervention of any new and peculiar state of mind, is the mental
process, as far as we are conscious of it ; and, if this be the pro-
cess, there is no reason to infer in it the operation of any power
of the mind different from those which are exercised in other cas-
es. The general capacities of perception, and desire, and expec-
tation, and voluntary command of certain muscles, which, on eve-
ry view of the phenomena of attention, we must allow the mind to
possess, arc, of themselves, sufficient to explain the phenomena,
and preclude, therefore, any further reference.
The brightening of the objects to which we attend, that is to
say, of the objects which have interested us, and which we feel a
desire of knowing, and the consequent fading of the other coexist-
ing objects, 1 explained, by the well known influence, not of de-
492 ON THE EXTERNAL AFFECTIONS
sire merply, but of all our emotions, in rendering more vivid those
objects of perception or I'ancj', with which they harmonize; audi
illustrated this influence l)y various examples.
The phantasms of imag-ination, in the reveries of our waking
hours, when our external senses are still open, and quick to feel,
are, as mere conceptions, far less vivid than the primary percep-
tions, from which they originally flowed ; and yet, under the in-
fluence of any strong emotion, they become so much more bright
and prominent than external things, that, to the impassioned mus-
er, on distant scenes and persons, the scenes and persons truly
around him, are almost, as if they were not in existence. If a
mere conception, then, faint as it must always be by its own na-
ture, can thus be rendered more vivid than reality, by the union
of any strong desire, it is surely less wonderful, that the same
cause should communicate the same superior vividness to the
brighter realities of perception. If what we remember with in-
terest, and wi'sh to sec again, become so much more vivid in
our fancy, merely by this very wish, that we scarcely perceive
any one of the innumerable objects before our eyes, what we
truly see, in its own lively colouring, and feel a strong desire of
knowing more intimately, may well be supposed to render us less
sensible to the other coexisting objects, which the very shadows
of our imagination, when brightened by a similar desire, were
able mutually to annihilate or eclipse.
In addition to this direct vivifying influence of the desire itself,
some part, — and, perhaps a very considerable part — of the bright-
ening of the object, during attention, may arise indirectly from
the mere muscular adaptation of the organ. I do not speak mere-
ly of that internal adaptation, whatever it may be, which accom-
modates the organ to the object, and, therefore, varies with the
distance of the object, but of that simpler contraction, which keeps
the orgin, as a whole, steadily fixed. It is proved by many facts,
that a certain time is necessary, for vision, and, probably, in like
manner, for all our pf^rceptions. A cannon ball, for example,
though it must have reflected light to us, during its passage, may
yet [tass before our eyes, so rapidly, as not to be perceived ; and,
if a part of the eye be aifectod, in a certain manner, by one col-
our, and a diflerent colour tall upon it so rapidly after the first,
that the former airection has not previously ceased, the result m
COMBINED WITH DESIRE. 493
not the visunl afTection, which the second colour alone would have
produced, but that which would have arisen at once from a mix-
ture of the two colours. In this way, in an experiment which has
been often performed, for the demonstration of this simple and
heautiful fact; if a cylinder be painted in longitudinal bars, with
the prismatic colours, in certain proportions, and be revolved rap-
idly on its axis, its surface to the eye will not seem to present any
one of the colours, which are really painted on it, but an uni-
form whiteness^ which it has not, on a single point of its whole
surface.
If raj'S of different colours, falling in rapid succession, on the
same points of the retina, thus seem to mingle with each other,
and produce one confused effect, it must evidently be ol' great im-
portance, for distinct vision, that the eyes should be so fixed, that
the rays from the objects which we wish to observe, may not fall,
on some parts of the retina, previously affected by the light of
other objects, but, as much as possible, on the same parts, during
the whole time of our observation. This can be done, as I have
said, only by the continued agency of certain muscles ; and hence
arises that feeling of miiscutar {ffort^ of which we are conscious in
the process. How difficult is it for us, to keep a muscle, for any
length of time, in the same exact point of contraction, without the
slightest deviation from this point, is well known to physiologists;
and, it is not wonderful, therefore, that in attention, we should be
conscious of a considerable effort, in endeavouring to tix steadily
any of our organs. The power of thus fixing our muscles, is a
power which improves by habitual exercise; and it is probably
very much in this wa}^, that the practised eye is able so rapidly
to distinguish the minute parts of objects, which require from
others a much longer effort of attention.
But, whatever the effect of the muscular adaptation may be, it
is not the less certain, if we reflect on our feelings, that the men-
tal part of the process of attention involves nothing more, in addi-
tion to the primary perception, which is its object, than desire
with expectation. This is all of which we are truly conscious, pre-
viously to the brightening of the perception itself, to which we
are said to attend ; — a brightening, which, from the general laws
of emotion, might very naturally be expected as the result of the
union of desire, with anv of our sensations. In such circunistan-
494 ON THE EXTERNAL AFFECTIONS
ces, then, it is not wonderful, that we should remembei* best the
objects to which we pay most attention, since this is only to say,
that we remember best the objects on which we have dwelt long-
est, and with greatest interest, and which we have, therefore,
known most accurately.
Such are our sensations or perceptions, when united with de-
sire, exhibiting appearances, which seem, at first, to indicate,
though they do not truly indicate, a peculiar power or suscepti-
bility of the mind. We shall find, in considering our intellectual
states of mind, the order of mental phenomena, to which we next
proceed, that the union of desire with these, has led, in like man-
ner, to the belief of many distinct intellectual powers, which yet,
like attention, admit of being analyzed into simpler elements.
These intellectual phenomena themselves, in their simple state,
must, however, be first examined by us.
Having now, then, offered all the observations for which our
limited course -allows me room, on the very important primary
class of external affections of the mind, I proceed according to our
general division, to consider the secondary class of its internal af-
fections ; those states of it, which are not the result of causes for-
eign to the mind itself, but immediate consequents of its own pre-
ceding feelings.
The Divine Contriver of our mental frame, who formed the
soul to exist in certain states, on the presence of external things,
formed it also to exist, in certain successive states, without the
presence or direct influence of any thing external ; the one state
of the mind, being, as immediately the cause of the slate of mind
which follows it, as, in our external I'eelings, the change produc-
ed, in our corporeal organ of sense, is the cause of any one of
the particular alTi-ctions of that class. In the one class, that of
our internal affections, the phenomena depend on the laws which
regulate the successive changes of state of the mind itself. In the
other class, that of our external affections, they depend on the
laws of the mind, indeed, which is susceptible of these peculiar
changes of state ; but they depend, in an equal degree, on the
laws which give to mailer its peculiar qualities, and, consequently,
its peculiar influence on this mental susceptibility. If light were
to be aiuiihilated, it is very evident, that, though our mind itself
were to continue endowed with all its present susceptibilities, it
COMBINED WITH DESIRE. 495
never again could behold the sun, around whose cold and gloomy
mass our earth might still revolve as now ; nor, in such circum-
stances, is there any reason to suppose that it would exist in any
one of those various states, which constitute the delightful sensations
of vision. These sensations, then, depend on external things, as mucfts
as on the mind itself. But, though after we have once been enrichecy
with the splendid acquisitions, which our perceptive organs afford
us, every thing external were to vanish, not from our sight merely,
but from all our senses, and our mind alone were to exist in the infini-
ty of space, together with that Eternal Majesty which formed it,
— still thought after thought, and feeling after feeling, would arise,
as it were, spontaneouslj', in the disembodied spirit, — if no change
in its nature were to take place ; and the whole world of light,
and Iragrance, and harmony, would, in its remembrance, almost
rise again, as if outliving annihilation itself. It is by this capacity
of internal change of state, indeed, that the soul is truly immortal,
which, if it were capable of no affections, but those which I have
termed external, would itself be virtually as mortal as all the mor-
tal things that are around it; since, but lor them, as causes of its
feelings, it could not, in these circumstances, of complete depen-
dence, have any feelings whatever, and could, iherefore, exist on-
ly in that state of original insensibility, which preceded the first
stensation that gave it consciousness of existence. It is, in the
true sense of immortality of life, immortal, only because it depends
for its feelings, as well as for its mere existence, not on the state
of perishable things, which are but the atmosphere that floats
around it, but on its own independent laws ; or, at least, — for the
laws of mind, as well as the laws of matter, can mean nothing
more, — depends, for the successions of its feelings, only on the
provident arrangements, of that All-foreseeing Power whose will,
as it existed at the very moment at which it called every thing
from nothing, and gave to mind and matter their powers and sus-
ceptibilities, is thus, consequently, in the whole series of effects,
from age to age, the eternal legislation of the universe.
Even while our soul is united to this bodily frame, and contin-
usiUy capable of being affected by the objects that are continually
present with it, by far the greater number of our feelings arc
those which arise from our inie;->ia/ successions of thought. Innu-
merable as our perceptions are, they are but a small part of the-
496 OiV THE EXTERNAL AFFECTIONS, ETC.
varied consciousness of a day. We do not see, or feel, objects
merely, for this alone would be of little value, — but we compare
them with each other, — we form plans of action, and prosecute
them with assiduous attention, — or we meditate on the means by
which they may most effectually be prosecuted ; and with all our
perceptions of external things, and plans of serious thought, a con-
tinued fairy work of involuntary tancj', is incessantly mmsrling, in
consequence of the laws of suggestion in the mind itself, like the
transient shadows, on a stream, of the clouds that tied over it,
which picture on it their momentary forms, as they pass in rapid
variety, without affecting the course of the busy current, which
glides along in its majestic track, as if they had never been. If
we had the power o[ external sense only, life would be as passive
as the most unconnected dream, or rather far more passive and
irregular than the wildest of our dreams. Our remembrances,
comparisons, our hopes, our tears, and all the variety of our
thoughts and emotions, give a harmony and unity to our general
consciousness, which make the consciousness of each day a little
drama, or a connected part of that still greater drama, which is to
end only with the death of its hero, or rather with the commence-
ment of his glorious apotheosis.
How wide a lield the internal affections of the mind present,
without dependence on the system of material things, — with
which we are connected, indeed, by many delightful ties, but by
ties that have relation only to this mortal scene, — is proved in a
very striking manner, by the increased energy of thought which
we often seem lo acquire in those hours of the quiet of the night,
when every external inlluence is nearly excluded^ — the hours of
iuwanl medilat.on, in which the mind has been poetically said, to
retire into the sanctuary of its own immense abode, and to feel
there and enjoy its spiritual Infinity, as if admitted to the etherial
dwellings and the feasts of the Gods.
'' Nonne rides, quoties nox circumfiinHi<ur atra
Iiiitiiensi terga Occani terraiuque poluuique,
("um rerurri ijlxluxit species olMiiibilus A«'r
Ncc Irag'jr impulses aut vox ailaliilur aurcs,
Ut nullo iotuitu menajam defixa, recedit
In sc-sc, et vires intra sc collip;it onines?
Ut iiia^no liogpjtin polidir, scqup cxfipit ipsa
'lutain intiis ; slu jussu Deum discumbere mcnsii.
eN THE INTERNAL AFFECTIONS OF MIND. 497
Nam neque sic illam solido de marmore tecta
Nee cum porticibus capiuut laquiaria centum
Aurea, tot distiucta locis, tot regibu3 apta,
Quaesitajque epula?, Tyrioque instructus ab ostro;
Ut gaudet sibi juncta, sibique intenditur ipsa,
Ipsa sibi tola incumbens, totaraque pererrana
Immensa immensam spatio loDgeque patentem.
Seu dulces inter lalebras Heliconis amaeni,
Et sacram PlKebi nemorum divertitur umhram,
Fcecuodum pleno exercens sub pectore numen ;
Seu causas rerum occultas, et semina volvit,
Et quels foderibus conspirent maximum ^ther
Neptunusque Fater, Tellusque, atque omnia gignant ;
Sive altum virtutis iter subduci*, et almus
Molitur leges, queis fortunata juventus
I'areat, ac pace imperium tutetur et armis."*
The internal states of mind, then, which form the class next
to be considered by us, present to our inquiry no narrow or unin-
teresting field. We are to find in these again every thing, though
in fainter colours, which delighted and interested us in the form-
er class ; while we are, at the same time, to discover, an abund-
ant source of feelings still more delightful and sublime in them-
selves, and still more interesting to our analysis. We are no lon-
ger mere sensitive beings, that gaze upon the universe, and feel
pain or pleasure as a few of its elementary particles touch our
nerves. We are the discoverers of laws, which every element of
the universe obeys, — the tracers of events of ages that are past,
— the calculators and prophets of events, that are not to occur till
generation after generation of the prophetic calculators that suc-
ceed us shall themselves have passed away ; — and, while we are
thus able to discover the innumerable relations of created things,
we are, at the same time, by the medium of these internal states
of our own mind, the discoverers also of that Infinite Beings who
framed every thing which it is our glory to be capable merely of
observing, and who, without acting directly on any of our organs
of sense, is yet present to our intellect with as bright a reality of
perception, as the suns and planets which he has formed are pre-
sent to our corporeal vision.
• D. Heinsius. De Contemptu Mortis, Lib. i.
^3
498 ON THE INTERNAL AFFECTIONS
The species of philosophical inquiry, which our internal affec-
tions of mind admit, is exactly the same as that which our external
alToctions admit; that is to say, we are in our inquiry, to consider
the circumstances in which they arise, and the circumstances
which follow them, with the relations which they appear to us
mutually to bear to our external feelings, and to each other, and
nothing- more. It is as little possible for us, independently of ex-
perience, to discover a priori, any reason that one state of mind
should be followed directly by another state of mind, as, in the
case of our external feelings, to discover any reason, that the
presence of light should be followed by that particular mental
state which constitutes the sensation of colour, not by that which
constitutes the perception of the song of a nightingale, or t!ie fra-
grance of a violet, — or that those external causes should be fol-
lowed by their peculiar sensations, rather than by the perception
of colour. It is equally vain for us to think of discovering any
reason, in the nature of the mind itseli', which could have enabled
us to predict, without actual experience, or, at least, without anal-
ogy of other similar instances, any of the mere intellectual chan-
ges of state, — that the sight of an object, which we have seen be-
fore in other circumstances, should recal, by instant spontaneous
suggestion, those other circumstances which exist no longer; —
that in meeting, in the most distant country, a native of our own
land, it should be in our own power, by a single xscord to annihilate^
as it were, for the moment, all the seas and mountains between
him and his home ; — or, in the depth of the most gloomy dungeon,
where its wretched tenant, who has been its tenant for half a life,
sees, and scarcely sees, the few Aiint rays that serve but to speak
of a sunshine, which he is not to enjoy, and which they deprive
him of the comfort of forgetting, and to render visible to his very
e^-es that wretchedness which he feels at his heart, — that even
this creature of misery, — whom no one in the world perhaps re-
members but the single being, whose regular presence, at the
hour at which he gives him, day by day, the means of adding to hi*
life another year of wretchedness like the past, is scarcely felt as
the presence of another living thing, — should yet, by the inllucnce
of a single tlionglil, enter into the instant possession of a freedom
beyond that which the mere de^slruction of his dungeon could give,
— a freedom which restores him not merely to the liberty^ but to
OF MIND. 499
the very years which he had lost, — to the woods, and the brook,
and the lields of his boyish frohcs, and to all the happy faces
which were only as happy as his own. The innumerable exam-
ples of such successions of thought we know fr^m experience,
but from experience only. It is enough for us, however, to ascer-
tain the simple fact, that the internal suggestions of thought after
thought, without the recurrence of any external object does take
place, as truly as sensation itself, when external objects recur, — ■
to observe the general circumstances relating to the suggestion, —
and to arrange the principle on which it seems to depend, as a
principle of our intellectual constitution. While we attempt no
more than this, we are certain at least that we are not attempt-
ing any thing which is beyond the sphere of human exertion.
To attempt more^ and to strive to discover, in any one of the se-
ries of our internal feelings, some reason which might have led us
originally to predict its existence, or the existence of the other
mental affections which succeed it, would be to hope to discover,
what is not merely beyond our power even to divine, but what we
should be incapable of knowing that we had divined, even though
we should casually have succeeded in making the discovery.
In the classification of our internal feelings, as in every classi-
fication, and, indeed, in every thing, intellectual or moral, which
can exercise us, it is evident, that we may err in two ways, by ex-
cess or deficiency. We may multiply divisions without necessity,
or we may labour in vain to force into one division individual diver-
sities, which cannot, by any labour, be made to correspond. The
golden mean, of which moralists speak, is as important in science, as
in our practical views of happiness ; and the habit of this cautious
speculative moderation, is, probably, of as difficult attainment in
the one, as the habitual contentment which is necessary to the en-
joyment of the other.
When we think of the infinite variety of the physical objects
around us, and of the small number of classes in which they are
at present arranged, it would seem to us, if we were ignorant of
the history of philosophy, that the regular progress of classifica-
tion must have been to simplify, more and more, the general cir-
cumstances of agreement, on which arrangement depends ; that,
in this progressive simplification, millions of diversities mu-^t have
been orig^inally reduced to thousands, — these, afterwards, to hun-
500 CLASSIFICATION OF THE
dred?, and these again, successively, to divisions still more mi-
nute. But, Ihe truth is, that this simplicity of division is far from
bein" so progressive in the arrangement even of external things.
The tirst steps»of classification must, indeed, uniformly be, to re-
duce the great multitude of obvious diversities to some less exten-
sive tribes. But the mere guess-work of hypothesis soon comes
in to supply the j)lace of laborious observation or experiment, and
of that slow and accurate reasoning on observations and experi-
ments, which, to minds of very rapid imagination, is perhaps, a
labour as wearisome, as, in the long observation itself, to watch
for hours, with an eye fixed like the telescope through which it
gazes, one constant j)oint of the heavens, or to minister to the fur-
nace, and hang over it in painful expectance of the transmutations
which it tardily presents. By the unlimited power of an hypoth-
esis, we in a moment range together, under one general name,
myriads of diversities the most obstinately discordant ; as if the
mere giving of a name could of itself alter the qualities of things,
making similar what was dissimilar before, like words of magic,
that convert any thing into any thing. When the hypothesis is
proved to be false, the temporary magic of the spell is of course
dissolved ; and all the original diversities appear again, to be rang-
ed once more in a wider variety of classes. Even where, without
any such guess-n ork of hypothetical resemblance, divisions and
arrangements have been formed on the justest principles, accord-
ing to llie qualities of objects known at the time, some new obser-
vation, or neiv experiment, is continually shewing differences of
composition or of general (pialitics, where none were conceived
before ; and the same philosophy is thus, at the same moment,
employed in uniting and disuniting, — in reducing many objects to
a few, iiiid separating a few into many, — as the same electric pow-
er, at Ihr mf)ment in which it is altracting objects nearer to it,
rtpda others which were almost in contiguity, and often brings the
f-ame objfct close to it, only to throw it off the next monuuit to a
greater distance. While a nicer artificial analysis, or more accu-
rate observation, is detecting unsuspected resemblances, and, still
more frequently, unsus|)ecte(l diversities, there is henre no fixed
])oinf nor regular advance, hu( a sort of fl)l) and llo'.v of wider
Hid narrower divisions and subdivisions ; and the classes of an in-
tervening age may be fewer than the classes both of the age which
INTERNAL AFFECTIONS OF MIND. 501
preceded it, and of that which comes after it. For a very striking
example of this alternation, I may refer to the history of that sci-
ence, which is to matter what our intellectual analysis is to mind.
The elements of bodies have been more and fewer successively,
varying with the analyses of almost every distinguished chemist ;
far from having fewer principles of bodies, as chemistry advances,
how many more elements have we now than in the days of Aristo-
tle ! There can be no question, that when man first looked around
him with a philosophic eye, and saw, in the sublime rudeness of
nature, something more than objects of savage rapacity, or still
more savage indifference, he must have conceived the varieties of
bodies to be innumerable ; and could as little hare thought of
comprehending them all under a (ew simple names, as of compre-
hending the whole earth itself within his narrow grasp. In a
short time, however, this narrow grasp, if I may venture so to ex-
press myself, did strive to comprehend the whole earth ; and soon
after man had made the first great advance in science, of wonder-
ing at the infinity of things in which he was lost, we had sages,
such as Thales, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, who were forming
every thing of a single principle^ — water, or air, or fire. The four
elements, which afterwards reigned so long in the schools of phys-
ics, gave place to a single principle with the alchemists ; or to
three principles, — salt, sulphur, and mercury, — with chemists less
bold in conjecture. These, again, were soon multiplied by ob-
servers of still nicer discrimination ; and modern chemistry, while
it has shewn some bodies, which we regarded as different, to be
composed of the same elements, has, at the same time, shewn,
that what we regarded as elements, are themselves compounds of
elements which we knew not before.
To him who looks back on the history of our own science, the
analytic science of mind, which, as I have already said, may al-
most be regarded, in its most important aspects, as a sort of intel-
lectual chemistry, — there will appear the same alternate widening
and narrowing of classification. The mental phenomena are, in
one age or country, of many classes ; in a succeeding age, or in a
different country, they are of fewer; and again, after the lapse of
another age, or the passage of a river or a mountain, they are of
many more. In our own island, after the decay of scholastic meta^
physics, from Hobbes to IJume, — if I may use these names, as dates
502 CLASSIFICATION OF THE
of eras, in a science, on which, with all their unfortunate errors
on many of the most important points of human belief, they both
uncjuestionably threw a degree of light, which rendered their er-
rors on these subjects the more to be lamented, — in this long and
brilliant period, — which, of course, includes, with man}-^ other em-
inent names, the very eminent author of the Essay on the Human
Understanding, — there was a tendency to simplify, as much as pos-
sible, the classification of the phenomena of mind ; and more re-
gard, perhaps, was paid to the similarities of phenomena, than to
their differences. Subsequently to this period, however, the phi-
losophy of Dr Reid, and, in general, of the metaphysicians of this
part of the island, has had the opposite tendency, — to enlarge, as
I conceive, far beyond what was necessary, the number of classes
which they considered as too limited before ; — and, in proportion,
more regard has perhaps been paid to the differences, or suppos-
ed differences of phenomena, than to their resemblances. There
can be no doubt, at least, that we are now accustomed to speak of
more powers or operations of the mind, than even the schoolmen
themselves, fond as they were of all the nicest subtleties of infini-
tesimal subdivision.
The difference in this respect, however, is not so striking,
when we consider successions of ages, in which, of course, from
our general notion of the effects of time, we are accustomed to ex-
pect variety, as when we look to neighbouring countries at the
same period, especially if we consider the advantage of that noble
art, which might have been supposed, by the wide dilTusion
which it gives to opinion, to have removed, as to human sentiment,
all the boundaries of mere geographic distance. Slight, however,
as the distance is which separates the two countries, the philoso-
phy of France, in its views of the phenomena of mind, and the
philosojjhy of Britain, particularly of this part of Britain, have for
more than half a century differed as much, as in the philosophy
of different ages; certainly in a degree far greater, than, but for
experience, it would have been easy for us to suppose. In France,
all the phenomena of mind have been, during that period, regard-
ed as sensations, or transformed sensations, that is to say, as sen-
sations variously simplified or combined. The works of Condillac,
who professed (o liave founded his system on that of Locke, but
who evidently did not understand fully what Locke intended, gave
INTERNAL AFFECTIONS OF MIND. 503
the principal tone to this philosophic belief; and it has been fos-
tered since by that passion for the simple and the wonderful, which,
when these two objects can be united, is perhaps the strongest of
all our intellectual passions. In the system of the French meta-
physicians, they are united in a very high degree. That this uni-
versal presence of sensation, whether true or false, is at least very
simple^ cannot be denied ; and there is certainly abundant matter
of wonder in the supposed discovery, that all the variety of our
internal feelings are those very feelings of a different class, to
which they have so little appearance of belonging. It is a sort of
perpetual masquerade, in which we enjoy the pleasure of recog-
nizing a familiar friend in a variety of grotesque dresses, and the
pleasure also of enjoying the mistakes of those around us, who
take him for a different person, merely because he has changed
his robe and his mask. The fallacy of the doctrine is precisely of
that kind, which, if once admitted, is most difScult to be shaken
off. It relates to a system which is very simple, very wonderful,
and obviously true in part. Indeed, when there are so many ac-
tual transformations of our feelings, so many emotions, of which
the principal elements are so little recognizable, in the complex
affection that results from them, — the supposition that all the va-
rieties of our consciousness may be only modes of one simple class
of primary feelings, false as it is, is far from being the most strik-
ing example which the history of our science presents of the ex-
travagance of philosophic conjecture.
The speculations of the French school of philosophers, to
which I have now alluded, as to the supposed universal transmu-
tations of feeling, bear, as you can scarcely fail to have remarked,
a very obvious resemblance, in extreme simplicity, to the specu-
lations of alchemists on transmutations of another kind. The re-
semblance is stated with great force by a living French author,
himself a metaphysician of no humble rank. I allude to a passage
which you will find quoted by Mr Stewart, in one of the valuable
preliminary dissertations of his volume of Essays, from a work of
De Gerando.
" It required nothing less," — says this ingenious writer, —
" than the united splendour of the discoveries brought to light b}-
the new chemical school, to tear the minds of men from the pur-
suit of a simple and primary element ; a pursuit renewed in everr
504 CLASSIFICATION OP THE INTERNAL AFFECTIONS OF MIND.
ao-e, with an idefatigable perseverance, and always renewed in
vain. With what feelings of contempt would the physiologists of
former times have looked down on the chemists of the present
age, whose timid and circumscribed system admits nearly forty
dilierent principles in the composition of bodies ! What a subject
of ridicule would the new nomenclature have afforded to an al-
chemist !
" The Philosophy of Mind has its alchemists also ; men whose
studies are directed to the pursuit of one single principle^ into
which the whole science may be resolved; and who Hatter them-
selves with the hope of discovering the grand secret, hy whxh the
pure gold of truth may be produced at pleasure."*
This secret of the intellectual opus mog/iuw, Condillac conceiv-
ed himself to have found; or, rather, as I have already said, he
ascribed the grand discovery to our own illustrious countryman.
In this reference the whole school of French metaphysicians have
very strangely agreed ; conferring on Mr Locke a praise which
they truly meant to do him honour, but praise which the object
of it would have hastened to disclaim. He certainly was not that
alchemist in the science of mind which they conceived him to be ;
though he was a chemist in it, unquestionably, and a chemist of the
highest rank.
o
• Chap. I. Sect. ii. p. 15, 16. 4to. Edit.
505
LECTURE XXXIII.
ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE MF.N-TAL PHENOMENA. BY
LOCKE BY CON^DILLAC BY REID-^A NEW CL.\SSIFI-
CATION.
GcNTLEME.v, in the conclusion of my last Lecture, I alluded to
the system of the French metaphysicians, as an instance of error
from extreme iimplif.cation in the analysis of that class of our teel-
inffs which ue are now considering: ■
Of this system, — which deserves some fuller notice, on account
both of the great talents which have stated and defended it, and
of its very wide diffusion, — I may remark, in the first place, that
it is far from bein2f, what its author and his followers consider it
to be, a mere developement of the system of our illustrious coun-
tryman. On the contrary, they agree with Locke only in one
point, and that a negative one, — as to which all philosophers may
now be considered as unanimous. — the denial of what were term-
ed innate ideas. In every thing which can be strictly said to be
pos^itive in his system, this great philosopher is nearly as complete-
ly opposed to Condillac and his followers, as to the unintelligible
wranglers of the ancient schools. To convince you of this, a very
slight statement of the two systems will be suificient.
According to Locke, the mind, to whose existence thought or
feeling is not essential, might, but for sensation, have remained
forever without feeling of any kind. From senmtion we acquire
our first ideas. — to use a word, which, from its ambiguity I am not
verv fond of using, but which, from its constant occurrence, l^ a
very important one in his system. These ideas we cannot mere-
ly remember as past, and compound or decompound them in va-
rious ways, but we can compare thera in all their variety ol rela-
04
oOG ON Locke's classification of
lions ; and according^ as their objects are agreeable or disagreea-
ble, can love or hate those objects, and fear or hope their return.
We remember not external things only, so as to have ideas of
them, — ideas of sensation, — but we remember also our very re-
membrance itself,— ^our abstractions, comparisons, love, hate, hope,
fear, and all ihe varieties of reflex thought, or feeling ; and our
remembrance of these internal feelings, or operations of our mind,
furnishes another abundant source of ideas, which he terms ideas
of reflection. The comparison, however, — and it is this point
alone which can be of any consequence in reference to the French
i^ystem, — the comparison, as a stale of the mind, even when it is ex-
ercised on our sensations or perceptions, is not itself a sensation or
perception, — nor is our hope, or fear, or any other of our reflex
feelings ; for then, instead of the two sources of our ideas, the dis-
tinction of which Ibrms the very groundwork of the Essay on the
Human Understanding, we should truly have but one source, and our
ideas of reflection would themselves be the very ideas of sensation
to which tliey are opposed. Our sensations, indeed, directly or in-
directly give rise to our reflex feelmgs, but they do not involve
them ; they are only prior in order, — the occasions, on which
certain powers or susceptibilities of feeling in the mind evolve
themselves.
Such is the system of Locke, on those very points, on which
the French philosophers most strangely profess to regard him as
their great authority. Eut it is surely very different from the
system, which they affect to found on it. According to them, sen-
sation is not merely that primary afTcclion of mind, which gives
occasion to our other feelings, but is itself, as variously composed
or decomposed, all the variety of our feelings. " If we consider,"
says Condillac, in a i)aragraph, ^vhich may be said to contain a
summary of his whole doctrine, with respect to the mind — "if we
consider that to remember, to compare, to judge, to distinguish,
to imagin<!, to be astonished, to have abstract ideas, to have ideas
of number and duralion, to know truths, whether general or par-
ticular, are but so many modes of being attentive ; that to have
passions, to love, to hate, to hope, to fear, to will, are but so
many different modes of desire ; and (hat attention, in (he one case,
and desire, in the other case, of which all these feelings are modes,
are themselves, in their origin, nothing more than modes of sensa-
THE MENTAL PHENOMENA. 507
tion, we cannot but conclude, that sensation involves in itself —
enveloppe — all the faculties of the soul."*
Whatever we may think of this doctrine, as true or false, in-
genious or absurd, it seems, at least, scarcely possible, that we
should regard it as the doctrine of Locke — of him, who sets out, with
a primary division of our ideas, into two distinct classes, one class of
which alone belongs to sensation ; and who considers even this
class of our mere ideas, not as involving all the operations of the
mind with respect to them, but only as the objects of the mind, in
these various operations ; — as being what we compare, not the
very feeling ot our comparison itself — the inducements to passion,
not what constitutes any of our passions, as a state, or series of
states, of the mind. To render the paragraph, which I have
quoted from Condillac, at all accordant with the real doctrine of
Locke, it would be necessary to reverse it, in almost every propo-
sition which it involves.
The doctrine, then, as exhibited by Condillac and his follow-
ers, whatever merit it may have in itself, or however void it
may be of merit of any kind, is not the doctrine of him from whom
it is said to be derived. But its agreement or disagreement with
the system of any other philosopher, is comparatively, of very
little consequence. The great question is, whether it be just^ —
whether it truly have the merit of presenting a faithful picture of
the mental phenomena, which it professes to develope to us more
clearly.
Have we reason to believe, then, that all the various feelings
of our mind, which form the classification of its internal affections,
are merely, to use Condillac's phrase, transformed sensations ?
Transformed sensations, it is evident, on his own principles,
though the phrase might seem vague and ambiguous, in any oth-
er system, can mean nothing more than sensations more or less
lively, or more or less complex. It cannot signify any thing that
is absolutely different or superadded ; for, if there be any thing,
in any complex feeling of the mind, which did not originally form
a sensation, or a part of a complex sensation, this addition, howev-
er slight, is itself a proof, that all the phenomena of the mind are
not mere sensations, variously repeated — that sensation, in short,
does not " involve"' all the affections and faculties of the soul.
* Traite des Sensations, Part I. Chap. vii. Sect. 2.
508 ON CONDILLAC'S CLASSIFICATfON OP
Is every feeling, then, in the whole series of our varied con-
sciousness, referable, in all its parts, to sensatio7i, as its original
source? — not its source merely, in one very evident respect, as
that which is, in order, truly primary to all our other feelings, but
as that which essentially constitutes them all, in the same man-
ner as the waters of the fountain are afterwards the very waters
which f]ow along the mead ?
To prove the affirmative of this, it is astonishing, with what
readiness Condillac, — who is generally regarded as a nice and
subtile reasoner, and who certainly, as his work on that subject
shows, had stud.eJ with attention the great principles of logic, —
passes from faculty to faculty, and from emotion to emotion, pro-
fessing to find sensation everywhere, without exhibiting to us even
the semblance of what he seeks, and yet repeating the constant
affirmative, that he has found it, — as if the frequent repetition,
were itself a proof of what is frequently repeated, — but proving
only that the various teelings of the mind agree, as might be sup-
posed, in being feelings of the mind — not that they agree in being
sensations^ as that word is used by himself, and as it is, in common
philosophic use, distinguished from the other more general term.
Except the mere frequency of the affirmation, and the unques-
tionable priority in order of time, of our sensations to our other
feelings, — there is not the slightest evidence, in his system, of
that universal transmutation which it affirms.
It may be necessary to mention, that, in these remarks on the
.system of the illustrious preceptor of the Prince of Parma, 1 al-
lude, in particular, to his Treatise " o/'6'eHAa«it(ns," which contains
his more mature ojtinions on the subject — not to his earlier work,
on the origin of human knowleilgc, in which lie has not ventured on
60 bold a sinipiilication ; or at least, has not expressed it in lan-
guage so precise.
The great error of Condillac, as it appears to me, consists in
supposing that, when he has shown the circumstance from which
any cfToct results, he has shown this result to be essentially the
same with the circumstance which pr )duced it.
Certain sensations have ceased to exist, certain other feelings
have immediately arisen ; — these new feelings are therefore the
others under another shape. Such is the secret, but very false, log-
ic, which seems to pervade his whole doctnnc on the subject.
THE MENTAL PHENOMENA. 500
If all that is meant were merely, that whatever may be the
varying feelings of the mind, the mind itself, in all this variety,
when it remembers or compares, hates or loves, is still the same
substance, as that which saw, heard, smelled, tasted, touched,
there could be nothing objectionable in the doctrine, but there
would then certainly be nothing new in it ; — and, instead of think-
ing either of Locke or of Condillac, we might think, at pleasure, in
stating such a doctrine of any of the innumerable assertors of the
spirituality of the thinking principle. Such, however, is not the
meaning of the French metaphysician. He asserts this identity of
substance, indeed, like the philosophers who preceded him, but he
asserts still more. It is not the permanent substance o? mind only
which is the same. Its affections^ or states, which seem, in many
respects, absolutely diiferent, are the same as those very affec-
tions, or states, from which they seem to differ — and are the same^
merely because they have succeeded them ; for, as I have already
said, except the frequency of his affirmation, that they are the
same, there is no other evidence but that of the mere succession
in order of time, by which he attempts to substantiate their same-
ness.
The oriffin of this false reasoning I conceive to be the analo-
gy of MATTER, to which his system, by reducing all the affections
of mind to that class which is immediately connected with exter-
nal things, must have led him to pay peculiar attention. Yet, in
justice to him, I must remark, that, although a system which re-
duces every feeling to mere sensation, and consequently connects
every feeling, in its origin, with the qualities of matter, must be
favourable to materialism, and has unquestionably fostered this, in
a very high degree, in the French school of metaphysics, there is
no reason to consider Condillac himself as a materialist ; on the
contrary, his works contain man}^ very just remarks on the errors
of materialism. But still his system, as I have said, by leading
him continually to our organs of sense, and to the objects which
act upon them, must have rendered the phenomena of matter pe-
culiarly apt to recur to his mind in all its speculations. Now, in
matter^ there can be no question as to the reality of that transmu-
tation, which, as applied to mind, forms the chief principle of his
intellectual anal3'sis. In the chemistry of the material elements,
the compounds are the very elements themselves. When any two
510 ON CONDILLAC'S CLASSIFICATION OF
substances, present together, vanish as it were from our view, and
a third substance, whether like or unlike to either of the former,
presents itself in their place, we believe this third substance,
however dissimilar it may appear, to be only the coexistence of
the two others; and indeed, since we have no reason to believe
that any change takes place, in the number of the corpuscles of
which our planet is composed, the whole series of its corpuscular
changes can be only new combinations of particles that existed
before.
The doctrine of Pythagoras, in its application to the material
world, is in this respect philosophically accurate :
Tempus edax rerum, tuque invidiosa vctustas
Omnia destruitis, vitiataque dentibus aavi
Paulatim lenta consumitis omnia morfe.
Npc species sua cuiquc manct ; reiumque novatrix
Ex aliis alias reparat nalura figuras.
Nee peril io toto quicquam, mihi credite, mundo,
Sed variat facicmque novat ; nascique vocatur
Incipere esse aliud quam quod fuit ante, — murique
Desinere illud idem. Cum sint hue forsilan ilia,
Haec translata illuc, summa tamen omnia eonstant.*'
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 abso-
lute sameness of result, in all the apparent changes of matter, Con-
dillac applies, by a most unwarrantable extension, to the mere af-
fections of the mind; and, because two affections of mind are fol-
lowed by a third, he considers this third to be the two former co-
existing^ or, as he terms it, transformed. * The feeling which fol-
lows 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 induc-
ed in mind, and thai, hence, since all our other feelings, of every
ipccies, must have ff»l lowed it, they must have originated in it,
* Ovid. Me(amorpl). Lib. XV. v. 234—6, and 252—8.
THE MENTAL rHENOJIENA. Sll
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 tbl-
lows number two ; and thus, successively, the whole series. I per-
ceive a hare ; 1 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, al least, it is
not very common for us to observe any two animals long, togeth-
er, without thinking of some of the circumstances in which they
agree or diifer. The one state of mind is a consequence of the oth-
er 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 sim-
ply 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 con-
stitutes the comparison of the two, in the same manner as the sol-
id chrystals of any salt unite, in solution, with the liquid which dis-
solves them. They do not involve or constitute, they merely give
occasion to this third state, and give occasion to it, merely in con-
sequence of the peculiar susceptibilities of the mind itself, as form-
ed, 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
512 ON CONDILLAC'S CLASSIFICATION OF
by an external object. It is not, therefore, as being susceptible
of mere sensation, but as being susceptible of more than mere sen-
sation, that the mind is able to compare its sensations with each
other. We may see, and certainly do see, objects together, with-
out forming uniformly the same comparison; which could not be
the case if the mere coexistence of the two perceptions constitut-
ed or involved the comparison itself In the case of a horse and
sheep^ for example, though these, in the sensations which they ex-
cite, cannot, at different times, be very different, we compare, at
different times, their colour, their forms, their magnitudes, th^r
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 percep-
tion 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. AVere 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 mathemati-
cian. Every thing which mere sensation could produce, in this case,
•would be the same in both ; and nothing can be added to this pri-
mary sensation, since every thing is said to be actually involved in
the sen-alion itself Yet, with all his accurate perception of the
figures, however clear, and vivid, and lasting, the peasant would
not tind, in this immediate perception, the equality of the two rigl)t
angles taken together to the three angles of the triangle, or any
other geometrical relation. The comparison, then, and the be-
lief of an universal truth of proportion, which results from that
comparison, are certainly something more than the mere sensation
il.**elf. Tiny are, in short, new states of oaind, as distinct from the
mere p«'rception of the figures in the diagram, as the percei)tion
of a circle itself differs from the perception of a square. To com-
pare one animal with another, is, imleod, to have different visual
imali^es ; hut the mere coexistence ol" visual images is only a group,
larger, or smaller, as the images are more or fewer, and all which
tr.Hi'^ft.rmalion can du is to add to this group or lake away from it.
* THE MENTAL PHENOMENA. 513
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 com-
parison ; and if the mind bad not been susceptible o other affec-
tions than those of sense, or of mere remembrance of the past ob-
jects 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 argu-
ments, that the feeling which constitutes our comparison of our
sensations, or, in other words, our belief of their agreement or dis-
agreement, is itself a state of mind, different from either of the se-
parate sensations which we compare, and different from both, as
merely coexisting, I cannot but feel, what manj'ofyou have prob-
ably felt already, as if I were labouring to demonstrate a mere tru-
ism. Indeed, when I consider the argument as any thing more, it
is necessary for me to call to mind the great name, and great tal-
ents, 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 enlight-
ened 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 ap-
pear 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 Under-
standing, but in a very different work, — a theory which supposes
comparison, or judgment, to be only the conjlux of two ideas, in
one proposilional canal.
" Simple ideas are produced bj'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,
65
514 OS CONDILLAC'S CLASSIFICATION OF
and like situated to the ideal, prepositional, and syllog-istical ves-
sels, in the primary p.'irts of the brain. After the same manner,
it is ea?y to explain the other modes of thinking- ; as also nhy
some people think so wrong and perverselj^, which proceeds from
the bad configuration of those glands. Some, tor example, are
born without the prepositional or syllogistical canals; in others,
that reason ill, they are of unequal capacities ; in dull fellows, of
loo great a length, whereby the motion of the spirits is retarded ; in
tritling geniuses, weak and small ; in the over-refining spirits, too
much intorted and winding ; and so of the rest.""*
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 exam-
ple, 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
dilTerent from that which constitutes desire of the recurrence of
its object; for, otherwise, the desire would be itself the very grat-
ification, 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 ani-
mal awakes, that, in continual winter would have slumbered for-
ever in insensibilit} , — or, like the bud, which, without \varmth
and moi.<ture, 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 otlicr French meta])hysicians, who have adopted his lead-
ing doctrine, may have arisen in part, or, at least, may have es-
caped detrctinn more readily, from the ambiguous signification of
the word sentir, which is a verb originally, indeed, and strictly
exprepsive of mere sensation ; but applied also, by a sort of met-
aphorical extension, to our emotions and other affections of mindj
* Mart. Scrib. c. xii.
THE MENTAL PHENOMENA. 515
that do not originate directly like sensation, in an external cause.
Thoug-h this mere arbitrary word, however, may be applicable
to a variety of feelings, it docs 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 feelings as appli-
cable to all the states of the mind, it would follow, that these are
ail 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 oilers 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 sys-
tem, I confess, appears to me a very striking example of an ex-
treme, into which we are more apt to fall, from the very false no-
tion, 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 phenome-
na 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, undescribcd and indescribable, — still, in
516 ON DR UEIU'S CLASSIFICATION OF
conformily with every just principle of philosophizing, it would
be necessary to form two classes of these mental phenomena, cor-
responding ivilh the primary classilication which we have made
of them. That the mmd should begm 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, with-
out the recurrence of any external cause whatever, in conse-
quence of its own susceptibilities only, is a proof of another set of
huvs peculiar to the mind itself. The complete ditference of the
cause, in the two instances, would justify, or rather require a dif-
ferent arrangement of the effect ; as, w^hen 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 con-
sider 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 ex-
ternal 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 combat-
ing, — a system, which, by the universality' of transmutation suppos-
ed in it, truly deserves the name oi intellectual aid nj my ^ — may then
be regarded as exemplifying one species of error in arrangement,
— the error of a simplilication be3'ond what the phenomena allow.
This species of error, in liic philosophy of mind, has not prevailed
very generally in our country', — by far the more general tenden-
cy, especially on this part of the island, being to excessive amplifi-
cation. Instead of wasting the labour of our analysis on elements
that do nut admit of any further decomposition, we have given up
this labour too soon, and have classed, in many cases, as ultimate
jirinciplox, what a[»pear to me to be susccj)tible of still nicer anal-
ysis. 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, arc not so different as to furnish ground
of ultimate distinction, but arc truly only varieties of a icw more
simple powers or susceptibilities.
THE MENTAL rUENOMENA. 517
While I am far from conceiving, tlierefore, with Condillac
and his followers, that all our states of mind are mere sensationi
modified or transformed, since this belief appears to me to be a\
mere assumption wiliiout even the sUghtest evidence in our con-
sciousness, 1 am equally unwilling to admit the variel}' of powers,
of which Dr Reid speaks. In one sense, indeed, the susceptibili-
ties, or powers, which the mind possesses, may be said, with pro-
priety, to be still more numerous, — as numerous as its feelings
themselves, — for it must never be forgotten, that what we term clas-
ses, are only words of our own invention, — that the feelings which
we arrange as belonging to one class, are truly difterent in them-
selves, precisely in the same manner as the feelings arranged in
different classes are reciprocally different, — that each feehng is,
and must be, indicative of a peculiar susceptibility of being affect-
ed in that particular manner, — and that the mind has, therefore,
truly, as manj^ susccptibihties, as, in various circumstances, it can
have different feelings. But still, when we arrange these differ-
ent 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 arrang-
ing 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 circum-
stances 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 ex-
haust the phenomena of the order. The whole order, as compos-
ed of feelings, which arise immediately, in consequence of certain
former feelings of the mind, may be technically termed, in refer-
ence to these feelings which have induced them. Suggestions ; but,
in the suggested feelings themselves, there is one striking differ-
ence. If we analyse nnr fmins nf ipfpllpr,t;nnl thnntrhf exclusive-
ly of the Emotions which may coexist or minglewTlH rhem, and of-\
sensations that may be accidentally excited by external objects,
we shall find them to be composed of two very distinct sets of feci
518 NEW CLASSIFICATION OF
ings, — 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,
vv^— 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 arrangemeni^of the in-
ternal 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 after-
^> wards to be stated, 1 would rather term iti— -the capacity of Sim^
pie Sugg£stio»^ — by which feelings, formerly existing, are^ rev'ived,
in consequence of the mere existence of other feelingSTlisThere is
also a capacity of feeling resemblance, dilference, proportion, or
relation in general, wlien 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, 1 would term the
\J capacit}' of Relative Suggestion j and of these simple and relative
suggestions, our whole intellecfual trains of thought are composed.
As I am no lover of new phrases, when the old Ciufbtr-us od wi th — -
out danger of mistake, I would very willingly, substitute for the
phrase relative suggestion, the term comparison., which is more
familiar, iind expresses very nearly the same moaning. J5ut com-
parison, 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 '^I'hc 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 pre-
viously been forming the slightest intentional com{)arison. I pre-
fer, 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 lin«Iing it.
The icrm judgment, in its strict philosophic sense, as the mere
THE INTERNAL AFFECTIONS OF MIND. 519
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 significa-
tions, had not given some degree of indistinctness even to the phi-
losophical use of it. I may remark, too, that in our works of log-
ic 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 per-
ception or conception of objects, is, however, what I mean to de-
note by the phrase Relative Suggestion ; and as judgment^ in its I
strictest sense, is nothing more than this feeling of relation, — or
any two or more objects, considered by us together, — 1 shall make
no scruple, to use the shorter and more familiar term, as synony'
inous, when there can be no danger of its being misunderstood.
The intellectual states of the mind, then, to give a brief illus-
tration of my division, I consider as all referable to two generic
susceptibilities, — those of Simple Suggestion and Relative Sugges-
tion. Our perception or conception of one object excites, of itself,
and without any known cause, external to the mind, the concep-
tion 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 per-
ception 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,Togetherwith 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 considera-
tion of the state of mind which preceded it, — there is a suggestion
of a verv different sort, which, in every case, involves the consid-
/
520 J^EW CLASSIFICATION OF
eration, not of one phenomenon of mind, but of two or more phe-
nomena, and which constitutes the feeling of agreement, disagree-
ment, 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 feel-
ing of their agreement in certain respects, or of their disagree-
ment in certain other respects. I think of the square of the hy-
potenuse of a rightangled triangle, and of the squares of the two
other sides ; — I feel the relation of equality. I see a dramatic rep-
resentation ; 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 situa-
tions ; — 1 am instantly struck with their unsuitableness to the char-
acter 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 va-
rious objects and i-emembrances. But 1 cannot, in the cases of re-
lative suggestion, think of the resemblance of a horse and a sheep ;
of the proportion of the squares of the sides of a right-angled tri-
angle ; or of the want of the truth of nature in the expressions of
a dramatic hero, without those previous states of mind, which con-
stitute the conceptions of a horse and a shee[) — (»f the sides of the
triangle, — or of the language of the warrior or lover, and the cir-
cumstanccM of triumph, or hope, or despair, in which he is exhib-
ited to us by the creative artist.
With these two capacities of suggested feelings, simple and re-
lative, which are all that truly belong to the class of intellectual
states of the mind, — various emotions may concur, particularly
that most general of all emotions, the emotion of desire, in some
one or other of its various forms. According as this desire doe»
or does not concur with them, the intellectual states themselves
ai)pear to be different ; and, by tliose who do not make the nec-
essary analysis, are supposed, therefore, to be indicatire of differ-
THE INTERNAL AFFECTIONS OP MIND. 5^1
ent powers. By simple sugsfestion, the imag'es of things, person?,
events, pass in strange and i-apid succession ; and a variety of
names, expressive of different powers, — conception, association,
memory, — have been given to this one simple law of our intellec-
tual nature. But, when we wish to remember some object ; that
is to say, when we wish our mind to be affected in that particular
manner, which constitutes the conception of a particular thing, or^
person, or event, — or when we wish to combine new images, in
some picture of fancy, this coexistence of desire, with the simple
course of suggestion, which continues still to follow its own laws,
as much as when no desire existed with it, — seems to us to render
the suggestion itself different ; and recollection, and imagination
or fancj', which are truly, as we shall afterwards find, nothing
more than the union of the suggested conceptions, with cer-
tain specific permanent desires, are to us, as it were, distinct addi-
tional powers of our mind, and are so arranged in the systems of
philosophers, who have not made the very simple anal3'sis, which
alone seems to me to be necessary for a more precise arrangement.
In like manner, those suggestions of another class, which con-
stitute our notions of proportion, resemblance, difference, and all
the variety of relations, may, as I have already remarked, arise,
when we have had no previous desire of tracing the relations, or
may arise after that previous desire. But, when the feelings of
relation seem to us to arise spontaneously, they are not in them-
selves, different from the feelings of relation, that arise, in our
intentional comparisons or judgments, in the longest series of ra-
tiocination. Of such ratiocination, they are truly the most impor-
tant elements. The permanent desire of discovering somethmg
unknown, or of establishing, or confuting, or illustrating, some
point of belief or conjecture, may coexist, indeed, with the con-
tinued series of relations that are felt, but does not alter the na-
ture of that law, by which these judgments, or relative sugges-
tions, succeed each other.
There is no power to be found, but only the union of certain
intellectual states of the mind, with certain desires, — a species of
combination not more wonderful in itself, than any other complex
mental state, as when we, at the same moment, see and smell a
rose, — or listen to the voice of a friend, who has been long al)sent
from us, and see, at the same moment, that face of affection, which
66
522 NEW CLASSIFICATION, ETC.
is again giving confidence to our heart, and gladness to our very
eyes.
Our intellectual states of mind, then, are either those resem-
blances of past affections of the mind, which arise by simple sug-
Igestion, or those feelings of relation, which arise by what I have
I termed relative suggestions,— the one set resulting, indeed, from
some prior states of the mind, but not involving necessarily, any
consideration of these previous states of mind, which suggested
them,— the other set, necessarily, involving the consideration of
two or more objects, or two or more affections of mind, as sub-
jects of the relation which is felt.
How readily all the intellectual states of mind, which are
commonly ascribed to a variety of powers, may be reduced to
those two, will appear more clearly, after we have considered
and illustrated the phenomena of each set.
I shall proceed, therefore, in the first place, to the phenome-
na of simple suggestion, which are usually referred to a principle
of association in our ideas.
523
LECTURE XXXIV.
CLASSIFICATION OF THE INTERNAL AFFECTIONS OF MIND, CON-
TINUED, ON SniPLE SUGGESTION, ADVANTAGES RESULT-
ING FROai THE PRINCIPLE OF SUGGESTION, ON MR HUMe's
CLASSIFICATION OF THE CAUSES OF ASSOCIATE FEELINGS.
Gentlemen, my general arrangement of the various phe-
nomena, or states of the mind, is, 1 trust, now sufficiently familiar
to you. We know the mind only in the succession of these states,
as they vary, from moment to moment; and you have learned to
class them, as, in the first place, External or Internal Affections,
according as the mental changes of state that are induced, have
arisen immediately from the presence of external objects, or from
some preceding state of the mind itself, — and the latter of the?e
classes, you have learned also to subdivide into its two distinct or-
ders of Intellectual States of the Mind and Emotions. Thu« far
we have proceeded, I trust, without much risk of misconception.
In my last Lecture, I proceeded to consider the former of
these orders, and arranged all the variety of our Intellectual
States of Mind under two generic capacities, — those of Simple and
of Relative suggestion. Intellectually, we conceive or we judge ;
our past feelings, in Simple Suggestion., of image after image, arise
again, in colours more or less faint, without any known cause ex-
terior to the mind. By our capacity of the other species of Sug-
gestion, we are impressed with feelings of a different order, that
arise when two or more objects are contemplated together, — feel-
ings of their agreement, proportion, or some one or other of the
variety of their relations. Of these two orders of feelings, and of
these alone, consists the whole varied tissue of our trams ot
thought. All the intellectual powers, of which writers on this
524 ON SIMPLE SUGGESTION.
branch of science speak, are, as we shall find, only modes of these
two, as they exist simply, or as they exist in combination with
some desire more or less permanent, — with the desire of prosecut-
ing a continued inquiry, for example, or of evolving its results to
others, — as in the long series of our ratiocination; or of framing
some splendid succession of images and incidents, as in the magic
pictures of poetry and romance. The simplification may, per-
haps, at present appear to you excessive ; but I flatter myself,
that afier the two generic capacities themselves shall have been
fully considered by us, it will not appear to you morfc than is ab-
solutely necessary for accuracy of analysis and arrangement.
SIMPLE SUGGESTION.
The intellectual phenomena which we are, in the first place,
to consider, then, are those of Simple Suggestion, which are usually
classed under the general term of the Association of Ideas, — a term
employed to denote thatr-kiiilf'nry of tlie mind, by whiclTTeelingSj
that wjexe^Jonn8iJyLexcjjC(^^ external cauio. arnr5'"3rter-
wards, in regiLlar-««cce**ixins._t.o__eacK'^lTie'r, a- it were spontanea-
ously, or at least vvithout the ij^J^ed^ate presence of ain kuovvu-
exleiinaTcauSfi*-- The limitation of the~ term; hmve'ver, to those
Btatcs of mind, which are exclusively denominated ideas, has, I
conceive, tended greatly to obscure the subject, or at least to de-
prive us of the aid which we might have received from it in the
analvsis of many of the most complex phenomena. The influ-
ence of the associating principle itself extends, not to ideas only,
but to every species of affection of which the mind is susceptible.
Our internal joys, sorrows, and all the variety of our emotions,
are capable of being revived in'a certain degree by the mere in-
fluence of this principle, and of blending with the ideas or other
feelings which awakened them, in the same manner as our con-
ce[)tions of external things. These last, however, it must be ad-
mitted, present the most striking and obvious examples of the
influence of the principle, and are, therefore, the fittest for illus-
trating it. The faint and shadowy elements of past emotions, as
minghng in any present feeling, it may not be easy to distinguish ;
but our remembrances of things without are clear and definite, and
are easily recognized by us as images of the piist. We have seeoj
ON SIMPLE SUGGESTION. 525
in the history of our senses, by what admirable means Nature has
provided for communicating to man those first rude elements of
knowledge, which are afterwards to be the materials of his sub-
iimest speculations, — and with what still more admirable goodness
she has ministered to his pleasure in these primary elements of
thought, and in the very provision which she has formed for the
subsistence of his animal frame, — making the organs by which he
becomes acquainted with the properties of external things, not
the fountain of knowledge only, but an ever-mingling source of
enjoyment and instruction.
It is through the medium of perception, as we have seen, —
that is to say, through the medium of those sensitive capacities al-
ready so fully considered by us, — that we acquire our knowledge
of the properties of external things. But if our knowledge of
these properties were limited to the moment of perception, and
were extinguished forever with the fading sensation from which
it sprang, the acquisition of this fugitive knowledge would be of
little value. We should still, indeed, be sensible of the momenta-
ry pleasure or pain ; but all experience of the past, and all that
confidence in the regular successions of future events, which llows
from experience of the past, would of course, be excluded by uni-
versal and instant forgetfulness. In such circumstances, if the
common wants of our animal nature remained, it is evident, that
even life itself, in its worst and most miserable state, could not be
supported ; since, though oppressed with thirst and hunger, and
within reach of the most delicious fruits and the most plentiiul
spring-water, we should still sutler without an}' knowledge of the
means by which the suffering could be remedied. Even if, by
some provision of Nature, our bodily constitution had been so
framed, as to require no supply of subsistence, or if, instinctively
and without reflection, we had been led on the first impulse of ap-
petite, to repair our daily waste, and to shelter ourselves from
the various causes of physical injury to which we are exposed,
though our animal life might then have continued to be extended
to as long a period as at present, still, if but a succession of mo-
mentary sensations, it would have been one of the lowest forms of
mere animal life. It is only as capable of looking before and be-
hind, — that is to say, as capable of those spontaneous suggestions
of thought which constitute remembrance and foresight, — that we
f,26 ADVANTAGES RESULTING FROM
rise to the dignity of intellectual being, and that man can be said to
be the image of that Purest of Intellects, who looks backward and
forward, in a single glance, not on a few years only, but on all
the ages of eternity. " Deum te scito esse,"' says Cicero, in allu-
sion to these powers, — '' Deum te scito esse, siquidem Deus est,
qui vigct, qui sentit, — qui meminit, qui praevidet, qui tam regit et
moderatur et movet id corpus, cui propositus est, quam hunc
mnndum princeps ille Deus."
" Were it not so, the Soul, all dead and lost,
As the fix'd stream beneath the impassive frost,*
Formed for no end, and impotent to please,
Would lie inactive on the couch of ease ;
And, heedless of proud fame's immortal lay,
Sleep all her dull divinity away."t
Without any remembrance of pleasures formerly enjoj'ed, or of
sorrows long past and long endured, — looking on the persons and
scenes which had surrounded us from the first moment of our birth,
as if they were objects altogether unknown to us, — incapable even
of as much reasoning as still gleams through the dreadful stupor
of the maniac, — or of conveying even that faint expression of
thought with which the rudest savages, in the rudest language,
are still able to hold some communication of their passions or de-
signs ; — such, but for that capacity which we are considering,
would have been the deplorable picture of the whole human race.
What is now revered by us as the most generous and heroic vir-
tue, or the most profound and penetrating genius, would have
been nothing more than this wretchedness and imbecility. It is
the suggesting principle, the reviver of thoughts and feelings which
have passed away, that gives value to all our other powers and
susceptibilities, intellectual and moral — not indeed, by producing
them, fur, though unevolved, they would still, as latent capacities,
be a part of the original constitution of our spiritual nature, —
but by rousing them into action, and furnishing them with those
accumulating and inexhaustible materials, which are to be the el-
ements of future thought and the objects of future emotion. Every
• " Like the tall cliff beneath the impassive frost."— Ohio.
t Cawlhorn. — Regulation of the l'a»8ion<<, kc. v. 15—20.
THE PRINCIPLE OF SUGGESTION. 527
talent by which we excel, and every vivid feeling which animates
us, derive their energy from the suggestions of this ever-active
principle. We love and hate, — we desire and fear, — we use
means for obtaining good, and avoiding evil, — because we remem-
ber the objects and occurrences which we have formerly observ-
ed, and because the future, in the similarity of the successions
which it presents, appears to us only a prolongation of the past.
In conferring on us the capacity of these spontaneous sugges-
tions, then. Heaven has much more than doubled our existence ;
for, without it, and consequently without those faculties and emo-
tions which involve it, existence would scarcely have been desira-
ble. The very importance of the benefits which we derive from
it, however, renders us perhaps less sensible of its value; since it
is so mingled, with all our knowledge, and all our plans of action,
that we find it difficult to conceive a state of sentient being, of
which it is not a part, and to estimate, consequently, at a just
amount, the advantage which it affords. The future memory of
perception seems to us almost implied in perception itself; and to
speculate on that strange state of existence which would have
been the condition of man, if he had been formed without the pow-
er of remembrance, and capable only of a series of sensations, has,
at first, an appearance almost of absurdity and contradiction, as if
we were imagining conditions which were in their nature incom-
patible. Yet, assuredly, if it were possible for us to consider such
a subject a priori^ the real cause of wonder would appear to be,
not in the absence of the suggestions of memory, as in the case, im-
agined, but in that remembrance of which we have the happj^ ex-
perience. When a feeling, of the existence of which consciousness
furnishes the only evidence, has passed away so completely, that
not even the slightest consciousness of it remains, it would surely,
— but for that experience, — be more natural to suppose that it had
perished altogether, than that it should, at the distance of many
years, without any renewal of it by the external cause which
originally produced it, again start, as it were of itself, into being.
To foresee that which has not yet begun to exist, is, in itself,
scarcely more unaccountable, than to see as it were before us,
what has wholly ceased to exist. The present moment is all of
which we are conscious, and which can strictly be said to have a
real existence, in relation to ourselves. That mode of time.
528 ADVANTAGES RESULTING FROM
which we call the pasU^nd that other mode of time, which we call
the future, are both equally unexisting. That the knowledge of
either should be added to us, so as to form a part of our present
consciousness, is a gift of Heaven, most beneficial to us indeed, but
most mysterious, and equally, or nearly equally mysterious, wheth-
er the unexisting time, of which the knowledge is indulged to us,
be the future or the past
The advantage which we derive from the principle of sugges-
tion it must, however, be remarked, consists, not in its mere re-
vival of thoughts and feelings, of which we had before been con-
scious, but in^its revival of these in a certain order. If past ob-
ject- and events had been suggested to us again, not m that series,
in which they had formerly occurred, nor according to any of those
reWtions, which human discernment has been able to discover
among them, but in endless confusion and irregularity, the knowl-
edge thus acquired, however gratifying as a source of mere varie-
ty "of feeling, would avail us little, or rather would be wholly
profitless, not merely in our speculative inquiries as philosophers,
but in the simplest actions of common Ufe. It is quite evident,
that, in this case, we should be altogether unable to turn our ex-
perience to accoant, as a mode of avoiding future evil or obtaming
future good ; because, for this application of our knowledge, it
would be requisite that events, before observed, should occur to
us at the time, when similar events might be expected. We re-
frain from tasting the poisonous berry, which we have known to
be the occasion of death to him who tasted it; because the mere
n^rht of it brings again before us the fatal event, which we have
heard or witnessed. We satisfy our appetite with a salutary trmt,
without the slightest apprehension ; because its lamihar appear-
ance recals to us the refreshment, which we have repeatedly re-
ceived But, if these suggestions were reversed,— it the agreea-
ble ima-es of health and refreshment were all that were suggest-
ed by the poisonous plant, and pain, and convulsions, and death
were the only images suggested by the sight of the grateful and
nourishing fruit, there can be no doubt, to which of the two. our
unfortunate preference would be given. To take the most lam.l-
i.r of all inslances,-tbat of languago,-which, e.ther as wntten
or spoken, is in such constant use, and wiiich i- so essential, not
tnorolv to our first advance, from absolute barbarism, but to the
THE PRINCIPLE OF SUGGESTION. 529
common domestic necessities, even of barbarous life, that, with-
out it, we can scarcely conceive t^vo individuals, however rude, to
exist together, — this, it is evident, could not have been invented,
— nor, if invented, could it serve any other purpose than to mis-
lead, — if the words spoken v.ere to have no greater chance of
suggesting the meaning intended by the speaker, than any other
meaning, which any other words of the language might be employ-
ed to denote. What social affection could continue for an hour, if
the sight of a friend were to suggest, in intimate combination, not
the kindnesses which he had conferred, and ail the enjoyments of
which he had been the source, but the malice, and envy, and re-
venge of some jealous and disappointed enemy ?
He who has given us, in one simple principle, the power of re-
viving the past, has not made his gift so unavaihng. The feelings,
which this wonderful principle preserves and restores, arise, not
loosely and confusedly — for what is there in the whole wide scene
of nature, which does so occur ? — but, according to general laws or
tendencies of succession, contrived with the most admirable adap-
tation to our wants, so as to bring again before us the knowledge
formerly acquired by us, at the very time when it is most profita-
ble that it should return. A value is thus given to experience,
which otherwise would not be worthy of the name ; and we are
enabled to extend it almost at pleasure, so as to profit, not merely
by that experience which the events of nature, occurring in con-
formity with these general laws, must at any rate have afforded to
us, — but to regulate this very experience itself, — to dispose ob-
jects and events, so that, by tendencies of suggestion, on the firm-
ness of which we may put perfect reliance, they shall give us,
perhaps at the distance of many years, such lessons as we may
%vish them to yield, — and thus to invent and create, in a great
measure, the intellectual and moral histor}' of our future life, as
an epic or dramatic writer arranges at his will the continued scene?
of his various and magnificent narrative. 1 need not udd, that it is
on this skillul management of the laws, which regulate our trains
of thought, the whole theory and practice of education are found-
ed ; — that art, which I have already repeatedly represented to 3'ou
as the noblest of all the arts of man — itself the animating spirit of
every other art — whi< h exerts its own immediate operation, not
on lifeless things, but on the affections and faculties of the s<inl it-
67
530 ADVANTAGES RESULTING FROM
self—and which has raised us from the dust, where we slept or
trembled, in sluggish, yet ferocious ignorance, the victims ot" each
other, and of every element around us, to be the sharers and dif-
fusers of the blessings of social polity, the measurers of the earth
and of the skies, and the rational worshippers of that eternal Be-
ing by whom they and we were created.
That there is a tendency of ideas to suggest each other, with-
out any renewed perception of the external objects which origi-
nally excited them, and that the suggestion is not, altogether loose
and indefinite, but that certain ideas have a peculiar tendency to
su"-o-est certain other relative ideas in associate trains ot thought,
is too familiar to you, as a general fact of our intellectual nature,
to require to be illustrated by example.
It has been beautifully compared, by the most philosophic of
our poets, to the mutual inlluence of two sympathetic needles,
which Strada, in one of his Prolusions, availing himself of a sup-
posed fact, which was then believed, or scarcely doubted by many
philosophers, makes the subject of verses, supposed to be recited
by Cardinal Bembo, in the character of Lucretius. The needles
were fabled to have been magnetized together, and suspended
over different circles, so as to be capable of moving along an al-
phabet. In these circumstances, by the remaining influence of
their original kindred, magnetism, they were supposed, at whatev-
er distance, to follow each other's motions, and pause accordingly
at the same point ; so that, by watching them at concerted hours,
the friends, who possessed this happy telegraph, >vere supposed to
be able to communicate to each other their feelings, with the same
accuracy and confidence as when they were together.
" For wlitn the different images of tilings,
Hy chance coiiil.in'd have struck the attentive soul
With deeper impulse, or, connected ionjj,
Have druwn his frequent eye ; howe'er distinct
The external srincp, yet oft the ideas gain
From that conjumtion an eternal tie
And sympatliy unbroken. Let the Mind
Kecal one partner of the various leajjue, —
lmir;ediate, )o I the firm confederaus rise.
And each his forinur station straiijiit refumes ;
One movement (,'overi.B the consenting throng,
Aad all at ouce with rosy pleasure shine,
THE PRINCIPLE OF SUGGESTION. 531
Or all are sadden'd with the glooms of care.
''I'was thus, if amient fame tlie truth unfold,
Two faithful needles, from the informing touch
Of the same parent-stone, togetlier drew
Its mystic virtue, and at first conspir'd
With fatal impulse quivering to the pole,
Then, though disjoin'd by kingdoms, — though the main
RolPd its broad surge betwixt, — and different stars
Beheld their wakeful motions, — yet preserv'd
The former friendship, and remember'd still
The alliance of their birth. W'hate'er the line
Which one possessed, nor pause nor quiet knew
The sure associate, ere, with trembling: speed,
He found its path, and fixed unerrino; there.
Such is the secret union, when we feel
A song, a flower, a name, at once restore
Those long connected scenes where first they movM ^
The attention. Backward through her many walks.
Guiding the wanton fancy to her scope,
To temples, courts, or fields, — with all the band
Of (living)* forms, of passions, and designs,
Attendant; whence, if pleasing in itself.
The prospect from that sweet accession gains
Redoubled influence o'er the listening Mind.
By these mysterious ties, the busy power
Of Memory her ideal train preserves
Entire ; or, when they would elude her watch,
Reclaims their fleeting footsteps, from the waste
Of dark Oblivion."t
What then are these mysterious ties ? — or, to state the question
more philosophically, what are the general circumstances which
resrulate the successions of our ideas ?
That there is some regularity in these successions, must, as I
have already remarked, have been felt by every one ; and there
are many references to such regularity in the works of philoso-
phers of every age. The most striking ancient reference, how-
ever, to any general circumstances, Qxlams of suggestion, — though
the innumeration of these is hinted, rather than developed at any
length, — is that which you will find in a passage, quoted by Dr
Beattie and Mr Stewart, from Aristotle. It is a passage explana-
* Painted — Orig.
t Pleasures of Imagination, Book III. v. 312—352.
532 ON MR Hume's classification op
tory of the process by which, in voluntary reminiscence, we en-
deavour to discover the idea of which we are in search. We are
said to hunt for it— ( Gtie^ioi^uv is the word in the original)—
amono- other ideas, e.ther of objects existing' at present, or alsome
foi-mer time ; and from their resemblance, contrariety, and conti-
p-uity — tt'jTO rov vvv, i] allov twoq, 5Cut ciq' d^iolov, i] Ivavrlov,
i] Tov ouvtyyv?. Aiu rovio ytt^erul )] uva}iv^Gig* This brief
enumeration of the general circumslances which direct us in re-
miniscence is worthy of our attention on its own account ; and is
not less remarkable on account of the very close resemblance
which it bears to the arrangement afterwards made by Mr Hume,
though there is no reason to believe that the modern philosopher
was at all acquainted with the classification which had, at so great
a distance of time, anticipated his own.
1 must remark, however, that though it would be in the high-
est deo-ree unjust to the well-known liberality and frankness of
Mr Hume's character, to suppose him to have been aware of any
enumeration of the general circumstances on which suggestion ap-
pears to depend, prior to that which he has himself given us, his
attempt was far from being so original as he supposed. I do not
allude merely to the passage of Aristotle, already quoted, nor to a
corresponding passage, which I might have quoted, from one of
the most celebrated of his commentators, Dr Thomas Aquinas, but
to various passages whxh I have found in the works of writers of
much more recent date, in which the influence of resemblance and
contiguity, the two generic circumstances to which, on his owa
principles, his own triple division sliould have been reduced, is
particularly pointed out. Thus, to take an example from an ele-
mentary work of a very eminent author, Ernesti, published in the
year 1734,— his //ittia Doctrime Solidioris,—\\ lih what precision
lias he laid down those very laws of association of which Mr Hume
speaks. After stating the general fact of suggestion, or associa-
tion, under the Latin term phautusia, he proceeds to state the
principles which guide it. All the variety of these internal suc-
cessions of our ideas, he says, may be reduced to the following
lav^ When one image is present in the mind, it mny suggest the
image of some absent object— cither of one that is similar in some
lespect to that already present— or of one ol' which the present
• Aristot. de Memor. and Remiinsc. c. ii.— v. II. p. oO. Edit. Du Val,
ASSOCIATING OR SUGGESTING PRINCIPLES. 533
is n part — or of one which has been present together with it on
some former occasion, " Hujus autem phantasiaj lex haec est ;
Praesentibus animo rerum imaginibus quibuscnnque, recurrere et
redire ad animum possunt rerum absentium olimque perceptarum
imagines, praesentibus similes, vel (juarum, quae sunt praesentes,
partes sunt, — vel denique, quas cum praesentibus simul hausi-
mus.'''*
Even the arrangement, as stated by Mr Hume, is not express-
ed in more formal terms. But as it is to his arrangement the phi-
losophers of our own country are accustomed to refer, in treating
of association, the importance thus attached to it gives it a prefer-
able claim to our fuller discussion. It is stated by him briefly in
two paragraphs of his Essay on the Association of Ideas.
'• Though it be too obvious to escape observation," he says,
" that different ideas are connected together, I do not tind that any
philosopher has attempted to enumerate or class all the principles
of association; a subject, however, that seems worthy of curiosity.
To me there appear to be only three principles of connexion
among ideas, viz. resemblance^ contiguity in time or place, and
cause or effect.
" That these principles serve to connect ideas, will not, I be-
lieve, be much doubted. A picture naturally leads our thoughts
to the original. The mention of one apartment in a building
naturally introduces an inquiry or discourse concerning the others.
And if we think of a wound, we can scarcely forbear reflecting on
the pain which follows it. But that the enumeration is complete,
and that there are no other principles of association except these,
may be difficult to prove to the satisfaction of the reader or even
to a man's own satisfaction. All we can do, in such cases, is to run
over several instances, and examine carefully the principle which
binds the different thoughts to each other, — never stopping, till
we render the principle as i^eneral as possible. The more instan-
ces we examine, and the mote care we employ, the more assur-
ance shall we acquire, that the enumeration which we form from
the whole is complete and entire."!
On these paragraphs of Mv Hume, a few obvious criticisms
* De Mente Humana, C. I. Sect. xvi. p. 138, 139.
t Hume's Inquiry concerning Hum: in UnHerstanding, Sect. ]\\.
534 ON MR HUME'S CLASSIFICATION OP
present themselves. In the first place, however, I must observe,
—to qualify in some degree the severity of the remarks which
may be made on his classitication,— that it is evident, from the
very language now quoted to you, that he is far from bringing
forward his classification as complete. He states, indeed, that it
appears to him, that there are no other principles of connexion
among our ideas than the three which he has mentioned; but
he ad'ds, that though the reality of their influence as connecting
pnnciples will not, he believes, be much doubted, it may still be
difficult to prove, to the satisfaction of his reader, or even of him-
self, that the enumeration is complete ; and he recommends, in
consequence, a careful examination of every instance of sugges-
tion, in the successive trains of our ideas, that other principles, if
any such there be, m ay be detected.
But to proceed to the actual classification, as presented to us
by Mr Hume. A note, which he has added to the paragraph that
contains his system, affords perhaps as striking an instance as is to
be found in the history of science of that illusion, which the exces-
sive love of simplicity tends to produce, even in the most acute
and subtile philosopher, so as to blind, to the most manifest in-
consistencies, in his own arrangement, those powers of critical
discornmont which would have flashed instant detection on in-
consistencies far less glaringly apparent in the speculations of
another. After stating, that there appear to him to be only the
three principles of connexion already mentioned, Mr Hume adds,
j,, ^ note,— as an instance of other connexions apparently diff^cr-
6nt from these three, which may, notwithstanding, be reduced to
thorn, —
" Contrn^^t or contrariety, also, is a species of connexion among
ideas. But it may perhaps l.c considered as a mixture of causa-
tion and resemblance. Where two objects are contrary, the one
destroys the other, i. e. is the cause of its annihilation, and the
idea of the annihilation of an object implies the idea of its former
existence." ^
When we hoar or read for the first time this little theory ot
tho suggestions of contract, there is, perhaps no one who doos not
fool som.. diflir.illv in believing it to be a genuine speculation ot
that powcMf.i! mind which pro.lucod it. Contract, says Mr Hume,
is a mixture oi' causation and resemblance. An object, when con-
ASSOCIATING OR SUGGESTING PRINCIPLES. 535
trasted with another, destroys it. In destruction there is causa-
tion ; and we cannot conceive destruction, without having the idea
of former existence. Thus, to take an instance, — Mr Hume docs
not deny, that the idea of a dwarf may suggest, by contrast,
the idea of a giant ; hut he says that the idea of a dwarf suggests
the idea of a giant, because the idea of a dwarf destroys the idea
of a giant, and thus,, by the connecting principle of causation in-
volved in all destruction, may suggest the idea destroyed ; And
he adds, as an additional reason for the suggestion, that the idea of
the annihilation of a giant implies the idea of the former exist-
ence of a giant. And all this strange and complicated analysis, —
this explanation, not of the obscurum per obscurius, which is a much
more intelligible paralogism, but of the lucidum per obscurum, is
seriously brought forward by its very acute author, as illustrating
the simple and familiar fact of the suggestion of opposites, in con-
trast, by opposites.
In the first place, I may remark, that in Mr Hume's view of
contrast, it is not easy to discover what the resemblance is of
which he speaks, in a case in which the objects in themselves are
said by him to be so contrary, that the one absolutely destroys
the other by this contrariety alone ; and, indeed, if there be truly
this mixed resemblance in contrast, what need is there of having-
recourse to annihilation or causation at all, to account for the sug-
gestion, since the resemblance alone in this, as in every other
case, might be sufficient to explain the suggestion, without the ne-
cessity of any separate division ; — as the likeness of a single fea-
ture in the countenance of a stranger, is sufficient to bring befor«
us in conception the friend whom he resembles, though the re-
semblance be in the single feature only.
In the second place, there is no truth, if, indeed, there be
any meaning whatever, in the assertion that in contrast one of the
objects destroys the other; for, so far is the idea of the dwarf
from destroying the idea of the giant, tiiat, in the actual case
supposed, it is the very reason of the existence of the second idea;
nay, the very supposition of a perceived contrast implies that
there is no such annihilation ; for both ideas must be present to
the mind together, or they could not appear either similar or dis-
similar, that is to say, could not be known by us as contrasted, of
contrary, in any respect. It is, indeed, not very easy to conceive,
530 ON MR Hume's classification, etc,
how a mind so acute as that of Mr Hume should not have discov-
ered that grossest of all logical and physical errors, involved ia
his explanation, that it accounts for the existence of a feeling, by
supposing it previously to exist as the cause of itself. If as he says,
the idea of the annihilation of an object implies the idea of its for-
fiier existence — an assertion which is by no means so favourable
as he thinks to his own theory — it must surely be admitted, that no
annihilation can take place before the existence of that which is
to ;>e annihilated. Whether, therefore, we suppose, that the idea
of the dwarf, which suggests the idea of the giant, annihilates that
idea, or is itself annihilated by it, the two ideas of the dwarf and
the giant must have existed, before the annihilation of either. The
svrvtstion^ in short, which is the difficulty, and the only difficulty
to be explained, must have completely taken place, before the
principle can even be imagined to operate, on which the sugges-
tion itself is said to depend.
Such minute criticism, however, is perhaps more, than it is
necessary to give to a doctrine so obviously false, even sanctioned
as it is by so very eminent a name.
END OF VOL. FIRST.
5198
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