^ ^EESE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Received cy^^^^'^^-. i^^t^ A ccessions No. 4«>Z^(^ ^ Shelf No. _ 3 CHAPTER V. The Power of Composition . .165 I. Its Nature 105 II. The Imagination 167 III. The Use of the Imagination . . . . . . . 175 CONTENTS. Vll SECTION PABB IV. The Idea of the Infinite 179 V. The Abuse of the Imagination 184 VI. Training of the Imagination ....... 190 CHAPTER VI. The Symbolic Power , . 196 I. Its Nature 196 11. Kehition of Speech to the Brain 201 III. On the Teaciiing of Languages 203 IV. The Training of the Reproductive Powers ..... 205 BOOK THIRD. The Comparative Powers 208 CHAPTER I. Office of the Comparative Powers 208 CHAPTER II. Classification of Relations 211 I. Relation of Identity and Difference 211 II. Relation of Whole and Parts 215 III. Rehition of Resemblance 216 IV. Relations of Space 218 V. The Relations of Time 219 VI. Relations of Quantity 220 VII. Relations of Active Power or Property 221 VIII. Relation of Cause and Effect 222 CHAPTER IIL The Discdbsive Operations .....«•. 230 CHAPTER IV. Intuition in the Discovery of Relations .... 233 CHAPTER V. General Remarks on the Comparative Powers . . . 235 CONCLUSION. Rise of odr Ideas 242 THE COGNITIVE POWERS. INTRODUCTION. SECTION I. DEFINITION OF PSYCHOLOGY. — METHOD OF INVESTIGATION. Psychology is the science of the soul. The word is from psyche^ soul, and logos^ speech or reason. By soul is meant that self of which every one is conscious. Science is systematized knowledge, and when we arrange the knowledge which we can acquire of the soul, we have the Science of Psychology. In constructing it we proceed on the Method of IN- DUCTION. This is distinguished from Deduction, in which, as for example in mathematics, we proceed from assumed or admitted principles to truths derived from them. In Induction we gather in (induco') facts, but always with a view of discovering an order among them and arranging them. It is found that in all nature phys- ical and mental facts proceed uniformly or regularly, that is, according to laws. This is the case in physics : mat- ter attracts matter inversely according to the square of the distance. It is also so in psychology : like tends to recall like. It thus comes to be the end of science to discover laws. Psychology may be more fully defined as that science which inquires into the operations of the conscious self with the view of discovering: laws. Induction begins with Observation. In botany we collect plants and look at their forms and habits. Id 2 INTRODUCTION. psychology we notice mind as it operates and mark its various states. In Induction we also employ EXPERI- MENT, which is a mode of observation in which we arti- ficially place the agents of nature in new circumstances that we may perceive their action more distinctly : thus, in order to determine whether all bodies fall to the ground at the same time, we put a guinea and a feather in the exhausted receiver of an air-pump, that we may note the time they take to descend, independent of the resistance of the air. In like manner, in studying the human mind we place objects before it that we may find how it is affected by them : thus, in order to determine how the conscience acts, we direct it to a cruel or a beneficent act ; and how the emotions are raised, we call up objects fitted to gratify or disappoint our springs of action. Both in physical and in psychical science we begin with and proceed throughout by Observation Proper and Experiment. But there is a difference in the agent or in- strument of observation in the two departments. In the former we employ the senses, such as sight and touch, aided by such instruments as the telescope, microscope, and blow-pipe, and we weigh and measure the bodies. In psychology we make our observations by Self-Conscious- ness, which is the power by which we take cognizance of self as acting, say as thinking or feeling, as remembering the past or anticipating the future, as loving, fearing, re- solving. Self-Consciousness may give us information directly or indirectly. (1.) We may notice the states of the soul as they flow on, our judgments and our fancies, our joys and our griefs. (2.) By a brief memory we may throw back our mind on the past and recall what has been under the consciousness in a given time ; say during the past hour, METHOD OP INVESTIGATION. S when we were earnestly thinking, or under deep sorrow, or cherishing ardent hope. (3.) We may gather what has passed through the minds of other people from their words or their deeds : as we listen to them, as we read their writings — say biographies or histories, poems or novels ; or as we observe their conduct in ordinary or in trying circumstances. We understand what these are be- cause of our own conscious experience. Our field of view is thus enlarged indefinitelj'^, and becomes as wide and varied as our intercourse with mankind and our reading. It is proper to add that light may be thrown on the operations of the mind by the physiology of the brain and nerves. We know objects external to the mind by the senses, and it is important that we know how the senses work. We are not to suppose that the brain and nerves think ; but still the rise and even the nature of i>ertain mental affections depend much on these, and light may be thrown on the action of the conscious soul by a careful study of the parts of the body most inti- mately connected with the action of mind. Observa- tion in psychology is to be conducted mainly by self- consciousness, but may be aided by the physiology of the cerebro-spinal mass. Beginning with the observation of states or affections of mind, we then note their resemblances, differences, and other relations, and can thus coordinate them, place un- der one head those that are like, and give them a name by which we can speak of them. Thus we find that in certain exercises we notice the external objects before us, and we give to them the common name of sense percep- tion ; that in others we recall the past, and this we call memory ; or we picture unreal objects, such as a mer- maid, and this we designate imagination ; or we infer from what is given or allowed something else implied in I INTRODUCTION. it, and this is said to be reasoning ; or we distinguish be- tween good and evil, and this we speak of as conscience ; or we are affected with sadness, which is emotion ; or we resolve to do a certain act, which is will. According to this view Psychology should have as its province the operations of the conscious self, leaving to Physiology the structure of the organism. These two. the soul and the organism, have mutual connections, and the sciences which deal with them may throw light op each other, but all the while they are to be carefully dis tinguished. All parts of the organism fall under the science o physiology and not of psychology. But were it only t.> enable us to distinguish between physical and psychical action, it is necessary to look at certain actions of the nervous system most intimately connected with mental action. All along the spinal column there is automatic action which is reflex. There is a cell called a ganglion, into which one nerve enters and from which another goes out. On the former being stimulated at the ex- tremity, an action passes along to the centre, and then motion proceeds along the latter. We have an example in the frog's leg moving when it is pricked. Here there is neither sensation nor volition. No sensation is felt till the action goes up to the brain. The central mass of the brain consists of " basal gang- lia " (the optic thalami and corpora striata^ as in Fig. 2), from which commissures of white fibres radiate to the gray cortical matter. The gray matter, which is at the surface, is cellular, and is most intimately connected vdth mental action ; the white matter is in the deeper parts, and consists of masses of fibres running in different di- rections, which are supposed to be mainly transmissive. The communication from the spinal cord is up by the DEFINITION OF PSYCHOLOGY. medulla oblongata (Fig. 1, Fig. 2 L.) and the crura cere- bri to the corpora striata and optic thalami ; and in all the higher animals there is a large transverse bridge called corpus callosum, which connects both sides of the brain. Fig. 1. BBAOf, external view, showing urtbrum above, eertbellum and medutta oblongata b»- low and behind ; front of brain to your left side. A, A', A", the frontal lobei ; B, B', B'', the temporo-sphenoidal lobes; C, the angular gyrus (seat of Tlaion); D, jy, D," the occipital lobes. The nerves which carry the action to the brain are called afferent, those which carry out the action from the brain are efferent. The former are Sensor, the latter Motor. The former are denoted by P S, the latter by 6 INTRODUCTION. A M, as the former are posterior and the others an- terior in the human frame. There is also a sensori- motor system, of which sneezing is an exercise, in which there is sensation and motion but no volition. The action along the nerves occupies time which has been Fio. 2. Cn B&uir, median Tertieal section: front of brain to yonr r^tliand. A, A, i eaUosum; B, B, corpora jlna/a( laterally from median plane); C, C, thalami optiett D, pineal gland (deemed by Descartes the seat of the soul) ; £, E, corpora gMod- rigemina; F, the crura cerebri; Q, the pituitary body; H, the commissni* of the optic nerves; I, the olfactory lobe; E, temporal lobe; L, mtduila oblongata; M, cerebellum, with (N) its axial part, and the arbor vitse, measured with approximate accuracy. Thus, the action to the brain travels at the rate of 140 or 150 feet in the second. The action from the brain travels about 100 feet in the second. The rate is slowest in sight, next •lowest in hearing, and quickest in toach. PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF RIIND. 7 SECTION II. PROOF OK THE KXtSTENCE OP MIND. But, it is asked, wliat evidence have we of the existence of the soul? Tlie answer is that we know its existence intuitively, by looking in upon it as it is acting. Weave conscious of it as perceiving, imagining, thinking, resolv- ing, hoping, fearing, loving. We have thus evidence primary and not merely secondary, oi'iginal and not de- rived ; as certain as we have for matter. But, then, it is asserted that mind is not different from matter, that it is a mere modification of matter. It can be shown in opposition, first, that we know the two by different organs. We know matter by sense-percep- tion ; we know mind by self-consciousness. We cannot by the senses observe any pui-e psychical act. We can touch our own body or our neighbor's, but we cannot touch our own soul or his. We can see a colored surface, but we cannot see a thought. We can taste food, but not an affection of love or of fear. We can hear a sound, but not a reproach of conscience. We can smell a rose, but not a feeling of beauty. Secondly, we know mind and matter as possessing dif- ferent properties. We know matter as extended, that is, as occupying space and being contained in space. We further know body as resisting our energy and acting on other bodies. We know mind, on the other hand, as ap- prehending, judging, reasoning, distinguishing between right and wrong, as under emotion, as wishing and resolv- ing. It is acknowledged that we know things only by their properties, and we know mind and matter to be different by their manifesting different properties. It ia a favorite position of some in the present day, that th«> 8 INTRODUCTION. two are correlates of one another, that they are two sides or aspects of one and the same thing. But can we attach any meaning to what we say when we describe thought as a side or aspect of a stone or of an acid or a piece of timber ? Just as little can we understand or conceive that our musings, our fancies, our resolutions should have solidity, durability, elasticity, hardness, softness, porosity, pressure, gravity. We thus know them as dif- ferent things and should so investigate them, and seek to determine the properties of each. We may afterwards inquire into their points of connection. SECTION III. CAUTIONS TO BE ATTENDED TO IN THE STUDY OF THE MIND. (1.) Certain ideas must he left behind. — We must not take materialistic conceptions with us into psychology. In the natural history of the mind things without us are noticed before the things within us. We are in con- sequence exposed to a temptation in beginning in youth or mature age the discussion of psychical questions: we apply ideas got from matter to mind. We need to guard against this. Thus we are not to allow ourselves to look on mind itself or any of its operations as occupy- ing space, as extended, or as having figure, as having weight or levity, height or depth, elevation or depression, attraction or repulsion, solidity or elasticity, motion or rest, light or darkness, warmth or frigidity. We have come to an entirely new country, and we must learn to accommodate ourselves to the people, to their laws and customs, and in particular we have to learn their lan- guage. (2.) We have to beware of the misleading influence oj language derived from material objects. — As the individ CAUTIONS IN THE STUDY OF THE MIND. 9 aal looks without before he pays special regard to the mind, so in the natural history of society there is an acquaintance with physical nature before there is a study of our mental nature ; and our first language is sensible rather than spiritual. So when philosophers begin to study the human mind they have either to coin and employ a new language, which is very irksome, or they have to adopt the old phrases expressive of external and extended objects. But the old idea is apt to come in cov- ertly with the old phrase as we use it. Thus the orig- inal meaning of " idea," signifying image (first turned to a philosophic purpose by Plato), is apt to come into our minds (as it does in Locke's philosophy) with the phrase as applied even to a mental concept or notion. The terras employed in various languages to denote the mind — psyche in Greek, anima^ spiritus, in Latin, ruah in He- brew, and dtman in Sanskrit, originally signified breath or wind. " Feeling," at first signifying an affection of touch, now signifies an emotion such as hope and fear. " Emotion " is literally a moving out. " Impression," a fatal word introduced formally into philosophy by Hume, denotes a mark left on a soft substance by a hard. " Un- derstanding," now denoting the intellect, refers to some- thing standing under. "Apprehension" and "concep- tion," applied to mental acts in which we lay hold of or bring things together, meant at first a seizing by the hand. We cannot afford, even at the present advanced stage of inquiry, to lay aside such phrases ; but when we use them we must strip them of their materialistic associations. 10 INTRODUCTION. SECTION IV. CLASSIFICATION OF THE FACULTIES. As there are some wlio doubt whether the mind can be represented as having Faculties, or at least separate faculties, it will be necessary to lay down some expla- nations and limitations. I. The mind evidently possesses power. Matter itself possesses power. It is acknowledged to have properties, and what are properties but powers ? It has, for example, a gravitating, a chemical, an electric power. Physical science is seeking to determine the precise law, rule, and expression of the powers of bodj'. If matter has power, much more has mind. Tiie powers of mind are different from those of matter. If the one has attractive and magnetic powers, the other has powers of understanding and emotion. The mind has powers, but not all possible or conceivable powers. Its powers are bounded. Thus we cannot tell what is doing at this moment in the planet Venus or the constellation Orion. Just as physics would determine the precise rule and limit of gravitation or chemical affinity, so psychology should try to ascertain and express the precise laws of such powers as the memory, the imagination, the conscience. II. TJiat there are different powers in the mind is evident from the differences in the mental states and affectiont of different persons. This conclusion might be drawn from the very differ- ences between man and brute. The lower animals pos- sess powers common to them and human beings ; but there are others, such as the discernment of moral obliga^ CLASSIFICATION OF THE FACULTIES. 11 tion, which are peculiar to man. But the inference can be drawn more directly from the circumstance that one man is distinguished for powers which are either not pos- sessed by other men or possessed only in an inferior de- gree. Thus one man has a great tendency to observe causes, another resemblances ; one has keen emotional sensibility ever ready to flow out, another a resolute will. It has further to be noticed, as decisive of the whole question, that these capacities and inclinations may be- come hereditary and go down from father or mother to son or daughter. ■ III. This is further evident from the circumstance that we are not always ■ exercising every faculty or the same faculties. In every given state of mind there seem to be more than one power in exercise. But all the mental powers are not in action, or at least in intense action, every in- stant. At this moment I may be looking at the paper before me, and at the same time collecting my thoughts to write this paragraph. Immediately after, I may be looking at the same paper, but my mind may have wan- dered off to some imaginary scene in which I and my friends are figuring. From such a case we see that memory is different from imagination, for I was remem- bering when I was not exercising imagination, and imag- ining when I was not remembering. It is evident, too, that both memory and imagination are different from sense ; for we had the senses in the one case without memory and in the other without imagination. Some would say that what are spoken of in these ar- ticles are not different fav^ulties, but different modes of consciousness. I am not sure that this is an improved statement or the correct statement. Our perceptions. 12 INTRODUCTION. recollections, judgments, are not modes of consciousness the accurate account is that self-consciousness observes them, and they must exist in order to their being noticed. But even though they were modes of consciousness, the question would immediately arise, What are these differ- ent modes ? And in answering we would be brought back to different powers leading to the diverse manifes- tations of consciousness. IV. The faculties are powers of one indivisible mind. They do not differ from each other, as the hand does from the foot, or the lungs from the heart. They are powers of one existence possessing a variety of attri- butes. V. The faculties are not to he regarded as necessarily operating one after another in regular order or at dif- ferent times. The properties of matter often act simultaneously. At the same time that the iron is chemically combining with oxygen to form rust, it is attracted to the earth by gravi- tation, and yet we regard the gravitating and chemical powers as different. On a like principle we are con- strained to regard the capacity of sense-perception, when the object is present, as different from the memoi'y, when it is absent. It seems clear that several of the mental powers may be blended in one act. Thus at the same time that I am judging or deciding, I may be under the influ ence of hope or fear, of benevolence or prejudice. How many diverse powers may be exercised at one and the same time in that blade of grass, or in our finger : the gravitating, chemical, electric, vital; no one can tell how many. There may be a like number and diversity of powers at work in certain of the exercises of the mind, m CLASSIFICATION OF THE FACULTIES. 13 jvhen men are solving perplexing problems, speculative or practical, or rising to the higher flights of genius. VI. It is difficult to form a classification of the faculties which deserves to be regarded as complete. This arises from a variety of causes. It may proceed from human incapacity, from the difficulty of penetrat- ing phenomena which are so fugitive — that is, so briefly under the view — and so complicated, and from the cir- cumstance that the faculties very much run into each other. This is a hindrance not peculiar to psychology. How difficult do botanists find it to draw out an arrange- ment of the vegetable kingdom which may include all and exclude none, which may combine the like and sep- arate the unlike. Yet they do contrive to draw out such a classification as is fitted to bring into view the same- ness and difference of plants. We may in like manner so distribute the operations of the mind as to unfold their characteristics and their distinctions. VII. There may he a classification of the faculties em- bodying much truth and of eminent practical utility^ though not professing to beperfect. It is true that the mind is one, but it manifests it- self in a variety of ways, and its characteristic operations must be carefully noted and their peculiarities unfolded. It is only when the acts are marked, distinguished, classi- fied, and named that we can be said to have any adequate idea of the nature of the mind. For practical ends, for the purposes of the orator, the poet, the advocate at the bar, and the preacher in the pulpit, even for ordinarj letter- writing and conversation, there must be distinc- tions of some kind drawn as between the head and the heart, between the imagination and the judgment, be- 14 INTRODUCTION. tween the understanding and the will. It is the business of the psychologist to seize upon real distinctions and unfold them as accurately as possible, and in this he can- not err to any extent, provided he follow a careful obser- vation and be ready to confess that while he exhibits the truth, it is not the whole truth, and that however much we know there is always more to man unknown. VIII. In proceeding to distribute the powers it is first of all desirable to have some such division as that which we have of the physical world into the mineral^ the vege- table^ and the animal kingdoms. The Eleatic School (500 B. c.) had a loose division of what are now called the intellectual powers into Sense- Perceptiou, probable Opinion (So^a), and Reason (A.oyo9). Plato had a like threefold division, and had a further division of what is now called the Motive Powers intr Sensual Feelings, Impulse, and Love. Aristotle gave a better division into the Gnoetic or Gnostic, translated Cognitive, and the Orective, translated Appetent or Motive. This twofold division reappears in the distinc- tion between the Understanding and the Will, the Intel- lectual and Active Powers, and popularly the Head and the Heart. Of a later date some have felt it necessary to draw distinctions of an important kind between the various powers embraced in the Will or Heart, and this led to a threefold division, the Cognitive, the Feelings, and the Will, a classification adopted by Kant and Ham- ilton. In this division the Senses must be included under either the Cognitive or the Feelings, or divided between them. To avoid this awkwardness there is a fourfold distribution, the Senses, the Intellect, the Feel- ings, and the Will. Jt should be observed that in this iistribution, the Conscience or Moral Faculty hjis nc CLASSIFICATION OF THE FACULTIES. 15 place; and those who have carefully noted its operations will acknowledge how difficult it is to bring it, with its peculiar ideas of right, wrong, and duty, under any of the heads named. To avoid these and other difficulties the following, embracing all the others, is submitted as a good pi'ovisional division, fitted to expose to view the leading attributes of the mind. N. B. It should be noticed: (1.) The Conscience, which is both a Cognitive and a Motive Power, has the attributes of both the two heads. (^2.) The Compositive Power or Imagination can be called a Cognitive Power only with the explanation that it is cognitive not as it knows existing objects, but inasmuch as its ideas are re- productions of cognitions. FIKST GROUP, THE COGNI- TIVE. I. The Simple Cognitive or Presentative. 1. Sense-Perception. 2. Self- Consciousness. II. The Reproductive or Representative. 1. Retention. 2. Recalling Power or Phan- lasy. 3. Associative. 4. Recognitive. 5. Compositive. 6. Sj'iubolic. III. The Comparative, dis- COVKRING REi^AllONa 1. Of Identity. 2. Comprehension. 3. Resemblance. 4. Space. 5. Time. 6. Quantity. 7. Active Propei'ty. 8. Causation, SECOND GROUP, THE MO- TIVE. IV. The Conscience a Cog- nitive AND Motive Power. V. The Emotions, with Motive Principles. VI. The Will. 1. Wish. 2. Attention. 3. Volition. 16 INTRODUCTION. ' SECTION V. EDUCATION OP THE FACULTIES It is often said that education should proceed philosoph- ically. But there is no agreement among those who hold this view as to what philosophy is, some preferring the Scottish, others the Hegelian, and a number in the present day the Sensational or Materialistic philosophy. It is more correct and definite to say that education should proceed psychologically, and when it does so it proceeds philosophically. But what does this mean ? It may mean two things somewhat different and yet con- nected, and both important. It may mean that we edu- cate the faculties. This should be one of the aims, one of the main ;iims, of education. Our faculties are in the first instance mere capacities with a tendency to act. They are in infants in the form of a seed, or germ, or norm, and need to be cherished in order to grow and to be useful. They are all capable of being trained and should be trained, and education, private and public, should undertake the work. But the statement that edu- cation should proceed psychologically may mean some- thing more. It may signify that education should pro- ceed according to the genesis and natural growth of the powers. It implies that we begin with the lower and go on to the higher powers. Our psychology, if prop- erly constructed, may greatly aid the science of educa- tion. It shows us what the faculties are, what their laws and modes of operation, and it is by knowing these that we are able to train them. It should show us what powers first appear, and how one power grows out of an other; and thus lead us to discover what branches should be taught and in what order, what should be taught to EDUCATION OF THE FACULTIES. 17 children and what to tliose farther advanced. For special purposes, scientific, professional, or practical, greater pains may be taken with some of these powers than with others, but at the same time all should be so far cultivated as to keep the mind properly balanced, and to prevent it from being one-sided, exclusive, partial, and prejudiced. Now, these topics may legitimately be taken up in a work on psychology, at least in an inci- dental way, as we proceed. • BOOK FIRST. FIRST GROUP: THE SIMPLE COGNITIVE OR PRESENTA- TIVE FACULTIES. They are so called because they give us knowledge in its simplest form — that is, as will be explained, in the singular and in the concrete ; and because the objects are now present and presented. Other faculties are also cognitive, but they proceed on the knowledge acquired by these primary powers, and they form composite, ab- stract, and general notions. The other faculties also look at objects, but these, as in memory, for instance, are not present ; they have been in the mind before, and are not presented, but represented. Let us try to dis- cover what must be the first exercise of the conscious mind. It must, I apprehend, be knowledge. Knowledge the First Mental Exercise. — By this is not meant scientific, that is, arranged knowledge, but knowl- edge of an object as it presents itself single and with its qualities. We may suppose that it is a knowledge of our bodil}' frame, saj' of the tongue or nostrils, or foot or fin- ger. Not that we as yet know that it is the tongue or toe, or a member of our complex bodily frame which in its entirety may as yet be unknown ; yet it may be knowledge, forming the basis of all higher knowledge, abstract and general. (1.) Our knowledge must begin with things appre- hended as singular. Out of the single things we form general notions by observing points of resemblance: a? THE SIMPLE COGNITIVE OR PRESENTATIVE FACULTIES. 19 aaving seen a number of flowers of a particular type we form the class " rose." This knowledge is also concrete, that is, of things with qualities. This rose is known as having a certain form and color. Out of the concrete we form abstract notions, such as redness. (2.) If the mind did not begin with knowledge, it could never reach it by any process of thought. " How can we reason but from what we know ?" and if we have not knowledge in the premises, we are not entitled to put it into the conclusion. David Hume started with " impres- sions," as of colors, and " ideas," mere reproductions of these, such as remembered colors, and thus introduced the most formidable skepticism ever propounded. We meet the skepticism at its entrance, by holding that our first conscious experience does not consist of impressions, but is a knowledge of things. This generic group comprises two special powers : (1) Sense-Perception, or knowledge by the senses; (2) Self- Consciousness, or a knowledge of self in its present state. CHAPTER I. SENSE-PERCEPTION. SECTION I. ITS NATURE : ORIGINAL, INTUITIVE, POSITIVK. By this power we get a knowledge of things affecting us, external to ourselves and extended. The things thu8 known we designate " matter," or " body," correspond- ing to which we have convenient adjectives, "material" and "bodily." In perception, the mind takes cognizance of something external to the perceiving mind. The ego comes, as met- aphysicians say, to know the non-ego, or, as I prefer say- ing, the self knows the not-self. It is not a sensation merely that is given us, or a feeling ; it is not an idea or an apprehension, or a notion or a conception ; nor is it a belief or faith. It is more than a sensation or a feeling, which may accompany the perception. The experiences denoted by the other phrases come afterwards, and imply a previous knowledge. It is not the exact or full truth to say that I feel an external object, or that I have an idea of it (which I may have when it is not present), or that I apprehend it, or have a notion of it, or believe in it ; the correct expression is, that I have a knowledge of it, or that I cognize it, a phrase which gives us a corre- sponding adjective and noun, cognitive and cognition. It has to be added that the object is known as affecting us The primary knowledge is thus both objective and sub w UiNi VJKRBITY ITS NATURE : ORIGINAL, INTUITIVE, POS jective: that is, of an object, but this as perceived by the subjective mind. The two are together in the act of cog- nition, but they are after all separate, and are separated by every intelligent mind which does not mistake the aot-self for the self, and never confounds the perception with the object perceived. The confounding of them is tlie work of bad reflective or metaphysical philosophy, and not of spontaneous thought. Let us determine some points as to our knowledge by the senses. I. We have sense-perceptions which are ORlQiNAIi and not derived. Were they not given us by an original en- dowment they could never be obtained by experience, by inference, or any other process. Experience, properly speaking, is only a repetition and collection of what we have passed through, and if there be not knowledge in the original experiences, it cannot be had by accumulating them. As little can it be had by reasoning, except from premises which contain knowledge of material objects ; without this there would be an evident illicit process, that is, we have more in the conclusion than we have in the premises. II. Sense-Perception is Intuitive, that is, we look directly on a material object. I do not inquire at pres- ent what is the precise object perceived, whether it be in the bodily frame or beyond it ; how far in, if it be in the bodily frame, how far out, if it be beyond it. Expla- nations will require to be given and distinctions drawn before we can determine what is the precise object. But whether in the body or without the body, there is an ob- ject perceived directly as extended and affecting us. This is the simplest hypothesis, and is accompanied with no difficulties. Every other supposition lands us in inextri- cable perplexities. It is certain our consciousness so tes- tifying, that we do know material objects; but nothing 22 SENSE-PERCEPTION. coming between us and the object could impart the cog- nition. III. Sense-Perception is Positive, and not merely Phe- nomenal or Relative : that is, it is of things as they ap- pear, and not of appearances without things, of things known, and not of the relations of things themselves un- known. This proposition is laid down in opposition to two views commonly entertained in the present day. The one is the Phenomenal theory of knowledge, which holds that all we can know originally are appearances, and that we cannot know what things are except by some further process, or that we cannot know whether there are things or no. We meet this unsatisfactory doctrine by main- taining that we cannot kiiow appeai'ances except as the appearances of a thing appearing. We do not know all about this thing, we may not know much about it, but we are sure that it exists when it appears to us, and that it is known to us under a certain aspect or as do- ing something. Even an echo, coming from a hollow in which nothing is seen, has a reality in vibrations of the air reaching the tympanum of our ear. Closely allied to this theory is that of Relativity, ac- cording to which we do not know things, but merely the i-elation of one thing to another, to ourselves, or to some other things. Now this is to reverse the proper order of nature. We must so far know things before we can dis- cover their relations. In the discovery of relations we so far know the things ; we know them as having the quali- ties which bring them into relation. These positions are laid down in opposition to three theories which have been widely entertained, and which it may be useful tc look at and examine. THEORIES OF SENSE-PERCEPTION. 23 SECTION II. tHEORIES OF SEXSE-rERCEPTIOX : IDEAL, INFERENTIAL, PHI' NOMENAL AND RELATIVE : NATURAL REALISM. The Ideal Theory. According to it the mind does not perceive the material object, but some idea or repre- sentation of it, some medium or tertium quid coming be- tween the object and the perceiving mind. This explains nothing, and brings in perplexities in addition to those which belong to the subject itself. It was introduced to solve the difficulty supposed to arise from matter being thought to act on mind and mind on matter. The principle was laid down as early as the ihiys of Einpedocles, that like could act only on like. So it was necessary to bring in something to interpose be- tween the object perceived and the perceiving mind. According to Democritus, the expounder of the atomic theoi-y of matter, images (€iS.uA.u) composed of the finest atoms floated from the object to the mind. Lucretius has expressed the theory in " De Rerum Natura," lib* iv. 48-53 : — " Dico igitur rerum efBgias tenuiaqne figuras Mittiei- ab rebus summo de corpore rerum, Quoi quasi membranse vel cortex nominitandast, Quod speciem ac fonnam similem gerit ejus imago Ciijuscumque cluet de corpore fusa vagari." It has appeared in one form or other ever since. It takes a grosser and a more refined shape. Some look on the idea perceived as a sort of material figure, like the image in a mirror or that formed on the retina of the eye when an object is before it. This removes no difficulty ; for if this be a material figure, how can so different a sub- Btance as mind perceive it? With most modern metaphy- sicians the theory has taken a more spiritual form. Soma 24 SENSE-PERCEPTION. make the idea an affection of the brain. Most of its sup- porters do not know what to make of it. With the mora eensihle the idea is merely the mind apprehending the object ; but in this case the idea is not the object looked at, but the mind looking at it. Locke speaks every- where of the mind perceiving the idea rather than the thing, and has thus confused his realistic philosophy and made knowledge consist in the discovery of the con- formity of our ideas to one another, and not their con- formity to things. And so the question was raised and lias been much discussed by Thomas Reid, Sir William Hamilton, and the Scottish School of Philosophy, as to whether it is necessary to suppose that there is anything coming between the perceiving mind and the thing per- ceived. To allege that there is such a middle agent is at best a hj^pothesis of which there can be no positive proof. As a hypothesis it explains nothing, but rather perplexes everything by bringing in agents, of the exist- ence of which we have no proof, and which, if they did exist, would demand new explanations. For we have now to account, not for the action of body on mind, but for the action first of body on this idea, and then the action of this idea on the mind. The simplest, the most satisfac- tory account is that body acts on mind, and that we per- ceive the very thing. The Inferential Theory. — According to it the knowledge of objects external and extended is got by in- ference from something else ; from a sensation or from an undefinable thing called an impression. Some regard the argument as legitimate, and believe in the existence of body. Some look upon it as illegitimate, and so hold that there is no proof of the existence of inatter. Certain metaphysicians of the French Sensational School, such as Destutt de Tracy and Dr. Thomai THEORIES OF SENSE-PERCEPTION. 25 Brown of Edinburgh, held that from a sensation in the mind we argue the existence of an external world, and justified the inference. According to this theory there is first a sensation and then an inference that there is an external object, the cause of it. For example, the child notices what it afterwards learns to characterize as the face of its mother. It finds that it cannot reproduce this at pleasure, and that there is nothing within itself to produce it, and it concludes that there must be some- thing external acting as its cause. It is supposed that an accumulation of such experiences gives us the idea which we have of matter. Now, there are manifestly many assumptions in this supposed process. First, it is assumed that everything beginning to be must have a cause. Brown regarded this principle as intuitive, and so was entitled to use the principle. It might be dif- ficult, however, to prove that if a child were shut up within its own self it could at an early date, or at all, arrive at a belief in invariable causation merely from ex- perience^ for its experience would habitually be of events without a known cause. But granting that it could, the iifl&culty arises, How could the mind think or imagine anything external of which it has no experience, till, as is supposed, it has drawn the inference ? But a more for- midable, I believe an insuperable, objection remains. It is certain that in our natural idea of, or belief in, an ex- ternal world, we regard it as extended. But how have we got this idea? From the experience of a sensation which is without extension, we are not entitled to argue the ex- istence of an extended object, as we would have something in the conclusion, namely, extension, not in the premises. The reasoning being thus illegitimate, we are driven to one or other of two conclusions • one, by far the most reasonable, that we perceive extended objects at onc6 26 SENSE-PERCEPTION. and intuitively. The other is that matter is and must be forever unknown to us, — the conclusion drawn from Brown's view by J. S. Mill and his school, which sets aside our intuitive convictions. The Phenomenal and Relative Theories. — Reference has already been made to these. The former is a Kantian modification of Hume's doctrine that all tlie mind perceives through the (supposed) senses are impressions. Kant saw at once that these impressions were not knowledge, and could not give knowledge. Not wishing to assume anything not allowed him by the skeptic, he took the position, Let us assume that there is nothing but appearances, and agree to call the things thus primarily before us presentations, without assert- ing what they are ; and then he proceeded by a series of subjective forms to fashion them into a grand intellect- ual system. But as he had not objective reality in what he started from, he never could reach it by any formal process of thought. So his philosophy commenced with appearances and culminated with subjective forms. I meet this theory from the beginning by insisting that appearances must be appearances of something, are in fact things appearing ; and that in our first mental oper- ations we know things presenting themselves. Accord- ing to the other and allied theory we know merely rela- tions. True, we are able to discover relations, but they Are relations between things so far known. Our knowl- edge of relations is of things real or imaginary as related. We have as clear evidence that we know things as that ive know the relations of things. j Natural Realism, or Immediate Perception.— According to it we perceive the external object directly. That object may be in our frame, or in a body affecting our frame. Upon our primitive knowledge "we may DISTINCTIONS OF NATURAL REALISM. 27) build other knowledge by further experience, and by legit- 1 imate inferences. But all our experiences throw us back? on an immediate knowledge of matter. All our reason-' ings about body imply a primitive cognition on which they proceed. It must be left an unsettled question, in regard to which we may have to seek and obtain further and fur- ther light, what is the precise object we perceive by the senses generally, and by each of the senses. Before the time of Berkeley it was generally believed that we at once know distance by the eye. Since his time it has commonly been acknowledged that in this knowledge there are gathered observations and reasoning involved. But these acquired perceptions imply primary ones on which they proceed. It is by such facts, which we know at once, as the size and brightness of the object and the intervening objects all seen, that we determine distance by the eye. Later physiological and psychological re- search seem to be showing that in the exercise of the senses there are organic processes and mental processes deeper down than those which appear on the surface. But whatever intermediary steps there be, there must be beyond and beneath them, and this to start with, a knowledge of body occupying space. Yet in order to uphold this doctrine certain distinctions must be drawn. SECTION III. DISTINCTIONS TO BE ATTENDED TO IN HOLDING THE DOCTRINE OF NATURAL REALISM : EXTRA-MENTAL AND EXTRA-OR- GANIC KNOWLEDGE ; SENSATION AND PERCEPTION ; ORIGINAL AND ACQUIRED PERCEPTIONS. Extra-Mental and Extra-Organic. — All knowl- edge obtained through the senses is discerned as extra- mental, that is, as out of and beyond the perceiving 28 SENSE-PERCEPTION. mind. Our perception of the organs of the body, say the tongue or the eye, is of something not in the self cognizing it. But we come to know objects outside our perceived organs and affecting them. It is thus that on stretching out our hand or foot we find something, a stone or board, resisting ; this knowledge may be called extra- organic. All our cognitions through the senses are extra- mental ; those through some of the senses, such as the sight and the muscular sense, are also extra-organic, that is, they look at objects beyond our bodily frame. Sensation and Perception. — It may be noticed that in all our knowledge through the senses there is an- other element, and that is feeling of some kind. When we know our hand we may know it in a pleasant or unpleasant state. We may and we ought to distinguish between the two. We call the one Perception and the other Sensa- tion. These always go together. There is never a sen sation without a perception, say, a perception of our organism or of an object affecting it. On the other hand, there is never a perception without a sensation of some kind, strong or faint, pleasant, painful, or indifferent. The sensation seems to be a mental affection or feeling of an organic state. These two, the perception and sensation, have by no means the same intensity. It very often happens that when the perception is strong the sensation is weak, and vice versa, when the sensation is powerful the pei'ception may all but disappear. Thus in listening to an instruc- tive speaker, our attention may be fixed on his words, of which we wish to ascertain the meaning ; whereas in listening to music our soul may be exclusively occupied with the rich sounds. There is a sense in which the two are in the inverse order, the one of the other. li the feeling is very strong the object may be very mucV DISTINCTIONS OF NATURAL REALISM. 29 lost sight of. On the other hand, we may be so absorbed with the contemplation as scarcely to notice the asso- ciated sensation. The soldier eagerly engaged in the fight vvitli the enemy in front of him does not for a time feel the wound with which he is pierced. In gazing at a historical painting, we hiay be so interested in the in- cident as not to notice the coloring ; whereas, in looking at a flower painting we so enjoy the rich hues as never to notice the disposition of the flowers. This fact is an illustration of a more general law of our nature, that when we fix our attention on one part of a concrete or complex phenomenon presented, the other parts become dim, and may in the end very much vanish from the view. Original and Acquired Perceptions. — We have seen that man must have original perceptions. Such are those of savors by the taste, of odors by the nostrils, of sounds b}'^ the ear, of a colored surface by the eye, and of resistance by the muscular sense. Unless we get these by an original inlet we can never acquire them by any derivative process. A man born blind can- not form any understanding or idea of color ; it is Locke who tells us of the blind man who, on being asked what idea he had of the color of scai'let, replied that he thought it to be like the sound of a trumpet. But then by combining our experiences and by reasoning from them we can add indefinitely to our knowledge. Thus it is believed that originally human beings cannot estimate distance by sight, and yet it is mainly by this sense that the mature man is able to tell the distance of objects from one another and from himself. He has acquired a knowledge of nearness or remoteness by the muscular Bense, say by the hand pressing along a surface ; but now he is able by the eye discerning the shade of color or the 30 SENSE-PERCEPTION. apparent size to determine the distance of an object. In this acquired knowledge there is first an accumulation of experiences, and then an argument founded on them. We shall show that it is by drawing the distinction be- tween our original and acquired perceptions that we are able to account for the apparent deception of the senses. Our original perceptions never deceive us, but, in the haste of observation and the rapidity of reasoning, we may pronounce erroneous judgments on our acquired perceptions. SECTION IV. THE senses; general remarks. I begin my exposition of these by one or two remarks bearing on them all. The sensation and the perception of the sensation have their seat not in the organs of sense, so called, or in the nerves attached to them, but in the brain. The palate, the nostrils, the ear, the touch, the eye might all be af- fected in a regular manner, but there would be no taste, Bmell, hearing, feeling, nor seeing, unless the action went up into the cerebrum. Attempts have been made to give a separate place to each of the senses in the brain. 1 deem it proper, without committing myself, to give the views on this subject of Professor Ferrier of London, who has localized the senses. It would appear that rays of light might reach the eye, pass through the coats and humors on to the retina and the optic nerve, and yet no object be seen if the movement did not go on to the local centre of sight. Seeing is not in the eye but in the brain. Each sense gives its own sensation and perception. If the optic nerve is struck, light may be emitted ; if the auditory, a sound is heard. But one sense cannot be made jo give the impression produced by another. THE SENSES; ORGANIC AFFECTIONS. 31 Great aid is imparted to all the senses by motion. This was dwelt upon by Aristotle, and has smce been noticed by nearly all physiologists. Were the eyeballs motionless our knowledge of objects would be attained much more slowly and would be much more confined. We get a great increase of information by moving our sense or- gans, our eyes, our nostrils, or ears, so as catch different impressions. We would have a very vague idea both of space and time without locomotion. SECTION V. ORGANIC AFFECTIONS. Those of the nerves of the internal organs of the body, such as the stomach, the alimentary canal, and the viscera, also of the physiological acts of respiration, digestion, breathing, and circulation, and specially of tempera- ture, which though intimately allied to feeling is yet separate, may first be considered. Each of these furnishes a peculiar sensation. The feelings from the whole are very numerous and very vai'ied, and may constitute a considerable portion of hu- man pleasure or human suffering. Such is the comfort produced by our bodily wants being supplied by air and water and food, and the stimulating cheerfulness arising from perfect bodily health. Such are the nervous affec- lions, painful or pleasant, exciting or dull, irritating or soothing, depressing or elevating ; and the uneasiness or pain coming from a diseased bodily frame. In all such affections the main element is sensation, but mingled with it, though often very faint, is a perception of the part af- fected. This is not of any object, extra-organic. We may, however, by experience and reasoning come to know that this pain proceeds from a wound produced by a blow 32 SENSE-PERCEPTION. or from an unhealthy atmosphere. But the original per- ception is only of an aft'ection of our body of which we know the direction and in a loose way the locality. But upon these simple original perceptions we may rear a bod}'^ of acquired ones. We may come to know, for ex- ample, what kinds of food and air derange our systems and what kinds stimulate or strengthen us. The affec- tions of which I have been speaking constitute a sort of general sense, which seems to be strong in some of the lower animals. The visceral affections are localized by Ferrier in the occipital lobes of the brain (Fig. 1, D, D', D"). When this part of the brain is injured the animal will have no relish for its food and will not seek for it. This sense becomes differentiated into special senses. SECTION VI. Its seat is in the upper surface of the tongue, which is covered with papillae of different kinds, and is supplied with two nerves, the glosso-pliaryngeal and the gustatory, a branch of the fifth pair. The matter affecting the tongue must be in a liquid state in order to its being felt. Taste is affected by mechanical means, as hj irritating the root of the tongue. Many seeming tastes may be regarded as emells ; e. g., an onion and an apple, if the nose be closed, eannot be distinguished from each other by taste. The sensations furnished are considerably diversified, and cannot be classified very accurately or properly des- ignated as they run into each other. Some are keen and some insipid, some sweet and some bitter, some luscious ?,nd some acrid. In this sense the sensation is far more powerful than the perception. Still the perception is al- ways present. We have a vague knowledge of the tast^ TASTE. as being in our mouth and in a certain relative direction. Acting on the principle of causation we seek for a cause of the sensation, and by observation we may find it to bo some kind of meat or drink, and by a gathered experi- ence determine what kind of food it is. Some have ac- fanti'iform paoiUa DlAoa&ll OF THE TONO0E, showing the eircumvallate papilla, enlarged, with their nerrei (n, n, n), and taste-bnds, also the fungiform papilla and fha JUiform papilla, and nerves (n, n) entering them. The nerves to the papillaa are branches of the glosso- pharyngeal nerve. It has been recently fonnd that the so-called taate-buds occur on parts of the mouth which have no sense of taste. quired a great delicacy in distinguishing the qualities of such articles as wine and tea. But there is no evidence that by this sense we know originally and intuitively any- thing beyond our frame. The knowledge is of objects extra-mental but not extra-organic. 84 SENSE-PEBGEPTION. SECTION vn. SMELL. Its organ is the nose, and the sensibility is in the mu- cous membrane lining the upper part of the interior and the cavities which branch from it. It has a special pair DiAGBAH or Nose. A, showing olfactory lobe (o//'. /.) from brain, with its ol&ctorr neryes (o. n.) ; 6 is a branch of the fifth or trigeminal nerre; it sends branches to ttie lower region of the nose, and also to the palate ; p., palate; p. n., posterior nares (where the nose opens Into the mouth). B shows the fine olfactive cells (o.c), ending in soft processes on the epithelium of the nostrils. They alternate with columnar epithelial cells (c. «.) of nerves, or rather processes of the brain — the olfac- tory. An olfactory lobe of the brain proceeds to the region above each nostril and sends down olfactory nerves into the upper part of the nostril. These nerves supply rod-shaped epithelial cells, some wide, some narrow. The lower part of the nostrils is supplied by nerves of com- mon sensation from a branch of the fifth or great tri- geminal nerve. HEARING. 35 The matter affecting the nostrils must always be in a gaseous state, and is called odor. Odors are so varied that we have not specific names for them ; we speak of them as sweet, fresh, ethereal, stimulating; and of mal- odors as acrid, nauseous, disgusting. Smell is closely connected with taste. Both seem to be combined in fla- vor. Often, by combining the two, we have to determine the nature and state, whether sound or corrupt, of the food presented to us. Smell always contains perception, a perception of our nostrils as affected, but the sensations are always more predominant. All that we know imme- diately by this sense seems to be our affected organism. If the odor is one unknown, we have no idea of the ob- ject from which it comes. The senses of taste and smell are the most animal of the senses. Yet smell is capable of imparting a considerable amount of information, es- pecially of direction. Some of the lower animals seem to be guided in their movements by this sense. By it the dog will follow the track of game or of its master, or that which it has gone over itself previously, with won- derful accuracy. As we ascend the scale of animals, this sense seems to lose its importance and its acuteness. But by it our acquired perceptions carry us a consider- able distance beyond our bodily frame, and open to us a wider world than taste does. Smell and taste are sup- posed to have their centres not easily distinijuishable in the Subiculum Cornu Ammonis. (Fig. 2, K., p. 6.) SECTION vm. HEARING. In this sense we have both sensation and perception in about the same proportion, though sometimes the sensa tion is the stronger, as in music, and some';iraes the per ob SENSE-PERCEPTION. ception, as when we are listening to tbe words of a speaker. It gives, primarily, a knowledge of our ears as affected, but by a combined experience we perceive ob- jects at a distance, and know that this sound proceeds from the human voice, this other from a drum, or from the wind agitating the trees, or from a running stream. The organ of hearing is the ear collecting the sound, Fig. 5. Hearing. DuSKAM OF Left Ear. A, general arrangement of parts. B, inner lab/rinth (enlarged) a., anvil ; amp., ampuUra ; au. n., auditory nerve ; a. «. c, anterior Tertical canal ; CH., concha, or outer ear ; coch., cochlea ; Eus. c, Eustachian canal ; ex. m., external meatus ; /. ov., foramen oTale ; /. ro., foramen rotundum ; A., hammer ; A. e., hori- tontal canal ; p. v. c, posterior Tertical canal ; »t., stirrup. the middle ear or tympanum with its bones or muscles? and the internal ear or labyrinth, presenting a spiral shell called the cochlea, and the semicircular canals, and con- taining a clear liquid. The matter affecting the organ- ism is in a state of vibration. Going in by the external ear, the vibrations strike a membrane, the tympanum, and aie transmitted to a chain of bones. The stirrup bone HEARING. 37 communicates beats to the opening of the labyrinth, and compresses the liquid, and this affects the auditory nerve, which carries on the action to the brain. Each bag of the labyrinth is filled with fluid, and floats in fluid. It contains mobile ear-stones, that beat like pebbles on the ciliated epithelium, which is richly supplied with nerves. The semicircular canals are engaged in main- taining our equilibrium. Through them rapid rotation of the body causes vertigo. Auditory sensations are more delicate and agreeable than those furnished by any of the other senses, and differ n Fio. 7. Hairs supplied with nerrei (n) in ampulleo of ear. The Tibrations of tlie fliiid move the hairs. Fig. 6. Heabino. DiAOBAM OP Fibres op Corti : A c, hair cell ; if, Inner fibre; n, nerves ; of, outer fibre. in intensity, in quantity, and in tone. The melodies and harmonies of mu- sic stir up emotion, and by their con- tinuance trains of emotional thought. The ear can appreciate very nice differences of sound, and the intel- lect is roused to interpret the articulate sounds of the human voice. The fibres of Corti are situated in the cochlea. They are said to have 6,000 inner, and 4,500 Duter rods, and there are adjoining hair cells well sup- plied with nerves. They are usually supposed to be or- gans of music, and every tone affects a proper key of Corti's fibres. It seems certain that they somehow give the appreciation of sounds. They enable us to distin- 2uish intensitv of sounds and differences in time. 38 SENSE-PERCEPTION. Hearing has its centre in the Superior Temporo-sphenoidal Con- volution (Fig. 1, B). When this is destroyed there is no response to the usual forms of auditory stimuli, such as calling, whistling, and knocking. According to a report by M. Elie de Cyon on the Semicircular Canals and the Sense of Space (see " Mind," October, 1878): (1.) Through the semicircular canals we obtain a series of unconscious sensations bearing on the position of the head in space. (2.) Each canal has a strictly determinate relation to one of the dimensions of space. (3.) The loss of movement observed upon section of the canals is due to the disturbance of the normal sensations of which they are the organs." It is said we possess in the semicircular canals an organ " fitted to form a notion of a space in three dimensions." The semicircular canals are the peripheral organs of the sense of space ; that is to say, the sensations created through the nerve endings in the ampullae of the canals serve to form our notions of the three di- mensions of space, the sensations of each canal corresponding with one of the dimensions. By means of these sensations, there is formed in our brain the representation of an ideal space, to which are referred all the perceptions of objects around us, and the posi- tion of our body among these objects. The nature of the ideas given by this apparatus needs to be carefully sifted. SECTION IX. TOUCH PROPER, OR FEELING. In it we have sensation and perception more intimately connected than in any other sense. The sensation arises from the sensor nerves, proceeding from every part of the periphery of the body to the sensorlum in the brain. The organ is the skin, and touch is often called the skin-sense by the Germans. The skin consists of two layers, the outer or cuticle, which is meant for protection and is insensible, and the true skin, with its sensitive points called papillas lying under. Remove the epithe- lium and the sense of touch and that of temperature are lost. The most sensitive parts of the body are the tips f>f the tongue, of the fingers and the lips ; this is probabl» TOUCH PROPER, OR FEELING. 39 because of the nei'ves generated at these jtoints by use. The sensibility may be created from witliin, but is com- monly awakened by pressure from without, which affects the papillai and associated nerves. We are leil naturally (the nature may have been acquired by heredity) to refer the action to the point at which the sensor nerve terminates. If we prick a nerve which reaches the raid- finger, the pain is felt there. If we stretch or pinch the ulnar nerve by pushing it from side to side or compressing with the fingers, the shock is felt in the part to which its ultimate branchlets are distributed, namely, in the palm and back of the hand and in the fourth Fig. s. and fifth fingers the pressure is varied the prick ing sensation is felt by turns in the fourth finger, in the fifth, in the palm of the hand or back of the hand ; and both on the palm and on the back of the hand the situa- tion of the pricking sensation is different according as the pressure on the nerve is varied ; that is to say, according as different fibres or fasciculi of fibi-es are more pressed upon than others. The same will be found to be the case in irritating the nerve in the upper arm " (Miiller's "Phys- iology " by Baley, p. 740). So strong is this tendency to localize the sensation at the extremity of the nerves, that when an arm or leg is amputated the person has still the feeling of the lost limb. MUller has collected a .number of such cases. " A student named Schmitz had According as T)iaQRAm of tactile Corposcle op I'm CER, with nerres (n) entering it. 40 SENSE-PERCEPTION. his arm amputated above the elbow thirteen years ago ; he has never ceased to have sensations as if in the fingers. I applied pressure to the nerves in the stump, and M. Sohmitz immediately felt the whole arm, even the fingers, as if asleep." " A toll-keeper in the neighborhood of Halle, whose right arm had been shattered by a cannon- ball in battle, above the elbow, twenty years ago, and afterwards amputated, has still, in 1833, at the time of changes of the weather, distinct rheumatic pains which seem to him to exist in the whole arm, and though re- moved long ago the lost part is at those times felt as if sensible to draughts of air. This man also com- pletely confirmed our statement that the sense of the integrity of the limb was never lost." When there is a change made artificially in the peripheral extremities of nerves, the sensations are felt as if in the original spots, " When in the restoration of a nose a flap of skin is turned down from the forehead and made to unite with the stump of the nose, the new nose thus formed has, as long as the isthmus of skin by which it maintains its original nerve-supply remains undivided, the same sensations as if it were still on the forehead ; in other words, when the nose is touched the patient feels the impression in the forehead. This is a fact well known to surgeons, and was first observed by Lisfranc." Whatever it may have been originally, all this is now natural, very probably handed down by heredity. " Pro- fessor Valentin (' Repert f iir Anat. und Phys.' 1836, p. 330) has observed that individuals who are the subjects of congenital imperfection or absence of the extremities have, nevertheless, the internal sensations of such limbs in their perfect state. A girl, aged nineteen years, in whom the metacarpal bones of the left hand were very short and all the bones of the phalanges absent, a row o* TOUCH PROPER, OR FEELING. 41 imperfectly organized, wart-like projections representing the fingers, assured M. Valentin that she had constantly the internal sensation of a palm of the hand and five fingers on the left side as perfect as on the right. When a ligature was placed round the stump she had the sen- sation of formication in the hand and fingers, and press- ure on the ulnar nerve gave rise to the ordinary feeling of the third, fourth, and fifth fingers being asleep, al- though these fingers did not exist. The examination of three other individuals gave the same results." (lb. p. 747.) By the simultaneous sensations we have a perception of a plurality of points, and we feel our bodily frame, as it were, round about us, Miiller maintains that in this way we get a knowledge of the greater number of the parts of the body and in all the dimensions of space, and that when our body comes into collision with another body, if the shock be suflBciently strong, the sensation of our body to a certain depth is awakened, and there arises a sensation of the contusion in the whole dimensions of the cube. If this be true, then this sense gives us a knowledge of our body as extended in three dimensions. The primitive knowledge given by this sense seems, as in the case of taste, smell, and hearing, to be intra-organic, though of course extra-mental. But by experience we come to know that there are extra-organic bodies affect- ing us and the cause of the sensations, and may thus come with the aid of the muscular sense to be cogni- zant of the hardness and softness, roughness and smooth- ness of the bodies touching us. It seems now to be ascertained that temperature is an affection of the tactile nerves. It is felt as a sensation of our bodily organs. The extra-organic cause is determined by experience and reasoning upon it. 42 SENSE-PERCEPTION. Touch has its centre in the Hippocampal region. (Fig. 2, K, p. 6,) " Desti'uctive lesions of this region aboUsh tactile sensation on the opposite side of the body." SECTION X. THE MUSCULAR SENSE. This is intimately connected with Touch Proper, but differs from it essentially. The organic apparatus consists first of a motor nerve, proceeding from the lower part of the brain to a muscle. We will to move an organ, say the arm, and the motor nerve carries the action to the muscle. This part of the process has been called the Locomotive Energy. We know that the muscle has been moved and resistance offered, by a sensor nerve attached and carrying the intimation to the brain. In this sense as in every other there is sensation, but per- ception is vastly predominant. By the senses which have come before us hitherto, we seem merely to know our frame with its parts out of each other. By this sense we know objects out of and beyond our body and as resisting our energy. The senses already noticed have given us linear direction, probably also surface, plane or perhaps curved ; they have certainly given us points of space as separated ; this gives us bodies in three dimen: sions. We press on a solid body and along its surface, and along its sides and around it, and thus get the idea of solidity or impenetrability. The muscular sense, in- cluding in it the volition and the resistance, first gives us the idea of Power, Potency, Energy, or Force, out of which proceeds our idea and conviction as to Causation. While Feeling and the Muscular Sense are different, Ibe one being intra-organic and the other extra-organio yet they commonly act at the same time and together. They unite to give us the sense of pressure which arises VISION. 48 from the force with which a body presses on our nerves of feeling and is resisted by muscular action. A body is laid on our skin and we estimate its weight by the amount of force which we use in order to lift it. By practice people may become very expert in weighing objects. Those who have to mix materials in definite proportions can often do so without the use of a machine, and the officers in a post-office can tell the weight of a letter by simply placing it on their hand. SECTION XI. This is in many i-espects the highest and most intel- lectual of all the senses. It is also the most complicated. I am not sure that all its mysteries have yet been cleared up. Much, however, is known. We have to contemplate it simply as giving us a perception. The ball of tlie eye is a globe moving freely in a cham- ber, the orbit. It has a firm, tough, spheroidal case, the greater part of which is white and opaque, called the sclerotic. In front is what is called the cornea, which is transparent. Light enters by the cornea, and thence passes into the aqueous humor, consisting mainly of wa- ter. It then passes through the gateway of the iris into the denser crystalline lens, where it is refracted ac- jording to the shape and consistency of the lens. It now passes through the vitreous humor, which is a sort ■)f jelly, to the retina, where it forms an inverted image of the object from which it has come. On the retina it impacts on rods and cones which are connected with the optic nerve. The estimated number of cones in the human eye is 3,360,000; the number of rods is act known. The rods have a pigment which is bleached 44 SENSE-PERCEPTION. by liglit and restored in darkness. We do not know tho full functions of these rods and cones ; they seem, how- ever, to be connected with the formation of the figure, Fig. 9. Vision. DUdKAH or Etes. a, left eye-ball, ehowlng the maseles ; B, right eye in seetlon ; 0| section of retina, magnified, showing rods and cones, aq. A., aqueous humor ; U. t,, blind spot ; eo., cornea ; cr. I., crystalline lens ; )>., iris ; I. g., lachrymal gland ; op com.., optio commissure (the arrows mark the course of the optic tracts to the brain) ; op. n., optio nerve ; o.s., superior oblique muscle; r.«., rectus externus mus- cle ; r. I., rectus interuus ; r. m., retinal margin ; r. .t., rectus superior muscle j ret., retina ; scl., sclerotic ; ss. lig., suspensory ligament of lens ; (. sh., tendinous sheath of nerve ; vit. h., vitreous humor ; y. s., yellow spot (where vision is most distinct) The points of the rods and cones at C are directed baelnoard in the retina. certainly of the color. There is no vision at the point where the light falls on the optic nerve, and it is called the blind spot, which has no cones or rods. Vision is most acute at a yellow spot which is full of clo.se-8et VISION 4a 3ones. Distinctness of vision requires that objects shall be so far apart that their images on the retina sliall reach more than one cone. The luminous action remains not only during the time the light is shining, but an appre- ciable time after. The retina in some persons seems to be affected in the same way by various colors. This gives rise to color-blindness, so that the person cannot distinguish between the green leaves of a tree and it? red fruit. There are large muscles, straight and oblique, which keep the eye in its place and direct its axis, so that we can carefully gaze on and inspect the object. Were the eye-ball fixed, our knowledge by the eye would be very imperfect. INIotion in this sense greatly helps us in our perception of objects. Intuitively we perceive by the eye a colored surface, iind I believe nothing more. This surface is felt as af- fecting us. But by a gathered experience and reasoning upon it, we can extend our knowledge indefinitely. It had been surmised by several persons before, as by Locke, but was established by Bishop Berkeley, the Irish meta- physician, in " New Theory of Vision " (1709), that orig- inally we have no knowledge of linear distance by the eyes. On looking forward we have simply a perception ,)f a colored surface affecting us, at what distance we can- not tell. This theory has since been confirmed by the ob- servation of the cases of persons born blind, but whose eyes were subsequently couched so that they could se^'. I shall mention three of these cases. Cheselden Case. — The boy was between thirteen and fourteen years of age when his eye was couched by Dr. Cheselden (see " Trans, of Royal Society," 1727). When he first saw, he was so far from making any judgmen,* about distances, that he thought all objects whatevei 46 SENSE-PERCEPTION. touched bis eyes (as he expressed it), as what lie felt did his skin, and thought no objects so agreeable as those which were smooth and regular, though he could form no judgment of their shape or guess what it was in any ob- ject that was pleasing to him. He knew not the shape of anything, nor any one thing from another, however different in shape or magnitude, but being told, what things were, whose form he before knew from feeling, he would carefully observe that he might know them again ; but having too many objects to learn at once, he forgot many of them, and (as he said) at first learned to know and again forget a thousand things in a day. One par- ticular only, though it may appear trifling, I will relate. Having often forgot which was the cat and which the dog, he was ashamed to ask, but catching the cat, which he knew by feeling, he was observed to look at her stead- fastly, and then putting her down said, " Puss, so I shall know you another time." We thought he soon knew what pictures represented which were shown him ; but we found afterwards we were mistaken, for about two months after he was couched he discovered at once they represented solid bodies, when to that time he considered them only as party-colored planes or surfaces, diversified with variety of paiuts ; but even then he was no less sur- prised, expecting the pictures would feel like the things they represented, and was amazed when he found those parts which by their light and shadow appeared now round, and even felt flat like the rest ; and asked which was the lying sense, feeling or seeing." Franz Case (" Phil. : Trans, of Royal Society," 1841). The youth had been born blind and was seventeen years of age when his eye was couched by Dr. Franz, of Leip- sic. When the eye was sufliciently restored to bear the light, " a sheet of paper on which two strong black line? VISION. 47 nad been drawn, the one hoi'izontal, the other vertical, was placed before hiin at the distance of about three feet. He was now allowed to open the eye, and after attentive examination be called the lines by their right denomina- tions." " The outline in black of a square, six inches in diameter, within which a circle had been drawn, and within the latter a triangle, was, after careful examina- tion, recognized and correctly described by him." " At the distance of three feet, and on a level with the eye, a solid cube and a sphere, each of four inches diameter, were placed before him." " After attentively examining these bodies, he said he saw a quadrangular and a circular fig- ure, and after some consideration he pronounced the one a sqvare and the other a disc. His eye being then closed, the cube was taken away and a disc of equal size substi- tuted and placed next to the sphere. On again opening his eye he observed no difference in these objects, but regarded them both as discs. The solid cube was now placed in a somewhat oblique position before the eye, and close beside it a figure cut out of pasteboard, repre- senting a plane outline prospect of the cube when in this position. Both objects he took to be something like flat quadrates. A p^n-aniid placed before him with one of its sides towards his eye lie saw as a plain triangle. This object was now turned a little so as to present two of its sides to view, but rather more of one side than of the other : after considering and examining it for a long time, he said that this was a very extraordinary figure ; it was neither a triangle, nor a quadrangle, nor a circle ; he had no idea of it, and could not describe it ; 'In fact,' said he, ' I must give it up.' On the conclusion of these experiments, I asked him to describe the sensations the objects had produced ; whereupon he said that imme- diately on opening his eye he had discovered a differenca 18 SENSE-PERCEPTION. in the two objects, the cube and the sphere, placed be- fore him, and perceived that they were not drawings ; but that he had not been able to form from them the idea of a square and a disc until he perceived a sensation of what he saw in the points of his fingers, as if he really touched the objects. When I gave the three bodies (the sphere, cube, and pyramid) into his hand, he was much surprised that he had not recognized them as such by sight, as he was well acquainted with mathematical fig- ui-es by his touch." " When the patient first acquired the faculty of sight, all objects appeared to him so near that he was sometimes afraid of coming in contact with them, though they were in reality at a great distance from him. All objects appeared to him perfectly flat ; thus, although he very well knew by his touch that his nose was prominent and the eyes sunk deeper in the head, he Baw the human face only as a plane." These observations show that the eye takes in surface and superficial figurie at once, but cannot discern solidity. If the persons have the use of both eyes, they will ob- serve the difference between a disc and a solid, but they would not be able to say till they feel it that the latter is a solid. It requires to be added, that those who have their sight thus given them require observation and thought to reconcile the information they had got from touch with that which they are now receiving from sight ; just as people who have learned two languages, say Ger- man and French, require practice in order to enable them readily to translate the one into the other. Another portion of this report is worthy of being re- corded, as showing how the memory and the fancy depend »n the senses. " Though he possessed an excellent mem- ory, this faculty was at first quite deficient as regarded riaible objects ; he was not able, for example, to recog- VISION. 49 aize visitors, unless he beard them speak, till he had seen them very frequently. Even when he had seen the ob- ject repeatedly, he could form no idea of visible qualities in his imagination without having the real object before him. Heretofoi'e, when he dreamed of any persons, of his parents, for instance, he felt them and heard their voices, but never saw them ; but now, after having seen them frequently, he saw them also in his dreams." Trinchinetti Case. — Mr. Abbot (in " Sight and Touch ") gives an account of the observations of Trin- chinetti : " He operated at the same time on two patients (brother and sister), eleven and ten years old respectively. The same day, having caused the boy to examine an orange, he placed it about one metre from him and bade him try to take it. The boy brought his hand close to his eye, and closing his fist found it empty, to his great surprise. He then tried again a few inches from his eye, and at last. in this tentative way, succeeded in taking the orange, When tlie same experiment was tried with the girl, she also at first attempted to grasp the orange with her hand very near the eye, then, perceiving her error, stretched out her forefinger and pushed it in a straight line slowly until she reached her object." Trinchinetti "regards these observations as indicating that visible objects were in actual contact with the eye." Other patients have been observed (by Janin and Duval) to move tlieir hands in search of objects in straight lines from the eye. But while the perception of distance is not an original endowment of sight, it can be acquired. It should be noticed that in this acquisition we are much aided by *he circumstance that while we do not by the eye per aeive distance from us, we see a flat surface with a dig* tance between the sides. Means hy which we are able to estimate Distance by the 4 50 SENSE-PERCEPTION. 8en»e of Sight. — For near objects there are three special aids provided in the organism itself, and there are others for more distant objects, (1.) When we look at near objects the pupil slightly contracts, and the anterior surface of the crystalline lens becomes more convex. The process by which this is done is a somewhat complex one, in which there is probably both reflex and voluntary action. As it takes place there is a strain in the action of the eye, and intimation is given of this by the attached nerves. When this strain is felt we know by experience that the object is near. (2.) There is a difference of the parallelism of the rays of light according as the objects are near or remote. When objects are at a distance the rays that come from them are virtually parallel, and the eye keeps its normal shape in receiving them. But when objects are near the rays are not parallel even approximately, and the eyes are strained in taking them in. Announcement of this is given to the mind, not by the eye-balls directly, but by the attached muscles. We come to argue that the ob- ject is near when the muscles are strained. (3.) There is a difference, according as the object is remote or neai-, of the image produced on the retina by each of the two eyes. When the object is at a distance the figure given by the two eyes does not differ much from that produced by one. But when it is near there is a sensible difference. Place the back of a closed book be- fore the eyes, twenty feet away, and there will be little difference between the form as given by two eyes and by one. Place it a foot away, and we see much more of the two sides by the two eyes than by one. There are Other means which apply to objects at all distances. (4.) There is the difference of relative size of the felt impression on the retina, as the objects are near or dis- VISION. 51 fcant. A penny placed close to the eye may occupy the whole field of vision, may, according to the proverb, hide the sun from the view. Place it at some distance and it will occupy a comparatively small space in the figure painted on the retina. (5.) When an object, say a watch, is at a distance, the rays of light that come from it produce a much feebler impression on our organism than when it is near. We argue that an object is far off when its color is faint and its outline hazy. We infer that it is near when its color is bright and its figure distinct. (6.) In our reasonings about the distance of objects we are much guided by the number of intermediate objects on which the eye can rest. When these objects are numerous we conclude that the object must be at some distance, and when they are few we are apt to argue that it must be near. This rule often enables us to guess very rapidly at the distance of objects. On the other hand, as we shall immediately see, it may often lead ua into error by being illegitimately applied. (7.) We are often guided in our estimate of the dis- tance of an object by its known size. The object, let me suppose, is evidently a human being, a man or woman, and occupies a certain place in the retinal affection. The image is very small and we conclude that the object, man or woman, must be at a distance. Or, it is large, and we infer that the object is close to us.^ When both eyes are in healthy exercise there is a double image on the retina. But the object is seen i"I shall say nothing," says Sidney Smith, "of the moral method of measuring distances ; *he distance from home to school in ?he days of our youth being generally double the distance from ichool to home, and so with all other passages which quicken or r^ terd the feeling of I'me." 52 SENSE-PERCEPTION. though there be only one image. The object Is perceived as single when the images are thrown on the proper parts of the retina. When they are not so, the object may be double or misplaced. The image on the retina is inverted. The arrow with the point up has the point down in the retinal image ; yet the object is seen upright. This circumstance has puzzled many. The puzzle arises from the circumstance that people imagine that there must be an inner eye of some kind looking at the retinal image ; whereas that image is not seen by any but the physiologist pursuing his researches. It is, in fact, a mere mechanism, or means to let us know the shape and direction of the object; and it is governed by the law of visible direc- tion, which is, when the rays strike the retina we trace them back along the line by which they have come. The rays at the base of the retinal figure have come from the top of the object, say an arrow, and we place them at the top, while those at the top have come from the foot, thus giving the object its real position. We are now in the heart of a subject which deserves a brief separate consideration. SECTION XII. OUR ACQUIRED PERCEPTIONS. They are acquired by a gathered observation and by reasoning from this. In Taste our original perception is of the palate as affected, but Ave infer from repeated eases that this taste is caused by water and this by bread or by beef, and the perception by practice may become very acute. In Smell, we know at first only an affection of the nostrils, but we come to know by reasoning upon experience that this odor proceeds from a rose and this OUR ACQUIRED PERCEPTIONS. 53 Dther from a lily, at this side or that side of us, according as it affects more strongly the right or the ]ef t nostril, and that the known smell must come from a near or remote object according to its intensity. In Feeling we seem to perceive intuitively only the peripherj' of our bodies, but we conclude that this agreeable sensation comes from a wholesome atmosphere, and this painful one from a blow or from excessive heat or cold. In Hearing we know directly our ear as affected, but we gather that the sound comes from the right when it is stronger in the right ear and from the left when it is more intense in the left ear ; and that this sound is issued by a human voice, and this other by the wind or by a drum. By the muscular sense we may come to know very accurately the pressure implied in a blow, or the weight of au object lying on our hand or any other part of the body. Attention has been already called to the way in which we are able to estimate distance by sight. There are other acquired ocular perceptions which should be noticed. We judge of the size of objects by comparison of them with other objects whose size we know. I see a plant unknown to me alongside a figure which I know to be that of a cow, and I determine the height of the plant be- cause I am acquainted with the height of the cow. Pro- ceeding on this principle, a painter, when he wishes us to appreciate the height of a building, or of a pi-ecipice, places a man or woman in front of it. If he wishes us to know that this animal is a foal, he places beside it a full-grown horse. We can come to know the solidity of objects by means of binocular vision. Primarily, we become acquainted witli the three dimensions of bodies by means of the mus- cular sense, by which we feel round them and grasp them. The eye, we have seen, perceives intuitively only 54 SENSE-PERCEPTION. a colored surface, and a solid is noticed as a plane sur- face. No doubt it might see a sphere and a cube to be different, but it would not discei'n the cube to be a cube. But when a solid object is not remote, each eye gives a different aspect of it. By combining the two perspec- tives, we come to know the object as having three dimen- sions. Those who have but one eye make up for their want by moving the head from side to side, so as to obtain the same views as are to be had by the two eyes. "Mr. Saunderson, the blind matliomatician, could distinguish by his hand, in a series of Roman medals, the true from the counterfeit, with a more unerring discrimination than the eye of a professed vir- tuoso, and wlien he was present at the astronomical observations in the garden of the college, he was accustomed to perceive every cloud which passed over the sun. Tliis remarkable power, which has some- times been referred to an increased intensity of particular senses, in many cases evidently resolves itself into an increased habit of atten- tion to the indications of all those senses which the individual retains. Two instances have been related to uie of blind men who were much esteemed as judges of horses. One of these, in giving his opinion of a liorse, ileclared him to be blind, though this had escaped the ob- servation of several persons who Iiad tlie use of their eyes, and who were with some difficulty convinced of it. Being asked to give an account of the principle on whicli he had decided, he said it was by the sound of the horse's step in walking, which implied a peculiar and unusual caution in his manner of putting down his feet. The other individual, in similar circumstances, pronounced a horse to be blind of one eye, though this also had escaped the observation of those concerned. When he was asked to exi)lain the f.act on which he formed his judgment, he said he felt the one eye to be colder than the other. It is related of Dr. Moyse, the well-known blind philos- pher, that he could distinguish a black dress on his friends by its smell, and there seems to be good evidence that blind persons have acquired the power of distinguishing colors by the touch. In a case of this kind mentioned by Mr. Boyle, the individual stated that black im- parted to his sense of touch the greatest asperity, and blue the least. Dr. Rush relates of two blind men, brothers, of the city of Philadel- phia, that they knew when they approached a post in walking across a APPARENT DECEPTION OF THE SENSES. 55 street, by a peculiar sound which the ground under their feet emit- ted in the neighborhood of the post ; and that they could tell the names of a number of tame pigeons with which they amused them- selves in a little garden, by only hearing thera fly over their heads. I have known several instances of persons affected with that extreme degree of deafness which occurs in the deaf and dumb, who had a peculiar susceptibility to particular kinds of sounds, depending appar- ently upon an impression communicated to their organs of touch or simple sensation. They could tell, for instance, the approach of a carriage in the street without seeing it, before it was taken notice of by persons who had the use of all their senses. An analogous fact is observed in the habit acquired by the deaf and dumb of understand- ing what is said to them by watching the motion of the lips of the speaker." (Abercrombie's '* Intellectual Powers.") " An American Indian has such acute sight that he can discover the prints of his enemies' feet, can ascertain their number with the greatest exact- ness, and the length of time which has elapsed since their passage; he can discover the fires and hear the noises of his enemies when no sign of the contiguity of any human being can be discovered by the most vigilant European." (Smith's " Moral Philosophy.") SECTION XIII. APPARENT DECEPTION OF THE SENSES. The Greek philosophers, down to the time of Aristotle (who corrected the mistake), represented the senses aa deceiving us. The distinctions we have drawn, especially that between our original and acquired perceptions, ena- ble us to stand up for the trustworthiness of our sense- perceptions. Our original perceptions are all true to facts ; but there may be mistakes in the steps we take in forming our derivative perceptions. Our observations may be limited, and we may argue from them as if they were unlimited. The taste in the mouth, as a mere or- ganic affection, is always what we may feel it to be ; but we may draw a wrong inference as to the object in the mouth, as to whether it is beef or mutton, aa to wbethei 66 SENSE-PERCEPTION. it is sherry or madeira wine ; and when our palate or stomach is deranged, we may regard sound meat as un- sound. We cannot be mistaken in regard to the smell as a sensation, but we may err in our conclusion that it is produced by a certain object in a certain direction at a certain distance. For our convenience we lay down rules for our guidance as to the objects falling under the senses, which are coi*rect enough for ordinary purposes, but fail and mislead us in exceptional circumstances. Sounds come to our ears in straight lines, but the sound coming from a bell may be diverted by a building in the way, and we trace the sound to the direction from which it has last come. A man with an amputated limb places the pain in it, because it is precisely what he would have felt if the limb had been entire. The supposed illusions are most numerous in the use of the sense of sight, and this because there are so many observations and ratiocinations implied in our judg- ments in regard to the position and distance of objects by that sense. We are accustomed to estimate distances of an object by the number of visible objects coming be- tween us and it ; and we are apt when we are looking across a lake or an arm of the sea, a level plain or a waste of sand, to regard them as much nearer than they are. We are apt to draw a wrong inference when things are seen across a surface of snow. " We had frequent occasion," says Captain Parry, " in our walks on shore to remai'k the deception which takes place in estimating the distance and magnitude of objects when viewed over an unvaried surface of snow. It was not uncommon for us to direct our steps towards what we took to be a large mass of stone at the distance of half a mile from us, but which we were able to take up in our hands after one minute's walk. This was more particularly the case SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. 57 vrhen ascending the brow of a hill." In all these rea- sonings we start from an assumed position and may pro- ceed illegitimately. When he feels himself to be at rest on the deck of a ship which may in the meanwhile be starting from the shore, the countryman starts up in alarm, for he believes, momentarily, that the shore is moving. When we are looking out of a railway car- riage on a train starting, we may feel as if we are mov- ing, because the carriage we are looking at seems sta- tionary, and we are not assured of the contrary till we see it passing an object which we know to be stationary, when, be it observed, we at once accommodate ourselves to the actual position. " I remember," says Abercrom- bie, " having occasion to pass along Ludgate Hill, when the great door of St. Paul's was open and several per- sons were standing in it. They appeared to be very lit- tle children, but on coming up to them they were found full-grown persons. In the mental process the door had been taken as of a certain magnitude (much less than it actually was) and the other objects were judged by it." In a mist the boy seems a man and the man a giant, because in our common experience the objects seen so dimly are at a distance, and this boy or man being at such a distance must be very large to fill such a space in our eye. SECTION XIV. SUPPLEMENT AKT NOTES. NOTE I. AS TO WHAT WE PRIMARILT PERCEIVE, Physiologists are seeking to find out the organic processes involved in the exercises of the Senses. Pvschology should seek to deter- mine what is the primary exercise of the conscious mind in Sense- Perception. 58 SENSE-PERCEPTIOiN. Certain German savans have been making diligent inquiry into the nature of the organic processes. Weber made some curious ex- periments as to the relative sensibility of different parts of the body, showing how much more sensitive the tip of the tongue is than the back. Lotze has been experimenting and speculating as to the origin of our notion of space, and discovers in each of the senses local signs which indicate the difference of an impression from others. According to my view all these local signs are in the or- ganism, and are acknowledged to be movements there, and are at the best the mere prompters of the notion of space, and do not contain in themselves the notion of space or any other idea whatsoever. Fechner, in his "Psychophysic," has sought to determine the relation of the exciting cause to the sensation, and thinks he has proven that the sensation is not directly as the excitation, but the sensation in- creases as the logarithm of the excitation. Delboeuf and Hering dispute the conformity of this law to facts. It is certain, I think, that the law is a physiological and not a psychological one, is a law of the organism and not of the conscious mind. Wundt regards ex- ternal impressions as mere signs to be interpreted; and maintains that they are interpreted by unconscious reasoning, which is the primary element of all thought. This view places reasoning prior to the notion and the judgment, which is contrary to the almost universal opinions of philosophers, and is supported by no evidence except that of a hypothesis of unconscious mental operations of which we have no proof. Helmholtz, who is a physicist rather than a metaphysician, divides the theories as to the origin of our ideas of space into nativist and empiricist. He opposes the nativist theory in the shape it takes in the philosophy of Kant, according to whom space is an a priori form in the mind imposed on objects. I do not believe in any Buch forms. According to the view expounded in this chapter the conscious mind has a native capacity of perceiving matter as pre- sented to it. All these German theories may be modified if not set aside, if it be true, as Ferrier maintains, that each sense has an organ in the cerebrum, and that there is no perception unless the organic affecliun reaches the brain. Ferrier tells us that " on destruction of the angular gyrus the loss of vision is complete and permanent." (For the German theories see "La Psychologic Allemande Con- teniporaine," par Th. Ribot, translated by J. M. Baldwin.) The microscope has not yet been invented which is fitted to show us the working of perception or any intelligent act of the mind. In oi'dcr to get iuformatioa we have now to employ, not the senses, but SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. 69 ihe consciousness. And there is a difficulty in determining what i« the first conscious act. We cannot look into the soul of the infant when it is in the womb, nor for a considerable time after. It can- not express any of its affections except pleasure or paiu, — say by a Bmile or a cry, — and we do not remember our early experience. In mature life it is found that the various physical and psychical acts are so mixed that it is difficult to separate them. Still, we can bj self-consciousness look at our mental acts and observe what they are, We notice that in all of them there is a perception of an extended object within the organism or beyond it. Consciousness further tes- tifies that in mature life we know matter as resisting our energy, cer- tainly by the muscular sense, probably by all the senses. But neither of these can be had by reasoning or by development from a premise which does not contain them. They must therefore be given and not derived, intuitive and not acquired, premises and not a conclu- sion. Let physiology penetrate as far as it can into the secrets of the organism, say in sight, into the structure of the eye, of the optic nerve, and it may be of the angular gyrus in the brain. But let it modestly stop when it comes to something which cannot be seen or touched, which cannot be weighed or measured. At that point let psychology take up the investigation and inquire what is the nature of perception, memory, reasoning, and other conscious acts. Physi- ology seems to declare that all that passes through the organism, through the nerves and brain, are vibrations. If it be asked, as haa •Uready been asked by Lotze, How can vibrations produce percep- tions? I answer that the question of how (the Sidn of Aristotle) is often difficult to answer. That there are vibrations is certain, that there are conscious perceptions is also certain. To determine their precise relation is acknowledged by all to be a perplexing question. The answer to it is not made easier by bringing in a tertium quid of any kind. If this medium is of the nature of matter, the question follows, How it can influence mind? If it is of the nature of the mind. How can it act on matter? If it is of the nature of neither, the unanswerable question is put, How can it operate both on mind and matter? While we cannot answer such questions, we can say that the conscious mind perceives matter as extended and solid. We may regard this as a native capacity of the cognitive mind until it it resolved into something simpler. The most satisfactory position is that the mind perceives matter, hat by all the senses it perceives the organism, and that by two of 60 SENSE-PERCEPTION. the senses, sight and the muscular sense, it perceives objects affect* Ing the organism. Let us assume that perception is one of the ca- pacities of mind, and probably we are as near the truth as we can possibly be. In the mature mind perception is a property of mind, just as certainly as gravity is a property of matter or assimilation of life. As it cannot be derived from anything else, from material action or vital action, we must regard it as original and primary. We may assume that in it we perceive things as they are. We per- ceive objects within or beyond our frame as extended and as affected. True, we do not perceive the vibrations, which we know only by the aid of science, but we perceive the affections produced by the vibra- tions. These affections are in space, and the mind perceives them as in space. Thus a muscular action, say the movement of the arm, is in space. The affections of the palate, the nostrils, the ear, are all perceived as in a certain direction and extended. They are per- ceived as affections, as affected, as resisting. We thus get at the first perception, and in all subsequent perceptions of body, extension and resisting power, which we may regard as the primary and uni- versal properties of bodies. NOTE n. THE FOUNDATION LAID IN PHYSICAL NATUKE FOR CONTINUED ACTION, FOR DEVELOPMENT AND YET FOR PERMANENCE. Every bodily substance contains a certain capacity of energy; this is quite as certain as that it contains a certain amount of particles. This constitutes the basis of the conservation of energy, a doctrine which follows from the nature of body when properly apprehended. This energy is shown in one body acting on another by its proper- ties. The force operates when the conditions implied in its nature are supplied. A stone must fall to the ground if unsupported. Hence the perpetual changes in nature so fondly dwelt on by Heraclitus and the ^iK6ao(poi Peovres. The forces in the agents which act as the causes are not lost. In all physical causation there are two or more agents in the cause. \n the action there is a change in each of the agents; for example, both in the oxygen and hydrogen which combine to form water; but ihe substances, the oxygen and hydrogen, abide with their capacities. This is the rh 6y of the Eleatics, which never changes. There is thus »n the one hand, a " persistence of force," as Herbert Spencer calls it, and at the same time a succession of actions. This continaance witk ON THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSES. 61 mutation is evidently under a Divine order which takes the form of law. There is a sense in which all action is development, or evolu- tion : the force comes out of the original energy in bodies. By their mutually adapted action, the forces often run in lines or races which are so arranged as to be periodical, they return according to . their circuits, as for example, the seasons do, spring, summer, au- tumn, and winter, and the plant is after its kind. SECTION XV. ON THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSES. The senses are all capable of being educated. Our tastes may be made more delicate, and may keep us from using deleterious food. The sense of smell may be culti- vated, and add to our enjoyments ; and odors, especially by means of flowers, may be provided to gratify it. Hear- ing may be improved and made more sensitive and accu- ^ rate. Music is a source of pleasure, which may be en- } hanced till it becomes elysian. Feeling may be made very delicate in its perceptions, and capable of distin- guishing very nice differences of object. The senses of pressure and of weight may be so trained as to give ua very accurate measurements. But the eye is the most intellectual of all our sense-organs, enabling us at a glance to take in the vast and the minute, the near and the dis- tant. All these should be cultivated by training in the fam- ily and at school. Children should be taught from their earliest years to use their senses intelligently and habit- ually. They should be encouraged to observe care- fully the objects around them, and taught to describe and report them correctly. It has been said that there are more false facts than false theories, and this arises from pei'sons not being trained to notice facts accurately, neither adding to them nor taking from them, nor gilding them by the fancy, nor detracting from them to serve an 62 SENSE-PERCEPTION. and. Pictures and models are used very extensivel3' in modern education, and serve a good purpose, as they call in the senses to minister to the intellect. But the things themselves are vastly more instructive than any represen- tations can be. So children should be taught to use their senses, especially their ears and their eyes, in ob- serving the objects around them, and the events that occur, and storing them up for future reflection. Plants and animals and stars, men and women and children, fall under our eyes at all times, and their nature, shapes, and actings should be diligently scanned for practical use and for scientific attainment. Not, indeed, that every fact can be noted ; for this would lay a burden on the mind which it cannot bear. Pains should be taken not to dis- tract the mind by too great an accumulation of details, BO as to prevent the rise and action of the reflective fac- ulties. But the habit of careful observation should be acquired in early life, and facts stored up in all depart- ments which we mean to study or to use in our future lives. SECTION XVI. KNOWLEDGE GIVEN BY THE SENSES. Having looked at the senses individually, let us now weigh the results they yield when they are combined in their action. The Knoivledge of Our Bodily Frame. — This acts, I believe, as the starting-point of all our knowledge of extra-organic objects, and furnishes a standard and a. measure. Let us try to ascertain, in a general way, what this combined organic knowledge amounts to. By each of the senses we have a knowledge of parts of our frame as affected. Already, then, we have a knowledge con- Crete of things as in space. The part affected odorouslv KNOWLEDGE GIVEN BY THE SENSES. 63 18 in one direction ; the part affected by bearing in an- other direction ; that affected by color in a third ; and so with the other senses ; each sense locahzes an organ, pal- ate, nostrils, ear, eye, while touch proper gives a knowl- edge of the direction and locality of affections in every part of the body, and the muscular sense makes known the spot at which the energy is exerted. By combining this knowledge, we come to have a considerable and a familiar acquaintance with our bodily frame, with the parts, and affections thereof. It is, after all, however, very loose and imperfect, till we are able to perceive the body, as it were, ab extra, till we touch and handle it, and see the outside form of it. We know the shape of our bodies all the more distinctly from observing the fig- ures of men and women around us. The peasant girl gains a large amount of interesting information when she sees her face and figure reflected in the water, or more perfectly in the mirror. When affected with the tooth- ache, we know the general direction of the pain, but may not be able to tell in what tooth it is, as the same is known by the tongue or hand ; it is certain that we can- not in this way know the form of the tooth. But, when we have toothache, we try to find out, by touch or sight, the tooth in which the pain is. This may illustrate the way in which we combine the intimations given by the different senses. As the result of all the steps, intui- tive, experiential, and inferential, we carry with us al- ways, and wherever we go, a sense of our circumambient body and of its several parts, of its capable acts and sus- ceptible affections, and round this, as a nucleus, we gather information, and all our knowledge of objects beyond our ^rame is referred to this as the centre of our world. Our Combined Extra-organic Knowledge. — At the Vttry same time that we know our bodily frame we have S4 SENSE-PERCEPTION. a certain amount of knowledge of objects beyond it ; we seem to take in a colored surface by the eye, and by the muscular sense we know objects as resisting our energy. Upon this foundation laid by nature we may rear an im- mense superstructure. Acquainted with the structure of the sensory organs, the boy is able to fix the direction of objects affecting them, of objects seen and touched ; of that face which he sees, of that yoice which he hears, of that arm that holds him, and he is soon able to trace them all to one person, his nurse or his mother. Thus do we fix the qualities discerned by different senses in one object. We smell an apple, we see its color and outline, we take it into our hands and feel its shape, we press it and as- certain its hardness, and we hear the sound the crushing makes. Henceforth the very smell or sight brings these qualities, or a number of them, before us, is associated with these qualities, and is conceived by us as possess- ing them. We expect everything that smells so, even when we do not see or touch it, to have a certain shape and consistency, and a certain taste in the mouth. We thus come to be surrounded by objects, with qualities at- tached to them, in our apprehension. We distribute ob- jects in the room, doors, tables, chairs, desks, books, pic- tures. We know the place, and, so far, the properties of every object under our view in nature, of the trees, the fields, the meadows, the rivers, the clouds, the sun, moon, and stars. We learn by degrees the purposes served by the things before us. That object is a chair, with a piece of dress lying on it ; that other is a table, with food on it ; that other a horse, on which we may ride. As oui observation and experience widen, our world enlarges i the known things in it become more numerous, and we know them more fully and accurately. In particular, we become acquainted with innumerable beings with lik? QUALITIES OF MATTER. 65 thoughts and sentiments as ourselves. We have at last not just a universe, but a cosmos with earth and air, plant and animal, with sun, moon, and stars, some of them at incalculable distances, and with innumerable living beings possessed of immortality. It should be no- ticed that all this knowledge radiates from our sensitive and conscious self. We place all these objects around us, in a certain direction from ourselves, and we compi-ehend them from the way in which they would affect us. SECTION XVII. QUALITIES OF MATTER: EXTENSION AND ENERGY. Primary Qualities. — In all our sense-perceptions, even those simply of our bodies, there are qualities known. Some of these are called Primary. They are found in body, as Locke expresses it, in whatever state it be. They are so called also, because, as Reid says, our senses give us a direct knowledge of them. I doubt much whether we are able to determine with clearness and cer- tainty what these are. Physical science will not pretend to fix on them absolutely. Metaphysics has no right to settle such a question. But it may be safely said that there are two such qualities : one of these is Extension and the other is Energy. Extension is certainly an essential quality. Every form of matter possesses it. The intelligent mind directly perceives body as extended. By an easy process of ab- straction we can separate the extension from the body as possessing other qualities and have the idea of extension or space. Hamilton evolves it from two catholic condi- tions of matter : " The occupying of space and being contained in space. Of these the former affords (A) trinal extension explicated again into (1) divisibility ; (2) size containing under it density of gravity ; (3) fig- 36 SENSE-PERCEPTION. are ; and (B) ultimate imcompressibility ; while the latter gives (A) mobility, and (B) situation." Energy under certain forms is also an essential qual- ity. Matter is known as affecting us and as resisting our action. True, it is only by a gathered experience that we know what forms physical energy takes, and find the nature, extent, and limits of the action, as, for instauce, of gravitation and chemical affinity. But we seem in all our cognitions of body to know it as acting on us even as we know ourselves as acting on it. There is no form or state of body, solid, liquid, or gaseous, which does not possess this power which is exercised in our per- ception of it. It should always be acknowledged that matter may possess other essential attributes, as these may be known to other intelligences who penetrate into the nature of things. But these seem to be the only essential qualities known to us. Organic Affections, called not very happily the Sec- ondary Qualities of Matter. In regard to what second- ary qualities are, such as smells, tastes, sounds, colors, there has been much controversy gendered of confusion, and many wrong inferences have been drawn. It is asked whether there is color in the rose, sound in the drum, odor in the violet, taste in the mutton. If we answer that there is, then it is shown conclusively that colors consist of vibrations, as do also sounds, and that tastes and smells are mere liquids and vapors affecting our palate and nostrils. But when we are driven to allow that there is no reality in these secondary qual- ities, it is argued that there may just be as little m the primary qualities, such as extension and resistance, which may be mere sensations of the organism or creations of jhe mind. The logicval conclusion is idealism such aa that of Berkeley. QUALITIES OF MATTER. 67 The secondary qualities have an existence simply in our animated and sentient frame. Their office is to make known the state of our bodies. They do not reveal di- rectly the properties of bodies beyond our organism ; but they prompt us to inquire into the cause of the affections when we find them to consist of the mechanical or chem- ical properties of objects. It is thus that the sensation of heat or cold leads us to inquire into the state of the temperature, and that certain odors may send us out in search of malaria. There is an ambiguity in the phrases, sounds, tastes, colors, heat, and the like. They may mean simply affec- tions of the sense, nerves, or the bodilj'' qualities which produce the affection. Thus " heat " may mean the frame under a certain sensation or a mode of motion. It is of importance that when we are using these phrases we understand and explain what we mean by them. When we speak of feeling heat we do not mean a mode of motion, which is in fact the cause of our feeling. It will be found that in all our organic affections (as indeed in all physical action) there is a dual or plural cause ; there is an organic susceptibility and an extra- organic agent ; there are tastes, smells, and colors, but these are called into action by sapid bodies, by odors, or vibrations. These two, the organic and extra-organic, are so mixed in our apprehensions that we are apt to identify them. That smell we know is produced by a rose, and we regard the smell as in the rose. We can thus so far understand that peculiar combined sensation and perception as to color which has so puzzled meta- physicians. By the eye we perceive a surface, but there is always associated with it a retinal color in the rods and cones. It is only by a process of abstraction that we can think of (we cannot image) the color apart from the shape. 58 SENSE-PERCEPTION. For philosophic purposes the all-important distinction is between the qualities perceived immediately in all bodies — these are the primary qualities; and the organic affections implying by inference an extra-organic cause — these are called the secondary qualities. It is to be dis- tinctly understood that there is a reality in both. The reality in the secondary qualities is merely in the af- fected organism, and we are justified in maintaining that there is such a thing. The reality in the other is in body, and we hold that this really exists. SECTION XVIII. IDEAS GIVEN BT THE SENSES: EXTERNALITY, SPACE, AND ENERGY. We shall discover as we advance that every one of the original mental powers gives us a special cognition or idea. We may notice here that Sense-Perception gives us I. Externality. We perceive all material objects as out of, and independent of, the perceiving mind. This is associated with II. Extension. We perceive things as extended by all the senses, not only as Locke thought by sight and touch, but by smell, taste, and hearing; by all these we know our affected organism as in a cer- tain direction and so in space ; by taste and smell we know the palate and nostrils as affected, and by hearing, our ear as affected. III. We perceive body exercising Energy. We do so especially by the muscular sense; we find body resisting our locomotive energy. Perhaps we have some vague sense of energy by all the senses : the objects perceived seem to affect us. But the sense of power is specially given by our energy and the resist- ance to our energy. And then we soon learn by experi- ence that our organic sensations are produced by extra- organic causes, that our sensations of light and heat ar« IDEAS GIVEN BY THE SENSES. 69 produced by vibrations. We are tbus made to feel tbat every body is possessed of power in exercise or ready to be exercised. These three primitive cognitions are the root of all our ideas regarding matter. As Kant would say, but in a different connection, " They render experience possible." It is of importance thus to note and to specify what is the precise knowledge given by the senses that we may see clearly and ever keep it before us, that they do not and cannot yield us all our ideas ; and that there are other and higher ideas as of self, of thinking, and moral good which must come from higher sources. CHAPTER II. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. By this power we know self in its present state aa acting and being acted on. SECTION I. IT MAKES KNOWN SELF AS WELL AS THE ACTS OF SELF. At the same time that we perceive by the senses we are conscious of ourselves as perceiving. These two exercises are, in many respects, like each other. In both we perceive an object. By the senses we perceive an object external and extended, this table or tliat chair. But in consciousness we also perceive an object: we perceive self in a certain state, as thinking or as feeling, as in joy or in grief. By the one we know the various properties of matter as they come under our notice ; by the other we know the various states of self. It is of importance to notice that in self-consciousness we come to have a knowledge of self in a particular state. According to D. Stewart and the Scottish school, we know only the qualities of things, and not the things themselves. The correct statement is that we know the thing as exercising a quality. According to Kant and his school, we know simply phenomena — that is, ap- pearances, and not things. But there never can be an appearance without a thing appearing. In self-con- sciousness we know the thing, the ver^' thing, as appear- ing or as presenting itself to us. We have as clear and sertain proof of our knowing the object — that is, the MAKES KNOWN SELF. 71 thinking self — as we have that there is before us an appearance. Consciousness accompanies all Mental Exer- cises. — In this respect consciousness differs in its mode of exercise from the other powers of the mind. I am not every instant remembering, or judging, or willing, bat at every waking moment of my existence I am con- scious. When I perceive a material object, when I recollect an occurrence, when I draw an inference, when I am sorrowing or rejoicing, when I am wishing or willing, I am conscious that I do so. In short, conscious- ness seems inseparable from the exercise of all our facul- ties and to accompany every operation of the mind. It was an opinion entertained by Leibnitz, and has been held by many since his time, that we are uncon- Bcious of many of our mental operations. They point to acts of mind which have left effects behind them, but of which we have not the dimmest recollection. We are sure that we must have issued a great many volitions in passing from one place to another, but after they are over we cannot recollect one of them. The question arises. How are we to account for such a phenomenon ? I believe it can all be explained by the ordinary laws of mind, without our calling in such an anomalous principle as unconscious mental action. I hold that we were con- scious of the acts at the time, but that they were not retained, as there was nothing to fix them in the memory. The exercise of the mind when thus engaged is not unlike that of a man in a boat, looking over its edge into the lake below, thus described by Wordsworth: — " Aa one who hangs down, bending from the side Of a slow-moving boat upon the breast Of a still water, solacing himself With such discpreries as bis ejea can make T2 SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. Beneath him in the bottom of the deep, Sees many beauteous sights, — weeds, fishes, flowers, Grots, pebbles, roots of trees, — and fancies more ; Yet often is perplexed, and cannot part The shadow from the substance — rocks and sky. Mountains and clouds, reflected in the depth Of the clear flood — from things which there abide In their own dwelling; now is crossed by gleam Of his own image, by a sunbeam now, And waving motion sent, he knows not whence, Impediments tliat make bia task more sweet." Every -word of this description might analogically be applied to the reflex process of the human mind, as it observes its own thoughts and reasonings, its sentiments and emotions. At times there is a dimness in the view which we obtain of them, at times our vision is crossed by a gleam of our own image — that is, our observation of the act so far disturbs the act ; the party observing is discomposed by the knowledge of an eye fixed upon him ; or, to vary our image, the thought, when inspected, is so far modified by the inspection, as the very thought that a man is sitting for his portrait will so far affect the expression of his countenance. Still, as we thus inspect this deep, we shall see far more beauteous sights than weeds, fishes, flowers, grots, pebbles, roots of trees ; we shall see the workings of those thoughts which give to man all his greatness, of those sentiments which give to man all his excellence. Consciousness and Personal Identity. — Con- sci'^usness cannot be said to furnish our idea of, or belief in, our personal identity, for consciousness looks solely to the present, whereas in personal identity there is a com- parison between the past and the present. But con- sciousness I'eveals self as present. When we remember the past, there is involved a memory of self as remem- bering. We are thus in a position to compare the two PERSONAL IDENTITY. 73 — the present self known, and the past self remembered, — and we declare the self to be identical. Consciousness thus supplies the two main facts on which our judgment as to personal identity is pronounced. The self at present may be depressed and sad, the self remembered may have been buoyant and joyous, but we declare the two to be the same, and cannot be made to pronounce any other judgment. It is not consciousness, as it has been sometimes as- serted, that constitutes our personal identity. Con- sciousness merely makes it known, or rather makes known the facts on which our judgment rests. We are persons, and we have an identity of person whether we notice it or no. We are persons, and have an identity of person not because we are conscious of it, but we observe it because it exists. Bishop Berkeley drove the doctrine that in sense-per- ception the mind does not perceive the external object, but an idea in the mind, to its legitimate consequences. He argued that if we do not perceive an extended world we have no reason to believe that there is any such thing. There has been a like error held in regard to consciousness, by which it is said we know merely phe- nomena in the sense of appearances (so Kant held), merely appearing thoughts and appearing feelings. Fichte did for this theory of Kant what Berkeley did for the theory of Locke. He followed it to con- lusions from whicb the founder of the German school shrank. " The sum total is this : there is absolutely nothing permanent either without me or within me, but only an unceasing change. I know absolutely noth- ing of any existence, not even mine own. I myself know nothing, and am nothing. Images there are ; they constitute all that apparently exists, and what 74 SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. they know of themselves is after the manner of images — images that pass and vanish without there being aught to witness their transition ; that consist, in fact, of the image of images without significance and without an aim. I myself am one of these images. All reality is converted into a marvellous dream without a life to dream of and without a mind to dream, into a dream made up only of a dream of itself. Perception is a dream ; thought, the source of all the existence and of all the reality which I imagine to myself, of my power, my destination, is the dream of that dream." I meet the ideal skepticism, or rather agnosticism, so far as ifc relates to the external world, by maintaining that, by the senses, not only do we perceive phenomena, we per- ceive appearances ; we perceive things appearing, not merely qualities, but qualities of self, of self in such or such a state. The conclusion to which we have come is that as by sense-perception we have a positive, though of course limited, knowledge of material objects, so by self- jonsciousness we have a like knowledge of self in its present action. SECTION n. SENSK-PERCEPXrON AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS COMBINED. We have been looking at these two faculties separately. Let us now look at them together. By the former we obtain a knowledge first of our own bodily frame. This we do by all the senses. We know our body as out of the thinking mind, and the organs as out of one another, and in a certain direction in reference to one another. We also know certain affections which we call tastes, adors, sounds, and colors. We know all matter as ex- tended and as offering resistance first to our body, an?*». U C BERKELEY LIBRARIES CD2TM73S73 ■■'■. ■ 1 *" ' ' if-. : t r /: • ■T,' .<_..- f., » "> ST •-••■•' ■ ■:t